Not Pirates, Treasure Hunters

Part 4 of 4 in a saga

A One Piece Fanfiction by Aoikami Sarah

Chapter Twenty Five - What Do We Do Now, Captain?

After the relative disappointment of Jaya, the crew got back on board the Ferris and resumed the treasure hunt, heading for Water 7. They set off that morning after camping out on shore. Sakura prescribed some stretches to Iisopp who complained of a stiff back from sleeping on the hard ground. Jones teased him about spending the whole night trying to wiggle closer to his sister and Chisa scolded Jones, again. Taka let a soft, tired laugh escape. Chanson noticed this as she was absently staring at the crew and putting her hair up in two folded-over pigtails. She smiled and stepped closer to the ninja. She hid her mouth behind her hand as she lit a cigarette. "You're rather emotional lately…" Chanson commented.

Taka's smile fell. "Leave me alone."

The singer realized how off-putting that must have sounded and pouted. "Sorry. I'm not teasing you. Are you ok?"

Taka's brows came together and she stared into Chanson's green eyes. She remembered how Chanson's father Sanji had tried to comfort her back in Arabasta. His daughter looked quite a good deal like him (save the curly eyebrow) and the gesture was so similar in sentiment that it took her by surprise. This time, she relented. "A little homesick I guess, is all. You see, I'm from Palast."

Chanson couldn't hide her surprise. She opened her mouth to comment on how much she had liked visiting the autumn island when she went as a child but suddenly the world went away and she found herself inside a waking dream.

x.x

The light was similar: late morning and partly cloudy. The deck was perhaps three times as wide as that which she had been standing on, but it didn't seem she was standing on anything, rather floating somewhere at eye-level. There was a group of men, pirates by the look of them, around two other men. One was a gorgeous young man with dark shaggy hair and a half-open white shirt. He had a wide smile and sparkling black eyes. His friend was older. He had pink hair like Chanson's mother Harmony; full-bodied and curly unlike her own straw-like locks inherited from Sanji. He wore a sailor suit of white and tapped his foot to a beat. He sang a sea-shanty with a medium tempo.

"Whiskey here, whiskey there,
Whiskey almost everywhere!

Whiskey up and whiskey down,
Whiskey all around the town!

Whiskey killed me poor old dad.
Whiskey drove me mother mad!

My wife and I do not agree
She puts whiskey in her tea!"

In his hands he held a flute, but rather than put it to his lips, the pink-haired singer held it out at arms length and worked the keys. It played as if the wind itself were bending to pass over the mouthpiece. The dark haired young man clapped his hands to the beat and watched the flute carefully. He laughed when the notes didn't come out quite right. The men around them clapped along and stared wide-eyed at the spectacle. When it was over they cheered and clapped and patted both men on the back before going back to their jobs on the ship.

"Great job, Vincent!" the pink haired man took the flute in one hand and clapped Vincent on the back himself.

"When I know the song it's a lot easier!" he said. "I know when to stop passing the air over the mouthpiece. That song's a little too fast, though, Richard."

"Ah, if only I could control more than one instrument at once," Richard said, pocketing the flute. "With your help of course. We could make beautiful music together!" Vincent gave the pink haired sailor-suited man a funny look. "In a… completely platonic sense, of course."

"Of course!" he smiled. "I'll take any chance…" he said and his body swirled away in a whirlwind, reappearing on the man's other side. "To improve my Akuma no Mi ability."

Richard sighed. "You make me so jealous sometimes. To have the ability to lose yourself in the wind must be the greatest feeling in the world," he said as they walked toward the galley.

"'Lose yourself'," Vincent quoted. "That is a danger. Sometimes I feel like I could just disappear. Pick up with the next storm and be gone." Vincent held a hand up and forced the air to blow at them from all directions of the compass and up, raising their hair. In a moment, Richard lost his footing on the deck and was pushed a few inches into the air. Gently, Vincent used his power to put the startled musician back down. "Just like that."

Richard looked a bit ruffled but ran a hand through his curly hair and adjusted the collar and tie of his sailor suit. "Wow," he said quietly. Vincent seemed to be waiting for a negative comment and watched Richard carefully. "Imagine how many flutes you could power with that!" He smiled at his friend and crewmate and went into the galley before him.

Vincent shook his head, smiled as well and followed.

x.x

"Hello?" Taka asked, waving her hand in front of Chanson's face. The singer blinked a few times and stared at Taka for a moment as if she were a total stranger. "Are you ok?"

"Yes." Chanson said, coming to her senses. The ship moved further away from the Jaya coast. "Where's Jones?"

.x.

At that same moment in the vicinity of Water 7, a storm was brewing to the east. The island-city's mayor put a telescope to his eye and peered out at the horizon. "Shit, that storm looks like Aqua Laguna!" he observed.

"Wrong time of year for that, Pauly-san!" a young woman at his side piped.

"Ah. You're right, Chimney." he said, casually handing his beautiful green-haired assistant the telescope. "It's headed out, anyway. Man, I'd hate to be a sailor stuck in the middle of that monster!"

.x.

Chisa looked up at the black clouds that seemed to be racing toward them from the west. As she coiled a large rope on the deck, she pouted and turned to her brother. He was eyeing the same sky and absently looping rope on a cleat. "Nii-chan…"

"Yeah. I see it."

"Looks bad," she said, finishing her job and turning to face the darkness.

"Is bad. My head is killing me," Jones said, rubbing his thumb against the bridge of his nose. "Pressure's dropping. Get Iisopp and Taka on reefing the sails. We may have to drop anchor but I want to see what these winds will do."

Their resident ninja appeared behind him, startling both siblings. Chisa laughed and asked her to do it again. "What do you mean, drop anchor?" Taka asked crossly.

Jones listened to her, but was busy readying for the storm. "If we can't keep sailing, I'd rather not risk having the ship pushed back and dashed to bits against Jaya's rocky coastline!" Across the deck, Chisa and Iisopp scurried up the rigging to take the sails they had only put up a few hours ago back down. "Where's Sakura? Have him heave us to. We'll make it through the wind that's coming if we're pointed at it."

"Jones!" Chanson called as she saw him head for cabins. He didn't turn around. "Hey, I'm talking to you!"

"And I'm trying to save our lives!" he barked back. The wind chose just then to pick up and blow the singer's ponytails around her face. She turned and looked at the blackening sky in surprise.

Taka stomped past her. "Come on. We should make sure everything's nailed down."

The singer cursed but noting that some of the galley supplies hadn't been put away yet she hurried to do just that. She could hear Jones curse as he searched for Sakura. Chanson grew nervous and left Taka to batten the hatches herself. She found Sakura grasping the side of the ship which had started to toss in the building waves. "Fanboy!" she called. "Jones is looking for you."

He looked up. His face was the color of his grey-green tee-shirt.

"Oh, fantastic. The doctor is seasick," she groaned and heaved a sigh. Chanson turned and ran to the wheel. "Jones! How do you do this?!" she shouted.

He was surprised to see her there and jogged toward her. "Actually, Chan-chan, it's gonna be ugly out here. Can you make us up something hot? Soup, coffee, something like that?"

She crossed her arms. "Trying to annex the bimbo to the kitchen?"

Jones blinked at her. "No. Trying to get our chef to make our crew some grub and raise moral. It'll help get us through the storm."

"Oh." She was totally disarmed by his honesty. "When you're done with this," she motioned to the chaos on the deck. "I need to talk to you."

"Ok." Jones jogged off to help his sister who was clinging perilously from the main mast and flapping in the wind like a flag.

.x.

Under brilliant blue skies McRae and Vaughn's dial-propelled ship chugged along due East. McRae fished off the stern and Vaughn reclined under the shade of the cabin's overhanging roof. "Catch anything yet?" she asked for the fifth time.

"If yer so hungry, eat some of those disgusting rations you brought," McRae grumbled back, also fairly displeased with not being able to catch anything while moving.

"I don't wanna eat it, you dern fool. I want to suck it!"

He turned his head and shot her a disgusted look.

Vaughn rolled her eyes. "Not like that. I want energy!" She stretched out her hands and made a grabbing motion to illustrate this. "I hate being old, don't you?"

McRae turned back to his fruitless fishing. "I've made my peace with my seniority. You should too, Van-chan. Even with that ability of yours." She scoffed at him but they were both distracted when McRae's line suddenly went taught. "Holy cow," he exclaimed and stood up. "It's a whopper!" Excitedly, Vaughn got up and stood beside him. The line reeled out until there was nothing left then pulled McRae down, threatening to suck the Akuma no Mi user into the drink.

"Hang on, Angus!" Vaughn cried and tried to hold on to him.

"What do you think I'm tryin' to do?!" he shouted back.

The creature giving them the trouble crested the surface with a whoosh of water, spraying the two elderly sailors. A long, scalloped yellow shape with two large, black eyes on either side nearly touched their noses and a maw full of spiny razor-sharp teeth grinned up at them.

"Boo!" the shark said.

The two elderly sailors stared at it, transfixed for a moment as if they had both had simultaneous heart attacks. Vaughn was the first to recover. "God dammit, Kihi! Don't do that!!"

The hammerhead shark-man giggled and grabbed on to the stern to let the dials which bubbled on either side of him pull him along leisurely. "Howzit, Mcrae! How you stay?" He grinned, showing off his smallish, but deadly looking teeth under his wide skull again.

"Fine…" McRae looked cross, but also wary of the shark-man.

"Wadda scoops? You going Tiburon, yeah?"

"We got the message from Captain Bolly and we're headed back, yes. We are on course, aren't we?"

"Yah, brah, but the surf ewa of Mizu Nana stay bamboocha. You shoulda seen da waves. Da buggah wuz pumpin'!"

Vaughn scrunched up her nose and squinted at him. "Angus, what the devil is he saying?"

"He says there's one heck of storm west of Water Seven." McRae rubbed the back of his head. "Well, thanks, Kihi. We'll avoid it and arrive at Tiburon in about a week. Tell Bolly-san when you get there we're on our way."

The shark-man called Kihi smiled again. "K-den, I going hele. Aloha, Brah!" he chimed and splashed back into the water and swam under the boat and into the distance.

The two humans let out a sigh. "I still can't get used to shark-men being nice to us." Vaughn said, sitting back down under the shade.

"As long as Bolly-san is alive, they won't bother us." McRae looked at his fishing pole in disgust. "I just hope we're far from any of them when and if Bolly-san dies."

Vaughn scoffed. "I hope I die before you do, at least."

"Oh?" he asked, brightening.

"You're the only one besides Bolly-san who can translate!"

"Oh…"

.x.

The storm hit. Rain and high winds wracked the Ferris and it pitched and rolled violently. Sakura confined himself to the bathroom when he wasn't languishing in his berth in the men's cabin with his seasickness. Chanson served everyone else miso soup and rice with genmaicha tea (Sakura was given saltine crackers and some ginger ale). After changing his mind three times due to the ever-changing winds, Jones decided to spend a few quiet hours and wait for the storm to clear out.

It didn't.

Jones paced across the galley floor and everyone watched him. Sakura simply listened, his head on his folded arms, his stomach still fighting the rolling of the ship.
"Alright, Jones. How's it look?" Iisopp asked as he leaned against the wall, his legs splayed to keep balance as the ship tossed fiercely. "It's been six hours and the storm seems to only be getting worse."

Chisa nodded. "It is getting worse, isn't it Nii-chan?" she asked, looking up from her spot on the floor.

"It isn't getting any better."

Taka scoffed. "Welcome to the Grand Line. Weird stuff happens all the time. The weather can change in an instant and it can tear ships apart if it wants to."

Jones continued to pace. "No. It's not the weather. Storms swirl, sure, but this…" he headed for the door and stuck his head outside. The wind blew the rain in and Chanson shivered. Everyone was surprised when Jones stepped outside and closed the door behind him. When he returned a few minutes later, soaked to the bone, his face was screwed up with concentration but he said nothing.

Iisopp stepped toward him, balancing his weight as he did against the pitch of the ship as if he were riding a horse. "What do we do now, captain?"

"I'm not the captain. You are."

"I own the boat. You're clearly a better leader than I am." Iisopp's mouth curved into a grin. "You know what's going on out there. What do we do?"

Jones pursed his lips. "The storm is wicked, but it seems we're stuck. I checked the current against the log pose an hour ago and the ship just keeps turning around. We can't ride this storm any more or who knows where we'll get to, if we don't end up getting sucked to the bottom of the ocean."

"Are you serious?!" Chanson cried.

"Unfortunately so."

"So what do we do?!"

He paused and looked to each face in the room, except Sakura, who seemed to be asleep. "Iisopp, you take the fore-mast. Chisa and Chanson will take the main-mast and Taka and I'll hop on the mizzen-mast and I'll try my best to navigate you through."

Taka made a face at him. "Then who's on the wheel?"

"I'll have to lash it down and we'll use the sails to steer with," he explained.

The sound of a chair moving across the floor drew their attention as Sakura stood. "Jones may take the wheel as he ought to. I'll assist Taka." His head hung low and his eyes searched the floor as if looking for stable ground.

Iisopp raised a brow. "You sure about this, Doc?"

Sakura took a deep breath. "You gotta do what you gotta do, right?" he asked, looking up with a sort of queasy smile. Jones clapped him on the shoulder and grinned. Together, the crew headed out into the storm to do their best.

Jones barked commands through the wind that were communicated from one mast-crew to the other as the weather dictated to him which way to steer. Hour after hour flew by with no change in the fierceness of the storm and the underlying current. Sakura seemed to find his groove, pulling the rigging and concentrating on something other than his stomach. After nearly nine hours of constant struggle, Iisopp shouted something that Jones could only just make out. Chisa heard him and shouted to Taka who shouted it to the captain. "Daylight, ho!"

Jones laughed and everyone cheered. In another hour they were clear of the storm and the wicked current. The Ferris sailed peacefully on light winds into the noonday sun and its crew collapsed onto the deck, exhausted.

More to come…