Over and over and over. Giru couldn't count how many times Akuma said to kill the man. His head throbbed and his ears rung. Giru's mouth even started foaming as he gripped his head, in too much pain to attempt to quiet the demon inside. His eyes glazed over and the pain stopped. His body went limp in the air, but still remained levitating.

Then he became a blur.

Levitating towards Al at maximum speed, Giru's face was plastered with an ear to ear smile, his tentacles rigid behind him. The usual snake-like motions they made were replaced with solid turns, as if made of bone now, creeping up into the air like inky black staircases. They all narrowed out then turned at a 30 angle, shooting forward at Al.

Then Giru hit the ground. The last thing he saw before losing consciousness was his crew backing away in horror, and the last thing he heard was Akuma, in a cheery voice, say 'Sweet Dreams!'.

When he woke up, he was on his ship, with bandages and gauze wrapped around his head and torso. None of his crew was there, instead there were two people who Giru assumed were from the village. "Holy shit, " he whispered, gently touching his head, "That really fucking hurts."

One of the people turned to him. A blonde woman in a sundress. "You've finally come to. I suppose your sailor's tongue is to be expected."

Giru wanted to curse her out, but he assumed she was caring for him. "Why are you on my ship? I have a medic that's supposed to handle these kind of things."

The other person, a man in casual wear, turned to him, "Gee, that sure is an odd way of saying thank you."

Giru held back his tongue even more. "Thank. You."

"You're welcome," The man said. "A kid in a track suit brought you and some other guy here and asked us to take care of you, then disappeared in the blink of an eye."

'Arata.' Giru thought.

"He seemed really panicked. Kind of afraid."

Giru didn't like the sound of that. He tried to get up, but it was too painful. Especially at his back.

"Don't try to move. Your back's beat up worse than the rest of you. What hit you?"

Giru scoffed, looking over to the side, "A gorilla with a big hammer."

"YA GOT FUCKED OVER BY THAT GORILLA TOO, YA WEE PRICK!"

The curtain pulled back to reveal Al, both legs and an arm broken, his neck in a brace. Giru rolled his eyes, "I don't know if I'm glad you're alive or not."

"I'M SURE AS HELL GLAD THAT BEHEMOTH DIDN'T KILL YE, SO I CAN DO IT MESELF!"

Giru froze, contemplating that. "... Behemoth?"

"Oooh, the octopus freak is worried about his shitstain of a crew, is he? You'll see 'em again in HELL YA LILLY LIVERED SQUID!"

Giru was angry... well, angrier now. "MY SHITSTAIN OF A CREW KILLED, TRAUMATIZED, AND KNOCKED OUT YOUR CREW, AND BROUGHT YOUR SORRY ASS HERE!"

"SAY THAT AGAIN YA NO GOOD WORM SPINE SHITSTAIN!"

Both men stopped yelling now, their wounds pulsating in pain.

Giru had to do something. He couldn't just lay here and hope for the best. "Aku-" ... was that a good idea? After what just happened, was relying on Akuma a smart thing to do? Giru lost his mind with all the repitition Akuma put him through. "Uh, could you close the partition?"

The man closed the partition, but not before Giru and Al flipped each other off one last time. Whispering aloud, he laid back and said, "Akuma."

"Yo yo my mans what's the haps?"

"What the hell was that?"

"It was slang my dude, get with the tiggity times."

"No. What was that during the fight? Why did you do that?"

"Shiiiit, I don't know fam, I thought it would be cool to wriggity wreck him."

"I'm being ser-"

Giru sighed. There was no changing the way Akuma decided to behave. "Why. Did you do it."

"Dude. Demon fruit. We've been over this. I'll drive you insane sometimes, figuratively and literally. Keeps you on your toes."

Giru pinched the bridge of his nose, which somehow hurt his head more. "Is there anything we can do to help the crew?"

"Hmm... I could take over an-"

"No. I don't trust you right now."

"Then sit back and hope for the best."

Giru wanted to fold his arms, but that would hurt. So, he just laid back and hoped for the best.

Arata had ran back three times. Once for Giru, once for sledgehammer man, and once to get Mist some extra bullets. Mist was standing atop the house near the cliff, firing round after round from his pistols. He made the smart decision to first shoot out both the eyes, so now the behemoth was flailing blindly. Various sharp psychic projectiles cut through the beast's flesh, and supersonic shouts kept it disoriented. Altogether, they were doing damage slowly, but surely. Every once in a while they had to switch positions because the monster would determine their location from where the attacks came from. The beast was around 8 times the size of a bear, but it look human with some beastly properties. It couldn't put up much of a fight being blind and continuously stunned. Eventually, it lay on the grass, bleeding to death. All of them panted and slumped to the ground.

"Well, well, well." Someone said, clapping.

"Oh, great." Ayumi said with a tired and sarcastic tone.

"Please don't be discouraged. You did quite well. I'm grateful to you. Now I have an idea of what improvements I should make. Maybe throw in some echolocation and greater muscle capacity."

"Who are you?" Arata asked.

The person laughed. "An entrepreneur." They said. "And that's all you get. Hopefully we won't meet again."

Then, faster than even Arata could comprehend, they were gone.

Giru was proud that they did well. It did have only a beast's mentality, but they fought it and won. But the other person... "An entrepreneur, huh?"

Arata had his hands behind his head. "He said stuff about adding echolowhatsit and muscle calamity."

Ayumi gave Arata a butterscotch to shut him up. "Echolocation and muscle capacity."

Giru scratched his chin in thought. "Hmm... I may be grabbing at straws here, but over 30 years ago, people tried making their own devil fruits to sell to large armies. That may be why people have been disappearing, to be used as test subjects."

"Oh, way to crack the case ya fuckin two-bit detective."

Mist quickly pulled the partition back and raised his gun between Al's eyes.

"NO!" Giru shouted, causing everyone to flinch. He looked Mist in the eye His voice was blending with Akuma's, and his left eye was glowing red. "We fought. It's over. He's going to be wheeled off the ship and we're going to leave. We don't kill people we know are innocent."

He took a deep breath then exhaled, his voice and eye returning to normal. "If we do, we're no better than the dragons."