“That’s my genius invention, Law! I call it the Hyper Numby! When the switch is turned on, electricity runs through the blade! If Bacca tries to go liquid, it’ll hurt him bad!”
Aside from the incredibly stupid name, it was indeed the perfect secret weapon for our situation. With this sword, we didn’t actually have to land a direct hit. Whether solid or liquid, he still felt pain like any other human being, so if I just stunned him powerfully and repeatedly with slashes of the sword, I could actually take Bacca down!
“This is really impressive, Junker,” I said. Bacca stayed back, watching me carefully. But that pause was exactly the opening I was waiting for.
Immediately, I shouted “Room!” I wasn’t going to let this opportunity pass me by, and wasted no time in activating my Op-Op Fruit powers. The entire area was now within my domain.
“Crap…you’ve got Devil Fruit powers?!” Bacca shouted. The realization came to him too late.
“Chambres!” I commanded.
As Bacca fled, I spotted a piece of marble in his path. I instantly switched my position with the rock.
“Wha…?” Bacca mumbled. My powers of teleportation utterly befuddled him.
From Bacca’s perspective, I had been several paces away from him and then suddenly appeared within sword’s reach of him. I could see how it would be baffling.
“Now die,” I said. Quickly, accurately, and efficiently, I slashed through Bacca with the electric sword, slicing his body in two.
“Gaaaah!” He screamed and convulsed. The electricity’s effect on him was devastating.
Two, three, four—while Bacca was wracked with pain, I continued to hit him with the sword.
“Gahaaaaah!” He shrieked again, but he didn’t go down. Just as I was about to hit him with a fifth slash, he transformed his body to liquid and flowed away from me along the ground.
“Huff, huff… So you had a trick up your sleeve. I wasn’t expecting that one…” Bacca grunted.
Now it was my turn to be shocked. Based on the light the sword was emitting, it must have carried a substantial electrical current. One blow from it would render the average person unconscious. But Bacca was glaring at me with evil rage in his eyes. Why wouldn’t he go down? How was there still so much power in those eyes?
Just then I was struck by the same sense of unease that I’d felt when we fought in town earlier. The difference in intent! It wasn’t just a matter of good and evil. Bacca was engaging in this fight with a dead-set determination not to lose. But what about me? Did I have the same steely determination to stand up to Bacca’s slimy, narcissistic greed?
“Dammit!” I shouted. Giving myself over to hesitation in the midst of the fight was the worst thing I could’ve done. I slashed at Bacca, again and again. I cut him until the pain should have rendered him unable to stand. But still he stood. He took the pain with a confident smile and came ready to kill me.
Then I slipped. There was a pool of water at my feet. Bacca had left a part of his liquid self on the ground, setting a trap to catch me.
“No!” I yelled in despair.
“Ga ha haaaa!” Bacca laughed. His maces were coming for me, and I had totally lost my balance. I couldn’t dodge this one.
“Law!” I heard Wolf call my name just as I was about to give up. Wolf leapt between me and Bacca. He lifted me up and bounded away. It took me out of the range of Bacca’s swinging maces. But there was a catch.
“Junker!” I cried out, realizing Bacca’s attack had hit Wolf square on the back.
“Grfh…” Blood spurted from Wolf’s mouth. He’d taken severe internal damage from the blow.
“I’m all right. You know me…even at this age, I’m tougher than anyone around…” he grunted.
“You’re just trying to act tough! Scan!” I said. I used the Op-Op Fruit’s powers to look inside Wolf’s body. Some ribs were broken and there was damage to some organs, but nothing fatal. He could still be saved.
“Quit interfering where you’re not wanted, old man!” Bacca screeched, pressing the attack before I could help Wolf.
I shouldered his weight and just managed to jump far enough sideways to get out of the way.
“Stop it, Law…” Wolf sputtered. “Don’t try to heal me right now…I refuse to be a burden!” I held back a sob as he went on. “Don’t worry, boy, I won’t die. I’ve got too much that I want to do for you and the other brats to kick the bucket now! Go and beat Bacca. I know you can do it. Take this genius’s word for it.”
“All right,” I said. It was the only thing I could say.
“Oooh, I got Dad down for the count first, huh? Now all I gotta do is squish the kid like a bug! This is much easier than I thought it’d be,” gloated Bacca, who was already acting like he’d won.
“Wipe that smug look off your face. You haven’t landed one good hit on me,” I said.
“Ga ha! Well, at least you know how to talk the talk, kid. Come at me again, then. Let’s see what your precious sword can do!”
I told myself to be calm. I could see that Bacca was also barely able to stand. If not for that moment of carelessness earlier, I would have been able to avoid taking a hit from his mace. I had the advantage. I faced off with Bacca and attacked him from the front with a primal scream.
“Raaaaahh!”
We crossed paths. I avoided his blow, while he took the full brunt of my electric sword.
I can do this. I can keep it up, and then I’ll win, I thought, just as I realized something felt off in my right hand. The sword felt light—too light. I glanced down quickly and gasped.
There was no blade.
“Why?” I murmured.
“Ah ha! That’s the look of a boy who doesn’t know what just happened, isn’t it?” Bacca leered with delight. “Didn’t you think it was a little too easy to hit me?”
Something about the strike had definitely seemed odd to me. Even when Bacca was on his feet and able to dodge, he still took the full brunt of my attacks. The broken blade lay at my feet. Upon a closer glance, I could see that it was covered in rust and corrosion. Now it made sense.
“You finally figured it out, eh? I let you hit me and used the opportunity to weaken your sword. When I use Liquidate, I can control the acidity of the liquid. After you started using that sword, I went fully acidic. You didn’t notice a thing, and kept slashing away at me until I’d eaten through enough of your sword that it broke! It was your own incompetence that led to this. Ga ha ha!”
I was speechless. If I had realized the change in my sword sooner, I could have done something about it. I didn’t think I was being sloppy, but there was no denying that I’d thought I had the advantage. It had never even occurred to me that it might have been Bacca’s trap.
“Whew! Takes a lot of stamina to use that acid, but now it’s settled. You can’t hit me anymore! The only thing left is for me to take you down! Ga ha ha!”
Wolf was unconscious, and I couldn’t inflict any further damage on Bacca. My pulse quickened.