"How is this possible!"
"How can a ship fly!"
Fūgetsu Kisaburō stared slack-jawed at the colossal, awe-inspiring Flying Battleship.
If they'd had a craft like this back then, leaving Wano's perilous waterfalls and whirlpools would have cost far fewer lives!
They wouldn't have been scattered.
No—!
If the outside world already fields such Flying Battleships, then Wano's great waterfall can no longer shelter the country.
Wano could face invasion at any moment!
At the thought, Fūgetsu Kisaburō's heart turned to lead.
Had foreign warships really advanced this far?
Kozaburō and Furiko were right: isolation had been a grave mistake.
It blinded Wano to the changes and progress beyond its borders.
That was one reason the Three Moon clans had joined forces to sail out.
To explore the outside world and carry news of it back to cloistered Wano.
"worororo! I smell a beast!"
A wild, tyrannical aura crashed over Fūgetsu Kisaburō like a tidal wave.
His pupils shook; the staff-blade in his hand quivered and sang.
Monster!
An absolute monster!
He had never felt such dreadful pressure; nothing like it existed in all of Wano.
He suspected the creature aboard the Flying Battleship was ten times more terrifying than Shimotsuki Ryūma and the dragon of legend.
"Samurai—state your name!!"
"Is that blade of yours called gokudō kaisen?!"
Rocks stood at the prow, grinning down at the swordsman; he sensed in this man a purer sword-intent than even Shiki or Fang Huo.
This samurai's swordsmanship surpassed Shiki's!
A non-Devil Fruit grand-swordsman himself, Rocks deeply admired such pure swordsmen.
Had he not needed those two mythical Devil Fruits to counter Imu's uncanny power, he might never have chosen the path of a powerless landlubber.
Yet his Haki and blade alone could not threaten Imu.
After breaching Holy Land Mary Geoise and meeting Imu, he knew how vast the chasm between them truly was.
Rocks believed his own Haoshoku had reached its pinnacle.
Before Imu, however, he still felt like a child.
Decades of experience and drive against nearly a millennium of Imu's accrual—an unbridgeable gorge.
"How do you know the name gokudō kaisen?"
Fūgetsu Kisaburō was stunned; this was the first time his beloved blade had ever left Wano.
How could the outside world know its name?
Could it be… Kozaburō and the others—"worororo! So it really is!!"
"Then I've decided—I'm taking it for my ship!"
"Do we settle this in straight combat, or shall we play a pirate's contract game—Davy Back Fight!"
With a laugh Rocks leapt straight from the Gibeck's Sword to claim the yakuza samurai himself.
"Take for the ship?"
"What is this… Davy Back Fight?"
Cold sweat beaded on Fūgetsu Kisaburō's brow; he clenched gokudō kaisen and glared at the terror before him.
Today he might die.
"Rocks! Can't you calm down!"
Fang Huo descended like a deity.
"Your name is Fūgetsu Kisaburō? You forged gokudō kaisen yourself?"
"You're a swordsmith of the Fūgetsu clan from Wano."
Escaping that isolationist land shows you crave freedom and adventure."
Fang Huo unleashed his Gravity Ability, pinning the reckless Rocks before he could charge the mad samurai.
"Impossible! How could you know my name and past!"
"Who are you!!"
Have you met my comrades!"
Do you know Shimotsuki Kozaburō and Amatsuki Tenaira?!"
Fūgetsu Kisaburō's eyes reddened; he feared Kozaburō and the others had been slain by these foreign titans.
Yet a sliver of hope remained—that they had safely contacted these outsiders.
"Hey, samurai—cool it! Fang Huo's a Prophet!"
"We've never met the folks you mentioned!"
Whitebeard Newgate flew down on his blade; he took interest in another wielder of a supreme grade blade—strength recognizes strength.
"A seer?"
Fūgetsu Kisaburō's heart eased a notch—not good news, not bad, but hope lived.
"Enough chatter!"
"You'll talk once you're aboard!"
"Samurai—either I beat you into submission, or we play a pirate's pact game: winner takes all, loser eats dust!"
Rocks shrugged off Fang Huo's Gravity and landed squarely before Fūgetsu Kisaburō.
"Fūgetsu Kisaburō, join us and you'll be safer—and find Shimotsuki Kozaburō and Shimotsuki Furiko faster."
"I can tell you for certain: Shimotsuki Kozaburō and Shimotsuki Furiko are alive."
Seeing Rocks already drawing his blade, Fang Huo quickly recruited the swordsmith-cum-yakuza.
"Another Fūgetsu, plus Shimotsuki and Amatsuki—Vice-Captain, could your Kogetsu clan be related?"
Kiel Bastard drifted down; his Ghost-Ghost Fruit was so refined his real body could levitate without astral projection.
In the original tale Perona could only ghost-project while leaving her body behind in Thriller Bark's castle—a glaring weakness.
Only after Kuma sent her to Mihawk's island did she train two years to let her true body ghost-fly.
"—Huh? Fang Huo, is your Kogetsu surname really linked to them?"
Charlotte Linlin perked up, riding over on Thunder Cloud Zeus.
Fūgetsu Kisaburō stared at these foreigners who could all fly, shock in his eyes.
Was flight a standard power for strong people beyond Wano?
Worse, apart from that first savage monster, every other outsider radiated lethal menace.
He was finished.
Were powerhouses this common out here?
Back home he ranked near the top—yakuza boss, samurai swordmaster, premier bladesmith.
Yet barely into the West Blue he'd met monster after monster stronger than himself.
By what little he'd learned, West Blue's elites paled beside those of the Grand Line and the New World.
Fūgetsu Kisaburō's face turned bitter—if the Grand Line and New World were worse, he might never even leave the West Blue.
Let alone survive the pirate graveyards called the Grand Line and the New World!
"—My Kogetsu has nothing to do with them, quit the nonsense."
Fang Huo answered flatly; the renown of the Great Love Immortal Venerable would not be borrowed by these jokers.
Of course, had he possessed the Blood Skull Gu, these fellows would already be his dear family.
"The Moon and Half-Moon clans of Wano?"
Rocks raised a brow; as heir of the Davy Clan he knew the sword families who once followed Joy Boy against the Twenty Kings.
He smelled destiny in the air!
——