It was an almost certain conclusion.
And that fact sent a chill through everyone who understood what it meant.
The Four Emperors and the Seven Warlords of the Sea, two forces that should theoretically keep each other in check, had secretly joined hands to set up a killing trap for a Marine special envoy.
Ace felt his chest tighten.
A wave of helplessness rose through him, leaving his hands and feet cold.
He remembered the East Blue, remembered standing before Zaraki's impossible slashes.
Every time, it was like this.
In front of powers capable of shaking the entire world, his flames felt powerless.
'Zaraki... did that bastard even know what kind of terrifying opponent he had run into?'
"No. You're mistaken about one thing."
A deep voice suddenly rang out across the deck.
Everyone turned toward the sound and saw that Diamond Jozu, commander of the Third Division, had arrived at the front of the crowd without them noticing.
His diamond arm was his trademark, refracting cold light beneath the sun.
As always, his expression was grave and steady.
"What do you mean, Jozu?" Marco asked with a frown.
Jozu did not answer right away. Instead, he raised an arm thicker than an ordinary man's waist and pointed at the figure standing motionless in the storm on the Visual Den Den Mushi's projection.
"Zaraki isn't facing two enemies at once."
He paused, each word landing heavily on everyone's strained nerves.
"Before Kaido arrived in Dressrosa, he had already cut down Donquixote Doflamingo."
"Doflamingo died before Kaido even reached the island."
"..."
The deck fell into instant silence, the air seeming to freeze.
The sea wind passed through the Moby Dick's sails with a low whine, yet for a moment, it felt as if only Jozu's calm words remained echoing between heaven and sea.
Cut down?
What kind of joke was that?
That was the Heavenly Yaksha!
The Joker of the underworld!
One of the Seven Warlords of the Sea, a cunning and troublesome monster with the power of the String-String Fruit.
How could someone like that be slaughtered "in passing" like a stray dog on the roadside?
Ace's mind went blank.
For a moment, he wondered if he had heard wrong.
"Jozu, this isn't the time to throw out random claims, yoi," Marco said, his expression turning even more serious.
Clearly, he did not believe the information either.
Jozu did not argue. He simply took out a small Visual Den Den Mushi from his coat and activated it.
A clear still image was projected into the air.
The background was the ruined King's Plateau of Dressrosa.
At the edge of the rubble lay a corpse in a pink feather coat and cracked sunglasses, twisted at an unnatural angle.
Across his chest was a deep wound from an earlier exchange, but the killing blow was unmistakable: a thin, clean line across his throat.
The blood had already darkened.
On that face, which had always worn a sinister smile, only final shock and disbelief remained.
The surrounding ruins told the story of a brutal fight, but the final strike itself had been pure, swift, and merciless.
Hiss—!
A wave of sharp inhales swept across the deck.
Marco, Vista, and several other commanders had their pupils shrink.
They stared fixedly at that corpse and the fatal wound, a chill rising along their backs.
They were all experience in battle.
One glance was enough for them to understand how terrifying that strike was.
Ace's throat moved with difficulty.
Without realizing it, his tightly clenched fists had loosened, leaving his palms covered in cold sweat.
Now he finally understood why Kaido was so furious.
Kaido was not mourning Doflamingo.
He was furious because his business his hidden deal, and the army he had been building for years had all been cut apart in one day.
"Gurararara..."
Whitebeard's laughter rang out again, this time carrying a trace of surprise.
"Looks like I still underestimated the monster that bastard Garp raised."
With Whitebeard personally acknowledging it, the atmosphere on the deck changed completely.
A moment ago, everyone had still been worried about Zaraki's recklessness.
Now, all they felt was pure shock.
"Pops..." Ace asked hoarsely, looking at the back on the screen facing off against the giant dragon.
A faint spark of hope rose in his chest.
"Does that mean... he really has the power to challenge Kaido?"
That question voiced what everyone on the deck was thinking.
Whitebeard's smile slowly faded. His hawk-sharp eyes stared at the image as if trying to pierce through the screen and see the true nature of the battle.
"The power?" Whitebeard snorted, his voice lowering. "Ace, do you think the title of world's strongest creature is something you earn with brute strength alone?"
He placed his sake bowl heavily to the side with a dull thud.
"I've fought Kaido more than once. That bastard's strength isn't just his power. It's those unreasonable dragon scales of his. To this day, few people have truly left a decent wound on him. That kid's slash is fast and sharp, yes. But if he can't break through Kaido's defense, then none of it means anything."
Whitebeard's words doused the faint hope that had just risen in Ace's heart.
That's right... Breaking through the defense.
That was the most basic problem, and also the most important.
Even Pops, a man who could shatter the very atmosphere, found Kaido's defense troublesome.
Could Zaraki really do it?
Helplessness wrapped around Ace once again.
He suddenly realized that from beginning to end, he had only ever been a spectator.
Whether it had been in the East Blue or here, he could only watch as that man challenged opponents he could not even imagine facing himself.
He did not even have the qualifications to step in.
"Don't think too much, Ace."
Marco had come to his side at some point and patted his shoulder, his voice carrying a trace of comfort.
"The Marines won't just watch Garp's troublesome brat throw his life away. If that guy dared step out, then maybe... he still has a trump card we don't know about."
Ace nodded silently, but his eyes never left the screen.
A trump card?
Hopefully.
The deck fell quiet again.
Everyone held their breath, waiting for the great battle to begin.
The Visual Den Den Mushi faithfully carried the sound of the scene to them, leaving only the wild roar of the wind and the tense, suffocating breathing of the enormous beast.
On the screen, Zaraki still stood quietly on the reef, almost like a statue.
Then, just as everyone's heart rose into their throat, the image suddenly went dark.
It was not that the signal had cut off.
It was that all the light in front of the lens had been swallowed by a massive shadow.
The light had vanished.
Or rather, something enormous had swallowed it completely with unreasonable, brutal force.
...
Above the ruins of Dressrosa, Zaraki slowly raised his head.
The wind that had been howling a second ago had gone strangely still.
The air seemed to freeze, carrying the scorched smell of sulfur as it pressed heavily on his shoulders.
A gigantic shadow covered his entire field of vision, replacing the sky. That shadow was still expanding and closing in at a terrifying speed.
It was a living beast that had walked out of myth.
Rumble—!
A deep roll of thunder came from within that enormous shadow.
Immediately after, blue arcs crawled across that mountain-like outline, briefly illuminating the azure dragon scales covering its body, each one as large as a door.
A ferocious dragon head emerged from the clouds.
Between two curved horns that looked capable of tearing the sky apart, a pair of molten-gold dragon eyes locked firmly onto the tiny figure below.
"Wororororo..."
The deep laughter seemed capable of shaking souls. It echoed through the sky, and the waves of air it stirred sent broken stones scattering across the ground.
Kaido of the Beasts.
In the form of a true dragon, he descended.
This presence was even more pure and primal than the pressure Whitebeard had once shown when he stopped smiling.
It was the pressure of a predator standing above every living thing, the apex of the food chain.
For ordinary people, forget becoming his enemy. Just standing beneath this aura might overload their hearts and make their legs give out.
And yet, Zaraki did not move.
He simply stood there, letting the air current strong enough to lift stones whip at the torn edges of his clothes.
From beginning to end, his gaze remained level.
Because in his perception, the enemy's vital point was there.
His right hand slowly tightened around Nozarashi, his knuckles cracking faintly.
That rough, vicious Zanpakutō seemed to sense its master's will.
The dormant brutality within the blade began to wake, giving off a low hum no ordinary eye could see.
'Here it came.'
'Finally, here it came.'
Since arriving in this world, apart from Imu who's seated high upon that throne, this was the prey that stirred his desire for battle the most.
Those dragon scales, that body known as the strongest creature...
To others, they were an unbreakable wall.
But to Zaraki, they were only a whetstone.
A whetstone hard enough to let him swing as much as he wanted without worrying that it would break too easily.
Battle intent rose from the depths of his soul, rushing up his spine and into his skull.
A pure destructive urge to cut apart everything in front of him.
Under the gaze of those molten-gold dragon eyes, Zaraki's mouth slowly split open.
It was a raw, bloodthirsty curve full of primal hunger!
His eyes reflected the dragon shadow, carrying no fear at all, only an almost mad light.
Like a starving beast finally finding prey worth biting.
Kaido's dragon head dropped lower, heat gathering in the cracks between his teeth.
Zaraki moved first.
Nozarashi tore upward in a brutal arc, and dark-gold Reiatsu clung to the edge like a row of teeth.
The slash struck near the base of Kaido's horn, scraping across one thick azure scale.
It was shallow.
Almost laughably shallow compared to the size of that monstrous body.
But the scale split.
A single bead of dragon blood fell from the cut and struck the reef below.
Zaraki watched that drop of blood burst across the stone, and his smile widened.