Chapter 37

As we approach the large moving forest I ask Carina, who is surprisingly keeping up with me, even though we are running at a pretty decent pace, I guess those are just the benefits of a Mythical Zoan, "Hey Carina, how were you able to control the plants to your whim so easily? Even prodigies in Devil fruit development would have trouble doing that right after they ate their fruit."

She smiles and replies, "Yeah it was pretty amazing how it happened, apparently those historical records weren't fully accurate on the fruit. It's not that I control the plants, at least not yet, but they simply do it because I ask."

"Ask? As in you can communicate with plants?" I question.

"Mhmm, yeah, I can talk to plants, and I think even animals, when those grey wearing bastards were chasing me, I simply asked for help in stopping them, and they responded, by surrounding them and keeping them locked in place…Unfortunately, that Mantis guy was too fast and clever for the plants, so I had to run and leave behind the plants to do their thing, apparently, they did a good job if you got to see them," She responds back with a soft smile.

"Yeah, it was amazing, it's great that you can do that now, right off the bat I can think of many possibilities for that ability, Mythical Zoans sure are amazing, every single one of them I know about are rare and powerful, not a one, weak," I respond back with an awestruck face.

With that we continue speeding our way back, talking a bit more on what happened and her new abilities, including on how she healed me.

Apparently, the plants don't just follow her orders, but they can even allow her to see and hear things through their senses, something that I didn't know plants have, but I guess this is the One-Piece world, so meh.

Anyways she was apparently curious on how our situations were when she had a bit of free time, from hiding from the Mantis, and she asked the plants near her if they could locate us and tell her what they see.

They simply responded by letting her see through their eyes, and what she saw surprised me, apparently, she not only saw me, when I was performing the compression attack, something that I've got to rename; but she also saw Porche-chan battling some gigantic rat a few miles away from where we started.

I was again gob smacked by this revelation, a giant rat? I had guessed that she was fighting an opponent, but a rat? And by the number I've counted of the agents, including the one that was killed at the edge of my vision, this rat should either be a hidden cp agent, or a fourth party.

I wonder which one it would be? Well, there's no point in dwelling on the thought, we'll find out soon enough when we ask her.

By the time she's done explaining a bit about her own situation, we arrive at the forest area, and we are greeted by something that we didn't expect.

Every single tree and plant in the area was sliced in two.

These plants, that could take and give back attacks from those two cp agents, are now all laying on the ground, dead, and cut into pieces.

Yet this is not the most amazing thing, the most amazing thing is that every single part of this huge forest seems to be dripping in a wet substance, and from the innards that I can see scattered over a few places, it all seems to be blood.

…

*drip* *drip*

*squish* *squash*

"Yuck! This is disgusting! Cade, why the heck do we have to walk through all this? Can't we simply go around?" Carina whines to me…as she steps on a disfigured eyeball.

"*Groan*… Again, for the who knows how many times, we can't go around the forest, not only is it the quickest way but we have to find out what the heck happened here. Last time I noticed there were only two agents stuck here, not whatever happened to cause this mess." I groan back.

I mean does she think I want to walk through this? I'm a fucking city boy for fucks sake, I don't want to walk through a forest covered in blood and innards. I know it sounds hypocritical coming from someone that just butchered another person with his fists, but the two situations are completely different.

That was one individual, and it wasn't thaat messy in the end, it was only brain matter and blood, not everything in the body, and again, this is a forest covered in blood and guts!

This shit is disgusting, seeing how blood and pieces of stomach and liver and who knows what else slips and slides all over these plants and shit.

Disgusting, not to mention creepy as heck!

Anyways, before we entered here, I once again used Limitless on myself, and told Carina to stay close to me, because even though she clearly got stronger, she didn't get thaat much stronger, and I highly doubt that even with her speed she could outrun whatever did this to those two guys, who clearly knew shave…so yeah.

Anyways as we walk a few more minutes, careful not to step onto anymore body parts, we come to the clearing where those two men were trapped.

And just as the rest of the forest, this area is ruined as well, covered in fallen trees and destroyed grass, as well as covered in blood and guts, but there was something much more horrific as well.

Two large wooden spikes are placed in the center of the clearing, and on these spikes are the heads of the agents, one appears to be a white tiger head, that is slowly reverting back to its human form, and the other is of one of the masked agents, they are both bloody and sliced at the neck.

However, something else catches our attention once we leave our daze like state, there, on the rock at the center of the clearing, is a message and it's written in red gleaming blood.

I hesitate for a second, and finally sigh, I need to read whatever that says, so I take a big gulp of air, not wanting to smell what the epicenter of this massacre smells like and walk forward.

And due to my great vision, I start to read the letters from a few meters away, and what it reads makes me clench my fists till they crack and grit my teeth in anger.

"I GOT HER, IF YOU WANT HER BACK, 1 WEEK"

With a map of West Blue pinned to the rock below the bloody message, seemingly indicating a location…by one of Porsche-chans flower shurikens.

Chapter 38

It's been 6 days since Porche-chan has been taken hostage by that monster redhead and a lot of things have happened in that time.

Firstly, the Ballywood Kingdom, when it came time for the forces of the island to react to the huge commotion, that barely lasted less than 10 minutes, all they found was a torn landscape around multiple locations, along with the bloodied remains of Lamb Burger and his goons which seem to have exploded from repeated blunt force trauma.

And on the following day, they also found the body of Governor Cheese Burger in his room, hanging at the end of a thick rope.

This caused chaos to erupt on the island for some time, but after a few days, it all returned to normal, except for one thing, Carinas Bounty.

It now reads: "Wanted Dead or Alive for Murder and Crimes against the Burger Family, Reward: 100,000,000 B: Hellcat Carina!"

This time the bounty wasn't merely posted by the island's government, but by the World Government, along with the Navy.

This means that Carina is officially a wanted Criminal – a highly sought after one at that– something that she despised at first but seemed to accept once I mentioned that if we hadn't gotten involved, there was a large chance she would be dead or worse, in the hands of the World Government.

After I mentioned that she seemed to accept reality as it is, better to get a bounty than die or be some sort of puppet for the World Government. Following that she also officially became part of our team, something that I was worried would not happen.

And who could really blame her if she had decided to go her separate way? I mean a lot of shit happened in that short period of time, and a slight alteration in how things played out could have easily ended in her death or worse.

I mean she only survived because she had the bright idea to drink the juice from the devil fruit, not having the time or the strength to open that small bag and take a bite.

However, when I asked Carina why she would stay with us, she mentioned that her life is now completely changed from before, what with that bounty on her head and all.

She can no longer operate how she used to, no longer be allowed to go in and charm her targets, or covertly infiltrate hot spots, because most targets that are worth anything, actually pay attention to who they associate with.

Not that this fact affected her too negatively mind you, she now has access to a Mythical Zoan, and with that comes the awesome ability to become transparent and possibly invisible in the future, as well as a bunch of other cool abilities.

She no longer needs to operate how she used to in order to succeed, in fact she can now do a lot better, with less effort.

Another aspect she mentioned is that Porche-chan saved her life, preventing her from getting skewered by a large rat tooth, and that she would feel bad if she let her remain in the hands of the red-haired cp agent without trying to help.

When I heard this, I nodded in appreciation and raised Carina in my mind to someone that is truly trustworthy.

I feel like she always was, even in canon, if she cared for you and you were on her side, she wouldn't have abandoned you.

Anyways, the reason why Carina is now a criminal and why I killed Lamb and Cheese Burger were for two major reasons: firstly, they were both associated in this mess, calling Cipher Pol to get involved, along with initiating the robbery in the first place, simple as that.

The second and final reason is that I felt like it, now don't get me wrong, I'm not some psychopath who goes around killing anyone I like, but I will end anyone who messes with my teammates and future crew, and those two fat burgers just had to cause the matter that led to Porche-chans capture, and possible death.

I just couldn't let that slide, even if neither of them knew what they were doing or caused at all.

And finally, with me bloodying my hands further, we depart from this island in the middle of the night, never to set foot on it again, and move towards the location marked on the map.

…

We traveled at the fastest speed possible and with 0 breaks in between, not stopping for anything, not even the occasional pirates that we ran across, we simply butchered them with my meteor shot or Carinas plants.

Something that she has been working on tirelessly in order to master, and she's received promising results.

Now, after almost a week of constant practice she can control the plants around her however she sees fit (to a certain degree), no longer having to ask the plants for their permission or anything, making her a lot more dangerous, and giving her a direct means of combat.

Not a fully reliable means mind you, since there are a few people who can control plants in the Grand Line, like Binz from the Navy and that guy I heard mention of before I transmigrated to this world, Green Bull or something, idk.

Also, in the Grand Line it's known that many plants can even control other plants as well, an example of this is the disgusting Lily Carnation, revealed in one of the movies of One Piece.

However, even with all of these threats, she is still a powerful plant user, becoming one of the official guardians of nature by eating the Spriggan fruit.

And she's been taking full advantage of this fact, creating dangerous and diverse techniques left and right, I did mention a few ideas that I had seen in animes and games, but most of them she couldn't perform, not yet at least.

However, there were a few that she could perform and those few are more than enough for anything in the four seas and the early stages of Paradise, or at least almost anything, as she still wouldn't be able to contend with a few outliers, like that super strong redhead.

And talking about that woman, Carina wasn't the only one working day in and day out trying to improve herself, during this week I've also been working hard to prepare myself to face the red-haired agent once again, trying to get my chances of victory as high as possible before we meet once again.

I've been fully focused on improving my use of Limitless, trying to squeeze out its full potential. And I've succeeded, I can now use the aspect of stopping and freezing atoms much more fluidly, causing me to create a few techniques with it.

The thing that I focused on the most is creating ice, something that is naturally produced when the water molecules in the air are slowed down, and I've been trying to form and shape this hard ice into different shapes.

I can now go into limitless and have access to ice gauntlets that cover my arms, as well as thick ice boots that can make my kicks much deadlier.

The reason for this is that they are both covered in small ice spikes, ranging from stubs to feet long skewers; something that my ever-improving control allowed me to achieve.

Another thing Is that I can now create swords and lances from Ice as well, diversifying my attacks and abilities even further. I can even create shields of ice, but due to my limitations and inexperience in forming my energy into a wide area, they don't come out very strong nor reliable, making Limitless simply much better, or simply dodging an attack without having a heavy ice shield in my hands.

And lastly, the most important aspect of Limitless, my compression technique, which I will now call Fusion Clap.

Anyways I haven't really been able to improve that attack at all, it's still necessary for me to compress the atoms by clapping, and it still causes damage to everything within half a kilometer radius (including to my allies unfortunately), however, I've taken an aspect of this technique and created something a bit more usable.

I can now do two things, I can fire off normal Shigans in my Limitless field, creating and compressing pockets of air which I named Fusion Bullets, that when fired create small needle sized shape bullets that although small, are extremely dense and extremely fast, making them extremely deadly.

I can even mix in some slow energy in order to add the slowing aspect as well, although it can only stop someone for a few seconds max. Overall a great technique… until I can fully perform air bullets.

Another attack consists of me punching into my limitless field, doing this compresses the molecules and the air pressure that my fist produces when punching, making my punches somewhat explosive, like a cannon when it fires a shell.

I named it Explosive Punch (Not imaginative I know), because so far it's just a simple punch with compressed air behind it, something I believe someone like Garp or Kaido would be able to naturally do in every punch.

However, this is not meant to be used as a ranged attack, it's merely meant to give that extra umph to my close-range attacks and gives me a more reliable source of fighting with my fists until I can learn armament Haki, something I noticed I was lacking in the fight with the redhead.

Maybe in the future I can even create something like Whitebeards fist attack that he demonstrated in Marineford.

Overall, I don't think these simple attacks will give me all that much chance at victory against the redhead, but even if it's only a 1% increase, I'll take it.

And just as that thought crossed my mind, I look over to the horizon and see a large jungle covered island not far in the distance.

Seeing it I clench my fists and pray silently: "It's been 6 days of hard travel to reach this godforsaken island, but we're here now and coming for you Porche-chan, just please be alive!"

Chapter 39

[Porche Pov]

[A Few Days Earlier]

*Groan*

I wake up feeling as if a horse trampled all over my body, feeling as the entirety of my body is bruised and my brain is banging trying to get out of my skull.

I quickly try to hold my head in order to try to alleviate the migraine, but it's no use, I just can't seem to reach it. I try multiple times, but it seems that I'm bound to something.

'Don't tell me that Cade-kun forgot to unbind me after we had some frisky fun.'

However, as the seconds pass and my head begins to clear up the mental fog, I suddenly begin to remember what really happened!

I was fighting that Ratta Gambino guy while Cade-kun was fighting that red haired woman. I also remember winning and killing the man, supposedly the man behind the whole mess.

I even remember walking back towards where Carina-san is meant to be frozen, but when I got there all I could find was a mess with no one in sight.

Thankfully it wasn't hard to find clues on where my companions went, as there was a huge moving forest not far away from there, along with loud sounds of clashing and wind being ripped to shreds.

Seeing that I was immediately put on the defensive, remembering that there are still 3 unaccounted masked men, and due to that humongous forest not far away, I quickly realized that Carina-san must have eaten the Spriggan fruit and was able to fend them off.

Seeing this I immediately used shave and approached the moving forest, trying to get to Carina in order to help, however, no matter how hard I tried to enter, the plants would not let me, if I got too close, they all started to attack me as well.

Therefore, I had no choice but to back up and try to scope out the situation from outside, and thankfully, it wasn't too hard of a job.

After a bit of trial and error I finally got the right angle in order to look in, and that's when I spotted two moving figures, cloaked, and attacking not Carina-san as I thought, but the trees and moving plants.

Seeing this I immediately began to move around the forest, trying to find Carina-san and her whereabouts.

However, just as I took a few steps forward, I suddenly remember feeling great pain from my right temple, and then…nothing.

As I recall all of this I quickly act and try to move out of my bindings, which appear to be made of thickly woven rope.

I try as hard as I can but it's of no use, I can't get leverage anywhere, nor is there any free space to try to free my hands and feet.

And just as I was contemplating trying something else a womanly voice sounds in my left ear, "It's no use sweetheart, you aren't going anywhere without my say so."

I jump back in surprise and fall on my back, having to quickly right myself in the face of this enemy.

I quickly look up as the woman walks from behind me and sits on an old looking stone chair, crossing her legs in a way Cade-kun would consider high-class.

"GRR, what do you want bitch! Where are we!? What happened to Cade-kun!?" I ask as I see the white mask over her face, it's the same woman that Cade-kun was fighting! This gives me horrible thoughts!

"Pftt…Hahaha, Cade-kun is it? Well good to know the name of that man. Unfortunately, I can't tell you where we are, just know that I beat 'Cade-kun' and brought you and the other woman named Carina here. She was a little harder to restrain, but nothing a little sea stone couldn't deal with." She replies while making an overexaggerated gesture of holding in laughter.

Hearing this my body stiffens and my eyes widen, pupils contracting until their pin sized.

"What did you do to Cade-kun you bitch! Let me go! Did you kill him! If you did, I swear you better kill me now or there won't be anywhere you can hide from me!" I reply with pure rage written all over my face.

"… Hoh, interesting, are you not afraid of your own situation? Hmm…interesting." She murmurs softly.

She then gets up and walks around me, all the while I try to break or escape the bindings, but to no avail.

"Well luckily for you I didn't kill that man, I could have, as easy as breathing in fact, but I was too curious about him, where does he originate from? How did he learn the Rokushiki techniques? How did he know about Cypher Pol, hmm what makes him so special?" she ends her questioning at a soft whisper, not letting me catch the last part.

Hearing this I pause in my futile attempts and recompose myself as if nothing happened, however I'm still very cautious and secretly looking around the room for anything I can use to try to get these bindings off, not that I can find anything in the empty room, that appears to only have a beautifully maintained marble table and four intricately designed stone chairs around said table at the corner of the room.

Other than that, the place is completely empty and looks more like a catacomb than anything else, not a place where one can find anything to help one out of sticky situations.

Seeing this I sigh in resignation and straighten up, "Well if you didn't kill him where is he! And where is Carina-san? Why have you captured us?"

"Hugh, you don't listen very well, do you? I didn't capture him, he was too slippery, too overbearing, however, I did capture you and Carina, but don't worry, I don't intend to hurt either of you, I'm just here to ask you some questions that I'm sure you could answer." She replies with a wave of her hand.

Hearing this my face scrunches up and I grit my teeth and reply," I won't tell you anything! You didn't capture Cade-kun! I'm sure he will come and rescue us!"

She looks at me for a second before she holds her stomach and up roaringly begins to laugh, in a clear manner that expresses her mockery at my statement.

"ha ha ha ha, that was a good one, well I do admit that it's very likely 'Cade-kun' will come and rescue you, but do you really think you can hold out information on me? I've heard that being said to me thousands of times! And every single one of them squealed like a pig by the time I was done with them," She ends with a low voice.

"However! I don't want to do that to your beautiful little face, and I don't particularly have anything of importance to ask! Just answer me these simple questions and we'll forget about this whole incident, hell! I'll even let you go! Along with that Carina woman too of course!" she continues with an upbeat voice, like the previous menacing environment was merely an illusion.

"I'll even do you a solid and remove my mask, why you ask? No particular reason, I no longer need it and it does get a bit stuffy sometimes, especially all the way down here" she continues as she unclasps her creepy mask from behind and allows it to fall onto her lap, revealing a stunning face of a beautiful woman, if not for a large scar over her left eye that seems to have been made from a claw or a sharp knife.

"You can also stop calling me whatever it is you were thinking, and refer to me by my name, a name that no longer serves a purpose, but I will use once again for this once… you can call me Katarina, Katarina Du Couteau, "she says with a low voice. [from LoL]

Seeing and hearing this I blink, thinking of the implications for her actions and the hidden meanings of her words, but I can't come up with anything solid, it's all guesswork; so, I simply forget about it and begin to think on the thing I do have a choice in.

I don't particularly want to be tortured, and if its simple non-important information about Cade-kun then I'm willing to say a few things, but if it's something about his powers or how to beat him, I'm afraid this is going to be a long day for me.

"Sigh"

With my decision made I sigh slightly and respond, "Ask your questions, if they aren't important, I'll play along, if not, then too bad, I won't say anything!"

Hearing this seems to intrigue her because she leans forward slightly, showing some of her perfect body under the gray cloak, and unnaturally says, "Ooh! Well let's start with a simple one first alright… How did you come to meet Cade!?"