Isn't It a Little Boring?
"Who the hell do you think you're facing?"
A pirate stepped forward and roared at Kuta.
Anyone with eyes could tell that Kuta had just been mocking their captain.
"Hmm!"
Kuta turned his gaze toward
the nameless pirate and narrowed his eyes.
"Get lost."
He had no interest in these nobodies.
His glare, laced with Conqueror's Haki, knocked the nameless pirate unconscious on the spot.
At the sight of the pirate suddenly collapsing with a thud,
the other pirates behind him all sucked in a sharp breath.
"What was that?"
"He knocked someone out with just a glare."
"That's terrifying!"
They raised their heads and stared at Kuta, their eyes filled with shock.
Kubi Rudd glanced at the fallen pirate, disgust flickering in his eyes.
"Useless trash."
He had sensed a trace of that pressure too.
But he didn't take it seriously. It had only knocked out one of his men, not killed him.
He looked up at Kuta and shouted.
"Give me your name, brat! The great captain of the Crazy Bull doesn't kill nameless nobodies."
Of course, he was only joking.
He was a madman through and through, the sort who would kill even his own men when he lost control.
"Me?"
"You can call me one of the Partners of Justice."
Kuta introduced himself with a perfectly straight face.
"Quit joking. Isn't it ridiculous for a pirate to talk about justice?"
Kubi Rudd roared at Kuta, "A pirate is a pirate! If you want to serve justice, why didn't you join the Marines?"
"Stop trying to fool people!"
He hated justice, and he hated those who stood for it.
Because he had never experienced justice himself.
Human traffickers had captured him when he was very young and sold him to a noble.
In all his decades as a slave, he had never felt any kindness from the world.
From childhood onward, he had either been suffering abuse or on his way to suffering more.
His master, along with everyone else in the town where he lived, had never once treated him like a human being.
And so he hated the world.
He believed everything deserved to be destroyed.
After he accidentally ate the Yak-Yak Fruit, that conviction only grew stronger.
The first thing he did after gaining his power was kill his master's entire family.
Then he slaughtered the town where he lived.
When he saw the people he had once bowed and scraped before, the people he had been forced to look up to, suddenly groveling at his feet and begging him to spare them,
he went completely mad.
The feeling of holding power over others utterly captivated him.
He would use this power to rule the entire East Blue.
He would make everyone feel the pain he had once endured.
A little boring, isn't it?
Kuta felt rather baffled by Kubi Rudd's violent reaction to hearing him call himself one of the Partners of Justice.
He hates the word justice so much. Did the Marines hurt him or something?
Kuta rubbed his chin thoughtfully, then looked up and called out to him.
"Hey!"
"Hurry up and attack! Stop dragging your feet and show me what you can do!"
The heavy stench of blood coming off this man made it clear that he had killed no small number of people.
No wonder he had never appeared in the manga.
The Marines had probably executed him long before!
"Since you're so eager to die, I'll grant your wish."
As he spoke, Kubi Rudd suddenly transformed into a bull-headed humanoid.
Seeing Kubi Rudd transform, the pirates behind him suddenly regained their confidence.
Their captain was a monster with demonic power!
At the sight of Kubi Rudd's bull-headed form, Kuta couldn't help bursting into laughter.
"Ha ha ha ha!"
"Why don't you put an iron ring through your nose? Then you'd look even more like the Bull Demon King!"
"Ha ha ha..."
"An iron ring?"
"The Bull Demon King?"
Although he had no idea who the Bull Demon King was, the words "iron ring" still struck a nerve with Kubi Rudd.
Kuta's utterly undisguised mocking laughter, in particular, sent him into a complete rage.
"Aaargh!!"
He threw back his head and bellowed, white vapor streaming from his nostrils.
The nameless pirates behind him flushed with excitement at the sight of the enraged Kubi Rudd and shouted.
"Get him, Captain!"
"Tear that arrogant brat apart!"
As far as they were concerned, an enraged Kubi Rudd was the world's strongest man. Even the Marines sent to capture them had all been slaughtered with ease.
Hearing his men's cries, Kubi Rudd stopped bellowing and lowered his head, his blood-red eyes fixed on Kuta. He kicked hard off the deck and shot toward him like a sword.
Ever since coming aboard, this brat had refused to give him a proper look. His eyes held nothing but cold indifference and disdain, his whole manner dripping with arrogance.
And now he was mocking him too.
He was asking to die.
Kubi Rudd couldn't even remember how long it had been since someone had looked at him like that or laughed at him.
Ever since he gained his Devil Fruit power, everyone he met had looked at him with fear. Even the Marines were no exception.
What gave this brat the nerve to look at him like that and mock him?
The last time he had encountered such a gaze was back when he was a slave.
That was why not a single person remained alive in the town where he had been enslaved.
He was certain this brat would be no different.
As the distance closed and Kuta came within arm's reach, an intensely bloodthirsty gleam flashed in Kubi Rudd's eyes, and he roared.
"Look at me, you bastard!"
He clenched his sandbag-sized right fist, veins bulging across the muscles of his arm and making the entire limb swell
even thicker.
Then he drew his fist back and drove it straight at Kuta's head.
He stared at Kuta's head, imagining it bursting into a spray of blood in the next instant.
An expression of wild excitement spread across his face.
He relished the sight of blood splattering everywhere. It brought him sheer ecstasy.
"Huh!"
Just then, a sudden bang shattered his fantasy.
His fist felt as though it had struck a steel plate rather than the other man's head.
His vision snapped back to reality. In front of his fist was a palm that looked tiny by comparison, holding perfectly still and preventing him from advancing even an inch.
"No way!"
"He blocked the captain's full-strength punch that easily?"
The smiles froze on the faces of the nameless pirates who had been so excited just moments before.
It wasn't as though they had never seen someone withstand Kubi Rudd's full-strength punch. But hadn't even that Marine officer coughed up blood after blocking it?
How could anyone be as casual as Kuta, as though he had stopped nothing more than a falling leaf instead of a fist?
It had been so effortless that he hadn't even stopped laughing.
"Is that all the strength you have?"
Kuta stopped laughing and turned to Kubi Rad with a mocking look. "This little bit of strength was enough to make you so full of yourself?"
"Don't get too cocky, brat!"
Kubi Rudd stared at Kuta with a grim expression. He wasn't stupid. He could feel the gap between them.
But he would not bow his head, nor would he admit defeat.
Because from the moment he set sail, he had sworn never to bow his head to anyone again.
He pulled back his fist, retreated a few steps, and tore off his shirt, revealing the dense mass of scars covering his body.
"Hmm?"
Looking at Kubi Rudd's scar-covered body, Kuta understood why he hated justice so much.
One glance was enough to tell that those scars had accumulated over many long years.
Judging by their different types and sizes, they couldn't have come from battle.
That left only one possibility.
This man had once been a slave.
Only nobles had the knack for leaving so many wounds on a person's body without letting them die.
Kuta looked at Kubi Rudd, the smile fading from his face as his brow furrowed slightly.
He no longer intended to waste time on this man.
Originally, he had wanted to have a little fun, but seeing the scars on the man's body changed his mind.
He could mock the Kubi Rudd of today, but he could not mock the man's past.
Kubi Rudd threw back his head and roared. Black hair sprouted wildly all over his body, and in the blink of an eye, he had fully transformed into an enormous yak.