Fire VS Light

"!!!"

At that moment, even Kizaru, who was renowned for his lack of seriousness, could not control his expression of astonishment when faced with Ye Mu's question.

Enel, on the other hand, did not seem to care much. He looked at Kizaru in the distance and said,

"You really do like causing trouble... Still, this guy's strength is indeed worthy of our Sky Pirate Crew..."

After coming back to his senses, Kizaru became genuinely serious.

"What a shame... I have absolutely no interest in pirates or anything like that... But as for capturing the two of you... I'm quite interested..."

As Kizaru spoke, golden light flickered in his hand, and Ame no Murakumo appeared once more.

"What a shame indeed..."

As Ye Mu spoke, he swung Lion Maru in his hand and said to Enel beside him,

"I'll handle this one..."

Enel looked somewhat displeased, but he also knew that if he fought this battle alone, he was no match for the Marine before him. Their clash of strength just now had already made everything clear.

As for Ye Mu, perhaps he might...

"Then it's settled. I get the next one..."

"No problem... Just remember to stay alert. Don't let anyone disturb my battle..."

"Don't worry."

As soon as he finished speaking, Enel's figure flashed, and he withdrew from the battlefield.

Watching this, Kizaru muttered under his breath, looking slightly displeased.

"Oh... One-on-one... Looks like I've been underestimated..."

Ye Mu naturally heard him. With Lion Maru held horizontally before him, his eyes narrowed slightly as his aura began to rise. He said with a smile,

"No... This isn't underestimating you... It's respect for your opponent..."

"Oh..."

Kizaru's eyes narrowed. Feeling the aura rising from Ye Mu, he became serious as well.

"In that case, I suppose I'll get a little serious too..."

As soon as he finished speaking, Kizaru's figure vanished from its original spot like a teleport, transforming into a streak of golden light.

Almost simultaneously, Ye Mu glanced upward from the corner of his eye and saw that Kizaru had already appeared above him, swinging Ame no Murakumo down at him.

Ye Mu returned the courtesy for this attack.

"What frightening speed... But that won't be enough to hit me..."

"Clang..."

Black Blade Lion Maru and Ame no Murakumo collided in an instant. Flames and golden light scattered in all directions, and countless holes were blasted through the entire deck. The already-fragile warship fell even further into disrepair.

"Oh... How frightening... You're so young, yet you possess such strength... You can actually withstand one of my blows..."

"You really do like lying... Marine, your strength isn't inferior to mine at all..."

Or, to be more precise, Ye Mu could feel that Kizaru's strength was currently superior to his own.

However, this was perfectly normal. Not only was Kizaru nearly ten years older than Ye Mu, but he had also experienced far more battles. If the strength he had accumulated could be so easily surpassed by Ye Mu, then the future Admiral would be worth far too little.

Still, the gap between them was not so wide that Kizaru could defeat Ye Mu through strength alone.

Thus, after that probing exchange, neither of them stopped attacking. Both gripped their sword hilts with both hands and hacked at each other.

In an instant, the entire deck gleamed with red flames and golden light. Waves of air trembled, causing the warship to break apart more and more, while even the surrounding seawater began to churn.

Kizaru could afford to waste time and compete with him in stamina, but Ye Mu could not.

His purpose was to test, through his battle with Kizaru, exactly what level his current strength occupied in this world.

Thus, he abandoned the swordsmanship contest outright. The instant the two of them broke away from one another, he swung both hands.

A vast expanse of flames appeared before Ye Mu.

"Yasaka no Magatama..."

The moment Ye Mu finished speaking, the flames rapidly condensed together, transforming into chains with five enormous crimson magatama linked along them. They flew toward Kizaru like a meteor hammer.

This was a technique Ye Mu had learned from Naruto, and it was his favorite move. Aside from being freely controllable, it could also bind enemies like chains. Of course, the most powerful part was the crimson magatama condensed from flames.

Kizaru did not underestimate this move in the slightest. He could sense the heat contained within those crimson magatama. If they exploded, even becoming elemental would not leave him unscathed.

Thus, he leaped into the air to evade the attack, only to discover that the flaming magatama had followed him upward.

"Interesting..."

In an instant, he brought his hands together. Dazzling golden light burst from his body and transformed into countless points of light.

"Yasakani no Magatama."

Countless dazzling light bullets relentlessly struck the flaming magatama.

"Boom..."

A violent explosion rang out across the sky, whipping up waves of fierce wind.

Countless golden rays instantly pierced through the pitch-black smoke and shot toward Ye Mu on the deck.

Unlike during the Marineford War, when he had been a master of inaccurate outline attacks, Kizaru's aim with the light bullets he fired now was astonishingly precise.

The densely packed light bullets in the sky all targeted Ye Mu alone. Not one strayed onto the deck and injured the unconscious Marines.

"And they still say there's nothing fishy going on here..."

Ye Mu complained inwardly, but his feet did not slow down.

Whether it was Enel's Rumble-Rumble Fruit or Kizaru's Glint-Glint Fruit, both shared one characteristic: their penetrating destructive power was extremely strong.

Faced with such powerful penetrating destruction, even if Ye Mu covered his entire body with Armament Haki, he would not dare take it head-on.

He could only keep shifting and dodging, while his hands did not slow down either.

One had to know that the Flame-Flame Fruit had two characteristics: one was burning, and the other was exploding.

Burning produced high temperatures, while explosions produced impact force.

Against a clumsy opponent, burning was a highly effective method of attack. But against someone as swift and agile as Kizaru, the only way to hit him was through explosions.

Against attacks with such powerful penetration, burning heat clearly could not form a defense. That left only explosions.

And the way to make the explosions powerful enough was simple: absorb enough heat.

Kizaru's Yasakani no Magatama light bullets attacked Ye Mu while Ye Mu constantly dodged them. At this level of battle, what was being tested was no longer simple speed and reaction, but a contest of Observation Haki.

Although Kizaru was still young and had not yet reached the level of strength he would possess during the Marineford War—the level that allowed an Admiral to challenge two Four Emperors alone—and was still only a Vice Admiral, his true combat strength had already reached the beginner Admiral level within the Marines. His Observation Haki was even mastered to perfection. Yet at this moment, he discovered that he simply could not capture the pirate before him with his Observation Haki.

This meant that the pirate's Observation Haki was no weaker than his own—in fact, it was even stronger.

"...He's even mastered Observation Haki... And he's mastered it so thoroughly... Are all the newcomers monsters nowadays...?"

By this point, Kizaru had already given up hope of capturing Ye Mu and Enel.

Logia users were rare to begin with, yet this pirate crew possessed two of them—and they were the Rumble-Rumble Fruit and Flame-Flame Fruit, among the strongest Logia abilities.

On top of that, Ye Mu possessed such thoroughly mastered Observation Haki.

Just then, Kizaru's Observation Haki conveyed a feeling that made him extremely uneasy.

He looked in the direction of that perception and saw Ye Mu, with the help of the Flame-Flame Fruit, flying toward him through the endless rain of light bullets.

In Ye Mu's hand, he held a rolling, spinning fireball that looked like molten lava, its color almost a deep red-black.

"Go... Great Flame Rasengan..."