Konoha Squad

Ten thick, long grappling lines were thrown from the warship. Like the claws of a ferocious beast, they gripped the pirate ship tightly and pulled it closer.

One plank after another was pushed out across the water between the ships, connecting them completely.

Then Luokesani and the other pirates of the Insect Swarm Pirates saw expressionless Marines silently charge across the planks, one after another.

"Huh? What's going on?"

"Why are there so few of them?"

This wasn't what they had expected. Didn't the Marines always come swarming over in a massive crowd?

Seeing that the other Marines aboard the warship had no intention of joining the fight, Luokesani felt her unease gradually grow, though she didn't know why.

But she had no time to think. Her subordinates had already clashed with the Marines charging aboard!

"I don't know what you're thinking, but since you've sent these men over to die, we won't hold back!"

Luokesani transformed into her human-beast form. Her skin turned green, her pupils became insectlike, and her two slender, fair arms turned into a pair of sharp, serrated forelimbs.

She leaped with tremendous power, jumping straight from the back to the front. Her long forelimb cut through the air, slashing down at a sword-wielding Marine.

A cruel smile appeared on her face. She had chopped down so many lives that the sight was all too familiar.

These Marines without coats were just a bunch of lackeys and small fry, useful only for wearing down a little of her stamina with their bodies.

[Clang!]

Three standard-issue Marine swords crossed to catch the female mantis's slash, shattering all her expectations.

Two more blades gleaming with cold light stabbed at her from different directions, forcing her to retreat a step into the crowd before she lunged forward again, unwilling to give up.

Meanwhile, facing pirates who nearly doubled their numbers, the members of the Konoha Squad formed more than a dozen combat teams to attack and resist the pirates charging at them.

None of them were recruits, so they avoided many common mistakes, such as losing their composure in the heat of battle or forgetting what they had learned as the fighting went on.

One Marine, facing a concentrated attack from three pirates, frowned and retreated three steps, letting the two comrades beside him help fend them off.

He drew a short musket from his waist and fired decisively at one pirate's crotch. A piercing scream instantly rang across the battlefield.

But another sword immediately pierced the pirate's heart, cutting his scream short. The battle continued.

The pirates of the Insect Swarm Pirates began to realize how troublesome these Marines were. They had nearly eighty men on their side.

But there simply wasn't enough room on the deck for everyone to join the fight at once. After all, they each needed space to swing their blades.

The same was true for the Marines, but their positions followed a clear pattern, divided into front and rear groups.

Whenever a team at the front exhausted itself, a team behind it would provide cover with swords or muskets, giving the first team time to withdraw to the rear while taking its place on the front line.

Working together as they had practiced, the dozens of Marines methodically and skillfully pressed the pirates back, step by step.

By now, the dozen or so corpses on the deck were all pirates. Aside from a few unlucky men wounded by shots fired from cover, the Marines had not lost a single man.

"You bugs are so annoying!"

Luokesani furiously swung her dangerous serrated forelimbs. A heavily built Marine caught one attack barehanded and seized the limb in a vise grip.

"Konoha Great Whirlwind!" Another, slimmer Marine appeared in midair and swung a wide roundhouse kick at her head.

[Clang!]

The female mantis reacted swiftly, raising her left forelimb to block. But before a single breath had passed, three more swords appeared around her, attacking from multiple angles.

They slashed, thrust, and swept at her legs, each move more underhanded than the last, leaving Luokesani retreating in panic.

"Ah!!"

This time, she was too slow. The thrusting blade pierced the thin insect armor covering her left side, drawing a spray of hot blood.

Seeing this, the Marines were like a school of sharks that had smelled blood. Led by the two exceptionally strong Marines, they surrounded the female mantis and attacked her ferociously.

"Where the hell did these Marines come from?!"

Luokesani was in a sorry state, barely able to withstand the relentless waves of attacks coming from every angle and direction.

"You damned man, are you coming out or not?! Are you really going to watch me die here?"

Perhaps husband and wife understood each other's hearts. No sooner had she cursed him in her thoughts than she saw the light and shadows behind the Marine who had caught her forelimb barehanded suddenly distort.

A tall, fearsome mantis appeared, its entire body pinkish white. Its pair of pinkish, serrated forelimbs crossed as they slashed at the head before it.

A chill ran through Ogden, and every hair on his body stood on end. The whistling at his neck left him able only to use Tekkai on instinct!

"Ogden!"

It was Benson's voice; he could tell. Then he seemed to hear another rush of air and figured the captain had kicked out again.

But would he make it in time?

[Bang!]

Luokesani, transformed into a green female mantis, watched in shock as her husband was about to cut off the Marine's head.

A black shadow struck him with the speed of lightning, knocking him away. He smashed straight through the railing and fell toward the sea in the distance.

"Mantoudiya! Ah!!"

Luokesani cried out, but several nearby Marines took the opportunity to carve deep wounds into her.

Her worried cry turned into a scream.

This was a sight that would have been hard to imagine before: six or seven Marines, not one of them an officer, had drawn blood again and again from a pirate with a bounty in the tens of millions.

The Rear Admiral and the other Marines watching from the warship saw it all and took it to heart.

Meanwhile, the pink mantis that had been knocked off the ship unfolded a pair of translucent wings from its back and flew back through the air!

"I really didn't expect him to be able to fly." Bullet looked up at the pink mantis in the sky, his eyes bright.

Ever since noticing that only one mantis had appeared on the battlefield, he had held off on intervening, instead hiding at the rear and quietly observing his surroundings.

After all, the purpose of this battle was to test the effectiveness of the Konoha Squad's Three-Three System Tactics. His main task was to minimize their casualties.

"But what was that invisibility ability just now?"

Bullet had never gone to school as a child, or rather, almost everything he had learned there had concerned battlefields and combat.

He really knew next to nothing about insects, so his mind was full of curiosity. Could mantises not only fly, but also turn invisible?

"I didn't expect this Mantoudiya to have a Mythical Zoan, the rarest kind of Devil Fruit, rather than an ordinary Zoan!"

Rear Admiral Dewitt, aboard the warship behind him, cleared up his doubts.

You know, while writing the Insect Swarm Pirates, I felt it was a bit of a shame. I kept thinking I could have introduced this crew later, as a counterpart to the Beasts Pirates Kaido formed.

I also changed the cover back. I keep feeling that the reason I haven't gained many bookmarks is that the cover wasn't good, hahaha.