Chapter Eight: Torn Between Crews! Kenni's Decision!

"They? Who are 'they'?" Luffy asked, with a look on his face that showed he was curious, but also excited to see just who they were anyway.

Kenni grimaced. "It's a ship from the Akumi. It's got the insignia." He pointed to the sail and flag of the approaching ship. Both were black, and had a skull and cross bones, with a piece of fruit that looked like an Akuma no Mi, speared on either ends of the cross bones.

The ship came ever closer, its sail and flag casting shadows upon the water, until finally, it reached the Going Merry. Three cloaked figures stood on the deck, one large, one middle-sized and one small.

"I believe it is your turn to kill." The middle figure spoke. It seemed that he was the central figure between the three of them. He and the small figure stepped back, to let the bigger one through.

"Yes, Revolver." He replied, in a low gravely voice. He held out two grey and dry looking hands, before clutching onto his similarly featured legs. It seemed that he was flying towards the Straw Hats.

'Could he have eaten a fruit to make him fly?' Chopper started to think to himself, looking for an explanation. He was not fond of things that were scary, let alone ones that could fly!

Zoro looked behind to see that they were close to land. "These bastards were planning this." He murmured to himself, before continuing in thought. 'First, they waited for us to get to land, then they attacked, so if we were to fight, we would be away from the water. If these guys really are Hammers, then they'll die in the water. Clever…'

Here, Zoro had used the term "Hammer". A Hammer was almost like slang for Akuma no Mi eater, because the fruits left you powerless in water, just like a hammer couldn't float in water either.

By now, the large figure had landed. The Akumi boat had disappeared, having already started to set sail, as the figure took flight. The large giant peeled his hood, to reveal a square head, in the form of a large boulder. It looked like his face had been carved in.

Kenni growled once more. "Kousoku." He said with utter distaste.

"So you remember me, then, boy?" Kousoku answered, in the same gravely voice. "Well, I guess you know why I'm here."

"Of course, I do, and I'm not going back there!" He was about to pounce and aim for a strike, when Sanji held him still. It took Kenni one look at Sanji's face, to see that he was telling him that fighting at the moment was a bad idea.

"If you're going to get rough, then we should go to land. No point in both of us dying in the seas, great beings like us."

Zoro smirked. "You mean, no sense in you two Hammers drowning." This was not the most tactful remark, but judging by the reaction on Kousoku's face, it had made an effect.

"Do not say that word again. We are not 'Hammers', we are gods!" He roared, before making himself calm down. It was hard for him to do so, but he managed to. "We shall take this fight to land, if you're so keen to die."

The trip had been very awkward, as there was a terrible tension between the crew and their "passenger". Kousoku had stayed eerily silent, throughout this, glaring acidly at Zoro in particular.

The Going Merry made it to land, and both Kenni and Kousoku walked frostily off of the ship, onto land, before facing each other. Kousoku made no move, standing literally as still as a boulder. Soon, Kenni had lost his patience.

Kenni charged towards the large behemoth, before launching out a kick, from his hind paw. A jump kick landed on the rock hard surface, making no effect. Seeing this, the young cat boy fell to his feet, and spun on the ground, sending his legs out and tripping his rocky opponent to the floor. But before impact on the ground could be made, Kenni's paw rocketed upwards, into what could have been Kousoku's spine, forcing him to stumble back onto his feet. Finally, Kenni somersaulted backwards, aiming a kick to the head, sending it flying off.

Both Usopp and Chopper stepped backwards, arms high in the air, as they screamed in fear. "Huwah!" Chopper squealed. "His head flew off!"

However, it seemed that the head was perfectly intact, floating in mid air. No sign of blood, no sign of pain. Kenni gave a grimace. "Kuso…" He muttered, with realisation.

"That's right." The disembodied head replied, still levitating in the air, although flying backwards, until meeting back with its body.

"The-There's no bl-blood!" Chopper stammered. "How can that be?" Robin was ignoring the fight at the moment now, more concerned with what Chopper was thinking about. How Kousoku could survive losing his head. Why there was no blood. The way Kousoku had managed to fly. It, then, struck her. The powers of the Bara-Bara no Mi.

"You're like Buggy, aren't you? You ate the Bara-Bara no Mi." "Yeah, that's right." "Then, that explains how you could 'fly'. You disconnected yourself from your feet, and picked them up, as you hovered the rest of your body over to us. Your cloak made the illusion that you were flying."

"But, that can't be!" Chopper squeaked. "There should only be one Akuma no Mi of each of the 108 types in the world! There's no way it can be another Bara-Bara type."

"That's right, little reindeer boy. But we don't follow those rules. We managed to replicate the real fruits, as well as make our own. There are 108 original fruits in the world, but we have tons more of our own. Hence, you can call me the Bara-Ishi Man."

"A Bara-Ishi man." Zoro murmured with a sneer. "Is that your way of saying 'Hammer'?" Again, this was the wrong thing to say.

"WE ARE NOT 'HAMMERS'! WE ARE GODS!" With that, he launched a hand out at Zoro, in a similar way to Buggy's Bara-Bara Hou.

A hind paw was sent into the air, and deflected the rocky hand into the sea, making it sink to the bottom. "This is OUR fight!" Kenni snarled. "If you think you're so godly, fight someone at your level!" Drawing two sabres, identical, curved and similar in shape to the fangs of a tiger, Kenni charged towards the Bara-Ishi man.

While charging, he held the sabres in a position, like a tiger's fangs, poised to bite down on its prey. "Torashi no Hitonomi!" The young one shrieked, a battle cry filling the air, as the blades fell downwards upon Kousoku's shoulders.

The arms merely detached from what would have been their sockets. No sign of blood, nor any sign of effect from the attack. The arms hovered in the air- One flew back into place while the one still with a hand left clutched onto Kenni's body, before forcing the Pika-Neko into the ground.

As Kenni started to struggle up, the rocky hand still grasped tightly on his neck. In an attempt to free himself, Kenni placed his paws on the hand, trying to pull it off. He only succeeded in pulling it up towards his mouth, but he wanted it like this. Opening his mouth, he sunk his eye teeth, or his fangs, into the hard surface.

Kousoku let out a roar. It was the same as with Buggy. Even if the parts were separated, they still felt pain. This wasn't new to Luffy, as he had discovered this weakness when he himself had fought Buggy before.

As Kenni clung onto Kousoku's fist, he was sent flying into the ground, numerous times, each impact giving him a trail of blood on his body. After ten smashes into the ground, the little cat boy let go, before managing to struggle up onto his hind paws. Putting his forepaws to his belt and pulling out two identical sabres, he bared the swords to the Bara-Ishi man, before charging.

Kousoku smirked. "Those won't work on me. You should know bet-" He was cut off, as he saw Kenni leap into the air, instead of slashing at him. Thinking his miniature opponent was trying to slash his arms off, Kousoku then detached his forearms from their sockets.

"Perfect." Kenni purred, as he sent the tips of one sword through the rock of the forearm and into the upper torso, while plunging the other sword into the legs and lower torso, holding it there, with his hind paws, using the forepaw he had left to hold Kousoku's head still. "Trapped."

"That's it!" Zoro exclaimed. "That's why he bit onto him. To see if he could still stab into him. Now, he's stopped him from doing his splitting tricks. With the swords holding him in place, he can't detach himself to do any damage."

Usopp looked unimpressed, and even a little shaky, as could be expected of him. "B-But, that means he can't attack, either. His hands are stuck there, holding him still." However, Usopp's comment was about to be answered to.

A sickening sound could be heard, as skull met rock. Kenni had no other options of attack left, so he could only do one thing- A head butt. It didn't stop at one. He did it again, and then again, getting faster with each strike, not caring for the blood spurting from his forehead in doing so.

Robin's eyes widened, as she watched this, and Nami couldn't help but turn away, covering her mouth. Whilst people like Zoro had lost much more blood than this, in fights against people like Mihawk, this was merely a young child, inflicting pain on himself just to prove himself.

Watching Kenni, it was now apparent that he was becoming almost feral. Jumping from his current position, he hopped onto his fore paws, getting into a pose that Sanji could recognise as one he took when fighting with both his feet. Going from a handstand, into a leap, Kenni rose upwards, before latching his legs around the cold and rough neck of the Bara-Ishi man, falling back towards the ground, using his hands as support again. In the final part of his set-up, Kenni- with great effort- started to lift Kousoku up with his feet alone, before managing to hold another handstand, as well as holding his enemy up. The strain on Kenni was obvious to everyone, his face getting redder and redder…

SQUELCH!

Only one person didn't wince: Luffy. He knew whose fight this was, and he wasn't going to get involved, until his musician died, and he could tell that was not going to happen. It was his choice to what he would do, no-one else's.

The blood had splattered out onto the floor, before diminishing into little drops on the ground. Chopper was quick to explain what had happened, although very shakily, and looking pale, for a reindeer. "T-The pressure was too much to handle so quickly; too much pressure on a place where blood is already flowing results in something like that."

Kenni didn't care, however. He just continued his onslaught. Jumping into the air once more, a miraculous feat with a fully grown man made of rock on your feet, he started to rotate in the air, blood spiralling around similarly, getting faster and faster. Finally, as the two headed for the ground, the small cat boy started to roll in the air a few times, before slamming Kousoku's head into the earth.

"Pika-Pika Hurricane Shuuren."