Leo looked at his Zanpakutō. It was running a checksum now, his own memories compressing into a .rar file. He had a choice: finish the battle, trap himself in eternal patch notes—or close the game.

But the cord was gone.

Luffy's grin softened into something human. "Then the winner becomes the new host. And the loser becomes the next update. That's why Mangaka_Madman stopped. He won. He became version 14.5. And he's been fighting himself ever since."

Before Leo could scream, a rift tore open behind Luffy—a black hollow mask with Bleach's trademark screech. From Leo's side, a thousand rubber fists stretched from the shadows.

"Took you long enough," said the man who was both Monkey D. Luffy and not. His eyes were hollow terminals. His laugh echoed with dial-up tones.