"'A bounty… that's your last word?"
Kuro sneered, "That number means nothing. The only reason I'm worth 15 million berries is that I've grown tired of piracy—fame, status, I stopped caring long ago. The higher the bounty, the more Marines come hunting."
"So that's why…"
Tashigi finally understood why Kuro's strength far exceeded her expectations.
Kuro truly lived up to his epithet—cunning, calculating, and one of the very few pirates who deliberately hides their power.
"Idiots who think a higher bounty lets them walk all over me have died by my claws. Enough talk, die!"
Kuro's footwork shifted. No sound, only after-images so faint they seemed like tricks of the eye. Ten claws slashed out five vicious arcs. Kuro's eyes were cold, already picturing his foe gutted.
He even had leisure to plan the next move: kill Hiroto, wipe out the Marines, stage a mutual death…
Clang!
A shrill ring and a razor line of light filled the corridor, shattering the five claws in an instant.
Shigure, wrapped in savage force, crashed against the claw-blades and blasted Kuro away in the blink of an eye.
Boom!
Dust erupted as the mansion corridor tore open.
Kuro, embedded in the wall, spat blood, every bone screaming.
Such power...
Like a cannon shell detonating!
"Stand back. Don't worry, I'm no slaughter-maniac."
Hiroto pulled the stunned Kaya behind him. Under her wide gaze, he stepped forward, Shigure in hand.
Tashigi snatched up a wooden stick for a weapon. Without a word she glanced at Kaya—civilians first.
"Ahem." Kuro wiped blood from his lips, eyes turning grave.
That monstrous strength…
He had underestimated his opponent.
But speed, not power, was his true edge—though the cramped space limited the effect of his style.
Without hesitation, Kuro slashed the wall, threw Hiroto a mocking look, and leapt outside.
Hiroto followed and the two landed in the mansion courtyard.
"Still eager? I can grant you a final statement." Hiroto threw Kuro's own words back with a grin.
Kuro's eye twitched. "I misjudged you, but don't presume victory. Brute force is useless if it can't land. Watch!"
Using Nukiashi, Kuro became a phantom blur, circling Hiroto in a lethal dance. In the next instant, ten claws whipped out a storm of blades.
Shigure rose, gales howled, and Hiroto vanished.
Two streaks too swift for sight clashed across the courtyard.
Steel rang and sparks flew, yet no eye could track the blows.
From the second-floor hole, Tashigi watched, throat dry.
Power far beyond hers—neither Kuro nor Hiroto was an opponent she could face. She could barely follow their shapes, let alone their strikes.
"Who will win?" Tashigi wavered.
Head-Chopping Swordsman Hiroto had once cleaved a warship with a single cut but could he match Kuro's speed?
Kuro's earlier strike had been invisible to her, clearly he'd hidden his strength. Fifteen million berries was a joke.
"No, Hiroto will win"
She recalled the calm, almost leisurely aura he'd exuded when he had appeared. Some instinct told her that even 40 million berries sold him short.
The duel raged on.
Kuro used Cat Claws, slashes scouring the yard. Leaves were shredded and trunks were scarred in the blink of an eye.
Yet Hiroto stayed calm, somehow answering every cut.
"Not bad, impressive."
Sensing a war of attrition, Kuro disengaged, laughing.
"It's been ages since I've had a fight like this, you're leagues above the fools I've faced."
He crouched, eyes savage. "Once I'd savor this, but I'm short on time. Let's end it."
"Shakushi!"
The instant the word left his lips he vanished. No after-image, only wind brushing the courtyard.
Across the yard, a wall groaned, five fresh scars etched into the stone.
'Shakushi…'
Watching, Tashigi remembered survivors' tales of 'killing winds'.
She strained her eyes yet saw nothing: only breeze, only random slashes appearing from empty air.
This was Kuro's true might, far beyond 15 million berries.
Could Hiroto win?
Perhaps, but odds were he'd die in this murderous wind.
Tashigi could only pray Smoker would arrive soon, their plan had banked on bounties that now looked laughably low.
"You must be wondering why you can't see me. I'm in a hurry. Leave your last words now, before the wind claims you."
The voice drifted, sourceless, one with the breeze.
Swish!
Ten claws carved another long scar across the wall.
Shakushi was still active, that was the fatal flaw of his strongest move. Because its speed far exceeded human reaction time, he couldn't steer it.
What it would slash next even Kuro himself didn't know.
Precisely for that reason, he was supremely confident. He only had to wait for Shakushi to envelop the enemy, the outcome would be diced meat.
The next instant, Kuro barely sensed he was near his foe. One of his wild ten-blade swipes happened to chop straight at Hiroto.
"Since you've no last words, goodbye." Kuro murmured, as if bidding a worthy opponent farewell on the wind.
Clang!
Shigure moved, flicking aside the ten claws in a spray of sparks.
Wide-open, Kuro was forced out of Shakushi and stared, dumbstruck, at Hiroto already sheathing his blade.
Impossible!
How had he reacted?
The undefeated Shakushi since his debut—why had an enemy broken it?
"Frog in a well, behold true murderous wind." Hiroto's eyes were cold like ice.
As he gripped Shigure's hilt, the courtyard wind turned brutal as never before.
If Kuro was a sprite hiding in the breeze, impossible to pin down, then Hiroto at this moment was the gale's sovereign. Roaring wind rallied like soldiers around him.
Steel-Severing Slash!
A shrill wind-scream followed the sword swing and a rampant slash poured straight ahead.
Light blazed in Kuro's eyes and time seemed to crawl. Yet clarity brought no escape, for the cut was faster, fiercer, more overbearing than his Shakushi.
'This… is true murderous wind?' The thought flashed.
Kuro was severed at the waist.