'Cover Story: Chopper and the Quack Doctor Vol. 3: "Drum Kingdom! I, the Great Thief Hiriluk, Have Returned!"'
'A small pirate ship flying a black skull flag slowly approaches the snowstorm-shrouded Winter Island. A man carrying a suitcase and wearing a hat steps ashore, spreads his arms wide, and bursts into laughter. But as he laughs, he notices a child standing not far away, blankly staring out at the sea...'
---
'My Armament Haki... didn't hurt him?'
Katakuri's mind raced.
Meanwhile, Aokiji's body completely restored itself without a scratch. With a casual wave of his hand, he launched two 'Ice Block: Pheasant Beaks'.
The twin frozen pheasants flapped their wings, carrying an overwhelming wave of icy air as they flew toward Katakuri. Katakuri swung his trident, slicing both ice birds apart before they could reach him.
They were only made of ice; their hardness wasn't anything special. With his strength, cutting through steel was easy, let alone a few chunks of ice.
But although the 'Ice Block: Pheasant Beaks' shattered on contact, the freezing air they carried remained. Like the sigh of an ice spirit, it flowed through the scattered shards and rushed straight toward Katakuri.
In freezing temperatures, the human body burns through stamina at an alarming rate. When the temperature drops low enough, every degree colder and every second longer drains more stamina than anyone could easily measure.
Katakuri possessed far greater stamina than ordinary people. As the user of the Mochi Mochi Fruit, he could even achieve a form of pseudo-elementalization. But he was still a living human being. As long as he was alive, and not an ice-based Devil Fruit user like Aokiji, he couldn't escape the effects of the frozen environment Aokiji had created.
Katakuri could clearly feel it. His stamina was slipping away much faster than usual.
"If it gets too cold, you'll freeze to death. Even little kids know that."
Using a burst of speed similar to Soru, Aokiji instantly appeared in front of Katakuri. His raised leg, wrapped in swirling frost, kicked toward him.
"..."
A mochi fist coated in jet-black Armament Haki suddenly shot out from Katakuri's shoulder.
'Bang!'
Black-and-red lightning burst from the punch as it smashed Aokiji's kicking leg, and his entire upper body, into pieces once again.
But just like before, the ice shattered, yet the biting cold remained. The freezing air refused to disperse. It seeped into his bones, steadily devouring Katakuri's stamina.
So the battle continued.
Katakuri relentlessly attacked, making full use of the Mochi Mochi Fruit's ability to launch punches from virtually any part of his body. Combined with his battle-tested trident and incredibly powerful Armament Haki, wave after wave of attacks crashed into Aokiji.
As for Aokiji, he simply let Katakuri hit him.
Break him apart once. Break him apart a hundred times. He didn't care.
Each time his icy body shattered, it quickly reformed as though nothing had happened. His condition looked almost identical to when he had first landed on the island.
Meanwhile, every time Katakuri shattered Aokiji's body, and every time Aokiji unleashed another freezing attack, the area around Katakuri grew colder and colder.
"Haa..."
Wrapped in icy air, Katakuri leaped high into the sky. Exhaling deeply, he swung down a long mochi leg coated in black Armament Haki, aiming a devastating kick at Aokiji below.
'Boom!'
Aokiji was crushed beneath his foot.
But the shattered ice climbed back up Katakuri's mochi leg, reforming into Aokiji halfway up.
"Ice Time..."
Aokiji pressed a palm against Katakuri's leg.
An unbearable chill instantly froze the mochi limb. The ice spread across his entire body in the blink of an eye, sealing Katakuri inside another block of ice.
'Crack!'
Katakuri shattered the ice covering him once more.
Ice fragments scattered around him as he emerged. His face had turned slightly bluish-purple, whether from exhaustion or from the cold itself. Frost still clung to his eyebrows.
'Katakuri's getting tired,' Liam thought.
Watching Katakuri charge back into battle with his trident, Liam could hear that his breathing had become much heavier than at the start.
It was hard to believe. With Katakuri's stamina, even continuous fighting for several days and nights shouldn't have exhausted him unless he'd suffered serious injuries. Yet he was already showing signs of fatigue.
Cold... So that was it.
The most terrifying part of Aokiji's power wasn't freezing people solid. It was something far simpler: cold itself.
Low temperatures stole away body heat. They stole away stamina. And in the end, they stole away life.
If this continued, Katakuri was guaranteed to lose. Aokiji's fighting style looked relaxed and carefree, yet he resembled an unhurried, relentless Grim Reaper of frost, patiently stripping away Katakuri's warmth, stamina, and patience little by little.
But all of this relied on one crucial condition...
Katakuri's body sprouted numerous mochi arms, each coated in thick Armament Haki.
'Crackle!'
Like a torrential downpour, they rained punches onto Aokiji. As before, they effortlessly blasted his body into countless chunks of ice. Yet in the very next moment, those scattered ice fragments gathered together once more, restoring Aokiji completely unharmed.
The key to everything was that Katakuri's Armament Haki wasn't working against Aokiji at all.
Watching from the sidelines, Liam's thoughts raced.
'Could Aokiji have never been the real body from the beginning? Was he just an ice clone?'
Impossible. Liam had followed him here the entire way. If Aokiji hadn't been the real one, Liam would have noticed.
And Katakuri's Observation Haki was no joke. A clone made entirely of ice could never fool the eyes of someone capable of seeing the future.
"Still planning to keep this up?"
With his hands in the pockets of his white suit pants, Aokiji slowly reformed once again. "No matter how many times you tr, "
Katakuri's arm suddenly stretched out, and one punch blew Aokiji's head apart.
The shattered ice quickly rolled back together, reforming his head as if nothing had happened.
"...it's pointless."
'Did he use Observation Haki to predict Katakuri's attacks and turn elemental in advance to avoid them?'
Liam couldn't help thinking of Katakuri's fight with Luffy. Back then, Katakuri had used his future sight to reshape his mochi body and avoid Luffy's Haki-coated punches. But Katakuri could only do that because his Observation Haki was unparalleled. Could Aokiji's Observation Haki really be just as incredible?
...No.
Aokiji was a Logia. Katakuri had to imitate elementalization with his Mochi Fruit, while Aokiji could become his element naturally. Maybe that alone allowed him to pull off the same trick.
...Still, that didn't make sense. Liam immediately rejected the idea.
Katakuri's imitation of elementalization worked because he actually avoided Luffy's punches. Luffy never truly hit him. But Aokiji... Aokiji had clearly been struck by Katakuri's Armament Haki countless times.
Armament Haki was supposed to work against elemental bodies.
Wait!
A flash of inspiration crossed Liam's mind, and his eyes widened.
'If I can't figure this out, if I can't understand why Aokiji's elemental body can ignore Armament Haki, then no one will ever beat him.'
Katakuri's breathing grew even heavier. His frost-covered trident, wrapped in black Armament Haki, swept across Aokiji and smashed him cleanly in half.
Just as before, Aokiji calmly reformed, still surrounded by an icy chill.
"Aokiji... what kind of monster are you?!"
Charlotte Mont-d'Or flew toward the battlefield, standing atop two floating books. Unable to stay composed any longer, he shouted, "You completely ignored Brother Katakuri's Armament Haki...!"
"Didn't I tell you not to move around?" Liam leaped over and threw a punch at him.
Mont-d'Or's face darkened. "You're just some low-level pirate who only recently entered the New World... 'Book World!'"
He thrust out a hand, instantly creating a giant book.
'Flap!'
The pages spread open, revealing an entirely different world inside as the book snapped toward Liam, trying to trap him. But it caught nothing but empty air.
"Hah..."
Liam appeared behind Mont-d'Or in a flash, his raised leg coated in Armament Haki. "You really want to compete with me in speed?"
"What?!"
Mont-d'Or had only enough time to turn around before Liam's kick sent him flying.
'Bang!'
He crashed into a crater and lay there motionless.
Landing lightly, Liam saw Charlotte's twin sisters drawing their swords at him. He waved a hand. "Relax. I don't hit little girls."
"You don't hit women? So idiots like that really do exist!" Charlotte Angel charged with her sword.
'Bang!'
One second later, Liam had her pinned beneath his foot.
"I wasn't planning to. But if you insist on getting beaten up, then that's your own fault."
"You bastard!!" Angel kept pounding the ground in frustration, but she couldn't move an inch under Liam's foot.
Charlotte Castard looked back toward Katakuri's battle with Aokiji, worry written all over her face. "How can there be a Logia user like this... Armament Haki should definitely work against him..."
"People learn Haki and start forgetting to respect Logia users..." Over on the battlefield, Aokiji was still calmly wearing Katakuri down with the relentless cold.
His body was shattered once again by Katakuri's fist, and once again, it immediately reassembled.
"I've already arrested more fools like you than I can count..."
"Hey! Ice Age!" Sitting on top of the immobilized Charlotte Angel, Liam suddenly called out loudly. "You're taking it a little too easy, don't you think? Haven't you noticed?"
Aokiji glanced over. "Hm?"
"The punches Katakuri's been using to break your body... they stopped using Armament Haki a long time ago."
Aokiji turned to Katakuri just as the latter lunged forward once more with his trident.
'Bang!'
The trident pierced straight through Aokiji's body.
Looking down, Aokiji saw that Liam was right. The three-pronged spear that had split his body apart wasn't coated in Armament Haki at all.
'Crash!'
Aokiji's upper and lower halves shattered again. The ice fragments rolled several meters away before gathering together and reforming into his body.
"Ah la la..." He brushed the ice off his clothes and adjusted his round sunglasses.
One lens reflected Katakuri holding his trident. The other reflected Giorno, still sitting on top of a Charlotte daughter in the distance.
"So... you finally figured it out."
'His elemental body isn't made of ice at all!'
The realization struck Liam and the slightly winded Katakuri at the same time.
'It's... the freezing air hidden inside the ice!'
"Haaah…!!"
Katakuri made up his mind. He let out a long breath, crouched down, and pressed one hand against the frost-covered ground.
"...Awakening."
In an instant, the frozen earth beneath both him and Aokiji came alive. The ice-covered ground transformed into writhing mochi, surging toward Aokiji from every direction.
'End of Chapter'
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