Escape

"Bastard! What's going on?" Half-buried underground, Queen was horrified. He immediately struggled with all his strength, kicking apart the Earth Clone beneath him and pressing both hands against the ground as he tried to crawl out.

Meanwhile, Yota had already begun forming hand seals, a smile on his face. "Too late. You don't have a chance now—Water Release: Great Waterfall Technique!"

Ever since dealing with Black Maria, Yota had realized that in the One Piece World, Water Release was damn useful. Aside from physical fighters who had not eaten Devil Fruits, or the handful of top-tier Devil Fruit users who could still retain some fighting strength even when weakened by seawater, anyone else who got hit would be crippled on the spot!

Seeing the massive torrent surging toward him, Queen's eyes widened. Yet he had not climbed out of the ground and had nowhere to dodge. The water thoroughly drenched him.

Yota clapped his hands and smiled. "Looks like that was easy."

As he spoke, he created another Water Clone and directly trapped Queen with the Water Prison Technique.

"This guy doesn't know how many modifications he's made to himself. He might still be able to move around somewhat underwater," Yota muttered. After all, Queen's body was full of machinery. Unlike his flesh, those machines would not be affected by seawater.

With that in mind, Yota prepared to use the Munch-Munch Fruit to disable the mechanical modifications inside Queen's body.

However, before he could approach, a thunderous crash rang out. A massive figure slammed into the area and skidded to a stop in front of Yota. It was a mammoth frozen in ice.

"Is that... Ivory Jack?" Yota said in astonishment. After looking closely for a while, he realized it was not a mammoth, but Jack in his human-beast form.

With a crack, Jack broke free of the ice and roared, "I'm Jack the Drought! Not some damn Ivory Jack!"

Boom! A spiked club descended from above and smashed into Jack's head, driving it straight into the ground.

Yota shook his head. "Fine, but if you keep being this hardheaded, you'll soon become Headless Jack!"

A snow-white jade hand slowly withdrew the spiked club. Yamato stood atop Jack's head with the club resting on her shoulder, staring in surprise at Yota and Queen, who was trapped in a giant sphere of water.

"Yota, you're amazing! Even I never dared say I could definitely defeat Queen before!"

"That was because you were still wearing Sea Stone handcuffs, right?" Yota quipped. "Now, aside from your Pops, probably not even King the Conflagration from the Beasts Pirates is your match."

"That's true. I was still wearing Sea Stone handcuffs back then." Yamato giggled. "Now, they really aren't my match."

"Roar!" At that moment, Jack pulled his head out of the ground again with a roar. However, Yota created another Water Clone, and a single Water Prison Technique trapped him.

Yamato had seen Yota use the Clone Technique before, but she had never seen him use Water Release. After all, when Yota trained with Ace and Yamato, he had wanted to train himself. Naturally, he would not use something as cheating as Water Release.

She had heard the Spade Pirates' crew mention before that Yota possessed the ability to control water. Now, she was seeing it for herself.

"Amazing! You can actually control water." Yamato's eyes sparkled with envy. "Then wouldn't every Devil Fruit user be no match for you?"

Yota shook his head. "It's not that easy. It just makes dealing with ordinary Devil Fruit users a little easier."

Devil Fruit powers came in countless varieties, and not all of them feared water. For one thing, Yamato herself was not afraid of water.

After all, her Okuchi no Makami Fruit possessed freezing abilities. If anything, it countered Water Release.

"Oh, right, we should hurry and find Ace." Yamato slapped her forehead as though she had suddenly remembered something. "Uncle King isn't easy to deal with! He's much stronger than Jack."

With a thunderous boom, before Yota could say anything, the water sphere containing Queen exploded. Queen broke free and destroyed Yota's Water Clone with one strike.

Then, a mechanical grappling hand shot out and seized Jack from the other Water Prison, rescuing him as well.

"What? Don't run!" Seeing the sudden turn of events, Yamato shouted. Yet her body moved faster than her mouth. She instantly transformed into her human-beast form and slashed forward with Glacial Fang.

Queen grabbed Jack and held him in front of himself. With a boom, the two were sent flying far away. Then Queen, without pausing for even a moment, carried Jack on his back and rapidly fled.

"Huh!?" Yamato maintained a guarded stance as she watched the two run farther and farther away. She truly had not expected Queen, one of the All-Stars, to be this sort of person.

Queen's move nearly made Yota throw out his back. He had seen clearly that Jack had seemed to struggle a little, only for Queen's mechanical arm to grip him tightly. Then Queen used Jack as a shield, letting Yamato's attack strike him right in the forehead and robbing him of all strength to resist.

Running when you could not win was not shameful, but if Yota had not seen wrong, that pterosaur flying in the sky and tangling with Ace should have been King, right?

In a group battle, retreating without even saying a word—that was selling out your teammate, wasn't it?

As Yota was still thinking this, he saw the fleeing Queen suddenly blast flames from beneath his feet and fly away while carrying Jack.

"Are you some kind of Beast Warrior? You even modified yourself with flight capabilities." Yota could not help complaining about Queen. Honestly, Queen's modification technology was beyond impressive—it was downright terrifying.

He could even modify away his own head and launch his head and neck. Even Yota, who possessed the Munch-Munch Fruit, could not understand how Queen had survived.

Or was he already a robot wrapped in dinosaur skin?

"Those two really just ran away?" Yamato still looked dazed as she asked in disbelief.

Yota, watching the battle in the sky, answered casually. "It's fine if they ran away... It saves us from wasting our strength. Kaido isn't here, and even if we won this battle, it wouldn't mean much."

"Is that so? But if Pops really comes, we probably won't be his match, right?"

"That's why," Yota sighed, "we should keep training hard."

After thinking about it for a moment, Yota put the matter aside. His gaze turned back toward the sky, where he happened to see Ace entangled with the pterosaur.