Out of nowhere, as Lowwe and I stood reflecting in a lull of quiet on the roof, Gregsbi suddenly flipped into vision with a neatly folded black flag tucked beneath his arm. His shirt had become a little dusty and his hair threw from his scalp with more chaos than before. After surveying him briefly, I noticed that my rifle was strapped to his back by a leather bind. He must have picked it up from the battlefield. I was relieved to see that it was still okay, but I was in no hurry to get it back into my hands so soon after the fight with Wallace. Instead, I listened intently to what he had to report.
He stood rigid before Lowwe and saluted him like he was a member of the Marines. Even then, Gregsbi's wide smile beamed from his face like a sun.
"Mission accomplished, captain!" he said.
Lowwe yawned and looked at the now orange horizon. "That was fast, Gregsbi... Good job. Did you manage find what I asked you to find?"
Gregsbi relaxed his body and suddenly became more serious than I had ever seen him thus far. He took the flag, dropped it onto the rooftop, and sat down on it like a cushion. His eyebrows frowned and his hands gestured his experience as he spoke, "Everything went very smoothly up to a point. I took Wallace back to his ship. I knocked out all of the crew. I took down the flag, and I unfurled the sails for take off. But then I remembered your orders, captain. You said: 'don't forget the original purpose of our mission here.' I realized that I wasn't done. I still had to find something else. I searched and searched and searched..."
Lowwe squinted at Gregsbi. "And...?" He asked.
"It took me forever, but I found 'it.' " Gregsbi reached into his pocket and pulled out something that looked like a leather bracelet. I eyed it very carefully and I noticed that the band of leather had a glass sphere connected to its end. There was no way that someone like me--someone who had lived on the Grand Line for their entire life--would not be able to recognize what it was.
"That's a Log Pose!" I exclaimed.
"Yes it is..." Lowwe said with a sigh, "but it's partially broken."
"Captain, I'm sorry," Gregsbi said lowering his head in shame." I thought that everyone on board was down, but one guy hid below deck. When he saw me searching through the navigation equipment, he took the Log and tried to destroy it. Before I even realized what he had done it was too late. He already did some damage to it. I guess he figured that he would rather destroy the Log than give it to an enemy."
Lowwe turned it over and over in his hands. "That certainly is very unfortunate, but you shouldn't sulk about it. This just means that--"
"My uncle can probably fix that, Lowwe," I jumped in. "I just learned today that he was a pirate way back when he was young. He's pretty handy. You should let him have a look at it."
Gregsbi brightened up all of the sudden.
Lowwe nodded. "He was a pirate, huh? I guess that's not a bad idea."
"Yes!" Gregsbi cheered. "Then there's still hope!! We might able to navigate now!!"
Gregsbi's words bounced around in my head for moment before I caught an inconsistency. There was no way he just said that.
"Wait a minute..." I asked, "what do you mean 'we might be able to navigate now?' Are you saying that you didn't have a Log Pose?! Is that even possible?! This is at least the third island on this track through the Grand Line!"
"It may seem bizarre," Lowwe said, "but we are a fairly new pirate crew. Our ship has waved a pirate flag for less than half a year, and Gregsbi only joined us about a month and a half ago. In fact, we haven't even been on the Grand Line for more than a month. This is just our second island after the entry point."
"But to get here without a Log...?! Not only that, you managed to get to two islands!!"
I was dead shocked. Everybody knew that normal navigational equipment was useless on the Grand Line. The only reliable tool--the only truth teller in a busy sea of liars--was the Log Pose. Unfathomably, the man before me was telling me that his crew was sailing without one.
"Yes, we haven't had a Log. When we first landed at this island and discovered that Wallace was here as well, we decided to make it our objective to steal his Log Pose. Whether we needed to do it through stealth or force, we weren't going to leave this place without the Log."
"But you haven't answered me!? What the hell got you here?! People who don't have a Log on the Grand Line can end up wandering the seas for years and years without seeing a damn thing. Do you know how astronomical the odds are that you would find two islands within one month!! That's like looking for a pond in the middle of the dessert while being blind!!"
"Turning," Lowwe said smiling, "You're just going to have to start opening up that mind of yours, aren't you? I realize that we have been very fortunate to have been sailing as rashly as we have, and that is why we made it our priority to retrieve this Log right here and now. If you want an answer for what got us here in one piece..." Lowwe trailed off in search for his answer.
"What?" I urged him forward, "What got you here?"
And then he ended the conversation with one word.
"Luck," he said.
That was that.
Gregsbi hopped up to his feet. "Welcome to the crew," he said.
These guys sure knew how to shock me into submission. Before I knew it, Gregsbi and Lowwe were already making their way back down from the roof. I shook the daze from my brain and quickly followed.
Before we came back into the room where Sender was healing Uncle, Lowwe turned to me and said, "Turning, we're not going to mention the fact that you've joined right now. That's something you need to do on your own. We're going to talk with your uncle about fixing the Log, and then we'll head to our ship for the night. Tomorrow morning, Sender will stop by to lead you to the ship. From that point on..." Lowwe clapped me on the shoulder, "you're a pirate."
"One more thing," Gregsbi said digging around in his pockets, "Captain told me a little bit about you before I started watching your fight with Wallace. When I ran by the place where you all fought, I saw something on the ground that reminded me of you."
From his pocket, Gregsbi pulled out a black tube made of wood. It was my hand-made scope. I gasped and checked my own pockets to confirm its absence before accepting it from his hands. I examined every inch of it carefully and saw that it was completely unscathed save for a small scratch on the tube exterior. At some point during the fight, it must have fallen from my pocket and kicked away from the battle.
"Thanks a lot, Gregsbi," I said tucking it tightly into my belt, "I owe you one."
"No problem," Gregsbi said. "Oh, and this is yours too."
He removed my rifle from his back and placed it in my hands. The weight of the gun balanced into my palms. Somehow, I felt like I was being reunited with a long lost ally.
"I appreciate it," I said with a deep sigh. It was comforting to see that everything had turned out okay. I had fought and survived a battle with a pirate worth 47 million beri. Just a single day before, I would have said that it was impossible.
Lowwe grinned and opened the door to Uncle's room.
Sender was leaning against a wall opposite to the bed with his arms crossed and his eyes closed. He had taken off his jacket, and his dusty grey t-shirt was as cool and solid as his demeanor. Now that his jacket was off, I could see that the bandages that I thought were only wrapped around his hand and wrist actually worked their way up the length of his arm. The right sleeve of his shirt was rolled back to his shoulder to reveal the intricately weaved pattern of the medicinal fabric.
It was an odd scene to say the least. My uncle had recovered and he looked as good as ever, but he sat in almost perfect silence staring off at the floor. I rushed over and knelt down next to him.
"Uncle," I said, "is something wrong?! Are you okay?!"
My uncle broke his gaze from the floor and slowly his eyes began to focus on my face.
"So..." he said, "you want... you want..."
I could barely understand him. "I want what?" I asked.
"You want..." Uncle said looking into my eyes. The dim haze of daydream was lifting from his pupils. Suddenly, without warning, he balled his hand into a fist and swiftly dropped it onto the crown of my skull. "YOU LITTLE INGRATE! JUST BECAUSE I SAID I WAS A PIRATE DOESN'T MEAN YOU HAVE TO RUN AND JOIN A CREW!!"
Amid my yelp of pain and the throbbing in my ears, I heard Lowwe laugh and say jokingly, "Hey, Sender. You weren't supposed to say anything about Turning joining."
Gregsbi was laughing so hard that he nearly collapsed onto the floor.
Sender grinned. It was the first time I saw him smile. "You know me better than that, Lowwe. If the conversation leads into that area, I'm not going to beat around the bush. After I finished fixing him up, he was naturally curious about us and our journey. I must have let it slip that you were interested in Turning as a crewman."
"Well," Lowwe said, "there's no use in hiding it." Lowwe turned to my uncle. "Sir, we were going to let Turning break the news to you himself. I apologize that it turned out this way, but--"
By the time Lowwe started talking, Uncle had already jumped from the bed and placed me in a headlock.
"Don't worry about it," Uncle said as I wriggled to get free from his grasp, "Just give me a couple of moments to discipline my dear nephew here, and then I'll be just fine."
Much to my dismay, Lowwe nodded with a smile and took a place next to Gregsbi howling in laughter at Uncle's disciplinary techniques.
