-Chapter One Hundred and Sixteen-
"What's your problem?" Luffy frowned, clearly starting to become annoyed with the way the sharpshooter was acting.
"I'm nervous..." Usopp mumbled in admittance.
"What? No—could have fooled me" I gasped, feigning surprise.
"No need to be so sarcastic about it..." he grumbled, frowning as he shot a small glare my way which I only responded to by sticking my tongue out.
"Yeah, fine—we have somewhere dangerous to go!" Luffy cheered, quick to wave off Usopp's feelings without a care in the world, his excitement seemingly taking top priority as he eagerly began to jump in place at the prospect of going somewhere forbidden. "I can't just sit on this beach and wait for the wind to blow any longer!" without a second thought, he grabbed the broken Sky Waver we had found and jumped off the ship.
"Hey, Luffy, what's that thing you're carrying?" Usopp questioned.
"Isn't that the broken Sky Waver we found?" I asked.
"Oh no, it is, isn't it?" Usopp groaned at the realization that I was right. "You'll get yourself killed!" he snapped at the captain.
"Here I come!" Luffy screamed at the top of his lungs, running straight toward the cloudy ocean, causing Usopp and Chopper to start freaking out.
"Dumbass!" I snapped when he jumped onto the rundown waver, only to instantly be flung right off and into the clouds due to throwing it completely off balance.
"What an idiot" Zoro frowned.
"How could he possibly not know that was going to happen?" Usopp grumbled.
"So...uh...does anyone want to save him?" Chopper asked as we watched our captain slowly sink beneath the clouds and out of sight.
"Let him drown" Zoro, Usopp, and Sanji glared.
"Go out there and get him before he drowns to death" I heavily sighed while lightly smacking Zoro's shoulder. Grumbling, I watched as he dived into the cloudy water and retrieved our idiotic captain.
"Man, you're such a pain, you know?" he grumbled once he resurfaced, now dragging a bloated Luffy back onto the shore behind him. Dropping the captain, he harshly pressed his foot down on the rubber man's inflated stomach, forcing him to spit back up all the water he had accidentally inhaled after sinking.
"Oh look, a rainbow" I whistled as the light that reflected off of the water Luffy was spitting out created a small rainbow.
"So, this is your own waver?" Pagaya asked as he now examined the broken Sky Waver that Luffy had attempted to use. "You should take better care of it" he chastised after getting a good look at its rough condition.
"It's not ours, we found it like that" Usopp explained, making it clear that the waver's damaged state wasn't our fault.
"It's also two hundred years old" I added.
"Would you like for me to look at it?" Pagaya asked. "Assuming it's fixable, I should be able to do that for you."
"How would you know how to fix it?" Luffy curiously asked once he was able to properly speak.
"I'm an engineer who specializes in dial ships, so this I should know" Pagaya answered.
"That's neat" I said.
"Yeah, really—then what are you waiting for?!" Luffy excitedly grinned before he was forced to spit out more water. "Get to work, old man!" he garbled out through the stream of water that he was currently spewing.
"Maybe you should be gentler" I suggested, watching as the swordsman pressed his foot down harder against the captain's stomach.
"Nah, he's fine" he shook his head, pressing down even harder as if to hurry up and get the last of the water out of the captain's bloated stomach.
Time passed rather slowly as we patiently waited for Pagaya to finish fixing up the Sky Waver to the point that many were already starting to grow bored with just standing around. From the corner of my eye, I mindlessly watched as Usopp and Chopper started to play in the clouds as if it was snow.
"Beat this one, Usopp" Chopper grinned, chest proudly puffing out as he stood beside the snowman he had finished constructing out of clouds—it wasn't anything spectacular, yet it was still adorable nonetheless.
"Good job!" I happily clapped, causing the reindeer's grin to turn bashful as he started to happily giggle at the praise.
"I don't think that will be a problem, see, my clouds sculpture's so good it should be in a museum!" Usopp suddenly boasted as he held out his arms to showcase the masterpiece he had finished creating.
"That's amazing!" Chopper gasped in awe upon seeing the sculpture.
"I didn't know you had such artistic talent, Usopp" I whistled in amazement as I examined the sculpture he had made of the crew, impressed with how accurate the details almost were. "I knew you were creative, but this really takes the cake" I smiled, chuckling at the way he cockily grinned as he proudly puffed out his chest.
"Well, you know—"
"That's the worst-looking art I've ever seen!" Sanji harshly cut Usopp off with a sneer before he could even start to boast about his talent. I winced as he brought up his foot and struck the sharpshooter in the face before setting to work on destroying his cloud sculpture. "This is what I think of your uninspired work!" I frowned, not pleased with the blonde's aggressive behavior as Usopp now clung to his leg, crying.
"Hey, Sanji..." I muttered, my heart painfully twisting up inside my chest as the sight suddenly reminded me of the time Sora had crawled on his hands and knees—sobbing as he begged the older boys on the island to give him his artwork back. It had been around the time we had first arrived, left to steal and struggle to survive long before we had been offered the job at the restaurant and given the chance to earn money...
I could still hear the pain in his voice as they burned the childish artwork he had made for Cloud's birthday that day into ashes.
"Please! Please, just give them back—they're a gift for my brother!"
"A gift for that shitty brother of yours? His standards must be low if you think this godawful artwork would make a great gift!"
"Ha! What's wrong with you? Crying over a bunch of paper—just make more, you freak!"
"Stop that! Leave him alone—what did he ever do to you?!"
"Look, the crybaby's sister came to save him! Get lost, bitch—you and your brothers are nothing but trouble for this island! Why should we show any mercy to a bunch of lowlife thieves like you?!"
"What we do is none of your business, just give Sora his pictures back and we'll leave!"
"Hm, let me think—nah. I think I'll burn them instead, it has been getting pretty cold lately."
"What?!"
"Please! No, you don't understand! Stop!"
"Skylar?" I rapidly blinked as my vision slowly came back into focus, not realizing I had rushed over to the blond and wrapped an arm around his raised leg to keep him from stomping on the remains of whatever was left of Usopp's sculpture. Hesitantly looking up at him, I blushed upon realizing what I had done as I slowly released my grip on his leg and stood up. Awkwardly clearing my throat as I did so.
"I know you're worried, but destroying Usopp's artwork isn't going to help—just don't think about the bad and instead think optimistically, for all we know, Nami is probably safe and well" I softly said, trying to reason with the blond. Avoiding eye contact, I looked down as I silently excused myself and wandered away from the confused trio who stared after me. I ignored their stares along with the intense one Robin was now giving me as I boarded the ship before stopping at the area where Zoro was currently resting peacefully. 'Stupid' my lips twisted up into a irritated scowl as I now fiddled with the hem of my tank top, embarrassment burning hot on my face and down my neck at realizing how silly I must have looked...
But I couldn't just ignore how devastated Usopp had looked while Sanji was so carelessly destroying his artwork out of anger...
"So, can you fix it?" Luffy asked—he, Pagaya, and Conis blissfully unaware of everything else as they focused on fixing the broken waver.
"I've never seen parts like these before" Pagaya admitted as he continued to examine the waver.
"Come on, just fix it already!" Luffy impatiently begged, restlessly jumping from foot to foot as he slowly started to work himself up.
"I'm sorry, but until I have a chance to look at this closer, I don't know if I can fix it" Pagaya apologized.
"Will you at least try?" Luffy asked.
"Yes, of course" Pagaya nodded as I finally risked a chance to look at what the others were now doing. Sanji, Usopp, and Chopper had already gone back to what they had been doing before I had unintentionally interrupted...though, occasionally, I watched as they would mumble to one another as if speaking about something that they didn't want anyone else to hear. Looking away from them and over toward Robin, I flinched when our gazes locked before relaxing when she quickly averted her own gaze elsewhere.
"Looks like we got company!" Luffy suddenly shouted, causing everyone to whip their heads in the direction he was pointing. Raising an eyebrow, we watched as a bunch of strange men descended the stairs and came down onto the beach.
"You there, on the beach, don't move!" one of the men ordered.
"Does he mean...mean us?" Luffy questioned, looking around for any form of confirmation.
"Who else is on the beach beside us?" I asked, watching as he shrugged in response.
"Hey...uh...are they crawling?" Sanji hesitantly asked as the men suddenly dropped down onto their stomachs and began to crawl across the beach to get to us instead of continuing to walk toward us like normal people.
"Who knows? I mean, they've obviously got issues" Usopp shrugged.
"Cause they're crawling around like crabs?" Chopper innocently asked. With a tired and heavy sigh, Zoro, Robin, and I were quick to climb back down onto the beach so that we could join the rest and properly face these strange men now approaching us.
"White Berets, halt!" one of the men, most likely the leader, ordered.
"Heso!" all the men greeted.
"Heso" Conis greeted right back.
"Heso, gentlemen" Pagaya followed, doing the same as his daughter.
"Speak our language, we can't understand you!" Luffy grounded out, clearly irritated with the group and how they seemed to almost refuse to use a normal greeting such as hello like the rest of us.
"Luffy, this is their homeland, the way they speak is fine" I softly scolded, causing the captain to cross his arms and turn his head as he now grumbled with a pout.
"What are they?" Zoro asked, grabbing my hand and gently tugging me closer behind him as if worried about the possibility of these strangers being a threat.
"Judging by their similar uniforms and stance formation, I can honestly assume that they're soldiers and probably this place's form of the Marines" I deduced after taking a moment or two to really look at the outfits the men wore and how they were behaving.
"Usopp said they have issues" Chopper piped up.
"Well, obviously" I nodded.
"Well, look what we have here" the leader of the group said, his eyes carefully scanning each and every one of us. "You must be the Blue Sea dwellers who have illegally entered the sacred land of Skypiea—prepare to have the weight of Heaven's Judgement brought down upon you" he glared.
"You're calling them criminals?!" Pagaya questioned in shock.
"Illegal entry? What's that?" Luffy asked.
"Let's just say it's not good..." Pagaya mumbled.
"Basically, it means we've entered this place without permission—we're trespassers who shouldn't be here" I explained, causing the captain to nod.
"Don't waste your breath making excuses, Amazon—the woman who stands at these very gates—captured these images using her Vision Dial" the leader said, holding up pictures of us.
"No, wait, that can't be" Pagaya argued. "I think this is all a big misunderstanding, Captain McKinley, they're not the criminals you're making them out to be" he assured the man, quickly trying to settle the man down before anything bad could happen.
"What do you mean by illegal entry?" Sanji asked, not quite following along with what the man was saying.
"Does this have to do with that ridiculous 1,000,000,000 extols entrance fee? Because we didn't pay her a thing" Robin said.
"But didn't that old lady say we didn't have to pay it?" Usopp asked. "It's not like she tried to stop us" he quickly pointed out.
"Yeah, that's true" Chopper agreed.
"That's the point" I frowned. "The matter of the fact is that it didn't matter that she couldn't stop us, we still had to pay the fee if we wanted to be here legally" I explained as my blood slowly started to boil when I realized what had happened as I was reminded of back home and that stupid game the villagers liked to play. "But that's a cheap thing to do, having the old woman say that made it sound like the entrance fee wasn't all that important and was instead optional!" I huffed.
"Enough! There's no sense in trying to deny it—now fess up!" McKinley ordered. "Don't worry, you need not become panic just yet" he suddenly assured us when he saw the looks of irritation and panic on everyone's faces. "According to Heaven's Judgment, illegal entry is only an eleventh-degree crime, once you accept your punishment—which will be minimal—you'll become legal tourists on the spot and may go about your business" he explained.
"Well, you should have told us sooner" Sanji said. "But before we accept, what exactly do you have planned as far as punishment?" he asked.
"A mere slap on the wrist, all you need to do is pay ten times the entrance fee" McKinley answered. "Of course, if you pay immediately, we'll pretend this little episode never happened" he informed. "So, ten billion per person times eight people make your total 80,000,000,000 extols, cash only" he said, silently doing the math for how much was now owed.
"Wait, 80,000,000,000?! That sounds like an awful lot of money—how much is that in belis?" Usopp gaped.
"That's the currency you use in the Blue Sea World, right? Today's exchange rate is 10,000 extols per beli" McKinley said after thinking it over for a minute.
"Let's see then now...there's ten thousand and you got to carry the one..." the sharpshooter started to mumble to himself as he quietly began to do the math.