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One Piece: As Heavy as a Gale #109
🕑 Added 2025-08-02 00:54:19 +0000 UTCThe lights cut out again, and Diamante’s brain immediately threw itself into a panic spiral. Not the focused kind. Not the "I’m a trained pr
The lights cut out again, and Diamante’s brain immediately threw itself into a panic spiral.
Not the focused kind. Not the "I’m a trained professional and I’ve got this" kind.
No. This was full-on frantic headless chicken mode, with the internal monologue of someone rapidly realizing that he might be the punchline in someone else’s elaborate joke.
'Okay. Okay. No big deal. The lights are out. Probably a coincidence. Definitely not part of a masterfully executed plot designed specifically to frame me, a prominent officer of the Donquixote Family, as a conspirator in a plot to kill a celestial dragon. Right? Right.'
He tried to think. Really, he did. If he could just fix this somehow—get the narrative back on track—maybe he could salvage it.
Sure, a Celestial Dragon had just been turned into human fondue in front of like thirty gangsters and half a platoon of Marines, but…
No, no, don’t think about that. Think about fixing it. Damage control. Public relations. Plausible deniability. Maybe I can say Law hypnotized everyone? Maybe the Marines were all fakes—yes, actors! They’re doing a play, an interpretive performance about the moral decay of the aristocracy—
He was so deep in his own unraveling mind that he didn’t even notice Gale moving.
Which was impressive, considering Gale kicked him square in the gut like he was trying to punt a carnival prize into orbit.
“GUH—”
Diamante flew back, crashing into a wall with a loud, satisfying thud that briefly stopped one of the gunfights below. Someone even shouted, “Damn, was that the furniture or a person?”
Back pressed to the wall, air knocked clean out of his lungs, Diamante’s brain rebooted. Just in time, too.
Observation Haki screamed at him—sharp, urgent, too familiar.
Incoming.
He twisted left, barely raising his sword in time to parry the next strike. Metal met metal with a jarring CLANG, and just like that—
The lights flickered back on.
Diamante blinked, adjusting to the harsh glow just in time to see the very last thing he wanted:
Gale, right up in his face, blades locked, grinning like he just pulled the best prank of his life and was about to explain the punchline.
“Hey,” Gale said sweetly, eyes wide with false innocence. “You ever feel like you’re not the main character anymore?”
Diamante’s eye twitched. That grin. That damn grin. It was the expression of a man who wasn’t fighting to win—he was just here to ruin your day on a spiritual level.
And worse, Diamante knew what came next.
He turned, already sighing in defeat.
Yep. There it was.
Open door.
Law.
Running like he stole something—which, technically, he did: a live Celestial Dragon’s beating heart.
To add injury to insult, Law had the utter audacity to glance over his shoulder as he fled... and throw a middle finger back at Diamante.
It wasn’t even a lazy one.
No. That was a full extension, perfect form, elbow popped, flawless wrist follow-through kind of middle finger. An Olympic-tier flip-off.
Diamante didn’t even feel anger anymore.
Just grief.
Existential, soul-wilting grief.
'What did I do in a past life to deserve this? Was I a clown? A walking doormat? A particularly punchable statue?'
He turned back to Gale with the slow, aching posture of someone emotionally preparing to get roasted again.
Sure enough, the beanstalk demon was inhaling, chest puffing out like he was about to deliver a very loud monologue.
"OH NO!"
The scream hit like a cannonball wrapped in melodrama.
Gale’s voice exploded through the auction hall, so loud, so deeply wounded, that at least three Marines flinched and one of the thugs dropped his gun out of pure startle reflex.
“Everyone look!” Gale cried, flinging an accusatory finger toward Diamante like he was starring in a courtroom drama. “This dirty pirate is stopping me again from enacting justice!”
His voice cracked just the right amount. Enough anguish to sell it. Enough volume to make sure even the gangsters still fighting over pocket change in the back rows could hear.
Diamante's eye twitched so hard it looked like he was trying to wink at death itself.
There was such sheer, award-winning sincerity in Gale’s voice that, for a split second, Diamante actually almost believed him.
Just for a moment.
Gale kept going.
Unbothered. Relentless. Passionately deranged.
“I’ve come here,” Gale said, pacing dramatically now, one hand over his heart like a jilted lover, “despite my orders to only observe—with the sole purpose of protecting our great gods, the Celestial Dragons!”
The Marines around the perimeter blinked, heads tilting.
Wasn’t that the opposite of what he said?
“I risked my reputation,” Gale continued, now really laying it on thick, “my career, my very life, to serve these saints—” he paused, narrowed his eyes, then gritted his teeth like a man moments from tragic death, “and I failed! Because of him!”
He pointed again. Straight at Diamante.
A single, damning finger of justice.
Diamante, whose jaw had now completely unhinged in sheer dismay, looked like someone who just found out the soup of the day was their own foot.
I am going to eat this child alive, he thought, a vein twitching in his temple.
But Gale wasn’t done. Oh, no.
“Now—” he growled, voice thick with righteous fury, “this scoundrel is even stopping me from enacting justice on the heinous slave who dared to strike down a great saint!”
There was a chorus of gasps.
Actual, audible gasps.
It rippled across the hall like a gossip wave at a royal tea party. Someone dropped a monocle. Someone else fainted. Even one of the pirates stopped mid-punch and whispered, “Wait… who’s the villain again?”
Up in the VIP box, Magnon Frévall looked like someone had just peed in his caviar.
He clutched his handkerchief to his chest and, with pure indignation, shouted, “You bastard! I knew you were up to something fishy!”
Diamante turned his head very slowly to look at Magnon, eyes full of murder.
The kind of murder that doesn’t just happen to your body, but to your bank accounts and entire family line.
Magnon visibly shrank, whimpering. “I–I mean—in a good way! Fishy in, uh… a gourmet sense!”
Diamante mentally swore right then and there that he would personally gut that bloated slug—with a rusty spoon.
But first?
He had a different problem.
A skinny little bastard with zero fear of consequences and a mouth that could derail an entire war crime investigation.
He turned back to Gale, whose expression had gone completely, dangerously neutral now.
Theatrical playtime was over.
Gale’s voice dropped an octave. Calm. Cold. Direct.
'I gave Law an opening,' he thought, blade sliding back into ready stance. 'Now I just need to keep this guy pissed off and blind so I can beat him up nice and quick...'
Meanwhile, on the outside, he just raised a brow and gave Diamante his best “You’re embarrassing yourself” face.
Diamante exhaled hard, steam curling from his nose. His eyes sharpened into twin daggers.
“I don’t know what the hell’s going on anymore…” he growled, tone low and icy, “…but I’ll have plenty of time to make you talk once I’ve broken your arms and legs, brat...”
Gale nodded slowly, as if understanding the threat—then flashed a peace sign and chirped, “Bold of you to assume you’ll get the chance before I rob you of your dignity and motor functions... err, that just means I'll break your legs first...”
Diamante didn’t answer.
He just charged.
Diamante lunged, rapier arcing down in a blur of silver and menace.
CLANG!
Gale caught it with his own blade, their swords locking mid-air—except Diamante’s rapier didn’t stay rigid.
Snap. Crack. Whip.
Like a serpent striking from a coiled position, the tip of Diamante’s sword snapped forward, bending unnaturally as the sharpened end curved straight toward Gale’s face.
For a fraction of a second, Gale’s eyes narrowed, mind snapping into overdrive.
'Whip blade. Kinda gay...'
He sidestepped, fast—but not quite fast enough.
The blade lashed across his shoulder with a metallic thunk, hard enough to knock someone flat.
But Gale didn’t flinch.
Didn’t even blink.
Because the steel of his shoulder gleamed darker now—denser, heavier.
Armament Haki, dialed up like someone turning a volume knob past max.
He tilted his head, inspecting the shallow dent in his uniform like someone annoyed a pigeon pooped on it.
“Neat trick,” he muttered, deadpan.
Then he sprang back—feet barely touching the ground—as he lunged, sword flashing in a blur.
“Try mine.”
With a snap of his wrist, the blade of Gale’s rapier extended, not by a few inches—but by a full two meters. A compressed, needle-like strike, lunging forward like a railgun with attitude.
Diamante’s eyes widened—Observation Haki screaming like a fire alarm.
He barely swung his folded steel cape in time, metal unfurling like a dinner tray at a magician’s convention.
BAM!
The impact was brutal. The blade didn’t pierce through, but the force sent Diamante sliding back across the stage, heels screeching, cape fluttering behind him like a sad tablecloth caught in a tornado.
“Should’ve worn steel pants too,” Gale muttered under his breath.
Then he raised his voice—for the Marines, loud and clear, like a general giving marching orders from atop a flaming ship.
“Right now, we don’t know who’s with us or against us.” He gestured sharply to the crowd, blade still pointed like an accusing finger.
“Arrest everyone who’s not in a Marine uniform or a bubble.”
His sword tilted up toward the VIP box like the hand of God pointing at an especially guilty worm.
“Especially that fuck.”
Magnon, caught mid-bite of a caramel-drenched popcorn kernel, froze.
He blinked. Looked left. Looked right. Realized he was the only person in the VIP box not in a bubble or a uniform.
“W-Wait!” he yelped, standing up and dropping his snack. “I’m just a humble business facilitator—!”
Gale cut him off.
“Kill anyone who resists!”
There was a long, awkward silence as everyone processed that.
And then—
Pandemonium.
The whole room exploded.
The once-quiet peanut gallery of gangsters, brokers, mercenaries, and fake aristocrats—many of whom had been peacefully enjoying the chaos with full popcorn buckets—suddenly lost their minds.
Everyone turned on everyone.
A thug stabbed a mercenary who had just shared his drink. Two Celestial Dragons’ bodyguards started fighting over which saint had died. A pirate punched a popcorn vendor. The vendor retaliated with hot oil.
It was chaos.
Perfect, wonderful, deeply satisfying chaos.
From Gale’s perspective, it was like setting off a firecracker in a room full of fireworks.
He stood center stage, watching the pandemonium with the calm satisfaction of a man who had not only read the assignment—but added three extra pages and drew a dragon in the margins.
Diamante, teeth gritted, cape dragging, charged again, fury burning in his eyes.
Gale’s grin widened.
“Oh, and someone call an Admiral,” he said casually, sword flicking back into position.
He nodded toward the collapsed, twitching, bubbleless body of Vlancio Shepherd in the background.
“These people just killed a Celestial Dragon.”
Comments
Morg535
Poor sengoku is about to have a Heart attack once he hears about this.
