The bodyguards hesitated, afraid any rash move would harm Kaya.
At that moment, Liszt stepped forward.
"Miss Kaya, do you need help?"
"What do I have to pay?" Kaya, face pale, looked at Liszt. She did not believe a pirate would help out of kindness.
"Half your estate," Liszt said.
Before Kaya could answer, Kuro suddenly tightened his arm around her neck so she couldn't speak, then snarled at the bodyguards, "Kill them, or I'll kill her!"
The bodyguards looked at one another, torn.
If they acted, they might die—if not by Liszt's hand, then under the hands of his pirates.
"If you don't answer, I'll take that as consent," Liszt said to Kaya with a faint smile.
He flashed to her side, pried Kuro's arm off her in an instant, and shoved Kaya away to safety.
Kuro took the blow and was sent flying, but he wasn't badly hurt.
He sprang up quickly and fixed Liszt with a predatory stare.
"I owe you no explanation," Kuro said coldly.
He certainly wasn't going to tell Liszt that he had seized Kaya first to coerce or incite the bodyguards and the villagers of Syrup Village into attacking the Money Pirates.
A wide, fifty-meter circle of empty space opened between Liszt and Kuro.
Kuro didn't care. The ten-blade cat claws on his hands trembled lightly.
In the next instant he vanished without a sound.
When he reappeared, Liszt's katana split across the arc of Kuro's claws, then snapped back toward Kuro's chest.
Rip—
Kuro's clothes tore open, yet he wasn't wounded; at the critical moment he slipped his vitals aside.
Liszt pressed in.
Kuro hurriedly crossed his ten-blade cat claws to block.
Liszt mocked him.
He hadn't even used half his strength in that exchange, and Kuro was already struggling.
He had underestimated how far he himself had progressed in such a short time.
"This guy is too fast. At my current speed I can't keep up," Kuro muttered, ignoring the taunt.
"In that case, I'll have to use that move."
Perhaps he could even glean something useful from it.
The time had come.
Kuro began to move.
In an instant, heaven and earth became crystal clear.
Liszt murmured to himself.
In his overclocked state, Liszt's sight, reactions, and speed far surpassed normal.
His katana swept out.
There was a wet sound.
Kuro, mid–high-speed movement, halted; his eyes looked blankly at Liszt.
"Speed?"
"You could call it godspeed," Liszt replied.
"Godspeed. It really is fast," Kuro said, and collapsed.
He wasn't dead, only stripped of the power to fight.
"Someone, bandage him."
Liszt had deliberately avoided the vitals.
Kuro was still useful to him.
"Aye." The First Squad medic ran over, checked Kuro, and quickly dressed the wounds, keeping him from bleeding out.
The onlooking villagers were a beat slow to grasp it.
"It's over?"
"Looks like it."
"So what just happened?"
"What else? That pirate Liszt is too strong. Did you see how fast he moved just now?"
"Couldn't see a thing."
"That's why he cut him down like a chicken. Kuro was fast, but Liszt seemed faster."
After this battle, the villagers of Syrup Village had truly witnessed Liszt's strength.
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