A Captain's Faith

"I swear first with Mikoto's burn marks and now this," Enma murmured quietly to himself as he worked on fixing up Zesiro. A few broken ribs here and there and he was in pretty much all around bad shape. The fight with Shigoro left him worse for the wear, however, he insisted that he got a few hits in on him and that he would do it all again. And he would too. He would keep challenging Shigoro until he won or died. Both was also possible.

"I'm not giving up," Zesiro stated as he made a few practice swings with his swords, each time grimacing in pain. "He used some weird technique that gave him a sort of flowing armor. Next time I see him I'll break it."

"You got a battle plan?" questioned Enma causing Zesiro to nod.

"I'll keep on attacking him."

"That's not a very good plan," explained Enma. While it was true that you couldn't win a fight if you didn't attack saying that was all of your plan was just plain stupid. It was a reckless attempt at winning a fight. Enma sighed, but then again that was this crew, wasn't it?

"Still you need to take good care of your body," explained Enma accepting the fact that given Zesiro's nature and the 'brothers' he had made he could understand where Zesiro was coming from. All of the crew felt the same way about Shigoro, but this was something Zesiro insisted on doing alone. It was his problem, not that of the crew's. And he wouldn't be able to forgive himself if he was unable to see this through.

Zesiro solemnly nodded, knowing very well that that was a lie. If it came to it and it was a matter of dying to see this through he would very well throw his life away to destroy that bastard. He knew that Enma understood that.

"Just don't make me use up all my medicine constantly patching you up, okay?" Enma spoke softly as he returned to his medical studies. The fact of the matter was he still had to learn about Mikoto's friction burns over his body and if there was a way to prevent it. The fights would only get tougher from here on out.

(-With Mikoto-)

The dubious captain was off training. Of course, he had noticed the burns several times already they weren't much, but they were distracting. Rubbing his feet against the ground and later on even in the air with Soru proved to be too much for his own body to naturally handle. Nonetheless unlike Enma he wasn't trying to figure out a way to cure it just a way to ignore it. If he broke down after the battle that was fine Enma could patch him back up, he just needed to fight the battle through to the end.

So of course he just continually stressed his legs by running laps around the island. They were done rather quickly by him and undoubtedly he was spooking some of the locals as a brown blur which just blasted past them, but it was much small scare than a Fishman with two swords emitting killer intent so he felt like it would be allowed as well.

He had even used his training as a time to spy on opposing pirate crews and there were a lot of them. By now all of the truly troublesome pirates had been warned off. Whenever they caused trouble for the people of the island Victoria's pirates showed and kicked their butts. Or even a few other pirates would join in on the fun to showcase that they were 'helpful'.

Not only that, but Victoria also made an announcement the other day that the pirate crews may begin fighting each other in sanctioned locations of the island. She didn't want any fights occurring in the village, but the mountainous region as well as the nearby forests were fair game. On top of that she also issued a bunch of other rules, namely that all crews must have one member on the mountain at all times, except for 15 minute intervals.

If a member of your crew is defeated you have these fifteen minutes to immediately bring a new crew member in. If you fail than your crew will immediately be chased off of the island by Victoria and hers. According to what Mikoto was hearing it had happened a few times, but thanks to Mikoto's speed it wouldn't happen to them

However, if Mikoto was racing around and Zesiro and Enma were back on the ship...who was at the mountain? Right now Ridley was.

As per usual he was trying to be intelligent in his approach. He knew Zesiro was distracted and he also knew that Shigoro wouldn't be going down any time soon so he would just let the small fries take each other down while Zesiro and Shigoro rose to the top. Mikoto would be another issue, but Mikoto was racing in every so often to check up on Ridley so he didn't care. The main problem for Ridley would be in staying alive until Mikoto got around to taking over for him.

Of course, staying out of sight wasn't hard for Ridley he had made sure to examine the entire mountain ahead of time and learned of a few secret carverns which served him well. Combine that with ominous guitar music as well as a few fake rumors of a 'deadly' ghost which circulated the town and Ridley felt safe in the pitch blackness of the caves.

This was not high on Mikoto's priority list though. Mikoto was just running around and trying to train his own legs to withstand the shock. He slowed to down to a halt however as he began to get a clear whiff of the air. With a mix of his heightened instincts and the change in the smells Mikoto's entire body tensed up as he dove to the side and dodged a wild gunshot.

A few pirates suddenly appeared from the nearby bushes all of them brandishing guns. "Ha ha!" shouted the pirates as they loaded their guns and quickly unleashed another barrage of bullets into the nearby trees, "the forests are open game as well. We saw you running around and you've been following the same path over and over again, so we knew exactly where you were going to be so we laid a trap."

"Yeah, we just all laid out here with our guns loaded and trained on this one spot. When you came by we decided to just open fire. Now don't feel bad you weren't the first one we planned this trap for," the pirate stated, "you see a lot of pirates have to go through the forests to get to the mountain so we just laid out along here and waited. When you stupidly stumbled into our trap we launched the assault."

"And you failed," Mikoto stated as he laned down and began stretching his legs, there was still a slight burn amongst them from overwork, but all-in-all he felt like he was in good shape. Especially in good enough shape to take down a bunch of pirates who were looking for some cheap victories.

Mikoto pressed himself forward and rocketed forward, launching into a series of punches. It was a near teleportation-like speed right in front of one as he swung and blew them back. Once he landed he immediately stepped back with something that was even better than his wild instincts, that Haki technique he had picked up. He did a quick back step before whipping towards his opponent, leaping through the air and spinning around with another kick into the next one.

The next two were kind enough to come to him, both drawing cutlasses as they charged in. Two swings one from each side, which was easily evaded as Mikoto shifted it down a gear and into his beast form for a split second before rapidly growing again to his hybrid form and going into a straight exchange. A series of fast punches which continually knocked one of them back while the other stood back stunned as the speed until Mikoto turned on him.

Mikoto rotated around lifting his entire body into the air and spun it around into a massive kick right into the side of his opponent's head. The pirate stumbled, his head rotating to the side briefly and letting Mikoto sneak in another barrage of punches.

Surely someone like Shane, Shigoro, or Victoria could've finished it with just one punch, but Mikoto continued into letting loose a stream of punches right into his opponent's head and knocking him down. "I probably shouldn't be all too surprised that these guys didn't put up much of a fight," Mikoto moaned as he quickly pocketed his hands and looked around him for another charging pirate, expecting something like a two pronged sneak attack, but alas no such luck.

Mikoto shrugged it off and continued on his run around the island there hadn't really been any explanation for the attack and it hadn't put him any closer to finding out about how to overcome this weakness, which was the real shame. Mikoto continued on his jog, however, once more he paused as he saw somebody else. Another Fishman and he wasn't a member of his crew, but he was in the forest so he must've been a pirate.

Suddenly Mikoto froze as he immediately picked up on who he was. It was Shigoro. The man was hauling up a huge fish onto land. He seemed to sense Mikoto hiding out in the forest as he slowed his footsteps and carefully eyed the thick brush around him.

Shigoro whistled solemnly sensing the threat in the forest, but at the same time insisted that it didn't matter at all too him. He was a monster and he didn't run from other monsters. He strode forward and barked loudly, "come out and get me!"

"I don't want to get you!" replied Mikoto with own loud bark causing Shigoro to chuckle.

"What the mere sight of me has you scared to death?" the large Great White Shark shouted, his toothy grin growing as he eyed the forest. "The name of the 'Great Beast' Shigoro scares you or something. There's no shame in admitting it, I've swallowed men bigger than this fish whole!" Shigoro threw his head back and let loose a roaring laughter.

"I'm not afraid of you," Mikoto stated as he appeared from the bushes, "its just that one of my crew wants your head. Zesiro, a dual wielding Fishman, he wants your head."

"Oh! That guppy!" Shigoro laughed as he approached Mikoto and hung over him, there was a good two three feet in height difference between them, but Mikoto refused to be intimidated. He stood strong and glared right back Shigoro. However, Shigoro didn't seem to mind, "just like you are compared to my captain, Kai. A whole world full of guppies...all ripe for me to tear apart and eat."

"I think you shouldn't say such a thing until he gives up and he will never give up," Mikoto barked at Shigoro causing him to back up a bit and look down on him as if trying to figure him out before quietly smirking.

"I'd snap his head off whenever I want," Shigoro stated as he turned around and began to head towards the mountain. Shigoro left and headed up in the mountain, he was the only member of his own crew around, no other member from Kai's crew decided to come here. So he couldn't leave the mountain for too long, fifteen minute breaks to collect fish and food was about the most he could manage. His time was running out so he shrugged it off and headed out of the forest and to the mountain. "Tell him to come find me again. I'll snap his neck as many times as I need to."

Will