Wanna Piece o' Me?

Meanwhile, on the other side of the island...

"Hey."

swish

"Hey."

swash

"Hey."

poke

"I know you hear me!"

Akaba stepped through the overgrowth with unreadable eyes, looking reluctantly at the girl at his side. "My name's not Hey."

"Akaba." The grin on Carina's face was dangerously infectious. Similar to Nami's act. Unlike Nami, though, he couldn't pinpoint how sincere she was, if at all.

His gaze flicked to her pocket. There. He saw her shove the earring in the slot of her pants.

His brain hastily slipped into decryption mode.

He still wasn't sure of the exact extent of his earrings' ability, but apparently it wasn't complete when separated. Or at least, wasn't displaying any such property at the moment, considering the way Carina was going about him touching her earlier and the resistance she smugly showed when he had tried to snatch the earring back.

Maybe, he suddenly shifted a certain spot in his pants uncomfortably. But what was with that show earlier? And playing along with what I was saying? And those boobs... Akaba gulped, composing himself. ... could it be, she's just some... some... sl--

A hand slapped him on the back.

"Having compromising thoughts, Akaba?" Carina was grinning again as he looked at her. The purple-haired vixen bounced along, her tight body humming with feminine energy. The bag strapped over her shoulder and rustling against her hip quietly shadowed beside her. He quickly averted his eyes, finding a slug and studied it.

"No, of course not."

A snicker escaped her lips. "I saw the way you were looking at my breasts earlier, kiddo. I'm sure you're full of them! You can't fool me." She pulled out the earring from earlier. "But don't forget our deal. If ya try anything funny, like leaving, or whatever else you got in that head o' yours..." Her face took a deathly black pallor as she closed in on him. "...I'll gut ya."

Akaba swallowed dry air. To his annoyance, this only caused Carina to shrink backward and burst into laughter, pointing at his face.

Is this girl even serious...

And who was she calling kid? Akaba looked her over and shook his head. She barely looked a year older than him at most.

It also wasn't exactly what he'd call modest when she tugged her top down and let her breasts spill over it for all two of his eyes to see.

He sighed. It was best to drop it.

And speaking of drop.

"Oh, shoot!"

bling!

Akaba had been prepared to shout back in curiosity when something else caught his eye, and surely did the eye widen. Out of her pockets flew the earring, falling onto the ground with a silent pluff. Collecting himself, he looked up at Carina. She had her attention shifted to the way from which they came, hand on her forehead. Secretly and to his inner self, Akaba thanked the hand. Without that sudden gesture which helped slide the piece of jewelry out of her trousers, he would've been stuck spinning insensible plots around his mind for the whole way. Probably.

Coughing, Akaba tried to act cool. "What's wrong, Carina?"

"I forgot to put out the stove..."

Smooth.

Waving his hand, Akaba leaned down carefully. "Oh, it'll be fine," he blinked down at the earring. A leaf toppled over it then away upon a gust of wind. "I'm sure it'll --"

"No, that's not it," Carina snapped, thinking to herself with genuine scrutiny. It made Akaba wonder what her real problem was.

Seriously, there was something fishy about this woman.

Even if it was a hot fish, grilled with medium intensity and atop the shining face of a nicely seasoned fry pan.

Turning his head 'round, Akaba gulped and nodded. Go for it, Akaba! Just... stall her if she makes any sudden threats!

It wasn't the best plan A, B, or C. But, and as uncanny as it may have sounded, he was no Nakaba. By audacity or surprising keenness, his depraved brother would always manage to utilize slipperiness for all the merit it haphazardly offered. Yeah, it caused more harm than good most of the time, but at the moments in question, well, it at least yielded some semblance of an idea. And hope.

If anything, though, Akaba learned one good thing from his fellow sibling, and that was that sometimes, acting first and thinking later was as right a move as any other.

A crouched huddle later, he was reaching for the earring under the shadow of Carina's taut frame.

In his bent position, however, it also came to his attention that indeed, this girl was pretty. Her pants covered her bottom half fittingly, hinting at the smooth legginess and competent ass below. Her fractionally leaning figure provoked Akaba's inner peeper as he tried to keep his throat from drying up and stay focused. Slapping his cheek, he closed his eyes, breathed, and went for it. He was already inches from grazing invaluable item and heirloom alike with his fingers when Carina twisted back on her heels.

"Maybe we should go and --" She stopped, noticing Akaba, then what his hand was doing on the dirt. "Hey, what are you..?"

Crap!

Locking eyes, Akaba moved quickly. Or at least, as quickly as his still sluggish-feeling body could take him. Clutching the earring in his hand, he jumped back and made for the side of the path, into slope-rooted shrubbery.

A leap over a bush here, a near-trip through a split tree here, and he looked back in slightly exasperated victory.

Holy mackerel. I did it, he cheered. I outran her!

Her voice echoed from afar.

"Akaba..! Akaba, hey, don't leave mee! You can't just leave a poor, helpless girl on her own? Can you?"

Akaba shook her words off. He wasn't going to fall for that. He was going to find a boat and head ocean-ward. He was going to search for his brother and figure out the truth about these earrings, and after that, he was going to be done with adventuring for good.

He wasn't cut out for the booty-looting life after all.

---

Wrestling through a duet of shrubs, Akaba emerged covered in thorns and twigs. He coarsely brushed them off and walked on, realizing he was at the entrance of a village. This must have been the village Nami was talking about.

Cocoyasi Village itself seemed pretty quiet. After what felt like miles, Akaba had finally made it down, nearly knocked dead from the exertion -- not to mention the fall he took back there. He seriously did not see that tree root. Glancing down, he uncurled his fingers. The earring jangled in his hand.

Here went nothing.

He rose it to the side of his face and clipped the earring to his other ear. After a couple seconds passed, nothing seemed different. Felt different. The wandering adventurer released an unsteady breath and continued walking.

The village was a quaint town. A couple buildings lined either side of the main road. The forest was right next to it, basking the settlement in the smell of trees, sea, and tangerines.

Akaba rubbed his back.

Maybe he really should see if a doctor was around. This back-ache was tenacious.

He was passing a house when he noticed a woman at the porch, brooming the floor. Her brown hair was left somewhat short, the base-most follicle stopping at her jaw, and was dressed in laywoman clothing, a wool top and a skirt that reached her sandals. She looked like she lived here. Maybe she could point him in the right direction.

Not to mention, she had a pretty, motherly look to her that never could he resist. Akaba gulped and swatted away his distracted mind. He stepped away from the dirt path towards the house.

"Hello." The woman casually looked up from her cleaning as Akaba offered a wave. He was irrationally nervous for some reason, but continued coherently enough. "Do you know where the village doctor is? I was just, er... passing through. Thinking of getting a back-ache checked up on."

She smiled and pointed towards the coast. "Just keep going straight and it'll be at your left past the center of town. There should be a sign there; you can't miss it."

"Ah. Thank you very much."

Akaba let the lump in his throat recede as he headed in the direction of the coast. He hoped no one would suddenly kick him out or something, upon noticing that he was a foreigner. Or worse; what if he stumbled across another fishman?

The boy wrung his fingers, and freed a resigned sigh. "I'm too anxious for my own good, I think..."

He thought of Carina's taunting face laughing at him, and grimaced.

That girl was a real fishy one alright. Tackling him into unconsciousness, and then essentially stealing his earrings only to keep them for ****?

I figure, Akaba thought back to his own antics with Nami, and cracked a squiggly laugh, she probably makes stealing girls' bras a normal priority on her list of things to procure, too -- so high a priority, in fact, that she keeps a budding collection and on the lookout for any pretty girl worth the taking, with a success rate so high and efficient it makes my stunt with Nami look like trainee material, even if it's right under their nose..!

Or not.

Point was, you could never trust thieves. Their hands were bound to swipe anything the moment you dropped your guard.

Kind of like what he managed to pull on her, in fact. He scratched his head. Though, he was just taking what belonged to him back.... only for him to remember that he was technically a treasure hunter, himself. A line of work that also involved shady acquisitions of highly profitable things, at times.

Right... he pushed his lip into his cheek. I'm probably not one to talk.

A few moments later, he appeared in front of a white-painted building. Above dangled a red cross. Or, to be more specific, a sign, with a red cross painted across it.

He nodded.

Looked right as any. He lifted a forward turned fist.

Knock-knock.

"Uh," he meekly ventured, "excuse me..."

Opening the door carefully, he took a peek inside. Rows of beds were lined up on both sides of the interior. The space between was plenty to walk through, if he decided to take a stride this instant. Though it didn't look it, the inside was actually accommodated pretty well.

As he drifted inside, he felt another twinge in his back, and comically arched upward. Grandpa, he thought woefully, I... I understand... everything, now...

"Why, hello," a voice not summoned greeted him out of the blue, a curtain from the side swishing away. "Are you here for a check-up?"

"Oh! I..." Akaba gulped. "Yes, uh, if you don't mind. For blunt... trauma, and stuff maybe."

He hoped that sounded less pathetic than his dazed voice let on. It probably would've been easier, after all, if the person that stood before him now wasn't so... so... pretty-looking!

Smiling, the woman, clad in white and a nurse's hat just atop her short brown hair which perfectly complimented her petite face proceeded, "In that case," gesturing back, "please come with me to the examination room."

Gulping, Akaba let her lead the way past the beds. When they entered the room, she closed the door and took a chair, offering him the patient's bed. With a creak, he dropped his bottom onto it.

"Our head doctor, Nako, isn't here at the moment, so I'll be taking care of you for the time being or until he returns." With her hands in her lap, she smiled again and introduced herself. "I'm Tamaki, the assistant nurse."

"Nice to meet you, Nurse Tamaki."

"I also have very smooth legs," she kindly continued, "and my figure compliments my butt very well, especially when I bend over. Just ask my partner!"

"Ah. I see," Akaba rubbed a temple, then twitched. "WAIT, WHAT DID YOU JUST SAY?"

Oblivious to the boy's incredulity, the nurse simply tilted her head. "Hm? Did I say something wrong just now?"

"You, you, you, I think -- " Lifting a pointed finger, Akaba quickly shook his head and brought it back down. Double wait. This was sounding too familiar. Like only moments ago, he had undergone the same exact, vocally induced surprise. By another attractive member of the opposite sex. By a person with, say, purplish hair, and very inviting breasts.

Akaba groaned as he started to fall into another pit of vivid, predominantly feminine imagery. And not of the G-rated kind.

Not now, brain....

Nurse Tamaki looked on in quiet concern when there was a rap against the front door, saving the situation from further awkwardness. Or simply postponing the inevitable. Or both, Akaba ambivalently decided.

"Anybody in?" The friendly growl was gravelly. That of a man, probably a little on the older side. "Hello? Nako? Tamaki?"

The nurse quickly stood up. "Excuse me for a moment." She opened the door and went to meet the man outside. Indistinct chatter could be picked up just barely enough with a strain. Leaning his head gave Akaba a sparse glimpse at the visitor through the slit. He narrowed his eyes.

Is that a... pinwheel? On his hat?

Though, to be clear, there wasn't anything wrong with pinwheels. Or hats. Akaba just never thought of putting one and two together like that. Who knows, maybe it could lead to some other inventively genius idea or something.

In any case, despite where he was clearly trying to direct his attention, by pure accident, his eyes gravitated downward, to the slender body-shape that presented him with a conservatively covered yet nevertheless enticing behind. He swallowed, in naive yearning. A body like that was... was exactly the kind he had to learn how to keep from fawning over. A man! He was a man, now! He had principles! Self-control!

And a natural appreciation for scrumptious angelic treats...

Akaba mentally slapped himself. "Snap out of it, Akaba. Just..." Suddenly, the man dropped something, prompting Nurse Tamaki to partially crouch, partially bend to pick it up, and Akaba gulped at the way her outfit tightly accentuated her pert body.

"...just..!" A tug of war commenced. One second later, it was convened. "Just, if only it was normal for hot female nurses like her to use their own sexy bodies as a part of patient examinations somehow, no matter how ridiculous, like with their boobs, or, or butt... just so I could have one pathetic excuse to get up and close with 'em!"

Akaba's gaze drilled soullessly into a wooden panel as his throat fell into his gastrointestinal tract and checked in for a few days.

Wow!

Sure good thing no one heard him say that aloud!

Outside, the slightly tanned man, dressed in a brown-ish uniform and hat, and sporting a relatively thick moustache, nodded, said his thanks, then took off, and Nurse Tamaki closed the door and began returning to the examination room. Akaba immediately re-composed himself. He wondered if his cheeks were as red as they felt. She returned to the room once again unawares.

"Now." The nurse took her chair once more, setting her welcoming gaze back on the failed adventurer, a trite, completely non-intriguing earring dangling inconspicuously from one earlobe of his, and crossed her legs comfortably, clipboard in hand. "Where were we?"

Akaba's hand furtively adjusted his trousers. Certainly not going there. No, sir.

Keeping straight as an arrow, Akaba began explaining what his body had the pleasure of enduring the past week or so, and how it currently felt, while the sound of scribbling notes were left to peacefully dot the air.