"Lucien Vosgrave. I guess you are here for this?" said Diez as he slowly lifted his arm out of his coat, dangling a very familiar Devil Fruit in his hand. Lucien didn't take his eyes off it.
"I initially wanted to sell it to the Marines, but with you here and what you've done to my island, it's only right that I make sure this never falls into your hands." Diez brought the fruit closer to his mouth, about to eat it.
He didn't get close.
Idris had his pistol out before the arm finished rising. Lucien threw his sword at the same moment, and the blade took Diez's elbow clean off. What followed was a wail that cut across the whole balcony.
Neither of them waited for the shock to settle. While Idris started picking off the men on the balcony, Lucien was already moving. He took a running step, jumped, and caught the edge of the balcony railing with both hands, hauling himself up and over before the pirates at the door had figured out what was happening. By the time they turned around, three of their own were already down.
Lucien dropped onto the balcony and found Diez on the ground, clutching the stump where his arm had been, the fruit rolling a short distance away from him.
Diez saw Lucien at the same moment Lucien bent down for it. He kicked out hard, catching the fruit and sending it skidding across the stone. Then he was up on one knee, pointing the bloody stump at Lucien, sword in his remaining hand.
"GET HIM. SHOOT HIM DEAD. ANYONE WHO SHOOTS HIM GETS THE FRUIT."
The remaining men on the balcony swung their rifles toward Lucien. He was already moving sideways, putting a pillar between himself and the nearest two. A shot cracked off the stone beside his head. Another took a chunk out of the railing. Behind him he heard Idris's pistol fire twice in quick succession and the shooting from that side stopped.
Lucien came around the pillar low and fast. The man closest hadn't reset his aim in time. Lucien drove his knee into the man's gut, took the rifle out of his hands as he folded, and used it to knock the next one across the jaw. Neither of them got back up.
That left Diez.
He'd gotten to his feet. One arm, one sword, bleeding heavily through the coat he'd pressed against the stump. He was pale and swaying but his eyes were fixed and he had the sword up properly. Whatever he'd been before all this, he hadn't forgotten how to hold a weapon.
The fruit was on the ground between them.
Diez lunged first, a straight thrust that had real intent behind it. Lucien stepped to the outside of it, let the blade pass, and caught Diez's wrist. He twisted it once, sharp, and Diez grunted but didn't drop the sword. He headbutted Lucien instead, which was a decent answer. Lucien took it on the forehead and felt his vision blur for half a second.
He let go of the wrist and stepped back.
Diez pressed forward, swinging wide with what strength he had left. Lucien read the arc and ducked under it, came up inside the swing, and hit Diez once in the ribs with everything behind it. The air went out of him. He stumbled into the railing and grabbed it with his sword hand to keep from going over.
Lucien picked up the fruit from the floor.
Diez straightened. He was done and he knew it, but he looked at Lucien with the kind of focus that men get when they've already accepted the outcome.
"You're going to get everyone killed," he said. "You and that fruit. Whatever you think you're doing."
Lucien looked at him for a moment.
"Maybe," he said, and put him down.
It was clean and it was quick and Lucien didn't watch him fall. He turned, fruit in hand, and found Idris standing at the far end of the balcony with his rifle up and no one left to point it at.
Idris lowered it and looked at the fruit. "You have it?"
"I have it."
Below them the island had gone quiet. Whatever was left of the Barrel Pirates had made the same calculation the ones in the street had made an hour ago. The sound of Diez Barrels hitting the ground had carried. Nobody was coming up the stairs to argue about it.
Lucien looked at the fruit in his hand. Pale, strange-looking, the surface marked with the same spiral pattern he'd seen on his own.
"Let's go," said Lucien.
They went back down the way they'd come. Through the building, out the heavy door, past the men who stepped aside without being asked. Down the road and back through the quiet town.
Lucien saw him about halfway to the pier.
Law was walking up the street toward them at a pace that suggested he had decided this was completely reasonable. He had his book under one arm. He looked up when he spotted them and didn't slow down.
Lucien stopped walking. "I told you to stay on the boat."
"You were taking too long."
"We were gone for forty minutes."
Law didn't answer. His eyes had moved to the fruit in Lucien's hand.
Lucien looked at him for a second, then grabbed Law by the collar, pushed the fruit straight into his mouth, and held it there. Law's eyes went wide. He grabbed Lucien's wrist with both hands and made a noise that was somewhere between a gag and a protest, twisting and wriggling with more energy than Lucien had seen from him in weeks.
"Chew," said Lucien.
Law chewed. His expression was one of profound betrayal.
"It's done," said Idris, who had watched the whole thing without comment.
Lucien grabbed Law by the scruff of his collar. Idris took the other side. They started walking him toward the pier between them, feet barely touching the ground, while Law continued to make his feelings about the taste very clear without using any actual words.
"Grand Line next, I'd assume," said Idris.
"Reverse Mountain. We've run out of interesting problems up here."
Law had stopped wriggling and gone quiet. Whether that was acceptance or the fruit settling in, Lucien couldn't tell.
They were maybe thirty meters from the pier when the sky changed.
It was subtle at first, just a shift in the light, the kind of thing that might have been clouds. Then the strings came down. Thin, almost invisible, dropping from somewhere high above the tree line and stretching out across the water in every direction, catching the edge of the island and holding it. The horizon sealed itself off so quietly it took a moment to understand what had happened.
Then the voice came, carrying across the whole island like it was coming from the air itself.
"Diez Barrels. I've come for what we discussed. I'd hate for this to get unpleasant."
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1 Chapter For Every 50 Power Stones. Please Do Support.