Chapter 438 - 89
Scarlett's second punch came coated in Armament Haki, driving toward Enel with everything behind it.
It hit nothing.
Enel was already gone. As a user of the Goro Goro no Mi with the strength of an Admiral, he could read the electrical signals firing in an opponent's brain and know what was coming before the body even began to move. Letting Scarlett land a clean hit at point-blank range simply wasn't something that was going to happen. The moment the fist came, Enel dissolved into lightning and the strike passed through empty air.
"Now that is surprising," Enel said, reappearing nearby with a genuinely curious expression. "An animal that can use Armament Haki."
Scarlett beat his chest and grinned, brimming with satisfaction. Beside him on the floating island, Indigo wore the same look.
It hadn't been easy to get there. In the years after Shiki's fall, Indigo had poured everything he had into Scarlett. Training regimens, Fuwa Fuwa no Mi technique, and Haki development, all of it. Indigo himself was no fighter, and his combat instincts had always been ordinary at best. But as the former right hand of a man who had once ruled the New World, his knowledge ran deep. He understood clearly that anyone capable of defeating Gold Lion Shiki was not someone you could simply throw a strong punch at and expect results. At the highest levels of combat, Armament Haki was not optional, and between Devil Fruit users especially, fighting without it was close to fighting blind. Dragging that knowledge out of Scarlett through years of effort had cost Indigo considerably, and seeing Enel's surprised reaction made every moment of it feel worthwhile.
Scarlett kept beating his chest. On the floating island above, the earth began to swell and shift. A mass of rock and soil rose up and reshaped itself into the form of a giant ape, startlingly lifelike, and came hurtling down toward Enel.
"Interesting. I feel like I've seen something like this somewhere before," Enel remarked.
"He turned the rocks into a gorilla!" Elsa said from below, wide-eyed.
"Is that supposed to be impressive? Let me show you what actually is. Divine Punishment!"
Lightning gathered along Enel's arm in dense, crackling coils. As the stone gorilla closed in, he raised his hand and a pillar of lightning tore upward from his palm, slamming into the construct in a single sustained blast. When the light faded, the stone gorilla was simply gone.
"Uncle Enel is so strong!" Elsa breathed.
She hadn't fully understood until now. The uncle who used to come and visit them, cheerful and a little too pleased with himself, was actually something like this. It made her even more curious about her father. How strong did you have to be for people like this to look up to you?
"Enel, God of Thunder. A difficult opponent, as expected." Indigo's voice had gone cooler. "But don't think that's enough to put down Scarlett. You're underestimating the Fuwa Fuwa no Mi. Scarlett has fully inherited every last technique Master Shiki developed with that fruit."
Scarlett shrieked and beat his chest again. Across the surface of the floating island, the ground began to buckle and rise, mounds of earth lifting and reshaping into a crowd of massive stone gorillas that launched themselves toward Enel from every direction.
Lightning flashed across the sky in rapid stuttering bursts as Enel's silhouette flickered through the air, weaving between every one of them without effort.
The constructs Scarlett created were, in their way, more convincing than anything Shiki had made. Shiki was not a real lion, and his stone lions had always carried a certain remove from the genuine article. Scarlett knew gorillas the way he knew himself, and it showed in every detail of what he made. But none of that mattered when the target moved at nearly the speed of light. The Goro Goro no Mi didn't just give Enel Logia intangibility. It made him one of the fastest living things in the world, and a few animated rock formations weren't going to close that gap. The penetrating force of lightning meant that even encirclement was pointless.
"I'll say this honestly. You fall well short of Gold Lion. But since His Majesty has asked me to demonstrate what I can do, I should at least make it worth watching. I hope you're durable enough to last through a few more rounds." Enel flashed out of the encirclement and reappeared directly in front of Scarlett.
"You look like you can take a hit. Let's find out. Thirty Million Volt Hbird!"
Vast arcs of electricity erupted from Enel's body and condensed into the shape of a thunderbird that crashed into Scarlett at full force. The current tore through him, scorching fur and locking muscles, leaving him shaking from head to toe.
Scarlett screamed with rage.
"Tougher than I expected," Enel admitted, mildly surprised. A normal person hit with that would be lucky to stay conscious. Scarlett looked more annoyed than injured. His fur was singed, and that appeared to be the extent of it.
"Kale kale. It's no use," Indigo called out. "In a straight comparison, Scarlett may fall short of Master Shiki in most respects, but in terms of raw physical endurance and defensive power, even Master Shiki couldn't match him."
"Then I'll need to put more into it. Sixty Million Volt Thunder Dragon!"
A dragon of crackling electricity coiled and surged toward Scarlett. He crossed his arms over his chest, Armament Haki black and dense across both forearms, and took the attack head-on.
He held.
Scarlett looked up from behind his guard and shrieked triumphantly at Enel.
"That is genuinely surprising," Enel said, though his tone remained light. "You actually blocked sixty million volts."
The surprise was real, but limited. Scarlett had strong defense. That was the whole of what that demonstrated. He was a very solid target. And what Enel had shown so far was nowhere near the ceiling of what he could do. If someone had come all this way to settle a score with His Majesty, having some degree of resilience was only to be expected.
"Scarlett, stop playing around. Drop the island." Indigo's voice cut through the noise, sharp and sudden.
He had been watching the exchange carefully, and the picture was clear enough. Scarlett was never going to land a clean hit on Enel. The speed difference was too large, and Enel moved like electricity because he was electricity. Chasing him was a losing effort.
More to the point, Enel was not the target. Rosinante was. And Rosinante was standing below them with his people around him. If Scarlett released the island and let it fall directly onto the Undying City, no ability Rosinante possessed would be enough to stop something that large from hitting the ground. The impact would bury everything beneath it.
Scarlett hesitated for just a moment.
Then he pressed both hands flat against the surface of the island beneath him.
The entire floating island lurched, tipped, and began plummeting toward the Undying City below at terrifying speed.