Chapter 69 - Enies Lobby 3 Part 2

Though it took him a moment to shake off the daze of the attack that had disrupted him, the Wheel-Marine Sharinguru was swift to get his bearings back and take notice of the pirate headed his way. His response to her approach was to snort indignantly. "Fool, SHING!" Sharinguru roared as he jabbed his blade at her. "Do you think that I, a Hero of JUSTICE, would ever allow—"

BLAM!

"GAH!" The Marine captain was promptly cut off by another of Conis' explosive shells going off in his face, causing him to reel back and sputter.

"Allow? Oh, I never thought you'd allow anything," Conis said, smiling sweetly even as she returned her grenade launcher to her back. "That doesn't mean you'll succeed. I am Conis of the Straw Hats, and that injury you inflicted on my friend?" Her expression promptly turned thunderous as she whipped two of her pistols out and held them at the ready. "That was the last hit you'll land today."

"You wish, pirate, SLAM!" Sharinguru declared, shoving himself to his feet and spinning his legs beneath him. "For you see, TRUE JUSTICE will prevail today!" And with that, the Marine shoved his feet against the ground and took advantage of the spin from his heels to give him an extra-powerful burst of speed.

Conis kept her stance firm as she followed him, her guns at the ready. "Pistol…"

"BULLETS CANNOT HARM ME!" Sharinguru cackled as he brought his blade before him and started spinning it. "JUSTICE MAEL—!"

"Lux."

"—GAGH!" The Captain promptly lost his stance when a flash of utterly blinding light stabbed into his eyes, burning his retinas and causing him to crash into the bridge and roll to a halt as he flailed and clawed at his eyes. "YEARGH, WHAT THE HELL!?"

"Allow me to clarify something for you," Conis' voice filtered through the void of white that had devoured his eyesight. "Whereas your goggles are purely for show and offer nothing in the way of protection, mine are reinforced and have tinted lenses. Just so you know, up until now I've been using conventional weaponry because, in all honesty, I didn't want to show my full hand until it was absolutely necessary. After what you did to my friend, however…"

The twin clicks of two pistols being cocked prompted Sharinguru to spin up the armour hiding under his shirt, and he was only just able to deflect the bullets that would have perforated him. With his vision finally clearing, Sharinguru staggered back to his feet and eyed the pirate warily as she advanced on him.

"I'm going to go ahead and give you a crash course…" Conis intoned gravely as she drew her rifles from her back and held them at ready. "In Sky Warfare."

And with that, she whipped her rifles up and thumbed the secondary triggers hidden on them. "Rifle Incendium."

The Marine prepared to deliver yet another of his tirades, only for his words to die when he noticed a glow building up in the barrels of the guns. He hastily scoured what little knowledge of Latin he had, and his brow twitched at the answer. "Oh, you have got to be—!"

FWOOSH!

Twin gouts of flame erupted from the rifles, spiking the temperature on the bridge and charring the stones. Conis felt her heart leap as Sharinguru was engulfed in the blaze.

"JUSTICE TORNADO!"

And then felt it plummet when not only was the blaze dispersed, but a whirlwind of steel and death charged out at her.

"Shit!" the gunner cursed fearfully as she dove to the side, the tornado only just missing her as it swept past her heels. The channel it carved in passing through the stone did little to inspire confidence. The fact that the whirlwind was slowly adjusting its trajectory and circling back around at an even faster speed did even less.

Conis swiftly sheathed her rifles, drew and unloaded her secondary set of pistols at the Marine, Flash Dials and all, and bit back a curse as absolutely jack came of it. "Oh, that is not good."

"Bull shit! He'd have to close his eyes not to be affected. How does he even steer without seeing anything?!" Su spat indignantly.

Conis growled as she returned her pistols to their holsters. "At a guess? I'd say his rank and powers mean that he has considerable leeway where collateral damage is—GRGH!" Conis cut herself off as she dodged again, and promptly paled when she noticed that she was missing a corner on her jacket. "Damn it, he's getting faster, and from what I've seen of Paramecias, I doubt he has an upper limit." She whipped her shotgun out from behind her back. "Only one option!"

"Sensible," Su nodded firmly as she analyzed the returning funnel. "Aim for his feet; that blade's at chest height, and with how fast he's going, he might actually shred it."

Conis nodded and took aim before slowly lowering her gun as the whirlwind somehow rose into the air. "You have got to be kidding me…"

"THE HAMMER OF JUSTICE FALLS FROM ABOVE!" Sharinguru roared before dropping out of the sky.

Barely keeping her panic in check, Conis whipped her hand-cannon up at her adversary—

"Shotgun Palus!"

—and triggered the Swamp Cloud Dial installed within, blasting a thick, syrupy glob of clouds at her adversary. Conis swore that her heart stopped when Sharinguru's blades shredded the clouds apart—and then a second later, the remnants were sucked back into the whirlwind.

"Ack! What—GAH!" was all the Marine managed to get out before the Swamp Cloud gummed his works up completely and sent him crashing to the ground, upon which he face-planted in a very painful manner.

"Tseeheehee! Do 'Hammers of Justice' usually get caught on clouds halfway down and wind up eating pavement?" Su snickered.

"Be nice, Su," Conis admonished as she stowed her shotgun and took hold of the grip of her bazooka. She was about to pull it out…

"You…"

But then paused and raised an eyebrow as Sharinguru jerked in place. She wasn't disappointed.

"You damn PIRATES!" Sharinguru roared as he snapped his head up, his eyes wide and spittle and more than a little foam flying from his mouth. He struggled fiercely against the dense mass of Swamp Cloud, but all he managed to achieve was to work himself up into a kneeling position. "You think that this changes anything?! You think I've lost!? I'm the Hero, you idiots! Heroes never lose! They are never weak, they are never helpless! They come back from behind, and the villains never ever ever ever EVER WIN!"

Conis narrowed her eyes at the tirade and slowly strided forward, coming closer and closer even as the Marine ranted and raved.

"You'll see, you damn pirate!" Sharinguru howled as he pulled as hard as he could. "Gorilla will free me, or one of the soldiers with us will grow a damn spine and defeat you! IT DOESN'T MATTER WHAT YOU DO, THE WORLD WILL ALWAYS REJECT YOU! JUSTICE WILL FOREVER PREVAIL, AND I, THE HERO, WILL NEVER—!"

KA-CLICK!

Sharinguru was silenced by Conis, heaving her Burn Bazooka over her shoulder rather than under it and pointing the secondary muzzle at him.

"Hey, Wheely?"

The Captain's gaze snapped to the Cloud Fox on the gunner's shoulder, who was grinning victoriously as her tail swayed from side to side.

"Newsflash for you," she sang. "See, the thing about heroes? They don't always win."

"And everyone," Conis picked up as she cocked her gun. "Is the hero of their own story." She then tilted her head to the side and smiled. "I'm truly sorry, but it would appear that the world preferred our story to yours. Goodbye."

She then pulled the trigger.

"Reject Bazooka."

BANG!

The Reject Dial within the bazooka roared as it fired, slamming a pillar of compressed air stronger than any Burn Bazooka could ever hope to achieve into Sharinguru and ripping both him and his Swamp Cloud bonds from the Bridge. The Captain arced high into the air and hung for a brief moment before coming back down and crashing into the deck of one of the battleships, his velocity punching him clean through and taking him out of sight.

Conis took in the sight for a second as she confirmed that she'd won, before slumping to her knees and clutching her shoulder with a pained hiss. "Owowowowowww that hurts!" she groaned through gritted teeth as she massaged the throbbing joint. "That was through a medium, without physical contact and with barely any charge in it, and it still almost took me clean off my feet! How in the name of the Blue Seas did Wiper fire off that thing three times in one day without losing his arm!?"

"Because he's a monster worthy of this crew?" Su replied with a cocked eyebrow.

Conis paused thoughtfully at that before hanging her head with a sigh. "Yeah, that's true…" A second later, however, she managed to give Su a smile. "But still… no matter how much it hurts, I wouldn't trade places with him for the world."

"Tseeheehee!" Su giggled as she lightly butted her forehead against her friend's. "You know it!"

-o-

Gorilla charged towards his new opponent, rearing his rifle back as he prepared to literally knock the princess's block off her neck. He was broadcasting pretty blatantly, but he didn't doubt that any attempt to block it would be insufficient against his strength.

"STOP!"

And then, for an instant, he froze. Just an instant. It was only less than a second, but in a fight, a second equalled an eternity, and it was this eternity that allowed Vivi to wrap one of her Lion Cutters around his leg and yank, which, when combined with his off-balance position, resulted in him faceplanting on the pavement.

The large Marine raised himself on his palms with a snarl as he glared at the princess. "You…"

"Me," Vivi replied frigidly. "I might not quite have full control of this new ability yet, but I was wrong earlier. Thirty seconds is too much time by half." She grabbed her other cutter and pointed its blade at the Captain. "Four seconds is plenty of time."

Gorilla didn't deign to reply, instead lifting up his gun to fire.

"Hit yourself."

The response was only a twitch, albeit a strong twitch, but it was enough to send the bullet wide. Gorilla grimaced ferociously as he took aim again. "Right. Starting after this mission, I'm going to start carrying ear protectors. Let's try that again."

"Throw the gun off the bridge."

Gorilla cursed furiously as his arm snapped out to the side. He was only just able to grab the butt of the weapon with his fingers before it left his reach. "You little—!"

"There we go, now I just need to hold onto that feeling. Now, hold still."

Gorilla involuntarily tensed up his form, and Vivi flung her cutter at the arm holding the gun. Her aim was true; it struck his shoulder. And then it bounced off. Vivi's eye twitched in annoyance.

"Alright, how are you doing that? Explain."

"Pah! I would never explain to you that I'm using Iron Body, of course," Gorilla scoffed. "CP9 aren't the only ones with access to the Six Powers; they're just the only ones who are required to master them all. Some of us, however, find it useful to add some of the techniques to our own arsenals. It's common sense, really, but of course, I'd never tell you that." A second later, his eyes snapped wide in shock. "Wait, what the hell!?"

"…Wow, that worked better than I thought it would," Vivi whistled in awe before freezing as a thought struck her. "I am really going to have to be careful around Cross. One wrong word and he'll never shut—!"

The instant Gorilla regained control of his muscles, he pumped his legs as hard as he could and Shaved at the Princess, hand outstretched in desperation.

'Just need to shut her up, just need to shut her up—!' he thought desperately.

"Halt."

Instead of shutting her up, he started swearing up a blue streak as he was halted once again. He even prepared to say something, but his words died in his mouth when his enemy looked him in the eye and stared.

"You will not move for ten seconds," she ordered frigidly. "Is. That. Clear?"

"Yes, ma'am!" the behemoth of a man whimpered fearfully.

Vivi responded by releasing the breath she'd been holding in a sigh of relief. "Good, because that was a gamble. Now, then." She allowed her Lion Cutters to slip out of her palms so that she was holding them both by their chain. "Let's finish you off, shall we?"

With that, she surged forward and whipped around the Marine Captain. It wasn't Shave-levels of speed, admittedly, but in the course of eight seconds, she'd wrapped her weapon's chain around Gorilla's torso in an X and was standing behind him, arms spread and at the ready.

Gorilla eyed his chest warily for a moment before casting a glare over his shoulder. "This won't change anything, you know? My Iron Body is impenetrable! And once this fails, I'm going to—!"

"Oh, why don't you just shut up…" Vivi sighed wearily, followed by a hint of menace in her eyes. "And relax?"

The second that last word hit Captain Gorilla's ears, his very being, his body and mind had two entirely opposite reactions. While Gorilla's mind was filled with nothing short of pure, utter existential terror, his body relaxed, every one of his muscles loosening as he adopted a calm, slumped-over stance.

"If it's any consolation?" Vivi shrugged casually. "I'm fairly certain that you should lose consciousness almost instantly from blood loss. But for now…" Her eyes narrowed menacingly. "For the crimes of driving my country to revolution, threatening the crew who saved me in every conceivable way, and stealing my friend, I sentence you to the mercy of your superiors." She tightened her grip on her chain. "May Osiris have mercy on your soul, because they and I will NOT!" And with that, she ripped her chains forward. "IMPERIAL EXECUTION!"

SPURT! "AAAGH!"

The curved blades carved a massive X-shaped gash into the Captain's torso, blood spraying into the air. And indeed, the captain's eyes rolled up in his head, showing only the whites.

Vivi held her pose for a moment, even as the Captain slumped to his knees. Then, she turned around and bowed slightly. "Sorry, that was a bit harsh, and I let my emotions take control of me. I truly hope that you manage to recover. So… no hard feelings?"

"Hrghghhhh…"

"…taking that as a maybe."

"This… This can't be happening! THIS ISN'T HAPPENING!" Spandam hollered from down the street.

"You'd better damn well believe that it is, you bastard!" Vivi called after him. "And once we get our hands on you, you're next!"

"Vivi!" Conis called out as she jogged up to the princess. "Do you need any—ERK!" A shiver ran up the gunner's spine as her boots came down in the puddle of blood spreading out from Gorilla's prone form. "…Never mind, then."

"Yeah, I'm…" Vivi heaved a sigh as she nodded in agreement. "It was tough, but I'm alright. Now that that's out of the way, let's head after Carue and—"

The sound of a hundred flintlocks cocking rang out from the firing line the Marines had set up, three deep and stretching between each side of the bridge. More Marines could be seen aiming rifles at them from the crow's nests of the battleships, others setting up mortars on the decks, and still others fingering their melee weapons behind the firing lines. Rounding out the gathered force was a Marine in a Lieutenant's uniform, slowly clapping with a Su-worthy grin on his face.

"Congratulations," the Lieutenant stated smugly. "You beat Captain Sharinguru and Captain Gorilla. Very impressive, I'll admit. That still leaves, oh, about two thousand of us." A pause, and then he neatly sidestepped a whistling projectile. "And while that sniper of yours is impressive, I have my doubts that he can stop a mass charge."

That elicited a bout of mad cackling from Spandam. "WAHAHAHA! Yes, yes! Crush them, crush them like the scum they are! Drive them into the—! Eh? Wait a second… WHY THE HELL CAN YOU ALL MOVE WHILE I'M STILL PARALYZED FROM THE NECK DOWN!?"

"The grace of God?" Su muttered to herself as she glanced upwards.

Ignoring the exchange, Vivi and Conis exchanged uneasy glances.

"This is going to suck, isn't it?" Conis groaned as she reluctantly underslung her bazooka.

"Oh, big time," Vivi confirmed morosely as she crossed her Lion Cutters before her.

The Marines chose that moment to begin flooding off the battleships and cascading towards them, and the brawl commenced with gusto.

-o-

White.

If you had to pick one adjective capable of describing the massive bathroom in which the fight between CP9's only and the Straw Hat Pirates' first female members was occurring, white would be it. Fluffy clouds clashed with equally fluffy suds, occasionally splitting and fracturing on account of blinding lightning bolts and swift Tempest Kicks criss-crossing and clashing through the air.

It was nothing short of a deadlock, as the two opponents' fighting styles were polar opposites. While Nami's Iron Cloud was perfect in its ineffable durability, standing undaunted against the flood of suds, Kalifa's flood was blindingly fast and practically never-ending in the amount of bubbles she could provide. Furthermore, for all that the clouds were impenetrable and relatively swift, they had nothing on Kalifa's Shave and her suds.

In short, while Kalifa couldn't get close enough to so much as lay a finger on Nami, neither could Nami come close to even brushing Kalifa.

And considering how the two had been locked in the same stalemate for the last ten minutes, it was something of an understatement to say that the two parties were more than a little aggravated.

Kalifa growled irritably as yet another wave of suds washed over the Iron Cloud defence to no avail, provoking another lightning bolt that she herself allowed to wash over her own defences. 'We're going nowhere at the speed of light,' she thought indignantly. 'One pirate is managing to give me this much trouble, and she's not even one of the strong ones! This is embarrassing, just what the hell can I—!' Kalifa blinked thoughtfully as a thought came to her, an eager smile spreading over her lips. 'Ohhh, yes, that will do nicely.'

And so, the assassin suddenly came to a halt and threw her arm out, dispelling her suds and drawing Nami up short in confusion. "Allow me to make a statement that I'm sure you'll agree with," the blonde killer stated in a professional tone. "This stalemate has prolonged to the point that it's barely even a fight anymore; neither one of us is making any progress, and I can only assume that you are as irritated as I am."

"You may be a bitch, but I can agree with that," Nami replied testily, drawing her clouds around herself in the process. "But unless you're ready to do the smart thing and hold still so that I can char you into a briquet, I don't see your point in stating the obvious."

"Oh, my point is quite simple, I assure you," Kalifa sniffed haughtily. "While I was hoping to finish this in an enjoyable manner, simple and clean and all that, the fact that a Buster Call—and an apoplectic Fleet Admiral Sengoku—are apparently heading this way, means that I am pressed for time. As such." She adjusted her glasses so that they caught the light. "I'll just have to pull out my trump card."

Before Nami could react, Kalifa leaned over and slid her hands up her body. Suds roiled up from the points of contact as she flexed her power, and the bubbles quickly spread first across her arms, then the rest of her body. Soon, she was clad in a full suit of medieval knight-style armour… made entirely out of soap bubbles.

"Soap Armour," Kalifa proudly declared.

For a moment, there was silence.

"…You look ridiculous, Bubbly," Nami finally declared.

Kalifa ignored the slight with a haughty laugh. "You won't be laughing once you observe the full might of my armour's power!" And with that, the Bubble-woman slammed her visor down and cast her arm out, conjuring a claymore of pure bubbles. "En garde!" And with that, she charged straight for the mass of Iron Cloud.

Nami, for her part, snorted derisively as she watched the charge. Honestly, she'd expected a lot more than this from the Government agent. With an almost careless flick of her wrist, the Navigator launched several balls of electricity at her opponent. Every ball hit its mark, discharging its voltage into the suds and causing them to dissolve in order to expose—absolutely nothing!?

"What the hell!?" Nami squawked as the suit of 'armour' collapsed into a puddle of sudsy water, before paling as a thought struck her. "…Oh, don't tell me she's a Logia!"

"Not quite."

If Nami had paled before, her blood straight up froze when a pair of iron-hard arms wrapped around her, one clenching her around her windpipe in a chokehold, and one wrapping around the… lower part of the pirate's body.

"Where the hell do you think you're touching!?" Nami hissed.

"Wherever I damn well please, pirate," Kalifa smirked in Nami's ear. "And for the record, I lied earlier; that was actually my Soap Doppelgänger. Now…" Nami's breath hitched when Kalifa flexed her arm around her neck. "How about we put an end to this?"

Even with her air supply obstructed, Nami grit her teeth defiantly and swung her Clima-Tact upwards, sending a wave of Cool Balls at the cloud she'd had floating above the battlefield since the fight had started in earnest. Nami smirked as the heavens burst and a torrential downpour cascaded down upon the pair.

Said smirk died a swift death when Kalifa's only response was to chuckle confidently.

"Ah, you poor, poor girl," the assassin lamented in a faux-sympathetic tone. "So, you figured out how to counter my Golden Bubbles before I could even apply them to you, hm? And even went so far as to make it rain indoors in order to counter me. Impressive, really, but ultimately fruitless."

"W-What are you—grk!" Nami choked painfully as Kalifa squeezed her throat tight and immobilized her.

"Because you see," Kalifa forged on as though she hadn't been interrupted. "I don't plan on using my Golden Bubbles on you, or even killing you, for that matter. Normally, I would just crush your skull like an egg and be done with you, but in light of your crew's… unprecedented actions and the recent expansion of my own arsenal, I've decided to, shall we say, experiment a bit."

The Soap-woman drew her free arm up Nami's side, creating a stream of bubbles even in spite of the rain soaking them both. "My Golden Bubbles wash away everything they come in contact with: filth, strength, even friction itself. So, I'm left wondering… what else can they wash away, hm? Just what…" She started trailing her finger around her captive's ear. "Can these powers do?"

Nami's heart all but stopped in her chest as the full implications of what she was hearing hit her. "No…" Nami angled her head as much as she could so that she could stare back at Kalifa in horror. "N-N-No, y-you can't—!"

"Ah, but the truth is?" Kalifa spun her hand and evoked a small mass of bubbles in her palm, angled just so that they were shielded from the rain and positioned right over Nami's ear. "I can. Chrome Bubble Cleanse."

Nami struggled and writhed desperately in the woman's grip, but it was no use. She gasped out a scream as the assassin's hand clamped onto her head and shoved a surge of suds down her ear canals.

"Nonono, NO!" Nami cried fearfully, fighting to get away as hard as she could. She needed to get out, get away, she couldn't let… let… heeeerrrrrrhghhhrrr…

Nami's breath caught in her throat and her eyes rolled up in her skull as everything went white. Any thoughts of escape, of struggle or resistance or… anything really, dissolved into aether as the soap flowed through her mind. It was just so… so relaxing, as if the soap was scouring away all of the stress and grime that had been building up in her for her whole life. Her muscles rapidly turned to jelly, and she fell slack in Kalifa's arms, her eyes glazed and unfocused, and her expression as blank as a newfound slate.

Kalifa cocked her eyebrow as she observed the pirate's limp form before stepping back and allowing her to drop, adjusting her glasses as she got a better look at her work. "Interesting. I was expecting a bit more of a struggle, but honestly, this might be for the best. Speed kills and all that."

Now, an important fact to note is that most other opponents or enemies would have left some form of parting shot or another to the unmoving vegetable that had moments before been a navigator wielding a weather-manipulating staff. But as it was, Kalifa was a consummate professional. As such, she merely allowed herself a victorious smirk before turning around and walking away.

As she all but strutted for the door to her room, she amused herself with thoughts of how the pirates would react if they managed to find what was left of their navigator before they were destroyed, while at the same time strategizing how she could further utilize and refine her latest technique in the future. Admittedly, the most difficult part of the endeavour would be finding test subjects, but chances were that—

"Vortex."

Kalifa blinked in confusion when she felt a breeze brush against the back of her neck and heard a whisper drift through the air. "Wha—?"

"Tempo."

The assassin barely had a moment to feel the wind at her back start to accelerate before her instinct screamed at her, prompting her to drop to the ground and bury an Iron Body-enhanced fist in the floor. The resulting anchor wasn't a moment too soon, because it was all that prevented Kalifa from being sucked into the cyclone that suddenly spun into existence in the center of the room and sucked up all of the remaining suds.

Kalifa craned her neck over her shoulder and paled in shock as she caught sight of Nami standing tall and proud in the eye of the cyclone, her Clima-Tact spinning above her head and a smug grin on her face.

"Surprised?" the pirate drawled.

"You… damn it, you were only pretending!" Kalifa hissed in equal parts fear and fury.

"Ah… heh, no," Nami chuckled as she shook her head. "No, see, that reaction was real, but the effects weren't nearly as bad as you'd hoped they were. I mean, come on, what did you expect? You've only had your powers for a few hours. You really think that you could master them that fast?" The navigator gave an amused shake of her head. "You altered my mind, sure, but all you really did was wash away parts of it. My stress, my frustration, my anger, almost all of the negativity that's been festering in my mind my whole life is just… gone."

Nami smiled slightly as she cocked her head to the side. "Honestly, I would thank you for it, I feel calmer and more relaxed than I have in years…"

Nami's expression darkened with fury as she snapped her arm down and swung her staff out. As a result, the cyclone she was ensconced in came to a halt, but not only did the pillar of cloud not dissipate, but the room began to crackle and reek of ozone.

"But I did say 'almost'," the pirate explained grimly.

Kalifa stood up and turned to face her opponent, and promptly froze up as she noticed that, in spite of the suds she'd produced being melted away by the rain, the room was still white. But only mostly, seeing as the walls were rapidly turning black.

"Because, in the end…" Nami narrowed her eyes menacingly. "Nothing can make me forgive you for hurting my friends."

As the Iron Clouds, her opponent had wrapped herself in moulded herself into a mesh cage, Kalifa could only bring herself to say a single thing.

"…I should have tried my luck with Lucci."

"Considering how you chose to face us instead? Yes. You should have. Nimbus Tempo."

And then the very air itself was lightning.

-o-

Blueno slapped his hands over his ears as a thunderclap loud enough to wake the dead sounded out from high above him. Running through the possibilities, he grimaced as he considered what either Kalifa or Fukuro had just had to endure.

He didn't count Kaku or Kumadori amongst the possible targets of the meteorological assault, as the former was fighting Roronoa Zoro rather than Nami, based on Cross's earlier rant, and the latter… well, he had already caught sight of his comrade's bloody, unconscious form in the midst of his flight from the Straw Hats' chef. A flight which, for the record, was still ongoing and not slowing down at all.

To his credit, Blueno was taking full advantage of the mobility that Shave and Moonwalk afforded him, as well as his Door-Door Fruit, allowing him to ignore any physical barriers in his path. But going by the fact that said barriers were being systematically pulverized behind him, clearly the cook wasn't slowing down either.

And as if his opponent's sheer persistence wasn't bad enough, the fact was that Blueno's foe was as much of a monster as the two—three Zoans of CP9 were meant that he could use the Tower of Justice itself as a practically inexhaustible store of ammunition. It had taken almost a dozen blows from the pirate before Blueno managed to get it into his head that he didn't even stand a ghost of a chance at taking him on in a straight fight, prompting the switch to his current strategy.

He couldn't fight back while the pirate was in the Air Door, and if he tried to open the way in, he would be lucky if any of his bones were left intact; forcing the pirate out would require more thought and force than he was capable of at the moment. As such, his only option was to run as fast and as hard as he possibly could.

After a quick series of turns through a trio of walls in order to gain a lead, however marginal, the bull-haired assassin took the opportunity to hunch over and wheeze as he tried to get his breath back. Strong as he was, even the agents of CP9 had their limits, and he was rapidly approaching his. He needed to end things fast, or else… well, that didn't really bear thinking about.

Once he got some oxygen back in his lungs, Blueno looked around in an effort to regain his bearings, mentally reviewing the layout of the Tower. Second floor, fifth corridor on the west side, which meant—

Blueno paused thoughtfully for a moment, and then a brutal grin split his face as a plan came to his mind.

-o-

Meanwhile, on the other side of the dimensional axis, Sanji was getting tired, both physically and of the situation in general. His adrenaline and righteous rage were helping him keep pace with the assassin, sure, but not even he could keep going strong after kicking down wall after wall, far more durable than average. Not to mention the fact that, to reiterate, he was breathing stale air and the assassin was making no attempt to open the way for a direct fight.

That was easily the most difficult aspect of the conflict; he needed to somehow exit the Air Door before he knocked the assassin unconscious, or else he'd still be stranded forever, and he had to do it in such a manner that the bull didn't enter it himself, or else he and the whole crew would lose by default.

'And to make matters even worse,' Sanji reflected sourly, as he levelled yet another wall. 'I've already run through every beef recipe I know to help keep me focused.' He shook his head dismissively as he dashed through the rubble. 'Bah, considering what I'll be starting with, it'd be more appropriate to run through recipes focusing on cows, anyway.'

Moving on from his supremely cathartic thoughts, Sanji scanned around the room as the dust cleared. Going by the array of weaponry strewn about, easy money said that this was the armoury of the Tower, or one of them, more likely, given the sheer size of the facility. The chef shivered slightly as the sight of the military arsenal caused dark memories to stir in the recesses of his mind, but he shook them off in favour of concentrating on the here and now.

Sanji glanced around the room, searching for any signs of a closing door…

CLINK!

When he was brought up short by the sound of metal dropping onto a solid surface. He glanced in the direction of the sound and raised an eyebrow when he caught sight of a half-dozen familiar objects rolling on the floor, all missing critical safety components.

"Grenades," Sanji noted calmly.

Then his mind caught up to him, and he all but inhaled his cigarette.

"Oh, SHI—!"

He only just managed to throw himself back through the hole in the wall before the grenades detonated.

-o-

Blueno smirked victoriously as a blast of flame and smoke shot out of the hand-sized Air Door he'd opened. Going by the curse he'd just heard, if his trick hadn't managed to finish off the pirate, then at minimum, he was injured or off balance. Still, given how tough he'd been up until then…

"Air Peephole," Blueno stated for his own benefit, pressing against the air and sliding it to the side, opening a line of sight into his dimension. A mass of smoke met his vision, but in the middle of it, he could pick up a very humanoid silhouette… spinning around in place?

"Hmph," the assassin snorted derisively as he shut the hole and walked over to where Sanji was on the other side. "He must be concussed or something. At this point, I'll be putting him out of his misery."

Once he was correctly positioned, Blueno shoved an Air Door open, leapt through and made a grab for Sanji's head - and then was forced to switch his leap to a roll when he fell through thin air instead.

He was just starting to get his breath back when a creaking sound, followed by a voice, came from behind him.

"Eh?" Blueno swung his head around in confusion. "The hell—!? Where did he—?"

"Welcome," a dry and downright malevolent voice drawled behind Blueno, freezing his blood in his veins. "To the Crap Café."

Blueno spun around just in time to catch sight of a flaming foot slamming his only escape route shut.

The blond cook took a deep drag of a cigarette as he regarded the assassin. "My name is Sanji," he continued tonelessly. "And I will be both your waiter and your cook today."

Blueno remained frozen in place as Sanji began stalking towards him.

"Allow me to list," Sanji's next drag lit a proper flame at the end of his cigarette. "The twelve-course meal we have planned for you tonight."

And with that, he moved.

-o-

A few corridors off from the armoury where Blueno had pulled his ploy lay the central staircase of the Tower of Justice, a magnificent work of architecture that flowed upwards and downwards without difficulty or gaps across the many floors it spanned. While some parts of the structure had been ravaged by the conflict going on within the building, apart from the tower's bisection and a few other areas, the stairwell was largely unmolested by the fight. It was a true credit to the World Government's architects that the area managed to remain pristine amid all the destruction.

Then a wall imploded, and any and all semblance of immaculate perfection was shattered in an instant.

A moment later, another wall was ruined, this time by fractures radiating from a central point of impact. Then another, and another after that. Up and down the staircase at varying intervals, the stonework of the stairwell, from walls to steps to railings, all started to disintegrate.

From sites of impact to outright shattering, it was as though some invisible wrecking crew were raining down unholy hell upon the stairwell.

Finally, after about a minute or so, the destruction suddenly halted and the world fell silent.

And then, all at once, a pair of double doors started to open in midair in the dead center of the stairwell.

"FLAMBÉ BARRAGE!"

Those doors were promptly blasted off their hinges by a suit-wearing minotaur slamming through them, his eyes rolled into his head, and blood flying from his mouth on account of the blazing volley of flaming arcs of air that were slamming into his chest. Said arcs were being launched from the blazing leg of the blond cook who followed the minotaur through the dimensional gap moments after him, before the hole could fade into nonexistence.

Satisfied with his assault, Sanji flipped and landed on one of the intact railings in the stairwell, taking the reprieve to draw a cigarette and his lighter from his pockets, his previous cigarette having been ashed over the course of his assault.

"You damn slippery bull…" he growled to himself, glaring up over his shoulder towards Blueno's falling form as he flicked a flame out of his lighter. "You made me miss out on a chance to covertly check out the room of the beautiful Kalifa."

In spite of his rage, Sanji looked away as Blueno reached the apex of his arc and started to fall, taking a calming drag from his cigarette before sighing out a cloud of smoke. "But, then again, I suppose it just can't be helped. After all…"

Blueno's smoking body smashed into the ground floor of the tower in a heap, shattering the stonework into dust. He didn't get back up.

"This prince is already occupied with saving his fair lady."

-o-

On the island of Enies Lobby, there was a tower. Inside the Tower of Justice was a room. That room, which belonged to Jabra of CP9, was decorated in the manner of the great gardens of the country Wano. At its best, it was a serene, beautiful place where Jabra could vent his frustrations when training and missions failed to do so.

One would be hard-pressed to call it beautiful anymore.

The lovingly maintained grass was torn up and shredded, revealing large patches of bare sod. The rest of the plant life in the room had fared no better, reduced to salad and sawdust by cutting force. At least one rock had a massive square-shaped hole going dead center. And, of course, there was the entire ceiling slowly sliding off like the world's largest Jenga piece.

And about fifteen feet to the left of center was the culprit of this devastation: a whirlwind of steel, razor air, and one massive square nose. A great swordsman once said, "Without subtlety, a sword is but an iron bar." The duel between Zoro and Kaku held no such subtlety by this point. Three-sword style, Four-sword Giraffe style, both discarded for good old hack and slash. Each blow was a killing blow; each parry attempted to break the sword that landed on it. It was the swordsman equivalent of a back-alley brawl.

And it was a brawl; Kaku was losing.

Not quickly, mind you. Why, to the eyes of most casual observers, it looked like he wasn't even losing at all. But the eyes of an astute watcher would notice one crucial fact: Zoro was on the offensive, and he was controlling the pace of the fight. The giraffe-man's every action was a reaction, and he was giving ground.

Still, he had a plan. As he slowly retreated, he drew his neck in, ostensibly to increase the reach of his limbs to better defend against the relentless onslaught he was being subjected to. And that did help, Zoro's slashes falling further away from his soft underbelly. But it was still only a delay; Kaku had a much more offensive move planned.

Finally, it was enough. His nose shot out like a cannon shot, the shout of "GIRAFFE BLAST!" ringing out, and smashed into Zoro's crossed swords with a massive metallic clang. The pirate grunted, the muscles in his arms bulging, and with a roar, he threw Kaku to the side, the giraffe-man rolling.

"Do you know what the definition of insanity is?" Zoro growled, sheathing Kitetsu and Yubashiri. "Trying the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. Two-Sword Style…"

Before Kaku could pull up his guard again, his opponent was on him, swords ready to flash from their sheaths.

"—Castle Gate!"

"Tempest Kick!"

Sadly, the blast, instead of hitting vulnerable Iron Body, skittered off the roaring winds of Kaku's favourite of the Six Powers.

"And I could say the same to you," Kaku retorted, landing back on his feet. "As I said before: it's up to me whether I catch an attack with Iron Body or not." And with that, he hopped onto his hand and began spinning his body around, the Sky Slicer starting to form around the arc.

"Tch," Zoro grunted, re-drawing his swords and pulling them back. "You're wide open like that! 108 Calibre Phoenix!"

"Sky Slicer!" Kaku called out as he hastily aborted the attack, though the wind already gathered was more than sufficient to cancel out the incoming Phoenix.

As Kaku flipped back on his feet, the two fighters evaluated their options. The number of attacks available to them capable of punching through Iron Body—'And wasn't that a fine thing to discover mid-battle!' Kaku thought bitterly as his hoof throbbed in memory—had been essentially expended already. And as for trying to remain mobile to deny him the usage of Iron Body… well, that was a doomed tactic for any assassin worth their salt, as proven by the earlier clash.

True, the agent could try to turn the fight into a battle of escalation, pumping more and more sheer power into his attacks until he overwhelmed the pirate…

Kaku gave the swordsman a once-over before shivering heavily. But no; young though his abilities might have been, he still had some measure of animal instincts in him, and they were all roaring at full cylinders that trying to go blow for blow with his opponent was a thoroughly bad idea.

So, if mobility, ability, and strength were out, then all that was left was…

Zoro blinked in surprise as Kaku shrank back down to his human form, but he didn't let the tension leave his stance.

Kaku levelled a firm gaze at his opponent. "It's clear that we're not getting anywhere with the pace we're going at, and considering what's on the way to the island right now, I think it would be in our best interests to finish this. I propose that we both drop our Iron Bodies…" He raised his two swords. "And we put our energies into one final sword technique. The winner walks away, and the loser falls."

Zoro took only a second to process that before smirking. "I accept," he growled eagerly.

Kaku nodded and brought up his swords, arms held wide and tips pointed inwards. Zoro reciprocated, putting the hilts of his handheld swords together, the blades pointing clockwise, one in a standard grip and the other in a reverse grip. For a tense moment, neither of them moved, and then Kaku surged forward with the fastest Shave he could muster.

"Three-Sword Style…" Zoro announced, spinning his swords in a circle.

Mid-Shave, Kaku spread his swords out, blades pointing in, and activated his Iron Body to take whatever attack was coming. And he had a little something extra planned for once he launched his own attack.

"Secret Technique…"

Kaku was just launching his attack, swords moving in…

"Three Thousand Worlds!"

And then Kitetsu flashed down out of the spin, shattering his swords like spun glass. Yubashiri came around the next second, carving through his Iron Body like so much wax paper and opening him up from hip to collarbone. Wado Ichimonji adding another cut over his chest was just salt in the wound.

Kaku hit the ground shoulder-first, flipping onto his back and reverting to his human form before coming to a stop. For a few seconds, he just lay there, gasping and panting in pain. He had lost.

"You… You knew that I… cheated…" the Giraffe-man wheezed. "You knew that… I'd use my powers… that I'd use… Iron Body… how—?"

"Because while you definitely have real skills, you're not a swordsman," Zoro calmly replied as he drew his bandanna from his head and sheathed his swords. "Not a swordsman first, at any rate. Above all else, you are an assassin. That means you let neither pride nor honour stand in the way of your victory."

Kaku was silent for a moment as he stared upward before allowing a smile to part his lips. "Heh…" he chuckled grimly. "Yeah, that's… about the right of it. Fat lot of good—ergh!—it did me this time around…" The assassin lapsed into silence for a moment before turning a bittersweet smile on Zoro. "You didn't even… use your full strength… did you?"

Zoro regarded him for a second before hanging his head with a sigh as he scratched the back of his head. "Sorry about that, I just wanted the fight to last longer. For what it's worth? You were the best fight I've had in a long time."

"Heh… heheh…" Kaku coughed up a mouthful of blood as he chuckled. "High praise, coming from you… at least I can say… I still have my pride." He shifted around a bit before frowning in annoyance. "Ah… could you reach into my jacket? Left breast pocket, it's—ugh!—where my key is. I'd get it myself… but my arms, well…"

Wordlessly, the green-haired swordsman moved over to Kaku, his guard not faltering despite the apparent helplessness of the assassin. But as he withdrew the key from the specified pocket, Zoro's expression lightened somewhat.

"Looks like you have more honour than I gave you credit for," he said. And with that, he rose and began walking away, out of the ruined garden. But as evidenced by the giraffe-man speaking up, again, his ex-opponent wasn't unconscious yet.

"I… I have no doubt that I'm only entertaining this… because of how I think that there's more blood… outside of my body than in it. But… I don't suppose… You have an open space on your crew?" Kaku's smile took on a pessimistic overtone. "I… think there's a very good chance that I might be out of a job."

Zoro paused for a moment before shooting a half-smirk over his shoulder. "While I'm sure that Luffy would let you join if you really wanted to, the fact is that we've already got someone lined up for the position you're most likely thinking of. And this might be a bit unusual for me, but… I'll admit that he's pretty cool. In fact…" His smirk became a full-blown grin. "I'd even go so far as to say he's downright super."

And with that, Zoro resumed walking towards the exit from the devastated room.

Kaku stayed quiet for a moment as he processed the parting statement before allowing a bloody chuckle to escape. "Heh… heheheh… I-I guess…" he giggled to nobody in particular. "That today… just really isn't my day, huh? Heheh, heheheh!"

Whether by chance or by divine intervention, an ordinary, everyday rooster chose that exact moment to flap over and perch itself on the tip of the assassin's nose.

This twist of fate only made him laugh harder for the last few seconds of consciousness he had left.

-o-

Carue clenched his beak together as Funkfreed's razor-edged trunk swept through where his head had been milliseconds before. The tusks, just as sharp, proved just as ineffective. Unfortunately, as good as his dodging was, it was all he could do. His claws had proven themselves to be completely ineffectual against the elephant-sword's thick, steel-hard hide, and after the first time his Shave-charge had bounced off of Funkfreed's skull, he had proceeded to fill the length of the bridge with his serpentine bulk and block every avenue of attack.

'I guess he's the bodyguard of someone of that much authority for a good reason,' the duck reflected sourly.

"That's right, Funkfreed! Don't give that overgrown duck even an inch!" Spandam cheered.

As much as Spandam's voice grated at Carue's ears, it also served to help goad him on, his mind flying at a million miles an hour in an attempt to devise some way around the living sword before it was too late—

"AH!"

Only for his thought process to slam to a halt when a pained cry cut through the pandemonium of the bridge.

'Vivi!'

Carue didn't even hesitate for a second before turning on his heel and tearing down the Bridge of Hesitation, the world slowing to a halt as he pushed his body to the limit and dashed through the masses of Marines towards his charge.

'I need to protect Vivi, I need to protect Vivi!' Over and over, the mantra that he'd drilled into his head since he was a chick rang through his skull, pushing the Supersonic Duck even faster. Within less than a minute, he was within eyesight of his friends. His claws bit into the stone of the bridge, tensing for a Shave that would put him right next to her.

'I need to protect—!…eh?'

And then, he actually looked at the scene before him, and the mantra fell away. The reason for this was that while Vivi had managed to accrue a small collection of cuts, scrapes, and bruises on her person, every single one of them was minor. Even the major wound in her gut, despite its size and apparent severity, was clearly not hampering her in the least, as the way she was systematically cutting down any Marines that approached her attested to.

Even as he watched a fireteam of Marines charge her, Carue could already tell what they couldn't and didn't: they were already defeated the instant they decided to stand against her. And as Vivi's Lion Cutters wrapped around them and tore through them, an epiphany happened to strike Carue.

'I don't need to protect Vivi…' he thought, the realization hitting him like one of Eneru's thunderbolts. 'Vivi's gotten stronger. She's strong enough that she can handle herself. I… I don't need to protect her.' And then another realization hit him, in quick succession. 'I don't need to protect her. The ones I need to protect…'

His left foot, on the fifth push of the Shave, slammed into the stone in just such a manner that he spun on his other talon, turning a full 180 degrees and glaring daggers at the elephant-sword that was standing in his path.

"Aye need…" Carue snarled, determination blazing in every fibre of his being. "TO PWOTECT MY FWIENDS!"

And with that, Carue slammed ten steps into the pavement at once and launched himself forward with a furious squawk. He then repeated the process with his other leg, only this time he put in twelve steps at once. Then thirteen from there. Then fifteen, and then twenty, each successive Shave faster and more powerful than the last.

And then the duck hit thirty steps at once, and the air around him snapped, the pressure wave and noise flinging almost fifty-four, fifty-five Marines off their feet. Vivi and Conis exchanged shocked looks at the development before electing to take full advantage of the subsequent gap to storm further down the bridge after the duck, who was now speeding straight for the opponent he'd abandoned.

Funkfreed blinked at the display in shock, closing his eyes for a fraction of a second—

"SUPAHSONIC!"

And then time froze for the sword as it opened its eyes, and Carue was right there, hanging before his face, talons extended and rocketing right at his forehead.

Funkfreed hastily flexed his forehead, his hide reflecting a flash of eternal sunlight as it hardened into steel.

"KICK!"

SKRANG!

And then all movement on the bridge froze as all eyes were drawn to where Carue's talons were planted in the dead center of Funkfreed's forehead. For a moment, the world stayed perfectly frozen, as if it were all a picture.

And then Carue fell onto his ass while Funkfreed stayed standing.

A moment of silence, and then Spandam broke out into a mad cackle. "WAHAHAHAAAAHA! Well done, Funkfreed, well done! You see that, you stupid pirates?! You bastards never had a chance of beating… an…"

Spandam trailed off in horror as his sword started to keel over with agonizing slowness, the change of angle displaying both the whites of his insensate eyes and the pair of talon-shaped dents in his skull.

The Zoan-weapon didn't even fall halfway when he suddenly disappeared, a single badly-dented sword with tusks at the hilt and a tail-like tassel clattering to the ground where he once stood.

Spandam stayed frozen even as Carue pushed himself onto his legs, shaking but still standing. He then flinched in terror as the duck pinned him with a determined glare.

"You'we next," the Captain of the Supersonic Duck Squadron declared venomously. He took a step forward—and then promptly collapsed beak-first with a cry of pain. "WAGH!"

"CARUE!" Vivi screamed.

"W-What the—!?" Carue squawked painfully, agony shooting through his body from his talons up. He tried to push himself up with his wings, but collapsed again when the leg he tried to support himself with gave out with a sickening crack. The duck stared over his shoulder in equal parts agony and naked horror. "OW! My wegs! D-Damn it, m-my wegs just bwoke!"

"Damn it…" Conis cursed beneath her breath as she took in the Marines who were starting to get their nerve back. "Hang on, Carue, we'll be right there!" So saying, she made to heft her Burn Bazooka, only to drop it with a cry of pain when her arm suddenly fell slack mid-motion. "GAH!"

"Conis! What's—!?" Su took one look at her friend's arm before stiffening fearfully. "Your shoulder just jumped its socket!"

"Grrghh…" Conis ground out as she clutched her throbbing shoulder. "Heartwarming gift or not, I'm starting to think that that damn Reject Dial was more trouble than it was worth…"

Spandam was quick to recover his ego and don a malicious grin as he flung his head back. "Oh, now this is just perfect! WAHAHAHA—Eh?" He blinked in surprise as he realized something. "Huh… looks like I can move again." He stared blankly at his hands for a second before sneering and casting his arm out. "KILL THEM ALL!"

"No! Leave them alo—ah!" Vivi's command was choked off as she collapsed to the ground, as though her strings had just been snipped out from above her.

"Vivi!" Carue squawked fearfully.

"Ah, w-what—!?" Vivi squirmed fruitlessly as she tried to force something, anything at all to move. "M-My body! It won't move, I-I-I can't do anything!"

"Oh, perfect," Su groaned as she dragged a paw down her face. "The newfound superpower you've been spamming for the past five minutes has an unexpected drawback. Because of course it does. Hands up, who didn't see this coming? AND I WASN'T ASKING YOU!" she snapped at the few Marines who actually raised their hands, though she was quick to recoil when their comrades levelled their weapons at her. "Ah… actually, if I may rephrase that—?"

"Soldiers!" Spandam barked through a sadistic grin as he raised his arm. "On my mark, kill the Straw Hat Pirates!"

"NO!" Robin pleaded, jerking desperately against the soldiers holding her.

Spandam's grin was nothing but pure evil as he turned his attention to his captive. "Nico Robin," he drawled venomously. "Allow me to officially welcome you to Hell."

And so, in spite of Robin's cries, he started to swing his arm down, and the orders were just about to leave his lips—

"THE ONLY PERSON GOING TO HELL TODAY IS YOU, FUCKFACE!"

When he was brought up short by a furious voice roaring through the air.

"What the—!?"

CRUNCH!

"—GWARGH!"

The next moment, a pair of high-velocity metal boots collided with Spandam's face.

Everyone present stared in shock as the Director of CP9 was sent tumbling ass over teakettle, glaring between his legs at the person who'd just landed on the bridge.

Jeremiah Cross snorted proudly as he readjusted the brim of his cap. "Dynamic. Entry," he enunciated clearly.

-o-

Well, that had been a heck of a start to the finale of this little crusade of ours.

As if hanging off of Franky's back while he and Boss scaled the side of the Bridge wasn't blood-pumping and gut-wrenching enough, we'd arrived at the top to the sight of our friends coming damn close to getting executed.

Thankfully, Franky and Boss combined were more than strong enough to throw me at a certain piece of human filth before he could give the order. Now that had been a wild and damn cathartic voyage.

As for my three companions, weeell…

"BARRACUDA BARRAGE!"

"WEAPONS LEFT!"

"CHERRY BLOSSOM BLAST!"

Suffice it to say that they were currently occupied with securing our vanguard's safety.

"Weeeeell, look at this!" Boss proclaimed, his grin face-splitting as he spun his rope-dart at his side. "Looks like we got here just in the nick of time! What does that make us?"

"Big Damn Heroes, Boss," Franky laughed, the capitalization clearly audible as he slammed his fists together.

"Ain't we just?" Soundbite and I said in unison. Soundbite then turned his eyestalks to glare murderously at Spandam. "Cut her loose."

"'Ou… 'Ou bastards," Spandam slurred through his compacted face as he struggled to get back up into a sitting position. "Do 'ou even 'ow what yer doin'!? Dat woban id a debon!"

"Yeeeaaah…" Soundbite drawled as he nodded his head side to side before glancing at Robin and grinning. "But she's our demon." He then snapped his teeth at Spandam. "SO CUT HER THE HELL LOOSE."

I grinned at the display for a moment before shaking my head. "Nah, nah, he doesn't need to bother. I got this." With that, I walked up to Robin and grabbed her cuffs.

"C-Cross—!" she started shakily.

"Shhh," I hushed her as I looked her restraints over and confirmed that they were the number 5 pair. "You can say what you want once you're free. For now? This is about to get impressive. Watch this."

I then stood up, turned around, and shot my hand into the air, five fingers spread and palm facing towards the Tower of Justice.

-o-

Usopp adjusted his goggles in order to confirm what he was seeing before leaning over so that he could shout down into the Tower through the hole he'd opened in the roof. "SHE'S WEARING NUMBER FIVE!"

"GOT IT!" Nami called up before blowing a whistle and waving down the tower's central shaft. "KALIFA HAD NUMBER TWO, WE NEED NUMBER FIVE!"

"BLUENO HAD THREE, NAMI-SWAN!" Sanji called out from a dozen floors below. "MOSSHEAD, WHERE ARE YOU?"

"GOT IT RIGHT HERE!" Zoro shouted - from the ground floor.

"THE HELL!? I THOUGHT THAT THE DAMN GARDEN ROOM WAS ABOVE ME! HOW DID YOU EVEN—!?"

"OH, SHUT THE HELL UP, THIS DAMN PLACE IS CONFUSING!" Zoro roared indignantly. "ANYWAY…" He clutched the key in his fist and reared his arm back. "CATCH, SHITCOOK!" The swordsman unwound and shot the small sliver of metal at the chef like a certain geezer's cannonballs.

Sanji bit back a curse as he caught the key a few inches from his face. "Son of a—! Damn crazy mossheaded—!" He was quick to recover and get his mind back on track, balancing the key on his foot. "COMING TO YOU, NAMI-SWAN!" he shouted up before snapping his leg out and passing the key up the tower.

Nami caught the key with a mitt of Iron Cloud and promptly used her free hand's thumb to aim as the cloud flowed from catch to throw in one smooth motion. "ALL YOURS, USOPP!"

The sniper held his slingshot in the path of the key, catching it in the pouch and grabbing it as it snapped back before lining his shot up with the Bridge.

"One more shot from the King of the Snipers…" Usopp grinned to himself as he let his projectile fly.

-o-

I snapped my fist shut around the key the second it slapped into my hand. Then, in one fluid motion, I bent down, inserted the key into the cuffs and turned it, clicking the lock open.

Robin stared in shock as the restraints clanked to the ground. "Ah…" she whispered numbly as she held her wrists up and flexed her fingers.

"Wha—!? Z-Zad's nod bozzible! Y-You baztards muzt have—!"

BOOM!

"—UGWARGH!"

I shot a grateful thumbs-up at our covering sniper before grinning confidently as I picked the cuffs up and spun them around my finger. "And that," I gloated. "Is how we roll." I then tossed the cuffs up and held my bag open, allowing the seastone (I had to fight to keep myself from cackling gleefully at that little tidbit) to drop into it with a clank. "And don't you ever dare to forget it!"

Robin jerked as the sound apparently snapped her out of her reverie before shifting uncomfortably, glancing away as she rubbed her arm. "Cross… about Water 7, what I did—!"

"Before you say anything," I interrupted her as I dug a bundle of leather out of my bag and plopped it on her head. "Here."

Robin's head flinched under my hand and reached up to feel just what I'd put on her, snapping her gaze up in shock as she grasped her cowboy hat. "T-This is—!"

"You forgot it before this mess started," I explained with a casual smile. "Don't lose it again, alright?"

A swirl of emotions swept over Robin's face, tears welling up in her eyes. "Cross—"

"Hey," I interrupted her as I grasped her shoulders. "No tears right now, alright? There'll be plenty of time to get weepy and sappy and whatever the hell else we can blackmail you with later. But right now, what we need is for you to be the cold as steel, tough as nails badass bitch we've all grown to know, hate, and love in equal measure. You think you can do that?"

Robin stared at me a moment longer before bowing her head with a wry chuckle. "…You are a real piece of work, Jeremiah Cross…"

She then glanced over her shoulder, and a chorus of snaps, cracks and screams heralded busy days for the Marines' doctors.

"But," Robin smiled as she stood up, holding her hat in place. "I do believe that I can manage that."

I nodded proudly as I patted her shoulder. "That's what I hoped you'd say. But for now, if you'll excuse me…" I slammed my fist into my palm with a sadistically eager grin as I turned to address the source of the pained groans starting to waft through the air. "I am about to seamlessly mix business and pleasure, so that your own experience might be all the more enjoyable. You mind?"

Robin eyed my target for a moment before bowing her head with a smirk. "Oh, no, please, I absolutely insist."

"As you say," I bowed exaggeratedly before walking towards Spandam's stirring form, Soundbite's powers amplifying the sound of my footsteps. The… individual slowly raised his head in horror as I drew near enough to see the separations on the leather straps of his mask. I grinned cheerily as I snapped up a mock-salute. "Howdy. Remember me?"

"You…" Spandam's eyes widened in recognition. "J-Jeremiah Cross—! You're—!"

"The guy who burned Pluton's blueprints in cold blood and who has systematically ruined your life over the past hour?" My smile took on a bloodthirsty overtone as I tilted my head just so. "Yes. Yes, I am."

Spandam's expression slowly contorted into one of fury. "You… You son of a—!"

"EVIL suit-wearing LEATHER-ASS STRING BEAN SAY whaaat?!"

The scumbag in question blinked in confusion. "Wha—"

CRACK!

"GAWRGH!" Spandam howled in agony as the toe of my greave slammed into his chin.

"My turn," I chirped pleasantly as I leaned over and hauled him up by his collar. "Hello, Spandam. What say we chat, hm?"

"By jaw…" Spandam gurgled painfully. "'Ou bwoge by jaw…"

"Ooooh, Spandam, Spandam, Spandam," I chuckled as I shook my head. "Trust me when I say that that is going to be the absolute least of your worries."

-o-

"See, I've known about you for a while, Spandam, and I've thought long and hard about what I'd do to you if I ever happened to run into you," Cross stated, his voice devoid of any emotion but a hard, malicious kind of glee. "And as I've thought about you, I've come up with oh so many possibilities, oh so many ways I can punish you for every last second that you have perpetrated the inexcusable crime of existing. Let's read off a few, shall we? We'll start with the basics: I could simply beat you to a pulp that not even your rat-bastard of a father could love. I could have Soundbite practice his Gastro-Blast on you until your whole body is jelly or his voice gives out, whichever comes first. I could have him recite any one of the terrible, utterly horrific sounds he keeps stored in his grey matter on full blast until yours start dribbling out of your ears. And those are the indiscriminate. What say we move on to specific body parts, hm?"

A special kind of malevolent evil slowly started to slide into Cross's expression, and his voice fell into a whisper.

"I could cut off your fingers one joint at a time, and feed them to you knuckle by knuckle. I could use my Flash Dial to burn your eyes out of your head until all you have left are empty sockets. I could use a needle to hollow out every one of your teeth, then stick pins through the cavities and soak them in vinegar and lemon juice. I could break your jaw, or rather, I could re-break it, and then use it to force you to bite off your own tongue. Ah! But, of course, I'd start by pouring molten sand down your throat, in order to muffle that irritating whining you'd be making the entire time that would prevent me from enjoying my work."

Saldeath whistled in awe as he eyed the Impel Down staff room's snail. "Wow. If he weren't on the other side of the law, I'd consider scouting him for a job. Chances are that he'd make executive in a year, easy."

"You're underselling him. Six months, minimum~❤"

The demon-looking man hummed in agreement as he nodded his head to the side, before pausing and glancing at his fellow executive. "You're taking notes on this? You, of all people?"

Sadi giggled ecstatically as she continued to transcribe everything that the pirate was saying. "But of course! More than half of these ideas are highly novel and quite possibly effective at that! Didn't you know, Salsy? Being a professional is all well and good, but amateurs will forever be the most dangerous for a reason, you know~❤"

-o-

"—And then I would make you eat the salsa," I concluded bluntly, taking great pleasure in my captive audience's terrified whimpering.

"…dude," Soundbite gaped in awe.

"Cross? Colour me convinced that you are the scariest person on the crew when you're angry," Lassoo muttered fearfully.

"Eh," I cocked my head to the side. "That's an unfair metric, seeing as I doubt that I could hate anyone as much as I hate this particular individual right here. Case in point?" I jerked my head back over my shoulder. "I'm sufficiently pissed off that I could hand you over to Chopper with explicit instructions that he do his worst."

I blocked out the ecstatic squeak our doctor let out at that.

"But!" I snapped a finger up just as Spandam looked like he was about to faint. "I'm not going to do any of that."

Hope blossomed on Spandam's face, and I had to resist the urge to imitate the Cheshire Cat, because oh, man, he had no idea what was coming. And that just made it even more delicious.

"I'm going to do something worse than everything I've said up to this point combined."

There it was. That glorious dawning moment of comprehension adored by sadists and stuffed tigers the world over. I swiftly drew my Vision Dial and immortalized that expression for all eternity before grabbing Spandam's collar and hauling him around so that he had an unobstructed view of the two comrades who'd come to stand behind me.

"I believe you've met my friends, Franky and Nico Robin," I drawled. It was very satisfying to watch Spandam become stark white as the pair loomed over him.

"In case you've forgotten," I hummed indifferently. "You framed Franky and sentenced his mentor to death a few years back, your father destroyed Robin's homeland when she was a child, you've made the past twenty-four hours of their lives a living hell…" I made a show of snapping my fingers in realization. "Oh, yeah, and you personally kicked the shit out of them less than an hour ago."

"Pupupupupupu!" Soundbite chortled ecstatically in a thoroughly chipper and despair-inducing voice, revelling in the fact that Spandam didn't even have the strength in him to shiver anymore. "LET'S GIVE IT EVERYTHING WE'VE GOT!"

I shoved my hand out, tossing Spandam to the feet of Robin and Franky. Their expressions were shadowed, but I swear that their eyes were shining murderously, and that I could see the GOGOGOGOGO~ characters floating in the air above them.

"Have fun, you two," Isang as I waved at them. "And parents back home, fair warning: this is about to become very R-rated."

"IT'S PUNISHMENT TIME!"

And with that, I clamped my headphones over my ears just as the screaming started.

-o-

"Gahahaha! Yeah, that's right! Give it to him, pound him to pieces!" Genzo cheered exuberantly as he swung his fists through the air. He then made a grab at his side - and blinked in confusion when he only hit air. "Eh? Where the hell'd my sake go?"

"Right here," Nojiko deadpanned as she swished the bottle in her grip. "And before you even think of protesting, even if this is as cathartic as when Nami sent that rat-bastard flying, if you didn't notice me taking this from you, then you're drunk enough already."

"Ergh… yeah, alright, maybe you have a—HEY!" Genzo barked indignantly as Nojiko knocked the bottle back.

"Pwah!" The tangerine farmer blew out a hearty sigh as she put the bottle down. "What? I said that you're drunk enough. I'm just getting started."

"Tsk…" Genzo scoffed, looking away. "I told Bellemere that she wouldn't make a good—!" CLONK! "OW!"

"DON'T TRASH TALK THE DEAD!"

"SHE WAS MY DAMN DRINKING BUDDY, I'LL TALK ABOUT HER HOWEVER I DAMN WELL PLEASE!"

"YOU OLD—!"

"HEY, WHAT ARE YOU DOING WITH THAT SPORK?! AAAAHHH! AAAAHHH! AAAAHHHHH! AAAAAHHHHHHH!"

The two briefly ceased their argument as Spandam's agonized wails reached new levels, and both wondered what exactly was happening.

-o-

Allow me to be perfectly frank: the first several seconds of the unmitigated beatdown were beyond cathartic, true as true can be, but I soon felt a bit of a sweatdrop hang off my temple as I realized that, well… they weren't stopping. Like, any time soon. Which meant that this was getting… let's say awkward.

"Sooo, ah, guys?" I spoke up with a nervous chuckle as I scratched the back of my neck. "I'm gonna just, ah… check on our friends? You know, if that's alright with you?"

The only response I received was a glass-shatteringly high-pitched falsetto scream.

"I think that THAT'S ALRIGHT with them," Soundbite chuckled nervously.

"Aye!" I squawked in agreement as I spun on my heel and dashed over to our friends.

"Lordy lordy," Boss whistled in awe, watching the morbid spectacle even as he continued to use a Marine Lieutenant's head as a punching bag. "I didn't know human limbs could bend that way!"

"Eh… seriously?" Su cocked her eyebrow in confusion as she watched from atop an insensate pile of Boss's handiwork. "Shouldn't that be, like, blindingly obvious?"

"No, I mean, I didn't know it could bend that way and stay attached."

"Ahhh… yeah, I see your point. Resilient little fucker, isn't he?"

"The nastiest cockroaches always are," I commented drolly as I walked by them. I then focused on where Chopper was tending to our vanguard. "Ladies, duck… You look like shit."

"I'd teww you to fawk off, but I feew wike it too…" Carue groaned as he massaged his newly bandaged legs.

"I'm not surprised, considering you broke every single bone in your legs in three places each, WITH MICROFRACTURES COATING THE REST!" Chopper snapped as he rammed a syringe into the duck's wing, ignoring his pained squawk. "Also, this is temporary until I can get them in proper casts, so for Asclepius' sake, don't use them unless someone's about to die!"

I gave a light cough, drawing his attention back to me. "Prognosis, doc?"

"Oh, hey, Cross," he waved his hoof absently as he stood up and walked back to the other two. "You've heard about Carue's injuries, but Conis and Vivi are in better shape. Conis just has a dislocated shoulder and some bruises, and aside from exhaustion, which I fixed with a supplement, Vivi just has a flesh wound. I'm afraid that that will scar, by the way."

Vivi nodded her head with a groan as she waved him off.

"Anyway…" Chopper turned his attention to our gunner as he shifted into his Heavy Point. "Conis, just hold your arm in place, and I can get you a sling in—"

"The bone isn't actually broken, right?" Conis confirmed as she reached behind her back. "The joint is still intact, it's just dislocated?"

"Ah…" Chopper blinked in confusion. "Yeah, the bone looks to be fine, why do you a—?"

CR-CRACK! "GRGH!"

Chopper cut himself off and gaped silently for a second before pinching the bridge of his nose with a groan. "Tell me you did not just do that. Tell me that you did not just RESET YOUR OWN DAMN SHOULDER USING A RIFLE AS A LEVER."

"Sorry, Chopper," Conis apologized with a sheepish grin as she wound a roll of gauze around her shoulder. "But Captain McKinley would have my beret if I let something like a loose shoulder stop me for more than a minute, and I will not disrespect the corps."

"…If I see one more instance of back-alley quackery performed before me today, I swear to EVERY LAST DIVINITY IN EXISTENCE—!"

"So, Vivi!" I yelped hastily, hoping to divert Chopper's mind from any thoughts of retribution. "How are you feeling? The heck happened to you, anyway?"

"Ah…" Vivi started, before wincing as she rubbed her throat. "Ah, a bit dry. Do you have anything to—?"

"Ah…" I spent a second patting myself down, but then I snapped my fingers as a thought struck me. "OH! I know!" I turned towards the melee. "Hey, Franky! You got anything to drink, or—?"

THWACK!

"YEOW!" I yelped, clutching my skull where a metal flask had bounced off of it. Impressively enough, it actually landed in Vivi's lap. "Owww… thanks anyway!"

"MY RIBS ARE IN MY EYES! THEY'RE IN MY EYES!"

"You don't deserve eyes!" I yelled back. I then eyed Vivi as she took a swig from the flask. "Feeling any better?"

Vivi coughed a bit in order to clear her airways before nodding thankfully. "Yeah. Cola works wonders on sore throats."

"Oh, that's cola?" I perked up eagerly and held my hand out. "Give it here, I'm parched!"

Vivi conceded absentmindedly before giving me a quizzical look. "Ah, Cross… are you at all familiar with a technique that lets someone overpower everyone around them using nothing but their own willpower?"

I paused as I was about to take a sip and eyed her in confusion. "Er… yeeees? What I'm wondering is how the hell you know about it. That's not exactly public knowledge there, princess. Or, well…" I shrugged with a grin. "It wasn't until you made it public knowledge, anyway!" I chuckled to myself as I took a swig from the flask. Mm-mmm! Eat your heart out, Coca-Cola. Once you go Grand Blue, you never go back!

"Well, you see, Cross," Vivi said, hesitantly scratching the back of her head. "The reason I know about it and the reason I'm asking is that whatever that power is, I apparently have it."

"PFFFFFT! GACK! HACK!" I promptly sprayed my drink everywhere and started wheezing desperately, on account of the liquid going down every which pipe save for the right one. "S-SCRAMBLE! SCRAMBLE!" I yelped as I desperately slapped at Soundbite's shell.

"Ow, OW! WATCH IT, no need to insist! YOU'RE IN THE CLEAR!"

"There is a very great need to—!"

THWACK!

"OW!" I yelped as a metal fist bounced off my skull.

"STOP WASTING MY DAMN COLA, JACKASS!"

"FOCUS ON THE SCUMBUCKET, PERVERT!" I roared back before snapping my attention to the half-nervous, half-peeved, all-wet princess. "Vivi, what in the blue, wet and utterly insane hell are you talking about!?"

Vivi blinked before starting to talk. "I… Robin must have provoked Spandam somehow, because he was holding a gun to her head, and he was going to blow her brains out. I was thinking about how I shouldn't be powerless to help my friends, powerless to do anything but watch them die… and something just…" Vivi snapped her fingers demonstratively. "Snapped in my mind. I heard myself yell for everything to stop, and… it just happened. Su thought that it had something to do with the ruler's instinct."

"EH!?" I squawked incredulously as I strangled the air. "You've got to be—! Conqueror's Haki? You have Conqueror's Haki?!"

"Haki? You mentioned that with Satori and Aisa, yes?" Conis asked curiously.

"Mrghgrgr…" I grumbled as I kneaded the bridge of my nose. "Their ability was just Observation Haki; there are three different forms of the ability, and unlike Observation and Armament, which every living being on the planet is born with and can learn to master, you cannot, I repeat, cannot learn Conqueror's; only one in every one million people is capable of utilizing it, and considering that Luffy is one of them, I think it doesn't bear explaining that I did not expect it to manifest in anyone else on the crew!"

"It's… It's dat wawe?" Carue squawked incredulously.

"Considering the fact that the average user is capable of scaring or taming Sea Kings just by looking them in the eye, and decimating an entire army, just by willing it?!" I bit out. "If it wasn't, the World Government wouldn't have survived a day."

"That's a yes, then," Vivi concluded dryly, before shaking her head with a weary groan. "Is there any particular reason why you didn't consider bringing that up while you were spilling your guts on training techniques?"

"Because I asked for instructions on them and I got squat in return!" I flung my arms up in exasperation. "Why do you think I was so pissed at Ace when he left, huh? The hothead stiffed me on Haki instructions, which I really hoped we could get because all three kinds are common knowledge in the New World! And unless a miracle happens, we're not going to meet anyone else who knows and is willing to share the instructions before we hit the end of Paradise."

I shook my head with a weary sigh. "The story never showed the methods in detail, and the only way I've seen people unlock any of the abilities without training, as you experienced yourself, is through massive trauma. Believe me, if I had my way, we'd all be trying to learn it ASAP."

"Ugh…" Vivi rubbed the back of her neck sheepishly. "Well, at least now I can make people listen to me when I really need to, so that's something."

I was drawn up short by that particular statement. "Eh… run that by me again?"

Vivi blinked at me in surprise. "Uh… Yeah, I just focus my willpower on someone, and they obey any order I give them, even if they… don't… that's not what you're thinking of, is it?" she concluded lamely as she took in my poleaxed expression.

"Try 'people keel over foaming at the mouth'!" I moaned in exasperation. I shook my head as I tried to reason things out. "Still, the execution and the basis seem to be the same as Conqueror's, so… maybe this is some kind of branch off of it?" I shook my head helplessly. "I've been gone for a while, who knows what the hell Oda came up with? There's a reason fans call him Goda." I glanced upwards with a weary groan. "For now, however, we have the world knowing that you are apparently one of the chosen few who always manage to achieve greatness, while you yourself are in possession of an absolutely alien ability that even I know nothing about. The day just keeps getting better, don't it?"

"Yes. Yes. It. Does."

I looked over my shoulder with a cocked eyebrow as Robin and Franky approached me with far too satisfied expressions on their faces. I glanced at Soundbite as I slashed my hand across my throat before speaking up. "I take it that you two enjoyed yourselves?"

I made a point of not looking at the twitching pile of meat that was only just not classifiable as a corpse behind them.

"More than you can possibly imagine, Cross," Robin sighed euphorically as she stretched her arms above her head. "I do believe I've just had more fun in the past ten minutes than I have in the past two decades."

"HaHa!" Franky cackled as he folded his arms behind his head. "Not quite so long for me, my family's been good for me over the years, but damn if that wasn't enjoyable! Man, meeting you guys has been one of the best things to happen to me in years!"

"Heheh, glad to hear it!" I nodded contentedly. "Well, now that that's all wrapped up, all that's left is to rendezvous with everyone else and—!"

"Puru puru puru puru! You planned that," Soundbite accused testily.

"I hoped that it would work. Nothing wrong with that!" I smirked as I motioned for him to pick up.

He rolled his eyes before conceding. "KA-LICK! Cross? Usopp here. Nami, Sanji, Zoro and I all won our—OW! Hey, those Marines count, do you know how many headshots and snipers I just took down!? As I was saying, we all won our fights, and we've gotten as many of the valuables as we can carry from here. We're on the Tower's rear dock now!"

"Perfect!" I pumped my fist victoriously. "Alright, you guys hang tight, we'll get to commandeering the ship Spandam was going to use, because no way in hell can we pilot a battleship on our own, and come and pick you guys up! Then we wait for Luffy to finish mopping the floor with Lucci, pick him up and our guys back at the train station, and then we're clear! Honestly, barring any major situations, we just might manage to get out of this whole mess scot-free!"

In retrospect, I would have been better off blasting my Impact Gauntlet in my own face than saying that stupid, stupid, stupid sentence. Honestly, how in the world could I have been so utterly brain-dead as to willfully say that out loud? Because that was most certainly the catalyst for Vivi tapping me on my shoulder.

"Cross?" she whimpered fearfully as she stared behind me. "I… think that that counts as a major situation."

Naïve and optimistic as I was, I followed her gaze with the most innocent of confusion, and was rewarded for my troubles with the sight of hell itself.

"Ohhh, shitbiscuits," I whispered fearfully.

Because really…

What other reaction could a person have to the Gates of Hell themselves starting to open… and the light of an infernal dawn shining through?