Chapter 41: The Limits of Blood
Chermo's blood swords were about to pierce Satoru's body. For a moment, Chermo felt a rush of smug joy. My worries were for nothing. This kid's all talk.
But in the very next second, Chermo's expression froze. The scene he expected—the blades stabbing through flesh—didn't happen. Instead, the sword tips stopped right in front of Satoru's chest. They just hung there in the air, not moving forward, as if they'd hit a wall he couldn't see.
Chermo still had plenty of blood in his body. He could feel the connection. The swords should have been able to extend further. But it was like there was an infinite distance between the blades and the boy's skin.
"What is this?" Chermo muttered, his face full of confusion. This didn't make any sense. It was outside anything he knew.
"Is it your Devil Fruit ability again?" he snarled, pulling the blood swords back. They shrank to a normal longsword size in his hands.
"Who knows?" Satoru said with a shrug. "But if you want to think that, go ahead."
"It looks like I'll have to get serious, brat," Chermo growled. "Don't think just having a Devil Fruit power means you can do whatever you want."
As he spoke, Satoru saw the blood swords change. They turned pitch black. It wasn't that Chermo's blood turned black. It was that he had coated the blades in a layer of thick, dark Armament Haki.
This made Satoru pay a little more attention. Someone in the first half of the Grand Line who had mastered Armament Haki wasn't common. It meant this guy wasn't a complete pushover.
"Since you're Zephyr's student," Chermo said, his confidence returning, "then you should know that Armament Haki is the natural enemy of any Devil Fruit power. With a body as young as yours, no matter how talented you are, you aren't qualified to learn Haki yet. So the outcome of this fight is already set. You're going to lose."
Using Armament Haki filled Chermo with pride again, and he had reason to be proud. Among Satoru's class of cadets, only Chris and Bosra had shown the faintest spark of Haki use, and they couldn't control it. It was hit or miss. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn't. It was unreliable in a real fight.
"I have to admit," Satoru said, his voice still calm, "you knowing Haki is a surprise. But you're right about one thing—the result is predictable. The one who's going to lose is you."
The Navy wouldn't allow a dangerous Devil Fruit user like Chermo to be killed outright. They would want him captured and locked in Impel Down forever. If Chermo died, the Blood-Blood Fruit would just reappear somewhere else. If it ended up with a good person, that was one thing. But if a truly evil person ate it, the fruit could cause untold suffering. The Marines couldn't allow that risk.
As he finished speaking, Satoru activated 'Blue' on Chermo's limbs.
Chermo's face instantly changed. The confidence from a moment ago vanished. He could feel a terrible, twisting force trying to wrench his arms and legs apart. Reacting fast, he immediately coated his limbs in Armament Haki, pushing back against the invisible distortion.
The strain showed on his face. But this also told him how his crewmate had died. It was this same power.
"Wrapping the affected parts in Armament Haki can block my attack to some degree," Satoru observed. "But you probably don't have enough Haki to cover your whole body, do you?"
A flash of real fear crossed Chermo's face. If Satoru used that twisting force on his entire body at once, there would be only one result: death.
But Satoru couldn't kill him. So in this fight, Satoru had to hold back a little, too.
"You monster!" Chermo roared in frustration. "Why do you have such a disgusting power?"
Suddenly, the blood on the ground—the blood from his wounded and dead crew—shivered. It rose up, forming into dozens of sharp, needle-like droplets, and shot toward Satoru like a hail of bullets.
Ping! Ping! Ping-ping-ping!
Every single drop hit the invisible barrier of Infinity and fell harmlessly to the ground. Not one touched Satoru.
Meanwhile, the rest of the battle was turning. The Elite Class students were proving why they were called 'elite.' At the start of the fight, they had been nervous. Their morale was low, and they were afraid they couldn't win.
But after trading a few blows, they realized their opponents were weak. Their confidence exploded.
Each student had mastered at least one of the Rokushiki—either Rankyaku (Storm Leg) or Shigan (Finger Gun). The ordinary pirates had no Haki and no special defense. Under the fierce assault of these trained cadets, the pirate lines broke.
After all, these elite cadets were destined to become officers. If an officer couldn't even handle common pirate thugs, then the 'elite' title would be a joke.
"These aren't normal Marines!" one pirate screamed. "They all know the Six Powers! How are we supposed to fight that?!"
The next second, a cadet's Finger Gun shot forward and pierced the pirate's skull.
For many of the students, this was their first kill. Their minds reeled. Their bodies wanted to reject it. But they didn't have time to process it. If they stopped, the pirates would strike back.
However, compared to the others, Chris was struggling. His opponent was the vice-captain of the Sin Skull Pirates, and also a Devil Fruit user.
Chris didn't know the fruit's name, but the man could pull bones from his own body to use as weapons. He could also make his bones grow, forming sharp spikes and plates of bone armor all over his skin. Chris's attacks couldn't land cleanly.
Chris's speed was incredible, thanks to his Speed-Speed Fruit. But the vice-captain had put on a full suit of bone armor. Every time Chris tried to hit him, he risked getting cut by the sharp bone spikes.
So while the other students were gaining ground, Chris was stuck in a frustrating stalemate.
This was the common state of many pirate crews: the captain and first mate were strong, but the rest of the crew was much weaker. It was a stark difference.
Chris had no choice. He could only use Rankyaku from a distance, trying to wear the man down. But the opponent's bones were incredibly hard. Even the slicing air blades of Storm Leg couldn't do much damage. Chris was running out of ideas.
(End of Chapter)
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