Pirates: Invincible from the Start

"Cough!"

Crocodile looked as though all the strength had been drained from him. His legs stumbled, and he staggered backward.

He clapped his left hand over his mouth to keep the blood from spilling out of his throat. Reaching behind himself with his right hand, he felt three holes in his back.

Drip. Drip. Drip.

Blood poured from Crocodile's back. Before long, it had soaked his clothes and coat red, then ran down the hem and dripped onto the parched sand.

"Now do you know what I've got to fight you with?"

Kuina straightened and fixed her eyes on Crocodile, a mocking smile on her face. She released Wado Ichimonji with her left hand, turned the blade in her right, raised it, then flicked it diagonally to the right.

Splat!

The blood on the blade left a stark red line across the sand to Kuina's right.

"Cro... Crocodile. Do you know now?"

Kuina asked him again.

This time, her voice was nothing like before. It dripped with mockery.

These Logia users were always so full of themselves. Smoker in Loguetown had been the same, and so was this Shichibukai. Did they really think Logia powers made them invincible?

"Cough! Cough, cough, cough!"

Crocodile kept coughing behind his hand. He knew he had been careless.

If he hadn't been so arrogant and had prepared to turn into sand, he might still have been hurt, but never this badly.

There were three holes in his back. Others might not know his Devil Fruit's fatal weakness, but he certainly did.

He couldn't stop bleeding from wounds this severe.

He could, however, slow it down.

He lowered his hand and let blood spill from the corner of his mouth. Then he turned his back into sand, trying to plug the wounds.

He had no