Chapter 121: How Scary!
Killed a Celestial Dragon?
Rear Admiral DeWitt had weathered more storms than he cared to count. Pirates, riots, political scandals, noble tantrums, reports that could sink careers faster than cannonballs—he had seen them all. He had long believed that, no matter what happened, he could keep his composure.
But in that moment, even he felt the ground vanish beneath his feet.
He stared at the blind swordsman standing before the crater and repeated, half in shock, half in disbelief, "You said… you killed the Celestial Dragons?"
Issho nodded.
No hesitation.
No excuse.
No attempt to soften it.
DeWitt felt dizzy, as if the sky itself had cracked open above him.
It was not grief.
He would not pretend it was grief.
He had watched Celestial Dragons commit atrocities before. He had seen Marines forced to bow their heads in silence while those monsters trampled civilians, destroyed families, and treated human life as an unpleasant stain beneath their shoes. More than once, DeWitt had wished for judgment to fall upon them.
But wishes were one thing.
Reality was another.
A Celestial Dragon had died.
No.
Several Celestial Dragons had died.
And it had happened on Sabaody Archipelago, during his tenure.
The responsibility was inescapable.
Worse still, DeWitt understood the nature of the World Nobles too well. To preserve their prestige, to remind the world that their blood could not be touched, they might do anything. They might even call for a Buster Call and wipe Sabaody from the map along with every innocent civilian still on it.
The thought sent cold sweat down his back.
Whatever his personal feelings, the matter had already happened. The only thing he could do now was arrest the perpetrator and pray—pray with every bitter piece of faith left in him—that the situation could be contained before it swallowed the entire island.
But could he arrest this man?
DeWitt looked at the vast crater where the Human Auction House had once stood.
He remembered Island 8, erased by a falling meteor.
His answer was brutally clear.
No.
Even if every Marine present threw themselves forward, they might not be enough to stop him for even a minute.
Still, DeWitt could not show fear. If the commander broke, the men would break with him.
He drew a breath and forced his voice steady.
"Prepare for battle!"
The order snapped the Marines out of their shock. They rose, checked their weapons, and began reforming their lines. They were soldiers from Marine Headquarters. Even frightened, even outmatched, they still carried their pride.
They would not retreat simply because the enemy was stronger.
Issho stood quietly amid the dust.
"You are no match for me," he said. "And I do not wish to hurt you."
DeWitt's mouth tightened.
"To be honest, I don't want to fight you either. I imagine my men feel the same." His hand rested on his sword. "But for the sake of justice, we must arrest you."
"I am not prepared to surrender."
There was nothing more to say.
The answer had already been given.
War.
DeWitt's eyes sharpened.
"Attack!"
The instant the order fell, the Marines opened fire.
They had already noticed Issho's blindness. Against an ordinary blind man, that might have been enough of an advantage. Against a monster of this caliber, DeWitt did not dare rely on it—but it was the only weakness they could even pretend to exploit.
The Marines formed a crescent before him. Behind Issho lay the massive crater, a hollow wound carved into Island 1. From the front, gunfire erupted.
Bullets poured down like black rain.
Then came the heavy weapons.
Explosive shells, rifles, and specialized artillery roared together, drowning the street in smoke and thunder. The barrage was enough to shred a normal human body into meat.
When the smoke thinned, Issho had not moved.
He stood exactly where he had been.
Unharmed.
Around his feet, bullets and fragments lay scattered across the ground, robbed of momentum and pressed flat as if the earth itself had rejected them.
DeWitt's heart sank.
"As expected… a Devil Fruit user."
He had suspected it from the beginning. The destruction of Island 8 could hardly be explained otherwise. Still, some part of him had hoped—absurdly—that the meteor had been natural and that this man had merely survived it somehow.
If Issho had been only a swordsman, then concentrated fire might have bought time. Swordsmen had frightening offense, but defending against every angle was not always simple.
But a Devil Fruit ability changed everything.
Especially an ability capable of pulling a meteor from the sky.
The image alone was enough to make any commander's blood run cold.
"Formation B!" DeWitt shouted. "Disperse and attack!"
Formation B was meant for large chaotic battles. It reduced the effect of wide-range attacks and prevented the enemy from wiping out a dense formation all at once. It sacrificed firepower for survivability.
It was the correct decision.
Unfortunately, correctness meant little before overwhelming power.
Issho drew his sword a fraction from its sheath.
A crushing force descended.
The air groaned.
In one breath, the entire area fell under monstrous gravity. Marines slammed to the ground one after another, their bodies pinned flat before they could even scream. Weapons clattered from their hands. Boots dug into the earth. Armor creaked.
DeWitt reacted on instinct.
"Soru!"
His body blurred backward, barely escaping the radius before it fully locked down. When he landed, his boots scraped across the ground and his breath came short.
His men were all down.
Every last one of them.
"Damn it…"
The curse slipped out uselessly.
Only now did he understand how ridiculous his plan had been. He had hoped to delay the enemy through tactics, formations, and numbers.
But the gap between them was not something numbers could bridge.
Issho stepped forward.
While maintaining the gravity field over the Marines, he crossed the distance toward DeWitt with terrifying calm.
DeWitt barely had time to raise his sword.
Steel met steel.
The blow drove through his arms and into his bones. His shoulders screamed. The ground under his feet cracked.
For a fleeting moment, DeWitt remembered his youth.
He remembered being a recruit, standing in training grounds with blistered hands, utterly helpless before instructors who seemed like mountains. Back then, he had been weak. Back then, defeat had been natural.
He had not felt that way in decades.
Was it because he was old now? Because his body had declined?
No.
DeWitt knew better.
His opponent was simply far stronger.
After only a few exchanges, Issho shifted his blade, and the gravity pressing over the battlefield narrowed onto DeWitt.
The Rear Admiral dropped to one knee.
Then both.
His sword arm trembled, but he could not lift it again.
The invisible weight forced him down until he was pinned to the ground like every other Marine.
"I lost," DeWitt said bitterly.
Issho did not raise his sword to finish him.
"Do not worry. I do not intend to kill you."
DeWitt's eyes widened.
Issho continued, "Nor do I intend to run."
That confused him even more.
"What exactly are you planning?"
Issho gave no answer.
He had stayed behind for one reason: to block the true enemy, the Admirals of Marine Headquarters. If he fled now, the newly freed slaves, Axel, and the others would be placed in danger.
And he had no desire to harm these Marines.
DeWitt's heart was not evil. Neither were most of the men lying around him. For now, maintaining this stalemate was the best outcome.
Instead of answering, Issho asked, "What is justice to you?"
"Justice?"
DeWitt's expression twisted.
"My justice is—"
He stopped.
Then his tone changed, anger rising through exhaustion.
"Why should I explain myself to you? A man like you wouldn't understand! Do you have any idea how much trouble killing Celestial Dragons will bring to the people of this island?"
"If that trouble comes, I will cut it down."
DeWitt stared at him.
Issho's voice remained steady.
"Rather than allow such people to continue living and spreading filth through the world, I chose to remove them."
"You can't even imagine how enormous the consequences are!"
DeWitt's voice was hoarse now. Even after being defeated, he could not stay silent.
Issho had crushed him easily, yes.
But DeWitt did not believe for a second that this man could stand against everything that would come next. An Admiral. A full Marine mobilization. Perhaps even a Buster Call.
"What… kind of thing…"
Issho began to speak, but before the sentence could finish, his expression changed.
He turned his face toward the distance.
A beam of light tore across the sky.
At nearly the same instant, a mirror of light bloomed beside him, brilliant and blinding.
A tall figure appeared from within that golden radiance.
Borsalino.
Kizaru.
His leg was already raised.
The kick came like sunlight given weight.
Issho's sword rose to meet it.
The collision detonated across the battlefield.
Boom!
The impact rolled outward in a thunderous shockwave. Dust burst from the ground. Broken fragments leapt into the air. The Marines pinned nearby felt the pressure of the clash pass over them like a storm front.
Issho was driven back several meters, sandals cutting deep grooves into the earth.
Kizaru's body scattered into light and reformed at a distance.
Everything happened too fast for DeWitt to follow.
By the time his senses caught up, the exchange was already over.
Kizaru looked down.
A tear had appeared in his striped suit.
His mouth crooked, his brows lifted behind his orange lenses, and he spoke in that lazy, drawn-out tone that somehow made the words feel even more dangerous.
"Oooh…"
He glanced at Issho.
"How scary."
.....
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