14 Chapter 14 - Mihawk.

(A/N: This was my first time writing ANY fight scene or shit like that. If it's bad or cringe, cut me some slack. I also invented some stuff on Mihawk's power because we really haven't seen a lot yet. Hope you all enjoy the big chapter and God bless you all!!!)

< Cain's POV >

'Guess I just killed a bunch of people... Honestly, I don't feel bad at all. They were scum. The only one from the Krieg Pirates that has some kind of honor is Gin, but even he doesn't have a lot. Naturally, I won't just kill anyone I want, simply because that's not how I want to live this life. I think I'll leave Don Krieg alive with one ship of his so that he may go to Baratie and all that cannon shit happens.' I thought while looking at the aftermath of my attack.

I could see Mihawk's interested expression and I noticed that he took the bait. I'll destroy the Krieg Pirates just a little bit more and go to fight him if he doesn't come to me himself.

Following this thought process, I sent another sword strike through the air in the direction of what was left of Don Krieg's fleet. My last attack had reduced their numbers to about 21 ships with around 1.8 thousand pirates on them.

This attack went faster than the prior one though, it reached the ships in less than a second and obliterated every one of them, but one. This ship will go to Baratie later and maybe the main story won't be so different.

After sending this attack, I turned and gazed into Mihawk's direction. I could see that he was also looking at me with fighting spirit clear in his eyes. I nodded at him and he nodded back, as if we had read each other's thoughts, we both went to a nearby island so that we could have our fight without annoying interruptions.

10 minutes later, we arrived at a deserted island near where we just were. This island was big in size and had a tropical climate but was mostly just a desert with a few trees here and there. The sun was burning with heat and this island reached a staggering 107°F (~42°C). This heat was no problem for me though, since I could control the very molecules of the air, I decelerated the atoms and lessened the space between them around me, making the air surrounding me a perfect 64°F (~18°C).

I also did the same to the air around Mihawk so that this fight would be fair. He probably wouldn't be affected by this heat but nonetheless, I made it the same temperature for him. He was thoroughly surprised and voiced his doubt to me saying, "Did you do this?"

I responded with a clear, "Yes, I did. I also did the same for me so that we wouldn't fight in this unbearable heat and so that the fight would be fair for the both of us. If you'd like, I can make it hot for you again."

He was surprised but also grateful for this little action of mine but didn't let it show on his face, "It's alright, now it's much better. May I know your name before we clash swords?"

"Of course. My name is Smith D. Cain, nice to meet you! By the way, I have a proposition for you if you're interested in hearing me out." I responded. (A/N: I think that in Japan they say their surname first, that's why luffy is 'Monkey D. Luffy' and not 'Luffy D. Monkey', so Cain will introduce himself like this just so people don't go around calling him Smith.)

"Unique name, Cain. I am Dracule Mihawk, a pleasure to meet you. I indeed am interest in this proposal of yours." Mihawk said while crossing his arms, waiting to hear Cain's next words.

"Great then. I'll say it simple and clear. I'm the captain of a newly formed pirate crew called The Black Dragon Pirates. For now, I'm the only member but I'd like to recruit you to be my main combatant and first mate. So what do you say? If you lose you join my crew, if I lose I'll do something for you." I said, excited about what he would say.

"Hmmm, I'm currently one of the Seven Warlords of the Sea, but from what I saw from your little display earlier, you seem to be quite a powerful individual..." Mihawk said while in his mind he was going through the pros and cons of joining Cain.

He then continued, "I accept your proposal."

The Seven Warlords of the Sea, or Shichibukai, are a group of seven powerful and notorious pirates that have allied themselves with the World Government. Their bounties are frozen and they are no longer hunted after this agreement and the World Government can summon them for help if needed. Mihawk is currently one of them.

"Perfect. This fight won't be to the death though, I don't want to have my future firstmate dead before you even join me, right?" I said with a confident tone clear in my voice.

"You are an interesting one Cain. I can see that you have an imense talent and can feel your confidence with a sword. Now, enough talk. Let's start." Mihawk said while unsheathing his sword Yoru from his back, instantly cladding it in a black substance, this was Armament Haki and it was a very powerful one. You could see that Mihawk didn't want to take any chances against Cain because he knew he was up against a very strong opponent. Mihawk had a special eye for people with talent wielding a sword and right now, he knew that Cain was one of them.

Seeing this, I also cladded my sword in Haki and instead of the classic black look, mine was a dark red color, almost like how Luffy looked in his Gear Fourth form. My sword, Nandaka, hummed noticing that it was going to be used for the first time in a real battle, and against a strong opponent at that.

I chuckled at my sword's reaction and just accepted that my sword probably had a mind of its own. After our preparations were done, me and Mihawk dashed at each other at above supersonic speeds. If anyone were here to see this battle they'd have gone deaf already due to the sonic booms happening every instant. The entire island was shaking due to the massive clash of power that was happening on it.

< 3rd POV > (this fight will be exaggerated of course.)

Mihawk and Cain were going toe to toe against each other, but neither could get a clean hit. Every time, the attack would either be blocked or parried, so Cain took this as a cue to start using more power in his attacks and Mihawk did the same.

Before they were just gauging each other's power, but now that they saw that this was going nowhere, they both started going at each other with everything they had.

' 'He's strong' ' was what was going through both of their minds.

*CLACK* *BOOOOOM*

In less then 10 seconds since the start of the battle, countless holes were appearing on the desert because of their confrontation. This was a battle between 2 absolute monsters in every sense of the word.

Their swords were crossing tens or even HUNDREDS of times every second, but due to a mistake on Cain's part, Mihawk was finally able to cut Cain. He slashed his sword and in an instant, Cain's arm was on the floor, meters away from his body.

"*HUFF* Nice one..." 'fuck this hurts... guess I won't heal my arm just so that this is more fun' Cain said and thought at the same time.

After a short second, Cain started running at unimaginable speeds towards Mihawk, and cut the air 4 times, releasing 4 energy strikes through the air that were heading towards his opponent. But, Mihawk didn't hold the title of 'Strongest Swordsman in the World' for naught. He instantly blocked these attacks with his own and as they clashed, shockwaves so lound that they could be heard from hundreds of miles away resounded through the air.

However, Cain was expecting this and instantly sent 5 more energy strikes at Mihawk as a distraction for his real assault. He was going to try and approach Mihawk from up top and basically trap him between his attacks. Mihawk was no fool though, he quickly caught on to his plan and immediately jumped hundreds of meters away and dodged his attacks.

Mihawk then quickly thought of a strategy that might just be the winning factor in this fight. He was going to use a NAMED attack. It had been quite a while since he had to use one of these attacks, but now was the time...

Cain, seeing that Mihawk was preparing something started charging at him, but that's when he heard Mihawk yell his attack, and at that moment, he knew he fucked up.

"FLOWING SLASH OF THE GREEN PHOENIX"

As those words left Mihawk's mouth, he slashed his sword downward in a fluid motion and a beautiful and massive phoenix with green fire covering it's entire body appeared. This phoenix was coming at Cain at speeds so fast that it was literally impossible to dodge without manipulating the space around him. But Cain decided to take the attack head on.

As the attack was reaching him, he felt hot. There was no word to describe the heat that he was feeling at this very moment. If he were to try to put it in words, he'd say that what he was experiencing was the complete opposite of absolute zero, it was just absolute heat.

He could feel the skin around his bones start to become a disgusting paste and his bones were turning to ash. That's when he decided he had enough. His skeleton hand grabbed the handle of his sword and he started to hold his sword horizontally.

With his pure physical strenght, Cain was able to full on become Jiren for a moment and was able to overwhelm Mihawk's attack, sending it back to him. But Cain wasn't satisfied with just that and yelled his own attack.

"VENGEFUL STRIKE OF THE EMPEROR DRAGON"

An attack so powerful that it seemed to distort the very fabric of reality was sent by Cain. A void black energy strike left his sword and anything in it's path just became nothing, even the sand beneath the attack was being sucked by this attack, almost as if it were a black hole.

But Mihawk wasn't worried, he knew that he could take this on, he NEEDED to take this attack. His pride as the Strongest Swordsman in the World was at stake and he wasn't going to just give it up that easily.

Miliseconds later, both his own attack and Cain's attack had reached him. He instantly cladded his entire body and sword in Armament Haki, but this time it wasn't black, it was a deep dark green Haki. Mihawk's abilities were evolving at every second of this fight, but now it was not the time to focus on his improvements, it was the time to focus on not dying.

As he completely covered himself in Haki, he moved his sword so that it would be vertically in front of him and uttered 3 words. Those 3 words were enough to make even the strongest of people shit their pants.

"𝖇𝖚𝖗𝖓 𝖙𝖔 𝖆𝖘𝖍"

And just like that, both attacks literally started to become dust in the wind. Mihawk's words carried such an immense power, that just by saying 3 words, attacks that were powerful enough to destroy tens of islands became ash.

Cain was absolutely stumped by this but didn't let it show on his face. He quickly thought of a simple plan that would either ensure his victory, or his defeath. He then sent hundreds of sword slashes through the air in less than a second, but they were just a distraction. After doing this, Cain put all of his remaining power on his legs. It was now or never.

And suddenly, Cain disappeared from the battle field, at least that's what it seemed like. The truth was that Cain was moving at speeds so high that he just couldn't be seen at all. Even the most proficient assassins couldn't hope to reach that level of speed in hundreds of lifetimes.

Mihawk seeing this, started pumping his Observation Haki to the maximum to try and locate Cain, but when he finally sensed his presence, it was already too late. Cain's sword was now at his neck and with one movement, his head would leave his body.

"Guess you are joining my crew huh." Cain said from behind him with a tired tone. In this last attack, he had exerted his physical power to the limit so that he could grab Mihawk while he was distracted with his attacks.

"Ha... seems like I am... The title of 'The Strongest Swordsman in the World' belongs to you now, Captain." Mihawk said with a voice of defeat. He had enjoyed this match and was very much impressed at Cain's prowess with a sword. Not even that red-haired man could defeat him using just a sword, but this rookie pirate had done just that.

"Fuck, that took a lot out of me... *huff*" Cain then removed his sword and looked straight at Mihawk, "My story has just started Mihawk. Along our journey, we'll receive many titles, and this is just the first of them. Now let's go back to our ship, the Black Pearl." Cain said while walking ahead in the ship's direction.

Cain then looked at Mihawk behind him and said with a smile, "Oh, and stop calling me captain. You can just call me Cain, I don't care."

Mihawk hearing this was glad, he thought that being under Cain's flag wasn't so bad after all... Then, he remembered something that happened in the middle of their battle, but now he couldn't even see a mark of his attack.

"Cain, how did you just heal yourself? Not even Red-Hair could just regenerate his arm like that..."

'Shit, what do I tell him? Should I just say that I'm immortal? Nah, that's probably something I'll tell only a select few, I don't want to start spilling my secrets for just anyone. Given that Mihawk is now part of my crew, I'll just say that it's because of my devil-fruit... There would be a time where he'd find out anyways.' Cain thought in a split second and answered Mihawk's question.

"Well that was because of my fruit's powers. You see, I ate the Tatsu-Tatsu no Mi, Model: Shenlong, a mythical zoan type that gives me the ability to transform into a gigantic dragon. It also gave me a dragon physilogy so you can say that I just have a VERY high healing factor."

Mihawk hearing this was stumped and said, "So you could've defeated me in an instant if you used your full abilities?"

"You could say that. But the thing is that I did use my full abilities, but they were only my full physical abilites, not anything else. I didn't want to use anything other than my sword on our fight so that it would be fair and square." Cain said with a carefree expression painted on his face, as if nothing and no one in the world could beat him.

'Thank God I put a spatial barrier around that Marine hiding in that tree over there... If I didn't, that man would literally had been reduced to absolutely nothing.'

".....It really is worth it to travel under your flag... You're a monster, Cain." Mihawk said after a long time of silence. He started respecting Cain as his superior and also his friend.

"That I am, my friend. We both are. Now, let's pick up the pace. It's getting dark soon and I'm hungry, follow me." Cain said as he began jogging at a measly 230 mph.

After just a minute, they reached the beautiful black ship known as the Black Pearl. Cain then showed Mihawk around and said that he could pick whatever room he wanted to stay in and said that he would call him in a few so that they could eat.

5 minutes after Mihawk's tour around the ship, he was called by Cain to the ship's kitchen and what he saw there left his jaw on the floor.

On the table, there were 23 pizzas on top of each other, 48 cheeseburguers and 9 diet cokes on the side. Maybe Cain is a saiyan because this type of appetite isn't normal...

"Come, sit there and let's eat! Our fight took a lot out of me, I'm famished!" Cain said while pointing to a chair on the opposite side of his as he was eating like an ogre.

".....ok....." Mihawk said after seeing his respected captain being reduced to such a state... it was sad really.

After about 40 minutes, they were finished. Cain had eaten 17 pizzas, 23 cheeseburguers and had drank 4 entire cokes. What surprised him was that Mihawk had never eaten anything like this before and had instantly fallen in love with this food called 'cheeseburguer'. So much so, that he'd eaten 25. In reality, he had loved everything. Pizzas, cheeseburguers and of course, coke.

"Ah fuck, I think I ate too much my friend... I'm tired so I'll be heading back to my room and will get some sleep. You can do whatever you want..." Cain said while patting his stomach that had grown to 4x its normal size.

"You did eat too much... Anyways, we are we going next? We still haven't left the island." Mihawk asked

"Oh, my bad. Our next aim is to recruit the 'Demon Child', Nico Robin." Cain replied as he asked Rhea to lead the ship to Robin's location.

What they didn't know was that today's events would go down in history as the day the Strongest Being in History had recruited his first crewmate, the Strongest Swordsman in the World. That day, a legend bigger than that of Gol D. Roger had been born.

The island that they had clashed swords seemed to have just gone through a war. The vast majority of the sand on the desert had now dissapeared. The heat from their attacks had reduced the once filled desert into an empty space. If you were flying above the island, you would be able to see thousands of craters on the ground, some small, some gigantic, some shallow, some deep.

As they were leaving the island, a courageous and now deaf Marine revealed himself from far away behind a tree. On his shaking hands was a camera that he used to take a picture. In this picture, you could see Cain leaving the battle site with Mihawk following not long after. What the Marine didn't notice was that his white pants now had a very large brown spot on his behind...

This Marine was shocked to his very core and was paralyzed for minutes. Today's events were massive and he needed to report this directly to the Fleet Admiral, Sengoku. This news was surely going to astonish the entire world, be they a pirate or not.

He immediately removed his Den Den Mushi from his pocket and called the Fleet Admiral directly.

.

Fleet Admiral's Office...

While Sengoku was chilling by himself eating some boiled chicken, he heard his Den Den Mushi ring...

*peru peru peru*

"What fool is calling me at this hour?" Sengoku said to himself as he put down his chicken and picked up the transponder.

*kacha*

"What is it?" He asked.

"F-F-F-FLEET ADMIRAL SR. I HAVE URGENT NEWS THAT NEED TO BE DELIVERED TO YOU DIRECTLY. I AM STATIONED CONLINET ISLAND AND I HAVE JUST WATCHED HAWK EYES BATTLE WITH AN UNKNOW PIRATE. I COULD ONLY HEAR THE BEGINNING BECAUSE I HAVE GONE DEAF DUE TO THEIR POWER. I HEARD THE PIRATE SAY THAT IF HE WON THE DUEL, HAWK EYES WOULD HAVE TO JOIN HIS NEWLY FORMED PIRATE CREW. THIS UNKNOWN PIRATE THEN PROCEEDED TO WIN A SWORD FIGHT AGAINST HIM AND HAWK EYES SEEMINGLY JOINED HIM." The shit pants Marine hurriedly said, almost making Sengoku deaf as well just from how loud he was being.

"W-WHAT? HAWK EYES HAS LOST AND HAS JOINED SOMEONE? WH-" Sengoku had chocked on the chicken that was on his mouth and as he was in the middle of asking for this pirate's name, he was interrupted by the Marine. You can't blame him to be honest... he's deaf ¯\_﴾°ロ°﴿_/¯

"THIS PIRATE'S NAME WAS SMITH D. CAIN, THE CAPTAIN OF THE BLACK DRAGON PIRATES, SR." He said.

.

CHAPTER 14 END