Chapter 333
Zaraki drew the rough katana from his waist.
The blade looked almost crude compared with the weapons surrounding him, but Inuarashi and Nekomamushi both felt the atmosphere change the instant steel cleared the sheath.
Zaraki’s grip tightened.
“Drink, Nozarashi.”
Dark-gold Reiatsu surged along the blade.
The weapon broadened violently, its guard disappearing as the sealed katana transformed into the enormous chipped cleaver both Law and Issho had already seen in serious battles.
Then Zaraki placed both hands around the hilt.
That posture meant something simple.
He was finished testing them.
The muscles in his arms tightened and Nozarashi came down in one brutal two-handed swing.
Dark-gold sword pressure erupted from its chipped edge, compressing the surrounding air until the clearing screamed beneath it.
There was no finesse and no complicated technique behind the attack, only overwhelming force given an edge sharp enough to tear straight through whatever stood ahead.
Nekomamushi’s vertical pupils contracted.
“Old dog, MOVE, meow!”
He reacted immediately.
Electro raced along his trident as he swung sideways, trying to knock Inuarashi clear of the incoming slash.
Inuarashi responded at the same instant.
Armament Haki darkened his blade as he brought it up, refusing to abandon Nekomamushi even though the two of them would normally rather bite through their own tongues than cooperate.
At the brink of disaster, twenty years of resentment suddenly mattered much less than survival.
Their weapons crossed.
Haki and Electro surged together.
Then Zaraki’s slash hit.
BOOOOM—!!
The clearing disappeared beneath the impact.
Ancient trees were ripped from the earth while dirt, splintered wood, and pulverized stone surged into the air
. A deep trench tore through the ground beyond the two rulers, stopping only after cutting far into the forest.
Zaraki remained exactly where he had swung.
The recoil traveled up both arms and left his fingers faintly numb, but nothing more.
Two bodies shot backward through the smoke.
Inuarashi struck the ground first and slid across the dirt before dropping to one knee.
Blood ran from the torn webbing between his fingers while his sword vibrated violently in his grip.
Nekomamushi had been thrown even farther.
His enormous body carved a trench through the ground, and the bracer protecting his remaining arm had cracked apart under the impact.
Scorched patches of fur gave off the sharp smell of burned hair where his own Electro had discharged unpredictably during the collision.
Wanda, Shishilian, and the other minks could only stare.
Their rulers were nearly unbeatable in their eyes.
Yet a single heavy slash had thrown both away.
Zaraki rolled one shoulder.
“That’s better than Pedro.”
Nekomamushi spat blood into the dirt.
Inuarashi forced himself upright.
Zaraki took another step.
“What happened to all that killing intent?”
His golden eyes sharpened.
“You’ve spent twenty years wanting Kaido dead. Is this what you were planning to bring to Wano?”
Inuarashi’s expression twisted.
“You understand nothing about what happened there.”
“No.”
Zaraki did not deny it.
“And I don’t need to.”
His voice hardened.
“You want revenge. That part I understand.”
He lifted Nozarashi slightly.
“But if this is all you’ve got, Kaido will turn you into drinking snacks before you ever reach him.”
Inuarashi started forward.
Nekomamushi’s remaining paw closed around his shoulder.
“Old dog.”
The cat mink breathed heavily.
“Stop.”
Inuarashi glared at him.
Nekomamushi stared toward Zaraki.
“That slash wasn’t everything he had, meow.”
His voice was lower now.
“If we keep fighting separately, we lose separately.”
For several seconds, neither ruler spoke.
Twenty years of blame remained between them.
Nothing about one battle could erase what Oden’s death and their own failure had done to their relationship.
But they could put it aside for a few minutes.
That was enough.
Nekomamushi stepped beside Inuarashi.
Zaraki noticed immediately.
His grin returned.
“Finally.”
The rulers attacked together.
There was no rehearsed combination created through twenty years of joint practice.
They had spent those same twenty years refusing even to remain awake during the same half of the day.
What emerged instead was instinct born from older memories.
Inuarashi shaped his swordplay around the Oden-style forms he still remembered, while Nekomamushi drove his Electro-coated trident through the openings that appeared naturally around the dog mink’s blade.
The coordination was rough.
It was also far more dangerous than their separate attacks.
Sword light and Electro crossed the clearing from opposite directions and converged on Zaraki.
He raised Nozarashi.
CLANG—!!
The broad chipped blade caught Inuarashi’s sword.
A heartbeat later, Nekomamushi’s trident smashed into its lower edge.
Electro burst across the metal.
Dark-gold Reiatsu surged in answer.
The collision drove Zaraki’s feet several inches into the ground, but he did not retreat.
“That’s it?”
He pushed.
Both rulers were forced backward.
“If Kozuki Oden saw you two trying to kill Kaido while still thinking more about each other than the enemy in front of you…”
His grin became cruel.
“He’d probably climb out of his grave just to beat some sense into you.”
“YOU BASTARD!”
Inuarashi’s rage erupted.
But this time Nekomamushi did not answer the provocation by losing formation.
Instead, the cat mink shifted immediately to Inuarashi’s blind side and attacked again.
Zaraki’s expression brightened.
Better.
Much better.
Their attacks came faster.
Nozarashi intercepted one, then the other.
Steel rang repeatedly through the trees.
At last, Inuarashi abruptly stepped back and lowered his stance.
“Nekomamushi.”
The cat mink understood.
Not because they had spent twenty years practicing together, but because both remembered the same man.
The same battle.
The same impossible sword stroke.
Nekomamushi rotated his trident.
Electro intensified around its points.
Inuarashi raised his sword.
His Haki hardened.
“This won’t be Oden-sama’s true technique,” he said through clenched teeth.
Nekomamushi bared his fangs.
“Doesn’t have to be, meow.”
They moved.
Inuarashi reproduced the remembered line of Oden’s sword strike as closely as his one-blade style allowed, while Nekomamushi crossed his trident through the opposite angle and forced his Electro into the same trajectory.
A rough imitation.
An homage rather than the original.
Yet the will behind it was real.
“Togen—!”
“TOTSUKA!!”
The two attacks crossed.
A colossal X-shaped wave of sword pressure, Haki, and Electro tore toward Zaraki.
The air distorted beneath its passage.
Trees bent away before it even arrived.
For the first time since the confrontation began, genuine heat entered Zaraki’s eyes.
“Now that…”
Both hands tightened around Nozarashi.
“…looks worth blocking.”
He planted his feet.
The enormous chipped blade rose horizontally.
Dark-gold Reiatsu compressed tightly along the weapon instead of spreading outward wastefully.
The combined strike reached him.
Then the clearing vanished inside a flash of light.