The deck shook beneath Weevil's first step.
Zephyr braced himself, but the giant changed direction at the last instant and swept the bisento toward the recruits gathering around the lifeboats.
The move was crude, almost clumsy, yet the reach of the weapon and the force behind it turned that clumsiness into something lethal.
Binz thrust both hands toward the deck.
Vines erupted between Weevil and the recruits, weaving into a thick wall of roots and branches.
Several elite trainees reinforced the barrier with crossed swords coated in Armament Haki, while others pulled the wounded toward the seaward rail.
The bisento struck.
The green-tinted flying slash produced by the swing tore through the vegetation, but the layers of wood disrupted its shape enough to keep it from passing cleanly through everyone behind it.
Steel broke.
Blood sprayed across the deck.
Several recruits were cut down, while others were thrown aside with deep wounds rather than severed bodies.
Binz's sword snapped near the guard.
The remaining force opened a long cut across his chest and hurled him into the railing.
He remained conscious, though only barely, one hand still clenched around the broken hilt.
More than ten young Marines did not rise.
Zephyr saw them fall.
For an instant, the present vanished beneath the memory of another class, another deck, and another massacre he had failed to stop.
The same helpless rage tried to close around his judgment.
He crushed it before it could.
His students needed an instructor, not a grieving old man.
Zephyr drove forward, Armament Haki coating his left fist and the failing shell of the Battle Smasher.
He struck Weevil across the jaw and followed with a shoulder charge that forced the giant away from the lifeboats.
"You wanted me," Zephyr growled. "Then keep your eyes on me."
Weevil stumbled two steps, touched the blood at his mouth, and looked toward Buckin.
"Mama, he hit me again!"
"Then tear off his other arm!" she shrieked. "Stop letting him order you around!"
Weevil's face twisted.
The next attack came with none of the hesitation that had marked his earlier movements.
He raised the bisento above his head, black Armament Haki spreading across the blade as raw force gathered around it.
The green hue of the coming slash belonged to the compressed air around the weapon, not the Haki itself.
Zephyr understood the target immediately.
The strike would pass through him, the central mast, and every lifeboat hanging beyond the opposite rail.
He crossed the Battle Smasher beneath his hardened left arm and met the bisento before the swing could fully descend.
The clash sounded like an explosion inside the ship.
Cracks raced through the deck.
The damaged mounting at Zephyr's shoulder screamed beneath the pressure, and the metal casing that had survived years of battle finally began tearing away from the remaining flesh.
Zephyr's boots slid backward.
Weevil leaned down with both hands, his vacant face inches from Zephyr's.
"Mama said I should take your other arm."
Zephyr bared his teeth.
"Your mother has spent your whole life telling you what to think. Has she ever taught you how?"
Weevil stared at him.
The question meant nothing.
Buckin understood the insult well enough for both of them.
"Weevil, kill him!"
The giant roared and forced the bisento down.
The Battle Smasher tore free.
Metal bolts snapped, the ruined prosthetic spun across the deck, and blood erupted from Zephyr's shoulder where the mounting had been ripped away.
The loss of resistance sent the bisento downward, but Zephyr twisted at the final moment and caught the shaft beneath his remaining arm, redirecting the edge into the deck beside him.
The blade cut through three levels of the forward hull.
Seawater burst upward through the opening.
Zephyr struck Weevil in the face with his hardened forehead, then drove his left fist into the giant's throat.
The blow forced Weevil back, but Zephyr fell to one knee the instant the pressure lifted.
Blood poured from the ruined shoulder.
"Instructor!"
Ain reached him first.
Zephyr shoved her away from the wound before she could try to stop the bleeding.
"Get the students off the ship."
"We're not leaving you."
"That wasn't a request."
Ain looked toward the lifeboats.
Several had been lowered, but the two outer pirate ships were still firing, and wounded recruits crowded the surviving deck while Binz's vines struggled to keep the boats from being crushed against the hull.
"There isn't enough time."
"Then make time."
Zephyr forced himself back to his feet with his remaining arm.
Weevil was already recovering.
The giant spat blood onto the deck and looked toward the students with growing irritation. Zephyr had hurt him repeatedly, the vines had delayed him, and Ain had nearly touched him.
To Weevil's simple mind, everyone on the ship had become part of the same problem.
Buckin saw the change and encouraged it.
"Don't let them escape! Kill the little ones first. The old man will break faster if he watches."
Weevil lowered his body.
Zephyr's Observation Haki caught the movement.
He stepped forward, but blood loss made his vision blur.
His left foot landed half an inch from where he intended, and that tiny mistake cost him the distance he needed.
Weevil disappeared from his sight.
Ain saw the giant reappear among the recruits near the mainmast.
She fired twice.
Both bullets struck Weevil's hardened shoulder and flattened without slowing him. She lunged after them, reaching for his back with her bare hand, but Weevil turned and swept the shaft of the bisento across her ribs.
The blow sent her flying through a cabin wall.
Binz tried to raise another barrier. The plants answered weakly, his concentration broken by the wound across his chest.
Thin vines wrapped around Weevil's ankle and snapped almost immediately.
The giant raised his bisento.
Ain dragged herself from the wrecked cabin, blood running from the corner of her mouth.
Several recruits were still trapped directly beneath the blade, too injured to move and too terrified to do anything except stare upward.
Zephyr roared and forced his body forward.
He would not reach them.
The realization struck harder than Weevil's weapon ever could.
"Run!" Zephyr shouted. "Over the seaward rail, now! Leave the ship and use the wreckage for cover. That is a direct order!"
Some recruits obeyed immediately, throwing themselves into the water.
Others tried to carry the wounded with them.
Binz used the last of his strength to send vines over the rail, creating ropes and floating mats of vegetation for those who could no longer swim.
Ain remained where she was.
Her right hand trembled as she reached toward Weevil again.
If she could touch him once—only once—she might weaken him enough for Zephyr to stop the next blow.
Weevil's bisento began to descend.
...
The sea beneath Z-1 changed.
A circular distortion spread through the water, so faint beneath the smoke and wreckage that no one aboard noticed it.
Far below the hull, the Polar Tang had reached the outer reef and risen beneath the ship's shadow.
Inside the submarine, Law stood at the center of the control room with one hand raised.
A vast ROOM expanded from the Polar Tang, climbed through the sea, and enveloped the lower half of Z-1.
The strain tightened every muscle in Law's face.
"Bepo, keep us level. Shachi, Penguin, prepare the infirmary. We're taking wounded whether the Marines like it or not."
Bepo gripped the controls.
"What about Zaraki?"
Law's eyes remained fixed on the distorted space above them.
"He wanted off my ship."
The bisento descended toward Ain and the trapped recruits.
Law snapped his fingers.
"Shambles."