Yosaku's POV;

“Oh that's bad,” I muttered after having seen what happened to Nojiko and Lara.

“What? What happened?” Asked Jonny from my side, he has no binocular and was relying on me.

“Lara and Nojiko got eaten by the sea king. I am not sure, but it did look as if they were swallowed whole.” I answered with a side glance at Lia.

She looked eerily calm, wouldn't have expected that. She was only starring at the still sea king. The bird-like beast has its head still outside of the water and looked at us with angry beady eyes.

Suddenly the air in front of her exploded and the sea king roared in pain. I looked back and saw that Lia must have thrown something. The sea was partially parted from the generated air funnel of her projectile and whatever it was that she has thrown had crashed into the left wing of the sea king, puncturing it and leaving a massive hole inside.

Fiara's cannons needed at least thirty hits to come close to this much damage.

“I think we can rightly assume that Lia is angry,” noted Jonny. I nodded along, almost feeling pity for the animal. I then heard the telltale sound of geppo from Lia.

I looked again through my binoculars and saw that she was already close to the sea king. She was flicking bullets at it. Each destroyed some of the really hard scales on its skin. Still, this much wouldn't kill it, she will have to use attacks that are equally strong as her first one.

“Guys, there is the next group of ships. Three this time,” called Noa down to us.

I turned to Jonny and shouldered my sword. “I can take care of them, keep an eye on the ship and the girls for me.” He nodded and I jumped upwards to get closer to the three ships.

On my way, I got attacked by their cannons and gunfire. The first was easy to evade, I just had to jump none linear. While the second was taken care of by simply holding my massive sword in front of me.

Not many bullets hit my sword, but those that did pinged harmlessly off of its superior metal. They won't even leave a scratch. Lara's work was a masterpiece and deadly weapon I will soon use.

The moment I was over the leading ship I stopped my geppo and made a frontal drive downwards. My sword held like a spear, I did another geppo to increase my speed and raced down. Without my sword to shield me I had to activate tekkai to block the few bullets that hit me. But that was no problem, now that I did no longer need to move.

They realized what I was planning and screamed in panic. They couldn't stop me and a few jumped overboard, some tired to shoot me down, but my tekkai was strong enough to hold.

A second before I came in contact with the deck I took a deep breath and held it in. Then I crashed into their ship. My massive blade, in combination with its weight, easily cut through the whole ship. It was as if a meteoroid hit it.

In the blink of an eye I got wet and was now under the ship, I had punched a hole through four decks and the keel.

I released my tekkai and swum towards the ship on my left. Once underside I raised my sword and cut its rudder in half. It would now drift dead in the water, with no way to manoeuvre.

My air was running out, so I swam up and resurfaced. A quick look back showed that the leading ship was split in half and rapidly sinking. Its passengers were jumping off and swimming to its two comradeships.

Not that those will swim much longer. A water geppo shot me upwards and on the deck of the ship. I was greeted by four rifles and six swords.

With a bang, all four soldiers shot at me, but their bullets only hit my sword. The speed of normal bullets was nothing in comparison to the speed I had to dodge or parry attacks from Lara, Jonny, Lia and Josef. Damn, a lot of our crew are faster than bullets.

The six sword carrying soldiers were now storming at me, but a swing of my sword generated a gust of wind strong enough to throw them away. They flew over the deck like ragdolls.

I stepped forward and took another swing before the riflemen could shoot again. This time I put real strength behind the attack and moved like Lara had shown me.

With a loud roar, I let a force blade loose that was wide enough to cover the whole deck. Those soldiers that were not quick enough to duck got cut in half. The rest was now screaming in panic and jumping overboard.

Looks as if they have never seen someone creating force blades. And here I thought that we were close to the second part of the Grand Line, Josef said everyone would get stronger the closer we get there.

“I can't let you destroy my ship!” Shouted a lone soldier. He had a massive war hammer in his hands and was running at me. Hammer raised over his head and ready to smash me to a pulp.

I raised my blade and met his swing half way. Both weapons crashed into each other and sparks flew off of his hammer. Normally what I have done would result in damaging my weapon, but my blade was thick enough to counter such differences.

“Urgh, you are strong,” grunted the man. He was still trying to put more strength into his swing, but I wouldn't budge.

“Sorry dude, but your fog using friend attacked us first,” I replied and increased my own strength behind my attack. His hammer got thrown back and his body became wide open.

I would have cut him in half, had he not kicked out at me. I hastily activated tekkai and allowed the kick to reach me. It rocketed into my body but was easily overcome. Still, he was now out of reach for my blade. Yet I wasn't too far away for his hammer.

He swung it at me from the side and I had to duck down to not get my head ripped off. I'm not sure if my tekkai can withstand such a swing.

The hammer passed over my head with a sound of displaced air and sailed past me. A good chance for me to attack again, he will have a hard time stopping his own swing.

I looked up into his angry snarl and ripped my blade upwards. It cut him from bottom to the top. He stared at me wide-eyed, not yet realizing that he is dead. “You brought this onto yourself for trying to rob us,” I finished. His corpse well backwards and became one of the many on this ship.

I took a look around and saw that I was alone, only one ship remained. However, it was quickly distancing itself from me. It would be inside the harbour before I could catch up, so I jumped off and back to the Raptor.

During my way back I saw how Fiara opened fire on the fleeing ship. It took her not long and the fleeing vessel was starting to sink. It didn't manage to reach its harbour.

Out on the sea, I could see how Lia was still bombarding the giant sea king. The animal tried to retaliate by swinging its large head or wings at her, but Lia was simply too fast. She evaded every attack with ease and retaliated by throwing her bullets.

Each bullet left a deep mark in the sea kings hide, countless holes were already littering its massive body and the sea around slowly turned red.

Was Lia playing with it? I would have thought she would try to kill it quickly, there was a chance for Lara to be saved. Or was Lia knowing that Lara was in no danger? I wouldn't be surprised if Lara and Nojiko were happily attacking the monster from the inside.

Whatever it is, I couldn't help. I know my limits and this thing is beyond them. At most I could destroy a few of its scales, but not more.

That's why I flew back to the Raptor and landed next to Jonny. “Hey, did I miss something?” I asked after landing.

“Not really, we are stuck with watching how Lia harasses the sea king. After her third real attack, she slowed down and started to keep the thing busy. Whenever it tries to dive Lia will attack and whenever it tries to flee Lia would attack seriously.

She's waiting for something, we just don't know for what. I think Lara and Nojiko are doing something inside the sea king and Lia somehow knows that they need time,” replied Jonny without taking his eyes off of the sea king.

I was about to turn around and ask Josef something when suddenly the sea king began to trash around. It roared in pain and threw itself through the water.

Then it fell backwards and became still. Jonny had already opened his mouth to ask what happened when a massive force blade cut itself out of the sea king and into the sky. A shower of blood and guts rained back down and two people came flying out of the beast.

“Looks like Lara and Nojiko are fine, if dirty.” Noted Jonny with a laugh. I took the binoculars off of him and took a look for myself. Indeed, Lara and Nojiko don't look to be in any pain, but they were blood soaked. They must have swum in the sea kings blood to become this dirty. Lara's normally almost white hair was red from all the blood.

We watched how all three of them flew down to the water and then how first Nojiko and the Lara dived in. Nojiko then had to pull Lara back out. Would be interesting to know if Lara can swim twice as bad as the normal Devil Fruit user, with her having two of them.

Both were now looking a lot cleaner, yet not clean at all. They nonetheless came back to the ship and touched down. Lara was grinning widely, Nojiko had a disgusted frown on her face and Lia was looking happy that Lara wasn't hurt.

“So what happened?” Questioned Noa.

“We'll tell you once we have taken a shower, I think I have its blood in my ear. Gross!” Answered Nojiko briskly before dragging a slightly protesting Lara off to the showers.

“I'll make a few drinks for their story,” said Lia a moment later, also vanishing into the ship. Noa gave me a questioning look, but I don't know why Nojiko was so angry.

Instead of thinking about it I began to prepare the table and chairs for a small sitting in on the deck. We can't go inside, there might still be more raiding groups coming back.

"Am I the only one that noticed their lack of clothing?", asked Josef awkwardly. I had noticed too, but Nojiko looked way too pissed for me to mention it.

"They were inside the sea king's body, stomach acid is corrossive," said Jonny with a shrug. I nodded in agreement and between us four males we exchanged a silent conversation that concluded with the decission that mentioning their nakedness was forbidden. As far as we are concerned they were in prestine condition.