Chapter 341
An invisible wave spread outward from Issho's cane sword.
It was not the crushing pressure of Conqueror's Haki or the razor-edged force of a swordsman's slash.
This was something more fundamental, a crushing heaviness that seemed to close around every inch of the surrounding sea until the world itself began to grow still.
The air thickened almost instantly.
The roar of the waves sank into a strange, muffled rumble, while even the enormous whirlpools churning beneath Wano's waterfall visibly slowed under forces they had no way to resist.
For the first time, genuine disbelief appeared across Nekomamushi's normally wild face.
He felt the warship trembling beneath his feet, but this was not the ordinary rocking produced by waves.
A strange lightness was rising from below, steadily stripping the enormous vessel of its weight.
Nekomamushi instinctively seized the railing and looked down.
His pupils contracted into narrow vertical slits.
The warship was leaving the sea.
Slowly and steadily, the massive hull lifted free of the water as seawater streamed from its sides. Yet it was not the only thing rising.
Scattered around the enormous waterfall were the wrecks of countless pirate ships, ancient remains that had long been trapped within Wano's murderous currents.
Some were little more than rotting fragments, while others still retained sections of masts, torn sails, and rusted chains.
Now all of them began breaking free from the water at once.
Huge planks rose first, followed by shattered masts and entire portions of ruined bows.
Bent iron chains rattled through the air, and seawater poured from the floating wreckage in freezing sheets, carrying splinters and debris downward like an unnatural rain.
Duke Inuarashi stared upward with his mouth slightly open.
The usually composed ruler looked genuinely stunned.
The Beasts Pirates had deliberately left many of those wrecks around Wano's entrance as warnings.
They were trophies and gravestones built from failure and death, monuments to every crew foolish enough to challenge Kaido's territory.
Now, with little more than a movement of his sword, Issho had transformed those symbols of defeat into weapons.
The rulers of Zou had once proudly considered themselves retainers of the Kozuki Clan and warriors capable of standing among the strongest fighters on the sea, yet what they were witnessing seemed to overturn the laws of the world.
To them, Issho's Devil Fruit no longer resembled a mere supernatural ability. It looked almost like the work of a god.
Nekomamushi swallowed hard as his eyes shifted from the perfectly relaxed Issho to Zaraki, whose expression remained utterly unconcerned.
Something deeper than admiration rose inside him.
Reverence.
Inuarashi was thinking much the same thing.
'With monsters like these fighting beside us, reclaiming Wano really isn't impossible anymore.'
Issho continued without changing expression.
His wrist lifted slightly, and the enormous warship rose with it until the entire vessel floated high above the murderous currents.
Around it, hundreds upon hundreds of ruined hulls and broken ship parts gathered into three enormous masses, forming dark clouds of steel and rotting timber that spread across the sky.
Farther behind them, another intact vessel also began to rise.
It was the rebuilt longship of the Giant Warrior Pirates.
Dorry and Brogy had answered Zaraki's Den Den Mushi call during the final approach to Wano, agreeing to repay the warrior's debt they still owed him by taking part in the coming battle.
Their refusal of the World Government's Warlord charter at Mary Geoise had left them free to make that choice for themselves.
Neither giant had joined Zaraki's crew. Dorry and Brogy remained co-captains of the Giant Warrior Pirates in their own right.
For this battle, however, they had agreed to fight beside him.
That was part of the "large surprise" Zaraki had mentioned before Ace returned to the Moby Dick.
Issho's gravitational field took hold of the giants' longship as well, carrying both intact vessels above the whirlpools while the vast cloud of wreckage followed behind them.
Every fragment cut through the air with a shrill whistle as the strange formation crossed above the waterfall and approached Wano's summit.
...
At the same time, inside a Beasts Pirates monitoring station overlooking Wano's entrance, the room was thick with cigar smoke and the sour smell of cheap alcohol.
Dozens of Den Den Mushi display screens covered the walls, broadcasting live images of the deadly whirlpools surrounding the waterfall.
"Hey, Queen."
A tall man wearing a horned mask lounged with both feet propped carelessly on the control panel, blowing out a lazy ring of smoke.
It was Who's-Who.
"How long are we supposed to sit around here doing nothing? This is boring as hell. Kaido-sama and Linlin are holding the biggest alliance banquet in years on Onigashima, and we're stuck babysitting a waterfall."
A grin appeared beneath his mask.
"Once this guard duty is over, seems like the perfect time to settle who gets that empty third All-Star position while we're at it."
The room immediately became quieter.
Black Maria, seated nearby, idly played with a strand of long black hair and said nothing, although a meaningful smile appeared on her lips. Sasaki merely snorted and continued polishing his sword, cold light running along the blade, while Ulti and Page One kept bickering as though they had not heard the conversation.
Only X Drake reacted subtly, his eyes flashing behind his lenses as his posture straightened almost imperceptibly.
One of the three All-Star positions had remained vacant ever since Jack had been killed by Zaraki. Since then, every ambitious officer among the Beasts Pirates had been eyeing the position.
Whoever claimed it would stand among Kaido's greatest combatants.
"MUHAHAHAHA!"
A massive figure sat nearby with an enormous bowl of oshiruko, shoveling red-bean soup and rice cakes into his mouth by the handful.
Queen the Plague.
One of the Beasts Pirates' remaining All-Stars.
"Who's-Who, you've got some ambition, don't you? You think the All-Star position is something you win by drinking at a banquet?"
Queen swallowed another mouthful before his expression became more serious.
"Kaido-sama left us here because Wano's outer defenses still matter. Whitebeard is moving, Red-Hair's people are active, and that War Demon from the East Blue received an invitation too. Until Kaido-sama sends new orders from Onigashima, all of you stay right where you are and don't do anything stupid."
"Tch."
Who's-Who clicked his tongue but said nothing else, though the ambition in his eyes only grew stronger.
Queen scooped up another handful of oshiruko and shoved it into his mouth before his gaze casually drifted toward the main surveillance screen.
His chewing stopped.
"Hm?"
A rare look of irritation appeared across his face.
"What the hell? Why did the screen go dark?"
Queen leaned forward, then roared loudly enough to make several guards flinch.
"HEY! YOU USELESS BASTARDS! DID THE DEN DEN MUSHI FALL ASLEEP?! FIND OUT WHAT'S GOING ON!"
One unfortunate subordinate scrambled toward a periscope-style surveillance Den Den Mushi and nervously pressed his eye against the viewer.
Then he froze.
His entire body went rigid. A heartbeat later, he began trembling uncontrollably, the blood draining from his face until his skin became paper-white.
Queen's expression grew impatient.
"Oi! Did your tongue fall out?! What the hell do you see?!"
The subordinate tore himself away from the viewer and collapsed backward onto the floor, one shaking finger pointing upward.
"L-Lord Queen..."
His teeth chattered.
"ENEMY ATTACK!"
Everyone went still.
"There's... there's no rain coming down from the sky!"
His eyes bulged.
"IT'S SHIPS! SHIPS ARE FALLING FROM THE SKY!"
Silence followed.
Who's-Who, Black Maria, Sasaki, and the others instinctively looked upward.
Ships were falling from the sky?
Had this idiot been drinking?
Queen reacted differently. His enormous body moved with speed completely at odds with his size as he shot out of his chair, shoved the guard aside, and jammed his face against the surveillance viewer.
The moment he looked through it, his eyes nearly burst out of his head.
The clear blue sky had disappeared beneath an enormous black mass.
Not clouds.
Ships.
Hundreds upon hundreds of shipwrecks of every possible size were suspended overhead: broken masts, twisted hulls, crushed decks, savage figureheads, and the same wrecks that had once floated beneath Wano's waterfall as warnings to defeated intruders.
Now they hung upside down across the heavens like a fleet of the dead.
At the center of the formation floated a single intact warship bearing old Marine markings, and farther behind it hung an enormous longship built on a scale no ordinary human crew could possibly require.
Queen's blood ran cold.
"Marines...?"
Then the wreckage began descending.
Slowly at first, then faster.
Straight toward Wano's fortified entrance.
A freezing sensation shot from the base of Queen's spine to the top of his skull. The mouthful of oshiruko he had been enjoying suddenly tasted like boiling fear.
"PFFFFT—!!"
Queen spun around and spat the entire mouthful across the room in a shower of rice cakes and saliva.
The goofy confidence normally plastered across his face disappeared.
"ENEMY ATTACK!!"
His already high-pitched voice became so shrill that it hurt everyone's ears.
"GET OUT OF HERE! MOVE!"
The others stared at him.
Queen did not wait.
He did not reach for his favorite weapon or attempt to hold the monitoring station. He knew exactly what sort of man used a former Marine warship and traveled with monsters capable of making ships fly.
His enormous body turned into a runaway ball of flesh as he smashed through the heavy door and fled into the fortified corridor.
One of the Beasts Pirates' All-Stars was running without even considering a direct confrontation.
That alone told everyone enough.
Who's-Who, Black Maria, Sasaki, and the others went pale almost simultaneously.
"MOVE!"
Who's-Who abandoned every thought of ambition or promotion and bolted after him.
"HEY! WAIT FOR ME!"
Ulti screamed as she grabbed Page One by the hand and dragged him along.
The monitoring station descended into chaos. Guards abandoned weapons and equipment, while the Tobi Roppo forgot their usual arrogance and shoved through the narrow corridors in a stampede toward the deeper fortifications.
They had barely disappeared around the bend when the rumbling overhead became deafening.
Then the sky fell.
BOOOOOOOOM—!!!
Hundreds of wrecked ships descended like meteors hurled by some furious god and slammed into the fortified entrance with overwhelming force.
The surrounding cliffs cracked instantly. Spiderweb fractures spread through solid rock as hidden fortifications behind the waterfall vanished beneath a descending mass of wood, steel, and shattered stone.
Water exploded upward into enormous clouds of mist as the bombardment tore through the defenses.
Splintered timber, broken iron, shattered stone, and fragments of hull merged into a violent storm that blotted out the sky.
The island trembled beneath the impacts.
Above the devastation, however, the two intact ships remained suspended safely within Issho's gravitational field.
When the smoke and water vapor slowly began to clear, an enormous breach had appeared through Wano's outer defenses.
The first note of the invasion had finally sounded.
And the storm unleashed by Zaraki and Issho had only just begun.