🏴☠️️Ch. 16: Kuro vs. Luffy & (First Name)! A Cat, Rubberband and a Fish, Oh My!🏴☠️️
Sunlight glints off the blades of one of Kuro's Cat Claws that got caught in the boulder. Kuro himself lying motionless on the ground, most likely in shock after having one of his signature weapons shattered.
The Black Cat Pirates are even more so, seeing their captain knocked on his back a second time today.
"Wait! He just . . ."
"He just broke Captain Kuro's Cat Claw."
"And the girl beat him into next week with those attacks."
A smug, triumphant smile appears on Luffy's face. "That leaves only five more of those weird swords." Luffy drops the boulder into the ground next to him
Luffy and I chuckle at Kuro's dismay as he starts to shake, holding his head with the now useless Cat Claw. But surprisingly, Kuro still has the resolve and strength to try and stand back up.
His crew begins to cheer him on, already forgetting their orders to shut up.
"Don't worry guys! He can still fight plenty!"
"Yeah! He still has that other Claw!"
"You can do it! Rip those two to shreds Captain Kuro!"
"Don't use that any anymore. He doesn't like it, remember?"
"I think in this village his name is Klaha-something."
"Klaha-something?"
They all begin to cheer with the butchered alias Kuro used to go by. I sweatdrop at their stupidity. 'And these guys are what go for bloodthirsty, murderous pirates? Well, Kuro did say that's all they thought about doing. Guess that doesn't leave room for much else in those tiny brains.'
"Shut your mouths . . ." Kuro quietly growls. " . . .All of you!" As he pushes himself up more, I can see my attacks caused some blood to start running down the side of his face and strands hair falling from its prim and proper fashion. Not as much as he deserves, but I can still dish plenty more out while the day's still young.
The Black Cat Pirates' cheers seize.
"Soon enough, I'll deal with you in the only appropriate manner: Extermination!" He flexes his good Cat Claws blades. "I'll also kill that fool Jango!"
The Pirates are shocked at Kuro's statement.
"But . . .why kill us, Captain?"
"C'mon! Please don't joke around like that, Captain Kuro!"
"It's still not too late for us to attack the village, right?"
"Yeah! And if Captain Jango gets her to write her will, then your plan should still work perfectly."
Kuro fixes his glass and stretches his good Cat Claw. "This plan is no longer any of your concern. When all of you are dead, this village will know who to blame for this atrocity."
The men gasp in shock, now knowing that their own captain is planning to throw them under the ship, so to speak, using them as scapegoats to the attack on the village.
"I never intended to let any of you mongrels leave this village alive." Kuro admits. "No one, no one who knows my true identity can be allowed to live to tell about it."
"No way!"
"You had already planned to kill every last one of us from the very beginning!"
Kuro chuckles darkly. "That's right. Three years ago, I planned to erase Captain Kuro and every last person who ever knew him. It's all part of my plan."
"You guys are dumb." Luffy comments. "You're the most uncool pirates I know."
"That's putting it lightly." I add. "They're an utter disgrace to all pirates who sail the seas."
"We're 'uncool', huh? An 'utter disgrace', you say?" Kuro repeats, pushing up his glasses. "Pirates are nothing more than savages, incapable of rising above their animal nature."
"I can think of a handful of pirate crews that could prove you wrong." I voice.
Kuro merely scoffs at my comment. "Without my plans, what could they possibly accomplish? A crew is nothing to me; They are simply a means to an end." He looks down to his crew. "Crew members are just pawns in the captain's game. Whether my men live or die is up to me and me alone. If I tell them to fight, they will fight. And if I order them to die, they had better do it. They know the punishment for disobedience."
Luffy and I merely stare with disagreement at the poor excuse for a pirate, and even worse excuse for a man, with no regard for human life. Our stares are intimidating to him as we see him flinch, but he starts to become annoyed as we continue to stare.
"This is how pirates are!" He bellows. "Don't you dare talk down to me!" Kuro was snarling like a dog, funny and ironic as it is, at this point.
"You know, no matter how many hundreds or thousands of men follow you as their captain . . ." Luffy begins.
" . . .You will never be as great of a pirate as Usopp." I finish.
Everything goes silent for a moment.
"You fools. Are you saying that I am inferior to a kid pretending to be a pirate?" Kuro accuses.
"That's exactly what we're saying." I confirm.
Kuro burst out into a boisterous laughter. "Well, aren't you both funny. Don't get all cocky just because you snapped off one of my Cat Claws. How exactly is he better than me?" He questions as he goes into his Pussyfoot Maneuver and vanishes from sight. "Let's hear it!"
Luffy gives a hard laugh. "'Cause he's got heart."
Kuro reappears behind Luffy poised to strike with his Cat Claw but has a shocked look on his face hearing Luffy's statement. "He's got what?"
Luffy takes a fighting stance and readies his arm for an attack. "A guy like you doesn't know what a true pirate is!" He stretches his arm outward and twists his body, allowing him to backfist Kuro's head and knock him into the cliffside.
The Black Cat Pirates look on in shock as their captain was knocked away like a fly.
"Impossible!"
"He kept up with the Pussyfoot Maneuver!"
Luffy and I stare at the billow of smoke coming from where Kuro was knocked into. "How insulting." I hear him say from the crater. "It would appear you need a lesson in what real pirates are like." He uses both off his hands to carefully slick back the strands of hair back into place and looks up at us with a sinister smile. "It's not pleasant. Your first lesson will be about terror. A lesson I learned well as I stared down death!" He haunches his body over and begins to sway from side to side, his arms dangling following the motion, and the sound of his Cat Claw blades ringing as they clash against each other with each sway. While the motion may look odd to a newcomer, I could tell this guy meant business right now; And his crew seem to know this technique all too well and fear it just as badly.
"Hey! Should he be in that stance?!"
"No, this is bad!"
"Why's he using that technique?!"
"He's only fighting two people!"
"There's no reason to use the 'Out of the Bag Attack'!"
Luffy and I glance over our shoulders at the panicking, terrified pirates.
"This isn't a good spot for us; I mean he can get us too!"
"Yeah, he did say he was gonna kill us all earlier."
"Please, Captain Kuro! Anything but that technique!"
"We'll do anything, Captain!"
"Please, Captain Kuro!"
"What's the big deal?" Luffy quietly questions with a frown. "He's just wobbling back and forth."
"Yeah, but if the Black Cat Pirates are ready to wet themselves because of this technique, then it's safe to assume that it's serious." I say. "Don't let your guard down, not even for a second, Lu." I take a readied stance.
The Black Cat Pirates continue to beg for Kuro to not use whatever attack they so fear. But Kuro takes no heed in the pleas from his crewmen. He merely keeps swaying to and fro, then raises his head to show cold white eyes devoid of pupils and iris, much like the time Jango hypnotized his men to enhance their fighting. But these eyes . . .these eyes are different. They're the eyes of a feral animal ready to rip its prey apart limb from limb.
"Out-of-the-Bag Attack!" Kuro brings the blades of his Cat Claw up and disappears in a large puff of dark purple smoke.
"Luffy, back to back!" I yell. Luffy follows suit as we put our backs together, one looking in a specified direction to see where Kuro could reappear while protecting each other.
The air is deathly silent, and it isn't the most comforting sign. The silence is suddenly broken by screams coming from the Black Cat Pirates as one of their crewmen falls, long claw marks appearing on his chest from out of nowhere.
Luffy and I look down to the Black Cat Pirates. "What's he doing over there?!" Exclaims Luffy.
Soon other Black Cats follow, each one stuck down bearing the same claw mark-shaped wounds as the first. They all begin to scatter to evade Kuro's fierce attack, but all in vain as the attack couldn't be predicted where it would strike next as they come from all directions, some of them even came a little too close for comfort almost hitting the both of us, mostly hitting the cliffside. The pleas and cries of his men are ignored as Kuro slices his crewmen to ribbons.
"Trigger, Ahio, Carmela, get back to the boat! I don't want you guys getting caught in this!" I order. "Not even Kuro knows who or what he's cutting up! And tell Nami to stay where she is!"
My animal friends follow without question, knowing that I can handle myself. It's a good thing Nami's looting the Black Cat Pirates ship; I wouldn't want her to get caught in the crossfire on this one.
"That guy's everywhere!" Luffy cries out.
"It's like he doesn't care who he cuts as long as he reaches his goal. He'll do anything to make sure his plan goes through." I comment in disgust.
I suddenly feel a presence with unimaginable speed making its way towards Luffy and I, aiming for Luffy's head. I quickly push my captain down by his head and take the blow for him. The Cat Claw blades cutting me from my right hip going diagonally to my left shoulder and a separate blow cutting across my left leg. It took everything for me to not scream 'Bloody Mary' as I'm knocked to the ground. True I've been through worse but that doesn't mean I'm devoid of feeling pain.
Luffy gasps. "(First Name)! Are you alright?!"
I groan as I sit up while having the decency to tie the remnants of my top together to prevent anything private from being seen. "I'm fine. I told you not to let your guard down. He would've taken off your head if I didn't do something. Get your head in the game, Lu, because this guy's not playing around anymore."
Luffy just starts looking on at the carnage Kuro's doing, unfeeling to the claw marks appearing on his own body, even coming too close to his face when some of his bangs are cut. Knowing Luffy, he stands this kind of behavior even less than I do.
"Don't you have any honor?! Those men are your friends!" He screams in anger.
Luffy and I carefully watch where the claw marks pop up, waiting for Kuro to get close enough to grab. It's only when Luffy gets sliced across the stomach and the upper part of my right arm that we see an opportunity. Luffy stretches his arm out and is able to nab Kuro by his suit and slams him on the ground in front of us.
"I found you." Luffy huffs.
"You bastard. You should have accepted your fate like a good boy." Kuro taunts. "Now look what you've done. Thanks to you, my little pawns are still alive and in misery. It would've been better just let them die in the attack."
The both of us just stare at the beat-up former captain.
"So, now what?" Kuro asks as he gets to his feet, Cat Claw at the ready. "Do either of you have something to say?"
"Yeah." We answer. Luffy looks to his straw hat safely away from the battle and I look to my crystal hemp necklace before tucking it into my top. "No matter what happens to us, we will never be like you."
"Not 'will'." Kuro corrects. He holds the blades of his Cat Claw close to our faces. "Someone like the both of you can't be like me."
"From the way you're talking, you make that sound like a good thing." I shoot back.
Kuro takes note of our lack of reactions. "You see, you two are going to die here today. But first you'll writhe in agony as I hack you up like a fish. A fitting end for one such as you, don't you think, 'Seafaring Siren'? I'm going to carve you up and I'm going to enjoy it." He starts to go into the familiar swaying motion. Luffy and I try to stop him before he can disappear again, but we come up too short. Kuro begins to tear up the place again and everyone within reach, earning Luffy and I a few more claw marks. We're not going to be able to end this fight if we can't get ahold of Kuro. What can we do? This village and everyone in it is going to die if we don't put an end to this soon. 'Richie, I hope you've got it better than we are right now.'
☠TO BE CONTINUED . . . ☠
On the next One Piece . . .
"All finished here. The rest is up to you two."
"Like we would lose to someone who ditches his name and runs from the sea."
"Remember our names for the rest of your life!"
"What are you so mad about?"
"I hate him! That man is scum!"
"That's what pirates are like."
"Not all. He's a disgrace to all honorable pirates who roam the oceans."
"Yeah! And it's not what friends are like!"
🏴☠️️Ch. 17: The Explosion of Our Rage! How This Battle Ends!🏴☠️️
🏴☠️️☠🏴☠️️
☠Current Crew: Luffy | (First Name) | Zoro | Nami☠
🐾The Pack: Carmela | Ahio | Tito | Umi | Trigger | Calder | Richie | ChouChou🐾
☠🏴☠️☠