Some small punctuation nitpicks
" " - out loud
' ' - thoughts
Enjoy :)
…
It'd been about a month since I left Cocoyasi Village, and in that time I truly had to live with the fact that I was shit at navigating
Nami had been right.
Not about everything, obviously. Let's not get ridiculous because she had many opinions, and statistically some of them had to be wrong, but when she'd stood on the docks warning me that I would somehow manage to get lost despite the charts she had personally drawn for me, she'd apparently been speaking with the confidence that she understood exactly how incompetent I was.
I sat beside the rudder with one of those charts spread over my knees, staring between it, the compass and the completely useless horizon surrounding me.
According to the charts, I should've passed an island two days ago.
And yet I'd passed absolutely fucking nothing. Wallahi I'm cooked!
Water stretched in every direction, occasionally interrupted by the exciting presence of, you guessed it, more water.
I checked the chart again.
Nami had marked everything. Currents, reefs, islands, several routes through the East Blue and even little notes..
DO NOT FOLLOW THIS CURRENT NORTH.
Farther down:
REEF. GO AROUND IT.
I had followed her instructions.
Mostly.
There had been one storm, one current I might have underestimated and a short period where I became convinced the compass was broken because accepting that I was wrong would've bruised my ego further. None of that explained how I had apparently travelled several days without encountering a single thing that existed on the map.
I lowered it and stared across the water.
'This is bullshit.' I sighed
At least the vessel itself had turned out to be worth stealing. Marlo Crest might've been a snivelling parasitic bitch, but the man had excellent taste in ships. It was fast, sturdy and considerably more comfortable than anything I had sailed before (RIP small boat /_ \ ), with an actual cabin, decent storage and enough room that I didn't have to sleep folded in half.
Yet there was still one problem with it.
The ship required somebody who knew how to sail, and unfortunately, that person was currently back in Cocoyasi.
I glanced toward the empty space beside the rudder before catching myself.
Every time a sail loosened, I expected Nami to start shouting at me. Whenever the wind shifted, part of me waited for her to tell me I'd somehow adjusted something backwards. Once, while eating below deck, I'd even turned because I thought I heard her complaining about crumbs near the charts.
There had been nobody there.
Which was… anyways, moving on!
Now one month later, I was apparently exploring a new section of the East Blue called Fuck Knows.
Something moved high above the mast.
I raised my hand against the sun and squinted until the shape became clearer.
White wings came into focus, followed by a little cap and the familiar bag hanging beneath its neck.
My entire posture changed.
"Oh, you beautiful bastard." I yelled
The News Coo circled the ship before descending, completely unaware that it had just become the most important animal alive. It landed on the railing calmly, adjusted its footing and immediately held out a wing.
I stared at it.
The bird stared back.
"You want money?"
It tapped the pouch beneath its neck.
I reached into my pocket and pulled out several berries. The News Coo's eyes followed my hand closely until I dropped the coins into its pouch, after which it gave me a folded newspaper.
I accepted the paper but didn't let go when it opened its wings.
The News Coo pulled.
I kept holding.
It pulled harder.
"Before you leave, I require an additional service." I said.
The bird tilted its head.
"Directions." I smiled.
It stared at me with the exact same expression.
"You fly across the East Blue for a living. You've gotta know where things are."
The News Coo opened its wings again.
"No, wait!"
It tried to fly anyway, so I caught it by the body before it got more than half a metre away.
The noise that came out of that bird was extraordinary.
"Calm down. You're not being kidnapped."
It squawked louder.
"Just calm the fuck down for a minute!" I wrestled with the bird
Its beak snapped toward my wrist and clamped down.
Nothing happened.
The bird paused. It tried again, considerably harder this time, and still failed to achieve anything beyond looking increasingly offended by my skin.
I raised an eyebrow. "I've fought mosquitoes with better offence."
The News Coo began flapping so violently that several loose pages on the table went flying. I caught the chart before it disappeared into the ocean, set the bird down beside it and kept one hand loosely over its wings before this negotiation became an international incident.
"Look, I'm not hurting you. I just need you to tell me where I am, then you're free to continue exploiting the literate population."
The bird continued glaring.
I pointed toward the map.
"We are here."
It stopped struggling.
Its head tilted toward the spot beneath my finger before slowly turning toward me.
Then it pecked another location.
I frowned. "No, we're here."
The bird pecked the other location again.
"That's south."
Another peck.
"I know what south is."
The News Coo made a short noise that sounded suspiciously judgmental.
I leaned over the chart and compared the coastline marks, nearby currents and where I vaguely remembered the last storm pushing me. The longer I looked, the more my argument began collapsing under the weight of actual evidence.
I glanced at the bird.
It pecked the same spot.
"…How?"
The bird made the noise again.
"Don't laugh at me." I frowned.
It definitely laughed.
I sat back and rubbed both hands over my face like that one meme. Somehow, despite having a compass, charts personally prepared by Nami and more than enough food and water for the trip, I had still managed to drift several days south of where I thought I was.
I looked at the News Coo.
"You're my navigator now."
The bird immediately tried to fly away.
I caught it again.
"Nope!" I laughed.
Its screaming could probably be heard from another island.
…
The newspaper contained my face, which made the navigational crisis considerably less important for a while.
Once the News Coo and I reached an understanding regarding its temporary new employment status, mostly because I bribed it with crackers until it stopped attempting escape, I unfolded the paper properly. Arlong Park occupied most of the second page, or what remained of Arlong Park after our disagreement.
The photograph showed ruined walls, shattered courtyards, and enough structural damage to make me wonder whether Genzo had been slightly justified in his complaint about the repairs.
The headline read:
ARLONG PIRATES DESTROYED!
Below that:
"BRANCHBREAKER" KAI VOSS SUSPECTED IN EAST BLUE PIRATE MASSACRE
My eye twitched immediately.
The News Coo ate another cracker.
I was surprised I hadn't met Nezumi during my time at Cocoyasi. Although if I'd seen him, it would've been on site.
Reading the article, it was clear they didn't know what the hell had happened, which was comforting. There were reports of Arlong's death, several missing members of his crew, yet no mention of Cocoyasi Village being freed from years of pirate occupation and a considerable amount of speculation regarding the destruction of the park itself.
Also apparently, multiple witnesses had described an enormous humanoid creature appearing during the battle.
The writer clearly didn't believe them.
I wasn't worried about the wider world knowing about Big Raga yet but I'm not going out of my way to show him off any time soon.
A loose sheet slipped from the newspaper and landed across my thigh.
I picked it up.
My own face stared back at me.
KAI VOSS
DEAD OR ALIVE
80,000,000 BERRIES
I stopped reading.
The News Coo leaned sideways.
"Eighty million."
Fifty to eighty, huh.
Thirty million berries because I beat up several fish-men… that sounded racist (°ー°〃).
I held the poster farther away, admiring the number.
"That's pretty good."
The News Coo squawked.
"Exactly."
Another squawk.
"I don't know what you said, but I choose to interpret it as congratulations."
Then I noticed the name printed above mine.
BRANCHBREAKER.
"Tch, they kept it." I frowned.
The News Coo pecked the word.
"Don't."
It pecked it again.
"I'm warning you."
Another peck.
I covered the title with my thumb while the bird tried reaching around it. Instead, the News Coo abandoned the poster and stole another cracker.
I looked back at the bounty.
Eighty million wasn't Grand Line serious, obviously. There were people out there whose bounties made mine look like pocket change, but in the East Blue?
Not to bad Kai, not to bad.
…
Back in Cocoyasi Village, Nami learned about the bounty because half the village began shouting her name.
She was beside Nojiko's house, halfway through fixing part of an old storage shed, when one of the village boys came sprinting between the tangerine trees with a newspaper above his head.
"Nami!"
She lowered the hammer. "What happened?"
"It's him!"
That explanation provided absolutely nothing, but the boy skidded to a stop and shoved the newspaper toward her before she could ask again.
The wanted poster slipped loose.
Nami caught it.
Her eyes moved straight to the number.
Nojiko stepped around the side of the shed and leaned over her shoulder.
"Well," she said.
Nami's mouth started curving upward.
Nojiko noticed immediately. "You're smiling."
"Am not!" Nami blushed, smacking her sister playfully on the arm.
"You definitely are." Nojiko smiled.
Nami turned away before her sister could enjoy herself too much, though the village boy had already begun sprinting back toward the road while shouting Kai's bounty to anybody within hearing distance.
It took less than five minutes for somebody to start the chant.
"BRANCHBREAKER!"
Nami froze.
Another voice joined.
Then several more.
"BRANCHBREAKER! BRANCHBREAKER!"
From somewhere near the centre of the village, Genzo's voice rose above everyone else.
"SHUT THE FUCK UP! IT'S TOO EARLY FOR THIS!"
Nami laughed so suddenly she nearly dropped the wanted poster.
Kai would've hated this.
Later, once the village had exhausted itself, the newspaper remained on the table inside Nojiko's house while Nami worked on something else.
A map.
Not one Arlong had ordered.
Just Cocoyasi.
She had started with the coastline three days earlier, then added the harbour, the village roads, the groves and the hills surrounding them. Some parts she knew from memory. Others she had spent the morning walking simply because, for the first time in years, there was nothing stopping her from taking as long as she wanted.
Nojiko sat opposite her peeling a tangerine.
"You miss it."
Nami's pencil kept moving. "Miss what?"
"The sea."
That stopped the pencil.
Nami glanced toward the window, where a thin strip of blue could be seen beyond the trees.
She thought of Port Tragedy, sleeping on the ship, Kai hanging wet socks from signal lines and insisting the galley was called a stew room. She remembered him arguing with the compass, eating enough food for four people and somehow turning even the most straightforward sailing instruction into a seminar.
Then she remembered the empty dock after he left.
"A little," she admitted.
Nojiko separated the tangerine and handed her half. "Then go back eventually."
Nami accepted it. "I just got home."
Nojiko chuckled. "I didn't say tomorrow, dummy"
Nami looked down at the map. Cocoyasi filled only a small part of the page, and there was a lot more world beyond it.
"Yeah," she said, smiling faintly as she picked the pencil back up. "Eventually."
…
"Waaaah!" Pelli cried.
Nobody on the Blue Gull considered this noteworthy.
"EIGHTY MILLION!"
Captain Rusk continued eating breakfast while Pelli slammed the wanted poster onto the table hard enough to rattle several bowls.
"Kai's worth eighty million berries!"
"I can read." Rusk huffed.
"He defeated the Arlong Pirates!"
Hanks leaned over for a better look. "Arlong's the fish-man, right?"
"One of the biggest names in this sea," another sailor answered. "Twenty-million bounty."
Pelli pointed dramatically toward Kai's photograph. "I fed him!"
The crew's chef gave Pelli some bombastic side-eye and raised his cleaver. Hanks slowly pushed the cleaver back down. One of the sailors raised his bowl toward the poster and called for a toast, which quickly spread through the room.
"To Kai!"
Bowls and cups lifted.
"To Kai!"
Pelli wiped one eye and proudly raised his own.
"To Kai."
Hanks took the poster and studied it for another few seconds. "You reckon he's alright?"
Everyone turned toward him silently.
"BAHAHAHA!" Then everyone started laughing.
…
Smoker read the report twice, mostly because the first reading annoyed him enough that he wanted to confirm it hadn't somehow become less irritating.
It hadn't.
Kai's new wanted poster sat beside the newspaper on his desk. The Marine standing opposite him shifted his weight.
"Headquarters believes Voss was responsible for destroying most of the Arlong Pirates."
Smoker exhaled smoke through his nose.
The Marine wisely continued only because he had apparently been ordered to.
"There are also witness statements describing some kind of transformation during the battle. Several civilians reported a large humanoid creature appearing after Voss was forced underwater."
That got Smoker's attention.
He held out his hand.
The Marine gave him the report.
Large humanoid of abnormal size and pale skin. With a blade wrapped around one of its fists and, peculiarly, some form of wheel or circular object above the head.
Smoker read the descriptions carefully, then leaned back in his chair.
He remembered the dock where Kai was grabbing smoke with his bare hands.
That look on his face when the first punch connected.
Whatever Devil Fruit the brat had eaten, Smoker still didn't understand it.
"Eighty million's going to bring idiots after him," he muttered.
"Bounty hunters?"
"Pirates too."
The Marine hesitated. "Wouldn't that make him easier to catch?"
Smoker looked at him.
The Marine thought about the question again.
"…Right."
Smoker reached for another cigar. "Send everything we have on him to headquarters again, including the reports from Port Tragedy. If anyone here sees him before we know what that transformation was, nobody improvises."
"Yes, sir."
Smoker lit the cigar and glanced once more at the smiling face on the bounty poster.
"Especially him."
…
"BWAHAHAHAHA!"
Garp laughed for so long that the Marine delivering the newspaper eventually stopped standing at attention.
The Vice Admiral slapped one knee, nearly losing the rice cracker in his other hand.
"He did it again!"
"Yes, Vice Admiral."
Garp snatched the poster and held it closer.
Kai's photograph grinned back at him.
He remembered the brat barely able to stand under a seastone cuff, then somehow running through Port Tragedy with half the city chasing him. He remembered watching him learn to deal with Smoker's Logia body in the middle of the fight and, more importantly, remembered the amount of damage one idiot had caused while supposedly trying to escape quietly.
"Still too low," Garp said.
The Marine blinked. "Sir?"
Garp waved him away. "Nothing."
He reached into his cracker bag, but his fingers found the bottom.
The laughter stopped immediately.
Garp looked inside.
Then looked at the Marine.
"Where are my crackers?"
…
Sergeant Mallor found Kai's poster pinned to the barracks wall before breakfast.
Someone had written beneath it in charcoal.
WE TRAINED HIM.
Mallor stood there for several seconds before rubbing both hands over his face.
"Take that down."
Nobody volunteered.
Derren was across the yard helping two recruits with their stance when one of them noticed the poster.
"You really knew him?"
Derren glanced toward the wall.
"Unfortunately."
The recruit grinned. "Did you ever fight him?"
Derren's expression became considerably less friendly.
"We aren't discussing that."
"So you did." The recruit smirked
"I said we are not discussing it." Derren responded, slapping the back of the recruits head.
"Ow!"
Mallor heard the exchange while wiping the charcoal message away and, against his better judgment, almost smiled.
He left the poster where it was.
…
So The News Coo stayed. It seems my charismatic nature has once again won…nah I just got him addicted to my crackers. I'd assumed once it successfully pointed me back toward the correct route, it would leave and continue delivering newspapers like a productive member of society.
Instead, three days later, I came out of the cabin carrying breakfast and found it asleep on top of the roof.
Its eyes opened immediately.
"No."
The bird hopped down onto the table.
"You have a job, don't you?"
It stared at the bread.
"Dude, I fed you yesterday."
The stare continued.
"And the day before that."
It stepped closer, and I covered the plate, but the News Coo pecked my knuckle.
I broke off some bread and threw it across the table.
It caught the piece before it landed.
Somehow, my hostage navigator had become a travelling companion.
More importantly, it was extremely good at its job.
Whenever I started drifting off course, it screamed.
The first time, I had assumed we were under attack and nearly punched through the cabin roof trying to get outside quickly enough. Instead, I discovered that I had turned several degrees too far south.
The bird pecked the compass until I corrected it.
The second time I ignored the warning.
It flew directly into my face.
After that, we developed a remarkably efficient system. One cry meant I was drifting slightly. Two meant I was going the wrong way. Continuous screaming meant I had apparently committed a crime against maritime navigation severe enough to offend the bird personally.
By the fourth day, the charts started matching the water around us again.
I adjusted the sail and glanced toward the News Coo sitting beside the compass.
"This?"
It made one noise.
I moved farther west.
Silence.
"There."
The bird began cleaning its wing.
I smiled. "Admit it. We make a good team."
Nothing.
"We're basically friends."
The bird turned its back on me.
"This is Nami all over again." I mumbled.
It reached behind itself and pecked my hand.
That evening, I gave it the last of my crackers.
The next morning, land appeared.
At first, there was only a thin dark line on the horizon. I saw it through the telescope while the News Coo stood above me on the mast, feathers shifting in the wind.
Green slowly separated from the blue.
Low hills.
Trees.
A coastline without any enormous harbour or Marine fortress.
I lowered the telescope.
The bird gave one short cry.
For once, I didn't correct anything.
"Yeah, this is the place."
We kept sailing.
…
The newspaper arrived before noon.
Kai's mother, Anastasia, bought it because she'd developed the habit of checking every issue since her son became a wanted criminal.
That was a sentence she still hadn't quite accepted.
She walked back toward the house with the paper tucked beneath one arm and found her husband, Kayd, outside repairing part of the fence.
"Anything?" He asked.
She simply shook her head, which was enough to make him stop working. He set the tool down and wiped his hands against his trousers as she unfolded the newspaper.
For the past several months, every paper had been a gamble.
Those were almost worse.
Other times there were some rumours. A white-haired criminal seen aboard a merchant vessel. An attack in Port Tragedy. A Marine report mentioning a wanted former petty officer.
They'd learned not to trust every story and to take things with a grain of salt.
Anastasia found the article.
Her eyes moved across the headline.
Her husband stepped closer.
"What?"
She silently pulled the wanted poster free.
He took one side.
Neither spoke for several seconds.
Their son smiled up at them from the page.
Then they saw the number.
Kayd blinked. Anastasia read it again, perhaps hoping one of the zeroes would disappear.
It did not.
"Eighty million," she whispered.
Kayd slowly lowered the poster.
"He's…grown" He sighed
She slapped his arm.
"Don't say it like that!"
"How am I supposed to say it?" Kayd replied
"I don't know!" Anastasia closed the paper
They both still stared at the poster, though. The article described the destruction of the Arlong Pirates, with witnesses placing Kai directly at the centre of it.
His mother's fingers tightened around the paper.
"He's fighting pirates now?"
Her husband gave her a tired look.
"He killed his Marine captain."
"Kai wouldn't have done something like that for nothing". Anastasia assumed.
He opened his mouth, then stopped because there was no useful response to that.
She looked down at the photograph again.
Months since they had seen him.
People in the village whispering about what Kai had done in Shellstown and later Port Tragedy. Every time a ship appeared near the island, some stupid part of her still expected him to be standing on it.
Every time, he wasn't.
Her thumb moved across the edge of his photograph.
"He looks thinner."
Kayd stared at the enormous man in the picture, raising a brow.
Anastasia looked at her husband's reaction and scoffed.
"He does to me." She shoved him slightly.
"Darling, he could probably eat the photographer."
"That is not comforting."
Kayd sighed, though he didn't argue further. He reached for the poster, looking at their son's face again with an expression that was harder to read.
"Eighty million," he muttered.
His wife's voice softened.
"You're proud."
He frowned immediately. "He's a wanted criminal."
"You're proud." She smirked
"I can still be angry and proud at the same time."
She smiled.
"I knew it."
"Don't start." He smiled, giving her a peck on the lips.
A voice came from the road behind them.
"Honestly, I expected a little more from you guys"
Neither parent moved.
The voice continued.
"Eighty million feels like it should get at least one scream, no?"
The wanted poster slipped from her fingers.
Kayd turned first.
Then Anastaisa did.
A tall figure stood at the end of the path with a travel bag hanging over one shoulder, white hair moving softly in the sea breeze and a calm expression
Kai raised one hand.
"Hi."
Anastasia screamed.
…
End of Chapter!
Word Count - 3727
...
WE'RE BACK! :D
First off, thank you guys for waiting for me while I took my little break to focus on uni. I genuinely appreciate everyone who stuck around, commented, voted, sent stones, or just waited patiently for the story to return. Uni unfortunately continues to demand that I actually be a responsible human being from time to time, very cringe, but I'm back now and VERY excited to finally get started on this new arc. Hopefully you guys enjoy where things go from here as much as I've enjoyed planning it!
As for this chapter, I wanted something relatively chill to ease us back into the story after everything that happened at Arlong Park. Kai somehow getting lost despite Nami literally preparing charts for him was basically inevitable, and I've somehow become attached to the News Coo now, so there's that XD.
I also wanted to check back in with some of the people Kai has affected across the East Blue. Seeing everyone react to his new 80,000,000 Berry bounty felt like a nice way of showing how far he's come since Goat Island without immediately jumping into another major conflict.
Speaking of Goat Island...THE BOY IS HOME!
We've skipped roughly a month since Cocoyasi, and there will be some other gaps as this arc progresses. Don't worry, though, anything important that happened during those periods will be shown or mentioned when relevant.
Very interested to hear what you guys thought about the chapter, the bounty increase, the News Coo and Kai finally coming home. Also, predictions for how his parents are going to react beyond the initial screaming are VERY welcome lmao.
ALSO NEW STORY POLL!
I've also been thinking about starting another fic alongside this one, and I've narrowed it down to two options:
1. A JJBA × Jujutsu Kaisen
A JoJo-focused crossover into the JJK world.
2. League of Legends / Runeterra Fic
A story set in the League universe.
Whichever gets the most votes is the one I'll work on! For my Wattpad readers, vote using the poll attached to this chapter. And for my Webnovel readers, since Webnovel doesn't have polls, comment in the lines below :)
JJBA x JJK
or
LOL
I'll combine the votes from BOTH sites, so may the best fic win >:)
As always, Wattpad readers, please vote/follow/comment if you enjoyed the chapter, and Webnovel readers, reviews, comments and stones are massively appreciated.
Thanks for reading, and welcome to Arc II ! :)