SHAWN NEWMAN POV
…a pair of gauntlets.
Not just any gauntlets, but ones forged from the very essence of my being — a dense, writhing mass of Conqueror's Haki entwined with the smooth flow of Armament.
They pulsed like living things.
Black as the void, streaked with veins of silvery-white, constantly shifting yet completely solid to my will. The knuckles were jagged, primal — and the palms? Etched with runes I didn't carve, but ones born from my soul's conviction.
My spirit had taken form.
My Will had become Weapon.
I flexed my fingers. The gauntlets moved like extensions of my own bones, yet felt heavier than mountains.
And still… light as thought.
Roger's eyes narrowed, a grin stretching across his face like a crack of lightning in a storm.
"Oh?" he chuckled, "You've done it."
His tone wasn't surprised. It was expectant.
Like he knew I would get here.
But I didn't bask in his approval. I charged.
With a step that shattered the air beneath me, I rocketed toward him, my gauntlets humming with the pressure of the world I bent around me. Every strike wasn't just a punch — it was a declaration. A clash of beliefs. My blows sang of defiance, of obsession, of obsession with mastery — with becoming something the world had never seen before.
A man who could turn his Will into matter.
Roger blocked with his blade, which groaned under the pressure of my strikes. Each time metal met Haki-forged gauntlet, the air cracked. Entire swaths of jungle behind us were atomized. Tsunamis raged on the horizon from the reverberations of our duel.
And I could see it. In his eyes.
That look. The rare look from a man who had always stood alone — the look of being matched.
No.
Challenged.
"You've turned your Haki into a weapon of war," Roger said between strikes, "But can you carry it?"
He wasn't talking about weight.
He was talking about the toll.
Because I could feel it.
This technique — Spirit Projection — didn't just burn energy. It drew on the core of me. It wasn't just stamina I was burning through, it was me.
Every punch shortened my future.
Every block frayed the edge of my soul.
But I didn't stop.
I couldn't stop.
Because I wanted it more.
I wanted mastery not for glory. Not for fame.
But to prove that the soul could break its limits.
That the spirit was more than a fuel. It was the forge. The metal. The hammer.
I ducked a slash, spun low, and slammed both fists into the ground. A shockwave erupted — not of wind, but of Haki itself. Pure, unfiltered spirit lashed outward in a dome of roaring defiance, sending Roger flying back like a comet through stone.
He landed hard, carving a trench through the mountain behind him — laughing.
Still laughing.
As the dust settled, I stood, arms hanging loose, gauntlets flickering at the edges like flame-starved embers.
The first iteration of my true weapon was done.
But I knew it could go further.
Refine.
Evolve.
This was just the first form — raw, primal.
I would shape it. Name it.
But for now?
I raised my fists, trembling but smiling.
"Get up, Roger," I said, voice hoarse but sure.
"I'm not done showing you what Spirit can do."
SHAWN NEWMAN POV
"Get up, Roger."
My voice echoed across the broken battlefield, filled with fire and fatigue, but no less commanding. The gauntlets I had forged — born from Spirit Projection — pulsed faintly on my hands like molten glass cooling after being pulled from the forge. The air around me buzzed, heavy with Haki, too dense for any normal man to even breathe.
Roger stirred from the rubble.
He stood slowly, brushing off the debris from his crimson jacket, and as he rose, I saw something unexpected.
Change.
Not fear. Not hesitation. But… awakening.
His eyes met mine, alight with something ancient — not rage, not pride, but purpose. The kind of purpose that only blossoms in the pressure of true confrontation. He chuckled, wiping a smear of blood from the corner of his mouth.
"You know… I've fought monsters. Legends. Kings," Roger said, his tone still casual despite the tension boiling around us. "But I've never fought someone who forced me to grow like this."
He clenched his fists, and I felt it — a shift. Not in his stance. Not in his expression.
In his Haki.
It was evolving.
Like mine.
ROGER POV
Shawn Newman had forced something out of me I hadn't felt in decades.
Instinct.
Raw, unscripted fighting instinct — the kind that doesn't rely on calculation or experience, but the pure urge to survive and overcome.
Every strike he threw made me push deeper into my spirit. Every blow cracked open parts of myself I had sealed long ago. My Observation Haki began to do something new… something wild.
I wasn't just glimpsing seconds into the future anymore.
I was feeling branches.
Possible paths.
A future where his gauntlet shattered my jaw. One where I ducked and swept his leg. One where neither of us landed a clean blow. They bloomed in my mind like thousands of flower petals before snapping back into singularity — the most likely one coalescing just before it happened.
I moved.
Not by thought. But by instinct, by flow, by sheer acceptance of the chaos.
CLANG!
His fist met my sword again, but this time it didn't send me flying.
This time I held.
And I pushed back.
"Let's see if your Spirit Projection can hold up against mine," I said.
He blinked — "Yours?"
I grinned.
And then unleashed it.
3RD POV
For the briefest second, the world fell silent.
Then the storm began.
Roger's Conqueror's Haki erupted around him — not just in waves, but in structure. Like an aura with a skeleton, a defined edge. It wrapped around his blade first, but then extended outward, jagged and uneven, like a barely-hewn statue of purpose.
Not quite physical like Shawn's gauntlets, but tangible in its presence.
Roger wasn't using his spirit to create an object. He was letting his intent become an environment.
The entire area began to feel like Roger.
His drive. His longing. His craving to see what lay at the end of the world. That hunger colored every breeze, every crack in the ground, every twitch of his sword.
Shawn lunged forward, gauntlets blazing.
Roger met him halfway.
Fist against blade.
Haki against Haki.
The earth caved inward. The sea buckled in unnatural tides. Birds dropped from the sky. Fish died. Storms formed.
The battle was no longer two men clashing — it was two worldviews colliding.
Shawn, the master of internalized Haki, turning his soul into weapons.
Roger, the king of externalized will, turning the battlefield into his domain.
And then, finally, after one final, devastating clash that split the sky open like a cracked mirror—
—they both stopped.
Breathing hard.
Smiling.
SHAWN NEWMAN POV
We stood opposite each other, chests heaving, arms trembling, blood mixing with sweat on both sides. My gauntlets were flickering now, unstable. Roger's sword hummed with heat, and his knees wobbled slightly as he exhaled.
We didn't say anything at first.
Words would've cheapened it.
But after a long pause, I extended a fist.
He looked at it, blinked, and then bumped it with a grin.
"That was one hell of a fight," I muttered.
"One of the best," Roger replied. "Maybe the last one like it for a while."
He sat down cross-legged in the dust, laughing as if he hadn't just nearly died. I followed suit, collapsing like my spine was made of damp rope.
"You know you're not from here," Roger finally said.
I nodded. "I know."
He glanced up. "You planning on conquering it?"
I smirked. "Not unless I have to. I just want to understand it."
Roger laughed harder at that. "Then you'll fit right in with the crazies out in the New World."
But be careful! after awakening my unique understanding of observation haki, I have been getting these strange prophetic signals of you being transported into huge danger.
Raising my eyebrow is let out a small smile. "Oh, the great Roger afraid of me getting into trouble now. Don't worry for me if I fall, oh well it would turn out my will isn't as indomitable as I thought"
3RD POV — WEEKS LATER
The winds were calm.
Vice Admiral Shawn Newman stood atop the deck of his new vessel, as tall any inhabitant of the one piece world — a heavily modified marine ship stripped of its standard colors and outfitted to cut through the Grand Line's chaos.
He looked different now.
Not physically — though he'd put on more muscle, his posture more upright — but his presence had changed, it seemed heavier almost complete.
His Haki no longer lashed out unconsciously. It slumbered under his skin like a sleeping beast, calm, composed, and devastatingly ready.
In the time since his duel with Roger, he had returned briefly to Marineford, filed a cryptic report, and then requested an unofficial mission — to head to Sabaody Archipelago under the guise of monitoring pirate movement.
But the truth?
The truth was…
He was going there to find out just how deep this world was stooped in depravity
To find out whom the marines are deep in cahoots with....
He stood at the bow as the winds shifted and the scent of Sabaody's rare soap trees reached his nose.
"This is where it begins," he muttered.
Or ends...
His gauntlets now transformed back in liquid haki flowing through his veins — pulsed under his skin as if it was alive…..
The seas ahead whispered of Emperors, of monsters, of ancient weapons, of secrets deeper than the ocean itself.
And Shawn Newman?
He whispered back.
"I'm coming."