Chapter 20: Split
Clang! Crash!
Rayleigh sent Borsalino flying again with another swift attack, the light-man reformed, and many cuts and streams of blood marred his once pristine outfit. He stumbled, and then fell to the mud on his back.
Borsalino was breathing heavily. He had tried to get past Rayleigh on several occasions to go after the girl, but the Dark King somehow knew what he would do long before he acted. It was as if, despite his efforts, he would be constantly drawn to the man like a magnet and then blasted off to crash against one thing or another.
Rayleigh looked as good as ever. However, he frowned as he glanced in a certain direction.
"He came faster than expected…" He said, spreading his Observation to see where the girl was and what she was doing. He couldn't help but raise an eyebrow, "That doesn't look too good."
He stroked his goatee, wondering what he should do. The girl had gotten far enough away that Borsalino shouldn't be able to track her down very quickly, and he naturally had to deal with Sengoku now, as well as help Lily out of her predicament.
"Hmm… Seems like he's gonna go after her first. In that case," Rayleigh smiled as he left the small skirmish with the Vice Admiral.
Splash. Splash.
"Whew… That was… bad…" Borsalino said as he lay on his back, seeing his opponent disappear in the storm. He lingered like that for a while to catch his breath.
Puru Puru Puru Puru. Puru Puru Puru Puru.
The ringing of a Transponder Snail interrupted his rest. He rummaged through his coat, and after a whole minute of searching, eventually found the correct one.
Puru Pur-Gacha.
"... Hello?"
"Borsalino, what the hell are you doing?!" Sengoku's frustrated voice and expression were mimicked by the snail, some of its spittle flying in the rain.
"Silvers Rayleigh… Said he would protect the girl… it's not my fault… Admiral Sengoku," Borsalino said slowly as he tilted and scratched his head.
"Why is that man here anyway? How is he involved in all of this?"
"I don't know…" Replied the Vice Admiral.
"Damn it. Anyway, once you've caught your breath, meet me around Grove 8. The girl should be there…"
—------
Grove 68.
Sengoku hung up the call and organized all of the marines to surround the lawless district, but not to engage.
There was another pain in his head. It wasn't just Rayleigh, but also the presence of World Nobles in that area did not make his task easy.
He would have to go and capture the girl himself.
The day couldn't possibly get any worse for him.
—------
"Aaaah!"
Lily's muscles violently protested as they spasmed and shot pain through her every time she tried to move them. That last use of [Celestial Steps] was the tipping point. A child's body was not meant to be able to bear that strain, and she was now suffering the consequences of it.
Still, the pain itself was not the problem. She had suffered far, far worse…
No, the problem was her now impaired mobility and the large group of people searching for her. She had also lost her knife to the storm.
After she had cut through the men surrounding her, she did the only thing she could think of, and under the cover of the storm and sound of violent waves and the rain, jumped into a canal.
Whoosh. Rumble.
The wind forced the waves to crash erratically, and thunder deafened the voices yelling after her.
She managed to grab hold of a root in the water even as she struggled to stay afloat. She didn't think many people would consider looking for her in the violent, dark tides.
Cough. Cough.
She swallowed a mouthful of water, and choked.
"Haa… Haa," Her breath burned, each one taking a toll on her strength.
It was cold.
Her muscles were weak. She was barely holding onto the mangrove root.
Swoosh.
Another wave crashed into her, weakening her grasp.
She looked around for anything she could use before her grip gave in and before she was lost to the mercy of the waves.
Just like in that dark room with no hope of survival, she meticulously scanned her surroundings, weighing her options.
Thump. Thump.
The sound of rhythmically colliding wood entered her ears through the sound of her heartbeat and breath, and she turned her head in its direction. Through the dark and dreary storm, she made out a small boat on the other side of the canal. It was only a few meters away, but it seemed an insurmountable gorge at that moment.
The waves clashed again, unbalancing her, and straining her weakened muscles. Jolts of pain ran through her like blood, every second threatening to immobilize her.
"Aaaah!"
The last of her fingers slipped from the root, and she hurled herself in the direction of the boat, forcing herself through the pain and discomfort.
Thanks to her purified body, she could control herself to swim, however, her weak muscles and the rapid waves made it impossible to effectively push through the rapid water.
Crash.
She found herself gripping onto a root on the other side of the canal, a far way off from where the boat had been.
At that moment…
A beam of light found her.
"There she is!"
A gang member alighted upon the boat from above, carefully steering it in the storm.
Lily felt herself being picked up against her will and thrown onto the boat. A knee was pressed to her chest so that she would not be able to move, and the man put the rest of his attention on steering the boat with a paddle. The currents guided its path as it flowed along the canals.
Cough. Cough.
Lily couldn't help but cough from all the pressure on her chest as she glared at him. His dark silhouette overlapped with the ones from her horrifying memories.
"Stay still, bitch!" He shouted with venom as he put more strength into his knee.
Lily once again assessed her surroundings as her eyes moved, even as her breath was lost and her vision began to blur. The man was focused on navigating the waters, so he did not notice her actions.
Her eyes finally fell on the man's hip. A short scimitar and a pistol hung there without a care. She shifted slightly beneath the suffocating knee as the man seemed distracted by a difficult turn of the boat.
In one calculated, smooth, and deliberate motion, she reached for the blade, grabbed it, pulled it out, turned it towards the man, and lunged it forward, piercing his neck.
Splurt.
"Ugh…" Blood spurted from his mouth, even as his eyes turned red at her with deep hatred.
His hand reached out to her as the blade dug deeper into his neck before he eventually slumped, his heavy body trapping her.
Lifeless.
"Haa… Haa…" Lily's breath returned to her as she struggled beneath the corpse to free herself. The boat swayed and rocked, shifting the body slightly so she could get free.
"Haa..." She coughed between forceful breaths. She glanced around, and her eyes met the pistol on the man's hip.
She retrieved the pistol and attempted to fire it in the air, only to be met with a harmless click.
Her lips turned up slightly as she inwardly thought that she had made the right choice.
Wooosh.
The boat rocked once more, and Lily immediately grabbed onto the paddle, trying her best to steer it. She needed to find a shallower shore so she could make it up onto the land once more.
"Haa…" Lily exhaled a rough breath. Her eyes were dark, thinking about the things she had just encountered.
Her parents had really taken care of her, showing her only the best things on the bubble-decorated isles.
"Haa…" Her eyes blurred again once she thought about them, but before she could linger and wallow in her sentiments, she found a place where the land was level with the waves.
Doing her best to steer against the waves and her soreness, the boat made it close enough there that she simply decided to jump onto that shore.
She felt some relief in having a firm footing.
She stumbled as her feet attempted to carry her. She tried walking on, glancing at the number on that vast tree.
'Grove 10.'
She continued forward for a while.
And then she saw a sight she would never forget in her life.
—-------
The bridge between Grove 9 and 10.
"You haven't found her yet? Damn it!" Captain Hebi's tongue slithered as his eyebrows furrowed. He felt a thick palm on his shoulder and a gruff voice following it.
"Don't worry about it, there's no way she could have gotten far, we'll find -" Before Panman could finish his sentence...
In the distance, a gargantuan golden figure descended from the stormy, rumbling skies.
A giant, golden palm wreathed in black and red lightning pressed down from the air, its shadow seemingly encompassing all of creation.
A swift, silver blade wreathed in the same sparks of red and black sliced through the air from below, as if it would cleave the world in half.
Both forces met and the sky split asunder.
CREATORS' THOUGHTS 
LettuceB
LettuceB I slept the whole day yesterday... Hopefully I can get another one out to you guys in around 8-9 hours.
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