"Gion! What are you waiting for?!"
Chaton's sharp voice carried obvious urgency.
"His sword broke! If we move now, we can suppress Jack before he recovers!"
Before he could finish, Gion's calm voice cut him off.
"Don't move. You'll only get in his way."
Zaraki did not bother listening to what they were saying.
The noise of small fry was irrelevant.
His gaze stayed locked on Jack, and the battle intent in his reddened eyes burned even hotter.
His sword broke?
So what?
"Rahahahaha! Brat, it's over!"
Jack burst into crazed laughter, the harsh sound shaking the broken stones on the ground.
He strode forward heavily, every step making the earth groan beneath him.
Jack did not bother picking up another weapon. In his eyes, against a swordsman who had lost his blade, his Armament Haki-coated iron fists were more than enough.
He was going to crush this brat who dared challenge the dignity of the Beasts Pirates into paste with his own hands.
As the black shadow carrying the aura of death closed in again, Zaraki slowly loosened his grip, finger by finger.
The bare hilt of Murasame fell into the rubble with a dull clang.
To the Marines watching from afar, that sound was no different from a death sentence.
A swordsman whose sword had broken.
Against Jack the Drought, that meant the battle was over.
However, Gion, whose eyes had been fixed on Zaraki's back, felt her pupils contract sharply.
No.
His aura had not weakened at all.
It was rising faster than before.
Jack's fist, howling as it tore through the air, was already right in front of him.
The jet-black Haki wrapped around it was terrifyingly dense, and the pressure from the fist alone crushed the ground beneath Zaraki's feet until cracks spread everywhere.
Facing a blow powerful enough to smash a warship apart, Zaraki neither dodged nor retreated.
He merely raised his right hand, spread his fingers, and pressed his palm toward the fist that was even bigger than his head.
There was no visible Armament Haki on his hand, but a dense layer of Reiatsu pressed against the air around his palm, so heavy that the dust near his fingers flattened before the fist even arrived.
Boom—!!!
The instant fist and palm met, a visible white shockwave exploded outward with the two of them at the center.
The ground beneath Zaraki could no longer withstand the force and collapsed with a roar, forming a deep crater more than five meters wide.
Blood ran down from the split skin between his fingers and across his wrist, but the bloody scene of his arm being crushed did not happen.
Zaraki's seemingly thin hand remained steady, forcibly stopping Jack's unstoppable iron fist in midair.
"Wha—"
The smile on Jack's face froze instantly.
He could feel it.
His strength had not vanished, but it was being pressed down by something even heavier the instant it touched that palm.
Then an even more brutal force rebounded from Zaraki's hand, making Jack's entire arm go numb.
How was that possible?!
His pupils contracted violently as he stared at Zaraki's face, only to see a pair of calm eyes.
The excitement from before had disappeared from those eyes. All that remained was a cold indifference, like someone looking down on an insect.
"You seem to have misunderstood something."
Zaraki's voice was very soft, but it entered Jack's ears clearly.
"Just because one sword broke doesn't mean the fight is over."
Before his words had fully faded, Zaraki's left hand opened slightly.
A faint system glow flickered beside his palm.
From the storage space he had never shown anyone, he drew out a plain, nameless sword.
An Asauchi.
It had been silent ever since he obtained it, sleeping in his inventory like a lifeless piece of steel. Zaraki had carried it without using it, because until now, it had never answered him.
But in the middle of this broken harbor, with Murasame shattered at his feet and Jack's fist still pressed against his palm, the nameless blade trembled.
A strange vibration rang through the entire battlefield.
Zaraki stared at the plain blade in his hand.
For the first time, something answered him from within the steel.
A name.
The corner of Zaraki's mouth slowly lifted.
"HAHAHAHA FINALLY!"
He raised the sword.
"Drink, Nozarashi."
The Asauchi screamed.
It was not a sound heard by the ears, but by the soul.
A violent Reiatsu erupted from the blade, crushing the air around Zaraki and tearing the rubble beneath his feet into dust.
The plain sword warped, stretched, and twisted, its edge expanding into a massive, jagged cleaver-like blade that looked too brutal to be called refined.
Nozarashi had awakened!
It was enormous, far too large for any ordinary swordsman to wield, but in Zaraki's hand it looked natural, as if the sword had finally taken the shape his soul had always demanded.
The release was incomplete.
Zaraki could feel it clearly. Nozarashi had answered him, but the bond was still raw, violent, and half-formed.
The blade drank his Reiatsu greedily, and every breath felt like feeding a beast with no bottom.
Even so, that was enough.
An overwhelmingly domineering aura spread from the blade and rolled across the entire battlefield.
Everyone stared in stunned silence.
Chaton's mouth fell open so wide his jaw nearly dislocated.
Behind Yamakaji's glasses, his eyes were filled with horror.
Even Gion's hand, gripping Konpira, trembled faintly.
As for Jack, who stood closest to it, a chill shot from the soles of his feet straight to the top of his head.
The wild instincts of his Ancient Zoan body screamed warnings at him.
Danger.
"It's over." Zaraki's indifferent voice rang out.
He gripped Nozarashi with one hand as he swung it.
The massive blade traced a brutal arc through the air, and the Reiatsu released from Nozarashi stretched far beyond the edge itself, tearing through the battlefield with a force that made the sky seem to split open.
For the first and final time, fear appeared on Jack's face beneath his metal jaw guard.
He wanted to retreat, to dodge and to defend with his strongest Armament Haki.
But before that slash, his massive body felt pinned in place like a specimen nailed to a board.
He could not move.
The slash swept past.
When the dark-gold pressure finally scattered, the entire world seemed to fall into dead silence.
Every gaze turned toward the center of the storm.
Jack was still standing there.
His enormous body looked completely intact. There was not even a single visible wound on him.
'Did he block it?'
That thought had only just flashed through Chaton's mind when—
Rip...
A strange sound, like cloth being torn, came from Jack's body.
A thin line of blood quietly appeared, stretching from his left shoulder all the way to the right side of his waist.
Dark-gold Reiatsu clung to the cut, crushing the vitality trying to stitch his body back together.
This time, Jack's Ancient Zoan body had nothing left to grasp.
Then, along that bloodline, his massive upper body began to slowly slide to one side.