Sengoku's mind went blank.
The others were no better. The name of that fruit alone was like a hammer to the temple.
The Float-Float Fruit.
No Marine needed a lecture on what that power could do.
Golden Lion Shiki—the Flying Admiral—had come within a hair of flattening Marineford because of it. Swordsmanship, strength, and on top of that a Paramecia that erased the laws of gravity… that was a world-level threat.
And the Celestial Dragons wanted to hand that over as a hunting prize?
Had they learned nothing from God Valley?
Sengoku remembered too clearly: at that hunt, Kaido's Mythical Zoan—Fish-Fish Fruit, Azure Dragon—had been one of the "prizes." Charlotte Linlin stole it and gave it to him. That single act had birthed the "Strongest Creature in the World."
If not for that fruit, the Marines would have crushed Kaido years ago. They wouldn't have been humiliated at Miracle Island.
Those arrogant, brainless lunatics…
No. Something was off.
He didn't even know the prize for this North Blue hunt—yet Kaido and Big Mom did?
"Hahahaha! Kaido, Big Mom! You think we'll just hand over the Float-Float Fruit?"
While Sengoku was still piecing it together, the bloodstained Vice Admiral below threw back his head and laughed, voice sharp and arrogant. He turned, face straight, and shouted:
"Admiral Sengoku, you must protect the Float-Float Fruit! We mustn't let the Golden Lion's power fall into pirate hands!"
Sengoku: …?
He whirled, stunned.
Darren met his look with a half-smile that said: catch up.
Realization hit like a slap. Sengoku's eyes went red.
That damned brat!
Above, the dragon's laughter boomed. "Wororororo! So it's true! Sengoku, hand it over!!"
A blood-colored glow seethed in the clouds as Kaido inhaled. Heat swirled in his jaws, forging a blazing sphere.
That one—!
Sengoku snapped back to the present and roared, "Prepare for battle! Abandon ship if you must!"
"Die!!"
The dragon's breath fell like a burning deluge.
A figure of smoke and fire vaulted from the deck, the word JUSTICE on his back melting into magma.
"Vice Admiral Sakazuki!!"
Half-magma already, he punched into the inferno.
"Great Eruption!"
BOOM!
Flame met magma. The sky tore in a storm of red.
"Mamamama! Lava brat, you've improved!" Big Mom's shriek rang out. Her arm rose; the cloud-sea convulsed—thunder wove itself into a killing net and came screaming down.
"Tenman Daijizai Tenjin!"
"Borsalino!!"
"All right, all right…" Light peeled apart. A rain of golden shots climbed to meet the thunder, bursting it apart overhead in sun-bright blossoms.
"Wororororo! We're just getting started!"
Kaido's dragon body rolled, dragging hurricanes in its wake. Waterspouts rose like pillars joining sea and sky; walls of water, tens of meters high, raced for the fleet.
"Perish in the ocean's depths, Marines!"
Damn it!
Sengoku spun and roared, "Kuzan! Do you plan to let us all sink?!"
Kuzan ground his teeth. "I won't strike Darren."
"The situation has changed! Your targets are Kaido and Big Mom!"
That, he could live with. "No problem!"
He leaped into the sea.
"Ice Age!"
The world froze.
Ten kilometers of ocean, even the climbing tsunamis, solidified in clear, hard ice. Kuzan knelt, exhaled a plume of frost, and wiped his brow.
The fleet steadied.
Kaido, back to human form, dropped from the sky with Big Mom beside him, two meteors crashing toward the ice.
"Come on!"
Sakazuki and Kuzan met them head-on. Behind them the Marines surged, rifles, cannons, Rokushiki, Haki—everything thrown into the melee.
Magma, thunder, ice, fire—explosions rolled across the frozen sea in waves.
Sengoku's eyes slid, drawn back to the island and to the figure standing there in the glow of burning snow.
That bastard… He knew we'd have to choose. He fed fake intel to lure those two monsters here. He wanted us busy.
Just as he hesitated—whether to keep pressing the arrest or turn fully to the Yonko—the Vice Admiral raised his hand.
Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!
Four streaks of killing light burst from beneath the ice around the battleships, punching through and arcing toward the island.
The sight turned Sengoku's blood to ice.
Those blades—
They'd been waiting under the ice.
If Kaido and Big Mom hadn't shown up…
If he'd actually ordered a landing…
The moment the battleships moved, Darren would have detonated out of the sea and carved through them with those four peerless Meito. Devil Fruit users half-submerged, powers suppressed, surrounded by flying swords?
That would have been a massacre.
Sengoku's scalp tingled. He swallowed hard.
This level of scheming… even I couldn't have pulled it off.
This was Darren's trump card—laid for the Marines themselves.
To be continued...