Chapter 343
That mountain-heavy fluctuation vanished almost as soon as it appeared, so quickly that Inuarashi nearly convinced himself he had imagined it.
He glanced sideways.
Issho still stood with one hand resting on his cane sword, his sightless eyes facing calmly forward.
His expression had not changed in the slightest, as though holding two ships aloft while diverting the aftermath of Hakoku Sovereignty had been nothing more than a passing inconvenience.
The delayed roar finally rolled back from the surrounding cliffs.
BOOOOM—!!
Dust, shattered stone, and fragments of the remaining fortifications surged skyward.
Rock that had taken the direct force of the giants' attack had been crushed into powder, while larger pieces tumbled through the haze.
The expected debris never reached the warship.
Issho's gravity quietly caught the largest fragments and dragged them away from the hull, while the smaller pieces lost enough momentum to fall harmlessly into the surrounding ruins.
Nekomamushi stared through the haze at the battered Tobi Roppo scattered below.
That was it?
Those were the officers whose names had once been enough to terrify countless samurai in Wano.
They had barely managed to mount a defense before two giants swept them aside.
For a moment, the fire of vengeance inside Nekomamushi's chest cooled, replaced by something almost absurdly hollow.
He and Inuarashi had spent years enduring, preparing, and dreaming of one day leading the finest warriors of the Mokomo Dukedom into Wano, where they would tear apart the Beasts Pirates' defenses with their own claws and teeth.
Reality had just shown them how little years of hatred mattered when genuinely overwhelming strength entered the battlefield.
And the most terrifying part was that Zaraki himself had hardly moved.
Nekomamushi slowly looked toward the bow.
"Tch. One got away."
Zaraki's casual remark shattered the silence.
His gaze pierced the drifting smoke and locked onto a large figure stumbling frantically through the wreckage toward the interior.
Queen.
The All-Star was running for his life with surprising speed despite his enormous body. One hand clutched a specially modified Den Den Mushi while his mechanical arm hammered at its controls.
"KAIDO-SAMA! WE'VE GOT A DISASTER!"
Queen's shrill voice cracked with panic.
"THE WAR DEMON BREACHED THE WATERFALL! THE TOBI ROPPO ARE DOWN! SEND REINFORCEMENTS TO THE ENTRANCE!"
Static crackled through the receiver.
Then a thunderous voice began answering.
"QUEEN! WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU—"
Queen never heard the rest.
Issho had begun lowering the warship toward the shattered ground, and Zaraki used the descending distance to launch himself from the bow.
He did not use an elaborate technique.
His body simply became a black streak crossing the remaining gap.
Several hundred meters disappeared almost instantly.
"Hey."
A cold voice sounded beside Queen's ear.
"Finished with your call?"
Queen's pupils shrank to pinpoints.
The voice was close enough for him to smell the faint trace of alcohol on Zaraki's breath.
A hand came down on Queen's mechanical shoulder.
For one horrifying instant, the All-Star felt as though a falling star had landed on him.
His knees slammed into the ground, cracking the rock beneath them.
"Z-Zaraki! You can't—"
The plea never finished.
Nozarashi left its sheath.
Dark Armament Haki and compressed Reiatsu hardened along the rough blade as Zaraki swung once across Queen's throat.
There was almost no resistance.
Queen's head left his shoulders.
The Den Den Mushi tumbled from his hand, still carrying the beginning of Kaido's furious response.
Zaraki brought one foot down.
Crunch.
The receiver disappeared beneath his heel.
A familiar electronic chime sounded privately inside his mind.
[High-value combat target eliminated: Queen the Plague.]
[Combat evaluation registered.]
[Reward calculation pending conclusion of immediate hostilities.]
The violence in Zaraki's eyes softened into a much more familiar sort of satisfaction.
Queen had been one of Kaido's All-Stars.
Whatever the system eventually awarded for him, it should at least be worth something.
There was no synchronization percentage left to increase.
Zaraki's Kenpachi template had reached 100% long ago, and the system had already stopped pretending otherwise.
At this point, meaningful victories were useful for points, combat evaluations, and whatever other rewards the shop decided to dangle in front of him.
"Not bad."
He flicked the blood from Nozarashi and returned it to its sheath.
"Captain! You finished things quickly over here."
A bright voice came through the lingering smoke.
Carina emerged with an extravagantly long sniper rifle in her hands, accompanied by several members of the crew. Law followed behind her with Kikoku resting across one shoulder, his expression considerably more serious.
Zaraki turned to answer, then immediately noticed that Carina's normally mischievous expression had tightened.
Both hands gripped her observation scope firmly, and her gaze remained fixed on a lonely watchtower several kilometers away.
"What?"
Zaraki raised an eyebrow.
"Spot somebody you know?"
"I missed."
Carina bit her lip.
"During the explosion from Hakoku Sovereignty, I found somebody in that tower. White mask, black suit. Definitely not one of Kaido's ordinary lookouts."
Law's expression sharpened.
"Cipher Pol?"
"That's what it looked like."
Carina adjusted the scope.
"With that distance, wind, and vibration, I knew exactly where the shot would land. The bullet wasn't going to miss."
Her eyes narrowed.
"But right before impact, the target dropped below the window. Not sideways. Down."
She pointed toward the base of the distant structure.
"There must be a concealed shaft or escape route inside the tower. By the time I corrected my aim, their presence had already moved beneath the rock."
Zaraki looked toward the ruined watchtower.
That made considerably more sense than someone simply vanishing from existence.
The Government had used Kaido before. Nusjuro had contacted the Beasts Pirates through secure channels more than once, and Dapus's Aegis units specialized in operating where official World Government involvement was never supposed to be visible.
If a masked observer had been stationed at Wano's entrance during the alliance banquet, Mary Geoise's connection to Kaido went deeper than a few occasional Den Den Mushi calls.
Carina's expression remained tight.
"If they got a transmission out before leaving the tower, Mary Geoise may already know we're inside Wano."
"They were going to know soon anyway."
Zaraki rested one hand on her shoulder.
"We just dropped a graveyard on Kaido's front door. Keeping the entire invasion secret stopped being an option the moment we did that."
Carina looked at him.
"Our secondary objective wasn't to keep Mary Geoise ignorant forever. It was to find the channel connecting them to Kaido and break as much of it as we could before the real fight started."
Zaraki glanced once more toward the tower.
"Now we know there really is one."
A faint grin returned to his face.
"A miss is a miss. But sometimes making the rat run tells you where the hole is."
Carina exhaled slowly and lowered the rifle.
The frustration did not disappear, but it became considerably easier to swallow.
Zaraki turned toward the interior of Wano.
"Come on."
His gaze hardened.
"We're already inside. Might as well keep kicking doors down."
...
Carina lowered her long-barreled sniper rifle, faint wisps of steam curling from the warm barrel as it met the damp air.
"I'm still annoyed."
She ran her fingertips along the metal casing.
"If that really was Cipher Pol, letting them escape means the Government gets advance warning."
Zaraki leisurely wiped the remaining blood from Nozarashi.
"Anyone who can use Soru and disappear into a prepared escape shaft before your bullet arrives isn't exactly an easy target. You found them, forced them to abandon the observation post, and confirmed that the Government has people stationed inside Wano."
He inspected the blade before sheathing it.
"That's enough for now."
Carina gave the ruined tower one last glare, then followed his attention toward the Tobi Roppo.
"Captain, what do we do with these people?"
Who's-Who, Black Maria, Sasaki, Ulti, Page One, and X Drake had been dragged from the worst of the rubble. All six were alive, although none looked capable of continuing the battle.
"Tie them up."
Zaraki turned away.
"Use the Sea-Prism Stone restraints from the warship's stores. They're still some of the Beasts Pirates' best-known officers, so they might be useful until Kaido is dealt with."
He shrugged.
"And if they aren't, somebody can figure out what to do with them later."
The words finally snapped Nekomamushi and Inuarashi out of their stunned silence.
Zaraki walked through the settling smoke and looked directly at Zou's two rulers.
"Next objective is simple. We already kicked the front door down, so there's no point sneaking around anymore."
His eyes turned toward Wano's interior.
"We head for the Flower Capital, find Orochi, and start taking the country out of his hands."
A faint smile appeared.
"You two have been waiting for this day so long your bones are probably rusting."
"O-Orochi!"
Nekomamushi's vertical pupils widened.
Every strand of his golden mane stood on end as twenty years of suppressed hatred surfaced at once.
"That filthy bastard! Every time I close my eyes, I can still smell the oil from Oden-sama's execution!"
Inuarashi's hand clamped around his sword hilt so tightly that his knuckles whitened.
To the two rulers, Kaido was a nightmare.
Orochi was something more personal.
"Save it."
Zaraki glanced back.
"You'll have somewhere to spend all that anger soon."
Then he looked toward Dorry and Brogy.
"You two stay here."
Brogy blinked.
"Here?"
"Keep the breach open. Kaido knows we're inside now, which means anything stationed near the coast is going to start moving. I don't want somebody rebuilding the entrance or cutting off the route behind us."
Dorry planted his enormous sword against one shoulder.
"Gegyagyagyagya! Holding a gate against Kaido's men?"
His grin widened.
"That sounds better than guard duty."
Brogy laughed beside him.
"Gababababa! We'll make sure nobody closes it!"
Their giant longship descended onto a stable section of high ground near the shattered entrance as Issho released it from his gravitational field.
The captured Tobi Roppo were not left hanging beneath the warship on chains. Zaraki's crew hauled them aboard and secured them inside a reinforced section of the lower deck, their Sea-Prism Stone restraints fastened to structural anchor points.
Only after the prisoners were secured did Zaraki turn toward Issho.
"Uncle Issho, I'm making you work again. Traveling through these mountains normally would take too long."
Issho smiled mildly.
"Wherever my captain points, my blade will follow. Moving a ship is hardly worth calling trouble."
His cane sword slid half an inch from its sheath.
A dim violet gleam ran along the exposed steel.
The gravitational field spread outward again, and the enormous warship became light beneath their feet before steadily lifting away from the ruined entrance.
Law stood near the edge of the deck and stared downward as the hull rose.
He considered his own mastery of the Op-Op Fruit exceptionally advanced, but Issho's ability to lift an entire warship with such precision and carry it across mountainous terrain without twisting the hull apart was still absurd.
'So this is the kind of man Zaraki recruited.'
The warship accelerated toward Wano's interior.