#shanks took one good look at kidd and went yup. mini-me in the making

[kbstories]

Diachronic

dia·chron·ic (adj.)

Occurring over time; historical.

Kidd is torn apart and Killer is (almost) too late.

(Or: Remember that nebulous Kidd vs. Shanks fight? Yeah, that.)

Tags: Angst, Blood and Violence, Mild Gore, Kidd Is Straight Up Not Having A Good Time, Shanks Is A Bit Of A Bastard

Post-Summit War setting, during the Timeskip. Content warning for lots of blood and some gore. Read Chapter 2 here.

***

“Fight me!”

A shout like a gun going off, sparks flying, black powder catching fire. Two words, bang bang, and the world stops spinning in the silence that follows.

Kidd is grinning, teeth sharp and eyes alight, near-feral with bloodlust. “Did ya hear me, Red-Haired Shanks?”, he calls across the beach, the Victoria Punk behind and an Emperor’s lair ahead. They’re outnumbered, surrounded already, blood seeping into the sand that shifts beneath their boots.

“I want a duel. Just you and me.”

At Kidd’s back, Killer stares at Benn Beckman, watches him raise an eyebrow and continue to smoke. They haven't moved, him and Shanks’ other officers, content to stand by at the very edge of the jungle where the sun struggles to breach its gloom. Something about how casual it is makes Killer lock his jaw, raise his scythes like fangs.

A glance is all he’s worth, an amused uptilt to thin lips. Beckman exhales, breath hazy with smoke, and nods at his captain. Watch and learn.

Next to him, Shanks takes a swig of whatever swill is in that dusty old bottle of his. Eyes, black as obsidian glass and just as sharp, fall on Kidd, track lazily over the fur draped across his shoulders and how his fingers curl around the thrum of magnetism they command.

Shanks sighs.

“My, my, a duel… Listen, kiddo, it’s not even noon. It’s too early for this stuff, don’t ya think?”

Around Killer, the crew bristles. Underestimated, disrespected, dismissed at every turn: It’s more of the same, a mistake the mighty make before they inevitably fall at their hands. Kidd sneers.

“You Emperors are so fucking pathetic. Letting those Government dogs do whatever they want while you hoard the scraps left behind. The world doesn’t need your kind anymore, Shanks! It’s our turn now.”

Shanks’ mouth shapes itself around a low ohhh. “So harsh! I can’t let a speech like that go to waste now, can I, Benn?”

Beckman replies, “Guess not, Captain”, flicking his cigarette to places unknown. Just as bored, he reaches for the bottle in the same instant Shanks pushes it into his waiting hand.

This is it.

“Kidd”, says Killer, little more than a breath between them. Kidd looks over his shoulder, meets Killer’s eyes despite the mask, the grin softening to a smile, no less deadly. This is the moment they carve their names into the sky, the very fabric of the world; the moment they become infamous enough to reach even the junkyard that gave them a beginning and nothing else.

Broad-shouldered, head held high, Kidd is every bit the man Killer knew he would become as he walks into the space their enemies open up for him. A flame chasing away wolves, ready to blaze a path through whatever obstacles remain.

One step, two – Kidd is out of reach and Killer lets him go. This is the moment they’ve been waiting for. 

*

Killer watches it all unfold in snapshots, blink-and-you-miss-it glimpses he will remember to the end of his days:

A ring of surprised looks as weapons of all kind tug free, drawn to Kidd’s outstretched hands;

Red-Haired Shanks, drawing his sword, cloak fluttering where an arm should be but isn’t;

The audible crackling of Haki clashing against Haki, Kidd’s cackling laughter in the air–

There Killer stands, arms crossed and all his senses trained on every move his captain makes. Strike, counterstrike, an engine roaring to life in streaks of red and gunmetal grey, firing from all cylinders. Action, reaction, the indulgent curl of a smile on Shanks’ lips that is the antithesis to that razor-edge gaze.

Shanks lets Kidd come and Kidd does so hard. Over and over, snarling, “Fight me!”, metal claws hooked and closer to drawing blood with every swipe.

Then fabric tears, one long gash from shoulder to wrist if Shanks were whole. “Ah, hell”, the Emperor mutters. Taking the time to pout at his ripped cloak as if Kidd isn’t right there, lunging for his throat without hesitation–

Shanks side-steps it without a single look in Kidd’s direction. “Y’know what? Fine. Make it worth my time, welp.”

And Shanks’ presence, already heavy, already suffocating, drops like a mountain on them all.

Killer grunts out a breath his lungs struggle to take back in, even at a distance. Vertigo paints his vision in smeared black and fading colors within seconds. Shanks moves, and that pressure moves with him – the Kid Pirates breathe as one, a hitched inhale as Kidd staggers mid-step and pulls up his arm just in time.

Metal clangs against metal, and blood splatters the ground.

Yet the grin on Kidd’s face goes nowhere; when Shanks pulls, his sword is slow to follow. The call of Kidd’s powers is strongest at close proximity, even for the blade of an Emperor, and for an instant their eyes lock, at a standstill.

(C’mon, Killer thinks. Kidd strains, and Killer’s arms tighten across his chest to stop his hands from shaking. Hold on, c’mon–)

Shanks smirks. “Huh. Not bad.”

The tension breaks, and Shanks– He lets go. Kidd blinks, draws back, sure on his feet again if cautious. From afar, Killer can see the gears turn in Kidd’s head, sweat trailing down his temples and breath labored while Shanks looks virtually unchanged. The glare of a sun at its zenith is reflected by Shanks’ sword; it shifts, is fully encased in the fist that rises against its master once more.

It cannot last, this tentative lull. They’re in the eye of a hurricane, a realization that finally registers in Killer’s mind, waiting for the storm to hit. They’re mice scuttling straight into the maw of a beast and Killer gasps, jolts forward.

“Captain–!”

A fraction of a second, and Shanks is upon Kidd. Haki sizzles where they meet, metal against bare skin: It’s brutal, it’s vicious, it doesn’t fucking matter that Shanks is missing an arm and a sword, not when his hand bursts Kidd’s fists into their individual pieces and keeps reaching.

Kidd’s eyes go wide; he grabs for Shanks, the red of his nails leaving bloody lines on the Emperor’s arm. Nothing moves in Shanks’ face, nothing as he digs fingers gone black with Haki into Kidd’s skin and watches it split apart.

Killer’s world narrows down to that, a sight that freezes the blood in his veins while Kidd’s spills from his neck and chest and soaks into the sand. “Kidd”, Killer whispers, “No, no”, and he’s tearing away from his crew and towards his captain. Not like this, not like this, until his arm catches on something and he can’t– He’s stuck–

“Kidd!!”

Shanks looks up at that, eyes dark, and it’s all it takes for Kidd to dislodge that grasp. To lurch away and back on his feet, throat working around a groan, a hand on his face. His fingers are drenched in blood.

“Stand back!”

And Killer stops, heart beating up his throat so hard it’s choking him. Kidd doesn’t look away from Shanks, the one eye left uncovered in full focus despite it all. “Knew you’d get serious eventually”, he spits, voice raw from the pain. He wipes his cheek against his shoulder, spreading the mess around.

Shanks merely raises an eyebrow. “Come on, then. Let’s finish this.”

“That kid is done for”, mumbles someone next to Killer, and only then does he realize he’s being held back by someone. Straight blond hair, a bandana, sunglasses – it doesn’t really matter who it is, just that they’re in the way.

Killer growls, scythes snapping out and starting to spin. The guy sighs, “Man, you have bigger problems than me right now”, mildly annoyed at most. “Look.”

Only his captain is allowed to give him orders but– Killer looks, the split-second he wasn’t lingering as Kidd recovers from a hit Killer didn’t see, and Shanks’ torn cloak billows behind him as he approaches in measured steps.

“This is why fighting you rookies is no fun. Got lucky with a fruit and then what? It’s so boring.”

Kidd’s hand goes for the dagger strapped to his chest; goes for it and doesn’t make it, Shanks’ fingers already there around his wrist, crushing. “Fuck you”, Kidd hisses, teeth painted crimson by the blood dripping into his mouth.

Even before the second word is out he’s knocked to the ground, sinking inches into the sand with the force of the boot pinning him there. “It’s not your turn just yet”, Shanks tells Kidd, mournful, almost.

Then he pulls. Kidd’s shoulder snaps out of its socket with a sickening noise, and Shanks keeps pulling, and Killer can only watch as muscle and skin and sinews go taut, are stretched to their limits and beyond. As, fiber by fiber, they give way to the white of bone underneath–

Kidd screams.

No!

Pain radiates up Killer’s side and his arm burns but he doesn’t care. Killer doesn’t care about the yell of “Hey, what the hell!” and the desperate calls of his name – his crew, his friends, so far away now –, doesn’t care it’s his captain who called for a duel and told him to stay away.

He sees Kidd on the ground, and he sees Shanks picking up his sword again, and Killer breaks through all lines drawn in the sand.

The killing blow is struck and Killer is there. Scythes crossed, sparks spraying where blade meets blade: Killer’s arms shake and his knees threaten to buckle yet he preservers through that infinite moment, feels the pressure double down before it lifts and time ticks on, heartbeat for frantic heartbeat.

“Enough!”

His voice rings out despite how rough it is, how every inhale aches all the way to his core. “Enough”, Killer repeats, standing between his captain and certain death. “You made your point.”

(Behind him, Kidd wheezes his name, “Kil”, garbled, weak. It sounds like No, like Get the fuck out of here, and Killer never imagined himself breaking the loyalty he swore to his dying breath and yet there is one imperative that stands above even that.)

Shanks’ head is tilted to the side, a twist to his mouth Killer would call petulant if it weren’t a fucking Emperor he’s talking to. There’s blood on his face, dotted in an abstract pattern up to the scars across his eye. Arterial spray, still wet.

“I don’t think your captain is very happy with you right now.”

“That’s for my captain to decide”, says Killer, coldly. Barely turns his head to call, “Heat! Wire!”, and with familiar steps shuffling closer and Kidd’s agonized gasps of “No, n-no, Killer” growing fainter, Killer takes a stance, scythes ready and lithe body poised to strike.

“You’re fighting me now, Red-Haired Shanks.”

Shanks just sighs, rubs at his brow with stained fingers. “So you know you don’t stand a chance and yet, here we are. What a mess.”

Surrounded by enemies on all sides, Killer doesn’t cower. “Eustass Kidd will be the man to become Pirate King”, he tells Shanks, tells the world, boots firmly planted on the ground thoroughly steeped in Kidd’s blood. It’s the fundamental truth they sail by, the dream they came up with, together.

“He will be King, and I’m the man who will get him there. My life’s as good a price as any to pay for that.”

It’s then that Shanks looks at him, fixes him with that stare like he’s only now bothering to take note of Killer’s existence. “One Piece, huh? Haven’t heard that dream in a while”, he muses, a certain softness there that seems– out of place, somehow.

“Listen. Just ‘cause Whitebeard’s gone now doesn’t mean you kids can waltz in here and start shit you’re not ready to finish. Got it? Playtime’s over. If it's a new era you want, stay alive long enough to carry it.”

There’s an out there, Killer can see it. A line of flight he doesn’t deserve, not after breaking every code of honor their kind adheres to. Shanks sheathes his sword, gestures over his shoulder for the bottle that lands in his palm an instant later. A messy gulp, and Shanks chuckles, all smiles now.

“Your captain’s got some potential, I’ll give him that. The arm’s a goner but it’s not the end of the world. Builds character, and all that.”

Killer should say something about that, about the chatty tone the Emperor strikes as if he wasn’t ripping Kidd apart bare-handed just minutes ago. Beyond the beach Benn Beckman lights another cigarette and he nods at Killer, a pointed gesture. Get out of here.

Nothing. There’s nothing left to say, and so Killer turns his back. Leaves his pride right there in the sand where his captain almost lost his life, and follows the trail of blood through the parting crowd of Shanks’ crew and into the sea’s uncaring arms.

>>Chapter 2.