GOFF: Salt vs The Wolf (closed)

"Come and get it! Fried Rice fresh off the flame!"

The captain of the Black Ember Pirates wouldn't stoop so low as to take up a menial job selling food at a stand in the center of a port-side town. Yet here he was. Matsuri could taste the sea in the breeze that blew inland from the port. The smell of fish, fishermen, fish. He stopped for a moment. His nose sensed another smell. He could not identify it so he cast the thought out of his mind.

As he was about to fry up another batch, he spotted someone coming toward him. Matsuri quickly began cleaning up the food stand, removing the stove and dismantling the stand's wooden frame board-by-board. After this was finished, he tied his cooking utensils together and unrolled a large cloth, revealing his combat cooking set. Matsuri slid the two chopsticks into his robe, speared his roasting spit into the ground so that it stood alone vertically, and held his frying pan in his left hand.

"I see a customer has arrived for a special delivery."

"Hey you i dont know who you are ,but i want to fight you!" Nick did not give the man a chance to reply he ducked down and attempted a sweep fo the man's legs.

The sweep came as a surprise. Matsuri could just barely widened his eyes before Nick was on the ground. He managed to get his right leg completely off the ground but he was too slow with his left leg. As he lifted it, Nick's leg caught his own, bringing Matsuri down. Before he hit the ground, he struck his frying pan straight down at the ground, vaulting himself a few meters away from Nick.

"Cheeky, aren't you?"

Matsuri ran straight toward Nick. Just before reaching him, Matsuri lowered his stance and almost fell completely to the ground once again. This time, however, it was an attack. Matsuri struck the ground with his frying pan which vaulted him through the air just above Nick's height. He did a forward flip through the air, swinging the frying pan above his head attempting to smash Nick's face in with the flat bottom of the pan.

Nick was shocked of how Matsuri got in the air so fast. He blocked the attack from the frying pan with both his arms just in time ,but was sent sliding back from the impact. "Wow, you're pretty strong, huh." Nick jjumped in the air spiraling towards Matsuri. "KAZE,KAZE PuNch!" sharp air formed around his fist right before he was going to attack Matsuri in the stomach.

"Shoot..."

Matsuri did not have enough time to grip the pan like a bat and swing at his target. Instead he could merely bring the frying pan between himself and Nick, told on tight with both hands, and brace for impact. The punch came and was blocked perfectly by the frying pan. none of the cutting air passed the pan or even made a scratch in the surface. That's Matsuri titanium tools for you.

However, Nick's sheer strength outlasted Matsuri's At the very last fraction of a second of the attack, Matsuri lost his left hand's grip on the pan. Nick flew past Matsuri but brushed him slightly, leaving an extremely thin and shallow cut across his stomach.

"Looks like I took you too lightly. I didn't expect you to be a fruit user. Now you will see how terrifying I can be with mine."

Matsuri created a lot of distance between himself and Nick. He pulled out a six-chambered revolver from under his robe. He opened the cylinder and brought the gun to his face. He took a deep breath and exhaled into each of the six chambers. He then replaced the cylinder and pointed the gun at Nick.

"Want to see something cool?"

Matsuri pointed the gun at a nearby building and fired a shot at it. No bullet came out of the gun. Instead, an invisible breath moving at the speed of a bullet was shot out. The front of the building suddenly exploded, breaking down the door and shattering the windows. The face of the building was charred black as splinters fell to the ground.

"The next one is for you."

Matsuri pointed the gun at Nick's chest and fired an invisible breath shot that would explode on impact.

"I've seen cooler" Next thing Nick saw the gun pointed at him he knew he couldn't see the bullet so he tried cartwheeling to the right to dodge the attack, but was too slow the attack hit him in the stomach causing alot of pain and sent Nick flying a few meters into a nearbye building.

Nick got up and walked out of the hole in the building he was sent flying through. His shirt was exploded off and his stomach was red with raw flrsh showing "That hurt alot you're going to regret that!" Nink started running as fast as he could at Matsuri " Windy breath!" his mouth started getting bigger as he got as much air in his mouth as he could then he opened his breath and blew. A big powerful wind came towards huis oponent on all sides. "There is no way he coud dodge this." Nick thought to himself.

Matsuri stood his ground and crossed his arms to shield his body. The wind came and easily picked him off the ground. Matsuri turned around while he was being blown away to spot anything we was going to be blown into. He was flying toward a building at great speed and the impact would hurt.

Moments before he hit the building, he pointed his gun at it and fired a shot (4 shots remaining). The breath bullet exploded and destroyed a portion on that face of the building, creating a hole in which Matsuri flew into. He hit the floor of the room hard but was stopped with little injury by detonating his body before he rolled into anything.

Now, Matsuri was dizzy from the gust and walked over to the hole in the building. He spotted Nick on the other side of the square. From that distance, he fired another breath shot at Nick (3 shots remaining). He then climbed out of the rubble and made his way back to the main battleground.

"Hahaha, come on is that all ya got." Nick saw the gun pointed at him, he knew he had to move quickly so he used a bunch of air to push himself high in the sky dodging the breath bullet entirely.Nick landed righ in front of Matsuri in a uppercutting kick position "KAZE KAZE kICK!" Nick swung his body bringing his foot upwards to try to kick Matsuri in the chin uppwards.

"Shi...!"

Nick caught Matsuri off guard once again but this time, he willingly let his reflexes take control of his actions. Without thinking, Matsuri did not dodge the kick but instead dropped his gun and frying pan and brought his hands to his face to catch it, his left hand on top of his right. The moment he did so, the cutting air of the kick began slicing the flesh of his right palm. Thinking fast, Matsuri firmly grasped Nick's leg.

"Ignite!"

Matsuri caused his hands to detonate like a bomb. Matsuri would not be able to move his right hand due to it being cut up by the kaze kick. He hoped that Nick would be caught in the explosion. At the very least, he could put the leg Nick kicked with out of commission with severe burns for the rest of their fight.

"Damn it" Nick said as Matsuri caught his kick. "SHIT" Nick said as he felt the pain of the explosion on his leg. After the explosion Nick tried doing a back handspring to get away, but fell to one knee because of the pain in his left leg. Nick did not know what to do, at the time being his opponent had the upper hand. "Air cannon!" a big wind sphere the size of a cannonball formed in between his palms. He sen it hurling at Matsuri at atleast 80mph also knocking the gun and frying pan away 10 feet each, fryingpan to the left, gun to the right. Nick knew if this hit it would do alot of damage since it explodes if it hits an object.

Matsuri saw Nick reel back and realized that the exchange worked. However, he grasped his right arm with his left hand due to the stinging pain that was coursing through it. Blood trickled down his fingers and onto the ground.

Matsuri looked at his opponent and felt dread when he saw the cannonball-sized wind sphere in his hands. He reached for his frying pan but realized it was not there... that it had been thrown some distance. Nick unleashed the sphere and it came hurtling at him at a frightening speed, with not enough time to react. As a last-ditch attempt, hopefully to exploit some sort of flaw in the attack's design, Matsuri swung his left fist at the sphere as a punch. As the milliseconds went by, the sphere flew closer and closer.

Find a flaw... find a flaw... find a... there is none.

His fist connected with the sphere. Indeed, it felt for a split second as if he were punching an actual cannonball. Matsuri closed his eyes tight and expected the worst. Then the absolute worst thing did happened; the wind sphere exploded. Matsuri's hand recoiled from that split second of punching it as a sphere but besides that, he was completely unharmed.

Matsuri opened his left fist, it had gone numb from the impact with the sphere but he quickly regained feeling in it.

"Was that it? It exploded right? Well, I have to tell you that that attack will not work on me. I ATE THE BOMU-BOMU NO MI! THE BOMB FRUIT! I am immune to all explosions and their shrapnel."

Matsuri made a dash for his frying pan and got a hold of it. He took a deep breath and filled the frying pan with his breath, creating a " breath pancake". He then swung the frying pan horizontally at Nick, sending the invisible breath pancake toward him. Obviously, the pancake moved much slower than his bullet but the increase in size meant that the explosion radius would be much greater and more powerful, enough to send Nick flying and possibly causing more minor burns.

"WHAT THE HELL??!?!!" "DAMN IT!" "I did not know you could absorb explosions, I guess i underestimated you." Nick saw Matsuri swing his pan, for some reason his body told him to get up high so thats what he did, Nick used wind once more to bring himself high in the air then the ground exploded beneath him. "Ha, Good thing i jumped." he told quiet enough for only himself to hear. "TORNADO WAVE!" Nick moved his arm in front of himself. 3 mini tornados formed all going towards Matsuri one in front of mitsuri and one of the left and right of him closed in. " HEY CHEF TELL ME HOW THIS TASTES!"

Matsuri reacted quickly, clenching his body into a ball. He charged his energy for a giant blast; if he didn't use enough strength, he could get torn apart by the tornadoes. Whatever the case, Matsuri was going to go out with a bang.

The tornadoes were closing in. He could feel the intense winds coming from each one. The wind was starting to cut him, it ripped his clothes and lacerated his upper body. However, he had to wait until all three were practically on top of him. Closer... closer... until

"OVERCOOK!!!"

When Matsuri was just about to get picked off the ground, he released the explosive power he had been storing for that moment. The force of the sudden expansion caused by his explosion nullified the spinning of all three tornadoes.

"Boy, I don't know who taught you to cook, but that wasn't fit to be served out of a gutter in a street. Now come down to the ground like the coward you are."

Matsuri found his pistol and tucked it into his robe. He once again breathed into the frying pan and sent another breath pancake flying at Nick where he was in the sky.

Nick saw Matsuri swing his pan again, Nick used the wind in the sky to lower himself to the ground dodging the breath pancake, but the explosion radius caught him off guard and his teft hand was caught in the explosion. Nick landed on the ground lightly. "ow, that hurt." Nick ran at matsuri, but was a little slower because of his leg, just as he got 10 feet from mitsuri he used his attack. " AIR BLAST!" all the wind in the area surrouned Nick and then he forced it all to go arond his hands, then he moved his arms in font of him pushing all the wind at Mitsuri a big big wind flew (at least a elephant's width) at mitsuri and brought all the sand and dust in the area at him also because of how strong the wind was.

Matsuri did not hesitate. He lobbed his frying pan high into the air in the general direction of Nick. His his left hand now free, he pulled the gun out of his robe once again, ran straight toward the wind blast, and fired two breath bullets at the wind, one right after the other (one shot remaining); the first shot exploded and caused the center of the blast of wind to collapse, causing the outside wind to displace itself inward to form a smaller but still lethal wall of wind. The second bullet exploded and negated that remaining wind.

The moment he fired that second shot, Matsuri tucked the gun in his robe once more. It was impossible to see through the explosions in the split second that they happened but once they cleared away, Matsuri was on the other side, quickly decreasing the distance between himself and Nick. He quickly glanced into the sky and saw his frying pan coming down with the trajectory he anticipated that it would follow.

Ten meters from Nick, Matsuri jumped into the air and caught the frying pan with his left hand, landed, and jumped once again at Nick's eye level ready to strike the right side of his head with the flat side of the pan.

the attack hit perfectly smashing nick's face and sent him flying, nick flipped and landed on his feet. once again nick was thinking that he was going to lose. "hmph so you seen all my moves, but i'm not giving up!" Nick slid under matsuri through his legs to get behind him and while on the ground attempted his attack " KAZE KAZE KICK!!!" sharp wind formed around his foot. NICK tried kicking matsuri in the back.

"Not this time..."

If he had learned anything during their brief encounter, it was that he must never let Nick out of his sight. His body was nowhere near fast enough to keep up with Nick's air-enhanced movements so he had to rely on instinct while preparing for the worst.

Matsuri caused his entire body to explode once again. It was not a fiery explosion or anything this time. It was a spontaneous rapid expansion of the air around him: similar to a continuous pulse. If Nick continued with his attack, he would merely feel as if his kick was blocked by an invisible force.

Nick saw matsuri get ready for his explosion, and stopped his kick. Nick did a front flip to get some distance between them. "windy breath" nick once again had his mouth full of air and blew it at matsuri. a strong wind came flying at matsuri and nick's clothes were being blown back from the force of the wind.

Matsuri dashed to the spot where he had stuck the spit into the ground. he wrapped his body around it and braced the ground. The wind was incredibly strong, sucking the tears right out of his eyes. His cuts were slowly being ripped open as the wind gripped any opening it could find.

The wind passed. The only visible signs of its effect were Matsuri's fatigued look and his hair which was blown out of proportion.

"It seems that our strengths are just about even. We have shown each other our moves and it is now a battle to the finish."

Matsuri pulled his revolver out of his robe and fired the last round within. The breath bullet was aimed at the ground where Nick stood.

Nick formed an air blsst attack in his hands "rhis is it!" Nick threw the sharp powerfull wind at the breath bullet full force

(Aftermath)

"Lieutenant, we have finished surveying the area. As reported, there are signs of a battle having taken place here. The damage is minimal considering the abilities of those involved; only two buildings show irreparable damage and there are strange dents in the ground.

The culprits are no where to be found. However, even if we did find them, it would be difficult to identify them. Eye-witnesses claim it was two men but that is all the information they can provide."

"I see..."

The marine lieutenant bent to the ground and studied the strange mark on the ground. It was two ditches in the ground, each about 5 meters in diameter, which overlapped each other. At the point where the two circles intersected was a horizontal cut into the ground about 1 meter deep and stretching from one side of the street to the other.