I'm Just Staying Here

"Hello, my name is Youqi. Did you also wander into this thick fog?"

When Buggy's eyes could see colors again, he found a man greeting him.

The man wore a White Cowboy Hat, had seaweed-green hair, and sported a coat with yellow tassels on the shoulders.

He looked quite cheerful.

"Hello."

Buggy replied with a faint smile.

Then he pulled a pistol from the armory in his chest.

He grabbed the gun, raised it, and pulled the trigger.

The movement was smooth and seamless.

A bullet about the size of a finger shot through Youqi's forehead.

His body staggered a few times before falling over, but the cheerful expression never left his face.

He even continued murmuring, "Hello."

Meanwhile, Buggy, who had only just opened his eyes, got to his feet.

He was on the deck of an unfamiliar Sailwood Ship.

A sticky, rotten smell rose from the damp, slippery planks.

The sky was as dark as water. The only light came from an oil lamp inside a glass casing, hanging on the nearby deckhouse.

Its flame wasn't bright yellow, but as pale and clear as moonlight.

It barely illuminated the deck in front of the deckhouse.

On the other side of the deck, Youqi's crew was having a merry party.

"I can't believe the captain's dead! Hahaha!"

They pointed at Youqi's corpse and laughed with delight.

A tall man with an afro held a small violin in one hand, his bow leaping back and forth across its four strings.

"Yo-ho-ho-ho~~~ Yo-ho-ho~~"

The crew huddled together with their arms around each other, raising their glasses and singing a lively sea shanty in unison.

Someone else sat leaning against the deckhouse, playing an accordion.

The buoyant, lilting song seemed to dispel the darkness all at once.

"How could the captain be dead? I'm the captain."

Buggy tapped along to the beat with his fingers and smiled as he joined the merry party.

They didn't seem to care much about Youqi, their captain.

As soon as Buggy spoke, someone chimed in:

"A toast to the new captain!"

"Cheers!"

"."

The afro-haired man's bow began to bounce faster.

The even livelier, more exuberant melody made people want to lose themselves in it.

Buggy laughed along merrily, his red lips seeming all the brighter.

He joined in, raising his glass to clink with the crew.

He didn't care that they'd known each other for only three or four seconds before they were already standing arm in arm.

The crewman whose shoulder he had an arm around slowly split apart to the tune.

Like a shattered porcelain bottle that had been glued together, he returned to his broken state.

The singing grew quieter and quieter.

Before long,

only Buggy and the oil lamp hanging on the deckhouse remained on the deck.

"Hahaha, another fun party."

Buggy's smile suggested he hadn't had quite enough.

The chunks of flesh scattered across the deck didn't frighten or horrify him in the least.

Instead, he took another long gulp of the tea-colored Wheat Wine.

Its astringent taste slid straight down to his stomach.

He raised his pistol and fired at the oil lamp on the deckhouse.

Crash!

The glass casing shattered across the floor.

Pale, shining flames instantly spread across the ship.

In the glow of the fire, darkness swallowed Buggy's entire field of vision once again.

"."

"."

"Hello, my name is Youqi. Did you also wander into this thick fog?"

After who knew how long, the cheerful voice woke Buggy once again.

Everything seemed to have gone back to the moment he'd first opened his eyes.

Or rather, to the 127th time since he'd been swallowed by the Black Shadow.

"Hello."

Buggy's response and actions were exactly the same as before.

Accompanied by the merry singing, he split apart every creature on the ship—if they could even be considered alive.

Then he shot the oil lamp to pieces.

Darkness swept in again.

This wasn't a looping world. If Buggy wanted, he could go on merrily spending time with them like this forever.

Drinking, singing, fooling around.

But he'd made a loop of his own.

It started when he realized that once everyone on the ship was dead and the flames consumed the vessel, everything began again.

He repeated the scene before him over and over without tiring of it.

The only thing that changed was the count he kept in his heart.

The 146th time he opened his eyes.

Just like before, Buggy swiftly shot the captain dead and joined the party.

"Why are you killing us?"

In the middle of the lively tune, a curly-haired crewman beside him suddenly turned and asked.

"Looks like the game's finally reached phase two."

Buggy snickered without answering.

But the man split apart much faster than before.

His eyes, which had abruptly gone from cheerful to hollow, shattered across the deck in about three seconds.

Once again, the fire consumed the ship.

"Don't you like it here?"

When Buggy opened his eyes again, Youqi's expression had grown much colder.

"Someone once dreamed a dream like this, day after day."

Youqi continued, his eyes vacant.

"So it's a dream. No wonder it's so cheerful." Buggy grinned, completely unsurprised by the change.

"But I don't like dreaming."

"Reality's already ridiculous enough."

Buggy repeated his previous actions, raising his pistol and pulling the trigger.

Killing, setting fires.

The things he was best at.

He opened his eyes.

Youqi's expression was cold, and he kept a distance of six steps between them.

"Aren't you tired of it?"

It was the first time he'd seen someone repeat the same series of actions so impatiently.

Killing seemed as ordinary to Buggy as drinking water.

Even when it was a group of complete strangers who had greeted him so warmly.

"Tired?" Buggy rubbed his chin as if seriously considering it.

Then he said with a mocking laugh, "Yeah, yeah. Open my eyes, close them, then do it all over again."

"That's what most people's lives are like."

"Why would I get tired of it?"

Without another word, Buggy walked up to Youqi again.

Then he raised his gun and pulled the trigger.

The movement was effortless.

"Kill him!"

At last, the crew on one side stopped watching.

They pulled three or four long swords out of the accordion, while the afro-haired man, who'd been playing the violin all along, turned his bow into a sharp knife.

This was their beautiful dream.

"Now we're in the berserk phase."

Buggy shook his hand, looking completely unconcerned.

He let the knives and swords hack into him.

"Then next up is..."

He pulled a fuse out from the corner of his mouth.

He lightly flicked it with his finger.

"Bang—"

The sound and the flash of fire rang out at the same time.

"What did you do?!"

Back at the starting point, Youqi's face twisted with anger. Cracks spread across his face and all the way along the ship, even reaching beyond it into the darkness untouched by the eerie light.

Cracks like shattered porcelain appeared there, too.

Buggy raised his head. Youqi's furious expression seemed to delight him all the more, and he smiled mockingly.

"I'm just staying here."

The first effect that came with the Awakening of the Four-Way Split-Split Fruit was this:

Anyone who came into contact with him could be split apart.

"That's impossible!"

"How could you escape from my dream?!"

"Isn't it nice to dream here?!"

Youqi kept shouting, but the cracks had already spread beyond all control.

With a crash,

the Black Shadow covering the world shattered into pieces in an instant.

Buggy stamped his foot. The ship's planks no longer smelled damp and rotten.

He could also just make out a low, "Moo."

The Black Shadow stretching from sky to earth quietly fled.