After a brief moment the raging outbursts of chakra emitted from the wild and unpredictable Kusagoro's transformation settled down somewhat. The transformed shinobi did not attack or look prepared for defending himself. He just stood calmly and hunched forward with his head staring at the water surface that portrayed his transformation with uneasy murkiness to the dark waters. The full reflection was blocked off by the dark skies and only briefly illuminated once the lightning bolts lit the heavens.
"Kill..." Kusagoro mumbled to himself under his nose, the young ninja observing the insane battle from the top of the Box of Ultimate Bliss, an artefact that proved itself to be quite a reliable source of safety in this absolutely crazy battle, couldn't even hope to hear a single word.
"Huh? What wazzat?" the Pirate Lord slurred out, he would've normally had been very surprised by the Jugo's transformation, his immense degree of drunkenness currently blocked off any primal instincts of self-preservation and the drunken fool was just looking for a good fight. He was totally oblivious to the fact that he pushed a much more dangerous opponent slightly over the edge by resorting to that of his own.
"Kill... The girl... No... That's not right..." Kusagoro continued to mumble incomprehensible verbal garbage to himself feeling completely torn apart by an overflow of mad thoughts seeping through his head. The violent and sadistic urges were impossible to tell from one's own love of bunnies and sunshine. It was a fine line between madness and unrestrained power with the tipping point being as sensitive as flipping a coin.
Kouta's face looked like that of a serious gambler observing the roulette. Slowly his hands began reaching for Mana and wrapping around her. The magician didn't like it and tried to object but after looking at Kouta's face her own grip loosened and she let him press her closer to himself.
"This is bad..." he uttered to her. "I remember that feeling, I was completely unable to move when it happened to me. I won not by overpowering the enemy but by simply being insane enough... Every movement is like negotiations with billions of psychopaths inside your own mind. I had thought that father may have found an answer to that problem but... I think he used this transformation so few times that he's still working with that." he continued talking as if talking was the only thing to keep the fear away, his way of keeping himself afloat in an ocean of fear and uncertainty.
Mana looked at Kusagoro and she could feel for Kouta's worries. She then realized what she made this gentle soul she fell in love with do. The young man she was falling for was forced to cross that line, embrace his clan's cruel origins, that which the current Jugo members had locked under seven seals to never be let loose again. The transformation that caused so many deaths to happen and made Iwagakure hunt Jugo for decades like animals for their cruelty until the warrior clan found peace and adopted their love of nature.
"I'm sorry you had to do this, Kouta," she whispered in his ear but the young man acted out a smile for her. Despite the fact that those emotions of certainty were false and completely faked the magician appreciated the young man's strength, his devotion to smiling for her when his eyes trembled in fear. It was something she used to do back when she still had the power to change anything at all. Or at least thought she did. What was transpiring below was an actual battle between immensely powerful warriors, the level at which actually relevant forces that could have changed the world fought each other.
"You won't have to do this again, not for me, I promise," she added.
"Kill... I'll kill someone... The first girl I see, I'll kill..." Kusagoro jumbled out nonsensical dribble to himself as his eyes looked up and examined his opponent, for a moment the warrior looked confused by Francho's ominous movements but then they switched until they met Meiko.
"No... Wait... I'll kill the closest girl to my son I see... Yeah... Kill that..." his confused and dazed by the overflowing thoughts of hatred and murder mind switched as his head continued moving after staring straight at Meiko. Kusagoro's body blinked in and out of existence until it had made its mind as to whom he would kill first.
Kouta wrapped his hands around Mana pressing her hard against his chest, the girl could feel his body trembling in fear and yet he acted out a façade of certainty and control. "You are at your weakest and at your least confident and yet you make promises like that. That's why I like you," he whispered in her ear before Kusagoro's frame flashed right behind the two. The man's gigantic arm was already winded back for a killing blow but then the man saw not the girl he wanted to kill in front of him but the back of his own son.
Lightly the man's feet landed on top of the Box and looked at his son protecting this magician girl. Without uttering a word Kusagoro turned around and looked at his next opponent.
"Kill something else..." he mumbled out just barely loud enough for Kouta and Mana to hear. Only then did they realize that the man was so close to them. It was nearly impossible to describe how silently and how fast this ninja moved. It transcended the feeble human understanding of speed and time. Kusagoro's body blurred and flashed again moving right in up close to Francho.
The Pirate Lord tried to place his hips together and to block the opponent's attack but a colossal morphed fist slammed right into his face, chest and lower body sending the Pirate Lord away beyond where he could've been seen in the horizon. Francho continued to try and stop himself by kicking off islands that whizzed by or driving his arms and feet into the ocean but each time the island he tried to use for leverage exploded from pressure into rocky chunks and the passing water sawed at his arms like a buzzsaw opening grievous wounds.
Francho took a good gulp of his rum observing how quickly the bottle was getting emptied. Suddenly his legs moved far and wide and he kicked off the ocean covering hundreds of thousands of kilometers in a single leap. Despite nearly having circled the world after the single punch Francho in his drunken state decided to return back the way he came using the powerful leaps of his next immortal's style – Zhang Guolao.
The drunken Pirate Lord covered the whole distance back in four good leaps. Kusagoro just lazily observed his opponent breathe heavily for air and then try to throw up only to realize that he had nothing to throw up with instead of chucking up air before his gag reflex calmed down.
"Zhang Guolao!" Francho shouted out leaping at his opponent with a powerful dropkick that emitted a vertical disc shaped shockwave upon impact with a simple block of Kusagoro's gigantic morphed arms that absorbed the entire attack. Cannons appeared on Kusagoro's back emitting brief but relentless tongues of chakra flames that counteracted the force coming from Francho's dropkick and prevented the shinobi from being thrown around.
"That single punch..." Francho slurred out as he awkwardly tried to pick his drunken frame off the disturbed and raging waters "That single punch before was stronger than that sent-me-space-flying blow! Just what is this transformation!?" the Pirate Lord shouted out in frustration but Kusagoro followed it up with another punch. Right at the moment of collision the fist instead entered inside the giant stump on Kusagoro's arm and left a deep cannon hole.
"Piston Fist: Style One!" Kusagoro yelled out in an inhuman and terror inciting voice. More jets opened up around the man's elbows firing off chakra which only increased the speed and power of the warrior's punch. Right as the cannon collided with Francho's face a powerful blast of chakra fired off from the cannon leaving a wide opening in the ocean's waters. The intensity and power of the beam were so immense that it left Earth's atmosphere in moments and whizzed away into a point far away in the oblivion of space.
"Cao Guojiu!" Francho's voice interrupted the brief moment of silence that took over once the beam concluded as the Pirate Lord fired off a flurry of quick blows aimed right at the lower joints of Kusagoro's. The first couple was aimed at the arms' joints but due to their transformation these left not a single mark and just bounced off the thick and hard morphed skin.
Kusagoro yelled out in pain as the blows to the softer spots of his legs were successful. He had counted on that last punch connecting and Francho's head being blown off, the Pirate Lord certainly was close to that state and yet he kept on fighting. The darned fool took a punch from Kusagoro's cannon but toughened up and managed to avoid the blast. While the chakra cannon raged on the drunkard somehow chugged down more of that rum of his.
"I know what you're doing!" Francho yelled out after he leaped back a couple of steps before vaulting over Kusagoro aiming at the ninja's softer area right before his flesh molded with the morphed tissue, the place where the strain of controlling these changed arms should've been the toughest. Kusagoro felt astonishingly painful stings in the joints and couldn't help but emit a cry of pain. His legs didn't respond, neither did his arms now.
"All that water that washed my face back when you punched me before helped me think this through clearly... You're trying to force me to switch the immortals rapidly so that I pass out from being too drunk, huh?" the pirate slurred out barely controlling his tongue anymore. "Well... Let me tell you this! Now that I know your plan that is never, ever..." he began shouting something but then his body just tuned out and belly flopped.
A loud dominating laughter of Kusagoro's fired off into the distance. The man's lungs must've been quite powerful as even Mana, someone with much duller senses than her ninja teammates wanted to cover her ears. After a good fit of laughter Kusagoro just laid beaten and on his knees for a good minute before beginning to once again get the feel of his joints, finally the shinobi's legs fully supported his weight again, finally, his gigantic arms could move again.
"You're a pretty respectable man. Living for the thrill of plundering and the adventure of roaming the seas as a free man. That I can respect..." Kusagoro spoke out as his eyes appeared to calm up, the glyphs that covered his entire skin together with the black marks began to move away slowly but didn't fade completely, just gave way for a brief moment of saneness. Then, in a blinking moment, they closed back up letting the madness return.
"I'll only be that much stronger and more respectable than you if I destroy a man like that!" the Jugo declared grabbing the giant man's head and lightly throwing the pirate up into the sky and while the sleeping drunk landed back down prepared his attack. Kusagoro winded both of his morphed hands backward opening and branching out a network of smaller cannons that enhanced the velocity and power of his thrust.
"Chakra Lupara!" Kusagoro roared as his palms shifted into cannons and upon impact with the falling sleeper exploded in a diagonal upwards blast of chakra that extended all the way to the upper layers of the atmosphere and lit up the environment around so immensely that it would've completely blinded Mana had she not been moved away from the line of the light. It was so fast that she would've never had enough time to react normally, she was lucky that Kouta was so close to her.
Kusagoro looked up at the sky and cursed.
"Even that wasn't enough to blow you to bits, huh? Well, what you have with your tough head, you contrast with piss-poor alcohol tolerance..." the shinobi declared canceling his transformation. Seeing how she was pressed hard against Kouta's chest the girl felt firmly the boy taking an easier deep breath like a stone was just rolled off of his chest.
"I'm glad father can at least switch it on and off at will..." he explained after letting go of Mana. Despite feeling a bit awkward by the amount of time she spent in the young man's grasp the girl just nodded and looked away trying to move her focus as far away from the medical ninja as possible. She didn't want to blush or do anything that'd betray her awkwardness felt over the situation.
"W-What's that?" Meiko's shaking voice then shifted Mana's focus onto something truly unbelievable. Right after seeing it the magician's mind's reach expanded so wide trying to comprehend this larger than life sight that she felt migraine kicking in and forcing her to close her eyes and rub her temples to ease the pain. And yet, the blacksmith's voice was more enthusiastic than afraid – at this point, Mana barely believed that the redhead felt anything else than hype.
"I think that's... A hand... Two in fact..." Shimo gave his version. Mana then reopened her eyes and looked into the sky, it was quite impossible not to notice that epic sight but Shimo hit the nail on the head quite nicely.
Up in the sky two gigantic palms covering most of the skyline were closing in on the Earth, Mana could already feel the air getting heavier and it wasn't because of her shortness of breath over seeing this sight. It was unquestionably because of the problematic entry of such an object to the planet she was standing on. It looked like those impossibly gargantuan hands covered the span of a large city each by itself, maybe even one of the larger islands.
Kusagoro nonchalantly activated his transformation again letting black marks cover up even more of his body meanwhile the curse mark hieroglyphs took over the paler patches of his skin. The hair once again curled the same way like before and the hands wrapped in the transformed hardened tissue. The shinobi lifted his palm up in the air and extended his hand catching a dragging drop kick by re-entering orbit and crashing like a meteor Francho. The emanating shockwave sliced off the chunk of the ocean like a lightning fast ninja cutting a watermelon, the immense pressure sliced deep into the mantle surfacing streams of magma.
Kusagoro's crazy Curse Mode state smiled with excitement, without a doubt under any other circumstances he'd have grunted with annoyance that he still didn't get rid of this pesky pirate.
"I absorbed more than ninety percent of the shockwave, you'd have sliced a chunk of the Earth off like an onion with that thing alone! Your stupid enlarged hands could've squashed entire villages if you tried! What kind of a stunt you're pulling here!?" he yelled out in excitement. The violent urges present in the reset transformation demanded that Kusagoro bashed his enemy as violently as possible and squished him like a tomato.
With Francho's body recovering, his elongated and enlarged hands returning to normal and snapping back in place the Akimichi curled into a human boulder and rolled aside to what he thought as safe distance before uncurling himself and clutching his kicking knee and his chest. The man's entire body was trembling and he breathed heavily. It was obvious that he was in an indescribable amount of pain. Together with Kusagoro's previous technique, there was the strain of re-entry as well as the backlash of his kick being stopped so suddenly focusing on his busted knee. The kneecap there must've been a handful of bone dust...
Meiko shouted out pointing at the pirate. Right after calming her childish shriek of joy after witnessing a clash like that she noticed an important detail – the Akimichi pill case given to the pirate by the monks he spoke of before. Francho was holding it in his teeth. "Look, there are only three pills left!" she shouted out.
"Yeah, he must've taken another pill to successfully expand his body like that... It's a feat of Akimichi ability mastery and chakra control beyond a simple pirate's reach" Shimo nodded.
"How is he even alive at this point?" Mana couldn't fathom.
"Father shouldn't have thrown him into space again, all the cold air, while he left orbit, must've refreshed his head and after a while, he must've woken up..." Kouta shrugged, he also had trouble understanding how both his father and the Pirate Lord were still going at it. If the Pirate Lord had the might to match his father's when the former held back, how come after taking so many hits from the Pirate his father was as fresh and good to go as he was? The endurance and power of both combatants were almost impossible to believe.
"Now! Father, strike now while the pill's after-effect is working!" Kouta shouted at his father who just looked back at him and then turned back to the Pirate Lord.
"Wait!" Mana shouted out, "Look at him, his body is ruined, stop this meaningless fight and just let him leave!" she begged the man who was as likely to listen to her begs as pigs were to retell poems by heart.
Francho stood back on both legs, struggling to do so and coughing up blood, clutching at his burning sides and looking in a mean and banged up state, missing more teeth than he was missing when he appeared before them and with a well busted up nose.
"The brat's got a point. The second pill's after-effects are permanent. It allowed me to partially expand my body to as large as my chakra pool allowed it to go but I need meds to treat my condition now..." Francho laughed out while clutching at his gut after the laughter got much too painful.
"And?" Kusagoro asked taking a fighting stance, "Am I supposed to care about any of it? You just admitted your loss to a man who did his best to restrain charging at you recklessly"
Francho thundered out in laughter again before clutching at his aching ribs once more. "Make no mistake, ninja, I make no requests to spare me, I just inform you why my hand is as forced as it is to do what I must..." he said after opening up the entire pill case and removing the third red pill and lifting it to show.
"This one's tricky, it is said to boost my chakra and my body more than a hundred times over but it'd also kill me as a result afterward... It's the final Akimichi pill – the Chili pill, the rest are custom made, each a treasure all by themselves" Francho looked at the red pill in awe. Kusagoro prepared to throw a good punch at the central section of the pirate's body and crush his innards to a gooey mass inside. Right in the midst of this momentous concluding blow Francho's fingers crushed the pill and ground it to red dust that the stormy ocean winds scattered.
Kusagoro stopped in the middle of his charge confused by his opponent's behavior. Maybe Francho didn't know that his odd stunt just saved his life, maybe he did so on purpose but the pirate just removed two other pills and showed them to Kusagoro who was just good four meters away. The ninja could've possibly snagged those pills away and crushed them just like Francho did before with the Chili pill but it would've demanded the total focus of Kusagoro's mind which he didn't quite have. Right now the confused mess still tried to process Francho's actions as well as control himself from lashing out at his allies.
"I don't want to win and die afterward, nor do I plan to waste the Box for just keeping me alive! Such is the behavior of heroes or cowards! I am neither, I am a pirate! A Pirate Lord, one of the three ruling the seas and such death isn't fitting a man like me" Francho flicked the fourth pill to his mouth crushing it between his teeth.
"A Pirate Lord just wins and takes what he wants, doing with his booty whatever he wants!" Francho announced laughing out.
"Father! Stop him from taking the last pill!" Kouta yelled out and his son's voice finally broke Kusagoro out of the negotiations with his own mind. The man leaped in to remove the pill from his fingers faster than any movement he had made thus far but a strong blunt force shoved him away – Francho's arm enlarged and extended again slamming Kusagoro into the Box and holding the man to it. The Pirate had no ability to hold the man down as the Jugo simply broke the arm with a powerful slam and moved on but it bought just enough time for Francho to pop the last pill.
A moment of silence kicked in before the switch of the two different stages of the battle. Between a battle fought to win and a battle fought to survive!