One Piece – Halfway Broken

Summary: A terrifying new enemy!

Warning! Chapters 72-74 were all posted back-to-back! Make sure you don't miss any of them!

Chapter 74: An Unknown Enemy and a Dark King

The Human Auction House wasn't really...standing…any longer. A good thing, as far as Luffy was concerned, though purely an accidental side effect of their ongoing fight. Once combat had gotten serious between Kizaru, Yamato, and himself, the building itself had been among the first casualties. In truth, the only reason that the Celestial Dragons had survived to this point, with all the destruction around them, was that Kizaru would stop having a reason to stick around if they died. As a result, Nojiko had taken 'custody' of them, sheltering the unconscious idiots behind a thick Crystal barrier that Kizaru had avoided attacking for obvious reasons.

Sanji, Usopp, Kaya and Chopper, meanwhile, had dealt with a fair number of Marines who hadn't been at their base. The alert the Celestial Dragons had sent out had flashed the few remaining officers non-discretionary orders, and they'd collected the scattered remains of various patrols and brought them here. Not that it was doing them much good. They were barely canon fodder for those of his crew that were intercepting them, only annoying due to some decent numbers. Poor Sanji was looking a bit frustrated at the lack of a decent fight for himself.

Admiral Kizaru had tried to use those members of his crew as targets…only to very nearly get his face caved in by Kaya when he'd tried it. He'd been so disturbed by her ability to seemingly just vanish and reappear inside his guard with a Haki-infused fist, that he'd shied away from the group for the time being to focus on Luffy and Yamato. Even Luffy was a little confused by that move, as it shouldn't have affected someone who wasn't relying on Observation. Clearly, there was more to Kaya's little inversion trick than he'd realized. Something to look into, later, when he wasn't in a serious fight.

A fight which wasn't really going particularly well for any of the three main combatants.

Say what you would about the Marines, but none of those that made it to full Admiral in rank were a joke. Kizaru had quickly gone on an all-out attack, using Light Clones in order to pressure Luffy and Yamato, allowing him to keep up despite them suppressing his Observation. Of the three of them, Yamato was looking the best, with just a few modest sized burns spread about her body. Though her sleeveless haori was long gone, leaving her fighting in just breast bindings and hakama pants. Very distracting that.

Luffy and Kizaru were both worse off.

Kizaru had flat out lost his left ear, his eye on that side had nearly been taken with it, and he was bleeding from several cuts Luffy had gotten in. He was also notably favoring one side in a way that made it clear one of Yamato's hits had overcome his Logia power and Armament to crack or break a few ribs on that side. Luffy wasn't much better off, unfortunately. He'd lost use of his offhand when a hit to his shoulder had broken something important. Shifting to his Stormtiger form had both freaked Kizaru out as he abruptly realized he was dealing with a Mythical Zoan, and allowed Luffy to keep using Shichiseiken more easily one-handed.

All three of them had paused to assess for the moment, Luffy subtly beginning to build spiritual energy into his new blade, even as the mild regeneration he had in this form was slowly giving him use of his offhand arm back. It was, he thought, about time to see how Kizaru liked the tricks the Holy Weapon could bring to bear. Those that Luffy had puzzled out so far, at least.

He was leaning forward, about to go back onto the attack, when it happened.

For a bare instant, Luffy didn't recognize the feeling. The bizarre feeling like dice were tumbling in his head.

Then it clicked, an ability that had very rarely activated, as he usually outclassed his enemies far too much for luck to matter much. Typically, it had only kicked in the rare few times he'd gambled for money or chosen random paths or directions to sail in. But now, in an instant that was seeming to drag out forever, the dice weren't just rolling for his fate...they were karma hungry. Instinctively, he understood something was very wrong. Somewhere, something he had done, was on the edge of spelling doom for him and his.

Paling, he poured oodles of the karma he'd barely touched into the mental dice, letting it flow into the gaping void that demanded it in buckets and rivers. He didn't know what it was that had happened, couldn't imagine what could cause this result, but his every instinct screamed he needed every bit of luck and karma he'd earned. He'd dumped fully two thirds of the massive amount of positive karma he'd accrued into the dice before he felt a click, and the dice tumbled to an abrupt halt. Landing, he somehow knew, on the fate equivalent of getting all sevens on six-sided dice.

The sensation was just in time to feel a horrifically strong enemy appear at the edges of his Haki, moving directly for them at mind-numbing speed.

For a moment, he thought the dice hadn't turned up his way despite everything, but then an old man who'd been looking on in interest suddenly gained color. The change was so abrupt that it left Luffy realizing the man in question must have been using something like Kaya's trick of not being noticed. Something he'd pulled off in pure spite of Luffy and Yamato having been actively suppressing all other Observation in the area.

Luffy barely had an instant to identify the man as Silvers Rayleigh before he moved, Luffy's senses only able to track him due to the combined effects of his Perks and Devil Fruit. Even with that, Luffy somehow lost track of him as Rayleigh slammed into the onrushing power that was almost on top of them, the collision resulting in a shockwave that staggered everyone present. Blinded by dust stirred by the collision now instead of speed, there was a long few heartbeats of pause before Rayleigh spoke in a gruff voice.

"Now, that just won't do. Trying to cut off these youngsters while they're having fun. You seem to have forgotten there is a reason you never came down here before, Marcus."

When the dust from the attack settled, an old man with a long white beard and a formal suit stood there looking grim, angry, and untouched even by the dust. The Dark King stood across from him, both of them sunk a solid meter down into a crater that had been created by their initial impact. An overwhelmingly powerful Haki pressed down on everyone, knocking out the remaining low-level Marines and bringing Sanji, Nojiko, and Usopp to their knees. That Haki seemed to simply part around Kaya, though sweat abruptly beaded her brow as it did. Even Yamato and Luffy felt it, forced to release their own Conqueror's Haki in full measure to remain standing. Something which caused Kizaru to stagger and go to one knee…and stopped the hearts of the Celestial Dragons that had, until now, remained alive and breathing.

"Rayleigh. You should not interfere. Our tolerance for your presence here will extend no longer if you do."

A sword that hadn't been visible before just seemed to…appear in Rayleigh's hand as his expression shifted. A strange Haki, just as dark but somehow purer than that of his opponent, flowed out of the old man, who abruptly looked every centimeter the Dark King of his title.

"Your tolerance? You overestimate yourself, Marcus. It has been a long time since I've bothered to use my blade. For you, however, I do believe I'll make an exception."

Despite everything, despite his own power, despite exposure to Garp…Luffy could barely follow as the two terrifying old men moved. Every blow came with a shockwave of air pressure and Haki that staggered everyone but himself and Yamato. Even Kaya was affected, barely managing to speak something into her Den Den Mushi…and Air Doors appeared under her, Sanji, Usopp, and Nojiko. Kaya did something that parted the waves of Haki long enough for the Air Doors to properly form, but Luffy could sense her consciousness fading as the other members of his crew fell through the Doors and back to Vivi and Robin aboard the Discovery.

As Luffy himself struggled to push back against the waves of power, he was nothing but grateful Kaya had possessed the good sense to get them out of this.

Whatever the hell this was.

Yamato proved an instant later that she, at least, could actually still follow the fight. She leaned out of the way of a blow that had apparently been aimed at her and managed to strike back, fist steaming with her personal equivalent of original Luffy's Gears and her own Haki. The blow did, seemingly, absolutely nothing. An instant later Shichiseiken pulsed with light and Luffy's body was completely restored, his arms both moving instinctively to raise the blade in a two-handed block. He was just in time for an energy beam to break against a shield of power created equally instinctively out of the spiritual energy he'd previously channeled into the blade.

That seemed to finally get a reaction from their enemy, his now-blurry form shifting attention to Luffy even as he leaned into instincts he was pretty sure were coming from the Holy Sword in his hands. He was proven right as the blade shifted, its metal transforming into Silver Light surrounded by a corona of Golden Fire. An instant later, as Luffy managed to interpose the flaming blade between himself and the claw of what could only be a Hybrid Zoan, that form screeched as its claw contacted the Holy Flames and burned. The enemy's abrupt pain created an opening and, between one heartbeat and the next, that enemy was fully visible again, gushing blood as Rayleigh cut off a wing. A wing that instantly began regenerating despite Rayleigh's blade having been dark as pitch with Haki.

Even as Rayleigh and Yamato both launched a flurry of blows that put what Luffy finally processed as a Mythical Bird Zoan on the defensive, Luffy's mind raced. Who the absolute fuck was this?! What Zoan form was that?! No! That didn't matter! What did matter is that whoever they were, they were speeding up again, regenerating all the damage Yamato and Rayleigh were doing to the monstrous bird-thing's presence.

But the burn on the creature's claw wasn't regenerating.

Or if it was, it was doing so at a snail's pace.

Mind whirling at maximum speed, for the first time ever Luffy intentionally activated that mental dice-rolling sensation, paying more karma to do so. Something he hadn't even known was possible. Blindingly, trusting to luck, he dumped perk points into whatever the dice guided him to, not even properly opening the System Window as he did.

Spiritual Infusion (Holy)

Abruptly, as the Spiritual Energy Luffy had been reinforcing himself with took on a deeper feeling he'd only fully felt from the sword in his hands before, Luffy realized that it hadn't been everyone moving too fast for him to follow earlier. Instead, a shroud of some sort of vile darkness was suffusing the Haki they was practically swimming in, making the enemy blurry and hard to see. Yamato, for reasons he didn't want to think about right now, somehow felt like the very sun, burning away the effects immediately around her. Rayleigh, meanwhile, was an inky pool of sharp void that was cutting the vileness just as his sword cut anything else it passed through. That vile shroud was what had made it hard to see the enemy, despite the fact that it shouldn't have been possible to move too fast for Luffy to see.

Now he could see but could also sense that it wasn't enough. Dice still tumbling, another perk point was blindly spent, even the immense karma reserve he'd built up saving multiple islands starting to run dry…

Spirit Fruit - Model: Raijū – Adaptation 3

He groaned as the new understanding of Holy energy, whatever the heck that actually was, melded with the power of his Spirit Fruit. His Stormtiger form changed, on a deeper level than the physical, and began to passively burn away the vileness around him, in exactly the same way as the feeling of the Sun did the same around Yamato. That change snapped the now-mostly-recovered enemy's attention to him and Yamato was slapped aside, a cut from Rayleigh to the side accepted, as it lunged for Luffy.

The increased depth of his connection with his Fruit had boosted him enough that Luffy reacted in time, jumping back to lessen the blow even as he poured Silver-Gold fire out of his sword. The enemy screeched again as it lost a single claw…and that claw didn't start regenerating. Radiating sudden fear and confusion, the enemy tried to disengage.

Fuck that! Another blind Perk Point and the well of accrued karma was now completely spent.

Spirit Fruit - Model: Raijū – Adaptation 4

Luffy's mind began to fray, instincts from his Fruit attempting to overwhelm his consciousness. He fought back with everything he had, even as he lunged forward into an attack at the enemy's back. That lunge seemed to last an eternity instead of the less-than-an-eyeblink it actually was as he warred with the innate nature of his Fruit. For a moment, he almost became the essence of a thunderstorm, only raw willpower pulling him through to remain himself. Then, the world was suddenly more clear than it had ever been before, his form instinctively shifting more towards that of a wolf as a howl formed of thunder and lighting poured from his throat.

His blade missed, the enemy cleanly dodging it's Golden-Fire coated form.

The pure, Holy-Infused ball of Azure-Silver lighting that erupted from his mouth with his howl did not.

Marcus Mars, Gorosei, Warrior God of the Environment, fell out of the sky with a smoking hole where his heart had been. His body didn't get back up, didn't even twitch, as somewhere not-so-far away an Immortal who hadn't felt pain since the Void Century howled in agony at the permanent sundering of a piece of his own power. A piece gifted to a follower whose life had just been ended in a way he couldn't bring them back from. Monkey D. Luffy fell out of the air, unconscious and no longer in his new form, an instant later. Yamato caught him as he fell, both of them vanishing an instant later through an Air Door. An old man blinked, no longer radiating the Dark Haki he had just moments before.

"Well. Shit. This complicates matters."

Admiral Kizaru, who everyone else had forgotten was even there as he fought to move under the combined Haki of four monsters, not even his supposed ally having spared him the pressure, didn't say a word as he vanished back into a beam of light. If he'd said anything at all, however, it likely would have been a horrifically dry observation of how desperately deep of an understatement those words had been…

... ... ... ... ... ... ...

A/N 1: Kizaru! So...I actually had to do a bit of a deep dive on him, finding all of his canon fights and trying to get a bead on just how strong he is. What I discovered? Most fanfiction seems to hilariously underplay his power level. Dude is SCARY. As in, he went toe-to-toe with Fully Awakened Joyboy Luffy and honestly seemed to be either at the same level or possibly outright WINNING. That puts him firmly in the same power frame as someone like a Yonko, even if I put him as slightly weaker than he'd be post time-skip. Luffy and Yamato TOGETHER were a decently tough fight for him, but he'd likely have hammered either one of them separately.

A/N 2: Luffy, just for reference, has NO FUCKING CLUE who Marcus/Mars is. His knowledge of One Piece from his past life doesn't include just how crazy strong the Elders are, nor does he know about the God's Knights. If Rayleigh hadn't stepped in, Luffy and Yamato would have been very, very dead.

A/N 3: Oda has been terrible about developing just what the fuck is going on with said Elders and Imu. So...I'm sort of filling in the blanks a bit on some things. Like whatever power it is that Imu gives them being cursed or unholy in some way. That is implied fairly heavily at times in canon, so I'm running with it. This is part of the reason I wanted Luffy to have his new sword...and also a reason I went with a divine-adjacent Mythical Zoan for Luffy. Or, at least, I'm going to pretend I thought that far ahead :-p.

A/N 4: Yes. Luffy awoke his Devil Fruit. He BARELY pulled off staying sane through it, as much because of the Karma and Luck advantages he gave himself as anything. Since he didn't exactly do it the RIGHT way. Though the fact he was so far along with his usage of the Fruit helped him.

A/N 5: No. Luffy cannot solo a Gorosei now. Even once he adapts to his Awakened form, he'll be effectively on par with Kizaru now. He won't need Yamato's help against the Admiral any longer, but much like Awakened Canon Luffy, he'd be in for a serious fight. Any of the other Elders would rip him apart, as would the higher ranking God's Knights for that matter. At least as he is right now. What happened to Mars was pure, utter, undiluted surprise. Not just one surprise, but several in rapid sequence. Luffy being able to hurt him and make it stick was a nasty shock which, combined with the presence of both Rayleigh and the Nika Fruit user, was enough to convince Marcus/Mars to make a tactical withdrawal. Even then, he just flat out couldn't have seen a mid-battle SUCCESSFUL Mythical Zoan awakening coming, and dodged from a known dangerous attack right into a beam of holy-infused plasma that no amount of Haki in the world could have let him seen coming. Absent the System to help Luffy jump forward toward Awakening mid-battle, it just flat couldn't have happened, and even the Gorosei don't have access to information about Luffy's System. It was, by pretty much any metric, impossible. Which is something even the best Haki can't account for. He got zapped by a freak series of events...influenced heavily by luck and Karama. The rolls of the dice of fate Luffy was leaning into weren't without affect...

A/N 6:Once per release, I remind people that...I have a Page! Nothing I write, fanfiction wise, is ever permanently paywalled. That said, I do have Early Access chapters. There is, in fact, currently roughly another 17,000 words of One Piece - Halfway Broken in Early Access (Chapters 75-79). Content which covers what happened at Marineford and the overall immediate aftermath for the crew and other factions. Also, of course, you also get access to my other Early Access chapters for my other stories. There is typically around 45-65k words of various works in early access at any one time. I always appreciate any support, since it helps me free up more writing time...but most of all I hope you just enjoy the stories!