For the first time in years, Dimon set foot on Hachinosu. The island hadn't changed a bit—same feverish neon, same smoke-stained shutters, same laughter gummed together with rum. The casino bells sang, the red-light alleys purred, and pirates spent their pay like it burned.
No one spared a glance for an old man with a cane.
He paused outside the bar Xia Qi once ran. Memory tugged: the old Rocks crowd piling into this very doorway, deals whispered over ashtrays and spilled spirits.
"Heh… time flies," the old man murmured, and walked on.
Skull Grand Hotel, right eye, left wing—private suite.
Wang Zhi lounged in a single armchair, one hand around an oak goblet, the other pinching a strawberry tart. A sip, a bite, repeat.
"Kaido's grown fast," he muttered. "Can't beat that meat-headed lunatic anymore."
Yesterday had been peaceful—until Kaido dropped in for a brawl. Ten punches later, the 'intern' from back then wasn't an intern anymore.
"Lord Founder, an old man's here to see you," a pirate reported, breathless.
"Old man?" Wang Zhi blinked. "Who?"
"Don't kn—"
BOOM. The door didn't open so much as explode, blown to chips by a slap of Haki. Wang Zhi squinted into the dust.
A stranger stepped through: a very old man, face carved by weather, beard sweeping his chest, cane knocking the floor in lazy taps. Only the eyes were wrong—banked coals, watching, weighing.
Never seen him.
Wang Zhi spoke without rising. "Whoever you are, I'm not recruiting. With your age, you should be at home waiting to die, not making messes in my house."
"What are you babbling about?" the old man grinned, showing far too many teeth for a centenarian. "This old man is only a hundred. It's the perfect age to hustle."
Wang Zhi stared. The room stared. Somewhere a strawberry slid off pastry.
"You after treasure and that so-called Immortality Wine too?" Wang Zhi snorted. "Idiot. It makes you undying, not young. Hah! You're funny, I'll give you that."
As an immortal himself, Wang Zhi looked exactly as remembered: floral trousers, hair like unwashed rope thrown over a shoulder. Classic.
The old man's smile thinned. "You misunderstand. I'm not here to pledge fealty." His eyes sharpened. "I'm here to borrow your head to make a name."
Silence—then the room erupted in laughter. Wang Zhi's face cooled by degrees. First Kaido, now this fossil?
"Climbing on me to rise? That joke almost lands."
He tipped back his goblet, then spat:
"Wine-Furnace Blaze!"
The wine ignited mid-air—an angry sun roaring across the room. The old man merely tapped his cane. Haki bloomed, a transparent wall shouldering the inferno aside. Fire hit that unseen shield and split like a river against stone, licking out to devour the drapes, the ceiling, the panicking henchmen.
"Hot—HOT! Gods—!"
"Water! Where's water—"
Wang Zhi didn't spare them a glance. His eyes were on the old man.
Armament Haki—thrown at range to block fire?
"Who are you?" he demanded.
"Yamamoto Genryūsai," the old man said pleasantly, and then snapped his cane in two. Inside the hollow shaft gleamed a black blade.
Enma.
He moved—and vanished. In the next breath he was at Wang Zhi's throat, Enma unsheathed and wreathed in crackling Conqueror's.
"Peach Garden Flash."
Wang Zhi's pupils shrank. Instinct ratcheted his spine flat; his head sank into the cushions.
The slash scythed past, silent and clean. The wall behind him split; the entire hotel shuddered.
"A… great swordsman," Wang Zhi thought, throat dry. "No—a supreme one."
Still, he wasn't rattled. He was immortal. Even death had gotten bored of him.
"Mucky Wine Wall!"
His cheeks bulged; a sheet of tar-thick liquor blasted out, foul and clinging. Dimon—because that's who this was, mask or not—ghosted aside. If that stuck to you, a hundred baths might not cut it. Vile move. Low damage, high insult.
His eyes cooled. Enma sang; a black crescent tore forward.
Wang Zhi sprang, dodged, and threw himself out the window. A glossy wine-bubble bloomed under his feet and caught him, buoying him into the open night.
"Don't get cocky, old bones!" he snarled—
And Dimon blew through the window after him, Enma already falling.
Wang Zhi raised a forearm swaddled in Armament. Black-red lightning exploded; half the island looked up as sparks stitched the night.
"I'm the Founder of pirates," Wang Zhi roared. "You think you can use me as your stepping stone? You're a hundred years too—"
"A dead man's bravado," Dimon said mildly, pressing Enma down—and lifted his left hand, index finger pointing at Wang Zhi's brow.
"Frog in a well."
Black lightning gathered on the fingertip and fired as a needle-thin beam. Wang Zhi's Future Sight squealed, but the strike was too fast. He twisted just enough—the shot ripped his ear instead of his skull. Blood sheeted hot.
"My ear—!"
No time to cry. Enma fell again. Flash. Wang Zhi's left arm spun off into darkness.
"Damn it—too strong!" Panic finally cracked his composure. He vomited flame without aiming, more to blind than burn, and bolted, wine-bubble skimming him into the alleys and away from the hotel's glare.
"Remember this, you bastard!" he flung over a shoulder.
Dimon cut the fire in a single stroke and watched Wang Zhi's retreating back with a click of his tongue. Future Sight made clean executions troublesome. If he'd mastered Observation Kill, that neck would've rolled. As it was, the slash had missed the switch and only taken an arm.
"Domain… unfold."
The night darkened. A vast, hungry shadow yawned open behind Wang Zhi, like the mouth of an ancient abyss leaning in for a bite.
Too many pirates on the island. Too many eyes. End it fast.
—To be continued: When the abyss bites, does a founder bleed?
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