The air inside the subterranean throne room vibrated until the stone itself seemed to hum.
Loki ripped his greatsword free from the trench with one furious pull. Chunks of bedrock larger than human houses tore loose around the buried edge and crashed across the hall, each impact sending tremors through the roots of Yggdrasil.
To Loki, the throne room was merely a large chamber.
To Giovanni, it was an underground landscape.
The giant prince's boots rose like walls from the broken floor. His sword stretched across the cavern like a bridge of forged steel, while the shattered pillars and overturned furniture around him were large enough to crush entire human streets.
Giovanni hovered far above the rubble with Sky Walk, still so small against Loki's body that the prince could have concealed him behind two fingers.
"Keep flying, little bird!" Loki roared.
He swung his greatsword horizontally.
The blade swept through the hall with enough force to drag the air behind it. Three enormous stone pillars broke apart before the edge even reached Giovanni's position.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
The upper halves of the pillars tipped inward, bringing thousands of tonnes of stone down with them.
Giovanni kicked the air.
BANG!
His body shot upward at a sharp angle, passing beneath one collapsing arch and over another. He planted a foot against a falling slab, pushed off, and crossed the descending field of rubble in a blur.
He did not avoid the sword because he lacked the strength to contest it.
Giovanni could lift and throw weights that would overwhelm most giants. With Haki behind him, he could stop attacks far beyond ordinary human limits.
But meeting every swing directly would be wasteful.
Loki was giving him more useful openings than a contest of brute force ever would.
Giovanni vanished above the prince's shoulder.
Ace flashed from its sheath.
A narrow flying slash crossed the air behind Loki's head.
The extravagant cape fastened around the prince's shoulders separated into ribbons. A second flick of Giovanni's blade clipped the eastern point of Loki's crooked crown and sent the broken piece spinning into the darkness below.
Loki's eyes widened.
Then his face twisted with rage.
"Stop crawling around me!"
He turned with startling speed.
Despite his enormous size, Loki was not slow. His swordsmanship lacked patience and refinement, but the instincts beneath it were genuine. His body adjusted quickly, and his reach allowed him to threaten vast sections of the cavern with even the smallest movement.
His free hand swept toward Giovanni.
The palm alone was broad enough to flatten a carriage, and red-black Conqueror's Haki gathered around his knuckles in a crude, violent shell.
Giovanni saw the strike coming.
He could have evaded.
Instead, he wanted to measure it.
Ace rose across his body as Advanced Armament hardened both blade and arms.
Loki's fist struck.
KABOOM!
The collision drove a circular blast of wind through the chamber. Loose rubble became shrapnel, and the remaining pillars groaned beneath the sudden pressure.
Giovanni was launched backward.
He crossed fifty feet before planting both boots against the side of a standing column. The stone cracked beneath him, but he forced his body to stop rather than allowing the impact to carry him through it.
Pain spread through his wrists.
A thin line of blood appeared at the corner of his mouth.
Giovanni wiped it away with his thumb.
Loki's strike had not overwhelmed him completely. He had taken it without losing Ace or allowing his guard to collapse. But the prince's natural strength, colossal frame, and Conqueror's coating gave even an instinctive blow terrifying weight.
'He is not just some spoiled fool swinging a large sword.'
Giovanni looked across the cavern at the giant prince.
'His instincts are sharp. His body is absurd, and his Haki is already reaching places he does not understand.'
Loki's swordsmanship was gifted but undisciplined. He committed too much of himself to every insult, every swing, and every desire to prove dominance.
If he ever learned control, he would become a true nightmare.
Loki stood amid the destroyed throne room, his greatsword clutched in one hand. His chest rose and fell like a forge bellows as black sparks crawled across his shoulders.
"You stand there judging me as though you know anything," he spat. "You arrived on this island, swung your sword, and suddenly everyone listens."
Giovanni remained against the pillar, Ace held loosely before him.
Loki pointed the immense weapon toward him.
"They never listened to me."
His voice was still loud and hostile, but the anger beneath it had changed.
"Jarul. The council. My own blood. They looked at me and decided what I was before I could even hold a weapon."
His grip tightened.
"They called me a curse, so I gave them one. They expected destruction, so I made certain they could never ignore it."
The admission was not delivered as a plea for sympathy. Loki threw the words like accusations, daring Giovanni to mock him for allowing even that much truth to escape.
Giovanni understood more than he wanted to.
In his first life, violence had been a language he learned early. Reputation could become armor. If people already expected the worst from a delinquent, sometimes it felt easier to become worse than to prove them wrong.
Then he had died and awakened in a world where names, bloodlines, and inherited destinies could shape an entire life before a child spoke his first word.
He knew the temptation to let those expectations make every choice for him.
But understanding Loki's pain did not make the ruined village disappear.
Giovanni stepped away from the pillar and landed lightly on the broken floor.
"You think I cannot understand being judged before I chose who to become?"
Loki sneered down at him. "You are a nameless little pirate."
Giovanni almost laughed.
He was a reincarnated man carrying memories from another world, a hidden D. in his name, the son of a missing swordsman, and the wielder of Gol D. Roger's blade.
Loki knew nothing about him.
"You do not need to know my past to understand my answer," he said.
He lowered Ace slightly.
"Pain explains things. It explains the anger, the bitterness, and why destroying something can feel easier than asking anyone to care."
For one moment, Loki's expression shifted.
Giovanni did not soften the next words.
"But it does not excuse what you choose to do with it."
The prince's face hardened again.
"The children in that village did not reject you. The wounded in Gerd's clinic did not decide you were a curse. The animals you drove mad did not force a crown onto your head."
Giovanni's eyes sharpened.
"You wanted the council to feel your anger, so you made innocent people carry it for you."
Loki's fingers flexed around the hilt.
"They would never have listened otherwise."
"Then make them listen while standing in front of them."
Giovanni's voice remained level.
"Walk into Jarul's hall. Challenge the warriors who insult you. Break every throne in Elbaf with your own hands if that is the choice you are willing to own."
He pointed Ace toward the prince.
"But do not hide beneath the village, release beasts among children, and call it rebellion."
Loki's Conqueror's Haki flickered more violently.
"You know nothing!"
"I know that the moment you made innocent people pay for the cruelty done to you, you became another person spreading it."
"SHUT UP!"
Loki swung again.
The greatsword descended diagonally across the chamber, aimed less like a swordsman's cut than an attempt to erase Giovanni and everything around him.
Giovanni met it this time.
He kicked off the floor and drove upward with Sky Walk, Ace coated in dense Armament and Conqueror's Haki.
The two blades collided.
CLANG!
Giovanni appeared microscopic beneath the face of Loki's sword, but his human frame did not fold.
His arms held.
The force beneath his feet compressed the air into a violent platform, while his raw physical strength and Haki stopped the descending edge long enough for the entire cavern to shudder around them.
Loki's eyes widened.
Giovanni twisted Ace and knocked the sword aside.
The great blade struck the floor several yards away, opening another trench through the stone.
Giovanni landed on a broken arch above Loki's shoulder.
"You are strong," he said. "Stronger than most giants I have met."
Loki glared up at him.
"But strength does not make your choices noble."
Loki roared and tore his sword free again.
His attacks became faster.
Giovanni moved through three dimensions around the colossal prince, using Sky Walk to change height and direction between swings. Loki adjusted with every exchange, proving that his earlier failures were not caused by a lack of talent.
His greatsword changed course halfway through one strike, nearly catching Giovanni as he passed behind his shoulder.
Giovanni blocked the flat of the blade and was driven through a hanging stone walkway. He emerged from the debris before it finished falling, crossed Loki's forearm in three rapid steps, and struck the prince's wrist with the Ace.
Loki's fingers loosened for half a breath.
Loki answered with a Conqueror-coated backhand that Giovanni caught against both forearms. The collision drove him downward, but he rotated in the air and threw the enormous hand aside rather than allowing it to smash him into the ground.
The prince stared.
The human was tiny beside him.
He was not weak.
Giovanni landed on one knee and rose immediately.
Loki's attacks had power, instinct, and the beginnings of real swordsmanship. What they lacked was responsibility. Every missed swing destroyed another part of the hall, and Loki never once checked what lay beyond his target.
"You keep moving!" Loki shouted.
"Yes."
"You keep acting as though you are better than me!"
"Right now, I am."
The answer struck exactly where Giovanni intended.
Loki's Haki erupted.
Black and crimson lightning poured from his shoulders and wrapped around the greatsword. He lifted the weapon over his head with both hands, its enormous edge nearly touching the roots and stone arches above.
The entire cavern reacted.
Cracks spread across the ceiling. Dust began falling through the roots. Far beyond the throne room, frightened voices echoed from the occupied chambers of the Underworld.
Loki did not notice.
Or did not care.
"I will bury you beneath Elbaf!"
Giovanni's expression changed.
Future Sight opened.
For three seconds, he saw the result.
Loki's sword crashed down.
Giovanni answered with Conquest.
Their Haki collided beneath the roots of Yggdrasil. The force travelled upward, shattering support chambers, splitting the floor of the central village, and dropping stone through Gerd's clinic and the evacuation paths above.
Children disappeared beneath the collapse.
The vision ended.
Giovanni's blood went cold.
'Idiot.'
He could stop Loki's blade through direct strength, but the resulting shockwave would still spread through the occupied cavern. Redirecting a strike carrying that much unstable Haki would send it into another section of the Underworld.
He needed to break the attack completely.
Giovanni lowered Ace beside his hip.
Armament and Conqueror's Haki flowed down the blade, compressing along its edge. The surrounding light seemed to narrow toward the weapon as the opening stance of Conquest formed.
The pressure gathering around Giovanni was nothing like Loki's wild storm.
It was silent.
Focused.
Lethal.
Two sovereign wills gathered beneath the village.
Loki began his swing.
Giovanni watched the sword descend and calculated the single point where Conquest could tear through its Haki before the impact reached the ceiling.
Then a heavy foot struck the floor between them.
THUD.
Ida stepped directly into the path of both blades.
The Great Ladle rested against her shoulder.
Her eyes moved from the colossal sword descending from above to the tiny human preparing to meet it from below.
"Enough."
---
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