"Damn you two old fools," she muttered, her voice filled with disdain and resignation, though the corners of her mouth lifted slightly. "Nearly two hundred years old between you, and still so hotheaded."
As her words faded, her hand gently touched the ankle of Sengoku's Buddha Form.
The power of the Wash-Wash Fruit activated instantly. A visible ripple spread from her palm, sweeping across the entire Golden Giant Buddha.
Within that ripple, the Golden Great Buddha, originally just over ten meters tall, began to swell. Twenty meters, fifty meters, a hundred meters, a hundred and sixty meters!
Golden Buddhist radiance shone across the entire sea, almost outshining the dark rift slowly closing in the sky.
This was what had given Sengoku the confidence in his youth to chase down Whitebeard, the strongest man, who also possessed king-class strength.
His combined attack technique with Tsuru, wielder of the Wash-Wash Fruit, was his greatest trump card.
Sengoku looked down at Tsuru by his feet and, for the first time before his Marines, burst into a boyish laugh utterly devoid of dignity.
"Hahahaha! Tsuru! It's been so long since we fought together! The last time was right after I became Fleet Admiral!" His voice rang out, loud and exuberant, as though he had cast off decades of accumulated exhaustion and burdens in that instant.
"Everyone! Charge with me!"
Below him, more and more Marines took heart.
The soldiers who had stood silently with their heads bowed now looked up at the hundred-meter Giant Buddha, at that golden radiance, at the crimson figure charging at the very front, and at the white-haired veteran laughing wildly as he rushed toward the sky.
Some tightened their grips on broken swords. Some picked up spears from the ground. Some braced themselves against their comrades' shoulders and stood