"You see this, brat?" Diamante said with a grand, theatrical sweep of his arm toward the scattered confetti cannons. His voice swelled with the same self-importance as a man introducing his magnum opus to a panel of art critics.
"This… is your demise."
He straightened his back, chin high, and continued, "You see, I have eaten the Ripple-Ripple Fruit, which bestows the properties of fabric upon—"
Aaand… there it is, Gale thought, the words already blurring into meaningless background noise. The monologue. Knew it was coming.
By the time Diamante got halfway through explaining the part about "waving the fabric of reality like a tailor of death," Gale had fully checked out.
His brain had slipped into that quiet hum people get in boring lectures—only instead of thinking about lunch or weekend plans, Gale was internally congratulating himself on not interrupting this time.
In fact, he was happy to let Diamante yap until his throat dried up.
Earlier, yeah, he'd cut the guy off mid-sentence, poked at him like a feral cat batting a toy, just to push him into wrecking the theme park.
Mission accomplished.
The Ferris Wheel was gone, rides were dust, and Sabaody's going to be short one major tourist trap for a while.
But now? Now the motivation to keep swinging had flatlined.
Truth be told, he wasn't eager to push this fight any further than necessary. Not because he was scared—oh no, no, no—he just had a healthy respect for not dying stupidly.
The plan was simple: waste enough time for Kizaru to show up and handle the human pretzel himself.
If they kept going full tilt, Gale wasn't sure he'd win without putting in actual effort—and risking his neck in the process. And in the cold math of battle, there was a glaring equation staring him in the face:
Armament Haki + Devil Fruit + Experience = Winner.
And the only one here with Armament Haki was standing across from him wearing polka dots and looking smug.
Sure, Gale could dance with him, trade blows, get creative—but that was because Diamante wasn't someone who fought straight... he didn't even try it.
He relied on trickery, weird angles, devil fruit gimmicks… all smoke and mirrors to fish for an opening. A perfectly valid style when facing someone on your level.
'Problem is,' Gale mused, 'I'm not on his level in raw power. My bag of tricks is the only reason we're even having this conversation instead of me being folded up like origami.'
So he stood there, watching Diamante gesture like a circus ringmaster hyping up his next act, nodding politely every few seconds to make it look like he was listening.
'Come on, Kizaru… hurry it up before I have to pretend to care what "fabric properties" means.'
Uncaring—or maybe blissfully oblivious—to the fact Gale had mentally left the conversation about three minutes ago, Diamante finally reached the grand finale of his speech.
"…and that's how I've stuffed these confetti cannons with spiked steel balls," he declared, puffing his chest out, "that will shoot into the air and rain down with enough force to create craters! Strong enough to wipe out an entire army!"
Gale just stared at him. Blank. Not even a flicker of awe, just the sort of dead-eyed look a teacher gets from a student who definitely didn't read the homework.
"Sorry," Gale said, tilting his head with the most punchable smirk any human face could possibly achieve, "kinda dozed off there. Mind explaining all of that to me again?"
Diamante's smugness snapped like a twig in a storm. His mouth twisted, teeth grinding.
"You goddamned brat…!"
"DEATH ENJAMBRE!"
With that, every confetti cannon exploded in unison, sending their contents blasting high into the air.
Gale's eyes tracked the projectiles—star-shaped folded steel balls, hundreds of them—glinting against the night sky like some deadly fireworks display.
Diamante, of course, had his next move ready. With a casual flourish, he reached into his pocket and pulled out what looked like a neatly folded napkin.
"Lock," he muttered.
The cloth shifted, stiffening, its surface rippling into polished metal until it had become an umbrella. He flicked it open, the metallic canopy catching the moonlight with a cold, metallic gleam.
He held it above his head, grinning like a man who had just planned his own victory parade.
"Try not to die, boy," Diamante said with mock cheer. "I still have questions for you."
Then, in an instant, the confetti shed their disguise and regained their true properties—spiked steel balls plummeting toward the ground with meteoric force.
The first one slammed into the earth just behind Gale, punching a crater deep enough to swallow a whole cart. Then came the next. And the next. The entire park became a symphony of concussive booms, the ruined rides and shattered stalls suffering yet another layer of devastation.
Gale, having already hardened his body with his devil fruit, sighed like a man watching someone try way too hard at something unnecessary. A steel ball dropped directly onto his head with a sharp PING, bounced off, and embedded itself into the dirt beside him.
He scratched the back of his head and looked at Diamante, unimpressed.
'Seriously… This guy probably carries a literal ton of folded steel on him at all times like it's nothing. And instead of using that monstrous strength and Armament Haki… he does party tricks.'
Diamante's grin had slowly begun to wilt the longer the spiked steel balls rained down on Gale… and did absolutely nothing.
The first bounce he could write off as luck. The second was suspicious. By the tenth? His eye was twitching like it was trying to Morse code his fury.
The impacts didn't even make Gale flinch—they just plinked off him like hail on a roof. One ball even bounced off his shoulder, ricocheted twice, and landed perfectly in a popcorn bucket lying in the rubble.
Gale gave him a casual shrug, and Diamante finally ground out between clenched teeth:
"Just… what are you? And who the hell do you think you are?"
Gale pointed at himself with his thumb.
"Me? I'm the man who's going to become…" He paused, letting the tension hang for just a moment, "…the King of the Marines."
For a heartbeat there was silence. Then Diamante's eyes all but ignited.
"You think you're a pirate or something, you bastard?!" he roared. "In the first place—MARINES DON'T HAVE A KING!"
Gale frowned in mock thought, tilting his head.
"Is that so…? Then I guess I'll be… the King of the Navy."
"That's the same thing!" Diamante bellowed, veins popping across his forehead.
"Picky crowd," Gale sighed, shaking his head. "Fine, maybe I'll—"
"ENOUGH!" Diamante snapped, cutting him off with a roar. "I've had enough of this! I'll just kill you and be done with it!"
He drew his rapier with a vicious, metallic hiss, his free hand keeping the umbrella poised over his head as the steel ball rain still hammered the ground around them.
'Ah, great,' Gale thought, feeling the shift in the air. 'He's finally decided to stop playing games.'
It wasn't the worst situation. In fact, it was probably the best one he was going to get. If Diamante was holding the umbrella in one hand, that meant his sword would have less strength behind it.
And while Gale's movements were heavier thanks to maxing out his body's density for defense, he at least had the freedom to use both hands.
Still, the look in Diamante's eyes said he was done with clever tricks. This was going to be a straight fight.
Gale took a deep breath, setting his stance—one foot back, one forward, knees loose. His rapier angled downward, mirroring his lead leg, the steel gleaming under the sporadic bursts of moonlight between the raining metal.
His mind stilled, all the banter pushed to the background, replaced by a razor focus that came only in moments like this.
'Alright,' he thought, the corner of his mouth twitching into a grin. 'Let's see how scary you'll be without the party store gimmicks.'
Diamante charged like a bull finally catching sight of the matador's red cloth—only this time, the "matador" was a lanky marine with a grin that made you want to punch him on principle.
Sword in one hand, umbrella in the other, Diamante tore across the ruined park, his cape flaring and his boots kicking up dirt.
Gale didn't move. Not an inch.
One hand was already tugging his cloak back behind him, the other resting on his rapier, wrist rotating in small, deliberate circles. Scarlet rose petals shimmered into existence around the blade—Florencio's signature flourish.
Gale's thoughts were already locked on the plan:
'Alright, handsome. You're not dodging this one—you can't. So you'll wait. Let him swing, put the cloak in his face, give it the density of a runaway cart, and watch him flail around like he's trying to wrestle a sofa. Then—one thrust. One clean thrust, all in. Simple.'
Diamante closed the distance fast, his blade already coated in a pitch-black sheen of Armament Haki. Gale's muscles tensed; every nerve in his body primed to spring the trap—
—when the night sky suddenly lit up.
Both men froze, necks tilting upward at the exact same time as their Observation Haki practically screamed in their skulls.
Hovering high above them was the languid, half-lidded face of Admiral Borsalino, looking down as though he'd just stumbled across two kids fighting over a stick in the schoolyard.
"Yasakani no Magatama," Kizaru drawled, crossing his arms over his chest like he had all the time in the world.
The golden light radiating from him intensified, the air humming with it.
Diamante instantly yanked his steel cape over his body like a turtle retreating into its shell.
Gale scoffed inwardly.
'Wrong choice, genius.'
Without a second thought, he spun on his heel and sprinted in the opposite direction, dropping his density to make himself lighter. Steel balls were still pelting down from above, but he didn't care—his Observation Haki let him weave past them without slowing down.
'Let Diamante have his "protective shell" moment. I already know what happens when you try to tank this guy's light show… spoiler: it's like hugging a campfire made of machine guns.'
Behind him, the park erupted into pure chaos as a torrential downpour of golden light rained from the heavens, swallowing Diamante's position in blinding flashes and thunderous impacts.
...
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