Seeing his own Devil Fruit technique thrown back at him, Whitebeard froze for a beat.
The tsunami he'd raised—hundreds of meters tall, enough to level an island—was pressed flat by Dimon, sliced into neat, square blocks, and sent crashing back down as a torrential rain.
"Hahaha… not just yours—"
Dimon laughed, and a pair of pitch-black devil wings unfurled from his back. He banked in midair and shot toward the sea.
Whitebeard narrowed his eyes, bent his knees, and vaulted after him in a single bound of several hundred meters.
They hit the coastline one after another.
Dimon skimmed to a stop over the waves, planted a foot on the sea, and slapped his palm down.
"Lion's Might: Sea-Dragon Maelstrom!"
Borrowed for a moment, the Float-Float power took hold of the sea. Two colossal water dragons reared up left and right, roared, and lunged straight for Whitebeard.
"Golden Lion's ability…!"
Genuinely shocked now, Whitebeard swung his bisento—Murakumogiri—and brought it cleaving down. The blade sang with quake force, the air itself cracking around the edge.
In a blink, both water dragons were severed—and then burst apart into a blizzard of spray.
Whitebeard's voice boomed across the surf. "I get it. You're mimicking mine and Golden Lion's powers. But the strength drops—same with that quake you threw just now. At best, a third of my power!"
If it were the real Golden Lion, it wouldn't be two dragons; it would be a flock of them—hell, he'd lift an entire sea and slam it down.
"Gravity Blade—Fierce Tiger!"
Dimon grinned and flashed forward in a drawing slash. The black arc ripped out—and the gravity with it lurched sideways for a heartbeat.
Whitebeard met it head-on, Murakumogiri up to guard—then his expression changed.
The pull had shifted.
His body was yanked off its line and dragged toward Dimon.
Dimon's wings snapped once. He blurred in, and his left fist turned to magma, punching straight for Whitebeard's chest.
Whitebeard grunted. The chained rhythm of attacks had caught even him off guard; he took this one with raw muscle and will. Flesh sizzled. The smell of scorched blood rose with a hiss.
"Useless! I am Whitebeard!!"
He roared and hammered a fist through the air. Milky light sheathed his knuckles—the quake force detonated in a focused blast.
The next instant, both men were blown backward.
Dimon beat his wings hard and steadied, swiping the blood from his mouth with a thumb. He couldn't help the bright, reckless smile. "Not bad. You've got bite, old man."
As he spoke, his blood flowed backward. The wounds closed in the space of a breath.
Whitebeard tumbled through a run of coastal boulders, spearing Murakumogiri into the ground to kill his momentum. Even in that heartbeat, the burn on his chest knit itself back together.
"This punk's stamina… stronger than mine by that much?"
He couldn't quite believe it. Kaido and Charlotte Linlin were monsters in the flesh. Yet after trading blows, he had to admit—Dimon's body outstripped even theirs.
A spear of gold flashed across Whitebeard's vision. Photons gathered beside him, congealing into a man's outline.
"Light-Speed Kick."
Whitebeard hesitated a beat—then a light-speed heel smashed into his face and sent him skidding for hundreds of meters. He bounced like a rubber ball, rolled for dozens of turns, then finally bled off the force and jammed the bisento down to rise—
—and Dimon was already on him.
"You… know way too many tricks!"
Dimon didn't waste breath. Thick black mist boiled from his palm.
Whitebeard didn't dare take it lightly. He reached ahead into the future—and saw himself being dragged in again.
Fine. He didn't fight it. He let his body get pulled and, as the gap snapped shut, detonated Conqueror's Haki in a thunderclap.
He roared and threw a punch.
Dimon saw that future too—and instead of pressing in, he slipped back and twisted what was to come.
Twisted Future: Ice Man.
Murderous cold erupted outward. An orb of frost blasted from Dimon's palm, struck Whitebeard, and froze him solid in an instant—
—for less than a second.
The quake shattered the shell. Whitebeard stepped free in an avalanche of icy shards—only to find Dimon pointing a single finger at him, black lightning crawling between knuckle and nail.
"That one's… an execution."
The future snapped into Whitebeard's mind, stark and sure. Unlike the flashy mimicked powers, this one was dangerous.
"Limit-Break—Tyrant Flash."
A pillar of black light ripped from Dimon's fingertip, crossing the gap in a blink, shearing across the island, skimming past the Moby Dick, and drilling down into the deep sea.
The wind and sea howled like a typhoon. The aftershock nearly capsized the Moby Dick.
"It's that move—the one that one-shotted Zephyr!"
"Terrifying! Who could eat that head-on!?"
"Oyaji!"
The crew shouted, voices tight with fear.
As the beam died, a cold bead of sweat slid down Whitebeard's temple. He was still lying on his back—the only reason he wasn't a smoking hole was that he'd deliberately let himself fall flat at the last heartbeat.
"Scary attack," he admitted. "Even I wouldn't bet on stopping it clean."
He hadn't even finished rising when a shadow cut across his sightline. Dimon loomed over him, finger still leveled.
"Again!? You can fire that kind of thing back-to-back…!?"
Whitebeard's eyes widened. No time to think—he rolled, not pretty but fast.
The black lance punched straight through the island, leaving behind a one-meter-wide, bottomless shaft.
"You dodged it again?"
Dimon cocked a brow. His gaze slid—Whitebeard was crouched a short distance away, breathing even, eyes steady.
"That's far enough. Call it—you win."
With a helpless little shrug, Whitebeard fished a Devil Fruit from his pocket and tossed it straight at Dimon.
Dimon snatched it out of the air and blinked down at the unfamiliar patterns. "What's this supposed to be?"
"What do you mean 'call it'?" Dimon laughed. "I won."
Whitebeard pushed to his feet, face straight as he salvaged pride. "That move of yours isn't infinite. It guzzles haki."
Seeing he didn't want to keep brawling, Dimon didn't bully him with another Limit-Break. "Not necessarily," he teased, tossing the Fruit lightly. "So—what is it?"
"How should I know." Whitebeard waved him off and started toward the beach. "That's not the only one. I've got several more. I'll hand them over. In exchange—give me a bottle of that Wine of Immortality."
Dimon flipped the unknown Fruit in his palm and followed.
Before long, a bonfire crackled on the shore. The two of them—fresh off trying to kill each other—sat and drank.
"Gurararara! Nearly ten years and you've shot up fast," Whitebeard chortled. "What about the other intern—Kaido, that brat? How's he doing?"
"He just had a daughter."
"…What? Kaido has a daughter?"
"Hahaha. That was exactly my reaction."
The two laughed like the fight had never happened at all.
Off to the side, the men of the Whitebeard Pirates just stared at one another, speechless.
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