I am really tired right now.
I slept whole day and even skipped my college lectures.
I usually wake up at 4 in the morning and write a chapter before I leave for my college at 7:30.
But today, it's just... my entire body was stiff, and my joints were aching. So, I just chalked it up thinking that, 'I slept on the wrong side!!'. Oh, how wrong I was.
Halfway through writing Chapter 23, my hands started to shake, and my migraine hit me like a fucking Truck-kun.
So, out of curiosity, I popped on the thermometer, and lo and behold.... I got 103 F fever.
And what they say, when a man got a fever, it's like the world is ending.
So, I immediately took the medication for it, some painkillers and plopped onto my bed and slept like the sleeping beauty.
My parents freaked out when I slept till 6 in the evening.
They thought I died or something.
God damn it, I got a nice earful when I woke up.
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Now here I am, giving the final touch to this chapter before uploading it.
Sigh.... truly, Life is a soup, and I am a fork.
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If there are still any mistakes in the chapter, then please comment on that paragraph. I'll correct it later.
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Attendance Please:
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The pirates charged at Luffy and Zoro along the beach.
Luffy dropped into a boxing stance, his feet sinking into the damp sand. Beside him, Zoro drew his two unnamed swords. They felt familiar in his hands, like extensions of his body. His bandana still covered his eyes as he tilted his head and listened.
Footsteps, dozens of them, running toward him. The wind carried their sweat, their cheap perfume, and the stench of their boots.
'Interesting,' Zoro thought. 'The blindfold reveals more than my eyes ever did.'
Then Luffy shouted, "ZORO, NOW—"
Zoro swung his swords in a wide arc—shing, shing—and two pirates fell before they even realized they had been cut. Then he went wild on the rest.
Luffy moved beside him like a rubber wrecking ball. He ducked under a cutlass swing, the blade narrowly missing his straw hat, grabbed the pirate's hand, and squeezed so hard that the man's arm bones creaked. Then, using the screaming pirate as a lever, Luffy flipped over him and kicked with his rubber leg.
THWACK—THWACK—THWACK—THWACK—THWACK—THWACK.
Six pirates flew away like a row of knocked-over pins.
A few steps away, Zoro was causing his own damage. One swing to the right, a rib cracked. A stab there, a shoulder pinned. A duck under a wild slash, he felt the air move above his head. Then, a full spin and swing sent four pirates flying, deep cuts opening across their stomachs and chests.
Blood sprayed in an almost perfect circle around him.
"ZORO, FRONT ROLL—" Luffy yelled suddenly.
Zoro didn't hesitate. He bent forward and rolled.
WHOOSH.
One of Usopp's explosive pellets flew past him, hitting the beach a few yards ahead and detonating—BOOM! Sand and shrapnel shot up like a golden-brown fountain. When the dust settled, more than ten pirates lay motionless. Maybe fifteen.
The heat from the blast brushed against his face. The sharp scent of gunpowder filled his nostrils.
Zoro smirked confidently.
Then, he went back to work.
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The strange thing was that the more Zoro fought blindfolded, the clearer everything became. His hearing, his sense of smell, and even the way the air moved against his skin conveyed information to him.
'Several footsteps rushing toward me. Seven. No, nine.'
He could almost taste the old rum on the pirates. A few feet away, he heard Luffy's fist smash into a face with a sickening crunch. Teeth scattered across the sand like tiny white dice.
Then, to his right, a pirate breathed heavily through his mouth. The man raised something heavy above his head. Zoro heard the air shift.
'A club. Coming down at an angle toward my skull.'
Zoro raised his right sword and blocked—CLANG!—the shock traveling up his arm. Then, without hesitation, he stabbed the club-wielding pirate with his left sword.
"AAAHHHH—" The pirate's scream was wet and gurgling.
Zoro just kicked him aside.
The remaining pirates who had been running toward Zoro stopped. They stood there, their boots frozen in the bloodstained sand, staring at their fallen comrades.
"H-how is he even fighting like that?!" one pirate muttered, his voice shaky. "He's completely blindfolded!"
"D-demon…" the pirate next to him stuttered, his cutlass trembling in his hand. "H-he really is a demon!"
"Waaahh…" The third took a step back, then another. "I don't want to fight this hellspawn!"
Zoro heard them.
He smirked more intensely than he had all day.
"Hehehehe…" The sound escaped his throat like that of an animal. "This training method is much more fun than I expected!"
Then, he charged.
They screamed.
He didn't stop.
Slowly, the numbers began to shrink.
With Luffy and Zoro fighting on the ground and Usopp supporting them from the slope, more than half of the five hundred pirates were defeated in just twenty minutes. Bodies lay scattered across the beach like driftwood after a storm, and the sand was darkened in places.
The courage of the Black Cat pirates was draining away faster than the blood from their wounds.
Jango watched from the back, his hands beginning to shake.
Not from fear of the fight, nor from fear of these kids tearing through his crew like scythes through wheat.
No.
Jango was trembling because he could already see Kuro's face. He could feel those ten cat-claw blades sliding between his ribs. If his former captain discovered what was really happening, if Kuro learned that Jango had botched this simple job—
He would be skinned alive.
"OI, YOU CATS!!" Jango's voice cut through the noise like a whip.
The remaining pirates flinched, turning to look at him with wide, frightened eyes.
"C-captain…" one of them stammered helplessly, pointing toward the beach, at the bodies, and at the two monsters still tearing through their ranks. "We can't take this anymore! They're too strong!"
"Y-yeah…" another added, "and they've got weird tricks! This isn't fair!"
"This isn't what I signed up for!"
"Yeah! Getting beaten by a bunch of kids… this is so embarrassing!"
Jango gritted his teeth so hard he thought they might crack. "SO WHAT!!? DO YOU WANNA RUN HOME TO YOUR MOMMY!!?" He swept his arm across the battlefield. "DO YOU KNOW WHAT WILL HAPPEN IF CAPTAIN KURO FINDS OUT ABOUT THIS!?"
The effect was immediate.
Every remaining pirate went pale; some even trembled. One dropped his sword.
"N-no…"
"H-he will kill us all!"
"He'll tear us apart!"
"I don't want to die!"
"Then listen to me," Jango said, lowering his voice as something dangerous crept into it. "We don't have time to mess around anymore!"
He reached down and pulled out the hypnotic ring tied to his belt, a small metal chakram suspended on a string.
"If our enemy is strong…" Jango raised the ring high above his head. "Then we must be even stronger!"
The pirates stared at the spinning metal, their eyes beginning to glaze over.
"Everybody, look at this! When I say 'One, two, Jango,' you'll all become superhumanly strong—"
FWOOP.
Something struck his back with a sharp, whistling sound.
Then—
BOOM.
"AHHHHHHH!!" Jango screamed as the explosion threw him sideways. He tumbled across the sand, slammed into the cliff wall, and went limp.
The remaining pirates stood in stunned silence.
"C-captain!?" one whispered.
"WAAHHH… CAPTAIN JANGO!!!??"
"HE DIDN'T EVEN FINISH HIS WORDS!!!"
"WHO!? WHO DID THIS!?"
"THAT'S CHEATING!!!" another pirate wailed, shaking his fist at the sky. "ATLEAST LET HIM FINISH HIS WORDS!!!"
Up on the slope, Usopp lowered his slingshot and watched Jango's crumpled body with a slow, growing grin.
"Looks like you were right, Yuji!" He turned to look at his friend, his eyes bright with surprise and delight.
Yuji nodded calmly, then shifted his gaze to the cliff where Jango had been thrown. The smoke was still clearing.
"H-how did you know that was going to work!?" Nami demanded, her voice high with shock. She stared at Yuji as if he had just pulled a sea monster out of his pocket.
Yuji shrugged. "Well," he said, "all villains have this little habit of talking before their big power-up."
Nami's mouth dropped open in surprise.
Nothing was produced.
She just stood there, gaping, as the battle raged on below.
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SAME TIME, AT KAYA'S MANSION—
The clock on the study wall ticked steadily.
Tick.
Tock.
Tick.
Kaya sat at her desk with a medical textbook open in front of her. The diagrams of human anatomy blurred in and out as she struggled to focus. She had been staring at the same page for twenty minutes.
The humerus connects to the radius at the elbow joint—
She closed the book.
She rubbed her forehead in frustration. "I don't understand!" The words came out louder than she intended. "Why does this have to happen?"
Yesterday's events replayed in her mind.
She rubbed her eyes and let out a weary sigh that seemed to echo through the overly quiet room.
Tick.
She looked up at the clock.
12:30 p.m.
"Hmm…" She pushed herself up from the chair, leaning against the wall for support. Her legs still felt weak, as always.
She walked out of the room and into the hallway.
The hall stretched out before her, empty and still. The afternoon sun slanted through the windows in long, golden bars, illuminating dust specks that drifted like tiny ghosts.
"Merry!?" Kaya's voice echoed off the walls.
Nothing.
Not the shuffle of shoes. Not the distant clatter of dishes from the kitchen. Not the murmur of servants talking in the pantry.
The silence felt wrong.
Kaya's heart began to race. She walked slowly toward the end of the hall, her hand trailing along the wall for support.
Then, a strong smell hit her.
Kaya covered her mouth and gagged. The metallic taste of copper filled the back of her throat. "What is that smell!?"
She turned the corner and saw something that froze her to the bone.
There on the floor, in a spreading pool of her own blood, lay one of the maids. Her uniform was soaked in red. Her eyes were open, empty.
"KYAAAAAHHHH…" Kaya's scream tore from her throat, raw and wild. She stumbled backward, her shoulder striking the wall, her legs threatening to give out.
The silence swallowed her scream whole.
No one came running to her. There were no footsteps, no voices calling out.
Kaya forced herself to move. She stumbled down the hall, turned the corner, and came face to face with another servant, a man this time. He lay crumpled against the wall in a pool of blood, his hand still reaching for something.
"No…" Kaya whispered. "No no no—"
She ran, not knowing where, just away. Away from the blood. Away from the bodies.
"MERRY!? MERRY!? KLAHADORE?? ANYONE!?"
Her voice cracked and broke, her legs burned, her lungs burned. Everything burned.
She kept running, turning corners, and discovering more bodies.
A young kitchen maid lies face down in a puddle in the pantry.
An old groundskeeper sprawled across the garden doorway, as if he had tried to escape.
Kaya reached Klahadore's room and threw open the door.
And there, on the floor, unmoving and completely still, lay Merry.
"M-Merry!?" Kaya stumbled forward. Her knees hit the floor hard; she didn't feel it. She pulled herself across the carpet, her hands reaching for the old butler's shoulder. "Merry! Merry, wake up! Wake UP!"
His skin was cold.
"No…" Hot tears streamed down her cheeks. She shook him, but there was no response. "Please—please don't leave me—please—"
She lay on the floor, curled up and crying.
The silence pressed in around her like a tomb.
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BACK AT THE NORTHWEST BEACH—
The remaining Black Cat pirates gulped nervously. They stared at the cliff where Jango had been blown away.
"Wh-What are we going to do now!?" one pirate whispered.
"We can't beat them!!!" another said, his voice cracking. "These kids are a bunch of monsters!!"
"Y-yeah…" The third took a step back toward the ship. "I think we should just leav—"
He never finished it.
SCHLICK.
A clawed hand suddenly punched through his chest from behind.
"Pathetic." The voice was smooth and hissing. Siam pulled his clawed glove out of the pirate's back and let the body fall to the sand. "To think we almost lost to a bunch of kids."
"Yeah." Butchie cracked his knuckles beside his brother. "Captain Kuro is really going to be disappointed in us."
The remaining pirates went pale, and some began to shake.
"M-Meowban brothers!!"
"The ship's guards!!"
"S-so they finally decided to join the fight!!"
Siam and Butchie ignored them. They clicked their tongues together and looked beyond the terrified crew, beyond the bodies, beyond the smoke.
Their eyes met Luffy's.
Then, they found Zoro.
They grinned, wide, mean, and hungry, and charged forward without a word.
Luffy bent down, his fist pulled back, ready to punch—
Both Siam and Butchie completely ignored him.
They ran past Luffy as if he weren't there. Their target was the blindfolded swordsman a few steps away, still recovering from the previous wave.
"ZORO, LOOK OUT!!!"
Too late.
SCHLICK. SCHLICK.
Both Meowban brothers sank their pointed clawed gloves deep into Zoro's shoulders.
"Argh!" Zoro grunted as he was pushed back three steps. Blood spilled from his shoulders, hot and fast, soaking his white shirt with spreading red stains. His hands began to shake from the pain, and his grip on his swords weakened.
"Th-they got him!!" a pirate muttered, hope creeping back into his voice.
"We can still win!!"
"Yeah! Hell yeah, Meowban brothers! Kill him!!!"
"WOOO—"
POW.
Luffy's fist slammed into the cheering pirate's face with such force that his teeth flew out like scattered beads. The man spun twice in the air before crashing into three of his friends.
"SHUT UP!!!" Luffy yelled. His shadow stretched long across the sand as he turned toward Zoro.
Zoro raised his hand.
"No, Luffy… don't." His voice was tight and strained but steady. "This is my fight. Let me handle them!"
He turned his head slightly, just enough to direct his voice toward the slope.
"AND YOU TWO TOO, USOPP AND YUJI—DON'T INTERFERE!!!"
Up on the slope, Yuji sighed deeply.
He rubbed the bridge of his nose. 'Motherfucker.'
"Whatever!!!" he shouted down toward the beach. "Just don't die, you idiot, or I'll bring you back and then kill you myself!"
Beside him, Usopp looked uncertain. His fingers twitched nervously on his slingshot. "Yuji, maybe we should—"
Yuji shook his head.
Down at the beach, Zoro's mouth curved into a smirk. Blood dripped from his shoulders, and his arms trembled. His bandana remained tightly tied over his eyes.
"Heh!!" He rolled his shoulders, hissing in pain, and settled into his usual stance. "As if I'm going to die. I still have a dream to reach."
"Hehehehe… brother, it looks like we've got a cocky one on our hands!!" Siam chuckled, licking blood off his clawed glove.
"Then let's show him what it means to underestimate us!!" Butchie sneered.
They rushed forward again, faster this time and moving more in sync. Their clawed gloves flashed in the sunlight like ten tiny scythes.
Zoro took a deep breath.
He felt the air rushing toward his face. He smelled the coppery scent of his own blood. He heard the shush-shush-shush of their feet on the sand, the way their breathing synchronized.
'There.'
Zoro sidestepped, twisted, and swung his sword at Siam.
And Siam twisted.
His body bent like a cat's, his spine curving unnaturally. He moved fluidly over Zoro's swing, landed behind him, and sank his claws deep into Zoro's back.
"Unh!" Zoro stumbled forward, his teeth grinding together. The claw gloves were embedded in his back muscles now, and every movement sent fresh waves of pain screaming through his nerves.
"Oh ho…" Siam's breath was hot against Zoro's ear. "Looks like someone's trying to act tough!"
"C'mon, Butchie!!!" Siam called. "Let's finish him together!"
"Aye-aye, Siam!" Butchie rushed forward, grinning.
He jumped.
"Cat strike!! Cat-a-pult—" His leg came down in an axe kick aimed at Zoro's head. "—Cat-Astrophe!!!"
At the last moment, Zoro shifted his weight to the right and threw himself into a side roll. Siam's claws tore free from his back—ripping—and Zoro rolled clear just as Butchie's heel slammed into the ground.
CRACK.
The sand exploded as Butchie's foot struck the ground, forming a crater with cracks spiderwebbing outward.
Zoro slid to a stop, breathing hard. "Fuck!!" He could feel warm blood running down his back, pooling along his spine and soaking into his belt.
"Argh!!! He got away!!" Siam hissed, landing next to his brother.
"You should have dug your claws deeper into his back!" Butchie scolded.
"Hehehe… my bad, brother."
Zoro's chest heaved, and his arms felt numb. The stabs in his shoulders had caused more damage than he had realized.
'That was close.' The thought came slowly and heavily, like swimming through mud. 'This is serious. If they get me one more time with those claws, I'm done.'
He reached down.
His fingers found the hilt of his third sword.
Wado Ichimonji.
He pulled it out slowly and carefully, then placed the blade between his teeth.
'I need to finish this fast.' He bent down, lowering his center of gravity. 'My body can't keep going like this. I'm already risking too much fighting blindfolded—'
Across from him, the Meowban brothers prepared to pounce. Their bodies tensed, and their claws flexed.
They all ran toward one another.
Siam and Butchie didn't hold back. Their claws swung in wild, overlapping arcs, left, right, overhead, and low, leaving Zoro with no room to dodge. The air itself seemed to scream as their claws sliced through it.
Zoro did not dodge.
He let the claws slice through his clothes, scratch his skin, and leave long bleeding cuts across his chest and arms.
'Three Sword Style—'
He was inside their guard.
All three swords are ready.
'—Oni Giri.'
He shot past them to the other side.
For a moment, everything remained still.
Siam blinked.
Butchie opened his mouth to say something—
Blood burst from their chests, three slash marks on each, carved diagonally from shoulder to hip.
"GAAHHHHH!!!"
Both of them yelled in unison and then collapsed to the ground, unconscious. Their clawed gloves clattered onto the sand like dead bugs.
Zoro stood on the other side, his chest heaving. Blood dripped from his shoulders, his back, and the fresh cuts across his body.
Slowly and carefully, he sheathed all three swords.
Shingk. Shingk. Shingk.
"It's done," he muttered.
Then he fell face-first onto the ground.
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See you on Monday....