DISCLAIMER: I OWN NOTHING, EXCEPT RAGNAR AND ALL VIKINGS IN THIS STORY! ONE PIECE BELONGS TO EICHIRO ODA, VIZ MANGA, TOEI ANIMATION AND FUNIMATION ENTERTAINMENT/CRUNCHYROLL LLC
Chapter 16: Protect Kaya! The Usopp Pirates' Great Efforts!
In the forests of the island, The Usopp Pirates continued running, leading Kaya through every dirt path they knew from their time playing. They knew where they had to go: straight for Ulfthorpe, as Usopp ordered them to.
"Onion, is that weird hypnotist guy still behind us!?" Pepper asked his spectacled friend.
"No! I can't see him anymore!" Onion replied, "Let's make sure, and lose him for good!"
"There's no way that nutjob can catch up to us in our own forest!" Carrot remarked.
"Don't you worry, Ms. Kaya! The Usopp Pirates are gonna keep you safe and sound until we reach Ulfthorpe!"
"That's right! Like the Wolf Clan, the Usopp Pirates stand by their word!"
"Thank you so much…" Kaya told them weakly, her illness hindering her from not running as fast. Even as they ran, however, a sudden whizzing came from behind them. The four of them turned to see the trees fall with a thunderous crash, as if they'd been sawed clean in half! Jango was hot on their trail!
Jango caught his two chakrams as they returned back to his hands. He had to accomplish the mission, at least. His life depended on it! Yet even so, this forest was unfamiliar even for him. If only he'd spent three years on this island, like Kuro did, then he'd at least be able to know every secret it had to offer.
"Well, they're not there, huh?" He muttered, "BOYS, I'M COMING TO GET YOU! DO YOU REALLY THINK YOU CAN RUN FROM ME!?" He then called out. Pepper, Onion and Carrot all hid beneath the fallen trunk of a tree, with Kaya catching her breath and remaining out of sight. "WE COULD DO THIS THE EASY WAY, OR I COULD JUST LEVEL THIS ENTIRE FOREST!"
"Whoa…that guy's really mad!" Carrot muttered.
"And he can do a lot more than just hypnotize people!" Pepper added.
"Where have you gone!?" Jango muttered, turning away from their hiding spot to another part of the forest. The boys and Kaya were thankful that the danger had passed them over, but Carrot looked like he was about to sneeze. Pepper and Onion looked in shock. He could give away their position! Quickly, the two boys covered their friend's nose and mouth, silencing him, much to their relief. "COME OUT, COME OUT WHEREVER YOU ARE!" Jango shouted as he continued searching for them. At that moment, all could hear the blaring of a war horn. A Viking was close!
Ragnar, Zoro and Usopp were all in equally hot pursuit. Luffy gave them an order, and they were damned if they weren't going to follow it to the letter.
"Ragnar! What do you smell?" Zoro asked, leaving the navigation to his quartermaster.
"Definitely the scent of blood," replied the Viking, "It's Jango's no less, but I also picked up the scent of those three boys. We must be getting close!" Ragnar then took out a war horn and blew it four times, to let the boys and Kaya know help was on the way.
"Good! That probably means they're way ahead of that hypno-freak," Usopp added, "If he hasn't found them yet, then we still have a chance!"
Kaya followed the boys once more, but all of a sudden dropped to her knees once they came to a great boulder with the rotting remains of a fallen tree providing shade. The Usopp Pirates looked on in shock. This was bad. If Jango found them now, it was game over!
"I'm sorry, boys," Kaya told them, "You three should go on without me."
"What are you talking about!?" Carrot asked, "We're under strict orders to protect you!"
"Oh no! Guys, this is bad," Onion told them, feeling Kaya's forehead, "She's got a really bad fever."
"What!? Hang in there, Kaya! We'll get you to a doctor when we reach Ulfthorpe."
"You idiot! We don't have time for that," Pepper reminded them both, "Someone's trying to kill her!"
"But it's too dangerous for her to run anymore!"
"Yeah but…"
"SHOW YOURSELVES, YOU RUNTS!" Jango yelled out, throwing his chakrams again, striking through trees like a saw. He was getting closer!
"Thank you…for helping me," Kaya told the boys, "Just the thought is more than enough. Now go, all of you."
"Where did you brats go?" Jango asked out, "IT'S NO USE RUNNING! COME ON OUT!" Now the boys had to come to an ultimatum. It was either abandon Kaya, or stay with her.
"If we left Kaya and ran away right now, we would probably survive, right?" Pepper asked.
"Yeah, probably," said Onion.
"And our captain always said run with your tail between your legs if you think you're gonna lose," added Carrot.
"Then again," Pepper remembered, "Our captain is a liar."
"But even he didn't take his own advice," said Onion, "He tried so hard to protect us. He risked his life for us!"
"Yeah, and we swore to protect Kaya," Carrot stated.
"Alright then," Pepper declared, placing his bat in the center of the shovel and frying pan, "Prepare yourselves Usopp Pirates!"
"We gotta fight him!"
"Let's do it!"
"Stop this!" Kaya begged, "You're no match for him! You're only kids! You mustn't put your lives on the line for my sake!"
"If we don't wanna die, we have to fight for our lives!" Carrot told her, "Just like our captain always said." They would stand and fight Jango, even if it meant that they died trying.
However, they had no clue that Jango found some of their footprints!
"Gotcha!" He muttered with a smile. He was hot on the trail once more.
Meanwhile, back on the slope, Kuro was flat on his face after Luffy smashed him with that stone. All the Black Cat Pirates looked on in utter shock, whilst the Vikings under Sigrun were amazed at his power. Captain Kuro's cat claw was broken!
"That leaves only five more of those weird swords," Luffy guessed as he smiled, setting the boulder down.
"Don't worry guys!" One of the Black Cat Pirates told his crewmates, "He can still fight plenty!"
"Yeah. He still has that other claw!"
"You can do it! Rip that guy to shreds, Captain Kuro!" With that, the entire crew began to cheer their captain onwards, urging him to kill Luffy as he got up.
"Shut your mouths…ALL OF YOU!" He snapped at his crew, and they all fell silent as he rose to his feet, his usually slicked back hair now coming slightly undone from the force of the impact. "Soon enough, I'll deal with all of you in the manner that you deserve: Extermination! Then, I'll kill that fool, Jango!" At this, the crew was shocked. He was going to kill them!? What would drive him to such insanity!?
"But…why kill us, Captain!?"
"Yeah, please don't joke around like that, Captain Kuro!"
"It's still not too late for us to attack the village, right?"
"Yeah, and if Captain Jango gets her to write her will, the plan should still work perfectly!" However, Kuro only smiled sadistically at his lackeys.
"This plan is no longer any of your concern! When all of you are dead, this village will know exactly who to blame for this atrocity!" Kuro told them, shocking them horrifically! They were just pawns after all! "I never intended for any of you lackwits to leave this island alive. No one…No one who knows my true identity can be allowed to live to talk about it!"
"No…! It can't be…!"
"You were planning to kill every last one of us from the very beginning!"
"That's right," Kuro chuckled sinisterly, "Three years ago, I planned to erase Captain Kuro, and every last person who ever knew him! It's all part of my plan!"
"You're a sick, twisted man, Kuro," Luffy growled, "There's no way pirates like you will ever be cool."
"We're uncool, huh?" Kuro asked Luffy, "Pirates and Vikings both are nothing more than barbarians, incapable of rising above their animalistic nature! Without my plans, what could those idiots hope to even accomplish! A crew is nothing to me! They are simply a means to an end. Crew members are just pawns in the Captain's game; whether they live or die is up to me, and me alone! If I tell them to fight, they will fight, and if I order them to die, then they'd better do it! They know the punishment for insubordination…!" Yet Luffy just looked on with a glare. He didn't believe in such a philosophy one bit. Shanks and the Lion Clan set the example for him years ago. Seeing that the boy was unphased, Kuro grew only further frustrated. His words were falling on deaf ears, it seemed, "THIS IS HOW PIRATES AND VIKINGS ARE! DON'T YOU DARE TALK DOWN TO ME, BOY!" The Black Cat Pirates and the Wolf Clan both glared at Kuro. They were just barbarians to him, were they? Now he really had it coming.
"Y'know, no matter how many hundreds or thousands of men follow you as their captain," Luffy declared with a confident grin, "You will never be as good as Usopp!"
"You fool!" Kuro snarled, "Are you insinuating that I am inferior to a mere boy pretending to be a pirate!?"
"That's right!" Luffy told him, causing Kuro to only laugh in disbelief.
"Well, aren't you funny! Don't get too cocky because you snapped off one of my Cat Claws!" Kuro declared, "How exactly is he better than me!? Let's hear it!" Kuro then began sidestepping in his Pussyfoot Maneuver in an attempt to ambush Luffy, but the Straw Hat only used his Haki to its fullest potential. He knew exactly where Kuro was!
"He and I were both raised by Vikings. Plus, he's got heart!" Luffy declared, shocking Kuro with his response.
"He's got what!?" Asked the fake butler. He was totally unprepared to see Luffy stretching his arm out and the back of the boy's fist coming closer to his face.
"A GUY LIKE YOU DOESN'T KNOW WHAT A TRUE PIRATE IS!" Luffy declared, as he smashed Kuro in the side of his face, sending him flying towards the cliff wall. All those who saw were struck dumb. He was able to predict all of Kuro's moves, no! He was two steps ahead of him even! Luffy only looked at Kuro through the dust cloud, knowing that the fight wasn't over just yet.
"How insulting…!" Kuro growled with a venomous tone, styling back his hair and smiling maliciously at his opponent, "It would appear that you need a lesson in what real pirates are like! It's not pleasant. Your first lesson will be about terror: a lesson I learned countless times as I've stared down death!" Kuro got up and only began swaying side to side, his back hunched over and his arms limp. As he did so, the Black Cat Pirates looked on in shock. They knew that movement anywhere!
"Hey! Should he be in that stance!?"
"No! This is bad!"
"Why is he using that technique!?"
"He's only fighting one guy! There's no reason to use the Out of the Bag Attack!"
"This isn't a good spot for us! I mean, he could hit us too!"
"Yeah; he did say he was gonna kill us all, earlier!"
"Please, Captain Kuro! Anything but that technique!"
"We're begging you, Captain! Let us live!"
Sensing danger, Sigrun blew her own horn, and her warriors retreated to a safe distance at the top of the slope, away from whatever was about to happen.
"What's the big deal?" Luffy muttered, noticing how scared Kuro's crew was to the point that they were pleading for their lives, "He's just swaying back and forth." Something wasn't right, and both Luffy and Nami seemed to know it. There was no way Kuro's crew would be so scared by this without a good reason, they wouldn't be begging for him to stop unless they knew what was to come. That was when Luffy sensed it – time seemed to slow down, and not like how it was whenever he and Nami looked into each other's eyes. No, this instance could only be described as sheer horror! He could only hear the panic and fear from Kuro's men in garbled voices slowed, then time sped up again…all he heard next was Kuro's voice.
"OUT OF THE BAG ATTACK!" In a flash of purple tinged dust, Kuro disappeared! The dust clouds flew behind Luffy and descended down the slope, whatever was about to happen…it was coming!
Suddenly, one of the pirates was slashed right across the chest, blood spraying from the wound! It happened so fast; nobody even saw it coming. Luffy and Nami looked on in utter horror and shock.
"What's he doing down there!?" Luffy asked, horrified by what he saw. Then another man fell to the ground bloodied and slashed. The rock he used to beat Kuro's face then was slashed by the same claw marks, inches away from the Straw Hat. "That guy's everywhere!" Then a third man was struck, and a fourth, a fifth, a sixth even! In the panic, Luffy and Nami could hear their panicked cries.
"DON'T DO THIS, CAPTAIN! PLEASE STOP!"
"It's no use! We're all gonna die!" Another screamed, "We can't reason with him now that he's started! His sidestep maneuver is so fast, not even he knows what he's cutting!"
"But how could he have killed so many of us without even…!" An eighth man then felt the cold steel cleave his heart before he had the chance to finish speaking.
'What's happening out there!? People are just getting cut to ribbons!' Nami thought, as she just stared on at the carnage that was unfolding before her eyes. Then she noticed Luffy, standing there, taking cut after cut as he watched men die before his eyes. This was no battle anymore…it was murder.
Luffy only felt the rage within him boil over, like the magma chamber of a volcano filling rapidly. How could a captain like Kuro kill his own men so coldly like that!? These men spent years together with him, laughed and feasted in his company, and now he was killing them without any regard for the times they spent together! He didn't even deserve to be called a pirate captain!
"DON'T YOU HAVE ANY HONOR!? THOSE MEN ARE YOUR FRIIIIIEEEEENNNDDDSSS!" He roared as loud as he could. In that instant, a massive blast of Haki seethed from Luffy, knocking out everyone who stood in its wake. Many of the Black Cat Pirates fainted from the effect, foaming at the mouth and collapsing unconscious, eyes rolling to the backs of their sockets, even as Kuro still continued the slaughter. The Vikings of the Wolf Clan were just barely conscious as the wave past over them, struggling to stay awake.
Nami was horrified by the sight of what she witnessed. She remembered seeing Luffy getting this angry back at Orange Town, back when Buggy damaged his straw hat, but this was far worse. Kuro pushed him too far over the edge with this treachery.
"Luffy…" she only muttered. She saw the wave dissipate as it reached the ship. She was safe from whatever knocked out the pirates, but she still watched on in horror. This battle was reaching its climax.
With his Observation Haki kicking in at full power, Luffy could see where Kuro was, right beside him! As he felt the wind flow by him, he stretched his arm out and caught Kuro by the blazer, and with one swing, knocked the Man of a Thousand Plans hard onto his back, slamming him into the ground.
"I found you…! It's over!" He growled. He only watched as Kuro stood, grinning sadistically as blood trickled down his forehead.
"You bastard!" Kuro hissed, "You should've accepted your fate like a good boy. Now, look what you've done! Thanks to you, my little pawns are still alive and in misery. It would've been better just to let them die in my attack!" Luffy only glared with seething hot rage at Kuro, not even saying anything as he watched the murderous butler stand. "So, now what? Do you have something to say?"
"No matter what happens today," Luffy began, "I will absolutely, never be like you!"
"Oh? Is that so?" Kuro chuckled, directing all five blades of his remaining Cat Claws right at Luffy's face, "In a manner of speaking, you are right about that…because someone like you can't be like me!" The two captains only glared at each other, their hatred seething like a raging inferno. Yet Kuro only backed up further to the top of the slope, "You see, boy. You are going to die here on this hill today, but not before you scream and writhe in agony as I gut you like a fish! I'm going to carve you up, and I will enjoy it to the fullest degree…!" Then he began swaying, preparing for another attack.
"OH NO YOU WON'T!" Luffy yelled, punching Kuro before he could even unleash another wave of murderous bloodshed. This battle was going to end here and now, and he was going to ensure that nobody died today.
Meanwhile, further inland, and far from the field of carnage, Jango's tracking skills were finally paying off. He could tell that the children and Kaya were close by, smirking in confidence that he would finally achieve part of the mission, blissfully unaware that his own captain was planning to betray him too.
"COME ON OUT, YOU BRATS!" He yelled out, "I KNOW YOU'RE HIDING! NOW SURRENDER YOURSELVES!" As soon as he fell silent, he saw a white flag of truce flying overhead. Had he actually found them?
"We surrender!" Pepper cried out, "We'll hand her over to you! Come over here, and we'll take you to her! Just don't kill us!"
"Do those kids honestly think I'm stupid?" Jango asked rhetorically, "It's obviously a trap. There's no way I'm falling for whatever those little rugrats have planned." Yet as he walked closer towards the fallen trunk, a rope snapped taught, right in his path, sending him falling forward. 'Oh dammit…' he thought as he crashed face first into the ground.
"We got him!" Pepper shouted, "NOW!" Onion rushed from the bushes and forced Jango onto his back, shaking black pepper all over his face.
"Pepper attack!" He yelled, forcing Jango to sneeze in pain, while his nose and eyes stung, while Carrot struck a frying pan right into the hypnotist's genitals, then the boys retreated out of sight as Jango tried with all his might to stand, sneezing, and trying to force the pepper out of his system.
"I knew it…" he muttered, "Those little snots were lying to me from the beginning!" As he let out another sneeze, the boys pushed the log they hid behind right onto Jango's feet before jumping down from the boulder in an effort to attack them. Yet Jango only dodged Pepper and Carrot's attack and caught Onion by the neck. "Looks like you bit off a little more than you could chew…boy!" He hissed, venom seething from his tone, "Real pirates don't take kindly to being mocked by the likes of you!" Then he threw Onion aside, slamming him against a tree, his anger fueling his cruelty, "You pretend pirates sure are in over your heads, aren't you?" He asked Pepper and Carrot before throwing them aside as well. "Rich Girl! I know you're here, so listen well!" He shouted out, "Unless you show yourself, I'll execute these three little lambs! And I will ensure to do it in the most painful way possible! Do not doubt my skill at such a task!" Jango did not have to wait long, however, as Kaya rose from her hiding spot, a grim determined look on her face.
"Ms. Kaya! Run for your life!" Pepper cried to her.
"There's no need for anymore violence," Kaya told Jango, "Please, leave these children alone. I'll write the will." Then she looked to the boys, tears about to form on her eyes, "I'm sorry…"
"Silly girl. Don't you know you can't bargain with me?" Jango asked in a condescending tone, "Captain Kuro specifically instructed me to kill any and all witnesses." He then turned to the Usopp Pirates with a sadistic grin before…his chakram! It was gone! Jango looked around, only to spot Kaya holding the blade to her throat.
"If you don't do exactly as I say, then you won't get to kill me! And I won't write my will!" Kaya shouted, pressing the edge of the weapon to her skin. Jango was shocked! She was actually going to kill herself!
"Hold on! Hold on! Just calm down! Don't be so hasty!" He replied, panicking, "I absolutely have to get you to write that will!" Now he was desperate. If he didn't do something soon, then all this would have been for naught. "Alright! Fine! I'll…" but before he could finish, a gust of wind passed by, followed by a loud THUNK! Everyone turned, and saw a francisca throwing axe embedded deep into the log. Ragnar, Zoro and Usopp had finally caught up with them!
A/N: Wow! This is definitely an intense battle, and Luffy is by all means pissed! And we may have just seen a burst of Conqueror's Haki from the future King of the Pirates. Not surprising, given his lineage, and even fitting.
Now, time for some more interesting Viking lore. At the end of the chapter, we see Jango's attempts to get Kaya to sign her will interrupted by a favorite Viking shock weapon, a throwing axe. This specific type of axe is called a francisca, named after the Germanic tribe which was famous for using them - the Franks, who also gave their name to modern day France. It's one of the most beautiful weapons of the early Middle Ages, and was also used by the Anglo-Saxons as well as the Vikings.
This was used as a way to soften up enemy ranks, either incapacitating them, or killing them if they weren't well armored, and it would certainly distract them, as we saw with Jango; even taking them out of the fight. Generally, a warrior would carry two of these weapons in a pair on the belt. A skilled warrior could throw a francisca at up to 50 yards into the enemy ranks. It would definitely hurt, and would be absolutely terrifying seeing these axes hurdling through the air, and all over the battlefield rolling in. Just imagine it, hundreds of axes flying all over the place from different angles and distances, it would be really difficult to protect yourself against that.
