The battle between me and Zephyr-san, and then Ibis and Zero Four or whatever, had reached a stalemate.
Ibis and Zero Four's attacks couldn't hit me, and Zephyr-san blocked them.
Zephyr-san's attacks couldn't hit me, and they had no effect on Ibis and Zero Four.
My attacks were blocked by Zephyr-san, and had no effect on Ibis and Zero Four.
This three-way standoff meant attacks were flying every which way, making things a mess, and on top of that, fighting on a ship's deck limited our options. Factor in each side's agility, skill, and toughness, and we'd effectively reached a perpetual stalemate.
I still had a few tricks up my sleeve, but I couldn't find the right timing. With all the chaos I just described, the last thing I wanted was to play a card and have it go to waste.
That's what I was thinking when it happened.
'...Hm!? Who!?'
Right now, Zephyr-san was fighting Ibis and I was fighting Zero Four, but from behind Ibis, a single figure was approaching at a low dash.
A hooded cloak covered them head to toe, hiding their face, so I couldn't tell who it was. But clearly, this person was targeting Ibis.
No weapon in hand, but just before closing the distance, something like a pink aura enveloped those hands, reaching for Ibis's back...
"Return-Retu...!!"
"I see you."
Boom!
"...ngh, aaaaah!?"
But just before those hands made contact, a gun muzzle appeared on Ibis's shoulder, facing backward, and a bullet shot out, piercing the mysterious figure.
Instinctively she, the voice was female, tried to twist her body out of the way, but couldn't dodge completely and took the hit in her leg.
On top of that, Zero Four, whom I'd been fighting, aimed one hand and fired a Laser as a follow-up. This time it pierced her shoulder, and she collapsed onto her back.
The cloak fell away, and what appeared from beneath it was...
"...Huh...? Why?"
A woman.
Indigo hair with a soft, light wave to it. Fair skin. Thin, or rather, a bit gaunt? She had a somewhat unhealthy look about her.
Her face. I recognized it.
I'd seen it just tens of minutes ago. She'd been standing beside Zephyr-san.
But that person was over on the other ship right now, limp and captured by Iris's Homies, not moving.
She shouldn't be here. Unless one of them, the one over there or the one right here, was a fake.
"Two of the girl named Ain...?"
One of the Neo Marine Executives, and an Ability User of the Return-Return Fruit: Ain.
She was over there and over here. Two of her.
Same face, definitely.
Like I said, this one looked a bit more gaunt, and there seemed to be wounds all over her body, but...
"Tch... Zwei!"
Just as I was processing that, Zephyr-san called the one over here by that name. "Zwei"?
Not "Ain" but "Zwei"? ...Wait, the German number?
Um, was this girl Ain's twin sister or something? ...No way, right?
"(Beep beep beep...) Identification... Neo Marine Executive, Ain."
Zero Four apparently ran facial recognition along with those electronic sounds.
Come to think of it, in the Original Work too, the Pacifista could identify individual faces and cross-reference them against wanted criminal databases. If that was its conclusion, then she really was the real deal.
The same person appearing twice in the same place... no, twice in the same era...
So that meant... this girl was...!
'With a name like "Zwei," so obviously symbolic, like it was created solely to distinguish her from "Ain"... she really is the one who came from the future, Zephyr-san's Source!'
"Ugh... ngh...!"
Ibis turned to look at the girl groaning in pain, Zwei.
Immediately after, Ibis's arms transformed with a clank-clank-clank, taking on the menacing form of twin Gatling guns. Serpen... no, never mind.
Fire those at a flesh-and-blood human, and the result would be too horrible to watch.
"The Return-Return Fruit Ability User is troublesome. Eliminating."
Murmuring those words, Ibis leaped into the air, hovering directly above Zwei.
Then the gun barrels re-aimed and opened fire. A downpour of bullets rained down on the defenseless girl...
BRAKAKAKAKAKA!!
"Gnnngh... AAAAAHHH!!"
"...! Sensei!?"
Throwing himself over her to shield her, Zephyr-san cut into the line of fire and took every last bullet with his own body.
He blocked most of them with the Battle Smasher, but given the sheer volume of rounds fired, he ended up absorbing dozens of hits.
He'd been defending with Armament Haki, but it wasn't enough to escape unscathed. Blood flowed from wounds all over. The damage was far from trivial.
"Sensei, why... why would you do this for someone like me!?"
"...Why, indeed..."
One of the bullets he couldn't block had grazed his sunglasses, which fell and clattered onto the deck.
Those eyes. The ones I'd seen so many times back when he wore ordinary glasses. Sharp, yet kind. Zephyr-san's eyes, laid bare. They hadn't changed. The same eyes as back then.
"In the end, I... I was soft too, I suppose. Couldn't throw away my heart after all. My body just moved on its own. I guess I just can't bear to lose another student before my eyes. That's probably all there is to it."
"No...! I don't matter, what happens to me doesn't matter... I told you, didn't I!? I came from the future, to this era, to save you, Sensei! So for that purpose, it doesn't matter what happens to me... I told you to think only of your goals and your convictions... I said that...!!"
"Did you, now...? Heh... when you get old, everything starts falling apart. The head's no exception. Memory's getting terrible..."
Playing dumb as he said it, Zephyr-san reached out with his bare left hand and gently stroked the head of the weeping Zwei. With the tender touch of someone soothing a crying child. It looked so natural on him.
"Don't you dare say it doesn't matter what happens to you. To me, you're... yes, surely... to the 'me' from your era, the one who's already dead, you must have been a treasure too. Heh... and here I was about to blow all of that away along with everything else in Grand Reboot, and now listen to me talk. Humans are... strange creatures, aren't they..."
BRAKAKAKAKAKA!!
GAKAKAKAKA!!
Mercilessly bearing down on the two of them came Ibis's follow-up barrage.
But cutting in between them was the massive body of Zero Four, which I'd just kicked flying, acting as a shield and absorbing every single round.
"You can't pull something so tactless at such a tactless moment! This is the most perfect scene right now! This is exactly the problem with cyborgs and androids, the emotionless types... they either never go dere at all, or it takes forever to get there, seriously..."
"...Incomprehensible. I do not understand what you are saying."
You don't need to understand. It just slipped out.
But the feeling of not wanting anyone to interrupt these two right now was real.
They were still my enemies, Zephyr-san included. I knew that.
But from the perspective of someone who's a writer, someone whose business is imagination and fantasy, that's just how you end up feeling. Yeah, this can't be helped. Even wanting to side with the enemy of my enemy in such a textbook scenario like this, it can't be helped. (Bold assertion.)
And on top of that, I was feeling doubly good right now, so it really, truly couldn't be helped.
Not only had I witnessed a scene that resonated with my instincts as a writer, but I'd also learned that Zephyr-san hadn't become some heartless, cold-blooded man after all. Deep down, he still truly cared about his students. He was still the kind Zephyr-san he'd always been. That's what I'd learned.
Even if he'd steeled his resolve on top of all that and become Z, Zephyr hadn't disappeared. Knowing that made me happy.
Yeah. It really, truly couldn't be helped. So...
"Time for the uninvited guest to make a swift exit."
As I spoke, I drew Floating Cloud, the hidden blade concealed within my Japanese umbrella, and stored the umbrella, the scabbard, back inside my body. I held the sword in my left hand.
Then, with my now-free right hand, I gripped the Seven Star Sword, pulled from within my body.
It had been a while since I'd used Two Sword Style in actual combat.
But unlike that time, this wasn't just momentum and enthusiasm anymore.
I'd properly learned dual-sword fighting from Papa, and trained for it too. Against Zoro and the others.
...Oops, Zero Four, the one I'd just sent flying, was already back up.
Jumping into the air and... oh, come on. This one too.
Aiming that Laser at Zephyr-san and the others, about to open fire. I could see that future. Seriously...
"Two Sword Style..."
Before that future became reality, I launched myself forward, raising the two swords I held high overhead.
With both blades still raised, I closed in right in front of Zero Four and...
"Twin Blade: Layered Discord!!"
I swung both blades down with everything I had.
Not simultaneously, though. With a gap of less than a fraction of a second, staggered. At the same spot. Along the same trajectory, two consecutive strikes.
The first blow knocked Zero Four's stance completely off balance, canceling its attack. At the same time, the Shockwave released as an aftereffect sliced through the deck below, carving a fissure all the way down to the sea.
And the second blow, aimed right into that fissure, hammered Zero Four down into it.
Smashed into the sea by that strike, Zero Four began to sink. Or so I thought, but I could see a future where it crawled back out.
Oh, right. This thing wasn't an Ability User. It used Seastone weapons, after all. So even falling into the sea wouldn't stop it from fighting.
...Well, didn't matter either way.
"One more. One Sword Style..."
While it still hadn't emerged from the water, I readied my sword again. This time, One Sword Style.
I stored Floating Cloud back in my body and gripped the Seven Star Sword with both hands, then poured an absurd amount of Haki into it. Not just quantity, but dense, concentrated Haki, fueled by my elevated Tension for various reasons.
And then...
...Alright. Now.
"Imperial Burial: Tyrannical Heaven!!"
The slash, powerful enough to split the sea, unleashed through concentrated Emission Haki in a single focused strike, hit Zero Four dead-on at the exact moment it burst from the water's surface. That body, which had deflected every attack up to this point, was cleaved deep.
Knocked back into the sea once again, Zero Four sank, sparks sputtering from the gash like an electrical short...
...This time, it didn't resurface.
Good. Elimination complete.
Now then, that left just one. The one flying around up there.
...Oh, but before that...
To be continued...