"Damn it! This must be a trap the Sapphire Star and the Marines set together!"
Because all of this looked far too much like a coordinated operation they had agreed on beforehand, and Xie Wen's group, who could travel underwater, could have escaped long ago if they had wanted to shake them off, both Katakuri and Jack instinctively assumed that Xie Wen and the Marines had arranged this specifically to deal with their Emperor crews.
Even the news about Nico Robin had been deliberately leaked to them.
Well... from a certain perspective, that guess was not entirely wrong.
"Cracker! Help me stop them!"
Katakuri shouted with a grim expression, activating his Devil Fruit Ability at the same time and creating a wall of mochi at the very front.
Although his Observation Haki had foreseen the Toot Toot Forward diving underwater to escape, their ships could not catch up with it in the first place, so even foreseeing it left him with no way to stop it. He could only choose to block this wave of Marine attacks first.
Besides...
So what if it was a Marine trap? They were members of an Emperor's pirate crew. How could they possibly be afraid of them?
As the thick wall of mochi rose, the biscuits Cracker created swiftly covered it, adding a hard outer shell.
Although Katakuri could have simply tanked the attacks with Armament Haki, a fierce battle was about to begin, so naturally he wanted to conserve as much strength as possible.
On the other side, Jack had not given it nearly as much thought. With recklessness as his sole creed in life, he let out a roar and swiftly switched into his Human-Beast Form, standing at the bow and knocking away every incoming cannonball single-handedly.
The pirates aboard the other