NOVEL NEXT [13] A Tree-Human
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Chapter 13: A Tree-Human
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Hashirama's clone who was with Vivi had created a clone of its own and both of them then carried Vivi and Pell far from the battlefield.
Once afar, both clones made two beds out of wood and laid the two injured people there.
Under the soft moonlight of the night, the bloody Princess Vivi whose blue hair contrasted with the red, looked stunning.
"Hashira…ma…" Vivi muttered with her eyes dazed, having woken up not long ago. "I am… going to die, aren't I?"
"Keep your mouth shut, please. It’s just a broken arm." Hashirama looked at her firmly. “I will fix it, don't worry.”
“Hey… you know,”
Vivi said, her gaze still dazed as she took awkward breaths.
“I never kissed anyone. I don’t wanna die a virgin… Let’s kiss.”
“Has anyone ever told you before that kissing has nothing to do with virginity?”
Hashirama said, softly knocking on her forehead with a finger.
“By the way, I can tell you are fine. Stop pretending with that dazed look.”
At his last words, Vivi paused for a moment before her eyes regained focus and she gave him a pout.
She was hurt, sure, but she was a very strong girl. Both Hashirama and she knew that. At first she was dazed, when Miss Valentine crashed on top of her for the first time, but now she wasn’t so.
“Okay, grit your teeth, this will hurt.” Hashirama said, making her nod as she stopped pouting.
Then Hashirama grabbed her broken arm, gently clasping her bent elbow between both his hands, feeling it for a long moment, before pressing down on it.
Hard.
– Crack!
The bone crackled like thunder, making Vivi moan, as the elbow snapped back to its original place.
“You are killing me~”
Vivi giggled softly, at the same time hissing in pain. This much wasn’t enough to make her cry, though. She had grown up from her crybaby phase a long time ago.
“Mhm… thanks for being gentle, though.”
"How did you know I am being gentle?"
"Hehe, I could just tell~"
"...."
Hashirama shifted his attention from her to her arm. He wasn't done.
He straightened one of his hands and then pushed the palm a few centimetres above her elbow just as a green sphere of chakra erupted from his hand.
The elbow, being inside the sphere, started to heal from the inside out– and even the small scratches started to disappear as seconds passed.
On the side, the other clone of Hashirama was giving Pell the same treatment, as the man was unfortunate (or lucky?) enough that Miss Valentine’s overweight ass had fallen and took a seat on his face.
This was the [Mystical Palm Technique] — a technique that Tsunade had taught Hashirama a few years ago, as she had promised to teach him everything she knew.
As Hashirama had learned before, the Uzumakis did not have Chakra Techniques, aka Jutsus, beyond the Fuuinjutsu. So he was surprised that such a thing existed.
But it turned out that the [Mystical Palm Technique] was actually something that Tsunade came up with by herself, thanks to her knowledge of medicine.
It was that which had given Hashirama the idea that perhaps he could create the Jutsus he remembered from the Naruto anime even though he lacked the hand seals. He wasn’t weeb enough to ever memorise the seals, after all.
The Wood Clone Technique was one of the results of that realisation.
A Wood Clone wasn’t just summoning a block of wood and giving it a human shape, Hashirama also had to give it a humane appearance– using the Transformation Technique that he had made as well– and also sharing his will and consciousness with the wooden human for it to operate individually. He had succeeded in creating this technique after eight years of hard work, and he was proud of it.
Over time, Hashirama was confident in creating the most famous of Naruto Jutsus, and that would make his power arsenal shoot through the roof. For now though, he was a heavily Wood focused fighter, excluding the other simple effects that chakra had on his body.
“Mhmm…”
“Done.”
“Already?”
Vivi asked, blinking as she stood up, moving her arm around to realise she felt perfectly fine.
“Whoa… this is amazing, Shira!”
“I told you to not call me that–”
Hashirama gave her a dry look and dodged her attempt to hug him. Pausing, he manipulated his chakra to call back the wooden bed into the ground– causing Vivi to plummet on the sand, her butt jiggling.
“–Or something bad happens.”
“Aww…”
Vivi rubbed her backside and gave him a grumpy look.
“You are such a bad friend, you know?”
“Debatable.”
“...”
* * *
While the clones were taking care of Vivi and Pell, the original Hashirama was busy with the two Baroque Works’ officer agents.
Hashirama had tied Mr. Five with countless strong vines, while Mikita was tied with fewer vines.
He dragged them through the sand– like they had dragged Pell– quite a bit far from the destroyed ghost city and then created a bunch of trees that surrounded a wooden house he created earlier.
Hashirama threw the female prisoner into the house which was designed like a cell. Immediately, the vines tying Mikita automatically merged with the wall and tied her hands up against it– her arms held high, thus giving a full display of her bosom.
A far crueller fate awaited Mr. Five, though.
Simply throwing the trapped and unconscious man to the floor, Hashirama crouched down beside him with an unreadable expression.
Mikita shuddered at the scene, the boy’s expression coming out as scary to her.
“What are you… planning to do?” she asked with a gulp.
To her eyes, all of Hashirama’s actions seemed suspicious and dangerous.
Hashirama gave her a look from the corner of his eyes and then turned to Mr. Five again with a smirk.
“What I am going to do to him is what I plan to do to you.”
As Mikita opened her mouth to ask him what he meant by that– Hashirama moved his hand back and then struck at Mr. Five’s throat with his straight palm.
Right before the palm shoved into Mr. Five’s neck, Hashirama's nails turned into sharp, pointy wood, while his fingers had turned green like that of a tree. The sharp nails allowed him to effortlessly penetrate the unconscious man’s throat.
Mr. Five’s body trembled once, and then there was nothing more.
He was… dead.
“Ah….ah….”
From the side, Mikita stared at the scene in absolute horror.
* * *
Mikita had assumed the boy would let them live since he bothered to bring them away from the destroyed town to this small hut he made– but what was this?!
His previous words– that he will do the same to her– didn’t help the situation, either.
The worst part of this all was– he didn’t seem surprised, or didn’t show any emotion of that sort. He looked like he was used to killing.
Mikita gulped as her eyes flickered to his indifferent face.
She wouldn’t admit, and she knew just thinking about it made her feel dumb, but this… was somewhat hot.
Hashirama’s cold gaze that he wore while killing her partner, his indifferent expression as he refused to take out his hand from Mr. Five’s destroyed and bloody throat… it was something that’d stay engraved in her head if she came out of this alive, and not in a bad way.
But as something she could admire.
* * *
“...Mmm.”
Hashirama whimpered softly as his hand trembled, still inside Mr. Five’s throat.
He felt a ‘blob’ start to form in his hand, as he had hoped it would.
Hashirama’s eyes shone in a strange victorious light as he kept his hand inside there and he felt the blob kept growing.
A long minute later, when he felt the blob had stopped growing entirely, he yanked out his hand from within the throat, ripping it apart even further– as something truly interesting came out with his hand.
Covered in fresh blood, a black apple with golden swirls that he was holding on his bloody hand shone brightly under the moonlight that fell on it from the small cracks on the rooftop.
The stem of the black apple, the strange fruit, looked like the fuse of typical bombs.
It was a devil fruit.
Mr. Five’s devil fruit.
The Paramecia, Bomb-Bomb Fruit– which had endless potential in the hands of a smart user.
But more than anything, Hashirama was delighted about his hypothesis coming true. His hypothesis that he could use his wood powers to reincarnate Devil Fruits.
In this world, after a user dies, that user’s Devil Fruit reincarnates to the closest tree that bears the same fruit-model as the said Devil Fruit. The fruit wouldn't reincarnate in any random tree. But that was a negligible point for Hashirama who was technically a tree that could make any fruit he wished, so he could reincarnate any devil fruit without even knowing its base fruit model.
Hashirama just had to keep his hand transformed into greens, and the Devil Fruit would mistake it for a tree and simply reincarnate– that was his earlier theory.
Theory that had come true.
It was a truly handy ability.
Handy, but horrific for devil fruit users.
“Mo, monster…”
Hashirama heard Mikita mutter in a dazed voice as she looked at the scene.
Her back straightened when Hashirama turned to her, a few droplets of blood scattered on his face.
“But… gorgeous.”
Hashirama blinked at that before breaking out in laughter.
“Crazy woman. You are calling the person who’s about to give you this same treatment, gorgeous?”
Mikita flinched at that.
“Ah- ah! I am sure we can negotiate. What’s your price? I am pretty rich, I can pay you in an amount you have never seen in your life!”
“You know, I get paid quite a lot of berries for my job, right? Perhaps Mr. Zero doesn’t have this information yet?”
Hashirama asked with an amused smile.
“....”
“Any last offers you can make?”
Mikita paused at these words, her mind racing, before she made her move. Her arms were tied, so she moved her legs, her very flexible legs, that twisted around for her to put her feet on the opening of her cloth that showed her cleavage, before she pulled it down with her feet.
Two round marshmallows jiggled out in freedom.
“....”
“You like it?”
Mikita asked, smiling as she swayed her chest back and forth. But truthfully, she looked more funny than seductive– given how nervous yet aroused she looked.
“Wa… wanna touch them?”
Hashirama sighed in disappointment.
“If I want your body, I can just have it after I kill you. Did you know the human body stays warm for 3 hours after death? That’s plenty of time for me.” he said with a shrug, watching her face go pale.
This time, she looked as if she would piss her panties at any time.
“In short, seduction isn’t an option here.” Hashirama said. “Anything else you can offer?”
“...”
“Ah, right, information. Didn’t you say that you’ll give me information if I don’t kill you? That’s right, that was our first agreement, I forgot in excitement– sorry. Now tell me everything related to this assassination attempt.”
Miss Valentine stared at the air for a long while, but as he refused to look away from her eyes, she finally gulped and started to explain.
At first, Mikita had joined the Baroque Works directly as a ‘Frontier Agent’, which was the third most important rank in the organisation.
In just two months' work, she managed to receive a promotion to her current rank– an ‘Officer Agent’. She didn’t know how many officer agents were there, that was confidential information apparently, but she knew there were at least eight people above her– as her partner was Mr. Five, which meant there were four more Misters, and all Misters had a female partner with them.
However, true rank-wise, the only people above her were Mr. Zero and his partner, Miss All Sunday.
Mikita hadn’t seen Mr. Zero yet, she didn’t even know his true identity, but she knew about Miss All Sunday as that woman was the one calling the orders to the agents, directly from Mr. Zero.
From what Mikita heard, rumour has it that Miss All Sunday had only joined the organisation a year ago, but Mr. Zero valued her so much that she was immediately promoted to be his partner.
About this attack on Hashirama– it was supposed to be directed at not only Hashirama but Vivi too. Hashirama was to be killed while Vivi was ordered to be brought back alive. As for the reasons? Mikita didn’t know, apparently.
Upon asking at what place Vivi was to be taken, Mikita said–
“The port city, Nanohana. That’s the rendezvous point for this mission. Miss All Sunday will probably take the Vivi princess to another island for safety measures.”
Hashirama was about to nod, but he paused and blinked as he realised something.
“Wait a second, Miss All Sunday will receive Vivi by herself, and she is currently in Nanohana?”
Mikita looked at his surprised face in confusion before quickly nodding.
“Y-yes,"
“Dammit!”
Hashirama slammed his fist on the floor.
He just realised something.
Back when he was about to return to Vivi from Nanohana, when he received memories from his clone…
'That girl who caught me from falling….’
Nico Robin.
Hashirama had walked right past ‘Miss All Sunday’ in Nanohana.
He hadn’t recognised her then due to how different these real-people looked compared to their 2D counterparts, and also because he was somewhat mentally shaken from the memory of being killed.
Mikita flinched at his sudden reaction but said nothing, and simply gulped.
“Alright.”
Hashirama released a slow breath and smiled at her.
“We two are going to Nanohana now.”
It was time to turn the table on Sir Crocodile.
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