A New Goal
The fighting had gone on for an extremely long time. It had been another few days which had rolled on. The number of pirates had completely whittled down, but Mikoto, Ravenbone, and 'Lucky' Lin were all still alive in the tournament. Even Shigoro who refused to recognize his official submission to the contest made it to the final five crews. Of course, no one was surprised. Nor were people surprised that Gan made it. There were a few pinnacles of talent that clearly shone through the dark clouds of the tournament and Mikoto was happy enough to make it into that group. The selective top five.
However, before he decided to fight anyone else he had one last thing he wanted to do. Mikoto took a deep breath and set off from his ship. As Mikoto was about to leave he turned around and saw Zesiro. Much like Mikoto was training again and again aiming for Ravenbone Zesiro was also continuously training. His goal hadn't changed in all of his training. His goal was for Shigoro's head.
Mikoto smiled and pressed his legs against the ship. Suddenly with a powerful push off of the ship, rocketed into the air shaking the ship. Mikoto didn't even need to touch the ground. He bolted off in mid-air rapidly crossing the air right. He sliced through the sky and through the town, he was quickly covering the ground straight to the mountain. Mikoto raced right at the mountain. Aiming for Victoria. He wanted to know more and more about the woman and he wanted to try and dig his heels in deeper. He wanted to find out how much he had grown. He tried to do his best and he wanted to know if he had taken at least one step forward. And the best person to learn about that from is Victoria. Mikoto ran up the mountain, not wasting a second. His legs soon coating themselves up the Haki. He kicked off of the ground and headed up the mountain. He was intently hunting for Victoria.
It may be foolish of him. What kind of idiot willing seeks out a Yonkou who can take you down just by their pressure alone? Which was why Mikoto had decided to go after her. Mikoto lowered his body down and charged in. His body and shoulders tightened up and allowed him to push all of his power out of his body and through his legs. He charged in like an animal, whizzing through the air temporarily landing on the roofs of buildings before rocketing back off. A few of the pirates who had been defeated were just idling around for no reason. They didn't want to leave just yet. Probably out of the fear of the encroaching war especially since the Marines were still in power and making large messes around them.
Of course from Mikoto's spot in the sky, rushing through the wind towards the mountain tops they were all insignificant to him. For the time being even the matters of the Marines and the Revolutionaries and their now burgeoning war had been pushed out of his mind. His sole focus was the great Yonkou on the island, no one else mattered so Mikoto focused on one person in particular.
The rest of the island wasn't interesting as a matter of fact at this point Mikoto may have just blocked out the rest of the world. He slammed into the door, nearly slamming into the large iron doors which were in front of Victoria's temple. The force of Mikoto's run nearly bent the large iron doors out of shape, scaring the men assigned to guard the entrance.
They were plenty of pirates stewing in their own weaknesses now. They had failed to impress the great Yonkou with their skills against other pirates so their last option would be to take her head on, but even her lower ranking members were more than enough to take them on and defeat them. Though Mikoto could probably handle them at this point. However, they also knew of him as one of the few pirates still remaining in the fight so they stepped aside and let him pass without any fight.
There wasn't any hesitation in Mikoto's steps he knew exactly where to go. His Haki and animal instincts had instantly threw his hair on end. He knew of her location within milli-seconds. Despite his incredible rush all the way down the line he slowed this one time. He didn't run at full speed, he stopped and only slowly began to walk now. Something was off. There was a chill in his heart. If he didn't pass the test now then he would almost certainly fail at becoming a great pirate capable of taking down 'Ravenbone' Raphael.
However, even though this though was present in his mind as he stalked through the halls, carefully placing his footsteps on the steps of the staircase leading down, the chill in his heart comforted him. His first fear had been that he wouldn't be able to withstand her Haki once more. And that thought that he could even think that way, that he was still afraid of not being better than he was before was what brought him solace once more. It told him he wasn't done.
The fact that he still felt his heart clench at the premise of his adventure ending was...exhilarating in its own right. It told him that he didn't want it to end now. That his will to keep going and becoming a bigger and bigger pirate was still burning within his chest. And he was going to use that fire.
He stepped forward and onto the last steps of the stairs. He had forgotten about the heat of the inner chambers of this mountain. He had forgone it and was only focusing on the heat he had in himself. But the indoor hot springs definitely was creating a swelling of heat. With his will resolved once again Mikoto stepped forward and put all of his power behind the palm of one hand and shoved the door aside.
There was no surprise that Victoria looked expectant of him. She looked right at him, a confident smile spread across her face. She had her own Haki, so, of course, she had sensed his coming. She was standing up and had her sword already drawn. She had sensed no ill intent radiating from Mikoto, there was no hatred coming off of either one of them.
He stepped forward and locked his eyes onto his opponent and Victoria did the same. It was clear the reason why Mikoto was there. He wanted to grow a little bit more and Victoria would make sure she was ready for him when he wanted to grow. And Mikoto had no reason to back down now. The desire to grow up more and more now compelled him to do it.
"So, I see you still have some kind of backbone," Victoria stated as she walked forward. "I was beginning to think that you lost it after you took down Trevor. When I first heard someone had enough guts to take down Trevor I had high hopes. When I heard more and more about it I started to get excited. Attacking Zenith Gaol, the take down of the Marine Base at Reverse Mountain, so many valiant efforts and then when I met you I found your strength waning."
"Then I think you'll be in for a pleasant surprise," Mikoto stated stepping forward and not stopping. He went right for his opponent. It was swift steps which brought Mikoto right for his opponent. Mikoto tightened his grips and let his entire body stiffen, ready to meet with his opponent. Mikoto strode right at his opponent.
The aura suddenly flew out of Victoria. And it suddenly sent powerful chills down Mikoto's back. Mikoto's entire body shivered as he felt the initial pressure pass over him. The woman was not your typical pirate. Mikoto understood all of that instantly. The warrior before her was definitely deserving her title as a Yonkou. Nonetheless Mikoto and her seemed to be on good ground as Mikoto resisted it.
However, there still didn't seem to be enough evidence for Victoria. Victoria stepped forward and suddenly a forceful push. Even her own crewmates slowly began to fall to the newer pressure which was now radiating from her body. Mikoto, however, for the most part didn't seem fazed. He stayed strong in front of her. There was no fear in his eyes causing Victoria to smile.
"Looks like you have found something new to focus on," Victoria spoke, and although she seemed convince of Mikoto's confidence she didn't drop her Haki. She instead remained focused on the idea that Mikoto could survive it so she insisted on keeping it up and keep her opponent pinned with her aura. "I'm glad. IF you can win this tournament then you would definitely be someone worth placing my faith in. The checks and balances of this government with equal rebellion and justice is necessary. Most people just see the corruption of both sides and think it needs to be re-designed, but that is not the case.
"A lot of the islands are still in very rough shape a sudden shift now would be bad," explained Victoria. "A war or anything of the sort could throw the people of any island into chaos. If the Marines and Revolutionaries go to war especially the way they are planning on it could almost split the world in two."
"I'm guessing both sides have tried recruiting you," Mikoto assumed and Victoria nodded. "I can't believe the Marines are even recruiting Yonkou."
"A lot of Yonkou actually chill out," explained Victoria, "once someone gets promoted to this level they tend to start relaxing and taking longer and deeper breaths. The title starts to make you a little bit more rational, most Marines start giving you a wider berth, constant fighting tends to make you and your crew sustain more and more injuries. You take a lot of damage and get heavily stressed as a result. So you tend to start to relax a bit more as fewer and fewer people are willing to challenge you."
"But now you and Kai have to throw your weapons down," stated Mikoto as he shook his head. "The Yonkous are joining the fight. It'll be hard to stay standing throughout this entire thing, but that's our goal."
"Exactly," Victoria stated, "essentially the best move we could make would be to have as many Yonkous get together to form essentially a third party to oppose the other two. But the problem is with Kai deciding to join the Revolutionaries, who knows where other Yonkous would choose to fall even if they wished to get involved. So we are going to just form a powerful enough alliance. Right now both sides are willing to do an all-or-nothing. Sizing up their enemies has told them that right now they have a 50/50 chance to completely eradicate their enemy. So our goal is to bring that down to 33."
"Who knows if even that would scare them into dropping their blades though," Mikoto stated, "Its incredibly likely that both sides would duke it our regardless seeing it as an opportunity."
"There are cowards on both sides and as they slowly see the odds of their failure rise they will surely defect causing the odds to rise even higher. That's the problem with just asking for miscellaneous pirates to side with you," explained Victoria. "That will you just showed us so far a lot of men lack. It looks like-" Victoria stopped her explanation as Mikoto had pivoted around and began to walk out again, "where do you think you are going?"
While Victoria had been around pirates all of her life and had come to expect a certain lack of manners, she hadn't really expected it now. Now that she was a Yonkou and had cordially invited Mikoto here she was expecting a bit more.
However, it was obvious that Mikoto wasn't going to give it to her. Not out of lack of respect, but rather for the same reason he had come here in the first place. His drive and his will had begun pulling him out and he wasn't about to put the brakes on yet. He offered Victoria one more backwards glance and his toothy smile, "I'm going to go beat up Ravenbone."
The Old Goal