Chapter 7: Confrontation

After Raiku finished the story, the room went silent as everyone was taking in what was just told to them. The only sound that could be heard was that of Luffy eating the food Sanji had made for him earlier. After about 5 minutes, Chopper broke the silence.

"Well, what happened next? You can't just end the story there."

"Truth be told, the rest is all pretty much a blur," replied Raiku. "I woke up in a bed a week later and had to stay there for about a month afterwards. After I got out, I went to search for Robin everywhere, but found that she was no longer on the island."

"What happened to you then Robin?" asked Nami.

"Berezda was too busy with Raiku to notice me and I took that opportunity to escape. I made my way back to the village undetected somehow, but instead of warning the villagers, I, I took a boat and ran."

Raiku remained quiet with a sullen look on his face. After hearing that, he had lost some of the respect he once had for Robin.

"I never thought Raiku actually survived and, well, without him there I had no reason to stay on the island," she continued. "About two weeks later, I saw a newspaper that was advertising the festival. I thought about going back, but I, I was too scared," she said in a quiet voice.

"Why didn't the people of the island try and fight back?" said Zoro. "This island has alot of people; even if you hadn't beaten him, you would have at least gotten the government's attention."

"At first, some people thought like that too," said Raiku. "A group of highly trained men went to try and fight Berezda. None of them returned. Afterwards, Berezda came to the island with one of the men's head and showed it off in a public display saying that the same fate would happen to everyone on the island if they didn't co-operate."

"Just how strong is this Berezda guy?!" asked Usopp.

"Incredibly so. "Bone Crusher" Berezda, his current bounty right now is 120,000,000 berries," said Robin.

"120,000,000! That's insane! It's 40,000,000 berries higher than Crocodile's bounty!" said Nami who was shocked.

"It's even higher than Luffy's bounty is right now," said Sanji.

"That's not all," said Raiku. "He also has 2 other crew members with insane bounties on their heads. "Brick Wall" Metsumo, who has a bounty of 95,000,000 berries, and "Spinner" Kotetsu, who has a bounty of 75,000,000 berries."

"WHAT!"

"They sound like they're all really strong!" said Luffy excitedly.

"Oh no Luffy!" shouted Usopp. "We are not getting involved in this; you were barely able to beat someone like Crocodile. How do you think you think you can beat this guy?"

"Geez Usopp give it a break already," said Sanji. "Besides, these lowlifes hurt my dear precious Robin, so they are going to have to pay."

BOOM!

"What the hell was that!" shouted Zoro.

"It sounded like it came from the front of the ship," said a rattled Chopper.

"Come on let's go check it out," said Nami. The crew, with Raiku in tow, ran towards the front of the ship.

...

Metsumo had been searching for the ship for hours and had gotten nowhere. He had checked all of the major ports and the best hiding spots for a pirate ship. "How can it be so hard to find one ship?" he thought to himself. "Seriously this is taking forever!"

He would even be angrier if, somehow Kotetsu found it first. After all, Metsumo had a score to settle with the Strawhat and Roronoa Zoro for earlier. As he continued to search for the ship, Metsumo had many things on his mind. "These two have pretty big bounties," he thought to himself. "Strawhat's bounty is even bigger than my own. If I'm not careful, this could be bad."

Just as he was thinking this, Metsumo noticed an odd ship docked on a normally unseeable alcove. After closely inspecting the ship from a distance and seeing the huge Jolly Roger with a straw hat on it, Metsumo concluded that this was the ship he was looking for.

"Took you long enough."

Metsumo looked behind himself and noticed Kotetsu leaning against a rock there.

"I've been here for about 2 hours."

"I'm surprised you didn't go in by yourself," said Metsumo.

"Nah, I can tell you got a bone to pick with some of them, and even from you, that's something I can respect."

"Okay then, let's move out. Remember, our main objective is to capture Nico Robin, alive if possible."

"What about the other ones?" asked Kotetsu.

"Monkey D. Luffy has a bounty of 100,000,000 so he should be our biggest concern. Also, Roronoa Zoro has a sizable bounty of 60,000,000 himself so don't underestimate him, and then of course there is Nico Robin, who has a bounty of 79,000,000 and-"

"Yeah, yeah I got it. Be careful and watch your back and all that, anyway, will you just shut up so we can get the job done."

"Fine. First, we'll cripple their ship to make sure they aren't going anywhere."

"Okay then."

The two men then proceeded to jump on board and started to destroy the ship.

...

The Strawhats and Raiku made their way to the front of the ship where they noticed two men were breaking off pieces of sides and tearing up the floorboards.

"Hey!" Luffy yelled. "What the hell are you doing to our ship?"

"Yeah, the Going Merry, is our ally!" said Usopp. "If you think you can get away with hurting her, you're dead wrong!"

"I told you we would meet again Strawhat," said the tall dark one.

"Hey, you're that guy from earlier at the restaurant, listen I know we couldn't pay you guys then but that doesn't give you the right to come here and bust up our ship!" said Luffy.

"Idiot," he responded. "Do you really think that is what this is about?" he said while looking over to Robin, who was behind Luffy.

"Metsumo," she said with a shocked look on her face.

"It's been a long time," he responded.

"And looky here," said the other one who was average height with blonde hair, as he walked over to Raiku. "I don't know how you survived his attack brat, but I think the boss is going to be very interested that you're still alive."

"Kotetsu," said Raiku gritting his teeth.

"Enough with the chit-chat," said Metsumo. "Strawhat, hand over Nico Robin and nobody has to get hurt."

"Like hell we'll give Robin to you!" yelled Raiku.

"Shut up weakling," said Kotetsu who pushed Raiku backwards.

"Well?" Metsumo continued.

"Listen," said Luffy. "I don't really know what happened between you guys and Robin a long time ago, but if you think I'm just going to hand over one of my friends like that, you've got another thing coming!"

Luffy started to stretch his arm backwards. "Gum Gum-"

Suddenly, Luffy found himself spinning out of control. Unable to complete his attack Luffy tried to pull his arm back. Suddenly, Metsumo rushed across the deck and punched Luffy right in the stomach. This punch, along with the force of the spinning, sent Luffy flying into the ocean.

"Crap!" yelled Usopp who went in after Luffy.

"Well," said Kotetsu. "That wasn't so hard, Metsumo, I thought you said he was going to be the biggest problem."

"He was supposed to be," said Metsumo who had a look of disbelief on his face.

"Hah, this is gonna be too easy," laughed Kotetsu.

"Don't be so sure," said Zoro who was pulling out his swords.

"Now you've really pissed us off!" said an agitated Sanji who pulled a cigarette out of his pocket and lit it.

As Raiku and the rest of the crew backed up, Zoro and Sanji both moved closer to Metsumo and Kotetsu, and the 4 began to fight.