Chapter Text
Whatever was going on, there were no good optics to this whole situation. He knew he should be worried about it -- eyes were on him all the time now, judging the marines by his actions. And normally that was fine, because what did he have to hide anymore?
But he couldn’t bring himself to care. That wasn’t the problem.
His eyes fell on the handcuffs.
“Are those necessary?” Coby asked, turning to Jerrin. “You have his weapons. We’ll both go with you.”
The lawman hesitated, and he looked Coby in the eye. Trying to see if I’ll vouch for him? Trying to see if I’ll be responsible if Meppo runs? What?
“You sure I won’t have trouble if we just head in?” he asked Coby.
Assurances. He wanted assurances. Coby wondered what the so-called witness had said to make Jerrin so sure they had done this.
“Positive,” Coby said. “Right Helmeppo?”
“None from us,” he responded, which was probably a fair clarification, but Coby did not miss the way Jerrin’s eyes narrowed slightly at it. Helmeppo’s propensity to snark was coming back to bite them both in a way he hadn’t anticipated.
But maybe Jerrin just thought it wouldn’t be worth fighting, or maybe he didn’t like the weight of Nana’s worried stare on his back. Whatever the reason, he gestured for them to start walking.
“Fine,” he said. “We can talk at the station. I want to hear what you two have to say.”
Have to say? Not “have to say for yourselves?” Maybe Jerrinm wasn’t convinced they were actually guilty? Er… well, that Helmeppo was guilty at any rate. He guessed things could be worse.
But looking at Jerrin’s face, he didn’t think the man was convinced they were innocent either.
They walked through the city to the watch’s headquarters, Coby and Helmeppo walking a few feet in front of Jerrin, who was staring them down and not saying much. While it might be a police escort, at least it probably wouldn’t look as much like one to anyone walking by.
“We’ll get this all figured out,” Coby said, sounding more assured than he felt.
“I know. Though if Garp finds out about this I am never going to hear the end of it,” Helmeppo muttered, which was probably him trying to keep his spirits up as well.
“He won’t find out.”
“Coby, he hears things. People tell him stories over drinks. And he drinks a lot.”
OK, so that was fair.
“We’ll tell him you didn’t do it.”
“He’ll know. He’s still not going to let me live it down.”
Also probably true.
“You’re taking this awfully well,” Coby said.
“Coby, I am exhausted, and I feel disgusting, and we both know whatever this is, it’s bullshit, right?”
”Absolutely,” he replied. “But still, just getting accused of something like this would throw me off my game.”
“Well, yeah,” Helmeppo sighed. “I mean, it’s not great. But you’re here.”
“That’s a little corny, isn’t it?”
“Well, I know you know I didn’t do any… well, this,” he said. When Coby glanced over in mild alarm at the mid-comment course correction, he saw the other man smiling at him. When Coby chuckled, he continued, “You’ll get me out of here soon. Through the power of your charm if nothing else. And in the meantime maybe they’ll have a shower.”
“We don’t have a shower in the holding area,” Jerrin clarified unhelpfully from behind them. Helmeppo visibly drooped.
Clapping a hand on Helmeppo’s shoulder, Coby assured him, “We’ll get to the bottom of this quickly and go get cleaned up and into new clothes.”
Helmeppo didn’t answer, and they walked to Jerrin’s workplace mostly in silence from then on.
Once they arrived, Jerrin separated the pair, and Helmeppo accompanied another of the workers down below while Coby was led by Jerrin back to the office where they had first met. He couldn’t help but feel guilty - this was the second time he and Helmeppo had been separated during what was increasingly feeling like an actually dangerous mission, at the behest of people from this island. The last time, he’d assumed Helmeppo was OK with it. This time, there was no question about how wrong it felt.
As soon as the door to the office shut behind them, Coby said, “Now can you explain what’s going on? This whole thing has to be a misunderstanding.”
Instead of answering, Jerrin gestured for Coby to take a seat before rounding the desk to his own chair and sorting through a stack of papers until he found what he was looking for. “Here’s the report,” he said. “Ebio was attacked this morning. He managed to get away from his attacker when cleaners heading up the road to the peak-top hot spring heard the commotion.”
Ebio? “That nice historian?” Coby asked. “Is he OK?”
“He’s in good shape considering,” Jerrin said. “Needed a few stitches, but otherwise he escaped without major injury.”
“And someone said they saw Helmeppo attacking him?” Coby asked. At Jerrin’s nod, Coby asked, “What did Ebio say? They’ve met, he would know.”
“He says he didn’t get a good look at his attacker,” Jerrin said. Now that they were away from the city’s eyes, he lost some of the stern expression. The man looked tired.
Coby considered what Jerrin had told him so far. There was one thing that might work in their favor here.
“What time was he attacked?” Coby asked.
“What time?” Jerrin repeated, as though it were not an absolutely simple question.
“Yes, what time,” Coby said. “I think-” But he cut off.
He didn’t want to believe Jerrin might be the bad guy here. He didn't want to think this man could be working against the island he clearly cared so much for. But that chance was there -- hanging over his head like a guillotine blade.
He thought he had an out, depending on what time he gave, but letting Jerrin know ahead of time what that out was might lead him to fudge the truth, if he really was working against them. So he watched as Jerrin looked back through the papers again, picking one from the pile and reading down through it for a few seconds.
“Just before dawn” he said at length. “It was still mostly dark, which could call their testimony into question. But the description they gave matches your friend, and not many other people around here.”
He knew it.
“Jerrin, there’s absolutely no way it could have been Helmeppo. I can prove it.”
“Yeah? How?”
That seemed… unfriendly.
When Coby hesitated, Jerrin pressed forward. “I want to help, Coby, but I need something concrete enough that if certain people ask, they’ll have to agree that releasing him was the right thing to do.”
Certain people? Why on earth would anyone want to keep a Marine locked up when they were helping with an investigation?
“Ask Jain,” Coby said. “She can vouch for us.”
“Jain was out on the water all day,” Jerrin replied.
“Yes. And so were both of us.”
That got his full attention.
“What do you mean?”
“Just what I said.” Coby scooted his chair a little closer, leaning his head forward like he was sharing a secret. “We were there before sunrise, and then we were out on the ships with her and the other fisherpeople. If Helmeppo was ambushing people up on the road to the springs-”
“... he wouldn’t have been able to be at the dock that early,” Jerrin said, nodding a little to himself. Then, he let out a long breath, almost a sigh. “I’ll need to talk with her. I’ll head out to do that now. But that’s a relief.”
“What’s a relief?”
Jerrin gave him a tight smile. “I don’t think this island would be able to handle murderous Marines on top of everything else.”
Yeah, Coby could see that.
Jerrin asked Coby to wait in his office while he headed over to check their alibi with Jain. Someone came in with a small plate of food -- dried out bread and an apple, plain and basic, but he devoured it. They hadn’t eaten much today.
While he was eating, he asked about Helmeppo. The other officer apologetically said he wasn’t allowed down into the cell area, but that they’d make sure “the prisoner” got a quick meal as well. Coby had no doubt he could force his way down there to check on his friend, but that wouldn’t help the situation.
At length, Jerrin strode back into the building. Coby watched through the office windows as the man stopped at the first desk and said something to the men there. They ran off.
Jerrin then made a beeline back to the office.
“Thanks,” Jerrin said as he was opening the door. Coby hopped to his feet as Jerrin walked over to his desk, pulled out one of the drawers, and then pulled another page from in there to add to the mess on top of the desk. “We’re letting your friend go. You were right. She vouched for both of you. There was no way the timing would work out.”
“So what now?” Coby asked.
“We talk to the witnesses again,” he said as he headed out the door to the office. “It wasn’t you guys, but someone took a knife to Ebio this morning.”
Coby frowned. That was unsettling, especially given the timing. Was it something they’d done or said when they visited him? He knew Ebio was associated heavily with protecting the island’s history from vandals and other cruelties. With a pair of Marines on the island looking to put an end to whatever was happening to the visitors at the hot springs, maybe someone associated with it had…
But no. Why would they do that? Surely they would be on Ebio’s side, and on the Marines’ side.
So could it be unrelated? Just some of the troublemakers on the island going after him for ruining their fun? That made more sense, but the timing was suspect, and the eyewitness account that matched Helmeppo was a big, flashing sign that something more wrong was going on here.
Which left the possibility that Ebio knew something that would break the case open if Coby could ask the right question.
He followed Jerrin out into the main part of the building, where he was told to wait while the man went to go get Helmeppo. Coby passed the time looking at some of the wanted posters pasted on the walls -- none of them being the pirate posters the Marines put out. It was all locals, or maybe visitors. Some of them had no name even, just a likeness and a short explanation of the crimes they stood accused of. “Assault, armed robbery and battery” or “arson, assault with a deadly weapon.”
“Wow, bailed me out so quick? I’m touched.”
Coby turned to find Helmeppo, looking a little more put together than he had been when he was led away, standing there looking tired.
Coby smiled at him. “Looks like they gave you a washcloth for all the fish guts, huh?”
“First good thing that’s happened today,” Helmeppo muttered. “A washcloth plus a sandwich. Basically my saviors. I think I might be forced to leave the Marines and stay here helping them forever to pay by debt of gratitude.”
“You know they’re not going to know that you’re just being an ass, right?” Coby said.
“Nah, from our brief conversations I can guarantee you that several of the officers here have a finely tuned sense of sarcasm,” Helmeppo replied, but he followed Coby outside into the lamp-lit city street before saying anything else.
Coby was pretty glad about that. Normally he let Helmeppo do his thing as long as he buckled down when they had a specific job to accomplish. But the situation and the exceptionally long day were taking their toll on Coby as well. He could feel little snippets of all the hundreds of people who surrounded them trying to intrude on his thoughts, to make their presence known to his haki. To share the space in his head.
Worse, unlike the other nights, when there was maybe some curiosity about them, right now it felt like a lot of those thoughts echoed the same thing.
Villains. Monsters. Criminals.
The movement in the crowded streets was subtle as well. Some people -- temps, Coby assumed -- ignored them or maybe looked with curiosity, but the accusation against Helmeppo had clearly run through the people who lived here. They were glaring and keeping their distance. The pressure of their attention piled on his shoulders like a physical weight.
As the pair began the long trek back to Stella’s Rest, Coby asked, “So what was it like down there?” more to try to distract himself than out of any actual interest in the jail situation on the island.
“Eh. Not the worst I’ve seen.”
“Wait, you’ve been arrested before?” Coby asked, incredulous.
He knew as soon as he asked it that he’s misread, and this was just Helmeppo being Helmeppo. Coby supposed he could use a bit more fine tuning of his own sense of sarcasm. But even as he came to this realization, Helmeppo seemed to come to one of his own.
They should just leave. They’re making us unsafe.
“No,” he said heavily. “Sorry. I’m just tired.”
“You and me both,” Coby said. “I thought a day of Marine training was tough, but I think I’ll be feeling this entire day tomorrow.”
How could he hurt that old man?
Coby trained his eyes on the road.
“If tonight is anything like last night then we’ll be feeling that tomorrow too,” Helmeppo muttered. They walked on for a little bit in silence, passing the fountain square and approaching the turn up the hill. Then, hesitantly, Helmeppo added, “Everything okay?”
“Yeah.”
“You sure?”
Coby cast a glance toward the house to his left. Lights were on inside, making it look cozy from the outside.
At least until he noticed the eyes peering out at him.
“Maybe not entirely,” he admitted.
He didn’t expect the hand on his shoulder, landing heavily then squeezing lightly. He glanced over and saw a tired smile on Helmeppo’s face.
“Just think how nice it’s going to be when we finally get out of here, right?”
Coby cracked a faint smile. “But we can’t leave yet.”
“Well, on the bright side they’re not calling you names in their heads. Just me,” he said. Then, after a few seconds, he added, “I hope.”
-just as bad as the other filth-
“Well… not exactly.”
“Ah.” The hand removed itself from his shoulder. “Sorry.”
Nana was working outside as they walked up, and quickly hurried over to them. Unlike most of the people in this city, there was nothing but worry for them in this woman. “We picked up some clothing for you,” she said. “It’s nothing much, but I hope it will work for you. We can draw a bath for each of you, unless you want to eat first.”
“A bath would be lovely, thank you,” Coby said.
She nodded, turned to go inside, then hesitated and turned back to them. “And is everything…”
“It was a misunderstanding,” he assured her. “We cleared it up fairly quickly.”
“Oh good.” She sagged a little. “I was so worried, with everything that’s been going wrong here. And if we were responsible for getting you in trouble, I don’t know how we would have been able to face Garp when he returns.”
“Even if something happened, you didn’t get us in trouble,” Coby said. “The fault lies with whoever committed the attack in the first place.”
He could sense Helmeppo about to say something on the end of that but stepped purposefully toward the entrance to cut him off. They were both tired. They needed to get inside and relax.
The inn felt a lot emptier than before, burt the bath was lovely and hot, and he felt much better as he finished getting dressed in fresh clothing and regarded himself in the mirror. His reflection looked strange, and it took a few seconds for him to realize why.
At some point, being a marine went from a distant dream to so normal that I look weird in anything but the uniform, he thought with a smile.
He was ready a good few minutes before Helmeppo, which was not terribly surprising. Anyone in the Marines could and often had to get up and ready in under ten minutes, but when given the time, Helmeppo preferred to take his time about his ablutions.
Coby was just about ready to go get food and let Helmeppo catch up when the latter stepped out of the bathing room, also looking a good deal more relaxed and put together. Seeing Coby waiting for him, he said, “Sorry for that. Shall we get going?”
“Yes,” Coby said with a bit more emphasis than he’d expected to.
The pair of them headed out toward the dining room. “And just to get this out of the way now, I refuse to talk about any of the nonsense we have on our plates until our literal dinner plates are empty. Deal?”
“I think that’s fair,” Coby agreed with a laugh. “No work at the winner table. Speaking of which, smells like squid!”
As they stepped into the nearly empty dining room, Coby was looking for one of the in’s workers to ask for a meal when a shrill voice whipped through the room, causing both Marines to pause where they stood.
“What’re they doing here?”
Both Marines’ attention snapped up to where Rin stood, quivering, glaring at them from the doorway to one of the inn’s rooms.
Nana appeared from further back in the inn as though her son’s tone had summoned her. But under her horrified gaze, the kid fixed his attention on the pair.
“Mom, we can’t let them stay here!” He didn’t turn toward her even as he addressed her. His voice was high, barely restrained. “They’re dangerous.”
On the bright side, they were far enough away from most people that Coby was no longer dealing with the surrounding assault of a dozen people’s angry thoughts. However, that had all been replaced with Rin’s spark-bright fury and fear.
“Rin, they came back, so that means the police let them go,” she said, voice low and aiming for soothing. She stepped toward him, reaching out for his arm. “It’s okay, they’re just-”
“No!” He pulled away from her questing hand. “You heard what they said! Everyone was saying it! They wouldn’t say it if it weren’t true!”
Every shouted word was like a needle driving into Coby’s brain. He felt himself flinch at the last word. The kid’s anger was understandable, but he needed to… to…
“And what are they saying?”
Helmeppo’s calm voice drew Rin’s attention to him. The kid’s face squinched up even more as though he was keeping something truly vile from flying out his mouth. After a few seconds, he said, “They said you guys attacked someone! He could have died! We were nice to you and you were mean to people? Why?”
Ah. Coby thought he got it, especially after the talk he and Helmeppo had the other day. So facing Rin, he asked, “You heard other people say we did something. Do you think we did it?”
“Well… adults said so,” he said.
Coby smiled sadly. “It’s good to listen to adults,” he said. “But adults make mistakes too. So while it’s good to hear what they have to say, it’s also important to consider what you think.”
“N- no.” Rin looked away from them, eyes scanning the room, lighting on his mother then taking in the other empty doorways. Whatever he was dreading or hoping to find wasn’t there. “Adults know better. You have to listen. I have to listen.”
Coby looked up at Nana. She wasn’t paying any attention to the Marines. Instead, she was approaching her son on careful feet. “Rin,” she said. “Did your uncle tell you that?”
Rin drew inward on himself, as though he could disappear from his mother’s sight. Then he said in a small voice, “He said it doesn’t matter if I keep hitting my fingers with the hammer to get hands all full of splinters. He said he’s an adult so I just have to help him and stop crying. He said I need to learn so he can stop doing it.”
She knelt by him. One hand landed lightly on his arm, then moved to his back, rubbing a comforting circle. “No,” she said simply. “He’s wrong. If you don’t want to, you don’t have to.”
“But Uncle said-”
“Next time he tells you something like that, you come and find me,” she said, and Coby heard iron in her voice. “Okay?”
Rin didn’t answer, but he did turn toward his mother. She enveloped him in a hug.
“Promise me you’ll tell me,” she repeated, pulling him close to her.
Feeling awkward, Coby crept out of the room, followed by Helmeppo.
Twenty minutes later, Nana came to find them where they were sitting out front of the inn, enjoying the pretty night. “I’ve prepared some food and brought it to an inn room that was freed up today,” she said. “We’ll get your other clothing laundered and back to you as soon as possible. And there are real beds. I’m so sorry for all the trouble.”
“No trouble at all,” Coby replied, and Helmeppo nodded his agreement. The pair was led to a nice room in the back, with a window overlooking the woods instead of the rotting old building across the street. The food was fresh and delicious and Coby could feel Helmeppo’s relief at not trying to fit on the small cots they’d used last night.
As the pair finished eating, it was all Coby could do not to just go straight to sleep, but sleeping on a full stomach was almost never a good idea.
Sitting on the floor with his back against the wall, Coby mused on what they could do. What was their next step? He felt like they’d had a plan, but now it felt like that was all gone, burned away to ash in the span of a few days. There had to be something, something he’d missed, something they’d overlooked. But what?
“What’re you thinking about so hard?”
Coby looked up to Helmeppo, who was sitting backward in the room’s lone chair, arms folded atop the back. “Just trying to decide where to go from here,” he said. “We were going to talk to all three of the important figures and see what shook loose. Well… we talked to them. And I can’t figure anything out. I feel like we’re back where we started, except now most of the island also hates us.”
“That is about the size of it, yeah,” Helmeppo agreed.
“So… I know we need a next step, but I just can’t quite figure out what it is.”
Helmeppo rested his chin on his arms. “Well, what do we know?”
“We know that there’s something out there causing these problems,” he said slowly. “Probably someone, but it could be something.”
“And we know that odds are good it’s not Jain,” Helmeppo said. “Not with how many hours she puts in out on the water. Too many of the attacks took place during the day. People would have noticed if she was just strolling around the hot springs.”
“Yeah. We can’t completely rule her out, but it seems unlikely it was her. But otherwise…”
“Could be anyone,” Helmeppo finished with a sigh.
“Yeah. Hence the need to figure out some sort of attack. We can’t just keep hoping that the bad guys will slip up or deliver themselves to us.”
“So we need to earn some more information ourselves,” Helmeppo said. “Maybe we can get something out of Ebio? If the villain attacked him, then maybe he knows why?”
Wait. Earning some more information? That… that could work.
“Could be,” Coby said. “But I’m thinking maybe we try something a little more direct. I think we’re both better at the direct approach anyway.”
“So you have an idea how we do that?” Helmeppo asked.
“Yeah,” Coby said as the pieces of a plan began to fit together. “I think I do.”
Coby had been in a few hot springs, but he had to admit, this was one of the nicest ones he thought he’d ever seen. The space was immaculate, the water burbling and lively enough to give the area a pleasant atmosphere, and the landscaper had peppered the area with just the right amount of flowering vines to perfume the air without being overwhelming.
As he sank into the water, he could feel the heat soothing his tired muscles and almost immediately making him start to relax. That would be the one big danger here. They needed to stay alert.
It was late afternoon, approaching the evening, but the spring was basically deserted but for Coby and Helmeppo, who were lounging a short way apart.
“We could really use one of these at Headquarters,” Helmeppo murmured, his words almost swallowed by the sounds of the moving water.
“You can ask Fleet Admiral Sakazuki about it if you want to,” Coby said back. “But let me know before you do, so I can be anywhere else.”
“Well, when you put it like that, the idea sounds a whole lot less relaxing,” Helmeppo groused.
“So we’re setting a trap?” Helmeppo asked.
Coby nodded. “There was one thing about the attacks that caught my attention, but I discarded it as not useful. It’s about how they happened.”
“I am too tired to guess what you mean by that,” Helmeppo said, punctuating it with a yawn as though to prove his point. “Out with it.
“There was never more than one person seeing nightmares at a time,” he said. “Sometimes, multiple people would get hit with the power on the same evening or afternoon, but never at the same time. One person would get freed from their visions just as someone else from the group was swallowed by them.”
“Ahhh,” Helmeppo said, looking none too pleased. “So you’re saying we should be bait.”
“Well, I don’t like putting it like that, but yeah,” Coby agreed. “We go up to the upper spring. We know that people are watching us extra close now, and will spread rumors. So we talk about how we know who’s been doing this, and are going to report it to headquarters as soon as we get back.”
“And then we get seen heading up to the hot springs, and if the perpetrator hears about it, they should come up to try to scare us.”
Coby nodded. That was about the size of it.
Helmeppo frowned. “And what if they try something more deadly?”
“Well… I’m not sure,” Coby admitted.
“Because if they think we’ve figured it out, they may either try to kill us, or go into hiding,” Helmeppo reasoned. “There’s not a lot they can do about it once we leave.”
That was a good point, much as Coby hated that fact. “Well, I think the bones of the plan are good,” he said. But I think we just need to spread a slightly different rumor.”
Helmeppo had smirked. “I might have an idea about how to word it.”
The day was warm and sunny -- every day so far had been, which made it easy to see why this island was so popular for vacationers -- but even despite that there was a thin layer of steam hovering over the water’s surface. It slightly obscured the details of the building to their south, as well as the surrounding woods.
“Have they gotten back to us about the tickets?” Helmeppo asked after a few minutes of quiet had elapsed.
“Not yet, but they did confirm that if they have our name on the manifest, they can check with headquarters to get images they can compare us against. So it should be fine.”
“Good.” Helmeppo sank even lower into the water. “This island might be a vacation spot, but at this point I think I might want to leave more than you do.”
Coby turned and folded his arms on the edge of the hot spring, turning his eyes toward the trees. He knew the disturbed graves were less than a hundred meters away, but from here, the forest looked pristine.
A perfect encapsulation of the entire island, as far as Coby was concerned.
“So,” he said. “Do you think she really did it?”
“Does it matter?” Helmeppo replied. “The information points toward her. We can’t let our feelings get in the way of that.”
“I guess.”
“We say we know who did it, and it’s Jain.”
“What?” Coby pushed himself to his feet. “Helmeppo, that’s the only person we know for sure it can’t be.”
“Yes, and that’s why she’s perfect.”
“Can you explain?”
“The person who did this always seems to be working for the betterment of the island,” Helmeppo said. “I’m not sure what they think of us, or the Marines in general, but…”
“Yeah, they don’t think much of us,” Coby agreed. “They’ve been trying to chase us off this whole time.”
“But they won’t want to run the risk of us telling the Marines, with all their power, that Jain’s the problem,” Helmeppo reasoned. “They might arrest her and take her away, and the island needs her.”
And suddenly Coby got it as well. “So they’ll want to prove to us that it can’t possibly be her by using their power on us while she’s out.”
“But… no, actually it won’t work,” Helmeppo said, subsiding again.
But Coby thought it had a good chance. “Why not?” he asked.
“Because we already proved it can’t be her, yesterday,” Helmeppo said. “The attack on Ebio happened when we were out on the boats.”
This time, Coby shook his head. “Actually, we just proved that she couldn’t have beaten up Ebio. But we don’t have any solid proof that whoever tried to frame you was also the person who attacked him. It’s possible they’re different.”
“Huh. Yeah.”
“So, yeah. That’s it,” Coby said.
“I don’t know if it’ll work,” Helmeppo hedged.
“But it’s the best idea we have.”
Something scuttled through the woods, but Coby’s haki didn’t sense any human intent. Probably just a rabbit, startled by a bird in the trees. Nothing to worry about yet.
Over to his left, he heard a small splashing as Helmeppo also shifted a little in the water. Coby forced himself to look away from the trees again. He didn’t think it would matter too much, but perhaps the person wouldn’t approach if he was looking that way..
To his right, another splash. Coby glanced over.
“Helmeppo?
His second in command was still sitting where he had been before, but rather than slumping down in the water to relax, he was sitting bolt upright.
“Coby?” came the reply, but there was something distant in that one word. Coby found himself starting to stand up at that tone. “No. No!”
He didn’t like that tone.
Wait!
Coby watched as Helmeppo reached out toward something he couldn’t see. His friend’s eyes were clearly seeing something, but Coby couldn’t imagine what and didn’t want to. But this had to be it.
The enemy was here.
Coby turned toward the woods, all senses on alert. It was faint, but there was something. He oriented himself toward it and fired off a slice of rankyaku with a kick. The pretty flowering vines flew apart before the power, and a narrow channel of trees split apart at about an eight-foot height. He didn’t want to kill whoever it was, but he did want to throw them off their game and get them to release Helmeppo from their power.
Heedless of the fact that he was in just a pair of shorts -- that was one of the one things about this plan he’d been hesitant about, although he didn’t have any real idea how to get around it -- he leapt from the water. This was their own plan. It had worked. A bit of embarrassment was a small price to pay.
He’d just broken through the first layer of trees when he saw someone ahead of him. The man turned to face Coby. A sword in his hands flashed in the gloom beneath the trees as he came around to face Coby.
I have to stop him before he can turn that power on me, Coby thought. As the gap narrowed, he planted one foot and brought the other around, moderating the kick so that-
The foot contacted with the man’s unprotected midsection. As though in slow motion, Coby watched the man’s eyes widen, mouth gaping open in pain with the violence of the impact. Then he was gone, shooting through the trees in a shower of splinters and leaves. Coby heard the sound of his body hitting something -- a larger tree perhaps -- less as a hand-to-hand sound and more like artillery landing.
Coby blinked. He’d used more force than he had intended to. Far more force.
Because there can be no holding back on criminals.
Coby looked left. Right. What was that? The appearance of that thought felt so natural that he was convinced it was a thought from his own mind. But it was also so alien, that how could it be?
He was so lost in this feeling that he almost missed another person lunging from the trees at him with a weapon. As the blade arced toward his face, Coby spun and again lashed out.
This time, there was no missing the series of gristly, popping crackles as bones shattered under his attack.
“Oh no,” Coby whispered, staring at the gap in the foliage where the person had ragdolled. He took a few hesitant steps forward, then began moving faster, and faster, until he was pelting through the greenery, looking for the person he’d just sent flying.
The form he finally found crumpled against one of the forgotten ruins of ancient buildings initially just appeared to, thankfully, just be unconscious. Coby stopped a few paces away from the person. “Hey… uh…”
The person didn’t move.
At all.
Coby stumbled forward.
On the second step, he realized the person no longer held his sword. The arm that once wielded it lay across his chest, only recognizable because it disappeared into the tattered remains of a sleeve.
Another step.
The wrecked arm lay totally still. No twitching in pain. No subtle rise and fall as the chest below it inhaled and exhaled.
Another step.
Blood trickled along the side of a face whose jaw hung slack -- indeed didn’t seem to be entirely in place anymore. He was close enough now to see the facts of the matter.
The guy was dead.
Coby had killed him.
“Aaaaaahhhhh!”
A screaming from the forest drew Coby’s attention. He turned to see another person rushing at him -- they looked like some ordinary citizen. Just a man who maybe worked the fishing boats or construction. It wasn’t surprising that there might be more than one person perpetrating these crimes, but that wasn’t what he was worried about.
As before, his instincts acted even as his mind screamed stop! The guy at least got an arm between Coby’s kick and the rest of his own body, but there was no way it would be enough. The arm bent unnaturally, then the body curved, then the man’s form was tumbling through the undergrowth, just like the first one.
This time, Coby didn’t even bother going after him. He’d known from the impact that there was no hope. That man couldn’t have survived.
He stared down at his hands. Was there someone here with another ability? Someone drawing his inhibitions and his logic and his restraint away?
Another rustling in the woods reached his ears. This person was stealthier, but there were a few hints of their approach.
They’re trying to kill a Marine. They have to be put down.
Coby realized with horror that the thoughts sounded like things the fleet admiral might have said, but they were clearing in the tone of his own thoughts. He listened to Sakazuki -- of course he did, the man was at the top of the organizational pyramid. But Coby had always kept carefully separate the thoughts that were his and the thoughts that were the organization's.
He didn't agree with the fleet admiral’s approach, however much he understood the inclination. Making sure criminals couldn’t commit any more crimes meant no one else could be victimized by that person. But it also meant that the wrongdoers had no chance or no opportunity to repent and to be better.
At least, he never had before.
Now, he could feel some part of himself echoing those missives from the fleet admiral. He was strong -- so much stronger than he’d been when he joined, or when he cowered before Alvida. But the sort of people like Alvida, like her crew, who would turn other humans to their own uses were still common on the seas.
If someone had killed Alvida before she ever found Coby, would his life have taken a different trajectory?
The person crept closer.
They were enemies. They were out here attacking people, destroying property, making trouble for the locals just as much as the visiting vandals did. Someone among them had the ability to visit nightmares upon people, and had turned that ability on Helmeppo. They had to be stopped.
They had to be stopped.
Not like this!
But his instincts were taking over again as the figure burst from the trees at Coby’s back. He whirled, muscles firing off in perfect unity to bring the power of his carefully crafted body together at the top of his foot.
Just before making contact, he registered the blond hair, the visor, the familiar weapons of the person he was facing.
Then he was gone.
Had… had he just…
“No!”
He stared off into the trees, to find Helmeppo, to make sure that he wasn’t a sill form, brittle and broken, like the man from before. But a heavy hand on his shoulder stopped him.
He looked up to see Garp staring down at him.
“Things really have gone to crap here, huh?” he asked, before laughing that big, broad laugh of his.
“Garp!” Coby said, clinging mentally to the man’s presence. “Something’s wrong. I just-”
“I know,” Garp said, nodding. “After the island called in a background check, I figured things had gone wrong. I didn’t think you’d have let things get this far out of hand though.”
Some small part of Coby registered that Garp being here was entirely too convenient, but mostly he was just relieved. He didn’t want to turn over responsibility to someone else for his own tasks, but something was very wrong here. “I think there’s someone with a second power. I don’t know what it is, but I think… I think I killed someone because of it.”
“Killed someone?” Garp repeated, frowning.
“Yes! I attacked them way too hard. It was-”
“Well, that’s good isn’t it?” Garp asked.
Coby froze, staring up at his mentor.
“What?”
“You’ve always been way too squeamish about things like that,” Garp said, clapping Coby on the back hard enough to almost pitch him off his feet. “Don’t worry about it too much. Marines kill villains. That’s the nature of the job.”
“Vice Admiral!” Coby gasped.
“Come on, kid,” Garp continued, gesturing for Coby to lead the way -- to the body presumably? “You’ve always been stronger than you thought, and now that you have that last hurdle out of the way, you’re going to be truly terrifying. Forget about the title ‘hero.’ You’re going to be the sort of Marine who pirates tell stories about on dark nights. A villain of their very own. All the skills of the shadow operatives, but operating out in the light and untied from the naval chain of command. A true threat to them, any time and any place. They won’t know where you’ll be or when you might show up, and now can’t even feel confident you’ll take them alive!”
He grinned at Coby like this was an incredible accomplishment, but Coby couldn’t feel anything but horror. That wasn’t why he joined the Marines. It wasn’t about stopping bad guys, it was about helping people -- people who couldn’t help themselves.
“Sir, I don’t think I can-”
“Oh, you’ve proven you can,” Garp said. “You can even take care of those close to you, if they try to stab you in the back. Isn’t that right?”
Coby blanched. How had he forgotten? “Helmeppo. Oh no-”
He started to leave again, and again Garp stopped him. “Are you sure your job is done here?” he asked.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, you shouldn’t stop until you’re sure the threat is eliminated,” Garp said.
As he said it, Coby could suddenly sense them -- a dozen other people in the trees, surrounding them. Where had they come from? Were they all in on the problem?
They need to be put down like dogs.
Coby turned and twisted, trying to keep every angle in sight at all times, while his mentor stood there, unconcerned.
“The Fleet Admiral is going to be very proud of what you’ve accomplished here.” It both was and wasn’t Garp’s voice.
The figures were closing in, so uniform that it had to be planned. He wasn’t sure if he would have enough in him to stop them all. Like Garp said… maybe he would have to…
They can’t get up once I drop them or I’m lost.
“You just need to-”
“Coby!”
A sudden pain lanced through Coby’s head, so sharp and focused that for a moment he feared someone had shot him. The forest disappeared in a wash of whiter and gold, everything so overwhelming that he dropped to his knees and dropped to his knees.
When he finally cracked them back open, Garp was gone. So was his sense of the horde of enemies.
And off through the trees, he could see a familiar form kneeling on the ground.
The memory of what he’d done flooded back. Lost control. Hurt people. What was that? It had been so real. He could feel that brittle crackling of bones under his foot when he’d let everything loose.
“Coby!”
His attention snapped to the figure in the distance. Helmeppo. He was there. He wasn’t dead, not even visibly hurt, but his expression-
“Coby, answer me!” Fear laced the words. “Are you okay?”
“Yes,” Coby called back, wincing at how shaky the one word was. “I’m… I’m fine.”
“I wouldn’t believe that for a million berris,” he growled. “But if you mean it I could use some help.”
The person on the ground wriggled their shoulders, trying to break free, but even from here Coby could see there wasn’t much meat on their bones -- and that was compared to himself and Helmeppo, who were far from beefy themselves. Helmeppo was able to keep them pinned until Coby ran over. As Coby reached him, Helmeppo looked up, and started to smile at him, but it was a strange and sickly try.
What had happened while he was lost to those dreams?
“You need to get off me!” the person groused, trying again to break free as Coby arrived. “When they hear about this they’re going to run you off the island!”
There was something lightly familiar about the person -- a young woman with dark hair up in a braid and green eyes that flashed anger as she glared at him. Coby felt like she’d be directing that murderous look toward Helmeppo if only she had the angle to do so.
“I’m here,” Coby said. “Let her up.”
“Okay,” Helmeppo said. Then, addressing himself to the captive, he added, “but if you try kicking me in the nuts again, I’m knocking you out.”
Helmeppo released her and backed off. She got to her feet and glared at Coby. “So why are you attacking people in the middle of the forest?” she asked.
“Because they attacked us first,” Coby said, trusting that that was true. He didn't think Helmeppo would go after just anyone.
“I never touched you!”
“Using a devil fruit on people still counts as assault,” Coby said. “And whoever you are, we-”
The lingering anxiety from whatever she had done to him to make him see those visions was slowly receding, which let his mind clear enough to finally take in the details of the woman before her. The clothing that marked her as a native islander. The eyes that promised she wasn’t about to make this easy on them. And in her hair…
“Hang on,” Coby said, stepping closer, staring closer.
The woman drew back, eyes darting. “What?” she asked. “What??”
His eyes were fastened not on her face, but on her hair.
On the jade hairpin in the shape of a lily.
“Helmeppo, I know who this is,” Coby said.
“Wait… what? How? Who?”
“Remember what we were asked to do the other evening?” Coby asked. In the end he’d told them himself. And he saw he was right when her eyes widened at his next four words.
“This is Ebio’s daughter.”