Ch 27 - Deadly Combat

In front of me stands a short, masked woman with flowing red hair, and two large ornate knives in her hands posing in front of me like she is the main heroine of a movie or something.

"Nice reflexes kid," she says, and again swings at my neck, I don't have time to think of her taunt or reply as I am bombarded with slashes from her large blades.

She does this a few more times with me having a few milliseconds to dodge wildly.

All that's present in my vision is the edge of those knives and the ringing sound of metal cutting air. (Luckily no Air blades yet, just really good handling of knives)

This goes on for about 10 seconds before she finally stops in order to likely taunt me again, but just as she goes to open her mouth, she closes it and jumps left in order to avoid a large purple disk that I sent her way from my eyes.

Seeing her evade my attack I don't hesitate for a moment and attack like a machine gun.

I use everything in my disposal, from my hands to my torso, to even my shoulder blades, I use my whole fucking upper body in order to try and hit her, but in the end, she is somehow able to read my attacks with only her reflexes alone and not even one of the hundreds of slow disks I sent her way is able to even graze her.

After a few seconds I stop my attack in order to regain some of my stamina I just used up (attacks of that caliber always use up energy, for every devil fruit) and back away in order to get away from this extremely dangerous woman and get as close to Carina as possible before the timer runs out.

I want to prevent her from being ganged up on once everyone is freed, and even though they will all be disoriented and some might even pass out (talking about guards and the fat guy not the agents,) these Cp agents are tough enough to hold on and tough it out until the three minutes are up.

Carina? Not so much as soon as the timer hits the 1-minute mark she will likely be in the land of dreams.

I'm not sure where Porche-chan is but I do hear loud sounds of combat not far away, I also caught sight by the side of my vision one of the frozen Cp agents being maimed by some sort of projectile, but other than that I have no idea.

She must have encountered another enemy and was forced to separate in order to relieve some of my stress.

Therefore, with Porche-chan busy with who knows what, it falls on my shoulders to get Carina to safety since I'm closest and have a clear sight of her.

I take a few steps forward but unfortunately, I can't take any more. A small, serrated dagger lands in front of me and not a second later I see the red-haired agent standing in front of me once again.

She stands in my way and again taunts, "If you run, you won't see me stab you!"

With that statement she again starts barraging me with slashes from her blades, and unfortunately this time, it seems like she's a little more serious than before, because I quickly start receiving major lacerations all over my body.

I try to dodge the best I can, but it's for naught, my arms and torso are full of bloody wounds by this point.

2 seconds is all it took for her to seriously injure me.

'This can't keep going like this if I want to get out alive of this situation,' I think.

With that thought I start using another of my recently developed abilities, the slow-slow sword/whip.

Just as she was slashing at my left breast, I create the sword and attack her with it.

By this point it seems she's learned not to underestimate me because she quickly dodges the attack and continues as if it's a mild inconvenience; and unfortunately for me, it is.

I can form the blade just fine but at the end of the day, I really know nothing about how to properly use swords or weapons in any capacity.

I only know how to slash, thrust, and parry a blow if it's slow and obvious enough for me to catch it with my eyes and have enough time to react to it.

And this woman's blows are anything but obvious or slow, she's quick, precise, and way too good for me to even imagine going blow for blow with her using bladed weapons.

Therefore, my little plan once again fell through and all that's left for me to do is bear with the pain, which luckily is only that, for now, and take my shot when I have accumulated enough stamina and when she least expects it.

It would have to be something more direct like the Shigan or a meteor shot, just in place of a rock or boulder, it would be her body. (Grab her and freeze her through touch)

Unfortunately, it seems like she doesn't care to take it slow and starts hacking away at me at increasing speeds and force, forcing me to once again use my slowing abilities, even though I feel tapped out of energy.

These counterattacks of mine don't really achieve much.

She simply avoids them with swift, acrobatic movements, and if she's caught unprepared by some of my attacks, she simply teleports once again to her daggers.

Seeing this I have an idea, and when she's in the air and is about to teleport to one of her daggers in order to avoid one of my beams, I quickly aim my eyes towards the dagger that I believe she's going to move to and fire off a somewhat late slow-star beam.

This seems to work for a split second because she stiffens in surprise for half a second…before she once again teleports to a different dagger.

Seeing my attempt fail, I sigh in disappointment and momentarily get disheartened because that was the only thing I could think to do with my current reserves and skills.

This also seems to slightly unnerve her, because she starts teleporting and moving in erratic movements from then on.

It was hard enough to get the timing down before she teleports, but with these erratic movements it basically makes it impossible.

Unfortunately, that's all I can currently do in order to stalemate her, and this situation continues and repeats itself for a minute straight, with no one getting the edge over the other.

I have the range advantage, which I use in order to keep her away from me, and she has the agility and speed advantage, which she uses to try and get close to me.

This pattern repeats itself, again and again with a seeming stalemate, but she and I both know who is actually winning this, she is.

Not only is my stamina rapidly depleting with all of these beams I'm firing off as well as using the slow sword, but with her continuing to shallowly cut me, I'm losing more and more blood.

I look more like a red painted man than anything at this point.

However, this progress seems to be too slow for her liking because she suddenly moves away from me, pauses for a second and sighs loudly, it's like she lost a bet with herself or something, and then disappears from my sight.

However, this also gives me a few seconds of breathing room, and just as she is implementing a new move, I'm also implementing my own.

It's the new move that I once mentioned to Poche-chan in passing. A move that I've been practicing for these following weeks and trying to get it as close to the real thing as possible.

I jokingly call it, Limitless.