The island shuddered as if something had struck its very core.
Kaido slammed into the ground like a meteor, the impact detonating with a deafening boom. Cracks spiderwebbed outward from the point of impact, ripping across the land in jagged rings. Under Darren's unleashed superhuman strength, the earth within a kilometer radius caved in, collapsing into a vast crater. Countless stone fragments were pulverized mid-air by the shockwave before they could even fall.
Kaido's entire head was buried in the shattered earth, his pupils trembling violently from the brutal impact.
The Beasts Pirates froze, dumbstruck.
"…H-he flattened him…"
"That's… that's Boss Kaido, right…?"
No one dared breathe too loudly.
"Yes! That's the feeling!!"
Queen suddenly shot to his feet as if someone had jammed a live wire into him, startling the pirates around him.
Overalls shaking, the fat man pumped his fists in wild excitement, a manic grin stretching across his face.
Then he noticed the horrified stares and coughed, forcing his face into something more solemn.
"Relax, I'm just… overwhelmed," he muttered. "That bastard Darren is just too infuriating…"
The others silently stared at him.
It actually worked…
Darren looked down at Kaido, whose head he'd just driven into the earth with a single throw, and blinked, momentarily stunned.
The "strongest creature on land, sea, and air" actually had exploitable weaknesses?
A glint of mischief flickered through his eyes.
Of course, Darren knew perfectly well that the so-called "weak points" Yamato had described weren't really weaknesses in any normal sense.
For anyone else, even if Kaido stood motionless and let them attack those spots, they wouldn't be able to scratch him.
And in a true death match, small openings like that weren't enough to overturn the balance of power.
"Damn it… Yamato, what do you think you're doing?!"
Kaido braced his hands against the shattered ground and wrenched his head free from the crater, veins bulging on his forehead.
"I'm your father!"
Still hanging off Darren's neck, Yamato stuck out her tongue, utterly unfazed.
"But Darren-san is going to be my husband!"
"..."
Kaido's eyes went bloodshot in an instant.
He lunged forward like a demon unleashed, his roar splitting the air.
"Darren, you're dead!!"
He seized his kanabo with both hands and swung with reckless abandon. The club howled through the air, dragging black-and-crimson lightning behind it in a storm of phantom blows. The furious barrage filled every inch of space around Darren, sealing off all avenues of escape.
"Kundali: Dragon's Ascending Army!!"
That move—
"Perfect timing."
Faced with the suffocating onslaught, Darren didn't retreat. Instead, his eyes lit up with anticipation, as if the danger had sharpened his focus to a razor's edge.
"Hold on tight and don't let go, Yamato."
"Got it!"
With that brief warning, Darren's pupils flared a deep crimson.
He forced his Observation Haki to its absolute limit.
Thunder Armor erupted in full, blazing to life around him. Blue arcs of electricity surged across his skin, wrapping his body in a corona of crackling light.
Then, with his perception and reflexes pushed to the brink, Darren charged straight into the heart of Kaido's storm of strikes.
Under the stunned gazes of Queen and the others, a streak of blue lightning threaded through the dense rain of kanabo blows—slipping between each strike with hair's-breadth precision.
"He's using Boss Kaido's attacks to train his Observation Haki!"
Queen's eyes bulged, his entire body trembling.
"This lunatic…!"
"Too terrifying…"
"…So that's what he's doing…"
While the pirates babbled in shock, Darren's figure streaked through the tempest like a flash of light. In the span of a few heartbeats, he had already breached the range of Kaido's strikes, closing in from the front.
The distance between them shrank to nothing.
"Die!"
Kaido's eyes burned crimson, purple lightning netting itself across the length of his kanabo.
Darren bared his teeth in a feral grin, blue electricity erupting from his right fist in a dazzling bloom, like a thousand silver petals bursting open at once.
Gripping the kanabo with both hands, Kaido dragged down a storm of thunder and brought it crashing toward Darren's skull.
Darren's fist, like a meteor wrapped in blue flame, roared upward to meet it.
"Great Demonic Power: Thunder Bagua!"
"Fist Bone: Thunder Strike!"
The iron club and the iron fist collided.
The world held its breath for one suspended heartbeat.
Then twin bolts of condensed lightning detonated between them like nuclear blasts, exploding outward in a dome of ravenous shockwaves infused with Haki.
Rrrrrip—
The ground between them finally gave way under the monstrous impact.
The earth shattered with a deafening roar as a colossal fissure tore open, splitting the land in two.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
Layers of bedrock fractured in rapid succession, collapsing away to form a gaping chasm.
Under the horrified stares of everyone watching, the island itself groaned in protest.
Onigashima—already battered beyond recognition—finally split cleanly down the middle.
The sky was severed by a jagged ravine wreathed in flashing lightning. Two halves of the island hung on either side of the crack, their fractured edges glowing faintly in the reflected glare between Darren and Kaido.
Psssh…
Psssh…
Blood erupted from both their chests in thin crimson jets.
Their faces went pale.
But their eyes… still burned with ferocious light.
And both of them were grinning.
"Darren-san! Hit his armpits! The dragon scales don't cover there!" Yamato shouted, popping her head up from behind his back, eyes blazing.
"..."
Kaido's body tensed on instinct, his arms clamping down tight against his sides.
Darren chuckled, letting his own arms fall loosely to his sides.
"That's about enough."
"Hey! Don't tell me you're quitting?!" Kaido snarled, glaring at him through gritted teeth.
"If we keep going," Darren replied calmly, "we're going to send the whole damn island to the seabed."
Kaido's rage finally ebbed as he took in the scene around them.
Onigashima, already ravaged, was now split in two. The structural frame of the floating island had been torn apart. Entire sections of terrain had been shattered, their fragments hovering precariously along the severed line.
He said nothing.
But he didn't swing his club again.
Sensing his tacit acceptance, Darren took a long breath, then unclasped Yamato from around his neck and set her down.
He ruffled her hair, a faint smile touching his lips.
"Alright, that's enough playing for today. It was great meeting you, Yamato."
Yamato's cheeks turned pink.
"D-Darren-san, aren't you going to take me with you?" she asked, looking up at him with bright, hopeful eyes.
Darren choked on a laugh.
"I really don't want your old man chasing me across the sea for the rest of my life."
He had absolutely no desire to be hunted down wherever he went by a perpetually drunk dragon with abandonment issues.
Yamato shrugged matter-of-factly.
"Then just beat the crap out of him!"
Kaido's face went dark again, his grip tightening on the kanabo.
Darren just shook his head.
"To be honest… I can't quite beat your old man into a pulp yet," he admitted, lips quirking.
"Besides, you're still way too young to marry me."
Yamato glanced at him, then glanced at Kaido, then bit her finger in thought for a moment.
After a brief pause, she nodded, as if she'd reached a grand, world-shaking decision.
"Alright, I'll stay here!" she declared. "That way I can help Darren-san keep an eye on my old man!"
Kaido: "..."
"But Darren-san has to promise—"
Yamato tilted her head, then puffed up her cheeks in determination. She stood on tiptoe in front of him and lifted her tiny hand, extending a small, pinky finger.
"You have to come back to see Yamato often!"
Thud, thud, thud!
All around them, Queen and the others toppled over like dominos, rolling on the ground and clutching their heads.
"It's over…"
"We're doomed…"
As they and Kaido watched in something close to existential despair, Darren smiled.
He hooked his own pinky around Yamato's.
"Alright. I promise."
Pinky promise.
To be continued...