"Snap!" One of the thick, plant-like vines lashed directly at the pirate leader's head with force enough to crush it into pulp. However, the pirate leader formerly affiliated with E·S Murder reacted with the reflexes of a hardened veteran. With his only remaining arm, he caught the vine mid-swing, clenched it tight, and sank his jagged shark-like teeth into it, tearing the fibrous appendage apart. Another vine whipped toward him, but the pirate leader didn't pause—he used his legs, clamping the vine between them like a vice, and snapped it with brute strength. After several exchanges, it became clear: Linnana's vines, despite being empowered by her Devil Fruit, were having diminishing effects on the relentless pirate.
"Passat! Hello no!" Linnana cried out, panic in her voice as her living plants were overwhelmed. The pirate leader's raw power was staggering; several of her vines were torn apart like seaweed in a storm. He even bit through a few of them, ignoring the barbs and thorns that were meant to slow him down. Linnana's heart ached not only because her treasured creations were being destroyed, but because she hadn't anticipated that the pirate's resilience and combat ability would increase the more he fought, much like how Zoan users in One Piece gain boosts from battle adrenaline. Just as she turned her head to check on Passat—
"Watch out, 707! He's coming!" the injured man roared, using the codename they'd agreed upon during the Alabasta mission. The pirate leader, seeing the opening as Linnana turned away, tore off the last of the restraining vines and lunged forward, aiming to crush both of them in a single, furious strike.
"Sakura, A Thousand Cuts!" A new voice sliced through the chaos. It came from behind Linnana and the wounded man. In that flash of a second, the pirate leader was intercepted his body struck mid-air by an invisible storm of blade arcs. He was flung backwards like a ragdoll, crashing into the far wall and bursting through it, leaving behind a wide, jagged hole and a plume of dust.
"Passat!" Linnana's eyes lit up with surprise as she turned to see him bloodied but standing, sword raised and crackling with residual energy. In that desperate instant, he had completed the technique the one the injured man had passed down to him in secret training sessions beneath the hidden waterfall east of Water 7. The Sakura Sword Style. And he had used it.
"Ahem..." The pirate leader crawled from the wreckage of the wall, coughing blood, red smearing the corner of his mouth. Clearly, Passat's move had landed solidly and done real damage something few had accomplished before. He was no ordinary grunt. This was the strength of someone aiming for the New World.
"How's that? You think my swordplay's still a joke?" Passat pointed his blood-slicked blade at the enemy, his eyes no longer hesitant. His aura had changed sharper, colder. Since mastering the first form of the Sakura Sword Art, his strikes had become clean and lethal, reminiscent of Zoro's growth during his time on Kuraigana Island.
"You, you bastard... You actually handed him the Sakura Sword Scroll to study?!" the pirate leader growled, eyes full of fury and betrayal as he glared at the injured man. Clearly, the scroll contained techniques with deep historical roots—perhaps dating back to Wano Country's schools of swordsmanship. The pirate leader had once pursued the scroll to claim it for himself, and now it had been used against him.
"I had to," the injured man replied calmly, his breathing labored but his gaze unwavering. "To drive you away... and because you could never truly master it anyway."
The implication was clear only someone with the right spirit and conviction could unlock the true potential of the Sakura Sword Art. And Passat had done just that.
"Hmph, boy, even if you've practiced a scroll of swordsmanship, how long have you had it in your hands? Ten minutes! What can you comprehend in ten minutes? Be smart and surrender now!" The pirate leader sneered, disbelief etched into every word he didn't think someone like Passat could glean anything useful from a legendary technique in such a short span, and if anything had changed, it was nothing more than luck and bluster.
"Is that so? Then how do you explain how you were knocked away just now?" Passat shot back, his tone cutting. He narrowed his eyes and glared contemptuously at the pirate leader his recent slash had clearly injured him, sending the hulking brute flying through solid wall, and that wasn't something that happened by accident.
"That was carelessness! Let's go again! I don't believe you can knock me back a second time!" the pirate leader growled, refusing to acknowledge the hit. He was convinced his attention had merely been distracted split between Linnana's vines and the wounded swordsman so he hadn't noticed Passat preparing the technique behind them.
"Then try again." Passat calmly lifted the blade he held, leaping upward with the kind of agility that would make even a CP9 agent pause, charging toward the pirate leader again.
"Wait a moment take this blade!" The injured man, still half-slumped on the wall, suddenly threw a second sword toward Passat. The weapon caught the light mid-air, revealing a strange, bone-white pattern etched into its surface dark, vein-like tendrils spiraled across the hilt, and the aura it gave off was chilling, as if whispering secrets to the soul.
"The Bone Erosion Blade?! You gave that to him too?!" the pirate leader barked, voice cracking in disbelief. His eyes widened in outrage both the Sakura Sword Art and the Bone Erosion Blade had once been in the possession of his captain, stolen during the raid on Skull Harbor. Now, they were both in the hands of some rookie swordsman.
"This blade is extraordinary..." Passat muttered, gripping it tightly he felt it immediately. The weapon wasn't just cursed, it felt alive. It amplified his blade aura, resonated with his strikes. It reminded him of cursed swords from the Grand Line like Sandai Kitetsu, blades that could boost cutting power but were hungry for blood.
"Damn you! I'll kill you! Then I'll take back the sword and the Sakura Scroll!" the pirate leader shouted, madness flaring in his eyes. He knew if he failed to reclaim them, his captain who was known to be even crueler than Big Mom's executives would deem him useless once again, perhaps even feed him to her ship's living figurehead.
"Then come!" Passat declared, snapping the Bone Erosion Blade to his waist and taking a swordsman's stance, his silhouette sharp and focused, like Zoro's just before a serious duel.
"Whoosh!" The pirate leader launched himself like a cannonball, his sole remaining arm raised to strike a massive paw crashing downward with the weight of a Sea King behind it.
"Ugh!" But Passat vanished from sight in that moment his speed surpassing expectations, his footwork honed in the fire of desperation.
"Draw Slash—Cut!" Passat's voice echoed from behind the pirate leader. The Bone Erosion Blade flashed, and a wave of sword energy sliced through the air. A deep, violent slash tore across the pirate's back, sharper and more jagged than anything his former katana could produce—this blade didn't just cut flesh, it gnawed at it.
As expected, the pirate's wound began to close within seconds but the regeneration was slower this time. Much slower. The Bone Erosion Blade's hidden ability seemed to delay or resist his unnatural healing possibly targeting the E·S Murder drug cells directly.
"Cut me as many times as you want, it won't matter! The version of E·S Murder I took was the perfected formula created in secret by our captain after the Punk Hazard black market closed down. I'm stronger than any of Caesar's test subjects. And again I say surrender, and maybe I'll spare you... and your wife." The pirate leader's voice was cold, but his impatience was clear he didn't want to waste any more time here. Prolonging this only increased the chances of marine interference or rival pirates interfering.
"Let me and my wife go? You expect me to believe that?" Passat's expression darkened. He had already seen through the man's plan, if they surrendered, and he reclaimed the Sakura Sword Art and Bone Erosion Blade, there would be no survivors. The pirate's words were hollow—just like the promises made by countless slavers and butchers in the New World.
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