(A/N: Thank you so much to OneWhoReadsTooMuch for the review! :) And to those who followed and faved as well. I don't believe I've mentioned this yet, but I'm probably going to make a poll just to see who my readers would like Toffee to end up with once I get closer to the two-year time skip. Or if you'd rather this to be just a story of friendship with no romance at all, I'm fine with that, too. ^_^ I'm just curious to know what you guys would like to see in the story. And I have different ideas for what to do for the time skip, so it could go in any direction.)
During their voyage to find the one known as Montblanc Cricket, the Straw Hats had a run in with Masira's brother. Shojo, similar to his brother, bore a striking resemblance to a primate and he appeared to have an equally short temper. When he learned Luffy and the others had kicked his brother off their ship, he refused to hear that Masira was still alive, and proceeded to attack the Going Merry with destructive sound waves.
Shojo clearly wasn't too bright for he ended up damaging his ship far more than the Straw Hats with his 'Havoc Sonar', yet the Going Merry didn't come out completely unscathed.
"Seriously...seriously...seriously...that darn orangutang! He wrecked the ship even more!" Usopp complained, crudely hammering boards onto the already damaged ships sides and floorboards.
Doing his own repair work upon the mast, Zoro brought up, "The ship has really started to fall apart. Maybe it's about time to replace it?"
"Don't you dare start saying inconsiderate things, too!" Usopp hissed out for Sanji had spoken similar lines when they had been guarding Merry back in Mock Town. "You know exactly how we got this ship, right?!"
With Chopper copying Usopp in an adorable fashion, Luffy turned to smile at the two, his voice coming out softer than usual. "I know, Usopp. Complaining won't get us anywhere. Going Merry is an important part of the team. So let's work hard and repair the ship!"
Tears forming in his eyes, Usopp sniffled. "Luffy...you're such a..." His words ended up failing him when Luffy destroyed the part of the vessel he was fixing, and Usopp's once watery eyes filled with rage. "You idiot! Are you repairing the ship or wrecking it?!"
"C-calm down, Usopp! Everyone's doing their best to repair Merry-chan," Toffee said through small pants as she dropped an armful of metal plates next to Zoro.
"Yep! I'm trying but-Whoops, it got broke again."
Usopp and Chopper ran over to punch their careless captain upside his noggin, this causing Toffee to shake her own head at the three.
"This ship really is special to everyone, huh? I haven't been on Merry-chan long myself, but it does seem like she has a lifeforce of her own. I can't help but feel safe when I'm on her," Toffee commented, placing her hand upon the mast, gazing up at the billowing sails. "I hope we never have to say goodbye."
"Yeah well, nothing lasts forever," Zoro muttered in a voice that Usopp wouldn't hear. "And if it does become difficult for Merry to sail further with us, it'd be crueler to keep pushing her past her limits more than saying goodbye and letting her rest."
Toffee frowned at this, but knew the swordsman made a good point. She just wondered how Usopp would take it if that day ever came? He loved this ship more than anyone here...
Usopp's anger with Luffy had dissipated just as fast as it had come, and he was instead gawking beside his captain when their ship stumbled across an island-with an honestly oddly designed castle-sitting upon it.
"Eh? I didn't expect Cricket to live somewhere like this. Considering he was run out of town," Toffee voiced in light awe herself. The palace didn't look like it was too welcoming despite its many colors, her eyes trailing up toward two rows of cannons that appeared ready to aim for their ship at any given moment.
"Idiots! Look closely!" Zoro mumbled with closed eyes.
"A dreamer, huh? He does seem to be vain," Sanji mused.
Jumping off the ship and running behind the palace to get a better look at it for himself, Luffy let out a scream of surprise. "What the...?! It's just a board?!"
"What?!" Chopper squealed out, having been fooled himself.
"Montblanc Cricket must be pretty talented to paint up a realistic castle like that..."
"Maybe you should ask him for some art lessons since you were actually deceived," Zoro snorted out, giving the girl a blank expression when Toffee slumped forward in depression. "The actual house is only half of it. The rest is just a veneer."
Nami let out a sigh and turned to Robin with a curious gaze. "What kind of dreams did he talk about that would get him driven out?"
"I don't know the details, but I heard that he said a huge amount of gold rests in Jaya."
"Gold?!"
"Is that some pirate's buried treasure or something?" Nami inquired, sounding more excited. Even when Robin admitted she didn't know, beli symbols formed in the cat burglar's eyes and she hopped off the ship to point at a strip of land. "Dig the ground, Chopper! Gold will appear!"
"It will if I dig?"
Watching Chopper in mild amusement when he started to rapidly dig through the earth, Sanji soon made his way over toward some large tree stumps where he commented, "Wonder why he chose to live in such a remote area like this?"
Usopp opened his mouth to voice his own opinion, but instead ended up gawking when Luffy casually made his way into the house. "Couldn't you wait a moment?!" Running over, he cautiously peeked into the modest living area. "You idiot, wait! What're you going to do if this guy is dangerous?!"
"Hey, everyone! No one's home!" Luffy declared after having checked around every corner, his words earning a sigh of relief from Usopp.
Not sure if this was a good thing or not, Nami blinked when something captured her attention. A book had been left on one of the chopped down trees. "Hm? This is...a picture book. This is quite an old book. It's titled 'Noland the Liar'."
"Wow, that's a cool title! Nice idea for a book!" Usopp chirped out.
"Noland the Liar?" Sanji chimed in, his tone holding surprise more that curiosity.
"You know it, Sanji-kun? But it says it was published in the North Blue," Nami brought up looking at their chef in mild surprise.
Sanji grinned at this. "Yeah. I was born in the North Blue. Haven't I told you guys?"
"That's news. I thought you were from the East, too," Usopp voiced, placing his hands on his hips.
"I grew up there."
Nami blinked, turning to Chopper who was continuing to use his antlers to dig at the earth. "Quiet, Chopper! What're you doing?!"
"What?!"
Toffee smiled sympathetically at the startled reindeer, moving to sit down on one of the tree stumps when Sanji began to talk about the novel. It was a famous story of the North, and while the book was a fairy tale, Sanji claimed Noland existed once long ago.
Nami continued the tale for Sanji as she read through the book, how Noland was an explorer and always talked about his adventures. Yet none of the villagers could tell if his stories were true or not. And when he reported his travels to the king, claiming he discovered a mountain of gold on an island in the great sea, the king set sail-with two thousand soldiers at his side-to see if the stories were true for himself. Only the king, Noland, and two hundred soldiers managed to make it safely to the island where they found nothing but a vast jungle waiting for them.
"In the end, Noland was sentenced to death for the crime of lying. Noland's last words were as follows: 'That's right! The mountain of gold sank in the sea!'. The king and the others were dumbfounded. No one believed Nolan any longer because Noland continued to lie until his very death. This book is based on the North Blue fairy tale 'Noland the Liar'. Alas, the liar died...before he could even become a brave warrior of the sea." Nami concluded in a somber tone, slowly closing the novel.
Usopp balked for Nami had turned to him. "Don't look at me! And don't add in a heartbreaking sentence on your own!"
Hearing a sudden shriek and then splash, Nami's eyes grew big. "Luffy fell into the sea!"
"What're you doing?!" Usopp shouted, about to jump in after their captain. When a figure leapt out of the waters, Usopp quickly skidded to a halt. It was a lucky break he didn't end up crashing straight into the taller male.
"Who the hell are you?! You've got guts, relaxing at someone's house without permission. The sea in this area is my turf!" a muscular, middle-aged man growled out. Strangely enough he seemed to have a chestnut growing on top his blond hair, and he was naked from the waist up. Only wearing a pair of dark-purple tracksuit pants with a white stripe running along each leg.
Rushing past Usopp, Sanji instructed, "Oi, Usopp! Go grab Luffy!"
"Got it!"
The man narrowed his dark eyes at Sanji. "You're after the gold, aren't you? Die!"
He's a skilled martial artist to be able to counter Sanji's kicks with quick moves of his own Toffee pondered watching as he stopped Sanji's normally deadly foot work with his hand. And he's not moving out of that crane stance of his...
If he hadn't used an underhanded method of shooting Sanji point blank in the face, Toffee would have been impressed by the man.
"Sanji?!" Chopper and Nami screamed out together.
"Don't worry. It didn't hit me," Sanji reassured, raising up his head, which he had leaned backwards. He ended up having to do an almost comical dance routine when the man shot more bullets at him. "Hold it!"
"idiot...You shouldn't underestimate your opponent," Zoro reprimanded, standing up from where he sat to go and deal with the problem himself. Charging at the older male, Zoro was alarmed when their attacker had dropped his weapon, collapsing to the ground in what looked to be pain.
Usopp popped up out of the water around this time, supporting a wheezing Luffy. "Hey, what were you doing?!"
"I saw...bubbles coming out of the water. So I was looking in the water, then suddenly a chestnut appeared. The chestnut was actually a guy, and he dragged me into the water," Luffy let out a few more coughs, perking up when seeing the man on the ground. "Oi, old guy!"
Even if Zoro and Sanji weren't certain it was a smart idea, at Chopper's insistence when understanding something was wrong with the man, they carried him into the house and laid him upon the single bed.
"Bring more cold towels! Open up the windows!" Chopper instructed while standing upon a chair and dabbing at the unconscious male's forehead with a wet cloth.
"So what is this caisson disease anyways?" Zoro inquired. Chopper had become startled when discovering this was what caused the old geezer to collapse.
"Is this guy sick?" Luffy asked. He hopped out of the window where he had been standing after pulling up the straw blinds to let the fresh air and sunshine into the stuffy room.
"Yeah, it's a sickness that divers sometimes get. But it doesn't usually become a longstanding condition. Due to lack of decompression when surfacing from the seabed, the nitrogen dissolved in the blood gets released quickly and forms gas bubbles at that time. Since the gas bubbles expand inside and outside of blood vessels, they cause problems to blood flow, muscle, and joints."
"That explains why he looked like he was in so much pain..." Toffee murmured with a small frown.
Chopper nodded at this. "He probably kept diving every day without giving time for those bubbles to disappear from the body."
"What for?!" Nami questioned, bewildered by such a reckless move.
"I don't know, but he's taking a risk. In some cases, caisson disease can...cause death."
The frown on her face deepening, Toffee found herself taking her eyes of the now peacefully resting man and peering around the house. A picture on the wall caught her attention, and she approached to examine it better. The blond-haired man was in the middle of two taller and wider figures; two figures that were distinctly familiar.
"Um, you guys...?"
"Old-timer! Are you all right?!"
When none other than Masira and Shojo peeked through the door, Chopper and Usopp let out shrill yells and started to run back and forth, figuring the two had only shown up here to kill them.
Their antics simply caused Shojo to twitch, and the long green haired male demanded with a slight growl, "What're you guys doing here?!"
"What did you do to the old timer?!" Masira angrily accused.
"What? We're looking after this guy right now, so go somewhere else." Luffy responded back with a hint of irritation, stunning the two pirates.
Scratching at her cheek when Usopp complained to Luffy that he was only going to further anger the 'savages', Toffee instead could see these two deeply cared about the older male for tears started to pour down both of the brother's faces. They had even profusely thanked a now confused Luffy.
"You two must be really good friends of this guy if you were that worried about him," Toffee mused with a small smile. "I'm guessing his name is Montblanc Cricket?"
"Oh! So the old geezer is that Cricket guy we're looking for?" Luffy asked, turning to look at the pink eyed female.
"I just figured he was since he was the only person here when we arrived."
"Yep! Yep! But let's talk outside. We can't really fit inside the house," Masira said in a friendlier voice. "Even though this is the headquarters of the Saruyama Alliance."
Toffee watched as Luffy followed Masira and Shojo outside, and while Zoro and Usopp couldn't understand how their captain was able to get along so well with the brother's, Toffee found it sweet-as she stared at them from out the window-to witness them grinning and laughing with each other. It was starting to seem like Luffy could win over anyone wherever they went.
Everyone else made themselves comfortable around the property while waiting on Cricket to awaken, and once fifteen minutes had passed by, Toffee heard a low groan coming from the bed. "Sounds like he's waking up,"
"I'll go let Luffy know!" Chopper exclaimed, dashing out of the little house.
"How are you feeling, mister?" Toffee questioned kindly. She just wasn't sure if it was wise that he had stuck a cigarette into his mouth the moment he had sat up. Cricket had an addiction to nicotine, like Sanji, it seemed.
"Not bad. Guess I should thank you kids," Cricket spoke while unleashing a puff of smoke.
"Oh! You really did wake up!" Luffy addressed cheerfully after following Chopper into the room. "Hey old diamond-head! I wanna ask you something!"
"Sorry I caused you trouble. I thought you were just more idiots after the gold."
The signature beli signs once again replaced Nami's brown eyes. "What?! You have gold bullion?"
"Don't go after it..." Usopp muttered to the practically drooling girl.
Montblanc closed his eyes, ignoring the ecstatic navigator, and probed, "What is it that you wanna ask me?"
"Old guy, we wanna go to the sky island! Please tell us how to get there!"
"Sky island?" Cricket was silent for a few seconds, startling some of the group when his once serious expression broke, and he threw back his head in hearty laughter. "You guys believe in the sky island?"
Remembering the ridicule they had received back in Mock Town, Nami cracked her knuckles and slowly started to approach Montblanc. Latching onto the orange haired girl, Usopp shakily reminded Nami that Cricket was a sick person; more worried she'd end up pissing off the two guys outside if she beat the old man black and blue.
"There's no sky island, old guy?!" Luffy cried out, more upset than angered by the reaction he had garnered.
His laughter dying down into chuckles, Cricket smirked and hunched forward. "No one knows. I know someone who said there is. But people call him a legendary big liar! His family became a laughingstock forever."
"It's not me!" Usopp shrieked out when Luffy's head slowly turned to pierce him with a startled stare, something that made Toffee laugh. "Don't encourage him, Toffee!"
"There's an old story that most North Blue people know. 'Noland the Liar' is the one," Montblanc Cricket explained, finding amusement in these kids when the long nosed one was snapping at the Straw Hatted boy when he turned to him once again.
"Come to think of it, Noland's name is, if I'm not mistaken, Montblanc Noland," Sanji pointed out, his own eyes lifting up in alarm. "Could it be that you're Noland's descendant..."
"A descendant?!" Nami added with her own startled expression. "Could this place be the island in that story?!"
"Hmph! He's my granddad's granddad's granddad's...He's my distant ancestor...What a nuisance," Montblanc scoffed out. "I doubt there's a drop of his blood in my body...Although the Montblanc family was driven out of the country then, and has kept a low profile, people continue to denounce our family to this day."
"That's horrible..." Toffee said softly.
Cricket gave a dry smile. "But no one in the family hates him. Because Noland was an extraordinarily honest person,"
"But in that picture book..." Nami tried to bring up.
"Noland's last excuse in the picture book is like this. 'That's right! The mountain of gold sank in the sea!'. A stupid looking face is drawn in this book...but he shed many tears and died a regrettable death. He was sure the island he reached was Jaya, where he found the wreckage of a city of gold. He felt there was no way it was just an illusion." Cricket paused a moment, possibly to catch his breath and then continued. "Noland insisted that the ruins had submerged due to crustal movements, but everyone thought he was making excuses out of desperation. Noland was executed in front of the laughing onlookers, and only the name 'Liar' remained."
Usopp grew excited. "Oh, I see! You're looking for the city of gold on the seabed in order to clear the Montblanc family's name!"
"Don't be silly!" Cricket snapped, pointing his weapon at Usopp, which made the sniper loudly scream since a bullet came inches from hitting his head. "How honest my distant ancestor was, or how great an explorer he was, has nothing to do with me! Can you understand how a kid would feel being laughed at by strangers just because he's the descendant of such an idiot?! That's how I grew up!"
Taking in a calming breath, Cricket placed his gun to the side. "But...yeah, over the past 400 years, many set sail to restore our family's honor, though all of them went missing. I was ashamed of such a family. I ran away from home and became a pirate."
"Oh? You're a pirate, too?" Luffy remarked, brightening at this revelation.
"It's not that I wanted to become a pirate. I just wanted to escape from Noland's spell. And over time, I came to have my own pirate group. At long last, I entered the Grand Line, and I spent all my time on adventures. But ten years ago, my ship reached the island by accident. Strangely enough, only I, who continued to hate the Montblanc family and Noland the most, made it here. The island didn't have a city of gold, just like the picture book said. As I stood on the cape of the island, I felt that it was destiny. There was no place to escape to."
It sounded like Montblanc Cricket didn't have very good nakama for they had sailed away on their ship and left him here alone. Yet this hadn't deterred him.
"It's not that I want to prove his innocence. This is a duel with the man who threw a wrench into my life. I want to set the record straight before I die." Cricket concluded solemnly.
While everyone was feeling moved from the story in different ways, Usopp was the only one who had been brought to tears. Luffy ended up tilting his head at the sobbing male before pointing over at the window.
"Then, what about them? Why are those monkey's here?"
"There must have been an exciting drama spoken with the fists of men committed to exploring the seabed," Usopp sniffled out, finding this idea even more impactful.
"Those guys are fans of the picture book."
"Fans?!" Usopp cried out in dismay since this completely shattered his fantasy.
"That's a quite simple connection," Nami voiced, a bead of sweat running down the back of her head.
"I think it was five or six years ago. They heard a rumor about me and barged in on me. They said, "We think Noland's gold definitely exists!'," Cricket explained. "The sea around here is deep. In the dark, cold sea, you're haunted by a deeper solitude. I just dived and searched alone every day. They just came into my life and became my underlings without my permission, and they romp around. Single minded idiots like them...make me feel relieved, to be honest. Do you understand?"
"I do. Yeah, real comrades give each other strength and..." Usopp wailed out, not even capable of finishing his sentence from how moved he was.
"Well, putting the story about those monkey's aside..." When Usopp cut him off, Luffy casually tossed him to the side before starting back off a bit more fiercely, "Like I said...I wanna go to the sky island, old guy!"
Montblanc snickered at this and grinned. "You're a hasty one! Yeah, I did tell you, right? The witness to the sky island is that Noland the Liar. If you have anything to do with him, you'll be laughed at like me,"
"What?! He's been to sky island, too?!" Luffy gasped out, watching as Cricket grabbed a logbook and started to flip through it.
"Wait! Is that logbook Noland's?" Nami inquired, moving closer to get a better look at it for herself. Nami let out a startled cry when Cricket flung the book at her, telling her to read the passage he had stopped on. "Amazing...A logbook from 400 years ago...Sea Ephemeris Year 1120, June 21st, Sunny. We left Villa, a cheerful town. Following the Log Pose, we should be heading east-northeast from the harbor. We got a rare item from a bumboat that we came across during the day. It's a ski-like one-person boat called a waver. It's a mysterious boat that can generate wind and move even on a day without wind. It seems that you need to get the hang of it to ride, and I couldn't manage it. Right now, it's become a perfect toy for my crew."
Luffy, Chopper, and Usopp had gathered around Nami who was equally excited as the three of them, expressing how she wouldn't mind having one of these wavers. Though when they told her to hurry up and continue, she acknowledged that Noland's crew believed the wavers power came only from sky island and how there were other peculiar things that existed there. Including a skyfish, which a friend of Noland's, had discovered.
"It's just what Robin talked about. The sky island does exist!" Toffee said happily, this causing the four to cheer. Of course, now that she thought about, Robin hadn't been with them this whole time...Had she remained on the ship or was she exploring this island? And it wasn't just their newest crew member who was missing, but Cricket was nowhere to be found either.
"Hey, you lot! Come out here! There's something I need to tell you!"
Nami shared looks with the others, none of them having noticed him making his way outside, yet they all filed out of the house and sat down to get comfy. From the expression Cricket wore, whatever he had to tell them must have been important.
"Here. I'll start by telling you everything I know about sky island," Cricket said as he crossed his arms. "None of its certain, but it's up to you if you wanna believe it or not."
"Yeah! We believe you!" Luffy spoke up without an ounce of hesitation.
"There's a strange phenomenon that occurs in these waters-sometimes it'll turn to night, even though it's the middle of the day," Cricket began, pointing off into the distance.
"I think we might have already experienced that," Toffee mentioned, turning to the others as Luffy eagerly nodded his head in agreement.
"Yeah! Night came, and then some monsters appeared!" Usopp added, looking a tad nervous.
"The giants? There's a story about where they come from but forget 'em for now. This sudden nightfall...It's caused by the shadows of extremely compact clouds..."
Nami gave a troubled expression. "You mean cumulonimbus clouds? But it was too dark to be clouds..."
"Wow! You're so dumb, old guy! It gets cloudy on days where there's lots of clouds!"
"Yeah! Cloudy!"
"Cloudy!"
A bead of sweat ran down Toffee's head at Luffy, Usopp, and Chopper's antics considering the pulsing vein on Cricket's head was getting bigger, so it was no surprise to her when he bellowed out, "SHUT THE HELL UP AND LISTEN!", but it was enough to cause Chopper and Usopp to squeal from fright and cling to each other.
"There are clouds known as 'cumloregalis clouds'. They pile high into the sky but produce no air currents or rain. When they appear high in the sky, even sunlight is blocked out, bringing afternoon 'nighttime' to the ground," Cricket explained with a small huff. "One theory has it that cumuloregalis clouds are fossilized clouds that have floated in the sky for thousands and thousands of years."
Everyone was gazing at Cricket in wonder, until Nami stood up and stated firmly, "That's ridiculous! Clouds with no air currents even after building up?!"
"You're free to believe they can't exist. I'm not asking you to believe me!"
"They're mystery clouds, then?" Luffy said thoughtfully.
"Pretty much. There's still no explanation for them. Listen. If sky island really does exist...that'd be the only possible place!"
When Luffy and Usopp started to dance around, Toffee turned to Zoro, only now hearing the snores he was letting out.
"I can't believe he's been asleep this entire time..."
"Somehow, I'm not that surprised," Nami sighed out, and she ended up having to cover her mouth to stop from laughing when Toffee's shadow had gone to kick the swordsman just to wake him up. The position Zoro had landed in with his face planted in the dirt and his butt stuck up in the air was too funny not to be amused by.
Spitting out some grass, Zoro's head almost mechanically turned to face Heartless, who was sticking out his tongue-even giving a pat at his bottom-before running off. "Oh, you're going to get it now..."
Toffee gulped since Zoro was actually trying to hit her fleeing companion with his swords, and she quickly ran after him. "W-wait, Zoro! I don't think Heartless-kun can die, but please don't try and kill him-ack!"
Cricket could only stare at the sight incredulously, not really sure what the hell was going on. Not only had an angered Sanji-who had once been in the kitchen cooking them all a meal- joined in by chasing after the swordsman; Zoro had ended up stepping on a fallen Toffee's back after the green haired male and weird monstrosity had circled back, but Nami had punched Luffy and Usopp simply because they wouldn't be quiet. Even he couldn't help but flinch from how swollen the boy's faces became.
I'm not sure if this is a sign these brats will be fine, or if I should be worried Cricket wondered, massaging at his temple.