Chapter 265
Charlotte Linlin did not stop after the first building.
The force behind Zaraki's slash sent her through a second candy structure before she finally crashed into the reinforced wall of a larger storehouse, the wall buckling inward and showering the surrounding streets with broken sugarwork and stone.
"Mama!" Perospero ran toward the impact point, while Cracker and several Charlotte officers reacted at the same time, throwing up biscuit and candy barriers along the path in case her momentum continued.
Katakuri did not move with them.
His Future Sight showed him the next few seconds: Zaraki was already preparing to follow, and more importantly, if Katakuri left the center now, Zaraki's next swing would reach Linlin before she had completely recovered her footing. His eyes sharpened.
"Perospero, get away from there!"
His brother turned.
"What?"
Katakuri was already moving.
His mochi arm expanded and hardened with Armament Haki as he drove a powerful punch toward Zaraki's exposed side.
Zaraki's golden eyes shifted.
His own Future Sight caught the attack before Katakuri committed fully, and he had no reason to stand there and trade blows with both of them at once.
His right foot dug into the ground.
Thunder Breathing sharpened the explosive acceleration of the first movement without turning his body into lightning, and Zaraki burst away from Katakuri's punch just before it landed, crossing the broken ground in a low, direct line toward Linlin.
Katakuri's fist smashed into the place he had been standing and tore a broad crater through the already damaged harbor.
"Damn it!" He twisted immediately.
Linlin tore herself free of the collapsed storehouse at almost the same moment, blood running from the corner of her mouth, her eyes locked onto Zaraki.
"So you're still coming!"
"Obviously."
She swung Napoleon and Zaraki met her.
CLANG—!
The impact shook the nearby buildings but remained concentrated around the two fighters rather than flattening the entire harbor.
Katakuri came from behind, and Zaraki saw it, but Linlin saw Zaraki's attention shift and drove harder.
For several seconds the fight became exactly what Katakuri wanted: Zaraki trapped between Linlin's frontal pressure and Katakuri's attempts to create openings from the flank.
It did not last.
Zaraki stopped trying to win both exchanges separately.
He let Linlin push Nozarashi down, stepped into the pressure instead of away from it, and pivoted around the buried cleaver as though the weapon were an anchor, and Katakuri's next Armament-coated mochi strike passed behind his shoulder.
Linlin's eyes widened.
Zaraki wrenched Nozarashi free and swung upward, and the chipped cleaver struck Napoleon from below.
BOOOOM—!
Linlin's sword arm was thrown high.
The opening lasted less than a second, and Zaraki used all of it.
His next slash crossed her guard and drove into the thick Armament Haki protecting her upper torso; it did not cut her apart, nor did it split space or create some impossible void.
It simply hit hard enough to send one of the Four Emperors flying again.
Linlin vanished into a cloud of shattered candy and dust.
Katakuri stopped.
Future Sight showed him Zaraki's next movement, and it was not toward Linlin, but toward the harbor.
For the first time since the exchange began, Katakuri hesitated.
Zaraki had finally decided to break away.
...
Katakuri's hesitation lasted only an instant.
He stretched one mochi arm after Zaraki, hardening it with Armament Haki as he tried to catch the Marine before he could leave the immediate battlefield.
Zaraki did not look back.
His injured left arm hung close to his body, while his right hand kept Nozarashi low as he ran through the smoke toward the harbor.
He could feel Katakuri's attack coming through Observation Haki, and Future Sight showed the strike crossing his path a heartbeat before it happened, so he changed direction once. Katakuri's fist tore through empty air and smashed into a ruined section of the dock.
'He's retreating?'
The thought barely formed before Charlotte Linlin erupted from the dust behind them.
"ZARAKI!" Napoleon came down in a furious diagonal cut.
Zaraki turned.
For one moment, Linlin attacked from the front while Katakuri's reshaped mochi arm came in from behind.
The old Zaraki might have planted his feet and tried to overpower both; Mihawk would have called that stupid, and Zaraki agreed now.
He stepped inside Linlin's swing at the exact angle his Future Sight showed would leave the smallest opening, let Napoleon skim past the chipped edge of Nozarashi, and used the force of the collision to rotate his body into Katakuri's attack.
Nozarashi moved with him.
The enormous cleaver cut through the hardened mochi spear before it could strike his back, and Katakuri recoiled.
Linlin immediately drove an Armament-coated fist toward Zaraki's head.
He ducked, her knuckles passing close enough to tear the air above his hair, then rose beneath the punch and delivered one final one-handed slash across Linlin's guard.
The blow struck Napoleon and the Armament protecting her side together, and a concentrated shockwave exploded outward.
The nearest structures collapsed, but the force did not become an island-wide detonation; the Kuja ship, Morgans, and the remaining guests were far enough from the center to survive the blast without being swallowed by some kilometer-wide crater.
Linlin was hurled backward and slammed through the edge of the ruined chateau approach.
Napoleon remained intact, and a deep cut opened across Linlin's side where the edge had slipped past the sword, but no limb was severed.
Katakuri landed hard several meters away, one arm bleeding where Nozarashi had cut through his hardened mochi and grazed the flesh beneath.
Zaraki swayed.
The last exchange had cost him badly: Nozarashi's appetite dragged at his Reiatsu, his left shoulder was pouring blood, and his right arm felt as though every muscle had been beaten with a hammer.
Then the sky roared. Kaido descended through the clouds above Whole Cake Island in dragon form.
"ZARAKI!" The sound rolled across the island.
Zaraki looked up.
"Finally."
His grin appeared automatically, then his knees nearly buckled, and that decided it.
He had already recovered Gion, and fighting Linlin and Kaido together while Nozarashi was draining him this badly would stop being fun the moment his body simply refused to move.
Zaraki hated that conclusion. He hated dying before the next fight even more.
Smoke and debris from the last collision rolled across the harbor, and he used it.
By the time Katakuri's vision cleared, Zaraki was no longer standing where he had been.
He had not teleported; he had sprinted through the obscured harbor, launched himself across the final gap, and landed heavily aboard the Kuja ship.
Hancock whirled toward him.
Gion tried to stand. "Zaraki!"
"Still here." He took one step, then another, his right arm lowering Nozarashi
The released cleaver shuddered once before returning to its sealed form as Zaraki cut off the flow of Reiatsu and ended the release.
The relief was immediate, though exhaustion remained.
Hancock stared at him. "You look terrible."
"Thanks."
"That was not praise."
Gion was already trying to reach him despite the cuffs and bandages.
"Sit down before you fall down."
Zaraki looked back toward the harbor.
Kaido's dragon form had descended over Linlin's ruined battlefield, and for once, he listened.
"Get the ship moving."
The Kuja warriors did not need to be told twice.
The Yuda pulled hard against their harnesses, and the Kuja vessel turned toward open water while Zaraki disappeared into the nearest cabin with Gion and two Kuja medics.
Behind them, Kaido landed over the ruins.