Boom!
Kairos' ice wings beat once, and he descended onto the floating island like a streak of blue light.
Hyorinmaru came down with him.
One slash—
and a glacier took shape in the air, crashing straight toward Golden Lion Shiki.
Shiki's eyes lit up. He raised a hand to block, and the Float-Float Fruit activated at once. The incoming mass of ice was flung aside and sent hurtling into the distant frozen coastline of Fire Country.
A deafening explosion followed.
Ice shards burst outward in every direction, and a killing chill rolled across the battlefield.
"He can fly… and use ice too…"
Kuzan watched from afar, disbelief flickering in his eyes.
Really?
Wasn't that a little unfair?
No matter how he looked at it, Kairos now resembled the superior version of his own power.
On the other side, Shiki's expression had subtly changed.
He opened his palm and glanced down at it, his gaze darkening.
At some point, a thin layer of frost had crept over his skin.
He knew exactly what had happened.
He'd only brushed the glacier for a moment before hurling it away, and he'd even used Armament Haki to protect himself.
And yet his palm had still been frostbitten.
The skin there had turned dark, the blood flow visibly slowed.
"Kairos, you really are full of surprises!" Shiki laughed loudly, all trace of displeasure gone. His fingers clenched, Armament Haki surged, and the frost on his palm shattered under the pressure. Blood immediately flowed normally again, and the dark coloration faded. "That kind of freezing power… it's not inferior to that ice brat's at all!"
He threw back his head and laughed.
"Join me, Kairos! With the two of us together, there won't be a soul in this world who can stand against us. Anything in our path will be crushed!"
His laughter rolled like thunder.
At the same time, he raised one arm, and an entire mountain tore free from one of the floating islands behind him, roaring through the sky toward Kairos.
"Beat me first."
Kairos answered with a low shout.
Hyorinmaru flashed again.
A burst of freezing air exploded outward, and the oncoming mountain froze solid in an instant. Then, in the very next breath, it shattered into countless glittering chunks of ice, raining down like a meteor shower.
And in the middle of those streaking fragments—
a blue figure burst through.
Kairos' ice wings spread wide as he charged straight at Shiki, dragging a sea of killing frost behind him.
Hyorinmaru slashed again and again in his hand, and in the span of a heartbeat he unleashed dozens of blade-lights. Each one transformed into a mountain-sized mass of ice, descending like frozen meteors from the heavens.
Shiki's pupils tightened.
A single glacier had already been enough to numb his hand.
And now there were dozens.
He didn't even think.
With a roar, he burst into motion, his body turning into a streak of gold as he shot backward. The air cracked around him, and sonic booms rang out as he tore upward more than a thousand meters into the sky.
The glaciers were left behind him.
But the moment he cleared them, Shiki's face changed.
His eyes flew open wide.
A sharp, dangerous light flashed through them.
Because above him—
at the very top of the sky—
an ocean of cold was spreading.
It was the kind of cold that could rewrite the seasons themselves, as if winter were being forced onto the world by sheer violence.
And coiled inside that frost—
was a dragon.
A dragon made entirely of ice crystal.
It hovered in the heavens, crimson-eyed and majestic, staring down at him.
"Roar!"
Its howl shook the sky.
This ice dragon had appeared above him without him noticing.
Then it dove.
The dragon tore downward, dragging endless cold behind it. Wherever it passed, the air froze into gorgeous white flowers of ice.
"So unless I beat you, you won't agree to join me…"
Shiki's face darkened, his eyes hardening.
Then his golden hair lifted, crackling like lightning.
The barren black earth of the floating island beneath him suddenly churned and surged.
A lion's roar exploded across the battlefield.
Earth from the island rose into the air by the tens of thousands of tons, gathering into three monstrous lions with savage faces and huge open jaws.
Lion Power: Earth Scroll.
The three beasts roared together, pouncing toward the descending ice dragon, trying to tear it apart in a single bite.
The dragon didn't flinch.
One breath of freezing mist burst from its jaws, instantly freezing one of the earthen lions in midair before it crashed back down as lifeless chunks of dirt and stone.
For a moment, dragon and lions waged war across the heavens, a battle without blood but no less savage for it.
Below, everyone in Fire Country kept retreating.
The battle overhead was too terrifying. Ice blocks and earth fragments rained down without warning, and no one wanted to get caught in that storm.
"If a man like Kairos could enter the Marines…"
Kuzan stood at the edge of the frozen canyon, looking up at the battle in the sky, something unreadable in his eyes.
He couldn't help thinking of Garp—of the old man's open admiration for Kairos, and how much he'd wanted to pull him into the Marines.
But once that bounty had gone out, that road had all but closed.
Kuzan found that… regrettable.
Then the clash in the sky reached its end.
The three lions and the ice dragon shattered at the same time, exploding into drifting fragments that scattered across the heavens.
"Still want to keep going?" Shiki laughed, his voice booming. A dead even exchange. Exactly what he'd expected. That was why he'd come here himself—because he truly believed Kairos was worth inviting.
"If we don't settle this, I'd be the one taking a loss."
A smile spread across Kairos' face.
At that moment, the hand gripping Hyorinmaru shifted.
The blade traced lightly through the air.
One ice flower bloomed.
Then another.
Then hundreds.
The high sky filled with crystal blossoms, dazzling and beautiful.
Then sharp cracks rang out.
The flowers twisted, stretched, and transformed into countless frost-forged swords.
Kairos lifted one finger and tapped lightly through the air.
A thousand ice swords shuddered.
And in that instant, an indescribable force erupted across the heavens.
The sky itself lit up gold.
Everywhere the eye could see became radiant, as if a thousand suns had risen at once.
But this was not Toshiro Hitsugaya's power.
This was—
Sword Pressure.
One thousand frost swords, all releasing Sword Pressure at the same time.
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