The tip of the blade rapidly filled his vision.
He could not dodge it.
Since he could not dodge, then he might as well make the situation even messier.
The instant that thought flashed through Zaraki's mind, everything around him seemed to slow down.
The fingers of his empty left hand clenched tight into his palm, and the invisible threads of Spiritual Pressure snapped taut at once.
"Rise!"
At Zaraki's low shout, the two sabers that had fallen on the deck suddenly leapt into the air on their own.
Clang! Clang!
Two bursts of sparks exploded beside Zaraki's neck.
Those two sabers, dragged up at the last moment to serve as shields, were chipped by the tip of Onigumo's blade, but the strike that should have been fatal still missed by half an inch, only grazing past Zaraki's earlobe and drawing a spray of blood.
Before he could even feel the pain, Zaraki had already moved with the force of the deflection.
He did not retreat.
Instead, like a complete lunatic, he spin violently with that force, using the sword in his hand as the central axis while one of the two loose sabers, pulled by threads of Spiritual Pressure, swept low along the deck like a venomous snake, cutting at a vicious angle toward Onigumo's legs.
For the first time, a trace of surprise finally appeared on Onigumo's usually expressionless face.
He could tell that this brat's swordsmanship had no proper style at all.
It was chaotic, crude, and unruly, like the way a street brawler threw himself into a knife fight.
Yet his grasp of combat rhythm was sharp enough to make the skin crawl.
"Hmph!"
Onigumo let out a cold snort, and the long hand behind his head struck the deck like a tentacle, using the rebound to yank his body into the air and narrowly avoid that sinister sweep.
But Zaraki had already expected that too.
"It's not over yet!"
The golden light in Zaraki's eyes burned even brighter.
Like a top that had gone completely out of control, he borrowed the momentum of the spin to bring the second loose saber into play.
This time, the sword no longer relied on a sneak attack. It came head-on, carrying with it a gale that tore through the air.
This kind of reckless fighting left no room for the opponent to breathe.
With no footing in midair, Onigumo could only use the sabers wrapped in his hand to block.
Another deafening clash rang out, and Onigumo was blasted backward by the raw force, shattering a section of the deck beneath his feet the moment he landed.
Before he could steady himself, the two loose sabers Zaraki had just used were already coming back around again.
Dragged by threads of Spiritual Pressure, those two swords traced bizarre arcs through the air, one thrusting up diagonally from beneath his left ribs, the other driving straight toward the back of his head.
"Damn brat! What kind of filthy swordsmanship is this?!"
Onigumo was finally irritated for real.
As a master of orthodox swordsmanship and Rokushiki, being dragged into a fight like this—more like trying to tear apart a rabid dog than dueling a swordsman—felt like pure humiliation.
His arms and the six arms behind him lashed out together, forming a wall of blades around his body.
Clang! Clang! Clang!
A dense string of collisions exploded one after another.
In the end, the two borrowed sabers Zaraki controlled through Spiritual Pressure were no match for real Haki and brute force.
They were instantly knocked away and sent clattering across the deck, both blades bent out of shape.
At that point, all the makeshift "flying swords" around Zaraki had been used up.
The two sabers he had dragged up to fight for him had already been battered away.
He was left standing there alone with only one plain blade still in hand, his chest rising and falling hard as the earlier burst of force drained steadily from his body.
The flaw in his offense had finally been exposed.
"Hahahaha!"
Onigumo glanced over the scattered wreckage on the deck and could no longer hide the ferocity and smugness on his face.
The contempt in his eyes returned at once, as if he were looking down at some beast that had finally exhausted itself.
"So this is your limit? Tricks like these belong to third-rate trash. They'll never amount to anything!"
Onigumo slowly raised the two blades in his hands while the arms behind him lifted high like spider legs, eight sword tips sealing off every route Zaraki could use to escape.
"You used borrowed blades, and now only one is left in your hand."
A cruel grin spread slowly across Onigumo's lips, and his voice sounded like a sentence already passed.
"But against my Eight Sword Style, the moment the weapons in your hand run dry, your life ends with them."
The air on deck seemed to freeze solid.
In the distance, Zoro stared at the battlefield without blinking, cold sweat trailing down his forehead.
Out of blades?
No.
That lunatic's eyes still held no trace of defeat!
Everyone present kept staring at Zaraki, searching for another hidden blade he must have been keeping in reserve.
Was it up his sleeve?
In his boot?
But there was nothing.
Right there under everyone's gaze, Zaraki suddenly lowered his head.
Then his shoulders started shaking, and a low laugh rose from his throat, growing louder and louder until it turned into a chilling, roaring burst of laughter.
"HAHAHAHAHA, Mistake? Out of blades?"
Zaraki abruptly lifted his head, and the fighting spirit in his eyes burned even more fiercely than before, more savage and more insane, like a beast that had finally torn every last chain from its body!
He bared his teeth as his face twisted with delighted bloodlust.
"Who told you a blade has to be made of iron?"
The moment the words fell, Zaraki moved.
He did not back away.
He charged forward like a cannonball, throwing himself straight into Onigumo's blade formation.
In that instant, Onigumo felt as though a ferocious beast had crashed into him head-on.
Before he could react, Zaraki's face had already filled his vision, and something was driving straight toward his forehead—
A forehead.
The hardest bone in the human body, and in Kenpachi Zaraki style, the most savage and unreasonable "blade" of all!
Thud!
A dull, brutal sound rang out as bone slammed into steel.
Onigumo instinctively crossed the sabers in his hands to block.
One of them shattered on the spot under the force of that headbutt.
Crack!
The broken blade flew out and sliced a bloody line across Onigumo's face.
But that was only the start.
Zaraki's charge had never been about the hardness of his skull alone.
It was the concentrated eruption of his entire body's strength.
The recoil from the impact made his own brain feel as though it were rattling inside his skull, stars bursting before his eyes, but the grin on his face only spread wider.
Pain? Good.
Only pain proved that he was still alive, still chewing on prey that had not yet broken.
That enormous force traveled through the shattered blade and slammed squarely into Onigumo's chest.
The six arms behind the Vice Admiral rushed in on instinct to block, but in front of that absolute impact, they were as brittle as dry twigs.
There was no stalemate at all.
Onigumo was sent flying like a kicked ball, his feet leaving the deck completely as he hurtled backward.
Boom!
Wood splinters flew in every direction as dust and debris rose in a cloud.
Onigumo's tall body crashed violently into the cabin behind him, punching a human-shaped hole straight through the thick wooden wall.
That was followed by a mess of noises—tables overturning, chairs shattering—and then, finally, a dull thud as a heavy body smashed into the floor.
For a moment, the whole world seemed to go quiet.
The sea breeze swept across the deck, scattering splinters and dust.
The Vice Admiral, who always wore that grim expression, now lay in the wreckage drenched in blood and in complete disarray.
One of his arms was twisted at a grotesque angle, clearly broken when he tried to protect his chest a moment ago.
His once orderly long hair had become a tangled mess, with broken fragments of blades caught inside it.
"Guh... wah..."
Onigumo opened his mouth as if he wanted to say something, but all that came out was a mouthful of blood mixed with bits of crushed flesh.
His gaze had already begun to lose focus, and inside his eyes, beyond the pain, there was something closer to stunned disbelief.
'Lost?'
He had lost to a sixteen-year-old brat with chaotic swordsmanship who, in the end, had actually headbutted him?
The absurdity of it was so overwhelming that it almost made him forget the agony tearing through his broken arm!
At the other end of the deck, Zaraki stood there and gave his head a rough shake.
"Hss... still a little dizzy after all."
He raised a hand and touched his forehead.
A huge lump had already started swelling there, but it did not dampen his excitement in the slightest.
All around him, the Marines were frozen in shock.
A few of them had even let their flintlocks slip from their hands with a clatter without noticing.
The way they looked at Zaraki no longer resembled the way one looked at an ordinary guy.
They looked at him as though he were some monster wearing human skin!
Zaraki could not care less about those terrified stares.
Now that the adrenaline was beginning to fade, the exhaustion from draining his body all at once started washing back over him, together with a craving for something to drink.
At a time like this, it felt as though something was missing.
His eyes drifted toward the sword Onigumo had dropped at his feet, and he instinctively licked his slightly dry lips.
Then his gaze slipped past the broken cabin, as though he had already caught a faint trace of mellow alcohol drifting through the air.