Chapter 8 – The World’s Secret Organization, Cipher Pol Number Zero.
A cocky laugh escaped from Nadeisco as he listened to Luffy’s claims about kicking his ass. It would have been unlike him had he not laughed, because saying something like that was simply preposterous to the doctor.
“You,” he demanded, shaking his head and taking a few steps towards the pirate, “You’re going to kick my ass, are you? Well go ahead and try it and we’ll see how well that works out for you.” Nadeisco stood in place and opened his arms as if he were inviting Luffy to attack him. “Give me your best shot, Straw Hat.”
Nodding and punching his knuckles together, Luffy drew his fist back, causing everyone in the other room to quickly get out of the way as not to get drawn into the conflict. His punch shot forward, smashing through the wall on the way and plowing directly into Nadeisco’s stomach with enough force to shatter through rock. “Gomu Gomu no Bullet!”
Tekkai! Nadeisco’s body took the hit with full force, but he apparently took no damage despite the monstrous strength of Luffy. He caught Luffy’s arm before it could be stretched back and proceeded to attack. “That punch may have been strong enough to shatter through Blueno’s Tekkai, but I’ll tell you now that I’m at least three times stronger than he could ever hope to be!” A blue aura surrounded his finger when he started to jab them ferociously into his arm, drawing blood with each pierce as if he were using a sharpened scalpel. “My Shigan is exactly like every other piercing bullet, but with my Idou Idou no Mi, I can use its abilities of medical knowledge to pierce your veins and nerves, hurting even a rubber man like yourself.”
Tekkai? Shigan? This bastard is just like those guys?! Zoro thought to himself, eyes widening a bit when he thought back to Kaku of CP9 and how much trouble they gave them with their unique Rokushiki abilities. “Luffy, he’s just like one of those guys that…”
He was cut off when Luffy began to speak, “Yeah, I know, he’s like the pigeon bastard and the bull guy we fought to save Robin,” He stared hard at Nadeisco, putting on a serious, yet somehow calm expression and cracking his knuckles. “Two times, three times, twenty times stronger than them, it won’t matter, because I’m going to kick your ass all the same.”
Nadeisco was relatively surprised that Luffy did not seem fazed at all by having his arm pierced through by the multitude of Shigan attacks he hit him with, but he was still confident in his abilities to defeat him. “So you guys remember the Rokushiki abilities belonging to CP9, even though they were a bunch of novices with the exception of Rob Lucci-san, who put us all to shame when he lost to a monkey like you.” A wicked grin formed on his face as Nadeisco held his hand up, which was soaked in blood from puncturing Luffy’s veins and laughing again. “We are the world’s black ops organization, Cipher Pol Number Zero, designed to operate in total secrecy to exterminate threads to the World Government such as pests like you.”
“Cipher Pol Zero,” Robin suddenly spoke up, looking at Nadeisco like he was mad, “It only goes up to Nine, so how could your operation possibly exist?”
Chuckling lightly, Nadeisco put a hand on his hip and began to explain things to her in a very matter-of-fact tone, “It’s true that in the official records, the Cipher Pol organization only went up to Number Nine and that the CP9 was meant to be a secret organization not known by the general public, but the truth is that everyone knew about CP9, even a multitude of Marine scrubs that should never have known. However, there is always a darker force hiding beneath the surface, and that is the Cipher Pol Zero, known only to Fleet Admiral Sengoku himself and his three Admirals. We are the strongest organization in the world, and as such, we will capture you criminals and have you executed without hesitation!”
Letting out an angry battle cry, Luffy took a bold step forward and punched Nadeisco in the face, dropping him to the ground like a rock and glaring down at him with seething anger. “I don’t care who or what you are, but you hurt one of my nakama and I won’t forgive you for that.”
Rejuvenation. Groaning slightly, Nadeisco pushed himself to a vertical base and locked eyes with Luffy, an apparent detest for him. The cut on his lip disappeared from where Luffy punched him and he wiped the blood away, appearing as if he suffered little to no pain from the hit. “Don’t expect to get a lucky punch in like that again, because you only caught me off guard.”
Stretching an arm out, Luffy grabbed Jeran and pulled him away from Nadeisco, ignoring his constant ranting and carrying him over to the others much to his ire, so he leapt forward and brought his leg sweeping down with a beam of energy coating it. However, Luffy rotated the lower half of his body around and caught the kick with his sandal, redirecting it into the ceiling where it cut through the roof harmlessly.
“Take him,” Luffy said before turning back to face Nadeisco again, straightening up his treasured hat and walking towards him, drawing his arms back and launching them forward in a flurry of punches. “Gomu Gomu no Gatling!”
Scoffing, Nadeisco appeared to only stand in place as the punches came flying at him, but as one of them was about to come into contact with him, he sidestepped it easily. “Kami-e,” he muttered quietly and began to move as limp as paper and avoid all of the punches. “I already told you that you’re not going to get so lucky about hitting me again, Straw Hat.”
A grin formed on his face even though he was missing every single attack, but he stopped suddenly and thrust both of his palms forward as if he were going to do a Bazooka attack. All of the punching was to build up speed and strength with his rapid hits before delivering a direct blow to Nadeisco’s abdomen.
“…?!” When Nadeisco saw Luffy change his attack pattern out of nowhere, he was taken off guard, but a Tekkai was waiting to take the powerful strike head on. The shockwave of force that blasted away from Nadeisco’s body was enough to splinter the wood of the building. He hunched over in pain, holding onto his stomach and spitting out blood from the impact, almost dropping to his knees had he not taken away some of the pain with his powers. Well, I wasn’t expecting him to break through my Tekkai so easily, but I do have to give him some credit for being as strong as they see he is.
Standing back up to his full height, Nadeisco regained his calm composure and glanced towards Luffy again, putting on a smug smirk. “So is that the best you’ve got? I’m afraid you’ll have to do better than that to bring me down.”
Frowning and contemplating the situation, Luffy lifted his hand into the air and stuck his thumb in his mouth, preparing to bite down and activate his Gear Third ability. However, he was stopped when Nami shouted out to him from the other room.
“Luffy, no,” she cried out, causing him to take his thumb from his mouth and look back at her. “You can’t keep using such debilitating techniques that wrack so much pain into your body, even if you need it to defeat an enemy like this.” Nami pulled out her Tact and stood in front of him with a strong conviction present. “We’ll just have to find some other way to defeat him.”
“Nami,” Luffy complained, almost whining like a young child due to his youthful spirit, “If I can’t hurt him with some of my strongest punches, then I don’t want to risk any of my nakama getting hurt in order to fight this guy.”
Pushing him to the side, Zoro forced his way into the room and drew out Wadō Ichimonji, pointing it at Nadeisco with a glare in his eyes. “His Tekkai may be strong against punches, but I’ve already been able to cut through a strong defense and it doesn’t put so much stress on my body, so let us handle this one Captain.”
Before any of them could make a move, Nadeisco included, the sound of an object shooting through the air could be heard when an explosion went off in the alley outside, blowing up a massive amount of debris and filling the room with a cloud of dust.
“What the hell,” Nadeisco demanded, not even knowing what caused it. He disappeared from sight with his Soru ability, appearing out in the middle of the smoldering crater and looking out to the dock to see a Marine vessel floating offshore with all of its cannons armed. Two more projectiles were seen flying towards the hospital, but Nadeisco launched two beam kicks with Rankyaku and cut them in half, destroying them before they reached their target. “That vessel belongs to that damn dancing fool Rick, but why would he be attacking the island?”
Rick was sitting in a chair on the deck of his ship, bandages wrapped around his forehead and issuing orders to the many Marines on the ship. Brago was standing at his side with bloodied bandages on his torso from where he was cut by Zoro. It seemed that they were both still very much alive despite the ferocious attacks they suffered from their enemies.
“I know those damn Straw Hats are still on this island and I’m going to blast them away before they have a chance to escape,” Rick picked up a Den Den Mushi off the deck and began to talk into it. “Sambo, I want you to prepare the Cha Cha Cannon and fire it upon the town without thought of consequences.”
“Yes, sir,” a voice responded and the phone hung up to show that whoever the Sambo person was, he was going to start performing his task. A hatch opened up on the side of the vessel and a large cannon was pushed forward. The fuse was lit and in a matter of seconds, the cannon was knocked back by the force as a sphere that resembled a disco ball shot out, flying into the town before stopping and shattering, releasing hundreds of tiny orbs in all directions that started to cause destruction haphazardly.
“Oi, you idiot,” Nadeisco shouted from the dock, glaring up at Rick from below. “You’re going to end up killing us all if you keep firing things like that. He seemed to get no response from the Captain and another cannon burst, launching a cannonball at him and blowing up the dock he was standing on. It appeared that Nadeisco had been dropped into the ocean to drown, but he was standing on an odd craft in the ocean that resembled a slim canoe with two motor powered paddles on the sides to propel it across the ocean.
The engine kicked into gear and shot forward, being controlled by Nadeisco’s movements as he leaned side to the side to cause the ship to swerve past Rick’s large vessel and escape into the open ocean. “That damn fool could’ve killed me. I’ll have to make sure he pays for his crimes of attacking a CP0 agent in the future.”
Back on the island, the hospital had been destroyed in its entirety, but the Straw Hats emerged from below the rubble and merely dusted themselves off. The ten of them soon departed and walked towards the now broken dock where the Sunny was waiting despite the fact Rick’s ship was staring down at them, waiting to launch another projectile.
“That was dangerous,” Luffy commented, laughing heartily and looking up to see a cannonball flying at them. “Gaaagh! Gomu Gomu no Fuusen!” Inflating his body, he launched it back at the ship and sent it sailing past the mast, just barely missing it. “Everyone get on board the ship and prepare to disembark the island!”
Jumping onto the ship, all of the pirates made the preparations necessary to leave while they continued to deflect and destroy Rick’s constant barrage of cannon fire. Getting frustrated, Luffy caught one of the cannonballs in midair and rotated around quickly before hurling it back at the ship and destroying the main mast with it so that they could not follow them.
“Franky, hit the Coup de Burst!” he shouted, looking back at all the others and bracing himself by grabbing the railing of the ship. “Everyone find something to hold onto!”
Nodding, Franky began to run down to the cola system of the ship while the other Straw Hats turned the ship to face towards the open sea for their great escape. “This is going to be a super experience for you, Jeran-kun, so watch the amazing skills of Shipwright Franky in action! Yeaaaaaghhhh! Coup de…Burst!” The cannon in the back of the ship became activated, charging up a laser and blasting it out to propel the ship high into the air, launching it away from Hitoya and far out into the open ocean.
Jeran let out a loud yell, suddenly flying back and hitting the railing where he dug his nails into the deck so he would not get launched off the Thousand Sunny. “G-Good lord, panty man, what kind of crazy capabilities does this crew have?!” When the ship hit the ocean, it sent water spraying up into the air and splashing onto the deck. “I just wanna know why that guy focused so much attention on me in the first place. He said that looking at me made him angry because it reminded him of something.”
I’m pretty sure the only enemies I’ve made in my life were those Black Hole bastards from when I got my hands on the Garou Garou no Mi. Maybe I should go back to Parm to talk to my old man. He might know something about this guy if I go and talk to him personally, because my old man was known to travel abroad. Maybe he made some enemies during his travels.
“Woo, that was a close call,” Luffy commented, grinning and straightening up his hat while looking at Jeran. “So now that we have a new nakama, I think it’s about time we make our way back to the Grand Line.”
“G-Grand Line,” Jeran echoed the words, seeming a bit taken aback that they were so suddenly going to leave for such a dangerous ocean. However, he had to take into account that they had already been there and it probably was not so scary for them anymore. “Hey, Luffy-san, do you think before we go there…I could possibly stop by and see my old man? I think he’d like to know that I’m alive and well at least before I go running off into the Grand Line.”
Smiling widely, Luffy nodded and slapped him on the shoulder one good time that almost caused him to stumble. “Sure! We’ll all go to our new wolf nakama’s home and see his old geezer!”
“I don’t think he’d like being called that,” Jeran chuckled nervously and put a hand behind his head. “But thanks a lot for considering this, it means a lot to me.” His head perked up, almost as if he felt like someone was watching them. Jeran turned around to see a pirate ship in the distance that looked familiar to him and a strange feeling washed over him. “That’s…That’s the ship of the Black Hole Pirates!”
