Okay. I am so so SO very sorry for updating... two days late, but really, last month was one thing after another and sometimes even two. I've started working the early hours once a week to raise my pay a tinly little bit, which costs the time I normally spend writing in the morning (because I just can't get a coherent word out of me before 5 o'clock in the morning, and that's not due to lack of trying) It was my mother's b-day, I'm looking for winter tires for my car (the reason I needed the little extra money is I bought a new car *joy* and it needs winter tires *not as joyous*) The feast of the harvest, helping out at two concerts and this and that and that and this. Really, it's no surprise I haven't gotten much free time work done...
Malin; And getting a tad bit caught up in a new fandom surely wasn't your fault.
Me; (grumble) No it wasn't. It took me by surprise and wouldn't let me go...
Enough ranting. For those of you who've been waiting, I hope this chapter won't disappoint ye. Please enjoy :)
Part 5; The girls' adventures
Chapter 2/3; The island of monsters and treasures
Sitting up from her bunk, Nami stretched into her body's full length, feeling how all the tensions eased and she was able to fully relax. It was a good nap. She had calmed down properly from arguing with Ruffy, and in hindsight realized that maybe she shouldn't have gotten so angry. The dark-haired girl had probably not actually meant any harm as Nami had interpreted it. Because she couldn't possibly know anything about... well, anything.
"Good morning, navigator. Slept well?"
The red-blonde girl blinked and turned to see who spoke. Ruffy sat in the bow of her and Zoro's boat, smiling happily at Nami as if they really hadn't had that little spat before the thief went to sleep.
"Is it morning?" Nami asked as mostly as an automatic replay caused by the slight confusion of her newly awoken mind as she looked to the sky.
"No. Afternoon."
Zoro yawned and stretched, bones cracking a bit. "I'm hungry," he voiced and turned around to the girl in the other boat. "Hey, don't you have any food to share?"
Nami almost scoffed in disbelief. "Get real you guys. How can you have set out to the sea without food and water? You must both be just as insane."
That's what she said, yet at the same time she picked out a tangerine and a lump of bread from her supplies, tossing them at the lit up face of the swordsman.
"Perhaps," was the only response he provided before happily burying his teeth in the bread.
"We'll reach an island soon," Ruffy announced with a chirp in her voice.
"Oh." Nami's interest perked and she stood, shaded her eyes with her hands and spied forward. She thought she could see something that could be an island, but wasn't sure. The spyglass proved it was indeed an island, so she checked with her charts, storing away the observation than Ruffy must have pretty sharp eyes to spot that island.
"No, not that one," she said. "It's uninhabited so… Hey! Are you listening to me?!"
No she wasn't. Ruffy had already gotten out the oars and was merrily rowing towards the island, now that all of them were finally awake. "Maybe we'll find a new nakama there," she spoke excitedly to Zoro.
"Finding food would be good enough," the man said with an agreeing rumble from his far-from-satisfied stomach. "Nami is right on one point; we should start planning things better."
Said navigator had no choice but to turn her boat and follow them. There was obviously no stopping Ruffy and who knew what kind of trouble those two get themselves into if Nami didn't keep an eye on them? But damn that girl could row! Ruffy was already so far ahead they could hardly call out to each other.
"Wait for me! I don't have any oars!" Nami screamed as loud as she could.
"Okay! We'll wait here," the other girl's voice carried over the waves.
The definition of "waiting" apparently only meant "stop rowing" to the straw hat girl. Ruffy's boat still glided forward at a good pace, so it took Nami a few minutes to actually catch up.
"You want to hook the boats together? Then we won't be separated," Ruffy offered, but Nami shook her head.
"I'd rather not. Makes it harder to steer," she informed as her keen eyes surveyed the waves. "The current here is pulling us south. Turn the sails and steer west in a straight line."
"Yosh. Which way is west?"
If she had reached Nami would have given the other girl a good punch to the head. "Steer to the left of the island."
"Oh, I see... Will that really work?"
"Yes it will. Trust the navigator."
"But you don't trust the captain."
The thief felt a sudden pang of guilt… and a rush of anger, not only because of Ruffy. She made a face, and when she spoke her voice was soft; lacking the normal confidence. "It's not like that. I mean that you should trust my skill as a navigator is all."
"Aha. Okay."
Ruffy stepped over Zoro's form to the helm in the alt, releasing the sail in the progress, and turned her little boat. Nami skilfully sailed beside her, giving new orders now and then. At last they landed on the island.
"Here we are," the straw hat girl cheered and jumped onto solid grund. "Nothing but trees," she observed a second later.
Nami sighed and shook her head. "That's what I tried to I tell you earlier. The island is uninhabited. How do you expect to find nakama here?"
"Maybe there are some houses deeper into the forest," Ruffy thought aloud, and it brightened her face considerably. She spun around. "Hey, Zoro. Come ashore. Hm? Oh, he's asleep."
Nami caught Ruffy by the strap of her tank top before she could go over there and wake the swordsman. "Let him sleep. He is injured after all."
"Oh. Okay," the pirate girl easily agreed and once again turned on her heels, going ahead and calling over her shoulder. "Let's go, Nami."
"Go where, if I might ask?"
"To the houses inside the forest," Ruffy said smiling so widely Nami could almost see all of her pretty teeth.
The thief sighed and rubbed her forehead as she followed the strange girl. "For the tenth time; there are no houses in this forest. The island is still…"
The girls stopped dead in their tracks as a fox suddenly emerged from the shadows of the trees, passing them with the sound of clucking.
"What the…?" Nami could only blink owlishly after the animal. It surely looked a lot like a fox, but it had feathers instead of fur, a comb and bib and colourful feathered tail like a rooster.
"Hey Nami." Ruffy held up another animal for her. "Check out this weird rabbit."
Nami pressed the heels of her palms against her temples, eyes wide and trying to understand what exactly she had just seen, what was wiggling around in the black-haired girl's hands and wonder if she had somehow gone insane without noticing. "I can agree about weird but I'd call that a snake… with rabbit ears..."
Ruffy beamed with excitement. "Snake? A rabbit snake? It's all furry."
The animal now named rabbit snake wiggled and made a noice that most sounded like a whine, so Ruffy sat on her heels and let it back down, watching it slither away and caught sight of the next creature.
"Is that a lion?" she asked and pointed to an animal purring some paces away.
"Isn't that… a pig? A pig with a lion mane... purring?" By now Nami was almost certain she'd lost her mind somewhere.
Ruffy's ears picked something up and she lifted her head. Just like any other forest this one was full of little sounds of animals and rustling leaves, but that's not the only sounds Ruffy could hear.
Nami mostly unconsciously stepped closer to the other girl as she hugged herself, rubbing her arms to get rid of the imaginary cold she felt. "Something's not right with this forest," she stated fearfully.
"Don't take another step."
At the sound of the unfamiliar, half hissing, half growling voice, the thief almost jumped out of her skin. "Who's there?!" she shrieked.
"Me? I'm The Guardian of the Forest."
"Guardian?" Ruffy parroted slowly. She sat in a doggish position with her head lowered and stared intensely at something among the bushes. Nami stared at her, wondering what she was up to now, and it provided the perfect distraction from her anxiousness this Guardian of the Forest caused.
"That's right. If you value your lives, leave this island immediately. Because you are pirates, are you not?"
"Yes," the pirate girl drawled distractedly.
"I thought so."
Nami was watching her fellow girl with increasing curiously . In a cat-like fashion Ruffy inched closer to the bushes, tilting her head from side to side all the while. The sight was so funny Nami couldn't be worried about the Guardian of the Forest anymore.
'Don't take another step into the woods, or else you will face The Judgement of the Forest.'
Ruffy was now crawling on her stomach under the bushes' lowest twigs. Then suddenly she sat straight up on her knees, taking with her an old chest growing a large green bush with a blinking face and a hand that pointed a pistol straight at Ruffy's forehead.
The pirate girl turned and showed Nami. "Hey look. It's Jack-in-the-box."
"PUT ME DOWN YOU LITTLE RASCAL!"
Nami screamed when the gun went off. Jack-in-the-box screamed too, but that was because the girl holding his chest threw him away from her, avoiding the bullet and causing him to drop the pistol and land on his back.
"Hey! Help me up!"
The girls walked up to the screaming chest and took a proper look.
"Is this a human?" Nami asked as she took in the kicking feet at the chest's bottom, hands keeping a tight grasp of the chest's edges, eyes glaring under eyebrows so bushy they had grown together, and the mouth full of yellowing teeth screaming curses at them.
Ruffy giggled, eyes wide with fascination. "How funny. It's a cactus. A walking Jack-in-the-box with a cactus."
"Help me I said!" the... whatever it was, screamed louder than before.
"What a noisy fellow," Nami mumbled, but the girls still helped the fallen… chest-man into an upright position.
Ruffy went to pick up the pistol, but right when she touched it a strange sound filled the air. Like someone was playing a low tune on a saw.
"What's that sound?" Nami asked tensely.
"I don't know," the man in the chest said. "I've never heard it before."
"It's Shodai," Ruffy said with a strained voice. She stood with a firm grasp on her katana and backed away from the pistol still on the ground. "She says I don't need anything but her to protect myself, so she won't allow me to touch that thing."
That tune sounded again, lower this time. The katana at Ruffy's side visibly vibrated in her white-knuckled hands. It was the first time Nami, and Jack-in-the-box, saw anything like it.
"What's that katana?" the man asked.
"Shodai Kitetsu," the dark-haired pirate answered.
"Kitetsu? A demon cutter? I heard a rumour about them back when I was a pirate. They bring nothing but death to their welders."
"Back when you were a pirate?" Nami asked.
The tune sounded again.
"Oi, Jack-ossan. Can't you pick up your gun? Shodai won't calm down."
"Oh, right away." The man in the box walked up to his weapon, used a toe to flip it up so that he could reach it with his hand and hid the pistol in his hair.
The sound from the sword silenced and Ruffy relaxed with a relieved sigh. She sat down crossed legged and spoke to the katana. "Damn, Shodai. I didn't know you could be so jealous."
Jack-in-the-box stared out of his hairy face with slight wonder. "Girl. How did you get your hands on such a sword? You a swords master?"
"No, I'm just an ordinary pirate looking for One Piece. I got Shodai from my friend. She said Shodai would help protect me from the marines."
"She? A swordswoman? Man, I ever only heard of one great swordswoman. My captain spoke quite warily of her."
The star hat girl blinked. "Captain? You're a pirate?"
Nami gave Ruffy's head a hard pat. "Pick up information faster, you slowpoke. He said was a pirate just a minute ago."
"Yes. My name is Gaimon," Jack-in-the-box introduced himself, late but alas. "I've lived all alone on this island for the past twenty years."
"Twenty years?!" Nami exclaimed. "You've been living here by yourself for that long?"
The man sighed and Ruffy was distracted by the way his beard ruffled as he breathed out. "Yes. Twenty years. That's a long time I say."
"But this is the first time I see a living Jack-in-the-box," Ruffy said out of the blue, grinning with curiosity. "Can you spring your head up higher to scare people?"
"Yes, I… Are you making fun of me?!" the man screamed I'm stuck in this box and can't get out! I've been stuck like this for twenty years! Can you even imagine how I feel?"
The straw hat girl eyes widened. "Are you an idiot?" she asked, and her face indicated it was actually a serious question.
The man in the box jumped up and down. "What did you say? Come over here and I'll kill you!" And he meant it, but a moment later he figured how childish he was; getting so angry at a mare teenager who had hardly even started living yet. Gaimon had half a mind to tell the girl to come back in a fifty years and they could start talking about what those past twenty years had done to him, but he sighed instead and tried to start over. "Twenty years you know, stuck in this chest, that's such a long time I doubt you understand. My hair and beard have become real bushes and my eyebrows have grown together. For all these years I haven't even talked to another human face to face."
"Want me to break the box for you?" Ruffy asked helpfully and cracked her knuckles.
The man's eyes widened with horror. "Baka! Don't you get it? I have been stuck in this chest for twenty years! I have grown into it! If you break the chest I'll die!"
"But how did you end up here and like this?" Nami asked with a concerned frown gesturing to the man's appearance.
He made a face and turned to the smarter girl. "Didn't you say earlier you are pirates?" he asked back.
"Yes we are," Ruffy confirmed and swung her knees up and down.
"You see, twenty years ago I was a pirate too," a fond smile found its way to Gaimon's face and a wistful look glittered in his eyes. "Wonderful, I say. Adventures and treasure hunts. I'd risk my life to experience it again. But you're looking for One Piece? Then your heading is the Grand Line?"
"Yup," Ruffy nodded rather matter-of-factl.
The man in the box sighed. "I hope you know that the Grand Line is dangerous. Do you even know where it is?"
The girl captain pointedly turned her head and looked expectantly at Nami; her navigator, who almost slapped a hand over her face at the complete cluelessness of Ruffy's.
"We have a chart, so I'll get us there somehow. But you Ruffy. One thing. You know about the Red Line, right?"
"I do," Gaimon spoke first. "It's the enormous continent separating the seas in two."
"Exactly," Nami confirmed and held up the map she kept on her person at all times for safekeeping, pointing at the white, irregular line that crossed the map at its middle. "The Red Line circles the planet and the Grand Line crosses that continent from the city that is said to be in the middle."
Ruffy eagerly lifted her hand like she was in is a school class. "I know about that. It's Mariejoa, the holy city."
Nami blinked. "The holy city? I never heard of that."
"It goes something like this." Ruffy glanced upwards in a thinking motion and started rocking from side to side while singing something that sounded a lot like a children's song. "Up on the Red Line lies Mariejoa; the one to the world holy city. The Tenryuubito…" she stopped rocking and scratched her chin, brow furrowed as the lyrics suddenly eluded her, "has a nest up there… hmhm… You better bow your head down to the ground."
"What was that?" Nami and Gaimon asked.
"A song."
Nami slapped her forehead in exasperation. "Yes, I heard that much. What was it about? Celestial dragons having a nest on the Red Line? I don't get it."
"You don't have to. Once we've crossed the Grand Line and found One Piece we don't have to care about those dragons."
"Idiot," Gaimon labelled the girl. "If the Grand Line was that easy to conquer it wouldn't be called the Pirate Graveyard."
"What do you mean?" Ruffy asked with a confused frown.
"It's not a tale, girl. I know because I've seen pirates desperately running away from the route," the man in the box said gravely, face dark as he remembered. "Terrible I say. They looked like walking corpses, like they had lost all spirit. I didn't want to think about what they had experienced, but one look was enough for me to understand the horrors of the Grand Line. It is a place you rather stay away from."
"Grand Line defeated them," Ruffy stated shamelessly.
"Obviously," the man in the box agreed with a sigh. "And about One Piece, no one knows what's true anymore. Back when I was a pirate the rumours were already running over the top. One rumour adds to the next and in the end the only thing left is a myth. One Piece might only be a legend."
"You think so?" the black-haired girl asked with a tilt of her head. "But Aki said that legends don't sprout from nothing, so I'm sure we'll find it."
"I'd love to know where all that confidence comes from," Nami sighed deeply, at the same time taking note that Ruffy had just mentioned a new name.
The man in the chest stared at them, almost as if waiting for something. The girls stared back questioningly, glancing at each other to see if she was any wiser. In the end Gaimon just blurted out; "Aren't you going to ask me why I've never tried to leave this island?!"
"Hm? No, I wasn't about to. Nami?"
The thief gave up. Ruffy was a blunt idiot through and through and that was that, but still. "Isn't there a limit to being simpleminded?" she muttered. "Yes Gaimon-san, why haven't you tried to leave?"
Gaimon recovered from the shock of Ruffy's response. "Bitterness. I can't get the image out of my mind," he told them, and Nami could almost hear how much he had longed to share it with somebody.
"Oh. So that's the bond you have to the middle of the island. I was wondering," the dark-haired pirate girl smiled.
The other two stared at her, again. Ruffy was the queen of strange inputs in conversations.
"How did you know that?" Gaimon asked warily.
"I can hear it in your heartbeat. Somehow the bitterness you feel is connected to the top over there," the girl said pointed.
Nami gaped. Gaimon too. Ruffy looked between them and wondered what was wrong.
The man blinked a few times before the first shock wore off and he found his voice. "…yes. You're right. Twenty years ago I came here along with my crew, following a map that told us about a treasure that should be buried here. We searched, for three weeks, but the only thing we found was this empty chest... the same I'm now stuck in," he added with a deep sigh and the shock from the dumb girl's comment finally wore off and the bitterness returned to his voice. "Captain gave up. But there was one place he hadn't searched in; the very top of the island. I climbed up that hill, and I couldn't believe what I saw! I found the treasure! It's right up there. But when I was about to call for my comrades I lost my hold of the stone, and when I came to I was stuck in this chest and my crew was gone. Now I can't climb that hill because I'm stuck in a treasure chest!"
"Did nobody really come to this island for twenty years?" Ruffy asked with a furrowed brow.
"Oh, they have come. Loads of them. Pirates looking for the treasure." Gaimon smiled joylessly and picked out his gun, which made the dark-haired girl pirate grab a tight hold of her katana. "But I've chased them all away with the judgement of the forest."
"Put that gun away, please."
"Oh, sorry."
The man in the box put his weapon back into his hair and Ruffy relaxed. Giving her katana a glare she moved it backwards in the belt into a more comfortable position.
"Anyway," Gaimon continued. "I can't forget the treasure. But I'm stuck like this and can't get to it! I've been guarding that treasure for twenty years! It's mine!"
Ruffy nodded with decisive agreement. "Very true. The treasure is definitely yours."
Nami pumped her fist. "Don't worry, Gaimon-san! We'll help you get the treasure!"
"Eh? Really?" the man's eyes brimmed with tears of gratitude. "You'd do that for me?"
Ruffy though gave her navigator a strange look. Up until now the older girl had had a definite 'the treasure is mine' sort of attitude. Moreover; she claimed to hate pirates more than anything and Jack-in-the-box was... or maybe he wasn't anymore but he didn't regret he'd ever been a pirate. That's why the girl pirate felt most obligated to ask; "Nami, aren't you a thief that steals from pirates?"
"Just what are you trying to suggest, Ruffy?! I do have morals too!" Nami yelled and then glowered at the girl she'd decided to tag along with, daring her to say anything.
But of course Ruffy was still Ruffy, and she wasn't the type to make things difficult on herself, so her response was a simple; "Aha. Okay" and a wide grin.
The navigator had half a mind to drop a poisonous comment, but nothing satisfying came to mind and the silent sort of grew longer until it was really too late to say anything.
Grumbling to herself for missing her chance Nami turned to the island's only human occupant. "So, Gaimon-san, please lead the way."
The man sniffed. "You girls... you are such great people!"
Gaimon started to lead the way, but having only the length of his feet to walk with and therefore a limited stride he wasn't the fastest person around. So Ruffy, being the impatient type of person, decided to carry him instead. At first he protested quite loudly, scaring a few odd birds into flight in the progress, but after easily passing a steep, rocky area that would normally take him hours to scale, the man in the box decided he had quite a nice seat on the dark-haired girl's shoulder. It didn't take them long to reach the top of the island; a rock hill that was a few yards high and very steep.
"This is it," Gaimon confirmed breathlessly. "I haven't been here in a long time. A very long time…"
Ruffy let the chest with its permanent contents down from her shoulder and studied the high cliff. It didn't look too hard to climb. "Ne, Jack-ossan. Why haven't you asked anybody to help you earlier? You said people had come here before."
"People have come," Gaimon nodded. "Pirates. As if I could trust them when they came for my treasure! Besides, the few times I showed my face they got scared and ran away."
The dark-haired girl blinked as suddenly the man's heartbeat sounded louder. Twenty years of frustration was almost enough for Ruffy to want to cover her ears.
"Damn! Damn! The treasure is so close! Damn!"
Gaimon, unaware of Ruffy's special hearing, smiled widely up the cliff where he had once caught a glimpse of the treasure he had guarded since then. "Finally the moment is here! What a wonderful day!"
Nami put a hand on Ruffy's shoulder, scaring her out of the sound of the man's heart. "Okay. Get on with it."
"Me?" the other girl blinked with disbelief.
"Yes, you! Do you think I can climb this hill?"
Ruffy was about to say that she did think Nami was very capable of scaling the cliff, and probably would have done it too if she could get her hands on the treasure, but Gaimon was practically shaking with excitement and wished her good luck.
Ruffy sighed, took off her sandals and gave them to Nami. "Hold these for me."
"Sure…? Hey? Where are you going? The treasure is…"
"You're in my way. Step aside."
Knowing a dangerous look when they saw one, Nami and Gaimon cleared the road for the pirate girl that had put some distance between her and the rock.
'Maybe Nami was right after all,' Ruffy thought. 'I'd be up and back before she gotten off the ground.'
"Here I come."
Gaimon cheered when the girl ran all the way up the hill. Nami too had to admit she was... rather awed.
But standing at the edge of the rock hill Ruffy didn't move. At least not at first. Nami grew anxious when the other girl suddenly started to look around herself.
"Oi, Ruffy? Is the treasure not there?"
Those dark eyes looked down and then the girl disappeared from sight.
"It couldn't have disappeared…?" Nami mumbled to herself, glancing down at the man beside her. He looked so anxious.
"They are here!" Ruffy called from up above them. She stood there holding onto a treasure chest the same size as the one the man in the box was stuck in. "Five treasure chests."
Gaimon's face lit up, laugher escaping him in a fit of near ecstasy. "Great! Wonderful! Haha! Drop them down here quickly! All of them! Just don't hit me! Finally! Finally!"
But the girl didn't let go of the chest. Instead she sat down with her legs crossed and the chest on her lap.
"What are you waiting for?" Nami called. "Drop those chests down here now."
"I don't want to," Ruffy said.
Gaimon's face fell. The straw hat girl... Well, it wasn't like the thought had never grazed his mind but...
Nami didn't look down. If she had she might have seen the man's moment of pained acceptance. Instead she glared up at the pirate girl on top of a cliff where she couldn't be reached, which only added more fuel to the absolutely infuriated fire. "You bloody pirate! Gaimon-san has guarded that treasure for twenty years! You can't just keep them to yourself! Come down here right now!"
"No…" Gaimon said lowly, "she doesn't have to,"
"Of course she has to! To hell with her! That treasure…"
The man in the chest tilted his head back all he could. Up there the girl with the straw hat sat eyeing him, knowing he understood what she was doing and waited for his reaction. Really, when had he last met a person of such kindness? "Mugiwara…" he called up to her, halting the other girl's angry rant. "Thank you. That was really nice of you."
Nami's jaw fell all the way to the ground, utterly dumbfounded . What was he saying? Why? ...Why was he crying?
"I suspected… the possibility… but tried so hard not to think about it," the man in the box sobbed. "The chests… they are empty."
Nami's let out a strangled gasp. "What?"
"Yup. All empty," Ruffy's voice carried down to them more solemn than Nami had thought she was capable of.
"It happens often," Gaimon cried. "It happens that when there is a map, the treasure is already gone when you get a hold of the chart."
"No way," the thief girl protested weakly. "So the treasure you've been guarding for twenty years… are only a bunch of empty boxes?" She glanced up at Ruffy, hardly able to believe it. How could the world be so harsh? Even if Gaimon had been a pirate before he didn't deserve this. Twenty years all alone for nothing. Why? Nobody deserves such a fate.
For a moment, all that was heard was Gaimon sobbing. Ruffy listened from the top of the hill. She could hear the sadness, the disappointment, the shame… and the relief.
A smile bloomed on her face and she started laughing.
"Keep your chin up, Jack-ossan. Now you know after only twenty years. If you hadn't confided in us you could have waited for another twenty or thirty years and died without knowing anything at all."
"Mugiwara…"
The girl above them stood gazing at whatever she could see far ahead of her. "Now you've won your life back, so why not aim high and go straight for One Piece! Come with me and live the pirate life again!"
Nami let her breath out, amazed to say at least. She had never heard anybody turn something utterly cruel into something to be glad about. It was true the treasure was gone, probably, and Gaimon had been alone for twenty years. But Ruffy's point was just that; he wasn't alone anymore.
"Thank you, Mugiwara," the man in the box cried from soul deep relief and happiness. "Thank you. I'm so happy. This really is a good day."
The thief smiled. She thought she understood Ruffy a little better now. The girl with the straw hat was stupid and never made much sense, but she was a good person.
After Ruffy jumped down, landing very lightly to the other two's amazement, she put her sandals back on and carried Gaimon back down the island. They passed a few weird animals; a panda bat, an owl cat, an ostrich horse… Ruffy couldn't help but stare at that one.
"Yes, the animals of this island are quite peculiar," Gaimon agreed even though none of the girls had said a word.
"Is it edible?" the pirate girl asked drooling and pointed to the ostrich horse.
"Absolutely not!" the man yelled and Nami discreetly let out a breath of relief. She wouldn't eat any of these weird animals even if she got... okay, she would eat if she got twenty million belies for it, but not for even one beli less.
"But we need food," Ruffy argued. "We don't have any food or water."
"Don't worry, Mugiwara. I have a lot of food in my camp," the man in the box offered. "Turn right here. I said right! The other way… Watch out for those roots. Hey, why are you jumping? Don't go up into the tree…! Put me down! I'll take you to my camp walking on my own two feet!"
Ruffy pouted a bit, but did as he wanted.
"Geez, can't even follow a simple direction," he grunted and started walking.
"It would have been easier if yours and mine left and right was the same," the girl said when Gaimon turned left instead of right.
"I'm more than twice your age you hatchling and I know this island as the back of my hand! My camp is this way!"
Not caring about their now grumbling guide Nami lightly pulled at the other girl's cloths with a face of suspiciousness. "Which is your right hand?" she asked, and when Ruffy held up the right hand, even pointing at it, Nami sighed with relief. It wouldn't have been easy to sail with someone who couldn't tell right from left.
Gaimon stomped a little extra with his feet as a minuscule fanfare at the mouth of a cove made up of thick walls of braided birch branches. "Here we are. I only have fruit, but there's plenty. You can have all you want."
"Thanks! This looks really good!" Ruffy beamed, eyeing the collection of apples, pears, grapes and other more exotic fruits. However, baskets with fruit and berries were all she could find. "What about water?"
"Not here, but there's a little pond a little bit that way."
The girls returned to their little boats to fetch their water barrels. Zoro was still asleep, so Ruffy was extra careful not to wake him when she got in and out of the vessel.
The pond sported a merry waterfall that Ruffy wasn't late to put her head under with a joyous squeal. Not even Nami could help but laugh at the sight as she filled her barrel with only enough water to make sure she could carry it back to the boats. Ruffy filled hers to the brim and managed to balance it on her head with only one supportive hand.
"There!" Ruffy declared as they headed back. "Food and water. We're ready to go."
Gaimon walked behind the girls, feeling more content than he could remember he ever had. He was free. There was no treasure on the top of the island where he couldn't reach it. Now the sea stretched out in front of him with watery arms open wide and welcoming. Oh how he had missed the feeling; the feeling of freedom.
From the canopy of the trees he could feel eyes watching him. Most of them were cautious due to the two girls in his company. Gaimon had spent twenty years on this island; he knew it as the back of his hand, and he knew the creatures that lived here. Those creatures who now silently watched from the shadows. It was thanks to them he had managed to survive, it was thanks to them he had never gone insane...
"Mugiwara."
"Hm?"
"I'm grateful for your invitation, but I will remain here on this island."
She blinked, but didn't seem too surprised or disagreeable. If anything she seemed almost understanding. "…Are you sure? You're really staying here?"
"Yes. Thank you so much for inviting me, but I want to stay the guardian of the forest."
Nami tilted her head to the side, her eyes morroring only concern. "Why? There's nothing left for you to guard."
"Oh, yes there is" the man chortled. "You saw the rare animals of this island."
"We sure did," the thief nodded with a sigh. "Rabbits and snakes and pigs and whatnot." And she still wouldn't want to eat any of them.
Gaimon smiled. "Actually, more people come here for the animals rather than the treasure. I have been here for twenty years; I have protected the treasure as well as those monsters. During these twenty years they have become my family. I don't want to abandon them."
Ruffy smiled widely. "Because Jack-ossan is a rare and precious sort of animal too."
"Want to die?" the man in the box snorted, but then he smiled again. "You know, Mugiwara. The treasure is gone, and I have never felt so free in my life! It's a load off my mind. Thank you."
The girl gave a lopsided smile. "I'm a bit sad you won't come with me. You were funny, Jack-ossan."
Gaimon laughed. "I'm sure you will find some really great nakama on the sea. Make sure to find One Piece, and then you can buy the whole world!"
Ruffy grinned, full of confidence. "Sure will. See you, Jack-ossan!"
