28 Chapter 28: Mission Accomplished

Third Person's PoV:

After making sure that everything with Zoro was fine, Josh immediately left to the untended Mihawk. He had to stop that stubborn bastard from leaving without a fight no matter what. It wasn't just the mission rewards at stake, the chance of finding his true limits was going to be hard to come by for a very long time.

Sure, someone like Crocodile might be able to hold a candle to him, but he might not necessarily be Josh's match. From the anime, Josh always thought that Crocodile was a very underrated character.

There was no way the World Government would recruit someone like Crocodile unless he had the sufficient strength to back him up. It was revealed in the latter parts of the story that Crocodile was actually a New World veteran, so his strength shouldn't be mediocre.

With another flash of yellow lightning, Josh disappeared from the small room before Nami and the rest could even complain. Josh sighed in relief as he spotted Mihawk's boat still in the same position.

Mihawk was just calmly sitting there, looking nonchalant as usual. The drink he had before was long gone so all he could do was wait there silently. Suddenly, there was a flash of lightning in front of him. Even though something like this would make any ordinary man cower in fear, Mihawk didn't even bat an eye.

"Sorry for the extended wait. Our swordsman was in dire need of assistance. You understand, don't you?" Josh greeted the man politely. His tone, however, sounded a bit like he was blaming Mihawk for the injury.

"There is no need for an apology." Mihawk didn't take offense to the slight hostility in Josh's voice. "That fight you wanted..." Mihawk started slowly before continuing, "I might be willing to accept as my interest in you has been peeked."

"I'll make it easier for you so it won't be a "might" anymore. If I lose, I'll give you 5 bottles of that wine from before. I just want to test myself so I won't ask anything if I end up winning." Josh proposed with a confident smirk, taunting the world's greatest swordsman to accept.

"Nonsense, I naturally have to reward you with something if you win." Mihawk said. As the man who holds the title of best across the whole world, there was no way he would let his honor be soiled by someone spreading rumors of him being a cheapskate. Although the chances of him winning was very unlikely, this sort of curtesy had to be returned.

"If you manage to best me in a duel, I'll owe you a favor."

"Suit yourself." Josh just shrugged. If the man still wanted to give him something even if he was told that he wasn't required to, it wasn't Josh's problem.

Mihawk got up from his seat and prepared himself to teach a brat a lesson.

"Whoa..you want to fight here? No way, it's too cramped. I have a better idea..." Noticing Mihawk prepare himself, Josh immediately stopped him. As much as he wanted to start the fight, they couldn't do it with the limited space.

If a fight like the one Josh is imagining was really going to take place, they had to make sure nobody else got dragged into it or got hurt. The venue didn't really matter to Mihawk because he was confident in his self control and he believed that the match would be over quickly.

"Hm. You're quite the needy brat aren't you?" Mihawk commented as he sat back down. Josh felt a bit helpless and a tinge of anger flashed through his mind so he shot back, "whatever you say, ossan."

"Wait here for a few more minutes. I'll go prepare a suitable place for our duel and get our spectators." Josh said and flashed away again. Mihawk felt a bit exasperated after hearing this. The brat was just too demanding. He even felt that the reward might not be worth the trouble.

Josh appeared back on the deck of the boat he was previously on and headed inside the room once more.

Inside, Nami and the rest were just debating about the earlier "treatment". To them, it hadn't even been a minute since Josh suddenly left.

"Yo, is his condition stable now?" Josh spoke up from behind them as he opened the door.

They all turned back to see Josh who disappeared only half a minute ago and wondered what he was doing back again.

"Yea. Right now, he's just sleeping. I think Zoro lost his consciousness half way through your tortu— I mean expert medical treatment." Nami answered. None of them were doctors so that was the best they could discern with their abilities.

"Oh, that's too bad. I also wanted him to witness it too. Let's just leave him to recover, I don't think there will be anymore problems." Josh said nonchalantly. He then continued, "Now, if you'll follow me."

"Err..witness? Where are we going?" Usopp spoke up for all of them. They didn't understand what was happening.

"Yeah..about that. Mihawk accepted my challenge...and I want all of you to see it." Josh smiles sheepishly and scratched the back of his head. He thought that he already told them about that, so he was a little confused.

"You what!?"

"You're going to fight that monster!?"

"I...don't even know what to say."

All of them were dumbfounded. They remembered him saying that he challenged Mihawk, but now the fight was really going to happen.

"W-why d-do we need to see it?" Usopp timidly asked. He wanted to be as far away from such as fight as possible.

"It's important for the crew's growth. Don't you guys want to know what the peak strength of this world looks like?" Josh tried his best to sound intriguing to entice them. 'I might not be able to make him go full out though.' He added mentally.

Too bad for the lightning man, Nami and Usopp were not like Luffy or Zoro. They weren't battle crazy. In fact, their desire to be kept far away from such a fight was growing even more.

"You know...I...I think I'll just stay here and.." Nami started to say. Her eyes wandered around the room to look for some kind of excuse. Her sight then landed on the sleeping Zoro and she exclaimed, "someone still has to watch over this idiot. Who knows what could happen."

"Y-Yeah! I need to stay here a-and watch after Zoro too!" Usopp also tried to ride on Nami's new found reasonable excuse. Too bad for them, Josh wasn't going to give them an out.

"Hmm..you're right." Josh nodded his head in acknowledgment. This brought joy to Usopp and Nami, but that joy was short lived because of the man's next words. "If that's the case, Johnny and Yosaku can watch over him."

Hearing this, the two mentioned men nodded their heads vigorously in agreement. Nami and Usopp could only cry out in anguish as they were being dragged away.

Josh next appeared on the damaged platform of the Baratie. He was using the Cloak to fly there while carrying Usopp and Nami in each hand. He had no choice but to do this because he couldn't carry people and dematerialize himself to travel at lightning speed.

He then quickly went up to the curious Luffy who just woke up from his nap resulting from the exhausting fight between him and Don Krieg.

Luffy agreed immediately without any fuss, unlike the cowardly duo so he had him grab on as well and flew off to see Mihawk once again.

"These are the spectators you spoke of?" Once they arrived back on the Coffin Boat, Mihawk questioned him in a dubious tone.

Right now, appearing in front of Mihawk are 3 new people; a happily grinning Luffy and terrified Nami and Usopp. Their faces were as pale as a ghost when they realized Mihawk was addressing them.

"Yeah. I also wanted Zoro to be here as well but...he's currently sleeping." Josh replied.

"I could wait a few more hours if you want." For the first time, Mihawk was showing a bit more compassion towards the straw hats. It was mainly due to how interesting the crew as a whole was and how different they were from every other pirate that ever existed.

"Nah. We've delayed this long enough. He'll have his chance again in the future." Josh shrugged off Mihawk's proposal. There really was no need for Zoro to be present. In fact, it might be like adding salt to injury if he was. All the crew members get out of witnessing the match would be how incapable they still are and Zoro already had that covered.

After a few seconds of silence, Josh directed Mihawk to go back out to the open sea. Mihawk didn't know what the man had in mind but still did as he was asked anyway.

Soon, the group of 5 reached the wide blue expanse known as the sea, no longer stuffed between broken wreckages that was Don Krieg's pirate ship.

Mihawk checked the surrounding area for anything that might indicate to the place with open land but found none. This confused him even more because there weren't any plot of land in the near by vicinity.

A few minutes later, Josh finally deemed themselves to be far enough so he asked Mihawk to stop. Under the confused gazes of everyone, Josh got up, put two fingers in his mouth, and whistled loudly. Luffy soon realized what Josh was doing so his face broke out into a mischievous grin.

From underneath the sea, waves upon waves of violent currents assisted the small floating boat. The previously calm sea was now trembling uncontrollably.

Soon, the massive head of a giant sea turtle came out of the water with a loud splash, followed by it's giant shell. Manni was still as ridiculously large as usual. Normally, the turtle would obediently follow the Merry along from under the sea so it was quite surprised when it was summoned by it's human master.

Luffy was happily laughing at the sight of Manni. He treated the seaking like how an owner would treat it's dog. Mihawk wasn't even a bit perturbed by Manni's entrance. If one hadn't encountered seakings that size frequently, then they've never been to the Grandline before.

Nami was still a bit unnerved by the sheer size of that stupid turtle but her reaction was much more mild than the first time. Usopp on the other hand, shrieked like there was no tomorrow. The already cowardly man never had the chance to be properly introduced to the nice turtle so he was rightfully frightened.

Without wasting anymore time, Josh grabbed the three of them and landed on the hard shell of Manni's back. Mihawk swiftly followed behind him.

Once on the turtle, the two combatants distanced themselves for some space. The spectators were dropped on Manni's head as that was the most suitable place to watch.

"Let's begin....!"