Author's Note: Here's the final part to the East Blue Saga. The Noblesse Oblige Saga will begin next chapter. Stay tuned!
Disclaimer: Eichiiro Oda owns One Piece. Hotspot0626 owns all of the OCs that aren't mine.
Ch. 13: "Heathcliffe."
When we got up to the deck, we couldn't believe our eyes. Saint Kai-Fei's body was being put into a body bag as several pirates climbed over the railing to get to their ship.
"You should stop them!" Our companion whispered to us. For a brief moment, I wondered why I was trying to stop the murderers of a Tenryuubito from getting away. Then, nothing held me back as I got out my guns.
"Stop right there!" I yelled. A person with silver hair and black eyes turned back to me. He had three triangles tattooed under each eye – two orange, two purple, and two green – and he wore a white jumpsuit with black boots. Is this guy a freak, or what?
"Just what the hell are you doing?" The silver-haired man with the tattoos asked me.
"I'm trying to stop you!" I yelled. The man smirked.
"What's stopping YOU from stopping ME?" The man asked me before hitting me across the face with a tuning fork. Sometime during the impact, I somehow dropped my guns.
"Damn," I muttered to myself as I grabbed my guns. But before I knew it, the silver-haired man was about to strike me again. I shut my eyes waiting for the pain, but it never came.
"Yo! You shouldn't attack someone while their defenseless." I looked up to see our new companion, Derek I think, blocked the man's tuning fork with a smirk, the man flipped us off before boarding his boat.
"Ja Ne!" shouted our companion in a serious tone. For what seemed like minutes, me and my brother stood there in stunned silence.
"Who… What… How… W-Wh… WHY THE HELL WOULD SOMEBODY DO THIS?" I shouted.
"Bro, calm down. We will probably see this guy again in the Grand Line," Soren reassured me as he put his hand in my shoulder. I grabbed his hand by the wrist and threw him down to the ground.
"Whoa! Calm down, man." shouted our companion, but I didn't care.
"You don't understand! I know it's hard to believe, but Saint Kai-Fei was more than just a Noble! He was actually… Our friend! Don't you ever fucking forget that!" I yelled with tears beginning to fall from my eyes.
"Bro, please! The murderers got away and there's nothing we can do about that!" Soren pointed out with our companion nodding his head in agreement. I grabbed him by the shirt.
"Didn't I just tell you that you didn't understand all of this bullshit?" I yelled before I threw Soren – my own brother – to the ground and ran off.
After the murder of Saint Kai-Fei, I stayed in my room, except to get food from the cafeteria or to go for a walk or two. Other than that, I just sulked alone in the hotel room without Soren and our friend – who I somehow haven't learned the name of, yet he tends to say "Yo" and "Ja-ne" all the time. The weather seemed to match my mood, too – Cold, rainy, and foggy. Was I really in such a state of shock or helplessness?
On the last day of my state of shock, the clouds parted and the sun came up, warming everything up. It was also the day we arrived at Lougetown.
"Bro, come out. We have to get off the ship," Soren convinced me from our room. With a sigh, I grabbed my things before joining Soren.
"Are you ready to go to the Grand Line?" He asked me.
"Yeah… I guess," I answered as we got off the ship. It was afternoon now, which meant that many people came outside and enjoyed the sunshine. It was bad for us, since more people meant less of a chance of finding Heathcliffe.
"Cheer up, Holden, we're here," Soren said.
"Well, you're right. We're one step closer to finding Heathcliffe," I said. Then, somebody stopped us in our tracks – A marine, and by the looks of it a captain.
"Hold it right there, boys!" The marine captain said.
"Uhh…We didn't do anything wrong, we were just coming here on a cruise to look for our brother," I said.
"We need to take you boys in for questioning for the murder of Saint Kai-Fei," The marine captain said as he then ordered some marine soldiers to grab the both of us by the wrists and dragged us away. As we were being dragged away, something caught my eye. A black-haired teenager was with a teenaged boy with blonde dreadlocks, a black-haired woman, and a purple-haired man. Even though their backs were turned away from us, I knew that this person was somebody special.
Was that really Heathcliffe?
"Soren, I think we found Heathcliffe," I said, tugging at his shirt sleeve. But, when Soren turned his head in the direction I pointed in, they were gone.
"Where? I don't see Heathcliffe or anybody who looks like him," Soren asked me. All I could do was shrug.
The marine captain took us to his command post near town. He then sat us in a windowless room with only three pieces of furniture, which were a desk and three chairs. Two chairs were on one side of the desk, and the other chair was on the other side. A Den Den Mushi was on the desk.
"Remember, you're going to have to lie for some parts of the interrogation," I mentally reminded myself.
"First off, why don't you tell me your names and ages?" The Marine suggested. Before I could reply, Soren cleared his throat and stood up.
"My name is Soren Sarutobi, and this is my little brother, Holden. I'm nineteen, going on twenty, years old and Holden's seventeen," Soren explained. The marine captain then got out some papers and examined them.
"I see. It appears you are related to Celestial Dragon Saint Sarutobi," The Marine said.
"Correct," Soren said.
"What business did you have on the cruise ship where Saint Kai-Fei was murdered?" The marine captain asked us.
"Well, my brother was recently expelled from a boarding school for the sons and daughters of World Nobles, and I wanted to take him to see his fraternal brother, Heathcliffe, since he missed him so much," Soren explained. The marine captain then turned to me.
"Holden, it looks like you're not much of a talker. Would you like to tell me why you got expelled from school?" The marine captain asked me. I was ready to tell the good side of the truth, but not the bad.
"I just thought the classes were boring, so I didn't really pay attention or study, and sometimes I would cut class to find something better to do," I explained. See, nothing suspicious about that.
"Very well, then. Where is your intended destination?" The marine captain asked us.
"Well we-"
"Yo! Hold on! I know what these two boys were doing when Saint Kai-Fei was murdered!" We both turned around to see our new companion yelling as he forced his way in, followed by another marine soldier.
"I'm sorry sir, but he just wouldn't take no for an answer." apologized the marine solider. I looked at the man to only see him smirk.
"Of course he wouldn't." said the marine captain as stood up to walk over to our companion. "Drake doesn't do anything without reason."
"Nice to see you, too. Justin." smiled our companion as he shook hands with the captain.
"It's captain now, you son of bitch." laughed the captain. "Where have you been hiding all these years."
"Oh! You know here and there." casually said Drake almost like he didn't want to talk about it.
"Aha! Mysterious as usual." laughed Capt. Justin as he slapped Drake on the back. "But back to business, you can vouch for these boys?"
"To the letter." grinned Drake. The captain only nodded.
"Men!" ordered the captain. Suddenly me and Soren were surrounded by two marine soldiers. "Escort these boys outside, while I talk to my friend here."
"See you outside. Ja Ne!" said Drake as he waved to us.
Soon after, Soren and I found ourselves standing right outside of the command post. Were we really going to be free or not?
"Soren, this may be the end of the line for us if they think we're guilty," I told Soren.
"I don't know, Drake seemed to be really chummy with the captain. Maybe we'll get lucky."Then, our companion, Drake, exited the command post with a huge smile. Hopefully that is something good.
"Yo, you guys are free men now! Why don't we get something to eat to celebrate?"
Drake took us to a busy café, and he bought us a ton of food! Talk about a celebration!
"Drake, thank you for bailing us out! We feel indebted to you!" I said before I took a bite from another hot dog.
"Yo! You don't have to be THAT indebted to me!" Drake pointed out.
"Well, then, how can we thank you?" I asked Drake.
"I could help you find Heathcliffe," Drake explained.
"Alright, my man, help us out," I said as I shook hands with Drake.
"The Grand Line, here we come!"
I turned my head to the head to the noise, where we saw a group of pirates toasting their drinks in celebration. The leader was a girl with wavy, brown hair and brown eyes. Despite being a pirate, she wore a white, collared, short-sleeved shirt, a black tie, black jeans, and black, high-top sneakers. She also wore black-and-red checkered and striped, fingerless gloves.
"Hey, Soren, see that girl in the shirt and tie over there?" I asked Soren, pointing at the girl.
"Yeah. She's kinda cute," Soren whispered.
"Maybe we can sweet-talk our way onto her crew. Or, if that fails, we can get information on Heathcliffe out of her," I explained.
"I love your mindset," Soren said before we walked over the table and up to the girl. She was sitting between a girl with short, black hair who wore punk rock clothing and the guy with blonde dreadlocks we saw earlier.
"Hello, captain," I said to the girl.
"Can... I help you?" She asked me.
"Hey, is that your sister?" I asked her as I pointed to the girl sitting next to her.
"Correction. I'm her half-sister," The black-haired girl replied. She also appeared to have some sort of Irish or Scottish accent.
"Well, do you mind telling us your names?" I asked the two girls.
"Okay. I'm Yuki-Rin, and this is Molly," The brown-haired girl introduced herself and her half-sister.
"My name is Holden Sarutobi, and this is my older brother, Soren," I introduced myself and my brother to these people.
"Hey," Soren greeted.
"Can you help us? We're looking for somebody, and -" I explained before somebody caught my eye. He had black hair, black eyes, and he wore a black, long-sleeved, collared shirt, red skinny jeans with many chains hanging off of them, and black high-top shoes.
Yep. I think it was Heathcliffe.
"Heathcliffe Sarutobi?" I yelled, trying to get his attention. He turned his head to the direction of me and Soren, and I could see that I really was Heathcliffe. Upon making eye contact, Heathcliffe broke into a huge grin.
"Holden, it's you! And, you brought Soren!" Heathcliffe yelled as he ran up to us and hugged us. We hugged back, glad to have our little brother back.
The Sarutobi siblings are back in business.
After saying good-bye to Drake, we said hello to our new crew, the Capricorn Pirates.
"I'm Yuki-Rin, the captain. Molly O'Flannigan is the first mate, Hatori Chidori is the fisherman, Kazuma Miyafuji is the swordsman, your grandma is a resident ghost that lives in Heathcliffe's scythe, Kartik Abingdon is the shipwright, Matsu Takeshima is the tailor, Maki-chan is the singer, Z.G., Karin Kotetsu, and "Blind" Drusilla are the snipers, Hana Yakushi is the navigator, Aria Yakushi is the gunner, Yulia Tadase and Daisuke Saburo are the thieves, Sebastian Hozuki is the chef, and your brother is the musician. Any questions?" Yuki-Rin explained.
"Can we sign up as musicians? We don't want to leave Heathcliffe ever again," I asked Yuki-Rin, who smiled.
"You can join our crew. Welcome aboard," Yuki-Rin said to us.
"Welcome aboard," The rest of the crew echoed the greeting. I smilied.
"I better get used to you guys, since we're going to be on this crew for a LONG time," I told them.
"Glad to have you on board, bro!" Heathcliffe said.
"Alright, guys, next stop: The Grand Line!" Yuki-Rin said. We all cheered.
"I'm home. I have a good family now," I thought to myself. Let my adventure begin!
End of Holden's POV
Ending Note: Time for the final crew standings before we hit the Grand Line!
Captain - Yuki-Rin
First Mate - Molly O'Flannigan
Fisherman - Hatori Chidori
Musicians - Heathcliffe, Holden, and Soren Sarutobi
Swordsman - Kazuma Miyafuji
"Resident Ghost" - Isabella Sarutobi
Shipwright - Kartik Abingdon
Tailor - Matsu Takeshima
Singer - Maki-chan
Snipers - Karin Kotetsu, Z.G., and "Blind" Drusilla
Navigator - Hana Yakushi
Gunner - Aria Yakushi
Thieves - Yulia Tadase and Daisuke Saburo
Chef - Sebastian Hozuki
End of the East Blue Saga. The Noblesse Oblige Saga begins the next chapter.
Review this fic and "One Piece: Rise of the Pirate Queen". Hotspot0626 and I have been working hard on this crossover, and we deserve feedback!