"Heh heh-the famous Whitebeard Pirates actually teamed up with the Navy..."
Katakuri threw a Horn Mochi punch, coated in powerful Armament Haki, straight at Marco's face, only for an azure-flame wing to block it.
Marco blocked the attack, shifted sideways, and twisted into a whipping kick. His sharp phoenix talons, reinforced with Armament Haki, raked straight toward Katakuri's kidneys.
Katakuri ducked low and lunged forward, dodging the attack while reshaping his arm into a rotary machine gun. He opened up a little distance, then turned and leveled his weapon.
Thud! Thud! Thud! Thud! Thud!
He swept Marco with a barrage of mochi bullets infused with Armament Haki.
Peerless Mochi Blade Bullets!
The barrage drove Marco back again and again.
For the Phoenix, an attack of this caliber was merely fast enough to be difficult to dodge.
"...We just have a common enemy-"
Azure flames rose from Marco's body, instantly healing his minor surface wounds. But the knockback was real, and a gap had opened between them.
"A common... enemy, huh."
Katakuri snorted beneath his scarf. At the same time, his other hand touched the ground.
"Drizzling Mochi!"
Twenty or thirty mochi tendrils rose from the ground and lashed out rapidly from every direction, their target-Chaton.
Oven and Daifuku were no weaklings, but they still fell short against an Admiral Candidate.
The gap in their hand-to-hand skills allowed Chaton's sudden assaults to force the brothers into positions where they struggled to coordinate.
Just as Daifuku, cut off from his brother, was about to take a punch from Chaton, Katakuri's barrage interrupted Chaton's attack.
The timing was perfect. Oven rushed over, swinging his red-hot naginata, while Daifuku summoned his Lamp Genie again and prepared to counterattack.
"What a troublesome combination..."
Chaton cleaved through the brothers' attacks with Rankyaku, only to be forced