Wasuremono: The Things We Leave Behind
In the previous chapter, the Straw Hat pirates made the acquaintance of Swiss, a mysterious woman who proved to be the captain of the Magpie Pirates. Not only is she a member of a rival pirate crew, she also posesses the powers of the Ana-Ana Fruit, and has used her hole-riddled body to snatch the Log Pose away from Nami!
Chapter 4: Spice to the Spicy
"But... but I didn't even feel you touch my hand..." Nami said in disbelief, running fingers over her bare arm. "Even with your power..."
"There's more to my power than I have to tell you." Swiss smirked. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I'll be leaving."
"Give it back!" Nami yelled. "That's important!"
"Now, is that away way for a pirate to behave? I stole it from you fair and square. I guess you can fight me to get it back, or stop whining and go buy another Log Pose in town."
"I don't mean the Log Pose." Nami said. "You're right, we could buy another one if it happened to get broken while Luffy wiped the floor with you. But you can at least return that bracelet. It's not worth any money."
"Huh, then I don't see why you care."
"My sister gave it to me. It's a memento. It's not worth anything to you--"
"Who says?!" Swiss snapped. She waved a small but thick leather-bound book in Nami's face. "I collect pirate memorabilia, and THIS is pirate memorabilia, according to my guide. And from the famous Straw-Hats' navigator too. I'll put it in my museum back on my home island. If YOU cared so much about it, YOU would have noticed the second it was gone." She began backing towards the woods. "It wasn't doing you any good! You didn't even remember it until you saw it in my hand!"
"She's going to run for it." Zoro said, drawing Sandaikitetsu a few inches from its scabbard.
"No... I think she has a different escape route in mind." Robin said.
"Leave it to me!" Usopp said boldy, pulling out his slingslot and whipping off a round. "RANGER USOPP PSYCHO-CRUSH-WAVE DYNAMIC COMET!"
"That's just your ordinary Lead Star." Nami commented as the projectile whistled towards Swiss's chest. A gaping hole appeared in the black bustier, swallowing up the ball of lead.
"There's another bit of memorabilia for me." she grinned, leafing through her book. "The bullet of the famous cowardly sharpshooter Usopp."
"Try this one then - RANGER USOPP MAGNETIC STEAMING SOLAR RAINBOW!"
The bullet whistled directly towards Swiss's face, and rather than open up a new hole, she simply caught it in her mouth. "Trying to knock a tooth out? I guess you didn't realize I have quite a bit of control over my natural orifices as well."
"Heh." Usopp chuckled. " It's not the first time I've caught a fool with that move."
"What?" Swiss snorted. "Idiot, I just told you, you can't get me with -- urkkk--".
"Maybe my special tabasco star wasn't on your list yet?"
"HOOOOOOTTTT!" Swiss screamed, her elegant face flashing red and contorting in chemical pain. "HOOOOOOTTTTTTTT!!!" Holes snapped open in every part of her body as her shocked system dropped her entire contents in an effort to flush out the spicy demons.
"Uggh, how disgusting." Nami put a hand to her mouth as mounds of chewed sandwiches mingled with junk Swiss had picked up here and there, creating a minitature garbage dump at the incapacitated captain's feet. Out of her various holes clunked a broken lantern, a crescent wrench, some of the table's silverwear, a human arm--
"Oh, that's where that went." Robin said.
-- an old umbrella, heavily patched striped pants, a wanted poster for 'Mikio Itoo', several thousand beads, a muscular man in a panda mask (who hightailed it into the forest) and a worn patchwork doll.
"Icca-chan!" Moli's voice called. Usopp turned to see the little girl whose doll he'd been searching for, whose soft-spoken prescence had been nearly forgotten in the ruckus.
"That's ..." Usopp looked back and forth from Moli to her doll, pieces fitting together in his mind. When he looked up at Swiss, his eyes were cold with rage.
"You! You -- you even stole a child's doll!"
"She ... she wasn't watching it." Swiss croaked through cracked lips. "You're the wimpiest pirates I've ever seen. 'It's my bracelet, it's my doll.'" She coughed. "Damn you and your dirty tricks. My throat is all raw now... At any rate, it's worthless to complain about losing things if you didn't care for them when you had them. But, I suppose it's what I should expect from pirates that would spend all their time on this worthless little park that nobody but an old lady even cares about to start with."
"We're working because we can make it worth something!" Usopp said, pulling back another tabasco star. "We've got what you stole, now get out of here before I give you another souvenir!"
"I guess it's time for me to leave, then." Swiss straightened. "But I'll give you a fair warning. My three lieutenants are coming here, tonight. Unlike me, they collect very specific things. And according to my little book here, there are six treasures in your little crew that will interest them."
"Six treasures?" Nami asked. "What do you mean?"
"You'll find out." Swiss said, folding her arms. "So watch yourselves, huh?" Before any of the others could react, she dropped out of sight as though the earth had swallowed her up.
"Icca-chan!" Moli rushed forward to pick up her doll, hugging it tightly to her despite the soggy bread crumbs in the yarn hair.
"Now you'll be able to take Icca-chan home and have her tell you all about her adventures in the monster's belly." Usopp said. "You can tell us about it after the next show, okay?"
"I will! Thank you!" Moli said, running off happily.
"Another case closed thanks to Wonder Detective Usopp." The sharpshooter grinned.
"What happened to 'Ranger Usopp'?" Nami asked, wiping the sandwich gunk off the bracelet and Log Pose before slipping them back onto her wrist.
"I can be more than one, you know!"
"What a terrible person..." Chopper said, looking at the ground.
"Hey, hey, there's nothing wrong with bragging after a job well done. It's just as I said to the king of Bellabovia after I defeated the ogre who was terrorizing the kingdom. You see, in Bellabovia, boasting was a crime, and so even though I had saved the land, I was clapped in chains, and dragged --"
"No, not you, Usopp!" Chopper explained hastily. "That woman. She seemed so easygoing and nice, just like Luffy. How could she steal a little girl's doll like that?"
"Two people can act similar, but be very different inside. It's just the way humans are."
Sanji prodded the ground with his foot. "There's no trapdoor. There's nothing. She just vanished."
"It looks like she's able to escape through her own holes." Robin said. "That makes her a very dangerous opponent. She can get in and out of anywhere."
"She said her lieutenants were coming tonight." Nami said. "We'd better prepare to deal with them first."
XXXXXXXXXX
"Okay, let's make sure we know all our positions." Nami said, spreading a map of the park in front of the Straw Hat crew. "I've sent Zoro to the shore, to guard the Merry, in case they try to steal anything from the ship."
"Good idea. The Merry itself is definitely one of our treasures." Usopp said.
"The park has been closed, and the only 'civilians' left here are Sherry and her grandson." Nami tapped a finger on the shack in the center of the map at 'Reverse Mountain'. "Chopper, you'll stay with them and guard them. We want you there in case they get injured. Usopp, you'll be our lookout. Find a place that lets you see the whole park."
"I think the rest of us should stay here." Luffy said as the two hurried off to do their jobs. He gestured around them to the open field of 'Sea Monster's Lair'. They were at the southern edge of the park, past where all the large rides were, in an area that the Straw Hat reconstruction effort had barely touched. It just wasn't worth it to fix up the carnival-style attractions when there weren't any employees to operate them or take the tickets. "We don't have to worry about it getting wrecked in the battle."
"Sometimes you can be uncharacteristically sensible, Captain." Robin said.
"Thanks!"
"Straw Hat pirates!" boomed a loud, fulminating voice. "That's you, am I correct?"
Luffy, Nami, Sanji and Robin turned to face three menacing strangers. Without even the chance for a forewarning from Usopp, the lieutenants of the Magpie Pirates had arrived.
Next: Just what ARE those Magpie pirates after? Two of the Straw Hat crew with be enraged when they learn the nature of their opponents 'collections' and what they hope to add to them, in Chapter 5 of "Wasuremono"!