Those two words carried across the avenue with the immovable weight of mountains, and for several seconds, no one reacted.
Zaraki shifted Nozarashi from one shoulder to the other and looked toward the two Giants with obvious interest.
Dorry the Blue Ogre stood at the front of the enormous transport platform beside Brogy the Red Ogre, both ancient warriors with their arms folded across their chests.
"The Government offered our crew one Warlord charter," Dorry said.
"But warriors of Elbaf do not accept hunts like this," Brogy added, his expression hardening.
Dorry nodded. "Then the Giant Warrior Pirates relinquish that charter."
"Gababababa!" Brogy grinned. "If keeping it means ganging up on a warrior because some old men ordered us to, they can keep the damned thing!"
"Gegyagyagyagya! Exactly!"
It was the first open refusal.
Nusjuro's face barely changed, but the murderous aura surrounding him immediately sharpened.
"Very well. I expected your kind to be troublesome." His voice grew colder as he looked from one Giant to the other. "If you insist on turning against the authority that legitimized you, then you may share his fate."
Dorry and Brogy remained unmoved.
For men who had spent a century fighting each other over a forgotten argument, threats had long since lost much of their value.
"Anyone else?" Nusjuro asked, sweeping his gaze across the gathered Warlords. "Choose carefully."
A scornful laugh came from the Kuja delegation as Boa Hancock stepped forward with one hand resting on her hip, unconcealed contempt on her beautiful face.
"I had assumed this summons might be worth my time."
Her eyes passed over the CP0 agents, the blood staining Mary Geoise, and finally Nusjuro himself.
"Instead, you gathered pirates here and ordered them to tear apart one of your own Marines after deliberately provoking him." She raised her chin. "How vulgar."
Nusjuro's expression tightened, but Hancock continued before he could answer.
"I have no intention of participating." Her lips curved faintly. "And whatever I choose to do, I will be forgiven."
Zaraki almost laughed. 'There it is.'
Nusjuro's gaze hardened further, but before he could respond, Jinbe stepped forward.
The Fish-Man faced Zaraki and gave him a formal bow.
"Fish-Man Island owes Zaraki a debt that can never be repaid." He straightened and turned his eyes toward Nusjuro. "I will not raise my fists against our benefactor. If the title of Warlord requires that betrayal, then I have no need for it."
With three refusals, the atmosphere had completely changed.
Nusjuro had assembled the Warlords to ensure Zaraki's execution, only to find his own pieces turning against him.
"You miserable pirates," he said, his voice dropping before his control finally cracked.
His hand tightened around the sheath at his side.
"Moria. Mihawk. Carry out the order." His eyes swept toward Dorry, Brogy, Hancock, and Jinbe.
"Anyone who interferes will be treated as an enemy of the World Government."
"I refuse." The colder voice drew every gaze toward Dracule Mihawk, who stood apart from the others with one hand resting loosely against Yoru, his hawk-like eyes fixed on Nusjuro.
"Our duel already settled what I wanted to know about Zaraki."
Zaraki glanced at him as Mihawk continued. "I did not come here to serve as an executioner simply because the World Government has decided its own Marine has become inconvenient."
His gaze flickered briefly toward Zaraki. "If you intend to settle this with swords, do it yourselves."
A muscle twitched in Nusjuro's face.
Mihawk had already fought Zaraki and lost the title that had defined him since before most people on these seas were born.
Yet rather than resent Zaraki enough to help kill him, he seemed almost insulted by the Government's attempt to reduce their rivalry to an assassination.
"I also refuse," said a flat voice nearby.
Bartholomew Kuma closed the Bible in his hands, offering no explanation, and nothing in his expression revealed his reasons.
Nusjuro stared at him as yet another of his pieces slipped away.
"Ki-shi-shi-shi!" Moria's shrill laugh broke in as the enormous pirate looked from Nusjuro to Zaraki, then toward the shattered remains of the avenue.
Only recently, Zaraki had torn through his zombies and defeated Ryuma, and Moria had no desire to discover what would happen if he personally stood in the way this time.
"I'm not suicidal!" He threw both hands into the air. "You can have the damned title! Ki-shi-shi! I'm staying out of this!"
He immediately retreated several steps, putting as much distance as possible between himself and the center of the battlefield.
The gathering fell silent.
Dorry and Brogy had rejected their single shared charter, and Hancock, Jinbe, Mihawk, Kuma, and Moria had all refused to fight.
Only one man remained, and every gaze slowly shifted toward Marshall D. Teach, the newest Warlord, who had accepted the World Government's offer after murdering one of Whitebeard's sons and fleeing his former family.
"Zeha... haha..." Teach's booming laughter faded as he looked from one Warlord to another.
For the first time since arriving, his grin looked considerably less certain.
Zaraki lowered Nozarashi from his shoulder, the rough sealed blade scraping across the white stone.
Teach's eyes immediately returned to him, and Zaraki smiled. "Looks like your first day on the job is going well."
Teach's face twitched.
With everyone in the avenue watching him, his grin lingered for a few awkward seconds, but even Blackbeard could not ignore what had just happened.
The Government had assembled an execution force, and almost everyone in it had refused to carry out the execution.
Its newest Warlord was now the only one still willing to follow Nusjuro's order.
Zaraki rested Nozarashi against his shoulder, his golden eyes gleaming.
"Hey, newest Warlord. What happened? Your funeral procession lose everyone except the guy carrying the coffin?"
"You're dead!" Teach's humiliation flared into anger, and black smoke erupted around his body.
"ZEHAHAHAHA! Don't start thinking you've won just because a few cowards lost their nerve!" He thrust one hand forward. "I've got the strongest darkness in the world! Black Vortex!"
The gravitational force seized Zaraki immediately, snapping his coat forward and ripping loose stones from the ground toward Teach.
His boots ground several inches through the white pavement before he planted his weight.
'Strong pull.'
The darkness continued dragging at him as he looked down at his boots, then back toward Teach with a grin.
Instead of continuing to resist, he took a step forward, then another, walking directly into the pull and using its force to accelerate his approach.
"What—?" Teach's eyes widened.
He had expected his opponent to struggle, but Zaraki was letting the Dark-Dark Fruit bring him closer.
"ZEHAHAHA! Fine! Come here, then!" He reached toward Zaraki as his darkness intensified.
"If those weird powers of yours come from a Devil Fruit, the second I touch you—"
"Who told you I ate one?"
Teach froze, but Zaraki was already within his reach, and the realization came too late.
Without a Devil Fruit power to nullify, Teach's darkness could do nothing to weaken Zaraki's raw strength, Haki, Reiatsu, or any of his other abilities.
"Try pulling this." Zaraki brought Nozarashi down in a brutal slash wrapped in compressed dark-gold Reiatsu, using no complicated technique.
"GAAAAAAAH!" Teach screamed as the blade tore through his flesh, blood erupting across his chest.
The blow hurled him backward into a damaged palace wall, and the Dark-Dark Fruit's unusual drawback amplified the pain beyond what the injury alone would have caused.
He hit the stone and howled, clutching the wound as he rolled through the rubble.
"What the hell...?!" He forced himself upright, blood running between his fingers. "How are you not an ability user?!"
Zaraki walked slowly toward him, and somehow that only made Teach more afraid.
The darkness had dragged Zaraki toward him exactly as intended; the problem was that he had pulled in an opponent who would lose none of his strength on contact.
"No..." Teach's expression twisted as he slammed both palms against the ground.
"Black Hole!"
Darkness spread outward across the stone, swallowing broken masonry, shattered weapons, and debris as though the ground had become a bottomless pit.
Zaraki watched it approach, then burst forward through sheer physical acceleration, without using Soru or transforming into lightning.
The stone cracked beneath his foot as he cleared the expanding darkness before it could swallow the ground where he stood.
Teach barely had time to raise his head before Nozarashi swung again.
A second dark-gold slash tore through the rubble being dragged toward Black Hole and continued straight toward him.
"GAAAAAH!" Teach went tumbling across the avenue, crashing shoulder-first through a decorative wall and rolling until his massive body finally came to a stop beside a pile of broken marble.
For several seconds, he lay motionless.
Then his hands began to tremble with fear, and his carefully built ambition, the Warlord title, and every plan he had imagined for the future suddenly seemed very far away.
"No... Don't come closer." Teach stared at Zaraki as he continued walking toward him, his breathing growing ragged.
When Zaraki raised Nozarashi, Teach's remaining composure collapsed, and he turned toward Nusjuro.
"SAINT NUSJURO!" His voice cracked. "SAVE ME! PLEASE!"
The desperate plea echoed through Mary Geoise.
Nusjuro's face was rigid with fury; the trap he had assembled had failed and humiliated the World Government in front of kings, Marines, pirates, and Cipher Pol.
Dorry and Brogy had abandoned their charter, Hancock and Jinbe had rejected theirs, and Mihawk and Kuma had refused his orders.
Moria had practically thrown his title away to escape the fight, while the Government's newest appointment lay in his own blood, begging to be rescued.
As Zaraki raised his blade, Nusjuro finally moved.
"Enough."
The word carried enough Haki to make the remaining rubble tremble, and his hand closed fully around Shodai Kitetsu.
The old swordsman's presence sharpened until everyone nearby instinctively understood that the Elder himself was entering the battle.
"Since the pieces proved useless, I will execute you personally," Nusjuro said as he drew his sword.