Chapter 254: Mr. Prince

Chapter 254: Mr. Prince



"So he IS Straw Hat Luffy! That bastard lied to me!" The man called Cavendish raged. "Wait, didn't you claim to know him, Nightmare?"

"I'm just as surprised as you are. I could have sworn he was Roku, he looks just like him. See look..." Nightmare claimed and dug out an old looking photograph.

Cavendish examined the photograph and sure enough it showed a teenage girl who looked like Nightmare next to a middle aged woman who resembled her and a man who looked just like "Lucy" from the beard to the lanky, fit body to the stupid, toothy smile.

Cavendish had been suspicious, but nobody could fake photographic evidence could they? It had to be a crazy coincidence. The other fighters who were similarly confused and suspicious accepted this as fact as well.

Naturally the photograph was a fabrication of Cherry's that she prepared after her

"confrontation" with Lucy. A fairly simple thing to do when you could directly fuse pigments to paper and had an eye for detail. Thankfully there were plenty of people with den den mushi cameras among the audience that she could pilfer photo paper from.

Meanwhile, in the arena Luffy had gotten properly angry. The suggestion that he wasn't worthy of one of his friends wasn't something he could let slide. "How am I not good enough, you geezer?! I'M GOING TO BE KING OF THE PIRATES!!!"

"A brat like you, become King of the Pirates?! Don't speak nonsense, you're barely out of diapers!" Chinjao countered.

There was a thrum that shook the air throughout the entire colosseum. Most of the remaining gladiators directly collapsed, out cold. Sparks of something that wasn't electricity spontaneously formed in the air between the two conquerors.

Luffy cast away what little doubt there was about his true identity as he blew up his arm to gigantic proportions, hardening his massive fist with deep black haki. Chinjao similarly prepared himself for a real clash as his haki surged up to the tip of his pointy head, his beard flaring out like an angry god.

Luffy's Elephant Gun slammed into Chinjao's piercing headbutt that violently vibrated with Hasshoken. The clash created a shockwave second only to the overwhelming might of the King Punch earlier in the previous match.

For a moment they seemed to be evenly matched, but eventually one of them had to give. When Luffy threw a second inflated fist at Chinjao, he was the one to come out on top. Chinjao didn't have a second head after all. Worse still, Chinjao's stubbornness to hold his ground no matter what resulted in his head finally buckling beneath the tremendous pressure.

*WHOOSH BOOM!*

Chinjao slammed hard against the wall below the audience's seats and slid into the moat. He was fortunate that the fighting fish were unconscious from the previous clash of conqueror's haki, lest they would have attacked his helpless body.

If the cheers weren't so loud, people would be able to hear the mad cackling of Nightmare and would wonder what such a stoic figure found so funny about the fight. The truth of the matter was that Cherry thought it was hilarious that both Garp and his grandson had smashed Chinjao's head flat, and how the old man was sure to hold this grudge for every descendent of the Monkey family for the rest of eternity.

Sai and Boo, whilst floating in the water, could only let out resigned sighs. Their grandfather would be ranting their ears off about this for a long time. They couldn't even count the number of times he had told them the story of Garp smashing his skull over their lives, and he had had years to get over it by then. This time the wound to his head and his pride would be fresh.

"Rebecca..." a gladiator muttered through the bars, sounding both surprised and unsurprised at the same time, but mostly filled with pity.

Mr. Prince took a step forward, muscling through the grasping hands like there was no resistance whatsoever. It was proof that he could have escaped at any moment, or attacked Rebecca before she could have harmed him.

He knelt down and extended his hand towards her as she broke down into sobs. "I can not help much if I know not what troubles you, my lady, but I can lend a shoulder to cry on if you do not

wish to tell me."

"Damn, that was smooth..." whispered one of the wounded gladiators.

"I need that devil fruit to kill Doflamingo..." Rebecca finally spoke after getting some semblance of control over herself.

"Doflamingo?!" Mr. Prince said, flaring up. He had no idea what the shichibukai had done to the poor girl, but he was already willing to kill him for her.

"My soldier is going to try to kill him, but there's no way he can succeed. He's going to die, so

I have to kill Doflamingo before that happens..." Rebecca said.

Mr. Prince listened attentively to Rebecca as she told the story of her life and the toy soldier that became her surrogate father. The tragedy of her mother's death and the hatred she bore

from the people of Dressrosa.

Mr. Prince was seething, barely maintaining his facade of a gentleman in front of the lady. "Worry no longer, Princess! I promise that you are not alone, for my friends and I came here to face Doflamingo as well! We'll be sure to look out for your soldier as well, make sure he doesn't get into too much trouble!"

Mr. Prince's words sounded so cheesy to her, but at the same time they were very endearing in how earnestly he spoke them.

"I appreciate it, but I cannot place my hopes in others. I must protect my soldier myself, or I

will regret it for the rest of my life." Rebecca said, filled with resolve now that she knows she

isn't alone.

"Let's go back to watch the match." Rebecca said, turning heel so that Mr. Prince wouldn't see the faint blush rising on her cheeks.