Told you this wasn't going to take another 20 years! We're getting to Sabaody soon… And now I need to reread the whole saga, Marineford and Amazon Lily to get the events straight… I don't know how long that will take, but I'm excited. I've had a lot of trouble writing this arc, it hasn't turned out how I wished to, and I'm eager to move onto greener pastures.
Plugging my tumblr blog once again: tackyink dot tumblr dot com, where I complain about what I'm writing, tell you when I'm going to post it, and talk about characters.
As a sidenote, there's a dumb Dragon Age: Origins reference in this chapter, but I couldn't help myself. I am only mildly sorry.
Let's do this!
26. A score to settle
(They had it coming all along)
The next day was bright and sunny, not a storm cloud in sight, and so as promised, Greta went to pick up the Heart Pirates from their temporary refuge. She arrived precisely in time to see Sturgeon attempting to swing himself to an opposing platform on a vine again, and his weight made it snap and he fell down again, they just yelled at him to wait there, because they had to go down the trees anyway. He complained. Loudly.
If Saki didn't know any better, she'd think he was smoking something suspect, but he hadn't been able to light a cigarette since they'd reached the town, and she didn't want to suspect drugs when it could be attributed to a lot of nervous energy and an unhealthy dose of stupidity. The two grinning maniacs who had helped him to get a hold of the vine were living proof.
Greta looked down, startled, until she saw Sturgeon was fine. Saki walked up to her to say hi and to look down too, out of morbid curiosity. Law and Mack were still hanging near the tree house and couldn't be bothered.
"Why would he do that again?" Greta asked.
"Withdrawal is a terrible thing," Saki replied with zero empathy.
Which did nothing to reassure Greta, but still, she led everybody who hadn't already taken the shortest way to the ground down the trees, to the place where they could pick up what remained of Sturgeon, and past the cooking stations in the middle of the town until they arrived to a winding pathway that was hidden in the outskirts of town.
Though the path was well worn, it looked that it wasn't seeing much use nowadays, and some weeds were shyly peeking out of the compacted ground in an attempt to retake it. After a few minutes into it, it split in two, and Greta led them through the branch that was less trodden. The vegetation was getting bothersome at that point.
Saki was just glad that they didn't need to advance machete in hand, because as cool as it would have looked, she wasn't confident that someone wasn't going to lose a finger during the trip.
Penguin pulled away a thin branch that hung too low to pass under it, and it snapped back, hitting Shachi on the hat, and only missing Saki because she was too short to be in the way.
"Ah, sweet vindication," she whispered.
Shachi huffed, embarrassed. "Whatever you need to feel better." Then he asked Greta, who was at the front of the group. "Is the path going to be like this all the way there?"
"Just for a little while," she said, apologetic, sparing a moment to look at Shachi, but somehow not tripping on anything as she kept walking. "There's another route, but this one's the easiest. We'll reach a clearing soon."
For a good stretch, it was just a mess of tropical forest and squawking birds, but then the trees started to thin out, and Saki realized that there were dark marks on many of the trunks that remained. Eventually, as Greta had said, they arrived to a wide clearing.
"Over there," Greta said, pointing across the clearing. "There's some more forest and then it's mainly fields until we get to the swamp."
There weren't any tall trees in sight, so the sunlight of noon hit it at full blast, and the green of the vegetation covering the area was so bright that the contrast with the previous area hurt the eyes, making Saki squint and trip on something when the cry of a bird flying near her made her give a start.
She fell face first with a short yelp, and she was thankful for the grass softened the impact.
Most of her crewmates were so used to her fatal attraction to Mother Earth that they barely glanced at her, but Shachi had the decency to lend her a hand to get up.
Scratch that, there was no decency in the smirk he was giving her.
Greta, on the other hand, had jumped when she heard Saki, fall and seemed to be a little shaken by it. "Are you okay?"
"Don't worry, it happens on a daily basis," Law replied.
"That's not true and you know it," she retorted, trying to get rid of some mud that had stuck to her knees. The ground was still kind of sticky from the rain. "More like two to three times a week," she said, realizing how dumb she sounded mid-sentence.
But she had managed not to fall down from the top of the trees, and that was more than some of the others could say. She decided to keep that moral victory to herself because it sounded even sadder.
"What's that?" Shachi said, looking at the thing Saki had tripped on. Saki had assumed it was an old root, but when he prodded it with a boot, it got unstuck from the ground to reveal a metallic bowl.
It was like the one at the sub where Saki prepared the crepes' batter. Come to think of it, maybe celebration crepes were in order when everybody got back together. She'd talk to Mack about it.
"What's this doing here?" He commented.
"Someone must've dropped it," Penguin replied.
"In the middle of nowhere?"
They looked forward, ready to keep walking and forget about it, but they noticed Greta was still looking at them and the bowl.
"People used to live here, but there was fire a few years ago. There wasn't time to pick up anything," she said, sounding like she was not quite there as she talked, but suddenly her expression changed and she smiled at the group. "Let's move on. I don't like it here. It's kind of creepy."
Saki remembered what Greta had told her about that special wood two days ago, and as they moved forward, she asked, "Were the trees here like the ones back in town?"
"Yeah. And older. There were many more coming up, too, but we sold most of them to modernize the island a little. We needed the electricity." She glanced at the clearing over her shoulder with a sorrowful expression, and sighed. It was clear she didn't approve. "No use thinking about it now."
And so they ventured into the trees again. They stopped to rest after a few hours, and not long after they reprised the march, an enormous open field appeared in front of them. A huge strip of land that was nearly devoid of trees but covered with stumps. Some were larger than Saki's reach if she spread her arms to the sides.
She understood then why Greta had sounded so disapproving. Convenient as it was for them at the moment, it was an irreplaceable loss.
There was another plus to the dire scenery, though, and that was that, without many places to perch on or hide, for the first time since their arrival, there weren't any pink toucans around.
Saki's head felt so empty without the nagging noises that she thought at first that the rumble she heard was her brain filling the silence with something, but after an hour or so, she saw it was not her imagination.
The noise was mechanical in nature, and as they got closer to the source, so did the sound of running water, until a river with a cascade came into view. The waters seemed shallow upstream, but Greta said that she didn't want to cross it because she couldn't swim. Just in case. They thought it was reasonable because no one really wanted to go fish her out of the water, so they diverted their course slightly.
They arrived to a solid wooden bridge that connected the two sides of a wide river right before the waters fell down the cascade. At the bottom, there was a construction with a giant water wheel turning frantically. Saki had no clue what that was, but Penguin solved the mystery soon.
"A water turbine?" He asked, leaning over the railing of the bridge to get a better look, and Shachi ran to his side to do the same. "Is this what lights up the town?"
"There you are!" Someone yelled.
On the other side of the bridge, the man that had welcomed them with an arrow near the head was, apparently, waiting for them. Bow in tow, which didn't make him look particularly trustworthy.
Greta stopped in her tracks when she saw him, but then she ran closer to him. "Uncle Adan? How did you get here?"
"I left town earlier this morning." He scratched his beard as he replied. "I was worried about you. Didn't want you going to the swamp alone."
Saki thought there was something besides surprise in Greta's expression, but she couldn't quite place it.
Law approached him too. "Is it dangerous?"
Saki was sure Bepo would have warned them if they'd be in any danger by going there, and Law was likely thinking along the same lines. The feeling that there was something going on that escaped her was came back stronger than ever, but try as she might, she couldn't figure out why.
"No, he's being paranoid," Greta replied, snooty like only a teenager who'd suddenly been interrupted by an older family member could be.
"Cautious," Adan said to her, and then spoke to Law. "The relations between our towns aren't very good right now, and I don't want anything happening to her. Do you mind if I come along?"
Law shrugged. "I don't care. We only want to get there," he replied, but he didn't let the subject go, and for that, Saki and her curiosity were eternally grateful. "What's going on? We don't want to walk blindly into trouble."
'Blindly' being the operative word in that last sentence, Saki thought, and the assumption that they were going to run into trouble no matter what they did only deepened her regret at not having made a bet with Penguin.
"You won't, he's exaggerating," Greta said, but his uncle contradicted her.
"They want to take our wood," he replied. "You've seen what they've done to the forest, haven't you? They started exporting it to other countries, and now they don't have enough with their part of the island."
Greta didn't say anything at that, instead seemed to get smaller.
"So a war's about to break out," Law said, and when nobody replied, he said, oozing sarcasm, "Good to know."
"As long as it doesn't happen before tomorrow…" Penguin said.
"Nothing's going to happen," Greta insisted, stressing every word. "Uncle, stop scaring them. This is why we never get any visitors. You're all so gloomy!"
The man seemed taken aback by her outburst, and also more than a little embarrassed. He coughed awkwardly and apologized. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to trouble you. Shall we move on? If we don't dally, we'll be there before nighttime."
"Yes, let's go," Law's reply was taxative. "We've wasted enough time."
Greta immediately relaxed and sent a grateful smile to Law before taking the lead again, in front of the group, chatting with his uncle and trying to include the pirates in the conversation.
—
After Bepo received Law's call in the morning to announce they'd be arriving later that day, he told the crew one last time to make sure everything was ready, and gave them the day off when they were done making preparations to sail. The guys decided to scout for a good place to celebrate their reunion while Bepo stayed behind in the sub for a while, reviewing their route, and only went out after lunch to do some window shopping before he was once again stuck at sea for weeks on end.
Although, to be fair, he'd rather be stuck in the Polar Tang with his friends than on land with half of them missing, so he wasn't complaining.
He found a store that sold nautical charts not too far from the docks, and after giving the person behind the counter a mandatory scare, he spent a good hour sifting through books and maps and left with a handful of them.
And on the way back to the Polar Tang, one of those obnoxious pink birds passed behind him, screeching 'NO' and making him drop his bags from the scare, which scared him further, because for a second he thought they had fallen into the water.
That didn't stop him from growing as loud as he could at the bird, who had perched itself atop a nearby house, scaring the feathers out of it and a human couple passing by.
As he resumed picking up his things, a raspy, quiet voice coming from one of the houses said, "It's useless. They'll keep doing it forever."
Bepo looked up to see a woman in her sixties leaning against a windowsill.
"Scaring people?" He asked.
"Reminding us of what we did," she said.
Bepo stared at the woman in confusion. "What you did? What do you mean?"
She ignored his question. "You're a sailor, aren't you? You need to leave."
He didn't need to be told twice. "I was planning to."
The woman nodded approvingly. "Good. This curse is ours alone to carry."
Bepo didn't know what to make of the woman's comments, so he chalked them up to old age, but it didn't help stop the unsettling sensation he'd been having for days.
Whatever. For once, they were determined to follow the locals' advice. As soon as they were all back together, they'd be fine.
—
At long last, after a good day's through tropical forest and, and unending, slightly gloomy fields, the Heart Pirates and their two guides reached the west swamp.
"It's so… dark," Greta said, staring at their surrounding with her mouth slightly open.
Shachi looked at her with curiosity. "You've never been here before?"
She shook her head. "I just know the paths through the jungle. This is new."
"It's a change compared to your town, for sure," Saki said.
Saki was busy watching the town that spread in front of them, so she missed the odd glance that Greta directed at her.
The swamp town was built on platforms above rather murky water, and the sky was obscured by the thick tops of the surrounding trees, the branches extending so far out that it was like the trees on opposite sides of the swamp were trying to touch each other. Electric lights hung from the houses, giving the place a soft, otherworldly illumination.
The air was dense, and humid, and awkward to breathe in.
"We should find a place to sleep before night," Adan told Greta, and she hummed noncommittally.
Penguin was opening his mouth to say something when Law talked over him, "Thanks for your help. We'll go look for our ship now."
"The docks are straight ahead," Adan said.
"Glad to be of help." Greta smiled at them, and she was looking at Saki when she said, "It was nice to meet you."
"Same," Saki replied, honest, but also itching to get going. Home was within arm's reach now. "Be careful with the local fauna."
Greta laughed a little and nodded with a fond smile. Saki returned it without thinking.
"It's the first time we don't run into any funny business in a new island," Shachi said.
Penguin agreed. "Yeah, it's nice for a change."
They exchanged a few more pleasantries and the group split in two at last. The Polar Tang came into view not soon after, and the only thing that kept Saki from running frantically towards it was thinking that she had a significant chance to trip and fall into the water.
But when they were closer and she saw Bepo on the main deck, who by the looks of it had just been shopping, and since she was the only person in their entourage free of the restrictions of performative masculinity – because pirates are though guys, you know – she ran up the gangplank before any of the other could and leaped at Bepo with a flying hug.
He dropped he bags to catch her in the air, and she thought he was going to give her an earful, but instead he twirled her around, and she was so happy that it didn't matter how short she was making her feel.
"You're here!" He exclaimed, turning towards the others excitedly, still holding Saki too high for her feet to reach the ground.
For the remaining instant she was hugging a giant, living teddy bear, and he was hugging back, Saki was in heaven. She was fulfilling a childhood dream of hers and thousands of kids out there. The entire trip through two seas, the life-or-death moments and the scars had been worth it for this moment.
Following her example, Penguin and Shachi jumped at him too, only they tackled Bepo to the floor.
Mack, reserved as ever, even after barely speaking a word that day, stretched and began to head inside with a spring in his step, and Sturgeon looked slightly out of place and not quite sure what to do, but he inspected every detail of the sub with interest.
Law moved until he was in Bepo's field of vision, but he made no effort to remove the two grown men that had him pinned to the ground. "Hey, Bepo."
"Captain!" He said, stretching his arms towards him but unable to move.
Law then did the most socially conventional show of personal appreciation Saki had ever seen him display in public and hi-fived one of Bepo's outstretched paws.
"Good job," he said.
No one else bore witness to the gesture, but she had been witness to the love in the air.
She was grinning like an idiot when he turned away from Bepo to go inside the sub.
"Home at last," Law said quietly as he passed her.
And Saki breathed easy for the first time in weeks.
—
The relief lasted about as long as it took her to take a few steps in the hallway and notice that the soles of her boots were sticking a bit to it. She assumed it was the boot's fault, not the floor's. Then she changed into a pair of sandals, got that same icky sensation, and on her way up she stopped next to a porthole to look outside, running a finger along the metallic edges.
Was… was that black mold she was seeing?
"Bepo!" She called out fiercely, knowing that wherever he was, he'd hear her. Bless small spaces. "Who's been cleaning the sub these days?!"
There was only silence.
"Bepo, don't make me come for you!"
"Last one in charge was Uni!"
The voice came from above. The bridge it was, then.
"Why are you selling me out?!" Was Uni's reply from the mess hall. "I thought we were friends!"
"I leave for three weeks and I come back to find you living in filth!" She replied to both.
"I'm sorry!" Said Bepo. "We were short-handed!"
"Mold kills!"
"I know!" He said weakly.
"What? For real?" Uni asked. He was now peeking out from behind the mess hall's doorframe.
"For real," she said, not so loud now that one of the culprits was within eyesight. She had no doubt the others were listening in, too, and she had no intentions of clarifying that they would have to be breathing spores day in and day out to feel the negative effects of it. It was disgusting and it had to go. "Go get cleaning supplies, we're getting rid of it now."
"Yes, ma'am," he said, and she knew urgency was properly conveyed when he made for the broom closet right away.
Then she looked up the stairs where she knew Bepo was hiding. "You too! The more people cleaning, the sooner we finish!"
She was as eager to spend the next few hours cleaning as anyone else, but it needed to be done. She was not getting stuck underwater for any period of time with moldy recycled air as long as she could help it. Worse still, everybody would be busier than her as soon as they set sail and she alone would have to clean what they had been too lazy to. She was not letting that happen.
There would be time to relax later. To finally be in her room, drop in her bed, get her hands on her clothes and her make up (oh, she had missed them so) and stop feeling like a filthy little goblin. She was sure that had played a big factor in her comfort levels lately.
Reviewing her mental list of pending things, she also needed to cut her hair, find a proper sword now that hers had kicked the bucket and the one she had taken from the Marine ship was too heavy for her taste, catch up on the island drawings for Bepo, ask for the bills of the last few days and check that the amount of money in the safe was correct before Law did and found out the numbers didn't match. Because she was sure they wouldn't. Perhaps Saki had trusted Bepo with the location of the box while she was away, but she didn't trust anybody else to keep the accounting straight.
It wasn't that she thought they were dumb. It was just that everybody had their own strengths, and a care for detail wasn't the forte of most of these guys. But she loved them anyway. That was the thing about family.
—
The clinking of glasses and loud laughter inside the hole in the wall bar the Heart Pirates had chosen for the night could be heard from blocks away, though that wasn't saying much, because the swamp was rather quiet. Not as much as the other town they'd visited, but enough to attract attention. Several sailors had also come into the bar after hearing the ruckus from outside, and after a few hours the place was as lively as any regular port town bar at dark.
"Then he chucks the fruit at the monkey and knocks it out like it's nothing—"
"That thing was heavy."
"And you took it to the stomach like a champ!"
"We used to do that with the coconuts when I was a kid."
"Oh yeah, they were good ball substitutes."
"You ever played volleynut at the beach?"
"You people are sick," Penguin declared.
"Agreed," Mack said.
Saki was feeling a little overwhelmed by the crowd that had gathered at the inn, her beer had gone warm, and though she was having fun, she'd also trekked through tropical forest for half a day and slept on the floor the previous two nights, so she was in the mood to pay her bed a long visit.
Pushing her chair backwards and standing up, she tapped Bepo's shoulder and said, "I'm going out for some air."
Nobody else seemed to pay any attention, so she left the table, making a short stop at the bathroom on her way to the front door, and went outside in hopes of waking up a little.
Sadly for her, the atmosphere outside was as warm and sticky as it had been during the daylight hours, and she involuntarily grimaced when a tepid breeze brushed against her skin.
"Nice," she whispered to herself, fanning some air with a hand at her face.
Glancing around, the only signs of activity she could notice came from the port and the building she had just exited. Pink toucans flew overhead and perched on branches and roofs, yelling nonsense at irregular intervals.
With nothing better to do until she sobered up, Saki sat down against the bar's wall and made a mental list of the things they screeched.
No!
That was a classic.
Reef the sail!
That one was new.
Help!
First one they had heard.
Why?
Also pretty common.
Fire!
Something she didn't wish on anybody living around there.
Fine dwarven crafts!
She was sure after that last one that she had drunk too much.
In any case, their cries where very similar to the ones she had heard before. People from both towns didn't seem like they mixed and matched very much, but their birds sure did.
And then, she thought she caught something moving up ahead. Looking into a street flanked by a line of houses, she saw a familiar silhouette thanks to the soft glow of the streetlights.
"Greta? Is that you?"
The person grew still when she called. There was no mistaking that long hair and big eyes.
But instead of replying, or getting closer to her, she disappeared from view again, as if she was fleeing.
Had Saki scared her? Maybe the ruckus behind her? She had probably snuck out to do something, because Saki doubted she had her uncle's permission to be out at this hour.
If it had been anybody else, Saki would have forgotten about it, at most make a throwaway comment to the others later. But Greta was a kid, it was late, and she didn't have any business roaming the streets so late. Her big sister senses were tingling. She thought about going inside and telling someone that she was going to check out where she was going, but she'd probably lose her by the time she could do that.
She could check out the area without straying straying too far from the bar. She thought that was a fair compromise. She didn't think Law would, but then again, he didn't have to know.
The clicking of the heels of her boots and the creaking wooden boards announced her presence to anyone listening, but she was not walking near the edges of the platforms and risking falling into the water, oh no.
She turned a street corner and looked around, but she couldn't see Greta anymore. She thought she had lost the trail and was about to head back when she heard footsteps again, so she went to check them out.
In a narrow space between two big warehouse-like structures, near the edge of the swamp, she saw Greta standing with her back towards her. She was looking at the lights above, lightly clutching one of her arms behind her.
"What are you doing here alone?" Saki asked.
"Did you know these houses and these platforms are built with the same type of wood as the ones in Kalawa? That's why they endure the swamp water so well."
"I… had no idea," Saki replied, wondering where that had come from. "Your uncle's going to worry if he sees you aren't there."
"He's always worried. I knew he was going to show up earlier today." She sounded somewhat sad as she spoke. "He isn't my real uncle, by the way. My family passed away."
"Oh." Saki wasn't sure what to say. In fact, she wasn't sure what this conversation was about and she had the feeling she shouldn't have left her spot by the bar. "Sorry."
Greta turned towards her and looked at Saki straight in the face, and for the first time since she had known her, she didn't seem to bear the slightest resemblance to Tsubaki. Saki had never seen hate so blatantly etched on her sister's face.
Greta shook her head. "It's them who should be sorry. Them and their blood-soaked wood."
She put a hand on one of the walls to her side.
"I'm sorry too," she said, sounding genuine. "I've used you and uncle Adan, but it's too late to stop. Sorry," she repeated in a whisper, dragging the palm of her hand across the surface of the wall in a straight line, and with the same sound a matchstick makes, a line of fire appeared on the wood.
"What…"
Then Saki remembered. Greta had said she couldn't swim.
"Phosphorus," Greta explained, blowing on her hand like it burned. "I ate it when I was little. I had to be so careful with the trees and house… And then they came one night, from both towns, and everything burned anyway. All because they wanted our land."
The flames were already spreading, devouring the wood at an alarming speed, and then she ran her other hand across the other wall to set it on fire as well.
"They'll blame you for this," she said, eyes devoid of emotion. "Get out of here while you can."
As Greta made to move backwards, Saki grabbed at her arm to prevent her from escaping, and started to pull her towards her when Greta rubbed the skin of her fee hand on Saki's arm, and Saki let go instinctively when she felt her skin burn at the contact.
The flames started to engulf both buildings at an unbelievable pace, bits of charred wood fell on the platform and set it on fire as well.
Saki ran as fast as her legs could carry her to the bar, yelling fire for someone, anyone to hear, but nobody seemed to come out of their homes, and, used as they were to the birds' continuous cries of alarm, it was to be expected.
She hadn't yet reached her destination when she saw something flickering to her right, and in the distance she saw flames.
She hadn't just lit the fires in front of Saki. Greta was spreading the fire as she went.
Saki wanted nothing more than to have a quiet moment and process everything she had just been told and be able to explain herself when she finally arrived in front of the bar, but she had priorities and most of them had names and were currently sitting inside.
One of them was outside, though, and he was looking in her direction when Saki took him by the arm.
Shachi could tell so fast that something was wrong that he didn't even try to call her names for taking off on her own. "What's going on?"
"Go inside and tell everyone we have to leave right now. Greta—" She cut herself short. Explanations could wait. "There's an arsonist out there."
"Shit." Shachi took a panicked glanced around he said, "Give me a second and I'll have everybody here."
"Okay. I'll try to alert more people."
Saki ran to the nearest houses and banged on their doors at the same time she heard a commotion erupting inside the bar, and some of the patrons were outside even before Saki's crewmates.
As soon as she saw Bepo sticking out from the back of the crowd, she ran towards him, and in that moment, three men appeared from the direction of the first fire. Locals were also starting to come out of their houses, and chaos on the street was served.
"We need help with the pump, anyone!" Said one of the men.
The other gestured wildly towards the direction they'd come from. "There's no time to waste, hurry!"
The crowd grew louder, and some of the people took a step towards him to help. Saki could already see from there that the flames had reached top of some buildings.
But the third man, the one who hadn't spoken, didn't move anywhere, instead pointing at Saki. "I saw you! You just were where the fire started!"
"What the hell?" She couldn't believe he was dropping the blame on her like that. "I came here to warn everybody!"
"Don't play dumb! They sent you, didn't they?" He glared at the rest of the crew and spat in their general direction. "You bastards!"
Shoving people aside unceremoniously, Bepo opened a path to stand beside Saki, and Mack followed suit.
One of the man's companions, came back to pull him away. "We'll take care of them later, the fire comes first!"
The man said something under his breath, and right when Saki thought he was going to leave, he yelled, "Fuck you!" and pushed Mack, who was closest to him, before running to the fire.
Saki and Bepo hurried to help him out of the water, and Saki thought that the worst was over when it became clear that some of the bars patrons did not have their priorities straight, rather, a sizeable death wish, because one of the sailors was confronting Law while four or five more backed him up.
"How much did they pay you for this?!" He bellowed, walking menacingly towards Law, and tried to grab him by the front of his hoodie.
Law batted the hand away. "Let us pass if you don't want to regret it."
"Who the fuck you think you are to threaten me?!"
Then the man attacked, and he got his answer in the blink of an eye, as he was sent flying backwards and on top of one of the other onlookers.
"You either move away, or we make you," Law said. "I'm running out of patience."
And it was plain to see for anyone who knew him, or the rest of the crew, for that matter, that he wasn't boasting. They were perfectly able to brute-force their way out, but Law was trying to leave in relatively civil terms.
Common sense seemed to be scarce within the crowd, though, because many of the other civilians decided to attack, and the fight became an all-out brawl between the patrons and the Heart Pirates.
Saki wasn't worried about the fight, because they could handle a bunch of drunken sailors any time, but she was watching the flames progressively encroaching upon the buildings, and she was starting to be afraid. The air was already filled with the smell of burning material.
Was this how the fire in Asteria had started, too? Had people wasted time arguing until there was nothing but ashes?
Bepo, who had also noticed the proximity of the flames, yelled at the others, "We need to go!"
"Would if we could!" Penguin retorted.
"One second!" Shachi shouted.
It took a little more, but they knocked out some of the men and pushed the rest off the platform, and regrouped.
"What the hell's going on?" Law asked as they ran towards the sub.
"Greta's on some sort of revenge quest – I'm fuzzy on the details – she's a Devil Fruit user and—"
"Wait, that girl's the arsonist?!" Shachi asked.
"Does it matter?" Saki retorted. It sort of mattered, if she was honest, but she was having enough trouble let the betrayal fully sink in without having to guide him through the process. "I saw her start the fire, she escaped and now she's running around starting more!"
And along the edges of the town, if the two fires she had seen were any indication. The only exit would soon be through the sea.
Doubts somewhat solved, the Heart Pirates ran towards the docks. People now filled the platforms and made navigating some sections impossible, and what was even worse was that the fire had spread to the branches and leaves overhead, and smoke and soot filled the air.
A panicked kid bumped against Shachi and rebounded towards the edge of the platform. Instinctively, he reached for him before he could fall, but he lost his balance and Saki grabbed him from behind to keep both Shachi and the kid from going down.
And just then, a flaming branch fell from above, instantly setting the platform on fire and cutting them off from the rest of the group.
The others stopped, with Penguin trying to jump to their side until Shachi yelled at him.
"Don't! We'll find a way around!"
"We can't get separated now!"
"Go ahead!" Saki shouted.
Law stopped to stare at her. He had been looking around frantically for something, and if she had to guess what, it would be something to swap Shachi and her with. Unfortunately, there wasn't much around other than people, and he wasn't the type to toss an innocent civilian behind a wall of fire.
"We'll find a way around, there's time!" She insisted.
He didn't look entirely convinced, but there weren't many other options. "We'll be waiting!" he replied, and the urgency in his tone only fanned Saki's own.
She tugged on Shachi's boiler suit to drive him back, because the more time they wasted arguing, the less they'd have to actually escape.
And when they turned around and saw the area they had left behind only minutes ago, Saki realized that Greta really hadn't been kidding about how flammable the wood was.
"Holy shit," Shachi mouthed out, barely inaudible.
The part of the town closer to land was already consumed by the flames, and the efforts of the people to stop their advance were doing nothing.
"Let's go," Saki rasped out. The smoke was starting to feel like sandpaper inside her throat.
They ran, careful to not get separated again and trying to find another way through the streets that wasn't a dead end or was already cut off, all while dodging the other people trying to flee. They could have climbed on one of the low houses and tried to advance through the rooftops, but with embers flying everywhere and the dark smoke building under the canopy of trees, Saki didn't want to risk either the building or one of them collapsing on their way to the port.
"You should've pushed that kid into the water," Saki joked humorlessly.
"Yeah, yeah, blame it all on good old Shachi," he replied.
"I don't know any Shachi that's good or old."
He snorted, or rather, tried to, because he was out of breath.
The managed to find a very narrow passage, secluded between two houses, still untouched by the fire, and they filed in one after the other.
And when they came out the opposite end, with the docks only a few meters from them, they ran into a family reunion next to a flaming structure.
Shachi huffed. "How is going from point A to point B so difficult?"
Saki didn't pay him any mind, instead saying loudly, or as loudly as she could without choking with the hot air, "If it isn't the person I want to punch the most in the world!"
That got Adan's attention. "You two—"
"What are you doing here?" Greta said, looking nervously around. Saki assumed she was expecting the rest of the crew to show up.
"Stop being stubborn and let's go," Adan shouted at Greta, but the more he walked towards her, the more she moved backwards towards the fire.
She was sweating profusely, and Saki noticed the burns in Greta's hands. She was also barefoot, and her feet weren't looking much better. If the gesture of blowing air at her hand before had been indicative of anything, she could ignite stuff, but she wasn't immune to the heat.
"There's nowhere to go anymore," Greta replied.
"What are you saying? We can catch a boat! If you aren't coming, I'll carry you!"
"No!" She yelled, squeezing her eyes and dragging a foot on the floorboards swiftly. A red-hot mark appeared, and soon flames started rising from it.
"What…" Adan seemed more lost than Saki and Shachi themselves, and that was saying something.
"She hasn't told you, has she?" Shachi snapped. "She did this!"
Adan looked at him like he didn't understand, then back at her niece. "Greta?" He said hesitantly. "Why?"
"You thought I wouldn't find out?" She said accusingly, shaking, and Saki didn't know if it was rage, fear, or her body giving out under the strain. "What they did? What you did?"
And Adan had to know what Greta meant, because he fell silent right away.
"I hope raiding our village was worth it," Greta said, spitting her words, "but now it's time to set things straight." She tried to take a deep breath and ended up coughing. "The survivors will want revenge. Kalawa's done for, too."
"Is this worth it, then?" He said weakly. He wasn't trying to go close to her anymore, and the line of fire had risen so high already that it reached his knees.
A bone-chilling smile graced Greta's face. "Absolutely."
She took a quick look back to the flames that were closing in. The only way out for her was leaping over the line in front of her, and that exit would be out soon.
"Thanks, uncle Adan," she said quietly. "You made me doubt until the very end."
She took one step backwards, and wisps of fire began to catch on her hair and clothes when Saki ran towards her and reached with a hand over the flames to catch Greta.
She had done it, like so many things, without thinking, and if she had to explain herself afterwards, she didn't think she would be able to. Leaving a kid to die felt wrong, and that was pretty much it.
"What do you think you're doing?!" She yelled at her. "You can't fuck up everything and…"
And what, exactly? Kill herself? Going out like a coward to avoid responsibility? She wasn't a big believer in atonement. Even if she was, she didn't think what Greta had done was forgivable.
And Greta, surprised at the outburst, gave Saki one last smile and plunged into the inferno behind her.
Saki did not need to see again the illusion of Tsubaki's face on Greta's, and she definitely didn't need to remember the fire in Asteria and the weeks waiting for news that the paper never delivered, but she did, acutely, and she only stepped away reflexively when a flame licked her shirt and singed it a little.
Meanwhile, Adan, next to her, looked like a soulless husk, eyes fixed where Greta had been and a wall of fire now stood. "We did this to ourselves. We did this to her, we…"
"Need to go," Shachi completed the sentence, and Saki was grateful for the lack of melodrama. She'd had enough of that. "They're starting up the sub."
Saki looked at the Polar Tang, looming over the docks not too far away, and saw her crewmates moving on the deck.
"Adan," Saki said, giving one last try to trying to convince at least one person not to be a humungous cretin, and also attempting not to be offensively insensitive, "it's no use staying here. You can follow us."
"I'm sure the others won't mind dropping you off somewhere safer," Shachi said, and turned to Saki. "Come on, Saki, they're waiting."
And she wouldn't deny that it was very comforting to know to have someone waiting for her when she was done going through hell.
Shachi took Saki's hand, which didn't surprise her, because they both knew that the last thing they needed is to get separated right now when their destination was so close, but she had to wonder if he also did it in case she tried to pull something stupid on their way there.
She wouldn't dream of it, though. Not because it wasn't very much in character for her, but because it would put Shachi at risk, and possibly everybody waiting for them. Again, priorities.
"Race you to the sub," Saki said wryly, speeding up before Shachi could register her words.
Shachi let out a strangled laugh and his strides got longer, so Saki had to outdo herself to keep up. They sprinted through the last stretch to the sub like this, unsure if Adan had listened to them or not, because there was no time to waste anymore. They were cutting it very close, the smoke was getting denser by the second, and the rain of embers was constant and assured that sooner than later the last path to the docks would be cut off.
Saki didn't remember going up the gangplank as fast in her life, and when she got to the top she wondered for a second why Penguin wasn't pulling it up immediately, but then she saw Adan had indeed followed them, and she was a little relieved when he got on the deck next to them.
Accidentally coordinated, she and Shachi released a small sigh, as well as each other's hands.
But with the relief there was also a sense of dread that she tried to bury deep down, because she didn't want to have a reminder on board of what had just happened for another second. She knew offering Adan to go with them was the right thing to do, and she didn't regret it, but she didn't have to like it, either.
Right on cue – Bepo must have been watching from the bridge like a hawk – the sub started to move away from the docks, and in that moment where she could finally pause and settle down, Saki watched how the flames had swallowed the whole town, and only the last few platforms that led to the docks remained.
In just one hour, an entire town had been lost. Her mouth tasted like ashes as she heard the screams of the people left behind and the cries of those who had managed to ride a boat or a ship that wasn't so flammable. She didn't want to think about how many people were trapped there. She would have liked not to think about the tightly packed buildings of Asteria, and how many more people had died there.
She rubbed her face with both hands, hoping she could will the thoughts away if she wasn't looking, but the blistering heat and the sickening smell of the burning wood and everything else didn't allow that little mercy.
Saki removed her hands, thinking she must have gotten soot all over her face when the door behind them slammed open, and she turned around to see Law with an expression that she couldn't quite place. Worry? Relief? If he had been anybody else she would have thought he was also scared, but that couldn't be, because Law was fearless.
"Are any of you hurt?" He said, voice hoarse.
Worry, then.
"We're okay," Saki hurried to say.
"Come inside, you've already breathed too much smoke," he said, and then he spoke specifically to Adan. "And you should do the same."
The man gave Law a defeated look, nodding, but instead of following his advice, he said, "I'll stay here, if you don't mind."
"Suit yourself," Law said, sounding annoyed. Saki didn't blame him for not wanting to deal with a stubborn stranger right now. "But I won't treat you if you fall unconscious."
"That's fine."
With that settled, their extra passenger was quickly forgotten. "You three, hurry up. We're shutting the door." And he started walking back inside.
Saki followed Law, as did Shachi and Penguin just behind her, leaving Adan to grieve alone before the hellish scene.
It wasn't their place to stay, anyway.
And on their way down the steps, as Saki watched Law's back right in front of her, she remembered that he did have a very good reason to be shaken.
—
After a much needed shower and a change of clothes – her pajamas, specifically – Saki began to make her way upstairs, but she stopped when she passed by Law's door.
For a moment, she thought of checking up on him. She even had a fist ready to knock on the door when she paused and realized that she didn't even know what she was going to say.
She kept thinking of that seemingly inoffensive comment he'd made while they watched the sea burial, that he'd never get used to the smell of burning things, put in perspective with what she had learned that night trying to sleep on the floor of Mack's apartment.
But how did one breach that sort of topic? She didn't know the details of what had transpired in Flevance, only what she'd heard the adults say and a picture on the newspaper. She might have been making a mountain out of a molehill, and he hadn't seemed to be that agitated when they had gotten caught in the fire, and she was just projecting because of her own neuroses. She might have been looking for an excuse to talk to him, because somehow he always managed to make her feel better, and everything else was just an excuse to get a verbal back pat and be reassured that everything was fine.
Because it was. Nothing had happened to them. The crew was safe and sound, if a bit sooty, and they were all back in the Polar Tang and looking forward to completing their trip through the first half of the Grand Line.
Her hand dropped to her side.
She was just being silly.
Instead, she went to the deck, assuming that Bepo would be alone and maybe needed a hand, but she found him talking to Sturgeon and giving him instructions on how to navigate around the island. She slunk downstairs again before they could notice she was there, and decided to sit at the bottom step of the stairs to the deck and contemplate life from that spot.
For a moment, there was only the sound of the engine and the water running through the piping inside the walls to the showers below. It was familiar and calming, and she started to feel her body relax.
It didn't last, because suddenly the metal door behind her opened and closed, and the unexpected noise made her jump and let out an embarrassing yelp that she attempted to cover with a hand on her mouth. It did not work.
"What are you doing here?"
Law seemed both surprised and amused by her reaction.
"I thought you were downstairs," she said, letting out a sigh and bringing the hand down to her chest. "You nearly gave me a heart attack."
There was a curious expression on his face. "Why? Were you avoiding me?"
"No!" She replied a bit too quickly and loudly, and he looked at her weird, and she realized she'd be looking at herself weird, too. "I'm just tired, don't pay me any mind."
"Why don't you go to sleep?"
"You are asking me that?"
He cocked his head to the side with a light shrug and sat just a couple of steps above Saki.
"It's been a long day," he was his explanation when she gave him an inquisitive look.
"You can say that again," she replied. "Were you talking to Adan?"
It was just like him to pretend not to care about someone and right after go back to check if they were okay.
"Yeah. We'll drop him off near the beach where we docked and be on our way."
"And forget that this week ever happened?"
"Please."
She let out a fake happy sigh. "I was hoping to hear that."
There she was, using him as an anxiolytic again. Then again, he didn't seem to mind.
"I can't imagine how she must have felt to take everything down with her," Saki said, at last putting in words one of the many stray thoughts tangled in her mind.
Law didn't reply right away. In fact, she thought he wasn't going to reply, and she wasn't really looking for an answer, either, when he gave one. "Sometimes resentment doesn't let you see anything beyond it."
"That sounds awful."
"Has it never happened to you?"
That question suggested that had replied from personal experience. "I'm more the type to mope and swallow the feelings than to direct them at someone else," she admitted.
"That's not healthy either."
"I never said it was, but we make do with what we have," she said lightly. "I like to believe there's always a way forward. Getting stuck in the past is counterproductive to that."
"So why have you been moping for days?"
She looked at him with mild surprise. She hoped he hadn't been worried since their conversation the other day. She also knew it was a vain hope, if he was bringing it up now, and she felt like an ass.
She avoided his stare and decided that the spiral staircase to the bridge was a good place to vacantly stare at.
"That girl looked a bit like my sister," she said. Simple words, but charged with unspoken meaning. It was a good summary, and she was too exhausted to elaborate further.
She didn't mention any names, because then the sentence would become too real, and hit home closer, and then it would be much more difficult to do the whole process of swallowing the negative emotions to lock them up where they'd never see the light again.
"Now that you mention it…" Law said, trailing off. It didn't sound like a throwaway comment.
Saki supposed he got was she was getting at, and the silent acknowledgement that she wasn't being an overthinking idiot was enough to put her in a better state of mind. There went one unnecessary thought that wouldn't be able to fester unattended inside her, now.
It was nice to have someone to talk to calmly after shit went down. It was even nicer to be able to do that in a ship that actually felt welcoming instead of way too big and aseptic. Impersonal. Hostile.
A pensive silence hung in the air when Saki broke it with a question that had crossed her mind a million times before, though it had never seemed important enough to ask.
"Why a submarine?"
If he was thrown off by the change of subject, he didn't show it. "It doesn't rely only on sails, is able to avoid bad weather, and since it was a prototype, it was cheaper than the other options."
"Oh." She hadn't been expecting that last one. "I thought it was a market model."
"Penguin did something to the machinery. Don't ask me what."
She hummed. "And here I thought it was because it looked cooler than a regular ship."
"That was a factor too."
She cracked up. "I knew it."
His reply was a playful tug on a strand of wavy hair that was sticking up, and she batted his hand away with an offended noise.
The sub began to slow down then, and both looked at the deck's door.
"I'm going to where we are," Saki said, getting up and passing Law on the way up.
"I wouldn't go out in slippers if I were you," he said as she reached for the handle. "The decks need to be scrubbed raw."
Right, it was covered in ashes, and she didn't want to track them inside. "Can't we just go underwater and let nature do the job?"
"With someone outside?" He sounded like he wouldn't have minded and she couldn't fault him for it.
Saki tried to decide what was worse, leaving someone to drown or having to clean four decks, and she couldn't choose either option in good conscience.
She lifted a finger of her free hand. "Just wait until I close the door before giving any orders."
The metal door opened with a small creak, and the first thing she noticed was that, even after sailing having left the swamp behind a while ago, the air still smelled of burning wood. That didn't seem right.
Noticing that something was amiss, Law got up immediately and followed after her, standing right behind Saki, who was under the doorframe, staring portside, and had no intention of actually stepping on the deck.
That side of the island was ablaze, as well.
Saki's first reaction was confusion as to how the fire had spread so fast, but she discarded that thought as soon as she saw that it was focused somewhere inland, and it wasn't hard to imagine that Kalawa could be there. The boats on the shore that the Polar Tang's lights revealed as they got closer were a telltale sign of what had happened.
With a sharp intake of breath, Saki tried to step back unconsciously and bumped into Law, who put a hand on her shoulder to steady her.
She tried to say something, but the words got stuck in her throat when she looked at the man on the deck, covering his face with his hands. Law didn't say anything either, but she felt him hold his breath.
And the only thing breaking the silence were those damn pink toucans, screeching as they flew to escape the flames.
Help. Fire. No. Why.
Saki placed a hand over Law's, once again unsure if it was for her own comfort or his.
—
The next morning, after having dropped off Adan on the beach and a night of no sleep, Law watched, from the uppermost deck, the one behind the bridge, and mop in hand, how Saki drove the rest of her crewmates around to wash the grime off the floor.
"All right, all hands on deck! I don't want to see any slackers!"
"But what about Bepo?!"
"Do you want us to sink or what?"
Besides, Law thought, the way the decks were, nobody wanted Bepo's fur to catch the ashes that would rise. He'd be brushing them off for weeks.
"I can sail a ship!" Sturgeon intervened.
"And I'm sure you can mop the floor too. Come on, go down and start scrubbing!"
There was much grumbling around, but not another single complaint to her face because she was working too. Fiercely. It had become some sort of personal battle since the coconut rain, and he didn't feel like questioning it while she had something in her hands to smack him with.
The island they had left behind was long lost to the horizon now, and the column of smoke that rose from it had disappeared from sight, too, although later.
It was great to be back at sea. He had spent most of his life sailing, so he felt more at home in the ocean than on firm land, but at this point in time he was also sure that people who said the waters of the Grand Line were dangerous had probably never set foot on one of the islands.
"If she sees you doing nothing, she's going to get on your case too."
He turned around to see Bepo staring at him from his spot at the helm. He sounded a little smug, too. Like he was enjoying that he was the only one spared from cleaning the mess.
Law started to mop because he was right.
"An old lady back at the island said something curious," Bepo said after a while.
"Hm?" Law stopped scrubbing for a moment to look at him, but Bepo kept staring at the front.
"She said something like the birds were a curse for what they did. They were annoying, but I don't get it."
"They supposedly can repeat things they heard a long time ago."
"Oh." Law couldn't see Bepo's face, but his tone was sad. "That's rough."
"They brought it on themselves."
"Yes, but that girl had to listen to them every day, too. I'd have gone crazy in her place."
He… hadn't considered that.
"Yeah. There's no way to move on like that," he replied.
And after a bit more of scrubbing, he realized that some of the dirt stuck between the floorboards wasn't getting out, no matter how much he insisted. He started to grumble under his breath as he mopped with all his might to no avail.
"What's wrong?" Bepo asked.
"What the hell is this?"
Bepo left the helm momentarily to stare at the same place as Law. "Oh. I guess the coconut flakes are still stuck there."
And when Law looked closer, he realized he was right, and the ashes had tinted them grey.
"Are you kidding me?!"
"You'd know if you swept the decks more often," Bepo replied, and right after he'd said it, he covered his mouth and turned around to look at Law. "S-sorry!"
He sighed. "I deserved that one." And he mopped aside a pile of ashes that fell to the main deck. The reaction was immediate.
"Hey!" Saki yelled from below, and he walked to the railing to be able to receive the scolding in full. "Watch where you throw your—WAH!"
She dropped the mop and put her arms up as protection as a treacherous water spurt hit her from the side while she was distracted. She was drenched in water from head to toe when Law saw Shachi and Penguin appear from around the corner, running with a hose and spraying the floor and everyone in their path.
"Gotcha!" Shachi yelled as they ran away.
"Son of a—" Very indignant, Saki picked back up the mop, took one last look at Law, and threatened, "We'll talk later!"
And she ran away after those two, who were well on their way to catching the guys on the lower deck.
"It's good to be together again," Bepo said, pleased.
He had to agree on that.