Chapter 330
By the following day, the tiny sailing boat Zaraki had acquired after leaving Marineford was gone.
He had not sunk it.
Barely.
Instead, after parting from Ace, Zaraki contacted Trafalgar Law and arranged a rendezvous in the New World.
The Heart Pirates arrived aboard the Polar Tang several hours later.
Law emerged onto the upper deck looking deeply suspicious.
“You left Marineford, became one of the most wanted men on the sea, recruited somebody who can drag meteors out of the sky, and now you’re calling me.”
He looked toward Zaraki.
“This is exactly the kind of situation where intelligent people refuse to answer.”
“You answered.”
“I’m reconsidering every decision that led me here.”
Bepo emerged behind his captain.
The instant Zaraki told them his intended destination, the polar bear mink nearly tripped over his own feet.
“Z-Zou?”
Zaraki nodded.
“You know the way.”
Bepo looked toward Law.
Law looked toward Bepo.
Then back to Zaraki.
“What exactly do you want on Zou?”
“Two fighters.”
Bepo’s fur stood on end.
Zaraki grinned.
“Relax. I only want to talk to them.”
Nobody aboard the Polar Tang found that sentence reassuring.
Zou could not be reached with a normal Log Pose because it was not an island anchored to one place.
It moved constantly through the New World on the back of Zunesha, the colossal elephant that had wandered the sea for centuries.
Fortunately, the Heart Pirates did not need a Log Pose.
Bepo still possessed the connection necessary to find home.
His Vivre Card.
A small piece of the special paper rested in his paw, persistently pulling toward the location of the matching portion kept on Zou.
That was what guided them.
…
Hours later, the Polar Tang moved through an enormous bank of milky-white fog.
Visibility had dropped until even the surrounding sea seemed to disappear.
Law stood near the bow with one hand resting against Kikoku.
Bepo watched the Vivre Card.
Issho sat quietly nearby.
Zaraki lounged against the railing with a flask of sake.
Law finally broke the silence.
“I still want to make one thing clear.”
Zaraki looked toward him.
“I’m helping you reach Zou because Bepo asked me to and because we have reasons to trust each other after everything that happened before.”
Law’s eyes narrowed.
“That does not make the Heart Pirates part of your crew.”
“Didn’t say it did.”
“And Bepo is my navigator.”
Bepo immediately nodded.
“Captain Law is my captain!”
“See?”
Zaraki drank.
“Everybody’s happy.”
Law stared at him for several seconds.
Then decided that continuing would only shorten his lifespan.
Bepo, however, was growing more nervous the farther they traveled.
Zaraki noticed.
“You look like you swallowed a cannonball.”
Bepo laughed awkwardly.
“It’s just… been a long time.”
His paw tightened around the Vivre Card.
“And arriving with you is not exactly what I imagined when I thought about going home.”
“What’s wrong with arriving with me?”
Law answered before Bepo could.
“You have a wanted poster, an Emperor alliance trying to kill you, one Elder who would probably enjoy removing your head, and Morgans telling the entire world you’re building a new power.”
Zaraki considered it.
“Fair.”
Issho suddenly moved.
His hand tightened slightly around his cane sword.
The shift was subtle, but everyone noticed.
“Something is ahead of us.”
Law turned toward him.
Issho raised his face into the fog.
“Something extraordinarily large.”
The gravity around them had changed in a way only he could perceive with such precision.
An immense moving mass was disturbing the sea itself, creating a rhythmic pattern too vast to belong to any ordinary creature.
Then everyone felt it.
A deep vibration rolled through the Polar Tang.
Another followed several seconds later, slow and heavy enough to make equipment inside the submarine rattle softly.
Bepo’s nervousness disappeared beneath recognition.
“We found him.”
Law stared into the fog.
“Him?”
Bepo swallowed.
“Zunesha.”
A shadow emerged.
At first, the mind refused to understand its scale.
Then the fog shifted and an enormous pillar of ancient gray skin passed nearby, rising so far into the sky that its upper end disappeared beyond the clouds.
An elephant’s leg.
One leg.
The Polar Tang looked like a toy beside it.
Even Zaraki stopped drinking.
His grin appeared slowly.
“Well.”
He looked upward.
“That’s ridiculous.”
Zunesha took another step.
The displacement of that colossal limb sent the surrounding sea surging outward.
A wall of water began rising toward the Polar Tang.
Issho stood.
“I shall deal with this.”
His cane sword slid partly from its sheath.
Purple gravitational force spread over the incoming wave, not with the blunt violence of Raging Tiger but with careful control.
The towering water slowed under the sudden increase in downward force, its crest collapsing before it could break over the submarine.
The ocean around the Polar Tang depressed into a wide basin.
Then the water settled.
Law released the breath he had been holding.
Bepo stared at Issho.
“Thank you!”
Issho smiled.
“Think nothing of it.”
Zaraki’s gaze remained fixed on the ancient elephant disappearing upward into the clouds.
“So the city’s all the way up there.”
Bepo nodded.
“On Zunesha’s back.”
Law followed Zaraki’s eyes.
Then immediately frowned.
“No.”
Zaraki looked at him.
“I haven’t asked yet.”
“I know that expression.”
Law pointed upward.
“We are not teleporting the Polar Tang ten thousand meters in one jump.”
“Wasn’t planning one jump.”
“That does not make it better.”
Issho chuckled.
“I believe I can reduce the submarine’s effective weight considerably. If Captain Law then relocates us in stages rather than attempting one enormous displacement, the burden should remain manageable.”
Law looked toward him.
Then toward Zaraki.
“That is the first sensible suggestion I’ve heard since answering your call.”
Zaraki shrugged.
“Do it that way.”
Law blinked.
“You’re not going to turn this into some insane training exercise?”
“Why would I?”
Law stared suspiciously.
Zaraki drank again.
“I need to reach the top before Onigashima. Killing my ride on the way there would be inconvenient.”
“That may be the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me.”