Outside the city of Alubarna, Erumalu.
"Whew—this one's really good quality."
Aha was leading his Karoo Duck, Dodoroo, as he dug a fresh sand bamboo shoot out of the desert.
This unique plant grows in the deserts of Alabasta, drawing nourishment from underground water and rainfall.
It's delicious but difficult to harvest, making it highly sought after by gourmets.
Aha's profession was that of a sand bamboo shoot merchant.
"That Rain Summoner… the rain last time truly saved us."
As he spoke, Aha tossed the shoot into the basket on his Karoo Duck's back.
Lately, he'd lost count of how many times he'd sighed like this.
People never forget miracles.
He would never forget the scene he'd personally witnessed—watching the "Rain Summoner" walk out of the desert. That rain, in a sense, had saved the lives of him and his wife and children.
"I just don't know why His Majesty the King won't admit he knows the Rain Summoner… I clearly heard that person had already entered the royal palace."
Shh—shh—
He lit his long-stem pipe and muttered under his breath.
Shh—shh—
But after only a couple of puffs, he felt that something was wrong.
Shh—shh—
Very quickly, he came to a conclusion.
"…The sound of the sand isn't right."
Aha frowned deeply.
As someone who traveled the desert for a living, he knew it well.
The desert around Erumalu shifted daily due to wind and underground water—but since a moment ago, it seemed far too active.
The shh-shh sound of moving sand was even starting to feel shrill.
"No… something's wrong. The sky and wind direction to the west are off too."
Soon, Aha noticed even more abnormalities.
At the limit of his vision, the sky west of Erumalu looked inexplicably gloomy.
He could even see the sand in the west visibly moving—yet he couldn't feel much wind coming from that direction.
"This isn't right…"
So Aha decided to go take a look.
His home was nearby, and for the sake of his wife and children, he had to confirm what was going on.
So—
"Dodoroo!"
"Quack!"
He mounted his Karoo Duck and sped off toward the west.
"I remember that area being the outskirts… I think someone even opened a café there… huh?"
He was still thinking as he rode.
Then—
"Quack!"
After cresting a sand dune, the Karoo Duck beneath him suddenly let out a startled cry.
It braked abruptly, and the sudden inertia nearly flung Aha off its back.
"Dodoroo!? What are you—"
Aha's complaint cut off halfway.
Because the sight that greeted him after crossing that dune was nothing short of horrifying.
In the sky above, a torrential downpour was falling.
Yet the rain couldn't reach the ground—because before it could, a massive curtain of sand, rising from the earth and blotting out the sky, completely blocked it.
At that moment, Aha finally understood why the sky in this area looked so strange.
Even the sunlight nearby was being entirely cut off by that enormous sand curtain.
Thud! Thud!
Crisp sounds echoed continuously around him.
They were the sounds of chunks of sand, fully saturated with water, falling from the sand curtain above and smashing into the ground.
And as those sand blocks fell, fresh sand continuously rose into the sky, maintaining the curtain's existence.
Yet as awe-inspiring as this spectacle was—
It still wasn't the most shocking part.
"Rumble!"
At this moment, apart from the sand curtain blocking the torrential rain—
The entire desert within several hundred meters was actually churning. Countless grains of golden sand rose into massive waves, surging endlessly.
It no longer looked like a desert, but like a roaring ocean of sand.
And upon that sea of sand, nothing remained.
Whether stone pillars, shrubs, or even the café that Aha distinctly remembered being nearby—everything had vanished without a trace.
This was also why his Karoo had stopped.
One more step forward, and he too would have become part of this "desert."
As a citizen of Alabasta, Aha was actually quite familiar with such scenes.
Quicksand—the most common, and also the most terrifying, "natural disaster" in Alabasta.
But the problem was—
"That… what is that…?"
Aha's murmur was almost dreamlike.
Because he saw it—within the rolling, surging sea of sand, there were two human figures!
"Boom!"
One of them had his lower body completely merged with the endless yellow sand.
His left hand was a golden hook, and every swing of it stirred up sand waves that blotted out the sky, condensing into enormous curved "blades."
Wherever those blades passed, the desert itself was split open, carving massive ravines.
Looking closely, one would even realize that the entire flow of the quicksand had a central point—
That man.
Facing him in battle was a figure Aha knew all too well.
The imposing dragon-head mask—it was the "Rain Summoner."
And at this moment, that mysterious guest was also displaying unbelievable power.
He walked calmly through the raging quicksand.
Beneath his feet, a thin layer of ice spread continuously with every step he took.
No matter how violently the sand surged, the instant it drew near him, it froze solid, becoming firm ground to stand on.
And every time Crocodile unleashed a "Desert Spada," massive ice shields would rise up around him to block the attack.
Witnessing this unbelievable scene, Aha began to doubt his earlier judgment.
Because everything before his eyes unmistakably told him one thing—
What he was seeing was not a "natural disaster," but the result of these two people's actions.
Their battle was directly reshaping the landscape itself.
"Are they… really human?"
That thought inevitably arose in Aha's mind.
But soon after, worry crept in.
Because even though he was someone who couldn't fight at all, he could still tell—
On the battlefield, the man who controlled the flowing sand clearly held the upper hand.
And the "Rain Summoner" seemed to be under pressure.
Yet for Aha, regardless of why they were fighting, at least one thing was certain—
"That Rain Summoner is the nation's hope right now…"
He murmured anxiously.
And at this moment—
On the battlefield.
"Kid, I told you—you won't get another chance to touch me with water."
Crocodile's voice echoed through the surging yellow sand, filled with unmistakable arrogance.
"Slash!"
As he spoke, the sharp "Desert Spada" roared out once more.
On the other side—
"Clang!"
Dragon waved his hand again, and a suddenly formed ice shield blocked the Desert Spada.
Before the razor-sharp sand blade could cleave through the ice shield, Dragon leapt backward, narrowly avoiding the strike.
"So when you say 'no chances,' you just mean not letting me get close?"
Dragon shook his head.
"I thought a Warlord of the Sea would come up with something a bit more… domineering than that."
He directly pointed out what Crocodile was doing at that very moment.
Ever since confirming that Dragon knew his weakness, and that his ability seemed to be the manipulation of water, Crocodile's choice had been clear—
He widened the distance and triggered this vast sea of quicksand.
Relying on this enormous sand ocean, he continuously launched long-range attacks at Dragon using the powers of the Sand-Sand Fruit, never engaging in close combat.
"Schemes don't matter," Crocodile said calmly.
"As long as they're effective and lead to victory, that's enough."
"As for pride or honor—those things only ever appear on tombstones."
As he spoke, he slashed his right hand through the air again. From the sand sea, another massive hand made of yellow sand rose up and reached toward Dragon.
"Buzz!"
Dragon leapt into the air, narrowly avoiding the attack.
When the strike failed, Crocodile showed not the slightest concern.
He was a Logia-type Sand-Sand Fruit user.
And Logia users represented nature itself.
Their power was equivalent to natural disasters.
When Paramecia or Zoan users attempted long-range, large-scale destruction, it usually required tremendous physical stamina.
But Logia users were different.
They could generate elements out of nothing. For them, wide-area attacks were incredibly easy to execute.
Especially within their own "natural environment," controlling the elements around them consumed almost no energy at all.
This was precisely why Logia fruits were called the strongest type of Devil Fruit.
Take Crocodile at this very moment.
Controlling sand from afar to attack Dragon felt almost instinctive to him—sand was an extension of his body, costing him virtually no stamina.
"Your ability does pose a threat to me, but there is a fundamental gap in the rank of our abilities."
As his words fell, he waved his hand again.
Several sand blades shot out instantly, once more dodged by Dragon.
"Talking about victory already—don't you think that's a bit premature?"
Dragon chuckled softly.
Beneath the mask, a faint smile even appeared on Roy's face.
Because in truth, Crocodile's decision was exactly what he had hoped for.
Crocodile didn't want to engage in close combat—and Roy wanted it even less.
This sliced clone of his, "Dragon," lacked enough Devil Fruit slots and therefore had no physical enhancement-type fruits installed.
As a result, even his use of the Six Powers could only be described as barely passable.
If Crocodile had chosen close-quarters combat, Roy would have been far more wary.
But since Crocodile opted to clash purely through abilities, Roy couldn't have asked for better.
And at this moment—
"It's time."
He murmured softly in his mind.
On the light screen before his eyes:
[Logia · Sand-Sand Fruit — Analysis Completion: 100%]
The message told him that there was no longer any need to conserve stamina.
So—
"Other things aside, but saying there's a gap between our Devil Fruit abilities?
That's something I absolutely can't just pretend I didn't hear!"
As the words fell, Dragon landed on the ground.
He slowly raised his hand and snapped his fingers.
And then Crocodile saw it—
A colossal mass burst upward from beneath Dragon's feet!
"Rumble!"
The earth trembled. The ley lines roared.
Along with that deep, heavy sound came a wave of bitter cold, like the heart of winter itself.
The chill was so intense that even Aha, watching from far away, shuddered violently.
And then he saw the Rain Summoner slowly rising into the air—
Or rather, to be precise, he was being lifted upward by what stood beneath his feet.
It was a massive structure, crystal-clear and towering beyond belief.
Carrying bone-chilling cold, it tore through the sea of sand and rose from the ground, appearing in a land that had once belonged only to sand.
It was an... iceberg!
[Ice Release: Frost Mountain]
"How is that possible?!"
The sight of something that should never exist in the desert caused Crocodile's expression to stiffen instantly.
Without question, what was happening now exceeded even the understanding of a Shichibukai.
"This is a desert—an almost completely waterless desert."
"Even Aokiji couldn't create such a massive iceberg here in such a short time. Even a Logia user who can generate elements and alter the environment still needs time…"
As this thought crossed his mind, his body suddenly froze.
Almost immediately, he turned his head and looked around.
Amid the raging yellow sand, there were things he had previously overlooked.
They were the objects that had been falling from the sky throughout the battle—those chunks of sand that had once formed the sand curtain shielding him from the rain, but had fallen after absorbing too much water.
At last, Crocodile realized the danger.
"From the very beginning, he…"
In his strategy-honed mind, the terrifying truth dawned on him in an instant.
From the very start, his opponent's true objective had been this.
No wonder that even after he raised the sand curtain to block the rain, the downpour in the sky never stopped.
The purpose of that rain was never to soak him—it was to change the moisture content of the battlefield itself.
"Crocodile…"
At that moment, Dragon's voice came from atop the massive iceberg.
His voice carried a hint of strain—clearly, wielding his ability at this intensity was taxing even for him.
But still—
"My organization is called the Twelve Zodiac."
"And my codename within it is 'Dragon'!"
As his words fell—
Crocodile saw the towering iceberg beneath Dragon's feet begin to change once more.
White steam erupted from the surface of the ice, quickly enveloping the entire iceberg.
Even though the interior was completely obscured, Crocodile could still hear the sound.
Then—
"Rush!"
He heard the roar of surging water.
[Molten Fire: Great Surge]
No—
"Rush!"
"Boom!"
"RUMBLE—!!!"
The violently shifting sound made it clear that this was no gentle stream—
It was a tidal wave!
"A mere desert—if I can't summon storms and oceans here, then how could I possibly be worthy of this codename?"