The Town of the Beginning and the End was a mess of houses and shops, all packed together like packing corn, or whatever it was called. There were blue houses, yellow houses, white houses, shops with the names painted on signs in bright colors, and everywhere you looked, there were people. People milling about on the streets, lounging around on benches without a care in the world, carrying shopping bags and dashing about wildly. The streets, unlike the dirt roads of Cocoyashi Village, were cobblestone. At the entrance, an arch with a plaque on it announced the city's name: Loguetown.
"This place reminds me of home," I said, thinking of New York City. I grew sad at the thought and wondered how Cracked-Up Chuck was holding up. The last time I'd seen him, he had been so sick... If my disappearance from that world had worried him so much that he'd kicked the bucket, I was gonna kill Aes.
Then I remembered someone else, another friend of both him and me: Jardani Jovonovich, another street kid. He was twenty-five and had been Cracked-Up Chuck's old student.
"You lived in a city?" Nami asked, surprised.
"Yeah," I replied wistfully. "It was huge, like this town. I used to go to a school called Burgess Wyatt's Academy. Then one day, I came home to my mom's apartment to find her lying on her bed, dead. She'd been murdered brutally. I ran away from home to live on the streets so that I wouldn't have to go to an orphanage."
She furrowed her brow. "Oh." She didn't say sorry. I was glad for it. When a loved one dies, people think that the family of the person wants sympathy. Most of the time, though, it only makes the family feel worse. Saying nothing is often more helpful than apologizing.
I smiled weakly at her. In a way, I felt like I could understand and relate to Nami better than the rest of the crew could. We'd both lost our moms to cruel killers. Maybe it wasn't much, but it still felt better knowing that one of my nakama had been through the same thing as me.
"You never really talk about your own past," Sanji commented. "Why is that?"
I shrugged. "I don't really like talking about myself. I'd rather listen to what other people have to say or just not talk at all."
"Oh. That's cool."
Lucy had completely ignored us and was giggling, "This is gonna be so much fun!"
Nami wisely decided to change the subject. "Well, guys, we're finally here! Loguetown. The final stop for any pirate from the East Blue who wishes to enter the Grand Line. They come here to resupply because it has everything you could possibly need."
It had taken us about another week and a half to get here. In that week, we had run out of food, met an ex-Shichibukai that hadn't been mentioned in the original One Piece story line due to his unimportance to the plot, found buried treasure, and more. And as Aes had promised, I'd gotten an iPod and a laptop that never ran out of batteries and were a whole lot faster than my previous ones. But that's a story for another day.
"If that's the case, then I'm gonna go on a shopping spree," Usopp decided. "I bet they have all sorts of stuff here."
"Well, we do need to stock up," Sanji conceded. "I could get some fresh produce." A heart floated out from his head, and he grinned like a perv, which he was. "And fresh ladies!"
"This is so cool," I murmured, now that I had gotten over my homesickness. "We're in the place where the king of the pirates was born and raised! You can practically feel the history that was made in this place." It was true. There was a strange feeling in the air, and it made me excited. I was fairly certain that an onlooker would've seen sparkles in my eyes.
Nami sweatdropped. "I swear you're bipolar."
"Maybe I'm tripolar. Have you ever thought of that?"
"THAT'S NOT EVEN A WORD!"
"It's not? Well, it should be. Maybe if I keep using it, it'll catch on."
"NO WAY WILL IT CATCH ON!"
Zoro ignored us. "I need to get some new swords. They might have a sword smith around here."
Nami's face immediately lit up and she sidled over to the unofficial first mate, who looked down at her and raised an eyebrow. "But I thought you were broke," she said, smiling sweetly but getting an evil glint in her eye that made me sweatdrop. "Are you gonna steal a sword?"
The Marimo thought that over, rubbing his chin.
"Well," said Lucy, "I'm gonna find out where they kill people!" We all looked at her in confusion. She dashed off, her long black hair flowing in the wind. "Gotta see where the pirate king was executed!"
Sparkles lit up in my eyes again. "Wait up, Luce! I wanna see it too!" I called, tearing after her.
We weaved through the thick crowds, looking for the execution platform. We couldn't find it very easily, though. As we ran, Lucy turned to me and giggled. "Isn't this great, Yuril? The pirate king was born and killed here! We could be running in his very footsteps right now!"
I nodded eagerly. "Yeah! I know! It's totally awesome!"
The straw hatted girl was so pumped up that she literally jumped about five feet into the air, earning us curious glances from passersby. I didn't really like the way some of the guys in this town were looking at her. I felt a little... protective of her? Jealous, even?
What am I thinking? I reprimanded myself. Lucy can take care of herself just fine. And she's asexual. It's not like she'd fall in love with anybody, especially not some random stranger staring at her.
The thought didn't really make me feel better, though.
As we ran, I heard a voice shout out from a very Japanese building, "Oi! The 53rd Annual East Blue Karate Tournament is today! May the strongest martial artist win! Only martial arts, please, no devil fruit powers!"
I skidded to a stop. Lucy slowed down to a walk and looked at me quizzically.
"There's a karate tournament," I explained. "I promised my mentor, Cracked-Up Chuck, that I'd become the strongest martial artist in the world." I frowned and paused, looking from the tournament building to Lucy. Which one did I want to do the most? Was the tournament more important, or was seeing the execution spot of the man who had everything the world has to offer?
Lucy grinned and nodded. "Oh, is that so? Well then, what are you waiting for? Go already!"
I hesitated, then smiled and nodded. "I'll meet up with you at the platform after the tournament, okay?"
"Sounds good!" she replied, and took off. Soon she was swallowed by the crowd and I couldn't see her again.
As for myself, well, I headed for the building.
I had a tournament to win.