Chapter 10: Chapter 9
Humans tend to fear the unknown. One of the unknown that will never be known to us, is nothing other than the death itself, and due to this, humans not only fear losing their lives, but taking the lives of the others as well.
However, in the middle of the battlefield, there is no room for the fear of killing others. Our defensive mechanism values our lives over the lives of the others, and in order to protect ourselves, such fear of killing others is shut down...
'And it's no different for me,' I thought as I drove the cutlass in my hands into the heart of one pirate, who was jumping onto me with a mad expression.
'Marines in this world kill. This isn't some modern world police, and even back in the earth, they end up killing the severe criminals, whether by mistake, retaliation, or execution.'
So I steeled myself. With me holding the cutlass and Bastille having took off his metal mask to use it as a weapon, the two of us took a defensive stance against the wave of pirates.
"Haa!!!" Bastille punched the face of one running pirate with his mask-reinforced fist, sending the man flying in the air while spraying the blood all over.
At the same time, I noticed that one pirate at some distance away from us, had the barrel of his gun pointing at Bastille, who was a huge target. I immediately shouted,
"Hina!!"
"Don't shout. Hina's ears hurt," Hina said seriously as,
Bang!
the rifle in her hands—which we acquired from a fallen marine—fired a shot before the pirate cold pull the trigger of his gun, ending his life instantly.
Gritting my teeth, I swung the cutlass vertically, from top to bottom, and overwhelmed one sword-wielding pirate, causing the latter to lose his grip on the weapon. Immediately after, the cutlass that I was holding, shattered, due to my poor handling; I threw it away and grabbed the airborne sword, before stabbing it through the heart of the now-vulnerable pirate.
"Ha..." I raised my head up instantly while pulling the bloody sword out of the corpse, "fighting in the open is not a good choice."
Unfortunately, the marines were losing by a lot. The Marine Captain with glasses currently had his neck clenched tight by Mammoth, who still was holding onto Barthur's corpse on the other hand.
The Marine Lieutenant already was reduced to a corpse with multiple holes in his body, and still was being shot by the crazed pirates.
One by one, the marine soldiers who lost their leaders, were falling, not knowing what to do without an order given. The select few, who were the females, struggled with their hands tied and surrounded by the pirates who gave them the dirty gazes. The hostages tied on the pirate ship, simply looked at this scene with despair, thinking that it was all over.
'...It's only the three of us,' Biting my lips hard in order to keep myself moving, I shouted at Hina and Bastille,
"Go to the inside of the ship! Fighting out in the open, against this number, is impossible for us!"
The two of them, who seemed terrified by this sight, nodded upon my call. With me last, the three of us ran down the staircase, and stood at the end of the narrow hallway that we were cleaning just few hours before.
"S-Smoker," Bastille muttered to me with a shaky voice, "they are... dead. All of them."
"Don't think about it," I replied while wiping the sweats off my body. I placed my left hand on my heart while keeping my grip on the cheap sword, trying to slow down the heart beat.
"...Are we the only ones left?" Hina asked with the terror lingering in her eyes. She was trying to hide her fear, but to no avail.
"Don't think about it," I could only repeat, "just believe that we are going to survive."
The footsteps above us were still loud and rapid. The cries of marines, gunshots, the fearsome sounds of sharp weapons cutting through a human flesh. It was an experience that I've never had in my life.
"Raaaahahahaha!!!!"
Now, one by one, the pirates were storming down to this hallway where we stood. I stood at the front, with Hina right behind me. Bastille stood at the end of the hallway behind the two of us, for him being a huge man without any weapon currently, only made him more prone to attacks.
'In the hallway, long weapon is not ideal,' I thought as the pirates began to run at us into this hallway, before snapping the sword in half by pressing its blade down with my foot. Taking in a deep breath, I stated,
"Come."
"Haahah, what can three kids do anyway—"
Rushing in, I stabbed the broken sword through the front-most pirate's heart, before pulling the sword out by kicking him. The stabbed pirate fell on the floor, and the pirates who were following tripped due to the corpse below them.
Without a stop, I slammed my left foot, hard, on the neck of one of the fallen pirates, while stabbing the broken sword through the neck of another.
With me momentarily immobilized, another running pirate attempted to slam his giant axe on my head, but it was stopped by the narrow wall. Immediately after,
Bang!
the bullet, fired by Hina, pierced through his head.
Using that gap of time to pull the broken sword out and take a step back, I looked back up at the front, where there seemed to be no end to the number of pirates.
Simultaneously,
Boom. Boom. From the ceiling right above us, the banging noises could be heard; they were trying to attack us from the above!
"Bastille!!" I shouted at the back, while wildly slashing the broken sword at the hoard of pirates at my front, "You found anything useful yet?!"
"Uh, here!" Bastille, who was rushing through the rooms and structures behind Hina and me, finally returned with couple of kitchen knives in his hands, and slided one at my direction.
Leaping back, I dodged an axe that was thrown by the front-most pirate, before stepping my foot over the sliding kitchen knife to stop it, and quickly wielded with my other free hand—now holding two short swords.
BOOM!
Then, the ceiling right above me broke, and two pirates, who were grinning wildly, jumped down at me. Coupled with the third pirate who was running at me front the hallway, the situation was getting worse and worse.
"Hina!!!" I cried while dodging the slashes of cutlasses made by the two from the top, before stabbing the broken sword and kitchen knife into each of them.
Bang! Upon my call, Hina fired another bullet, to the third pirate that I was unable to deal with.
Leaving the kitchen knife and broken sword still embedded on two now-dead pirates, I ran back while opening my palms at Bastille, who placed two more kitchen knives. Upon my motion, Hina and Bastille too began to retreat backward, knowing that we won't be able to hold out in the hallway any longer.
'...Is there any hope here?'
During our run into the deeper part of the ship, one thought popped up in my mind,
'How did these three survive in the first place, in the canon?!'
"S-Smoker..."
Then, Hina and I were forced to stop as Bastille stopped moving, with his back facing us.
Looking grimly at the approaching pirates from my back, I peaked the other way to see why Bastille stopped, and sighted...
"It's the end for you, kids," Mammoth the 'fatso,' standing in front of Bastille, along with other pirates behind him as well.
...We were now surrounded in a narrow hallway, in both paths.
'Tch, already...?' I struggled to keep my face stoic.
There are two ways to enter the inner section of this ship. I thought that it would take some time until all marines above are dealt with, but... it ended much quicker than what I speculated.
'Did I make a wrong decision?'
And what a detrimental circumstance we were lied within now. Move up? The deck is packed with tons of pirates. Move down? There are many layers to go through until we manage to reach the sea below even, and in the Grand Line, being lost in the sea means almost a guaranteed death. Smoker before my transmigration, technically died from this.
Hina immediately raised up her rifle and pointed it at Mammoth. But strangely, the pirates didn't react, and laughed in amusement instead, driving us into a confusion.
"...Shoot it," Without any hesitation, I whispered at Hina, and she nodded.
Bang!
Another bullet was fired from the gun, to Mammoth at the point-blank range.
However,
CLANG!
along with the sound of metal clanging, the bullet was bounced off of Mammoth's obese torso, before crashing into a wall.
"Heheh, did I not tell you?" Mammoth rubbed his palms together with a shrewd smile, "I am a 'hard' man, having eaten the Harden Harden fruit. With the thought alone, I can harden any section of body, so hard that even the bullets cannot penetrate through!"
The palms that he rubbed together, were now metallic gray in colour.
Hina's eyes widened in horror. Unable to keep her facade, she dropped the rifle to the floor, and fell on her knees.
Bastille tightly gripped on the kitchen knives that he was carrying, but his arms shook. He was in no different situation than Hina.
Despair. Such thoughts began to corrupt us from the inside, and I wondered... if there was anything left that I could do.
"Surrender. In usual cases, I would've killed you already, but," Mammoth then stated as if not having even felt Hina's bullet, while holding his right hand out, "you two boys seem to hold quite a potential. If you join now, I will allow you to become the no.2 and no.3 of my crew."
Mammoth didn't mention Hina, and judging by those greedy looks in his eyes, I knew what he was thinking of.
'Disgusting,' that was the thought that entered me, 'This is the so-called freedom of the pirates?'
Such a thought was so strong that it even defeated my desire to survive.
'If living on means giving up my sense of morality and joining this filthy pirate crew... then I'd rather die.'
And before I knew, I was spitting on Mammoth's face.
"Why don't you go rot in hell instead, fatso?"
Mammoth raised his hand up and touched his cheek where I spat upon. The grin on his face instantly died down, replaced by a cold emotion.
"Then die, kiddo."
And the next thing I could perceive was,
BOOOOM!!
a punch on my abdomen.
Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone