A familiar voice.
A cheerful, free tone.
Jugram barely turned his face, and there he was.
That boy.
Straw Hat.
Big smile, even bigger eyes. Legs crossed on a low wall, eating a piece of meat as if the world had no more pressing needs than his stomach.
"I knew it was you." Luffy jumped down, the meat in one hand, his hat tilted halfway. "The one with the cross of light! It's me, Luffy."
Jugram didn't respond immediately.
His eyes, the same ones that saw lines of fate and forks in eternity, trembled for a moment.
Infinite threads, each different and unique, but which at the same time shared perfect similarities that only he could see, for now: possible futures, echoes of words not yet spoken, actions not done...
But not with him.
With that boy, the flow was hazy.
Distorted.
A white silhouette danced among shadows, shapeless.
A cackle echoed like a war drum.
And at the center of it all...
a heart that burned like a sun.
"An anomaly," he thought as he remembered a certain orange-haired figure...
"Why are you here?" Jugram asked, keeping his voice steady as if he were merely questioning with no ulterior motive.
Luffy just shrugged.
"I was passing through the kingdom. You know, Ace left not long ago, but I thought I'd stay here for a few days. I won't be able to leave for another year, but it's still okay."
He looked out at the sea in the distance and smiled.
You know, Shishishi, if it weren't for you, this promise would mean something else, but now..."
His gaze wandered off in another direction, the Gray Terminal, remembering one of his brothers, a blond man in a top hat.
Makino said there was good meat here, and it certainly is a very nice place.
He took another bite, unashamed.
"Hey, you know? The last time I was here and saw you... it was when I almost lost Sabo."
The name fell like a stone in a pond for him, flooding him with a feeling he would have previously described as silly and unpleasant, as it made him want to cry and laugh at the same time, all out of sadness.
Jugram barely blinked at his actions, but he could remember it clearly: that day, that moment, and why now the entire place around him, the cleanest kingdom, was white.
Flashback
Smoke filled the sky like a black tide, illuminated by bursts of orange light.
Flames danced like demons over the wreckage of the Gray Terminal, flooding everything with a suffocating heat and the stench of burning garbage that suffocated anyone who dared to breathe.
Screams of horror and fear.
Cries of families who had been separated either by fleeing the flames or by being consumed by them, leaving only a few members.
And fire.
Too much fire.
There in that chaos, as a show of fraternal solidarity, instinct, and recklessness, was a boy with his face blackened by soot, an oversized straw hat dangling from his neck, dragged by the air currents that only fanned the flames.
His feet were injured from stepping on heated metal and glass fragments that had pierced his body, his skin covered in sweat as if he were being cooked, his lungs half-collapsed.
"SABO!"
He screamed in despair,
but he wasn't heard. Everyone in the place acted on their own judgment, doing whatever was necessary to survive, though no one seemed to, only prolonging their suffering in a horrific scene. The scene turned those people into nothing more than ashes melting into the molten metal, while the smell made those present vomit and weep for the dead who had fallen in that sea of flames.
And suddenly, a figure in white looked around impatiently, as if he had just woken up. Looking around, his body moved cautiously and meticulously, like a seasoned warrior surveying the battlefield. But if you saw his eyes, you would notice there was something terrifying about it, as if his body had reacted before his mind. And when he realized where he was, or at least what was happening, everything began...
Jugram had raised a single hand.
And then, without thinking, the entire world stopped, and for the first time in its entire history, the world trembled.
In the East Blue, the seagulls stopped flying for seconds. The fish closest to the surface descended, thrashing with inexplicable fear. In the quiet harbor of Shells Town, an old man dropped his broom without knowing why. The air had a different weight. Not stifling, not warm… but solemn. As if someone very ancient had decided to open their eyes.
—Not this time, NOT THIS TIME!—he murmured. Not to himself. Not to the wind. But like someone pronouncing a sentence.
A soft light began to emerge from his back. Curved, symmetrical lines began to trace his seal in the air, a halo of pure silver, like an inverted moon. The edges of his coat opened like wings, revealing the Quincy cross, alight with an energy that didn't seem like Reishi… but an echo of absolute judgment.
Vollständig: Zerachiel.
It was then that the unnamed was activated:
the first Sklaverei & Vollständig in the history of that world,
the total absorption of all those who had died into that cross that could be seen across the east blue.
And the world trembled.
East Blue
In the Loguetown Navy offices, people stumbled and fell to their knees as if someone had placed a veil of death over them. The Den Den Mushi on his desk went out for no reason, the snail retracted its eyes in inexplicable anguish. The "Wanted" posters began to tremble on the wall.
"An earthquake...?" someone whispered.
But there was no movement. Only... the weight. As if judgment from heaven had descended.
West Blue - Water 7
A man with a dove on his shoulder, repairing a unique train that could travel on water, stopped his hammer. The pressure valves on the marine trains began to emit an irregular screech, as if the water itself was afraid to move forward.
The machinery refused to continue its course.
Mary Geoise
The Five Elders stopped their meetings. One of them, with a sheathed sword, abruptly rose from his chair.
"What is this...? An attack... a fruit..." another growled, unable to hide his bewilderment.
Saturn, standing in the shadow of the window, felt a pang in his back, using his haki to locate the place of origin, pointing in a certain direction.
"Could it be that fruit?"
Marineford
Tsuru was looking at a map. The red ink used to mark incidents was running for no reason. The climate wasn't humid. There were no vibrations. But the ink was bleeding. Literally.
Sengoku instantly sat up. Garp, in the shadow of a corner, narrowed his eyes.
"This... what the heck is this?" he said, his voice low, not awkward but with a hint of unease.
"Is this an attack?" Tsuru replied, without looking up.
Back in the Goa Kingdom
The Sklaverei's light wasn't scorching. It wasn't a flash of lightning. It was more like a silent vortex, an orbit of law. The particles in the air condensed, not like fog, but as if the world recognized that it must bow to someone who carried a law greater than its own.
The clouds of ash that still remained from the Gray Terminal hung in the air for seconds... and then dissolved, absorbed. There was no roar. Only a symbol of pure light that rose above the ground, marking the place with the Quincy cross.
Jugram opened his eyes. A silver glow, impossible to imitate, shone behind his pupils.
"This time it will be you who burns," he said, without specifying whether he was speaking of those men, kingdom, or structures that had started that fire.
The wind blew those words away as if they didn't belong to this plane.
A colossal cross of light erupted above the Terminal and stood like a guardian.
A cross that didn't burn, but cut through the fire itself as if it held a grudge against the idea of burning.
For an instant, hell stopped. As the flames turned into that silvery light and gathered around the cross to form a structure, a scale that was slowly tipping in the direction of one place...
The fire had been swallowed. Not smothered. Not extinguished. It was absorbed.
The energy, the chaos, the destruction... devoured by the scale.
But the world now doesn't accept imbalance without a price.
The light trembled. And, there, the scale tipped toward the Goa kingdom. The stolen energy sought a new center of destruction.
The Goa Kingdom. Immaculate. Prosperous. Clean.
burned.
From the Noble Palace
The fire erupted like a spear from the ground. It didn't advance from the Terminal. It was born among the perfect houses, among the gardens watered with spring water, between the walls that separated "the pure" from "the trash."
First as a small burning flame, it then began to turn into a vortex of fire that reached the clouds and spread across the ground like spilled water.
The flowers burned.
The roofs collapsed in silence.
And the wealthy people, so accustomed to being untouchable, ran.
No one understood what was happening.
No one knew who was attacking them.
They only saw a cross suspended in the air,
and in the distance a man in a green coat, walking with a child in his arms. He saw that figure, and for the first time in a long time, the people around him could see that he was smiling.
"Dragon is smiling. That's something new."
"But what is that thing?"
"Does it matter to more people than just the Navy itself?"
"Right Besides, those disgusting nobles are already getting a taste of their own medicine. Let the bastards burn."
"Anyway, it's time to go. It won't be long before they come to see what happened, and I don't want to start a fight today."
Three figures were watching from a distance: a man with a burn mark on his face, Dragon the Revolutionary.
A person with fluffy purple hair and a lot of makeup, Ivankov.
And a burly man with a body similar to a Kuma bear.
While they took that blond child in their arms,
The three of them just nodded and left.
But there, in the distance, a child was smiling.
His hat was miraculously intact, his body at its limit.
But there he was,
Smiling.
For his brother was I live
and for the first time he didn't want any more
because his well-being was enough
"Sabo!!!" He shouted with all his might, but even so, his voice was so weak that the breeze smothered it.
"I promise you!!! I will keep our promise and I will find you, and I will be
THE PIRATE KING!!!"
Those were his last words before he saw a young boy with freckles running toward him in the distance, and then he lost consciousness.
Afterwards
Terminal Gray didn't just survive.
It flourished.
The blackened ground glittered with white quartz-like shards. The huts held fast. The children were saved. Sabo was carried to safety by a man whose name they never learned.
And above, the Goa Kingdom burned for two days.
Not until it disappeared.
Not until it turned to ash.
But long enough for him to stop believing himself superior.
Like a small, constant wound that doesn't kill, but only bleeds and infects,
removing the idea of perfection from that place.
"I saw you that day," Luffy said, looking up at the sky. "They said it wasn't a miracle. A huge cross of light. They said it was an angel, and honestly, all I thought about was that serious guy I like." He looked at Jugram again, more seriously.
"I didn't say anything, because honestly, if he's okay, it's enough for me. But I don't forget whoever saves my brothers."
Jugram didn't look away.
"It wasn't out of kindness."
"So what does it matter?" Luffy replied without hesitation. "You did it. That's enough."
There was a silence.
Luffy smiled.
"I always knew you were someone good, even if you're weird."
"I'm not good," Jugram replied, almost like a dogma.
"Yes?. Then why did you do it?"
Luffy approached.
And as he looked at him, with the innocence of a child and the intensity of a storm, he saw the All Mighty.
—Your pupils… are like stars… spinning.
That's weird. I like it.
Jugram took a deep breath. Think about the question.
Jugram's mind
Fire.
A lot of fire.
Fire again.
The flames crackled as if they recognized him… as if they remembered something he didn't want to see again.
The stench of burning skin hit him before consciousness did.
Not the smoke. Not the heat.
How he opened his eyes in the midst of chaos.
The sky was red and black. The ground, coal and flames.
And everything around him was burning with the cruel slowness of a fire fueled by human misery.
His boots stepped on ground that was no longer earth, but the remains of charred beings:
In the distance, children were screaming. No names. No help.
They were screaming, not knowing how to silence their fear.
The Gray Terminal.
A place without gods.
A purgatory that had replaced justice with abandon.
But Jugram didn't know that yet.
Because at first, he thought he was back.
Back to that fire.
To that world of burning silks.
To that hell where he didn't scream... but longed to.
Not again.
The air tore at his throat as he breathed.
Ash clung to his cloak, but couldn't stain it.
Around him, matter seemed to dissolve... but didn't touch him.
Not a single ember touched his skin.
Not a single spark reached him.
Because the world recognized him.
And not as a victim.
No... this time it wasn't her...
He remembered that woman who had killed him, and that man, both of them, and the flames, the flames of hell, and the hell itself he had witnessed in that battle.
Meanwhile, all around him, a man ran through the flames, a child hanging from his arms.
Another fell, covered in fire.
A woman threw herself into the sea... the sea did not receive her.
Judgment wasn't for him.
But it called to him.
"This is the result of a world without judgment. An abandoned scale."
Senjumaru had locked him in a cell made of fire to defeat him.
This world was punishing itself.
And now, without understanding why, that same fire demanded his intervention.
And then it happened.
The sky tore.
Not by an explosion.
Not by a scream.
But by a presence.
A crackle of light spilled out behind his back. An immense cross, formed by lines of pure energy, erupted silently, like an aurora that didn't ask permission.
The flames receded.
The screams fell silent.
The fire seemed to hesitate.
And in the middle of Terminal Gray, for the first time since hell began, hope and terror shared a single face.
"Zerachiel..."
He didn't say it.
The world said it.
And then he remembered everything.
FLASHBACK – Senjumaru's Bankai
The silks burned around him, threads dancing like flaming snakes.
His skin had split.
His eyes bled light.
Senjumaru didn't look at him with hatred.
He looked at him with precision.
"How long can the scale last before it breaks?" she asked, inside her own woven hell.
Jugram didn't answer.
He couldn't.
The scale doesn't speak.
It only weighs.
And now, in this place where the world tilts... Zerachiel awakens.
It brought back memories, I'll just tell you that.
Shishishi, well, whatever, thank you.
Jugram looked at that boy. That boy didn't just escape his predictions.
He looked at them straight on.
And laughed.
Jugram and Luffy were still standing there.
The wall behind the boy bore marks of time: graffiti, dents, small hands stamped with dried mud.
The kind of place the Goa Kingdom pretends doesn't exist.
"Pirate King, huh..." Jugram murmured.
The statement still hung in the air like a promise carved in stone.
It wasn't arrogance. It wasn't an empty declaration.
It was pure conviction.
Luffy crossed his arms, tilting his head slightly as he chewed.
"And you? What's your dream?"
Jugram didn't answer.
His eyes, those swirling spheres of truth and possibility, focused on the boy as if searching within him for a source.
But there were no lines of the future traced from that question.
Only a white flash.
A pulse.
As if for a second, the boy's will had cut off the flow of destiny.
Jugram turned, as if to leave.
But then he heard laughter.
Luffy scratched his nose, that typical gesture of his, and blurted out, as if talking about the weather:
"When I go out to sea... in a year or so...
Do you want to come with me?"
Suddenly, silence was complete.
Not even the birds were singing at that moment.
Jugram stopped.
He didn't turn his body. He just tilted his neck slightly.
"What did you say?"
"Want to join my crew?" Luffy repeated, without a hint of mockery. "I don't know why, but...
You look like someone strong. And lonely."
Jugram turned around.
"I'm not interested in childish dreams."
"I wasn't interested in silent soldiers either, but I like you anyway," Luffy replied, shrugging.
For some reason, that comment made the wind shift.
A loose leaf from the nearest tree fell between them.
Jugram watched him for a few more seconds.
The boy had no idea what he was asking for.
To join his crew?
He, the bastion of judgment, the balance of the inevitable.
And yet… a part of him, whether mockingly or something more, smiled slightly.
He didn't say yes.
He didn't say no either.
"A year," Jugram said finally, like someone passing judgment. "That's a long time for such a fragile world."
Luffy smiled.
"And nothing for someone like you, right?"
Jugram gave him one last look.
Then he walked, unhurriedly, losing himself among the white walls that couldn't soil him, seeing the lines of existence with his eyes and evaluating the possibilities as if balancing the one that would give him the best results.
When suddenly a sensation hit him:
"How's the plan going? Hero of the people, are you more popular than Garp now?"
From an open window of the tallest cafe in the middle of the neighborhood, a waitress stopped to look down.
She saw the man in the white cape walk away.
She saw the boy in the straw hat raise his hand high, as if greeting the entire sky.
And without knowing why... he smiled.