My editor said that s/he lost track of what was happening, so here's what happened so far- (My sponsor has also mentioned that the cost of production has exceeded his/her limits so to save money we are now publishing paper free. To further conserve resources, my producer has suggested going ink free as well. My publicity team has suggested that adding characters from Twilight will boost ratings. Changes will be effective in the next cycle.3-editor)

Robin was Iggy's cabin girl about 18 years ago. He vanishes at an island.

The Straw Hats reach the island, find Iggy, and later meet the nations, not knowing that they are nations. Some are turned into children of varying ages because of Iggy. Romano tells the Straw Hats this.

They have a few sparring matches. Nami and Robin take notes on who they are and what their relationship with Iggy is. Canada helps them, but he avoids telling them that they are nations. He makes up relationships and circumstances (ex. Rather than war, legal custody in court). Nami realized that he is lying. Canada promises to tell them when Iggy regains his memory.

Around that time, Italy realizes that Germany might be the Holy Roman Empire.

Italy is caught crossdressing and is arrested along with Romano.

After a meeting, Germany, Spain, and Japan go to rescue them. Iggy, Canada, and Sealand try to rescue them, too, not knowing that the others sent out a rescue mission.

They get caught. Sealand escapes with bullet wounds, and the Italy brothers are unharmed. All the others are arrested.

Sealand and the Italy brothers get to the inn, which is where the current chapter starts.

Nami and Robin know these names- Germany, Spain, Canada, Romano, and Prussia.

Chapter 21 (Nami POV)

"… And that's what happened," Romano concluded. "Fratello and I are unharmed, but Peter…" he trailed off.

"He… is alright? Right?" I asked anxiously.

Chopper extracted a bullet from Peter's chest. "This one didn't hit any organs, but it was pretty deep. So why was he sniping in the first place?" He searched for more with a metal detector.

"Knowing Iggy, he must have wanted to keep Peter out of danger," Alfred said.

"But Peter is reckless, and he most likely wanted to help Arthur," Yao added.

"Arthur vanted to keep him in a position where Peter could help vithout being in danger," Ivan remarked.

"So 'e chose ze middle ground and sent Peter out where 'e would not be 'urt," Francis finished.

"Whoa…" Chopper dropped the metal detector with a clang.

"What is it?" Ussop demanded.

"Th-there's no way… it's impossible…"

"What is?" Robin asked.

"Will he be okay?" I began to shake Chopper.

"I've extracted all the bullets…" Chopper said in shock, "But the detector still has a signal!"

"What? But I made it myself! There's no way it could malfunction on a body!" Ussop picked the metal detector back up and took it apart. "It's a little shook up, but it should be working. Let me try," he moved it over Sanji's body. "It's not beeping, so it works… right?"

"Is he wearing anything underneath his clothing?" I tried to take off his blankets, but Chopper stopped me.

"No!" he said, "We can't take off his clothes! He might get hypothermia!"

"Okay, okay," I backed off. "But do you know why?" I asked the five outsiders. None of them seemed to be in a position to answer. Alfred looked off to one side, Francis took an interest in Peter's eyebrow, Romano simply sulked, Feliciano kept on glancing back and forth, as if looking for instructions, and Yao gave us a 'we can't tell you' look. Ivan looked on with his usual smile.

"Luffy? What should we do?" Zoro asked.

Luffy was silent for a moment. "We get them tomorrow, when Peter's recovered,"

"W-wait," Feliciano interrupted, "Th-they- It wasn't their fault!"

"We saw it happen," Romano said grimly. "Antonio almost killed that guy because of me and fratello, so he ran and got help. That woman tried to beat Tomato Jerk, Potato Jerk, Tea Jerk and the rest because Antonio threatened him. Mathew knocked her out because of self-defense. When that guy came back, he and the others fought to avenge her. Peter shot their friend so that we could escape. And he shot Peter because of that! Do you really think that fighting them again will make it any better?" He was much more mature than I realized.

"So what should we do?" Robin asked.

"We fight, but don't (severely) hurt them!" Alfred said.

"Ve~ and we can get Peter and the others to apologize to the people they injured!" Feliciano added.

"Not a bad idea… I'll make some food for them," said Yao. He really was Kiku's brother, even if Kiku denied it. He's more polite than I thought.

"Ve have vodka, da?" Ivan added. Well, if we wanted to put them in a drunken stupor, then that was the stuff.

"Okay, good night!" Alfred, Ivan, Francis, and Yao went to the room that they shared. Romano and Feliciano followed suit, to their own rooms. I couldn't forget what he said earlier… "This is how I repay my debt?" What did he mean?

I told Robin this when we got to our room, but she didn't seem to be listening. Too worried about Arthur, I guessed. Peter was in a pretty bad shape, too… I pulled the covers over, and lay in bed for hours until I fell asleep.

The next day…

A flicker of light shook me from my dream of talking oranges. The rosy glow outside told me that it was past dawn, but I still had time to think some more. If Peter was hurt badly, then what about Arthur and the others? They should be alright, I told myself. I saw Spain fight, heck, I fought Germany! And Arthur must be strong, if he was a Yonko. I'm not sure about Kiku and Canada, but Kiku must be good to carry around a sword without swaggering, and Romano said that Canada knocked someone out with a…something-stick. It started with an 'h'… hooky, hucky… hockey! It was a hockey stick!

I wonder why it's called that. I've never heard of anything called a 'hockey', and why would a stick be named after it?

Robin snored from the opposite bed. She must be tired, worrying about Arthur, I thought. Well, I should let her sleep. I mean, it was a bad day yesterday. I pulled of my pajama shirt, and put on my regular shirt.

Wait, I'm forgetting something. That debt he was talking about. He owes something to Arthur, Kiku, Germany, or Spain, but he ran away thinking that they were behind him. Come to think of it, Canada told us that Romano used to live with Spain's parents. That has to be related, I thought. But then he'd owe Spain's parents, not Spain himself. Then again, Canada told us that he was lying about something, so that might have something to do with it. But we don't know what it is because he won't tell us until Arthur regains his memory! Agh, this is getting so annoying!

"Nami? Are you awake?" Robin woke up without me noticing.

"Yeah," I replied. "I was thinking about the debt that Romano mentioned. It probably has something to do with Arthur, Spain, Germany, Canada, or Kiku,"

"It's a little early to talk, isn't it?" Robin replied, nonplussed.

"I know… we can wait-"

"No, it's all right. But anyway, Romano might owe Peter for something as well," Robin said, still not giving up on the idea that he might be an assassin.

"His name starts with Sealan, doesn't it?" I said, trying to change the subject. "That 'lan' part sounds like we've heard it before… wasn't the ship's name 'Si-yi-lan-de?"

"They sound the same, don't they?" Robin mused. "And why did Germany want to hide Peter's name?"

"He said that it gave too much away. Speaking of names… How important are they to them? Canada told us his without arguing, but he said that he couldn't tell us anyone else's. Plus, I don't recognize any of their names so far, except for Peter's,"

"Speaking of Peter, do you think that he has metal in his body?" Robin said. Still on the assassin idea, I see. "He could have been an experiment to see if metal can be infused with bones or something,"

"That could be anything," I dismissed. "We should check on Peter now. He should be better by now,"

Naturally, we had realized that the guys might still be sleeping, so we changed into our street clothes and crept out of the room silently. Every floorboard seemed to creak whenever we stepped, making a walk at six in the morning more troublesome than it would sound.

"Oi, Nami! Peter just woke up!" Luffy shouted. So much for trying to let them sleep.

"Good morning, everyone! It's a lovely day out!" Peter said cheerfully. You could almost forget that he was shot several times yesterday.

"Are you okay?" I asked.

"Uh-huh!" he nodded. "I got better once Chopper got the bullets out. Thanks!"

"Are you sure that you can move?" asked Chopper frantically. "You lost a lot of blood last night!"

"Don't worry; it's not that bad anymore! The bleeding's stopped!" he unwrapped the bandages, much to the chagrin of Chopper, and his wounds were still red, but no longer wet. To prove his point further, he snatched a piece of paper from the table and held it against the red spot. The paper stayed white. "And I was born with a-"

"Zat is not something zat zey should know," Ivan interrupted. "But little Ravis told me zat you haf a birthmark in ze shape of a radio transmitter. May I see?"

"'Little Ravis'?" Peter said, a hint of amusement in his voice, "He said that he'd be at least ten centimeters taller if you didn't keep pounding on his head every day!"

"Kolkolkol…" Ivan's pipe came out from who knows where, and for the first time, I realized that it had blood on it.

"Um, who's Ravis?" asked Luffy, thankfully preventing Ivan from almost killing Peter- again.

"Oh, you haf never seen him, haf you?" Ivan slid his hand into his pocket, and withdrew a photograph. All of us gathered around to see.

In the picture, six people were gathered in a room. The one in the middle was definitely Ivan as he should look if he wasn't de-aged; very tall, very big, and serene. He wore a trenchcoat that looked like it was just a bigger version of what he was wearing right now. It shrunk when he was de-aged, I guessed. Two women flanked his side. One was a girl about my age, wearing a dress, with long brown hair and… was that a knife in her hand? The other was a more mature woman, with short silver hair clad in farmer's clothing. She had a really big pair of… she looked like Ivan's sister. The other three were male, and not as happy as Ivan. The one who looked like he was oldest wore a green uniform, and despite his shoulder-length hair, was definitely a guy. The second oldest, a blonde guy about Zoro's age had a pair of glasses, and wore a uniform like the other guy's except gray instead of green. The last, a kid that looked about Peter's age, had a red uniform that reminded me a security guard… or a figure skater [1]. What is a figure skater, anyway? All three looked deathly frightened and malnourished. The kid looked like he was the worst off.

"Wow! Those girls are-" Sanji ogled the women.

"Zey are my sisters, and if you lay a hand on zem… kolkolkolkolkol-"

"But which one's Ravis?" asked Zoro. "And who are these other people?"

"Zis is my older sister, Katyusha," he indicated to the one with farm clothing. "And zis is my younger sister, Nataliya,"

"Are these your brothers, then?" asked Franky, pointing at the trio left.

"No, they used to live in his house," Yao answered.

"Zier names are Toris, Eduard, and Ravis. Ravis is the boy in red," Ivan explained.

"He looks like he's at a normal height for a ten year old [2]," Chopper commented.

"He's also fifteen," Alfred said bitterly. He glared at Ivan as if it was his fault.

"Really?" Ussop said.

"But we're getting off topic here," Yao interrupted. "We have to get the others out of jail, and I have to get cooking," He headed downstairs for the kitchen.

"But how are we going to rescue Cap'n and the others if we're not going to hurt the guards?"

Everyone looked out the window, thinking. Finally, Francis said, "I 'ave an idea!"

TO BE CONTINUED!

[1] Latvia's uniform, like a security guard or a figure skater- That's how Lithuania described Russia's uniform when Russia did the kolkolkol scene in the anime. Latvia's uniform looked similar enough.

[2] Latvia's height- he is 140 cm, about 4'5". That's really short; 4'5" is on the short side for ten-year-olds in America, but there's also the fact that the average might be different. I thought that Latvia wouldn't be seen as any younger than ten, though.

What is France's plan? What will China cook? And when will I get on with the plot?