NOVEL NEXT Chapter 31 – Cat Gets Offered Sweets, Rejects It Vehemenantly, Runs Into Drunk Teens Breaking Into Mom’s Vodka Freezer
Chapter 31
Both Yoruichi and Katakuri sat there in stunned silence, though for Katakuri it might just be silence.
After a moment, Yoruichi looked wide eyed at the large woman who was not puttering about with different ideas for their ‘wedding’. She seemed much more excited than either of the two actual subjects of said ‘marriage’.
Turning her head almost 180 degrees like an owl, Yoruichi shouted, “Oi!” She got no response from the woman who was pacing in the ruins of her own child.
“HEY! Big Mom!” Yoruichi tried again. At this point Katakuri had snapped out of his own sunned silence and was looking at her curiously, but did not do anything.
Finally, the large woman in what looked to be an elderly person’s nightgown turned around with an annoyed “Huuuh? What do you want, girl? I am busy planning your wedding.”
Yoruichi gave the woman an apologetic smile, and said with a placating tone, “Well, you see, as flattering as that is, I don’t see how you could get me to marry someone, Big Mom.”
Big Mom furrowed her brow. “What are you talking about, girl?” she growled, marching over to where Yoruichi was still stuck to the debris. Once she got closer, she caught sight of something slightly concerning.
Scrunching up her face, Big Mom bowed down closer to Yoruichi, trying to see exactly what was happening.
All she could see was Yoruichi’s soul roiling around in a vortex style movement.
While Big Mom was distracted by Yoruichi’s soul, said Shinigami stuck her tongue out at the Yonko and said in a drawl, “I mean, you can’t marry me off, one, because I am not your kid, and two, because, well, I am not here.”
“Haah?” Big Mom said dumbly. Yoruichi smirked, and that was When Katakuri suddenly moved. He stuck out his hand, and within it was a curled jellybean. Without wasting time, Katakuri stuck his hand out in a random direction and flicked his hand, sending the jellybean rocketing out like a bullet from a gun.
While he was doing that, Yoruichi smirked triumphantly and tensed her whole body. As soon as she did, Yoruichi called out, “Shunko” and both of her arms, and shoulders instantly exploded in what looked to Big Mom as portions of the woman’s soul.
Yoruichi then thrust both arms over her head, using the kido energy from her originally completed Shunko to send blasts through whatever the sticky stuff was and instantly flash-stepped out of view.
As soon as she reappeared at her destination, a random spot above both Big Mom and Katakuri’s head on top of a somewhat broken pillar that held up the library wall, she was greeted with a massive explosion.
Big Mom whirled on Katakuri, shouting “Katakuri! What have I told you about putting holes in my castle?! You are my strongest, and thus I give you leeway in what you do, but I CANNOT have you destroying my tea party locations!”
Katakuri nodded absentmindedly, sending a “Yes, Mama…” as he scanned the smoke for any sign of his former detainee. A few moments later, he was still caught off guard by the sheer speed Yoruichi displayed, despite the fact that his advanced Observation Haki showed him a prediction of the petite woman appearing behind his left shoulder with her leg raised in an attempt to take his head off with a lethal kick.
Yoruichi let loose a Shunko powered kick at the back of Katakuri’s scarved neck, and was only slightly offput when the man twirled around to face her with his left arm raised to protect himself.
She still let the attack fly, the kido energies ejecting from her body to explode on contact with Katakuri’s arm. It instantly turned into the same sticky substance she had seen earlier, but she had made contact.
She immediately flash-stepped behind the man once more, this time sending a sweeping low kick at Katakuri’s kneecaps. This time he was able to slightly dodge, jumping up in the air to get over Yoruichi’s attack. He was slightly successful, as his right leg was able to clear her, but his left foot was taken off at the ankle.
Katakuri quickly put space between them, landing next to a bookshelf on the far wall from the broken entrance, knowing that the situation he and Big Mom had found was already getting worse.
‘I can see her move clearly with my Haki, but I cannot react fast enough to fully stop it. I clearly saw her go for my knees, but she still got my foot when I tried to move.’ He thought, slightly worried about the woman who had shown up out of nowhere. ‘She definitely did not move that fast when she first escaped. And how am I not regenerating? She did not use any Haki, or I would have seen it.’
On the other side of the library, perched on top of one of the still standing railings, Yoruichi was just about done with all the bullshit. ‘Why is it that every fucking time I find something important, some weirdo who can see the future always shows up. Find that Mihawk dude with my family’s sword, Kizaru. Another lead on that note, This guy. His name is Katakuri, right?’ she thought, asking Rain for clarification.
“Yes, his name is Katakuri. He matches one of the bounty posters you found.” Rain replied, a hint of sleepiness in his voice.
Yoruichi pursed her lips in contemplation. ‘He is acting like Kizaru did. He definitely has Observation Haki, and at a level that could probably beat out the flashy bastard.’ (a/n heh. Should I give him a red nose as well?)
Yoruichi then smiled, more of a feral baring of teeth than anything else. ‘But he can’t move as fast as Kizaru can. He is getting close, but not close enough. Which means…..’
Yoruichi gave a jaunty wave over to the both of them, Katakuri watching her vigilantly, with Big Mom now lounging on a chair she got from somewhere, eating what looked like some homie cream puffs behind him. “Oi! Katakuri.” She called out, “That is your name, right? I get you probably want to show off, in front of dear Mama, but I REALLY don’t want to get married, nothing against you, but you’d probably die before I hit middle aged anyways.”
Yoruichi hopped down from her perch on the railing, and Katakuri got a vision of a giant red plume of smoke appearing from Yoruichi’s landing spot, concealing herself and most of the library.
He produced 6 jellybeans into his left hand, but immediately got a vision of a shield of some sort of energy, as well as a vision of Yoruichi’s voice saying, “Tozansho!”. He didn’t know what it meant, but it probably wasn’t good, so he let his beans fly, with more of a shotgun aim rather than pure precision.
Just as his vision showed, as soon as Yoruichi landed, red smoke came out from under her feet, rapidly concealing her in the plumes. However, unlike Katakuri’s vision, Yoruichi could still feel his movements with her spiritual senses.
This caused her to cast “Bakudo #73, Tozansho!” first, and a blue square drew itself around Katakuri, quickly trapping the man who was not expecting the switch up. His beans still made it through, but by that point Yoruichi was not where she should have been.
Katakuri was quite confused at the box around him. Touching it experimentally, he found that it was basically some sort of energy, much like the barrier-barrier fruit. He pulled out another jellybean and flicked it at the wall, but all it did was bounce off.
While Katakuri was trying to figure out how to break out of his cage, Yoruichi used the smoke to get closer to Big Mom. At this point it had spread out through most of the room, even starting to cover Katakuri.
As she ran, Yoruichi cast even more Sekienton to disperse the smoke across the entire library. For some reason, Big Mom was still sitting down and lounging around.
Yoruichi stopped her running and hopped down to a broken part of the railing, crouching down to look at the back of Big Mom’s head, who despite sitting, was still as tall as the second floor.
After a moment of hesitance, Yoruichi started talking, using a little reiryoku boosted ventriloquism to make it sound like she was everywhere.
“Charlotte Linlin, right?” she said, her voice echoing off the ceiling and walls. Big Mom did not react, only kept sipping her tea.
After a moment, the woman put down her teacup and laughed. “Mamamamama. Such an interesting child. It is such a joy to bring in useful members to this family.”
Yoruichi chuckled mirthlessly. “I already told you I wasn’t gonna marry any of your kids.” She glanced over at Katakuri who had started punching the barrier around him. Smiling, she wished him good luck with that. It was a mid-level 70s kido. It would take a lot more than just random punches to break it.
She looked back at Big Mom, who was now curiously glancing about the smoke. The woman had her hand extended out, watching the smoke roil past. Taking another glance at Katakuri, Yoruichi saw that, surprisingly, the man was actually making good work of the cage. He was currently pummeling the walls as fast as possible, but with how little room there was to move in there, he wasn’t doing as much damage as he could normally.
She watched him quickly switch from blunt force to throwing those weird ass jellybeans again, and flick multiple of them at high speeds into the same spot in one of the corners.
This caused Yoruichi to frown. That was one of the little-known weaknesses of this kido, as the way the panels of the kido are set up, with the 6 squares being fused together along the edges, it was actually the weakest at the corners where the panels had to be fused multiple times.
After a moment of contemplation, she decided on a little vindication. Ignoring the Yonko who was still gazing curiously at her smoke, Yoruichi flash-stepped over to where Katakuri was still flicking beans at the top right corner of his cage. He stopped immediately upon seeing her, or perhaps before.
‘Stupid Haki users….’ Yoruichi muttered. Sticking out her hand, Yoruichi chanted, “Bakudo #61, Rikujokoro.” And pointed with two fingers at Katakuri who had already started pounding at the walls with renewed vigor. It was futile, as soon as Yoruichi pointed at him 6 flat beams of jagged light appeared out of nowhere and impaled him in the midsection, right through the barrier.
She then recast another Tozansho around the weakened barrier, and while she was at it, she silently layered a bunch of Bakudo #8, Seki around the prison by flattening them out from their ball shape to make a slightly weaker but more widespread repulsion barrier on the inside of the Tozansho.
She smiled evilly at the man who was inside the cage, now bound and in for a very nasty surprise if he even thinks about trying to break out of the box again.
She left Katakuri sitting there and flash-stepped back over to her original position, the entire ordeal taking only two to three seconds at most.
Big Mom was still curiously looking around her fog, trying to get a feel for it. When Yoruichi showed back up, Big Mom started talking. “Mamama. Such a strong-willed woman. You will make a good wife for him.”
Yoruichi’s eye twitched. ‘Will this damn woman stop talking about marriage?’ she thought.
She shook her head in annoyance, and replied, “Not gonna happen. Although, I might be more amenable to it if you answer a few questions for me.”
Big Mom hummed in contemplation. She took a while to respond, though she kept looking around the smoke, probably searching for Yoruichi. After a little while, Big Mom said disinterestedly, “Fine girl. What is It you want?”
Smirking, Yoruichi knew what to do next. While asking Big Mom, “I have heard rumors of your association with Shiki. I was wondering if you knew where he was.” She moved her hand and silently cast Bakudo # 39, Kudon, and had a tangible clone appear off to her left, nearer to the inner wall of the building.
Regardless of her actions currently, Yoruichi was still slightly surprised when Big Mom sneered in contempt at the Golden Lion’s name.
“Mamamama….” Big Mom roared angrily. “You want to talk about that detestable worm-infested cur? DO you want to steal another poneglyph like he did?”
Yoruichi raised an eyebrow. ‘Poneglyph? What is that?’ she thought with heavy interest. ‘If Shiki thought it was good enough to steal from Big Mom, it must be somewhat important…’
With narrowed eyes, Yoruichi manipulated her clone to sneak through the fog that was now starting to dissipate and flare some of her Reiryoku.
This immediately caught Big Mom’s attention, as her neck snapped over to where Yoruichi’s clone was.
Yoruichi continued her conversation, this time making her voice sound like It was over by her clone. “Maybe I am here to steal something. How about…. A pre–Void Century Wano warrior’s garb?”
Big Mom froze at that declaration. She then got up and hurriedly went over to the shelf behind her, not far from where Yoruichi originally found the book.
Waving her large hands, Big Mom pushed the smoke away enough to see the large book that was lying on the ground. She reached down and picked it up with slightly trembling hands. When she opened it, and saw that there was nothing in the book, since Yoruichi took both Sihakusho and Asauchi earlier.
Almost immediately Yoruichi felt Conqueror’s Haki plague the general area.
“YOU TOOK MY PRIZE? ARE YOU ONE OF SHIKI’S IDIOTIC CREW?!” Big Mom roared, the waves of Haki enhancing the Yonko’s words.
Yoruichi tensed up in preparation for anything Big Mom might do, but did not move from her spot. She did, however, move her clone to act like it was trying to get away. As soon as she did, Big Mom whirled on the spot her clone was in and growled, “Found you! Prometheus!”
Immediately, a large ball of fire appeared out of thin air surrounding Big Mom’s right hand.
“What is it, Mama?” the fireball said in a squeaky voice. The homie, because it had to be a homie, whirled around in circles looking for whatever caused Big Mom to summon him.
Big Mom pointed to the clone, which was currently flaring Reiryoku like crazy, and said, “There she is. Teach this brat some discipline mamamama.”
Prometheus grinned evilly, his face turning to this red, jagged line. He then paused, as he realized where exactly they were. “Ah, Mama? Are you sure you want me to do this? We are in the library.” he asked hesitantly.
Big Mom slapped the table she was standing next to, shattering it instantly. “Yes you fool!” she cried, her voice rattling the windows, or what was left of them at this point.
Yoruichi watched the interaction with unconcealed interest. ‘Now that I think about it, homies remind me of pluses, just stuffed into gigai. Like a mod-soul.’ She thought for a moment and then reached into her satchel and pulled out what looked like a pez dispenser. ‘I wonder…...’ she thought evilly.
As soon as the ‘argument’ between Big Mom and the fireball ended, Prometheus turned to the clone, which was still trying to make its escape, albeit at a much slower pace than normal.
The fireball gave something akin to a shrug and said, “Well, since Mama wants it, I can’t decline.” His mouth puffed up like a balloon, as he inhaled a massive amount of air.
Unfortunately, that was exactly the kind of situation Yoruichi was looking for. She instantly flash-stepped right in front of the homie and activated the pez dispenser, causing a little candy to pop out, right into Prometheus’ mouth.
“Gkrlk” Prometheus said, or at least tried to. Almost immediately, he figured something was wrong as he felt himself start to be forcefully pushed out of his own body.
Prometheus tried, he really did, but he had no reason to be in a ball of fire, or at least his soul didn’t. After a few moments of struggle, Prometheus popped out of his own body, revealing his soul.
Er, Big Mom’s soul, as what popped out looked to be some sort of jagged edged piece of Big Mom’s face, with most of her left side being obscured from view by the jagged, fogged edges of her own soul. The right side shrieked in inhuman rage, but almost immediately choked on it’s own air as Yoruichi released a blast of Reiatsu, covering the soul in a pressure so immense it almost popped on its own.
Yoruichi stood on the air in front of the soul, her sword drawn already, eyes narrowed and posture prepared in a well-practiced manner.
She grinned ferally, her thoughts running a mile a minute. ‘As I thought. The homies are souls, made similarly to how we make gigais, but instead of the whole soul being put into a gigai, and having specially crafted bodies, Big Mom is just forcing pieces of souls into random objects. How cruel.’
She sneered at the actual Yonko who was now staring shocked at what was happening. Katakuri, who had somehow broken out of Rikujokoro, had also stopped in his incessant pummeling of the barrier around him. His eyes were wide with some sort of emotion Yoruichi couldn’t care to place as they flicked back and forth, watching something no one else could see.
“You have no respect for the afterlife, do you Linlin?” Yoruichi stated quietly. It wasn’t even a question at this point. Big Mom was more selfish than Yoruichi ever was, and said Shinigami abandoned her family and division just to help friends of hers escape what she at the time, did not know was completely fabricated charges.
Ignoring the indignant cry of Big Mom, who was looking like a child who just lost their ice cream to the ground, Yoruichi reached into her satchel and pulled out the Asauchi within.
She smiled fondly at the blade, remembering her own time with Her’s while she was in the academy, and her time as a teacher guiding younger Shinigami through the process of conversing with their spirit.
Reaching out with her senses, she could feel a spirit faintly rolling inside. “You were about to reach Shikai, weren’t you.” She mumbled.
She held the average looking katana in her left hand with her palm facing the ceiling. Glancing up at the soul in front of her that was shivering in fear from the pressure Yoruichi was exerting on it. She then sheathed her own weapon again, and then took a few steps forward toward the soul.
Raising the weapon in her hand, she muttered, “Konso.” And tapped the soul on the forehead with the hilt of the blade.
As soon as she did, a blue glowing tablet with kanji on it appeared on the soul piece’s forehead. It started screaming again, as something Yoruichi really should have expected happened.
Fading into existence appeared two Tatami doors covered in chains. Dark, blood red, the doors gave off a malevolent feeling that made everyone in the room, including Yoruichi, shrink away from it instinctively.
Slowly, the doors opened, and out appeared to be a skeletal figure which was covered in the chains bisecting the doors.
Slowly, ever so slowly, the figure looked around, catching sight of Yoruichi who stared back with dull eyes. After a momentary staring contest, the figure moved on, to the soul piece which was now utterly wracked with fear. Yoruichi knew what was coming. It knew what was coming. But did Big Mom?
Of course not. Big Mom, finally snapped out of her own shock at what had happened to her homie, unleashed a primal, guttural scream that sent shockwaves over the building, and much of the surrounding area.
Most of the children of Charlotte Linlin perked up worriedly, knowing that whatever caused their Mama to make that sound, it was never good. They all quickly started converging on the castle in the hope at mitigating any collateral damage that was sure to follow.
Unbeknownst to anyone in the castle, time was running out. Of course, the skeletal figure could not care less about time, and slowly reached out to the piece of soul and grabbed it within its bony hands.
The fragment screeched in terror, squirming in the vice grip that had captured it. It utterly ignored the screaming from Big Mom behind it as it dragged the piece back into the gates of hell, which even had Yoruichi reinforcing her own eardrums and covering her ears with her hands in an attempt to block out the piercing sound.
The squealing of the fragment distracted Big Mom enough to stop her own screaming, though when she noticed exactly what was happening, she screeched, “PROM-E-THE-USSSSS” and reached up to her hat and pulled it off, which it then turned into some sort of bicorne-sword hybrid homie and Big Mom raised her hand and grabbed the weapon off her head.
As soon as Yoruichi saw Big Mom jump up into the air with the bicorne held high, she bailed.
Backflipping out of the way of a purple flying sword slash , Yoruichi cast another Sekienton, this time combining it with Bakudo # 9, Geki to slow anyone in the smoke down, and made her way out of the building.
The last thing she heard as she jumped out the hole in the wall was “GO TELL THAT BASTARD AT PIRATE ISLAND I WILL HAVE HIS SKIN FOR THIS!” from Big Mom.
That got a smile from Yoruichi’s face, the first sign she gave all day of her own anger at the Yonko. ‘Serves her right. Putting members of my family on display like a zoo, even if they are long dead. Lets see how she likes not having her weapons anymore.’
Yoruichi was sure that Big Mom would stand no chance in hell ‘heh’ against the skeleton. That thing will drag anything that was sent there right to where it is supposed to be.
Yoruichi flitted over the rooftops of Whole Cake Island, trying to put as much distance between the castle and herself. She was well aware of what happened when one invaded a fortified location and attacked a higher up.
However, she wasn’t too worried, as she knew that she was probably the fastest and sneakiest person on the island.
She glanced over her shoulder as she saw the entire building explode in that sticky paste that Katakuri was made of and thought, ‘Oh, he finally broke out. I’m surprised, usually it would take longer.’
She had a decision to make. She could either head to Wano to find out exactly why one of her family members was there over a millennia ago, even though she was fairly certain no one else had come here before she had, though she was feeling less and less confident about that statement as time went on.
On the other hand, she could go to the Pirate Island Big Mom had referred to. ‘For some reason she thought I was with Shiki.’ She thought, highly amused. She knew what ‘Pirate Island’ was referring to. It was one of the first things she ran across while digging through the library at Marineford.
There were two main places known as ‘pirate islands’ on the grand line. The first was Jaya, settled in Paradise nestled between Alabasta and Water 7. The other one, which is much more likely to be the one Big Mom was referring to, is Hachinsou. It was somewhere in the New World, but Yoruichi was not entirely sure where it was, which would be an issue.
‘Eh, fuck it.’ Yoruichi thought. ‘Should probably get off the island before that insane bitch finds me.’
Yoruichi hopped down into the streets after getting far enough away, as she saw that there was a much-increased presence of chess guards roaming around, so she made the executive decision to hide like a normal human being.
Not that she is one.
The petite soul reaper made her way through the streets, blending into the normal people on the streets who were rapidly looking around like something was about to jump at them.
In a scant few minutes, she found herself at the same port her kitty-self made port at.
She stood on the pier looking at some boats, but found that literally none of them had any sort of crew on them.
‘Mah, what’s going on here?’ she thought. Looking around, she could see that most people were trying to vacate the area as soon as possible, while there was an increased presence in what looked like the chess guards as well as who Yoruichi could assume to be Big Mom Pirates.
“Awwwwww” Yoruichi pouted, seeing that any ride off the sugar ridden island was not moving, “Now I’m gonna have to do it myself.”
“Stop where you are!” called a voice, and she turned around to find a lot of chess soldiers pointing their spears at her, along with multiple members of the big mom pirates.
Yoruichi seeing that she had an audience, clapped her hands together once, then smilingly said, “Ah, you guys must want autographs. Sorry, I’m not in the mood today. Tata!” and with a jaunty wave she disappeared into thin air, only a slight dust cloud kicked up.
6 hours after Yoruichi left the islands, she finally cleared Totto land entirely. She had almost no idea where she was, especially since in the time she left she had to deal with 6 sea king attacks, two firestorms, at sea, hail the size of the same sea kings that attacked her, multiple whirlpools, and a Big Mom Pirates ship.
“Haaahh. This is why I hate doing this…” Yoruichi complained as she eyed yet another massively gigantic tsunami intent on taking out her and anything else within a 3-mile area.
She groaned in exasperation as Yoruichi flash-stepped multiple times in succession so she could get over the tsunami without much trouble, and when she crested the wave she saw a pirate ship.
It was a wooden colored ship, with no paint on the boards themselves, but it had red highlights running on the sides right above the gunports. It had white sails with what looked to be redwood masts, and it had a skull with red stripes over the left eye with crossed cutlasses as a backdrop. The figurehead looked to be some sort of dragon, painted all red. However, in Yoruichi’s opinion, the thing looked dumb.
SHANKS POV
Red Haired Shanks and his crew were preparing to go raid one of Big Mom’s alcohol islands for some mor booze stocks. God knows the woman has too much of the stuff. She has the gall to use it for cooking, too! Cooking!
So, while he and the rest of the crew were preparing, he heard a shout from the crow’s nest. Yassop was currently up there taking a lookout.
“Hey! Boss! Look at that wave off our Starboard! Is that a person?!” his sniper called out.
This caused shanks to stick his own head up from where he was helping his boys organize the cannonballs on deck. Shanks quickly stepped away from the armory and ran over to the starboard side. There, standing on top of the giant wave in front of him, (giant for normal oceans, pretty normal for the new world) was what looked to be a purple haired woman.
At least, he thought it was a woman, since most men don’t come that small, or grow their hair down to their waist.
Shanks raised an eyebrow when the woman started running down the wave in their direction.
“Boss, she’s coming toward us!” Yassop yelled, already having pulled out his sniper and aimed it at her.
“Yeah, I see her.” Shanks replied absentmindedly. Watching the woman run down the waves, he made a decision. “Yassop.” He called up to his sniper, “Take a warning shot. Put one at her feet, see if she stops. If she doesn’t, take the shot.”
Yassop shouted a confirmation down to his captain, and settled himself down onto the railing of the crow’s nest, which had a special shooting station for him.
He aimed down his scope and took in his target.
“Small, probably around 5 feet (152cm), Wearing some sort of cloth jumpsuit with a bright orange jacket and beige cloth wrapped around her wrists, ankles, and neck. Definitely female, has dark purple hair.” Yassop called out.
Shanks heard that and glanced over to his first mate, Benn Beckman who was flipping through bounty posters of pirates above 100 million. After a few minutes, Benn looked to his captain and shook his head.
‘Hmm, not a pirate then, or at least not a well known one. And she would be well known, if only for her ability to walk on water.’ Shanks thought pensively. He had learned from his own former captain that you had to be careful of literally anything that appeared out at sea, especially in the new world. Even if Shanks was considered one of the strongest, he still follows that mantra to this day.
Yassop was looking down at him for confirmation, and Shanks gave him a nod. Not a moment later, there was a sharp crack of Yassop’s rifle, and Shanks could see the splash on the now somewhat flat water from where the bullet struck right in front of the woman.
By now more people were on the deck, with Lucky Roo being the only one of his officers not on deck watching what was going on, as the man was in the kitchen prepping lunch.
They all saw the woman pause for a moment, just standing there, on the water, something almost unheard of for people where a lot of the strongest had a viable fear of drowning.
They were all slightly surprised when the woman started up running again.
Benn came up to the side of his captain, his gruff face looking a bit confused at the person’s actions.
“She does know who we are, yeah?” the man grunted, the cigarette the man so commonly smoked hanging loose from his lips. “I mean, we are pretty famous.”
Shanks gave a lighthearted chuckle. “Pretty famous he says.” He replied mirthfully. “Ill have you know they fear my name the world over! And you will too!” Shanks continued, his boasting earning him a hard shove from his first mate.
“All right, keep the boasting for when you’re too drunk to remember captain.” Benn said, a small smile quirking his lips.
Shanks chuckled himself, and then they heard a whistle from the crow’s nest. Both of the men looked up a Yassop, who was alternating looking from the woman to his captain.
When Yassop gave his captain another look, Shank’s replied with a jaunty salute, one that would make Garp the Fist cry in sadness.
Yassop gave him a salute of his own, and turned his head back to his scope. By this point there were cheers for Yassop, all the rookies and some of the older members of the ship wanting to see Yassop ‘Defend their booty’.
All of them watched with bated breath and once they heard the loud crack of Yassop’s rifle, they all cheered. All except one.
Shanks, who was previously laughing and smiling while messing around with his crew, suddenly froze as a vision came over him.
Right after the crack of Yassop’s rifle, Shanks could see the woman disappear from view. That was when he realized something.
‘This entire time, I never felt her with my observation haki. That’s not good.’ He thought worriedly.
In the time it took for him to process that thought, he witnesses the woman appear directly in front of Yassop, and pretty much spartan kick him through the crow’s nest and off into the ocean.
That was when his vision cut out, and he glanced up at Yassop who had still not taken his shot.
Shanks quickly stood up from where he was, his hand already dragging Gryphon out of it’s sheath.
His thoughts raced. ‘Fast, and extremely stealthy. Did the Government get tired of me, so they sent an assassin?’ he pondered. ‘I thought that guy only had one agent who was that stealthy, but he was male. Is this a new agent on a trial run?’
His thought process interrupted itself as he realized he was running out of time. He lightly shrugged his shoulders, then proceeded to speed his way to the crows nest, his movements causing a gust of wind to go by, which in turn blew out Benn’s cigarette.
Said first mate raised an eyebrow, but then just sighed and pulled out a lighter and relit his cigarette. “Guess the boss saw a bad future.” He muttered to himself, no one hearing him over the noise level of pirates cheering.
Yoruichi POV
Yoruichi was about to blow a gasket, or get a migraine.
‘Why the fuck does everyone on this godforsaken ocean shoot first and ask questions later?’ she cried internally.
At this point Rain decided to poke his entirely unwanted head into her business.
“Maybe it is because they’re, you know, pirates?” the cheeky cat said, with little to no attempt to hide his own amusement.
‘Shut it you glorified rug’ she retorted, her patience after multiple days of annoyance after annoyance, rage inducing incident after rage inducing incident finally catching up to her.
She had just stopped short of a bullet that she felt screaming toward her at speeds she had not seen before with gunpowder weapons. And to be honest, she was really itching to give the idiot that had just tried to shoot her, (and to be honest, the guy was pretty shitty at it since he missed her by a good two feet) and pummel him so hard he turned into a blubbering mess.
After a moment of anger fueled contemplation, Yoruichi decided to send it. ‘What’s the worst that could happen, I run into someone like Big Mom?’ she thought. ‘Theres only four of them, I doubt Id run into two of them in the same day.’
A few moments later, she utterly regretted that statement.
She decided to just kick the idiot in the ship’s crows’ nest, so she flash-stepped a few times in succession to build up some speed, then reinforced her legs with Reiryoku.
She flew at speeds almost no one could see with their bare eyes and crashed into the top of the ship, going right through the window the sniper was sitting behind like it was tissue paper.
That was as far as she got. As soon as Yoruichi broke the window open to see the shocked face of the sniper sitting there, she was stopped by a large saber appearing in her path, moving at speeds as fast as her.
There was a dull thud as Yoruichi suddenly stopped in her tracks. As soon as she realized she couldn’t go any farther, Yoruichi used the man’s blade as a springboard to backflip off and land on the sail beam that was outside the crow’s nest.
The man, who had bent over to say something to the sniper next to him, and the man nodded and quickly backed off.
Yoruichi inspected the guy, her glaring eyes boring into his skull. He was a normal height, standing at 6’6” (199cm), and had on a very loose button up cotton white shirt with the buttons undone to basically his belly, along with plain brown pants with gold buttons on the sides of them, and comfortable looking brown sandals. He had on a black cloak which was unbuttoned but worn much like Marine captains and admirals wore their jackets.
His most noticeable features were his mop of red hair, which looked like he had just rolled out of bed, (He had, but Yoruichi didn’t need to know that), the three lined scar over his left eye, as well as the fact that the man only had one arm.
The two of them stared at each other for a few moments, before the red-haired man smiled at her like she didn’t attack one of his friends.
“Hiya there. You know, its quite rude to just attack someone like that.” The guy said,
His grin was already getting on Yoruichi’s nerves. She scowled at him and replied grumpily, “Yeah, well you shouldn’t have let your friend over there take shitty potshots at me then.”
The man kept smiling, but put his large sword on his shoulder. He then leaned to one side and commented, “Ya know, it probably isn’t a good idea to approach a pirate ship like you did.
Yoruichi just kept glaring at him. “Yeah, well you guys are the only ones out here. I just need directions.”
Shanks took a few steps forward, almost to the edge of the crow’s nest. HE said jovially, “Well, I’m sure we can help you be on your way. Although, it would depend on why you appeared here in the first place.”
Yoruichi raised a single eyebrow. ‘Is he fishing for information? If he is, he sucks at it.’ She thought. She then noticed a weird look come over the red-haired man’s face.
“What are you looking at.” She growled again, her teeth bared.
Shanks looked at her for a moment, then said indignantly, “I don’t suck at getting information! I’m simply just not as good at it as others!”
Yoruichi’s face dropped in surprise. “Oh shit, did I say that out loud?” she mumbled to herself, then her eyes widened again.
With a facepalm, Yoruichi just said, “I’ll stop talking now.”
Shanks just chuckled, and said offhandedly, “Well, I thought you were a government assassin, but I’m starting to think that’s not the case.” Yoruichi’s face scrunched up at that. Why would he think she was a government assassin?
It took her a second, before she remembered that that was exactly what she was at the moment. A mercenary assassin hired to take out a big name pirate who has been causing trouble.
As soon as that crossed her mind, her thoughts went to bounties, which then brought her to Shiki’s bounty, and then to people with bounties higher than his, namely the Yonko.
Almost immediately, Yoruichi hopped up from her crouching position and darted toward the red-haired man, of which said man put his sword into a guard position, but Yoruichi completely ignored him and went for the wall, where she proceeded to bash her head against the, for some reason, impossibly tough wood over, and over.
*Bang* *Bang* *Bang* *Bang* *Bang* *Bang* *Bang*
On an on Yoruichi went, just slamming her head down, hoping to drive the idiocy out of her own head.
Shanks, who still had his guard up against the petite woman who was most definitely still probably an assassin, was completely dumbfounded when said potential assassin rushed him and started bashing her head against his crow’s nest.
He knew for a fact she would never destroy the thing, since the entire ship was made out of Adam wood, much like his former captain’s. However, he was still very disturbed about what exactly was happening.
This was how Benn Beckman found them, 5 minutes later when he and the rest of the crew got curious enough to go find out why the main mast was being punched repeatedly, with one very confused Yonko trying to figure out what the hell was happening, and a very, very done with everything Shinigami bashing her own head in so she could get the actual useful thoughts back inside it.