3/4

Since her spear had already been taken from her by Ganzack she ran over to where a pirate laid unconscious on the floor, picked up his sword, and ran into the fight with an energetic battle cry as her visor fell over her eyes. Somehow she found herself fighting in the same area as Luffy's green-haired crewmate. Considering there was a lack of specific details in Luffy's stories from on their way to Ganzack's base she assumed that it was Zoro instead of Ann, since that was the name of Luffy's swordsman crewmate.

"It that guy really your captain?" She called out as she ducked beneath the swing of a taller pirate's sword and slashed at him with her own, causing him to stumble backward directly into the range of Zoro's own attack.

"Luffy? Yeah, he's the captain. There aren't many of us: there's a blue girl, a few birds, a ship and me. Do you even know how to use a sword?" Zoro asked as he watched Medaka gracelessly swinging her pilfered katana around without a single ounce of skill, mostly in a 'swing-swing-stab' kind of motion most kids used when they were play-fighting each other with sticks.

"Yes. The sharp pointy end goes into the other guy." Medaka said confidently and swung her arm out again at another pirate.

"No. I'm going to save us from having to arrange a funeral. Use those guns instead," Zoro said as he disarmed the reckless girl easily and shooed her towards a downed pirate who had a loaded pair of pistols instead. At least that would be safer.

She adapted quickly to the new method of fighting and began firing at and disabling pirates at a rapid rate. Zoro was almost taken aback when the girl lifted and tossed one of the heavy wooden chairs with ease towards a fleeing pair of fat-and-thin pirates, knocked them completely flat. Strong for a kid? Noted. Girl? Noted. This must be the kid the boys from town were so terrified of. She was shorter than he thought she would be.

Zoro fought his way over to Luffy's side since Medaka seemed to be handling herself pretty well and watching Luffy bite into a leg of meat that had been discarded with one hand and hit another goon with another said, "So is this some sort of working lunch?"

"Zoro! This jerk Ganzack ate meat right in front of me and then he stepped on my hat! I have dibs on fighting him!" Luffy said crossly, completely worked up into a rage.

"Dibs? What's dibs?" Zoro asked in confusion.

"It's a word Dawnie made up. It means I go first! Dibs on a place to sleep, dibs on eating meat, dibs on punching stupid jerks in their stupid faces!" Luffy shouted the last bit, sweeping his leg through the room, which Zoro skillfully jumped over while the rest of the people in the room were knocked off their feet. (As she stood back up Medaka took the time to shout, "Warn me next time, you idiot!")

"I didn't make it up, I just know it's a real word somewhere," Dawn said defensively. Some words seemed to translate from what she wanted to say and what people understood and some…just didn't sound right.

"Where did Ann go? Do you know, Zoro?" Luffy asked.

"Maybe she's helping her bird fight the sea monster that was attacking them from somewhere Dawn can't see," Zoro suggested.

"Really!? How cool! I call dibs to fight the next sea monster!" Luffy demanded as he punched out another couple of goons.

"You don't have time to be distracting each other you fools. Unless you want me to crush this little crabcake's throat," Ganzack's voice interrupted from his elevated platform. Luffy and Zoro gritted their teeth when they realized he had his arm outstretched with many strands of weird pink glowing ribbons shooting out of his glove, now tangled up all around Medaka's armor.

Medaka stopped her struggling at his comment and said, "What did you call me?"

"Oh? That was your father's nickname for you wasn't it, little crab-cake? The whole crab aesthetic disturbs me but with his scientific knowledge, I finally have this greatest armor that combines the best of both offense and defense in both technology and magic. Your father's greatest use in this world was in coming back to me. With science and magic united together, I can be the best version of myself. These two fools will soon be crushed just like that witch and her bird was by Plesiosaurus! Kanininini!"

Ann wasn't still fighting Ganzack's sea monster. She had been forced in the end, with the necessity of leaving Balloon behind on order for him to deal with the sea monster once they reached the shore of the hidden island. While she followed her magical trail he decided to stay behind to fight and distract Plesiosaurus the Leviathan away from raising an alarm to his partner. Following the feather dust sparrow past the shore, it took a somewhat zigzagged path which eventually led her to what seemed to be the black magic using pirate's base. More importantly, it led to what looked to be a combination of a metal workshop and potions lab. It was extremely cluttered and trying to find answers would be a chore but she needed to find the pirate's name or his primary magical focus or she would be forced to use up more magical energy than she could spare to continue to break his spells.

The trail finally led her to the corner of the room where an old journal had been negligently tossed away. It was much more worn than the leather journals that were stacked on the desk in the center of the room and Ann quickly flipped through it only to find it looked to be a personal journal and scientific log of sorts. The entry dates stopped a little over eleven years ago. She sped through reading it and found that it chronicled the progress of a scientist voyager by the name of Ganzack Herring who had discovered and begun to study magic. This had to be the pirate her crew was now facing.

It seemed that Ganzack had simply been studying the nature of magic when he received news that his wife was pregnant and became aware that he suddenly had developed slight magical energy at the same time. He already knew from his studies that magic users were somewhat rare and coveted for their power. Magic seemed to manifest randomly among any race and age without any obvious rhyme or reason. Among the people who could use magic some could use it better than others though it wasn't clear how or why. Each magic user had their own 'style' of performing magic with only a few distinct, named "spells," or "potions" that were readily available to any of them. Magic users mostly had to craft their own style of magic to a type that would suit them best.

Seeing the possibilities Ganzack decided he was going to create the ultimate protection spell - one that could perfectly protect his child from everything evil in the world. On January 14th his wife gave birth to a daughter who she named Medaka before passing away right after and Ganzack decided it was time to perform his first "perfect" self-crafted spell.

Ann winced and wished someone had told Ganzack that trying to "perfectly" do anything with magic made it much more prone to backfiring, which could mean that he had been hit by his own spell in addition to having an assumed beneficial spell go very badly wrong. You couldn't micromanage magical effects to make something 100% successful. Written in the log was a potion recipe that included not only magical ingredients, but also a spoken spell, a soul vow, and a blood ritual. Ann had been practicing magic even longer than this Ganzack and still only used a combination of magical ingrediants and spoken spells at the most when casting a spell.

1511, JAN 15

11:56 pm.

I have started this alone... and I must finish it alone.

There is no longer a choice... I know that I must use

myself as the subject of the spell. There is no

choice! I must put aside the fears I feel inside.

There's no place to hide from those devils in CP9

who are sure to come for me. One last final chance

that only I can take now everything I've fought for

is at stake! Like a warning light, glimmering in red,

beautiful and strange. I see the colors change

before my eyes! They dance and they sparkle like

diamonds at night leading out of the darkness and

into the light!

11:58 pm

I consumed 10 centiliters of Potion HJ #1. It has a

salty, bitter taste. Stings on the tongue.

Warm in the gullet. Heat is spreading strongly

through my veins. I have a slight feeling of euphoria.

Lightheadedness. No noticeable behavioral

differences. I must be diligent. I must try to analyze

each change. This is all for her I must do all I can to

protect her from everything I've seen. Now the die

is cast - nothing left to do but wait.

11:59

My God! - What's this?

Something is happening - I can't explain it-

Something's inside me, a breathtaking pain,

It's splitting and destroying me

The pain is enough to drive me insane

Suddenly - uncontrolled -

Something is tearing free

Suddenly - agony -

Filling me - killing me?

Suddenly - out of breath -

What is this - is this death?

Suddenly - look at me!

Can it be?

Who is this creature that I see?

The paper had been speckled with brownish stains that Ann was nearly positive was blood. In the last entry of the journal the penmanship and orderly handwriting suddenly changed to a larger size with letters that seemed more jagged with thicker lines, as though more pressure was being used on the pen with only a single word written beneath the date.

1511, JAN 16

Free

Well, that certainly was ominous. With a pinch of remaining feather dust, she focused and tried to find anything more recent and was lead to a bundle of clothing wrapped around another journal. This one was written simply by 'Herring' and she read what happened that night when he took his homebrewed potion. The potion had been meant to keep his daughter protected perfectly from evil for ten years but instead of the desired outcome, he had been split into two different halves. The "merciless pirate magic user" Ganzack and the "protective brilliant scientist" Herring.

Herring, upon seeing the danger his Ganzack half would cause his daughter, kidnapped her away from himself, and ran away to a randomly selected island in order to keep her safe. The protection of the spell actually seemed to work to Herring's delight, who had taken to living as an eccentric toymaker for the island very well. Nothing physical seemed to harm his daughter and she was strong enough to wear the densest of metals effortlessly and never had a scrape or injury when she played rough with her friends from the nearby town.

Unfortunately after ten years, the protective spell had finally begun to unravel making his daughter vulnerable again. To make matters worse Ganzack, Herring's "evil half", was finally able to sense his "good half" and came looking for him in order to gain Herring's scientific knowledge in order to increase his power to its full potential once again and after six months eventually found him.

When Ganzack arrived on the island he captured his scientist half and through a rather horrifying self-crafted ritual Ganzack consumed the heart of his good half Herring in order to reabsorb his skills and knowledge back into himself. Herring, who had focused for the last decade on science instead of magic, and being made up of the positive feelings more than the actions of the whole Herring Ganzack, was unable to defend himself from having the ritual performed. After it was completed Ganzack had all of Herring's skills and memories but none of Herring's love or empathy. The only thing Herring think of to do was include a final entry in his journal that would act as an apology to his daughter for not being strong enough to fight his evil half. He hoped that Medaka would be able to escape Herring's attention and live well.

Ann was trying not to cry but the entire tragedy was eating her up. Ganzack was cruel not only to himself but to his own daughter as well. This girl, Medaka, needed to at least be told that her father Herring was gone now, didn't she? She wondered if she should tell the girl that Ganzack was now the only aspect of her father.

Ganzack who, now that she looked closer at his notes (having regained his note-taking habit from Herring), had documented that over the previous six months that he had been building a single incredible battlesuit that would combine both his new scientific ingenuity and magical power.

His desire to set sail to take on the Grand Line and be pirate king definitely set him at odds with Luffy and if Ann were the type to gamble she would place anything she had on the fact that Luffy would eventually fight with Ganzack if he wasn't already in the middle of doing so. The sound of a crash and the clamor of fighting jolted Ann into action again. Once she got to where the fight was she would find her crew.

She grabbed one of Balloon's feathers and as she exited the room nearly ran into the sword of a battle frenzied pirate. She knocked him out by imbuing the feather with a short term sleeping spell (three seconds at most in a fight, half an hour at the most if she wanted an instant nap) that was her most useful single word spell (it was the spell that allowed her to get the upper hand in her fight with Spiel's old bosun after all) and while he was frozen in place hit him over the head with the pommel of his own sword.

By the time she reached the pirate's banquet hall the sound of fighting had come to a stop.

It appeared to be a standoff between Luffy and Ganzack with Luffy who obviously wanted to rush at Ganzack but the pirate tech mage apparently had a hostage - a little kid dressed up in armor.

It instantly clicked in her head that the kid was probably Medaka. She was closer to Ganzack than she was to Luffy and so with a somewhat reckless charge, Ann rushed over to the girl and with a single swift movement severed the pink magic ribbon with her feather-knife. One magic substance to cancel out the other since the ribbons as thin as they were would be as strong as iron thanks to magic.

"You're a reliable one, aren't you? Good. Let's go Luffy," Zoro said and raised his swords again. He grudgingly mentally commended Ganzack's men for their grit in not running away yet.

"Cool! Great job saving Medaka, Ann! We'll take care of this now!" Luffy said, agreeing with Zoro's statement and ignored the crew, focusing his attention completely at Ganzack who was still staring at his cut ribbon with a mixture of shock and anger.

"You're Medaka, right? You need to get out of here before you get hurt," Ann said to the girl, who seemed to be shocked silent for some reason.

"Ganzack has my dad though. I need to save my dad." Medaka said stubbornly.

"That man killed your dad. He's a magic user and he used your dad in a ritual to get his scientific knowledge," Ann said, not wanting to get into the specifics of splitting and recombining people at this moment, and had to grab Medaka and pull her away as Ganzack open fired a gun from his crab claw shoulder gauntlet in their direction.

"You're a soft touch for a witch," Ganzack growled, "That little crab-cake is stupider than I thought if she hasn't figured out by now that the man she considers her father will never return!"

"Shut up, stupid Ganzack!" Medaka screamed, "You don't know that! My dad loves me! He's the only person I have who loves me!"

Ganzack smiled wickedly and without a shred of remorse said, "Not anymore. Didn't you know? Didn't your so-named 'dad' ever tell you your true origin? I am your real father and I ate the heart of that pale imitation who pretended to be your dad. Maybe if you prove you can be as ruthless as I am I'll let you join my crew as a chore girl. If you destroy the hat of that pirate brat that you've been holding onto I'll allow it as your initiation into my crew as an official pirate."

Ganzack continued to mock Medaka, who had frozen completely at his revelation, by saying, "I can fix stupid and weak but someone who is gutless has no place in my crew. What do you say, little crab-cake, want to sail the seas with your dear ol' dad?"

Medaka burst into angry tears and pulled the straw hat out from her armor.

She looked at it with fierce eyes for only a second before she threw the hat like a discus directly towards Luffy as she shouted, "I won't destroy Luffy's treasure! You can't make me! You killed my real dad! I'll never forgive you!"

Ganzack laughed meanly and said, "Too bad, I guess I'll have to eat your heart just like I ate his! Kanininini!"

There was a loud smack and crack as Ganzack stopped laughing in order to stem the blood coming from his broken nose, courtesy of Luffy wh, even though he now had his precious straw hat back on his head, looked apocalyptically angry - even more so than before.

"Luffy! That's Medaka's father," Ann shouted trying not to feel shocked over his actions while Luffy raged.

"I don't care! A bastard's still a bastard!" Luffy angrily shouted as he raised his fist in to attack Ganzack again, hating the man both for stealing Medaka's father's life and the fact that he continued to mock Medaka's hopes and dreams. The fact that he disrespected his hat just was like the last knife in an overwhelming fight.

Ganzack twisted the knife further and viciously ignored Luffy in order to revel in the glee of making Medaka feel more miserable, "Didn't you wonder how you could get away with attacking my men so many times without any true retaliation? I could have burned down that little stupid shack you live in at any point or killed you myself but I thought you might have the potential to be my subordinate. I can't believe you ever thought someone like you could make it as a pirate! I need someone ruthless and skilled in either magic, science or fighting but you fail in all areas! You can stay on this island and die for all I care, I'll never want to have you as my daughter - Kanininini!"

Medaka turned away from the room and ran away, escaping from the banquet hall door that Ann had entered through while Ganzack continued to laugh.

Ganzack should've seen it coming but Luffy's fist hit him square in the face again - knocking him so hard his ears started ringing and with a snarl of fury Ganzack decided he was completely fed up with the witch, the swordsman, and that monkey!

"I've had enough of this!" Ganzack shouted and raised his arm up over his head and with a loud bang fired his gauntlet rifle up into the pink, glowing ceiling which shattered and instantly fell, flooding the room with the viscous pink potion he was so proud to be the creator of. Everyone was stuck fast to the ground - including Ganzack and his men who called out to him in confusion.

Ganzack, of course, ignored their distress and freed himself rather easily with a counter-potion before he went around and freed anyone he deemed worthy (ruthlessly dispatching any of his subordinates who were knocked out or severely injured himself with shots from his battle suit).

He left Luffy, Zoro and Ann stuck to the ground, and instead of killing them where they stood Ganzack faced his men to make another announcement, "Now men. You've seen how weak and wealthy the people of this island are - able to fund us nearly effortlessly with tributes of food, supplies, and gold every day for the last six months that we've been stopped here but today it all ends. I am lifting the border rules for the town as of right now - while I prepare my ship to leave this place you get to go into town and loot and take anything you've desired and then kill and burn the rest of it into ashes! We'll leave these fools here to starve and wither away in this cavern forever!"

His crew roared out their excitement and left en masse with Ganzack leading the way in assumed triumph. Ganzack didn't question why he had mentally dismissed the three young pirates as a threat when he already knew one was a witch, one had already hit him hard enough to break his nose and the last was notorious for being a pirate hunter. (He was especially unaware that in the most hidden part of his subconscious, thanks to his misunderstanding of the very nature of protection magic, the last remaining shred of what had once been Herring was furious over Ganzack breaking their vow to protect their daughter and would for the rest of his life be doing its very best to self-sabotage Ganzack's grand plans in revenge for making Medaka cry.)

Ann watched a bit conflicted as Luffy stretched his neck far enough out that he was now biting the edge of the door frame that Ganzack and his remaining living crew had exited while Zoro was looking between his legs and the two swords in his hands in a manner that immediately made Ann remember he probably would've broken his arms to escape death less than two weeks ago.

Her hands were currently stuck and she had dropped Balloon's feather anyway so the only way out of this mess of a potion would be a verbal spell and that meant she needed to let her captain (and Zoro since he was in the same room) know that she was an evil magic user like Ganzack was and Spiel had been. It was time to face the music...

"Luffy? I can get us out of this but before I do I need to let you know something. I'm a black magic user just like Ganzack is and like Spiel was. I'm sorry I've kept it from you," Ann ducked her head in shame and continued, "I can use a spell to get us out of this and then after we resolve things here I'll accept your decision regarding what to do with me."

"Magic? Magic! Do a spell - do a spell!" Ann lifted her head again in order to stare in shock over Luffy, who had stars in his eyes due to his excitement as he wiggled about enthusiastically. He sounded thrilled and excited, which was typical of him, and yet somehow not a reaction that Ann had been expecting.

"What are you waiting for then? If you have a way to get us free do it." Zoro was a surprise too, only in the fact that he didn't care about her reveal unless it was useful for their escape.

Ann nodded at their word, now wasn't the time to just talk, she needed to act. With a commanding tone of voice she spoke, "Feathers free us without tearing - this potion brew-ed up by Herring - So captain, swordsman, witch payback - against that bastard jerk Ganzack!"

Luffy shishishi-ed with delight when the pink glowing goop transformed nearly instantly from its steel-glue state into about a million pink feathers instead, making the room look like the molting grounds for a six-generational flock of flamingos.

Zoro snorted and with a short but gut-deep laugh said, "I never thought cursing about people and cursing went together so well."

"What's with all the feathers?" Dawn asked even as her lure gobbled up one of the pink feathers as a snack.

"I specialize in bird magic," Ann admitted a bit self deprecatingly, "It isn't very useful in a fight, I know. I can only really use other kinds of magic with Balloon's help."

"Seems useful to me," Dawn said as she gulped down another feather, "Shouldn't we be going after that 'bastard jerk Ganzack'?"

At Dawn's reminder of his goal of punching Ganzack's face again, Luffy let out a challenging roar and ran out of the room in the direction of his opponent with Zoro and Ann at his heels right behind him. Enough tricks, Ganzack and his crew were going down.

Like a plague, Ganzack and his men were surging up along the shore road certain of their coming victory when just when they were coming up to the entrance of the town the Straw Hat pirates closed the gap.

Iaana and Geel, who had been loitering around just outside the town, gaped in terrified awe at the resulting clash. Luffy, with his long stretchy limbs, was grabbing and bodily flinging people into trees a hundred meters off. Zoro, the boy's living embodiment of a terrifying nightmare beast (green male version) was using two swords, (hand-hand) to take out people and two chains (leg-leg) to catch and pull mooks closer into his attacking range. Scariest of all was Ann who, to their view, was stunning pirates with just one hand (holding a magic feather) and giving them devastatingly accurate knee strikes to unpleasant parts, leaving a trail of bodies, crouched over on absolute misery.

The boss pirate Ganzack, dressed for some reason in armor that made him look like a human-crab, broke free of the battle, and pressed something on the gauntlet on his arm that seemed to make the world explode.

It was actually just an overpowered mortar, but none of the pirate attacks had ever happened so near to the town before. The blast was enough to shatter the windows of the homes at the edge of the town border. During the aftermath of the explosion, Ganzack charged into town, nearly frothing at the mouth in his fury with a dozen of his remaining men following right behind him. The Straw Hats weren't far behind and didn't intend to let them get away that easily.

No one had spared a single glance at Iaana or Geel who, standing with their paintbrushes, had been waiting for the expected retaliation of the blood-red beast from their actions in 'decorating' her house earlier that morning.

"You don't think one of those pirates could've gotten the drop on her finally?" Geel asked Iaana as he watched the invading pirates with worry in his voice.

"No way, don't even joke about that. She's the scariest thing of all, right?" Iaana said, sounded like he was trying to convince himself.

As much as Iaana and Geel were as terrified of Medaka as all the other kids on the island were (from three to sixteen, boys and girls alike) they were also the only two who still deliberately went out of their way to instigate reactions from her instead of trying to avoid her wrath. This caused every other kid to believe the two were simultaneously the bravest and the stupidest amongst the town kids.

When the two actually spotted a flash of armor running up the path they instantly forgot their worries and jumped to their attack positions with their paint soaked brushes outstretched and in unison shouted, "Paint the beast!"

Medaka's reaction and retaliation were instantaneous. She lifted both of them by the back of their necks, shook them twice like ragdolls and slammed them into the ground with ease and shouted furiously, "I don't have time for this! Either get out of town or get killed by pirates for all I care but you'd better stay outta my way!"

She ran off into town a moment later, leaving the two laying in the street and stunned into silence.

"Iaana?"

"Yeah?"

"That bounty hunter was scary, right?"

"Yeah."

"And pirates are scary?"

"...Yeah"

"And Medaka?"

"Still the scariest."

"Yep, definitely."

While in town Ganzack had split up from the rest of his forces and run to the dock at the front of the town. His ship had an engine and thanks to his technology it could be controlled from his armor. He had thought he had taken enough time in arriving in the town for the ship to have moved from his base to the dock out in front of the town but it was still coming in from the sea to dock. Those pirate kids (that stupid Monkey!) were making his plan fall to pieces but he could escape, bind a crew by magic to him again, and form a plan of taking his revenge later. He let out a piercing whistle to call for his pet but there was no sign of it. He gritted his teeth and dove into the water swimming as quickly as he could out to his ship.

Within the town Ganzack's men, unaware that they had already been left behind by their captain, were breaking the windows of businesses, tearing the jewels and silks off of the women they encountered in the streets and roughed up the men just for fun. The townsfolk, under an enchantment, thanks to Ganzack's barrier, just seemed more confused than scared over their actions.

"No pirate activities in town you know, that's the rule," A woman said as her jewelry was stolen from her.

"We'll report this to the mayor you know," a grocer warned after the window in front of his shop was shattered.

"Well, I never. I'll be forced to get physical if you keep this up young man," a gentleman scolded a pirate who had slashed his arm with a cutlass, even as he pressed a handkerchief to the wound in order to stem the blood a little.

"Second Sleep!" Ann ran up behind the pirate and slashed him with the feather in her hand, causing him to wobble for a moment giving her room to swiftly perform a remorseless knee strike that dropped him to his knees, groaning in agony before she roundhouse kicked him in the side of his head, knocking him out.

"I thought you only did bird magic," Zoro commented accusingly, having watched Ann in action using a feather of all things.

"Yes. Feathers are on birds, right? A feather-soft pillow will put someone right to sleep so I figured when I was seven that feathers would be great for charming people to sleep. It's hard to explain - my magic needs to be bird based but there is enough flexibility in that a lot of magic has to do with feelings and feathers feel like sleep so it's still bird based." Ann explained.

The last six pirates ransacking the town seemed to have been trying to attack the mayor just outside the town hall when Ann and Zoro came across them.

Spotting them first Zoro called out, "Dibs on these guys!" before rushing over to face them.

("What the heck are dibs!?" Ann called out as she watched causing Dawn, who was fluttering over her head to laugh.)

Zoro used the chains around his legs to sweep up and launch the six pirates into the air before he jumped up and spun 360 degrees with two swords in hand and attacked the pirates mercilessly as he shouted, "Night Air Bird!"

The pirates hit the ground and Zoro landed on his feet. "How about that, birds in a fight are useful after all." Zoro joked causing Dawn to chirp out a laugh.

Ann gave Zoro a deadpan stare and said, "That joke isn't funny."

"But it is punny," Dawn interjected before Zoro and Ann were besieged from all sides by confused and questioning townsfolk.

"Why are these people so weird? Is it a magic thing?" Zoro asked in irritation as the idiotic mom duo he had encountered earlier were pestering him to register as a bounty hunter with the mayor again.

"It's the barrier. Ganzack mentioned that one of its uses was to pacify the people on this island." Ann explained.

"That doesn't explain why that kid was so aggressive though. She kept attacking pirates, didn't she? After six months, wouldn't she be all carefree and stupid like these people are?"

"Why were you fighting? It's against the rules to fight in town," the mayor said, continuing to fret.

Ann snapped, "Will you shut up about these rules!? We're trying to help so you idiots don't get killed!"

"Yeah this town is weird about rules," Zoro said, "Seems a boring place to live if you're not allowed to fight anywhere in town."

Ann snapped her fingers and said, "So that means that this must be the center. A barrier is strongest at its edge and in its centermost point. If this is a dome then… right above the fountain should be the center. Wait here. Balloon and I will break it."

Zoro watched as Ann let out a shrill whistle, calling Balloon to her side in an instant magically. He squawked angrily at her since he had been pulled away from the long battle he had just been about to win against the sea monster, but forgave her when she explained what they needed to accomplish together.