chapter 5

Grand Line

Little Garden

Titans were not men. Giants were not mortals. Maybe, perhaps, they were mortal in that they bled and they sweat, in that they laughed and they cheered, in that they raged and they cried, but in all other manners in which one would use to classify mortality, giants were exempt.

Size was the qualifier that elevated giants from that realm. A human was earthly in that the tiniest actions of a human did not shatter ecosystems and reform topographies. A yawning human did not cause trees to buckle and sway, a laughing human did not cause winds that travelled the ocean, birthing waves in disagreement with sailors. Two humans fighting would not create a spectacle enough to imprint itself to one's memory, drop to their knees, and declare that truly, there is a creator.

Dorry and Brogy were terrifying and beautiful in one breath. This was not the first time I'd marveled at the difference between animation and reality, but each time it stood in front of me in stark contrast, I found myself questioning the incalculability of the difference. Brogy's strikes reverberated against Dorry's shield with an impact that echoed across the island like Zeus backhanding Hera. Each swing shook the islet, each block made the earth whimper in lieu of the behemoths that had chosen it as their stomping grounds.

Flora suffered from the brutal punishment, and fauna fled for the sake of their existence. Yet, on such a tiny little island, on a place to whom the main residents considered a little garden, there was nowhere to truly run. There was no escaping the fight – only enduring it.

"Does it bother you that somewhere on this island, is a massive pile of literal giant shit?"

I pinched my nose and closed my eyes. Patience. "Valentine."

"Do you think they dig up the earth then bury it over, or do they just wade a bit into the ocean to do their business and use seawater to wipe their ass?"

"That's your takeaway from this?"

"I guess. It started out with me being bored with their fight and noticing their sweat drops are like gigantic raindrops, and then listening to all their grunting, my imagination started working out what it would be like if they were having sex instead, and so I started thinking of the preparations they'd need to make before having sex –"

"I regret asking."

Miss Valentine floated in the air, a cocky smile making itself home on her face. From our vantage point on the tallest hill we could find, the battle was easier to witness.

"I don't get it though. Sure giants are huge, but that's it. They're big. Being big doesn't make you special."

I rose a single eyebrow. She waved her hand dismissively. "Same when it comes to sex. Technique beats size."

Raising my hand, I channeled thousands of microscopic explosions through it simultaneously. My hand vibrated in place at a speed that would have outpaced certain high-tier electric devices. She rolled her eyes, a playful smirk etching on her face. "Showoff."

"When you have both size and technique, it makes a difference."

"So you're saying against the giants, we're like a little-dick guy who's good with his fingers, trying to beat the guy with the two-foot long cock and five-years of oral mastery."

I stopped my vibrating hand and stared at her. "…yes." I opted to say. "That's exactly what we are."

"But the real question is," Valentine continued. "Who's the unlucky girl in the metaphor?"

"My sanity it seems."

Valentine laughed. "I get it. Because the giants blew your mind."

I rubbed my nose a second time. "Valentine…"

"Wait, silly me." She slapped her forehead. "You're a bomb-man. Your mind can't be blown."

"Not the puns…"

"I don't get why you're always so serious. Your power literally always lets you have a blast."

Lunging for Miss Valentine, she let out a shrill laugh as she manipulated her weight, flickering away from my grasp. At least her reaction time is getting better, I mused. Fast enough to be able to make Soru look like a second-rate copy of her speed. Something touched the top of my shoulders, no heavier than a feather and barely noticeable. If it weren't for the clearly distinct pair of smooth feminine legs that hung off them, it would have been easy to have dismissed the impact.

"So Captain," she said, crossing her arms over the front of my head as her chest buried into the back. "Not that I'm complaining, but I'm totally complaining. When can we get off this island and to a place that's actually fun?"

Already used to her antics, I placed both of my hands on her thighs and let her ride my shoulders like she was a child. "After we confirm that Mr. 3 and Miss Goldenweek are dead."

"I remember the giant telling us they'd bit the dust."

The earth shook from Dorry and Brogy clashing weapons. I stabilized myself, crouching and placing one hand against the soil. "We didn't see their bodies."

"Want to rob their corpses?"

"I was thinking of getting visual corroboration of the giant's tale."

"I'm not hearing a no to robbing their corpses."

"…sure, why not?"

"Great!" she clapped. "Do you think Miss Goldenweek'll have any classy outfits or jewels on her I can steal?"

"They'll be a bit on the small side for you."

"She's a midget?"

"She's a teenager."

"A teenage midget?"

"No. Just a regular sixteen year old teenager."

"I didn't eat the Kilo-Kilo no Mi just to be told that there were clothes in sizes I'm not small enough to wear."

I didn't have a response to that.

"How did a sixteen year old end up joining Baroque Works and becoming an Officer Agent anyway?"

That was an interesting question. "I actually don't know." There wasn't much on Miss Goldenweek's history that was covered or went into detail. "Maybe we'll find out. Maybe we won't."

"But you knew her age… despite never meeting her?"

"Yes."

"…you're never going to tell me how it is you know the things you know, are you?"

"Maybe one day," I admitted. "It'll blow your mind, and unlike me – you're not built to handle explosions."

She sighed, crossed her legs across my chest. "The explosion puns are only funny when I make them. When you make them, it's cringeworthy."

Closing my eyes and ignoring Miss Valentine's neck wrapping against my neck and chest against the back of my skull was the easy part. The difficult part came with using my powers to search for sources of heat and vibrations that wasn't from either of us, or from the fighting giants. The human body's average temperature was 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit, or 37 degrees Celsius. My search focused on creatures within that range, allowing for a small margin of error.

Focusing on vibrations was a different game. Most living organisms generated mechanical vibrations at extremely low frequencies which were termed infrasonic waves. The low-frequency vibrations were caused by basic physiological processes such as heartbeats, respiratory movements, blood flow in vessels, etcetera.

Sitting on my shoulders as she was, I could distinctly feel Valentine's heartbeats and other minute physiological details. I knew that her heartbeat spiked when she asked me about how I knew the things I knew, only returning back to normal after I diverted my answer with a pun. I could tell her breathing was relaxed, genuinely relaxed, which I was surprised for. She was… at ease, sitting comfortably on my shoulders. She was comfortable being around me. I could tell it was the weeks we spent sailing the Grand Line with only each other for company, the constant inducement of sexual pleasure, and the harsh training that I made her undergo which was responsible for it.

Simply or more rationally put, Valentine had a form of Stockholm Syndrome. That was, in my opinion, a more logical conclusion than believing somehow along the way, she'd come to like and accept me as a person. Me, the guy who trained her to hell and back and often left her a panting, quivering mess with my fingers against her will. Me, the person who literally strong-armed her into my pirate crew without a care for her own wishes or desires. Believing that she would somehow overlook all of that was naïve at best and idiotic at worst.

Disregarding the use of my ability to become a human polygraph machine, I focused on searching for something else. The sound waves and constant impacts against the earth made by the fight of the two giants worked in my favor, acting as earthbound sonars to stretch my powers further. I added a search for rhythmic movement in twos in the form of footsteps. If there were no matches with my search, I'd conclude that there were no humans on the island and Mr. 3 and Miss Goldenweek were dead.

"What're you doing?"

"Searching for vibrations that would match those of humans on the island."

"Are you sure you didn't eat the Gura-Gura no Mi instead of the Bomu-Bomu no Mi?" She asked. "How does this have anything to do with bombs?"

"Bombs create explosions. Explosions create force, heat, sound, pressure and light. I create explosions. So I create force, heat, sound, pressure and light. Sound and vibrations are closely related, for instance, when you speak your vocal cords vibrate to control the air flow and affect your pronunciation. As I can create sound, I can equally alter my creation of sounds to create vibrations by bleeding off sound energy."

"So… you did eat the Gura-Gura no Mi. But with extra perks?" She shuddered. "That's not fair."

"Only unfair to my enemies."

"Still unfair. You're a human vibrator."

"That's…" She wasn't wrong.

"If you can alter sounds, you can manipulate your voice and mimic animal sounds."

"I…" I hadn't thought of that. "In theory."

"Make funny monkey noises."

"No Valentine."

"Tiger noises?"

"No."

"Koala noises?"

"I don't know what noise a koala makes."

"Me neither."

"Why ask me to make them?"

"I thought you'd know."

"Why would I know what noise a koala makes?"

"You knew Miss Goldenweek's age and dress size, and who knows what else. At this point, I'm just going to assume you know something unless you tell me otherwise."

That was fair to an extent. "But… koala noises?"

She shrugged, still sitting on my shoulders. Resisting the urge to sigh, I tried to focus back on my search. Mr. 3 possessed one of the most versatile powers in the world, and the luck of the devil himself. He was able to survive death by crocodile, survive and escape Impel Down and find himself on the executioner's stand of the son of the Pirate King, underneath the noses of three Admirals. His cockroach-like resistance to his own mortality was irritating, I would truly and finally believe the man was dead once I saw his corpse. Anything else was subject to doubt.

"Captain."

Oh for the love of… "What?"

"Nothing." She said cheekily. "Just realizing how much fun it is to mess with you now." She sighed. "Remember that time, all those weeks ago, when you were a clueless 'amnesiac' who threatened to kill me?"

"Remember that time, when you were an assassin who killed people by jumping on them like a Mario Brother?"

"Who's Mario?"

"A plumber."

"And he jumps on people's heads?"

"Extensively."

My search brought me the attention of several quadrupedal creatures, which I dismissed and narrowed down to bipedal ones. Amongst the bipedal beings, a lot of them were birds, some were the monstrous 'dinosaurs' that roamed Little Garden. Their heartbeats were erratic, fast. They were running, as they should, in lieu of the giants fighting each other.

I narrowed my search even further. Off to the east of the island, close to the shore, the vibrations were of a variety that was not animalistic. The heartbeats and palpitations matched those of a human with adrenaline overwhelming their system. The movement pattern, calculating for the space and timing before feet struck the earth indicated that the creature was comparatively short.

Human.

"Found something." I spoke up. "East. Four point five kilometers. Hurried footsteps. Fast pace." I charged two blasts in my arms. "Hold on tight."

"Huh – hey waaaiiii –"

The crack of an explosion detonating from my hand propelled me forward. The wind rushed in my ears, blurring out Miss Valentine's shriek as she hung on to me for dear life. I reoriented myself mid-flight, spinning around without need to propel myself further, the first blast being enough to send me into the sky. The forest blurred. Focusing on the shockwaves to use as sonars, I used minor explosions from my hands and feet to navigate through trees and vines, dodge the long-necked brachiosaurs and zooming over the shorter triceratops.

Three seconds after I'd blasted off, I found my target.

Using counter-explosions to slow down and cut my momentum, I overtook the humanoid figure covered in a myriad of paint, and skid to a stop directly in front of her. Yes, the figure was unmistakably a "her."

"You've certainly seen better days."

Her red hair was a muddy, dirty, frazzled mess like the wool of electrified sheep crossbred with pigs. Her face wasn't as childish as I'd expected. Torn rags covered her loin region, but the rest of her body was completely nude. Nude – and covered from head to toe in paint. Green paint clung to her body like a second skin, and they disturbingly highlighted how visible her ribs were, how thin and malnourished her form was. I'd seen more meat on runway models, and anorexic high schoolers.

There was a sharpness to her eyes that shouldn't have been there. Cautious. Watching. Observing. A roughed up pouch hung beside her, a paintbrush made of a stick, a twine, and several feathers sticking out of it.

"Never –" Miss Valentine whispered. "Never again–"

Floating off my shoulders, her eyes were wide and her hair was blown backwards from the sudden propulsion of speed. She blinked twice, spitting out a leaf that had gotten into her mouth, before irritatingly glaring at me, and then turning to glare at the source of her disheveled state.

The green-paint covered girl cautiously took a step back, her hand defensively rushing to her "paintbrush."

"Who's the brat?"

"This," I gestured with my right hand, "is Miss Goldenweek."

"She's sixteen?"

"She's sixteen."

"You're joking."

"I'm not."

"I can't really see it, with all the mud and… green." Miss Valentine blurred beside the girl. "She's really skinny." She rose the girl's hand, poking the side of her ribs. "Is she even a she? I mean, it's kind of hard to tell…"

Miss Goldenweek turned her head back and forth, shifting between myself and Miss Valentine as her brows furrowed in confusion at our words. Rubbing my hand through my hair I muttered underneath my breath before forcing myself to increase my voice, lest the sound of the giants fighting drown it out.

"Miss Goldenweek, I am Mr. Five, and that the lady with the skinned tiger coat and punk-hair is Miss Valentine. Fellow officer agents of Baroque Works."

Miss Goldenweek's eyes widened immediately. I felt for my connection with the earth to read her infrasonic waves. Her heartbeat. The palpitations of her form. The rapid beating of her heart calmed upon announcing who I was, and I understood immediately. They must not have gotten the kill order from Crocodile.

"Where is Mr. 3?"

Her eyes went low. Her breathing fluctuated. Her heartbeat quickened.

"I see." I put my hands into a steeple. "And you saw this happen yourself?"

Her eyes met mine.

"I understand. How unfortunate."

She rubbed the side of her arm, looking down. I approached her, my hands behind my back. On reaching her, I realized she was short. Very much so. Her head barely reached the center of my chest. It made it easy for me to pat her on her forehead. I tried to smile in a way that wouldn't immediately give anything away.

"You've done well to survive this long on the island by yourself. We'll take you back to our ship where you can have a bath, a meal and we'll put you in some of Miss Valentine's clothes."

"Wait, what? That wasn't the –"

"As fellow Baroque Works Agents, it's the least we could do, don't you think so, Valentine?"

She got the message pretty quickly. Subsequent grumblings underneath her breath were kept to herself, even as she kept side-glancing Miss Goldenweek. I couldn't blame her. No one would look at Miss Goldenweek as she was and believe she was supposed to be a member of a large scale criminal organization. Starved and skinny and quiet, one wouldn't be wrong to mistake her for a street urchin or a sexual abuse survivor.

The volcano rumbled. A powerful eruption shook the earth and island, forcing it to imitate a bouncy-house balanced on electronic bulls. Miss Goldenweek staggered, falling forward. I caught her frail, light form with ease, my lips thinning slightly as I realized how the repercussions of my actions were causing events I could not anticipate or plan for.

Her hands wrapped around my waist, and she squeezed tightly. I could tell from the manner in which her heart calmed once the eruption stopped, just how badly and how desperately she'd been alone on the island.

Mr. 3 was dead. There was no doubt of that anymore. He was dead, and Miss Goldenweek survived, spending weeks trapped on Little Garden with dangerous animals and two extremely deadly pirate giants. Without Mr. 3, I couldn't see how Luffy would fight Magellan should he ever break into Impel Down. I couldn't see how the Straw Hats would be able to create a key that would unlock their cages in Crocodile's lair.

I didn't know how far these tiny things would affect the future, but I did know one thing. Whatever future that would come, it would be unlike anything anyone had ever seen.

Pop Rock Candy

Coast of Little Garden

Grand Line

She would not particularly say that she was pleased in the manner by which Mr. Five, or rather, V, seemed to so blatantly give Miss Goldenweek special treatment. He held her close, spoke reassuring words to her, was gentle and firm, lacked the sarcastic bite and tonal apathy she had come to associate with him for the month and several days they'd been sailing the ocean together.

It was as though he'd turned into a completely different person, and she could not understand it. Was it the age factor? Because it irked her, irked her, the clear blatant difference between the treatment he showed Miss Goldenweek and the treatment he'd first given her, despite the fact that she was his partner.

Work partner, she meant. Not, partner-partner.

"Be sure to make yourself at home, and tell me if there's anything you need."

Floating on deck, she crossed her arms, waiting expectantly as her Captain walked onto the deck, smiling. He was actually smiling. The smile all but vanished from his face and replaced with his typical neutral visage once he caught a glimpse of her. "What?"

"What? What's up with you acting all –" all… nice?

"Are you… jealous?"

She scoffed. "Jealous?"

Her? Jealous? That was absurd. She wasn't jealous. What was there to be jealous of? Oh, sure, for the first several weeks, she wasn't sure if he was going to kill her or violently rape her, and there was that time where he made her piss herself out of fear, and there was the brutal training and the fact that although she'd eventually found it pleasurably, their sex had not started out consensually. But sure – sure she was clearly not jealous of the manner in which he suddenly started showing a soft and sensitive side to Miss-fucking-Goldenweek –

"You're upset."

She grit her teeth. "I'm not."

"You think I'm playing favorites?"

"I don't know what to think."

He sighed. "I'm a pirate Valentine."

"Since when are pirates nice and warm to little kids?"

"She's sixteen, not a little kid."

"And that makes it better?"

"It does, considering I'm grooming her."

The heat in her chest dissipated. She didn't know when she took an instinctive step backwards. "…what?"

"It means I'm –"

"I know what it means!" She bit her lip. "Why?"

"She's a young, impressionable sixteen year old who joined a criminal organization and recently lost her partner. She's vulnerable. Moldable. She can be anything I… we, want her to be."

V took several steps forward, and she backed away slightly. "Miss Goldenweek has the ability to paint colors that affect emotions and can brainwash the weaker-willed. She can make mothers turn around and slit the throats of their children, brothers take up arms against each other without reason, and force down the pride of the stubborn fools into complete subservience. Imagine what we could accomplish, with that power under our control?"

She could imagine. She could imagine, and her imagination did not paint a beautiful picture. His explosions alone could inspire fear and terror, but to give him the power over emotions on top of that?

"What sort of devil fruit –"

"It's not a devil fruit."

"That's –" she breathed. "How?" How?

"That's an answer we'll have to discover… as we shape her into a good little girl fanatically protective of her 'beloved family.'"

V moved behind her, his hands resting on her shoulders, softly kneading and vibrating in place in a manner that sent traitorous shivers of pleasure travelling down her spine. "Now, Valentine, getting jealous is a waste of energy. From now on, we're all a family. A big, bad, pirate family. And for now, you're going to go in there, be a good older sister, and help Miss Goldenweek wash. Ensure she's properly clean, and make sure you let her know about how overly affectionate you are."

"Overly affectionate? I'm not –" she caught his look. The understanding dawned in her at once.

"You are now."

Her heart was beating fast. Faster than ever. It was, easy, in a way, to forget the type of person V was. Perhaps because they'd been alone for too long, she'd almost forgotten.

"Don't tell me you have any objections?"

"I – "

"Good." His warm breath whispered into her air. "I knew I could count on you, Valentine."

His lips vibrated, the vibration travelling down her neck and making her shudder. With two confident pats on her back, he sent her forward, her thoughts a whirlwind. Sure, she'd committee murder. Killed men in painful ways and derived the pleasure in it. Though, this was something else entirely. Foreign territory. She didn't know what to think.

Would it have been better, if V was simply playing favorites?

I'm overthinking this. Miss Goldenweek wasn't a child. Miss Goldenweek most likely had killed people, as she was also an agent of Baroque Works. She wasn't some naïve, wide-eyed patsy that was fooled into entering a life of crime. She knew the risks of her profession, and this was one of them.

Entering into the Pop Rock Candy's sole bathroom, she noticed Miss Goldenweek sitting in the tub, clutching her knees to her chest, silent and staring blankly at the air.

"You're supposed to be bathing. Not –" Valentine sighed. Stripping off her clothes, she grumbled as she reached for the soap and the brush. "This is going to take a while."

The girl was mostly unresponsive throughout the entire washing session. Scrubbing off the dirt and grime and the copious amount of green paint only put it into perspective as to just how skinny she was. Valentine wasn't exactly on the robust side, but at least, her ribs weren't outlined on her sides at first glance.

"So there's no way I'm going to keep calling you Goldenweek." She said simply. "What's your name?"

The girl's response was to casually tilt her head. "Yes, your name. I'm asking you. You can speak can't you?"

Nothing. Not a single peep out of her. Valentine clicked her tongue in annoyance. Rude little… "Fine. Be that way." The most difficult part of the entire washing process was washing her hair. After getting all the gunk and paint out of it, the true color of the hair started to show. Red. Quaint. Now V's crew had both a blonde and a redhead aboard.

"There. All clean."

The girl's age was a bit more obvious now that she was cleaner. While she was still skinny, her chest region was developed, albeit small, and her waist was more prominent. V said to be overly affectionate… She wasn't sure how to do it. She wasn't sure if she could do it.

Her hand reached out to the younger and smaller girl's chest. Her gaze went lower, even as her heart began to pound harder and harsher in her chest. Miss Goldenweek just stared at her, as if she were completely in a different dimension from the realm around her. It irked.

"Why are you…" she grit her teeth. "Why do you look so…" She bit her lip. "Damn it."

She couldn't do it. Not to someone who looked as though they could barely tell their left from their right. There was a broken, nigh-emotionless look in Miss Goldenweek's eyes, and if she did what V wanted her to do, she wouldn't be able to sleep with herself at night.

"Just… stay here, let me get you some clothes."

Leaving the bathroom and heading to her room, she let out the breath she didn't know she was holding. "Ugh." Rifling through her closet for clothes, she understood immediately that nothing she had would be remotely fitting on such a small frame. Underwear was out, and clothes weren't even an option. She opted for one of her larger t-shirts. Miss Goldenweek would have to make do until they left Little Garden.

"Done already?"

She flinched at his voice. His breath suddenly on her neck, without ever hearing him enter her room. Then she remembered that he could create soundless explosions. He could mute the sound he made to nothingness. He could become a ghost if he wanted to be.

"Well?"

"I don't know what exactly I'm supposed to do."

"Be affectionate. Do what ladies do when you're with each other. It can't be that hard."

Valentine blinked. A rare, sneaking suspicion began to climb into her mind, one that made her question if she'd misheard. No, one that made her question if she'd completely misunderstood.

"When you said to be overly affectionate you were not telling me to…?"

"To…?" V rose an eyebrow. Something clicked. "You thought I was telling you to feel her up."

"You weren't?"

"No, why would I?"

"You said you were grooming her."

"I am." He said. "So why would I have you molest her? That's not how grooming works. That's entirely counter-intuitive to grooming her."

Her mouth opened, yet words were not forming. Her brain needed several seconds to re-organize her perception of things and events. "So what did you mean when you told me to be overly affectionate?"

"Do what females do when bathing with each other? Skin-ship? Bonding? Salon talk? I don't necessarily have much experience in this matter, so I can only guess."

"Salon… talk?"

"You've never been to a salon? Seen women who sit down with magazines and talk all day?" He asked, muttering something under his breath that she barely caught. "…world doesn't have any salons?"

She couldn't help it. She snickered. A soft, disbelieving snicker. The snicker grew, escalating until she started laughing.

"What's so funny?"

"You –" she wheezed. "I thought you – I mean…" it was hard to speak in-between laughs. A misunderstanding. That was what it was. A simple misunderstanding. She'd completely misinterpreted his words as having a more loaded meaning than they did.

"Valentine," V said, sounding serious. "You know there are some lines even I will not cross."

No, she didn't. She hadn't. "I do."

"Good," V said. "Now, hurry back to Miss Goldenweek, and be yourself around her. Try to get her name out of her, if nothing else."

"And what will you be doing?"

V's hands sparked. There was an expression on his face she had not seen before. Primal. Hungry.

"Killing the dinosaurs."

Her brow furrowed. "Why…?"

"A change of plans. Killing Dorry and Brogy will undoubtedly cement Miss Goldenweek in our good graces. Plus, their bounties will certainly come in hand."

"How does that have anything to do with killing dinosaurs?"

"My dear Valentine," V shook his head. "Even a person who adds sugar to every meal should understand what would happen when there's no meal available"

The answer clicked in her head immediately. Her brows widened. "You're… going to kill every animal on the island to starve the giants?"

V merely chuckled. "It's always the little things that kill Goliath." The Bomb Human walked away laughing. "Always the little things."