"Ah, crap. Crocodile's still out in the desert. What if he escapes?"
Halfway through the flight, Luffy finally realized it after the fact.
Clearly, he had completely forgotten about Crocodile's existence just now.
Ace and Pell were not much better.
They had both been too focused on the rebel army and the crisis facing the kingdom, causing them to overlook that problem entirely.
Cain, however, had done it deliberately.
With Crocodile's ambition, there was no way that man would simply give up and stay trapped. Most likely, he was already on his way to the royal palace right now.
Without Crocodile, without him personally revealing the ambition he had hidden so deeply, and without the scene of him cruelly attacking Nico Robin, Luffy would never save Robin after she had lost all will to live.
Naturally, she would never become one of the Straw Hat crew either.
…
After hearing Luffy's words, Ace patted him on the shoulder and seriously spoke.
"You don't need to worry about that, Luffy. With me and Cain here, everything will be handled easily."
"No. This has nothing to do with you, Ace. Cain, same goes for you. Do you remember what I said before you joined?"
Luffy frowned, his tone stubborn and firm.
"If I need you guys to protect me, then what kind of Pirate King would I be?"
"So I want to deal with Crocodile myself."
"Hahaha. Luffy, you really have grown up!"
Ace could not help laughing, his eyes filled with relief.
"But that guy's Devil Fruit ability is way too hard to fight. Without Haki, I really don't know how I'm supposed to beat him."
Luffy drooped his head and said this in distress.
"You don't need to worry about that, Luffy. Even Logia types have things that counter them. Like Ace, for example. As long as this guy is on fire, you can just dump a bucket of water on him." Cain said it with an extremely serious face.
Because he and Ace had interfered earlier, Luffy had not managed to figure out Crocodile's weakness in time.
So Cain decided to point out the key right here.
"Hey! Don't use me as an example!" Ace immediately protested.
"Is that how it works? So to deal with Logia types, all you need is a bucket of water?"
Luffy's eyes lit up, as if he had suddenly grasped something important.
"Uh…"
Cain wanted to refute him, but for a moment, he had no idea where to start.
Although that explanation was not exactly correct, it had somehow stumbled onto the right answer by accident.
After all, both Ace and Crocodile were, in a way, afraid of water.
"What are you talking about?"
Ace hurriedly corrected him.
"That's completely wrong. Let me explain it to Luffy. It's like that Marine we met last time."
"That smoke guy?" Luffy blurted out.
"Right, exactly. Think about it. If he's smoke, what would he be most afraid of?"
Ace deliberately left him hanging.
"Wind," Cain cut in from the side.
"Don't interrupt!"
Ace glared at him, then nodded again.
"But Cain's right. If he turns into smoke and gets blown apart by wind, it'll be very difficult for him to gather himself back together. That's his weakness. Just like my Flame-Flame Fruit is afraid of water, because it's fire."
"So then, what is sand afraid of?"
Luffy tilted his head, falling into thought together with Ace.
Watching the two of them seriously ponder over such an obvious answer, Cain finally could not take it anymore and directly gave it to them.
"IT'S STILL WATER DUMBASS! When sand touches water, it clumps together and can't scatter freely anymore. That's his weakness!"
"Oh, right!"
Luffy suddenly clapped his hands, only for his face to fall again a second later.
"But where are we supposed to get water?"
"Isn't there some right below us?"
Cain pointed downward.
At that moment, they were crossing an inland river.
The starlight reflected across the water's surface below them, making it hard not to notice.
However, after the group searched themselves, they realized that none of them had anything that could hold water.
Cain rubbed his chin, then turned to look at Luffy.
A sly glint slowly appeared in his eyes.
"Luffy, your body is rubber now, right?"
"You're not thinking…"
Seeing this, Ace revealed the same wicked grin and looked toward Luffy.
...
"AAAAH—!"
"AAAAH—!"
"AAAAH—!"
Three consecutive screams tore through the sky.
Luffy, who had been flying through the air, was grabbed by both legs by Cain and Ace.
Like a yo-yo, his legs were stretched extremely long while his head plunged straight into the river below!
"Luffy, don't spit it out! Drink a lot of it!"
Ace shouted loudly downward.
"No good, one more time!"
Cain grabbed Luffy's stretched-out right leg as he showed no mercy towards his brother at all.
Pell, who was flying through the air while carrying them, could not help stumbling in midair.
With a bitter expression, he said, "Maybe I should just land instead!"
Just then, Luffy, who was still wildly spitting water, caught sight of a conspicuous ship on the riverbank below from the corner of his eye.
His pupils suddenly shrank.
He violently retracted his stretched-out body, pointed at the river surface, and even his voice trembled.
"Cr-Cr-Cr-Cr-Crocodile's ship!"
Cain and Ace looked in the direction he was pointing.
The clear "B.W." carved onto the ship was especially eye-catching.
The two exchanged a glance and nodded.
Looks like they had to speed things up.
…
The group quickly descended and landed on the opposite bank of the river.
"Come on, Luffy, drink another mouthful!" Ace urged anxiously.
Looking at Luffy's round, swollen belly, he could not help teasing him.
"Aren't you usually really good at eating? How can you not handle this little bit of water?"
As he was speaking, Cain walked over from the direction of the ship by the bank.
He had already checked the ship.
Crocodile had long since left, but fortunately, there were quite a few wooden barrels on board.
However, the moment he turned around, he saw Ace still trying to force Luffy to chug water.
"I mean… there are barrels over there."
The moment Cain finished speaking, an awkward silence instantly spread among them.
Luffy looked as if he had found a life-saving straw!
He immediately clutched his stomach and, with a loud "bleeegh," spat out all the water he had drunk.
…
After a long round of chaos, they finally filled the wooden barrels with water and rushed toward Alubarna, the royal capital.
When they reached their destination, Cain and Ace sat side by side on the flame cloud, calmly watching Luffy, who was the first to charge out below.
The two exchanged a glance, then spoke almost at the same time.
"You're not going down?"
"I'm doing this for Luffy's sake."
After speaking in perfect sync, they fell silent for a moment.
"Hahaha, all right, all right."
Ace scratched his head and grinned.
"At the end of the day, I'm still a little worried about him."
"How am I any different?" Cain sighed softly, then changed the subject.
"But although we can't directly interfere in Luffy's battle, we can at least help them deal with some worries from behind the scenes."
Before his voice had even faded, Cain controlled the flame cloud and flew straight toward the bell tower at the highest point of the royal city.
That was where the bomb Crocodile had planted was hidden.
"How did you even notice this thing?" Ace asked in surprise.
"Observation Haki."
Cain kept the answer short and simple.
And this was not exactly a lie.
From the moment he had approached this grand complex of buildings, his Observation Haki had caught a trace of dangerous presence.
"Your Observation Haki is way too good! How did you even manage that?"
Ace's eyes were full of curiosity.
"You try using Observation Haki to look for mushrooms in the mountains in the middle of the night." Cain answered lightly.
Back then, in order to destroy those annoying sleepless mushrooms, he had spent half the night exhausting himself.
Although later, when he took Uta out to sea, that half-night of hard work had basically been wasted, there was no denying that the experience had sharpened his Observation Haki sensitivity quite a bit.