One Piece: Dream of Immortality

"Looks like they don't like pirates around these parts," Reiju said.

Whilst her eyes allowed her to see what she referred to much sooner than the others, soon they got close enough to understand. Several skeletons hung by ropes around their necks from a rocky outcropping jutting from the water. A wooden sign hung next to them, saying simply "Pirates, Ye Be Warned!"

"Take down the Jolly Roger!" Nami commanded, settling easily into the leader role without their captain present.

"What?! Luffy wouldn't take down our flag!" Chopper dissented.

"Luffy isn't here. We don't need to start trouble with the locals right off the bat," Nami reasoned.

Nobody felt especially good about doing something that Luffy would reject outright, but they could recognize that it was the smarter thing to do.

"What else?" Nami looked around at the lot of them. "Brook. I hate to ask you to cover up those handsome cheekbones, but you might scare people. Do you mind covering up?"

"Oh my~" Brook held the sides of his face. "I'd be blushing… if I had any skin! Yohohoho! I suppose I can play pretend as a mummy for a while."

"We don't know how they'll react to Franky, Carrot, Chopper, or Cabernet, but at least you aren't dead. So that should be okay," Nami tapped her foot a few times. "Money."

"Did you get distracted, Nami?" Cherry snickered. "Daydreaming?"

"Shut up!" Nami denied. "The locals might not use Beri, so we'll have to hope that gold will do."

Cherry spilled a pile of doubloons onto the deck. "That should cover all our expenses while we're here. If not, we can just do as pirates do."

Nami nodded seriously.

"Should someone wake up Zoro?" Usopp asked.

"That moss head slept through all that?" Sanji clicked his tongue in annoyance.

Cabernet didn't wait for any more prompting than that, directly flying up to the crow's nest. There was a beat of silence as they waiting, then they heard a loud yelp.

"What the hell do you want?" Zoro grumbled after Cabernet as she dropped through the trap door and flew around to get at the flag.

"We're on another sky island! I think…" Sanji shouted up to him, then turned to Nami. "Are we on another sky island?"

"I'm pretty sure that we are, but actual sea water is supposed to be too dense to hold up in the sky like this. Something odd is at work here," Nami hummed in thought.

"Maybe it's like that time with Shiki?" Usopp offered.

"Maybe…" Nami scratched her head. "I'm having a hard time trying to think of a natural cause in any case."

"We'll just have to ask the people who live here," Robin said.

"Right," Nami nodded, then she glanced around the deck. "Where did Cherry go?"

Carrot raised her hand. "She left a few minutes ago!"

Nami looked up at the sky and asked any gods who were listening, "Why?"

…

"Port Royal?" Cherry rolled the name around in her mouth. "A bit ostentatious."

"It's one shilling to tie your ship at the docks," a taxman, by Cherry's reckoning, licked the tip of a feather pen without looking up from his ledger. "And I'll need your name, for the record."

Cherry turned to look at empty water next to her, then back to him. "What ship?"

The taxman looked up at her, perhaps the first time he'd taken his nose out of that book since morning. He frowned as he could indeed not see any ship or boat that she would have arrived on. "Well, where did you put it? You clearly didn't swim."

A young lad, probably the man's apprentice, stood next to him and looked between herself and him nervously. She wasn't armed, so he must have pretty good instincts, since she was steadily growing annoyed with the man's presence.

"I walked atop the water," Cherry lied, but it was easier to believe than walking on air in any case.

"I see," the taxman clearly didn't believe her, but nor did he really care. "It's two pence for the processing fee, then. Name?"

"What are shillings and pence?" Cherry asked with a smile.

The taxman gave her an unamused look. Still, he was apparently a professional, because he fished two silver coins out from his coin purse and displayed them betwixt his fingers. "The smaller is a penny, or one pence, the larger is a shilling? Name?"

Cherry smiled and placed a coin directly onto his book. "None of your fucking business."

The taxman stared at the gold doubloon with his mouth agape, but he swiftly snapped his mouth and the coin disappeared into his coat. He wore the smarmiest smile she'd ever seen as he spoke clearly, "Welcome to Port Royal, Miss Black."

Cherry openly laughed at that, shamelessly stole the man's hat, and walked past him. "Pay attention to your teacher, little one! He's a smart man, but perhaps a touch too imperceptive for his own good."

The boy nodded at her.

The taxman puffed up a bit in offense, but voiced no objections. When he went to write the false name in his ledger, he paused as he saw the name already written down in blood red ink. It had to be stated that his pen wrote in black.

The taxman looked at his apprentice, his face a few shades paler than before. "Right… Heed that advice, Gerald, and you'll live a long and prosperous life yet."

…

Cherry walked past a blacksmith on her wandering through the port town. Then she backtracked as her ears caught the tell tale sounds of a sword being forged. Well, it was a tell tale sound to her, simply on account of having hundreds of years of experience in the trade. A regular blacksmith would just hear a bunch of clanging.

"Brown John's Blacksmith…" Cherry read the signboard. "Hmm, he sounds pretty good."

Again, the skill of a blacksmith isn't something one could judge by sound alone, especially not muffled by the semi sound proofed walls of a smithy; if one were normal, that is.

Cherry stepped inside the shop, a bell ringing overhead. She was simply unable to help herself, curiosity getting the better of her.

"Hello, is Mr. Brown in?" Cherry asked, voice raised just enough to be heard over the racket, but not distract the cause of the racket.

"Mr. Brown is… busy," a younger voice than she expected called out from the back. If she wasn't wrong, there was a hint of exasperation in the tone. "I'll attend to you in a moment!"

Cherry let the young man have his moment, taking the time to study the many blades displayed in the shop. "A fascination with rapiers, I see."

"It's the most civilized weapon, in my opinion," the young man said, stepping out of the forge. He was handsome, but not exceptionally manly as blacksmiths tended to be, and had only a shadow of a mustache and chin beard on his face. His hair was a dark brown, long and pulled into a ponytail; and his eyes were dark and mysterious.

"What are you, the male lead in a romance novel?" Cherry quirked an eyebrow at him. "You need more muscle."