Free Heart

Ch. 16 - I am a Little Liar.

Instead of heading towards empty fields or the town, Emmy dashed straight into the forest that surrounded the island. Jango was hot on her heels and had managed to pick up the chakram that he had accidentally sent flying towards Captain Kuro.

She wove around the tree trunks, making sure he could not get a clear shot of throwing his blade at her again. The hypnotist was onto her, though, and he swung his chakram around him, cutting cleanly through the surrounding trees.

Emmy gasped and hurriedly scrambled out of the way to avoid the falling trees. Some of the longer branches scraped across her body as they crashed to the ground, cutting through her skin and clothes, but the pain did not make Emmy hesitate in the slightest and she just kept running while she figured out what to do next.

"Stop running, you stupid brat!"

"Stop chasing me, you stupid hypnotist!" Emmy replied as she turned just briefly to throw more cards in his face to keep the distance between the two.

"AH! Stop that!" He leapt to the side, darting behind a severed tree trunk. When he poked his head out and got back on the trail, Emmy was nowhere to be found.

"Eh? Where did you go?"

Emmy held her breath as much as she could despite her desire to pant and gasp for air. She hid along a high branch in a still standing tree. Living with Luffy in a forest covered mountains for 2 years had it's merits. The art of tree climbing was one of them. How to hide from a dangerous predator was another.

She watched the hypnotist through the leaves. He had his chakram out and he was looking angrily around him. "Where are you, you little runt?!" he shouted, "Don't think I'll go easy on you just because you're a brat. I'll do more than put you to sleep."

Emmy's eyes widened. Sleep! That's it!

She slowly removed her headband and tucked it in her apron pocket. From the corner of her eyes, she saw the cuts and scrapes along her hands and arms begin to close but she kept her attention focused on Jango as she drew out another hand of cards.

Thwack! Thwack! Thwack!

She sent the cards flying through the leaves and branches towards the hypnotist. They landed by his feet and missing him by just a few inches. He smiled victoriously over in her direction. "There, huh?"

Shing!

He threw out his chakram and cut through the tree she was standing on as well as the ones behind her. The tree pitched forward and hurriedly, Emmy ran along the branch towards the tip of the tree. Before the entire tree crashed to the ground, she kicked herself off and into the air. She sailed over Jango and landed right behind him.

"What?" he gasped.

"Feel Feel Repose!" Emmy shouted as she put her hand to the back of his head.

ZZZZZZZ!

Jango fell into a deep sleep while Emmy gave a nod of satisfaction. "I'm sorry, Jango-san," she said, although not feeling apologetic in the slightest, "I should've mentioned I'm sort of a hypnotist myself."

She reached into her pocket to grab her headband and her fingers brushed up against the deck of cards again. She pulled both of them out and looked contemplatively at them. She put her headband back on her head and took the top card from the deck. It was an 8 of clubs.

She held it up between her index and middle finger before flipping it between her other fingers, like a coin. Then she held it still when it returned to her index and middle finger, studying as if seeing it for the first time.