Chapter 90: A bouquet for the Departed & Mysterious Lady
Vlad only remained inside Baterilla for only 2 days, time that he allowed everyone to move around and destress from the boredom that was Sea-Travelling, but with a small place like this Island where he didn't have much to do, the girls could find him most of the time inside the Town's only Library, delighting himself with some books.
And while doing so, some of the women of the island who took notice of the handsome travelling merchant made sure to admire him from a distance as he read, an interesting book that had meticulous writing, even girlish at times.
It was a book containing the memories or part of the events that made the writer note it down, containing at times boring, overdramatic thoughts of a woman in love with a man, thinking about his safety and if he wasn't cheating on her.
Such thoughts made him scoff a bit while turning the pages because he found it rather silly that a woman would even think of threatening her man with distancing, cutting all ties if she found out about the man's infidelity.
– [However, I can't bring myself to hate Roger after explaining to me that once he achieves his dream, we will truly be free with the World no longer being constrained by the dark tentacles of the World Government. We will be living in Baterilla raising our children since he told me he wants a son and a daughter to act boastful with Rayleigh]
– [Because it's our duty as bringers of the Dawn, to fulfil our prophesied duty.]
'Really? It's your duty to break the collapse of the World System? Hah, do you people even know what the repercussion of your actions would be? Bringing the World into total Anarchy.'
'The World Government keeps on a fragile balance, but from the information I've gathered, for about 900 years this Balance was kept with the lives of the people moving forward.'
Filled with his own ideas while commenting over the pure thoughts of this woman, who from what the girls told him, checked all marks that it was the woman called Portgas D. Rouge.
He turned the pages, ignoring the stares he was receiving from the women placed in various locations in the Library, peaking at him, his hands stopping from turning the journal's pages.
– [Roger returned home and told me that there will only be an Island left for him to find. The one where the answers to our Clan's calling rest, and in an attempt to convince him to allow me on Oro Jackson to see this truth with my own eyes, he declined, telling me the journey to the last island would be dangerously filled with unknowns.]
– [In the end, he is still a silly man, who believes I am a weak woman.]
Along the lines written by the woman, it lost its detailed telling of the woman's thought, as if a large jump in dates happened right before his eyes, only to bring out a truth that he expected.
– [I think I've got pregnant, it's been 2 months since Roger left for the last island. Too afraid to tell anyone about this, even mom would probably tell others about this.]
– [It's all lost, my Roger. The sickness has finally taken him. Why? Why? Why? I wanted to tell you the news that you'll be a father.]
'A sad story that would make those little girls wail at how sad it got in the end. However, the only light for her was the small life in her belly that she kept hidden from everyone.'
Getting up from his seat at the table, he moved out followed by lighting a cigarette that he started smoking as he moved around town, noticing the activity of the Baterilla Town and as he was walking to the centre of the town, his keen senses picked up the screams of pain from a woman, along with a man who was calling out for help.
Arriving there with many other people staring around not knowing if they should help or not, he got closer while smoking casually, and to the confusion of everyone, he started clicking his tongue, before casually saying to the woman who was on the ground.
"You just experienced your Water breaking, shouldn't be so bad since the smell and color looks healthy."
"W-Who are you?"
"No body. Anyway, let me take you to the Hospital and let that old woman help you deliver your child."
Taking the woman in his arms, careful to not to hurt her in any shape or form, he shifted his attention on the man who snapped to reality, telling him coldly.
"Next time, you better not look pathetic and just take your woman to the Hospital so she can receive support. You'll see your woman at the hospital, so don't worry."
Saying that, he disappeared from the crowd along with the woman, and in a short moment the woman who entered labor found herself inside the building of the hospital, with Vlad showing absolutely no signs that he knew this place.
"Mister? How can we help you?" asked a nurse, confused by the appearance of the man who got like a flash in front of her.
"This woman is in labor, guide me to the midwife of this hospital."
"Lady Aldresia Rós? Follow me."
Following the young woman wearing nurse clothes, he entered into a room, revealing the crazy old woman who was mumbling at the Coffee Shop 2 days ago, looking slightly better than when he first saw her, a grace of his own girls talking with her.
"Lady Aldresia, this person has brought his wife so you can help her deliver her child."
"..."
Vlad didn't bother to argue with the nurse who had mistaken him for the woman's husband by the way he was holding her, but the old woman clearly remembered Vlad's appearance at the Coffee Shop and being told by the young girls who showed kindness to her, that he was their Captain.
"She only broke her water, and shouldn't enter labor. There's no need in getting nervous since the girl looks healthy and capable of delivering the child. Now, I've made it my duty as a human to assist her, thus I will take my leave."
Placing the woman on the only bed in this room, only giving her a small glance using his cold abyssal eyes before stepping away from the room.
"Mister Dracul, don't you want to assist me?"
"I don't bother myself with trivial matters. Besides, wouldn't I take away from your work? Safe labor to you, young girl."
Giving off a cold personality, and even showing off his maturity by the way he handled himself, he walked off and disappeared like a ghost to the shock of the old lady and nurse, appearing on top of the hospital building after some moments.
"Life goes on, regardless if I waste my hours watching the conditions of that girl. Let others bother with such responsibilities."
'Rise of Phantasma'
Jumping in the air, he started kicking the air and like a true wrathful spirit he started flying toward another location of the Baterilla Town, avoiding the gathering of people in the town's square where he even noticed Eleine, Titania and Bonney curious to find what happened.
While he was in the air, moving swiftly he noticed a peculiar house that looked to be abandoned placed over the higher ground of the island, left alone with the grown vegetation.
'That should be the house of the one called Rouge. Let me bring some flowers to her grave, and ease up her watch in Heaven.'
With the wildflowers being something trivial for Vlad to find especially after walking out of the Baterilla Town, he arrived at the periphery of the island, standing on a higher ground where a house that looked abandoned greeted him, with a grave placed closer to the visage of the sea.
[Portgas D. Rouge – The resting place of a mother who sacrificed everything to bring light in the world]
"My greetings to you, miss. I've heard about your story, and can only say it made me a bit impressed by your willpower to keep your pregnancy hidden. Rarely does it get for me to reach such information."
"I offer you this bouquet of flowers for filling me with an interesting story that would follow me on my journey."
"If I ever find your son or daughter, I will tell him to visit his mother's resting place. Gol D. Ace or Gol D. Anne, since you didn't know what gender the children would be, you made it challenging for me now… Or maybe not."
"It remains to be seen for the future."
Clearing around the grave, and taking a quick look at the interior of the house, he found some other keepsakes that were left to decay, along with a medallion hidden inside the floor, that he opened with Anathema, revealing the picture of a man holding in his arms a beautiful pink-blonde hair.
"Tch, tch, another side job when I reach the Grand Line. To find out if this woman's child is alive, so I could pass its mother's belongings."
{You can leave them here.}
"And let some vermin pick them up? At least I have some consciousness and morality that keeps me grounded to the ground. Besides, it is not as if it would take a lot of my efforts, since by the pedigree of this child, either it is his son or daughter, there would be a lot of noise in the future."
{As you wish. We should get going since you fulfilled all your goals on this island.}
Agreeing with his black sword with this point, by the time he returned to the ship it was night, and the first thing that he met was the girls looking at them with proud smiles.
Titania was the one to congratulate him, using a teasing tone that irked him. "To think that someone as arrogant like you would lower himself to help those townspeople. You made me proud, and showed me that there's hope in changing you."
"... If you start mocking me for that small gesture of mine, you know what will happen with your buttchecks."
"Hahaha, you wish." laughed the Fairy as she started teasing Vlad by pulling on his nose, feeling rather well after discovering that this cold person who she cared a lot showed signs of improvement in his acts.
Nonetheless, Vlad was only talking, not wanting to act on his dolls that kept him company, and with an annoyed irking of his eyebrow, he moved toward his Captain's Cabin shifting his attention to the large map that he pulled from a cabinet.
"Since you are in such a great mood, you pick the next location we will go."
"Really?"
"Let's go to Karate Island, it sounds cool." added Titania as she pointed at an island placed to the North East of the map, which made Vlad to stroke his chin.
"Do you even know what is Karate?"
"... No? What about you?"
"From the books I've read, it's a form of fighting that is rather popular with the Fishmen of this world. They have something called Fishman Karate or so the author wrote in his journals."
"Cool. Let's go there."
"Maybe after we get Atlas's Treasure, and we have spare time, we'll reach those locations you've got curious about. For now, our next stop is at the Isle of Gardens, later on reaching Briss Kingdom."
"Why let me pick, if it would still be your way?" complained Titania while pouting, giving Vlad a questioning look.
"What can I say, I like messing with you, giving you the chance to pick locations is amusing. Amusing in the sense, you pick so randomly. Like that island Vellhard or Centaurea, those locations can be reached only if we circle around and move towards Picodras again."
"Hmph, you like messing around, yeah? Fine, I'll teach you a lesson."
Vlad didn't take the Fairy seriously, instead started caressing her face to pacify her, later on starting calculating the coordinates and the time it would take him to arrive at Isle of Gardens, a process that he got better with each practice.
Once everything was settled inside Baterilla Town, the townspeople could see by the morning of the 8th September how the dark-brown Caravel of the merchant who made the hearts of the young ladies to fluster, finally departed from their small Island onward to a new location they had no idea where, only guessing.
The Caravel distanced itself from the harbor, taking a route toward the North later on shifting its inclination toward the West, losing its shape to the watchmen over the Lighthouse and Towers.
Vlad, who was at the steering wheel started rubbing his temples before massaging around his eyes, feeling a slight headache caused by his losing eyesight, which he tried using his best methods to alleviate and slow down the process.
The girls also experienced the effects of Vlad's eyesight declining as he started giving Dalyon the role of steering the Caravel to his desired location, something the Lunarian didn't mind finding the location of the steering wheel isolated from where the others gathered to talk.
He didn't have much to do, since Vlad set him some instructions while he was in his room, easing up his headaches, just to keep holding the steering wheel.
Over the days, as they approached their new location, the activity on the Crow's Nest that became a stopping station for the travelling Seagulls either be them from the Newspaper Company or the wild ones, their arrival and departure brought new information with regard to those parts of the South Blue.
*Seagull Cry*
"What do they say, again?" asked Dalyon glancing at the flying Seagulls who were rather vocal, waiting for Titania to check on them.
Flying to the crow's nest, the Fairy holding in her hands some bread started feeding the Seagulls and listened to what they had to say.
*Seagull Cry*
The birds started talking with Titania, sharing interesting information that they gathered along their own journey, which made the beautiful Fairy nod her head in a cute way.
"Naruhodo. You said you come from a place with many islands around, and that bad people are sailing toward an island full of plant life."
"How far are we from that island?"
As the seagulls didn't hold back from telling Titania about their experiences, their grasp of distance was truly off, just like Vlad mentioned one time, where they had to travel an extra 3 days toward Bulge Island even though the Seagulls specified they were close.
When she relayed this information to the group it made Vlad who was inside the Captains Cabin, having his eyes covered by a black cloth fabric, to force him into not using his eyes and continuing on straining them.
"By the way, they told you about traveling people, and the island, we are one day away. Keep the steering wheel straight."
Then, when the anticipated day arrived, Vlad who took off his restraints on his eyes was staying like a statue on the forecastle watching the crystal blue ocean over the horizons, nothing changed in particular when it came to the sceneries, until by the 4th mark, when it was close to 10 AM that he started seeing the outline of an island having lush plantation of flowers and plants.
– [Vlad, how you can tell if you arrived at the Isle of Gardens is by the first view you get of the island. You'll be stunned by the vibrant colors of the plants and flowers inside, truly giving you the impression that the Isle was a Garden.]
– [Indeed, is like how Elias said, Vlad. So when you get there in your grand travels, make sure to visit the Isle and take some rare plants from there, so we peasants can boast that we got our hands on expensive plants.]
Having the conversation he had with the Herbalists in Picodras playing in his mind, he couldn't help but smile a bit, impressed by the view of the isle, until he noticed when getting closer and closer with the Island's Harbor.
A fleet of six ships all adorning Pirate Flags gathered at the Harbor of a small-sized town, beginning to rain down attacks, shelling the town with their artillery and cannons, destroying even some plant fields that took his eyes.
"The gulls didn't lie. Those "bad people" as they called were truly pirates."
Watching from a long distance how the pirates ravaged from distance the plant fields that could be worth millions of bellies, it made him frown hard.
His abyssal eyes focused on the largest ship where a man with messy long brown hair, wearing a Pirate Captain's Hat with many accessories on his face, in the shape of piercings. His attire consisted of a light gray shirt with a stitch pattern running down the middle and ending at the halfway point of the shirt.
"IF THOSE SLUTS DON'T ALLOW US TO ANCHOR OUR SHIP! DESTROY THEIR ISLAND AND LATER ON WE'LL PLUNDER GENEROUSLY!"
"AYYEEE BOSS!!"
Vlad could hear the turmoil on that ship, and not liking what he was seeing about the lose of so much medicinal plants and materials that could be used by him into his alchemy, he jumped in the air with such a force that it shook the caravel.
'Rise of Phantasma'
His speed was something that continued to impress Eleine, Bonney and Titania who noticed him fly in the direction of the island, only Dalyon could see and hear the raid of the pirates, which made him question if there were any marines on this island.
On the other hand the pirates continued on attacking the Isle of Gardens from a distance, not wanting to get off from the safety of their ship, for fear the leader of this Island would corner them.
It was all until, a larger group of pirates saw a person in the sky moving in their direction, which sounded the alarm for the rest of the pirates on the other 5 ships.
"CAPTAIN RACKHAM THERE'S SOMEONE FLYING TOWARD US!"
"Someone flying? What do you mean? How could a person fly, is he a user of a Zoan Fruit?"
"I DON'T KNOW, BUT HE LOOKS NORMAL!"
Before the pirates could continue on running a description of the flying person, the Pirate Captain saw a man with a large stature that was even taller than his 2 meters frame, looking coldly at him, while his ink-black hair was kept on a loose tail.
He was wearing a white shirt complete with a black suit vest, and a pair of black trousers and expensive shoes, an attire that didn't look akin to a pirate nor a marine because it looked rather too stylish and expensive.
"And who might you be, to drop on my Flagship?" asked the Pirate Captain attracting the attention of everyone from his fleet who stopped firing their cannons.
"Just a passerby who wants you to piss off from this place and return to where you came from."
The pirates looked at Vlad and started laughing madly, believing he was some joke for telling them such words, especially in front of their Captain's face, someone they respected for his immense powers and strategies.
"Ohh really? Then wouldn't I be going home empty-handed?"
"You would still leave with your lives intact."
"Bah, such arrogance. I guess, everyone in South Blue forgot who Calico Rackham, Lord of the Migas Archipelago is. Guys don't bother with this idiot, and continue shelling Goldflower."
"Aye, sir."
The pirates acted on the orders of their captain and continued their attacks on the small town, where he could see some of the women trying to deflect the cannon shoots, some with success others not so much, being forced to send flying the shells into the plant fields to Vlad's annoyance.
Rackham sensed that something wasn't right by the pressure Vlad was giving, and without even risking he spewed from his morphing mouth some silk that instead of hitting its intended target, it wrapped around one of his crewmates.
A doom sensation wrapped around his primal instincts that were enhanced by the blessing he received from eating one of the fabled Devil Fruits which gave him the ability to be uncontested inside South Blue. Instantly he transformed into a Wolf Spider towering over everyone in the ship, as he wrapped himself into a spider cocoon just when Vlad slashed his longsword.
"Impossible. My spiderweb should be impossible to cut with swords." cried the Captain Pirate who had his cocoon being opened wide by Vlad's swift strike.
"So you are a Zoan Devil Fruit user? Something related to a spider species, I guess. Unfortunately, you didn't listen to me, now you've got to pay for your foolishness and become my test subject"
Saying that he activated his Phantom Steps dodging all of the spiderwebs that were shot at him, and in a last-stand chance Rackham used his many limbs to counter Vlad's strike, only to see him coat his arm and sword into a black armor, cleaving his legs.
"ARGHHH!!!! SPARE ME!! I WAS A FOOL INTO THINKING I COULD BE A MATCH FOR YOUR GREATNESS!" called out the Captain Pirate who felt death reaching closer to his doorstep, and before he knew it, a hand stabbed him into his heart.
"You've wasted your chance at living. Now, let me see if the theory of those scholars was right with regard to Devil Fruits. Do they reincarnate into the closest fruits in a location, or simply bypass those proposals and reincarnate at random?"
"CAPTAIN!"
The pirates on the ship were left speechless seeing their powerful Captain being killed in such a short span of time, but their fate wasn't something pleasant either, because they lives was in Vlad's hand, and because of their ignorance, he decided to unleash a massacre.
Like a Demon set on killing all human life, Vlad massacred everyone on all of the 6 ships, and when he was about to kill those who jumped on water, believing he wouldn't bother with them, they were killed by some large thorns that stabbed into their heads.
Following the shower of thorns that killed all of the pirates taking on the refuge of the sea, the Flagship of the Captain instantly suffered a transformation as Spikes made out of thorns appeared all around, creating an enclosure for Vlad which stirred his curiosity as he was smelling the fragrance of Roses, shifting his attention on a red-haired woman wearing a black dress revealing her hearty proportions.
The thorns that captured him started getting closer and closer to his flesh until the mature woman experienced something strange, her thorns stopped advancing into impaling the black-haired man with an imposing aura.
"Interesting. Another Devil Fruit user, standing before myself. However, I will not hurt you for trying to harm me, because I understand your circumstances."
"..."
Far more thorns appeared sprouting from the back of the red-haired woman morphing into two large hands, acting like Guardian Angels for her, not letting go of the captured man.
"Would it be a shame if suddenly your tender flesh is cut open by me? Now, let's calm down because I have some questions for you."
"Calm down? Aren't you one of those Pirates?"
"Me? Hahaha, good one. Non, my lady. I am just a humble bounty hunter who came to rescue your island. And you, who might you be?"
"Catherine Esthíl."
"Vlad Dracul."
