Welp, it looks like I won't be able to make that Halloween upload date for Thriller Bark. Of course, circumstances were kind of beyond my control on that one, since I managed to throw out my back on Sunday (still recovering). Anyway, here's Water Seven/Enies Lobby, full of drama and hopefully making up for sins of past chapters!
When Usopp finally processes that we aren't taking Merry past this island, he snaps. Never mind that I've told him that Merry wasn't going to last. Never mind that everything breaks eventually. Never mind that we've been bailing water out of her since Alabasta. It's suddenly all about us being traitors and faithless friends, as if it's Kaya we're consigning to the depths rather than Merry.
I'll admit, part of it is because Luffy is shit at explaining things. Honestly, it feels like he's treating the subject the same way I did; carefully, trying to soften the blow. Unlike me, who was simply not taken seriously, he's taken as a traitor. But Usopp… he's beyond rational thinking right now. This was the ship given to him by his precious person, the ship that's taken us to lands beyond the dreams of anyone in East Blue, and, to him, we're just throwing it away on someone else's opinion, never mind that they're experts.
The fight starts immediately, and it's like being at home again. I want to hide, I don't want to be here, I want to disappear… Even witnessing this is painful. But I can't say anything. I can't do anything. Whatever little I do is useless. Even if I kept the Franky Family off us, averting that avalanche of stress that losing the two hundred million would have rained down on us, Merry's death was probably always going to be that last straw for Usopp. And it was. As soon as that unfortunate, inescapable fact was laid down, the sniper rejected it and challenged Luffy to a fight for the ownership of the ship.
I sighed and stood up from my place at the kitchen table, touching Zoro on the shoulder. "I'm going out. I'll be back after the battle." I don't meet anyone's eyes. Somehow, this is partially my fault.
Zoro harrumphs. "Still a bleeding heart, huh?" He asks. He doesn't question how I know there's a battle coming, he sees it coming as plainly as I do.
My eyes flicker down to the floor. "…Yeah, well, I guess there're some things that don't change, no matter what else does." I grab my long red coat and hat off the coat hook, sweeping it over my shoulders as I push into my invisible Soru, two suitcases full of berries in hand. I've got a transaction to make and a fight not to witness.
I slam open the door to Franky House, red overcoat flapping in a phantom breeze, ignoring the stares as I walk up to the hooded man in charge of it all. I throw the suitcases down at his bare feet, the black lacquer clicking against the stone floor.
"Two hundred million berries." I say quietly. "Right there, no strings… on one condition."
He shifts his attention from the suitcases to me. "Oh really? What?"
My eyes lock with Franky, his red sunglasses making his expression largely unreadable. "I want you to keep a…" Friend? Comrade? "… An acquaintance of mine out of trouble. Before he throws his life away for a dying ship."
Franky raises an eyebrow at me. "And what makes you think I'm a good choice for this? The super pervert? Hmm?"
My gaze doesn't waver, though I smirk for the first time tonight. There's no humor in it, but it's there. "Puh-lease, Franky. I know you better than that. I know you're a sucker for a tale of a man's romance besides being one of the best shipwrights in the whole damn world, and, believe me, you're not gonna want to miss a minute of this." I Sonido out before he can counter me, if he ever does. I have a brainwave and return, scaring the piss out of everyone in the room. "And I, too, am a super pervert." I say, posing dramatically before Sonidoing away again, this time over the city.
I take it slower once I'm up in the air, Geppouing at a speed that almost looks like proper flight as I close my eyes and breathe in the sea air. It feels like I'm miles above the city, though I dart down to a mask sales man to steal a beautiful white vampire mask from behind his back. Late night carnivals; convenient for a quick disguise, if not for security. I slip it on and disappear. Might as well make use of ridiculous heroics to forget reality for a night or two.
I open up my Haki, find my target, and fade into the black.
Iceburg has a cool purple-blue aura that feels like a dip in a fall stream; cold or refreshingly crisp in separate turns, but not aggressive in any sense of the word. The moment I land on a windowsill outside his office, it spikes in panic as something… I don't even want to touch on how those auras feel. I've felt most of them before and the only one I can stand to be this close to is Kaku's. There's only one option after that; break some windows.
My Black Sonido, applied for a split second to the window pane, shatters the glass instantly, showing razor fragments over the other intruders at high speed and I, grabbing the mayor away from the bullets, twist back through my impromptu entrance, concealed in crimson red. We fall at human speeds, Iceburg's eyes and aura freaking out in an appropriate fashion as the ground gets closer and closer. When one of the assassins dives after us, pushing himself against the air in only the way that a Geppou moves, I wait until he's within six feet of us before I say anything. "Eat shit, pussycat." I snarl quietly before I break into the black again. Rob Lucci's blacklight aura flares into momentarily blinding rage before I get out of sensing range.
"What a terrifying person." I murmur as we rest on the steeple of a tall, church-like building on the other side of town. I don't dare turn my Haki off, not with those psychopathic people still on the prowl for us.
I can feel Iceburg giving me a dry look from behind me. "That sounds a lot like the pot calling the kettle black to me."
I can't help but laugh. Honestly, being hunted down by assassins probably the least stressful thing that's happened today. "Yeah, you probably aren't wrong."
"You're one of those pirates who was at th-"
I sonido over the whole foot to cover his mouth with my hand. "Shhh, yes, but the whole point of wearing a mask is that nobody not in the know knows who I am, especially not the Government assassins." I hiss, my mask warping my voice into a death rattle. "And, when dealing with Cipher Pol 9, I'd rather they not know who I am. At all. You get me?"
His eyes widen and I realize that I've said the magic word. Words. Bleh.
Any satisfaction in that fact vanishes as three – three? Wait, they probably have someone holding Robin, Blueno, probably – presences draw within range at a speed that can only be Soru, with Lucci's terrifying dark light presence taking the head of their arrowhead formation with Kaku's giraffe spots and Kalifa's thorny tangle following just behind him. "Okay, time to go." I tell Iceburg, who opens his mouth, presumably to ask a question before I pull him into the black again.
Don't follow me, don't follow me…
Rob Lucci is following me. Worse than that, he's following my exact trail. You know what I said about stress earlier? Well, fuck me and what I say. That kind of shit is just tempting fate.
No. Hell no. He better not- he is, this is shit, even if he does have his own Soru-Geppou technique. I am throwing a hundred thousand percent of my person into 'not being here', and he is still there. Fuck fuck fuck fuck – you know what? Fuck it. I'm done playing cat and mouse. Done playing, period. I'm gonna do this. And die. Probably die.
That's probably one of my worst flaws, and probably the fatal one of the lot. I can take so much shit, mountains of it, but there comes a moment when I take a good, long look at that mountain and just say 'fuck it'. Typically, it's to someone who can beat the stuffing out of me. This time, it's to someone who can, and will, kill me without blinking an eye. If he has the time for a counter attack.
'If' is a very important word.
I drop off Iceburg in the middle of a crowded restaurant, ignoring the shocked looks of everyone there as what could be the Phantom of the goddamn Opera or motherfucking Superman himself come to visit their party from the sky, and push off again, pushing at my top speed and then past it. My bones are creaking, like they did the first time I used Geppou, but I push harder, aiming at that man made of black light. I tense the muscles in my leg as tightly as I can, willing it to be stronger than iron, swing my body with the rest of me, and then stop. No matter if this Tekkai, Haki, or just plain stupid, physics tells me that this is going to hurt like a bitch.
I was right. This does hurt. A lot. I'm falling, I'm in pain, I'm…
Not dead. Okay, not dead is good.
I'm pretty sure that's a good thing.
I hope it's a good thing.
I hope he's hurting worse, too hurt to follow, but with my luck, I doubt it.
Maybe he'll just call me dead, falling from this kind of height, and not follow up on it.
Maybe I am dead, falling from this kind of height.
Oh shit, I better not fall into a-
I did not fall into a chimney, thank god, and I did live. For now, at least.
I fell into a canal instead, pretty much going through a belly flop from hell. If I have internal damage on top of the probably broken leg, I'm not surprised.
That had better have worked, I think, as I finally manage to pull myself out of the water and start dragging myself ho- I cut off the thought. There is no home anymore. Thank god I'm soaked; it covers for any water leaking from my face as I limp back to the Merry, more out of habit and desperation than a willingness to confirm that, yes, my fami- crew is broken. I don't know where else to go, anyway. When hands pull me into a dark alleyway, I don't have the energy left to resist. I pass out of the conscious world without fanfare.
MYYSSTTTERRRYYYYYYYYY…
I wake up to morning light along with the smell of a frat dorm and make the appropriate expression. Yep, I have a feeling I know where this is. Just a feeling. I wish I could sit up, because being horizontal in this kind of environment is just asking for trouble.
"Heeey, you woke up!" A guy wearing the Franky Family uniform declares as he sloshes his drink onto my face.
I grimaced. Ugh, sticky beer. That's not gonna wash out cleanly. "Kinda starting to wish I didn't." I muttered, even as the guy stumbled out to summon someone who was hopefully a doctor.
I force myself into a sitting position anyway, scanning around the room. Bunk beds, loose mattresses (like what I'm laying on at the moment), posters all over the walls, piles of magazines that I make a conscious decision not to touch, dirty nasty laundry…
Oh my god, it is a frat dorm.
I blink as Chopper walks in. "Huh?" Wait, wait, isn't this a Franky Family base? What?
The little reindeer beams at me. "I see you woke up! That's good." He pauses as he processes what I'm doing. "WHY ARE YOU SETTING UP? YOU NEED TO BE LYING DOWN! YOU'RE AS BAD AS ZORO!"
I chuckle as Chopper pushes me back down into a horizontal position. "Sorry I'm such a bad patient..."
"WITT!" There is a sudden presence of Luffy in the room, crushing me into the bed as Chopper tries to pull him off of me, with little success. "You can't do that! It's bad enough that..." Luffy cut off, instead settling for glaring at me. "You don't get to die, okay?"
I sweatdrop and try to wave his request off. "Hey, hey, don't make me make impossible promises…" I tilt my head to the side and flash a grin at Luffy's pouting face. "I promise I won't die on purpose, okay?"
Nami was the next to come in. "What the hell were you thinking? Doing..." She gestured helplessly. "Whatever it was! Breaking your leg!" She grabbed me by the cheek, sinking her nails into my skin. "Die, and your debt will never be settled."
"Eh? I have a debt?" Did she catch me? There is no way she didn't notice the missing money…
"You do now." Her eyes spark for a moment before she releases my face, patting my cheek. "For making me worry about your sorry ass. Don't. Do. That. Again."
"Or you'll be sad?"
Nami smirks. "Or I'll double the fine next time. You owe me fifty thousand already."
I think I've just used up my luck reserves for the next two years in less than thirty seconds.
Everyone visits at some point today, drifting in over the course of the day. Ace knocking me upside the head for making Luffy worry, Sanji coming in with a bowl of some damn good soup (also flipping me off when I teasingly blow him a kiss), Chopper checking up on my progress every hour (apparently, the fact that he can't do anything for Usopp makes him even more hovery around the rest of us), Zoro taking about ten minutes to lean against the wall to stare at me and only say 'better have been a good fight to mess you up that bad' just before leaving (with that fucking smirk, too, why I oughta…), Joke perching in the rafters to study me in a similarly silent manner.
Obviously, this is a maddening experience.
"Iiyaaaaa… Chopper, am I better yet or what?" I whined. "It's boring in here and the magazines are nasty."
The little reindeer hit me in the head. "I told you." He said, even as I rubbed the little cherry blossom shaped bruise. "You didn't break the bone, so far as I can tell without an x-ray, but you still really hurt yourself. If I let you walk today, I don't want you running around on it, especially not your flying trick."
I make a pouty face. "Aw. I wanted to thwart more assassinations…"
"Well, you're just going to have to wait until you're better." Chopper said as he tucked away his tools. He blinked. "Wait, what?"
SO I SPILL THE STORY (APART FROM THE PAYING OFF FRANKY THING I'M NOT A TOTAL DINGBAT)
"Cool." Luffy decides. "Cooler than my idea."
Nami gives him a suspicious look. "What did you think had happened?"
"I don't know. Something with robots and space and lots of shouting. Since Witt's an alien." The rubber man said after a moment of processing. "Lots of explosions and 'who the hell do you think I am' kinda stuff."
Zoro sighed. "That was the thing we watched this morning, Luffy. Gurren somethin'."
"Oh, right." Luffy grinned. "That was kickass. Not that fighting off assassins in the sky isn't cool…"
I frowned. "Wait, isn't everyone still upset over…"
Usopp walked by the door. "Hey."
"WHAT THE HELL." I shrieked.
APPARENTLY, FRANKY TOOK MY 'TAKE CARE OF USOPP' AS PUT HIM IN THE SAME FRANKY FAMILY FRATERNITY AS THE CREW THAT HE JUST REMOVED HIMSELF FROM IN A VERY TRAUMATIC WAY I WAS PREPPED FOR VAGUE ANGST NOT THIS WHAT THE SHIT I PAID TWO HUNDRED MILLION FOR THIS GODDAMMIT FRANKY DON'T PULL THIS KIND OF SHIT WHEN I WANT SO HARD TO LIKE YOU
"Franky? Yeah, he's a pretty solid dude." Usopp said after I ambushed him. I'd think he'd react a little more to the fact that I've literally got him backed into a corner, completely off the floor, supporting myself against the walls, and am pretty much at my highest level of intensity.
"I know that. That's why-" Oh wait, it's a secret that…
"You paid him to help me out?" Usopp finished casually. "Yeah, he told me. I'm kind of conflicted between being mad at you for treating me like a child or being touched by the fact that you probably had to rob Nami to do it."
I facefaulted and, considering the position I was in, nearly went headfirst through the floor. "Goddammit, Franky…"
Usopp folded his arms. "Hey, you wanted him to give it to me straight, and he did. You got exactly what you asked for."
I slammed my face into the floor again. "Goddammit, Franky…" I think I've just acquired a new catchphrase or the local motto. I have a feeling it's the latter.
Iceburg mulled over the events of the last night as paperwork built up on his desk. Assassins, government threats, near-death experiences, death-defying stunts, a not-so-mysterious rescuer… His expression blanked as he finally remembered the last time he had heard anything like that. "I did not just become the 'girl' in a spy novella." He said.
Kalifa cocked her head. "Did you say something, sir?"
I've been duct taped to a wheelchair until further notice. Apparently, my little stunt with Usopp was on the list of 'not resting behaviors'. I have yet to convince the Franky Family that office and wheelchair jousting is a thing.
Alas.
TIME SKIP TIME SKIP SKIP AHEAD ONE DAY
Things that shouldn't be on fire – Iceburg's place.
Things that are on fire – see above.
People who should be being blamed for this – CP9, probably.
People who should not be blamed for this – yours truly.
And right after I got out of the damn wheelchair, too.
Well, one good thing, is that Luffy, Ace, and the rest of the gang are likely to get Iceburg out of there, as per canon, so I give it thirty minutes before shit is straightened out. Maybe less if a Fire Logia has the ability to absorb flame. They were headed that way anyway, they'll find out about Robin, and I can do this.
'This' being 'infiltrate the Sea Train with Sanji'.
Sanji of course –
"WHY DO I HAVE TO BE TEAMED UP WITH YOU? THERE CAN ONLY BE ONE PRINCE ON A RESCUE MISSION!"
"I can be the noble steed!"
"…No. Just. No. No matter what the circumstances, I will never, ever ride you in any sense of the word, no matter what the context, even if it means I die."
– is less than enthused about the idea, which, honestly, amuses me despite the situation. What can I say? I'm the devil. All right, putting humor aside until we get into the train. I move towards it… and there's a hand in the way.
Sanji presses a folded note against my chest. "You get that to Nami-swan, I'll handle the train."
I make a face at him. "You don't even know what you're up against."
"I saw the way you freaked out when the pigeon guy walked by." The cook said, blowing out a stream of cigarette smoke. "I'm guessing he's why we found you half crippled."
Well, technically, yes… I sigh and take the note from him. Alright, change of plans, from vanguard to Calvary. "…Don't get yourself killed fighting those monsters, Mr. Prince."
This gets me a jaunty grin. "Whoever heard of the Prince failing to rescue the Princess, eh?" Sanji says before jumping onto the back of the caboose.
Goddammit, that was too cool for me to be upset with him properly while he was here.
The Rocket Man just got a personal invite to my nightmares. Along with the nightmares of everyone else here, judging by the screaming. Except for Luffy.
He's sitting on the outside of it, whooping like an idiot. Which he is. How am I amazed at this again?
Oh right, because I secretly thought he was smarter than he lets on. Well, fuck me. After I get unglued from the wall Tilestone just smashed me into.
Yep, this is gonna be a long, long day.
Wait, where's Ace?
Ace stared out after the distant sea train. "Aw, shit, I fell asleep!"
Iceburg sighed. "Would you like to join me for-"
"Yes."
"I didn't even finish."
There are some times that I wish I smoked. Every smoker I've even known makes it look so relaxing and there are some times that I really, really need a cool looking way to relax. As we blaze towards the island of the eternal sun, I really, really wish I smoked. I know what we're getting into and don't I hate it.
Not that I'm going to show it anytime this millennia. I smirk as the buildings on the island become distinct and identifiable points. "Enies Lobby… Who wants to be that there aren't gonna be two bricks on top of each other by the time this fight is done? Any takers? Anyone?" Come on, give me some easy money… fill the air with something other than apprehension...
Kokoro laughed. "They saw two of your crew punch a hole through the largest wave they'd ever seen in their lives not two hours ago. I don't think they're willing to bet against your chances against mere mortals now."
Thank you, mermaid lady who is likely to sear my eyeballs out of my skull later.
"Yeah!" Sogeki- Usopp said. I frown at him, even as he ignores me. There should be more red in the ro- hey, look, Nami had a red hoodie. That's… different. "I mean, between my eight-thousand followers and the Franky Family, it'll be like an army descending on them…"
"Thanks for discounting us…" Sanji muttered.
Usopp gave him a look. "C'mon, you guys are more like 'the fist of an angry god' than an army. Give me some credit on that."
"He's not wrong." I decide. "Still, this battle would have been easier with Sogeki-"
The sniper shot me a look. "I thought we dropped that back in the East Blue."
"Oda never forgets and neither do I."
"Alright, now we're back to the references that I don't understand."
There is one important detail about the Rocket Man that we kinda forgot in all the excitement.
Chopper peeked out the window. "Hey, the gate is closed."
It's kind of important, too.
Zoro hmphed, shifting his stance from 'ready to cut shit' to 'still going to cut shit but not right this second'. "Alright, change of plans."
The Rocket Man does not have brakes.
"What?" Nami yelled.
Or, apparently, any respect for the law of gravity.
"We're gonna die!" Usopp and Chopper shrieked.
Or any regard for any giants it might land on.
I broke down into hysterical laughter, tears of absolute freaking out all over my face.
I fucking hate the Rocket Man.
There is one very, very important thing I need to establish.
Nami is a scary person who I do not like to mess with, even without a Climtact in the equation.
Nami is the person who just did Mook patrol for the entire area in 2.3 seconds, using the Perfect Climatact.
Nami is the person who I will not be telling anytime soon about the little 'withdrawal' I made from the net profit from Operation: Loadsamoney.
There's an odd serenity to fighting. At first, it's all noise and confusion, but after a while that slips away to only what you need to hear. That, and the drums. The drums could be my heart, they could be something else entirely. I don't know and, until it becomes a threat to my family, I don't care.
I'm just here to wreck shit.
Including the three headed knight monster whatever. Who cares if he wants to have tea before or after I thrash his thrice ugly ass. All three of his skulls are caved in and I'm already gone, through a window and upwards.
Someone's fighting Luffy and I don't like the way his aura is boiling. Gear Second? I don't care if this is his fight, I'm interrupting.
And that's how I kicked an already thrashed, completely unconscious Blueno off the roof and into a bottomless pit.
"WHAAAAT?" Spanda screamed from across the divide.
"Oops." My sheepish answer echoed back. "My bad."
As the rest of the part arrives in their own… unique fashions, I can feel the regrets of at least one person on the other side of this fight building. I think it's Kaku who's wondering where his life went wrong. Spanda's too busy freaking out over the destruction of all his pretty little plans.
I'm almost tempted to go over there and kick him into the bottomless pit too. I know I'm not fast enough to do it without getting mauled by Lucci, especially not with the leg he fucked up last time at about 85%. I know enough not to do it, but still.
Tempting.
As Robin starts breaking right in front of us, I'm really, really tempted to do more than just kick him into the pit. I'm tempted to tear him to shreds.
Luffy telling Usopp to set the flag of the World Government on fire is even more satisfying than my own idea, even if I did know it was coming. If the world is broken, tear it to pieces. If the world is wrong, tell them. If the wheel is merciless… break it.
"Say that you want to live!" Luffy yells and I am reminded again of exactly why I follow this man. He brings forth the conviction needed to fight against the world, even when one forgets.
"I…" The word lingers, even across the divide. "I want to live!" Robin screams.
The bridge beneath us lowers. It's time.
Luffy grins. "Let's go!"
Okay, if I knew exactly which bitch decided to shoot the bridge, I'd wreck them right this instant.
For now, I'm stuck getting Rocketed across the divide by the one person that, while I'd trust them with my life in literally any other situation, I do not trust to get us from Point A to Point B in one piece unaided.
When we slam into a free-falling Franky, who, allow me remind you, is made of actual iron, I know that my distrust is completely and utterly founded.
And then the Rocket Man gets involved, Luffy panicked, and I really knew that I'd died and gone to hell.
"You're all freaks, you know that?" Franky muttered once the dust cleared and it was established that all limbs were, amazingly, intact. Hell, the worst injury was a nosebleed, which was kinda messed up, even in my book.
"Not really something I want to hear from a self-proclaimed super pervert cyborg, Franky." I said, giving him a half serious glare. I'm ignored. Ugh, talk about Flashback Tuesday.
A presence flits across my perception, one that feels grey-green and greasy like a lurking neckbeard, I'm tempted to call it a fedaura… "Fukuro." I say flatly as I glare up at the round CP9 agent, who, seemingly just to establish that he is a ninja assassin, is standing about forty feet above the ground in a corner. Oh goddamn, he is a neckbeard. "Come to explain the rules of the game or just blab about Jabra's ex?"
"Chapapapa, been there, done that." He cackles before hopping off the air to our level. "But yes, let's lay down the rules! Unless you beat us all, you can't rescue Nico Robin…"
I go into bored recital mode for the first time since I joined the crew. "Because she's wearing Sea Stone Shackles and the key that we need to get her out of them is somewhere in the possession of someone in the group, which means that we have to kick CP9's collective ass to get the correct key to release her because you'd just throw the keys into the ocean if we skipped to the rescue bit, not to mention the fact that nobody is pulling any punches, which is, oddly enough , something that's brought up every single time we get in a fight, despite the fact that we're pirates and are contractually obligated to kill at least one person during our careers." I take a breath. "Does that cover everything?"
Silence.
"Chapa…pa… pa… you took my speech." Fukuro blinked and then shook his head. "Cha! It doesn't matter, so long as the threat is understood!" He Geppoed away.
"What the hell are these freaks?" Franky snarled.
My eyebrows furrow. "Eh? Didn't you fight a guy like that on the train?"
"… No?"
Somehow that makes me go 'Oh, hell' inside.
They split the party. I mean, it's us, so it's not that surprising, but usually we end up in parties. Now, this is all teams of one. Which is… not okay.
Okay, maybe overreacting… I try to calm myself down. Breathe, breathe, calm down, the world isn't ending, it isn't Lucci behind that door… Wait, Haki. Duh.
I open up my senses… and smile.
MATCH-UP… BATTLE START
CHOPPER VS. FUKURO
Chopper scuttled through the hallway, eyes flashing from corner to corner. "Scary ninjas assassins, scary ninjas assassins…"
"Chapapapa…"
Chopper screamed, switching to Heavy Point and lashing out at Fukuro, only to draw back his fist in shock.
"You cannot hope to surpass my Tekkai with fists of flesh and blood!" The CP9 agent announced.
Chopper felt like "Eep," was an appropriate response.
WITT VS. KAKU
"What are you smiling about?" Kaku asked as I came into the room, not bothering to rise from his seat.
I tilted my head, hands still in my pockets. "Ah, well, I'm smiling because I probably won't have to kill you."
His eyes flash before he activates his Soru. "And what do you mean by that?" He asks as he swings his leg around to remove the head from my shoulders, clearly unconcerned with any idea of actually getting anything like an 'answer'… Which would have worked if I wasn't used to that level of speed and had Observation Haki on top of it to tell me that the strike was coming.
I smile serenely from my new position behind him. "Temper, Kaku-kun. Don't be insulted because I don't want to break something beautiful." I dodge another potentially dismembering attack, never taking my hands out of my pockets. His aura fluctuates towards a fiery golden orange that threatens to lash out and then does.
I dodge another strike, a proper Rankyaku this time. A quick application of Soru takes me out of the path and under the path of the next strike. I sigh, forcing my voice not to reflect the adrenaline that is starting to pump through my veins. "Aya, Kaku-kun, so rough. Why is it so horrible for someone to want to not kill you? Is it just easier when everyone is your enemy?"
"Hardly." Kaku said, sliding his swords free of their sheaths and swings again, another miss. I don't see how he's missed this technique, or the fact that I just hopped off thin air to avoid his follow up strike.
"Then what is your problem? Is a delicate touch such a horrible thing?" I ask. It's becoming an actual effort to dodge his strikes without using my arms. Would it be easier to fight? Probably. It isn't what I want though. What I want…
"That's sexual harassment." Kaku suddenly declares.
Wait, what?
FRANKY VS. KALIFA
Franky cracked his neck, pulling down his orange glasses. "Sorry, girly, but I'm the super pervert of Water Seven. My very existence is offensive to the sensibilities of those who give a damn about that kind of thing."
Kalifa huffed, changing the subject. "I defeated you before, easily. Why did you charge into this fight? Arrogance, stupidity, or misplaced faith in some idiotic plan you cooked up?" She pulled out her whip, running her free hand down the length of spiked iron, an odd shininess following it down the whole length of it.
The blue haired man frowned and flipped up the collar on his jacket. "Brawlers like me are sustained by willpower, even when mocked as reckless and crazy. If there's a wall in my way, I'll just smash it down. If there isn't a path, I'll carve it myself." He dodged the initial whip strike, reaching out and wrapping the thorny whip around his forearm, bracing himself by digging his toes into the floor before giving Kalifa a mighty heave. "If something calls itself invincible, it is my job to break it!"
Her heels slipped on the floor as she was yanked towards the legendary ship disassembler.
Franky drew back his fist, teeth bared as the CP9 assassin came barreling towards him. "JUST WHO THE HELL DO YOU THINK I AM?!" He roared as he delivered his legendary Drill Breaker Strong Right.
WINNER – FRANKY
First blood goes to Kaku. I'd cry foul on him distracting me like that, but I'm a pirate. I smile at him, even as blood runs down my leg. It's shallow, which was more my doing than his, but if I hadn't moved, it would have left me hamstrung. "Nicely done, trying to disable my ability to move, remove the advantage I've been lording over you the whole fight." My smile goes cold as I slip on an old mask from the past. "Of course, trying isn't quite good enough." It almost feels like a real mask, like wet paper mache that's trying to fuse to my skin.
Kaku notices, if the shifting of his stance from 'enemy' to 'threat' is any indication.
I let the smirk crawl up the side of my face, baring my eye teeth. "For an assassin, there is only the death of the target. Nothing is true and everything is permitted."
His eyes narrow, and he prepares to launch himself, blade first, at me. I break out the Black Sonido and materialize right behind him just as his aura spikes in the universal 'Oh Crap'.
"We're not so different, you and I." I flash away again as Kaku tries to cut me in half. I appear on the other side of the room, looking over one of the vases above the fireplace. I hold up a hand to cut off the obligatory 'we're nothing alike' response. "Do not try to tell me that you are morally superior, working for the Government. You know Spandam's nature. He may work under the banner of justice, but you know that he's a self-interested coward. An ass in lion's skin." I turn to look at Kaku over my shoulder. "What makes us the same is how well we lie."
Kaku watches carefully. "Like how I 'lied' to my former workmates?"
The predatory grin returns with a humorless chuckle. "Like how we lie to ourselves."
USOPP VS. HATTORI
"Get back here, bird!" Usopp snarled as he scrambled to get to higher ground. He was fairly certain that pigeons weren't trained in assassin arts, but shit if Hattori hadn't put enough pin-prick holes in him to prove otherwise. He had pulled his goggles down over his eyes to prevent the obvious option of blinding, but that hadn't stopped the damn thing from flying away.
Hell, Usopp wouldn't even being chasing after the damn thing if it wasn't possibly holding the key they needed to free Robin…
"Wait a minute…" Usopp facepalmed as he pulled an exploding star out of his bag. He was a sniper wasn't he?
Jeez.
WINNER - USOPP
Kaku shifts without purpose. Uncomfortable? Undecided on the next source of action? Conflicted, certainly, but on what little ol' me has to say? Now I'm uncertain, how much of my break down of Kaku is me or my mask? "I have no illusions about what I do." He said flatly.
"About the killing, of course not. You've been taught all the ways to cut a life short. It's nothing new to you. Tis the part and parcel of the job." I'm really looking forward to taking this mask off. It was never this talkative in the past, just like the me back then was, but it's unsettling actually hearing its… my… thought process aloud. "But you're lying to yourself right now and I can smell it." Of course you can, you reptile. The Hannibal mask pulls into the smirk again, flashing fang. "All those little regrets that you're trying to bury under your conditioning are struggling to the surface." I zip behind him again, hands folded behind my back as he stiffens. "The regret of throwing away that childhood dream, the regret of leaving behind the people you grew attached to during your mission, the regret of that freedom to do what you wanted without having to hold back for things like 'orders'."
I feel my eyes shift unpleasantly. Hannibal, Aizen, or Madara? I can feel this mask starting to stick.
NAMI VS. JABRA
"Mirage Tempo!"
"I can still smell you, thief!" The wolf-man snarled, already singed from a minor lightning storm that Nami had called down earlier, whipping his head around the room, even as rain came down from the ceiling. "You won't escape from me! You're the stray sheep to my big, bad wolf!"
Nami smirked from five different places in the room. "Liar." They all said. "I'm a cat thief, don't you think I know how to get rid of tracking dogs?" Every illusory Nami smirked. "You've got a twenty percent chance of hitting the real me."
Jabra cackled, swiping at the normally proportioned Nami. "You'll see- what?" The mirage dissipated around his claws.
Nami smiled as the dark clouds gathered overhead. "Keep huffing and puffing, dog breath, it's just gonna make this hurt worse." She muttered, as she pulled out the electric powered section. "THUNDERBOLT LANCE!"
As she stood over Jabra's smoldering body, key held tightly in hand, she flipped up her red hood over her hair. "Must be true what they say about dogs being colorblind, otherwise you would have known exactly how this little fairytale was going to end."
WINNER - NAMI
"A Cipher Pol Agent cannot have regrets." Kaku said, finally attacking again with a spinning Rankyaku that cuts the room in half easily.
I duck under it and launch myself at him horizontally. "But here you yet stand, proclaiming yourself one of them while been eaten up with remorse. You're not like Lucci, he doesn't feel remorse for his kill. He was born bloodthirsty, the only thing he needs is someone to tell him what and who to destroy next. You, however, are as human as the rest of us, prone to regrets, embarrassments, and selfish desires." I twist out of the way of his left hand sword and grab his right hand, the first time I've touched him since the fight started. "I've heard it said that if you wear a mask for too long, your face grows to fit. Was that mask so comfortable that it happened without you realizing it?" I tear away my own mask, I don't want to be like that ever, and my smile drops. "You know how this ends, Kaku. I just want to give you another way out." I tell him somberly, even as I let go of his hand. I don't Soru away as I continue speaking, for the first time in this conversation. This is me, this is me gambling, this is me gambling on an assassin being unwilling to kill. "Spandam is going to fuck this up. He's probably already brought down the Buster Call on us already. Hell, he's probably starting to spin his story of how his trained attack dogs betrayed him, just so it's not his fault the best assassination team failed to stop a crew of pirates he could count on his own fingers. You can't go back to Water Seven, not after Iceburg, the Government itself will decry you, despite your loyal service…"
Somehow, this is the exact moment when Spandam fucks up and broadcasts the fact that that's exactly what he's done and his exact motivations for doing it and who he's really interested in. I watch as Kaku's assassin mask comes unglued. It's interesting in a horrible way, watching him fight to keep that smooth, emotionless expression fixed to his face.
I tilt my head, studying his eyes. "So… do you want to be left holding the bag after Spanda throws you to the dogs, or do you want to live?" I pull out the key I stole from him during the first five minutes of the fight, waving it as I walk towards where the door was, even as the remains of the room start coming apart. "I'll let you think it over while I go save my family." I go into my Black Sonido, and feel his aura, a now conflicted tangle of gold and black, for a split second before I fix onto Robin's panicked signal and vanish.
ZORO VS. KUMADORI
"I just want to fight one damn swordsman, is that too much to ask?" Zoro grumbled at the author, who, wisely, did not respond.
"How shameful, I will slit my stomach for this. Tekkai!"
The swordsman grumbled as he pulled out his swords. "How about I help you with that?" Zoro snarled.
TEN MINUTES OF AUTOMATIC TEKKAI AND ZORO WISHING HE COULD JUST FIGHT A GODDAMN NORMAL ASS SWORDSMAN LATER
Both combatants were bruised at this point, with small trickles of blood showing up on their faces, as serious warriors are wont to have.
"Yooouuuu will not stand up against my ultimate attack-" Kumadori was cut off by nine blades cutting through his hair and body. Zoro swiped off his swords and slid them back into their sheaths.
"What a pain in the ass."
WINNER - ZORO
SANJI VS. NERO
"I may be the most recent addition to CP9…"
Sanji spat. "Wait, wait. You're a hanger on? A newb?"
"DON'T CALL ME THA-" Nero was cut off as he was pile driven through the wall.
Sanji pulled the cigarette out of his mouth, tapping off the excess ash onto the unconscious CP9 newbie. "What a scrub. Didn't even know when to keep his mouth shut."
Of course, this was the point when Chopper's monster point threw Fukuro's mangled body through the building, scaring the shit out of everyone.
And then Franky showed up, gave the rampaging reindeer a 'Who-The-Hell-Do-You-Think-I-Am' punch into the ocean and shit calmed down for five damn minutes.
WINNER - SANJI
WINNER - CHOPPER
LUFFY VS. LUCCI – AS COVERED EXSTENSIVELY BY THE ANIME AND MANGA, I REFER YOU TO THOSE SOURCES BECAUSE I PROBABLY WON'T DO IT JUSTICE BUT
WINNER – LUFFY
ONWARDS TO THE BUSTER CALL
ALTERNATE KAKU INTERROGATION (FIRST VERSION) IDK I LIKED BOTH SO I GUESS BOTH ARE CANON(for this fic anyway)
"You regret, don't you."
I shift myself by six inches. Six inches might not seem like a huge distance, but six inches just meant the distance between that Shigan piercing part of my jacket instead of my lungs. It feels rehearsed and pitiful. He didn't throw his whole being into it, not like how the fight started. I've made him think too much. I grab Kaku's face, staring him straight in the eye. He doesn't blink, even as my fingers clamp around his jaw. "I know you, Kaku. You're the one who actually felt at home in this cover, felt pride in what you did as a shipbuilder. There's a pleasure in making things that assassination sorely lacks, if you aren't a psychopath like Lucci. And you aren't quite his kind, are you? You, unlike him, feel regret." I don't blink. Neither does Kaku. The fact that he hasn't tried to kill me yet speaks volumes, though of what nature, I'm not sure.
I continue, releasing him and stepping back, so I can circle him like a jaguar going in for the kill. "He was born bloodthirsty, I think. So long as someone gave him something to aim at, he'd destroy it. So someone gave him justice, you know he'd throw it away for his own needs, just as easily as he'd kill a man. You, you were normal before they took you. Building model ships and the like, I imagine, even after the training started. So the cover story must have been like going back to when everything didn't feel so dirty. The countless lies, the stealing, the constant blood on your hands… there's very little pleasure in those things. They just grind into your soul, like a stain that will never come out. You know that, you've accepted it. But making something… well, that was like being someone else for a bit, someone who wasn't rotten, wasn't it? Like being a good person, even for a split-second." I snap my fingers before tilting my head, smiling at him. "I can understand that, the safety that only a mask can give you. The only problem is when you wear it so long that you start to forget what your real face underneath looks like."
I know all about that one, and I think Kaku realizes it, judging by the look that just crossed his face.
"And I guess, that leaves you with a choice. A choice that only I am giving to only you. Spandam is going to throw all of you under the bus as soon as things go to hell, you know that. That's his type, you've seen it enough, working for the Government. Thinks he's grand and infallible, but has no issue with letting the shit flow downhill. You can go down for him, let him blame you and your…" I measure out the space. "Teammates, or you can cut him loose. Like cutting bad wood away from the good. There's always time to pull a face-heel turn…" I Soru back to the other side of the room as the whole thing cracks in half, my Haki warning me to the fact so I'm not surprised, whereas Kaku is left to react. Chopper going berserk on someone else in the building, either above us or below, I suppose. I'm not tracing his signal. Not when he's like that. "Until there isn't. Care to cross the Rubicon while there's still a bridge standing, Kaku?" I pull the key that I stole from him within the first five minutes, showing him that I could have left without going through this little dance. "No ulterior motive, just you, me, and a little last-second redemption."
WHEN USOPP MET FRANKY (DELETED SCENE)
When a half-naked man with blue hair, a red cape, and pointy orange-red sunglasses kicks his way into your home or place of business, you're usually excused for mistaking him for someone else.
"KAMINA-SAMA? What, no, you're not him." Usopp pouted as he finally got a good look at the muscled man in front of him. "Got all excited for nothing."
"Woah, woah, woah, hold up. While Kamina is a super dude, I'm pretty damn super too." Franky struck a pose, allowing a convenient dramatic wind to sweep up his cape in a very suuuper way.
They spent the rest of the night debating on the relative coolness of various characters in comparison to Franky before dragging Merry to an indoor dock and continuing the debate, this time with visual evidence, into the morning.
Obviously, they became friends, because Usopp needs friends and Franky is a solid dude.
OKAY IS KAKU GOING TO JOIN OR WHAT? I DON'T KNOW I NEED TO FIGURE OUT HOW HARD HE IS TO WRITE (spoiler: most signs point to yes)
