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'Cover Story: Chopper and the Quack Doctor Vol. 5: "Just Wait Until the Cherry Blossoms Bloom, Drum Kingdom!"'
'Chopper's hoofprints stretch away across the snow. Hiriluk scratches his head in confusion, but quickly regains his spirit. As long as he can make the cherry blossoms bloom in this country, he'll surely save its numb, hopeless people, just as he himself had once been saved. Filled with confidence, he pulls down the brim of his hat and hurries into the raging snowstorm...'
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"W-What? What's happening? Did Brother Katakuri win?" Pinned beneath Liam, Charlotte Angel twisted desperately, shouting in frustration, "Giorno! Can you get off me already?! I won't try to cut you anymore!"
Mont-d'Or and Castard exchanged glances. This wasn't the time to provoke the mysterious Giorno, whose strength they still couldn't judge. Since he wasn't planning to interfere for now, leaving Angel underneath him for a while wasn't a big deal. They simply pretended not to see or hear anything.
Meanwhile, Liam stared intently at the icy blue stream of air that had just escaped from the fragment Katakuri had pulverized and flown back into Aokiji's body.
Armament Haki could grab and strike the true body of a Logia user. But Aokiji's body of ice... even without Armament Haki, anyone could touch it. Anyone could shatter it. At first, Liam had thought Aokiji was the Logia equivalent of Buggy, someone whose body naturally split apart harmlessly. Now he realized Aokiji was more like Kaido among the Logias.
The icy body everyone saw was only a shell. Hidden inside that shell was his true elemental body: 'frozen air.'
No wonder even Katakuri's incredibly powerful Armament Haki punches had accomplished almost nothing. As long as he was only hitting the ice, he could never injure the frozen air concealed inside. It was just like ordinary punches and kicks against Kaido's absurdly durable body, they simply didn't matter.
"So..." Aokiji rubbed the blood he'd wiped from the corner of his mouth between his fingers. "You burned through all that stamina... just to make me bleed a little."
Katakuri's eyes were shadowed with exhaustion. With a thought, the mochi around Aokiji surged upward from every direction, trying to crush him. At the same time, Katakuri himself charged forward beside a gigantic floating mochi fist coated in Armament Haki.
As Aokiji's body shattered into countless chunks of ice, Katakuri's Observation Haki instantly picked out one specific fragment.
'BOOM!'
The enormous Haki-coated fist obliterated it into powder. The icy-blue frozen air hidden inside was struck directly.
In the distance, the newly reformed Aokiji frowned ever so slightly. It was impossible to tell which part of his true body that particular stream of frozen air belonged to.
"You really are going all out just to hit me..." Aokiji reabsorbed that strand of frozen air. His tone remained teasing, but his expression had become noticeably more serious.
"..."
Katakuri ignored him. He continuously manipulated the awakened mochi terrain to force Aokiji into predictable movements. Whenever Aokiji's ice body shattered, Katakuri used either the awakened terrain or his own attacks to lock onto the correct fragment with absolute precision using his Observation Haki.
Then, pouring an overwhelming amount of Armament Haki into his attacks, he completely destroyed that fragment.
Only by doing this could he actually strike Aokiji's true elemental body, that icy-blue frozen air.
Liam couldn't help sighing. "This is one of those fights where you lose eight hundred just to make your enemy lose eighty."
His wording sounded strange, but the meaning was obvious. Mont-d'Or floated farther away on his books before shooting Liam an annoyed glare. 'Easy for you to say. If you were the one fighting, Aokiji would've frozen you into a popsicle by now.'
Of course, Mont-d'Or had no idea... the moment Liam figured out the true nature of Aokiji's Ice-Ice Fruit, he'd already thought of a very simple counter. 'If he's basically Kaido, then just use the same method people use to fight Kaido.'
Since Aokiji's true body was hidden inside the ice, Advanced Armament Haki, Ryuo, could simply bypass the outer layer and strike the frozen air within. Unfortunately, Katakuri didn't seem to know Ryuo. That left him with only this crude, inefficient method of attacking Aokiji's real body.
Even so, it was finally causing Aokiji some trouble.
Katakuri's breathing became heavier and heavier. But at the same time, he successfully struck Aokiji's true body several times, leaving the Marine Vice Admiral with genuine injuries.
Driven across the battlefield by the awakened mochi terrain, Aokiji kept dodging and maneuvering, doing everything he could to avoid having his body shattered again.
At the same time, he steadily retreated toward the opposite side of the deserted island. Everywhere he passed, the ground, the trees, everything became covered in thick frost, only to be crushed moments later by the pursuing mochi terrain.
More than a dozen gigantic floating mochi arms, each coated in Armament Haki, gathered overhead. With a rare, thunderous roar, Katakuri sent them crashing down like a storm.
'BOOM!!!'
The entire battlefield writhed. The awakened mochi surged upward, binding Aokiji in place. Then the colossal Haki-coated fists rained down without mercy, pounding him over and over. Finally, Katakuri commanded an enormous amount of mochi to engulf Aokiji completely.
"Huff... Huff... Huff..." Katakuri breathed heavily, exhausted. He raised his trident and pointed it toward the enormous sphere of mochi formed from the awakened terrain. "...Compress."
'BOOM!!'
The gigantic mochi sphere instantly collapsed inward, its massive volume shrinking to only a fraction of its original size. No one knew how much Armament Haki Katakuri had secretly poured into the inside of that giant mochi prison. His goal was simple, crush the trapped Aokiji into nothing but icy dust.
"Did it work?" Mont-d'Or's eyes lit up with excitement. He wanted to fly over for a closer look, but he still couldn't ignore Giorno's presence nearby. "Did he kill that Marine?"
The Charlotte sisters also breathed a quiet sigh of relief. But Angel, who was still pinned beneath Liam, quickly noticed something. Giorno hadn't moved an inch.
Her heart sank. 'He's annoying... but he's definitely strong. If he isn't reacting... then does that mean Aokiji isn't...'
"W-What's that?!" Mont-d'Or, hovering on his floating books, suddenly staggered in shock. He pointed at streams of icy-blue frozen air that were slowly leaking out through the cracks of the now-compressed mochi sphere. Clutching his head, he cried out in disbelief, "Even that couldn't kill the Marine?!"
"...!!"
Katakuri's expression darkened even further. He watched as the strands of icy-blue frozen air drifted away from the compressed mochi prison and slowly gathered together.
A towering humanoid made entirely of frozen blue air appeared. Only its mouth had taken shape, opening as Aokiji spoke.
"Ah la la... I really didn't expect you to push me this far. In that case..."
Layer after layer, ice gradually formed over the blue air, filling it in until Aokiji's familiar body reappeared. He crouched down. His hand, now restored to flesh and blood, slowly reached toward the ground.
"This consumes quite a bit of stamina... but I don't have much choice."
His slender fingertips gently touched the earth.
'Could it be, ?!'
The same thought flashed through the minds of Katakuri, Liam, Mont-d'Or, and everyone else at almost the same instant. And just as they feared, Aokiji calmly said, "I suppose... none of you have ever seen a Logia Awakening."
From the point where his fingertips touched the ground, an endless wave of freezing power erupted outward. In the blink of an eye, the entire remaining half of the island transformed into an endless frozen plain.
"RAAAAH!" Katakuri roared and hurled his trident at Aokiji with all his strength.
'Bang!'
The Haki-coated three-pronged spear pierced straight through Aokiji's body. His entire body shattered into countless ice fragments. But unlike before, those fragments quietly melted into the frozen ground beneath him.
'Whooo…'
'Whooo…'
A freezing wind howled across the vast field of ice like the cries of ghosts. A red light flashed in Katakuri's eyes. Even someone with his composure couldn't hide his shock. "So that's how it is...!!"
"Where did he go?" Mont-d'Or flew higher on his floating books, desperately searching across the frozen half of the island. "I-Is he... not actually running away, is he?!"
Watching from a distance, Liam suddenly remembered something. Back in the South Blue, Aokiji had once moved through ice in a way that looked almost like teleportation.
"Looking for me?" A calm voice echoed through the bitter wind.
Mont-d'Or's face instantly turned pale. His body trembled slightly as he slowly looked down.
Inside the enormous frozen plain covering half the island, a gigantic pale-blue figure hundreds of meters tall could be seen beneath the ice itself. It was as though Aokiji were lying inside a colossal mirror made of ice. His hands remained casually tucked into his pockets. Even though he was beneath the frozen ground, he looked down upon everyone standing above him with the calm authority of a king surveying his domain.
"This is ridiculous!!!" Mont-d'Or was so stunned he nearly lost his footing and fell from his floating books.
Even Katakuri's eyelids twitched.
Liam could only sigh. 'Logias really are... completely absurd.'
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'End of Chapter'