Four or five surges of force came almost at once from different directions, slamming into Charlotte Linlin's body, tearing and grinding at her without pause. The sheer pressure sent violent shocks rolling through her organs.
"He's too fast. The eye can't follow him, and neither can Observation Haki," Perospero said, shaken.
"His Majesty's strength hasn't faded at all. If anything, he's grown stronger," Enel said, no less stunned.
Even ten years ago, Rosinante's power hadn't been this great, and handling Charlotte Linlin had never come so easily. Enel and the others knew well what state Rosinante had been in these past ten years. They'd worried that even if he appeared, a man who'd lain in bed for a decade might not be able to stand against her at all. Yet here, with the fight barely begun, Rosinante had already seized the upper hand. And the presence and force he was showing now ran far beyond anything from ten years ago.
"Six Feet!" Rosinante's assault still wasn't finished.
When the sixth strike of Dusk Elephant landed, Charlotte Linlin let out a sudden choked sound, and a mouthful of fresh blood sprayed from her lips.
Dusk Elephant was an attack that gathered speed with every blow, and the more strikes that found their target, the greater the force and ruin the target had to endure. In the world of Naruto, Might Guy could throw out as many as five feet, but by the time he reached the fourth, the power of the earlier ones had already dispersed, so a true five-foot chain never came together. Rosinante's speed, however, could bind the strength of the first foot through the fifth into one unbroken whole, and now he'd driven it all the way to the sixth.
Under six air cannons crashing in from every side, even Charlotte Linlin, said to have a body like an iron balloon, couldn't hold it all back.
"Mama!"
"So this is Dragon King Rosinante? He's monstrous. He actually made Mama cough blood." Watching her spit it up, the entire Charlotte Family and the men of the Big Mom Pirates cried out one after another, unable to believe their eyes.
Urgency and disbelief filled their faces, and yet there was nothing any of them could do. Charlotte Linlin carried the title of the Iron Balloon. Her natural defenses were so formidable that not even blades could wound her, and layered atop that was her overwhelming Armament Haki. Few souls in the world could so much as scratch her, let alone batter her until she was coughing blood.
Of course they'd known from the start that Rosinante was no ordinary man, that his strength was a true match for Charlotte Linlin's. He was likely one of the rare few who could harm her at all. But to drive a great gout of blood out of her the way he just had was no simple wound. Ordinary blows could never do that to a constitution like hers.
As members of the Charlotte Family, they would have gone to their deaths for her without much hesitation. The bitter truth was that in a battle like this they couldn't even step in. They couldn't get near. The moment they tried, that crushing pressure would grind them flat. Charging in would be nothing but suicide, and it wouldn't help her in the slightest. It was that very helplessness that made them all the more frantic.
But Rosinante's attack still wasn't over.
"Seven Feet!" In that instant he flickered once more to another angle and loosed a fresh pillar of air straight at Charlotte Linlin. An even heavier pressure bore down on her, and again she retched up a mouthful of blood.
This time, though, by the moment the seventh strike of Dusk Elephant landed, the previous six had already faded, and the chain finally came to its end. In the end, Charlotte Linlin had weathered Dusk Elephant.
But by now she was in a truly wretched state. She herself had crashed to the ground in a miserable heap, and her three great Homies looked worse still. Zeus the thundercloud had been crushed countless times over, Prometheus the fireball had been beaten down to a guttering little torch, and Napoleon, while better off, was battered ragged all the same.
"Charlotte Linlin, why don't you tell me now: were their fates sealed?" Rosinante asked, his voice flat.
"Rosinante, you have truly made me angry." She wiped the blood from the corner of her mouth, her face twisting savage, her eyes vicious, the look of someone ready to throw her life into it.
Seeing that expression, the faces of the Charlotte Family went pale with shock as well. They had never once seen Charlotte Linlin wear a look like that, the look of someone willing to gamble everything. Since when did one of the Four Emperors, a peak of the seas, fight for her life like some common rookie pirate? It showed just how much pressure Rosinante was putting on her.
"Charlotte Linlin, if we're speaking of who angered whom, the one truly enraged here is me." As Rosinante spoke, the blood-red vapor around him surged, a fierce crimson mist roaring up toward the sky.
Everyone watched in disbelief as Rosinante stood wrapped head to foot in that boiling red mist, and the aura pouring off him now was so powerful it filled them all with dread.
"Napoleon!" Seeing it, Charlotte Linlin's face changed at once, and she snatched up the blade. "Understood, Mama!" Flooded with the power of her Soul-Soul Fruit, Napoleon instantly returned to his original shape, every tear and split mended in a breath. Standing atop Zeus, her gaze turned ice-cold and her face more savage still, set now with the resolve of someone ready to stake it all.
"Night Guy!" Rosinante lifted his head, both eyes brimming with cold. Then he pushed off with the slightest motion of his foot, and the crimson mist that filled the sky gathered into a great blood-red dragon that surged in an instant straight at Charlotte Linlin.