Teech D. Marshall

**Teech D. Marshall** (ティーチ・D・マーシャル, *Tīchi D. Māsharu*), also better known as "**Blackbeard**" (黒ひげ, *Kurohige*), is a fictional character and main antagonist of the *One Piece* series. He is the captain and admiral of the Blackbeard Pirates, one of the Four Emperors.

While he started out his pirate career as a member of the Roger Pirates, he sent Sylvester Clown, also known as "Joker", as a member of the Whitebeard Pirates' 2nd division, but defected after murdering a fellow crew member, Thatch, the 4th division commander, to obtain a Curséd Fruit, the Dark-Dark Fruit, for Teech.

Prior to the two-year timeskip, The Straw Hat Pirates first encounter Blackbeard at Mock Town when he hears that the Sky Islands exist and boasts how the pirate's dreams will never cease. He then tries to capture Luffy for the bounty on his head at Mock Town for his plans, but is driven out.

Later, Blackbeard was made and briefly held the position of one of the Seven Warlords of the Sea after a brutal fight, defeating and capturing Joker's pursuer: Trace D. Portgaz at Thriller Bark, and then handing him over to the Navy, before resigning upon returning from Impel Down with Level Six prisoners.

"*This cherry pie's so good, it'll kill you! This drink's just about the worst!*"

—Teech D. Marshall.

## Appearance & Biography

*Voice Actor*: Not Known (English), Akio Ōtsuka (Japanese), Not Known (Italian), Not Known (Spanish), Not Known (German), Not Known (Finnish), Not Known (Korean), Not Known (French), Not Known (Latin American Spanish)

### Biography

Captain of the Blackbeard Pirates. Also known as "Blackbeard". Once in the Seven Warlords of the Sea.

He is now one of the Four Emperors.

With the power of the Logia Curséd Fruit, Dark-Dark Fruit, he can create, control, manipulate, and change his body to darkness. He can also use gravity to pull everything to him and into his dark control. He gave Shanks the 3 scars he carries on his left eye, and Rex the X shaped scar he carries on his chest.

### Appearance

#### The Young Past Days

When Teech was younger, he was shown wearing a baseball cap with a rolled up long sleeve shirt and dark shorts. He is also wearing black curled tip shoes.

20 years ago, while he was a member of the Roger Pirates, Teech's black beard was small and less scruffier than it is today, he wored an open buttoned white shirt with rolled up sleeves, green trousers with black line patterns, a yellow sash around his waist and classic black swashbuckler boots complete with large bronze buckles.

#### Pre-Timeskip

Blackbeard is a middle-aged looking man with a massive build, as his body is round with relatively thin limbs. He has a big mouth with several broken or missing teeth (though sometimes he does have a full set, which is an inconsistency error made by Oda), a pronounced crooked nose and a very large and hairy chest and torso. Long, thick, woolly, curly black hair falls down the back of his neck, underneath his bandana, and a longer and scruffier black beard (hence his epithet) grows around his jawline. He is extremely tall, being exactly twice Luffy's (pre-timeskip) height.

Blackbeard wears an open buttoned red shirt with rolled up sleeves, a large black, yellow and gold captain's coat on his shoulders like a cape, pair of necklaces of red as well as golden-yellow and blue beads to his dark orange sash and a traditional black tricorne hat over his black bandana, along with white beads on each wrist as bracelets and rings with gemstones on all of the fingers of both his hands (similar to his predecessor, Crocodile). He sometimes also has three flintlocks and a flask tied to his sash around his waist.

#### Post-Timeskip

After the time skip, Teech has grown a long beard that he has split into multiple sections, very much like his real life basis. He also wears a new hat with his Jolly Roger embroidered on it.

* Hair Color: Black
* Skin Color: Brown
* Eye Color: Black
* Age: 38 (debut), 40 (after timeskip)
* Birthday: August 3rd
* Height: 344 cm (11'3½")
* Weight: Not Known

## Personality

"*This "new era" they talk about is a load of crap. The age where pirates dream is over!? Eh!? Hey! Zehahahaha! PEOPLE'S DREAMS... DON'T EVER END! AM I RIGHT?*"

—Teech D. Marshall.
In Japanese version, most One Piece's characters are given a distinct laugh. Blackbeard follows this tradition by starting his laughs with "Ze" (i.e Zehahahahahaha!). This laugh is not present in the English Dub.

Blackbeard's personality seems to be a strange mix of courage and insanity; strategy, and stupidity. While at times his character looks strong and fearsome, in others he will seem weak and ridiculous. He is apparently very deceptive, joining the Seven Warlords in an elaborate and convoluted fashion for the sole reason of gaining access to Impel Down in order to find new crew mates and later resigning from it in front of the fleet admiral himself saying that he does not need it anymore. He is also exceedingly power-hungry and greedy, aiming to become the next King of the Pirates.

Perhaps because of his strong belief in fate, Blackbeard is highly amoral. He believes that there is no inherent "good" nor "evil" in the world. He is also patient and conniving, having spent decades on Whitebeard's ship just to get his hands on the Devil Fruit he wanted, before killing his crew mate and leaving the crew.

## Relationships

### Friends/Allies

* Blackbeard Pirates
	+ Ogre Van
	+ Burgess G. Zass
	+ Doc Q
	+ Raffit
	+ Stronger
	+ Shiryu
	+ Wolf San Juan
	+ Vasco Shot
	+ Catarina Devon
	+ Avalo Pizarro

### Enemies

* Roger D. Gol
* Rex D. Monkey
* Red-Haired Pirates
	+ Shanks
* Whitebeard Pirates
	+ Newgate Ward
	+ Trace D. Portgaz
* Team Natsu
	+ Natsu Dragneel
	+ Happy
	+ Lucy Heartfilia
	+ Gray Fullbuster
	+ Erza Scarlet
* Straw Hat Pirates
	+ Luffy D. Monkey
* Jimbei
* World Government
* Bonney Pirates
	+ Bonney Jewelry

## Abilities and Powers

At some point in his life, after his captain's death, Teach once fought his old crewmates, Rex D. Monkey and Shanks and gave scars on Shanks' left eye and on Rex's chest, although the Four Emperors' strength at the time is unknown; however, it is noted that this was during the time Shanks had both his arms, before losing his left arm to save Luffy, along with how Shanks admitted the injury didn't occur because of carelessness. After the Battle of Navyford, Blackbeard proved to the Five Elder Stars that he had a one-step lead to usurp the empty Emperor position that Whitebeard once held, which eventually came to fruition.

One of the more impressive feats he has committed was defeating three commanders of the Whitebeard Pirates; Trace D. Portgaz, Thatch, and later during the Payback War, Marco, the new Captain of the Whitebeard Pirates, all with hardly any effort, when few other people would even dare touch a member of the Whitebeard Pirates for fear of incurring their captain's wrath. After the time-skip, he and his crew fought against the Revolutionary Army and destroyed their base. It is also stated that they briefly fought against CP-0. Trace once stated that Blackbeard could have been a commander when he was recommended for the position, indicating that his strength was equal with any of the other commanders, which is notable, as he had not yet eaten a Curséd Fruit.

Blackbeard has shown himself to be an expert planner and a master at orchestrating manipulative schemes provided he has a sufficiently advanced period of time to prepare: he waited two decades aboard the "Oro Jackson" with the Roger Pirates and even integrated with the crew dynamic, solely to increase his opportunities of obtaining the Dark-Dark Fruit (he also collected his original crew members during this timeline, indicating great charisma and leadership skills even as a regular crew mate). He also went for the capture of Luffy D. Monkey in order to guarantee an offer for the vacant position of the Seven Warlords of the Sea by the World Government, which in turn was simply sought for the free access across the Gates of Justice into the notorious Impel Down to recruit powerful "Level Six" prisoners to strengthen his crew.

He has shown to be knowledgeable of Haki as demonstrated in Impel Down when Luffy angrily attacked him, commenting on how his spirit has improved. As of yet, it is unknown if he can use any of the three kinds of Haki.

However, for all his combat prowess and intellect, Blackbeard has a ridiculous habit of concentrating too much on conversations with his opponents while fighting them, letting his guard down in the process, a weakness he has demonstrated in his battles against Whitebeard, Luffy, Trace, and Magellan. This usually results in him suffering some critical injuries; in fact, if not for Shiryu's help, Teech's entire crew would have died from Magellan's Poison Curséd Fruit ability.

### Physical Abilities

Teech has an immense amount of incredible endurance, as demonstrated when he took a point-blank quake bubble attack from Whitebeard, and while being pinned to the ground by the former's feet on his hands, to his head and neck without losing consciousness, especially since his Curséd Fruit causes him to receive even more damage. Prior to the above he took a hit from Whitebeard (albeit an indirect hit) from a quake bubble attack and was more annoyed than actually injured anyway. He has also taken a direct slash from Whitebeard's bisento without suffering any lasting damage and was able to shrug off a kick to his head from one of Whitebeard's allies and Supernova, Bonney Jewelry.

During his fight with Trace at Thriller Bark, he was pierced in the chest by two fire spears, but after putting out the flames, was he able to shake off the impact of the attack. Another indication of his sheer endurance is that he took a point-blank Gear Second attack from an angry Luffy and was hit by Sengoku in his Daibutsu form and came out with only minor injuries both times.

Teech also possesses incredible physical strength which is demonstrated when he seriously injures both Luffy and Trace in just one hit, sending them both crashing back with incredible force and distance. In the anime, he was shown to be able to knock back and injure Whitebeard with a few punches.

### Curséd Fruits

Blackbeard has become the first and, so far, only user to wield the powers of two Curséd Fruits at the same time. Through unknown means, he acquired the extremely destructive powers of the Tremor-Tremor Fruit from the dead body of Whitebeard and is now able to create earthquakes like his captain's old rival. Marco speculated that this was possible due to an unstated peculiarity unique to Blackbeard himself, having to do with an "atypical body structure" of some sort. He also pointed out that the other Whitebeard Pirates should be aware of this fact. Teech also appears to be knowledgeable enough to know how to use the Tremor-Tremor Fruit powers straight away after extracting it.

With the power of darkness (Dark-Dark Fruit), which "reduces anything to nothingness", and the power of quakes (Tremor-Tremor Fruit), which "brings destruction to all", Blackbeard claims himself to be truly invincible and the strongest of them all. During the two years, the Blackbeard Pirates went on to hunt down powerful Curséd Fruit users to kill them and absorb their abilities, thus Teech (and possibly his comrades) has likely added more abilities to his arsenal.

#### Dark-Dark Fruit

*Main article:* *Dark-Dark Fruit*
The **Dark-Dark Fruit** (ヤミヤミ実, *Yami Yami Mi*) the Logia-class Curséd Fruit, which was eaten by Teech,create, control, become the element of darkness and manipulate gravity, shown as an ebbing shroud of darkness, shown to possess a strong gravitational pull, thus making him a **Darkness Human** (闇人間, *Yami Ningen*). Teech demonstrates that the "darkness" is a void which devours anything, able to pull in (much in the manner of an actual black hole), and crush his surrounding environment into a pile of rubble. Due to the Dark-Dark Fruit's gravitational ability, Blackbeard does have a certain but strong disadvantage; while using his "absorbtion" or gravitational abilities, he becomes temporarily unable to disperse and let attacks simply pass through him, drawing the attacks faster towards himself instead, meaning he takes equivalent or more damage than a normal human would.

However, Blackbeard states that the deficiency this presents is well worth the advantages the fruit bestows upon him, such as the ability to "absorb" certain projectiles and then hurl them back at his foes using moves like "Liberation". The second, and the most frightening power of the fruit is to nullify other Curséd Fruit abilities through physical contact, allowing Teech to physically hit Trace, whose body was composed of intangible flames, and injure Luffy, whose body was made of rubber. Teech states that this is because the Dark-Dark Fruit truly holds the power of the devil. As such, Blackbeard's style revolves around getting close to his enemy and grabbing them, canceling out any defensive abilities they have, forcing their own natural resilience to take Blackbeard's massive strength.

Blackbeard must, however, physically touch his enemy to cancel out their powers. This puts him at a huge disadvantage against enemies he cannot reach out and grab, even more so when the enemy can hurt him at a distance. However, this weakness can be rectified somewhat by his signature technique "Black Vortex", which utilizes his suction powers to drag his opponents towards him. This technique opens up another weakness since right after he uses it he is left open for an attack at close range.

##### Techniques

* **Black Hole** (ブラック･ホール, *Burakku Hōru*): Blackbeard spreads his darkness over a large area and, much like an actual black hole, swallows up anything he chooses. When swallowed, the person or object is subjected to a large amount of gravity and crushed, such as an entire castle and forests of Thriller Bark. This technique was first seen as it was demonstrated in front of Trace.

* **Liberation** (リベレイション, *Ribereishon*): Used following **Black Hole**, Blackbeard expels all of the destroyed remains of what his darkness had swallowed up at once. This is especially good at demonstrating his power. This was first seen being demonstrated before Trace. In the anime, Teach foreshadowed that this attack can possibly be used to launch cannon balls and swords like projectiles.

* **Black Vortex** (くろうず, *Kurōzu*): Extending one arm towards his opponent, Blackbeard activates the gravity power of his darkness to pull them into his grasp. Blackbeard can then attack them with his massive strength. This move is particularly useful when used in conjunction with the fruit's power-nullifying abilities, since the target could easily avoid it by fighting at a distance from Blackbeard, as Trace attempted. This was first seen being used on Trace in order to grab him. However, this technique has also proven to be a great weakness, as most opponents he draws near him have attacked him while at close range, such as Trace launching two fiery spears into Blackbeard's chest, or Whitebeard slamming his bisento into Blackbeard's shoulder. The name of the attack is also a pun on the English word "close", and it can also mean "black vinegar", a vinegar commonly used in Chinese cooking.

* **Black World** (ブラック･ワールド, *Burakku Wārudo*): Blackbeard covers the area surrounding his opponent in darkness, blocking their vision. This attack was shown and named in *One Piece: Pirate Warriors*.

* **Black Opening** (闇開, *Yamiagari*): Similar to a combination of **Black Hole** and **Liberation**, Blackbeard draws surrounding enemies into a pool of darkness in front of him before ejecting them, causing heavy damage in the process. The attack first appeared in *One Piece: Pirate Warriors 2*, and is also in *One Piece: Pirate Warriors 3*.

* **Dark Matter** (ダーク・マター, *Dāku Matā*): Blackbeard creates a big ball of darkness and throws it at his opponent. This attack was shown and named in *One Piece: Pirate Warriors 2*, and is also in *One Piece: Pirate Warriors 3*. This attack is very similar to the unnamed one Teach used against Ace's Entei at the end of their battle.

#### Tremor-Tremor Fruit

*Main article:* *Tremor-Tremor Fruit*
The **Tremor-Tremor Fruit** (グラグラの実, *Gura Gura Mi*) the most strongest Paramythia-class Curséd Fruit, which was taken from Whitebeard by Teech through means unknown, create shock waves by shattering the air itself, creating devastating earthquakes that can destroy the Navyford main building itself, which thus making him the new "**Tremor Human**" (震動人間, *Shindō Ningen*). He can also focus his quake powers into a "quake bubble" on his fist, greatly increasing the damage in a single punch. He acquired this fruit after wrapping a black tarp over himself and Whitebeard. The process of how he got it is still unknown.

The nature of Curséd Fruits is to pass into a nearby fruit and become edible once again when the user dies, but this process is still not fully explored, and somehow he was able to stop this from happening. Being able to contain two powers at once is entirely unexplained.

Teach acknowledged that he still does not have full control of his new destructive power though, so he does not have as much skill as Whitebeard with the abilities involved. This was, perhaps, first demonstrated when he chose not to directly confront Akainu, despite having two Curséd Fruit powers at his disposal, whereas Whitebeard himself confronted the admiral directly. This strongly insinuates a difference between the skills of both Blackbeard and Whitebeard at wielding the fruit's powers initially.

However, it should be mentioned that Blackbeard, who has a much more careless and vicious personality than Whitebeard, can be considered as a far greater threat to the world than Whitebeard himself. A perfect example of this is when Teech D. Marshall was creating random earthquakes to test his acquired power in Navyford. He also sent a giant tsunami towards Sabaody Archipelago without even realizing it.

### Haki

*Main article:* *Haki*
Teech has mentioned Haki on multiple occasions.

On Jaya, he first hinted at his use of Haki to measure Luffy's Haki. He used it again in a similar circumstance to measure the growth of Luffy's Haki during the Impel Down Arc, stating that Luffy's Haki had grown since they had last met.

### Weapons

When the Roger Pirates battled Shiki and his crew and Edd War, he is seen with metal claws on both of his hands. Seeing their shape, he most likely used them to give Shanks and Rex their scars.

He has three flintlock pistols tied in his sash, and was seen using them when dealing the deathblow to Whitebeard along with the other Blackbeard Pirates. His accuracy with them is not completely shown, as he was only seen emptying his ammunition into Whitebeard at point-blank range yet Whitebeard was still briefly alive.

## History

### Past

Though details unclear at this point, his childhood seemed depressing as in a sketch depicting him as a child in an SBS, Blackbeard is shown crying in the dark under a crescent moon.

At some point, He meet Sylvester Clown and began to form a close relationship with each other. Blackbeard aspires to become the King of the Pirates. In order to do this, he wanted the Dark-Dark Fruit. He and Sylvester spent 3 years, studying and memorizing the shapes and colors of all the Curséd Fruits that was ever been discovered from an old encyclopedia book they found.

#### Riding with Roger

At no older than 16, he joined the Roger Pirates on the same day as Rex, Shanks and Buggy, while he sent Sylvester to the Whitebeard Pirates to search for it, thinking that one of those pirate crews would have been the best chance they had of obtaining the fruit that way. When they were not fighting, He and Rex constantly argued over everything imaginable (in the flashback in the manga and the anime alike, they argue over whether the North or South Pole is colder). Despite the difference between them, both pirates still stayed together for some strange reason while they were on board the ship.

Twenty-six years before the storyline, Roger was found to have a disease that was incurable. For the next three years, Roger explored the Grand Line. Before the Roger Pirates went into battle with the Gold Lion Pirates at Edd War, Buggy was the only one in the crew to suggest surrendering. It is unknown what Buggy did during that battle, but the Roger Pirates triumphed. After Roger became King of the Pirates, he ultimately disbanded his crew in secret a year before his death. One by one the crew disappeared.

#### Rivalry and Betrayal

A year later, Teech, Buggy, Rex, and Shanks, attended Roger's execution in Roguetown, and Shanks and Buggy wept at his captain's death while the reactions of Rex and Teech was unseen. After attending the execution, Teech began to showed his resentment towards Rex and began telling him about his plans that he was going to be the new King of the Pirates. Teech told his former friend and rival to kill him if he wanted to stop him or Teech would do as he pleased. Teech's arrogance lead both him and Rex into a fight (and Shanks hurrying in to aid Rex after hearing them fighting each other), leaving Teech injured and beaten, Rex with an "X" shaped scar on his chest, and Shanks with the 3 scars across his left eye.

One day, Sylvester came back to Teech one day and then gave him the Dark-Dark Fruit, the very reason the two joined two separate pirate crews for, giving Blackbeard the power to gain a crew of his own, begin his own open acts of piracy makes him ambitious dreams come true and recruited Sylvester a part of his crew with a nickname of his own "Joker".

Blackbeard and Joker then assembled the Blackbeard Pirates, composed of Raffit, a former policeman from the West Blue and the crew's navigator, Ogre Van the sniper, Burgess G. Zass the helmsman, Doc Q the doctor, and Stronger, Doc Q's horse. Some time after, his pirate crew pillaged the Drum Kingdom, causing its king, Wapol, to flee and ironically liberating Drum Kingdom from Wapol's tyranny.

## Battles

### Canon

* Roger Pirates vs. Whitebeard Pirates (several times offscreen)
* Roger Pirates vs. Golden Lion Pirates
* Teech D. Marshall vs. Shanks (details unknown, yet left Shanks with his scar on his left eye)
* Teech D. Marshall vs. Rex D. Monkey (details unknown, yet left Rex with his scar on his chest)
* Blackbeard Pirates vs. Drum Kingdom
* Teech D. Marshall vs. Sirkees
* Teech D. Marshall vs. Trace D. Portgaz
* Blackbeard Pirates vs. Impel Down Guards (Level 1)
* Teech D. Marshall vs. Hannyabal and Bazooka Unit
* Teech D. Marshall vs. Luffy D. Monkey and Natsu Dragneel (interrupted by Jimbei)
* Blackbeard Pirates vs. Magellan
* Blackbeard Pirates vs. Magellan (second time, off screen)
* Teech D. Marshall vs. Newgate Ward
* Blackbeard Pirates vs. Newgate Ward
* Blackbeard Pirates vs. Fleet Admiral Sengoku
* Blackbeard Pirates vs. Bonney Pirates
* Blackbeard Pirates vs. Whitebeard Pirates (under Marco) (unseen, during timeskip)
* Blackbeard Pirates vs. Revolutionary Army (unseen)
* Blackbeard Pirates vs. Cipher Pol (unseen)

## Translation and Dub Issues

Also, it should be noted that though his epithet, "Kurohige" is translated universally as "Blackbeard", a more accurate translation would be "Black Facial Hair" as the Japanese language uses the word "Hige" to refer to all facial hair, regardless of whether it is a full beard or just a mustache.

## External links

* Teech D. Marshall *One Piece Encyclopedia*

## Notes & Trivia

* In the film *One Piece Film: Strong World*, a man who looks just like Blackbeard is seen among the Golden Lion Pirates, with the only visible difference being his teeth.
* In *Chapter 581*, when addressing the prisoners of level 6 of Impel Down, he is shown with a full mouth of teeth. This was likely a mistake on Oda's part.
* Blackbeard's favorite food is pie.
* Curiously, in *One Piece Tail: Grand Data File*, that covers from the *East Blue Saga* to the middle of the *Jaya Arc*, Teech is not revealed as Teech D. Marshall or Blackbeard, but as "Cherry Pie Man", a regular customer of the Mock Town Pub.
* Teech is the only known person to serve as both a Warlord and later a Emperor.
* He is the only known Emperor to once serve under another Emperor's crew.
* In the 5th fan poll, Teech ranked 67th.
* Blackbeard's hobbies are gambling and researching history.
* Blackbeard was indeed a real pirate who lived during the golden age of piracy. However, his real name was Edward Teach and not Marshall Teech. The first name was given to Newgate Ward.
* Blackbeard's original name, **Teech D. Everything** (ティーチ・D・エブリシング, *Tīchi D. Eburishingu*), may come from 17th-century English pirate Henry Every, famous for becoming the richest pirate in the world at the time and getting the highest bounty in history placed on his head.