章節 268: Zoro vs Diamante
The colosseum's doctor, or rather the member of the Donquixote pirates who was posing as a doctor, was having a smoke and flirting with one of the "nurses" when suddenly the trap door he sent the wounded contestants through was sliced to pieces.
The two "nurses" squealed in fright and fled the room, whilst the "doctor" froze in place.
The culprit behind the destroyed trap door hopped out and sheathed his sword. His short, green hair identified him as one of the stronger contenders from the tournament, even though he was missing his white mustache and sunglasses.
Fortunately for the "doctor", Zoro was much like a tyrannosaurus rex in that he could only see movement.
What other reason could there be for Zoro to ignore the "doctor's" presence entirely after he became Zoro's arch nemesis by dropping him down a chute to his doom?
Bartolomeo was different though, as he was one of the modern descendents of the great tyrannosaurus rex, the noble rooster. What he lacked in raw murderous potential, he made for with his ability to see unmoving prey and his ability to hold a grudge.
*boof*
Bartolomeo landed a swift kick straight to the "doctor's" gonads, leaving the man to crumple to the floor.
"That isn't very honorable…" The red haired painter commented.
"What's honor? Can I eat it?" Bartolomeo asked rhetorically, picking his nose.
"I'm going to crash the tournament finals. You two do as you wish." Zoro said, figuring he could get a decent fight that way.
Bartolomeo was naturally happy to follow Zoro around like a lost puppy, but the red haired painter thought it better to go his own way.
"Perhaps in the future, we'll meet again." The red haired painter gave his farewell with a short bow of his head
Little did he know that they would meet again very soon.
Zoro made his way back to the arena with Bartolomeo in tow. As he had hoped, the finals were still going.
There was a brief lull in the fight caused by some chaos in the stands, but that didn't matter to Zoro. All that mattered to him was that the tall guy facing the old man and the pink haired woman was holding a sword in his hand.
Zoro looked at Bartolomeo and said "You protect the old man and the woman." Then he grew a toothy smile as he leapt into the ring over the moat, drawing his swords along the way in mid air.
"Z- Z- Z- Z- Zoro-senpai is relying on meeeee~!!!" Bartolomeo gushed with sparkling eyes and blushing cheeks.
Bartolomeo made a ramp with his barrier and slid down to the arena platforms. He would perform this service to the utmost of his capabilities, and it just so happened that there was no one in the world better suited for it.
It was impossible for Diamante to miss the recklessly obvious charge that Zoro did, so he sent his sword blade whipping in his direction using his flag devil fruit powers.
Zoro was momentarily surprised, but adapted quickly by using two swords to block. Had he used just one, the flag-like sword would have wrapped around and cut him anyways.
This annoyed Diamante greatly, as people usually fell for this little trap of his. He still had many other tricks up his sleeves, though, so this was merely a minor setback.
The bigger problem was Bartolomeo. He now had a barrier set up between him and the royal grandfather and granddaughter. Getting around it wasn't a simple matter and may very well be considered impossible for himself alone.
"Thank you for this, young man." Riku said graciously.
"Shut up! I'm only doing this because Zoro-senpai asked me to! I haven't forgotten that dirty, rotten sneak attack you pulled on me! Don't you have any shame?!" Bartolomeo ranted grumpily.
'You're one to talk…' Riku and Rebecca thought in unison.
Zoro broke through Diamante's guard, only to be met with his cape that was as tough as steel. Instinctual calculations were made inside of Zoro's mostly empty head, quickly coming up with a solution to the problem.
'I'll cut through the steel.' Zoro thought rather straightforwardly.
He has long been at the level of cutting steel, but adding armament haki into the mix complicated the matter somewhat. Not to mention that the cape wasn't rigid like most steel, but rather had all the flexibility of a normal cape. That would slow down any attack that he got through it even further, giving Diamante a chance to deflect it.
'I'll just have to cut even deeper then.' Zoro concluded his ingenious strategy. 'First things tfirst, though…'
Diamante thrust his rapier at Zoro's chest. Zoro stepped aside just enough to slip past it, running one of his swords along its edge to keep it from slicing his flesh.
Normally that would be enough, but Diamante's rapier was only rigid when he wanted it to be. He flicked his wrist with the intent of sending a rolling wave down the length of the sword and cutting Zoro, but that was exactly what Zoro was waiting for.
Now that the blade was no longer stiff, Zoro expertly wrapped the blade around his own sword several times and YANKED.
Diamante had at first scoffed at him. He was of a much larger build than Zoro, surely he could overpower Zoro in this attempt to disarm him.
Diamante was wrong, though. Few swordsmen were as obsessed with increasing their physical might as much as Zoro was. If it wasn't for the fact that Cherry refused to fix him up after every workout, he'd even delve into self destructive methods that could easily cripple him.
The result was thus quite unexpected to Diamante. Instead of counter disarming Zoro, he instead found himself lurching forward. Right into the waiting blades of his enemy.
Diamante used his free hand to whirl his cape up to block. At the same time he dodged to the side, which turned out to be the wisest course of action as Zoro's sword ripped through the steel cape like a knife through frozen butter. That is to say, not the easiest cut, but the knife still wins in the end.
As Zoro extracted his swords for another go, Diamante threw the cape back behind him and-
*Bang!*
He fired a flintlock pistol at Zoro from point blank range.
Zoro bent his torso, causing the bullet to fly past him harmlessly. "I saw that coming from a mile away, even without my observation haki. Your dirty tricks have got nothing on Cherry's."
Diamante grit his teeth in frustration.
"Take him down, Zoropp!" A cheer came from the crowd.
That cheer set off a wave of cheers and shouts to defeat Diamante. By this time, the former toys had had time to spread their stories amongst the audience, turning the ire of the crowd against Doflamingo and his cronies.
"That coward actually pulled out a pistol!" "Stuff it down his throat, Zoropp!" "Pierce him with your superior sword!" "Spill his fluids on the ground!" "Hey guys, that's starting to sound a bit… lewd…" and many more similar cries were heard.
Zoro paid the fools no mind. Their loyalties were far too flimsy and they didn't seem to want to take any responsibility for their own participation in Doflamingo's bloody rule.
Diamante had heard enough of them, though. He pulled out several flags, which turned into firework launching tubes upon the release of his devil fruit.
"Death Enjambre!" Diamante cried as the tubes exploded, sending steel gray confetti rocketing high into the air.
He began to sway his hips from side to side then the entire colosseum started to sway and roll in tandem with his motion.
"Release!" Diamante spoke with a sneer, and pulled out an umbrella.
The gray confetti transformed into a multitude of spiked iron balls, which started to plummet towards not just the arena, but the audience as well!
Even off balance, Zoro was confident in defending himself, and he didn't need to worry about Bartolomeo and the two he was protecting either.
"Damn it!" Zoro shouted in annoyance, knowing he wouldn't be able to stomach standing by as the audience was slaughtered. No matter how much he disliked them.
Zoro poised himself with his three swords, doing some quick last second adjustments before he made his move.
章節 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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