String-String Fruit Awakening

"Marine! Let the young master go!!"

Gladius's arms suddenly swelled, and the stone slabs beneath his feet bulged along with them, as if inflated.

"Explode—!"

Crack!

An Air Door as thin as a blade sliced across him, severing both his swollen arms at the shoulders.

"Aaagh!"

Before his scream died away, a second door opened beneath his feet.

He and the ground about to explode were sent to a distant, barren mountain in an instant.

Boom!

A cloud of fire erupted over the mountaintop. Ron didn't even blink.

"Behehe! Don't get cocky!"

Trebol flung out a vast mass of mucus, trying to pin Ron and his sword in place.

Ron flicked a finger.

Crack!

The mucus plunged into a Spatial Door and, the next second, poured straight down on Trebol's head!

"Behehe?! What the hell?!"

The mucus obscured his vision, and Trebol hurriedly tried to draw it back.

But Ron gave him no chance.

A second door had already opened beneath his feet!

Bang!

Trebol fell headfirst into the distant rubble, half his body buried beneath broken stone!

The ground suddenly rose.

"I'll crush you!"

Pica attacked from both sides through the rock, and two stone walls slammed together.

Ron finally drew Zhenyuan.

Clang!

The blade moved only half an inch, and a black line of force swept silently past!

Both stone walls broke apart at once!

Pica had barely emerged halfway from the rock when an Air Door suddenly opened behind him!

Bang!

Zhenyuan, coated in Armament Haki, swept out of the door and slammed into his back!

His eyes rolled up, and he spat a great mouthful of blood. He crashed straight into a snowdrift, sending up a cloud of snow.

"Art—!"

Jora had just raised her hands when a Spatial Door suddenly opened beneath her feet!

"Aaagh—!"

Splash!

She fell straight into the distant shallows.

With half her body submerged in seawater, she immediately went limp, without even the strength to climb out.

"H-help!"

In the blink of an eye, all four officers were down.

In the warehouse, Law stared through a crack between the boards, his eyes wide.

The officers who had beaten Corazon bloody just moments ago were like helpless children before this marine.

He clutched the Den Den Mushi tightly as tears rolled silently down his face.

Someone really had come. Corazon hadn't lied to him.

Law bit his lip hard, wanting to rush out, but then he remembered Corazon's parting instructions.

That man had risked his life to keep him alive.

He couldn't go out and cause trouble. He couldn't let Corazon die because of him just as help had arrived.

Ron glanced at the nearby warehouse, then at the injured Rosinante.

He raised a hand and made a slashing motion.

Several enormous Air Doors opened one after another between the warehouse and the battlefield.

Any attack headed that way would be swallowed by the Spatial Doors.

"Brother, don't move yet."

Ron turned toward the rubble.

"I'll deal with this last one right away."

"Ron!!"

In the rubble, Doflamingo pushed himself up, blood from his forehead running down his sunglasses.

"Who the hell do you think you are, interfering in our family business?!"

The moment Rosinante saw Ron, his whole body suddenly relaxed.

That reaction made Doflamingo angrier than the punch Ron had landed on him.

He was Rosinante's real brother!!!

Yet the younger brother he had protected since childhood had been hoping for someone else to come before he died!

"You marines... what gives you the right to take him away from me?!"

Conqueror's Haki erupted!

Five Color Strings, Bullet String, and Overheat blasted out in succession, the transparent strings slicing buildings along their path into flying chunks.

Ron stepped forward.

Crack, crack, crack!

Dozens of Air Doors opened simultaneously along the strings' paths.

The onrushing whip plunged into a door and shot back out beside Doflamingo.

"What?!"

Doflamingo hurriedly pulled back the strings, but his own attack still sliced open his shoulder.

Ron raised his sword.

"Dimension Slash Sever."

A straight black line appeared directly in front of Doflamingo, severing layer after layer of strings in its path.

Doflamingo gathered Armament Haki over his chest and managed to turn sideways.

Schlick!

Blood sprayed, and a gash opened across his chest, deep enough to expose bone.

Enduring the pain, he whipped a string back at Ron.

"What gives you the right—?!"

"The fact that you nearly killed my brother."

Ron charged out of a door to Doflamingo's side, grabbed the string whip, and drove his knee hard into his stomach.

Bang!

Doflamingo doubled over and flew backward, crashing through three walls before coming to a stop.

He had just tried to push himself up when another door opened behind him, and Ron stomped him back into the snow.

"I let you go once in the North Blue all those years ago. Did you really think you'd get a second chance?"

"Don't... look down on me—!!"

Doflamingo suddenly spread all ten fingers!

A dense mass of strings shot along the ground, forcing Ron to retreat for the moment!

"Spider Web Wall!"

A giant web of strings suddenly spread open between them!

With a tug of his wrist, he wove a mass of strings into a puppet identical to himself in the blink of an eye.

One real and one fake, the two figures closed in at the same time.

Meanwhile, Doflamingo crooked his five fingers!

Dozens of nearly invisible Parasite Strings descended from the air, quietly reaching for Ron's limbs.

Ron stomped apart the thin strings reaching for his ankles, his gaze fixed all the while on the right hand controlling the strings in the distance.

He swung his sword through a door, blasting the puppet apart before it could get close. The force also shook the real Doflamingo behind it half a step backward.

Ron stood where he was without moving.

Small doors opened and closed before him, sending the Parasite Strings to a distant clearing as soon as they fell.

"You think you can control me?"

He lifted a thin string with the tip of his sword.

"You can't even touch my clothes."

Clang!

His sword flashed, and the Spider Web Wall split neatly down the middle.

Doflamingo staggered backward and suddenly noticed the stone slabs around him trembling slightly.

Some power inside him seemed to have finally broken free of its restraints.

"Fuf... fufufu!"

He raised his head, the smile on his face utterly twisted.

"Ron! Even heaven is on my side this time!"

The paving stones and broken walls beneath him turned into white strings, inch by inch!

The String-String Fruit had awakened!

"Ever White!"

Tens of thousands of white strings surged from the ground like a tsunami, rushing to tear Ron apart!

In the blink of an eye, the whole street became a white tide.

"Hahahaha! Let's see where you can open a door now!"

Ron glanced down at his feet.

"Oh, you awakened it?"

He smiled instead.

"That's quite a spectacle."

Zhenyuan lowered.

Boom!

Dozens of enormous doors opened at once directly in front of the surging white strings.

The oncoming sea of strings plunged inside. The next instant, dozens of towering white waves burst from the sea beyond the island, one after another!

The smile froze on Doflamingo's face.

"You...!"

"So what if you turn the whole ground into strings?"

Ron stepped down through the air, walking on a door floating horizontally beneath him.

"I don't need to stand on the ground to fight you."

"Thousand Arrows: Piercing Heart: Feather Thread!!"

Doflamingo crossed his arms, and thousands of black-and-white strings coated in Armament Haki formed enormous wings that stabbed at Ron from every direction!

Ron simply tightened his grip on his sword and delivered one clean, decisive slash.

"Dimension Slash: Sever Thousand."

Clang—!

As the sword fell, more than a hundred intersecting black lines appeared in the space ahead, one after another.

There was no sword energy flying through the air, only thousands of strings snapping simultaneously at different points and falling onto the snow like a downpour.

Ron walked out through the severed strings, without a single tear in his Justice Coat.

Doflamingo stared at the severed strings covering the ground, his fingers still frozen in the air.

How was that possible?

Even the power he'd just awakened couldn't stop him?!

He took half a step back without thinking.

"Monster..."

"Only realizing that now?"

Crack!

Ron suddenly appeared before him, swinging Zhenyuan sideways to smash the right arm Doflamingo hastily raised, breaking it.

Crack!

A knee strike followed, driving into his chest with the unmistakable sound of breaking bone.

Doflamingo spat a mouthful of blood and still tried to counterattack with Athlete.

Ron kicked his leg aside and drove another punch into his face.

Bang!

His sunglasses shattered, and he crashed into the rubble, no longer possessing the strength to get up.

Snowflakes drifted slowly down.

Ron held Zhenyuan, breathing somewhat more heavily than usual.

Crossing all the way from East Blue to North Blue, that ultra-long-distance teleportation had indeed taken a considerable toll.

If he had to cross the sea several more times in succession now, his body might not hold up.

But dealing with these five was still a long way from requiring him to risk his life.

He dragged his greatsword over to the ruins.

Doflamingo raised his head with difficulty, blood dripping steadily from the corner of his mouth.

Ron slowly raised the blade.

"I told you back then, don't cross my bottom line."

"Unfortunately, you didn't listen to a word."

"Ron..."

A weak voice suddenly came from behind him.

Ron paused.

He turned to see Rosinante leaning against a wall, the gunshot wounds on his shoulder and leg still seeping blood, his face as white as paper.

"First... leave him alone."

Rosinante drew a breath. "Law's still inside... He only just ate the Op-Op Fruit, and his condition hasn't stabilized yet. We can't afford to delay."