"Your Haki's on full display — you want to die!"
Buddha-Sengoku exploded in rage. Golden light drove dust aside as his vast frame dove into the crater and threw a fist at Sharn.
Whoosh!
Sharn bounced himself and vanished.
"Garp!" Sengoku knew exactly what the boy would do.
"Galactic Impact!"
Garp fell from the sky and unleashed a crushing Haki punch. The whole port town was caught in its wake.
Sharn materialized beside Kaido and took the blow. No wonder they called him the Iron Fist — that Haki hit was brutal. Buildings and flooring were scoured away, underground drains torn open. Sharn gritted blood from his teeth.
"Gogogogogo!" Kaido laughed mani-cally even as the shockwave warped his face. The ground beneath them collapsed in places; dust and debris hung in the air but refused to settle because Haki held it aloft. White light of Armament Haki and Conqueror's Haki splitting lightning — even top Mythical Zoans felt pain to the bone.
"Bastards! We haven't even wrecked the New World yet. If we die here so easily it'll be embarrassing!" Sharn spat. He compressed his palm again and grinned at Kaido. "Go wait for me in the sky!"
"I'm not leaving! It's just Admirals — I've fought those before!" Kaido snapped. He refused to cower; to grow stronger Kaido had to face greater foes. Yet his limbs shook, blood covering him; he stood only by sheer will.
"Shut it — you're not the first to go!" Sharn blinked Kaido away with him. In an instant they both vanished and reappeared on the shore. Sharn's palms bore dirty black blood — the strain of forcing the ability out.
"Cadet Moria! You go first and wait for the rest!" Sharn slapped the dazed Moria behind him. The next instant a vice-admiral's blade fell where Moria had stood.
"Molly!" Sharn called to the giant. "I heard there's a Summit of Heaven above West Blue — if we get lucky, can we make it up there?" Sharn's bones felt ready to fall apart. Kaido stayed back to cover the retreat, forcing his beast form onward alone. As vice-captain, that was his duty.
"Of course, Captain," Molly replied without argument. He trusted Sharn's call.
Whoosh! Bogard burst the prison open only to see Molly already gone.
"Wolf — don't sink if we get to the sky!" Sharn stood on Wolf's head. The ship he'd been clutching was hacked to bits.
"Wolf's hungry!" Wolf declared and the absurdity of the Meatball Fruit showed itself — it could transmit the giant, but it cost enormous stamina. Where they would land? Sharn didn't know. They all bounced in the same direction for the same time — if luck failed and they fell into the sea, an ordinary Devil Fruit user would drown.
"Next up, new friends!" Sharn slapped the research ship. Whoosh! The ancient vessel the scholars had used vanished from sight.
Only then did Sharn look back over the battlefield. Kaido — the billion-berry monster — had been pummeled by Sengoku and Garp yet stubbornly rose each time. Without a weapon, he fought with bare knuckles. "Was it too soon? If Whitebeard or Lioness were here, it'd be different," Kaido muttered and pounded the earth.
"Bind him in Seastone!" Sengoku seized the near-unconscious Kaido and tossed him off to subordinates. The sound of bone and knuckles clicking echoed. The two top Marine commanders had discarded their capes and ties for war.
Sharn glanced up. The moon was dipping; dawn still hours away. "Come and chase me if you can!" he grinned and vanished again.
Sengoku and Garp pursued with everything they had — but before they could reach him, Sharn had plunged underground.
"Fist-bone Clash!" Garp's Observation Haki roughly pinpointed Sharn's subterranean position. He struck the ground aiming for the skull area. Boom! The earth exploded into a huge hole — and beneath the surface a black dragon writhed. Garp's blow hit the dragon's head; Sengoku's Buddha-palm smashed its Berries. The dragon arched as if broken; head and torso were taken by Garp and Sengoku — but the tail shot through the earth like a whip.
Kaido, almost seized with Seastone, groped at the ground. He bit down until his teeth cracked and tried to stand. The dragon clawed up; Marine captains drew blades and slashed. "Sharn!" Kaido roared. He would not abandon his crew. Titles meant nothing now.
"Go wait for me in the sky!" Sharn's dragon claw brushed Kaido — then he popped back into human form, panting and barely seeing straight.
"I'll eat! I'll eat!" Sharn began devouring anything in his path — dirt, roots — determined to carve a tunnel. The port had many sinkholes and pits from the battle; seawater rushed into them. Sharn heard the ocean closing in behind him and felt consciousness dimming. Even Vice Admiral Sengoku could not dive after him into the flooded latticework.
Plop! Garp, determined to catch Sharn, dove into the sea. What he found: a tunnel the Devil Fruit user had literally eaten through and then hardened into solid blocks to barricade the way. Sharn was hiding behind that.
Garp punched the obstruction to pieces. A faint, pastel-red globule of pain-and-fatigue — a meatball-shaped projection of exhaustion — pulsed into view. "Stubborn fool!" Garp said and, with high-grade Haki, dispelled the Devil Fruit effect as seawater flooded up.
Sharn forced a last spurt of pain/fatigue outward and escaped from under the ground — it acted like a stimulant shot. He coughed. "I still lack fruit development," he admitted. "Three-color Haki is improving fastest in Armament — but I've only got full-body Armament hardening so far."
He staggered. He'd been in this world only half a month and had already awoken all three Haki colors, eaten three Devil Fruits, and formed a pirate crew. Pathetically little for a time-traveler. But at least he'd crawled into the Great Tree's research library.
Garp had meant to press the chase; he hadn't expected Sharn to steal into the archive. "You bastard! You dare take Professor Clover hostage?" Garp barked.
The tunnel exit had been smashed. The Hall of Knowledge inside the World Tree was unnervingly quiet — the Marines hadn't expected pirates to reach it. "Don't move or I'll feed you to the fish!" Sharn, famished, held Professor Clover in a dazed grip and marched straight for the kitchen. He had almost zero energy left; without food, he'd collapse.
"Where's Olivia?" Clover asked anxiously. The pirate had burst into the tree — his students were missing. Sharn shrugged. He didn't remember Olivia; eating was priority now.
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