25 To the Grand Line!

Xanzus gritted his teeth, the battle between the two was getting out of hand. Both of them were quite injured, especially him. He was being forced to using underhanded methods to even survive the battle.

Kuro slightly smiled, he knew the battle was to his favor, but he wanted to finish this quickly. At this moment the Lava King, Xanzus roared as his fists were covered in lava," Lava Secret Arts - Volcano Explosion!" He smashed the fists together, and suddenly the ground shook, and started to crack, soon it exploded, and lava was flying everywhere.

"Lightning Purple Fifteen Layers!"He roared as fifteen layers of lightnings of purple colour appeared blocking the attack.Not wasting a single second he shot towards Xanzus."Lightning Fists!" He exclaimed as his fists were clad in lightnings,which reached his shoulder.

Kuro used the Lightning walls he had created to launch himself at Xanzus, and smashed his fist at his face, but not before he received a punch to his other hand, which was less coated than the right hand.

Kuro gritted his teeth, his left arm was definitely broken, what he could do right now was only use Darkness to move his hand until it properly healed. He launched another punch at Xanzus before retreating.

Miru looked at the battle and sighed, " Kuro, can you let me finish this battle?" Kuro looked at him with a weird face," But you are a cook... How can you defeat him?" The cook grinned," I ate the Fire Fire Devil Fruit, While I might've been defeated by him earlier, that was because I was caught unprepared."

Kuro chuckled," If you want to, so be it." He then moved out of the way as Miru launched his attack, " Flames Of Titans, SOAR!" He shouted as he was covered in black flames, he ran towards Xanzus who gritted his bloody teeth and roared," YOU BRATS! HOW DARE YOU HUMILIATE ME LIKE THIS!"

He meet Miru's attack with his own fists, covered in lava, but he was slightly losing the battle.

"Fire Ocean!" Miru shouted as from his fist black flames appeared and flew towards the lava."Lava may be hotter than flames,but flame don't have a clear temperature limit!"Miru said.Kuro was only grinning in amusement.The two attacks collided with each other creating cracks in the floor.

Dust and smoke covered the whole path and nobody could see anything.

But in the end..Xanzus WAS DEFEATED!Kuro grinned and looked at

Miru who was breathing heavily." I might be just your random cook... But I am a Pirate! A powerful one with a fifty million beri bounty on my head." He put his chest forward in a feeling of bravery.

Kuro was calm,"Heee...Then what do you think,do you want to join my crew?"Miru sighed,"Of course...you are the first person to not let me go away with that lie...or second…."The last words couldn't be heard.Kuro was happy.Having a cook was better as there would be a better and strict ruler of the kitchen.

"Nee,did you see my crewmates,a guy with orange hair and red eyes and a girl with a staff?"He didn't ask about Haken as he was strong and there was no need to be worried about him."No I didn't." Miru waved his head.

They continued walking in the path before reaching a huge hall.There were at least ten thousand people there.Kidnaping!Kuro was angry.He looked around and saw his friends.They were unconscious!They probably used somekind of a cheap trick to trick them!

He noticed that there were a lot of pirates in the hall, probably still didn't know their boss had been defeated." Miru, I let you defeat Xanzus, leave this to me." Kuro said with a dark face, he walked forward and slammed his fists together," Time to destroy those bugs."

"World Of Darkness, Playground of Pain." He muttered as suddenly all the darkness he had spread in this building started to gather, solely at this hall, forming a dark round ball.

"Die." Kuro said as he slammed his palms together, and the ball shot forward, literally cloning itself and spreading to each pirate, absorbing all of them. The pirates didn't even know what hit them before they all died.

Kuro quickly untied his friends and then slightly slapped them in the face.They woke up and after Kuro told them what happened they also untied the other people.Nobody knew Miru so they quickly left the restaurant after a huge party, which was really tiring.

Miru was amazed when he looked at the ship where they would travel."Will it fit the small path of the Red Mountain?!"

The Red Line was still alive, merely, it was broken into several smaller pieces, the Red Mountain was one of the larger fragments of it, covering half of the Four Seas. It was hard to reach the Grand Line through it, as the actual passage was very narrow.

"It will fit,barely fit actually,but thanks to me,the greatest shipwright in the world it will be easy."Ketsu grinned as he raised a hand.They jumped into the ship and then Haken jumped into the crow's nest and then Kuro shouted,"Sail!"

They sailed into the sea and headed towards the first half of the Grand Line.But first they had to pass through the Red Mountain,with 99% percent chance of dying.Kuro was happy.One of the first steps to his dream was ending.

"I now have a lot of crew mates and friends...Haken….Ketsu....Yuki...Miru.I AM HAPPY!" Kuro was grinning and at the same time crying tears of happiness.He wasted nine years but he didn't regret.He became stronger and got new friends.

Maybe becoming what they called Zero... Was not really the worst it gave him so much to live for. He now had friend to care for, was this what 'Luffy' and 'Roger' felt when they were traveling around the world?

He might've experienced a lot of pain to gain this power, but he definitely did not regret even an ounce of it.

It gave him a family, which he eternally was grateful for. Now what was left was only...

BECOMING A PIRATE KING!