One Piece: In Search of Freedom [Book 1]

CH 14: BATTLING IT OUT IN WHISKEY PEAK! PIRATES VS BOUNTY HUNTERS!

Inherited will...

The tide of the times...

People's dreams...

These things cannot be stopped.

As long as people seek the answer of freedom, these things will never cease to be!

"Th... They disappeared...!" How could this be? Mr. 9 and the others couldn't believe it. Two human beings were overtly standing where anyone could see them. That building was one of the tallest, with its tower being second only to the church's. Even if they had jumped down, they should have made a sound or the movement would have alerted at least one person in the crowd.

But no matter who it was, none of the bounty hunters from Baroque Works had managed to catch their escape. Both [Name] and Zoro were just utterly gone.

"W-Where the heck did they disappear to?!" Mr. 8 thought that he might have gone blind for a moment. Where these people pirates or ghosts?

Without moving from their place, the townspeople looked all around them in search of the slightest hint of those two pirates' existence. And they found it. In a way.

The townspeople all paused, their eyes bulging out as they looked at the two people who were calmly standing in the center of the crowd of bounty hunters. They hadn't felt their presence at all.

"AAHHH!!!"

The townspeople took a couple of steps back, not daring to blink in case these two people would vanish again.

"Ara, it seems like we scared them." [Name] wasn't the only one having some fun with this situation, Zoro's smirk deepening also, "All right, then. Shall we?"

"How dare you mock us?!"

The bounty hunters were enraged. Those closest to the pirates drew their firearms, pointing at them with their hands on the triggers. They didn't even think before shooting all at the same time.

The BANG of countless guns firing resounded, followed by the bullets hitting flesh and the screams of those hit. Though, those screams had come only from the bounty hunters. As for the pirates, they were gone again.

If they weren't dead, Mr. 8 would have wanted to kill those bounty hunters himself, "Fools! They shot each other!"

"T-They disappeared again! They're too fast!" Mr. 9 was proud of his own speed, but he couldn't follow the pirates at all. Not even their shadows could be caught.

That only made Mr. 8 angrier, "Darn! Hurry up and kill them already. They are only two punny pirat-!"

Cold steel pressed against the left side of his face, forcing his voice to get stuck inside his throat. Even if he wanted to, Mr. 8 couldn't speak due to his trembling.

He had no idea when Zoro had moved behind him. Their backs pressed against one another with the swordsman calmly smirking while holding his katana to Mr. 8's face. The blade cutting through the wavy hair.

"Are you sure... that you want to add only one tombstone tonight?" Zoro remembered to return Mr. 8's words right back to him. Adding two graves, no, that wouldn't be enough. They needed enough graves for each of the bounty hunters. Only then would there be enough.

With that green head contrasting against Mr. 8 and [Name] not bothering in hiding while facing the swordsman, the two became very inconspicuous.

"There they are!"