Chapter 252
A vast, cloying presence hung over the New World, the kind of oppressive atmosphere no experienced crew sailing those waters could simply ignore.
For the moment, however, Zaraki was still aboard the Oni Slayer.
Several hours had passed since the morning call with Marineford, and the warship was now close enough to Kalles that the navigation officers had begun comparing the coastline against Tsuru's latest survey.
Zaraki sat in a corner of the dining hall, leisurely cutting into a perfectly seared piece of Sea King loin.
The meat was firm and juicy, seasoned with coarse sea salt and fragrant spices, and the food aboard an elite Marine warship was still several levels above the simple meals he remembered from that little tavern in the East Blue.
Still, Makino was not here.
Without that familiar gentle smile behind the counter, even excellent food somehow felt a little less satisfying.
Zaraki prodded the last piece of meat on his plate with his fork and let his thoughts wander.
By now, Sengoku and Garp were probably sitting in some room at Mary Geoise listening to the Five Elders pretend the timing of their summons had nothing to do with Kalles.
'Tch. What a pain.'
It did not change his immediate situation.
Dapus was waiting.
The candidate had been lied to.
The harbor was prepared.
Whether the Five Elders wanted Zaraki dead, captured, embarrassed, or simply measured against every weapon they could arrange, the answer would become obvious soon enough.
At a nearby table, Gion was reading the harbor report for what looked like the sixth time.
The dining hall was noisier than usual.
Marines spoke in subdued voices, and a nervous tension had spread through the room that had nothing to do with the approaching island.
Zaraki's hearing picked up fragments without effort.
"...Did you see the paper? Something happened in the New World."
"Keep your voice down. You think this is something people like us should be gossiping about?"
"The newspaper called it an abnormal weather event, but my hometown's near one of those routes. My uncle said the sky stayed black for hours."
"I heard a merchant ship saw a dragon in the distance, and another ship was singing."
"Stop making things up."
Zaraki raised an eyebrow.
A newspaper?
A News Coo delivered the latest edition of the World Economy News Paper to the ship whenever the route allowed it.
He finished the last bite, wiped his mouth, and returned to his cabin.
A fresh paper was already waiting on the table.
The front page covered reconstruction efforts in Alabasta following the Crocodile scandal, accompanied by a photograph of King Cobra addressing a crowd in the capital.
Zaraki skimmed past it until a much smaller article near the commodity reports caught his attention.
[Severe and unexplained climatic disturbances have been reported in an unspecified region of the New World, temporarily disrupting several major shipping routes. Witnesses claim the phenomenon was accompanied by unusual pressure waves and extreme weather. The World Government's meteorological division has tentatively classified it as an unknown natural event.]
Zaraki stared at the paragraph.
Carefully polished nonsense.
A singing ship and a dragon.
He did not need much imagination to guess the names involved.
Charlotte Linlin.
Kaido.
The interesting question was not who had been seen.
It was why they were close enough to one another for merchant crews to notice both.
Zaraki tapped one finger against the table while he thought.
The World Government had already guided Kaido onto his trail once.
Nusjuro's intercepted conversation had made that much clear.
If Kaido had now appeared near Charlotte Linlin shortly after the Government began moving pieces around Kalles, coincidence was becoming difficult to believe.
'So what are you trying this time?'
Provoking two Emperors into destroying each other would be reckless even by the standards of the Five Elders.
The New World was unstable enough without deliberately collapsing two territories at once.
Which meant the Government probably wanted contact, not mutual destruction.
Cooperation was a stranger possibility, but not an impossible one.
Kaido and Linlin had history, and if the Five Elders believed Zaraki was becoming too difficult to control, giving two Emperors a reason to look in the same direction would be exactly the sort of indirect solution they preferred.
There was still not enough evidence to know the details.
That did not bother him.
A knock came from the cabin door.
Gion stepped inside.
"Land."
Zaraki folded the paper and stood.
They walked to the forward deck together.
Kalles Island was emerging through the thinning sea mist.
A dark fortress rose above the central ridge, old stone walls overlooking a harbor shaped like a narrow mouth.
From a distance it possessed the same severe silhouette the intelligence sketches had shown, although the actual defenses were harder to see.
Zaraki did not mistake it for Kuraigana.
Mihawk was not waiting there.
What he sensed instead was a sharp, hostile presence somewhere inside the fortress and several weaker presences that seemed deliberately restrained around the harbor approaches.
Gion followed his gaze.
"The central channel is exactly where the old map said the seastone batteries would have the cleanest firing angles."
"So that's the entrance."
"No."
Zaraki smiled.
Gion pointed toward the northern shelf.
"We approach there, keep the ship outside the crossfire, and land a smaller party. You can walk into the obvious trap after the crew is no longer sitting inside it."
"That takes longer."
"Yes."
"Annoying."
"Yes."
He looked toward the fortress again.
A faint pressure stirred against his senses from somewhere beyond the outer wall.
Whoever the candidate was, he knew the Oni Slayer had arrived.
Zaraki rested one hand against Nozarashi.
"That works for me."
...
Several hours earlier, in an uninhabited region of the New World, Saint Ethanbaron V. Nusjuro's visit to Whole Cake Island had already produced exactly the kind of result the World Government wanted—and immediately become more dangerous than planned.
The proposal itself had been simple.
The Government would provide Charlotte Linlin with Kaido's return route and temporarily ignore contact between the two Emperor crews.
In exchange, Linlin would hear out an offer concerning Zaraki and the shifting balance around the Warlord system.
Linlin had agreed to meet Kaido.
Kaido had agreed to come.
The meeting lasted less than ten minutes before both Emperors remembered why putting them in the same place had always been dangerous.
Kaido had no intention of allowing Linlin to claim Zaraki as her prey.
Linlin had no intention of accepting that Kaido possessed any exclusive right to him.
Their argument moved from insults to Haki almost immediately.
Now they stood on opposite sides of a barren rocky island while the Queen Mama Chanter and the Beasts Pirates' ships remained farther offshore, their crews desperately trying to stay outside the range of the clash.
Kaido swung his kanabo.
Black lightning crawled around the weapon as advanced Conqueror's Haki coated the blow.
Linlin met him with Napoleon in one hand, her own Conqueror's Haki erupting around the blade while Prometheus and Zeus circled overhead.
The weapons stopped just short of touching.
BOOOOM—!
The collision between their wills exploded outward in a massive ring.
The sea around the island caved inward before surging back into towering waves, and the cloud layer above split open under the pressure.
Farther out, both pirate fleets pitched violently.
"Mama! Kaido!"
Perospero clung to the Queen Mama Chanter's rail while the wind nearly tore his candy-striped hat away.
"Stop this! If you keep going, neither side gains anything!"
His voice vanished beneath another burst of thunder.
Smoothie steadied herself nearby and gave him a flat look.
"Do you honestly think either of them can hear you?"
Perospero tightened both hands around his candy cane.
"I have to try something!"
"Unless that candy cane can stop two Emperors, shouting is probably safer."
Perospero opened his mouth to answer, but Katakuri's voice cut through them.
"Move the ship."
Both siblings turned.
Katakuri stood several paces behind them, his body tense and his eyes fixed on the battlefield.
Perospero frowned. "What?"
"I said move the ship. Now."
His Observation Haki reached into the immediate future.
For a few seconds his expression became noticeably colder.
Smoothie understood first.
"What did you see?"
Katakuri's crimson eyes sharpened.
"The next clash."