7/7

"Cruel, but effective~!" Perona sang back, still scratching. "And don't worry your pretty little heads, this method only works on ani— on simple animals, the ones that aren't on par with human intelligence. Like this big old dummy right here!" she cooed as she intensified her scratching to the dog's delight. "Yes you are, yes you are, you're a big dummy, yes you are!"

Boss's eye twitched as he watched the titan-dog come apart under Perona's fingers. "Yeeeaaah… those ghosts of yours ain't the only things that are 'hollow', lady."

Something clicked in my mind at those words, and I slowly pointed my finger at her as metaphorical light bulb went off. "Hollow… your Special Hollows hollow out pockets in the air, voids, and then you collapse them… they're not explosives, they're im-plosives, aren't they!"

Perona paused in her scratching. Briefly, of course. "Of course you knew already, it couldn't be more than the basic concept that you didn't know…" she sighed, rolling her eyes.

"No, I'm just that smart!" I informed her in a perfectly chipper tone of why the hell was I even born… "Somebody step on me, I need to get back to my place in the pecking order: lower than the dirt on the bottom of everyone's boots…" I mumbled into the earth with my pointless, useless breSWEET MOTHER OF MERCY! "GAH WHAT THE FUCK DID I JUST SAY!?" I yelped, snapping up and onto my ass.

"PERONA!" Nami roared over the sound of the ghost-princess's cackling.

"HORO HORO HORO!" Perona cackled ecstatically at my existential misery. "HE WAS ASKING FOR IT, SUE ME! HORO HORO HORO!"

"YOOOOOU—!"

Not wanting to get another Negative Hollow to the face, I unfortunately had to settle for strangling the air instead of Perona's neck

"Tell me in complete honesty that you wouldn't do the same thing if our places were switched, and I'll apologize," she challenged with a taunting smirk.

I opened my mouth to rebut her, I tried, oh dear lord did I try to rebut her, but when my voice got tangled up in my throat the third time in a row I gave up. "At least I don't need to torture people into being friends with me…" I attempted.

"Wow, what a comeback," Perona sneered, rolling her eyes. "Cutting, witty, sophisticated."

"GUYS, STOP PICKING ON CROSS! IT'S TIME TO EAT!"

My jaw dropped and I sank to my knees as my captain 'helpfully' came to my rescue. "Saved in a battle of wits by my witless captain… how could I have fallen so low?"

"Should I start playing the world's smallest violin?" Soundbite asked snidely.

"I've been away from witty repartee and intelligent conversation for a week, let me have my melodramatics!" I snapped as I clambered back to my feet. "Ugh, anyway…" I sobered up real fast as I collected up all the bits of news I had heard over the past hour. "Guys, we need to talk while we eat. I've got news… and none of it's good."

Everyone else exchanged worried looks at my tone. I twas Nami who responded first with an assured nod. "We'll eat, you can tell us your news while we eat, and then once the duck's back on his feet—!"

"Oh, you mean Billy?" Luffy asked.

Nami looked at him in surprise. "Bil—? Wait, he's awake?"

"Nah!" Luffy grinned. "I just think that's a good name for him!"

The navigator contemplated opened her mouth to respond, but then closed it and shook her head in defeat. "I… it's a decent name, I suppose."

"FOR SOME REASON IT FITS, but for the life of me I can't understand why…I mean, yeah, HE HAS A BILL, BUT MORE THAN THAT…" Soundbite trailed off, deep in thought.

"Anyway," Nami continued. "Once Billy gets up, we can get his help flying us around looking for our friends."

Everyone exchanged nods. And then we began dining on roughly prepared drugged predator meat for what I sincerely hoped was the last time. At this point, I'd give anything to sink my teeth into Sanji's cooking even one. More. Time…

-o-

"NAMI-SWAAAAAN! PERONA-CHERIEEEEE!"

Alright, almost anything. Because seriously, what good was food in my stomach when I felt like tossing it.

To make a long story short, we'd eventually managed to find our way to the village. And Billy wasn't the only duck that arrived there when we did.

It'd been a hell of a reunion, everyone happy to see everyone else, stories were swapped, and even a few ideas and thoughts shared here or there.

But, as always, the good times eventually devolved into quiet sobriety, and it was with a solemn tone that I brought together all the disparate details everyone had gathered over the course of their ordeals, and I put together the pieces of the horrific tableau Shiki had concocted over the past two decades. It took some time to tell everything, to make sure that everyone understood properly, but eventually?

"That's about the long and short of it," I solemnly concluded, taking in everyone's reactions. Over the course of my explanation, some of our crew had relaxed and settled in a bit, such as Usopp tinkering away on a project Funkfreed and I had gone over with him, Chopper working meticulously on some sort of formula he was currently obsessing over, or Sanji exulting his two most recently returned beauties.

But nevertheless, the reactions were still there: disgust, horror, terror, and of course, complete, world-shaking rage.

Luffy slammed his fists together. "I'm going to kick Shiki's head in!" he declared.

"Soon enough, Luffy," Zoro growled, his thumb repetitively stroking the hilt of Kitetsu the Third. "But unless we want a repeat of what happened back on the Sunny—!"

"I told you, he caught me when I wasn't ready and I was hungry!"

"—we need to get everyone back together first," Zoro looked over at Vivi. "How long do you think it'll take for the others to get here?"

"With Franky's… shall we say, improvised methods of transportation?" the blue-haired princess rolled her eyes. "I'd say an hour or two. But if you want me to get there in the shortest amount of time possible?" Vivi jabbed her thumb at Carue, who'd seated himself against a tree and was guzzling a freshly refilled water barrel. "Carue needs time to rest. He's been going nonstop all day, and it won't do us any good if he just up and collapses on me. On the plus side, he'll be good to go in about an hour."

"Mmph, acceptable…" Zoro grunted.

"Although…" Vivi winced as a thought struck her. "In retrospect, it might be a little longer coming here, seeing as we'll have to account for the likelihood that we'll be bringing back someone from Barto's crew too."

I frowned in confusion. "Yeah, that's… something I still don't get. Bartolomeo, he's… he's from Loguetown, the East Blue. Hell, I think most of his goons are too! Why would Shiki invite him, even considering how ruthless he was before I gave him a talking to?"

Slowly, Vivi turned a disbelieving look on me. "…Cross, Bartolomeo has green hair in a mohawk teeth that suggest he has a fishman somewhere in his recent ancestry, and he's the fifth most wanted rookie on the seas. If I didn't know him and you'd asked me where he was from, I would have guessed any Blue except the East."

I turned that over in my head. "That… makes a lot of sense, yes," I admitted. With that settled, I clapped my hands, getting everyone's attention. "ALRIGHT! Any other points to bring up, any questions, anything like that?"

"I have one," Su said, raising a paw. "If this SIQ stuff is supposed to be so volatile for animals, then why hasn't it affected any of us as bad as it affects them? I mean, I'm not complaining that I can bench press your scrawny ass without breaking a sweat, even if that's not saying much—"

"If I were to make you into a scarf and wear you, would I become as clever as you imagine yourself to be?" I asked airily.

"—but I'd still like some sort of explanation, if that's… not too much trouble?" Su shrugged helplessly. "I mean, this does affect a lot of us, after all."

"I can explain that," Chopper piped up, not taking his eyes from the chemistry set he was still tinkering with. "I kept and analyzed the few samples of the prototype BIQ that the Amigos didn't ingest long enough for me to form an antivenom. Not a perfect defense against its cousin, but the innoculations you all got seem to be doing their jobs."

The pause that followed that announcement was legendary. I'm pretty sure empires had died in that kind of pause. Some of them had probably committed suicide as a final desperate means of escape. Finally, Zoro voiced the question on all of our minds. "…What innoculations?"

Chopper blinked and looked up from his work, honest confusion written all over his face. "I don't understand the question," he said with the utmost sincerity.

"Never mind, you just answered it…" I groaned, pinching the bridge of my nose.

"Changing the subject, I have a question too," Merry said, waving her hand frantically. "If we're all here and Robin, Franky, and Brook are at that banquet hall, who's guarding Big Bro?"

"Perona's literal guard dog and the rest of her new pets," Boss gruffly answered around the cigar he was chowing on. "Raphey and I would have stayed behind to do it, but between captain's orders, her promising that they would guard the ship with their lives, and Sunny reassuring us himself that he'd be fine, we're better off here, planning for sending this place back to the blue—MMPH!"

It would have been amusing to see Boss getting dogpiled by his apprentices so they could slap their flippers over his muzzle, but there was nothing funny about the way Conis had started shivering at his words. After a moment, during which several hissed whispers and a slap upside the skullplate were exchanged, Boss shook off his fellow dugongs. "Sorry, Conis," he said.

"I-It's fine, just a bad memory," she said casually, the shudders now down to the occasional twitch. "It's not the same anyway; we're attacking a tyrant and sending this island where it truly belongs."

"Aye have a queshtion, too," Carue squawked from his resting place. "Who's the wowwywowt you fwew in on?" He nodded his head over at Billy, who'd spent our entire time here cowering behind Nami.

"Billy, as Luffy named him, is one of Indigo's new breakthroughs, but he's not hostile like the rest of the creatures on these islands," I provided. "He helped Nami get out of Shiki's base and he seems loyal. And apparently, he makes up for his lack of any physical offensive skills with bioelectric shocks."

"Macro-bioelectric shocks," Perona corrected as she buffed the nails on one hand, the other holding Bearsy tight, having refused to leave the doll behind on the Sunny after being separated from him for so long. "He's got some ridiculously powerful voltage on him, he took down a half-dozen monsters in one full-powered blast without breaking a sweat. Even if they were immersed in water at the time, you can't deny that's impressive."

"Huh… weww, you'we gaht my wespect," the supersonic duck offered his wing to the electric one. "Aye'm Cawue, nice to meet you!"

Billy's response was to let out a panicked squawk and hide even further behind Nami, bumping against her Waver folded across her back, a piece of equipment she'd refused to leave behind when we left the Sunny.

Carue blinked in confusion and glanced at Soundbite. "Ahhh…?"

Soundbite huffed and shook his head. "HE'S CLAMMED UP EVER SINCE he woke up and we explained MY POWERS TO HIM. Scared totally quackless. I HAVEN'T EVEN BEEN ABLE TO CHOOSE A GOOD VOICE FOR HIM!"

"Eesh, poah guy…" Carue winced in sympathy

"Poor guy we can deal with later," I cut in. "Alright, anyone or anything else?"

Silence.

"Right then," I nodded. "Everyone rest up, recover your energy and get ready to rumble. And make sure you stay the hell out of the way of the POV of any mobile snails. Soundbite's warning them to stay out of our way, but that's no guarantee, so be careful. With any luck, we'll be back on the seas tomorrow and Shiki's head'll be on a spit." I swung my arms out. "Dis-missed!"

With that, everyone broke ranks, meandering about to get to wherever it was they needed to go.

I myself was on my way to speak with Zoro and Nami, but before I could even take two steps their way, I was grabbed on the shoulder and dragged the other way, courtesy of—

"Vivi!?" I sputtered incredulously, stumbling to keep up with her. "The hell are you—?"

"We need to talk," she interrupted. And going by how little argument her tone brooked… Well, the only sensible thing to do was what I actually did, which was right myself and follow her. "Lead the way."

-o-

Upon dismissal, Mikey, Donny, Raphey, Leo, and Boss had headed to the lakeside where prying eyes were less likely to see. The four siblings exchanged glances, the same feelings in all of their hearts but the same pride on all of their faces.

"So… hell of a week we've had, huh?" Leo asked casually.

Donny shrugged indifferently. "It was… meh, informative."

"Meh, it was no biggie!" Mikey scoffed, folding his flippers behind his head. "I could do it all again in my sleep."

"Pfheh, or you could just sleep outright for all I care," Raphey sneered his way. "I've spent a week doing nothing but sitting on my ass, I could use some action! Heck, bring on Shiki right now, I'm sure I could stuff that wheel of his right up his-!"

"Ahem."

All four of the TDWS fell silent and turned to Boss, who had raised raised a flipper. "Boys, it seems I've neglected to teach you a little lesson about reunions." A smirk spread on his face, but an unmistakably warm one. "Real men don't hold back their tears."

There was a second where the TDWS maintained their composure, kept up their stoic and uncaring facades…

And then the four fell into a group hug, sobbing and clasping each other tight.

"I thought I was gonna die a hundred times ove-e-eeer!" Leo cried in despair.

"I was so scared without you guys at my back!" Donny wailed.

"I missed all of you crazy bastards getting on my back about my jokes and giving me lumps for them!" Mikey whined through his snot. "Even Raphey, and she hits like a sledgehamme-e-er!"

"I was so bo-o-ooored!" Raphey whined. "All I could do was sit around and—! Wait, what did you say about my flippers!? Come here, you dingus!"

"ARGH! HELP ME! HELP MEEE!"

Boss snickered as he watched his students interact. It was truly a testament to just how much they'd missed one another that all Raphey was doing was grabbing up her brother in a headlock and noogie-ing the shine out of his shell. Normally, Mikey would be sporting several lumps and a veritable map of bruises for that sort of comment, and Donny and Leo would be right there sharing the pain seeing as they would have been what she was clobbering him against. But instead, all of this was undergone with more tears, less venom… and unrelenting smiles.

"Heheh…" Boss chuckled proudly as he blew out a ring of smoke. "Moments like these… guess there really is hope for us smarter entities after all."

-o-

While the Straw Hats wandered off to prepare for the upcoming battle, and as the village around them ran through its daily activities, one person was conspicuous in her inactivity. As soon as Cross had told everyone to break, Perona had parked herself against one of the outer huts and began examining her nails. After all, she wasn't a part of the Straw Hats, this wasn't her fight, she could leave anytime she wanted to, and more to the point, she had no interest in trying to tackle Shiki, not after the scene in Nami's old gilded jail cell.

Of course, there was one problem with this: boredom. There was only so much nail-examining Perona could do, because Raphey, not being familiar with nails at all, had left them alone in her graffiti-writing rampage. Aside from needing a trim after a week unattended, they were pretty much exactly as they were before this whole mess. So the ghost-girl looked up again in search of something to do, and found it in the form of a red-haired, frog-faced little girl, just… staring at her, right in the middle of the road without even trying to hide herself.

That immediately pricked a nerve, and Perona graced the girl with an annoyed glare. When that failed to stop the staring, Perona resorted to her fallback method: scathing commentary.

"What do you want, brat? Fair warning, if you just want to gawk at the creepy girl, you have ten seconds to leave before I—!"

"Huh? Of course not!" Xiao said, shaking her head frantically like it was the most ridiculous idea in the world. "I'm not looking at you 'cause you're creepy, I'm looking because you're cute!"

"…huh?" Perona said lamely. If there was anything she'd expected, it sure as heck wasn't that. "Uh… what… are you talking about? I mean, don't you keep fainting whenever you see something scary?" 'Scary' being somewhat loosely defined here, after seeing the girl go halfway comatose upon seeing Luffy's group arrive. And that only because that meant meeting more than four new people at once.

"Uh… w-well yeah, of course, I just get really scared when I see something that's big and weird and couldeatmealiveohmygodI'mgonnadiiieeee-!" Hyperventilating, the girl swayed on her feet, but managed to catch herself and calm down, and then shoot a sunny smile at Perona. "Ah! Ah, b-b-but you're not scary at all! You're really cute and pretty!"

Perona remained thoroughly poleaxed for a while longer before she finally managed to settle on a reaction, one that had protected her many a time before: disdain. And yet…

"…you don't know what you're talking about, kid," she muttered halfheartedly.

"Nuh-uh, it's true! Your makeup's all funny and nice like a panda—!" Perona's hand twitched, whether to summon a Negative Hollow or smack the insensitive little brat upside her head, not even she knew. "And your hair is really really pretty! It's pink like the sakura trees up in the Spring Zone, and your ponytails look a lot like my big sister's only there're two of them, so they're even better!"

Still, reflexive twitch aside, poor Perona found herself completely at a loss for words. Half of her, one that had allowed her to survive on her own for years, wanted to vehemently deny the compliment, tear down the brat, and move on with her life. But a new, louder half wanted to just take the damn compliments already. And maybe hug the girl and never let go.

"I—ah… t-that…" she stammered, eyes flicking back and forth to find some way out of this. Reflexively, her hand twitched to conjure a Negative Hollow…

"Eeee! Ohmigod what is that, is it a ghost, he's so cuuuute, can I hug him, I wanna hug him!"

Now she had a little girl practically leaping for one of her Negative Hollows. A little girl that she could admit, at least to herself, wasn't nearly annoying enough to deserve a Negative Hollow. So she hastily dissolved the ghost, Xiao passing through where it used to be before sprawling in the dirt.

"Aowww…" Xiao whined, pushing herself on her knees and whimpering as she rubbed the spot on her forehead she'd smacked on the ground.

Seeing this—seeing Xiao's gleeful enthusiasm 180 so quickly—stirred something in Perona. Kneeling down, she conjured up a Mini Hollow in one palm and used the other hand to poke the girl in the shoulder blade. "Hey, kid."

Xiao looked up, saw the hollow, and immediately lit up, eyes wide and shining with happy tears. Perona grinned. "Here, play with this one instead," she said.

For a second, Xiao didn't move. Then she took a deep breath…

"EEEE! Thankyouthankyouthankyou!"

And simultaneously nearly blew out Perona's eardrums and nearly knocked the wind out of her with a head-tackle-hug, before carefully scooping up the Mini Hollow in her hands and running off a ways.

Perona, once she recovered, returned back to leaning against the wall, but this time she had something to watch: a little girl, playing with one of her Hollows. And the smile hadn't left the ghost-girl's lips the entire time.

-o-

Brushing aside the curtain used as a door out of the way, I stepped into the house Vivi had ducked into, finding her staring out the window off into nothing. "So, what's up?"

"Something… isn't right here, Cross," she said, turning around to show a deep frown on her face. "I've been trying to figure it out since I found out about this village from Barto, but nothing makes sense."

"We're on a fucked up remix of Moreau's Island a few miles in the sky, nothing makes sense here," I shrugged. I then snapped my hands up in defense as Vivi glared hellfire at me. "Alright, alright, complete and utter seriousness. Can you blame me for wanting to lighten the mood after the week we've had?"

Vivi briefly maintained the glare, but then she sighed, shook her head,and started pacing. "I'm not talking about the typical Grand Line insanity, Cross, I'm talking about Shiki. I've tried putting myself in his shoes: say I've just escaped from Impel Down, I've created an immense biolaboratory in the sky so that I can create an army of living super-weapons and unleash them on the East Blue in the name of my vengeance…"

She stopped and spread her arms, indicating the house around us. "And then I steal all the adults in a nearby village and use them for slave labor? It doesn't make sense."

I blinked in confusion. "Well, why not? He's a raging bastard who sees people as tools, how does this not fit?"

"Well, what I'm wondering is why the village is even here in the first place."

Soundbite cocked an eyestalk. "What do you mean?"

The princess waved a hand at one of the landmasses floating by above us. "Shiki's already demonstrated to us that his control over his powers are immense. When he was scooping up islands for his top secret world in the sky, why take an island with a village on it?"

"Beeeecause it had the IQ plants he needed?" I asked more than said, almost positive that wasn't the right answer.

"Then why not just take the IQ plants and call it a day?" Vivi countered. "Why not just crush the village and everyone in it once he had what he needed? He obviously doesn't need their help tending for the IQ, seeing as he's doing it himself."

"Well…" I frowned as an inkling of doubt wormed its way into my head. "As you said, slave labor, right? Again, we know people are just tools to him."

"That's just it, Cross! He sees people as tools, and he already has his own crew gobbling his every word. Why not make them wait on him hand and foot? Why outsource? I doubt he'd go the extra mile for their sakes."

"Maybe…" I glanced aside and scratched my temple thoughtfully, the doubt building in my mind. "Maybe he has them doing dangerous jobs? Ones that could get them killed, and he wants his crew around for the East Blue's destruction?"

"But he could still use his own crew for that," she refuted. "As he's demonstrated, people are expendable to him. All he'd have to do is go down to the Blue Seas, flash his identity, and he'd have people tripping over themselves to join his crew."

"That's…" I hesitated, trying to find a proper answer. Mostly because I did not like where this was going.

"And even beyond that!" Vivi forged on, shifting into a lecturing tone as she went. "When you consider the purpose of this place, when you consider Shiki's ambition, slave labor is an unnecessary luxury. After all, keeping slaves is expensive; even when they're sorely mistreated, you need to provide food, shelter, and even administer medical care if you're intent on maintaining the ones you already have."

I gave the princess a funny look.

She rolled her eyes impatiently. "Paper for my economy teacher on how slavery is a drain on a nation."

"Ah, of course…" I 'ah'd in understanding before frowning in confusion. "But… I do see your point. It's… an anomaly."

"Save that Shiki is intelligent," Vivi rebutted. "He wouldn't allow for an anomaly like this…"

I frowned grimly. "Without some kind of justification, right. Alright, alright…" I started to pace in opposition to the princess. "Alright, let's take it from the top. I'm Shiki, megalomaniac extraordinaire. I've taken a village and am using the adults as slave labor… why exactly?"

"If you just wanted the slaves, it'd be easier to snatch them up from the sea, you know," Vivi pointed out. "Seeing as you've already shown how easy it is to do that."

"But instead I go to the trouble of taking an entire village, both those I want to enslave and those I leave behind… why leave them behind?" I splayed my hands in confusion. "Once I have the slaves, why not kill the rest?"

"Hostages, maybe?" Vivi glanced back and pointed a finger pistol at my head. "Do what I say or I'll kill everyone you love."

I considered that, slowly raising a finger pistol of my own. "Or maybe the reverse: Do what I say or I'll kill mommy and daddy."

Vivi frowned as she lowered her hand. "So the slaves are hostage in order to control the village?"

"He is monitoring the village intently," I reasoned. "More so than his own base if what Nami told us is accurate."

Vivi hummed thoughtfully and started pacing again. "So it loops right back around to the start: somehow, the village is important to him. Important enough to keep it around…"

"Important enough to make sure it's kept in the same state, unaltered," I specified as I joined her, gnawing on my thumb's armor. "If he just wanted the people, he could have easily stuck them in a camp or compound he could watch but he didn't. He doesn't want anyone leaving, he wants the whole of the village, all of the people, to stay here."

"But why keep a community functioning in the midst of the army you're building?" Vivi wondered, shaking her head.

I started to nod in agreement, before pausing as something niggled in my head. "…wait… that's… not right."

Vivi looked at me with confusion etched on her face. "Huh?"

"You said it yourself," I pressed, swiftly building up a head of steam as my mind started to churn. "These things aren't an army, that's the pirates he's recruiting. These things are weapons, super-weapons."

"What difference does it make?"

"Makes a difference to me," I muttered, tapping my temple. "Something about those words… Super-weapon and… community? No no, something else… society? Populace? Neighbor—town! Yes, that's it! Super-weapons and—!" I choked myself off in horror as realization hit me like a sledgehammer. "Towns… oh… oh, damn it…"

"What, what is it?" Vivi pressed.

"B-Back in my world," I rubbed my neck, sweat streaming down my neck as my mind dredged up the relevant memories. "My people developed super-weapons of our own, weapons of mass destruction, bombs powerful enough to wipe out everything for miles around them."

"Like what Shiki's doing here," the princess nodded slowly in agreement. "But why—?"

"We didn't deploy them straight away, we tested them first, proved their might." I rubbed my hand over my mouth, my horror with the situation rapidly mounting. "And the best way to demonstrate the power of a weapon of that scale, a weapon meant to destroy everything around it…" I slowly turned around, staring in the direction of the village, the very real, very populated village. "Was to construct mock-ups of towns… and blow them away."

Vivi's face turned ashen, her gaze slowly turning back the way we'd came. "A proof of concept…"

"He's going to sic his monsters on this village as an example of what they're capable of," I summarized grimly.

Vivi bolted for the treeline, grabbing me as she passed. "We need to evacuate everyone, now!"

"Little bit late for that…"

We both froze at Soundbite's grim announcement. "What? Why?!"

"Because there are people at the Daft Greens now."

Vivi and I started sprinting again before Soundbite finished speaking—

"WAIT! FALSE ALARM!"

—and then faceplanted as he said that.

"Sorry, I PANICKED at actually HEARING PEOPLE THERE," Soundbite quickly explained. "But it sounds like SOME OF THE OTHER NATIVES HAVE COME HOME."

For a moment, we felt good, because we thought we had some time. But then that good feeling was brutally murdered by fridge logic kicking in.

"Because people fall farther when they're dropped FROM AS HIGH AS POSSIBLE," Soundbite whimpered, voicing our thought. "SHIKI wants to give them A SPARK OF HOPE BEFORE HE MURDERS THEM ALL."

"Alright, we don't have any time to waste," I barked, getting back to my feet. "Call ahead, get everyone working to evacuate the village, now!"

I don't think either of us ever ran faster in our entire lives than we did on that dark, darkening day.

-o-

A frantic, energy and desperation-filled quarter hour later, Vivi and I met back up in the once-lively village's center, and even though I couldn't see them, I could hear the rest of the crew running through the village's streets, just as frantic as we were.

"Everybody's safe?" Vivi asked, her head on a constant swivel.

"WE STASHED EVERYONE WE COULD FIND in a bunker they had in case of stampedes!" Soundbite informed her, his eyestalks crossed and eyes clenched shut as he concentrated his hearing on the village. "It's built like a brick SO IT SHOULDN'T BREAK TO ANYTHING SHORT OF A MORTAR STRIKE, and no animal around here is ridiculous enough for that."

I fought my temper down to a growl, rather than the snarl I felt like uttering. "Is Carue rested up enough for the trip to the gathering hall?"

Vivi let loose the whistle so summon him. "In all honesty I'd prefer to give him another hour, if I could work it, but given the circumstances? I think we can make it a half hour coming and going if he really pushes it."

I nodded. "Good. Make sure they're prepped for war when they get here. The second we're back together, we bring a war with this golden-plated bastard's doorstep."

Vivi nodded, her face as stormy as the cyclone we'd dodged the accursed day we'd met our 'host'. "I'm looking forward to it. I swear, I am going to bury my Lion Cutters so deep down his—!" And then out of the blue, Vivi's tirade stopped dead and she paled, staring past me… and up. And Soundbite had fallen silent as well.

In spite of how hard my heart was jackhammering in my chest, I slowly, deliberately took and released a deep breath, and then I gave Vivi a piercing look. "Get out of here now," I whispered solemnly. "Get everyone else, get back here as fast as you can. We'll be fine." I cut her protest off with a raised hand. "Just get on the duck and go."

Vivi's face twisted, agony and outrage playing merry hell on her features, but ultimately she settled for a sharp nod, and when Carue dashed by she grabbed onto his reins and swung up onto his saddle, vanishing in a blur the second she was properly settled.

Once she was gone, I waited patiently for everyone else to come to the square, with Luffy leading the charge, his face utterly apoplectic.

"Cross—!" he growled.

I nodded sadly. "I know, Luffy, I know…" I turned around and stared upwards with subdued resignation.

Stared up at Shiki, who smirked down at us with all the pomp and pride he had to spare.

I also noted that there was a glass case hovering beside him that contained a snail watching us with a lazy sort of attentiveness, but I had a pretty damn good idea what that was about as well.

"HE JUST… HE JUST DROPPED OUT OF A CLOUD… from a mile up…" Soundbite whispered miserably. "I didn't… I-I JUST COULDN'T…"

"It's fine, it's fine," I soothed. "It wasn't your fault, you couldn't have known." I then looked back up at Shiki, suddenly feeling the full weight of the past week on my shoulders all at once. "Soundbite's been misdirecting the surveillance snails the whole time we were here. How did you know where we were?" I called up.

"Call it… an act of divine providence," Shiki replied with a voice that was just pure egotistical conceit. Said sneer then dropped into a scowl that had the balls to look insulted. "But, moving on to more pressing matters... Honestly, Straw Hats, you disappoint me! I thought you'd be better guests!"

I twitched as I felt something stir in my gut, and a ripple went through our crew.

"What the hell are you talking about?" Luffy growled out, his voice a downright murderous rumble.

"Isn't it obvious, Captain Luffy!?" Shiki spread his arms, indicating the whole of his dominion. "Think about what has happened! I graciously invite you into my home! I let you partake in vistas you could never have seen before in your miserable lives and entertained you to the best of my ability! I have shown you every possible courtesy that a host is due to afford his honored guests! And how do you repay my most gracious treatment!?"

The air around Shiki seemed to darken as he folded his arms, and stared at us with contempt. "You steal. My. Property," he rumbled.

My gut lurched, and our crew shifted and stiffened further.

"What," Luffy spat, his entire body coiled like a spring and his pipe—uncapped and devoid of seastone—groaning in his grip.

Shiki slowly uncrossed one of his arms and pointed at our group. "My navigator."

Nami flinched back in disgust and horror, her Eisen Tempo falling around her and crackling and rumbling like a meteorological shroud.

Shiki's finger shifted to the side. "And my guinea pig."

Billy let out a panicked squawk and retreated back around the building he'd been cowering behind.

"Both my rightful property, both stolen by you," Shiki said pompously, jutting his chin out at us. "And both very valuable. I think I'm due some compensation. So tell me…"

Shiki's face twisted into an arrogant, despicable, disgustingly mad grin.

"How do you plan on repaying me, hm?"

My gut roared, and I finally managed to place what I was feeling: Down and out, unadulterated, murderous rage.

And going by the chorus of weapons unsheathing that sang around me? I was far from the only one.

"BY BREAKING YOU IN HALF!" Luffy roared at the top of his lungs, slamming his fist into the ground and shattering it beneath his feet, but prudently refraining from boosting his blood flow just yet.

And Shiki? He just kept grinning, laughing, and looking down on us in every conceivable way.

"You… You actually think you can hurt me? Ji… JIHAHAHAHAHA!" Shiki threw his head back and roared with laughter, a deep, belly-shaking, utterly evil laugh. "Oh, this oughta be good for a laugh. Go right ahead…" He spread his arms, inviting us, begging us to do it. "Give me your best shot."

And that was just what we did.

Cross-Brain AN: If any of you haven't watched JoJo's Bizarre Adventure? Watch it; Oda has been referencing it all through the Whole Cake Island arc, and all three of the Cross-Brain's Freudian Trio recommend it.

Also, you know how we apologized with last chapter's cliffhanger? Weeeell… this time it's just because we enjoy it.

Hornet AN: This was my idea, by the way, so… sorry, not sorry.

Patient AN: But hey, at least we didn't leave the cliffhanger after the fight scene, right?