One Piece Fan Fiction ❯ Cursed Island of the Devil Fruit Gods ❯ It's a Jungle Out There ( Chapter 32 )

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

Luffy lunged at Kurotenshu with new speed thanks to him entering Gear Second, and grabbed the spinning projectile in Kurotenshu's hand, stopping its movement and as a result, taking one of the spines through his fingers. Without flinching, he continued his attack, bringing his fist up to Kurotenshu's stomach. "Gomu Gomu no Jackhammer!" he cried, performing a one-handed Jet Gatling Gun attack to Kurotenshu's unguarded middle. Kurotenshu hadn't expected Luffy to take a hit in order to attack, so it caught him off-guard, and by the time Luffy finished, he felt himself being blown back by the force and doubling over in pain, dropping both his weapons.
"M-my body..." Kurotenshu coughed up some blood and began to turn more pale. "I need more souls...but I sealed us off so no one would interfere in our fight. This is a problem..." he tried to stand back up, but failed, and his thin beard went from raven black to an unhealthy, dirty gray color. "You surprised me, Straw Hat...my body isn't yet ready to live outside my realm just now, but soon...I must add your friends' souls to my realm or I may not be able to fully reconstruct it now that you've damaged it..."
"Shut up, Ossan, just becaue you're old doesn't mean I won't kick your ass!" Luffy growled, lunging forward again and shooting both arms backwards. "Gomu Gomu no Jet Bazooka!" he slammed them into Kurotenshu's chest and sent the old man flying back into the darkness between the stars surrounding them. "Yosha! I win!" he sighed, calling off the effects of Gear Second.
"You haven't won just yet, Straw Hat. I may not be able to fight you with my own body, but I can still fight you in other ways. Observe!" Kurotenshu cackled, and the outer-space themed background faded, turning into blue skies, as though they were floating in the air among the clouds.
"Whoa...I'm dizzy..." Luffy looked below him, seeing the island in its entirety below him and feeling like he was going to fall, but he still felt solid ground beneath his feet. "You're tricky, Ossan! Come on, let's get this going!"
A shadow fell over him, however, and he looked up. Thousand Sunny was floating over him. He gasped, and shot his hand out to it, rocketing up and climbing onto the deck. "It's okay! After the storm, nothing's broken!" he cheered. Apparently the hailstorm and the lightning that struck the ship hadn't destroyed it, or even damaged it at all.
Someone was at the helm, steering the ship. Luffy didn't recognize them, and was about to go tell them to get away. Kurotenshu's disembodied voice stopped him.
"Leave him be, Straw Hat. Your ship is special, it appears to have a will of its own, as if it were a living creature. It is strong-willed, too. I could not digest its soul and break it down to help construct my new body...and since you and your friends arrived, it has been a refuge for every soul that has been delivered to me. If you tell him to leave, he will become a part of my new body. Instead, I suggest we duel here, on board your own ship. Of course, if it gets destroyed, all the souls inside it will be mine and I will be even stronger than before." he explained.
"Sunny..." Luffy rubbed the mast, wondering if the ship could feel his touch, if it was the same as Going Merry before it died...
"If you refuse to risk your ship, I shall open up my realm and all those islanders outside will jump in and collect here, and even your ship can't hold them all. I'll devour the others and gain their power and you won't have a prayer." Kurotenshu challenged him.
Luffy couldn't decide that. He knew Kurotenshu would purposely destroy the ship if he agreed. And if he didn't agree, Kurotenshu would be even stronger. But the person at the helm of Thousand Sunny turned around to face Luffy, and smiled. "Are you a friend of Usopp the long-nose?" he asked Luffy.
Luffy smiled and nodded. "Yeah, he's my nakama. Have you met him?" Luffy inquired.
"I have. He is an honorable, talented warrior. I would like to help him fight the Shinigami if I can...I cannot do much but I need Kurotenshu to open up the realm so I can escape and deliver this to him. My soul will ascend to heaven afterwards, instead of being devoured here...but only if you keep him distracted." the mysterious person answered.
"You can count on me." Luffy grinned.
"Let me get one thing..." the mysterious person ran below deck and after a few minutes, returned with Usopp's Kabuto in hand.
"Usopp's new weapon!" Luffy pointed at it.
"Yes...from here I can hear and see everything Kurotenshu does...I know Usopp needs this to fight Jigyousho, and I intend to deliver it to him before it's too late." the mysterious person smiled.
"Make your choice, Straw Hat!" Kurotenshu thundered.
"Open up your realm! I won't let you swallow any more souls! I'll kick your ass before even one of them gets to you!" Luffy shouted back.
"Very well..." Kurotenshu sneered, and a dark hole opened in the sky, appearing to be a mile above Thousand Sunny.
"Thank you. Good luck." the mysterious person bowed before Luffy, and become an opaque, ghostly, greenish color before rising into the sky.
"Who are you, though?" Luffy asked him.
"Maboroshi." the mysterious person smiled. "I'll tell Usopp you're all right."
"Tell him I'll win!" Luffy laughed.
Hundreds of people who now looked like Maboroshi were flooding into Kurotenshu's realm through the dark hole, and Maboroshi had to struggle to push past them.
A great, dark beast rose up from beneath Sunny and attempted to devour the incoming souls, and Maboroshi while it had the chance. It was Kurotenshu's next incarnation, but it lacked the same power as his human form. The purpose of this form was to allow him to devour all the souls at once and power up. Luffy couldn't allow that, though. "Why is everything I'm fighting today so gigantic?!" he cried out, starting to get bored with large enemies.

"Gyaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhh!!!!" Usopp shrieked as he and Chopper rushed through the jungle, being chased by sentient thorned vines and ducking under poisonous darts being shot at them. Jigyousho controlled all the plantlife inside that area, and could turn them into deadly versions of themselves. And he himself could be hiding in any of the trees or bushes, by melding his body with them.
"Usopp, do something! You're the one with weapons!" Chopper panted, having to constantly change forms to avoid the constant assaults.
"Tch...you're right..." Usopp pulled out his slingshot again. "This is my only one until I get a chance to make more...if we live long enough to get back to Sunny..." he armed the slingshot with a cluster of shurikens. He pulled it back and fired. "Shuriken Meteor Swarm!"
The shurikens flew, sticking into trees and logs, sawing off branches, cutting the tops off of bushes, and slicing through the snake-like vines chasing after them. An unearthly roar of pain and anger echoed through the jungle, completely inhuman. "I...I think we hurt him..." Usopp panted, looking around for the next wave of attacks.
"Let's split up! We need to distract him, remember? Nami's powering up her Clima Tact!" Chopper suggested.
"Yes...you go that way. I'll go this way..." Usopp agreed, and Chopper ran off deeper into the jungle. "Just let me catch my breath..." he clutched his chest. "I'm suffering from my 'Shouldn't try to fight an invincible monster disease'..."
Jigyousho's face appeared in a knothole on the tree Usopp was leaning against. "BOO!" he cried, and Usopp's heart nearly popped up out of his mouth. If someone had been taking measure, Usopp would have been running faster then than at any other time in his life.
"This is fun! That long-nose guy is such a coward, it's fun scaring him! What should I do next?" Jigyousho cackled.

Nami's Clima Tact was pumping tons of cold balls into the sky, and a large white cloud was forming over the jungle. "Just a bit more..." she panted, constantly twirling the pieces to make sure no heat balls came out and upset the balance. "I just hope those two can keep him busy..."

Chopper was by himself now, and couldn't smell Usopp's scent anymore. "Oh, no...did he get killed?" Chopper gulped. But then he realized that there was a certain odor in the air, Jigyousho must have been pumping out pollen into the air. "I know this smell...it's toxic pollen, to ward off animals from eating the flowers that have it...he'll fill the whole jungle with it and we'll die no matter what we do! Unless I can stop it..." Chopper held his breath, trying to find it. "No use..." he exhaled. "I have no choice..." he popped a Rumble Ball between his teeth. "Brain Point! Scope!"
He looked around, constantly moving in a circle to try and find anything he could do to stop Jigyousho. After two minutes, he found it. It was a cluster of flowers in the distance, blooming and blowing out the pollen. "There!" he grinned excitedly. Morphing into Walking Point, he raced over to them. "Now to bury them! Heavy Point!" he prepared to smash them, but the flowers pricked up as though aware of his presence, and stopped giving off the toxic pollen. "What the-?!" Chopper gasped.
The bloom of each flower launched at Chopper, not unlike Usopp's shuriken barrage, and every bit as sharp. "Guard Point!" Chopper closed his eyes and gritted his teeth, but his fur expanded in time to shield him. The blooms stuck in his fur and dried up, turning to dust. "Phew..." he reverted back to Walking Point.
"Clever little animal, aren't you?" Jigyousho grinned, appearing behind him in full form.
"You-" Chopper growled, lunging at him, and transforming into Arm Point with the last few seconds he had. "Split-Hoof Cross!" Chopper roared, slamming his hooves into Jigyousho's stomach.
Jigyousho's eyes bugged out, and his entire torso dissolved like it was made of weak, grassy material. His arms and head fell off, hitting the ground, his eyes lifeless, though his legs remained standing.
Chopper panted, his Rumble Ball now having worn off, as he reverted back to his tiny form. "Y-yosha!" he cheered, giggling, looking at Jigyouhso's defeated form. "I did it! I won! Usopp, Nami, it's okay now!" he clapped his hands and danced around in celebration.
But Jigyousho's evil laugh filled the jungle again and stopped Chopper cold in his tracks. Chopper trembled, turning around to face Jigyousho's remains to see what was happening. Out of his still-standing legs came coiling, intertwining vines that expanded, shaping into Jigyousho's original form, and then sprouted an exterior shell that looked like smooth wood, and finally re-colored itself to look like Jigyousho before Chopper attacked him. "Y-you can't be killed...?!" Chopper gulped, backing off.
"That's right, little animal man. None of us Shinigami can be killed. Didn't we tell you that quite a few times already?" Jigyousho cackled. But Chopper took notice of something; three of the trees behind Jigyousho began to wither and die, all their leaves crumbling to dust and the bark turning black like coal.
"Wha-what's happening to the forest?" Chopper pointed to the withered trees.
"You won't live long enough to be bothered by that, my little friend. Good-bye." Jigyousho licked his lips, savoring the idea of the kill. His arm morphed into an impossibly sharp wooden stake, and it shot forward, extending, right at Chopper's heart.
"Fire shot!"Usopp's cry rang out, and Jigyousho's attack halted as his body was engulfed in flames. The unearthly shrieks of pain echoed through the jungle again as Jigyousho fell the ground and writhed in pain as the flames ate away at his body. "Maybe that will kill you!" Usopp laughed, mocking Jigyousho's claim of invincibility.
Chopper ran over and hid behind him. "Thank goodness! I thought I was going to die..." Chopper panted. "But I thought we were running in opposite directions!"
"I realized he can find us anywhere we go, and I thought for a minute he might be able to appear in two places at once, so it would have been better for us to stick together!" Usopp explained.
Jigyousho's form had gone limp, but was still burning away. "I think we got him this time..." Chopper smiled.
"Yeah! Nami didn't even have to get her hands dirty! I guess she'll think twice about being so selfish towards us in the future, eh?" Usopp crossed his arms, a proud look on his face.
But through the flames crackling over Jigyousho's body, several snake-like vines burst out and up into the air, and then shot into the ground, rooting into it, and pumping some strange lump-filled fluid through them into the ground as they slid deeper into it until they detached from Jigyouho's body and were completely buried.
"W-what the hell is going on now?!" Usopp squeaked, having been scared witless far too many times already.
And just as when Chopper had attacked him, Jigyousho began to grow back up out of the ground feet-first, and more and more trees around started to wither. "That's it..." Usopp took Chopper by the hand and began to run, before Jigyousho had a chance to fully regenerate. "It's his weakness!"
"What is?!" Chopper asked, not able to connect the dots.
"He's not like Crocodile or Eneru! He can't defend against attacks by becoming unsolid, he just takes the attacks and gets damaged, but he regenerates even if his body is destroyed! But he has to suck the life out of the plants around him to do it!" Usopp explained.
"Oh! So if we destroy all the trees and plants around here..." Chopper smiled, figuring it out.
"Then he can't regenerate anymore!" Usopp finished the sentence. "Yes! Let's do it! Jigyousho isn't our only enemy, this whole jungle is!"
"We better tell Nami!" Chopper added.
"Nami? Oh, the girl. Maybe I shouldn't be taking it so easy on her, then." Jigyousho's voice followed them.
Chopper and Usopp froze. "We left her all alone!" they both gasped. "And she doesn't know he's coming!"

"Yes!" Nami twirled around happily. "I've finished!" she was sweating from the effort, but the cloud above the jungle was complete. "Now I can help my friends! I just hope I don't run into that freak..." she whispered to herself.
"Oh, that wasn't very nice. You hurt my feelings." Jigyousho popped out of the ground in front of her, or at least, from the waist up.
Nami shrieked and fell backwards, dropping her Clima Tact. "Oh, no!" she reached for it, but Jigyousho grabbed her leg.
"You aren't going anywhere, girl. Your friends are getting a little too intelligent for their own good. So I'll finish you off before you can help them!" he morphed his fingers into five thick stakes, and prepared to run her through. But an icy cold wind blew through the jungle, and he gasped, pulling back to huddle up into himself for warmth. "Wh-where did that come from...?" he looked around for another fighter. "Was that you?!" he snarled at Nami, who was back on her feet and holding her weapon."You bet it was, buster! And that's just the beginning!" she stuck her tongue out at him. "Let me show you the newest ability I've learned to perform with my Perfect Clima Tact! Cold air solidify, Ice Slash Staff!" she held her Clima Tact perfectly vertically, and cold air whisked around the ends like tornadoes, freezing the moisture in the air around them, and solidifying them into blades of ice. Now Nami had a blade-edged polearm to do battle, and Jigyousho was currently less than half her height. "Die, monster!" she sliced his head off and watched it roll, only for another one to grow and take its place. "Oh, gross!" she turned away in disgust, and began to run, trying to find her friends.
"Usopp! Chopper!" she called, hoping they could hear her.
Chopper picked up the sound, and led Usopp in the right direction. "Nami! Did you finish you plan?!" Usopp shouted.
"Yes!" Nami cried out. "I just had to make sure we were all together again before I activated it!"
"We'll be there in just a minute!" Chopper estimated, by how close her voice was.
"Forget about something?" Jigyousho cackled, his voice surrounding them. "I was holding back before. You three are quite bothersome, I've never imagined needing to kill you this soon into the game. But the fun is over. You know my secret and I'm not much one to like being afraid of my opponents. So just lay down and die and I won't make it too painful." he said with a grim tone of voice they hadn't heard him using before.
Three enormous venus flytrap plants burst out of the ground, fencing the trio in. They were drooling a thick saliva that caused the ground to smoke slightly when it dripped, as if their gnashing teeth weren't menacing enough. Long tongues snaked from their mouths, ready to grab their prey so there would be no escape. Tears streamed from Nami's eyes. "I'm sorry, you guys...it's over..." she sobbed.
"Usopp!" Maboroshi's voice rang out from above. Usopp couldn't believe his eyes when he looked up.
"It's you!" he half-smiled, half-gaped in disbelief.
"Catch!" Maboroshi dropped Kabuto down over Usopp's head. "Good luck, my friend! Your captain is counting on you, don't let him down!" he waved goodbye as he ascended toward the sun and vanished.
With Kabuto clutched tightly in his hands, Usopp began to tremble. Not with fear, but determination. "Luffy! Let's put these evil bastards down for good!" he cried. Aiming the Kabuto. "Ultimate Firebird Star!" he let fly a flaming phoenix, which flew directly into the mouth of the nearest flytrap, burning it from the inside and flying out the backside, swooping back to attack the other two as if reading Usopp's mind. "But I didn't order it to do that..." Usopp shook his head. "Maybe that was one last gift from Maboroshi..." he smiled hopefully.
"Stop reminiscing! Let's get the hell out of here!" Nami slapped him and grabbed him by the arm, dragging him through the jungle after Chopper. "We'll be safer if we keep moving. If we combine our weapons we should be able to take him down! Are you ready?" she asked him.
"Now I am." Usopp grinned, holding Kabuto tightly.
"Good. Now let's split up." Nami shooed him away.
"But...but...that's what we don't want to do!" Usopp protested.
"Trust me, it's the best thing we can do. Now keep burning the trees over there. I'm going to try something on my own." Nami explained.
"All right..." Usopp began to sweat. At least when he was with his friends, he felt just slightly less afraid.
"Oh, Chopper! I need your help!" Nami called.
"What happened to trying something on your own?" Usopp muttered bitterly as he ran off to his side of the jungle