Cat on Water

Chapter 3

Bogard POV

Bogard sometimes regretted joining the marines. To be honest, he regretted a lot of things. Most of which revolved around Monkey D. Garp. But, as he sat by the treeline and watched as his captain hit the tiny woman with a tree, he started getting the feeling that agreeing to come to this island was one of the worst mistakes of his marine career, but more importantly, his sanity.

He sheathed his sword and watched as the woman got up from the hit, with no injuries, just covered in sand. He watched, as the woman bent down to the satchel and pulled out a set of clothes, and a small blade that looked Wano in origin. And he watched, as the woman turned around and shook Garp’s outstretched hand, and he got a sinking feeling in his stomach, like the two people in front of him should have definitely not been allowed to meet. ‘Yep. Going to regret that decision’ he thought, thinking of all the repairs he and his men are going to have to do.

Yoruichi POV

Yoruichi stood in front of a, quite frankly, massive sailing ship, watching the Marines go about their business on board. Garp stood next to her, pointing out things on the ship like a child in a candy store.

“-And that’s the figurehead, my own design. You like it?” he said, turning and grinning at her. Yoruichi copied the movement. “I hate it.” She said, with a large, obviously fake smile on her face. “I hate dogs in general.”

Yoruichi watched, as that one sentence seemed to more damage than her hits from before. He bent over, like someone punched him in the kidney, and started bawling.

“Wh-wh-what do you mean, *snif* that you hate dogs?” he asked, tears pouring down his face. “do-dogs are t-th-the best.” He was now in his knees, hands partly outstretched towards Yoruichi like she was his best friend and just betrayed him horribly.

Yoruichi crossed her arms and said in a huff “Well, I hate dogs. Theyre smelly, loud, annoying, have anger issues, chase me around all the time, and are just all around terrible!” she retorted, each insult like a physical stab to Garp’s heart. Yoruichi suddenly smirked, an idea coming up in her mind. She leaned towards Garp, who even on his knees was still taller than her.

“I hate dogs…” she said, and smoke started coming out of her. Garp blinked, a little confused, until he saw what had replaced Yoruichi. He then deadpanned. All thoughts of sadness went out the window. “So, you have a Zoan fruit, so what?” he said, Huffing. Getting up again, he told Yoruichi, now Yoruichi kitty, and said “come on, lets get going. I am going to be late for my grandson’s birthday at this rate.” He started walking up the gangplank next to where they were standing, leaving Yoruichi to sit there in stunned silence.

‘Why didn’t he react? What is a zoan fruit? And why does he think I have one? People just don’t turn into cats, do they? Have I been that out of touch from the material world?’ she thought, starting to draw circles in the sand dejectedly. She finally transformed back into her true form, with the thought that she would get someone with it before she gets to beat up Kisuke and hopped up to the side of the ship.

Looking around, she saw the marines bustling around like busy worker bees. Some were dragging barrels over through a door that looked like it went below decks, others were tying off ropes to the sides of the ship, others were climbing the rigging, looking to go unfurl the sails. She was slightly impressed. She was a captain of an entire squad for 200 years, and she knew exactly how complicated it would be to get this many people to work together.

Turning to Garp, who had just gotten to the top of the gangplank, she watched as he started shouting orders to the marines. Looked like they were setting sail for some place called Goa.

‘Is that in the Caribbean?’ she thought ‘ugh I can’t remember the last time I looked at a map of the world of the living. The air feels a bit tropical though, so it might be.’

While she was looking around, she hard Garp call out to her.

“Yoruichi!” he called “Come here. Ill show you to your room” He turned, headed into a door to the right of the staircase that went down into the belly of the ship. She quickly followed, taking the open door from him as she passed, and closing it behind her. What was in front of her was a small hallway, obviously over 10 feet tall otherwise Garp wouldn’t even be able to be in here.

‘Now that she thought of it, this boat is huge, isn’t it?’ she pondered ‘Though I guess you have to make everything that big when your captain is 10 feet tall.’ She looked down the hallway, that had some doors on the right side, only two with the labels of STORAGE on them. The hall did a 90 degree turn to the left and continued outside of her right. Though using her Reikaku, it seemed like the hallway was a giant U shape that fed into a bunch of rooms on the back of the ship and let out to the door on the left side of the staircase leading down into the ship.

She quickly followed Garp, who had already turned the corner. Once she got there, she found him standing in front of a larger door 2/3 down the hallway. On the right, there were 5 doors. 4 looked to be about 7 – 8 feet tall, while the last one, the one in the middle, was the height of the ceiling. It also had much more ornaments on it, along with what looked like much more detailing. This door had CAPTAIN written on it. Obviously, this would be the captain’s room. The other 4 had 1^st, 2^nd, 3^rd, and 4^th MATE written on them. Garp was standing outside the 3^rd Mates door, the first door after the captain’s door.

As Garp saw her coming closer, he said “You’ll be saying here. This belongs to our 3^rd mate, but it’s completely empty because he usually sleeps in his office in the med bay, so he can monitor his patients.”

‘Hm, her own room. Luxurious.’ She thought.

“Thank you Garp, I will be sure to not regale the faults of dogs to you as payment for this generous room” she said, smiling cheekily at the large man.

He pouted. He actually pouted.

“Suppose I can understand why you don’t like dogs,” he said. “God knows Dalmatian hates cats as well.”

‘Dalmatian?’ she thought ‘Is that a person? ..... Eh I suppose ill ask him about it later.’

“Anyways” Garp continued “You can stay here until we get to Goa Kingdom. It will take about another 12 hours, so we should be able to get there around midnight.”

Garp turned to leave “I suppose Ill leave you to get settled in, then, girly. My room is next door if you need anything.” He walked away, but not before Yoruichi could ask one more question.

“Hey! Where are we? Like, where are we located right now?” she asked. The question was one she needed answered asap, as it meant more time planning on how to get back to Japan.

Garp turned back around, “We're in the East Blue. How did you get stranded on that island and not know at least what ocean you were in?” he said, with the last part muttered under his breath. “There’s a Map in one of the drawers of the desk in the room, take a look at it, so I can get you back home at some point” he said, turning to leave again.

Of course, he was still close enough and loud enough for Yoruichi to hear him, even as he started walking away again. She barely heard the part about the map as the gears in her head finally started turning again. Don’t let it be said that Yoruichi Shihoin was not a smart woman. She was incredibly smart. One of the smartest in the Soul Society, outside Division 12, and the guys in the Kido Corps. She was just too distracted with the rapid-fire events that kept happening.

‘Goa Kingdom…. East Blue…... Marines…... sailboats…...’ she thought over her interactions with Garp, and what he had said during them. She suddenly thought of something, and rushed outside onto the deck. As she got outside, she turned to look at the writing on the giant main sail in the center of the ship.

‘World Government. Ohhhh that is soooooo~ not good.’ She thought. She then ran back inside, and went to her room, intent on looking for the map Garp had mentioned. Bursting through the door to the room, she saw a bare room with a bed, fully made in the far-right corner, with a window leading outside the back of the ship on its left. Underneath the window was a desk, probably the one Garp mentioned. She ran over to it and started rummaging through the drawers. In the bottom-most drawer, she found a large rolled up map.

She picked it up, unwrapped it, and unrolled it onto the desk. With her hands planted on either side of the map, she stared down in shock and not a little bit of horror at the map in front of her eyes.

‘What the hell is this map??! Why is it mostly water? Like, what the actual fuck is this thing? I remember seeing the one map Kisuke had, and it did not look like this.’ She thought, all the while internally screaming profanities at Kisuke. ‘Wait…. Kisuke mentioned that the tear he put me through was a prototype portal to travel through the Garganta, the space between worlds.’

‘What if that idiot managed to make a portal, but didn’t calibrate it correctly? What if he accidentally made it so that the portal didn’t dump out on an island that’s still on the planet, but onto an island on an entirely different planet. Or, more accurately, an entirely different dimension.’

She paled at the realization, all the insinuations hitting her at once. She turned to look at the bed, and then bonelessly fell on top of it.

‘Ah, shit. I forgot this is Kisuke I’m talking about here. He did this on purpose, didn’t he.’ With that thought crossing her mind, she slowly gained color again, while laying on her back on the bed. Then more. Then more color again. Then even more color, reaching levels that shouldn’t be allowed to be on a person’s face.

She then sat up on the edge of the bed, literally bubbling with rage, her reiatsu roiling around her.

“KKKKISSSSUKKKKKEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!” She roared screaming to the high heavens.

Garp POV

After Garp had left the woman in his 3^rd Mate’s room, he went back up onto the deck, walking over to where his lawn chair was on the prow of the ship, right in the middle of his firing platform. He walked past the conveyor belt, already loaded with cannonballs that were half the size of Yoruichi herself, and he grabbed one. Walking up the stairs to his platform, juggling the ball in one hand, whistling a little tune.

He got to his chair, and laid back down in the same position he was in when all this started, still tossing his cannonball higher and higher into the air. Halfway through another toss, he heard a bloodcurdling scream, that sounded like it came from Yoruichi, causing him to fumble the ball, dropping it to the floor beside him. It crashed right through the floorboards, almost hitting one of the gunmen on the way down to the second deck. He yelped in surprise, and then looked up in resigned despair at the new hole he would have to patch.

Garp sighed, then smiled.

‘Damn, I wouldn’t want to be that Kisuke fellow she keeps yelling about. She seems really mad at him’ he chuckled.

Meanwhile, an incomprehensible amount of distance away, in a little convenience store in Japan, a tall man wearing a green and white striped hat and long flowing robes got a shiver down his spine.

¹Hey guys! Yoruichi is just now realizing that shes in a lot deeper than she originally thought. Most of these last few chapters are kind of set up, for getting her into the swing of things, for actually learning more about herself, and my originally intented venture into this, her zanpakuto. Hope you like :D