II
"EH?!"
"No complaints. I've given my word."
"But, but…we had plans tonight. You gave your word for that, too, captain."
Law frowned at the reminder; he had forgotten all about the– celebration was probably the most telling way of calling it.
The crew had dropped him hints of the event in the past month, hoping he would suggest the event on his own accord, but he had taken little notice of their shenanigans. They often had strange ways of coping with boredom and stress, and with their last pirating escapade to occupy the captain's thoughts, he had completely missed their point. Seven days before, however, when their latest heist was finally behind them, the crew took matters into their own hands. An easily subdued coup, some guilt tripping and three quarters of the crew begging later, and they had an exasperated Trafalgar Law agreeing to have a party in the works.
With this latest development, however, it was clear – to the Surgeon of Death, at least – that their plans would have to be put in the backburner for a while.
Seven men and a polar bear all looked to him with worried faces. Their captain felt a tug at his conscience, but held his steady gaze from the head of the table.
"This is for Doflamingo-sama." His voice was slow and grave as he reminded them.
"And we were just in time to dock at port, too," Shachi whined, more to his crewmates than to the pirate doctor.
"I wanted drink my weight in North Blue wine tonight," Penguin put in as he nodded to his friend; the rest murmured their agreement. Law's lips tightened into a thin line.
"Crew." The Surgeon of Death clasped his hands together and leaned against them. "I'm only going to say this once, so listen up."
The Heart Pirates quieted down at his hushed yet even tone. Only when eight pairs of eyes had trained their attention on him did he continue. "Joker needs us is to pick up an item for him." The crew paled at the nickname. "Then we are to hand it over to Wei Yingzi."
The boss's little shadow, huh? That guy… What'shedoing in the Grand Line? Didn't think we'd be seeing him again.
His men's whispering, all brimming with half-remembered vexation and disdain, didn't escape Law's ears, and he couldn't help but feel the same.
Wei Yingzi. One of Donquixote Doflamingo's many liaisons with the Underworld. He was also Joker's main agent in North Blue. Or had been. Law didn't care enough to ascertaining the hierarchy of his superior's ranks. What did bother him, however, was that he was to meet the condescending imp who had endlessly pestered him in his home sea again. But he brushed the thought away for more pressing matters.
"And these–" Law set down a thick wad of sheets on the table before him. "–are our mission details."
+.+
The sun grinned down the crescent-shaped island through a thin curtain of clouds. From its northern bay, a southbound wind blew at intervals to relieve its inhabitants from the sweltering heat. A breeze whistled up the island's lone town, sending aflutter curtains, canvas roof overhangs and a green and pink newsboy cap pulled low over a boiler suit clad man's brow.
Shachi sighed when the wind blew past. Good luck never had any love for the Heart Pirates, he though as he mopped up the glistening layer of sweat on his face. One moment they were sailing in rough waters under a decidedly gloomy sky. The next, they were baking under an unforgiving sun.
His eyes wandered to the clumps of dark clouds that ringed a quiet ten miles of sea around the isle. Bepo had called it a Grand Line-warped eye of a storm, and Seiuchi, the Lady Fate flirting with their crew again. Whatever anyone wanted to call it, it was a joke of nature; its sole purpose was to dash the hopes of Northern seafarers of ever finding temperate summer islands, specifically the Heart Pirates'.
Shachi lingered on the memory of his crewmates' comical reactions to the weather until his peeved mood lifted. At the very least, the autumn season was a windy one. It made his trek through the town's sea of heated roofs a bearable affair.
He trained his eyes back to the task before him. There was nothing but roofing to see from his vantage point, with buildings built so close together that at times he could tell where one ended and another started only by the dips of the roof. Most alleyways were separated by at least a foot of overhang. If anyone hiding under their shade had seen the pirate when he made his jumps between buildings, Shachi did not hear from them. It was probably a common enough occurrence for them not to take notice.
The Heart pirate's rooftop travels ended under the tallest building in town – the town hall judging from its banners and the impressive crest above its doors. A turret with four balconies sat on top of its central unit like an odd hat. If he weren't mistaken, he would have a perfect view of the whole town from there.
He skirted the building for a ledge to start his climb on, and found it in the form of a low balcony just a few inches above his reach. With an easy jump for the railings, he closed large square hands around its decorative pillars.
In another quarter of an hour, Shachi was waltzing around the town hall's turret, looking from one large balcony to another. The building's gaudy architecture had been rife with niches perfect for his climb, almost like Seiuchi's Lady Fate compensating for her earlier prank. The only thing he had to worry about was avoiding the sights of the passersby below, which the trek from the port to the town hall had given him ample practice for.
The boiler suit-clad man stopped at the northern balcony, where the town laid sprawled out before him. He pulled off his hat and fanned himself with it. Its contents rattled in their secret pouches.
"There really isn't much here, is there?"
The whole town was built on a gentle slope that came to an abrupt drop behind the town hall, and there the sea crashed in a steady rhythm against a shallow rock cliff. The hall, along with a church, a Marine base, and the mouth of the main street, formed the one of the four cornerstones of the plaza below; houses spanned the distances between them. Down the hill from the plaza meandered a wide street. It cut across the sea of buildings splayed over the hillside and ended at the long stretch of port that lined the island's entire bay. Two large mansions sat in the heart of each side of the divided town.
The maps sent to the captain had captured the trade town's mundane setup quite charmingly, Shachi liked to believe, though no one could blame the pirate doctor for having the crew double-check everything.
The island map had looked like a croissant, one nearly broken through at the middle with five squares littered around the crack. At least now Shachi had confirmed that map. Hopefully, the rest of his crewmates scattered around town would be coming to the same conclusion about their jobs.
Before he could continue admiring the view, the sound of heavy but casually paced footsteps echoed in the small space. Shachi jumped with a start, cramming his head into his hat.
"And up here you will find a most remarkable view of our humble town," a jolly voice went as the Heart pirate searched for a foothold below the balcony. But even with his sunglasses, the noontime sun made the contours of the building's whitewashed façade's impossible to see. "Mister Wei, was it?"
The Heart pirate gritted his teeth and sprinted to the southern balcony. If these people really were here to see the town, it would be the last side they would check.
+.+
The plaza was packed for the autumn festival bazaar. Rows and rows of stalls laden with colorful produce and merchandise lined the large flat space. Shoppers native and foreign alike crammed the spaces between. Left and right, bargains were offered and prices were haggled, while children played nameless games underfoot.
It was a rich hunting ground for thieves if Kujira Zatou ever saw one.
The Heart Pirates engineer-treasurer glared down at the man who had just grazed him, scaring the poor fool who dared return his glower. That the sun was making his pale complexion a ruddy red or the blue of his eyes a dark contrast to the golden ring around his pupils probably had a hand in it. And maybe the fact that he towered over everyone in the crowd for that matter. But he preferred it that people stayed away; he had greater concerns than pickpockets to worry about.
Like dinner's main course for one. Their last minute change of plans had stolen a large portion of their cook's time for preparing the night's feast, and though Inuwashi had offered to finish his assignment as quickly as he could, the captain overruled him.
Since he was planning for the dinner anyway, the captain had said, he would rather not bank on a sketchy possibility.
Zatou absently scratched the long scar that cut across his cheek. The captain was right, of course. They had to buy the meal. The cook needed what little time he had left for side dishes. The setup would assure them a good dinner, but not without spending beyond the night's allotted budget. Well, that was what the emergency fund was for.
Actually, no. No it wasn't, but the treasurer tried not to think about it. He continued weaving through the stalls, giving everything remotely resembling prepared food a once over before deciding they were all too overpriced for their funds. The bazaar was no place for a bargain.
Retreating to the houses around the plaza, Zatou found refuge from the heat haze in a shaded alley. There, he adjusted the knot tying the side flaps of his green deerstalker cap. Though he couldn't tie them any higher than he already had, it did keep his restless hands busy as he contemplated his next course of action.
"Hey mister."
The Heart pirate's glare shot to a side. Whatever pert warning he normally gave unwanted strangers died in his throat.
"Can I help you with something, miss?"
"There ain't no missus here," the youth decked in clothes too big for her slowly said as she jerked her shoulders down to a slouch. "Spare some change for a poor boy, mister?"
"Boys your age wouldn't be wearing a coat in this heat, and no, go bother someone else."
"Lovely purse you got there. Nice and fat, like it'd have change for poor boys."
He didn't grace her with a reply. His 'purse' was in fact his medical kit, for only fools displayed their money in plain sight, and girl or not, he had no patience for beggars. The pirate turned to leave.
It was to the masquerading teen's disadvantage that her boots were of a heavy leather; their deep thuds against packed ground betrayed her running footfalls. Zatou side-stepped her charge and caught her by the scruff of her coat, before pulling her back into the alley.
"Look," he said, scratching at the scar on his cheek. "Go back to your daddy, little girl. I don't know if this is some strange rite of passage in your island, but your witnesses need to do a better job at hiding behind those crates."
Panicked yelps and hurried scuffling erupted from further down the alley.
"No one put me up to this." The youth, now dropping all pretense of a street drawl, glared up at him. "I'm going to take your money. Just you wait and see."
A pause. "Yes. I'm sure."
"And when I do, you can go looking for your purse in the Lord Edmund's trash. They wouldn't keep that ugly thing in their treasury."
The Heart pirate had every intention of leaving until the familiar name was spoken. Lord Edmund was one of the two merchant leaders of the town and was Joker's associate: the very same man the captain was to meet later that day. A quick decision was made as he scanned her small determined face.
"Has anyone ever told you no one likes being paid with money stolen from them?"
The girl eyes went wide, looking him all over, and she gasped when they fell on the Jolly Roger on his chest. She bowed her head, the callous confidence draining from her frame.
"I-I beg your pardon, sir," she started, already backing away. "I didn't mean any harm. It…it's just that collection day's fast approaching. And business isn't going too well–"
"And you think we want your dirty money?"
There was a quiet moment as she glanced up, her stare reflecting the yellow emblem on his clothes.
"You…you're lying!"
+.+
"Ya workin' fo' Lord Edmun' too, sur?"
The large heavily tanned fish vendor gave a hearty laugh, clapping veined hands over his rotund belly.
"Pipol hir ol pey Edmund or Marius, noy. Wen yu hab no pement, no selling alawd. Eksep da pipol der." He jabbed a thumb to the plaza up the street. "But dey pey da meyor, and den dey go apter, ano, mebbe six deys."
"That so, sur? Well, m' crew ain't stayin' too long. An'thin' we shou' look ou' for?"
"Ip yor nice, no prablem. Jas kip awey pram de pipol in da polo en da jaket. Okey?
"Will do, sur."
Inuwashi nodded to the man, his lips curled in a small smile. He took his purchases from him and added it to the growing bundles in both his burn-scarred hands.
The Heart pirate continued up the main street, giving polite smiles and 'thank ya kindly's to the hawkers who approached. All the while, he swept the throngs of foot traffic with searching hazel eyes, just as his captain told him to. To see how they could tell apart the town's two merchant houses' men.
Purple ties and golden cufflinks for Lord Edmund.
Red cravats and silver brooches for Lord Marius.
Blue ascots for Marines. Some with pins of silver, others of gold.
They were everywhere, talking to the vendors behind their goods, passing pouches to each other or just standing in street corners. Gold glared at silver and silver sneered at gold. The rickety wood and canvas stalls of the wet market, and even the shops farther up the main street, all had their colors; the west was splashed with white and the east with yellow.
Inuwashi looked away as a group of Purple Ties glared at his staring. He turned his back to them and pretended to inspect the produce of the stall next to him. He stayed there a while, shifting the weights in his hands and shaking or nodding his head when he thought appropriate. He also flashed a smiled at the lady vendor watching the wares.
"Excuse me, sir. Those fine gentlemen up the street tell us you're staring at them. Do you have any business with them?"
The Heart Pirates cook casted a quick glance behind him. Blue Ascots with golden pins closed in on him, but slowly. Inuwashi pursed his lips as he shook the fringe of hair under his visor over the right side of his face. The Heart Pirates Jolly Roger tattooed there would be all too easy for marines to recognize. He clenched his fists around his bags of shopping.
"Nah, sur. Ah was jus' lookin fo' — Hey, a' those… ba' the god o' booze. Ah reckon those a' gotta be the smartest-lookin' taters ah eve' seen."
The pirate fixed his sight on the marine's hands and feet, wary of their every move, as he briskly strode into a congestion of market goers. Shopping time was over.
+.+
"Well, that was the last one," Penguin sighed as he stepped out of the easternmost bar of the port.
Wei Yingzi had not been at the meeting place, just as the captain predicted. Penguin wished he had been; for once in their long and strained acquaintanceship, he had wished the Underworld liaison would not give him any grief. But he was missing, and being the one tasked to communicate with him, the Heart Pirates first mate had no choice but to go looking for him.
What made the search so taxing was that it was so easy to overlook his target. Even Penguin, who knew him, could miss the diminutive mousy man; the chances the locals were gossiping about him were as small as Yingzi himself. All the talk he overheard were of the coming tax deadline, a scuffle between Houses Edmund and Marius, the latter losing money on bad investments, and the bazaar on the plateau.
He did, however, narrow down his search to the establishments at port. They were Yingzi's favorite haunts in North Blue, so he assumed he would find him in one. He asked about him at every shop and tavern, being as colorfully descriptive as he could. He had vented for the most part, but it was not all completely without relevant purpose.
For Wei Yingzi was no fighter. In an island where there was even the smallest possibility of physical confrontation, he would surely bring along a band of loyal men: ones he could string around his little fingers, but strong and loyal men nonetheless. If the man himself was eluding him, his men were his best bet at finding him.
Which was why, as he stepped out of the last building of his trek through the port, he wasn't wholly surprised when seven snarling men blocked his way.
"Heard you were talking trash 'bout our boss, boy."
Penguin grinned, curling and uncurling his fingers by his sides in his anticipation. Of course they would have heard, he thought. He made enough fuss in his search for the whole port to think he had a vendetta against the man.
"Yingzi, you mean?" The cornered man subdued his wariness under his smile. "I was just looking for that guy. Do you guys know where he is maybe? See, my captain—"
"You think the boss has time for trash like you?"
"What?" he asked after a short pause. "Is he mad or something?"
"Watch your mouth, boy!" Three men charged forward with their leader's warning.
Penguin, too, moved back closer to the tavern doors. He watched their every step from under the yellow visor of his cap, anticipating the moment they were just a few feet shy of him, before leaping for the rafters of the tavern roof's overhang. His heartbeat reverberated in his ears as he dropped down on them, and he felt their footing collapse under his weight as he springboarded off their bowed backs.
The dock's rotting wooden planks cracked under Penguin's boots as he landed behind the group, but the boiler suit-clad man was quick to skip off of it. He spun back to face his attackers, just in time to witness one of them stomp his foot clear through the broken plank. On instinct, the pirate finished his spin with a kick to the man's temple. The latter was out before Penguin could put both his booted feet on the ground.
Another attacker followed close behind the downed man. This one jumped clear over his comrade and swung a machete at the Heart pirate. Penguin yelped, stumbling to one side as the other man landed nimbly on his feet.
The Heart pirate was on his feet and running in a moment, but not before another man joined his machete-swinging assailant. This one wielded a massive club, and he and his companion raced after the escaping pirate as the latter sprinted for an alleyway between a tavern and a shop.
"Don't think you could get away!" the smaller and faster of the pair screamed.
Penguin cursed through gritted teeth. As much as he would have wanted to, as much as all his instincts compelled him to, he couldn't leave; he still needed to find the group's boss and this was his first lead of the day.
But with two armed men after his head, he was at an obvious disadvantage. The other four were sure to catch up soon, too. If there was one thing fighting out at sea taught him, however, it was how to make the best of the terrain. And the stacks of crates and barrels in the alley were just what he needed.
Up the crate stack against the tavern he ran, with the blade wielder stumbling up after him. The other trailed them from below. Penguin slowed his pace only long enough for the pair to catch up, then jumped to the shop side's wall.
The club wielder swung at him on reflex, but being so far down, missed him completely. The Heart pirate steadied his dark aviator's hat on his head as he propelled himself off the shop. His chaser on the crate stack had followed his movements closely. By the time the pirate landed behind him, he was ready with his machete. He swung his weapon down on his prey.
Penguin had not even looked at him since his jump; he jammed his fingers into the small space between the wall and his attacker's crate, then forced it out from under the latter with all his might.
Two men and a crate went flying into the air. Yingzi's bodyguard crashed into a wall as he fell, while the immobilized man below crumpled under the falling crate's momentum. But that was as far as his luck was going to favor Penguin that day. He wasted too much time.
As he fumbled with his landing, two pairs of strong hands grabbed hold of the Heart Pirates first mate's arms and smashed him into the ground. A third person locked his legs together soon after.
"Not so tough now, are you?" the group leader's voice taunted between great huffs of breath.
The captured man thrashed in his restrainer's arms. He continued to struggle even when a booted foot trapped his head between the pavement and its heel.
"You know what we do to punks like you?" the same voice growled as the pressure on the back of his skull intensified. "When we're done with you, you'd wish you were dead."
The weight let up for a moment and returned as a swift kick to his cheek. Penguin hissed at the stinging pain.
"Your boss…" he managed to gasp, "where is–"
"Who said you could talk?" The boot stomped down on his temple. "We're gonna have to do somethin' 'bout thAH-"
"Hey!"
In the short period between his head being freed and the crash of splintering wood, the Heart Pirates first mate caught a glimpse of his crew's Jolly Roger against a stark white background. Roars of fury erupted around him as the hold on his legs and right arm lifted.
Penguin didn't stop to think. He wheeled around his pinned arm, ignoring the strain it put on his shoulder, and managed to invert his position. The ground to his back now, he used the last of his spin's momentum to roll backwards, aiming a knee at his last restrainer. The latter had noticed and relinquished his hold, jumping away in the nick of time.
An arm hooked itself under Penguin's before he could get up, then half-hoisted and half-dragged him to the nearest wall. He looked to the crewmate who had come to his rescue. Shachi grinned up at him.
"Need some help?"
A/N: So it turns out this fic isn't going to be a three-part fic after all. Halfway through writing chapter 2, I realized I wanted some elements to be resolved at a later time. Hopefully, I would still be able to reach my personal deadline.
Please let me know if there are vague or confusing scenes, especially in the action scenes. I love writing them but I'm not too confident about their clarity. I'd love to know if I'm going about this the right way.
I had a lot of fun (and help!) writing Inuwashi's POV. I'm still working on writing his accent, so hopefully it would be more consistent in the future. The fish vendor guy, though, was most definitely an exaggerated Filipino accent.
Here's how it would read normally in case anyone's curious.
"Pipol hir ol pey Edmund or Marius, noy. Wen yu hab no pement, no selling alawd. Eksep da pipol der. But dey pay da meyor and den dey go awey apter, ano, mebbe six deys."
["People here all pay Edmund or Marius, boy. When you have no payment, no selling allowed. Except the people there But they pay the mayor and then they go away after, um, maybe six days."]
"Ip yor nice, no prablem. Jas kip awey pram de pipol in da polo en da jaket. Okey?
["If you're nice, no problem. Just keep away from the people in the polo and the jacket. Okay?"]