'This is a losing battle... At this rate...'
The scene: atop the ship where Suzu, Iris, the Seraphim "Zero Two," and Ain were fighting.
There, Ain was becoming keenly aware that she was being cornered, slowly but surely.
The Seraphim kept using the Poison-Poison Fruit's powers, trying to crush them through sheer brute force. It extended its three-headed Hydra, making them writhe and sweep across the deck, scattering deadly poison everywhere. One touch and it was over.
Unlike Suzu and Iris, who could wash the poison away with mud or water, Ain had no means of countering it.
She had no option but to devote herself entirely to evasion.
Ain was trained in both mid-to-long-range combat with dual pistols and close-quarters fighting with a two-sword style using short blades. But approaching Zero Two, who constantly wore a cloak of poison, was suicidal, and the firepower of mere pistols didn't even register as a solid hit.
Then again, standing by and doing nothing wasn't going to improve the situation either.
Or rather, unable to participate meaningfully in the fight, Ain was essentially being ignored by both Suzu's group and Zero Two. Treated as if she weren't even there.
Suzu and Iris were slipping through the poison or pushing it back, launching bold counterattacks. But as mentioned, Ain could barely manage to keep running.
This alone was unbearable humiliation, but even so, she didn't let her emotions cloud her judgment. Ain wasn't serving as a Grand Executive of the Neo Marines for nothing.
'Then I'll use this to my advantage...! While their attention isn't on me, this might make for the perfect surprise attack!'
Ain steeled herself and unleashed the power of the Return-Return Fruit dwelling within her. The ability to "return" anything touched by the Return-Return energy emitted from her hands by twelve years.
Used on a living being, it would make them younger. Used on matter, it would revert to its state from twelve years ago.
Cooled and hardened lava, for example, would return to its form when it was still Magma.
And the target Ain directed that power toward this time was...
"Wha!? Wh-what is this!?"
"This is... It can't be!"
The next instant, the ship Suzu and the others had been standing on suddenly disassembled into pieces.
Ain had used the Return-Return power on the warship itself, and as a result, it had broken apart down to its raw materials. The planks laid across the deck reverted to freshly cut lumber. Iron fittings reverted to unprocessed iron blocks and ore.
Every material "returned," the ship fell apart and crumbled, and Suzu's group lost their footing.
"Ngh... hh...! It... worked...!"
Intense fatigue and exhaustion hit Ain all at once.
The extent varied greatly depending on the individual, the nature of the Devil Fruit, and the user's Mastery, but activating a Devil Fruit power could consume a considerable amount of stamina.
Having "returned" an entire ship, Ain's stamina had been utterly drained. She was at a level where even basic combat would be difficult.
But with their footing gone, both the Seraphim and Suzu's group had no choice but to fall into the sea. For all of them, as Ability Users, that should be fatal.
Ain had prepared in advance, securing a life jacket and other tools stowed on the deck, ensuring she alone could survive even when thrown into the ocean.
Of course, she wouldn't sink and drown thanks to that, but being submerged in the sea would still drain an Ability User's strength, leaving her unable to move. She might even be killed by the Shockwave of other battles raging around her. ...If it came to that, so be it.
With that resolve, she let gravity take her while kicking off the pile of debris that had been a ship moments ago, trying to launch herself as far away as possible, but...
Pwing!
"Ah...!"
A flying Laser pierced her leg.
Zero Two had determined the ship's disassembly and disappearance to be an attack from Ain and naturally moved to eliminate the threat.
Ain hadn't been careless. She'd intended to flee while watching her surroundings. She'd even noticed the attack the instant before it hit.
She simply couldn't dodge it. Depleted stamina, and her opponent's reaction and attack speed were too fast.
Fortunately, the flotation device was intact, but she'd taken a wound to her leg. Submerging in water while bleeding meant bleeding out in no time, though whether she'd even survive long enough for that was questionable.
After all, the Seraphim she'd expected to sink into the sea was hovering in the air, jetting flames from the soles of its feet. It didn't seem to have enough thrust for truly free flight, but apparently it had countermeasures against falling into the water too.
Then, the Seraphim produced another Hydra from its body, extending a neck toward Ain...
"Venom Road."
Traveling at high speed through the toxic liquid, it closed the distance in an instant.
Already fallen into the sea, most of her body submerged, her strength drained, Ain had no way to defend against the follow-up.
Doused in toxic liquid, a slow death? Or pierced by a Laser?
'So this is it...'
But the Hydra's neck was cleanly severed, and Zero Two was thrown out of it.
Suzu had done it.
A Flying Slash released by swinging both swords. Naturally imbued with Haki, the strike bisected the Hydra's neck with ease.
And beneath Suzu's feet, a patch of Island Cloud bobbed gently on the surface.
Produced by a prototype of an improved Milky Dial, one that could generate Cloud even in the Blue Sea environment, though only for short periods.
Something Suzu had received from Sou, Sue's mother and Suzu's grandmother, as a precaution.
"For us Ability Users, falling into the sea is the greatest concern in naval combat. There is no chance we would come unprepared. Learning Moonwalk goes without saying, and I keep enough means for creating footing to count on one hand."
"Mom's such a worrywart. As soon as we arrived in this era, she loaded me up with all kinds of stuff too."
Iris added this while standing on a foothold she'd prepared herself.
At first glance it looked like Island Cloud, but on closer inspection it was something different. A strange, person-supporting... Smoke.
And that Smoke was being generated and controlled by a strangely beautiful woman floating beside Iris. Fair-skinned, with soft flowing hair and beautiful features, she had a somehow airy atmosphere about her.
...In fact, her skin was literally white, her hair, and for that matter her entire body, had an inhuman level of "softness" to them, and most notably, she had no legs. Her lower half was Smoke.
As one might have already guessed, she was yet another of Iris's Homies, manifested as a "beautiful girl personification," as was the usual pattern.
"Well, I don't really need stuff like that as long as I've got you... Right, Enraenra?"
"It makes me so happy to hear you say thaat, Masterr."
The Smoke Homie, Enraenra, replied in a drawn-out, characteristically soft tone.
Her Smoke could physically interact with objects, serving as footing like now, or extending like tentacles to capture opponents. It was a versatile weapon that could shift from smokescreen to barrier at will.
Leaving the foothold to Enraenra, Iris turned to face the Seraphim with a look that said 'now then.' Zero Two had been thrown clear but had just righted itself with foot thrusters and regained its stance.
"So the ship's gone now... That was that Ain girl's power, right? She can revert things by twelve years, if I remember correctly. If she resorted to something that drastic, she was fine with this ship being destroyed at worst. Which means..."
"There were no Dyna Stones aboard this ship, it seems."
"Then this makes things simple. And since the ship's conveniently gone anyway... let's blow it away at full power. Ifijar, you're up."
"You got it!! I'll burn it to cinders!!"
At the signal, another beautiful woman who had been floating beside Iris, the Flame Homie Ifijar, released extreme heat and explosive flames from her entire body, focusing them into a concentrated blast...
The next instant, she fired it straight at Zero Two.
A stream of flame, bundled like an enormous Laser, shot out and struck dead on.
The Seraphim's Lunarian Tribe body endured even that explosive inferno. Its skin was somewhat scorched and singed, but whether it counted as a solid hit was debatable.
But the explosive force and momentum far exceeded the flames Zero Two was jetting from its feet.
Damaged or not, maintaining its stance was utterly impossible. Pushed back as if shoved, it plummeted toward the sea surface.
Zero Two, the Seraphim, was also an Ability User, even if only a pseudo one through Green Blood. The sea was a weakness. Drop it in, and that was victory. Just as Ain had tried to do moments ago.
It seemed Zero Two would hit the water helplessly, but at the last moment it twisted its body, managing to break away from Ifijar's explosive flames, and fired its foot thrusters to try climbing again.
"Got you!"
From the water surface behind it, the water Homie Pneuma emerged, having been lurking underwater in ambush.
Manipulating the massive amount of water she'd absorbed like tentacles, she didn't even give Zero Two time to produce toxic liquid before wrapping it up completely, trapping it in a Water Prison. All power to resist, completely stripped away.
"Master! Capture complete!"
"Great job, Pneuma! Just keep it trapped in the water for now. No matter how tough a Seraphim is, if you keep it locked underwater for hours, it can't breathe and will drown. Now then..."
After hearing Pneuma's cheerful "Roger that!" Iris turned around.
In her line of sight was Ain, clinging desperately to a flotation ring, face pale.
Iris had Enraenra carry her over. Ain noticed the approach, of course, but she didn't even have the strength left to draw and aim a pistol.
If Iris decided to kill her here, there would be no resistance. That life could be snuffed out with ease.
Even so, as if to say that even in this state she refused to let her spirit submit, Ain glared at Iris with eyes full of fierce will and resolve.
...But completely suppressing the fear and anxiety within her was clearly beyond her ability.
The scene that followed a moment later proved it.
"LIFE or OBEDIENCE."
Iris's Soul Pocus laid bare the anxiety and fear within Ain's heart, the raw clinging to life. From Ain's body, her Soul, manifested in an amoeba-like form, her lifespan, came spilling out.
Iris drew her sword and slashed in a single stroke, reaping it all.
Stripped of her lifespan, Ain went limp and died.
"Hm? What, ye killed her? The policy was to capture Executives for interrogation, was it not?"
"It's fine, Aunt Suzu. She is dead, but since I took her Soul to kill her, returning it will properly bring her back to life. Oh, Pneuma, recover this one too."
"How curious, even if 'tis the work of a power... Very well then. It would be troublesome if she resisted during capture, so this may actually be the better approach. ...Though I must say, I barely got any time in the spotlight before Iris swooped in and took all the glory."
"Oh come on, let me have this much. I came all the way to this era from so far away, so let me show off for Mom and the others!"
"That ye did. Well, a win is a win. Now then, I wonder how the others are faring...?"
***
Meanwhile: the battle between Kuma-type Seraphim "Zero Three" VS Alice.
Zero Three attempted to float a different warship from the one initially levitated and use it as an attack, but Alice wouldn't allow it, pressing a fierce offensive. The two were still airborne.
Since Zero Three had been given the Float-Float Fruit power through Green Blood, unlike other Seraphim it wasn't using foot thrusters for acceleration or flight. It could fly under its own power, and its mobility was quite high.
But not as high as Alice's. This aerial battle should have been Zero Three's home turf, yet it was entirely on the defensive.
From Alice's perspective, this was only natural. She regularly sparred with Shiki, the original Float-Float Fruit Ability User himself, whose mastery of the power was on a completely different level from Zero Three.
Zero Three's level of strength was utterly insufficient.
To begin with, whether it was Lasers or mass-based attacks using Float-Float levitation, Alice could Reflect them with the Reva-Reva Fruit. Against Alice, Zero Three simply had no attack that could serve as an effective hit.
Alice had initially been wary of things like poison gas and Seastone equipment, based on what Sue had told her about the battle on Sekan Island, but there was no sign of any such tactics being employed.
Unless her powers were broken through with Armament Haki, or the opponent wielded a Seastone weapon, nothing would work against Alice.
The reason Alice still hadn't finished off Zero Three despite all this was simply...
'This thing is seriously tough... It won't get hurt at all. I want to bring it back in the best condition possible as a souvenir for Grandma, but...'
That was the reason.
Combat ability wasn't the problem. Zero Three's toughness was absolutely top-tier, stubbornly refusing to cooperate with Alice's goal of "recovering it with minimal damage as a gift for Sou."
Initially, just like during the Summit War, Alice had planned to inflict a small wound and then touch the bloodstream through it, Reversing it to finish the fight. But no matter how long the battle went on, not even a scratch appeared.
Not from deflected debris or Lasers, not even from Haki-imbued attacks.
Just then, at the edge of her vision, Alice saw the battle on Suzu and Iris's side reach its conclusion.
Pneuma had captured Zero Two in a Water Prison, and Ain appeared to have been captured as well.
'Nice, Iris! Death by drowning means excellent preservation... So now I can smash this one without holding back! And we'll properly revive that Ain girl later...'
"All right then... Zero Three, was it? Sorry, but... this is goodbye."
The next instant, Alice kicked off the sky and dove straight into Zero Three's guard, pressing a gloved palm gently against Zero Three's chest with a soft tap.
And then...
"Behold, Grandma's custom-made new weapon..."
There exists something called the Impact Dial.
One of the Dials found on Sky Island, it possesses the property of absorbing impacts it receives and releasing them at will.
Its recoil is considerable, though. A careless ordinary person risked injuring themselves from the backlash, making it a double-edged sword.
Furthermore, a superior version exists called the Reject Dial, boasting ten times the output. Tremendous power, but even greater recoil. Treated as practically a suicide weapon under the principle that "using it won't leave the user unscathed." An Extinct Species.
That alone would be a weapon any person with normal sensibilities would refuse to use, but unfortunately, the Golden Lion Pirates had a certain problem child in their research division with far-from-normal sensibilities. Someone who gleefully got her hands on such dangerous things.
That problem child, Sou, took the Reject Dials that Sue had brought back from Sky Island and Dr. Indigo had successfully cultivated, using them as materials for further research. She completed a single Weapon.
Multiple Reject Dials installed within a glove. The impacts released from them are amplified and focused, then fired straight ahead, delivering a blow ten times more powerful than the already lethal-grade Reject, slamming it into the target.
Its name...
"Eliminate!!"
In that instant, a tremendous roar and Shockwave scattered outward, striking Zero Three dead on.
The supposedly invincible Seraphim's body warped severely. Blood seeped from numerous points. Internal metal components cracked and began short-circuiting. Cracking, creaking, grinding, a rather catastrophic chorus echoing from every direction.
Incomplete though it was, the blow's power exceeded what even a Lunarian Tribe body could fully withstand, reaching the very core of Zero Three's frame and causing multiple critical failures.
With that, Zero Three finally ceased functioning, unable to even maintain its powers, and plummeted from the sky.
But Alice caught up to it, overtook it, and kicked it toward where Suzu and the others were.
"Iris! Sorry, but can you handle this one too!"
"Huh? What are you... Wait, WHAT!? E-Enraenra!"
"Eh? Yes... I just need to catch that, riight?"
Iris was startled by the sudden Seraphim flying toward her, but she managed to react in time.
Enraenra's Smoke caught the incoming Zero Three.
"Nice catch! Oh, and Iris, don't throw away the one you're drowning right now either! We're bringing them home as souvenirs for Grandma!"
"Seriously..."
"Souvenirs for Granny... Aye, she would be delighted, but the Laboratory is going to become an absolute disaster again, is it not? The technology used on these things, 'tis what Mother would call 'over-technology' in her novels. That woman will go absolutely wild with joy."
"That's exactly why it's great! She might make more fun weapons like this one, right?"
"'This one'... So that horrendous noise just now, ye did use that thing after all... Are ye all right? Granny said that anyone who uses it will certainly die, given how terrible the recoil is."
"I'm fine, I'm fine. It doesn't work on me. That's exactly why she gave it to me as my personal weapon."
As Suzu said, the Eliminate Glove, due to the enormity of its recoil, would certainly kill its user upon activation. Not just kill, but literally pulverize them. A complete suicide weapon.
But when Alice used it, even that recoil could be Reversed, turning it instead into additional damage against the target. A total non-issue.
The Zero Three that had taken the direct hit moments ago must have been struck with not just ten times the force, but ten times plus extra on top of that.
Hit with something like that, no matter how tough a Seraphim was, it didn't stand a chance.
"All right, that's the second one down. What's left is the one Leona's fighting, the one where Mom and the others are, and the Boss, the Mom-type Seraphim."
***
And then... as for Leona, who had been engaged with the last remaining one of the three that had split off.
"What's with those guys... They all made it look so easy."
On the deck of a battered warship.
Leona stood there, breathing hard, deep breaths rising and falling through her shoulders as she worked to steady herself.
At her feet lay Zero One, sparking violently all over its body, no longer moving.
"I'm exhausted... This thing was way too tough... It took me forever."
"...Aunt Leona?"
"Oh, Snow, welcome back. How'd it go?"
Snow had returned.
She'd been with Leona at the start of the battle but had broken away partway through.
The reason being...
"Excellent results. I located the ship carrying the Dyna Stones and annihilated the crew, including that Binz fellow, then destroyed the rudder and mast."
"I see... Figured as much. That funny ninja wasn't anywhere around here."
Of the two Symbol Executives, Ain had been on Suzu's group's ship.
But Snow had been puzzled by the absence of Binz anywhere, so she got Leona's permission to search for him and discovered him guarding an entirely different ship.
If an Executive was personally guarding something, that meant... Following that hunch, she inspected the cargo and her suspicion proved correct. The Dyna Stones meant for the destruction of Pirio Island were loaded on that ship. Binz had been protecting them.
Of course, that very fact was also what gave away which ship had the Dyna Stones.
"I have already contacted Beauty-dono and Blume-dono on our ship. They said they will send personnel for securing the area and recovering the Dyna Stones. Oh, the Mist is rolling in."
"Blume's camouflage. She works fast... As expected of Mama's close aide."
"...By the way, may I ask one thing, Aunt Leona?"
"Sure, what?"
"The, um... the Seraphim lying at your feet..."
"Oh, yeah, don't worry, I already took it down. Man, it took forever though. I've still got a long way to go with training... I should ask Grandpa for advice next time."
"Yes, so I see, but... how?"
"How? How what?"
"How did you defeat it? I had heard that Seraphim possess extraordinary toughness due to being enhanced with Lunarian Tribe blood..."
"Ah, yeah, it was crazy hard and crazy tough... I punched it about a thousand times before it finally went down. Ugh, I'm so tired, really... This might be the first time I've ever used Armament Haki at full power for this long without a break."
"You defeated it with just your fists..."
According to Snow's memory as a diligent student, the records she had once read stated that Seraphim possessed a level of defense that allowed them to fight on without sustaining a single wound, even against Haki Users and no matter how fierce the assault.
They had even reportedly been deployed to Amazon Lily. In that battle, which caused no small amount of casualties, the Seraphim had continued fighting unfazed even while subjected to the Haki-imbued swords and arrows of the Kuja warriors.
At the beginning of their own fight, when Snow had put considerable force behind an earthquake strike, it had barely seemed to have any effect at all...
'I had heard that Aunt Leona, while physically gifted, was inferior to Father and Aunt Suzu in terms of combat skill and technique, but... that doesn't seem right at all. Rather, to achieve results like this through nothing but straightforward, no-tricks brawling, that's something only someone truly...'
"...? Snow, what's wrong?"
"N-no, it's nothing... In any case, with this, all three scattered Seraphim have been eliminated. What remains is..."
"Yeah. ...The one where Mama is, and the Boss. That's all."
To be continued...