"Uooooooooh!!"
"Don't you... dare... underestimate meeeee!!"
Yugo slammed his flying kick—infused with the combined magic power of three people—straight into the vortex. Zaraki roared, straining to repel him.
Pouring every ounce of his will into his magic, Zaraki desperately tried to drive the tornado forward to blow Yugo away.
"What 'friends'?! What 'comrades'?! no matter how many runts you pile together, trash is still trash!!"
Having his strength called hollow and fake, Zaraki unleashed a surge of magic power while screaming in denial.
He howled as he flooded the tornado with energy, determined to crush the ones who had pointed out his weakness. By destroying Yugo and the others, he could prove his own strength was real.
"I'll crush every last person I don't like! I'll use my strength to beat down anyone who doesn't do what I want! I have the power to do it! You trash, your defeat is already decided! Stop your useless resistance!!"
"Ugh, ooooooooooh!!"
Until now, Zaraki had been fighting Yugo and his two companions... or more accurately, he had been fighting alone against Marcos and the Security Force since the beginning.
He had beaten down the vast majority of them, and even now, he was holding his own in a dead heat. There was no way he was weak. Zaraki's pride flared as he screamed to boast of his might, trying to overpower Yugo once and for all.
"I am! I am...! The strongest man in the world!! Don't... you... deny meeeee!!"
This was the great dragon power. He had polished it, elevated it, and mastered it; there was no way he could lose to nameless children in a place like this. Such a thing was unthinkable.
He took a step forward, channeling the magic power filling his body into the storm.
Just as Zaraki thought he would finish this—that he would blow away the boy attempting to pierce his tornado with a flying kick—disaster struck.
"Aguh?!"
A sudden, agonizing pain lanced across his face.
Something dazzling exploded against his skin, followed by a sharp, numbing jolt. Zaraki realized he had just been struck by lightning, and the unexpected strike left him visibly shaken.
(What was that?! Where did that come from?!)
In the middle of this battlefield where a violent storm raged, there shouldn't have been anyone capable of landing a precision hit on him.
Even if someone had fired a bolt from a distance, it should have been caught in the winds and dissipated. Tracing the faint residue of magic power, Zaraki whipped his head to the side and gasped at what he saw.
"Hah, hah...!"
"You! Raiha...?!"
Supported by Jinba and Skull, Raiha was breathing in ragged gasps while extending a hand clad in a magic item toward him.
The moment he saw her, Zaraki remembered how she had scratched his face with her claws just before he sealed her. A surge of pure humiliation welled up inside him.
(Was it then?! At that moment, she planted a lightning strike in me—?!)
It was a tiny act of defiance from a girl he had utterly looked down upon.
He had thought she had done nothing more than graze his face... but at that moment, she had almost instinctively set a trap.
Now that she was free from the orb, Raiha had triggered the latent lightning strike.
His concentration shattered by the unexpected pain and the sting of humiliation, Zaraki glared at Raiha with eyes full of rage. She met his gaze without flinching and spoke.
"It wasn't... in vain! Everyone's will that refused to give up... the feelings we connected... none of it was pointless!!"
Because Yugo had risked his life to save Marcos and the others, an indomitable fighting spirit had taken root in their hearts.
Because Marcos and the others had desperately continued to resist Zaraki with that spirit, Ryuga was able to cast aside his vengeance and rush to their aid.
Because Ryuga had rescued the sealed Raiha and everyone had cooperated to stand against Zaraki... the magic formula Raiha had etched during her desperate struggle could finally be activated.
If even one event had gone differently, or if even one person hadn't been there... things would never have reached this point.
Fighting with the will to overcome a tragic fate and the walls standing in their way, they had carried their feelings like a baton to reach this moment.
And now, that baton had returned to the man who first entrusted his hopes to his comrades.
"A-gaah...?!"
In that split second, Zaraki had allowed his focus to shift toward Raiha.
Diverting his attention away from the tornado and his clash with Yugo was a fatal mistake, creating a moment of complete vulnerability.
By the time he realized it, the tornado he had summoned had split in two.
The twin vortexes split to the left and right, then curved back toward Zaraki in a circular arc, sandwiching him between them.
"Gah, gagagah?!"
Caught between the two raging storms, Zaraki shrieked in agony.
As the winds shredded his body from both sides and gouged his existing wounds, the Black Iron Warrior's flying kick landed with a thunderous clean hit right in the center of his chest.
"Haaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!!"
Zaraki was driven by the force of the kick into the heart of the tornadoes that were already flaying him alive.
Putting every ounce of his soul into the strike, Yugo used every bit of his remaining strength to kick him away.
"Gaaaaaaaah!! Guh, ooooooooh?!"
Gray scales were torn from his skin and blood sprayed into the air as Zaraki's scream echoed through the clearing.
Writhing in pain as if he had been tossed into a industrial shredder, Zaraki was sent flying between the two tornadoes by Yugo's kick, eventually tumbling across the ground in a mangled heap.
"How's... that... for a finish?!"
He felt the impact; the power should have been more than enough.
No matter how powerful Zaraki was, there was no way he could remain standing after a direct hit delivered with their combined strength.
Yugo prayed that the battle would end here and that Zaraki would remain down, but...?
"Not... yet...! I haven't... lost yet!!"