When sightseeing goes wrong.

I myself did not quite understand why I dreaded it so much. It was just my subconsciousness warning me, for reasons unknown. It is usually correct, which precisely made this even worse.

Holding my breath, I uttered to myself, do not do anything unnecessarily and just behave as naturally as you can.

The thing which I feared,( I later assured myself that I did not fear) was peculiarly, questions. Questions about literally everything.

About my entire life,About my entire life, the Straw Hat crew, the Grand Line, the navy, my dreams and ambitions, my hobbies, my habits, everything. Unquestionably, Tsunade-san and Shizune were not in the least suspicious.

I felt completely normal with them, except for my uneasiness to share my life to them.

I decided to answer them. Whatever they were. They have helped me so much and I have not even tried to repay them, let alone doing so, in kind.

So, I tried to make up as much as I could for them, even if verbally. Tsunade-san asked me, "May I know what do you do, as in your profession?"

I answered, rather hesitantly, "I am a pirate."

Her response was , 'ah, I never would've thought that that was your occupation."

" Don't worry, I wont rob you of your belongings or anything…" said I, with a tinge of humour. "

If you don't believe me, don't, but I'm not the kind of pirate you think."

"Okay, if you say so." Said she, with her face the epitome of disbelief.

I continued, having noticed her evident incredulity, "You should know, that here are various types of pirates, with two prominent classifications, with the first one called Morgania. They are your typical kind of pirates, who pillage lands overseas and rob everything by force. The second type of pirates, who are less renowned, and extremely hard to come by nowadays, are Peace-Mains. These pirates pillage the pillagers, that is, they plunder the Morgania pirates. They are good, who maintain peace outside the law. My captain, Straw Hat Luffy, falls under this division, and so does his crew, which naturally includes me. I choose this profession, because it lets me be free, because helping people from the preferably good side, navy has its own disadvantages, like restraining yourself from orders from your senior executives.This is one of the reasons why I chose to be a pirate, having many. You don't seem to know much about these things, considering the fact that this place is far inland, from my acute knowledge of this place."

I could say Tsunade was quite surprised at my sudden lecture on the matter. After that, she was acting quite nonchalantly, and we did not talk, with an wall of thin embarrassment separating us.

But I could tell that she was satisfied with my response; her face was filled with relief (in my humble opinion).

After a few minutes, we reached our destination. The ramen shop was after our lodge, and was called as Tonkatsu Tenko Ramen. I later heard that it was quite popular, I fact, one of the best in town. If not in ambience or size, in quality.

Shizune was eating a bowl of ramen, her last slurp emptying the bowl. I realised that she hadn't eaten lunch. The pig, whatever it's name was, was sitting in a barstool beside her.

The first one to talk was Tsunade. "Have you bought everything we need, Shizune??"

Shizune turned back, seeing me for the first time after a day, " Oh, Zoro-san has come too. I didn't know that." She said, after realising.

Then she turned towards Tsunade-san and replied, " Yes, of course, I have bought all that we need, Tsunade-sama."

Tsunade-san said, " Good. It seems that Zoro here is also coming with us. His swords seem to need repair, and he told me that he would just have to look for a swordsmith on our way to the palace. That is where we are going now, right?"

" Ah, yes, Tsunade-sama. The famous Tanzaku castle. It is technically a palace, but has been renovated in the recent decade to be grouped as a castle. Yes, that's where we are going, with Zoro-san here. If he's coming, I don't mind."

I had remained silent during the entire conversation. I didn't know why, but I felt a bad sensation, like ice-cold water dripping across my back. A feeling, like something bad was about to happen. But I remained silent, not wanting to disturb the two women.

We started moving along the winding road, which eventually led to the castle, as shizune told me later. It was about one-forty five right now as I judged by the sun. It was the peak of the day, the time when the sun shines hottest. Sweat gradually started to form, but at the same time a strong headwind was almost always striking against us.

Shizune was constantly talking on the way. Talking about the essentials that she had bought, and even more about the castle. She seemed very interested in it. She also seemed to have even researched a bit on it, which just proves what I said.

Tsunade was patiently listening, but her attention lied elsewhere. She said, " let us finish our work and return as fast as we can. I have a bad feeling about this."

It took us about fifteen minutes from the ramen shop, and I figured that it must be some two kilometres from there. They both walk really fast, I realised. I noticed it the first time I saw them. They both were strong. A powerful will burning in their body. I knew it. They were not normal civilians. They were trained, trained for something I still didn't know.

We reached there around a little more than two o'clock. It was truly magnificent. Just as Shizune had described. She was now staring at it, experiencing the beautiful sight of it all.

They both were clearly not from around here. I knew that they were travelling from town to town, village to village, for some reasons. While we both were seeing the castle, Tsunade-san seemed worried. Her face reflected anxiousness, her eyes sharp and alert. The castle was at the corner of the road, and located at the end of the town. Our lodge itself was a little on the outskirts, because as I learnt later, Tsunade-san did not like much of the crowd and commotion of the urban town center. She did like shopping and things like that, as all women do, in my honest opinion. The castle was on a little hill, surrounded by low lying stone walls. It's towers were towering tall above, gleaming in the glare of the sun. The famed tenshu of the Tanzaku Castle was easily distinguishable from the environment. It's solid teak wood looked a little decayed, but stood strong nonetheless.

We were still looking at the castle when, a huge rumbling sound was produced from the backside of the castle. We all looked astonished, when the whole palace came rumbling down, reduced to nothing but rubble.