章節 430: Obliterated
"A shipwreck?" Law paused.
"That's what the bird chick said, Captain," Shachi shrugged.
"It might have been recent if it hasn't sunk yet," Robin reasoned. "Perhaps there are survivors?"
Law took off his hat and scratched his head. "Damn it. Let's go check it out."
Although he was a pirate, he was also a doctor. It was difficult for him to simply abandon potential patients. He could do it if he had to choose between saving strangers or saving his own crew, but there wasn't any evidence that they actually were in any danger. It was largely just a gut instinct that told him that he ought to get out of dodge.
Kicking the engine into gear, the Polar Tang trundled along according to the directions of Cabernet who once again took to the air to guide them to the wreck.
Before long, the submarine was bumping into bits of shattered wood.
"Most of these pieces are very small," Franky said, scooping a bit of wood from the water. "Not even a sea king chewing up a ship would reduce it to… well, smithereens."
"What in the world could do it then?" Usopp shuddered, not wanting to imagine what fate befell this ship.
"A buster call's worth of cannon fire, maybe," Franky answered seriously. "The only way this could happen is with a deliberate and concerted effort, or enough force to level a mountain. As you might imagine, the latter isn't very likely."
"A giant, perhaps?" Usopp suggested. Brogy and Dory came to mind.
The conversation tailed off and soon the main wreckage could be seen. There wasn't much left to be seen, however. A big broken piece of what was once the stern of a ship was in the process of sinking whilst the sea around it looked to be filled with mulch and a few scattered planks that survived.
"Keep an eye out for survivors," Law ordered.
"I don't know if we'll find any," Usopp said as he bit his nails. "I don't even see any dead out there."
That was an unnerving thought for everyone.
"Perhaps they escaped the vessel before this happened? We wouldn't know if the lifeboats were taken or not in this mess," Robin gave them some hope.
"I see someone!" Cabernet shouted from above.
She quickly flew over behind the sinking stern. She emerged shortly after pulling a barrel through the littered water with a man clinging onto it for dear life.
Law didn't need to tell his crew what to do. They were well trained in how to help him with patients, so they fished the man out of the water as delicately as they were able and gently laid him onto the deck of the Polar Tang.
The man looked old, but his dark graying hair and beard suggested he was only a rough late fifties in age. His right leg was missing below the knee, a recent injury judging from the blood staining the torn pant leg and the belt that was pulled tight to stop it from bleeding any more than it already has.
Law made sure the man was still breathing before making sure the leg was stable enough to move him to his operating room. Law gave a quick nod and his crew moved in with a stretcher, transferring the man with practiced ease and bringing inside the ship.
When Law was gone, Zoro spoke up. "That man has a strong will to live."
"Because of the leg?" Usopp asked the obvious.
"Not just that. He threw himself overboard with that barrel," Zoro corrected.
"How do you know that?" Usopp asked, somewhat disbelieving.
"The barrel was intact," Franky explained. "Do you see any other barrels out there?"
Usopp looked around just to make sure, but his own memory didn't fail him. There really weren't any other barrels floating in the wreckage.
"I didn't see any more, either," Cabernet added, further cementing the truth.
…
It was a couple of hours before Law came out of his operating room. With his devil fruit power, the severed leg wouldn't take that long, but he went ahead and did a full check up on the man to make sure he was in good health.
Thankfully the man didn't have a rare blood type or anything, so his blood loss wasn't too big of an issue.
"How's he looking?" Franky asked.
"He isn't in danger. I'm going to let him rest a bit before I wake him up," Law said.
"Why wake him up?" Usopp asked. "He's been through quite a lot…"
"Because we need answers. These waters are strange, and I want to know why. Perhaps his little accident will shed some light on the mystery," Law spoke. "In the meantime, we're getting far away from this place as fast as we can."
"Are we in danger?" Kin'emon came from below decks with Kanjuro and Momonosuke.
"Maybe, maybe not. I'd rather not find out the hard way," Law huffed, getting tired of explaining himself.
"Captain! Something is coming straight for us, and fast!" one of the Heart crew shouted in an urgent tone. He manned a station that the present Straw Hats had been told was called a 'sonar system'.
"What is it?!" Law shouted back.
"I- I don't know, but it's huge!" the man fiddled with the instruments in front of him futilely. A blip on the screen got closer and closer to the center, beeping louder and faster as it went.
The Polar Tang lurched as if it was bowled over by a tidal wave. Except that they were currently underwater by quite a ways, so that wasn't possible.
Everyone scrambled to grab hold of something or failed to do so and toppled over. When things finally came to rest, everyone got to their feet and many eyes shot warily at the sonar screen.
*BEEP Beep Beep beep beep beep*
The unknown blip kept moving away, seemingly unaware or uninterested in the submarine.
"Was that a sea king?" Law asked.
"I've never seen a sea king that fast before, captain," the crewman stated. "I don't know if even mermaids can swim that fast…"
It was widely known, or at least believed, that mermaids were the fastest swimmers in all the seas. The thought of a sea king moving faster than that was terrifying.
"Maybe it was another submarine?" Usopp offered.
"I think I'd rather it be Davy Jones himself than a submarine of that size. The technology necessary to propel that much mass through water would be well beyond us," Law said.
"Would a vessel that big possess enough firepower to obliterate a ship, though?" Robin added her own two cents.
"Shush, you!" Usopp begged.
"Oh?" Franky's mouth widened into a smile. "I hope it is a ship! Imagine what a beauty she'd be!"
"You can chase after your own death when you're not on my ship anymore. We're leaving," Law put his foot down. Franky leapt to the floor and pleaded at his feet to change his mind.
Fortunately for everyone else, Law wasn't having any of Franky's nonsense. "Get a move on!"
The Heart pirates scrambled to follow their captain's orders. It was clear that he was in no mood to tempt fate any further, and they weren't about to argue with him about it.
章節 431: Baha
The atmosphere on the Polar Tang was tense, and that tension remained over the next few hours without dissipating in the slightest. If anything, it only grew with the quiet.
Even Zoro was feeling it, albeit less so than the others. Whether the blip on the sonar had been a creature or a vessel, he had some confidence in sinking it. What he didn't have any confidence in was protecting the submarine from whatever it was; and if that was destroyed, they were all dead.
They would need to surface soon. The submarine needed fresh air for the crew to survive and there was no way for them to get it beneath the waves.
Suddenly, there was a clatter and some shouting coming from the sick bay.
"What's going on?" Law entered the room to find two of his crew holding down the old man who wriggled and wrestled in an attempt to get himself free.
"Unhand me!" the old man shouted, chomping his teeth near the arms of the crewmen as if to bite them.
"Let him go," Law ordered with a placid look, gripping his sword by the sheath in his left hand.
His crewmates released the old man as they were bade. The old man promptly stopped making such a fuss as he brushed off his ragged clothing and straightened the creases, not that it helped him look much more presentable.
"I want to know how your ship sank," Law asked, but his tone suggested it was more of a command.
"Do ye now?" the old man asked back. "Why don'cha get me a pipe and some tobacco, and I might be feelin' a bit more chatty?"
Law frowned. "You're awfully audacious for a man all alone on a pirate ship."
"I be a man all alone on a ship full o' dead men who don't know they're dead yet," the old man countered cryptically.
"If we die, it'll be your death too!" Usopp yelled.
"Aye, but I've made me peace with death years ago," the old man's smile didn't reach his eyes. "So, how 'bout that pipe?"
…
After Law volunteered Shachi's stash, as he was the only one who smoked a pipe instead of cigarettes on the ship, they went to the top deck to let the old man have his way.
"Cheap stuff," the old man muttered.
"Shut it! If you don't want it, then give it back!" Shachi jabbed a finger in the old man's direction.
The old man didn't pay him any mind and kept on smoking.
"Out with it then, old man," Law crossed his arms and leaned against the doorway.
"Younguns are so rude these days," the old man said without looking at Law. "How 'bout some introductions first?"
"Trafalgar Law," Law begrudgingly acquiesced.
The old man nodded, still not looking at Law. "Me name is Baha."
"Tell us your story, Baha," Law once again all but demanded. "Before my patience runs out and I toss you into the water."
"Right," Baha seemed undisturbed by the threat. "I used to be the cap'n o' a merchant vessel."
"That's a bit of an understatement. There was hardly anything left of her," Franky chipped in.
"We would try to sail through these waters on purpose, ye see. Not the easiest thing, what with how difficult navigation is on the ol' Grand Line as it were; but when we managed it, it was smooth sailin' fer a few days," Baha said, his eyes gazing off into nothing, or perhaps they were gazing into the past.
"That is certainly a luxury on a treacherous ocean," Robin said, to which Baha nodded.
"Aye, it was… until it wasn't," Baha spoke with something dark hidden beneath the surface. "Me first encounter with that damned beast lost me almost everythin', and many o' me longtime friends their very lives."
"So it was a sea king that destroyed your ship?" Law asked.
"That thing be no sea king, but aye. Both o' them," Baha confirmed.
"Both? BOTH?! You came back for a second time?!" Usopp's voice went up an octave.
"Three times, actually," Baha said, and Usopp looked at him like he had grown a second head. "Me first attempt to find the beast again was a colossal waste o' time and money. Took me a year and a half to raise the funds fer this second expedition."
"What do you mean it wasn't a sea king?" Zoro asked.
"I mean just that. 'Twas a whale; a great white whale whose eyes held a depth of evil I've never beheld in a man, let alone a beast," Baha words were spoken with such coldness that they sent shivers down their spines.
"Like an island whale?" Zoro asked.
"I wish it were so, but no. Island whales are gentle giants. I suspect this whale is a survivor o' the ancient world, a beast that preys on even the legendary kraken," Baha said.
"In any case, we have nothing to worry about, right?" Usopp said. "You passed through this area many times without encounterin' it, and even failed to find it on purpose once!"
"I'm afraid you're already marked," Baha said. "From the moment ye scooped me out o' the water, you had doomed yerselves."
"What do you mean?" Robin asked with a furrowed brow.
"I've looked that beast in the eye twice now. He remembered me the second time, I could see the recognition in that inky black orb. He wants me dead just as much as I want 'im dead," Baha insisted, a certain madness leaking into his voice.
"That's just crazy talk…" Usopp tried to dismiss it, but something caught his eye.
It was just a quick moment, easily missed and in fact all but Usopp and Baha had missed it. Something massive and white surfaced on the distant horizon where Baha was staring out to sea, directly in the Polar Tang's path. As quickly as it had appeared, it disappeared beneath the surface once more.
"AAHHHHHH?!?!!? I saw it, I saw it!" Usopp jumped into Zoro's less than welcoming arms.
Zoro promptly dropped him to the ground.
"Aye. He's out there, schemin' against us," Baha puffed on his pipe. "Only way to survive is to kill 'im, so what do ye say? Help an old man get his revenge?"
"It's just a whale," Zoro said.
"That 'just' be doin' a lot o' heavy liftin'," Baha retorted. "He be smart, smarter than you fer certain. Smarter than me, I'm loath to admit. He'll watch us, waitin' and lurkin' out o' sight until he's out of mind, too. That's when he'll strike."
"We'll get out of here, with or without killing the whale. We aren't a bunch of amateur whalers biting off more than we can chew," Law declared, inspiring some confidence in his crew.
"I hope fer both our sakes that yer bravado isn't unfounded, youngun," Baha said no more.
"Zoro, you can just slice and dice the whale, right? Right?" Usopp almost begged his sword wielding companion.
"Only if it comes close," Zoro said, which didn't exactly assuage Usopp's fears. "If it's big enough to hunt kraken, well, you know how big kraken are."
They did know how big kraken are, given that they've met two. That fact also spoke to the whale's intelligence, since krakens are near or perhaps even equal to humans in the brain department.
"I hope we get a chance to see it up close," Robin said. "I wonder if it's really from ancient times, like Zunesha? Or if it's just Baha blowing smoke?"
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