"You are not afraid to die?"
Ozz stared at the burly man across from him, twin blades in hand. He did not move. Around them, deckhands whispered the same verdict. Anyone who dared provoke the monster who had dropped captains with ease was as good as a corpse.
Gick thought so too.
"My name is Dotor Gick. If you want Gick's head, come take it."
Shing.
The old man, in his youth, was all fire and tinder. Before Ozz could say another word, Gick sank his stance. Jet-black Armament flooded both arms. The two swords in his hands went ink-dark, their edges humming.
"…"
Ozz blinked. He had opened his mouth to speak. Gick was already charging, blades lifting.
The set of his shoulders and that unwavering glare were half Oden's mad dash, half Zoro's all-or-nothing flourish.
Did he just flag me as a raid boss.
"The two-sword style I learned from Captain Shiki will be my final aria. Get ready."
Say what you will, with the lacquered Haki and that budding slasher's aura, he almost looked like a protagonist. No wonder the old man used to grumble at him when drunk, "If I'd had the breaks, I might've been a monster on this sea."
Dreams, he had. Talent, not so much.
Gick kicked off and launched, blades crossing to an X, hurling himself at Ozz with all the resolve of a man ready to die.
He was no coward.
He was a "monster" who would spend his life for his ideal.
"Not bad."
Different from the washed-up codger who only drank and chased widows, this Gick was a man willing to wager his life for rank and strength. Ozz watched the blackened edges draw near.
A smile tugged at his mouth.
"You really leave me no choice."
His thumb nudged the guard. Ace slid free with a whisper. One hand on the hilt, he sank, coiled, and flashed forward.
Ssst.
Crackling red-black sparks stitched the air. Two figures traded places in a blur, one tall and one shorter, now standing back to back.
A pressure wave slammed across the deck. Grunts threw up their arms, gaping at the two silhouettes.
Pat.
Pat.
Blood beaded and fell, ticking on planks.
Hearing it, Gick, eyes closed in readiness for death, cracked a lid to find where the cut lay. He had been ready to be hewn in half.
Strangely, there was no wound. Only a slit at the edge of his coat.
"Huh."
He stared down at himself, swords still raised, baffled. Then the sound. The blood was not his. Dread stiffened his neck. Slowly, he turned.
The towering figure across from him, undefeated a moment ago, turned too.
There were people Ozz could not draw against.
The one who raised him was one of them.
Across Ozz's left breast, shallow but obvious, a cross of two cuts bled through his shirt and dripped onto the boards.
Gick gaped from his whole skin to Ozz's stained chest, then back to the blades in his hands.
"I… I won?"
"I beat the monster who is scarier than the captains?"
His certainty wavered.
Those who had mocked him earlier wavered harder. Jaws sagged, some nearly to the deck.
"Wait, wait… am I hallucinating. Gick just cut that monster."
"No… I saw it too. But how is that possible."
"I do not buy it."
One of his earlier hecklers, seeing the stunned faces and the sudden spotlight on Gick, ground his teeth to dust.
"That freak has to be worn out after the captains. Gick just picked up the scrap."
"Watch me…"
Thwack.
He did not make three steps. A single backhand sent him cartwheeling into a heap. Whether he lived was a separate question.
Even Big Mom, pushing to her feet with a scowl after being pinned, hesitated. She looked at Gick, a no-name fighter who usually rode Rocks' main ship.
That kind of power. Impossible.
Before she could sort the feeling, two streaks screamed out of the sky and hit her deck.
"Hey, Linlin, you already mixed it up with that monster brat."
Shiki's twin blades flashed as his eyes cut to Ozz's bleeding chest. He yanked his swords free to join the fray, killing intent rising.
Whitebeard landed beside him, face set, Conqueror's Haki pouring over the ship like a falling sky.
Gick, standing not far from Ozz at the center of it all, went white. His new-won courage withered under the weight of two sea emperors' spirits. His knees wobbled.
"You have got to be kidding me. I was… stronger."
He hammered his own legs with his fists. In the next instant the pressure on his skull eased.
"If I am here, do not run headlong into death."
Gick turned. Ozz stood just behind him, a wall of savage will, shouldering the crash of Conqueror's for him. A heartbeat later Whitebeard's heavenly cleave and Shiki's twin arcs fell without an ounce of care for their own man.
Gick's pupils pinpricked. The blows landed.
A mountain of smoke roared upward. Gick shot out of it unscathed and skidded across the deck.
He looked back through the haze.
Ozz's voice rolled out from within.
"Everyone, do me a favor. End it here with the Roger Pirates."
"If anyone in Rocks or Roger still wants to keep going…"
Boom.
Conqueror's exploded and turned to a thunderhead. It tore outward in a ring and dropped every fighter below officer rank in the Rocks armada flat, Gick alone somehow spared.
Ozz walked out of the smoke and came clear, Haki blazing. One full-power counter had driven Whitebeard back several steps.
A blade in one hand. A black rifle in the other.
"Then I will be his opponent."
-----------------------------------------------------------------
The tides are shifting, and secrets linger in the dark... Step into the shadows early on P@treon, where the next chapter awaits before the world sees it.
[email protected]/_theon
Change @ to "a"