It was just after dusk. Zeppelin peered out of the window of her room at the streets below. It was still rather busy. This was probably the biggest and most bustling town she had been too since her reassignment and the sight felt rather fresh. She went back to her desk to finish her review of the reports for the evening. Considering her position, an average person might have been a bundle of nerves but the young lieutenant was cool and calm, motivated to get her all of her work done. Why should she be nervous? It had been a couple of days since she leaked the rumor about herself with the intention of luring out an infamous killer. This killer had been targeting Marine officers over the past couple of months or so and after hearing about it, she decided to take charge in resolving the case and apprehending him. The senior officers had no problem with a young upstart going after the criminal especially if her plan involved drawing said murderer into killing her. If it kept them safe, they were all for it. She did not know if she would criticize their cowardice since it was what allowed her scheme to be approved anyway.

It would be a couple of hours before she finished what she was doing and retired for the night. The streets outside were now empty, except for a couple of Marine Grunts standing on watch outside. It had become a commonplace now for buildings where officers resided to have guards around. If you asked her she would have declined their service as she did not want anyone to get hurt unnecessarily, but it was more believable scenario to keep them around. She would just have to treat them to lunch sometime as thanks. After turning off the lights, she retired to her room and went to bed. Or so she would like the killer to think.

The truth of Zeppelin’s plan is that for the past few nights, she had only been half asleep. Unsure of the real nature of the killer’s ability to sneak into locked rooms, it was important that she was vigilant at all times. Tonight, her efforts would bear fruit. It was a little past midnight. She heard a very soft bump of metal against metal coming from the bars of her window. To put a little perspective, the windows could not be opened from the outside without breaking them and thus alerting people. The gaps in the bars comprising it were barely big enough to extend an arm through them. The sound she heard was of something brushing past the bars and entering the room. It was something that logically would be quite small.

She could definitely feel another presence in the room. She slowly opened one eye to take a look around, and the sight that greeted her would be something out of a horror story. There hovering several feet above her bed was a single eyeball, watching her while she seemingly “slept” unaware of her surroundings. She refrained from making any movements to alert the eye that she was actually awake and just continued to watch. However another dismembered body part would join the eye in the form of a floating hand. The hand in question was gripping a six inch long blade. Now THAT was a genuine cause for concern.

Zeppelin didn’t have much time to think about the situation. About a second later, the floating hand with a knife was flying down right at her. She threw up her bed covers but obviously the blade would still pierce through them. Her intention was not to block the blade however. While the pointed object managed to penetrate through, the hand would remain caught in the sheet as it flew. She rolled out of the way and the blade pierced her pillow instead where her head was just a second ago. Before the floating hand could pull out the blade, she scrambled on top of the sheets and wrapped the hand tight, pinning it down. She looked up and could have sworn seeing the floating eye looking panicked before retreating back out of the window. Meanwhile the hand wrapped in the sheets struggled but it was stuck good. She secured it in one of the bigger drawers of her desk and locked it up.

After securing the hand, she went over to her window and opened it just in time to see a cloaked figure running away via the rooftops. She climbed up to the roof to pursue. The chase would give her plenty of time to think about the recent events. An attack by dismembered body parts? That explained how those officers were killed in locked rooms. No one would have expected something far smaller than a human to be behind those murders, especially since the causes of death were stabs clearly made by a blade wielded by a person. Anyway there was only one explanation for this supernatural assassin. It was a Devil Fruit. It was said that those who consumed one were granted powers by the sea devil at the cost of being rejected by the sea. She had never gotten the chance to see a fruit in her years of service in the Marines nor had she met a fruit user before but she had heard a lot about them. How unfortunate that her first encounter with such would be someone who was out to kill her. Looking back, whenever she read about fruit users in reports, they would almost always be troublesome people or people of high ranks in the Marines. It just goes to show how people with power are able to accomplish a lot, good or bad.

The chase eventually ended up down some empty alleyways. Common sense would have told Zeppelin not to enter such places alone, but if she let the killer get away now, she may never have a better chance at capturing him. Sure enough, the killer led her to an apparent dead end, only to have three of his goons suddenly appear from behind her. She readied herself to fend them off.

“Very impressive Lieutenant. You managed to chase me this far.” The cloaked man pulled up his hood to reveal a rather familiar face. She recalled reading a file on him when she was organizing reports a while back. Her eidetic memory was incredibly useful in situations like this. The man was a pirate called Dagger Mackenzie. He apparently went into hiding after most of his crew was captured years ago. It looks like he was back in action now.

“Your reputation does not seem to be made up.”

Zeppelin smiled. “Dagger Mackenzie correct? Did you finally come out of hiding after getting hold of a new power?”

The man looked visibly surprised that she knew who he was.

“I don’t know how you know of me. My days of piracy were before your time missy. Color me surprised when I learned the new hotshot lieutenant in town was just a little girl.”

Clearly the man did his own research and did not just fall for the rumors Zeppelin had spread.

“Still, you’ve proven you’re worth killing. This is the first time anyone managed to capture a part of me since I acquired the powers of the Bara Bara no Mi. But then again you were ready for me weren’t you? I admit I underestimated you. But come dawn, that will no longer matter for you will be dead before the sun rises.”

The pirate took his coat off completely and she confirmed that he really was missing a hand, though he was not bleeding from the wrist at all. She then noticed that he was also missing his feet and was in fact hovering above the ground the entire time. Devil Fruits always granted one distinct type of power and she deduced that the Bara Bara no Mi enabled the user to disconnect their body parts at will and mentally control them to fly around. What a troublesome power.

“Get her!”

At Mackenzie’s signal, his goons sprang into action. Or at least two of them did. She assumed the third was keeping watch in case someone came by. First things first, she had to get out of that cramped space. She leaped frog over one the goons who tried to tackle her and then sidestepped the second one. As she retreated, she readied herself to have to take on the third as well but much to her surprise he let her go and didn’t even try anything. Well, that was suspicious. She did notice that he seemed to be holding something wrapped in cloth with both of his hands. Was it something so important that he couldn’t drop it to try and apprehend her? She would keep that thought in mind.

The positions were now reversed. This time she was the one being chased. She recognized the area as somewhere near the docks. True enough that place would be fairly abandoned at this time of night so it was the perfect spot to commit a murder away from prying eyes. While it was true it might not have been the best place to be for a fruit user, being so close to the sea, the man’s ability to fly probably made him feel safe. And that would be a fact until she could find away to bring him down. No sooner than when she pondered the thought did the splitting human swoop down from the sky to attack her once more. She tried to dodge but he managed to slice through her left sleeve, leaving a shallow cut on her arm and causing a bit of bleeding.

That distraction allowed the pirate goons to catch up with her. All three were there including the one cradling something in his arms. It really piqued her curiosity what that was and she decided to find out. As they were now in a more open space, she could utilize her techniques better, wounded arm aside. She heightened her focus and began employing some quick footwork, making it look like she was just dancing around every attempt the goons made to grab or hit her. In one instance, she managed to trip one of them and cause him to fall over the edge of the dock into the water. She caught the second one by the arm and slammed him into a nearby crate, knocking him out.

Mackenzie figured that was enough playing games. She watched as he split apart his body into no less than twenty different pieces and had them flying around surrounding Zeppelin. The body parts then proceeded to swoop down at her from different directions, making dodging them all an almost impossible feat. The few parts that connected felt as though she was being punched by a trained boxer and she struggled to stay up. What made it particularly difficult was that she had to keep track of the hand wielding a knife as one solid blow from that would be the end of her and that kept her from giving all the flying parts the needed attention. In a desperate move, she managed to run out of the encirclement only to catch sight of the third goon who was still holding the mystery package.

It was all or nothing. She dashed forward to tackle the man who looked like he didn’t expect Zeppelin would ever go after him since she was facing his captain. The man panicked and was unable to defend himself properly, getting knocked down by Zeppelin’s tackle and dropping the mystery object wrapped in cloth. She seized this opportunity to grab and unwrap it, and much to her surprise she found a pair of feet in them. Did they belong to the splitting man? Why was the goon holding them instead of having them fly around like his other body parts?

“Give those back!”

There was such an unmistakable tone of panic and anger in the former captain’s voice that Zeppelin could not help but feel she finally found her ticket to beating him. His feet couldn’t fly but the moment she got her hands on them, they started squirming as though trying to get away from her. She held them tight though. She deduced that while the rest of the body could fly, the feet were probably an exception. The goon was probably carrying them around to keep them safe. But then wouldn’t it be more logical to have them far away somewhere if he wanted to keep them secure? Was there a need to have them close by?

“I said give them back!”

Thinking time was over. Mackenzie was coming at her at full force. But at the same time he seemed to be careful about hitting his feet. In her attempt to roll out of the way of his assault, she accidentally applied weight on the feet, crushing them a bit and causing the man to yelp in pain. It was yet another useful discovery. The more quirks she unearthed about the power, the more it seemed likely she could win.

She scrambled back up on her feet. The pain from her arm wasn’t bothering her so much anymore. She noticed however that she was now at the very edge of the docks, with the sea right behind her. The goon she tackled from earlier finally recovered and attempted to repay the favor, charging at her direction. Meanwhile there was a sudden look of panic on the splitting human’s face.

“Wait! Don’t!”

Zeppelin sidestepped the goon who fell with a splash but the Marine Killer’s expression told her everything she needed to know to end this once and for all. She kicked back off the ground with all of her strength propelling her several meters off the docks. It was time to go for a little dip herself. Desperate, the pirate sent all of his parts after her in an effort to keep her from falling into the sea. He even dropped the knife just so his hand could grab her and lift her up, but he found that he could not. Perhaps it was a limitation of the fruit that he could not have his feet fly. And since Zeppelin was holding on to them, he could not carry her either. The lieutenant of course was not aware of this fact. She simply thought he was panicking and couldn't get a good grip. As she fell into the water, the color disappeared from the splitting human’s face as though he was feeling extreme discomfort. All of his flying body parts then dropped from the sky like rocks into the water below as he lost his power. The young lieutenant quickly swam back up and broke the surface of the water just in time to see the killer’s head drop into the sea with one final look of horror on his face. It was finally done.

She made her way ashore, losing the pair of feet along the way but it didn’t really matter anymore. It was dawn by the time she made it back to the base to deliver her report on the successful defeat of the killer. When asked to procure some evidence, she produced the now lifeless hand that was previously locked in her drawer. She told them that if they wanted the rest of him, they would have to search the waters near the docks. Not to mention she had a bandaged up arm as a souvenir from the fight. She was commended for her efforts and the case was closed.