Note: This chapter has gone through heavy revision and remastering, a process I consider to be de-conflicting with canon and also de-cringifying the works of a 'me' a decade younger and a decade less experienced. The dialogue should be cleaner, and the flow should be better, but there should be no substantial change to the contents from what was here before, so there should not be a need to reread this unless you want to. If there IS a significant change, it will be noted at the end of the chapter.

Date of remastering: 1/8/2019. If you are reading this story and you do not see a remastering date on a chapter, it is likely that, unless otherwise noted, there will be discrepancies between various plot points; Please wait warmly for the Remastering process to correct that.

Please enjoy the story.

"... So that's her plan, huh?" Zoro murmured, staring down at the crumpled newspaper laying on the table of the Aquarium Bar. "Try and draw us into a battle we can't win by pissing us off hard enough."

"Nami-san…" Brook stared with his empty sockets at the door the navigator had stormed through, in tears.

"Nami…" Chopper moaned. "How terrible…!"

On the cover of the paper, a side-by-side picture of a scowling Biscuit Soldier, that infamous fake face of Charlotte Cracker, and a small island chain in flames, with the words 'BIG MOM PIRATES ATTACK EAST BLUE ISLAND! EXPANSION BEYOND GRAND LINE IMMINENT!?' branded like a curse over it.

"... Johnny and Yosaku were still there, too." Zoro said, through clenched teeth. "They just bought a bigger fishing ship."

"Cocoyashi…"

The group whirled around as one to face Luffy, who was staring at them with wide, dead eyes. "Pinwheel-san… and Nami's sister…"

"Luffy…!" Chopper pushed himself off the cushioned seat, rushing to his side. "Are you alright? Is your injury-"

"Cocoyashi is gone…" He repeated. "Because we made Big Mom mad…"

"... It probably won't stop there, either." Sanji murmured, cigarette smoke trailing past his ear. "Now that Cracker is down there, he'll probably go after all of our homes. You, me, marimo-head, Usopp… she won't let us forget what we did to her."

Zoro's single eye closed shut, sinking back into his seat.

"Let's turn around, then!" Chopper exclaimed. "We won't let them do that! If it's just Cracker, then we can beat him together!"

"What good would that do?" asked Robin, a haunted look on her face. "We can't cross the red line quickly enough to reach them. And if we go back, then what have our struggles been for?"

"No… no way…!" Chopper shook his head, voice growing hysterical. "We can't just let them win!"

"They win if they stop us." Said Zoro. His fist clenched around the scabbards of his katanas hard enough for the knuckles to turn white. "Big Mom wants to stop us from reaching One Piece, and now Kaido will be after our heads, too, because of Wano. If they think we will turn back to save our homes, then we keep going to spite them."

"That's not right!" Chopper screamed. "Luffy, tell him we have to go back!"

Luffy simply stared at Zoro's face, his face slack. The bags under his eyes showed he hadn't slept in days, even with his narcolepsy. He opened his mouth, then closed it again.

"Robin…!" Chopper pleaded. "You lost your home, too! Tell them that we can't let them do this! It's too sad…!"

"... it's because I lost my home that I know we have to keep going." Robin whispered. She slowly lifted her arms to stroke herself, and to keep her body from shaking. "You can't let them win… they only win when you choose to die… so you have to fight back, and cling to life no matter what…!"

"No…! That's not right! That's not-"

"Chopper…"

The reindeer turned back to Luffy. His eyes were dead, but a weak smile was on his face anyways. "It's alright. We just have to keep going, no matter what."

"Captain… Captain!"

Luffy groaned, body shifting with a crinkling sound across smooth wood.

"He looks like sandpaper all over. Somebody get him a glass of water!"

"He can breathe water, can't he, skipper? Why not just dunk him?"

A sudden pause in the noise. "Good idea! Grab his feet!"

A pair of thin hands wrapped around his ankles, as another laced through his armpits and hefted him airborne.

"On three! One! Two! DJANGO!"

"Three, skipper!"

"Right! THREE!"

Through his half-addled mind, Luffy felt a sense of weightlessness - and then gasped loudly, as the air was knocked out of his lungs slamming into the surface of water, and sinking below the surface.

Within moments, he could feel his shriveled and thin limbs plump back into muscled fullness, and his eyes opened to see clearly once more, staring into the sloped wooden paneling of a ship's hull. Power flooded back into him, and his legs kicked once, until he burst from the water and slapped to a stand on top of what he could now see was a small lake. "Wheeeeeew!" Luffy sighed, wiping his brow and staring back up at the deck. Django was leaning over the railing, with Butchie and Siam behind him. "Damn! Remind me not to do that again any time soon, Django!"

"Sure thing, Captain!" He saluted lazily. "And what exactly are you not supposed to do anymore?"

"Go into Cloudburst mode without drawing on an external source of moisture." Luffy replied. "It means I have to draw on my own moisture to power it. The human body is over sixty-percent water, ya know."

"That, uh…" Django scratched his chin. "That sounds kinda dangerous. Doesn't that count things like blood and stuff?"

"Yyyyyep." Luffy nodded, his lips popping the 'p' sound loudly.

"So couldn't that kill you? You know, if you dry yourself out too much."

"CorrrrrECT."

"OK! You want to be admonished for using your powers irresponsibly!" Django struck a pose, holding his hat tilted downward and balancing on his toes, before pointing his finger at luffy. "You are officially admonished. You damn scallywag. Don't do that again."

"Shishishi." Luffy beamed widely, before relaxing and looking around him. "Where are we?"

"No idea." Django responded, pulling a chakram from it's holster and absently spinning it about his pointer finger. "We touched down well enough, thanks to this lucky lake you put us in, but we were going to go exploring once you woke up. We still need to find your redhead lass, don't we?"

"And finish filleting Arlong into sashimi." Luffy's eyes grew hard, and the mirth disappeared from his voice. "That damn karate-guy had Haki. he definitely wasn't supposed to have that before. I should have paid more attention…"

"Errr…" Django tilted his head, confused. "Captain, that's the second time I heard you say that word. What's 'Haki'?"

"Think of it like fighting spirit." replied Luffy, folding his arms. "There are three types, and two of them can be learned by anyone, so long as they go through sufficient trauma and not break under the weight. The other is something you're born with, and indicates that, either by nature or by nurture, you're someone who's born to lead."

"And that's… bad? For us, I mean."

"Let me put it like this. In order to be a vice-admiral and above in the marines, you need to know at least one form of Haki."

A deathly silence formed across the Black Cats at his words.

Luffy shook his head. "We need to find everybody and get them back with us, because nobody is ready for that kind of fight. You guys ready to walk?"

"Shouldn't somebody stay with the ship?"

Luffy opened his mouth, then shut it again. "Good idea. Butchie, Siam. stay here and guard the ship. You're gonna be how we find this place again when we start moving."

"Beg pardon, sir, but how?" Siam asked.

"Haki." Luffy folded his arms. "I can find you for miles, because I know what your spirit feels like."

"You have haki, captain?"

"I have all three."

"Amazing…" Butchie breathed. "Even that super-special one!? Between that and your power, captain, couldn't you take on an admiral!?"

Luffy's expression twisted, involuntarily, into a rictus of pain, just for an instant. Then the teenager turned away, hiding his face. "Let's focus on the enemy here and now, before we start playing the 'who would win in a fight' game." he tilted his head, cracking his neck loudly, before marching off towards the deeper forest. "Let's GO!"

"Wait, Luffy!" Django shouted, as the Black Cats quickly scrambled to get their gear together. "Why are you going that way!?"

"Eh?" Luffy turned back, a confused expression on his face. "We flew through the air, didn't we?"

"Uh…" Django paused. "Yeah…?"

"And we flew straight. The bow was facing forward most of the time."

"Well, we were kind of inside the hold of the ship at the time, so I wouldn't know, but… probably?"

"Then it's obvious!" Luffy pointed at the stern of the ship. "All we have to do to get back is follow that direction in a straight line to go backwards!"

Silence. Django glanced about, a blank expression on his face as he met the gaze of one after another pirate. Siam and Butchie stared at each other on hearing the words.

"..."

"What?"

"Nothing." Django shrugged. "Sounds reasonable to me."

A muttering chorus of 'yep, yep's, 'mm-hm's and 'that's smart' rumbled, as the Black Cats nodded in agreement. Siam folded his arms on the ship and nodded, a soft 'not bad' expression on his face.

"Then it's settled!" Luffy grinned happily. "Let's GO!"

"MARCH, YOU SALTLICKERS! AOWWW!"

"Where the hell is everyone?" Zoro grumbled, hand resting on the hilt of Wado Ichimonji lightly as he wandered through the forest. "They all get lost or something?"

His foot tapped against a wooden protrustion, and he glanced at the offending impediment. His eyes narrowed at the sight of an unusual stunted tree, with a bulbous protrusion from the side. "Heh… it looks like Usopp's - Wait. didn't I see that tree a little while ago?"

After a moment, he shrugged and continued onward into the forest. "Ah, well. They can't have flown too far. Bet they already found the fishmen." He grinned. "I wonder if there's a fishman swordsman… I want to fight somebody like that, now…"

"Hey. Get up already."

Gin's eyes snapped open instantly as he felt the hand touch his shoulder, and his fingers raced up on instinct to snap around the elbow and pull the offender's face close enough to gouge out their eyes.

His automatic reflex came to a halt when instead of exposed flesh, he felt the cold smoothness of molded steel. His half-asleep eyes refocused, and met Pearl's gaze evenly. "Pearl."

"Welcome back to the land of the living, Captain." Pearl's arm flexed, pulling the smaller man to his feet in a single motion as he hung off his limb. "Reflexes like polished silver as always, I see."

"You know you don't have to call me Captain when it's just us, Pearl." Gin shook his head, glancing about the spiked main chamber of their floating wreck. "You have more experience leading men than I do." His leg shuddered, and he jostled to the side, gripping tighter around his elbow. "Urgh… how long were we out?"

"Long enough for us to make landfall." Pearl jerked his thumb to the open doorway; through it, a pastoral village against a background of a tall tropical forest was visible. "Apparently the locals call this place 'Gosa'. They're not happy about us being here, because Arlong controls this place too, but they haven't fought us yet."

"Gosa village, huh?" Said Gin, bending down to grip his tonfas. "This the place their runaway navigator lives?"

"Didn't you say that Straw Hat said that was Cocoyashi? That might be further up the coast."

"...Mmm. I did say that. My memory's all jumbled after - whatever that nap was." Gin's wrist flexed, and the cannonball tip was set to spinning about his forearm, as he rested the other arm's weapon on his shoulder. "Well then, Pearl," Gin drawled, "Let's get off this barge and go fuck shit up."

"Aye."

The two stepped out into the sun, revealing most of the crew milling about on the stripped-down metal deck. A few let out a mocking cheer for him, which Gin responded to with a crooked grin and a middle finger. The noonday sun shone down on the picturesque village of Gosa, a collection of tall wooden houses built around a collection of tropical plantations further inland.

"Cute place." Gin remarked. "Looks like one'a the places we'd hit with Krieg." His sunken eyes darted about the roadways, and saw nobody other than a a well-built middle-aged man standing at the edge of their ship. "Pfft. they all ran away and sent the elder out ta negotiate. Typical."

"... Are you the leader?" The village leader called out, his voice only betraying the slightest warble of nervousness.

"Eh…" Gin glanced at Pearl. Pearl nodded, and he turned back. "Yeah, guess you'd call me that. I call shots."

"... Your first mate said you attacked Arlong's palace before washing up here." The village elder continued. "Why?"

"Cuz your kindly overlord has gone and taken somethin' that ain't his." Gin replied. The leader immediately stiffened, and his eyes darted over towards a building in the distance. Gin's eyes narrowed at the tell, but continued. "So my captain - well, admiral, if you really wanna be a stick in the mud about rank-"

"!?"

Gin's eyes narrowed even further at the immediate tension at the word 'admiral' in the village leader. "... So the captain decided that as long as he was here getting his wayward navigator back, he'd thrash the fishman on the side. Ain't we the nicest pirates?"

"... Navigator?" The village leader blinked. "Are - are you here chasing after Nami? Bellemere's daughter?"

"I dunno who Bellemere is, but yeah, Nami's the goal here." Gin folded his arms. "Went and stole the flagship, too, but we got that back already. Know where she is?"

"So you're not after -" he cut himself off.

Gin scowled. "That's the third time you've gone and hid shit from me." He barked. "Now you've pissed me off."

"Ugh!" The leader took an involuntary step backwards, his face going pale.

All across the deck of the World ship, the kriegers perked up, grinning savagely as they man-handled their weapons in a prominent fashion. Gin spun his left tonfa about theatrically before locking it upright, flush against his forearm. "You're gonna tell me what you're hiding by the count of five," He stated, his voice low, "or I'll break every bone in your arms. I'll start with the left, because you look like a righty to me. Ain't I generous?"

"What!?"

"One."

"No, please, it's not like that!"

"Two."

"Look, I'll tell you where Nami is, she's up the coast with Arlong, at this time of day he'll be setting up inspections -"

"Three."

"No-no-no!" The elder shouted, waving his hands wildly in the air. "H-hey, you're here to help Nami, so you're not bad people, but you don't understand-"

Gin stretched down into a runner's pose, ready to leap off the edge at a moment's notice. "Four."

"I CAN'T TELL YOU!" He screamed.

"Well, ain't that a shame." Gin drawled. "Five." His legs tensed-

"DAD!" A boy shouted, bursting along the roads to slam into the elder's side.

"Chabo!?" The man shouted, clutching instinctively around the boy's frame and twisting him away from Gin's sight. "Where's your sister!? You were supposed to stay with her!"

"She's alright! Dad, they're here! They came!" The boy exclaimed, fingers digging into his father's clothes.

"What?" Gin's teeth flashed out as he grimaced, hard. "Who came?"

"CAPTAIN!" A figure shouted from the high-up crow's nest. "Figures rapidly approaching! Maybe two dozen! It's the fishmen!"

"What!?" Gin's head snapped around; the instant he took his eyes off of them, the father snatched up Chabo and dashed away. Gin's head whirled back, eyes alight. "HEY!"

"You'll pay for what you do, demon!" The father shouted. "Blessed Kings drown you!"

"Blessed Kings?!" Gin shouted. "The hell is a human doing using a Fishman-"

Anything else he was going to say disappeared in a shout of agony, as a finger-sized spike of water exploded from the shoreline, shooting right through Gin's body just underneath his collarbone and sending him tumbling across the deck. A second projectile shot forward, aimed directly at Pearl's head, but his gauntlets swung up in front of his face. The blast impacted against them, and the first mate's feet skidded across the deck, but he lowered his hands and revealed he was unharmed.

"HA HA HA!" Pearl laughed, striking a pose as a Turbot fishman burst from the sands, revealing his disguise. "It's useless, even if you try to sneak-attack me! In sixty two battles to the death, I've only lost blood once, and that battle doesn't count because it wasn't actually to the death! I'm the invincible Iron Wall, Pearl!"

"That's them! Those are the ones Mohmoo was attacking!" Shouted a fishman racing down the road, an oversized ax gripped in his hands. "Get them away from the village!"

"You bastards…" Gin growled, pushing himself to his feet as blood dripped from the corner of his mouth, and the fabric of his grey shirt slowly stained red from the gaping hole in his torso. "Kill them all! Gang up, men! We'll turn these fishmen into stir-fry! Arlong dies today!" With a wordless snarl, Gin rushed forward and leaped off the ship, his tonfa spinning wildly. He roared, and brought it down on the wide-bodied Turbot's neck.

"... Nnngh." Sanji groaned, rolling to his back and lifting a hand slowly to his throbbing head. "Dammit…" His palm touched against his forehead, and he let out a sharp hiss of pain as he drew it back, covered in blood. His slowly opened his eyes and glanced to the side, staring at the branch he'd snapped in half on the way down.

"Shit… that hurt." He slowly pushed himself to his feet, looking around his location. He was standing in the middle of a grove of trees, with little light shining through the canopy and even fewer landmarks. "Man, where'd that idiot Luffy send me now?" he muttered, brushing splinters of wood off his suitcoat.

After a moment, he sighed. "Well, no use complaining. Maybe this way I'll come across Nami-san first." A lewd smile grew on his face, and his eyes turned squishy. "Ahhhhh, lovely Nami-swan~! Maybe if I can free you from Arlong first, you'll reward me with a kiss~! UWWOOOOOOOH!" He roared, bursting into a wild sprint at a random direction. "NAMI-SWAAAAAAA-"

Suddenly, He burst through the trees into bright sunlight, and he skidded to a halt on soft grass. "Eh?" His face returned to normal, as he confusedly took in his surroundings.

Lying in front of him was a large cultivated plantation of citrus trees, with fat, ripe fruits hanging from their branches. Far off in the distance, a mid-sized home lay at the edge of the rather large field.

Sanji walked over to the citrus tree, reached up, and plucked a fruit from the branch. "Oranges?" He held it up to his nose and took two quick sniffs. "No… Tangerines." He reached into his pocket and pulled a small folding knife out and began quickly skinning the fruit. With the rind cut away, Sanji bit gently into the fruit; his face lit up in pleasure. "Mmmph… this is good!"

"Hey!" A voice called out. "Get away from our fruit!"

"Eh!?" Sanji flinched, turning his head towards the voice. "Sorry, sorry, I didn't know there was anybody - Fishman!?"

A very large and tall fishman - tall enough that even with his highly pronounced humpback he still towered two heads over sanji - stood at the edge of the orchard, fists raised. "You'll pay for that, you candy-ass!" He shouted, his huge, overly square, chiseled jaw set firmly in a scowl.

"Hnh." Sanji snorted, shifting his weight back into a fighting stance. "I get the feeling this farm doesn't belong to you. We're here to free this island, and I'll start right here!"

"You!" The fishman lunged forward, fist plunging forward.

"Hup!" Sanji leapt to the side, the huge fist whizzing by like a freight train, before dropping to a handstand inside the larger man's belly-range. "Côtelette!" His foot slammed into his ribs. "Sélle!" His other leg swung out, and as sanji twisted about in the opposite direction, his foot impacted into his lower back. The large fishman fell to his knees, gasping, and Sanji leaped up. "Poitrine Shoot!"

With the final kick, the fishman flew backwards, crashing through rows of tangerine trees before coming to an unmoving stop, his pinched face still and unseeing. Sanji lowered his leg, pulled his cigarette from his lips, and exhaled a cloud of smoke. "Five-star service."

"Hey!" Another voice called out.

"Eh?" Sanji turned his head, instantly alert to another attack -

And immediately melted to mush. "Ahhhh! What a beautiful woman~!" He crooned, eyes turning to hearts.

"Did you just do that?" The blue-haired woman exclaimed, pointing at the unconscious fishman slumped against a tangerine tree.

"Yes~!" he exclaimed. The woman scowled, and started walking towards him. "Fear not, my fair lady! We've come to free this island from the tyranny of the fishman! Your gratitude is all I need-!"

THWACK!

Sanji slumped to the ground, unconscious, as the blue-haired woman lowered the hammer gripped in her hand down to her side. "Honestly…" She shook her head, glancing between the two passed-out men. "Why did this have to happen now, of all times…?"

"Man, what is this forest?" Zoro lifted his hand to stare upwards at the sun worming through the canopy. "I've been walking for ages and I'm still not out. It's huge…"

He lowered his hand down, only to flinch at a sight out of the corner of his eye. There was a stunted tree, with a bulbous protrusion that looked like an elongated nose. "... I'm getting really tired of seeing all these different trees with noses." He remarked irritatedly. With a flash of movement, his Wado swung out and chopped the nose off the tree, and slid back into its' sheath. "The others are probably in the middle of fighting already. Gotta get out of this giant forest quick." With that, he took off into a sprint.

With a hard, panicked thump in his chest, Kuro startled back to consciousness. He quickly willed his body to stillness, as it became immediately clear he was in a somewhat soft bed that wasn't his own, and the muted rumble of life passed through what sounded like wooden walls. His eyes stayed closed, and his chest was forced into a facsimile of restful breathing.

Beyond some barrier - perhaps a door - the sound of footsteps slowly pattered across tiled floor. At the edges of his hearing, an over-loud 'CRACK!' of popping wood sounded out. A fire, but controlled. Perhaps a cooking oven.

After a moment of thought, he cracked a singular eye open. His glasses were gone, but even then, he could tell he wasn't in any kind of cell, but a rustic home. His gloves was missing, but he could see, from the corner of his eye if he leaned just so, a similarly shining tool hidden behind what looked like an oversized chest. Two doors were visible, one leading outside, and one leading further in; an open frame led behind a partial wall into another section of the house.

With slow, deliberate, soft movements, he slid himself out of the bed and padded to his feet. By his bedside, his glasses sat upon a nightstand, which he quickly snatched up and replaced on his face. Remaining silent, he snatched the hidden weapon, a rather plain sabre, and passed it between his hands to test it's weight before settling it into his off-hand. As silent as was possible, Kuro crept to the door where the sounds of life were, exhaled softly, and burst through.

"Wha-" the man shouted, lifting the two plates in his hands as if trying to defend himself, but Kuro was too quick, and the man was shoved against the wall with the sabre at his throat. "Ghhh!"

"You're not a fishman." Kuro deadpanned. "And I did not wake up in bondage. That's two points in your favor, and why I didn't run you through the moment I stepped through the door. But I am on an island occupied by a force I just bombarded without my weapons. Give me one more reason to not kill you with your own sword."

"Ghhhhhh…" The man hissed, his throat throbbing. Kuro pulled the sabre edge away, ever so slightly. "I-it's illegal to have weapons on this island." The man rasped, trying to modulate his speech so as to move his throat as little as possible. "And today's inspection day. They would have found you and killed you if I hadn't brought you here."

Kuro stared at him, and then down at the weapon in his hand. "Admitting to me in the process that I could have you executed by the occupation for knowing your secret." With a single smooth motion, the blade was lifted away from him, and the man - who Kuro now noticed was covered head-to-toe in deep scars - gasped loudly and rubbed at his throat with the back of his hand. "Where are my claws?"

"B-behind the oven." He gasped, quickly pulling himself together. Kuro quickly walked over to the stone oven, reached behind, and snatched the two gloves up. "Wanted to try and not let you do what you just did if you woke up weird."

"A life lesson, then, to not startle a dangerous man." Said Kuro. He quickly glanced at the shattered nubs on his left-hand glove, the scoffed and threw it into the trash. "Useless, now. Don't know why I kept it this long. Who are you, where am I, and where is the rest of my crew?"

"You're in my house, in Cocoyashi village." The scarred man replied; Kuro's eyes widened, slightly. "My name is Genzo, the sheriff. And I have no idea where your crew is, because I found you alone."

"I'm in Cocoyashi Village…" Kuro murmured. "Then you're part of the reason I and my companions came here in the first place. Consider this the last day of your occupation by Arlong."

"What!?" Genzo shouted. "But- Why!?"

"Arlong made an enemy of someone he REALLY didn't want to make an enemy of." He replied, with a crooked bloodthirsty smile. "Monkey D. Luffy decided that he wasn't going to share his navigator with any pirate crew other than his own."

"Navigator? You don't mean…" Genzo's eyes widened. "You're the ones that Nami stole that ship from, aren't you?"

"You know her, then?"

"I've known her since she was a baby. Her, her sister, and her mother." Genzo anxiously paced back and forth across the kitchen floor, placed the two plates next to another pair on a table, and plucked a hat - with, strangely enough, a pinwheel stuck on it - from a peg and placed it on his head. "They weren't blood-related, but they were a happy family, until Arlong came. Now all they have left of their mother is her tangerine farm."

He turned back too Kuro, a suddenly angry look on his face. "You IDIOTS! Do you know what that girl has gone through, all these years? The suffering that she's had to put up with to try and save us on her own!? And now, you just show up out of nowhere and decide to blow it all to smithereens and pluck her from the scrap, when she was so close to done -"

"I won't even counter your argument," Kuro quickly interjected, "Because I didn't make the decision and I also don't know what you're referring to."

"Tch." Genzo scowled. "You pirates are no better than the Marines, then. 'Just show up and start shelling the island, that'll fix the problem!' Hah! Like that does anything to a - a thing that can take a cannonball to the face and shrug it off, or an octopus that knows what you're going to do before you do it." He gestured at the blade still clutched in his off-hand. "I can't even use that sword to skewer Arlong through the heart. I'd shatter it to pieces on the first strike against his skin. I've seen it happen."

Kuro rocked backwards on his feet, eyes widening. "That… that doesn't sound like regular fishman powers." His eyes drifted to the side. "That power that Luffy had, when we fought… 'know what I'm going to do before I do it'..." His gaze flicked back up. "And it certainly doesn't match any information about Arlong from a decade ago."

"And how would you know?"

"My name is Captain Kuro, of the Black Cat Pirates." Genzo's eyes widened. "I serve under Monkey D. Luffy, of the Straw Hat Pirates, now, as we sail for the Grand Line."

"I remember your name. Weren't you-"

"Yes, yes, I faked my death, moving on." Kuro quickly said, cutting him off. "Point being, I sailed around the same time as Arlong, before he conquered these islands. He was just another splinter crew from Fisher Tiger after he died; he didn't have any of these kinds of powers." his eyes narrowed. "... Which would imply that he got these powers during the decade he never stepped foot off of these islands. You don't happen to have any World Government research facilities on these islands, do you?"

"What?" said Genzo, his face twisting with confusion.

"Yes, I thought not. Not Underworld, either. Marines would have noticed them going to a priority target like this. Which means…" Kuro glanced over at Genzo, and gently pushed his glasses pushed his glasses further up the bridge of his nose with his palm. "Tell me everything about what has happened on this island since Arlong took over. Including, but not limited to, how Arlong began shuttling fishman pilgrims across the East Blue."

Genzo's face suddenly went carefully blank. "What about pilgrims?" he asked, affecting nonchalance. Kuro rolled his eyes.

"Please, don't insult my intelligence by pretending you don't know about them. You would have noticed a string of fishman travellers not with Arlong's crew passing-" Kuro immediately stopped talking, biting off his sentence. His eyes flickered back through the door.

"... Something wrong?" Genzo asked, quietly.

"... Arlong has you paying taxes on your lives for near a decade." Kuro murmured, eyes flicking about. "But you still seem well off. You're defending the pilgrims through playing innocent. The bed I was placed in was in the main hall and not a bedroom, implying a guest bed. You were setting a table for four, implying two that aren't here." Genzo's eyes widened, and stepped back almost reflexively. "You hate Arlong and defend Nami, but you also defend one of Arlong's schemes. Conclusion: you're being aided by the pilgrims too. But corruption is unlikely, because you admit death-sentence crimes to strangers. The other possibility -" Kuro stopped, and a thin smile spread on his face. "Ah. You're servicing the pilgrims, and make money from them. They've become an integral part of your economy in order to stay alive. You think we're going to hurt them if we continue against Arlong, and put all your lives at risk because you think we will fail."

"... You're a damned smart one, aren't you?" Genzo sighed, slumping.

"That's my job on the crew." Kuro folded his arms carefully. "Now, tell me."

"... The first ones arrived around a year after Arlong conquered us." Genzo began. "They tried to not get caught by him, but they did. After that, they kept coming, using this place as a stopover. We didn't know about their religion for a while - they REALLY tried to keep it a secret, and we don't even know most of it - but their money for supplies kept a lot of us from getting killed, so we tolerated them as travelers. Then Arlong got in on it."

"The protection business?"

Genzo nodded. "It kept going like that, for a year or two… but after that, something changed. I don't know what it was, but Arlong started getting…" He looked away. "Erratic."

Kuro slowly cocked his head to the side. "How so?"

"He… he started offering us ways to lower our tax burden." Genzo scratched the back of his head. "He'd show up in the middle of town every once in a while with a group of fishpeople, or sometimes merpeople, and say that whoever fed and housed them for an arbitrary period would have their life-price slashed."

Kuro's eyebrow arched high. "Then, those places you're setting… you're housing two of them yourself?"

"... Children." Said Genzo, looking away. "Brother and sister. Cute little tykes. Was assigned them two years ago. They're out playing now."

"... But that's not all, is there?" Kuro asked, leaning forward. "If it was, you'd just think it a miracle on high to not have to pay as much for your life as a human."

"...He also started the inspections." Genzo pulled down the collar of his shirt, to expose a dark tattoo across his upper chest, a flowing, alien script that Kuro had never seen before. "Every two weeks, he sends one of his damn mind-readers into every single village on the island and interrogates people. You stand there naked like cattle and have to rattle off the shit they make you memorize. If you fail even once, they kill you on the spot."

Kuro's eyes widened.

"I've seen them walk through this place hundreds of times," Genzo murmured, eyes tightly shut, "And they'll just see someone walking down the street and run him through right there. They don't even care about the money anymore. It's all about fear." His hand dropped from his collar. "I'm not Genzo the sheriff to them. I'm Cocoyashi Villager four-five-nine-four. And if I ever forget that - literally - they'll kill me."

Kuro stared silently at the man, eyes lidded. "... Erratic, indeed." He said, finally, tone flat. "And yet the marines fight with a take-no-prisoners abandon, again and again. How many have the navy killed during their yearly bombardments?" Genzo looked away. "They've been motivated by something that makes them act just as bad as the perception of Arlong. And I've never known Arlong to throw away money without reason. There's something missing, here, and you know something-"

A loud trumpeting sound sound broke through the air, loud and piercing. Genzo immediately tensed up. "Oh, no! That's Hatchan! He's here to do inspection!"

Kuro moved immediately, rushing to a gated window. With his back to the wall, he cracked it open a fraction, peering out through it. Down the street, an octopus-limbed fishman walked, gripping his own mouth like a trumpet and crowing through it in a single clear note, his Sun Pirate tattoo clear upon his forehead. But walking next to him -

"Nami…" Kuro muttered, eyes narrowed. The woman had changed to a tanktop, and the never-before-seen clothing item revealed the prominent Arlong Pirates tattoo on her shoulder. Her eyes were clear and unworried, a hint of cruelty in them that Kuro had never seen before.

"Tch…" Genzo growled. "That girl came here with him? I thought we were doing a good enough job keeping her away by playacting that we don't know about her plan."

"... So the money she's stealing isn't going to pay for your lives?"

"No. It's a stockpile. She made a promise with Arlong that if she pays him a hundred million beli, she can buy the entire village's freedom. She doesn't know that we know."

Kuro's eyes flicked to Genzo, as outside, a number of humans began to reluctantly shuffle out of their homes and into the street before the two. "Don't you have to go out there?"

"... No." Admitted Genzo. "Anybody who… is assigned a non-human ward is… exempted, unless specifically called out."

"Exempted…?" Kuro's expression flickered with confusion. "A matter of trust like that, for someone who has mind-readers in every village every two weeks…"

"Nyuuu~! Line up!" Hatchan exclaimed. From his side, a large plywood checkerboard was lifted high, as his eyes flickered back and forth between the people. "You all know the rules! Let's all have a quiet inspection today!"

"Oh, come on, Hachi." Nami waved her hand dismissively in the air. "They know better than to rebel. Only idiots don't know you're in charge here!"

Hatchan laughed. "You're so right, Nami-chan! But I still like saying-" His head immediately whipped to the side, his sentence abruptly ended. "Bastard! You can't hide from me!"

"Shit!" Kuro cursed, body flexing to jump away.

"You can't run!" The clipboard dropped to the ground, and Hatchan's hands filled themselves with six sabres, and the octopus lunged forward - over the heads of the people, and towards a shadowy corner of a nearby house.

From that shadow, a young man in nondescript clothes burst, running away with a panicked scream into the street. Hatchan closed the distance easily, until he was nearly on top of the man. The human reached into his side and whipped his hand forward, but in synchronized motion the offending arm was slashed into pieces, and two swords plunged into his chest.

Hatchan flexed his arms, and his arms all pulled away as one and slashed forward in a six-way cross-slash. The man's torso exploded in blood, and he fell to the ground, dead. Somewhere in the crowd of people, a woman screamed.

Usopp walked slowly through the forest, eyes darting back and forth with a nervous intent. "This isn't so bad…!" He said aloud, waveringly, as his fingers clenched down on his slingshot so hard as to turn them white. His free hand held a half-dozen pellets, anxiously bounced in his palm. "This is just like home… there aren't any monsters or wild animals here… this is fine…!"

Behind him and above his head, a bird chirped overly loud, and Usopp let out a shriek behind clenched teeth, before putting a hand to his heart. "It's fine, Usopp… It's just a bird… the giant sea monster can't eat me on land…!" After a moment, he groaned loudly and pulled his hand from his chest and pulled at the skin of his face tiredly. "This is so dumb… some 'brave warrior of the sea' I'm turning out to be…"

He dropped his hand to his side, set his jaw, and pulled his thin arms and shoulders back squarely. "No... ! I will not be afraid of random sounds in a normal forest, just because I was almost eaten by a sea monster!" He thumped his chest. "I AM CAPTAIN USOPP!" he shouted, at the top of his lungs. he began walking forward, arms and legs swinging wildly in front of him in a facsimile of swagger. "I AM THE MAN WHO DEFEATED DON KRIEG! The greatest east blue pirate since Bluejam himself! With a single shot from a thousand yards! I am powerful, and I am fearless!"

After a moment, his posture deflated. "Now if only I could believe that…" He mumbled under his breath. He stepped forward, and maneuvered around an abnormally large tree trunk, and stopped. "Eh? Is that-!?"

He immediately broke out into a sprint, stumbling over his own feet, running closer and closer to the wide gap in the treeline he had spotted, before finally bursting through and into the sunlight. "It is! I finally got out of there!" He exclaimed, wiping at his forehead with a grin. "And there's a village right over there! Maybe I can figure out where the others all went!"

It was only after a brisk-paced walk that Usopp grew close enough to realize that something was wrong. "Wait…" He looked around. "Where is everybody?" He made his way towards the main street and stepped into the road-

And immediately shrieked quietly and ducked back around the corner, as at least a dozen fishmen stood ramrod straight in the center of the town, in front of a horde of humans; men, women and children, all stripped down to their underwear and standing in front of their overlords.

"Whaaaaaaat…?" Usopp breathed, peeking out a single eye from the edge of the house; his nose protruded out a good half-foot past, making his hiding rather useless. "This… this looks super sketchy." He whispered. "I shouldn't do anything. There's a bunch of fishmen; they'd kill me easily. I should just go and find the others. Yeah…" He laughed nervously.

"Yeah… guys, I just found a bunch of people being rounded up by the fishmen. I, uh, I tried to help them. I fought the fishmen, but there - there was just too many. Over fifty! No, a hundred!" His fingers slipped down into his pockets, exchanging his lead pellets for a Ketchup Star. "Look at all this blood. They, uh, got a good hit on me. Ooooh, it hurts… my kidneys… but I'll - I'll be fine! I just need to lay down! You should go and save…"

Usopp's lips pressed together until his dark skin turned white. "What am I doing…?" He ducked back behind the wall, clutching his overalls. I can't… I can't just leave without trying. I am - I am captain Usopp. I can't just rely on the original plan. I have to do something." He reached down to his shoes, slowly slipped them off, and slid them into his bag. With over-exaggerated movements, the sniper began to tip-toe through the dirt behind the houses, until he reached one with a low, sloping roof closer by. He breathed out, jumped, and scrambled up onto the slate tiles, and shimmied to the pointed arch.

"Gurapu Villager! Identify yourself!" Shouted the fishman pirate, clutching a clipboard with a tall sheaf of paper attached to it, standing in front of a middle-aged woman; her two children clutched at her bare legs. Like the rest of the villagers, they wore nothing but their underwear; Usopp could now see that every single human had hyper-prominent black tattoos etched into their skin in places that normal clothes would conceal. The tattoo looked like some kind of strange, wavy language that he had never seen before.

"Gurapu Villager Seven-Five-One, sir." She responded, her voice low but level. The fishman lifted a page on the clipboard, squinted at something, then leaned forward and stared at the tattoo on her skin.

He nodded once and leaned back. "Recite Baseline 751, three."

"And blood-black nothingness began to spin."

"What in the world…?" Usopp whispered, staring incredulously at the woman stating to the fishman what sounded to his ears like complete gibberish.

"And dreadfully distinct against the dark-"

The fishman was suddenly in her face. She flinched back, but only minutely. "What separates you from another human?"

"Distinct."

"Who do you love most on this island?"

"Distinct."

"How do you end up with another man's blood on your hands?"

"Dreadfully."

"What's your most shameful memory in the world?"

"Dreadfully distinct."

The fishman, after a moment of staring at her face, and her not flinching away, leaned back, picked up a pencil, and checked something on the paper. "Hello, Sola." He said, suddenly, with a soft voice completely different from before.

She breathed out, and a small, wobbly smile formed on her face. "Hello, Brin."

The pirate - Brin - gestured to the children clutching her naked legs. "These two hellions giving you any trouble anymore? I heard they were becoming a terror to the tails of housecats."

"Oh, no." Her fingers clenched into the shoulders of the two children. "They… they calmed down. They practice their knots on something else, now."

"That's good." Brin's face hardened, and fiddled with his pencil once more. "Gurapu Villager Seven-Five-One, Dependants A and B, exempted due to age. Family unit cleared. Step back!"

"Scary…!" Usopp shivered, peering over the edge of the rooftop as the three disappeared back into the throng of mostly-naked people. "This is super scary…! How did she not freak out?" He looked about, frantically, before reaching down into his bag. His fingers closed on the wrapped handle of his slingshot. "Should I…? I don't know if they'll make it out or not!"

He shivered, for a moment, then shook his head. "No… no, I have to be brave…! This is just like shooting Krieg. This is just like what Luffy said when we were fighting the Black Cats. Take out the important ones, then go for potshots. Keep barriers in the way… it's not being a coward, if you're still taking shots…!" He pulled out his weapon, loaded a pellet, and took aim at the fishman with a clipboard. Usopp exhaled, softly. And then again. And then once more.

And then he jumped to his feet and pulled the slingshot all the way back to his ear. "SU-"

A large hand, covered in a black leather glove, slapped down over Usopp's mouth, stifling his shout, as another arm wrapped around his arms and torso. Before he could even comprehend what was happening, he was off the roof, and flying through the air into the forest, trapped in a grip of a man with arms like steel bars.

Before he had time to even react, he was released, and Usopp dropped to the ground, slingshot scattering away. "Gahh!" He gasped, clutching his throat dramatically, before turning back to face his abductor. "Hey! What's the big idea!?"

"Greetings, Captain Usopp."

"Eh?" Usopp blinked. "Ah- uh, yes, Captain Usopp, that's me! That's who I am, Captain Usopp. Fearless warrior."

"I applaud your disguise - I wouldn't have recognized you had I not heard you identify yourself in the forest - but initiative is frowned upon when we are nearing the time of action. Though given that I was not informed of your presence here, perhaps you were simply unaware; we have been keeping a tight grip on this."

"Eh - uh - ahahaha, um, yes, of course…?" Usopp laughed nervously. The strange man stood there for a moment, and then folded his arms across his black suit, stretched tightly against his barrel chest.

"If you wish to aid us, though, I have uses for the man who took down Don Krieg - congratulations are in order, by the way, as we had not yet received your report on his detainment. there is one VIP target we have not located as of yet. The attack on Arlong Park by a third party seems to have opened a door that was closed even to me. I have a task for you, now…"

"Rrrrrgh…!" Zoro growled, charging forward, before finally sliding to a stop. "This is ridiculous! This forest can't possibly be this big! I've been running for hours! Somebody is playing games with-"

With a sudden start, his eyes landed on a stunted tree, with a bulbous protrusion from the side - a growth that looked like a nose, only sliced in half. "Wait! That's the -" His eyes widened with the revelation. "AAAAAAAAGH! I'VE BEEN RUNNING IN CIRCLES THIS ENTIRE TIME! NNNAAAAGH!"

His three swords flashed out, and zoro angrily began chopping the tree into pieces. "Stupid- idiotic - Usopp nose looking - TREE!" His attack swung farther, and a number of tall, towering trees began to fall as one. "Haaaagh…" Zoro panted, as the groan of falling wood deafened the otherwise silent forest. "Okay. get a grip. Now is the time to mark my path so I don't-"

The trees thudded to the ground, revealing a brighter patch of the forest. Zoro's eyes widened as he looked through the new gap, and saw a large stone wall, threaded with coral. "Arlong Park!?" He exclaimed. "I've been running in circles for hours when I just had to go twenty feet to the left to reach Arlong Park!?"

Zoro closed his eyes, shutting them hard enough to wrinkle his forehead; an angry vein throbbed. "... Nobody must ever learn about this. Ever." He shook his head, recentered himself, and began walking to the park -

"HUNDRED BRICK BLACK FIST!"

Without any warning, a massive section of tree exploded. The pulped remains flew through the air like they had been fired from a shotgun, slamming into Zoro's side, sending him flying. He let out a wordless exclamation of pain as he hit the ground and tumbled. Overhead, the creaking and groan of falling lumber forced him to look up. A tree was accelerating to the ground, ready to crush him under its weight.

"SHIT!" Zoro rolled frantically to the side until his foot kicked against another tree. With a final groan, the tree landed, sending up a cloud of dirt and greenery. The swordsman quickly stumbled to his feet, clutching his side. His hand came away red; the wooden shrapnel blast had punctured his side many times.

"Hmm?" A voice called out, as Kuroobi stepped around the stump of the tree he had felled with a single punch. "You're not who I expected to find, Pirate Hunter Zoro. You're with the invaders, aren't you?"

"I don't need to answer a question from a dead man, do I?" Zoro retorted, as he tied his bandana across his forehead.

"Hoh. A brave fool." Kuroobi smirked, settling into a firm Kata, as Zoro pulled his three swords from their sheaths. "If you're as strong as that straw-hat boy, then this might be a fight worth my while."

"You didn't fight Luffy." Zoro said, around the sword in his mouth. "If you had, you'd be dead."

"You underestimate the power our purgatory has granted us." Said Kuroobi. He clenched his outstretched fist, and turned black as pitch with the flex of his muscles, the sheen disappearing underneath the flowing cloth of his long-sleeved gi. "You're not the first. You won't be the last."

"Hnf." Zoro charged. The two nameless blades in his hands swung forward. "ONI…!"

"BLACK HUMOR PALM BOMB!" Kuroobi's hand shot forward, slamming into the two blades in his hands at the point where their movement crossed each other -

And instantly shattered the both of them to pieces. Zoro only had a single instant to be shocked before the attack slammed into his face. The green-haired swordsman went flying, slamming through the trunk of a tree. Instead of stopping him, the tree broke in half, and Zoro continued onwards, until he slammed into the next one. The tree stood firm and broke his movement, and Zoro slumped to the ground. Wado fell from the grip of his loose teeth, and blood began to flow from the shards of his broken swords impaled in his chest.

"What?" Kuroobi blinked, staring at the man in abject disbelief. "Was… was that it? Are you serious? You're with the straw-hat boy, but that was all it took?"

"... Nnnnngh…!" Zoro weakly lifted a hand to his chest, patting at the sticky blood on him. His fingers clenched on a shard and pulled. Blood spurted, his clenched fist fell to the ground, and Zoro's head slumped limply to the side.

"Oh, the ISLANDS~ In the SOUTH~ are WARM~"

"And their heads get really hot~ AOW!"

"They grow-a Pineapples! They grow-a Coconuts!"

"AND THEY'RE ALL IDIOTS~~!" the Black Cats shouted as one, led in their marching tunes by a happily grinning Luffy. "Oh, I LOVE this song!" Django exclaimed, throwing his hands wide. "I've had more fun with you in charge than I've had in YEARS!"

"Shishishishishi!" Luffy laughed, holding aloft a vaguely sword-like branch he'd plucked from the forest floor in lieu of the cutlass he had lost against Mihawk. "Second verse! Ready~? OH, the ISLANDS~ in the NORTH~ are-"

His joyful singing came to an abrupt halt, along with his marching. Django, immediately catching the shift in the mood, held up a hand to stop the procession of pirates. "Something amiss, captain?" He asked.

"... We went the wrong way." Luffy replied, quietly.

"Eh!?" Django exclaimed, startling back dramatically, his face full of shock. "Really!? But we were going the same direction the entire time! And it totally made sense when you talked about a straight line from the stern- but wait, what if the boat spun around in the pond, so the stern was pointing in the wrong-"

"Never mind that." Luffy shook his head; his eyes had lost their shine. "There's something I need to see up ahead with my eyes, and not just my senses." He started forward again, silent, but full of determination. The Black Cats, after a moment of hesitation, quickly followed.

The group moved through the thick forest, dodging between the tall trees… until suddenly, they weren't. The shadows of the canopy gave way, revealing the shattered bones of what used to be a human village, now nothing more than a pile of rubble.

Luffy's fists clenched, and his nails bit into the flesh of his palms until they bled. "Arlong…!"

Django whistled. "Looks like a mighty fine battle took place here, captain. Must have shelled this place for hours to turn a place this big into junk."

Luffy, after a moment, tilted his head to Django. "Shelling? No. Arlong did this."

The hypnotist looked at the straw-hat, confused. "Beg pardon, captain-"

"Django, you can call me Luffy."

"Well then, beg pardon, Luffy, but unless Arlong's got a cluster of ships with standard marine explosive ordnance stashed somewhere - when everybody knows that he tore up his own ship to build Arlong Park - then this wasn't done by mortal hands." Django folded his arms. "I've been around long enough to know what a marine broadside looks like. I've been on the receiving end more than once."

"You're wrong. Arlong did this." Luffy shook his head, nostrils flaring.

"And how do you know that?"

"Because I know it."

"That's not an answer, Luffy!"

"It is! Arlong did it because I KNOW he did it!"

"How'd he do it, then!?"

"With his bare hands! And that giant sea cow!"

"Then tell me-" Django reached down and picked up a piece of scrap. "How a giant sea cow did THAT?" He brandished the splintered and broken piece of wood like an accusation, pointing at it's head - the charred and burnt head. "Does the sea cow breathe fire, now?"

Luffy stared at the piece of wood like it was a live snake.

"I'm going to take a page from captain Kuro and make a few guesses here, now!" Django continued, waggling the plank wildly. "I'll bet that if you go out there in that big blue ocean you're gonna find sunken marine ships - because if they WEREN'T sunk by Arlong, then most of the other villages on this island would be scrapped like this one, too! I know you want your cute redhead navigator back on the crew, but you're acting like that fishman is a sea devil incarnate!"

"That's - but he's - she's not - I mean, yeah, I guess she is, but that's not -" Luffy cut himself off, and his face hardened into a stoic glare. "You're out of line, Django."

"Prove me wrong and you'll never see me again. I'll stay right here on this island and hand the good captain back his ship." Django responded. All around him, the lesser members of the Black Cats fidgeted nervously, too afraid to speak. "I don't think I am, though. You've got a bee up your ass about this fishman, and you're not thinking clear anymore. You're not acting like the man captain Kuro sees as an equal right now."

Luffy remained silent, staring into Django's eyes hidden behind his heart-shaped glasses. The silent battle of wills continued, before Luffy finally scoffed and looked away. "No wonder you got that big-body guy demoted from lieutenant to seaman."

"What was that?"

"Nothing." He stepped forward, lunging into a runner's pose. "I'll take your bet."

With those words, Luffy exploded into motion, leaping over the old and dilapidated ruins of an entire village, soaring through the air. His hands positioned out in front of him pointedly, his body crossed over the point where the beach met the sea, and plunged into the ocean in a perfect dive.

He pushed through the clear, crystalline water without any resistance, his head on a swivel. "Let's see if we can't find any of these ships Django thinks exists. Roger, can you-" Luffy cut himself off, scowling. "Dammit. I finally get rid of him after all the things he's done to piss me off over the years, and now I feel like I'm missing my own shadow."

Luffy slowly closed his eyes, and focused. His Kenbunshoku Haki activated, and where before he had only his five senses, now his mind saw more. After only a moment, his eyes shot wide open. "No way…!"

He burst off into a spiralling motion, faster than any olympic swimmer could dream of moving, until he came to a halt nearly a league away from shore. Underneath him, the collapsed wreckage of three different marine warships lay on the seabed, broken and rotten. "The marines really were the ones that destroyed the village…" Luffy murmured. "I mean, I already knew that they were assholes, but they didn't do any of that before. They barely even attacked Arlong Park, let alone one of the villages he controlled. Nezumi was the one who-"

He came up short. "... Where is Nezumi?" He asked aloud, to nobody in particular. "I'm a week late because of being sick, and Nezumi showed up the day I did the last time. He should have been here by now, trying to steal Nami's money. But he's not." An uncomfortable feeling in his gut formed, like his intestines were tying themselves into knots. "Where's Nezumi? This isn't right. Kuro said something earlier about Nezumi being in the papers. Where is-"

A sudden glimmer struck the corner of his eye, and without thought he turned to face it. Deep down, near the wreckage, the sun from above the water's surface passed over a structure that he hadn't noticed before. Luffy, without giving himself time to consider, swam downwards. The closer he got, the further his eyes widened, until he reached its level. With a slightly shaking hand, he reached out, and traced his fingers across the stone obelisk, threaded through the rock with red and white coral. A flowing, alien script threaded it's way across the top of the stone.

"Kaienreki 1544… May seventh…" Luffy murmured, eyes tracing across the script. "... to mark where they have rejoined the Three-In-One... Drift to the shoals that are known to the Kings-Who-Are-Gods… May our sorrow be marked only here, and in the secret hearts always known to God Poseidon..." his fingers traced downward, away from the ritual words of mourning, and across what he knew would be carvings of faces. Underneath the words came the gills of stone, and frills and coral, that marked the Sepulchre carving of a dead fishman.

His fingers traced further, and he stopped. They felt about again. No gills, no fins. No distorted figure. His eyes shot downward. There, underneath his hand, was the face that was unmistakably that of a small, human boy.

End of Chapter 13, Remastered.

Notable Remastering changes:

Everything.

Author's Notes:

You know, when I plotted this arc out in advance, I thought that this chapter would go a lot faster than it did. Having to switch between so many divergent perspectives slowed me down a little bit. I should try and bunch people up a little bit more in the future. I do like how it turned out, though, for the most part. I was able to work in more humor, which I've felt has been a little bit lacking in the past few chapters, what with all the 'explanations of rules of magic' and 'flashbacks to the reason things went pear-shaped' and 'protagonists that are not in a healthy emotional state' making things dark. Need to stop talking about dead people for a while and make a few fart jokes or something, let the edginess fade to become much more in-line with One Piece's real light-hearted tone.

I wonder if any of you clever clever people can parse out the exact mystery behind what I've done with Arlong Park, now. I've given a few major hints, but unless you make some extremely good leaps of logic, the earliest I expect somebody to be able to guess what I have planned is next chapter.

Poor Zoro. the past few chapters have just not been kind to him, constantly getting one-shot. It's not usually him that's on the receiving end of the Worf effect. I'll need to make it up to him, somehow.

Some of you actually thought I was being needlessly edgy with the 'if the sun was always shining' line from last chapter's author's note for the sake of being edgy. I actually wasn't; it's a line from a song called Bilgewater, from a band called Brown Bird. It's about determination, and grit, and being able to power through no matter what kind of bullshit life dumps on your lap. I think it's rather inspiring, in it's own way.

We're into the New Year, now. Happy 2019, everybody. This is the year that I had set for my initial goal of having all 31 chapters of this story rewritten by the end of. I hope I can make that goal. If not, I'll have to hope you can wait until 2020 for a brand new chapter covering new topics. Send me your energy, friends.

Thank you for reading my story.

The Animaniac Dude

P.S. Nothing has made me more unhappy about something really petty than learning that FF net doesn't support unicode text. If it did, then Sanji's text would have been nothing but unicode heart emojis as soon as he saw Nojiko. Makes me bitterly unhappy.