Katakuri didn't move from his spot. He simply raised a hand, his fingers mimicking a pistol. His crimson eyes, glowing with the prescient light of Observation Haki, saw the future path. "Jellybean."
A single, obsidian-black mochi bean, hardened with Armament Haki, shot through the air. It wasn't just fast; it was a pinpoint of inevitable death, its trajectory already calculated to intersect with Gunnar's temple a fraction of a second from now.
Gunnar's body exploded into motion, his muscles screaming in protest. His lava arm flaring to life to melt the projectile.
SHING!
He didn't have to. A whisper of steel, faster than thought, cut the air. Isshin, in a single, fluid motion, had drawn his katana, stepped forward, and bisected the mochi bean. His blade, coated in its own invisible layer of Haki, sliced through the hardened candy as if it were water. The two halves of the bullet whizzed past his ears and embedded themselves in a distant mirror with a sharp crack.
"Your precision is impressive, swordsman," Katakuri stated, his voice devoid of emotion. He had seen that future too, and it was merely a prelude.
The full moon, visible through a floating mirror reflecting the outside world, bathed the checkered dimension in its pale, ethereal light. A guttural, agonized roar ripped through the air. Pekoms clutched his head, his body convulsing.
"Gao… no… the moon…!"
His suit tore as his muscles bulged, a mane of pure white fur erupting around his neck. His eyes turned a feral, blood-red. Lightning, raw and untamed, crackled around his body. The transformation was complete. Sulong Pekoms, a berserk avatar of primal fury, let out a roar that echoed in the infinite space.
"We can't fight them here," Gunnar growled, the thought of the small ship being torn apart by this new monster unthinkable. He locked eyes with Katakuri. "Take this somewhere else."
Katakuri, ever the pragmatist, saw the branching futures. He saw the destruction. He saw the risk to his sister. He gave a curt nod. "Agreed. But she comes with us. I will not have her running."
"Fine," Gunnar bit out.
"Brûlée," Katakuri commanded. The mirror in her hand swirled into a viscous, shimmering portal. Gunnar, supporting Smoothie, stepped through first, followed by Ace and Isshin. A moment later, Katakuri and the rampaging Pekoms entered from another portal, sealing them all in the endless, inverted expanse of the Mirro-World.
The moment the portals closed, the battlefield ignited.
"GAAAAOH!" Pekoms, now a blur of white fur and yellow lightning, shot toward the group like a living thunderbolt.
"The beast is mine," Isshin said, his voice a calm river in a hurricane. He pushed off the checkered floor, his blade already drawn. "Focus on the master."
Isshin met the Sulong head-on. Pekoms claws leaving deep gouges in the floor with every swipe, Electro arcing from his fur in deadly bursts.
Isshin was a study in absolute control. He didn't block; he flowed. As Pekoms lunged, a claw aimed to disembowel him, Isshin slid to the side, his katana tracing a silver line across the beast's outstretched arm, not deep, but enough to draw blood and break its focus.
Pekoms roared in frustration and spun, his tail, now a lightning-charged whip, cracking through the air. Isshin dropped, sliding under the attack on the slick floor, his blade coming up to score another shallow cut on the beast's leg.
---
The main event.
"Your turn," Ace said, his shoulders igniting in pillars of orange flame.
Gunnar cracked his neck, the sound echoing in the silence. He and Ace didn't charge in a straight line. They split, flanking Katakuri in a pincer movement.
"Fire Fist!" Ace unleashed his signature attack, a colossal fist of pure flame that roared across the checkered floor.
Simultaneously, Gunnar slammed his own fist into the ground. "Quake Breaker!" A focused tremor shot through the floor, buckling it and aiming to throw Katakuri off balance and into the path of Ace's inferno.
Katakuri didn't even flinch. His eyes glowed. He stomped his foot, and his mochi body morphed. A hole, perfectly shaped to the Fire Fist, opened in his torso, letting the flames pass harmlessly through. At the same time, he used the tremor from Gunnar's attack to launch himself into the air, avoiding the buckling floor entirely.
While airborne, he pointed his finger. "Power Mochi!" A barrage of Haki-infused mochi fists shot from his body like gatling gun fire, raining down on Gunnar and Ace.
"Firefly!" Ace responded, releasing dozens of small, green fireballs that shot up, meeting the mochi fists in a series of mid-air explosions that lit up the Mirro-World like fireworks.
Gunnar used the chaotic light show as cover. He propelled himself forward with a burst of ice from his feet, sliding under the explosions. He reappeared right beneath the still-airborne Katakuri, his right arm now a churning mass of molten rock. He thrust upward. "Volcanic Lance!"
Katakuri, still seeing the future, twisted his body in an impossible mid-air contortion. His legs elongated, becoming sticky tendrils of mochi that wrapped around a floating mirror fragment, allowing him to swing away from the attack. The Volcanic Lance shot past him, the sheer heat of it warping the air.
"He's untouchable!" Ace grunted, landing beside Gunnar.
"Then let's give him nothing to touch!" Gunnar roared back.
This time, they attacked not Katakuri, but his entire environment. Gunnar plunged both hands into the floor. "Absolute Zero: World Frost!" An aggressive, creeping frost spread in every direction, turning the checkered floor into a treacherous, cracking sheet of ice.
Ace added his own chaos. "Cross Fire!" He formed a cross with his index fingers, unleashing a concentrated beam of pure fire that raked across the icy floor, creating a massive, disorienting cloud of thick steam and fog.
They had blinded him. For a moment, even future sight was useless if it couldn't see through the physical world.
Through the fog, Gunnar shot forward, his body coated in a thin layer of protective ice to shield him from the steam. He was a silent hunter in the mist.
But Katakuri was a master of his domain. From within the steam, a voice echoed. "Awakening: Mochi Thrust!"
The very floor, now a mixture of ice and mochi, came alive. Massive, thick tendrils of sticky mochi, shaped like giant drills, erupted from the ground, punching through the fog from every direction.
Gunnar was caught in the onslaught. He shattered one drill with a quake-punch, froze another solid with a touch, but a third slammed into his side, the Haki-infused blow cracking his ribs and sending him flying out of the steam cloud.
Ace flew out a moment later, propelled by his flames, his clothes singed where a mochi tendril had grazed him.
They landed hard, breathing heavily, facing Katakuri, who now stood calmly as the steam dissipated. His Peerless Donuts, massive spiked rings of mochi, floated around him.
"Your teamwork is formidable," Katakuri stated, a hint of respect in his voice. "But you are fighting in my world. Here, I am the environment. I am the future."
He pointed a finger at them.