After Alex and Luffy joined forces to take down Kuro, the Black Cat Pirates quickly fled with the unconscious Kuro.
When Luffy fought Kuro, the injuries he sustained were no less than Alex's, but the time he spent fighting Kuro one-on-one was much shorter.
This also indirectly showed that Kuro, after being hypnotized, was indeed much stronger than before. Otherwise, Luffy wouldn't have been injured so seriously in such a short time.
Luckily, Luffy was there. If only Alex and Nami had been left to face the hypnotized Kuro, the two of them wouldn't have been able to handle him at all.
At first, Nami worried that the treasure she had left at the bottom of the slope might get stolen, but Alex tossed the two bags of treasure back to her.
It turned out that before the slope was completely blocked by the giant boulder, Alex had used his fishing rod to hook up the two bags of treasure from below.
Since Nami had blocked one of Kuro's attacks for him and was injured in the process, Alex decided to help her retrieve her most prized possession—so that she wouldn't keep wandering around him with a gloomy face. He found that way too unlucky.
When Alex and Luffy, leaning on each other's shoulders, reached the forest path leading back to Syrup Village, they ran into Zoro and the others.
There was no helping it—Alex had twisted his ankle, Luffy was badly hurt, and Nami was also injured. They couldn't possibly have Nami carry both of them back. So, the two guys could only drag their battered bodies along, supporting each other slowly on the way back.
On the way, Luffy asked Alex why he called his extendable fishing rod the "Golden Titan Staff," and then said Alex was an idiot.
Hearing that, Alex almost started wrestling with Luffy on the spot. But Luffy, full of self-assurance, said, "Your staff is obviously silver-gray, but you call it the Golden Titan Staff. Isn't that dumb? You should call it the Silver Titan Staff or the Gray Titan Staff!"
Walking ahead, Nami turned around, stared at Alex for a moment, and then asked, "Are you color-blind?"
"Of course not, you stupid woman! You don't understand—this is a precious memory from my childhood. What's so strange about naming it that?"
Alex looked at Luffy and Nami with pity. These two had no childhood to speak of—how pitiful.
"So that's it… You were often beaten with the Gold-Banded Staff as a kid, huh? Didn't expect you to be such a naughty brat back then."
Luffy spoke as if he finally understood Alex's meaning, while Nami gave him an even stranger, suspicious look.
Damn it, sure, I was a little naughty as a kid and got disciplined by my parents or relatives with a small wooden stick sometimes, but you can't just say it like that!
Alex's face darkened. Under Nami's stunned gaze, he and Luffy rolled to the ground and started brawling.
"Your wounds are still bleeding, and you're fooling around like this? Seriously?"
Nami stared blankly as the two fought on the ground, shouting at each other. Finally, she couldn't stand it anymore and smacked each of them with a heavy punch, knocking them flat.
"If you keep messing around, I'll beat you both senseless!" she warned, raising her fist.
After settling their petty squabble, the three of them finally continued toward the forest.
"What happened to you two? Why are you so badly hurt?"
Seeing Luffy and Alex covered in blood and scars, Zoro, who had been staying in the forest with Usopp and the others, asked.
"That bad butler was tough to deal with. It took us a lot of effort to beat him," Luffy replied weakly, collapsing to the ground.
"Was the enemy that strong? Must be because you two spend all your time fooling around instead of training your will and body. That's why the fight was so hard for you," Zoro said, arms crossed, after glancing at the slightly pale Alex.
What the hell—how can you even say that with a straight face?!
Alex felt his blood boil. Back when we were sailing, I was always training hard on the ship while you were napping. By the time I was about to collapse from exhaustion, you probably hadn't even woken up yet!
"You guys didn't run into trouble here, did you?" Alex asked Zoro.
"Of course there was trouble—Kaya almost got killed," Usopp said.
He was wrapped head to toe in bandages, with Kaya beside him carefully checking his wounds.
"What happened?" Luffy asked.
"This weird guy suddenly appeared in front of me. Luckily, Usopp saved me in time," Kaya said softly, looking at him with gentle eyes.
"I'm a man who'll become a brave warrior of the sea—this was nothing," Usopp said, for once not exaggerating. When he saw Kaya in danger, he had drawn his slingshot and, despite being gravely injured, managed to hit the attacker. His sniping skills were indeed impressive.
Alex hadn't expected that when he'd flung Jango away with his fishing rod earlier, it would create a perfect "hero saves the beauty" chance for Usopp.
"Aren't you supposed to be protecting them? How could Kaya end up in danger?" Alex said to Zoro, making a mocking gesture.
"How was I supposed to know that hypnotist guy would fall from the sky and land right in front of Kaya as she was coming back from getting medicine? I had no time to save her," Zoro replied gloomily. Seeing Alex's mocking gesture, a dark vein popped on his forehead.
Luffy, finding Alex's middle-finger gesture amusing, joined in, pointing his own at Zoro.
"Can you stretch just your middle finger?" Alex asked Luffy.
"I'll try." Luffy concentrated and actually managed to stretch his middle finger a bit.
"How about that? You can feel exactly what we mean now, right?" Alex smirked at Zoro.
"Hahaha! How do you feel about that?" Luffy laughed, waving his stretched finger in Zoro's face.
"You two looking for a beating?!" Zoro roared, losing his patience.
Bam! Bam! Pow!
Luffy, Zoro, and Alex ended up in a three-way scuffle.
Nami's face turned dark, her pretty brows twitching. Couldn't these idiots behave for just a moment?
Pow! Thud! Boom!
In three punches, she knocked all three of them flat on the ground, leaving Kaya—who had been preparing to treat Luffy and Alex's wounds—staring in shock.
After Kaya finished tending to their injuries, Alex asked Usopp why they weren't recovering at Kaya's mansion.
Usopp solemnly explained that he didn't want the villagers to know that pirates had tried to attack. If he returned to the village covered in wounds, people would get suspicious. So he'd rather recover in the forest.
In truth, this choice almost cost him his life—if Kaya had come back with the medicine just a few minutes later, Usopp would have been dead.
Learning this, Alex felt real admiration. Though Usopp loved to brag and seemed cowardly, the fact that he'd risk his life to keep his word was something not everyone could do.
Cowardly on the surface, yet capable of great courage—Alex thought Usopp seemed contradictory, but also very genuine.
A few days later, in the clearing where Usopp had first formed the Usopp Pirates with Onion, Carrot, and Pepper, he gathered the three boys and asked them to shout out their dreams.
"I want to run a bar!"
"I'll be a top-class carpenter!"
"I want to be a novelist!"
Tears welling in their eyes, the three kids shouted their dreams with determination.
"I want you to swear here—never give up your dreams. Follow your chosen path!" Usopp said, his voice trembling. Then, looking up at the sky and taking a deep breath, he shouted, "I hereby announce—the Usopp Pirates are disbanded!"
Tears spilled from their eyes as they said goodbye to the group they'd been part of for years. Usopp had finally decided to set out to sea and chase his dream of becoming a brave warrior of the sea.
Six days later, Alex's twisted ankle had mostly healed—thanks to the high-quality medicine Kaya had given him. Without it, it would have taken at least ten days to half a month before he could walk again.
During those six days, they all stayed at Kaya's house to recover.
Since the slope leading to their ship was blocked by collapsed cliffs on both sides, they had to wait for the villagers to dig the path clear before they could leave.
Unexpectedly, when they were preparing to set sail, Merry told them Kaya was willing to give them a new ship—and that she wanted to speak with Alex.
So Merry led Luffy and the others to see the new ship, while Alex and Nami went to meet Kaya.
"It must be that you stole something from her house and got caught, you shameless thief!" Nami said as they walked. Over the past few days, she'd learned that Alex's unusual fishing rod had been stolen from Kaya's home. She was exasperated.
This guy's already a pirate, yet he still stoops to petty theft? All that talk about "pirate's dignity" he'd spouted earlier—what a load of nonsense!
Thinking this, Nami shot him a sharp glare. Alex, however, remained calm and composed.
"I saved them. Isn't it normal to take some reward?" Alex said with a shrug. "Besides, why are you coming along? She only asked for me."
"If you really like that fishing rod, I can just buy it for you," Nami replied. "That's better than stealing from someone's home."
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