Old Wood Burns Better - Chapter 9

One Piece comedy fic. First chapter available on QQ.

Chapter 9

"GAAAAAAAAAAAARP!"

The scream was so loud the walls of Marineford rattled, a flock of seagulls outside scattered in panic, and somewhere in the East Blue, a Sea King sneezed in sympathy.

Seconds later, the office door creaked open with all the urgency of a man who knew he was in trouble but hadn’t quite figured out why. Garp stepped in, wearing his casual grin like body armor and munching on an entire sleeve of Marine-issued cookies. Crumbs dusted his uniform like a winter’s first snowfall.

“Yo, Sengoku!” Garp waved cheerfully with his free hand. “Bit early for the yelling, isn’t it? You want a cookie?”

Sengoku’s face pulsed with a vein so prominent it deserved its own military rank. He pointed a trembling finger directly at Garp’s face.

“Do you—DO YOU KNOW what your cursed little village has been up to AGAIN?!”

Garp blinked, looking genuinely thoughtful. He dusted a few crumbs from his chin.


“Hmm… Is it Luffy? Has the brat finally taken to the sea? Bah! Knew he couldn’t sit still forever. What did the good-for-nothing do this time? Steal a boat? Hijack some meat shipments? You know how kids are—always up to something immature!”

Sengoku inhaled sharply, and then—

“NOOO!” His bellow rattled the enormous Buddha statue behind his desk. “It’s not the Straw Hat! It’s—IT’S THE MAYOR!”

Garp paused mid-bite. “…The Mayor?”

“Yes! The Mayor! That decrepit fossil! Old Woop Slap!”

Garp burst out laughing, nearly choking on his cookie. He thumped his chest and wheezed through his grin.


“Old man Woop Slap? Bwahaha! What’s he gonna do, Sengoku? Lecture pirates into submission? Chase them off his lawn with a broom? The man’s a walking raisin with a cane and an attitude!”

Sengoku slammed both palms onto his desk hard enough to send every paper airborne like a bureaucratic blizzard.

“A MONSTER, GARP!” Sengoku’s eyes were bloodshot, his mustache quivering with rage. “That ancient, fossilized goblin has been BLOODYING THE ENTIRE EAST BLUE FOR A MONTH!”

Garp blinked. “Come again?”

Sengoku pointed at a towering stack of incident reports that had been labeled, in bright red ink, “Woop Slap Related Disasters.”

“Do you want me to read them to you, you half-sane cookie disposal system? Let’s start with the minor events! He decimated Buggy the Clown’s crew! Turned them into a floating embarrassment before sinking their ship with nothing but a cane and some well-placed insults about their fashion sense!”

Garp scratched his head. “Well, Buggy’s crew was always a bit…fragile.”

“It gets worse!” Sengoku stabbed his finger at another report. “He recruited Roronoa Zoro—the Pirate Hunter himself—and Yasopp’s boy! Yasopp’s boy, Garp! He’s building a damn pirate powerhouse from your backyard and using his walking stick as a recruiting poster!”

Garp was starting to look mildly alarmed. “Wait… you’re saying Woop Slap is out there… pirate recruiting? In my village?”

“Oh, I’m not finished!” Sengoku’s moustache flared like it was trying to escape his face. “He made friends with Dracule Mihawk! Unless—AND I DON’T RULE THIS OUT—they already knew each other from before! Did you, by any chance, forget to mention that your senile mayor is an ex-world-class monster from the Old Era?!”

Garp blinked. “Mihawk, huh? Hah! Maybe they bonded over how heavy their swords—or canes—are!”

Sengoku looked like he was about to pop an artery. His eyes twitched dangerously.

“And then—AND THEN, Garp! Your village’s ‘harmless old man’ obliterated Don Krieg’s entire armada! Sank the whole lot with some kind of ancient cane-fu and a technique called Groan-shiki! There are Marines in the East Blue who swear he launched himself through the air with a knee pop and shattered an entire battleship with his old man rant!”

Garp’s jaw slackened. “…That’s… a new one.”

“And just when I thought it couldn’t get any worse—HE KILLED ARLONG!”

“WHAT?!” Garp almost dropped his cookie. Almost.

“Oh, don’t you ‘what’ me, Garp!” Sengoku threw the report across the room. “Do you know how he did it?! He ordered the villagers to make sushi out of him! SUSHI, Garp! They turned a war criminal into lunch specials! There’s a report that says the man held a cooking class mid-battle to teach proper sashimi slicing techniques!”

Garp slumped into a chair, utterly stunned. “That… that actually sounds kind of efficient…”

“And then!” Sengoku roared, eyes practically glowing with fury. “He attacked Marine Bases! Personally executed Captain Morgan—broke his stupid axe-jaw with a single cane tap! And Captain Nezumi? He cornered the rat-faced coward in his office, sat him down, and lectured him for six straight hours about fiscal irresponsibility and bad posture before throwing him into the sea!”

Garp finally dropped the cookie.

Sengoku collapsed into his chair, breathing hard. “Garp… you owe me an explanation! How is it that a man who’s supposedly too old to walk without a cane is out there dismantling half the East Blue and founding a new generation of pirate heroes under your very nose?!”

Garp leaned back, still processing, his expression flickering between pride, confusion, and a healthy dose of existential dread.

“Well…” he muttered. “At least I don’t have to worry about Luffy becoming a menace anymore. That old coot’s apparently running a one-man army of manners enforcement and pirate correction better than half your Vice Admirals.”

Sengoku let out a long, pained groan, dragging a palm down his face like he was physically trying to scrub away the madness. His chair creaked under the weight of his frustration as he leaned back, glaring at the ceiling like it personally owed him an apology.

Garp, in a rare moment, actually got serious. His jovial expression faded as he folded his arms, eyes narrowing under his cap.


“Seriously, Sengoku… it’s impossible. I met him myself, not long ago. And I've known him for decades — half a century, at least. You know how serious I am when it comes to people connected to… that place.” His voice dropped an octave, grave and quiet. “With how it’s linked to… the One Piece. The true history. That whole mess.”

Sengoku stared at him for a long, silent moment, his eye twitching so violently it looked like a miniature earthquake was playing out on his forehead.

“Then pray tell, Garp,” Sengoku said, his voice painfully measured, “why the hell did you give that man a cane made of SEASTONE?!”

Garp’s entire body flinched like he’d just been caught sneaking cookies before dinner. He scratched the back of his head, letting out a sheepish little laugh that did nothing to lighten the mood.


“Hehe… ah… well, y’see… It was just so he could still have a bit of authority over Luffy, y’know? Kid’s a rubber boy, couldn’t feel a thing when the old man tried to knock sense into him with a regular cane. I thought—hey! A Seastone cane! That’d at least make the whacks count!”

“You absolute imbecile!” Sengoku’s palm slammed into his face so hard Garp was surprised he didn’t just slap his own soul out of his body.

Garp chuckled nervously again, his hand still rubbing the back of his head. “Look, Sengoku, it’s not like I expected the old coot to go on a rampage. I mean, he’s just… Woop Slap! He complains about loud birds and spends his afternoons yelling at goats!”

“Yes, and apparently, when he’s not yelling at livestock, he’s dismantling the entire East Blue!” Sengoku shot to his feet, pacing like a caged lion. “We have to do something, Garp! Before that old man turns the East Blue into his own personal training ground for future pirate kings and warlords!”

Garp sighed deeply, shoulders slumping under the weight of… mostly his own confusion.


“Yeah… but what exactly do you expect me to do? Go home and tell him to stop being an unstoppable force of nature? You ever tried arguing with a man who’s spent ninety years perfecting the art of being right?”

“Garp… I swear to every last elder god that if this ends with your mayor declaring himself Pirate King before your grandson even leaves the East Blue…”

Garp just chuckled nervously. “Eh… he wouldn’t do that.”

A pause.

“…Right?”