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One Piece: As Heavy as a Gale #68
🕑 Added 2025-06-06 00:20:43 +0000 UTCThe soldier was still breathing. Barely, but breathing.
Gale wiped his bloody hands on his already ruined shirt, sat back on his heels, and let out a long sigh. He’d managed to clean the wound with booze—whatever expensive brown bottle was closest to him—and dig the bullet out with a heated knife drenched in the same alcohol and set on fire.
Not exactly textbook surgery, but hey, beggars, choosers, and so on.
The bleeding had stopped, more or less. The guy wasn’t going to be doing cartwheels anytime soon, but he’d live. For now.
"Don’t die just to make me look bad," Gale muttered to the unconscious soldier as he stood up, back cracking like a glowstick. "I didn’t do all of that just to have you flatline on me..."
He turned to where Kizaru was lounging nearby like they were at a damn beach picnic instead of in the aftermath of a miniature warzone. The admiral still had his hands in his pockets, that same lazy smirk glued to his face, sunglasses hiding whatever thoughts might’ve been rolling around in that dangerous head of his.
“I need to head back to the ship and take this guy with me...” Gale said. “There are proper tools down there—antibiotics, sutures, actual medical equipment, not just booze and cutlery....”
Kizaru hummed. It was somewhere between a yawn and a jazz note. "Mmm, go ahead~"
He glanced over his shoulder and called, “Monk boy, help him carry our friend back to the ship...”
Poqin gave a single nod and moved to follow, but not before taking another sip of his bottle.
Gale blinked. That was it?
He lingered for a beat longer, scratching the back of his head. "Right. Uh... so—small thing—are we just... gonna pretend I didn’t beat the hell out of a bunch of Pangaea Castle guards? Or is that gonna bite me in the ass later?"
Kizaru tilted his head, that smirk not budging an inch. "Ooh~ That was quite the scary situation, wasn’t it?"
Gale stared at him. There wasn’t a shred of fear or surprise in the man’s tone. You’d think he was talking about a scary movie, not an uninitiated marine throwing hands near the Celestial Dragon’s house.
Kizaru gave a slow shrug, eyes closed like he could fall asleep mid-sentence. "But as long as it wasn’t an actual Celestial Dragon you smacked around… it’s no big deal~"
“No big—” Gale bit back the instinct to argue. The man was an admiral. And, more importantly, a human contradiction in sunglasses. If Kizaru wasn’t making a fuss, maybe it really was fine.
Or maybe Gale was going to wake up tomorrow with a bounty and a bullet in his mailbox.
He nodded anyway. “Got it. No harm, no foul, unless they wear a bubble on their head. Good system.”
Kizaru gave him a lazy little wave, like a parent dismissing a kid who just asked for extra allowance.
Gale sighed and turned back to the soldier. “Alright, big guy. Let’s get you somewhere that doesn’t smell like scorched marble and moral ambiguity.”
Poqin picked up the soldier in a princess carry while Gale kept an eye on his wounds, and the two of them began the trek toward the bondola elevators.
The path back would take some time, and carrying an unconscious guy while surrounded by the shellshocked aftermath of a rather violent hissy fit of a celestial dragon really gave it some spice.
Gale glanced up at the towering structure of Mary Geoise one more time as they walked.
“Not arrested, not fired, and nobody vaporized me,” he muttered to himself. “Could’ve gone worse.”
He paused.
“…Still could. Probably will. But hey, progress.”
And with that, they descended toward the waiting battleship—and whatever came next.
...
Gale exhaled deeply as he tightened the last bandage around the marine’s torso, the blood finally slowing to a sluggish ooze. "There," he muttered, more to himself than anyone else, "not pretty, but you’ll live… hopefully."
He dipped his hands into a chipped ceramic basin filled with lukewarm water, now tinged pink. The water sloshed as he scrubbed the blood from his fingers, the scent of cheap rum still clinging to his hands from earlier.
He made a mental note to steal—no, borrow—some real tools from the ship’s infirmary later.
The trip back down had been, in a word, annoying. The bubble elevator creaked like it was held together with marine budget tape and hope, and the poor bastard they were carrying wouldn’t stop leaking.
Gale had to step in three separate times just to keep the guy from bleeding out entirely. At one point, Poqin casually offered to “lighten the load” by letting the marine bleed a little, but Gale that such improvisation would be frowned upon.
When they finally got the guy back to the ship, Gale let out another sigh—he was doing that a lot lately—and ran a hand through his hair. He was exhausted, sweaty, and pretty sure his shirt had more blood on it than fabric at this point.
He peeled it off and tossed it aside like it had personally offended him.
Note to self: start carrying a damn first aid kit.
Then again, he probably wouldn’t have gotten it past those uptight guards at Pangaea Castle. Hell, the guy at the reception desk had nearly passed out when he saw Gale carrying a revolver instead of the government-approved flintlock or rifle.
“That’s not standard issue!” the man had shrieked, like Gale had just walked in with a bazooka strapped to his chest.
The lecture that followed could’ve qualified as a war crime under Geneva. Something about protocol and safety and how “the presence of unapproved weaponry could endanger the celestial dragons and the esteemed royal guests.” Blah, blah, blah.
It wasn’t until Kizaru stepped in—casually, of course, probably teleporting in mid-yawn—that the guy shut up and begrudgingly stamped Gale through.
Yeah. A first aid kit wouldn’t have survived that bureaucratic meltdown either.
Still… next time he was going to try sneaking one in anyway. Maybe hide it in Poqin’s robes. Nobody ever patted down the monk. Mostly because Poqin looked like the kind of guy who might start talking about karma and flatulence if you touched him the wrong way.
Gale stretched, popping his shoulders with a low grunt, and looked over at the recovering marine. The guy was still breathing, which was the current bar for success.
“Not bad, doc,” he muttered to himself. “Now all I need is a stiff drink, a shower, and twelve hours of sleep. Preferably in that order.”
From somewhere behind him, Poqin spoke up around a mouthful of dried squid. “You forgot dinner.”
“Dinner’s the drink,” Gale said without missing a beat.
...
Gale leaned against the ship’s railing, elbows propped up, fingers laced loosely together. The breeze coming in from the Red Line was sharp and a little salty, but not in the refreshing, sea-spray-on-a-hot-day kind of way—more like the “I can't wait to get out of here and this breeze is now aggressively judging me” kind of way.
He stared down at the docks below, watching the organized chaos of Red Port shuffle along. Marines barked orders, merchants hollered about "once-in-a-lifetime" deals they’d probably repeat tomorrow, and tourists wandered around like dazed cattle. Nothing unusual—until his eyes landed on her.
She was threading her way through the crowd with easy confidence, shoulders back, steps light. She moved like someone who was used to being in charge, but didn’t care if you noticed.
Her clothes were practical: tan pants rolled up at the cuffs, a white shirt with the sleeves messily cuffed, and a brown leather vest over it all.
She had the kind of tomboy swagger that made it seem like she had picked that outfit, not to look good, but to move better—and ended up looking good anyway.
Her boots were scuffed, her posture was relaxed, and the rapier on her hip wasn’t just there for show.
Then there was her hair. Long, dark, a little wavy, tied back in a low ponytail. Tucked behind one ear was a single white rose.
Gale squinted. Not because of the sun—but because something about her felt... off. Not in a bad way. Just familiar.
He couldn’t place it.
It wasn’t her face—he was pretty sure they’d never met. And she didn’t look like anyone from the anime he remembered. No over-the-top hair, no giant bounty poster he could recall. But that rose, and the way she carried that rapier…
It was like two puzzle pieces in his brain were spinning toward each other, just about to lock into place. Something on the tip of his mental tongue. He narrowed his eyes, leaning a little more over the railing.
That’s when Poqin’s voice strolled casually into the moment.
“You look like you’re trying to solve a crossword puzzle with a blindfold on,” he said, casually sipping on a bottle of booze to no one's surprise.
Gale shrugged as he turned to Poqin “Thought I saw an acquaintance,” he said, more to himself than Poqin.
He turned back toward the docks, but—just like that—she was gone. No trace. Like she’d melted into the crowd, or maybe never existed in the first place.
“Huh.”
He scratched the back of his head, trying to shake loose whatever weird sense of déjà vu was clinging to him. But eventually, he filed the whole thing under probably nothing, right next to that weird fruit gave me superpowers and don’t eat things just because they swirl cool.
Beside him, Poqin stood silently, his gaze vaguely tracking the moving crowd like he might see something interesting if he squinted hard enough. He tipped up his bottle for a drink.
Nothing came out.
He gave it a little shake. Still nothing. Then, with zero ceremony, he lobbed the empty bottle over his shoulder—Gale heard it clink off a barrel somewhere—and fished out a fresh one from within his ropes like he was a human vending machine.
Gale raised an eyebrow. “Okay. Gotta ask. Where do you keep pulling those from?”
Poqin didn’t look away from the crowd. “You don’t wanna know.”
“Probably not,” Gale admitted. “Still feels like I should report you to a distillery somewhere.”
At this point, it was just one of the immutable truths of the world: the sea is blue, gravity is rude, and Poqin is always packing booze.
Gale grinned, nodding toward the bottle. “So, you in a sharing mood? Or are we hoarding enlightenment today?”
Poqin looked at him, completely deadpan. “I'd love to, but I can’t. I only own half of this bottle.”
Gale snorted. “Then share from your half.”
Poqin tilted the bottle thoughtfully, like he was considering it. “I own the lower half.”
Then he took a long, dramatic sip, clearly savoring the taste of selfishness.
Gale gave him a flat look. “You are the worst monk I’ve ever met.”
“You've only met two monks,” Poqin replied, grinning.
Gale just shook his head and leaned back against the rail, a sigh slipping out. Poqin was always the first to offer a drink when morale was low, so the sting was more amusing than annoying—but still, even the booze goblin was feeling the pinch. Either Red Port wasn’t stocked well, or the local brewers were hiding from him.
…Honestly? Could go either way.
“Don’t tell me the sacred stash is running dry,” Gale teased.
“Red Port’s a dry desert. The booze here is reserved for Celestials, we both know how our last attempt to borrow some drinks ended...” Poqin said, clutching the bottle like it was a child. “I’m down to emergency reserves. Next bottle I drink might be ceremonial.”
“Tragic,” Gale said, mock solemn.
Poqin took another slow sip like he was savoring his last drop of liquid enlightenment, then—with the reluctance of a man parting with a limb—slid the bottle back into the mysterious folds of his robes.
“Anyway…” he sighed. “It’s been a day and a half already. Are we heading back to Pangea Castle or what?”
Gale visibly winced, like the words physically hurt him. “God, no. Kizaru told us to bring the wounded guy back and treat him. Never said anything about going back.”
Poqin raised a brow. “That’s plain sophistry.”
“Maybe,” Gale said, shrugging. “But I’d rather take my chances with a court-martial for creative interpretation than go back up there and strangle some jackass in a bubble with my bare hands.”
Poqin snorted. “Tell me about it. Honestly, good thing you folded those guards when you did. I was two seconds away from behaving in a way that would make Buddha facepalm. Watching that guy get turned into a human paper airplane? That was therapy.”
Gale chuckled, a grin creeping in. “We seriously need to hang out with someone who has impulse control...”
“Yeah,” Poqin nodded solemnly. “If we keep this up, we’re gonna end up torching Mary Geoise before the Reverie’s over.”
Gale leaned back on the railing again, letting the sea breeze cool his head. The mental image of that—Poqin drunkenly juggling molotovs while he himself was punching as many Celestial Dragons as he could find into a wall—was a little too easy to picture.
“How far do you reckon we'd go before we get ourselves killed or slabbed in iron?” he muttered.
“Eh, probably not far... those celestials take their security very seriously...” Poqin said helpfully.
Gale laughed, short and tired. “You're probably right... still, you what they say about people's dreams, don't you?”
“...that they often lead you to an early grave or a prison cell in Impel Dawn?” Poqin said.
Gale grinned. “No. It's that they never end...”
They stood there in silence again, two misfits on the deck of a warship, watching the sun start to dip over Red Port. One was on a quest for vengeance, and the other was just there to enjoy the ensuing chaos.
Neither of them had any business being part of the World Government, and both of them knew it.
But for now, at least, they weren’t back in that damned castle.
And that was enough.
