First Encounter, A Great Battle Is About to Begin / Aokiji's Words Reveal the Truth

"It's fine! I was just conducting an experiment!"

Hearing Dongze's words, Robin's heart felt as though someone had overturned a seasoning jar, leaving her with a jumble of emotions.

When she remembered what he had said to her last night, Robin could not help lowering her head. Her eyes instantly reddened.

She did not know when his image had taken root in her heart. After everything that had happened over the past few days, it had become increasingly vivid. She knew that she cared about him.

"Why don't I get off the ship?"

"Don't even think about it!"

Dongze had just suffered a serious injury, and his entire body was weak. His vicious retort was dragged off course by his condition, turning into a feeble voice that made Robin's nose sting. Tears immediately streamed down her face.

"..."

After a while, Robin wiped away her tears, slowly helped Dongze up, and escorted him back to the cabin.

She then began preparing medicine. This was a new skill she had mastered on her own during this period. With her genius-level intelligence, preparing some simple healing and nourishing medicine was well within her abilities.

Enel lay on the deck, watching Robin leave him aside without so much as a glance.

A nameless desolation rose in Enel's heart.

He had only just arrived and was already being treated differently. Anyone would easily develop such feelings, let alone the God of Sky Island, who was not good at dealing with people.

"Hey, miss! There's another injured person here!"

"No time! Dongze was injured by you just now, wasn't he?"

"Don't joke around! You think I could injure him? I was only following orders. Besides, I was severely wounded by the Sword Intent he left inside me earlier. I can't even stand now!"

"Oh! Sorry! I don't know much about Logia users, so I'm afraid there's nothing I can do!"

"No, no, you can help me. Just make me something to eat!"

"Isn't the lightning man supposed to eat lightning? I don't know how to make that!"

Although she did not know exactly what had happened between Enel and Dongze, the current situation was that Dongze was seriously injured, and Robin had no intention of paying attention to the culprit before her.

Thus, Robin delivered her sarcastic remarks with a completely straight face, displaying her dark side to the fullest.

Enel was dumbfounded. Was lightning really the staple food of lightning people? He immediately shook his head. If that thing could be eaten, he would no longer be human.

"Miss, Boss really wasn't the one who..."

"Shut up! I don't want to talk to you!"

The scene shifted. When they met again, it was already the third day. After three days of recuperation, Dongze and Enel had almost fully recovered.

With Enel's addition, the voyage had become much more interesting.

No one had expected this guy to be so talkative. A few days ago, after Robin had given him a taste of her dark side, he had clung to her. Every time they met, he would provoke her, and Robin showed him no mercy either.

Every sentence made him jump with rage.

As for Dongze, he was familiarizing himself with his newly activated Thunderclap Sword Intent. Consequently, Enel ran whenever he encountered him these days!

Perhaps because of this Sword Intent, Enel had not dropped anything else, which left Dongze deeply moved. His old grandpa really was a little stingy!

All right, his body had not fully recovered, yet the proficiency-grinding maniac had started acting again. There were too many tears to speak of. Enel declared that he would have been better off dying back then.

That afternoon, Enel suddenly froze and looked into the distance. Within his Observation Haki, he saw a young man riding a bicycle across the sea, leisurely approaching them.

"Who is that guy?"

Chapter 55: First Encounter, A Great Battle Is About to Begin

"Marine Admiral!"

"Aokiji, Kuzan!"

Dongze had appeared beside Enel at some point, his expression turning extremely serious.

"An enemy?"

"Not sure!"

"Should I say hello?"

"Are you itching for a beating again?"

"I can't beat you, but can't I beat him?"

Dongze gave the eager-looking God of Sky Island a strange glance.

He now understood Enel's strength. Enel was considerably stronger than an ordinary Vice Admiral, roughly on par with Kizaru when he had just become a Vice Admiral. He was comparable to a Shichibukai, but there was still a gap between him and an Admiral.

As for Aokiji, although Dongze had not fought him yet, based on what Vice Admiral Garp had told him and Aokiji's later achievements, he estimated that the man should be at the peak of Admiral-level strength.

In the original story, Aokiji did not seem to have displayed much mastery of Haki, so Dongze was not entirely certain whether he could defeat him now.

Every move of an awakened Logia user possessed extraordinary power. When he had fought Whitebeard, a mere tactical lean backward had directly turned Marineford's entire inner bay into an ice rink.

It was truly terrifying.

"If you don't believe me, you can go and try! He's also a Logia user, so you can see exactly how different you are from him!"

"Logia?"

The corner of Enel's mouth curled up. He was the strongest Logia user. Why would he fear someone with the same type of ability?

Enel, who was thinking about venting the anger he had accumulated over the past two days, had completely overlooked Dongze's tone. As Dongze's Thunderclap Sword Intent had improved over these days, Enel's lightning had suddenly become less effective. Coupled with that dark Xiao Yi, he had been seething with anger.

"One hundred million volts—Raigo!"

Sure enough, this world's strongmen all greeted people like this. Garp did it, Crocodile did it, and this guy was no exception.

He opened with the ultimate move of one hundred million volts—Raigo—and slammed it right into Aokiji's face.

Dongze still found this way of saying hello somewhat difficult to endure.

However, Aokiji was no ordinary man. Not only had he developed his Devil Fruit to the point of Awakening, but his physical strength and Haki cultivation had also reached an extremely profound level.

The instant Enel attacked, he had already noticed.

"Ah? There's a lightning kid too? What a hassle!"

Although he said it was troublesome, his movements were not delayed in the slightest. With a flash, the bicycle beneath his feet instantly turned into a spacecraft, and he vanished in the blink of an eye.

Seeing the man disappear before his eyes, Enel immediately expanded his Observation Haki to its limits. At the same time, a bad feeling surfaced in his heart.

When he had fought Dongze earlier, he had already been tormented by Dongze's speed. How could a person be faster than lightning? Wasn't that a little ridiculous?

He had thought that there could not be many people like that. Yet not long after leaving Sky Island, the very first person he encountered was one. It truly left him feeling unsettled.

After a while, he slowly let out a breath of relief. Fortunately, this guy was not as absurdly fast as Dongze. His Observation Haki could still track him.

Enel then swung his arm, and Raigo quickly changed course, locking onto Aokiji once more.

"Ah? Observation Haki?"

"Are kids these days all this ridiculous?"

Aokiji understood his own speed perfectly. Without Observation Haki, there was no way his opponent could track him.

Knowing that dodging was useless, Aokiji raised a hand, and cold air instantly gathered.

"Ice Block: Pheasant Beak!"

A cold shout exploded in midair. An ice bird formed entirely from frozen air soared upward, its size nearly equal to the ship Dongze and the others were riding.

At the same time, a wave of cold swept across the area, lowering the temperature of the nearby sea by dozens of degrees.

Robin shivered inside the cabin. As though she had remembered something, she rushed out in a panic.

The moment she looked up, she saw Raigo collide with Ice Block: Pheasant Beak. Lightning raged, the ice bird charged upward, thunder boomed, and ice shards flew everywhere. Ice Block: Pheasant Beak was not shattered by Raigo on contact. Instead, it locked in a stalemate with the lightning.

"A technique like this..."

Robin seemed to realize who it was. Her gaze rapidly swept across the nearby sea in search of that man's figure. Finally, beneath the enormous ice bird, she saw the man who often appeared in her nightmares!

A trace of fear flashed through her eyes. Her lips trembled.

"Aokiji..."

If there was anyone in the Navy who had left the deepest impression on her, it was not Fleet Admiral Sengoku, Vice Admiral Garp the Hero, or Akainu, who embodied Absolute Justice. It was the man before her—Aokiji, Kuzan.

"Has he finally come..."

Seeing that his attack had accomplished nothing, the corner of Enel's eye twitched. He had used the full power of one hundred million volts in that strike. Forget ice—even steel would have been no stronger than paper beneath it. Yet reality was so cruel: his Raigo had been blocked.

"Hey, Boss, what kind of people are there in the Blue Sea?"

Enel turned to Dongze with an expression that seemed to say, Who am I? Where am I? What am I doing here?

"That is a Marine Admiral. There are only three of them in the entire Navy right now. Do you really think he wouldn't be strong?"

"You don't think it's ridiculous that ice can block lightning?"

"Mm. I can block it too!"

"Uh... you're not human!"

"Your Devil Fruit ability isn't developed to the same level as his. He has probably awakened it!"

"I can't beat him?"

"Still want to try?"

Enel shook his head helplessly. That first attack could count as a greeting, but another one would turn it into a grudge.

Of course, that was only Enel's opinion. He had opened with Raigo straight to the face, yet he wanted to call that a greeting? Even the legendary Pirate King Luffy probably would not agree.

In no time, Aokiji arrived in front of the ship and stopped his puncture-proof bicycle.

"As expected, it really is you, Nico Robin!"

Hearing Aokiji's words, Enel froze. Who was Nico Robin? There were only three people on the ship: Dongze, Xiao Yi, and himself.

Where had this Nico Robin come from?

Seeing that neither Dongze nor Robin spoke, he stepped forward and was just about to explain when a woman's voice suddenly came from behind him. He awkwardly stopped in his tracks.

"Aokiji!"

"You're the kid who was recklessly throwing lightning around just now, right? If I'm not mistaken, you should be the user of the Rumble-Rumble Fruit?"

"That is correct, Ice Man!"

"Then the young man beside you must be the swordsman Vice Admiral Garp mentioned!"

"Pirate Hunter, Dongze!"

Aokiji's gaze shifted and landed on Dongze, slowly sizing him up.

Dongze did not avoid his gaze either. He studied the man before him in turn.

Nearly three meters tall, with lazy, lifeless eyes and his trademark curly hair. A familiar sleep mask rested on his forehead, something Dongze had never forgotten. He wore a dark blue shirt, a vest over it, and, on top of everything, the cloak of a Marine Admiral.

At this moment, both his hands were tucked into the pockets of his standard Navy uniform trousers.

By chance, the two men met each other's eyes. Their brows rose at the same time.

"Strong!"

Aokiji had initially thought Vice Admiral Garp was exaggerating. He had not expected Dongze to truly be a powerhouse no weaker than himself.

"Nice to meet you! I'm Kuzan!"

"I'm Dongze!"

"I came this time because I wanted to see what had happened to Nico Robin, who suddenly disappeared from the East Blue. But now it seems I'll have to test myself against you as well! Someone with your strength shouldn't be taking her recklessly across the sea!"

Chapter 56: Aokiji's Words Reveal the Truth

"Nico Robin is a vicious, violent beast born into this world—one that no one can handle. If you let her follow you, you'll inevitably walk toward destruction!"

Dongze froze. He had not expected Aokiji's words to the Straw Hat Pirates to be spoken to him instead.