A far-off cannon shot shook the island, making the birds in the trees flock to the air, tweeting indignantly.
We all ignored that, and Sanji and Zoro sat down, Sanji leaning against a tree that had forsaken its brothers in the forest and chosen to live out here; Zoro simply sat down in the middle of the road, behind Lucy, who was now catching z's without a care in the world.
"Zoro-aniki!" Johnny tried. "What the hell are you thinking?"
"You're the target of Arlong and his gang, ya know!" Yosaku agreed. "Why don't you run away?"
"Now that we know Nami is that kind of lowlife, there's no reason for you to stay here on this island!"
"You want a reason to stay here on this island?" Zoro cut in. "There's your reason." He jabbed a finger at Lucy.
"Are you saying that even you're thinking of accepting Nami back as a comrade?"
I drowned out their conversation, instead pulling out my iPod (which had somehow survived the wreck) from my jacket pocket and scrolling through my playlist. Let's see, I mused, as I stuffed my earbuds into my, well, ears. What haven't I listened to recently? There's OneRepublic's Counting Stars, Fireflies by Owl City, The Saltwater Room by the same guy... basically the entire "Ocean Eyes" album.
I tapped on the cover for that song, it flipped, and I pressed the shuffle button. Soon I was unconsciously tapping my foot to the beat of "Umbrella Beach." As the cheery notes blasted into my ears, I laid down uncomfortably on the road.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Johnny and Yosaku say something, wave, and leave. But I didn't care.
Lost in my music, I looked down and realized in surprise that I had gone through over half of the album. I looked around to see if anything was happening and noticed Sanji and Zoro bickering about something again, though I couldn't make out their words over my tunes.
I rolled my eyes and went back to Owl City.
Near the end of the song, I heard a sudden shout of relieved surprise preceded by the sound of something being smashed. I whirled around, tugged my earbuds out, and glanced wildly from side to side. "Where's the danger?" I asked. "Where is it?"
"He's still alive?" I heard Sanji gasp in a kind of relieved horror.
I turned to look in their direction. Sanji had aimed a kick at Zoro, who had went to block with his sword (which luckily was sheathed) and both had ended up hitting opposite sides of Usopp's face. Wait—Usopp! That meant I didn't change anything after all! I felt an ocean of relief wash over me. Still though, suffering those two attacks just now couldn't have been good for him.
As if to voice my thoughts, Zoro muttered, "Uh, no, I'm pretty sure he's dead now."
The unnaturally long-nosed liar made a kind of strangled groan sound in agony, crying anime tears. His body sparkled with water, whether from the sea or sweat I couldn't tell. The two idiots stepped away from each other quickly and laughed weakly.
Lucy's eyes snapped open, she took a quick survey of the situation, and shrilled, "USOPP!" in a record low of about three seconds. "Did Nami do this to you!?" He shook the poor guy, which probably didn't do him any good either.
Sanji raised his hand nervously and pointed to Zoro. "Ah, no, sorry . It was Zoro and I."
"IT WAS YOU." Zoro shot back.
"Lucy!" Usopp groaned in obvious relief. "You're here!"
"Yeah, got here a while back."
The blonde cook waved. "Ah, I'm here, too. Nice to meet you."
The sniper glared at him and bounded to his feet, spitting in rage. "I'll kill you someday!" he promised.
"Hey, you're still fine even after all that?"
"SHUT THE HELL UP!"
"I'm here too!" I piped up.
"Oh, hi, Yuril."
Zoro raised an eyebrow and frowned, a clear sign that he was confused. "Wait a minute, you were killed by Nami, right?"
Lucy popped up in the middle of us four. "Damn that Johnny. He was lying after all!"
I grinned and shrugged, walking off. "Well, now that that's all settled, I've got to go see a goddess. See ya guys later."
"See ya, Yuril," my rubbery captain said.
As I walked along the road to Cocoyashi Village, trying not to throw up due to landlubber's feet, I marveled at the scenery, which I hadn't really had time to appreciate when I'd been tossed half a mile through the air at 20 freakin' miles per hour, no thanks to a certain rubber brained moron I know. Actually, I had no idea where I was going. For all I knew, I could have been headed in the wrong direction all together. But I let my instincts take over, as I'd learned to do in the past week.
The marshes were strange looking, like weird pools of water with random lillypads scattered about, and to my far right, the forest rose up, and one patch of it was considerably darker, almost as if it were holding a world-shattering secret or something. I laughed to myself and shrugged it off as my imagination, however, because when my gaze was redirected to the trees, they had returned to their normal light and cheeriness. Besides that, there were so many flowers here it looked like some crazy artist had dipped his paintbrush in all the colors on his palette and smeared it across the edges of the road. It was, in a word, beautiful.
And above all else hung the constant salty stench of the sea in the air, a constant reminder that I wasn't simply dreaming some weird, drug-induced dream or anything. Not that I would take drugs in the first place, but still.
Eventually, when my stomach had finally quelled its churning, I happened across a town, which I could only assume was Cocoyashi Village. Either no one was here, or they were all indoors, because everyone was missing except or a few people.
"Hey, jiisan," I called to an old man sitting on a bench in front of a pink house, feeding the birds. I shuddered. Pink, what a horrid color! "Do you know where the path to Lady Vestionora's shop is?"
He snorted. "Ye wanna see tha' weirdo? Alrigh', wha'ever. Th path 's over thar aways"—he motioned vaguely with his hand to the right—"'n' she lives 'bout a quarter mile past tha'." The old man's voice was hindered by a heavy Scottish or Irish accent, or something like that.
"Thank you very much!" I said with a small, polite bow.
After a bit of searching, since the old guy's directions weren't very detailed, I found the path. It sliced a denser, darker part of the forest in half and ran from north to south, in about the same direction I'd come from. I sighed. Great, I was walking in circles. I stuck my hands in my jean pockets and whistled the tune of the first One Piece opening as I walked.
I knew I was getting closer because, instinctively, I could feel it; there was a strange chill in the back of my neck that had nothing to do with the breeze. I also felt like every time my foot touched the ground, I was one step closer to my destiny. It was a creepy feeling and a feeling of awe at the same time, like the entire world was holding its breath for this one moment. The forest was totally silent, too, which added to the holding-its-breath feeling. No birds sang, no animals raced through the underbrush.
And then I broke through to a clearing and what I saw made my jaw drop.
It wasn't a shop. It wasn't even a mansion, like Nami had said.
No, Lady Vestionora's home was a way cool medieval style castle.
"Wicked," I breathed.