On the city walls, Diarmuid slowly retracted his dark powers, beads of sweat trickling down his forehead. It was clear that taking the ancient weapon Pluton head-on had placed a massive strain even on him.
"Holy shit, my first time using this technique and I'm already playing with fire like this!?" Diarmuid cursed under his breath as the darkness dissipated.
As soon as he finished speaking, Boa Hancock, Doflamingo, and Jinbe arrived at his side. Though the city wall had blocked their view of the earlier aura of total destruction, they had all felt that overwhelming power. For a moment, their hearts had been in their throats, fearing the end was nigh.
Then, they saw their Admiral make his move, actually suppressing that inexplicable threat!
"Admiral!?" Doflamingo looked toward the distant desert, shock etched on his face.
The mysterious object was no longer visible, but the desert where the beam of light had passed was now completely crystalized. One could infer its terrifying potency just by looking at the aftermath. The more they analyzed that power, the more horrified Doflamingo and the others became.
"What the hell is that thing?" Diarmuid pointed toward the distance, where a cannon housing the size of a battleship sat in the sands.
At this moment, Diarmuid hadn't yet connected it to the Ancient Weapons. In his memory, Crocodile had never managed to get his hands on Pluton—after all, the man couldn't even read the Poneglyphs! Moreover, he remembered Pluton was supposed to be a battleship.
Who could have known this guy had such dumb luck? Due to various chaotic factors, the internal situation of Alabasta had become far more complex and disorganized than in the original story. In this version, Crocodile had actually managed to dig up Pluton under these circumstances.
Doflamingo took a look and shook his head. "I'm not quite sure."
Jinbe and Hancock, possessing even less of Doflamingo's underworld insight, also shook their heads.
'Could Dr. Vegapunk from the Special Science Group have developed some overpowered secret weapon, only for Caesar to steal the tech... and sell it to Crocodile?' Diarmuid wondered inwardly.
The more he thought about it, the more plausible it seemed. However, it was just a theory. If he wanted the answer, the solution was simple.
Go over there, take care of Crocodile, and ask him personally!
By now, the Nefertari family was finished. As for the army...
Wait, the Revolutionary Army?
Diarmuid turned around and asked, "Where's Mihawk?"
Doflamingo and Hancock both shook their heads. They had been busy fighting Moria; after Moria fled, a horde of zombies had appeared. They had been curious and were studying the zombies when all hell broke loose—first the poison gas, then the bombardment. Who had the peace of mind to keep track of Mihawk?
Jinbe scratched his head and said, "The last time I saw Mihawk, he was chasing after Dragon's silhouette. They fought their way out of the northern gate and headed deep into the desert..."
Diarmuid: "???"
Mihawk, are you really that dedicated? I'm half-tempted to recommend you as a Senior Operations Commander for CP-0! Just based on your obsession with catching the Revolutionary Army, I think you'd be perfect for the job!
"Forget it, never mind him. Let's go meet our great conspirator, Sir Crocodile," Diarmuid said, a cruel smile playing on his lips.
The Nefertari family was ruined. Spandine had captured Cobra. Although Princess Vivi had escaped, wasn't Crocodile the perfect scapegoat? He could just report that the mission was successful until Crocodile suddenly betrayed them; in the ensuing chaos, they could only secure Cobra while Princess Vivi went missing. It sounded perfectly normal.
As for whether Crocodile would try to argue?
It didn't matter. Diarmuid had no intention of leaving him a way out. Dead men don't argue.
…
Meanwhile, Crocodile had finally snapped out of his state of shock and disbelief. Then, he saw Admiral Diarmuid approaching with three Warlords of the Sea in tow.
Crocodile's heart sank. He intended to activate Pluton again, but a high-energy weapon like that required a cooling period to auto-recharge after every shot. Consequently, Pluton was currently useless.
Run?
It was likely too late for that. Even in the desert, the success rate of escaping an Admiral and three Warlords was not high. Moreover, he was truly unwilling to give up! He was just one step away, one final step from becoming the true winner of Alabasta!
But how is it possible? How could anyone... block an Ancient Weapon??? Does that even make sense?
'Don't panic. I'm a Warlord of the Sea... at least for now. I might be able to handle this...' Crocodile thought to himself.
Soon, Diarmuid, Doflamingo, and the others arrived before him.
Crocodile possessed exceptional mental fortitude. Upon seeing Diarmuid, he was the first to speak: "The war has been raging for so long, yet I had no idea a Marine Admiral was also here in Alubarna?"
Diarmuid's lips curled into a cruel grin. He simply raised his arm and aimed it at Crocodile.
Crocodile's expression shifted to alarm as he quickly tried to explain: "It's a misunderstanding! I am a Warlord of the Sea, acting on orders from Mariejois to annihilate the Revolutionary Army right here!!!"
His excuse was full of holes, but it wasn't entirely baseless. If that shot had actually killed the leaders of the Revolutionary Army, including Dragon, Mariejois might have been willing to overlook the deaths of a few Warlords in the process. Crocodile was trying to lead Diarmuid's train of thought in that direction, claiming he didn't know the Admiral was there and was simply willing to sacrifice other Warlords to wipe out the Revolutionary Army's core.
Pure sophistry!
Even as an Admiral, you have to follow orders from Mariejois, right?
However, Spandine and Diarmuid had already coordinated everything. Diarmuid ignored Crocodile's nonsense entirely.
A surge of dark power began to seep from Diarmuid's palm. Seeing this darkness, Crocodile's heart sank. No longer caring about appearances, he swung his arm and sent out a blade of sand. The sand quickly solidified into a sharp edge, slashing toward Diarmuid.
"Desert Spada!" Crocodile roared.
"Dark Water..." Diarmuid whispered.
The darkness in his palm instantly expanded, standing before the group just as the Desert Spada struck. In the next moment, the sand blade, which had carved a deep trench into the desert between them, hit the dark power and was inexplicably swallowed and dissipated.
"What a weak and powerless attack," Diarmuid critiqued. He then grinned at Crocodile. "Are you ready to face death, Crocodile?"
"This is the desert!!!" Seeing that Diarmuid had no intention of wasting words and was going straight for the kill, Crocodile grew furious. He decided to go all out!
As he spoke, yellow sand surged around his body. The desert beneath his feet seemed to fall under his total control, instantly rising like a tidal wave. A massive desert tsunami loomed over Diarmuid and the others, threatening to bury them alive.
Diarmuid wasn't in a hurry to kill Crocodile. He wanted to use Crocodile's Logia powers to test the strength of the Dark-Dark Fruit.
"Quite a grand display..." Doflamingo remarked, clicking his tongue as he watched the sky-blocking yellow sand.
Diarmuid lightly stamped his foot. In the next instant, boundless darkness erupted from beneath him. It spread along the grains of sand, and within moments, the desert tide Crocodile had raised was dyed pitch black.
Looking down from above, the desert within a radius of several hundred meters centered on Diarmuid was void-black. Even Crocodile was enveloped by this darkness. Fortunately, Crocodile could fly; he transformed into sand and floated in the air, staring at the scene in shock.
What is this darkness? Isn't this guy a gravity fruit user?
"Abyssal Darkness!" Diarmuid growled.
With a vroom, everyone seemed to hear something, yet it felt like a mere hallucination. In the next moment, the sky-high waves of sand tainted by darkness abruptly vanished. It was as if they had been swallowed or erased by something.
Crocodile immediately felt his connection to the sand... severed?
"Forget it. With your level of strength, it's hard for me to measure anything," Diarmuid said, looking up at Crocodile in the air with a look of disappointment, as if frustrated that his "iron" wouldn't turn into "steel."
Crocodile: "???"
Are you seriously complaining that I'm too weak?
Before Crocodile could speak, he saw Diarmuid's pupils suddenly dilate. In an instant, his entire eyes turned pitch black, devoid of any white—a terrifying and ghoulish sight.
Then, before he could react, an irresistible gravitational pull erupted from Diarmuid's hand, dragging Crocodile toward the dark element in his palm.
Crocodile was startled at first, but then he guessed what it was. It must be Diarmuid's gravity attraction. What was it called in the intel? Ah, right, Universal Pull?
Thinking this, Crocodile prepared his counter. He immediately attempted to elementalize, intending to scatter into countless grains of sand to bypass the "Universal Pull."
However, the moment he tried to shift, before the sand could even disperse, it was forcibly interfered with by another power, slamming his body back into a solid form.
"What!?" Crocodile was stunned.
How can someone interfere with another person's elementalization?
There was no time for further thought. Under this disruption, his body flew like a cannonball straight into Diarmuid's palm. A second later, Diarmuid had Crocodile by the throat, hoisting him into the air.
Even in this crisis, Crocodile didn't lose his cool. He grabbed Diarmuid's arm, struggling against the grip, and smiled evilly. "You shouldn't have touched me. Turn into a dried corpse... Ground Death!!!"
Normally, his "Ground Secco" was enough to suck the moisture out of a person. But against Diarmuid, Crocodile decided to go all out, perhaps even too far, immediately using the power of Ground Secco, a technique capable of drying up an entire city!
However, despite the flashy name, Crocodile looked at the completely unaffected Diarmuid, then felt his own power.
Wait? Where's my Sand-Sand Fruit power?
"You're really wasting my time!" Diarmuid looked at Crocodile with disdain, his hand tightening as if to snap the man's neck instantly.
But just then, Doflamingo cleared his throat. "Ahem... Admiral... please stay your hand."
Diarmuid looked at Doflamingo in surprise. You don't actually have some... "ambiguous" relationship with Crocodile, do you? Is this true love showing itself?
Wait, come to think of it, Crocodile had some secret with Ivankov when he was young. Could he really have been a woman before? That makes no sense!
Doflamingo, unaware of Diarmuid's wild thoughts, whispered, "We didn't bring any fruit. Let's not let it go to waste..."
Diarmuid froze, then frowned. What's going on?
Why has my bloodlust become so heavy? I haven't even questioned Crocodile about that weapon yet, nor did I prepare a fruit to seize the Sand-Sand Fruit. Why did I suddenly want to choke him to death?
Is it a side effect of the Dark-Dark Fruit?