LIGHTNOVELONLINE Chapter 20 – Cat Gets Stranded, Proceeds to Commit Genocide
2 hours later saw Yoruichi back in Marineford, back in human form. Sengoku had forced her to transform back once she had been dragged back from her exploration of the extremely gaudy palace.
She didn’t go that far into the palace, mainly she spent her brief time watching and laughing at some idiots wearing bubbles and space suits over their heads. That was how Garp and Sengoku found her, rolling around and laughing her ass off at the stupidity of the bubbleheads.
She was then dragged back to Marineford, which landed her in her current position. She did get them with the transformation back though, or at least Sengoku. Garp had learned the first 4 times. Eventually.
She now sat in a chair in front of Sengoku’s desk, with Tsuru standing next to her glaring disapprovingly. Sengoku sat in his desk chair, his hand steepled as he looked at her with a blank face. Garp was in the corner munching like usual, somehow still not out of crackers.
After a few moments, Sengoku started talking. “You know I could have you thrown in prison, right? That or give you a bounty, and then throw you in prison.”
Yoruichi frowned, but said nothing.
Sengoku noticed this, and kept talking, “The Celestial Dragons would not like knowing you were sneaking around their home, and would have you executed immediately. You should be very thankful that after your stunt with the Warlord’s meeting, and the stuff you did with Mihawk and the window, that you are not.” He was going to keep giving the petite woman a lecture, and hopefully get some benefits out of a deal with her, but he noticed something which made him stop in slight surprise.
“Garp.” He said, “GARP.” The second time got the grey-haired man to jump a little, lost in his own thoughts. “What?” Garp responded, looking around for the issue.
Sengoku just pointed at Yoruichi, who had not said anything since she arrived, and said, “She isn’t breathing.”
That caused Garp to slowly freak out, going around the room like a headless chicken. Eventually he ran over to Yoruichi, and grabbed her shoulder, intent on shaking her like a maraca. As soon as he did, Yoruichi popped out of view, like she was never there.
Seeing that, both men stood there completely stunned. “Was that a clone?” Sengoku asked, which caused Garp to slowly nod. “I think so….” He responded.
“Fascinating.” Sengoku mumbled to himself, getting out of his chair and moving to the spot where Yoruichi disappeared.
When he was almost there, he froze, his face paling in horror. He turned to Garp, who was still staring wide eyed at the chair where Yoruichi should have been. “Garp, if she’s not here, where the hell is she?” Sengoku asked his friend, who snapped out of his trance at the words. They both looked at each other, before bolting to the door and running out in search of the elusive werecat.
Yoruichi sat on the back of a chair, on a tiny boat, with a very broody man. She had found him leaving immediately after Garp and Sengoku brought her back to Marineford, where she had given them the slip with an illusion of her human form, which somehow worked for over an hour until something happened to cut the connection.
She was now trying to get the broody man who’s boat she was on to talk with her.
“Come onnnnnnnn.” She groaned, half her body leaning over the back of the chair, almost yelling into Mihawk’s ear. “Tell me! Where’d you get it? Did you find it? Someone give it to you? Speeaakkkk you off brand Count Douku.”
Mihawk just sat there with an impassive expression on his face, his arms folded in his lap. At least he was trying to keep his face impassive. An hour of the miserable cat’s incessant yapping was getting on his nerves. “Cat, if you do not stop talking, I will throw you into the ocean, and you will drown.” Mihawk said.
Yoruichi just ignored him, saying, “My name is Yoruichi, I’ve told you that already. Since you don’t want to answer that, where are we going?” She rolled over onto her back, basking in the sun.
Mihawk just deadpanned, “Somewhere I can dump you, so you can no longer annoy me.” This caused Yoruichi to pout, as much as a cat can.
The banter (see, annoyance) kept going on for another hour or so, while Mihawk was headed to an island somewhere. Eventually, one was seen in the distance, after the weather had shifted multiple times in 5 minutes, and a seaking trying to eat the both of them.
Yoruichi could feel nothing on the island, at least nothing alive. It was just an island in the early fall, with a boatload of large trees. When they docked on the beach, Mihawk reached up and grabbed Yoruichi by the scruff of her neck, where she had been laying upside down for the past hour, serenading, in her opinion, the stoic man that needed some enjoyment in his life.
She was then immediately chucked onto the beach, where she got sand all up in her fur.
“Hey!” she called, annoyed. “You know how much time it takes to get sand out of my fur?” she got up to her feet, looking around until she got her bearings and locked her eyes onto the man that was now immediately sailing away from the island. “Oi! Come back here! I just wanted to ask some questions!” Yoruichi yelled, her deep voice rolling over the water.
She kept trying to call out to Mihawk, but he just ignored her until he was out of hearing distance. After he disappeared into the ocean, Yoruichi just flopped down and groaned.
She turned back into human form, and quickly slipped her clothes on. Once she was dressed, Yoruichi walked over to a tree and sat down, her back pressed against it. “Where the hell even am I?” she said to herself, staring off into the ocean.
2 Days had gone by, and Yoruichi was still stuck on the Island. She had tried running like she did in the east blue, but quickly realized why the Grand Line was considered a death sentence to most people.
She had been hit by a tsunami bigger than the island itself, almost got hit with a multitude of waterspouts spontaneously erupting, and she almost froze solid instantly when for some reason the part of the ocean she was on just turned to ice.
Luckily, she had been prepared, and was able to avoid becoming the first catsicle ever.
Yoruichi sighed to herself, bemoaning her fate. “Man,” she moaned, “I just wanted to know where he got Yoru from. Was that too much to ask?” She dropped the bundle of sticks she had gathered for a fire, and extended her palm at the rest of the sticks she had gathered, and said, “Furea”. A small burst of flame came out, and ignited the small campfire that she made.
Once it was done, she sat down with a huff in a makeshift chair she had made. She looked over the ocean, the evening sun slowly falling over the horizon. She got lost in her own thoughts, thinking about how she could get back to civilization. ‘Yeah, I can run the distance, but I would probably get dunked way too many times for comfort. I would just run in the air, but that takes way too much energy to do for longer distances.”
She groaned again, leaning her head back to rest on the back of the chair. “ I swear,” she said, “I am going to kill that Mihawk guy when I see him again.” She rested for a little bit longer, before she decided to go for her evening chat with everyone’s spicy kitty.
She sank into her mindscape, finding herself on the familiar savannah that made up Rain’s home.
“Oh Rainnnnn” she shouted, looking around. “Come out, kitty kitty kitty.” She grinned cheekily to herself. She might hate it when people called her like that in her cat form, but damn was it funny to do it to other people.
She kept shouting for a few more moments, before suddnely burring to the side, narrowly dodging the pounce from the Lion that had been lounging up in a tree.
“Awww. Did someone miss me?” She grinned at her Zanpakuto spirit, who was not sitting on the ground glaring at her.
Rain disdainfully looked away, somewhat embarrassed. “No. I did not miss your annoying presence.” He walked over to the tree he had just jumped out of, and laid down in it’s shade.
Yoruichi followed him over, looking at his sleek fur. ‘He’s lost almost all his weight. Guess that’s what a lot of usage gets him.’ She thought. She sat down next to him, partly leaning onto his side.
“Hey”, she asked, “You want to get some swings in while I’m stuck on this island? Coud go for some carving practice.”
Rain looked at her out of the corner of his eye for a moment, but agreed. “As much as it pains me, your company would not be unappreciated.”
Yoruichi just smiled at his Tsundere tendencies. They had made good progress, though according to Rain, she was nowhere close to getting her Shikai back.
She relaxed for a bit more in her mindscape, and hopped back out into reality when she and Rain were ready for some training.
Her mindscape adventures took most of the night, and she woke up around 3-4am. Yoruichi looked around the darkness, noticing that her fire was out and her chair had sunk deeper into the sand.
Stretching, Yoruichi felt her bones shift into place with little clicks. She stood up and turned around to the forest. She walked up to one of the trees nearest to the beach, and just looked up. Staring into the seemingly never-ending trunk that stretched high into the sky, she put her hands on her hips and just said, “I don’t think I’ve ever seen a stick that large. This thing is like the size of 4 of me!”
Yoruichi stretched her bandaged arm back to her Zanpakuto, her palm resting loosely on the handle. She said in her mind, ‘Ready Rain?’ She only got an affirmative grunt in return, but it was all she needed.
Yoruichi leaned forward, almost like a cat ready to pounce. Her hand tightened its grip on the handle, and her other came down out in front of her for balance.
Her legs tensed, pressing into the ground. Wind started picking up around her, causing her scarf to flutter with agitation. After a moment of silence, Yoruichi swung forward, her blade singing out of its sheath, a rough exhale coming from her mouth.
In a single instant, Yoruichi slashed from behind her, all the way across her own body, as well as the body of the tree in front of her. The wind stopped instantly, with sound of cracking bark echoed across the beach, but there was no real movement from the trees.
Yoruichi stood back up, sheathing her Zanpakuto in one smooth movement. She thought to rain, a bit smugly, ‘Well, that wasn’t too bad for a first start, right?’ She grinned as she looked at her handiwork, which to the naked eye still hadn’t moved.
She felt her Zanpakuto vibrate, with Rain huffing in disdain. “Before, we used to be able to cut this entire forest in one strike. So no, I would say that wasn’t a good start.” He grumbled, his usual prideful, grumpy self not accepting the new reality.
Yoruichi pouted, her arms crossing under her chest. ‘Hey! I’m sorry you didn’t want to get used for 200 years, but you’re gonna have to get used to it.” She turned around, the wind picking up again after her. Yoruichi did not look back as she heard the crashing sound of trees behind her.
Once she got back to her makeshift camp, she sat down in her chair, and then finally looked at the results of her attack. The forest around her had every single tree cut down at it’s base, crashing backward away from the beach like dominos falling in a single direction. If looked at from the sky, one would see that almost a half of the island was now home to completely felled trees, only the rise of a small mountain near the center stopping much of the rest of the island from the same fate.
Still, there was a large gash that cut deep into the mountain, a clean, straight cut opening the rock up like a maw opening from the depths of the island.
Looking out over the felled trees, she drank from a little wooden bowl she had carved quickly on the first day, the only thing she thought was, ‘Well, at least I have more firewood.’
The sun finally broke over the horizon a few hours later, shining its light upon the water causing it to shimmer with the waves.
Yoruichi had continued her training, practicing katas on the remaining trees of the island. It did require her to go deeper into the island, but for more training dummies, that was a sacrifice she was willing to make.
The sounds of her Zanpakuto cutting into the trees echoed across the forest. Yoruichi not putting nearly as much strength into her strikes as she did the first one. The current tree was the most recent one in a decently long line of completely shredded trees. It was a miracle how some of them were still standing, as they looked like someone fed them through a woodchipper and then tried to stand them back up.
After a few minutes more, Yoruichi stopped for a break.
“Haah. Haah. Well that was a decent start. I’m gonna run out of trees soon though.” She panted, wiping sweat from her brow.
She walked back in the direction of her camp, navigating through the macabre scene any naturalist would feint upon seeing. Which is almost exactly what happened, when Yoruichi got back to her camp and saw a ship moored right on the beach she had been left on.
She faded into the background, moving silently between fallen trees which were still bigger than she was laying down, and got close enough to listen to what was going on.
Yoruichi finally found a good spot in the canopy of a tree, hiding her body inside the leaves, but leaving herself a good enough vantage point.
There were 4 people on the beach, all of which were in some sort of green getup.
There was a woman who looked more like a botanist than anything else, she had long flowing robes with grasses and other plants either sewn in and a plant potted into her wide brimmed hat. Her red hair was let loose, flowing down to mid back.
There was a tiny man extremely pale who looked much like a shaman from a tribe, wearing beads made of ivory, and a mask covering his face. He had braids all over his hair, and wore some sort of plant moss weave for clothes, which pretty much constituted pants and not much else. He had extremely large feet, that looked like they got a lot of use, and he had a long blow dart like contraption, along with a belt of darts strapped to his chest.
The next was an extremely large man, who looked like some sort of islander. He had tattoos all over his dark face, with a simple linen shirt and pants, his muscular frame rivaling that of Garp. He was the tallest by far, standing a good twice the size of the others, and almost 4 times the size of the small man. He carried twin clubs on his waist, belted with a thick vine.
The last one, who all the others were gathered around, looked like an actual tree. Yoruichi kind of looked aghast at the man, who was leaf green over his entire body, along with actual branches growing out of his head, covered in moss and flowers. He wore a dark green captain’s coat, with a cutlass hanging by his side. The rest of his body looked more wood than an actual person, except for his face which honestly could have been carved into the bark with how ‘woody’ It looked.
Yoruichi just observed them, listening to their conversation.
The tiny man was crouched near her fire, while the other three were huddled closer to their ship.
The woman asked timidly, looking around like she was afraid something was going to jump out at them, even though they were directly in the early morning light. “B-B-Boss, what do you think did this?”
The tree man, who Yoruichi could confirm was probably the Captain, replied, his voice grating “I, do not know. Whoever it is, they will not get away with this travesty, Laurel.” He turned away from the others, to look at the tiny man crouched in front of her fire. “Have you found anything, Thistle?” his scratchy voice carrying pretty well over the sounds of the ocean.
The small man, Thistle apparently, stuck his hand into the fire, moving around the ashes a tiny bit. After, he stood up, brushing his hands on his knees. He turned to the tree man, and replied “Not much boss, this fire has been out all night. It seems like they made two fires, so they’ve probably been here for a day or two. I don’t see any sign of food being cooked, so they are probably starving.”
The boss nodded, his tree branches moving slowly up and down as his head shook. He turned back to the other two members. “Kai.” He called, which caused the large man to look at him. “Take Laurel and go search deeper into the forest. See if you can find the person who committed this atrocity.” He waved his hand behind him, gesturing to the felled trees.
Kai nodded his head and grunted at Laurel. She just pouted at him, complaining “Oh, use your words your big lump.” She turned back to the Captain, and saluted him. “Aye Aye Captain Arborius. We will be back with the tree killer at once.” She said mostly sarcastically, acting in more theatrical ways than serious.
It seemed like that was normal, as the other 3 ignored her. Yoruichi watched from her hiding spot in the fallen tree as the two crew members started heading deeper into the forest, quickly moving through the forest.
Yoruichi stayed put, watching the other crew members head back to their ship, setting the rest of the crew scrambling with some sort of order. When she saw that the ship had raised anchor, and started headed to another part of the island, not back out to sea, she blurred in her spot and went to go follow the large man, Kai, and the woman.