Chapter 128: Mr. Itachi
The Ruins — Dressrosa
The laughter echoed through the shattered streets long after Doflamingo had risen from the rubble. It was not the manic cackle of a man who had lost his mind—it was something colder. Sharper. The laugh of a man who had stared into the abyss of his own past and emerged not broken, but clarified.
"What are memories?" Doflamingo dusted debris from his pink coat with an almost casual flick of his wrist. "What is a tragic past?"
He was already rising into the air, his strings carrying him skyward.
"I am the king of the underworld! The man who stands here and will become the Pirate King!"
The Super-Strike Twisting Whip lashed out—a dozen strings braided into a single devastating lash. Itachi's Armament-coated arms crossed before him, the blow crashing against his guard with enough force to crater the ground beneath his feet. But he did not fall.
"You are strong," Itachi said.
"Fuffuffu." Doflamingo's grin flickered. "In what regard?"
A wooden crossbar erupted from Itachi's palm, extending with the speed of a striking serpent. Doflamingo released his whip and hurled himself backward, the bar missing his chest by inches. He landed beside Fujitora with the easy grace of a predator who had never truly been cornered.
"I told you before—my experiences are unmatched by anyone in this world."
The smile drained from Doflamingo's face. What remained was something rarely seen on the Warlord's features: absolute, unadorned seriousness.
"I heard what you said earlier. You've decided to help me now." He turned to Fujitora. "That's good. Because..."
A pause. The words came out like broken glass.
"I am no match for this man."
Fujitora's blind eyes widened. "Tenyasha? You would admit such a thing?"
"Fuffuffu. That's a sentence you've never heard before, isn't it?" Doflamingo was already ascending, his strings pulling him toward the distant palace. Something in his bearing had changed—a desperation masked as determination, a sense that the road ahead was narrowing to a single point.
"Fujitora. I'm leaving this one to you."
He turned toward the palace.
"I'm going to kill this man's crewmates."
"Luffy."
This time, it was Itachi who smiled. Just slightly. Just enough.
"Though I have been his crewmate for the shortest time among them all... I am certain of one thing." His crimson eyes tracked Doflamingo's retreating form. "The one who will lose in the end is you."
"Then let's see whose faith is stronger!" Doflamingo's voice carried back across the ruins, stripped of laughter, stripped of mockery, stripped of everything but raw conviction.
Then he was gone.
Fujitora faced Itachi across the devastated plaza. The Admiral's staff-sword was still drawn, its blade gleaming in the light of the burning Birdcage above. His scarred face was troubled.
"Mr. Itachi. What did you do to him just now?"
"I saw his past."
"His past?"
"Yes." Itachi's gaze remained fixed on the direction Doflamingo had fled. "What shocked me was not the horror of what he endured—though that was considerable. What shocked me was the terrifying spiritual strength he forged from that suffering."
He paused.
"That man endured the full seventy-two hours of Tsukuyomi. Every second of it. And he is still standing. Still fighting. Still certain of his victory."
Fujitora's grip tightened on his sword. "Then our plan—"
"Ah. The plan." Itachi's Mangekyō Sharingan turned toward the Admiral. "In my case, the plan has changed."
"What?"
"Follow Doflamingo if you wish. In the end, my crewmates will defeat him." A pause. "Have you gathered all the evidence of his crimes?"
"The old man has completed the documentation, but—"
"Then there is nothing left to discuss, Fujitora." Itachi's voice had gone cold. "Your opponent is me."
"What is the meaning of this, Mr. Itachi? According to our arrangement, we were going to—"
"The arrangement is void." Itachi's lips curved into something that was not quite a smile. "Did you truly believe that pirates could join hands with the Navy?"
The Wind-Forest Fire lashed out. Fujitora's staff-sword rose to meet it, steel crashing against steel.
"Mr. Itachi! What do you intend by—"
"Haven't you learned by now?" Blood welled from Itachi's right eye, the Mangekyō pattern spinning faster. "Pirates are liars. Every word is deception."
Amaterasu ignited.
Fujitora's gravity conversion and Soru carried him clear of the black flames by a hair's breadth. The fire consumed the space where he had been standing, clinging to rubble and stone with hungry persistence.
"Mr. Itachi! I believe there are matters we should—"
Susanoo erupted around Itachi in full skeletal form. The armored fist, coated in Haki, descended toward Fujitora with the force of a falling mountain. The Admiral raised his blade to block—
BOOM.
The impact launched Fujitora backward through the air. He crashed through a crumbling wall, through a second, and into the ruins of what had once been a merchant's shop. Stone and timber collapsed around him.
"Admiral Smile! He's been blown away by a pirate!"
"Damn it! Support the Admiral!"
The Marines who had just arrived on the scene raised their rifles, hammers cocking back, muzzles trained on Itachi's Susanoo-encased form—
"NO ONE INTERVENES!"
Fujitora's roar rose from the rubble. He emerged slowly, dust cascading from his battered uniform. His blind eyes were fixed somewhere beyond sight, beyond pain, beyond everything but the man standing opposite him.
"But sir—Admiral Smile—!"
"Your mission is to evacuate and protect the civilians. Nothing else."
"But—"
"GO!!"
The word carried the full weight of an Admiral's authority. The Marines scrambled to obey, retreating through the broken streets with the desperate urgency of men who had just been given permission to avoid a battle that would certainly kill them.
Fujitora raised his sword once more.
He could feel the killing intent radiating from Itachi—pure, focused, utterly sincere. This was not a feint. This was not a deception layered within deception. Whatever Itachi intended, he intended it with the full force of his being.
"Mr. Itachi. You are many things... but you are not a liar."
"What thoughts are you hiding behind that mask?"
Fujitora's Haki erupted. He launched himself forward, staff-sword extended, and crashed directly against the Susanoo's armored form. The impact sent a shockwave rippling through the surrounding ruins. Buildings that had already been shattered collapsed further. The very ground beneath them cracked and split.
The two figures separated, sliding backward across the rubble.
And then Itachi's Susanoo shifted.
The skeletal form filled out. Muscle and sinew of living chakra wove themselves across the bones. Armor plates materialized—ancient, ornate, the raiment of a warrior tengu. In one hand, the Totsuka Blade gleamed with otherworldly light. In the other, the Yata Mirror reflected the burning sky.
The Warrior Tengu. Full form.
Itachi raised the Totsuka Blade and brought it down in a strike that could have split mountains.
"MR. ITACHI!"
Fujitora's counter-slash met the blow head-on. But Itachi's target was not the Admiral. The blade's arc carried past Fujitora entirely and crashed against the eastern wall of the Birdcage—the section already weakened by Amaterasu's unquenchable flames.
BOOM.
The eastern Birdcage shattered. Threads that had been unbreakable, that had resisted even Fujitora's gravity blades, dissolved under the combined assault of Amaterasu and the Totsuka Blade's sealing power. A gap opened in the dome—not large, but enough.
"MR. ITACHI!!"
Fujitora understood. Too late.
The Fierce Tiger—his signature technique, a wave of compressed gravity shaped into an overwhelming blade of force—was already leaving his sword. It was an attack of pure instinct, launched before conscious thought could intervene.
Itachi did not dodge.
He raised the Totsuka Blade and met the Fierce Tiger with a slash of his own—not blocking, but redirecting. The gravitational wave bent, twisted, and continued past him at an altered angle. It struck the western wall of the Birdcage with cataclysmic force.
BOOOOOOM.
The western Birdcage shattered.
Two gaps. East and west. The cage that had been designed to trap an entire nation now had two exits.
"Mr. Itachi!" Fujitora's voice cracked. "What in the world are you—!"
"Do not ask any more questions, Fujitora."
Itachi's voice emerged from within the Tengu armor. Calm. Final.
"I will tell you one last time."
He raised the Totsuka Blade high.
"Fight me with everything you have."
And the Warrior Tengu charged.
(End of Chapter)
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