Since Roger declared they would accelerate, the Oro Jackson had become a beast slipped free of every shackle.
The crew no longer skirted Navy patrol zones, no longer lingered at islands for supplies, and even their banquets burned shorter and wilder than before.
Grief was buried deep and fermented into scalding fuel that drove the legendary ship toward the end of its fate.
The New World, Edd War waters.
The weather was clear, sky swept of clouds, gulls chasing the ship's wake. Peace lay over the sea like a veil.
"Hey, Kael-nii! Weather's great. How about a fishing match?" Shanks jogged over with a rod taller than he was.
Buggy followed, clutching a deluxe bait box and snorting. "Kael-nii isn't as childish as you. He's obviously thinking up some grand route strategy. Right, Kael-nii?"
Kael Grylls leaned on the rail, shaving a stick with a small knife. He only smiled and said nothing.
The lookout's voice cracked into a shriek. "Above! Everyone, look up!"
Chatter died at once.
They tilted their heads skyward, and every pupil snapped tight.
A vast shadow drowned the Oro Jackson, as if an entire continent had drifted overhead.
Not cloud, but a fleet of no fewer than twenty-five colossal pirate ships hanging in the sky.
Defying sense, the armada floated, their shade turning noon toward dusk.
At the head, on a flagship crowned with a golden lion figurehead, a burly man with a lion's mane of gold hair stood hands clasped behind him, surveying them from on high.
"The Golden Lion Shiki." Scopper Gaban recognized him. His hands tightened on his twin axes.
Every muscle on deck tensed. Under that suffocating pressure the Oro Jackson looked like a helpless toy.
"Yo, Roger." The Golden Lion's voice rolled like buried thunder, steeped in tyrant's swagger. "Been a while. Judging by your hurry, you found something good."
Roger bared his teeth in a grin and squinted up. "Kūhahaha. Shiki, huh. Still floating up there. Afraid of falling in and drowning?"
"Save it." Shiki flicked his hand. The fleet dipped to match the Oro Jackson's mainmast. "Roger, I have a plan that will change the world. I need a man like you."
He threw his arms wide as if to hug the world. "I command the largest fleet on these seas and the finest men. You know where to find the ancient weapons that can end the world."
"Be my right hand, Roger." His eyes blazed. "Your strength with my army. We will possess this world together. Wealth, fame, power. Whatever you want, within reach."
His voice had the pull of a spell. Even his own fliers stared glassy-eyed, throats working.
Silence pooled on the Oro Jackson. All eyes went to Roger.
His smile faded. He looked at Shiki as if at a fool from the next harbor over.
"Shiki." He spoke softly, but every ear caught it. "I have no interest in the boring business of ruling the world."
Then the fearless grin returned. "What is the point of being a pirate without freedom."
Shiki's face went dark. The fever in his gaze iced to murder. "So that is a no. You are courting death."
"It means we will crush you!"
"Men, since he does not know his place, blow them and their ship to pieces."
At his word, twenty-five broadsides turned as one to the lone ship below.
"Fire."
The sky tore with thunder. Hundreds upon hundreds of cannonballs swept down like a black rain, screaming death.
"All hands, intercept."
Rayleigh's voice cut through the blasts. His sword was already bare.
Without even turning he flicked his wrist. A silver slash split the first cluster of shots into neat halves that blossomed into twin flowers of fire in midair.
Kael stepped forward and pushed his right fist out, the simplest of motions.
Thump.
The air bent, visible as warped glass.
A fan of shells hit an invisible wall and shattered into bloom.
Gaban laughed once and hurled both axes. They spun into twin vortices, carving brilliant, deadly lines through the rain. Wherever they passed, fire burst.
On every station men roared, blades flashing, swivel guns thundering, swatting down what leaked through.
But numbers were a law.
One ship could not stop a fleet.
A rent tore wide in a mainsail and fell burning.
Explosions heaved the hull until planks and smoke filled the air. Twice the ship listed to a swallowing angle before righting.
"Damn it. It's like a storm that will not end." Nozdon punched a shell aside and shook feeling back into his numb arm.
"Hard to port. Get us out of their direct fire." Spencer shouted, sweat pouring.
Shanks and Buggy stood back to back against the shock waves.
Buggy's face had gone chalk white. "We're dead, we're dead. This time we're really dead. Shanks you idiot stop dragging me. Behind the mast is safest."
Shanks did not look back. The small body, blade in hand, cut the licking blast with focused eyes.
High above, Shiki watched the Oro Jackson's desperate stand and smiled a thin, cruel smile. "So this is your answer. What an ugly sight."
He drew his paired blades, Oto and Kogarashi, and leveled them over the sea.
"Lion's Might, Ground Scroll."
The calm sea boiled.
Two mountain-sized columns of water were wrenched from the deep, coiling and roaring until they became a pair of raging lions of sea, jaws yawning for the Oro Jackson.
A clean hit would cripple the ship.
"Kūhahaha. Is that all you've got, Shiki?" Roger laughed. His eyes burned through smoke and flame to pin the man of gold above.
He kicked off, body lancing skyward toward the flagship.
"Arrogant." Shiki's eyes flashed. He had waited for this moment. His twin blades crossed down to meet the charge.
Clang.
Shock rippled from them in a visible ring.
Black and red lightning seethed and cracked along Roger's sword, Ace.
Shiki's blades were wrapped in top-grade Armament Haki, yet at the clash he felt a brute force pour through steel, numbing his forearms and splitting his palms. He was driven back in midair.
The two sea-lions barreling for the Oro Jackson blew apart in the blast's wake and crashed back as a sheet of rain.
"So that is your strength, Roger." Shiki's grin showed no fear, only hunger. "Good. Very good."
They traded at blistering speed across the flagship's deck.
Steel and sparks. Each clash detonated a ring of pressure. Black-red arcs and golden blades shredded the planking into gullies and scars.
No one could approach. Those who tried were hurled back coughing blood by the aftershocks and smacked insensate into the rails.
"Slash Wave."
Shiki's blade flung a golden cutter that tore the air.
"Divine Departure." Roger did not flinch, meeting it head on. His darker stroke split the gold in two and kept going for the Golden Lion.
"See that, Shanks." On the Oro Jackson, Buggy peered from behind a shattered mast and jabbed a finger toward the flagship. "Captain's tearing their ship apart. The Golden Lion is toast."
"Idiot. Eyes forward."
Shanks barked back and flicked a shell off course without looking.
Buggy flinched and ducked. A burning timber shaved his nose and smacked exactly where his head had been. His face went green. "We're going to die. People really die in this."
Below, battle raged at white heat.
But numbers were still a law.
One ship against a fleet.
At the stern, Kael pressed his palm to the wet deck and closed his eyes.
He needed a catalyst, something to let him amplify to the extreme.
Without warning, the clear sky went dark.
Not the fleet's shade. Real cloud.
Wind howled up. The sea thrashed. A lance of lightning split the vault followed by rolling thunder.
A storm of a size and suddenness beyond reason fell on them.
"What is this?" Shiki steadied himself and glared at the sky. "Damn it. Now of all times."
Seas towered. Currents turned wild. Even the hovering fleet bucked in the gale and their aim went to ruin.
The Roger Pirates stared. The storm had come too fast and too strange.
"Then let the heavens help us." Gaban wiped rain from his face and laughed.
Only Kael, at the instant of impact, opened his eyes.
There was no panic in his gold gaze, only an awful light.
Perfect.
He spoke low, both hands opening toward the raging sea. "Now this is my home field."
He did not need to summon anything new. He seized the fury the storm had already given the ocean.
Invisible waves radiated from him. The chaos of the swells found a king.
Ranks of waves tens of meters high, mountains in motion, violated nature and turned, rearing and charging into the sky toward the hovering fleet.
"What." The fliers screamed as the sea itself lunged to bite them.
Kael raised his face to the thunderheads.
His hands curled as if grasping a thousand hidden strings.
Lightning no longer fell at random. It gathered at his call, interlacing into his will.
Boom.
A spear of heaven thick as a pillar punched through a powder magazine. The chain blasts bloomed outward.
Fire and thunder braided above, playing a hymn of ruin.
Boom. Boom.
Bolts sheared masts, set sails alight, split hulls clean in two.
Sea below and sky above, under Kael's hand, became a three-dimensional killing field for the Flying Pirates.
"It's Kael. Kael-nii is doing it." Buggy pointed, voice shaking with fear and awe. "He isn't human. He is the storm."
The others gaped.
They knew Kael was a Devil Fruit user, but never imagined his power could reach this end-of-days scale.
Kael: I do not manufacture storms. I just move nature's inventory.
"Bastard." Shiki watched ship after ship drop like dumplings and his eyes went blood red.
He roared and tried to steady his armada, but against a storm made king by Kael, human hands were small.
In the blink when his rage dragged his focus, a wave like an unseen giant hand slapped his flagship flat.
Boom.
The whole ship tumbled. Pirates went spinning into the raging sea.
Shiki himself was flung, cartwheeling through rain and lightning.
A broken helm, torn free by the same blow, whirled up in the gale and hurled like a javelin.
Thud.
Time paused.
The spinning helm slammed straight into the top of the Golden Lion's skull.
The Supreme Great Helm.
He hung there in midair, eyes wide, frozen on shock and pain. Blood ran down the spokes and through his gold hair in a sight both grisly and absurd.
He did not die, but the fight was over for him.
As Shiki fell, the storm spent itself and began to ease.
Clouds thinned. Sunlight poured back. The sea was strewn with more than twenty burning, sinking wrecks.
The Oro Jackson was battered and scarred but still rode the water.
Adam wood really earns its keep, bro.
The crew stared at the wreckage, then at Kael standing at the stern, only a shade pale, and could not find words.
Roger slid Ace home, walked to Kael, and thumped his shoulder, laughing loud.
"Kūhahaha. Beautifully done, Kael."
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