It was as she reached for a piece of cherry pie in the canteen when she saw it.
A flicker of colour danced past her vision, and she blinked as she squinted at the cherry pie suddenly sliding wildly out of focus. The noise of students skid to a stop before rising again to a different set of sounds and voices...
"That's mine!"
"Not anymore."
"Give it back!"
"HEY!! You knocked my water into my soup!"
"Who cares?!"
'What on earth--? Luffy, Zoro and Usopp...?'
Confused, Nami tried to bring the cherry pie back to sharp focus, but it only sharpened properly for a second or so. Someone was holding a dish with a slice of a very scrumptious-looking cherry pie to her... more specifically, someone with black cuffs. Her eyes flitted over the blurred image of a blonde -- and the image slid into focus to reveal a charming smile with a cigarette tucked in between the lips...
"Nami-saaan, you may ignore these insufferable buffoons--"
"Oi, 'prince', you gave me twice more mushrooms than everyone else!!!"
"Of course you idiot, you need to learn not to leave any food--"
"Nami?"
She was jerked out of her vision suddenly at the uncertain calling of her name, and turning around saw a very concerned Vivi.
"Yeah?"
Nami responded dazedly, the image of Sanji smiling at her still wedging itself into her eyes.
"Uhm... you look a little 'out of it'."
Waving away her friend's worry Nami picked up the cherry pie and moved along to the water bottles, smiling to cover up the heavy weight seeming to drag down her chest.
'I didn't forget that like the times I did before...'
She thought uncomfortably as she tried to ignore the strange sensation of hands pulling down her heart to the pit of her stomach. She took a look at the cherry pie, and felt her heart go lower.
The cherry pie looked stale now.
"What? Virtual reality?"
"Mm, sort of."
Kale swallowed his chocolate doughnut and reached for another as he continued,
"It's like I plug you into a vision which you're allowed to control. I can do it using your minds as vessels, and you guys try and see what happens when you try and change your actions. Basically, see different ways you can change fate."
Sanji raised his eyebrows as he pulled a batch of vanilla cookies out of the tiny electric oven on the table.
"So... we're trying ways to save that dimension, huh?"
"Yup,"
Kale nodded, and tried to sidle his hand behind the toaster for a cookie but was promptly decked with an oven mitt.
"No touching!! These are for Nami-san,"
Sanji said firmly, dusting his hands off of flour and carefully setting the rack of cookies to cool on his bed. Kale let out a whiny sound that was only wasted on the cook.
"Fine. Be that way."
He said with an incredibly childish tilt. Sanji shook his head.
"You know, you seem to be very fond of sweeter things in this life,"
He observed as he pulled out a plate from a small stack near the oven. Kale grinned.
"Nah, that's just me. Luffy likes meat."
"Well, at least now I know the difference,"
Sanji said, shaking his head again.
'To think I had enough trouble with the guy in my past life what with his abnormal consumption of meat, and now he's got two different appetites...'
The model sighed as he watched Kale happily pop another doughnut into his mouth.
"Kaya?"
Usopp's eyes widened as he heard the familiarly soft tones speak nervously back,
"Yes... are you busy, Usopp-san?"
"N-not at all,"
He stammered, trying not to remember the morning. He had only been there once, after all - taking Kaya back home the first time they had met - and he had been already nervous on whether it had been the right house or not. All he had wanted to do was to walk her to work or something.
Then that guy appeared and freaked the living daylights out of him, and for more reasons than just appearing out of thin air. That man had looked familiar - the slicked back hair, the slipping glasses and walking posture looked incredibly like someone Usopp was sure he'd known before... Past life person? He wondered.
Usopp realised that Kaya hadn't said anything in response yet, and hurriedly added,
"Er, is something wrong?"
"I... really wanted to just... uhm... talk to you, I guess..."
She took a small breath as though this was deeply troubling, and Usopp quirked a brow.
"Kaya, are you alright?"
"I'm... just not feeling very well..."
She admitted tiredly,
"And... well, Kurohadol-san came and visited me this morning. He was an acquaintance of my parent's."
Usopp's eyes widened.
"Hey, that sounds like the name of that manager. Feline Incorporates, I think..."
An image flashed before the engineer's eyes -- a photo from a newspaper article-- yes, he'd seen the man before...
"That's an electronics company, isn't it?"
"Yes, that's him."
She sounded gloomy, and Usopp decided he didn't want to push on that aspect of the subject.
"Uh, is there something that happened between you guys?"
"Oh, no!"
Kaya's voice sounded surprised as she spoke hastily,
"I'm just a little disturbed because... well, he visits quite often nowadays, and..."
There was a pause as Kaya seemed to be hesitating. Usopp waited for her to collect her thoughts.
"Uhm... I guess I'm not very comfortable with the man."
She said finally, and the volume in her voice dropped a notch as she continued softly,
"He sort of... reminds me of my parents."
She sounded so forlorn. Usopp felt his heart wrench for the girl, and remembered how badly their deaths had affected her... another twist to the chest, and Usopp's hand tightened around his mug. He set down his pliers for a minute.
"You know Kaya,"
He said suddenly with a cheerful tone to his voice,
"I met that guy before, believe it or not. See, something happened this morning..."
Krieg entered the garage from the back door straight from the showers and was met with the sight of Krow sitting at the table.
"Krow? What are you doing here?"
He asked blankly as he pulled out a chair and began to towel off his hair.
"Wouldn't you think that I'd be a little more concerned, considering I'm donating an awful lot of money to this 'scheme' of yours?"
Krow said, scowling. Krieg rolled his eyes.
"Relax. We're just using 'em to get to another vault and in the mean while using 'em for revenge."
The white-haired gang leader smirked as he rubbed at his hair vigorously, feeling ecstasy fill him as he imagined himself pulverising the blonde haired kicking twerp. It took him a while to notice that fact that Krow was carefully studying several knife blades in his hands.
"What are you doing?"
He asked curiously as the manager ran a thoughtful finger along the back of a paper-cutter blade. Krow's eyes glinted at Krieg through the glasses, and slowly pushed the glasses up the bridge of his nose using his palm. The palm he used still had a blade tucked between the fingers. Krow gave a small shudder of what looked like perverse pleasure at the action, and he went back to stroking the blade.
"Say, Krieg,"
He said in a low and quiet voice,
"Have you ever felt anything... familiar?"
Krieg blinked. What was the kook on about now? He watched the man smile strangely as he ran a thumb along the sharp edge of the knife.
"Come to think of it... perhaps."
He said slowly, thinking of the fact that most of his crew-mates - especially Gin - had come into his gang because he had found them recognisable. Krow raised an eyebrow.
"Have you?"
"Yeah. Why? You get that deja vu-ish feeling, too?"
An image of a long-nosed man - not the one who had been before Kaya's mansion that morning, but someone who looked insistently similar - flickered across Krow's mental vision. He nodded slowly in response, and looked down at his hands and the knife blade.
"...Cat Claws,"
He muttered, but did not say anything else to help out Krieg's confused expression.
The room was filled with cigarette smoke with only small slivers of white light filtering between the blinds. Jenna coughed as she eased the door open to let herself in. The young man inside glanced up quickly, but when his eyes registered through the musty air the bright copper streaks in her hair he went back to his phone call.
"Not now, Jenna, I'm busy."
She smiled as she purred,
"Aww, Kent..."
"Yes, well, it's not going to be easy trying to get them to do anything under that amount of payment, I mean, that's not even decent--"
"Kent,"
Jenna repeated, but he ignored her again, his thick eyebrows knotting as he muttered,
"We're perfectly capable of the job, we've got quality and quantity, what more could you ask for? And I've got a sister in there, she'll help in grabbing contacts and help in diversions but you've got to raise the payment--"
"What? That's something to do with me? Kent, talk to me!!"
Jenna snapped, her sweet demeanor disappearing. Kent rolled his eyes, mouthing,
"Not now, I'm busy negotiating with someone here..."
Before returning to the phone and snapping waspishly,
"That's not enough!!"
He blinked as the phone went silent. Not even the noisy breathing of his boss could be heard... he didn't understand-- until Jenna brandished a phone cord under his nose.
"What the-- JENNA!!! That was my freaking BOSS!! Waporu!!!"
"Relax, he'll take the response to mean you're being serious. Listen, Kent, what do you mean about me grabbing contacts?"
Kent smirked, his mood improving at the memory of the promise of a lot of money.
"It's some major paying job. Merging with a bunch of other gangs for a day for something. All I've gotta do with my team is bang up some kids from GLU. Do you know a Zoro Roronoah and a Sandy White?"
Jenna's eyes widened.
"Of course I do! Who wouldn't know Sandy White?! And Zoro's a..."
She paused before saying softly,
"...good friend of mine..."
"Er, we're just scaring them. Nothing much, sweetie, don't look so pale."
But Jenna's eyes were glinting maliciously as she said,
"Oh, I won't worry too much about me. I'm sure Zoro won't be too scarred by what he sees. See, Kent... I want to ask you... could you do a huge favour for me?"
"It would depend,"
Kent said as he looked at his sister suspiciously. She smiled sweetly.
"Just beat up another student for me, will you?"
"Who?"
Jenna's eyes narrowed as she remembered the bitch dragging Zoro off in the dinner dance, and her voice came out as a sort of growl as she replied through her teeth,
"A raven that goes by the name of 'Tashigi'..."
A/N: I think I'm updating every Sunday/Monday... I think. ^_^* Thanks for all your reviews... and don't worry ashez-san, I find your review extremely rewarding. See, I knew that chapter would throw loads of people off. XD thanks for giving me another chance! *bows* That goes to everyone else who bothered spend their time typing me a review. Arigatou. ^_^
*side note* I'll be starting a page for 'Reborn' soon to put on my website, I think... ^^;; It's growing to be a very experimental project...