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Chapter 577. One Outrageous Development After Another
Scanlations from FrankyHouse
The cover displayed Zoro trying to be released from Chopper’s evil grip. The Tanuki was crying, though, apparently because both of them somehow got stuck in a lake full of crocodiles. The crocodiles also cried due to a lump of basal cell carcinoma growing on their heads. Or not.
Moving on to the content. The first sentence the general situation: The news spread around in an instant through newspaper, simple mouth-to-ear rumors or Denden Mushis. The strongest man in the world, meeting his end. And oh, how could so much bittersweet nostalgia glowed from Rayleigh’s expression and presence at that one moment.
The Dark King was already mourning for the death of a dear friend, silent tears welling and trembling in his eyes. It was almost crystal clear then to me that the old strongest Pirates like Whitebeard, Rayleigh, and Roger, reached to a point, a serenity where there was no clear line between friendship and enmity between them. The narration went on and summarized Pops’ last struggle in Marineford, while various big shots were showing their own concern about it. Hilarity, indifference, regret, disappointment, dissatisfaction. As WB Pirates proceedd to escape, Teach ordered his crew to “get something started”, and they spread some kind of black cloth covering Teach and Pops.
Both WB Pirates and the marines question BB’s motive, but this just gained ignorance from his crew. Moreover, Catarina Devon seemed amused at what was going to happen next. A question from Shiryuu, “If he fails…do we all go our separate ways?” led me to think think that Blackbeard shaped his pirate crew by the basic fundamentals of nakama. He put them together, not by dictatorship like Lady Alvida or Eneru or Moria, but by trust and friendship and principles. They follow him as a captain and believed in his decision. All of them even had that happy-go-lucky thing demeanor going on already.
Don’t those premises remind us of something? The Strawhat Pirates. It depicted BB’s crew, unlike Shichibukai, as a solid team. And it seemed that they had faith in Teach’s ideals. What a frightening arsenal of final bosses, I’d say.
All the while, Buggy ran away from the battlefield, drowning in his fear of Pops, and again because of that precisely, his “new followers” admired him for that in a plumpy misunderstanding. Really, if it wasn’t for such a big thing happening, this chapter would be entitled, “One Misunderstanding Clown Fan After Another”.
Jimbei, on the other hand, was still carrying Luffy, trying to get him to safety when suddenly Aokiji iced the sea water surrounding the escaping ship. Akainu also appeared from under the groun to kill Luffy along with the Whale-shark Merman. The heated pre-fight conversation between those two was broken down when Iva suddenly jumped from nowhere with his-slash-her humongous head and Hell-Vinked Akainu. I figure he-slash-she must be mad, you know, about the “One Piece Biggest Head Award” being dramatically stolen by San Juan Wolf and all.
The scene changed. Epicness, what-the-fuk scale, incoming. Blacbeard emerged from the black cloth without any visible changes. Yet his crews were grinning happily as their captain demonstrated his Black Hole ability, followed through by none other than – yes it was not our fanfic talks – Whitebeard’s Gura Gura fist of quake! The blast once again took Marine headquarters as a victim to show us the magnitude of destruction Blackbeard now possessed. The whole Marineford grew shocked as BB held in each of his hands, the darkness and the quake.
He now called himself the ultimate being. Quoted for the truth, I’d say.
It was one huge moment. We all know that Pops held the title of the strongest mostly because of his Fruit. Okay, he owned Haoushoku Haki, but the Quake was his battle signature. Combined with his fatherly nature, his character signature, this formula put us in awe of his figure. “Oh, the strongest! The quake haxx! Oh the manly, fatherly, self-sacrificing Pops!” roughly like that. We respect him greatly for that. But for the battle signature, his quake, to be transferred to a power-hungry pirate like Teach? It was for me a bold, death-defying stunt trick pulled, almost malevolently, by Oda. Even now, I can only see in my eyes quake powers to fit only Whitebeard’s charisma and father figure. Not Teach’s greed and conquest.
Teach, to me, had no right to absorb Pops’ powers, let alone use it to satisfy his ambition to become the god of new era. It somehow made Pops’ struggle and death seem empty. We thought, “There will be only one Whitebeard, the mighty Human Quake.” And suddenly Teach, by punching quakes throughout the headquarters, ruined all that sweetness. I hate, hate, HATE Blackbeard for that.
But on the other side, I saw Teach’s unrelenting effort to fulfill his dreams. I saw him planning to get the quake powers from Pops’ hands, yet realizing also that he and his crew would not be enough to defeat Pops. So he laid two plans at the same time, one being the other’s backup: Freeing the legendary Silver medalists and seizing someone who Pops care about the most. I saw Teach’s mind wheels turning and recognize the simple way to do both: Give Ace to the government. Gain WG’s trust. Make Pops retaliate. Borrow the power of Marines and Shichibukai. That two powerful force combined with level 6th inmates? He’d succeed. He knew he’d succeed. And the rest is history. I saw Teach’s clever and cunning plan rotating and Pops meeting his end, thus allowing Teach to consume his quake powers and take the throne of being the strongest. It was as if Teach spat on Pops’ grave and use Whitebeard himself as a part of him, to gobble up the world. And I love, love, LOVE Blackbeard for that.
It had been mentioned that one person could not get two Fruit powers or he/she’d die. But Marco said that there was “something different about his body”, that possibly was the cause Teach could manage to get Pops quake and not die. It might be his Yami Yami fruit, or it might be his “D”. Just pointing out the possibility I thought. But either way, I predict that this will be the first and last time Teach was able to absorb other Fruit’s power. Because he said “Finally have it!” indicating that all his plan seem to culminate in this moment. He must had saved this special consuming ability for ultimately this moment.
I certainly hope Oda doesn’t make Blackbeard absorbs every strong fruit ability because it would destroy the originality. And one more thing, if it was the “D”, I can imagine Luffy somehow in the future chapters getting the second “ability” from Roger’s spirit to hear “the voice of all things” and then becomes the only one who can face and defeat Blackbeard, becomes the Pirate King, and restores peace to the entire world from this age of Blackbeard, like he announced in the last page, “This is my age!!”
The Age of Darkness Quake.
