'Stubborn… even washed up, he's still a Great Pirate, huh.'
Some time had passed since the battle between Shiki and Aokiji began.
The flow of the fight still favored Aokiji, yet even now he hadn't been able to drive in a single decisive blow.
Shiki's body had weakened. His Haki had dulled. And yet, the combat sense he'd honed in the same era as the Pirate King still remained—if only in part.
And Haki, by nature, is something that grows and blooms in extremis.
Just a few days ago, in his genuine, all-out fight with Sue, Shiki—who'd been living in retirement, to the point that he hadn't even had to struggle, let alone fight, in a long time—had been dragged into a level of battle he hadn't tasted in years. In that crucible, he'd begun to reclaim a fragment of his old Haki.
The thin slash across Aokiji's cheek, and the trace of blood it left behind, told the story.
Of course, it also made Aokiji more wary, and that only left Shiki with fewer openings to press.
'I never planned on letting my guard down… but I have to finish this quickly. While the stage the "Insider" prepared is still holding together…'
And Shiki—though in a different way—was feeling the same pressure.
'If this keeps up, I'll get ground down… and the damage the hideout's taking from that bombardment isn't something I can laugh off! Damn it. Somehow I've got to drive this bastard back and bring the situation under control… or it won't just be my twenty-year scheme. It'll hit the crew itself—our future.'
Thirteen years ago, after escaping from Impel Down… Shiki had been moving forward with a plan on this island.
He would strengthen the diverse animals living here until they could be operated as weapons, and make them part of his own force.
Then he would lead them into the East Blue, wipe it out… and use it as a declaration of war—against the World Government, or even the world itself.
It was a plan born from the values he'd always held: the essence of piracy is domination.
At the same time, it was obsession—his fixation on Roger, his greatest rival, born in the East Blue… and it was revenge against the Marines and the Government who executed that man in the "Weakest Sea."
But now that the island's existence—and Shiki's own survival—had been exposed, the plan was beginning to crumble along with his future.
Still, it wasn't as if he had no countermeasures.
This island was a Sky Island—and one Shiki was keeping aloft with his own Powers.
If he could drive the Marines back even once, it wouldn't be difficult to change the island's position and vanish. And even if they found it again, it wasn't the kind of place they could simply march into.
The plan would need major revisions, but in the future he could still put it into motion—he could still make the peaceful rabble of today's seas, including the starstruck bandwagoners who'd spread after Roger's death, remember what the terror of a real pirate looked like.
But only if he survived this attack.
They'd brought Buster Call-level strength, led by their greatest asset—an Admiral.
'Hate to say it, but the fact is I've declined a hell of a lot from my prime… and I don't have the decisive blow to kill this ice brat anymore. But I don't have to kill him. I just have to drive him off… If only this storm wasn't here—if only it wasn't cutting into my power up here…!'
The storm was the problem—the one thing that severely dulled Shiki's strength in the air.
As if cursing it, he lifted his gaze toward the black clouds overhead…
…And that was when it happened.
"…Huh?"
"…What?"
Shiki and Aokiji.
Both of them instinctively looked up—and went slack with disbelief.
The storm that had been raging only moments ago—only seconds ago—stopped dead.
And even the clouds that had covered the sky were almost entirely gone… as if mocking them, sunlight spilled down through the opening.
In the span of a heartbeat, the island had shifted into clear weather.
The abruptness left them both shaken—but only Shiki, the one levitating the island, noticed the other change happening at the same time.
'The island… the altitude's rising. Not much, but it is. And this… don't tell me—did we slip into a Typhoon Divide? Someone guided the island into it…? But moving the island should be impossible for anyone except me—the one keeping it afloat. At the very least, none of my men should be capable of…'
He almost finished with there's no one—when a thought cut across him.
Not one of his subordinates. Not yet.
But there was someone on this island whose Powers had already advanced to the stage of Awakening—someone who could wield that strength across a vast range, on a scale that bordered on absurd.
And someone with the kind of weather sense that could, conceivably, predict the formation of a Typhoon Divide… just like her mother.
'That damn idiot girl… I don't know what trick she pulled, but she actually did it!'
☆☆☆
A "Typhoon Divide" is one of the Grand Line's meteorological phenomena… an event where multiple "eyes" form inside a single typhoon or storm.
This sea never stops producing nonsense, I thought… but fine. Not the point right now.
Each of those "eyes" becomes calm—maybe not quite like the Calm Belt, but close enough that the wind nearly dies, the air settling into something gentle.
Meaning: for a short time, the storm that had been hindering Shiki's movements would be suppressed.
Among the books I'd been reading in Sou's room these past few days, there were specialized meteorological texts—and in them was information about this Typhoon Divide, including when it forms and where.
And I could tell the current conditions matched.
So—
"Amatsuhagoromo."
What I did was this.
I pushed my recovering stamina a bit too hard, but I used my Awakening again and produced an enormous amount of paper.
Then I spread it across the entire sea surrounding the island—down below, wrapping and covering it like a net.
And using that paper, I began to move the island little by little.
Of course, paper alone doesn't have the power to move an island. That would be a joke.
But my paper has a particular trait: it can receive the surrounding wind and convert it into powerful buoyancy and propulsion.
Not just equal to the wind's force, either—multiples of it.
That's how I fly.
I flap to create wind, then my wings catch it and amplify it. That's enough to lift a single human body easily, and it's why I can fly at speeds far beyond what simple flapping should allow.
It's basically the same idea as a certain hunting game's dragon that flies through storms—well, creates its own storm and rides it.
…If you don't get it, feel free to ignore that.
Devil Fruits, as always, casually cause phenomena that trample all over conservation laws… but fine. Not the point right now.
And right now, the weather was a storm. Wind was everywhere.
Shiki's Powers were already responsible for keeping the island afloat, so I only needed to move it. That's what made it possible.
I had Dr. Indigo gather materials—some random ground nearby, plus something I asked him to prepare—and I produced a massive amount of paper. Using it, I guided the island into the Typhoon Divide I'd predicted.
I managed to push away the foul weather that was effectively Shiki's natural enemy.
And Aokiji freezing the whole sea worked out nicely, too. My paper didn't get soaked, and I could cover and support the entire underside of the island without it turning to mush.
All right, then. One more act of filial piety… I'll lend a hand in driving Aokiji off.
Dr. Indigo—one more job. Are you ready? Everything set?
☆☆☆
With the storm quelled—and with his "daughter" brazenly playing a hand of her own—Shiki regained breathing room, in both situation and spirit. And he shifted into offense.
A furious dance of twin leg-blades, paired with a relentless assault of lions shaped from the ground, pressed Aokiji hard enough to keep him contained, still slightly unsettled by how abruptly the conditions had changed.
That said, Aokiji wasn't truly being driven into a corner. He simply hadn't grasped the sudden, unexpected turn the situation had taken, and was forcing himself to be cautious… but even so, he still met Shiki head-on, wielding an ice sword, letting Haki-coated blows flow past and away, taking Shiki's assault with room to spare.
'Was that coincidence? Or did someone do this on purpose…? Hey, that's a bad feeling…!'
"Whatever's going on," Aokiji muttered, "I'd rather not let it drag out. Better to settle it quickly."
"Talk big all you want," Shiki shot back. "If you can do it, then try!"
As he spoke, Shiki manipulated the ground again, creating more earth lions and sending them swarming at Aokiji.
Aokiji froze them one after another, locking them in place… and then, from an angle no one expected, an intruder burst into the battlefield.
It was—
"…Huh?"
"…What!?"
New lions appeared behind Aokiji.
And they weren't earth, snow, or water…
'Flames…!? And what is that color—green?'
They were lions formed from strange, green fire.
They lunged from behind, closing in to pin Aokiji between them and the earth lions.
Naturally, Aokiji tried to freeze them to neutralize them… but they didn't fully freeze, and the remaining flames licked across his body.
"Hot—! What the hell is this!? That's not normal fire…!"
There was no Haki in the attack, so it didn't truly injure him… but the brief heat and sensation left him with a nagging sense of wrongness.
Watching, Shiki realized who must have done it—and he was almost certain it was the same person who'd guided the island into the Typhoon Divide.
'So that idiot girl really is meddling… and that flame color's Dr. Indigo.'
A few lions, not fully frozen, reached Shiki and gathered near him as if obeying. Up close, he could see they were made of countless sheets of paper.
And the strange color of the flames was exactly what he suspected: Dr. Indigo's handiwork.
Not ordinary flames, but chemical flames. That was why they didn't die easily, even in low temperatures and thin air—and why they could push through Aokiji's cold and reach this far.
And in truth, those flame lions carried another trait that Shiki still hadn't noticed… but that was something he wouldn't learn until later.
For now, Shiki decided to make full use of them—likely being controlled remotely by Sue.
He shaped earth lions again and drove in with a final, brutal push. The flame lions surged alongside.
Whether he intended it or not, the Haki riding Shiki's leg-blades was clearly stronger than before.
"—Ice Age!"
After only a few exchanges, Aokiji's saber shattered. He unleashed a wave of extreme cold across a wide area, trying to freeze Shiki along with every lion around him.
But Shiki slipped upward a beat sooner, disengaging into the air.
The earth lions froze instantly. The flame lions endured for a moment longer, forcing their way forward and even managing to clamp onto Aokiji… but they didn't deal any real damage before the flames died and they froze into ice.
And yet…
Someone slipped between the frozen lion statues.
A lion—made from both earth and flame.
In that split second, Shiki had used the charging lions as a wall to hide his real move… then created an earth lion that swallowed flame, producing a beast that advanced like molten lava, burning and melting as it came.
Of course, what was "melting" wasn't magma-level heat—it was the effect of chemicals. But even the sight of it was unsettling.
Aokiji's notice came a fraction too late, delayed by the obstacles in his line of sight, and the lion's fangs tore into him.
"…Guh—!?"
'This one's got Haki—!?'
The jaws clamped down and held him fast.
Earlier, neither the earth lions nor the flame lions had carried any Haki at all. This bite did.
So the previous waves had been a bluff.
It still wasn't enough to seriously injure Aokiji—but what caught his attention was something else entirely.
'This sensation isn't Shiki's… whose Haki is this? And those flame lions… that was her doing, too, wasn't it? There was nothing in the intel about an Ability User under his banner who could do this…!'
Neither the spies he'd planted nor the "traitors" he'd bought had fed him that information. He'd ordered that everything—anything that marked someone within the crew as a threat—be reported.
And for a split second, that gap in his understanding made him hesitate.
In the air above, Shiki wore a feral grin—and Aokiji understood, too late, that he'd made a fatal mistake.
"Get the hell out, ice brat…! Shishiodoshi: Ehōmaki!!"
Caught in a crush of Haki and heat he couldn't fully shake off, Aokiji was forced clear off the island in an instant… dragged past even the frozen sea and thrown "out of bounds."
He managed, at last, to freeze the lion with his cold… but by then it was too late.
Without the ability to fly, Aokiji had no foothold, nothing to cling to in open air… and he fell, helpless, into the blue sea spread beneath him, unable to do a thing.
---
Q. Didn't Sue have Seastone accessories on? What happened to those?
A.
"Sue! Dr. Indigo! Bring me the island map! I'm going to support Shiki, so we need to come up with a plan!"
"Yes, right here!"
"Dr. Indigo! Get the chemicals ready! I need something that'll burn into a flame that's hard to put out through a chemical reaction! And if it's toxic, even better!"
"Yes, right here!"
"Dr. Indigo! Give me the weather data for this airspace! I'm going to predict the spots where the conditions will favor Shiki!"
"Yes, right here!"
"Dr. Indigo! Take this off. It's in the way!"
"Yes, of course! (Click!) …Huh?"
"Good, it's off! All right, then… 'Senbonzakura Kageyoshi'!"
'…Well, she doesn't look like she's going to run or betray us, so it's fine.'
That's basically how it went—pure momentum and vibes.
To be continued...