Chapter 167: First Island
"Have you gone senile? That has got to be the dumbest plan I have ever heard in my entire life." Sakazuki spoke harshly with a sneer to the man opposite him.
"I thought you'd understand after what you've lost to the pirates. I can pull it off, especially if you lend your strength to the cause, Sakazuki." Zed, formerly Admiral Zephyr, said looking a bit annoyed at his old student's criticism.
"I understand perfectly well and I have no doubt that it could be done. That isn't what I meant." Sakazuki clarified. "What I meant is that it won't work even if you succeed and the sacrifice of a whole sea worth of innocent lives will have been for nothing."
"How do you suppose that is?" Zed asked, half curious and half frustrated.
"Where should I even begin?" Sakazuki spoke condescendingly.
"Won't destroying the One Piece discourage new pirate groups from forming?" Zed asked.
"No. Most pirates either don't believe in One Piece, think that it's a mountain of gold, or have no delusions that they'll be the one to reach it. It was just the spark that inspired them, but that spark could have been anything." Sakazuki said.
"Surely killing off all the pirates in the New World will frighten them?! If nothing else, at least the Yonko will die!" Zed insisted.
"The Yonko won't die. Pirates these days are different from how they used to be. They're like cockroaches, you can't be certain they're dead unless you personally crush them beneath your boot." Sakazuki said.
Zed thought back to a few encounters his Neo Marines had with pirates. Somehow the pirates had slipped away from them for one reason or another just when they thought they were done for.
"What's happened to you, Zephyr? These tactics are something you never would have used in the past." Sakazuki interrupted his thoughts. His words might sound concerned, but his face showed no emotion.
"It's Zed." Zed spoke. "Why do you care? These things are right up your alley, aren't they?"
"True, but if we're going to accomplish anything, you need to be at your best. I lost in that duel with that damned Aokiji because I allowed my rage to cloud my mind. My clouded mind weakened my will, which in turn led to my loss. After he cooled my head, I realized I needed a clear head to accomplish my goal. The same is true of you." Sakazuki explained.
"And what would you suggest then?" Zed said somewhat meekly.
Sakazuki leaned forward and stared into Zed's eyes through his sunglasses. Zed could see swirling magma deep within his pupils, like a volcano waiting for the right moment to erupt and rain death upon the world.
"It's simple. We'll still steal the Dyna Stones, we just won't use them to blow up the End Points. We'll turn them on the Yonko and on the Shichibukai. We'll crush those cockroaches beneath our boots and show their mangled corpses to the world! I'm sure that damned seagull bastard would love to take pictures for his newspaper." Sakazuki spoke darkly.
"Give me some time to think. It's not that easy to abandon years of planning." Zed said after a few moments of tense silence.
"Make your choice quickly, Sensei. The pirates won't kill themselves." Sakazuki said, before walking out of the room.
…
Cherry and company arrived at the first island of their journey.
"A Spring Island, huh?." Cherry observed by the humid atmosphere and gentle heat.
The island was very rocky and didn't seem to have any trees or grasses. Instead there were a multitude of giant mushrooms and huge swathes of moss.
The soft, spongy texture beneath their feet tempted them to remove their shoes and feel it with their bare feet. They all did just that, except for Perona who insisted that acting in such a reckless manner in the Grand Line was foolishness.
Perona suddenly found herself getting lifted into the air and several arms bloomed to peel off her socks and shoes whilst she squirmed in outrage.
"Cabernet! Put me down! I don't want my feet to fall off after stepping on some crazy thorn-moss filled with super poison or something!" Perona protested. You could tell she was really angry because she didn't use her pet name for Cabernet.
"If your feet fall off, I'm sure that Cherry can fix you right up!" Cabernet said, missing the point.
"I don't want-" Perona started before her bare feet sank into the thick moss that was wet with morning dew.
"..."
"It feels nice, doesn't it?" Cabernet asked with that innocent smile that Perona couldn't resist.
"... yes…" Perona muttered truthfully. It did feel quite nice.
"There's a settlement inside of that mushroom, uh, forest? Jungle? Should we head straight over or just explore for a bit?" Cherry asked, having scouted the island with Life Sense.
"We do need to know how long the log pose takes to set. We can look around after." Robin said sensibly.
They went ahead into the mushroom forest. The wide tops of the giant mushrooms blocked out the light of the sun creating a very low light environment.
When they had gotten so far inside they noticed a large variety of new fungal species growing on the giant mushroom, out of the moss, or on the scatter boulders. Cherry checked them out and took several samples to do some testing on later, as they may be useful for cultivation pills or just medical purposes in general.
The air was thick with humidity and spores as they journeyed deeper into the fungi canopy.
Perona started to feel lightheaded, so Cherry gave her a little vital energy to boost her body's ability to filter out toxins which seemed to do the trick. Though she still complained of a headache.
They caught movement in their peripheral vision. Cherry saw that it was a moose covered in a particular mushroom. It didn't seem sick at all, so it was either harmless to the animal or possibly even symbiotic.
There were also sloths with moss covered bodies that gazed at them in their slow fashion.
Soon enough they reached an area of the mushroom forest that opened up a bit, not a clearing but was clearly brighter than the rest.
The settlement only consisted of just a few hundred people. Many of them had quite a few warts, a common ailment for people living in very humid places.
Upon seeing their group, they glared at them with suspicion, but not with any great amount of fear as one would expect when seeing pirates.
"Excuse me. Do you know how long the log pose takes to set?" Robin asked a man who was tending to a garden of mushrooms.
"Two weeks. You'd best not stay in the village, though." The man warned. He was one of only a few that didn't seem negatively inclined towards them.
"Why is that?" Robin inquired, thinking it best she do the talking for now to keep things diplomatic.
The man looked about nervously and seemed satisfied that he hadn't found whatever or whomever he was checking for.
"There's been a string of mysterious deaths in the last few months. People are on edge. Many of them have become paranoid, seeing killers amongst their neighbors at the slightest provocations. It's tearing us apart from within and there are no leads as to the truth of the matter." The man explained, running his hand over his balding head.
The man shooed them away, not wanting to draw any suspicions upon himself for talking to strangers.
"A murder mystery! We HAVE to solve it!" Perona's mood became much better with the addition of such a morbid topic.
"We'll be here for two weeks anyways, might as well. Not like anyone here can stop us if we want to meddle." Cherry said.
"Perhaps the killer is the man we just spoke to? That's usually how the novels go, always the most unexpected culprit." Robin added, feeling interested herself.
Cabernet just hoped she'd get to beat someone up.
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