"Don't worry! Leave it to me!"
Zoro nodded toward the anxious Rebecca in the distance.
Originally, once he saw that Yamato and the others had taken care of the Doflamingo Family members, Zoro had planned to quickly finish off Doflamingo as well.
Without delay, he raised his katana and pointed it straight at the crazed Doflamingo.
"Let's skip the nonsense and settle this, now!"
"I said I'm going to kill all of you! Didn't you hear me? Fufufufufufu!!"
Doflamingo spread his arms wide. The awakened power of the String-String Fruit instantly assimilated the surrounding area.
The entire Royal Plateau turned into countless threads.
From earlier, Little Sparrow had been taking it easy, but upon seeing this, she realized the time for idling was over.
In its Vermilion Bird form, Little Sparrow dove swiftly above the Royal Plateau.
"Chirp chirp chirp!"
It cried loudly to signal everyone on the plateau to jump onto its massive back.
One by one, people leapt onto Little Sparrow's hundred-meter-wide back.
But Hancock, worried for Zoro, hesitated to leave.
"I will remain here and fight alongside Zoro!"
"So many people watching… we can't exactly 'fight together' here, Hancock," Zoro joked, winking at her playfully.
This instantly turned Hancock's face bright red with embarrassment.
Reluctantly, she also leaped onto Little Sparrow's back.
Tsunade, realizing the implication too late, gave both Zoro and Hancock a massive eye roll.
The others, meanwhile, were still caught up in the literal meaning, oblivious to the innuendo.
Those who get it, get it. Those who don't, well, maybe they shouldn't yet.
Zoro, amused, gestured for Little Sparrow to carry the group away from the battlefield.
"Fufufufu! Think leaving will spare you? Do you believe I won't still kill you all?!"
"Stop bluffing, it's just the two of us now!"
The maddened Doflamingo grew more dismissive of Zoro by the second.
To make him realize how doomed he was, Zoro officially began his final attack.
He wrapped his katana in Armament Haki.
"Water Breathing! Ninth Form! Splashing Water Flow!"
A surging stream of water burst forth, washing across the thread-covered plateau.
Zoro dashed atop the water, instantly appearing above Doflamingo's head.
He brought his blade down with full force toward Doflamingo's skull.
"White Shield Thread!"
Massive threads shot upward through the water, forming a crisscrossing shield above Doflamingo.
Zoro's sword struck the shield of threads instead of Doflamingo himself.
But Zoro had anticipated this.
The regular Armament Haki on his blade instantly transformed into Advanced Armament Haki: Ryuo.
With a tearing sound,
The shield threads ruptured from within and collapsed.
However, Doflamingo had already moved from that spot.
Zoro, wielding his Ryuo-infused katana, landed where Doflamingo had just been standing.
As soon as he touched down,
A powerful vortex of white threads yanked both of Zoro's legs downward.
"Wild Surge White Thread!!!"
Doflamingo's voice echoed from beneath the vortex.
The white thread vortex spiraled violently upward.
Zoro, his feet trapped, was launched from the Royal Plateau high into the sky, hundreds of meters up.
Before he could react, the vortex split into two massive cords, grinding toward his legs like twin meat grinders.
"Blazing Rasengan!!"
Suspended in the sky, legs immobilized, Zoro hastily formed a Rasengan infused with fire chakra.
He smashed it into the incoming cords.
The result was explosive and effective.
Perhaps fire was the natural counter to thread.
Within seconds, the massive cords were engulfed in flame and disintegrated.
Now free and falling from the sky, Zoro formed another Rasengan mid-air.
"Super Whirlpool Rasengan!!!"
A gargantuan Rasengan.
Glowing like a blazing star, the Rasengan streaked through the sky.
Boruto had once used this very attack to defeat Momoshiki Ōtsutsuki.
Zoro figured it'd be more than enough to obliterate Doflamingo.
On the ground, Doflamingo looked up at the falling sphere and went blank.
Wasn't Zoro supposed to be just some ordinary swordsman?!
Why could he summon a Rasengan this massive?!
Did he… learn this from Hancock recently?!
As the Rasengan plunged faster, Doflamingo had no time to reflect.
But instead of dodging, he chose to face it head-on.
"Thousand Arrows Pierce the Heart! Feather Strike Thread!!!"
From the thread-assimilated plateau, thousands of fine threads infused with Armament Haki shot upward.
They clashed directly with the falling Super Whirlpool Rasengan.
The resulting shockwave leveled everything for hundreds of meters around the plateau.
Even Little Sparrow, flying a kilometer away, was hit by the blast.
Its big Vermilion Bird eyes were nearly squeezed shut from the pressure.
The people riding on its massive back weren't spared either.
Hancock, Yamato, Sabo, and Tsunade only had their hairstyles blown out of place.
But the weaker members, Koala, Rebecca, Kyros, and Viola, were nearly thrown off.
Only the vast back of Little Sparrow kept them from falling.
The windstorm lasted several minutes.
When it finally settled, Zoro, his hair merely tousled, stood atop what remained of the Royal Plateau.
Only one-third of it was left.
In front of him was a spherical cocoon of threads reinforced with Armament Haki.
Zoro raised a brow.
"I thought that Super Whirlpool Rasengan would be more than enough... Yet Doflamingo's still alive?"
"Fufufufu! I'm Doflamingo, after all!!"
Doflamingo, encased in his thread cocoon, reappeared, apparently having heard Zoro's taunt.
Although the Rasengan hadn't hurt him...
His thread supply, born of his awakened String-String Fruit, had been depleted.
Zoro knew: the next strike would be the final one.
He didn't attack first.
Instead, he raised a hand and cockily beckoned Doflamingo forward.
"Use your final attack to kill me. It's your last shot, make it count."
"Fufufufufufu!!"
Doflamingo didn't argue.
He knew it too: this was his last chance.
With a twisted laugh, he composed himself.
His remaining threads, like living serpents, coiled protectively around him.
As Doflamingo readied his ultimate strike, Zoro began forming another Rasengan.
Seconds later, Doflamingo's threads lifted him into the sky.
They twisted and condensed into sixteen massive cords, each sharpened and infused with dense Armament Haki.
Even the breeze couldn't pass them; they sliced the air itself.
Moments later,
"Sixteen Holy Bullets: Godslaying Strike!!!"
The sixteen gigantic threads pierced the heavens and converged on Zoro.
From this close, the attack was death itself.
But Zoro remained calm.
At the last second, he hurled the Rasengan he had been preparing.
"True! Taiji Rasengan!!!"
Said to be the strongest Rasengan, it collided head-on with the sixteen cords.
The moment they met, the world lost color.
Everyone in Dressrosa went blank-eyed.
They had no idea how much time passed...
[Ding! Mission complete: Defeat Doflamingo. Reward: Peak Golden Lion, 100% under your command for one day!]
High above, walking on the Moonwalk, Zoro was the first to regain his senses.
The Royal Plateau was completely obliterated.
Hundreds of meters around had been reduced to a crater.
Elsewhere, nothing seemed to have changed.
"Zoro!!!"
Just as Zoro began scanning for Doflamingo, Hancock's voice rang out.
Little Sparrow, carrying the others, was flying toward him.
Seeing that Zoro was unscathed, everyone exhaled with relief,
And marveled at his strength.
If they had faced those sixteen massive threads instead, they might've survived, but not unscathed.
"Doflamingo is over there!"
Sharp-eyed Rebecca spotted him first.
He lay motionless at the bottom of the crater, his aura weak and fading.
He had been crushed half to death by Zoro's True Taiji Rasengan.
Everyone gathered around his body.
Zoro looked to Rebecca, Kyros, and Viola.
His mission, defeating Doflamingo, was complete.
Whether Doflamingo lived or died now was up to these three, the people of Dressrosa.
"Father..."
Rebecca, unable to decide, passed the responsibility to Kyros.
Kyros raised his sword high,
But then, Viola stepped forward and blocked him with open arms.
Kyros and Rebecca were both stunned.
And the words Viola spoke next were even more unbelievable...