Ordinary Devil Fruits could not create this kind of presence or size. Only one category could even come close: Mythical Zoan fruits. Those came with three forms, and the third was the colossal beast form.
Yet the way the fox had swatted Marco's attack aside with a single paw felt too overwhelming even for a Mythical Zoan.
"It is not a Mythical Zoan," Rakuya said with a faint smile. "This is what it is by nature."
"Tell that to a fool," Marco shot back, pupils flashing as he dived again.
Rakuya's smile lingered. Marco did not know Naruto's world existed, much less that Rakuya could summon monsters from it. That ignorance was not his fault.
"Shortsighted."
Rakuya's voice was calm. "Nine Tails, show him a taste of your power. Do as you please. Kill him if you like. He will not stay dead."
He wanted to see how the Nine Tailed Demon Fox performed in the One Piece world. Summons did not suffer chakra shortages here, and their recovery was outrageous. It was almost like Edo Tensei without the drawbacks.
"So we both have beasts," Marco snarled. "Let us see whose wins."
Against the Nine Tails' bulk, Marco looked like a capering clown. The fox bounded once, body blurring, and was suddenly above him, swatting down as if returning a serve.
Boom.
They clashed and split. Marco's eyes tightened. "That size and still that flexible? Where did this thing come from?"
With power like that, how had the world never heard its name?
While he hesitated, the Nine Tails flickered to his flank. A hook of a claw ripped the air and came crashing down.
"Little brat. Lose focus in front of me and you will be paste," the fox growled, jagged fangs bared. Scarlet chakra boiled off its hide, wicked and oppressive.
"Damn it. That aura is vile. What fruit user are you? No cat or fox Zoan should be this strong."
Marco's form shifted and juked, speed and flight his only answer. Against such mass and reach he could only be battered around the sky.
He shot upward on a crack of blue flame. The fox had no wings. If he kept to open air, it might never catch him.
"You are powerful," Marco called down, mocking from his safe height, "but you cannot touch a born flier like the Phoenix."
"If you think that simply, you will pay for it."
The Nine Tails' baleful eyes tracked him. The nine tails began to spin. Wind screamed. Sand scudded in sheets.
Ufole dove behind a boulder. Rakuya had already screened Momousagi from the fox's evil aura, yet the sight still drained the color from her face.
"An ancient monster," she whispered. "A true demon fox."
"Try this on. Hiding in the sky will not save you."
Three tails snapped upward, each a crimson lance steeped in malevolence, arcing to pen Marco in.
"Tch. It can do that?" Marco's face changed. He beat back hard. The fox's energies were strange, and he had already eaten one nasty surprise.
"Armament."
Black hardened over his forearm. He spun, hammered one tail aside, and slid through the gap. Four more snapped up like serpents. If they bound him, he was finished.
"This thing is insane."
He wove and juked across the vault of heaven, feinting high, sliding low, zigzagging through the tightening web by inches each time.
"This will not do. I cannot just keep taking hits."
Marco set his jaw. His lower body flowed back toward human shape as he tucked and dove, a streak of blue fire. His Haki-hardened foot drove straight for the fox's eye.
"Ant."
A tail surged up, chakra swelling it thick as a tower, and barred the strike.
Crack.
He poured everything into the kick. The block held.
"Fast," Rakuya said lightly. "No wonder a commander under Whitebeard. The experience shows."
But today Marco would lose. His opponent was the Nine Tailed Demon Fox.
The fox's grin turned cruel. The tail that had blocked him swept sideways like a world spanning cudgel.
Whump.
Caught flat, Marco took the blow full on and plummeted.
Crash.
Stone shattered. A trench spidered outward from the impact pit.
The fox landed in the same heartbeat and slammed a paw down to finish it.
A geyser of blue fire roared up from the crater. A phoenix cried and shot skyward once more.
"Damn it. Even its tails are trouble. That defense is monstrous."
Hovering, chest aching, Marco stared down with new weight in his eyes. The thing was strong beyond reason. It had stuffed his blitz, countered in a blink, and swatted him out of the sky. What kind of reflexes were those?
"Blue flames of restoration," Rakuya murmured, watching the hue of the fire.
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