Izumi: ✌️

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Recap:

Zoro turned towards (Y/n) who had been following by their side silently this entire time, "You sure you wanna stay here?" the latter raised an eyebrow, "Aren't you a target too? You could have been safe at Zou with the others." he explained.

"And let my captain sacrifice his own life?" she scoffed at the thought, "Over my dead body." Zoro noticed that just from the mention of Law, it had made her even more serious than before.

"You understand that too, right? As a right hand man." she said and Zoro answered, "Yeah. I'd do the same too."

On with Chapter 23:

3RD PERSON POV

Luffy finally exited the colosseum but he was crying badly.

"You've finally made it out so why are you crying?!" Zoro scolded the younger man but the latter continued crying anyways, probably wailing by now.

Kin'emon used his devil fruit powers to make some disguises for the four of them.

Luffy was a Carp mascot.

Zoro was a Cat Samurai.

Kin'emon was a Frog with a topknot.

(Y/n)'s costume was originally not within the theme of mascots, and she may or may not have intimidated Kin'emon with a glare, but now she was a Bunny with a Kanzashi hairstyle.

"You can't find the pirate hunter?!"

"The Witch Doctor escaped too?!"

The marines exclaimed while the group of four ran past them.

"I told you not to let your guard down repeatedly! Call the vice admiral!"

Apparently the disguises were so good that the marines didn't even notice Zoro's and Kin'emon's swords and (Y/n)'s staff attached outside of the costume.

"The Navy's totally believing we're just toys in the town-gozaru!" Kin'emon said happily.

"Just barely! You've chosen weird animals!" "And these animals have weapons too!" Zoro and (Y/n) rebutted.

"Hm? I thought these animals were kewl! Especially carps!" Speaking of carps, the one in the carp suit, Luffy, was still crying ever since they had left the colosseum

"Stop crying already! Don't you wanna save Tra-o?!" Zoro smacked Luffy and his head popped out of the carp's mouth. "I'll save Trao-o! And I'll kick Mingo's ass! Plus, the Mera-Mera no mi is in good hands!"

."In good hands?"

"I-I never imagined he'd be alive!"

"Who are you talking about?!" Zoro had just been ignored by his captain this entire time. Until now, the other three has no clue on who Luffy has been talking nor crying about.

"I-I thought... he died.. He died at that moment!" Luffy continued crying and Zoro hit him again, "Are you still crying?!" "B-Because.." he didn't manage to get through his sentence before crying even harder.

"I've never seen Luffy-donon cry like that. He must be very happy to see that person alive-gozaru." Kin'emon stated and Luffy agreed through his sobs.

"I'm asking you! Who is that person?!" Zoro's patience with his own captain was thinning.

"M-My brother!" "Huh? Brother?!"

"What?! Luffy-dono has a brother?!" Kin'emon was shocked as he had never heard of this before.

"Are you talking about "Fire Fist" Ace?" (Y/n) decided to join in the conversation but got ignored as well.

"It brings back memories!" "Answer the question!" Zoro got annoyed for her.

"Ace was right! We were always bonded together as brothers!"

"I said, "Who is that"?!"

...

"I wonder if Trao is okay." Luffy finally stopped crying and talked about the task at hand.

"Luffy-dono!" "Huh? What's wrong?"

"Zoro-dono is gone!"

(Y/n) looked over to Luffy's side and did notice the empty space between Luffy and Kin'emon, the spot where Zoro was supposed to be at.

"Huh?! He was with us a few moments ago?!" (Y/n) exclaimed at the sight.

"I can't believe him! We didn't make a turn or anything!" Luffy exclaimed as well.

"Should we go look for him-gozaru?" Kin'emon suggested but Luffy declined, "We don't have much time! Let's just go! He's gonna catch up with us at some point."

The three of them continued running for a few more minutes before Zoro suddenly came back. "Luffy! Kin'emon!" he called and the three of them turned back to see Zoro catching up to them.

"Oh, Zoro!" "Zoro-dono! I'm glad that you're okay!" "Welcome back." They greeted him before noticing something sticking out of his costume's chest.

"Oh! You have a little person there!" Luffy said.

"I've never seen someone that small before..." (Y/n) muttered to herself as she racked her brain for any information.

"I'm gonna guide you to the entrance of the palace!" the little person said.

"Who are you?" Luffy asked.

"Is she your friend, Zoro-dono?" Kin'emon asked. "Well, she's kind of my friend or..."

"I'm Wicka, a member of King Riku's army's scouting unit!" the little person now known as Wicka introduced herself, "Anyway, let's hurry up! The operation is already underway!"

The four of them continued running until they reached the foot of the King's plateau.

"There's a lift up there!" Wicka told them and they immediately ran up the stairs nearby. "Listen, you all. The palace where Doflamingo is, and the toy house, and the trade port where the smile factory are located - they are all connected."

"You mean, if we can get into the palace, we can go to the toy house and the factory?" Kin'emon asked.

"That's right! To go to the factory, you have to pass through either the palace or the toy house. But my colleagues must've snuck into the trade port through the secret passage that we dug. We gotta go to the palace first!"

"All right. Understood." Kin'emon said, "But I still can't get over how there are such small people even though I see one now."

"Yeah, she looks like a toy! How interesting!" Luffy said.

"There were tons of them." Zoro said. Seems like he had seen more of them beforehand somehow.

"We don't do this often!" Wicka said, "We only show ourselves to the big humans of the royal family but you Usolanders, aka the Straw Hats, are the exception!"

"...Usolanders?" (Y/n) brought it up after taking a second to process what Wicka had said.

"I'll explain everything later! Operation SOP is already underway!" Wicka turned to the front, "Look! There it is! That's the lift to the entrance of the palace!" They finally finished climbing all those stairs and reached the front of the palace.

"Woah! We can go that high with it?!" Luffy exclaimed in amazement.

"To enter the lift, we have to show a pass to a security guard." Wicka explained but Luffy obviously had other ideas, "Let's just kick his ass!" he had his fist ready for a fight.

"No!" Wicka jumped onto his hand, "If you do such a thing, it's gonna be messy and we'll have to face more enemies!" but Luffy still didn't understand, "What's so bad about that?"

"You bubblehead! I'm not sure about these people. In addition to the blockhead who gets lost easily, I'm with a witless bubblehead!"

"I know, right?"

"Who did you call a blockhead?!"

In the midst of the banter, a toy horse and its rider stopped a distance away in front of them.

"There is somebody there." Luffy was the first one to point the person out and Wicka panicked and went back inside Zoro's mascot.

The horse got closer to the group and stopped about a couple of metres away from them.

"Who are you?" Luffy asked and got met with a question back, "You're Straw Hat Luffy, aren't you?"

But he didn't think much of the question to be suspicious and confirmed his own identity, "Yes, I am!" which resulted in him getting scolded by Zoro and Kin'emon.

"I've been waiting for you. I'll help you enter the palace!" the mysterious person lifted their hood and everyone except (Y/n) was shocked. Instead, she was smirking.

"Nice to see you again, Viola."

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