Chapter 41

When MPs were in the middle of their encirclement, in a speed considered very fast to ordinary people, Luffy pounced at the middle of their formation and swiped three unfortunate military police soldiers. It took everyone, sans Law, by surprise.

The unfortunate men either hit other people and their horses or crashed to the ground, needless to say, it brought the MPs in jeopardy. Loud panicked neighs echoed in the forest. The horses startled by the younger pirate captain's move became uncontrollable, acting like wild bulls in the rodeos when cowboys rode them. Some unprepared people got themselves thrown off their horses while the remaining either got off their own or tried to calm their horses down while pulling their reigns.

Law who had experienced Luffy's antics was already used to this kind of chaos. He took off to take down the leader who he felt was stronger than the others. He used haki to sense how strong the man(1) was and figured out that the man's strength was more or less on par with Levi.

Since that was the case, it was no surprise for him that both of the men got composed themselves at the same time and faster than everyone. The military police's leader parried his strike with a cylindrical shaped weapon, which Law could deduce that was some sort of gun.

The clash of two metals resounded all over the forest. It seemed louder compared to the neighs of the horses. This clang woke everyone from all sides from their stupor. However, the momentary carelessness of the military police had become unfavorable to their part. Except for their leader, no one was extraordinarily strong amongst them- and well, not that this lapse in their concentration matter at all because they were against a pirate captain, who could take out a thousand of soldiers without moving his hands or anything.

The scouts on the trees stared dumbfoundedly at the scene before them. It… was a one-sided beating. The people who didn't get to do a thing felt awkward in their places. They remembered the boy's chill manner and behavior and how they had sort of brushed off the boy's claim of "Everything will be fine."

Petra felt embarrassed because in their journey earlier, she had thought of protecting the boy. Meanwhile, Olou felt the same thing but it was because he bragged too much.

"I guess we shouldn't have expected less from the boys that Captain raised," Gunther said.

"We can't really judge people by their appearances…" Eld agreed. "The older boy might have guessed this would happen. It didn't matter if we joined the mission at all." Somehow he felt helpless for the first time.

Farlan laughed as he slumped a bit from where he was crouching. He scratched his head. "I guess we forgot how good Luffy is…" He was the first person to test the boy years ago and somehow seeing things before him made his bruises from then hurt. Luffy hit like he was holding bricks as he punched- it hurt a lot.

"I've never seen Luffy and Law fight before!" Isabel exclaimed as she gawked. Yesterday, Levi and Luffy didn't fight seriously in their friendly spar. It looked like the two were doing play fighting yesterday. And she had only seen such a one-sided fight from Levi before.

The Military police felt wronged in their situation- well, felt pained and wronged. Pained, obviously from being getting beat up while wronged because it was a kid beating them up.

They had trained hard under their Captain's wings. The people right now in their team were considered as elite yet what is this? They were getting trampled by a young boy. It didn't seem like the other was having some difficulties either if the grin on his face was to say anything.

As fists and legs hit their bodies, they felt some part of their bones crack. It brought tremendous pain. People fainted due to this pain while others barely have their conscious with them. They couldn't manage to bring their bodies back up and fight against this monster before them.

The said Captain of the MPs cocked a brow at this scene. "I never thought you can raise monsters, Levi." He had long jumped a distance away from Law right after he parried his attack. "And seems like you've grown up- except in height that is!" He laughed.

"Kenny…" Levi growled out the man's name. "Law, back off. I know you're confident of your fighting capabilities but… This man is out of your league." It wasn't that he didn't trust his boys but against this man, he just couldn't help but be overprotective this time. (If Hange have known this, she would have hollered in the background, "You've been always an overprotective mother hen, Levi- Not just this time!")

Hearing this, Law couldn't help but frown as well. Law, who didn't really think about what kind of feelings (or how deep it is) this older man had for him and Luffy, was displeased. "We can fight together," he said. It was faster that way since their enemy was on par with Levi's strength. He was simply going to be the tiebreaker between the two. He didn't comment about the man underestimating his skills.

"…" Levi knew he wouldn't listen no matter what once he decided. He reluctantly let the younger help him to fight. "… Don't get in my way." He said helplessly hoping the other will back out.

"Levi-ya, same could be said to you…" With so many battles he had gone through, Law had no qualms about cooperating with someone at the last minute. Besides, in this situation, he was just looking after Levi, not truly fighting with all he had.

Kenny, as Levi called him, let out a short laugh at their interaction. It was mildly entertaining for him. He smiled in a creepy way that could make adults get creeped out and children dream of nightmares every night. "Ah, isn't this quite unfair?" he didn't seem to genuinely mean the complaint. "Oh well, it doesn't matter anyway." He fixed his hat that wasn't in any way askew.

"You… Why are you even in the Military Police?" Levi glared. "Joining the Military Police doesn't make sense for you, Kenny the Ripper?"

"You wouldn't understand even if I tell you, runt," Kenny replied.

Law's brows rose in interest. "Kenny the Ripper?"

"He's a famous mass-murderer years ago. He was famous for killing over a hundred members of the military police by slitting their throats," Levi said. "I used to live with him as a kid."

"I taught this runt all my tricks," Kenny helpfully supplied.

Law's eyes widened. Wow, that reminds me of what I did to become a Shichibukai. The difference is that that I gave the government a 100 of live hearts owned by vicious pirates I could find… Law could understand why Levi couldn't understand how could a guy who used to kill MPs, join MPs. He couldn't understand how the MPs could hire the guy as well. Were they masochists? They even appointed the man as the leader of a squad.

"Just one more guy! You're the last guy, old man!" Luffy exclaimed, addressing Kenny. He dropped the last man on Kenny's squad off the ground. "Why you guys aren't fighting yet?" He tilted his head looking all confused.

"…"

"You really did a thorough clean-up of my squad, runt's runt," Kenny 'tsk'ed. "They didn't even get to show off."

"Who you calling runt's runt?!" Luffy retorted. "My name's Luffy!"

"Well, since all is done, except for you," Law asked coolly, "Is there a point in fighting anymore? Would you mind surrendering to save everyone of exerting effort? Unless you think you can escape, I suppose."

Everyone who did nothing and heard Law twitched. Nobody exerted any effort except Luffy though?! they all thought.

Kenny guffawed at his words. "Levi, your brats are a riot!" He wiped the non-existent tears from the corner of his eyes. "Ah… Are we going to bet on this? Me being able to escape or not from all of you."

Law felt this person's absurdness is at Grand Line level. "You can try if you want to…" He sent a mocking smile. This made Luffy raring to go, hitting his knuckles together, making a cracking sound.

The rest of the squad, excluding Levi, felt weird about how things turned out. Should they be acting like this? Shouldn't they quickly apprehend the man instead of talking to him like this? Why is Law giving the man time to run, even if it felt impossible for him to escape? They felt that regardless of one's confidence in their strength, they should be focusing on accomplishing their mission first and for all. The faster they do it, the less likely an accident would happen.

Law studied the gear on Kenny's body. The gears of Kenny's squad were like their own 3d maneuver gears. The only difference was that instead of blades and its set of spares, they had guns and their ammunition.

Before, it was said that guns were not effective against titans. Hence, the weapon makers settled for blades and it has been used by every soldier since centuries ago. Not to mention, comparing the practicality between the two, guns were rather inefficient. Law could guess that these guns could be used way less than the blades.

For the Military Police to have such weapons and bringing them on this particular day, these gears were meant to kill people instead of titans.

Talk about priorities, Law shook his head mentally. He had long noticed how backwater the entire walls were in regards to technology and weaponry.

The only advantage Kenny had in this situation was the range of his weapon. Before any of them could move, he can shot them anytime. However, that only worked against normal people. Luffy was immune to guns, Law and Levi could dodge fast when the man does fire a shot. In other words, this advantage was nulled by the existence of the three of them. To be honest, there wasn't anything that the MP squad captain could do.

However, Kenny was obviously reluctant to give up. He had plans. He had planned for years. He had something to achieve. There was no other perfect time for it to succeed but this year- He felt he can do it. The Reiss was out of descendants aside from that little girl whose life had been spared. That power was out of their hands as well. Wasn't this a perfect opportunity to accomplish what he wanted?

"I'm guessing that Eren and Historia aren't here," Kenny started.

"You'll know after you decide to come with us," Law replied. He knew that this kind of small talk was nothing more but a strategy to delay time and misdirect their attention.

"Annoying brat," Kenny said. "The Reeves cooperating with you wasn't really out of our expectations. But an ambush was really unexpected. Who would have thought of the Scouts, who only think about killing titans, would set up an ambush against their fellow people!" He had a mocking tone as he said this.

It couldn't be helped. There was truth in Kenny's words. No one thought of harming people before while they're in the Survey Scouts. Well, maybe except Levi. Levi had always been an exception.

"You can thank me for thinking about it," Law said. "I'm aware of how different it is compared to Erwin-ya's usual way of thinking."

"Aiy… No effing wonder," Kenny was displeased a bit. What kind of methods Erwin had, it can easily be predicted considering they already knew of what kind of person he was. Actually, he had thought the man would have sent out the two important people as bait to lure the fish (the higher-ups, probably Rod Reiss) out. "You really got us good, huh."

(1) Kenbunshaku Haki – according to wiki have 3 basic techniques or usage: a) Presence sensing, b) Strength sensing, and c) emotion sensing

I get the feeling I dragged everything up for no good reason… Long chapter but it feels like it's forced? orz. I'll do better next chapter. Wuwuwuwuwu…

Thank you for the input, Chermobile. Yeah, I think sounds better that way as well. Don't worry about nitpicking my grammar. It's helping me grow better~ (ノ▽〃)

Hehehehehe~ ⊂(・▽・⊂) I'm quite hyped up as well to the point my mind is all over the place! My brain hole is already in Shiganshina arc even though I dunno what will happen in the next chapters before it will reach that part- Ahhh… I want more. I need more- wait. I'm the author. *sweats and slowly goes back to writing chapters and drawing fanarts*

I might draw fanart about this fanfic… feel free to check my ko-fi page or twitter acc ( Hikari_Niji) once in a while, but might be just some WIP though. Still learning digital art.

Lastly, I'll update on SATURDAYS now.