Chapter 15: A Hopeless Fight
The pirate captain's manic declaration did its work. It ignited a desperate, greedy fire in the hearts of his wavering crew. Why did they become pirates? For fame! For infamy that would make the world remember their names! And here was the ultimate shortcut—ravaging the home of the Marine Hero himself. The fact that it was a vile, cowardly act meant nothing. They were already villains.
"It seems there's no avoiding a fight," Satoru murmured. A smile touched his lips—a cold, sharp thing that held no warmth, only a flicker of cruel excitement. Against scum like this, he wouldn't need to hold back.
As the first pirate, emboldened by his captain's words, lunged at him, Satoru moved. His fist shot forward, Cursed Energy condensing into a volatile point.
Black Flash.
The impact wasn't just physical; it was a concussive blast of distorted force. The pirate didn't just fall; he was launched backward as if fired from a cannon, his body sailing in a high arc before splashing down into the sea far from shore.
Silence.
The remaining pirates stared, their bravado evaporating. Their brains couldn't process it. A child? Sending a full-grown man flying like a ragdoll? None of them could do that.
Fear, cold and immediate, began to seep into their bones. They looked at the small, white-haired figure with new eyes. If he could do that to their crewmate, he could do it to them. And a hit that powerful, from that distance... that man was dead.
They were small-time East Blue thugs, never having seen the true horrors of the Grand Line. Faced with the impossible and the shadow of Garp looming over the island, some felt their courage shatter.
"B-boy..." the captain snarled, his single good eye narrowing. "You're a Devil Fruit user, aren't you?"
Jealousy, hot and bitter, surged in his chest. The Devil Fruit—a mythic power he'd chased but never found. He'd almost convinced himself they were fairy tales. But this... this unnatural strength from a child's body... it had to be the work of a Fruit!
"Probably," Satoru replied, not bothering to correct him. They'd be corpses soon. Let them think what they wanted.
"Don't be scared, you worthless dogs!" the captain roared, trying to rally them. "He's just one kid! We're a crew! We swarm him, we take him down! Kill him, and our names will echo across the seas!"
But no one moved. Fear had rooted them to the sand.
"Since you won't come to me," Satoru said, his voice chillingly calm, "I'll come to you."
His body seemed to flicker. It wasn't true teleportation, but an advanced application of the Cursed Technique Lapse: Blue, compressing space to pull himself forward in an instant. To the pirates, he simply vanished and reappeared right in front of one of them.
Before the man could even gasp, Satoru's fist was buried in his gut. Another Black Flash, another body hurled into the sea with a sickening crack of breaking ribs.
"MONSTER! HE'S A MONSTER!"
A pirate screamed, his sanity snapping. He fumbled for his flintlock pistol, raised it with shaking hands, and fired at point-blank range.
Satoru didn't dodge. He just glanced at the barrel.
Crunch.
The metal of the gun twisted inward upon itself like a pretzel, rendering it useless. The pirate shrieked and threw the mangled weapon away as if it were a poisonous snake.
"ALL OF YOU! GET HIM NOW!" the captain bellowed, true panic edging his voice. "He's not letting any of us leave! It's him or us! FIGHT, YOU COWARDS! FIGHT FOR YOUR LIVES!"
The final logic broke through their terror. They couldn't run. The only way out was through the small demon standing before them. A collective, desperate snarl rose from the group. Their eyes, once greedy, were now filled with the feral madness of cornered animals. They raised cutlasses, clubs, and pistols, and charged as one. Bullets flew in a wild spray.
Satoru's smile widened. This is more like it.
As the wave of violence hit him, he activated Infinity at its fullest, most conscious capacity. He wasn't at Gojo Satoru's peak, where all attacks ceased an infinite distance away. But for these ordinary thugs, with their weak swings and slow bullets, it was more than enough.
Their blades stopped inches from his skin, meeting an invisible, gelatinous wall they couldn't push through. The bullets slowed to a crawl, then dropped harmlessly to the sand at his feet. It was no longer a brawl; it was a one-sided demonstration of an insurmountable gap.
Satoru moved through them like a ghost. Each step was precise, each motion economical. A Black Flash to a chest sent a pirate crumpling. A palm strike amplified by Cursed Energy shattered a collarbone. He used their momentum against them, throwing one into another, creating a tangle of broken limbs and pained shouts.
"WHY CAN'T WE HIT HIM?! WHY?!" a pirate sobbed, slashing wildly at the empty air around Satoru before collapsing to his knees, utterly broken.
"You should go to Hell and ask King Yama," Satoru said, his voice devoid of all emotion as he appeared before the weeping man. "Maybe he'll give you an answer."
His fist descended.
The fight was not a battle. It was an eradication. The sand of Windmill Village's pristine beach, for the first time in memory, was slowly being stained a deep, ugly red.
(End of Chapter)
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