Now time for the first big fight scene in the story...against Siegfried's equivalent of Alvida or Morgan.

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One Piece: Bounty Seven

Chapter Three: Bounty Hunter, Part 3

Up on the mast, the female shinobi watched the events occuring down on the deck. The owner of the voice who had spoken to her before seemed to be conversing with the two pirates, although she couldn't tell what was being said.

Then, suddenly, an incredible pressure shot through her head. She clapped both her hands to the side of her head and gritted her teeth in pain. Just as quickly as it came however, it subsided.

"Sorry about that," the voice apologized, returning. "I forgot that you and I were still connected. Are you all right?"

She nodded. "I am fine. It would take far more pain than that to affect me."

"Ah, good. Well, now you can just sit back and relax. I'll handle the rest from here."

She blinked in confusion. "You mean to handle both of them at once?"

"Well, I have been doing just that while we've been talking.

"Wha - what?"

"I'm good at multi-tasking."

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"I suppose this was a blessing in disguise. I haven't gotten a chance to exercise in a little while, and it wouldn't do to become rusty. But were these the only opponents available? Anyone with my training would have no problems with these two."

This was the truth. Both Erik and Colombus held little subtlety in their fighting styles. Erik was strong with his twin axes, but was extremely clumsy, allowing Siegfried to dodge easily. Colombus had drawn a pair of long, thin blades that resembled compass arrows, and while he was more accurate and quicker on his feet, he was still no match for the Bounty Hunter.

Erik drew his axe back, and forward in a wide, overhead chop. Siegfried jumped aside, and it smashed into the deck, splintering the wood. Erik tugged, attempting to free the weapon, but it was stuck fast. Before Siegfried could move to attack him, Colombus jumped forward, stabbing forward with his blades. Siegfried side-stepped the first, and then ducked the other, quickly throwing a punch into Colombus' gut.

The first mate doubled over, the wind knocked out of him. Taking advantage of the opening, Siegfried grabbed ahold of his shoulders and threw him across the deck. Colombus hit the wood floor hard, sliding a few feet before stopping and lying sprawled. He'd dropped his weapons, and was out of the fight momentarily.

"There. Take care of him when he gets up, if you feel like it."

The bounty hunter turned back to Erik, and promptly leaped forward, throwing forward a hard punch. "Geist Faust!" The viking pirate stumbled backward, a large crack in his armor, letting go of his axe. He glared at the bounty hunter. "I only need one axe to beat you!"

"And I don't need any. You'd probably be better off the same way; do you even know how to use thos weapons properly, pirate?" Siegfried asked.

Erik's face twitched as he tried to come up with a proper retort. Failing to, he brandished his axe and charged once more.

Siegfried pondered to himself as he commenced dodging once more. "I don't suppose I could rid him of the other one in the same way...I'll have to do that, then."

The bounty hunter turned slightly, making his way through his dodging towards the mast in the center of the deck. Once he was next to it, he smiled as Erik prepared for a swing. "It's funny, how he doesn't see this coming at all."

In mid-swing, Siegfried pumped his legs and jumped into the air, the axe whistling into the wood underneath him. Landing on the flat of the axe's blade, Siegfried then leaped back up, kneeing the pirate hard in the face. Letting go of his second axe, Erik stepped backward with a pained grunt.

Siegfried wasn't done yet. Stepping in front of the viking, he punched him right in the chest. Then, he opened his palm. "Geist Kanone!" Erik let out a loud scream of pain as a shockwave ripped straight through his body, bursting a large hole into his armor. "It...it hurts...I'm dying..." He breathed.

"Oh, quite whining." Siegfried said coldly. "If I was trying to kill you, you'd know. And you're the one who decided to fight, so don't whine."

If nothing else, Erik was prideful, and Siegfried was very good at provoking this pride. Reaching up past his shoulders, he grabbed hold of his giant sword's hilt. Drawing it, he brandished it and charged.

"Alright then," Siegfried smirked. "Let's finish this."

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On the other side of the mast, Colombus got to his feet. Reaching over, he grabbed up both of his blades, then began to walk over to where his captain was fighting the bounty hunter.

He was stopped, however, as someone dropped down right in his path. Standing up, the masked woman stared at him coolly. "Your opponent will be me, pirate."

Colombus hesitated a moment, then shrugged and ran at her, slashing with one of his blades. The woman jumped, sailing over him. In mid-air she twisted around, throwing a batch of shurikens at him. Turning around, Colombus deflected most of them aside with his other blade, but one slipped past and cut him on the cheek.

Frowning slightly, Colombus adopted an odd stance, with one sword pointed forward and the other off to the right. The woman, meanwhile, clasped her hands together and began making strange handsigns.

Being the Frontier Pirate's Navigator, Colombus was well attuned to changes in the weather, and he raised an eyebrow as the wind began to pick up. "That is no coincedence, I'm almost positively certain."

This seemed confirmed when the woman pulled out more shurikens, as well as kunai. She seemed to fight exclusively with throwing weaponry.

"I am almost certainly sure I can block those easily. Unless she manages to hit a vital part of my body, the injuries from them will be minor. In close quarters, I'll easily cut her down."

Dashing towards the woman, he swiped his blades in a wide arc. She leaped again, easily propelling herself away from the attack. As she did, she threw a set of kunai towards him. Quickly, Colombus bent low, the weapons sailing over his head. Colombus smiled. "If you think you're going to hit me with those, you are quite-"

Stopping mid-sentence, he spun around and swung his blades, knocking away the kunai, which had redirected themselves in mid-air and launched directly towards his back. Only Colombus' heightened sense of awareness saved him from becoming a pincushion.

Turning back around, he quickly snapped up his swords to block the shurikens that the girl threw at him when he had his back to her. Some of the projectiles merely bounced off the flat of the blades, but some pierced into his body, creating wounds that, while small, would be dangerous if not healed soon.

But this was no concern to Colombus, who watched as the shurikens he had just deflected righted themselves in the air, returning to stop in front of the masked woman, spinning lazily in the air.

As he was wondering if that throw the bounty hunter had given him had rattled something in his head, Colombus blinked as he felt the wind brush past his cheek again. "W...wind. It couldn't be, could it possibly not?"

"You have realized it, I assume?" The masked woman's voice was cold, easily matching the gaze the bounty hunter had given them earlier - a good pair. "I have the power to control the wind. Knowing that, you must realize that you cannot defeat me. I must commend you for avoiding my first attack, but you are simply no match for me, pirate."

Saying this, she pointed at Colombus. Immediately, the shurikens flew forward at him, spinning quickly. Quickly, Colombus jumped to the side as the shurikens sailed past him.

"Kaze no Ninjitsu..." The girl started. "...Senkai Kaze!" The wind blew past Colombus once more, and he turned to slash away the shurikens again. However, the woman had seemed to have predicted he'd do this on this occasion, and the shurikens slipped past his swords and hit him in the front.

The first mate's reaction to real pain was more dignified than his captain's (though this wasn't saying much). He merely took a few steps backward, bleeding heavily, his lips quivering slightly. His swords dropped from his hands, and he fell to his knees. "I...I give up."

"...not." Slowly, carefully, one of his hands moved across and grabbed the handle of one of his swords. He waited for her to come over to him...

"If you think for a moment that I am coming over there, you are very mistaken, pirate."

A surprised Colombus looked up...just in time to catch a shuriken across the forehead. Not enough to seriously injure him, but more than enough to knock him out. Although the line between the two was very small, she was more than skilled enough to aim correctly.

She walked over to the unconscious pirate, to bandage his wounds. If he died, her village would be out a large amount of Beri. She didn't spare a thought towards the bounty hunter's fight with the captain: if he said he could handle it, then she believed him.

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Siegfried dodged another clumsy swing from Erik's sword, and frowned. Erik was as unskilled as they'd been with the axes, but the length of the sword combined with the wide attacks he was making made it slightly hard to get close. The fact that the deck was littered with the pirates he'd knocked out earlier wasn't helping, either.

Glancing over the viking's shoulder, he spotted an opportunity. "She's becoming more useful by the minute." he mused, a calm smile on his face. "Don't look now, but your first mate is done."

Erik turned to look. Siegfried could sense his outrage at seeing his first mate knocked out, and indignant shout was no doubt on his lips. Siegfried raised his hand, and the helmet zipped off the pirate's head and flew into his outstretched hand.

Erik immediately turned back around, injured comrade forgotten for a more important issue. "Hey, give that back! It cost me five hundred Beri, you little jerk!"

Siegfried shrugged. "If you insist." He then threw the helmet directly at Erik's head. It hit him square in the face...and promptly shattered, pieces of it flying everywhere. Erik blinked, merely surprised instead of hurt.

There was a brief moment of awkward silence, which Siegfried broke by smirking. "You spent five hundred Beri on a fake. Nice."

"SHUT UUUUUUUP!" Face red and and bulging, Erik charged, swinging his sword again and again, with no strategy or guile, only wanting this bounty hunter to fall.

Siegfried resumed dodging. And talking. "Oh, you want me to shut up? Excuse me if I don't, pirate. Because there's so many things wrong with you, I'm going to list them."

He made a low duck under a horizontal swing. "You dress like a viking, but you don't act like one at all, leading me to believe you just latched onto it because you think it makes you look cool, which it doesn't. A hop backward to avoid an overhead chop. "You have several weapons, but no skill in any of them. You'd be more intimidating if you were a master with just one, but I suppose something like that would be beyond you."

A sidestep to dodge a thrust. "You act like you're invincible because you have a few feet on everyone else. But you rely on your men to do your dirtywork instead of showing up in person, leading me to believe that you're a coward behind it all. Am I hot, or cold?" He jumped around a stroke meant to decapitate him. "Ah, hot. I expected that. Especially with the way I've been talking to you all this time. I like to talk, I will admit."

He reached up and adjusted his glasses, looking casual even while Erik prepared for another downward swing. "But I think it's about time to end this."

As the sword came downward, Siegfried lifted up his hand calmly. "Geist Schild!" The sword collided with the bounty hunter's gloved hand, but went no further. Erik strained, but it was useless; the blade was held fast by an invisible wall.

Siegfried thrusted his hand forward, and the blade was forced back. With it out of the way, Siegfried stepped forward and chopped Erik in the arm, forcing him to drop the sword. Not seeming to care, the viking cupped his hands together and prepared to drop the fist down on the bounty hunter's head.

"Mistake." said Siegfried simply. "Geist..."

"BLITZKRIEG!"

If the attack Erik had been hit by had felt like a cannon, this one would be likened to a machine gun. Siegfried let loose with dozens of punches into the pirate's front, each one with super-human strength behind it. The blows slowly drove Erik backward, his armor being blown to pieces by the impacts.

After what seemed to be an eternity, the attack ceased, and Erik stood silently, slowly teetering back and forth.

"Fall down." Siegfried commanded. Erik did just that, falling to the deck with a crash.

Siegfried dusted off his hands, then shoved them in his pocket and walked back to the stairs leading below deck. As he passed Erik, he turned to him. "Don't take it too hard. You never stood a chance, anyway."

He said this without arrogance. It was the truth, after all.

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The pirates were quickly rounded up and bound by rope. None of them had any fight left in them, anyway, and fighting Siegfried again wasn't a prospect any of them wanted to try.

Although most of the passengers had ignored Siegfried before, now that they knew he was responsible for likely saving all of their lives, they were quick to shower him with praise. Siegfried waved it off and walked back to his room.

When he had walked in and closed the door, a strong arm seized him from behind, and a sharp blade was placed against his throat. "You are not someone ordinary. Exactly who are you? Answer quickly; I do not enjoy having my mind invaded."

Siegfried smiled despite the direness of the situation. "So, this is what your voice sounds like? It's quite lovely."

The blade went a little closer to his throat. "Alright, alright. First of all, my name is Siegfried. A pleasure to meet you, miss..."

"..."

"Alright, later, then. Now, as you say, I defeated those pirates and saved this ship. That's because I am a bounty hunter, someone who defeats pirates and collects their bounties. That isn't to say I wouldn't have helped out if I weren't, however, but that is the reason I was on this vessel."

"Stop rambling. How were you able to enter my mind? And those abilities you used... are you a Devil Fruit user?"

Siegfried chuckled. "Me? Why, no. Using borrowed power like that doesn't suit me; I don't need luck to be strong."

"Then what are you? Stop dancing around and come out with it!" The blade came closer again.

"Alright, alright. The power that you saw me use, and what makes me who I am... comes from my mind.

I am a Psychic."

To be continued...

Next time, on Bounty Seven...

Siegfried: This man in the photo, have you seen him?

???: No offense to you, kid, but you'll have to die now.

???: Very well, I shall make a contract with you.

The Hanged Man, Part 1

Siegfried: I'm afraid I can't die yet.

Attacks/Terms:

Siegfried's Attacks:

Geist Faust - German for 'Mental Fist'. Siegfried lands a simple blow into his opponent, applying mental force onto the end of it, making the punch the equivalent of one from someone with super strength.

Geist Schilde - German for 'Mental Shield'. Siegfried projects a mental barricade out of the palm of one of his hands, to block an oncoming attack. It's an imperfect defence, however, since he requires a free hand to use this technique.

Geist Kanone - Siegfired punches an opponent, and then unleashes a shockwave through them out of his fist. A devestating technique, if the enemy can't properly defend against it.

Geist Blitzkrieg - Siegfried unleashes a barrage of blows using both of his fists, pummeling a foe severely. This technique is visually similar to Luffy's Gomu Gomu no Gatling, but lacks the range.

Shinobi's Attacks:

Kaze no Ninjitsu; Senkai Kaze: Japanese for 'Wind Ninjitsu; Turning Wind'. Tossing out a group of her throwing weaponry, the wind then shifts, carrying them into an opponent when they attempt to dodge.

Well, I hope some of you saw that one coming. If not, I suppose I'll chalk it up to my epic writing skills.

OPFAN - Well, that was the first chapter, and obviously I'm not going to be switching point of views that often. I'm glad you enjoyed the story, and no, I'm not sure why no one has reviewed so far. But you're the first, and I'm glad you did. I hope you'll read more of it.

Until next time, see you.