Chapter 130: Nami's Discovery and the Thundercloud's Disaster
Right now Roy had a huge weight strapped to his back, and on top of that weight, Sanji was squatting shakily, a tiny dumbbell in his hands.
Every time Roy lowered himself for a push up, Sanji wobbled, trying his best to keep his stance from collapsing.
Only Roy could think up training this evil. Little Sanji was being tortured in the name of getting stronger.
"Sanji, this phase of training is over. You can get down."
"Okay..."
Sanji's legs were trembling like jelly as he finally climbed off the heavy load.
Waaah...
He really was suffering for the sake of strength.
Roy shrugged the weight off his back, stood up, and looked toward the island ahead, the one he and Toki had chosen long ago.
"Sanji, the next part of training is starting. We are going ashore to rest. That counts as training too."
As soon as the words left Roy's mouth, Sanji shouted, "Okay!" and bolted after him.
One with blazing red hair, the other with messy blond hair, master and disciple charged off the ship together, yelling as they ran toward the island.
Hancock sighed and pressed a hand to her forehead.
She knew exactly what ridiculous plan Roy was cooking up.
He wanted to train Sanji into a muscle brained tough guy who thought lifting things and doing weird drills was the pinnacle of life. A hard headed, stubborn, slightly ridiculous man.
And Sanji had fallen for it perfectly.
But...
Hancock could not shake the feeling that the one being led astray here was not the disciple, but the master.
This is not how you used to act, Roy.
She followed at a slower pace, watching the two idiots holler as they sprinted toward the distant village, and felt tired just looking at them.
Roy ran with his head tilted back, glancing up at the sky.
Honestly...
He was not planning to cause trouble this time.
He was just trying to make Sanji happy.
...
High above, a white cloud drifted lazily across the sky.
If someone really had nothing better to do and watched closely, they would notice something odd.
The cloud floated for a while, then floated back. Its shape shifted now and then, but it was always the same cloud.
"That is so weird. That should not be possible..."
At a bookshop window, a little girl with short orange hair held an open book in her hands, staring out at the sky.
That is right.
She was Nami. The truly free little thief cat.
Nami spent all her time buried in books, learning how to draw sea charts, and watching the clouds.
She was sharp for her age. While other children ran from thick books they could not understand, she was endlessly fascinated by geography and weather.
Nami had been observing for a long time. No matter what season it was, no matter what time of day.
There was always that one special cloud she could pick out.
She would lock onto it, watching it drift from south to north, then from north to west.
Drifting and drifting, looping again and again, as if it were moving in circles over the island.
Nami had tried telling the adults, but nobody believed her.
The grown ups were all busy working and scraping by and had no time to indulge what they thought were childish fantasies.
So no one believed her.
Nami was furious. That cloud was clearly breaking the rules written in her books.
Fine.
She would chase that cloud down herself.
Every day, when she was not studying, she searched the sky for that one oddball cloud among all the white ones, then stared at it until her neck hurt.
After each full loop, she made a little mark in her notebook.
By the time a year had gone by, she had discovered something shocking.
That shameless cloud had never left the air above their island.
It almost made her doubt the knowledge in her textbooks.
"Nami, have you picked your books yet?" the shopkeeper called from the next aisle.
"I am almost done, almost done," Nami answered quickly.
She rushed to skim a few more lines, planning to stare at the cloud again once she got home. After all, she was really here to read for free.
"Huh...?"
Just as Nami was about to lower her head, she froze.
The cloud was sinking.
It was still drifting, but it was drifting down, closer and closer to the island.
It looked like it was... heading straight for them.
Is that suspicious guy finally revealing himself?!
Nami's heart pounded.
She slammed her book shut and shoved it onto the nearby shelf, then darted for the door without another thought.
"Huh?" The shopkeeper blinked in surprise.
She had only urged the girl once. Why did Nami leave so quickly today?
Had her nagging finally scared her off?
Next time... she would wait a little longer before pushing.
The kind shopkeeper comforted herself with that thought.
In truth, she knew Nami's family was struggling and that the girl used "browsing" as an excuse to read without buying. But she had always pretended not to notice.
Little Nami burst out of the bookshop and ran into the street, eyes locked on the descending cloud.
Why will none of those adults believe me?!
She sprinted after it, but before long, the white shape disappeared behind the buildings.
Several streets later, Nami stood panting, turning in circles. She had no idea where her strange cloud had gone.
She could only run toward the general direction she had last seen it, hoping luck would be kind.
...
"Master! Master! Hahaha, Master, you are finally here!"
A white cloud suddenly dropped out of the sky and even opened a mouth to speak.
Several farmers out in the fields stared in mute horror for a full second, then turned as one and screamed as they bolted.
Years ago, an elder had told them a story about a strange cloud. They had laughed it off as a tall tale.
Later, when they became elders themselves, even when a certain little girl mentioned a weird cloud, they had still treated it as nonsense.
But when that very same talking cloud swooped down, joyfully shouting "Master!" as it flew off toward the village...
Grass.
They were absolutely terrified.
Sanji's expression was not much better.
"T the cloud..." Little Sanji, trailing behind Roy, stared with wide eyes at the cloud rushing toward them. "Master, it... it talked!?"
The white mass had a face, round eyes and a mouth, spread across its fluffy surface.
Was that really a cloud?
Sanji rubbed his eyes hard, looked up at his calm master, then turned back to the sky again.
It talked.
It had a face.
This was way beyond the limits of his common sense.
I am a tough guy. I am a tough guy. I am a tough guy.
He kept repeating it in his head and forced himself to take a step forward.
Then another.
Bracing himself, he reached out and touched the white cloud that had flung itself into his master's arms.
It was soft and springy, like cotton stuffed into a pillow, with a bounce like a trampoline.
"Master, master, waaah, Horus is going crazy here!" the cloud babbled. "I have been drifting in circles, hiding for so many years, just waiting for you to come back!"
"Do you know how Horus has been living all this time?"
"Decades, Master. For some people that is half a life. For others, they do not even live that long before everything is over!"
"For all those years, Horus could not talk to anyone. I could only stare at the ground, waiting for you and Master Toki to return."
"Even though I am a thundercloud, my mother gave me a soul. For decades I have not been able to say a word. I almost went crazy!"
Horus's little mouth fired off words like a machine gun.
After bottling everything up for so long, it was even more talkative than a spider with neighbors to gossip about. The cloud could not stop.
It had wanted to hold out with stoic pride, to carry out its mission perfectly and wait on this island until its two masters came back.
But decades passed, and it had almost lost its mind.
"Cough, cough..."
"Who," Hancock asked, voice very soft and very dangerous, "is Master Toki?"
"...!!!"
Horus heart froze.
It realized, far too late, that it had blurted out something it absolutely should not have said.
Ah. Right.
It did not have a heart.
If it had one, it would have stopped beating.
Roy...
Danger.
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