The sub returned upright and the two medics found themselves seated in the galley eating breakfast with the crew. Akane was at Law's left again while Bepo flanked his right and she realized that the crew ran like clockwork, rarely breaking out of their set ways.
"Segre is a resort island, according to Miss Akane and Jean, and we will be staying there for five days in order for the log pose to reset," Law said, carving the ham into individual slices with his silverware.
"Do we need to get supplies while we're there, Captain?" Penguin asked.
"We have enough from our last stop; we'll be fine until the next island, but even though Segre is a resort island I want all of you to be training or improving your skills in some way; we have no idea what's to come and we've gotten lucky this far without running into any fights," he answered, now slicing the strips into cubes.
"Wab abou da shub?" Shachi asked with his mouth full.
"If we can find a competent mechanic on this island, that'd be a plus. If not, we'll continue to do self repairs."
Jean appeared in the doorway twenty minutes into the meal, grabbing the plate set at his seat. "The island is in sight, we'll be there in twenty minutes."
"Thank you, Jean," the doctor said, sipping his black coffee.
"Akane," Jean said, causing Akane to look up from her half eaten ham. "Could I see you for a moment?"
"Sure." She backed up her chair and left the table while following the large dark haired man.
He didn't say a word until they were in the control room down the hall and he took the sub off of auto pilot when he returned to his chair.
"Did you need something, Jean?" she asked.
He kept his eyes focused on the dark ocean. "I want to see Nanami."
"Nanami? But she's-"
"I know." He turned to face her, dark eyes sizzling like extinguished coals. "I thought it'd be...the right thing to do while I'm there; I haven't been to Segre for ten years."
Akane nodded." I'll take you there after I finish training with Penguin."
"Alright, you can go finish breakfast if you want," he said, returning his focus to navigating the submarine, consuming his piece of ham in one bite.
The nurse shrugged and took a seat on one of the counters of the control panels. "I'm not really hungry, I'll be okay."
"Are you sure? You never seem to eat; is something eating you?" he asked, flipping the sub on auto pilot again and turning to her.
"Really, I'm fine," she said, tucking her hair behind her ear. "Thank you for the concern, Jean."
"Is it because we're going to Segre?" he asked, his dark eyes searching hers.
Jean, being a former captain and slave, had picked up a knack for reading people in the past twenty years. It had begun on his ship when his crew would pocket treasure and the twitch of an eye or shudder of a shoulder would give them away; when he was a slave, he would search the faces of his "masters" to see if they were about to strike him or any of the other slaves by staring up at them. The slave owners thought he was just being a "dumb animal".
She cast her eyes sideways. "This is the first time in seven years that I've come to this island on another vessel, you know?"
"I understand," he said, but couldn't help but think she was still bothered by something, a crack in the glass boat while sharks circled.
It was all in her face, no matter how hard her eyes and body tried to hide the emotions raging inside of her, but Jean couldn't help picking up the buried expressions. When he joined the Heart Pirates, he realized how skilled he had become when he met Trafalgar Law.
The public knew him as the "Surgeon of Death", but Jean always thought "Plastic Surgeon" was a more fitting title with the way the young captain's face never moved. It was an admirable skill: a mask that could never fracture despite all the horrors he and his crew had seen together, but then again, Jean knew nothing of his life before the Heart Pirates.
"Thank you, I guess we'll have to get through this together then, right?" Akane said, heading toward the door with his empty plate.
He smiled and nodded while saying," Of course."
She smiled and waved before closing the steel door behind her. He placed the sub back into his control. Law stepped into the control room with his nodachi in hand, ready for the island.
"Jean, are we almost to the island?" he asked, seeing the light pierce through the inky ocean as they went into shallower water.
"Yes, Captain: do you want us to surface?"
Law nodded and said," Yes...Jean, have any ships come up on the radar?"
"No, it looks like we're the only people visiting," the large man said, checking the telescope again as he pulled the lever to surface the submarine.
The water became lighter and lighter before the yellow sub broke through to the surface. Segre Island was large with a mountain range that bordered the fresh water lake in the middle of the island. The shops and hotels lined the shores all around the island with the nickname of "the ring of retail".
"Isn't that odd for a resort island to have no visitors?" Law asked, noting the lack of tourists walking along the board walk.
"Extremely," Jean said, raising the telescope back into the ceiling.
"Keep your guard up while I tell the others. And Jean," Law said, stopping in the doorway," if you see the Cutthroat Pirates, just keep it between you and me."
Nothing. Not an ounce of concern wavered the smooth politeness of his captain's voice.
He nodded once before turning back to his duties," Will do, Captain."
He heard the door close and the boots of his captain heading down to the medical bay.
"You people would be a lot happier if you stopped pretending you're numb," he muttered and steered the sub toward the shores of Segre.
The crew had split into pairs of two after Law made the decision that they should at least raid the shops for supplies or beli while they were ripe for the picking. He had taken Akane as his guide around the abandoned boardwalks that lined the outer ring of the island. The entire island was a shade of grey with the overcast, the sun looming behind thick clouds.
Akane looked sideways at the empty shops they passed, trying to imagine people browsing and chatting as they shopped. The sideways glances were difficult since she had the yellow spotted scarf wrapped around her head, obscuring her face except for her nose and eyes. The rest of the crew were in full uniform while they searched the shops for supplies to make minor repairs on the sub.
"Miss Akane, you seem ill; is there something wrong?" Law asked, his nodachi on his shoulder as they walked the empty board walk.
"I feel sick about this," she said, sweeping her arm around the deserted street. "Something's not right."
"Maybe they just picked up and left to a different island," he suggested, following her into one of the shops. The clothing store was collecting dust on its beautiful fabrics and accessories,
"Yeah, but without any of their merchandise?" she asked, picking up a long gown in her hand and shaking it, the dust danced in the sunlight of the store window. A button rolled to the floor at his booted feet.
Law bent down to pick it up, rolling the golden button in his spidery fingers. "If they left in such a hurry, is it dangerous for us to be here?"
"The only thing that I'm afraid of is being around this ghost town," she said, holding the yellow dress to her body as dusted off the mirror with a silk sleeve of the gown.
"Is there any place else you'd rather be?"
Akane glanced in the mirror and saw her captain had taken a seat behind her on the velvet love seat, his nodachi resting on his spotted lap. She put the dress down on the counter where she found it and began rooting through the hats.
"Mama's mansion is in the middle of the island; it'd take a day to get there, but there's all sorts of stuff you can take. Her ship's usually docked there too," she said, picking up a purple hat with a large brim and placing it on her head and turning to look into the mirror. The hat sunk over her eyes, causing her to miss Law's head flick toward her.
"What if she's there, Miss Akane: what will you do?" he asked, his gray eyes bearing into hers through the floor length mirror.
The hat came off her head and was thrown to the floor, dust creating a long streak on the hardwood floor. She slipped the scarf off her head, letting the yellow fabric hang around her neck; Akane unzipped the boiler suit to reveal her white bikini top, her former Jolly Rodger still tattooed on her left breast.
"Mama left me to die on an island; she might have not meant to, but I owe you my life, Doctor," she said, her coffee eyes watching his angular face. She zipped her boiler suit up again and readjusted the scarf "She may be the captain of the Cutthroat Pirates, but she's fair and if you want me around, then keep me."
He rose from his seat, picking up the hat from the floor and plopping it back on her head. She reached her hand to adjust it, but he kept his hand planted firmly on the top of her head.
"You don't keep people, Miss Akane: you tried to kill me and injure my crew, but I spared your life because I needed another doctor. I've invested in you and you've proven yourself competent enough to keep up with the break neck pace of the New World," he said seriously. He released his grip and allowed her to raise the felt brim. "If your old captain wanted you back, I wouldn't blame her, but I don't let my crew go that easily."
She saw him loom a head over her in the mirror and she couldn't help the smile take over her face as she took in his laid back one.
"Is this your version of complimenting my ability to kill and hurt people?" she asked, placing the hat on the counter.
"That's what doctors do best, isn't it?" he asked, going to pick up his nodachi on the love seat.
He stopped midway when he felt her pull his fur hat off of his head. When he turned around Akane jumped up and placed another hat on his head.
"I know you love this hat, but the overcast won't last forever and I don't want you sweating your ass off in the sun," she said.
Law glanced in the mirror and saw that a white, almost egg shaped, fur hat with a wide bill sat on his head. He adjusted the back of it and saw that the black spots were a larger version of his current hat. He furrowed his eyebrows that were hiding in the bill as he inspected in appearance in the mirror.
"I think it looks dapper," she said, picking up a straw hat with a blue ribbon and placing it on her scarf covered head.
"Dapper, huh?" he asked, going to the love seat and grabbing his nodachi and hat that was thrown onto the crushed velvet.
"Yeah, I think that's all we need from here, don't you think?" she asked, heading toward the door.
He quirked an eyebrow. "What about that dress?"
"Oh yes, a yellow ball gown really says 'the pirate's life for me', doesn't it?" Akane quipped, opening the door for her captain to walk out ahead of her before she joined him at his side.
When the pair returned to the beach with bags of goods, they found the rest of crew were already on the beach and had spread their loot all around the beach. Jean and Shachi were beginning to build a bonfire for the evening on the beach; Penguin and Bepo sat on either side of the ramp leading to the sub and leafed through the bags of random things they had found.
"Hey, Captain!" Shachi called from the fire pit. "Could you give me and Jean a hand with collecting firewood?"
"Sure, Shachi," Law said, turning to Akane and giving her his nodachi and hat. "Would you place these back in my quarters, Miss Akane?"
She nodded and headed toward the sub when Penguin stopped her with his leg, barring her own.
"Akane, since we have all this down time, why not begin our first training session?" he asked, adjusting the pom poms of his hat.
"I don't know, the doctor told me to put these in his qua-"
"Don't worry about that: Bepo can take them," he cut in and the polar bear looked over at him from picking through the jewelry.
"I'm the first mate, you can't tell me what to do!" he protested, but Penguin stared at him with his mouth pursed into a tight line.
"Sorry," Bepo said, taking the nodachi and hat from the nurse and heading down into the quarters. Her eyes followed the bear's retreating form before turning back to Penguin.
"Penguin, that wasn't very-" she was cut off again when his boiler suit hit her in the face.
"Cut the chit chat and get out of that boiler suit; I might as well teach you to fight without layers first since that's easier," he said, taking off his boots and heading toward the emptier side of the beach in cargo shorts and his hat.
She shrugged and slipped out of the boiler suit, following her crew mate's lead in a bikini and Law's boxers.
"Drop 'em, missy," Penguin said, motioning to her hips.
She looked down and back up at him, arms crossed over her chest and eyebrow quirked. "I'm not dropping anything until you do."
His face twisted into confusion as he said," I don't have anything to drop: you're the one with the unfair advantage and I'm evening the playing field."
"Ah, commando I see; talk about fighting dirty," she said, but shrugged and began pulling down the boxers when Penguin stopped her.
"What the hell are you doing?!"
"You said drop them!"
"I meant your guns, pervert!" he exclaimed. Akane looked down and saw her pistols were still hanging off her hip.
"Oh, sorry!" she said and unfastened the holsters, throwing them into the sand a couple feet away.
"Alright, now that you are properly dressed, the first thing we're going to do is just have a little tussle; I need to see what you're made of. I'll even let you hit me first so let's see what you got," Penguin said, locking his body in a ready stance, awaiting the her attack.
She copied his stance, hesitating.
"Alright, any day now," he said, trying to coax her.
"This feels so phony: I can't attack you for no reason," she explained, lowering her fists to her waist.
"Okay then, um..." he trailed off, standing up right and looking around for inspiration. He noticed that Shachi had nudged Jean and they were both looking over at them, expecting to see a show. "I got it! Pretend I'm a mugger and you're just minding your own business."
She looked at him like he had grown another head before shrugging and going limp. "Dum de Dum, look at me: I'm just an innocent civilian just minding my own business, I hope there's no criminals lurking around."
Penguin rolled his eyes at her hokey acting and got back into his battle stance. "I'm going to attack you!"
"Ah," Akane said lamely, falling into the sand with a thud,mock fainting.
"Damn it, Akane! Take this seriously!" Penguin said, walking over to her.
When he reached down to grab her shoulders, her eyes shot open and it was too late for him to register what was happening before she kicked his legs out beneath him and rolled away before he landed.
She planted a foot squarely in his back. "Akane: one, Penguin: zero-"
She was cut off when he grabbed her ankle and pinned her to the ground when she fell.
"Now we're tie-" she kneed him in the gut hard and began running away.
He jumped up quickly, though slightly winded, and round house kicked her in the side. She fell to the ground hard and rolled onto her back where Penguin planted his foot firmly between her cleavage.
"There goes our nurse," Shachi said, arranging the fire wood into an orderly cone.
"Give the girl some credit: Penguin is pretty tough to fight with on the first try," Jean reasoned, bringing down the ax and splitting more wood from a fallen tree they had found.
"Why is Miss Akane on the ground with Penguin's foot lodged her in her chest?"
Shachi and Jean turned and saw Law return from the woods with a bundle of sticks and dried leaves in his arms.
"Oh, Penguin is helping Akane with her fighting skills... or lack thereof. Thank God she's a decent shot, am I right?" Shachi asked, taking the fire fuel from his captain.
"Yes, but if she can't fight, she's as good as dead when we start running into more crews." Law sat down on the grassy hill dipping into the beach across from his two crew members and watched the "epic" battle happening behind them.
Penguin appeared to be gloating, trying to aggravate Akane to continue fighting. He got his wish when she grabbed onto his ankles firmly and Law saw the muscle mass drain off of Penguin and the skin hang loosely on his body. She rose and held him by the ankles, the skin and fat dangling like water balloons off of his body. Akane then threw her now light weight target into the woods, brushing off her hands of sand.
"Holy shit! Akane just killed him!" Shachi said, causing Jean too look up from his work.
"There's no way, she looks too calm," Jean said and Law nodded behind them, even if they didn't see it. When she had killed the two bounty hunters, he saw her face flinch despite her body's sereneness.
"Just wait," Law said and the pirates watched the woods for any sign of their deflated friend.
Penguin spat twigs out of his mouth and slowly got to his knees to try to stand up again. He noticed his arms were returning to normal, retreating to their original form like a rubber band snapping back into its shape. A foot stepped onto his back and pushed him back into the pine needle covered ground.
"Hey!" Penguin said, trying to look around to see what was holding him down. "Are you seriously trying to mess with me after you mutated me?"
He only realized it wasn't Akane when he saw the upside down head of an ostrich look at him with beady eyes. They stared at each other for a long time before the bird squawked in his face and poked him in the nose with its sharp beak.
"That's it! You're going down and onto my dinner plate, you stupid bird!" Penguin said and with his returned strength grabbed the ostrich's legs and threw it forward into the bushes.
He quickly rose and was ready to fight when he saw it hop back onto its feet and run wildly back into the forest, the black and white feathers fluttering behind its retreating form.
"What the hell?" he asked himself, sitting on a log and pulling his matches and pipe out of his cargo shorts and began stuffing tobacco in his pipe.
"Penguin? Penguin? I'm sorry! I didn't mean to throw you that hard!" Akane said, finally appearing through the thicket.
"Don't worry about me; I've been through worse than that," he said, lighting the pipe and letting a ring of smoke escape his lips.
"You smoke?" she asked, pointing to his pipe.
"Yeah, I've tried to quit but it's just tobacco, so it's not too terrible every once in a while," he said with a shrug.
"You're bleeding a little from your nose, but it doesn't look broken," she observed, sitting beside him to prod his nose with her fingers.
"A stupid bird came along and stabbed me right in the schnauzer," he said, his voice nasally as she pinched the bridge and leaned his head back to try to stop the bleeding.
"Must have been a big bird, do you know what kind it was?" she asked, unfazed by the blood slipping from between her fingers.
"I don't know much about birds, but it was tall and black and white," he said explained. "The only birds I've seen growing up were penguins, seagulls, and the weird things Captain throws together."
They fell into a silence since Penguin had to begin breathing through his mouth. The caws of birds and the wind blowing through the trees filled the gap of sound with Penguin's pipe still burning in his hand.
"So long have you been smoking?" Akane said, releasing his nose and wiping her bloodied hand on Law's yellow boxers, staining them orange.
"Three years, but only now and again. It's hard to get away from the crew to smoke since no one let's me, but I guess it makes it more special," he said, bringing the pipe to his lips and releasing a gray cloud into the green forest.
Akane watched the smoke float up towards the purple sky, the sun beginning to set. "I know what you mean: I've smoked a cigar only three times in my life."
"Really? I thought all doctors are super anal about smoking. Captain puts mine out when he catches me."
"I only smoke in celebration," she said, smiling and leaning back against the tree behind them.
"Like what? Shachi says you don't even drink," he said, eyeing her curiously.
She counted the events on her fingers, crossing her legs into a criss-cross. "When I was nineteen and first joined the Cutthroats, they went out drinking and I went to blend in: I drank, smoked, partied, and slept around hard for a month because I was free, you know? I didn't have to work sixteen hour shifts or take care of my siblings; I could do whatever I wanted for once, you know?"
He nodded, letting his pipe hand rest in his lap. "I know exactly what you mean. When I first joined the Heart Pirates, that was my first time being away from home and I just went wild with Shachi. The first year is a whole blur of being passed out around the sub or on the beach. When was the second time?"
"The second time was when Harper, the second mate, came back from a one night stand with a Marine. Turns out he gave her, like, six cigars and some cash to keep quiet and she split her stash with me."
"Were you close to her? I mean, if she gives you some cigars, you must have been more than acquaintances," he asked, bringing the pipe to his lips, but just letting it hang there while they spoke; the smoke curled into the air and around them like an old friend.
"When I look back on it now, I guess we were close enough to be more than that, but less than friends, you know? We just hung around each other a lot; I wasn't looking to make friends though," she explained and he nodded thoughtfully.
"Yeah, that's kind of how me and Shachi became friends as kids; our parents were friends so we kind of became friends out of obligation. It's one of the best decisions I made because he and his big mouth can get us into or out of a lot of trouble," he said, earning a snort from her. "And the third time?"
"Right now: hand it over," she said, holding her palm out. He laughed and handed it over and watched when she inhaled deeply and blew a ring into the atmosphere.
"What are we celebrating, Akane?" he asked, leaning back on the tree with her.
She was silent for while, letting the gray smoke escape her mouth like air from a balloon. She finally turned and smiled at him. "This is the first crew I've been on where I knew everyone by name and no one's tried to kill me."
He laughed and replied, "Okay, then I'll celebrate the fact I'm sharing a pipe with a doctor of the Heart Pirates."
Akane grinned and turned the pipe over in her fingers, admiring the intricate nautical designs etched into it before giving it back to him. "Where'd you pick up such a nice pipe?"
He leaned forward. "The story of this pipe is my dad was a Marine that died in a fire fight with pirates."
"I'm so sorry," she said, watching him release a puff of smoke.
He waved his hand, erasing the gray cloud."It could of happened to anyone, so it's not like I'm jaded or anything, but he always had this pipe that he smoked all the time when I was growing up and it was on him at all times.
When he died, I was already with this crew and we were starting to get a reputation around the Grand Line too. We had a pretty bad run in with the Marines and after thrashing around a while, Captain said we should just leave. We were about to go when someone shout 'Lucas!'."
"Lucas?" she asked, taking the pipe from him again to take a puff.
"What, you thought my real name was Penguin? They just call me that because when I was little I fought a bunch of penguins over a fish," he explained and she began coughing harshly from the smoke she swallowed as she laughed.
"Life in the arctic sure is exciting," she giggled and he took the pipe back, giving her a shove.
"That's beside the point! Anyway, I turn around and this pink haired Marine comes running over to me with a box in his hand. He said 'I'm sorry about your dad' and all that stuff but he told me that my dad talked about giving me the pipe and he was looking all over for me. And just as quickly as he came, he ran back to the Marines," he said, looking down at the pipe.
"That's so cool," she said, leaning her head on her hand as she talked to him.
He nodded once. "I wish I would have said something or shook his hand because that was honestly the nicest thing anyone's ever done for me."
"Penguin? Akane? Where are you? Captain hunted down a moose! " Shachi called from the forest's edge.
The two realized the sun was barely hanging over the horizon and night was beginning to fall, the sky fading from purple into a rich midnight blue.
"We're fine, just a second, Shachi!" Penguin called. He emptied the pipe's contents onto the ground and stamping out the heat with his bare foot.
"This is our little secret, okay?" he said, looking down at her.
She nodded and said," Hold on a second."
Akane scooped up a bunch of the soft dirt into her hands and slapped some onto Penguin's shoulders, chest, and back before doing the same.
She snatched his hat off his head and said," Follow my lead."
"Oh there's your hat!" she exclaimed and lead them out of the forest and onto the beach where Shachi was waiting. "Sorry, Shachi: after I kicked his ass so badly, he lost his hat and we've been looking for it ever since."
"That is not what happened: you cheated!" Penguin snapped, ripping his hat out of her hands and stalking towards the bonfire the rest of the crew concocted, the bright, orange flames licking the starry night sky.
Akane was about to follow behind when Shachi stopped her. He reached into the pocket of his boiler suit and pulled out gum, holding out a stick for her to take. She gratefully popped it into her mouth, blowing a large, minty bubble.
"Yeah, your ruse isn't going to fool anyone so you might as well at least look halfway innocent," he explained, winking and popping the bubble with his finger.
The gum was stuck all over her face and she screeched before chasing after Shachi down the beach.
