Chapter 263
Zaraki barely heard him.
His attention remained on Nozarashi.
The released blade was already drinking deeply from his Reiatsu, and the strain was beginning to gather in his arm and shoulders.
The wound on Linlin's wrist had nothing to do with some imaginary anti-healing Haki or an internal destruction technique he did not possess.
It remained open because Nozarashi had actually cut through her Armament and the monstrously tough flesh beneath it.
Mihawk's training had mattered as much as the weapon.
The old Zaraki would have thrown more power into the first strike and called it a day.
This time he had learned from the failed cut, adjusted the angle, increased the flow into Nozarashi, and put the second strike exactly where he wanted it.
Linlin looked at the blood on her wrist.
Then she laughed.
"Gahahahaha!"
The sound contained rage, disbelief, and something close to excitement.
"Not bad, brat!"
Her bloodshot eyes locked onto him.
"You really did cut me."
She wiped the blood across her palm and stared at it as if the sight personally offended her.
"But don't think one scratch means you've won!"
Prometheus flared at one side of her while Zeus gathered lightning at the other.
The two Homies answered her anger immediately.
"HEAVENLY FEUER BLITZ!"
Fire and lightning erupted together.
The combined blast tore across the harbor in a violent torrent, forcing the remaining spectators to retreat farther behind cover.
Zaraki did not stand in place and pretend steel could physically clang against lightning.
He drove forward with released Nozarashi and cut into the attack through a rapid sequence of controlled swings, each slash opening a path through the compressed fire and electricity before the surrounding energy could close again.
The first cut split the leading flame.
The second scattered the lightning concentrated behind it.
The third opened enough space for Zaraki to move forward.
He did not swing randomly.
Every strike went to the point where the attack was most concentrated, the same principle Mihawk had spent days hammering into him on Kuraigana.
From a distance the swordsmanship still looked brutal.
Up close, it was becoming precise.
Linlin noticed.
Her eyes narrowed as Zaraki forced his way through Heavenly Feuer Blitz without wasting his slashes on the entire storm.
"He's cutting the structure of the attack apart..."
Katakuri stood farther back rather than joining Linlin directly.
After Zaraki drew blood, Linlin had ordered him away with a furious glare and a warning that nobody was to interfere with her fight.
Katakuri obeyed because arguing with her now would only make matters worse, but his Future Sight remained active as he coordinated the evacuation of weaker Charlotte members from the harbor and watched the next few seconds for anything that threatened his siblings.
On the Kuja ship, Hancock had also stayed out of Zaraki's fight as ordered, though she clearly hated the wording. Her priority for the moment was Gion.
The Marine Vice Admiral sat against the inner rail while Kuja warriors treated the injuries they could reach without removing the reinforced cuffs.
Gion's gaze never left Zaraki.
"How much time?"
Sandersonia looked toward the harbor entrance.
"Until Kaido?"
Gion nodded.
As if answering her, the secure Den Den Mushi still clipped inside Zaraki's coat began speaking through the open channel.
The Oni Slayer's senior captain sounded tense.
"Zaraki, update. Kaido has crossed the outer patrol line. Less than a minute."
Zaraki heard him.
So did Morgans.
The bird's eyes nearly came out of his head.
"LESS THAN A MINUTE!"
Linlin roared and threw more power into Prometheus and Zeus.
Zaraki finally broke through the last of Heavenly Feuer Blitz.
Smoke rolled from his coat and the skin of one forearm had been scorched, but he was still moving.
Nozarashi pulled harder at his Reiatsu.
'More.'
The rough female voice came from within the blade, heard by Zaraki alone.
He grinned.
'Greedy.'
The answer was a rough pulse of impatience.
Zaraki opened the flow another step.
Dark-gold arcs intensified along Nozarashi as the cost immediately hit him.
His breathing deepened, and a dull ache spread through the muscles supporting the enormous cleaver.
He still did not touch the higher Eight Gates.
The First Gate remained the only one he had ever tested, and this was not the time to gamble his body on a technique that had already torn muscle during a supervised trial.
He had something much more reliable in his hands.
Zaraki swung.
A dense flying slash crossed the battlefield toward Linlin.
She brought Napoleon down and blocked it.
The impact drove her back half a step.
Zaraki followed with another.
Then another.
He did not flood the entire harbor with hundreds of indiscriminate blades.
Gion, Hancock, Morgans, Stussy, the Underworld guests, and dozens of pirate crews were still nearby, and the control he had learned from Mihawk would have been meaningless if he simply turned the rescue site into a killing field.
Instead, every slash was aimed at Linlin.
Napoleon intercepted the first two.
Her Armament-coated forearm stopped the third, opening another shallow line beside the first.
Linlin answered with a roar and charged.
The harbor became a close-range exchange of enormous force rather than a carpet bombardment.
Napoleon crashed against Nozarashi.
Prometheus swept fire around Zaraki's flank.
Zeus dropped lightning into his path.
Zaraki cut, blocked, stepped through the openings, and kept forcing Linlin to give ground one exchange at a time.
He was not overwhelming her easily.
Far from it.
Each collision jarred his arms.
Each burst of released Nozarashi consumed more Reiatsu.
Linlin's attacks scorched his coat, opened a shallow cut along his shoulder, and forced him to abandon several offensive angles before they developed.
But she was no longer laughing at his sword.
A second cut marked her forearm.
Then a third appeared along the outside of her shoulder after she turned away from a deeper strike.
Blood ran down her skin.
Linlin stared at it and slowly grinned.
Something had changed in her expression.
The fury over Snack remained.
So did the humiliation of being wounded in front of the world.
Beneath both, however, a savage excitement was beginning to surface.
"Brat..."
Her voice came out low and rough.
"You really did come here looking for a fight."
Zaraki rested Nozarashi against one shoulder, breathing harder now than when the battle began.
"No."
His grin widened.
"I came for Gion."
He glanced briefly toward the Kuja ship and confirmed she was still there.
"Getting a fight too was just good luck."
Linlin's grin became vicious.
Before she could answer, a roar rolled across the sea beyond Whole Cake Island.
It did not come from the harbor.
It came from above the outer waters.
The cloud layer in the distance began twisting around a massive serpentine silhouette.
Kaido had arrived.