The impact echoed across Egghead.
Loud.
Violent.
Unmistakable.
Even Ryo, still lying in the crater, lifted his head at the sound.
His eye widened slightly as he watched Saturn's monstrous body tear through multiple buildings, smashing straight through them as if they were nothing but paper. One after another they collapsed, debris raining down in a chaotic cascade until, finally, the elder skidded to a halt—
Only for what remained of those structures to crash down on top of him.
For a brief moment—
Everything stilled.
Then Kuma landed.
Hard.
His feet dug into the ground as he stood upright, unmoving, his expression as empty as ever. There was nothing on his face, no emotion, no reaction—
But even like this—
Even without free will—
You could tell.
That punch had meant something.
Ryo just stared.
Completely still.
Ryo: Wow..can I do that?
It slipped out of him without thinking, almost childlike in its honesty.
Because what he had just seen—
Was insane.
Around them, the marines hesitated.
No one moved.
No one spoke.
Because something impossible had just happened.
A slave—
Had struck an elder.
That alone broke everything they thought they knew.
Kuma's body suddenly twitched, faint arcs of electricity crackling unnaturally across his frame. Not controlled. Not clean. It flickered like something broken, something pushed far beyond its limits.
Then—
He dropped.
One knee hitting the ground with a heavy thud.
Still upright.
But barely.
Blood ran from him, staining what little ground around him wasn't already destroyed. His body was ruined, pushed past anything it should have endured, and yet—
He was still standing.
Bonney, now fully reverted to her true form, knelt nearby.
A small, twelve-year-old girl.
Crying.
Completely overwhelmed, her voice broken as tears streamed endlessly down her face.
For a moment—
The chaos paused.
Sanji, Franky, and the others felt it.
Whatever had been holding them down—
Was gone.
They could move again.
Immediately, they rushed forward, ready to grab Bonney, to grab Kuma, to get them out of there and back to the Sunny—
