~ Support & Read 15 Advanced Chapters on Patreon!
❁❁❁❁
When kings collide, the air itself is the first casualty.
It doesn't matter who is stronger. It doesn't matter if they've never met before. If two possessors of Conqueror's Haki stand on opposite sides, the clash of wills is inevitable. It's encoded in their very bones, a primal instinct that screams for dominance.
The sky split. The gale howled. The dark clouds were torn asunder by the sheer, invisible pressure.
On the deck of the Flying Fortress, the pirates who had survived the horrors of the previous era, men hardened by death and war, fell to their knees, gritting their teeth against the soul-crushing weight.
"Jieahahaha!"
Shiki threw his head back and laughed, the cigar clamped in his teeth glowing with each breath. The battle lust, dormant for so long, flared to life. The sleeping lion was finally roaring at the heavens.
Even broken, even with his spirit eroded by time and obsession, he was still the man who had once nearly conquered the New World.
"Fanboy... No. Thunder Emperor Arthur!" Shiki slowly retracted his Haki, his golden mane settling around his shoulders like a royal cloak. "You've earned my acknowledgement. You're not just some trash waving a jolly roger."
The wind died. The bent trees straightened. It was as if the storm on the island-ship had never happened.
Arthur and Vegapunk stood on one side. Shiki, Indigo, and his horde of pirates stood on the other.
A standoff.
"But spare me the small talk," Shiki growled. "State your business. Trespassing on my ship is an act of war. Speak quickly, or I'll send you to hell."
"I've sailed these seas for ten years. I don't need your acknowledgement. My fists explain my reasons just fine," Arthur retorted, his feet planted like roots, an immovable object.
His voice turned cold. "I came here to tell you one thing: stop drowning in the past. Stop clinging to your glory and your hatred. You've forgotten who you are."
"Roger has been dead for eight years. He turned the world upside down with his dying breath. And you? You've achieved nothing. You've been forgotten, left to rot in the trash of history."
"Are you content to be a relic? Or will you come with me to the World Government? Make a scene. Pick the perfect grave. Remind the world why they used to fear the name 'Golden Lion'!"
"Jieahahaha! A brat lecturing me?" Shiki turned away, dismissing Arthur with a sneer. "Mind your own business kid. Go play in the mud."
Arthur laughed, a cruel, mocking sound. "I'm just offering you a decent burial site. You're too scared to even face the World Government now. You aren't fit to shine Roger's shoes."
Sometimes, the simplest taunts cut the deepest.
Every powerhouse has pride. No one can remain indifferent when compared unfavorably to their lifelong rival.
"What. Did. You. Say?"
Shiki stopped. He turned slowly, his voice a low, dangerous rumble. The massive flying island shuddered to a halt in mid-air.
"I said," Arthur repeated, enunciating every word, "you aren't fit to shine Roger's shoes."
"Roger used his death to etch his name into history forever. And you... you've faded into the dirt, pathetic and small."
"You. Even in death, you will never equal Roger."
"THAT IS NOT FOR YOU TO SAY, BRAT!" Shiki roared, his reason snapping. "You think ruling the New World gives you the right to bark at me?!"
He moved without hesitation.
"LION'S MAJESTY: EARTH BIND!"
The mountains on the flying island groaned and shifted. The very earth rose up, controlled by an invisible hand, twisting and merging into the shape of a colossal lion's head.
Trees, rocks, entire hills were uprooted and crushed into the construct. It loomed over Arthur, a mountain of stone and soil crashing down like the wrath of a god.
Faced with such a behemoth, anyone—save perhaps Sanjuan Wolf—would feel like an insect.
"Angry because I hit a nerve?" Arthur shouted, his eyes blazing with purple light. "A coward who can't face his own weakness! What are you now, Shiki?!"
"ANSWER ME!"
He shielded Vegapunk, not moving an inch. Lightning exploded from his arm, wreathed in violet flame, a blinding, crackling storm of energy.
He drew back his fist.
"BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!"
A lightning fist, massive enough to match the earth lion, erupted from his hand.
Thunder met earth. The collision was cataclysmic. A shockwave of pulverized rock and electricity swept outward, devouring everything in its path.
The earth lion couldn't withstand the force. It crumbled, exploding into a shower of debris and dust.
Shiki's crew scrambled for cover, fleeing into the palace to escape the apocalyptic clash.
"What do you know?!" Shiki screamed, lost in his madness. "To be executed in the weakest sea... it was the ultimate insult to a man like Roger! If anyone was going to kill him, it should have been me!"
"I will build an army of beasts! I will start the slaughter in the East Blue! I will show them the true terror of a pirate!"
He couldn't accept it. How could the man who defeated him be captured by the incompetent Navy? Even if Shiki had lost, he refused to believe Roger could be beaten by anyone else.
To give up the title of Pirate King, to give up his life, just to start this 'Great Pirate Era'? It was a joke. Shiki wanted to end this laughable farce.
Arthur began to understand the tragedy of the man. Shiki wasn't just angry; he was grieving. He felt Roger's death was a waste.
The era Roger had bought with his life and legend had birthed only a generation of wannabes.
"You escaped Impel Down six years ago. What have you done for him since then?" Arthur lowered his fist, the lightning fading. His voice dripped with scorn. "Do you really think your menagerie of freak animals can overturn the world?"
"Or is it that Garp and Sengoku beat the courage out of you? Did they make you doubt your own strength? Is that why you pin your hopes on these useless beasts?"
"Have you become so old, so weak, that you don't even dare to destroy the World Government that humiliated Roger with your own two hands?"
Arthur looked down at the broken legend, his words stripping away every layer of Shiki's delusion.
"Have I... changed?"
Shiki panted heavily, staring at his own trembling hands, his chest heaving like broken bellows.
❁❁❁❁
~ 15 Advanced Chapters Available on Patreon!
https://p-atreon.com/dragonnx
(Just remove the hyphen to access Patreon normally.)