Chapter 267
A towering wall of water rose behind the Kuja vessel, and the ship lurched violently as the shockwave caught it from the side, throwing several warriors to the deck.
Hancock landed near the bow, her right leg trembling.
Sandersonia saw it. "Sister."
"I'm fine."
"You are not."
Hancock ignored her.
Inside the cabin, the explosion shook dust from the ceiling. Zaraki opened one eye.
Gion looked toward the door. "She caught us."
"Sounds like it."
The Kuja medic pushed Zaraki back against the wall. "You are not finished."
Zaraki looked at the bandage being wrapped around his shoulder. "Looks finished."
"It is bleeding through the first layer."
"Add another."
The medic's eye twitched. Gion sighed. Outside, Linlin kept coming.
The Kuja ship gained distance whenever the Yuda found open water, but Prometheus ignored currents entirely and continued closing the gap.
Marigold looked back and went pale. "Sister, we can't shake her!"
Sandersonia stepped forward. "Then Marigold and I stay behind long enough for the ship to get clear. You take everyone else and go."
Marigold swallowed her fear and nodded. "We can buy time."
Hancock turned slowly.
Her right leg still ached from redirecting Heavenly Feuer Blitz, and she knew exactly what facing Linlin directly would mean, but that did not change her answer.
"Stand down."
"But—"
"I am the captain of the Kuja Pirates and the Empress of Amazon Lily. I will not preserve my life by ordering my sisters to die in my place."
Sandersonia's mouth closed.
Hancock stepped to the stern. "Keep the Yuda moving. No matter what happens behind us, do not turn the ship around."
The Kuja warriors obeyed.
Linlin reached them moments later atop Prometheus.
"BOA HANCOCK!" She launched herself from the Homie toward the stern, her fist coming first, wrapped in Armament Haki and raw physical force.
Hancock met it, her right leg snapping upward.
"Perfume Femur!"
The kick struck Linlin's fist.
The petrification that made the technique terrifying against ordinary opponents accomplished nothing meaningful against Linlin, whose Haki and monstrous constitution overwhelmed the effect before it could spread, but the physical collision was another matter.
BOOOOM—!
The stern deck cracked beneath Hancock's feet, and pain shot through her leg.
Her Armament Haki was overwhelmed by Linlin's superior force, and a sharp crack from the bone made Hancock's face tighten before she was thrown backward into the mainmast, blood touching the corner of her mouth.
Linlin followed.
"Prometheus!"
The living sun expanded beside her.
"Heavenly Fire!"
Flame crashed across the stern.
Kuja warriors dragged one another away from the blast while Hancock rolled clear of the center, but the edge still caught her and threw her across the deck, her clothes scorched and burns marking one side of her body when she finally stopped.
"SISTER!" Sandersonia and Marigold rushed toward her, but Perospero's candy struck first.
Two thick coils erupted from the side of the pursuing vessel and wrapped around both sisters, pinning their arms against their bodies.
"Perorin. Stay there." Perospero grinned from his platform. "You wanted to help the Marine? Then watch Mama crush your Empress for it."
Linlin landed on the Kuja deck, Napoleon expanding in her hand.
Hancock pushed herself upright on one arm, her injured leg refusing to take her full weight.
Linlin raised the Emperor Sword overhead. "Pathetic."
Hancock glared back. "Still uglier than me."
Linlin's face changed.
Perospero nearly choked.
Even Sandersonia stared at her sister.
Napoleon came down.
Then the cabin door behind Hancock burst open. Zaraki stepped out.
He was not perfectly silent, invisible to Haki, or stripped of every detectable presence.
Everyone had simply been focused on Linlin and Hancock, while Zaraki's Reiatsu had fallen dramatically after resealing Nozarashi and spending the brief escape attempt inside the cabin recovering.
That changed the instant his golden eyes settled on Napoleon.
Farther back on the pursuing Charlotte ship, Katakuri's Future Sight showed him the next few seconds, and his expression broke.
"MAMA!"
Linlin heard him.
Katakuri's voice carried across the water. "DODGE!"
For one instant, confusion cut through her rage.
Zaraki was already moving.
Katakuri's warning struck Charlotte Linlin a fraction of a second before Napoleon would have reached Hancock.
Her instincts understood the danger even if her pride rejected it, and she turned her head.
Zaraki stood on the damaged Kuja deck with his left shoulder heavily bandaged and sealed Nozarashi in his right hand.
He looked exhausted but he also looked delighted.
Linlin snarled. "You again."
Zaraki's thumb pushed against Nozarashi's guard.
"Drink, Nozarashi." The rough katana transformed, its blade broadening and lengthening into the enormous chipped cleaver while dark-gold arcs crawled along the steel.
The moment the release completed, Nozarashi resumed pulling at Zaraki's Reiatsu, and the drain hit his already exhausted body hard enough to make his wounded shoulder throb beneath the bandages.
He ignored it.
Linlin abandoned the killing blow aimed at Hancock and turned Napoleon toward him instead, which was exactly what Zaraki wanted.
His right foot drove into the deck.
Thunder Breathing sharpened the first explosive step, but he did not transform into lightning or vanish through space.
He launched forward with raw physical speed, crossed the short distance between them, and swung Nozarashi before Linlin could fully reset the Emperor Sword.
There was no dimensional fissure, no void, no conceptual severance, only a brutally precise cut.
Nozarashi struck Napoleon first.
The Homie's blade screamed as a deep notch tore through its edge, and the force knocked the sword aside without destroying it outright.
The same swing continued.
Linlin tried to pull her right arm back, but it was too late; the chipped cleaver passed through her upper arm near the shoulder.
For a heartbeat, nothing happened.
Then blood erupted, and Linlin's right arm separated and fell toward the deck.
Her scream shook the ship. "AAAAAARGH!"
Prometheus surged underneath her before she could lose balance and fall toward the sea.
"MAMA!"
Katakuri launched a mochi arm from the pursuing vessel and caught the severed limb before it disappeared into the water.
Perospero went white.
Hancock stared from the deck, temporarily forgetting the pain in her own leg.
Zaraki landed hard, his knees dipping.
The release had cost him more than he wanted to admit, and Nozarashi pulled again.
'More.'
"Later." The rough presence inside the blade answered with obvious dissatisfaction.
Zaraki turned toward the candy barriers Perospero had begun raising around the Kuja ship.
"Not done yet."
He swung once more, and the flying slash crossed the water and tore through the nearest Candy Wall, opening a broad passage toward the outer sea without touching the Kuja vessel.
"MOVE!"
Hancock did not need the order repeated.
"YUDA! FULL SPEED!"
The two enormous snakes surged forward, and the Kuja ship shot through the opening before Perospero could close it again.
Marigold and Sandersonia were still bound in candy, but Kuja warriors dragged them away from the rail and began hacking at the restraints.
Gion appeared in the cabin doorway behind Zaraki, one hand braced against the frame, her eyes going first to the severed arm in Katakuri's grasp, then to Zaraki.
"You were supposed to be resting."
Zaraki glanced back. "I did."
"For ten minutes."
"Felt longer."
"You are impossible."
"Yeah."
Behind them, Linlin's scream of rage rolled across the sea, and Zaraki looked toward her. Prometheus carried the wounded Emperor above the water while Katakuri and the Charlotte officers crowded around from the pursuit ship.
Linlin remained conscious, furious, and very much alive despite losing her arm. She was not finished.
Neither was Kaido, wherever he had gone.
Zaraki's grin returned, though exhaustion made it smaller than before.
"Good."
Gion heard him. "No."
He looked over. "No?"
"No more 'good.' No more turning around. No more deciding that losing another limb sounds interesting. We are leaving."
Zaraki looked toward Whole Cake Island one last time.
Nozarashi's drain had become too heavy to ignore, and his left arm was barely functional; the sensible part of him knew Gion was right.
Unfortunately, that part had spent most of the day being ignored.
Hancock solved the argument for him. "If you jump off my ship again, I will kick you overboard myself."
Zaraki stared at her injured leg. "With that?"
Hancock's face went red with fury. "YOU—!"
Gion laughed despite the pain.
The Yuda pulled the ship harder toward open water.
Smoke, waves, and the broken candy blockade obscured the route behind them, while the growing distance made it increasingly difficult for the Big Mom Pirates to distinguish individual presences aboard the fleeing ship.
They had not vanished from the world; they had simply escaped the immediate encirclement.
Behind them, Charlotte Linlin's furious voice continued rolling over Totto Land as Katakuri held her severed arm and the Big Mom Pirates scrambled to stop the bleeding.
The Government's trap had failed.
Gion was alive.
The Kuja Pirates were getting out.
And after everything that had happened, Zaraki was still grinning.