75 Taking Advantage Of A Distraction

After the fight ended Ori walked over to Crocodile, who was sat holding her wrist with her eyes closed.

[She's using her awakened sand fruit to wither her wrist to stop the bleeding. Very decisive… Not bad! I guess her losing that hand was fate, whether it was me or someone else.]

Sensing his approach, Crocodile opened her eyes and looked at Ori with a complex look in her eyes. He was the one who took her hand, but he also saved her life by getting rid of Beliard. Add that to the fact that his strength was undoubtedly superior to her own, she chose to be sensible and not provoke a man like him unnecessarily.

"Can I help you?"

Ori nodded as he replied.

"Where's the safe? I want to take that £100,000,000."

Crocodile was shocked but then she remembered that the young man before her was a pirate, stealing to them was like breathing, it was 2nd nature. She got up and turned to walk away.

"Follow me."

As they left the arena, Ori couldn't help but ask a question that had been playing on his mind since he realised that Beliard was the one truly in control of the island.

"I didn't peg you for the type to take orders from anyone. Although Beliard's stronger than you, if you really wanted to escape he shouldn't have been able to keep you. So why is someone like you, who dares to fight whitebeard taking orders from someone like Beliard?"

Crocodile clenched her teeth in hatred as she replied.

"He poisoned me to force me to do his bidding and once a week he'd give me an antidote. But instead of giving me the whole thing he'd give me just enough to live for another week."

"He didn't have it on him did he?"

As Ori asked that he couldn't help but look up at the sky in the direction Beliard was sent flying. When she heard that, Crocodile shook her head as she answered.

"No, the antidote's in the vault, where I'm taking you now."

"If it wasn't on his body, why didn't you just steal it?"

Crocodile looked at Ori as if he were looking at an idiot.

"If I was capable of that, don't you think I would've done that?!

He had me under constant surveillance, even if I was capable of losing those tailing me, that dragon was the one guarding the vault. Although I'm stronger than that dragon, it's not by much. In the time it'd take to kill the dragon, that old bastard would've more than likely arrived."

Ori nodded realising that everything he said made sense. As they were walking they heard an explosion followed by the roar of what sounded like a dragon coming from the other side of town.

Crocodile couldn't help but cover her ears with her forearms.

"What is that sound?!"

Ori glanced in the direction of the roar with a slight smile before turning back to the direction they were originally heading.

"That's the sound of a Yonko Executive's death rapidly approaching."

Crocodile looked at Ori in shock before looking back in the direction of the dragon's roar, seeming to understand what he meant.

"They really are a bunch of fearless monsters!"

A couple of minutes earlier on the opposite side of the island…

Roman who was in his dragonized form was running from Oven with Silk in his hands.

[I can't keep this up, he's gaining on us rapidly. If I was on my own, I'd be more than willing to stop and fight him, but having to protect Silk whilst fighting against an enemy no weaker than myself…]

"Hahaha finally. You're la… Wait, what happened to Sabo?!"

As he looked over his shoulder he saw Shaya running towards him, carrying Sabo in her arms.

"He's fine now, he's just unconscious. Now's not the time to be worrying about that, lets focus on getting rid of your tail."

Knowing she was right he threw Silk to Shaya and turned to face Oven.

"Take them and leave, leave Oven to me!"

Shaya didn't want to leave but she knew that trying to fight someone like Oven whilst protecting two injured people would be a futile attempt.

"Be careful!"

As she said that she turned and left, carrying both Sabo and Silk over her shoulders.

Seeing them leave infuriated Oven.

"WHERE DO YOU THINK YOU'RE GOING!

OVERHEAT!"

As he said that his whole body turned glowing orange and the temperature in the surroundings shot up drastically, to the point where even the ground and building started melting rapidly.

Running on melting ground whilst carrying 2 bodies was an arduous task for even Shaya. She coated her body in a layer of armament haki and ignored the burning pain she was feeling on the soles of her feet and carried on running as fast as physically possible.

Just as she was about to escape his range, a bullet of hot air fired into her.

"Time Lag!"

As she said that the hot air bullet slowed right down, giving her enough time to barely dodge it. But as she did, several more were fired at her.

Seeing what he was doing Roman didn't hesitate, he immediately hurled his halberd at Oven like a javelin and transformed his body into a giant 200 meter long 5 clawed golden dragon.

Roman used his 50 meter long golden scaled tail to push Shaya and the others out of Oven's range. When he was confident Shaya was at a safe distance he focused his full attention on Oven.

As Roman concentrated on Oven he noticed that Oven was still distracted and was focusing more on the escaping Silk. Seeing that reminded him of something that Mihawk had told him whilst training over the last 9 years.

"As long as the difference in strength between you and your enemy isn't too big, executing the right techniques whilst they're distracted can prove to be fatal."

Oven was about to carry on his chase when he suddenly darted backwards. As he did, a giant golden scaled tail pierced the air where he was just stood. The weird thing was that although it was clearly a tail, it gave off the feeling it was a halberd being thrust forth towards an enemy.

Before he could land after dodging that attack he was attacked by a fearful soundwave.

"RROOOAARRRR!"

The sound of Roman's roar was so powerful Oven was forced to cover his ears and completely forget about Shaya's escape whilst momentarily dazed.

As he managed to re-orientate himself, he realised he didn't have time to catch his breath. He threw his body to the right as quickly as he could.

Splash

The halberd like golden tail that was swung downwards aiming to cut him in half, still ended up taking Oven's left arm despite him trying desperately to evade.

As Oven struggled to his feet holding his shoulder just above where he lost his arm, he noticed the surroundings had been covered in shade as the light from the sun had been eclipsed. He looked up and saw Roman's giant body flying in the air looking down coldly at him.

"Pure Yang Dragon Breath!"

As Roman said that a golden flame erupted from his mouth. Even before it reached him, Oven could feel the terrifying temperature of the flames. Even he who had eaten the heat devil fruit and had even fought with Akainu had never been exposed to temperatures like this.

Oven was just about to dodge when a pure white arrow pierced his left thigh. After being shot, Oven was confused by what he saw.

The golden flame that was approaching was moving at the speed of a snail, but what was weirder was that he was moving even slower.

What's happening to me? Was I just poisoned by some nerve poisoning?!]

He realised he was moving too slowly to evade the flame now, so without hesitation he put everything he could into attempting to block. Just before the flame arrived he successfully turned his whole body a dark but glowing orange colour due to the mix of armament haki and the heat fruit, but it wasn't enough.

"Noo… What flame is this?! Ahhhh!"

Despite his best efforts, Oven was still incinerated by the golden flames.

Bang

After the attack Roman was drained of all energy, he turned back into his human form and fell from the sky crashing into the ground.

[Although combining the Pure Yang energy with Dragon Breath is my most powerful technique, it's still too draining. After using it only once every cell in my body feels like it's on fire.

But Mihawk was right. Effectively using an enemies moment of distraction can be fatal. If he wasn't distracted at the beginning, that fight could've potentially gone either way, but because he was, I was able to keep him on the back foot and kill him before he could regain his composure!

I just hope that after killing one of Big Mom's children we don't attract too much trouble.]

Even though he was hoping he didn't cause too much trouble by killing a Yonko executive, his facial expression was one that made it look as if he didn't care one way or the other.