"Didn't expect it'd be you coming to save me, Dimon."
Rocks' shock softened into something complicated. He knew how the Rocks Pirates had come together—every man with his own knife behind his back. Betrayal at God Valley was the bill coming due. But that anyone would break into Pangaea's depths for the sake of their captain… even he felt a flicker of heat in his chest.
Dimon arched a brow. Save you? I'm just a diligent farmer here to harvest the leek I planted myself. He didn't bother explaining—just smiled and walked forward.
"Don't come any closer!"
Rocks dredged up the last of his strength, voice iron-hard. "The World Government laid—"
He never finished.
A pitch-black bolt snapped down in front of him, striking the stone. A five-pointed sigil bloomed across the floor, coughing up rolling smoke. From the circle rose a young man with a crescent-moon coiffure.
"Perfect."
Feigaland Gringot Saint rolled his neck left and right—crack, crack. "You—you are just perfect, Dimon!"
He moved as he spoke—lightning-fast—appearing before Dimon with a downward cleave already falling.
Dimon didn't blink. His left hand reversed on Enma's hilt; steel flashed from the sheath and met the blow. Conqueror's Haki detonated between them, black-red veins spidering out, the air buckling under the impact.
"A trap?" Dimon smiled lightly. "How were you so sure I'd come?"
"Didn't need to be you." Gringot's eyes burned. "Anyone who opens that door without clearance triggers the mechanism."
Yesterday's kidnapping of his son had become today's private vendetta. Orders be damned.
"So concerned about me," Dimon chuckled. "How's your boy? Sure you want to waste time here? You never know what might be happening… elsewhere."
A flicker crossed Gringot's face—then he smothered it. If there really was an accomplice stalking Shamrock, there was nothing he could do from here anyway.
"Hmph. You're not getting out."
He threw himself into a storming sword style that bled defense for murder-speed offense, steel ringing Enma again and again—every clash a thunderclap.
Conqueror's Haki bled up through the castle. Floors shivered; in a lounge above, water in a teacup rippled to concentric beats.
The Five Elders stiffened, each feeling it beneath their feet.
"Gringot's Haki. And the other… who?" A stranger's Conqueror.
Observation Haki speared downward in five threads.
"From the sealed chamber," snarled Nusjuro of Venus.
"Someone's going for Rocks."
"Damn it—remnants," another spat.
Five sigils kindled at their feet; smoke swallowed them whole. The Hall of Authority fell silent.
In the cell, Dimon matched Gringot's madness with lazy economy, mind already elsewhere.
Save him? Tch. I just need to get him out. Eating him later works the same.
"Go!" Rocks barked across the chains. "Dimon, you can't pull this alone. Their reinforcements are coming!"
Dimon didn't answer. Rocks grew urgent—then furious.
"GO!"
He burned what little he'd banked this cycle—blood-red Conqueror's lightning flared off him like serpents and bit into Gringot. For a heartbeat, the knight commander's body stalled under Rocks' pressure.
…You've got it wrong, Dimon sighed inwardly. If I want to leave, I leave. I'm just deciding how to take you with me.
Out loud, he chuckled. "Heh… fine. Consider this a greeting, then. Bye-bye, Moon-Head."
A magic circle opened under his boots. Smoke rose from his soles and ate him in segments, climbing his calves, his hips—
—five more circles cracked open at once, numerals glowing in each.
The Five Elders arrived in a blink—and transformed in the same breath. Nusjuro's lower half split to galloping horse-bone; he blurred, blade scything sideways. V. Nusferatu Ju Peter (Mercury) howled into a long-tusked boar, Conqueror's roaring like a field gun.
It was beautiful, futile violence.
By the time the strikes fell, all that remained of Dimon was his eyes above smoke—eyes full of mockery.
Then even the gaze was gone.
"Damn it—he slipped!" Nusjuro's cut shattered stone and nothing else. Man-shape flowed back into his legs.
"Why didn't my Haki jam his teleport?" the boar snarled, baffled.
"Not strong enough," Saturn said, face like carved ice. He glanced at the wall-bound Rocks. "What are you laughing at?"
Rocks was. Laughing hard—free and bright.
From where he hung in seastone and chains, he'd seen it as a comrade's last push—the opening that let Dimon escape. Though why does that brat use the same kind of circles as…?
"You'll see," Rocks grinned, eyes closing as the blackout took him. "He'll be back for me. Hahahaha—he'll definitely come back."
Five faces darkened.
None darker than Gringot's. Rocks could rot for all he cared—what ate him was the personal score left unpaid.
"Request audience with Lord Imu. I'll go below and drag him back myself."
He turned on his heel and stalked away.
—
Smoke unspooled in a familiar sitting room. Dimon stepped out; Kaido was there, jug in hand.
"Rare to see you here," Dimon said, dropping onto a cushion and taking a pull of sake. "Need something?"
"Yeah. But you look like you just fought a war."
"I went to Pangaea to rescue Rocks. Didn't manage it."
He said it straight-faced. Even if the Heavenly King showed up, he was absolutely there to "rescue" Rocks—not, say, harvest him.
Kaido blinked. "Rocks is in the Holy Land?"
"Sealed in the deepest cell," Dimon said with a rueful shrug. "Door opens, and the God's Knights commander drops in. A minute later the Five Elders pile on."
If I'd waited longer, Imu might've come too.
Kaido snorted, then broke into rolling laughter. "O-rorororo! You went to save Rocks. Only you would pull a stunt like that."
That's right. A man of honor— Dimon nodded solemnly. Brotherhood writ large.
"So what did you need?" he asked, setting the cup down.
"Roger Pirates," Kaido said. "They ran aground in Kuri."
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