Chapter 17
" You are the only person, among the teachers, to have accepted without hesitation to take me on this trip! I admit I was very bored but you were so nice to me, that I had to at least do this to thank you. »
Tashigi, the homeroom teacher of Luffy's class, kept thinking about this dialogue that looped through her head. In front of her, two boys were looking for someone, while trying to make their way through the vegetation that surrounded them.
"What took him to leave without saying anything?" One of them grumbled.
Despite his young age, Daifuku was a tall and imposing high school student. Seizing several branches that were in his way, he did not hesitate to grab them and break them, while continuing to advance.
" Knowing him, he must have gone to get something to eat. " The second boy declared. "He's not used to going a whole day without eating! No wonder he's hungry! Me too, by the way, I'm starting to get hungry."
being as imposing as his brother, Oven walked behind him, while enjoying Daifuku acting as a bulldozer through the vegetation. Walking proudly, he had his arms crossed, which did not escape his brother's gaze.
"Do you mind if I wear myself out creating a path through the vegetation?"
"Not at all! In truth, you do a real professional job! I admire you."
"Grrrr!" Daifuku growled, moving forward while destroying the vegetation. "Sometimes I really feel like your lackey."
"Don't say that! It's just that your way of acting like a bulldozer is super effective in this kind of place." Oven stated.
Then, turning around, Oven noticed that Tashigi was having trouble keeping up with them. Yet, instead of having the idea to slow down, he declared.
"Hey, teacher! Hurry up! We won't waste our time waiting for you."
"Hey! I already told you to call me Tashigi-sensei." The teacher reminded him, trying to lengthen her stride so she could catch up with them. "Just because we're not in high school anymore doesn't mean you can afford to disrespect me."
" Be already happy that we let you stay with us. " Retorted Oven.
"Yeah! No offense, you're not much help in the group." Daifuku agreed. "So, I advise you not to be annoying, just because you are an adult! We could very well decide to abandon you in the forest! With or without you, our survival will not change."
Hearing them, Tashigi put on a frustrated face, as she puffed out her cheeks. She didn't like the rude behavior of the two brothers towards her at all.
" Definitely, I'm starting to understand their large number of exclusions during their first year in high school! These two don't know how to show any respect to a teacher. »
It is true that each of the boys had easily passed above the average in terms of number of days of exclusion. Delays (often in hours), naps during lessons, insults towards the teaching staff, fights... Anyone could wonder by what miracle the disciplinary council had not yet expelled them from their establishment. In any case, one thing is certain, if Katakuri was the kingpin of Luffy's class, his two brothers were the kingpins in their classes.
By dint of perseverance, the two high school students finally saw the edge of the forest and emerged into a small clearing. In the center of the latter, they saw another boy, who had a lollipop stick coming out of his mouth.
"Hey, Perospero!" Oven called him. "Did you find him?"
"No!" His older brother replied simply.
Along with Katakuri, Perospero was the one who seemed to rule in high school. However, acting as an advisor, he mainly used his mouth as a weapon, and threatened anyone while showcasing Katakuri's strength, which quickly intimidated anyone.
"Damn it! He could have at least told us where he was planning to go." Daifuku stated, sitting down at the foot of a tree. "Do you think he's in danger?"
"In danger?" Oven repeated. "Don't say stupid! If there's anyone who has no reason to be afraid, it's this guy! Don't you agree, Perospero?"
In response, noticing that he had finished his lollipop, his brother spat out the stick, before rummaging through his pockets. Finding another lollipop, he removed the wrapper, before putting the candy in his mouth.
"You could be more concerned, instead of gorging yourself." His two brothers exclaimed, watching him enjoy his lollipop.
"Why should I worry? You said it yourself, Oven! There's no risk that anything bad could happen to him! Katakuri is invincible! No need for me to worry about him! As usual, he must have wanted to go for a walk around and once again lost his way! He never had the best sense of family direction."
"It reminds me of the time we went to London and he managed to end up in Paris, just because he had followed a donut seller, before ending up inside a truck, filled with French treats." Oven affirmed, with a small smile.
" Sorry to say that, but this situation is not trivial. " Daifuku retorted. "Even though Katakuri is strong, he's still a human! Do you really think he can deal with the monsters on this island? Do you remember the big animals that attacked the plane? He can't do anything if they decide to attack him."
"Katakuri isn't just strong." Retorted Perospeero. "He's also very smart! He'll know how to handle himself."
Hearing them, while she was silent, Tashigi finally affirms.
"Even though you're brothers, I'm surprised how much you respect your brother."
"Huh?" Perospero wondered, looking at her. " What do you want to say ? "
"Katakuri is often someone who lives in a solitary way and finds it difficult to relate to others! In truth, I would never have seen him as someone acting as the leader of a group."
" Tssss! No one on this island can be a better leader than him. " Daifuku retorted. "A leader is always the most powerful person."
"Is it because he's strong that you decided to follow him?" The professor questioned them.
Hearing it, Oven growled.
"This woman is so stupid."
" Sorry ? "
"It doesn't matter if he's strong or not, Katakuri is our brother." Perospero affirmed.
Deciding to resume the search, he headed for the forest. Nevertheless, stopping to turn to Tashigi, he declared.
"We don't consider any student in our high school as friends! However, for us, family is sacred! Katakuri is our leader, because we trust him! And this trust will persist, even if we meet other people who will want to become our leader! And, whatever happens, we are sure that Katakuri will never abandon us and it is mutual for each of us. "
Simply standing still, Tashigi watched the three brothers go off in an attempt to find Katakuri.
" Katakuri is a mysterious student. »
That's what Tashigi thought, while climbing a rocky cliff. Trying not to be left behind by the three high school students, she noticed that they were more gifted than her for this kind of exercise.
" I've always been told that he and Monkey D. Luffy are both the worst students in my class and every teacher wants to kick them out of our school!" However, they are the opposite of each other! Luffy-kun is the kind of person who leads a class and makes friends quite easily! On the contrary, Katakuri-kun is always all alone and when he approaches a student, the latter runs away as if the devil was after him! In fact, he only gets along with his brothers. »
"Hey! Katakuri! Are you there?" Daifuku yelled, approaching the top faster than the others.
At the top of the cliff, the foursome could see smoke coming certainly from a campfire. With any luck, it was their companion who had just turned it on.
"Answer us." Oven exclaimed.
" For a month, he had decided not to come to school anymore because it was boring him to death. Tashigi reminded herself. " And not attending school events either. " »
She wiped her forehead, drenched in sweat, with the lapel of her sleeve and resumed the ascent.
" And yet, I gave him permission to come to the trip to New York when he asked me if he could participate! I was really happy! I figured if he was having fun and bonding with students in his class, there would be a chance he would come back to high school. »
Nevertheless, she remembered the phone call, coming from the police station, which had informed her that Katakuri had been taken into custody for assault and battery.
" My hopes disappeared then! Katakuri had just injured three teenagers in a nightclub, as well as a bouncer, after stabbing him with his taser! I immediately understood that this boy only lived for violence. »
The teacher finally arrived, at the top of the cliff, on a small plateau of rock, about fifty square meters. There, sitting next to a fire he had just lit and a beast lying on the ground, Katakuri watched the members of his group arrive one by one, without displaying the slightest emotion on his face.
"Great! Meat!" exclaimed Daifuku and Oven, rushing at the animal that had had the misfortune to cross paths with Katakuri.
"Is it edible?" Daifuku wanted to know, salivating in advance.
"I can check." Oven stated. "Hand me your dagger."
Not being as interested in the animal as they were, Perospero headed towards Katakuri.
"Where have you been? Did you get lost?"
"I had a problem with wolves." He replied, throwing a twig into the fire he had just lit. "These little puppies wouldn't leave me alone! To get rid of them, I had to climb that cliff! However, I should rather ask you what you've been doing all this time! It's been more than two I've been waiting for you for hours! It took you a long time to guide them here! A little more and I'll have started roasting the animal without waiting for you."
A smile appeared on Perospero's face.
" I'm definitely not about to have the last word with him. »
Then, he examined in his turn, the animal that the schoolboy had just killed. One meter long, it looked like a deer with two short, straight horns, instead of antlers, and a third, rounded, at the top of the skull. Given the marks he had on its neck, Katakuri must have killed it by suffocating it.
"Do you really think we can eat that thing?" Perospero wanted to know.
"What do I know?" the boy replied, shrugging, rubbing the bruises on his arms. "In any case, for an animal of its size, it put up a good fight trying to escape."
Finally arriving to them, Tashigi saw the happy faces of Daifuku and Oven, who patted Katakuri's back several times, while congratulating him on his achievement.
"You really are a great hunter."
"I expected no less of you, bro."
" Compared to Luffy-san, Katakuri-san is the kind of person who involves others!" He, without exception, drags them under his domination and they never come out because he knows perfectly well how to go about satisfying their needs. "
"Hey, Ace! What's that?" A girl, with blue hair, named Whitey Bay asked him, pointing, with her fingertip, the object he was holding in the chest hand.
The object she was pointing to was a kind of throwing weapon, which linked three small stones together with string.
"It's what will allow us to catch food." The boy replied, staring at a small bird with blue and purple plumage, perched on a branch of a tree.
Targeting it, Ace made several rotations of the wrist to give speed to his stones and then launched his weapon at his prey. The bird, before realizing what was happening to it, found itself entangled, tied up and fell from its perch before collapsing to the ground.
"Amazing!" A boy exclaimed, next to Luffy's brother. "You got it the first time."
" You're the best, Ace. " A girl congratulated him.
"I just got lucky." Ace retorted, stooping to pick up his prey.
" Yes! Obviously, I'm really lucky! »
It was true that Luffy's brother, right after the plane crash, was made the leader of an eleven-person group, consisting of five girls and six boys, including himself. Moreover, thanks to his physique and his performances, boys and especially girls, considered him as the one who was going to get them out of this situation.
"It's a bolas." He explained, separating his weapon from his victim's body. "My grandfather taught me how to make it and how to use it! It's very useful when you're lost in the wild with nothing to hunt because it's very easy to make."
"You know things." Exclaimed a red-haired girl, whose name was Goldenweek.
"Hahaha!" A boy laughed, before putting his arm around Ace's shoulders.
Pointing at himself, Thatch declared.
"It's not for nothing that this guy is my best friend! But what he doesn't tell you is that I taught him everything."
For all answer, Ace gently pushed him away, before retorting.
"Tatch...you wouldn't even realize half of the things my bro is capable of creating, being lost in the forest."
" In any case, your weapon will be very effective in capturing other prey. " Confirmed a boy.
"But it's still scary." One girl remarked.
Hearing these words, Ace turned to a girl with long blond hair. Moda was THE ideal girl for any boy looking for a soul mate. Pretty, friendly, caring and intelligent, she was also the most shy of the group and also had a little fearful side. Seeing her looking at the poor bird that was in Ace's hands, the boy had to make a choice. Finally, he gave the blonde a smile.
" It's true! " Ace agreed, letting go of the bird which immediately flew away.
"Damn it, what a waste." Sadly Squardo, a shark-toothed, pale-skinned boy. "We could have eaten it.
"It's okay." Ace reassured him, putting his arm around his shoulders. "With the food we managed to take before escaping the plane, we still have enough to eat for three days! Until then, I'm sure we'll manage to find some fruit trees."
Suddenly, he saw the discouraged faces of several members of his group.
"What is it? Why are you making that face?"
"The plane was really on fire yesterday, wasn't it?" Tate, who was another blonde-haired girl, asked him.
"How could it end like this?" Goldenweek wanted to know.
"Hey, it's okay! It's not like the plane left without us." Ace reminded, thinking that it wouldn't have made much difference.
"Those pesky monsters destroyed it." Luffy's class representative, Marguerite, raged last year. "They must have crushed it and destroyed the gas tank! And that caused the explosion."
" We rather think that it was someone who burned it. " Retorted Atmos, a boy who was even more imposing than Oven or Daifuku.
Having an ax stored in his back, the boy had retrieved the weapon from the bunker, as had Squardo, who now had a sword at his belt. He also wore a fake horned helmet, which was a souvenir from his trip.
"Yes, it can only be that." Namur agreed, biting into an apple. "I don't see how animals could have set fire to the plane! Only a crank would be able to do that."
"Don't be so negative." Whitey Bay retorted. "Even Katakuri isn't messed up enough in his head to do that.
"What? We're just expanding the range of possibilities." Atmos countered.
"Maybe we should have gone to see if anyone else was near the device when it exploded." Tate remarked.
Drinking from a plastic bottle, the last boy in the group began to speak.
" Don't be silly! Ace told us that it could have been dangerous for you to go there and you know very well that Ace is always right. " Gaimon asserted.
Looked at the leader of his group, the boy declared.
"Ace gave us some great advice because by going there, we might have encountered one of the creatures that attacked us."
"It's true." Moda agreed, nodding her head. "Ace is the person you can count on the most! Even more than the teachers."
"That's wrong." Ace retorted, sitting down on a rock. "Even though I don't like to diminish myself, I know that there are people who can be trusted more than me! My brother is a good example."
"Luffy?" Marguerite repeated, almost laughing. "Your little brother? That's impossible! I was his class representative last year and I can assure you that this kid is far from being a safe I don't want to offend you, but he's someone who likes to act before he thinks and who has a habit of always getting himself into trouble."
Then, thinking about all that Luffy had done, during the last year, Marguerite lost her smile, while the teachers had repeatedly criticized her work as a delegate, because of not making sure of Luffy's good behavior. . Clenching her fist, she roared.
"Luffy has been bugging me for the whole year! Dealing with him was a nightmare."
" Me, I've had to take care of him for seventeen years; " Ace assured her.
"You are a god." Marguerite declared.
"It's true that Luffy isn't the best leader we could have." Gaimon agreed. "He's a good friend but I don't think he has the skills to be the leader of a group."
"Do you think so?" Ace questioned them. "However, he has a real state of mind and can be very useful in this kind of situation! At least, I know he won't give up easily! That's what surprises me about him! His ability to follow through on his goals, even if it very often gets him into trouble.
Smiling, Thatch said.
"When it comes to your little brother, you like to talk with a smile! He is really very important to him."
"It sure is." Ace agreed. "He's so important that I would never leave this island without him! It's up to me to take care of him and make sure he can come home and..."
At that moment, he was seized with a severe itch in his wrist.
" Oh no, not yet. »
"Huh, sorry! I'll be right back." He apologized, standing up.
Two minutes later, he dipped his wrist in the water of a river, which flowed not far from where his group had decided to stay. There, he rubbed it, once more, to get rid of the blood that was dried on it.
"Why don't they leave? Yet do these stains stay stuck on my skin? »
Bad memories suddenly rushed into his mind.
FLASHBACK
"They've fixed the radio! Help will be here soon." He had declared, with a silly smile.
He thought he was rekindling his friends' hopes, but had actually destroyed them when they heard the bad news.
"What does that mean? We want an explanation! Why is the radio in this state?"
"Can't we go home?"
Ugo couldn't believe his ears.
"The radio... not working? Have we been lied to?"
Immediately, looking at Dalton, who was trying to calm the angry people in front of him, Ace ran towards him before grabbing his collar.
"You are a liar! Why did you lie to us?"
"Let go of me! It was the only way not to spread panic on the plane."
" That's not an excuse. "
Suddenly, the duo heard a crashing noise coming from outside, while the roar of a creature was heard. Startled in fear, Ace turned around, to find out if one of the Andrewsarchus had managed to destroy the plane's door.
He had stopped looking at Dalton, for a single second. Yet despite this short delay, it had been enough for a knife to be found embedded in Dalton's chest.
"What?" the boy wondered, turning to him.
Immediately, he found himself frozen, while blood had flowed on his hand, which was still holding Dalton. And then, little by little, Ace saw the pilot lose his life, while he had ended up collapsing in his arms before dying.
FLASHBACK END
…
Looking at the pond, Ace was motionless. He didn't understand. He didn't understand how the pilot had died. How had someone acted so quickly and killed him without hesitation? But, what was worse for the boy was knowing that several people thought he was the killer. Luckily, none of these people seemed to be among the people in his group.
Unfortunately, since that day, bloodstains had dried on his hand and she categorically refused to leave. Besides, they were itching more and more.
"Why doesn't the blood come out? Why does it stay on my hands?"
" I don't want to! I don't want people to think I'm the murderer! I did not do anything ! I'm not like him! I am not like my father. »
Suddenly his face reflected on the surface of the water and he stared at it.
"I... I'm not a monster."
Finally, not knowing what to think of his situation, Ace ends up murmuring.
" I beg you ! Help me... Luffy! »
With Luffy : Law / Shirahoshi / Nami
With Katakuri: Perospero / Daifuku / Oven / Tashigi (teacher)
With Ace : Thatch / Moda / Marguerite / Whitey Bay / Namur / Atmos / Goldenweek / Gaimon / Squardo / Tate
Other passengers: Sanji / Usopp / Coby / Vivi / Zoro / Chopper / Johnny / Yosaku / Kid / Wapol / Musshru / Pudding / Smoker (teacher)
Died: Dalton (pilot) / Kaya / AO / Mero / Curiel / T-Bone (teacher)
? : Who is who