Chapter 351: Chapter 351: The Rebel Army’s Turn of Events
Chapter 351: The Rebel Army’s Turn of Events
Rather than being overwhelmed by the sheer number of rebels surrounding them, Vivi immediately fell back on the instincts she had developed while working undercover as a Baroque Works Frontier Agent.
"Take the water. Leave everything else."
In the desert, nothing mattered more than water.
Food came second.
And when survival required running for your life, abandoning anything that slowed you down was common sense.
The group moved immediately.
As they fled, Chopper glanced behind them.
"How did they even find us?"
Tracking someone through the desert was no simple task.
The endless dunes offered few landmarks, while the intense heat distorted distant scenery behind shimmering waves of hot air.
Even an army numbering in the hundreds of thousands could disappear into a desert this large.
There was also the matter of supplies.
Searching for long periods required enormous quantities of drinking water. Even before Alabasta’s drought, preparing enough for a large-scale desert search would have been difficult.
Now?
It should have been nearly impossible.
Yet the rebels had gathered around them from multiple directions.
That suggested one thing.
They had known where to look.
Chopper thought for a moment.
"Maybe they saw the smoke from the birds we cooked?"
"No."
Vivi shook her head.
"In this heat, the desert air distorts everything."
She glanced across the shimmering horizon.
"Looking into the distance is like looking through layers of boiling steam. Smoke would be almost impossible to distinguish from far away."
Chopper frowned.
"Then we need to figure out how they’re tracking us."
"If we don’t, they’ll just find us again after we escape."
Wapol snorted.
"You’re a pretty pathetic princess."
Vivi ignored him.
"Your own subjects are hunting you."
He continued running while talking, apparently unwilling to test whether hundreds of thousands of rebels could trample him to death.
"If I were ruling this place, I’d just pass a law and execute anyone who rebelled."
"One by one."
Vivi’s expression darkened.
"I don’t know how they found us."
"There aren’t many obvious tracking methods in a desert, but people who have lived in Alabasta their entire lives must know things outsiders wouldn’t."
Before anyone could continue, figures appeared atop the dune ahead.
Chopper’s eyes widened.
"More rebels!"
Their choice of terrain had worked against them.
The rocky depression had been ideal for hiding from distant eyes.
Now that they had already been discovered, the low ground became a trap.
Their visibility was limited, while anyone approaching from the dunes could look directly down at them.
Vivi immediately changed direction.
Then stopped.
More silhouettes had appeared there too.
This group was different.
Better equipped.
Leather armor covered their bodies, reinforced with steel around vital areas. Long weapons rested across their backs, and many rode camels, the most practical means of transportation across Alabasta’s desert.
Nearly a thousand men surged toward them.
Their shouts rolled across the dunes.
Some sounded furious.
Others desperate.
Others almost excited.
The entire formation looked less like disciplined soldiers and more like a pack of starving beasts that had finally spotted prey.
Chopper had seen battle at Navarone Fortress.
He had watched Marines fight.
He had witnessed Axel clash with an Admiral.
Yet there was something uniquely frightening about seeing nearly a thousand ordinary people charging toward him at once.
"S-So many..."
His legs trembled.
"What do we do?"
Wapol already had an answer.
He dropped to his knees and began eating the sand.
Crunch! Crunch!
His body slowly sank into the ground.
"Watch this."
He sounded extremely pleased with himself.
"I’ll hide underground."
Axel stepped off him.
He watched Wapol confidently swallow sand for several seconds.
Then said,
"You’ll probably suffocate."
Wapol froze.
Axel pointed toward the approaching camel riders.
"When all of them pass over this area, their weight will compress the sand."
"You might be able to eat your way downward."
"But once you’re buried under several layers of packed sand, you won’t be able to open your mouth properly."
Axel paused.
"Then you’ll slowly suffocate."
Wapol stopped chewing.
His face went pale.
He had forgotten one crucial detail.
His appetite might have no practical limit, but his mouth still had to physically open.
Vivi looked toward Axel.
"Do you have another solution?"
"Yes."
Everyone waited.
Axel answered flatly,
"Kill everyone coming toward us."
"No!"
"Good idea!"
Vivi and Wapol spoke at the same time.
Then turned and glared at each other.
Axel ignored Wapol.
"Then we hide."
Vivi stared at him.
"Hide?"
Enemies had already surrounded them from every direction.
Hundreds of eyes were locked on their position.
There was nowhere obvious to disappear.
Under ordinary circumstances, the suggestion would have sounded ridiculous.
But after traveling with Axel for this long, Vivi had already seen too many impossible things to dismiss it outright.
She nodded.
"All right."
"Let’s hide."
Wapol grimaced.
"You’re just hiding."
"Why do you have to say it like you’re making some heroic last stand?"
Vivi gave him an irritated look.
Wapol immediately looked away.
For some reason, he simply could not get along with her.
Perhaps it was because Vivi cared so deeply about her people.
Perhaps seeing that selflessness only made his own selfishness feel more obvious.
Whatever the reason, he found her irritating.
Axel nodded.
"Fine."
Vivi looked into his eyes.
It had become a habit.
She had learned to watch them.
Not because she possessed some special ability to read Axel’s emotions.
But because she had noticed something he himself might not have realized.
Whenever Axel was truly preparing to kill large numbers of people, his crimson eyes changed.
They became brighter.
Sharper.
Almost luminous.
Normally, despite their blood-red color, there was something unexpectedly calm in them.
Vivi could never quite explain it.
Gentleness, perhaps.
Or maybe merely the appearance of gentleness covering something else.
But she had learned one thing.
When those eyes began glowing, whatever Axel said afterward mattered very little.
He had already decided to kill.
Right now, they looked normal.
Vivi quietly relaxed.
Axel noticed her staring.
"What?"
Vivi blinked.
"Nothing."
Axel held out his hand.
"Then hurry up."
"Grab on."
He looked toward Chopper and Wapol.
"You too."
Chopper immediately shifted out of his larger reindeer form and returned to his small form.
He grabbed onto Axel’s leg.
Wapol had considerably less restraint.
He stepped forward and wrapped both arms around Axel.
His mouth even opened slightly.
For the briefest instant, it looked suspiciously as though he was considering swallowing him.
Then Wapol froze.
The moment physical contact was established, he felt it.
His blood.
His heartbeat.
The movement inside his entire body.
All of it seemed to fall within Axel’s control.
A simple certainty appeared in Wapol’s mind.
If he tried anything, he would die.
Vivi took Axel’s arm.
Axel slowly turned his head toward Wapol.
"Be careful, Wapol."
The words sounded almost considerate.
Wapol understood the threat perfectly.
He shuddered.
"Y-Yes."
Wind swept into the depression.
Sandstorms were common in Alabasta, even within lower terrain.
A strong gust rushed across the basin.
Sand exploded upward.
The rebels approaching from the surrounding dunes raised their arms to shield their faces.
When the wind passed...
Axel’s group was gone.
"They disappeared!"
A camel rider stared at the empty depression.
"That’s impossible!"
The commander beside him glared down.
"They were surrounded."
"There’s no way they escaped."
His expression hardened.
"They must be hiding somewhere beneath the sand."
"Search everything!"
"Dig if you have to!"
"Find them!"
Elsewhere, among the rebels approaching on foot, another minor commander saw the empty basin and smiled.
His name was Joshua.
"Good."
One of his subordinates looked confused.
"Good?"
Joshua watched the camel unit searching from the opposite side.
"If they’ve disappeared, then those bastards under Toriwa won’t get to Princess Vivi before us."
His smile widened.
"She must still be hiding somewhere nearby."
"As long as I’m the one who finds her first..."
His eyes sharpened.
"And kills her..."
"The position of Rebel Army leader will be mine."
The two rebel forces eventually met near the center of the depression.
Their men spread out, digging through the sand and checking behind every rock.
Joshua and the commander of the camel unit approached one another.
The other man jumped down from his camel.
Toriwa.
A bald, middle-aged man with otherwise unremarkable features.
He looked Joshua over carefully.
"I never expected you to have ambitions like this."
Joshua smiled mockingly.
"Ambition?"
"At first, I didn’t."
He glanced at the rebels searching around them.
"I was just someone who couldn’t survive anymore."
"So I joined."
Joshua shrugged.
"Of course I fantasized sometimes."
"Join a rebellion."
"Overthrow the king."
"Fight across the country."
"Build something for myself afterward."
He laughed.
"But fantasies are fantasies."
His expression became more serious.
"While Koza was leading us, none of that mattered."
"I didn’t dare think about taking his place."
Joshua looked toward Toriwa.
"What about you?"
Toriwa’s face showed something close to genuine admiration.
"Leader Koza..."
He shook his head.
"It really is unbelievable when you think about it."
"People all across Alabasta were starving."
"Dying of thirst."
"Barely surviving."
"And somehow he turned them into an army."
Toriwa looked around.
"Food."
"Weapons."
"Organization."
"A reason to keep living."
"Millions of people listened to him."
He exhaled.
"With someone like that above you, how could anyone seriously think about replacing him?"
Joshua nodded.
Then both men said at nearly the same time,
"But Koza has fallen."
Silence followed.
Neither had expected the Rebel Army to lose its leader so suddenly.
While Koza remained in command, almost no one among the countless rebels would have openly challenged his authority.
Now he was unconscious.
And no one else possessed enough prestige to command everyone.
Joshua frowned.
"If Koza doesn’t wake up, whoever avenges him will probably become the next leader."
He clicked his tongue.
"What a ridiculous decision."
"I still don’t understand how everyone accepted something that stupid."
Toriwa nodded.
"For once, I agree with you."
Then his mouth curved slightly.
"But it’s an opportunity."
He folded his arms.
"I never imagined a caravan guard like me would have the chance to lead the entire Rebel Army."
Joshua looked at his bald head.
"A caravan guard should remain a caravan guard."
"You aren’t suited to leadership."
Toriwa glared.
"And you are?"
"Obviously."
Joshua answered without hesitation.
"My father was a mayor."
"I grew up watching him manage people and settle disputes."
"Compared to you, I’m far more qualified."
"Tch."
Toriwa dismissed him with a sound.
Joshua did the same.
Neither lowered his guard.
Their men continued searching.
"Nothing!"
"Not here!"
"We didn’t find anyone!"
The reports repeated from every direction.
Toriwa looked around in confusion.
"How can several people simply disappear?"
He frowned.
"Could we have been seeing a mirage?"
Joshua scoffed.
"Use your brain."
"We were inside a low depression."
"That wasn’t a distant image distorted by heat."
"They were here."
"And they’re still somewhere nearby."
He was right.
Just not in the direction either man was looking.
Above them, suspended quietly in the air, Axel listened to every word.
Vivi held onto him.
Chopper clung to his leg.
Wapol hung awkwardly from the other side.
Axel looked down at Joshua and Toriwa.
"Well."
His voice was quiet enough that only his companions could hear.
"That answers a few questions."
Vivi looked at him.
"What?"
"The Rebel Army isn’t united right now."
Axel glanced below.
"And Koza has been attacked."
Vivi’s expression changed immediately.
"What?!"
Axel continued watching the men beneath them.
"According to those two, you did it."
Vivi stared at him.
"I’ve been with you the whole time!"
"I know."
Axel’s tone remained calm.
"That’s why I believe it was Mr. 2."
Vivi froze.
The possibility immediately made sense.
A person who could copy faces and bodies.
An assassin capable of appearing as someone else.
And behind him...
Crocodile.
Axel looked toward the desert.
"Most likely Crocodile’s order."
Vivi’s face drained of color.
Koza had fallen.
Her first thought was not about the rebellion.
It was whether her childhood friend was even alive.
Then the larger problem struck her.
Without Koza, who could control the Rebel Army?
The conversation below had already shown the answer.
No one.
Minor commanders were competing for authority.
People were already talking about killing her to claim Koza’s position.
The rebellion was no longer merely angry.
It was beginning to fracture.
And that was catastrophic for Alabasta.
Crocodile was still regarded as a hero throughout the kingdom.
To many citizens, his reputation rivaled Alabasta’s guardian deities, Pell the Falcon and Chaka the Jackal.
Meanwhile, Cobra’s reputation had been devastated by years of drought and Baroque Works’ manipulation.
Vivi alone could not simply stand before the Rebel Army and convince hundreds of thousands of angry people that everything they believed was false.
Koza could.
His influence was unmatched.
If he personally revealed Crocodile’s deception, the rebels might listen.
But now Koza had been attacked.
Possibly mortally wounded.
Everything had changed.
Vivi’s mind raced.
What do I do?
Axel interrupted her thoughts.
"So?"
She looked at him.
"What now?"
Vivi remained silent for several seconds.
Then her expression hardened.
"We go to the Rebel Army camp."
Axel waited.
"I need to find Koza."
Whether as his childhood friend or as the princess trying to save Alabasta, she had no other choice.
If Koza was injured...
Then they would treat him.
Vivi turned toward Chopper.
"Chopper."
The little reindeer looked up.
"This time..."
Vivi’s expression became serious.
"I’m going to need your help."
....
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