Chapter 272
Kalles Island felt less like an island than an enormous powder keg waiting for someone to strike a match.
Pirate ships crowded the distant waters, drawn by the same promise: Dracule Mihawk and the War Demon were expected to fight there, Red-Haired Shanks had already arrived, and reports of Beasts Pirates movement were spreading by the hour.
Despite the crowd, nobody dared approach the inner harbor.
The Red Force sat nearby, its presence alone enough to make most crews think twice.
Morgans watched the scene from his own news vessel with barely contained excitement.
When he decided he needed a better angle, he did not flap into the air—his albatross form could not actually fly.
One of his crew instead rowed a small press skiff alongside the Red Force, and Morgans climbed aboard with his notebook and camera already working.
Shanks leaned against the railing with a bottle in one hand while Lucky Roux ate beside him as if the gathering outside the island were nothing unusual.
Morgans thrust his beak toward the Emperor.
"Red-Hair! You seriously believe Zaraki is still coming?"
His wings spread dramatically.
"Kaido's people are moving through these waters too. That lunatic already chased the War Demon through Totto Land once!"
It was the question occupying every crew outside the harbor.
Would Zaraki really come after losing blood and nearly wrecking himself against Charlotte Linlin?
Shanks took a drink before answering.
"Call it instinct."
His gaze shifted toward Kalles.
"Men like him and Hawkeye don't let something as boring as who happens to be watching stop them from going where they want."
Morgans followed his gaze.
On a rocky stretch of shoreline below the old fortress, Dracule Mihawk sat alone with Yoru resting beside him.
His coffin boat was moored nearby. He had shown no interest in the surrounding pirate fleets, the Red Force, or Morgans' attempts to turn the rematch into a global festival.
The old Kalles assessment ground behind him was empty.
Director Dapus and the Aegis Execution Unit were gone.
The seastone launchers that had once covered the harbor had been disabled, and the original Warlord evaluation had been suspended indefinitely after the Government operation was exposed.
For the moment, the island truly was only a battlefield.
Shanks smiled.
"This sea has enough people clinging to the old balance. Something new might do it some good."
Morgans' eyes lit up.
That sentence alone could carry tomorrow's editorial.
He opened his beak to press for more.
Then the sky darkened.
Not because of clouds.
A massive shadow crossed the water.
Conqueror's Haki rolled down from above, and weaker pirates on the surrounding ships collapsed as the pressure swept over them.
"Worororo..."
Morgans snapped his head up.
An enormous azure dragon coiled through the clouds.
Kaido.
His molten-gold eyes burned with violence as he looked down toward the Red Force and the island beyond it.
He had arrived ahead of most of the Beasts Pirates ships following his route.
"SHANKS!"
Kaido's voice rolled across the sea.
"STAY OUT OF MY WAY!"
His jaws opened.
"THAT BRAT IS MINE!"
Shanks' expression barely changed.
Kaido descended toward a barren ridge near the harbor, using his Flame Clouds to control the massive dragon body before landing hard enough to send rock and dust rolling down the slope.
The spectators went silent.
Morgans' heart hammered.
Red-Hair and Kaido were now staring at one another across the same island where Mihawk waited for Zaraki.
Whatever hope remained that this would be a simple duel had become extremely fragile.
Kaido's killing intent rolled toward the harbor.
Shanks put down the bottle and rested one hand on Gryphon.
"Come on, Kaido."
His voice carried without needing to become a roar.
"Don't underestimate the new guy too much."
Kaido's huge head turned toward him.
Shanks grinned.
"What if he's the one who kills you?"
For several seconds, even Morgans forgot to write.
Kaido's roar followed.
"WHAT DID YOU SAY?!"
His anger rolled over the island.
"IF THAT BASTARD SHOWS HIS FACE HERE, I'LL FINISH WHAT WE STARTED MYSELF!"
The dragon's declaration echoed between sea and sky.
Mihawk finally lifted his eyes from the shoreline.
He did not reach for Yoru.
Not yet.
He merely looked toward the open sea beyond the spectators.
The man he was waiting for had not arrived.
And Kalles was already one mistake away from becoming a war zone.
...
Before Kalles Island came into view, the Polar Tang had made one brief rendezvous with the Oni Slayer and the battered Kuja vessel.
Zaraki, Gion, and Jinbe transferred back to the Marine warship, while Hancock and her sisters returned to their own ship and kept farther outside the main approach.
Law, who had no interest in parking his submarine in the middle of a gathering of Emperors, took the Polar Tang below the surface again and remained close enough to answer an emergency call.
The silence hanging over the sea felt like a vast, cold curtain descending over the entire region.
The Oni Slayer moved steadily toward the center of it, its reinforced hull cutting through water that had grown strangely subdued beneath the pressure saturating Kalles Island.
The wind had weakened, the waves were little more than sluggish swells, and the sound of the warship's bow breaking the surface seemed painfully loud.
At the bow, Gion and the Oni Slayer's senior captain stood with expressions so grave they could scarcely have been tighter.
Conqueror's Haki from the monsters already waiting around Kalles pressed against their nerves like invisible steel needles, and every experienced Marine aboard understood that one careless move could turn the surrounding sea into a battlefield.
Zaraki, by contrast, looked completely unbothered.
In one hand he carried a bottle of liquor he had apparently helped himself to from the ship's stores.
His other rested casually near the hilt at his waist, and despite the excitement in his golden eyes, the fresh bandaging beneath the spare Marine coat made it impossible to forget what Whole Cake Island had cost him.
Law had closed the wound in his left shoulder and ordered him not to abuse the arm again so soon. Zaraki had listened to roughly half of that sentence.
His eyesight was sharp enough to pick out the unmistakable silhouette of the Red Force long before the harbor itself became clear.
Farther beyond it, coiled over a barren mountain near the old assessment ground, was an enormous azure dragon whose size looked almost absurd even from this distance.
Kaido of the Beasts.
Zaraki's mouth twitched faintly.
The bastard really did seem incapable of arriving anywhere without trying to make the sky itself part of the performance.
His gaze shifted again, this time toward the rocky shoreline below the old fortress.
A solitary figure stood beside a coffin-shaped boat with a cross-shaped pendant hanging at his chest and the black blade Yoru resting within easy reach.
Even across the enormous stretch of sea between them, those hawk-like eyes seemed to pierce straight through the distance.
Dracule Mihawk.
The world's greatest swordsman.
"He's here."
Mihawk spoke almost at the exact moment Zaraki looked toward him.
His voice was quiet and flat, as though he were merely stating something obvious, yet the words were enough to make heads turn across the Red Force, the spectator ships, and even the Beasts Pirates positions around Kalles.
Then everyone saw the Marine warship approaching.
A young man stood at its bow with a bottle in one hand, a spare Marine coat moving in the sea breeze around the bandages still visible beneath it.
He looked nothing like a man who had spent the previous day trading blows with Charlotte Linlin and then escaping Totto Land with blood pouring from half his body.
The surrounding sea erupted.
"It's the War Demon! He actually came!"
"That lunatic really showed up! There are TWO Emperors here!"
"Holy shit... look at him! He doesn't even look like somebody who just fought Big Mom!"
Shock, disbelief, and frantic speculation spread from ship to ship. Zaraki's arrival struck like a slap across the face of everyone who had confidently declared that injuries, Kaido, or common sense would keep him away from Mihawk's challenge.
"Hey, Kaido."
Shanks' lazy voice drifted from the deck of the Red Force, carrying the unmistakable amusement of someone enjoying the spectacle far too much.
"Told you. You shouldn't judge the new generation by the old rules."
"Worororo..."
On the barren mountain, the enormous dragon slowly turned his head. Rage and violence boiled inside Kaido's molten-gold eyes.
Shanks' provocation had already irritated him; Zaraki actually appearing finished the job.
Kaido ignored Shanks completely and fixed his murderous gaze on the approaching Oni Slayer.
"MARINE BRAT... YOU ACTUALLY DARED SHOW YOUR FACE IN FRONT OF ME!"
His roar shook the sea and sky.
The next instant, Kaido opened jaws large enough to swallow a building, and destructive heat began gathering deep inside his throat.
The temperature over the harbor climbed so quickly that the air warped around his fangs.
Gion's expression changed immediately.
"Damn it! ALL HANDS, BRACE FOR IMPACT!"
The senior captain's pupils tightened as he turned toward the deck crews.
His cigar nearly slipped from his mouth before he caught it between his teeth again.
He knew that attack.
Blast Breath.
Kaido's signature dragon breath could carve enormous sections out of an island, and the Oni Slayer was still closing on Kalles with nowhere near enough room to maneuver cleanly.
Zaraki did not move. He tilted the bottle back and took another drink while the liquor burned pleasantly down his throat.
'Finally. A proper welcome.'
BOOOOM—!!
A colossal pillar of destructive heat erupted from Kaido's mouth and tore across the sea.
Water flashed into steam beneath its path, and the attack reached the Oni Slayer so quickly that the Marines barely had time to brace before the golden-orange glare filled their vision.
Gion's hand tightened around Konpira.
The senior captain shouted another order, but both of them knew there was no time to build a meaningful defense capable of stopping Kaido's breath head-on.
Then a flying slash tore through the air from Kalles Island.
It had been launched after Kaido fired, yet its line crossed the battlefield with such precision that it reached the breath before the attack swallowed the ship.
There was no magical clash or prolonged deadlock; the slash simply found the center of Blast Breath and cut through it.
Kaido's attack split apart.
One column passed along the port side of the Oni Slayer while the other tore past starboard, both close enough that the radiating heat scorched paint and sent Marines ducking away from the rails.
The divided blasts continued past the warship and struck the distant sea.
RUMBLE—!!
Two enormous columns of water exploded into the sky.
The delayed shockwave slammed into the Oni Slayer and rocked the entire vessel hard enough to throw Marines from their feet.
Huge waves crashed across the deck, soaking officers and enlisted men alike while rigging snapped tight under the strain.
Gion caught the railing and held herself upright. The senior captain did the same, then immediately turned toward the direction the slash had come from.
Zaraki wiped seawater from his face and looked there as well.
On the rocky shoreline, Mihawk slowly lowered Yoru after completing the swing.
The black blade caught the light for an instant before he rested it against his shoulder again, his expression unchanged.
He had been the one who cut Kaido's Blast Breath apart.
"DRACULE MIHAWK!!"
Kaido's enormous dragon head snapped toward Hawkeye, fury and killing intent flooding his molten-gold eyes.
"WHAT THE HELL DO YOU THINK YOU'RE DOING?! YOU'D BETTER GIVE ME A DAMN GOOD EXPLANATION!"
His fangs bared.
"OR I'LL KILL YOU TOO!"
A direct death threat from the Strongest Creature would have shaken most people on the sea. Mihawk did not so much as adjust his stance.
On the Red Force, Shanks' smile faded by a fraction.
Surprise flickered across his face, but the glance he gave his old rival contained more understanding than disbelief. M
ihawk had come here for one reason, and Kaido had just tried to destroy that reason before the duel even began.
The pressure hanging over Kalles became heavier still.
With Kaido enraged, Mihawk openly intervening, Shanks watching from the Red Force, and Zaraki continuing toward shore as though none of this were a reason to turn around, the entire region felt like a powder keg waiting for one spark.
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