Chapter 268
—
Amon's haki clashed as he looked down at the three people he's been searching for an entire year.
His gigantic dome of Conqueror's Haki and Shanks' smaller dome pushed against each other.
Even with the difference in their sizes, they were at a standstill, neither going forward nor backing off.
However, most people on the battlefield could tell Amon wasn't giving his all, and they were right since the next moment, his will pushed the blue dome into its shell, dissipating at the same time.
"I have been looking for you for a long time, Shanks," Amon spoke with his hand resting on the hilt of his sword. "Wanted to do some chit-chat, here and there. But couldn't find you, no matter wherever I looked. Good to see you aren't dead."
Even as he spoke with a smoke smile on his face, his body multiplied into hundreds of clones who went below to tie his people, who were still alive, even amongst the marine soldiers. His sword flew from his waist and cut a door to the Door-Dimension, where the clones started to pull the people into.
Shanks and Dragon eyed the scene, while Luffy had his eyes covered by his straw hat.
"Preparing to leave, are we?" Dragon asked with a small chuckle.
Amon inclined his head. "Of course. Though that's only possible because Mister Dragon is allowing it, isn't it? Closing a portal like that shouldn't be hard for you at all, am I right?"
Dragon only chuckled, but he didn't close the portal with his power. "Oh well, it's better for us to be alone anyway."
Shanks nodded too, while Amon smiled.
—★—
On the ground, far from Dragon and Shanks, the Sins stood while breathing heavily, while the ones who were unconscious were still out.
Raki called out for one of Amon's clones.
"Oi, brother! What's happening?! Why are you putting us away?"
The clone stopped dragging the dead bodies of Garp and Sengoku to instead look at her. "It's dangerous for anyone else other than me to be here."
"What the-?!" Raki couldn't finish her words before the clone she was talking to multiplied into two before coming to the Sins and tying them.
"Hey! You don't need to tie us!"
He didn't listen and simply dragged the Sins towards the huge, massive, green portal.
It took a mere minute before the battlefield was cleaned, avid of any living person and only filled with dead bodies.
With a stretch, the green portal shut itself immediately.
—★—
Kiyu, the sword, flew back to Amon's hand and he sheathed it back to its scabbard before he hovered towards his enemies.
Amon had a small smirk on his face. "I was expecting to see you three for a long long time, but you came out only now."
The smile from Shanks' face had faded and he now stood expressionless. "I wanted to come out early, but that would have just guaranteed me my death, would it not?"
Amon dropped to the ground, only a few metres away from them and chuckled. "So did a year's worth of training change anything? You believe I can't kill you now?"
His red horns gleamed under the sunlight as he spoke those words.
Shanks only gave a chuckle. "You are open to try."
Amon shrugged at his words before he vanished from his spot and appeared behind Luffy.
"Thanks for the offer, but I would like to eliminate our Joyboy first!"
He said softly and swung his Conqueror's Haki coated fist towards the back of Luffy's head at lightning speed.
However, Amon's hand passed through nothing.
He raised an eyebrow before teleporting back to his previous spot.
"Oh, wow." He chuckled. "That wasn't his speed, was it?" He looked at Monkey D. Dragon, who stood beside Luffy. "Nice teleporting abilities."
Dragon gave a nod. "My pleasure."
"What is it anyway? Your fruit, u mean." Amon asked as he yawned.
"It's called the Sky-Sky fruit, it's a logia." Dragon spoke even as Amon raised an eyebrow. "I know 'Sky' isn't an element, so it's better to treat it like the Yami-Yami no Mi that got famous around a year ago."
Amon rubbed his chin. "Oh… So, it should allow you control over Wind, Cloud, Lightning, and Space. Wow, quite an interesting fruit."
That was overpowered. It was very versatile, too.
Dragon chuckled. "Nice guesses. But I wouldn't confirm any of that."
"Fair enough. But enough chit-chat. Let us put an end to this all, okay?"
There was no bolt of lightning flashing this time, but Amon simply disappeared. The next one to disappear was Shanks, who was obviously being attacked by Amon, but was at the same time being saved by Dragon.
Then Dragon himself disappeared, and so did Luffy. The disappearing and appearing continued for a minute or two before Amon reappeared in the air.
"Hm, troublesome." He scratched his chin while looking down on his enemies. "It doesn't seem to be an active technique you are using. It's a passive technique, where the moment I reach near any of them—unaffected by my speed—the space replaces the person I am attacking with empty air."
It was basically the technique he used against Kizaru in Marineford. The only change was, it was affecting three people instead of one.
'Tch.' Amon clicked his tongue. Things would have been easy if he had the Yami-Yami no Mi. Stopping Dragon from using his devil fruit would have been easy, then.
But eating that fruit would cancel his Logia Body, which would in turn make him unable to teleport anymore, and also make him take double the damage. The Phoenix fruit's healing would also be meaningless against that damage since he wouldn't be able to heal indefinitely because of the lack of his lightning body using which he absorbs Electrons.
He's been working on a way to make that fruit from Logia to Paramecia, so that he could enjoy its abilities without giving up all his other Logia Bodies that came from his logia fruits. But it's still in the process of experimentation, which is why he is even facing this annoyance.
"So," Amon stood straight in the air. "You guys only plan to dodge? You can't exactly win like this."
They weren't trying to buy time, either. Amon had his clones run around the world to see if anything suspicious was happening or not. There were not any of such things, and so the reason why they must be here should be because they wanted to kill him themselves.
Seeing the three not reply, Amon decided to play dirty. "Come on, be quick. I need to return to my base and reward my people for this magnificent victory. Many of them would like to taste the special whores I have in my brothel."
They surely got his message as Shanks' neutral face turned grim. Finally, the kid hiding his eyes under his hat also looked up.
His eyes were blood red, as he glared at Amon with hatred.
"You bastard!" Luffy yelled. "What did you do to Nami?!"
Amon whistled. "I did nothing, kid. She even begged to be my mistress on the day when she was going to greet her first customer. But as a gentleman, I didn't accept it. I have a wife, you see."
Luffy's eyes blazed as he yelled. "I will kill you!"
That was a very unlike-Luffy thing to say. He didn't usually yell out about killing someone.
Amon only waited as Luffy kicked forward, puffing his haki-coated forearm and leaping in the air in his Gear 4th, Snake Man.
The two older men didn't try to stop him as he approached Amon.
Luffy's huge fist crackled with black lightning as his leg blasted in the air like an air jet and he reached for Amon's face.
Amon wasn't exactly surprised seeing the Conqueror's Coating. The world had a will, and it was against him and supported Luffy. So there was no shock seeing his rapid growth in a single year of training.
"Gum-Gum: Jet Calverin!"
Luffy's hands stretched long like two snakes and went to strike Amon.
Amon simply teleported behind Luffy and went for a karate chop on his neck. If it hit, his neck would be severed.
But it didn't strike, of course.
Luffy's body disappeared just the moment before impact, even though Amon shoved his palm down at lightning speed, and appeared behind Amon.
Amon had a neutral face as he contemplated what to do in this annoying situation. He couldn't hurt them, that was true, but neither could they touch him. Dragon couldn't exactly lower his speed, and as long as that stayed the same, he would be fine.
Shanks was the next to join the battle, while Dragon stood on his spot in assist.
The most important problem here was him, each four of them knew that. If Amon somehow struck him down, everyone else was the same as dead.
But Amon couldn't say he was disappointed. He was expecting they would come up with a greater strategy than this.
"
Shanks clasped his palm just as a purple rope wrapped itself around Amon.
'Annoying.'
That was also irritating. He himself couldn't use the Third Stage yet, so he could only defend against this. If he knew how to use that, he could have most likely been able to bind Dragon from far, too.
To free himself, Amon immediately channelled Conqueror's Haki through the bind, which caused it to decay and evaporate in the air.
He was about to teleport out of the incoming two punches, however, he couldn't. Something was blocking him.
He noticed Dragon's smirk and grumbled in his mind.
He decided to move normally, still at lightning speed, but a box of invisible Haki Conjure was around him.
Expressionlessly, even as the two fists reached closer to his face, Amon started to poke his Conqueror's Haki coated finger against the wall to make a hole, as he then escaped through the hole via his logia form.
The punches passed through his previous spot, the Conjure of Haki shattering upon Shanks' touch, as Amon stood behind them.
He wasn't going to attack since it would be useless, so he will instead observe their abilities.
To his surprise, Shanks reached out for his sword and threw it at Amon with a yell.
"Griffon!"
Griffon is one of the 12 Supre Grade blades of the world.
The sword came towards Amon, looking completely harmless, before it wrapped around his torso. There was a twist in space as Amon noted what had just happened.
The sword was made of sea-stone.
'No.' It wasn't seastone, or it wouldn't be so solid yet elastic. It had the properties of seastone but was still solid and elastic enough to not break even as Amon's body enlarged to its original shape.
Without Goro-Goro no Mi controlling his size, his body erupted like a volcano in the form of a 30 feet giant.
"Hm…."
He looked down at the sword on his chest and tried to shake it off, but it didn't move. His strength was simply not enough.
Shanks and Luffy took their chance and Luffy came blasting on his face, causing Amon to stagger. a few steps. The punch didn't stop with that as Luffy cried on top of his voice while punching Amon's face like a maniac.
However, while the sword had sea-stone properties, it didn't weaken Amon's body.
He still had his Big Tekkai turned on, along with his body that had by now adapted to its changed DNA entirely. His defence was just as strong as Hybrid form Kaido.
Luffy's punches still hurt tho, as long as he coated his fist in Conqueror's Haki. But that wasn't a pain that Amon couldn't bear.
Then Shanks came flying behind Luffy as he placed a hand on Amon's chest.
Amon's face was neutral even when Luffy punched as if he was contemplating something with great seriousness, but his eyes shook when Shanks right hand rested on his chest as he felt a pull on his Haki.
Amon's Haki was being absorbed.
With a big frown, Amon coated his Conquerors Haki on his chest. Conqueror's Coating has a special armour around it, which doesn't let anything coated by it touch anything else. That's why, as he coated his chest with it like crude armour, the sword was pushed back since it was a size-changing sword.
Amon immediately teleported from in-between the sword, now being able to use his powers again, as he stood in the air metres ahead in his human size.
"What was that, Shanks?" Amon asked, continuing. "I thought Dragon must have stitched a hand of someone strong on your lump with his Space manipulation power, but it's certainly not what I think."
Shanks absorbed his Haki, although it was barely even 2% of his entire reserves, and wasn't a permanent loss. That was still incredible.
Shanks, his face grim, did not answer his question and opposed it with a remark. "Don't you say enough chit-chat? Why are you contradicting yourself?"
Amon chuckled at that. "True, my bad."
Whatever it was, it didn't matter now. After all, he could just ask the dead body later on.
"Then let's finish this."
Amon chuckled deeply as threads of electricity left his body and started to stitch to each other in the air. One by one, they connected and made a huge, overlapping web. It wasn't the only one, and dozens more started to form around the island in a Bird Cage.
When the ceiling was covered, he released webs around the whole island and in less than 2 seconds, the whole island was filled with threads of hot, very hot electricity.
Every inch, left to right, heaven to earth, was covered in the said electricity. It rendered all four of them unable to move, though Amon was fine because he's a lightning logia, Luffy was fine because of his bullshit plot-armour rubber-fruit, and Dragon was fine because he could just achieve something like Buggy the Clown's Chop-Chop fruit.
However, Shanks wasn't fine.
Dragon would have to send Shanks out of this cage, that normal eyesight couldn't even see, to save Shanks from one of Amon's attacks.
Dragon should be able to do that if Amon's guesses were right. In most fiction, teleportation allows the user to teleport him and others to places they've been before. So Amon needed Dragon to not do that.
That's why Amon smiled with shining teeth. His teeth literally shone like a flashbang, the light growing stronger by each passing second as all three enemies covered their sights with a groan.
Amon used that second to run to Shanks and punch him on the face, and as he had expected, Dragon's fruit's passive ability made him teleport from the impact, which it by teleporting Shanks a few metres away from him, thus putting the poor Emperor standing on thousand-degree threads of electricity passing through his body.
He might have defended against it if he was prepared, but he didn't expect thousands of threads, heating up to thousands of degrees, to suddenly go through him in an instant.
Shanks had wide eyes as he stared at Amon who only stood casually as he watched the red-headed Emperor's body separate into pieces, into thousand small hot cubes, and fall on the ground in a gory mess.
The two people, rubbing their eyes, were Amon's next target. He attacked them, but they were unharmed, protected by the changing space. Luffy's body also teleported through the thousand threads, but he was fine. Bullshit, but that's how the world supported him. Dragon on the other hand, as Amon had expected, was cut and separated into small cubes, but he wasn't hurt. It worked like Buggy's fruit.
By the time he could attack again, the two father and son opened their eyes. They blinked and looked around to find… someone's 'body' lying on the ground in a bloody mess. It took them a second before they realised what had happened.
Dragon simply sighed, while Luffy yelled out in rage.
"You bastard!!!!" Luffy's eyes shook while his lips quivered. "You bastard, you bastard!!!"
In rage, he rushed to Amon, but was teleported instantly by Dragon, who shouted, "Luffy! Don't let his death go to waste! Do it! It's time!"
Luffy's eyes widened and he hesitated for a moment before nodding slowly. His devil fruit awakening gave him Gear 5th. But diving into that form needed him to feel extreme emotion, which he converted into sheer power for a few minutes.
So Luffy, his heart burning in pure rage, took a huge breath just as his eyes turned blank momentarily. There was a small silence before his Haki burst out in a frenzy.
It looked like the sea itself had crashed onto the island.
Immediately after, that sea roared while pure white lightning leapt out of his body and encircled him before engulfing him like a wave of fire.
It looked like Garp's special Haki but in the form of Conqueror's Haki. At the same time, his rubber body twisted and his slim limbs became large and muscular. He stayed lean but his height grew a few inches, he went to bear some muscles, and looked more mature all of a sudden.
The sky went bright white, cleansing any darkness from below. The ground trembled as if satisfied at Luffy's form, while the boy in question looked like a deity.
His whole body shone in a silver light while his wavy white hair, looking almost ethereal, danced in the air and a white mist danced around his neck like the cape of a deity.
Almost the entirety of his skin was covered in silver haki, while some parts had wavy black stripes, like a Tiger. His front teeth also formed Canines, like a beast.
This was Gear 5th: Byakko Man.
Luffy's anger from a moment ago vanished, and a strange maturity replaced his usually goofy eyes.
He kicked the ground, which seemed to stretch space and time, just like his stretching rubber body, as he kicked the air and dashed at Amon at a speed that shouldn't belong to him.
'Bullshit.'
Amon cursed in his mind.
Luffy's gear fifth was supposed to stretch his will, not fucking space and time. That didn't make sense. But Amon could only accept it because the world wasn't on his side.
Amon clicked his tongue, even as a punch hit him on the face and threw him hundreds of metres into the air.
...Then again, he hasn't shown all of his cards either.
**
**
**
Author's Note: This is the new Dragon Ball Z!