But Bepo was still in an uncontrollable rage!
“Waitaminute, does he not realize we beat the bad guy?” Shachi wondered.
“I think he’s only running on impulse right now,” speculated Penguin.
“Then we’ll have to stop him.”
“But how? You wanna put Bepo in a sleeper hold? He’d kill both of us!” Penguin tapped a finger to his forehead and thought hard.
“The full moon,” he finally said.
“Huh?” Shachi asked.
“Bepo was staring straight into the moon before he changed form. See how he keeps glancing up at the sky once every couple of seconds?”
“We’ll just have to try it, then,” replied Shachi.
Bepo continued to rage, tearing out chunks of the walls and the pillars around the chamber. If he kept it up, the whole temple would eventually crumble around them. And given the beating Penguin and Shachi had already taken, that would certainly kill them.
“Use this,” said Shachi, handing Penguin his casquette cap.
“All right. You want me to do the jump, then?”
“Yeah.”
“Fine. It’ll be your shoulders getting kicked!”
They started off running. Shachi took a slight lead. Then, just before he entered the range of the thrashing Bepo, he shouted, “Penguin, now!”
“Got it!”
Penguin used Shachi’s shoulders as a springboard and launched himself into the air. He grabbed Bepo around the head, rotating around to his back, and used both Shachi’s casquette cap and his own hat to block the bear’s eyes.
“How do you like…that?!” he said. Bepo’s vision was completely covered.
Bepo continued to thrash, but Penguin refused to let go of the hats. After a number of seconds, Bepo came to an abrupt stop. His body returned to its original size, and his fur reverted to its usual length. The plan had worked.
“Hey, Bepo! You alive?!” Shachi called out, slapping Bepo on the cheeks.
“Mmm…Penguin, Shachi…? What happened to me? Where’s that Boakeno guy?” he said.
Penguin and Shachi sighed with relief.
“Oh, him? Yeah, we took care of him,” Penguin said nonchalantly.
“Huh?! Really? Wow, you guys are amazing… My kenpo didn’t do a thing to him…”
“Trust me, you put on quite a show,” Shachi told him.
“Yeah, you did,” Penguin laughed. “We can tell you all the details later, though.”
“Good point. I’m exhausted.” At that, Penguin and Shachi fell onto their backs. Bepo slumped to the ground, too; the transformation had taken all his strength. None of them had the energy to even lift a finger.
“Hey. Shachi, Bepo.”
“Hmm?”
“What’s up?”
“We won,” Penguin said.
The other two were taken aback for a moment, then joined him in a round of uproarious laughter.
There was still work to be done, however.
“Let’s make our way back to Law and Wolf,” Penguin suggested, after a few minutes’ rest. The other two agreed. They dragged themselves to their feet and headed to meet up with their friends. Defeat had never crossed their minds.
✦ ✦ ✦
Bacca was clearly trying to wear me out. I can’t see a path to victory… But running away was never an option. I had made up my mind to save those people. I didn’t know if it was a sign of sentimentality, or just my doctor’s mindset, but I did know that the moment I gave up on that decision would be the moment I stopped being myself.
Use your head. Make complete use of your brain. Think only of how to defeat the opponent before you.
“Oooh… You’re still a chipper little guy, eh? I guess you need to learn more about absolute despair, then.” Bacca leered and sucked in a deep breath.
I was outside of his maces’ range. He couldn’t attack me here.
“Don’t underestimate the power of the Melt-Melt Fruit, boy. Now die! Melty Love!” A white beam of light abruptly shot from his mouth.
“Gah!” I twisted as best I could to avoid the beam. Behind me, his attack had burned a huge hole in the wall. The stone was audibly hissing.
“Ga ha ha! My Melty Love attack emits a powerful acid beam that melts everything it touches! Now, how long can you manage to avoid it? Melty Love!”
Once again, he inhaled and spat out the glowing light. I leapt sideways to escape its path.
“Melty Love! Melty Love! Melty Love!”
The beams just kept coming. It was all I could do to get out of their way. Because of that, I failed to notice how near Bacca was getting to me.
“You’re finished,” he said at close range, then shrieked “Gahaaah!” and slammed me with a diagonal mace swing, hurtling me into the wall.
“Agh…kh…” I sputtered. He’d hit me square in the chest.
✦ ✦ ✦
I could barely breathe and my limbs felt weak. Now that I was lying on my back, the sound of my heart beating seemed annoyingly loud. The pulse of the heart, the sound of flowing blood, my respiration, a faint current of electricity running through me.
Wait… Electricity?
“Gaah haah… You’re done for, kid!” Bacca panted. “I’ve been through more battles than you! I’m more determined! I’m about to turn that submarine into the kind of profit that’ll make me a great pirate! And I’ll trample all over your worthless ideas of love and justice to get it done!”
“Hey,” I whispered to Bacca. “Is that really the kind of pirate you want to be?”
“Huh? Of course! Stealing, killing, ruling! That’s what a pirate does! As a pirate you’re free to live and free to kill! It’s the best thing there is!”
“And that’s what freedom is to you,” I went on.
“What? Isn’t it obvious? I live according to my desires! I devour according to my desires! What is that, if not freedom? I’m strong, and my strength gives me the ability to turn all of my desires into reality! That’s what a great pirate does!”
“I see,” I responded.
I felt strangely peaceful. At that moment I didn’t have any fear of being killed, nor did I worry about losing to Bacca. I think I was wrong about something. Sure, he’s driven by intent. But he’s simply intent on fulfilling whatever desire is currently running through his mind.
I had let Bacca’s determination intimidate me. Because I’d set aside Cora’s goals and my own objectives until “someday,” I felt that I was somehow inferior to Bacca. But that was wrong. Whether it was now or someday, if whatever I did wasn’t in pursuit of true freedom, then none of it meant anything.
I still didn’t know what freedom was, but I knew that the freedom Cora prayed for me to have wasn’t the stupid crap Bacca was talking about. Crushing others and following only your most selfish desires doesn’t have anything to do with real freedom.
At last, I had my own intent to work with. I was intent on destroying the corrupt concept of freedom that my enemy championed. I slowed my breathing and got to my feet.
“What’s this? Your final act of resistance?” Bacca inquired sarcastically. “Sounds good. I’ll give you the ending you need! Ga ha ha!”
I turned toward Bacca. He was already in attack mode.
“Pray to whatever god you believe in, kid! Melty Love!”
The beam shot out of Bacca’s mouth, but I had no reason to fear it. We were still within the boundaries of my Room.
“Chambres,” I said. I tossed the broken sword handle forward and used my powers.
In a blink, I had switched the positions of the handle and a huge rock from the chamber. Naturally, Bacca’s acid beam struck the rock instead of me.
“Hah! My Melty Love will turn that boulder into…into…into solid rock…? It’s not melting!” Bacca whined. The beam simply fizzled out in the middle of the boulder.
I leapt over it and got right up in Bacca’s face. “You yourself mentioned that using that powerful acid is exhausting. If that was your first beam, it would have melted the rock and me. But I noticed that the holes it was making were getting smaller and shallower. Your acid beam doesn’t have the same strength now.”
“W-what of it? It doesn’t change the fact that I have the upper hand…” Bacca insisted.
“True. If I didn’t still have another attack up my sleeve, you would have won this fight by now.”
Physical attacks did not harm Bacca. The only effective means of hurting him I’d observed was the electric shock from Wolf’s sword. But just because the sword was broken didn’t mean I couldn’t use electricity. The human body contains a faint current of its own—and I could sense it. I focused all my attention on my right thumb, gathering all the electricity from my body there, condensing and amplifying it.
“I’m not going to surrender to the strength of your cheap desires. I’d be shaming Cora’s memory if I fell in battle to the shell of a person possessed by his desire for money and power,” I said. A crackling sound built around us. My thumb lit up as electricity flooded out of it. This was the final attack.
“N-no, wait!” Bacca squealed.
“Take this—Counter Shock!”
I thrust out my right hand, jabbing the crackling thumb into Bacca. The powerful current ran all through Bacca’s liquidized body.
“Gaaahaaaaaaaaah!” he screamed.
Light erupted within the chamber. There was a sound like sizzling meat. And without a word, Bacca toppled off his feet.
“It’s done,” I said to myself.