Chapter 91

[Mock Town, Jaya]

*Swooshhh*

Baten grimaced as the ominous wisps of the dark behind Teach increasingly grew, towering over the whole mock town.

"Zehahaha!!" Teach laughed boisterously with crazed expression, as he raised his darkness-covered hands up and maneuvered the tornado of darkness by his will. "Let me show you what darkness is capable of!!"

Under Baten's stern watch, Teach slammed his dark-clad left hand onto the ground.

"Black Hole!!!"

Upon Teach's command, the dark wisps began to spread at a rapid pace, and eventually engulfed the ground of the whole Mock Town.

In a cold sweat, Baten quickly retreated to the top of the building that lied nearby, only to widen his eyes as the building began to crumble.

Reallocating himself high in the air by using Geppo, Baten witnessed the devastating scene that unfolded in front of him.

*BOOOOOM* The buildings, structures, and all constructions alike, were being sucked into the dark wisps that covered the entire town. Such darkness eventually retracted back to Teach, leaving nothing but a dry plain that once used to be Mock Town.

"Tch, an ability to control darkness," Baten gritted his teeth in wariness, "Logia-type fruit that contradicts Kizaru's light. Marshall D. Teach... I may have to resort to using 'that.'"

Teach grinned as he proudly stood with his ferocious eyes glaring at Baten, "Zehahaha, don't let your guard down yet, for this is just the beginning!!"

The small patch of darkness in front of Teach began to swirl upwards, rapidly expanding its size above Teach frighteningly.

"Liberation!!!"

*BOOOOOOOM* The crumbled materials, which previously constituted the Mock Town, began to fly out aimlessly, filling the whole sky with countless number of them.

"Seimei Kikan: Kami-e Bushin." Baten's huge body frame instantly shrank, and became slender—morphing it into a form more suitable for dodging. With his sharpened eyes gazing at Teach's massive attack that approached him rapidly, Baten vanished from the air.

Baten flickered from one spot to the other, dodging those construction parts with the combination of Observation Haki and Rokushiki techniques.

Eventually, a large cloud of dust covered the whole battlefield, before it settled down, indicating that Teach's attack finally ended.

"Again, 95 million seems a bit too little for you." Teach stated with a grin still intact on his face, "Apart from that, capability to utilize advanced techniques belonging to the World Government. Zehahaha, you are becoming increasingly worthy in my eyes!!"

Landing in the middle of the ruins, Baten glared at Teach, although if one looked closely, the corners of Baten's lips seemed to have curled up slightly, and his eyes seemed to emanate a subtle craziness.

"Haha... killing someone like you..." Baten muttered with murderous demeanour, "is something worth living for."

Baten lightly tapped his right foot on the ground he was standing on, before vanishing from his spot once again. Teach slightly lowered his posture in cautiousness.

*Swoosh* Baten immediately appeared behind Teach, who turned and outstretched his dark-clad hand towards Baten.

Baten tilted his head and narrowly dodged Teach's hand, and slammed his Haki-imbued index finger onto Teach's exposed stomach,

"Shigan: Kikan Ju (Machine Gun)!!"

*Bang* *Bang* *Bang* Baten's Shigan consecutively crashed onto Teach, much to the latter's dismay.

"AHHHHH!!! That hurts!!!!" Being blasted backward from such attack, Teach momentarily rolled his body on the ground, as he screamed from the crushing pain that overwhelmed him. With shaky hands, Teach supported his body to stand back up, with his face expressing a clear agony.

"*Huff* *Huff* The weakness of darkness, Zehahaha... absorbing everything, including the attacks aimed at me." Teach muttered to himself, as Baten flicked his finger, which was covered in blood, "Too bad, *Huff* that darkness absorbs everything, including the pain. Furthermore, the pain I feel is amplified even further; the application of Armament Haki is not strong enough to nullify such sensation."

"Just now..." Baten repeatedly opened and closed his left hand, which was bleeding due to the sneak attack that Teach somehow managed to land, "...he wasn't even going all out."

Teach broke out into a grin once more, "Zehaha, your attack surely hurts a lot!!"

Around Teach, the surroundings began to blacken, as the darkness began to spread out in all possible directions. At the same time,

*Crack* *Crack* The grounds nearby Teach began to crack as an inconceivable force blasted out of Teach, causing Baten to shield his face with an evident shock.

"This sensation... no, it can't be." Baten's eyes widened, "Conqueror's Haki?!!"

*BOOOOOOOOOM* Teach extended his arms to his sides as the wisps of darkness exploded and began to swirl up in the sky, covering the sun's ray from touching the ground, and darkening the whole area.

Under Baten's loss of calm demeanour, Teach launched the vast amount of darkness towards Baten.

"Dark... Realm!!!"

*SWOOOOOSHH*

Baten watched as the darkness descended from the sky, with the intention to crash him. Baten could see, that the wisps of darkness were very dense and heavy from the initial sight; standing without doing anything will surely lead to his death.

"H-huuuu..." Baten tried to calm his mind down under the soul-crushing Conqueror's Haki from Teach, and lifted his right hand up to the sky above him.

'I'm... going to have to do it.'

"Diminish." Upon Baten's call, everything around Baten seemed to have slowed down. The crushing darkness above him moved at a snail's pace, and was rapidly being disintegrated before it managed to touch Baten. "Absolute stillness, minimal force...

Less Less: Endless Disintegration."

The massive darkness above the sky cleared slowly, before the sun's ray managed to brighten the area once again. Teach's eyes widened in an interest, as he placed his hand onto his chin,

"Devil fruit awakening?" Teach whispered in a surprise, "A very, very rare phenomenon that even in the Whitebeard pirates, only Whitebeard himself and Marco, the 1st division commander, managed to reach. How peculiar."

"*Huff* *Huff*" Baten was seen to be kneeling on one knee with his his right hand touching on the ground. He was sweating profusely and his eyes showed an obvious sign of fatigue.

Twenty-two years ago, Baten was given the Less Less fruit by his father, Spandine. Having familiarized himself with the ability for a long amount of time, along with his crazed pursuit of Rowan for past three years, Baten somehow managed to reach to a stage of the devil fruit awakening.

"*Huff* T-this... *Huff* is why I didn't want to use this." Baten gritted his teeth as he lifted himself back up, "Too stamina-consuming and inefficient."

The awakened ability of Less Less fruit was very potent. The basic concept was that any physical attribute around Baten that he chooses to control, excluding the alive beings, would endlessly approach to the value of zero. However, using this ability wasted a huge amount of stamina within Baten; this power wasn't suitable in the long run.

For the case of his Haki, which too hass awakened recently, wasn't strong enough to sustain for a long period of time.

Overall, Baten found himself baffled by the fact that defending against Teach's previous attack resulted in him being exhausted to this extent.

"Baten, you are very strong!!" Teach suddenly spoke up haughtily and held out his right hand, "Why don't you join my crew? We will conquer this world together! I have every single part planned—all you have to do is to serve under me!!"

Hearing Teach's offer, Baten weakly chuckled and raised his middle finger at Teach, "I'd rather die than to have myself acquainted with pirate scums like you.

Seimei Kikan: Kaijo (Cancellation)." Baten's body inflated back to his original form. Baten clenched his arms into fists and pointed them down to the ground, which earned Teach to quirk his eyebrow.

"My final attack." Baten stated in utmost seriousness, "Let's see if you can defend against."

"Too bad, Zehaha! Don't worry though, I won't kill you—since you are wanted only alive." Teach laughed and the darkness began to cluster behind him again.

Ignoring Teach's remark, Baten took a deep breath and launched his attack,

"Rokushiki Ogi: Rokuogan."

*BOOOOOOOOOM* The whole ground underneath Baten blasted into pieces, generating a large cloud of dust that Teach couldn't see through.

"Less.. Less: Still Gravity." Within the cloud of dust, Baten's weak voice was heard, and as the dust cleared, the massive chunks of the ground were floating around Baten.

"Oho, how impressive!!" Teach glared as the darkness swirled into a dense and giant tornado that crushed the ground underneath.

"Less... Le...ss... Minimal... *Huff* Friction." Baten struggled to keep himself standing up as he snapped with his right fingers. Subsequently, a nigh-invisible energy coated each chunk that floated around Baten.

Finally, Baten gathered his fists together once again.

"It's all... or... *Huff* *Huff* nothing. Rokushiki Ogi: Rokuo... gan!!"

*BOOOOOOOOOOOOM* The pressured waves of air flew out of his fists and pushed the chunks of the ground, causing them to blast towards Teach frighteningly. From afar, it looked as if numerous meteors were flying horizontally.

Unable to hold his consciousness any longer, Baten collapsed onto the ground.

"Zehahaha, let's see which is stronger, the product of your techniques versus my darkness!!" Teach shouted with a grin before launching his technique, "Abyssal Storm!!"

The massive dark tornado blasted towards the chunks of ground, and at the next moment,

*BOOOOOOOOOOM* Two sides collided with a violent noise shaking the whole island. The people who witnessed such a scene from a far distance away shook in fear, overwhelmed of the feat achieved by Teach.

"...Is he truly a human like us?" Psycho P whispered in an absolute devastation, with his whole body shaking in fear. Besides him, Naomi was seen unconscious, as she got knocked out from Teach's previous use of Conqueror's Haki.

From the deep pit that lied at some distance away, rest of Teach's crew were staring at the giant dark cyclone with smiles on their faces.

"As expected." Van Augur nodded with crossed arms, "But it seems that his opponent was quite strong, for captain to exert this amount of strength."

"Zehahahahaha!!!!!" Teach's domineering laughter resounded throughout the whole island, with the whole sky turned dark and the whole Mock Town in an unrecoverable state.

________________

[Nearby Spriggins]

"Whoa!!! What is that giant plant over there?!!!" Luffy exclaimed with sparkling eyes, as the 'Sprout' was revealed in their view.

"How can a plant as long as that not fall in the first place?!" Sanji commented with widened eyes.

Zoro was seen to be sleeping on the nearby deck, with loud snores and a bubble that formed from his nose.

On Luffy's left, Bartolomeo and Borodo were hanging lifelessly on the rail, with the dark aura around them expressing their exhaustion.

"Grand Line..." Bartolomeo muttered weakly.

"...surely is scary..." Borodo continued on tiredly, before he slowly raised his head up to Spriggins that llied ahead of them, "But we've finally arrived. Haha, we survived!!"

"Sanji!! This calls for a celebration!!" Luffy turned to Sanji with a drool on his face, "Hurry, go cook meat!!"

"You idiot! Don't you remember when you sneaked into the fridge two days before?!!" Sanji retorted with a tick mark on his forehead, "Wait until we arrive the island, you pig!!"

"Meat, meat, meat, meat!!!!!" Luffy nonetheless screamed, refusing to accept Sanji's reply, "Meeeeaatttt!!! I'm hungry!!!"

Ignoring Luffy's tantrum, Sanji turned back to Spriggins, and his body became wobbly and his eyes became heart-shaped, "Pretty ladies, here I come!!! Finally, after spending with these smelly animals for days, FINALLY!!!!"

Meanwhile, Bartolomeo was patting his back onto depressed Luffy, "Don't worry, captain Luffy!" Forming a large heart with his arms, Bartolomeo smiled with a blush on his face, "As soon as we arrive there, you will be able to have as many meat as you want!!"

"Haa... it seems that no one is aware of how broke we are right now." Borodo scratched his head and sighed in a depression, "Why am I the only normal one in this crew?!!!"

The Straw Hat pirates have arrived at Spriggins, two days prior to the Great Sprout race!