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One Piece: As Heavy as a Gale #127
🕑 Added 2025-09-03 12:37:33 +0000 UTCGale sat on the railing of the battleship, one leg dangling casually over the side like he wasn’t a few feet away from plummeting into certain death-by-drowning. In his hand was a wanted poster, the cheap paper crinkling in the sea breeze.
The mugshot glared back at him.
Curly hair. A goatee that, for reasons only the gods of bad grooming could explain, extended all the way up into two thin lines under his eyes.
A red bandana plastered across his forehead, and on his shoulder—a tiny, furious-looking monkey that seemed one insult away from biting the photographer’s ear off.
The name scrawled under it was bold enough to catch the eye: DOMA. Title: The Bohemian Knight. Bounty: unpleasantly high.
Gale frowned. The face nagged at him. He remembered the guy from the anime—one of Whitebeard’s loose affiliates, one of the captains who’d eventually throw themselves into the chaos of Marineford to try and save Ace.
But that was still years away. Right now, the intel said he was fresh in the New World. Green enough that Gale actually stood a chance at not getting turned into confetti.
“Great,” Gale muttered, folding the poster. “Two years from now he’s trading blows with Vice Admirals. Today he’s barely out of pirate kindergarten. And I’m the lucky bastard who gets to babysit him.”
The paper slipped back into his pocket, and Gale leaned forward, squinting at the island coming into view.
Risky Red Island.
A jagged crown of crimson coral surrounded it like nature’s barbed wire. The stuff gleamed sharp in the light, razor spines catching the sun. According to the dossier, it was harder than steel, and by the look of it, he believed it.
Any idiot who thought they could just steer around it would find their hull shredded like tissue paper in a blender.
The only entrance was a narrow channel carved through the coral, just wide enough for one large ship or maybe two small ones—assuming neither sneezed on the way through.
It split inland into branching waterways, natural corridors that led deeper into the island’s heart.
Gale rubbed his temple. “Of course. Giant death coral. One narrow passage. An island named ‘Risky Red.’ Everything about this place screams absolutely not, and yet here I am, on a battleship full of lunatics.”
Gale leaned back against the railing, arms folded, watching the crimson coral barrier as if it were mocking him with every jagged tooth.
The intelligence report had been very clear: Doma will soon depart Risky Red Island. No more than three days.
That was five days ago.
Two of those were wasted sailing here—courtesy of the eternal pose—and another three spent floating just off the island’s coast. Far enough away that no one could clock the vessel as a Marine ship, close enough that Gale could see anyone leaving or entering the island.
He’d done everything by the book. Stowed away the Marine flag before the first idiot fisherman could get a whiff of it. Ordered the crew to scratch up the paint job until the ship looked less like “property of the World Government” and more like “property of a drunk carpenter.”
They even looked the part, hanging laundry over the rails like they were just another bunch of vagabond sailors.
And yet… here he was. Still waiting.
He pinched the bridge of his nose. This smells like Vergo.
There were three possibilities. One: Doma had never been here to begin with. Two: Doma was here, but he wasn’t planning to leave anytime soon. Or three: the bastard had been tipped off.
And if Gale had to bet on it? He’d put all his chips on door number three.
This had “Vergo” written all over it—his subtle, bamboo-stick-swinging way of keeping Gale busy.
Send him to Risky Red with a bogus lead, keep him bobbing on the water until he lost his mind, meanwhile buy yourself time to either cover your tracks or let Doflamingo spin some convenient story linking Gale to the death of Vlancio Shepherd.
Sure, on paper that was just a hypothetical scenario. Hypothetically, Doflamingo would want to pin the death of a Celestial Dragon lapdog on the Marine rookie who humiliated one of his top executives.
Hypothetically, that rookie was standing right here, glaring at coral like it owed him money.
But in Gale’s gut? And considering he did orchestrate Vlancio's death? It felt a lot less hypothetical and a lot more like the noose around his neck was tightening with every passing minute.
“Great,” he muttered under his breath, eyes still locked on the crimson spires. “Not only am I wasting my time, but I’m wasting it in the one place that looks like it was designed to chew up ships for breakfast. Perfect. Love that for me.”
He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees.
The waiting was the worst part. Not the fighting, not the danger, not even the possibility of Vergo eventually turning his spine into bamboo pulp. No, the waiting. Because every second of it felt like one more thread being cut from the safety net keeping him alive.
Gale knew he had to do something. Something quick, something decisive—otherwise this “mission” would turn into him rotting on deck while Vergo neatly swept up every inconvenient breadcrumb back at G-5.
But then he turned his head.
And immediately regretted it.
The crew of the ship lay sprawled across the deck like a pile of corpses after an all-night drinking contest. One guy was using a mop as a pillow. Another was carving little hearts into the railing with his sword, humming to himself like he’d lost the last of his brain cells to wood shavings.
Two more were playing dice, loudly, and somehow both were cheating.
'These are supposed to be Marines,' Gale thought, eyes twitching. 'Soldiers of justice. Protectors of the seas. And here they are, auditioning for the role of “background corpses” in a bar fight scene.'
He’d tried before. He’d actually tried to get them moving—told them to push the ship into the pass, get closer to the island, at least pretend to be on a mission.
What did he get? Excuses. A flood of excuses.
“Orders said to wait, Captain. Gotta follow orders.”
“The locals don’t like Marines, sir. Wouldn’t be smart to anger the locals.”
“Risky Red’s cursed! My cousin’s uncle’s brother went there and never came back!”
(That last one was delivered with complete seriousness, too.)
In truth, it was all the same. They didn’t want to work. They wanted to slack off until something either killed them or gave them an excuse to go home.
He could’ve beaten them into shape. Hell, he wanted to. Just line them all up and knock them down one by one until the thought of slacking made their spines hurt.
But even if he did… they still wouldn’t care. They’d drag their feet, mutter, maybe even “accidentally” sink the damn ship. No matter how hard he kicked them, he knew one thing for sure: they’d never search for Doma wholeheartedly.
“Fine,” Gale muttered, standing up and brushing imaginary dust from his coat. “If you want to slack off so much…”
He turned on his heel, voice suddenly sharp and loud enough to cut through their laziness.
“Listen up, everyone!”
The dice clattered to a stop. The mop pillow snorer cracked one eye open. For once, all eyes were on him.
“We’re going nowhere like this,” Gale said. His tone was calm, almost too calm—the kind of calm that made people sit up straight without realizing it. “Yes, the orders were clear: we’re to keep away from the island and wait for Doma.”
He paused deliberately, sweeping his gaze over the deck, making sure he had every last one of their sorry hides paying attention.
“But,” he went on, smile sharp, “the orders said nothing about going there individually to flush our target out.”
A murmur rippled through the crew. A few exchanged glances. Someone whispered, “Individually?” like the word itself was forbidden.
Gale just leaned back against the railing, arms crossed.
“Good news for you slackers,” he said casually. “You can keep sitting here polishing your dice and carving up government property. Me? I’ll stretch my legs a little. Maybe even find Doma myself.”
His grin widened, and there was no warmth in it.
“And when I come back, I’ll be sure to tell Vergo how hard you all worked while I was gone.”
That got their faces to pale real quick. Nothing like the thought of Demon Bamboo personally “evaluating” their work ethic to drain the blood from a man’s face.
