Chapter 22: Aftermath

  Cabaji spun on his unicycle, daggers fshing in the afternoon light. He moved like a performer, every gesture exaggerated, every attack choreographed for maximum visual impact. His bdes sliced through the air in patterns designed to confuse, to dazzle, to kill.

  Zoro watched him with the patience of a predator.

  The acrobat lunged, daggers aimed for Zoro's throat. Zoro stepped aside, let the attack pass, and brought one sword up in a zy arc. The ft of the bde caught Cabaji in the ribs. Not deep. Not deadly. Just enough to hurt.

  Cabaji stumbled, caught himself on the unicycle, and spun away. "Lucky shot."

  Zoro said nothing.

  Cabaji came again, faster this time. Daggers in both hands, unicycle weaving, body twisting in midair like he had no bones. He was good. Really good. Years of practice, years of performing, years of killing disguised as entertainment.

  Zoro watched the pattern.

  Every attack flowed into the next. Every movement had a purpose. But there was a rhythm to it, a predictability. The acrobat had been doing this so long he'd stopped thinking about it. He just moved.

  That was the opening.

  Cabaji threw three daggers in rapid succession, each aimed at a different vital point. Zoro deflected two with his swords. The third he caught between his teeth, the bde stopping inches from his face.

  Cabaji's eyes widened.

  Zoro spit the dagger at him.

  It embedded in the acrobat's shoulder. Not deep, but enough to make him flinch, enough to break his rhythm. Zoro moved into the opening, swords crossing, and drove the hilt of one into Cabaji's stomach.

  The acrobat doubled over, air rushing from his lungs. His unicycle wobbled. He tried to recover, tried to spin away, but Zoro was already there. A sword pressed against his throat. Another against his chest.

  "Don't move."

  Cabaji froze.

  Zoro held him there for a long moment, making sure the message was clear. Then he stepped back, sheathed his swords, and turned away.

  Cabaji colpsed, gasping, alive but thoroughly beaten. He looked at Zoro's back with something like respect mixed with humiliation.

  Zoro walked toward the main event.

  Buggy was screaming.

  His hands were still trapped in Luffy's grip, fingers crushed, bones grinding together with every squeeze. He'd tried everything. Pulling. Twisting. Detaching further. Nothing worked. The rubber boy held on like he was born to do it.

  "LET GO! LET GO OF ME, YOU MONSTER!"

  Luffy looked at him. That same bnk expression. That same empty gaze.

  "No."

  Buggy's feet detached from his body and floated behind Luffy, aiming for a kick to the back of the head. Luffy moved without looking, stepping aside, pulling Buggy's hands with him. The feet missed. Luffy stomped on one.

  Buggy howled.

  "Stop! STOP! I'll give you anything! Treasure! Maps! Women! Whatever you want!"

  Luffy considered this. "I already took your treasure. And I have women." He gnced at where Nami had disappeared. "Well, one woman. Working on it."

  Buggy's detached head screamed in frustration. His torso stood uselessly twenty feet away, arms missing, legs missing, a pathetic sight.

  Luffy released one hand, grabbed a floating foot, and started tying them together. The fingers curled uselessly. The toes wiggled. Buggy's head screamed louder.

  "WHAT ARE YOU DOING? STOP THAT!"

  "Tying you up."

  "YOU CAN'T TIE UP BODY PARTS! I'M A DEVIL FRUIT USER!"

  Luffy ignored him. He grabbed the other hand, the other foot, and started knotting them together. Buggy's detached limbs flopped and twisted, but Luffy's grip was absolute. Rubber fingers digging into flesh. Simple knots. Effective knots.

  By the time he was done, Buggy's hands and feet were tied together in a bundle that looked like some kind of twisted pretzel. They twitched uselessly, unable to separate, unable to do anything but flop.

  Buggy's head stared in horror. "You... you can't do that. That's not... that's not how my fruit works!"

  "It works now."

  Luffy stood up and walked toward Buggy's torso. The head screamed threats and curses. The torso tried to run on detached legs that were currently tied in a knot with its hands. It fell over instead.

  Luffy grabbed the torso by the back of its colr and dragged it toward the head. He set them side by side. Head and body, separated but close, both staring up at him with identical expressions of terror and rage.

  "Now for the st part."

  Buggy's eyes widened. "Last part? WHAT LAST PART? YOU'VE ALREADY DEFEATED ME! YOU WIN! TAKE THE TREASURE! TAKE EVERYTHING! JUST…"

  Luffy's arms stretched back.

  Way back.

  Farther than they had any right to go.

  For the first time in the entire fight, he used his devil fruit.

  "Gum Gum..."

  Buggy screamed. "NO! NO, WAIT! WE CAN TALK ABOUT THIS! I WAS ON GOL D. ROGER'S SHIP! I HAVE CONNECTIONS! I CAN…"

  "BAZOOKA!!!"

  Both fists shot forward, hit Buggy's bound limbs, and unched the entire mess into the sky. Buggy's screams faded as he rose, a tangle of arms and legs and torso and head, sailing over the rooftops, over the town, over the horizon.

  "I'LL BE BACK! I'LL HAVE MY REVENGE! YOU HEAR ME? I'LL…"

  The voice faded to nothing.

  Luffy watched him go. For a moment he stood there, hands on his hips, straw hat casting shadow over his expressionless face. Then he turned back to the pub, to the street full of groaning pirates, to Zoro standing amidst the wreckage.

  The grin returned.

  "Hey, Zoro! That was fun!"

  Zoro blinked. The shift was so fast, so complete, that for a moment he wondered if he'd imagined the st twenty minutes. But the bodies on the ground were real. The broken weapons were real. The memory of those empty eyes was real.

  "Yeah," Zoro said slowly. "Fun."

  Nami emerged from the shadows of a colpsed building, a rge sack slung over her shoulder. She approached cautiously, eyes moving between Luffy and the destruction around them. Her steps were careful, measured, like someone approaching a wild animal that might turn at any moment.

  She stopped a few yards away and dropped the sack. It clinked with the sound of gold and coins.

  "Treasure," she said. "All of it. Plus the maps and navigation equipment. Buggy's whole stash."

  Luffy's eyes lit up. He crossed to the sack in three bounds, dropped to his knees, and started digging through it like a child on a birthday morning. Gold coins spilled through his fingers. Jewelry glittered in the sun. Stacks of berry notes made him whistle.

  "Nice. Very nice." He looked up at her. "Good job, thief girl."

  Nami's eye twitched. "My name is Nami."

  "Right. Nami." He went back to the treasure.

  She watched him for a moment, then held out the rolled map. "The Grand Line map. This is what started all this."

  Luffy took it. Unrolled it. Studied it.

  His face went bnk again.

  Not angry. Not thoughtful. Just... empty. His eyes moved across the paper, tracing routes, noting isnds, cataloging information with an intensity that made Nami's skin crawl. He looked like someone reading a instruction manual. Like someone memorizing every detail because lives depended on getting it right.

  The silence stretched.

  Finally, he rolled the map back up and handed it to her.

  "Zoro."

  Zoro walked over. "Yeah?"

  Luffy stood up, brushing dust from his shorts. "What do you think?"

  Zoro looked around at the ruined town, the defeated pirates, the sack of treasure. "About what?"

  "About staying here another week."

  Zoro raised an eyebrow. "Another week?"

  "Training." Luffy's voice was calm, matter-of-fact. "We can inform the vilgers about Buggy and his men. Let them know it's safe to come back. But mostly training. We've got a lot of work to do."

  Zoro considered this. "You think we need it?"

  Luffy looked at Buggy's bound and discarded limbs, still twitching on the ground. At the dozens of unconscious pirates. At the destruction they'd caused in less than an hour.

  "Someone like Buggy shouldn't have been that difficult."

  Nami stared at him. Difficult? He'd destroyed an entire pirate crew in half an hour. He'd sent their captain flying into the horizon. He'd barely broken a sweat. And he thought that wasn't good enough?

  Zoro nodded slowly. "You're the captain. If you say we need more training, we need more training."

  "We should get as much preparation for the Grand Line as we can while we're still in the East Blue." Luffy looked at Nami. "We can still make another stop after this isnd. Your home is probably what, two weeks away? Maybe less with good winds."

  Nami's heart lurched.

  Cocoyasi Vilge. Arlong Park. Eight years of svery and pain and hope and despair.

  She wanted to go now. Right now. She wanted to grab this strange, terrifying boy and drag him to her isnd and point him at Arlong and watch what happened. She wanted it over. She wanted to be free.

  But she looked at his face and saw nothing. No expression. No emotion. Just that bnk, empty calm that had appeared during the fight and hadn't quite faded.

  "I know I can beat Arlong," Luffy said quietly. "Him and his whole crew. That's not the question. The question is what comes after. The Grand Line has monsters that make fishmen look like children. These preparations aren't for Arlong. They're for beyond."

  Nami swallowed her protests.

  "Fine," she said. "Another week."

  Luffy nodded. Then he reached down, grabbed the sack of treasure, and slung it over his shoulder like it weighed nothing. His eyes found Nami again, and this time there was warmth in them. The pervert was back.

  "So," he said, grinning. "We need a pce to stay tonight. Somewhere comfortable. Somewhere with a bed. A big bed. You know any pces like that?"

  Nami's eye twitched. "I've been hiding in ruins for two days. How would I know?"

  "Too bad." Luffy's grin widened. "Maybe we'll have to share."

  "Absolutely not."

  "I'm very warm. Great cuddler. Ask Zoro."

  Zoro, who had been trying to fade into the background, sighed. "We don't share beds. We don't cuddle. Don't drag me into this."

  Luffy ughed. "Come on, Nami. One night. You and me. I'll show you things that'll make you forget all about Arlong."

  Nami's face went red. "I am NOT sleeping with you!"

  "Not sleeping, necessarily. There are other activities."

  "I KNOW WHAT YOU MEANT!"

  Luffy's ugh echoed off the ruined buildings. He walked past her, treasure sack bouncing against his back, heading toward the part of town that still had standing structures.

  "Come on," he called back. "Let's find food. I'm starving. Fighting makes me hungry. Flirting makes me hungry. Everything makes me hungry."

  Zoro fell into step behind him, gncing at Nami as he passed. "You get used to it."

  Nami stood frozen for a moment, watching them go. The pervert and the swordsman. The captain who could switch from empty-eyed killer to giggling idiot in the space of a heartbeat.