After parting from Garp, the Oro Jackson caught the wind and slid back into the open blue.
It felt as if that storm had rinsed the air. Everything on deck was bright and crisp.
"Oi. Fat target dead ahead." Pitam whistled from the crow's nest.
Heads popped over the rail. A gaudy pirate ship squatted in their lane, vulgar as a neon sign. The figurehead was a grinning skull plastered with cheap gemstones that flashed in the sun with all the dignity of tin foil.
"Kūhahahaha. Just what I needed. Hands, limber up." Roger laughed and did not so much as think about giving way.
What followed was less a battle than a municipal collection run.
The enemy captain had time to shout only "Hand over your treasure" before a lazy pressure cut from Silvers Rayleigh raised a wave and face-planted him onto his own deck.
The survivors never formed a line. Scopper Gaban, Nozdon, and the rest mowed them down like autumn weeds.
Thirty minutes later the Oro Jackson's planks were heaped with prizes. Gold and gems. Crates of rum. Smoked hams. Curios of every stripe.
"We are rich. We are rich." Buggy sprawled across a mound of belli, eyes sparkling to the point of medical concern. "Mine. All mine. No touching."
"Hey, Buggy, what is this?" Shanks lifted the lid of an especially gaudy box and cradled something inside.
A fruit. Deep purple from stem to tip, its skin carved with concentric swirls, every bulge looking like it had been neatly sliced and stuck back together. There was a geometric eeriness to it.
"Ugh. That color is rude." Buggy pinched his red nose. "Put it away. It has to be poisonous."
"A Devil Fruit?" Rayleigh adjusted his glasses, studied it, and shook his head. "Not in the catalog."
Sailors gathered, pointing and guessing.
"Those lines are making me dizzy."
"Bet it gives you the runs."
Kael Grylls shouldered in, took one look, and a knowing smile flickered in his gold eyes.
So it finally shows up.
"If I am not mistaken," he cleared his throat, catching every ear, "that is the Chop-Chop Fruit."
"Chop-Chop?" Roger poked the fruit with a finger. "Sounds unlucky. What does it do?"
"Simple." Kael's gaze slid across the crowd and came to rest on Buggy. His mouth tilted. "Eat it and you can separate your body at will into pieces. Also, any cutting attack does nothing to you."
"Immune to slashes?"
That line detonated like a shell. Half the crew were swordsmen. They knew exactly what those four words meant.
Shanks reacted first. He looked from the fruit to his hip, where his sword hung.
Roger barked a laugh. "Kūhahahaha. Interesting. But I do not need a parlor trick. Using Haki to blast blade and man together, now that is romance."
Gaban shook his head. "I swing axes to feel them bite. If it does not bite, where is the fun."
Set in their ways and strong enough to stay that way, no one reached for the thing. As for Shanks, his dream was to conquer the seas with blade and Haki like Captain. No contest.
The Oro Jackson did not need money. Selling the fruit for petty cash would be a chore.
So the rare prize sat there, awkward and unwanted.
"If nobody wants it, I will toss it." Shanks grinned and pantomimed a throw.
"Wait." A voice cracked.
Buggy scrambled out of the money pile, eyes locked on the purple fruit. His breathing went rough.
He had heard it cleanly. Immune to slashes.
Kael stepped in like a patient devil, hand on Buggy's shoulder, his voice a velvet hook. "Buggy, picture it."
He coaxed. "Shanks lifts that smug sword. You split with a thought and the blade kisses air. Then your parts hit him from angles he cannot dream of. The look on his face. Chef's kiss."
Buggy's throat bobbed. His eyes began to flicker.
Kael poured it on. "Treasure hunts. Narrow holes. You disassemble and slip right in. Chest on a cliff. Your hand flies up and takes it. Hide most of yourself, scout with a foot or a palm. Safe and efficient. This is a signature skill tailored for a future treasure king."
"Signature skill…" Buggy whispered. In his mind he was already a god striding through vaults, traps and blades doing nothing, Shanks hopping behind him in futile rage.
"I will eat it." He snatched the fruit from Shanks. Ambition and hunger flared in his eyes.
"Buggy, that looks nasty," Shanks warned.
"For treasure and the future, I endure."
He braced, shut his eyes like a man downing poison, and bit deep.
His face immediately puckered into a painter's palette. Features bunched. Tears and snot sprang free.
"Geh. What is that taste. Geh."
He dry-heaved to a chorus of laughter.
"Kūhahahaha. Buggy, that face is a masterpiece." Roger slapped his thigh.
When the tide of nausea ebbed, Buggy wiped his eyes. Something new sat in his body, humming.
He stood hands on hips, picked a pose he thought was devastatingly cool, and crooked a finger at Shanks.
"Shanks. Behold the real power of Captain Buggy."
"Idiot." Shanks sighed, but curiosity drew his blade anyway.
"Watch closely." Buggy drew a breath and bellowed, "Feast your eyes on the man who cannot be cut."
Shanks flicked his wrist. A clean arc of steel bit for Buggy's waist.
"Ahhh." Buggy screamed and squeezed his eyes shut.
No pain arrived.
He peeked and found his upper half floating while his legs remained standing on deck. Shanks's blade had passed neatly through the empty air at his middle.
Silence. Then the deck exploded.
"It really split."
"Buggy, your legs are still down here."
Buggy stared at his hovering torso, then at his feet, and his brain blue-screened for three long seconds.
Joy detonated.
"I did it. I really did it. Hahaha." He tried on Roger's signature laugh, which came out thin and squeaky. "Shanks, did you see. Your sword is useless."
His upper half spun in giddy loops, then lunged to body-check Shanks out of the sky.
"Die, redhead."
"Now we are talking." Shanks' eyes sharpened. He slid back and let the airborne tackle swish past.
Fight on.
New power lit Buggy like dry tinder. He came apart into confetti. Hands became flying fists, feet skittered across planks, his floating trunk jockeyed for angles. The attack became a three-dimensional circus.
"Take this. Chop-Chop Flying Fist."
"Chop-Chop Carnival."
Bits of Buggy whipped through the air. Knives and forks clattered up and joined the barrage. The scene turned gloriously, stupidly messy.
At first Shanks did scramble. More than once a stray hand almost hooked his back.
"How about it, Shanks. Kneel." Buggy's head bobbed at eye level, crowing. "Before the might of my fruit, your precious swordplay is a joke."
"Is it." Shanks' breath steadied. His gaze narrowed to a needle. "Your show is flashy, Buggy, but the openings are everywhere."
He blurred forward, ignored the buzzing fists and ankles, and went straight for the striped socks that had remained planted like a command tower.
"What." Buggy's eyes went wide.
He had forgotten. His feet could not fly.
Shanks reached the mark. He did not swing. He simply hooked a toe behind Buggy's ankle and tugged.
Plop.
The standing feet toppled.
The moment they did, it was like yanking a plug. Control cut out across every floating piece.
Heads, trunk, arms, thighs, all lost power mid-preen and rained down in a clattering cascade, rolling into a single mortifying pile.
Silence fell again.
One beat.
"Pfft. Hahahahahaha."
"My sides. Kūhahahaha."
"Buggy, you split four ways and ate the floor."
Roger was crying, crouched and helpless with laughter. Rayleigh's shoulders shook behind a polite hand.
Shanks stepped up to the heap and touched his sword tip to Buggy's still-smoking nose, a grin he could not suppress tugging his mouth. "Hey, Buggy. You lost."
"Damn it."
The roar came from somewhere inside the junk pile, raw with shame and unwillingness.
He had been seconds away. He could feel it. He had driven Shanks into a corner. How did he lose because he tripped himself.
It is good. Truly good.
The future Emperor Red-Haired and the future Warlord Buggy, that lifelong bond of rivals and knuckleheaded friends turned another page on the deck of the Oro Jackson today.
The opening lines, of course, were written in pure slapstick.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Don't forget to add this story to your Library, drop a review, and leave a Power Stone if you enjoyed it!
If you're itching to see what happens next, check out the advanced chapters on my Patron!
[email protected]/_theon
Change @ to "a"