Chapter 82: Thinking can be hard

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Chapter 82: Thinking can be hard

***

Katakuri shot Max with a barrage of beans, he flickered them at speeds that were unstable to the normal eye. But Max was able to dodge them all easily, and even used his axe to change the trajectory of the beans to shoot back the small projectiles like baseballs.

"Troublesome," Katakuri frowned. "Perospero, block the water, I am going to fight him head-on. Just shooting at him would be useless."

A wave of candy burst out of the sea and it came out of the water like a tsunami. Katakuri jumped atop the structure, getting closer to Max who had a nonchalant look on his face, and charged. 

<Kamisori>

In an instant he was in front of Katakuri, bisecting the man in less than a second. "That's useless," said the mochi-man as his two bisected forms got back together. His fist already pointed at Max's midsection. 

[Burning Mochi]

Booom!!

Katakuri's arm shot out like a rocket, hitting Max straight in the stomach, pushing him back midair as he had no foothold to keep himself steady.

Still, Katakuri was a little surprised by how little damage his attack had done. A small stream of smoke came out of Max's abdominal fur, but that was it. There was no blood, nothing showed that he was anything more than scratched.

Max kept using <Geppo> to kick off the air casually and smirked. "Would you believe that I too am surprised that your attack did so little damage?"

Katakuri didn't say anything, he couldn't let himself get agitated or his Observation Haki would grow weaker. So he reacted calmly and out of his body came a trident that slowly materialized in his hand. 

Fwish!

Within an instant he was in front of Max, ready to pierce the bear-man. But the latter moved at speeds that no attacks landed and even with his future sight, Katakuri couldn't hit him. Only after images would be left by the time the attack came. His future sight wasn't faulty, it was just Max's reaction was too fast, no normal attack would land on him. Even if an attack landed, it was dubious whether the damage was worth the effort.

"You are really strong," commented Max, trying to agitate Katakuri. "But not strong enough."

He punched at Katakuri's head, using an infusion of Haki to blow the head like a balloon. 

Negan stood by the sidelines and just observed the situation. But in the split second, both he and Max were surprised as Katakuri's headless body lunged forward and hugged his bear form. 

Max caught on to what was happening, but by then it was too late as Katakuri's body became like a blob and engulfed him, creating a white sphere that floated midair. 

A figure slowly formed atop the white sphere and it was Katakuri who pulled up his scarf to hide his mouth.

"Heh, why are you trying to hide your injuries?" Asked Negan amusingly. Though the mochi-man had dodged Max's attack thoroughly and normally no injury would have been inflicted.

Max's Haki was strong, so it couldn't be stopped that easily, even when Katakuri turned his head into mochi, small traces of Armament Haki hit him straight on. 

"You don't seem worried about your leader?" Asked Katakuri calmly, cracking his neck and getting ready to fight Negan too. "He might be tough, but even the toughest creature will suffocate in there, without air, it doesn't matter how strong his body is."

"Yeah, if it was me in that situation I wouldn't know how to get out," Negan agreed wholeheartedly. Then a malicious smirk slowly made its way into his face. "But you know… boss-man isn't me…"

Suddenly the white ball churned, and a huge gaping mouth devoured half of the mochi ball in an instant. Max came out, his cheeks inflated with the mochi in his mouth. "Shish ish goosh." He mumbled something unintelligible, his words unable to form properly due to the snack bulging his jaws. 

*gulp*

After swallowing the mochi, his body became round like a ball, but it suddenly released steam and slowly slimmed down. Max's muscles even seemed to get a little bigger and his body got reenergized. "Ahhhh~" he moaned while patting his stomach. "That was a good snack, now it's time to get serious."

"You won't get out of this so easily," said Katakuri, manipulating his floating leftover mochi to slowly entangle Max. Its sticky properties were like glue and bound his body together. 

But contrary to Katakuri's expectations, this doesn't work on Max as through sheer physical power he was able to casually move through mochi with no problem. 

"You are strong, do you think I can win this fight?" Max asked his opponent rhetorically. 

At first, Katakuri said nothing, but he released his Conqueror's Haki as a challenge. "Unlike what others might have done before, I never, not even once underestimated you, Max. Also, due to that, I will undoubtedly win."

"I see," Max mumbled, his smirk widening. "But I am also confident in my victory, so let's observe who among us will be wrong!!"

With a yell, Conqueror's Haki burst out of Max too and the Haki clashed, creating dark lightning-like cracks around them. The weaker members of the Big Mom crew were knocked out due to the clash.

**

On Big Mom's main ship, Smoothie and some of the other siblings saw what was happening. 

"I will take care of this, brother Katakuri doesn't need to exert himself needlessly," she said, using her sword to stab some of the non-family members on the ground who were knocked out. Smoothie's body started becoming bigger and bigger till she was about the size of a small giant. She couldn't grow anymore or the ship would tip over.

"Sorry, sorry~" suddenly, in their midst an unfamiliar voice spoke. "I can't allow you to interfere with Max's battle."

Everyone looked towards the speaker and saw Negan with a spiked bat made out of gold clutched tightly in his hand. "Big Mom probably won't even notice some of you missing… so cracking a couple of skulls wouldn't be so bad."

***

-Negan POV-

Fighting was 90% mind games and leading your enemy to get agitated. It made them predictable and especially their Observation Haki would become messy at best. That was the lesson that Max had smashed into my head. In a real fight, erratic anger will only lead to death. 

"You are annoyingly arrogant!" Smoothie yelled out at me, sending a giant air slash.

What a stupid bìtch. Couldn't she see that I was baiting her? Maybe her brain rotted off from eating sweets all the time? Eating so much sugar wasn't healthy.

Though Big Mom is a monster so things like these don't even affect her.

My body morphed into lightning and I easily dodged her attack, somehow Max was able to keep up with my speed. But these people wouldn't be able to keep up with it, and even if they sensed an attack, so what? If you can't stop the hit, then it doesn't matter whether you predict it or not. 

I was tempted to just go and try to kill everyone down there, but I knew that doing so would have the opposite effect. The only one dead would be me. In the beginning, when I got access to these Devil Fruit powers, it was amazing. Especially after the dozen or so ideas Max gave me… 

Looking at him clashing against Katakuri made me smirk. That guy was looking after me all this time, where was my life going like this? I had no idea.

Making decisions can sometimes be hard. What would I do with my life at the end of the day? Would it lead anywhere? Was the effort I put in worth it? 

Deciding those things for yourself can be hard because making decisions by yourself doesn't leave you room to blame anyone else but yourself. Though that can all be avoided by letting Max make the decisions for me.

I don't care whether his choices are right or wrong. What I wanted was peace of mind, not having to worry about the future.

I couldn't help it as my eyes wandered towards him again.

...When God makes people like Max, he is just showing off.

Well, it was time to get serious now and stop myself from drowning in melancholy. Let's show these people that I wasn't just some guy on the sidelines.

***

A/N: What we usually see is the blind trust that Negan had for Max, willing to painfully sail half a sea for him. But from Negan's perspective things are a little more complicated, he has his reasons for following.