While the battle of gods raged across the checkered expanse, Smoothie sat huddled behind a large, floating mirror fragment that served as a makeshift shield. Pudding and the two terrified nurses were with her, their faces pale in the dim, surreal light of the Mirro-World. The violent explosions of fire, ice, and mochi sent tremors through the ground, each one a reminder of the life-or-death struggle happening just yards away.
Smoothie, however, watched with a strange, analytical calm. Her fear for Gunnar was a constant, sharp pain in her chest, but her years as a Sweet Commander allowed her to dissect the battle with a professional eye. She watched Katakuri flow and morph, his body a seamless extension of his will.
"He's incredible," Pudding whispered, her eyes wide with a mixture of terror and sibling pride. "Brother Katakuri has never lost a fight. He's the pride of the Charlotte family."
"He's always been like that," Smoothie murmured, her gaze fixed on her brother's powerful form. "When we were children, he was the one everyone looked up to. The perfect son, the perfect warrior." A faint, almost nostalgic smile touched her lips. "We used to have a fan club for him. Me, Galette, Brûlée… we'd follow him around, trying to be as cool and unflappable as he was. He never acknowledged us, of course. He was always too focused, too perfect."
"A fan club?" one of the nurses squeaked, finding the idea absurd in their current situation.
"Oh yes," Smoothie said, a wistful look in her eyes. "We made little felt donuts to match his… Oh!"
She gasped, her train of thought derailing as a sharp, piercing pain shot through her abdomen. It was different from the earlier pains, more intense, more profound. She doubled over, her hands instinctively clutching her swollen belly, a low groan escaping her lips.
"Sister!" Pudding cried, rushing to her side. "What is it?"
"The baby…" Smoothie gasped, her face beaded with sweat. "It's… it's coming. Now."
The nurses, their professional training finally overriding their terror, snapped into action. "The stress of the battle must have induced labor! We need to get her somewhere stable! The contractions are too close together!"
They helped Smoothie to her feet, guiding her further back, behind a larger cluster of mirrors that offered more protection from the raging battle. They laid her down on a soft cloak, their voices a low, urgent murmur of medical instructions.
---
On the battlefield, Katakuri sensed the shift. Through the briefest flicker of the future, he saw his sister's pain, the imminent birth.
His demeanor changed. The calm, analytical fighter vanished. The calculated counters, the patient defense—it all dissolved. He needed to end this. Now.
"Playtime is over," he declared, his voice dropping an octave, resonating with a new, terrifying gravity.
He went all out.
His Conqueror's Haki, which he had kept contained, exploded outward. It wasn't a wave meant to knock out fodder; it was a focused, crushing pressure, a tangible aura of absolute dominance aimed directly at Gunnar and Ace. It felt like the air itself was turning to lead, like gravity had multiplied tenfold.
"What is this pressure?!" Ace grunted, his flames flickering as he fought to stay upright.
Katakuri didn't give them time to adjust. He slammed both fists into the mochi floor. "Awakening: Mochi Ginyu!"
The entire area around them came alive. The checkered floor dissolved into a churning sea of thick, white mochi. It wasn't just tendrils anymore; it was an ocean of it, with massive, Haki-infused fists the size of boulders rising and falling like monstrous waves.
Gunnar roared, punching the ground himself, sending a quake through the mochi sea to momentarily quell it. But Katakuri was already moving, skating across the surface of his own creation.
"Square Mochi!" He thrust his arm forward, and it transformed, elongating and hardening into a massive, perfectly square battering ram. It shot across the mochi sea, faster and more powerful than any attack before.
Ace met it with his strongest attack. "Great Flame Commandment: Flame Emperor!" He created a colossal sun of pure, white-hot fire and hurled it at the oncoming mochi ram.
The two attacks met in the middle of the arena. The resulting explosion was apocalyptic. A blinding flash of light and a deafening roar that shook the very foundations of the Mirro-World. The heat was so intense it began to caramelize the mochi sea, turning it into a bubbling, molten battlefield.
Through the smoke and steam, Katakuri appeared, seemingly unharmed. He had used his future sight to find the one safe path through the blast. He was on Gunnar in an instant.
"Strength Mochi!" His fists, now massive, square, and coated in a glistening, obsidian layer of Armament Haki, rained down.
Gunnar met the assault with his own furious barrage. Lava fist met Haki-mochi fist. Quake-punch met unstoppable force. Every impact was a sonic boom. They were no longer fighting with technique; they were two titans trading world-ending blows, each one trying to overwhelm the other with sheer, unadulterated power.
Gunnar landed a glancing blow, a quake-infused punch that cracked Katakuri's mochi shoulder and sent him skidding back. But Katakuri retaliated with a lightning-fast kick that morphed into a spiked mochi drill, gouging a deep wound in Gunnar's side.
Ace, recovering from his own attack, rejoined the fray, his body a whirlwind of fire, trying to support Gunnar. But Katakuri was a one-man army. He would use a mochi arm to block Ace's attack while simultaneously countering Gunnar with a different limb. He was fighting them both at once, and he was winning.
He saw his opening. A future where both Gunnar and Ace were off-balance for a fraction of a second.
He spun, his leg extending, his body becoming a massive, spiked donut of death. "Mochi Giri!"
This was the final blow, a move designed to tear through them both.
***
Isshin stood as a solitary rock against the crashing wave of Sulong Pekoms. The berserk lion Mink was a terrifying spectacle—a whirlwind of white fur, crackling lightning, and primal rage. His every roar was a physical force, his every movement a blur of instinctual violence.
"GAAAAOH!" Pekoms charged, his claws, now as long as daggers and charged with Electro, aimed to tear Isshin limb from limb.
Isshin didn't move. He stood in a low, iaijutsu stance, his hand resting on the hilt of his katana, his eyes closed. He wasn't watching with his eyes; he was listening with his soul, his Observation Haki a placid lake sensing the incoming storm.
At the last possible second, as Pekoms' claws were inches from his throat, Isshin moved. He didn't dodge or block. He flowed. In a single, fluid motion, he pivoted on his heel, letting the lion's momentum carry him past. As Pekoms shot by, Isshin's blade left its sheath in a whisper of steel. Zan. A single, clean cut, not deep, but perfectly placed along the beast's flank. It was a swordsman's grace note in a symphony of chaos.
Pekoms roared in pain and fury, spinning around, his movements now more frantic, less controlled. He unleashed a wild barrage of swipes, his claws tearing through the air, leaving trails of yellow lightning. "Lion's Lightning Lariat!"
Isshin was a phantom. He weaved through the deadly arcs of electricity, his feet seeming to barely touch the checkered floor. He saw the pattern in the chaos, the slight hesitation before each lunge, the way Pekoms favored his right side. He was downloading his opponent's entire being.
"Your rage makes you predictable," Isshin murmured to himself, his voice lost in the din.
Pekoms, enraged by his opponent's untouchable grace, gathered his power. The Electro around his body intensified, coalescing into a blinding sphere around his fist. "Volt Claw Cannon!"
He punched, unleashing a massive, concentrated blast of pure lightning. It was not an attack one could dodge easily; it was an area-of-effect explosion designed to incinerate everything in its path.
This time, Isshin didn't evade. He met the attack head-on. His katana glowed. He spun his blade, creating a small, perfect whirlwind in front of him. It was a technique of a land far from here, a forgotten skill. The lightning blast struck the spinning blade, and instead of exploding, it was caught. The electricity flowed up the length of the katana, arcing harmlessly over Isshin's body and into the sky of the Mirro-World, where it discharged with a deafening thunderclap.
Pekoms stared in disbelief, his beastly mind unable to comprehend what had just happened. His ultimate attack had been… caught and redirected.
That moment of shock was the only opening Isshin needed.
The lightning redirection had left him airborne, suspended in the air for a single, perfect moment. He held his katana high above his head, the blade still crackling with residual energy.
"The beast that has lost its reason…" Isshin's voice was cold and clear, a judge passing sentence. "…must be put to sleep."
He descended. "Dragon Flash: Heavenly Descent."
He fell upon Pekoms like a bolt of divine judgment. The slash was not just a cut; it was a concussion of pure, condensed Haki. It struck Pekoms squarely on the top of his head. There was no spray of blood, no gruesome wound. The force was entirely internal.
Pekoms' red eyes went wide, then rolled back into his head. The brilliant white fur of his Sulong form receded in a wave, his body shrinking, the Electro fizzling out. He collapsed to the floor in a heap, reverting to his normal, unconscious form, a trickle of smoke rising from his singed suit. The storm had been quelled.
Isshin landed silently, his back to his defeated opponent. He flicked his blade once, cleaning it of phantom blood, and slid it back into its sheath with a final, decisive click.
He turned his attention to the main battle, ready to aid his comrades. He saw Katakuri, having just weathered the combined assault of Gunnar and Ace.
Isshin's hand went to his hilt. He prepared to launch himself into the fray, to intercept the attack.
But a different future, one he couldn't see, intervened.
From the swirling chaos of the Mochi-Giri, a single, perfectly aimed tendril of hardened mochi, a stray thought from Katakuri's main attack, shot out sideways. It wasn't aimed at Gunnar or Ace. It was aimed at the one who had just defeated his subordinate.
Isshin's Haki screamed a warning, but it was too late. He had just expended a massive amount of energy to defeat a Sulong. His focus was on the main threat. The mochi tendril, traveling at impossible speed, slammed into his side with the force of a battering ram.
There was a sickening crunch of breaking ribs. Isshin's calm expression broke for the first time, replaced by a mask of pain and surprise. He was launched sideways, a ragdoll in a storm, flying across the Mirro-World before crashing hard into a floating mirror, shattering it into a thousand pieces. He fell to the checkered floor below, unconscious.