All-Out War

Around the enormous collapsed crater, the billowing smoke was forcibly driven away by the aftershocks of Extreme Pressure Haki.

Marine Admiral Kizaru, Borsalino, hovered in midair. The frivolous smile had long vanished from his perpetually leering old face. He tilted his head slightly, looking at Saint Saturn, who had been punched into the ground and had yet to make a single sound, then at Rain in his fluttering black coat. Behind his sunglasses, his pupils contracted sharply.

"Yee~ How terrifying."

Kizaru dragged out his uniquely lazy drawl, raising his hands in an exaggerated gesture. Though his words carried a hint of mockery, unprecedented wariness showed in his eyes. "'Ashen Reaper' Rain... You knocked one of the Five Elders' Warrior Gods into the ground with a single punch. The speed of your growth is simply unreasonable. If I'd known I would run into you here today, I would've called in sick no matter what."

Rain casually flicked away the debris clinging to his coat. His dark gray vertical pupils fixed coldly on the golden flash in the sky as he snorted. "Borsalino, put away that nauseating act of yours. Back in the Golden City aboard the Gran Tesoro, you darted all over the place with the speed of the Glint-Glint Fruit and gave me quite a bit of trouble. I was slightly inferior to you then. Today, on Egghead, we'll settle that old score along with everything else."

At the mention of that vicious battle in the Golden City, Kizaru's mouth twitched involuntarily.

Back when Rain had yet to completely overturn the New World and become famous across the world, the two had fought a brief but intense battle in the Golden City. In that battle, Rain had indeed been at a slight disadvantage against the light-speed admiral's elusive reflected ambushes,