Seeing the black-haired woman in purple did not respond and feeling no malice from her, Tom decided finding Usopp was more urgent. He lightly patted Karoo's head, signaling the duck to keep running forward.
"Don't come near me."
Sensing Tom on Karoo approaching from behind, the woman in the purple fedora slightly turned her head toward him. Her tone of voice carried a consistently cold, detached feeling.
With her back to him, her partially turned face was hidden in the darkness, making her expression impossible to see. Yet, Tom could still sense the warning in her words.
In truth, this woman simply didn't want Tom to discover Igaram—whom she had secretly knocked out shortly before—lying nearby. If Tom came closer, he would likely see the unconscious Igaram in a dark corner.
"Are you joking? This road isn't yours. If you don't bother me, I won't care what you're doing."
Tom was in a hurry to find Usopp and paid no heed to the woman's words, continuing forward on Karoo.
But as Karoo ran, it tripped over something, stumbled, and sent Tom tumbling off its back.
With a thud, Tom was thrown. Though unhurt, as he fell to the ground, he glimpsed what looked like a man in women's white shorts lying in a dark corner to the left. He instinctively thought it was Igaram.
However, when Tom stood up and looked again at the spot where Igaram had lain, there was nothing there. He thought it was a trick of his eyes and rubbed them, but still saw nothing.
Weird. That shouldn't have been an illusion.
Tom had a deep impression of Igaram's cross-dressing appearance and didn't think he was mistaken.
"Hey, you didn't do something to that curly-haired uncle with the... unique tastes, did you?"
Tom's head was fuzzy, but after thinking carefully, he realized Igaram had vanished from his sight after he went to get Karoo. Though he'd ridden forward on the duck, he hadn't seen Igaram again, making him suspicious of this woman who suddenly appeared.
"I don't know what you're talking about."
The same calm and cold voice replied as the black-haired woman slowly turned around.
"Ahem, ahem, ahem!"
Tom lowered his head and coughed rapidly to cover up his awkwardness. He was now trying his best to suppress his hiccups to avoid feeling even more embarrassed.
Not wanting to waste more time, Tom steeled himself, put on a fierce expression, and lifted his head to speak. But before he could utter a word, he heard the woman across from him give a soft laugh.
"Hehe. You're from the Straw Hat Pirates, aren't you?"
"What if I am?"
Tom's expression gradually grew serious. His right hand instinctively moved toward the fishing rod on his left arm sheath. While he knew nothing about this woman, she had identified him, making him feel constrained and inexplicably irritated.
Since setting sail, aside from feeling pressure from Nami, Tom had never been at a disadvantage with another woman. But facing this black-haired woman, he felt a pressure entirely different from Nami's.
Nami made Tom keenly aware of her terrifying nature with direct iron fists. But the pressure from this woman stemmed from the mystery hidden in the darkness behind her. The unknown was always the most frightening.
"You're going to be in a lot of trouble, getting involved with that princess."
As the black-haired woman said this, her tone was like that of a kind and gentle next-door sister.
But Tom didn't believe for a second she was offering a friendly warning. The moment he pulled the fishing rod from his left arm sheath but before he could grip it firmly, the rod was knocked from his hand as if struck, clattering to the ground.
"You're a Devil Fruit user?"
Tom saw the woman was still over twenty meters away, yet his rod had been knocked down. He frowned. "Who we get involved with is none of your business! But if you're one of Crocodile's people, I'd better take you out now!"
Kicking the rod up from the ground, Tom caught it mid-air and charged at the woman. But after only a few steps, he felt something grab his foot. Losing his balance, he fell flat on the ground.
"What's going on?"
Tom had genuinely felt like a hand had yanked his foot. But looking at the spot, the ground was empty—no shadow of a hand to be seen.
Most importantly, why would hands appear out of nowhere from the ground to trip him?
Tom was already severely drunk, and now he was utterly bewildered.
Was it her doing?
Before Tom could even see the woman's face clearly, she turned and drifted away, leaving only a graceful back view. Like a lotus sinking into water, she gradually vanished into the darkness, completely disappearing from sight.
The black-haired woman quickly vanished from Tom's view.
"Who was that woman? She said we'd definitely see her in Alabasta, but she didn't even give her name. How are we supposed to find her?"
Tom brushed the dust off his clothes and stood up, stroking his chin and tilting his head as he tried to think with his alcohol-addled brain. He came to a conclusion. "So she's an idiot."
"I knew a woman couldn't be that monstrous, suppressing me at every turn. She was just putting on an act. Now I'm not afraid of her. Hahahaha!"
Believing he had discovered the truth, Tom laughed triumphantly. After this sigh, he ignored the departed woman, looked around the area once more without finding any trace of Igaram, concluded he had indeed hallucinated, and hastily mounted Karoo to continue forward.
Some time later, Tom finally reached the place Igaram had said Usopp was being held.
"Hmm, there are quite a few buildings here. Searching them one by one would be too troublesome."
Tom had tried calling out a few times but got no response from Usopp. Not wanting to waste more time, he came up with a bright idea.
The buildings before him were arranged in rows of five connected houses, twenty buildings in total, all single-story.
Tom combined his two fishing rods and then leaped up, swinging them in a wide arc to smash through the roofs of five houses in a row, violently tearing the rooftops apart.
Then he jumped again, delivering a powerful kick to the outermost edge of the roof. With a thunderous crash, he sent the entire roof of the five houses flying.
With the roofs gone and his vision unobstructed, Tom used his elongated rod to pole-vault upward, getting a clear view inside all five houses.
Seeing no sign of his target, he dropped down from the rod and proceeded to dismantle more roofs in the same manner.
On his second attempt, Tom successfully found the iron cage Igaram had mentioned. According to him, Usopp was locked in a secret room beneath it.
After some effort extracting the still-sleeping Usopp, Tom tossed the long-nosed man onto Karoo's back, mounted the duck himself, and hurried toward the Going Merry.
As Tom rode Karoo back with Usopp, the black-haired woman who had been hiding in the shadows glanced at the utterly wrecked buildings. "What a reckless person."
"How foolish, trying to lure me out with bait."
As she said this, the woman seemingly casually glanced toward another corner. Then she strolled to the shore, looked at the ship that had been Igaram's, and allowed another charming smile to touch her lips—though this one held a different, hidden meaning.
"Ah? Why am I here?"
Usopp, jostled awake on Karoo's back, saw Tom and managed to ask before an abrupt turn sent him flying off with a terrified shriek.
Noticing Usopp's fall, Tom quickly used the net launcher on his right wrist to reel him back in. Seeing the fishing line had stuck to Usopp, Tom turned his attention back to the path ahead. "Stop yelling. There's an emergency. We need to leave immediately, so just be quiet."
No sooner had he spoken than Usopp cooperatively fell silent. Tom thought happily that the guy was really getting it. He completely failed to notice that the Usopp he'd reeled in had been unfortunately flung into a wall by another sharp turn from Karoo and knocked unconscious, hence the silence.
Some time later, Tom on Karoo finally reached the Going Merry. Seeing Usopp seemingly sleeping soundly, Tom remarked with astonishment, "This guy really has no nerves. Waking up and then falling back asleep in such a short time... enviable."
Not long after, Zoro returned as well.
Tom sincerely suspected Zoro had gotten lost, otherwise how could he be slower? But he didn't voice it this time. Perhaps due to the alcohol, he was starting to feel unwell. Telling Zoro he needed to rest, he went into the ship's cabin.
When Zoro returned and saw Tom and the duck had boarded before him, he thought that if Tom dared mention him getting lost, he'd beat the crap out of him first. Fortunately, Tom didn't come to give him "trouble," which Zoro was more than happy about. Even if Tom hadn't mentioned resting, Zoro wouldn't have minded helping him "rest."
While Luffy went to find Sanji, Nami and Vivi ran toward the port where the Going Merry was docked, also searching for Karoo.
Vivi found it strange. Normally, Karoo would come running when she whistled. But after whistling several times with no sign of the duck, she grew anxious.
Searching all the way to the port yielded no trace of Karoo. Nami told Vivi to stop looking and focus on leaving quickly.
But Vivi insisted. "But I can't leave him here. He's very important to me."
Zoro, on the ship, saw Vivi and Nami seemingly arguing on the shore and asked what was wrong.
Upon learning Vivi was looking for a super spot-billed duck, Zoro pointed to Karoo standing beside him. "Are you looking for this guy? He got here before I did."
"So there you are!"
Nami and Vivi were furious to see Karoo on the ship, quacking and flapping its wings in greeting. They'd spent so much time searching, only to find Karoo had beaten them back to the ship.
Vivi told Nami that by sailing the ship upstream a short way, they'd find a tributary allowing them to enter the Grand Line sooner.
As Nami told Zoro to prepare for departure, a loud explosion suddenly erupted from the sea in the distance. Flames lit up the water's surface, reflecting red across hundreds of meters of sea as if dyed in blood. The fiercely burning flames illuminated the night like daylight. Even from afar, one could feel the wave of scorching heat, a testament to the explosion's power.
"That direction... it's Igaram's ship..."
Vivi stood frozen on the shore, her voice faint, tinged with despair. Her eyes were fixed on the ship burning fiercely on the distant sea. Her face went pale, her expression blank, momentarily dazed. The night breeze stirred the few blue strands of hair on her forehead, yet she felt a bone-chilling cold. Her pupils clearly reflected the image of the blazing ship. Her slender shoulders began to tremble uncontrollably.
Elsewhere, Luffy had just dragged a comfortably sleeping Sanji out of the tavern—forcing him to crash through a wall in the process. When the deafening explosion echoed from the distant sea, Luffy paused. Then he exhaled a heavy breath through his nostrils, his expression turning extremely solemn. In a rare, exceptionally serious tone, he shouted, "That curly-haired uncle... he was truly great!"
After shouting, Luffy began dragging the still-protesting Sanji rapidly toward the Going Merry. Poor Sanji, not understanding what was happening, had his head knocked about dizzily the whole way and was momentarily speechless.
"How is this possible? Did pursuers catch up already?"
Nami urgently told Zoro to lower the sails to be ready to depart. She grabbed the still-stunned Vivi, who was staring at the fiery red blaze on the distant sea, but found she couldn't make Vivi budge no matter how hard she pulled.
"Vivi, let's go! If we're discovered too, his sacrifice will be for nothing!"
Nami spoke anxiously to Vivi, but Vivi just stared at the flame-engulfed ship on the distant sea, not speaking, holding her breath, lips pressed tightly together. A trickle of bright red blood seeped from the corner of her mouth—she had bitten through her lip. Yet her grief-stricken expression remained unchanged. No pain could make her react, for her nerves were numbed by the heart-wrenching agony within.
In Vivi's heart, Igaram, who had grown up with her, had always been someone reliable, trustworthy. She had always believed he would return to Alabasta with her to save their country together.
But now, Igaram had died before her eyes. The pain was as if her heart had been stabbed hundreds of times, unbearable, devastating. But she could not cry. She could not show a hint of weakness before others. She even forced back the tears welling in her eyes, not letting a single drop fall.
Losing a loved one before one's eyes—for anyone else, wailing and weeping would be normal. But not for Vivi. The burden she carried was too heavy, so heavy it had robbed her of the right to cry.
Seeing Vivi forcibly enduring grief and pain yet having to appear strong, Nami's heart clenched. As someone who had once lived bearing the lives of an entire village, she understood Vivi's position better than anyone. Without thinking, she pulled Vivi into a hug, letting Vivi's head rest on her shoulder. It was both comfort and a promise as she said with firm determination, "Don't worry. We will get you safely back to the Alabasta Kingdom!"
"Don't judge them by how they seem. With just a few people, they saved the entire East Blue!"
As Nami said this, Tom lay in the Going Merry's cabin ready to sleep, Usopp was unconscious on the deck, Zoro was efficiently lowering the sails, and Luffy was still dragging the thoroughly battered and speechless Sanji toward the ship.
"You saw how Tom spoke to Crocodile, right? Even after the captain found out, he didn't say anything against it, did he?"
Nami spoke confidently into the ear of Vivi, whose head rested on her shoulder. "Don't be afraid. We'll protect you! Baroque Works? Crocodile? The Seven Warlords? They don't care about any of them!"
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T/N :
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