King had no time to waste arguing with Queen.
He respected Kaido's decision and had deliberately stayed out of the duel, but not once had he seriously considered the possibility that Kaido might actually lose.
The moment that possibility became reality, King flew after him without hesitation.
…
Cain was plummeting rapidly, his consciousness gradually slipping away from his body.
Through the haze, he heard a familiar voice approaching. His body reacted before his mind could fully catch up; with several rapid kicks against the air, he altered his fall and caught the figure rushing toward him in a tight embrace.
"Cain! Are you… are you okay?"
Uta had practically crashed into his arms, but instead of pulling away, she wrapped herself around him even tighter, urgency filling her voice.
"Yeah… I'm fine. Just tired."
Cain's eyes were barely open as he answered. Feeling Uta's familiar warmth around him, he instinctively nestled closer and let his weight settle against her.
For once, he genuinely didn't want to move so much as a finger.
And that was the important distinction—he didn't want to move, not that he couldn't. Despite everything, Cain still had a surprising amount left in reserve.
Then Yamato's alarmed shout suddenly cut through the smoke.
"King! What are you doing?!"
Cain's senses immediately sharpened, and Uta whipped her head around.
Without saying a word, King had dived straight toward the enormous crater left behind by Cain and Kaido's final collision.
Flames, lightning, and remnants of Conqueror's Haki still raged inside the pit, tearing indiscriminately through everything they touched, but King ignored all of it and forced himself deeper.
"Kaido-san… please be all right."
Seawater poured into the crater first and swallowed him whole.
King continued downward.
"This much isn't enough to stop me."
He deliberately extinguished the flame on his back.
Lunarians possessed bodies capable of surviving in even the harshest environments, and although King was still a Devil Fruit user, he could endure seawater for a short time through sheer physical resilience.
With the defensive flame extinguished, his descent became even faster.
The friction from his speed heated his skin until it turned red, while the clothing across his upper body gradually burned away. King eventually broke free of the mass of descending water and continued falling so quickly that he began outracing the seawater itself.
Kaido was still plummeting below him, his massive body smashing through layer after layer of ice.
Half-conscious, Kaido heard someone shouting from far above.
"Who the hell is calling me…?"
He sluggishly opened his eyes.
"An angel?"
Then he frowned.
"Why are the wings black?"
A figure was diving toward him with one arm extended.
Kaido squinted until he finally recognized the face.
"…And why the hell is the angel a man?"
Another pause.
"And half-naked?"
King finally reached him and caught Kaido by the arm.
The enormous heat generated during his descent had burned away everything above his waist, leaving only his lower clothing intact. He spread both wings and wedged them hard against the surrounding ice and rock, trying to halt Kaido's fall.
Then Kaido's full downward momentum hit him.
Crack!
King's shoulder screamed beneath the strain. Both his arm and wings felt as though they were about to tear apart, but he clenched his teeth, reignited the flame on his back, and refused to release Kaido.
It still wasn't enough.
Kaido's weight dragged them both deeper.
"Kaido-san! The seawater is almost here! Hurry, we need to get out!"
Kaido suddenly grinned.
"Oh. It's you, King."
He stared up at him with surprising calm.
"How long has it been since I last saw you without that mask?"
Then his eyes drifted lower.
"But did you really have to take that much off?"
"THIS ISN'T THE TIME FOR THAT!"
King's voice cracked with desperation.
"You can't fall here! The Beasts Pirates still need you!"
"No."
Kaido's answer was quiet.
"They don't anymore."
There wasn't even the slightest trace of bitterness in his voice.
"I lost."
"From this moment on, the true leader of the Beasts Pirates is Yamato."
"If she doesn't want the weapons factories, shut them down. If she wants to release the people we captured, let them go. If she wants to cut the crew down, then cut it down."
"It's all up to her."
Kaido paused before continuing.
"That kid still has a long way to go before she becomes a real leader."
"So from now on…"
His voice softened almost imperceptibly.
"…you'll help her, Abel."
The instant King heard that name, the tears he had been forcing back finally spilled down his face.
It had been years.
Years since Kaido had last called him by the name he had carried before becoming King.
Countless memories surged through him—
only for Kaido to abruptly interrupt them.
"And tell that brat Cain that he won."
"From now on, the title of Strongest Creature on Land, Sea, and Air belongs to him."
Kaido gave a faint laugh.
"It was just some stupid name other people made up anyway, but I don't have much else to give him."
He gathered the tiny amount of strength that had already returned to his body and pushed King away with one hand.
Even that weakened shove was enough to send King shooting upward through the water.
King barely had time to react before he was already flying away.
Kaido closed his eyes.
The last image of Cain remained in his mind for a moment.
Then the pink-haired face gradually blurred, replaced by a memory from decades ago—a woman standing at the prow of a ship, reaching one hand toward him.
"You really did have a good kid, old woman."
A smile tugged at Kaido's lips.
'Though I guess that brat counts as my son too.'
'He just doesn't have the heart to call me Dad.'
With that thought, Kaido let himself continue falling.
Unlike the original course of events, he didn't crash into an undersea volcano. Onigashima had never been moved above mainland Wano, so the distance was much greater than it had been in that version of history.
More importantly, Bella's frozen sea was absurdly thick.
Kaido eventually crashed into the deepest section of ice near the bottom of Wano's inland sea and was stopped there.
The force of his impact still fractured the seabed extensively, sending cracks deep enough to reach the magma layers below, but it wasn't nearly as violent as plunging directly into an active volcanic chamber.
"NO! KAIDO-SAN!"
King, still being carried upward by Kaido's push, cried out in despair.
His voice echoed through the enormous tunnel.
Kaido's response immediately came from below.
"STOP YELLING!"
"I'M NOT DEAD!"
"I just want to sleep for a while!"
King froze.
Kaido continued shouting from somewhere deep beneath the water.
"And remember this! The one who defeated me wasn't Joy Boy, and it wasn't anyone from Wano…"
"It was my sons…"
"Kozuki Oden's prophecy…"
"…was bullshit…"
Then came an unmistakable sound.
"Snrrrk…"
Oh.
Right.
King hovered there for a moment.
Kaido's Devil Fruit was the Fish-Fish Fruit.
Even though seawater weakened him, he wasn't simply going to drown to death immediately.
He was exhausted, but his life wasn't in danger.
King suddenly realized that he might indeed have been making too much noise.
That was probably the only reason Kaido had gone on such a long speech in the first place.
And judging by how forcefully he had been shouting, he still had plenty of life left in him.
A moment later, the descending seawater swallowed King completely.
He forced his exhausted body upward, using the momentum from Kaido's earlier push to race toward the surface where the ice was already melting.
"I'll follow your wishes, Kaido-san!"
…
When King finally broke through the water and emerged into the open air, the first thing he saw left him completely stunned.
The shattered remains of Onigashima were still sitting in roughly the same position as before.
The fires around the ruins had already been extinguished by the seawater, leaving blackened stone walls steaming beneath thin trails of white smoke.
King remembered clearly that the island had lost all support and begun collapsing.
It should already have sunk.
Then he looked more carefully.
Cain was the reason.
At that moment, Cain was reclining comfortably in a chair, wrapped from head to toe in bandages while Uta fussed over him with almost excessive care. Plates upon plates of roasted meat were being brought over so he could rapidly replenish the energy he had burned through during the battle.
One of Cain's hands lazily moved from side to side.
With each casual motion, enormous Flame Clouds spread across the sky and wrapped beneath the remains of Onigashima, physically lifting the broken island back into position and suspending it securely above the frozen sea.
Meanwhile, Yamato had found someone among the battlefield ruins.
More accurately, she had found Drake unconscious after being blasted nearly to death by the aftermath of Cain and Kaido's battle.
How he had survived at all was something of a miracle.
Everyone else had withdrawn far enough away to watch the clash from relative safety.
Drake, however, had remained obsessed with finding some way to report Cain's battle with Kaido to the Marines.
He had hidden so thoroughly while searching for an opportunity that Bella's large-scale freezing attack caught him without anyone noticing.
As a result, he remained trapped in the ice while two monsters tore Onigashima apart above him.
The repeated shockwaves eventually knocked him unconscious, and he stayed that way until now.
Fortunately, Drake had hidden near the edge of the island. Bella's ice had offered some protection, and his Ancient Zoan body possessed tremendous durability.
So rather than dying, he had merely suffered severe injuries.
King floated above the water and stared at everything below with complicated emotions.
If Cain hadn't supported Onigashima with Flame Clouds, Kaido might have fallen asleep only to wake up buried beneath the entire island.
King remained silent for a long time, unsure what he could possibly say.
Eventually, he looked toward Cain, Uta, and Yamato and quietly spoke two words.
"…Thank you."
His voice was so soft that even King himself wasn't sure whether they had heard it.
But he had said it.
Then King cleared his throat.
He no longer cared whether anyone was listening.
He simply spoke the sentence he had finally accepted, slowly and clearly.
"This battle…"
"The Beasts Pirates have lost."
---------
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