The Staff of the URA!
A Special Request!
The hallways of the URA was bustling with an incredible amount of noise. Tensions were rising high now. Some of the people had bet their money on and lost during the last couple of fights so they were enraged and causing a ruckus, complaining of being robbed or cheated. One of the men there were truly causing a ruckus with his tantrum. He was only about 5' 6" and was dressed in the traditional pirate clothing even the pirate hat. "I hate this crap!" he shouted, "you guys are just trying to cheat me out of my hard earned cash! I demand to be repaid in full!" He drew a blade and brought it smashing into one of the front desks. "I'LL KEEP SMASHING THINGS UNTIL TREVOR HIMSELF COMES OUT AND SEES ME!"
He walked about and was rapidly swinging his sword from side-to-side endangering the lives of anybody who walked by him. Finally, a single man came up and placed his hand on his shoulder, "please, excuse us. I am with the Underground Rally Arena and Trevor-sama, himself, feels like he should apologize for this inconvenience, so everybody who feels cheated please come with me!" announced the man.
The man was the head guard of the URA and for good reason. He had halted many of riots like these all by himself. The people who had saw those riots immediately stopped what they were doing and quieted down. He would make quick work of the bastard that was threatening the well-being of the URA just because he was unlucky. The head guard was Duncan Sawyer.
"That's more like it! Trevor thinks he is a big man just because some Marines decided he should be a Shichibukai! Its clear that the Marines that made that decision were idiots, because, hey, I'm not a Shichibukai!" shouted the man as he sheathed his sword. He waved a large percentage of pirates forward. If Trevor was refunding this one man's cash, they might as well all get a refund.
They were all led to a room in the farthest corner of the arena, far away from prying eyes. "Sorry, but Trevor-sama doesn't want to show himself in front of all of these people. He's afraid that they would get star struck and interrupt this business transaction that's about to happen." The man opened up the door and led the group in with a wave of his hand. The pirates strode in there with pride.
The man was the last one to walk in. Once they were all in the room, he turned around and locked the door sealing all of them into the room. "What do you think you are doing!" shouted the pirate that was previously making a big ruckus as he strode forward towards the door. "Locking us in here! I don't think you understand who I am! I am the 'Single Stroke' Maeda! I obtained my bounty by killing so many pirates! And each pirate only cost me one stroke, hence the 'Single Stroke'!"
"Trevor-sama doesn't associate himself with trash," said the man as he looked beyond him and at all of the other pirates in the room. He did a quick tally of the pirates in the room, their total bounties, and the like. "We are currently understaffed here. Some of the staff tried to escape a little while ago...or at least we think that's what they were doing, but either way we decided to kill them. That just means it is your lucky day I'll hire the strongest one amongst you as a new staff member, the rest will die! Deal?"
"Screw that! We'll just kill you then that bastard Trevor will follow!" shouted Maeda as he brought his sword up and back down aiming for the man's head. The rest of the pirates joined in several of them bringing out their swords and thrusting the blades into the man. He stood there letting all of the blades sink into his body. Maeda grinned as he saw the human pincushion that stood before him, his mouth soon dropped to the frown as the guy lifted his hand up and placed it on his shoulder.
"Thank you for not wasting mine and Trevor-sama's time with you lackluster pirates," he said. His entire body began to dissolve into some sort of heavy black liquid. The liquid began to ooze all around the blades that were jammed into his body and up the swords and onto the guys who held them. By the time the guys had recovered from the shock of the spectacle, there arms were already engrossed in the black liquid. The pirates couldn't break free. The liquid was incredibly sticky and heavy. The liquid stuck to their bodies and hands as they tried to rip it off.
"What is this?" shouted Maeda as he tried to break free of the liquid's grip, "is this tar!" He couldn't even utter another sound as the thick black liquid sucked him up causing him to disappear completely. The same fate awaited the rest of the pirates as they were slowly sucked up one-by-one. Just five minutes after they had all entered the room, the room was completely empty. The man smiled as he left the room.
Outside the room sat another guy. He was another one of the staff of the URA. On his waist was an incredibly long and thin blade. It was at least eight feet in length, making it about three feet taller then the man who wielded it. He sat there and looked over at his partner. He pulled the sunglasses that covered his eyes out of the way. His eyes were odd, one of them was green while the other one was blue. He looked up at his partner with a frown, "offering them a job? I know we are understaffed, but I don't want to work with shit." He was known 'Two-Eyes' Makada.
The two of them were the two most prized guards for the URA. Makada caught Trevor's eyes during his first fight, but he fought over twenty battles before he accepted a position as a guard here. Makada was relatively knew to the staff, but ever since he had the URA had a noticeable decline with trouble. People walked straighter when he was around.
Duncan opened up his arms, reverting his arms and chest to tar. Finally chunks of bones, including whole skulls plopped out of his skin and onto the floor. "I've been holding these in for months now...you think Trevor-sama would like any of these?" Makada grimaced at the sight. He didn't care for Trevor, he was just here for the job. Duncan, on the other hand, treated the URA like a shrine and Trevor like a god. He had been here for a much longer time than any of the other staff members nowadays. All of the staff-members that were around in the pre-Trevor days were either killed or left when Trevor and Duncan came in.
The Underground Rally Arena was running for a very long time, some said that it existed even before the last great Pirate era. Trevor wasn't in charge of it since its opening. He just swooped in and made sure the Marines wouldn't close it down. Duncan arrived at the same time and the same crew as Trevor. He was a right-hand man to both Karasu and Trevor. When Karasu abandoned the crew, Trevor and Duncan tried to hold it together, but failed. When Trevor was promoted to Shichibukai, Duncan came with him to watch over the URA. Duncan was in all ways, shapes, and forms Trevor's second-in-command. However, the truth still stood that Trevor wasn't the original owner of the URA. As a matter of fact, the last owner was still alive. Of course, Makada never saw him. He only talked to Trevor and Duncan, the two who had been there when he resigned from his position of power.
(-With Rosa and Zesiro-)
Rosa and Zesiro were sitting across from each other. Their fight was in two days, but they were already fighting in the room. They were adamantly sitting and staring at each other. They were competing already. "So, are we really going to fight tomorrow?" asked Rosa as she tapped her foot on the ground. She was staring at Zesiro, she already knew the answer, but she couldn't believe it. She just made friends with these guys and she was already about to try to slit his throat.
"Yup," said Zesiro as he looked at her as well already sizing her up. His heart was still racing from his previous fight. His hands were already fingering his blade impatient for the next fight. The next fight would be even better then this one. He had asked Ichi and Nito to go find him a suitable replacement for his broken sword. Hopefully, they would find him one and he would be able to use it properly. Frederick was strong, but he still firmly believed that Rosa would be several levels above him. It would be a tough fight with just one sword, with two of them he would increase his chances at winning.
"We're back!" shouted Ichi and Nito as they rushed into the room interrupting the tension. They were both holding one blade in each of their hands. They stopped as they saw that Rosa was still in the room. They both immediately hid the swords behind their back, "oh, hi! Rosa, we...uh didn't see you. Zesiro, we got that thing you wanted, so if we could just see you out in the hall...or something."
"Don't worry," said Rosa thankful for the two idiots destroying the tension, it gave her an excuse for leaving now. "I'm going to go check on Sage and Enma. See how they are doing. I hope Enma managed to fix her and make her less...whatever she is right now." Sage got up and left. The two Fishmen brothers made sure their backs were always away from her. They didn't want Rosa to see the swords.
Ichi and Nito rushed up to Zesiro and desperately tried to show him their swords. Zesiro looked each of them over. He lifted one of the ones he noticed up and into the air. With a quick swing of it he tested the blade and its weight. He paused for a second and then set it down, moving onto the next one. After repeating the process for each sword he finally settled on one of the one's Ichi got him. Ichi beamed with confidence and a bit of cockiness towards Nito.
The sword was a poor replacement for his actual blade, but as he didn't know anyone who had the skills to repair it he would have to make due with what he got. No matter how unimpressive the swords were. Just like Trevor to provide sub-quality swords to his contestants, it ensured that the swordsmen who brought their own blades to the fight would win. Zesiro was lucky he brought his own sword...using just one sword as a replacement wasn't much of a handicap. Zesiro stretched out trying to relax, but instead he accidentally dropped the extra sword to the ground.
Ichi dove down anxious to prove his reliability to Zesiro. When he did so one of the cuts he obtained from Melanie's fight ripped open revealing his back. On Ichi's back was a big black circle. On the top of the circle was three triangles pointing upwards, a fourth triangle was on the bottom pointing downwards. Ichi immediately turned around and jumped backwards, keeping his back away from Zesiro, "what Hoof of the Soaring Dragon? I didn't see nothing! I think you need to have your eyes checked Zesiro, right Nito?"
"Definitely!" shouted Nito as he came rushing back into the room carrying a small suit of armor. Nito immediately slammed the armor onto Ichi's back covering up his back. "Yeah! There's nothing suspicious on my brother's back! We just really think he looks cool in armor! We all look awesome in armor!"
Zesiro bit his tongue as he looked at the two of them. "I want you two to know that I know you two are hiding something, but I just need to relax and rewind." Even just from that short glance that Zesiro got, he still knew what the mark was. The mark was a dreaded fate amongst all Fishmen. It was the embodiment of both the cruelty and racism towards them. It was the mark of the slave. Zesiro was lucky and had never seen any of the slave traders try to make off with a Fishman. The island he lived on was too far out of their way to come down, kidnap a Fishman and then sail back to a human auction house.
He recalled in some of the history books he read, that there was a group of pirates that existed solely for liberating slaves, the Sun Pirates. However, as famous as a group of pirates as they were when Jimbei died nobody felt like picking up the torch. Nobody saved slaves any more. Some of the old Sun Pirates still tried to save some of the slaves, but without the brute force of Jimbei or Fisher Tiger...there was nothing they could do. Slave trade was at an all time high in this current world. The word slave trade didn't seem to come up during Marine investigations. Zesiro shrugged it off and dropped the subject. He shouldn't pry.
"I heard that this was where one of those Infinity Pirates was," said a gruff voice as the door swung open. Once more Ichi and Nito dove down and covered up the swords hiding them from view. The man who walked in was the man from Rosa's fight, Simon. He was dragging his pickaxe behind him. He had several sword wounds from his fight with Rosa, but none of them were life-threatening. "Now don't be takin' what I am about to do as an insult towards Dwarfs, okay. We are normally a strong and proud race!"
"He's going to assassinate Zesiro for revenge!" shouted Nito. He and Ichi both jumped up and held their arms out ready to protect Zesiro with their lives. They awaited for the attack that never came. Simon dropped down to his knees and bowed his head to them. "I don't think is an attempt for Zesiro's life," muttered Nito as he dropped his arms.
"Please, you got to help me!" shouted Simon through tears. "My son...they have my son here!"
The Unwanted Request and the Unwanted Visitor!
Duncan Sawyer is another OC created by Labyrinth-Designer. Makada is my own. The fights are taking their place on the back-burner for a few chapters where I can introduce an actual storyline and some very important, overlooked details for this arc. Seriously, important stuff is coming up.
This chapter however, mentioned Ichi's, Nito's, and even Sanada's tragic past of being slaves, but I'll get more into that later. Plus it also shows Simon's true reason for joining the URA is to rescue his son!