Out for Karma: One Piece

Chapter 114: Devil Trigger IV

Chapter 114: Devil Trigger IV

As Rick came up with a now unconscious Zoro from the hole he created, he saw plenty of people fight other people. When one of them shot at him, Rick knew who the enemy was. Apparently Kaido’s crew were all wearing the same type of clothing, making them easier to identify. Pushing back the bullet with his gravity he sprouted hands on every hostile present and knocked them all out by choking them. The samurai around looked at him in awe. One of them spoke up.

“You’re him, aren’t you?”

“Hmm?”

“Their vice-captain.” The same man said pointing at Zoro.

“I am.”

“Your captain, he’s fighting Kaido on the roof.”

“The others?”

“We don’t know for sure. The little tanuki and a pink haired one were healing people on the west wing because some nasty disease had been unleashed on us. The blond one was captured by Black Maria. He was used as a hostage to lure one of your female friends. The raven haired one.

“Where?!” Rick asked with emotion.

“The east wing! As for the others, we don’t know!” another samurai answered, pointing in a direction with his finger.

Rick gently put Zoro on the ground and went to search for Robin. He’s been away from her for eight months and it was eight months too many in his opinion. On the way he dealt with any members of Kaido’s crew without an ounce of mercy.  When he noticed some weird Zoan users, Diana was enraged.

“That little…! How DARE they pervert my work!”

“What are you talking about?”

“Those Zoan are not of my design! Passing on the power of a fruit inside an object was fine! Barely! But creating devil fruit?! That’s… I can’t let that stand! That’s crossing a line.”

“Oooookay… What do you want me to do about it exactly?”

“Kill them all!”

“Are you mad?!”

“They’re abominations! Look at this one! He got the entirety of a giraffe's body fused to his ass from the giraffe’s neck!”

“Okay, maybe that one, but…”

“No buts! You either do it or I break my promise!”

“Blackmail already? Is it how it’s going to be, now? If I don’t do what you want, you take control?”

“No! I won’t interfere with your choices but this… this is wrong. Someone tried to play god and it’s not right! It goes against the laws of nature!”

“The power of a fruit goes against the laws of nature. Have you met Brook? Dead people are not supposed to come back to life.”

“It’s not supposed to usually happen but it’s not against the laws. This… This is a perversion of the essence of life! They purposefully altered a sentient being’s DNA for a force evolution.”

“Isn’t that what Zoans do?”

“No! My power changes the DNA temporarily, regarding Zoan. This… this is a permanent thing. It’s not supposed to happen! The DNA will break down and it won’t be pretty.”

“What are we talking about here?”

“Madness, mayhem. The beast’s DNA taking over. Plenty of bad things, the worst would be contamination of other people. It could lead to the extinction of all life!”

“... You’re kidding right?’

“I am not! I saw it happening, back when I was creating the fruits! Luckily it was on a very small island, so the worst was avoided.”

“Does that mean I’ll have to kill Momonosuke? Because he ate a man-made fruit.”

“No, his fruit was perfect. It does what zoan’s fruit are supposed to do.”

“So you’re not asking me to kill them because you’re somehow jealous that someone is getting close to achieving what you did? Or apparently succeeded.”

“I am not.”

“Ugh fine… How would I get to explain that to the others? ‘I killed them because a voice in my head told me too?’ What a cliché.”

Diana didn’t bother to answer and Rick ruthlessly started to kill as quickly as possible the zoan beasts pirates while just knocking out the others. He tried to do it as fast and as painless as he could but sometimes he didn’t have any other choice. Not like he cared about those people, but life was life. True, ever since he left the marines he had let go of his no kill policy. Ever since Skypiea and the old lady in fact but that didn’t mean he was going to kill left and right. He had been naive back then, thinking that he didn’t have to kill to get the job done. Yes, he could and he did but some people… just deserved it, to make the world more secure. Perhaps he was influenced by the tone of the manga where death rarely happened. Besides O’hara, the list of people that actually get killed is rather short, out of flashback. From his memories he counted two. Whitebeard and Ace. Everyone else miraculously survived and most of the time ended up in Jail. The most noteworthy example was Pell who survived the bomb in Alabasta, out of nowhere.

Making his way into the east wing he tried to go faster as he could smell something burning up the path.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Deep into the east wing where a fire was raging, Brook was standing on the sidelines of a fight. He and Robin had managed to rescue Sanji from his captor and let him go on his way. The cook being the way he is, was unable to fight as all his opponents were women. And not any women at that but the ones working in the pleasure area. That’s how he got captured in the first place despite the fact that he could have wiped the floor with all of them in a very short time. Black Maria, one of Kaido’s lieutenants, or captains, or whatever the name of her rank was, had easily managed the feat to capture the blond. She has been the one to set the place on fire with a peculiar weapon looking like a spear but with a big wheel at the tip with a creature at the center of it producing fire. Despite her zoan abilities of a black rosamygale, some kind of a triassic spider that went extinct long ago, she was no match for Brook who could simply freeze her fire. It didn’t matter that the woman was over eight meters tall, she would lose all the same.

And yet Brook was watching perhaps the weakest member of the crew fighting the spider-woman on her own.

Robin had asked it of the skeleton, to his surprise. He did, however, understand why she wanted it to be her fight. Maria’s henchwomen had played a really dirty trick on the archeologist, making her see illusions of people dear to her and who were long gone. Robin hasn’t been duped, she wasn’t stupid nor gullible after all, but that unnerved the usually really chill woman. She took care of the lackeys in no time by blooming giant hands, feet and even a giant version of her from the waist up. Only Maria was left.

She was taunting Robin endlessly on her uselessness of what she represented to her crew. A danger to them. A danger that would lead them to abandon her or sell her out to others to get spare, like Kaido, Big Mom or the world government. To give some credit to her taunt she referred to Sanji she had captured and who begged Robin to come save him. Seeing that it didn’t work on her, Maria upped the ante and said some words she should never have said with a sadistic glee.

“Even your husband left you behind! He’s been here for months! Enjoying every pleasure that the island of Onigashima had to offer! Everyday he comes to the pleasure district to have a good time! You were nothing but a note on his bedpost. The flavor of the time. He couldn’t even bother to remember your name after I was done with him!”

Robin didn’t even bother to verbally answer, she let her actions do the talking. Brook couldn’t believe what his empty orbits were seeing her do.

“Dear Lord, be merciful to us all.”

Robin apparently had a Rick button. 

And Maria should not have pushed it.

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Rick flew as fast as he could in an enclosed space. He had used his observation haki to locate Robin but a tremendous obstacle stood in his way. Both figuratively and literally.

Big Mom was in the way, fighting a teamed up Law and Kid. The two supernovas were faring badly and when the yonko brought down her animated sword cap charged with conqueror haki Rick thought fast and pulled towards him her targets.

“Conqueror haki can be used like armament?!”

“Yes. And it’s quite more powerful but doesn’t do the same thing. Armement can destroy from inside the body, conqueror can’t.”

“We’ll talk about that later.”

“Oh, it’s you!” Big Mom exclaimed, recognizing Rick despite his weakened appearance. “It feels like my birthday! I can finally make you pay for destroying my castle. You escaped my grasp out of luck last time but it seems that your luck has run out.”

From behind him Law and Kid, raised from the ground they had a violent meeting with when they were pulled away. Rick hadn’t been kind when he did it, too busy being focused on Big Mom.

“Don’t you fucking dare asshole! She’s mi…” began Kid before being promptly sent to the ceiling, percuting it with a frightening speed and being brought back down to the floor just as fast.

 “You motherf…”

Again he was forced to be intimate with the top of the room, then the ground but with more strength. This time the captain of the Kid’s pirates kept his mouth shut. On the side, Law watched silently. He knew better than to get on the Strawhats vice-captain bad side. He did wonder what happened to him though. He could clearly see the signs of starvation with one look at his body, they were obvious. The question he was also asking himself was: Could he take Big Mom?

Her devil fruit powers aside, she was an opponent of formidable physical strength and Rick was clearly not in a state to match her blow for blow. He was pretty sure in fact that, should he be hit once he would die. Yet he was standing tall, or rather floating probably to minimize the use of his muscle and save the bit of stamina he had.

“There are only two ways things are going to be resolved. You let me pass and you can keep on playing with those two. Or you die. Your choice.”

“Ma Ma Ma Ma Ma! You think you can kill me?! You couldn’t back then and you were in way better shape! Look at you! I could Puff and you’d die!”

“So be it.”

Raising both his arms before him in a x he sprouted countless of them onto Big Mom’s body. Wasting no time he began to channel gravy in them, the same way he did back on Dressrosa. Back then he had to exert himself, put some strength behind it and use a whole amount of armament haki to create a tiny blackhole. Now, he didn’t have to feel like that at all. It was natural, as if he was just breathing. When Zoro had liberated him he had felt the difference when he used a bit of gravity but now, he could really feel it. In a second the air ripped and five inches beads of pure blackness popped all over the yonko’s body and sucked her flesh in. She let out a painful scream at the sudden pain.

‘It hurts doesn’t it, bitch?!’

Big Mom’s pets tried to help her but both failed miserably. Apollo was fire incarnate, something without perceptible mass and so was the new thundercloud on the side. They were sucked almost immediately by the many beads, never to be seen again. The disparition of her mount made Big Mom fall on the ground in a loud thud. She was unable to move, her muscles and tendons being gone. In a single move one of the yonko has been defeated without being able to do anything.

Law’s jaw dropped a little. He remembered Rick being powerful, what’s with all the ability he had but he never was that powerful. Taking one of the strongest pirates in the world like that was unheard of. That terrified him. Kid was no better on the side and was seriously thinking back of his attitude towards the frail man in front of him. That was not something he ever did, he always went forward, no matter what and rarely, if ever, felt fear. Even when Kaido beat him up and his crew he didn’t feel fear. Now, however, he did.

Rick looked at Big Mom on the ground with cold and disinterested eyes that made her reel. He was looking at her like he would at a pebble on the ground. She was a Yonko. A legend of seas, feared all over the world, was looked down, just as she looked down on people. It infuriated her. She tried to say something but more of her flesh was torn apart. In a desperate move, she coated her body in as much armament haki as she could, hoping that it could resist what was happening to it. It worked and her flesh wasn’t sucked in whatever those black beads were. The beads simply disappeared and with the most imminent threat to her nullified, she was thinking fast on what she could do to get out of her predicament. Unfortunately she didn’t have the time.

Law’s sword was ripped from his hand and flew towards a sprouted limb in front of the yonko. Catching it, the limb started to infuse haki and gravity in a very high density in it.

“You chose poorly.”

The arm holding the sword did a powerful thrust downward and unleashed a very powerful black hole ray, devouring anything in its way. In an instant the only thing left of Big Mom was some very mangled limb with holes in them.

‘So it worked. The physics laws of this world are really weird.’

‘Now that I had a glimpse of your world’s law I have to agree. A single one of those beads would have destroyed the whole room if not the whole wing of the island.’

‘And Haki can influence them. Wait. Aren’t you a deity? Shouldn’t you not be surprised?’

‘God is a term used by people without power to describe people who have some. I didn’t create this world, and I say that in a lore perspective. I just came to be and people labeled me like that because of what I could do but I never thought of myself as such.’

‘I see. That brings a whole lot of questions that I’m not sure I want or should have the answers to.’

Rick made Law’s sword float toward its owner, without even looking back and flew forward, deeper into the island. Big Mom wasn’t the goal after all, just an obstacle he had to deal with. In no time he came to the area where Robin and Brook were. When he entered the room he was pulled to a stop by what he was seeing. A giant blond woman with the lower body of a hairy spider was being clutched by a naked red devil. It was the real deal, with horns and wings, not dissimilar to Rick’s form when Diana had taken control of his body back in Marineford. When his brain functioned again he recognized who that devil was from the haircut, and the devil’s assets. He knew those very well.

“Robin?” he exclaimed in awe.

The awful cracking sound of snapping bones resonated in the room and the blonde’s body suddenly went limp and was released on the side of the room giving Rick the first sight of his wife in almost a year. The demonic version of herself disappeared and Robin fell to the ground out of exhaustion. She never hit the ground though, not on his watch. He sprouted a hand on her and made her float before attracting her to him right into his arm in a single move.

She took a second or two to understand what was happening and one more to recognize the gaunt face of the man she loved.

“Hey.” he simply said with a kind smile.

Robin smiled back before knitting her brows in worry. She raised her hand to touch one of his hollowed cheeks.

“Long story?” Was all she asked and got a nod of affirmation back. It was fine with her, her husband was here and that was all that mattered. Black Maria may have said whatever she wanted, Robin knew the man she married better than anyone. She knew that the words she was hearing were lies. And while deep down a small part of her felt doubt, she believed, she had faith. After the most difficult eight months of her life, she still had faith that he would be back, that he would not stay with his daughter just like he promised her. It was that faith that drove her every day, that helped her overcome her loss and to ignore her darkest thoughts. And it took time, but her faith had been rewarded and she was back where she belonged.

Rick put her on her feet and was locked into a hug. Not a fierce one, Robin had the presence of mind to mind his current condition, but a hug tight enough to convey her feelings. It didn’t last long as a very nasty smell attacked her nose and made her recoil.

“Yes, sorry. Couldn’t take a shower in eight months.” he said sheepishly.

“That’s alright.”

Just like she did a few moments earlier he cupped her cheek with his hand, or tried as he dropped it down. The cheek was too close to the nose. He opted instead to look meaningfully into her eyes. A look that she gave back.

“I wonder if Brook and I could do a number. The dead and the living skeletons.” he joked, making her chuckle softly.

“That’s a wonderful idea! Yohohoho!” said Brook who came from the other side of the room after giving them some time to have a moment.

“As tempting as it is, I want my husband back to his best and more importantly healthy self.”

“Yes Ma’am.” he said with a salute.

“We should go, others may need our help.” Brook advised.

“Zoro, is K.O. He took down one of Kaidou’s top men and freed me before collapsing though. Sanji, Chopper are on the other side of the island.”

He closed his eyes and used his observation haki to have a feel of the place. It couldn’t reach the whole island but it was enough to locate Nami and Usopp near the center of what he now recognizes as a castle.

“Nami and Usopp are on the upper level near the center. I don’t know where Franky or Baby-5 are but they are probably together. Luffy is supposedly fighting Kaidou on the roof but I can’t verify it.”

“Reiju is probably with Chopper too.” Robin announced.

“Reiju is here? Why?”

“She decided to stay with us as Chopper’s nurse. I wonder why?” she replied with a knowing smirk making Brook laugh.

“So what are you two going to do?” Rick asked, ignoring the implication of Robin’s words.  He had already enough on his plate right now, he didn’t need to think about the pink princess at the moment.

“Us two?”

“Yes, you two. I’m going on the roof. I have a deal to settle with Kaidou.”

“No.” Robin said firmly.

“Yes, I am.”

“No. Not when you’re… in that state.” she said, moving her hand up and down towards him.

“I’ll be okay. I just took down Big Mom effortlessly. Sure, I may look like I would keel over with a small breeze and I feel like it but I can fight no problem.”

Rick wasn’t lying at all, however he didn’t mention that the reason he took Big Mom down like he did was because she had been careless. Had she not judged him based on his appearance and their last fight in her territory, the fight would not have been so one-sided. The yonko proved it by dealing with the black holes with her haki. He was hoping Kaidou would make the same mistake if Luffy failed.

“You took Big Mom down?!” Brook exclaimed.

“Yeah, she’s… Let’s say you should avoid the way I came from…The sight is not pretty.”

After looking at him for a moment, Robin made a decision.

“I guess we should regroup with Nami and Usopp. Don’t fight if you don’t need to.”

“I promise.” Rick replied with a smile. He was genuine. If Luffy had things in hands, he would put aside his need for payback.

‘Ending a big fight without being unconscious would be nice for once.’

Brook and Robin took their leave, running towards the direction Rick gave them to reach their friends. Once gone, the Vice-captain flew towards the upper floor but not before killing the spider-woman at his roommate's insistence.