East Blue, Foosha Village coastline.

The sea breeze, thick with a heavy, briny tang, crashed against the reef. Garp sat cross-legged on a jutting outcropping of rock, happily munching from a bag of otherworldly-flavored senbei he had bought from Blake’s shop. The crackers crunched loudly in his mouth.

His bronzed muscles gleamed under the sunlight, every sculpted line looking as though it were cast from solid iron. Ever since acquiring the Sage Body, Garp felt as if his energy reserves were truly boundless. He could go three days and three nights without batting an eye, and still obliterate a mountain with a single punch. 𝘧𝘳𝘦ℯ𝓌𝘦𝒷𝘯𝑜𝑣𝘦𝓁.𝒸𝘰𝓂

Sengoku stood beside him, arms crossed over his chest, the seagull on his cap bobbing gently in the wind. His gaze drifted into the distance, locking onto the quiet little wooden building sitting in the center of the village—Partys Bar. His eyes were fraught with complex emotions.

Who could have ever imagined that the dignified Marine Headquarters would uproot itself and relocate entirely to the weakest of the seas, all because of a run-down tavern?

Garp tossed the last senbei into his mouth and dusted the crumbs from his hands. Leaning in close to Sengoku, he lowered his voice. "Hey, Sengoku. Let’s talk business."

Sengoku shot him a sidelong glance, scoffing in annoyance. "I know exactly what you’re thinking before you even open your mouth. You want to go buy another ticket from Blake, don’t you?"

Garp broke into a massive grin, looking like a sly old fox that had just raided a henhouse. "Heh, you know me too well, Sengoku. But this time, it’s different." He raised a single finger, his tone turning conspiratorial. "We aren’t going to any of those weird alternate worlds."

Sengoku raised an eyebrow. "Not going to another world? Then where do you plan on going?"

Garp rubbed his hands together, a glimmer of uncontainable excitement flashing in his eyes. "We’re going to God Valley."

The moment those two words left his mouth, even the sea breeze seemed to stagnate for a second. Sengoku froze. The name of the island completely erased from the map by the World Government violently exploded in his mind. God Valley. The massive war from thirty-eight years ago was an indelible memory burned into the souls of their generation of Marines.

"God Valley?" Sengoku’s voice unconsciously dropped to a harsh whisper. "Blake’s dungeons even have our past history?"

Garp slapped Sengoku’s shoulder with enough force to make the Fleet Admiral stumble. "Are you stupid? He can resurrect the dead! Slicing out a piece of past time is nothing to him! I asked Blake about it earlier. He said as long as the money is right, he can open any dungeon."

Sengoku frowned, his expression rapidly shifting from shock to solemn gravity. "I don’t know about this. God Valley is too complicated. It’s not just that madman Rocks; there’s also the absolute mess with the Celestial Dragons." He paused, his tone heavy. "What’s the point of experiencing that hellish battlefield all over again?"

Garp curled his lip in utter disdain. "What do you mean, ’experience it all over again’? Look at the strength we have now!" He flexed his arm, his bronzed bicep bulging high with thick veins popping against the skin. "Did you forget your True Several Thousand Hands that shattered an island with one slap? With my Sage Body and the Eight Inner Gates, if I had these moves back then—"

Garp’s voice suddenly pitched into a booming shout. "There’s no way that bastard Roger would’ve stolen the spotlight!"

Roger. The name was like a needle piercing flawlessly into Sengoku’s nerves, causing his eye to twitch. Back during the battle of God Valley, Garp and Roger had teamed up to defeat Rocks. Garp had been crowned the Marine Hero because of it. But what about Roger? He had constantly rubbed his victory in their faces. Not to mention, that straw-hat-wearing bastard later ignited the Great Pirate Era, bringing endless, monumental headaches to the Marines.

Garp astutely caught the subtle shift in Sengoku’s expression. His smile grew even shiftier as he discreetly nudged his old friend with his elbow. "Don’t tell me you don’t want to beat the crap out of him?"

That sentence was the match that lit the powder keg Sengoku had kept buried in his heart for decades. Roger. That insufferable bastard who always wore that straw hat and laughed without a care in the world. And Rocks. That wildly ambitious, insufferably arrogant overlord of the seas. The Marines had paid such a horrific, tragic price at God Valley. Sengoku himself had barely made it out alive.

But if... If we could return to that time with the power we wield now?

Sengoku’s pupils dilated slightly. An image involuntarily blossomed in his mind: He transformed into a towering golden Buddha, dozens of meters tall, with a thousand sky-piercing wooden arms rising behind him to blot out the sun. He pictured himself grinding Rocks into the dirt and swatting Roger straight into the earth with a single slap. That feeling... it would be a hundred times more satisfying than becoming Fleet Admiral.

His breathing grew heavy. The tight furrow of his brow slowly smoothed out. Lifting his head, his eyes burned with intensity as he looked at Garp, spitting out two words. "I’m in."

Garp erupted into a deafening roar of laughter, startling the nearby seagulls into a scattered frenzy. "Hahahaha! Now that’s what I’m talking about! Let’s go! We’re finding Blake right now!"

The two old men, with a combined age approaching a hundred and fifty, looked exactly like two delinquent teenagers sneaking off for an all-night session at an internet cafe. Arms draped over each other’s shoulders, they marched toward the tavern with long, eager strides.

.....

The familiar wooden door of the tavern swung open, ringing the crisp, chiming wind chimes hanging above.

Blake was reclining in his rocking chair behind the bar, a manga book draped over his face. His breathing was steady, making it seem like he was dozing off, while tufts of his messy, silver hair peeked out from the edges of the comic.

Kaido, donning his security uniform, was hunched over, bending his comically massive frame as he scrubbed the countertops vigorously with a rag. The nametag on his chest prominently displayed "007."

Hearing the door open, Kaido paused mid-wipe. Catching a glimpse of Garp and Sengoku out of the corner of his eye, his body instinctively tensed for a split second. He immediately averted his gaze, pretending he hadn’t seen a thing, and buried his head to continue cleaning. He scrubbed the exact same spot back and forth seven or eight times.

When it came to these old Marine hooligans who routinely toggled their cheat-like powers, Kaido only had one survival strategy: stay as far away as humanly possible.

Garp didn’t have the time of day to bother with him. He marched straight to the bar and slammed his fist onto the wooden surface with a loud thud. "Boss Blake! Wake up! We’ve got big business for you!"

Blake sluggishly removed the manga from his face and let out a yawn. His lazy, half-lidded eyes swept over the two veterans. "Did the two of you old-timers just get your monthly stipends or something?"

Garp pulled a thick stack of bills from his coat and slapped it onto the counter with a loud smack. The wads of cash were stacked like literal bricks. "We want to customize a dungeon."

Blake’s eyes finally opened fully. He sat up straight, a glimmer of genuine interest flashing in his gaze. "Oh? A custom dungeon?" He tapped his fingers lightly against the bar. "That’s going to be very expensive."

Sengoku stepped forward, his expression dead serious. "Money is not an issue." He met Blake’s gaze, enunciating every syllable. "We want to go to God Valley."

Blake paused for a moment. A highly amused smile slowly crept up the corners of his lips. He obviously knew what God Valley was. It was the most legendary battle in the entire One Piece world. The resting place of the Rocks Pirates. The deification battle of the Marine Hero, Garp.

"You guys just want to go back and smurf on the noobs, huh."

Garp didn’t even try to hide his intentions, his booming voice threatening to blow the roof off the tavern. "Damn right! I’m going back to beat the living shit out of Roger and Rocks!" He smashed his fist against the bar, making the wood groan in protest. "We fought with so much frustration back then. This time, I’m gonna show them the true meaning of cruelty!"

In the corner, Kaido silently shrank his massive body down another notch as he wiped the table.

Blake looked at the two battle-crazed old men and held up two fingers. "Two hundred million Beri." He paused. "No credit."

Two hundred million. Sengoku’s eye twitched. But it only twitched for a second. Gritting his teeth, he reached into the inner lining of his Justice cloak and pulled out an ink-black card—a specialized Black Card approved directly by the World Government. "Swipe it."

Blake took the Black Card and swiped it through an oddly-shaped machine on the counter. Ding. "Payment successful."

Garp cracked his neck, the joints popping like firecrackers. He rolled his shoulders and flexed his fists, his knuckles cracking loudly. "My fists have been thirsting for this for a long time."

Blake pushed the card back across the bar and snapped his fingers. The crisp sound echoed through the quiet tavern. In the very next second—

The space in the dead center of the tavern violently warped. The air swirled as if stirred by an invisible giant hand, bending the light and tearing the void apart. A swirling portal emitting a dark red glow materialized out of thin air.

From the depths of the vortex, heaven-shaking battle cries echoed faintly. The thunder of artillery fire. The clash of blades. The roaring of the sea.

A violent, chaotic scent of blood belonging to a bygone era poured out of the portal. It was the winds of thirty-eight years ago.

Sengoku took a deep breath. He slowly removed his seagull cap and gently set it down on the bar. His Justice cloak billowed around him without any wind, snapping loudly.

Garp didn’t hesitate for a fraction of a second. He took a massive stride forward, plunging headfirst into the dark red vortex. His wild, unbridled laughter echoed out from the distorted space, reverberating throughout the tavern. "Roger—! Rocks—! I’m coming to settle the score!"

Sengoku followed right behind him, his silhouette vanishing into the crimson light.

The vortex slowly shrank. Closed. Disappeared.

Tranquility returned to the tavern. All that remained was the seagull cap resting on the counter and the lingering, bloody scent of the old era slowly fading in the air.

Blake sank back into his rocking chair, picking his manga up and draping it over his face. A faint smile played on his lips as he muttered under his breath, "This is gonna be a great show."

---

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