"No—this isn't him attacking himself!" Kuzan's eyes sharpened, and his presence began to climb higher and higher.
He was an Admiral, after all. Even though his main specialty was his Logia Devil Fruit, he had never slacked off when it came to Haki.
At this very moment, his Observation Haki clearly sensed that after Arton and Robin's fused body was wrapped in ice, their aura was rising at a terrifying speed.
And the way that aura was rising felt strange to Kuzan. It was as if Arton was evolving in a direction completely opposite to ice itself.
And that was exactly what was happening.
The instant Kuzan couldn't help but fire a freezing shockwave at the ice cocoon encasing Arton.
Crack!
The ice covering Arton exploded apart, and a blazing crimson light burst out from within.
"...This is—flames?!" Kuzan murmured.
After the ice surrounding Arton vanished, that sudden red glow directly forced the ambient temperature up to a frightening level.
Kuzan could clearly see it: the solid, thick ice layer he'd created was melting at an alarming speed.
That forced Kuzan to increase his output just to keep the ice sheet intact.
He was a Devil Fruit user—if the ice broke apart around him, he wouldn't be able to survive in the sea.
"So this is the true form of the Devil Fruit Robin ate?"
Kuzan stared at Arton's body—at the butterfly-like wings of flame and the flaming garments that had manifested around him—and asked aloud.
To Kuzan, Arton's current appearance fit the idea of a Mythical Zoan far better.
"You could say it's Robin's strongest form at this stage." Arton smiled, then flicked a wave of flame toward Kuzan.
Kuzan raised his hand and aimed it at the incoming fire.
He intended to do what Arton had done to Ace's flames—freeze Arton's fire solid, but very quickly, his brows furrowed, and he had to raise his other hand as well.
As freezing cold poured from both palms, the extreme chill and the high-heat flames collided instantly.
The scene Kuzan wanted—ice freezing flame—never appeared.
Instead, the two opposing forces reacted in midair and turned into a massive surge of steam.
Neither the ice nor the fire gained the slightest advantage.
"This is seriously impressive… Flames at this level don't even belong to Sakazuki's magma anymore."
Kuzan's brow tightened.
Vaguely, he even felt that the flames Arton had released just now surpassed Sakazuki's magma.
After all, Kuzan was confident he could freeze Sakazuki's magma with his ice.
"If it wasn't flames at this level, I wouldn't dare use them against a man like you—someone who's pushed the Ice-Ice Fruit to its limit." Arton said.
"Should I feel proud about that?" Kuzan replied.
"If you can feel proud about it, I'll be happy too." Arton grinned.
Listening to Arton's relaxed tone, Kuzan spread his hands helplessly and said, "This really is a troublesome assignment…"
"I already made plenty of assumptions going in but fighting this kind of flame… that's something I never expected."
Chapter 486: Kuzan: It Really Won't Be That Easy
When it came to fighting against flames, it wasn't as if Kuzan hadn't considered that possibility before this mission.
After all, Arton's pirate crew was called the Flameblade Pirates—it literally had the word "Flame" in the name.
On top of that, the very first time Arton's name spread across the seas, it was thanks to a sword style that could summon fire.
Even if Arton rarely used that flaming swordsmanship nowadays and usually relied on something like Unlimited Blade Works instead, Kuzan had still imagined what it would be like if Arton chose to fight him using those flame-infused sword techniques, but this kind of flame—this clearly different, hyper-focused Signora's fire—was something Kuzan had never expected to face.
"I think I'm starting to understand why you chose to fuse with Robin to beat Ace,"
Kuzan said. "Back then, you didn't want to show that fire power to that big-mouth Morgans, did you?"
"Guess that's what makes you Admiral Kuzan—you really are sharp," Arton nodded without hesitation.
"So it was like that… which means this fire of yours is going to be quite something, huh," Kuzan muttered.
"That part, I'd say you've already had a taste of," Arton replied. "How about getting a more thorough taste of it now?"
He smiled as he made the suggestion.
"Do we really have to fight…" Kuzan sighed helplessly.
Seeing him like this, Robin—currently fused inside Arton's body—couldn't help speaking up.
"Captain, please don't let Admiral Kuzan drag this out," Robin said. "My stamina can't support you staying in fusion mode for too long."
Ever since joining the Flameblade Pirates, Robin had earned quite a lot of points through Arton, and her physical endurance had improved a great deal because of it, but Robin knew very well that even with that boost, her stamina still wasn't enough when facing a monster like Kuzan.
Even if, during fusion, Arton also supplied part of the stamina needed to maintain the form, Robin still didn't feel confident.
What worried her even more was that women like Gion in the Marines also had copies of Arton's diary.
She was afraid that if this dragged on too long, Gion and the other female Marines might follow Kuzan's position and track them down.
If that happened, things would get troublesome. It would also throw a wrench into her plans to track down the Poneglyphs.
"All right, I don't feel like wasting time chatting with this guy either," Arton answered her. "We'll have our fight, then leave."
He replied to Robin, then lifted his gaze to Kuzan.
"You're asking me if we really have to fight? You've already come all this way to find us—how are we not supposed to fight you?" Arton said. "If you really don't want to fight, how about you just turn around and leave?"
"You're right. We both have our reasons that make this fight unavoidable," Kuzan exhaled, then his expression suddenly hardened.
In an instant, a massive wave of frigid air erupted from his body, freezing the sea within several hundred meters around them into a thick field of ice.
"So you're getting serious now, huh. In that case, let's see whether the top master of the Ice-Ice Fruit can snuff out Signora's flames I command."
As Arton finished speaking, his aura surged sharply.
In the blink of an eye, the glacier beneath his feet melted away almost completely, turning into a rolling, crimson ocean of fire spread out over the sea.
Kuzan, who had planned to send his cold surging along the ice under Arton's feet, could only give a small shake of his head.
"As expected… it's not going to be that easy." He muttered.
....
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