The Castle Part 3

The Castle Part 3

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Being a kid again is weird. For one, I'm itsy bitsy again. I'm a midget (again), and that's doubly confirmed when we would visit towns. The kids that looked to be my 'age' were pretty much all taller than me. And this was a world where someone who was nearly 10 foot tall wasn't that strange.

From my perch, I looked around the town.

Being a kid also kinda sucks. I'm weak for one. And I've got to learn all the essentials again. I've had to re-learn how to speak. While thankfully the entire damn world seems to share a core language with numerous dialects, it's a weird language. The sentence structure vaguely resembles Japanese and Chinese, while the sounds, the phonetics of it are all over the damn place.

I mean seriously, those clicking sounds you hear about that aren't writable that those African tribes have? Those are part of it! And the rolling r's and this deliberate R/L sound that's similar to what the Japanese classically do on top of actual R and L sounds.

"Barley, what's that?" I leaned and pointed at the multicolored buildings that had caught my eye.

It was honestly weird how their written language was based off of romanji, roman lettering. The thing is, it was even weirder that there were elements of English as well as Japanese and Spanish… there were definitely more languages in there that I didn't recognize. A possible element pointing towards the deliberate unifying of the world under the World Government? But it was too uniform really given how comparatively loose the World Government's hold was.

"Hm?" The dirty blonde man titled his head up before following my pointing finger towards a brightly colored collection of shacks, "Oh, that's a carnival. I'm rather surprised you didn't know that one Florida."

But the good news about being little was that I could ride on people's shoulders without it being super awkward again!

I pouted, "I don't know everything."

It actually wasn't like carnivals I was used to... lot more actual wood to it than I'd have expected... I looked down at the mop of wheat-colored hair that was Barley's namesake, "Can we go?"

The eight foot tall man laughed, "Sure thing nerd."

-oOo-​

"Come on big brother! Come on!"

"Alright alright, I'm coming." I protested, getting dragged by the smaller hand in mine.

Was it utterly adorable? Yes.

Was it fiendishly clever? Yes.

Was it obviously very effective? Yes.

But good lord did Bonney turning into a ten year old make things awkward.

I was normally attracted to the pink-haired Captain, but holy shit did this make me feel creepy, even if I wasn't attracted to her currently it was still very much a wtf-y feeling.

I allowed myself to be led by the hand down the dirt street towards the fields outside the castle. Bonney's plan in general was pretty simple. Turn most of her crew into kids, play around outside the castle long enough for other kids to come, then as much of her crew as was feasible would sneak into the castle as 'kids playing hide and seek' before actually breaking in.

I'd decided to wear my jacket as the Winter Island was easing into Autumn and was starting to get chilly, though I left the hood down and still applied make-up to cover my facial scar. And using my power, I'd even turned my eyes gray and my hair black rather than green and brown respectively.

Wallace had done some reconnaissance, so they had a decent idea of where not to look and they weren't going in blind. But they'd have to adapt on the fly.

My job was pretty simple. Stay out here 'watching the kids' unless an alarm went up or they gave "the signal", which was just Bonney shouting really loud. At which point I'd go in and help out by smashing things to hell. Ideally, they'd get in, grab all the treasure they could carry, and get out before anyone knew what happened. The current plan was to chuck it out a window and into the moat where they'd pick it up later.

Obviously it wouldn't go that smoothly, but it'd be nice if it did.

"Come on big brother!" Another tug on my hand. Kudos to Bonney by the way, she was a decent actor.

"I said I was coming!"

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I leaned against the tree as both honest kids and not-kids played.

Casey was out amongst the kids to ensure that there were enough kids to act as a distraction and that I had an excuse for looking out for my 'little brother'.

The sun was shining, though there were storm clouds rolling in. Felt like… mmm… sleet. Maybe just cold rain. Little chilly.

Oh, and I was sweating bullets.

"I hadn't heard Bleda was planning an assault on the Marine base chapapapaaa…"

For obvious reasons.

"Oh yeah, I heard it through the grapevine that they've been stockpiling weapons and had some of their men scouting out the Marines." I said conspiratorially, leaning in as I whispered to the larger man standing beside me. "Between him and his brother Attila, they're probably gonna try to take the whole island." The grapevine in this case being what Wallace and the others had overheard in the castle.

We were standing at the edge of the forest around the castle, the kids and the "kids".

"Hmmm…" Fukuro was a big man, easily about two and a half times my height and maybe as wide as I was tall. And holy shit was this unnerving.

As far as I could tell, he hadn't recognized me. Even though he looked different in person in contrast to the manga and anime, I'd recognized him because I mean, come on, that zipper. He was an outfit that was more in the local styles. Fur pelts and a sleeveless sort of thing and the conical fur lined cap as well as pants and large boots, but there was no mistaking someone of his size, shape, and zipper-ness.

The problem was if he recognized me… I wasn't exactly a high priority target, and without my equipment or facial scar I wasn't exactly super recognizable, but there was always the off chance and it wasn't really one I'd have liked to take.

So why, oh why, did he have to come up and strike up a conversation while I was watching over the 'kids'?!

"But Jacob, I'd heard that Attila was making moves on Honoria, who's supposed to marry the local Marine Captain chapapapa," the large, green haired man leaned in to whisper, rubbing his chin.

I thought he was supposed to be working as part of a team, and wasn't CP9 supposed to be undercover right now? And I had no idea where I stood against them! I knew I was superhuman even without my fruit but was I super enough?

I really, really didn't want to find out where I stood. Not when there might be two or more motherfuckers within shouting distance. One? I could probably take with my new ability, two? Pushing it. But if they had the wolf guy here... that could be trouble.

"All the more reason to smash in and get her away from him then Fukuro!" I whispered back, really hoping he'd focus on something other than me to reduce the risk of him seeing through my basic disguise, "I mean, would you want the woman you were after to marry some Marine jackass? The Huns hate the Marines!"

Seriously, sweating bullets here. If my arms weren't crossed I'd have been shaking a bit. Captain Billy probably could've beaten him… Barley definitely could have. But me? Eehhhhhhhhhehehehehe… not wanting to find out. There was no reason to put my head on the potential chopping block. For one, the fight would probably ruin Bonney's plans. For two, waaayyyy too many civilians in the area to even risk that kind of fight. For a third, the Marine's thought I was dead and I didn't really want to disabuse them of the notion. The rumors of my passing should stay exaggerated damnit!

"Chapapapa… but how could we be sure? I don't want to be near the Marines if they are, but there's no way they'd be so stupid as to attack the World Government, right? Chapapapa"

Also? Not really lookin' forward to dyin' again, kthnxfuckitybai.

"A way to be sure that they were going to attack the Marines and not another tribe?" I asked, and the egg-shaped man nodded. I hummed thoughtfully, knowing he was fishing for info, "Well… have they made any alliances recently with their neighboring tribes? And have they been scouting the Marines in exclusion of everyone else?"

We'd just been talking for a while now, 'shooting the breeze', though I had the distinct impression that Fukuro was doing his job as an intelligence agent rather than assassin right now. The guy had been fishing for rumors and information.

Which... honestly, was a good thing about this. I could make an attempt to aim CP9 not only away from us but towards something they should be aimed at. I actually struggled to find a reason not to point CP9 at Attila and his brother. Again, the World Government was a net positive. It was the Celestial Fuckfaces that were the problem as well as a couple issues when it came to internal controls.

The Huns honestly seemed to be aiming to attack the Marines and try to drive them off the island, and stopping that was definitely a good thing in my book. CP9 were assassins, not a Buster Call. It was the difference between a scalpel and a shotgun.

"That's true, chapapapa…" the green haired man looked up at the sky and the slowly setting sun before looking towards the oncoming clouds, "Oh, I'd better get going! You should pick up your little brother and head inside, that looks like a bad storm chapapapa."

"Good point," I admitted, mostly because get out of here damnit! I extended a hand towards him, smiling warmly, "Thank you very much for your time. It was good talking with you."

I was surprisingly honest, aside from the enormous stress of CP9 RIGHT THE FUCK THERE, it actually had been a rather pleasant conversation, even if I wasn't really much of a rumor monger.

He shook my hand, his zipper-mouth smiling, "Same here Jacob. I always love some good rumors."

The egg-shaped man started to walk away, and I really wish I'd had a pre-prepared false name, because I'd given Jacob reflexively when asked. Thankfully, while my personal name wasn't exactly common, it was my family name that was commonly associated with me.

There was a flash of pink at the corner of my vision, "Big brother! Big brother!"

My brain and stress levels, which had been slowly winding down as Fukuro walked away, jumped back into high gear, "Hm?"

Kid-sized Bonney rushed up and grabbed my coat, tugging on it, "Big Brother Florida! Come look! Come look!"

'Nooo…' My eyes widened and I looked quickly towards the retreating back of Fukuro– that wasn't retreating anymore! He'd frozen in place! 'NoNoNooo–!'

*Thwack!*

"Gah! What is it with you and kicking me?!" I snapped at Bonney, the (now) little girl glaring up at me after having kicked me in the shin.

"But Big Brother! You were ignoring me!" She stomped her foot and I opened my mouth to snap at her before I stopped myself, my head jerking back up–

Fukuro was nowhere in sight, '… shiiiiit.'

Her leg cocked back, but I cut off further attacks on my dignity and shin with a quickly whispered, "Captain."

She froze, wobbling in place before putting her foot back down, looking up at me in confusion. I looked back down at her, eyes wide, "We might have a problem."

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The Castle Part 3 End