Chapter 8

The next day, he left the room making sure no one saw him leave. He obviously wouldn't want his secret place discovered. Tanzo then went back to the room he left Judge, who was snoring. Tanzo slapped him awake and started dragging his body out of the room.

Judge furiously glared at Tanzo, with dark circles under his eyes. He obviously didn't get enough sleep due to the stench in the sewage system room. Tanzo didn't care about his mood and returned back to his room. He left Judge alone in the room and went to take a bath.

When he opened the door to the bathroom, Judge was standing before him with a broken piece of vase in his hand pointed at Tanzo. Tanzo smiled and said "I guess you haven't learnt your lesson properly. Allow me to educate you about your situation."

Tanzo used soru and appeared behind Judge. He then used Shigan, thrusting his index finger with great speeds, into Judge's shoulder. This caused him to lose control of his right arm. Tanzo then said "If you co-operate with me these days, you will live. If you try to use your pathetic head again, I will kill you and your sons, and rule over this kingdom."

Judge obviously didn't say anything and just glared at Tanzo. He hasn't said anything ever since their first conversation when Tanzo attacked Germa Kingdom in his dragon form. Tanzo then left Judge, who was doing first-aid to himself to prevent himself from bleeding to death.

Tanzo sat down on a chair in front of a table and started writing something while constantly referring to the papers he got from Vegapunk's laboratory and the Germa Kingdom's laboratory. He was working on the hypothesis using the knowledge of devil fruits and Lineage factor from Vegapunk's research, and the knowledge of genetically engineered humans from Germa Kingdom's scientists.

Tanzo drowned himself in work for hours before Reiju entered the room with breakfast. Tanzo asked "Why is the princess of a kingdom getting my meals?" teasingly. Reiju didn't say anything and went to her father, Judge. She looked at him before punching him in the face like yesterday.

Tanzo looked at that and asked "Are you starting to enjoy beating him up?"

Reiju replied "Maybe. It actually feels a lot better when I hit him. I am discovering new things about myself."

Reiju then joined Tanzo for breakfast, followed by his treatment session and then they headed to the library. The rest of the day pretty much went the same as the previous day, with their library time and treatment sessions. Although their relationship has become way better than yesterday, Tanzo was still completely on guard when in contact with Reiju.

This continued on for 2 weeks, with Tanzo living in constant fear all the time he spent with Reiju. He obviously didn't try to show it on his face. Tanzo didn't want to look alert to Reiju, because when someone lets their guard down, they become careless and make small mistakes.

Other than the constant fear, Tanzo actually had a pretty good time with Reiju. Without the threat to his life. they could easily become best friends. Reiju lived all her life in the hellhole alone with no one to speak to. So, she immediately got close to Tanzo, who wasn't insane like the rest of her family.

Tanzo returned home after sleeping in Judge's room the previous night and returned to his room. Reiju immediately burst into his room and said "Tanzo, my brothers have mobilised the army to attack you. Even our weapons are now usable. We couldn't use our huge cannons before because the snails can't handle the recoil while they are crawling on the Red line. What are you going to do?"

Tanzo smiled and walked to Reiju. He put his hand on her shoulder and said "Reiju, it is time to know how strong I am."

Tanzo was walking past her when she held his hand, stopping him. She then said "I have been lying to you all this time. I could have cured you in just a day, but I wanted you to stay here longer. So, I intentionally prolonged the treatment. I know that this isn't something I should do when you already have trouble trusting me. I don't care if you hate me for this. I will just remember the days we spent together."

Tanzo was obviously angry with her for doing it, because he had to live 3 weeks in constant fear of getting killed. He had to look out for people trying to kill him even when he was sleeping. He obviously didn't have a pleasant time these last three weeks, but a small part of him wanted to forgive her for the love she showed for three weeks. It was still a small part of himself, so he was still angry at Reiju.

Tanzo said "I will deal with you later. I first need to teach your pathetic brothers what it means to actually go to war with someone. Heal me quickly."

Reiju immediately locked her lips with his and started sucking out the poison. This time, he was able to feel the sensation of regaining the control over his arm. After a while, Reiju moved back from Tanzo and he was able to move his hand like before. His hand was still a little weak from all the inactivity till then.

Tanzo moved his arm around to warm up. He then walked to the door and before he left, he turned to Reiju and said "I can tell from your eyes that you regret lying to me. I will give you one last chance. If you stay out of the battlefield the whole time, I might hate you less than I do now."

Tanzo then closed the door, leaving a crying Reiju in the room. Tanzo didn't care how caring, noble and true her feelings are. He was lied to and didn't even have proper sleep till then. He obviously can't trust a person again when he knows that she had already lied to him before.

The only reason he even gave her another chance before was his hormones controlling his actions. As he was walking down the hallway he said to himself 'Tanzo, you really need to have sex with someone. Your hormones are getting out of control from all the skin contact with Reiju these three weeks. You would never forgive her normally.'

Tanzo went to many places before he walked out of the palace and when he came out, he was immediately attacked by an extended arm flying his way. Tanzo however, had good reflexes and jumped up to dodge the punch from Yonji's extended arm.

Yonji then retracted his hand when it failed to hit Tanzo and said "It looks like my pathetic sister did end up warning you about our attack. Even then, why did you take so long?"

Tanzo smiled and said "It looks like you don't know what you are doing. Allow me to enlighten your non-existing brains." ignoring the question Yonji asked.

When Tanzo finished saying that, while in mid-air, he unleashed his Rankyaku at the Germa Kingdom's soldiers. In the show, a single Rankyaku move was enough to slice a whole building in half. Tanzo's attacks were taking down huge amounts of their army and while they fired their cannons at him, he simply dodged them by using Geppo to move in the sky.

The three brothers obviously didn't sit idle. All three of them flew to the sky. Ichiji released a red beam at Tanzo, Niji coated his blade with electricity and rushed at Tanzo, and Yonji punched from his same place, extending his arm like Luffy.

Tanzo dodged Ichiji's beam by moving to his right, but Niji was already there and he tried to attack Tanzo with his electric sword. Tanzo barely managed to dodge the sword and punch him in the face with all his strength, sending him away.

Tanzo didn't have any time to assess the situation. Yonji's extended arm was flying his way and the cannons also started firing, making it difficult to dodge the arm. So, he strengthened his body with Tekkai and took the attack. Although the attack didn't cause any damage, he was sent flying to the ground. He crashed into the ground, creating a very small crater. A dust cloud covered the small area around him.

Tanzo slowly got up. Yonji looked at the dust cloud and said "This is what you get for acting cocky till now. You may be strong, but in front of us, you are just trash. You can't take on our army alone."

Yonji then blabbered something into his weird headphones when he was interrupted by Tanzo. Tanzo replied "I accept that I will have trouble in this fight due to two reasons, but remember that I am never overconfident."

Tanzo didn't come out of the dust cloud and turned around. He looked at the castle before him and the snail behind that. Tanzo smiled and said "The first step in a fight between two pirates, we try to take down their ship."

Tanzo then released a Rankyaku with all his strength. The slash released, went through the whole castle and hit the snail behind it. Blood poured out from the snail and it fell into the sea, causing a huge splash of water.

Yonji looked at Tanzo, who was standing in the middle of the crater and said "Pfff....hahahahah...was this your genius plan all along. If you bet your whole life on it, then you will die now."

Tanzo knew why Yonji was laughing. The snails used by Germa Kingdom can hold this much weight because they have an air pocket inside their shells, which keeps their body floating on water. So, even if you kill the snail, it can still float on water.

Yonji was laughing hard, but when he looked at the smile on Tanzo's face, he immediately stopped. The other two brothers didn't laugh at all, because they noticed it earlier than Yonji. Ichiji said "We have been fighting a losing battle. He took so long to get here because he went around making holes in the shell."

Yonji glared at Tanzo, but couldn't do anything while the whole island was sinking, with around 70% of their whole army. They only mobilised 70% of their army because they thought that it was more than enough to kill Tanzo. Now, the entire army on the snail was slowly sinking into the sea.

The three brothers were least bothered about their army, but now the advantage over numbers is lost. It will become difficult for them to defeat Tanzo now that it is three against one.

Niji wanted to call the remaining soldiers who were on the other snails, but Tanzo immediately transformed into a dragon and blasted almost all the snails, keeping three snails alive. He would have taken them down too, if he wasn't interrupted by the three brothers trying to stop him.

When the attacks were coming in his direction, he immediately turned back into a human. This was the advantage of the artificial devil fruit. Unlike the original devil fruit, which requires the user to morph into one. Tanzo can immediately turn into a dragon or human without morphing. This reduces a lot of time during battle.

Tanzo had two problems when he first started fighting. The first problem was the numbers. It doesn't matter how strong you are. When faced with large numbers, you will eventually lose from fatigue, unless you have broken abilities which Tanzo didn't. The second problem was the weapons and cannons. They made it difficult for Tanzo to fight, as he had to look out for both the attacks from the three brothers and the weapons.

Tanzo successfully solved both his problems, by taking out the snails. The reason he didn't transform into a dragon when the fight started, is because he needed all the snails as close as possible. When the fight started, they were wary of Tanzo's dragon powers so, the brothers made the snails to maintain some distance from the main castle.

Tanzo would only have around two moves in his dragon form before he is attacked by the brothers. That's why he fought in his human form for a while, to make the brothers think that Tanzo wouldn't turn into a dragon. The soldiers operating the snails moved the snails closer to the main castle on their orders, making it possible to take down almost the entire army at once.

(If anyone didn't understand what I wrote, I will explain in short. Tanzo first made holes in the shell of the snail he was standing on, causing it to sink. He then turned into a dragon after the snails were close enough, to wipe them all out. When the fight started, the snails were far from the snail they were fighting on, but Yonji asked them to come closer when he noticed that Tanzo was having difficulties when fighting in air and dodging the attacks.)