Nexus HWR 11.7 Natsu vs Luffy:
"Damn it," Natsu muttered. The Fire Dragon Slayer had been walking for a few days, but the sun was rising to its peak directly above him, and he had yet to find a single person he was looking for. None of his enemies from the battles earlier in the week, nor any of his comrades who he was separated from. He stopped and looked up at the bright sky above him for a moment. There were some dark clouds in the sky in front of him, some more on his left and right, but the sky was clear behind him. "That way's probably south," he muttered and looked back at the clearer section of sky.
He looked down from the sky and stared at the exact landscape he just walked over. Despite not wanting to walk into the cloudy area where he would no longer be able to see the sun and know which direction he was heading, going backwards would be the even more counterproductive. He groaned and looked back the way he was originally heading, "Alright, just keep heading straight and you won't get turned around." The Dragon Slayer shoved his hands into his pockets and started walking again.
He sped up after taking a drink and jogged over dark black fields for miles before looking around again and making sure he was not going in circles. All around him, the ground was black as the dark sky, and Natsu grimaced at the dead planet around him. "Even monsters don't want to come over here," he muttered as he kept walking. "So what the Hell am I doing here?"
Natsu wandered across the desolate wasteland into the long hours of the day, even after it started raining he kept up his trek. Once again, he saw no one for hours and even when he spotted a forest in the distance, he did not feel too excited. All he looked forward to was hopefully finding some food to eat in the woods. Natsu went in, found some low-hanging fruit he could grab, though most of the trees looked picked dry. He wound up eating some unripe fruit, then catching a rabbit that he cooked and chowed down on.
Once he was satisfied with his meal, he started walking again looking for something else to satisfy his hunger. He found it halfway through the forest as a bolt of lightning crashed down on a tree near him. Natsu waited as the flames on the tree spread and made more and more of the forest catch on fire. At first he just wanted to eat more flames, but the longer he watched the fire and waited the better this idea sounded to him. If anyone I know sees this fire go out suddenly, they'll know I'm here.
Natsu thought it was the best plan ever, so when he swallowed up all the forest fire flames, and no one showed up, he started feeling pretty stupid. After waiting for over thirty minutes near the smoking trees, Natsu shoved his hands into his wet pockets and started walking again. "Well it was a good plan anyway," he mumbled to himself while his hair got soaked by the downpour and pressed his bangs down into his eyes. "More people probably would have saw the fire if it wasn't raining so hard."
Just as he was saying it, the rain started to let up. He kept walking and all of a sudden reached the edge of the forest. One second there were trees all around him, the next there was a large field of bluish-green grass with scattered trees around it. The trunks were short, only a little taller than the average human, with spherical canopies of green leaves at the tops of them. Natsu stepped out of the forest he was in and slid down a dirt slope next to the forest so he could hit the lower elevated field. "These changes in environments are too weird," he muttered and scratched the side of his head. The rain had stopped coming down as well and Natsu grumbled, "From the black desert to a rainforest to some blue plains all in a few hours. It's unnatural."
As Natsu was walking across the blue plains, he was looking around at the scattered trees and checking if they had any fruit on them he could pick for later. These trees looked even more bare than the ones in the forest though, and Natsu grumbled in annoyance as he kept getting let down. One of the trees he was looking up at looked like it had been recently picked, with fruit stems still handing off of branches like they had just had fruit on them. What he did see after looking down from that tree though, got him more excited than fruit ever could.
There was a person walking not a hundred yards in front of him. The person stepped out behind a tree and looked left and right. He was searching for something too by the looks of it. Natsu started sprinting towards him and he opened his mouth to yell, but instead lowered it at the sight of the man's face when he turned his way. Natsu's eyes bugged out and he kept running forward before skidding to a stop twenty yards away from the skinny man with black hair. He was shirtless, revealing the large X-shaped scar on his stomach, and he had some minor cuts and bruises just like Natsu. "Luffy!" Natsu exclaimed at the sight of the pirate whose straw hat flapped behind him in the wind by the string around his neck.
Luffy stared at the other man for a few seconds, then turned back forwards and said, "Oh, it's just you."
Natsu's eyes turned white and he shouted, "What kind of reaction is that?!" He started marching towards Luffy and he yelled, "I didn't want you to be the first one I found either! Deal with it!" His eyes went back to normal as he got ten yards away and he asked, "Have you seen anyone else since we all got moved around?"
"Since we what?" Luffy asked, his eyes going wide. "Do you know what happened to my crew?" Luffy demanded to know, marching towards Natsu.
"Calm down," Natsu growled at him. "They're fine. I heard from some guy I passed that the entire region we were in got shifted around. The entire landmass got randomly rearranged and so did everyone on it."
"Huh? How did that happen?" Luffy asked.
"I think it was one of Zeref's generals, that chick with the red hair," Natsu muttered. "So then, you haven't seen anyone else since that day?" Natsu asked him.
Luffy frowned deeply and he started walking again. "Where are you going?" Natsu asked from behind him.
"Find my crew," Luffy replied.
"And why do you think they're that way?" Natsu asked. He looked right and it did not look any better than the left. "Why don't we go this way?"
"Because this is the right way," Luffy stated baselessly.
Natsu's hands clenched into fists. "What makes you say that?"
"Instinct," Luffy answered. He stopped walking and looked back at Natsu, because his Haki just picked up on something. Natsu's clenched fists clenched harder at the look Luffy just gave him and instead of unclenching them, they started smoking.
"I'm getting real tired of your attitude," Natsu snarled. "You should look at someone when you're talking, got it?" Luffy stared blankly at him and Natsu shouted again, "Say something!" Luffy frowned at him and Natsu muttered loudly, "I was heading that way," he pointed straight ahead of him, not to the right like Luffy was going. "So that's the best direction to go. Best chance of finding Ben and everyone."
"This way's the right way," Luffy said. He pointed his hand the way he wanted to go and said, "It's the way we're going."
"Yeah, says who?" Natsu asked, narrowing his eyes.
"I did," Luffy said. "And I'm the Captain."
"You're not my captain," Natsu growled back. "You're just a rubber idiot."
Luffy clenched his teeth and some veins appeared on his forehead. "Ehh?"
"You heard me," Natsu said with a smirk.
Luffy twisted a finger in his left ear and said, "No, I didn't. Your Fire Dragon Squeak was too quiet."
"It's ROAR!" Natsu roared at him, taking a step forward. When Natsu took his step towards Luffy though, Luffy did the exact same thing and took a step towards Natsu. They were only ten feet away from each other now. Not a person was around for miles. "Nami's not here to get you out of this now," Natsu taunted. "I've been waiting for this for too long."
Luffy's lips curled up and he stated, "I'm gonna kick your ass."
"I'm all fired up!" Natsu yelled. He charged at Luffy and pulled back his right fist. No flames even surrounded his fists and Luffy grinned as Natsu swung his right fist at him predictably. His Haki kicked in and he dodged simply by leaning a little to the right- BAM! A fist slammed into the right side of Luffy's face and he lifted off the ground. He did a flip in midair and landed on both feet that he skid back across the grass on.
Luffy reached up a hand and rubbed the corner of his lip to get some dirt off. Natsu smirked at him from thirty feet away and he laughed tauntingly, "Didn't think I remembered your Haki? That won't work!" Natsu kicked off the ground and shot the thirty foot distance in a second. Luffy stepped towards him though and this time did not attempt to dodge. He just brought forward his right fist hard as Natsu did the same. He slammed his fist into the other boy's, and the two of them held their arms outstretched for a second as they pushed into each other. Their faces were only a foot apart and the two of them ground their teeth as they glared into each other's eyes. Then, Luffy yelled out and slammed hard down, pushing Natsu's fist down into the floor. As Natsu's fist hit the ground, Luffy kicked up with his left leg and slammed the spikier-haired boy under the chin.
Natsu lifted up in the air but he snapped his head down while flying up. He spun his body and held his fists out to his sides. Both fists covered in flames, and balls of fire grew over them. He brought up his hands above his head and the flames merged together. "Blaze Dragon's," Natsu yelled, and the sphere of flames grew three times bigger than his own body. "Brilliant Flame!" He threw the sphere of fire down.
Luffy looked up at the falling ball of flames and he punched his right fist out to the side. "Gear, Second." His arm pumped at the forearm and his body covered in steam. The ball of fire slammed down into the ground and Natsu started to fall from the air with a smirk on his face. Luffy suddenly appeared on his left side though with his teeth grinding together, an open palm facing Natsu, and his right fist held up at his side. Natsu was only mid-turn when Luffy yelled, "Jet Pistol!" His fist flew out and slammed into the side of Natsu's face.
Natsu did a spin in midair and kept spinning until he hit the ground and started tumbling over it. He tumbled over the ground for three spins before flipping himself upright and dragging his hands on the ground to slow himself down. Natsu's fingers dragged trenches through the floor and he skid to a stop a hundred feet away from Luffy who landed back on the ground still steaming. "Had enough?" Luffy yelled over, grinning again.
Natsu's lips were curled up in a smirk too though, and he yelled back, "Not even close!" An aura of fire surrounded his body and then he snapped his arms down to the sides and lightning bolts filled up his aura. "Lightning Dragon Slayer Mode!"
"Lightning doesn't work on me," Luffy began in a smug tone, but his eyes opened a little wider as Natsu shot off the ground much faster than he was previously moving. The steaming pirate held up his right hand and caught Natsu's right fist as the Dragon Slayer slammed it into him, and he brought forward his own right fist to slam into Natsu's face. His fist connected and pushed into Natsu's cheek, but the pink haired mage pushed his face right into it and roared.
"Lightning Blaze Dragon's," Natsu shouted as he slammed his other hand forward that Luffy was not blocking. "IRON FIST!"
A fist covered in flames and lightning slammed full force into Luffy's face. His head leaned back, flames and lightning shooting out behind him, and Luffy lost his grip on Natsu's other hand. Natsu smirked and thought Luffy was about to go flying, but suddenly his left fist screamed out in pain and he glared at the other side of his bloody knuckles to see Luffy's entire face covered in black. As Natsu saw Luffy's face covered in Busoshoku Haki, the pirate's left fist covered in the same black aura. Luffy slammed his left fist forward and Natsu crossed his arms in front of his body fast, but Luffy still yelled out, "RED HAWK!"
The fist pushed Natsu's arms into his chest and flames shot out behind him. He could feel bruises instantly forming on his arms, and he got lifted off the ground and tossed several yards back before skidding farther on his feet. He slid back across the grass, tearing it up as he went, until he was sixty feet away from Luffy. His head was bowed and he was looking at the floor at his feet, and then he snapped his head up and glared at the man who just punched him. "Is that all you've got?" Natsu asked, and Luffy's eyes widened more in surprise that his Red Hawk only managed to leave bruises on Natsu's arms and did not seem to damage him that much.
Natsu shot forward again, and he swung his right fist at Luffy. Luffy blocked with his own arm but Natsu's fist was covered in flames so it hurt even though he was made of rubber. The next kick that Natsu swung at him, Luffy traded a blow with his own leg, but this time he covered it in Haki to protect himself from the flames. As Natsu's leg was about to collide though, Luffy heard with his Observational Haki that Natsu was coming in for an uppercut under his chin. He hardened the bottom of his chin, and then a leg slammed into his left temple.
Luffy went flying and tumbled across the ground for a few seconds before flipping up and skidding back on his feet this time. His steam went away as he came to a stop and Luffy rubbed his left lip where a trail of blood was coming down. "It doesn't matter if you can hear me!" Natsu yelled over at him. Cobra, if I never fought you, Luffy would have been impossible to fight. Natsu smirked thinking about his fight with the Poison Dragon Slayer of Oracion Seis. "You can't predict my moves!"
"I don't need to," Luffy growled back. "As long as I'm faster than you." He pumped down his legs again and ground his teeth in pain at using Gear Second twice this close together as it had just worn off. Luffy vanished, and appeared on Natsu's left side. The Dragon Slayer turned and rose his arms, but Luffy was suddenly behind him and the mage felt him there a second too late. He started to turn, but heard, "Gum Gum Jet Whip!" A long leg swinging across the battlefield slammed into Natsu's gut and he hunched over it, coughing up some blood as the leg was covered in Armament Haki too.
Natsu went flying but he snapped his eyes open that were closed from the pain because he felt something above him. He tried lifting his arms to block, but Luffy was too fast and he slammed both of his legs down together, "Jet Spear!" Natsu hit the ground and created a massive crater down below the pirate floating above him. Natsu was at the bottom of a crater and he put his hands down below him to get up, but he heard another shout above him and looked up through the clearing dust to see Luffy grinding his teeth and throwing his arms back. Both of his hands were huge, covered in black, clenched into fists, and his arms were still steaming. "JET ELEPHANT GATTLING GUN!"
Luffy slammed one giant black fist into the ground after another so fast that his arms were less than blurs, they were practically invisible. Each fist slammed into Natsu so hard that he gasped out and dropped farther and farther into the growing crater. More and more of the ground around the crater was getting torn up as cracks tore through the surrounding landscape. Whole sections of ground lifted up and for miles people could feel the ground shaking. Neither of the men fighting knew it, but there were a lot of people very close to them, and their fight was within their sight.
"Sir, what should we do?"
"They're going to draw too much attention!"
The dark haired young man standing on top of a wall glared out into the distance at the man slamming giant black fists into the ground. His eyes narrowed, and he stated in a cold voice, "I will take care of this." He reached down to his waist and grabbed the hilt of a sword that he slowly slid out of its sheath. "They can not be allowed to run wild any longer."
Meanwhile, Luffy finally stopped smashing his arms down into the ground and dropped to the uplifted earth beneath him. The steam all over his body faded and his arms went back to their normal sizes. He was panting slightly, but he frowned down into the dark hole in front of him full of dust. "You shouldn't have fought me Natsu. You knew you couldn't beat me." Luffy glared into the pit, and then his Observational Haki picked up on something. The feeling was dark, and a light glow grew from the bottom of the hole.
"I knew that did I?" Natsu asked, his voice dark, angry, reaching all the way up to the pirate who could hear but not yet see him. He walked up the slope of the crater he was in and got out of the dust with a faint red aura of flames around him. His right eye was swollen shut and his arms were bruised and bloody at his sides. Luffy almost felt bad, but he probably would have felt worse if Natsu was not glaring at him like this fight was far from over. Natsu glared deep into Luffy's eyes and he snarled, "You're the one who shouldn't have picked a fight you can't finish."
Natsu's flames erupted into a mass around him much larger than the crater itself. Luffy leaned back and then had to take steps away from the hole because the flames were too hot to handle. Flames shot out of the cracks and fissures leading away from the larger hole, and the grass and trees burst into flames. The planet itself around them was on fire, and Natsu stepped out of the crater up to Luffy's level with a heat around him that was melting the pant legs off of Luffy's body. Luffy panicked and reached for his hat, but suddenly his clothes stopped melting. Natsu frowned, and Luffy glared right back at him, but Luffy's hand lowered from his back where he was reaching for his hat. Neither of them said a word about it, and the moment ended as soon as it started. They both started glaring at each other again.
Luffy looked into the Dragon Slayer's eyes and he saw a fury in them directed straight at him. The aura around Natsu no longer felt like fire, but an energy that was still hot but more powerful than what he felt before. "This is the energy I got from fighting Cooler," Natsu growled, his voice barely escaping the massive aura around him. "My body could barely contain it at the time, but now," the aura spiked and Natsu grinned over at Luffy. "I can control it like nothing." He took a deep breath and roared, "Arcosian Dragon Mode!" The aura glowed bright orange and grew even larger.
Natsu, Luffy thought. He felt something for the Dragon Slayer he did not normally feel. Natsu angered and aggravated him to no end, but all those times he boasted about being stronger than Natsu, he never thought he was really boasting. He figured he was telling the truth, and he still thought he was, but Natsu was putting up more of a fight than he had imagined. Jet Elephant Gattling Gun didn't work. Then, damn it, Luffy ground his teeth and he glared at the pink haired man.
"Yeah, I bet you didn't think you would have to use it," Natsu taunted over. "You never looked at me as your equal, but now you have to use that round form of yours, don't you?" Natsu asked. Luffy suddenly realized why Natsu was not charging at him. The Dragon Slayer was actually waiting for him to go Gear Fourth. He had a thought that Natsu was being stupid, but Natsu continued loudly, "If I don't beat you at your best, it wouldn't matter would it?!" He lifted up his fists and they glowed yellow inside the orange aura. "Now get to it, or do you not want to kick my ass anymore?" Natsu said and narrowed his eyes at the pirate.
There was no way Luffy could back down from that challenge. Natsu knew it, and the pirate captain knew that he knew it. Luffy snarled and his right arm turned black, "You asked for it, Natsu!" Luffy lifted up his arm and chomped down into the Armament Haki. Natsu had never seen Luffy turn into the form, only watched him while he used it, so he was confused at first as to why Luffy bit into himself. When Luffy chomped down though, the Haki spread to cover his arm rippling in muscles and then over his exposed chest where the black coloring dropped halfway down his torso before making swirling patterns. It ran across his other arm as his arms grew several notches in size. His legs stayed the same size, but they covered in a black coating as well, though the Armament Haki had a red tint to it as well while Luffy's entire body let off steam.
Luffy's eyes darkened and a darkness surrounded the outsides of them. His black hair spiked up and when he released a breath, steam came out of his mouth. "GEAR, FOUURRTHHUU!" The round rubberman yelled. "BOUNDMAN!" He dropped down on his feet and bounced up once, and then the bottoms of his feet covered in black darker than the dark red around the rest of his body. The next time he bounced and landed on the ground, he did not bounce back up. Luffy clenched his teeth in anger and he glared forward into Natsu's huge orange aura. "Get ready," Luffy growled.
"I always am," Natsu growled back. He kicked himself forward and his aura could barely keep up. Luffy lifted up his right arm though and his fist shot back into his own upper arm. His forearm and elbow curled back to make a large spring coiled up close to his shoulder looking like it had so much tension in it. Natsu spun around and tried kicking his opponent, but Luffy yelled, "Kong Gun!" His fist shot out of its coil and slammed into Natsu so fast the other man did not have time to put up a block.
So fast! Natsu thought, right before he was launched off of the fist and thrown into the distance. He broke though a burning tree that exploded in every direction and then he hit the ground and dragged through it, making a fissure that got wider the farther down he went. The already unsteady ground pushed apart in a long line that Natsu went pushing through, and every foot he got farther down hurt him more as the ground his body had to push through became harder and harder. When he finally stopped moving, he gasped out in pain and some blood splashed out of his mouth too. I didn't know this form of his was so strong. "Rgghh," Natsu growled, right before the walls caved in around him.
Luffy shot across the landscape to around the point he thought Natsu stopped plowing through the ground at. He stopped and bounced once, then came to a complete stop on the second time down. He glared at the ground below him that was lowered because of the collapsed walls that fell into the huge fissure. His eyes narrowed at it as the ground started to shake. All of the giant chunks of rubble and rocks started to glow and Luffy could feel the heat through the Haki on his feet. He vanished and appeared up in the air with a quick jump, and the ground below him melted a second later.
Beams of orange light shot up between cracks of melting rubble and shot up into the air. Luffy pulled his feet up into his thick thighs and he pumped his legs every few seconds to keep him flying. When beams of light flew at him, he turned his legs and shot out steam in the opposite direction as the one he wanted to dodge in. He dodged beam after beam, but then had to shoot up high in the sky as all the beams connected in one giant dome of orange light that spread wider to cover a square mile of ground.
Natsu flew up straight through the middle of the explosion and he brought his right fist far back behind him. His body was spinning and inside the orange explosion two snakes of fire wrapped around him like a double-helix of DNA. They rose up on his sides as he shot out of the top of the explosion and glared over at Luffy. Flames kept coming out of his feet and those two whips of flames shot up and kept spinning around him for a few seconds, before he grabbed onto them at the ends and snapped them forward with a crack. He whipped around the flames and as the explosion beneath him subsided, he swung them forward, "Arcosian Fire Dragon's Wing-"
Luffy appeared on his left side in an instant. Natsu shot more flames out of his feet and flew up as Luffy yelled, "Leo Bazooka!" Both of his fists flew right through the trails of flames beneath Natsu's feet, but the wind from the force of Luffy's attack was still enough to throw the dodging Dragon Slayer spinning across the sky.
Natsu swung his arms over at Luffy anyway and finished yelling, "ATTACK!" His wings of flames shot forward and wrapped around both of Luffy's arms. He pulled the pirate with him for a second, but Luffy pointed his legs at Natsu and shot out a puff of wind from his thighs that ripped Natsu's trails of flames apart and sent Luffy flying away from him. Neither of them fell to the ground, and they both shot back at each other in the air. They swerved around each other, one in a blur of orange, the other black but surrounded in a veil of the steam coming off of him.
The two of them crashed into each other in midair over and over. Shockwaves rippled off their collisions and their blurs smashed into each other harder with each hit. Natsu spun a kick and slammed it into Luffy's head, making the pirate do a backflip in midair. Luffy righted himself though and he swung a fist forward. Natsu dodged to the left, but Luffy's fist took a sharp turn and slammed into his side. Natsu brought up his guard just in time, and when Luffy's fist slammed into his left arm, Natsu focused all of his flames into that spot and the flames looked like they were alive for a second. Luffy's eyes widened as the face of a dragon surrounded his huge fist and raced up his long stretching arm, then chomped down its flaming jaws on him and made him yell out in pain. The force from his punch still sent Natsu flying even as Natsu's flames burnt him, and both men came crashing down into the ground a half mile apart from each other.
They stood at the bottom of a huge crater, staring a far distance at each other as they got back to their feet. Luffy's black pupils widened and small white circles appeared in the middle of them, encircling smaller black dots in the very center. Natsu's head was bowed and his face shadowed over, however through the darkness covering his face, Luffy could see glowing red eyes staring back at him. Natsu's arms started to cover in scales, and Natsu lifted up his head and shouted, "DRAGON FORCE!" The scales raced up his arms from his fists to his elbows, and both sides of his face covered in them as well. Natsu's body was still covered in an orange aura, but it suddenly pulsed bright yellow and Natsu screamed, "RAAAA!"
The scream was more in agony than anything else, but a few seconds later the orange aura pulsed bright yellow again and Natsu screamed once more. Luffy's eyes were widening, What the Hell is he trying to do? Is he… serious? Luffy watched as Natsu's eyes glowed yellow and so did the inside of his mouth. The pirate opened his mouth to shout at the other man to stop, but he stopped himself from doing so. He wondered why he opened his mouth in the first place; this was a fight, he was trying to beat Natsu no matter how strong he got. But, he's going to kill himself, Luffy thought, and he realized why he had opened his mouth in the first place. What do I care if he does?
Natsu's body started pulsing yellow in bursts closer together and Luffy could see Natsu was serious about trying this. If so, he knew he had to be completely serious too. Luffy rose up his right arm, his massive right arm, and he chomped into the side of his bicep. Even while filling himself with more energy than he thought he could take, Natsu saw what Luffy did and he stared through bright yellow eyes in shock at the pirate for a few seconds. Luffy's arm was getting even bigger, making him look even stronger than those last hits that were already making Natsu's body scream in pain. He was completely ignoring his own pain though at the moment. He was not even screaming as the yellow light pulsed through his body anymore, even as some of his skin on his torso and arms ripped off from pulses of light. "SUPERNOVA!" Natsu yelled, and he bent down his legs inside his aura. As soon as he bent his legs, the ground on either side of him and for half a mile back rose up in the air and disintegrated. I never liked you Luffy, and now you're going to understand just which of us is really strongest.
Debris rose up into Natsu's aura and incinerated immediately. His eyes kept glowing yellow and he watched as Luffy filled up his other arm now, making both arms much, much bigger than his own body. Luffy threw both of his huge arms behind him and they stretched back, giant six meter thick arms that flew fifty meters behind him. He ground his teeth and his fists opened up into wide open palms that he pressed together at the wrists. "NATTSSUUUU!" Luffy yelled. Bastard! I'll break every bone in your body!
Natsu unbent his legs so fast that he flew out of his own massive aura, but it raced to catch up to him and did by the time he reached the point in between himself and Luffy. "DRAGON SLAYER SECRET ART-" Treating me like crap! Acting like I have to do what you say…
Luffy also flew at Natsu at the same time. He reached the middle point right in front of Natsu and was screaming at the same time. "MASS DESTRUCTION-" Always questioning me in front of my crew! Pretending to be the captain on my ship…
Natsu brought his right fist back and his entire aura seemed to focus around a single point. "CRIMSON LOTUS-" Arrogant, annoying, rubber…
"LEOOOOO!" Luffy's arms thrown far behind him that had not yet started to follow his body began to fly forward. "BAAAZZOOOKAAAA!" He slammed both of his arms forward and they instantly shot in front of his body.
"PHOENIX CANNONNNN!" Natsu screamed and slammed his fist forward. All of the light around his hand pushed forward too and as the skin on his own fist shredded, the light erupted into the black hands that slammed against him.
A bright white light exploded from the collision of their attacks. From the outside, it was a dome of white light that spread out to cover a full mile out in every direction around them, then doubled in size and illuminated everything for a hundred miles in its white expanding glow. The two men could see each other inside the pure white light though, they made eye contact with their normal eyes. The purest light traveled up their arms and to their bodies, becoming so solid that they lost sight of each other inside it all. They could feel each other's hands inside the light still, even as it grew to insane proportions and the two inside lost most feeling except for pain. Despite the pain that filled each of their bodies though, a single thought passed through both of their minds at the same time.
… No matter what.
The enormous dome of white light collapsed in on itself. The ground beneath the dome shattered and burned, and the men inside it screamed. Natsu flew backwards so hard that he hit the ground and bounced, bounced again, and his eyes rolled into the back of his head as he started cartwheeling across the ground. Luffy tried covering as much of his body as he could in Haki, but even the black coating was not enough to protect him from the explosion surrounding him and he roared out as his blackened skin shredded.
For half a minute the white light remained. When it finally subsided, the landscape was unrecognizable. The forest that Natsu came out of in the northwest, the plains of blue grass and all the trees on them, they all looked the same as the black deserts around them. In fact, the ground here looked much worse than the previously Scorched deserts they had to trek through. There was no solid ground, only varying sizes of the chunk of earth one could stand on. Everything was cracked, and the elevation of the ground in the most damaged area was half a mile farther down than a half an hour before.
Natsu lay on his back, his skin smoking, his right arm broken at his side, along with most of his fingers. His eyes were open and staring straight up at the sky, and he was breathing in rapid breaths that were longer in than they were out. He could not finish deep breaths; he was at a loss for air and could barely breath out at all. Even when he coughed, his chest just hurt more and made it even harder for him to breath. He was bleeding out his chest, his stomach, and both of his arms had lost a lot of skin. The scales on his face started to fade like the ones on his left arm and his broken right.
Luffy lay face down on the ground, still in Gear Fourth. He never remembered being in so much pain while still in this form before. Akainu had burned him pretty bad in their fight in Metropolis, but the degree of burns this time were far beyond that. All the skin on his stomach had burned, along with his cheeks and forehead. The attack was directed straight into his hands, and they took the majority of the attack, but the front of his torso also took part of the brunt of it. His arms lost their black coating and were burnt bad, but his hands had completely lost their color and their skin altogether. His palms were bare, bleeding, and the back of his hands were black not from a Haki coating, but from blackened flesh.
The pirate lifted up his head a little and he kept panting, so that steam leaving his mouth filled up the air in front of his face. He took a few deep breaths to try and calm down his breathing, and the steam veil in front of him went down a little. When it faded, Luffy saw something that made him open up his eyes wide.
Natsu was staring straight up at the sky, but he also noticed the same thing Luffy just saw. He lifted up his head a little and looked in front of him. Ten feet past the soles of his feet, stood a man with straight black hair falling down to his shoulder blades. The man had a very sharp and thin sword in his right hand, and he was looking at Natsu's body in a manner that made the Dragon Slayer want to get up fast. He tried putting his arm down to help him up, except he unfortunately tried using his right arm and the broken arm filled him with agonizing pain. "RAAA!" He yelled in horrible agony.
"You two have drawn attention to this place," the man standing in front of Natsu said. He walked towards Natsu and lifted up the sword he was holding. "I do not know who you are, but you will not give us away any longer." The sword he held turned and the sharp blade gleamed in some sunlight from the western sky.
Natsu pushed his left hand on the ground and he sat up to his butt. As he got up that far though, the man in front of him pushed his blade ahead at Natsu's face so fast that Natsu feared for his life. The blade stopped though when it was right in between his eyes, the tip of the blade pressing against the spot at the top of the bridge of his nose. Blood dripped down Natsu's nose and some got in his only open eye that opened even wider at the sight that stopped the sword. A large black hand was wrapped around the silver blade, and the one grasping it winced as the blade cut into his defenseless hands now that his Haki was gone and so was his skin. His already open wounds got cut deeper by the sword he wrapped his hand around, but Luffy only grabbed tighter as he glared at the man on his left. "I don't know who you are," Luffy growled, "but stay out of our fight."
Luffy clenched down and shattered the blade in his hand. The man facing him jumped backwards from the feat of strength, and both Luffy and Natsu were surprised at how fast he moved. His speed topped theirs in their normal forms, and he had no aura or steam coming off of his body. Natsu continued pushing himself up and he glared at the man who just tried to kill him. He darted his eyes to Luffy next, and he growled, "What do you want to do?"
"Kick both of your asses," Luffy replied without hesitation.
"Good," Natsu said, his lips curling into a smirk, and he jumped backwards away from Luffy. He jumped to a point right in between Luffy and the other black haired man, but to the side of them, making a triangle of the three of them. "That's exactly what I was thinking."
"You two are insane," the figure before them said. His right eye had a black pupil in the middle, however they could not see his left as he had bangs over the other half of his face. He wore a light blue jacket, black pants, and he had a dark blue bandanna around his forehead.
"Who the Hell even are you?" Natsu growled over. "Why are you interrupting our fight, you bastard?" As Natsu asked it, he was catching his breath and darting his eyes back and forth between his opponents in case one of them tried charging him while he was attempting to recover.
The man facing them closed his eyes for a few seconds, and right as Natsu was going to ask what he was doing, the man snapped them back open. When he snapped open his eyes, his bangs also partially moved out of his face and they could see his left eye too. While his right eye's iris lost its black color and became red with a strange swirling black symbol in the middle of it, his left was entirely purple, even on the outsides where the other was white. There were black circles layering the purple eye of his and Luffy felt strange, like he had seen that eye before. The man in front of them glared at his two opponents and spoke in an angered tone, "My name, is Sasuke Uchiha."
A/N Bam! The title kinda gave away what was coming, but I bet before it no one saw this fight coming this chapter. I hope you all enjoyed the epic battle that continues next chapter in Nexus HWR 11.8 Natsu vs Luffy vs Sasuke Uchiha! Where has Sasuke been all this time? Last we saw of him was in the Madara flashback, so all the way back on the First Day! Anyway, thanks for reading! It was a the shortest part this chapter, but I should be able to get out part 8 tomorrow, if not within a couple of days!
joebob323 chapter 74 . 7h ago
URGH! You can't trust anyone anymore! Screw all the telepaths! Freaking hell, there's just too much going on right now, and all the "Good Guys" aren't so good! Anyways, I was just wondering if Stewie would support Pao, as he must realize that Timmy is one of the strongest fricken telepaths on the planet, and also supports Pao.
Too many mind readers in the multiverse! XD Thanks for the review. Stewie is an Underlord as of now, so he's def Pao Town's enemy, especially with what he did to Lubba and Takao. As for knowing about Timmy, the Underlords also know that that whole group left, as we saw when Takao joined the Underlords and tried giving up some info about that, except Lubba already had. Might be another reason the Underlords are being so gutsy, knowing that two of the most powerful people on Awul are gone. Hope you enjoyed the new chapter! Thanks again everyone for reading, and as always, 'till next time!