Chapter 533: Opening the Borders
Finding Zunesha wasn't difficult. With Morgans and Tesoro's intelligence networks at his disposal, locating one impossibly large elephant in the New World was straightforward work. By the time Brett broke the ocean's surface and launched into the sky, Morgans had already sent word of Zunesha's latest position.
It didn't take long.
"Anh!"
Zunesha noticed Brett's approach and raised his head with a thunderous cry.
Brett understood him perfectly.
"Brett! You're here!"
The elephant was greeting him warmly.
Brett flew up and landed on the top of Zunesha's head. The ancient creature had lived so long that his skin had grown worn and softened with age - it creaked faintly underfoot.
"The time has come," Brett said.
"The time?"
For just a moment Zunesha went still. Then an ecstatic roar shook the sky.
"The time to open Wano's borders?"
"Yes." Brett nodded. "The walls that have sealed Wano away are coming down. Pluton, sleeping beneath the earth for eight hundred years, will see the light of day."
"The war is that close?"
Zunesha began to move. His enormous body turned, reorienting toward the far reaches of the New World.
"Then let's open Wano's borders. Now!"
The mission Joy Boy had given him eight hundred years ago. Today was the day it would finally be fulfilled.
Brett settled cross-legged on top of Zunesha's head and placed a call to Yamato in Wano. This was too important to begin without proper warning.
The line connected quickly. When Brett explained what was about to happen, Yamato's response was immediate and unrestrained.
"Finally? About time! I've been waiting so long I nearly lost my mind!"
Brett let out a breath. "Glad to hear it."
No resistance from Wano's side. That made things easier.
"It's not just me," Yamato added, laughing. "The whole country has been waiting for this. Opening these borders - that's every single person's dream."
"Good. We'll be there soon. Get everyone ready, Yamato. A new era for Wano is about to begin."
"On it!"
Wano would need to prepare. Once the encircling walls came down, the inland sea would drain entirely. Land that had been submerged for eight hundred years would resurface. The entire landscape of the country would change overnight.
"I'm so happy, Joy Boy," Zunesha murmured as he walked, his voice like distant rolling thunder. "The moment we promised each other is almost here. This world is about to change."
It is, Brett thought. For better or worse, change was coming regardless. The only thing to do now was move forward, and worry about whether it was good or bad once they'd won.
Zunesha's stride was unhurried, but each step covered several kilometers. When something that large decides to walk somewhere, slow or fast stops mattering - he covered half the New World in less than half a day and arrived at the waters surrounding Wano.
Brett could already feel the presence of people gathered on the cliffs.
He rose from Zunesha's head, became a bolt of lightning across the sky, and touched down on the cliff's edge.
"Are you ready?" he asked.
"Brett?" Yamato spun around, blinking. "When did you get here? I didn't notice you at all."
She'd been standing right there and hadn't sensed him until he spoke. Was this man a ghost?
"Brett!"
Standing alongside Yamato were the former retainers of the Kozuki clan. Denjiro bowed with deep respect. If not for Brett, Wano would not be what it was today.
They had long since made their decision: when the final war came, they would stand at Brett's side.
"We've already informed the people," Denjiro said. "The soldiers are helping organize everyone - directing them toward open fields away from the buildings."
Destroying the walls surrounding an entire nation was going to make a great deal of noise. Probably earthquakes. The last place anyone wanted to be was indoors.
"We're ready, Brett." Kawamatsu's expression was solemn. "Do what you came here to do. Open this country."
He bowed. A deep, deliberate bow.
"We ask you."
Ashura Doji, Denjiro, Duke Dogstorm, and Master Cat Viper all bent at the waist in unison.
Opening Wano's borders was the dream of every person in this country. It had been the lifelong wish of their lord, Kozuki Oden.
"Open this country, Brett." Yamato looked at him steadily. Her usual breezy manner had gone quiet. "Give these people the dream they've held onto for hundreds of years."
Brett gave a small nod. "Then let's begin."
He turned toward the sea. Zunesha was drawing near, his approach slow and immense.
"It's time, Zunesha. Your mission is waiting."
"Anh!"
The roar that answered him carried something Brett could hear that no one else could: joy, and relief, and centuries of anticipation.
Zunesha raised his enormous trunk. Then he brought it down like a falling pillar against the sheer cliff walls at Wano's edge.
Boom.
The sound hit like a thunderclap. The towering face of rock shattered on impact, great cracks racing outward in every direction. The inland sea rushed through the breach.
Massive sheets of stone collapsed. The ground shuddered under everything.
"It's starting," Yamato breathed, her face lit up.
"Come on - up into the sky." Brett shifted into his dragon hybrid form, wrapped everyone in flame clouds, and lifted them airborne.
Below them, Zunesha gave himself completely to it. He walked directly into the cliff face, shouldering through it like it was nothing. His body was incomprehensibly large - eight hundred years of accumulated stone meant nothing against that kind of mass.
He carved forward like a locomotive along the wall's length, relentless and unstoppable. The barriers that had sealed Wano from the world for eight centuries crumbled before him in sequence.
The inland sea drained at a staggering rate. The water level dropped visibly as the sea rushed outward, exposing vast stretches of land that had not seen open air since before anyone alive had been born.
Wano's borders were open.