Shiki's lions charged forward with devastating momentum, but Sengoku made no move to intercept them. Seeing the Admiral hold position, Finn understood immediately. This was his fight to handle.
He twisted his wrist, channeling both Armament Haki and gravitational force through Sōzai simultaneously. The blade turned midnight black as he raised it overhead and slashed toward the approaching beasts.
"Gravity Blade: Supreme Tiger!"
The technique erupted from his sword as multiple tiger-shaped manifestations of compressed gravity, each one roaring as they pounced on the oncoming lions. The brutal pressure shattered several beasts instantly, scattering them into spray and rubble.
But the lions reformed immediately, their mass reconstituting as if the attack had never landed. They continued their relentless advance.
Finn adapted without hesitation. He reversed his blade and drove the tip downward, releasing a focused gravitational pulse that spread across the charging pack with surgical precision. The invisible weight crashed down like falling mountains.
Crack.
The arrogant lions were crushed flat against Marineford's plaza stones, compressed into thin smears of water and debris.
"Lion's Might: Thousand Slice Valley!"
Shiki's voice cut through the rain. Both his famous swords traced deadly arcs, launching multiple flying slashes that descended from above like guillotine blades, all converging on Finn's position.
"Gravity Blade: Tiger Roar!"
Sōzai flashed with cold light as Finn met the aerial assault head-on rather than dodging. His sword became a living thing in his hands, technique flowing through the blade until it seemed he truly gripped a roaring tiger. The slash he released carried that primal fury, manifesting as multiple cutting waves that shattered Shiki's Thousand Slice Valley mid-flight.
"Chop!"
Shiki's voice suddenly echoed in Finn's ear, impossibly close.
Finn's eyes widened. His blade snapped up reflexively, positioning itself between him and the attack his Observation Haki had barely detected. The next instant, Shiki's sword Oto crashed against Sōzai with explosive force.
The impact drove Finn backward, his boots carving twin furrows through Marineford's thick flagstones as he slid several meters before arresting his momentum.
So fast... Finn's mind raced. He'd known intellectually that Shiki possessed incredible speed, but experiencing it firsthand was another matter entirely. The Golden Lion moved so quickly Finn had barely reacted in time.
Thank heaven he'd been maintaining his Observation Haki constantly over the years, building familiarity with the sense. Without that accumulated experience, he might not have detected the attack at all.
"You're considerably stronger than you were in North Blue..." Shiki swung again without pause, his second sword Kogarashi slashing horizontally toward Finn's waist in a vicious attempt to bisect him.
Shiki wielded two blades. Finn only had one. Sōzai was currently locked against Oto and couldn't intercept Kogarashi.
The distance was too close for effective dodging. Finn made a split-second decision and committed fully. His free left hand erupted with Armament Haki, fingers curling into a claw as purple-black energy concentrated in his palm. He reached out and caught Kogarashi mid-swing.
"Tiger Claw!"
The technique worked perfectly. His hand arrested the blade's momentum, but on closer inspection, his palm wasn't actually touching the metal. A thin layer of repulsive gravitational force in his grip held Kogarashi approximately one centimeter away, pressing the blade down through empty air.
In that moment of contact, Finn felt the ground beneath his feet shift. He didn't need to look down to know what was happening. Earth and stone had wrapped around his ankles, trapping him in place.
"I have techniques similar to yours, boy. Let's see how you handle them!" Shiki's grin was vicious.
The earth binding Finn's legs spread rapidly upward, climbing toward his torso.
"Lockdown..." Finn tried to counter with his own power, but Shiki's manipulation was simply too fast. He couldn't match the speed.
"Lion's Might: Earth Coil!"
The earth and stone wrapping Finn's legs transformed into a grotesque tongue. As Shiki leaped backward to create distance, a massive lion's head erupted from the ground. Its tongue, already coiled around Finn's legs, yanked him downward. The beast's jaws snapped shut, swallowing him whole.
The lion collapsed back into earth, but rather than dispersing, it reformed into a towering pillar that erupted skyward. Finn was visible inside the stone column, twisted and compressed within the solid rock.
"Buddha's Palm!"
Sengoku finally moved. His massive golden form blurred with speed, appearing beside the pillar in an eyeblink. His enormous palm struck the earth and stone surface with enough force to leave a Buddha-shaped impression. The next instant, the entire structure shattered, and Finn tumbled free.
"Cough..." Finn spat blood and immediately felt his chest lighten, breathing easier.
His injuries weren't actually serious. He just looked somewhat disheveled, covered in dust and grime. Shiki's Lion's Might: Earth Coil ultimately couldn't match the raw compressive power of Finn's Gravity Domain: Planetary Devastation. The crushing force came from Shiki continuously reshaping the material rather than gravitational collapse. The difference in pressure was significant.
"How do you feel?" Sengoku asked, his eyes never leaving Shiki.
Finn understood the Admiral wasn't asking about his injuries. He wiped blood from the corner of his mouth and grinned. "Very strong. But even if you hadn't intervened, I could have broken free eventually. I'm not finished yet. I can keep fighting."
"Hahaha!" Sengoku's laugh boomed across the plaza. "Today you're getting another lesson in facing top-tier pirates. Seems you understand the gap now. Let's switch roles. I'll lead the assault. No more wasting time with this bastard..."
Finn pulled Sōzai from the rubble, shaking debris from the blade before nodding. "Understood."
Sengoku's restraint earlier had been deliberate, clearly intending for Shiki to serve as a training opponent. But that kind of thing needed moderation. They couldn't lose sight of the actual objective, which meant the Admiral needed to get serious now.
Without further discussion, Sengoku clenched both fists. His Armament Haki exploded outward in a visible aura.
Finn's eyes sharpened with intense focus.
Second stage Armament Haki.
He'd mastered the first stage completely. Coating his body with Haki created armor-like defense while dramatically increasing offensive power. Basic but effective.
But the second stage remained largely theoretical for him. He'd only recently begun training it and rarely used the technique in actual combat. Watching Sengoku deploy it so naturally demonstrated the gulf in experience.
Where first-stage Armament was rigid and fixed like armor, second-stage Armament flowed like water. It could extend beyond the body and strike from a distance. In Wano Country, they called it Ryuo.
"Pay attention," Sengoku said quietly.
Finn snapped back to focus. The Admiral's feet pulverized the stone beneath them as he vanished with Soru, his form blurring toward Shiki at incredible speed.
Finn dropped to one knee and slammed his palm against the ground. "Gravity Domain: Tiger's Burrow!"
Purple energy poured from his hand into the earth, flowing like liquid through the stone. It spread rapidly beneath the surface, a serpent of gravitational force seeking its target before vanishing from sight.
Finn's gaze tracked upward. Sengoku had already closed with Shiki, his massive golden palm descending with crushing weight.
Shiki met the assault without flinching. Both swords swung in a reverse grip, their blades wrapped in dense Armament Haki, intercepting Sengoku's palm strike. The collision of their Haki created visible shockwaves.
The rudder hasn't affected him yet, Finn observed clinically. He's still using his Haki smoothly, no degradation in quality.
That ship steering wheel lodged in Shiki's skull would eventually cripple him. Years from now, it would torture the once-mighty pirate overlord until he could barely manifest Haki at all. So weakened that Luffy would defeat him soundly more than two decades in the future.
Not that Finn blamed Luffy entirely. The boy was the protagonist, after all, blessed by the world's will itself. Casual training for a few years and he'd surpass pirates who'd dominated the seas for decades. Mastering second-stage Armament in days. Awakening Conqueror's Haki infusion mid-battle with Kaido through sheer epiphany.
How could anyone compete with that kind of absurd progression?
As for Shiki's eventual defeat... well, in the movie continuity, even the Pirate Overlord himself had been killable by the Straw Hats. The plot demanded it.
Finn dismissed those distracting thoughts and focused completely on Shiki's movements. His Observation Haki extended to its maximum range, his concentration reaching absolute intensity.
In that heightened state, something changed.
Finn suddenly perceived... lines. Threads of force crisscrossing through space, some regular and organized, others chaotic and random. They overlaid his normal vision like a second layer of reality.
What is this?
He'd learned all the theoretical knowledge about Observation Haki from Instructor Zephyr. Even abilities like seeing the future, which he couldn't yet replicate, were at least conceptually understood.
But seeing lines? That had never been mentioned in any lesson.
Fascinated despite the ongoing battle, Finn examined the phenomenon more closely. Some lines appeared concentrated and dense, others scattered and diffuse. Around powerful figures like Sengoku and Shiki, the lines coiled in complex patterns, as if visualizing their energy output. Some kind of... force field?
Gravity and magnetism? Finn's thoughts raced. Or gravitational-magnetic fields?
He couldn't quite identify what he was seeing. His knowledge of physics from his previous life had faded to vague recollections at best. But he understood the basic principle: everything in existence was subject to various force fields. Gravity, electromagnetism, fundamental forces that governed reality itself.
Somehow, his Observation Haki was now perceiving those fields directly.
More than that, he could extend his awareness along those lines, reaching far beyond his normal sensory range...
Sudden understanding struck like lightning. Finn looked down at his palm, still pressed against the ground, still channeling gravitational energy into the earth.
"I see now," he murmured. "I always wondered how Fujitora could detect meteorites in space so easily, even with advanced Observation Haki. That seemed impossible. But it's because of this..."
The realization crystallized. Enel on Skypiea had combined his Observation Haki with the Rumble-Rumble Fruit's power, creating a unique ability to hear people's thoughts and sense electrical impulses across vast distances. That fusion of Devil Fruit and Haki had produced something greater than either alone.
Finn had just done something similar. His Observation Haki, interfacing with his Press-Press Fruit abilities, could now perceive the force fields and gravitational lines that permeated reality itself.
"I should have figured this out earlier," Finn said with mild amusement.
But this wasn't the time for experimentation or deep analysis. He was in the middle of a battle against a legendary pirate.
Using this new perception, Finn could lock onto Shiki with unprecedented accuracy. The 'lines' and 'force fields' he saw felt more real than visual input, more fundamental than appearance.
No wonder Fujitora functions perfectly despite being blind. He sees the truth of reality itself through force field perception. Visual information is almost redundant by comparison.
At the moment Shiki and Sengoku separated from their exchange, Finn spoke quietly but clearly: "Lock."
The gravitational energy he'd hidden beneath the plaza's surface erupted. An intensely powerful gravitational field burst upward in a column roughly three meters in radius, positioned with perfect accuracy to engulf Shiki.
Invisible weight crushed downward. Shiki, who'd been floating freely, suddenly plummeted as if gravity had increased a hundredfold. Shock and fury flashed across his face as he activated the Float-Float Fruit at maximum output, fighting to resist the pressure.
He managed to avoid crashing into the ground, but his agility was severely compromised. His movements became sluggish, labored.
Sengoku's massive golden palm descended from above like divine judgment. The huge hand slammed into Shiki, who couldn't dodge effectively, driving him downward with apocalyptic force.
Have you heard of a palm technique that falls from the sky? The random thought drifted through Finn's mind unbidden, and he almost laughed despite the tension.
Focus. The battle wasn't over yet.