NOVEL SIMPLE Chapter 25 – Cat Defaces Library, Gets Exiled, Then Gets To Ride World’s Best Waterpark ride
Chapter 25
Yoruichi sat at a small circular table in the corner of the Marine Corps Library, 4 days after her impromptu meeting with Sengoku. She was bent over the table, with her head in her hands, grumbling in frustration.
‘I am so woefully out of touch with this world, I don’t even know where to start’ she complained internally. Yoruichi had thought that finding Shiki would be a simple enough process, after all, can you really hide giant floating islands?
As she found out, you very much can. There is almost no information on the man, even in the folder Tsuru had given her a few days prior. All it held was very similar information to the folder Sengoku had shown her, and most of the additional information wasn’t even about Shiki himself, just people who were thought to be a part of his crew making supply runs.
Trying to find out where these people had been sighted, in an attempt to establish a pattern of travel had led only to Yoruichi finding out in realization that she had no idea what most things referred to in this world. Not locations, not well-known people, not even who the big hitters really were.
That led into two days of Yoruichi holed up in the library, which to get access to she had to annoy the hell out of Sengoku for an entire afternoon, she even threatened to turn into a cat and leave dead animals in his office, so she could show the entire marines that Sengoku was a shitty cat.
He, naturally, did not take that sitting down, so he then proceeded to tell her she could only get into the library if she took Garp with her, which they both knew was a lost cause.
So Yoruichi decided on a little malicious compliance. She snuck into Garp’s quarters that night and knocked him out and dragged him into the library.
That was two days ago, and the idiot hasn’t stopped snoring since.
But Garp’s chain sawing was not the reason for Yoruichi’s frustration. It was the constant walls she ran into when reading all the reports on Shiki. While these things may be somewhat understandable to someone who is in the marines, and someone who is a native to this place and grew up hearing information about things, but she barely knew anything.
‘Like what the hell is a black den den mushi?’ she thought, ‘Theres white ones too, and gold ones. I thought they only had one goddamn color!’
This was the issue she was running into. The small pieces of the reports that are written in like it is common knowledge, but only leads Yoruichi into a deeper and deeper rabbit hole. Things like ship models, types of wood, den den mushis, the Underworld (Which is a whole other can of worms in of itself), all of it was mentioned in reports, which led Yoruichi to digging into the various books around her.
She barely got through any of the report, and if she continued at this pace, she would be months away from making any progress in finding Shiki, and shoving it in Sengoku’s face.
“Ughhhh. At this point I should just go looking for him blind.” Yoruichi groaned in despair, “At least I’d have a chance to run into Shiki like that, or at least some of his crew.”
She quickly pushed herself up, causing the chair to screech along the floor. As she did so, she heard a commotion come from around a corner to her left.
“Awh Wha-Ahh” Garp yelled as he was startled awake by the screeching of the chair, and fell of the side of the stuffed recliner he was haphazardly strewn across. Yoruichi herself was startled by the sound of the large man hitting the floor.
She jumped a few feet into the air, almost like a cat would when scared. When she landed, she immediately flash-stepped over to Garp’s position, and summarily punched him in the head, sending the man sprawling back onto the ground as he was trying to get up.
“Haven’t I told you to not scare me you bastard?!” Yoruichi cried, slightly shielding the hand that had smashed into Garp’s admittedly dense head.
She then grabbed the large man like a sack of potatoes and chucked him back onto the chair he was previously on, much the same way she had a few days ago. She then quickly went and grabbed another chair, and sat down near him.
“All right, I need you to answer some questions for me…” she said, somehow grabbing a light from…… somewhere and shining it in Garp’s face.
Garp, who had only woken up a few seconds prior, and had received multiple blows to the head in that time, just nodded shakily.
“As long as you… urgh…. Get me some crackers, ill answer anything you want…” Garp said, one hand coming up to rub his temple where he had hit his head on the floor, and the other rubbing the back of his head where he was just punched.
Yoruichi snickered a little at the automatic response. “You know you don’t have any crackers anymore, right? That blow to the head might have actually done something.” She said flippantly.
That got Garp to actually focus on what was happening in front of him. His eyes widened comically as he saw Yoruichi sitting in front of him as he slowly stopped massaging his head.
“You-“ Garp said, before his eyed reddened in fury “You crazy cat lady! Give me my Crackers!” he yelled, as he lunged out of his chair at an impossible speed, but still missing Yoruichi as she backflipped out of her own chair with a light laugh as Garp crashed right into it. She was laughing much less when Garp continued to go through the chair, and continue to chase after her.
“Oh shi-“ she said, only to be cut off by Garp’s meaty fist crashing into her shoulder, sending her flying back into a stack of bookshelves.
“Ow, you fucker!” Yoruichi yelled as the bookshelf she had slammed into came tumbling down on top of her head. “Get over here!”
She lunged out of the bookshelf, pushing it of her with naught but a thought, as she dashed back at Garp, who had a grin plastered on his face as he raised his hands above his head, knowing exactly what was going to come next.
Yoruichi went for a high roundhouse kick to the side of Garp’s head which was, predictably blocked. He was not able to predict the follow up back heel Yoruichi delivered to his side, using her hands on the ground as leverage and support to send the man sprawling back into a table and chair set.
A loud bang echoed throughout the library as Garp bowled over the furniture like a bowling ball.
Yoruichi launched herself after the makeshift bowling ball, arm cocked back in preparation to destroy what was left of Garp’s hairline. She was stopped by the shout of someone she should have probably expected, their voice echoing through the now partially destroyed library.
“What in the hell are you two idiots doing in here?!” Tsuru roared in righteous indignation at seeing a place she had maintained with great care destroyed.
Both Garp and Yoruichi froze like two children who had just got caught trashing their mother’s house. “U-uh, its not what it looks like….” Garp stuttered, as he quickly got up out of the ruins that was a seating area and brushed himself off.
Tsuru just crossed her arms and glared at the man, making him flinch. He immediately threw Yoruichi under the bus. “She started it.” He said accusingly. They both looked over at the offending woman, who was currently in an attempt to covertly get herself out of a window before the other two noticed.
She gave a quick wave to both of them, and quickly said, “He’s a liar, don’t believe him.” As she threw the window behind her open with one hand, and she attempted to hop out. She instantly slipped on the impossibly clean railing, with her head slamming against the base of the window on her way down.
“Ow, ow, what the fuck….” She moaned, holding her forehead in pain. She glanced up at Tsuru, who was grinning maliciously at her. “The hell did you do to the window?” Yoruichi accused, slightly wincing from the now bruised forehead.
Garp cheekily smiled next to her, and Tsuru waved her hand dismissively. “Oh, I just cleaned that window. You were just clumsy enough to slip on it.” she said nonchalantly, with Garp snickering next to her.
Yoruichi’s brows furrowed, her eyes bouncing back and forth from Tsuru to the window and back again. ‘Just cleaned the window my ass! I’ve been here for four days, and I haven’t seen Tsuru once!’ she thought heatedly.
She glared right back at the woman’s smug face, rubbing her forehead as she got up. “What do you want, hag.” She grumbled.
Tsuru frowned at Yoruichi, and then gestured vaguely around the room. “Well, for starters, I want to know why you thought it was such a wonderful idea to vandalize my library.” Tsuru demanded.
Yoruichi paused at the rubbing of her head, and said, “Uh, does 3 parts boredom and one part frustration count?”
It apparently did not, as Tsuru frowned harder at her. “Uhhh, Garp snores ridiculously loud?” she continued hesitantly.
Unexpectedly, Tsuru snorted, and glanced at Garp out of the corner of her eye. “Don’t I know it…” she mumbled to herself. She then turned more fully to Garp, and said, “Since this is your fault, go find some chore boys on punishment duty and get them to clean up.”
Yoruichi and Tsuru both ignored the cry of indignation from said Monkey, leaving him to huff and puff and eventually leave once his gas was blown.
Tsuru waited for Yoruichi to get up, and told her to follow her to Tsuru’s office. Once they got there, Tsuru sat down on her chair behind her desk.
“You have spent 4 days in that library of mine, correct?” Tsuru asked.
Yoruichi leaned against the side of the desk and nodded. “Yep. Wasted 4 whole days learning absolutely nothing.” She complained.
Tsuru just stared at her uncomprehendingly, halfway through shuffling papers on her desk. “What do you mean, you learned nothing?” The vice admiral asked, “You were in there for almost half a week.”
Yoruichi thought over her words, thinking about what to say next to really get her point across. “Weeeellll, I wouldn’t say I learned nothing, but anything I did learn was overshadowed by even more stuff I couldn’t make heads or tails of.”
Tsuru gave her an ‘are you serious’ look, and asked, “What, exactly, are you referring to?”
Yoruichi just huffed, and said, “How the hell am I supposed to know what a Black and White snail are, what makes Adam wood so precious, where the hell any of the islands that are mentioned even are much less what they are good at, and how any of it relates to Shiki at all.”
Tsuru hummed in thought for a moment, and then asked offhandedly, “And how exactly did that end up with you getting in a brawl with Garp in my library?”
Yoruichi pouted, and muttered, “He started it…..”
Tsuru gave her a disapproving frown, and said in a disappointed tone, “I don’t care who started it. I would think that the impression I’ve gotten from you would let you be the bigger person and not fight in an enclosed space with precious knowledge inside, with the both of you being people that could bring down the whole building if you wanted to.”
Yoruichi just looked at her askance, and deadpanned, “And I thought you were someone who knew better than to let Garp into a library.”
Tsuru raised her hands in disbelief, and said loudly, “Garp doesn’t even know there’s a library in the building!”
Yoruichi escalated it one step further and shouted, “EXACTLY!” With her hands raised above her head.
Truth stood up and slammed her hands on her desk, shouting back, “THAT’S NOT WHAT I MEANT AND YOU KNOW IT!”
Before any more arguing about inane topics could continue, there was a knock at the door making both women freeze.
Tsuru let out a slight “Come in.” And the door creaked open. A slightly nervous marine looked in, and said timidly, “Uh, sorry to disturb you Vice Admiral, but the ship you requested for base G-5 is ready to leave. When will you be down, so I can let them know when to expect you?”
Tsuru’s face suddenly got a blistering smile on it, her eyes glancing shifting back and forth between the marine and Yoruichi. “Ahh. Well done. To correct a little misconception, I will not be going to G-5. She will.” Tsuru said calmly, and pointed right a Yoruichi who was quite lost now.
Said Purple haired woman looked at Tsuru like she was crazy. “Oi, what do you mean I’m the one going to G-5? What the hell even is G-5 anyway?” She said indignantly, pointing a finger at Tsuru.
She ignored any attempt for Tsuru to reply, and spun on the marine at the doorway, pointing at him too. “You, tell whatever captain is on that boat I will not be getting on it.”
Tsuru just snickered, and said smugly, “Yes you will, if you want any chance of catching Shiki in the next few years.”
Yoruichi caught on quickly. ‘So, Shiki is at wherever this G-5 is. That is a base, right? The marines seem to number them like that.’ She thought pensively.
She then turned back to Tsuru and said stubbornly, “what if I don’t get on the boat anyway?”
Tsuru just smiled even wider and pushed a poster that looked eerily familiar to her. Yoruichi scowled at the wrinkled woman, who towered over her and turned back to the now sweating marine in the doorway., his eyes bouncing back and forth from the two women between his navy cap.
“Come on, pipsqueak.” Yoruichi said, brushing past the man who was still a half foot taller than her.
As she left the room, she heard Tsuru call out, “Have fun in the New World!”, which caused Yoruichi to spin around just as the door was shut behind her.
She stood there for a moment, staring at the door in disbelief. ‘Aw, shit. This just got a whole new level of fucked up.’ She thought while shaking her head.
She then turned around and followed the marine without another word.
Yoruichi sat on the lower mast of a run of the mill Marine ship, staring out over the open ocean. It had been almost 36 hours since she had left Tsuru’s office, boarded the infernal boat and got shipped off to what she had confirmed to be Marine Base G-5.
They had crossed over the Red Line much like her and Garp had when they went to Mariejois, even taking the same path up, but instead going full through the city and down the other side instead of back down the way they came.
That left her in her current situation.
‘When will it stop FUCKING RAINING RAIN THE SIZE OF CANNONBALLS!’ she cried in her mind, the experience of getting hit with a single droplet of water and getting absolutely smoked and soaked at the same time utterly miserable.
She had eventually put a very lightly powered Enkosen above her head, acting as an umbrella. It was also the cause of much disgruntlement among the marines on board, as the spinning nature of the kido barrier sent water flying into the unfortunate marines nearby, who were all wearing some sort of poncho to cover up from the rain.
All of a sudden, she felt a *thunk* as something hit her barrier, and looked up. She could see the rain had turned to hail. ‘Oh joy. Now I get to get hit by actual cannonballs.’ She thought dryly. She then heard a shout over the now constant thumps of the cannonball sized hail.
She looked down at a marine, who she thought was the first mate of the ship, but wasn’t exactly sure. ‘Mah, they all look the same.’ She dismissed airily.
“Miss Yoruichi!” The man called, “We are a few hours out from G-5!”
Yoruichi nodded to herself and called back, “Got it, Ill get ready to get off this stupid boat.”
The man just shook his head wryly and had to evade to the side to avoid a hail that looked to be a bit bigger than a cannonball. Yoruichi frowned at the sight and looked up again. ‘Any bigger and those things are going through the deck.’ She thought.
She then hopped down off the mast, and flash-stepped into the interior of the ship where she had her quarters for the trip.
She quickly made her way down the blank corridor and went into her spartan room, right over to the desk that held the only information Tsuru thought to give her before she got shipped off.
She sat down, easily navigating through the room that was starting to tilt side to side as the storm outside increased its ferocity.
Pouring over the documents, she started noting the critical information. ‘Last seen location of ‘Golden Lion’ Shiki was on the island of Applenine, located a few miles east of Dressrosa, Warlord Doflamingo’s current residence. Known to be frequented and claimed by the Big Mom pirates for the apples the island is known for, despite it being a winter island.’
Yoruichi narrowed her eyes in thought. ‘Hmm, Shiki either has balls the size of the hail outside or he has an agreement with Doflamingo, Big Mom, or both of them. I doubt pirates like those two would want someone who broke out of prison recently showing up in their territory, since while it is under the Dressrosa flag, Big Mom has been known to claim any island she can get her grubby hands on that has a stable food item.’
She flipped a page, finding it much more redacted than most. ‘This is the one that talks about Shiki’s past.’ She leaned closer, peering at the sections that had been blanked out. ‘Looks like whoever did this censoring did a rush job on it, and had to paint over the information instead of just not putting it in the report.’ She thought, an idea coming to her mind.
‘Let’s see what the government doesn’t want me to know, eh?’ she thought in anticipation. She picked up the paper and held it out over the desk with her left hand, and held her right underneath the paper.
“One of the fun parts about living with Kido masters for almost a century is that you learn a few things.” She spoke to herself out loud, concentrating on her current action. She kept her eyes focused on the paper, not blinking whatsoever. “One of the best things was how they tried to modify all the Kido they could.” Her mumbling continued, dying down slightly in the wake of her concentration.
A few moments later, she could feel the heat visibly rise around her. Once she had the correct feeling she was looking for, she mumbled absentmindedly, “One of those modifications was technically a failure, but should work well for this purpose. Hado #33, Sokatsui.”
What most people would expect from this Kido spell would be a wave of blue fire erupting from her hand. However, what Tessai had figured out one night was that you could condense that wave into more of a cone. One of the failed attempts simply didn’t do anything useful beyond raise the temperature near the user’s hand by a large degree, but not enough to have things spontaneously catch fire from.
This is what Yoruichi was using to her advantage, the failed cast of a Hado spell to melt the paint enough for it to be smudged off of the areas it was in before. Paint is generally a liquid form with a pretty low temp, especially if it is a recent application like this was.
‘Hopefully this doesn’t destroy the report.’ Yoruichi thought, her eyes staring at the paper watching the paint start to bubble slightly. After a few minutes of heating the paper, she stopped, cutting the energy supplying the Kido.
She then quickly wiped the ink off with her hand, then patted the place dry.
Once she was done, she set down the paper on the table, which promptly tilted to the side enough to throw everything off of it, including Yoruichi herself.
“Woah.” She said as she stumbled to catch her balance as the boat tilted. “This is why I hate this place. I’ve only been here for a day or so and its already miserable.”
She brushed herself off and picked up the papers that had fallen and put most of them in her satchel.
The one she had ‘modified’ stayed out so she could read it.
‘Shiki is a former member of the Rocks Pirates, and one of the players in the God Valley Incident. Known to have a hatred for Edward ‘Whitebeard’ Newgate and a known affiliation with Charlotte ‘Big Mom’ Linlin and Kaido ‘The Beast’ because of his former crew. ¾ of the Yonko are known to have relations to the Rocks Pirates as members of the crew. Highly dangerous individual.’
‘Pirate Rival to the Then dubbed ‘Pirate King’ Gol D. Roger. Fought in what is known as the Edd War and received piece of a Helm inside his head, where it remains to this day.’
Yoruichi nodded slowly to herself. ‘I have no idea what most of that is, but that makes things complicated. Dressrosa is somewhere near both Whitebeard and Big Mom’s Territory. Whitebeard might not be a problem, given what little I’ve heard about him, but Big Mom may not like me going after a former crew mate of hers, if she finds out. Which she won’t.’
She then compiled her information in her head, making plans to get to Dressrosa to scout the place out asap, to see if Shiki was still there on Applenine before she stuffed the rest of the papers into her satchel.
It was not a moment too soon as Yoruichi almost fell over in the shaking of the ship. When she got up, she could hear screaming and shouting from the marine crew. She quickly flash-stepped out the door to make it on the front deck, and what she saw made her drop her jaw.
Looking up into the sky, she could see hail falling 2 or 3 times the size of the whole ship. But that was not what was making the marines on the ship panic.
The fact that they no longer had the bow of the ship was, however.
Yoruichi stared dumbfounded as she watched the marines run around like headless chickens, screaming about how ‘they’re all going to die,’ ‘Where’s my mommy’ etc etc.
The Shinigami glanced off Starboard side as she could see some massive hailstones falling close enough to the ship to completely drown the currently sinking ship.
‘Oh, well, that’s not good.’ She thought, putting her hand on the hilt of Rain. She leaned forward and quickly dashed out, drawing her blade and cutting up in a vertical slash.
When she appeared again, she was near the closest hailstone, cutting it in half like one would a piece of cheeze.
She quickly recovered from her swing and brought her Zanpakuto around in a horizontal slash, bisecting the next closest one. She Then flickered again and disappeared from her spot in the air, appearing again above the last hailstone which she proceeded to heel drop kick the top of, causing it to crumble into pieces instantly.
She landed back on the deck of the still sinking ship with a content smile on her face, completely not paying attention to the consequences of her own actions.
She regretted that decision a moment later when all the pieces of the still larger than the ship hailstones crashed into the water, tilting the ship almost 80 degrees in an instant.
This caused pretty much everything on the boat, person, cannon, rope, even the odd fish or two to start falling down toward the open ocean.
Yoruichi counteracted this by creating some platforms under her feet to stand on as she watched the boat she had been on for the last two days sink into the depths of the New World with a disappointed sigh.
‘I thought this was supposed to be a vacation. Why does all the stupid shit keep happening to me?’ she thought desolately.
She would turn out to regret those thoughts almost a minute later as the ship was almost completely sunken into the water, only debris and the occasional sail still floating.
Yoruichi heard a rumbling coming from below her, and only had a single moment to turn around and look at the origin of the noise as her eyes widened in shock as the water rose up and blasted her so hard she broke the sound barrier almost instantly.
Yoruichi spat out some blood that had gotten into her throat from the impact as she flew Mach 1 into the distance, quickly breaking over the first layer of clouds and into what looked to be a cloudy hellscape of lightning, freezing cold blizzards, firestorms right next to said blizzard, and a whole array of other natural phenomena that were, in fact, not natural whatsoever.
‘Ugh. Think I bruised my insides with that one. That shit hit harder than Garp does.’ She thought painfully, feeling the wind rushing by her face as she struggled to right herself.
A moment later, she broke through a layer of clouds which seemed to lead to a completely clear sky. ‘Well, this isn’t so bad. Definitely more interesting than going and hunting a glorified prisoner.’ She thought, righting herself finally and enjoying the trip of herself being hurtled through the air at speeds that would probably kill a normal human if they were to experience them.
‘Wonder where I’m going to land’ she thought idly, her hands going behind her legs as she relaxed into the ‘breeze’.
Several minutes later, Yoruichi was starting to get bored. She was still flying, with no sign of stopping any time soon.
Several hours later, Yoruichi finally saw something that was pretty interesting. She had already passed through 3 more storm areas much like the one that had gotten her into this mess, and had to block multiple blizzards, flamethrowers, and lightning bolts with her Kido so she didn’t get freeze dried into a Chinese food stall dish.
‘Is that a fucking elephant?!’ she cried in her mind, looking over the horizon at an elephant that had absolutely no right to be as large as it was.
‘That thing is almost as high up as I am!’ she thought, amazed. ‘When Garp told me weird stuff was in the Grand Line, I didn’t think he meant Elephants the size of Islands! What does it even eat?’
Yoruichi was interrupted from her dazed staring at the elephant by a rumble of thunder. Her eyes widened slightly as all she could say was “Oh shi-“ before she was spiked almost directly toward the ocean by a massive lightning bolt.