14 Sumo-frog!

"Yooo?" The giant frog in front of us croaked out, which was obviously meant to be some kind of question but unfortunately, I missed that day in school when they taught us how to speak frog-ish. Pity that. I bet a frog this big had quite a few stories to tell.

Why? Well, this giant ass frog was covered from head to toe in quite the scars, let alone the tight muscles rippling under its warty skin that spoke of either a high consumption of anabolic steroids, which I somewhat doubted, or a single-minded focus to work out. And people still said animals still only followed their instincts. Heh.

"Can we help you with something mister frog?" I glanced down at the munchkin that stood next to me and was surprised that she didn't seem the slightest bit scared, which was a little impressive for a child that had her first encounter with an animal that towered over her. Then again, she went through quite some shit already in her rather short life, so ye. That was that.

"Yooooo! Kuzaa!" The frog croaked out in response, rather loudly I might add, which must have been an answer of some kind as said frog turned around and seemingly expected us to follow him, judging by his glance back at us.

I just shrugged my shoulders and went after him with the munchkin one step ahead of me to my surprise.

While we followed the giant frog, who hopped slowly before us down the slowly emptying street, I needed only one glance around at the people still out on the streets to arrive at the conclusion that this frog seemed to be pretty well known in this city. After all, your average person would most certainly freak out something fierce were they to come across such a beast of a frog for the first time. At least civilians would. Marines and pirates… not so much.

After we had walked/hopped for a few minutes, both crossing over the ever-present canals in water 7 and turning about five street corners, we arrived at what looked to be one rather ran down building. His home, maybe?

"Soo, mind telling us why we are here buddy?" I asked the frog after sideling up next to him while my lollipop clicked softly against my teeth whenever I rolled it around in my mouth with my tongue to get some of the flavour into a different part of my mouth.

"Graawr!" He answered as well as pointed at the run-down building in front of us, causing me to sigh at the whole situation. Why the fuck did we follow this bloody frog again? Ohhh yes, my fucking curiosity! Now that I thought about it, what the hell was I expecting to discover by following some big ass amphibian anyways? Some hidden, magical underwater kingdom of frogs or something? At least I knew it wasn't some ran-down building that looked like the next gust of wind would blow it to kingdom come…

With a barely hidden twitch to my eyebrow, I went into the building, both the frog and the munchkin hot on my tail.

One pair of stairs up and then another the frog behind me suddenly croaked and pushed himself past me and bustled over to somebody that seemed to be passed out on the floor of said building.

"Grawrrr…" The frog croaked out, while pointing his hand at the man/boy at his feet after which he motioned for us to come closer.

"What's wrong with him?" The munchkin asked into the following silence once we had approached the form in front of us, and honestly? I had neither a clue nor the bloodiest inclination to find out…

Still, I walked over to the near corpse on the ground and, in order to look somewhat caring, poked the dude with my foot as if to check for… dunno. A sign of life maybe? Ye, let's go with that.

At my action both the frog and the munchkin looked at me like I had grown a second head all of a sudden.

"Can't you help him? He looks like he could need some…" The munchkin asked me after a while, her eyes filled with pity for some stranger she had never even met before, which was a character trait I both admired and scoffed at, depending on which part of my mind you asked.

In the end, my humanitarian half of the brain won out and I grunted once before simply picking the boy up by the scruff of his neck, after which I threw him over my shoulder.

The frog immediately made to protest but I simply ignored him and went back down the way we came. Seems like my appointment with my future pillow would have to wait some more. Now, where the hell would I find a doc, let alone at this time of day?

With another click I once again turned the lollipop around inside my mouth while I mentally revisited the streets we had walked down upon this day. Still, I didn't remember any signs that had spoken of a doctor offering his services. Which meant we'd have to go into a different direction instead.

"Yo frog, do you know any doctors around here? And why the hell didn't you bring him to one in the first place?" The frog seemed to struggle with himself for a second, before he seemed to croak something that sounded astoundingly similar to embarrassment and guilt for some reason, and the fact I managed to gleam that much from a frog's croak honestly made me question if I had finally snapped.

"If you know one just bring us there, will you? Whatever made you decide against doing so ain't up my alley, so please, for the love of god, just lead us there!" I said, nearly ranting at the end which I hadn't done in quite some time to my surprise. Felt good. Not gonna lie.

After a minute of posturing, mimicking and gesticulating around in the air with his paws as if to argue one point in particular, the frog seemed to decide that he had lost his imaginary debate and deflated before he waved us to follow him.

"Why do you think he didn't bring that man to the doctor himself?" The munchkin asked me while we kept on following the hopping frog in front of us.

"No clue. His haircut, and isn't that something you don't see all day, reminds me a little of a sumo ringer. Maybe he has some code of honour or something along those lines? Who knows. I'm poking as much in the dark about the matter as you are." I replied while I pulled out a new lollipop from my pocket and threw away the old stick before I shoved the new one into my mouth.

Our short conversation however was interrupted by the frog in front of us stopping at a white house to our right, to which he motioned with his hands as if to be plead with us to take the lead from here on out.

With a small sigh of annoyance and relieve escaping my lips that this whole mess was finally over and done with, I stepped forwards and knocked at the double door strongly, simply to make sure that whoever was inside would hear us.

At first only silence reigned, and I had already resigned myself to keep looking for another doctor, when the door creaked open and something stood before me I had the least expected to encounter. A tanuki?

I couldn't help but snort in the face of so much idiocy in one day. Some days the Grandline really knew how to mess with you. After I had calmed down a little I began to think things through a little, which admittedly wasn't my strongest ability. But you gotta play with what you got, right?

"Huh, there must've been a breakout at the local petting zoo or something. Here, go play with the munchkin over there Tanuki-boy." I said while shoving the stunned Tanuki over to the slightly giggling munchkin.

Though, it didn't take long until the stun broke and the Tanuki began a tirade I hadn't heard from anybody in a while. Heh, what a potty little mouth that fellow had! Now, where was that bloody doctor around here?