He hadn't even used twenty percent?
The Five Elders' teeth were chattering.
Of course they had no idea what the Fab Four's "Black Chainsaw Form" meant. But looking closely, every time Imu attacked and seemed to drive Makoto into a corner, the blow always fell just short. By now, not a single scratch marked his body.
The Marine side noticed something was wrong too. Garp's frown deepened with each passing second. The outcome of this battle was not going the way they'd hoped.
...
Imu was growing frantic. Dense as a brick, perhaps, but not a complete idiot. He could feel whether his opponent was taking this seriously or not.
Frustration mounting, the little tyrant decided to go all out.
In Mythical Zoan form, Imu's maw yawned open. The two massive fangs, straight out of a Fengxi's blueprint, wound themselves in dark crimson Supreme King Haki.
Supreme King Haki infusion.
Imu angled those fangs downward and dove. The next instant, he plummeted from the sky like a meteor, fangs aimed dead at Makoto's heart.
Makoto raised his right arm, the chainsaw held horizontally across his chest.
"CLANG!!!"
Fang met chainsaw. The detonation ripped through the night sky, shockwaves radiating outward, hurling rubble and corpses in every direction.
"Crack."
The chainsaw shattered. Under Imu's full-power strike, the blade on Makoto's right arm exploded into countless fragments.
The fang punched through the chainsaw. Through Makoto's arm. Through his body. Entry wound at the chest, exit wound at the back. Blood sprayed from the gash, painting a crimson arc across the night sky.
"Yes!!!"
One of the Five Elders was the first to shout. Survivors of the Holy Knights joined the chorus.
"Lord Imu!"
"Long live Lord Imu!"
"We won!"
"He won!"
Tears of joy streamed down their faces, as if they'd caught a glimpse of dawn after endless night.
Hell, for a moment it was hard to tell who the villains were supposed to be.
Even Imu, in Mythical Zoan form, couldn't suppress a wild grin.
He'd won... hadn't he?
"Happy?"
A voice, coming from where the fang had punched straight through.
Every face on the battlefield froze. The Five Elders' cheers died in their throats. Survivors of the Holy Knights gaped, unable to produce a sound. Every pair of eyes locked on the center of the battlefield.
Makoto's chainsaw had been shattered, yes. But the five fingers exposed at the break point were clamped tight around Imu's fang.
That massive fang, wreathed in Supreme King Haki, which had pierced clean through his body... couldn't move an inch.
Imu tried to yank the fang back. Couldn't. Tried to drive it down, pin Makoto to the earth for good. Couldn't push either.
Those five fingers had locked onto the fang like a vise.
And then something far more terrifying: a chainsaw was growing out of Makoto's right leg. The blade extended from his knee, teeth spinning at furious speed, whining a high-pitched scream. It pointed straight at Imu's chin.
Imu's pupils contracted.
The next instant, Makoto's right leg shot up. A single devastating high kick.
"Shiiing..."
Imu's body split from the crown of his skull downward. Clean through. The Mythical Zoan form bisected neatly down the middle, the cut so precise that blood erupted from both halves in a crimson fountain.
The two halves toppled in opposite directions and slammed into the ground.
"BOOM!!!"
Two massive craters opened up. Dust and debris billowed everywhere.
The Five Elders. The Holy Knights. The Marines. Morgans. Everyone stood frozen, brains completely stalled.
And then it clicked. Makoto hadn't been unable to dodge. He'd let Imu shatter the chainsaw on purpose, freeing up his bare hand to grab the fang.
...
The dust settled.
Imu's bisected body lay in two separate craters. His form reverted from Mythical Zoan back to human. He wasn't dead. Flesh and sinew began sprouting from the cut surfaces of both halves, reaching for each other. The same undying ability as the Holy Knights. As long as the heart remained intact, regeneration was endless.
The two halves were slowly drifting together, trying to reunite. But even so, the fear in Imu's one visible eye was unmistakable.
Makoto dropped from the air. The wound the fang had punched through was already healed. He landed squarely on the chair Yu Ishigami had brought out earlier and crossed his legs again.
Silence. Absolute silence.
Nobody present doubted anymore that Makoto had been using less than twenty percent of his power.
"That it?"
Makoto spoke.
Several seconds passed. Imu's two halves finally fused back together. The eye visible on the left side of his face was wide with terror.
"I... I concede..."
"Can we... make peace?"
The words landed, and the entire square went dead silent.
The Five Elders' expressions locked in place. Holy Knights survivors looked like they'd been struck by lightning.
Their god. The being who had ruled the world for eight hundred years. The omnipotent existence they worshipped.
Was begging for mercy.
Begging a mere mortal from the outside.
Garp and the Marines were equally stunned into silence. But something gnawed at Garp. A figure who'd ruled the world for eight hundred years... was this really all they had?
Makoto's power was terrifying, sure. But it hadn't reached the level of the incomprehensible. An eight-hundred-year monster should have some kind of trump card, shouldn't he?
Makoto was staring lazily into Imu's knockoff Rinnegan eyes. Staring until Imu started sweating.
"Looks like your trump card has some restrictions on it."
Makoto said.
Imu's pupils twitched. His expression snapped back to that "I have no idea what you're talking about" mask almost instantly, but the momentary flinch had been caught.
Honestly, back when Makoto read the manga in his past life, he thought this Imu guy was pathetic. Every appearance was either sweating, vomiting blood, or acting like some sexually repressed shut-in screaming "Vivi, Vivi, Vivi" in an empty room.
But pathetic or not, Makoto figured someone like this shouldn't be this weak. This was the creature who had controlled Rocks during the God Valley incident. That put his power above Rocks, at minimum.
Yet aside from the Mythical Zoan transformation, Imu hadn't displayed any other abilities. Probably had a trump card, but some kind of restriction prevented him from using it. Or maybe he wasn't confident it would guarantee victory, so he was trying to play the long game and bide his time.
"Senior."
Yu Ishigami spoke up. "Should we use the Sharingan to see what this guy's hiding?"
The words left his mouth and Imu's expression changed. He didn't understand what a "Sharingan" was, but "see what this guy's hiding"? That much he understood.
Imu's body jerked. His brain went into overdrive. If the other side really could read minds, then every weakness, every secret, would be laid bare.
Whatever Imu was hiding, his face had already betrayed his panic.
"Nah." Makoto's tone dripped with disdain. "This bunch is weak enough already. If I read his mind, the difficulty drops even more. Less fun that way."
The World Government side had a complicated reaction. The Five Elders collectively exhaled at the words "not using." Holy Knights survivors felt the weight lift from their shoulders.
But then Makoto's follow-up yanked their heartstrings tighter than before.
He was voluntarily raising the difficulty against the World Government?
Just how confident was this man?
Makoto gestured at Imu. "Take him away."
The Fab Four's eyes lit up simultaneously. The Gorilla Devil let out a low chuckle and strode over, hoisting the King of the World onto his shoulder like a sack of rice.
Beam bent down and scooped up the Kitetsu I from the ground. Back on the Sabaody Archipelago, Makoto had said, "Picking up a sword from beside a corpse is fine." Now Nusjuro's corpse lay in the rubble, and the sword had indeed been picked up from beside a body. Promise kept.
The Five Elders... well, Four Elders now, along with the surviving Holy Knights led by the heartless Garling and Sommers, could only watch. Watch as Makoto's crew slung their master over a shoulder and strolled toward the edge of the Holy Land without a care in the world.
Not a single person dared speak. They just stood there, staring after that young man's back until it disappeared into the burning streets.
They'd barely escaped with their lives. Nobody was about to provoke Makoto again.
Morgans was one of the first to react. He frantically packed away his camera and took off on his bird legs, waddling after them at full speed. Chaos junkie or not, he knew the score. Without Makoto's protection, the Marines and the World Government would have him roasted on a spit within the hour.
Morgans caught up, panting. "Sir! Sir!"
Finally reaching Makoto's side, he lowered his voice. "Why are you leaving?"
Confusion saturated every syllable. With the power Makoto had displayed, he could have toppled the World Government and claimed it all. The entire world was right there, his for the taking.
And he was walking away?
Makoto didn't slow down. "I'm just touring."
Morgans stared.
Touring? He'd marched into the Holy Land with a gang of freaks, beaten the Holy Knights until they cried for their mothers, reduced the Five Elders to four, and made the King of the World kneel and beg for mercy.
And he was just touring?
Morgans opened his mouth, closed it, looked at Makoto's completely unbothered face, and swallowed every question. No point doubting it. Makoto wasn't being falsely modest. He genuinely didn't care.
The thing the World Government would kill to protect was, in Makoto's eyes, worthless. This dump? Whoever wanted it could have it.
Morgans gulped again. "You're right, sir. My perspective was too narrow."
Makoto didn't respond. A few steps later, he stopped.
"Actually, there's something I need you to do."
Morgans snapped to attention, bowing so deep his waist was nearly parallel to the ground. "Sir, you're too kind! Just call me Little Mo!"
...
A few days later.
Water 7.
The Oro Jackson was docked beside Tom's Workers shipyard. Sunlight washed across the deck, and a sea breeze tugged at the Tom's Company flag.
As Makoto's group disembarked, Nayuta was the first to bound over. She tilted her head, studying the figure slung over the Gorilla Devil's shoulder.
"Who's that?"
Nayuta wasn't treating Imu as anything special, though a flicker of curiosity crossed her eyes.
"The ruler of this world," Makoto said.
Nayuta nodded and went "Oh." In her view, everyone in this world was useless. Why would the ruler be any different?
The others were less composed.
Erina Nakiri, who had stepped out with a freshly brewed pot of black tea at the sound of Makoto's voice, nearly dropped it on the spot.
The five Nakano sisters exchanged glances, disbelief written across every face.
Chika Fujiwara, face smeared with sauce, a piece of fresh takoyaki impaled on her toothpick, stood with her mouth hanging open.
The three generations of Kuja Pirates empresses, Gloriosa, Shakky, and Tritoma, crowded in for a look. As locals, the concept of "ruler of the world" hit them harder than the others.
"So, Makoto, what's the deal with this specimen?" Chika poked at the horn on Imu's head with her toothpick, curious.
She'd never have dared if she were alone. But with Makoto here, she wasn't afraid of anything.
Makoto glanced at Imu and broke into a grin. Anyone who'd played games with him recognized that smile. It meant someone was about to have a very, very bad day.
"Give him the Shinichi Kudo treatment."
Makoto said it cheerfully.
The words landed and every woman present immediately recalled the ultimate humiliation the Fab Four had inflicted on Shinichi Kudo back in the real world. Even battle-hardened veterans like Ran Mouri and Reze had to look away.
The younger ones, Kei Shirogane and Setsuna Uesugi, straight-up dry-heaved. Back then, they hadn't even waited for the Fab Four to really get started. Just a glimpse of the warm-up act had scarred them for life. The most terrifying thing they'd ever witnessed.
And now Makoto was promising "the same treatment."
Imu had no idea who Shinichi Kudo was or what "the same treatment" meant. But he could read the women's reactions.
A deep, instinctive sense of dread coiled in Imu's gut.
Morgans stood to the side, blinking. Curious. What on earth could make these women react like that? He stole a glance at Makoto's expression, then at the smiles spreading across the Fab Four's faces, and the knot in his stomach tightened.
Then Makoto turned to the Fab Four.
"The Oro Jackson is yours for a while. Take this guy on a touring humiliation show."
Touring humiliation show.
The five words landed and everyone's expression turned strange. Those words... in that combination?
The Fab Four caught on fastest. The Dolphin Devil's grin stretched wider and wider until it couldn't be contained.
"Boss..."
The Fab Four's voices trembled with excitement. "You mean..."
Makoto smiled. "This world hasn't invented video technology yet. So we'll perform live for the whole world."
He turned and shot a glance at Imu, still slung over the Gorilla Devil's shoulder.
"This thing rules over a hundred-plus member nations under the World Government. Take a little trip. Let every one of those nations see how loud their beloved ruler can howl under your blades."
The women couldn't hold it in.
So that's what "touring humiliation show" meant.
Yotsuba Nakano covered her face, the tips of her ears burning crimson. The others wore similar expressions. Even the Kuja Pirates, who'd only known Makoto for less than two months, struggled to keep a straight face.
Genuine curiosity, though. What kind of mind dreamed up an insult this elaborate? Carting the King of the World across a hundred-plus member nations for a live performance? Letting those devils have their way with him in front of everyone?
Nobody dared imagine what the World Government's global reputation would look like when this was over.