DISCLAIMER: All rights to 'One Piece' go to Eiichiro Oda, Shueisha, Toei Animation, Fuji TV and FUNimation, as well as any other parties involved with licencing that are not already listed in this disclaimer.
Here we go, the first Omake for Pom-Pom Pom! This has been proofread by me, so please notify me if there are any mistakes. I decided against sending this off for Beta-ing because I wanted it to be a complete and total surprise to everyone- including my wonderful Beta EverlastingProcrastinator. Seriously, they've put up with so much from this last Arc. They deserve a break!
Speaking of breaks, this is going to be another busy year for me. While I'm setting aside more free time for myself and personal projects, I can't give a definite date for when Arc Four will be here. Still, I hope you enjoy this Omake, and thank you for reading.
Tell me what you thought of this in a review or PM. I'd love to hear from you~!
Edit [22/07/2019]: Just cleaning this Omake up a lil'. Read back through an noticed a lot of errors. Sorry about that!
"Pom-Pom Pom!"
Arc Four: 'Paradise, Well and Truly Lost.'
Episode 9 ½ . Hari's Tapestry! An Unanticipated Reunion!
"I've just realised that we've not been documenting all of this," Hari said in horror, reviewing the memories (both good and bad) of recent months in her mind.
"What do you mean 'documentin''," Li-Anne asked sceptically.
"Exactly what I mean! We've not been writing anything down," Hari returned animatedly. She'd acquired the revelation over lunch, as they sat under the blistering sunshine on deck with plates stacked high with sandwiches.
Hideki placed his plate gently on the wooden deck. He had finally opened up to them after many weeks of mourning. It came to a point where Li-Anne and Hari unscrewed the hinges on his doorframe, pushed the door in on itself, and forced themselves into his room. Countless days of fasting had forced him into accepting the food they left outside of his door, yet they never caught him quick enough to slip inside and force him into the outside world.
They had now reached the point where Hideki was stringing together sentences, eating, washing and generally taking good care of himself. But Hideki still felt Charity's loss, and overwhelming guilt over what he had done to Samuel in his rage. Hari and Li-Anne feared it was something he would never truly forgive himself for.
"... I don't write well..." He told them softly.
"Neither do I," Li-Anne admitted.
Hari folded her hands beneath her chin, her eyes closing in deep thought while she ruminated on what to do next.
"You said there was an island coming up soon," she stated, her eyes popping open to glance at Li-Anne.
Li-Anne nod her head in affirmation, watching the Log Pose strapped to her wrist wiggle slightly in response as the needle constantly recalibrated their position; these would be the instructions the Navigator would eventually follow while guiding Junky to their next stop. They were stationary for the moment, the anchor dropped while they settled in for the night.
Hideki would take first watch, as he usually did these days after they had left Shi's Kingdom. Li-Anne and Hari acquiesced after he first offered to take that shift, but made sure to always set multiple alarms in their rooms to wake them when it was time for them to take over if the assigned watchman for the night wasn't due to take on a full night's watch. The previous system they'd practiced was that the last watchmen woke the next. Hideki had been skipping out on doing so; continuing through two other shifts. When they set numerous alarm clocks next to one another, he crept into their rooms to disable them. They made sure to hide the extra ones now.
Why Li-Anne had so many alarm clocks on her ship in the first place, Hari didn't know. But it was at times like these that she was glad for random happenstances.
Li-Anne made an exclamatory hum while she drank the dregs of her night time cup of cocoa. The drink was the only thing that would settle her down for sleep (unless she was drunk as a skunk), and while it was somewhat odd for her to partake at lunchtime, the Navigator was taking the early watch tonight. Li-Anne was determined to sleep well before waking up at an unholy hour.
"I'm glad for it." Li-Anne licked her lips. "We're in dire need o' supplies."
Hari chuffed, her hands slipping through her hair distractedly.
"I suppose I could always made a tapestry," Hari resolved. "If I can pick up some heavy-duty fabric it'll last longer than paper if it gets wet or the worst happens to us."
Hideki flinched and Hari nearly smacked herself.
"How long will it be before we reach this new island?" she pestered Li-Anne, her eyes flicking from the elder woman to Hideki as the tall teen rose from where he had been seated and sloped off for his watch shift.
Li-Anne yawned, "Day n' a half, I 'spose, if we don't use the motor. Just under a day if we do."
"Excellent."
They powered through the choppy waters with Junky's motor roaring, making quick work of Li-Anne estimation of when they would find the next island. The new island the Log Pose led them to was, like all isles in the Grand Line, certainly unique.
The entire place consisted of cubic, cuboid, and generically boxy architecture. The houses were fashioned of a reflective silver cladding, with precise, concrete steps leading up to the door. The lawns were manicured to an almost artificial standard; the green blades of grass trimmed to be identical to all others around it. The trees and shrubbery were pruned into cubes with clean, sharp edges, and any flowers —while not square and incongruent with the world around them —were planted in restricting, nondescript stone-grey plant pots and trussed to trellises and growth aids (which were, coincidentally, oblong in shape).
"You don't suppose the people are robots too, huh?" Li-Anne gesticulated to the oddity of the town. "Or maybe they're built all blocky?"
"Or maybe," Hari interjected, spying movement on the horizon, "they're just very particular and house proud people?"
Hideki had control of the kiddy binoculars for now; his rubber ring firmly pulled up to his waist. He handed the binoculars to Li-Anne when she asked for them, and she soon focused them on whatever Hari had spotted.
"Maybe," Li-Anne returned sarcastically, twiddling the magnification up a tad and hoping her eyesight was failing her, "They're in league with the Marines."
"Preposter-"
"Your mate's over there Hari! The one that nearly captured us all on Nevis. I think it's far more likely we've ended up at an island that doesn't like pirates," Li-Anne said agitatedly, relaxing as she watched Marine Captain Ishi stomp out of view. She groaned. "We really needed those supplies too…"
Hari looked at her funny. "Who says we're going to be the one's leaving?"
"If we stay here we'll be the one's leavin' in chains, ya' idiot!" Hari stomped into the cabin, ignoring Li-Anne's squawking. "Where are you goin' now?!"
"To get a white flag!"
Hari's white flag (intended as a sign of peace to any Marines they may encounter), consisted of one knitting needle —sized just right for weaving with super chunky type wool —and a white vest of Hideki's, of which she tied the baggy straps to the needle and wafted about in a poor mockery of a flag.
Li-Anne looked at Hideki dolefully as Hari strode before them both, waving the flag like a mad woman. He shrugged in return.
"Hari, listen, that twiddy lil' thing ain't gonna stop them from shootin' us in the head—they'll just do it anyway," Li-Anne sighed.
Hari huffed, "And how would you know this, Li-Anne?"
"Because Marines come in three strains; hopeless, sadistic, and highly competent. All of which, strangely, happen to carry guns they will shoot at us!"
Hideki, the only one taking notice of their surroundings at that moment, rushed to grip Li-Anne and Hari's shoulders. He tugged them backwards, noticing a familiar figure round the bend in front of them.
"Ah-!" Lieutenant Hara squeaked as a soft lasso of willow wrapped itself around him and dragged him some ways away from where he had been harmlessly stood.
"…Shhh…" Hideki ordered the poor Marine, placing his index finger over Hara's mouth to fortify his command. Hara whimpered.
Hari beamed at the bound Marine, wafting her flag so that he could see it. "We come in peace," she said, smugly grinning at Li-Anne.
"S-Sir," Lietenant Hara sniffled down his portable Den-Den Mushi to the receiving line. "I'm in… I'm in a bit of a s-situation…"
The long-suffering expression that Hara's Den-Den Mushi wore as it conveyed Captain Ishi's response grew more intense; "Hara, you suggested we stop here for longer so that I could re…rela… urgh, 'relax'. You got us into this, so you can be the one to sort your mess out should you end up in one."
"But Sir-"
"That is final, Lieutenant Hara. Look, the men and I are at this place's equivalent of a tavern. Finish up whatever you're doing and join us then."
The line disconnected with a click, and Lieutenant Hara felt his stomach drop. Could he handle a fight against three experienced pirates—pirates who had previously decimated their men back at Nevis Island?
"Listen, Lieutenant Hara- was it?" the Captain of the Pom-Pom Pirates asked him, her voice far too gentle for a blood-thirsty, pillaging criminal.
Hara bobbed his head up and down fervently. He'd found that with this crew looks could be deceiving. Best he not chance his luck, honestly, against the three of them together.
"We don't mean any harm," the Captain continued. "We've just gone through an awful lot recently—something that no one should ever have to go through. All we want is a rest, to restock our supplies, and then we'll be out of your hair. I like your hair tie by the way!"
She grinned at him, motioning to the fine sea foam green ribbon that kept his hair back from his face. Elena the cook had found it for him in her things when his last tie had snapped, and she took great pains to comb back his hair and tie it for him every morning.
Hara liked Elena. He knew she had lost a lot, and that she missed her sons desperately. If it made her happy to help him, Captain Ishi, and the other men (and women, and non-binary pals!) on the crew, then Hara certainly wasn't going to stop her.
Hari smiled dazzlingly at him, and Hara felt himself give.
"Fine, but first you'll report with me to Captain Ishi," he informed them.
"Suits me jus' fine," Li-Anne cackled. "We've just been through some stuff you'd call Sea King shit on, and I, for one, deserve a drink."
The collective group of Marines already sat in the tavern scrambled for their weapons as Lieutenant Hara led three pirates inside. Hari toted her white flag, and pouted when they didn't stand down immediately.
"Hara…" Marine Captain Ishi growled, rising from his seat at the bar. He had immediately recognised Hara's tag-alongs and was part way through a Devil Fruit transformation when the Pirate Captain had the gall to wave at them all in greeting.
"Hello again!" Saihō-shi Hari chirped. "Oh! Hello Elena!"
"Hari?" their new cook yelped, nervously staring at her commanding officer from the corner of her eye as she strode near to the tavern's entrance. "Hideki!" Elena lunged to embrace her eldest son, grasping Hideki up into a deathly hug and sobbing into his stomach.
"… Hello, Mother…" Hideki patted the crying woman on the back, much to the incredulity of the Marines.
"So, Elena's your new cook, huh?" Hari questioned Ishi knowingly.
Ishi grit his teeth. The pirate knew more about the inner workings of his own crew than he did apparently. "She also happens to be the parent of one of your… comrades."
Hari brushed non-existent lint from her shoulder, flipping her hair back over her shoulders. "We prefer the term 'nakama' at the moment, but whatever floats your, erm, warship?"
"I see."
He didn't. Not really. All Ishi could think of was dangling from that vine-bridge the tall Akuma no Mi user had made and Hari's hand grabbing hold of his. How she'd pulled him to safety only for him to drop back into the water—to his near death, might he add—minutes later. Plus, he had perfect pirate-capturing leverage working for him right under his nose. How easy it would be to slap some sea stone cuffs on this trio and gain a nice wedge of Beli in his pay packet.
Lieutenant Hara sheepishly crept up to stand beside his commanding officer, wringing his hands on the edge of his pristine uniform. "I sorted out my own problem this time, Captain," he beamed, disturbingly pleased with himself for doing something so mistakenly wrong but also so right. "These pirates come in peace, and shall cause no harm under our jurisdiction."
"It's true," Li-Anne stepped forward. She grinned in satisfaction as half of the men sat in the tavern in Marine uniforms cringed back from the sight of her and the pink mallet strapped to her back. She waved to one, and watched as said Marine slumped over his pint of ale in a dead faint. "All we want to do is restock our supplies an' move on."
It was true. Shi's Kingdom had taken its toll on their supplies, bodies, and minds. While Hideki's mood had much improved the further they got away from that dreaded place, they still lacked their prior unity and tranquillity found on board the ship before they were sucked into nine levels of veritable torment.
"And how can I be so sure that you'll keep your word?" Ishi sneered. "We cannot trust pirates. If we could, we wouldn't be hunting you down daily. My better judgement is telling me I should incarcerate you all now while your bounties are still low enough."
Hari proudly lifted her chin even higher in the air; haughtily staring Ishi down. "We have just spent the last couple of weeks in a place I can only describe as nightmarish, after being pulled into there not of our own jurisdiction, have emerged from it half-starved and grieving, and you honestly think we're going to be insincere?!"
She took a deep, ragged breath. Her fingers curled into shaking fists. "Y'know what, I've had enough already. Li-Anne-"
"Yes, Captain?"
"Do what you have to do. Hideki, have a catch up with your mother. Both of you fight your way back to the ship if you have to. We're restocking and then we're moving on. Understood?"
"Certainly Captain," Li-Anne replied, an admiring glint in her eye which she often gained when Hari took her role as a Pirate Captain seriously. Hideki simply nodded and guided his mother to one of the lesser crowded corners of the tavern.
Hari's hands shook with such force that it took her a while to unclench them. She whirled on her heels of her towering shoes, striding out of the dingy little pub as confidently as she could with intermittent wobbles as her shoes tried to unbalance her.
"Where are you-?" Ishi growled, shooting a look to Li-Anne who followed her Captain out of the door. "Hara, watch the tall one!"
"Aye Sir!"
"You will stop this instant-"
"Or what?" Hari called over shoulder for the third and final time, stepping up the pace of her wobbly-walk. She urged Li-Anne to go on without her, and the Navigator scooted off into the warren of perfectly identical houses in search of a general store or grocer.
Mayhaps they'll sell square food, Li-Anne thought dryly with a shake of her head.
"Explain yourself, Pirate," Ishi rumbled, glowering at Hari.
"I will on three conditions," she returned, turning her nose up at him when he growled in frustration. Ishi rubbed a hand through his shock of ashy grey hair. "It's that, or no deal. I'm happy to keep walking...?"
Though he hated to feel indebted to a pirate, Marine Captain Ishi was far too curious for his own good this time. It was wrong of him to let his morals slip, he knew that. But Hara had brought him there to—dare he say it—relax. For now, he was Ishi. Not a Marine Captain, but just plain old Ishi, and the woman stood before him—her fists shaking with irritation even as her knees quaked with terror—was not an up and coming Pirate Captain, nor an instigator or rebellion.
She was just Hari.
"Name your conditions," he ground out, ignoring the moral little voice in his head reprimanding him over how bad of an idea this was turning out to be.
Hari straightened immediately, flabbergasted that her display of nerve had paid off. She stuttered; "We-well, first of all, I need to get some sturdy fabric and a lot of new thread."
She counted each task off on her fingers before moving on to the next condition on her agenda. "Secondly, I need to be able to tell you our story without unnecessary interruptions-" Ishi grumbled in protest, yet she chose to interrupt him, "-Thirdly… We're going to relax. I need a break—frick, we all do. It's been a long couple of weeks."
Smiling sadly at him, Hari extended out her palm. "Today we're just Hari and Ishi, and we're going to relax, yeah?"
Marine Captain Ishi stared at her slender hand (still shaking, though from anger or nerves he couldn't tell), then to her face. It betrayed no signs of malice; he could detect no nefarious deeds or underlying plots to usurp Justice.
He rolled his stiff shoulders, eying her hand again. Despite his better judgement warning him not to, Ishi shook it.
She began her tale after he had helped her locate a craft store; quietly and sweetly twisting a favour from the shop's owner and cutting out the components she needed from the fabric she had bought moments earlier with sharp and practiced movements, before wrapping the shapes into a neat bundle. Hari moved methodically; tidying up her mess, gathering her things, and bowing to the owner in thanks before they left.
Ishi was more than a little bewildered in trying to process how handy she'd been with a tiny pair of fabric scissors. Having seen Hari's frightening practicality rise to the surface when she had been making fabric and cotton choices, he was glad these skills didn't naturally transpose into her life as a pirate.
He schooled himself there and then for thinking of the 'P' word. Today they were Hari and Ishi. Just Hari and Ishi. Not Pir-
Urgh.
Ishi scrubbed at his face with his palm. This was going to be more difficult than he anticipated.
They then moved to a manicured patch of landscaped garden the locals assured them was used only for exemplary picnics and gatherings, and that visitors were free to use during their stay. The pair settled on the short spiky grass atop Ishi's Maine cloak, which he had removed prior. Ishi turned on his side with his elbow propping up his head as he watched how Hari knelt, expertly threading her needle, and for the moment holding it between her teeth without a care. She then tacked each individual fabric piece, which she had cut and shaped earlier in the craft store, to a long tab of thick cream fabric with multiple pins.
"I had an idea to make a tapestry," she told him. "Because, apparently, no one really likes to write out of the three of us. I get bored and antsy really easily, so this will keep me going for a while. It does me good to keep my hands moving."
"You started out at Logue Town then?" he questioned, staring at a patchwork of ashy and charcoal grey fabrics Hari assured him would be detailed into looking like the infamous stone streets of Logue Town.
"Yes," she replied, marking out a few satin stitches to form the raised texture of a tiny brick. This would be a delicate project; Hari would be conscious of every minute, painstaking stitch she made. "Where was I up to though?"
She jabbed her needle into the area of the fabric she had previously been working on, smoothing out the long piece of cream backing fabric over the grass to trace the journey she had mapped out on it so far. "Oh yes, I'd started telling you about Shi's Kingdom."
"I have heard of it," Ishi murmured. Many Marine's patrolling that area of Grand Line were warned not to get within a certain radius of the place. Not after they lost a relatively small fleet to it. "Your ship was pulled in?"
Hari's hand crinkled the applique work she had yet to sew down for the visualisation of Shi's Kingdom on her tapestry. She swallowed harshly, blinking back burgeoning tears and absently smoothing the creased fabric. "We were. Not that we knew that at the time—just thought we'd been pulled into a rogue current or weather system. Li-Anne tried her best to steer us out of it; she used Junky's motor, but we just… We were pulled in."
"Is it true there's no way out?"
"Not unless you venture deeper inside."
Elena eyed her son from where he sat adjacent to her. His eyes roamed the crowded tavern, and he flinched into himself whenever someone neared their table, only to catch himself doing so and shaking his head. Hideki had done this several times now.
Something was definitely wrong.
A mother never missed a trick.
"You eat well on that ship," she stated.
Hideki dipped his head. Li-Anne was rather handy with a frying pan when she wasn't trying to bash Hari over the head with it. She did the best with limited supplies, and concocted the most delicious dishes with perishables that needed to be gobbled up within the first few weeks between stops.
"…I... have a garden on the cabin roof," Hideki informed his mother.
"That's good to hear, Sweetpea. I was afraid that, well, after all that happened you would never take up the hobby again…" Elena grimaced, her sentence dwindling when she thought of Taichi and her little Jun.
Hideki's whole body seemed to stiffen. "… Sometimes I wish I hadn't…"
Elena felt more than a little anxious upon hearing this, and drew her small half-pint of ale to her mouth. She took a hasty sip before answering. "Why would you say that about yourself—you have a wonderful gift, sweetheart!"
Through parted sections of his overly long fringe, Hideki's eyes shone out like dark, glistening gems. They shimmered with a lustre Elena could only ascertain was sadness, and not the joviality of a young teenager out and seeing the world for himself.
Elena dropped her glass when her eldest son next spoke. It shattered to the floor about her feet.
"My father owned a haberdashery in Logue Town, and he taught me his craft," said Hari, dipping her needle between layers of fabric and drawing up the cotton to make another neat stitch to hold said layers in place. "I met Li-Anne on the night it burnt down. I'd been out and came back to find it in ruin. The insurance policy had run out that day—at least, that's what I was told. I had enough time to go inside and rescue the savings Dad had left me, but it was a wreck. I never found out how the fire started, though. I mean, the electrics and plumbing were a little old, but I'd been assured it was safe enough for me to work in there. I guess I'll never know now too…"
She placed her needlework in her lap, toying with it and angling it around; her eyes determining which area she should build up her stitching on next, and which places she should leave untouched for now.
"Li-Anne let me stay with her for a few days on Junky while I got things sorted, but it would have cost me everything to set up shop again after covering the repair bills." Hari shrugged.
Ishi frowned. "So you went in to piracy."
Hari giggled, covering her mouth slightly. Ishi admired the way the corners of her eyes crinkled when she smiled. "I laughed in Li-Anne's face when she first asked me, but now I couldn't quite imagine my life without her, Hideki and Junky in it. I miss the shop, but Argyle's was struggling for business. I would have had to have closed it down eventually."
Ishi straightened slightly where he lay, the name of the shop having caught his attention.
"'Argyle's'? The place where we had a uniform tailoring contract set up at one time?" By 'we' Hari assumed he meant 'the Marines'. She hummed in acknowledgement. "I remember it. When I was still dong grunt work I accompanied my commanding officer there, say… three or so years back?"
"That would be around the time my father passed away," Hari affirmed sadly. "I had to cancel the contract because I just couldn't afford to keep things afloat, pay workers, or fulfil the order's just by working on them myself."
Feeling a little awkward, Ishi cleared his throat. "So, why tell me about your family business again?"
"Because that's what Level Eight made me experience. Hideki was the only one, except for maybe Ch… He was the only one not affected by her illusions. He had to dump buckets of water on me to get me to stop screaming."
"About what?"
"Hmmm?"
"What were you screaming about?"
"Oh, being burnt alive in the shop."
They had been talking for what seemed like and age. Li-Anne had waved to them on her walk back to Junky with the supplies, but made no attempt to join them in their conversation.
As Hari span her tale of how Hideki had rescued them from Level Eight and the beginning of their stay in Level Nine, she had begun to make individual pom-poms. They would edge her tapestry when she was finished embroidering it; she would sew each fluffy sphere onto a piece of bias tape, before carefully folding the edging tape over the sides of her tapestry. It would keep the edges of her work clean from fraying, and would ultimately finish off the piece.
Except, Hari had been a little overzealous in her attempts, and now many pom-poms that would not be used littered the grass around them.
"You killed a man…" Elena whispered, dazed. How could her son—her gentle hearted, misunderstood, plant loving, mild-mannered giant of a son—be capable of such a deed? "Why would you—how—is it because of them?"
Hideki knew from the venom in her tone that she believed Hari and Li-Anne to be responsible for his actions. Perhaps Taichi had been successful in tainting his mother with his opinions on Pirates after all. Hideki's lip curled in irritation.
"Okay, so not your crewmates, but Sweetpea, you're the calmest person I know! You're not capable of something like—like that!"
"…I am a monster, mother…"
"Then I am the mother of a monster! Mariejois above, I married a monster. Does that make me one too?" Hideki shook his head. His mother had to be part saintly entity to be able to put up with Taichi Inoue for as long as she had. Raising two sons with little time between their births also tended to wear upon one's patience, but not Elena's. "Did you lose control again, like with your father before you left?"
Hideki swallowed harshly. Elena watched his Adam's apple bob almost painfully under his skin.
"…I killed a man who murdered-"
The tavern door swung open with a hefty kick, Li-Anne stepping through the exposed threshold with a hand lightly caressing the strap her mallet holster adjoined to.
"What's a gal' got'ta do to get a decent drink around here?" the Navigator called to the barkeep.
"Please have some respect for the r-rest of the patrons!" Lieutenant Hara sputtered as Li-Anne plonked herself down next to him at the bar. The woman gave him a disparaging side-eyed glance, as though she couldn't decide whether it was worth her time answering back to his completely pathetic declaration, or whether to decide to just for the hell of it.
Elena rose from her seat, skirting around the remains of her pint glass (which had yet to be cleared up from the floor).
"My son is not himself," she hissed into Li-Anne's ear, nervously eying a quaking and dismayed Hara. Li-Anne had decided to ignore him after all. The poor Lieutenant looked fit to burst into tears.
The barkeep slid Li-Anne's drink to her across the slicked wooden bar top. Li-Anne took a calm sip before answering. "Killing your first man tends to do that."
Hara nearly fell out of his seat, gripping the bar top in shock as the stool wobbled beneath him.
Elena tapped her foot. The floor was slightly sticky and ruined the irate mother-bear image she was trying to exert. "Then explain to me why it was necessary for him to kill a man in the first place!"
"Because said man impaled a child upon a tree," Li-Anne snarled, slamming down her glass with such force that most of its contents splashed over the rim and onto her hand. "A child, might I add, we had been protectin' until we reunited her with her elder brother—a child whom Hideki had grown incredibly attached to!"
"Oh… Oh Hideki, Sweetpea. You poor soul," Elena breathed, her eyes darting to her son. Hideki rose from where he sat and walked out of the tavern.
Carefully packing away her work, Hari reclined on the grass beside Ishi. She folded her hands atop her stomach and sighed.
Closing her eyes, Hari said sombrely, "I'd never seen him so antagonised before. I knew that Ch-Charity meant a great deal to him, but Hideki didn't even get so worked up over his own father disowning him."
Her hands shook, and she clamped them down tighter over her stomach to dissipate their trembling. "The sound he made was inhuman, and I don't know whether he'll honestly forgive himself for his actions."
"He lost control," Ishi grunted, one of his eyes opening slowly when Hari heaved a sigh again. "It's happened to the best and the worst of us afflicted with an Akuma no Mi. He won't be the last to do so."
"That poor girl was impaled on part of a dead tree. I can't blame him for losing control over that, but-but he literally stomped someone to death. How do I even begin to politely ask him not to, to not do that ever again? If not for our sakes, but for his piece of mind. You didn't see how cut up he was before we got here," Hari rolled onto her side, her fingers worriedly clenching into the coat of Ishi's uniform spread beneath them both.
Ishi pondered on this. He too rolled on to his side so that he was facing Hari. It was a heavy, sluggish movement; as though one was rolling a boulder through thick, unyielding mud. "If Elena's as good at sorting out our problems as she is consoling her son, I can guarantee that he'll be fine before he boards that ship of yours again. Perhaps, even earlier than then."
His fingers found her own, clasped over the coat's lining as they were, and flattened out her tense hand with his. The air was still. Faint noised of island life washed through their ears, and the sun shone down heartily with a temperate warmth. "This is nice."
"Can you see why people like relaxing now, Ishi?" Hari asked cheekily.
Flustered, he removed his hand from atop hers and tightly brought it to rest by his side. Ishi shuffled again onto his back, his body somnambulant and unusually weightless as he watched the vividly blue sky above him with sudden intensity. Compacted rectangular and square clouds would drift overhead, stretching out into bizarre, wispy tufts as soon as they cleared the vicinity of the island. Now fully immersed in this sensation, Ishi could, in fact, see the benefits of r-relaxing.
"Yes Hari, I can."
Before he knew it, he gently slid into slumber. Hari rose serenely from where she lay; a regular, shrunk sewing needle glinting in her palm. She began to collect the scattered pom-poms from all around her.
"Hiya Hideki!" Hari called quietly upon noticing her Crewmate's approach. In her arms she cradled far too many pom-poms. She cast a look down at a sleeping Ishi. A gentle snore crept from the Marine Captain's mouth. Hari bit her lip to contain her giggles. "Is it time to leave already?"
"…No…"
"Oh, just wanted to get a bit of fresh air then?"
"… Mum found out…"
"Oh."
"…"
Hari stubbed at the grass with the toe of one high heeled shoe. She was amazed she wasn't sinking into the lawn with how treacherous the heels were. "Well, I'm sure she won't be awkward with you for long. I know that you feel what you did was wrong, and I understand that Hideki—I really do. A very large portion of me is glad you did what you did; and that frightens we too. But what scared me the most was that you lost control again, and that, this time, it was worse than back on Isola Giungla."
Hideki stared off into the distance pensively.
"If… If you hadn't of snapped yourself out of it, then I don't know what we could have possibly done to get your out of it."
"…I'd never turn on you-"
"I never said you would," Hari smiled wetly, her eyes swimming with emotion. "But perhaps one day, if Li-Anne or I aren't there to help guide you through that, um, transformation, then maybe you'll lose yourself entirely. Perhaps not even to your Devil Fruit but to the consequences of your actions when you transform back. Then again, as if we'd let that happen!"
Hideki felt a smile etch itself onto his face.
Elena, Hara and Li-Anne, having raced in pursuit of Hideki after the latter had left, were currently squished behind a compact, cuboid shaped hedge in order to eavesdrop successfully on Hideki and Hari's conversation.
"Even your Captain is better than ours at pep talks!" Lieutenant Hara wailed. Then again, Marine Captain Ishi's mainly consisted of barking orders, sighing profusely at Hara's persisting incompetency, and retreating back to his office in a huff for some pain killers (which were necessary if he wanted to hold off his first burgeoning migraine of the day).
Li-Anne hastily clamped her hands over his mouth. "Shut up ya' idiot!"
Elena's eyebrows rose; "What I'm more impressed with is how she managed to get him to fall asleep at a reasonable, if early, hour."
Lieutenant Hara's scream of frustration, having nowhere to go, whistled out of his nose with the enthusiasm of a screeching teakettle upon a lit stove.
"Shhh!" Elena and Li-Anne commanded immediately.
Hari offered Hideki a stronger, more supportive smile this time. She wished she could reach out and touch him, or offer him a hug, but her arms were still full of pom-poms. It was selfish of her, she knew, but they were a pain to pick up and Hideki wasn't always a very touch-feely kind of person. "We'll always be here for you Hideki! You're nakama now. Did I ever say how much I love using that word? Because I do. It fits the crew's dynamic perfectly; one big happy family."
Li-Anne hissed in sympathy when Hideki's smile faltered somewhat, but Hari wasn't finished yet:
"Your mother will understand. Li-Anne has told me people have killed for far less just reasons—and Ishi just said that you're not the first Devil Fruit user to lose control. While I don't advocate it, or what you've done, I hope that we all can come to terms with this, okay?"
With full seriousness, Hideki nodded once more. They didn't hate him. He didn't hate himself as much anymore. His mother didn't think him a monster. He could work on his control. There were people there to support him. He felt his mood brighten for the first time in weeks. Noticing this, a wry grin weaselled its way onto Hari's features.
"How about we have a little more fun before we leave?" she asked, jiggling the pom-poms she still cradled in her arms.
Marine Captain Ishi was rudely woken by a screeching Hara shaking him awake.
"The- Sir wake up! The pirates have left! SIR!"
"I'M AWAKE HARA!" Ishi roared, scrabbling to his feet and slipping on his coat.
Surrounding him were his troops, Hara and Elena near the front of the group. The latter had cleared the air with her son, and while she could never imagine her son ever doing what he had done, she was not about to close him out of her life because of it. They both agreed to give it time, and to continue their Den-Den Mushi chats now the pirate's signal had returned. Perhaps, they would eventually overcome their issues, together.
At least Hideki had two others to support him. Elena wasn't sure she would let him leave again after he confessed his actions, should Hari not have restored her faith in the Pom-Pom Pirates. They weren't the bad sort, and for that, Elena was glad. Hara was bound to blab to Ishi about Hideki if the Marine Captain didn't know all the details already, and Hideki's bounty was sure to rise. Elena wasn't sure how she felt about that.
She snickered politely behind her hands, Hara trying to hold back his laughter to the point it turned his face bright red from the effort of holding it in. One of the men stood further back in the crowd thought he could get away with it, but his laughter carried through the throng as clear as day.
"And just what is so funny?" Ishi fumed, scrubbing sleep from his eyes.
"The pirates, Sir- they've begun sailing awa-"
"I asked you what was so funny," growled Ishi, straightening to his full height. Hara shrunk back with a flinch.
Elena petted the long-suffering Lieutenant comfortingly on the shoulder. "You may want to check your reflection, Sir. The Pom-Pom Pirates have only just set sail—they may still be close to the harbour."
Running a hand self-consciously down the front of his coat, Captain Ishi strode to the docks. He glanced into the rippling dock water after having seen Hari wave cutely from the rear of their departing ship to him.
"I had fun just being Hari again!" she screamed back to him with a wide smile. "We should do this again sometime, Ishi!"
Her female crew mate cackled at the sight of the Marine Captain, her laughter trailing away with the ship as it sailed further out to sea. Ishi knelt closer to the water, squinting to notice something—anything—out of place in his appearance. It was at that precise moment he noticed the strings of bright, multi-coloured pom-poms looped about his head, neck and wrists. The occasional one had been lightly stitched into the shoulder decorations of his coat—right at the end of the tassels too.
"SAIHŌ-SHI!"
Musical inspiration
"Bohemian Rhapsody" – Queen, 'A Night at the Opera (2011 Remaster)'