"I'm bored." I say out loud as I fill up the logbook with entries and doodles from yesterday's event.
Both boys only groan in response, agreeing with me. Flame is sleeping while Takao is on lookout duty, as usual.
Takao did say that we might reach another island possibly in a couple of days, but it's a couple of days too long for us. And I need my bath!
I'm gonna swim.
I close the book and put it away neatly next to my satchel before taking off my footwear and hat. Zoro is watching me curiously as I stand up and take off my gauntlets and sash that he slowly starts to realize what I'm doing when I eventually zipping down my sports jumpsuit.
"What the hell are you up to, you crazy brat?!" Zoro yells at me with a bright red face as he covers his eyes with his hand.
"What do you mean? I'm going swimming." I tell him innocently as I take off my jumpsuit, leaving me only with my undershorts, "I'm not gonna swim with my clothes. What are you, dumb?" I reply teasingly while doing stretches before jumping into the sea water and resurfacing back up to hold onto the boat.
"Have some decency, would you?!" I just laughed at his reaction.
"You're overreacting! I don't have boobs compared to yours, so you can relax." I assure him while he turns to Luffy, who's watching us in amusement.
"Oi Captain. Your First Mate has no shame." He complains and Luffy just laughs.
"Shishishi! I wish I could swim too!" Luffy comments instead and Zoro just let out a groan in exasperation.
"I can't believe I'm babysitting two teens…" He moans out.
"I'm gonna hunt us some fishes or something. Got any request?" I ask them with a grin.
"Ooh! Ooh! I want Sea King meat!" Luffy exclaims out excitedly and I roll my eyes.
"Sea Kings are rare in the Blues, Luffy." I tell him, "And how are we gonna cook it?! Flame can't keep on breathing fire on it while it's half-submerged in water!"
"We'll think of ways to do it!" Luffy grins and I stare at him blankly.
"I'll get some fish instead. I shouldn't have asked you for a request." I huff before diving down into the water and to the bottom, nearing the reefs.
With my eyes closed, I use Kenbun to detect my surroundings as I call for Deimos to help me fishing. Thankfully it was needle sized and Zoro didn't notice a thing. Now, it's fishing time.
Stabbing the fish and throwing it onto the boat, I keep on going until we get a good amount of fish enough to feed a small village that I finally stop and go back to the boat. When I reach the boat, I see that Luffy is already helping himself by letting Flame do the cooking, while Zoro is doing the guts cleaning.
"Doing great, boys." I grin as I command Deimos back into needle-sized and slip back into my satchel. I hold and pull myself up onto the boat behind the sail, ignoring Zoro's protest as I dry myself up with a small towel I bring along, changing my underpants, and start dressing myself up again.
"You better save some for me, Luffy. Or you'll do the fishing again yourself." I warn him and he flinches at that as he stops mid-bite. I crawl under the sail to immediately grab the fish in his hand and eat it, ignoring his protests for stealing his fish as I turn to Zoro, "So Zoro, how's your three-swords-style?"
"It's going great, as usual. Why?"
"Wanna learn how to use Haki?" He raises his brow in question while I grin and bring up my hand, coating it with Buso before pinching and pulling Luffy's cheek, who is protesting and crying out in pain as he tries to grip my wrist to let him go. "You see, I think Buso-Haki will be great for you to increase your offensive and defensive powers, especially against DF users later in Grand Line."
"What's that anyway? I've seen Luffy do the same too when he beat that Morgan guy's ass, but what is it really?" Zoro seems curious about it and I smile mischievously as I let Luffy's cheek go with a smack.
"He sure did! That's because I've been training his ass off to learn it, along with Kenbun." I reply with a prideful puff of my chest, "So how's it? Wanna learn it? Just so you know; I'm sure only a handful of people have Haki in this Blue, considering they're more common in the second part of Grand Line. Moreover, you might be able to cut steel." I offer him again and he smirks with an interested look in his eyes.
"Sounds interesting. Tell me more about this Haki thing."
So for around an hour, I tell him the basics of Haki, three Haki types, and how to utilize them while eating the grilled fishes. After the sudden crash course, he's trying to use Buso to coat his katana to no avail.
"Just try your best to concentrate on coating your hand first." I advise when he's basically glaring at Wado, who's thrumming in encouragement. What a good sword. "Even Wado is cheering for you." I add.
"Huh? My katana is what?" Zoro questions in confusion.
"Cheering for you." I repeat calmly, pointing at the said sword.
That makes Zoro even more confused and looks at me as if I just grew 3 heads before turning to Luffy for an answer, who's watching us.
"Your katana is nice! She's cheering for you!" Luffy says instead with a grin, and now Zoro is giving him the same look as before.
"…I'm surrounded by lunatics." He says under his breath before turning back to the task at hand.
I just snorted in amusement while Luffy turned back to Flame and just practiced his Kenbun-slash-Special Ears by having a conversation with the huge wolf. "You just need to listen more." I tell him with a shrug. Ironic, when I never really listen unless necessary.
While Zoro is doing his best, I turn to Luffy and poke his arm to gain his attention. "Wanna continue learning my homeworld language?" I offer and he grimaces in return.
"But it's boring!" He replies and I roll my eyes.
"But we can have our secret conversation together that no one can know! It'll be our secret language." I point out and he puffs his cheeks in thoughts, contemplating it while also slowly hurting his head as his face starts to get red. "You're thinking too hard." I pat his head to snap him out and he huffs.
"Okay fine! Let's do it." He agrees and I grin in return.
"Good. Let's start with simple questions."
And for the next hour, I taught Luffy more about my homeworld language. He's not great at it, but I'm sure it's better compared to Ace now.
"Okay, last one. Apa mimpimu?" I ask and he immediately grins so wide and so bright like the sun shining down on us.
"Aku akan menjadi Raja Bajak Laut!" He exclaims out and laughs, while I smile happily in return.
"Bagus, Luffy. Untuk sekarang kamu lulus, tapi nanti kita coba buat engga pake Common sama sekali ya." I tell him and he groans out in exhaustion.
"Tapi kepalaku sakit!" He complains, "Rasanya… Uhh, mau cepat?"
"Close. It's 'copot' or 'lepas', which means 'fall off'." I shake my head in amusement, "'Cepat' means 'fast'." I add.
"Yeah that!"
"Well, good job, Luffy. This way, I'm sure you managed to beat Ace by far." I compliment him and he immediately brightens up, headache forgotten. So cute. "We'll surprise him later once we meet him in the Grand Line."
"Wahoo! Finally, I can beat Ace!" He cheers out with his arms up before turning to Zoro, who's been watching us curiously and weirdly. "Oh Zoro! How's Buso training? Want me to help?"
Zoro shakes his head but thinks better of it, "Maybe a little tip, Captain." He says instead.
"Hmm, okay! You need to focus on putting your all in your hand for example, and then your hand goes 'fwoosh!' when the coating covers your hand!" Luffy explains vaguely while applying Buso on his fist. Zoro seems to regret his decision to ask the Captain and turns to me. I snort in amusement.
"Well, he's right about one thing." I thumb on Luffy, who seems proud of himself, "Focus your willpower to your hand. Kinda like clenching and hardening up your guts before you got struck there, but also putting your willpower along as the coating."
"It could be your will to protect, or your will to reach your dreams; use them to give yourself a coating. Something like applying a lotion, nyehehe." I chuckle and he seems to understand a bit as he turns back to his hand. "Don't push yourself. It is a little hard to grasp and learn in such a short time." I add to assure him from the frustration that builds up.
"How many years did it take you to master it?" He asks and I hum in thought.
"Around two years with gramps, and another five with Luffy and Ace while also training them both at the same time." I answer with a grin, "Ace only managed to learn for around 2 years, but he's strong enough already."
"And who's Ace?"
"Our big brother." Both Luffy and me reply in sync, and Zoro seems weirded out by that but didn't comment on it.
"Well, I guess I need to learn it faster then." Zoro concludes with a smirk and a challenged glint in his eyes.
"I doubt it, but good luck with that." I reply with a shrug.
"Shishishi! At least Eris didn't teach you on land, because I don't think you'll survive Eris' hell training…" Luffy trails off as he starts to remember his training with me and shudders in fear, while I roll my eyes.
"Don't be like that. It's not that bad!"
"It is! It's even worse than training with grandpa! All you did was chase us around through the forest and beat us to death for the whole day!"
"You're overreacting. You're still alive, right?"
"Barely!"
I pull down his hat to cover his eyes and he yelps in return before pushing it back up to pout at me with his owlish brown eyes. Gosh he's so cute!
Eventually, it became silent again as Luffy is talking to Flame again, Zoro's back to his solo Buso-Haki training, and I'm bored out of my mind that I decided to doze off near Luffy and hold onto his pinky. I feel him curling it back and I easily slip off into dreamless sleep.
But then I got abruptly woken up by a sharp jerk.
I growl in annoyance when I see Zoro is frantically rowing the boat towards somewhere.
"Luffy got taken by a huge bird!" Zoro quickly informs me before I can devour him whole for disturbing my nap.
Oh.
I notice that Takao is nowhere to be seen and see that he's actually following Luffy and the huge bird. I can only hold onto the railing of the boat as I can feel three people floating in the sea in front of us.
"There are three people in front of us around 100 meters from us." I inform Zoro and he glances at the horizon. Sure enough, as Zoro keeps on rowing, three specks are slowly seen better and I see that they looked like your typical mob pirates.
And then they yell out to help them, but Zoro yells back to get away or grab the boat if they don't wanna get run over instead, which they actually did grab hold onto the boat while Zoro keeps on going.
"Hehe, you guys really did it, huh?" Zoro laughs in amusement and I snicker at that.
"ARE YOU TRYING TO KILL US?!" The three stooges yell out before one of them is brandishing his sword at my throat as they look at Zoro, "Hey, stop the boat. We're the crewmembers of the infamous Buggy the Clown and we're taking the boat."
At that, Zoro immediately stops to slowly turn at them with a deathly glare and shadow creeps up to his face, "Huh?"
In the end, Flame is the one that deals with them with an easy Fire Breath and lots of Bites, before Zoro made them row the boat instead. They even apologized to us because of their rudeness and told us their origin story of why they were drifting in the sea, which of course includes our favorite orangette lady.
"So, you're this Buffoon's crewmates and Nami threw you overboard because you guys are greedy bastards? Is that right?" I summarize their story as I cross my arms to my chest, "Serves you right. I should've just cut you up here and used your corpses as shark baits." I huff darkly and the three stooges yelp out in fear.
"And because of you guys, we lost sight of our Captain." Zoro adds in annoyance as I look up to where both Luffy and Takao are heading.
"I'm gonna go after them." I announce as I grab my satchel before looking at Flame, ignoring Zoro's confused look. "Flamey, keep an eye on Zoro. He tends to get lost even on a straight line." I tell him while holding down my hat before I jump on the yard and into the air, kicking up as I take myself up towards our destination.
Definitely missing out the way Zoro is popping his eyes out in awe as he watches me take off.
I keep on going until I can see an island that I'm sure is Orange Island, and I see a familiar building with a familiar pirate flag. Hoo, seeing it in real life is pretty impressive! And also there's absolutely no one save for Buggy Pirates, one dog, a familiar orangette, Luffy, and Takao.
And then adding me into the pile too!
Slowly descending down and landing gently to the middle of the town, I notice that there's another guy besides those I just counted just walking around the street. From what I can feel and see, he seems a year younger than Luffy.
He wears a tattered dark green jacket and a plain orange shirt underneath, short gray jeans and an unusual big, double-bladed scythe on his back. He has short black hair with undercut on the side of his head, dark green eyes, a baby face, and I think he has the same height as Luffy (much to my annoyance). He kinda looks like an orange.
He doesn't seem to notice me, so I just calmly walk across and pass him by, only for him to actually notice me and put a hand on my shoulder. I turn around only to face familiar eyes full of enthusiasm like Luffy's on the guy. Fortunately, Luffy's are brighter and cuter, so the guy's didn't give me any reaction.
"What's up?" I greet him and he's definitely sparkling. Don't work on me though.
"I'm Konari V. Hirox! And you?" He introduces himself and I blink blankly at him.
"Ryuuen A. Eris." I introduce myself and he grabs onto my shoulders with enthusiasm.
"Cool! Let's fight!"
…
"Maybe later. I got a brother to find and clowns to kick." I tell him calmly.
"Clowns? You mean Buggy? Oh! How about I show you the way where they reside?" He offers cheerfully.
I was about to refuse, but it saves me the trouble of finding it, so why not?
"Sure, that would be great." I smile at him, "And maybe we can fight later." After all, I'm not gonna refuse a good sparring session.
"Really?! Cool! C'mon, I'll show you the way!" He exclaims and runs off. I run along with him as I look around at the dead town and detect the town using Kenbun. Hmm, it seems like Luffy is caught by Buggy already, and both Zoro and Nami are also in the same area as him.
When we finally arrive, I bid him goodbye as I hop on the air to take myself to the rooftop (not realizing how the Hiro-guy gets starry-eyed when he sees me) until I'm far in the air. Holding onto my hat and looking at the scene below me, I see that Zoro is about to get stabbed by Buggy from behind; using his DF power to cowardly bring him down.
Scowling, I stop kicking the air and coat my legs with Buso as the gravity pulls me down towards Buggy.
"Bintang Jatuh." I murmur just before I land on the red-nosed clown straight to his spine and into the floor, leaving a huge crater under us as he loses consciousness and his floating hand lands down while the dagger clatters away. I put my foot down on Buggy's head and grind on it while staring darkly at him.
"That's what you get for attacking a swordsman from behind, Red-Nosed." I growl furiously before turning to my audience with an innocent smile. "Yo! I see that you guys started the party without me!" I greet them all cheerfully.
While Buggy's crews are far too shocked to react more than gapping their mouths, my crewmates immediately break into a big grin.
"Eris! You're here!" Luffy exclaims out happily before turning serious, "Eris, we need to go." He orders.
"I gotcha, Captain." I reply with a smirk as I hop off of Buggy's unconscious body to run up toward the canon and to Zoro, "You okay, Broccoli?" I ask with a smirk and he just rolls his eyes.
"I'm fine." Zoro grumbles with a scowl and I just stare at him with half-lidded eyes. Men and their pride.
"Where are Flame and Takao anyway?" I ask as I lean on the cannon and take a glance at Nami, who seems to be panicking internally and regretting her decision to team-up with Luffy.
"I told Flame to keep an eye on the boat, because Takao accompanied me instead, but I don't know where he is now." He answers with a shrug and sheaths back his swords. I hum in reply and turn to Nami with a smile.
"We finally meet again, Miss Orangette." I greet her and she seems surprised to see me again, but I break our eye-contact as I grab on the cannon and easily make it turn toward the Buggy Pirates with a heavy thump.
Noticing what I'm planning to do, the pirates start panicking while I grin darkly at them.
"Light it up, Orange-sis!" I order Nami and she seems stunned for a bit, before she snaps out of it and quickly lights the fuse back on. While waiting, I turn to Luffy and sigh in frustration for him being locked up in a cage.
"Can't you just chew on the bars and free yourself out?" I ask in annoyance, but he just grins at me as an answer instead. "…Fine. Back away." Coating my leg and bringing it up, I slam my heel down at the concrete side of the cage at the same time as the cannon goes off.
Once the cage breaks open, the tied-up Luffy easily stands up and jumps over the bars to give me and the others a big grin that is as bright as the sun itself. "Welp, time to run!" Luffy exclaims out as he starts to run off and we follow him along, with Nami hot on our heels.
While Zoro and Nami take the normal route AKA the stairs, both Luffy and me jump off the roof instead. But before we landed on the ground as meat piles, I kicked the air and landed gracefully on my feet as Luffy also landed nicely next to me.
We keep on running while laughing in amusement for a few minutes until we stop in front of a shop with a dog loyally sitting there, and guess what, Takao is there and currently having a conversation with him!
"Oh there you are, Takao." I greet him as he and the dog turn to us, "Where were you?"
"Dealing with a big cat and a human with a weird hat from destroying the shop." Takao answers calmly as he turns toward the said big cat and person with a weird hat, which turns out to be an unconscious pile of Richie and Mohji.
"Ooh! Nicely done, Takao!" I praise him and pat his head. He chirps happily in return.
"W-WHA—?!"
I turn to see Nami is pointing at Takao and losing her mind over him, who looks like a normal blue feathered eagle is currently talking in Common.
"Oh, Takao ate a Devil Fruit. Now he can talk and transform." I explain simply as I gently put Zoro down next to the dog while Takao transforms into his humanoid Garuda form and nods at her.
"Nice to meet you, Master's friend." He greets calmly, ignoring her panic and disbelief. "You're as orange as the fruit." He adds and that snaps Nami out with a scowl.
"Shut up, talking bird!"
Rummaging through my satchel, I grab myself a burn balm and throw it at Nami, who catches it in a yelp before looking at the balm weirdly. From my peripheral vision, I see Zoro is cutting the rope off of Luffy with his sword while grumbling that he didn't get to show his worth again, but I ignore it as I look back at Nami.
"It's for your hands, not consumption." I explain to her and she snaps at me.
"I know that! It's just…why? Why did you do all of these? You're just pirates, right?!" Nami asks me with pure confusion in her voice and a glare, "And you! I don't know how and why you come, but you're one of their nakamas too, right?"
"Yeah. I'm this rubber-brain's big brother and First Mate." I answer calmly as I coat my fingers with Buso and pull on his cheek, in which he protests in pain. "And I'm sure whatever just happened is basically your fault, right? Just so you know I don't take kindly to those who harm those dear to me." I add with a smile as I let Luffy go.
With that, Nami flinches as guilt fills her, but I just stare blankly at her.
"…Just use the balm." I tell her and she immediately does so, glad that I didn't decapitate her right then and there.
And then suddenly ruckuses can be heard and I turn to see that the dog is biting Luffy for teasing and poking him. I just watch the scene blankly as Zoro is massaging the bridge of his nose in exasperation until the dog eventually lets Luffy go. Nami seems dumbfounded at the scene that she just gapes.
For the next few moments, we all are just taking a small rest until two people are approaching us. A weird-haired old man with some kind of armor, and the teen boy from before, Hiro-guy, I guess.
"W-who are you guys? Are you one of those despicable Buggy Pirates?" The old man, I'm guessing the Mayor, asks us in alarm.
"No, but I kinda kicked Red-Nose's ass and Takao kicked their asses." I reply while thumbing on the still unconscious Richie and Mohji pile on the side. That seems to make the old man bulge his eyes in shock while Hiro-guy is sparkling in awe.
"See, mayor? I told you I found someone strong!" Hiro-guy exclaims giddily while the said mayor is still in disbelief.
"Unbelievable. To think that you're right this time, Hiro-kun." Mayor comments curiously and Hiro-guy looks betrayed by that.
"Hey! That was uncalled for, mayor!"
Ignoring them, I turn to Nami. "Orange-sis. Go steal the map back from that Clown." I tell her and she snaps her head at me before scowling.
"Don't order me around, pirate! And my name is Nami!" She snaps at me, "Why are you talking like guys anyway? Aren't you a girl?"
"Doesn't matter if I'm a girl or a boy or none in between; I'm just copying Luffy's way of talking and I'm comfortable with that." I answer her questions with a roll of my eyes before changing it back to the first topic, "And okay then. Nami, please steal the map back from that Red-Nose as repayment for you hurting my nakamas." I reworded it and she flinched at that before gritting her teeth.
"I hate you."
"Thanks. I love you too. Takao, go accompany her and grab the treasure along if you can."
"Understood."
"The treasure is all mine, so hands off!"
"I'm not interested in gold, so calm down, Kitten."
After watching them walking away, I turn to Luffy and Zoro, who are listening to whatever the mayor is saying while Hiro-guy is giving me an intense stare that says 'FIGHT ME'.
"…Okay, let's spar." I sigh out and he cheers out with his arms up. He takes me to an empty lot as he pulls the scythe on his back out and twirls it around for a moment before holding it with both hands.
"My name is Konari V. Hirox! It is a pleasure to be fighting you, Ryuuen A. Eris!" Hiro-guy exclaims out with a big grin that's filled with anticipation, "Here I come!"
He runs up to me and swings his scythe to me. I take a step back to dodge it and jump away as he swings the second blade. As I land on the ground, I quickly jump forward at him and warding away his scythe as he swings it down at me while I coat my other fist for a punch.
"Tinju Langit!" And I give him an uppercut to his chin, punching him up into the air but he quickly recovers by easily landing on the ground on his feet a few meters from me.
"That punch is good! I feel that in my brain." He comments with a grin as he rubs on his bruised chin, "But you're holding back. Why's that?"
"Killing you is not what I want." I reply sharply as I put on my stance, and he seems to sense the seriousness in my tone that he didn't comment further.
"I see. Well, I can't have you killing me." Hiro-guy replies as he twirls his scythe in his hand, "After all, I have a dream to accomplish." He finishes as he holds his scythe with both hands.
A dream, huh?
"Then I suppose I will be your first hurdle for you to accomplish it." I smirk as I clash my knuckles together to coat them and my gauntlets with Buso before grinning madly at him as I readied my fists, "try to survive, because there's a chance of me losing control." I warned him as I Sikat-ed myself up to him.
That seems to take him by surprise, but he didn't falter as he parries my fist with the snath and pushes it down to slash me, but I hold my ground as I slide my arm up to stop the blade to reach my head before deflecting it away and readying a palm-heel strike with my other hand with curled thumb to the palm.
"Tapak Buddha!" Hitting him square to his chest to push him back, in which he lets out a grunt as he gets pushed back, but I can feel him hardening up just before my attack gets him. I know for sure that it's not Haki, so I wonder…
He smirks at me before he runs up to me and swings his scythe down, which I evade away and quickly duck down when I get a vision of him decapitating me. True enough, he spins around along with his scythe to try to slash my head off.
He clicks his tongue as he misses while I skid backward and stay alert. But then he smirks and starts to run, as copies of him start to surround me. I just watch carefully until they all stop and grinning at me, "Soru Sakkaku!"
"Hoo, Rokushiki user too, huh?" I hum, impressed. "What an interesting opponent I got here." But it's not enough to kick my ass.
"Here we go!" The Hiro-guys exclaim and jump at me with their scythe ready to slash me, but I easily see through his bluffs and turn around to deflect away the real one that's right behind me.
He seems surprised by that and I smirk at him as I grab the snath to snatch it off of his hands and kick him square to his gut. He literally rolls backwards until he crashes into a wall while I just laugh and twirl his weapon in my hand.
"And that's a wrap. One victory for me." I announce with a smirk, not even breaking a sweat. I approach him while he scratches the back of his head sheepishly.
"I lost." He says with a tired smile, his hair sticks to his forehead because of sweat. I offer him a hand and he grabs it as I pull him back to his feet. I give him back his double-bladed scythe and he grins in gratitude.
"Against me? Of course you would. Picking me as your opponent is quite a bad pick for you." I replied teasingly, "But still, that Soru was amazing! Did you develop it yourself?"
"Yeah! And I saw that you use Geppou to take yourself to the roof back at Buggy's, so I assume you're familiar with Rokushiki?" He asks as I hop on my foot to another.
"Yep. Trained with my gramps. I didn't master all of them though. I cover the rest with Haki instead. I just need to learn them enough for me to teach my friends on what to keep an eye on if they're dealing with the Government dogs." I answer with a dark grin and I see that his expression darkens when I mention it, "Not a fan of them too, huh?"
"Well, something like that." He simply replies as he straps his scythe back to his back.
"Same with me, then." I grin as I stretch my arms up and let out a big sigh, "Our gramps is the Marine Vice-Admiral, and he kept on pushing us to join the Marine until one of my brothers died in the hands of the damned dragons."
"Since then, he mellowed down a bit, but he still trained our asses to death anyway." I laugh a bit and Hiro-guy widens his eyes at that.
"Oh. Sorry about your brother…" I wave him off and pat his back.
"It's okay. I've had half of my revenge, and I think he survived it although he lost his memories. He's out there somewhere…" He looks at me curiously, but decides to think better than asking further.
"Well, I hope you meet him soon." He tells me instead with a smile and I smile back.
"Thanks. Well then, I need to check on my crews. See you around." I wave my hand as I start to walk away from him until he grabs my hand. Woah, hand holding before the first date? What a forward guy.
"Eris-san!" He calls and I turn to look at his smiling face. He lets my hand go to point his index finger at me. "I've decided! My dream is to defeat you someday!" He declares out with a big grin. "This is the first time I lost to someone and you've encouraged me, and I've decided to train harder by setting sail into the sea to chase you!"
I don't think I said anything to encourage him, but I stayed quiet and let him keep on going.
"I will set sail and defeat every opponent! I will never lose again until we meet again in this vast sea. But until then, I hope you brace yourself for our next meeting." He exclaims out, "Because the next time we meet, I will defeat you!" He finishes with his fist up.
Wow.
What a dork.
Lucky for him, I don't hate dorks.
"Well, who am I to refuse a friendly rivalry?" I shrug and press our knuckles together with a grin, "Just so you know, I will still become stronger, but I will still wait for you at the top."
He grins at me while I just smile in return before we let out a hearty laugh together.
And then he just runs off to somewhere, yelling that he needs to get ready for his journey.
Blankly watching the dust he left, I shrug nonchalantly and walk back to where the others are just right when something big is approaching. I stopped just in time as the rows of buildings in front of me got blasted off, sending rubbles and dust my way.
Letting the rubbles and pebbles to hit me (ow) while closing my eyes and holding my breath, I hold on until it disperses away. I wave my hand around and rub my bruised forehead that got hit by the big rubble. Well, that happened. I hope no one is hurt because of that.
I keep my relaxed pace with my Kenbun on, detecting life forces nearby as my crews and the other ones.
When I finally reach the place, I see that Zoro just pulls himself out of the rubbles while the others are relieved to see him alive.
"Oh hey guys, did Zoro get blasted off?" I see Nami turn to look at me as I approach them with an annoyed look.
"Where were you? And what did you do to that weird kid?" She asks with judgmental eyes as always.
"Beaten his ass, he loved it, and now we're rivals." I answer simply and she looks confused by that, but she notices my bruise and glances at it.
"Just a bruise? And here I thought you're going to get more injuries than that." Nami comments and I just shrug.
"We're just sparring, not killing each other. Besides, he's far weaker than me and I'm not interested in killing him." I reply coldly as I fidget on my gauntlets with my eyes closed, "The only ones I will kill are those I deemed my enemies. I'm not interested in killing others."
I can feel that Nami's suspicion and nervousness heightens before she lets out a scoff. I open my eyes to observe her as she starts to walk away with a big sack with her.
"Yeah well, you guys can kill each other all you want, but I'm out of here." Nami says and waves her hand to us.
"You can try, but you won't get rid of us." I tell her, but she ignores me. I turn to look at the crime scene and see that there's also Cabaji under the rubble, obviously unconscious, and Luffy is nowhere to be seen.
"Where's Luffy?" I ask Zoro, who's relaxing on the ground. But before he can respond, Luffy's shout cuts it.
"HOW DARE YOU MESS UP THIS HAT!"
I turn my attention to see Luffy is sitting on rubbles, looking at his hat that got cut at the brim while I see Buggy, still alive and kicking, is across him with a malign grin and missing a hand. I found the hand is currently floating behind Luffy, ready to rip through the straw hat.
But before he can, Luffy grabs his hand and holds it hard as he told him that the hat is a memento from Shanks, which makes Buggy wince in pain and drops the daggers, but looks even more annoyed. Well, that's one way to keep the hat safe.
And then Buggy starts telling Luffy how he got his DF power, why he hates Shanks, etc…
"Oh, so Shanks saved your life." Luffy comments in conclusion, while Buggy is yelling at him for not getting the point.
Also, where's Takao? I thought he should be around after helping Nami.
Speaking of Nami, Buggy seems to notice that she's sneaking away with his treasures, so his upper half immediately unlatches itself from the lower half to fly to Nami's treasure sack, ready to attack her.
But before he could, Luffy noticed his lower half and immediately kicked him right in the balls. I clap my hands in pride while Zoro winces and pales down. Thanks to the kick, Nami is saved and she slumps down in relief to the ground while Buggy is just twitching on the ground next to her, absolutely in agony.
"Your opponent is still me!" Luffy exclaims with a grin before turning to Nami, "Oi, put that treasure down and run. Or you're gonna get chased again." Luffy tells her.
"'Put the treasure down and run'? Why should I leave my treasure behind?!" She yells back, "I'm a pirate-treasure thief, and I just stole from a pirate, so this treasure is mine and I'm not leaving without it!"
"Huh? So the treasure is more important than your life? That's dumb." Luffy concludes and that seems to anger Nami.
"Shut up! I don't want to hear you preaching to me about my life, pirate!" She snaps and Luffy shuts up.
And then Buggy, who recovered from his pain, splits his body apart and I grimace in disgust when I can see his organs and bones from the split pieces. It's giving me flashbacks from that time…
Cold pool of blood under my feet. Warm and fresh blood trickling down my arms. The lifeless eyes that are staring at me. Organs spilling out from their split guts. Broken bones sticking out from their skins. The slowly beating heart in my palms…
I slowly crouch down to the ground with a whine, holding onto my head and closing shut my eyes.
Everything is spinning.
Spinning and spinning.
It's dark and cold.
It's getting darker and harder to breathe.
I'm scared.
Something jerks me up and I stare into a familiar owlish eyes. The smell of meat and sun fill my nostrils as the eyes gently stare at me. Slowly, I can feel warm and calloused palms on my cheeks, the warm salty breeze tickling and the warm sun stinging my exposed skin.
Oh.
That's right.
I'm okay now.
It's in the past. It won't haunt me. I'm stronger than the shadows of the past. They're just necessary sacrifices for a better future. It's okay. Luffy is here. He won't leave me.
Slowly taking in a deep breath (when did I stop breathing?), I exhale it out with closed eyes before opening it back to see Luffy's owlish eyes.
"Good?" Luffy simply asks and I nod.
"Good." I reply and he smiles in relief.
"Don't worry, I kicked that Buffoon's ass into the air and we won't see him anytime soon." He reassures me and I smile at him.
"How long was I out?" I ask and he shrugs as he turns to Zoro, who I kinda forgot that he's next to me while it happened and he looks relieved to see me finally out of it. I also see that Nami is also around and looks a little concerned, but she quickly looks away when our eyes meet.
"Not long. Just a good few minutes, I think." Zoro answers and Luffy nods before he turns back to me.
"Well, we don't have any more business here, so let's go!" He says with a blinding grin and I nod, pushing myself up back to my feet before we start to run, following Luffy and Nami, who had a head start.
Holding my hat, I let my Kenbun turn back on as we run and I can suddenly hear many voices approaching us. Oh, the townspeople!
"Did you do something to the Mayor?" I ask Luffy.
"Yeah! I knocked him out so he won't die in vain. And when you're having your episode, they come to kick the pirates' asses. We're pirates, so they're gonna kick our asses." He answers. I knew it.
"Well, we better go before the townspeople get us." I say and he giggles in return as he runs faster so he's the same pace as Nami.
"This is a good town!" Luffy exclaims as Nami turns to look at him in disbelief.
"Just for one person, they'll fight. I would call them fools, but I don't hate brave fools like them." I comment and look at Nami with an understanding glint in my eyes.
She didn't say anything in return but looked back forward with an unreadable look in her eyes.
We keep on running and turn toward an alley, only to see an unusual sight of the white dog with weird barks from before and the Hiro-guy, both of them are standing on either side of the alleyway. Hiro-guy grins at me as we run past him and keep on going forward, while the dog barks at the approaching townspeople.
"We won't let you pass!" I hear Hiro-guy exclaim. I glance back at him, looking at his back for a second before I turn back forward with a smile.
Eventually we arrive at the dock and I just notice that Zoro is nowhere to be found. I let out a sigh and turned to look at Takao, who's relaxing on our boat with Flame, giving him a silent signal and he's off to find the missing mossball princess.
I turn to look at the others, where the previous three stooges are still around and currently yelling at Nami. I calmly walk up behind them to pick them up by their scruffs, throw them up, and kick them away like a football for a good distance.
"Homerun! Nyehehehe!" I cheer out with a laugh, while I can feel Nami is absolutely confused by the incorrect term before shaking her head as I hop into our own boat at the same time as Takao literally pulling Zoro back to us.
"Lost again, Princess Broccoli?" I ask with a smirk and he glares at me in return while Luffy just laughs.
The boys go aboard our boat and we start to set sail, with Nami in her own boat. As we get some distance from the dock, I can feel a familiar person is running up to the dock and both Luffy and me turn to look in that direction. Sure enough, it's the Mayor.
"THANK YOU! I OWE YOU!" Mayor exclaims out and we grin at him.
"DON'T WORRY ABOUT IT! JUST LIVE HAPPY LIVES!" Luffy shouts back and waves at him.
As we got a little farther from the island, Luffy immediately approached me and held out his hat, giving me his famous puppy-eyes.
"You should know that asking me to sew is a wrong decision. Do I look like I ever sewed something?" I point out and he pouts.
"But you're smart! You can do it!" Luffy argues and I turn to Nami.
"Oi, Orange lady, can you sew a straw hat?" I ask and she raises her brow in question.
"What if I can?"
"Can you please sew Lu's straw hat? I'll pay you well." For emphasis, I pull out a bag of coins from my satchel and offer it to her, who immediately grabs it and Luffy's hat.
"I'm doing this for the money." Nami says as she starts to walk away.
"Thanks anyway." I tell her before she's out of sight and lean back to look at the sky. The soft breeze tickles my cheeks and whispers reassurance, the sea is gently rocking the boat, and the conversation between the others as the background noise.
To be honest, it's a little embarrassing to lose it back there, but somehow I'm glad Zoro didn't really comment on it. I don't know about Nami, considering I can't really read my surroundings when I am down, but hopefully she won't comment on it.
I hope Chopper can deal with mental illnesses too, because I need treatments.
(A/N: the reason why Nami pointed out on how Eris talks like a guy, aka using 'ore' if it's Japanese dub, is mostly because she just copied Shanks and Luffy's way of calling themselves and she didn't know any better of the language the OP characters were saying at the time. Believe it or not, Dadan and Makino tried to correct her every time, but she just didn't give a damn that they just gave up in the end after the 10th time.
Also I might make a list of Eris' moves, if I don't forget.
Posted on August 5, 2022)
