In no dream or universe did Yaki Bata stand a chance against the Ladykiller in a fistfight. And yet in spite of himself, a second wind blew, pumping adrenaline that shocked his senses awake and installed in him the notion that this was fated. He'd never engaged in a proper fight in his life. Yet something inside him said he'd been prepared for it for sometime.
All the pain he had suffered to this point was but a signifier of his strength, rather than an indicator that he was severely outclassed. Sizing up the man and his sculpted physique, he appeared tiny in comparison. Among his classmates at school he was on the taller side but it was remarkable how small he often viewed himself despite his size.
The Ladykiller threw off his glasses. Despite consuming half a bottle of sake straight, he looked keyed in and uninhibited.
'You've no idea the power I wield,' the man said, cutting an intimidating figure with the dark orbs of his eyes large in his head and fixed on him. 'Your ability does not scare me; the Stationmaster sends you. Pfft. He will see your corpse after I hang it from this balcony and know he was a fool to underestimate me.'
Yaki stood. With the Ladykiller in pose, bent at the knees, Yaki looked down on him. If he knew an easier way to resolve this then he would have thought of it already. He may not be smart or diligent in anything he did, but he was always quick to work solutions that got him out of something. Not this time.
'I may not know what's real or not,' Yaki said, raising his fists, 'and I may not know how this started or why it's even happening. Heck, I wish I knew how to end this in the way I would usually want to end this. But I know for sure once you're gone my life will get a hell of a lot easier and that's why I ain't backing down.'
He dropped into a low fighting stance.
'And also if you think I'm someone who would let you get away with what you did to those girls, then, well…I'll show you that I'm not.'
He maintained a hard look even as he berated himself for flubbing his cool line.
'You're the one who killed them,' the Ladykiller said, spittle spraying out and hitting Yaki.
'You're the one who put me in a position that killed them.'
As he moved to wipe away the spittle, the Ladykiller closed the distance between them with an explosive burst. He repeated barrage after barrage of body shots, not slowing to catch his breath; his face rouging redder and redder. His punches arrived in such rapid succession that Yaki couldn't even feel the effects of one before the next one came. He envisioned bones and organs cracking and tenderising inside him but somehow he bore the attack, staying on his feet. The Ladykiller left him no opening to counter and so he rode each punch like a swimmer caught in a rip.
Behind every hit, the Ladykiller unleashed a grunt that became a roar as he upped the intensity of his hits.
'All Night Long, Baby,' he yelled. 'My body has been primed to go all night. I'll allow you no time to activate your power.'
He spoke through gritted teeth as he drove Yaki against the wall and pummelled him from every direction. It was as if Yaki was now caught in a dryer; his mind separated from his body with no way to connect them again. It was in this separated state that he arrived at the realisation that these punches, while battering his body around, didn't hurt in a way that their force intended. The Ladykiller must have realised this too as his face, sweaty and hardened, began to colour with disbelief.
'Stop smiling!' the Ladykiller screamed.
Yaki hadn't even noticed, but as he absorbed each hit his smile grew larger. The hits themselves were like the work of a masseuse, alleviating the aches that had plagued his body earlier.
The Ladykiller produced wilder and wilder swings, pounding the walls and doors as Yaki was led around the room.
'Impossible,' the Ladykiller said, hunching over and sucking in air.
Yaki collapsed to the tatami floor, not out of exhaustion but riding the momentum of the Ladykiller's barrage.
'No…body…toys…with…me,' said the Ladykiller, struggling for breath.
Wearing his smile, Yaki basked in invincibility. Nothing could explain how it was possible that he could take this much damage and yet feel so refreshed. In a way he was primed for more hits to come; it excited him, that shoot of anticipation up his spine and back down into his gut swirling like butterflies.
'There's no way your ability makes you invulnerable to my strength,' said the Ladykiller, straightening his posture. 'Is this why the Stationmaster sent you after me?'
'I'm not his lapdog,' said Yaki. 'Sure, he got me this room but he didn't know you'd be—'
The swirls of butterflies that tickled his gut panicked to a frenzy. The taxi driver and now the Ladykiller. Was everything so far a deliberate attempt to test him? Or worse, kill him? It seemed the Stationmaster had some sort of influence that intimidated even the likes of the Ladykiller. Who was the Stationmaster and what was his intent?
'Is the Stationmaster a bad guy?' Yaki said.
He had wiped the smile off his face but still laid out on the tatami floor.
'Don't act oblivious with me,' the Ladykiller said, resuming some sort of aggressive stance. 'I've heard the stories, I know the tricks; you can play the clueless subordinate all you like but I ain't falling for it.'
Just as Yaki lifted himself up off the floor, the weight of the Ladykiller returned him supine. He sat on his chest. It wasn't hard to imagine that the man had been in this position many times before.
'If you could hit me right here,' said Yaki, rubbing the side of his neck. 'It's been bugging me since I crashed through a windshield.'
The Ladykiller locked Yaki's wrists with an unbreakable grip. He squeezed Yaki's probably already broken ribs with his thighs. Yaki opened his mouth but refused to loose a cry of agony.
'Don't play with me!' The Ladykiller flashed gold in his molars. 'I'll end this with my big finish. You'll find out how I get my reputation.'
Yaki stiffened and not in the good place. He locked eyes with the blue eyes white dragon tattoo.
'I believe you, I don't need to see it.'
The Ladykiller extended his tongue and leaned in.
'Didn't want to have to use this,' he whispered. 'Tongue Tied.'
Unable to see the man as he lowered his mouth to the side of his head, Yaki experienced a shiver ripple through his body and snap it taut. The Ladykiller's tongue moistened his ear lobe and travelled its way around his whole ear. Aside from the movement of Yaki's eyes, his whole body became paralytic.
'I've never used this move on a guy before,' said the Ladykiller in a breathy voice. 'You'll be unable to move and once my tongue enters your ear canal you'll have no more agency—therefore your ability should have no effect—and will be mine to use however I like. Of course, I have no use for you but to see you die.'
Any rebuke Yaki held on his tongue stayed there as his jaw remained locked. Only the rapid movement of his eyes indicated the panic he felt. He could do nothing as the tongue wormed its way deeper and deeper into his ear. If he could have been sick, he might have doubled over and upturned his guts. It was as if some slimy slug was burying its way into his brain. He wanted to scream. Would he become some lifeless zombie; his brain turned off with a flick of switch?
The Ladykiller retracted his tongue and looked upon Yaki with glee.
'Let's put my power to the test,' the Ladykiller said, freeing him from his hold. 'Punch yourself.'
If Yaki could have laughed he would have. He had experienced no change in his mind as far as he could tell and he was still in his paralytic state, so it was clear the Ladykiller's power—
A fist met his jaw with intent to hurt. No longer was he in a paralytic state, though he also couldn't command his body to move on its own. It was as if his mind was stuck in a prison of his body.
'Again,' the Ladykiller said.
Again, a punch came flying and knocked his brain around in his skull. Even as Yaki tried to communicate to his body to ignore the Ladykiller's commands, his fist arrived to silent dissent. Blood appeared on his knuckles and he sensed the swelling of his cheek.
'Strangle yourself,' the Ladykiller said, rapacious for the end.
Anything but that. If he had his pick of ways to die, strangulation wouldn't be near the top of his list. He'd already been suffocated enough today. And still his hands grasped his neck and proceeded to squeeze the life out of him. A last remnant of hope that somehow he could escape this by activating his secret free rider power was offset by the knowledge that his own hands were committing the act. No longer did he entertain the possibility this was all some dream.
The Ladykiller kneeled before him, enjoying the spectacle of Yaki's self inflicted death. His tongue protruded from his mouth like a starving dog.
The image was the last thing imprinted on Yaki's brain as he succumbed to death. That and the random thought that perhaps if he didn't have agency of his body, he might have control over the Ladykiller's.
Save me. Free me.
His final thought as the world turned to black.
He gasped for air as the Ladykiller compressed his chest and delivered mouth to mouth. Yaki pushed the man away and scrubbed his tongue.
'That's not how you give mouth to mouth, you sicko,' he said, licking his arm, licking the floor. Anything to get the taste of the Ladykiller out of his mouth.
He was alive.
He was so disgusted that he couldn't yet wrap his head around the fact he was still alive. It had been a shot in the dark, to say the least. His bouts with the two gyarus made him realise he possessed some sort of ability that stole or turned his enemies abilities against them. He had nearly been too late.
He got to his feet and regarded the Ladykiller who now held a similar look to the one Yaki had before. His eyes darted back and forth like a ping pong ball while the rest of his face looked almost zombie like.
'Here's a thank you for saving me,' said Yaki, socking the Ladykiller right between the eyes. Flashing pain in his hand met burning hatred as he delivered blow after blow, even south of the border.
'I'm not going to give you the satisfaction of you killing yourself,' said Yaki, rubbing his knuckles in an ominous way, though he was really just massaging them from the recoil damage his strong blows caused.
'You're free,' said Yaki. 'I release you from my control or whatever.'
He wasn't certain that would work but the man's face wiped clean its zombie look and his eyes focused with murderous intent on him.
'You dumb kid,' he said, looming large over Yaki. 'You're gonna regret giving me a chance to—'
Yaki struck the man square in the stomach. His fist hit its mark at such speed that he wondered for a moment if he really threw the punch. The Ladykiller slammed into the sliding door separator, breaking it.
'Before I kill you,' said Yaki in a voice foreign to him. He hadn't really thought of killing the man but the words out of his mouth and the manner in which they were said made him believe that maybe he would actually kill him. 'Tell me, did you fall asleep on a train?'
'What the hell are you talking about?' the Ladykiller said as he struggled to stand.
'How did you get here? In Gokushima, or wherever we are?'
The Ladykiller charged him in what amounted to a last ditch, throw it at the wall attempt to regain his honour. Too bad that it had already been taken and thrown away. Yaki evaded with ease and dealt a blow in the small of the man's back. He had no clue whether his fighting prowess had been earned or been dormant in him for a while. He picked the man up by his hair.
'You ain't going to answer my question?'
The Ladykiller spat in his face.
Yaki wiped it away with the back of his hand. He crossed the room and retrieved the man's glasses and placed them on his face.
'You'll be needing these where you're going,' said Yaki, trying to keep a cool demeanour as he high fived himself in his mind for his cool delivery.
'Why do you still live?' the Ladykiller said, desperation bubbling over in his eyes behind cracked lenses.
It was a good question that required an even deeper answer. One that Yaki had considered many times in his life before any of this even happened.
'I can't die until I know what the One Piece is,' he said.
The man looked on him stunned. He'd never know that Yaki had never been more serious in his life.
Yaki cocked his arm and weighted his body perfectly for the follow through, connecting in the sweet spot of the man's solar plexus. The Ladykiller was lifted off his feet, smashed through the glass of the sliding door and fell four floors to be greeted by the pavement.