Whether it was Crocodile's Desert Spada or Aeridar's Impact Cannon, both attacks raced forward at breakneck speed.
The Impact Cannon, nearly four meters wide, slammed head-on into the center of the twin sand blades, catching even the outermost two in its shockwave.
In the blink of an eye, all four massive sand blades shattered into clouds of dust, dispersed by the blast. Deep gashes were gouged into the desert floor where even the dunes had been split open.
Just as Crocodile's face twisted in surprise at how swiftly his Desert Spada had been neutralized, the Impact Cannon had already reached him.
Unsurprisingly, his body exploded into sand on contact, blasted over 200 meters away as the shockwave tore across the landscape—shattering even the hourglass he'd dropped to the ground.
If someone were watching from above at that moment—from the "Five-Four-Three" vantage, say—they would see a deep scar carved into the desert: a trench-like path stretching far and wide.
Two hundred meters away, at the end of that rift, golden sand swirled and reformed into a human shape.
"Damn... That was some serious power." Though uninjured, Crocodile couldn't hide his shock at being blown that far. But then he realized something was off.
"Huh? That guy... where did he go?"
The one who'd struck him was nowhere in sight.
"To the right!" A gust of wind tipped him off—Crocodile instantly lashed out with his golden hook to his side.
The air trembled. A shockwave burst outward from the clash as Aeridar's obsidian-black fist met Crocodile's hook. At the center of their collision, the sand was blasted into a massive crater, two to three meters wide.
"Bastard, still trying to land a hit on me?" Crocodile snarled, eyes locked on Aeridar. His right arm dissolved into sand and grew in size, forming a crescent-shaped blade that swept horizontally at his opponent.
Aeridar, fully aware of Crocodile's powers, had no intention of taking that hit head-on. His foot shifted subtly—and he vanished from sight, like he'd blinked out of existence.
The sand blade sliced through empty air. But Crocodile wasn't fazed. Instead, he frowned and muttered to himself:
"That... was 'Soru' from the Rokushiki?"
Crocodile suddenly arched backward. Aeridar's whip kick flew just inches over his head, slicing through the air with a sharp gust—yet it didn't so much as ruffle the heavily gelled slick of Crocodile's iconic hairstyle. In the same motion, Crocodile drove his golden hook forward.
Aeridar stepped down hard on the hook, triggering a burst of visible shockwaves at the point of contact. Using the momentum, he launched himself back and away.
"Observation Haki?!" Aeridar tilted his head, genuinely intrigued. After all, in the original timeline, Crocodile was never shown to possess Observation Haki. Though it was a given that he had Armament Haki—how else could he have held his own against Akainu at Marineford? Magma held a natural advantage over sand, its heat capable of melting it on contact.
"Is it so shocking that I know Haki?" Crocodile barked at Aeridar, then slammed his palm into the sand beneath him.
Almost immediately, Aeridar felt the terrain shift beneath his feet—like he was sinking. He looked down.
Sure enough, the ground had turned into a swirling whirlpool of sand. His feet were already half-submerged, the sand pulling him deeper and deeper. A circular pit over 50 meters wide had formed, draining everything into its center.
"Quicksand?!" Aeridar's expression tightened. If he got fully sucked in, escape would be almost impossible. Once buried beneath the desert, his body would have no leverage, and typical shockwaves couldn't penetrate that much dense sand. He'd be trapped—forever entombed beneath the dunes.
Acting fast, Aeridar slammed both feet down, unleashing a powerful shockwave. The sand erupted beneath him, blasting him high into the air.
"Nani?!" Crocodile hadn't expected Aeridar to rocket out of the quicksand so easily.
Soaring into the sky, Aeridar activated Geppo, using Moonwalk to hover midair. He twisted at the waist, winding up a heavy kick aimed down at the desert floor.
The air rippled—and a blue-white crescent blade shot downward like a falling star.
Rankyaku – Lunar Arc!!!
"Geppo? Rankyaku?!" Crocodile was stunned. With the exception of defected Marines or rogue World Government agents, no pirate he knew wielded so many Rokushiki techniques.
As the blue-white arc descended, it rapidly expanded—ballooning into a slash five to six meters tall.
Crocodile, caught mid-thought, could only gape as the enormous vacuum slash cleaved him in two and buried itself deep in the desert. A fissure dozens of meters long tore open the landscape, over a meter wide and who-knows-how-deep.
His bisected form exploded into sand and reformed in midair. Crocodile hovered there, eyes locked onto Aeridar still suspended in the sky via Moonwalk.
"You've mastered so many of the Rokushiki... Are you with the Marines—or the World Government?"
It was a fair question.
Some pirates might've learned a move or two, maybe Tekkai or Geppo, but rarely more than that—and only if they were ex-Marines or former CP agents.
He had Soru, Geppo, and Rankyaku down cold. His Geppo could hold him aloft for extended periods, his Soru was fast enough to avoid even Crocodile's notice, and his Rankyaku could slice through solid desert with ease.
Even CP0 agents would raise their eyebrows at that level of control.
Crocodile may have never met anyone from CP9, but he had crossed paths with CP0. And based on just these three techniques, Aeridar was already operating on their level.
"My, my... You're really wary of those guys, huh?" Aeridar teased, eyeing Crocodile with a smirk. "Relax. I'm not one of them. Just picked up the Rokushiki through... let's say, 'fortunate circumstances.'"
"Wary?" Crocodile scoffed, clearly irritated. "Tch. They're just clingy bastards. Like goddamn leeches that never let go."
A not-so-subtle jab at the World Government's CP agencies—especially CP0.
After all, even the notorious pirate Byrnndi World—the "World Destroyer" with a bounty of 500 million berries over twenty years ago—ended up in their clutches. He was the first pirate to ever be jointly hunted by both the Navy and other pirates, a monster of an era alongside Whitebeard, with overwhelming firepower that even Admirals hesitated to challenge. And still, CP agents took him down.
"Leeches?!" Aeridar cracked up at the metaphor. "Hahaha... now that is a fitting description of those government dogs!"
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