The Whitebeard pirates froze.
Crocodile had been floored—then a bloom of black mist etched a pentagram in the air… and the man from the rumors walked out of magic.
Even Crocodile gaped from the deck. "...Big Bro?!"
"Gu-ra-ra-ra… what, nearly ten years now, Dimon?" Whitebeard rumbled.
Dimon drew in one smooth breath—and drew his blade in the next. One step, one upswing, Ame-no-Habakiri singing from below.
Whitebeard's eyes glinted. Cong Yun Che came down in a clean, brutal line to meet it.
When kings meet, the sky splits first.
Two tyrannies of will collided; black-red lightning speared upward and tore the cloudsea open like parchment.
"Back! Back, all of you—MOVE!" Joz roared, already bracing as a gale slammed the deck.
The shockwave turned air to knives. A swath of the crew went limp where they stood, eyes rolling white beneath the pressure; the rest tumbled like leaves, some hurled clean off the rail and into the sea.
A cross-vein pulsed on Whitebeard's brow. "Planning to wreck my ship on my own deck, brat?"
"Just saying hello. No need to be so touchy." Dimon never let his Conqueror's flow drop. "What I do need to know is—what did you boys do to my little brother?"
If you were the Big Bro of the New Era, you didn't watch a little brother get dogpiled and keep sipping tea.
"That sand brat…" Whitebeard's mouth twisted. "He tried to take a fruit from my son. So he's yours, huh?"
Dimon paused, half-turned—Crocodile had already been blown back, hugging a mast for dear life to avoid the drink.
"Big Bro, don't listen to him!" Crocodile shouted hoarsely. "I saw that fruit first!"
In midair, Marco wheeled, blue fire beating. "Oi oi, is that a pirate's line? 'Whoever sees it first gets it'? This isn't kindergarten. I took it; that makes it mine!"
Of course Whitebeard backed his son. He laughed thunder. "Gu-ra-ra-ra! That's how pirates talk. You want it? Take it!"
What fruit is worth all this heat?
Dimon's eyebrow ticked up. Then his heel slid.
"Then let's talk in the old tongue—steel."
His horizontal slash blew the deck into spindrift. Whitebeard caught it—and snorted. "Different stage. Not my ship."
He vaulted ashore in a single bound.
Dimon followed, blade aloft, Conqueror's woven thick along the edge, and chopped.
The sound was monsoon thunder. The first exchange alone heaved the Moby Dick up on its keel; trees bent double, roots screaming from the soil; close brush went flat, then airborne.
On deck, the few still conscious clung to the rail.
"Flower Sword" Vista whispered, hands shaking despite himself. "Monsters. The brewer of legend is… even with Pops?"
Joz's jaw was stone. "He's the one who deleted an Admiral at the execution."
(And somewhere far away, Zefa sneezed angrily in a hospital.)
Marco couldn't hold a steady hover; the air itself bucked and rolled. "Can Pops win? We can't even enter that fight."
First time he'd ever felt a stitch of doubt.
"Save the swimmers first!" Cook Thatch yelled from the surf. "We've got Devil Fruits in the soup!"
They worked fast, dragging bodies up in sputtering piles.
"What a Conqueror's… I blacked out in a blink!"
"Thank the seas they took it ashore. If they'd swung like that here, the ship—"
"Teach, you good?" Marco glanced at the scrawny ten-year-old newbie wringing out his shirt—Blackbeard, recently adopted, still star-eyed.
"I'm fine…" Teach murmured, gaze pinned to the island, awe burning like fever. If only I had that kind of power…
"Who wins, Mr. Thatch?" he blurted.
"Pops, obviously!" Thatch shot back—then, quieter, "Might take… a while. Eyes up."
Crocodile hugged the mast and sat cross-legged to steady his breath. He hadn't expected Dimon to actually show up—but having a backer felt great. Even if it was the Whitebeard Pirates… he wasn't scared anymore.
He glanced along their line and curled a fist. He couldn't beat a single one of these brats. He'd spotted the fruit first; Marco had plucked it right from under him. Humiliation stung like salt.
That fruit was his ticket to Immortality Wine. Block him from eternity?
Debt. Written. In. Sand.
—
The duel raged seven days and seven nights.
The island's heart—once a neat little Eden—lay ripped to mulch and crater. Even Whitebeard's breath thickened, shoulders rolling with the weight of the last exchange.
He hammered a quake into Dimon's downswing and huffed, almost amused. "Oi. Is that stamina bottomless?"
Even he had to call it: monster.
Day Seven Dimon fought like Day One Dimon. Edges stayed savage. Every cut demanded Whitebeard's full attention.
"Hit your cap?" Dimon smiled over the locked blades. "Then this is where you lose, Old White."
Whitebeard's eye narrowed. Don't get cute, brat. "I'm plenty young! Quake—Break!"
His fist crashed toward Dimon's face—and the world fractured. Hairline fissures crazed sky and sea; along the horizon the ocean reared—a wall hundreds of meters tall.
Dimon slid back, boots furrowing rock. He looked up at the water coming down like a country falling out of heaven.
"Gura Gura no Mi, huh? You say it so loud." He cocked a fist. "This trick? I can do it too."
The same invisible ripples ripped the sky. The incoming tsunami was sliced into clean, square blocks of water that rained like shattered glass.
"...What?" Whitebeard blinked.
Dimon shook feeling out of his knuckles. "Don't pout. It's just using Armament past the wall."
He tapped Ame-no-Habakiri's spine; the blade thrummed, wrapped in something denser than black.
"Internal Destruction for the inside. Limit-Break for the outside. Call it… Bashan—a flash that shoves Armament past itself."
His finger lifted—tiny arcs of black lightning caged to the nail.
Whitebeard's face sobered. "That beam that chewed Zefa—"
"Mm." Dimon's grin thinned. "Don't worry. I'm not pointing at your head."
Across the surf, Marco's flames faltered. "He can… fake the quake with pure Haki?"
Joz muttered like a prayer. "No wonder Pops said the old crew only had a handful who could make him dig in."
On the sand, Whitebeard exhaled, shoulders squaring. The easy rumble drained from his throat; what remained was the Sea Itself standing up in a man's bones.
"Gu-ra-ra… fun's fun." He rolled Cong Yun Che in his palm, set the edge to the air. "But my sons are watching. If I don't end it, they won't sleep for a week."
"Then end it," Dimon said softly. "Before your fruit goes missing."
Whitebeard's mustache twitched. "Try it."
They moved.
Two arcs—one quake-white, one armament-black—crossed the ruined island, cut the world clean down the middle, and met—
—and in that breath before impact, Marco finally saw it:
Dimon's cut wasn't aimed to kill.
It was aimed to steal.
Clang—
To be continued…
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