Chapter 353: Changing the Tide

Chapter 353: Chapter 353: Changing the Tide

Chapter 353: Changing the Tide

Axel understood why Vivi had made her decision.

For someone who placed so much value on her bonds with others, refusing to abandon an injured childhood friend was completely natural.

Still, considering everything that had happened, taking Koza out of the Rebel Army camp was reckless.

They did not know who had attacked him.

They did not know how deeply Baroque Works had infiltrated the rebellion.

And after the Rebel Army had already tried to kill Vivi, removing their unconscious leader without explaining anything could easily make the situation worse.

But one look at Vivi’s expression told Axel there was no point trying to change her mind.

For a moment, she reminded him of himself.

He sighed.

If she would not reconsider, then he would simply make preparations of his own.

"Let’s go to Rainbase."

Vivi immediately looked at him.

"Rainbase?"

Her expression tightened.

"Why would we go there?"

Rainbase was known throughout Alabasta as the City of Dreams.

It was also Crocodile’s stronghold.

Walking directly into the headquarters of the man behind the country’s crisis sounded less like strategy and more like suicide.

Axel glanced at her.

"Sometimes the easiest way to make a scheme useless is to stop avoiding it and walk straight toward the person behind it."

Vivi narrowed her eyes.

"Scheme?"

She understood what he was suggesting.

Something had happened to Koza.

Someone had impersonated her.

The Rebel Army had attacked her before she could even reach its camp.

Axel clearly believed Crocodile was already moving behind the scenes.

Vivi understood the logic.

She simply did not want to admit how bad the situation might already be.

She changed the subject.

"But what about the Rebel Army?"

"That’s why I came here in the first place."

"If we leave now, everything we’ve done becomes pointless."

The rebels were still Alabasta’s people.

If they were abandoned while Koza remained unconscious, no one knew what direction that enormous force might take.

How many more would die?

Axel answered calmly,

"Don’t worry."

"I already have an idea."

Vivi looked at him.

"Leave the Rebel Army to me."

His confidence should have sounded suspicious.

Instead, after everything she had seen from him, Vivi found herself believing him.

Even so, hesitation remained on her face.

Axel noticed.

"Yuba is near the center of several routes through Alabasta."

He pointed roughly toward the distance.

"Rainbase is one of the closer major cities."

"We’re running low on supplies anyway."

"Even if you ignore everything else, we need water and food."

He paused.

"If you need a simpler reason to go there, use that one."

Vivi blinked.

Then smiled.

"You’re giving me an excuse so I don’t have to worry about the rest?"

Axel shrugged.

"Maybe."

He turned away.

Before Vivi could say anything else, he had already begun walking into the desert.

His plan was real.

He simply did not have much time to carry it out.

There was still one problem Axel had failed to solve.

How had the Rebel Army found them earlier?

He had considered several possibilities, but there was not enough information to reach a reliable conclusion.

Without knowing how they were being tracked, staying in one place for too long was dangerous.

So he would stop trying to outthink a trail he could not see.

He would rely on speed instead.

Axel memorized their current position and the surrounding magnetic field.

Then he moved farther away from the others.

The spot he chose faced directly into the desert wind.

He waited.

In Alabasta, he did not have to wait long.

A strong gust swept across the dunes.

Sand rose with it.

Axel caught the moving air.

Wind gathered behind him.

It thickened, twisted, and spread outward until a pair of enormous wings formed from the desert gale itself, their color blending with the sand-filled sky.

The wings beat once.

Boom!

The ground beneath Axel erupted beneath the pressure.

Yet the violent force remained perfectly controlled.

His body rose into the air.

Then the Wind Wings carried him toward Yuba.

...

Yuba Oasis had already lost most of the glory its name once carried.

Now even what remained was beginning to fall apart.

"What are you doing?!"

"Stop!"

Shouts erupted between the tents.

Hundreds of thousands of rebels occupied the area.

Without Koza’s leadership, unrest had spread quickly, and isolated fights were already breaking out among the different groups.

One confrontation had gathered a particularly large crowd.

"Dumps!"

A rebel commander glared at the man in front of him.

"What the hell are you doing?!"

Dumps stood beside a partially demolished building.

"Destroying it."

The commander stared at him.

"You’re destroying our shelter!"

His voice rose.

"Do you understand that, you bastard?!"

Dumps nodded.

"Yes."

That answer only made the man angrier.

"Then why are you doing it?!"

Dumps looked around at the surrounding rebels.

"Isn’t it obvious?"

"Leader Koza was taken by the Royal Army."

"And what are we doing?"

"Standing here."

"Guarding buildings."

"Waiting."

His voice grew louder.

"We should be rescuing our leader!"

Several rebels exchanged looks.

Dumps continued,

"I’m sure many of you have thought the same thing."

The angry commander pointed toward the damaged building.

"And how does tearing down Yuba help us rescue Koza?"

"It doesn’t."

Dumps answered without hesitation.

"But that isn’t the point."

He swept an arm toward the ruined city.

"As long as we keep treating this place like a home, we’ll keep sitting here pretending we can wait."

"We can’t."

"We’re rebels."

"The Royal Army wants us dead."

"We don’t have homes anymore."

His voice carried farther through the crowd.

"If we sit here quietly, all we’re doing is waiting for them to kill us!"

The rebels fell silent.

Dumps knew how to speak to them.

Many had already started questioning whether continuing the rebellion was worth it.

Koza was gone.

Supplies were stretched thin.

Some wanted to flee Alabasta altogether.

But flee where?

Crossing the desert alone was dangerous enough.

Crossing the borders of the country as an army of displaced rebels was another matter.

No neighboring kingdom would simply welcome hundreds of thousands of armed refugees.

Dumps pressed the point.

"We are already the Rebel Army."

"There is nowhere behind us to return to."

"So what choice remains?"

Some lowered their heads.

Others tightened their grips on their weapons.

"Reconciliation?"

Dumps scoffed.

"When Cobra used Dance Powder, did he reconcile with us?"

"Did he ask whether we wanted our wells to dry up?"

"Did he ask whether our families were allowed to live?"

The hesitation in the crowd began disappearing.

Dumps smiled inwardly.

Among all the Baroque Works agents stirring unrest throughout Yuba, he had probably achieved the fastest result.

Then an old voice tore through the crowd.

"What nonsense are you shouting?!"

Dumps’ smile vanished.

A gaunt old man pushed his way through the rebels.

No one stopped him.

In Yuba, two names carried enormous weight.

Koza.

And his father, Toto.

The thin old man was furious.

He waved his arms as he forced his way toward the center of the crowd.

"Move!"

The rebels parted respectfully.

Toto stopped in front of Dumps.

"The Royal Army would never do something like that!"

Dumps kept his expression pleasant.

Inside, he cursed.

This troublesome old man again.

Toto pointed toward him.

"The King I knew would never steal rain from his own people!"

Dumps replied smoothly,

"People change."

"You knew Cobra years ago."

"How can you guarantee he’s still the same man?"

He gestured toward the rebels around them.

"We didn’t start this rebellion for entertainment."

"We rebelled because Dance Powder stole our rain and destroyed our homes."

Toto answered immediately.

"Then someone framed him!"

His voice shook with anger.

"Cobra is not that kind of king!"

He had believed that for years.

It was because he trusted Cobra that Toto had once left Alubarna and helped build Yuba into a prosperous city.

Even after the drought destroyed almost everything, that belief had never completely disappeared.

Toto stomped his foot.

"My idiot son let himself get dragged into this rebellion."

"And now someone attacked him and blamed the Royal Family!"

"That’s what happened!"

Dumps wanted to silence him permanently.

Doing it in front of tens of thousands of rebels loyal to Koza would be suicide.

So he kept smiling.

"You can believe whatever you want."

"But two facts remain."

"Princess Vivi attacked Leader Koza."

"And afterward, Koza disappeared."

Toto’s face reddened.

He knew the story sounded terrible.

But he still refused to believe it.

One of Koza’s longtime followers stepped toward him.

"Uncle Toto."

The old man looked over.

"You should go."

"Let us handle things here."

Toto hesitated.

"But..."

Dumps seized the opening.

"Yes."

He smiled.

"Take Leader Koza’s father somewhere safe."

He emphasized the word father.

Koza’s father was respected.

But he was not Koza.

The message was obvious.

Do not let an old man’s personal feelings stop the army.

For a moment, it seemed to work.

Then the light over Yuba changed.

Shadows stretched across the ground.

Thin at first.

Then larger.

The rebels gradually looked upward.

Something was blocking the desert sun.

"What is that?"

"A bird?"

"No..."

"It looks like a person."

"That’s impossible."

A man wearing dark glasses stared upward.

His mouth slowly opened.

"No."

He swallowed.

"That really is a person."

High above Yuba, a figure hovered against the blazing sky.

Behind him spread enormous wings made from a raging desert wind.

Sand spiraled through them.

The sunlight bent around his silhouette.

To the people below, it looked less like a man flying and more like the desert itself had grown wings.

Someone whispered,

"A god...?"

No one answered.

They did not know what a god looked like.

But whatever was floating above them did not look ordinary.

Axel looked down at the densely packed Rebel Army.

From this height, the people below resembled countless black dots scattered across the sand.

Then he spoke.

"I’m the one who took Koza."

His voice rolled across Yuba.

Not shouted.

Carried.

The wind spread it through the entire settlement.

The effect was immediate.

"What?!"

"He took Leader Koza?"

"Wasn’t it the Royal Army?"

"Who is that guy?"

"Is he with the palace?"

Confusion spread like fire.

Most of the rebels were shocked.

The Baroque Works agents hidden among them were furious.

Their operation had almost succeeded.

Now someone had appeared from the sky and shattered the story they had spent hours building.

They reacted quickly.

"He’s from the Royal Army!"

"Shoot him down!"

"They’ve come to crush the rebellion!"

The shouts spread from several directions.

It did not matter that the agents themselves had no idea who Axel was.

He was interfering with their plan.

That made him an enemy.

If they could get the surrounding rebels to believe he represented the Royal Family, his words would become meaningless.

Axel hovered only around a hundred meters above the ground.

Well within rifle range.

Guns rose.

Bang!

Bang! Bang! Bang!

A storm of bullets climbed toward him.

Axel barely moved.

He swept one hand sideways.

The Wind Wings behind him followed.

Boom!

A violent gust tore through the air.

The incoming bullets stopped.

Then reversed.

The same wind crashed downward into the rebels.

Sand exploded.

Hundreds of men were ripped from their feet and thrown across the ground.

Axel deliberately limited the force.

Even so, the sight was enough.

The gunfire stopped.

No one seemed eager to try again.

Axel looked down once more.

"Koza isn’t dead."

The entire crowd listened.

"Not yet, anyway."

He paused.

"I’m taking him to Rainbase."

His crimson eyes swept across the rebels below.

"If you want him back..."

"Come get him."

The Wind Wings beat.

Axel shot across the sky.

No one on the ground could stop him.

Hundreds of thousands of rebels simply watched as his figure vanished into the desert.

For several seconds, Yuba remained silent.

Then the questions began.

"He said Koza is alive!"

"Do we believe him?"

"Why Rainbase?"

"Who was that?"

"Was he really from the Royal Army?"

The camp immediately fell back into confusion.

Toto stared toward the direction Axel had disappeared.

"Koza..."

Something thoughtful appeared in his eyes.

Then he turned away.

While everyone else argued, Toto returned to what he had always done.

Digging.

Searching beneath Yuba for water.

For the tiny hope that the city might still live again.

Dumps stood among the rebels with his fists clenched.

Damn it.

The operation had failed.

Completely.

The entire purpose had been to drive the Rebel Army toward Alubarna.

Now Axel had given hundreds of thousands of angry, leaderless rebels a completely different destination.

Rainbase.

Dumps forced the irritation from his face.

He turned toward the surrounding men.

"Are we really going to trust some unidentified stranger who appeared from the sky?"

One rebel hesitated.

"I don’t know if I trust him."

He looked toward the horizon.

"But if Koza might be in Rainbase, I want to go."

Someone else nodded.

"Crocodile is there too."

At that name, several rebels visibly relaxed.

"Lord Crocodile protects Rainbase."

"Maybe he can help us."

"Maybe he’ll know what to do."

The thought spread rapidly.

And as it did, the direction of the Rebel Army began to change.

Not toward Alubarna.

Toward Rainbase.

....

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