Chapter 6: Monster?
They say the eyes are the window to the soul.
You can tell a lot from a person's eyes.
Brownie used to believe it, but now he's starting to doubt. The pirate in front of him, with a bloody kitchen knife stuck in his forehead and a severed hand, looked utterly miserable.
He even wondered... was he also a fugitive? The kitchen knife stuck in his head seemed to have the chef's name imprinted on it. Did the chef also participate in the battle? What good was that loser, besides making his curry more delicious?
But this pirate had lost so much blood and had a broken hand, he should have been taken down long ago, right?
Even so, his eyes were still bright and determined... showing his determination to escape!
He suddenly felt admiration for a fugitive pirate, an unusual feeling.
But then, Brownie's figure faded between the lights and shadows, and in the blink of an eye, a scimitar pressed against Buggy's neck.
"What a shame! You're a pirate..." Brownie said.
Since he was a pirate, since he had some admiration for him, since he was a Marine... Brownie felt he should give him a quick death. If he had been reborn earlier, maybe he could have joined the Marines before he retired. If that had happened, he would have been generous with his teachings. His thoughts raced through his mind.
The scimitar cut Buggy's neck as if cutting melons and vegetables.
He could even feel the gaze from the other side. Was it a dying plea or a moment of bewilderment, unable to react in time? Who knows.
Brownie paid no attention, silently brandished the scimitar, and prepared to throw himself into the slaughter.
He had barely turned around when he heard two more stumbling footsteps. The body that should have collapsed remained standing, as if beheading it was nothing more than pulling out a hair.
Buggy crouched down and picked up his head in silence.
Instead of pressing it, he held it in his palm.
Holding his head in one hand was a genuine novelty.
"Is this what it feels like to be beheaded?" Buggy asked. His eyes were full of excitement.
So many new things constantly stimulated his joy line, and his smile was radiant.
"The truth is, this feeling... well, it's certainly the first time. Although I often tell others how my father, that bastard, cut the corner of my mouth with a knife when I was a kid."
He lifted his head and shook it, then floated like a flying-headed barbarian, leaving his palm.
"But the truth is, I have no memory of it."
An Esper?
Brownie narrowed his eyes and a sudden flush appeared on his face.
It wasn't anger. He simply felt deeply ashamed of his own vanity. He was clearly a cruel pirate, but he had actually let his miserable appearance and his deceiving eyes make him feel like a hero to another... Now that he thought about it, it was truly embarrassing.
Brownie used to be calm and reserved, even a little perverted when killing enemies, but he was always putting on a series of dramas. In short, it was somewhat sensual, sensual.
When a sensual middle-aged man misbehaves from time to time, he is so ashamed he wants to dig a hole in the ground and bury himself there. So he decided to leave him there. Forever!
Brownie's black leather boots hit the deck with a dull thud.
He reappeared before Buggy, with the scimitar in one hand. He leaned forward like a cheetah pouncing on its prey.
This time, his eyes were clear.
"Go ahead and attack!" Brownie pronounced in silence.
A flash of white light passed by.
The light pressed Buggy's chest.
He extended a finger, as if to block the sword's energy, but it remained at a certain distance.
Buggy's lower body remained where it was, his legs tapping the deck a couple of times, stunned.
The upper part, however, seemed to be dancing a chachacha with the light, floating with perfect precision, always maintaining a slight distance.
In the last instant, the upper part of the body tilted down, dodging the light.
The entire sequence was remarkably elegant, like an expert dancer in an old London theater, exuding a sense of wealthy past.
Except for the fragmented body.
"Interesting ability!" Buggy exclaimed about the power of this fruit for the umpteenth time.
Even ignoring the various fanciful speculations about this ability among modern university students, the pseudo-immortality itself was intriguing.
It perfectly suited Buggy's fighting style. His main strategy was to kill eight hundred enemies while injuring a thousand of his own. I wish he could return to Gotham City with this power... but just crushing him wouldn't be as interesting. At that moment, Buggy was more enthusiastic about the interesting characters in this world.
As his thoughts raced, Brownie had no intention of standing still, waiting for his opponent to remember.
He flashed and approached quickly.
A gust of disgusting wind followed his continuous cuts, passing through his nose.
Buggy did not dodge or evade, allowing Brownie to tear him apart, seemingly only to fully experience the sensation of being torn apart.
Honestly, the amount of dismemberment he had endured in his other two lives combined was not as much as this Buggy had endured in a single month.
It only took an instant for his already fragmented body to suddenly lunge forward.
"Bara Bara no Mi, Emergency Escape!" another mouth exclaimed.
"Yes, that's what I called it," another mouth explained with a smile.
In reality, only one mouth was left on his body.
"But the situation at that moment was certainly urgent."
A hand further away tried to wipe a sweat-soaked forehead.
After a while, he couldn't find it.
Sadly.
Brownie's expression was grim and he sighed to himself.
His left hand, free from the sword, rested on his white robe.
A copper ring was vaguely visible on his left index finger.
A rough, crooked stone, the size of a fingernail, was embedded in the ring.
A small piece of sea stone.
It was the reason Buggy had escaped so suddenly.
As expected. Any cunning pirate or Marine would find a way to get a piece of sea stone. Even someone like Smoker, an Esper, would have a piece of sea stone embedded in his weapon. Esper powers were simply too varied and difficult to master. And those who mastered Haki were few in the first half of the Grand Line. However, sea stone is incredibly hard and difficult to work with. This was evident in the stone that awkwardly contrasted with Brownie's ring.
Brownie's expression showed more than that.
The opponent's move, called Emergency Escape, felt familiar.
But he still had some disbelief. Could he be one of those monsters?
- - - - -
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