Warning: This chapter contains lots bloodshed and bloodlust and basically, lots and lots of blood.

Mainly because of Kenya, but whatever. :3

Yup, this chapter was fun. It's very dark though, and it has killing and all that good stuff. Not for the weak hearted, although I admit that my description is very lacking. Perhaps that's a good thing, or maybe not.

Anyways, enjoy!

-Kai


~Kenya's POV~

"Battle Royale, Battle Royale~" I sang, skipping around the ship. "Fight, fight fight~"

"What are you singing?" Zoro-nii grumbled as he woke up from his slumber. About time too. He had been dozing off on the ship for... oh, two and a half hours?

"Hi!" I said cheerfully. "The Pirate Battle Royale is tomorrow!"

"Yeah, I figured," he grunted, turning over on his side. I pouted.

"Sleeping already?" I hopped over and crouched down, tilting my head so that I was facing him. "You should get up and do some exercise you know. You could get fat with all the sleep and beer."

"Shut up kid, I already trained earlier today," he mumbled, rolling over to his other side so that his back was facing me. I grinned. This was fun. I hopped over to the other side.

"Really? I didn't see you," I replied, poking his arm. I kept on poking him until he growled, his eye twitching, and finally sat up.

"I trained in the morning when you were sleeping," he grumbled, scratching his head. "You are so annoying sometimes." I grinned and stuck out my tongue childishly.

"So are we gonna go train?" I asked, standing up.

"No, I am going to wait until you leave me alone and then go back to sleep," he mumbled, leaning back with a yawn. "Why don't you go run off and play with the perverted cook or something. He seems to like you."

"He likes anything female that walks by," I pointed out impatiently. "C'mon, get up already."

"Nope. Why don't you go run off with Luffy or something?"

"But I already played with him!" I whined. "Come on! Would it hurt to get up and do at least ten minutes of training or whatever?"

"Yes, my muscles are sore. From early morning training. Now buzz off, I'm trying to catch up on some sleep," he grunted, laying back down.

"Oh COME ON!" I growled. "You've already caught up on two and a half hours of sleep! Now get your lazy ass off the bed!"

"No."

"... Do you enjoy making me mad?"

"Maybe."

I growled and kicked him, then turned and walked off. Behind me he scratched his head again and muttered, "Finally."

Damn lazy swordsman.

~Regular POV~

The day before the tournament passed by restlessly for the Straw Hat crew. Luffy and Usopp spent their time play fighting, while Zoro either trained or slept. Sanji cooked up a storm and constantly attempted to keep Nami, Robin, and Kenya happy. The two older women were usually found reading or something like that. Kenya just bounced around, annoying her crew mates. Chopper hid in his room, supposedly preparing his courage and strength for the next day. Franky was fixing parts of the ship that had been damaged from their voyage, and Brook simply played his violin, letting his sweet music drift throughout the ship. Ammy switched between following Kenya and dozing off whenever she felt sleepy. Kairi followed the wolf, seeming to enjoy annoying her.

"God dammit," Kenya muttered, banging her head against the mast.

"What is it this time?" Zoro asked in monotone. He wanted her to leave. Soon. Her banging was making the mast vibrate. It isn't easy to sleep against a vibrating mast.

"How many hours until the tournament?" she asked, still bashing her head.

"Stop it," he snapped. "We still have 10 hours till midnight, calm down."

"But it's so boring," the girl complained, sitting down next to the swordsman. "How can you stand it?"

"If I go train with you, will you stop complaining?" Zoro grumbled. Kenya brightened up immediately.

"Yay!" she cheered, bouncing up. "C'mon, let's go!"

"Little brat," he grunted, letting Kenya pull him towards the training room.

"I'm no brat," she growled back. "So what are we gonna do?"

"I dunno, that's what I wanna know," Zoro answered.

"What do you do when you train?" Kenya asked, bored, as she surveyed the training room. "Lift weights?"

"Pretty much," Zoro grunted, hefting a huge weight. "So buzz off if you don't feel like it."

"I have a better idea," Kenya said, bouncing towards him. "Let's spar. Fist fight. Whatever you wanna call it. It's gotta be better and more fun than just muscle building." Zoro sighed, dropped the weight, and took up a fighting stance.

"I'm not gonna go easy on you," he told her.

"Oh but I will," Kenya smirked.

~Zoro's POV~

Damn this brat gets on my nerves sometimes. Granted, not as much as that perverted cook does, but that's a different story. It's like she goes out of her way to annoy me, just to see how ticked off she can get me.

She's such a sadist.

We both faced each other, staring at our opponent, daring the other to make the first move. I swear we stood there for at least five minutes before she twitched. I noticed the movement immediately and readied myself. She charged forward, aiming a kick at my side. I blocked her leg with the side of my arm and countered with a kick of my own. She ducked and my leg merely swept her hair. She grinned toothily, once again showing off her unnervingly pointy canines, and swept her leg beneath me, aiming to knock me off my balance. I leaped back and once again we faced each other.

This time I struck first. I aimed my fist at her stomach, but she caught it and retaliated with a punch of her own. I dodged it easily and attempted to hit her with my free hand. She bent back to avoid the blow and simultaneously performed a backflip, nearly kicking me. I managed to jump back in time and for the third time we stood at stalemate.

Unexpectedly, she began to laugh. She sobered quickly and stared at me with a new determination.

"Not much has happened," she said. "I plan to change that." She leaped at me with twice the speed she had before and we exchanged punches and kicks, dodging and blocking hits.

Neither of us had gotten hurt yet.

Slowly the fight began to grow in intensity and we finally broke apart, both somewhat tired and sweating. We still hadn't managed to land a blow on the other, though there were quite a few close calls.

"Happy yet?" I asked. The words unintentionally sounded like a growl. She smirked.

"Seems like we're an even match," she said, not answering my question. She straightened up, notifying me that our spar was over. "It was fun though. I kinda lied. I didn't go easy on you but I definitely didn't go all out either."

"Neither did I," I admitted. I headed for the door when she suddenly tackled me.

"Hey, what the heck!" I yelled, attempting to shove the girl off me. She had latched herself onto me in a hug, not unlike the time when she had been drunk. She grinned mischievously at me, and with strength that you certainly wouldn't expect from a twelve year old girl, flung me onto the ground.

"I win!" she declared cheerfully. I propped myself up on my elbows and glared at the girl.

"That was unfair," I snarled. I got up and tackled myself at the girl, pinning her onto the floor. She smirked again and hooked her leg around my side and pushed me over so that our positions were reversed. I growled and pushed her so that she was beneath me again. I accidentally left one of her hands free, though, and she poked my side, causing me to jerk due to the sensitivity of the spot. We rolled around continuously like that, fighting to get on top.

Finally I managed to wrestle her down to the ground and pin her arms above her head. By then we were both out of breath and she was laughing.

"Alright, alright, I give!" she said, cheerful and breathless. "I'm happy enough now. You can let me go now."

"No," I growled. She blinked at me in surprise.

"You just forced me to spar with you, which ended in a tie. When I thought we were finally done with, you suddenly tackle me and we have another wrestling match. Now I'm tired and annoyed, so now you'll have to suffer punishment."

"... You'll do this how?"

"Are you ticklish?"

"... Oh shit!"

~Regular POV~

Zoro grinned evilly and began poking and prodding and tickling her, and Kenya laughed until she cried.

Unfortunately they had made quite a racket and as such, Usopp had ventured up to check what was going on.

"Hey Zo-" Usopp opened the door, took one look at the two on the floor in a seemingly intimate position and staring at him like deer caught in headlights, and slammed the door shut again. In a few moments, the door opened once more, and Usopp stared at them, confirming what he saw, and immediately began screaming for Ammy.

Zoro paled at the thought of what the wolf would do to him once she found him like this with Kenya, and he yelled at Usopp to shut the hell up. Kenya found the whole thing funny. That, or she was still feeling ticklish.

In any case, Zoro didn't escape quickly enough and soon everybody was crowding at the door, staring at the two. Their reactions varied greatly.

Luffy and Chopper were confused and wanted to know what they were doing. Brook and Franky attempted to explain in their own ways, making inappropriate comments as a result. Nami seemed to still be deciding what to feel while Robin was amused. Sanji screamed foul words, promises of torture, and the like at the swordsman. Usopp was bordering between scared for Zoro's life, laughing at Zoro and Kenya, and several other emotions. Ammy, predictably, was pissed. Kairi was making up his mind whether to be pissed that his little sister's virtue had been compromised or amused at the wolf's anger. The former emotion apparently won out in the end.

Long story short, Zoro was in for a whole lot of pain unless he could clear up the misunderstanding fast enough.

Kenya, being the sadist that she was, simply stayed where she was and watched the show.

Yeah, Zoro would have a good reason to be annoyed with the girl once he got through this. If he ever did, that is. Being Zoro, of course he would live. But Ammy and Kairi, as well as Nami and Sanji, who had come to think of Kenya as their little sister, were rather pissed off. And we all know that pissed off Nami is scary as hell, and angry Ammy is even more frightening. Kairi matched the two, and though Zoro was used to mad Sanji, it didn't make it any less painful.

Kenya was laughing the whole time.

~Zoro's POV~

Dammit Kenya, you are so paying for this later.

When Usopp walked in, I suddenly realized our position and immediately knew I was in a bad situation. I tried to get up but I felt an immense pressure. I glanced down and saw Kenya grinning evilly.

If I knew she was gonna abuse her power like this, I would've never gotten her that Devil Fruit.

In any case, they caught me and obviously misunderstood. While dodging the assaults of Nami, the wolf, the bird, and the stupid cook, I tried to yell an explanation at them but they refused to believe me. I wouldn't be resisting the urge to strangle Kenya right now if she hadn't been laughing the entire time.

In the end, a very confused Luffy got them to stop and have me explain what was going on to them.

Sometimes it's a good thing that our captain is so innocent, naive, gullible, ignorant... the list could go on.

I explained, the four causes of my pain were suspicious at first, but Kenya finally stopped laughing and wiping tears from her eyes (I wondered if her lungs hurt from laughing too long: first from me tickling her and then from my pain. I hoped they did) and announced that I was telling the truth. The bastards never apologized.

So that leads to me leaning against the mast, trying to sleep. Again.

I was trying to decide if Kenya joining our crew was a good or a bad thing. For me, so far, it had not been fun. But for the crew, she provided pretty much all we lacked, not to mention two other members (animals? pets?) with her. She was good at pretty much everything: fist fighting, sword fighting, navigating, sharp shooting, medicine, archeology, building/repairing, music... If for some reason any one of our other crew members were missing, she'd be able to fill in.

But she had quite a few unexpected weaknesses. Kenya nearly literally melted in heat, and the smallest sip of liquor would send her into a drunken madness. She was so ticklish it was funny.

And then she was mysterious. There were few times when I felt that her smile and laughter were from the heart. The first time was during her birthday; the next during Foxy's challenge. Most recently it had been during our sparring session. She got annoyed and impatient, but rarely truly angered. The only time I had seen her mad was against Tashigi, the marine.

Nobody knew where she came from. Even Ammy did not know; the wolf had found the child on the island, abandoned. She said few things about her feelings and herself, and even less about her past.

In a few words, Kenya is a very strange and enigmatic person.

~Regular POV~

Finally it was the day of the Battle Royale and Kenya was no longer extremely irritable in her excitement; rather, she now sat calmly next to Ammy, with Kairi perched on the wolf's shoulder, much to her dismay, and Zoro, who dozed off. The bird and wolf bickered incessantly while the girl watched the clouds. The other crew members were excited and impatient in their own ways.

Luffy, obviously, was the most impatient and complained to anyone who would listen. Nami spent her time attempting to ignore Luffy's whining and yelling at him to shut up while double checking her Perfect Clima-tact.

Meanwhile, Usopp was hyperventilating.

Moving on...

Sanji was bouncing back and forth from Nami, Robin, and Kenya, attempting to please and win the affections of each girl. Excluding Kenya of course, since that is a crime. Chopper was listening in awe to Franky's stories while Robin watched the scene, amused. Brook laughed his trademark laugh and filled the ship with beautiful music.

Finally Nami deemed it the right time to enter the city. With an exasperated, "FINALLY!" from Luffy, the crew headed towards the arena where the battles were to take place. There was a raven haired who glared at the crew with his uniquely colored indigo eyes, grumpily asked for their crew name, and let them through. They stood in awe as they took in the hugeness of the stadium. (If you must know, it was one and a half football fields.)

There, a woman bearing a certain resemblance to the man who had let them in escorted them to a small antechamber and she informed them that she would be bringing them information about the battles whenever needed. She explained that the room was theirs to use, and since the battles were taking place over a period of four days, they would be able to return to their ships or sleep in their room if they wished. Before the woman left, slightly creeped out by Sanji's advances, Kenya asked for her name. The woman was surprised, as if no one had asked her that or even cared about her name, and smiled, replying, "Chieko. My brother Hiromi was the one who let you in. I apologize for his rude behavior, he's merely wary that someone may sabotage the games." Kenya returned her smile and assured Chieko that they would allow no such thing to happen.

For an hour, the crew wandered the room restlessly, like caged lions waiting to be fed. They were tense, impatient, and eager for the most part, and in some cases, scared and anxious. In any case, when Chieko finally arrived an hour later to tell them the details of their first battle, they all but bit her head off. The woman seemed to be used to this behavior though, and ignored them.

"The first battle is a free-for-all, no rules, straight up brawl," Chieko said. "All the pirate crews will select three of their members, since most crews are much larger than yours, and those three will enter the stadium. All three must be remaining for you to advance to the next round. The last 50 teams standing will continue on. You can use any abilities you have and if necessary, you may kill."

"Yosh!" Luffy said cheerfully. "I want to go! Who else?"

"I want to!" Kenya declared. She bounced over to Luffy's side.

"One more person," Chieko murmured softly.

"I'll go," Zoro and Sanji said at the same time. Obviously, they broke out into a petty argument and decided to use Jankenpon to decide, and they still refused to let the other take their place. Finally Ammy and Nami snapped at them, saying that they were holding up the battles and told them to flip a coin.

Sanji won, much to Zoro's dismay. Well, I can't really say that Zoro is dismayed, so let's say... disappointment. The cook half expected to hear the wolf barking at him and Luffy to take care of Kenya, but to his surprise nothing of the sort came. Instead, Ammy told them:

"Don't let Kenya run too wild. You'll definitely regret it."

Sanji remembered Ammy's words before.

"You also... have... to carry... Kenya," she said, panting between words. "She's... extremely... sensitive... to heat... Like... a vampire... almost..."

Then Sanji understood.

Kenya was like a vampire in more ways that just sensitivity to light and heat.

~Sanji's POV~

So that's how it went.

The three of us entered the stadium, which was already filled with people and even more were flooding in. There were a shit load of people, even more than we had expected. We had a makeshift game plan made up; since I would not, could not, harm a woman, Luffy would take care of the women who attempted to attack me. He would also, of course, attack the men but he took my share of the females. And Kenya... Well, Kenya did was Kenya does best. Before Hiromi announced the beginning of the brawl, Kenya gave us a warning.

"Either stay very close to me or far, far away, unless you want to die."

We heard and understood the tone; even Luffy obeyed wordlessly.

"Aaand... begin!" Hiromi yelled into his microphone.

It was as if Hell itself broke in and made best friends with Anarchy. There were a surprising amount of Devil Fruit users, considering the rareness of them, so off course those caused lots of chaos. But the others with no powers, like me, were well above decent fighters, though I felt that none of them reached our level. Well, most of them. The ones who went above and beyond us, Kenya steered clear of, and we followed lest we die like she had warned.

Which turned out to be a very smart move.

Despite being short and young, Kenya was strong. Though I had feared that she would not be able to keep up with us (a foolish worry, I soon realized), I found that I was the one having trouble following her. The three of us stuck close together, Luffy using his stretchiness being the only one who strayed farther than two and a half feet.

Kenya's air powers were frightening. Giant, powerful, muscled men dropped to the ground like flies with no apparent reason, and I knew that she had either quite literally taken their breath away, or pressured their heads to unconsciousness. When something sharp and pointy came too close for comfort, Kenya blew it and the person responsible for it away, or snatched it from said person and gave the person a nice kick. I smirked to myself as I noticed my kicking style appearing in Kenya's fighting more and more often. I was apparently rubbing off on her.

Not to say that Luffy wasn't either. Though Kenya of course wasn't made of rubber, her punches were just as strong as Luffy's, which is saying a lot. And when she managed to get hold of a nice sword, she mimicked Marimo-head's style.

And all this while still making it unique to herself by adding a bit of air usage here and there, using her own styles and blending them with ours.

Jack of all trades, and King of them all too. A phrase truly fitting Kenya.

~Kenya's POV~

Find a victim, pressure his head till it exploded into a bloody mass or deprive him of air till he was knocked out from lack of oxygen, impale anybody who got too close with the katana I had taken from a dead body, step over corpses, repeat. Somewhere in there, occasionally I had to add "keep Sanji-nii from lusting over every woman within a 50 meter radius" and "remember not to kill/hurt/injure/otherwise inconvenience my crewmates".

Absentmindedly I licked the blood off of my hand, knowing that it wasn't mine. I loved the salty, metal taste of it. Nothing quite beat the taste of blood. Of course, I had to keep track of how much I actually licked off. You can't ever be too careful when you're this close away from being addicted to blood.

There were a lot of people. Just the way I liked it. And they didn't mind being killed either. They all knew that the moment they had stepped inside, they had given up their lives. Which made it all the better. So much more fun.

Some might call it mindless slaughter, I thought absently as I slashed a burly, muscled man across the chest. Blood spurted out from the wound, covering me in even more crimson liquid. Continuing the motion, I parried a blow from another swordsman and stabbed him the the heart. I withdrew the blade and he slumped to the ground. I clenched my left fist and a woman who was beginning to take advantage of Sanji-nii and Luffy-nii's absence as he dealt with a particularly tough Devil Fruit user (had the ability to turn to stone, if I remember correctly) dropped to the ground without a sound.

I prefer to think of it as a a game, I grinned as I finished my thought. My left hand clenched again as I whirled around, slicing off a man's head. In his hand was a dagger. I kicked this up and caught it with my free hand and slid the weapon into my belt. Nearby, the rock man froze as he was pressured with air, the after-effects of my clenched fist. My captain made good use of this pause in movement and delivered a swift punch to the face. He shook out his fist, blocking a bullet that had strayed near Sanji-nii with his rubber body, directing it back at the offender. With the combination of air pressure and the hard punch, the rock man's body began to crack. Literally.

While I was distracted with my thoughts, Sanji-nii kicked a man who had come dangerously close to me. I watched with amusement as the man flew twenty feet up into the air and thirty feet forward, an arc of blood following. I gave Sanji-nii a quick nod of thanks before casually throwing the dagger into a woman's thigh. The woman, who had crept up to the cook, whimpered, crumpling to the ground and clutching her wound. I left her breathless, unconscious from need of air, and turned around to deflect a stray bullet with my katana. The sword broke and I snorted, tossing the broken blade at the woman with the dagger in her thigh, cutting off her head. I pulled the dagger out of her leg and threw it with deadly accuracy at the man who had shot at me.

With no weapons now, I relied on my fists, my kicks, and my air. I had been carefully observing my teammates and now mimicked their movements. With all my training back at the island, I had been fighting against objects without a brain and animals who fought with their instincts. Fighting against people was not new, but I was still unused to it. So it was better to start out copying others until I grew accustomed to this kind of fighting.

All the while, Sanji-nii and Luffy-nii followed my advice about staying close to me. It was for their own safety, really. If they didn't stay far, far away from me where I wouldn't be able to harm them, I might have attacked them, since in my bloodied frenzy I did not pay attention to who or what I killed or attacked. If they did not stay far from me, they would have to keep close enough where I could recognize them.

Just as I crushed another man with air, Hiromi yelled into the mic, "The battle ends! The teams moving onto the next round are: the SNSLTS crew, Poppa Pi, Kristal Katana, the Straw Hat Pirates..." He continued listing the 50 winning teams in no apparent order. I had heard our teams name and that was all that mattered. The other teams had ridiculous names and I had no patience to listen to the man ramble on about them all. The captain, Sanji-nii, and I returned to our room, not paying attention to the pirate crews. The others would be doing that. However, there was one name that interested me.

"...The Silver Dragons, the..."

Silver Dragons... Hm...


Ooo, foreshadowing! Yeah, the SD crew (Silver Dragons) come in later, but WHOOPS THAT'S A SPOILER.

Yeah, there isn't much to say about this chapter other than it was fun and that it's bloody.

Don't forget to read Ryuu's counterpart to this story, Paths to a Dead Heart. It tells the story from a different perspective, kind of like the xxxHolic to Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicles, if you know what I mean. Except that Paths to a Dead Heart is more closely tied than those Clamp stories.

Reviews/criticism/questions?

-Air Beast

(KAI)

PPL! PLEASE READ MY STORIES! AND PLEASE REVIEW SO WE KNOW WHAT TO PUT IN OUR STORIES AND IF YOU PPL LIKE IT OR NOT! THANK YOU ~Ryuu