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Chapter 501: Son of A Maniac is A Maniac
Just as when Leo is getting excited to fight Doflamingo, he gets disturbed. Someone suddenly flies between him & Doffy, making them both look at the person who slides on the ground and stops. They are surprised to see that it's none other than Luffy.
"HAHAHA! HOW'S THAT, STRAW HAT?"
Leo looks in the other direction and sees a blonde muscular guy who wears sunglasses. He remembers this guy, Bellamy, the one causing trouble on Jaya and got beaten up easily by Luffy.
"You've gotten stronger, Bellamy. But what are you doing here?"
"Hmm? You have just met him, Luffy?"
"Yeah, he suddenly appeared sometime after I separated from Zoro and attacked me. Have you fought someone strong, Leo?"
"Well, I've fought an elderly and now his grandson is coming."
Luffy finally realizes that Doflamingo is there and he grins excitedly because he has been searching for Doffy.
"I can finally fight you. Oh, wait, are you fighting him, Leo?"
"Not yet, you can take him on if you want. I will handle this small fry. Besides, I sense another strong presence some distance away from us. It's an unknown presence, so I want to check it just to be sure if it's an enemy or not."
"Okay, but don't kill Bellamy, he seems to have changed."
"No worries, I don't kill weaklings."
"Escaping? No chance, kid!"
Doffy shoots a thick string spear from his palm at Leo. But Leo ducks to dodge it and then propels himself toward Bellamy by shooting fire from his feet. Bellamy is shocked by Leo's sudden charge and crosses his haki-coated arms.
Leo grins and slashes his cutlasses horizontally from left to right. He intentionally hits Bellamy's hardened arms to send the guy flying away from there. They can't fight her because it will disturb Luffy's fight, and besides, he feels a strong presence nearby.
'A strong person with a strong hostility. Will be a good opponent to replace that Flamingo.'
Leo keeps striking Bellamy and forces the big guy to keep retreating. Bellamy tries to counterattack, but Leo can evade them easily.
"You are certainly stronger and faster now, but your skills don't improve that much. All your attacks are very predictable. They will work against people weaker or just slightly stronger than you, but it will never work against me."
Leo suddenly moves to Bellamy's left side and then hits Bellamy's left jaw very strongly with the handle of his cutlass. The hit is so powerful that Bellamy's whole body starts spinning as he flies to the right before crashing into a building and destroying it.
That one clean hit is enough to knock Bellamy out and end this fight. Leo doesn't want to drag this useless battle for too long because he wants to fight a real opponent. Bellamy is just too weak to be a challenge for him.
"You can come out now. I know you've been observing for a while."
Nothing happens after Leo says that, making him sigh. Then he suddenly swings his sword, sending a fire slash to a rather tall building nearby. That fire slash destroys the building and suddenly something flashes out before the building collapses.
"There you are, finally showing yourself. I was wondering who it was. Never thought that it would be an old acquaintance. I thought you had died in the War of Gods along with your Celestial Dragons and Marie Geoise. But you are still alive, former CP-9 agent, Rob Lucci."
"I have been promoted to CP-0 a while before War of Gods. Fire Blade Leo, not exactly the one I want to fight, but my task now is defeating the enemies no matter who."
"Oh? Do you want to fight Luffy? Well, too bad, he is fighting Doflamingo now. Also, by saying task, that means you have joined the Donquixote Family, right? Well, not like I care about that. I just want to fight a strong opponent and it seems you have gotten much stronger than before. Come on, show me what you've got!"
Lucci's appearance makes Leo realize that some other Cipher Pol agents might be here as well and he is right. The former CP-9 agents who fought the Straw Hat Pirates on Enies Lobby are all here following Lucci.
Some of them have started fighting too, but the only ones fighting the Straw Hat Pirates are Lucci & Kaku. Lucci is about to fight Leo while Kaku is already engaged in a fight with Sanji. Though Lucci actually wanted to fight Luffy and Kaku wanted to fight Zoro.
However, both Luffy & Zoro have fought different opponents, Doffy & Pica. Leo & Sanji also won't let these enemies disturb their crewmates' fights. The 4 of them always quarrel every day, but they care a lot about their crewmates.
"Heh, I never thought that a Cipher Pol agent would become a pirate. Well, you were not that much different from a pirate before and maybe you were even more cruel than most pirates. It's just a change of place for you, I think."
Leo doesn't wait for Lucci to talk and sends a fire slash attack. Lucci jumps to avoid the red firey slash attack that cuts & scorches the building behind him. He looks at Leo angrily before he transforms into his humanoid leopard form.
"Oh? It seems you're a bit bigger now."
"I still have more surprises for you. But you can only see it if you have the qualifications to do so. Prove your power to me."
"Hmm? You want to test my power? Wow, you have gotten better at provocation. Or so you think because maybe only Luffy & Zoro would get riled up by that. Besides, you will have to use all your cards if you want to have a winning chance. Hmm, let's see, maybe you will have a maximum of 20% winning chance if you use all your cards. That's pretty impressive for a loser from 2 years ago."
Leo talks casually, but he manages to anger even Lucci.
"Let's see if you'll still have that big mouth after this."
Lucci flashes towards Leo using Soru and appears in the blink of an eye. He sends a punch at Leo's face but Leo dodges it easily by tilting his head to the left. Leo casually slashes his right cutlass at Lucci's body, forcing the leopard man to retreat.
"You just grow this much in 2 years? Very disappointing."
Lucci's veins pop out on his face as he angrily attacks Leo again. He sends a barrage of shigans at a very high speed now. His attacks are very fast, but Leo can stop them all by blocking them with his cutlasses and dodging some too.
Leo actually wants to dodge all Lucci's attacks because he thinks it's cooler that way. But he can't move his body that fast and Lucci's attacks are faster than he thought. His observation haki also barely catches Lucci's fast attacks, so he can't dodge all of them.
But it actually makes him even more excited because it means he can train his observation haki, reaction time, and body movements by fighting Lucci. Leo inherits Buggy's love for battle and desire to get stronger through hard fights.
The harder the fight, the more excited he'll become, just like now. Lucci is without a doubt the strongest opponent he has ever fought since he returned to piracy. Not only strong, but Lucci is also a highly skilled fighter who has some deadly techniques.
Leo gets hit a few times as he fails to dodge or block some of Lucci's attacks. However, he doesn't back down at all and keeps fighting at a close distance. Lucci's claws & shigans are wounding him, but Leo doesn't show any pained expression and keeps fighting happily.
Slowly, Leo starts to avoid and block more of Lucci's attacks. He only gets better even with all the injuries on his body. Well, he doesn't have that many injuries on his body anyway because Lucci's attacks just land every once in a while.
"Hoo, seems like Shanks taught him well. Though it also seems he inherits my habit of using my enemies to improve myself."
Buggy is watching Leo's fight from afar and he knows Leo can fight much better than this. But Leo is suppressing his full power and abilities to have a hard fight against Lucci. Leo's aim is none other than to improve himself in this fight, he doesn't want to just win.
Buggy also looks at the other Straw Hat Pirates' battles. They are doing well even though their battles are not easy either. But his focus is just on Leo, Nami, & Robin as they are the closest ones to him, so he is the most concerned about them.
Nami is fighting well even though she looks like she can't fight properly. But in reality, she is handling and controlling her battle very well. She just looks overwhelmed to fool her enemy. Buggy has taught her to use tricks in her fight instead of fighting head-on like him & Leo.
However, Nami is actually still strong enough to fight directly without any trickery. She's not as strong as Straw Hat Pirates' main fighters obviously. But she is actually strong enough to defeat someone like Tashigi without any tricks, she just doesn't like fighting head-on.
Buggy suddenly hears a commotion from afar and the scene there makes him raise an eyebrow. He has expected that Donquixote Family will do this, but he never thought they'd do it this early.
"Seems like they couldn't control the flow of battle any longer and decided to go all out quickly. Heh, interesting."
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You can read more chapters ahead of my fanfics and more pictures on my Pa_treon page if you are interested.
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I've uploaded Chapter 539. Going Back to East Blue
- Pictures of both stories (ex: bounty poster & magazine cover) by /CaptMermain
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