One Piece: The Dragon All-Star - 198

Chapter 198: York Dies! Kizaru’s Helpless Dilemma

York turned around mechanically, inch by inch, and saw the figure she least wanted to face right now.

Enel was leaning against the shadowed corner, arms folded across his chest.

Those eyes that were usually half-lidded now held only cold indifference, like he was looking at a corpse.

“E-Enel, sir?” York swallowed hard. Almost out of instinct, that innocent, clueless smile snapped back onto her face. “I, I was just lost. Do you believe me?”

Enel’s mouth twisted. “Then let me say this. I just happened to be passing by, and I just happened to overhear you talking to the Marines. Do you believe me?”

If his Observation Haki had not reached far enough to catch people’s voices, he really might have been fooled by her.

“I do. Of course I do.” York nodded vigorously, looking unbelievably sincere.

The instant she lowered her head, the fake panic in her eyes vanished, replaced by grim resolve.

She jerked her mouth wide open. “Hel-”

Before she could force out the rest of the word, a blazing blue bolt of lightning struck after her, yet arrived first, punching straight through her chest.

The current went berserk inside York’s body. Arcs cracked across her surface, and scorched black smoke rose with a stench of burning.

She staggered, then toppled forward stiffly and hit the floor, motionless.

Enel strolled up and looked down at her from above.

He tilted his head, then suddenly reached out and clamped his hand around York’s metal throat.

“Just in case. Thunder Metallurgy.”

An even more violent surge of current erupted from his palm and flooded into York’s shell.

Lightning didn’t just numb—it brought extreme heat.

The metal on York’s body reddened, softened, and began to drip right in front of his eyes.

“Hot! Hot! Hot, hot, hot! Stop it, you bastard! How can you abuse a corpse!”

The York, who had just “died” exploded into a shriek, thrashing wildly.

Enel answered with an even fiercer surge of lightning.

In only a few seconds, dense precision components inside York sparked one after another under overload and heat. Warning tones shrieked in a chaotic mess, then fell silent.

The light in her eyes went out completely. Her final struggle stopped.

In the last instant before her consciousness vanished, her remaining voice module sputtered out a broken sentence through the hiss of electricity.

“Tch. Tell that self-righteous main body Vegapunk. I, York, never wanted to be just one of his satellites.”

Her voice died.

Her body and its internal structure finally melted down under the relentless heat.

All that remained was a sizzling puddle of bubbling molten metal.

Enel stared at the cooling wreckage without a change in expression. His Observation Haki swept over it carefully. After confirming there was not a single intact component left, lightning flashed around him, and he vanished into the air.

Mother Flame Laboratory.

The atmosphere was heavy as iron.

A dense ring of fully armed guards had sealed off the alloy door. Laser cutters and heavy breaching devices howled against it, throwing off blinding sparks.

The thick door groaned under the sustained assault.

Inside the lab, everything was chaos.

“Doctor. The external defense system has been fully suppressed. According to calculations, the door can hold for at most thirteen minutes and twenty-eight seconds.” Edison stared at the durability bar on the screen as it plummeted, and even his electronic voice carried rare panic.

The other Vegapunk satellites rummaged and tore through benches packed with delicate instruments and strange creations, trying to slap together something, anything, that could fight or break through.

“No. There is not enough time.” Lilith threw a half-finished energy gun back onto the table, frowning hard.

“Then let me do it.” Atlas, the tallest of them, with hair split half pink and half white, stepped forward with firm resolve. “I have a hidden backup power source. If I self-destruct, the blast will be enough to open a path. You use that chance to get the main body out.”

“Good idea.” The satellites exchanged quick looks and spoke in unison. “We’ll do an emergency modification and maximize output efficiency.”

They were satellites. Losing a body was not a big deal. Their consciousness was stored in Punk Records.

Once they got out, they could just build another one.

There was no extra hesitation, no sentimental goodbye. The ruthless efficiency of top-tier scientists showed itself in full.

They swarmed Atlas immediately, tools out, popping open the heavy back plating to reveal a terrifyingly complex energy circuit and core. They began modifying at a frantic pace.

But the moment their fingertips touched the internal wiring.

Boom!

An explosion far more violent than the cutting outside detonated without warning.

At the center of the alloy door, a huge hole burst open, its edges twisted and peeled back.

Dust and smoke poured in like a breached flood, swallowing the laboratory that had been secure moments ago.

A shadow sprinted in through the breach and linked up with Vegapunk.

“Shaka. Where are the Pacifistas and the Seraphim unit?”

Seeing Shaka arrive, Vegapunk felt his nerves ease slightly, then immediately asked about the most important armed force they had.

If the Pacifistas and Seraphim were here, with his clearance level, he could bypass even an admiral and order them to buy time.

“They were all dispatched to the eastern corridor to pursue Kai.” Shaka’s voice held a thread of helplessness. He did not know the full situation and could only follow Kizaru’s assignment for the Pacifistas and Seraphim.

Then he asked back, “What happened on your side?”

As he spoke, he took in the unconscious guards and researchers scattered around the room.

Since it was not time for their scheduled memory synchronization, information was not shared in real time between satellites. He genuinely had no idea what had happened.

Vegapunk had not even managed to explain when a stocky, towering figure charged in through the breach like a raging bull.

“Doctor. Are you alright?”

Sentomaru, axe in hand, looked frantic. His eyes swept Vegapunk up and down.

Only after confirming there were no obvious injuries did he let out a small breath. Then he planted himself beside Vegapunk, guarded and ready.

“Where’s the enemy?”

Right after him, a pair of long legs stepped into the lab.

“Doctor, I heard you were taken hostage by Enel?”

Kizaru’s voice did not show much emotion, but every word felt heavy.

The lazy curve that usually sat on his mouth had flattened into a straight line. Behind his amber-tinted sunglasses, his gaze was complicated, and deep inside it hid a sliver of hope he had not even fully noticed himself.

Doctor, don’t force me to go that far.

“Borsalino, I don’t want to brush you off with lies.” Vegapunk fell silent for a moment, then finally spoke the verdict Kizaru least wanted to hear.

“I’m leaving Punk Hazard. I’m breaking away from the World Government.”

The air in the lab seemed to get sucked out in an instant.

“I see, my old friend.” Kizaru lowered his eyelids. A long sigh slipped out, almost too quiet to hear.

Slowly, he raised his right hand and extended one finger. A terrifying point of golden light flickered at his fingertip, swelling larger and brighter.

“I’m sure, before you made this decision, you also prepared yourself to accept the consequences.”

But the laser that used to fire instantly now hovered at his fingertip, the light pulsing uncertainly, refusing to launch.

Time stretched inside the dead silence.

At last, Kizaru’s voice sounded again, seemingly calm, yet dry in a way that was almost imperceptible.

“There’s really no room to turn back?”

“ I’ve decided. ”
Vegapunk closed his eyes and faced the light that might end his life.

Regret flooded his mind like a tide.

So many projects had not even started.
So many unknown fields still waited to be explored.

Please let Kai take Punk Records, and at least one satellite, and get out.

“Sorry, old friend,” Kizaru said it in his heart. The light on his fingertip flared, about to fire.

Zap! Boom!

A pillar of blue lightning struck precisely into the golden laser the instant it was about to launch.

The collision detonated with a sharp blast.

When the lightning cleared, Enel appeared like a ghost at Vegapunk’s front-left.

“Looks like this god arrived just in time.”

Enel glanced at Kizaru, arrogance as natural as breathing. “If that old man gets hurt right under my nose, Kai will never stop nagging.”

“Thunder Disaster Enel.” Kizaru’s pupils tightened slightly, his tinted lenses reflecting the crackling electricity across Enel’s body.

A Logia user with the Rumble-Rumble Fruit was someone even Kizaru had to treat carefully.

Even his proudest speed was not guaranteed to be much faster than Enel’s.

Theory was theory. Speed’s true ceiling was not decided by the Glint-Glint Fruit. It was decided by reaction time.

“Thunder Disaster?” Veins jumped at Enel’s temple. He snapped immediately, furious. “It’s God of Thunder. God of Thunder Enel. Are your Blue Sea dweller ears just decoration?”

He had declared himself a god everywhere he went, yet the Marines always insisted on calling him Thunder Disaster, like they were doing it just to spite him.

“Whatever name you want. It doesn’t matter anymore.” Kizaru shook his head slowly. He brought his hands together in front of his chest, then pulled them apart.

A golden longsword formed in his grip, condensed from pure light particles.

“Ama no Murakumo.”

“Whether the name Thunder Disaster still exists after today is anyone’s guess.”

Feeling the sharp pressure pouring off Kizaru like a blade made real, Enel’s half-lidded eyes finally opened fully.

He curled his right hand as violent lightning exploded from his palm, stretching, shaping, hardening.

In an instant, it became a solid blue staff of lightning.

“Hmph. It’s not as comfortable as my golden staff, but it’s more than enough to deal with you.”

He twirled the lightning staff casually, the corner of his mouth lifting into a cold, arrogant curve.

“And the extras are getting in the way.”

Before his words even finished, Enel’s eyes hardened.

Boom!

A massive, terrifying aura detonated from him like an invisible tsunami.

Behind Kizaru, the elite guards who had been braced for combat did not even have time to react. Their eyes rolled white and they dropped in heaps, unconscious without a sound.

The lab was cleared in an instant.

Only the two of them remained facing each other, along with Vegapunk and the others who had been deliberately left standing.

“Scary, huh. That Conqueror’s Haki really is something,” Kizaru said, his voice dripping with lazy sarcasm, a smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth.

“But”

He vanished mid-sentence, his body breaking into blurred golden light and disappearing from where he stood.

In the next instant, like a jump through space, he was already in Enel’s face. The light sword shrieked as it cleaved down.

“For an old man like me, that level is still nowhere near enough.”

Clang!

Sword and staff collided head-on.

Punk Records Storage Hall.

After barging straight through to this place, Kai stared at the scene and could not help raising a brow.

“Well damn. That’s really something.”

In front of him was a massive spherical device towering dozens of meters high.

Several thick pipes, each multiple meters wide, connected like blood vessels to an outer reinforced glass shell. Inside the shell churned a pale green liquid filled with bubbling foam.

Suspended in the center of it was Vegapunk’s brain, enormous to the point it looked like a giant’s.

A precision metal band circled it, extending more than a dozen data cables like bundles of nerves, tightly linking this symbol of the world’s greatest intellect to everything outside.

Then dense footsteps and shouting rushed closer.

The pursuit unit was closing in fast.

“Tch. Can’t you let me quietly pack up my treasure and leave?” Kai sighed, sounding genuinely annoyed.

He looked up at the high dome ceiling and drew in a deep breath.

Boom!

A compressed shockwave blasted from his mouth like a giant energy cutting blade, slamming straight into the metal ceiling.

Then he tilted his head slightly. The shockwave swept with it, carving a huge, clean circular track across the ceiling.

Where it passed, the alloy melted through and separated like butter under a hot knife.

When the final connection snapped, the circular “lid” of the dome began to fall under its own weight.

Kai bent his knees and jumped. As the lid dropped, he lazily slapped his right palm sideways.

The heavy dome lid instantly changed direction, shrieking as it crashed into an empty wall and embedded itself there with a deep boom.

The space above opened wide.

The commotion quickly alerted Kuma, who was waiting outside to cover and extract.

He removed his gloves and aimed his paw at himself.

Pop.

With a soft sound, his huge body was “pushed” off the ground, shooting toward the opening and diving into the facility.

Not long after, Kuma landed lightly beside Kai.

When he saw the brain soaking in the giant glass container, even with his steady temperament, shock flickered through his eyes.

“That, that is Vegapunk’s brain?”

It was absurdly large.

“No time to stare, Kuma.” Kai’s eyes swept toward the corridor behind them as the noise grew closer. “Our delivery needs to ship, fast. Get this big thing out first.”

He flicked his fingers repeatedly. Blades of air shot from his fingertips, slicing through the thick pipes and data cables connected to the glass shell.

Slice. Slice. Slice.

The lines snapped clean.

“I’ll handle the rest,” Kuma said, stepping up to the device. He raised his broad hand and aimed the paw pad at the glass shell.

With one strike, he could send this critical “brain” to the designated location.

“No chance!”

A roar thundered in from behind.