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Chapter 34: The Painting In Between III

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"What the fuck did you do?" Capone asked, seeing the fat bag of cash on the ship's deck. He thought he'd be the one to start trouble because he was preying for information to do something similar... However.

"I... How do I phrase this? I took some money for myself, but it was for survival I swear!" Yovan innocently explained.

"From who?" Capone Bege questioned, narrowing his eyes.

"The Marines..." Yovan answered.

"You dumbass! Why didn't you wait for me to get some information!!" Capone has never been angrier.

"The Vice Admiral of this Marine Base is the one responsible for the behavior of the turtles! Do you know what that means!? He's in control! It's said that he never left this base in his thirty years of being an admiral because he can't!" 

"Oh, as I thought." Yovan's manners took a different turn, his calm nature returning, "But I heard that the city is centuries old, so how?"

"I don't... It's not time for this!!" Capone Bege was being driven mad. He believes himself to be quite strong, but he usually plans ahead for stronger opponents.

"Right... I can handle it. I'm certain, but I might go out for a while, so take care of me, alright? And if I don't wake up in two weeks, find a way to forcefully wake me up..." Yovan murmured as he walked up to the ship's head.

"What does that me..." Capone Bege was speechless, 'Does he really want to die??'

Yovan transformed into his beast form, flapping his wings to give birth to numerous feathers of desperation. The feathers surrounded the ship entirely, leaving not a spot clean.

The ship thus transformed into something akin to a bird with vast wings, and it started flapping them with monstrous force... It started floating, slowly but surely, rising into the sky.

The black ship then started flying away. It was a fascinating miracle that only fell only on a few eyes. Those in the port because they saw it happening before their eyes, and they heard the flapping of the giant wings.

Then there was a special case who saw it from far away. It was night, and the ship was dark, but he was still able to see it and track it to the sky.

"Very troublesome," Tarus noted, but that didn't stop him from jumping to the sky as he started using the air as a platform to continuously jump up, a Marine technique known as Geppo.

The Ship's flying capabilities were understandably low, so Tarus reached them very quickly, his eyesight lining up directly with the dark crow standing on the ship's head.

That lasted for only a second as the ship started falling down out of Yovan's own volition. The wings only started flapping again once the ship was near water, stabilizing it to land safely.

"Even more troublesome," Tarus noted yet again. If Yovan kept flying away, he would've been to fight him off, something he realized thus why landed. He was at least a distance away from the violent current.

While falling towards the ship, Tarus' form started to change, getting bigger and greener. His hands turned into something akin to claws. His Head was that of a dragon. On his back was a dark green shell, its outline, however, was blue. 

He grew green scales all over his body, seeming like an unbreakable armor. This was his Hybrid Form, "Kame Kame No Mi, Model: Dragon Turtle!!"

If Yovan felt any shock at Tarus' form, he didn't show it, but the gravity of the situation very much dawned on him. The man before him had the powers of a Mythical Zoan Devil Fruit.

It's a sub-class of Zoan that allows users to transform into creatures or even powerful entities that are the subject of myth and legend. It is the rarest type of Zoan, even rarer than Logia powers.

Rarity most often than not insinuates a certain specialty which became apparent as Tarus opened his dragonic mouth, releasing a burst of flames.

"Capone! Laffitte! Act when you see it fit." Yovan warned as he controlled the majority of the feathers of desperation to create a dense shield against the flames.

Yovan knows the feathers' weakness. They're very flammable, and they aren't strong enough. It did take a long while for the feather before to pierce that gentleman's belly.

The assembly of all of the feathers, however, was enough to stop the flames despite losing many feathers. 

Perhaps Tarus saw that coming because the entire feather shield crumbled a second later with a single claw from him. His arms were completely inky, Busoshoku Haki.

However, upon the destruction of the shield, Tarus found himself faced with several cannonballs, almost on the brink of taking his head off.

It was so perfectly timed that even Kenbunshoku Haki couldn't save him completely, but it at least allowed him to react fast enough as to envelop his head in Busoshoku, and tank through the attack.

That gave Yovan enough time to create another batch of feathers that acted as a shield again. 

He didn't try to attack despite having a certain move that was able to destroy meta.

He knows that it might be useless against someone with Busoshoku Haki, especially someone as experienced as the monster before him because the battle went on for hours with Yovan doing his best to keep him from landing on the ship.

Perfect teamwork between the three of Yovan, Capone, and Laffitte barely managed to keep him away. Especially the latter who took the risk of going head against Tarus with no regard for his safety.

Laffitte was left in a sorry state, but he would've certainly been dead if his vast wings didn't take most of the brunt of the attacks.

Tarus' attacks only went on to get more erratic and dangerous, raining numerous fireballs at them, trying to destroy their ship to no avail, mostly because of that dark feeble crow.

All the while, Tarus had to continuously use Geppo for hours to stay afloat in the air, and he had to move along with the ship because it never stopped sailing away, so he knew he wouldn't be able to get any backup.

The end of the battle was declared because a monster like Tarus wasn't beyond monstrous.

Geppo allows users to push themselves off the air itself with superhumanly strong kicks, allowing them to travel through and remain in midair for an extended period of time. 

It effectively resembles flight, thus why its requirements for use are incredibly hefty, draining way too much stamina.

So Tarus give up, starting to Jump back towards his city, leaving a few words behind, "I'll remember you!!!"

Yovan instantly turned into his human form, saying, "Sir Capone, mind sending some of your subordinates to bring me my painting stuff? They're in my room."

Capone was the least affected in the crew as he allowed some of his subordinates out of his fortress body. 

They seem to already know what to do as some picked up Laffitte, and took him to the Sick Bay. Another brought Yovan a chair to take a seat while the others brought him his painting tools and set them up.

Capone stood right beside Yovan, his eyes on the sky just like some of his other subordinates. They were keeping an eye out in case Tarus was feigning his retreat.

Capone was pretty sure Yovan was trying to keep himself focused on something so as to not lose consciousness because if his state spoke of anything... He's Dead.

Yovan started painting, oblivious to everything around him, his focus was completely on the painting before him, doing his best to paint his last memories, The Turtle In Between.

It's been more than a year since he painted something, yet it was engraved in his goldfish-like memory.

His hand moved, and the brush moved with it, leaving exquisite lines of colors. 

The end result was a painting of the Turtle In Between. The only difference is that the ocean was that of blood, just like Yovan at the moment.

"The Painting In Between," Yovan murmured before losing consciousness, Capone reacting fast enough to hold him from falling to the side.

Honestly, Capone was terrified because the willpower required to go so far beyond his limits was unimaginable.

"Take him to the Sick Bay, and be careful with him." Capone instructed as he took out his cigar and took a long smoke, seeming in deep thought while eyeing the painting, "Just what kind of person is he?"

Far away from the incident location was another ship. This one was sailing away, trying to get as far as possible from those monsters. 

Two special people stood on the main deck, seemingly frozen, sweat pouring down their faces.

"Mr. 1, w-w-what s... Should we do??" A blue-haired lady asked, her lips trembling.

"Inform Mr. 0?" It was almost unheard of for the man known as Mr. 1 to sound so hesitant, but the battle they saw... It was so far out of their level it wasn't even funny.

Their target was Yovan, thinking they'd be able to take care of him if a lot of agents assembled together.

The reality however was very different because just watching the battle made many other agents hide in the depths of the ship, leaving the two of them frozen in fear, unaware that their target is kind of on the verge of death.