"Drake..." Shiki muttered the name under his breath, feeling an inexplicable sense of familiarity stir in his mind.
"Hey, what are you doing all the way out here? This place is extremely dangerous, you know," Drake said, eyeing the old man with genuine puzzlement.
He had arrived only moments ago. His very first sight upon arrival had been the Demon Warder, but before he could make a move, the vessel had plunged straight beneath the icy waves.
Yet he hadn't anticipated running into another living soul out here. Did this old man have no sense of self-preservation?
Given Shiki's battered, blood-soaked state—his features swollen beyond all recognition—Drake failed entirely to recognize that the pathetic figure before him was the legendary Golden Lion who had shaken the world for decades.
A titan from the golden era of Roger and Whitebeard.
"What am I doing here? I should be asking you that question!" Shiki shot Drake a thoroughly annoyed glare before slumping back down onto the floating stone, leisurely and unbothered.
In his eyes, both he and this strange brat were dead men walking anyway. There was no point in trading idle chatter; he might as well use this borrowed time to take in the sight of the world one last time.
In all the decades he had roamed the seas, he had never once gazed upon the world with such serene, undisturbed peace.
Perhaps this was the quiet nostalgia mortals clung to when facing their final hour.
"Care for a drink?" Shiki asked abruptly.
Offering his liquor to an outsider was unprecedented for him—a fleeting gesture to share a final drink with a companion before crossing into the next world.
"As for drinking, I'll pass," Drake declined without hesitation.
What a joke. He was on the verge of waging a decisive, world-shaking battle against Im; this was hardly the time to be cracking open liquor bottles.
Through bitter, blood-soaked experience, he had come to understand the absolute truth behind the saying: Alcohol always ruins the mission.
That curse seemed practically custom-tailored to him—the moment he took a sip of alcohol, disaster inevitably struck without fail.
If he wanted to drink, it would have to wait until Im was thoroughly eradicated.
When that hour arrived, he would drink to his heart's content, downing as much as he pleased!
"I suggest you get out of here as fast as you can. Things are about to get very ugly," Drake offered kindly.
"Hm?" Shiki's eyes cracked open into narrow slits, muttering in a slurred, raspy rumble, "Do you really think you need to tell me that?"
"In this entire East Blue, where could you possibly find a safe harbor? It's all the same hell..."
"Fair point," Drake nodded in agreement, though his intent had been entirely misunderstood.
While they were currently stationed some distance away from Im's primary coordinates, the moment he engaged her in earnest, this entire airspace would be swallowed by the collateral destruction.
That was the sole reason he was urging this old-timer to flee.
Weighing the matter, Drake felt he couldn't simply leave an elderly stranger behind to be caught in the blast wave. "A cataclysmic clash is about to erupt right here. You'd better vacate the area immediately."
"A cataclysmic clash?"
Hearing those words, Shiki's eyes snapped wide open before he shook his head with a mocking, self-deprecating chuckle. "Impossible. It's completely impossible..."
"If even that mechanical monster earlier was no match for her, there isn't a soul left alive in this world capable of fighting that woman."
"Oh? You mean that construct from earlier? No, it hasn't lost—and it never will!" Drake stated with absolute, unshakeable conviction.
"You say it hasn't lost? Hah, quit dreaming, kid! That construct is clearly the manifestation of a Devil Fruit ability. It fell into the ocean quite some time ago—by now, it's finished."
"If you don't believe me, just wait and see." Drake slowly raised a hand, fingers splayed. "Five!"
"Hm?" Shiki stared at Drake in bafflement.
Drake smiled faintly, curling a finger down. "Four!"
"Three!"
"Could it be...?" Seeing Drake's utter confidence, a sudden thought struck Shiki. He whipped his head around toward the sector where the Demon Warder had breached the ice.
The ocean surface remained entirely still.
A sharp wave of hollow disappointment washed over Shiki's tense heart—a reaction that bewildered even himself.
Resolving to pay this lunatic no further mind, he squeezed his eyes shut and tipped another generous swig of liquor down his throat.
"Two!" Drake continued the count.
For reasons he couldn't explain, the moment the count of two faded, Shiki's heart skipped a beat, a surge of raw anxiety seizing his chest once more.
Even so, he refused to believe the vessel could breach the surface again.
Every soul who sailed the Grand Line knew the iron law: the sea stripped all Devil Fruit users of their power.
There were no exceptions beneath the heavens.
Then, Drake's voice dropped the final syllable:
"One!"
Almost instinctively, Shiki snapped his eyes open, staring fixedly at the icy expanse.
Nothing. Absolute silence.
Shiki chuckled at his own foolishness. How could he have put stock in the delusional ravings of an arrogant brat? Such a miracle was physically impossible.
He tilted the flask for another gulp.
KABOOM!
A concussive detonation tore through the sea. A colossal, blindingly fast silhouette smashed through the frozen crust, rocketing into the stratosphere with unstoppable momentum.
It was none other than the Demon Warder!
PFFFT!!
Every drop of liquor Shiki had just swallowed sprayed violently from his mouth.
It... it actually broke out of the sea!
"Catch you later, old man! You'd better clear out right now, or you won't be leaving at all," Drake waved toward Shiki, vanishing from the floating rock in the fraction of a microsecond.
"Where the hell did he go?!" Shiki's eyes bulged in pure horror.
By then, Drake had already materialized within the command bridge of the Demon Warder.
"Drake!"
Kenshin and the others cried out in overwhelming joy.
His arrival could not have been more impeccably timed.
"Yeah! I'm back," Drake nodded toward his crew, his gaze ultimately settling on Kuzan, who stood at the primary pilot station.
A trail of fresh crimson trickled down the former Admiral's chin, and his chest heaved in violent, ragged gasps.
He had been pushed to his absolute physiological limit!
Had he not been shielded by the terrifying defensive parameters of the Demon Warder, he would have been a dead man several times over.
Im's combat prowess had shattered his wildest expectations. Kuzan realized with chilling certainty that had Im genuinely intended to kill him during the Battle of the Holy Land, a single strike would have snuffed out his life on the spot!
It was a reality he had never dared to imagine.
Killing an Admiral of the Marines in a single strike was an absurd impossibility—unprecedented in all of history.
"Leave the rest to me!" Drake said solemnly.
Kuzan locked eyes with Drake for a long moment before nodding with heavy trust. "Understood!"
"Refueling the Demon Warder!" Drake bellowed. Sweeping his arm forward, five Senzu Beans manifested in his palm.
"Swallow these immediately! I'll take care of everything else!"
With that, Drake engaged full neural synchronization—the Unity of Man and Vessel—vaulting the Demon Warder straight into the heavens in a blaze of blinding light.
"Im! Let's settle this once and for all!"
His roar tore clean through the dense layers of black mist, echoing directly in front of Im's celestial visage.
"Hm?! You've finally shown yourself!"
Im's form blurred, transmuting into a streak of black laser light that shot straight toward the Demon Warder with catastrophic speed.
Two radiant beams cleaved through the gloom, hurtling toward each other in a head-on collision...
Loguetown.
Amidst the screaming crowds and chaotic ruins lining the streets, a blinding beam of light plunged from the heavens, blasting a colossal, yawning crater straight into the cobblestone plaza.
BOOM!
The concussive shockwave swept everything in the vicinity off its feet, hurling debris and bodies into the air.
"Aaargh...!"
"What happened?! What is going on?!"
"Something just fell out of the sky!"
As the dense dust clouds gradually cleared, an enormous, unmistakable paw print was revealed stamped deep into the shattered earth.
"WHAT ON EARTH IS THAT?!"
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