Fossa

Towering and thickly muscled, Fossa cuts the figure of an aging fighter. The crown of his head has gone bald, his chin is cleft in two, and a diagonal scar crosses his features. A white mustache frames his mouth in the manga, recolored black for the anime. Whitebeard's crimson emblem and three small circles are inked onto his right shoulder. He goes about in an open dark blue vest trimmed in lighter cloth, with baggy tan trousers stuffed into his boots and cinched by a reddish belt. His square-guarded katana rides on his left hip or slung over his shoulder by a strap, and a lit cigar is a constant fixture. Three decades before the story opens, he wore a full head of hair and had no mustache yet.

Commanding the 15th division gave Fossa authority over the rank and file beneath him, and like the other commanders he is formidably strong, emerging from the Marineford war without a scratch. His exact skill as a swordsman remains unmeasured, though he can slice clean through the blades of Marine soldiers. His chosen weapon is a katana with a squared hilt that he somehow sets ablaze. The source of that flame has never been pinned down, whether it springs from a Dial, a Devil Fruit, plain friction, or another method entirely. The anime hints he lights it off his cigar, suggesting the steel may be coated in something flammable.

Fossa sailed with Whitebeard thirty years ago when the crew first reached Wano Country. Shipwrecked there, they crossed paths with Kozuki Oden, who pestered Newgate for a place aboard after a short scuffle. The pirates feasted with Oden and his retainers but kept turning him down. When they tried to slip away from Wano two weeks later, Oden tied a chain around the mast of the Moby Dick and let himself be dragged along, with Izo clinging to him in turn. Once Izo was hauled up, Oden took on Whitebeard's three-day chain ordeal, and the crew, Fossa among them, cheered him through it before welcoming him in.

His major appearance came at Marineford during the rescue mission for Ace. He dropped onto Aokiji's ice alongside the other commanders and tore into the enemy with his flaming blade, later joining a group strike on Kizaru to buy Luffy room to move. He recoiled at Squard's betrayal of Whitebeard and noted the strange iron of the siege wall when the quake failed to shatter it. Fossa fought on behind that wall, guarded Whitebeard's back with Jinbe and the others, and personally disclosed that his captain and Shanks alike carried Conqueror's Haki. He watched in fury as Akainu ran Ace through, wept openly when the Blackbeard Pirates cut down Whitebeard, his cigar slipping free for the first time, and stood among the commanders who turned on Akainu to protect Luffy. He left with the rest of the crew once Shanks and Sengoku called the fighting to a halt. A year on, the surviving Whitebeard Pirates lost the Payback War to Blackbeard's forces and vanished into hiding.