Inside Hitori Noodles was a simple bench with stools sitting along with it.
On the other side is a humble kitchen manned by a single cook.
Hitori Yumzo; the noodle master.
Bakato burst through the entrance like he owned the place.
"Oiii, I'm back, Yumzo-sama!"
"Bakato? You were just here this morning for breakfast!"
"I have no idea what you're talking about, Yumzo-sama! Six bowls of noodles please!"
The gang sat along the bench and watched Yumzo work his culinary magic.
Meanwhile, his 27-year-old daughter, Hitori Nina, served the drinks. She had lovely brown hair.
"Wow, this place is great!" Said Swiss as he took hold of his full sake cup.
"What I tell ya?" Bakato proudly remarked.
Grit sat at the end of the bench, sipping on his sake and brooding in silence.
Jinzo sat next to him and ordered a green tea that he poured from a brass teapot.
In the middle was Swiss, alongside Musashi Raito.
The seating arrangement almost felt like it was done on purpose; ensuring Bakato and Pandora are sitting near each other and on the other end of the bench.
In less than 10 minutes, 6 bowls of noodles were placed in front of them. The delicious smells captivated the nostrils of Swiss.
"Damn, smells good. What did you get, Pandora, the vegan option?" asked Swiss.
Pandora raised her chin like a dignified princess, "I just like to eat light."
"Trololol, fair enough." Then the attention of Swiss turned to the bowl of Bakato, which is at least three times larger than normal.
"Jeez, that portion's almost as big as you!"
"Haha, I wish!"
They all got dug into their meals. For the initial minutes, all you could hear was the silence of them enjoying their food.
"Wow, Yumzo-san. This is amazing." Jinzo exclaimed.
Grit let out a satisfied grunt to agree.
The jolly Hitori Yumzo crossed his arms and smiled at his satisfied customers.
Their eating frenzy continued through the afternoon into the early evening.
By now, Bakato had finished a dozen bowls of noodles.
Swiss? A dozen cups of sake.
"So Bakato," Swiss said, pointing his finger and swaying on his barstool, "What's this shit about 'Yo car gay'..? I don't even own a vehicle."
"No! I said Yokage." Bakato replied.
"Yokage?" Jinzo curiously remarked.
"The Yokage is the top ninja in the village. It's my dream to become Yokage."
"So…?" Swiss still did not understand.
Pandora rolled her eyes, "Ugh, you suck at explaining. I'll do it." She spun on her stool and faced the group,
"The Yokage is the head of Namigakure, the village hidden in the waves. This village is just one of nine ninja villages in the country, each with its own leader. Namigakure is considered the most powerful village in terms of military might. The Yokage is quite literally the top of the ninja world."
"Ah, that must pay very well." Swiss figured.
"I'm not in it for the money! I just want to become Yokage so that everyone in the village has no choice but to acknowledge me."
"Trololol. Desperately vying for the approval of others is toxic, dude. Do things for yourself." Swiss said as he waved his arms and Hitori Nina promptly refilled his sake cup.
"Whatever! I'm doing this for me. But anyway, that's a long while down the road. I have to wait for sensei to retire first." Bakato scrunched his eyes and glanced at Musashi Raito.
"Nani?" Swiss and Jinzo lean closer toward Musashi Raito, "You're going to be Yokage?"
"Are you kidding?" Pandora then said, "They have wanted to make sensei the Yokage ever since he was our age. It's pretty much his destiny."
This called to question the mathematics of it all. "Um, how old are you, Raito-san?" Jinzo softly asked.
Musashi Raito had been keeping up with the drinking pace of Swiss. He sipped on his sake and replied "20."
"Incredible. To be so young and have to shoulder all that responsibility." Jinzo spoke as if he could relate.
Swiss smiled like he won a competition, "Trololol, I guess that means I'm the oldest here."
"Aren't you 18, Swissan?"
"Oh.." Swiss had completely forgotten that he was no longer 23 years old, "Yeah… I meant spiritually, I'm like the oldest soul here."
"Pfft. Yeah, right." Grit curtly said.
"Oh, whatever Grit! You say you're 18? Shiet nigga, you at least 30!" Swiss did his best Martin Lawrence impersonation.
Swiss flicked a chopstick in Grit's direction, to which Grit dodges on reflex. They glared at each other.
Jinzo, who sat between them, felt like he was in the crossfire of a lightning discharge.
"So, are you excited to become Yokage, Raito-san?" Jinzo quickly changed the focus of their attention.
"Excited?" By now, the booze was starting to get to Musashi Raito. The booze, alongside the casual vibes of Swiss and company, influenced his answer.
"Can't say I'm excited. I don't even want to become Yokage." Musashi Raito let his walls down and spoke the truth from his heart.
"Then why does this baka say you're going to become Yokage? Can't you just decline?" Swiss pointed at Bakato and asked.
Musashi Raito sighed, leaning his head back and looking up to the ceiling, "It's a matter of duty; responsibility. All that crap."
He swallowed down the bitter bile of resentment. His mind wandering in a black pit filled with a million thoughts.
"Trolololol! Fuck that!" Swiss grabbed the bottle from Hitori Nina's hands and downed the whole thing.
He wiped the sake from his chin and then said a famous saying from his days playing OPO.
"Do you what you want 'cause a pirate is free!"
"Huh?" Musashi Raito uttered. The childish delivery of Swiss made him appear naive. But in the eyes of Swiss, Musashi Raito could tell that he was being serious.
"What are you talking about? None of us are pirates." Grit said.
"Nonsense! Each one of us here is a pirate! You just need to learn the true definition."
Jinzo and Grit rolled their eyes. They chopped this up to another one of Swiss' drunken ramblings.
"Don't give me that!" Swiss pointed at his companions, "I'm not talking about pirates that go around raping and pillaging. I'm talking about how we are men of the sea who chase our dreams and embody the essence of freedom!"
"If we're pirates then who is the captain?" Jinzo softly mused.
"Me, obviously!"That's when Swiss turned and faced Musashi Raito, "A pirate does what he wants. If I were you, and I didn't want to become Yokage, I'd tell the village to go fuck themselves!"
"Hey! Watch what you say!" Bakato told him.
"Trololol. Whatever pipsqueak. Oh yeah! That reminds me, what's up with you and being able to create clones?"
"Oh, that?" Bakato brought the middle and index finger from both hands together in a cross, "I ate the Kage-Kage No Mi, Model: Bunshin fruit. I create shadow clones!"
A smoke cloud puffed next to Bakato. When the smoke dissipated, it revealed a clone.
"Wow! That must be overpowered!" Swiss said in amazement.
"Heh, not really. I can only make ten clones at a single time." Bakato said, always thinking about how to improve himself.
"Don't worry, Bakato-kun. I'm sure with more training you will be able to create more." Jinzo spurred him on.
"Hmm." Musashi Raito hummed as if to agree with what Jinzo said.
"I wonder about that…" Swiss said.
Swiss had seen the Kage-Kage No Mi, Model: Bunshin in his days playing One Piece Online.
It was a fruit that the developers added to create more variety in the game.
The fruit was largely a failure.
In theory, a fruit that gives a user the power to create clones that fight alongside him is epic.
But in practice, the fruit was tough for the admins to code.
The clones were idiotic NPC's that blindly rushed towards whatever enemy got within range. Not effective whatsoever.
Bakato's clones, on the other hand, were as intelligent as him.
Be that as it may, the prior experience of Swiss, as well as the little intelligence that Bakato had shown, made Swiss conclude that the Clone fruit would likely be just as useless as his gaming days.
'Time will only tell.' Swiss thought. He was curious to see how a fruit from OPO manages to express itself in the One Piece world.
"And what about you, Raito?" Grit spoke.
"Me?" Musashi Raito did not know what Grit was asking.
Grit looked at Musashi Raito with respect.
Musashi Raito earned this respect when he managed to stop the killing blow of Grit.
"Yeah, why don't you want to become Yokage?" Grit asked.
Pandora and Bakato tensed ever so slightly. They seemed to not want to say anything out of term.
They looked to their sensei, wondering what he would say.
Musashi Raito sighed and closed his eyes, "Because this village is just a bunch of hypocrites."
"Oh? Do tell." Swiss eagerly said.
"Okay…"
Musashi Raito told Swiss and company his back story.
His father, Musashi Kite, was a great ninja of Namigakure. His fame among the ninja world was revered.
When Musashi Raito was very young, a war broke out between the nine ninja villages.
The exploits of Musashi Kite gained him much notoriety as he swept through the battlefields.
Musashi Kite was poised to have everything the ninja world had to offer. But it was not meant to be.
A situation occurred. Musashi Kite was entrusted with a crucial mission that could have ended the war.
Sadly, things went sour, and Musashi Kite was faced with a decision; abandon the mission and save his friends, or complete the mission and let his friends die.
He chose the former.
Despite saving the lives of his comrades, Musashi Raito was vilified for abandoning the mission, seen as the man who allowed the gruesome war to continue.
All of the accomplishments that Musashi Kite racked up in that war were completely forgotten. He was now the traitor of Namigakure.
The shame ate away at Musashi Kite.
He took his own life. Piercing his stomach with a blade.
Swiss glanced at the small tanto blade strapped at the back of Musashi Raito's waist.
"Uh huh…" he said, a finger tapping his chin as he computes the information he heard, "So the village completely ostracized him?"
"Yep. After my father took his own life, my mother broke down. She got addicted to drugs and whored herself to fund her addiction. In the end, the Jet killed her."
"Jet..?" Swiss' voice had raised a few decibels.
Jet, like Sped, was another drug in OPO. It was an item that came with the model of a syringe that would decrease the cooldown on using skills by 25%.
"Jet. It's this drug people inject into their bloodstream. Highly addictive and deadly." Jinzo said. He knew all too well about the horrors of Jet.
"Oh? True…" Swiss brushed this aside for now.
He was intrigued to be hearing about Jet and the Kage-Clone fruit. Both of which were items not mentioned in the story and found only in OPO.
"So the village didn't support you guys?" Grit concluded and asked Musashi Raito a simple question.
"Exactly. They watched as my mother rotted away. They watched as I inherited the guilt that my father harbored."
"Trolololol. What a bunch of cunts!" Swiss cried out, "I would have hit the road. Now they want you to become Yokage? What, because you're the genius ninja?"
"That's what I mean. The villagers are hypocrites. They didn't help us, but once my genius was discovered when I entered the academy, their whole tune changed." Musashi Raito said in disgust.
Bakato listened to this whole exchange. The blood in his veins began to boil, "But even so, this is our home! All of that doesn't matter!"
"I know, I know." Musashi Raito promptly replied, "I agree. Still, I just wish people weren't so shameless about it."
"What's that saying? 'Might is right'? Reminds me of what this bastard told me…"
Swiss felt at the sword, Rangi, that Stacy Lockett had given him. The words of Stacy Lockett sang in his head.
["How often do people get judged based on appearance? Everyone should be taken seriously! True character lies beneath the surface."]
"You got straw-manned, Raito. Before, you were judged to be the child of a traitor and a drug addict. Now you are judged to be the genius of the waves. They treat you accordingly."
"I'll drink to that." Grit said.
"Me too," Jinzo added.
"Yeah. Anyway…"
The gang decided to park the depressing backstories and have fun.
They drank, joked, laughed, and sang happy birthday to Pandora.
Once it got late, Pandora and Bakato left Hitori Noodle.
"Bye guys. See you later!" Bakato said as he waved, walking down the street with Pandora.
"See ya, Bakato! Make sure you get her home safe, ya hear!" Swiss shouted to him.
He giggled to Jinzo, "I hope that idiot doesn't blow this opportunity."
"I don't think she likes Bakato in that way.." Jinzo added.
"Nonsense! Give it time."
That left Musashi Raito with Swiss and company.
They stayed at Hitori Noodle, drinking and eating, laughing and singing.
They were lucky to be in a noodle house. If they were in a normal bar with no easy access to food, they would have passed out due to the alcohol by now.
"TROLOLOLOL! Cheers pals!"
At the words of Swiss, everyone held out their sake glasses and chinked them together, saying in unison,
"CHEERS!"
They each downed their sake in a single go.
'Ahhh!' they all exhaled in satisfaction.
Musashi Raito gazed at Swiss, Jinzo, and Grit. This was the best fun he had in a while.
All his troubles had been whisked away.
No thoughts about becoming Yokage.
No thoughts about his father.
No thoughts about the silly politics of current events.
[jacobdan22: Do what you want 'cause a pirate is free]
A smile curved on his good-looking face.
He swept back his azure-blue hair that was paler than the sky, allowing the fingers to stroke against his skull.
Their laughter fueled by debauchery resounded in the noodle shop. So loud that from inside you could have sworn the whole village could hear.
But their happy drinking session would come to a sudden end.
*BOOM!*
A bouldering sound blasted.
Quaking vibrations made their sake glasses chatter on the bench.
Swiss and company all widened their eyes as they raised their guard.
"Fireworks?" Swiss hoped.
"I don't think that was fireworks…" said Jinzo.
Jinzo was correct.
The next thing that could be heard was the panicked outcries of villagers.
And the loud copper bells that signaled the village was under attack.