Chapter 16: Victory
"You call yourself Accelerator?"
Bluejam's face twisted as he stared at Axel.
For a brief instant, he really had been shaken by the white haired boy's gaze. That realization only made him angrier. His expression turned savage, and he bared his teeth like a cornered beast.
"What a joke!" he snarled. "The weak are weak, brat! Fancy words won't change that!"
Axel did not react to the provocation.
He simply looked at Bluejam with cold, steady eyes and said, "That's enough."
Bluejam frowned.
"What?"
To him, the boy's words were all nonsense. Ever since this battle began, Axel had kept saying strange, inexplicable things, as if he lived in some world Bluejam could not understand.
Axel slowly raised his left hand.
A tiny sphere of wind spun in his palm.
The air around Dadan's hideout had always been stronger than elsewhere. The mountain breeze never truly stopped here. During the few moments Bluejam kept talking, Axel had been silently gathering the surrounding wind, compressing it bit by bit until a small, unstable whirlwind had formed.
Then he turned and aimed it at the pirates fighting the mountain bandits.
With a flick of his wrist, he released it.
The small wind sphere shot out and immediately began to expand after leaving his control. It was not powerful enough to tear bodies apart or level the battlefield, but that was never the point. The swelling burst of wind slammed into the pirates blocking the bandits' advance, knocking them off balance, hurling lighter men sideways, and forcing open a temporary gap in the chaos.
It was not destruction.
It was opportunity.
And Dadan seized it at once.
"Who gave you permission to touch my brat?!"
Her furious roar shook the battlefield.
A moment ago, she had been tied down by the sheer number of pirates in front of her. Now, with Axel clearing a path, all the rage she had been bottling up erupted at once.
In Dadan's eyes, Axel was already one of her children.
She had seen Bluejam cut him.
That alone was enough to make her blood boil.
With a monstrous burst of force, she charged through the gap Axel had created and swung her massive axe straight at Bluejam.
Bluejam's eyes sharpened instantly.
This time, he did not dare underestimate her in the slightest.
Dadan of Mount Colubo was not some nameless thug. She had her own reputation for a reason. When her axe came down, Bluejam planted both feet, gripped his sword in both hands, and met it head on.
Clang!
The impact exploded through the clearing.
The ringing metallic sound was far sharper and harsher than any clash before it. Bluejam's body was driven backward, boots scraping across the ground as he slid several meters before finally stabilizing himself.
Axel watched the exchange with narrowed eyes.
So this is Bluejam fighting seriously.
His expression did not change, but inwardly, he became even more cautious.
Before, Bluejam had never been able to truly let loose. Axel's ability kept him wary, restrained, unable to commit without fear of being touched. That had made his strength feel more manageable than it truly was.
Now, with Dadan pressing him directly, Axel could finally see it clearly.
Bluejam was strong.
Far stronger than Axel had originally wanted to admit.
Not just for some local pirate.
Not just for East Blue.
Objectively strong.
If Dadan had not been here, then Axel, Ace, and the others probably would have been forced to retreat sooner or later. Maybe even worse.
No wonder Bluejam had mocked them as weaklings.
He had the power to back up that contempt.
Dadan, meanwhile, gave him no time to breathe.
She swung again.
And again.
And again.
Without a single wasted word, she pursued Bluejam mercilessly, her great axe cutting wide, brutal arcs through the air. Bluejam met her with his sword, the two of them colliding again and again as sparks flew from each exchange.
Clang! Clang! Clang!
The sound of metal on metal rang across the battlefield in rapid succession.
Ace's eyes lit up.
"Let's help Dadan."
The sheer ferocity of the clash did not frighten him. If anything, it ignited the fire in his chest even more.
Sabo and Luffy were the same.
All three boys tightened their grips on their pipes and moved at once.
Axel, jolted out of his momentary distraction, slapped both cheeks lightly.
What am I doing?
Analyzing the gap in the middle of battle is useless if I freeze because of it.
He forced himself back into focus and joined them.
With Dadan pressing from the front and Axel's presence constantly looming nearby, Bluejam's situation immediately worsened. He still fought fiercely, but now he could not devote all of his attention to Dadan. Ace and the others were already closing in from the sides, and Axel remained the most dangerous of them all.
Every time Bluejam's eyes shifted away from Axel, he felt danger.
Every time he focused on Axel, Dadan's axe nearly split him open.
The pressure mounted rapidly.
He was driven back again and again, forced into a more defensive rhythm, and soon even took a few shallow cuts and bruises under the relentless multi sided assault.
His face darkened.
He had no choice.
"Get over here and stop these brats!" he roared at his men.
That snapped the pirates out of their shock.
Until now, many of them had been frozen by the sight of Dadan's overwhelming strength and Axel's bizarre power. But the moment Bluejam called for them, reality hit. If their captain lost, then their situation would become far worse. In their minds, defeat was no longer just humiliation.
It was death.
So the pirates moved.
Those still capable of fighting shoved back the mountain bandits and peeled away from the melee, rushing toward Bluejam's side.
On raw individual combat strength, many of the Gray Terminal thugs were weaker than Dadan's bandits.
But numbers were numbers.
There were too many of them.
Once they fully committed, even the bandits struggled to keep them all tied down.
Axel saw the shift immediately.
If those pirates reached Bluejam in force, Dadan's battle would become even harder. Worse, the opening they had just created would vanish.
Someone had to stop them.
But not him.
He had to stay close enough to keep Bluejam nervous.
Vector manipulation was still an unknown terror in Bluejam's eyes. Axel did not even need to attack constantly. Merely standing at the right distance was enough to force Bluejam to divide his attention.
That pressure was valuable.
So Axel made the call at once.
"Ace, Sabo, Luffy! Go hold off the pirates!"
Sabo understood immediately and moved first.
"Got it!"
Luffy thumped his chest and grinned. "Leave it to me!"
Ace did not move.
His eyes were still fixed on Bluejam.
The answer was obvious even before he spoke. He wanted to stay.
Axel glanced at him and said, "Ace, you stay. Help us pin him down."
That was all Ace needed to hear.
A fierce grin flashed across his face.
"Okay."
Then Axel turned back toward Bluejam, his mind already moving ahead.
"Bluejam isn't someone we can beat head on," he said to Ace, loud enough for Bluejam to hear. "You attack from one side, I attack from the other. As long as you can hold his attention for even a moment, I'll find a chance to touch him."
He did not lower his voice.
That was intentional.
Every word was meant to reach Bluejam's ears.
Every word was meant to make him more cautious, more suspicious, more prone to overreact.
Bluejam heard it all.
And his expression grew uglier by the second.
Ace caught on instantly. "Right."
Axel then flicked a glance toward Sabo and Luffy.
"The rest are yours."
Sabo grinned despite the danger. "Don't worry. No one's getting through."
"Yeah!" Luffy shouted. "We'll smash them!"
Axel knew they did not have much time.
Sabo and Luffy were strong for their age, but even they could not block half the pirate force forever. At best, they could delay them. That meant Axel and Ace needed to create a decisive opening quickly, before the balance of the battlefield shifted again.
Bluejam, for his part, was no longer as pressured as before.
Dadan still kept him busy, yes, but Axel had not moved in yet, and that gave Bluejam a little more breathing room. Even so, he never once forgot the boy's existence. His eyes repeatedly flicked toward Axel, wary of whatever strange trick might come next.
And Axel, in turn, was watching something else.
The dagger.
Still tucked at Bluejam's waist.
He had not forgotten what happened last time.
If he rushed carelessly while that blade remained hidden, then Bluejam would almost certainly stab him again at the worst possible moment. This time, Axel might not be lucky enough to avoid a vital hit.
So first, the dagger had to go.
He made a small gesture with his fingers toward Ace.
Then tapped his own back and waist.
Ace followed the motion, looked at Bluejam, and understood immediately.
Good.
While Dadan continued her brutal assault, Axel and Ace moved together.
Bluejam blocked one of Dadan's heavy swings with visible strain, then pivoted sharply just in time to catch Ace's incoming strike. Instead of simply blocking, he seized Ace's weapon arm, twisted with savage force, and threw the boy bodily toward Axel.
Axel stepped in, absorbed the force with vector manipulation, and caught Ace before he hit the ground.
Bluejam really does deserve his reputation.
Even under that much pressure, he could still neutralize both of them in one exchange.
Axel did not waste time admiring it.
The moment he steadied Ace, he saw the result.
Ace's original weapon was gone.
And in his hand now was the dagger.
Bluejam noticed too.
His expression twisted.
He looked down at his waist, realized the blade had vanished in the confusion, then glared at the dagger now resting in Ace's hand.
"You little rat..."
Bluejam's face darkened further, but he quickly sneered.
"So what if you took it? I've still got this sword. Don't get cocky, brat."
In his mind, the difference between dagger and sword was secondary. What mattered was one thing only.
Do not let the white haired brat touch me.
That was his entire battle principle now.
Axel understood exactly what Bluejam was assuming.
And of course, he had no intention of kindly correcting him.
The dagger and the sword were not the same.
A dagger's power was concentrated at a much smaller point. Its danger came from concealment, precision, and sudden lethality. A sword or pipe, by contrast, had a broader striking surface and a more distributed force pattern. That made it easier for Axel to calculate, disperse, and partially redirect. He could handle a broad impact far better than a sudden point thrust.
Bluejam did not know that.
Which made the sword, ironically, much less threatening than the hidden dagger had been.
Perfect.
Then Axel charged again.
This time, Ace followed right beside him. He had abandoned the dagger and picked up a fallen sword from the battlefield instead, partly because he did not trust Bluejam not to steal the dagger back in another exchange.
The weapon felt awkward in his hand. He was not used to swordsmanship yet.
But that did not matter.
He only needed it for this fight.
Bluejam saw the two boys coming and roared, "You little pests! Don't underestimate me!"
His sword flashed in a violent arc aimed directly at Dadan's vital line. Forced to defend, Dadan brought her axe up and barely caught it, but the power of the strike still drove her back several steps. Her stance broke for an instant.
That was all Bluejam needed.
For the first time in several exchanges, he was fully free.
And Axel and Ace were already upon him.
"Watch out!" Dadan shouted, unable to recover fast enough to help.
Bluejam exploded into motion.
His sword met Ace's blade first.
Clang!
The gap in strength was immediate. Ace's entire body was thrown upward from the force of the collision.
At the same moment, Bluejam's free hand snatched up the nearby iron pipe and swung it at Axel, trying to batter him away before he could close in.
This was the opening Bluejam wanted.
Ace was in the air.
Dadan was out of position.
Axel should have been forced back.
Instead, Axel did the opposite.
He took the hit.
The iron pipe smashed into him.
"Ugh!"
Pain burst through his body, but the impact was already being dispersed and redirected. Rather than letting the force blow him away, Axel deliberately altered the direction of the momentum as it entered his body.
Instead of flying back, he leaned in.
Bluejam's eyes widened for the first time.
The brat moved closer?!
That single instinctive mistake from Bluejam decided everything.
His body reacted before his mind fully caught up. Desperate to keep Axel's hands off him, he drove the pipe downward hard, aiming to pin Axel's arms and prevent any contact.
Yes.
That's it.
That's exactly what I wanted.
Axel's body slammed into Bluejam's.
And in that instant, vector manipulation spread through the contact point.
Not just through his hands.
Through his whole body.
Bluejam froze.
Then his expression violently distorted.
It felt as if every part of him had been attacked at once. Blood surged in the wrong directions, slammed against vessel walls, collided under impossible pressure, and tore loose where it should not have. Pain erupted across his entire body simultaneously.
Blood sprayed.
From his mouth.
From reopened wounds.
From beneath torn flesh where vessels inside had burst under the distorted flow.
Axel immediately kicked away and created distance the moment the hit landed. He had no intention of staying close to a cornered predator.
Bluejam staggered.
His body swayed like a collapsing tower.
Then a broken cry tore from his throat.
"You... damn brat...!"
This injury was far worse than the last one.
Over the past month, Axel's control and output had improved. More importantly, this time he did not hold back. There was no hesitation about "minor damage" anymore. He had forced Bluejam's blood to surge chaotically through his body, colliding, compressing, rupturing.
Internal damage.
External bleeding.
Pure systemic collapse.
Axel stood a short distance away, expression calm, chest rising and falling with restrained effort.
Bluejam coughed violently.
Blood spilled from the corner of his mouth.
Even now, he forced himself upright, glaring at Axel with hatred and disbelief.
"You..." he rasped. "What you said earlier... that was a lie?"
Axel already knew what he meant.
The claim that touching with both hands would be the decisive trigger.
A faint, sly smile appeared on his face.
"That part was true," Axel said. "I just never said touching with anything else wouldn't work too."
.....
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