Two full Admirals-to-be and a living legend met the Roger Trio head-on out on the Bridge of Hesitation, and at last Gunko looked interested. She glanced aside—Spandine was gone. Hm. A paper-pusher vanishing during a rear-entry raid wasn't shocking… but slipping her notice? Curious.
The bridge detonated in clashing Haki. Meanwhile, the plaza before the Courthouse boiled back to life.
"Up! Wake up, all of you!" a woman Vice Admiral barked, slapping cheeks and shaking collars. Conqueror's Haki had carpet-bombed the island; a precious few officers clawed back to their feet.
Borsalino's eyes fluttered open. "Nnnh… what a terrifying nap."
"Battle's underway, Captain Borsalino!" she snapped. "Start rousing the rest!"
Thunder rolled from the bridge—no, that was Haki colliding. Then the loudhailers screamed:
"All units! Large pirate flotillas at the Front Gate, east, and west! Over ten crews—New World flags identified!"
Borsalino squinted toward the southwest: sails peppered the horizon. "Sooo scary~ Not just Roger's lot… the New World answering a rumor about a woman."
"Scary, isn't it?" drawled a voice behind him.
He turned. A young man in civilian clothes stepped through a field of unconscious Marines as if he were out for tea. "And you are?"
"Dio," the man smiled—Dimon wearing Monroe like a coat. He eyed the massed flotillas and chuckled. "Shakky's terrifying. A small-radius fake headline, and look at them—marching to the meat grinder. If it were global? The world would quake."
Borsalino's eyes thinned. "So what are you?"
"Just a helpful passerby." Dimon lifted his right fist. "Those fences will keep them off the island. Cruel, no? Coming all this way and never even making land. Allow me."
Twisted Future — Quake-Quake Man.
His punch cracked the air itself. The sky crazed like glass; shockwaves heaved the ocean into a rampart of black water. The wall surged, shouldering pirate ships over the iron palisades and across the yawning chasm under Enies Lobby's main island.
Borsalino's pupils pinpricked. Whitebeard's power—here? He flashed, dissolving into photons and reassembling at Dimon's flank.
"Ever been kicked at light speed?"
Golden leg scythed for Dimon's head. Dimon raised an arm; the blow died against matte-black Armament. His counter-kick stamped a bootprint in Borsalino's chest and blasted him into the air.
Blood spattered. Borsalino's mind went white. He re-lit, teleporting to Dimon's front—only for Dimon to already be there, boot cutting across his face.
Impossible—my—! The kick hurled him through a facade. Fire ballooned skyward.
"Still just green apples," Dimon murmured at the plume. "Future Admirals you may be; today you're one-kick apiece."
A sphere of killing cold smashed into him from behind and flash-froze him solid.
"Wh—what is even going on?" Kuzan panted, half-awake, frost fogging from his lips. "Already on the main island? How long was I out? Who is this guy?"
Out at sea the tsunami crested and tipped, depositing dozens of ships onto the stone like dice from a cup. The bridge kept thundering—three kings playing thunder-gods with Haki.
Kuzan's gaze snapped back—the statue cracked. Black-crimson lightning veined the ice and shattered it. Dimon shook frost from his shoulders and vanished. Kuzan jerked back; a fist wreathed in flame plunged toward him.
The Fire Fist swallowed him and half the square. Steam roared upward where ice met blaze.
At that exact heartbeat the lifted sea finally fell. Ten-plus crews surfed in on God's own breaker, timbers screaming, anchors biting stone. Seawater sluiced across the plaza as pirates vaulted down, blades and guns raised.
"Don't know who did it, but the sea is on our side!"
"On me! Slaughter the Navy, save Shakky!"
Dimon exhaled, Haki flaring as the first wave crashed past him. Over the roar, a new presence slithered in—heavy, metallic, hungry.
On the far edge of the square a cadaver-pale man in a warden's coat stepped through the mist, eyes flat and red as coals. Veins traced up his neck like ink under glass; the air around him throbbed.
"Deep-Sea Prison Warden Columbus," someone whispered. "Blood-Blood Fruit…"
A boot heel clicked stone behind Dimon.
"Feeding time," Columbus said, voice a chilled cellar. "For all of you."
Dimon's lips curved—and his shadow bloomed.
Domain Expansion.
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