NOVEL NEXT Chapter 22 – Cat Attempts to Break Lightbulb, Gets Burnt Then Gets Scolded By Bigger Cat
Chapter 22
Sengoku POV, Marineford
Sengoku sighed in annoyance once again, as he had to deal with the fallout from Garp’s stunt once again. Why he even thought bringing that abominable woman into the Warlord’s meeting was something he might never know.
Garp had recommended her for some ‘jobs’ Sengoku needed doing prior to him bringing her to the grand line. Short staffed as the Marines, and Navy in general always were, Sengoku was all too happy to have someone who was apparently strong enough to beat most Vice Admirals to deal with them.
He should have known better.
Garp was unreliable at the best of times, so he should have expected any friend of Garp to be the same. (He studiously ignored the fact that Sengoku could be considered Garp’s best friend).
“Pururururu. Pururururu.” Sengoku broke out of his abysmal thoughts to the sound of a denden ringing. With an exhausted sigh, he reached over and picked it up. “Fleet Admiral’s Office. What is it?”
There was a few moments of pause, and he could see the face of the snail widen It’s eyes and start sweating a bit. A second or two go by, but he finally gets a response. “Sir, this is the communications officer from G2 at Lulusia. We got that notice about being on lookout for a small woman with purple hair, wearing a black jumpsuit with an orange jacket. The alert said to call this number if we found her. We spotted her 10 minutes ago wandering around the shopping district of the port town, matching the description exactly.” Said the Officer.
Sengoku smirked a bit, finally able to get his revenge. “Good. Make sure she stays there. Ill send someone to get her.” He said, immediately hanging up the denden without waiting for confirmation.
He then picked it up again and Dialed the number he had for Kuzan. “Pururu ca-lick. Kuzan Speaking.” Came out of the snail, its face taking on Kuzan’s calm face.
Sengoku said, “Remember that woman that Garp brought to me a few days ago? The one that Garp smuggled into the meeting a few days ago? I need you to go get her. She was spotted in Lulusia a few minutes ago.”
There was a groan of annoyance from Kuzan. “Ugh, why me. Can’t you let me nap in peace?” Kuzan groaned.
Sengoku slammed his fist on the table in anger “No!” he shouted angrily, “You can’t sleep for 14 goddamn hours a day! Do your fucking job!”
There was a moment of silence, before Kuzan replied a bit hesitantly, “Why are you even asking me, boss? You sent me to go deal with the news agencies yesterday. I’m nowhere near Paradise, let alone Lulusia.”
Sengoku froze, his memory catching up to his lack of sleep over the past few days. “Goddamnit why didn’t you say that first?” he shouted, his face starting to go red in anger.
Kuzan quickly asked, “Does that mean I can go back to sleep now?” with a hopeful lilt to his voice.
This time, instead of Sengoku’s fist hitting the table, it was his forehead. “Yes, you can go take a nap now, you insufferable bastard.” He said defeatedly.
“Thank you, sir” came over the snail before it promptly closed the call with a “ka-lick”.
Sengoku just laid there for a few moments, his forehead resting on the desk. ‘Garp I swear to whatever fucking hell there is, if you don’t end up there I will put you there myself.’
He got up again and reached for his den den mushi and dialed another number. “Pururu. Purururu. Ka-lick. Borsalino here. What do you need, sir?” a slow, drawling voice spoke. The face on the snail was somewhat of a droopy face, with a relaxed smile plastered on.
Sengoku got right to the point. “Where are you right now, Borsalino?” he asked.
“Hmmm.” The man pondered. “I would say somewhere between The Triangle and Water 7. Do you need me to do something?”
Sengoku smiled. Finally. Some progress. “I need you to take a trip over to Lulusia and the G2 base to go pick up that woman who was here a few days ago, Yoruichi.” He spoke.
The snail’s eyebrow raised. “Uh, why am I doing this? And why am I picking up a random woman?” he asked inquisitively.
Sengoku almost cried.
“I am not asking you to treat her like a Dragon, just get her ass here ASAP!” he roared into the receiver, causing the den den to shake a little in fear.
“Mah, mah. Ok. I’ll do it. G2, right?” Borsalino asked.
Sengoku sighed in relief. “Yes. G2.”
A creepy grin came over Borsalino’s face. “Should I expect any resistance? And if so, can I use force?”
Sengoku’s face fell. “JUST TREAT IT LIKE YOURE DRAGGING GARP TO BACK TO HEADQUARTERS!” he roared, before slamming the receiver down onto the den den, cutting the call.
At that moment, Garp waltzed in, munching on crackers. ‘Didn’t Yoruichi throw his stash out the window a few days ago? Where did he get more?’ Sengoku passively thought, before shaking his head.
“What, Garp?” he asked, a very annoyed tone taking over.
“Oh, nothing much. Just heard you mention me.” Garp said distractedly. “Did you just tell Ol’ Kizaru to treat getting Yoruichi back here like he treats getting me?”
Sengoku’s eyebrows raised. “Yes. I did, why?” he asked hesitantly.
Garp chuckled a tad, before saying, “You know whenever he comes to get me, we get into a brawl. That’s why it takes so long for me to get back.” He completely ignored the horrified look on Sengoku’s face as he plopped down on the couch in the corner.
Garp glanced over at Sengoku and laughed at his expression. “Bahaha. Are ya worried about the girly getting crushed? Don’t worry, she’ll be fine. She took a tree to the face with my Haki after all.”
“GET THE FUCK OUT OF MY OFFICE YOU CRAZY GOAT!” Sengoku screamed, his voice rattling the windows of Marineford. None of the soldiers paid it any attention, as it was quite the common sight.
Garp got up, laughing loudly. “Bahahaha. I can’t wait to see the damage she does to Borsalino. His head was getting too big for his britches.” He meandered out the door, leaving the fuming Sengoku behind.
“Auughh. What did I do to deserve this torture.” He moaned. Hopefully no one dies this time.
Yoruichi POV
In the Restaurant in Lulusia, Yoruichi looked tentatively at the tall, thin man. He hadn’t introduced himself, but she knew who he was, at least by process of elimination.
“Excuse me,” he said in a slow drawl. “I’m looking for a woman named Yoruichi, you wouldn’t happen to be her, would you? You match her description.”
Yoruichi frowned a bit. ‘Description? Was Sengoku sending people to come capture her now?’ Her eyes narrowed. ‘Obviously Garp told them at least a little bit of her capabilities, since none of the Marine leadership would know anything about how she fights.’ She thought. ‘They wouldn’t have sent their “fastest” solider otherwise. Garp knows I would be able to just run from Akainu and Kuzan, even if I can’t do anything to them.’ She still didn’t understand what the issue with that was.
Logia powers are a physical manifestation of a specific application of spirit energy. She did not fully understand how, but similarly to the way that Luffy’s devil fruit turns him into rubber, logia fruits are essentially the same as Luffy’s fruit, just with things that aren’t entirely solid, and usually made from some sort of ‘element’. Like Kuzan’s fruit, who was made out of Ice. Ice is essentially a solid form of water, and can be broken down into that one simple component. This makes it easier to split up, allowing for the ‘Logia’ aspect of the spirit energy to manifest.
Luffy’s makes him stretchy, but does not bode well to splitting. Yoruichi examined the tall man in front of her, reaching out with her spiritual senses to feel the man’s presence. When it touched him, she could feel the man flinch a miniscule amount.
‘That doesn’t bode well.’ Yoruichi thought grimly. ‘Even Garp couldn’t feel my Reikaku.’ She forged on anyway, since her intentions were already compromised. Feeling the presence of Kizaru, it was a light, airy, intangible feeling. Though it was backed by an almost deadly energy, like a cat, a cuddly creature, but also an extremely vicious predator.
It was almost like Ace’s, though his was more sparky, and had a heated feeling to it, but still carried that intangible feeling with it.
Yoruichi sighed internally. ‘That confirms it, he has a fruit that makes him into light.’
She focused her physical eyes on Kizaru, who was still standing there smiling relaxedly.
He spoke before she did, saying, “How rude you are. Though that doesn’t surprise me, considering the company you keep. The one that rejected the Warlord position, I believe?”
This caused Ace, who was drunk enough to barely see straight, to focus hard on Kizaru like Luffy did when he was thinking. “Uhhhh. Aren’t you that, like…… Admiral guy? Whatryou doing her-?” He then immediately passed out, though this time Yoruichi was sure it was from the booze and not his narcolepsy.
Yoruichi closed her eyes in exasperation. ‘The only damn reason I’m even helping this idiot is because an even bigger idiot would annoy me if I didn’t.’ she grumbled internally.
“Ignore him.” She said to Kizaru. She then stood up, leaving Ace to his drunken nap. “You wanted to find me, so why don’t we go somewhere we can talk?”
Kizaru considered this for a moment, before he nodded and turned to the door. “That’s fine. I’m here for you, not some somewhat reputable rookie.” He drawled, and he walked out the door without any further consideration to anyone around them.
Yoruichi could see the stares, and she finally caught sight of Deuce in the crowd. She caught his eye, and tilted her head in the direction of Ace. Deuce got a resigned look on his face, but he nodded, and lightly saluted her, and disappeared into the crowd.
She turned back to Kizaru, who was standing off to the side with his hands in the pockets of his pants, calmly waiting for her to follow. Once she got closer, he slightly nodded and walked into a side alley.
Yoruichi quickly followed, and they were soon out of the town. They were surrounded by trees, with the ocean’s waves crashing into some rocks nearby.
Yoruichi quickly hopped up into a tree, sitting down with her legs dangling off the branch.
Kizaru turned around immediately when she did this, his head turning directly to where she was located, even though she tried to be as silent as possible.
‘He has that Haki type, doesn’t he. Observe, or whatever it was. He seems to be better at it than Garp, too.’ Yoruichi thought.
Kizaru still had that increasingly frustrating smile on his face, a calm smile that said nothing will ever surprise me, and nothing you can do about it will change that.
He crossed his arms, looking up at her. “Can you come down from there? I’m not going to hurt you. Not yet, anyway.” He called up to her.
Yoruichi mirthlessly chuckled. “Not a chance, droopy. What do you want. Or, better yet, what does Sengoku want?” she asked.
Kizaru pouted. “Aww, don’t be like that. He just wants you to meet with him. Though I don’t know if that is the best idea right now, since he seems mad at something.” He then shot Yoruichi a pointed look. “Or someone.”
She snorted, her thoughts going back to what happened the last time she was within touching distance of Sengoku. “Yeah, I can think of a few reasons why he’d be mad. Taking a catnap on his head does that.”
Kizaru’s eyebrows raised. “You did what
?” he asked incredulously, his normally slow, drawling tone nowhere to be found.Yoruichi just waved him off, her hands going behind her head as she leaned against the tree trunk. “Mah, ask Garp for the details. He’d probably get a kick out of telling.” She said disinterested. Though she was anything but. Her senses were laser focused on this Admiral near her.
Kizaru chuckled a bit. “I suppose he would. I might ask Kuzan as well, he takes after his mentor in the same way.” He kept looking at her, his eyes gaining a sharp edge to them, almost boring into Yoruichi like a laser. “Back to the topic at hand, Sengoku has tasked me with bringing you back to Marineford.” He said.
Kizaru clasped his hands in front of him, looking at the picture of a polite gentleman. He stated, “If you come without complaint, my ship will be here in 6 hours to pick us both up, and we can head back to Marineford.”
His stance suddenly shifted, his hands going into his pockets, but Yoruichi could tell he was anything but relaxed. He was leaning backward a slight bit, almost like he was preparing for a kick.
Yoruichi’s eyes narrowed. ‘The stance suggests he used his feet to fight.’ She grinned slightly. ‘A mirror match, I believe the humans call it. This might be interesting. I haven’t gotten a workout like that since training my little bee.’
She smirked a bit, looking down challengingly at the man. “I’m hearing a but in there somewhere.”
Kizaru nodded once, and said, “Yes. If you wish to not return, I have been given permission to handle you like I would Garp. I do not know your circumstances, but Sengoku wants you in one piece, and most likely with some ability of coherent thought.” Kizaru tensed a bit, which Yoruichi noticed and followed suit, curling her legs under her in a casual seating position, though primed to push off the tree at any point.
Kizaru continued, “That being said, Garp has apparently given you a ringing endorsement, which means I can let loose a little. So, what is your decision?” He smiled politely up at Yoruichi.
She laughed in slight disbelief. ‘What kind of Admirals do they have in the Marines? Its almost like Divisions 12, 11, and 8 got reincarnated.’
Yoruichi licked her lips anticipatorily, grinning widely. “You know, I really don’t feel like dealing with whatever ‘punishment’ Ol’ pigeonhead feels like he is obliged to give me. You’re gonna have to drag me.”
Kizaru smiled, his visage cracking slightly. “Oh, I was hoping you said that.” He paused for a moment, and Yoruichi felt his devil fruit kick in. It was going down to his legs, but she didn’t know why.
Kizaru continued, “Tell me, have you ever been kicked at the speed of light?”
Her face scrunched in confusion, “Kicked at the speed of-“ she started, but she had no more warning than her spiritual senses flaring at the sudden movement of Kizaru’s right leg flying out in a ferocious front kick.
Yoruichi flash-stepped immediately to another tree, and then another as the entire area literally exploded in a flash of light. She held on tight to a tree branch as the entire area shook from the explosion.
Yoruichi’s eyes were wide, staring at Kizaru in slight shock and a lot of exasperation. “Seriously. Can you not destroy the entire island while we’re still on it?” she said in exasperation.
Kizaru didn’t reply, and she had to flash-step again as another blast from his foot came screaming at her.
She settled herself on a broken tree from the first blast a moment later, visible annoyance on her face. “What the hell did I just say? Are you deaf?” she cried.
Kizaru actually stopped this time, looking at her with unconcealed interest. “Ohhh. Garp wasn’t lying when he said you were good. But he didn’t mention you were that fast.” He smiled creepily, and stated, “But no matter. No matter how fast you are, no matter how long you try to evade me, there is no escape.” He immediately blurred in place, using the same technique that Garp used in their fights, and appeared behind Yoruichi in a yellow flash, with his right leg bent and glowing.
She was barely able to turn her head to look at him before she was caught in the collarbone by the devastating kick, and she was sent flying inland. She crashed through many trees without stopping, only falling to a halt when she hit a small hill and rolled up it for a good few hundred meters.
“puthut.” Yoruichi spat out some blood, and sat up. She immediately winced in a bit of pain as her right hand went to her left collarbone. “Damn” she said, impressed. “He hits hard as hell. Went right through my Reiatsu’s defenses.” She immediately started healing her arm, and barely finished in the few moments it took before she had to vacate her current position.
She pushed off the wall of dirt she had dug up in her impact and backflipped over the impact of another beam of light.
There was a loud boom as dirt and dust was kicked up from the impact. Yoruichi quickly lowered her presence to next to nothing, and hid in the smoke. A single moment later, A beam of light appeared bouncing off the ruined trees, and when it got near the cloud of smoke, it stopped and turned back into Kizaru.
“Ohhhh.” He said casually, “The Yata Mirror wasn’t fast enough to catch up to you. That’s new.” He looked around carelessly, his hand over his eyes shielding them from the dust. “Now, where did you go…..”
He did not say anything else as Yoruichi appeared behind him, delivering a lightning-fast kick of her own to the back of his head. It disappeared like a mirage, with an image distorting and crumbling around her leg.
Yoruichi immediately flash-stepped away from him, her arms up in a guard. ‘tch.’ She thought, ‘Why does it seem like everyone has logia fruits these days. I thought they were the rare ones.’
Kizaru’s head reformed immediately after the distortions disappeared, and he turned calmly to face Yoruichi. His face gained an interesting look of focus, the creepy smile still on his face. “Hmm, I can see why Sengoku wants you. You would be quite useful to the marines.” He paused, and put a finger to his cheek. “Though, with the rumors floating around Marineford, I’m surprised you don’t have a bounty.” He then shrugged, and said flippantly, “Not my problem if you don’t, that’s more of Sengoku’s prerogative anyways.”
His eyes focused onto Yoruichi, scanning her like she was going to be his target in the next sharpshooting contest.
“That is an interesting technique you have there. I can’t sense you that easily.” He stated. He then flashed a bright yellow, and Yoruichi felt something move the air around to her left. She raised her forearm and caught another kick, sending her skidding back a decent bit, knocking over ruined tree stumps as she was pushed back.
Her eyes narrowed, Yoruichi thought about his words. ‘can’t sense me that easily? So, he can still sense me, it’s just hard.’ She thought.
Rain took that time to chime in, saying, “You seem to be having fun. When were you going to let Us out to play as well?”
Yoruichi just pouted at him. ‘You are barely able to get your ass up and moving, and now you want to fight?’ she chided, focusing more onto Kizaru and ignoring the disdainful huff in the back of her mind.
Kizaru stood a few meters away, regarding her with that creepy smile. His right leg was up in the air slightly, the same one he had just kicked her with. Yoruichi grinned at him, and said, “It seems like I’m gonna have to pick it up a bit. Shunko.”
Pressure roiled about in Yoruichi’s body, giving off a dim white glow. Her finished Shunko form will finally be able to be tested to its full capacity. ‘Let’s see how it holds up.’ She thought, rapidly increasing the speed at which the spiritual energy rotated through her body.
She grinned, and flash-stepped in the direction of Kizaru. She immediately went for a low sweeping kick at his legs, and let the Shunko energy flow down forcefully through her limb.
Kizaru’s eyes widened in surprise as his legs were completely separated from his body from Yoruichi’s kick, which caused a slim funnel shaped trench in the direction she had kicked.
She kept on the offensive, regaining both her feet on the ground in a crouched position, and exploded upward, her right hand landing a blow straight to his liver, knocking a circular hole in Kizaru’s body., similar to that of Arborius. Yoruichi then flash-stepped behind the tall man, and screamed, “Raioken!” before she delivered a flurry of blows to Kizaru’s spinal column.
Almost immediately, Kizaru was knocked flat on his face by the force of the shockwaves and Kido energy pulses coming from Yoruichi. He could no longer really control his body as his spine didn’t exist any more after only a single moment of Yoruichi pummeling him into submission.
Once Yoruichi had run out of striking space, she immediately backflipped off the man, and raised her right hand forward, palm out. “Bakudo #30, Shitotsu Sansen.” She said, moving her arm in a triangular motion. From the three vertices of the triangle she drew, three more smaller triangles shot out and embedded themselves into Kizaru’s limbs, leaving him completely immobile.
Yoruichi stood back and examined her handiwork. She had her eyebrows furrowed in slight confusion. ‘That was….. almost too easy. What game is he playing?’ she pondered. She got the answer to her own question a moment later, as Kizaru started chuckling.
“Ohh, hehehe. That was quite the performance.” He said. His body started twitching, or what was left of it. He currently had about 80% of his torso completely gone, his entire right arm and most of his body missing entirely. His left arm, both his legs, and his head were held onto by basically a scrap of what was left of his body.
“I can’t even move in this.” He said slowly. After a few moments, he stopped twitching, and Yoruichi heard a sigh. “Ah, well, I guess there is something annoying about you after all.”
His body then glowed yellow, and Yoruichi had to turn her eyes away from him, he was so bright. A moment later she looked back and saw Kizaru standing there pretty much completely unharmed, brushing off some dust from his suit.
“Well, that was certainly impressive.” Kizaru said slowly. He then put his hands together, and then expanded them, causing a beam of light to appear. At one end, what looked to be a cross guard appeared, and Kizaru grabbed the now light-longsword with his right hand.
Kizaru then got into a stance, with the blade above his head and pointed in her direction, and his other hand outstretched before him, like he was going to stab her with his weapon.
“Time for round two, eh?” he commented, before blinking forward in a markedly different style than Garp did, as he almost just simply appeared in front of Yoruichi.
She responded in kind by sidestepping the very predictable stab that came her way, and she swiped her left leg up to kick the blade up and over Kizaru’s head, and surprisingly she was able to even though it was supposedly made of light.
‘Guess he has to make it able to hit stuff for a sword to work.’ She thought. She then flash-stepped backward, and got down in a similar way to what she did with the trees the day prior. Her hand on the hilt of Rainzupuraido, she tensed up her body, channeling the Shunko to flow down her arm, bottling up in preparation for an explosion.
“Kazeyoke (Wind Break)” she said, drawing Rain faster than the speed of sound, it created a tangible boom from Rain screaming through the air, and a smoky, yet spiky extremely wide crescent blade was flung out at Kizaru. His eyes widened, and he swung his weapon down at her attack, only for it to completely falter upon impact. He had to blink out of the way in a slight yellow flash as to not get hit by it, much to Yoruichi’s annoyance.
‘Tch.’ She thought, annoyed. ‘I am really out of shape if I’m letting this glowy horror doll get one up on me.’ She had to break out of her thoughts as she sensed Kizaru appearing behind her, and she quickly deflected his downward strike aimed at splitting her in half. She pushed it off to her left side, and as soon as she had enough leverage, she let the blade fall right past her arm and she let loose an upward cut, unleashing a smaller crescent at almost point-blank range.
This one split Kizaru from his right hip to his left shoulder, but of course he didn’t actually take any damage. The man stared down with a frown on his face at the large gash in his torso, and said, “Hmm. Very annoying. What are you doing that stops my regeneration, but not actually hurting me?” he mumbled slowly, more to himself than anything else.
Yoruichi took the time to send a left hook to his jaw, which he swiftly backstepped from. He had to almost limbo the following right heel kick that came right after.
Kizaru did a little jump back to gain distance, and he pointed his left hand at her, with his index finger sticking out. She only had a second of warning from the yellow glow that appeared on the tip of his finger, and she flash-stepped out of the way of a beam of light that was shaped like an arrow. It kept going and hit a tree, burning a hole right through it.
When she landed a few meters away, she had to throw up her hand to block another bolt of light, which burned right through her forearm where it hit. Yoruichi hissed in pain, and raised her sword hand up and called out, “Bakudo #39, Enkosen”. A large spinning circle of Kido appeared, and Yoruichi was relieved to feel the bolts of light that were continually coming out of Kizaru’s hand in a scattered formation were easily blocked by the shield.
Yoruichi’s eyes narrowed. ‘Kido can block his light. Could it hurt him?’ she thought, before shrugging mentally.
Rain said, “Try Aoihi no dansu.”
A single eyebrow was raised mentally. ‘Don’t you hate that Kido?”
Rain huffed imperiously. ‘How absurd. This King does not hate the stupid Kido. It just feels extremely uncomfortable.” He grumbled, causing Yoruichi to laugh.
‘Sounds like you hate it to me.’ She chuckled. Yoruichi then put the blade upwards in front of her face, and turned her left palm upward. “Hado #18, Aoihi no Dansu.” She said, and almost immediately her hand lit up in fire. She then ran her hand up the blade, coating it in blue flames.
She then grinned at Kizaru, and raised her left hand with her index and middle finger pointed forward much like Kizaru did with his little finger gun. A orange tendril came out blazing, and it immediately flew and wrapped around Kizaru’s body, binding his arms to his torso.
The man did not do much, simply looked at the Kido with blatant curiosity. She didn’t get a chance to say anything, as Yoruichi yelled, “Kazeyoke no Hono! (Wind Break Flame)” and she flipped her Zanpakuto around into a reverse grip, and while holding Kizaru in place with her Bakudo, she swung her blade.
The blue flames of the Hado ignited and flared up immensely as the Crescent blade ignited under the fuel of air. This time Kizaru had no chance of dodging, and all Yoruichi saw was his eyes widening before he was hit.
The resulting dust cloud was nothing short of a nuclear explosion. Yoruichi stood there, slightly panting from all the Kido usage, and took stock of her surroundings.
She saw that she was a hypocrite for calling out Kizaru for destroying the island. She had done more than he ever did.
The ground was completely crumbled for a few hundred yards in diameter from where she had pummeled Kizaru into the ground, and there were multiple holes where she had dodged Kizaru’s kicks and her own punches, her original Kazeyoke had carved a nice gash into the ground, and to top it all off, her Shunko blasts had knocked down most of the trees in the forest that was surrounding them.
Now all of it was on fire.
The blue flames crackled and popped and consumed much of the surrounding forest, or what was left of it. She could hear cries from the port town nearby about a fire, but she had no time to pay attention to that.
Standing there in the settling dust, debris, and other non-identifiable pieces of things was Kizaru, who had most of his entire Torso turned black. On his chest was a myriad of scorch marks from the fire. It was making his torso look like something out of a Kaleidoscope, with his body bending light in all the wrong directions from what it was normally supposed to.
“That hurt” drawled Kizaru, who was touching his chest tentatively. “Do you know how much this suit cost?”
Yoruichi just stared, panting, and slowly growing frustration. ‘Why the fuck can’t I hit him??!’ she screamed in her mind.
She had had no time to think hard on why. She had started thinking about it when she interacted with Ace and Arborius, but that was only recently. She had thought she would be fine, as Garp is able to hit devil fruit users. She just never thought that Garp’s usage of Haki, which is just spiritual power forced out through straight up forcing it through your body, would exceed that of hers, a former Captain of the Gotei 13.
‘Just what is it about Haki that is different from normal spiritual manipulation?’ she thought, frustrated. I should have killed him 3 times over already, and all he had to do was wait a few moments and he was fine afterward.’ Yoruichi gritted her teeth. ‘Shunko can disrupt his devil fruit powers through Hanki, but it doesn’t truly injure him. It just stops him from reforming. And what’s the difference between that, and the fire I just used?’ she thought.
Yoruichi shook her head, snapping out of her daze. She focused on Kizaru, who was still dusting off his jacket, the bent light on parts of his torso moving around as he did.
“Its getting a bit dangerous out here.” he said casually, resetting his Admiral coat on his shoulders. “What do you say we make this quick?” he looked at her with a cheeky half smirk on his face, and without waiting for an answer, he disappeared in a blink and was already behind Yoruichi, aiming to take her head off with a kick.
On and on it went, for over 10 hours straight. Not the longest fight by any means, some fights between Yonko can last for days, but when one side cannot really damage the other, a combination of exhaustion and frustration usually gives the other a very good advantage.
Kizaru and Yoruichi stood apart from each other, both breathing heavily. Yoruichi was in a much worse position than Kizaru, however. Her frustrations had started getting the better of her about 6 hours in, and she had lapsed in her judgement and Kizaru took advantage of that to inflict a nasty kick to her collarbone, like he had the first time, though this one had almost entirely dusted the bones in her arm.
She had also taken multiple body shots with those infernal lazers of his, holes reaching straight through her body, that were luckily cauterized from the heat of the lasers passing through.
She had not had any time or energy on Kaido, using all her focus on the Kido she knew could inflict any sort of damage on the Marine Admiral. Yoruichi had also tried to escape multiple times, much to her chagrin. However, Kizaru seemed to have a much more powerful Observation Haki than Garp did, and that as well as another method, which she found out how to counter 8 hours in, made it almost impossible to escape from him.
Yoruichi had learned that the man was pretty much as fast as she was. ‘So much for my title.’ She bemoaned more than once. The only reason she was able to make a decent attempt at escaping the island was because of Bakudo #26, Kyokko, which bent the light around her to hide herself. When she had tried that, she had realized that Kizaru couldn’t sense her anymore, which led to another realization that Kizaru was using the light present in the surrounding area to sense her, along with his Haki.
However, by that point she was too exhausted from the prodigious use of Kido. She didn’t dare to use anything higher than a Rank 70, as she was not as comfortable using Kido at that level, like Kisuke and Tessai were. She had ended up exhausted enough that she slipped in her Reiatsu control for only a millisecond, which Kizaru was able to pick up on and kick her back into the island.
“Haaah. Haah. Haaaahh.” Yoruichi gasped, sitting on the ground, almost collapsed in on herself. Rain was lying next to her, looking a bit heated from all the lights he had deflected. Seawater was lapping at his hilt, as the current landscape looked more like someone had glassed the entire section of rock, rather than the previous lush forest it was. They had leveled an entire third of the island down to sea level, from the previous 900 meters.
Kizaru stood some meters away, also gasping for breath. He stood with his face toward the sky, the back of a hand resting on his face. “Haah. Phew. Haven’t. Haah. Had that much of a workout since Garp.” he said in between breaths.
He hadn’t walked away without any injuries from their fight. The entirety of Kizaru’s left side, was…… distorted. It looked like someone had created him out of a funhouse mirror, and they only put half of him into a weird shape and the rest was normal. It made for an incredibly hard time moving around, and trying to hit things, since he wasn’t punching or kicking, or even standing in a straight line anymore.
He caught his breath, and started walking over to Yoruichi. He waved his hand slightly at the Ship that was (unfortunately) docked near the shore, which was the Marine battleship that ferried Kizaru around.
They started putting a plant down, and got a stretcher out and two marines started walking quickly over.
He stopped by Yoruichi where she was sitting, cradling her arm. “So,” he began, with a sunny smile on his face. “Ready to head back now?”
Yoruichi was, in fact, not ready to go anywhere. She just gave Kizaru a withering glare, and flipped him off.
‘I’m gonna kill that bastard if it’s the last thing I do.’ She thought ferociously, glaring at the man as the marines loaded her onto a stretcher. She could walk fine, but honestly getting a little treatment from medical would be nice.
“You let yourself get too cocky.” Rain said suddenly.
Yoruichi paused in her mad grumbling to ask, ‘What do you mean by that? Its not like you could help much during that fight.’ She growled.
Rain scoffed, “That is because you have not figured out what it takes to reach your Shikai.” He paused for a moment, before saying, “Come in here. I doubt Kizaru will attack you any more than he already had, considering Sengoku wants you.”
Yoruichi grumbled nonsensically to herself, saying, ‘Stupid self-absorbed cats…… stupid light……. stupid world…..…’ She eventually acquiesced, and sunk into her mindscape, finding herself on the familiar plains.
She glanced around, seeing Rain lounging underneath a tree, and went to join him. She got close and sat down next to him, leaning on his fur like a beanbag.
“So,” she said, “What is the horribly cryptic and somehow helpful advice you wanted to give me?”, leaning back against the Zanpakuto’s side and crossing her arms.
Rain chuffed out a small laugh. “Not everything this King says is cryptic. Most of the time it is telling you you’re an idiot. But that is not why I wanted to talk to you.”
They stopped talking, staring off into the perpetually late afternoon sun. After a few minutes of silence, Rain said, slightly gentler than he usually does, “You have gotten complacent. Arrogant. You are one of the youngest to achieve Captaincy in the entirety of the Soul Society, beaten only by Hitsugaya. That was the cause of your original falling out with me all those years ago, and it seems that your hubris has not gotten any better since then.”
Yoruichi blinked.
“That’s….. not what I was expecting from you.” She said eventually, surprised at his candidness. It was somewhat of a running joke between upper levels of Shinigami that their Zanpakuto would generally give cryptic and somewhat unhelpful advice, that usually only made sense after the fact.
Rain growled, somewhat amused. “Our bond is not that of a normal Shinigami now, is it? You didn’t listen the first time, and unlike some people, This King learns from Their mistake. That means We must use other methods.”
Yoruichi sat up indignantly, giving Rain a slap to the shoulder, “Hey! I am not that stubborn!”
Rain turned his head to look at her, with something suspiciously like exasperation on his face. “You, not stubborn? You, who when faced with the reality that We had almost broken our connection entirely, decided to just keep fighting herself, without one’s most important weapon? You, who did not want to follow orders so much, decided to leave the Gotei 13 at the first chance you could? You, who had to basically be forced to come here, because you would not listen to Kisuke or Tessai, your two childhood friends, and they had to trick and force you?” Yoruichi pouted and turned her head away, like Yushiro did when he was little, and didn’t get a sweet.
Rain just stared at her in exasperation. “You’re just proving Our point. This entire ‘vacation’ of yours has been you messing around, which is fine. But you have been treating every person you meet like some random human from back home. Like this is all some game, and you are never going to be in trouble.”
Yoruichi finally responded with a biting remark, “Yeah, well look how well that turned out for me, huh.”
“It got you nothing.” Rain replied, “Your own stubbornness and hubris has been a major crutch to our bond. You stubbornly refused to think that it was your own failing that broke our bond, and pushed off the blame onto me. Did you really think that just because you lost the rose-tinted glasses you looked through at the Soul Society, you would almost shatter our bond enough to make me unusable?”
During Rain’s rant, Yoruichi just stared at him with increasingly wide eyes. “Wha-what do you mean? I thought that was what broke our bond. Isn’t that what you told me?” she said hesitantly.
Rain scoffed, and stood up, pushing Yoruichi off him. “We did not say that your disillusionment was what shattered our bond. That is how you interpreted it, in your own naivety. What We said was that you had lost confidence in yourself. You lost your pride in who you were. Getting shown exactly how the Soul Society operated may have been the catalyst, but it was you who broke our bond.” He said, anger crawling its way into his voice.
Yoruichi stood up herself, and crossed her arms. “It may have been me, but you were right there with me the entire time. You’re the one who was riling me up, fueling my ‘hubris’ more and more.” she said headedly.
Rain turned suddenly, glaring at her with his yellow eyes, oh so like Yoruichi’s own. “I’m a part of you!” he roared “I am a piece of your own soul, a manifestation of yourself! And you just left me. You saw that I was no longer what you wanted, and you decided to throw me away!”
The lion stalked closer to her, so they were almost touching their noses. “You, in your Hubris. Your Arrogance, decided that your partner was no longer up to your standards. You left me in here, wallowing in my own sedentary life, for over 200 years. No training, barely any talking, nothing.” He snarled in her face, a grimace crossing Yoruichi as the words washed over her.
She stumbled back a bit, and eventually slowly sat back down on the grass. “I…. I didn’t know…….” She said shakily. She then took a few deep breaths, until she let out a long sigh.
“I really fucked up, didn’t I.” she said desolately, running a hand down her face. Her back was now pressed into the tree, the bark ridges driving into her back. She eventually looked up at Rain with what was starting to be red rimmed, sad eyes.
Said lion sat on his haunches in front of her, and just looked at her calmly. They stared at each other, one now sad Shinigami and their supposed partner.
After a few minutes, the tension broke and Rain just laid down in front of her, head on his paws. “You did ‘fuck up’, yes.” Rain said, markedly gentler than before. “But now you have a chance to fix it. You already are working at making our bond stronger. You should know the next step.” The lion grinned at her in an uncanny human-like way.
Yoruichi rubbed her eyes with both hands, before saying a little exasperated, “Yeah. I know. Not like the captains haven’t told our subordinates the same stuff over and over.”
Yoruichi knew exactly what the next step was. She had built up enough of a connection that he was usable for her, even in a battle such as the one she just had with Kizaru. Now it was time for herself.
‘Damn, I really was treating this all so nonchalantly.’ She thought. When she first encountered Garp, she had been able to out speed him enough that he wasn’t able to do any real lasting damage to her. The same goes for the rest of their spars over the few months she spent with him before exploring.
When she got to the Grand Line, she was still quite ‘naive’ to how this world actually worked. She had a very, very basic idea about devil fruits, and what Haki was. She only had an extremely small sample size to work with. Garp and Luffy. She could still beat the crap out of the rubber-headed idiot anyways, so she didn’t think that much of devil fruits.
After all, she was a Shinigami Captain. She fought weird Shikai and Bankai all the time. Take Rangiku’s for example. The blade just turns to dust. It’s not even a sword anymore. Then she ran into Ace and Arborius, and she started realizing that devil fruits were much more problematic than she first thought.
But she still didn’t think much about them, or the people in general. After all, she could just outrun Ace any day of the week, and Garp was boasting about being among the strongest Marines.
Then she met Kizaru.
‘Damn…… I was so used to people just being not even able to see me, that I started thinking of them as inconsequential.’ She thought to herself. ‘Kisuke may have wanted me to take a vacation, but this world is actually dangerous. I need to get back into gear.’
Her eyes took on a more determined look, as she focused back on Rain. He laughed outright, and said proudly, “Theres the fire This King missed. That determination brought you to the top, and you will make damn sure it does again.”
She smiled at the lion, her partner and said smilingly, “Yes, yes. We can go beat up the lightbulb some later time.” She paused, then sat up, getting a mischievous look on her face. “First though, come be my pillow. Big Sis is tired.”
Rain’s face fell. He just halfheartedly glared at her, before getting up and padding around to her back. Yoruichi then turned into her cat form, and hopped up onto his head, and curled up for a nice, rejuvenating nap.
‘Ahhhh.’ She thought contentedly. ‘Nothing like a nap with a great pillow.’