"You bastard, you actually sucker-punched me!"
Clutching his left side, blood seeping through his fingers, Gutte's face had gone pale. He glared at Aeridar with venomous hatred.
Just moments earlier, Borsalino's blade, moving at the speed of light and charged with a blinding laser, had nearly ripped him open. Even his Armament Haki hadn't been able to stop the blow.
"Oi oi oi, are you stupid or something?" Aeridar sneered, spreading his hands in mock innocence. "You're not some rookie fresh off the boat. Calling it a sneak attack, what are you, a comedian now? Hahaha... We're pirates, remember?"
Pirates weren't knights or noblemen. They were criminals. Robbery, murder—those were just part of the job. You kill me today, I kill you tomorrow. Getting ambushed? That's just bad luck. Out here on the Grand Line, if you die, you die. No one gives a damn how it happened. The only thing that matters is winning.
"Dog eat dog... What a scary little man," Borsalino muttered under his breath, casting a sidelong glance at Aeridar.
"You damn monkey! You think I didn't hear that?!"
They were standing so close that Observation Haki practically made whispering pointless. Aeridar's face darkened as he bared his teeth in a furious snarl.
"Ehh~? Did I say something?" Borsalino replied innocently, as if he hadn't just insulted his temporary ally.
"...Hehe..." Gutte chuckled coldly, leaning on his sword as he stood back up, his expression twisted in a cruel grin. "Even if I die here today, I'm taking a piece of you with me, Aeridar."
He understood the reality clearly. Standing against a Marine Admiral, one of the Navy's ultimate forces, and a Warlord officially recognized by the World Government, he didn't stand a chance. What's worse, he was under direct extermination orders from the World Government. There was no escape. His only option now was to go out swinging.
Aeridar flipped back his coat, revealing a torso crisscrossed with savage scars. He grinned.
"Shit, man... if you've got what it takes, then bring it."
"Old friend," Gutte said, tapping his blade with a finger. The Black Demon Sword let out a low, metallic hum. "This might be our final fight."
"How terrifying~" Borsalino said with mock dread, gripping his Ama no Murakumo sword as he suddenly flickered forward, his blade slashing straight at Gutte's head.
Gutte parried the attack in the nick of time, then reversed his grip and lunged, driving his blade toward Borsalino's chest. But a hole opened up in the Admiral's torso a split-second before contact, his body scattering into photons as he blinked away.
Using the flare of light as cover, Aeridar launched in from the side, slamming his fist down onto Gutte's blade.
The force rattled the sword violently, almost wrenching it from Gutte's grip.
But Gutte was quick. In one fluid motion, he whipped out a flintlock pistol from his coat and fired at Aeridar's head.
A flash of muzzle fire lit up the space between them.
A blur of movement, Aeridar raised his palm to block, absorbing the full impact. He staggered three steps back, his heels gouging deep imprints into the earth before he came to a halt.
A gleaming blue bullet fell from his palm. Aeridar scowled. "A bullet made entirely of Seastone... and coated in Haki. How sneaky."
But it was useless against him.
First, the bullet had struck the metal gauntlet on his hand—Seastone had no effect on metal. Second, the Haki laced into the bullet had been canceled out by the Haki hardening on his gauntlet. As for the impact itself? For someone who'd eaten the Impact-Impact Fruit, it was nothing.
"At point-blank range, and it still did nothing?!" Gutte was shocked. Seastone bullets coated in Haki could punch through steel hulls, hell, even warship-grade steel armor wouldn't survive that shot. Yet the man in front of him had merely been pushed back.
"I'm a Paramecia-type, you idiot. Impact-Impact Fruit user. Bullets don't mean squat to me. You should aim that thing at the monkey over there."
He flicked the Seastone bullet aside with his boot and sneered.
"Now now, no need to be so harsh~," Borsalino chimed in, appearing behind Gutte in a burst of golden light. "We're on the same team, remember?"
Gutte spun and blocked just in time, his sword meeting Borsalino's glowing blade. A blast of pressure erupted from the clash, ripping outward in a shockwave.
He'd already taken hits from Borsalino earlier. No way was he letting his guard down again.
At the same moment, Gutte's guard dropped for just a breath—Aeridar darted in, driving his fist straight toward his chest.
Two quick shots rang out. Without turning, Gutte fired backward, each shot aimed precisely at Aeridar's head. So fast, even Aeridar had trouble dodging.
He clapped both hands together, swatting the bullets aside like flies. Still, the attack stalled his advance.
Aeridar raised an eyebrow and smirked. "What's this, gun-fu?"
CLANG. CLANG. CLANG. CLANG...
No one answered. Gutte and Borsalino were already locked in another fierce exchange, their black and golden blades colliding again and again, sparks flashing in the air.
With a powerful strike, Gutte knocked Borsalino back.
Borsalino instantly turned to light, reappearing high above, arm outstretched and finger pointed downward. At his fingertip, photons converged into a concentrated orb of golden light.
A searing laser shot downward.
An earth-shaking explosion erupted. Fire blazed, debris rained, and the ground below was obliterated in a crater ten meters wide.
Just as Gutte landed, sword up to block, Aeridar burst into view again, smashing another punch into the Black Demon Sword.
The impact shuddered up Gutte's arm, and even his stance faltered.
In the next instant, Aeridar vanished again.
He reappeared crouched directly in front of Gutte, fists raised, one atop the other, palms facing inward, pressed against Gutte's chest.
Impact Fist Secret Art: Divine Spiral!!!
Gutte's pupils shrank in a flash—the overwhelming sensation of danger surged through his body like a tidal wave. His Observation Haki screamed out with frenzied alarms. Reflexively, he coated half his torso in a jet-black sheen of Armament Haki.
At that same moment, Aeridar's twin fists trembled, and with a thunderous roar, a colossal burst of raw power exploded from within. Gutte's chest, fortified with Armament Haki, caved inward at the exact point where Aeridar's fists had landed, the force so devastating it felt as though the very air around them had detonated.
The impact hurled Gutte high into the sky like a cannonball. His body turned into a dark blur as he was launched backward, so fast he left behind a trail of white sonic rings, three concentric shockwaves bursting in his wake.
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