One Piece (Love Story) [Part Two]

Chapter Two Hundred and Thirteen [Rewritten]

-Chapter Two Hundred and Thirteen-

"She's totally drunk!" Usopp snapped.

"Geez, I wonder what gave that away" I deadpanned as we docked. Nami, Luffy, and Usopp were the only ones to step down onto the platform to speak with the older woman face-to-face while the rest of us stayed up on the ship.

"Oh! Pie, huh?" the woman drunkenly questioned with a grin upon being offered some leftover pie. "That stuff goes good with booze.".

"Mmh! Yummy!" the little girl beside her happily hummed. "My name is Chimney, this is our cat Gonbe" she soon introduced while holding up a blue rabbit.

"Adorable..." I breathed out, gaze softening as I gently smiled at the sight.

"And that's Granny Kokoro" she pointed, motioning toward the drunk beside her.

"You fellows wouldn't happen to be train robbers, would you?" Kokoro chuckled...it was hard to tell if she was being serious or not with that question. Her drunken state made it just a tad bit difficult to tell what exactly she was feeling at the moment as she still lay there upon the concrete ground.

"My name's Luffy and I'm going to be King of the Pirates" Luffy answered.

"Really?" Chimney asked, speaking around the mouthful of food in her mouth.

"Yep" Luffy nodded.

"I like you, you're funny!" Kokoro laughed, unperturbed by the fact that our captain had just confessed to us being pirates.

"By the way, Chimney—that thing's a steamboat, right?" Nami asked, motioning toward the direction that the train had disappeared. "Seems awfully long to me, can't imagine it getting very far" she softly frowned.

"You probably never seen anything like it, seeing as it's the only one in the world" Chimney said, shaking her head. "It's not a steamboat, it's a Sea Train, and it's called the Puffing Tom!" I owlishly blinked before racking my brain in search of any form of familiarity with the name.

"Oh..." I slowly nodded, as the memories started coming back to me. "So that's the Puffing Tom..." during times like this, I can't help but feel a bitter sort of thankfulness toward all that hard studying I was forced to do as a child. It sometimes helped to easily clarify things.

"How does it work?" Nami curiously asked, causing the child to immediately go straight into explaining the mechanism behind the train itself.

"Railway?" Usopp interrupted, cutting the child off in wonderment.

"If you look closely, you can see tracks right below the waves—the train goes the same route every day, taking people from one island to the next" Chimney explained. "It carries ships and packages and other stuff too" she added.

"Oh wow! Funny, we didn't notice it before" Luffy remarked the moment he spotted the tracks that gently swayed just beneath the water's surface.

"No kidding, we ran right into it" Sanji agreed. Bending over the side of the railing, I attempted to get a closer look at the railway...only to quickly shoot back up the moment I felt a hand suddenly rest against my bottom.

"Excuse me?" I blushed, one eyebrow raised in questioning as I looked at the swordsman beside me.

"My intentions are pure" was all he said, grinning as he gave my ass a gentle squeeze.

"Pure my ass..." I embarrassingly scoffed, lightly bumping him with my shoulder before turning my attention back toward the rest.

"You should be more careful—didn't you see the signal?" Chimney asked, softly scolding us for our recklessness. "There's a bell ringing for everything" she pointed out.