Exulansis • One Piece

Chapter Twenty-Two

Zoro drops the Mr. Eight and Ms. Monday over a building, dusting his hands off to say "Glad that's over."

He slides his katanas back into the scabbard as he widened at his eyes at the site of a bottle of alcohol, and I roll my wrist in soreness, I probably I messed it up whenever I punched Ms. Wednesday.

I looked from behind and saw that Zoro gotten his hands on a glass of rum and was downing it without care of the events that just took place. I guess the apple doesn't stray to far from the crew. Ontop the bar of the building I looked over the scene of Whiskey Peak.

It was quite now, very quite. Just as it should've been, considering the moon was well over the middle of the sky now. It must've been at least 3am.

"Your just gonna stand there? I have an extra bottle of rum if you want it." Zoro offers, although he didn't seem as willing to give it up as he looked. I shook my head, "Not old enough to drink yet."

"Hah? You meant that? I thought you were just saying that as an excuse." He takes another swig. "Whatever, more for me."

I look down at my fists to see the red of irritation, and thought of patching it up later. It was funny, before I could finish healing up from the last fight I've already made more wounds.

Zoro stops drinking for a moment to look down the path below. "Did you hear something?" He asks, and I look down at the path with him. At first I was ready to say no, because I hadn't, but before I could the silhouette of two people emerged from behind a building at the very end of the road, one with an umbrella and the other with a long coat.

The two emerge fully from the shadows and suddenly Whiskey Peak wasn't quite done yet. If I could listen closely, I could hear one of them talking to the mayor below. I frowned, "It sounds like more trouble." And Zoro hummed in agreement.

The woman and man, with had a number five imprinted into his coat, started to make conversation with Mr. Eight. And by reasonable deduction, it seems like someone of higher power came. "He probably is back-up or something." I note, and Zoro aggressively sighs, "I don't wanna deal with more people when I'm tryna enjoy my drink."

I take a closer listen, once tuning everything out I was able to hear the woman saying something like, "You honestly believe we came to the edge of the Grand Line to be backup for a pesky swordsman? Kyahahaha!"

Never mind.

"You must realize that there has to be a crime severe enough for the boss to personally send us here..." Her partner spoke, and by his coat and an educated guess I would say he goes by Mr. Five.

At the corner of my eye I see Ms. Wendesday and her duck had regained consciousness, and both had placed a hand (and wing) to rub gently at the sore spot on their face.

"The bosses direct words were 'My secret had been found out.' We have no idea what that secret might be... but a known policy is secrecy, that nobody is allowed to pry into the real identities of the members..."

I blink, leaning almost completely forward in order to hear more, so much so that Zoro had grabbed onto my collar to keep me from falling. I didn't realize until I felt the force of being held up how entranced by the drama I was.

I didn't think of it, continuing to listen in.

"After some time to investigate, we found that our ranks were infiltrated by a certain kingdom." I widened my eyes, it was getting good.

"This isn't good, we better bounce before we get caught in the middle of this." He stands up, and I get brought up with him. "Wait a second-"

"The spy we mentioned came from the kingdom Alabasta-"