#Usopp: I will from now on only trust the plants I made

[charkyzombicorn]

God au

How did luffy and usopp react to smile fruits

Badly.

Luffy didn't get it at first but once he understood Why they were all smiling, he thought it was horrendous. Luckily, there's one god that can strip away devil fruits and their curses so can definitely get rid of Smile fruit curses!

Luffy brings Chopper to start healing as many people as he can, it's slow, Chopper has to go one at a time and be very particular because if he isn't he could warp some DNA and yeah it could be cool and give you three arms or 6 colour cones but it could also give you so many types of cancer which is its own thing Chopper has to fix and there's a Lot of DNA

Usopp thought it was cool at first - humans making their own devil fruits. Thought it was interesting. Then he saw the effects, and started killing all plants not made by him. He can't trust them. Sanji does get pissed off by this because there are a lot of food plants humans made and they get into an argument over it. This slows down the seizing of SMILE production

[kingsragesqueal]

someone already made a post like this and i don't mean to copy them but i find myself thinking about it kind of a lot so i'm gonna do one piece character animal crossing headcanons!!

Luffy: loves catching bugs and fishing, like it's definitely his favorite part of the game. he likes all the villagers and doesn't rlly have much of a preference, though he does rlly like the Lazy villagers bc he finds them very funny (and relatable). he doesn't care if he gets ugly villagers bc he doesn't care about character designs that much. he can't decorate his island or house for shit and just places items wherever with no theme or structure. doesn't use paths and puts waterfalls in random ass locations bc he thinks they're pretty. he's never gotten above a 3 star rating but he rlly doesn't care, though he is jealous that his friends get to have cool gold flowers

Zoro: loves the Jock animals for obvious reasons. doesn't care much about decorating his island or home like Luffy, but he is a bit more put together about it than him. his house is just a personal gym and he doesn't have wardrobes or closets bc he doesn't care what he's wearing. always forgets to use his net when shaking trees and ends up getting stung by wasps. constantly buying and crafting medicine. manages to get lost on his own island and often has to use the Rescue app, but he gets rlly grumpy and indignant when this happens. gets lost on his friend's islands too even if they're guiding him or they have clear pathways laid out.

Nami: takes getting that ca$h money v seriously. constantly planting money trees, hitting rocks, shaking trees, etc. doesn't trust Tom Nook as far as she can throw him. hates that u can't haggle with Timmy and Tommy or the Able Sisters on prices but still has a full wardrobe of cute outfits. she has orange trees behind her house and sells them in bulk. her house is lavishly decorated inside and out and she has the money and gold flooring. worked her ass off to get a 5 star island so she could have gold tools and flowers and likes to give (paid) tours to her friends to show off. she likes villagers w/ big personalities and cute/fun designs. rlly loves Tangy and other cat villagers. decorates her island w/ pride stuff and loves the fact that nintendo doesn't censor lgbt+ stuff

Usopp: like Luffy, fishing and catching bugs is his favorite part. absolutely loves popping balloons. goes thru a LOT of slingshots. loves crafting tools and furniture and would rather craft things than buy them. gets rlly excited when he catches a new type of bug and takes it personally when Blathers is repulsed by them. his island's name is Sniper Island and his character is a brave warrior of the sea who fears no tarantula. loves that there are natural hair options. doesn't rlly have a preference for villagers, though he doesn't care much for the Snobby villagers. would lay down his life for Merry. he loves when Flick comes to visit and has a ton of bug models decorating his house. he feels like he and Flick understand each other on a spiritual level.

Sanji: honestly wasn't even interested in ac until the 2.0 update when he found out u could cook now and kind of flipped his shit. loves the fact that u have to gather recipes and ingredients and the fact that u can make gourmet shit. doesn't like fishing but does a lot of it bc he likes having fish to cook. made his island one huge outdoor restaurant with lots of fancy tables, chairs, signs, mood lighting, etc. he doesn't like the Jock villagers bc they remind him of Zoro. prefers female villagers. always wears a suit and hates crafting things, would rather buy them from the shop. has a fondness for the mice villagers.

Chopper: can't decide between keeping his island in a perpetual state of winter or keeping his switch set to April so he can have cherry blossoms. rlly hates that u can only have sakura trees in April and wishes they were available year round. loves crafting medicine and giving it to villagers who are sick. he always has far more medicine in his pockets than is necessary, but insists it's better to be prepared. absolutely loves the fact that u can redeem ur miles for a cotton candy machine, but is a little sad that u can't actually eat the cotton candy. he loves Fauna; she's his favorite villager hands down. actually kind of likes villagers who are a little mean to him bc they remind him of Doctorine. gets excited about discovering new species of wildlife but feels guilty for scaring Blathers when he donates bugs and always whispers a little apology under his breath.

Robin: her island is very chill and relaxed. she has lots of bookshelves and fossils as decorations. absolutely loves digging up fossils and is very happy when she completes a dinosaur/prehistoric creature for the museum. the museum is her favorite place in the game and she spends a lot of time there looking at specimens and enjoying the calm music that plays. feels a little bad for bothering Blathers so much by waking him up and scaring him w/ bugs, but she finds his reactions very cute so she doesn't feel TOO bad. absolutely loves that u can decorate ur island with ancient ruins. she uses vines and statues a lot. she works hard to make her island look nice and have the aesthetic she wants but doesn't stress out over it bc in the end it's a game, and games are supposed to be fun. secretly ships Blathers and Brewster.

Franky: loves crafting and spends most of his time building shit. runs out of materials frequently. decorates his island to be loud and proud; lots of neon lights and colors and flashy things. kind of a retro 80's vibe going on but with futuristic elements. loves how the villagers of the island, Isabelle and Tom Nook all come together and act like a big family sometimes. maybe cried a little when he got a personal concert from KK and nice letters from the animals on his birthday ("maybe a little" meaning "definitely a lot"). loves KK Slider and rlly digs the vibes he has going on and collects his music. all in all just very Extra in the best way.

Brook: thinks the game is very cute and funny and plays it to relax while sipping some tea. loves the fact that u can actually play instruments in the game and has an entire orchestra in his house. his favorite villager is Lucky and he wants to protect him. decorates his island with instruments and tea settings. is scared of the skeleton that throws it's arms up when u touch it. it surprises him every time, no matter how many times it happens. gets a kick out of the fact that u can actually use the toilet and does it frequently just for kicks. always washes his hands afterwards ofc bc he is a Gentleman. wishes there were whale villagers but understands how that might be weird/hard to design. he isn't interested in island ratings bc he just plays as a hobby, not to achieve anything. also loves Blathers' little bowtie.

[itsthemoofacewriting]

Amongst the trees

So. I’ve been having horrible writers block, the worst I’ve ever had, but then I saw b00giewara’s art on twitter. It’s so soft and pretty that finally, my mind and fingers ran. (Also, just the thought of post time skip Sanji in Water 7 outfit has me foaming at the mouth).

This sits in the same universe as Potato Peeling, for no reason other than I want it to.

Summary: On a lazy afternoon, there was nothing Sanji would rather be doing than helping Nami with her trees. Rating: T. Slightly suggestive. 

This can also be found on AO3 and FFN. 

Enjoy!

Sanji had been in the kitchen for a few hours already. Everyone had been fed for breakfast and lunch (Luffy a few more times since between then) and he’d used the lulls in-between to do his weekly inventory. He’d made more progress after lunch, only pausing to serve drinks.

The pantry was done, which took the most amount of time, and he was just about to wrap up with the fridge. As much as he didn’t mind doing the inventory, sometimes it was a nice quiet task, today he felt a bit restless. It was a beautiful day, sunny with the occasional soft breeze that took the edge off from the heat and he’d much rather be out there for once than in the kitchen counting supplies. It was his own fault really; he’d decided to do this.

However he quickly found a good reason to leave when he noticed the mikans were starting to look a bit low.

And thinking about mikans, naturally his mind drifted over to Nami. Which then lead to him thinking about how he hadn’t seen or heard Nami for a few hours either. It wasn’t overly unusual, during the day they both had things that had to be done but considering the lull- it was strange.

Poking his head out of the kitchen door and looking out onto the deck, there was no sign of her. Luffy, Chopper and Usopp were fishing, Franky was tinkering with something, Brook was down for his afternoon nap, he could hear Mosshead’s obnoxiously loud weights from the crow’s nest and Robin was sunbathing. But the sun lounger next to her was empty.

Nami’d mentioned in the morning that she’d wanted to catch up on her maps. Perhaps she was using the quiet afternoon to do that. He’d give her a tiny bit longer so that he didn’t distract her from her maps, but if she hadn’t appeared by the time he was finished, he would take a drink to her and coax her into a break.

With that in mind, he grabbed an empty wicker basket from the pantry and climbed up the ladder to the upper deck.

It was peaceful up there, only the soft wind and distant sound of the crew from the lawn deck could be heard. At first, he’d thought the humming sound was from the crew, it sounded far away, but the closer he got to the mikan trees, the louder it got, and he was starting to piece together where Nami actually was.

It was confirmed when he reached the trees and turned to see Nami bent over and doing something with the soil on the furthest tree from him. She hadn’t seen him yet, too engrossed, and angled away from him. He may have used the opportunity to gawk at her a bit. He may have also taken a few quiet steps to the side so he could get a good view of her behind. But they were together now, so it was acceptable.

“Taking in the view?” She asked, glancing over her shoulder at him and belatedly he realised the humming had stopped. Of course he couldn’t sneak up on the cat thief herself.

“It’d be rude not to.” And even though he’d been caught red handed, he still tilted his head like he hadn’t.

She shook her head at his antics, and his view was cruelly taken away from him as she stood to walk over to him. He could hardly sulk when it was replaced with her sunny smile.

“What brings you into my neck of the woods then?” She asked, taking off a gardening glove to brush a piece of hair out of the way. He wasn’t quite sure why she ever bothered with gloves, she always ended up covered in soil, something that was proven now with the stains on her dungarees.

“We’re getting low on mikans, so I thought I’d take advantage of the good weather to come pick some.” He caught her bare hand in his to press a kiss on the back in greeting, lingering for a second being letting her hand go.

Her cheeks pinked. “Great minds think alike. The weather’s perfect for taking a bit of time out for the trees,” she explained fondly. It was no secret amongst any of them how much they meant to her or how much she enjoyed doing this.

“What are you doing right now?”

“Well, Usopp gave me some compost for the soil, so with that done I’m moving onto pruning.” She’d turned to face the trees, already pinpointing branches and leaves that needed to be taken off. “Want to help? I think I saw Usopp’s shears somewhere around here.”

That was the last thing he’d expected her to ask him, and he was a bit stunned by it, so all he could muster up was a nod as he went in search for the shears.

It wasn’t entirely new territory. He’d helped her with her tress countless times. Held the basket, pointed out fruit she may have missed or perhaps a bad twig that needed to go; it was always assistant work.

Having his own set of shears was a whole new playing field.  

As far as he was aware, no one helped with cutting her trees, not even Usopp or Robin and they were the other green thumbs on board. He’d never been bitter or offended by it, it was no secret how much these trees meant to her and he’d respected that.

But this. This new ground made him a bit giddy, how far they’d come since knowing each other and especially since they’d got together. How much she was trusting him. He was more than aware of how big this was.

He quickly found the extra set of shears from where she’d said they’d be and joined her back at the trees, his basket long forgotten.

“Show me what to do, I don’t want to mess this up.” Whilst he was still giddy, he was gradually getting more and more nervous. This was important and he didn’t want to screw it up. He felt like he was keeping his cool on the outside though as he stood next to her, even if he felt like he was about to have a meltdown internally.

Perhaps he wasn’t being that smooth with the knowing look Nami gave him, but she soon eyed his jacket instead. “Firstly, I think you need to look more the part. Let’s lose the jacket, you don’t want to mess that up.”

He followed her command, taking off his jacket and draping it across the railing. It was a pleasant enough day that he wasn’t worried about it being lost to the sea.

“Let’s leave the waistcoat on,” she said, trying to look innocent but he saw straight through it, although he was more than happy to let her have her way. “And the tie, it might come in handy later. But we could roll up the sleeves.”

Before he could do that himself, her hands were at his wrists, nimbly undoing the button and rolling the fabric up to his elbows. Despite the warm weather, goosebumps erupted along his forearms as her fingers grazed along the skin. They’d been together for a few months now, so touch was nothing new between them, but he wasn’t sure he’d ever get used to the casual touches he shared with her now. Don’t get him wrong, everything about their relationship was exciting to him, but it was the simplest touches and how comfortable she was around him that pleased him the most.

“That’s better.” She nodded to herself, hands lingering on his arms before pulling away and taking the shears out from one of her pockets.

“Thank you.” He smiled down at her tenderly and the flush she’d just managed to get rid of bloomed across her cheeks again. He found it adorable how the softest gestures flustered her the most.

“Right,” Nami said, clearing her throat and focusing back on the trees, “it’s quite simple actually. Cut any branches that are damaged, unhealthy or crossing over one another.”

“Like this one?” He pointed out a withered branch.

“Yes!” She confirmed brightly. “If in doubt, it probably needs to go, otherwise you wouldn’t have noticed it.”

He nodded in understanding and with that, they both started pruning. Nami had left him to have a tree all to himself as she worked on the one beside his. She moved confidently, barely batting an eyelid as she snipped away. He, on the other hand, moved more cautiously, considering each branch before cutting it off. She said not to overthink it, but he couldn’t not. He wanted to do a good job; he’d been entrusted with a whole tree.  

A few branches in and his free hand was becoming full of branches he’d cut off. He glanced to the side, wondering where Nami was putting hers. She must have read his mind, because she met his curious gaze, smiled, and moved a basket between the trees they were both working on.

“Throw anything you chop off into the basket. Usopp likes them so he can add it to the compost he makes,” she informed him.  

Sanji snorted at that, of course Usopp did. He wondered if the three green thumbs on board traded tips.

“Which, by the way, I’m pretty sure he’s sneaking coffee out of the pantry to use for his plants and to add to the compost,” she breezily informed him, already knowing what reaction she’d get from him.

“I knew it!” He said, outraged. His inventory checks had been off for ages and he’d been trying to figure out where the extra coffee had been going. “Now I have to fight Luffy off from the fridge and Usopp from the pantry. The one place I thought was safe.”

Nami laughed at his turmoil. “I’ll adjust the budget.”

He smiled at her gratefully for that.

They descended back into silence after that, and it was nice. It was just as relaxing as some of his tasks in the kitchen, but with the added bonus of fresh air and the sun warming his skin. He’d also say the company, but she spent a fair amount of time in there with him now anyway. But it was a nice change of pace to partake in one of her activities together for a change.

Nami’s hands didn’t falter as she softly broke the silence, “The first few weeks after leaving Cocoyasi village, I thought I was going to lose the trees, the constant change in weather made it hard to look after them.”

Sanji was silent as he let the information wash over him, it’d never crossed him mind before, but now he thought about it, it made perfect sense. “I never thought of that,” he said in awe.  

Nami hummed in agreement and shook her head. “Me either! Normally in the winter they need more care and, in the summer, less, but with the fluctuating weather they were all over the place.”

He cut away another branch, throwing it into the basket before moving around the tree. He tilted his head to indicate he was still listening.

Nami continued, “It took a bit of figuring out and by the time I could get a book on it, I’d already figured it out. They’re like temperamental children, I just had to keep my eye on them a bit more than normal.”

Of course she’d figured it out, she was one of the smartest people he knew. “I’m glad you worked it out, the ship would look empty without them.”

“Me too, I don’t think I would’ve dealt with it very well back then if I’d lost them. Everything’d changed so suddenly back then but they were a constant for me, it helped having them.”

He frowned at that; he could only imagine how stressful that must’ve been, but she’d never said anything.

“Not to worry though, it resolved itself and now look at us,” she said, trying to ease the look of concern on his face and changed the topic swiftly, “You’ve done a good job.” She looked at the tree critically but nodded to herself.

She stepped forward and cut off a few additional branches that he’d hesitated over. “Maybe a bit overly cautious, but I knew you would be, that’s why I let you have the shears.”

He beamed at her praise and they moved onto the final tree, working on opposite sides until whatever they could reach was done. They both stepped back, proudly taking in the much neater trees, until they looked up.

“Any chance you’re tall enough to reach the top?”

He wanted to say yes so badly but as he eyed the height, he knew he wouldn’t be able to without actually scaling the tree. “Sorry Nami-san, I don’t think so.”

“Don’t worry, I knew it was a stretch.” She put her hand on his arm in understanding and looked up at the trees. “Bell-mère used to stand us on her shoulders to reach the higher branches she wanted to prune or pick off the fruit. She said it was good for us to learn, but I’m convinced she just didn’t want to haul the stool around with her.”

He laughed with her at that and briefly imagined how adorable the sight would have been until an idea came to mind. He crouched down in front of her and when all she did was blink at him, confusion written all over her face, he elaborated, “I can’t offer to stand you on my shoulders, but I can do this.” He patted a shoulder, trying to encourage her.

She was silent for a moment, stunned at the offer. “As much as I trust you and don’t doubt your strength whatsoever, are you sure you’re up for this?” She asked cautiously.

“Huh?” He blinked at her.

“My thighs are about to be either side of your head. I don’t want to brain myself on the deck when you go down like a sack of potatoes,” she deadpanned, eyebrow raised as she looked down at him.

“It wouldn’t be the first time my head’s been there,” he quipped, leering up at her, eyebrows wiggling suggestively.

She barked a laugh, hand slapping his shoulder half-heartedly in retribution but overall, she was too amused to be angry.

It took a bit of more reassurance to convince her, but as soon as he’d convinced her, he positioned himself and helped her get onto his shoulders. He smoothly rose to his feet, barely wobbling.

Hands down it was the best decision he’d never made. If he could assure Nami’s safety, he could die happily right now. There was so much of her everywhere. Her thighs snuggly sat either side of his head, he could feel the slightest brush of her breasts against the top of his head and her hands were in his hair whilst she adjusted to the new position.

“You okay down there?” She asked, half amused and half cautious, testing the waters to make sure he was okay.

“More than okay,” he replied happily, tilting his head to the side to pillow into her thigh. She was so soft; he was in heaven.

Nami snorted above him, shaking her head and tentatively removed her hands from his hair. When he stood solid, she reclaimed the shears from her pocket and started to snip again.

Before they could dip into silence, he asked, “How often did you tend to the trees together when you were younger?” He loved hearing about her childhood with Bell-mère and took any opportunity to ask about it.

Nami was more than happy to share. “We had a big orchard, so it was almost daily. It could be pruning, picking fruit, or tending to the soil. Although, me and Nojiko spent more time running through it playing games, not so much helping.”

His hand stroked up and down her calf absently, encouraging her to continue whilst he listened. He moved to the side after noticing she’d finished with a section before she had to ask.

“We definitely over pruned when we did help, but she never scolded us,” she continued, throwing a branch down into the basket at Sanji’s feet. “After that she just kept a sharper eye on us.

“Sounds nice.”

“It was,” Nami agreed, “I always ended up covered in dust and dirt. Kind of like now actually, not a lot has changed it seems.”

“It suits you.” And it was the truth. Whether she was in skimpy bikinis or dirtied dungarees, she was the most attractive person he’d ever laid eyes on.

They moved onto the last tree and by now the bucket was almost overflowing with branches and leaves. Usopp would be thrilled, no doubt.

“She sounded like an amazing woman,” he said after a moment, letting the stories Nami had told him of her Mum play in a loop in his head. In a different world, he wished he could’ve met her, to see how similar they both were and see that part of her life.

She didn’t need any prompting to understand what he was talking about. “She was,” Nami agreed, voice filled with warmth. “She’d have loved you -little to the left-” and he took a step to the left, “-she would’ve seen your smooth talk coming a mile away, mind you, but she’d have found it amusing.”

“Like Mother like daughter,” he quipped, squeezing her calf teasingly. Nami gave a snort above him and muttered something he didn’t catch, but continued, “I’d have loved to cook with her.”

“She never would’ve let you leave.”

“I have no complaints about that.” Her home sounded like it held so much warmth, Sanji thought to himself.  

“What about you?” She asked, trying to sound confident but there was a waver in her voice. Sanji found it sweet, after all this time she didn’t want to bring up that part of his life. He didn’t mind, especially with her.

“Well, Zeff you’ll win over easily. He tries to deny it, but he has a soft spot for women too. He’ll just spend his time trying to embarrass me instead.” The day would come, he knew it, but for now he was safe. “I don’t remember a great deal of my Mum; I was too young. But I have no doubt that she would’ve loved you too. She was kind like you.”

“See, it’s that smooth talk that would’ve won you brownie points.”

“Even with you?”

“How do you think we got here?”

He couldn’t see her, but he knew she had that smart look on her face that he adored, and he rested his head back on her stomach. If she hadn’t been on his shoulders right now, he definitely would’ve pulled her into a hug.

“Okay, I’m done.” Her hands were back in his hair, shears stowed away in her pocket.

In a similar fashion to convincing her to get on his shoulders, it also took some persuasion on how to get her back down. They went back and forth, until Nami finally agreed (“If you drop me” “Never, Nami-san”) and then she was sliding over his one shoulder, wrapping her arms around his neck, and falling into his outstretched arms. To his credit, he stood solid.

“Reminds you of old times, huh?” He cheeked, beaming down at her in his arms.

“At least I didn’t have to fall through the air this time.”

He let her down onto her feet and he expected her to move away, onto the next task but she didn’t move. Instead, her hands dusted over his shoulders, trying to take off any soil that had transferred from her dungarees.

“It’s been a while since you’ve worn this shirt. I like it.” Her hands smoothed across his shoulders, feeling the texture of his orange pinstripe shirt and the way it fit him snugly. He’d filled out in the crew’s two-year gap, so where it used to fit loosely, it sat tighter across his shoulders. He would throw it away, because really, he knew he was pushing his luck getting into it, but when she reacted like that, he was more tempted to never take it off.

“I like your dungarees,” he said softly, his hand fingered the denim straps as hers rested at his waist. There were dirt stains littered across them, but there was something quite charming about that. Although that might just be because of the person wearing them more than anything.

His hand moved from the strap of her dungaree and swept an errant lock away from her neck, his hand filling the empty space, thumb soothing across her pale skin. The quiet, the rustling of the trees and their afternoon spent together all added to the atmosphere until it had them leaning in closer.

They’d done this so many times before that they read each other like a well-oiled machine. Her hands tightened on his waistcoat and he was going left as she went right until their lips met in the middle. It was slow, unhurried, like they had all the time in the world and really, they did. It felt like they did anyway as they embraced, with only the gentle breeze accompanying them on the upper deck.

They parted slowly, and in his case reluctantly, but the feeling soon passed when he opened his eyes to the sight before him. Nami looked truly relaxed, face nothing but content, half lidded eyes looking back at him and wind playing with her orange hair.

That soon changed when he leaned back into kiss her and was promptly denied. Gone was the serene expression, in its place were alluring, teasing eyes. The sudden shift would give anyone else whiplash, but Sanji knew what that look meant- it would only end well for him.

Her hand was on his tie, taking a step out of his embrace and promptly turning on her heel. She pulled him after her, which she didn’t really need to do because he was glued to her back in an instead, but he’d be lying if he said it wasn’t a turn on.

They didn’t go very far, only walking around the trees to occupy the gap between the trees and the main mast. In all honestly, Sanji had never really taken notice of it before, but he was glad for its existence when she pressed him up against the mast and heavily leaned into him. His body pinned between it and hers.

It was intimate and if anybody wondered up there, they’d be hard to spot. She positioned herself between his legs, something he more than encouraged as he made more space for her there.

If Sanji thought she looked breath-taking before, it was nothing compared to the angelic beauty before him now. The sun filtering through the trees casted her in a golden halo and her hair looked like molten gold, oozing around her, and making her look otherworldly. She was surrounded by orange blossoms and it was the perfect backdrop to encapsulate her, she belonged there.

Sanji wanted to burn the moment into his brain but Nami had other ideas.

Their next kiss was anything but slow, it was full of purpose. It was the kind of kiss they usually shared in private, not for someone to stumble upon by accident, but he definitely wasn’t going to complain. He matched her enthusiasm, lips sliding against each other’s and his hands found themselves in the back pocket of her dungarees as hers burrowed themselves into his hair.

“Good spot, right?” She murmured, not waiting for a response before reconnecting their lips.

If he’d had the chance the response, he wasn’t sure he’d have been able to actually verbalize his agreement. He was dazed, head spinning, trying to keep up, and although they’d done this a million times before and more, he didn’t think he’d ever be over it.

Although they couldn’t start anything out here, his body didn’t seem to know that as he shifted, ready to roll his hips into hers and hopefully progress to the bedroom if they could make it there undetected, until he felt something press into thigh.

“Is that shears in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?”

It was a stupid joke, and it ruined the mood, but it was worth is when Nami broke into peeling laughter. Instead of throwing her head back, she burrowed into the crease of his neck, smothering her laughter so they didn’t attract attention. His arms left her back pockets, winding around her waist, pulling her into a hug instead. It wasn’t what he wanted, but they wind this down.  

“That was such a stupid joke,” she said as she started to calm down.

“Yeah, it was,” he said fondly, still soaking in the warmth of her laugh.

“Although I suppose we should stop, otherwise you’ll be in a similar predicament and I still have things to do.”

“Me too.” He looked up at the sky and from the way it was starting to descend, he knew he should really start thinking about dinner. Except neither of them moved, but Nami did rest her hands more causally around his shoulders, matching his hold on her.  

“Didn’t pick much fruit in the end, huh?” She joked, looking off to the side at the empty, abandoned basket.

He’d completely forgotten why he’d gone up there in the first place. “This is much better than what I’d expected.”

“Because you had your head between my legs?”

His eyes lit up and his grip tightened on her hips. “One of the perks, of course.”

“Maybe we could do something similar in my room later,” she suggested, in a provocative whisper, leaning closer.  

This woman. She was everything he ever wanted. He didn’t give a verbal answer, he was pretty sure he couldn’t without wheezing a few times, but his enthusiastic nodding got the point across well enough, and it made her grin.

She rewarded him for his candour with a slow kiss that was over far too quickly for his liking.

“You free tomorrow? I can probably pencil you in for some fruit picking.”

“You’re too kind, Nami-san. Making time for lowly me in your busy schedule.”

“I’m nothing if not kind, Sanju-kun,” she agreed, winking at him. “Right, I really do have to go, see you after dinner?”

She was out of his arms and walking away before he could reply, grabbing the basket full of branches to sit at her hip as she went.

She knew the answer anyway- it was potato peeling night after all.

----------------------------------------

Urrrrrrrrrgh. I am so soft for these two, they’re so much fun to write being all soft and in love. This was so self-indulgent, and the story doubled in length because of it.

Usopp, Robin and Nami definitely get together to talk about plants/flowers.

I based my research on orange trees, so if there’s some differences, don’t come at me.

For some reason, my writers block has really exaggerated my imposters syndrome, so if this wasn’t your cup of tea, please keep it to yourself. Not sure I could handle it right now.

Also, just to tease because I’m definitely going to finish them, I had two other pieces planned for SaNami week before the writer’s block, they’ll be on the way.

As always, please excuse any errors.

Thanks for reading.

[thekytchensynk]

Ain’t No Picnic (7/9)

Summary: They were just supposed to head over to the island real quick, just to see what was going on. After all, if pirates were trying to ambush and kill the Straw Hat crew, how could Coby NOT go? And how could Helmeppo let him go alone? It should be simple enough, but nothing can be taken for granted in the New World, and when things go awry, Helmeppo finds himself separated from his captain on an island chain full of pirates who probably won’t be too happy to see a Marine if their paths cross.Oh yeah. And one of those pirates is the infamous “Surgeon of Death,” Trafalgar Law… Warnings: Occasional strong language Read it on AO3

__________

As they approached, Helmeppo heard someone shout out another line of words. This was followed a few seconds later by explosions, off to their left.

“This is a … sniper?” Helmeppo asked. It sounded more like a small artillery unit crossed with a demented gardener.

Law’s answer took so long to arrive that Helmeppo half thought the man wasn’t going to answer. “I guess maybe that’s not exactly right,” he amended. “But it’s the easiest way to put it. Let me go first.”

They stepped around a cluster of three massive leaves, Helmeppo letting Law lead the way. On the other side, they found a dark-skinned young man with a truly massive slingshot in hand. His sodden clothes and damp hair suggested he’d also taken at least one dunking today, and somewhat recently. He must have figured out the same thing Law had, then. He watched growing smoke plumes about half a mile off through a pair of goggles, a look of grim satisfaction on his face.

“Nose-ya,” Law said as he approached. His voice startled the sniper, who hopped in surprise and whirled on the pair. “Where is he?”

The sniper’s face told a whole story -- from relief at seeing it was someone he recognized to surprise at seeing a second person behind Law, to a searching glance away from them, off in the direction of the smoke plumes, as he considered the question. Whatever their relationship, apparently the guy trusted that if Helmeppo were a problem, Law wouldn’t have allowed him over here. Which … fair. So rather than asking the obvious question himself, he just said, “A little under a mile that way. I don’t know what exactly is going on, but I think they could use you.”

“Something wrong?”

“Maybe. Something’s going on near her tank. Everything I try gets intercepted. And Luffy should have already ended this. For some reason they can’t get to her and it’s hamstringing them.” Frustration weighed down his words. His attention kept going to the horizon, though there was too much distance and foliage for him to be seeing a mile off clearly. Haki. Definitely.

“And everyone else?”

The sniper looked like he wanted to protest the query, then thought the better of it. “Beppo was over there last I knew.” he pointed at about two o’clock from where he’d said Luffy was. “Shachi, Penguin, Franky and a couple others went back to protect the ships, in case they got rushed. Brook is with Luffy. Nami and Robin are with Chopper on one of the other islands.” He idly pointed in the direction of the stormclouds. “Zoro and Sanji both keep moving. For different reasons I assume.” He added the last partly under his breath.

Helmeppo couldn’t help it. “And Coby?”

For the first time, the sniper looked directly at Helmeppo, studying his bedraggled state. Then his eyes slid over toward Law, asking a question he didn’t want heard.

“That guy who showed up right before the island swallowed everyone,” Law clarified.

“Ah.” He looked off toward the battle’s center again, then back to Helmeppo. “Can’t be sure, but I think he’s up there too. Not too many people just hopping around in the sky, and I know the other one.”

Some internal spring that had been wound so tight for so long that Helmeppo had stopped even noticing it relaxed at that. So he’s still alive and fighting. He’s OK.

“Thanks,” he said, trying to pass it off as nonchalant. But this close, he could see the guy’s eyes through the lenses of his goggles. And in those eyes, he saw two things. First, the sniper was not buying his tone.

And second, the guy understood. Understood the relief of knowing a friend was safe, and understood the need to pretend that things were otherwise.

So- “Thanks,” Helmeppo said again, and this time it sounded like he meant it.

“I’ll cover you guys if you’re going in,” the sniper said. “Oh, and here.” He tossed something small, one to Law and then, after a brief hesitation, one to Helmeppo. Helmeppo glanced at the item -- a clear capsule with something green inside. Green and squirming. “Snap it if you need to get some distance. And cover your ears, I haven’t had much of a chance to test them yet.” He grinned.

Helmeppo pocketed the item, still a little unnerved that the guy was just accepting his presence -- and honestly still weirded out that Law hadn’t just ditched him once they got back here. Grateful, sure, but also very weirded out.

The pair moved through the ruined undergrowth in the rough direction of the first battlefield. The fighting must have been intense, and the ammunition types the Straw Hat sniper -- God Usopp, wasn’t it? -- used were doing it no favors. Large patches were open all the way down to the dark water,the surface littered with little torn bits of plant material. Massive leaves had been knocked over, letting the sun beat down on their path. Unconscious pirates lay here and there, often with no visible damage. Helmeppo tried not to be too impressed with the pirate, and maybe it was the stress of the day or the heat of the sun, but he was finding it difficult once again.

Despite the story not getting out to the public at large, Helmeppo had heard a fair amount from gossip around headquarters. Of a guy using a slingshot to out-shoot the crew’s guns from the top of one of the towers. If this was him -- the guy who’d shot the World Government flag, the one with apparently superhuman range as he protected Nico Robin -- well, he was glad they were on the same side for now.

Now and then, something would go whizzing past them, close but not too close, and something would explode or erupt ahead of them, and dismayed pirate voices would shout. And thus, Law and Helmeppo made it to the main battlefield without actually having to fight anyone else. Helmeppo wasn’t about to look a gift horse in the mouth.

The battlefield featured far fewer combatants than it had earlier, but that just made the specific clashes easier to see. There seemed to be two big knots -- one by the mermaid’s tank, which still stood where it had been before and one all the way across the clear area. Like the last time he’d arrived on this battlefield, the guy he was following didn’t even hesitate, and that left Helmeppo trying very hard to keep up while attempting to even begin formulating a plan.

Coby was indeed on the battlefield, engaged with a wiry-looking fighter with bright red hair wearing loose, flowing clothing. They were darting around the space, clashing and parting and clashing again. Helmeppo could see the grim focus on his captain’s face. The other man said something, distance rendering it just movement for Helmeppo, but it led Coby to swing hard at the guy’s face.

It was a clean hit.

It should have been a clean hit.

It was a miss.

Helmeppo’s pace lagged as he tried to make sense of what he’d seen. The guy hadn’t moved. Coby’s punch should have caught him square in the jaw, but somehow slid off target, ruffling the ends of the guy’s red hair but causing no damage. The guy laughed, then countered, but Coby slid under his return strike.

Despite wanting to help, Helmeppo forced his attention away from that. He’d only be a distraction. Coby could take care of that guy, no problem, as long as he could focus.

Law was going to help out at the mermaid’s tank, where a press of people stood guard still, mostly watching the other fights. Though now, one or two had noticed Law’s approach and were pointing him out to the others.

Guess that’s the right place to go, Helmeppo thought, adjusting his angle.

From behind them, he heard another of the sniper’s projectiles whining across the island, growing closer. It shot overhead, on the dead-on course for the area near the Mermaid’s container.

Until it wasn’t.

At the last second, the projectile took a hard turn, veering into the undergrowth and exploding out of sight.

Law stopped at that, whirling to look back the way they’d come from, then toward the thin plume of smoke coming from, presumably, the impact site. Helmeppo stopped as well. What had the sniper said? Everything I try gets intercepted. That push and pull power -- was this related to that? That might also explain the weird difficulty Coby was having with his opponent.

“Hey.” Law’s voice cut through his thoughts. Helmeppo looked at the pirate, who gestured toward thesmoke with a tilt of his head. “The person who did that should be near the impact site. Can you take care of them?”

How was he supposed to know? But the guy did seem to have a quick mind for figuring things out. Would he ask if he thought the answer was no? And it might be the place he could be most useful.

“Sure.”

“Then go.”

He said it as though giving Helmeppo orders were an everyday thing. Maybe it was just a captain thing? Well, whatever. He wanted to watch Coby’s back, but maybe the best way would be to figure out what was going on. Law certainly seemed to have a better grasp on this situation than he did. So he only hesitated for a moment before changing his bearing yet again.

Ahead of him, a couple pirates moved to intercept him, though most eyes were still on other folks on the battlefield. Helmeppo pulled his weapons free, ready to cut his way through.

Then they were gone.

No. He was in a whole different place.

Slowing, he glanced over his shoulder to see those two pirates looking around, as confused as he felt. He’d been moved from there to … here. Near the edge of the clearing.

Well, that was unsettling. But again, he wasn’t going to let the moment escape. He shoved aside a leaf taller than he was and pushed into the dense vegetation yet again.

He wasn’t moving very quietly, but luckily the island was alive with massive noises -- shouts and explosions and the susurration of wind in the leaves. So he didn’t worry too much about it as he headed for the thin plume of smoke that indicated where the sniper’s attack had ultimately hit.

He wasn’t far from the battlefield when he caught sight of movement.

Slowing his pace, Helmeppo crept closer. Up ahead, a small cluster of pirates stood a little ways from a charred leaf stump. Smoke trailed from its sizzling ends in a thin line.

“I’m telling you, it’s not working,” one of them was saying as he got in earshot. “We lost the element of surprise. We need to run. And now that other pirate’s there!”

“No. Not yet,” another said. “We still have both twins. They’ll be calling him in any moment, as soon as someone takes care of that sniper. They still don’t really understand what they’re in for. We have to take this opportunity.”

“It’s not worth it. We’re going to lose!”

A slap echoed around the area, accompanied by a shocked sound from the first speaker. Helmeppo peered through a fan of long, grass-like leaves, trying to ignore that he’d stepped in something super oozy.

“You want to run, run Darvell,” the second person said. Helmeppo could see it was an older man, hair going salt and pepper, with a build and skin color that suggested there was shark fishman somewhere in his blood. Captain Darvell, presumably, stood a few feet away from him, one hand on his cheek, eyes furious. The captain wore a flamboyant coat over plain clothing. All looked dry.

“I just want us to be reasonable,” Darvell replied, voice tight and careful, enunciating every word. “Sure, Straw Hat killed the slave trade, but ain’t much revenge if you let the guy who ruined your life take it as well.”

“He ain’t taking anything yet,” the second man said.

In addition to the two arguing pirates, Helmeppo saw three others -- A woman in tight clothes and wearing two crossed belts full of little knives watching the pair with narrowed eyes, a scrawny young man with bright red hair who was looking up at the sky and a massive, older man with short hair with his back to everyone, talking to what Helmeppo assumed was a den den mushi in his hand.

Any further squabbling got cut off as the scrawny young man tilted his head and said, “Someone’s trying again. Watch out.”

He said it nonchalantly, as though commenting on the weather, while he walked toward the sizzling stump. The rest of the group shifted subtly away from the spot. The scrawny guy tilted his head the other way, then reached up into the air with both hands, closed his fingers as though grabbing the sky itself, and pulled.

As he did, Helmeppo heard it -- the whistling sound of another of the sniper’s shots, coming closer. The scrawny guy scampered away as something came hurtling out of the sky. On impact it unfolded into a series of vines -- not the same sort as had grabbed Helmeppo earlier, but clearly looking to do something similar. With no one close enough, they just waggled about impotently.

“He’s persistent,” the graying man said as the lady wandered over to peer at the vines from a safe distance.

“They all are,” the scrawny guy replied, looking at the sky once more. The others mirrored the movement. “We can’t let our guard down while we wait for the call.”

So, as if the hair wasn’t proof enough, that guy was the other twin. He didn’t understand the power, but figured that guy was the most important out of this group here. He felt like anyone else with the sort of power to match the Straw Hats would be out there fighting. So maybe they were here as a privilege of position or as a token defense force for that guy until he went to the battle? They definitely looked stronger than the ones from the cave, but he saw no guns and there were fewer of them. The power user looked like a kitten might be able to knock him over. Helmeppo thought he could take them.

Probably.

Assuming they didn’t have anything hidden up their sleeves.

At the very least, five on one wasn’t the worst odds he’d faced today.

He shifted his fingers, changing his grip until the kukri sat comfortably in his hands. The scrawny guy could use a pulling power, so he might lose his weapons fairly early. That meant he needed to move quick, get at least one of them out of the way very fast. If he went for the devil fruit user right away, they’d just gang up, and at this point, he didn’t want to deal with that. But if he took one out, that would mean fewer attackers and the others might hesitate.

He decided on the maybe-fishman first. He looked strongest of the four nearby pirates, and was the closest. Plus, he didn’t see a weapon, which might give Helmeppo a slight reach advantage. After that, he’d need to go for the power user. Either the woman or Darvell could be dangerous, but hopefully if they were, they’d display their strength quickly.

What was it people said? No plan survives contact with the enemy? No point in overthinking it. He focused on the fishman and rushed forward.

His target was caught off guard, eyes still turned toward the sky instead of the surroundings, but he recovered fast, crossing his arms to block Helmeppo’s strike. The blades bit in about half an inch, drawing blood and leaving a pair of long slices down his gray forearms.

“Attacker!” the guy shouted, pivoting and striking out at Helmeppo, who narrowly dodged. He could feel the strength of the punch as it split the air by his face.

Ok. This would need to end quickly.

Planting one foot, he spun and put the speed of that move into the next strike.

“Ren, duck!” Darvell shouted.

The shout disrupted them both. Helmeppo lost focus on where he intended to strike. As he was turning, the man started to duck, more out of knee-jerk reaction to the shouted suggestion than because he planned to. So what was intended to be two strikes near his elbow, to hopefully render it temporarily useless, turned into one knife into the shoulder.

And one in the neck.

Helmeppo froze as the fishman stumbled back away from him, one hand clapping to his wound. Blood spilled -- not to where Helmeppo thought he’d hit an artery, but enough. A lot.

“Shit. Get back to the ship, Ren! We’ll handle him,” the woman barked, casting a murderous look at Darvell, who shrank from her. The fishman backed off a few more steps, then turned and ran, presumably to do as she said.

Okay, four on one… wait, where had the one with the den den mushi gone?

No time to think about it. He’d take the better odds.

The woman had begun moving toward him, maybe angry about what he’d done to her friend. He considered just fighting her next. In all honesty, she looked stronger than Darvell, and her eyes showed more intensity than his. So while the man in the ridiculous coat was still closer, Helmeppo ignored that and eyed her.

Nope. Don’t draw this out. You have something to do.

He whirled toward the scrawny guy, blades ready. The man looked not at Helmeppo, but at the woman -- for orders? No matter. Helmeppo felt sure he could get to that guy before she could stop him. So he charged, trying to bypass her entirely.

The woman seemed ready for it, pulling one of the small knives from her belt and throwing it, not at him, but angled behind him.. To Darvell? But that man had a sword already, and the little knives didn’t even really have a handle -- they were meant for throwing, so-

He realized belatedly what might be happening, but understanding came at the same time as a sharp pain, lancing through him from a point low on the left side of his back. He stopped, startled, and reached back to yank the item free. The knife. Blood warned his fingertips and made a spot on the hilt of his kukri sticky. Looking up he saw the red-haired man’s hands balled into fists in front of him, not as though ready to hit him, but like he was holding something.

Fantastic. The guy had pulled that sniper's attack toward himself earlier, yanking it out of the sky. He’d realized he might lose his kukri to it. He’d had all the information he needed to realize that the guy could do the same thing with a tiny knife, he’d just been an idiot and not thought about it.

The woman already had another pair of the little weapons between her fingers. His understanding of the situation must have made its way to his face, because she grinned at him.

“Still time to run,” she said.

Not a bad idea.

So he did.

“Hey, hey!” the devil fruit user shouted, falling back a step as he saw Helmeppo again pounding in his direction. The guy almost bolted, then something caught his attention. He reached out, grabbing at the air.

Helmeppo threw himself to the left before the guy pulled. A knife soared by Helmeppo, flying straight toward the devil fruit user, who shrieked in an undignified manner and tried to dodge, but coordination didn’t seem to be a strong suit. He turned more than actually moving. The knife sunk into his left bicep. Then Helmeppo was there, channeling his first fight with Butterfingers.

At least this time, it only took one solid strike to the temple to put the guy out. Or maybe he wasn’t pulling his punches this time. With the water right there, he caught the guy by one limp arm and lowered him to the ground.

Jeeze, with the way this fight was going, maybe he could understand why these folks had been left out of the big fight.

If Darvell had kept his mouth shut, the blind-side attack he tried next might have actually hit home. Fortunately for Helmeppo, the guy let out a loud shout as before swinging at his back. There wasn’t enough time to move, but he did swing a weapon up and across his back before the sword struck home. The strike carried incredible weight, forcing his arm to an awkward angle and pushing the blunt side of Helmeppo’s weapon against his back hard enough that he felt sure he’d have a bruise across his shoulders later. Better than being split down the spine, he thought.

“Darvell, we’re getting beat by some sort of castaway,” the woman shouted in frustration. He thought she sounded closer. “Stop screwing around!”

The pressure on his blade let up enough that Helmeppo could shove it away and turn to face the two remaining fighters. “You should leave,” he said, both blades up in a ready stance as he tried to keep both of them in sight. “The Straw Hats and their allies are back together. They’re going to be cleaning up the ringleaders soon.”

The woman held fast, but Darvell had been primed for this. At Helmeppo’s words, he stepped back a few paces, glancing over at his sole remaining teammate. “Anne, I told you guys-”

“He’s trying to scare us off because we still have him outnumbered,” she replied with a patience that suggested this sort of dialogue was common between them. “We can take him if we just treat it like always. You always overreact.”

“Then where did Cap go?” Darvell said. “He was getting the reports from the guys with the mermaid. He booked it. Maybe this guy’s right.”

Anne’s eyes slid from her teammate to Helmeppo’s ready form. “Well if that’s the case, let’s kill him first. Maybe give us more time. Plus I’m mad now.”

As they discussed, Helmeppo took stock of his situation. Coming for the devil fruit user had put him at the edge of the huge hole in the lilypad -- not a great place to be, especially with the memory of those vines still fairly fresh. Plus, he wasn't exactly in great shape anymore. He didn’t have the free hand to check the wound in his back, but it definitely still hurt, and he could feel his clothes sticking to him worse where the blood soaked them. He didn’t fancy getting another dozen or so of those in him. He’d taken out the devil fruit user. Was that enough? If so, maybe a retreat of his own was in order. Maybe he could even draw them after him, so they couldn’t wake the guy back up.

Carefully, he side-stepped around the devil fruit user, edging toward the long, concealing leaves of the nearby forest. “Actually,” he said, “Maybe I’ll just go call one or two of them over here.” Come on, come on...

“Stop!” Anne shouted.

He pivoted and ran for cover, feeling a sense of relief as the plants closed around him.

Then something stepped into his path, too quick for Helmeppo to stop. The collision didn’t move the thing, but sent him rebounding back a step, caught entirely off guard. Before he could properly register what it was, a powerful kick slammed into his midsection, driving his breath from him and forcing him back out into the open. He tried to keep his balance, but the uneven ground tangled his feet and he fell backward to the ground.

“Cap!” Anne said. “Finally. Where did you go?”

“I was making sure this Marine didn’t run for help,” growled a voice.

“Marine?” Darvell sounded scandalized.

On the ground Helmeppo had released one of his weapons to wrap an arm around his chest. Oh boy. Something had definitely broken with that kick. Breathing in too deeply sent pain radiating from the center-right part of his torso. Got to get up,” he thought, pressing the knuckles of his other hand shakily to the ground. Got to get up now

“One of the two who showed up uninvited,” the new voice continued. “Weren’t you idiots paying attention to anything?”

The figure stepped out of the underbrush. In a petulant voice, Darvell said, “We had other things on our mind, Cap. You remember -- everyone getting dumped in the water?”

“So we should definitely kill him,” Anne mused.

Helmeppo looked up, gritting his teeth against the pain -- and stopped. His breath knotted in his throat for a second.

No.

The figure stopped just beyond the edge of the undergrowth, arms crossed. Helmeppo had to force his gaze up to the man’s face, just to confirm what he already knew in just those few words and that posture. The newcomer gazed down with a glower, all irritation and impatience, at the injured Marine. There was nothing like recognition there, and nothing like pity. But Helmeppo couldn’t stop one word from slipping past his lips.

“Dad?”

[friendlyfrat-boy]

The Straw-Hat Among Us Ch2

Red: Shanks

Something was up. He was coming along alright on the Shuttle, but…

Marco hadn’t come by for a second round. Zoro had been by a while ago to fix up some wiring, and that was the last time Shanks had seen anyone. He could probably continue working for a good while longer, but something told him that something had happened.

Something bad.

Right. Before Shanks left, he scribbled a little note for himself to know where he left off, and then he was off. He could probably have gone into the darkness immediately, but that was just not something he wanted to try. Instead, he went into the West Wing. A quick look into the CCTV room ensured that Kizaru was indeed still there, lazily flipping through the different cameras.

“Oh hiiiii Shanks, what’s uuuuuup?” he asked without even turning around, and Shanks recalled noticing a camera above the entrance. Effective.

“I’m looking for Marco, have you seen him?”

“The chieeeef?” Kizaru drawled out, tapping his chin with a thoughtful expression. “Nnnnnot in a while? Last I saw, he headed past Northeaaast.” Kizaru quickly hopped through the cameras, finally settling on one showing the northern entrance to the Laboratory. Nobody was there or anything, but tracks in the snow showed that somebody had been there alright.

“Thank you. Keep an eye on me while I head there,” Shanks said, already heading towards O2 to seek up an old friend.

Kizaru watched him leave, finally slurring out a “okayyyyyy, I’ll watch your back, Shaaanks.”

Shanks smiled. He’d better.

“So, what you’re trying to say is, the kind of water you use actually matters? How the hell can the plant tell?? It’s braindead!” someone all-too-familiar to Shanks said.

“Well, um, it’s not like they can actually tell, they just kinda absorb whatever they get? And if they die, it makes me sad,” someone Shanks could only assume was Usopp replied. The young boy, young compared to the rest of them that is, was apparently telling Buggy about how to raise trees. “Furthermore, while they don’t have a brain like we do, they certainly do have-, ACK!!”

Upon noticing Shanks, Usopp jumped three feet into the air, proceeded to throw himself at Buggy and clung around the older man like a little kid around their father.

While Usopp whimpered, Buggy’s eyes widened in recognition. “Shanks!”

Shanks smiled. “The one and only, Buggy!”

“You… you’ll follow me to Hell and back, won’t you?!” Just as Shanks was about to respond, Buggy noticed Usopp clinging to him like gum to the bottom of desks. “You-, GET OFF OF ME, KID!” Hence, Usopp was unceremoniously cast off, whining both at the rough treatment and his own fear.

Shanks, however, had very little time to waste. “Buggy, I need your help. You’re the only guy I trust around here.”

Buggy blushed. “I-, you, you trust me?? I don’t trust you, why the hell would you-”

“It’s unimportant, I just need your help to find Marco.”

“Huh? The Chief? What for, is he dead or something?” Buggy asked while Usopp nervously got up on two feet. “I mean, sure, I’ll come along or whatever, but is there some reason?”

Shanks shrugged. “I just haven’t seen him in a while.” For some reason, Shanks caught Usopp’s gaze. “-If you’re afraid of being alone, you can come along as well.” Shanks scoffed. “Though we really shouldn’t be bringing any wimps, hah!”

Usopp growled. “Hey, I’ve got every right to be afraid! There’s murdery killers out there! Probably!” He was right, but Shanks still couldn’t help but find his cowardice somewhat endearing.

“Alright, alright. Let’s get going, fellows,” Shanks said. Usopp and Buggy shared a glance, and followed him.

The wind seemed to have picked up somewhat since Shanks left the Shuttle, seeing as how it was almost harsh enough to pick the young Usopp right off of his feet. Then again, Buggy seemed quite watchful of him, enough to place a grounding hand on his shoulder whenever the wind swept him off his feet, so Shanks didn’t think there was anything to worry about. They quickly rounded around the Main Building, made sure to wave at Kizaru once they got to the cameras, and continued their trek.

The lavapool stood out like a wolf among sheep, bubbling and churning with acidic magma. Beside it, a large figure sat hunched, back to them. It was hard to see in the darkness, but considering there was barely an outline of him apart from the white snow that had collected upon his shoulders, Shanks could only assume that it was Teach. “Hey, Teach! Everything alri-,”

Teach turned around. In the dim light, Shanks could barely make out the wetness on his cheeks. But what he did make out, in all-too-clear detail, was the body of Marco.

“GAAAAHH!!” Usopp screamed, falling back into the snow. “Wh-, what-, he’s DEAD!!”

Teach stammered for a moment, his wide, panicked eyes darting between the body he was cradling and his witnesses. “N-, no! I didn’t!”

Shanks stepped closer, his eyes burrowing into Teach’s. “Step away from the body, Teach.”

“N-, no, I-”

“Step. Away,” Shanks hissed through gritted teeth, trying his damned hardest not to throw himself at the larger man.

Teach’s jaw snapped shut and he slowly loosened his grip on the body, letting it fall into the blood-soaked snow. Oddly enough, Shanks could notice that although the ground was thoroughly soaked with blood, snowy white roses painted red, Teach didn’t have a drop on him. The body wasn’t bleeding either.

Slowly, Teach rose to his feet, legs shaking as he attempted to steady himself against a rocky stalagmite. While he did that, Shanks stepped up to the body.

The snow around his body was almost entirely unmoved, with all tracks apart from theirs and Teach’s already being covered up by the snow. Even then, The killing wound, a stab-wound to the chest, was clean and almost professional. Only the part actually stabbed was harmed, meaning that Marco couldn’t have struggled much before his departure. The murder-weapon was nowehere to be found.

Teach sniffled, and Shanks realized that they had things to do apart from analyzing the body. He reached over to the side of the head, found the button signifying the death of the crewmate, and pressed it three times, twice in quick succession and once a beat after.

From the way Usopp stumbled back, part of his helmet visor flashing red, Shanks knew the message had been sent out.

With that, he headed inside the Office, noting how the blinking red light on the security cameras went out as Kizaru left them. Usopp, Buggy and Teach all trailed behind him. There was something abnormally heavy about the way Teach walked, his spirit seemingly so broken that his body could barely house it properly. Once they got to the Office, they found Smoker and Zoro already there, waiting impatiently for the rest of the group to join.

“What happened?” Smoker asked, letting his gaze fall on the black sheep of the group, namely Teach. “Is he… crying?...”

“N-, no!” Teach quickly swiped at his eyes, “I’m not! And even if I was, is it so wrong for a man to mourn his brother?!”

Silence passed through the group. Smoker’s eyes widened, but Shanks didn’t let him say anything. “Hold on, let’s leave discussion for once everyone arrives.”

The door opened. “Aaaaaahh, am I laaate?” Kizaru smiled sheepishly as he scratched his head. Upon seeing Shanks, his smile widened a little bit. “I saw you waaaaving, it was pretty nice of youuu~” he said happily, giving a little wave to demonstrate the occasion. Shanks returned the wave, even though the situation was hardly right for it.

Within only a minute or so Caesar and Doflamingo arrived, but Shanks could hear them coming from miles, chattering like a pair of cockatrices. It mostly seemed to be Doflamingo barrating Caesar for some minor mishap, with the scientist growing disproportionately offended with each tease, his defences growing weaker as well. “-I’m telling you, it was all that no-good Smoker’s fault! If his poor ventilation hadn’t set me back, I’d-”

“You’d be done by now, sure. And I’m the queen of Spain!”

Caesar scowled unhappily. “-You’re not royalty in the least, a crown figure would surely have more tact than you!”

“Everyone, please take a seat,” Shanks said, cutting off Caesar before he could say anything further.

“Hey, I was-,” the second Caesar saw what kind of atmosphere lingered in the office, he shut up, and sat down. Doflamingo followed along, snickering at the livid scientist. After a few moments, everybody was seated, staring expectantly at the only one who was still standing, namely Shanks himself.

“Marco is dead.” The only ones seemingly surprised by this was Doflamingo and Caesar, who both took it with wildly different kinds of emotion. While Doflamingo showed a childish glee at the game finally getting started, Caesar gasped, what little colour he had draining from his face in an instant. Zoro and Smoker both showed apparent indifference, as if they’d expected this, but one would be a fool not to notice the way their eyes sharpened. “-We found his body by the lava pit, just out of sight for both cameras.”

“We?” Smoker asked.

Shanks nodded. “I suspected something might have happened to him and went to fetch someone to find him with. As I trusted Buggy, I got him to follow along, with Usopp hanging with us as extra security. When we found his body, Teach was cradling it.” All eyes possibly able to be suspicious at this moment turned to Teach, whose expression was that of poorly-kept sorrow.

“Yeah, I was with ‘im! I found his body, and,” a sob clawed through his throat, “and I had ‘ta mourn him for a second! Is that so weird?!” Teach recounted, face twisting into a glowering grimace.

Shanks didn’t take this with anything but mild curiosity. “Why would you mourn a man you barely knew?”

“Barely knew? ZEHAHAH! He was my brother! Perhaps not by blood, but by HEART!”

“And when you found him, he was already dead?”

Teach glanced away, a shadow passing through his eyes. “Yeah, dead he was. Dead as dust.”

That was that.

Smoker leaned forwards, resting his chin on his folded hands. “-In other words, the biggest suspect would be Teach.” Teach seemed to take this with no little ire, but Smoker continued before he could argue. “Him, and…” he turned a calm eye to Shanks, “-you.”

“And why do you think I did it?” Shanks asked, wise enough not to take Smoker’s suspicion as anything personal.

Smoker shrugged. “Let’s say you killed him. Nobody else was in the Shuttle, you evaded the cameras and found him, killed him and left him there. You return to the shuttle, wait for a bit, go find a few crewmates to go ‘find the Chief’ with, and then you’re automatically absolved of all guilt. With witnesses, and two of them, to boot, there would be little reason for anyone to suspect you.”

He made a good point.

A murmur passed through the collected members before Shanks raised his hand, bringing the rest to silence. “-Of course, a perfectly valid theory.” He let his gaze fall on Teach, his eyes still red and haunted. “-Then again, when we found the body, it was already cold. If I wished to absolve myself of all guilt, shouldn’t I have made sure to find it while it was still warm, to ensure it was clear I hadn’t done it myself?”

Smoker nodded silently. “Suppose so. Forgive my suspicions, it’s second nature.” His eyes narrowed. “I got a good nose for odd people.”

“Wait, wait, wait,” Caesar raised his hand. Shanks nodded at him, giving the word to him. “I, uh, so there isn’t any concrete evidence? Or anything? No footprints, no scribbling in blood, just a bunch of hunches?”

Doflamigo grinned. “Is there anything better?”

Caesar’s eyes went wide and outraged. “Yeah! Evidence, damn it! If we don’t have any proper empirical data, how can we possibly go about yapping that you think the guy in red seems suspicious for finding the damn body?!” At that, Caesar stood up, hands planted on the table in a show of confidence, despite his brows being deeply furrowed. “Red, no, Shanks. I say we just skip this whole damn thing.”

“Y-, yeah!” Usopp squawked. “Let’s not kill someone for-, for finding a body or mourning their brother, it just-,”

Zoro placed a hand on Usopp’s shoulder. “Don’t be so naïve, Usopp. If you can’t make tough calls…” his eyes grew sad, “I don’t think I can trust you in the least.”

“Hey, hey!” Buggy called out, standing up to grab everyone’s attention. “Cool it, you flashy idiots! Before we go making wild assumptions, let’s just take a look at who’s safe and isn’t.” Buggy turned to Usopp and flashed a reassuring smile. “Usopp is safe. Until Shanks picked us up, we were together ever since Marco held the first meeting. Is there anybody else who can say something similar?”

Doflamingo raised his hand. “I and hornhead here have been in the Laboratory since the very start.” A disappointed frown quickly marred his countenance. “Shame we couldn’t see the fireworks.”

Shanks nodded, satisfied with knowing who were undisputedly safe and who weren’t. “Who saw Marco last?”

Caesar, Doflamingo, Smoker and Zoro all gave each other a look. In the end, Smoker was the one to speak. “Purple ‘n Pink called me over to the Laboratory to fix a faulty vent. While we were arguing, Marco and Zoro entered. Zoro went to fix some wires in the stalls while I left to fix the lower decontamination room. Marco came with Zoro but left without him.”

Caesar suddenly seemed thoughtful. “Wait, I didn’t see you leave, Zoro?” Although it was more of a statement than anything, it was really a question.

Zoro paused for a moment. “...Are you suspecting me?” he growled, eyes turning dark.

“N-, no, I just-,”

“Zoro,” Shanks affixed the green-haired man with a glare, “answer the question.”

Zoro shrugged in a huff. “I left through the decontamination rooms. I even met Smoker on the way out, in Admin.”

Smoker nodded, affirming that he’d seen Zoro as well.

Doflamingo leaned in closer to the table, an amused glance thrown Teach’s way. “You’re being rather quiet, brother dear. Cat got your tongue?” A toothy grin settled on his face. “Or should I say bird~?”

“DON’T YA DARE SPEAK OF ‘IM!!” Teach practically threw himself at the skinnier man, face flushed in angry red hues. “YA DON’T KNOW NUTHIN’!”

Shanks and Smoker both stepped in between them, Smoker grabbing Teach’s wrists while Shanks prepared to assist him. Teach was a big man, easily the tallest in there, as broad as he was tall, most of his weight being muscle. Still, Smoker stopped him. A less attentive man than Shanks might have thought that this meant Smoker was simply stronger than Teach, but not so. If Teach had wanted to, he could easily have plowed through both Smoker and Shanks, and yet, he was stopped, merely because he wanted to be.

“Not another step,” Smoker rumbled in a low, guttural voice.

Teach stopped, glanced between Smoker and the rest of the people assembled, and proceeded to break down into a pile of sobs on the floor.

Shanks stepped away from Teach and looked out at the people assembled. Nobody was without suspicion, be it towards their crewmates or directed towards themselves. “-We need to vote.”

“-Vote?” Usopp asked, brows squashed together.

Shanks nodded. “Everybody will vote on the person they deem the most suspicious, or you will choose to skip. The option with the most votes gets-,”

“Ah, what does this do?” Usopp wondered aloud as he pressed a red button. Blip. “...What did I just do?...”

A little tiny wave of panic washed up on the shores of Shank’s heart. “I-, um, I think you might have voted for someone? But, but don’t tell us who. Right, so, now that you all-”

Blip. Blip. ...Blip.

Alright. Since everybody had already gotten to voting, hopefully doing so with more tact than Usopp did, Shanks also voted. Suspecting Teach would be the easy option. They found him with the body, he’s been acting almost too emotional ever since… Still, Shanks just couldn’t find it in him to suspect him. Neither could he suspect himself, of course. Smoker and Zoro saw each other in Admin, Doflamingo and Caesar were with each other, Kizaru was in the CCTV room…

In the end, Shanks chose to skip the vote. Hopefully, a few others would do so as well. A few more blips ring out, and then, all the votes were counted.

Now, they would be tallied. The projector at the end of the Meeting room turned on, showing a list of their names and the people who voted for who.

The little wave of panic in Shanks’ heart rose to a tidal wave as three votes against him were counted.

The only other person with that many votes was Teach. Two people skipped, and one person voted for Zoro of all damn people.

Doflamingo, Teach and Usopp voted for Shanks.

Caesar, Buggy and Zoro voted for Teach.

Shanks and Kizaru skipped voting.

Smoker voted for Zoro.

“-Oi!” Zoro called out.

Smoker shrugged. “Could’ve been one clever ruse, what with following and leaving him.”

“Calm down, calm down!” Shanks said, mostly just to himself. Looking at these results…Although he should have been extremely unsettled knowing three people had voted for him, he knew Usopp had only done so by mistake. The thing is, if Usopp hadn’t voted for him…

Teach might have been killed.

It was a strange way of seeing it, but it calmed Shanks quite a lot.

“So, uh, what happens now?...” Usopp asked timidly.

“Noooooow,” Kizaru said slowly, rising from his chair. “Now I return to my dutieeeess.” He waited a moment before leaving, the cogs in his head turning slowly. “Haha, duutiess… like doodyyyyyy~.”

Nobody laughed at his joke, but his sentiment was right. “Return to completing your tasks,” Shanks said, translating Kizaru-ese into human.

People glanced at each other, and the next second, they were gone. Usopp went with Buggy, Caesar went with Doflamingo, and the last four remaining were the people with lonesome duties. Teach left without speaking a single word to anybody. Zoro turned to Shanks. “I don’t trust you, but I’ve got business in the Shuttle.”

Shanks nodded, smiled warily, and left the office, Zoro trailing alongside him. It was strange. So much had happened, and yet the sky was the very same muddy black colour.

The Shuttle wasn’t far away, and by this point, just the sight of it made Shanks feel a whole lot better. He didn’t have much left to do, so as long as he wasn’t disturbed for a while, he’d be fine. Before he actually got to work, he took a seat in one of the many landing chairs fastened to the wall, watching as Zoro fixed up the wiring. After a few minutes, Zoro was done with his work and left to go work elsewhere.

But before Shanks could get to work, he heard something odd. Some odd sound out there that rung out above the crackling electricity and howling winds and whirring reactors.

A human sort of sound. “-Not already!”

Shanks instantly cast aside all other work and ran out of the shuttle. He’d be a dead man before those damn killers could get their hand on someone else! Zoro only left a minute ago, so they must be after him!

Panting, Shanks finally came to a stop, standing right in front of the entrance to Electrical. The camera above the door was flashing red. Shanks smiled and gave it a hesitant wave. But this isn’t where the sound came from. A little further down. Shanks reluctantly headed south, the crackle of electricity, snow hitting exposed wires, grew louder with each step he took, until it completely drowned out the sound of his boots hitting snow.

The sound was like the growling crackle of the fence, but louder, as if someone had thrown a bucket of water on it.

Soon, Shanks found the reason for the sound.

A little snowman, adorable in composition, had been tipped over, causing the electric fence to crackle and pop with noise, far above what it would usually sound like.

Shanks let out a deep sigh. Jesus Christ. That had been quite the thing to see.

...That is, until he noticed the footsteps he was standing in. There was a bootprint in the snowman. Someone had been here. Only recently. They tipped over the snowman. Caused this buzz of noise. Caused an alarming sound. Gave someone something to investigate. Something to come check out.

Shanks’ heart was engulfed and drowned in icy cold panic, and the next moment, his neck was snapped 180 degrees.

There was an odd look in his killer’s eyes.

[victorie552onepiecespeedrun]

Reading One Piece pt 138: Lucci’s Manifesto

Chapter 373

Thoughts:

- Is it me or the cover looks like my header art. Similar, at least. Pretty

- Franky is losing

- Eh, spoke too soon. Nero is out!

- (Is Nero bald)

- Yeah, Franky and Sanji are together! (Franky punched Nero so hard the roof gave in)

- They made so much nuisance of themselves that CP9 stood up from their seats

- Cp9 is noticing Nero, aka the Strong new marine guy who got trashed by Franky anyway. That ain’t good

- “You have three seconds to run for your life” ah, Lucci The Bastard is back with vengeance

- What a dick. I’m sorry but he is

- (Nero’s dead)

- “These are the agents of Justice?” right? “They’re way more evil than us” RIGHT?

- “Judging by how you opened the door, I know what kind of people you are” why is it funny. Door opening, the ultimate personality check. Opening the door like always – normal person. Explosion - ******* STRAW HAT

- (I miss Smoker)

- Lucci talks about Robin

- “There are some people in this world who are better off dead…” vile but I understand

- “Even if she were only 8 years old…” WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU

- Seriously, what happened in Ohara? SHE WAS 8! EIGHT!

- “We should still eliminate her for the sake of the people in this world” ok, I get that she’s going with them to Enies Lobby but till now I didn’t actually considered that she’s to be judged and sentenced(?) there. It really looks to me like government would like her to join them instead. She can revive ancient weapons, for god’s sake, that’s exactly what government wants. Your argument is wack, Lucci

- “And your point is…?” Sanji agrees with me

- “She’s already sinned by her very existence!” … … … why are you like this

- No, seriously, isn’t it fascism here. What the fuck

- I should expect villains to be like that. Like, it’s a pretty normal stance for an evil guy in a manga. But it hits harder when real world is as it is

- “BULLSHIT! SHUT THE HELL UP!” yells Sanji while kicking him in the face. Sanji is the best

- “But it’ll probably take the government a few years to harvest all of Nico Robin’s knowledge and experience. And then, after that, that woman will die…” ah

- Robin’s not a plant to be harvested, motherfuckers. I wouldn’t trust you with a real plant either

- I’m speechless. I’m sitting here looking at that whole conversation like this

- Seriously, who allowed it

- Robin joined them all! (along with Usopp)

- Sanji is so happy to see her, aww

- “I’ll take care of these guys right away and then we’ll run away together!” ah… Robin’s face kinda tells a different story

- Oh, Franky never saw her before now, just the bounty poster

- Robin kicked Usopp!!

- “Robin! What are you doing!?” asks Sanji, rightfully

- “It seems that words… are meaningless to you people…” she will fight them. Expected but still sad

- Huh? Sogeking has a plan!

- Smoke Star!

- Loooool, he just went and GRABED HER when everyone wasn’t looking :D

- RUN FOR IT BOYS RUN FOR IT

I’m sure it won’t work but I HOPE it will. Weird feeling.

rOP 137  rOP 139

[enziroth]

No Future (Part 18)

This is now the longest chapter in the story, almost 500 words more than the previous longest chapter, so buckle up. I’ve been taking a lot longer to get out the most recent updates, but it’s probably because they keep getting longer because the story’s moving faster and faster.

Hope you guys enjoy!

The first cannonball landed far away.

The dust cloud that rose up around where it had landed was tinted pink, and Sanji watched as fragments of candy were flung into the air to fall amongst the other houses. The sound of it hit a half-second later, its impact echoing through the streets right along with the screams that rose in the distance.

They all moved at once.

Sanji kicked open the door to his carriage, diving out and rolling on the grass. Cannonballs that large could only come from battleships, and though the first one had missed them by almost a mile, Sanji knew they’d get closer.

Smoothie was standing, her empty plate tossed aside, towering taller than he’d ever seen her before. She held her arm out in front of her and barked orders into a transponder snail, taking off down the road towards the shore with footsteps that shook the ground as blue-shirted chefs scrambled madly to get out of her way.

Candy sprung from the ground, a massive golden wave crawling upwards to solidify into a hard, shiny wall that shielded the clearing. Perospero shouted at the children on the grass, startling them out of their after-meal drowsiness and leading them in a wild stampede back to the safety of the mansion.

At the edge of the clearing, watching the chefs struggle to load up the carriages and guards pour in from the outer streets to guard the children, Sanji abruptly realized what situation he was in.

Smoothie was nowhere in sight, though he could still hear her pounding footsteps fading in the distance. Perospero wasn’t anywhere to be seen as well, having disappeared inside the mansion with the brats. The chefs he’d arrived with were already racing off back the way they’d came, and the guards were busy watching the skies.

Another cannonball flew through the air, this time landing close enough that Sanji could feel the earth shake beneath his feet. Nobody ordered him to stay put, nobody rushed to his side to defend him. Nobody even so much as looked at him. Smoothie was supposed to be his guard, taking Katakuri’s place as his temporary jailer, but she was long gone now.

There’s nobody watching.

Sanji didn’t waste time. He sidestepped behind the carriage, leaning his back against it and listening intently. No voices called for him; no one seemed to even notice he’d moved.

Heat crackled through his veins, a thrill rising beneath his skin. This might be the chance he was waiting for, the distraction he needed to slip away and return to his crew. He knew the invaders weren’t his friends, just by the sheer knowledge that Usopp and Franky would never use something as boring as cannonballs when they had plants and lasers at their disposal, but they couldn’t have gotten this far into Big Mom’s territory without a sizeable fleet.

With a fleet came ships, and with ships, Sanji finally had a way out of here.

He waited for the piercing screech of another incoming cannonball to distract the guards before he slid out from behind the cover of the wagon, sprinting for the houses on the near side of the clearing. He ducked into the nearest doorframe, once more holding his breath and listening closely.

Nothing but the cries of civilians. He was truly alone.

Hope soared in him, rising so quickly he felt almost lightheaded. In all the hours he’d spent planning for escape, all the nights he’d lain awake thinking of when he should run for it, he’d never even dared dream of an opportunity like this.

In fact, it had been so completely unexpected that Sanji found himself at a loss. In all the scenarios in his head, he’d imagined his crew would be the one invading to save him. His planned first step after getting away from Katakuri was always to run straight to Luffy, and he knew that together they’d be able to handle whatever the Big Mom Pirates threw at them.

But here, there was no Luffy, and as the cannonfire began to truly rain down, Sanji paused to think about his situation.

Even unsupervised, with Katakuri missing and the island under attack, his ‘perfect opportunity’ wasn’t really perfect at all. He’d seen firsthand how fast the Charlottes could mobilize their forces, and unless the invaders were another Yonko’s crew, they’d be slaughtered whenever the heavy hitters arrived. Sanji had watched Smoothie herself heading to the island’s port; at the very least, he risked being recognized and recaptured if he tried to steal a ship.

Even if he did manage to sneak onboard unnoticed, he’d still have to sail with enemy colors all the way through the heart of Big Mom’s territory. He had no doubt that the Charlottes would hunt down every last ship of those who’d been stupid enough to attack them, and if he was caught trying to escape, he knew he’d lose all the freedoms he’d worked so hard to earn over the past months.

The adrenaline that had surged through him moments before curled in on itself, wilting in the face of logic. There in the doorway, listening to the distant booming of cannons and the rallying shouts of soldiers, Sanji was forced to face reality.

He wasn’t going to escape like this.

The safest course of action, the one that would guarantee he kept Katakuri’s trust, would be to go back to Perospero with the kids and pretend he’d been searching for them all along. No doubt he’d be thrown in a cell or something until everything quieted down, but nobody could accuse him of trying to escape. The invasion would be repelled, and life would go back to normal until his crew really did come for him.

But his feet refused to move. After all this time spent under the heavy presence of people who kept him from everything he loved, it went against every nerve in his body to walk away from freedom and back into the glorified cage.

You’re so close! His mind was screaming at him. Nobody’s watching! Run for it! You won’t get another chance!

It’s suicide to try, he argued back, still frozen in the doorway. The odds of success are too low, and the punishment for failure is far too high. I have to go back. The longer I stay away, the more suspicious I look.

But still his feet refused.

An eerie, high-pitched whistling filled the air, and Sanji had the sudden sense that something big was coming right now. His legs finally unfroze in the face of imminent danger, not bothering to look up as he took off running down the alley as fast as he could. He made it past four houses, five, six-

The world exploded in white.

 Sanji stayed low to the ground until the ringing in his ears stopped, blinking away the spotty afterimages of the blast. The sickly-sweet scent of burning sugar hit him a moment later, the rush of air that it came with as hot as a furnace.

He turned to his side to avoid breathing it in, registering the sight of a line of destroyed gingerbread houses burning merrily behind him. He hadn’t made it out of the bomb’s reach, but judging by how he was still in one piece, he’d at least managed to avoid the worst of it.

Flames roared at the end of the street, and Sanji stumbled to his feet, glancing around to regain his bearings. The bomb had landed behind him, right by the kids’ mansion; he wouldn’t be surprised if the place had been blown to pieces.

There goes that plan.

He slipped behind the shattered gumdrop wall of a house, waiting for someone to come running down the street to escape the building. The Charlotte brats were absolute monsters, and it he wouldn’t put it past them to survive something like that, especially considering how tough Perospero could make those candy walls of his.

The kids would probably ignore him if they saw him, but Perospero was the last person Sanji wanted to run into right now. Smoothie had shown herself to be reasonable so far, and Katakuri had proved well enough that he wanted Sanji alive, but there was an air around Perospero that kept Sanji distinctly on-edge. Now that he hadn’t had the chance to blatantly turn himself in, he doubted the man would trust him.

Nobody came. Screaming rose in the distance, more cannonballs booming in the streets to his left, but he couldn’t hear anything that sounded like Perospero or the kids.

Maybe they made it into the mirror realm. There were mirrors all over the place, and there certainly had to be some in the mansion itself.

Thinking of mirrors reminded Sanji of his own situation, and he cast a frantic look around to see if any were nearby. If he could get the attention of whoever was behind them, he might be able to-

Danger, above.

Sanji ducked, just in time to avoid the slash. It cut through the candy-cane building beside him and into the gumdrop one he was hiding behind, hard sugar walls cracking and groaning as they collapsed in on themselves. He kept low, slipping through a crack in the bottom of the wall out into the alley next to it.

People coming this way.

Sanji pressed himself against the wall of the next house over, searching around for a place to hide. The building right behind him had caved in, gingerbread sheets propped up in a way that provided a perfect place to hide, and he was already taking a step towards it when he noticed movement beneath the shelter.

Yellow flashed in the light of the setting sun, and even over the crackling of the fire, Sanji could hear a child’s voice hushing another. He took another step forward and leaned over to get a better look, that particular shade of yellow sparking a vague memory.

It was the girl with the pixie nose and the little flowers in her hair. He recognized her from dinner; she’d been the one to first try the turkey, leading her older siblings back to the table. Crouched down next to her beneath the makeshift shelter was the kid with the spotted hood, and a buck-toothed boy he didn’t recognize.

Kids? What the fuck are they doing here? Sure, the mansion had been smashed to bits, but Perospero had been there. Sanji had figured the guy would want to keep the brats all together. Had they run when the first cannonball had landed, and gotten separated from the rest?

But he had bigger things to worry about now, like the dozen or so men that stepped over the jagged shards of candy-cane and right into the alley he was hiding in. They weren’t wearing the bright pastels of Big Mom soldiers, and judging by the unfamiliar jolly roger tattooed on the biggest one’s blood-stained chest, they weren’t here to be friendly either.

Sanji had sensed them coming, but the sight of the kids had distracted him, and now there was no way to avoid being noticed. He stepped back, swinging to the side just in time to dodge the volley of bullets that came his way.

“Come out here, you little fucker,” the big one snarled, tossing his used pistols aside and drawing two more from a belt around his waist. “I know you’re there. Too scared to face me, pussy?”

None of them looked particularly intimidating, likely just a few lucky grunts that had made it past the chaos at the port, but Sanji wasn’t looking to waste his time on fodder. He had to find a mirror, and he had no interest in being anywhere near the Charlotte brats when their older siblings weren’t around. He’d gotten in enough trouble because of them before; he wasn’t looking forward to dealing with that again.

The men spread out, advancing down towards the alley and sending a few more easily-dodged volleys his way, but Sanji was on the move. He kicked his way through a fallen gingerbread wall, sliding through into the next house too fast for the others to take aim. He looked to the sky, trying to decide if it was worth it to jump and risk the cannonballs so he could get an aerial view.

A girl’s high-pitched screech rent the air, and Sanji instinctively wrenched around towards it. Through the hole he’d busted in the side of the house, he could see the little girl from before on her back on the ground. There were tears in her eyes, and he could hear the low chuckling of the man with the guns above the roar of the flames.

It wasn’t his problem, though.

Pirates like these would only be looking for hostages, something they could use to make sure the stronger fighters didn’t slaughter them on sight. The girl might be panicking now, but the second she got it in her head to fight back, she’d easily crush all of them. For people who’d been brave enough to attack a Yonko’s territory head-on, they were fools to attempt to kidnap Big Mom’s actual children.

Then again, being absolute morons was a pretty good reason to attack a Yonko’s territory as well.

Sanji turned away, his mind moving on to other things, only to wrench right back around when a gunshot and another, more desperate scream echoed in the alley behind him.

The man had bent down now, both pistols cocked as he loomed over the child, one smoking with the remnants of what must’ve been a warning shot. With her back on the ground, the girl didn’t look nearly as fearsome as she had at the dinner table, and from an angle like this she didn’t even seem much bigger than a normal child.

In contrast, the man looked like the devil himself, light from the nearby fires flaring up and casting long shadows on his face. The man’s grin promised the farthest thing from mercy, cruel delight flashing in his eyes. “I knew that fat bitch’s spawn was around here somewhere.”

He raised his pistol, aimed straight at her face, and the kid trembled, crawling backwards as fast as she could. She was so scared, just a little girl inside even for all her size, her hands going up to cover her eyes-

Reiju’s hands, reaching through twisted bars to free him from hell itself-

Sanji launched himself straight through the building in a split-second, pure white-hot rage surging inside of him. His heel whipped out, striking the man’s hand hard enough that he heard bones crunch as the gun went flying.

He turned sideways to dodge the startled half-punch aimed for his head, then kicked out again, this time catching the man in the gut and shooting him clear down the alley to crash into a hard-candy building at the end of the street.

Sanji let his outstretched leg hang in the air for a few moments, waiting for the other men to recognize the defeat of their leader. It took them longer than it should have, more than one dumbly staring at the space Sanji was standing where the other man had been just seconds before.

“Why are you fighting a kid,” he said, planting his foot, spreading his arms and grinning wide, “when I’m right here?”

They went down quickly in a flurry of kicks that none were near fast enough to dodge, and Sanji had just finished a particularly satisfying blow right in the last one’s face when danger rang out in his head.

Above, from the left.

Sanji kicked off the wall, launching himself sideways to avoid the slash that cleaved the wall he’d just been standing next to in half. So that was where the swordsman of the group had gone to; none of the fighters he’d just downed had looked strong enough to cut the candy-cane earlier.

Two more cuts crisscrossed the wall, the structure attached to it crumbling as a man stepped through. Gold earrings glittered in the low light of the flames, and Sanji recognized the same jolly roger skull marked on his chest. When he raised his sword, it was spattered with blood, and also something that looked a lot like buttercream.

Sanji titled his head to the side, hand sliding to his back pocket for his lighter as he sized the man up. This one was stronger than the others, a definite aura coming off him as he sized Sanji up himself, but he was nothing compared to others Sanji had faced before. The slowness with which he’d swung, the ungraceful way he was holding his blade now…Zoro would yell at him for days if he knew Sanji had thought of the guy as an actual swordsman.

The man smiled at him, a wide grin that showed more than a couple teeth missing. “It’s your lucky day. You get to be killed by Galewind Gardy, the fastest blade in the-”

“Look,” Sanji cut him off, waving his hand. “The faster you shut up, the faster I kick your ass. The faster I kick your ass, the faster I can get out of here. How about that?”

The man’s ugly smile dropped into an equally ugly scowl. “Listen here, you little shit, I ain’t got time to-”

What a coincidence. Sanji didn’t have time for this either. “Just swing your shiny stick at me so I can knock your head off, alright?”

The man finally shut up, his eyes narrowing as he settled into a proper fighting stance.

Sanji shifted his weight to his back leg, ready to lunge forward as soon as his enemy moved. The other man was strong enough to use armament haki, but he relied pretty heavily on that sword-

He felt the familiar pressure before he sensed the incoming danger, his feet kicking him backwards before he even realized he’d moved. His opponent lunged forward, weapon outstretched in a deadly thrust, but it never even came close.

A golden blur burst through the pile of rubble next to them, spearing straight through Sanji’s opponent and sinking several feet into the next house over from its sheer momentum.

A black leather-clad leg stepped past the rubble and into the alley.

Katakuri’s massive frame filled the open space and made it seem much smaller than it actually was, his boots planted in the wreckage of two separate houses beneath him as he stood upright. His yellow eyes gleamed in the night, his face a dark shadow too far up for the light of the flames to reach.

The gold gaze moved, weight landing heavy on Sanji as it found him far below. The familiarity of it was almost comforting, though the knowledge the feeling brought was significantly less so. His jailer was back; if he’d ever had the slightest chance to escape, he’d just lost it now.

“Big brother!”

“Big brother Katakuri!”

“Brotheeeer!”

Three voices rose in a wailing cry at the same time, three bodies bursting through the rubble to swarm their older brother. They wrapped their arms around his legs, hugging his boots and clinging tight to him, screeching their relief all the while.

Katakuri’s gaze left Sanji, focusing instead on his younger siblings. He knelt to the ground to reach them, his face finally coming into the light. He seemed no different from how he usually was, that easy calm still there in his expression, the scarf he always wore still neatly in place.

He whispered something to them in a low voice, and in the distance, Sanji recognized Perospero calling out. It seemed like these few weren’t the only ones who’d gotten scattered when the bomb had gone off, and Sanji counted himself lucky that he hadn’t run into any more of the little brats.

After a few more whispered words, the kids left their brother’s side and raced around the burning alley towards the sound of Perospero’s shouting, stopping to sneer at the unconscious pirates who’d threatened them before. The little girl Sanji had protected kicked one of them, the force enough to lift the man several feet up before he crashed back down again.

Watching her toss him around like he was nothing, Sanji wondered why he’d even bothered in the first place.

Katakuri was looking at him now, his trident retrieved and planted points-down into the cracked candy street as he kneeled down to get a closer look at Sanji. The familiar pressure was back on him, washing over his arms and chest and face as Katakuri searched him all over.

Whatever he was looking for, he didn’t seem to find it. His voice was loud when he spoke, clear enough to cut through the crackling of flames and the far-off shouts of soldiers. “When I came to the mansion, it was already under attack. You ran, I suppose.”

“Yeah,” Sanji told him, keeping his own voice carefully even. “Smoothie disappeared. Couldn’t find Perospero. Was looking for a mirror when these guys found me.”

“Smoothie should have stayed with you. I had already been called to deal with the attack.” There was no accusation in his tone, nor any anger. It seemed like the man was more disappointed at his sister’s choice to abandon him than anything else.

“You know, I had it under control,” Sanji told him with a hint of annoyance, even as relief washed through him at how easily Katakuri accepted his explanation. It was true that he could have dealt with the swordsman on his own, though. Even though he was nowhere near his full strength, the guy had been far too weak to really pose a threat to him. His slashes had been slow and his guard had been sloppy, and one good hit would’ve been more than enough to knock him cold.

Katakuri ignored him, gazing down at the bodies on the ground. He pointed at one with the end of his trident, the gunman Sanji had knocked out earlier. A shoe-shaped bruise was just beginning to rise on the man’s bare chest. “This one’s still alive. Who is he?”

Sanji shrugged, reaching into his back pocket for his lighter and a cigarette. It felt like ages since he’d last had one at dinner, but it couldn’t have been more than half an hour ago at the most. “I dunno. Just some random guy, he was pointing a gun at the kid so I-”

Katakuri pulled his trident back, then in one fluid movement, flipped it around and crushed the man’s skull with the end of its blunt handle.

Sanji paused with the lighter halfway to his face, blinking once, then a few more times for good measure. Surely the ash had gotten into his eyes. Surely he’d been mistaken in what he’d seen.

But even as he blinked, the image stayed the same.

Katakuri lifted the trident and it came away with a wet sound, glistening distinctly red. It was too dark to see close to the ground, and the man had been too weak for Sanji to sense an aura from him in the first place, but it didn’t take an observation haki user to know that the guy wasn’t ever getting up again.

Katakuri ground the handle against the hard-candy tiles of the street to wipe off the gore on the bottom, a casual, well-practiced movement. “You fought them, then. You aren’t injured?”

“No. I’m fine.” His words sounded a little flat to his own ears. He knew that the pirates in this part of the seas were known for their cruelty, and he’d even seen firsthand what this particular band of them could do, but somehow it still took him off-guard to see it from Katakuri. There was something disconcerting in the ease with which he’d done it, something that clashed hard with his memory of the man standing in his kitchen and reading out dessert requests from his younger siblings.

The sense of warning he’d felt earlier had settled into a dull ache as he’d been deciding whether or not to escape, but all of a sudden, the feeling rushed back in full force. His mind was going berserk, telling him that something was still very, very wrong.

Sanji kept his head down as Katakuri moved, spearing another downed pirate with a sickening squelch.

Could it be Katakuri himself had set it off again? He was a powerful enemy, and even if he wasn’t attacking Sanji at the moment, it was easy to understand why his presence would put him on edge. Still, this feeling of innate wrongness wasn’t at all like the icy fear he’d felt when he’d gotten out of bed in the middle of the night to find the man standing in his doorway. This was something…deeper.

It couldn’t be the killing itself bothering him, either. Sanji had killed plenty of times before. It was a necessity sometimes, a mercy others, and even on rare occasions an accident. Death was nothing new to him, especially since he’d become well acquainted with it so early in life.

The way Katakuri had done it had certainly bothered him, a simple, quick blow as if dealing death was an offhand matter to him. It hadn’t been in the heat of battle. The man wasn’t a danger to anyone anymore. Katakuri had killed him on the mere mention of a threat to his siblings, a threat that had never really been a true one, but he hadn’t cared about that.

He’d killed because it was the natural thing to do. If anyone endangered his family, they died, and that was the end of it. Sanji wasn’t like that himself, but it was still something he could understand. So why wasn’t the roiling in his gut going away?

He thought I was a threat to his siblings, once. Why didn’t he kill me like that?

Sanji shied away from the thought.

Katakuri looked to the burning horizon, the sounds of cannonfire still ringing as loud as ever. The noises of gunfire and clashing steel were growing ever closer, and though Sanji couldn’t see as far as Katakuri could, it was easy to tell that the battle wasn’t nearly over yet.

It had to be the invaders that were tipping off his internal warning system, not Katakuri. The space around him was a jumbled-up mess in his mind’s eye except for the heavy presence of the man right next to him, but it was reasonable to assume that the other pirates had brought plenty of their own strong fighters with them. More than likely, he’d just picked up on some of them nearby, and that was what had sent all these frantic warning signals flooding his system.

Well, if the battle wasn’t over yet, that meant he had a good opportunity to disperse all that agitated energy in the best way. It felt like it had been ages since he’d sparred with Katakuri, and nothing was quite as satisfying as a good, hard-won fight.

“So,” Sanji exhaled, breathing out smoke and grinning up at Katakuri. “Are we gonna kick some ass, or what?”

 Two minutes later, Sanji faced the still-rippling surface of the mirror Katakuri had shoved him through, fighting and failing to suppress the insulted frown that twisted across his face. He couldn’t help it; that kind of treatment hurt.

“Just for the record, I still fucking hate you,” he told the glass, but Katakuri probably couldn’t hear him.

Alternate ending:

“Oh, it’s fine,” Brulee said from behind him, munching on a slice of something that smelled suspiciously like his coconut mille crepe cake. “He does that to me, too.”

[recentanimenews]

RESULTS: The Top 5 One Piece Arcs According To YOU

  Earlier this week, I asked for you to vote for your favorite One Piece arc and you didn’t disappoint. Everything from Romance Dawn to Wano Country was up for grabs, and though some of my predictions were correct as to your favorites, I was also surprised by a few as well. So, let’s take a look at the ranking and see which One Piece arcs seem to rank above the rest!

  First off, in 10th place, we have Luffy ringing the Golden Bell in Skypiea! In 9th place, the Straw Hats take on the machinations of Crocodile and Baroque Works in Alabasta! In 8th place, Luffy meets the other members of the Worst Generation but gets separated from his crew at Sabaody Archipelago! In 7th place, Luffy races from the bowels of a prison in order to save his brother Ace in Impel Down! And in 6th place, Luffy crashes the world’s deadliest wedding party in Whole Cake Island!

  Now, for the Top 5:

  5. Water 7

    More than just a prelude to Enies Lobby, Water 7 serves as one of the Straw Hat Crew’s most dire experiences. Their solid union falls apart as both Usopp and Robin leave the group, and every bond that’s been established in the journey so far is tested. It’s also the arc that introduces Franky, the blue-haired guy who starts as a flamboyant crime boss and eventually becomes the Straw Hats’ beloved shipwright. 

  4. Dressrosa

    Dressrosa is a big arc, not just because it spans over a hundred episodes but because SO much takes place. Luffy reunites with Sabo. Sabo gains Ace’s former Devil Fruit. The Straw Hats take down Doflamingo (and Kaido’s) chemical plant. Usopp becomes a god. Fujitora reveals his desire to do away with the Seven Warlords system. We learn Trafalgar Law’s desperate, tragic backstory. Luffy finally takes down Doflamingo, a character who, every pun intended, has been pulling the strings behind the scenes for about fifteen years' worth of storytelling so far. Luffy earns the trust of an entire alliance of pirate crews. Oh, and an entire kingdom is restored to peace after years of violent deception. Am I missing some stuff? Probably.

  3. Wano Country

    Though it’s still ongoing, it’s certainly safe to say that the Wano arc has made an impact on One Piece fans. From the delightful action and fight scenes to the constant explorations of lore to the high stakes tension that surrounds Luffy and his comrades’ quest to take down Kaido, open the borders of Wano and ensure that the efforts of Kozuki Oden weren’t for naught, Wano has been constantly satisfying. While Wano made third place now, after the fight at Onigashima has settled and we get to see the arc come full circle, there’s a good chance that it might move up a spot or two.

  2. Marineford

    Many series have attempted to rally dozens of characters from across a story together in an all-out war scenario, but often it comes off as little more than the equivalent of dumping all of your action figures out on the floor. Marineford is different, though, using the established thematic stakes of One Piece to build a conflict around justice, destiny, and hope for the future. As Whitebeard holds his last stand and Luffy makes a mad dash across the ice, a torch is passed from one generation to the next. The World Government attempted to throw a wrench into the new age of pirates with their execution of Ace, but they only ended up strengthening it. 

  1. Enies Lobby

    To many, this isn’t just the gold standard of One Piece arcs but anime arcs in general. Few exemplify everything good about a series like Enies Lobby does, using Nico Robin’s cry of “I want to live!” as a declaration of their entire ethos of the narrative. Every member of the Straw Hat Crew is given multiple memorable moments as they work to take down CP9 and then escape with their beloved friend and the whole thing concludes with the viking funeral of the Going Merry. Yes, by the end of this arc, you’re sobbing over a boat. THAT’S power.

  Did your favorite One Piece arc make the top 10? Let me know in the comments!

    By: Daniel Dockery

[danosphere91]

Story Starters Meme

Rules: List the first lines of your last 15 stories. See if there are any patterns. Then tag 10 of your favourite authors!  Do it if you are interested? @zinnianne​​ @novicecomcis​  Tagged by @wordsdear​

I’m including my WIPs in here with my finished fics so some of the titles are just a mess. 5-15 can be found here. I...it’s all One Piece minus one fic. I am ashamed.

1. Beach Boys (WIP no real title yet)

“I hate the beach.”

“I know.”

“I hate sand.”

“I also know.”

“I hate sunlight.”

“I also, also know.”

“Cora-san!”

2. (WIP. A Hop, Skip & a Jump? Baton Road? Oh the Places You’ll Go?)

“Oi, Straw Hat-ya, this isn’t going to help.”

Law was practically growling at this point but the younger man wasn’t backing down. No, he was all but pressing against Law’s hands, trying to get as close to the surgeon as possible. Law was not going to risk applying too much pressure because damned if he was going to be the one to undo all his hard work.

“But I want to!” Luffy insisted.

Law scoffed. “No you don’t. You’re just being an idiot.”

3. Not The Best Way To Start (WIP)

“Oi Law, so...What’s your answer?”

Law looked up from the paper he was reading through over dinner, eyebrows furrowing. “What was the question Zoro-ya?”

He was met with several groans. “Come on!” Usopp cried in disbelief. “This has only been one of the most interesting conversations we’ve ever had!”

4. Mi Corazon (WIP)

The mission couldn’t have counted as any more of a fail. They had lost the Op Op Fruit, they had lost Law, Vergo’s cover was at risk of being blown if Law told the Marines and they listened to a child. Hell, Diamante had nearly dropped the treasure chest just seconds after picking it up, some grumble about shifting weights inside. The only thing that had gone their way was finally eliminating Corazon...although even Doffy hated to admit that that didn’t feel like the victory he’d imagined it would.

But then…

Doflamingo frowned, signalling for the others to wait while he turned around. It took another minute or so before he heard it again, distorted by the wind but...Oh yes, that was Law.

Finally a good turn.

5. Boys Will Be Boys

Deku’s always known.

Always known that Kacchan is a boy, that is.

His mother hadn’t. Kacchan’s mother, not his. She’d introduced him as Kachiko-chan at first and ignored the furious shouts that had gotten. Kacchan had then dragged him outside, all of four years of age, and said he was a boy and only a boy. Deku had agreed because, well, he was. He looked like one and acted like one and he said he was so...Why wouldn’t he be?

6. Do You Really Think You’re Not See-Through?

Cora hadn’t even heard the door open. He only knew Law was home when a pair of arms slid around his waist. He went to comment when Law’s head tucked itself between his shoulder blades and ah, it was one of those days. A day where nothing was wrong but Law was just, well, soppy? Sooky? Either way, he wanted attention and he wanted it in the form of warm hugs and soft voices.

Lacing their fingers together, Cora thumbed the back of his hands. “Welcome back Law.”

7. Despacito

"Majorca? That pitiful island?"

Law clamped his mouth shut. He had fucked up, well and truly fucked up. He'd gathered his crew, his gang, whatever you were to call them and shifted them over to the mainland because there had been rumours: the Donquixote family were recruiting.

Oh recruiting truly was the wrong word. A more accurate term would be something between kidnapping and adoption, the Donquixotes snatching up orphans that showed promise. The word made Law's skin itch. To think of people as nothing but tools! It sounded too much like slavery for his liking.

So he had planned to hit where it hurt: take out Doflamingo's little brother and then the master himself.

8. Not Just Good With His Feet

In hindsight, Sanji was lucky the result was what it was. It could have been much worse. As it was, every member of the crew was staring at him in everything from shock to awe; no guess as to who was pulling that last face.

Because he threw a knife. A chef’s knife. Across the galley. At Zoro.

Not his finest moment.

9. The Doorbell

Law is still in med-school. He’s only twenty-two so it’s understandable. It’s a four and a half year course though, meaning Law’s within arm’s reach of graduating but still far enough away that he’s neck deep in studies.

He sleeps less than he should and when he does sleep, it’s probably not when he should.

This time though, it’s 3:50A.M. and he thinks that’s a reasonable time to be sleeping. Apparently not everyone does though because there’s a knock on his apartment door. It’s not so much his apartment as his and Cora’s - his boyfriend of three years - but at three in the morning, it’s his.

10. The Trouble With Eastern

Two days Sanji had been on this ship and already a fight had broken out. He was busy cooking in the kitchen but he could hear the squabbling clear enough. It seemed to be an argument mainly between Luffy and Nami but Usopp was getting a word in every so often, which only seemed to annoy Luffy more. The cook was getting ready to separate them all when,

“Oi Sanji, come out here!!!”

Luffy’s voice was deafening, Sanji rolling his eyes, drying his hands on his tea towel as he stepped out onto the deck. “What’s up Luffy?”

Sanji found himself suddenly with Luffy’s shoe thrust in his face. “What is this?” Luffy demanding, shaking said shoe.

Before Sanji could answer, Nami was shaking their captain. “I’m telling you, flip-flop is the sound it makes. It’s not what it’s called!”

11. Three’s A Crowd, but Who’s Complaining?

The truth of it was, Luffy didn’t really get a choice in the matter. In fact, he’d never had a choice but that was something he’d brought upon himself as well. He could have had peace, could have had a quiet life, but no, it was Luffy that had come to them – both of them – and quite plainly told them he wanted to fuck. Wanted to fuck them, specifically. Together.

Ace had had questions, of course he had, but they were more of the “had-to-ask-just-to-be-sure” kind whereas Sabo had been the one to actually question if they should do this. Luffy had just growled that they weren’t actually related and if he wanted to have sex with them he would. And if Sabo said no he would have sex with just Ace. That, paired with Ace’s smug look, had won Sabo over more than anything.

12. “It’s You, You Numbskull!”

“Do you think I can plant some seeds in the garden?”

“What do you need a garden for?”

“Because!”

It wasn’t an answer, Nami rolling her eyes at Usopp. “This garden is for my tangerine trees!”

“It’s too big for that!” Usopp countered, arms flailing. “Look at all the empty space!”

Nami very much did not do so.

“And hey, I like gardening! Let me plant something…oh, like vegetables! Then Sanji wouldn’t have to buy them all the time. It’s cheaper, you know?” Nami paused there and Usopp dived in, recognising his only chance. “It’s a good idea, right? Oi Luffy, I can have some of the garden, can’t I?”

Nami was all set to argue – purely on principle alone – when,

“No.”

13. Please Start

“Please start,” Luffy muttered as he turned the key in the ignition a little harder than necessary. There was a beat and then the engine turned over, Luffy sighing in relief as the radio started to play and the fans kicked in. Then he put the car into drive and everything went black again. “No, no, no!”

There were a couple of frustrated, near desperate, pounds on the steering wheel and Luffy had to slam his eyes shut when he felt them starting to prickle. “It’s going to start, it will,” he told himself, turning the key once more. “Please. Please start, come on, please.”

That time there wasn’t so much as a splutter.

14. But Every Birthday Needs Cake!

It started with Luffy bursting into the kitchen. Sanji was already preparing himself to send the rubber idiot flying – he’d just had his morning snack, he sure as hell wasn’t hungry – when Luffy surprised him by sliding into one of the bar stools, a contemplative look on his face. His feet were idly swinging as he watched Sanji prepare various things for lunch.

“Alright Luffy?”

Luffy jumped a little at the question before pouting up at him, causing Sanji to raise an eyebrow. “If Traffy doesn’t like bread, does that mean he doesn’t like cake either?”

15. What’s A Closed Sign Between Friends?

Sanji was busy scrubbing down the last of the benches as Luffy mopped the floor. There were other jobs that needed doing but Sanji didn’t trust the younger man with any of them. Why Luffy wanted to work in a restaurant was beyond him – Sanji thought maybe the thought of free-food had something to do with it – but Luffy, despite being an enthusiastic worker, was clumsy as hell. The only reason Sanji kept him around was because he had so much repour with all the customers.

…And okay, because Sanji loved the shit-head half to death.

Of course that was when his musings were interrupted by the sound of the door opening. Sanji was frowning even as he was looking up because he knew they had shut near half an hour ago now. From the look on the man’s face, he suddenly seemed to realise it too. At the same moment they turned to look at the door and, right, Luffy hadn’t swapped the sign to read “closed”.

[friendlyfrat-boy]

The Straw-Hat Among Us Ch.7

Pink: Doflamingo Donquixote

Someone scuttled into the tunnel. Someone wearing a lightly-coloured suit. Might have been yellow, might have been white, might have been orange, Doflamingo simply didn’t catch it.

But he did catch someone in the act. Goddamn everything.

Doflamingo threw himself towards the security room, if it was Kizaru he must have left the other imposter in there, and if it wasn’t Kizaru-,

His body laid slumped over his chair, arms flailed out at the side, singular drops of blood running down his arms like snakes, dripping onto the floor where a puddle had already formed. His head, neck severed almost completely by a clean slide, was arched so far back that had his throat not been gouged open, it would have had to have been broken. Empty eyes stared back at Doflamingo who stood transfixed and silent at the sight.

What blood didn’t pool at the floor had splattered all across the monitor, painting the world in red.

The monitors. Doflamingo’s mind and raced at the thought. That man-, whoever it had been, had used the tunnels to escape. He had to be somewhere. He had to be on the cameras. The only one out and running right now should-, no, had to be the killer.

Camera one, nothing. Camera two, nothing. Camera three-,

Someone popped out of the vent. And, finally, Doflamingo got a clear view of the colour of his suit.

After all this damn time.

Orange.

Doflamingo cursed bitterly. Kizaru’s body steadily grew cold. Doflamingo hated to ignore it, but he had to. The man in orange, Usopp, ran inside the Office, and-,

Don’t tell me-,

A red light started flashing in the corner of Doflamingo’s helmet. The killer had called for a damn emergency meeting, most likely to accuse him of the murder. Damn it. Damn it all! He should have reported it the moment he saw it, but… At least, now he knew who did it. Usopp. The name felt off on his tongue. That wimpy little kid… Doflamingo should have recognized the signs of the liar the second he laid eyes on him.

He was a proficient liar himself, after all. But Usopp was more than proficient. He was… inhumanly proficient.

All he could do now was enter the Office and try to get Buggy and Smoker on his side. He had to. Otherwise, they were as good as dead.

Tonight, he picked up a body for the second time in his life, but before he fully exited, he noticed something. A little notebook, opened on a half-blank page, notes about this or that scribbled in a scratchy chicken-scrawl. Evidence. Doflamingo swiped it without a thought, placing it in his pocket.

When he came into the office, Kizaru’s lukewarm body cradled in his arms, he was last to arrive. Buggy, Usopp and Smoker were all there, staring at the corpse he held with a wide range of emotion.

Usopp pretended to almost pass out, Smoker’s eyes narrowed in suspicion, and Buggy gulped, eyes flicking between Doflamingo and the body without pause.

Somehow, Doflamingo really felt like walking into the Meeting-room and dumping the body onto the table to show his irritation, but Kizaru didn’t deserve that. Instead, he trailed through the hallway, still warm blood dripping from Kizaru’s body onto the floor, leaving a little trail. Doflamingo stared out over that red bubbling pool, haunted by the spirits of too many. He let Kizaru fall, and that was that.

He returned inside, and prepared himself for what was about to come.

For a moment, he simply surveyed the Meeting room, taking in how absurdly simple it was. An old-school projector, an equally outdated water dispenser, stale coffee and wood-like doughnuts that nobody had even attempted to eat (god only knew when Marco had the time to make them, but by the looks of it all, Shanks probably helped him. They seemed to have gotten along), and a little tree in the corner. Doflamingo could only assume Usopp had planted it before he was made a victim.

Doflamingo turned around and glared at the one man he knew for a fact did it. He let his eyes, his animosity, the honesty of his soul pour into him. “You,” he growled, leaning in further towards him. Usopp recoiled the closer Doflamingo got, eventually finding himself entirely leaned back in his chair, yet still having Doflamingo’s dark, scowling face mere inches from him. “You did it.”

Usopp’s eyes widened considerably, fear and incomprehension filling them with all the emotions of a fawn. Such a good actor. Such a fantastically good actor. “Wh-, wha-,”

Doflamingo bared his teeth, preparing to jab a finger into Usopp’s chest when suddenly Buggy stood between them. Every single facet of his face and body radiated hostility, a bear protecting their cub. Doflamingo had never seen anything fiercer than those eyes, and the air grew hot with the tension around them. “Don’t you fucking dare accuse him. Don’t you dare tell me he did anything.”

“Did anything?” Doflamingo leaned back out, face contorting into a grimace of disbelief and amusement. “He didn’t just do something, he killed someone!”

“I-, um, what-,,” Usopp stammered, apparently trying to collect his thoughts. Doflamingo wouldn’t let him.

“Oh, yes. Surprised, are you? I’m surprised inhuman beasts such as yourself hold that emotional capacity.” Doflamingo, the only man standing at the moment, took this time to stroll around the table, bloodied boots hitting the tacky, carpeted floor until he stood right behind Usopp. He placed both hands on his shoulders, keeping him sitting. “I did more than see you, too.” He grinned, assuredness and confidence radiating from his form. “I saw you jump into a tunnel. You must have thought I came to Kizaru’s shabby office for no reason. Not so.” He chuckled. “Although thinking you could evade me was a clever decision…” he grinned, “thinking you could evade the cameras was anything but.”

Colour drained from Usopp’s face. “H-, hey! I didn’t do anything like that! What are you-,”

“Usopp, don’t say anything,” Buggy said. “He’s throwing out baseless accusations since he knows he can’t win us over some other way.”

Hah! The gullible bastard! Doflamingo almost wanted to laugh at him for being so stupidly foolish. Sadly, laughing at the person he’s trying to convince certainly won’t do. “I’ll take it from the beginning then. Perhaps that will jog your memory, killer?” Seeing Usopp frown like that set Doflamingo’s heart alight. What startling malice. “I left the Laboratory, and sought out Kizaru. When I got there, he was very much alive and kicking, calling me… not-so fanciful names, but still-,”

“Why did you leave the Laboratory?” Smoker asked. He’d been quiet until now, perhaps trusting in Doflamingo’s assessment, but now…

Doflamingo froze. He couldn’t tell them why he left. He couldn’t tell them that he felt haunted, that the silence, previously so warmly filled by Caesar’s incessant chattering, was suffocating. A deep dark abyss in which he choked and drowned, cold silent water freezing his lungs. “I… had my reasons. It is entirely beside the point.”

Buggy glared at him. “And what exactly is the point, then? To accuse Usopp of a crime he couldn’t have done?” he spat out.

Usopp himself didn’t say anything. He seemed almost too silent, too comfortable in saying nothing. His teeth were gritted, eyes dark. It was enough for Doflamingo to know he was on the right track, no matter what Buggy and Smoker thought.

“I left him for a moment. When I returned, mere moments later, I saw someone in a light suit hop into the tunnel behind the security room, escaping before I could even find the body.” For some reason, at this moment, Usopp turned and stared at Smoker, wide-eyed and disbelieving. “It wasn’t him,” Doflamingo growled. “I looked at the cameras, that’s why I didn’t report the body immediately. On the cameras, I saw someone run out of a tunnel.” He let his sharp eyes fall down on Usopp, who cowered and squirmed. “And that someone was you.”

Buggy jumped to his feet, pointed his index at the taller man, practically frothing at the mouth. “Listen here, you flashy fool, that isn’t possible for two very damn good reasons! If he was an imposter, which he sure as shit isn’t, how the hell did he do all those other murders?? He was with me this entire time!”

Before Doflamingo could answer, Smoker did it for him. “If we assume Zoro was the killer, or even better, Teach, we can assume that there’s a difference here. Clearly, the one who killed Caesar wasn’t the same as the one who did in Shanks and the Chief. It would explain this sudden sloppiness.”

“But now how he was able to kill with me in the same damn room!?”

“Unless,” Smoker said, a sharp edge giving his words a certain accusatory tone. “You are an imposter, too.”

Buggy bristled. “Oh, really now? Really?? And all this without Kizaru so much as noticing one of us leave?!”

“The tunnels,” Doflamingo added. “There’s a tunnel in O2. Wouldn’t have to be a genius to figure that one out.”

Usopp made a few odd, choppy movements. “Well, um, okay, so it could be one of us, but… How do we know it isn’t, like, Smoker? Or-, or you! We can’t know what Kizaru saw before he-, before someone took him, r-, right?” A clever question for a murderer. Oh, well, he had been meaning to present it sometime.

He placed the little notebook on the table. It was worn and yellow in colour, decorated with happy monkeys eating all sorts of fruits. For some reason, it really fitted Kizaru. “-This notebook should tell us a thing or two.” He didn’t even wait for anyone to ask anything before he flipped it open to the latest scribbled note.

The first thing he noticed was a note that said: “Pinky left WW upper door”. For some reason, beside the “Pinky”, there was a scribbled-out word that seemed to say… Birdy.

Doflamingo flipped back a few pages, and sure as shit, every single place where he did something, it said “Pinky” instead of his actual name, usually right next to a scribbled-out “Birdy”. That is… Unimportant! Let’s not think about it. Doflamingo went back to the latest few dates, starting out at the “Zoro was voted off :c” part. The first part that it documented was where everyone was; “Pinky” in the Laboratory, Buggy and Usopp in O2, Smoker in Office.

There was a little question-mark next to Usopp’s name. Something Doflamingo simply couldn’t miss. Looking at the rest of this, Kizaru’s suspicions toward Usopp was a recurring theme. If Usopp happened to learn of this…

He sent the killer a dark glance. Usopp looked away.

After the first few notes, it recorded the time that Doflamingo left the Laboratory, but it never did record when he entered the West Wing. A quick look at what came between these two events ensured why this was. “Buggy and Usopp in Boiler Room, keeping eye out.” Apparently, at some point, the two had entered the Boiler Room, and since Kizaru was already suspicious of Usopp…

The next entry read that Doflamingo left the West Wing, and the very last entry, was “Usopp suspicious in-”, cut off by a splotch of still-wet blood.

This… told him very little. But it told him enough.

“-It was Usopp. It had to have been.”

“Why?” Smoker asked, obviously not above suspecting anyone but himself.

Doflamingo rightfully scoffed. “If we’ll do that little thing that you did the first time around, let’s assume Usopp did it, for the sake of it all. Knowing Kizaru suspected him, he killed him, but when attempting to use the tunnel to escape, I noticed him. He escaped through one of the other tunnels, and ran to the Office, all while I saw him. Then, he called for an emergency meeting, and here we all are. It’s an open-shut case!”

“W-, wait, hold on, I didn’t-, I didn’t call for an emergency meeting?”

Doflamingo’s jaw snapped shut. “-Don’t even try lying about it. I know you-,”

“When we arrived at the Office,” Buggy interrupted, “the meeting had already been called for. Both I and Usopp arrived after it had already been called for. Call me an imposter if you so want, but I was with Usopp the entire time since we voted off Zoro!”

Smoker raised his hand. “Doflamingo, this has gone on for too long.” Doflamingo, already at a loss for words, now froze in place. “I called for the emergency meeting.”

“Y-, you did?...” Doflamingo asked, his voice a trembling, uncertain vibrato.

“Yes. Because while I was keeping an eye on where everyone was, you left the Laboratory. And then, you appeared in the Security Office. I didn’t find it odd. Not until Kizaru disappeared.” Doflamingo gulped. Something here was wrong. Something here was very, very wrong. “I checked vitals, and found him dead. So I called for a meeting.” His eyes were cold. “Because now we knew who the killer was.”

“You…” Doflamingo snarled. “How the hell didn’t you see him in Admin? How didn’t you see how Usopp-,”

“Because he didn’t leave O2, damn it!” Buggy exclaimed. “He was with me!”

Smoker chuckled. “Never thought you’d be bold enough to try something like this, though.”

He wasn’t bold. He wasn’t being bold to tell the truth! He wasn’t bold to dispose of Kizaru’s body in the proper way, to point his finger at the man he knew did it! Smoker must have seen it. He must have seen Usopp leave O2 to kill Kizaru! Or Buggy. Buggy must know as well. Why won’t they stand on his side? Why do they defend that fucking killer? Why-,

“I’ve heard enough,” Buggy said. “Let’s vote.”

Smoker nodded. The voting mechanism popped up, and in that moment, Doflamingo suddenly knew exactly how Zoro and Teach felt. That single moment of calm, frozen panic, body like dark, burning ice. Enveloped in thoughts and feelings he couldn’t possibly show on his face. Teach and Zoro had both had that expression on their faces. A deer in the headlights. Drowning panic. Burning panic.

Frozen panic.

He knew he did it. He just knew it.

He pressed the button to vote for Usopp.

Buggy and Smoker were quick to vote, but Usopp’s hand stalled. “I-, I can’t do it,” he said, eyes on the cusp of overflowing. “Was it you, Doflamingo? Did you kill them?”

“No,” Doflamingo said softly.

A hand was placed on Usopp’s shoulder. “Usopp, we have to end it. We’ve gotta do it.”

Usopp swallowed his tears, shaking his head robotically, thoughtlessly. “I-, I don’t-,”

“Usopp.” Buggy grabbed the sides of Usopp’s face, turning it to look into his eyes. Eye-to-eye. “We don’t have a choice.” He glanced away. “Just-, just trust me, okay? Just this once.”

Usopp stopped in his tracks. Smiled a soft, trembling smile. And nodded.

The votes were counted.

Three against Doflamingo, one against Usopp.

...Shit.

They led him outside. Soon, he stood there, above that vast pool of hot death staring at the three people left. Usopp, Buggy, and Smoker.

Who’d think that not reporting the body at once would be the death of him? He just had to check those cameras. Know who did it. He just had to check those blood-soaked cameras, view the world through a bloody lens, the snow all red and fleshy…

...Hm?

No, wait. It was wrong. It was all wrong.

If the blood had truly stained that monitor, if it had truly been Usopp…

Wouldn’t the blood have coloured his suit red?

Then-, then why had it been orange? Why had the blood not changed the colour? Why-,

Oh.

Doflamingo turned to Smoker.

Oh. So that was how it was.

He’d been stupid. A flashy fool, as Buggy so eloquently put it. Oh well. Now, it was time to join the one person he’d trusted on this whole damn mission. “Guess this is it. You were intelligent, perhaps a little bit more than me. I’ll see you on the other side, Usopp.”

And with that, he fell willingly. The seventh victim.

“Is-, is that it?...” Usopp asked timidly, a desperate, hopeful smile on his face. “Did we win?”

Smoker didn’t meet his gaze. “S-, Smoker?... What’s wrong, why won’t you-,”

Buggy glanced away. Teeth gritted, arms crossed.

“B-, Buggy?...”

And in that moment, Usopp realized that he was alone.

Well and truly alone.