Hours ago, Brook had come at Ryuma with everything he had and still fallen short. Now, barely a handful of hours later, he had returned with a living body and strength that had knocked the blade from Ryuma's hand in a single exchange. It was difficult to process.
"How has your power grown this dramatically?"
Ryuma's brow furrowed. He pushed the question aside and came forward again, channeling Armament Haki into the blade Kitetsu until it ran black from hilt to tip.
"Useless," Brook said quietly. "We share the same soul. Whatever you know, I know. You told me that yourself. Allow me to return it."
His thin blade darkened in the same instant, the same black sheen running through it, and he leveled it at Ryuma's advance.
"Prelude. Coup de Vent!"
He whispered it like a song lyric, then drove the blade forward.
The impact sent Kitetsu spinning from Ryuma's grip. Brook was already moving before it hit the ground, closing the distance in two flickers of motion, and drove his cane-sword through Ryuma's throat precisely.
He withdrew the blade. Blood followed, vivid and immediate, painting the air in a single thin arc.
One Sword Style. The technique that ended the fight in one breath.
Brook watched Ryuma sink to the ground, and spoke very softly.
"My shadow. Come back."
The dark shape peeled away from the falling body and drifted back across the floor, finding Brook the way water finds a drain, naturally, inevitably. The moment it touched him and merged, his whole body shuddered.
It was done.
Fifty years. Fifty years of fighting this battle, losing it, returning to fight it again, and now it was simply over. No more flinching from sunlight. No more skulking in the permanent dark of the Florian Triangle. Laboon was waiting, and now he could actually go.
He let himself feel it for a moment, the full weight of what had just changed, and thought of Amon, and was grateful in a way that didn't need words.
He turned to leave.
A figure dropped in to block his path.
Gecko Moria, with his impossible silhouette and his spring-onion hair and the bat-wing shoulders that made him look like something a child had drawn to be frightening, materialized in the doorway with an entourage of Thriller Bark's finest behind him.
"You killed my man and you think you're walking out?" Moria's laugh was a sharp, unpleasant thing. "Come on then. Finish him."
The zombies surged forward.
Brook drew his blade again and went to meet them. He was tired, the fight with Ryuma had cost him, but he was nowhere near finished. His sword moved through the crowd with mechanical efficiency, carving them down in groups until the floor was littered with their still forms.
Then something hit him from the side, hard and invisible, and he left the ground.
He landed and rolled, already scanning. The air moved wrong. He snapped his blade sideways into the empty space beside him, and Absalom materialized out of his invisible state and continued traveling until he hit the wall, which cracked outward from the impact in a pattern of jagged lines.
Absalom lay at the base of it, coughing blood, not getting up.
"Kehehehe." Moria stepped forward, and despite everything, there was genuine amusement in his expression now. "You beat my great swordsman and you handle Absalom like that. I'll admit, you look powerful. But strength doesn't matter when I'm involved."
His shadow tore free from his body, long and dark and rippling.
"Doppelman. Kill him."
Brook's blade found the shadow-copy immediately, cleaving cleanly through its neck. The head rolled. The body kept moving.
Brook pulled up short.
"Clever," Moria said. "It's made of shadow. You can cut it all you like."
The Doppelman wrapped itself around Brook before he could fully adjust, binding his arms, pinning him in place while Moria had already begun drawing power into his hands. The timing was deliberate. He'd started charging the moment Brook got tangled, and now the Shadow Lance was ready.
Brook felt the threat of it from across the room. This was different from the zombies, different from Ryuma, different from Absalom. This had genuine killing intent behind it, and he'd been caught flat-footed.
He tore free from Doppelman through sheer physical force, the shadow dissipating under the strain, but the Lance was already coming and he had nothing positioned to stop it.
Moria's smile went cold.
A hand closed around the Shadow Lance in midair.
"Hm." The voice was unhurried and faintly impressed. "That's got some real force behind it. Nearly slipped through my fingers."
Amon stood there with Moria's attack caught in his bare hand.