Progress

Marineford

At this time, on the highest floor of marine headquarters, Sengoku with other high level marine were discussing about the recent event of unnamed island.

"This video was sent by world government's cipher pole division." said Fleet admiral Sengoku.

A large sized den den mushi was projecting the fight of unknown people. In the birds view perspective, all they could see was a small sized island where white and green flashes of light brought destruction like a hurricane. These light destroyed trees and sank large mass of lands, almost like a cake being cut.

A few minutes after when flashes stopped, the view zoomed toward the edge of the island. The personnel attending meeting could see silhouettes of two people coming out from the forest.

"Isn't that Hawk eyes Mihawk, one of the shichibukai!! and who's the other person?" said Akainu, an admiral of the marine.

"The subject of this gathering is about that other man." replied Songoku in seriously.

"what is it about him that you called us here eh.... Sengoku San?" Asked Kizaru in lazy tone, this speaker was also a marine admiral same as Akainu.

All the people in conference looked at the other person in the video who wore white sleeveless gi, dark colored gauntlet protected all of his limbs, and the man seems to be arguing with Mihawk for some reason.

"The WG informed me that this person is powerful and can actually fight toe to toe with strongest swordsman Mihawk." said Sengoku after some pause.

"Sengoku, you don't have to State the obvious. We all saw it. Get to the point." said a tall and buff man picking his nose. He was Monkey D Garp, a vice admiral and most prominent Hero of the marine.

"The WG wants us to release a bounty for the man, that's why we are here discussing it." said Sengoku with dark eyes, anger apparent his face.

"What's the problem then? Let's issue him bounty of half billion berries. What do you think? Sengoku San" said a tall man. He was the third and last admiral of marine, Aokiji.

"It's not that simple. According to WG, they don't have any previous information on that person. A man that strong shouldn't be totally unknown. It's like he suddenly popped out from nowhere. I bet any of you present here also don't know him." said Songoku in exasperation.

Everyone present shook their heads in affirmation.

"We could always ask Mihawk. He seems to be affiliated with him, maybe his secret disciple?" said an old women. She was Vice admiral Tsuru.

"It's probably not. Mihawk is a lone wolf. he keeps it to himself. Him raising a disciple, I can't see it happening. Furthermore, he seems to be a Martial artist not a swordsman." said Sengoku.

"But those flashes were clearly..." started saying Aokiji but was interrupted.

"Probably Rankyaku technique not the sword slash." said Garp in serious tone.

"Damn world government!! they are telling us to wipe their assess." said Akainu fuming.

"Your right Sakazuki. He's probably a secret agent of the government, defected from their control and now they are using us to pressure him." said Sengoku thoughtfully.

"But why aren't they handling it themselves? Their action isn't in line with our conjecture. In my opinion they would have tried assassinating him secretly so that he won't leak any sensitive info to the enemies." said Tsuru.

All of them became silent and thought about it. Not getting any conclusions regarding the motive of the world government, they resumed the discussion.

After everyone left his office after meeting, Sengoku was still grumpily musing.

'Ah, I forgot to call Mihawk. Anyway let me leave it at that. I am not in the mood to talk to a pirate now.' Thought Sengoku. He decided to release bounty poster unnamed.

Grandline; Paradise; Unknown place

Figures of two person could be seen hovering above the sea, radiating suffocating presence. These two were Vash and Mihawk. Both of them were bored sailing for the day. So they were having contest to refine their fighting prowess.

Vash launched himself forward kicking the air, ready to punch Mihawk. When he gained maximum speed, he increased his weight to 1 kiloton; Vash could already use second tier of his devil fruit. Otherwise, he would have been decimated in their previous fight.

Mihawk held his sword diagonally and slashed producing large air blade to obstruct Vash, before he could reach him. Vash predicting the attack, rotated his body narrowly dodging it. He used the momentum of rotation and kicked a large Rankyaku in the direction of Mihawk. The pirate warlord just slashed another time, destroying the incoming attack.

Vash feeling futility of his previous attack, again rotated his body in whacky fashion. Innumerable air blades of different sizes were launched in breakneck speed, homing in on Mihawk. It was like an army of thousands of men , attacking with arrows and spears. Mihawk's observation haki felt the unending attacks coming at him in tricky angles. Even the shapes of Vash's flying blades were different, making it difficult to deal with such an offense. So Mihawk gripped his sword tightly, and hacked out a spiraling air blade of immense size. It clashed with incoming air blades resulting in sizzling shockwaves.

Although Vash was not physically strong as Mihawk, but he supplemented it with his efficiency of power usage and devil fruit. Absolute strength can overwhelm any techniques, but in a fight between similar level of opponent; the one who has more tricks almost always wins. People in this world seems to favor training strength over techniques. So if Mihawk was a master in technique usage then Vash would be a grandmaster.

The fight between the two caused the sea to churn; air to stagnate and move again in unusual manner. Two auras of white and black were orbiting each other above the sea, signifying their clash. It looked like a great storm brewing in the ocean, ready to destroy everything on the way.

They both stopped their battle after half an hour and called a sea king looking like an oversized turtle. The sea king opened its mouth wide, and Mihawk flew into it to take out his coffin boat. Mihawk had subdued this monster of a creature using Supreme kings haki and ordered it to safekeep the coffin raft.

Vash flew down and stepped on his favorite place. He looked miserable with various small wounds on his body; his gauntlets tattered in fight. In contrast Mihawk looked relatively fine except flowery sleeves of his shirt torn, showing some bruises on his hands.

"Hey why don't we ride this turtle for traveling? It would be faster wherever we are going." Vash said in excitement like a child getting his first bicycle.

"We can't do that. Other Sea kings would attack it on its way back if ride him." replied Mihawk.

" Oh, I didn't know a stoic man like yourself had a soft spot." Vash said in sarcastic tone.

"It helped." Mihawk only said two words and stared Vash with expressionless face.

"No need for murderous eyes man, I was just joking." said Vash raising his hand, like he was surrendering to a man holding gun.

"So how much more time do we need to reach starting point of grandline?" Asked Vash changing the topic.

"It all depends on luck which is wind. If we get good enough of it in right direction we'll reach there faster or else it will take a while." replied Mihawk unfurling the sail; the boat started moving rapidly, catching the wind.

Meanwhile Vash checked the injuries as he was losing a small amount of blood from the cut he received in his torso." Damn, you were ruthless, now I'm all beat up." Vash said and tore a section of his gi to wrap wound from bleeding further.

"You'll be fine. Besides, the person we're gonna meet is a doctor. he can patch you up for good." Mihawk replied and started positioning the rudder to go in right direction.