Chapter 26
The Empress
Standing on top of the mechanical monstrosity resembling a cross between an eel and a shark, Arbiter stared down at Fujitora and Alabama with a haughty look, confident that she had the high ground.
"Run while you can, but it will only delay your destruction!" she said to them in an almost psychotic tone.
"I'm not scared of you!" Alabama said to her.
"Do you expect me to retreat before an enemy?" Fujitora said to her. "Regardless of what secret weapon you take out, I will strike it down with my blade of justice!"
BGM: The Blood-Stained Cycle ~ Siren (Azur Lane Crosswave)
"Ha! Continue to talk big until you sink to your grave!" said Arbiter. The mechanical beast opened its mouth and charged up energy, and those two got into defensive stances. When the beam was fired, Alabama and Fujitora both leaped into the air. The latter used his gravity powers to keep himself floating in the air.
Alabama, on the other hand, leaped towards Arbiter with additional scythes coming out of her rigging. She swung them at Arbiter, but a force field protected the latter from the blades. The head of the mecha monster then swung at Alabama, knocking her away in the sea.
Still floating in the air, Fujitora swung his sword against the air hard and launched a large wind blade at the mecha monster. It struck the latter hard, knocking back its head. Arbiter somehow managed to keep her footing on top of its head without falling off, and she continued to smirk with confidence.
The mecha monster thrust its head forward at Fujitora, who held up his sword to block the attack. The monster struck with enough force to push him back, but the admiral was a strong man himself and thus was able to hold up against the mech's strength.
The mech used this opportunity to charge up energy in its mouth before firing a beam at point blank at Fujitora. Sensing danger, Fujitora hurriedly pulled back, and when the beam was fired, he swung down his sword while activating his gravity powers. By doing this, he split the beam in two so that it ended up going past his sides.
"Impressive!" Arbiter said with great interest. She then noticed someone approaching her from the sky.
"Siren!" shouted Zuikaku as she flew towards the scene of battle. Holding up her flaming sword, she charged at the Siren and swung down her weapon, clashing against her force field so hard that a fiery shockwave was released, but the force field was able to hold up against it.
"Nice try, but you'll have to hit harder than that!" said Arbiter.
"You won't get away with this!" Zuikaku angrily said before flying away, revealing that Taihou was approaching from behind.
Taihou swung her giant fan to release a strong fiery gale, and jet planes materialized within the wind, flying towards the mech while firing at it, but their shots did nothing to it.
As the jets flew past the mecha monster and then into the air, missiles were fired from the sides of the mech's body. They homed in on the jets at a speed faster than they can move at and destroyed them.
More missiles were launched, aiming at all the people present. Using his powers, Fujitora altered the gravity of the area in a way so that only the missiles were affected. The projectiles were forcefully pulled into the sea and exploded without hurting anyone. After that, he flew at the mecha monster and swung his haki-infused sword at its body, striking it so hard that chunks of metal flew off. "Such a hard skin!" he thought. "Even haki can't cut through it!"
As he pulled back, Zuikaku approached the mech and, with her sword covered in fire, slashed its body rapidly, each hit creating fiery shockwaves and sparks. The mech squirmed as it got hit and tried to back away from its attackers. "Tsk! They're more annoying than I thought!" Arbiter said in frustration.
Red fireballs were then shot at her, striking the mech in the side. She turned to see a large brown fox standing on the water, with Akagi standing on the fox's head. "Looks like the boss has decided to come out to play!" said the aircraft carrier. "You blessed us with this power, so now it's our turn to thank you in our own way!" Pointing at the Siren, the giant fox fired more fireballs from its turret at her.
The mech moved out of the attack's way and then fired missiles at it. The fox speedily got out of the way, but the missiles went after it. The missiles chased the fox as the latter ran around the place for a while before heading for the mech and jumped over it, allowing the missiles crash into its owner.
"Darn it!" said Arbiter in anger. "You won't get away with this!" The mech then lunged at the fox at an unexpectedly fast speed and was able to bite its tail. The fox cried in pain as the mech lifted the animal into the air and flung it away quite a distance. Akagi held on for dear life to avoid falling off.
The mech then turned its attention back to its other opponents, only to be struck in the side of the head by a solid beam of light so hard that it splashed into the water. The solid beam of light traveled to the shore and turned into someone familiar. "Admiral Kizaru!" Alabama said in surprise.
"Mind if join?" asked the admiral.
The mech rose back out of water, with Arbiter looking angry and annoyed. "Why you?! I'm getting tired of this! All of you should die right now!" The mouth of the mech opened to charge up energy.
"I don't think so," said Kizaru as he casually fired a beam of light out of his finger, aiming for the mouth of the mech. This resulted in a large explosion that knocked back the mech and also interrupted its attack, much to Arbiter's surprise.
"Argh! Why you?!" she said in anger. Suddenly, missiles and energy blasts were fired at her from the side. "Now what?!" She looked and saw Gascogne inside her mech-turned rigging standing on the water and firing all sorts of projectiles at her.
Zuikaku used this moment of distraction to launch fire blades, striking the mech in various parts of the body. She then created a large fiery crane and sent it at the Siren, striking with a powerful kamikaze attack.
Kizaru leaped high into the air and fired a large amount of light particles at the mech and Arbiter. "Yasakani Sacred Jewel!"
The projectiles struck the mech with a powerful force and actually caused pieces of its surface to crack and even fly off.
Arbiter growled in rage and thought to herself, "How are these people so powerful?! I SHOULD BE STRONGER THAN ALL OF THEM COMBINED!"
In rage, she commanded the mech to reach towards the airborne Kizaru with its mouth wide open. However, the admiral zipped behind her at the speed of light. With his leg glowing brightly in yellow, he delivered a powerful kick at Arbiter. However, her force field protected from the attack, but the kick was so strong that she almost fell off her ride, and the force field even flickered a bit, which made her nervous.
"My, that's a strong barrier if I've seen one!" commented Kizaru. "Let's see how long it can last, shall we? Ama no Murakumo Sword!" He then created a sword made of light and began swinging against the barrier in hopes of destroying it.
"Don't get cocky of yourself, you lowly human!" Arbiter angrily said to him. Without thinking twice, she commanded missiles to shoot out from the body of the mech, and they homed in on Kizaru. The admiral warped out of the way in a flash of light, so the missiles ended up striking the mech's body.
The admiral reappeared back on the shore, and Arbiter angrily turned to her, only to find herself looking face to face at a floating Fujitora. "This has gone on long enough!" he said. He swung his sword and unleashed a purple wave of energy that engulfed the mech. The body of the mech was pressed inwards as if something solid was trying to crush it.
The ship girls present bombarded the Siren nonstop with their attacks, not giving her a breather at all. "I have to get to a safer distance and get a powerful attack ready!" thought Arbiter nervously. "I'm not going to lose to the likes of them!"
The mech hurriedly retreated further back to the sea while firing missiles at the attackers to keep them at bay. After moving a bit more distance away from the shore, the mech rose higher into the air, exposing more of its body which was previously submerged underwater.
"This is it for all of you! I'm going to destroy all of you now!" Arbiter shouted out to those at the shore. Various openings appeared on each of the mech's segments, and Arbiter laughed almost maniacally as they took aim at the shore.
All of a sudden and completely without a warning whatsoever, the mech was broken down into various segments, not only the parts above the water surface but also below the water. Needless to say, Arbiter was completely shocked and confused at what just happened. "WHAT?!"
Segments of the mech's body fell onto the water surface, some of them sinking underneath already while some remained afloat. Arbiter was down on her knees on the head of the mech with a look of horror and disbelief. She could not believe that her massive rigging could be destroyed in an instant without an explanation.
Mihawk then fell from the sky, landing on one of the segments floating close to Arbiter. She glared at him and asked, "You… You did this, right…?"
"You almost knocked my ship over, and I don't like it," replied the world's most powerful swordsman as he gave her a glare that actually made chills run down her spine.
"Why… you…?!" growled Arbiter as she stood back up while trembling nonstop. "I have enough of this humiliation… I am the Siren Empress! I am the ruler of the seas! NOBODY OUT AT SEA CAN POSSIBLY BE STRONGER THAN ME!"
"Then you have a lot to learn about the world, little girl," Mihawk said to her.
"DAMN YOU!" shouted Arbiter in pure rage. She jumped into the air just as the mech's head underneath her broke down into blue cubes and gathered around her arm to become a shark head connected to it, similar to Z23's new power.
Mihawk swung his sword at Arbiter, destroying her barrier and causing her to fly back at a fast speed until she fell into the water. Floating back onto the water surface, Arbiter looked up and saw Fujitora floating in front of her. "You have lost the fight," he told her. "Surrender now, and you will be able to live to see the next day."
"NEVER!" shouted Arbiter as she leaped out of water to attack him with her shark arm.
"Such a pity…" said Fujitora before slashing her in the body while activating his gravity powers. Not only was Arbiter slashed across the abdomen, causing yellow "blood" to pour out, the gravitational force released by his sword also caused her to fly back while screaming in pain.
Kizaru appeared in the air behind her and raised one leg into the air as it glowed brightly. "Your execution is decided then," he said. "Have you ever been sent into the depths of the sea at the speed of light?"
Arbiter looked back with a horrified face that was already in tears as she flew closer and closer towards Kizaru. When at range, he brought down his glowing feet onto her head.
SMAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAASH!
BGM Ends
Arbiter dropped into the water at an incredibly fast speed, heading straight to the ocean floor, hitting it hard and causing sand to be kicked up, while all the fish close by to scatter all over the place.
Lying on the ocean floor, Arbiter weakly reached her arm towards the top while saying in her head, "No… This… cannot… be… I am supposed… to be the… strongest… at sea…"
Back on the shore, the ship girls witnessed everything that happened and were surprised beyond words. "Incredible…!" said Zuikaku. "That swordsman over there destroyed Arbiter's rigging in an instant…!"
"I can't believe it too…!" said Alabama.
Fujitora and Kizaru returned to the shore and watched as Mihawk got back onto his boat. The swordsman didn't say anything as he looked in their direction, and then he directed his boat towards the horizon and sailed away, while Perona, who was floating alongside the boat, could be seen waving at the ones at shore.
"Not much a talker, is he?" said Kizaru. "Either way, it was nice of him to drop by and lend a hand. Not that we couldn't win without him…"
"He only did this for his own personal reasons and not because he feels obligated to help us," Fujitora said to him. "All pirates are the same. They will never really lend their hand to law enforcers such as us!"
"Maybe it's true, but as long as they lend us their power, it can't be that bad," said Kizaru. "Anyway, I've got to get back to my ship and check on the status there. My men were confident that they knew how to deal with those black ships after being taught by Azur Lane, so I left them to their own accords."
"Right, the mass-produced Siren ships…" said Zuikaku. "We still have to deal with them!"
"What about that one over there?" said Taihou as she turned towards the island and looked at the giant robot that could be seen in the distance.
"Bismarck and Enterprise are in there, right? I'm sure they know what they are doing," said Alabama.
"It still worries me that they somehow managed to pull out something like that… The Sirens' powers still make me feel uneasy…" said Zuikaku.
"As long as they don't turn against us, I think it should be fine," said Kizaru, looking at the robot as well.
TO BE CONTINUED
I can't say I'm too pleased with this battle. I had quite a problem trying to type out this chapter… I still hope you enjoyed what you read, though.
I gave the Sirens yellow blood because of one particular scene from the 2019 anime, the one where Enterprise is having a vision of herself surrounded by dead Sirens, and yellow liquid is flowing out of their bodies.
