"Ground Death!"
After casually scooping Buggy up, Crocodile had been waiting for his chance. Because of Bullet's ability, the island was blanketed in dust, which instead provided him with the perfect cover to conceal himself.
At the very moment Shanks launched his attack, he also sprang a surprise assault on Bullet.
He wanted to know what the One Piece was too. Unlike Luffy, who cared about the journey, Crocodile only cared about the result. With such a convenient Eternal Pose right there, why would he refuse it?
From beginning to end, Crocodile's eyes had been fixed on the Eternal Pose in Bullet's hand.
While dealing with Shanks, the Haki coating the giant outer shell of Bullet began concentrating toward his arms. That gave Crocodile his opening.
He immediately slapped a palm against Bullet's outer shell.
With the Haki focused on the arms, the enormous body instead became a target. The spot touched by Crocodile's hand began to decay and wither, quickly turning into sand and rust before scattering away.
The decayed materials broke free from the control of Bullet's Clank-Clank Fruit, causing gaps to appear in the giant mecha.
"Crocodile, you b*stard?!"
Bullet recognized him as well. The two had crossed paths in their youth and were familiar with each other's abilities. Crocodile's desertification wouldn't simply stop on its own.
So Bullet didn't try to keep controlling the portions affected by Crocodile's power. Instead, he abandoned them outright, tearing off a section of the body that hadn't yet been fully eroded and throwing it away.
If he didn't, even the intact parts would be influenced by Crocodile's ability. For now, Bullet had no intention of giving up this outer shell.
"Kuhahahaha! Your arrogance will be your downfall. Do you think this is still the same as before? In the twenty-odd years you spent in prison, the world has changed beyond recognition!"
Bullet's massive hand swept across, but it caught only a handful of yellow sand. The bulky form of Large Bullet appeared even more clumsy when facing a Logia user.
"You broke out by seizing an opportunity too. What do you have to be proud of?"
"Because I spent less time in there than you did."
The yellow sand reformed in midair. During his imprisonment, Bullet had tempered himself; Crocodile, on the other hand, had reflected on himself.
After painful self-examination, he began to truly face his own shortcomings. And thanks to Kaido's lineage, Yamato's kanabo strike seemed to have played a powerful lesson as well.
Having failed with his attack, Crocodile was about to look for another opportunity when an excited laughter rang out from the sky.
Kaido, transformed into an azure dragon, burst through the clouds, but there was no sign of Amazon Lily.
"Worororo! Got held up a bit, almost missed this good show! Blast Breath!"
Being big didn't necessarily mean being strong, but it certainly commanded attention. Compared to Bullet's awakened form, Shanks looked tiny. At least for now, Kaido's gaze had been drawn to this massive figure.
A searing breath tore through the air. Without even bothering to ask questions, Kaido greeted them in his own way.
Boom!
The giant's arm reached into the sky, splitting the flames in two with the Haki as the barrier. The shattered fire didn't extinguish; instead, it rained down across the island, adding an extra layer of terror to the island already rendered barren by battle.
"Kaido of the Beasts, huh? Heh… Perfect. You're exactly the stepping stone I need!"
Bullet read the newspapers too. The incident of Red Hair losing his arm hadn't been reported, so he couldn't find any information about that, but news about Kaido was everywhere, especially his feats during the Summit War.
Bullet remembered all too clearly the outcome of the clash between the Strongest Man and the Strongest Creature.
Roger and Whitebeard had once been old rivals. Now Kaido has surpassed Whitebeard. If he could kill Kaido, that would mean he was one step closer to surpassing Roger.
"A stepping stone? Worororo! Interesting, interesting. It's been a long time since I've met someone like you."
"Then this sea must be dreadfully boring. Let me greet you as well, Ultimate Fist!"
Blue Haki coiled around the giant's arm, compressing and solidifying. As Bullet hurled a punch toward Kaido in the sky, the Haki shot out like an artillery shell.
For reasons unknown, Kaido neither dodged nor blocked. Instead, he rammed straight into it headfirst.
Moments later, Kaido actually tumbled down to the ground, his massive body nearly crushing Olga beneath it.
"…"
Kaido's behavior was beyond Bullet's understanding. The giant's body came to a halt.
At the same time, Kaido, having crashed to the ground, staggered back to his feet, vigorously shaking his head.
"My head's spinning… That hit was pretty solid. Weird, why does shaking it make it even dizzier…"
"Governor-General Kaido, that's enough already!!"
Olga was still in her transformed state, her sense of smell heightened by her beast form. With just a slight sniff, she couldn't help but pinch her nose shut.
The sharp stench of alcohol assaulted her nostrils, stronger even than the smell of a hospital's sterilizing room.
"How much did you drink?! Can you sober up a bit?!"
"Huh? Olga? You're here too? Kuja's liquor tasted pretty good. I only drank about one storehouse… Wait, this place is so interesting, why didn't you notify me earlier?"
It was obvious Kaido hadn't sobered up yet. Although Bullet's punch had merely been a probing greeting, it was powerful enough to shatter a mountain peak. Only a monster like Kaido would dare take it head-on with his head.
Still in a drunken rambling state, Kaido even turned around and questioned Olga instead.
"I told you before I set out."
"No, you didn't."
"Lord Arceus was there at the time! Don't even think about making excuses here! It's useless! And besides, now's not the time for that. Where's Kuja? Weren't you moving the island?"
There wasn't much respect in Olga's tone, but Kaido didn't care. Aside from formal occasions, this was simply how the Beasts Pirates operated. As long as Kaido valued you, even calling him an idiot, ba*tard to his face wasn't a big deal.
Back when Olga was still an apprentice, she'd been the crew's darling for quite some time and had long since figured out Kaido's temperament.
With Arceus as the key witness, Kaido seemed to lose any chance of arguing his way out. However, as if suffering from sudden amnesia, he forgot everything he had just said.
"Kuja? Relax. I put it in safe waters before coming here. If it weren't for that island, I'd have arrived much earlier."
At the mention of this, Kaido perked up again, making Olga suspect he might be pretending to be drunk, using intoxication as an excuse to do outrageous things.
"Oh right, that snake empress asked me to pass you a message… what was it again…"
Kaido fell into thought, then smacked his head a couple of times before recalling it.
"I remember now. She said to tell you: 'Put the important part at the beginning next time.'"
During Kaido's drunken racing, Hancock had indeed seen the final sentence Olga had highlighted in red, but unfortunately, it had been too late.
"That's enough from you two!"
Kaido's muddled behavior had clearly begun to irritate Bullet. He had no interest in listening to their casual chatter.
The giant clenched its fists as Bullet controlled his Large Bullet and brought it smashing down.
"What's the rush, you b*stard? Do you know how difficult it is to find good liquor and drink your fill? Pulling something like this, you've sobered me up!"
Kaido was nothing if not temperamental. No one but himself could grasp what was going on in his head.
As his massive form began to shrink, the drunken dragon lying on the ground reverted to his Human-Beast form, swinging his kanabo upward.
Compared to Red Hair, Kaido is a true power-type fighter. A terrifying force surged from beneath his feet, and the giant controlled by Bullet found itself unable to lower its foot even a fraction, frozen stiff in midair.
"Feels a bit lacking… Olga, take your little lizard and get away from here. Don't interfere with my fight."
Kaido's eyes gradually cleared, his drunken state temporarily over, and then the first thing he did was order Olga to leave immediately so he could fight without restraint.
"The Kuja women are to the north. Mandrell and the others went there earlier. Wait for me there, I'll take you all back together later. Ikoku!"
As he spoke, Kaido's arm erupted with power. Bullet's extremely Haki-draining technique revealed its weakness once more. The giant body was simply too large; even if Haki was concentrated on one end of a limb, the sheer surface area caused it to disperse.
It was more than enough against ordinary opponents, but against top-tier fighters, it became a big flaw.
Shanks' Kamusari could blast a hole through his construct, and Kaido's kanabo could do the same.
A massive cavity was punched through the giant's foot, throwing its balance into disarray.
The Clank-Clank Fruit no longer suited the current Bullet. In the early days, it had defined his dominance on the battlefield, but now, its compatibility with his fighting style was steadily declining.
Even when developed to the level of Awakening, it was still the same. Although Bullet could fuse everything on an entire island into his own body, this ability was best suited for crushing weaker opponents. Only when facing enemies slightly inferior to himself could it display overwhelming effectiveness.
Against opponents of the same level, most of them had ways to deal with a giant monster like this.
And therein lay the problem: if they were weaker than him, Bullet could defeat them regardless of the method; if they were stronger, the fused components wouldn't make much difference.
Bullet himself had no interest in collecting high-tech weaponry. He fought purely with his fists and Haki. The Clank-Clank Fruit was merely an extension of his fists and Haki; he had never fused into massive cannons or similar weapons.
The end result of this was that in a peak-level fight, although he was a Devil Fruit user, he was practically no different from someone without an ability.
On large-scale battlefields, the Awakening of the Clank-Clank Fruit could play a decisive role. That terrifying war machine was far better suited for wide-area group combat. But in a 1v1, its boost was far less direct than Kaido's Fish-Fish Fruit, Azure Dragon form.
If the battlefield were changed—if Bullet fought somewhere like Egghead and fused Pacifistas or even the Mother Flame into himself—he might undergo an entirely new qualitative transformation.
But that had never been Bullet's fighting style. Not to mention that on this island, there was nothing but junk-tier materials.
After Kaido's strike, Bullet stopped controlling the mech fusion and dispelled the outer shell. The irrelevant bystanders had mostly been cleared away, and both Red Hair and Kaido had already proven through action that this move was ineffective.
Since it couldn't produce the intended results, Bullet naturally had no reason to waste stamina and Haki on it.
The giant dispersed. The catapult-like structure encasing his body was abandoned as well, leaving only his own figure wrapped in differently colored Haki.
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