The Marine decks erupted in chaos as the Ravenant's return fire came—not iron, but something stranger.
The first object hit the deck of Captain Garnet's ship and didn't explode immediately. It hissed.
"Sir, what in the seas is that—"
The rest of the sentence drowned in a blinding flare of golden fire. The fritter burst open, releasing a shockwave of heat and gust that sent marines flying overboard.
A sweet, intoxicating aroma of caramelized air followed it.
"FOOD!? Are they throwing food!?" screamed a lieutenant.
Garnet wiped soot from her face, glaring at the black ship now veering directly toward them.
"That's no food, boy. That's—hell's kitchen!"
Back on the Ravenant, Reina licked her finger, tasting the air. "Perfect crisp."
Law couldn't help the ghost of a smirk. "You're insane."
"Thank you, doctor."
Meanwhile, Zoro stretched his neck, cracking it left to right. "Alright, enough foreplay. Captain, mind if I warm up?"
Ashborn's eyes gleamed crimson for an instant. "Don't die."
"Wasn't planning to."
Zoro leaped from the rail straight onto a Marine deck as cannon smoke curled around him. Marines shouted—then froze as he drew three swords simultaneously.
"Three Sword Style…"
He vanished.
"Oni Giri!"
The world split. The air itself seemed to scream as his blades carved through armor, deck planks, and two entire ranks of soldiers before he stopped mid-pose, rain dripping from his swords. The entire front line fell as one.
Zoro spat out a piece of splintered wood, grinning. "Steel cuts like tofu today."
---
Medusa landed next, moving like a wraith. Chains snaked around her wrists, daggers glinting. A Marine charged—she sidestepped, fluid as water, then her heel connected with his chest.
The man froze, eyes wide—stone creeping up his skin.
"Medusa, stop turning them into statues!"
Nami's voice came through the den-den mushi receiver.
Medusa tilted her head slightly.
"They attacked first."
"Still! We can't sail through a forest of stone!"
Medusa smiled faintly beneath her visor.
"I'll place them neatly then."
---
As the battlefield grew chaotic, Ash finally moved. He leapt, his coat swirling, landing on the opposite flagship's deck amid flame and smoke.
Marines fell back instinctively—the sheer pressure he emanated felt like the weight of the deep sea itself.
Rear Admiral Darius stepped forward, sword drawn. Lightning framed the two of them like gods preparing to duel.
Rain hammered the deck like a thousand drums.
Lightning split the sky into ragged teeth. On the flagship's soaked planks, two figures moved with different kinds of purpose—one the measured order of the Marines, the other a grin that made the storm feel like accompaniment.
Ash stood with Mikazuki Munechika at his hip: a long tachi, one of the whispered Great-Grade blades, its crescent edge drinking raindrops and sending them scattering like silver sparks.
The sword's polish held moonlight even under storm clouds; sailors who'd seen it later told stories that the blade hummed when it thirsted.
"Ah—big coat, big resume, big—"
Ash paused, snapped his fingers as if searching for the right word, then winked at Darius.
"—ego. Nice to meet you, Admiral. Name's Ash. Try the fish later; Reina cooks better than you command."
The laugh was a blade in itself—too casual, too human—and Darius Volt did not laugh back.
He was a mountain of a man in a white admiral's coat, the electric runes braided along his saber flaring as if the weapon fed on the storm.
He stepped forward, every marine behind him stiff with trained certainty.
"You're charged with piracy, arson, numerous murders and—"
Darius's words were formal, but his sword hand tightened.
"—defiance of the Navy. I bring you Justice."
Ash tilted his head.
"Justice and I have…complicated feelings. Mostly it's stubbornness."
Before Darius could answer, Ash had his sword in hand. The tachi left its sheath in a single, elegant motion — not a show of speed so much as an assertion of intent.
The blade's edge cut the rain; the sound it made was like a bell struck in a deep well.
He moved with a dozen echoes inside him: the rhythm of Water Breathing, the sudden snap of Hiten Mitsurugi battō, the ghostly precision of the Archer's projection arts he'd adapted into his own arsenal.
Where Darius's sword was weight, Ash's was water and light.
---
Their first exchange was a montage of form and counterform. Ash's initial strike was Water Breathing — First Form: Water Surface Slash—a long, curving arc meant to test range and reaction.
The tachi traced a shimmering crescent; water followed the cut like a phantom. Darius blocked with the flat of his saber, lightning hissing where metal met metal.
Ash laughed as they clashed. There was mischief there and challenge both.
"Not bad—don't blink."
Darius answered with Rokushiki: Soru—he vanished a hair's breadth and reappeared behind Ash in a blur of white.
The admiral swung a coating of static-charged muscle and steel—an attack that would flatten a lesser pirate.
Ash didn't flinch. He'd trained under no single master—he'd stolen techniques in docks and dojo doorways, learned breath and blink and the art of expectation.
He slid, body folding around the strike the way water slips around a stone.
From the hip came a flash: Hiten battō energy, quick draw with a battōjutsu slice that split the admiral's arc in half.
The blade rang like a chime in the rain.
They traded blows that announced their pasts. Darius's style was pure, honed by the Navy—tight footwork, careful angles, an economy of movement designed to end fights quickly and with as few variables as possible.
Ash's attacks were deliberate chaos — a blend of Water Breathing graceful arcs, the sudden tempo changes of Hiten Mitsurugi, and -
-a new flourished trick he'd borrowed from the world of projection: flying slashes—compressed blades of air that burst from his tachi with a whoom, slicing rope, splintering mast, and forcing marines to take cover.
At one moment Ash used Soru himself, a stolen step of Rokushiki, appearing impossibly at Darius's flank and delivering a Battō-fast cut that would have decapitated a tree.
For a beat, Darius's static saber met Mikazuki Munechika and sparks bloomed: rain turned to steam, steam to fog, fog to gunpowder light.
"Where'd you learn that?" Darius barked as he recovered.
"Everywhere," Ashborn said, grinning like it was the most honest answer.
He flicked his wrist, projecting a ghost-sliver of blade—a technique born from his Archer-style projection and memory: intangible afterimages which felt like steel to the mind.
A phantom slash arced; Darius reflexively raised the saber and shook his head at the sudden pressure in the air that felt like a dozen cuts.
A subtle change came over the deck: a pressure, like the quick stillness before a storm's dead center.
Ash's grin thinned. For a heartbeat his gaze sharpened; the goofy mask slipped and a hawk's focus replaced it.
His Observation Haki—still basic, still raw—flared warm along his temples.
He felt the admiral's next breath before it arrived: the angle of foot, the flick of the wrist, the small tick of a shoulder that preluded the Geppo the admiral favored to gain the high ground.
Ash adjusted accordingly, and when Darius leapt—Geppo—Ashborn wasn't surprised.
He met the admiral in the air, blades clashing amid stinging rain. Each impact sounded like intent; each parry was a sentence in a larger argument that neither man would concede.