Fisher Tiger was finding it harder and harder to understand "humans."
More precisely, though, he couldn't quite understand "Aiven Lindsey" as a person.
He'd actually gotten into an argument with a little kid!
Pretty childish.
But the things he'd said had even left Tiger deep in thought.
He really couldn't make sense of it...
The two walked a little farther before Lindsey broke free of Tiger's hand.
"Wait a moment."
Lindsey rolled his ankle, then stamped hard on the ground.
Thud!
An inexplicable tremor spread out in every direction.
Tiger felt the earth beneath his feet begin to shake, though nowhere near as violently as an earthquake. It was even a little restrained.
Was this another one of Aiven Lindsey's Devil Fruit abilities?
"This is much harder than tearing up the ground."
Lindsey murmured. The "Kun Trigram" pattern in his pupils began to rotate slowly as he tried to activate his ability in as "gentle" a manner as possible.
"Destroying the ground from different angles, breaking it down and reconstructing it, changing the terrain..."
As Lindsey spoke, the ground around them bulged, and several "stone spires" slowly rose up.
The "stone spires," made of earth, gradually spread through the surrounding residential area.
They propped up many collapsed floors, including the dilapidated house belonging to the boy who'd argued with Lindsey earlier. Two sturdy stone spires held it up.
That way, at least the residents wouldn't have to sleep rough while waiting for their houses to be repaired.
Lindsey, meanwhile, considered the results of the technique and casually asked Tiger,
"Tell me, if I made the ability spread faster and adjusted how sharp the tips of the stone spires were, could I stomp out a whole bunch of ground spikes?"
"..."
What kind of nonsense was that?
Tiger was getting a headache.
Aiven Lindsey's thoughts jumped all over the place. One moment he'd be talking about one thing, and the next he'd leap to something completely different.
Still, judging him by his actions, Tiger didn't actually dislike the things this human did.
In any case, Aiven Lindsey wasn't a bad person...
Lindsey and Tiger crossed Island 32 and finally found a route leading straight to the harbor.
The bombardment continued.
Saint Lolowim, the Celestial Dragon, was even more temperamental than his older brother, and especially fond of firearms.
Every CP Guard under his command carried a powerful hand cannon, and they used them without the slightest regard for civilians.
For a time, the entire Sabaody Archipelago was subjected to a baptism of cannon fire. Ear-splitting blasts rang out everywhere.
Though the Fish-Man Race was far sturdier than ordinary humans, its members were still made of flesh and blood. Their defenses were nowhere near as strong as Lindsey's in his Earth Demon Form.
Whoosh—
Boom! Boom!
After taking two stray cannon blasts head-on, Lindsey and Tiger quickened their pace.
Along the way, Lindsey spoke noticeably less. He seemed to have remembered something, and Tiger didn't disturb him.
What had Lindsey remembered?
A very, very long time ago, when his consciousness had still been hazy, he vaguely recalled that someone had carried him somewhere while he was in his stone statue form.
Could it have been... Ohara?
Yes, that long-vanished archaeological sanctuary!
On that island, Lindsey had faced a bombardment dozens of times more ferocious than this one. It was called the "Buster Call"!
Ohara had been wiped off the face of the sea by the World Government's Buster Call.
Along with a large number of ancient documents, Lindsey had been submerged in seawater by Ohara's scholars, who wanted to preserve them and protect them from the bombardment and the flames.
Of course, Lindsey's stone statue form was as hard as a Poneglyph, so he wasn't afraid of fire. In truth, Ohara's archaeologists had wanted to preserve the paper documents.
Looking back on the past.
"Not exactly a pleasant, hazy memory."
Lindsey rubbed his temples, then caught a cannonball flying toward him with one hand. He hurled it back at a nearby CP Guard.
Boom!
The bomb exploded, and Lindsey and Tiger burst through the smoke and continued onward.
But just as they were getting closer to the harbor, a group of Marines suddenly came running toward them.
"Tch..."
Tiger frowned and clenched his fists, ready to charge into battle.
But to his utter surprise, when the two groups met, the Marines didn't attack. They ran right past Tiger and Lindsey, heading in another direction!
Tiger: "?"
He couldn't make sense of it. Then he noticed that Lindsey had run after the Marines!
Tiger: "??"
Fortunately, no fight broke out, so Tiger was able to stop and watch.
The group of Marines ran straight to a collapsed tavern and began digging through the rubble.
"Quick, there are several people trapped under the bar! Come help!"
It turned out people were trapped in the tavern's ruins.
The Marines had been ordered to rescue civilians first and pursue the fugitives second.
So even when they came face-to-face with the two people who had "started" this whole commotion, they still chose the higher-priority task.
Before long, they had cleared away most of the rubble. Only two thick, heavy floor slabs remained, pinning down the space beneath the bar.
"Damn it, they're too heavy. We can't move them."
"Put your backs into it! Another round of cannon fire is coming!"
"..."
The Marines all strained together, but the two floor slabs were simply too heavy. They couldn't budge them at all.
"Call for backup, now!"
Just as the Marine leading the group was about to call for backup, two figures suddenly appeared on either side of the slabs.
They were both enormous, and each reached out with a massive hand, grabbed one side of the slabs, and heaved them up.
Clatter, clatter...
The huge, extra-thick steel slabs were lifted with ease, as if they were no more than the chocolate sticks stuck into ice cream bars.
"Thank you... both?"
The Marine in charge looked to either side and saw two people he never would have expected to see.
On the left stood a burly old man with graying hair, a scarred face, and a broad grin. A Marine's justice cloak hung from his shoulders.
On the right was a red-brown-skinned figure with crimson eyes and sharp fangs, who looked less like a human than a legendary "demon."
What were the odds?
The Marine leader recognized both of them.
The one on the left was none other than the Navy Hero, Garp. The one on the right was Aiven Lindsey, the central figure in the whole disturbance!
By all reason, these two should have been enemies in every sense of the word, yet here they were working together to rescue people.
"..."
The Marine squad leader fell silent.
He had a terrible feeling about this.
Fortunately, though, both Garp and Lindsey seemed completely unhurried.
Garp called out to the civilians beneath the bar. "Ahahahaha! You'd better evacuate. It's still safe over at the Marine base."
"..."
Lindsey waved to the Marines beside him and reminded them, "Back up a little."
"..."
"A little farther. You're still too close. That's it... farther away."
"..."
Before long, within a radius of about a hundred meters, only Garp and Lindsey remained, holding up the "feather-light" reinforced floor slabs.
The two stared at each other, breathing quietly.
An indescribable feeling spread between them. It was as if even the air had warped, obscuring the space around them!
Garp grinned.
Lindsey bared his fangs and grinned.
"Heh!"
Whoever laughed first, that was the moment that officially signaled the start of their fight!
Whoosh!
Two fists swung out simultaneously, one from either side. The sound of them cutting through the air seemed to merge into one, and then—
They slammed into each other's faces.
Boom!
The force far surpassed that of cannon fire!
The explosion roared!
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