Blue-Sea Monkey, Eating Air / Rayleigh, Have You Ever Heard of Standing in the Corner?

Good grief, Rayleigh almost wanted to ask Newton how that was possible!

The next instant, Long River seemed to take offense at Rayleigh. Its speed suddenly more than tripled, leaving only the faint trace of a black line in the air.

Before Rayleigh could work out what was happening, a burst of Sword Aura exploded right in front of his forehead.

The terrifying power unleashed by Erosion Cycle Sword Intent made Rayleigh stagger, and cold sweat poured down his face.

Rayleigh used Shave and reappeared in the distance, staring in shock at the black sword hurtling toward him.

He had just sensed a mortal threat. What did that mean? If he took that strike head-on, he would be crippled even if he survived.

That kind of damage was downright absurd.

Rayleigh dodged another strike from Long River and watched the pit it had left in the glacier grow larger, as though the ice were being eaten away. His heart began pounding faster and faster.

"What the hell is that Sword Intent? I absolutely cannot let it hit me!"

But the flying sword's attacks followed a simple pattern. After dodging several of them, Rayleigh figured it out and began to counterattack.

A layer of jet-black Armament Haki covered the longsword in his hand.

He swung hard at Long River. The blow was heavy and fast as lightning.

Clang! Rayleigh's eyes nearly popped out of their sockets.

"Poneglyph material?!"

"..."

While he stood there stunned, another cold shout rang out.

"Sword Two: Thunderclap!"

Blue Sea Monkeys, Eating Air

At Island 13 in the Sabaody Archipelago, Robin and Enel arrived first. Robin looked at the beautiful woman before her, who did not look much older than she was.

"Excuse me," Robin asked curiously, "are you Shakky?"

Shakky narrowed her eyes at the two unfamiliar faces in her bar. She had only just finished reading their intelligence reports. The papers probably had not even finished burning!

And now, here they were.

"I'm Shakky! How about a glass of whiskey for each of you?"

Robin remembered what Dongze had told her and waved a hand.

"No, thanks. Your drinks are too expensive. We can't afford them!"

Shakky paused.

It was the first time she had heard anyone say that in her bar.

Two kinds of people came here: those looking to buy intelligence, and Rayleigh.

As for drinking? Sorry, they really could not afford it. No one actually came here for a drink unless they were a rookie fresh off a headlong plunge into the sea.

Shakky's lips curved as she looked at the two youngsters.

"Oh? You two aren't here to tease me, are you?"

"If you're not drinking at my bar, what are you here for?"

Robin smiled softly. "I never imagined Shakky would be you! You're nothing like Mr. Rayleigh. His hair and beard have gone completely silver, so I thought you'd be elderly too. I never expected you to be so young—you could be my older sister!"

On the way here, Robin had repeatedly warned Enel to speak as little as possible around Shakky. If anything needed to be said, Robin would say it herself.

Enel gave Robin no end of headaches. She was terrified he would open with "Blue Sea monkeys." There would be no conversation after that—Shakky would throw them straight out!

Shakky blinked at Robin's words, then broke into a giggle.

She was a woman, after all!

Who did not like being told she looked young? Robin's words also revealed something else: Rayleigh had sent them here.

"Hehe! I'm old. I'm nowhere near as young as you say! But you certainly have a sweet tongue. It's a pleasure to listen to you!"

"Mr. Rayleigh told us to come ahead. He'll be here with our boss in a little while!"

With Robin's confirmation, Shakky poured them each a whiskey and asked, "Where has that old fool run off to now?"

Robin and Enel had reached the counter and sat down on the stools in front of it.

Robin shrugged at Shakky's question. "Sorry, I don't know where the two of them went! I do know what they went to do, though!"

Shakky slid the two glasses toward them, propped her cheek on one hand, and gave Robin an interested look.

"What a beauty! No wonder he let you aboard his ship!"

Robin froze. Neither of them had introduced themselves. "You already know who we are?"

Shakky glanced at Enel without drawing attention to it. "Of course. Don't underestimate an intelligence broker, young lady! Nine out of ten people who come here are looking to buy information."

"The man beside you must be Thunder God Enel, the foremost fighter under Dongze, the newly appointed Shichibukai. You're a Logia Rumble-Rumble Fruit user, with formidable combat strength!"

"As for you, there isn't much information. All I received was a name: 'Xiao Yi.' Would you tell me who you really are?"

Shakky's words startled Robin. Rayleigh had identified her at a glance. If Shakky had investigated the three of them, she should have confirmed Robin's identity too.

So why did Shakky seem to have no idea who she was?

"You really don't know? When we met Mr. Rayleigh earlier, he identified me immediately. I thought you'd told him!"

A strange look flashed through Shakky's eyes. Rayleigh had identified her at a glance?

Something seemed to occur to her, and Shakky was about to use Observation Haki.

Suddenly, lightning flashed before her eyes. Enel held out an index finger crackling with electricity, stopping it three inches from her face.

"Sorry! Boss said her identity is confidential. We can't let an intelligence broker like you find it out!"

Shakky narrowed her eyes at the crackling finger. A flash of killing intent crossed her face. "Impressive Observation Haki. It seems I underestimated you, Rumble-Rumble Fruit user!"

"You flatter me! I'm merely carrying out Boss's orders!"

"Then how did Rayleigh know who this young lady was?"

Enel's mouth twitched. The thought of Rayleigh's Observation Haki made him grit his teeth. Though their clash had lasted only an instant, he had felt the gap between them. He had been stunned that his Observation Haki, as a Rumble-Rumble Fruit user, could lose to an old man's.

But once he thought about who Rayleigh really was, it made sense. The Pirate King's first mate! After roaming the Grand Line for so many days, Enel understood the weight of that title.

"His Observation Haki is far beyond mine, and even beyond Boss's. We couldn't have stopped him even if we wanted to, so there was nothing we could do!"

"Well, young lady, will you tell me? Even if this fellow can stop me, I can ask my old man when he gets back!"

Since her Observation Haki could not beat Enel's, Shakky abandoned that plan and turned to Robin instead.

She knew how to take a roundabout approach.

At Shakky's words, Enel glanced at Robin, returned to his seat, and picked up the drink Shakky had poured him. His job was only to keep outsiders from sensing Robin's identity. If she chose to reveal it herself, that was beyond his responsibility.

Robin's eyes darted as an idea came to her. She leaned over and brought her mouth close to Shakky's ear.

Then she abruptly pulled back and said to Enel, "Lightning Man, no eavesdropping! Turn off your Mantra!"

The unexpected demand caught Enel off guard.

"Tch! Two female monkeys. As if I care about your stupid little secrets!"

Robin's cheeks reddened at his words.

After all her precautions, he had gone and called her a "Blue Sea monkey" instead.

"Ah!"

"No dinner for you tonight!"

"Tch! I can eat air and enjoy it just as much!"

"Pfft!"

Shakky could not help laughing at Enel's words. With someone like him aboard, their voyage was unlikely to be dull.

Robin threatened Enel one last time. She knew he listened to no one but feared Dongze. If he caught wind of what she was planning, he would surely run and tell Dongze. Then her chances of carrying it out would drop to zero.

She knew just how sharp Dongze was.

Perhaps Enel was right to call him a Blue Sea monkey.

Rayleigh, Have You Ever Heard of Standing in the Corner?

"Oh? What do you need that kind of medicine for?"

Whatever Shakky had heard, it startled her enough to raise her voice.

Robin quickly put a finger to her lips, signaling her to keep it down.

Fortunately, she had sent Enel outside. If he were still in the bar, he would certainly have heard.

"Just get it ready for me! Then I'll tell you what you want to know!"

Looking at Robin's flushed cheeks, Shakky teased her in a low voice. "What, he still hasn't touched you?"

"He has," Robin replied, blushing.

At the thought of that night, she pressed her legs together.

Those hands truly seemed to have a kind of magic...

"Only with his hands!"

Shakky coughed twice at Robin's answer and gave the beauty before her a peculiar look.

"So he's worse than a beast?"

On the vast glacier in the Calm Belt, Rayleigh had only just recovered from the shock of Long River's Poneglyph-made blade when Thunderclap arrived behind him in a streak of lightning.

Perhaps because Thunderclap Sword Intent empowered it, this sword was even faster than Long River. Sword Intent surged, thunder roared, and lightning split the air as a beam as thick as a barrel pierced the sky.

Rayleigh had no time to dodge properly. He threw himself to the ground and rolled.

A dark hole appeared not far behind him. With Observation Haki active, Rayleigh could still see its end. Damn it—the strike had punched through nearly fifty miles of glacier.

Its ferocious destructive power nearly made Rayleigh lose his composure. How the hell was he supposed to fight that?!

The power of Sword Intent had been laid bare.

The glint gathered at the sword's tip was like a claw reaching out from Death itself. Seeing the charred mark left on his cloak, Rayleigh immediately pushed his Observation Haki to its limit.

Long River and Thunderclap banked in midair, flashed once more, and vanished from sight.

Under Dongze's control, the two flying swords were extraordinarily nimble. They darted up and down, shifted left and right, and moved so unpredictably that their paths were even harder to follow.

Caught between them, Rayleigh was hard-pressed to keep up.

The problem was that he could not destroy Long River. Even a full-strength blow imbued with Armament Haki could only knock it away, not damage it.

Using Poneglyph material to forge a sword? Rayleigh nearly cursed aloud. He wanted to ask, You've got to be kidding me. How did you even get hold of that material, let alone make a longsword out of it?

As for Thunderclap, he did not want to touch it. He had tested it twice. The sword's material was highly unusual: once charged with electricity, it could not be cut through. Worse, contact with it let Thunderclap Sword Intent paralyze him for half a second. Normally, half a second was too short to do much, but the other flying sword needed less than that to run him through.

And defense? Even with his level of Armament Haki, he did not dare use his body to block an attack like that.

He might be Dark King Rayleigh, but he was not thickheaded. Those who used Tekkai from the Six Powers to block blades had never come to a good end.

Others had coated themselves in Armament Haki from head to toe and tried to test themselves against a Swordmaster's blade. The grass on their graves was several feet high by now.

(Pica, for example, was truly thickheaded. He tried to take Moss Head's Three Thousand Worlds with Armament Haki and went down in one slash.)

After all his years sailing the seas, Rayleigh was not about to do anything so foolish. That left him with a headache.

Still, he was Dark King Rayleigh. His mastery of Observation Haki had probably reached the limits of this world and far surpassed Dongze's current level. He could not counterattack effectively, but if he focused on dodging, Dongze would have a hard time catching him. Seeing this, Dongze lightly tapped the Sword Case again.

"Sword Three: Cold River!"

A blue light flashed inside the Sword Case, and an extravagant golden sword slowly slid out of its slot.

The moment the flying sword left its sheath, it brought a boundless chill with it. A cold wind suddenly swept across the glacier, and Rayleigh's expression changed as he rushed toward Dongze.

"Another one..."