Your Mechanic Still Isn't Strong Enough!

"Hey, hey, don't tell me I hit the mark."

Seeing Crocodile looking like he wanted to devour someone, Brando raised an eyebrow, as if he had struck a sore spot.

"You really deserve to die!"

Crocodile stared at Brando with a man-eating gaze.

Then his lower body directly transformed into sand, and he shot straight at Brando at incredible speed.

Water Style: Water Bullet

Brando's Sharingan saw every one of Crocodile's movements.

As Crocodile moved, Brando had already begun forming hand seals. A C-rank ninjutsu only required six seals, so he completed them almost instantly.

When Crocodile raised his scorpion-tail hook and swung it at Brando, Brando opened his mouth and spat out a huge water ball roughly one and a half meters in diameter at him.

It instantly drenched him like a drowned rat, restoring Crocodile's body to normal and preventing him from continuing his elemental transformation. His assault came to an abrupt halt.

"There's too little water. Out at sea, it could easily be three meters across."

"Although the river from before was buried beneath Crocodile's sand, the water didn't vanish into thin air. It was merely pressed deeper underground, so it could still be of some use."

Brando was ready to start fighting seriously.

Crocodile had already been mentally shattered beyond endurance. All that remained was to make him feel the enormous gap between them physically before he sank into despair and died!

"Your Devil Fruit ability is actually related to water?!"

Crocodile looked stunned.

Clearly, the intelligence provided by the World Government had never mentioned this.

The World Government's intelligence only said that Brando's eyes were strange and red, that he could release flames, transform into other people, was suspected of being a Copy-Copy Fruit user, and possessed the ability to create clones.

Crocodile immediately ruled out the possibility of him being a Copy-Copy Fruit user, because one was already working under him.

And Crocodile did not fear either the ability to release flames or create clones, because he was a Logia user.

But why had the intelligence said nothing about his ability to use water as an attack?!

Such an ability was extremely rare across the entire sea. What kind of worthless idiots were the World Government?

Fortunately, it was merely ordinary water rather than seawater. Otherwise, every Devil Fruit user in the world would be countered by this guy.

"I've got plenty of tricks!"

"Enough to keep you entertained all day!"

A Rasengan formed in Brando's raised right hand.

Without hesitation, Crocodile controlled the sand to wrap around himself. Knowing he was not fast enough to evade Brando's attack, he began using the sand to drain the moisture from his body. During this time, defense was naturally the best option.

But just as the sand formed a cocoon around him, Brando appeared before him and unhesitatingly thrust the Rasengan forward.

The irregular spiraling force instantly pulverized the sand, but Crocodile sensed the changes in it as well and controlled even more sand to pile up in front of him.

Boom!

The Rasengan exploded in full, blasting Crocodile away.

"Urgh!"

Crocodile rolled several times across the desert before stopping. Half-kneeling, he spat out a mouthful of blood and glared at Brando like a vicious shark.

At the last moment, he had finally drained the moisture from his body and used elemental transformation to deflect most of the impact. Otherwise, he felt his injuries would have been even worse.

"I really can't let my guard down. My neck nearly got cut off."

Brando touched the long, narrow bleeding wound on his neck, which was rapidly healing under the restorative power of his Vortex Physique.

When he had attacked Crocodile with the Rasengan, the sand beneath his feet had suddenly surged up like the guillotine that had beheaded Louis XVI, slashing diagonally toward Brando's neck.

If Brando's Sharingan had not detected the change in the sand and used a flash step to leave in advance, his neck would have been severed by that attack.

"You won't get another chance like that!"

"I'll show you the true strength of a Logia Devil Fruit user!"

Crocodile finally realized that this blond brat was capable of killing him.

He did not dare keep fooling around. He had yet to kill Whitebeard; he could not die at the hands of such a despicable bastard.

Now he also understood how the Celestial Dragons had died. They had been schemed to death by this guy.

"Oh?"

"Someone with nothing but Logia mechanics isn't qualified to say that to me."

"If you want to defeat me, you'll need actual stats, but that's exactly what you lack most!"

As Brando walked toward Crocodile, he created a Shadow Clone to follow alongside him.

Crocodile's expression grew grave at the sight. He knew he absolutely could not let Brando get close, so he immediately transformed into sand and pulled away, intending to pressure Brando through ranged attrition.

Desert Sunflower!!

Crocodile caused the desert to collapse into quicksand, intending to churn over this entire stretch of desert and swallow every creature on its surface.

But Crocodile's ability was too slow to activate. The instant it began, Brando and his Shadow Clone vanished from where they stood, then both used Phantom Flash Step.

For a moment, ten Brandos appeared on the battlefield, though eight of them were merely false afterimages.

Seeing this, Crocodile immediately transformed into sand and merged with the entire desert, hiding himself away. He knew that if he were caught even once, he would be finished.

He intended to hide in the desert and exploit the terrain advantage to wear Brando to death.

If Brando chose to flee... Crocodile was prepared to abandon this target. This thing was truly difficult to deal with: despicable, shameless, without any bottom line, and utterly lacking the dignity of a strong man.

It was not as though he had never encountered enemies with great speed and power before, but those people always fought head-on. Crocodile had been the one who used his brain, relying on all kinds of underhanded methods to wear down his enemies or kill them with sneak attacks.

But this time, their positions had been reversed. He was being crushed intellectually, and the feeling disgusted Crocodile.

"Is this the opponent who wants to defeat Whitebeard, the strongest man on these seas?"

"So everyone on these seas is such a cowardly piece of trash, just like those garbage bastards who call themselves 'gods.'"

Brando activated his taunting skill.

Although the Sharingan's observational ability was powerful, it was still difficult to find Crocodile's true body after he had transformed into sand and hidden within the windblown desert.

Observation Haki was more useful in this situation instead.

However, Brando had discovered Crocodile's weakness. He could not perfectly control the sand around him. Unlike Gaara, whose chakra mixed into the surrounding sand and allowed him to control it flawlessly, most of the sand Crocodile controlled was sand he had released himself.

On the other hand, awakened Paramecia users like Doflamingo could assimilate the surrounding environment into threads, then control every thread around them.

Or perhaps the current Crocodile was simply too weak. Like Moria, after losing, he did not think about relying on himself, but instead wanted to use external forces to increase his strength.