A/N:As [is going to become] usual, translations are at the bottom of the page.


Chapter Three: A Promise to Genzo

The storm did not break until the dead of night, leaving Rika to fulfill her word the following morning. The crew slept on armchairs and a couch in the sitting area, while Chabo and Kappa remained in their tiny shared room in the back of the house.

"These people seem… unstable," Kappa whispered. It was early in the morning, before the others woke, and the two of them were already up and awake. They were sitting side-by-side on the edge of his mattress, their shoulders just barely apart, both men hunched over with their elbows resting against their knees as they looked directly ahead. "Do we really want to risk the entire Resistance on these vagabonds?"

"You were a vagabond once, and we trusted you."

"I was a kid who barely spoke any Eastern."

"…and these people out there are all younger than us." Chabo exhaled heavily and stared at his hands. "They might be outsiders and vagabonds, but… I just want to have a shot, Kakkun, and taking one is better than not at all."

"Does that shot have to be them, though? We don't know how many openings we've got."

"…and we won't know that number until we take it. Nezumi's gang isn't there—we won't have a shot like this for a long time." Silence passed over them, crickets chirping outside and the wan light from the setting moon being the only thing illuminating the room. He switched to another language, one more appropriate for a desert oasis than a shack in a forest. ⌠⌠I wish things were different.⌡⌡

A scoff. ⌠⌠Yeah.⌡⌡

⌠⌠I mean it.⌡⌡

⌠⌠So do I.⌡⌡ Kappa ran his fingers through his hair in frustration and made the switch back to Eastern. "Let's say we go with whatever fucked-up plan they've got going. What do you think we'll do if this isn't what works?"

"Whatever happens next, I guess."

"You've been saying that for ten fucking years."

"…and I'll say it for ten more."

Kappa grumbled and stood, beginning to pace the room. He didn't know what to do with his hands, gesticulating and fiddling with the pendant around his neck, completely unable to be still. "Genzo is at death's door—I don't want to be there waiting for him when he arrives!"

"I don't think that will be the case," Chabo said. "There's something about Rika that just… it's calming… like she'll make certain everything's going to be alright."

"How the hell can you say that when you've watched the entire island chain devolve into shit?! We're just barely scraping by and the only one in this house that can actually remember how it was before the Fish-Men is Genzo! I've given up on a lot, but I don't want all these years of effort being one of those things."

"Kakkun…"

"Don't 'Kakkun' me, kalyv. You know what's possible just as much as I do—one wrong move and there's nothing left. All done. Vyran. The rest of the Resistance won't even realize we're gone until they've got Fish-Men on their front stoop and their homes have been set ablaze."

"Then let's make all the right moves."

"Life doesn't work that way; sometimes the only moves to make are the wrong ones."

Chabo glanced up at Kappa, seeing how he was fidgety and rubbing the chill in the air off his upper arms. He was beyond nervous. "You can finally search for Terragram." That made the other man stop in his tracks, staring at him slackjawed.

"You remembered."

"You didn't shut up about it for the first three months." Chabo stood and took a couple steps towards the door before turning to look at Kappa, who was unconsciously fiddling with his pendant. "I'll be bringing the pirates to Arlong Park today. Whether you're with us or with Uncle is up to you." He then left, softly closing the door behind him and moving through the house with not a sound.

Kappa swallowed hard and looked out the window—orange and purple were beginning to smear against the horizon, signaling the soon-held dawn. Birds chirped outside the window and the smell of sea spray reached his nose despite the window being closed. He had spent so long on this island—so long with others who knew nothing about him or his homeland—it was as though he wanted both freedom as well as to stay.

If only he could bring Conomi with him.

Letting out a heavy exhale, Kappa checked himself in the shard that served as a mirror before heading out into the main of the house. Chabo was not there, but a light was filtering out from underneath Genzo's door. He instead went to the kitchen portion and began to boil water for tea. By the time he was pouring water into the teapot, Piiman had woken up and was sleepily following his orders, quietly toasting bread and fumbling for plates and cups. Kappa left him to continue and slipped into Genzo's room, seeing that Chabo was helping the old man sit upright in bed.

"Did the kalyv tell you?" he asked.

"He did." Genzo winced as he had the pillows behind him adjusted. "You boys are reckless."

"We aren't boys anymore," Kappa scowled. "We have a way to potentially get rid of the Fish-Men."

"It will put everything and everyone at risk."

"…not if you stay back here and alert the rest of the Resistance if we don't return." Kappa looked at the man before him and exhaled heavily. "I think they're stupid enough to where it actually might work."

"How do you suppose that?"

"Like I said, Uncle: we just know," Chabo replied. "We'll bring in your tea and some food for the day, but if we don't return from Arlong Park, then you know what to do." He took a small box from the shelf and placed it on the old man's bedside table.

"…are you really going to throw away the future I tried to give you both? The future that people have died striving to bring forth?!"

"We're not living in anything worth saving, not unless we act," Kappa said. "If you weren't too weak to move, then I'd say you could come along, but you're dead weight to us like that."

"Kakkun…"

"It's true." He let their words settle in silence, the three men tense at the situation. "We'll see you when we've returned."

"…if you've returned," Genzo corrected.

"No: when." He then turned on his heel and left the room, discovering that the rest of their guests had woken up and were now attacking the toast and jam and tea breakfast that Piiman had finished putting together. Shooing away the hungry, grubby hands of Ninjin and Rika, he put together a tray and handed it off to Chabo to take into Genzo's room. He then sat down at the table to eat what he could stomach.

"Naaa… Kappa… isn't there anything else…?" Rika asked. "My energy levels can't run on just toast, even tasty toast."

"If we win, there'll be plenty in Arlong Park that we can steal from the kitchens," he said. "Meat and rice and vegetables and all the good things one can eat."

"So Fish-Men eat the same things as Humans?" Piiman asked.

"Of course they can," Chabo said, coming out of Genzo's room. "They eat a lot of the same things, even if it's just prepared differently. Haven't you ever met one?" Piiman, Rika, and Ninjin shook their heads, while Tamanegi shrugged awkwardly—so not a meeting that involved food.

"So if we defeat them, we can take their food?" Rika wondered.

"I guess you can say that," Kappa shrugged. Rika and Ninjin both seemed to vibrate in excitement—the promise of more food was something that they couldn't pass up. "Defeat them and not only can I come along on your weird escapade, but there will be a fully-stocked kitchen for you to raid."

"How do we get into this Arlong Park place?" Tamanegi asked. Chabo took an old and yellowed map from the wall and laid it out on the table.

"The cabin we're in is currently here," he said, pointing at one end of the island. He then dragged his finger towards the other far end. "This is where Arlong Park is; if we come up along the back trails here," he traced another line and tapped the paper, "then we should be able to reach these gates unnoticed."

"What about this place?" Piiman asked, pointing at a cluster of buildings labeled Cocoyasi.

"That's the old town—we can't do anything there. No one related to our cause has lived there in twenty years."

"They keep it up to look like a Human town to trick travelers," Kappa noted. "Due to Cocoyasi's natural harbor, almost everything goes in and out of there."

"…with the key word being almost," Chabo said. He pointed to another section of the island, on the other side of Cocoyasi from Arlong Park. "There's a gentle enough landing area here to be used as a viable alternative, so we don't want to try from this direction. They have it on constant surveillance. The only way anyone can make landfall on other parts of the island end up being by complete accident, sheer luck, or incredible skills. Not even other members of the Resistance try it regularly. We only get extra supplies and visits from other Humans from the rocks you landed on, and even then, sometimes we just have to throw down a rope so we can haul up a crate."

"So we sneak in, get rid of this Arlong creep, and bam! We can eat! Kappa can be our navigator! We'd be set!"

"It's not that simple, Rika," Tamanegi chided. "If it were, then the Resistance would have done it by now."

"That's right, we would have," Kappa said. "The only reason this entire scheme is even on the table is because the Human goons who the Fish-Men have in reserve aren't on Cocoyasi right now. They join the fray and we're done for. Now: who's your main combatant?"

The pirates all looked at him.

"You mean… you don't have a main combatant…? Strongest fighter?"

"We've never actually been in a real fight together," Piiman admitted. "Ninjin's the best out of us three guys, but I don't know about the Captain…"

"I can take those bottom-feeders," Rika grinned. She hit her left palm with her right fist, cracking her knuckles in anticipation. "Just get me in there and I'll take care of the rest."

"How do you propose you do that…?" Tamanegi asked. Rika simply shrugged.

"Shishishi—I just do what I do best," she claimed.

"I can't believe it," Kappa marveled, completely deadpan. "She's completely fucking insane."

"I thought she was our deldâremun," Chabo teased. Kappa responded by pouring his tea in the other man's lap, causing him to yelp in pain.

Just as it appeared that a fight was going to break out, the sound of a rhythmic thumping came from Genzo's room. Chabo froze mid-lunge at Kappa and stared at the door uncomfortably.

"Hold on." He poked his head into the room and popped back out again, confused. "Rika…? Uncle Genzo wants to talk to you."

"Why me…?" she wondered. He shrugged and simply opened the door further, allowing her access. She walked inside and saw the older man, thin, sickly, and white-haired. A Den-Den transponder snail sat in a box on the nightstand and Chabo held the tray with the remnants of his breakfast. "Yes, sir?"

"The boys said that you know how to get the Fish-Men off the island," he scowled. Rika sat down on the chair next to his bed, close enough to hear him wheezing through labored breath—claims about his health were anything but overexaggerated. "How do you propose you do that?"

"They need to get me close to them, then I'll take care of the rest," she said. He thought about that, then nodded.

"A Devil Fruit, hmm…?" She did not correct him. "Just don't go filling their heads with ideas and then go back on them. We've lost too much hope on this speck of rock already. I might not be long for this world, but with any luck, they are, and I don't want them suffering all the while."

"Don't worry, sir; I know what I'm doing." She leaned in close to his ear and whispered lowly, so that only he could hear. His eyes went wide and he stared at her as she straightened.

"Really…?"

She nodded.

"Then get the fuck out of my house and go do what we haven't been able to in the last thirty years so my soul can rest peacefully." He held up his hand shakily, which Rika gently smacked with her own.

"You can count on it."


A/N: Translations notes are as follows: kaylv = idiot; vyran = ruined; deldâremun = darling