Following the initial trade of blows, Kanjuro was violently thrown backward by the sheer kinetic displacement. Mid-flight, however, a beautifully rendered ink crane erupted from the deck planks beneath him, flawlessly matching his descent and catching his frame.
"Ahahaha...! My system is stepping out ahead of schedule, so save your energy and omit the parting protocols! Keep your schedules completely clear to retrieve Momonosuke's corpse, ahahaha...!" As Kanjuro's final line of text cleared his jaw, the ink crane forcefully beat its wings, scaling its altitude parameters effortlessly until it bridged a spatial interval of over a hundred meters in the upper atmosphere.
At a vertical peak of that scale, conventional offensive lines deployed by standard infantrymen stood a zero percent probability of inflicting structural damage to his perimeter.
"You absolute piece of trash, Kanjuro!" Okiku shrieked, thick tears spilling down her face.
Ashura Doji, Nekomamushi, Inuarashi, and Raizo fell into an absolute, heavy quiet.
The surrounding local samurai cells consolidated across the armada experienced a massive processing shock. To discover an active virus nesting directly within the sacred header of the Akazaya Nine was a calculation they had completely failed to anticipate.
They held an intimate index on Kanjuro's profile.
"Evening Shower" Kanjuro—this specific moniker was an absolute, immutable data point hard-coded into the knowledge base of every single citizen across the geography of Wano Country.
To witness a structural corruption of this nature manifest without warning sent a severe ripple of distress and anxiety through the ranks.
The child clutched in his grasp was, after all, the definitive future sovereign of their land.
Kozuki Momonosuke!
High in the upper atmosphere, Momonosuke convulsed in absolute panic, thick trails of tears and snot leaking uncontrollably across his face as his vocal tracks glitched into constant weeping.
To put it bluntly, his execution of a crisis response loop was remarkably pathetic.
"Ahahaha! You miserable brat, your performance metrics under duress are exceptionally disgusting to look at," Kanjuro sneered, his expression dripping with raw, unadulterated contempt for the child.
From the absolute inception of their deployment, his internal logic loops had utterly rejected the boy's right to lead. Leaving his complete deficit in baseline raw power metrics aside...
The kid was paralyzed by a permanent, maximum-yield fear loop. His character file contained absolute zero traces of the monolithic, awe-inspiring shadow cast by his biological father, Kozuki Oden.
Granted, while Kanjuro and Oden had operated on strictly adversarial counter-paths from the beginning, his internal processors had always maintained a profound, healthy admiration for the man's legacy.
Twenty rotations of the calendar ago, any true warrior whose veins circulated the hot, unyielding blood of Wano's bushido code harbored a genuine, deep-seated reverence for Oden's spirit.
When the Akazaya Nine declared their unconditional love for Lord Oden, that data track was completely devoid of fabrication.
Even though Kanjuro's alignment dictated a permanent state of hostility toward the lord, it had never compromised his capacity to appreciate Oden's elite tier of majesty.
But evaluating the little parasite weeping before his sensors... hah! He represented an absolute, unmitigated stain on Oden's ancestral ledger!
At least, that was the exact conclusion Kanjuro's analytical sub-routines returned.
"Terminate your acoustic output!" Kanjuro growled, his features freezing into an expression of absolute frost as he glared down at Momonosuke.
Overwhelmed by absolute, instinctual terror, Momonosuke's cognitive processors failed to even parse the verbal command. He simply continued to dump maximum volume into his throat-shredding screams: "Brothers! Compress your coordinates and deploy an immediate rescue vector... sniff... waaaah... ahhh...!"
Already navigating a highly volatile, unoptimized emotional state due to Orochi's fall, the constant shrieking caused thick veins of pure irritation to violently burst across Kanjuro's temples. Hoisting Momonosuke's small infrastructure with one hand, he drew his opposite fist back and unleashed a heavy, unmitigated barrage of physical strikes.
BANG-BANG! CRASH-CRASH-CRASH! BANG-BANG!
A highly rhythmic, bone-shattering cadence of raw concussive force resonated through the atmosphere.
The colossal, heavy fists rained down like a localized storm cell over the child's petite physical frame.
With every single impact tearing into the boy's tissue, bright arcs of crimson fluid sprayed across the sky. Within a remarkably restricted timeline, Momonosuke's capacity to execute a weeping routine caved in completely, his audio output reduced to a series of ragged, agonizing structural shrieks.
"LORD MOMONOSUKE!! KANJURO!!!" Kin'emon's eyes dilated to their absolute, bloodshot limits, a dark trail of crimson fluid leaking past his clenched teeth as his fury crested.
"That absolute monster of a traitor...! To dare subject Lord Momonosuke's physical mass to that tier of trauma... grr-aaaah...!"
"Lord Momonosuke..."
"Delete that wretched parasite from the grid!"
Just as the collective samurai forces were drowning in a severe processing loop, entirely unable to formulate a viable counter-measure against the vertical distance, Kenshin slowly stepped to the vanguard.
"Does your profile represent the root virus responsible for corrupting the framework of Wano Country until it caved into this pathetic state of decay? Since the data matches, your trajectory terminates permanently on this ridge today." As the flat, resonant lines of verbal text vibrated through the audio receptors of every asset across the armada, Kenshin's long katana smoothly cleared its scabbard.
Vrumm!
He vaulted straight into the upper atmosphere with zero latency, a high-density matrix of brilliant, crackling lightning cells instantaneously enveloping his entire physical infrastructure. Within the blink of an eye, his body transformed into a high-speed bolt of plasma. As the thunderous light strobed across the sky, Kenshin's coordinate tracks rapidly closed the vertical gap separating him from Kanjuro.
The structural utility of the Rumble-Rumble Fruit within Kenshin's database was explicitly engineered to act as a massive, world-altering multiplier to derive his unique brand of sword mastery.
Across the vast architecture of the Grand Line, Devil Fruit properties featured an infinite array of variance, yet based entirely on the cognitive control and baseline stats of the individual user, the resulting deployment output could yield completely opposite tiers of efficiency.
Initially, during the early phases of his integration loop, the raw electrical discharge functioned merely as a localized auxiliary modifier to scale up the kinetic damage of his slashes. But as his training timeline finalized its peak, he had successfully fused the volatile currents of heaven's wrath directly into the geometry of his sword plays.
He had carved out an absolute, independent path of mastery.
Furthermore, commanding the properties of lightning itself granted his physical mass an instantaneous displacement attribute parallel to short-range teleportation. Vertical air combat carried an absolute zero percent risk index for his system!
It represented an absolute, overwhelming tactical advantage!
"Lightning Flash: Cangyun Rupture!"
He swung his blade through a singular, fluid arc. Out across the far reaches of the sky where the eyes of the low-tier samurai failed to resolve the data, a spectacular, blinding flash of pure electrical energy rent the horizon.
In a fraction of a millisecond, the bolt cut deep into the cloud layer.
By this microsecond, Kanjuro had already pushed his flight parameters to span an altitude interval of several thousand meters, his silhouette reduced to a microscopic speck to the observers below.
Yet, a sharp SLASH resonated through the upper atmosphere, followed instantly by a throat-shredding shriek of pure agony as a physical frame began a violent, vertical descent toward the sea.
It was Kanjuro!
That solitary execution stroke from Kenshin had cleanly bisected the ink crane, leaving Kanjuro's structural integrity compromised as deep lacerations leaked blood across his formal attire.
"Agh...!" Kanjuro's internal planners suffered a massive calculation shock; he had completely failed to simulate a variable capable of scaling its vertical velocity to intercept his flight path with that tier of terrifying raw power.
It was an immutable mathematical law: any asset that established a verified link to Luffy's brotherhood was a high-tier monster that completely rejected standard parameters.
Every single one of them was hard-coded with broken, godlike capabilities.
As his frame tumbled through the air currents, Kanjuro's logic gates finalized a bleak deduction: his individual survival sequence had entered a permanent terminal state. He was cornered at the threshold of death.
"Ahahaha! To have the primary successor of the Kozuki dynasty permanently delete his own life signs to act as a final blood sacrifice for my departure... this functions as the absolute, flawless curtain call for my masterpiece performance! Ahahahahaha...!" Wrenching his features into a mask of pure madness, an apocalyptic wave of unadulterated venom flashed through Kanjuro's eyes.
"High-priority warning!" Kenshin's internal danger-radar triggered a massive alert, his mind locking onto the trajectory Kanjuro was preparing to execute.
Wano Country held zero clearance to tolerate the structural deletion of Momonosuke!
Operating as a native asset born on these very shores, Kenshin possessed a complete index detailing the sacred, near-deific weight the Kozuki lineage held within the psychological database of the civilian populace.
It was a permanent, spiritual anchor.
In this current, volatile timeline of the war, Momonosuke represented the absolute solitary beacon of hope keeping the nation's morale online.
"Face total system deletion!" Kanjuro shrieked. Reaching out with a brutal grip, his fingers clamped around Momonosuke's windpipe, while his opposite hand thrust his reinforced calligraphy brush forward in a lethal, bone-piercing trajectory.
CLANG!!!
Right at the absolute threshold of impact, a solid wall of masterwork steel materialized smoothly within the path, blockading the brush head and freezing its kinetic force mere millimeters from Momonosuke's face.
"His vital stats are restricted from entering a zero state!" Kenshin declared coldly. Focusing a monumental, crackling vortex of high-voltage lightning directly into his left palm, he drove his hand down against the traitor's torso.
ROAR—ZAP-ZAP-ZAP!!!
A spectacular, blinding detonation of pure electrical energy erupted across the upper atmosphere, the sheer luminescence mimicking the sudden manifestation of a miniature, brilliant sun in the eastern sky.
Simultaneously, along the edge of the marine horizon, the true crimson sun of the new morning began to slowly breach the cloud grid, tinting the world in a soft red hue.
"AAAAAAAGH!!!" Kanjuro's vocal tracks completely overloaded, a piercing, inhuman shriek of absolute agony tearing across the sky.
Moving with practiced efficiency, Kenshin's free hand smoothly locked around Momonosuke's collar, pulling the child completely out of the traitor's offensive perimeter.
The sheer, visceral horror of the shriek caused every single samurai asset anchored across the fleet below to experience a severe neurological jolt.
Exactly what caliber of entity was Kanjuro?
He was a deep-cover intelligence operator who had successfully suppressed his own psychological parameters to endure twenty consecutive rotations of the calendar within a fabricated script; his capacity to withstand intense, physical torment was supposed to be flawlessly optimized.
Not a single retainer anchoring the Akazaya Nine belonged to a fragile class; each profile was hard-coded with a tier of mental fortitude that common human processors couldn't hope to emulate.
Yet right now, Kanjuro was unleashing a shriek that sounded like his very soul was being systematically pulverized, verifying that the electrical output Kenshin had downloaded into his frame had completely bypassed his tolerance thresholds.
"The skies have answered our formulas! Lord Momonosuke has been successfully extracted...!" A collective wave of pure, unadulterated ecstasy broke through the ranks of the samurai infantry.
"That lightning swordsman... exactly what sovereign database does his profile hail from? His capabilities are..."
Kenshin maintained a flat, freezing glare as he tracked Kanjuro's charred, smoking mass beginning to drift downward. An undercover virus of this magnitude commanded zero statistical right to mercy.
High in the sky, Kanjuro was actively coughing up white froth, his eyes rolled back completely as his biological shell was reduced to a blackened, scorched ruin, his physical momentum carrying him down toward the ocean.
Just as the collective alliance partners relaxed their defensive postures, assuming the sub-routine had achieved total closure, Bell's features underwent a radical, high-priority shift. He violently threw his voice across the acoustic channels: "Brother Kenshin! Re-boot your offensive lines and deploy an immediate execution strike to permanently terminate his structure!"
"Oh?" Kenshin blinked, a minor latency loop delaying his processing track for a fraction of a millisecond. Then, his face hardened into an expression of absolute, dangerous gravity.
Defying all biological logic, Kanjuro's scorched, twitching hand had violently snapped outward through the smoke haze, his fingers clamping like an iron clamp around Momonosuke's ankle!
"System error!"
Before the child could even formulate a shriek, a primal, beast-like roar erupted from Kanjuro's throat, and Momonosuke's face drained of all color as his life signs faced immediate termination.
FLASH!!!
With a brilliant, air-shattering display of absolute sword velocity, Kenshin's masterwork steel whistled through the air tracks, driving straight through the center of Kanjuro's chest to completely perforate his cardiac infrastructure.