Monkey vs Monkey

One insta-travel offered by Yeji transports later. Luffy and Makino were standing by Yeji's sides in the middle of a pretty large street, where some shops and food stands were either damaged or completely destroyed and looted, with various unconscious people, mostly fighters, sprawled on the ground and unconscious.

A bit further away stood the culprit, who took a bite from an apple before turning around, looking at Luffy and Makino with a big grin and fight-eager eyes.

'.....A monkey, really? A fucking monkey? Real funny, Yeji, real funny. Wait a second, it has six arms! And is that a second pair of eyes?! I swear, if it turns out that it's a literal spider monkey, i'm gonna lose it.' Luffy mentally commented, staring at the six-armed white monkey, which was almost his same height, standing at roughly 90cm (6 foot 11 and a half), while he was a few cms taller.

"A...monkey? Are we actually gonna fight it?" Makino asked, confused as hell

"Precisely. You will be the one to fight it, Makino. Luffy came out of a near-death battle not too many hours ago, it's time for you to put yourself to the test." Yeji stated, confirming her assumption.

"O...k?" Makino replied, still confused, but ready nontheless. As she got into a fighting stance, she stared at the monkey in the eyes, using body language to tell it that she accepted the challenge, to which the primate replied by doing a 'come at me' hand sign.

Without being told twice, she quickly rushed towards it, going so fast that various paper lamps in the area were blown away, and readied a kick, aiming it at the monkey's head.

Before it could connect, however, the monkey jumped up the last moment, dodging it. The moment the monkey jumped away, Makino's foot was met by a kanata's blade, which was aimed at her ankle, trying to cut her foot off.

Thanks to her quick thinking and reflexes, Makino was able to redirect her leg and hit her attacker's sword sideways, deviating the blade and keeping it pinned to the ground, as she then glared at her aggressor.

"What's wrong with you?!" She angrily asked out of indignation, glaring daggers at the young man who tried to chop her like she was sashimi.

"That damned little freak ridiculed me a month ago, so no one shall be allowed to murder it other than me, Hei Wuya, first born of the Hei clan. You better get the hell out of my way unless you wish to die, slut, because you are already courting death by standing in my way!" The young master, Hei Wuya, declared, trying to threaten Makino, making her pissed as hell instead.

"Could you repeat that? I think i misheard" Makino 'calmly' asked, fimrly holding the sword down with her foot while a tick mark grew on her forehead, trying her best to restrain herself from ripping the guy into shreds.

"Did you not listen to a single word i just said, you harlot?! I told you to get out of my way! And you better remove your filthy foot from my sacred weapon! You're infecting it with wathever disease you may carry!" Wuya shouted at her, adding fuel to the fire.

'why you snobby little shit!' Makino screamed mentally, almost letting her intrusive thoughts take over. After somewhat regaining control of herself, she turned her head towards Yeji.

"Yeji-san. Can i please deal with this failed abortion instead?" She innocently asked, making Wuya spit blood at the sheer nerve of the outrageous offense that she just spewed.

"Is it even a question?" Yeji amusedly asked, giving Makino a sly and knowing look, silently giving her full approval to thrash the hell out of that little shit.

"I'll take it as a 'yes, and be sure to smash his face for me'" Makino casually said, to then be lifted up slightly when Wuya managed to remove his katana from under her foot.

"YOU'RE SO DEAD!" Wuya screamed like a madman, swinging his katana towards her, only to be met by a strong uppercut after she narrowly dodged the slash.

"?!"

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Meanwhile Luffy observed the spider monkey for a bit, knowing that it really was a spider monkey after asking Yeji, facepalming when he heard her confirm his assumption.

Anyways, the first thing the monkey did was stare at Wuya for a bit, chuckling to itself as it recognized that moron, to then jump on the wall of a house, attaching to it instead of grabbing onto it with its arms, making him deduce that it's either an innate ability of his specie or a devil fruit.

"Oi! Furry Face! Your fight's over here!" Luffy called the arachnid ape, trying to taunt it, which actually worked, mainly due to him also giving it the stink eye.

The monkey then grinned, all of its previous anger quickly disappearing. It then used the wall as a platform to push itself off with its legs and rocket towards Luffy. The moment it covered about half the distance, it shot out its arms forward, and to Luffy's shock, they all stretched abnormally and closed the distance, grazing his body as he barely dodged, still processing what he just saw.

'Are you seriously gonna tell me that a damn monkey ate THAT devil fruit?!' Luffy cursed within his mind, now glaring at the monkey, but to his surprise and relief, all of its arms except the upper 2 returned to their normal size, as it then reeled its stretched arms back, and proceeded to merge its upper hands with the rest of the respective arms, forming 2 spikeless ball flails.

'ok nevermind. Did it eat the real rubber fruit, or one related to clay or something?' he pondered, relieved that some monkey, an actual monkey, won't be the next Joy Boy.

Before he could think further, the monkey swung one of its arm flails at him, hitting him in the side of the head.

"GAH!" Luffy grunted it pain, and crashed against the ground, breaking various stone tiles and leaving a small crater, making him spit a bit of blood as a lot of dust scattered around him.

'Shit. He hits harder than i thought.'

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Back to Makino's fight against Wuya. After landing that uppercut, she sent him a few meters away, making him bite his tounge too.

"Tch. How dare you?!" He growled, having already recovered and gotten into a sword stance, ignoring the stinging sensation that the uppercut left him with.

Not wasting a single second, Makino went on the offensive, and threw a haymaker to his face. Unfortunately, he dodged the last second, and went for a diagonal slash to the chest as she missed, grazing her right side when she tried to spin on her heel to dodge the attack and land a kick to the back of his neck, making her winch in pain, but still landing the kick, sending him crashing into the tiles of the street and leaving a large bruise on his neck.

"Nghh. That was close." She observed while holding her side, now having a shallow yet pretty long slash wound, which was bleeding quite a bit, staining the palm of her hand red. Then her eyes flashed red, her Observation Haki kicking in, and jumped to the side, barely dodging another slash from Wuya, who aimed it at her back.

Seeing his attack miss, Wuya snorted, and quickly rushed towards her, to then aggressively attack her, sending one slash after the other at a breakneck pace, each one gaining more and more momentum, forcing Makino to go on the defensive, trying to dodge or block the slashes while attempting to throw in a few quick hits to break his momentum.

Her attempts weren't too successful, and she instead ended up getting various cuts all over her body, but mostly her arms and torso, all off which stung a lot, while some actually hurt, to the point where she had a really hard time to ignore the pain.

'This is bad.... At this rate i won't last for long. I need to land in a hit strong enough to stun him, and unleash as many attacks as i can before he recovers.' She reflected, realizing that she will need to take a gamble in order to turn the fight in her favor.

Noticing her brief loss of focus, Wuya quickly took the opportunity, and smirked at her maniacally as he started to overwhelm her, leaving various deeper cuts on her body, one of which across her chest, causing her whole body to bleed badly, her vision getting a bit blurry as she started to feel really dizzy.

"What's wrong, harlot? Getting tired already?~" Wuya asked in a mocking and arrogant tone, enjoying the sight of Makino's blood-drenched body, who in return glared at him while slumping over slightly due to her injuries, staring into his soul while the right half of her face was drenched in her own blood, reaching down to her cheek.

The top half of her face was completely shadowed, only leaving her eyes visible, which were glowing red due to her Haki, making them look fierce as they promised Wuya to put him through a world of pain.

"GYAHAHAHA! Do you really think that a simple glare will be enough to scare me? If you do, i'm sorry to inform you that it won't, especially not from a woman" he commented, making her clench her fists, yet she said nothing, and kept glaring at him, almost falling to her knees as they trembled from the strain they were going through.

Seeing her unresponsiveness, Wuya confidently walked forward, grabbing her chin as soon as he got in front of her, forcing her to stare at him in the eyes directly.

"I have to give it to you. Despite the fact that you lost this badly against me, i've still seen very few jade beauties other than those monsters from the Hao family with a strength similar to yours. So rejoice, as few people managed to make me try when i fought them." He complimented, caressing her left cheek, almost making her vomit in disgust despite not showing.

Then the sound of flesh getting tore through broke the silence, and the people who were still on the sides of the street to observe the fights gasped in shock. Wuya stood still, completely frozen as he was still processing what just happened, looking down the pair of fingers that just pierced his chest, and almost stabbed his heart, Makino's middle and index finger, who managed to successfully perform a Shigan, stabbing deep into Wuya's chest.

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Back to Luffy's fight, he slowly stood up after getting hit in the face by a gum flail, turning to the side to spit out some blood that was still present in his mouth before staring at the monkey, glaring at it.

"Shishishishi!" It laughed,holding its chest with its lower hands, irking him.

Before he could unsheathe Taiyo and Tsuki and attack, however, Yeji grabbed his wrist, stopping him dead in his tracks.

"You're not allowed to use your swords. I want you to fight it using hand-to-hand combat." She clarified, making him huff, rolling his eyes before putting Taiyo and Tsuki down.

"Fine" he replied, getting into an improvised fighting stance, waiting for his opponent to do the first move.

Soon enough the attack came, and the monkey tried to hit him again with its flail arms, confident that it will hit again. But to its surprise, Luffy dodged it and grabbed the stretched arm, to then flip it over his shoulder, flinging the monkey various meters in the air, before making it crash into a tree near the tile road, which made a loud noise and shook a little from the impact.

The little delinquent then fell to the ground after a few seconds, but to the surprise of Luffy and some of the bystanders, it was completely unharmed, looking like nothing happened.

'yup, rubbery body. Now i know why Yeji doesn't want me to use my blades, she's probably trying to make me learn Armament Haki.' Luffy pondered, understanding why his teacher wanted him to get into a fist fight with this monkey.

After finishing his thoughts, he dodged to the side a stretched punch from his opponent, who basically used a Gum Gum Pistol to try to attack him. Following the first punch, a whole barrage from all six of the monkey's arms came, forcing Luffy on the defensive, trying to dodge, but soon enough failing, quickly losing his focus as he was then hit by dozens upon dozens of punches, some of which causing pretty loud crunching noises to be heard, cracking a few of his bones qnd sending him flying back, crashing into a wall and breaking through it.

"Owwwwww. Armamnt Haki would really come in handy...." Luffy complained, slowly getting up and coming out of the hole that he made, holding his right arm in pain. He then heard someone snap his fingers twice, and saw Yeji looking at him, having a neutral look on her face.

What she did next confused him at first, because she closed her fists and held her forearms up, mimicking a boxer's stance, trying to hint at something. After paying more attention to her pose, it finally clicked in his mind, she was mimicking a blocking stance, telling him all he needed to know.

"Block, don't dodge. Got it" he muttered while Yeji a thumbs up, telling her that he understood her hint, making her smirk in pride as she replied with a thumbs up of her own.

"Come at me!" He yelled at the monkey, spreading his arms in a challenging way, ignoring the pain that he felt in his chest.

"Shishishishi!" The monkey laughed, quickly jumping into action, throwing another 6 armed version of the Gum Gum Gatling at him. This time, instead, Luffy put up his arms in front of him and crouched slightly, ready to block it.

The fist barrage unleashed its fury on Luffy's arms, eager to break their defense, but to the monkey's surprise, its opponent's defense was solid, and managed to stand his ground, barely sliding back from the onslaught of attacks.

This result doesn't mean that Luffy was fine, in fact, his arms were sore as hell, and he also heard a pretty loud crack come out of his arms, meaning that the bones were at the very least cracked. The only reason why he wasn't screaming in pain was because his overall soreness shut it up.

Despite the situation, he was smirking at the primate, having noticed that the final punches hurt significantly less, meaning that he was getting a bit closer to unlocking another type of Haki, or that his durability was inceeasing a tiny bit.

Regardless, Luffy and the spider monkey quickly locked into fierce struggle, the former turning out to be tough nut to crack, while the latter turned out to be less of a powerhouse than it thought, slowly tiring out while struggling more and more to do any damage, eventually reaching a stalemate, where neither party was able to harm the other.

Seeing this, the monkey started getting desperate, going for slower and heavier hits, yet it didn't change anything. It took a step back, staring at Luffy with a serious look, as it then bit into its upper thumbs, and blew air into them, inflating its upper arms until they were twice the size. After inflating its uppermost limbs, it looked at them with a smirk, and grinned at Luffy as it pumped its enlarged arms.

It then went for a few haymakers, making Luffy grunt in pain as the massive fists connected with his forearms, loud crunches coming from them, yet it didn't deter him, instead making him determined to weather through this storm and come on top.

After the first few hits, something clicked inside of Luffy, who suddenly met one of the monkey's giant fists with a one of his own, their impact making a pretty loud boom. This time, the little primate looked at him in shock, staring at Luffy's now metallic black arms, which somehow managed to hurt it, leaving a small bruise on the enlarged fist, making the ape's eyes widen.

"Finally. Now you better be ready for a beating~" Luffy told the monkey in an ominous tone, making it nervous. He then landed an overhead punch right into its face, stunning it mostly due to shock, and unleashed an onslaught of haki-coated one twos and jabs, sending it into the same tree from earlier after various loud crunches came out of its body.

At that same moment, Makino quickly pulled out her fingers from Wuya's body, making quite a bit of blood ooze out, and then unleashed a quick and agile assault, landing various punches and kicks all over his body, cracking his ribs and various other bones, alongside leaving countless bruises all over his body, one of which at his lower back, forcing him to slump over, almost falling to the ground.

During her assault, she manouvered around his body with grace and fluidity, so much so that her audience thought that she looked like a dancer instead of a fighter. Either way, when she was done, Wuya fell on his knees, staring at the ground, his eyes wide in shock, his body still busy processing the pain.

When he did finish processing what happened, his pupils shrinked, and his eyes became bloodshot.

"I-I....I'LL FUCKING KILL YOU!" He yelled in pure rage, somehow finding the energy to grab his katana and get up.

When he did, his body started to swell, quickly growing in size, and countless black feathers started to appear, spreading onto his whole body and covering it fully. His mouth quickly turned into a beak, his hands and calves turned into dark gray talons, a bird tail sprouted out of his lower back, and lastly, a large pair of black wings sprouted out ot his back, flapping once before relaxing.

Once the transformation completed, Wuya opened his eyes, which were now reddened, his pupils abnornally small and the rest of his eyes bloodshot as hell as he fixed his stare on Makino, gritting his teeth as he looked down towards her, towering over her at almost 3 times her height.

"You've really done it.... You damn waste of oxygen. You could've just bow down to me, beg for my forgiveness, and make this easy, but no, you had to choose the hard way of course...." Wuya monologued, slowly approaching Makino, who took a step back when she felt his sheer killing intent, keeping her guard up as she stared back at the massive yet lean bird man in front of her in the eyes, still determined despite the odds now being against her.

"Your time has truly come, as i was bestowed the cursed fruit of the crow, gifting me flight, unrivaled sight, superior intelligence, and unmatched strength, speed, and resiliance." He boasted, revealing that he had eaten the Tori Tori no mi, Model:Crow, making Makino slightly nervous, as unlike Paramecias, which mostly act as gimmicks, or Logias, which have natural counters, Zoans enhance their user directly, upgrading their physical prowess manyfold, alongside often gifting their users some wacky ability, hence making Zoan users fearsome oppononents.

"Oh, how much will i enjoy to make you suffer for the shame that you brought down upon me....." Wuya declared, a psychotic grin slowly creeping on his face as he stared at Makino in the eyes, silently promising her pain and suffering beyond her immagination.

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To be continued.....

Author Note: bet'cha didn't expect this darker turn~

Jokes aside, i hope that you are liking the fighting scenes in this story so far, i decided to do 2 battles at once in this case, since our dear Makino didn't get her spotlight yet.

I also hope that you like my personal 'young master character', and in case you were wondering, for this arc there might be a few more Wuxia novelesque things, but i'll try to keep it low. Have a good one~

31/05 edit: the new chapter's probably coming out either today or tomorrow (already started writing), but that's not the reason for this edit.

The main reason is to ask you something, how would you feel about me starting my own original novel soon? As a person who always loved worldbuilding, and as a minecrafter for over 8 years now, i will most probably focus on that aspect on my own creation.

So, i wanted to ask your opinion, because i am a tad bit torn between 2 ideas, one taking place in a classic fantasy context, while the other takes place in a modern one, but with its huge share of unrealistic stuff. Which one shall it be?

-modern

-fantasy

Be sure to let me know, i'm really curious on what you guys think.