In that split second of Borsalino's shock, Sengoku's fist, clad in a powerful shroud of Armament Haki, swung toward Imu with the force of a falling mountain.
Because he was too close to Diarmuid and the others, he refrained from activating his Buddha form to avoid accidentally crushing his own allies. However, even without the power of his Mythical Zoan, Sengoku's raw strength was staggering. This strike carried enough momentum to level a fortress.
Imu, however, seemed exceptionally adept at fighting multiple opponents. Perhaps in her centuries of life, she had faced such scenarios countless times, battling the top-tier powerhouses of every era.
As Sengoku's punch whistled through the air, Imu's waist bent back with incredible flexibility. Her hands slapped onto the floor, and her ten fingers dug deep into the heavy stone tiles like claws, carving out deep grooves.
Using that grip as a fulcrum, her supple core snapped upward. Her hands remained anchored to the floor as she threw her legs into the air, not only dodging Sengoku's punch but also wrapping her long, agile legs around his overextended arm like a constricting serpent.
"Fish-Man Jujutsu: Hime-jime (Princess Constriction)," Imu said softly, her tone remains as calm as a placid lake.
Yet her actions were savage. With a surge of strength that crushed the floor tiles beneath her hands, she launched herself into a spin. This mid-air rotation used her legs as a lever against Sengoku's arm. The sudden, violent torque twisted Sengoku's entire body, slamming the Fleet Admiral face-first into the ground. The impact shattered the heavy masonry, spider-webbing the floor for meters.
"Got you..." Tsuru didn't pause to worry about her old comrade and rumored former flame, Sengoku. Instead, she seized the opening as Imu descended from the air, grabbing Imu's arm firmly.
The power of the Wash-Wash Fruit activated instantly.
Tsuru's ability might seem unremarkable at first glance, but it belonged to the same tier of "concept-based" Paramecia as the Hobby-Hobby Fruit or the Love-Love Fruit. Once certain conditions were met, the power ignored the target's raw strength.
The Hobby-Hobby Fruit required a mere touch. The Love-Love Fruit required a hint of attraction. The Wash-Wash Fruit, however, judged the heart upon contact. If the target harbored any "evil" or "malice," they were deemed "filthy" and were instantly "washed and hung to dry" like a piece of laundry, losing all will to fight for a duration.
Tsuru had neutralized countless wicked pirates with this technique. It was a power perfectly suited for a Marine. In the original story, Doflamingo, a man rotten to the core, feared Tsuru more than anyone else in the Navy because her power was his natural counter. The moment he heard her name, he would turn tail and run.
But the moment Tsuru grabbed Imu and unleashed her power, her expression shifted from focus to sheer shock, even horror.
The ability failed. Imu wasn't "washed."
It wasn't that the power was blocked; it was that the "judgment" had already occurred, and the result was that Imu harbored no malice. She was judged as righteous and pure?
What kind of joke is this?
This woman was a tyrant ruling from the shadows, the ultimate mastermind behind the world's suffering. And the fruit judged her as pure of heart?
Before Tsuru could process the shock, Imu counter-locked Tsuru's arm and swung her outward, tossing the Chief of Staff across the room.
After finishing the sequence, Imu elegantly brushed back her pale-gold hair, a hint of a smile in her eyes. "A fascinating ability. It truly has been a long time since I encountered it. The last user with your power... I believe it was over three hundred years ago."
Imu had seen the Wash-Wash Fruit before!
In fact, she had likely seen the powers of everyone in this room. Even Diarmuid's gravity or the Dark-Dark Fruit, she probably understood them better than the users themselves. Devil Fruit powers, while diverse, tended to follow patterns across generations. If one wasn't a fool, possessing such strong powers inevitably led to fame, making them easy for a long-lived ruler to catalog.
"You've even deceived yourself?" Tsuru asked as she scrambled to her feet, her voice trembling with disbelief.
Even someone as evil as Doflamingo would be affected because most people possess a sense of "repentance," a subconscious acknowledgment that their cruelty is "wrong."
But Tsuru realized the terrifying reality of Imu. The Wash-Wash Fruit is a conceptual ability tied to the heart. Its failure meant that Imu, from start to finish, truly believed she had never committed a single wrong. She believed she was the absolute embodiment of "right."
What kind of indomitable psychological fortitude did it take to maintain such a worldview?
"Deceived? How so?" Imu seemed dissatisfied with Tsuru's choice of words. She paused, then added with profound sincerity: "To borrow a phrase from a certain someone: 'My heart and actions are as clear as a mirror, and everything I do is justice.' The concepts of good and evil are merely human constructs. Do you think I, Imulia, would allow myself to be judged by the standards of the common rabble? Only I may judge my own morality. And in my eyes, throughout my entire life, I have committed no error!"
Diarmuid: "???"
Why does that sound so familiar?
"My heart and actions are as clear as a mirror, and everything I do is justice..."
Wait, wasn't that what I used to fool Jinbe back in the day?
The "certain someone" is me?!
How does she even know that line?
At the same time, Diarmuid was shaken by her mental strength. What kind of person could be so singular, so utterly dismissive of societal norms, and so steadfast in their own will? In that moment, he felt an aura of "I am the only one worthy of honor" radiating from her.
I, Imulia, am the only truth in this world!
As a transmigrator, Diarmuid rarely felt awe toward anyone, but in this moment, he truly felt a sense of reverence for Imu. Not for her position, but for her character, her resolve, and her sheer magnitude of being.
Up until now, everyone, including the disheveled Sengoku and Sakazuki, had only been testing the waters. So had Imu. No one had gone all-out yet.
But the gap was already clear. She was powerful. Overwhelmingly powerful.
Her absolute confidence, her lack of hesitation even when facing a group of the world's strongest fighters... it was a pressure that surpassed even what Diarmuid had felt meeting Whitebeard in his prime at St. Poplar.
She was truly peerless!
"To be unable to even recognize your own evil... that is what makes you truly dangerous," Kuzan barked. "One day, you might destroy the world simply because you believe it is the 'right' thing to do!"
As he spoke, a wave of freezing air surged toward Imu.
"Is that so? If I deem it correct, then destroying the world is indeed the natural course of action," Imu responded calmly.
She didn't dodge the encroaching frost. Instead, she dropped into a defensive stance. The posture looked familiar to Diarmuid, but he couldn't quite place it for a second… until it clicked.
"Fish-Man Karate!" Diarmuid blurted out.
"Fish-Man Karate: Arabesque Brick Fist!" Imu intoned.
She threw a punch into the empty air. The 360-degree shockwave generated by the punch instantly shattered and dispersed Kuzan's freezing mist before it could touch her.
She wasn't done. She reached into the air and pulled her hand back. Though it looked like she grabbed nothing, a faint stream of water began to swirl in her palm.
Kuzan's eyes widened. With a single motion, she had condensed the moisture in the air into a physical mass? This was a level of Fish-Man Karate that only the highest masters could achieve.
"Fish-Man Karate Secret Technique: Vagabond Drill!"
The water in her hand condensed into a sphere, which she then thrust toward Kuzan.
"Ice Shield: Absolute Defense!" Kuzan stomped the ground, encasing himself in ice. He didn't just make a wall; he formed a perfectly spherical, crystal-clear orb of ice around himself.
A sphere was the superior defensive shape, reducing surface area and allowing force to be deflected or "slid" away rather than absorbed.
However, the Vagabond Drill was the ultimate secret technique of Fish-Man Karate. In the original story, Jinbe used it to hold his own against Big Mom. Imu's execution was flawlessly powerful.
The water orb slammed into Kuzan's ice sphere. For a moment, it seemed the frost would freeze the water solid, making the attack useless. But in the next heartbeat, the ice sphere exploded into tiny shards. Kuzan staggered back, looking disheveled and clearly outmatched.
His "Absolute Defense" had been shattered in one hit.
"Rend the flesh, sever the soul..."
Diarmuid finally spoke. Imu's gaze shifted toward him.
Kokorowatari was already unsheathed and held horizontally before him. Diarmuid ran his hand along the blade, his palm overflowing with the concentrated power of two Devil Fruits. A fusion of Darkness and Gravity!
"Abyssal Devourer!"
This version was stronger than ever, combining the crushing collapse of gravity with the inescapable attraction of the Dark-Dark Fruit.
Defying physics, Diarmuid used Soru and appeared instantly before Imu. Even though she was a beauty he admired, his strike was merciless, aimed at a clean, one-hit kill.
Imu smirked. Sensing the genuine threat of the Abyssal Devourer, she didn't try to block. Instead, she twisted her body like a spirit-snake, dodging the initial vertical slash.
Diarmuid didn't pause, immediately transitioning into a horizontal sweep intended to bisect her at the waist. But Imu was faster. Just as the blade was about to connect, she flipped backward into a "bridge" position, her height dipping just below the line of the slash.
Diarmuid's blade whistled through empty air. Imu pushed off the ground with her hands, performing a series of backflips to create distance. She landed right beside the throne that sat lonely at the back of the room.
With a swift motion, she reached behind the backrest and drew a sheathed blade of her own!