CHAPTER 69: 69: THE DUEL OF THUNDER AND LIGHT — KARL VS. KIZARU

"Karl, remember, don’t get dragged into a drawn-out fight. If you can’t win, don’t act tough."

"Got it. Move the warship aside, then steer northeast. I’ll rendezvous with you in the Florian Triangle."

On the empty pier, Karl waved at the large three-masted ship as it came about. Looking at the four women and one dragon at the rail, he called, "Little White , make sure you protect Karina."

"Wraaaah!"

Watching the ship depart, Karl hopped onto a bubble rising from the ground and gazed across the boundless sea, as if staring at someone far beyond the horizon. A long-dormant fighting spirit flashed across his face. "Kizaru, huh? You’ve been stationed at Marine Headquarters for a while, and you’re the most unfathomable admiral of the three. I figured my opponent this time would be Akainu or Aokiji."

"A month ago, he’s the last enemy I’d have wanted to face."

"But now, he’s the one I fear the least."

Karl smiled, expectant. "Let’s see which wins today. Is light stronger, or lightning?"

In this world, some abilities restrain others, and some counter each other outright.

For example, Luffy’s Rubber-Rubber Fruit makes him an insulator, so he can strike Enel’s real body with perfect effect.

When attributes restrain each other, one side gains the upper hand.

In the Alabasta arc, Portgas D. Ace of Whitebeard’s Second Division wielded the Flame-Flame Fruit. Without Haki or Sea Prism Stone, even the Smoke-Smoke Fruit of Smoker, a fellow Logia, couldn’t be beaten. As Ace himself said: smoke and fire can’t decide a winner.

When attributes counter each other, both sides neutralize each other’s strengths.

Karl’s Rumble-Rumble Fruit and Kizaru’s Glint-Glint Fruit are such a pairing.

If they rely purely on their powers, only when one runs out of stamina will a winner emerge.

To force a decision, it comes down to whose overall strength is greater.

"Alright."

Sitting on the bubble, eyes closed, Karl simulated a battle with Kizaru in his mind.

Suddenly he opened his eyes. From far over the sea a laser lanced toward him, growing in his vision at terrifying speed. He let it pierce straight through his elemental body.

Boom!

A deafening blast erupted behind him.

A mushroom cloud laced with firelight climbed into the sky.

The shockwave shattered hundreds of giant bubbles in an instant, including the one Karl was sitting on.

What looked like a simple laser was actually as destructive as the Rumble-Rumble Fruit’s God’s Judgment, enough to obliterate a large sailing ship.

Unlike the Rumble-Rumble Fruit’s wide-area devastation, the Glint-Glint Fruit’s strength lies in compression.

"If I hadn’t gone elemental, would that last shot have broken my defense?"

Landing lightly, Karl turned toward the drifting dust and muttered, unsure.

Since completing his second evolution, Karl had only been injured once.

The one who hurt him was the Pirate King’s right hand, whose Haki can damage the inside of the body at the highest level of Armament.

He had yet to meet someone who could wound him from the outside.

At most they left a red mark.

So he didn’t know whether that concentrated laser could pierce his Steel Body.

But with elementization, he felt that the number of beings in this world who could hurt him had dropped to the low double digits, maybe even to the single digits.

After all, Kizaru’s Glint-Glint Fruit, once mastered, lets him walk away without a speck of dust on his clothes.

Steel Body plus elementization plus Observation Haki made Karl a near-immortal Logia.

Whoosh—

After the laser missed, a golden globe far larger than the beam itself streaked in from the sea and dropped onto the scarred ground Karl and the little dragon had devastated, condensing into a tall, three-meter-high middle-aged man.

Short black hair with a slight wave, orange sunglasses, a stubbly face, lanky build, a yellow-and-white striped suit, purple tie, bottle-green shirt, and white shoes.

It was one of the Navy’s three great powers, the Glint-Glint Fruit user—Kizaru, Borsalino.

"Oh my... did that just miss?"

Hands in his pockets, Kizaru peered at Karl, who had dodged an ultra-long-range shot from several nautical miles away. With a faintly puzzled expression he drawled, "Were you waiting especially for me, Dragon Knight Karl?"

"Hey, old man."

Facing the opponent he now feared least, Karl smiled and teased, "How about letting me off the hook? Or make me a Warlord of the Sea and we shake on it?"

"I’d rather we became colleagues. Facing a monster like you, I’m honestly under pressure."

Kizaru sighed. "But you killed a Celestial Dragon. I can’t very well recommend you for the Warlords."

"That really ticks me off."

Karl scowled, aggrieved. "I obey the law. From the East Blue to the Grand Line I’ve hunted down more pirates than I can count. When I break something in public, I pay for it after. I’ve never robbed anyone. The only ones I’ve killed were scum."

"I just got lucky and found a golden bell cast entirely of solid gold on some island. I planned to sell it in the New World. Then everyone set their sights on me. No one offered me even a single berry. They tried to steal my bell. Even the world nobles."

"Is there any justice? Any law at all?"

"...That is pretty unfair."

Kizaru scratched his cheek and nodded.

"I mean, I’d have taken cash for it."

Karl raised his brows. "So there’s really no way we can call it even?"

"When it involves the Celestial Dragons, not even I have that authority."

For all his words, the man of Ambiguous Justice was already planning to pull his punches.

If the other side could seize an opening to flee, he’d turn a blind eye to a pitiful kid.

If not, well, that’s the way the world works.

There were far more wronged souls than Karl in this era.

"In that case, we can only fight."

Karl’s expression turned serious. "Old man, be careful. I’m fast."

"...Thanks for respecting your elders."

Kizaru’s look turned odd. It felt like Karl had stolen his line.

Is it really okay to say that to the Glint-Glint Fruit user?

It was brazen, but it made Kizaru admire Karl more, and pity him more as well.

The next instant, shock wiped the look from his face.

"Thunder-Light Kick!"

Karl released the Rumble-Rumble Fruit’s electromagnetic field and became lightning, blinking to Kizaru in a flash.

His left leg blazed with searing arcs as he swept it across.

Seeing the lightning swell in his vision, Kizaru—taller by a head—instinctively raised his long, straight right leg. Dazzling gold flared as his kick met Karl’s.

Boom!

A roar louder than any laser detonation tore across the ravaged docks, mushrooming a cloud into the sky.

Electric heat and radiant heat crackled within.

A breath later a gale blasted the cloud apart, revealing the two of them unscathed.

"How terrifying."

Kizaru’s exaggerated expression returned as he marveled, half real and half mock. "So the Rumble-Rumble Fruit really did appear in this era, and someone ate it."

"Just lucky."

Karl shrugged, then grinned. "Light and lightning. We can’t decide a winner."

"True. That makes things troublesome for me."

Kizaru scratched his face, helpless. "If I fail this mission, I might be punished by Mary Geoise. Why don’t you respect your elders and surrender?"

"Then how about you put your leg down first?"

Sensing Kizaru about to gather power for another kick, Karl deadpanned.

"Can’t help it. I’m getting old. My leg has a mind of its own."

As the words fell, Kizaru blurred into light again, flashing to Karl’s front. His right leg swept out, radiant with gold, and he pursed his lips to deliver his classic line. "Speed is power. Have you ever been kicked at the speed of light?"

"That won’t hurt me."

Sparks hissed.

Karl’s knight’s armor became a coat of thunder. Blue-white currents wrapped his entire body.

He raised his right hand. Lightning gathered in his palm into a blade of thunder. Without even coating it in Armament, he chopped down at Kizaru’s light-speed kick.

Boom!

The blast rattled ships several nautical miles away at the Sabaody Archipelago; the boom reached even them.

When the shockwave cleared the thick dust again, Karl stood cloaked in blue-white bolts, his blue cape snapping in the wind. He stared at Kizaru, whose hands were no longer in his pockets, and said solemnly, "Old man, the warm-up ends here. Show me the true power of a Navy admiral. Let me feel the gap to the summit of the sea."

"Can’t you cut an old man some slack?" Kizaru sighed.

Then he turned to light again, flashing in with another sweeping kick.

Unlike before, this time Armament Haki coated his strike.

Kizaru was getting serious.

In answer, Karl’s lightning surged.

He didn’t blink away. He met light head-on.

His left hand became a thunderblade, now lacquered in Armament, and caught the light-speed kick.

Energy collided and blew another dense cloud of dust into the sky.

Within, Kizaru retracted his long leg and snapped a laser from his fingertip.

Fast, but Karl was faster.

Merging with electric signals, his Observation had become one of a kind on the sea; Kizaru’s every move unfolded in his sight.

As his thunderblade met the kick, Karl opened his mouth and gathered the Gale Burst round—an evolution the little dragon gained after eating the Rumble-Rumble Fruit.

The Gale Burst, bearing the attributes of light and lightning, became a divine pillar and drowned out Kizaru’s uncharged laser, engulfing Kizaru himself.

But as it struck, Kizaru turned elemental, letting the torrent swallow his light-form and rip through everything in its path.

The pillar shot from the docks across the island, its diameter carving half the island as it went.

Everything it grazed or struck crumbled to powder in an instant.

With a thunderous crack, the beam slammed into one of the giant red mangroves carved with island numbers, and the explosion rang across the entire archipelago.

Like the earth splitting, the titanic tree broke and crashed down.

A lance of gold burst from the fumes. Unharmed, Kizaru glanced at the fallen mangrove and, with his same exaggerated look, drawled, "From that far away, you took down a mangrove in one shot. Young people these days are terrifying."

"If I hadn’t reacted faster, I might’ve died just now."

He aimed the last line at Karl, who blinked in again.

"Couldn’t be helped. If I didn’t use that, you were about to blind me."

Karl wore an innocent look.

"No wonder it’s a legendary power."

Now Kizaru truly had a headache. "If I’d known, I’d have skipped that shift."

"How about we call it here?"

Karl offered, "We can’t decide a winner anyway. Turn a blind eye and let me enter the New World."

"Sounds reasonable, but if I do that, I’ll be dismissed tomorrow and thrown in Impel Down."

A golden lightsaber bloomed between Kizaru’s palms as he pressed them together and rushed in.

Karl drew the knight’s sword at his waist and met the blade.

A health-preserving style versus a half-trained swordsman.

One slash from you, one from me, acting as we went.

Their earlier exchange of big moves had settled it for them both. Light and lightning couldn’t decide a victor quickly, even with Armament.

To conserve strength, both chose a war of attrition.

Karl needed to buy time for Karina. Kizaru believed a battle of endurance favored him.

Even so, their close-quarters clash of light and thunder was spectacle enough to shake the reporters who risked their lives for headlines.

Knight’s sword and lightsaber flashed. With sword skills and Observation, each probed and feinted, trying to manufacture an opening and strike the other’s real body with Haki.

Each time one was about to succeed, Karl turned to lightning and let the lightsaber pass through. Kizaru turned to light and let the knight’s blade miss.

Each whiff left the reporters seeing blue-white lightning and blazing gold swap places in a blink, appearing behind each other to strike vital spots, only to fail again and again.

Every shutter press caught a front-page photo.

"Rumble-Rumble Fruit. No doubt. The Dragon Knight is a Logia, the Rumble-Rumble user."

"That Logia once called a legend has appeared on the sea again."

"The killer of a Celestial Dragon is a Rumble-Rumble user. This is the scoop of a lifetime."

"The seas are about to descend into chaos."

As they shot, the more seasoned reporters recognized Karl’s power.

The intel raced by transponder snail to their papers, then on to the World Economic Journal, and through various channels into the ears of major powers.

By then, the fleet from Marine Headquarters arrived at the Sabaody Archipelago.

Yes—arrived only now.

Karl and Kizaru seemed to have fought for a long time, but to the two fastest men alive, from the moment the Celestial Dragon died to now, only a bit over twenty minutes had passed.

Landing on the archipelago, the Navy began sweeping the lawless zone.

They had always loathed this den of sin in justice’s shadow. But since it was the Celestial Dragons’ backyard, they had to watch it fester.

Now a Celestial Dragon had been killed on their own turf, at last giving the Navy a reason to cleanse it.

That was why the criminals were fleeing madly.

Once the Celestial Dragons’ umbrella is gone, the true hegemon of the seas can crush everyone beneath it with a single slap.

With thousands of troops on five warships and five Vice Admirals leading them, pirates and thugs with bounties—who had clung to a sliver of hope—were dragged out by Haki masters and Devil Fruit users and cuffed.

Those who resisted were beaten senseless or killed on the spot.

In just over an hour, aside from true powerhouses and those bounty heads adept at hide-and-seek, all pirates and crooks were in chains.

Even the ones who fled before the fleet reached the archipelago were pursued by other ships. With the Navy’s superb warships, their chances of escape were almost zero.

Once the prisoners were loaded aboard, the Navy under the five Vice Admirals formed a ring around the battlefield where Karl and Kizaru fought.

"A Rumble-Rumble user?"

"No wonder Admiral Kizaru hasn’t subdued the culprit yet."

When they saw the battlefield flashing blue and gold in alternation, the five Vice Admirals’ faces shifted.

As Marines of that rank, they knew all about attribute restraints among Devil Fruits.

"Old man, let’s end it here."

Seeing the encirclement, Karl blinked away from another of Kizaru’s slashes. This time he didn’t appear at Kizaru’s side but opened some distance with a smile.

They had fought for more than an hour without so much as a ragged breath. To the unknowing, it looked like a wellness routine.

From this bout, Karl gained a full appreciation of Kizaru’s strength.

The most inscrutable of the three admirals indeed.

Karl’s monstrous physique made the fight feel effortless.

But Kizaru, whose every split second could turn fatal if his focus slipped, had sustained an hour-long sprint of stamina and Haki without his breathing changing at all. It was absurd.

"Thinking of running?"

Lowering his lightsaber, Kizaru sounded amused. "Like you said—light and lightning can’t decide a winner. But keeping you from escaping is something I can do."

"And with so many colleagues here, are you sure you can get away?"

Karl chuckled. "Old man, did you forget my title?"

A roar shook heaven and earth.

The dragon’s sudden bellow nearly made weaker-nerved Marines and reporters collapse.

A white dragon dove from the sky. With a thunderous beat of its wings, it blew away countless bubbles and sent staggering soldiers tumbling.

"Old man, next time we get the chance, we’ll fight again."

Karl leapt onto the Blue-Eyes White Dragon’s back and waved down to Kizaru. "We’ll see whether your light is stronger, or my lightning. Goodbye."

"If I let you go, I’ll have a hard time explaining it upstairs."

Kizaru’s blade dissolved into photons. He pointed a finger at the dragon and fired a laser.

Zap—boom.

Karl shot a slightly curving bolt of lightning. The two attacks met and blossomed into a firework in midair.

Then a storm of bullets rose, a barrage pouring up toward Karl and the dragon.

Seeing the escape attempt, the Navy no longer stood idle.

Cannon rounds burst among the bullets. From the sky dropped wide-mesh nets studded with Sea Prism Stone.

"God’s Judgment."

Karl turned his wrist and part of his forearm into pure lightning and let it separate from his body.

An instant later, a colossal pillar of thunder speared down from the clear sky.

In the blink of an eye it swallowed Karl and the Blue-Eyes White Dragon, vaporizing every bullet and net near or within it.

Inside the thunder, the dragon beat its wings unharmed and climbed the pillar upward.

When the lightning faded, leaving a bottomless crater in the ground, Karl and the dragon were gone.

"A dragon unaffected by lightning?"

Kizaru recalled a conversation in the Fleet Admiral’s office.

A whelp that killed a Celestial Dragon.

But this was clearly a true dragon.

It seemed the creature hid some great secret.

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