The battlefield, once dominated by Rokuya's forces, had tipped in the other direction. The tide of war, halted for a moment by Gamenio's unexpected manoeuvre, now churned with fresh chaos.
Rokuya hadn't anticipated this.
He had assumed that his blood bats and Perona's hollow ghosts — both summoning-based abilities — would suffice. But, watching Gamenio disrupt them all with the rallying might of the Cheer-Cheer Fruit, he reevaluated.
"Such a fruit… If I had Blackbeard's ability to steal Devil Fruits, I'd take it in a heartbeat," he muttered, disappointed that he couldn't harvest its power — yet.
—
Gamenio stepped forward, a wicked grin curling his lips. He pulled his fists from his pockets and crouched, mimicking Whitebeard's legendary stance.
BOOM!
CRACK! CRACK! CRACK!
A quake tore through the air.
The ground split open. The blood bats exploded into mist. Perona's giant ghost shattered.
"The Gura Gura no Mi...?"
Rokuya's eyes narrowed.
"So you copied Whitebeard's quake powers, too?"
It made sense. Gamenio had once served under Whitebeard. Given his Copy-Copy Fruit, it wasn't far-fetched that he'd stolen the strongest man's technique.
"Surprised, Rokuya? You should be!'
"You're done. I'm taking your 1 billion bounty!' Gamenio roared triumphantly.
Unfazed, Rokuya turned his attention towards the other battles.
—
Elsewhere:
The Van Ku brothers, assassins from the Mogaro Kingdom, were being overwhelmed by Perona's exploding ghost swarms.
Gasparde, the rogue Navy officer turned Gum-Gum Fruit user, and Hyena Bellamy were jointly taking on Kalifa.
But Kalifa wasn't the same woman they once knew. Having been gifted the vampiric bloodline by Rokuya, her power had doubled.
Moreover, she'd planned ahead.
"Bring the flour."
She had stocked up on wheat flour, ready to counter Gasparde's candy body — a soft-tissue Paramecia vulnerable to dehydration and thickening.
"Your biggest strength is now your weakness."
Every strike Kalifa landed was enhanced by Navy Rokushiki and backed by her newfound vampire strength.
"Tch… How do you even know my weakness!?" Gasparde snarled.
"Simple. Trash like you are easy to read,' Kalifa replied coldly.
---
Meanwhile, Rokuya was dancing with death.
Gamenio had unleashed a frenzy of copied attacks — Zoan and Paramecia techniques alike. Shockwaves, beast forms and elemental strikes were all conjured effortlessly from stolen memories.
Yet nothing worked.
"Why can't I copy your powers?" Gamenio finally snapped. "Are you not a Devil Fruit user?"
Rokuya dodged his strikes with precision and aura-enhanced movement, smirking.
"Does it matter?"
In fact, Rokuya didn't possess a Devil Fruit. His power came from something deeper: the inheritance of Alucard's immortal vampiric essence.
Gamenio's abilities were powerful. But imitation could never surpass the real thing.
'Still… you're a good test dummy,' Rokuya murmured. 'Too bad you're so hideous. If you were a woman, maybe I'd have made you a thrall.'
He vanished in a blur, shadow-stepping behind Gamenio.
—
"Close combat?" Gamenio sneered.
"I've been waiting for this moment."
With a snap of his fingers, buttery mist sprayed around them.
Rokuya froze, his limbs coated in slippery, binding fat.
"Butter…?"
"Copied from Big Mom's minister, Charlotte Galette," hissed Gamenio.
"Now you're mine!"
Gamenio's quake-imbued fist surged forward.
At the same time, Don Achino, the wielder of the Heat-Heat Fruit, launched a sneak attack from behind.
"500°C…"
"1000°C…"
'5,000°C!'
His molten fist punched clean through Rokuya's chest.
Blood burst forth.
A massive hole opened up where his heart should have been. His body sizzled, then collapsed into ash.
"Dead," Achino spat. "What a joke. A ten-figure bounty... for this?'
"Tch, lower your heat already," Gamenio muttered, annoyed.
They turned their attention towards Perona, ready to seize her Hollow Fruit powers.
The blood moved.
Rivers of it.
Pooling.
Twisting.
Gathering into a single shape.
Black fog surged.
"You thought that was enough?" Rokuya's voice echoed, calm yet cruel.
"Don't make me laugh."
Rokuya reappeared, reborn from death.
"Don't tell me… Your heart was gone! How can you be alive!?" Achino trembled.
"Easy," Rokuya shrugged.
"I have more lives than you can imagine."
A flash of darkness.
---
With a roar, thousands of blood bats exploded from the void.
An ultrasonic wave swept the battlefield — a shrieking, blood-borne scream that ruptured eardrums and splintered sanity.
Gamenio's and Achino's heads pounded.
"My blood... it's boiling... my mind—!!!"
Not even the Cheer-Cheer Fruit could cleanse madness and mental overload. It only countered negative emotion, not psychic annihilation.
Rokuya struck.
He grabbed both heads and slammed them together like drums.
Crack!
Crack.
Their bodies convulsed, dazed and broken.
"Your blood will paint my throne crimson," he said.
He tossed them into the air.
Rokuya drew his twin pistols from his coat:
The Casull, black as the abyss.
The Jackal, silver and divine.
BOOM! BOOM!
Two bullets — Armament-infused silver shells — pierced their skulls.
"Double execution."
—
Blood bats swarmed.
Gamenio and Achino were devoured alive, bone and all.
—
Meanwhile, Kalifa and Perona arrived at Rokuya's side.
"Master, that final shot was magnificent!" Kalifa whispered breathlessly.
"They didn't even stand a chance," added Perona.
Thanks to Rokuya's mass sonic assault, the tide of their battles had swiftly turned — Gasparde and Bellamy had both fallen, unable to withstand the onslaught.
What about the rest of the pirates?
Reduced to red mist.
—
'Consider this a warning,' said Rokuya, staring into the reddened sea.
"Next time, think before you throw your lives away."
These weren't weaklings. Gamenio, with his Copy-Copy Fruit, was one of the most unpredictable characters in Paradise. But even the strongest mimics fell to the original.
And now?
They were dead coins, added to Rokuya's resurrective reservoir.
---
"It's strange, though..." he mused. 'Moria's death still hasn't gone public.'
"The government is suppressing it," Kalifa replied.
"They often do. He hasn't been seen outside Thriller Bark in years. No one would know."
Rokuya nodded.
Perona, now fully bound by the Blood Contract, stood loyally by his side.
"Fine then. Let them keep their secrets.'
"Soon... we'll make them impossible to hide."
---
The final clean-up began.
Rokuya, Kalifa and Perona swept through the last of the pirates.
"Ding! Soul absorbed: Gasparde. +1 life. +1 undead soldier.'
"Ding! Soul absorbed: Gasparde. +1 life, +1 undead soldier." Soul absorbed: Gamenio: +1 life..."
"Ding…"
As the system chimed endlessly, Rokuya checked his balance.
He had lost one life from Gamenio and Achino's surprise combo.
But in return?
+927 lives had been added to the River of the Dead.
"Not bad," Rokuya smiled. 'That's what I call profit.'