บท 269: Disarming Diamante
Zoro began to spin with ever increasing speed.
To the outside observer, it looked incredibly unstable and even silly as he wobbled irregularly in a very chaotic fashion.
Even Ex-King Riku was stumped at the sight of Zoro's actions.
Diamante laughed at him. "Have you gone mad in the face of certain death?! How does your despair taste, Roronoa Zoro?!"
*woosh*
A breeze picked up in the arena. It quickly strengthened into a gale, then into a storm and still it was growing stronger.
It didn't take long to notice that the winds that seemed uncontrolled in nature possessed a certain order to them. Normally such a thing could not be seen, wind being formed from air currents that were invisible to the naked eye.
However, if there was something inside of those winds, then anyone with working eyes could see its direction. For example, a large number of spiked iron balls, which just so happened to be the very thing caught up in Zoro's sword storm.
Every single spiked iron ball that Diamante launched into the air was caught and redirected into a cyclone. It had to be said that the spiked iron balls weren't light by any metric.
If this feat wasn't shocking enough, Zoro changed his movements once again. The spiked projectile started to fly at Diamante from the sides where his iron umbrella did not cover him.
"Hey, that's cheating! No projectile weapons in the colosseum!" Diamante shamelessly and hypocritically cried foul.
Zoro didn't give a damn about his objections, of course.
Diamante pulled up his cape to block his own weapons. They hammered into the billowing red iron cape, but were unable to pierce through. Just when he thought he'd be safe after all, the sound of swords cutting into iron could be heard.
Zoro's storm wasn't merely a tool to redirect Diamante's cowardly attack; rather it was an attack in and of itself!
With twice the attacks slamming into his cape and adding on the winds pushing against his increased surface area, Diamante found himself getting pushed back. Right towards the moat filled with vicious, half-starved fighting fish.
This wind was the bane of his existence. Practically a perfect counter to his devil fruit that made things flow like a flag.
He frantically wracked his brain for a solution, but he could only think of one.
Call for help!
So he did just that. He pulled out his pocket den den mushi and was about to dial Doflamingo when-
*SLASH SLASH SLASH*
His cape, as well as the arm holding it up, were cut to ribbons.
"ARRRGH?!" Diamante shouted in pain.
In his desperate position, he hadn't thought that Zoro would abandon his whirlwind and attack him directly. On top of his obscured vision from his raised cape, he had also distracted himself with his den den mushi. Thus, he created the perfect opportunity for Zoro to rip through his defenses like a hot knife through butter.
The audience was deathly quiet as they watched with bated breath. The sound of Diamante's severed arm hitting the ground seemed to echo in the unusual silence of the packed colosseum.
"Eeeeeehhhhh!" The sound that came out of Diamante's mouth wasn't a scream of pain, but the squeals of a coward facing his own imminent demise.
He lashed out with his rapier. Zoro cut that apart as well, Diamante's armament haki failing him as his spirit was broken.
Diamante's eyes darted around, as if frantically searching for some way to escape from Zoro who was stalking towards him like a predator. His eyes landed on the two people behind Bartolomeo's barrier.
"Riku! Rebecca! I know who killed Scarlet! I'll tell you, you just have to save me from this lunatic!" Diamante shouted at them.
Riku and Rebecca froze. To say that they didn't want to know who had killed their daughter and mother respectively would be a lie. At the same time, did it really matter? The ultimate blame fell upon Doflamingo and his crew. Had they not usurped the throne and fooled the people, Scarlet never would have died.
"Don't listen to that sack of shit!" A shout came from the audience.
The man who shouted was dressed as a baker. It was an odd choice of clothes to come to the colosseum, which meant he was likely one of the former toys who retained his state of dress from the moment he had been transformed.
The baker's next words soon confirmed this fact. "Diamante is the one who shot Princess Scarlet! I was there ten years ago! I gave her some leftover bread that didn't sell, then that monster caught her! I was among the first to be turned into a toy as punishment for showing mercy to the old royal family!"
Diamante glared at the man with bloodshot eyes. What right did this weak, pathetic… thing have to accuse him of anything, truthful or otherwise. He should have just shot the bastard all those years ago! Never again would he be so merciful!
That glare caused the crowd around the baker to cower and slink away, but the baker held firm. Even as tears streamed down his face, he sent a hateful glare right back at the man who could kill him with hardly any effort at all. He spent ten long years toiling away against his will for these monsters, even as his fellow toys' bodies were broken around him time after time. He'd be damned before he showed an ounce of submission towards them again.
Zoro was impressed by the baker's balls of steel, but was otherwise disinterested in the whole matter. He glanced at Riku as if to ask "Should I cut him again, or do you have something else in mind for him?"
Riku really wished that Zoro hadn't left it to him to decide. After hearing that Diamante had personally murdered his beloved daughter, he wanted to see him dead. Sadly, Riku was a principled man. Bloodshed was the way of Doflamingo; it was not his way.
"Don't… kill him." Riku said through gritted teeth, blood dripping from his palms as his nails pierced them and his fists trembled.
Rebecca looked at her grandfather with sympathy, even as the audience looked at him in surprise and confusion. She didn't care if Diamante died or not, not really. She just wanted this hell to be over with. She just wanted to live peacefully with her soldier, her father whom she had forgotten, and the rest of her remaining family.
"Alright, then." Zoro whacked Diamante hard across the face with the back of his blade.
Diamante had lost a fair bit of blood, so he was already woozy and off balance. It was only fear and adrenaline that kept him standing on his feet at this point. As such, he could even resist as Zoro directly knocked him out cold.
For good measure, Zoro took a strip of Diamante's iron cape and tied it around his arm stub, pulling it tight as if it were regular cloth. It wasn't a proper way to treat an amputated limb, but he didn't really give a shit and it would stop the bleeding in any case.
"You can babysit him. I've got things to do and people to cut." Zoro said, leaving the colosseum's arena with Bartolomeo chasing after him.
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