Chapter 13: Meet the Marry Go
Summery: I may never know how it truly began, but I do know that I never truly had a choice in the events that led me here. I am in one piece now, and have unwillingly left my own world behind. That is all that matters, and all I need to know.
Disclaimer: I am in no way associated with any legal rights to one piece in any form, I do not own one piece or any part of the merchandising, gaming, manga, anime, characters, or anything of the sort. Please do not sue me as I do not have any money. The only things that I own from this fic are my own original characters.
Note: You can now look at artwork of the story by going to my profile and clicking on them.
'thoughts'
"Words"
(inner Kaede)
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The diaries of Kaede Tsuda Burnett, day -15
I half want to write dear diary, but some how, I don't think that would be right. This isn't so much as a diary as just a list of events that I want to change. So far, I can only think of three that are even possible to change. The rest of the things I keep thinking of are things that happened way before I even got here.
The first thing I thought of when I started trying to think of things to change was something that had already happened a long time ago, so it isn't like I'll be able to change it at all. The best I can do is try to keep it from happening to anyone ever again.
Nami's mother.
The first thing I thought of was Nami's mother and her death. Arlong killed her, and there isn't anything I can do to change it. It happened almost ten years ago in this world, and that means I'll never be able to change it.
The second thing I thought of was one that I could change, though a small part of me, a very small and slightly insignificant part of me, really didn't want to change it at all.
Gin's death.
Now, while Gin's death was never actually shown in the anime, he had stated that he probably only had a few hours to live, and then he left. He might have been an ass hole, but he did save Luffy during the Don Kreg fight, so I kind of felt like it was something that needed to be change. He kind of deserves it in some strange way.
I don't mean that he deserves to die, what I mean is that he deserves a chance to live. So, that was definitely at the top of my list of things to change, but only because it's going to happen a lot sooner then the rest.
So, first major thing to change, at least in my opinion, is Gin's death.
The third thing that came to mind, because it was one of the most notably horrifying things in the series, was the half naked mermaid Kokoro scene.
I really don't want to see her naked, so I think I'll have to do something about that. I've already decided to start designing, and then building, a small submarine that can save everyone so that we wont have to see her naked as a jaybird.
So the second thing on my list of stuff to do was: Build the Fubuki Yama sub 1!
Aka, The Snowstorm god of the underworld sub 1, but I like Fubuki Yama sub 1 better.
The last thing that came into my head, and I wasn't really sure why it hadn't been the first thing to poop into my head as it had been one of the last episodes I had seen before I got here, was the slavery and that pirates death.
He might be a jerk for all I know, or even a monster, but I will not aglow someone to be enslaved and then killed. I have to stop that from happening, no matter what.
If I survive that long in this world that is, and let's face it, I doubt I'll make I'll make it that long. I figure it will probably take us about a year and a half to get that far, and I don't think I'll last even another two months in this place. I'm betting that I'll be the first on to get caught but the marines, I just know it. Caught, and killed.
So, that's what I've got so far.
Save Gin
Build the Fubuki Yama sub 1 so that we wont have to see Kokoro naked.
Stop slavery and save that weird pirate on the bubble island.
Find a bra that doesn't hurt.
Yep, that just about sums it up so far. So... I guess I should probably right my name or something..
Signed, The diaries of a Mad Cat Woman.
Lol, god, if Kally was ever able to read that, she would kill me.
Finishing up with the first two pages of my brand new journal, I closed it and put it into my froggy bag, not wanting anything to happen to it.
I was currently sitting alone in the same restaurant that Usopp had brought us to when we met him, which turned out to be called Meshi.
Luffy and Zoro had needed a bit of rest and relaxation thanks to the injuries they had gotten during the fight with Buchi, Sham, and Kuro, though it was only Kuro that had actually injured them.
When Kaya had seen the wounds, she had instantly freaked out and told us to get them back to the village and up to her house so that one of her doctors could deal with it. Apart from her, only Usopp and the three kids had actually been worried about the injuries as the rest of us already knew that Luffy and Zoro could deal with a lot worse.
Zoro ad Luffy had been covered in little cuts all over their bodies, though Luffy seemed to have the worst of them.
'I guess messing with things can turn out really bad...' I thought, knowing that Zoro only got hurt because of my meddling and that if I hadn't gone and changed things, he wouldn't have been hurt nearly as much. 'Maybe keeping Luffy from getting hypnotized wasn't the best idea'
I had originally thought that the fight would go a lot faster if Luffy was awake for the whole thing, but in the end it turned out the way it happened in the anime had been the safest way it could have gone.
Sighing deeply, I got up to pay for my food.
I had been sitting in the restaurant alone for over two hours. When the others had said that they were going to go see Kaya, I had opted to go to the restaurant instead, wanting some time to think to my self. There were so many things that could go wrong if I stayed with the crew, and I really didn't want any of them to get hurt because of my meddling.
I could always just stop telling them what I knew, but a small part of me was still convinced that the knowledge I had of what was going to happen. That small part of me was convinced that the knowledge itself wasn't going to hurt the crew, but the actions I took after giving that knowledge might.
If I took better precaution, or simply thought out the best possible course of action, then it wouldn't hurt the crew so much, but then again, I wasn't so sure that 'thinking of the best possible course of action' was possible with these guys.
Then there was my second option, leaving the crew.
But the problem with that one was, I really didn't want to leave them. I might have only been with them all for a short time, but they were already starting to become my strange little family. I mean, I had been living with Luffy for the past fifteen days, Zoro for the past thirteen days, and Nami for the past ten days.
Even if it was such a short time, when you live with people for that long, in an area that small, you kind of start to feel like family.
That or prison inmates.
The point was, I really didn't want to leave the group, and I wasn't to sure I could survive without them.
The third choice was the one I had made, and it was kind of the exact opposite of the first choice.
Screw it.
If I was stuck here and knew what was going to happen, as long I take the right precautions, then I should try to help them.
And pray that it didn't get anyone killed in the process.
It wasn't exactly a smart decision, and it's reasoning wasn't really all that good, but I had already convinced myself that it was a good decision.
Danial might not be just a river, but I didn't have a problem taking a step into it.
As I exited the shop, I growled in annoyance at the fact that I had only had 21,371 beli left.
After paying Nami her winnings for winning our bet, I had had just under 200,000 beli left, which meant that the box of money had originally had around 473,300 beli in it.
Shocked? I was to, until I found that it wasn't as much as I thought. It was a lot more then what most people here made in even a year, but only barely. It was probably the equivalent of about 35-40 thousand. Not nearly as much as I had been expecting.
But, it had been enough for me to buy a ship grade smithing oven, which was just a stone and metal thing that would let me melt metal and smelt it without burning the ship down.
It had also been enough for me to buy a about a half ton of iron and a steel mallet, which was a giant one like the rest of the ones I had.
I hadn't been expecting to be able to by 1000 pounds of iron, but as it turned out, iron only cost about 20 beli a pound, or 2 dollars a pound in case you're wandering.
So, 20,000 beli for the iron, 3,500 beli for my new steel mallet that I could barely lift, 300 beli for steel tongs, 500 beli for a huge flam proof slab of stone with rims to use so that the merry didn't burn, 150 beli for a protective mask to keep from hurting my self, another 150 beli for some fire proof gloves and a fire proof apron, 1,000 beli for a welder which I hadn't even thought they would have in this world, and an ungodly amount of beli for the ship safe smithing oven and a bunch of bricks and cement.
"Poor money, you got so small so fast." I said sadly, silently wandering where Nami, Choco, and Lil were right now.
When Nami had taken off with the others to go see Kaya, I had asked her to take Choco and Lil along with her as I really didn't want Lil putting her two cents in with my thoughts. It was hard enough to think when it was just me in my head, but when Lil was there trying to tell me what to do, it was always made that much harder.
I knew they were probably still at Kaya's mansion, but I had a feeling that Nami might have dragged them off to go shopping with her.
Leave it to Nami to want to shop with a nosy cat and a giant bird.
And I was right, she was shopping. I had started heading to Kaya's place when I saw Nami, Lil, and Choco coming out of a store, with Choco acting as Nami's pack mule.
"This town might not have a lot of variety, but they sure do have some good deals on jewelry and fabric!" She said happily, not even noticing me coming up behind her.
"So," I said, causing her jump in surprise. "Decided to go shopping instead of going to see Kaya, huh?"
"Wha?!" She asked, spinning around and giving me a nervous smile. "Kaede! I didn't see you there!"
"Yeah, I can see that, " I said with a falsely sweet voice. "Wha' cha' doing?"
"Hehehe..." She said nervously, quickly taking all the bags off Choco's back and backing away slightly. "I was just- I mean we were- He didn't seem to mind, I swear!"
If looks could kill, I knew Nami would be dead. I wasn't just a little angry, I was pissed. I had specifically told her that Choco was way to young to be carrying stuff around for her, especially heavy ass shopping bags.
"I told you not to use him as a pack mule!" I shouted, clubbing her on the head with my mallet before putting Lil on my shoulder and picking Choco up, which wasn't exactly easy as he was almost half the size of an ostrich.
Turning around in a huff, I quickly headed for Kaya's mansion. Choco might already be big, but he was still a baby, and I really didn't like the idea of people putting to much weight on him until he was full grown.
When I finally reached Kaya's mansion, I found that the others weren't even there.
"Dang it!" I said in an annoyed voice, scaring the servant slightly by my outburst. "Well were are they?" I asked him, feeling kind of bad for scaring him like that.
It wasn't that I was angry that they weren't there, it was just that I was kind of annoyed with the fact that I had carried Lil and Choco all the way there for no reason.
"Well, Ms. Kaya took them down to the South cliff to show them something, if you hurry, I might be able to catch up with them." He said, pointing off in the direction that I had just come from.
"Ok, thanks." I said, setting Choco down so that he could walk on his own. He might still be a baby, but he was a big baby. "Come on guys, let's go get Nami and head down to the shore, hopefully this is what I think it is."
"If you mean a ship, I hope your right, because I really don't want to have to sit in that cramped dinghy again." Lil said, complaining like always as we started walking.
"Me neither." I said in an annoyed tone. If I had to listen to Luffy's or Zoro's snoring one more time, I was going to kill one of them, and Luffy was the one that couldn't swim. Muhahahaha!
Finding Nami wasn't that hard as her shopping usually got worse when she was angry about something, and she was still slightly pissed at being bopped on the head like she was Luffy.
"Nami!" I called out, jogging over to her and getting her attention.
"Huh? Oh, it's you." She said, clearly still angry that I had bopped her on the head, which I already knew she would be. "What do you want?"
"I think Kaya's about to give us a ship down on the south cliff, but I'm not completely sure." I said, smiling when I saw her eyes light yep at the thought of never having to listen to a bunch of snoring men again. "So I decided to come and get you so that we could go check it out, but we're probably going to head out the moment we get it, so you make sure you have everything." I said, only to blink a few times when I realized she wasn't there anymore.
"Yeah! I'll take them all, thank you!"
'Didn't I just tell her we're probably leaving?' I thought in exasperation as I turned to see what Nami was buying now.
Tangerines.
Know why she liked tangerines so much, I couldn't exactly get angry with her for wanting to stock up on them before we left.
"How do you plan on carrying all that?" I asked, noticing she had four crates of them. If she thought I was going to let her have Choco carry them, then I hadn't bopped her nearly hard enough.
"Easy, You'll carry the bags while I carry the crates." She smiled, trying to hand me the bags. "After all, you still ow me for the poll incident, and with the rental fees and the miss-use fees, that's going to get expensive. If you carry them, I might be willing to cut what you ow me in half, and cancel the interest fees" she said while smiling happily at me, causing me to smile back at her in a cold and vindictive manner.
'Bitch, you have no idea who you're messing with.' I thought, already knowing what I was going to say.
"Oh, OK." I said, smiling back at her happily. "Well I guess that means we'll have to talk about my debt later, as well as your own. I mean, with the rental fees, the abuse fees, and the feather damage fees, I'm sure you'll want to take care of it right away." I said, smiling at her as I very slowly started walking off, knowing that a horrified look had just made its way onto her face.
"What?! You're charging me for that?!" She demanded indignantly, running up beside me and glaring at me.
"Well, originally I had been planning to just let you off, but with the debt I owe you and everything..." I sighed, looking away from her slightly and putting a sad look on my face. "But I guess that's the way the world works."
"Gr! Fine!" She growled, stomping her foot and stopping in the middle of the path. "Fine! I'll let you off this time if you let me off to, but I'm not paying you for carrying the bags!"
"Ok then, deal." I said happily, now with a real smile on my face, this one broader then what should be physicality possible.
The fact that she was quietly mumbling something under her breather about getting me back for this in the future was a little unnerving, but I had already known that I would be stepping into dangerous territory before I had even opened my mouth.
When we finally reached the south cost cliff, we found that I had been right.
It was the Marry Go.
It was way better then I had imagined.
It was a lot bigger then what I had been expecting and the sheep head was way cuter then the anime had shown, though it could have done without all the little flags with the butler Meri's face on them, which were hanging where our pirate flags were going to be.
Apart from that, it was great. There wasn't a thing about it that I didn't like. It was, as Luffy would say, AWESOME!.
And it wasn't anything like a pirate ship either. It looked more like a really old version of a privet yacht or something to me.
A really big privet yacht.
"Ah! It's a real caravel!" Nami said in amazement, running down the path and up to the ship.
"Hey, where were you guys?" Zoro asked from the railing on the ship when he saw us running down the path, only to be ignored as we continued staring up at the ship.
"Wow, it's even better then I thought it was going to be." I said, running one of my hands over the dark wood, not surprised when it was smooth.
"Yeah, I know! isn't it great?!" Luffy said happily, jumping down from the ship and landing next to me, which didn't faze me at all.
"Yeah, it is." I said, jumping up ant onto the deck, still kind of marveling at the fact that I was always able to jump so hight.
"How did you guys know to come here anyway?" Zoro asked, though his tone said he was still annoyed by the fact that we had ignored his other question.
"Kaede." Nami answered simply, climbing up the rope latter and getting Luffy to carry up the crates of tangerines.
Zoro turned his attention toward me, not really liking the answer Nami had given him. While he was now convinced that I was a psychic, he still didn't buy that I knew everything.
"Don't look at me like that! I only knew we were getting a ship, not where you guys were." I said, causing him to stop glaring at me and Kaya to laugh slightly. She always seemed to think my antics, no matter what they were, were funny. "One of Kaya's servants told me you guys were here."
Kaya, having already gotten used to me being psychic, wasn't surprised by what I had said.
"I'm glad you all like it, and I'm happy you are here, I wanted to thank you properly." She said, smiling at us all happily.
"It's a slightly older model, but I personally designed every inch of it myself, and she sails like a dream." Meri explained, though from the look on Luffy's face I could tell that me and Nami were hearing the second rendition of the explanation."It's frame and it's triple mast sails are all part a stern-centered control system." Continued, explaining all about it so that we would know more about our new ship. "Her name, is Going Merry."
He didn't get to explain how the operating system worked as Usopp's giant rolling backpack came into view, rolling down the hill at an incredible speed and threatening to crash right into our new ship.
"Yeah, if we don't stop him, it's going to destroy the ship." I said, smiling as Usopp and his backpack ball continued down the hill, heading straight for the Merry.
Luffy and Zoro jumped down from the ship and each of them simply raised a leg in unison, successfully stopping the rolling backpack by slamming their feet into Usopp's face.
"Uk- hey, thanks guys." Usopp said, with his face still at the end of Luffy's and Zoro's feet.
"Anytime." Luffy said plainly, clearly not understanding that his foot was probably hurting Usopp.
Once Luffy and Zoro finally lowered their feet, Usopp and Kaya headed off to talk on their own, leaving the rest of us to talk amongst ourselves.
"So, what are we going to do about the sleeping arrangements?" Nami asked, wandering how many rooms there were for us to sleep in.
"What do you mean? The mens room is right below us, and the there's a womens room to." I explained, causing Nami to smile.
"Great, how much should I start charging for it?" She whispered to herself, clearly not meaning for me to hear her.
"Don't even try it." I said, slowly reaching for my mallet.
If she wanted to go there, we could go there, but if we did, she wasn't going to win.
"Hehe! I was only joking!" She said, holding her hands up to show that she meant no harm.
"What do you think they're talking about?" Luffy asked, completely oblivious to the fact that Nami had just almost committed suicide just seconds before he opened his mouth.
"He's probably telling her that he's going out on his own to become a real pirate." Zoro said, making me wander if he was the real psychic.
"Really? Do you think he might want to join us?" Luffy asked excitedly.
"Actually, Kaede said he would be joining us, so I'm guessing he's just waiting for you to ask him or something." Nami said, remembering what I had said about a long nosed lier joining the crew. "Besides, didn't you want to come here so we could get him?"
"hehe! Oh yeah!" Luffy said, rubbing the back of his head in embarrassment.
"Hey, where do you think we should head next?" Zoro asked, causing me to roll my eyes.
You didn't have to be psychic to know what Luffy was going to say. Now that he had a small crew and a good ship, there was only one place he wanted to go.
"Let's head to the Grandline!" Luffy said happily, just as Kaya and Usopp started heading back toward us.
"You guys take care! I hope we meet again sometime!" Usopp shouted up to us, causing all of us to smile at him,
"How come?" Luffy asked, making me wish he wasn't so naive.
"Well, beca-" Usopp started, a little perplexed by Luffy's question. "Ga, are you anti-social or something?" He asked under his breath before continuing. "I'm taking off for life on the high seas and I hope that we'll eventually meet again, that's all."
"What are you talking about?" Zoro said, pointing at the floor of the ship. "Get on already."
"Huh?" Usopp asked, extremely surprised by Zoro's statement.
"We're friends aren't we? So get on." Luffy said, once again causing a surprised look to make it's way onto Usopp's face, though this one was accompanied by happiness.
"Yeah, did you really think we would leave you behind?" I asked, wanting to get my own comment in. it was such a happy moment, and I didn't want to get left out.
"This is it..." Usopp said, staring at us in surprise before jumping into the air and screaming "I'm really a pirate captain now!"
"Don't be so stupid Usopp, I'm the captain!" Luffy shouted in annoyance, though the grin on his face said that he wasn't really that mad.
After about an hour of laughing and joking around, we decided to finally set sail and go.
"Bye! Good bye!" We all shouted as the ship slowly moved away from the island and headed out to see, waving as we steadily got farther and farther away.
Once we were far enough from the Syrup Village island that we could barely see it, Luffy quickly ran into the storage room and broke out some soda (and ale for Zoro), wanting to celebrate.
"To a new crew mate and a new ship!" He shouted happily once everyone had a drink.
We ended up celebrating for the few next hours, just eating and having fun. It was a lot of fun too. Usopp and Luffy started singing, which caused my ears to feel like they were going to explode, and Choco and Lil went fishing, which was kind of hilarious because I had a feeling that Lil was going to get dragged into the water whenever she finally managed to get a bite.
While they were doing that, Zoro continued to drink his ale and sake, proving that he could hold as much alcohol as inhumanly possible when he actually drank to barrels of ale, and one barrel of sake.
Don't ask me how, but even that didn't get him drunk.
Since Sanji wasn't with us yet, the food was pretty basic, but apart from that, the party was great.
With Luffy and Usopp singing, Lil and Choco fishing, and Zoro drinking, me and Nami decided that we would check out our new ship, wanting to know what was in it since we didn't get the complete details before Usopp nearly crashed into her.
"So I guess this is the storage room." Nami said as we entered the first door we saw on the ship, which lead to a storage room right under the kitchen.
"Yeah, and it seems like the perfect place to set my stuff up." I said, grabbing my little froggy bag and reaching into it and started pulling out the Ship safe Smelting oven. "Give me a hand with this, it's kind of heavy." I growled out when I couldn't pull it out on my own.
The guy at the blacksmith's place had been the one to put in in there, though he had thought I was crazy when I asked him to set it onto of my froggy bag, and had nearly fainted when it actually sank into it.
Hehehe, I might have forgotten to tell him it was magic, oops.
Knowing that she did kind of owe me for helping me with the bags, Nami quickly came over and reached into Mr. Froggy and grabbed onto the oven.
"Gah! What is this thing?!" She asked as we slowly pulled it out of the bag, both of us straining ourself as we continued pulling it. "And why is it so heavy?!"
"It's a ship safe Smelting oven," I began, happy when the damn thing was finally out of the bag. "Like I said, I plan to be an engineer, and I knew we were going to get a ship, so I bought one."
"Great, now what do we do with it?" She asked, wishing she could just put it down.
"Over in that corner will work." I said, nodding my head at the far right corner, the one next to the bathroom door.
We didn't even get two feet with it, as it was way to heavy for us to carry. We were lucky we had even gotten it out of the bag.
"Sorry, but I couldn't carry it anymore." Nami said once we had finally set it down.
"Me neither, I think I'll have to get Zoro to do it." I said, breathing kind of hard myself.
The reason it was so heave was that it had a heat absorbing stone slab attached to it's bottom, as well as one attached to it's back so that the heat from it wouldn't ruin the ship or set fire to it.
The exhaust pipe was on it's right side, lift if you were standing behind it, which had been the reason why I wanted it over in that corner. That corner was close enough to the cannon that I would be able to stick the end of the exhaust pipe out of the canon hole.
"Yeah, well don't expect me to try and lift it again, I think I almost broke my bake." She complained, arching her back and popping it slightly, smiling once she did so. "Ah, that felt good."
"Don't worry, like I said, I think I'll just have Zoro do it." I said, walking back toward the door for a minute. "Yo Zoro! Get over here, we need your help for a minute." I called, sticking my head out the door and calling over to him.
Zoro got up and grumbled something under his breath. I didn't hear what it was, but I had a feeling it had to do with people bothering him when he's drinking his boozes.
"What is it?" He asked, half glaring at me once he got into the room.
"We need you to move that thing." Nami said, pointing over my smelting oven.
"Huh? Isn't that thing used to make swords?" He asked, his mood moving up slightly at the realization that this had something to do with swords, which it actually didn't. "Aren't these things unsafe for ships?"
"Not this one, I bought it at a blacksmith shop in Syrup Village. It's a ship safe one, but I need it to be moved over to that corner by the cannon." I said as Nami moved out of the way to let him do his thing.
"So you plan to start making swords?" He asked as he moved it over to the spot that I had indicated, not even having to struggle with it.
"No, I'm an engineer. Most engineers would just buy sheets of mettle or something, but I'm going to have to make the sheets of metal myself." I said, smiling when he set it in the right spot. "Oh, and I'm going to need you to help me take some of these other stone slabs and bricks out so that I can put them around it." I added once he was finished moving the oven. "Anyway, I'm going to turn all this iron ore I bought into steel, which is going to take a lot of time, I have to melt it down and blow air into it, all while trying not to inhale anything." (Please see A/N:1)
"Huh? You can make steel?" He asked, still thinking about swords.
What a one track mind.
"Hey, I didn't know you could make steel? What are you planing to make it with it?" Nami asked, wandering how much she could sell the steel I make for.
"I plan to engineer something, but it's going to be a surprise." I said, rubbing the back of my head in embarrassment. "And I only know how to make steel because I read about it in a book I have."
while I explained a little more about making iron ore into steel, Zoro helped me pull the rest of my stuff out of my froggy bag and set it up, still thinking about having a new sword made.
"Do you know how to make steel swords to?" He asked, wandering if I would be able to make some for him.
He really does have swords on the brain, doesn't he?
"Sorry, I have no idea how to make a sword at all, bad besides, I'm probably going to need all the steel for what I plan to build." I said apologetically, though I wasn't all that sorry.
He didn't need my help getting swords as he was going to be getting some pretty famous ones in the future, so I didn't really feel bad about not being able to make any swords for him.
"Oh." He said, now sounding slightly annoyed and disappointed.
"Don't give me that, if I figure out how to make a sword, I'll make one for you, OK?" I asked, trying to keep him from getting annoyed with me already.
We had just gotten the ship, and I really didn't want to ruin the happy occasion already.
While Zoro and I were setting everything up, Nami checked out the door that was right next to my new work area, squealing happily when she saw that it was a bathroom.
"A bathroom! And it has a tub!" She said happily, smiling in delight at it.
I couldn't help but agree with her, going to the bathroom over the side of a dinghy with guys just on the other side of a small wooden box had almost killed me.
"Hey, what's this?" Zoro asked, catching my and Nami's attention.
While pulling the last of the stone slabs out of my froggy bag, he had also pulled out a book, one that I hadn't seen before.
"Is that a book?" I asked stupidly as Nami and I walked over to him.
"Huh? What's it say on the cover? I've never seen that language before." Nami said, causing me to sweat drop slightly when I realized that it was in English.
'I guess I was right, they might speak English here, but they don't read it.' I thought, wandering if this was going to be a problem for me in the future.
If I wasn't able to read normal things, then it was going to be a problem.
"Hehe, it's my written language." I said, smiling at them in embarrassment.
"Huh? Really? Don't you read English?" Nami asked, causing me to fall over.
OK, maybe it was magicked or something so they couldn't read it. That was the only other explanation I could come up with.
"Hehehe, your kidding right?" I asked, thoroughly confusing them both. "Never mind." I said, shaking my head and wishing I had someone that could explain this to me.
"Well, whatever. If you can read it, what does it say?" She asked, causing me to smile in embarrassment as a vein in my forehead started to twitch.
"It says, Magical mechanics for morons, volume 1." I said, wandering if the title was a joke.
The worst part was that it seemed to be hand written, and my aunt was the only one that could have put it in the froggy bag, so it wasn't exactly a very funny joke.
Nami and Zoro simply looked at me for a few seconds, wandering if I was joking or not. Once they finally understood that I wasn't they quickly turned the subject to something else.
Once we were finished setting up my new work space, Zoro went back to the party while Nami and I headed off to look at the rest of the rooms on the ship, including our room.
Which turned out to by just down some stares under a trap door in the same storage room my work space was now in, a fact that I had never actually noticed when watching the anime.
"Wow! I can't believe I get my own room!" Nami said happily as she bounded down the stairs, causing me to slowly reach for my new steel mallet. "Hehehe, I was just joking, I meant our room, really!" She said once she saw the look on my face, though the smile never left her face.
"Yeah, you better be kidding." I said, looking around to see where we were going to sleep when it got dark, only to find that there were two hammocks tied to the ceiling near the stares, and a nice comfy looking couch that turned into a bed. It was kind of ironic that there were three things to sleep on in the womens room because that was the same amount of women that would be on the crew.
Nami, Myself, and Robin, with Vivi holding Robin's place for a while.
"I call dibs on the bed!" Nami said, causing me to roll my eyes.
I really didn't care who got the bed, I just wanted someplace to sleep that wasn't as hard as the dinghy's floor.
"That's fine, but if I ever fall asleep on in when taking a nap, don't charge me for it and we'll call it even." I said, causing her to smile sheepishly.
She had been caught, and she knew it.
"Fine, fine." She said, still smiling. "Trying to get money out of a psychic is a lot harder then I thought."
"Yeah, well, Knowledge is power and all." I said, going to the bookshelf and looking at one of the books, only to find that I couldn't understand a single word of it.
It was in Japanese.
I don't read or speak Japanese.
I'm half Japanese and I never bothered to learn how to read or speak it.
I'm so screwed.
"UG!" I cried, annoyed that I couldn't read it, though I felt a little better when I realized that the numbers were all in English.
Ah, small miracles.
Though it was a miracle that didn't really help me all that much.
"Huh? What's wrong?" Nami asked, coming over to see what was wrong.
Looking up at her with giant rivers of tears running down my face, I gave her the biggest pout I could manage.
"I like to read, but I don't understand this language!" I said sadly, falling to the floor in a depressed state.
"Huh? Oh yeah! You read that weird language that was on that book." She said, realizing what my problem was. "Well, I'm sure we'll find something for you to read eventually." She said weakly, though she had a feeling that her comment wasn't exactly helping.
And she was right.
"Sure, yeah, keep telling yourself that." I said sadly, still moping in my little corner.
"Well, you could always learn how to-" She started, not even getting a chance to finish her sentence as I instantly jumped up and hugged her.
"Your right! Thank you Nami! I'll take you up on that offer as soon as we have time! Yeah! I'm going to learn to read this stuff!" I said happily, letting go of her and running up the stairs before she had a chance to realized what had just happened.
Tricking her into teaching me how to read this junk was a lot easier then I thought it would be.
I had half been expecting Nami to make a comment to me when she finally came back onto the deck, but was surprised when she instead headed over to Luffy first.
"Luffy, there's an island not to far from here I want to go to, what do you think?" She asked, though I had a feeling she'd still set our course for the island even if he didn't want to go to it.
"Huh? Sure" Luffy said, not even bothering to ask why she wanted to go to the island.
'Island? Aren't we supposed to go get those two guys and head to Sanji's place?' I thought, wandering why we would be changing our destination. 'Please tell me I didn't screw this place up that much...'
I'm not sure why, but a little voice in the back of my head to me not to argue with it and that it was supposed to happen. I wish I could say that I was sure about it, but I wasn't. We were already running two days behind thanks to Zoro's wounds, and I didn't like the idea of taking more time to get to Johny and the other guy.
'I might not like it, but it doesn't look like I have much of a choice.' I thought, grumbling slightly as I headed back into my new work space. 'Guess I'll read over the book Zoro found.'
Sitting down on a barrel, I opened the book up and started reading, slightly annoyed when it used terms that I didn't understand.
'What the hell is a Meonot?' I wandered, wishing I could understand it.
The more and more I read, the more and more angry I got. I couldn't understand half the terms it was using, and half the things it was listing I hadn't even ever heard of.
It wasn't until I finally found a diagram in the back of the book that showed pictures of everything it listed in it. I also found a dictionary in the back of it that caused my eyes to twitch. The reason why my eyes started twitching was because I found the definition for 'Meonot'.
Meonot: a connecting application that can be switched to turn a connection on or off.
"Why the hell didn't it just say a switch?" I wandered in frustration, wishing the book would use terms that everyone could understand.
By the time I was done reading up how to make a magical 'switch', I was thoroughly hating the book.
With all the times that I had ended up having to look at the dictionary or the diagrams, it had started to feel like I was back in school again.
By the time I had finished reading, it was already getting dark and everyone was already heading to bed.
"Huh? Have you been in here all day?" Nami asked sleepily as she walked into the storage room, startling me slightly.
"Yeah, I was reading the book Zoro found." I said, standing up and arching my back, smiling when I managed to pop it.
"Well, I'm heading to bed, do you plan to be up for a while?" she asked, walking over to the trap door and opening it up, getting ready to head on down into our room.
"Yeah, I was thinking about taking first watch." I answered as I headed for the door to the deck. I wasn't really ready to go to sleep yet,.
I had always been a night person, and I was going to jump at the chance of being able to sleep during the day and keep watch during the night. Anything for an excuse to sleep all day.
"Alright, well, goodnight." Nami said as she let out a huge yon and headed down the stairs.
Walking out onto the deck, I found that Zoro was the only one there and had clearly been the one voted to keep watch.
"Hay Zoro." I said, walking by him and starting to climb up the mast so that I could get into the crows nest.
"Huh? You're still awake?"
"Yeah, I was planning on taking first watch, if that's OK with you?"
"Fine, I thought I was going to be forced to take first watch, the others already went to bed." He said, heading over to the trap door near the mast. "But if you're taking first watch, then I'm gonna get some z's."
And with that said, he opened the trap door and headed down into the mens room, clearly planning on going to sleep as soon as possible.
Night on the ocean was amazing. Everything about it made me smile. Being born in a big city like St. Louis, I wasn't used to seeing so many stars. While you could still see stars in St. Louis, you couldn't see nearly as many.
Then again, I was in a whole new world, so the sky here was different and might have had a lot more stars in it in the first place.
"I wander what my mothers doing right now... probably worrying about me." I whispered, staring up at the stars above as a single tear made it's way down my face.
For the first time since I had come to the One Piece world, I let my self go and cried.
There was only one place I really wanted to be, and I knew that I would probably never see it again.
Home.
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A/N:1 I know that it takes something that weighs a lot to actually keep it from melting with the steel, but this is an story, so deal with it. I also know that steel only melts at a HUGE temperature, and that the ship would melt long before the steel does, but again, it's a story, get over it.
Note: You can now look at artwork for this story by going to my profile and clicking on the links.
read and review, ------------ (and check my profile for polls, there's always one up,)