[25] The Oasis & The Desert (4)

Chapter 25: The Oasis & The Desert (4)

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“Want a bite?” Hashirama offered a half-eaten apple to the girl beside him, watching her look down at the apple before shaking her head. “Huh. If you want a non-eaten one, I can make one for you right away.”

“No need.” Nico Robin shook her head, turning to look ahead at the distant horizon that looked beautiful from this rooftop. “I am rather worried about your Main Body. Will he be safe…? Will he win?”

“How would I know?” Hashirama, a clone, shrugged his shoulders as he finished the apple. He turned around, leaning against the railing to look at her face. “He sent me back here two days ago, so I don’t know what plans he made. He just called and told us Sir Crocodile had reached the Rain Base—so we can just wait for his next call.”

“Right.” Robin sighed. Moving her eyes away from the horizon, she looked at his relaxed face. “You are not worried at all? What’d happen if the Main died?”

“I will die too, I think.” Hashirama said. “But it is what it is. That possibly isn’t enough to make me worry.”

“Huh. Alright,” Robin gave him a nod, finding all this interesting but at the same time too worried to continue the conversation.

At the very least, knowing that this clone would vanish if Hashirama the Main died, the fact that it was still here meant he was still alive. That made Robin a bit relieved.

They knew the fight shouldn’t last very long, so the two of them just waited on the rooftop— gazing at the morning horizon and waiting for the Den Den Mushi snail to ring.

* * *

“One of me sing a song, while the rest beat him up.” –this was what one of the Clone-Rama said before one indeed began to sing as if mocking Crocodile, while the ten others rushed to the villain of this country.

These eleven Hashirama had the job of weakening Crocodile, and that didn’t just mean physically—annoying him enough that he got frustrated was also a good outcome.

The ten clones ran towards Sir Crocodile in a circle, and one of them reached the clone enough to throw a punch; a punch that passed through his body when that particular part turned into sand automatically.

“You can’t even touch me!” Crocodile growled angrily, grabbing the clone by the throat and gawking into his eyes. “How dare you try to attack me?”

Quite enraged, Sir Crocodile activated the technique dubbed [Desert Encierro] that sucked the moisture out of Hashirama’s throat. Spreading in two directions from his throat, the drying effect infected his entire body—and turned him into dust even before he could react at all.

“Tsk,” Crocodile dusted his right hand against his clothes and looked at the other remaining clones, which had stopped in a circle around him. “Fools. Staying far isn’t going to help you. At all.”

He raised his right foot and then stomped hard on the ground, initiating his skill, [Desert Grande Espada] that caused sharp spikes to jump up from under the clones. A few of the clones noticed and jumped away, but three of them were too late and got caught in the attack.

The clones were severed in two and turned into smoke right away. The remaining six fighters, and one singer, all paused in their spots and exchanged glances.

“Shouldn’t we be a bit too careful about how we die? If it’s painful, it’ll just cause the Main’s migraine to be worse after this. C’mon, try not to die, guys!” one of the clones took the role of a leader and cheered, followed by the others.

Sir Crocodile’s patience had run out long ago, so he interrupted their foolish shenanigan by using his technique [Sables] that brought a small tornado into the palm of his right hand. When he waved his hand, the tornado rushed forward, becoming larger as it pulled a few of the clones from the direction it moved towards.

A few escaped, all going serious, while the tornado rushed behind to destroy more of the forest.

The 4 remaining clones looked pissed seeing their past creations, their babies, get destroyed. Clasping their hands together, they called forth vines and wood from underground to revitalize the area—but Sir Crocodile stomped on the ground again and used one of his strongest techniques.

[Wasteland Cataclysm]

The ground shook, trembling as surges of sand erupted from Crocodile and washed over the land—devouring the sprouting trees, and making them turn dry and dead in an instant. The same went for two of the clones who failed to jump in the air in time.

“The real you isn’t here at all, is he?” Sir Crocodile asked when the two clones dropped back to the ground. “Where is he hiding? Call him out—tell him to fight me head-on!”

Sir Crocodile waved his hand at one of the clones, initiating the [Desert Dagger] technique that spread a line of fast and sharp sand from his spot to his enemy.

Both of the clones successfully jumped away, nodding at each other.

“It’s kind of hard to fight in a group since we are not used to it. But fighting as two is easy enough.” One of the Hahiramas told Sir Crocodile as he took out something from his pocket. A water bottle. “Now, let’s see how your invincibility helps you.”

If he wasn’t sure before, Sir Crocodile was sure now that Nico Robin had betrayed him. There was no other person who knew his weakness.

As Hashirama rushed towards him, Sir Crocodile tried to attack him with his long-ranged sand attacks—one being his arm expanding to grab him and suck him to death—but the boy avoided all the attacks, moving swifter than previous times while his clone-partner was also supporting him.

Sir Crocodile tried attacking and even dodging, but the boy came near him and clapped his hands harshly with the bottle between—causing water to burst into his hands while at the same time in some parts of Crocodile’s body.

“Goodbye!”

Hashirama punched his face, but this time the punch didn’t pass through—the punch connected with Crocodile's chin as his eyes shook within his eye sockets. Sir Crocodile groaned in pain as his brain trembled inside his head.

The other clone reached the spot too and jumped in the air with naked feet landing on the other clone’s wet palm as he pushed him upwards. There, as his feet were now wet, he kicked Sir Crocodile in the ribs before he could fall down on the ground.

Sir Crocodile was sent flying far, with the sound of bones breaking, and hit a tree in the far—a tree that turned into dust just a second later.

“…You brat!” Sir Crocodile’s voice turned ethereal when the two clones rushed to the spot and found the villain turning into sand. “I am going to destroy you!”

Realizing staying in a humanoid form didn’t help him any longer, with his logia not giving him protection—Sir Crocodile turned into sand and generated more sand to attach to his body like armor.

By the time the two clones reached the spot, Sir Crocodile was a 20 feet tall sand-human, with his real body inside his ‘armor’ with only his head sticking up from the top of the neck.

The two clones paused, turning to look at each other.

“A coincidence?”

“Fate?”

They spoke at the same time.

Sir Crocodile didn’t understand them—but he didn’t care in any way, raising his huge feet and stomping down on both clones. The clones didn’t try to dodge for some reason, just shrugging their shoulders, as they were turned into dust by the dangerous sand.

“Hah!” Sir Crocodile cheered. “The real one, come out! Where are you?”

Sir Crocodile was expecting silence as an answer, or more clones coming to fight him, but something completely unexpected happened.

– Dum!

The sound of something large moving shook the forest. Footsteps that were too loud to belong to a normal person.

Sir Crocodile watched with his eyes going wide slowly, as ‘something’ large walked out of the forest that was still remaining, stepping foot on the clearance made by the corrosive sand.

A huge humanoid that matched the size of Sir Crocodile’s own gigantic armor. However, this one was made of wood and was extremely detailed, yet at the same time, it was a titan with no lips and therefore its teeth smiling an eternal grin.

That wasn’t all—most of its body, excluding its joints, was covered by a solid, white overlay. Wax.

“Haven’t you noticed the disappearance of your Mr Three?” A voice spoke from within the titanic figure, sounding like Hashirama. “You should have. Now, your suction power is useless.”

Then, Hashirama kicked the ground and ran forward—about to clash with the sand titan.

* * *

When the carriage was attacked by the huge vine, all the Baroque Works' members jumped out.

So did Mr Three.

However, he jumped too far and landed behind a bush. For a long while, he just stayed behind there—wishing to attack Hashirama from a blind spot. However, the clones of Hashirama noticed Mr Three behind the bushes and kidnapped him. They took him to the main, as an idea had struck them, and Main realized the idea without even the others telling him.

The Main was busy with something—that being submerging something into the lake nearby. That ‘something’ was his greatest wood creation to date, the armor that was dubbed as [Attack Titan Prototype].

With Mr Three there, with his Wax-Wax fruit, one of the major problems—that was the possibility of Sir Crocodile sucking the titan dry—could be fixed.

Hashirama threatened Mr Three, and though it was hard, it wasn’t impossible to convince him to cover parts of the Titan with wax. Leaving gaps in parts and parts, but the gaps were for Hashirama’s benefit, not the other way around.

After that, he told Mikita to do her part of the job—something that shocked her and she was unwilling to do—but finally, it was done and he was ready for battle.

– Bam!

As the Titan was still wet, including the knuckles, a solid punch landed on Croc’s own giant armor, throwing him steps behind while shockwaves spread through the air.

“You-!” Sir Crocodile growled loudly. “You bastard! Who do you think I am?! You can’t just punch me and think I will stay still!”

Sir Crocodile punched forward too, one that Hashirama barely dodged. It was hard to move for him since he wasn’t a Logia like Sir Crocodile, who was the entire sand giant. Compared to that, Hashirama was just sitting inside the ‘head’ of the titan and controlling it through mental commands.

More so, the weight proportion of his body was not balanced because… Mikita was stationed inside the palm of the titan’s right hand! Using her fruit to make the arm heavier, and therefore the attacks harder.

Mikita’s fruit provided her an exceptional immunity to ‘blows’ and ‘shockwaves’. That was why she didn’t feel pain when she fell from the sky like a 10-ton brick. That power was coming useful here— though she wasn’t 10 tons at the moment since that’d make moving the arm harder.

At the moment, Mikita had an earpiece on her ear that Hashirama shared, and through that Hashirama commanded her to lower her weight when he prepares a punch—and increase her weight when the punch is just about to land.

– Bam!

However, the communication wasn’t perfect and Hashirama ended up taking a blow from Sir Crocodile, which means sand spread across his body and dried out the water that was on the surface of his body.

Sir Crocodile’s huge face smirked as if saying, ‘How do you like this? Now you can’t even touch me!’

“I prepared for this, too!” Hashirama yelled from inside the control room, grinning as he clasped his hands. “[Transpiration]!”

The reason why he submerged the Titan in a lake wasn’t to make it wet for a minute or two, of course. It was to absorb water into the Titan to later perform transpiration.

Transpiration. It is a process where plants release water vapor through their many stomata. That’s why Hashirama had created leaves under the white overlay of wax. At this very moment, as planned, those greens released droplets of water that slipped out from within the cracks of wax that Hashirama deliberately kept.

Water surged out of the cracks, once again making the Titan’s fists wet. When Sir Crocodile saw that, he looked stunned for a moment before he began to attack again. However, Hashirama was also prepared to attack.

“Mikita, Zero!” Hashirama yelled as Mikita turned her weight to zero, therefore the Titan’s right arm moved fast with no blockage. “Mikita, 10 tons!”

With another order, just before the punch could connect, the fist turned to have the weight of ten tons!

That, when multiplied by the velocity of movement, the punch was much faster than the one thrown by Sir Crocodile. So the Titan’s punch connected first—going Bam!

The entire island of Alabasta shook as a super shockwave left the punch, and that erased Sir Crocodile’s huge head off the sand-giant, and the forest behind him ceased to exist as a burst of sand devastated like never before—ceasing to exist in an instant.

At once, three tornados sprung up from the punch, eating away the forest in seconds before vanishing right away, just as the earthquake also vanished into thin air.

Gently, the sand giant lost the strength to keep standing, and fell down into a pulp of sand. A gentle wind blew on the sand and cleared it enough to show the form of Sir Crocodile, who lay with his limbs spread, his mouth agape and his eyes blank.

Sir Crocodile was unconscious; he had lost.

Hashirama won, whistling out a sigh, as he thanked his luck once again.

Though maybe he should give himself some credit instead of thanking luck alone. This was his real first win, against a real first enemy worth counting.

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Master4thWall: There comes the Titan!

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