Weevil's bisento came down with enough force to split the harbor pier from end to end.
Zephyr met it before the blade could reach the stone.
Armament Haki spread over his remaining left arm and across the damaged Battle Smasher mounted at his right shoulder.
The prosthetic had already been carved open by Weevil's earlier flying slash, its outer plating peeled back near the joint, but Zephyr raised it anyway and crossed it beneath his hardened forearm.
The impact struck like a cannon fired at point-blank range.
The pier collapsed around Zephyr's boots. Stone blocks burst from the ground, the nearby water rose in a ring, and the windows of the warehouses lining the harbor shattered all at once.
Weevil's strength drove Zephyr down until one knee touched the broken stone, yet the former Admiral refused to let the bisento move another inch.
"You killed them," Zephyr said through clenched teeth.
Weevil leaned harder against the weapon, his vacant face showing more effort than understanding.
"Who?"
"The students who were with me that day." Zephyr's voice roughened as the old memory pushed through years of restraint.
"The young Marines you butchered before you tore off my arm."
Weevil blinked, then glanced toward Miss Buckin as if expecting her to supply the answer.
She stood several paces behind him on the harbor road, safely beyond the first line of shattered buildings.
Smoke curled from the slender pipe between her lips, and a small boat had been tied to the pier beside her in case the battle moved too close.
"Don't waste your time trying to make him remember every insect he stepped on," Buckin called.
"Weevil has defeated far too many people for that."
Zephyr's eye turned toward her.
"The townspeople. Where are they?"
Buckin's smile became broader and uglier.
"The useful ones are alive. We loaded them into the holds of those ships outside the harbor, along with everything in town worth selling. The fools who resisted were less fortunate."
Ain heard the confession from aboard Z-1.
The visual Den Den Mushi fixed near her shoulder recorded every word while the two unmarked pirate ships continued circling the mouth of the harbor.
Their cannon fire had become more accurate now that the Marines were attempting to turn away, and each volley forced the helmsman back toward the cliffs.
"So the town wasn't empty," Ain said, staring toward the ships. "They moved everyone before we arrived."
Binz stood beside her with one hand pressed against a bleeding cut along his temple.
"And those ships aren't only decoys. They're prison transports."
Ain immediately raised her voice.
"Gunnery crews, stop aiming for the lower hulls! Target their masts, rudders, and cannon decks. There may be civilians below!"
The orders spread across Z-1. Marine cannons answered with greater care, trying to cripple the pirate vessels without sinking them.
On the pier, Zephyr forced himself upright.
The Battle Smasher groaned as the bisento ground against its damaged casing.
He could feel the metal around the mounting begin to warp, but the knowledge that living prisoners were trapped aboard the outer ships gave him a clarity that rage alone could not.
He twisted his body and knocked the bisento aside.
Weevil's enormous weight shifted with it. Zephyr stepped inside the weapon's reach and drove his hardened left fist into the giant's stomach.
The punch sank deep enough to fold layers of flesh around Zephyr's arm.
The shockwave burst through Weevil's back and tore a trench through the building behind him.
For the first time, the enormous pirate's feet left the ground. He crashed through a warehouse wall and disappeared beneath falling timber and stone.
Zephyr did not pursue recklessly. He turned toward Z-1 and shouted across the water.
"Ain! Keep the ship outside the harbor and free those prisoners if you get an opening. No one comes ashore unless I order it."
"You're injured!" Ain shouted back. "Let Binz and me support you!"
"You'll support me by protecting the recruits."
The answer left no room for argument.
Buckin tapped ash from her pipe and looked at the destroyed warehouse without concern.
"Weevil, stop lying around. If you let that old man make you look weak in front of the Government's recording, they'll give the Warlord seat to someone else."
The rubble exploded outward.
Weevil emerged with dust coating his hair and blood running from the corner of his mouth.
The punch had hurt him, but the sight of his own blood only confused him for a moment before Buckin's words gave that confusion a direction.
"Mama said I'm stronger than him."
"You are," Buckin replied. "So prove it."
Weevil tightened both hands around the bisento and charged.
What followed was not a clean duel.
Zephyr possessed decades of experience, disciplined Haki, and a lifetime spent teaching Marines how to survive stronger opponents.
Weevil possessed monstrous physical power, surprising speed, and no concern for damage to himself or anything around him.
Every time Zephyr slipped past the bisento and landed a precise blow, Weevil answered by smashing apart half the street.
Every time the former Admiral redirected one attack away from the harbor, another came from an angle so crude and forceful that no trained fighter would have chosen it.
For nearly fifteen minutes, their battle moved through the waterfront.
Zephyr used the buildings, the pier supports, and Weevil's own momentum against him, refusing to contest the giant's full strength unless the recruits or the captured civilians would otherwise be endangered.
He broke Weevil's nose with a left hook, drove a Haki-coated knee into his ribs, and struck the flat of the bisento hard enough to turn a killing blow into an attack that demolished an empty warehouse instead.
Weevil kept coming.
The damage already carved into the Battle Smasher worsened with every collision.
Cracks spread from the opened casing toward the shoulder mount, and blood ran steadily from the flesh beneath it.
Zephyr's breathing grew heavier, while Weevil seemed to notice pain only when Buckin screamed at him to notice it.
"You're slowing down!" she called from the small boat after finally retreating from the collapsing waterfront.
"Stop chasing him around like an idiot and go after the students. He'll come to you if you threaten them."
Zephyr's eye widened.
"Weevil, don't—"
The giant vanished from in front of him.
He did not truly disappear.
Zephyr's Observation Haki followed the movement, but his damaged shoulder and exhausted body could not react quickly enough.
Weevil crossed the ruined street, kicked off the edge of the pier, and launched himself toward Z-1.
Ain saw the shadow expanding over the deck.
"Everyone, move!"
Weevil landed near the bow.
The reinforced planks collapsed beneath his weight, and the entire vessel rolled violently toward starboard.
Recruits were thrown into railings and cannon mounts while the giant straightened inside a cloud of splintered wood.
Binz moved first.
He slammed one palm against the deck and activated the Mosa Mosa no Mi.
Seeds hidden inside his coat burst open, and thick green vines raced through the cracks in the planks, wrapping around Weevil's legs, waist, and weapon arm.
"Get him off the ship!" Binz shouted.
Dozens of Marines rushed to reposition the cannons while Ain drew both weapons and moved toward Weevil's exposed side.
The vines tightened.
Weevil looked down at them with mild confusion.
Then he pulled.
The entire section of deck beneath Binz's growth ripped free.
Vines snapped in every direction, and the recoil threw Binz across the bow.
He struck a mast support hard enough to lose his breath, though the vegetation had slowed Weevil for the few seconds the recruits needed to scatter.
Ain used those seconds.
She crossed the space between them and reached for Weevil's arm, intending to touch him with the Modo Modo no Mi.
Even one successful contact would reduce his age and weaken the monstrous body Buckin relied upon.
Weevil's instincts reacted before his mind did.
The shaft of the bisento swept sideways.
Ain ducked beneath it, but the air displaced by the swing struck her like a solid wall and sent her tumbling across the deck.
Weevil raised the weapon again.
From the ruined harbor came Zephyr's roar.
"WEEVIL!"
The giant turned.
Zephyr crossed the remaining distance in a single leap and struck him with the damaged Battle Smasher, driving the mechanical weapon into his chest before the bisento could fall on Ain.
The collision threw Weevil across the bow and into the forward gun battery.
Cannons twisted beneath his weight.
Zephyr landed between him and the recruits.
His coat was torn, blood covered one side of his body, and the Battle Smasher now hung at an unnatural angle from its mounting.
Even so, his presence steadied every Marine who could still stand.
"Lower the lifeboats on the seaward side," he ordered without taking his eye off Weevil. "Move the wounded first. Binz, use your vines to secure the boats and keep them clear of the hull."
Binz forced himself upright, one shoulder hanging lower than the other.
"Yes, Instructor."
Ain returned to Zephyr's side.
"You can't keep blocking him with that arm."
"I don't need to keep blocking forever."
Zephyr glanced toward the outer sea.
He had sent the distress signal long enough ago that any nearby unit should be close by now, assuming anyone had received it.
He only needed to buy his students a little more time.
Across the ruined battery, Weevil rose again and lifted his bisento.
Buckin's voice carried from her small boat beyond the ship.
"Enough playing, Weevil. Break the old man, then clean up the rest before the Marines send someone troublesome."
Weevil grinned with the simple cruelty of a child finally given permission to destroy a toy.
"Okay, Mama."
He charged straight at Zephyr.