Chapter 346: Wings
Despite what he had just said, Axel's voice rang loudly across the battlefield.
It sounded less like an announcement of retreat and more like a declaration meant to provoke everyone standing against him.
Sentomaru, now free after helping subdue Wapol, immediately scowled.
"You say you're leaving like the rest of us don't exist."
He tightened his grip on his axe.
"You're still standing on this island. What are you going to do, split the whole thing apart?"
Axel did not answer.
His actions did.
The moment power surged from him, the entirety of Navarone Fortress began to tremble.
Rumble!
The earth shook violently.
Mountains groaned.
The huge fortress, built directly into the island's rocky terrain, began cracking apart.
Fissures raced across the ground.
Walls twisted.
Sections of rock shifted away from one another.
From above, the island looked like something enormous had begun tearing pieces from it by hand.
Another tremor came.
The cracks widened.
Then another.
Jonathan and Sentomaru struggled to maintain their footing.
Wapol, still trapped beneath a Sea Stone net, saw his chance.
The shifting ground loosened the restraint enough for him to wriggle free.
He immediately ran toward Axel.
There was no question in Wapol's mind about who was responsible for this disaster.
The white-haired youth standing at the center of it all barely looked human anymore.
Wapol had spent the journey cursing Axel, resenting him, and dreaming of escape.
Right now, none of that mattered.
Because Axel was also his only way out.
Jonathan noticed Wapol escaping.
He did not pursue him.
Instead, he turned toward the Marines positioned along the collapsing cliffside.
Even soldiers as disciplined as those of G-8 could panic when the very island beneath their feet began breaking apart.
And here, one wrong step meant plunging into the sea below.
Jonathan made his choice instantly.
His men mattered more than a useless former king.
"Fall back from the edge!"
He rushed toward them.
"Secure yourselves and help anyone who loses their footing!"
Sentomaru looked at Jonathan.
Then at Wapol.
Then back again.
"Damn it!"
He drew back his arm.
His giant axe left his hand.
Whoosh!
The weapon spun through the air directly toward Wapol's back.
Sentomaru was no longer holding back.
If that strike landed properly, it could split Wapol apart.
The axe struck.
Bang!
The pseudo-Reflection Wapol had gained from the Pacifistas activated.
The massive weapon bounced away.
Its remaining force still knocked Wapol forward, sending him tumbling across the ground and putting even more distance between him and Sentomaru.
Wapol screamed, scrambled back to his feet, and ran even faster.
Sentomaru clicked his tongue.
"I forgot about that damn PX defense!"
He surged forward after him.
Elsewhere, at the true center of the battlefield, Kizaru was already pressing Axel relentlessly.
Ama no Murakumo swept toward him again.
Axel blocked with his wooden sword.
Clang!
Kizaru kept himself between Axel and the widening fissures.
More specifically, between Axel and the seawater now surging upward through them.
Axel smiled.
"You're nervous."
Kizaru tilted his head.
"You really don't want me getting near the water."
"Well, naturally."
Kizaru's tone remained casual.
"That last attack was troublesome."
Their blades clashed again.
"But I am curious."
Kizaru looked past Axel at the collapsing fortress.
"You went through all this trouble to split the island apart."
His eyes narrowed slightly behind the orange lenses.
"And yet when you had a chance to escape just now, you stayed."
For Kizaru, that was the strangest part.
When the island first fractured, his instinct had been to withdraw slightly and assess the situation.
Axel had already shown that seawater did not affect him normally.
He could have taken advantage of that opening.
Instead, he had remained.
"Maybe I forgot," Axel replied.
Kizaru stared at him.
Forgot?
His frown deepened.
Such an obvious lie had to mean something.
The scent of salt grew stronger.
Sea wind now blew freely through the shattered fortress.
Water climbed through the cracks below.
Kizaru knew he could not allow the situation to continue.
Once the area flooded completely, containing Axel would become far more difficult.
He raised Ama no Murakumo.
"One last time."
Axel waited.
"Where is Vegapunk?"
"I don't know."
No hesitation.
Kizaru sighed.
"What a shame."
Before the words finished reaching Axel, Kizaru was already in front of him.
Light flashed.
The Admiral launched into a rapid assault, no longer interested in dragging out the fight.
Axel retreated.
Block.
Turn.
Step.
Deflect.
He refused to meet Kizaru head-on any more than necessary.
Instead, he focused on delaying.
Kizaru noticed immediately.
"What's wrong?"
His sword flashed again.
"This doesn't seem like your style."
Axel ignored him.
With less of his Calculation Power devoted to manipulating the ground, his movement became noticeably smoother.
Kizaru remained faster.
But Axel was more agile.
The difference mattered.
Kizaru could move at terrifying speed in straight lines, but changing direction repeatedly required using Yata no Kagami.
Whenever the light path began forming, Axel disrupted it, distorted it, or shattered it before Kizaru could fully exploit it.
The exchange continued only briefly.
Then Axel neared the area where Wapol had been fleeing.
His gaze shifted.
And he shouted toward a patch of bushes nearby.
"Jump into the sea!"
A pair of antlers immediately appeared above the greenery.
Chopper.
He was hiding in his usual terrible fashion, with most of his body exposed.
No one had noticed because the battlefield was too chaotic.
Kizaru did now.
His eyes shifted toward the bushes.
He started to move.
Axel's wooden sword blocked him.
Clang!
"You wouldn't let me leave earlier."
Axel smiled.
"Why are you trying to leave first?"
Kizaru paused.
He could break past Axel.
He was confident of that.
But should he?
Whoever was hiding in those bushes was irrelevant to his mission.
Axel was the target.
If Kizaru rushed away and Axel used the opening to dive into the sea, tracking him afterward would become far more difficult.
Light was fast.
The ocean was vast.
And beneath the surface, darkness, terrain, and seawater itself would all work against him.
Kizaru stayed.
Axel's voice reached Vivi and the others.
"Jump!"
Vivi stared down at the shattered terrain.
"What?"
Jump into that?
The broken sections of Navarone were filled with debris.
Collapsed stone.
Steel beams.
Ruined structures.
Even if they reached the water safely, escaping by swimming would take far too long.
Vivi could only hold her breath for a limited amount of time.
Chopper could not swim at all.
Karoo could manage the surface, but diving through wreckage was another matter entirely.
Axel shouted again.
"Hurry up!"
"There's no time!"
Vivi still hesitated.
Axel added,
"Why are you acting like Big Shark?"
Vivi's mouth opened.
"You're the one who's Big..."
She stopped.
Big Shark.
Her eyes widened.
The Sea King.
The enormous creature was still beneath the island.
That was what Axel meant.
Vivi looked down at the dark water.
Her hesitation returned.
There was only one realistic way for a Sea King that large to rescue them from within all that debris.
Swallow them.
And if Big Shark swallowed them...
Would it remember to spit them back out?
Chopper clung desperately to a nearby tree.
Tears gathered in his eyes.
"Jumping down there..."
His legs shook.
"We'll definitely die!"
Vivi looked at him.
Then her expression hardened.
"We're jumping."
Chopper froze.
Karoo shook his head violently.
"Quack! Quack!"
Vivi looked at both of them.
"This is our only chance."
She was afraid.
Of course she was.
She did not want to leap into a broken battlefield filled with seawater and debris.
But Alabasta was waiting.
Her people were waiting.
She had already come too far to turn back now.
Vivi clenched her fists.
"I have to get home."
She loved Alabasta not merely because she was its princess.
She loved the people.
The towns.
The lives she had grown up among.
If taking this risk gave her even one chance to save them, she would take it.
Jonathan heard her from nearby.
"Princess Vivi!"
He shouted across the fractured terrain.
"You don't need to risk your life!"
Vivi looked toward him.
Jonathan continued,
"Stay here!"
"The Marines will protect you and return you safely to Alabasta!"
Vivi's eyes hardened.
"Return me?"
Her voice rose.
"Can you save Alabasta?"
Jonathan stopped.
Vivi pointed toward him.
"Can the Marines save my country from Crocodile?"
Silence.
One of the Seven Warlords of the Sea.
A pirate officially sanctioned by the World Government.
Jonathan had no answer he could give her.
The Marines existed to preserve order.
But that order depended upon compromises and balances far larger than any one kingdom.
Jonathan did not possess the authority to simply declare war on a Warlord.
Even Sengoku would have to consider the consequences.
Vivi understood from his silence.
"As I thought."
Her voice became quieter.
"The Marines can't protect Alabasta."
She turned toward Chopper and Karoo.
"Please."
"Jump with me."
Chopper trembled.
Then slowly released the tree.
"You came with me to help those patients."
He looked at Vivi.
"So... I'll trust you too."
Karoo still looked terrified.
But when Vivi reached toward him, the duck straightened.
Whatever happened, he would follow his princess.
Vivi smiled.
The three joined hands.
They inhaled.
Then jumped.
Chopper squeezed his eyes shut.
Several seconds passed.
No splash came.
He cautiously opened one eye.
"Huh?"
Then both.
"Why are we still in the air?"
Vivi looked around.
The three of them were floating between two fractured sections of the fortress.
They had neither fallen into the sea nor landed on anything.
Karoo stared at Vivi.
"Quack?"
"I don't know."
Then the Den Den Mushi in Vivi's clothes began speaking.
Axel's voice came through.
"Are you an idiot?"
Vivi's face tightened immediately.
"I told you to jump, so you really jumped?"
Her eye twitched.
"You told us to!"
Axel continued before she could explode.
"There's too much wreckage below."
"If you actually fell straight into the water, Big Shark might swallow half the fortress along with you."
His voice remained irritatingly calm.
"Best case, you'd get buried."
"Worst case, a steel beam would go through you."
"You aren't me."
Chopper puffed up.
"Narcissist!"
Karoo nodded vigorously.
Axel ignored both of them.
"Anyway, your stupidity helped."
Vivi gritted her teeth.
"How?"
"I used the wind to hold you."
Axel's voice came through the Den Den Mushi.
"And I bent the surrounding light to hide you."
Vivi's expression changed.
"If Kizaru had focused on this direction, he would have noticed."
"His perception is too sharp."
"But because you actually jumped, his attention stayed on me."
Axel paused.
"Now listen."
Vivi became serious.
"Wapol is beside the rock directly above you."
Her eyes moved upward.
"I'll carry you over slowly with the wind."
"At the same time, I'll distract Sentomaru."
"When you reach Wapol, take him with you."
Vivi immediately frowned.
"Why do we have to save him?"
She had never liked Wapol.
His behavior toward his own people was enough reason.
Their encounter at the World Conference had not improved her opinion either.
Axel answered simply.
"He's useful."
Vivi closed her eyes briefly.
Then sighed.
"Fine."
The wind began carrying them sideways.
Slowly.
Carefully.
At the center of the battlefield, Axel divided part of his attention to maintain it.
That tiny distraction cost him immediately.
Slash!
Ama no Murakumo cut across his body.
Another wound opened.
Kizaru's lips curved slightly.
"Your ability really is troublesome."
He watched Axel closely.
"Even now, you're still maintaining several things at once."
Kizaru raised the light blade again.
"Every time I attack, I have to put in enough force to break through your defense."
His gaze moved across Axel's blood-covered body.
"But you're reaching your limit."
Axel said nothing.
Kizaru continued,
"What happened to that technique from three years ago?"
"The one that actually injured me?"
His tone became almost nostalgic.
"Thanks to that, I spent quite a while recovering."
Axel looked up.
A faint smile appeared.
"Not yet."
Kizaru swung.
"When, then?"
Axel did not dodge.
Kizaru's eyes changed.
Ama no Murakumo struck directly into Axel's shoulder.
Slash!
The blade cut several centimeters deep and lodged in his flesh.
Axel grunted.
Kizaru immediately sensed something wrong.
Why take that hit?
A violent force rushed back through the light blade.
Kizaru reacted instantly.
His body dispersed into light before the returning impact could fully reach him.
But Axel had not taken the strike merely to reflect it.
He had freed Calculation Power elsewhere.
His hand turned.
"Fatty."
Sentomaru looked over.
"Catch."
Axel released the stored force.
Boom!
A compressed shockwave crossed the battlefield and struck Sentomaru directly.
His eyes widened.
The huge man was launched away.
His body bounced across the broken terrain and slammed repeatedly into protruding rocks.
"That's our chance!"
Vivi moved immediately.
The wind carried her, Chopper, and Karoo toward Wapol.
They grabbed the former king.
"What are you doing?!"
"No time!"
Then all four dropped toward the fracture.
The wind caught them again before they reached the water.
Kizaru noticed.
His eyes shifted.
He started to move.
Axel stepped in front of him.
But this time, something was different.
Kizaru stopped.
Axel raised his head.
"Now."
Kizaru narrowed his eyes.
Axel smiled through the blood.
"Now is the time."
Jonathan, standing farther away, suddenly stared.
"What... is that?"
Something spread from Axel's back.
At first, Jonathan thought it was wind.
Then he realized that made no sense.
Wind did not have color.
This did.
Jet-black currents gathered behind Axel.
Dense.
Violent.
Biting.
They wrapped over his shoulders and stretched outward like enormous wings.
Black Wings.
Jonathan had once dismissed certain rumors about Axel as exaggeration.
Stories describing something like the tolling of a bell that announced death.
Looking at him now, Jonathan was no longer so certain.
Sentomaru had just forced himself back onto his feet.
He charged again.
The Black Wings moved.
One sweep.
Boom!
Sentomaru vanished from where he stood.
He was hurled across the fractured rock from one side to the other.
His body smashed into the cliff wall.
Blood spread across him as he collapsed.
Kizaru fared better.
Barely.
The black currents crashed around him.
His body repeatedly broke into light, reforming only to be struck and compressed again.
He was forced higher.
And higher.
Unable to counterattack.
Jonathan could only watch from a distance.
There was simply nothing he could do.
Axel finally created enough space.
The wind surrounding Vivi and the others surged toward him.
A moment later, Axel joined them.
Together, they descended toward the sea.
Then the ocean erupted.
A towering vortex rose from the surface.
Wind and seawater spiraled together into a massive tornado that swallowed Axel, Vivi, Chopper, Karoo, and Wapol.
A deep roar followed from beneath the waves.
Big Shark.
The sound shook what remained of Navarone Fortress.
And within the raging sea tornado, Axel and the others disappeared.
....
https://discord.gg/KvMN2CFsMR
[If you don't want to wait for the next update, read 50 chapters ahead on P@treon.]
[[email protected]/FanficLord03].