Chapter 174: Battle with Lucci (II)
"Rankyaku: Gaichō!"
Still in midair, Lucci snapped his leg out like a whip.
A bird-shaped shockwave tore free from his kick and shot straight toward Axel. The air blade crossed the room almost the instant it formed, gliding low and fast like a hunting bird skimming the ground.
Axel had no time to evade cleanly.
He raised his wooden blade.
The thin blade met the massive shockwave head-on.
A violent gust exploded downward from the collision. Tables overturned, chairs flew, and documents burst from the shelves like startled birds. Even Tom and Jabra, who had been locked in their own clash, were forced to pause for a moment under the blast.
At the center of it all, Axel's wooden blade gave off a harsh screech.
It sounded like the weapon itself was protesting.
That meant Axel had failed to completely disperse the force of Lucci's Gaichō. If he had fully neutralized it, the blade would not have made a sound.
Axel's eyes sharpened.
Since he could not erase it cleanly, he would overpower it.
A blue-white glow burst from the wooden blade.
In the next instant, a sword wave tore out, similar in shape to Lucci's Rankyaku, but sharper and denser. The two forces collided for the briefest moment before Axel's strike knocked the Gaichō aside.
The deflected air blade flew across the room and cut through the wall.
Stone, wood, and plaster split apart. The attack shot out of the base, leaving a wide gash in the corner of the room. The damaged wall groaned, then began to collapse piece by piece, exposing the view outside.
Beyond the broken wall was the drill ground.
As the Captain's office, the room had originally overlooked the training yard so the officer in charge could monitor the Marines at any time and make sure the instructors did not slack off.
Now, half the view had been improved into an open-air experience.
Axel stood in the ruined room and looked around.
The overturned furniture.
The scattered documents.
The shredded wall.
The corner that was still crumbling.
His heart cracked right along with the plaster.
This was his office.
Which meant he would have to work in this disaster for a while. Worse, building repairs would come from the base budget. They could request compensation from Marineford and the World Government because the damage had happened during an exercise, but that kind of funding would never cover everything.
In the end, the base would still have to make up the difference.
Which meant, in practical terms, this was money out of his own pocket.
Axel's face darkened.
"Don't just go wrecking other people's rooms!"
Lucci gave no verbal answer.
His body answered instead.
Several Rankyaku air blades lashed out from his legs in rapid succession, cutting toward Axel from different angles.
These shockwaves were not as fast as the earlier Gaichō. Axel dodged them without difficulty.
The wall behind him, however, was not so lucky.
The remaining structure was shredded by the irregular slashes until it looked as though a feral cat had gone wild on it.
Axel's expression went blank.
This leopard bastard was doing it on purpose.
The next moment, Axel vanished with Soru.
This time, his footwork was no longer Lucci's. The rhythm, path, and timing had shifted, incorporating his own habits and calculations. He was not stupid enough to copy an opponent's movement twice in a row and hand over the weaknesses for free.
With a flash, Axel appeared at Lucci's side.
His wooden blade swept upward toward Lucci's heart.
If it landed cleanly, even Lucci's monstrous physique would not be able to ignore it.
Lucci did not retreat. He opened one hand and grabbed for the blade barehanded.
His other hand was already raised, fingers curled.
Flying Finger Pistol: Bachi.
The moment Axel's blade was caught, Lucci would fire compressed air bullets from his fingernails straight into Axel's body.
Under normal circumstances, no one would continue such a reckless attack.
Axel did.
His wooden blade drove forward without the slightest change.
Lucci caught it.
At the same time, the air bullets fired.
Sharp bursts of compressed force struck Axel with a series of dull thuds.
Almost simultaneously, Lucci's chest burst with blood.
Axel smiled.
It was not a pleasant smile.
When Lucci first used Bachi earlier, Axel had already calculated its power. He had compared the force behind it against the load his Calculation Power could handle and confirmed it was within his limits.
So he had left an opening on purpose.
Even the direction of his strike had been slightly biased toward Lucci's heart, tempting Lucci to seize the blade with one hand and fire with the other. If Lucci had chosen a different technique, Axel would have retreated at once.
But Lucci had taken the bait.
The Flying Finger Pistol: Bachi had been reflected directly back toward Lucci's heart.
With Lucci's body, it was not enough to pierce straight through. But a direct hit near the heart was still a serious blow.
Under normal circumstances, injuring Lucci would never have been this easy. He was battle-hardened and sharp enough to realize Axel had been avoiding direct skin contact. He had likely guessed that Axel's ability required contact to be most effective.
But he had not expected Axel to control even long-range attacks with such precision.
Lucci staggered back, putting distance between them.
His expression was grim.
He could feel it clearly.
The injury had been caused by his own technique.
His heart had not been destroyed, but the impact had struck deep enough to disrupt his breathing and blood flow. He could still stand, but he needed a moment to recover.
Axel did not intend to give him one.
"Life Return: Kami-e Bushin!"
Lucci's body changed.
His large leopard form suddenly shrank by an entire size. His frame became slimmer, his muscles compacting as his strength visibly decreased.
Axel recognized the technique immediately.
This was Lucci's recovery form. In his fight with Luffy, Lucci had used it to recover stamina. Now, he was likely using it to ease the damage near his heart.
Axel stepped in before the transformation could fully settle.
His body shot forward, and his wooden blade became a blur.
One strike.
Then another.
Then another.
The attacks came in a continuous storm.
But in his Kami-e Bushin form, Lucci was almost constantly in a state of Paper Art. His strength had fallen, but his speed and flexibility had risen sharply. He did not attack. He focused entirely on evasion.
Every swing from Axel missed by the thinnest margin.
A blade skimmed past Lucci's shoulder.
Another brushed his ribs.
One nearly struck his neck.
Each time, Lucci bent, twisted, or slid aside at the last possible instant, moving like paper caught in a violent gust.
Axel frowned.
He knew Lucci had this technique, but knowing and dealing with it were two different things. The man had become far more troublesome to hit. Even when Axel predicted where he would dodge and attacked that point in advance, Lucci managed to adjust at the critical moment.
A stalemate was not what Axel wanted.
So he spoke.
"Heh. Is this the justice you believe in? A justice that only knows how to dodge? If that's the case, maybe it was wrong from the beginning."
Lucci did not answer.
His expression remained cold, and his body continued to slip through Axel's attacks without launching a counter.
But the edge of his face twitched faintly.
He was not as unmoved as he looked.
.....
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