"Do you have any idea how he got sick?" Chopper asked as he and Usopp jogged back in the general direction of the town.

"I dunno," Usopp said, shivering slightly. "Come to think of it . . . he said that he felt cold earlier . . ."

He gave Chopper a quick recap on what had happened.

"I hope it's just a normal fever," Chopper said. "I mean, I don't want him to be sick at all, but . . ."

He fell silent. Then he looked at Usopp. "Usopp, when were you gonna get more clothes?"

"Oh, yeah," Usopp said, looking down.

When the two finally returned, they found Luffy still in bed and Nami and Cass watching over him. Cephus was standing out in the hall.

"Oh, you're alive!" Nami said, looking up. "Um, what happened to your—"

"I'll explain later!" Usopp said. "Well, Chopper, there's your patient."

"So you're the doctor?" Cass asked as Chopper came over to Luffy, whose eyes were closed and face flushed. "Thank you for coming to help your friend; Dr. Leo is out of town."

Chopper nodded distractedly. "It seems like a normal fever. Usopp, can you come with me back to the ship? I wanna grab my stuff, and you need more clothes."

"Yeah," Usopp said, shivering slightly. The two ran out of the room, almost bumping into Cephus on the way.

"Why'd you say 'seems' like a normal fever?" Usopp asked on the way. "Can't you tell straight off?"

"No," Chopper said bluntly. "No matter what the cause, a lot of fevers seem the same. They could come from disease, or from infection, or . . ." he trailed off. "Luffy's not hurt, right?"

"I don't think so," Usopp said.

"It seems like it could be an infection . . ." Chopper said. "But he's never been sick before as far as I know, so . . ."

Usopp waited.

". . . It might have something to do with the imp inside him."

Usopp was silent. "I . . . um, okay. I don't really get it."

"I don't either, right now," Chopper admitted. "Hopefully I can find out more later."

Soon, Cass, Cephus, Nami, and Usopp found themselves waiting out in the hall. Chopper had kicked them out, saying that he needed to administer some tests on Luffy.

Usopp finally spoke. "So how much longer—"

The door flew open and smacked him in the face. "Everyone," Chopper said, "I think I found out what's causing his fever. It—wait—" He looked behind the door. "Aah! Usopp! Are you okay!?"

"Nev'r bett'r," Usopp mumbled with a smashed nose and mouth.

"Oh, good," Chopper said, oblivious to Usopp's pain.

"You found out something?" Nami prompted.

"Right," Chopper said. "I'm no expert on supernatural stuff like demons and imps, but I think that Luffy's body is starting to treat the imp inside like an invader; a disease if you will."

"How does that work?" Cass asked. "I'm not too familiar with imps myself; they don't live around here, thank goodness."

"Well . . ." Chopper said. He held up the book from the Sunny, Supernatural Beings. "I read the section on imps, and the imp itself in its purest form is a kind of spirit or ghost, which is why it needs a host body to do things. When it takes a host body, it basically fills the entire body with itself, like wearing a suit I guess. Anyway, since Luffy's body is treating the imp like an invader, and it's a spirit and fills Luffy's whole body . . ." he paused. "Well . . . Luffy's b-body is basically attacking itself."

"I think I get it," Cephus said. "So his system is attacking everywhere in his body, but it's not doing anything so it just makes his temperature go up?"

Chopper nodded. "The bad news is that we can't treat it until we have the cure; the good news is that we can do things to lower his fever like giving him cold baths."

"How high is it?" Nami asked.

"It's about 39° right now," Chopper said. "Hopefully it won't go up. Ma'am, do you think you could get some wet towels for him?"

Cass nodded and went to the kitchen.

"Let's hope everyone gets back soon," Nami said with a small sigh.

"You don't seem too concerned," Usopp commented, having fixed his nose and mouth.

Nami shrugged. "Luffy doesn't seem to be in too much danger, and it won't do any good to worry."

Usopp looked down. "Yeah, you're right."

Nami looked at him and tapped his head. "Hey, cheer up! Luffy'll get better. He's fought God and survived, remember? A little fever won't kill him."

"Yeah," Usopp said, smiling a bit. "Come to think of it, I wonder where that guy is now . . ."

Somewhere on the moon

Enel sneezed. "Am I catching a cold?" He muttered to himself.

Dear Americans: I am using Celsius for Luffy's temperature, not Fahrenheit. I'll be putting Fahrenheit translations at the bottom whenever a Celsius measure appears.

39° C = 102° F

(Please note that these measures are approximate and rounded to the nearest whole number)

In other news, I apologize for the short chapter and the delay in posting.