After transforming into a Giant and gaining Bullet's Combination Fruit ability, an absurdly audacious idea flashed through Darren's mind.
"Kahahaha! I've got it!"
Bullet burst into bright, hearty laughter atop Darren's head, eyes gleaming. "This is our blood-boiling Combination Technique, Darren!"
A blood-boiling Combination Technique.
Darren's eyes lit. Could it be…? His heartbeat kicked hard in his chest.
Gundam—the ultimate dream of every man.
"Hahahahaha! Let's do it, Bullet!"
The colossal Darren roared, the sound rolling through the storm like buried thunder, black lightning flickering in its wake.
Whitebeard, bracing Murakumogiri against the massive black greatsword, felt a jolt of alarm. A Combination Technique?! Memory tugged him back to the Rocks era—to Charlotte Linlin and that brat Kaido, forever scheming over joint attacks that could wipe out dozens, even hundreds, of kilometers. Cold sweat slid down his spine.
"Come on!!" Bullet shouted, leaping and landing back on Darren's crown as the Combination Fruit surged to life.
A pale violet shockwave rippled outward. The metal plating on Darren's giant body bristled like rising dragon scales—then blasted free. In midair the fragments swarmed and fused, wrapping over Bullet, folding and locking into a new form that throbbed with a warlike aura potent enough to make even Whitebeard tense.
Twisting. Shifting. Clicks and snaps of metal.
Then the metal locked into shape—something bizarre and utterly wrong.
Whitebeard's face froze, lips twitching. Darren stood there, speechless.
"…"
"…"
"Kahaha! What do you think? That's our teamwork, Darren!!" Bullet's triumphant laugh split the silence.
A ridiculous structure had materialized atop Darren's giant head: a hulking military-green base sunk into his forehead like a domineering cap, from whose upper tier jutted a sleek, black heavy cannon.
Darren: "..."
"This is my masterpiece—the Combined: Ultimate Cannon!" Bullet boasted from within the gun. "It perfectly covers your lack of long-range firepower!"
From afar, the towering giant looked patently absurd with the custom cannon perched like a hat.
After a taut beat, Darren's face twisted with fury. "The cannon I get. But why the hell is it green?" he ground out through his teeth.
"What's wrong with green?" Bullet asked, perfectly sincere.
"You damn brats! Had enough of your nonsense?!" Whitebeard's roar cracked the sky.
I'm the World's Strongest Man, and they're clowning around? Fury boiled up, and a suffocating surge of Conqueror's Haki exploded off him. Crimson-black lightning hissed and climbed Murakumogiri. Muscles corded like molten rock as he drove the blade forward with a bellow.
The giant staggered back several steps under the force.
Darren blanched, set his stance, and hewed a horizontal arc. The massive black blade tore the air and plowed a ravine as it screamed toward Whitebeard.
Eyes burning, Whitebeard stepped in and met it. Clang!!
The mismatched weapons smashed together and spat a cyclone of crimson-black energy. Space seemed to warp under the frenzy of colliding thunderbolts.
"Die!"
His aura spiked. Conqueror's lightning swallowed the blade. A blood-red arc ripped upward from his naginata and forced Enma to recoil.
"Let me handle this!" Bullet snapped, wrenching the giant gun to bear.
Boom!
The recoil jerked Darren's head back and rattled his skull. A cannonball over ten meters wide screamed away, a meteor with a flaming tail.
Whitebeard's eyes flashed crimson as he read the line in an instant. Murakumogiri swept—
Tch!
The shell split cleanly, each half detonating in the mountains behind him. Twin pillars of fire rose; heat and shock flattened nearby peaks like paper.
Whitebeard's eyelid twitched. Power on that scale—those brats weren't playing.
With firepower like that, they could erase a nation… an island.
But—
"With strength like yours, you think you can take down Whitebeard? You're centuries too early!" His coat snapped in the gale as he raised the Supreme Grade blade. Black-red lightning crowded the edge. "Murakumo Slash!"
"Damn it!" Bullet and Darren paled together, canceling their powers and shrinking back to normal size.
Whoosh!
The crimson blade screamed past, rending the distant Birdcage before knifing on into the vast sea. Along the coast, fighting froze as a bottomless, glass-smooth trench carved itself into the ocean from nearshore to the horizon.
Thud. Thud. Thud.
Three figures dropped from the sky.
Panting, Whitebeard stared through the settling dust as the two brats slid into a peculiar stance.
"That old bastard's finally lost it. This is going to be rough, Darren…" Bullet rasped, breath short.
"It's because you're holding us back," Darren shot back, just as winded.
"Tch. Then we use that move," Bullet muttered.
"Yeah. This is Whitebeard," Darren sighed, voice echoing faintly in the charged air.
A gust tore the smoke away.
Whitebeard's pupils pinpricked. Shoulder to shoulder, the two crouched low, coiled like springs. Pitch-black Armament Haki crawled over their forearms, black lightning snapping at the edges. Their eyes burned with a mad, defiant gleam.
That stance…
Whitebeard's heart sank; his face set like stone. In the next instant the destructive pressure pouring off them locked onto him, unerring as a drawn bead.
This was… an unavoidable strike!
To be continued...