Elsewhere—
BOOM!
Kuzan's freezing attack slammed into a transparent barrier and failed to budge it even an inch.
Bartolomeo stood behind it with his hands crossed, index fingers hooked over his middle fingers, barely able to contain his delight.
He still had absolutely no idea what was going on, but if he could lure this guy away from Cain-senpai, then this was perfect!
'Cain-senpai, carry out your secret infiltration mission without worrying about anything!'
'Bartolomeo will hold this bastard here! I won't disappoint you!'
'And afterward… could you maybe take me to meet Luffy-senpai?!'
As a fanatical admirer of the entire Straw Hat crew, Bartolomeo had naturally assumed Kuzan was here to capture Cain.
Faced with an enemy like that, of course he had to buy Cain as much time as possible.
Just imagining Cain rewarding him by introducing him to Luffy made Bartolomeo squirm happily.
Then he poured more power into his ability.
The flat barrier rapidly curved inward and closed around him, forming a perfectly round sphere that sealed him inside.
And then he ran—
No.
He rolled.
"Hehehe! Come catch me! Come on, come on!"
His muffled voice came from inside the sphere, and even through the barrier, his obnoxious smugness was impossible to miss.
Kuzan stood still and watched the ball bounce from wall to wall down the corridor, his expression gradually darkening.
Ice blades.
Ice spikes.
Freezing blasts.
He tried one attack after another, yet the barrier never developed so much as a hairline crack.
Now Bartolomeo had simply curled himself into a giant marble and was rolling around everywhere.
At this point, it was starting to feel personal.
"Ah, well…"
Kuzan sighed.
"Looks like I'm being underestimated."
He crouched down and pressed his right hand against the floor.
Frost exploded outward from his palm.
The carpet, floor tiles, and lower half of the walls froze over instantly.
Within moments, several hundred meters of corridor had transformed into a sheet of ice as smooth as glass.
Bartolomeo's happily rolling barrier hit it.
Sliiiip—
The sphere instantly lost control and began spinning wildly in place.
"WHAAAAAAAT?!"
Bartolomeo's scream echoed through the hallway.
Inside the barrier, he was tossed around like laundry inside a washing machine, repeatedly slamming into the inner walls until stars filled his vision.
BANG!
The barrier ball finally struck a protruding chunk of ice and came to a stop.
"My back…"
"My head…"
Bartolomeo groggily sat up and tried to adjust his position.
Then his chest suddenly felt tight.
After all that running and heavy breathing, he finally realized something.
'Oh, crap.'
He had been so busy showing off that he had forgotten to leave an air hole.
Bartolomeo hurriedly dropped the barrier and sucked in huge breaths.
"Haaah—! Haaah—! I almost suffocated…"
Before he could finish, a bone-chilling cold crawled up his back.
Bartolomeo snapped his head upward.
His pupils shrank.
Kuzan had already used the frozen floor to slide directly in front of him.
His right hand had completely transformed into ice, freezing air swirling around it as he reached forward.
"You like playing ball, kid?"
Kuzan's eyes narrowed.
"Then I'll give you an Ice Ball."
Crack!
Bartolomeo was instantly frozen inside a solid sphere of ice.
But in the split second before the ice completely immobilized him, his fingers instinctively curled.
The spherical barrier reappeared.
And this time—
Kuzan was inside it too.
The freezing air released by Kuzan's attack immediately flooded the enclosed space, turning the interior into a solid mass of ice.
The result was an extremely bizarre sight.
A giant ball of ice was packed tightly inside a spherical barrier.
There was barely any room inside.
Kuzan had no choice but to partially transform into his elemental state and squeeze himself around the ice sphere imprisoning Bartolomeo.
Bartolomeo, meanwhile, was frozen completely stiff.
Yet his consciousness remained perfectly clear.
Kuzan knew nothing about him and had not intended to kill him. He had only meant to restrain him.
Ironically, that gave Bartolomeo enough freedom to keep his Devil Fruit ability active.
Inside his frozen prison, Bartolomeo grinned mentally.
'Well, fine.'
'My fingers are frozen, so I can't adjust anything anyway.'
'We can stay like this.'
'My whole goal was to keep you here.'
'This is perfect. Neither of us is going anywhere!'
"You bastard!"
Kuzan's voice echoed from within the ice.
"Drop the barrier!"
He repeatedly struck the inside.
Freezing blasts, punches, kicks—
Nothing worked.
Every attack was stopped dead by the absurdly durable barrier.
Bartolomeo's mouth was frozen shut, so all he could manage was a muffled,
"Mmph! Mmph!"
'I'd love to drop it!'
He rolled his eyes internally.
'My fingers won't freaking move! How exactly am I supposed to do that?'
'Besides, let you out so you can go after Cain-senpai?'
'I'm not that stupid.'
Kuzan found himself trapped in a dilemma.
He had no habit of torturing people into submission, nor did he dare use truly lethal force.
If he misjudged the strength of an attack and accidentally killed Bartolomeo, his own sense of justice would leave him carrying another heavy burden of guilt.
So all he could do was repeatedly blast the interior with freezing air, looking for some kind of weakness.
There was none.
Instead, the force of his attacks began making the entire sphere roll.
Combined with the ice-covered floor and the freezing effect of Kuzan's own elemental body—
The ball rolled faster.
And faster.
And smoother.
The two trapped inside went spinning helplessly through the corridor, tumbling over and over with no way to stop themselves.
…
Elsewhere, Katakuri had just sent Brûlée away and was now facing Issho and the assembled Red Hair Pirates.
Issho held his cane sword horizontally in front of himself, his expression serious.
"This old man was assigned here only to maintain order."
"If you insist on fighting here, I have no objection to arresting you on the spot."
The Red Hair Pirates all looked toward Beckman.
He shook his head.
"There's no reason to fight."
"We only want to intercept that letter."
"We don't know what's inside yet, but the packaging looks almost identical to the invitations Totto Land sent for that wedding before."
"After the last wedding trap, we're not taking any chances."
"If this is another scheme, we need to know before Cain or Uta gets dragged into it."
The entire Red Hair crew had become extremely wary of anything sent from Totto Land.
Nobody wanted to see Cain and Uta suddenly caught up in yet another surprise wedding.
Beckman quickly surveyed the area and began giving orders.
"I'll stay here and keep this from escalating."
"Split into two groups."
"One group goes back toward the stage and calms down the audience. That burst of Conqueror's Haki definitely caused a disturbance."
"The other group checks every mirror in the area."
The moment the plan was set, everyone moved.
Meanwhile, Issho and Katakuri had already begun exchanging blows.
Both deliberately avoided large-scale attacks that could destroy the backstage area, but even their close-range clashes sent powerful vibrations humming through the air.
Katakuri saw members of the Red Hair Pirates leaving.
Then he heard that they were searching for Brûlée.
His expression tightened.
He immediately extended several mochi arms to stop them—
But at that exact moment, the floor abruptly froze.
Everyone's shoes became stuck fast to the ice.
Lola, who had just been rejected by Lucky Roux and was walking toward the corner, took one step before her foot froze in place.
Her other foot had not even touched the ground yet.
She slipped violently, twisted her ankle, and collapsed.
"Ow! My foot!"
Lola grimaced in pain and looked up.
Then her eyes widened.
A gigantic ice ball came roaring around the corner at tremendous speed, charging toward them like an out-of-control cannonball.
Lucky Roux immediately tried to move.
But someone reacted even faster.
Katakuri.
With his Observation Haki, he had already seen what was about to happen before anyone else could respond.
His pupils contracted.
'Lola!'
He moved instinctively.
The Marines.
The Red Hair Pirates.
The confrontation.
All of it vanished from his mind.
Katakuri drove Mogura into the floor, shot past Lucky Roux, and planted himself directly in front of Lola.
Both arms transformed into thick tracks of mochi and instantly hardened with Armament Haki.
BOOM!
The enormous ice ball crashed directly into his arms.
The normally flexible mochi became incredibly hard under Armament Haki—and consequently far more brittle—but Katakuri did not move an inch.
He held firm.
Then he glanced toward Issho and the Red Hair Pirates who had stopped him earlier.
Katakuri twisted his arms.
The mochi tracks curved.
With a powerful swing—
He redirected the entire ice ball sideways and hurled it straight toward them.
He had protected Lola.
And conveniently thrown the problem at the people who had been blocking him.
Lola stared at the enormous back standing protectively in front of her.
Her face was filled with disbelief.
"But…"
"But the family is hunting me…"
"Why?"
"Why would you still save me…"
Her voice trembled.
"…Katakuri-nii-san?"
Countless conflicting emotions surged through her.
Katakuri never turned around.
His voice remained cold and steady.
"No matter how much Mama hates you or how badly she once wanted you dead, that was while you still had value to her."
"Now that you're useless to Mama, there's no reason for you to die."
"As for why I saved you…"
He paused.
"You're still my little sister."
"No one gets to hurt my sister."
While the siblings spoke, the ice ball had already been sent barreling into another corridor.
Issho and Beckman both tried to break it apart—
Only to discover that its defenses were absurdly strong.
And after sensing people trapped inside, neither dared use excessive force.
They could only redirect the sphere again.
The resulting impacts altered its path.
The giant ball ricocheted from one side of the corridor to the other before charging directly toward a door at an angle.
Lucky Roux's face changed.
"That's the boss's room!"
BOOM!
The door exploded into splinters.
The massive ice ball rolled inside with unstoppable momentum.
A second later, Cain's furious scream came from within.
"OWWW! MY HEAD!!!"
"WHICH ASSHOLE HAS SO LITTLE COMMON DECENCY THAT THEY'RE THROWING GARBAGE AROUND IN HERE?!"
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