One Piece : Kenpachi Template Chapter 106 106

Rain Dinners had always been Crocodile's favorite kind of battlefield.

It wasn't the casino floors above, where fools laughed beneath golden lamps as they lost their money.

It wasn't the artificial lakes outside, where banana gators floated lazily for the amusent of wealthy gamblers.

It was here.

The buried rooms beneath the pyramid.

For years, Crocodile had used rooms exactly like this to inch Alabasta toward its doom.

But now, the room had changed.

The polished table was cracked.

Mr. 3's spilled tea soaked into the carpet, while a recording Den Den Mushi blinked from beneath an overturned cup.

Zoro stood near the freshly carved breach in the wall with his hand resting on Wado Ichimonji, while Mr. 1's arms glead with the tallic sheen of blades forming beneath his skin.

Robin sat perfectly still, though the calm in her eyes had deepened into sharp caution.

Mr. 3 retreated several steps, wax already pooling around his trembling fingers.

Crocodile remained seated at the head of the table. The only thing that moved was the cigar he slowly placed down.

That small action alone made the room feel glacial.

For a long mont, neither side moved. Crocodile looked at the Den Den Mushi, then at Zaraki, and finally at the broken wall Zoro had carved open.

Smoke curled lazily from the abandoned cigar beside his golden hook.

"A trap using the Heavenly Tribute as bait," Crocodile murmured. "A recording Den Den Mushi hidden in my own conference room. A swordsman sent to separate Mr. 1. The princess hidden sowhere outside the city as a witness."

His smile returned—thin, cold, and imnsely dangerous.

"Not bad. For a Marine who looks like he only knows how to swing a sword, you do have so brain."

Zaraki tilted his head. "That was mostly Nami and Carina."

Crocodile's smile paused.

"I just wanted a reason to cut you," Zaraki added honestly.

Sohow, that answer irritated the Warlord more than any clever insult.

Crocodile despised reckless n.

It wasn't because they were strong—strength could be asured. It wasn't because they were brave—bravery could be manipulated.

A greedy man could be bought, a coward threatened, a righteous man trapped by his own morality, and a scher lured into a better trap.

But a battle maniac who understood the rules just enough to use them as a stepping stone toward violence?

That kind of person was deeply troubleso.

"Do you think this is enough to bring down?" Crocodile asked, his voice returning to a smooth calm. "You have a recording of a vague conversation. You have stolen cargo that my subordinates retrieved from a battlefield. You have circumstantial suspicion and the testimony of a princess whose country is already collapsing."

He spread his hands slightly. "Even if you send all of that to Marineford, the World Governnt will hesitate. I am one of the Seven Warlords. I am useful. Alabasta is unstable. Useful n are not discarded over a child's gamble."

Zaraki listened quietly. Then, he laughed.

"You talk a lot."

Crocodile's eyes narrowed.

Zaraki drew Murasa half an inch from its sheath. "Are you trying to convince , or yourself?"

The room tightened around those words.

Crocodile's fingers tapped his armrest once.

The table between him and Zaraki began to dry. The polished wood cracked and splintered. Wine evaporated from glasses in an instant.

The flowers in a decorative vase shriveled into brittle scraps and turned to dust.

"Brat," Crocodile said softly, "you may have fought a few strong people and survived. You may have Garp and Sengoku standing behind you. You may even have enough strength to make arrogant Marines look at you with hope."

His body began to loosen, trailing sand into the air.

"But this is my desert."

The words had barely fallen when the floor erupted.

Sand burst upward like a buried storm breaking free, shattering the round table and overturning the heavy chairs.

Lamps cracked and burst.

The recording Den Den Mushi was nearly swallowed by the surge, but a cluster of pale hands suddenly blood from the wall and pulled it out of danger.

Robin.

Her expression didn't change, but the movent didn't escape anyone.

Crocodile and Zaraki noticed but neither spoke, because in that exact sa instant, Mr. 1 moved.

His body beca a mass of blades as he crossed the room—not toward Zaraki, but toward the Den Den Mushi.

Zoro intercepted him.

Clang!

Steel struck steel with a violent scream that tore through the underground chamber.

Sparks rained across the sand-filled air. Zoro slid back half a step, his eyes widening not in fear, but in pure recognition.

He grinned. "Good."

Mr. 1's expression remained flat. "You are not my target."

"You are now."

The second clash exploded imdiately.

Zoro and Mr. 1 crashed through the breached wall and into the corridor beyond, pitting blade against blade and killing intent against killing intent.

The sound of their collisions rapidly moved away through the lower passages, leaving bright sparks and torn stone in their wake.

Mr. 3's eyes darted toward another exit.

A gunshot cracked from the darkness. A bullet struck the floor exactly an inch from his foot.

"Don't move, candle man," Carina's voice drifted through a ventilation opening, light but lethal. "I'm not as nice as my boss."

A second later, several weather bubbles rolled across the corridor entrance.

"And if you turn this place into wax, I'm charging you for every lted floor tile," Nami added, sounding incredibly annoyed.

Zaraki's eyebrow twitched. "They're noisy."

Crocodile's sand gathered back into a human shape, his golden hook gleaming through the dust storm.

"You brought children into my casino?"

"They followed ."

"That makes you incompetent."

"That makes them annoying."

For one brief mont, even Crocodile seed unsure how to respond to that sheer level of audacity.

Then, his expression turned completely cold.

"Enough." Crocodile raised his right hand. "Desert Spada."

A blade of compressed sand tore across the room.

It carved through the broken table, split the stone floor, and rushed toward Zaraki with enough force to cleave the chamber in two.

Zaraki didn't dodge. His eyes brightened as Armant Haki crawled over his hand, dark-gold Reiatsu pressing around Murasa like smoke forced into iron.

The black blade ca out, eting the sand blade head-on.

Boom!

The collision shook the entire underground floor.

Cracks raced across the ceiling, raining dust.

Sowhere above, gamblers scread, convinced an earthquake had struck the casino.

Zaraki's boots carved two deep trenches into the floor, but Crocodile's sand blade burst apart into countless grains, scattering around the swordsman like golden mist.

The corner of Zaraki's mouth lifted. "Not bad."

Crocodile's pupils contracted.

That slash hadn't just blocked Desert Spada; it had scattered it.

Not with water, not with seastone, and not with so convenient natural weakness.

He had shattered it with brute force, Haki, and that strange dark pressure the reports had ntioned.

"You can touch Logia bodies?" Crocodile asked.

Zaraki rolled his shoulder. "I can cut things worth cutting."

"What arrogant nonsense."

"Then stop talking and prove wrong."

Sand surged wildly around Crocodile.

The entire room began to dry at a terrifying rate. Moisture vanished from the air, and deep cracks spread across the stone walls.

The sealed chamber, once damp and stale, transford into a miniature desert beneath Crocodile's absolute will.

Zaraki felt the dryness bite at his skin.

His old wounds—still scabbing from the battles in the sky and the clash with Akainu—stung fiercely beneath his bandages.

His burned hand tightened around Murasa's hilt, sending a pulse of pain up his arm.

Pain returned.... and so did excitent.

This was entirely different from Enel or Akainu.

Crocodile's danger didn't co from raw power alone; it ca from terrain manipulation, patience, calculation, and the cruelty of a man willing to let an entire country bleed slowly for his goal.

He was a predator hiding in the sand.

'Not bad.' Zaraki's grin widened until it looked feral.

Seeing that expression, irritation flared hot in Crocodile's chest.

The boy was enjoying this!

"Since you like smiling so much," Crocodile said coldly, "I'll dry that expression off your face."

His arm transford into a swirling mass of sand.

"Barchan."

A crescent-shaped blade of sand shot forward, twisting violently through the air.

At the exact sa ti, the floor beneath Zaraki's feet collapsed into loose, shifting sand, attempting to swallow his balance.

An attack from above and below simultaneously.

A normal swordsman would have lost his footing. A normal Marine would have panicked.

Zaraki stomped down.

Boom!

Dark-gold Reiatsu slamd into the ground like an invisible anvil, crushing the loose sand beneath his boots into a densely packed crater. He swung upward in the sa motion.

Murasa tore through the crescent sand blade, splitting it into two harmless streams that smashed into the walls behind him.

The room shook violently again.

Above them, Rain Dinners finally erupted into total panic.

"What's happening?!" "Earthquake!" "The lower floor is collapsing!" "Where are the guards?!"

The golden paradise built on Crocodile's deception trembled at its very roots.

Outside the casino, Vivi stood near the eastern route with her hood pulled low, listening to the dull rumble rising from beneath the city.

Her hands tightened around her cloak.

Vivi stared at the golden pyramid.

For years, Crocodile had stood before her people as a hero, a savior, and a protector against pirates.

Now, that golden monunt trembled like a coffin being broken open from the inside.

'Please,' she whispered.

She didn't know whether she was praying for Zaraki to win, for Crocodile to be exposed, or simply for Alabasta to survive the storm that had just begun.

...

Inside the buried conference room, the battle intensified.

Crocodile's sand filled the chamber. Zaraki's blade split it again and again.

The two figures vanished and reappeared through the dust, smoke, and shattered stone.

Each violent clash tore another deep wound into the underground body of the casino.

Crocodile's expression grew darker with every exchange, while Zaraki's smile only grew brighter.

Finally, the sand crocodile's patience snapped.

"You think forcing into close combat gives you an advantage?" Crocodile's voice dropped.

The sand swirling around him suddenly withdrew. It didn't scatter—it compressed.

The room grew frighteningly still.

Standing near the edge of the broken wall with the Den Den Mushi secured under one arm, Robin narrowed her eyes.

Crocodile raised his right hand. A small sandstorm began spinning in his palm. At first, it was no larger than a fist.

Then it grew, devouring dust, broken stone, wooden splinters, and every loose grain of sand in the ruined chamber. The air scread as the vortex violently expanded.

"Since you want evidence," Crocodile said, his eyes utterly cold. "Then be buried with it."

The sandstorm surged forward. "Sables."

Zaraki watched the approaching storm as Dark-gold pressure crawled upward around him like smoke rising from a battlefield.

The system panel flickered faintly at the corner of his vision.

[Opponent detected: Sir Crocodile.]

[Threat assessnt: Seven Warlords of the Sea.]

[Combat value: High.]

[Warning: Host has not fully recovered from previous injuries.]

Zaraki laughed. "Shut up."

His hand tightened around Murasa.

The black blade trembled—not from fear, but from raw hunger.

As the violent sandstorm rushed toward him, Zaraki stepped forward.

"Co on, crocodile." His grin turned utterly savage. "Let's see if your desert can swallow my blade."

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