Like Mythical Animals (or the secret sexual history of monkey D. luffy)

like mythical animals

Yamato strolled along the streets of the flower capital, taking in the sights and sounds of a restored and revived city. She had been to the capital many, many times in the past with her father, the FORMER emperor of the new world, but she could only view it as the oppressed city that it was. Kaido tried to teach her that to be an effective ruler over the people of Wano but in reality, he wanted her to be a tyrant, like himself. She didn't want to be that but what could she do at the time? She was only one person in a crew of hundreds of bloodthirsty pirates.

But all that has changed. The city had changed. The capital had changed.

No longer was it lifeless and depressing. It was now as it should be: full of life, of happiness, of hope, and of optimism for the future. A future free of the harsh stranglehold of the beast pirates and its now fallen captain. The festival to celebrate the liberation of Wano started a few days ago and showed no signs of stopping. Citizens populated the street, dancing, eating and singing songs that they held in their hearts but dare not sing for fear of kaido's petty wrath. For Yamato, it was worth it to suffer all those years at the hands of her father if it meant she could see this side of the country she called her home.

Many of the residents waved to her as she passed, eating any and all food she was offered. A part of Yamato was scared that the people would never accept her as a protector, being the offspring of Kaido but many of them knew the young oni's punishments and imprisonments for not agreeing with her father's ideals and ways of ruling. Add to the fact that Momonosuke was very vocal about Yamato's contributions during the battle of Onigashima and she was a hero overnight. Not that she cared. She was just happy that everyone was free to live as they wanted. The food was nice but that wasn't the reason she was out and about in the flower capital. She had ventured into the city to think about her future and the future of Wano. she had come to a decision but it was one that she didn't want to make. After her ponderings had concluded, which took about 6 hours of wandering around, she slowly began to make her way back to where she started the day.

It only took her 30 minutes to reach Orochi castle, the new home of the new shogun of Wano. It was here that the straw-hat pirates were secretly staying at. They were seen around the city during the festival but no one, outside of their allies, knew where they were actually staying, not that anyone was really looking for them. The involvement of the straw-hats were underplayed, per luffy's request. He didn't want to be seen as a hero since he only did what he did out of friendship. Plus, he mentioned something about not sharing meat.

As she passed through the gates of the castle, she passed by someone she had only recently gotten to know: Roronoa Zoro, swordsman of the Strawhat pirates. "Oi, yama-o," he greeted in his gruff manner. Yamato didn't mind that silly nickname that Luffy had given her and Zoro seemed to mirror a lot of traits from his captain, including the use of his creative nicknames.

"Good evening, Zoro," she greeted. "Heading into town?"

The emerald haired pirate took a large swing from the jug of Sakura sake he had picked up during the celebrations. "Yeah. running low," he said, shaking the jug a bit.

"You seem to like Wano sake, zoro."

He gave a wry smile. "You guys make some great booze. I'll have to get a couple of barrels before we head off."

"A couple of dozen barrels, you mean?" she joked, getting a laugh from the swordsman. Zoro was probably the hardest drinker she had met in her life. Yamato had seen him down an entire barrel of sake a few nights ago and he wasn't even buzzed. Nami said that he had the highest alcoholic tolerance of any member of the crew. Mostly because he was the only one who drank booze on the regular.