Chapter 193 — Newcomer, Watch Closely

On the Grand Line, on a certain nameless little island.

Here the magnetic fields ran wild, and a Log Pose could barely function.

Without a single competent navigator, the Straw Hat Pirates had lost their way completely.

"Hold on, let me check the chart and the terrain..."

Tashigi, once a low-ranking Navy officer, had by now blended perfectly into the Straw Hat crew.

After sharing several hardships with them, she had come to understand something.

The Straw Hats were less a pirate crew than a band of adventurers.

They never did the kind of villainy that drew heaven's wrath and man's resentment; instead, they helped whoever was in need, as far as their strength allowed.

In a crew like this, Tashigi would not have to betray the justice she held in her heart.

Besides, Roronoa Zoro, the three-sword swordsman, far outstripped her in swordsmanship, and being near him did much to sharpen her own strength.

Her time among the Straw Hats had benefited her greatly.

"This place... is very close to Water Seven!"

Tashigi pushed the frames up her nose and said softly, "We've sailed faster than expected."

"Water meat!"

Luffy, perched on the ram's head figurehead of the Going Merry, stretched his neck over in an instant.

Starry sparkles danced in his eyes, and drool streamed from his mouth.

Back at Navy Branch 153 in the East Blue, the feast Wang Xu had laid out for the Straw Hats was still vivid in Luffy's memory.

His stomach was craving that springy, juicy, delicious water meat.

"We don't have enough money left!"

Tashigi clutched her forehead, her face streaked with dark lines.

She had been handed control of the finances the moment she came aboard, and had taken it as a sign of trust, moved to the depths of her heart.

Only later did she learn what a mess she had inherited.

Every last Straw Hat was a bottomless glutton.

Just Luffy's food budget and Zoro's liquor tab alone were no small sum.

Expenses and outlays had long since outstripped income, and the deficit grew by the day.

"Ah! We're done for! Without money a man can't take a single step, and is the dream of the great warrior of the sea, Usopp, to end here?"

The long-nosed slingshot man was as despondent as Zhu Bajie of the four pilgrims bound west, sunk in hopelessness beyond all measure.

The moment he heard Tashigi's ledger, despair swallowed him whole.

Luffy grinned, laughing his carefree, happy-go-lucky laugh.

In the distance, Zoro, training his strength with giant weighted wheels, cracked one eye toward them: "The ship straightens itself when it reaches the bridge. There's always a way."

A flash of lightning, and Sanji appeared in an instant before Tashigi.

He dropped to one knee, every inch the gentleman: "Tashigi-chan, your knight Sanji is glad to shoulder your troubles."

"Curly-browed moron."

Zoro's voice came faintly from afar, barely audible.

Veins bulged on Sanji's forehead, and his face flushed crimson.

His figure flickered; a kick landed on Zoro's forearm and sent a ripple of thunder through the air: "You bastard, moss-head!"

"Hm?..."

Zoro's face went cold, and he glared back without the slightest flinch.

In an instant the two were brawling.

Tashigi had a faint feeling that she might have boarded the wrong ship.

Now that Emperor Kaido had vanished, the obscure Blackbeard Teach had suddenly, without warning, ascended to the seat of the Seven Warlords.

The world situation shifted by the day, and the seas were about to be stirred again...

Especially now.

Many who had once been weak common folk now bore the blessing of thunderous power.

A blade in hand, and the will to kill rises of itself.

Bloody conflicts across the world had multiplied more than tenfold in an instant.

Tashigi could not fathom what the great being who spoke the law into reality and preached to all under heaven had meant by such a deed.

But then, this was not something Tashigi needed to probe into.

What mattered most to her now was solving the Straw Hat Pirates' financial troubles.

...

Water Seven, the City of Water.

Eight hundred years ago, a warship named "Pluton" had been built by the shipwrights of the island.

This was the domain of ships; the waterways were enormously intricate, and beyond the flat-water transport routes there were canals running down from the city's heights.

The locals raised a creature called a "bull" as a means of waterborne transport.

Unfortunately, the impoverished Straw Hat Pirates could not afford to rent a bull at all.

Renting one even once, after all, cost a full thousand beries.

Fortunately, having listened intently to that "mysterious man's" sermon, Luffy no longer feared water or Seastone in the least, and could swim and frolic freely.

Blub-blub...

Water splashed everywhere.

Luffy was already romping through the canals.

From the look of it, he seemed to be racing a bull in a swimming contest.

In the blink of an eye, he was gone from sight.

"That bastard!"

Zoro's eye twitched; he gripped the three swords at his hip and shot off in an instant: "I'll go find him!"

"Wait!"

Tashigi watched helplessly as the crew members scattered every which way, and could only sigh.

Sending a man with no sense of direction to find someone...

Was this some kind of joke at her expense?

...

The Straw Hat crew did indeed have a remarkable knack for courting disaster.

Luffy, playing and romping the whole way, happened to blunder into the tangled affairs of Mayor Iceberg and the secret intelligence agency CP9.

"Stop joking around."

A man dressed like a butler, a pigeon perched on his shoulder, fixed his gaze on Master Iceberg without expression: "We have a reliable source. The legendary shipwright Tom passed the blueprints of the ancient weapon Pluton to his disciple."

"And that person is you."

"Hand over the Pluton blueprints, or don't blame us for getting rough."

Hearing this, Mayor Iceberg burst out laughing: "If you can't find it, that only proves the thing doesn't exist. Why believe in baseless rumors?"

The pigeon man glanced at him mildly: "Bari, foreman of Dock One, your disciple. Franky, your junior brother..."

"Whoever you gave the Pluton blueprints to, we will find them out. And when we do, many people will die."

At these words, Mayor Iceberg's pupils contracted sharply, and his face turned grim.

His teeth ground audibly together; clearly the other man had struck a nerve.

"Hey! Mister, need a hand?"

Luffy waved toward them: "Are these bastards shaking you down?"

"Damn it!"

Iceberg's heart went cold, and he hurriedly shouted, "Run! They're CP9!"

Dragging an innocent, well-meaning citizen into this was his responsibility.

If the man lost his life because of it, he would never be able to face himself.

"Run? Is there time?"

Kalifa, standing beside the pigeon man with a thorned whip in hand, sneered.

She shifted her right foot, clad in high heels, slightly backward, licked her red lips, and a cruel look rose to her face.

"Kalifa, stand down."

"This little fellow Jia Mingyuan's strength... feels decent enough. A qualified teaching prop."

Pigeon Man—or rather, Rob Lucci, the cruelest dark weapon in CP9's history—stopped Kalifa from finishing the man off in an instant.

His gaze fell upon the pink-haired girl at his side, and he spoke coldly: "Rookie, from here on, you watch closely."