The colosseum's doctor, or rather the mber of the Donquixote pirates who was posing as a doctor, was having a smoke and flirting with one of the "nurses" when suddenly the trap door he sent the wounded contestants through was sliced to pieces.
The two "nurses" squealed in fright and fled the room, whilst the "doctor" froze in place.
The culprit behind the destroyed trap door hopped out and sheathed his sword. His short, green hair identified him as one of the stronger contenders from the tournant, even though he was missing his white mustache and sunglasses.
Fortunately for the "doctor", Zoro was much like a tyrannosaurus rex in that he could only see
movent.
What other reason could there be for Zoro to ignore the "doctor's" presence entirely after he beca Zoro's arch nesis by dropping him down a chute to his doom?
Bartoloo was different though, as he was one of the modern descendents of the great tyrannosaurus rex, the noble rooster. What he lacked in raw murderous potential, he made for with his ability to see unmoving prey and his ability to hold a grudge.
*boof*
Bartoloo landed a swift kick straight to the "doctor's" gonads, leaving the man to crumple to the floor.
"That isn't very honorable..." The red haired painter comnted.
"What's honor? Can I eat it?" Bartoloo asked rhetorically, picking his nose.
"I'm going to crash the tournant finals. You two do as you wish." Zoro said, figuring he could get a decent fight that way.
Bartoloo was naturally happy to follow Zoro around like a lost puppy, but the red haired painter thought it better to go his own way.
"Perhaps in the future, we'll et again." The red haired painter gave his farewell with a short bow of his head
Little did he know that they would et again very soon.
Zoro made his way back to the arena with Bartoloo in tow. As he had hoped, the finals were still going.
There was a brief lull in the fight caused by so chaos in the stands, but that didn't matter to Zoro. All that mattered to him was that the tall guy facing the old man and the pink haired woman was holding a sword in his hand.
Zoro looked at Bartoloo and said "You protect the old man and the woman." Then he grew a toothy smile as he leapt into the ring over the moat, drawing his swords along the way in mid air.
"Z-Z-Z-Z-Zoro-senpai is relying on eeee~!!!" Bartoloo gushed with sparkling eyes and blushing cheeks.
Bartoloo made a ramp with his barrier and slid down to the arena platforms. He would perform this service to the utmost of his capabilities, and it just so happened that there was no one in the world better suited for it.
It was impossible for Diamante to miss the recklessly obvious charge that Zoro did, so he sent his sword blade whipping in his direction using his flag devil fruit powers.
Zoro was montarily surprised, but adapted quickly by using two swords to block. Had he used just one, the flag-like sword would have wrapped around and cut him anyways.
This annoyed Diamante greatly, as people usually fell for this little trap of his. He still had many other tricks up his sleeves, though, so this was rely a minor setback.
The bigger problem was Bartoloo. He now had a barrier set up between him and the royal grandfather and granddaughter. Getting around it wasn't a simple matter and may very well be considered impossible for himself alone.
"Thank you for this, young man." Riku said graciously.
"Shut up! I'm only doing this because Zoro-senpai asked to! I haven't forgotten that dirty, rotten sneak attack you pulled on ! Don't you have any sha?!" Bartoloo ranted grumpily.
'You're one to talk...' Riku and Rebecca thought in unison.
Zoro broke through Diamante's guard, only to be t with his cape that was as tough as steel. Instinctual calculations were made inside of Zoro's mostly empty head, quickly coming up with a solution to the problem.
'I'll cut through the steel.' Zoro thought rather straightforwardly.
He has long been at the level of cutting steel, but adding armant haki into the mix complicated the matter sowhat. Not to ntion that the cape wasn't rigid like most steel, but rather had all the flexibility of a normal cape. That would slow down any attack that he got through it even further, giving Diamante a chance to deflect it.
'I'll just have to cut even deeper then.' Zoro concluded his ingenious strategy. 'First things tfirst, though...'
Diamante thrust his rapier at Zoro's chest. Zoro stepped aside just enough to slip past it, running one of his swords along its edge to keep it from slicing his flesh.
Normally that would be enough, but Diamante's rapier was only rigid when he wanted it to be. He flicked his wrist with the intent of sending a rolling wave down the length of the sword and cutting Zoro, but that was exactly what Zoro was waiting for.
Now that the blade was no longer stiff, Zoro expertly wrapped the blade around his own sword several tis and YANKED.
Diamante had at first scoffed at him. He was of a much larger build than Zoro, surely he could overpower Zoro in this attempt to disarm him.
Diamante was wrong, though. Few swordsn were as obsessed with increasing their physical might as much as Zoro was. If it wasn't for the fact that Cherry refused to fix him up after every workout, he'd even delve into self destructive thods that could easily cripple him.
The result was thus quite unexpected to Diamante. Instead of counter disarming Zoro, he instead found himself lurching forward. Right into the waiting blades of his enemy. Diamante used his free hand to whirl his cape up to block. At the sa ti he dodged to the side, which turned out to be the wisest course of action as Zoro's sword ripped through the steel cape like a knife through frozen butter. That is to say, not the easiest cut, but the knife still wins in the end.
As Zoro extracted his swords for another go, Diamante threw the cape back behind him and-
*Bang!*
He fired a flintlock pistol at Zoro from point blank range.
Zoro bent his torso, causing the bullet to fly past him harmlessly. "I saw that coming from a mile away, even without my observation haki. Your dirty tricks have got nothing on Cherry's."
Diamante grit his teeth in frustration.
"Take him down, Zoropp!" A cheer ca from the crowd.
That cheer set off a wave of cheers and shouts to defeat Diamante. By this ti, the forr toys had had ti to spread their stories amongst the audience, turning the ire of the crowd
against Doflamingo and his cronies.
"That coward actually pulled out a pistol!" "Stuff it down his throat, Zoropp!" "Pierce him with your superior sword!" "Spill his fluids on the ground!" "Hey guys, that's starting to sound a bit... lewd..." and many more similar cries were heard.
Zoro paid the fools no mind. Their loyalties were far too flimsy and they didn't seem to want to take any responsibility for their own participation in Doflamingo's bloody rule. Diamante had heard enough of them, though. He pulled out several flags, which turned into firework launching tubes upon the release of his devil fruit.
"Death Enjambre!" Diamante cried as the tubes exploded, sending steel gray confetti rocketing high into the air.
He began to sway his hips from side to side then the entire colosseum started to sway and roll
in tandem with his motion.
"Release!" Diamante spoke with a sneer, and pulled out an umbrella.
The gray confetti transford into a multitude of spiked iron balls, which started to plumt towards not just the arena, but the audience as well!
Even off balance, Zoro was confident in defending himself, and he didn't need to worry about Bartoloo and the two he was protecting either.
"Damn it!" Zoro shouted in annoyance, knowing he wouldn't be able to stomach standing by as the audience was slaughtered. No matter how much he disliked them.
Zoro poised himself with his three swords, doing so quick last second adjustnts before The made his move.
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