CHAPTER 145 ANOTHER DOWN

CHAPTER 145 ANOTHER DOWN

It was pure pandemonium by the time I got to the castle. Every Straw Hat but Luffy was fighting the giant Oars. They appeared pretty beat up as they fought the 100 foot tall red skinned giant.

“Weston! Where were you!?” Nami yelled at me. She was in a wedding dress. It was white and frilly. Quite beautiful on her to be honest.

“Uhhh, mad I missed your wedding?” I asked.

She looked down, blushing. “No, you idiot,” she cursed. “Thanks for saving us by the way! I heard you sent Sanji after us!” I turned to see Robin in the same type of wedding dress.

“What? Robin was with you, I didn’t think you needed help,” I said.

“Talk later!” Zoro yelled. Wielding his 3 swords one of them looked new. “Fight now!” He ran at Oars, slicing along the giant’s arm it spurt out blood as the giant raged.

“Where’s Luffy?!” I yelled.

“Fighting Moira inside the castle,” Usopp said. He was hiding behind some rubble, aiming his weapon to keep peppering Oars with shots. “Moira sucked all the shadows into his body, all except Oars’. He’s super strong now”

“Okay, I think I got the jist of our situation,” I said as the Earth shook. Oars began punching, trying to hit Sanji and Franky. I pulled out my Jitte. Channeling a huge amount of water chakra through it I extended it out and out, but was nowhere near the height of Oars. “Aim for his legs. We have to bring him down!” I dropped most of the water and focused enough on my blade.

We started a game of tag. First Zoro jumped in, slashing at Oar’s ankles. A deep gouge appeared, but wasn’t enough to knock him down. We alternated attacking. Sanji went in, kicking of course, as hard as he could. Robin summoning giant limbs to try to trip him up. Franky fired his lasers. Chopper used his different attack forms. Usopp fired his attacks and to my pleasant surprise Brook joined in as well with his cane sword.

Nothing we did really seemed to help though. There was a reason that Moira wanted a zombie of Oars. He was a giant among giants. As strong as the rest of them. I attacked when I could, but we kept being pushed back trying to brainstorm ideas.

“Is there not a ninja move you could do to end this guy?!” Nami yelled.

“I can’t think of any,” I admitted. I was really trying to let the Straw Hats wear themselves out. They had to keep fighting stronger and stronger foes. But they were getting tired, so I decided to start getting serious.

“What about that giant turtle you summoned?” Robin asked.

I stood there with my mouth open for a minute. I hadn’t thought of that. “I uh that’s a cheap way to handle this. Wouldn’t you all feel better if we beat it on our own?” I looked around to the gathered crew. They had angry looks on their faces. “I forgot,” I admitted.

“I fucking knew it!” Nami yelled, the stress was getting to her. I wondered what had happened at her supposed wedding to the Absalom guy. My bet was she needed to get laid.

“Fine fine, we can try it,” I said. Stepping away from the group I gathered chakra in my hands. Oars breathed heavily as he stared at me. When I was far enough away I did the summoning jutsu and called out an immense amount of chakra. I must have been more tired than I thought because only one about half the size as before appeared.

“Uhh Kamunki, right?” I yelled down to the sea turtle. It was only about 75 feet tall, but was big enough to deal with this guy.

“Weston, what do you want?” He asked.

“Can you shoot water in that giant’s mouth?” I asked. The giant sea turtle looked straight ahead. With a slight nod it gathered up a huge amount of water chakra. Then without a thought blasted Oars in the face. I thought it would knock his head off, but it simply knocked him into the castle behind him.

Oars stumbled back and laid still, but the shadow didn’t escape from him. I doubted the water Kamunki summoned was sea water. “Thanks! That’s all I needed!” I yelled. Kamunki turned into smoke and disappeared as soon as I jumped off his head. Running straight for Oars I summoned seawater into my Jitte. I jumped up his leg and ran along his body until I got to his face.

Forcing all the seawater I could into his mouth it required a lot until the black shadow finally detached and flew off to where Luffy should have been. The giant zombie breathed his last breath as my skin began to burn. I turned to see light leaking in from far off. My skin sizzled wherever the sunlight touched me.

“I’m a vampire!” I yelled as the other Straw Hats came up to me.

“We all are,” Sanji said. We hid from the sun inside the remains of the castle, none of us had our shadows back. None but Luffy.

“Come on, let’s hope Luffy can beat this Moira guy without us,” Zoro said. I nodded and we headed into the castle to hide from the sun.

“That a new sword, Zoro?” I asked.

“It is,” he said proudly showing it off. “I fought a samurai zombie. He broke one of the swords I got in Logue Town. When I beat him I took this.”

“Looks strong,” I noted. I was pretty sure that was the one they took from him in Wano. I was glad at least that part of the canon stuck. “What about you Brook? You good now?”

“Yohohoho I am much better now. Fighting against Moira has been something I have always wanted to do,” Brook said.

“Don’t think I’ve forgiven you yet,” Nami spat. “It will take a lot more than an apology to-” She stopped as Luffy was knocked through the wall in front of us. Chopper and Nami ran to him as Moira walked in through the hole in the castle wall. The pale pirate was much fatter now. Having sucked in the shadows of all the zombies he was stronger...somehow. Sorry can’t explain the logic for that one either.

“What did you do to my Oars!?” Moira raged.

“We kicked his ass!” I said and dove at him. Slashing with all I had, Moira grabbed the water blade easily, surprising me. Zoro was then on the other side, slashing his 3 blades to cut open Moira’s hand. He yelled out in surprise. Sanji jumped up and kicked him in the face as I forced the water on my Jitte to freeze onto Moira’s hand.

“Oy! Hold it!” Luffy yelled behind us. The 3 of us jumped back to see him getting up. “This is a fight between captains,” he said while wiping away the blood from his mouth.

“And why haven’t you awoken it in the others?” She asked, side eyeing me.

“It takes a very...intimate moment to awaken it,” I said. “One I wouldn’t feel too comfortable doing with a guy.”

“Are all ninjas as obsessed with sex as you are?” She asked.

“Nope, just me,” I said. “Interested?”

“Perhaps, why haven’t you mentioned it before?”

“Because this is still new,” I said. “You, me, Nami. I wasn’t sure if it would take. And I forgot about the seastone issue. With chakra you could probably break out of cuffs, learn to walk on water. Lots of things.”

“Summon giant turtles?”

“Probably not that,” I admitted. We were quiet as the sound of fighting got louder. Ahead it looked like Luffy was still fighting Moira, but the pale vampire man was much smaller than he was with all the shadows inside of him.

“I’m interested,” she admitted. “What will it take?”

“Some time alone,” I said with a wink. She nodded and we started running to the others. “What did we miss?”

“Luffy’s winning,” Zoro said. “That Moira guy keeps getting up though.” I noticed that there were a lot of others all around us. They were the pirates and people that had been locked in the cells. They appeared shocked as Luffy simply kept punching and hitting Moira. The big man tried to block the hits, but he was too beat up.

“He’s really doing it,” one of the other pirates said.

“Of course he is, he’s going to be the pirate king,” I said with all the pride I could muster. I had hoped Luffy would do a big hit and knock Moira out right then, but it was another 3 or 4 hits before the dramatic fall of Moira happened. The tall man fell to the Earth with a resounding boom and the people cheered around us.

Luffy stood there, tired but not as beat up as I remembered. All the shadows had escaped Moira by that point. The sun was out as we escaped the Florian Triangle, and those who had seen the sun for the first time in years cried happily.

“You did it!” “You really did it!” “Finally I can go home” “I left for milk 3 years ago, my wife is going to be pissed!” Voices yelled out as they realized they were free.

“Straw Hats, thank you,” A tall woman said. She had pink hair and an egg shaped body. “How can we thank you?”

“That old guy said we get all the treasure from the island,” I said pointing at the scarred old man.

“That’s no pro-” She stopped as the giant man walked out of the woods toward us. Kuma had apparently been watching from the sidelines. People began to back away from him.

“Who are you!?” Luffy yelled, struggling to raise his arms. “Wanna fight?!”

“Straw Hat Luffy,” Kuma said, in a monotone voice. “It seems you are stronger than I thought. But I have orders to obliterate everyone on this island.”

“What!? That wasn’t the deal!” I yelled. “You said-”

“It doesn’t matter what I said,” Kuma cut in. “I work for the government. I am a Shichibukai. A pirate and government dog. 3 kinds of people you shouldn’t trust.”

I cursed bringing out my Jitte. Luffy was the first to attack. Stretching his arm out he aimed for Kuma but the man simply pushed his hand out. An invisible wave of power shot out hitting Luffy in the stomach. He was knocked out with the simple blow. Air escaping his lungs as the man 20 feet away didn’t touch him.

Zoro and I didn’t hesitate. We were soon running at Kuma. Zoro went right, I went left, slicing him. Or at least we tried. Kuma disappeared, too quick to see as our blades met nothing. I felt the power coming at me. Dodging down, the wave of his fruit power barely missed. I turned, skidding to a stop as Sanji kicked at Kuma.

Kuma simply raised his hand and Sanji’s foot bounced off, throwing him away. Kuma kept his hand up revealing his palm. On it were the puffy pads of a dog’s paw. “What the hell is that?!” I yelled, I couldn’t remember the fruit he ate.

Kuma lifted his other hand to show that both of his palms had the padding. “I ate the Paw-Paw Fruit.”

“They look like cat paws,” Chopper noted.

Kuma pushed out his hand at Chopper, Franky pushed him out of the way but the shipwright was hit by the force of his blow. “My paws push everything away. Even air.” Franky was thrown back as if hit by a cannon.

“Keep your hands off my crew!” Luffy yelled as he got up. Spitting blood as he did. Kuma didn’t hesitate, he pulled his arms back but I was quicker. A wave of my water blew Luffy out of the way as where he was standing exploded with the force of the Shichibukai’s air paw attacks. I wasn’t quick enough though. Kuma continued to push his hands at Luffy, causing the air to vibrate with the force of his blows. A couple hit Luffy as he was thrown out of the circle of people.

“He’s only got 2 hands!” I yelled. Zoro nodded next to me and Sanji stood up. We went for him again, but he wasn’t passively watching this time. Kuma jumped up, swatting Sanji away. As Zoro and I jumped up after him he slammed his paws into our heads forcing us to be thrown to the ground without any effort. My hands barely stopped my face from smashing into a jagged piece of rubble.

I breathed in and out heavily, fighting the urge to say World Escape. This wasn’t what I remembered happening. He was supposed to let us go. I looked up to Kuma in front of me. He held his hands out wide. Then he started to flap his hands. I didn’t notice it at first but then as he flapped his hands just barely away then back to his front the giant paw became smaller.

“He’s making a condensed air bubble!” Robin yelled. “Everyone get away!” I watched as the air bubble continued to get smaller and smaller. This part I remembered. I slowly stood, grabbing Zoro and Sanji’s arms.

“I was told to obliterate everyone,” Kuma said as the puppy paw shaped air pocket fit into the palms of his hands. “I will just take Straw Hat Luffy, and allow the rest of you to escape. The government won’t complain if it’s him.”

“Like hell!” Zoro, Sanji, and I yelled as the condensed air pocket exploded. Blowing us back my eardrums ruptured as the high pressure air pounded into me.