I'm not dead. Well, at least not on the outside. Y'all better have a toilet on hand, 'cause shit's about to go doooown.
Gone for 6 months, written in the middle of a taco break.
Chapter 5: Ashes to Ashes
The continuous sound of coughing ruined whatever tense atmosphere Don Kreig and his fully-armed crew created in the standoff.
"We *cough* *cough* are gonna… Ok, what the fuck did you put in these smoke bombs?!" Luffy forced out of his lungs as the rest of the Straw Hats save for Usopp were coughing just as hard. Said person in question had a gas mask encasing his head.
"The extract of the Florus Parinesius. It's a plant native to the lands of-"
"Isn't that shit toxic?!" Nami exclaimed. "What the fuck is wrong with you?!"
"Um… Head Chef, " Patty spoke up quietly. "Can we really trust these guys to fight for us? None of them really look like fighters at all…"
"It's fine, Patty," Sanji said through a drag of his cigarette. A few ashes dropped on the ground as he flicked the butt. "They're strong."
Kreig, on the other hand, bellowed with laughter. The sound of laughter grew as Kreig's pirates joined in and eventually the Baratie and the sea around it shook with their thunderous voices.
"I don't think you know what you're dealing with here, kid. I am the strongest pirate in the East Blue. You ants are nothing before me." As Kreig finished, the clicking of boots on the ground brought forward a face new to many in the Straw Hat crew, but one Zoro was very familiar with.
"I don't think we need so many cooks on board when we're done..." Gin said as he whirled his tonfas. With a bloodthirsty smile, he continued, "I'm pretty sure we can cut that number in half…"
"Did you just threaten us?!" Patty exclaimed.
"Did that not sound like it?"
"Enough," Sanji proclaimed loudly, catching the attention of Kreig and Gin. Even the Straw Hats turned their heads to the direction of his voice. "Let's work this out peacefully. We don't need any blood to be spilled today."
This caused Kreig to laugh. "A surrender? Wise decision, blondie. Men! Take their-"
"No, that was a warning," Sanji interrupted. "Either leave quietly and never return, or we'll drop your corpses several leagues beneath the sea."
A chill went down the spines of the Kreig Pirates. Even Gin felt a slight drop in the temperature.
However, Kreig remained unfazed. "Well, when this is all said and done, remember: This is all your fault, brat."
As quick as one's eyes would blink, Kreig loaded his wrist pistol and shot Sanji.
"Sanji!" Nami shouted, as the other Straw Hats were frozen in shock. She cursed as she sprinted over to his slowly falling form.
The thud of his body hitting the ground brought laughter to the entirety of Kreig's crew, with Kreig and his commanders boasting about the head chef's stupidity.
The Baratie cooks on the other hand… were also smiling. Chuckling even. Some of them already had weapons in hand, as if they believed they would win this battle without their head chef.
"What the fuck are you all smiling about?!" Nami shouted irately. "He's dying! Someone get me some-" She was cut off when she saw the bullet wound. There was no blood.
There was a visible hole. But there was no blood.
Nami could only think of one other explanation.
"I really doubt whether you were correct in that assessment of yours..." Sanji said as he slowly got to his feet. Swirls of dust and ash wrapped his body as he did, filling the empty space where the bullet wound used to be. "...You know… that part about being the strongest pirate in the East Blue."
Panic arose within Kreig's crew as they looked on the menace in front of them. The Straw Hats, especially Luffy watched on in awe. Sanji's body peeled off in waves, as if he was made entirely of paper.
Gin rushed forward and bombarded Sanji with his tonfas in a wild frenzy of blows. Sanji did nothing but step backwards with each impact only scattering the flaky remains of his body around the deck. A sudden blast of ash sent Gin flying backwards into the sea. At this point, Don Kreig's second mate, Pearl jumped high from the ship and lunged at Sanji with both shields in his hands.
A sudden gust of ash stopped him mid-air, and encased him as he fell from the sky onto the deck of the Baratie.
"What the-?!" Pearl exclaimed as he was immobilized on the ground. The ash flakes surrounding him hardened into a shell completely encasing him in a glass-like substance. Struggling a bit, he smashed both arms out of his glass prison. "Bastard! You want to play dirty?! Fine then! I'll just burn your whole ship down!"
Pearl began rapidly clashing his shields together and soon enough his entire body was ablaze.
Sanji, who had yet say anything during the fight began, finally spoke up. "Ashes have a tendency to reignite…" The ashes encasing Pearl suddenly solidified.
"You just cooked yourself."
Before Pearl could question what that meant, he exploded sending his unconscious husk rolling a few steps away from Kreig himself.
"Ashes to ashes… dust to dust," Sanji said cryptically. Immediately, grey ashy flakes began climbing themselves up the hull of Kreig's ship. "This is the power of the Ash-Ash fruit. The name is Vinsmoke Sanji, the strongest in the East Blue. Remember it."
Zoro was a little surprised that Sanji chose not to hide his heritage, but didn't make the comment as he was the only one who knew the truth.
Gin just climbed out of the water to see flickers of smoke grow from the ashes. Kreig's eyes widened in shock. The Kreig pirates screamed. Before any of them could take action, they realized their legs were also encased in ashes.
"Burn…" Sanji whispered and suddenly Kreig's ship was set ablaze.
The display of sheer power that Sanji put on astounded all those who watched. Luffy, Usopp, and Nami were left with their mouths agape. The rest of the Baratie staff began cheering over their supposed victory. Zoro actually scoffed when he heard Sanji claim that he was the strongest of them all. Clearly that was something he was going to set straight very soon.
But that was not even 10 seconds ago. The attention of everyone was immediately drawn to something else. Something that felt completely... sinister.
"Huh?" One of the chefs asked out loud. "What happened?"
The flames had only sparked for a split second before they were immediately hushed out, leaving the cold, mouldy ship intact on the water. There was no trace that the Kreig flagship had ever been set ablaze save for the light smoke radiating into the sky.
All while this had been going on, the sky began darkening at a slow rate until the only light was the moon shining down. Pearl had only just awakened at this point as the Kreig Pirates managed to revive both him and Gin in the midst of all the confusion. But they had as much of an idea of what was happening as everybody else. Many of the Kreig Pirates and Baratie chefs had lit torches illuminating the darkness surrounding them.
"What type of game are you guys trying to play?" Kreig growled as he looked around the darkened atmosphere.
"No clue," Sanji responded as he took a puff of his cigarette. "The atmosphere is too damp for me to restart my fires."
"I feel it too," Nami chided in. "As if some magical force is smothering us down."
"Good thing for them, I guess. That saved them from having their ship burned down."
This irked Kreig. "Men. Rend them limb from limb and toss their bodies into the sea!" This prompted the Kreig Pirates to let out an enormous battlecry as they began charging from their ship.
The Straw Hats and the Baratie chefs echoed their own equally as loud battlecry as they readied themselves for the charge. That was until a voice echoed over the horizon.
"The Devil comes when the sun goes down. Let him carry all those long lost souls... home…"
Time appeared to stop for a split second as all eyes focussed on something they couldn't believe. An enormous wind slash with a size unlike any other barrelled over the oceans, completely swallowing the entirety of Kreig Pirate Ship as widened eyes watched in awe. Everyone who hadn't already landed on the deck of the Baratie was lost to the sea. Permanently.
"Legend says that the Devil created the perfect soldier. He never claimed less than victory in every battle he fought," a raspy voice echoed. Several hundred green candle flames flickered through the fog until a coffin-shaped boat came into view. "Of course when that fateful day came where the hands of defeat were finally claiming him as one of their own, the Devil had other plans. Another battle was won that day, but another soul was lost."
The wicked yellow eyes finally connected with those of Zoro's. With a wry grin, he observed the ruined battlefield before him and Zoro's eyes widened when they returned to him.
"Is that?... Can it be?..." Patty muttered.
The trio of Usopp, Sanji, and Nami all responded together with varying reactions.
"Dracule Mihawk.'The Wicked One." came a growl, a whisper, and a scream.
Zoro grit his teeth. Mihawk smirked. He then drew the huge black sword off of his back as his boat wobbled closer and closer towards the Baratie, the green candles surrounding him humming with an otherworldly whir.
"Listen very carefully, Baratie chefs," Sanji began. "Most of you already know this, but do NOT engage the man before you. Kreig may be strong, but that man is in another league of his own."
Mihawk made a show of laughing at the whispers around him, all discussing how insane it would be to fight the man. Or even their chances of ending the day alive. Zoro stared long and hard at Mihawk before he finally nodded his head in resignment.
"Mihawk, huh?" Kreig whispered under his breath. He stood tall then did something no one ever expected a man of Kreig's caliber to do.
He ran.
Of course the more appropriate description was that he "flew." Kreig fired up the jet-pack embedded in his suit of armour and immediately rocketed into the sky. Of course that was until a quick wind slash cut him down.
Gin and Pearl couldn't believe their eyes. Their captain had just attempted to abandon them. They were not oblivious to the legends of Mihawk's otherworldly strength, but still... captains should never abandon their crew.
"Well, now that all of the spineless scum have been dealt with, let's get on to my true purpose for travelling here and that is I have two announcements to make."
Zoro's head dropped low upon hearing that.
"The first being that I resign my title as the "World's Greatest Swordsman" to the man before you, Roranoa Zoro." Everyone froze. "He will hold that title until he no longer can, which I suppose will be forever unless he slips up."
Zoro's heart sank as he knew the exact words that were about to leave his former mentor. He knew the worse was yet to come.
"And now for the second announcement..." The piercing eyes of Dracule Mihawk slowly scanned through the individual faces of all that was before him until they finally rested on a certain person. The whole reason he came to the East Blue.
"You there, boy... What is your name?"
"Monkey D. Luffy. The Future Pirate King."
Mihawk emitted a hearty laugh.
"Very well, Mr. Luffy. My name is Dracule Mihawk, the former greatest swordsman in the world. I hereby challenge you to a duel."
There was a good reason I made Luffy a swordsman, and this chapter reveals it. The next update is either coming out St. Patricks Day, Christmas, or if I'm especially bored, at the end of the month lol.
Sanji has a devil fruit... or does he?