Chapter 271
Jinbe was the first to break the silence.
"Zaraki... what happened just now?"
There was genuine surprise in his voice.
"You felt different."
Zaraki scratched the side of his head.
"I wouldn't call it hidden strength."
That much was certainly true.
Against Charlotte Linlin, he had used nearly everything he could safely control and escaped with one arm barely functional.
"I just understood a few things I'd been doing badly."
Law's eye twitched.
"A few things."
"Yeah."
"Your idea of 'a few things' is becoming irritating."
Zaraki ignored him.
"If I fought that old woman again after I was fully healed, I'd probably waste less effort than I did this time."
That was a very different claim from saying he could suddenly defeat an Emperor easily.
The swordsmanship legacy had given him technical insight, not another mountain of raw power.
Jinbe considered that, then laughed.
"Hahaha! Then I misjudged the situation. Improving after a battle like that is impressive enough without pretending you were holding back."
His eyes brightened.
"It makes your eventual rematch with Dracule Mihawk even more interesting."
The name settled naturally into Zaraki's thoughts.
Mihawk represented something Linlin did not.
Big Mom had combined a monstrous body, Haki, Homies, and decades of combat experience into overwhelming force.
Mihawk was the pinnacle of the path Zaraki had only recently started treating seriously: pure swordsmanship.
The rematch would be the perfect place to see whether the new technical insight actually mattered against the man who had exposed Zaraki's flaws on Kuraigana.
It would not increase his Zaraki Kenpachi template synchronization.
That had already reached one hundred percent long ago.
Whatever Zaraki gained now would have to come from experience, control, and whatever legitimate new rewards the system offered.
For the moment, though, fighting Mihawk was not the urgent problem.
Remaining conscious was.
Law had already cleaned and closed the deep wound in Zaraki's left shoulder, but the arm still needed time before he could trust it in a serious sword fight.
"Enough."
Zaraki yawned.
"I need sleep."
Law pointed toward the medical bunk.
"You need to lie down like a normal patient."
"That looks uncomfortable."
"It is a bed."
Zaraki considered arguing, saw Law's expression, and decided that even he had limits.
He lay down.
Across the cabin, Gion eventually walked over to Hancock and spoke to her in a low voice. Zaraki caught only fragments before deciding that listening would take more effort than he wanted to spend.
Whatever Gion said changed Hancock's expression quickly.
Her usual arrogance faded into surprise and confusion, and once or twice she glanced toward Zaraki before immediately looking away again.
'She complaining about me?'
Probably.
Zaraki closed his eyes.
...
Hancock returned to her sisters after the conversation, still wearing Zaraki's coat around her shoulders.
"Hancock-sama... your face is red."
Marigold sounded concerned.
"Be quiet."
Hancock tightened the coat around herself.
"The air in this submarine is unbearable."
Sandersonia studied her sister for several seconds.
"But, Sister..."
"What?"
"You keep looking toward him."
"I do not."
"And you are still wearing his coat."
"My dress is torn!"
"That is true."
Sandersonia hesitated.
"You look a little like the women in those romance stories who have fallen in love."
"NONSENSE!"
Hancock's voice jumped sharply.
Unfortunately, Zaraki's face appeared in her mind almost immediately: the careless grin, the hand that had covered her back without a question, and the complete absence of judgment in his expression.
She shook her head once.
The image remained.
Across the cabin, Zaraki was already asleep.
The hum of the Polar Tang's engines continued steadily through the deep water as the submarine moved farther from Totto Land.
By the time dawn began approaching far above them, the worst of the immediate pursuit was long behind.
...
The Polar Tang surfaced shortly after dawn.
Cool sea air poured through the opened hatch and replaced the stale atmosphere inside the submarine.
Zaraki woke more slowly than usual.
Law's treatment and a full night of uninterrupted sleep had restored much of the stamina he had burned through in Totto Land, but his body was nowhere near completely healed.
The deep wound in his left shoulder remained bandaged and painful, and Law had already warned him that forcing the arm through another Emperor-level fight immediately would be an excellent way to reopen everything he had just stitched together.
Zaraki felt better.
That was not the same as being fully recovered.
What had changed most clearly was his sense of the sword.
The technical memories from Musashi's legacy had settled overnight instead of remaining a flood of disconnected impressions.
They did not feel like a new supernatural energy inside him. They felt like experience: different answers to distance, timing, rhythm, and the commitment behind a cut.
"We've surfaced."
Law looked even more exhausted than Zaraki.
The submarine rocked gently on the morning water.
"Coo! Coo!"
A News Coo circled over the hatch with a fresh newspaper in its beak.
Law tossed up a Berry coin, caught the paper when the bird released it, and dropped it onto the deck.
The front page drew everyone's attention immediately.
At the center was the Red Force.
Beside the Red-Haired Pirates' flagship floated Mihawk's coffin-shaped boat.
The headline filled half the page.
**[BATTLE OF THE CENTURY — RED-HAIR REACHES KALLES AS HAWKEYE NAMES THE SITE OF HIS REMATCH WITH THE WAR DEMON!]**
Zaraki picked up the paper.
"Well."
His mouth curved upward.
"This got interesting."
The article explained the development that had occurred while the Polar Tang remained submerged.
With the Government's Kalles assessment operation publicly compromised and formally suspended, the Warlord candidate had been removed from the island and the Aegis detachment had withdrawn.
Dracule Mihawk had then named the now-empty assessment ground as the location for his rematch with Zaraki.
Morgans naturally portrayed the choice as a challenge to both pirates and the World Government.
The Red Force had arrived the previous evening.
Shanks' presence, combined with Mihawk's reputation, had been enough to keep most opportunistic crews outside the immediate harbor.
A smaller photograph showed Mihawk's coffin boat beside the much larger Red Force.
Zaraki's finger moved lower.
**"Neither Dracule Mihawk nor Red-Haired Shanks appears to doubt that War Demon Zaraki will come despite the injuries he sustained in Totto Land."**
Mihawk's quoted answer was short.
**"He'll come."**
Shanks had laughed when asked the same question.
**"That guy was born to fight. You think he'd miss it?"**
Zaraki snorted.
Morgans then returned to the Totto Land battle, describing the severing of Linlin's right arm and emphasizing that Zaraki had escaped badly wounded rather than pretending he had defeated the Emperor outright.
The next section made Jinbe's expression harden.
**"Another Emperor is also moving."**
**"Fast Beasts Pirates detachments have been sighted on New World routes converging toward Kalles, while Kaido himself has not been reliably tracked since leaving Onigashima."**
**"Kalles may therefore become the meeting point of Red-Haired Shanks, Kaido of the Beasts, Dracule Mihawk, and the Marine known as the War Demon."**
**"The question is no longer whether the duel will draw attention."**
**"The question is whether anyone will allow the duel to remain a duel."**
Zaraki handed the newspaper to Jinbe and stretched his right arm carefully.
Jinbe read the article.
"This is no longer merely a meeting between swordsmen."
He lowered the paper.
"Kaido has no respect for rules. If he sees a chance to interfere, he may take it."
"Kaido is only one problem," Gion said.
She took the newspaper and read the paragraph about Kalles.
"The Government withdrew Dapus because the first operation became impossible to deny. That does not mean the Five Elders have lost interest in you."
Her expression hardened.
"If anything, putting Mihawk, Shanks, and Kaido around the same island gives them another chance to let somebody else do the work."
Hancock had approached the open hatch as well.
She looked toward Zaraki standing in the morning wind, then toward the bandages still visible beneath his clothes.
"You are not seriously considering going there in that condition."
Zaraki looked at her.
"Why not?"
Hancock's eyes widened.
Gion closed hers.
Law muttered something that sounded suspiciously like a curse.
Zaraki grinned.
"You've got to hand it to Big News. That bird gets information fast."
He looked toward the horizon.
Somewhere ahead was Kalles.
A place that had begun as a Government evaluation, turned into a failed assassination ground, and was now being converted into a stage for a duel the entire sea wanted to watch.
"Kaido is definitely going to be a pain."
His grin widened.
"But I'm more interested in what Hawkeye does when everybody else tries to turn our fight into their problem."