– Eddy –

"Eddy, keep him off me for a bit while I help the captain!" Muret called out to him, rushing over to administer first aid.

"On it! I'm leaving the captain to you!" Having said that, Eddy wasn't quite certain how to go about fulfilling that request.

Ostensibly, his side outnumbered the sole kabuki actor four to one, one of them even being their crew member with the highest damage output. Sadly, with the way Aisa was huffing and puffing, it didn't look as if he could expect much help from that direction. Judging by the amount of lightning she'd been throwing about in an effort to protect the civilians, Aisa had very likely forgotten to pace herself, which was a classic rookie mistake. Simply put, the girl was spent though this wasn't terribly surprising, seeing as she was only nine with less than a year's worth of combat training. Which in turn was the reason her exercise regimen tended to focus on reducing this dichotomy between her lack of endurance and her frankly frightening damage potential.

Nico Robin on the other hand was far more experienced but also far more beat up than Aisa was, Muret letting out a gasp as she peeled back what remained of the prison garb to reveal a mass of bruises, especially around her arms. He wouldn't be surprised if the bones were fractured either. He was more surprised that she had managed to hold her opponent down with her body in the state it was in. And of course, with Robin and the captain being wounded as they were, Muret wasn't going to be able to help right now, her whole attention needed to treat her patients.

Which left only himself and Funkfreed. And Funkfreed had his own job to do.

"Go protect Muret, big guy." Eddy whispered to the elephant, scratching him behind the ears a couple times before making a shooing motion. Then with a deep breath, he turned to face his opponent. "Thanks for waiting."

"Yoyoi! A truuue perfooormance needs a con-con-concentrated audience!" the man answers, hopping about on one leg to an imaginative drumbeat. "Now, that I have your attention…"

What a noisy guy. And a genuine nutjob to boot.

"NOW, that I HAVE your attention…"

It was simply best not to get too deeply involved with these types.

"Now, THAT I have YOUR atTENtion…"

Let's make this quick.

"Die!"

"Shigan, Q!"

Eddy's sword screeched as he parried the staff, diverting the stab just enough that it didn't punch a hole in his face. Ignoring the shallow wound which opened up on his cheek, Eddy continued to run his blade down the shaft to force Kumadori to either release his staff or risk having his fingers amputated. His opponent did neither, wrapping his hair around the blade and wrenching it to the side instead, several other tendrils reaching for Eddy's wide-open throat.

Suddenly finding himself in the position he'd tried to put the agent in, Eddy had no choice but to retreat out of reach with a curse, leaving his sword in the grasp of that mass of hair.

"Now…now…now, you are faced with the…faced with the…valiant lion!" the man danced before taking up that peculiar stance again, where he was standing on one leg, with one hand held open towards him and the other holding his staff aloft. "This is…the end!"

Taking to the air, the man known as Kumadori swung his hair down at Eddy like the tentacles of a giant space squid, occasionally forming them up into lances to try and nail Eddy to the bridge. Eddy's own rankyaku did precious little against the man, because his hair refused to let itself be cut.

"You did not just use tekkai on your hair! That's not how that works!" Eddy screamed, but reality was harsh and Kumadori's hair did not care that it didn't have any muscles it could harden. So it merrily continued doing just that.

"After a thousand years at sea, and a thousand years in the mountains breathing in the wind and drinking dewdrops, I trained myself, living as a hermit! After all that, I've…I've…I've acquired this Seimei Kikan!" Kumadori stopped to explain, looking inordinately proud of himself in his overly dramatic way, his hair waving behind him. "Essentially, if you extend your consciousness everywhere from your hair to your internal organs, toes, even the tips of your downy hair…there's no part of your body that you can't manipulate."

Chance!

Seizing an opening, Eddy dashed forward as fast as he could, ducking under wide sweep of the staff and past Kumadori himself to dive for his sword. He didn't make it.

"Seimei Kikan: Hair bind!" A tendril of hair grasped his ankle and dragged him back before smashing him into the ground, making his head spin. It also meant that he was unable to get out of the way when Kumadori stepped over to his dazed form, Eddy's limbs firmly secured by the pink strands. "Shigan, Q!"

"Tekkai!"

Nero's lessons saved Eddy's life, his iron body holding firm though the blow left him feeling as if he'd been struck by a cannonball. It hurt a lot and that was coming from someone who'd had a hole burned into his lung. What was even worse was that Kumadori showed no signs of letting up his attacks.

"Q! Q! Q!"

And there was nothing Eddy could do except maintain his tekkai and take it, as he would instantly die without it, but couldn't move to get away with it active. Thankfully, despite his earlier worries, Eddy was not alone.

"Baruuuuha!"

Kumadori's eyes bugged out, his face contorted in pain and in shock, as Funkfreed headbutted the man in the back, the sound of his approach having been muffled by the snow. That Funkfreed's swordtrunk didn't penetrate his body was impressive in and of itself, a testament to Kumadori's mastery of tekkai.. Though he couldn't stop his spine from being forcefully turned into a 'C' nor himself from being bodily thrown off of Eddy and into a wall.

"Thanks, big guy. I owe you one." Eddy thanked the elephant who trumpeted happily in response. "Did Muret send you?"

Chancing a glance towards where he had last seen her, Eddy was relieved to find that his girlfriend wasn't there. Obviously, she had taken her patients somewhere safer while Eddy had been keeping Kumadori occupied, who by now had jumped back to his feet.

"Stupid elephant! I'll roast you on a skewer!"

A soft nudge had Eddy turn back to his companion only to see Funkreed's large form shrink and condense into that of a sword, the message clear.

Use me.

"Well, don't mind if I do." Funkfreed was heavier than what Eddy was used to but not uncomfortably so. It was more of a solid weight, reliable and true, the extra pounds barely even noticeable thanks to the perfect balance. "Right, time for round two."

"Shishi Kabob!" Steam got everywhere, the snow evaporating from the heat and obscuring Eddy's sight, but it didn't matter. Eddy still had his sense of hearing, and this wasn't the first time he'd been forced to fight an opponent he couldn't see. Not least because Izou had regularly insisted on a blindfold on numerous occasions in their training sessions. Evening out his breathing, Eddy sheathed Funkfreed, the elephant sword somehow a perfect fit. Unbidden but not unwelcome, the image of Muret popped into his mind, the memories of their first kiss and his successful execution of a newly learned technique following soon after. Slowly, Eddy exhaled…

"Soru."

…and disappeared from sight. When he reappeared an instant later, he was already swinging his blade in a silver crescent at Kumadori's neck, the staff he'd tried to interpose neatly severed in two.

----------------------------------------

– Mani –

They may have just picked the wrong guy to fight, Mani reflected as she refocused her senses to try and find her opponent. It hadn't been too bad at first, Rivers' & Laki's upgraded rifles packing enough of a punch to make the agent bleed. Thing was, when it became clear that trying to close the distance the conventional way wouldn't work, the man – who had introduced himself as Blueno – had decided to be annoying.

"Air door."

It was like something out of a bad horror movie, hands reaching for her out of nowhere and with no real prior warning, only her fledgling haki allowing Mani to get away in time. Rivers or Laki would retaliate as best as they could, but the man wasn't interested in leaving the safety of his…parallel dimension or whatever hidey hole his fruit granted him, scurrying back the moment his sneak attacks failed.

He was in effect the worst possible matchup for a sniper like Rivers. After all, one could not shoot someone who was not there and as for Mani, she was used to being the one doing the ambushing. Now that the shoe was on the other foot, she was discovering that it was a very unnerving experience and being delegated to the position of bait didn't sit well with her.

"Stop hiding and fight us fair and square, you coward!" Mani called out, not really expecting an answer but voicing her frustrations regardless.

"Why should I? I'm an assassin. I don't fight fair." By the time Mani managed to react, Blueno had closed the door already, her knife sailing through empty air. Though, at least she got him talking, which meant he wasn't immune to her words.

"You were more than just an assassin, weren't you?" Mani asked in a mocking voice, appealing to his pride. There wasn't a strong man in the world who didn't have pride and if there was something Mani knew how to do well, it was prodding that pride. To speed this along, she even crossed her hands over her substantial chest in a move designed to aggravate the monkey part of a man's brain, which wanted to turn him into a strutting peacock in front of an attractive woman. Sure, it made her a bit more vulnerable but she trusted Rivers to have her back. "You were part of the elite of the elite, the fearless right arm of the World Government. This is frankly insulting to the good name of the CP9."

"…this is simply a sound tactical decision." Blueno defended his choice, his voice void of any emotion.

"We may not be able to defeat you as long as you're hiding like that, but you know something?" Mani asked, "You're not going to be beating us either. We both know that your ambushes don't work against us."

"…"

"What do you think we're going to tell world after today?" Pausing for a moment, she let the question hang in the air threateningly. "Perhaps an account of how the vaunted CP9 were so afraid of a mere three members of the Bellamy Pirates, members who weren't even amongst the strongest on the crew, that he hid for the entire battle while his comrades were defeated one by one? What do you think will happen then?"

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"It's a lie."

"Is it? And even if it were, do you think it matters?" Mani retorted, idly polishing her fingernails on her shirt before inspecting them with a critical eye. "Rumors will spread, growing from telling to telling and after Marineford, people will begin to wonder, is the World Government…weak?"

"Nobody would believe a pirate like you."

"They believed Roger and he was a pirate." She pointed out while picking up a metal disk that had rolled on over, bumping into her leg. "And look at what happened afterwards. Do you think letting him talk was a sound tactical decision?"

"…you will regret this."

"What was that?" Leaning forward towards where she had last seen him, Mani cupped her ear in an exaggerated manner. "I'll regret it, you say? What exactly? Telling the truth?"

"Tekkai! Wheel!"

River's shot was countered by the man's rankyaku as Blueno barrelled down towards her, carving a deep furrow into the concrete bridge.

"As if I would be hit by something as simple as that!" she mocked, easily sidestepping the wheel before letting out a squawk of surprise when Blueno stopped short to send a point-blank rankyaku her way. "Oi, careful! Do you know how much care goes into this hair? It's not easy looking this nice, you know!"

Blueno was momentarily forced back by the combined barrage from Rivers and Laki, giving Mani the time she needed to regather herself and come up with a plan. A plan which she quickly communicated to her teammates via hand signals, who in turn nodded in acknowledgement. It wasn't much, details being impossible to get across quickly but they would have gotten the gist of it and she knew they trusted her enough to follow along.

Clearly having decided that taking Mani out first was going to be difficult as long as Rivers ran interference, Blueno leaped into the air to chase down Fuza and remove Rivers from the board. A fast-paced dogfight ensued with Rivers expertly directing Fuza to successfully evade his hunter, both sides doing their best to shoot the other out of the sky.

Then all of a sudden, Blueno was gone and Fuza was diving towards her, just as her haki was sounding the alarm for her to get away. Dropping the concentric metal disk behind her, Mani flipped away from the door that was opening at her back, using geppou to help her along. Exiting his pocket dimension Blueno made to pursue, only to run into a wall of fire, courtesy of Fuza and Rivers. It didn't truly harm him as the flames were not hot enough to get through his instinctive tekkai, but they did serve to blind and deafen him for a moment. Hence, Blueno was utterly unprepared for Laki's miniature artillery shot to the back, which knocked him off-balance and forced him to release his tekkai to avoid falling on his face. At least on his lower extremities, Blueno stumbling two steps forward…and over the metal disk.

SPROING!!!

Mani winced as every man in the vicinity instinctively crossed his legs at the sight, Blueno letting out a silent scream of agony and going cross-eyed from the pain. Even Bellamy – who seemed fine by the way – looked apologetic, sheepishly hiding his fist behind his back.

Hoarsely, Blueno barely managed to whisper "H-how i-is this f-f-fair?" before crumpling to the ground, protectively yet belatedly holding his family jewels.

----------------------------------------

– Lily –

"Where's the flour when you bloody need it?" Lily groused, diving out of the way of a series of saccharine spikes. The Rear Admiral something or other…

"That's Rear Admiral Bonbon to you, pirate!"

"And I don't care, asshole! Laki's special order boots! Smash!"

…was proving to be an absolute annoyance to fight. Not because he was particularly more dangerous than her past opponents, but because of a familiar devil fruit. It was just her luck that the ruddy marines had gotten their hands on Gasparde's fruit and had given it to the one senior officer who happened to be the marine attaché of the government delegation sent to Tequila Wolf. If she didn't know better, she'd say the Candy Candy Fruit was holding a grudge or something. Like seriously, what were the chances?

That being said, it was obvious that Bonbon didn't have Gasparde's experience in using his new power. But unlike the late deserter, he wasn't crippled by being covered in flour either, meaning that he could use his fruit to the fullest. Which sadly included his invulnerability to conventional attacks.

In lieu of the tried and proven method, she and Sarquiss had tried other means of getting around the logia's primary ability. One such effort had been to try and bake him into dried candy via flame dials, but that had simply resulted in the man throwing up a syrup shield to absorb the damage and started peppering them with globs of sticky syrup. They'd also tried melting the snow and throwing the man into the puddles in the hopes of countering his devil fruit, but that was easier said than done when you couldn't get a bloody grip on the guy.

However, despite not achieving their primary aim, their efforts hadn't been completely useless. For one, covering her arms in melted snow had prevented them from getting stuck in Bonbon's candy syrup, though she did need to reapply the water every so often. And two, because her arms weren't in danger of being caught every time she punched him, Lily had been able to work off a lot of her frustrations by blowing his head off his shoulders, even if it did little more than inconvenience the Rear Admiral.

Like just now, though the man's head was already reforming, starting with his smirking mouth, the words It's useless, you can't defeat me already on his lips when Sarquiss used the opportunity afforded by the absence of Bonbon's eyes and ears to sink his stingers deep into the marine's back.

"Have a taste of this, you shoddy marine!" Sarquiss growled and the marine screamed.

Lily knew from experience just how potent that toxin was. In its concentrated form, it had been enough to affect the royal warlord Doflamingo at Marineford and more recently, a former Vice Admiral had been helpless against it. A mere Rear Admiral like Bonbon shouldn't stand a chance.

"Aaah, fuck fuck fuck fuck! What is this?" Bonbon shrieked, his entire form slowly losing cohesion. "What…what did you just do to me?!?"

Seeing it work, Sarquiss didn't let up, staying in position to continue injecting more and more of his toxin into the marine officer, filling the man up to the gills until the purple liquid began oozing from his pores. "How'd you like my neurotoxin, you bastard?"

"I-I can't b-breathe…please, please don't d-do this…" Bonbon mumbled, falling to his knees and allowing Lily to relax. It was good to know that the toxin worked against a logia... "Psyche!"

…what?

"Huh?" Before Sarquiss could as much as blink, a sudden wave of sticky syrup erupted from Bonbon's back, trapping Sarquiss' arms and going on to engulf the rest of him in short order, slowly dragging her boyfriend into Bonbon's body. When the marine stood back up, there was no trace left of the poisoned man she had believed him to be, the only evidence of exposure being the purple liquid that continued to slowly flow out of him…of course, candy syrup didn't have nerves. Fuck!

"Did you truly think that would work? I'm a logia, baby! Isolating and expelling a foreign substance inside of me is child's play!" Bonbon taunted her, wagging a finger back and forth. "I just played along to catch arrogant brats like you and you two idiots walked right into my trap!"

"Let him go!" Lily demanded, balling her fists, but the man just laughed.

"And what if I don't? Going to punch me again? In case you haven't noticed, you can't touch me!"

"I swear to god, I'm going to kill you!" Please let Shithead be alive in there. He has to be.

Anger made her faster, anger made her sloppier, anger made her careless. Blows that were easy to dodge earlier now came out of nowhere, driving the air out of her gut, but Lily didn't let up. She couldn't afford to. The others were busy and Sarquiss didn't have time for her to leave and get help. Lily had to save him. She had to.

Once more his body reformed itself, revealing Sarquiss' shoulder but not his face, the marine focused on protecting his chest where her boyfriend's head should be, preventing her from getting Sarquiss the chance to breathe.

Desperate, Lily continued to flail at him, trying to blast Bonbon's body apart like she had before, but without success, her blows all being deflected by his suddenly impenetrable defense…until at last, Bonbon caught her left fist in his syrupy grasp.

"Your arm is dry, pirate." He triumphantly grinned. "I've got you now! Give up, it's over."

"It can't be over! It can't be! It can't it can't it can't it can't!" She refused, she absolutely refused to let it end like this! "It won't end like this! It won't!"

Knowing that time was on his side, Bonbon didn't even try to hit her anymore, content to allow Lily to tire herself out against his syrupy mass. He even let her see Sarquiss' face for a moment, opening up a hole in his chest only to gleefully close it again before her boyfriend could even take in a single gasp of precious air. Only long enough for Sarquiss and Lily to briefly look each other in the eyes.

I love you. His eyes had said. He didn't get to give her that look like he was going away. Sarquiss didn't have that right! He didn't get to disappear from her life like her nanny had!

"LET HIM GO!!!" Lily screamed, throwing everything she had into a final blow, her eyes clenched shut from the strain. She could feel bones breaking and a jaw shattering, the syrup holding her in place melting away. If she had bothered to open her eyes, she would have seen Bonbon's eyes roll up into the back of his head, but she didn't. Hence, she also didn't she see her fist briefly flash black nor did she care, her entire focus on the newly freed Sarquiss, who was trying to cough up any residual syrup left in his lungs. He was pale and looked like he needed to sleep for a week, but the main thing was that he was safe.

Bonbon was down.

Sarquiss was safe.

"Hah…hah…thanks, Lily. You just saved m-mph?"

She silenced him. His lips tasted very sweet.

"Just…shut up, shithead."

Lily silenced him again.