Chapter 32

As soon as Nami, Luffy, and Rose get close enough to the ground, Luffy inflates his stomach until it's the size of a ball with both girls by his side. When he hits the ground, he bounces in the air and laughs with Rose for the fun way to land while Nami is still shaken from falling at such a height.

Luffy lands on his feet and let's go of his crew mates while he's still laughing. "Shishishi, that was great! Hey, which way-?"

Nami cuts him off by punching him on top of the head. "GIVE US A WARNING WHEN YOU DO THAT!"

The captain groans as he rubs the lump on his aching head. "My bad…"

Rose chuckles at the spat as she pats Nami on the shoulder. "Relax, at least we didn't get hurt. Let's get back to the others."

Nami sweat drops at her calmness, but she lets it go as she looks to the direction of the plaza. "Fine, but you're still getting fined."

Rose flinches at the reminder of Nami's threat to fine her if she lost to Eneru again. "You were serious?!"

"I'm always serious when it comes to money." Nami says with a sly grin as she and Luffy start heading to the plaza with Rose begrudgingly following. As soon as they arrive, they were met with a sight of an energetic Chopper treating Zoro and Sanji's injuries.

"Chopper, you're ok!"

The reindeer freezes at Nami's voice as he and the others grin at the arrivals.

"Nami-swan~! Rose-chwan~!" Sanji gets up and twirls to the girls. "I'm so glad you're alright!"

"Glad you're ok too Sanji." Nami says as she goes to relax with Robin.

Rose only nods when Chopper approaches both her and Luffy, since they're the most injured out of the three of them. "You two, come with me!"

The pair complies to the doctor's demands while Nami suddenly gets hugged by Conis. "I'm so glad you guys are ok!"

Nami blinks at the sudden hug, but she doesn't hesitate to hug her back and sees the sky island girl's father watching the touching moment. "You both made it here ok?"

Pagaya nods as he looks around. "Yes, we were lucky to escape Angel Island. All the citizens managed to leave the island before it was destroyed, and they're making their way back onto god's land."

As Rose takes off her jacket to assess her damage, she looks over to Wiper, who's sleeping with bandages all over his injuries, but Aisa nods to Pagaya's plan.

She turns her attention back to Chopper, who's working on Luffy's injuries, she softly grins at the chance for the Shandorians to live in peace with the Skypieans before she starts getting the feeling that someone's staring at her.

She looks from the corner of her eye to see that Aisa is staring at her, but not with as much hostility as there used to be.

Robin notices the look that the child is giving the wind girl and looks at her in confusion. "Is everything alright?"

Aisa looks at her for a moment before she nods. "Yea, I'm just practicing my mantra."

Rose tenses up at the reminder, as Chopper finishes with Luffy and works on her injuries.

The archaeologist doesn't notice her reaction as she looks at the kid curiously. "Oh? You have the ability as well?"

Aisa nods as she looks around at everyone in the town square. "Yea, besides the people here, I can hear more voices coming onto the island. Still, none of them sound like-"

"Hey Aisa, wanna explore the city?"

She and the others turn to Nami's voice to see her grinning at the little Shandorian girl.

Aisa eagerly nods to the idea as she runs over to her.

Before the pair leaves, Luffy gets up and joins them. "I wanna go too!"

"I'll come along to protect you Nami!" Sanji says as he joins them.

Nami quickly nods as she takes them with her before any more questions can be asked.

"What was that about?" Usopp asks, but he only receives a shrug from Zoro.

"If it keeps the love cook from annoying us then I don't care." The swordsman takes a nap in the plaza while the others just brush off the sudden departure.

Rose however, is surprised about Nami's interruption. She doesn't know why she did that, but she's still grateful that she stopped the child from talking about her aura. She snaps out of her daze when she flinches from Chopper applying ointment on her arms' fading burns from her fight with Shura and the scratches from when she roughly rubbed off the sea stone are.

"Sorry." The reindeer says as he reapplies new bandages on the arms to allow them to heal. "Your arms should look like new by tomorrow."

Rose nods with a grin. "Thanks doc, you're the best."

"You dummy, I didn't heal you, so you could thank me!" He happily laughs as he goes to Wiper to check on his injuries.

Rose chuckles at the cute reindeer's antics as she puts on her jacket and backpack.

Robin tilts her head at the wind girl when she sees her getting up. "Where are you going?"

"I'm gonna do my own exploring."

Robin grins at the idea as she gets up. "Would it be alright if I go with you Wind-chan?"

Rose has a bad feeling about this, but nonetheless she nods her head so that she doesn't look suspicious. "Sure, let's go."

As soon as the girls were out of earshot from the plaza, Rose grins at the archaeologist. "So, what parts of the city have you seen?"

"I've seen some interesting ruins; would you mind if we go there first?"

Rose quickly shakes her head. "Not at all, let's go."

Robin nods as she follows the archaeologist out of the city, back onto the Upper Yard, and to a group of ancient landmarks. As Robin takes the time to examine the ruins, Rose digs into her backpack for her camera. "'Mind if I take a picture of them?"

Robin nods in agreement as she steps away. "Please."

The wind girl takes a few shots until it stops clicking. She blinks at her equipment and sighs in disappointment. "Looks like I'm out of film."

Robin raises an eyebrow at the news. "You took that many pictures?"

She casually shrugs at her. "There's too much to see for just your eyes. I mean, who else can say that they explored a sky island?"

Robin giggles at the question. "Too true, everything from gods to mantra is all new for me." She looks to see that Rose barely reacted to the word 'mantra' and gets to the point. "Why exactly did Eneru call you 'little goddess'?"

Rose groans at the annoying nickname as she puts her camera away. "Your guess is as good as mine for what that sociopath is thinking. He probably just thought we were the same because we're logia users."

"But what about your mantra being different?"

Rose freezes at the question, before she quietly sighs. "You overheard him talking huh?"

She nods as she keeps snooping. "Even the little girl in the plaza seemed to sense something."

The brunette tightens her hold on her backpack before she looks away. "I don't have any mantra abilities, so I can't tell you what they sense. Devil fruits could affect mantras for all we know."

Robin raises an eyebrow at the dodged answer. "Didn't seem like you didn't know why from your reaction to Eneru's comments."

Rose scowls at the reminder of what he said to her before he kidnapped her. "Hard to be curious about it when an electric man is trying to kill me. I was pretty pissed about his cocky attitude though."

She looks her nosy crew mate in the eye to try to shoot down her suspicions. "You can think about it as much as you want, but I can't tell you anything that would make sense. If mantra is anything like a person's soul, then everyone's could be a little different for all we know."

Robin furrows her eyebrows at the comparison and ponders on the possibility of it as she crosses her arms over her chest. "You might be right, it can't be possible for every mantra to be exactly the same. Since logia users are rare, it could be that your abilities really did mix with your mantra."

Rose grins in relief that she's satisfied her curiosity, at least for now, and looks around. "Yea, but reading mantra like that sounds like a cool ability. Hey, while we're here do you want to check out the rest of the city ruins?"

Robin opens her mouth, to answer, but a masculine voice rings through the air instead.

"It's you!" The girls look to see the handsome, young, man, that Rose saved from Eneru's judgement before they got sent to the trials, running to them with a large smile. "I can't believe you escaped Eneru! It's great to see you!"

Rose grins at the interruption as she casually waves at him. "Good to see you survived too Eddy."

"You know him?" Robin asks.

Rose nods as she points to him. "Yea, this is Eddy. When Nami and I were exploring Upper Yard, we helped him escape the priests." She turns to the former pirate with a grin. "This is Robin, she's one of my crew mates."

Eddy nods as he smiles at Robin. "Nice to meet you. What are you guys doing out here?"

"We're examining the ruins and photographing them." Robin says as she looks to the ruins.

"What about you?" Rose asks.

Eddy's face fell from the question as he runs a hand through his scruffy, dark blond, hair. "I was looking to see if my crew's old ship was still here, but it looks like the priests destroyed it…"

Rose softly frowns at the survivor for she feels his pain in about to lose a ship. "I'm sorry…"

Eddy quickly shakes his head as he puts on a reassuring smile. "Don't be, it wasn't your fault! I'm going to be working under a dial salesman so I'm going to start my life over."

He freezes when he comes up with an idea and brightly smiles at the girls. "Hey, you guys are going back to the blue sea soon, right?! My boss and I brought a ton of dials to set up shop here, if you come with me, I can give you a discount!"

Rose freezes at the generous offer before she shakes her head. "I appreciate it, but-"

"Please, I really want to repay you for your kindness." Eddy interrupts her with a pleading look in his brown eyes.

Rose looks unsure if she should when Robin pats her on the shoulder. "It can't hurt to take his gratitude Wind-chan. Go on ahead, and we can catch up later."

Rose blinks at Robin's retreat as she watches her go off on her own. She quietly sighs, but with the opportunity to get some dials for future plans, she looks to the tan man and nods. "Alright, let's go."

Eddy brightens up at her accepting his invitation as he leads her to where the other Angel Island civilians are docked.

After Nami, Conis, Luffy, Aisa, and Sanji have explored the Shandorian city, they wandered out of the city until they found themselves at the coastline where dozens, if not hundreds are docked.

"So, both the Shandorians and Skypieans are really staying here together?" Sanji asks as he eyes a few tribesmen helping a group of children to get on the island.

Conis nods as she grins at the sight. "That's right, since Eneru destroyed Angel Island. With the Shandorian leader's permission, we're able to come here."

Aisa grins at how there will be no more fighting, when she senses the strange mantra nearby. She looks around the various boats and stops when she sees a big boat, that looks like a travelling dial shop in the distance.

When she sees the brunette happily chatting, out of earshot, with a young, blond, man as they test out the various dials, she tilts her head in confusion. "Is he a friend of yours?"

The others follow her gaze in confusion before they see Rose talking with Eddy.

Nami immediately recognizes the stranger and is surprised that he made it here too. "That's Eddy, Rose saved him from Eneru's lightning when we explored the Upper Yard."

"Let's see if we can get some dials." Luffy says as he runs ahead.

Meanwhile, Rose picks up a tone dial and listens to the recording she just made. "Fuck the World Government~!"

Eddy and Rose chuckle at the recording as the wind girl puts the tone dial in her backpack, where she already stored a few other shell-like devices.

Eddy looks around the collection to see if there's anything else she could use. "Anything else I can get you?"

She shakes her head with a smile as she closes her bag up and digs up a pile of beli from the bag's outer pocket. "I think I got what I need. Thank you for these, and thank you for developing my pictures for me."

He nods with a grin as he takes the money. "Don't worry about it. When will your crew be heading back?"

She casually shrugs as she looks up at the sky to see that the sun's going to set soon. "Probably tomorrow. My captain's not the type to stay in one place for too long. I should get back before he looks for me."

She grins at her new friend and extends a hand out for him to shake. "If I don't see you tonight, then take care of yourself."

He softly sighs in disappointment before he shakes her hand. "Yea, you too." He keeps his hand around hers and pulls her into a friendly hug. "Thank you again for saving me. I won't forget it."

Rose's freckled cheeks turn to a light shade of pink from the sudden embrace, but she doesn't hit him because he's just trying to be nice, so she awkwardly pats him on the back. "Y-you're welcome."

What she fails to notice though, is Luffy standing outside of the boat with a scowl from seeing Rose blushing from his hug, and not pulling away like she does with him. A sense of jealousy grows inside of him as he jumps on the boat just when they pull apart.

Before either of them can notice the captain arriving, Luffy picks Rose up over his shoulder with one arm and starts walking off.

Rose's blush immediately increases tenfold when she sees who's carrying her and tries to pull herself off, with hot air flowing off her from her embarrassment, but he won't let her down. "Luffy, what the crap are you doing?!"

"We need to get back to the plaza."

Rose freezes at the sudden comment, and mistakes it for Nami needing them, so she stops fighting him as her mood breeze fades away. With her cheeks still rivaling the redness in Luffy's shirt, she sheepishly waves Eddy goodbye, as he watches them leave in a stupor. "Sorry for the crazy goodbye, good luck with everything Eddy."

Luffy grows more irritated at the goodbye as he carries her deeper into the island a little faster than before.

As all this is happening, Nami's group can only watch in shock until the redhead starts laughing.

"W-what just happened?" Eddy asks as he turns to Nami and her friends.

Nami settles down to giggles as she boards the boat. "Don't worry about it. Our captain's always like that around her."

"I just wish he'd treat her like a lady." Sanji says as he takes in a smoke from his cigarette before he follows Nami onboard.

"What kind of dials do you have?" Aisa asks him as she and Conis climb on.

Eddy can only blink at the carefree attitude of his new customers before he gets back to doing business. "I-I'll show you our inventory right now."

As Luffy treks through the woods to get back to the plaza, Rose begins to struggle to get off Luffy's shoulder again, but he won't let go. "My legs aren't broken Luffy, so put me down!"

"No."

"Why not?"

"Don't wanna."

She groans at his attitude as her cheeks refuse to get rid of their blush. "What are you so upset about?"

"I don't know."

She blinks at him admitting that he's upset, and hums in thought of what she can do to cheer him up. When she gets an idea, she brightly smiles at him. "If you put me down, then I'll show you something cool."

Luffy freezes at the offer just as they reach a clearing, and silently agrees as he sets her down.

As Rose's face clears up, she gives him her best showman's smile as she digs into her backpack, and grabs a white seashell with pink specs scattered around it. "Now watch and be amazed my friend! For thanks to this milky dial, I now have the ability to summon the clouds!"

As soon as she activates the dial, large clouds of white begin to fly out of the shell. She smirks at her surprised audience as she uses her wind to shape the cloud into a slanted version of the crew's jolly roger.

"Whoa, that's so cool!" Luffy says with stars in his eyes.

Rose grins in satisfaction as she manipulates the clouds in a few other shapes. After the fourth shape, she decides to kick it up a notch by manipulating the white mist to envelope the clearing in a smokescreen.

Luffy jumps back in shock when the cloud hits him, but besides feeling a cool mist, nothing bad happens to him. All he could see is white in the slightly humid air as he looks around for his crew mate. "Where'd you go?"

"Over here!" He turns to the voice at his right as he follows it until his face hits a floating shell.

Once he makes contact with the grey shell, it lands in his hands for him to look at curiously. "This looks like that tone dial Conis showed us. How did it work again?"

He pushes on the top of the shell, which makes Rose's recording start playing. "Welcome to my version of hide and seek, which I'd like to call 'find the ninja in the mist!' If you don't want to play, then speak now or forever hold your peace!"

Luffy blinks at the invitation for a game before he calls out to her. "I want to play!"

As if on clockwork, the recording continues. "Good to know you still want in. The rules are simple: if you find me before the clouds clear then you win. If the clouds clear up before you caught me then I'm the victor. I won't be using my powers, except to retrieve this dial, so you don't need to worry about me cheating. With that, let the games begin!"

The shell starts floating in a gust of wind, out of Luffy's hands, and into a random direction. "Hey!"

He follows the flying shell, but he completely loses it in the clouds. He manages to sometimes see a blue coat, or brown hair, but before he can catch her, she manages to get out of his grasp. "I'm not giving up!"

As he stretches his arms in random directions to try to find her, Rose suppresses a chuckle as she stands just a few feet behind him. As he turns around, she follows him so that she's always behind him the whole time. However, when she sees that the clouds are beginning to fade, she starts to go to a thicker part of the mist.

Before she could get far though, a pair of rubber arms wraps around her waist from behind and pulls her backwards.

As soon as her back hits Luffy's chest, her face lights up in a light shade of red while Luffy laughs. "Shishishi, looks like I win."

Rose sheepishly nods as the clouds fade away, so she pulls away and chuckles. "Yup, congrats."

Luffy looks to see that her freckled cheeks went red again and gets a closer look at her. "Why does your face keep turning red?"

Rose freezes at the question as she shifts her eyes everywhere. "I-I don't know what you're talking about…"

He ignores the terrible lie as he puts a hand to her forehead.

Rose raises an eyebrow at the action when she sees him scowling. "Umm Luffy, what are you-? Ah!"

She yelps in shock as Luffy picks her up over his shoulder again and runs to the direction of the plaza. "Why the hell didn't you tell me that you were sick?! I'm taking you to Chopper right now!"

Rose's face couldn't get any redder from the oblivious captain's assumption as she struggles in his hold. "Wait, I'm not sick dammit!"

"Then why does your face keep getting red?!"

"Because of affection!"

He immediately stops in his tracks at the sudden confession and puts her down right in front of him. "What do you mean?"

She shifts her eyes away from him as she scratches the back of her head. "I don't know how to fucking explain it right. Can't we just leave it alone?"

He gets ready to pick her up again, so she hastily steps back. "Ok, ok, umm... When guys around my age hug me, I get so embarrassed that my cheeks heat up."

Luffy blinks at the explanation and remembers all the times that her face turned red whenever he had his arms around her. As he remembers the different moments, he realizes that he's never felt upset when it was him making her blush, but he kind of liked it.

However, he still doesn't understand why doing that makes her face heat up. "Why would you be embarrassed about hugs?"

She groans at having to explain it to him as she runs her hands through her hair. "I don't know, dammit! Maybe I'm just not used to it! Since I've met you, I've been getting hugged so much that my body doesn't know how to react! It's like I'm allergic to them!"

He tilts his head at the weird explanation. "What does that mean?"

She points to the fading redness on her cheeks. "It means that when I get affection, like hugs and kisses, my face gets like this. It won't kill me, but there's no cure either, so Chopper can't help me."

Luffy widens his eyes at this as he realizes that she'll keep getting like this with not just him, but with other boys too, and wants to find a way to stop that from happening again. "Are you sure there's no way to get rid of your 'alimony'?!"

She giggles at the miswording before she shakes her head. "It's called an 'allergy', and there's no way to get rid of it."

She accidentally mistakes his worry for guilt in making her face red, so she pats him on the shoulder with a small grin. "Look, it doesn't hurt me, so there's no point in worrying about it. Sanji should've finished cooking by now, so how about we go eat?"

He blinks at the reminder of dinner before he happily grins at her. "Yea, let's go!"

Rose chuckles at his excitement as they race off to the plaza just when the party commences between pirate, Shandorian, and Skypiean.

The sun has long since set, and the party is still thriving with a giant campfire burning strong in the middle of the square.

No one would even think about going to sleep from the fun night as Chopper, Rose, Sanji, Nami, and Usopp are dancing around the fire with the locals.

Luffy is eating as much food that he could get his hands on while Zoro is enjoying the booze.

Robin sits to the side of the dance as she watches the fun with a small grin and enjoys her dinner.

Rose leaves the dancing to take a break as she grabs a mug of water on the side. As she takes a seat and watches the party with a soft grin, she can't help but be glad that the arc is finally done.

She finishes the mug and gets ready to get back in when Aisa walks up to her.

The small child looks at the ground nervously, so Rose looks at her in confusion. "Is there something you need?"

Aisa fidgets her hands before she looks up at her. "Sorry for calling your voice creepy..."

She blinks at the apology about her insulting her aura, before she grins at her as she kneels to her level and extends a hand out to her. "It's water under the bridge. Let's start over. My name's Rose."

Aisa smiles at the introduction as she shakes her hand. "I'm-"

She stops when she looks at the two-colored stone that's hanging around the pirate's neck. "Where did you get that necklace?!"

Rose raises an eyebrow at the question before she looks down at her red and black crystal. "My folks gave it to me, why?"

"I found gems like that here, but they were glowing blue!"

"What?!" She nearly gasps at the chance to further her research as she gently grabs her shoulders and looks her in the eyes. "Do you remember exactly where you saw them?!"

She nods as she looks to the city. "I can lead you to where I found them, but it'll cost you."

Rose doesn't hesitate to get down to business. "What do you want?"

She lightly smirks at her as she holds a hand out for an offering. "I want something from the blue sea."

The astronomer doesn't waste time in getting into her backpack to start looking for something to give her. Sadly, she only has the essentials in her backpack, along with the eternal pose and her envelopes full of pictures, so she has no clue on what to give her.

She furrows her eyebrows in frustration as she looks through the bag, but freezes when she sees the zipper to her hidden pocket, in the bottom of the backpack, that holds her quarter. *I barely made it through Robin's questions today. Maybe it's better to get rid of this before anything could happen... At least with Aisa, I know she'll treasure it.*

As she takes out the coin, that managed to come into this world with her, she quickly puts it in her jacket pocket and grins at her. "I have something that I can give you, but we need to go somewhere more private for me to show you."

Aisa silently agrees as she leads them away from the party.

Meanwhile, Luffy finishes his meal and gets a glimpse of the wind girl before she leaves with Aisa. He looks at her in confusion, but instead of following them, he searches for the reindeer in the dancing crowd.

When he finds him, he dances with the reindeer as he talks to him about Rose's blushing problem. "Hey Chopper, I need to talk to you."

Chopper stops dancing and nods as they get out of the dancing circle. "What's the matter?

"How do you get rid of anarchies?"

Chopper gets taken aback by the question and looks at him in utter confusion. "To get rid of what?"

"It's when something happens, and your body reacts weird to it."

The reindeer knits his eyebrows at the weird explanation as he tries to understand what he's saying. When he comes up with an idea of what he's talking about, he looks at him in shock. "Do you mean allergies?!"

"Yea, that!"

The doctor looks at him in horror, because he thinks that it's about someone having a bad reaction to the food, before he looks for anyone having an allergic reaction. "Did something happen?!"

Luffy quickly nods as he points to the direction that Rose went. "Yea, Rose said she's allergic to guys hugging her! How can we stop it?!"

Chopper immediately stops worrying when he sees that it's a false alarm, and blankly stares at him for a moment before he goes back to the party.

Luffy widens his eyes at the abandonment before he calls out to him. "Wait, can't you help?!"

He wasn't given an answer by the reindeer as he watches him go back to the dancing circle.

"You want to help Rose?"

Luffy looks to his right to see Nami smirking at him. "I couldn't help but overhear your problem. I think I know a way for you to treat her 'allergies'."

He blinks at the offer before he eagerly smiles at her. "Really?! What can I do?!"

She wraps her arms around his shoulders and starts whispering the plan to him as the party continues.

As soon as Rose and Aisa are out of earshot of everyone in the ancient city, the Shandorian stops walking and crosses her arms over her chest. "I won't lead you anywhere else until you pay up."

Rose chuckles at her cheekiness as she inspects herself and the kid to make sure that Robin didn't plant any eyes or ears on them.

Aisa only looks at her in confusion as Rose steps away from her. "What are you doing?"

"Just making sure that no one's snooping." She ignores Aisa's blank stares as she grabs an orange, conical shell shaped, lamp dial from her bag to use as a flashlight, and then digs into her pocket. "Anyway, I have to apologize, I can't give you something from the blue sea. Instead, I have something so rare that you can't find it in neither the white nor blue seas."

The child tilts her head in confusion as Rose places the quarter in her hand and shines the light over the coin, so that they can clearly see it.

As the Shandorian girl examines the two sides of the American coin, she squints her eyes at the bird side of the coin and reads the engraving. "What's 'The United States of America?'"

The wind girl chuckles at the question about her home country as she points to the quarter. "It's a large, corrupt, country that no one can find. That coin is the only thing in the world to prove that it exists."

She raises an eyebrow at the explanation as she looks up at the wind girl. "If it's not in the blue or white sea, then where is it?"

"It's on an ocean that's so polluted that the water could be mistaken as a black sea."

"The black sea…" Aisa looks down at the coin in thought before she looks up at her in shock. "Is that why your mantra is different?! You're from the black sea?!"

Rose chuckles at the accurate assumption as she shrugs. "Whether I am or not doesn't matter now. Just don't tell anyone that I gave that to you, ok?

Aisa nods as she stuffs the coin in her dress pocket. "Ok, this is a good payment, so I'll show you where I found the stones."

Rose happily grins at the child as she uses her lamp dial to light their way to a back street, just a block away from the pyramid. When they see a faint blue light shining from the window of one of the houses, the girls run into the abandoned home.

As they reach the kitchen, they both gape at the beautiful pair of round red and black stones that are about the same size as the stone that's hanging on Rose's necklace, that are resting on the wooden table. The biggest difference between them, is that both of the stones on the table are radiating a light shade of blue light that's illuminating the room.

Rose carefully places her dial on the table, as she carefully eyes the gems and analyzes the new discoveries. *These must have been here for centuries. Even if they only absorbed the comet's power from the night that the researchers disappeared, it's safe to guess that the astral energy won't fade away on its own. Looks like the only way to get rid of their radiation is to use them for travel...*

"Whoa, these are amazing…" Aisa says as she reaches a hand for them and snaps Rose from her thoughts.

"Don't touch them!" Rose quickly picks up the gems with a gust of wind to keep them out of her reach.

Aisa blinks at the hasty reaction before she looks at her in confusion. "What's the matter?"

"These crystals are glowing because they took in radiation from a powerful comet. I won't bore you with the details, but if you mess around with these, then you could be spirited away to a faraway place."

The Shandorian flinches at the explanation as she backs away to the wall. "You're serious?! What are you going to do with them?!"

"I'm gonna take them with me for my experiments." She looks around for a container before she spots a small, tan, stone, box that they can fit in. "Can you grab that box for me?"

Aisa nervously nods as she grabs the lightweight box and puts it on the table, next to her dial, and opens the lid.

Rose carefully uses her wind to gently drop the gems into the box and closes the lid. With the blue glow still able to shine through the cracks of the ancient box, Rose goes into her backpack to grab her white handkerchief.

The rag is able barely cover the entire container, after she tightly ties up the ends to create a makeshift sack. However, she's still satisfied because she knows for certain that the jewels can't fall out, but there's still something bothering her. "Are you sure that these are the only ones in the city?"

The child nods as she looks outside. "Those were the only ones I saw when I was exploring with Nami and the others. There would've been news of people disappearing if they messed with them during Eneru's rule."

Rose quietly nods as she puts the mini bag in her backpack, and straps it on while she thinks over the possibility of other crystals being planted in the city. *Eneru never said anything about my crystal, so maybe he didn't see anything. Noland's explorers could've left these here by mistake or the people who lived here disappeared long before Noland and Calgura's time…*

She snaps out of her thoughts when she sees Aisa staring at her timidly, so she gives her a calm smile as she grabs her lamp dial. "I don't think there's anything to worry about. It's possible that these two are the only ones in the city. How about I take you back to the party before the others notice that we're gone?"

The child quickly nods as she and Rose get out of the building.

As the two of them walk back to the square, Rose keeps track of her surroundings so that she can come back to investigate later.

Once they return to the campfire, Aisa runs off to go dance with Chopper and the others.

Rose couldn't hide the smile from the step closer to her research as she puts the dial in her bag, and goes to grab something to eat.

"Rose!" She freezes and turns to see Luffy running to her. "I know how to help!"

She raises an eyebrow at the announcement. "What do you-?"

Luffy pulls her into his embrace with a toothy grin. "Nami said that to fix your allergy, you need to be hugged every day to get used to it."

Rose's face immediately heats up at the idea. "Wait, what?!"

Luffy only nods as he keeps his arms around her "Yup, so until you're cured, I'll give you a hug once a day."

She quickly pulls away and shakes her head. "You don't need to do that!"

"But I want to!"

Her heart unexpectedly speeds up a little from the honest answer, but she quickly denies that it's about him wanting to give her affection. *He means that he wants to help me.*

She quietly sighs as she runs a hand through her bangs. "Luffy-"

"Do you want to keep getting embarrassed from hugs?"

She freezes at the question and looks to see that he's serious about this. She groans in frustration as she looks away from him. "Of course not..."

"Then can we at least try?"

She thinks it over then benefits of not being embarrassed from hugs anymore, and sighs in defeat when she sees no way to get him to change his mind. "Fine, but if it's not any better after a few weeks then we're pulling the plug on this."

"Deal!" He happily grins at the agreement, and hugs her one more time, before he runs off to dance with the others.

Rose can only watch him go back to the party, as her face gains a scarlet skin tone. *His hugs might kill me after all…*

She shakes her head of the thought, as her blush fades off, before she goes to the food table where a happy Nami is sitting alone and enjoying her meal.

When the tipsy navigator notices the tired astronomer narrowing her purple eyes at her, she returns the look with a smirk. "Looks like you had a talk with Luffy. How are your allergies?"

The brunette can only groan as she sits next to her and grabs some random food from the table, without looking at her. "I was just trying to stop Luffy from taking me to Chopper when he thought I was sick. Why'd you tell him that?"

She chuckles at her annoyance as she grabs her mug full of wine and takes a swig. "I think it could work to help you not be so embarrassed. Besides, all that affection could be a good reminder for you."

Rose scowls at the explanation as she takes a bite of her meal. "A reminder of what?"

"That none of us are scared of you."

Rose widens her eyes at what she said and nervously swallows the food in her mouth, before she turns to her friend to see her acting like she didn't say anything. "What?"

The redhead only takes a swig of her booze again before she takes a cupcake from the pile and puts it in front of her. "So what if some psycho bastard says that your mantra's weird?! It's not like you're anything like him! You're too clumsy with your powers for us to be scared of you!"

Rose can only blink at her as she processes the compliment, or was that an insult? Regardless, she can't help but chuckle at Nami's drunken rant. "I think that booze has messed with your brain."

She only shrugs off her comment as she finds the blond chef dancing around. "Whatever you say. Just know that I was only scared of Eneru during the fight in the square."

Rose can only stay quiet as she watches the navigator stumbles back to the fray and grabs Sanji to get him to dance with her.

The brunette shakes her head at Nami's rambling and eats the cupcake she gave her. However, she can't stop herself from thinking back on the conversation with Nami. Even though it was clear that the navigator was drunk when she was talking to her, Rose can tell that she wasn't lying about not being afraid of her.

She softly grins at the reassurance that she's not being feared yet, before she finishes her meal, and slips away from the festivities to investigate the house.

As soon as Rose returned to the house, she searched every corner of the ancient building for clues. However, all she could find was everything, but crystals and journals that could tell her more about their origination.

She takes a seat in the kitchen to take a break, and notices that there's not a spec of gold in this house, so she assumes that the place was pilfered by the false god. "Maybe Eneru's men only focused on the gold… If they touched the crystals, then they could've disappeared before they could report it though…"

She groans at many possibilities that could've happened, but she knows that there's no use whining about it, so she leaves to go search the rest of the city.

Once she goes outside, where the sun is starting to rise, she stops when a familiar voice calls to her. "What are you doing here Wind-chan?"

Rose flinches at the nickname and looks to see Robin approaching her with a curious look on her face.

The wind girl quietly sighs as she rubs her tired eyes. "Just exploring the city."

She freezes when she realizes that Robin could help her to see if there are any more crystals hidden in the city. As long as she keeps quiet about her research it shouldn't hurt, so she gives it a shot. "Actually, you came at a good time."

Robin raises an eyebrow at the comment when Rose shows her the red and black crystal, that's hanging on the silver chain around her neck. "Would you be willing to grow a bunch of eyes around the city, to see if any crystals like these are here?"

The archaeologist blinks at the request as she gets a closer look at the gem. "What kind of stone is this?"

"That's what I've been trying to figure out. I found some gems like this in the city, but I couldn't figure out if they came from Jaya or somewhere else."

"Why do you want to know?"

She freezes at the question as she thinks some way to avoid mentioning anything about the Timore comet.

There's only one honest reason that she can give her that doesn't reveal her research, so she sadly looks down at her necklace as she explains herself. "The one I'm wearing was my mom's. Since this is all that I have left of her I want to know more about it, just to feel a little closer to her, you know?"

Robin widens her eyes as the sappy story, as she remembers how one of the reasons she's doing her own research is for her mother.

Rose however, doesn't notice the sentimental look Robin is making as she gives her a smile to show that she's fine. "Sorry about that, I didn't mean to make it sound sad. I can search on my own if you're busy."

She turns around to leave, but stops when Robin places a hand on her shoulder. "It wasn't that sad Wind-chan, I can help."

Rose happily smiles at her crew mate as Robin closes her eyes.

"Ojos Fleur." Robin focuses to sprout blue eyes all over the ancient city, in hopes of finding any more crystals. However, as far as she searched from the top of the pyramids, to the inside of the various buildings, there was no trace of the gems anywhere.

She was only able to keep the eyes present for half a minute before she has to cancel them out. She frowns in disappointment before she looks at Rose. "Sorry, I couldn't find anything."

Rose nods in understanding with a small grin. "That's fine, thank you for looking. Looks like they didn't come from here after-"

She accidentally starts yawning, so Robin giggles at her exhaustion. "You were out here all night, weren't you? You should head back, I'm sure the others will be getting up soon."

The wind girl reluctantly nods as she heads to the direction of the plaza. "Yea, that sounds good, I'll see you back at the ship."

Robin nods as she waves her off and then goes off in her own search for the poneglyph.

As Rose heads back to the square, she can't help but be glad that she's not accidentally leaving behind any crystals, so no one would disappear by accident. *At least that's one less thing to worry about. I should go to the ship to update the journal, and-!*

She accidentally yawns again, just as she reaches the plaza. When she sees her crew and the locals sleeping without a care in the world, she's compelled to join them so that she can study the crystals with a clear mind.

As she finds an empty spot on the ground near her friends, she uses her backpack as a pillow, and allows herself a well-earned rest with exciting thoughts on what she can learn with her new test subjects.

TO BE CONTINUED