"Hiken!"
With a deafening roar, Ace thrust his burning arm forward.
Torrents of flame surged ahead like a blazing flood, swallowing Zaraki's vision in blinding red.
The moisture in the air evaporated the second it touched the heatwave, letting out harsh, sizzling hisses.
Scalding wind slammed into Zaraki's face, whipping his messy black hair into a chaotic dance.
His skin felt tight and dry, as if someone had shoved him headfirst into an oven.
That level of raw pressure wasn't something an ordinary pirate could pull off, but Zaraki didn't take a single step back. His dead-fish eyes didn't even flicker.
Instead, he raised the plain nameless sword over his head with a look of pure boredom.
He used no flashy techniques and took no power-gathering stance, relying on raw instinct alone to smash it straight down.
"Too noisy."
As he muttered the phrase, dark golden aura coiled tight around the blade and erupted.
It was a vertical slash devoid of technique.
Boom!
The second the roaring torrent of flame met the descending blade, the fire was torn apart.
The massive Hiken split in two, roaring past Zaraki on either side before crashing into the sea behind him.
The seawater boiled, sending white steam exploding upward with a heavy roar. Swallowed by the thick mist, the remaining wreckage of the Dreadnaught Sabre shuddered under the force.
Charred planks broke apart in mid-air, burning to ash as they rained down.
"So this is a Logia?" Zaraki stood on the scorching deck, patting out a few embers on his coat.
"Quite the light show, but soft and flimsy... like cutting through cake."
As the thick smoke cleared, Ace's figure reformed several meters away.
Half his body was still formed of rolling flames, but the arrogant grin on his freckled face was replaced by stiff disbelief.
Physical attacks are nullified—an ironclad rule that let him roam unchecked through the East Blue had just been broken by a damn sword?
"Don't look down on me!" Gritting his teeth, Ace twisted in mid-air and crossed his arms over his chest.
"Shinka: Shiranui!"
Two massive flame spears took shape, imbued with a vicious spiraling force as they shot for Zaraki's throat and heart.
Right after launching them, his fingers flickered in a rapid blur, unleashing a heavy barrage of fire bullets.
"Higan!"
A sky full of fiery rain crashed down, sealing off all of Zaraki's avenues for evasion.
"Tricks at this level aren't even enough to scratch me." Zaraki didn't even bother moving his feet, just whirling the plain blade into a blur of afterimages.
There were no precise parries, only brutal, head-on collisions. Every fire bullet striking the heavy force field around the sword burst into harmless sparks.
Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!
Walking through the continuous chain of explosions, Zaraki advanced step by steady step.
With every heavy footfall, a fresh ring of cracks spread through the scorched deck beneath his boots.
"Why don't you try taking one of my slashes?"
With a casual flick of his wrist, Zaraki swept the sword horizontally.
The air let out a sickening groan of strain as a visible, fifty-meter crescent shockwave swept across the distance.
It carried a suffocating wind pressure, a wave formed by raw brute force compressing the air.
Ace had no time to dodge.
The shockwave sliced through his waist, its momentum unabated as it crashed into the sea behind him and carved a massive trench in the water.
The resulting waves slammed hard against the third-floor windows of the Baratie.
"Captain!"
Inside the restaurant, Mihar and Masked Deuce screamed in terror, leaning against the glass in shock.
A second later, the bisected Ace didn't bleed.
Thick flames erupted from his severed waist, flowing fire reconnecting his upper and lower halves.
Ace landed unscathed on a piece of drifting wreckage, his face pale but showing no wounds.
"Ha... haha! I knew it!" Deuce slammed his fist against the windowsill, his voice trembling with excitement. "That's a Logia! A true elemental body! No matter how hard he swings, if he can't touch the flames, it won't matter!"
"Such a troublesome power," Zeff sighed, his expression a mix of worry and recognition. "If you can't get past that elemental body, raw strength alone won't defeat him."
The surrounding chefs and panicked diners exchanged uneasy glances.
They'd felt a surge of hope after seeing Zaraki's destructive power, but watching Ace reform extinguished it fast.
This wasn't a fair fight!
One side would die if hit, while the other could just keep reforming.
"Invincible?"
The sea breeze brushed past, but Zaraki showed no frustration.
He looked at Ace in the distance, a faint, dangerous smile curling the corner of his mouth.
"What the hell... why are you so strong?" Ace gasped for breath, glaring at Zaraki.
Though his body remained unharmed, the crushing killing intent and fierce wind from that casual slash took a heavy toll on his mental state.
His instincts screamed that he couldn't drag this fight out any longer, and Zaraki's predatory eyes sent a cold chill down his spine.
But that chill only lasted a moment before his arrogance came roaring back.
Ace exhaled a heavy breath.
The bright orange-red flames rolling around him deepened in color, turning a burning gold-red.
The surrounding seawater began to bubble, releasing vast plumes of white steam that enveloped the area.
He didn't gather the fire into a ridiculous miniature sun. Instead, he compressed it—tighter, denser, and more ferocious.
The flames wrapped around both his arms and shoulders, condensing into layers of rotating heat until the space around them began to distort.
"You cut fire once and think you're some kind of bigshot?" Ace's freckled face twisted into a fierce grin, arrogance blazing hotter than the fire itself.
"Don't get carried away! I don't need some giant move to kill you."
The heat waves spread across the wreckage, but they no longer threatened to swallow the sea restaurant whole.
This wasn't a move to burn down the Baratie, it was meant to blast apart the one man standing in front of him.
Ace raised both arms, the compressed fire spiraling around them like twin blazing serpents.
"Come on!" His voice cracked with youth, fury, and unshakable confidence in his own invincibility.
"Let's see if your sword can cut through this too!"
The fire around his arms roared louder, building toward a focused strike as every witness around them held their breath.