Eiichiro Oda Writing Challenge - Voting

The huge scar at his back ached, as the salty winds of Marineford blew threw his loosely tied, black hair.
He knew that this feeling didn't mean any good. Something bad always happened when the scar, X-Drake gave him, started to hurt.
Then it happened very sudden, while Rear Admiral "Shifting"-Shouto stood in silence and in deep thought at the bay, towering with his huge, trained body over the average marine soldier; Whitebeards Moby Dick emerged from the water!
After that everything happened quick. The war started, Aokiji froze the bay and Shouto commanded his subordinates to attack while charging in himself. In such moments, he always subconsciously recalls how he got his scar...

20 years ago in the West Blue, his birthplace, Shouto joined the Marines at the G-4 Base, after his family got killed by pirates.
After a few years of oustanding work he got promoted to Lieutenant Commander[/] and got transferred to the Grand Line, the infamous sea all pirates travel along to become the [i]Pirate King, with command over an own unit.
There he met his future nemesis, X-Drake, as his 2nd-in-command. Drake, just like Shouto, just got transferred to Paradise. Both were considered prodigies and thus given command over an own squad. X-Drake being even younger than Shouto, but Shouto hardly noticed the three year gap between him and his subordinate, due to Drake being a rather mature person.

The two of them worked together for a long time. Gaining many achievements and fame in the ranks of the marines for their outstanding work, especially for their young age.
At one point in their career, after working together for several years, both were granted to eat Devil Fruits the marines were able to get their hands on; something very special only the most promising fighters were allowed to do, with nearly no one turning down such an offer, since the Fist Garp did it during his youth. Shouto and Drake gladly took the offer. Drake, having eaten an Ancient Zoan fruit, was from now on able to transform into a T-Rex, vastly increasing his already astonishing physical capabilities. Shouto on the other hand got the Shifu Shifu no Mi, a Paramecia fruit that allowed him to alter the direction an object or person is facing in every direction in an instant, while staying at the same place.
Shouto had a lot more trouble to get used to his new powers, unlike Drake, as he was trained at fighting physicaly with a spear and incoorporating his new powers in his fighting style was nearly as hard as getting used to them. Yet was he eventuelly able to do it and increase his powers to the point were he was able to use them on objects with a radius of 20meters.
Though despite the two having worked together for so long and being outstanding marines did Drake's attitude change drastically in a short amount of time, with him eventually betraying the marines, and Shouto.
As the persons closest to him was Shouto given the mission to hunt Drake down and retrieve alive him, if possible.

It took Shouto several months, but he was eventually able to locate Drake at an island close to the Calm Belt.
Drake already became a pirate and one of the Supernovea on top of that; ruthless rookies feared even by experienced marines, after having achieved a bounty of over 100million Berry.
A furious fight arose between the two. Shouto infuriated over Drake not coming back with him and not wanting to even explain why he left, but instead calling him a blindly following lap dog of the World Government made him eventually forget the long time the two served together as comrades; as friends.
It was a long and evenly matched fight, the battleground being demolished by Shouto's attempts to invert Drake's position to his own benefit, missing and instead hitting the surroundings. Drake's swings failing to hit their target, scarring the earth the two fought on. Yet was it in the end Drake who was able to land the final blow. Shouto, once again, hitting Drake with his shifting, dropped his guard, thinking that he could land the final blow, forgetting about the tail X-Drakes dinosaur form granted him.
The tail, swung with devestating force, cut through Shouto's marine coat. The "Justice" on his back destroyed and a deep wound cut into his back. The Rear Admiral fell to the ground, losing against his former comrade.

Months passed since then and now is Shouto once again fighting for the marines, so that justice can prevail. Yet is he not able to forget his former comrade Drake. Not only because of the scar Drake gave him, but also because of the last words he heard his former friend say.

The tall woman sat hidden in the snow. Her white clothes hid her perfectly. They were made for living in the cold, and unfriendly north. She was used to it, she was born and raised there. Most people hated it, and they couldn’t understand why her family lived there. Her friends were some of them. Being born in Forgo, a tropical country in the south, made the snowy and windy parts of Erija in the north, an unfamiliar place for them. For her it was the best place in the world. She had been hunting, horse riding, playing, and tracking there for years. Her father shared her compassion for the country. He was the man who taught her how to survive in the wild. Her mother on the other hand, hated it. Being from the southern part of Erija, a warmer place than the north, made living in the cold something she did not enjoy. But to be honest she couldn’t remember her mother ever being happy. All her happy memories were with her father. He was the one that had time with her, taught her, held her when she was scared. Her mother was a horrible, and cold woman who had hated her as long as she could remember. But it wasn’t until she turned fifteen that she understood that she tried to kill her. She understood that all the things that were seen as accidents when she was younger, was her mother’s doing. She had been clever about it though. Things falling from the roof, someone trying to push her of the horse when they rode through the city, food that they thought was bad but had been poisoned. After they figured that out she always mad her own food. The servants protested, but they wanted to be careful. They thought they could catch her mother in the act, but they were wrong. When she turned twenty, her mother had hired assassin's to kill her, and if her father hadn’t been there, she would've been dead. He saved her and told her to run, to take her horse and just ride out in the wild. He would find her later somehow... But that never happened. She had been waiting for weeks, but soon the soldiers started to look for her, and she had to travel on. She had been traveling the world, trying to figure out what to do, to find a place to call home. Her father was always on her mind, and after being a slave in Forgo for almost two years she got away and started heading home with her new friends Simon and Luu. She had thought that she would come home to a waiting father that would tell her that her mother was gone. She had been wrong. Four years she had been gone, and nothing was the same. Her house was destroyed, her father was missing, and her mother had somehow become the queen. And even if she had been gone for four years her mother hadn’t stopped looking for her. She had more soldiers than ever. They had fled from the capital out in the wild. She knew that the soldiers would have a hard time finding and capturing them there. But her friends had a hard time being out here. She had clothes specially made for living out there. Her horse was from the kingdom of the dead The cold didn’t affect him, but it did affect her friend’s animals. Even if she had given them clothes made for the weather they were still cold, and they couldn’t hunt there. She normally didn’t look out for anyone than herself, but she felt responsible for her friends. They had left their home for her, and they followed her to a place they knew nothing about. So she did the hunting, the tracking, finding good places to make camp, and tried to protect them from the dangers that awaited in the wild.
But suddenly she stopped in her thoughts when she saw the deer step out from its hideout. She raised the bow without thinking about it. She pulled back the arrow on the string, her index finger touched her mouth, and when the wind was perfect she released the arrow. She saw it flying through the air and hit the animal in the chest, and pierce the heart. Soon it fell down, and the blood colored the snow red. She walked up to it, and loosened the knife from her belt. She made sure to get as much edible meat as possible, and did so with ease. This was not her first kill. When she was done she stood up with the bags, now full of meat. The wind caught her blonde, almost white hair, and she looked up into the sky. It was blue, and she knew that a storm was on its way, and she needed to return to the others. Her horse Dragor was waiting for her and they started their way back. She didn't plan on living out in the wild forever, she was just waiting for the right time. Kiera would find her father, kill her mother, and get her life back. Someday.

While Luffy's party is in Wholecake Island to rescue Sanji, Zoro, Law and the others are in Zou, preparing to make a move to Wano, to go against Kaido.
Inuarashi and Nekomamushi decided to give them some advice regarding what kind of enemies they could possibly have to go against, in order to get to Kaido.
“There was this woman, who came here as a spy to get information about the whereabouts of Raizo.”, said Inuarashi.
“A woman?”, asked Robin.
“Yes, apparently she came a few weeks before Jack”, replied Nekomamushi. “She managed to infiltrate on the island using her Devil Fruit.”
“A Zoan, I suppose.”, said Law.
“Yes.”, agreed Inuarashi, “She ate the Inu Inu No Mi, Model: Fox. She found out Raizo was here, we think, but didn't know where exactly. When we discovered who she was, she was able to escape, killing a few Minks in the process.”
“And you think she was the one who informed Jack?”, asked Robin.
“It’s possible”, replied Nekomamushi, “after all, Jack got here a few weeks later and started destroying everything.”
“Do we even know what this woman looks like?” asked Franky.
“According to the Minks who saw her, she was about 1,50 m, red long hair and her eyes were coloured orange.”, replied Inuarashi. At the time the Minks saw her, she was wearing a black sleeveless shirt showing her cleavage, with a small red vest on top; a grey mini-skirt, high transparent red socks and black boots.
“Apparently, she keeps the ears and tail of her animal all the time, even when she’s in her human form”, continued Inuarashi”. “I believe the ears to enhance her Observation Haki and the tail for speed and balance.”
“So, she’s an expert in close combat?”, asked Zoro.
“No, the woman is really sneaky.” replied Nekomamushi. “Even though she is a Zoan type, she hides and then uses nunchakus to attack her enemies.”
“Nunchakus?!” asked Usopp, surprised.
“Yes…”, replied Inuarashi. “The chains she uses are slightly longer than normal nunchakus, because she goes for the necks of her enemies.”
“That’s where she got her epithet from.”, continued Nekomamushi, “The Neck Hunter. And she’s a good-looking, seductive woman as well, I’ve heard.”
“We’re lucky that shitty cook isn’t here, then.”, observed Zoro.
“Oi, Zoro, this ain’t the time for jokes!”, said Usopp.
“Her bounty is only 429 million berry, but she is not to be underestimated.”, said Inuarashi, ignoring both Zoro and Usopp. “She's an underling of Kaido, after all.”
“She’s known as Cassie, the Neck Hunter”, continued Nekomamushi, “please, do be careful with her.”

Being born a crime was already punishment enough but the icing on top of the despair cake was having to watch her parents be killed in front of her when they found them out. She was four. Yvanka had never understood the injustice that stood in het country, the people of different skin colours couldn’t be together, much less have a child, thus her being a crime. Her mother was eastern and blond with blue eyes while her father was a southern, dark skinned and a mess of bushy brown hair and their genetics managed to create the perfect evidence of the crime. She was darker than most people but her eyes were cerulean, so deep they resembled the sea.

After witnessing her parents murder the guards branded her wrist with a specific marking they used for criminals so no one would ever employ her unless they wanted to face the same faith and thus she spent several days without finding any sort of help or food. That’s when Yvanka learnt to steal, she was a child so people didn’t think much of it at first, letting her take an apple, a loaf of bread, anything just once or twice, though they started denying that after several days and she had to learn to make a living for herself even if said methods weren’t the most orthodox.
By the time she was 14 there was no reason for her to stay in this country that treated her worse than a stray animal, at least those got fed which was something that never happened to her. She managed to scrap some change and pay a fisherman to get her out as far as he could and because she had nothing else to offer him he decided to hire her as his deck helper, as payment she’d get food and a place to eat which seemed like a dream come true to her. The fisherman never told her his name but did say time and time again he hated the marking on her wrist and he offered her a leather fingerless glove to cover it. The man couldn’t offer her much but he wasn’t half bad with a sword and did all he could to teach her what he knew, surprisingly enough she picked up the skill pretty fast.

Unfortunately, her life was not just going to randomly get better and one night, after a storm, the man got horribly sick and passed away, making her promise to keep his boat and never stop practicing. She lived her life in the western sea as a fisherwoman for the next several years until she could no longer just do this, she needed more to her life and thus she sold the fishing equipment of the boat, made enough money to reinforce it and sailed through the seas, living as a hired mercenary and improving her skills. Today she’s known as the silent mercenary.

Yvanka, now 24 years old, managed to turn her life around and live independently, yes that did mean she moved in the shadows of the night, killing her targets in complete silence for a pay check, but there was something Yvanka always said when questioned about her life “Girl has to make a living somehow.” Before grinning and walking back into the night.