Trinket of Syzygy | One Piece fanfic

010.

Chapter 10: A Masked Revelation

Quince and Rogue attended the bar. "We might be worth coming back in a couple of hours. Get a table for two for now. I'll get us drinks." Ordering a lager for himself and a cider for his younger white haired friend, Rogue sits down. The girls fortunately didn't approach him or Quince for gender based reasons. The two didn't have much to talk about, so Rogue brought up a random topic "So when should we leave Stagna and sail to our next island? It would seem that we're getting a bit too comfortable in here, when we're not even supposed to dilly dally in the first place." Quince looked at Rogue for a moment, with his mouth stuffed full. He blinked sporadically, as he then burst out laughing. "But I still wanna eat so much more apple pies! You should try some to ease that tension tugging onto your grumpy face!" Rogue's left brow twitched at his brazen statement. Briefly, he felt as though that was the final straw and was about to lash out on Quince. Thanks to his rationality, he immediately concluded that it would only make things worse for his case, had he engaged in another quarrel; especially given the surrounding crowd. In his typical gruff tone, he let out a heavy sigh. "In any case, the two of us have to go over our plan to make sure everything flows seamlessly." Quince continued munching on his pie crust, both eyes fixed on Rogue. "Am all earsh!" He exclaimed indefinitely, his mouth still full. Rogue pulled out what seemed to be a rather huge scroll. Unabashed, he swept his arm across the round table to dispose of everything, including Quince's plate of pies. "Hey! I was eating those.." A pout grew on Quince's face. Rogue however, completely disregarded him, as he went on over to unfurl the scroll. It appeared to be a map with scribbles plotted across its entire base. Rogue then laid a finger on top of a miniscule sketch. "According to Ruby, Chrysanthemum shouldn't be that far off from here. In the span of a few hours, we might even find our own way towards it, without any apparent struggle. The only issue is.. we still don't know whether or not we should trust her directions.." Quince leaned across the table.

"Why shouldn't we trust Ruby? She's been extremely reliable ever since the three of us formed our allegiance!" Out of disappointment, Rogue slammed a palm against his forehead, his nose wrinkling. "That's exactly the problem, Quince. We're still unaware of her ulterior motive. Plus, we don't know for sure if all this is just a way for her to misguide us in the long run. Think of the possibilities. Anyways, back to the main topic at hand.." Whilst Rogue solemnly resumed the discussion, Quince couldn't help but fixate his complete attention on the grotesque drawings, scattered upon the crimson bloke's map. To his ears, Rogue's words blurred out to be nothing but gibberish drivel. The boy thought to himself. "Man, I never knew Rogue was such a terrible artist.. And here I thought he never makes any mistakes..." Concern was evidently written all over his grey, hollow eyes. "Quince.. Quince..? QUINCE!" Suddenly, an impactful slam struck the table in between. "Huh? WOAH!" Rogue raised a fist, an uncanny smile etched on his face. "Were you even listening the whole time?" Quince felt shivers running down his spine. "Uh.. yeah! Of course I did!" Rogue's expression shifted quickly, as he took on an austere mantle. "You're awfully bad at lying. No surprise there though." He unsheathed his sword and kicked off the round table. His blood red eyes seemingly thirsting for blood. Slowly, he shuffled his way to Quince, the tip of his blade dragging across the wooden tiles. Their now pronounced figures instantly caught the crowd's entire attention. Some afraid, whilst the others were eager to witness a good skirmish. "Uh... Rogue? What are you..? Wait, wait.. AHH!!!!" His distant scream scared off the nesting crows, as it reverberated throughout the whole district.

After the two of them were kicked out from the bar, they decided to tread their way to the mansion. A conspicuous swollen bump rested atop Quince's head, accompanied with a severe black eye. Gently, he held onto his head. "What the hell was that for, Rogue?! I told you I was listening, didn't I?! If it weren't for your short temper, we would've been able to last much longer!" Rogue, having had enough of Quince's shenanigans, shoved another fist against his face. "Well clearly, you weren't paying attention enough dumbass. And I know all too well that you were also talking shit about my drawings. Just what exactly is so awful about it?! Also, what the hell do you mean by last longer? Was it your intention to get us kicked out in the end, after all?!"  Quince staggered backwards, covering his nose with his left palm. Blood trickling down to his chin. "Great! Now you gave me a nosebleed! And besides, how could you even call that a drawing?! They hardly even have any shape!" He stated nasally.  "Tch." Rogue felt infuriated once more and was prepared to pull out his blade. This time, Quince retracted his words. "Okay okay fine! Your map looked uh.. decent I guess." Albeit the red haired male knew that Quince was blatantly lying, his rage surprisingly quelled in an instant. And just like that, they carried on with their short venture to the mansion. Within a good few metres away from public, Quince spoke "Okay, so I'll power pulse everywhere?" "Yeah do what you want. Cassandra and Ruby are both clearly weaker than us, so we should be able to get to Chrysanthemum without issue." As they arrived at the mansion Rogue unsheathed his sword and Quince transformed into power pulse. They broke the door open, but much to their disappointment, the room was pitch black. All the lights were off. Quince could hear many gun shots. Rogue deflected them with his sword, whilst Quince used guard pulse to protect himself. With the lights turning on, the maids could all be seen using rifles. Rogue grinned at them "If you're gonna ambush me, at least take me seriously."