One Piece Fan Fiction ❯ Cursed Island of the Devil Fruit Gods ❯ Take to the Skies ( Chapter 24 )

[ T - Teen: Not suitable for readers under 13 ]

A bright flash was emitted by Nami's Clima Tact, blinding her opponent briefly and letting her put some distance between them. "I think I have it figured out! All those weapons you were throwing at me-they weren't real! They were just illusions! You have the power to create illusions!" Nami deduced.
"Very good, little girl. You figured it out...not that it will help you." the woman she was battling sneered.
"That's what you think! Try fighting a girl who can use illusions just as well as you!" Nami waved her Clima Tact around above her head and conjured four duplicates of herself. "Try guessing which one of us is real! And then I'll strike when you go after the wrong one!" Nami declared confidently.
But her opponent smiled, and began to laugh. Nami didn't even get the chance to ask what was so funny when her duplicates suddenly sprang to life, and grabbed her arms and legs. "W-what's going on?!" she cried.
"I have the power to create illusions, yes, with my Meimu-Meimu no Mi. But you foolishly thought that I was limited to that and that alone. How do you think I became one of our best soldiers if that was the only thing I could do? Foolish girl! I can make naturally-occurring illusions, or artificial illusions like the ones you created, real!" she explained.
Nami gasped, unsure of what to do now. She was helpless, unless she could cancel out her duplicates. Quickly activating the Clima Tact before the duplicates could knock it out of her hand, they all began to flicker and vanished, letting her go. "Better not use that again, then..." Nami panted.
"Oh, you're no fun." her opponent teased. "But I like you! You're a very interesting warrior, for a girl so young. My name is Tejina. What's yours?" she asked.
"Nami." Nami answered, studying Tejina's movements. From the way Tejina was positioned and moving, it looked like she was trying to herd Nami in a certain direction. Not that Nami could stop her at the moment, but it still felt like a trap. Nami decided to get it out of the way now rather than later while she was distracted, and turned and fled in the direction Tejina had forced her.
"Foolish child...maybe she won't be a worthy opponent after all." Tejina sighed.
Nami ran between a small canyon-like path between two parts of the mountain, and found a wide-open space that she guessed was used for training outside the jungle. Near the entrance to that area was a large spring. Nami gazed down into her reflection until her reflection grinned sinisterly and jumped out at her from the water! It grabbed her and held onto her, while Tejina caught up, carrying a bowling-ball sized rock. "Good-bye, Nami!" she cackled, throwing it not unlike Luffy's grandfather lobbing cannonballs after them during their escape from Water 7. Nami closed her eyes and with all her strength, pulled back. Her reflection-clone was hit by the rock instead, and splattered into water, soaking Nami.
"Very good! You're getting better, even when caught off-guard!" Tejina clapped softly, mocking applause.
"I have to be! The weather can change quickly and a navigator like me needs to be prepared for things like that!" Nami pulled herself back up and held up her Clima Tact, although her hands were trembling.
"You are a strange one, to be able to do so many things without a Devil Fruit power. Very fascinating. I feel bad that I have to kill you." Tejina complimented her.
"The thought is appreciated!" Nami rolled her eyes. "Got to find some way to use her powers against her..." she said under her breath. She closed her eyes momentarily to think and a burst of inspiration hit her. "Thunder Tempo!" Nami cried, holding her Clima Tact above her head with both hands. Black smog appeared from both ends, but as it floated up and gathered, it was more like a raincloud crackling with electricity. Within seconds it was the size of a waver, and Nami smiled and chuckled as she let Tejina know this was an offensive strike, not defensive.
"Do you really think that can do you any good? I can control clouds, they're just air gathered and concentrated! You can't see the air you breathe so clouds are my ultimate specialty!" Tejina laughed triumphantly. Nami's thunder cloud became real, and rushed at her to engulf her.
"You fell for it!" Nami told her, stabbing the cloud with her Clima Tact. It stuck tight, and Nami pulled it down, jumping onto the cloud and using the Clima Tact as sort of a steering mechanism. "Cloud Tempo Special, KATAIKUMO!" she yelled, naming her newfound vehicle. She veered upward into the air and looked down on Tejina with reinvigorated confidence. "I just needed you to make it real enough for me to stand on! I figured out how your power works when you make illusions become solid! Unless I turn my illusionary cloud off with my Clima Tact, the cloud will remain! If the illusion is natural, like my reflection in the water, it has to be destroyed physically! But if it's an artificial one like the one I created, only I can tell them to disappear, unless they're destroyed physically! I found your weakness!" Nami stuck her tongue out. "And now come and catch me if you can!" Nami laughed as she soared up into the air.
"Why, you little-!" Tejina snarled, raising her hand into the air and summoning down a cloud from the sky, and making it into her own vehicle to pursue Nami.
Nami was having fun flying, it was even more exhilirating than the waver she got from Skypiea. The wind rushed past her and the temperature dropped as she soared higher and higher. "Okay...now I've got her on an even footing...I just have to figure out how to strike a finishing blow!" Nami said to herself desperately.
Something whizzed past her ear, causing her to scream and nearly fall off the cloud. It had been a cloud shaped like a buzzsaw. And five more of them were heading her way. Zigzagging violently, Nami managed to avoid all of them but Tejina was hot on her heels now, and summoning more clouds to her hand and manipulating their shape. "Time to hide until I can think of a plan..." Nami panted, floating behind a large mass of clouds in the sky.
"Nice try, little girl! That won't work with me!" Tejina scoffed, holding up both hands at the cloudy mass. "Vanish!" she roared, and the clouds all became completely clear, revealing Nami's hiding place.
"Oh, damn!" Nami gulped, floating back downward toward the ground. She had a plan, but it required a lot of steps to complete. "Take this, then! Thunder Ball!" Nami cried, lobbing a crackling ball of electricity at Tejina. What Tejina didn't understand was how electricity worked, particularly the principle of static cling. She dodged the ball, but it reacted with the cloud and clung to it. "Perfect!" Nami cheered quietly. "Just a few more..."
"What are you up to? You don't look as panicky as before!" Tejina mocked her. Nami responded with several Thunder Balls at once, most of which clung to Tejina's cloud, and it began to turn black.
"Just a bit further down..." Nami looked below to see how close the ground was. She was still a few hundred feet up and there was nothing below her to break her fall. She may have been planning a kamikaze attack but she wasn't planning on dying. "I'll blow her cloud out from under her...but then mine will vanish too..." she breathed, weighing whether the risk would be worth it or not after all. But it was too late-Tejina was upon her second later, her hand at Nami's throat.
"You've distracted me for long enough, Nami. You're the most challenging opponent I've ever had the privelege of facing, and I consider it an honor to have fought you. But now it ends." Tejina told her, preparing to strangle Nami.
But Nami wasn't ready to go out like that, not yet. In desperation, she reached out and grabbed one of Tejina's breasts and squeezed as hard as she could, forcing Tejina to back off and clutch her chest in pain and shock. Nami leapt up and straddled her Clima Tact so her feet no longer touched the cloud, meaning she had a grounder to keep her from feeling the oncoming electrical shock. "C-cloud Tempo...Discharge!" she choked out, her throat still hurting from Tejina's last attack.
Both cloud melted into one and turned completely black, and their combined electrical charges raged through Tejina's body until her mouth was smoking. And then...the cloud they were sharing vanished beneath them. Tejina fell backwards, away from Nami, while Nami fell straight downward. "No! I'm not ready to die!" she shrieked. She felt like she was going to black out, but then she felt something hot and hard break her fall. She was on Ryuumaoh's back. "Oh my god! You saved me!" she gasped, hugging the back of his neck gratefully.
"I saw you up there fighting; you're quite the female warrior. I only wish Chiyu could fight like that." Ryuumaoh laughed. "I'll let you off with your friends-your rubber friend is returning to his fight with Daikyojin." he explained.
"Don't worry-he'll win!" Nami smiled.

Smoker and Tashigi were on their way to the Paramecian Village to help out with the battles but they ran into some unexpected trouble, in the form of three of the Shinigami.
"You're not dead!" Rikujou snarled, pointing at Smoker. "Impossible! Tell me how you survived, damn you!" he demanded.
"Who the smoking hell are you?" Smoker grunted.
"Smoker-san...they're accomplices of the one who kidnapped me! And it sounds like they're the ones who tried to take you out too!" Tashigi gulped.
"Is that a fact? Well then I guess they better surrender or I'm going to have to get physical." Smoker extinguished his cigars and cracked his knuckles.
"Ha! What do the two of you think you can do against the gods?" Jigyousho cackled.
"Perhaps they plan to make us die laughing!" Tomoshibi giggled.
"Well I vote we rip their heads off so they have no chance of coming back again!" Rikujou gritted his teeth.
The three of them began advancing on Tashigi and Smoker when Kagemaru appeared between the two groups and pointed a hand at his allies, motioning for them to stand down. "Not now. We've got new orders." he told them. "Meet up at the village after we find the result of the battle. If that boy in charge of the outsiders triumphs over Daikyojin, we're to force him to prostrate himself in front of the master and allow him to join our ranks." he explained.
"What about them? We should destroy them now before they cause any more trouble, or escape!" Tomoshibi pointed at Smoker and Tashigi.
Kagemaru looked the two up and down. "Leave them. They are no threat to us. Let them do as they like. We may very well need them to act as sacrifices later on, so let us leave them unharmed. Who knows...they could end up being the final two souls we need to collect before we can escape this wretched hellhole and conquer the rest of the world!" he laughed. The other three also began to laugh, and they all vanished in their various ways. Except Kagemaru-he remained for a few moments longer, looking at Tashigi. "Tell your swordsman friend, his mentor Shishou died like a foolish pig. He has no hope of doing any better than her against me. But I'm looking forward to watching him struggle in vain before I impale him on my blade." his cruel laughter echoed all around as he vanished into the shadows and out of sight.
"Smoker-san...?" Tashigi was breathless after hearing all of that. She felt like she was just reprieved from a death warrant, but then was being forced to fight an unwinnable battle that would kill her anyway.
"Don't listen to them, Sergeant. What we know is that their target is Straw Hat, if he wins against this Daikyojin person. What we should do now is make sure he wins, so let's get our asses moving! I hate to say it but it seems like he'll be our only hope to defeat them. I'm pretty sure based on looking at them that their powers are similar to that of mine and the former Shichibukai, Crocodile. If I'm right, all we have to do is find their weakness and exploit it. Do you remember what I told you? Use your brains and not your sword if you want to survive this, Tashigi!" Smoker gave her a mixture of an explanation and pep talk as he followed her to the Paramecian village, since she knew where it was.
"Roronoa Zoro...you have to kill that bastard! For Shishou..." Tashigi bit her lip as tears streamed from her eyes, fogging up her glasses. She ripped them off and continued forward, hoping she was still going in the right direction. She couldn't afford to stop and get Smoker angry at her again for being so emotional and weak.