254 Mr. Prince

"So he IS Straw Hat Luffy! That bastard lied to me!" The man called Cavendish raged. "Wait, didn't you claim to know him, Nightmare?"

"I'm just as surprised as you are. I could have sworn he was Roku, he looks just like him. See look…" Nightmare claimed and dug out an old looking photograph.

Cavendish examined the photograph and sure enough it showed a teenage girl who looked like Nightmare next to a middle aged woman who resembled her and a man who looked just like "Lucy" from the beard to the lanky, fit body to the stupid, toothy smile.

Cavendish had been suspicious, but nobody could fake photographic evidence could they? It had to be a crazy coincidence. The other fighters who were similarly confused and suspicious accepted this as fact as well.

Naturally the photograph was a fabrication of Cherry's that she prepared after her "confrontation" with Lucy. A fairly simple thing to do when you could directly fuse pigments to paper and had an eye for detail. Thankfully there were plenty of people with den den mushi cameras among the audience that she could pilfer photo paper from.

Meanwhile, in the arena Luffy had gotten properly angry. The suggestion that he wasn't worthy of one of his friends wasn't something he could let slide. "How am I not good enough, you geezer?! I'M GOING TO BE KING OF THE PIRATES!!!"

"A brat like you, become King of the Pirates?! Don't speak nonsense, you're barely out of diapers!" Chinjao countered.

There was a thrum that shook the air throughout the entire colosseum. Most of the remaining gladiators directly collapsed, out cold. Sparks of something that wasn't electricity spontaneously formed in the air between the two conquerors.

Luffy cast away what little doubt there was about his true identity as he blew up his arm to gigantic proportions, hardening his massive fist with deep black haki. Chinjao similarly prepared himself for a real clash as his haki surged up to the tip of his pointy head, his beard flaring out like an angry god.

Luffy's Elephant Gun slammed into Chinjao's piercing headbutt that violently vibrated with Hasshoken. The clash created a shockwave second only to the overwhelming might of the King Punch earlier in the previous match.

For a moment they seemed to be evenly matched, but eventually one of them had to give. When Luffy threw a second inflated fist at Chinjao, he was the one to come out on top. Chinjao didn't have a second head after all. Worse still, Chinjao's stubbornness to hold his ground no matter what resulted in his head finally buckling beneath the tremendous pressure.

*WHOOSH BOOM!*

Chinjao slammed hard against the wall below the audience's seats and slid into the moat. He was fortunate that the fighting fish were unconscious from the previous clash of conqueror's haki, lest they would have attacked his helpless body.

If the cheers weren't so loud, people would be able to hear the mad cackling of Nightmare and would wonder what such a stoic figure found so funny about the fight. The truth of the matter was that Cherry thought it was hilarious that both Garp and his grandson had smashed Chinjao's head flat, and how the old man was sure to hold this grudge for every descendent of the Monkey family for the rest of eternity.

Sai and Boo, whilst floating in the water, could only let out resigned sighs. Their grandfather would be ranting their ears off about this for a long time. They couldn't even count the number of times he had told them the story of Garp smashing his skull over their lives, and he had had years to get over it by then. This time the wound to his head and his pride would be fresh.

'Hopefully Cherry can fix him up again…' They both thought at the same time.

"Who could have predicted this result? The previously unknown Lucy has defeated Don Chinjao and taken the finalist position for Block C." Señor Pink spoke monotonously, not even trying to hide the script he was reading in his hand.

'How could he not know that's Straw Hat Luffy…?' Thought many in the audience, who couldn't fathom how Señor Pink could have missed the very loud conversation between Luffy and Chinjao.

Rebecca wondered what she was doing here. After witnessing these first three rounds, could she really keep deluding herself into believing she could win, even by dumb luck? At the same time she was dead set on continuing, because even if it's hopeless she wouldn't be able to live with herself if she didn't at least try her hardest.

She glanced at the man she only knew as Mr. Prince. He had followed her after the reveal of the identity of Block B's finalist was her grandfather, and she had excused herself to pull herself together lest she start sobbing.

(Flashback)

"Might I ask what is the matter, mademoiselle?" Mr. Prince spoke sincerely, looking empathetically distraught.

Rebecca kept walking a few more steps, passing by the bars of a jail cell, before stopping. She did not respond or turn around, so Mr. Prince tentatively approached he intended to stop before breaching her personal space.

"Get him!" came a voice from inside the cell as he too passed by the bars.

Multiple sets of muscular, scarred, and bandaged arms shot through the gaps between the bars and grabbed hold of Mr. Prince's limbs. Caught off guards, he was pulled up against the bars quite hard and Rebecca quickly positioned herself before him, sword brandished.

This was a plan she had devised with the help of the crippled gladiators to remove strong opponents from the competition if they were able to lure someone in front of the cell. She intended to kill him and hide the body so that it wouldn't be discovered until after the tournament at the earliest. It went against everything she believed in, but she had to do it. Her innocence was not worth more than the lives of her loved ones.

She could tell that this man was strong, and he was going to be in the same block as her. She would remove him from the equation.

The already uneasy feeling in her heart from doing such a despicable thing only grew when she saw the man stop struggling as he looked her in the eyes. Her hands and the blade they held trembled, her resolve wavering as she peered into those eyes that held no negative feelings towards her, only pity and understanding.

"What are you waiting for, Rebecca! This is why you brought him here, isn't it?!" one of the gladiators holding Mr. Prince exclaimed.

Still Rebecca faltered. Mr. Prince was far too calm, it went against all her expectations for this moment and she froze up not knowing what to do.

"If taking my life means you'll stop crying, then it is a small price to pay." Mr. Prince said in a forgiving tone.

Rebecca lunged forward, blade aiming for the man's heart, his words shocked her out of her stupor and it would be the end of him. At the last moment, however, the blade stopped just before it could pierce his chest. She dropped the sword and it clattered to the ground, and she too collapsed to the ground onto her knees.

Mr. Prince hadn't even flinched. It wasn't that he didn't believe she would kill him, but that he had truly and wholeheartedly accepted his own death at that moment. It was precisely for that reason that Rebecca couldn't go through with it.

"Rebecca…" a gladiator muttered through the bars, sounding both surprised and unsurprised at the same time, but mostly filled with pity.

Mr. Prince took a step forward, muscling through the grasping hands like there was no resistance whatsoever. It was proof that he could have escaped at any moment, or attacked Rebecca before she could have harmed him.

He knelt down and extended his hand towards her as she broke down into sobs. "I can not help much if I know not what troubles you, my lady, but I can lend a shoulder to cry on if you do not wish to tell me."

"Damn, that was smooth…" whispered one of the wounded gladiators.

"I need that devil fruit to kill Doflamingo…" Rebecca finally spoke after getting some semblance of control over herself.

"Doflamingo?!" Mr. Prince said, flaring up. He had no idea what the shichibukai had done to the poor girl, but he was already willing to kill him for her.

"My soldier is going to try to kill him, but there's no way he can succeed. He's going to die, so I have to kill Doflamingo before that happens…" Rebecca said.

Mr. Prince listened attentively to Rebecca as she told the story of her life and the toy soldier that became her surrogate father. The tragedy of her mother's death and the hatred she bore from the people of Dressrosa.

Mr. Prince was seething, barely maintaining his facade of a gentleman in front of the lady. "Worry no longer, Princess! I promise that you are not alone, for my friends and I came here to face Doflamingo as well! We'll be sure to look out for your soldier as well, make sure he doesn't get into too much trouble!"

Mr. Prince's words sounded so cheesy to her, but at the same time they were very endearing in how earnestly he spoke them.

"I appreciate it, but I cannot place my hopes in others. I must protect my soldier myself, or I will regret it for the rest of my life." Rebecca said, filled with resolve now that she knows she isn't alone.

"Let's go back to watch the match." Rebecca said, turning heel so that Mr. Prince wouldn't see the faint blush rising on her cheeks.