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Mary Geoise loomed like a sprawling, gilded monument to arrogance. The sheer scale of the architecture was suffocating; these weren't just buildings, but monolithic clusters of stone and gold that felt as though they had stood since the dawn of time. A heavy, desolate air hung over the plateau, a silence so profound it felt like the weight of eight hundred years pressing down on the present.
In a forgotten, shadowed corner of these resplendent palaces, far from the eyes of the guards, the silence was broken.
"Wake up, Your Highness."
Saint Chaporos's mind was a fog of confusion. One moment he had been strolling through the gardens, and the next, the world had gone black. He was jolted back to reality by a sharp, agonizing pain blooming in his crotch. Someone was kicking him, and they weren't being gentle.
"Who… who are you people?!"
He scrambled back, his eyes bulging. Two hulking figures loomed over him like predatory beasts, while a third, younger man stood a few paces back, his gaze as cold as ice.
Chaporos felt a wave of sheer disbelief. Is this real? Am I being kidnapped? He was a Celestial Dragon, a descendant of the Twenty Kings! The thought that someone would dare lay a finger on a God of this world felt like a glitch in reality.
CRACK.
A heavy fist collided with Chaporos's skull, sending stars dancing across his vision. The scream that tore from his throat was high-pitched and pathetic.
"From now on, I ask, and you answer," The burly man growled, squatting down until they were eye-to-eye. He tapped his knuckles against Chaporos's forehead, the threat clear. "Add a single word of nonsense, and I'll twist your head off like a bottle cap."
Tears streamed down Chaporos's puffy face, his pride warring with animal terror. "How dare you… I am a World Noble! I am a Saint!"
"Shut it," Jason barked, his voice dropping to a dangerous register. "One more outburst and I'll pulp you right here."
Chaporos choked on his next breath. He could see it in the brute's eyes, this man didn't care about the Marines, the Admirals, or the wrath of the Gods. He was a man who would kill him just to stop the noise.
"What… what do you want?" Chaporos whimpered, his voice trembling like a leaf.
It was a nightmare. He had been pampered and worshipped since the day he was born, yet here he was, being treated like common trash. To make matters worse, the scarred man next to him was leaning back, chomping on a cigar and casually nudging Chaporos's groin with the tip of his boot.
What did I do to deserve this?
"Do you know a Celestial Dragon named Yilu?" Jason asked.
Beside him, Trens and Crocodile both sharpened their focus, their shadows stretching long across the stone floor.
"Yilu?" Chaporos stammered.
His heart sank. No. It can't be. Were these monsters here for the very woman his brother had promised him? The "gift" he had been so eagerly anticipating? The unfairness of it all was staggering.
He felt a spark of indignant rage. "You can't have her! She's mine! My brother gave her to…"
The resistance lasted all of three seconds. After a punch from Jason, a particularly cruel kick from Crocodile, and the unmistakable click of Trens racking his firearm, Chaporos collapsed into a sobbing mess of honesty.
"I know her! Princess Yilu! I was… I was on my way to the palace to see her for the first time."
The three men shared a look of grim satisfaction. Luck, it seemed, was finally on their side.
"Where is she kept?"
"She's with the Ilinulay family," Chaporos blurted out, wiping snot from his lip. "But… her status is complicated. She's special."
Trens narrowed his eyes, his hand tightening on his weapon. "Special? Explain."
The confusion among the three men quickly curdled into a cold, sharp fury as Chaporos blubbered through the details. As the "special" nature of Yilu's situation became clear, the air around them seemed to drop several degrees.
"That senile bastard," Jason hissed, his knuckles white as he gripped his weapon. "How dare he treat one of ours like that."
They thought of their companion, trapped in the form of a cat for so long, enduring the whims of these golden-clad monsters. It took a terrifying kind of mental fortitude to survive that kind of degradation without breaking.
"Companion?" Chaporos blinked, his voice trembling. "Wait… you aren't here to kidnap the both of us? You only want her?"
Jason didn't even look him in the eye. He just delivered a brutal backhand that sent the noble spinning. "Start walking. If you open your mouth for anything other than directions, I'll make sure they never find enough of you to bury."
"Again with the killing?" Chaporos wailed internally, hot tears stinging his eyes.
He was the most pathetic Celestial Dragon in history, he was sure of it, reduced to a trembling tour guide for the very "vermin" he had been taught to despise.
Inside the gourd, Zephyr listened to the muffled chaos outside with a mixture of disbelief and grim amusement.
'These brats have balls the size of cannonballs', the old Admiral thought. Kidnapping World Nobles in the heart of the Holy Land? That's a fuse on a very short bomb. When this goes off, there won't be enough left of them to fill a coffin.
He had stopped trying to talk them out of it. They were past the point of no return. Now, his only annoyance was the realization that if these three idiots got themselves killed, he'd be stuck in this cursed, bottomless gourd forever.
…
Marine Headquarters: Southeastern Sector
Two streaks of light, one a void-like black, the other a searing gold, tore through the air at impossible speeds. They crossed a kilometer in the time it took to draw a breath, colliding with a force that shook the very foundations of the island.
BOOM!
The ground groaned and buckled. The shockwave alone leveled two nearby high-rises, turning reinforced concrete into dust. To the Marines watching from a distance, it looked like the end of the world. The two lights clashed, rebounded, and slammed together again in a relentless, rhythmic violence.
In three minutes, ten buildings had been reduced to rubble.
"Yasakani no Magatama!"
"Getsuga Tenshō!"
A deluge of golden light met a massive, crescent-shaped blade of black energy. The impact created a vacuum of fire in the sky, a sun-bright explosion that momentarily blinded everyone below.
Through the wall of flames, Rojen's Shihakushō snapped violently in the wind. He gripped Tensa Zangetsu with both hands, his movements a blur of obsidian steel as he pressed the attack. Kizaru met him blow for blow, his Ama no Murakumo light-blade humming as it parried the black zanpakuto.
"If my eyes don't deceive me," Kizaru said, his voice maddeningly casual as he drifted back into the air, "that form of yours has a ticking clock, doesn't it?"
Rojen's eyes narrowed, but his smile remained sharp. "The Marines have been doing their homework, I see."
"That power... it defies every law of this world," Kizaru mused, squinting through his yellow shades. "A fighting style that doesn't belong to your body, a strength that appears from thin air. You're a miracle, Rojen, but a miracle with a very obvious flaw."
"Is that right?"
"Time," Kizaru stated. "Last time we met, the power you held was overwhelming. It was a tide I couldn't hope to turn. But this? This is different. You're weaker than before."
Kizaru raised a finger, a spark of blinding light condensing at the tip.
"I don't even need to beat you, Rojen. I just have to wait. I'll stall you until your clock runs out, and then you'll simply fall apart. With what you're showing me right now... you're nowhere near strong enough to end this before your time is up."
(End Of This Chapter)