Seaside System - Chapter 14.2 (Patreon)

Nami sighed, shoulders slumping almost with relief as she entered her home, closing the door behind her.

She wasn't physically tired, or well, too tired, but mentally? She was drained as all hell. After everything that happened today, after everything she'd had dropped on her by her crazy new monstrously strong and ambitious captain, after all the insane things she'd learned about how the world worked-

It was a testament to how awesome she was she didn't have emotional whiplash or something.

'Honestly, I deserve a medal for not peeing my pants in terror really.' Nami snorted to herself. She'd just joined up with a guy that planned on picking a fight with a warlord who was trying to take over an entire country…and apparently so strong he made Arlong look like a guppy by Kaden's own words.

"Back already?"

Looking over at the kitchenette of the small house, Nami was somewhat surprised to find her older sister nursing a cup of what appeared to be coffee.

"I figured you'd be away for a bit longer, what with you guys off to raid Arlong's stuff for anything valuable," Nojiko mused, before giving her catty smirk, "Almost thought with how much the kid is apparently worth you'd be celebrating with him right about now by rolling around in the sheets."

"If only," Nami laughed, making her way over to sit at the table in the middle of the room, "That would have been way simpler, and if I coulda got one of those fruits off of him, it woulda just been icing on the cake."

It wasn't like she was some easy girl or anything, she wouldn't just sleep with anyone at the drop of a hat or even just for money. But she wasn't a virgin at this point either.

But if it was what her new captain had wanted instead? She would have done it. She owed him after all, for everything he'd done for her and her village, and all the villages Arlong had reigned over.

And avenging Bellemere and all the other poor people he'd murdered.

For that, she would have given him the night of his life for sure. Only as it turned out, just pure sex wasn't what he was after.

"He seems to have a bit of a crush on you," Nojiko laughed lightly, walking over to sit opposite of her, "It's quite cute…well, as cute as a guy who can casually murder fishmen like Arlong with his bare hands can be. Honestly, I'm still having a hard time picturing that."

Crush was a bit of a strong word, but he definitely had taking a liking to her for some reason. Nami thought she was pretty damn awesome to be brutally honest, but even she didn't get the kids interest in her.

By his own words he'd saw the pirate empress Boa Hancock herself before and claimed she was better looking. It was flattering, incredibly flattering and made Nami's chest swell with pride and admittedly the smile he'd given her at the time had made her heart thunder in her chest.

Rich as hell, strong as hell, saved her and her village, into her for sure and definitely not bad looking. A total catch that looked perfect on paper, but honestly, the kid was totally out of her league in the grand scheme of things.

And that wasn't getting into the issue of him having his own problems and hang ups. He seemed to have a real chip on his shoulder over him being an actual world noble, and wasn't that just another flavour of crazy to add on top of everything?

"I saw it first hand and I'm still having trouble believing it," Nami sighed in response to her sister, "He definitely wasn't lying about that dragon thing though. He showed me it earlier, he's bigger than Moomoo once he transforms."

It was really incredible, but her shock and awe over it? Was quite muted at the moment. She'd just had too much crazy things happen that blew her entire world, in rapid succession happen.

"That's what she said." her sister joked.

Nami rolled her eyes, "Oh grow up," she huffed, "It's hard to remember who's the older sister here."

"It's me, you can tell by how much more beautiful I am than you," Nojiko teased, "The first and better model."

"Yeah, you keep believing that you old hag," Nami rolled her eyes, a giggle escaping her lips despite herself, her older sister not any better. A comfortable silence filled the air between them, only broken slightly by the echoes of the still raging party within the village even reaching their home. "Kaden asked me to join his crew." she was the one to break the silence after a few moments.

Nojiko raised an eyebrow at her, "…Is that so?" she hummed, seeming completely unsurprised, "And you accepted."

it wasn't a question, it was a knowing statement.

"Yeah." Nami could only shrug as she answered. She'd honestly been waiting on him to drop the question for hours at that point. It seemed only natural. He needed a crew, she was the best navigator ever and he was interested in her.

Yet as it turned out he only asked after they had their little heart to heart, which made her think he wasn't going to ask her unless she brought it up herself.

He was entirely too hung up on that genuine thing he wanted. Which was weird because he was planning on trying to offer a princess straight up marriage with no feelings involved.

It was a contradiction, but then for all his kids knowledge and power, he was still only fourteen. So it was natural he was a complete idiot.

"I figured you'd be heading out with him, after what I overheard with you earlier which seems to be just the bare bones, you need to have strong people backing you up if you want to accomplish your dream," Nojiko mused, lowering her chin to place it in her palm and giving her an amused smirk, "Bellemere would not approve at all."

"No she would not." Nami agreed, a fond smile appearing on her face as she thought back to her mother, her hand coming up to cup her shoulder, tracing her fingers along the blue tattoo along her shoulder, now in the shape of a windmill with a tangerine on the end.

The reason why she'd been late to the big party everyone was enjoying to their lives content, was because she'd been off seeing the village doctor Nako. She'd wasted no time in getting rid of that filthy tattoo that had been branded on her eight years ago. It couldn't be removed entirely, so instead she'd had it changed.

"Not only are you leaving with a pirate, but you're a cradle robber too," Nojiko snorted, "She'd be livid."

"I don't think an age of consent applies to pirates," Nami rolled her eyes, "Besides, I already told you I'm not sleeping with him."

"Yet," Nojiko stuck her tongue out cheekily, "Though, if you don't plan on it, maybe I should throw my hat in the ring? Queen Nojiko has a nice ring to it I think."

"Sounds completely inferior to Queen Nami though," Nami blew a raspberry at her, "So hands off. That crazy monster dragon captain kid of mine, is a Nojiko free zone."

"Stingy as always," Nojiko huffed, before reaching for her wrist, "Here, take this with you."

Nami blinked, hand coming up to catch the gold bracelet thrown her way, "Feeling sentimental?" she teased.

"Something like that," Nojiko shrugged, "Where is Kaden anyway? I honestly thought he'd be attached to you at the hip, or at least grabbing you by them. I'm serious when I say I was afraid I'd find you two going at it like animals on the floor when I came home or something."

"You've got such a dirty mind, Bellemere would be ashamed." Nami huffed and rolled her eyes.

"Who do you think I learned it from?" Nojiko shot back unperturbed, "Though Genzo would throw a fit over it for sure."

"He definitely would," Nami agreed with a giggle, before shrugging, "I dunno where Kaden is at the moment, he told me he still had something to take care of in regards to Arlong and his crew."

…Though, considering the direction he flew off in after dropping her off at the outskirts of the village, once they were done scoping out that tacky ship Arlong had gotten made for his crew, she had a good idea where he was headed.

And would probably see it in the papers in the next few days if she were right.

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"Why…why are you doing this?"

Kaden ignored the rat faced man he was dragging around as he made his way through the base of marine branch sixteen. Captain Nezumi was beaten and bloody, his face swelling in a rather ugly manner.

All Kaden had done was backhand the man after he came across him shouting orders to have him killed.

After he'd touched down and invaded the base.

And began slaughtering his way through the mass of corrupt marines inside. He showed them no mercy.

As far as he was concerned, every single one of them was complicit in looking the other way when it came to Arlong. If even a single one of them had reported it to base, it would have gotten to Smoker and he would have wasted no time in making his way over to Cocoyasi and dealing with Arlong.

Every single marine who hadn't fled the base upon his attack, was already dead. The only single one remaining, was Nezumi whom he was keeping alive for a simple reason.

"Because you disgust me, you useless piece of trash," Kaden snorted as he marched through the halls of the now eerily silent marine base, "Now are you going to comply, or do I need to get violent?"

He paused, before grinning at the man menacingly, "Well, more violent." he bared his teeth.

"Yes, yes I promise I'll show you where I stashed it all, just please let me live!" Nezumi pleaded.

"I'll think about it." Kaden shrugged.

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Ten minutes later, Kaden sat in Nezumi's chair within his office as the commanding officer in charge of the base, his feet kicked up atop the mans desk and was casually rifling through notes of beri.

On the floor to his right, was a square shaped hole in the ground with a carpet clad door hanging up off of it and an open safe within it.

To his left lay a lifeless Captain Nezumi, his neck grotesquely twisted in a full one hundred and eighty degrees.

Kaden hadn't lied. He'd gave it a full second thought after the man showed him where he'd stowed away his ill gotten gains over the years of working with Arlong. And in that second, he'd decided he had no interest in letting him live.

So grabbed him by the head with both hands and broke his neck.

Honestly it was rather cathartic. As far as he knew in the other timeline where he didn't exist, this guy got off free with no punishment at all.

The world was instantly a better place without that corrupt piece of trash in it.

"…Crazy that a little rat like this from the East Blue managed to get his hands on this much." Kaden mused as he finished counting the last stack and laid it down on the table next to the rest.

A grand total of a hundred and five million beri. More than the total amount Nami had been working for eight years to get, risking her life in the process and living in despair each day, while this rat sat on his ass and did fuck all to get it.

It disgusted Kaden right down to his core to think about really. So much so he couldn't help but stand up and give the dead mans corpse a good kick, sending it flying dozens of feet through the air to crash into the wall on the other side of the office, "Disgusting little freak, I killed you to soon." Kaden spat.

Still, he supposed Nami would be happy they'd be adding another hundred million to their treasury. He could get more if he robbed the money that would be used to pay the marines wages like he had at G5, but he was going to leave it for whatever other marines got stationed here next.

The place wouldn't be left empty for more than a few days. It was simple incentive to do their jobs properly and make sure Nami's village was well looked after all.

"What to do now?" he mused, sitting back down on the swivelling office chair Nezumi had and kicking his feet back up on the desk.

He hadn't been particularly stealthy and avoided the surveillance snails throughout the base. No doubt his actions had already been seen and would be reviewed soon by the main base at Marineford when they went through the recorded records.

He could have avoided them, as was the smart thing to do. But, when he decided to save Nami's island and take out Arlong, he'd already decided to toss the smart path, or well some of it at least out of the window.

He needed infamy after all to become a warlord.

A third toppled marine base added to his 'word resume', even if it was one in the East Blue would help with that.

Every million beri added to his bounty counted. Ideally, he'd like a bounty higher than any of the other warlords. Which if he remembered right, was Doflamingo's at three hundred and forty million.

He was just a bit over halfway there.

…Actually, it might have been Dracule Mihawk but Kaden wasn't actually sure what his bounty was right now, he'd need to look into that.

As he mulled over how to go forward from here in his head, Kaden's eyes drifted around the room and landed back on the desk in front of him. Specifically, the large yellow den den mushi with a white and blue shell.

…Well now.

That was an idea.

A very bold one.

But also, one that may work incredibly in his favour and allow him to throw the higher ups off of his game plan.

A grin appearing on his face, Kaden pointed his finger at the den den mushi and a small orange cloud formed under it, before levitating into the air and floating towards him.

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Well, my One Piece muse is beginning to taper off now. Damn those peeps throwing their waifu's at my face! Either way, this might be the last update for this for a little while, dunno. But I'm gonna be transitioning back to my other stuff more or less now anyway I think.