One Piece: Dream of Immortality-Chapter 543: A Clown and a Balloon

"Joyboy...?" Momonosuke spoke.

"Hm? What's that?" Yasuie asked.

"I can hear Zunesha, the elephant upon whose back dwells the land of Zou!" Momonosuke explained. "He's telling me something about someone called Joyboy and the Drums of Liberation. He says it's been 800 years since he last heard them..."

Yasuie's eyes widened. Whilst neither the name Joyboy or the Drums of Liberation were familiar to him, he knew that if it had something to do with the Void Century, then it was undoubtedly important.

"Wait, did you say a country sized elephant is speaking to you?" Yasuie got hung up on that odd point.

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...

"What was that?" Pudding asked Jinbe.

"What was what?" Jinbe asked in turn.

"You just said something, didn't you?" Pudding raised an eyebrow at him.

"Not in the last minute or so," Jinbe answered.

Pudding scratched her head. The voice had been quite deep and had sounded so close, so she had assumed it was him.

Who else could it have been?

...

"You aren't dead, Straw Hat! Good!" Kaido smiled.

"Luffy! You awakened your devil fruit?!" Ace was delighted. More so from seeing his brother was okay than for the awakening.

The roof began to roll and ripple like waves as Luffy hopped in place a few times. Then he exploded into motion like a snapped rubber band, giggling all the way.

"Gomu Gomu noooooooo~!" Luffy cheered. "BELL~!"

Contrary to whatever attack Kaido expected to come, a headbutt wasn't one of them.

*BONG!!!*

The collision between their skulls echoed across the sky just like the golden bell in Skypiea had. It was so loud that all of Wano heard it and looked around for the source.

Only those near the Flower Capital actually found it. Seeing the floating island slowly floating towards them had them all staring in open mouthed wonder at first, before their imaginations conjured images of what would happen if it dropped on top of the city and panic ensued.

Having his head rung like a bell wasn't what Kaido anticipated at the start of his evening and it had been quite the shock. If not for his prodigious defense, it certainly would have put him out of the fight.

"ORARARA!" Kaido slammed his kanabo into Luffy's side and sent him bouncing like a ball across the roof's surface.

However, the first time Luffy bounced, the roof was stretched back. Each time he bounced there after stretching it further and further and further, drawing it taut until Luffy finally came to a stop as he dug his fingers into it.

"Hehe~" Luffy snickered.

The stretched out strip of roof suddenly whipped back into place and dragged Luffy along with it.

His approach was impossibly quick and utterly silent until he drove both feet into Kaido's gut. A tremendous CRACK followed a split second after him.

The immense force of such a blow should have pushed Kaido back, but instead Kaido's back extended out behind his in the shape of Luffy's feet.

Kaido spat out some of the booze from his stomach, and only then did he jerk backwards as he should have done before.

Kaido didn't feeling pretending to be a stone skipping across a lake's surface, though, so he transformed into his complete dragon form and took to the air.

"What a ridiculous power..." Kaido muttered. It wasn't clear if it was praise or not.

Luffy didn't seem to care in one way or another, laughing uproariously as if he told a great joke.

It was a heartening sight, seeing him so unworried in the midst of a battle he was losing only minutes ago. Those who were watching couldn't help but feel that nothing could possibly go wrong.

Of course, that was just an impression given by his confidence.

Kaido began charging his breath and Luffy continued to roll around in a giggle fit, completely unaware of the danger!

"Cherry..." Robin glanced back and forth with anxiety written all over her face.

"Don't worry," Cherry said. "There isn't anyone important on the other side of Luffy."

Cherry didn't care one whit that Luffy himself was in the line of fire. If anything, she was curious what would happen if he got hit!

As for anyone below inside the castle, surprisingly that entire wing was completely abandoned. Probably fate conspiring to make sure his goofball act didn't get anyone killed by accident, Cherry reckoned. Or maybe it really was just a lucky coincidence; who knows?

Kaido's breath fired and incinerated Luffy and the bit of roof he was on.

"Nooooo!" Ace wailed like a drama queen.

Kaido sneered and narrowed his eyes. Luffy's voice hadn't disappeared like it had before, so he must have survived.

Kaido floated over the hole his breath burned through his castle cautiously, searching for any sign of movement.

*Smash!*

Two enormous hands burst through the unbroken roof nearby and grabbed a hold of Kaido at each end. Luffy promptly pulled himself up through his newly constructed exit.

"Let's see what we can make out of ya!" Luffy called out.

Luffy proceeded to twist and bend and yank at Kaido's dragon form, eliciting pained yelps and enraged growls from the danger noodle.

"It's a dog!" Luffy presented his makeshift balloon animal to the crowd.

Despite being tied in several knots, Kaido was still struggling. He was also very, very confused.

"Fight me properly, Straw Hat!" Kaido roared.

"Why would I fight a dog? Dogs are good boys! Hahahaha!" Luffy laughed.

Kaido took a risk and shifted forms. Luckily, doing so extracted him from the tight knots his elongated torso had been tied into.

The form he took this time was different from his usual hybrid form however. Cherry felt his devil fruit uncoil within him, and now that she knew what she was looking at, or perhaps more accurately listening to, she could sense the inscription playing itself like a silent instrument.

It was slow and indomitable, overbearing even. A beat that suffocated all others. One could almost hear the rattling of chains and the hammering of anvils amidst the heavy, thundering drums. A song of oppression and endless greed.

No one else heard it but Cherry, though. The sound of it was not truly set loose upon the world, not like Luffy's song was.

Cherry understood then that Kaido could not use his power to the fullest without letting his song out, but of course Kaido didn't even know there was a song to be played.

"Kick his ass already, Luffy!" Cherry suddenly shouted, slightly startling Robin and Ace. "I've got shit to do and I can't stick around here watching you have all the fun all night!"

"Wait your turn, little girl," Kaido said.

*THUNDER*

A third Conqueror entered the battle of wills and made the already dense atmosphere that much thicker.

"Don't test me, lizard boy," Cherry warned.

She didn't need to tell him that it was impossible to fight both her and Luffy at once. Her haki felt so much more powerful up close and personal.

Kaido decided that, perhaps, he didn't want to provoke her any more. He was fine with having a glorious death, but he absolutely did not want to die like a chump.