53. The branded liar

A/N: Thanks to those who fav/followed the story, and all the anonymous readers ^^!

Disclaimer: I own nothing of One Piece and Soul Eater but my OC Koga and other OCs that will appear in the future.


It didn't take long for the Straw Hat pirates to find company before reaching the place Robin indicated them. Unfortunately, it came in the form of a strangely familiar-looking ship.

A giant galleon, with a monkey as a figurehead stopped right in front of the Merry. A fat man, with the face of a monkey -really- walked to the figurehead and stared down at Luffy.

"Hey, your face's funny!" The idiot laughed, pointing at his face. "What kind of animal are you?"

"I'M A HUMAN YOU DIMWIT!" The unknown captain roared with a tick mark on his forehead.

"Sho-sho, let me up, I wanna see!" A childish voice suddenly exclaimed.

"Stay down there, An-chan! AND DON'T CALL ME SHO-SHO, DAMMIT!"

Most of the Straw Hat crew snorted at the name, trying to stifle their laughter. Of course, the other crew heard them and began to curse them and demand respect for their captain Shojo, 'King of Underwater Exploration'. The child wailed, wanting to be hefted up and see, but someone of Shojo's crew managed to calm her down.

"Hey, you're pirates, aren't you? Did you know? One of the Shichibukai, Crocodile, has been defeated." Of course they knew, Luffy had been the one in defeating him after all. "Speaking in terms of merit, modesty aside, I guess I'm the next on his 'succession'. I'm all about waiting for my turn!"

'I highly doubt that.' Koga raised an eyebrow, crossing his arms over his chest.

"Eh? Really? You want to join the Shichibukai?" The straw-hat captain tilted his head to the side in askance.

"Do you want to know the most fantastic thing about me? Is it the fact I never cut my hair even once in the twenty-five years of my life?"

"That's nonsense."

"Ah, what a surprise. I'm all about that comment of yours... I'll say this just once: if you cross the tunnel made up of my rage, a sea of blood awaits you."

"Sho-sho!" The child insisted once more. Shojo grew once more irritated, and merely ignored her.

"I don't really care about that. We have other places to go. Can you let us through please?" Luffy asked.

"IDIOT! THIS IS MY TERRITORY! IF YOU WANNA GET IN, WHIP OUT THE MONEY!"

At that, Usopp's face lit up in recognition. "Hold on, Masira said almost the said thing about the territory thing."

Shojo piped up. "Masira? What do you have to do with him?"

"Ah, if it's about that guy, we had to kick his ass, but-"

It was almost hilarious, the way Shojo's face turned furious in a flash with that stupid ape-face he had. Nami and Usopp, of course, punched their oblivious captain because of the conflict he had managed to create once more out of thin air.

"I will take revenge for my brother!" Out of nowhere, the monkey man brought a microphone and raised it to his mouth. He then took a great breath in. "Sound wave..."

But before he could unleash his power to the defenseless Straw Hat pirates, who had poised into a defensive stance, a familiar voice cut out whatever the captain was going to do.

"What the hell is going on here?"

"Ah! Mifu-chan!"

A familiar long-haired man then stood beside Shojo, yawning and scratching his sand-colored hair.

"Mifune!" Most of the Straw Hat crew exclaimed in surprise.

At the sound of his name, Mifune opened one eye and looked at them. "Oh. It's you guys."

"Mifune! What they said about Masira, is that true?" Shojo roared.

Mifune yawned once more, picking an ear in slight irritation. "It is, but what were you going to do? Don't you remember what that technique of yours is able to do? You'd destroy your own ship along with theirs."

"I DON'T CARE! Masira is dead because of them! I'm gonna blast them!"

"Idiot, he's okay. He's being rescued by his team not long ago." Ignoring the deflating orangutan at his side, Mifune then looked at the pirate crew, the danger passed. "What are you doing here? I thought you were looking for information about Sky Island at Mock Town."

"We did!" Luffy grinned widely. "Now we have to find a guy... Hm... What was his name again?"

"Montblanc Cricket." Robin provided. At that name Shojo and Mifune grew serious, something that the attentive members of the pirate crew noticed immediately. "We were told that we could find more information from him."

"You want to see Boss?" Shojo asked, as warily as he could with that orangutan face.

"Boss?"

"Old man Cricket is Shojo and Masira's Boss, and the three of them are my own bosses."

"A-HEM!"

Mifune rolled his eyes. "Okay, our bosses."

Sanji raised an eyebrow. "Our? Who's with you?"

As answer, he merely disappeared from their sights for a moment before coming back with a new passenger on his shoulder, her tiny hand grasping the side of his head. It was a little girl, dressed in a black-and-white garb, a pointy black hat and a ribbon tied to one of her wrists. She had big violet eyes and her brown hair cut like a bowl. She was barefoot, and was dangling her legs on Mifune's chest, who didn't seem to mind.

"Her name's Angela. My... co-worker, so to speak." Mifune explained, ignoring the wide eyes of the pirates.

"Hi!" Angela exclaimed, waving her free hand merrily. The one that had the ribbon tied, actually.

"A girl?" Nami blinked in surprise, voicing everyone's thoughts.

"You'd better not underestimate Angela just because she's a girl." Mifune recommended as Angela giggled with a hand over her mouth. "Just the voice of experience."

"Angela's powerful!" The girl cheered, throwing her hands to the air. "Angela protected Sho-sho's ship from bad people!"

"Yeah, you were..." Mifune rolled his eyes once more in fond exasperation.

"Hey, wanna see Cricket-ossan?" Angela suddenly exclaimed with a wide grin.

"Angela..." The mercenary hissed as warning as the pirates looked at each other.

"What? It's okay!" She giggled once more. "C'mon, let's meet Cricket-ossan!"

Mifune looked at her skeptically, before shrugging and looking down at the pirate crew.

"Well, you coming?"

"You too?!" Shojo looked incredulous at the long-haired man, who waved a hand not holding Angela.

"They're good people, Shojo. They actually helped me get here without any problem."

Shojo pursed his lips and scratched his head, looking unsure. At that, Angela rolled her big brown eyes and reached forwards to pull on his enormous ear.

"Ow! An-chan, leave my ear alone!"

"I wanna go see Cricket-ossan! C'mon, Sho-sho!"

"OW!" He screamed louder as she tugged on his ear even more. "Alright, let's go!"

"Good!" The kid let go with a huge innocent smile on her face.

Shojo rubbed on his ear while giving her a stink eye. "But I have to go back to scavenging, so I'll leave you two here with them."

"Okay!"

Thus, Mifune got aboard again the Merry, with his little companion Angela on his shoulder and the box of katanas on his other hand. Shojo didn't lose any time and, as soon as the two left his boat, ordered his crew to depart, bidding farewell to the pirates and the mercenary pair.

Soon, as they reset their course to the direction Mifune was pointing at, Angela was running up and down the decks, following after Chopper, Luffy and Usopp in a 'Tag, you're it' game. The older members of the crew plus Mifune simply watched them, amazed at how quickly the four of them had become friends.

Koga had decided to take out his logbook while Sanji was, as always, fawning over Robin and Nami, Zoro was zoning off against the railing, and Mifune stood near the girls, his eyes never leaving Angela as she swept under Luffy's stretchy arm and laughed loudly.

"I've... never seen her this happy before." The mercenary suddenly confessed, making the women, Sanji and Koga look at him in surprise. "Because of my- our job, we are always on the move, and she doesn't have time to make friends. Sometimes I wonder if I should let her stay with a family that would care for her instead of carrying her with me to constant danger."

Nami's brow furrowed. "Why leaving to a bunch of unknown people? Where's her family?"

But Koga already had a feeling before Mifune even opened his mouth to grimly answer.

"... She doesn't have anyone. They're all dead." Gasps from the red-haired navigator, a sympathetic hum from Robin and frowns from Koga and Sanji as they looked down at the giggling girl who had hidden behind a barrel with Chopper. "Demons outrunned her village, almost killing her in the process. I found her in the woods, covered in blood and almost dead. When she..." He grimaced and interrupted himself, and then he shook his head. "When she woke up, she was so scared she wouldn't leave my side. I didn't have a choice but to take her with me."

"You're cheating, Long-Nose!" Angela suddenly protested, before bursting into laughter when Luffy barreled the cheater.

Mifune's face turned somewhat softer at the scene.

"I'm not a father, or a brother. I only know the Way of the Sword, and my path and past are covered in blood." His face turned grim and his hand gripped the box of katanas tighter. "But I'll use that to protect her if necessary."

Koga stopped scribbling for a moment. Something about that phrase...

"Protect her from what?" Sanji asked, seemingly also catching that little detail.

Mifune cringed.

"More like from whom." He then glanced at the chronicler, who tensed. "From the same people going after you, Blondie."

For a moment, the words went unregistered in his mind, not comprehending.

Then, it clicked on him. His mismatched eyes went wide as he grew paler.

Apart from the Marines, there was only one group after him; The Chapel. And it was because of a very specific reason, one deadly and dangerous for everyone.

"D- Don't tell me she's..." Koga stuttered, watching wide-eyed at the stern mercenary.

Not meeting his golden-and-silver eyes, the long-haired man only nodded. Misinterpreting his apparent carelessness, Koga sprung from his seated position against the wall and grabbed him by the collar of his shirt, fuming in rage.

"She has a Goddamn demon inside her?!" He hissed, trying not to grab the four down there playing. He certainly surprised Sanji, Nami and Robin, but they didn't move a finger to stop him.

Mifune looked down at him, his brown eyes a turmoil of unknown feelings.

"Not any demon." He reluctantly admitted. "She has a Prince Demon."

The rage suddenly left him, leaving only emptiness and shock behind.

'A Prince Demon. Like Yuuto.'

The chronicler didn't even notice when his hands slipped from his tight grip on Mifune's shirt, too stupefied by the revelations. Giving them all his back, he ran shaky hands through his light blond hair and breathed deeply.

"... Who is it? What demon?"

A shuffle behind him.

"... Envy."

Koga cursed under his breath. From what he remembered of Seishiro's 'lessons', Envy was one of the Prince Demons already confirmed of having been confronted, so that meant that The Chapel already knew that Envy's vessel was a little girl. But... were they so heartless as to hunt down an innocent child like that?

"Uh, could anyone explain what's going on?" Nami decided to pipe up, confused at the outcome of that strange conversation between them.

The blond chronicler turned his head sharply and glared at Mifune, silently ordering him to keep his mouth shut. The mercenary saw and shrugged, once more looking at the girl playing downstairs with Luffy, Usopp and Chopper.

"In short, that girl is a Cursed like me, with a powerful demon." The writer said between gritted teeth, thumbing at Angela.

Cue slack jaws and horrified looks. Well, except Robin, but she had slightly wider eyes.

"Wh- that girl- but-?!" Sanji stuttered.

But before anyone could say anything else, Luffy's scream of awe made them jump and turn.

Apparently, they had reached Montblanc Cricket's house, or that was what they supposed the castle at the edge of the island was. It certainly looked majestic, and as the Merry approached the apparent mansion, Koga used the extra time to reorder his swirling thoughts and sentiments about Angela and her companion Mifune.

The girl seemed completely at ease with the tall mercenary, not at all minding his often brusque and cold demeanor as she tugged on his pants to carry her. She didn't behave like a Cursed; just like any hyperactive child demanding attention from her elders, something understandable judging her age.

And as he had said before, Mifune didn't act like family to the girl, rather like a stern bodyguard who consents his employer's selfish wishes from time to time.

But... Had she really had to go through the Ritual to...? Horrified by that thought, Koga shook his head.

"You have much to explain." Sanji's voice came from his side, the only one left beside him as the others had gone to see the palace.

The chronicler glanced at the black-clad cook. "... I know."

However, the things concerning himself would remain unbeknownst to everyone but himself, as he always did.

"Hey." Sanji's glare seemed even more serious than before. "No holding back information from us, okay?"

The older man pursed his lips, but nodded stiffly anyways.

"Fools. Look into it again." Zoro said loudly, calling both their attention away from the conversation at hand.

As they got nearer the majestic house, it revealed to be just a cardboard with the drawing of a palace hiding a much more normal and smaller house.

Which seemed... cut in two? For a moment, Koga wondered if Mihawk had passed through here and sliced the house just for fun.

"Great, looks like we're gonna talk with a cheapskate." Sanji grumbled, shaking his head in disappointment.

"But why's he here anyways? Robin, do you know?" Usopp turned to the raven-haired woman.

"I don't know the details, but he claimed there was a mountain of gold hidden somewhere on this island." She replied.

"Gold? Can it... could it be a pirate's hidden treasure?!" Nami quickly perked up.

Angela looked up at Mifune, who hoisted her up to his shoulder again. "Whatever those rumors were, some of them are true. We saw Cricket with some gold in his house anyway. He had to get them from somewhere."

"GOLD~!" G-O-L-D! Chopper, come on!"

Much to everyone's amusement, Nami was one of the first ones (apart from Luffy of course) in getting off the ship once it got near the coast, somehow dragging poor Chopper behind. She ordered him to dig non-stop until he found gold or something worth her attention from underground.

Once with his feet on the ground, Koga walked a bit away from the others and examined the place. It was a rather big house for a single person to live in. On the outside, a grass field, a forest standing somewhere around two-hundred steps from the house. Also, there was a small warehouse storing jars and wooden boxes. Near the entrance, there was a table and three seats made of tree stubs.

"Does he really live all by himself here?" Sanji said, calmly strolling through the green fields.

"Those are for Sho-sho, Masi-chan and Cricket-ossan!" Angela explained happily. "Cricket-ossan doesn't like living alone! Ah-!"

"Hello~? Is anybody home?" Luffy went right into the house, barging in unnanounced. Of course.

"Hey, Straw Hat!" Mifune piped in, following after him. "Cricket doesn't like people rummaging through his things."

"Nah, it's fine~! I'm not gonna touch anything-!"

CRASH!

"... Oops."

Koga heard a sigh from Mifune as he got near the table. He then noticed a colorful book on a table and picked it up. It was one of those old illustrated books.

"What's that, Koga?" Nami got near him. "A fairytale book?"

"It's 'Norland the Liar'." Koga read the title.

"Huh, 'Norland the Liar' you said?" Sanji piped up.

"Wait, Sanji-kun, you know about it?" The navigator asked him. "It says it's been published in the North Blue."

"Yes, I know. That's because I'm from the North Blue." Sanji blinked at the oblivious looks from his companions. "Wait, did I tell you before?"

"No, you didn't." Usopp answered. "I could've sworn you were from the East Blue just like us, though."

"No, that's where I was raised and grew up. My birthplace's the North Blue."

... Was it Koga's imagination, or did the cook's voice show some kind of restrained pain? The chronicler's eyes narrowed a bit, but decided to let it slide.

Everyone had their secrets, after all.

"This is a really famous story around there. Now it might be just a fairytale, but I heard somewhere that the Norland guy did exist."

"If my experiences had taught me anything, it's that every story had some slice of truth behind." Koga remarked, sitting on one of the tree stubs and opening the book to the first page. "Gather around kids, it's story time." He chuckled at that familiar phrase he used to say back home.

"K-kids?" Usopp stuttered, seemingly indignant for a moment.

But Luffy, Angela and Chopper were already sitting on the ground cross-legged in front of Koga, with the others standing around them. The long-nosed teen sighed before going to sit down beside his captain and best friend.

The blond chronicler smirked before cleaning his throat and glancing down at the first page of the story. "This is a story from a long, long time ago. So long, it is believed to be from four centuries ago..."

With his rough but tender voice whenever he read a story to his friends, Koga's reading brought them to a certain country from the Northern Sea, where a man named Montblanc Norland lived. He proclaimed to be an explorer who told stories of adventures so grand and fantastic, they sounded like lies. But the people from his village could never tell if they were true or not.

One time, Norland came back from an expedition and reported to the King.

'I saw a mountain of gold on an island across the Great Sea!' He proclaimed.

The brave King, wishing to see Norland's exploits with his own eyes, took off to the Great Sea in a galleon, together with two thousand of his loyal soldiers. THey fought unspeakable torments, powerful storms and ferocious sea monsters.

At last, the King, Norland and only a hundred of the soldiers arrived at the destination the explorer promised the gold was at... Only to find nothing like a city of gold.

Just an endless jungle.

Needless to say, the King was furious with this outcome. Because of what the explorer had said, most of his precious soldiers had lost their lives, and now they were far away from their lands. For his lies, the King sentenced Norland to death.

Before his death, Norland only had to say a single phrase, the phrase many after him would remember him by:

'That's it! The mountain of gold must've sunk into the ocean!'

The King and the soldiers were shocked. At the time, nobody believed what he said anymore; however, Norland never stopped lying until the time of his execution.

"This is another tale of the North Blue: 'Norland the Liar'. The end." Koga sighed as he closed the book.

Angela sniffed, big teary eyes looking at the book in the chronicler's hand. "Poor Nor-chan..."

Sanji smiled softly as he crouched behind her to put a hand on her hat.

"This story was told to the kids to teach them not to lie to their parents and elders." He explained kindly. "I used to hear the adults saying: 'If you keep lying, you're going to end yo executed like Norland was!' and things like that."

"Actually, the story sounds a lot like you, Usopp." Koga piped up with a smirk to the long-nosed teen.

Said sniper blinked at the bicolor-eyed boy before hearing a sinister laugh from behind him. Turning, he saw Nami approaching him her eyes shadowed by her hair.

"Ah~ Turns out he's just a liar who ended up dead for telling lies... He died alone, without ever becoming a brave warrior of the seas..." She 'mourned'.

"DON'T LOOK AT ME! What are you doing, throwing a curse at me?!" He screeched, catching up on what she was implying.

The writer chuckled...

Intuition warning! His head snapped up to the side to see Luffy crouched to the tip of land, looking intensely at the ocean. Suddenly, as he stood up to sprint towards his captain, the water shot up and...

"Oh no, Luffy fell underwater!" Chopper yelled, having seen the same as he.

From the same place where the idiot disappeared, the water shot up again, to reveal a fairly muscular man with blonde hair, eyebrows and sideburns. He was barefoot, bare-chested and wearing only purple-and-white striped training pants.

"Who are you?" The man asked with a weary look at the pirates. "You've got some balls, huh? Resting and doing as you please in my home! This piece of the sea is my territory! Get out now!"

Koga, Sanji and Zoro all got prepared to fight, but a small blur of black suddenly stepped from behind them to launch itself at the unknown man, who staggered back in surprise.

"Angela!" Mifune called out, rather irritated instead of worried.

"Usopp, get Luffy, quick!" Koga called out to the sniper, who gulped and dived underwater.

"What the...?" Sanji blinked in surprise.

Angela was clinging on the man's waist giggling and grinning widely. The man was looking down at her in irritation, but did no move to attack her or snatch her off him.

"Cricket-ossan, I missed you~!" She sang in glee.

"Angela, you shouldn't hug your employee like that." Mifune scratched his head, sighing as he stepped from behind the pirates.

The man blinked. "Angela... Mifune? What are you two doing here? And who are these- Uuuuunghh..."

All of a sudden, Cricket -or so the others supposed the man was- started to grunt in pain, kneeling down and fainting. Startled, Angela tried to support him with her meager strength, being promptly aided by Mifune. The mercenary supported the large man and eased him off her, ignoring his writhes of pain.

"Hey, raccoon-kid, can you take a look at him?" He asked Chopper serenely, as if that had happened many times before.

"I'M A REINDEER, DAMMIT!" Their doctor roared, before blinking and snapping into doctor mode. "Ah, right! Koga, Zoro, take the man and get him inside!Cool down some towels and open up all windows!"

The swordsman and the chronicler nodded and took each one of Cricket's arms, lifting him and carrying him to his bed, laying him down carefully. Meanwhile, Sanji got cool water from the sea and Nami fetched some towels. Chopper immediately began to diagnose him and figure out the man's illness.

In their hastiness, no one noticed Usopp and Luffy coming out of the sea.


"So, it was pressure?" Zoro asked Chopper from his position standing against the wall with his arms crossed over his chest.

Everyone had gathered inside the house, with Luffy, Angela and Chopper near the bed, Usopp and Nami at the center of the house, Koga sitting on one of the spare beds with Robin beside him and Sanji and Mifune 'guarding' the door.

"Yeah." The reindeer sighed. "It's a disease common among divers. Usually it doesn't last too long. The sudden drop in pressure when one's coming from the bottom of the ocean to the surface makes the nitrogen in the body to leave its dissolved state, forming bubbles in the bloodstream. They press against the nearby tissue and veins, clog up the stream and severely damage muscles and joints. In other words, it's decompression sickness."

"Okay, nice. Mysterious side effects." Luffy deduced simplistically.

Used to his simpleness, no one listened to him, though Mifune sweatdropped at the captain.

"I can only infer that he kept diving day in, day out, not letting his body recover from the effects of depressurization and take the bubbles back in." Chopper analyzed expertly, turning to the others and patting Angela's hat, who was deppresively watching Cricket sleep.

"Why would he do that?" Nami asked. "What he's doing is pretty dangerous. He can die!"

Mifune was the one who answered that, but rather cryptically.

"You read the story of 'Norland the Liar' and you haven't figured it out?" He said.

"OYA-SAN! ARE YOU ALRIGHT!"

Alarmed by the sudden voices, Usopp and Chopper screeched and ran around the house just as two familiar monkey heads barge in shouting for the sick old man.

"You!" Masira roared, obviously recognizing them and not seeing Mifune's sweatdropping behind him and Shojo. "What are you doing here?"

"What did you do to our Boss?" Shojo asked, threatening them with a fist up.

Luffy glanced at them uninterestedly. "What are you talking about? We're taking care of him now. Go away."

Usopp and Chopper scrambled up to him and roared in his face: "YOU IDIOT! Do you think they're gonna believe you? They're ferocious, wild monkeys! Let's run while we can- huh?"

Instead of going on a rampage and demanding them to get out of their house, the stupefied crew found the two men-monkeys kneeling on the ground.

Weeping.

"It's so kind of you..." They managed to blurt out in unison.

BAM BAM!

"They actually listened..." The sniper and the doctor moaned with their faces on the floor.

"Sho-sho, Masi-chan!"

At their nicknames, both wiped their tears to see Angela coming at them. "Oh, An-chan! You were here too?"

"Yup!" She nodded, still with her face worried, but at least smiling a bit.

"We should get out and let the man rest." Chopper proposed, shooing everyone out of the house.


Once outside (minus Chopper and Angela who decided to check up on Cricket), Shojo and Masira decided to give explanations at last. They explained that they belonged to an organized group of ship-rescuing pirates named the Saruyama Alliance, which had its HQ at Cricket's house, a common friend of theirs. They also said that the house was big, but not enough for them; reason why they slept at their own ships instead.

At that precise moment, Usopp, Koga and Zoro were watching between amused and stupefied at how Luffy, Shojo and Masira were getting along very nicely.

It wasn't long before Chopper got out of Cricket's house to alert them of the man's awakening, which prompted on the rubber-brained teen in springing to his feet and rushing into the house.

"The ossan with a chestnut in the head! I have something to ask you!"

The man, as the reindeer had said, was sitting on the bed, with his back turned to the captain, smoking a cigar and patting Angela's hat with his other hand. He breathed out a puff and turned to Luffy as the others watched from the door.

"Sorry for the misunderstanding. I thought you were just another bunch of idiots trying to get my gold."

"Do you really have gold, sir?" Nami sang as she stared at Cricket with her 'Berri-eyes'.

"Hey, cut it out..." Usopp sweatdropped at the greedy navigator.

But Cricket ignored her, and the issue of the gold too. "Hey kid, what were you going to ask?"

Luffy smiled widely with his signature grin. "We want to go to the Sky Island! You know how to get there, don't you? Tell us, please!"

"Sky Island?" Cricket blinked. "You believe in that stuff?"

The excited nod from their captain only was met with condescending laughter, much like Bellamy the Hyena and his goons back at Mock Town. Usopp had to physically restrain Nami and not let her jump on the still sick man, who continued laughing for a few more minutes before going quieter until stopping completely.

"Just so you know, I know a certain guy who believes it too. And he was labelled as a liar because of it. And his family was always the world's laughing stock." He finished that sentence in a whisper, looking down at Angela as he continued patting her hat.

'His family...' Koga narrowed his eyes. "Montblanc... Of course."

"Hold on, you're Norland's descendant?" Nami caught on what the chronicler was thinking too... though Luffy seemed convinced that the liar was Usopp, judging by his looks at the long-nosed sniper. "And the story's set here?"

"He's the grandpa, of the grandpa, of my grandpa. He's a far-away ancestor. Not even the flies will find a single drop of his blood in me. The Montblanc family was exiled from the country and forced to live in disgrace... and the persecution we have suffered continues to this day. However, no one in my family hates him."

"Why?" Copper asked in curiosity.

"Because Norland had a quality rarely found nowadays. He was honest."

"Honest?" The red-haired navigator blinked in confusion. "But... The picture book said..."

"His last words were: 'That's it! The mountain of gold must've sunk into the ocean!' In the drawing, he smiled like a dumbass... But, in truth, he died with an enormous regret, and crying. The island they got to is undoubtedly Jaya, the place where they discovered the City of Gold. I can't live with the thought it might've been just an illusion."

Everyone listened in silence as Cricket theorized that changes in earth's crust may have sent the city to the bottom of the sea; but, to the rest of the people, he was just a sore loser trying to find an excuse, executed before a laughing crowd... and whose legacy was his label as a liar.

"I get it!" Suddenly Usopp piped up. "You're trying to find the City of Gold to clear your family's name!"

BANG!

It was a good thing that Cricket's aim was at the wall and not directly at the sharpshooter, because that had been unnecessary in Koga's eyes.

"If my distant ancestor was an honest man or not, if he was a great explorer or not, I don't give a rat's ass about that! Sorry about my vocabulary, Angela." He looked down at a shrugging Angela. "Can you imagine how it is to be a child rejected by everyone just because he has the blood of a complete moron running through his veins? That's how I grew up!"

The chronicler pursed his lips. He knew of someone whose past was more similar to Montblanc Norland's than his own ancestor, but bringing up someone else's past wasn't his doing.

Cricket sighed after his furious outburst and explained in a calmer tone that many of the Montblanc family got to that part of the ocean to recover the family's dignity only to die trying. He had refused to do that, and resented his own name by abandoning his home and becoming a pirate instead. For ten years, he and his crew had many adventures around the Grand Line, until by sheer chance their ship docked here, the same city that condemned his family to ridicule.

Resigned to his fate, Cricket decided to stay here, and the crew left him behind. He didn't want to prove to the world that his ancestor was right, but simply to set a score with the same man that ruined his life before he had been even born.

"What about the monkeys?" Luffy asked, pointing at the two hooligans in the patch of grass outside playing around.

Usopp seemed to have understood, weeping profusely. "It must've been thanks to... Another harrowing story of deep-sea explorers, writing their-"

"They're fans of that story."

...

"FANS?!"

"Is it that simple?" Nami sweatdropped.

"It happened five or six years ago. They heard rumors about me and approached me saying: 'We believe Norland's gold is real!'" He didn't smile, but his voice and face grew softer as they heard the two monkeys laughing outside. "The sea around here is endless, and my loneliness just gets worse when I'm down there, in the cold darkness. I used to dive by myself everyday... But these two simply sneaked their way into my life, declared themselves my followers and from then on, it was crazy. But frankly, I think meeting two innocent idiots like them was the thing that saved me. Get it?"

Koga smirked, hiding it behind his scarf that he raised up to his nose. In several way, what he felt towards the Straw Hat crew was pretty similar at how Cricket felt towards Shojo and Masira. The chronicler had tried to keep his distance from them, but in the end he had surrendered to their natural stubbornness and their insistent desire in being his nakama.

If he hadn't met them...

"Okay, change of subject!" Luffy exclaimed. "Ossan, we want to go to Sky Island!"

Cricket smiled, closing his eyes. "So impatient... Didn't you hear me? The only one who knows abut Sky Island was Norland the Liar. If you cling to him too much, they're gonna just laugh at you."

"He was up there!" The captain insisted.

"Unfortunately, he never wrote anything about being there..." After thinking about it, Cricket grabbed one of the books in the shelf right next to his bed and browsed through it. "Read this part."

He then threw the book at Koga, who caught it with a scowl on his face.

"You should treat books nicer, specially if they're bits of history..." His fingers grazed the rusty cover in awe. "A logbook from four hundred years ago... 'Maritime Year 1120, June 21st. The weather is nice. We left off from the lively town of Villa. Following the Log Pose, we left the docks and headed northeast. This afternoon, we got a curious artifact from a merchant. It's called 'Waver' and it's a small, one-person boat that functions like a ski.'"

Interested by what he was reading, Usopp, Luffy, Nami and Chopper got closer to him.

"'It's powered by its own wind, even if no current's blowing in the sea. It's difficult to drive, I can't do it yet. Taming it turned on the crew's favorite pastime.'"

"Wow, unreal! I totally want one of those!" Nami exclaimed, awed at what she was hearing.

"'They told me the only place it's made is Sky Island. There are lots of unconventional ships up there, it seems. Speaking about Sky Island, explorers showed me a celestial fish, still alive. I didn't have the words to express how surprised I was.'"

"Celestial fish?" Of course, that caught Sanji's attention.

"'It's a place never explored by our ship, but as a sailor, I wish I could get to this sea in the sky... Someday... Montblanc Norland.'"

When he closed the book with a feeling of awe and wonder blossoming in his chest, Koga raised his head to see the three troublemakers and Nami with broad grins on their faces and wide eyes.

"Just like Robin told us!" Luffy exclaimed.

"From the way he's talking, it's like everyone knew about Sky Island then!"

"So it's real then!"

And they didn't waste time in jumping in joy, excited at that new adventure they were going into.

Koga thought about calling their attention and telling them that even if those objects from Sky Island were recorded in surprisingly great detail, nothing confirmed their authenticity; but his own excitement told him otherwise. After all, he himself had also dreamed once or twice about discovering a whole new place others considered a mere myth. Also, one of his jobs as chronicler is confirming or denying myths. He had already done so with the existence of the Millenial Dragons, that so many people thought were extinct. What was one more myth?

'I wonder, what things will we discover up there?' He asked himself as he looked at the ceiling with a smirk.


A/N

L: Phew, long chap to make up some shorter ones! Hope you liked it! And now, review answers~!

-Stargaze Valintime: Hm, I wonder... It'll be bumpy, that much I know xD

K: An island in the skies... That I want to see... Oh, thanks *blushes a bit*

L: You know, I'm amazed how much blood you can put in your cheeks to be that red.

K: Shut up.

-Lauri3n: Thanks! Hope you liked this chap too ^^!

-Guest: Thanks so much! Here's the continuation!

-King0fP0wers: Hey King, glad to be back ^^!

K: Hey. Well, I'd say that summarizes everything pretty well. What does Author have in store for us?

L: Many things, dear Koga-kun... *snickers*

K: ... Help.

-Boopadoop: Sorry, got you on hold long enough hahahahahaha. Ikr, I prefer zero too. Mostly because I'm the one driving my friends home xD Damn that hurts!

K: That's really a shame, but don't worry. You'll have lots of time.

L: I still have a couple weeks before I begin college again, but I'll manage to upload a few chaps before then. I hope...

K: Yeah, 'cause you also have that collab fic with Ultimate Student to tend to. And the Kuroko no Basket fic, and the Lord of the Rings fic...

L: *sighs* Damn. Forgot how many things I have on hold...

K: Hm, an Olympic one-shot? Well, that actually sounds fun. Why not?

L: Unfortunately, it won't be anytime soon...

-zerom1v: Yay finally! I always loved that Arc, it's one of my favorites!

K: Thanks. They were getting on my nerves. What bullcrap was that?

-Guest-san: Thanks, it's good to be back! Yeah, I can hardly believe that either! Who knows? It'll surely be a beast of work here if I can do that!

K: Thank you for being with us *bows politely* And yeah, I also think that these people will be interesting to interact with.

-Guest: Hm, interesting name... Though what does it mean? I've never learned Latin, sorry...

L: Well guys, hope you liked it, stay beautiful, and please feed the hungry beast!

K: See ya guys next time.