Battle: Florence vs Luke

Florence smiles as he looks at Luke. He would laugh with his unique laughter that made him differ from the other people in the world, before he would speak his words. "Hohahahahahahaha. The Marine Killer, Luke Namikaze is right in front of me. What a surprise. I never expected to find you in the middle of this place... Who would believe that you would be in Marineford." were his words. Then, he tossed his case on the ground quickly and changed his expression to serious. "So... What are you doing here? Sightseeing?" while clenching his fist in order to prepare for a battle against the infamous marine killer. Florence wanted to defeat him and catch him for his own reasons...

Luke with his always calm and collected nature wasn't all that surprised someone had found him. He was a good assassin, but not all mission go the way they're planned. What makes a good soldier was the ability not, to follow the mission to the t, but to get the mission accomplished no matter what came up or happened. That's what made Luke the best, he could adapt and complete the mission no matter what happened. Well at least he had always before this point.

Looking at the long haired man Luke gave a small devilish grin at the chance to fight. Despite being a proficient assassin Luke loved to be engaged in actual combat. Studying the opponent closely, Luke watched for the even slights movement from his current stance. All of the mans senses were on high, it was a feeling he was taught to cherish back in the days of his Black Steel training.

"Hmm the Marine Killer at Marineford....I don't know what could I be doing?" Luke answered with a smug sarcasm. "Hehe! I guess this is one of those times that fighting is unavoidable!" said Luke with excitement.

"Oh lala! Indeed it is!" the agent of Cipher Pol 9 responded while smiling. Seeing that his opponent was planning to enjoy the upcoming battle, Florence decided to do the same and change his previous, serious behavior. The man would not fight with his usual agent suit. He took off his black coat and his red tie, leaving only his white shirt, his black pants and his clothes. Then, he moved his hand on his hair and started playing with them, making some of them to fall in front of his face. As soon as he did that, he said "You have the honor to battle Florence and not the CP 9 agent today. You are the very first person that ever had that privelege."

Afterwards, he looked towards his opponent with an excited face. It was easy to see through his red eyes the excitement he had about the battle. He asked "Shall we begin?" while keeping the smile he had from the very start. The fight between Florence and Luke would start very very soon...

Luke's body language seemed to show that he wasn't ready for battle. He was in no kind of special stance nor did it look like he was in any position to react quickly to any attack. Luke wasn't even fully facing the man, he had his right side turned to the CP9 agent. Taking a deep breath Luke began to speak to Florence looking directly at him in the eyes.

"Okay, sure we can start...hmmm how about you star...." Luke said disappearing.

Before Luke even finished the word start he had used his Namikaze Black Steel Assassin Style Flash, to seemingly appear behind his foe. With a quick thrust forward with his right arm a hidden blade under his wrist shot out. Using the hidden blade Luke attempted to gouge a hole in the back of the mans head.

"Thanks for letting me star-" Florence said before vanishing as well by kicking the ground rapidly and using Soru. Despite the fact that the man promised to fight as Florence and not as a member of Cipher Pol 9, he did not promise to not use knowledge he gained while being a member of CP 9. Florence was planning to catch Luke off guard. As an assassin he used this trick quite a lot of times when he faced opponents face to face. However, he was unlucky as his opponent was an assassin and went for the same trick.

As Florence watched at Luke slashing the air from right behind the spot he was while himself was exactly behind the spot where Luke was, he laughed. His opponent was interesting. He commented

"You are good. Very good." while bending his leg and moving it upwards, performing a small Rankyaku that aimed for Luke's chest. Although Florence knew that a straight-forward attack like that was easy to dodge, he would observe the way Luke dodged so that he would learn about his battle style.

Luke was annoyed his attack didn't work, but not completely surprised. He knew that the battle wouldn't have been that easy, it wouldn't have been fun that way anyway. Getting ready for the mans attack Luke finally got into a fight stance just before the man attacked. Luke had seen the move many times before, even before he ever met a Marine. Despite it coming from a different source or being call another name an air blade was an air blade.

Pulling out his heavy black steel sword Luke went to counter the attack with on of his own. With a powerful slash of his sword Luke threw a sharp blade of wind at Florence's to cancel it out. As Luke knew Florence was watching him studying his style, Luke was also doing the same. It seemed that the two men were both fighting with some what assassin like styles. Any one advantage could really turn the tide of the battle to either on of them.

"Thanks for the complement, but I can't say the same back." said Luke, he was a true assassin using even an insult to it's fullest.

Pulling out six throwing knives, Luke threw three at Florence's right and three at his left. A glint was seen behind them as the traveled through the air towards Luke's foe.

"You are right." a voice was heard behind Luke, while Florence was still in front of him. As the knives were traveling towards him, the agent jumped high in the air and with two shift movements of his legs launched two Rankyaku attacks right behind the sets of the knives. By looking at Luke, despite the fact that they were not battling for long, Florence could understand that as an assassin, just like himself, he would have some tricks under his sleeves. Throwing some simple knives was something that could be easily dodged. However, if these knives were attached to some strings, they could become perfect homing weapons. By guessing that, the man hoped that he was right and that he managed to predict his opponent's move perfectly so his Rankyakus aimed to cut any possible strings that were attached to the knives. Then, he landed on the ground, on a safe spot from the knives.

"I am much better..." the voice from behind Luke was heard again while Florence kept his mouth closed and was standing on his position. Something strange was going on. How was Florence's voice heard from behind while he was standing right in front of Luke? Was it just an idea of the marine killer or was something else going on?

"Rankyaku" was heard again from behind Luke, once more, at the same time Florence disappeared from the place he was previously standing. Afterwards, he appeared behind his opponent, into a distance of around 10 meters while a Rankyaku was moving towards Luke from his left. Florence had been using a bunch of weird tricks, for sure.

Luke wasn't all that worried about the voices behind him, his reflexes should be fast enough to counter even an attack from behind. However Luke wasn't a 100% sure how he was doing it, he figured it was a devil fruit. Even with the assumption of it being a devil fruit Luke still didn't know enough about it. Luke looked for even the smallest differences in the battle and the foe. The voices behind Luke could have been any number of things, a clone or some type of illusion. The assassin knew if he left himself get paranoid about the voices behind him, he would lose track of what was happing in front of him.

"You tricky tricky little bastard!" Luke commented with a large twisted smile.

Tracking Florence's movements, Luke seen the man appear behind him as the attack came from his left. Holding up his sword Luke decided to block the air blade instead of countering to see if it was real or not. Puling a hidden pistol out of his sleeves, Luke fire three round from each. With his left arm he fired the three shots towards the direction the Rankyaku came from. The final three rounds he shot with his other pistol were shot at the visible Florence now in front of him.

"Thanks for the compliment." was the reply of an impressed Florence who smiled as he watched at the way his opponent managed to dodge his Rankyaku. Most of his opponents would fall for the previous trick, but Luke did not. Instead, he performed a very good move and with the help of his bullets his managed to eliminate Florence's Rankyaku. That showed Florence how much powerful the bullets were. An impressive weapon, indeed. That was a clear sign that he should not be underestimated and not be treated like most of the Cipher Pol 9 agent's opponents. And so, after observing all these things, Florence decided to take the battle to the next level.

As the bullets Luke fired towards him were coming, the man quickly stood on his hands and moved his legs upwards. Then, he started spining around himself, while two voices from behind Luke were heard again saying "Rankyaku...Breakdance!". In no time, Florence launched three horizontal, Rankyaku attacks that cut the bullets in two and continued moving towards Luke to slash him. Then, the voice from behind said again "Time for the big one..." as he launched a fourth Rankyaku, bigger than the previous ones, that was following them. Afterwards, Florence stood on his feet and waited to see how Luke would deal with that attack...

And more than that, while the attacks were moving towards Luke the same voices from before started talking once again, without stopping with the one saying "From the right, from the left, from the front, from behind, from above!" and the other one saying "From the front, from the right, from above, from behind, from the left.". Florence had been using another trick again. By giving different directions, he attempted to confuse Luke. The assassin had quite a lot of tricks under his sleeves.