"This consumes energy, not insignificantly — I can only cast this roughly a hundred times before my stamina runs dry," Adrian thought.
He had used the Time Sphere to trap Mihawk's blade-arc inside a pocket of frozen time, then accelerated the flow within that bubble so the attack finished its motion in isolation and vanished — not by rewinding time, but by confining the strike to a discrete temporal volume and speeding up its internal progression until the sword's motion completed and dissolved. That was why Mihawk's slash simply disappeared.
But Cataclysm-tier techniques were brutal. Even though Adrian's Physique had been raised to Nation-Destroying, the Time Sphere still drained roughly one percent of his stamina — and that had only been a casual, testing cut. If Mihawk had launched a greater, truly devastating technique, the Time Sphere would have demanded far more, and Adrian's body would have paid in full.
"If only I'd drawn an energy that pairs with Time Sphere," he mused. "Then it wouldn't burn my stamina like this."
The system's quirks were maddening. When an ability required no native energy, the cost bypassed his Reiatsu and ate directly into his physical reserves. Maybe the system wanted him to gather different energies from many worlds and fuse them later. Or maybe it deliberately throttled his growth to force expenditure of Reputation. Either way, there was no point arguing with it—wasting time on speculation was useless.
On Mihawk's coffin-sloop, the world's greatest swordsman watched with mild curiosity rather than surprise. The canceling of his slash suggested an ability — perhaps a Devil Fruit? — that could interfere with kinetic attacks. Intriguing.
"Looks like you aren't inclined to cooperate, Hawk-Eye. Pity. Then I'll have to handle you myself," Adrian said.
At his words, Madara and Grimmjow materialized at his side and took knee.
"Boss, let me strike. I can finish him," Grimmjow urged.
"No, let me — I will finish him," Madara countered, his Rinnegan gleaming.
The pair immediately began arguing over who would take the honor. Their rivalry crackled like a live wire.
Adrian waved them down. "Enough. Mihawk isn't a trivial target. He's probably Cataclysm-tier — in other words, on the Yonko level. My men are strong, but this isn't a duel I want to waste them on. I'll take this one."
The declaration landed like a gauntlet. Adrian knew his crew's limits: Madara was unquestionably deadly, but fighting someone with Mihawk's lethal combination of offense and defense in a prolonged exchange would be costly. Adrian had a weapon of his own, and a Reiatsu at Cataclysm-tier; if he was going to fight, he'd fight on his terms.
Mihawk, who had been watching the bandit with the detached interest of a predator assessing prey, felt his pride prick at Adrian's casual dismissal of him as "just Mihawk." That tone implied contempt. The great swordsman did not like being underestimated.
"Change the arena," Adrian proposed, and leapt onto a larger plank of wreckage drifting near the shattered remains of the pirate flagship. Mihawk followed, landing with feline grace. Adrian's casual remark — that the little craft Mihawk stood upon would belong to them when the fight was over — made Mihawk's lips twitch.
"You divide spoils before a fight begins?" Mihawk asked, amusement in his voice.
"Everything belongs to me eventually," Adrian said. "I'm just keeping an eye on my loot."
Mihawk's patience thinned. Words were no use here.
He drew his black blade, Night, and with a single motion slashed outward — a simple cut, almost bored. But the power behind that casual arc was monstrous. The air itself tore.
Adrian's response was instant. His hand rested on Ryūjin Jakka — the Zanpakutō that burned with an ancient, infernal heat. He intoned the release.
"Shinra Tensei, all becomes ash — Ryūjin Jakka!"
The blade answered. Flames roared to life along its edge and the temperature around Adrian spiked as if a star had been plucked from the sky. He swung. A blaze-laced slashing wave met Mihawk's sword-arc in midair.
The impact detonated. The great wooden plank beneath them split down the middle with a thunderous crack as the collision of power fractured the deck. Adrian's fire baked the soaked timber, drying and igniting it; smoke hissed and steam rose as water vaporized under unbearable heat.
Mihawk judged Adrian's strike with an expert eye. "You don't know swordsmanship," he observed after the clash. "Yet you do not need to. It makes no difference to the result."
Adrian shrugged, unfazed. "So what if I don't know swordsmanship? Does it stop me from robbing you?"
Mihawk's expression darkened. He moved with a speed that made the eye's muscle ache to follow; the black blade arced in a perfectly economical counter. He cleaved through Adrian's next attack as if it were wind.
"Such power," Mihawk admitted with cool appreciation as Adrian sheathed Ryūjin Jakka. He'd felt the Zanpakutō's unique properties — the burning blade was no mere heat, it carried a peculiar, annihilating presence. Mihawk did not underestimate a tool that could alter the battlefield so thoroughly.
"By your strength, you should not be anonymous," Mihawk said. "Are you a hidden trump card of the World Government?"
Adrian bristled. "Don't lump me with the Celestial Dragons, you— I'm no pawn of the World Government."
The accusation fell away as Mihawk reconsidered. He understood now that Adrian was not some bureaucratic secret: the man had an irreverent, brazen independence Mihawk recognized as dangerous in its own right.
Adrian lunged. His speed was brutal — a flash, a strike — yet Mihawk's blade intercepted cleanly. Their clash shattered more planks; the surrounding water steamed where Ryūjin Jakka's heat met the sea.
"You're stronger than I expected," Mihawk said, calm as a grave. "Still… the fight can end here."
He unleashed a refined cut that split the very air — a technique as precise as it was deadly. The force sliced through Adrian's flame, scattering sparks like cinders. For a moment a hush fell: even the ship's wreckage seemed to pause.
Adrian smiled, not in fear but in relish. "If you say so. But Hawk-Eye — don't die on my blade. I plan on robbing you more than once. I'd like the fun to continue."
Mihawk's only reaction was a single dark thread of disbelief. This bandit's gall was extraordinary.
"Use whatever you have," Mihawk said quietly. "But your death will not be mine."
Adrian's face hardened. He raised his blade again and intoned, voice suddenly formal, almost ritualistic.
"Bankai — Zanka no Tachi!!!"
At that word, the air itself changed. The fires that had been consuming the wreckage vanished at once, as if Adrian's Zanpakutō had drawn them in, absorbing their heat and smoke into the blade's hungry maw. The sword's appearance shifted — not elegant now, but as if molten and charred, a remnant of flame and ash fused into steel. It looked like a burned relic, but the temperature surrounding it climbed to an intolerable pitch; steam crawled off the sea in thin, white veins and evaporated before they rose.
Adrian held the blade aloft. "Hawk-Eye," he said in a low voice, "don't die on me. I've plans."
Mihawk's response was composed steel. He met Adrian's posture, the two of them like poles holding the balance of the world between their blades.
There was no fanfare. They moved.
The impact of Bankai was immediate and obscene: heat so intense it felt like being pressed against the core of summer, force that crushed air into sound. Each of Adrian's swings left scorched traces through the haze; Mihawk's counters cut through flames as if they were paper.
Around them, the sea boiled in small patches, wood turned to coal and then ash, and shards of shipboard timber rained away. The Baratie and the small sloop drifted at the edge of the storm of their clash; Zeff and Sanji watched from a safe distance, faces pale but gripping grit in the teeth.
Adrian's new form of attack — the Bankai's remnant fire — carried a peculiar quality: it didn't simply burn, it bore a weight of deathly heat that seared intention out of any strike it touched. Mihawk, for all his mastery, felt the difference in kind. He adapted, but each exchange took more from both of them than the last.
"Your blade is unusual," Mihawk finally said. "It annihilates what it touches. But technique still matters."
Adrian laughed, breathless from exertion but wired with adrenaline. "I don't have to be a master to steal from a master."
The two warriors danced that thin edge — Mihawk's perfect measure against Adrian's terrifying, weaponized flame. Whoever won would be measured not only by blade, but by sheer reserves of will.
For a moment, the world reduced to nothing but the metallic song of two swords — a war of sparks and heat and the thudding of two hearts that refused to yield.
And under it all, the knowledge hung heavy: Adrian was no ordinary thief. He had tools that bent time and fire that consumed oceans. Mihawk was no ordinary swordsman. He was the benchmark. Their meeting would echo.
On the deck, ash drifted like snow. The fight had only just begun.
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