Chapter 28 (1/2)

Grandline, Paradise, little garden

The three of them tracked back to the flying lamb where they met the rest of the crew, who kind grew wary of Azul, who towered over them. This compared with his passive haki surrounding him caused all of the crew to tense in preperation for trouble. Luffy and Vivi had kind of gotten used to his appearance by now, and compared to the giants he was tiny anyways, though the aura still bothered Vivi alot, even if she tried to not show it. Luffy on the other hand was as carefree as usual, probably due to his spirits strength.

”Hey everyone, this here is Azul and he'll be joining our crew!” Luffy proclaimed which earned him a punch to the back of the head that embeded him into the ground, after which he started to cry like a baby that his head hurt, which shocked the crew quite alot. After all, Luffy was made of rubber and blunt damage couldn't hurt him. They grew even more wary of Azul, who still seemed calm and had a friendly smile on his face.

”No I will not join your crew Luffy, for the last time... Anyway, it's nice to meet you guys. As Luffy already said my name's Azul” Azul said with a friendly smile, which calmed the crew down a little.

”I'm Captain Usopp! You may join us if you like!” Usopp said which earned him a smack on the back of the head by their navigator.

”Shut up Usopp! Hi, I'm Nami, the navigator” she said while bowing slightly in greeting.

”I'm Zoro...” the swordsman introduced him next after which came the blond man.

”And I'm Sanji, the cook.” ”Oy Sanji, cook something, I'm hungry!”, yelled Luffy after Sanji introduced himself, who promptly with a bored face walked into the kitchen and started to cook his captains food.

Next Vivi spoke up and adressed the problem at hand.

”There are baroque works agents on this island, though those that we saw are already taken care of, but we don't know if there are any more of them.”

”So, what do we do? Search the island?” Zoro asked, clearly not liking the idea at all, while yawning.

”Uhm, I don't know really...”Vivi responded, not knowing what to do.

Not really interested in their planning Azul headed towards where he thought the kitchen was, followed by Luffy who while salivating like a waterfall still tried to talk Azul into joining his crew, who simply ignored him.

In the kitchen the same game kept on going while Azul was looking around for something interesting until some food was put in front of him which promptly started to eat with a nod of thanks to the cook. Luffy, being his usual self tried to steal some but was rewarded with a punch that sent him into the wall, where he again started to cry out in pain.

”Say Azul, how do you keep hurting Luffy? You ate a devilfruit or something?” Sanji asked Azul while smoking and exhaling the smoke in a white plume.

”Ye, though that has nothing to do with it. You ever heard of haki before?” Azul asked Sanji, who denied, to which Azul only shrugged and focused back on his food, which by the way was awesome.

After a few minutes the arguing rest of the crew joined them in the cabin for dinner. The room descended into companiable silence after that, only broken by the occasional cries of pain from Luffy, who again and again tried to steal food from Azul, who responded by punching him and by now Luffy had acc.u.mulated bumps all over his head that grew by the minute.

”Oy Nami, when we get to the next island I need to buy some oil for my swords, can you lend me some cash?” Zoro asked sweating, already knowing what was coming.

”Sure, with an interest on it of 200%. Take it or leave it.” Nami responded with an evil grin on her face.

”Dammit woman, that is daylight robbery!” Zoro yelled at her to which she only shrugged.

After a few minutes his gaze mildened and he averted his eyes, causing Nami to release the breath she didn't realise she was holding.