Fakes

Kurai Ai stayed hesitating around Aaron. It made sense seeing as how similar his style was to him. His ability seemed to be almost completely natural and came from his familial tree as well as a decent amount of hard work. But still a pirate? The son of a Marine? As someone who worked with as many Marines as she did still found it very hard to believe.

"Getting back at your old man for forgetting a birthday or something?" Kurai Ai stated smugly causing Aaron to grimace at her.

"I'm not that childish," Aaron replied, "I respected my old man. He did everything right, I just never much cared to be by the book. Be the ideal soldier that the Marines wanted. Besides they wanted me to stop chasing the girls. You just don't turn off this charm."

"And the Infinity Pirates let you do whatever you want even hit on their women?" Kurai Ai asked, although even as those last few words escaped her mouth she felt dirty for even being a part of this conversation.

"I already said that I respected my dad and that hasn't changed," Aaron responded kindly, "On his death bed when he told me to chase my dreams and become a pirate he said one other thing, too. He told me I would have to find good people to travel with. And what can I say I think these people are those good people."

"Oh, how sweet," muttered Kurai Ai.

"Oh, and the women are hot."

"There goes the sweetness," Kurai Ai stated with a slight tone of disappointment in her voice. However, that disappointment might've been for her as she really should've seen that coming. She sighed and turned away from Aaron and to Alistair Fox.

"I'm sorry for doing this, but you are going to need to back away now," she stated calmly as she strode forward. "Alistair's my victim. Don't even think about interrupting my fight." Kurai Ai lifted her hand up and opened her palm and let the dark shadows creep out of her sleeve and spiral around his hand to fill up the palm of her hand and creating a bat in her hand. She stuck her hand out and took aim at Aaron.

The bat flew out filling Aaron's vision, blinding him to keep it where he couldn't see any more. "I have the unique ability to control my opponent' vision, scent, and hearing. In other words with me you have absolutely no control over your senses. You have lost the ability to do anything around me. You will be unable to interrupt me and my fight with him."

Kurai Ai snapped her fingers and woke Alistair from his slight hallucination. He had learned fairly quickly on he was hallucinating, but he also knew he couldn't break out of it easily. He needed another moment to piece together his surroundings and remember where the body of water was. Since he wasn't a fruit user a quick dip in the water would remove any lingering Devil Fruit effects.

"I hope you don't plan on just using your same old tricks over and over again," Alistair stated as he took a confident step forward. "We both know your Devil Fruit is only for defense. In terms of offense it is one of the lowest ranked Devil Fruits. In other words, even I, a man with no Devil Fruit ability stands a pretty good chance against you."

"You think so, huh?" Kurai Ai stated, "I told that boy a little while back I control three major senses. Most notably the sight, smell, and hearing. However, that was only a half-truth. I have control all over all five senses. That is the power of my Devil Fruit. Taste and feeling are also well in control of my range of senses to manipulate."

"I assume you're talking about pain," Alistair offered. "You're going to put me in such an incredible amount of pain I can't move or something? That's extremely uninspired and incorrect. A man of my intellect won't fall for such cheap tricks."

"You keep talking about your intelligence you braggart, but you don't seem to fully understand what my Devil Fruit does, it can increase the pain, but it can also dull it."

"Are you really that pathetic that you are going to use your almighty and powerful Devil Fruit as a pain-killer for yourself? I can understand that you are worried about me breaking your bones, but-" Alistair went to step forward, but found himself pausing just as quickly. Something was off about his stride. He didn't understand though, he felt fine. No injuries, no extra weight, nothing. And that was the problem. He felt nothing.

Kurai Ai had completely removed all senses from his body. He couldn't feel any pain. So that allowed her to injure his leg without his knowledge. He had no idea what the extent of the damage was, but he knew it was probably worst than he had thought it was. She was numbing his pain to prevent him from knowing what was going on.

Alistair took a step back and found his leg quickly giving out beneath him. The pain wasn't there, but his leg was still giving out on him. Alistair looked up and began to piece together his next attack pattern. He needed to turn this around and quickly. His opponent was a tricky one, she seemed to be moving a couple of steps ahead of him for the time being with her Devil Fruit, but he would soon even the playing field.

Kurai Ai lifted her hand up and once more a blurring field of darkness began to appear around her hand. Kurai then stretched it outwards and the darkness flew around, quickly filling Alistair's field of vision and completely reducing his visibility to zero.

However, Kurai Ai didn't rush in and try to finish him off. She took her time and tried to be careful. She knew of Alistair's skills. Even if his attack power was basically unknown to her, he still had his own evil tactics that turned him into a fiendish commander that you shouldn't take too lightly. Kurai Ai knew of that incredibly well.

"Reminiscing of our very first time meeting, are you?" asked Alistair as he noticed Kurai Ai was holding back. Not like he carried. He was already constructing the end of the match in his head and he wasn't done with it just yet he was still constructing the win, but he knew he could further rattle Kurai with just his words.

"Do you remember all those horrible stories about me?" Alistair continued, "I was always on the search for the next big thing cause I hated even just the prospect of being bored. So I searched for something to occupy my time. Right now it is Paradise an ancient technology laid to sleep on this island, but before that I did other things as a Shichibukai. And when it bores me I'll just destroy it and anybody who is under its influence."

"Of course, with the three of you as brothers all holding the title of one Shichibukai your power spread about three times as far as did the rumors of your abuse of the power. You three were never exactly model members of the illustrious Shichibukai."

"Like anybody is," Alistair mocked her as he took another couple of steps back. He recalled the location of the nearby body of water. He could go for a dive, but doing so would make the pain from his leg return and brutally injure him, but he needed to be free from her hold for just a second or two to defeat her.

"We try to pretend to be pirates turned good, but we are still just fakers," Alistair insinuated as he laughed loudly. "But in the end this is just for our own good. Don't you agree? Every thing we do is for our own good to correct some mistake we've made in the past. Isn't that right? Or maybe we're just having fun, huh?"

"Is that really all you are doing?" asked Kurai Ai as she approached him, however, Alistair was still blinded by her powers so she took no precautions now. "I know all about your standing of power," Kurai Ai stated, "and how you've flaunted it throughout your entire life. More importantly, however, I also know of your desire to sate your boredom. Isn't that why you destroyed my home island?"

"I thought so," Alistair stated, "I mean, I couldn't be certain with all of the islands I destroyed, how could I remember one small puny island. However, I do remember the deals I struck with the Marines. A certain promise of improved weaponry was more than enough to convince them to destroy a small island and raid the town in search of something promising. The first design for the legendary machine Paradise. Queen Helen's ability. The legendary Sakka-Saaka no mi."

"My Devil Fruit," Kurai Ai stated with a smooth smile, "you expected me to come this way, huh?"

"Of course, my title as Shichibukai was one of the few things that protected me from your rage. You wanted to kill me ever since you first laid your eyes on me you knew it was me from the beginning. So are you going to attack me or not." Alistair took another step back, he needed to find the lake and he knew he would eventually. He had planned for her to come here. She was the secret to using Paradise. If Alistair wanted to take over the world he needed her by his side. And since he wasn't the kind of person to split the profits with someone.

Alistair leapt back quickly wheeling away from his foe. Kurai Ai understood immediately what was going on he was already beginning to head into the nearby pond. Of course, just standing idly by and letting her opponent escape her grasp was far from Kurai's skill set. She stepped in, swooping nearby gracefully and catching up to her opponent quickly.

Since he couldn't hear nor see all of Alistair's predictions for Kurai would be off. After all, he had no idea of her present condition or even her location at this exact time. She didn't care to try and hide her movements she had no need to hide herself. She stepped in, spinning around and putting all of her power behind one of her kicks and sent in like an axe for her opponent's gut. She wasn't as strong as Shane, but a kick to the gut was still enough for force her opponent back and away from his sweet relief.

Alistair hit the ground, but rolled back onto his feet. He didn't fall easily whether it was his pride as a Shichibukai or his own demented ability he seemed to have a new strength which allowed him to stay standing through the damage Kurai had inflicted on him. Kurai quickly launched another attack right onto her opponent.

This time a sweeping kick from above. Alistair tried to bring his arms up to block it he was just barely clipped the kick, despite his power of prediction being off he still seemed capable to get an accurate guess on his opponent's attacks. Kurai Ai withdrew her leg back to her side and then back to the ground with a great oomph. Another powerful kick came carving upwards from below right at Alistair's chin.

Alistair leaned his head to the side and caused the kicked to swoosh by his head. However, Kurai had already started her next attack. A swift punch straight down the line, which hammered into her opponent's chest.

Or at least it would've had Alistair not spun to the side and ducked beneath her leg and drove himself back past her and into the water, breaking her spell finally. He took a deep breath and finally relaxed at the slightest break. With his vision returning he could finally defeat this girl and reawaken Paradise one of the ultimate defenses and ultimate weapons of the Ancient World. With that 'shield' of theirs even the Ancient Weapons never destroyed this island and it even thrived during that horrific world.

And that shield would become Alistair's greatest weapon something that if his translation of the texts were correct, which since it was him he felt safe to say it was right. With that new power at his beck and call a new era would be rushed in and he would be the ruler of this disastrous new world. He smiled gleefully at the promise and decided to aim ahead. Taking over the world would be simple once he had the power of Paradise. In order to do so he needed to take down Kurai Ai. His ultimate plan to conquer the world was growing closer and closer.

Power Hungry

Next week is finally Spring Break. I don't know how much more excited I can get to finally just take a break from everything! Whoo-hoo!