The Adventure of the Man of D.
V: The Demon They Call Asura
The next few days saw us, meaning Holmes, all his resources, and the Straw Hat Pirates virtually exhaust the entirety of the West End and Central London in searching for the mysterious remaining member of the Pirates. In that time, I need not say how many charges of eat-and-runs were accounted for; I had every receipt for every case. Note that I say had, for the receipts were mysteriously burnt, no doubt by people who would wish to ignore the existence of Luffy D. Monkey.
At the same time, I had managed to study the Straw Hat Pirates for myself. I can only say that all the members, save for Miss Nico and Miss Nami, were questionably insane to varying degrees. If there were any true need to identify the most insane of them all, by the standards of the Empire I would suppose Luffy to be the one. Holmes, he agrees with me, if only because no relatively educated boy should willingly choose a life of crime in his world view.
"Being normal is boring!" Luffy had grinned when I had asked him concerning his career choice. "The Pirate King's got the most freedom on the seas!"
His beaming smile reminded me, perhaps, of halcyon days gone by when children played pirates and went on adventures through rolling fields and glades, and this caused me to wonder, if perhaps Mr Luffy had faced too many times with the floor as a baby. It would certainly go a long way to account for this apparent mental deficiency.
The rest of the crew were questionable in their state of mind, and used to the antics of a certain captain, and unquestioningly loyal. I can remember one fine day when the entirety of the crew save for the missing swordsman were unleashed on the covered markets. When they were done...
(This segment was notably torn out, and presumably burnt, by unknown and unnamed parties.)
I cannot mention it for lack of records, but by Holmes's speculations, half the market was cleared out by Luffy.
So there, a few days of chaos and 'adventure' in Luffy's terms, and 'unspeakable danger' in Holmes's, passed before we finally caught up to the swordsman and the first assailant.
The log of the pirate ship, the Thousand Sunny. Written by Nico Robin, archaeologist. 1524 AOS.
Most of us have gathered, in this part of the city called London, within a greater country informally known as England, and formally as the United Kingdom of Great Britain and associated territories. I state the slightly shorter name for as we speak our captain is tethering on the rigging of the Sunny and all hands are needed to keep him onboard. It is a trying task, that I may freely inform as my crew-mates would no doubt echo these exact sentiments in not very specific but more expressive terms.
A certain man known as Sherlock Holmes, and his... friend, the estimable Doctor Watson, has rendered aid in locating our captain and most of our crew-mates. In other circumstances, perhaps we would have mistrusted them, but our captain likes the erstwhile Doctor if not the detective he derisively calls 'Hawk Eyes', and for that he has our regards. Our captain is a good judge of character, and he has not failed us yet. Added that we hardly went anywhere unarmed, and it is perfectly fine.
Of course, today we were exploring Leadenhall Street – the detective and doctor notably reluctant to take the captain anywhere near the richer districts of Leadenhall Street after an 'commotion' outside the Royal Mint building in the form of 'Binks' Sake' – when we were accosted.
It was five tall, heavyset men, versus our detective and doctor, Doctor Chopper and yours truly. Given how they were armed with heavy clubs and knives, our ungulate doctor and myself felt it extremely justified to prove our mettle, as the saying should go.
Chopper's Heavy Point startled the doctor perhaps ore than it should. My own powers discreetly used gave the impression that one woman could impale people on her arm (how funny, seeing as I had used the same sleight of hand upon the Alabastan princess) and the detective and doctor took out two men between them before they realised that a reindeer and a woman had handled the other three men. The likely leader was before us now, and I was smiling at him.
It is an unusual trick, smiling at your opponent right before you torture them for information. It is something that requires subtlety, I have learnt, that if you smile at you commit horrible acts of sadistic cruelty upon their person, it creates some mental pressure that forces their minds to break earlier.
There are some people upon whom this trick does not work, though. The men of the line of D. are notably some of these hard-headed cases.
"Power... speed... that mean nothing to me," I spoke slowly towards that man whom intelligence meant nothing, only prodigious size that was currently within the clutches of my Seis Fleur. "Would you kindly tell me the name of your employer now? I would so hate to break your back. No, you behind me, you do not leave just yet."
More arms had sprouted behind me to grab onto the lone man who tried to sneak away. They quickly got the message that I was fully capable of that threat when his bones broke.
Mr Holmes and Doctor Watson looked shocked at the nature of my powers, as they are wont to. They did not seemed as shocked as when they met the shipwright, though.
I wonder how they will react when we finally find Mr Swordsman. I suppose I should not be looking forward to it.
From the notes of Doctor J.H. Watson
It was a few days after our first meeting with Monkey D. Luffy in the Bow Street cells that we finally found the swordsman and unofficial first mate of the Thousand Sunny. More accurately, we found a trace of his existence. It was currently sitting in a Limehouse train-yard, and it was completely unfit for use.
"Oh my," Holmes shivered as one finger smoothed over the edges of where the steel engine had been smoothly and cleanly severed. "This is rather smooth metallurgy."
Our client, a man cursed or blessed by the unremarkable named of Brown, coughed delicately. "It is... the work of a vandal."
"A vandal with skill working with metal, to achieve this merely with a single stroke," Holmes interjected. "It certainly does not seem like a hammer mark- Watson, would you please calm down the infernal monkey?"
Normal people would believe that the rest of the Straw Hat crew would take umbrage at the insults thrown at their captain. They have obviously never met the Straw Hat Pirates; the captain takes insults on a regular basis.
"Choo choo!" Luffy was currently screaming over the shrill whistles of the trains, and attracting the attention of every single person present. In the interest of public facade, I dragged the simple-minded captain towards where Holmes was currently praising how well the steel had been cut.
"Perhaps this technology was self-invented," Holmes was saying as I dragged the rubber boy-man over. Every part of him threatened to stretch and I was forced to use the ultimate incentive, that is, a breakfast roll, to secure his temporary obedience.
"He cut it, with a sword," Mr Brown continued to insist. "It was a sword, a single-bladed affair from the Far East. I would recognise it myself. I have witnesses!"
"A- Asura..." the trembling worker nodded firmly, his dark skin belying his race. "The deity has come bearing destruction... the green-haired deity has come!"
"Oh, that's just Zoro," Luffy spoke over the breakfast roll as the man was dragged away kicking and screaming.
Holmes stared at the ruined train engine, and then at the captain. "Your swordsman did this?" he repeated.
"Green hair, Asura... Yep!" Luffy grinned.
I suddenly wonder what kind of demon was the man in question.
We found out later, as Luffy bounced into Limehouse, and proceeded to attract attention in the worst way ever recorded. It pains me to record it even on paper. I will never forget it to my dying day, because as sight like that you never forget.
"Oi, Zoro!" He continued to yell despite being surrounded by the destitute and poorest of this side of London.
"Mr Luffy," Holmes began. "If you don't stop shouting for your mysterious crew member we are going to attract more attention and then we are all going to die because we're outnumbered."
Holmes himself have learnt that bluntness was the best way to handle Monkey D. Luffy... to a given extent.
"We're not going to die," Luffy grinned. "I gotta become Pirate King first before I die."
"...and what about us?"
"Ah! I forgot."
The people advancing on us exchanged looks, before giving both Holmes and I what I am extremely sure was looks of sympathy. "Not right in the head, is he?" one of them muttered towards me. "Don't worry, guv, we'll whack him real good."
Their advancement stopped as they caught sight of something behind us, and all of them, within the span of a second, turned tail and ran like the hounds of the underworld were upon them.
For the second time in the past few days, the both of us turned around.
We, too, ran, the rubber arm of Monkey D. Luffy flapping behind as I bodily dragged the man-child. The... demon, for lack of more appropriate words... followed us, swords clanging and clinking as if hungering for the blood of Englishmen. It had green hair, and swords, but what the poor man had forgotten to mention was that the green hair was on three heads, and the swords were six, no, nine, of them.
"Zoro~!" Luffy sang as we turned a corner and something crashed, presumably sealing the sole way through.
"What... was that?" Holmes finally recovered his breath as something cracked through the air.
Both of us leapt out of the way as a shower of brick fell to the ground, a slice of good English building crashing upon the pavement, cut smooth... cut smooth?
"He cut that with a sword," Holmes croaked, staring up at the cleanly decapitated two-storey building. "With a sword..."
"There's another wall," I grimaced as the sound of steel cutting stone sounded. "Don't tell me... he's cutting his way through solid brick with a sword...!"
There was no time for me to finish as neatly cut pieces of brick wall fell at my feet and the green-haired figure slowly advanced out, a sword in each hand and one in his teeth. The swords were all of the single-edged kind oft spoken about in Japan, but never had such implements of ancient warfare looked as deadly as a firearm looked than in his hands.
"Three swords," I amended. "That solves the mystery, I suppose..."
"What a horrifyingly strong man," Holmes muttered right behind me. "And he is not even the captain... I suppose this is testament to Mr Luffy's strength of character?"
"Oi, Zoro!" Luffy happily bounced over to the green-haired man. "Where were you?"
Sharp eyes bore into us before the demonic-looking swordsman shifted back to a normal human being as the terrifying implements of murder were sheathed. "I got... in the wrong way."
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