AN: I have...no excuse. I'm really sorry for the late update. There were a lot of problems and...well...I just hope there are still some readers out there willing to continue with this story hehehe...=_='
Chapter 18: Two Demons and Two Warlords?
There was no movement from either side as they stared at each other for several moments. A cold chilling feeling ran through Robin's body as the giant dragon-faced creature stared down the Thousand Sunny, which constantly growled under its breath. Robin realized that she wasn't the only one in this state. Aside from Nami, Ussop, Chopper and Brook; even Sanji and Franky were in a somewhat similar state. However, their source of astonishment wasn't just the creature before them. Robin's eyes wandered over to the front deck where Luffy was lying on the wooden floor panting lightly.
"What's wrong Luffy? You're not the person to be beaten by a random sea monster." Franky asked with a surprised expression.
"Only, it isn't just a 'random sea monster'." Sanji stated calmly while taking out a cigarette from his pocket and lighting it. "Can this thing use Haki?" He asked as he took a puff from the cigarette.
"What? Haki…? You've gotta be kidding me." Ussop started panicking as Sanji finished talking.
"It isn't Haki. It's different, but has similar affect." Luffy stood up and brushed some dirt from his clothes while ignoring Ussop altogether.
Luckily, the monster didn't attack them. Instead it eyed the ship during all their talk. Only its head was out of the water, which was still twice the size of the Sunny, along with a few scaly tentacles waggling behind its face as it kept growling, constantly increasing the tension between them.
"It's coming!" Chopper yelled as the monster suddenly launched itself towards the ship with a loud roar. Hands started sprouting from the sides of the Sunny, transforming into two giant hands which grabbed the monster's head to stop its advance. But due to the creature's overwhelming power and momentum, Sunny was the one that got pushed back instead.
Gigantic ripples in the ocean and the force that pushed the Sunny back was enough to put most of the Strawhats off balance. In the midst of this disturbance, Brook dived off the sunny and charged towards the target whilst running on the ocean's surface. Sanji also, instead of wasting time to regain the balance on the violently shaking ship, jumped into the air. Kicking the air under his feet, he rocketed himself towards the creature before him.
Their target was the face of the creature. After all, that was the only part visible to them and attacking the surrounding tentacles would be useless. But the real challenge was to bypass all of the limbs and to get a powerful attack to connect. This was the moment when every Strawhat's brain started working in sync and their notorious teamwork surfaced. Since they were in water and the only platform they had was their ship, they couldn't allow the Sunny to be damaged. Given the toughness of their target, which had been measured by Luffy only a few moments ago, the Strawhats were on a clear disadvantage, meaning that their teamwork was their only forte in the situation.
Advancing forward, Brook and Sanji barely dodged a couple of dangerous strikes. Sanji had already realized the graveness of the situation. On top of being dangerously strong offense that worked like Armament Haki, Sanji could not read the monster's movements. Observation Haki did not work against it. 'In that case,' Sanji thought, 'my only option is to rely on my instincts and reflexes.'
After barely dodging another strike from a tentacle, Brook finally reached the attacking range. As he drew his sword, he noticed another tentacle closing in from front like a spear. At the last moment, he jumped higher and avoided a fatal blow. Stepping on the aforementioned tentacle, Brook used it as a stepping stone and lunged towards the right eye of creature. His timing and speed was almost perfect, yet his thrust was blocked by another tentacle. Brook's icy cold sword got stuck in the flesh of the tentacle as it turned into a giant icicle, leaving the skeleton almost defenseless.
At that moment, Sanji noticed the shift in the creature's attention towards Brook. It was like a small hole that appeared in a sturdy wall just for a limited time. Sanji could not afford to let this chance slip away. Bending his legs, he equipped his right leg in armament haki and kicked the air under his feet with all the force he could muster before he launched himself towards the target. Piercing through the air like a bullet, within a tenth part of a second, Sanji's kick connected with yet another tentacle a few meters above the creature's face. The sea monster was pushed back several meters in the water due to the kick's power, creating huge ripples around it.
'Just how tough is this thing?' Sanji thought as his Haki cladded foot kept denting in the skin of the tentacle, which was covered in a dark aura.
After exactly 8 seconds, Sanji and Brook had jumped off the ship, the Sunny started to get its balance back. Luffy turned around and jumped onto the lawn. Using the fore mast and his rubber arms as a slingshot, he flung himself high into air as Sanji and Brook jumped away from the creature, using their respective targeted tentacles as means to get back to the ship.
"Chopper, can you take me to the top of the crow's nest?" Ussop requested while Luffy inflated his right hand, equipping it with armament Haki from his airborne position. Chopper quickly transformed into 'Jumping point'. Lifting Ussop over his shoulder, he started jumping over the foremast. Luffy lunged towards the creature and swung his gigantic Haki equipped fist at its face whilst on top of the crow's nest, Ussop equipped Kuro Kabuto, carefully taking the aim between the eyes of the monster.
As Luffy's gigantic fist moved closer to the target, eight more tentacles emerged from under the water and curled up above the creature's face to form a shield above itself. The punch connected with the shield, which was engulfed in the same dark aura as before just before the impact. The sea creature got buried several meters under the water due to the power of the punch, generating huge tides from its point of submersion. Yet, the shield formed above its face made sure not to let the attack through. Sanji and Brook started retreating back to Sunny to get hard solid ground under their feet as the giant waves followed them.
"CHOPPER, HELP ME HERE, I CAN'T MESS UP THE AIM!" Ussop yelled as he noticed the approaching tides.
"WHAT AM I SUPPOSED TO DO?" When nothing else came to the reindeer's mind, he quickly grabbed the mast by one hand and firmly wrapped his other arm around Ussop's waist to at least keep them from falling over. Just before the waves collided with Sunny, both Brook and Sanji landed on the deck and Robin crossed her arms, causing extra hands to sprout out of the ship's wood, securing everyone as firmly as possible. Ussop got the hint and left keeping the ship's balance up to Robin and Chopper whilst he set up his aim once again. Just then the Sunny shook heavily as it was struck by the ocean waves.
On the other side, after a grueling struggle between the creature and Luffy, the monster lashed its tentacles, forcefully pushing Luffy up into the air with a loud roar. Ussop's eyes were on his target all this time, and in that moment, as the monster opened up its limbs to push Luffy back, Ussop found the hole in the creature's defenses that he was waiting for. Without wasting time he fired the best weapon he had in his arsenal.
As he released the strings of Kuro Kabuto, the pop green sprouted and took the form of a wolf as it pierced through the air like arrow. Ussop was dead sure to get some outcome from this attack, even if it was blocked by some more unforeseen tentacles, the shockwave released from Impact Wolf would definitely leave some effect on the target. Ussop's lips widened a few millimeters as the 'Impact Wolf' raced towards its target.
Within that portion of a second, the creature opened its mouth and what seemed to shoot out was a beam of light that pierced the Wolf right through its bulb yet missed the Sunny and Ussop's face from a few centimeters, dispersing the shockwave that released from the Impact Wolf in the ocean water. Surprised by this unexpected move, Chopper lost the little balance he had and both fell down from the gym's roof but landed safely into Robin's hands.
"It's…a…BEEEEAAAAAAAAAAM" As Luffy landed back on Sunny's deck Strawhat pirates' three stooges yelled with a glint of excitement in their eyes.
"Oi, oi, this is no joking matter. How can a sea monster have something like this? Is this thing a cyborg as well?" Sanji looked at others for some possible explanation but found everyone else in the same state of confusion as himself.
"It's going to shoot it again!" Nami shouted as she witnessed the energy charging up inside the creature's throat.
"Shit! This one looks bigger than before." Franky jumped on the railing and closed his palms facing each other. "Franky Radical Beam" Both shot out almost at the same time. The two beams of light collided with each other resulting in a humungous explosion in the ocean. Everyone braced themselves as the Sunny drifted a few hundred meters back along with the wild tides created by the explosion.
As soon as the Sunny regained some balance back, everyone saw darkness spreading over the sky. Soon everyone witnessed a huge thunder cloud above them, but Sunny was out of its range. Nami ran ahead to the main deck with her clima tact, bearing an incredibly heavily charged thundercloud on one side. Concentrating her eyes to a specific direction, she confirmed that the creature was still at its previous position, right under the thundercloud.
"Let's see what you can do about this!" She exclaimed as she threw the charged ball towards the thundercloud.
As soon as the smaller thunder cloud merged with the bigger one, it started pulsating with electrical charges. Next moment, a huge lightning strike hit the creature right above its head, disrupting the ocean surface even further as the Sunny lost its balance once again. The strike was big enough to leave most of the Strawhats' faces in awe. Last time they saw a lightning strike this big was at Skypiea, generated by the fierce lightning God, Enel.
"Why didn't you use that from the very start?" Ussop yelled while desperately clinging to the side rail.
"Are you stupid or what? It takes a lot of time to set it up, plus we would have been wiped out as well if I'd done that before." Nami yelled back while clinging to several of Robin's hands.
A few minutes passed and finally the ocean started to calm down a little. The thundercloud had disappeared after performing its task and its victim could be seen under it. Surprisingly, even this level of attack wasn't enough to knock the creature out. It growled in anger as small electrical pulses that remained as the after effect of previous attack, crackled through the surface of its face. After growling for a few seconds, it let out a loud beastly roar reminding his opponents of its presence.
"Damn it! This thing is seriously pissing me off now." Luffy shouted as he entered Gear second with an irritated look on his face. "You'd better get those beams of yours ready 'cause I'm not gonna hold anything back anymore."
Luffy was ready to jump towards the creature that was getting closer with every passing moment, but stopped because of a weird feeling. As he looked into the creature's eyes, he felt an overwhelming pressure, a feeling he wasn't quite familiar with. Fear… Luffy was the man who had stared in the eyes of the world's strongest man, he had been at the death's door multiple times but he hadn't felt this kind of fear before. Something was about to happen, the creature before him was about to do something very dangerous, that's what his instincts told him.
Sanji was quite shocked to see the Luffy's expression; he never had seen such an expression on Luffy's face before. "Oi Luffy! What's wrong?" as soon as Sanji asked this question, the monster opened its mouth and a dark colored shockwave swept through the area spreading 360 degrees around it up to a few miles. For Franky, Sanji, Ussop and Nami, it was just a little push and nothing more, but it wasn't the same for other four members of Strawhat crew.
"The hell was tha-" Sanji's words got stuck in his throat as he witnessed Luffy collapsing on Sunny's floor. The four ability users fell down as if they've lost consciousness. It was as if they were hit by a powerful burst of Conqueror's Haki.
"R-Robin…?" Nami's mouth was wide open as she saw Robin slumping over the side rail, her face was full of sweat and her breathing was unsteady as if she had trouble even breathing.
"What the hell is going on? What now?" Ussop panicked his eyes wide with shock.
"Oi! What's wrong? What happened to you guys?" Franky asked as he furrowed his brow.
"It feels…as if…I have lost…all of my strength. Even my…abilities…" Luffy stuttered.
"Damn it, the hell is going-" Sanji was interrupted as Nami shouted at them.
"LOOK OUT!"
Franky was struck by one of the tentacles from behind like a whip. The tentacle was covered in the same dark aura as before which only served to increase the power of its strike. Even his heavily modified body was not enough to completely negate the strike's power. He lost his footing, and was lifted up off the floor and swept along with the powerful swing of the tentacle.
Thanks to Franky tanking the strike, Sanji had a fraction of a second to react to Nami's warning. He lifted up his leg and bent it to align it with his elbow and forearm to shield and covered them in Armanent Haki, protecting the rest of his body. Upon impact, he felt thankful that he had used all of his power in the defense. Any lower and he could've ended up in a very bad shape. Last time he received this kind of blow was by Oars, at the thriller bark. No, this was much more powerful than that. Despite his strong defense, Sanji couldn't maintain his footing and was lifted up by the tentacle's swing along with Franky.
"Sanji! Franky!" Ussop yelled as both of them were shot out of the Sunny by the tentacle's brutal swing. Even after receiving that blow directly, Franky was able to grab hold of main mast with one hand and one of Sanji's legs in the other one. But due to the force, his mechanical hand got detached from the arm. After the chain inside Franky's hand was uncoiled completely, their flight was abruptly stopped and Franky wasted no time to throw Sanji back towards the Sunny with all his force. Sanji kicked the air under his feet to reduce his landing speed before landing safely on top of Observation Room's roof. By then, Franky had also reached the main mast by reeling in the chain on his arm.
Their next predicament was already upon them. As Sanji looked above, six of the creature's tentacles were on their way to pierce through the Sunny's main deck. It was impossible for Ussop or Nami to go against such an attack and the other four crew members were down because of the previous attack. Sanji and Franky had lost too much time while regaining their balance, and no matter how fast he moved Sanji wouldn't have made it in time. At the main deck, Luffy was lying under the approaching spears still under effects of the last shockwave. They couldn't accept it, a random creature that appeared out of nowhere was about to rip apart their ship, yet none of them could do anything. They had less than a second to think of a solution, which was impossible after all.
At that very moment…everyone heard a low beastly growl. Several green colored sword-slashes as fast as lightning flashed before their eyes and the tentacles that were about to pierce Sunny were sent flying into dozens of finely cut pieces. The Strawhats got barely a second to witness the person that cut down the tentacles, yet they all recognized him instantly.
'Zoro' they thought as he landed beside Luffy with both arms stretched out holding Shisuui and Sandai Kitestsu. Robin realized that his appearance was almost same as when she had witnessed him during the incident on Cloud Ring, yet it was somewhat different than before. Before she could completely analyze the changes in Zoro's body, four more tentacles sprung up from the front of Sunny and lashed towards it in an attempt to complete the task that it was unable to complete previously. Zoro crouched down while taking a stance for his Oni-giri move but with just two swords.
Within a tenth part of a second, while observing Zoro getting ready to launch another attack, the two Haki users of the Strawhats learned another shocking fact. They couldn't hear Zoro's voice. Just like the creature assaulting them, Zoro had no voice that their observation Haki could capture. They didn't get any more time to think as Zoro gathered enough strength in his legs and launched himself diagonally above the Sunny cutting the lashing tentacles into shreds while passing through them like a bullet fired from a rifle. Sunny's hull almost got completely submerged under water before bouncing upward forcefully, tilting the ship forward slightly because of the recoil of Zoro's powerful launch.
Somehow, everyone was able to avoid falling off board except Luffy. Since he was so captivated by Zoro's current appearance and his body was already weakened, he wasn't able to endure the sudden bump by the Sunny and got thrown into the ocean. Sanji decided to jump after his captain, and as he dove off the Observation Room's roof, Zoro, who was around 30 meters above the creature's face after halting his flight, crossed his left arm before his chest and covered it in a dense green colored aura. He swung Shisuui at the creature with enough power to launch a green hypersonic aerial slash. The creature slithered into the ocean with a gigantic splash, the impact creating even more wild tides which washed the Sunny further away from the two monsters.
Before Sanji could dive underwater, he was hit by a huge tide and got washed away a several meters from his targeted zone. He kicked the water a few times to get back his balance and proceeded to swim underwater to go after Luffy. As soon as he reached under water, he almost exhaled all the air from his lungs because of a hefty surprise. He had to place a hand on his mouth to prevent the air from escaping as he finally had a look at the entire body of the creature. He quickly brushed off the thoughts that were bombarding his mind. This was no time to be surprised by something like this; Luffy's life was in danger.
Stomping the water under his feet swiftly, he swam towards Luffy at full speed. As Sanji arrived closer to Luffy, all of the air had already departed from Luffy's lungs and a surprised yet angry expression on his face showed that he had already noticed the same scene as himself and maybe had the same thoughts as he did as well. Sanji quickly grabbed him and started swimming towards Sunny.
On the Thousand Sunny, almost everyone was wearing a horrified expression as they gazed at the green haired swordsman, who was airborne a few tens of meters above them. Though he was quite far to look at close details, the Strawhats could see a green aura that covered his entire body and swords, also igniting his scarred left eye like a flame of a candle, and two huge wings formed from the same aura kept flapping constantly to keep him airborne.
He was completely different from what Robin witnessed in Cloud ring. Whatever the thing was that was possessing Zoro had furthered the possession at a very considerable pace. That was the only reasonable explanation she could think of. In the meantime, Sanji leapt out of the water and landed on the main deck with Luffy on his shoulder. Luffy coughed up some water as Sanji threw him down. Sanji heard Ussop and Nami calling their names, obviously concerned about their well being. But for some reason, he didn't feel like responding back. His mind was occupied by what he witnessed underwater. He didn't have time to get side-tracked before but when he observed the entire body of that creature for the first time as it slowly kept sinking in the ocean's depth for some reason unknown to him, the only thought that came to his mind was that it was toying around with them from the very start. Just thinking about it made his blood boil with anger. Sanji decided to give that monster some taste of his anger but as soon as he turned around, he froze in his tracks after witnessing Zoro's current form. This was getting a bit too inconceivable for them. But unfortunately, there were many more surprises waiting for them.
"RORONOAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA-" The creature sprung up from the water while shouting pirate hunter's surname in a brusque demonic voice.
That creature could speak. Even though they wanted to say a lot of things to express the shock they just had received, only thing they could manage at the moment was to cover their ears as that monster turned the shout into a continuous roar loud enough to be heard even a mile away. Just then Zoro replied him back with a roar similar to that creature's, indicating the start of the battle between these two monsters.
On Kuraigana Island, human drills were running around the castle while busy in their own activities when suddenly a spine chilling feeling took over them. They quickly scattered around in the woods without wasting time. A huge transparent sphere made out of aura expanded from inside the western tower of the castle and engulfed almost the whole tower. Next moment the tower was cut into three rectangular pieces and started levitating around in the sphere. A couple of aerial sword slashes flew out of the dissected part of the castle, cutting down the levitating tower pieces into smaller ones. After moving in a harmonious movement, the dissected pieces of building were smashed into the part of castle from where they had been detached. A couple of seconds later a human figure flew out of the smashed rubble and crashed into the ground almost a hundred meters away from the castle.
This figure was one of the Seven Warlords, Trafalgar Law, who came to this secluded place to have a meeting with his fellow Warlord Dracule Mihawk. Law walked out of the dust cloud that was created by his landing. With his unsheathed sword in his hand and lightly gasping for air, he looked up at the destroyed part of the castle. Another figure lunged out of the rubble and the next thing he realized that he was staring right into Dracule Mihawk's eyes as Yoru's black blade was piercing through the air, moving closer and closer to his throat.
To be continued…
AN: I owe a big apology to all of my readers. I'm really sorry for making you wait so long. Moving on, at first this and the next chapter was supposed to be just one. But it was starting to get a bit long so I decided to stop it here.
Please have mercy on me...Thanks for reading.