As the duel escalated, Ash kept his unshakable tone of laughter.
"Aren't you going to do some big speech? Call me a threat to the peace, maybe give me a memorable epithet?"
Darius's lips twitched—no surrender in the man's face but something like confusion.
"Your jokes are…inappropriate."
"You're telling me," Ash said, then drove his tachi in a sudden downward spiraling slash that threw Darius off balance.
For a breath he saw fear—fleeting, respectable—and answered not with a killing blow but with a pivot, a Hiten flourish that disarmed balance and broke rhythm.
He wanted no instant death: he wanted the story, the sweat, the ache. He wanted them to remember the procession of moves.
Their clash moved toward a pressure point. Marines behind Darius watched, captivated in a way only a fight like this could produce.The Ravenant also leaned as if against some shared current.
From somewhere low and deep, Ash let out a sound that wasn't a command but a claim—something that brushed the minds of weaker men and left them slack for a heartbeat.
It was the edge of Conqueror's Haki, unrefined and not fit for emperors, but enough to make the teeth chatter in fewer-willed throats.
A petty corporal on Darius's deck stumbled and dropped his rifle.
Darius's jaw set. He felt it, that small prick of will that pushed back against his command. He met Ash blade to blade and the air itself seemed to hold its breath.
"You have Haki," he grunted.
"A little," Ash admitted, breathless and grinning. "Like you have bad fashion sense. Both fixable."
Darius tried to respond with thunder—Judgment Bolt, a lightning spear thrown from sabre into sea and sky—but Ash answered with a spinning, breathing form that curved around the bolt like a moon around a sun—
Water Breathing, Fourth Form: Striking Tide—and countered with a series of flying slashes that chunked apart rigging and sent the admiral's men scrambling.
The duel had not yet reached its final crescendo. Rain made everything theatrical; steam fogged the world in surreal brushstrokes.
Ash and Darius circled, each a study in what they were willing to sacrifice to be right.
Ash wiped salt and blood from his lip and said, with the same peculiar levity that had started the duel,
"This is fun. You should try laughing once."
Darius's answer was a low roar as he launched into the next strike. The storm took their voices and made them rain.
The ship groaned under the blows. The Ravenant watched with bated breath.
They were just beginning.
The Ravenant and the Marine flagship hung locked in a chaos that felt divine.
Rain was falling in solid sheets, waves tall as buildings slammed between the ships, and the night sky looked as if it might crack from the strain of thunder.
But even the sea itself seemed to recoil from the two figures dueling at its center.
Ashborn and Rear Admiral Darius Volt stood less like men and more like philosophies mid-argument—
one born from chaos, the other raised in order.
---
For a heartbeat, neither moved.
Steam and rain blurred the deck into a painting of whites and blues.
Ashborn's black hair, soaked and half-tied, clung to his face; his crimson eyes glowed faintly under flashes of lightning.
The long tachi, Mikazuki Munechika, trembled faintly in his grip — not from fear, but from excitement.
On the opposite side, Darius stood tall, one arm bleeding from Ash's last strike.
His saber sparked with live current; every raindrop that touched it turned to mist.
His Marine coat was torn, his chest marked by shallow cuts that steamed when the lightning passed near.
Between them, the deck cracked — the pressure of their presences pushing against each other like magnets of opposite poles.
"You've improved since the last swing," Ashborn said casually, shifting into stance.
"Maybe I just needed a better partner."
Darius's jaw tightened. "Your tongue is sharper than your blade, pirate. Let's dull both."
The admiral disappeared. Soru.
A snap of displaced air, and suddenly Darius was right in front of Ashborn, his saber coming down like a thunder god's hammer.
But Ash had seen it.
Observation Haki pulsed behind his eyes, slowing the world into intuition.
Every droplet, every gust of wind, every muscle twitch of Darius's stance — it all lined up into perfect geometry.
He turned his blade sideways, Water Breathing – Third Form: Flowing Dance, and let the blow slide past him.
The tachi curved with liquid grace, catching the lightning's reflection as it carved a shallow cut across Darius's thigh.
The admiral's counter came fast — a Rankyaku, a compressed air blade from his kick that split the deck apart in a thunderclap.
Ash flipped backward, the move as light as a falling petal, landing atop a broken mast that still jutted from the deck.
"Hey," he called down. "If you're gonna kick, at least buy me dinner first!"
Darius's eyes narrowed — Tekkai Kenpo, his muscles hardened with iron-like force as he leapt up and struck again.
This time the thunder itself joined him; arcs of lightning twisted along his sword as he unleashed Shinrai Gekido — Divine Wrath Strike.
The blow wasn't just fast — it was inevitable.
Ash crossed his blade before him. Armament Haki, faint but flaring, coated the edge of Mikazuki in a glossy black film.
The lightning hit, exploded outward — shockwaves blasted marines off their feet, the masts cracked, and planks ripped from their nails.
When the light cleared, Ashborn was still standing — smoke rising from his arms, boots planted deep into the wood.
He exhaled once. Steam left his mouth like fog.
"That all you've got?"
And then he vanished.
Hiten Mitsurugi: Flashpoint
Ash reappeared midair — Soru and Hiten Mitsurugi blended in a movement so sharp the rain lagged behind.
"Mugen no Issen!"
The tachi struck like moonlight cutting through stormclouds, a streak that forced Darius into a desperate parry.
Metal screamed against metal.
The admiral was driven back — through broken railings, over the body of a fallen captain, onto a stretch of flooded deck.
Ash landed lightly, blade spinning to his shoulder.
His eyes had that faint spark again — not rage, not bloodlust.
Excitement.
Joy.
"Now we're getting somewhere."
---
Darius slammed his saber into the deck.
Electricity erupted outward in a circle of raw current, vaporizing water in a hiss.
"You think this is a game?"
he shouted.
"You and your freakish crew—
You're a sickness on these seas! I'll cure you with fire and thunder!"
Ash tilted his head, smirking.
"Maybe I am a sickness. But I like my symptoms."
Then his tone dropped.
"...And don't talk about my crew like that."
His sword lowered, the air grew heavy.
The rain stopped midfall — droplets hung suspended, trembling.
A pulse rolled out from Ashborn like a heartbeat from hell.
Conqueror's Haki.
Even in its unrefined state, it hit the battlefield like a wave of instinct —
dozens of marines dropped to their knees, eyes rolling back as they fainted.
Darius took a half step back, breath catching.
"...So you really are one of them."
Ash twirled his blade lazily.
"Not quite. I'm still learning to roar."
He stepped forward.
"Want to help me practice?"
---
The duel shifted into pure madness.
Ash dashed forward — his tachi glowing faintly blue, Water Breathing — Tenth Form: Constant Flux, an unending series of rotating strikes, fluid yet relentless.
Darius met him in full force — Soru bursts, Rankyaku kicks, Kami-e dodges, and bursts of static so bright the world turned white.
Each impact was thunder, each parry a flash of sun.
Ash's sword carved arcs through the rain, reflecting lightning — sometimes one blade, sometimes five ghostly afterimages (a nod to his Archer-style projection techniques).
Darius lunged — Ash parried, spun, backhanded the blade with impossible precision,
and in the same motion used Geppo to leap over the admiral, landing behind him mid-swing.
The tachi cut through air with such speed it generated a crescent of vacuum —
a flying slash that tore through the flagship's mainmast, sending it crashing into the sea.
Ruin, the raven, shrieked from above — circling, lightning flashing behind its wings.
The marines below looked up in horror as the massive bird cast a shadow across the entire deck.
To them, it was no longer a bird — it was an omen.
'The Dreadruin Reaper was here.'
---
Ash and Darius both bled now — one from the shoulder, one from the side.
Both grinned, in their own ways.
Darius raised his saber, its edge pulsing with electricity bright enough to blind.
Ash lifted Mikazuki, the faint blue aura of water rising like mist around him.
The storm answered both.
When they moved, the world blurred.
Two streaks of light — one gold, one blue — crossed midair, each dragging wind and rain in their wake.
The sea split beneath them for a heartbeat.
Then came the impact — a BOOM that ripped through the night, the ships rocking violently apart.
Both men stood frozen, blades locked, eyes meeting through the thin line of clashing energy.
Darius snarled.
"You think this chaos will last? Justice always—"
"—gets rewritten,"
Ashborn finished, twisting his wrist.
The crescent tachi flashed upward — Darius's saber shattered at the base, lightning bursting free like broken glass.
A split-second later, Ash's tachi stopped an inch from the admiral's throat.
Silence
For a long moment, nothing but the storm spoke.
Then Ash sheathed his sword in one smooth motion,
the click audible even through the thunder.
"Thanks for the dance, Admiral."
He turned away, voice calm but heavy.
"And tell the world... the Dreadruin Pirates have entered the Grand Line."
Ruin screeched overhead, wings spreading wide, black as the void between stars.
The marines who still stood felt a chill crawl up their spines.
Not from the cold — but from the realization that this wasn't just a pirate crew.
It was a storm with names.
Ash turned toward his ship as the Ravenant began its climb toward Reverse Mountain,
the rest of the crew laughing, shouting, alive.
Behind him, Darius knelt — blade broken, eyes full of awe and disbelief.
He whispered hoarsely,
"Reaper... huh. Fitting name."
And the storm swallowed his words.
.
.
.
.
.
_______To be continued _______