Author's note: this is a sequel to Deeper Than the Sea; however, you do not need to have read that to understand this.

Deeper Than the World

Prologue

A man sat in his living room, smoking a cigar and tapping his finger on the coffee table impatiently. He held the phone to his ear with his shoulder.

"So," said a timid voice on the other end of the line, "Kuro?"

"Yes, Kuro." The man's tone was low; dangerous.

"But…wasn't he your favorite agent?"

"He was careless—and was thwarted by a mere gaggle of teens."

There was a gulp from the other end of the line. "Did you have a…preference? As to the method?"

"Just have it done by morning, and know that if it even comes close to being traced I will personally see to it that you never see another day."

The man hung up then. He leaned back into the couch and took a heavy drag from the cigar.

VVVVVVVVV

The village of Fuchsia, in the northern state of Maine of the United States of America, right by the Canadian border, was not a well-known or exciting location. It was half village—whose existence was supported by a single farmer's pumpkin crops—and half extensive school system, which was known as WG Institute and educated all village children from elementary school through college.

Neither Fuchsia nor WG Institute could be located on maps or guidebooks, so the only outsiders that encountered the village was the odd hiker that embarked on a certain mountain trail that went straight through the little village.

Fuchsia was a lot of things, but most would have said that exciting was certainly not one of them. This was until a day in late October when the village woke up and discovered that a great many things had happened overnight.

There was the fact that overnight, the gossip mill had a great many things to say about Luffy D Monkey, Zoro Roronoa, Nami Mikan, Usopp S King, Sanji Prince, Vivi Nefertari and Chopper T Tony. There was much juicy information available about their personal lives that had not been previously, and the gossips of Fuchsia would have leapt for joy if not for the fact that there were even bigger revelations that had been made overnight.

Like the fact that reliable, proper, polite Mr. Krahadore was actually named Kuro, and was a fugitive from the small Caribbean nation of Alabasta—wanted for murder. He had attempted to kill Kaya Syrup, whose legal guardian he had been, and take her substantial fortune. His attempts had been thwarted by the aforementioned group of seven, though no two accounts agreed on exactly how this had occurred.

As if this was not enough, there was news that long-time swimming coach Arlong was resigning. However, the rumor mill dictated that he had only resigned because he had known he would be fired—for what was another case where each telling of the tale said something different.

So it was that for a week or so, all talk in Fuchsia revolved around these exciting events.

However, by the first week of November, Kuro was to be shipped to Alabasta and nothing else particularly exciting had occurred; the rumors slowed to a trickle, and people resumed their ordinary lives.

Then, on the morning of the day when Kuro was to be sent off, Mr. Gen—local police chief—went to his jail cell to escort him to the car and found him dead.

He had been killed by a single, precise blow to the back of the head. Yet the attacker and weapon were nowhere to be found in a room that was perfectly sealed with the only existing keys belonging to Mr. Gen.

Once again, the gossip mill went wild.