Chapter 20: wanted at last, is there more then one?
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 look at artwork for the story by going to my profile and clicking on them the links.
Amazingly, I am already 45/53 of the way through the first season, and once it's over, on to the Grandline! :D
1) Just so everybody knows, every chapter that starts with a new day WILL have a diary entry at the beginning of it.
2) Also, Kaede is a GIRL and I am a GUY, so I for the people that think this is me falling into one piece, sorry but it's not. I'm not Kaede. She's completely fictional. Sorry.
3) Lastly, I will admit that the whole 'collecting seashells' thing is kind of random, but I have a saltwater tank and a fascination for all the seashells and starfish you can get just by adding live sand to it. (Not joking, you would be surprised at how many hitchhikers you get from live sand.)
'thoughts'
"Words"
(inner Kaede)
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The diaries of Kaede Tsuda Burnett, day 28
For the past three days, everyone in the villages has been partying, it's been a blast, but the party isn't really doing anything for me. I can't take back what happened, and part of me doesn't want to.
Killing someone for the first time was... I don't know, it just keeps giving me nightmares that don't seem to want to end. I keep seeing Kongo's staring eyes looking up at me as I plucked the spurs from his cold and dead body.
I wish I could forget it, but I know I never will. That's the price you pray for justice, and I'm not sure if I can really handle this anymore. The life of a pirate is way to hard. Maybe I should leave the crew? I don't know, I might leave them, but then again I might not be able to now. Once word reaches the rest of the world that I'm a pirate, and that I'm Mihawk's daughter, I won't be able to live without being with pirates.
Well, I'll have to think about that later, I should probably write something good to try and lift my spirits. Maybe... but I doubt that anything can make me feel better about killing someone.
So... where to begin? Well, when Luffy finished taking down Arlong, the marines showed up like they did in the anime, and just like in the anime, Nami and the rest of us kicked their ass, though I do have to admit, I could barely move at the time.
While they were leaving the assholes fired a massive cannonball at the statue of liberty, which of course destroyed the torch she was holding up.
So, I sank their ship. I hopped on my broom and zoomed down under their ship under the ocean, and simply opened my froggy bag and pointed it up at them. Once the ship started to get dragged under the water, I left and let the water that was filling the ship up with water drag it to the bottom of the ocean.
The bastards deserved it, but unfortunate, Usopp had to go running off at the mouth when the bastards all swam to the surface, shouting at them that they were stupid for trying to mess with Mihawk's daughter, or a witch.
I just know it isn't going to end well, I have a strange feeling that it's going to come back and haunt me sometime in the future, and it's kind of the reason why I can't decided if I should leave the crew or not. If I leave the crew, then I might get attacked by the marines, but then again, I might not because they probably wouldn't want to piss off my father.
Wait, forget that, i don't want to get back onto that subject, talk happy thoughts.
OK, my father. When Nami heard about who my father was, she nearly passed out, it was funny. Though not nearly as funny as the look the villagers all gave me, now that was really awesome.
Anyway, the only really good thing that came from.... that event, was the fact that Lil had managed to collect enough of the spurs that I had stopped from hitting me for the doctor to use to create an antidote for the kid.
When I saw what she was putting them in though, omg, I almost killed her. I have a rule for us that we only steal from pirates and marines and corrupt men, but she actually stole a glass medical jar and some tongs to pick up and store the spurs with.
But, at least the kids safe. That's the point at least. He's kind of goofy though, running around and tripping over his own feet. Luckily, according to his parents and the doctor anyway, that's how he always is.
I also managed to add a few things to the list of things to do, having a lot of time to think to myself while everyone's parting, and trying not to think... about that kind of gave me time to think of the future here:
if I don't want to have to deal with zombies, then I need to start making salt pelts and something to shoot them with for me and the others to use, or find something that can spread salt through the air so they will inhale it all.
Find a way to control what pops out of the froggy bag when I turn it upside down, because having my loot destroyed by the statue of liberty when it landed on them, was annoying as hell.
Steal some of those marine sticks from the marine base in Logue town without getting caught. I'll need them to make pellets to take care of devil fruit users. Knowing about what's going to happen rules.
So, that's what I've got so far.
Save Gin
Make salt pellets and something to take care of Aokiji and the zombies.
Steal from the marine base in Logue.
Build the Fubuki Yama so that we wont have to see Kokoro naked.
Stop slavery and save that weird pirate on the bubble island.
Learn to control the froggy bag.
Signed, The diaries of a Mad Cat Woman.
Closing the journal, I stood up and ignored the fact that some of the pages now had tear stains on them from every time I thought about the life I had taken.
"Kaede!" A voice called, dragging me out of my trance and causing me to wipe my face off and put a fake smile on it. "Come on! Tonights the last of the party, don't you want to have some fun? I could always cook you up something real nice."
Sanji, always the love cook, had come over in his hundredth attempt to get me to enjoy the party.
"Are you ever going to give up?" I asked him, standing up and walking past him, not waiting for the party. "I think I'll go see if they have something to drink."
"I'll get you something my love!" he said, doing his wiggle wiggle dance as he ran off without even finding out what things I liked to drink.
If he brought me anything with alcohol in it, I was going to hurt him.
"Great, now to make my get away." I said, turning around and running through the crowd, hoping I could loose him in it.
He was way to persistent.
"Kaede!" Nojiko's voice called out after me, causing me to stop and turn around to look at her.
"Hey, what's up?" I asked, glad that it wasn't Sanji.
Like I said, one hundred attempts to get me to party, and that was just today and didn't include the other two days of partying.
"Nothing, just coming to see if you wanted to come hang out with us." A little boy said as he walked up behind her, on that I didn't recognize.
It was probably the same one that had tried to kill Usopp when he first got onto the island. I wish I had gotten the chance to see that.
"Yeah! Nojiko's telling us all about you guys!" another kid said as he appeared out from behind Nojiko, this one turning out to be Kevin, the same boy that I had gotten the spurs for.
I was kind of surprised to see that the kids were still awake as it was already getting really later and the sun had already gone down. I would have thought they would be sleeping by now, but I guess their parents were to happy about the end of Arlong's reign to force their kids to sleep.
Lucky little brats.
"As long as it doesn't involve dancing, then that's fine with me." I said, walking over to them and following Nojiko as she lead us to the beach where there was a a small bonfire.
"Kweh! Kweh! Kweh!" Choco sang, dancing around the fire like an idiot and adding to the things I was going to have nightmares about.
I REALLY didn't like how close he was to the fire, but I had given up on trying to keep him away from things after the fight with Arlong when I saw that there was one of Arlong's men hanging out of his beak.
Well, they are fighters in the game, so I guess trying to stop him was kind of stupid.
"Your bird seems to be having fun." Nojiko said as we sat down around the fire.
"Yeah, he's just happy that he grew another seven inches." I said, slightly annoyed by the fact that he now came up to my shoulder.
He had crown almost a foot after his battle, and over the past two and a half days he had grown seven more, making him large enough for people to ride him. If he didn't grow anymore before we got to them, he would be the same size as Carue.
"He sure grows quickly." Nojiko said as the kids started dancing around with the big dumb bird, causing me to smile at them slightly.
"Well, he is a chocobo, they grow up fast, he's only a month old and he's already almost full gown, just three more feet to go." I said, causing Nojiko to blink in surprise as Choco.
"Wow. That is fast." She said, though her tone told me she was waiting for me to ask her something myself.
Taking the bait, I asked her the question that she knew I wanted to ask.
"So, how's Nami?" I asked, running my fingers through the sand and getting a rather nice idea.
"She's doing well, I'm surprised it took you so long to ask." She said, smiling at me as she did so. "I guess what happened to Kongo kind of took it's toll on you." She added, causing me to look at the ground sadly. "But anyway, I think she's planning to take off with all of you, but you knew that didn't you? She told me you were a psychic."
"That's right, but not a very good one." I said, turning my head and smiling at her as I started digging though the sand. "I can sometimes tell what's going to happen, though I can only see one branch of the future and my own actions have kind of changed it a bit, so there is always a chance that it wont happen the way I've seen it."
"Really? Huh, so you can't tell me if Nami will be happy or not?" she asked, finally getting to the question that was on her mind.
"Oh, I can tell you that." I smiled, knowing that nothing would be able to change that in the future, not unless we all died, and I really didn't want to think about that possibility. "She'll be happy, and she'll get stronger then she ever thought she could be, even stronger then Arlong was." I said, getting off the log and kneeling down on the sand so that I could dig more easily, smiling as I started finding seashells.
So I'm just a big kid when it came to beaches, so sue me.
"Really? Nami will be stronger then Arlong was?" She asked in surprise, letting a small smile slowly make it's way onto her face.
"Yep, way stronger." I said, smiling up at her as I continued my digging.
While I was having a blast digging through the sand, I wasn't just doing it for fun, I was also doing it for another reason.
"So, what cha' digging for?" she asked jokingly, getting down on the sand and helping me.
"Well, I originally got down here to see how much stuff I would have to sift out of the sand if I decided to take some with me to use later, but I kind of got side tracked when I started to find shells and sand dollars." I said, smiling as I found a small, dried up starfish.
"Huh? And why would you want to take sand with you?" she asked confusedly, though she didn't stop digging and sifting through it.
"Well, as you saw when I was fighting Kongo, I can use a Thunder spell." I started, still setting the tones of shells aside. "You see, I'm not just a Ctarl-Ctarl witch, I'm also an engineer, it's kind of my thing. Anyway, as an engineer, I need metal and other raw materials to make things out of, which includes glass.
"When lightning and thunder strikes sand, it melts it down into glass, which means I wont have to go out and buy glass to make stuff, I can just make it my self." I explained, smiling at the thought of one less thing I would have to pay for.
Being a witch rules!
"Oh, so that's what you're planning." She said in comprehension as we both stopped and looked at all the stuff we had pulled out of our little two by two by two foot whole in the sand.
I guess there was something to be said about a world completely filled with nothing but ocean and small islands, there was a lot of room for snails, clams, and other aquatic animals to live.
"Huh, now that is a lot of shells." I said in amazement, wandering if I should start collecting them or something.
Hay, everybody needs a hobby, maybe this could be mine? Besides, when we get Franky in the future, it wouldn't hurt if I had a bunch of shells to decorate the tank with, now would it?
"Yeah, you can find them all over the place on the island, they get washed onto the shore, and then berried in sand." She said, picking through them to see if there was anything worth keeping. "Oh, here's a nice one." She said, pulling out a bright blue coach shell that was small enough to be an earring.
"Cool, maybe we can find another one and you'll be able to make a pair of earrings." I said, wandering if the blue coloring was something that you could only find in this world.
I had seen a lout of coach shells before, and I knew that they all ranged in patterns and colors, but this was the first bright blue one I had ever seen.
"Hm, if we're lucky, this shell is incredibly rare. I'm surprised that we even found one in the first place." She said, looking at closely and asking me if she could have it.
"Sure, I don't mind. I'm only really in this for the sand anyway." I said, smiling at her as she thanked me and stuck the small shell into her pocket. "Hey, do you know if there's a place to buy some screen mesh and some burlap bags? We're probably going to be leaving early in the morning, and I kind of want to pack some sand up before we go."
"Sure, but are you really sure you want to work through the night? I mean, don't you think you should probably have fun or get some rest before you leave tomorrow?" She asked, causing me to waver her off nervously.
"Oh, no. I'm not really a party kind of person, and I happen to be a night owl, kind of a witch thing." I said nervously, glad that she wasn't able to read minds.
The truth was, while I really was a night person, I just didn't want to go to sleep. The nightmares were laying in wait for me and would attack the moment I closed my eyes, and I really didn't want to see his face again. I wanted to forget it and pretend like it had never happened.
The others had either never actually killed someone, like in Nami's, Lil's, and Usopp's cases, or had gotten over the feeling a long time ago, like Luffy, Zoro, and Sanji.
Or were simply a birdbrain like Choco. Chocobos were kind of made to fight, like a tiger, only a really large bird instead, so killing was just an animal instinct for him.
"Oh, well in that case, I'll go ask one of the shop keepers at the party if you can have some, but why do you need the screen mesh?" She asked, not realizing what I was planning to do with it.
"Oh, I'm going to use it to screen out all the shells and stuff faster, that way I can get more done instead of having to pull all the shells out by hand." I explained, pocketing all the shells we had already pulled out of my little whole and standing up. "But, I kind of want to see if I can buy something else as well, and since I probably wont get a chance tomorrow, I think I'll do it now while I can."
"Ok, if you say so." She said before turning her head and yelling to the two kids. "Hey, stay with Choco while we go do something, alright?"
"Yes ma'am." They both said as they turned back to the bonfire and continued to dance.
Kids are so cute.
"Good, now don't roast him while we're gone, OK?" She add jokingly as we headed off up the road and to the party.
It didn't take us long to find one of the many shop owners in Cocoyashi Village at the party, and once we explained why I needed the stuff, he was more then willing to simply give them to me, even though I had tried to pay him.
Being one of the town's heroes had it's perks.
"Fine, but you have to let me pay for the other stuff I might want, deal?" I asked, practically forcing the poor man to say yes.
I wouldn't except taking everything I wanted for free, not when I didn't' even know what I was going to want until I actually saw it.
Once we got to his shop, which only took us about three minutes since it wasn't that far away in the first place, I quickly took a look around to see what he had.
His shop was kind of like a convenience store, only with a slightly wider selection that included stuff that you would never have seen back home in a shop in .
One of the items that he had that I instantly bought two large fishing nets that had a pulleys attached to the end of them so that you could simply drop them into the water and pull them back up.
I also bought another fishing rod and a shovel, as well as three huge lines of rope and a couple of large cases so I could organize the crap I through into the froggy bag.
I had gotten the rope so that I could tie the handles of the cases to it and keep the end of it out of the froggy bag, that way I could pull them out whenever I needed them.
by the time I was done shopping, this was what I had bought:
1 fishing line
a bunch of bait
2 large fishing nets with pulleys
1 shovel
2 large bundles of rope
9 large cases
It was a lot of big priced things, so I wasn't at all surprised when the total came to 17,958 beli, which left me with 3,413 beli out of my original 21,371 beli.
If it was American dollars, it would have been a lot, but as it was beli, it was only the equivalent to a couple hundred, if that.
"Are you sure you wont let me give you them for free?" The man asked, causing me to smile at him as I shook my head no.
The town was so nice, I almost didn't want to leave it.
Almost.
"No, the ten burlap sacks and the screen mesh will be fine." I said happily, though I was a little surprised when I saw that the burlap sacks were almost as long as I was tall, and just as wide, and I wasn't at all surprised when I found out that they were usually bought by the nearby orchard farmers for bagging up apples and tangerines to take to different vineyards.
They were huge, and in the words of Gabriel Iglesias, DAAAMN!
"Thank you." I said as I put all the stuff into my froggy bag and turned around with Nojiko to leave.
Twelve hours six swims later, I had one huge ass bag of shells and other random things that you could only find in beach sand, and nine huge ass bags of sand, as well as two large fulgurites that I couldn't even pick up yet because they were still to hot. (A/N: Fulgurite is what you get when lightning turns sand into glass, it's usually not clear, but glass manufactures that use fulgurite make it clear by heating it up even more, though this glass still has some color to it.)
The two lumps of fulgurite wouldn't have still been hot if it wasn't for the fact that I had had to hit them both with around seven Thunders each in order to make them semi see through, though I didn't know if Nojiko was right or not when she said I would have to hit them that many times to make them clear.
"Kaede!" Lil's voice called out, causing me to look up at her and Choco as they ran down the path to where I was sitting, waiting for the Fulgurites to cool off.
"What's up with you?" I asked, wandering why she looked so panic stricken.
"Have you looked at the spell book?! One of the pages changed!" She shouted in panic, finally reaching me thanks to Choco's speed.
"What?!" I demanded, jumping up and digging through my froggy bag, not realizing that if she already knew something about the spell book, then it wasn't in my froggy bag.
"It's not in there, I put it in my ear while you were napping before we dealt with Arlong and his men." She said, pulling my precious spell book out of her ear, causing me to ick-out again.
"Lil, can you please stop putting my stuff in your ears?" I asked, using only two of my fingers to take the book out of her paws so that I wouldn't have to touch it to much.
"Get groused out later, look at the page already!" She said, pointing out that a page in the book changing was more important.
"Fine, what page was it?" I asked, only to realize that I didn't need her to tell me anyway.
I could see which page it was just by looking at the side of the book. While most of the pages in the book where a gray-white color, there was one page that was now a dark yellow, which extremely noticeable.
"The thunder spell?" I asked, looking a the page that was now glowing.
'Why would the thunder page have changed?' I wandered, running my hands over the page in amazement.
"Kaede!" Another voice called, causing me, Lil, and Choco to look up the path, only to see that it was Genzo.
"Hey, what's up?" I asked, closing the book and standing up as Lil got back onto Choco's back.
They were so cute like that.
"I came to tell you that your friends are getting ready to leave." He said, walking down the path toward me.
"Oh, thanks." I said, reaching into my froggy bag and pulling out my broom. "Ok guys, time to head over to them. Choco, time for your first race."
"Kweh!" Choco said happily, jumping up and down and causing Lil to look at me in horror.
"Oh, hell no!" She said, making to jump off just as me and Choco shout off, causing her to cling to Choco's tail feathers for dear life.
"See you Genzo! We'll be at the ship!" I Shouted over my shoulder as we zoomed past him.
"Kweh!" Choco said happily, managing to keep up with me as I increase the speed.
"Get me off this crazy bird!" Lil shouted in horror as we rounded a sharp turn, nearly loosing her grip in the process.
It took us less then a minute to get to the docks as they weren't that far away from the 'Town beach' in the first place, they were just on the opposite side of Cocoyashi Village as each other.
"Without Nami on bored, I have like 98.71 percent less reason to stay with you people on this stupid pirate ship!" I heard Sanji say angrily to the other guys, causing me two slowly hover up behind him.
One minute he was telling me that I was his 'Kaede sweat', and the next day he was acting as though I didn't exist. hm... Excuse me?
"And the All blue is the other 1.29 percent, meaning that I am worth absolutely nothing to you." I said behind him, smirking over his shoulder at the other guys who were now covering their laughter with their hands.
"Kaede my sweet!" He said happily, spinning around and looking at me with hearts in his eyes. "Of course you mean everything to me!" I said, once again starting to proclaim his love like he did with every girl he saw.
"Right." I said sarcastically, hopping of the broom and walking over to Luffy and the others, smiling when Choco managed to jump onto the ship in one try.
"Kweh!" He said happily, only to stop and look at his tail feathers where a little black cat was now screaming in horror.
"AH! AH! AH! AH!" Lil shouted with her eyes shut tight, still thinking she was being dragged through around at high speeds by Choco.
"What's with her?" Zoro asked, raising an eyebrow at her shouting.
"Nothing, she was just dragged along in a race that she didn't want to be in." I said, walking over and picking her up. "You can stop shouting now, we're not moving anymore."
Lil slowly stopped shouting and opened her eyes to look around, relaxing when she saw that she was safely on the ship where we couldn't exactly have a race.
"Please don't ever do that again, I think I lost eight of my nine lives because of heart attacks just now." She said, sinking like a puddle the moment I set her on the ground.
The fact that everyone had turned to look behind me alerted me to the fact that Nami had finally appeared on the other side of the crowd.
"Nami wants us to set sail now." I said, loud enough so that everyone in the crowd could hear me, not even bothering to turn around and look at her as I instantly moved off to set sail.
"Huh? But why?! She's not even on board yet!" Sanji exclaimed, demanding to know why I would say something like that.
"That's for her and me to know, and you to find out." I said happily as everyone got to work.
"She's right, just do it!" Nami shouted, just before she took off running through the crowd, heading straight for the ship.
"So, you sure you want to let her leave like this?" Sanji asked as the ship started moving.
"It's not my decision, she does what she wants." Luffy said, sitting on the railing and looking over his shoulder at Nami now that all the work was done.
"And besides, this is her way of saying goodbye, you'll see." I said, smiling at the fact that I was about to get three large wallets from Nami.
What? You didn't think I wasn't going to black mail some out of her when I could have informed the village of what she was going to do.
Then again, they might have put more money in them as a way of thanking her if I had...
Damn, didn't think that one through.
The fact that I could see Nami hit every single person int the crows bags or pockets as she went by them caused me to stare at her in amazement.
'even if she does put most of them up her top, that's a lot of fucking stuff!' I thought in amazement, realizing for the first time that she had stolen something from everybody. 'Maybe I'll take more then three...'
"Nami! Stop! I can't let you leave like this!" Genzo shouted as he ran down the road after her, managing to catch up to her when she slowed down, only to be pushed away by her as she sped up again.
And there went Genzo's wallet, and he didn't even notice.
The only person of Cocoyashi village that she didn't steal something from, was Nojiko.
"Nami!" Nojiko shouted as Nami ran right past her and jumped off the dock and onto the tail end railing of the ship, then down onto the deck.
Without turning around, Nami simply spread her legs and lifted her shirt, causing a bunch of wallets, change bags, and purses to fall out onto the floor of the deck.
"AH! My money's gone!" a large man shouted, checking all of his pockets in horror.
"My purse is missing!" a woman screamed, unable to find the purse that had been on her shoulder.
"She took my wallet!" another man shouted, unable to find it anywhere.
"That thief! She stole all our stuff!" Another man shouted as everyone started searching for their stuff.
In answer to everyones shouts, Nami simply pulled out a 1000 beli dollar, which was the same as a fifty back home, and kissed it before looking over her shoulder and winking at the crowd in Cocoyashi Village.
"Thanks a bunch!" She said happily, smiling at them and causing Lil to laugh hysterically at them.
Wasn't she just whimpering on the ground over the racing?
"Damn! You brat!" Genzo shouted, realizing that his wallet was gone to.
Everyone started shouting at us from the docks of Cocoyashi Village, though some of them seemed to be doing it only half heartedly.
"Great, she hasn't changed a bit." Usopp said in disapproval, causing my grin to widen.
"I'd watch my back around her." Zoro said, just as disapproving as Usopp was.
Luffy and Sanji simply laughed, giving her the thumbs up in approval, the exact opposite of what Usopp and Zoro were doing.
"Oh, come on. We're thieves, did you really expect her not to steal from them? Or for me to warn them?" I asked, smiling as the villagers started yelling their goodbyes to Nami instead of yelling at her for stealing from them.
"You lousy pick pocket! We'll miss you!" Genzo shouted as we got further and further away from the island. "Hay! Strawhat! Remember what I told you!"
"You got it!" Luffy shouted back at him, giving him the thumbs up as Nami shouted her own goodbyes at the village.
"Goodbye everybody! I'll miss you! Take care!" She shouted, waving her arms in the air at them as they slowly disappeared as we sailed on.
Now that the island was out of site, I walked over to the pile of wallets and purses at Nami's feet and looked them over.
"So, which ones are mine?" I asked Nami, causing her to look down at me.
"Yours? What are you talking about? These are all mine! I stole them fair and square on my own!" She said rapping her arms around them all and guarding them protectively.
"You're right, but I could have warned all the villagers, and then they would have been running away from you instead of trying to stop you from leaving." I said, smiling at her evilly, taking a leaf out of her book like I always did. "And then there's the fact that I lost almost all of my loot when I was fighting Kongo and his two girlfriends for you and the village." I added, ignoring the fact that I had said his name so that I wouldn't shiver at the memory. "So I think a few measly wallets and purses wouldn't be to much to ask."
Nami simply glared at me for a few seconds, annoyed with the fact that I was using one of her own patented methods against her.
"Fine, but you can only have seven of them!" She said, tossing me seven random purses and wallets.
The only reason why she was letting me take seven of them was because there was well over a hundred purses and wallets there, so seven of them wouldn't even be missed.
"That's find." I said, already digging through the three wallets and four purses she had tossed me to see what was inside. "I was only going to ask for three anyway, but a deals a deal." I added evilly, walking off as her jaw fell open.
"WHAT?! Hey! Fine! Three then! Give the extra back!" She shouted, chasing after me as I simply hopped on my broom and rose up into the air.
"Sorry, we already made the deal, and you can't go back on it." I said happily as I went through the wallets first. "Let's see, I'm still going to have to steal something later from one of the towns we come across, but I guess this will get me through for a while."
Smiling at her as she huffed off and gathered her remaining loot, I slowly lowered my broom and jumped off it.
"Well, I guess I'll go count my earnings." I said, heading into the storage room and over to my work area to count the money.
"OK, this purse has 4,000, this one has 2,130, this one has 1,978 and this one has 3161." I counted, keeping in mind that 1,000 beli was the same as 50 dollars. "Now for the wallets, 8,917 in this one, 7,158 in this one, and 1571 in this one. That makes 28,915 all together, or 32,328 if I count the 3,413 I have leftover after the shopping." (A/N: In case anyone is wandering, that's 1616.40 dollars in American money. )
I also got a few trinkets from the wallets and purses, though nothing to special. One of the purses had some jewelry in it, but that was about it.
'Yep, definitely going to have to steal from the marine base.' I thought, picking out one of the purses and putting the money in it, then sticking it into my froggy bag with the end of the strap sticking out.
Taking the rest of the purses, I pulled on the end of the rope that was sticking out of my froggy bag and pulled up the first case that was attached to it, opening it and putting the purses inside before lowering it back into the froggy bag.
"Kaede, I think I have theory about the page and why it changed colors." Lil said, padding into the storage room and looking up at me as she continued. "I think the pages are indicators, like they change colors when you master a spell. Think about it, you used that spell quite a few times, enough times that you nearly passed out from using it to much. Maybe the darker the page gets, the closer you are to mastering it."
"Really?" I asked, wandering if she was right.
If she was, that would mean that the more I used the spell, the darker it would get, which would explain why it was a dark yellow now.
"Well, if that's the case, then the blizzard page would at least be tented a slight blue or something." I said, grabbing the book and sitting on the floor to check.
She was right.
The blizzard page was tented a very light blue, so light in fact that it was almost unnoticeable.
"Ok, so that means that they will be, what? Black when I've mastered them?" I asked, wandering if that meant that I still had a ways to go with both spells.
The thunder spell, while the page was a dark yellow, wasn't even brown yet, so that would mean that I still had a long way to go, and the blizzard spell was barely tinted at all.
"That's the theory at least." Lil said, sticking her paws and head over the edge of the book, blocking my view slightly.
So cute.
"Yeah, I know, maybe I should start practicing on a daily bases?" I asked, wandering if it would help any.
"And trying other spells out every now and then too. After all, you only have two spells, and by the size of this book, I'm pretty sure there are a lot of other ones too. " Lil said, using one of her paws to turn the page slightly. "You should also keep track of what spells you're working on, and make a list of the extra things you can do with each spell."
"Firstly, stop being so teacher like, it's creepy." I said, poking her on the top of her head with my index finger. "And secondly, what do you mean by 'extra things'?"
"Well, you do realize that, as a witch that can use electricity, you kind of salved your power problem for the sub, right?" She asked, causing me to stare at her blankly.
It had to be the lack of sleep for the past few days, because that is the only explanation for why I couldn't understand what she was hinting at.
"Come again?" I asked, not really seeing how being able to use a Thunder spell would help me with that problem.
"Well, don't your remember the sky island ark and how that electric guy powered his ship with his own electricity? Couldn't you do the same thing with the thunder spell?" She asked, causing me to blink at her.
I hadn't even thought of that possibility. If I made everything on the sub electrical, then I wouldn't have to worry about gas or cola.
"Lil! You're a genius!" I said happily, hugging her tightly before pulling out my journal and writing it down in the back of the book before jumping up and heading down the stares.
Somehow, Nami was already there.
"Nami? I asked, bonding down the stairs and looking at her, wandering how she had beaten me there. "How'd you get down her without going through the storage room?"
"Huh? I did go through the storage room, I came through when you and Lil were looking at that new book of yours." She said, causing me to blush in embarrassment at having been so oblivious to what was going on around me. "What's that book about anyway?"
I had completely forgotten she hadn't been around when I got the spell book, which meant that she didn't know about it.
"Oh! I completely forgot to tell you about it." I said in surprise, smiling as Lil brought the book down the stairs. "It's a spell book, a offensive magic one. It's called 'The book of black magic, level 1'."
"Oh! So that's what Nojiko was talking about! She said that you told her about a spell book and that the thunder thing you did when fighting Kongo was one of the spells from it." She said, getting up from the desk and walking over to pick the book up out of Lil's paws.
"Yep, though don't even bother trying to read it, it's in the same language as the magical engineering for morons book." I said walking over to the bookshelf and pulling out the large book that was filled with blank paper and my designs for the
Fubuki Yama sub.
"Darn, and here I was thinking that I might be able to try one out." She said, causing me to turn my head and smile at her.
"Sorry, but you have to be a witch in order for the spells to work for you, but if you want to try a thunder spell to see for yourself, just stick out your index finger, think of the strongest thunderstorm you can imagine, then shout the word 'thunder'. " I said, sitting down at the same desk she had been at and opening the other book to the page with the design for Fubuki Yama on it.
"Thunder!" Nami shouted, slightly disappointed when nothing happened.
"Yeah, if you where able to do it, then it would have at least sparked." I said, not even looking up at her as she continued trying while I started changing my designs for the engine.
Now it was a completely electric engine and the speed would be completely depended on how much electricity I pumped into it.
"Fine." Nami finally said, closing the book and giving up after about twenty minutes of trying.
Damn, she's persistent.
"Told ya. Only a witch can do magic." I said, closing my own book now that the designs were complete.
"Anyway, let's go upstairs and eat launch, I'm sure Sanji's already made some specially for us." I said, already heading for the stares and through the storage room.
"Hey! Wait for me!" Lil said as Nami followed me. "Some one pick me up already! These stairs are the same size as I am!"
After running back down and picking up Mrs. Wines a lot, I decided that I was going to have to steal some wood in Logue Town and make a small ramp up the side of the stares for her.
When I finally got to the kitchen, I found that Sanji had mad a lot more then a little bit of food. He had made a huge amount of food in order to celebrate the fact that Nami was now back on the crew again.
By the time the party was over, the sun had already gone down and I was so tired from staying up the past few days without sleep that I instantly fell asleep at the kitchen table.
The next day, I awoke in my nice and comfy hammock, wandering how I got there, and happy that the nightmares hadn't come while I slept.
"Ug." I groaned, getting out of bed and grabbing my things to take a quick bath.
I slowly trudged my way up the stares and over to the door that lead out onto the deck and asked for someone to run the bicycle under the stairs so that I could get some water for a bath.
"Sure thing, my lovable sweat!" Sanji said happily, running over and doing it for me before anyone else had even registered that I had asked a question.
"Ug, it's to early for this." I said painfully, turning around and heading into the bathroom to take my bath while silently damning the man that made the sun so bright.
As I have said so many times before, I was never a day person, and sunlight should be banded in places that I walked.
After my bath, I squeegeed the walls to get rid of any water that had somehow gotten onto them, and got dressed, only taking a second to deal with my hair.
'Put it behind my ears, and I'm happy.' I thought, ending the second that it took to do my hair and walking out of the bathroom.
As far as morning routines on a ship went, it was a pretty normal morning, except for one problem.
It wasn't morning.
It was actually somewhere around lunch time and the morning paper was just getting to us, which was normal for most ships.
"You raised your prices again?" Nami exclaimed, demanding to no why the price had gone up. "that's a little steep, don't you think?"
The seagull that carried the paper simply shrugged it's wings and stared at her, unable to actually speak.
"He says don't kill the flier, it's not his job to set the cost for the paper." Lil said, translating for Nami as I walked out onto the deck.
"Raise your prices again and I'll stop paying." Nami said threateningly, putting a 10 beli coin into the birds pouch and allowing him to take off as she took the news paper.
"Ug, why does this sound so familiar?" I groaned, wishing my poor brain would wake up all the way.
"What's the big deal? It's just one paper." Usopp said, messing around in his chemicals and making a new star for him to use.
"Just one paper? I buy these every day." Nami said, pointing out that it wasn't just one paper.
"Yeah, but there's no need to save every last beli so you can buy back your village from Arlong anymore, you know?" he said, poring Tabasco sauce into a little round wax ball like container in order to make a Tabasco star. "You can finally stop obsessing about money."
"What?! You're so stupid! Now that all that stuff is over, I'm saving up money for me now." She explained, causing him to glance over his shoulder at her. "Shesh! I'm not going to be one of those poor pirates that can't even afford to dress up!"
"Woh! Calm down! I'm in the middle of developing my special Tabasco star, and you almost made me drop it!" Usopp said, turning back to the little ball in front of him and poring more Tabasco into it. "And eye full of this will make any bad guy-"
at that precise moment, Sanji knocked Luffy out of Nami's tangerine trees and right into Usopp's lap, causing Usopp to jerk his hand up and splash his own eyes with Tabasco sauce.
"AH!" He screamed in agony, causing me to take pity on him by sticking my hand out and use my very weak blizzard on his face to put out the fire that had ignited out of his pain. "Thanks." he said, happy that his eyes were no longer on fire.
"Don't mention it, I just wish I knew why today seems so familiar and important." I said, shaking my head when I couldn't come up with anything.
"You mean familiar like a vision?" He asked, wandering if I saw anything that might be dangerous in our near future.
"Maybe, either that or the date is just very important." I answered, sitting on the railing of the ship and looking out at the water.
Something was supposed to happen today, I could just feel it, but I couldn't figure out what.
Luffy's and Sanji's argument about the tangerines seemed to make something click in my head.
"Are you two fighting about Nami's tangerines?" I asked, turning to look at them as I finally realized what day it was.
Bounty day. It was the day that Luffy got his first bounty, and the first bounty of our pirate crew.
As if in answer to my thoughts, a flier fell out of Nami's newspaper with Luffy's bounty face up.
"What's that?" Luffy said, looking over at the flier.
Everyones jaws dropped open when they saw it, including mine. It wasn't the 30,000,000 that it was supposed to be.
"All right guys!" Luffy laughed happily, happy to see that he finally had his first bounty. "We're wanted criminals!"
"Wanted, Dead or alive," Usopp read, though all of us could see it plainly, even though I couldn't read the actual words. "Forty million beli?!"
"That's a whole lot of beli!" Luffy laughed happily, excited by the fact that his bounty was so high.
"Fa-forty million?!" Nami exclaimed, unable to believe her eyes. "That's twice the bounty that Arlong had!"
"That can't be!" I said in horror, causing the others to look at me in surprise as they would have expected me to already know about it. "It's only supposed to be thirty million!"
What in the hell could have possibly happened to make them raise his starting bounty by ten million beli? It just didn't make any since.
Usopp, Luffy, Sanji, and Zoro didn't seem to be as worried about this as me, Nami, and Lil were. They actually seemed fine with it, in Zoro's and Sanji's cases, and extremely happy in Luffy's and Usopp's cases.
"Hey! I'm in the picture to! Check it out! I'll be seen all around the world, girls might even fall for me!" Usopp said happily, causing Sanji to appear out of nowhere to look at the picture.
"What?! They put long nose in, but left me out?!" He demanded angrily, looking the picture over once and finding that he couldn't find Usopp anywhere. "Where are you? I don't see you anywhere, you aren't on there."
"Uh-huh." Usopp said happily, pointing to the corner of the picture where you could see the back of his head.
Sanji sat on the ground and pouted, annoyed that Usopp was in the picture when he wasn't.
"It's the back of your head, that's not so great." he said childishly, little veins in his forehead showing how annoyed he was.
"Ah, don't be so glum! You don't have to be a captain to get your picture on one of these things." He said, causing Sanji to instantly perk up.
"Huh? Is that true?" He asked, his sour mood instantly disappearing.
"Yeah, just work really hard." Usopp answered, causing Sanji to jump up and start dancing with him.
It was at that moment that I caught site of the back of Luffy's wanted poster while he was looking at it, only to find that there was another wanted poster stuck on the back of it.
"AH! He's right!" I shouted in horror, snatching the wanted poster out of Luffy's hand and taring the second one off the back.
"Huh? What is it?" Nami asked, coming to look over my shoulder at the poster in my hand, only to shriek in horror herself. "Dead or alive?! Black witch Kaede?! Twenty million?!"
It was a wanted poster of me, and the bounty on my head was already the same as Arlong's was.
"What?! She got a poster and I didn't?!" Zoro, Sanji, and Usopp demanded, each of them looking at my poster angrily, though Sanji seemed more taken then angry.
"What?! No! I'm not supposed to get a bounty!" I yelled in horror, wandering how this could have happened. "Quick! Check the news paper! They have to have something in there about this! I didn't even do much to the marines!"
"Um? Didn't you sink their ship?" Usopp asked, clearly wandering what my definition of 'much' was.
"Yeah, and I remember the old geezer saying something about the marines killing off witches in the past, so I'm guessing that fact that you're both a witch and a pirate is a double threat." Sanji said, recalling everything Zeff had said during the Krieg fight.
"And that's not all!" Nami explained, flipping open the newspaper and holding it up for all of us to see. "Look, there's an article in the paper about you two."
"Well?" I demanded, wishing she would remember my reading issues, like the fact that I couldn't read Japanese in the first place. "Read it already!"
"Oh, sorry, I forgot." She said, flipping it over and reading it out loud.
"The Pirate captain Strawhat Luffy and his first mate, Black witch Kaede, defeated Axe-hand Morgan, Alvida – lady pirate of the sea, The great Don Krieg, and Arlong the shark-man pirate with the help of their crew.
"As many readers may or may not know, the pirates listed above are known the world over and all have bounties of thirteen million or greater, making them extremely dangerous.
"The Marine navel heads have Given Both Strawhat Luffy and his first mate, Black witch Kaede, starting bounties of record amounts, making them two of the greatest three starting bounties in the world, along with Niko Robin.
"As many people know, Witches are extremely dangerous and are dealt with with extreme messures in order to keep the public safe, for this reason, any pirate that can manage to keep control of a witch on their crew must be seen as extremely dangerous.
"Witches are not effected by sea prism stone and can do a great many things that can cause mayhem and destruction, which includes the electrical spell that Black witch Kaede is already known for as well as the whirlpool spell that was used to single handedly destroy a marine ship.
"It is also rumored that Black witch Kaede is the daughter of Hawk-eyed Mihawk, one of the seven warlords of the seas, who is also rumored to have already made a statement to the marines that she is her own pirate now, and he will not stand between her or the marines when the time comes for it as he is sure she would never forgive him for doing so.
"One must wander just how dangerous a witch that is also a pirate and the daughter of the legendary Hawk-eyed Mihawk is? Especially when it was thought that all witches were wiped out? Will she take revenge for what has happened to her fellow witches? And is it true that her mother wasn't human, but was instead a member of a now extinct race of people called Ctarl-Ctarls? Also know to the government and most others as Phorahs?" (A/n: I made the name after Pharaohs because Egyptians worshiped cats, so it was the only thing I could think of)
"We will update as soon as more information is brought in."
Nami finished reading the paper and looked up at the rest of us, wandering what we were all thinking.
"Well..." I said numbly, unable to fully grasp everything as my head was to busy swimming with thoughts. "At least they haven't figured out that my father is the one I'm a witch through."
"Wow? An extinct race of people?" Luffy asked stupidly, forgetting that I had already said that my mothers people were gone.
"You idiot, she already told us that." Zoro said, bopping him on the head for bringing the subject up.
"Heh, and here I thought I wasn't going to get a bounty." I said stupidly, doing the only thing my brain would allow when impacted by so much information.
I fainted.
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Am I the only one that realizes Robin's starting bounty was more then twice what Luffy's was in the anime and manga, and yet they said that his was the highest starting bounty ever?
Question 1: should I skip the Apis ark? (For those of you that never watch the Japanese episodes, this is an ark that was skipped in the 4Kids English version of one piece, it comes right before they enter the Grandline.)
Kaede's attack list, part 3
Froggy Froggy Whirlpool : The magical froggy bag gets used to make a whirlpool and sucks everything in.
Type : Witch techniques grade 1
Power : 3 low
Extent : Black magic trap
Mind protection : Kaede faints
Type : Natural awkwardness
Power : 0 OMFG?! They make skills that weak?! That's suicidal!
Extent : Not really a move, more of a hindrance.
Oh! And PLEASE REVIEW! PLEASE? I BEG YOU! (or at least vote in the polls)
read and review, ------------ (and check my profile for polls, there's always one up,)