The heavy black steel bone-cleaver collided with a Haki-clad fist, erupting into a violent spray of sparks that illuminated the grit-choked air.
On the far end of the highland, Leona's battle had reached its breaking point.
Her breath came in ragged, wet gulps. Her wild, dark-red hair was a matted mess of sweat and copper-scented blood. Her leather apron was shredded, revealing several deep, bone-deep gashes that throbbed with every heartbeat. The pain was a white-hot iron against her nerves, but the predatory slit in her pupils only grew sharper.
Standing opposite her was a lean Marine Commodore, his white cape fluttering in the scorched wind.
"Tenacious woman," the Commodore remarked, flicking blood from his knuckles. "Just like a wild beast. No formal martial arts, no knowledge of Haki... you've survived this long on nothing but raw instinct and freakish strength. As a pirate, you have potential. It's a pity it ends here."
"Shut your damn mouth!" Leona spat, her knuckles white as she gripped her twin blades. "On my cutting board, there's only meat to be minced. I haven't found a bone I couldn't crack yet!"
She lunged, her boots kicking up a cloud of soot. She was an enraged lioness, her black steel machete whistling through the air in a horizontal decapitation strike.
"Too slow."
The Commodore's feet drummed against the rock in a blur. Soru!
He vanished, leaving Leona's heavy blade to bite into nothing but empty air and gravel.
"Over here."
The voice came from her blind spot. He appeared like a spectral executioner on her left, his index finger tensed into a rigid, lethal spike.
"SHIGAN (FINGER PISTOL)!"
The piercing pressure of the strike reached her before the finger did. At this range, at this exhaustion level, her physical reflexes were a second too slow.
I'm going to die.
In that heartbeat between life and death, Leona's world plunged into a suffocating, crystalline silence. The roar of the cannons and the scream of the wind vanished. The battlefield moved in agonizing slow motion.
Just as the fatal finger was about to puncture her lung, an instinct honed in the depths of primeval forests—squeezed by the absolute terror of the moment—shattered an invisible membrane in her mind.
She didn't use her eyes. Instead, a mental blueprint of the Commodore's arm muscles contracting flashed into her brain. She didn't see the attack; she felt its intent.
"NOW!"
Relying entirely on that spark of intuition, Leona wrenched her waist at an impossible, bone-creaking angle.
SWOOSH!
The Shigan, which should have pierced her heart, grazed the edge of her ribs, carving a long, shallow furrow of blood.
She was injured, but she was alive. And she wasn't done.
As she twisted, her silver boning knife flickered upward like a viper. Rip. The blade tore a jagged, bloody gash across the Commodore's forearm.
"What?!"
The Commodore recoiled, clutching his bleeding arm, his eyes wide with shock. That movement hadn't been a reflex; she had pre-judged his trajectory.
"A prototype of Kenbunshoku Haki (Observation Haki)?!" his voice darkened.
"Huff... huff..."
Leona dropped to one knee, leaning heavily on her black steel blade. That single moment of perception had drained her mental reserves to zero. Her hands were shaking uncontrollably, and the world was beginning to spin.
"To touch the threshold of Haki in the heat of battle... leaving you alive would be a disaster for the World Government."
The Commodore stopped playing. He crossed his legs in mid-air, unleashing a vacuum gale.
"RANKYAKU: RAN (STORM KICK: WAR)!"
A chaotic net of crescent-shaped vacuum slashes rained down on Leona. She forced herself to stand, teeth gritting so hard they threatened to crack. She couldn't dodge this. The "magic" perception wouldn't return, and blood loss was blurring her vision.
But she was a proud predator. She raised her broken blades, ready to meet the storm head-on.
BOOM!
A tall, upright shadow plummeted from the sky, slamming into the earth in front of her like an unshakeable mountain. The impact sent a shockwave that stalled the air.
The wind whipped a dark-red trench coat. Facing a barrage of slashes that could shred a battleship, the newcomer didn't even lift a finger.
Hum—
A layer of deep, obsidian Busoshoku Haki (Armament Haki) coated his back and shoulders.
CLANG-CLANG-CLANG-CLANG!
The vacuum blades struck the invisible armor, emitting a series of metallic sparks before shattering like glass against a reef.
The Commodore's pupils shrunk to pinpricks. Cold sweat drenched his back. As the dust settled, the black-haired man turned around.
Ace's expression was terrifyingly calm. His breathing was as steady as if he were taking a stroll. His deep black eyes swept over the Commodore; that single look made the officer feel as if he had stepped into a sub-zero abyss. His courage to move even a pinky finger vanished instantly.
"Well done," Ace said, tilting his head toward Leona. There was no lecture, only the quiet pride of a captain. "To capture his aura in that moment... you've officially stepped onto the path of Observation."
"Captain..."
The moment Leona saw that broad back, the tension holding her together snapped. She slumped to the ground, panting, but a weak, fanatical smile tugged at her lips.
Ace turned back to the terrified Marine.
"Even your legend, Zephyr, has fallen," Ace said, his tone flat and icy. "Do you small fry really want to keep this going?"
"Teacher Zephyr... defeated?!"
The Commodore looked toward the center of the plateau. Seeing the smoldering ruins of the crater where the former Admiral had been buried, his spirit broke. But he gritted his teeth, raising trembling fists. "I am a commissioned officer of Headquarters! I will never bow to a pirate!"
"You have guts. But they're wasted on you."
Ace strode forward. He didn't use his Divine Fire. He didn't use his advanced Ryuo. Against someone of this caliber, it was beneath him.
The Commodore roared, throwing a desperate punch reinforced with Tekkai.
Ace tilted his head an inch, letting the fist whistle past. Then, he delivered a single, unadorned straight punch to the Commodore's solar plexus.
BANG!
A dull, bone-crunching thud. The Commodore's eyes bulged as he vomited a spray of blood. His Rokushiki defense was like wet tissue paper against Ace's monstrous strength. He was launched backward, skipping across the rock for dozens of meters before smashing through a stone wall and losing consciousness instantly.
One punch. Clean. Absolute.
Ace withdrew his hand and flicked a speck of dust from his knuckle. He walked back to Leona. A cluster of warm, crimson-gold Nirvana Fire ignited in his palm, flowing over her wounds.
"Rest now. It's time to wrap this up."
Ace looked at the retreating remnants of the Marines and the Iron Dukes, his voice carrying across the smoke-filled highland with the weight of an Emperor.
"This battle is over."
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