Disclaimer: One Piece belongs to Eeichiro Oda-sensei and whatever else that have rights on it. This is for personal use and not for commercial use.
Chapter 2
A CHANCE OF MEETING
"It's so quiet now." Shakuyaku; or known as Shakky to some others, remarked as she exhaled a puff of smoke almost wistfully.
The owner of Shakky's Rip-Off Bar in Sabaody Archipelago was bored. She glanced around her bar, and it was desolately empty. Not even that old man—the freeloader, really—was around at the moment. Goodness knew where he had gone off now; not that Shakky was particularly worried, though. That old man could take care of himself alright. His age still couldn't catch up with him yet.
Deciding to kill time by browsing through the latest news, Shakky took out the day's newspaper and skimmed through the papers. She didn't need to read every single one of the articles; she could pick up and discern the most important articles and pieces in a flash. It came from decades of training, after all.
*chime*
That delicate ringing of the bell; announcing the arrival of a customer, interrupted Shakky's reading none too abruptly. The bar owner looked up from her reading material and turned to the entrance door of the bar while offering the greetings that had come as a habit for her now.
"Welcome. What can I get for you?" She automatically said as her keen eyes assessed her customer.
It was not her usual type of customer. It wasn't a brawny guy looking for trouble. It wasn't some morons who tried to rob her bar or do some other things similarly idiotic. It wasn't some drunken men who lost their way in the vast archipelago and just happened to stumble there.
It was a girl; a sweet, cute girl with attire that Shakky recognised as the trademark of the Wano Country of the New World. The girl was wearing a tight turtle-neck long-sleeved black spandex suit which went down to her mid-thigh. On top of the spandex suit was a light blue haori with seashells patterns on it, with a dark deep blue obi tied around her thin waist. She was wearing black ankle boots while the blue haori reached the top of her knees. Her hair was tightly bound into a pigtail and wrapped behind her head by deep blue fabric that it looked more like long elastic tube, with the end of the hair reaching the back of her knees. Her right sidelock was cut in a straight bob style with the edge reaching half of her cheek, while the left sidelock was tucked behind her little ear that had a small shell-shaped earring. Her semi-long bangs were swept to the right side of her face neatly. She carried with her a medium-sized drawstring bag that had the intricate pattern unique to Wano Country.
The girl was short and small as if she was barely 16 years old, but Shakky knew better than to guess someone's age by their appearance. Heck, she was one to talk, actually. At first glance, the girl's hair had the common colour of black but upon closer inspection Shakky realised that it had a tint of dark blue. Her skin was also uncannily pale that it looked more like the skin of an albino than a normal person. The most distinguishable feature of her appearance was her eyes, whose irises had the colour of brightest turquoise—they gave the impression of clear sea.
"Hello." The girl suddenly said as she turned her attention to Shakky.
"Hello, girl." Shakky replied, all the while never tearing her gaze away from the girl's eyes. "Looking for something?"
The girl tilted her head sideways as she considered Shakky's question. She blinked twice, and Shakky recognised that stare as an 'assessing' stare. She was measuring Shakky; whether she was someone to be involved with or not. She's one unusually shrewd girl, considering how young she was—or rather, appeared to be. Shakky had yet to affirm the girl's real age.
"Nothing in particular. Just sightseeing…I guess." She shrugged, and then went to sit on the bar stool, right in front of Shakky; who was standing behind the bar counter. She put her drawstring bag on the stool next to her. "Say…" The girl looked at Shakky while rolling her tongue in anticipation.
"You can call me Shakky." The bar-owner offered with an amicable smile.
"Shakky." The girl nodded. "Can you tell me all about this Sabaody Archipelago?"
"Fresh from the New World, aren't you?" She said lightly without any accusing tone, but the girl responded with a mild scowl at her own set of clothing.
"I should've changed my clothes, shouldn't I?" She muttered as she tugged at the hem of her haori with childish annoyance.
Shakky smiled in amusement. "If you don't know about this archipelago, it means either you are going to the New World for the first time, or you've just come from the New World. For your case, the latter seems more probable since it's unlikely for someone to get trinkets and other tidbits from the New World unless they are friends or close acquaintance with some well-known pirates who have survived the New World. Therefore, your clothes are the proof of your New World so-called citizenship."
Despite Shakky's cool countenance, inwardly she was wondering: what was a New World native doing here in Sabaody Archipelago? It was highly unusual for a New World native to go beyond their home water, for one reason and another.
"Yeah. True. I guess." The girl shrugged, her annoyance disappearing as soon as it had come. "Doesn't matter. Not that I'm trying to hide that fact, anyway. Since you now know that I'm a New World native, can you just tell me everything about this side of the Grand Line?"
"Of course I can, but only if you give me your name first, and preferably order one drink." Shakky winked cheekily at the girl.
The girl's expression turned guarded; the tell-tale sign that she was most reluctant to give away her name. Shakky understood her sentiment. Growing up in the New World was harsh, and everyone was always wary towards strangers. The New World natives did not give their identities freely to just everyone. They chose their flocks quite meticulously.
After a while of silence; in which Shakky started to think that the girl wasn't going to give her name, the girl spoke:
"My name is Nagisa."
"Shanks."
The said man turned around and was rewarded with very eye-refreshing scenery. A classic beauty of a young woman dressed in green cheongsam was standing on the railing of his ship like she was standing on the wooden floor of his ship. Her oriental face was emphasised as her silky black hair was pulled into two identical small buns at the side of her head.
"Oh, hi, Mei-chan. How are you doing?" Shanks said cheerily as he approached the young lady.
"For Trinity-knows-how-many-times-already, stop bastardising my name. It's Meifeng, not
Mei." She rolled her eyes in exasperation.
"Aww… but your sisters call you so, why can't I—"
"Nagisa sneaked out of the New World." Meifeng cut him off in mid-sentence impatiently. Her voice was stern and her tone was clearly displeased.
Shanks blinked and stopped in his tracks; his complaints and whining thrown over the deck and drowned into the wild sea of the New World. After a while of thinking, he frowned and regarded the young woman with questioning glance.
"I thought you guys aren't allowed to step out of the New World?"
"For her, not yet." Meifeng bit her lower lip. "But whatever it is, I need to get her back into the New World. Why oh why did she decide to sneak out just when the circumstances are as complicated as they are now?" She groaned in frustration.
"I know, with the imminent war and all…" Shanks muttered as a grim expression flashed on his face.
"Shanks, are you heading to the Paradise?" Meifeng regarded the red-haired Yonkou with a hopeful look.
The Grand Line was divided into two: The 'New World' and the 'Paradise'. Nobody exactly knew how the names came about, but rumours said it that the pirates were the ones who came up with those labels. 'Paradise' was referring to the calmer side of the Grand Line, as it was decidedly like a paradise if compared to the unforgiving weathers in the 'New World'.
"Yeah... You said Kaidou is going to intercept Whitebeard's fleets while they're on their way to Marineford, right?"
A nod from Meifeng.
"I can't let that happen, then. The Whitebeard Pirates cannot afford to waste idle time doing something unrelated to saving Ace at the moment." Shanks' expression turned even grimmer, and Meifeng couldn't remember the time when she had seen Shanks' expression this serious and solemn before. "I'll go to the other side once I've finished dealing with Kaidou."
"Can you help look for Nagisa when you have the time?"
Shanks gave her a tentative smile. "Sure thing, but I can only do that after the war has been settled."
"Anything is good enough. Just drag that girl's sorry ass back here. Then we'll deal with her accordingly."
Shanks grimaced slightly as he noted the sadistic tone that laced the oriental girl's tone; it seemed to promise some kind of torture that Shanks thought he might be better off no knowing at all. However, he was intrigued by something.
"But why would she want to go to the Grand Line?" Meifeng sighed. "Beats me."
"Did she hear about the war?" Shanks suggested. "She's quite on a good term with the Whitebeard Pirates, after all."
The girl frowned as she thought over it, before she finally shook her head. "Unlikely. She's been gone even before the news reached this New World."
Meifeng turned to the general direction of the 'Paradise' Grand Line and prayed to whatever deities existed up there that the girl hadn't done anything reckless and that Shanks could locate her without much hassle and brought her back to the New World. Then again, Meifeng knew by experience that Nagisa had the most rotten luck among them all.
"So…" She said slowly in conclusive manner, "most important thing about this archipelago: I should watch out for the pirates and criminals that are flocking in this archipelago, especially kidnappers." Nagisa grimaced at the last word; she had bad experience with that lot.
"I don't think you should be worried about them, seeing that you have reached this place pretty much perfectly unscathed." Shakky gave the girl a quick inspection. "They have to be fairly easy to deal with, if compared to those living in the New World, yes?"
"Kind of." Nagisa shrugged and didn't give it another thought. "As for the water of this side of Grand Line, the sailing method here is the same with in the New World, with all the log- poses thing, only much simpler than in the New World."
"Yes. And I suppose the Sea Kings here are much gentler than those living in the water of the New World." The bar-owner nodded as she inhaled another round of smoke.
"Hmm… Sounds boring." Nagisa muttered as she twirled the drinking straw of her strawberry juice drink that she had ordered from Shakky. It was pretty nice, although she suspected that Shakky had laced her juice with a bit of alcohol. Not that she minded the alcohol, though. A bit of it added a touch to her drink. "Oh, by the way, Shakky."
"Hm?"
"What's the best way to get to one of the Four Blues with the least financial expense possible?" From Shakky's expression, Nagisa could tell that the lady was perplexed as to why a New World native like her would want to go to such deathly boring place like the seas of the Four Blues. Well, she had her own reason—a private one, at that. Since she wasn't going to give the lady a chance to question it, Nagisa pummelled on with her explanation: "I didn't bring that much money from the New World, so I want to cut my expenditure as short as possible."
"Hmm… Cheapest way will be to stowaway into one of those ships going back to one of the Four Blues, although the number of ships going back and forth from the Four Blues to Grand Line is far and between." Shakky said at length. "I reckon that it's still worth it to visit the harbours and ask around. You might find one or two ships sailing for the Four Blues."
Nagisa stared at her half-finished drink and stirred the content lazily as she donned a contemplative expression. She supposed that it wouldn't hurt to go around and gather information. She was used to it, anyway. Yeah, that sounded like a plan. For now.
"Okay. I'll just gather some info." Nagisa finished her drink in one big swing and stood up from the stool—or rather jumped from the stool because she was oh-so-short-curse-her- genes. She took out her wallet from her drawstring bag but Shakky promptly raised a hand. Nagisa looked at her and gave a questioning look.
"The juice is on the house." The bar-owner smiled.
"Huh?" Nagisa raised an eyebrow. "So what's the point of you telling me to buy a drink before you answer my questions?"
"Just for the fun of it. I was bored, and you came with your questions to kill the boredom. Consider it payment for keeping me company for a while." Shakky winked at her.
Nagisa blinked and broke into a clear laugher that rang pleasantly in the quiet bar.
"You're funny, Shakky. But thanks, really. I'll swing by later when I'm done with info- hunting."
"Please do come back. I might be able to find something to help you go to the Four Blues." Nagisa couldn't help but to stare at the lady.
"Do you go out of this bar often?"
"Not exactly." Shakky gave an easy shrug. "Then how do you—?"
"Trade secret." Shakky gave a playful secretive smirk. "Now run along, girl. We'll exchange information later."
Nagisa rolled her eyes.
"Whatever." But she still laughed in the end. "See you again later, Shakky!"
And with the fleeing flutter of the tails of her dark deep blue obi and her tightly-bound hair, and the shrill chime of the bell attached on the door, Nagisa walked out of the bar and towards the direction of Sabaody Archipelago's harbour. If Shakky's information had been correct—which Nagisa suspected was deathly accurate; Shakky sounded awfully like those hard-core information brokers—then the harbour would be scattered in Grove 50 until 59.
Nagisa groaned at the number. That was a helluva huge place to cover.
Trafalgaw Law of the Heart Pirates was feeling pleased. His journey so far had been quite smooth and to his liking. His submarine was reaching Sabaody Archipelago soon; which would be the last stop in Grand Line before he and his crew entered the New World. He could see the outline of the archipelago on the monitor screen in the Control Room; in which he was standing right at the moment. He was going to make a name for himself and his crew, and he was going to do it relatively soon enough. He was excited with the prospect of going into the New World. From people's description, the place seemed to promise some sort of entertainment for him, with all the quirks of the Mother Nature at their extremes there.
"Uh, captain?"
Law turned his head towards the direction of the voice and found Shachi standing at the entrance door of the Control Room. He wore the blue casquette hat with red rim, as well as a pair of sunglasses. Law then gave the young man the 'speak up' look.
"Can I ask you something?"
Law regarded Shachi with a raised eyebrow. It wasn't unusual for his crewmembers to ask him questions. Oh no, don't get him wrong. They do not question his decisions or thinking; they usually ask for knowledge, and Law was more than happy to help educate his crew. It would be no good if his crew comprised of a bunch of no-brains. Nope.
"Ask away." Law said with in a drawl. It was rather tedious of him to ask that question because everyone in the crew knew that he would answer all their questions as long as they did not question his orders.
"Um… Well… The only creatures that can swim in the ocean without the Yarukiman
Mangrove bubbles are mermaids, fishmen, aquatic animals, and sea kings…right?"
Law's eyebrows shot up even higher. That was a very...strange question. Not to mention silly. Whatever possessed Shachi that he began asking such questions? Anyway, his crew asked him questions and so he ought to answer him. Law then answered the man with the gait and tone of someone who didn't give a rat's ass whether the world was round, rotund, flat, oval, square, rectangle, or whatever else.
"So far as I know, yes they are the only ones who can swim freely in oceans without limitations." He paused in consideration of a thought, and the voiced out the said thought: "What makes you ask that?"
"Well… It's just that…" Shachi shuffled in his feet nervously; very much like a little boy who was being forced to spill out a secret or to confess the reason why he has just stolen a candy when it wasn't snack-time. "I was just looking out to the sea from one of those windows on the sub. Looking at the water around the archipelago when suddenly I saw this…human-like creature…" He swallowed with uncertainty.
Law narrowed his eyes slightly. "Human-like creature?"
"Looks like a human. No fin, no tail. Human limbs, human torso, human head."
"But?" Law prompted patiently.
"But…well, you see, captain…" Shachi finally lifted his eyes off the dull, deathly boring floor of the submarine and gazed into his captain's stormy-grey eyes for once. "I saw her swimming past our submarine just like that. No swimming equipment whatsoever. Just…Just like this." He gestured at his whole body awkwardly.
Law's eyes widened exponentially. "Her?"
"Yeah… Looks like a girl, but I couldn't be sure. The water might be playing tricks on my eyes…"
They haven't even set a foot at the archipelago, and already his crew discovered something worth investigating. A human girl capable of swimming in the deep sea of Grand Line without any swimming equipment? Interesting. Really, really interesting. Law had to find out just what she was made of, to be able to pull of that stunt.
"I swear that whatever deities are lazing around up there, they have to be bored out of their mind so they decide to make my life friggin' hard." Nagisa muttered vehemently as she flopped down on one of the sstools in Shakky's Rip-Off Bar.
"No luck in the harbour then, I take it?" Shakky regarded her from up to toe.
Nagisa could feel Shakky's eyes scanning her up and down. Well, she couldn't blame her. After all, she came back to the bar a few hours later dripping wet from the tip of her hair to the point of her boots. She probably looked like those cats that had been half-drowning in deep water. The only thing on her person that wasn't wet was her drawstring bag. Since Shakky was already putting that amused curious expression on her face, Nagisa felt that she might as well beat her to it.
"I asked around the harbour, and not a single bloody ship out there is sailing for one of the Four Blue. Then, a drunkard loitering around the area decided to hit on me—or to be more precise, intended to grope me with his filthy, grubby hands—and so I beat him to the last inch of his life."
Shakky laughed at her choice of words, while Nagisa continued muttering some Wano curses under her breath as she grabbed the towel that Shakky had generously offered her. Nagisa took off the accessories on her hair and began drying her hair while continuing with her story.
"After I finished kicking his sorry ass to the next month, I decided to take a swim in the ocean. I always do that whenever I'm upset. The sea calms me."
"Even in the New World?"
Shakky sounded positively taken aback, and Nagisa couldn't see why it was so strange. Perhaps for a moment she had forgotten that the weather in the 'Paradise' Grand Line was not as erratic as in the 'New World' Grand Line.
"Yeah." Nagisa replied with the isn't-that-obviously-so tone and a raised eyebrow. "So, do you have any news about any ships heading for the Four Blues?"
"No news so far." Shakky shook her head and she was still looking at Nagisa with a strange expression; it made Nagisa feel like Shakky was trying to read her inside and out.
Uneasy by Shakky's sudden newfound interest in her, Nagisa looked around the bar—the disappointment with the lack of news forgotten—and before long she noticed the stack of newspapers on the counter top.
"Say, Shakky?"
"Hm?" Shakky was still looking at her with that ever-intrigued expression on her face. Damn, she was pretty bold with it. Nagisa fought the urge to squirm uneasily like some worms sprinkled with salts.
Nagisa stared at the newspapers for a while as she tried to ransack her brains; trying to find those questions that she had listed down regarding this side of Grand Line that Shakky might have not told her. By some devilish celestial luck, she had lost the hand-written list she had made when she had just departed from her home island. Curse the nasty deities up there that were taking delight in messing with her. Pfft. In the end, she settled with one:
"Tell me about the latest scoop in here."
"Latest scoop, hm?" At this, Shakky turned to look at the stack of newspapers that Nagisa was looking at. "Let's see…" The bar-owner tapped her chin with her sinewy finger as she cast her eyes heavenward in thinking gesture. "I suppose it will be the Supernova."
Nagisa's eyebrows rose up so sharp that they disappeared beneath the curtain of her bangs.
"The what?"
"The Supernova. They are eleven pirate rookies who have earned bounties more than 100 million Berri in their first pirating debut."
"Huh." Nagisa was only mildly interested. "So who are they?"
Shakky then told her about those eleven pirates while Nagisa fixed her hair and put back all of her accessories. Although Shakky spoke in a perfectly calm demeanour, Nagisa could see that she was pretty excited about these rookies. Nagisa failed to see what was so interesting about these pirates. Well, she was one of the practitioners of 'seeing is believing', so she had to see them in action first before she could get all enthusiastic about them. She doubted that she would ever be. As such, by the end of Shakky's tale about the Supernovas, Nagisa still didn't have any conclusions about them. Well, actually she did have two.
"You don't seem to be very happy to hear about Trafalgar Law." Shakky pointed it out right on the money.
Nagisa made a face.
"His epithet is the 'Surgeon of Death'." She stated, as if that would explain the reason of her negative response to that title.
"So it seems. Why does that bother you?"
"I hate doctors." Nagisa hissed. "Especially surgeons."
"Well…" Shakky took the wanted poster of the man in question and stared as it as if by doing so would give her more information regarding him. "It doesn't necessarily reflect his real job, though. He is the captain, after all. Perhaps it only reflects the manner in which he deals with his enemies."
"And the way one deals with others reflect their personality, which in itself is already saying something about him…" Nagisa murmured hatefully, but apparently Shakky decided to tune out this particular mumbling.
"I heard that his Devil Fruit power is quite…bizarre, to say the least."
"Devil Fruit user, huh…" Nagisa narrowed her eyes. "Monkey D. Luffy is also a Devil Fruit user, right?" Nagisa said softly, with a tinge of curiosity lacing her tone.
Most of the Supernovas seem to be Devil Fruit users, with only a handful of them who earned the title fair and square by the means of their own natural human capacities—and mostly some inhumane trainings. Pfft, the Great Era of Pirates, her ass. It was more suitable to be called the Great Era of Devil Fruit Users. Compared to those great pirates that her grandfather told her, this new generation of pirate seemed to be less impressive. What a shame.
"Yes. I suppose his Devil Fruit power has the properties of rubber." Shakky then chuckled fondly. "Monkey-chan is such an amusing one, and charming in his own way." Shakky seemed to notice the look of 'how the hell did you come up with that statement' look on Nagisa's face, because she then continued: "I've just met him and a few of his crew."
"He's here?" Nagisa's eyes lit up upon hearing that news. Well, that was one good news after rows of consecutive bad news that had been bombarding her these past few weeks.
"Yes. They came in here shortly after you went for the harbour."
Or partially not.
Again, it seemed that Shakky read her expressions well—or maybe she was just the one being too expressive for her own goodness—because she then told her how to find the Straw Hats captain.
"He's in the Sabaody Park right now, looking for someone but I suppose right now he's enjoying himself there." Shakky gave a small laugh of amusement, possibly imagining the goofy-faced pirate captain squealing like a little kid while going from one ride to another in the archipelago's humongous amusement park. "Why don't you go there? You may be able to find him, though the park is quite big."
"I'm going!" Without wasting another second, Nagisa jumped off the stool and passed the towel back to Shakky. "Thanks for the info, Shakky! I'll see you again later!"
Without even waiting for a response from Shakky, Nagisa had bolted out of the bar, leaving a shocked Shakky and a violently swinging door in her wake. She had totally forgotten about her drawstring bag; which she had put on the floor next to the stool she had been occupying a few seconds before.
Author's Note: Again, I beseech thee to press the button below and review =D