Sword

Chapter 19

"Stop right there!"

Shoko, Zoro, and Coby turned to see a large group of armed Marines approaching, followed by none other than Captain Morgan, terrifying fury etched onto his face.

"For treason against me, I am having the three of you executed where you stand!" he roared.

Instinctively, Shoko drew her yumi. "How do you call this justice?" she shouted back furiously. "You terrorize the people of this town, and you kill anyone who irritates you! That's not justice, it's tyranny!"

"Hmph..." Captain Morgan narrowed his eyes at her. "Don't think I don't recognize you, girl. I remember you from that restaurant. You've been in this town for a long time. Then you became a bounty hunter." He spat out the last words like a slur, but this only made Shoko feel more justified in standing up against him. "And now you're playing Marine. No one with this amount of insolence will ever become anything worthy of the Marines. Now you'll die for insubordination."

He crossed his axe arm threateningly in front of his body at shoulder level, ready to swing, as he commanded his soldiers to aim their weapons. Shoko loaded two arrows into her bow string, panicking as she tried to figure out how to protect herself and the two boys who were now behind her.

Morgan's call to fire was covered by a scream overhead. Shoko resisted the urge to look up, instead keeping her eyes on the soldiers with rifles trained on her, Zoro, and Coby. But as Shoko released her arrows at Morgan himself, and the soldiers fired their bullets, a flash of red fell from the sky, catching every last projectile, including Shoko's arrows.

There was a moment of confusion and horror as Shoko realized Luffy had fallen from the sky in time to take the heavy fire from the Marines with all three of Zoro's swords in hand. But before she could even shout his name, she realized the strange way his body was stretching with the movement of all the projectiles.

His skin didn't break. There's not even a scratch on him.

Shoko stared as her arrows shot backwards towards her, though the pointed iron heads were facing away from her. The Marines, on the other hand, were not so lucky. The tiny bullets that hurtled back towards them would be painful if they made contact, even if they were flying backwards.

A cackling sound ripped from Luffy's mouth. She couldn't see his face, but Shoko could only imagine the giant grin that would accompany that sound. It was a strange image indeed to be seeing in front of a tyrant and his firing squad.

"That won't work on me!" he shouted.

"Who the hell are you?" Zoro asked from behind Shoko. Luffy turned around with a grin.

"I'm Monkey D. Luffy. I'm the man who's gonna be King of the Pirates!"

His words held so much confidence, it was nearly impossible not to just stare at him in wonder. How could this goofy kid think he could be the most powerful pirate in the world? Though he definitely had proven himself to be stronger than he looked.

Still, Shoko was too focused on the Marines in front of her to really question Monkey D. Luffy at the moment.

I have to take advantage of their distraction, she told herself.

She loaded her yumi once more and fired two arrows, back-to-back, at Morgan's right arm—the one with the axe. That has to be my first target. I have to disable his biggest strength.

Before Morgan had truly realized what was happening, he had one arrow lodged in his bicep just above the inner crook of his elbow, and a second one in his shoulder.