One Piece: Overlord Buggy, The Blues

Ideas, Deals, & Time Part 4

I arrived back at the hideout a little later than I had hoped, but it was still light out, even if I did notice the full moon.
As soon as I walked in, I noticed Taki pacing and panicking over something.
"Yo! Taki? Is something wrong? Or were you just concerned for me?"
Taki turned to me and said "Bugs! You're finally here!" And she ran up to me. "Um.. no, it's great you're okay, but.. you said to take care of Mariga if she asked for help.. and then when I went to see if she did need any, she wasn't in the hotel room, and she wasn't anywhere in town that I could find, so I don't know where she is!"
Taki was basically up in my face at this point, although I kind of understood.
"So, what you're saying is.. you somehow lost a child.. somewhere on THIS island.. where there are only a handful of places she could be.. in less than a day? And I assume today is your Sulong day, right?"
"YES! OH NO! I FORGOT ABOUT MY TRANSFORMATION BEING TONIGHT TOO!! WHAT AM I SUPPOSED TO DO!?!?" Taki started to run around  the hideout while freaking out even more, which subconsciously caused me to start freaking out as well.
But I was trying really hard to figure out what to do at this time. 'So, I have a bunch of money in my hands, Taki has some practice with her Sulong form to do, Mariga is missing, and she is freaking out because of the missing Mariga. There should be a very obvious thing to do here, but freaking out and empathy of Taki freaking out isn't helping. I guess this is possibly the first time I've wished to not be as empathetic. But I guess I've had some throughout the entire story so far. Now, what do I do?' I decided to put the money away first, just stacking it in the tower of cases of money we had and think while doing that.
'So, what can I do? Oh, stupid question, I have Haki, people here in the so called weakest sea would have no idea about it, so even if they were strong, they wouldn't have any hyper obscure knowledge like me. I can just check. Wait, Taki is freaking out, what do I do about that?'
Taki was pacing around in a circle, and there was also a circle starting to form where she was walking thanks to how fast the pacing was.
'Oh, perfect, destroying the floor thanks to nervousness. I really hate that I'm starting to get that antsy. I need to figure something out before I start to do that too.' I looked at my leg, and it was rapidly moving up and down, tapping my foot on the ground.
'Okay, you know what, how about this?'
I walked in front of Taki and stopped her in her tracks. She looked up at me while biting one of her fingernails, and I saw just how concerned she was.
"Okay. Taki, thank you so much for being this concerned about a child that you didn't meet until like two or three weeks ago, but I would personally prefer you to not pace so much that you drill a hole through the island, or destroy the hideout."
Taki just stood and stared at me, still anxious about it. I then had an idea, and smiled.
"Taki, I can find Mariga and make sure she's safe, and you can get ready for your Sulong transformation. I do have another idea that doesn't have to do with this one, so I'll tell you that later. But right now, if you stop worrying, I can start to look for her. It would be great to know that you are also okay, especially after having the need to keep track of both of your safety at the same time. I think I do it subconsciously, so I'm only going to tell you once more: Just focus on training your Sulong form, and I'll take care of everything else."
Taki continued to stare at me, with almost no change in expression, still showing a lot of worry, anxiety, and overall concern. And then she closed her eyes and breathed in a lot of air, and then breathed out. I could tell she was still internally freaking out, but if she was this freaked out, I needed to get going and find Mariga as fast as possible. It was a start though, showing some trust built by months of time going through a couple events.
I started to leave, but then turned for a second to say "One more thing. Can I trust you to keep the hideout and the almost 100 million berri bere safe? I know I can, but it would be even better to hear you say you can."
I smiled towards her, and that caused her to stare at me again, before also smiling and saying "Yeah, you can trust me with making sure all of it is safe. Now, leave before I look at the moon, if you would so please."
I just turned back towards the entrance with my entire body and walked away to near the actual town, leaving Taki to her training.
At that moment, I decided to actually use Observation, and using my method of moving the actual place I'm looking at while still having a direct connection to around me was great. I felt like a ball, a string connected to that ball, and a sphere connected to the other end of that string. I was the ball, and the string was the connection that allowed me to look around even farther away.
'Using this would be cheating if I was a sniper, too bad I'm not.'
And I started to search the whole island, finding nothing in half of it, and I found Mariga.
She was being dragged by her hair by some random guy, who I assumed was a pirate or something thanks to the cutlass on his hip and the flintlock on the other side.
I felt the anger seething off of me. 'Okay, dude, if you wanted to make me angry, you should have just said so. Taking a child who was basically a slave before and bringing them back into slavery? I don't think you're any better than the Celestial Dragons if you do that. I hope you like pain, cause you're in for a world of it.' I felt myself smirk so evilly that I actually felt a little scared of myself for a second.
I decided to change into some different clothes I had on hand, it was a full blood red suit with a black button up shirt, the dress pants, vest, jacket, shoes, and tie all matching in that blood red color. I also had a full face mask on, covering my eyes, mouth, face, but not my nose. It was made of wood with some string to tie it around my head and make sure it stayed on. I had dropped the beanie and let my blue hair fly, it wasn't long, but it sure felt nice to not have tied up at the moment. I obviously had Surya on my waist as well, just to be safe.
'This suit has gotta be one of the best things I've done with my wardrobe. I bet I look good in this. But it is time to finally make these people pay for their sins.'
Using Soru and Geppo, I started to head towards where Mariga was being dragged, which was a building near the outskirts of the town itself that had an entrance in the nearest alleyway. At my max speed, I got there within a minute of time, and I watched Mariga the entire time to make sure she was okay. She wasn't, and I could tell because her hair obviously was being pulled and she was being dragged by said hair around, until she was tossed into a cage and locked in there.
As I landed on the roof nearby and looked down at the door, all I could think was 'These guys are your classic bad guys, slave traders, whatever. They have their own hideout in the city itself, and that's so cliche. And putting a child in a cage is also cliche. Too bad I'm here now. They done messed with the wrong person to have my wrath fall upon them.'
I appeared in front of the door by sheer speed coming down from the roof, and saw dust move away from where I appeared. I decided to check on Mariga again, finding that she was crying with her knees to her chest and arms holding them.
'Oooh, these bastards are gonna get it, I bet she's reliving old memories of being a slave or something to other pirates.' under the mask, I smirked. 'These guys truly don't deserve any mercy whatsoever. Maybe I should welcome them to their death.'
Why was I so attached to Mariga? I don't know, but it may be a parental thing to protect a child that is being hurt. I never was actually a parent, but I did protect those that I deemed to need it. Was this thinking not great? Yes. Was it helping at the moment? Yes. I just stood there for a second with those thoughts before I knocked on the door.
I waited for a second before the door opened a crack and I could see some extremely shifty eyes look through.
"What'ya want? Business, or pleas-"
I didn't let the very average sounding guy behind the door finish speaking before I punched him without holding back anything. It also caused the door to be flung open so hard the door flew off it's hinges.
I looked and saw an empty hallway, and said "Those hinges are horrible. Can't even withstand a punch." And walked down the hallway, stepping on the guy I just might've killed by punch.