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Chapter 1 – A Man in a Coat, Out of Place
The sea was quiet, a wide stretch of blue beneath the sun, broken only by the gentle sway of a door. On that door stood a tall man in a long, tattered coat, polished boots somehow dry, hat tilted at a rakish angle. He looked perfectly at ease, as if standing smugly in the middle of an endless ocean was the most natural thing in the world.
The Marquis de Carabas twirled his cane, surveying the horizon with the satisfied air of a man who had, once again, outwitted fate. “Well,” he murmured to no one in particular, “I suppose this is as fine a place as any to be mysteriously inconvenienced.”
From the other side of the waves came a shout:
“Oi! There’s a guy on a door!”
The Thousand Sunny glided closer, its lion prow grinning brightly. Crew gathered at the rail — Zoro squinting, Sanji lighting a cigarette, Usopp already panicking.
“He’s just… standing there,” Nami said, incredulous.
“He’s stylish,” Brook observed, admiring the coat.
The Marquis tipped his hat in a theatrical bow as the ship drew alongside. “Greetings. You’ve caught me between destinations.”
“Between drowning and starving, more like,” Zoro muttered.
Sanji narrowed his eyes. “Something about him smells like trouble.”
Before suspicion could sharpen further, Luffy leaned so far over the rail he nearly toppled into the sea. His grin was as wide as the sky. “Cool coat!”
The Marquis blinked, then smiled with sly amusement. “At least someone here has taste.”
In short order, ropes were thrown, and the mysterious man stepped lightly aboard, his boots tapping the deck with a flourish. He swept a hand across his chest. “I am the Marquis de Carabas — a traveler of Below and Beyond.”
Usopp whispered, “What’s Below and Beyond?”
Chopper whispered back, “Sounds scary.”
But Luffy only burst into laughter, clapping the Marquis on the shoulder. “Cool! Join us for meat!”
For once, the Marquis had no prepared reply. He only arched an eyebrow, half-offended, half-curious — and entirely intrigued.
Chapter 2 – Tricks Meet Teeth
Life aboard the Thousand Sunny had a rhythm: Zoro napped, Nami charted, Sanji cooked, and Luffy roamed the deck like a force of nature. Into this rhythm slipped the Marquis de Carabas, who considered himself an expert at finding cracks in any system.
It began with snacks.
He cornered Usopp near the galley, one gloved hand sweeping grandly toward the sky.
“You see, brave warrior, destiny has a way of rewarding generosity. Give me your last packet of sea-salt crisps, and fortune will surely smile upon you.”
Usopp clutched the bag tighter. “I need these for morale.”
“Morale,” the Marquis said silkily, “is far better served by sharing.”
Before Usopp could surrender, Luffy bounded over, snatched the bag, tore it open, and shoved a fistful into his mouth. “Yum! Thanks, Usopp!”
The Marquis blinked. His clever words evaporated into nothing under the simple weight of Luffy’s grin.
Later, he tried Brook.
“Just a brief loan of your violin,” the Marquis purred. “For experiments of a scientific, cultural, and entirely harmless nature.”
“Experiments?” Brook tilted his skull. “Will it involve fire?”
“Possibly—”
But before he could finish, Luffy grabbed the violin, strummed three chaotic notes, and laughed so hard he toppled onto the deck. “Sounds funny! Play it again, skeleton!”
Brook took the instrument back immediately, relieved. The Marquis was left staring at Luffy, who had effortlessly undone his ploy without even realizing it.
And so it went. Every scheme unraveled, every trick dissolved — not by suspicion or hostility, but by Luffy’s sheer, chaotic presence. Where others bristled at the Marquis’s slyness, Luffy only laughed.
It was maddening. It was disarming.
That evening, as the sun bled orange across the sea, Luffy plopped down beside him on the deck, straw hat tipped back. “Hey, Marquis. Wanna trade?”
The Marquis arched a brow. “Trade what?”
“My hat for your coat.” Luffy grinned, tugging the brim down over his eyes. “Fair deal, right?”
The Marquis stiffened. The coat was his armor, his identity, his declaration of superiority. No one had ever dared to bargain for it. His lips parted with a sharp retort—
“Just kidding,” Luffy laughed, rolling onto his back and staring at the sky. “Your coat looks heavy. My hat’s lighter.”
The Marquis stared at him, caught between outrage and bewilderment. He was the trickster, the manipulator, the one who toyed with others. And yet here, on this ship, someone had casually toyed with him — without malice, without effort, and with nothing but joy.
For the first time in a very long while, the Marquis felt… off balance.
Chapter 3 – The Black Island Incident
The island rose like a bruise on the horizon: jagged rocks, twisted trees, and shadows that seemed too thick, too alive. Even in broad daylight, the air around it shimmered with something wrong.
“Creepy,” Usopp muttered, clutching his slingshot.
“Adventure,” Luffy corrected, already leaping into the Sunny’s small boat.
The Marquis de Carabas stood at the rail, eyes narrowed, coat fluttering in the salty wind. He had felt it the moment the island came into view — that strange pulse in the shadows. They curled unnaturally along the cliffs, pooling like ink, shifting when no wind blew. It was almost… familiar. London Below’s breath, seeping through a crack in the world.
The crew disembarked. Luffy charged ahead, sandals slapping against dark sand, laughter echoing as if he were greeting an old friend. The Marquis hung back, cane tapping lightly against stone.
“Charging headlong into mystery,” he drawled. “Not always the wisest move.”
“Wise is boring,” Luffy called back. “Come on, Coat Guy!”
The shadows moved then — stretching upward, forming shapes with too many arms, too many teeth. They hissed as they lunged.
The Straw Hats sprang into action. Zoro’s blades flashed, Sanji’s kick lit sparks, Usopp shrieked and fired, Chopper transformed. And Luffy, grinning wide, slammed a rubber fist straight through a writhing mass of darkness.
The Marquis… did not rush. He watched first, calculating. Then, with a sharp flick of his cane, he caught a shadow by its elongated neck and twisted, pulling it off balance. He whispered something smooth and poisonous into the thing’s ear — and it recoiled as if struck, vanishing back into the ground.
“Tricks,” he murmured. “Always effective.”
He slipped through the fight like smoke, distracting enemies with false steps, striking from angles they didn’t expect. Together, he and Luffy carved chaos: brute force and trickery, instinct and calculation, two halves of a battle-dance neither had rehearsed.
When the last shadow dissolved with a hiss, the beach was quiet again. Luffy stood, chest heaving, hair wild, grin intact. He turned to the Marquis, still brushing dust from his coat.
“You’re fun,” Luffy declared. Then, after a beat, with that blunt honesty only he could manage: “You laugh weird.”
The Marquis blinked, then gave a low, velvety chuckle — not the kind that hid daggers, but something startled, genuine. “Weird, am I? Coming from you, Captain Straw Hat, I shall take that as high praise.”
Luffy only laughed harder, throwing his head back. “Yeah! Stay weird. Let’s eat meat after!”
And for the first time in a long while, the Marquis de Carabas felt the ground tilt under his feet — not from shadows, not from danger, but from the baffling weight of a pirate captain’s grin.
Chapter 4 – Banter on the Deck
Night draped itself across the Thousand Sunny, the sea a black mirror dotted with stars. Most of the crew had gone below deck, leaving the ship quiet save for the creak of wood and the lap of waves.
The Marquis de Carabas leaned against the railing, coat flowing like a shadow in the breeze. A cigarette smoldered between his fingers, smoke curling upward in lazy ribbons. He was perfectly at ease, perfectly untouchable — or so he liked to think.
“Hey.”
Luffy plopped down cross-legged beside him without warning, straw hat tipped back, grin broad even in the dim starlight.
The Marquis arched an eyebrow. “Shouldn’t you be sleeping, Captain?”
“Can’t sleep,” Luffy said simply. “Thought I’d talk to you.”
The Marquis took a long drag, exhaled smoke that glowed faintly in the lantern light. “And what exactly shall we talk about? Politics? Shadows? The dubious virtues of dried squid?”
“Nope.” Luffy tilted his head. “You. Who are you?”
The Marquis smiled thinly. “I told you. A traveler of Below and Beyond.”
“That’s not an answer.” Luffy leaned closer, face earnest. “What’s ‘Below’?”
“Ah,” the Marquis said smoothly, dodging. “A place where people are sharper than knives and darker than the tunnels they inhabit. A place you would find… dull.”
Luffy laughed. “Nothing’s dull if it has people in it.”
The Marquis let out a soft chuckle despite himself. “Optimism, thy name is Straw Hat.”
They sat in silence for a while, the kind that didn’t feel empty. Luffy fiddled with the brim of his hat, then asked, blunt as always, “Why do you laugh like you’re hiding something?”
The Marquis’s hand froze on the rail. “Because,” he said, voice low, “I usually am.”
Luffy nodded, as if that made perfect sense. Then he scooted closer, unselfconscious, their shoulders nearly brushing. The Marquis stiffened, suddenly aware of every detail — the warmth radiating from him, the faint smell of salt and sunshine, the soft sway of the ship rocking them together.
“You think I’m naïve, don’t you?” Luffy asked suddenly.
The Marquis smirked. “I think you leap before you look. And one day, you’ll leap into something that eats you whole.”
Luffy just shrugged, grinning. “Naïve people don’t have friends. I have a whole crew.”
The Marquis opened his mouth for a retort, then closed it again. Something about the quiet certainty in Luffy’s voice tugged at him, pulling threads he had long since knotted tight.
For once, he didn’t have a clever reply.
So he only looked away, hiding the faintest curve of his lips in the shadows of his collar, and muttered, “You laugh even weirder than I do.”
Luffy’s answering laugh was bright and simple, filling the night sky.
And the Marquis de Carabas found himself listening far too closely.
Chapter 5 – Tricks and Trust
The ambush came at dawn.
A ragged fleet of pirate ships rose from behind a rocky isle, sails patched, cannons primed. Their captains shouted promises of plunder as the waves frothed with their advance. The Thousand Sunny groaned as Nami swung the wheel, shouting orders.
The Marquis de Carabas leaned casually against the rail, cane in hand, coat catching the wind like a banner. “Predictable,” he drawled. “Hyenas circling a lion.”
“They picked the wrong lion,” Luffy said, already bouncing onto the rail with a grin that promised violence.
Cannons fired. The Sunny shuddered.
Then chaos erupted.
Luffy launched himself across the waves, fists stretching wide to smash the nearest deck in half. Pirates went flying like rag dolls, his laughter carrying above the thunder of splintering wood.
Meanwhile, the Marquis slipped into shadows cast by the rising sun. He whispered words like knives, illusions flickering in his wake. Pirates found themselves chasing phantoms — phantom treasure chests, phantom enemies, phantom paths across the deck that led only to broken planks.
He strolled through the confusion as if it were a ballroom, cane flicking to trip one opponent, coat sweeping to blind another. When the enemy captain lunged, cutlass raised, the Marquis sidestepped with effortless grace and murmured something poisonous in his ear. The man froze, eyes wide, before dropping his blade and stumbling back in terror.
By the time the smoke cleared, wreckage bobbed in the waves and the Sunny sailed on, untouched.
The crew cheered. Zoro grunted in approval, Sanji muttered about freeloaders, and Usopp clutched his head dramatically, wailing about “too much excitement for breakfast.”
Luffy landed back on deck, dripping seawater, grinning as though he’d just come from a carnival ride. He looked straight at the Marquis.
“You saved my crew,” he said simply. “That means you’re my friend.”
The Marquis blinked, momentarily wrong-footed. Friend. Such a plain, dangerous word. He recovered quickly, of course, with a smirk and a scoff.
“Friend is a strong word, Captain Straw Hat.”
But even as he said it, something in his chest shifted, unsettled. The laughter and gratitude of the crew buzzed around him like warmth he didn’t remember asking for.
And when Luffy clapped him on the shoulder with a grin as bright as the morning sun, the Marquis — trickster, survivor, liar — found himself, for once, with no trick at all.
Chapter 6 – The Confession in Chaos
The storm came like a monster. Waves rose like black walls, crashing against the Thousand Sunny until the deck seemed to heave with each breath of the sea. Rain lashed sideways, soaking every rope, every plank, every man aboard.
The crew scrambled — Zoro anchoring lines, Nami shouting directions, Sanji cursing the salt that ruined his kitchen. In the middle of it all, the Marquis de Carabas clung to the rail, coat plastered to him, hat long since claimed by the wind. He looked every inch the drowned aristocrat, but his smile was sharp, amused.
“Ah,” he drawled over the roar of thunder, “to perish in the company of optimists. How poetic. How utterly tiresome.”
Luffy, standing barefoot on the slick deck with rain running down his face, just laughed. Lightning flashed, catching his grin, bright and reckless.
“You’re funny!” he shouted. “Even now!”
The ship lurched. The Marquis staggered, boots slipping. He steadied himself, scowling at the storm. “Funny? No. Tragic, perhaps. Ridiculous, certainly. But funny?”
“Yeah!” Luffy yelled back, utterly unfazed by the chaos. Then, with the bluntness of a cannonball: “I like you. You should stay.”
The Marquis froze. For once, words failed him. He gathered himself quickly, of course — polished charm sliding back into place. He tilted his head, voice velvet-smooth even as rain streamed from his hair.
“Captain Straw Hat, you mistake gratitude for attachment. An error anyone might make under—”
But Luffy didn’t wait for the end of the sentence. He stepped forward, closed the space, and kissed him — simple, certain, no hesitation. Just lips against lips in the storm, fierce and warm in the middle of the cold.
The Marquis’s eyes widened. He, who had talked his way out of death, debt, and darker things, stood speechless for the first time in memory. The thunder swallowed his laugh, the rain washed away his retorts.
And all he could do was stand there, breath stolen, as Monkey D. Luffy grinned at him like the storm was nothing at all.
Chapter 7 – Between Shadows and Sunlight
By morning, the sea was calm again. Sunlight spilled across the deck, bright and golden, as though the night’s storm had been nothing more than a dream.
The crew went about their business as always: Zoro and Sanji bickering loudly enough to scare gulls, Nami poring over charts, Usopp exaggerating last night’s waves until they were taller than mountains. Chopper trotted happily between them with bandages, scolding anyone who so much as sneezed.
The Marquis de Carabas sat at the edge of it all, coat draped elegantly around him, cane tapping idly against the floorboards. He was a man who lived on shadows and secrets — and yet, on this absurd, impossible ship, his tricks seemed to matter less than his laughter, less than the way he leaned into the noise without realizing it.
No one demanded bargains. No one expected treachery. They expected him to sit at the table, to eat, to argue, to exist.
It was unsettling. It was… contentment.
Across the galley table, Luffy tore into a mountain of meat, sauce smeared across his grin, eyes sparkling with the same reckless joy he’d worn in the storm. He caught the Marquis watching and beamed wider, as if no greater truth existed than sharing a meal.
The Marquis tilted his head, a sly smile tugging at his lips. He had walked through London Below, struck deals with devils, cheated death itself more times than he could count. But this — this warmth, this laughter, this boy with the straw hat — this felt far more perilous.
He leaned back, coat pooling around him like shadow, and thought, wry and amused:
This is the most dangerous adventure yet.
Epilogue – The Trickster’s New Game
By the following evening, the Thousand Sunny was sailing smooth, the memory of storms fading into salt air and sunshine. The crew crowded the galley table as Sanji slammed down plates of food, each portion generous but barely enough to slow Luffy down.
The Marquis de Carabas lounged at the far end, coat draped with calculated elegance, cane resting against his chair. He wore his usual half-smile, the one that promised he was laughing at secrets no one else could hear.
Unfortunately for him, the crew had secrets of their own.
“So,” Nami said lightly, sipping her drink, “you’ve been awfully quiet lately. For a man who never shuts up.”
Zoro smirked. “Probably lost his tongue in that storm.”
Usopp leaned forward dramatically. “No! He lost something far more precious — his composure!”
Brook strummed his violin with eerie timing. “Yohoho! Perhaps he found something better in return. Love, maybe?”
The table burst into laughter.
The Marquis, unfazed, adjusted his cuff with aristocratic calm. “Rumors, gossip, baseless slander,” he said smoothly. “I expected more dignity from a crew of such renown.”
“Dignity’s boring,” Luffy declared through a mouthful of meat. Then, with no warning at all, he leaned across the table, grin wide and certain. “He likes me.”
The laughter doubled. Even Chopper squeaked in delight.
The Marquis meant to retort, meant to smother the fire with wit — but Luffy’s grin was too close, too bright. And when their eyes met across the chaos of the table, the trickster of London Below did something he never did: he let the silence answer for him.
The crew whooped louder, teasing mercilessly. The Marquis only leaned back in his chair, coat folding around him like armor, and allowed himself the smallest, sharpest of smiles.
Perhaps, he thought, this is my new favorite game.