"Are you kidding me? That bird just made Doffy spit blood."
"He fed his pet a Mythical Zoan? That is insane."
"It is pushing wind like a natural disaster."
Flat on the flagstones, the Donquixote cadres gaped at the raptor carving cyclones with a flick of its wings. One sloppy pivot and the storm chewed stone and sunflowers into grit. Even Doflamingo, caught off guard, coughed red.
"Not bad, Seagull King."
Ozz sounded like a proud dad who pretends he is not one. A nobody seabird had climbed to at least Vice Admiral tier in one afternoon. His mouth curled.
He knew Doflamingo's level. Not his final form yet, but after Ozz taught him flowing Armament, the flamingo hit harder than his original timeline. Maybe no Awakening, but Vice Admiral class for sure.
Ozz let go of the strings. Time to see which bird owned the sky.
"Shoushu" baby 5 at Ozz's calf gripped the juice pitcher with both hands. "Ozz-sama, will the Young Master be all right?"
Ozz watched the nervous eyes around the ring and took the glass. One pull. Empty.
"We find out after the bell. No one dies."
He ruffled the little maid's hair.
"Relax. Doffy was born king."
Boom.
The clash rippled outward, shattered ground spraying like shrapnel until the pressure folded and died at the edge of Ozz's invisible fence. Man and bird slammed, broke, separated.
The Seagull King banked hard and climbed. Every face on the terrace went tight at once.
Keee.
Wings blurred. Rings of wind stacked and spun. They gripped each other, thickened, and locked into a column as wide as a plaza and high as the palace itself. Sunflowers vanished. Then slabs of paving. Then a cornice of the royal hall. Even a few hapless goons.
The tornado was so vast that folk a hundred li away shaded their eyes and pointed.
"We playing that big?"
Ozz did not move. The wind tried to pry baby 5 off her shoes and fling her into orbit. She clung to Ozz's leg like a flag on a mast.
A snap of his fingers crushed the radius. No nationwide apocalypse today. Mythical Zoans tied to elements are exactly why you do not let them charge forever. Give a Gale Bird long enough and it writes an Edd War scale obituary.
Donquixote faces drained. The wounded crawled behind Ozz's chair. Nowhere safer.
Inside the eye, one figure stood coat snapping, head tilted up at the storming raptor. Their throats burned with a fierce heat. That silhouette was their man.
Born king. Donquixote Doflamingo.
Black and red sparks skittered off his shoulders. Blood at his lip did not look pitiful on him. It made him elegant and cruel.
"Fufufufufu."
"Do not get cocky."
Keee.
The storm clenched and slid. Rubble and gale pressed in on one small target.
"Careful."
"Doffy."
"That wind will pulp you."
They shouted, forgetting he could not feel the outer wall of the cyclone from inside the glass-calm eye.
Ozz pinched thumb and forefinger in the air. His other forefinger touched his lip.
"Hush. Best part."
Scarlet flashed deep in his pupils. He was enjoying himself.
Shick.
White threads laced the air. Everything flying at Doflamingo shaved down to powder. A pale mesh budded across the ground in patches. Not full awakening, but enough to lock his footing.
Then lines stitched out from him, snagging stones in the funnel. He stepped from rock to rock, climbing his own deathtrap.
The raptor noticed and killed the vortex. Blink. Gone.
The space it vacated filled with blackened, razor threads.
Killer's light bled in Doffy's eyes. The slab under his shoe turned to string and snapped forward like a net. He sealed the bird's retreat, then flashed in, Armament wrapped thick around his heel as it drove for the Seagull King's skull.
He did not plan to lose a Haki contest to a bird.
Keee. Who is scared of you.
The Seagull King felt invincible. No retreat. One talon flooded black and hacked up at the falling heel.
They locked.
The Gale Bird's body, juiced by a Mythical core, had the better frame. The flamingo's flesh was ordinary, but his Haki outmuscled. They ground and shoved. Air shredded around them.
"Pretty even."
A boulder the size of a house tumbled toward the spectators. Ozz wiped a palm across the air. It vanished. He crossed one ankle over the other and watched.
Two backyard chicks pecking each other. His two backyard chicks.
An hour later
Both were raw and heaving. Feathers torn. Coat in rags. The Seagull King learned its new storm gift on the fly. Doflamingo pushed his proto Awakening two notches higher.
They set their feet, or talons, for the finish. One swing each. Winner takes the headline.
"Eightfold Sacred Killer Bullets."
"Keee." Wind Mail. Armament. Valiant Rush. Name by Ozz, obviously.
They launched, both ready to break or be broken.
The instant before hit and hurt arrived, a glass clicked down on wood. An unseen hand wrapped both attacks and squeezed.
"All right. That is enough."
"Pecking match is over."
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