Kapitel 241: Old Gladiator
"So, Hamsterball, do you know what kind of devil fruit the final prize is?" Cherry asked once Bartolomeo quieted down.
"She gave me a nickname-! Ah, of course I know! Doflamingo advertised it heavily among Underworld information dealers. A lot of idiots were annoyed about the short notice for such an infamous devil fruit." Bartolomeo said.
"Don't keep me in suspense, just tell me already." Cherry said impatiently.
"It's the Drill Drill Fruit!" Bartolomeo chimed, then waited in expectation for her reaction.
Cherry was wholly unimpressed. "Drills? Really? That's it?"
"Ah, I see that you're unfamiliar with it. To keep it brief, where Whitebeard's Quake Quake Fruit is said to possess the power to destroy the world, the Drill Drill Fruit is said to possess the power to pierce any defense and even the heavens themselves! The founder of the Happo Navy apparently killed a fleet admiral back in his day using that fruit." Bartolomeo helpfully explained. "I wanted to get it because it might be a hard counter to my barriers, but I can help you get it if you want it?"
'Ah, so this isn't just to lure in Chinjao, but myself as well. Anyone who has access to a lot of information and has been paying attention to me would be able to infer that I might want a devil fruit for my spear. A drill that can pierce the heavens, if it lives up to that fame, would be the perfect choice.' Cherry thought to herself, then started to chuckle. 'How angry would Franky be if I can get my hands on it? A robot with a drill to pierce the heavens is every boys' dream.'
"I don't need your help, just fight with all you've got. If you come up against me, then I'll give a practical lesson in fighting dirty. How about that?" Cherry gave him a toothy smile.
Bartolomeo let out a girlish little squeal before directly fainting. Cherry caught him as he fell and gave a small shock to his mental sea to wake him up.
"Alright, Hamsterball, show me to the waiting area. I want to have a look at the competition." Cherry said.
Bartolomeo gladly led the way to the waiting area where most of the fighters were hanging around and hyping themselves up for the coming battle.
Cherry had to wonder why so many weaker individuals had even bothered to participate. Even if they got a lucky break in the qualifier rounds and proceeded into the real tournament, surely they weren't delusional enough to think they could win the whole thing.
"Hey you! What's a skinny woman like you doing here, this is a serious life or death fight! You're insulting all the warriors who fight and die here everyday with your presence!" An idiot approached her with a look of disdain on his face.
Before Bartolomeo had a chance to play white knight and get himself disqualified for starting a fight outside of the arena, Cherry stepped forward to confront the idiot gladiator directly.
"What, do you want to fight-?" The gladiator was interrupted by Cherry as her hands flashed, tracing fingers along his skin and jabbing at pressure points.
"What's going on over here?! You better not be fighting outside of the arena or you'll be disqualified!" One of the organizers raced over with a couple of armed guards.
They were dumbfounded when instead of a potentially violent confrontation, they found one of the gladiators looking like he was in heaven. "My old injuries don't hurt so much, and I feel as flexible as I did in my younger days!"
"That's my massage arts at work, friend. You looked stressed, so I gave you a special service, one warrior to another." Cherry spoke with a passive expression, bowing slightly to show respect but without being submissive.
This was an act to go along with her disguise. Nightmare was to be a serious, respectful, and kind woman. Basically the exact opposite of Cherry.
"I see! I apologize for my rudeness before. Because of you, I feel that I can fight at my best in the coming battle!" The idiot proclaimed loudly.
When he saw that people around him were murmuring to themselves, he realized he might have just given away the advantage he just received. Sure enough, some curious gladiators approached Nightmare to see if they could get some of that special service for themselves. Only those who were less sure of their victory came forward however, while the more confident and cunning among them were unwilling to subject themselves to a possible trap. After all, there were many kinds of devil fruit in the world, Nightmare might be sabotaging them for all they knew.
Nightmare made a lot of friends helping gladiators with old injuries or who were just getting on in years to get back to proper fighting shape. Bartolomeo grit his teeth in jealousy, but ultimately he didn't want to accidentally reveal Nightmare's true identity. He just had to take solace in being the only one in the know about it.
The foreign contestants stayed far away from Nightmare and some talked among themselves about what they thought of her. Most of them knew that Nightmare was someone to watch out for just by watching the way she moved.
A large brute of a man wearing a paper bag over his head and the name tag "Mr. Store" was getting excited knowing that Nightmare would be in the same block as himself. He had been worried that the qualifiers wouldn't be any fun.
A woman by the name "Cherry Cherry P. Sakuruda" had the funny feeling that she was being watched. Unbeknownst to her that wasn't just a feeling but the reality. She could only blame her bad luck for having a name so close to the name of the woman the Doflamingo family was on the lookout for.
A gladiator wearing a full helmet and the name tag "Ricky" watched Nightmare curiously. He had enough sense not to trust the woman's "special service", but was seriously considering taking the risk anyways. This wasn't a fight he could afford to lose and any edge he could gain was necessary. Ultimately he made his way over to her.
"Are you still offering your massages?" Ricky asked, simultaneously hoping she would say both no and yes.
Nightmare met his gaze through the slits in his helmet. "Anything for an esteemed elder such as yourself."
Ricky almost flinched. He questioned himself about whether the young woman knew his true identity. He saw no recognition in her eyes, but he did see pity in them.
Nightmare got to work and seemed to know his old aches and pains even better than he did. After a moment she spoke up "This tournament is important for you, hm? Enough to gamble your life?"
Ricky considered her for a moment. "I've lived long enough. Better to risk what's left over for a good reason."
"Is that so? Well, don't be so hasty to die. You could still win this thing." Nightmare said, putting the finishing touches on Ricky's lower back muscles.
Suddenly Ricky felt a ball of warmth enter his body from Nightmare's hand and envelop his heart. Before he could jerk up in alarm, Nightmare's hand went to his shoulders and held him down with a strength that he wouldn't expect from her thin arms.
"Whoa there, haven't finished your shoulders yet. After this you'll feel like a billion Beri, I promise." Nightmare said in a soothing voice.
While Ricky was wracking his brain about how to get out of this without making himself look like the aggressor, Nightmare's words seemed to come true. That warmth in his chest expanded and filled his body with a strength he'd never known before.
Nightmare's hands left his shoulders and she gave him a wink. "I gave you an extra special service that I didn't give the others. Good luck in Block B, maybe I'll see you in the finals?"
As Nightmare walked away, Ricky's mind was blank, unsure what was going on and if he should do anything about it. Then his mind produced a memory from a couple of years ago. He had been watching a broadcast of the execution of someone, he couldn't remember who, then Whitebeard had shown up and wrecked Marineford. Before the old pirate joined the fight in earnest, a young woman had done something to him that made him fight like a young man again.
Ricky's eyes widened in disbelief. If his thoughts were the truth, then perhaps there was someone in Dressrosa who could defeat Doflamingo and return it to its previous peace.
Kapitel 242: Rebecca
Cherry, Nightmare, saw a large familiar figure walk into the room along with his two grandsons. Chinjao stood tall and proud, much unlike the depressed and relatively meek air he gave off the first time Cherry met him, undoubtedly due to his sharp and pointy head being restored to its former glory.
Chinjao met Nightmare's eyes, but gave no sign that he recognised or even acknowledged her presence except for the ghost of a smile that formed on his lips. His two Grandsons also met her gaze, but they lacked the experience and power of observation to see through her disguise instantly as Chinjao had.
Nightmare approached the trio and directly offered her services. "Old timer, would you like me to set your creaky bones and aching joints right with my massage arts? Although we are to be competitors, it would be too sad for you to fall in the preliminaries to a bunch of youngsters barely out of diapers without even showing your full might, no?"
One could have heard a pin drop in the following silence. Everyone held their breath, waiting to see if Chinjao would turn the young woman into a bloody paste. Sai and Boo looked simultaneously furious at Nightmare, but also nervous that their Grandfather would burst a gasket and get himself disqualified for fighting outside the arena.
"Hiyahohohoho!" Contrary to everyone's expectation, he didn't lash out in rage but gave a hearty laugh instead. "Massage arts, eh? Did your master tell you to tease me just like she did back in the day? I'd suppose she'd be a grandmaster at her age now. Go ahead then, it'll remind me of old times. Just don't put me to sleep."
Nightmare smiled, she didn't expect that Chinjao would actually play along well enough to improve her disguise. She wondered if the master he referred to was a real person and if she was the one who taught Serene. It wasn't terribly unlikely, as Chinjao was a renowned martial artist so he would be familiar with other martial arts masters around the world.
Nightmare did as she said she would, and also like the gladiator Ricky from before she gave him vital energy to enrich and strengthen him. This was different from a direct infusion like she did for Whitebeard two years ago. She used her fusion fruit to create a bundle of vital energy that would slowly release itself into the body over the course of about half a day. It wasn't as great a boost as a direct infusion, but lasted a great deal longer.
It wasn't as draining as what she did for Whitebeard either, as she had gone up a realm since then so her vital energy was not only in larger supply but in greater quality as well. Chinjao didn't really compare to Whitebeard either, though she wouldn't say that out loud.
"There you go, old man. Like this, you could take a punch from Garp no problem, maybe even two before he put your lights out again." Nightmare said.
"Hiyahohohoho! Just for that, I won't go easy on you!" Chinjao laughed goodnaturedly.
"I wouldn't ask you to. We have to put on a good show for the audience, hm?" Nightmare said with a meaningful look.
Chinjao nodded and stood up. "Let's go, Sai, Boo."
Once out of earshot, or at least what he thought was out of ear shot, Sai asked, "Do you know that woman, Old Man? Who is her master that you mentioned?"
Chinjao responded with an admonishing knuckle to his head. "You need to work on your haki, you fool of a grandson. You won't become the head of my Happo Navy like that!"
Sai rubbed his head and couldn't think of a reason that he deserved a blow to the head. It obviously had something to do with that woman from before, but he didn't know what.
Nightmare didn't stick around to twiddle her thumbs waiting for the tournament to start, but instead went to explore the colosseum. The bars on the windows were made of sea stone alloy, making it seem more like a prison than an arena for entertainment. She found out that that was a very apt comparison after ten minutes of wandering the halls.
"You guys look pretty rough." Nightmare said to the gladiators sitting in a prison cell, many of whom were heavily bandaged from injuries and even had amputated limbs.
"..." The gladiators paid no mind to her, sulking in their pitiful circumstances. Cherry didn't blame them, as it was not outside the realm of possibility that visitors to their little cell mocked them from outside the bars.
"Are any of you willing to tell me a little more about Dressrosa? I'm a foreigner in these lands and the city outside these walls seems a little too perfect for a country run by a ruthless pirate like Doflamingo." Nightmare said.
That caught their interest, as it wasn't common for someone to badmouth Doflamingo in his own domain, even if the bad mouthing was entirely true.
"How about I bring you some food in exchange for answering my questions? I doubt you're being fed properly, right?" Nightmare hammered the final nail in the coffin to seal the deal.
"Food first." One of them spoke up. They were already as good as dead, there was no harm in taking a risk to acquire a decent meal for the first time in years.
"I'll be right back, then." Nightmare left them and soon returned with a whole food cart with her. She had purchased the entire stock from the vendor and added a little extra to rent the cart from him. The man was more than happy to make such a big sale and finish working for the day.
The gladiators in the cage were dumbfounded.
"What? Did you think I'd only feed one or a few of you or something? A friend of mine wouldn't forgive me if I did that. Well, he would, but only reluctantly. Okay, maybe he wouldn't even be mad at me in the first place, but that's besides the point." Nightmare spoke in a stream of consciousness.
The gladiator's were moved to tears by this act of kindness and generosity. They had rarely been treated as fellow human beings in their time fighting for their lives in the colosseum, and never by an outsider.
All in all, Cherry didn't get too much information from them. They knew of Dressrosa's local legends as well as some of the tyranny that Doflamingo had inflicted upon them. The story about how the previous royal family was deposed was interesting, in a tragic sort of way. The gladiators only knew the side of the story that Doflamingo told the public, that the previous king Riku had gone mad, stealing the peoples' wealth on false pretenses before turning around and slaughtering them. However, they were quite insistent that the story had to be a load of bullshit, even if they didn't know the full story themselves.
"Why are you so sure that it's not true though? Just because Doflamingo is an evil bastard, that doesn't mean that this King Riku wasn't guilty of those things." Nightmare asked them.
They looked at each other as they ate the fried rice dish from the food cart. They seemed to communicate between themselves with their eyes some unknown secret that they were unwilling to tell her.
"They can't believe it because of me. They have too much faith in my feeble self." A female gladiator said, walking over from behind a nearby corner. "I am that king's granddaughter, so they cannot believe that the king could be such a fiend, especially with his previous track record of pacifism and charity."
She had pink hair in a long braid that came out from beneath a brass helmet. Her only other armor was a round shield on her back, a scale mail bikini top and loin cloth, and knee high sabatons.
"You're not dressed like that by choice are you?" Nightmare raised an eyebrow at her.
"This is the only armor they allow me to wear. I can either accept the modest protection this offers me or protect my modesty without any armor at all." She stated flatly, though a light blush at her cheeks betrayed her inner sense of shame.
"That's it, I'm gonna kill that giggly bastard." Cherry swore with a glint in her eyes. This girl couldn't be much older than Robin was when she had met her all those years ago.
The pink haired girl flinched slightly, even though the anger displayed on Nightmare's face wasn't directed at her. She was very used to murderous looks being sent her way, but she had never seen or felt one so focused and intense. She even briefly even believed the woman could do as she said she would before her logical brain took over and told her it was a false hope.
"Do not pity me. I am a gladiator and I will fight my own battles." She said, mostly to steel her resolve rather than to admonish Nightmare.
"Alright, then." Nightmare's anger seemed to scatter to the winds like it was never there to begin with. She held out her hand for a handshake. "I'm Nightmare."
"Rebecca." Rebecca replied and took the hand, which gripped her hand more firmly than she would expect given how soft it was. "Thank you for giving my friends here a proper meal, by the way."
"It's a fair trade, nothing more. They were very forthcoming in sating my curiosity after all." Nightmare said. "Perhaps we can talk some more later, but for now I want to see if I can catch one of these fairies I heard about just now."
As Nightmare walked away, Rebecca and the gladiators got the feeling she was an eccentric person. Then they got the impression that she was a dangerous person, as each step left a pulverized footstep behind in the stone. Apparently she was still angry even if she hid it well.
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