One Piece: The Strongest Creature

Just as Teach expected.

If Whitebeard were ten years younger, he would never have chosen to back down. He'd have given the junior Cross Guild's Khan a lesson, showing him the respect a legend of the old era deserves.

But now, Whitebeard can no longer do that.

He doesn't know exactly when it happened, but his once dazzling golden hair is mostly gone now. He doesn't know when it started, but despite his towering height of 6.6 meters and his once powerful jumps and sprints, he can no longer move with the same force or speed, disappearing from sight. 

Somewhere along the line, his body began to tire as soon as night fell, making it impossible to keep up the endless energy he once had, fighting for days on end without rest. Now, he endures that awful needle every day and can't even enjoy his favourite wine.

His once-world-class Haki isn't as freely unleashed as it was back then.

At some point, he realized he was no longer invincible. 

Ever since the enhanced humans arrived on the scene and someone consumed the Paramecia-type Tremor-Tremor Fruit—one that requires extraordinary strength to master—Whitebeard hadn't lost in countless battles. Even during his youth, Rocks himself had shown him respect. After Rocks fell, even legends like Roger, who rose as the Pirate King, never managed to defeat him.

For decades, Whitebeard had held the title of the world's strongest man. Yet, without realizing it, he had come up against the one enemy no warrior can escape, the most powerful foe that every strong soul inevitably faces—and one that 99.99% cannot conquer: time.

Teach could see it all and knew that the "Cross Family" was one of the most hidden and formidable forces among the Five Emperors. As one of the oldest figures in the world, and aside from Sengoku, the last legend of the old era still active on the front lines, Whitebeard understood Khan's refusal.

Yet, like Kozuki Oden, who had to endure humiliation to save his retainers, Whitebeard swallowed his pride. Khan's refusal gave Whitebeard a way to retreat without compromising his dignity.

Now, he has taken away Neptune's daughter, making her his maid, and has promised to protect the Ryugu Kingdom, ensuring that the throne of the Dragon Kingdom would be passed on to his descendants.

Neptune hadn't asked Whitebeard for help. If the Whitebeard Pirates kept meddling in affairs they didn't need to, causing needless trouble, it was likely that many of his "sons" would fall in the world's next great war.

Without realizing it, Whitebeard's strength had gone from unmatched to comparable with his younger rivals. Now, his power was even beginning to lag behind emerging giants like Cross Guild's Khan, Kaido, and Shanks. This reality forced him to think differently.

Whitebeard had only one objective now: to train a successor for the Whitebeard Pirates before he was entirely outmatched so that after he passed, his sons wouldn't face persecution from other forces. Even if the Whitebeard Pirates no longer held the title of the strongest crew, he wanted them to have a stable life in the New World.

In the original story, Whitebeard intended Portgas D. Ace to inherit his legacy. With Ace's talent and background, he could have carried on the Whitebeard Pirates well—if not for the Summit War. Ultimately, the tragic fate of Ace and Whitebeard marked the end of an era, as their deaths heralded a new age.

However, in this reality, Ace never joined Whitebeard. Instead, he reunited with his amnesiac brother on an island ravaged by war. Ace kept a low profile for years, waiting for a reunion with his last remaining brother in the New World.

This left Whitebeard to place his hopes on Marco and Teach. Despite Teach's shattered dream and recent surge in ambition, Whitebeard fondly remembered the young man who had fought loyally by his side. Though Teach was a long-standing member of the crew, he had the lowest profile, often overlooked even by the other veterans. He was, in fact, one of Whitebeard's sons who didn't even have a bounty.

Since there'd been no internal conflict, Whitebeard had no reason to suspect that Teach's concealed strength might be for sinister reasons. As a father who loved his "sons" deeply, Whitebeard's heart was as vast as the sea—he embraced all their flaws without doubt. This generosity was one of the reasons so many, even hardened criminals, loved Whitebeard and were willing to die for him.

To Whitebeard, Teach's recent show of strength seemed like strategic patience. In Marco and Teach, Whitebeard saw potential leaders for the Whitebeard Pirates. With enough time, he believed they could grow into the captain and vice-captain of the crew. Jozu, Thatch, and Vista would support them, ensuring the crew could hold its ground, even if Whitebeard was gone. He felt confident that Linlin and Kaido wouldn't easily threaten them.

As for the younger captains, Cross Guild's Khan and Shanks, Whitebeard thought Shanks, who had inherited Roger's will, would likely become an ally rather than an enemy. But Khan was a different matter—he was an enigma Whitebeard couldn't fully read. It was precisely this unreadability that led Whitebeard to back down again.

In all his decades of sailing, Whitebeard had never encountered a young pirate quite like Cross Guild's Khan. This man had risen to fame as a teenager yet became uncharacteristically quiet and reserved after reaching adulthood. Whitebeard suspected Khan's ambitions went beyond the pirate world itself, mirroring his former captain's aspirations to transcend the seas and reach the world itself.

Could it be that the infamous Battle of the God Valley might repeat itself in this era? If so, Whitebeard wondered whether he would have the strength to stand through it.

While Whitebeard masked his concerns with bravado, a quiet sadness lingered in his heart. As for Teach and Whitebeard's inner reflections, Khan, far away on a war-ravaged island 10,000 meters in the sky, had no idea.

As time passed, Robin informed Khan that the Whitebeard Pirates hadn't rallied their allied crews from across the world. Hearing this, Khan paid little mind to Whitebeard's group. If the "strongest man in the world" couldn't keep up with the changing times, Khan felt he'd have to show him that the old era was already over.

Yet, since Whitebeard seemed willing to avoid a confrontation, Khan was content to keep the Cross Guild's strength under wraps for a while longer. During this time, he'd created new artificial Zoan fruits, including models for the Fish-Fish Fruit, Mythical Beast, and Azure Dragon, hiding unprecedented powers within his perfect "Number One" and "Number Ten" warriors.

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