The hand appeared first from around the corner of the building.
A hand without a body, floating in the air with fingers that seized Mayor Boodle's throat from behind and lifted him off the ground. Boodle tried to struggle, his spear swinging uselessly in the air, his breath cut off.
Luffy saw it and immediately moved.
No words, no threats beforehand. His hand shot forward, seized that floating hand, and squeezed as hard as he could.
From atop the building, a scream of pain exploded.
The hand struggled in Luffy's grip, but Luffy didn't release it. He looked up, his eyes meeting a pair already reddened with fury from above.
"As I promised," said Luffy casually, his expression unchanged. "I came to beat you."
He let go.
Buggy's hand shot back upward, reuniting with his body. Buggy stood at the building's edge with his jaw clenched, holding back the pain still throbbing in his fingers.
"Straw Hat!" His voice exploded. "Insolent brat! How dare you come back here and challenge me!"
Below, Mayor Boodle dropped to the ground and struggled to rise with breathing still labored. His eyes found Luffy, and when they did, the old face shifted into something between anger and disbelief.
"Stupid kid. What are you doing here?" His breath was still ragged, but his voice was strong. "This is none of an outsider's business. This is my fight. This is my town." He picked up his spear from the ground with effort and stood straight. "Don't interfere!"
Luffy grabbed the old man's arm before he could take another step forward. "Wait a moment, old man. Let's work together. I have business with Buggy too."
"Let go—"
"Old man."
Boodle stopped resisting. There was something in Luffy's tone that made the next words not come out.
Luffy had already let go of his arm and stepped forward. A smile appeared on his face, not the smile of someone dismissing another, but the smile of someone who had decided something and nothing could change it.
"Alright. Let's begin."
He drew a deep breath.
"Big nose!"
The faces of Buggy's crew went pale simultaneously. Sweat ran down their foreheads, several of them stepping backward without realizing it.
"He really shouldn't have said that," murmured Nami in a tone that couldn't be determined as either panic or resignation.
On top of the building, Buggy's body trembled. His eyes reddened slowly, the color spreading from his pupils to the entire white of his eyes like ink dropped into water.
"You..." His voice came out low, but its vibration was felt all the way down below. "You've really made me angry, you stupid kid." His head swung toward his crew. "Fire the Buggy Balls!"
Buggy's crew moved simultaneously. The large cannon was pushed to the building's edge, its barrel lowered and aimed downward, toward Luffy's group.
The fuse was lit.
Boom.
The Buggy Ball launched from the cannon's barrel at a speed that left no time to run. Nami, Zoro, and Mayor Boodle scattered to the sides.
Luffy didn't move.
His stomach expanded, swelling in seconds like a giant balloon, his skin stretching to a limit that shouldn't be possible for a human body.
The Buggy Ball hit his stomach.
And bounced back.
"Gomu Gomu no Fuusen!"
The projectile reversed direction at the same speed it had come, shooting upward and slamming into the building where Buggy's group was standing. The explosion thundered. Black smoke billowed into the sky. Stone and wood debris flew in every direction, and as the dust began to settle, what remained up there was only rubble and Buggy's crew lying unconscious.
Luffy held his hat to keep it from being swept away by the blast wave. "Yosh. That got them."
Nami rose from the ground, looked at the destruction up there, then looked at Luffy with an expression she couldn't yet name. "What kind of creature are you actually?"
Luffy turned toward her with a genuinely puzzled expression.
Nami stepped closer, her eyes not leaving Luffy. "Since you were fighting that lion I've been thinking something was strange. But this—" She pointed at the damage above. "That's not something an ordinary person can do. Explain it now. Your body just turned into a balloon. What was that?"
"Gomu Gomu no Fuusen," answered Luffy with a smile, his tone like someone explaining something everyone already knew.
"I want to know why it can do that!" Nami's voice rose. "Are you a monster?"
From behind the thinning cloud of dust, the building's rubble shifted. Buggy emerged with two of his crew on his left and right, both having served as shields he used to protect himself from the explosion. He shoved them to the ground once he was clear of the rubble, his hands returning to folded position across his chest.
"How dare you do this to us."
A groaning sound from behind made Mohji raise his head from where he lay. His vision was still blurry, but when he saw Luffy standing there with the straw hat on his head, he immediately shouted.
"Ahhh! You're that straw hat kid!"
Mohji rose unsteadily and walked toward Buggy. "Watch out, Captain Buggy! That kid is a Devil Fruit user. He's a rubber man!"
"What?!" Buggy turned sharply.
Nami also turned toward Luffy. "Rubber man?"
"Yeah." Luffy immediately pulled both his cheeks with his hands, stretching them sideways, then released. His skin bounced back to its original shape.
"No wonder he could bounce back the Buggy Ball," Buggy murmured, his hand stroking his chin.
The rubble behind Buggy and Mohji shifted. Stone debris lifted from within, and from behind all of it emerged someone walking out while carrying the unconscious Richie's body with one hand, as though the weight of an adult lion was no more than an empty sack.
The man had long hair covering one of his eyes and wore a checkered-pattern scarf. He dropped Richie to the ground beside Mohji like discarding something no longer useful.
"Quite a significant insult, isn't it, Captain?" he said in a flat tone.
Buggy glanced back. "Oh, Cabaji. I can't hold back my anger anymore."
Mohji looked at Richie lying beside his feet and immediately rushed over. "Richie!" After checking his lion, he looked up at Cabaji with a red face. "You damn Cabaji! What did you do to Richie?!"
Cabaji glanced at Richie with an uninterested look. "Ah, you mean this cat? I didn't want my clothes getting dirty, so I used him as a shield."
Mohji immediately attacked. Cabaji avoided the strike with a small sidestep, then kicked Mohji with one movement that looked effortlessly light but sent Mohji flying toward Luffy.
"Move! Move!"
"The one who should move is you."
Luffy kicked Mohji as he flew past. Mohji hit the wall of the house across the way, the wall crumbled, and Mohji didn't emerge from the rubble again.
Cabaji walked toward Buggy without hurrying. "Captain Buggy. Let me deal with them."
Buggy looked at him briefly, then nodded. "Yosh. Show them your acrobatic skills."
A thin smile appeared on Cabaji's face. He jumped, a unicycle appearing beneath his feet, and in an instant he was already rolling down from the building rubble toward the street where Luffy and the others stood, sword drawn in his hand.
"Captain Buggy's first officer, the acrobatic man Cabaji! I've channeled Captain Buggy's fury into this!"
Cabaji's sword was nearly at Luffy when another sword intercepted it from the side with a sharp clang of metal.
"If you're using a sword, your opponent is me."
Zoro pushed Cabaji back with one swing, making the man momentarily lose his balance on the unicycle before stabilizing himself on the street.
Cabaji looked at Zoro standing before him. His eyes dropped to the wound on Zoro's abdomen already beginning to show a red stain on the cloth wrapped around it. His thin smile didn't change.
Luffy glanced briefly toward Zoro. "You'd better rest, Zoro."
"Don't get in my way," said Zoro without turning.
Luffy looked at him for another moment. The wound was bleeding again. But Zoro's expression showed no indication that this information was relevant to him.
"Then I'll leave that side to you."
Zoro didn't answer. But all three of his swords were already out of their scabbards.
Luffy turned toward Buggy and disappeared.
No jump, no swing. In one second he was in the same spot, and in the next he was already standing directly in front of Buggy with a fist already stretched far back.
"Gomu Gomu no Pistol!"
The fist shot toward Buggy's face.
Buggy crossed both forearms in front of his face in the very last moment, pushed backward several steps, his feet dragging across the street surface.
"For someone the size of a thief, you really are something, kid." Buggy lowered his hands, glancing at his palms that still felt numb. Inside he was calculating. That hit was heavier than I expected. Despite his small body, his strength is no joke. I can't let a punch like that reach my face again.
He smiled, but his eyes didn't.
On the other street, the fight between Zoro and Cabaji had reached its own rhythm.
"Acrobatics! Kamikaze Hyakkoma Gekijou!"
Dozens of spinning tops flew from Cabaji's hands in every direction, spinning at high speed toward Zoro. Zoro sliced through every top that entered his sword's range, one by one, without retreating a single step.
But Cabaji didn't wait. He used the moment while Zoro was still occupied with the spinning tops to pedal his unicycle toward the wall of the house across the way, climbing upward at a speed that defied reason.
"Acrobatics! Yama Nobori!"
Zoro slashed the last top coming toward him, his eyes searching for Cabaji. The man was no longer on the same surface.
"Kid! He's above!" Mayor Boodle shouted from the side.
Zoro looked up.
Cabaji was already at the height he had climbed, his sword aimed downward, his body ready to plunge.
"Acrobatics! Noryo Uchiage Hanabi — Ichirin Zashi!"
He came down at full speed, sword aimed directly at Zoro.
Zoro rolled sideways. The tip of Cabaji's sword struck the street where he had been standing half a second before, cracks spreading from the point of impact.
Cabaji pulled his sword and stood, watching Zoro who was now on his feet not far away. Zoro was breathing harder than before. His wound had opened again, and Cabaji, knowing exactly where it was, kept targeting that same spot with every attack, and that drained him far more than an ordinary sword fight.
"I don't need the Captain's help just to defeat you." Cabaji's cynical laugh came out slowly.
Zoro stood upright. His breathing was heavy, blood seeping through the bandaging on his abdomen, sweat flowing down his forehead. But his feet didn't move.
He took his stance.
"I'm tired." His voice came out calm, too calm for someone in his condition. "I'll finish this quickly."
Cabaji advanced.
Zoro also advanced.
"Oni Giri!"
Two swords crossed in front of his chest, his body moving to cut through the distance between them in one motion that left no room to dodge. They passed each other.
Cabaji's sword fell from his hand.
He stood for several seconds after that, staring straight ahead with eyes that were slowly losing their focus. Across his chest were three cuts that sliced through his checkered-pattern scarf.
"Impossible..." His voice was barely audible. "We, the Buggy Pirates, defeated by a group of thieves..."
"We're not thieves." Zoro sheathed his swords. "We're pirates."
Cabaji collapsed onto the street.
Zoro stood for a moment, then his left leg folded and he dropped to one knee, supporting himself with one hand on the ground. His abdomen throbbed hard. He turned toward Luffy's fight still ongoing not far from there.
"Luffy." His voice was heavy but still clear. "I'll leave the rest to you."
"Yeah! Just leave the rest to me!"
Buggy, hearing that, snorted. "You call yourselves pirates?" His eyes swept toward Luffy with a dismissive look. "People like you won't survive in the Grand Line. You fools."
"We're going to the Grand Line," said Luffy, one hand on his hip.
"And what will you do there?" Buggy laughed shortly. "Watch your own graves?"
"I'm going to become King of the Pirates."
Buggy's laugh stopped.
His expression changed, not anger, but something deeper than anger, something resembling an old wound that had just been touched. "Don't joke with me!" His voice rose. "You want to be King of the Pirates? Then I'll become a god?" His hands clenched. "The one who will become King of the Pirates and take all the treasure in this world is me! Give up that stupid dream of yours!"
"You talk too much." Luffy positioned his hand back behind him, his eyes not moving from Buggy. "If you want to attack, just come."
Buggy drew knives from his wrist. His eyes moved briefly behind Luffy, searching for something, and a thin smile appeared on his face.
"It seems one of your friends has already abandoned you."
Mayor Boodle immediately looked around. Nami was nowhere.
Buggy didn't wait for their reaction. His head turned toward his crew scattered around the street, several of them appearing too still to genuinely be unconscious.
"Hey! You all! I know you're already awake. Get up now and kill Roronoa Zoro and that old man!"
Buggy's crew who had been lying there opened their eyes simultaneously and rose with faces that had shifted to panicked but obedient. "Yes, Captain Buggy!" Swords came out of their scabbards, and they moved toward Zoro and Mayor Boodle.
Zoro, still kneeling on the ground, felt that killing intent approaching. His hand reached for the hilt of his sword beside him and he stood, deflecting the first attack that came with his blade, pushing that crew member back.
Mayor Boodle raised his spear, blocking an attack from the other side.
Zoro moved toward Mayor Boodle, blocking an attack coming from the side before it could reach the old man. "You alright, old man?"
"Yes, I'm fine." Boodle pushed Buggy's crew member in front of him back with his spear, his breathing beginning to labor. "That's my question. You alright, kid?"
"Yeah." Zoro deflected a slash coming from his right, pushed back, then stepped into a position that shielded Mayor Boodle from two directions at once. "I'm fine."
His breathing was heavy and sweat had soaked through his entire shirt, but his feet didn't stop moving.
"Zoro!" Luffy called from his fight with Buggy, his eyes glancing briefly at Zoro's condition.
Buggy saw that and immediately moved.
"I won't allow it!"
"Bara Bara Senbei!"
Buggy spun his lower body like a rotating saw, his legs covered in knives slicing toward Luffy at a speed that left little room to dodge.
Luffy leapt into the air.
From above, Buggy threw the knives in his hands toward Luffy who was in the air without footing. Luffy maneuvered in the air, his feet kicking against something invisible to change direction, but the attacks came too fast and from too many angles.
Several knives passed him without hitting anything.
But several others didn't.
Luffy landed on the ground with a tear in his sleeve and a thin cut across his cheek. Blood flowed slowly along his cheekbone, dropping to his chin.
He didn't pay attention to it.
His eyes had already returned to Buggy, his steps already moving forward to press again, when Buggy attacked once more.
"Bara Bara Ho!"
Buggy's hand detached from his wrist and shot toward Luffy like a projectile. Luffy bent his body sideways, letting the fist pass beside him, the wind from its movement hitting his face.
"Die, Straw Hat!" Buggy was already at his side, a knife glinting in his hand, swinging toward an angle that left few options.
Luffy saw that knife coming.
His head shot downward, dropping close to the ground in a movement too fast to be called kneeling, his body bending into an angle that wasn't natural. Buggy's knife passed directly over his head, hitting empty air.
Luffy pushed off the ground with his hands, sliding backward to create distance.
Both of them stood facing each other on the empty street of Orange Town.
Buggy with knives in hand, his eyes calculating. Luffy with blood on his cheek and a tear in his clothes, his hands already back in ready position.
Neither moved.
But both knew this wasn't over yet.
Continued in Chapter 16