Dust to dust

Not long had passed since I went ahead to the capital. I hummed the first melody that came to mind throughout the journey, trying my hardest to take my mind away from everything that could go wrong today.

Oden and the rest were strong, but so were Kaido and his pirates. My mind often drifted to what would happen if we lost. I shuddered just thinking about it, so for the whole journey, I hummed any melody that I could think of, my fingers imitating pressing my shamisen's cords, going along with the melody.

Before I realized it, I was already in the middle of the street in the Flower Capital, and something was screaming in the back of my mind. Something was very wrong but I couldn't figure out what.

I rested my right hand on my katana's hilt. The palm of my hand was still lightly bleeding from carving my nails into it earlier, so holding the hilt hurt a little. Still, if something were going to happen, I would at least be ready.

The streets were silent. Having grown up in this city and with my hearing, I knew all the sounds this city made. That made me frown. This silence was not usual. Focusing on my Kenbunshoku Haki made me feel the people inside their houses better.

Some were sleeping, but most were still awake, and all were either scared, anxious, or nervous. Whatever was going to occur had already happened. I expanded all my senses as much as I possible, not only my Haki.

It took me a short time to figure out what the real problem was. I got down from my horse. I wouldn't need him for his.

I walked through the streets until I found myself in the town's main square. On cue, dozens of pirates began flooding the square until it was completely full. Dozens of pirates looked my way, most smiling and laughing while gripping their weapons with anticipation. Some of them said something to me, but I just ignored it.

A sea of pirates had come after me, but none caught my attention, none except one.

At the other end of the pirate sea, a six meter giant loomed over all of the pirates. I easily recognized him as the one who was alongside Kaido in Orochi's castle. 

They were expecting me, that was clear, but how did they know I would come here?

The man just stood there, arms crossed while looking at me. Although folded behind his back, his wings were bigger than my whole body.

The pirates before me exuded a wide myriad of emotions, unease, happiness, excitement...lust for some. But from the winged man I could only feel an ocean of indifference with a drop of annoyance.

Slowly, I took step after step in their direction while carefully unsheathing my sword.

The giant man audibly sighed before speaking "What a waste of time. Just kill him"

With those words, the pirates ran excitedly towards me with their weapons drawn.

As I gripped the hilt of my sword harder, feeling the small wound in my hand hurting some more, a shiver ran down my spine with the images of the last time something similar happened flashing through my mind.

Before I could go deeper into that rabbit hole, the first pirate was a mere moment away from piercing my stomach with his sword. I easily step aside making the sword miss its target. With a quick movement of my wrist the man's head was separated from his body.

Not getting stuck in the first person I had killed in years, I quickly moved to the next pirate who was raising his sword quite crudely. Slashing at his chest, the man fell dead to the floor. Pulling my attention away, I cut an arrow aiming for my head. 

Feeling all the pirates coming at me at once, I placed my sword at the side of my hips and took a deep breath.

All the years of training in Kuri bore their results. It first happened fighting that bandit leader, Juzo, and from then on, it was only a matter of training.

"First Song: Queaver" In a flash, I passed many pirates charging at me, stopping behind their backs.

In a show of gore, sprays of blood come shooting out the many pirates I had passed by, soaking the ground with the red liquid. I focused on the winged giant. The man stood unfazed even after a few of his men were killed in cold blood.

How annoying.

Clicking my tongue, I swung my sword at the air, sending waves over to the unending number of assailants, cutting many of them down from a distance.

Little by little, their number dwindled, with more falling to the ground in pieces.

Why were they attacking me? I could sense all of them, and none had that strong or menacing aura people like Kin'emon or Oden had. 

I was suddenly pulled out of my thoughts as I felt my blade getting stuck. Shifting my attention, a muscular man had my sword between his...pincers? Instead of arms, crab like pincers protruded from his shoulders.

...What? Were all outsiders this...peculiar?

He seemed to noticed the confusion plastered on my face as he mockingly laughed "Yihahaha! See something you like?"

How annoying.

The...crab man? easily snapped the katana with his pincers and ripped it from my grasp. Opening his other claw, wanting to cut me in half by the waist, I placed my hand on the top of the pincer before jumping off the ground.

Upside down, I balanced myself with my hand on the top of his pincer, swiftly throwing a kick to his head.

Inatead of the feeling of his head meet my kick, I got to feel how hard the crab shell was with him using his free claw to block my kick.

"It's hard, right?" As the words left his mouth, he began to lick his lips disgustingly

Ugh.

I had had enough of men acting like that while helping Kyomi and the geishas, and unfortunately for crab man, all of this was quickly getting on my nerves.

With the same pincer he had used to block my kick, he tightly grabbed my leg before throwing me flying meters away.

Spinning in the air, I shot my hand to the ground, digging my fingers and feet into the ground killing my momentum.

"You're very tough! Usually your leg would have come off pretty easily! Yiahahaha!" Crab man began snapping his pincer with wich he grabbed my leg mockingly.

"Thanks" Tilting my head back, a sword barely missed, passing harmlesly by. Hitting my assailant in the throat, I ripped his sword from his hands before cutting his head off with it alongside a few of his friends.

"Let's continue! I want to see how tough that skin of yours is!" 

...

"No"

With my newly acquired sword, I pointed at one of his pincers, especially to the one I had balanced myself with.

"Huh?"

Clueless, he looked down at the pincer only to see some small black and white flames on wich I had placed my hand.

"What is this?" Unconcerned, he swiped the flames with his other claw trying to extinguish them.

It clearly did not work, as the flames spread to his other claw. The flames grew on his shell quite violently, making the man try even harder to out them out.

"What is this!? What have you done!? Don't just stand there! Do something!"

It didn't take long before he was consumed in a ball of fire in the middle of the square.

"PLEASE HELP ME! OH GOD IT BURNS! HELP PLEASE!" 

Crab man screamed at the top of his lungs, trying to reach any of his 'friends', begging for help. His cries of agony quickly turned into unintelligible sounds, his vocal cords having melted, most probably.

Soon what was left was a pile of fire, dead on the floor. With a conscious effort, I willed the flames to extinguish, making them disappear as if they were never there, the only proof of its existence being the man turned to ashes on the floor.

With a gust of wind, the ashes with the shape of a man blew away into the night.

All of the pirates present in the square froze before what they had seen, fear spreading inside most of them like wildfire. And still, the giant man just stood there, unfazed, as if nothing had happened.

Well, one way or another, they had come to kill me. Oden was going to fight Kaido. He would show this pirates what all of Wano thought, so now that they came after me, I had to do the same.

They are not welcome in this country.

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And with this we enter the beggining of the end of the Wano arc.

I didn't expect it to take this long but here we are.

Also, I dind't expect the story to take 32 chapters and 44k words to reach this point, it has been a long journey.

Thanks to all of you who stuck till this point, really, thank you.