#usopp: if nami and i were drowning who would you save first

[beanghostprincess]

remember in skypiea when sanji said "i would let you die if it is to save nami-san" to usopp and then proceeded to fucking sacrifice himself for both of them?

[opbackgrounds]

so I was doing some research after watching movie 6...

...and apparently it was originally written as a comedy

Yeah, I was surprised, too

Baron Omatsuri is not my favorite One Piece movie—Film Z has too many of my favorite tropes to be usurped from that position—but I do think it is the most daring. Of all the supplemental material I’ve seen and read, it feels the least...One Piece-ish. 

Yes, that includes the noodle commercials. 

If you haven’t seen the movie and can stomach a little spookiness, do yourself a favor and give it a watch. Unlike movies like Strong World or Z that have the look and feel of a manga arc, Movie 6 transplants the Straw Hat Pirates into a world that doesn’t feel like a One Piece story, taking risks and exploring themes that would never fit in the manga proper. 

In addition to the obvious changes in art and animation style, there are supernatural elements that don’t make sense within the One Piece world. None of the Straw Hats win a fight—Luffy included, although he is heavily implied to have killed the big bad at the end. The moral of the movie, if it can be said to have a moral, is if you lose the people closest to you, the answer is to forget about them and make new friends. The story ends with many questions left unanswered and the main drama between the crew unresolved.

And, if you allow me to get philosophical for a moment, I wish there were more movies like it. As I wrote in my review of Novel A, I don’t go to supplemental material or side stories looking for a repeat of what’s in the manga. Oda has written 1000 chapters of One Piece—why not spice things up a little and try something different for a change?

I know the answer isn’t that simple, and by their very nature not all risks will pan out. There will be people who don’t like this movie because it’s different, both in look and tone. But there’s something to be said about a creator putting their heart and soul into a work and having it show in the final product. 

Which brings us back to the original premise. How does a movie go from a light-hearted comedy based on a variety show theme to...this

Baron Omatsuri was directed by Mamoru Hosoda and came out in 2005. To put that into perspective, the movie was in production when the Luffy vs Usopp fight was first seen in the manga. Manga!Luffy had not yet faced the challenge of an inter-crew disputes when the story was being written and boarded, nor did the creative team have the events of Sabaody and Marineford to see how Luffy would react to the loss of his loved ones. They were working without a full understanding of Luffy’s character, and to a lessor extent the character of the Straw Hat Pirates, and it seems like Oda was much less involved In production than has been in movies since Strong World and beyond. 

Likewise, Hosoda had just left a tumultuous situation at Studio Ghibli while working on Howl’s Moving Castle, and if this interview is anything to go by (https://instrangeaeonsblog.wordpress.com/2016/04/24/mamoru-hosoda-on-omatsuri-danshaku-animestyle-interview-part-1/) was going through a lot of personal shit when he was brought on as director. The script he was given was originally written like a variety show—something that was carried over into the various trials seen in the final movie—and meant to be a lighthearted affair after the relatively serious Movie 5 (which I have not seen am thus unable to compare tone). 

With that backstory in mind, it’s easy to see how the bickering and backbiting between the Straw Hats early in the movie is a metaphor for Hosoda’s time at Ghibli, which is something he admits to in the interview. Movie 6 feels different than any other One Piece movie because it’s the project of a man who has had to endure the loss of those who he was close with, at least in a professional capacity. 

There are moments in Movie 6 where Luffy doesn’t feel like Luffy. More than once a member of the Straw Hats ask him to intervene during arguments, moments Luffy either ignores or doesn’t notice. It’s a version of Water 7 where instead of fighting Usopp, Luffy ignores the underlying differences within his crew, and as a result loses everybody. 

The structure of the three trials follows a clear path of deterioration within the crew, the initial goldfish scooping game showing the Straw Hats at their best and inciting the jealousy of the Baron, the ring toss sowing discord among the crew even as they snatch a narrow victory, only for them to be utterly crushed in the third and final challenge as they’re unable help one another survive. 

It is somewhat implied that the Breaking of the Fellowship(TM) is magical in nature—that like the One Ring, the Lily Carnation was able to influence the Straw Hat’s thoughts and actions, but this is never stated outright and I prefer the more mundane interpretation: That without strong leadership the Straw Hats fell victim to the manipulative machinations of the Baron, and simply self-destructed as a result.  In the end, it’s up to the interpretation of the viewer. 

And speaking of things up to interpretation, I love how the Lily Carnation isn’t explained in the slightest. The plant that initially absorbs the Straw Hats looks more like the stem of a devil fruit than a flower, it for some reason rings like a gong when hit, and somehow is able to turn pieces of itself into facsimile of the Baron’s old crew who can somehow move around despite being plans. It’s weird, it’s wonderful, and the element of the unknown works so well in the horror-lite setting. 

My personal theory is the island somehow managed to eat a devil fruit which manifests itself as the Lily Carnation (which due to the L/R conflation in Japanese, is pronounced ‘reincarnation’, which I think is a nice touch of foreshadowing that may or may not have been intentional).

(Also, I can’t decide if little chewing animation it makes when it’s eating people or the weird bullseyes it makes when shit gets real are the most terrifying thing in the movie.)

Hmmm, tasty.

Anyway, this is getting long, so here are some final thoughts:

1) This movie has some low key fantastic outfits. The Straw Hats all look very cool without being over designed like a lot of recent movies. Big hat Robin is of course a fave, and makes me really want to see her in a Carmen Sandiego getup.

2) Screenshots do not do the animation of the movie justice. It’s very fluid and has a lot of excellent expressions/poses, although I admit the 3D is jarring at times. Do not let the art put you off if you haven’t seen it 

3) Also, I don’t think there’s any shading? Like at all? The movie does a lot of cool stuff with color instead. For example, the scene where Luffy initially loses to the Baron his skin goes all grey, and I thought it was because he was fighting at night, but it stays grey even in the better lighting of the underground tunnels and stays that way until he finds out the Straw Hats are still alive, where it returns to his normal color

4) There’s an extended Benny Hill-type gag when Luffy first chases after the little mustache pirate that’s perfectly timed to the music, and ends when Luffy just uses his power to grab him. The comedic timing is amazing and it’s probably my favorite funny moment in the movie, of which there are several despite the overall darker tone

5) The extended jungle shot from Nami’s POV? Very cool

6) I love how from the earliest scenes nothing is as it seems. The opening text is Robin reading the map, but the storm that’s seen on screen is the one that sank the Baron’s crew. Likewise the whole fancy city is shown to be fake panels early on, the goldfish catching game is a trap, etc., etc. It does a good job clueing the viewer in early that’s something’s very wrong on the island, even if they don’t realize it at first

7) I don’t think this type of movie would work in modern One Piece without somehow nerfing Luffy. Horror works best when the protagonist is weak and vulnerable, and that fits best with a pre-Gear 2/3 Luffy (same with the rest of the crew, tbh. I was waiting for Nami to use her lightning stick during the games, forgetting it hadn’t been boosted yet). 

8) I like how there are four captains on the island representing different levels of loss—the Baron has lost his crew and wants to destroy all others because of it, mustache pirate lost his crew and is willing to put it behind him to make new friends, Luffy has freshly lost his crew and hasn’t decided what path he will go, and coward dad hasn’t lost his crew yet but is at risk if he doesn’t change his cowardly ways

9) I think the reason why Chopper was the first Straw Hat to disappear is he’s the most likely to play the part of peacemaker. He’s also the only crew member needing rescuing at the end of the goldfish scoop game, when Luffy foolishly puts his life at risk trying to save him from drowning, just like he recklessly charges the Baron at the end of the movie. Except that time there was no Sanji to save him, leaving Luffy to get his ass thoroughly kicked

10) This is a very good Halloween movie, and I’m glad I watched it in October

[purplehairedwonder]

Hearts With(out) Chains Chapter 10

Fandom: One Piece Rating: PG-13 Pairings: Gen (eventual Lawlu) Words: 3233 Characters: Trafalgar Law, Monkey D. Luffy, Nico Robin, Usopp, Zoro, Nami, Franky, Smoker, Tashigi, Vergo, Heart Pirates Note: I’m taking my turn at the Corazon!Law AU because my brain won’t leave me alone until this is written down. Tags will be updated as the chapters come out.

The story title is based on the Ellie Goulding song “Hearts Without Chains.”

Summary: Law is reclaimed by the Family when he's 17 and, with Doflamingo holding the lives of his crew as collateral for his good behavior, eventually becomes the third Corazon. Years later, trapped by his impossible situation, Law finds a strange connection to Monkey D. Luffy, which offers a glimpse of something he's repeatedly had ripped away from him: hope.

Previous chapters: Prologue | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9

Read also at AO3 / FF.N

When Law ended the call, Bepo felt his heartrate picking up as he considered what his friend had said. Bepo didn’t know where Law was—he kept so much to himself anymore and had practically fled when he, Shachi, and Penguin had confronted him on his way out of Dressrosa—but Vergo following him from Dressrosa was bad news. Everyone in the Family knew there was bad blood between the first and current Corazons, though not everyone knew why.

Bepo did, having seen the aftermath of the wounds Vergo had caused when he and Law had first met. Shachi and Penguin were the only others—except Violet, Bepo supposed—in whom Law had confided that history.

What Bepo couldn’t figure out was why Doflamingo would believe Law had defected, considering his entire crew was still on Dressrosa; Law would never risk them like that. Doflamingo saw to it that Law would not (could not) betray him. But if Law was worried enough to warn them, Vergo must have some trump card.

Not for the first time, Bepo wished Law had brought backup on his mission, whether it was him, Shachi, and Penguin or any of the other Hearts. Bepo’s captain was too willing to go at it alone when he didn’t have to—and now he was in trouble because of it. All the Hearts could do was be his backup in Dressrosa, waiting for his return and whatever that might bring.

Still, as Bepo scoured the Hearts’ rooms and the most likely hang out spots around the palace for his nakama, a part of him was lighter in relief. The Law on the other end of the Den Den Mushi had sounded familiar; he’d sounded like Bepo’s captain and best friend, who Bepo hadn’t heard in two years. Law had locked himself away since Shachi lost his arm, drowning in guilt and refusing all attempts to bring him out of his self-made prison. It had pained them all to watch helplessly as he pulled away, becoming a shadow of himself in a misguided effort to protect them.

But Bepo had known that his best friend—strong, brave, and loyal—was still in there, under all the guilt and pain.

And he’d been right.

Bepo’s best friend had been the one to call his nakama in the middle of a mission to warn them of potential danger while promising to return for them despite the obvious danger doing so presented.

Bepo had missed Law, and now he’d do whatever he could as first mate to support his captain and look after their nakama.

It took about half an hour, but Bepo finally managed to gather his crewmates in Bepo’s room. He knew they wouldn’t be overheard here, as Law regularly checked the Hearts’ rooms for surveillance Den Den Mushi. The small bedroom was not designed to house twelve people, but the Hearts were used to confined spaces.

“What’s going on, Bepo?” Shachi asked once everyone had arrived and the door had been shut firmly behind them.

“Law called,” Bepo replied. He refused to use the title the Family used for Law when speaking only among the Hearts. He was also not surprised by the concern that his pronouncement elicited.

“Is he okay?”

“Where is he?”

“What’s going on?”

Bepo held up a paw, and once his nakama had quieted, he relayed what Law had told him. Bepo knew frustratingly little about his captain’s situation, so when his nakama burst into questions, Bepo had no answers for them. No, he didn’t know where Law was, though he must be close because he’d only left that morning. No, he didn’t know what Law’s mission was or why Vergo was there. No, no, no, he didn’t know.

“He said he worried Vergo would tell Doflamingo he’d failed or defected,” Bepo reminded his nakama. “He didn’t know that Vergo did for sure. But he wants us to be careful in case he did.”

“Would Doflamingo believe Vergo about this?” Jean Bart asked, looking at the crew who’d been around the Family longest.

Shachi, Penguin, and Bepo exchanged glances and shrugged. Doflamingo’s moods were impossible to predict.

“Vergo is Doflamingo’s most trusted agent,” Penguin said. The intimacy of that relationship was common knowledge within the Family. “But Doflamingo also knows about the bad blood between him and Law.”

“He must also know Law left all of us here,” Shachi added. “He knows Law wouldn’t risk us.”

“Then what are we missing?” Ikkaku asked, glancing at Bepo. “What had Law so worried about Vergo lying?”

There was no answer to that. But Bepo had heard the worry in Law’s voice and the seriousness in his warning. Whatever Law was keeping to himself must be quite persuasive.

“What do we do now?” Uni asked.

“Head for the Tang,” Clione muttered.

“We can’t act like we know anything is wrong,” Penguin said, ignoring him. “We’d raise suspicions and make Law look guilty otherwise.”

“But we need to keep an eye on each other,” Shachi added.

Bepo nodded. This is what he had promised Law; they would take care of themselves, so Law didn’t have to worry about them in addition to Vergo and whatever his mission was.

“Stay close,” Bepo said. The Hearts had their own wing of the palace, complete with common area, kitchen, and training rooms, so they didn’t often need to leave; the isolation suited them just fine since they, being loyal to Law rather than Doflamingo, felt out of place from the rest of the Family. “And if you need to leave, take a buddy.”

Normally, someone would have cracked a joke about the buddy system, but the concern on the air was heavy enough to stay even Shachi’s tongue. Instead, everyone nodded in response. They would take no chances; they’d seen what happened to traitors to the Donquixote Family. There was nothing to be done other than stay on their toes and wait to hear from their captain.

-----

Law entered the lab the same way he had when he’d first arrived, Shambling through the back entrance into the darkened hallway. He headed for the control room, unsure of what he would find. He thought his bootsteps echoed more loudly than he remembered from a few hours earlier, but he knew he was just imagining it. He tightened his grip on Kikoku and kept walking until he saw light.

Once he and Straw Hat had shaken on their agreement to team up, Nico Robin had returned Kikoku, the nodachi suddenly appearing in Law’s vision as a disembodied hand offered her to him. Law managed to suppress a surprised flinch and took the blade with a nod to the woman, who smiled at him in that unsettling way of hers. Still, a feeling of calm had settled over him with the return of Kikoku’s familiar presence; she was an old friend, after all.

Between Law and the Straw Hats, they had two separate goals on Punk Hazard: stop Vergo and save the children. Law wasn’t particularly concerned with the second goal, but the Straw Hats were set on it and Law would do what he needed to in order to help his nakama.

That put Vergo, Caesar, Monet, and Caesar’s men in their way. G-5 was a wildcard. Though the Marines had entered the lab with the other half of the Straw Hats, there was no telling how long that tenuous alliance would last, especially with Vergo on the island.

Law had no way of knowing if Vergo had called Doffy yet, though he had to operate on the assumption that he had; anything else would only get him—and his crew—killed faster. As for whether Vergo had shown his face in the lab, that was another story. While Caesar and Monet would be friendly to Vergo, Law also knew that the vice admiral would go out of his way to avoid blowing his cover with the Marines. The other man was of most use to Doffy in his elevated position among the Marines and wouldn’t blow fifteen years of undercover work just for his grudge against Law. With that in mind, it was entirely possible Vergo was remaining hidden and waiting for his chance to capture Law and bring him back in shackles to Dressrosa without being seen.

Knowing the importance of doing recon before setting any plan in motion, Law had convinced the Straw Hats to let him go back to the lab alone and see where he stood and see what he could find out about Vergo and the rest of the Straw Hats. They’d been hesitant, but Law had held firm that it made the most sense for him to go on his own.

“What if Vergo did out you?” Black Leg asked. “You’d be a sitting duck by yourself.”

“I can handle Vergo,” Law replied. Now that he wasn’t hindered by Seastone anyway.

“But what about all the other guys?” Straw Hat asked. “You shouldn’t go alone.”

“It’ll raise more suspicion if we’re together,” Law countered.

“But if you need help—”

“What about a Den Den Mushi?” Long Nose interrupted. Everyone turned to look at him, and he shrugged uncomfortably but kept speaking. “If he,” he said, jerking his head at Law, “calls our ship’s Den Den Mushi and leaves the line open, we can hear what’s going on.”

“And we can come if Torao needs us!” Straw Hat concluded, satisfied. “Let’s do it,” he said, pumping his fist.

Law had rolled his eyes, but that was how he’d ended up with his Den Den Mushi’s line open to the Straw Hats’ as it sat in his coat pocket. He’d warned Straw Hat not to be noisy on the other end of the line or he’d blow Law’s cover, and the others had promised to keep him quiet. (Law hadn’t been particularly reassured but didn’t have much choice but to continue anyway.) The Straw Hats were stationed outside the lab out of surveillance range, listening as Law entered the control room.

Law blinked as he stepped inside, taking a moment to let his eyes adjust to the bright light before glancing around. The room appeared empty. Where were Caesar and Monet? It looked like he’d need to head further into the lab.

He reached into his pocket and pulled out the Den Den Mushi. He opened his mouth to update the Straw Hats on what he’d found, but a familiar voice cut him off.

“Corazon? What the hell are you doing here?”

Law’s gaze followed the voice to the far wall, and he blinked in surprise at a large cage partially hidden in the shadows. He didn’t remember that being there before, but he hadn’t studied the room carefully upon his arrival either. He pocketed the snail and meandered over to the cage, raising an eyebrow when he saw what was inside.

Or, rather, who was inside.

Smoker was the one who had spoken. His eyes were narrowed as he eyed Law from his prone position, chained with what was undoubtedly Seastone chain.

“How’d you get here?” the swordswoman growled at Law from next to her boss.

“Where’s Luffy?” the cat burglar demanded.

Law simply watched the group, considering. Smoker, his second, the cat burglar, Zoro, and the cyborg had apparently all been captured by Caesar and were left chained in this cage. That left the tanuki and skeleton as well as the remaining G-5 soldiers somewhere in the base. He was considering what Caesar might want with them and what this meant for Vergo’s position when the cat burglar interrupted his thoughts.

“Say something, would you?” she sneered when Law remained quiet. “What did you do to Luffy?”

“Nothing,” Law replied, turning toward her. Though he could see why she would assume he had. “We…” he began, considering how to describe what had happened, “came to an agreement.”

“What kind of agreement?” Zoro asked, his one-eyed gazing piercing. He didn’t sound as disbelieving as the cat burglar did, though his attention was focused fully on Law now.

“Was that Nami and Zoro?”

Everyone started at the sound of Straw Hat’s muffled voice coming from Law’s pocket.

“Luffy?” the cat burglar called.

Law sighed and pulled the Den Den Mushi from his pocket. “Your crew seems to have gotten themselves captured, Straw Hat-ya,” Law informed him.

“What?” Straw Hat yelped. “Are you guys okay? We’re coming!”

“Wait, Luffy!” Long Nose interrupted. “What’s going on there, Torao? Is that guy there?”

“Torao?” the swordswoman asked, confused.

Law ignored her. “There was no one in the lab except your captured friends,” he said toward the snail. He looked back to the prisoners. “What happened?”

“Caesar,” Smoker growled.

“Is that Smokey?” Straw Hat asked.

“He did something to air when we confronted him about the children,” the vice admiral explained. “Woke up here after that.”

“What about Monet?” Law asked. “The woman,” he clarified when the others looked at him blankly.

“Brook and I were fighting her before I blacked out,” Zoro said.

“Whatever the clown did to the air probably didn’t affect him since he’s a skeleton,” the cat burglar said thoughtfully. “No lungs.”

Law knew Monet was dangerous, having gone on numerous missions with her before she’d been sent to Punk Hazard, so if the skeleton could keep her occupied while they took care of Vergo, that would be helpful.

“Where’s the tanuki?” Law asked.

“He’s a reindeer,” Zoro and the cat burglar replied, along with some garbled voices from the Den Den Mushi.

Law rolled his eyes. “Whatever. He’s not here with you.”

“He was looking for the lab to find out what the clown had done to the children,” the swordswoman said. “They must not have found him yet.” She narrowed her eyes at him. “Do you know what they’re doing to the children?”

Law shrugged, uninterested. “No.”

“You’re Donquixote’s second, you must know everything that’s going on,” Smoker countered.

“You may be surprised to know that I don’t have intimate knowledge of every project Doflamingo has going on,” Law countered coolly. The fact was, Doffy simply had too many ongoing schemes for any one executive to know all about. They all had specific projects they oversaw for Doffy, and Punk Hazard was Vergo’s. Law knew the general outline of the SAD manufacturing on the island, but that was about it.

“You still haven’t answered what kind of agreement you and Luffy came to,” Zoro interrupted.

Law turned back to him, but it was Straw Hat who answered over the open line. “We’re going to help Torao save his nakama from Mingo!”

“What?” the cat burglar sputtered.

Zoro narrowed his eye. “What are you talking about, Luffy?”

There was some shuffling on the other end of the line before Nico Robin spoke up. “One of Doflamingo’s agents is on the island and is threatening Corazon and his crew. Luffy has decided he wants to help.”

“Why?” the cat burglar demanded, glaring at Law. “He tried to kill us. He works for a man experimenting on kids.”

Looks like that had stopped bothering Law a long time ago, so he simply returned her look evenly.

“But he doesn’t want to,” Straw Hat said. “Torao’s a good guy!”

“Luffy—” Zoro started, but his captain cut him off.

“He saved me, Zoro.”

There was some meaning in those words that Law didn’t fully comprehend, but Zoro apparently did, his mouth snapping shut. He closed his eye, leaned back against the cell wall, and nodded grudgingly. “Fine,” he grumbled.

The cat burglar looked at him in disbelief. “You’re just going to go along with this?” she demanded. She looked like she could have smacked him if she hadn’t been bound.

It seemed the cat burglar was the member of the crew with the ounce of common sense Law had been wondering about.

“He’s the captain, witch,”

Zoro commented without opening his eye.

She huffed. “Luffy, he’ll betray you.”

“Nope,” Straw Hat replied. “He won’t.”

The cat burglar eyed Law suspiciously. “How can you be so sure?”

“As of now,” Law said before Straw Hat could speak, “our goals align. It’s in the best interest of me and my nakama not to betray you all.”

“How reassuring,” she sneered.

“Nami.”

She looked back at the Den Den Mushi. “Luffy—”

“Do you trust me, Nami?”

She startled at that. “Of course.”

“Then trust me. Please.”

After a long moment, she sighed and nodded, the tension in her frame deflating. “Fine.”

Even the cat burglar, it seemed, could be swayed by the will of her captain.

The Will of D., Law couldn’t help but think.

“Now what, Torao?” Straw Hat asked.

Rather than answer, Law dropped the snail back into his pocket then held his hand up and opened a Room large enough to encompass the cage. He unsheathed Kikoku and sliced the bars open. The sound was finally enough to wake the cyborg, who startled into consciousness. He yelped at the sight of Law above them, sword in hand, but the cat burglar murmured something to him, and he quieted down.

Law stepped inside, and, with three quick slices, three sets of chains fell to the ground as Law freed the Straw Hats. They pushed themselves to their feet and, stretching their cramped muscles, filed out past Law. For his part, Law eyed Smoker and the captain.

“Now, what to do with the two of you?”

Smoker glowered at Law while the swordswoman watched him warily. As far as Law was concerned, they could sit here and rot, but as a fellow vice admiral, Smoker could be good leverage against Vergo, if the bastard showed his face. Anything that made things more complicated for Vergo was a good move in Law’s book. That didn’t mean he couldn’t make them sweat a bit first, though.

“Go ahead and kill us, pirate,” Smoker sneered. “Finish what you started earlier. See what happens to your boss when it gets out that his second killed a vice admiral.”

Law decided not to mention he’d been sent to Punk Hazard to kill Smoker in the first place.

“No!” the swordswoman said. “Please, let us go.”

“Tashigi,” Smoker hissed. “Don’t beg for your life from a pirate! Where’s your pride?”

But rather than be cowed, she glared right back at him. “There are innocent children on this island that need help. It’s our duty to rescue them, so if begging for my life will help me save those children, then I’ll gladly do it!”

Law was grudgingly impressed with her resolve. “It seems she’s smarter than you, White Chase-ya.” Smoker growled wordlessly at Law, but Law pressed on. “Your presence on the island is, ironically, useful to me now, so I’m willing to let you go. On one condition.”

“What’s that?” Smoker demanded.

“Not a word of this alliance between myself and the Straw Hats to anyone. If it gets out, I will come find you.”

“Fine,” the swordswoman agreed in her boss’s place. “Now let us go.”

“Alliance?” a new voice said.

Law stiffened. Shit. He turned to see Vergo standing in the doorway to the front entrance of the room.

“Doffy didn’t believe me before that you’re a traitor, but now he’ll have it in your own words, Law.”

Next chapter

[onepdumpsterfire]

Maelstrom

Reader . Straw Hat crew

Word count: 6623

Trigger warning: Death. Gore, I suppose. (spoiler: the reader dies then comes back to life)

if there are any triggers that you need specifically tagged, please feel free to tell me.

Summary: Reader was betrayed by their past comrades and left in a cage for the rest of eternity. straw hats stumble upon them and  decide to help them.

Nami’s pov.

A harsh current pulled at The Sunny, dragging us closer and closer to the raging whirlpool behind us. 

We raced around on The Sunny, trying to get her to move away from it, but its claws took hold of us before we could even take control from the waters. Roughly pulling at The Sunny one last time, it sucked her into its glistening wrath.

“Not like this, Sunny,”  Franky yelled at his most prized creation, “You will not go down like this.” He pulled on the helm, hoping to salvage any form of power.

But the current was too strong, and before we knew it, the whirlpool took us from its lip down to its pit; swallowing our screams with its ear-splitting roar up to the very end.

-

We should be dead. The raging waters should have destroyed our ship and drowned us for trying to defy the sea’s fury; but it calmed at the apex of the whirlpool, making the Sunny swirl to a dizzying stop before it started moving in the same lazy path of the current at the whirlpool’s center. “. . .What . . . just happened?” I’m amazed at our continued death-defying luck, and it seems most of the crew did too. They either stood incredulous at the events or celebrated our, once again, unbelievable escape of danger.

As are many of the moments here, it didn’t last long before our captain decided to do something stupid.

“Hey! there’s an island!” Luffy pointed towards the very center of the whirlpool that caged us in. “Franky, turn The Sunny! We’re stopping at the island!” He shouted over his shoulder as he stretched out his arms on the railing. “Gomu gomu-no...”

I should have known that he would think very little about the situation we’ve gotten into. Walking over to him, I try to take hold of him before he can launch himself. “Oh, no you don’t. You are going to help-” Without a care in the world, our reckless captain slingshotted himself off The Sunny, yelling about finding a good restaurant on the island before I could finish my sentence. 

“That idiot captain.” A vein practically burst out of my forehead as I shook a menacing fist at the spot where he once stood. “When I get my hands on-” taking in a long breath, I calmed myself. There’s no point in getting mad at that idiot captain right now. Let’s just anchor the ship somewhere secluded so that I can RIP HIM A NEW ONE.

Soon after, my anger towards Luffy’s rash personality dissipated and began to get replaced with a crawling sense of dread. Even before we anchored the ship, I felt there was something wrong.

The island seemed so still. So… quiet, besides the constant cascading water surrounding us there weren’t any sounds of bugs or birds or ANY animals. It’s getting hard to believe that this island was inhabited by anything, let alone humans.

To add to the ominous feeling the island gave off, the beach ended as soon as it began. The small strip of sand that surrounded the island like a halo turned into stone more than a yard in, and the few plant life that was here miraculously thrived from between the cracks on the rocky floor. No grass, no trees, just bushes, weeds, and a tall rugged mountain that seemed to be too steep to even be called that. It appeared to be more of a tower that onlooked the rest of the island. Looming over everything like a guardian that promised safety only to backhand you with its cracked and coarse hand.

Few of the bushes seemed to have some food to eat, but all of it were poor excuses for berries. Too small to carry any nutrients and too little to sate any hunger. I’m sure that even if you collected all the berries in this place it wouldn’t even be enough to constitute as a meal.

Without even looking I knew that the water surrounding us would be the same. Devoid of all life, plant, and animal alike. Had we really survived? Or do we await a less abrupt ending? One where we prolong our inevitable doom by scrounging up any food we can find or starve.

Looking over to the thrashing water that surrounded us, tumbling over itself to create an impenetrable gate, it seemed to be harsher than what we’d crossed to get in here. Was it even possible to get back out? With the way things looked if we even tried we’d get ripped to shreds. I don’t think The Sunny can survive that.

My concerns were interrupted when Luffy came running back to us yelling that he hadn’t found a town or village on the small island. “Of course not! Do you not see how deserted the island looks?”

“That’s right, Luffy!” Usopp joins in my scolding, “we should worry about how we’re gonna get out! Or what we’re gonna eat! Our food won’t last forever!” At least there’s one person here that’s reliable. I can always count on Usopp to be grounded!

“We can just eat fish-” I quiet the thundering dumbass with a hit to the head, “obviously not! There are no fish here!” With a huff, I look over to our cook, “Sanji-kun, can you ration out the food?”

“Yes, Nami-swan!” Hearts practically bulge out of his eyes as he praises my genius. disregarding that one, I need to make sure the whining resident glutton of the ship gets the message.

Glaring, I grab the scruff of Luffy’s vest, “EVERYONE’S on a diet until we get out or miraculously find food on this godforsaken rock.”

“Bᵤₜ ₙaaaₘᵢᵢᵢᵢ”

“No buts.”

“Bᵤₜ ₙaa-” Giving him another hard knock to the head, I dish out the rest of the orders.

Zoro is gonna go scout the island more thoroughly, taking Chopper with him because he wanted to see if there were any herbs he could use for medicine in between all of the weeds. Robin went to go check out the stone tower mountain with Franky and Luffy, who would have gone anyway even if I had told him otherwise. Usopp and Brook took charge of seeing if the sea was really as barren as the rest of this place in the Mini Marry. Lastly, I’m gonna go explore the island, map it out, and try and find any clues that explain why this place is so lifeless.

-

After an hour of looking around, I've come to the conclusion that this place makes no sense! If an underwater volcano erupted and created the island not so long ago then maybe it would make sense but by the looks of the untamed, patchy shrubs this place has been here for much longer. Not to mention, after an eruption, the first life that forms is lichen that slowly breaks away at the rock that formed; but it’s as if a sheet of rock landed on top of this island, killing everything that couldn’t claw its way out through the cracks. More so, it looks like it’s sealing everything beneath it so that no other life passes. It’s purposefully trying to keep any vegetation from growing.

The longer I walk around the island the more off it becomes. I should get back and tell the others what I found. Hopefully, Robin was luckier and found better clues about this place in the tower.

-

As I approach The Sunny, I can see that all of them are back and… there’s someone with them.

So there was life here?

How is that even possible?

Either way, I have a piece of my mind to give to this person about the island.

“Look who we found in the tower.” Robin gestures towards the new person in the group, “this is Y/n.”

“Thank you, Robin. I can always count on you.”

“Luffy and I were there too, y’know!” Franky yells at me.

“Yeah, yeah. Anyway, Y/n-”

“Don’t ignore me!” 

“- how long have you been here? How did you manage to survive? Is there anything that’s edible here, other than the barries?” I give them a look like they’re our saving grace. Maybe, just maybe, there could be hope for us after all.

Reader’s pov.

They’d introduced themselves already; the black-haired woman that initially found me in my safe haven had done the courtesy, even going as far as telling me what each of the people on the crew did. That includes the redhead that approached us with a worried expression that soon turned to absolute bliss as she laid eyes on me. She must think I can get them out of here or find them some supplies, but she will soon be disappointed.

After a small one-sided exchange from the redhead and… Franky… she bombards me with questions.

“... no, sorry. There is no food here…” The life practically saps out of her eyes as she deflates into a feeble state of worry. “You all should leave if you can. This is no place to live.”

“Says you!” the long nose speaks up. Usopp, was it? “You live here don’t you? If you’d fallen in after us Brook and I would have seen you when we were searching around the island and we didn’t see any boats or wrecks!”

“Plus, you’re all alone here. What happened to your crew?” Chopper the tanuki braves his fear and speaks from behind Zoro. Well, not quite. He’s more hiding his face than his body.

“Maybe they ate their crew.” Usopp and Chopper scream in terror at Robin’s attempt at humor. “Don’t say that, Robin! They wouldn’t... R-r-right, Y/n-san.” Stuttering, Usopp tries to give me the benefit of the doubt so as to land a better standing with me. “W-we’re all friends here right, Y/n-san?”

“Maybe I did.” Usopp ashened at my words while Chopper yelled that I’d be restrained.

Such a lively crew. It's been a while since I’ve had such a nice interaction with… Well, anyone. Looking off to the side, I make note of the time of day. It’s nearly sunset, they should get out while there’s still light, if they even can. At the very least they should die trying. What this place is… What this place becomes after dark. They won’t survive for long if they stay here.

“All jokes aside,” admitting that I was only joking seemed to calm the scaredy cats, though what I’m about to say will raise their anxiety once more. Poor them, thrown one thing after another. “It’s getting dark. There are things on this island that come out during the night-”

“The caves dug into the floor Chopper and I saw, there was something inside,” Zoro steps forward, already knowing the answer to his upcoming question. “I felt something was in there, that’s what you’re talking about, right?”

“Yes, there are creatures here who burrowed down into the rock of this island,” turning behind me, I face the tower again, “they won’t go into the tower, so if you need it, you can stay there for tonight.”

“But take anything you want from your ship, those creatures will ravage everything on it.” I raise a hand to stop their upcoming complaints, “it would be best to leave right now so that the ship has a better chance to make it over the whirlpool, but there is no helping it if you have no idea how to cross it yet.”

Letting them finally say what’s on their minds they hurl a flurry of complaints at me.

Luffy: can that thing even hold up? When we went to go see it, it looked like it was about to fall over!

Franky: I’m not leaving my baby alone with whatever those things are!

Usopp: What are those things?!?!?!?! Do they only come out at night?! Am I the only one worried about them?!!

Zoro: I’ll cut them all down.

Sanji: Nami-swan, Robin-chwan! Your prince will protect you!

Nami: Thank you Sanji-kun

Chopper: I wasn’t aware there even was an entrance to the tower.

Robin: I hope we don’t get eaten…

Brook: Same here, I doubt I’m any good. I’m all bones yohohohoho

Taking a deep breath, I try to answer whatever questions or complaints they have. The tower will probably hold. No guarantee, though. It’s the safest bet to make it through the night.

The things leave when daylight hits.

They can’t just sail around the island until those things are gone in the morning because they are a type of magical creature that learns and evolves. (The creatures would struggle to swim at first but soon enough they would become exceptional at it and catch up.)

You can’t just cut them down because they’re immortal beings that re-generate.

“Well, not quite beings, considering that they were made from magic to mindlessly attack whatever is in the cage.” I corrected myself, gaining more inquiries. “Magic? Cage? Is that what the whirlpool is? What is it keeping inside, if not those creatures?” Robin seems to be one of the more inquisitive people on the ship, considering how gung-ho the others appear to be, I’m glad they have someone that they can count on. Such loyalty and trust from comrades is one thing that I miss most from the outside world.

“Hahaha those are good questions, maybe I’ll answer that some other time,” I turn on my heel, not really caring if they take my advice or not. “It’s a long story and it’s about to get dark. We should head inside.”

I’m not gonna stay out here to be live bait to those THINGS.

Suddenly a warm, cream-colored thing snakes around my abdomen before yanking me back, full force. Nearly making me spit out my heart, may I add. What the ABSOLUTE FUCK?

Flying past the ship’s railing, I land on the hard mast, knocking the wind right out of myself. “Ah, sorry. Sorry, shishishishi.” Luffy stands above me, laughing at my expense. That stupid face makes me want to throw him into the ocean. A devil fruit user huh? I hope he sinks, bastard! I prepare to scold him, but he cuts me off, “you’re coming with us, right?”

“I- wa- No! I can’t ‘come with you’!”

“Huh? But why not?”

“Because the cage won’t let me! Believe me, I’ve tried! It just drags me right back… I can’t… I can’t leave.” Pushing past Luffy, I try to jump ship but it seems they have other ideas. His arm now tightly secured to my waist he tells me they won’t let those things hurt me. That I can leave with them. To the outside world.

His words and the full confidence looks his crew gives us almost makes me fall to my knees. How can they believe so blindly in someone? Putting so much faith in someone can only lead to betrayal. They can’t be serious. This isn’t real.

I try to worm myself out of his grasp. Pulling and pushing at Luffy’s skin, kneading away at his arm but his hold only tightens. “We’ll get out, Y/n. Don’t worry.” He isn’t looking at me, rather choosing to stare as the last sliver of light vanishing and a tidal wave of misformed creatures rushing towards the departing ship.

They were all butched, they looked like the person who made them once intended them to look human only to change their mind at the last moment. Some of the creatures looked sickly, with stick-like bodies that clashed with bulbous limbs. Dried out, pale skin that cracked under their every jagged movement, spilling blood with every jerk of their body. Their faces so sunken and hollow you could barely tell there were eyes in the black sockets that reflected back the murky color of the dim moonlight.

Others had random limbs that were too long for them; elongated further than they should have to contradict the rest of their proportions. Their skin sagged on their forms and their orifices oozed a dark and coagulated purge liquid that slopped down with their every step.

They crawled at an alarming speed with their spidery appendages, falling over each other’s tangling limbs. They pulled on each other to get to us. Gnarled limbs clawing, biting, ripping each other open to get farther ahead.

Their dark gray blood painted the stone beneath them as they healed themselves then tried to get past again. Shoving, piercing, and sinking their teeth into one another turned to push each other underwater when they got to the sea.

They took no breaths between the waves that pulled them or the body pushed them under; they didn’t even look like they cared that they were drowning themselves.

They had one objective.

Destroy the occupants of the cage at any cost. 

“Oh, god! What are they doing?!” Usopp yelled from the stern, firing off a few rounds with his slingshot, kabuto. Zoro, Sanji, and Chopper stood beside him observing the horrific sight. “Stop firing at them! It’s useless, that won’t make them stop!” I yell back at him, finally managing to free myself from Luffy’s arm. Whether they heard me or not didn’t show, all four of them began to throw any attack they could at the creatures.

“Have a little faith, Y/n shishishi,” Luffy smiled at me, “we’re gonna get out of here.”

Rolling my eyes, I walk over to the railing. “If you guys wanna take your chances with the cage that’s fine, but leave me out of it.” I prepare to leap over the railing only to be pulled back again. “Are you crazy?! Those things will rip you to shreds if you go into the water!”

“No, crazy would be staying here, and at the very least it’ll give you some time to try and go through to the other side! Look!” I pointed back to the mass of bodies that dived down before springing out of the water, almost taking out Usopp when they collectively reached out for him. “I told you those things learn, it’s just a matter of time before they manage to get on board!” 

I pleaded with them to just let me buy them some time. I can’t leave but at the very least I can do that! I can do one nice thing to the only people that I’ve seen in centuries! To the people that tried to save me with their stupid blind faith.

But Luffy stubbornly refused to just let me go. No matter how many times I told them I’d be fine.

The waters sped up as we neared the edge of the whirlpool, leaving the creatures to get pulled under. “There isn’t much time before they resurface, or until the curse... I need to leave. I can buy you time! Please!” I am practically on my knees begging, but they won’t even listen to me.

“Luffy! We only have enough Cola reserves to make a small coup de burst,” Franky shouted over the white noise of the gushing water, “The wind that’s surrounding the whirlpool is being sucked in from the outside. If we don’t time it right we might end up being engulfed by the waters!”

“Alright, Franky! I’m counting on you!”

“Aye, captain! I’ll do it at the last possible moment to ensure we make it through!”

Panic sets in the pit of my stomach, “no, I can’t. I can’t!” I pull and punch at Luffy,  “I won’t make it! Let go of me so you won’t be left behind with me, Luffy!”

“No.”

“Luf- Lu.” I nearly choked on my own words when I got a glimpse of the wide horizon line.

I thought I’d never be able to see such a beautiful eternity again. I’ve never made it this far, the water would only get more aggressive no matter how hard I tried with whatever unlucky ship was dragged down here. It would always drag me down under or pull me back to the island.

 We’re getting closer and closer, the boys in the back are holding themselves against the creatures and Luffy isn’t letting go.

Can I… Can I actually leave this place?

Can I be free?

Tears distort my vision before falling freely down my face, “can I leave? I can be free?” I look up at Luffy for confirmation. Light seemed to radiate off of him. Could you be my savior? 

“Of course, Y/n! Shishishishi!” Luffy lets me go, now satisfied knowing that I won’t try to jump off. I look out into the ocean that I haven’t seen In lifetimes and I can’t help the hope that swells in my heart.

I can see the outside again. 

I’m gonna be free

I am gonna be FREE

All too suddenly the familiar weight on my neck constricts my airway.

No. I’m so close. no. No. NO! 

The chain that binds me to the island finally shows itself. Shortening the closer we get to freedom.

How cruel to have me believe I could actually be free. 

The chain pulled me back with such a crushing force that it immediately snapped my neck. 

Sanji’s pov.

We were so close. So close to leaving this hell hole and then a chain appeared around Y/n neck. It pulled them back into the water and dragged them all the way back to land. All of the creatures that pursued us stopped immediately, taking more interest in Y/n’s body that flopped in and out of the water with the dragging force of the chain. The creatures jumped on to them, injecting their claws into their soft skin to secure their hold on them.

“Stop! Turn around! Y/n fell off!” Luffy yelled up at Franky. 

I agree with Luffy, we may have just met Y/n but I heard about how they were willing to jump into the water to give us time to escape. There’s no way we can leave them behind after that!

“As the navigator, I’ll make sure to keep the ship safe, captain.” With an unshaken voice, Nami assured Luffy, “Go to the island and get Y/n back. We’ll keep The Sunny going around to keep her safe until you get back!”

“D-don’t worry c-captain. I’m a b-brave warrior of the sea! I’ll protect the ship!” Shakily Usopp raised a thumbs up to Luffy.

“Yes! Leave it to us, Captain!” Brook chimed in, soul solid at the ready.

“Oi, Captain. Don’t keep all the fun to yourself. We’re coming too.” Zoro and I stood resolute on our decision. 

“Shishishi alright! Let’s go! Gomu gomu-no!” Luffy stretched his arm over the railing, while the other wrapped itself around us. “No! Wait! Luffyyyyyyyy!!” Our idiot captain wants to kill us! Launching us straight into a rocky shore, this ASS!

“Stop throwing us everywhere, Luffy!” I raise my hand to give him a hard knock to the head, the moss head agrees with me by giving him one too. “Sorry, sorry.”

Sorry, my ass. Grumbling I take out the cigarette box before fishing in my pocket for a lighter. “Alright, Y/n was dragged off somewhere near the tower thing, so let’s head there to look for them first.”

“Yosh! Let’s go!” without a second thought, this reckless idiot rushes straight in, leaving us to catch up.

It didn’t even take long to reach the tower, the island was small. Which is why it surprised me how many of those things there were. How far had they burrowed under the island for there to be this many?

The mass practically moved as one when they noticed us. Descending on us with such ferocity that it would have left a weaker man feeling helpless.

“Sit back and watch, marimo! I’ll take them all out.”

“Big words for such a small man, curly.”

“You shitty- Watch me!” I ran in yelling the name of my starting attack ‘Joue Shoot’ hitting my mark right in the face and sending it, along with every creature behind it, flying.

We aren’t making any headway! Every time we push forward we are pushed back with the same strength. One after another, every enemy we took down bounced right back up, better and stronger than before.

The ones I was fighting got tougher, callused skin and became resistant to the fire from my ‘Hell Memories’ attack; and to make matters worse, those things have started learning my attacks, and a quick glance can confirm that the others are having the same luck. Luffy’s creatures are doubling their speed, increasing their bulging muscles so that they look like Luffy’s Kong Gun. Zoro’s opponents broke their arms, shanking their bones through their skin to make imitation swords.

These things are fucking monsters. They don’t seem to be able to feel any of the pain we’re inflicting. We can’t keep the same mindless pace they do! We take a hit and keep all damage from it!

“Luffy, this isn’t gonna work, we need to retreat for now!”

“Oi, shit-cook! You think these things are just gonna let us retreat!”

“Fuck off, pea-brain!” I kick one of the creatures over at Zoro, “Let’s make them chase us-” the stupid marimo threw on back in retaliation, “obviously they’re gonna chase us no matter what, ero-cook!”

“Just listen, dick head! We make them chase us around the tower; when they leave an opening we can just grab Y/n and run!” There’s no time to fight over this! I sky walk over to Luffy, “Let’s go! Now!”

“Come on, Zoro!” finally taking the hint, Luffy rushes off behind me. 

The monsters bolted with us to the right, but they were smarter than what I’d anticipated. While most of them did follow, there was still a large group guarding the entrance to the tower. They knew what we came for and won’t let us take Y/n so easily. We circled around the tower. Once. Twice. Three times, and still those things didn’t give us an opening. I can’t stand this! We’re just chasing our own tails here!

Impatience at away at us, but the first one to act on it was Luffy.

“They’ll never leave the tower alone! So if they won’t give us an opening we’ll make one!” Luffy threw his arms at me, a silent command that I understood all too well. “Armée de L’Air,” I positioned myself to throw Luffy, “Gomu Shot!” Launching Luffy off with a kick, he rocketed himself straight to the center of the tower.

The tower collapsed almost entirely on itself. Luffy would have just gone straight through it if he hadn’t reached back to hold on to the base and sent himself back in a rebound, effectively clearing the rest of the tower.

Rubble and ash covered the creatures as they all rushed back to the tower. “C’mon!” The moss-head shouted over to me, having seen the opening just as well as me.

. . .There’s something wrong.

The creatures surrounded the tower but weren’t fighting back when we attacked them to get past. They weren’t even moving. Just staring straight ahead to where Luffy should be. As odd as it is, I won’t slow down just because those freaks stopped. I need to get to-

I wasn’t prepared for this. It’s not…. It can’t.

No.

Luffy had a dark shadow casted over his face as he kneeled next to a bloody and gored out Y/n. Their neck was broken by the chain that pulled them away. Skin shredded off and placed in piles around the both of them. Their bones were broken. Protruding. Piercing through in white splayed out spikes from the pink muscles, slathered in blood. Their abdomen slashed open and organs ripped out.

Had the monsters been eating them?

Their arm missed its hand. The leg was torn off. A stray foot laid across from them, mangled. Bitten. 

If those things wanted to eat them they had done it already. They had plenty of time!

But they didn’t.

Looking into the horde of creatures. They all stood still, watching us. Grotesque faces with gnarled teeth bared at us…. Smiling. They're smiling at us.

"Damn it all! Those things were just toying with us."

The creatures went wild at my words. Screeching and shoving each other, but never passing the remaining debris of the pillar that still circled around us. They’re waiting for us to get out of here.

“We can’t stay here,” Zoro pointed at the back of the throng, “some of them have already left. Probably towards The Sunny.”

“Luffy, we can’t bring Y/n with us. They’ll be safe if we leave them inside the circle. In the morning we can bury them but for now, we need to head back the ship.”

-

No words were exchanged on the trip back. All three of us fought as much as we could against the wave of creatures that pursued us, eventually making it back to the ship by sunrise.

 The creatures hissed and hollered in pain when the soft rays of the sun became too much for them to handle. Their gray skin almost seemed transparent in the growing light.

Those thing’s bodies looked like luminescent meat bags carrying distorted skeletons inside. Too warped and bent to look anything like the humans they were initially mirrored after. The things clawed at their eyes, blinding themselves as they rushed back to hide in their caves.

After the last of the nocturnal creatures retreated, we docked the ship again.

Then the dreaded question came.

Nami asked if we’d managed to retrieve Y/n but she was only met with grim looks that turned the exhilaration of having won another breath of life sour. 

“It’s not fair! Y/n just wanted to be free… they just wanted...” Luffy trailed off, glancing back to where their body should be laid. “We should take them with us and bury them out of here.”

“It won’t be that easy, Luffy.” Zoro tried to reason with him.

“We can’t just leave them in this cage!”

“We don’t even have a coffin! Are we supposed to just stuff them in a box and keep them in the freezer until we can find the next island?!”

As much as I’d like to take them with us, Zoro does have a point. We can’t just carry around a brutalized body with us. “Luffy, we don’t know when we’ll reach the next island. It could be weeks! We can’t-”

“Yo,” A voice greets us from beside me.

“Hey,” I give them a quick glance before getting back to what I was saying. “Anyways, we can’t t-”

Was that?

.  .  .

“You’re supposed to be dead!” 

“Oh, shit. Am I?” Y/n’s tone was light, as if they hadn’t just been mauled to death by beasts. “The hell do you mean ‘am I’!?” 

Reader’s pov.

After being magically resurrected, one would think that people would be surprised, confused, or maybe astonished? But curly over here seemed pissed.

“Thanks for the warm welcome, bud.” Putting on the saddest looking face I turned around, “guess I’ll just crawl into a cave and die again...” 

“N-no, that’s not what I-” Sanji reached his hand out to stop me.

“Ahahaha I know, I know. Don’t worry about it….. Though I suppose I do owe you guys an explanation for this.” 

It’s been so long since I had to explain to someone what happened that day… 

No. 

It wasn't just that day. Things were off since before that, but I didn’t pay attention to the signs. God, why didn't I? 

I keep asking myself that.

Why didn't I back out when I had the chance? Why couldn't I just let sleeping dogs lie? 

Either way, on that day, everything went wrong.

-

Long ago, when the world was in a time of mystic and wonder, the practice of magic was common throughout the four blues. Most things that could be done with magic were done with magic. Magic was so common that even the most secluded tribes used some form of it. And so, as with any type of power, people began to abuse it. People began to use dark magic to rule and terrorize. 

Don’t get me wrong, magic isn’t inherently evil, but neither is it good. Magic is a form of science. It follows its principles and has its limits. People’s intentions, though, can be either-or.

Order had to be put in place. A council of the noblest, wisest, and strongest magic users was made. They became the authority; their rule was final. And in an act of democracy, they input a system that would not let them become all-powerful.

That’s where the seven covens come in.

The seven covens (separately) ruled over the four seas, the new world, the grand line, and the calm belts. The members of the covens were chosen by the people and, unfortunately, that’s where it started.

After magic regulation rules and laws came into place, people were angry that they couldn’t use it freely and unchecked as they did before. When the ones who were strong stood on top of those who lacked it. They couldn’t rule over people as tyrants or terrorize others for their amusement and gain; but it also meant magic couldn’t be used to ease everyday life either. Magic was monitored, you had to seek permission from a coven to use stronger types of magic for your work and some forms of magic were even banned.

Curious people that tried to see how far they could push the boundaries of magic were furious when their research was trashed. With magic now limited, underground organizations began to arise. I was part of one.

Since magic is a natural part of the world like waterfalls or clouds, that’s why I wanted to explore all of its nooks and crannies! It’s the same as when man first evolved enough to wonder what was beyond the island we were born into. 

We wanted to explore the whole world back then! And this should have been the same as that. It’s normal to want to know our extent of power and knowledge. I just wanted to explore magic’s limits and push past them. It should be like training to sword fight or lifting weights. It should have been the same.

We could have used our findings for so many wonderful things!

But I was naive.

Banning together with a group of people whom I thought shared the same passion for the unexplored and unknown….

In the shadows, we did our research and found so many new ways to use magic! So many new types! We were doing so good.

We wanted to find a way to bring what we’d found to the world.

We wanted this.

We…

I wanted this. 

As much as I want to believe otherwise, the signs were there from the beginning. But they were my colleagues. . . my friends. I gave them the benefit of the doubt at first.

We came up with a plan to get ourselves elected for the coven. We wormed our way in like maggots then ate our way up. 

We were going to instill new rules. Be more lenient towards magic usage for businesses. Introduce a research team for magic that would take us out of the underground. Slowly release our findings.

That was as far as I would go. They left me in charge of the research team while they went behind my back and found new dangerous and unstable magic. They used it to hurt people and to gain authority. 

They’d cart away lost civilians, people who were so forgotten from society that if they were to disappear no one would notice.

They breed them to keep their human supply going. Then they’d used them as guinea pigs.

Eventually, I did find out what they were doing, but by then it was too late. The plan had gone too well and now they were inside all of the covens except for the ones in east and west blue.

I tried warning the council, but my old comrades found out before I could.

They branded me a traitor and punished me with never-ending torment. Sealing me away in a whirlpool that would cancel my powers, where as long as I was inside I would never age. I would never die.

They put me on this island that would never bear enough fruit but would always have enough to have me desperate for scraps. Lastly, they added those things so that I’d fear their wrath and power for the rest of eternity.

Between slowly dying of hunger or dehydration over and over again and being mauled to death, the thing that hurt most was them branding ME as the traitor. They betrayed ME.

They USED me.

The people I thought of as friends.

-

Taking a deep breath, I finished off my story. 

“...Y/n… that was a really sad story and all, but what do you mean magic?” Out of all the questions, I didn’t expect Usopp to ask that one. 

“... what do YOU mean?” I shared a look with all the members of the crew. How could they not know about magic? It’s everywhere??? “Y’know magic. Like what brought me back to life and is keeping me from leaving this place.”

“Like witches, with wands and brooms?” As much as it worries me that they don’t know about magic, I have an even bigger question, “what the fuck do brooms have to do with this?” 

“Ah, well witches fly around... on them…” With every passing word, Usopp’s face got redder and redder, a telltale sign of his growing embarrassment under my judgmental gaze. “Of all things someone could make fly, why a broom?”

“I uh… I don’t know…”

  The conversation carried on until finally, they told me about the outside world. Apparently, the most magical thing that there was out there were the devil fruits that granted their users powers, like Luffy’s rubber body. 

In a way, I was kind of glad that almost all traces of magic were gone. That meant that my comrades from back then failed.

My guess is that after their reckless abuse of power, magic was banned; or at the very least only used by those of the highest standing.

In time, magic must have dwindled, little by little until it just disappeared. 

With so much time passed and with how things turned out, it’s hard to believe that any of my former friends survived.

That must mean that they tethered my cell to an object. If whatever the object is gets destroyed... I could have a chance of leaving this place.

“... Luffy… do you… do you still want to help me escape?”

Luffy’s voice didn't waver.

He said it as if it was the most obvious thing.

No hesitation. No doubt.

At that moment, I swear, the sun shone brighter than it ever had in this cage full of torment. His bright gaze made it feel like every horrid year I had spent trapped had somehow vanished. It gave me something that I hadn’t had in a long time.

He gave me such a knee-bending sense of hope that I could have cried. He had such conviction that it made me believe that I would soon see the outside once more.

In the evening, after I gave them some information that could help them find the object that kept this cage alive, the straw hats tempted the ferocious waters again and this time I wasn't on the ship.

Before they left they made me a promise.

One day, they will be back.

They will set me free and we’ll explore this new world together.

I’ll keep waiting.

No matter how long it takes, until that day.

[kazimakuwabara]

The Sea is Calm

Summary: (one piece fiction) (SanUso) (1600+ words) Usopp and Sanji have a discussion about father, expectations, and feelings. 

*****

The night is dark, the sea is calm, and the Thousand Sunny is still.

All is calm save for the storm buzzing inside him.

In the distance, Usopp, even in the dead of night, can see the ship that belongs to the Red Hair Pirates. The ship his dad is on. The ship is docked on the island they were supposed to be at, but the lull in weather had delayed their arrival. They would get there tomorrow.

Luffy had cheered, and launched himself in the air, shouting his excitement for his reunion with Shanks.

Usopp's insides had twisted, and he descended below deck, where he had hidden for the rest of the day. He had even managed to convince Chopper that he wasn't feeling well, and couldn't eat dinner that night. It had spared Usopp from having to join his friends for dinner, but had not stopped Sanji from barging into Usopp's workshop, a bowl of soup in hand.

Sanji had looked like he was about to scream something in Usopp's face, but when Usopp looked at him Sanji shut his mouth.

Usopp wasn't sure what Sanji saw on his face, but it had left the chef frozen for a solid minute. Usopp had felt like he might start hyperventilating, and then Sanji finally moved towards him. Loudly, Sanji placed the tray down on the table and muttered, "Eat that. All of it," and was gone.

Usopp obeyed, the soup delicious as always. It had hurt to eat it all, his stomach had been churning all day, but he didn't dare not finish his meal. He knew better than that. Usopp stayed in his workshop until he knew it was dark. Only then did he leave the safety of his room to return his dirty dishes and walked the deck of his home.

Under a blanket of stars, Usopp settled himself on the stairs that led to the helm, and just... looked out at the Red Hair's ship.

His father was on that ship. Or on that island. With his friends... or maybe out drinking on his own. Was Yasopp... faithful? Did he flirt with women he happened to meet, or did he have a picture of Usopp and his mom tucked close to his heart? Would he show the image off to anyone who would look? Would Yasopp know who Usopp was when he saw him? Had he seen Usopp's wanted poster? Did he know Usopp was on the sea? Did he remember how old Usopp was? Did he remember the texture of Usopp's hair? Did he remember the way Banchina used to laugh? Did he know...?

Anything?

"You'll sink their ship if you keep looking at it that hard," a deep familiar voice startled Usopp so bad, he slipped from one step the next, banging his funny bone on the hard wood.

"Ah! Ow! Sanji!" Usopp hissed, holding his arm, blinking at the tears and the breath that choked out of him, "You tryin' to kill me!?"

Sanji snorted, and climbed the stairs to join Usopp, immediately setting hip to hip with the sniper, an arm swinging around his shoulders. Sanji's cigarette dangled out of his mouth as he leaned over to take Usopp's arm, and squint at it in the dark. His smooth, warm hands ran over Usopp's elbow and he made a series of soft cooing sounds, before whispering, "You're fine Longnose, quit complaining."

Usopp pouted, but let Sanji rub his elbow and hold him in this strange half embrace.

Sanji eventually stopped petting Usopp's arm, but kept his other arm draped over Usopp's shoulders, his hand hovering near his shoulder. Usopp, braver than he was yesterday, and braver than he was a few years ago, slumped against Sanji, his head falling against the chef's shoulder. There was a bit of hesitation, and then Sanji was pulling him closer, his hand slipping up to cup Usopp's head. Sanji held Usopp against him, and asked what had been on his mind since he had brought Usopp his dinner, "What's going on Usopp? What's wrong?"

My art

"My dad's on that ship," Usopp said pointing out there, "On that island."

"That's good...right?" Sanji asked, the happiness in his tone diminishing as he sensed Usopp's unease.

"I don't know," Usopp answered after a time. He let his answer roll out of him, like waves on the sand. With a sigh he sank against Sanji, the chef supporting him as he settled. "I don't know Sanji. Not... anything."

For a short while, they sat smoke drifting into the air from Sanji's lit cigarette, and Usopp's ear pressed above Sanji's heart. It was beating fast, not as fast as Usopp's, not yet.

"What do I say to someone who left me and Mom? Mom was sick when she left. It's not like... it's not like she was healthy. He knew... she got sick a lot," Usopp spoke, the words flowing out of him like wine, "He knew what could have... what did... He knew I could be on my own, but the sea called and he answered. And it's weird, but I'm still... still so proud of him. I would... I would hit anyone who ever said anything bad about him... but if I see him tomorrow..."

"If you don't punch him, I will," Sanji said, voice soft and low against Usopp's temple.

"You don't use your hands," Usopp whispered, the words leaving him without any real thought.

"I'll use them tomorrow," Sanji said, soft and sure.

A lump was in Usopp's throat, and his eyes could not see the ship or the island stretched far from him. Tears rolled down his cheeks and Usopp didn't have the words to say what he was feeling.

"I have a father who raised me, and one who pretended to be a father while it was convenient," Sanji said softly.

Usopp choked, startled to hear Sanji talk about this now.

Sanji had left and come back to them, and there was a brief explanation of course. But the tension in Sanji's shoulders, and the strain around his jaw, they all knew not to talk about it. About the Vinsmoke family. They would have to wait for him to talk about it, to come and explain if he ever wanted to-because he never had to. They would hear the tale in pieces, in great painful chunks. Usopp would never push for more.

But, oh... Usopp had wished he had gone with Nami, Brook, Luffy, and Chopper at that time. He was jealous in a way he didn't dare voice. It made him sick in the pit of his stomach to feel this way. But he wanted to know. He wanted to hold Sanji, and run his fingers through the chef's hair, and share that pain.

It was painful to get what he wanted now.

"You can't be a father when it's only convenient," Sanji said, voice thick and bitter, "You have to be... there. You have to share yourself with your kid or kids. As equally as you can. You don't run off, you don't look away... you don't ignore their pains and suffering. You give until you can't. You'll fuck up... its only human. But point is-you're there!"

"You'd be... a great father," Usopp choked, his tears burning his skin as it ran down his cheeks.

"I had the best teacher," Sanji muttered, shifting so he could draw Usopp closer. Usopp was pulled into Sanji's core, and thin slightly cold fingers wiped away Usopp's tears trying to clear the sniper's vision. Usopp pressed into Sanji's hands longing to be held and loved. Sanji blanketed him, his face dipping low towards Usopp, warm breath washing over him, his arms and hands pooling around Usopp. Sanji was the sea and Usopp floated against him, for the first time not afraid to drown.

"...What father would I be?" Usopp asked voice small.

Usopp's head was tilted back and he closed his eyes, lips and beard scruff scraping against his throat. Usopp swallowed hard, shivering as the heat bloomed from his throat, and warmth draped around him like a blanket.

"...Your father doesn't have to be the one who contributed his DNA, Usopp. It's the one who's there."

Usopp thought of Franky, and opened his eyes.

Sanji's grey-blue eyes were above him, soft and shining with stars. Sanji smiled at Usopp, retreating from him a little to kiss Usopp's brow, before he continued to speak, "And you? As a dad? I know you Usopp... you'd be the best."

Usopp closed his eyes again, and rolled into Sanji's embrace, snuggling into the chef's waist. Sanji shifted, stubbing his cigarette out against the step he sat on. His arms wrapped around Usopp, pulling the sniper close, and Sanji whispered, "You're so brave today."

Usopp smiled at the wonder in Sanji's voice. Pressing himself further into the embrace. Usopp pushed and squeezed until he could feel both their heartbeats overlapping one another, finally beating at the same rapid pace. Usopp breathed in, tasting as well as smelling nicotine and salt. Today he could be brave.

"I'm not sure about tomorrow," Usopp murmured.

"I'll be with you tomorrow," Sanji promised, voice sharp and rich. His hands folded into Usopp's curls, and he bent himself low over the sniper in his lap, "I'll be with you."

Usopp hummed, clinging to his bravery for a few more seconds. Shifting, he pushed himself up, his hands on either side of the chef's hips, and he reached up with his open mouth. Sanji's cheeks stained pink, and his eyes wide with many appreciative emotions, met Usopp eagerly. Slanting his lips against Usopp's, the pair slid into a kiss Usopp might have been too afraid to do any other night.

But the sea was calm, and a storm was buzzing inside Usopp.

Tonight, he could be brave.

Tomorrow, he would have to see.

End

[doctorgerth]

A New Light at the End of the Tunnel

Chosen Characters: Straw Hat Pirates

Chosen Word: Nightmare

Fic Type: Mostly fluff with a hint of angst

Appropriate Warnings: Blood, gore, implied character death

Nightmares were a rarity for Luffy.

It made sense, considering the life he was leading. He was a pirate captain. He was on his journey to becoming king of the pirates with all of his friends and the best part was he’s gotten his share of the best meat ever. With a life like this, Luffy’s never had many nightmares. Most of them just consisted of him not being able to reach the delectable meat before he woke up (which, granted, was a true horror). 

That was until two years ago. That was when the true nightmares began.

For the most part, they always end up the same, with a few variety in between. He was there, in Marine HQ, the scaffold where Ace stood unnaturally high against the dark clouds. Sometimes he’d be by himself, and other times, there would be the screaming pirates and marines all around him. 

But without fail, he’d always be looking for the most important person. The one he ran straight through hell to get to. The one that he needed to find. The panic would start to creep up his spine, his heart beating harder and harder. Sometimes his vision would twirl around, faster and faster, like his head was a spin top, with no end in sight.

And then, like a beacon of light, Ace would be standing there, fire surrounding him, chasing away the darkness. 

Luffy laughed, glee warming him up as the doubt retreated. “Ace!” he cried, throwing his arms up and out. “There you are!”

Ace turned back to him, with a grin as bright as the light around him. “You never could stop yourself from getting into trouble, could you, Luffy?”

Luffy giggled. “That’s no fun, Ace!” 

There was always something wrong, though. Something whispering in Luffy’s ear, words that he couldn’t quite grasp in tones that slicked down the side of his neck like tar. His stomach would roll, in ways different than when he was hungry. He’d push it aside, forcing the grin to stay on his face. Everything’s fine. Ace is here and he’s going to be fine. That thought would be his barrier, but nothing seemed to stop the icy fingers from crawling up his back. 

He ignored it. “Let’s go, Ace!” Luffy cheered, his fists in the air as an unspoken defiance against the people who tried to take his big brother away from him. “I’ve come to save you!”

That’s when the silence would hit him at full force. Regardless of whether he had been by himself before or only now was didn’t matter. He’d only realize it until that moment. His shoulders would tense, like waiting for an enemy to appear just before him. Would it be Aokiji? Or maybe Smokey was waiting for another chance? 

His eyes snapped to his sides and then behind him. His senses went on full alert. Until the bright red would catch his attention. Head whirling back around, no matter how many times he’d beg for it to be different, the results would always be the same. 

The whole in Ace’s chest was large, blood steadily pouring out and splattering onto the ground. A trickle of the red would drip down from Ace’s mouth to his chin. Luffy’s heart stopped, every muscle in his body frozen, despite how he desperately wished to run towards Ace. “You… were always… so reckless…” Ace was struggling to breathe. 

Run. Go. RUN. 

His legs wouldn’t listen. Had Aokiji frozen him like last time? He couldn’t tell. His eyes wouldn’t tear away from the sight before him. “A-Ace…” Luffy gasped. “No. Ace.” He strained his muscles, but something was holding him back, unseen hands grasping at his ankles to keep him in one spot. 

Ace’s eyes lifted up to his. “Sorry, Luffy…” Tears were already streaming down his face, mixing with the blood, turning the bright color dull. “This is it for me.”

A gust of wind and Ace would disappear. His fire was gone and Luffy was back in darkness again. Luffy screamed, but nothing could pierce through it. He didn’t care and continued to yell. He kept at it until his lungs burned. The darkness was suffocating him, and he couldn’t find his way out. He lashed out but there wasn’t any air. He couldn’t make sense of it anymore. 

He was all alone. 

He was all alone. 

Luffy wailed. 

Luffy’s eyes snapped open and he practically threw himself off his bunk. He crashed onto the floor. He gasped for breath, trying to make sense of where he was. I’m on my ship, some part of him insisted. I’m on the ship. 

The silence in the quarters encouraged him to scream, but he fought it as he scrambled up and towards the exit. Throwing open the door, he paused just before leaving and scrubbed his tears away. Then, he stepped out and onto the deck. The light blinded him for a second, and he couldn’t breathe. 

His eyes adjusted quickly.

The sun was starting to set. The darkness was closing in from above his head and his heart was thrumming so painfully in his chest. “Oi, shit captain!” Luffy caught Sanji standing over the railing, chewing on his cigarette. “Geez, I called you like a million times. It’s not like you to miss dinner.” 

Dinner. 

Luffy was already running across the deck, but the smile on his face was frayed at the edges as the darkness crept along his back. His muscles were tense and he wished more than anything that he could fight this off like any of the other men that he’s faced before. 

But you fought hard at Marineford and that did nothing to help Ace.

His shoulders tightened, trying to ignore the whispers. “Yosh!” He forced the word out, but it was stale at the back of his tongue. Luffy was always genuine with his emotions and this was as wrong to him as anything else. He didn’t like lying, but he also didn’t like these emotions. He wanted them gone, and he desperately hoped that this would quiet them. 

He threw himself into the dinning room, ignoring Sanji’s angry yelling about not breaking anything. The light in the room made his sight go bright for a second and his head ached and pounded for a minute. 

His vision cleared. 

His crew was sitting at the table. They all turned towards him when he entered. “Ah, Captain,” Robin greeted softly. She smiled over at him. “I was worried that you had died in your sleep when you didn’t come for food.”

“ROBIN!” Usopp smacked his hands on the table, leaning forwards towards her. “How many times do I have to tell you to stop saying such creepy things!”

Luffy walked over to the empty spot and sat himself down. His shoulders started to relax.

“Don’t you worry, Luffy!” He turned to see Chopper staring up at him earnestly. “I’ll always make sure you’re healthy.” 

Franky stepped in. “Luffy’s never going to worry about that, bro!” Franky yelled boisterously. “Not when we got such a SUPER doctor on our crew!” Franky stood up just to throw his arms together in his famous pose. 

Chopper gasped, and without missing a beat, started wiggling around in his chair. “Don’t think for one second that I’m flattered, you stupid human!” Chopper said with a giggle. “Compliments don’t work on me like that!”

“Pretty sure they’re working just fine…” Usopp muttered.

His heartbeat slowed.

“Here Luffy,” Zoro forced a mug of ale into his hands. “Maybe you finally just’ve grown enough in the two years that you’ve got a taste for alcohol finally!” The grin on Zoro’s face was vicious.

“Yeah right!” Nami came in and smacked Zoro hard in the head. His face hit the table with the force. “Like that’ll ever happen with Luffy!” She snatched the mug right out of Luffy’s hands. “How many times do I have to tell you, idiot?” Nami growled, waving the cup around wildly. “If Luffy is this much of an idiot, then we do not need to find out how what he is like if he ever got drunk!”

His breathing smoothed.

“Why you…” Zoro’s head snapped up, and even with a sizable egg now blooming on his head, he was still terrifying as he grasped onto his swords. Not that Nami even flinched. She gave his glare back to him tenfold. 

“Oi!” Zoro’s natural fighting instincts protected him from Sanji’s kick. “If you even think of using one of those ugly swords on my beautiful Nami, I’ll kick your ass so hard you’ll need a new wanted poster.”

“At least mine came out good the first time!” Zoro threw back, hitting Sanji right where it hurt.

Sanji gave an inhuman roar and Zoro responded instantly. They were already kicking and slicing before anyone could stop them. 

“Ugh…” Nami dropped herself back down onto her chair and rolled her eyes. Everyone knew it was useless to try and break them up. “What morons…” 

The whispers were getting farther away.

Robin giggled. “Seems like some things never do change.”

“Or ever will…” Usopp was happy to lend Nami some company in the pity party. 

“Yohohohoho!” Brook slid in with a joyous laugh. “Now, now, everyone! Why don’t I play us a song that will help those ears be just as full as our stomachs!” 

“That sounds like a SUPER idea!” Franky cheered.

Chopper clapped. “Oh yes, please Brook!” 

Nami put her head in her hand. “Well, at least the nice music will drown them out a bit…” she muttered.

“But first...” Brook appeared next to Nami. She raised an eyebrow. “May I see your panties, Nami?”

Nami didn’t even hesitate. “NO WAY IN HELL!” She swung a leg out and sent Brook flying across the room. He slammed into the other side. Nami flicked her hair over her shoulder. “Seems like this crew is full of idiots…” Nami grumbled.

You’re home.

Robin laughed. Usopp shook his head. “You’d think he’d get it after a while.” 

Nami rolled her eyes. “Yeah, that’s clearly never going to happen.”

You’re with your family.

“Sanji!” Nami called to him from where he was still battling it out with Zoro. “Ignore him and serve dinner already! Before the glutton decides to eat it all off the stove.” There was no question who she was referring to.

“Of course, Nami-swan~!” Sanji immediately abandoned Zoro to twirl his way back over to dinner with hearts bursting from his very pores.

Zoro scoffed and sheathed his swords. “Erocook…” he muttered, even as he walked back over to the table.

What’s gone maybe gone, but you still have something left in this world to treasure, don’t you?

Luffy’s world brightened again. The grin that stretched from his lips this time around was as pure and as genuine as it ever was before. Everybody noticed. “What’s with that look, Luffy?” Usopp asked, leaning forward to catch his eye. “What’s got you so happy?”

“What else?” Nami scoffed. “Sanji’s about to serve dinner.”

“The captain does love his food,” Robin cooed. “Let’s hope he doesn’t eat so much he explodes.”

“Robin!” Usopped snapped.

His throat was no longer closed and his words came out easy this time. “I love my crew!” he yelled out from the bottom of his heart. He threw his hands up and out, the joy behind his words warming him to his very bones. “I’ve got the best crew in the entire world!”

There was a pause. Everyone shocked at such an outburst, but then, they all turned bright red. “Don’t think this will work against me~!” Chopper laughed and started wiggling again. 

Nami pressed a hand to her burning cheeks, trying to play it off. “Well of course you do, I mean, I’m the best you’re ever going to get!”

Brook laughed. “Oh dear me, I’m blushing as red as a cherry.” He paused for effect. “I mean, I would be if I had any skin! Yohohohoho~!”

“Aw shucks, Luffy, you’re making us blush.” Franky grinned and smacked Luffy on the back. “But you’re right about that! We’ve got a SUPER crew!”

Robin and Zoro just smiled, as they settled themselves in for the meal. 

“Alright,” Sanji called as he walked over with arms full of delicious food. “Bon appetit!” Luffy was more than happy to dig in. 

Yes, he would sometimes have nightmares. Sometimes the darkness would get a little too much for Luffy to handle. But, no matter where it happened or when, he knew one thing for certain. His crew would always be there to remind him of one thing. 

That, no matter what, there would always be a light at the end of his darkness.

[vannahfanfics]

If requests are open again could we see that fic where they keep the chopper clones.

Here you go, Anon! Who knew that my knowledge of science and medicine would become useful in a One Piece fanfic, LOL. Also if I go AWOL just assume the FBI has arrested me for Googling cyanide poisoning and its antidotes… 

Before you read, here’s Part I!

Look at All Those Choppers! Part II

About one week after the infamous clone carp incident, Chopper was once again perched on his little barrel with the tiny fishing rod in his hands, humming the latest of Brook’s tunes as he carefully watched the bobber drift up and down in the gently sloshing waves. This time his regular fishing partner Usopp was also in attendance, sitting on the railing of the ship with one leg hanging lazily over the side, so Chopper didn’t need to bother anyone else with having to supervise him. They were still moseying about in the same stretch of sea that the clone carp populated (according to Robin’s investigation) and so they had memorized a photograph of the silvery fish to ensure that a harrowing incident such as Chopper’s cloning did not happen again. No more clone carp sushi, nuh-uh, no way! He thought with a small chortle to himself.

“It’s such a shame, though,” Usopp sighed aloud suddenly, causing Chopper to look at him quizzically. The sniper gave the reindeer a contemplative look. “Just think how useful it would be to have more than one Zoro or Luffy, or even an army of you, Chopper!” The Zoan doctor was caught between being amazed that Usopp had read his mind and upset that Usopp had implied that an army of him equated to only two of the more beastly members of the Straw Hats. “I just wish we would’ve had more time to study it to see if we could use it,” he sighed while tugging on his pole to entice something from the deep.

“Luffy would eat it before we even had a chance to do anything with it, and that would be much worse than an army of Choppers,” Nami snorted as she walked by with a basket of aromatic, fresh tangerines; she knocked Usopp upside the head as she did, knocking him off balance and nearly sending him overboard.

“Watch it, Nami! You’re lucky I don’t have a Devil Fruit or I woulda drowned! Drowned, ya hear me?” Usopp shouted after her while shaking his fist. She just ignored him. “It doesn’t matter much, anyway,” he shrugged once her returned his attention to Chopper. “The odds of us catching another one of those clone carps is one in a million, probably.”

~~~~~~~~~~

“Yep. It’s a clone carp,” Robin confirmed as she looked from her encyclopedia of local fish species to the suffocating silver fish that was lying in a puddle of seawater on the deck. Usopp was crouched down next to it, jaw against the wooden deck with a disbelieving, drawn out “Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat?” stuck in his throat. Chopper grabbed his horns and rapidly shook his head from side to side in dismay.

“We have to throw it overboard before Luffy eats it! We stopped in port and stocked up on apples just to be safe, but we all know he won’t eat it!”

“Shhhh!” Usopp hissed and slapped his hand against Chopper’s furry mouth with a shift gaze toward the front of the ship. Chopper had reeled in the fish without much fuss, so Luffy had not had the care to abandon his perch on the lion figurehead. Even now, he was still blissfully unaware of the discovery and was leaning into the wind with his tongue hanging out like some kind of slobbery hound. Chopper scrunched up his face in disgust when he saw blobs of spittle being carried away by the brisk breeze. “This is what I was talking about, Chopper! You’re a doctor. You can study the cells and see if we can make them into some sort of weapon or tool!”

“I don’t know, Usopp… I feel kinda bad… I mean, for their part, those clones had feelings too… I would hate to just create and destroy them at will,” he murmured as he looked at his shiny reindeer hooves. Although at first he had been overjoyed that his crew cherished him and him only, but after he had really gotten to thinking about it, it wasn’t fair to the clones to disregard their feelings and experiences, even if they were limited. Had they really been identical to Chopper after all, or was it only at the cellular level? What about their souls? “It doesn’t feel right…”

“Well, Chopper, maybe by studying the interaction between the clone carp cells and the cyanide antidote, you can find a way to halt the cloning process without reverting the clones back to fish,” Robin pointed out reassuringly. At such a suggestion, Chopper rubbed his chin thoughtfully while staring at the fish, whose eyes had glassed over and was presumably deceased.

“Hmm… That doesn’t sound so bad!” With a contented hum, he flung the fish over his wee shoulder; because it was nearly as large as himself, it disbalanced him a bit and he had to wobble back and forth to get his bearing. After he finally righted himself, he exhaled confidently and gave Robin a toothy grin. “Robin, I’m sure you have books that’ll be helpful; can I borrow them?” The dark-haired woman smiled sweetly and used her Devil Fruit powers to bring down helpful tomes from her voluminous collection, piling them into her arms.

“Shall we, Chopper?” came her wine-smooth voice. Chopper nodded eagerly and whirled on his hoof to totter off to his private study, with Robin walking languidly alongside him. She graciously opened the door for him and allowed him to enter before walking in after him. Chopper tossed the fish onto his work desk before clambering up into his spinning doctor’s chair, rotating it before standing up in it to get a good look at his project. He prodded it a few times to make sure it was really dead, as he didn’t want to needlessly make the fish suffer through the dissection process, before he retrieved his sharp tools from one of the shells.

“Okay! Let’s begin, Robin!”

~~~~~~~~~~

Chopper, with the aid from Robin, conducting his experimental medicinal research in secret for about one week with no progress. He had been sneaking ice from the freezer in Sanji’s kitchen to keep the fileted fish meat on ice in his room until he had made enough cell plates to last him through his research. Once he had the brain cells cultured so that they could continue giving instructions to the body cells, he had set to his research. He had figured out how to get the clone carp cells to convert to his own cells by using some cheek swabs, but he hadn’t figured out how to negate the clone toxin without killing the parent cells and making the other cells turn back to clone carp cells. With an agonized, frustrated groan, he slammed his forehead down against the desk, making all his tools and cell cultures and sample jump up from the force. “This is hopeless! I’m not getting anywhere, Robin! No matter how diluted we make it, the cyanide solution just keeps reverting the cells!” he wailed in distress. He looked up at her with tear-filled eyes, disappointed in himself.

“There’s no need to fret, Chopper. Science isn’t an easy process. None of the greatest scientific achievements have happened overnight!” she responded encouragingly from her seat on the bed. She had several of Chopper’s medical textbooks spread out around her, and had been scanning the passages for useful biochemical or cellular physiology information that may have been relevant. His bottom lip stuck out in a pathetic pout. He was less than reassured. He slunk down from his office chair to scamper across the room and climb into Robin’s lap and hug her midriff sadly. She laughed lightly as he buried her face into her belly, and she wrapped her arms around him in a motherly embrace.

“I’m a failure as a doctor.”

“No, you aren’t, Chopper. We all think you’re a fabulous doctor. Think of how many times you’ve saved us from our wounds! The Straw Hats couldn’t ask for a better doctor.”

“Ah, shut up, you bastard~!” he giggled as her kind words finally seeped through his depressive aura to send a fluttery, blissful butterfly of joy flapping around in his little heart. He looked up at her with a grateful grin which she returned with a soft smile. He spun around to sit in her lap, feeling quite contented perched on her pillow-soft thighs, and picked up one of his toxicology textbooks to begin flipping through the pages. He then screamed and brought it close to his face, as if the passage that had caught his attention would be more significant if it were literally right in front of his eyes.

“What is it, Chopper?”

“How could I miss this? Of course! We shouldn’t have been diluting the cyanide! We should’ve been converting it into a related but less toxic substance! Sulfanegen sodium; do I have any sulfanegen sodium?!” he screamed as he dropped the book and jumped off of Robin’s lap. With how fast his little hooves were whirling, he probably ran on the air across the room to frantically clamber onto his desk and begin rifling through the various bottles shelved in his desk. Cyanide poisoning wasn’t exactly something that pirates had to worry about, as it was mostly used in assassinations performed by elite bounty hunters (and the Navy, probably) but Chopper kept a stock of random antidotes to all kinds of things just in case. It had been a habit after his beloved mentor had perished thanks to his ignorant gift of a poisonous mushroom. Chopper knew much better now, but in the back of his mind he was always afraid that one of his beloved crew mates would suffer some kind of intoxication and he wouldn’t have the antidote for it.

He squealed in glee when he found the labelled bottle reading “Sulfanegen Sodium.” As he sat down on the desk, not even bothering to use the chair, Robin crossed the room to lean over and watch his experiment, hands on her knees. He drew up a small amount of the liquid into the dropper before transferring the little droplet to his current diluted cyanide solution, mixing the two together. He then took one of his cell plates and scooped up a bunch of them to re-plate them on a fresh media plate; they immediately adhered and began rapidly dividing, slowly spreading out in a circular fashion. Before they could fill the plate too quickly, he aliquoted a drop of his new solution and dropped it onto the cells. He awaited a reaction with bated breath. In all his trials previous, the parent cells would shudder and die, while the others changed color to a silvery hue which was indicative of their reversion to clone carp cells as a result of the toxin being negated by the small amount of cyanide from the crushed apple seed solution.

Instead of the aforementioned result, the cells quivered before their division slowly came to a stop and remained the salmon hue that was indicative of human (or in Chopper’s case, human-reindeer) cells. Chopper crowed triumphantly and held the plate over his head as he did a happy jig. “Robin! I did it! I did it!”

“Yes, you did. I told you that you could do it!”

“Hey, what’s with all the noise in here? You woke me up from my nap…” Came a sleepy third voice. Chopper turned around to see that Zoro had opened the door and was scratching his stomach while he stifled a yawn with the other hand.

“That’s what you get for sleeping literally in front of his door,” Nami chimed as she shoved him aside to poke her orange-haired head into the room. “What’re you so excited for, Chopper?”

“Go on, Chopper. Why don’t we tell the entire crew your monumental discovery?” Robin mused. Chopper nodded eagerly and hopped down from the desk to skip out of his study and out onto the main deck. It only took a short moment to assemble all the crew members, and soon they were all looking with expressions of confusion and interest at the little cell plate in his tiny hooves.

“Robin and I have been working with clone carp cells to see if we could find a way to stop their transformation without reverting them back to the fish!” he announced proudly. Sanji stopped his scientific revelation reveal with a startled gasp.

“Chopper, you what? But we agreed that the clone carp was bad news. We don’t need two of Marimo or Captain Idiot!”

“Hey!” the two insulted parties chimed in irritated unison.

“Shut up; you know I’m right.”

“Yeah…”

“I just felt bad about what we did to all my clones,” Chopper admitted with a deep frown. He looked down at the plate of unassuming cells. “Sure, I’m the real Chopper, but all the other Choppers still had feelings, too! It makes me feel sad that we just disregarded that…”

“Are we really debating the morals of getting rid of clones produced by a dumb fish?” Nami asked uncomfortably, but from the look on her face, the moral dilemma was affecting her too. A discontented murmur rippled around the group.

“But with this new solution I made, we can stop anyone who eats the fish from dividing indefinitely! The host cells live in the main host and the other cells that are the clones communicate by quorum sensing to conduct their cellular operations!”

“What the hell does that mean?” Luffy asked while picking his nose. The scientific jargon was rapidly making him lose interest.

“The cells talk to each other,” Robin clarified.

“Whoa! That’s so cool!”

“Yep! The cyanide in the apple seeds killed the parent cells, which are slightly different genetically from the clone cells. It’s not actually reproducing by budding, me and Robin figured out, but a very complex process in-between asexual and sexual reproduction! The daughter cells are the ones that are direct clones and produce identical cells.” By the blank stares, he could tell that he was losing his audience. “A-anyway, with this solution I made, the parent cells don’t die, but the toxin is destroyed and the daughter cells get a signal to stop dividing so fast, but instead probably undergo the cell cycle at the same speed as our cells do instead! That means that the division stops but the clones don’t turn back into fish and are free to live their lives!” he finished with a big grin.

“Wow, Chopper. You’re brilliant!” Nami praised while patting him happily on the head.

“I understood none of that but it sounds important, but good job! That’s my doctor! Shishishishi!” Luffy laughed with his arms crossed. The rest of the crew similarly showered him in proud, appreciative remarks and Sanji even graced him with a celebratory cookie. He munched on it elatedly, careful that the crumbs didn’t fall into his cell plate, while answering questions about the process. Sanji had forgiven him for stealing the ice since it was such important research.

“So, are we gonna test it or what?” Usopp asked suddenly. Chopper swallowed his last bite of cookie before looking uncertainly at the plate. Sure, it worked in cell-level trials, but an organism was complicated. Would it really work?

“I wanna eat it! I wanna it eat!” Luffy cried and shot towards Chopper’s room to abscond with his frozen fish samples, but thankfully Zoro and Sanji were able to muscle him back. All it took was Robin telling him that two of him couldn’t be Pirate King for him to consent to never, ever eating the clone carp. “I ain’t competin’ with me…” he grumble with his arms crossed as he sat cross-legged on the deck.

“I think Chopper should have the clones,” Nami suggested, which threw the little reindeer for a loop.

“Huh? Why me?”

“Because you’re our most important member, duh!” the navigator beamed brightly down at him. If a reindeer could blush, he would be. “You’re always running yourself ragged trying to heal everyone at once. How many times have you wished there were more than one of you? When they aren’t doing doctor things, they can do other things you like to do too, like helping me water my tangerines.”

“-and helping me and Franky repair the ship and build new things! We always love your help, Chopper!”

“Yeah! It’s superrrrrrr!” Franky agreed with Usopp, striking his signature pose with a flashy smile.

“I always enjoy you helping in the kitchen, too,” Sanji mused while taking a drag from his cigarette.

“And you always make a good audience for my performances! Yohohohoho!”

“Imagine how many fish tons of you could reel in!” Luffy hollered with his fists in the air. “Meat all around!”

As they listed off the so many helpful things that Chopper did on a day-to-day basis, he began to sniffle and cry, so overwhelmed by their appreciation of him.

“Y-you guys… I love you so much!” he wailed and jump forward to hug the nearest pair of legs to him, which happened to be Sanji. Even though he was staining the cook’s black pants with tears, he didn’t seem to mind, only leaned over to loving rub the top of his head through his hat. “But… But… With all those other me’s… Will I still be useful?”

“Of course,” Robin smiled gently at him. He rubbed his eyes while looking up at her. “Those other Choppers will be like your brothers. They might know the same things at first, but in time, they’ll evolve their own personalities and skills- but you’ll still be our ship’s doctor, and they can never replace you in that.” A fresh wave of tears flooded his eyes and he buried his furry face into Sanji’s legs again.

“Wahhhhhhh! I love you all so muuuuuuuch!”

And so, that’s the story of how the Straw Hat crew sort of got bigger. The Chopper clones were an existence only known to the Straw Hats, as they were never taken along in the fighting (to protect them, as it turns out they couldn’t actually use Chopper’s Zoan powers like he thought they would be able to) and lived in the bowels of the ship, all seven of them occupying a cozy little bedroom that Franky had added on. Like Robin had said, they soon developed their own interests, styles, and personalities. Timmy Timmy Chopper was even shyer than Chopper was but took a liking to Robin, and loved it when she told him bedtime stories. Tommy Tommy Chopper was rambunctious and adventurous like Luffy, and if they had no hint of danger on islands they stopped at, the captain would tote him along; if there was danger, they always made sure to bring him back little unique gifts. Terry Terry Chopper had a culinary talent and Sanji made him his apprentice. Tama Tama Chopper had a penchant for gardening and looked after Nami’s tangerine trees whenever they were gone and even has a little garden of his own growing flowers which they sold in port for income. The two they liked to call “the twins” because they were so alike, Tippy Tippy Chopper and Tappy Tappy Chopper, were little shipwrights in their own right and loved to help Franky go to work on the Sunny’s never-ending repairs and improvements or test out Usopp’s newest inventions. Tappy Tappy was a little different from his twin in that he was musically inclined; he enjoyed learning about it from Brook. Finally, there was Tavi Tavi Chopper, who was rough and gruff and looked up to Zoro like an idol. More than anything, though, they loved their big brother Tony Tony Chopper and always made sure of one thing…

That they all went fishing together, because it was what bonded them as siblings. Sometimes, Chopper wouldn’t even sleep in his own bed but would slip down to where his brothers slept, and they would abandon their bunks to all dog-pile in a pallet on the floor. Every day after that, he was so glad he pulled that clone carp out of the sea, because his family just got that much bigger.

Enjoy this oneshot? Feel free to perusemy Tableof Contents!

[kazashiniwielder]

944

So while I am in awe of what happened with Killer I gotta say, I loved this chapter. Because it showed so much. This chapter clearly focused on two people, ironically enough it was mostly about Zoro and Killer, the two non captains and non devil fruit users of the Worst Generation.

So this isn’t going to be in order, and is actually going to be a little over the place but please bear with me. So we have Queen’s ‘game’. This is intense as shit because Queen intends to put Luffy in a situation where he would have to watch two people he considers rivals die or die himself but already flat out admits that none of them will leave alive. Like no matter what a combatant picks, it is pure torture. They would have to watch someone they know die and live with the guilt for the rest of their short life OR die knowing that they couldn’t even save those people and knowing that all they did was just die first so they wouldn’t have to watch. Like that is seriously f*cked up! Thank god it’s Luffy that is in that ring, but just imagine the people before him put through that!

Then we have Kid and Killer. So Killer is the guy who fought and wounded Zoro. I guess that explains a lot, especially now that we know that Killer was fed a SMILE devil fruit (ignoring the fact that Zoro is now the ONLY member of the Worst Generation who has not eaten a devil fruit). Now Kid was a character that I suspected had a soft side to him. Obviously not to civilians, and not to the marines, but he did say back in Sabody that the innocent people they killed were the people who laughed at them and their dreams. Now I’m not saying that excuses it, because it sure as hell doesn’t, but it does tell us that Kid is so passionate about those he cares about, that he will kill someone for laughing at those he cares for. Then we learn Killer is a person who hated his laugh and hated his face, so he stopped laughing and he hid his face. After he was fed the SMILE fruit though, the mask came off and he was always smiling. Whatever they did to Killer was horrible and Kidd is pissed! He is ready to murder them all, and his anger was so much that he was willing to charge in there, despite having cuffs that weakened him, to get some kind of payback for his loyal partner.

Then we have Zoro in the Capital. Before I focus on him I do want to draw attention to the panel of Hiyori after her former boss stopped Zoro’s attack. That will probably come back in the future, but we’ll ignore it now. Anyway, Zoro is furious. He genuinely liked his new friend and is furious at his death. He’s furious that everyone is laughing at it, and he’s furious that another friend is put in danger. So he does what he always does and charges in, right along side Sanji. Now this is the first time the two have seen each other since the market place in Dressrosa, a long ass time ago! Obviously they didn’t address what happened because they are a little busy, something Zoro even says. That will probably come later too, but I want to talk about what did happen.

Zoro still trusts Sanji. He trusted Sanji enough to give him the kid, Toko, that he was trying to protect in order to go on the offensive. And Sanji still cares for Zoro, at least a little bit. Sanji is trying to keep the plan in tact and get everyone out of there in one piece. Meanwhile the rest of the crew are surprised to see Zoro, but also glad. After all when a fight breaks out, Zoro and Sanji are the first two behind Luffy that you want to have around. They are also ready to all jump into the fight with them. And Zoro, you see how much he trusts the crew. He handed Sanji Toko and told one of the crew members to cover his back then he prepared to attack and never once looked back, trusting them to do as he asked before they even responded (of course Franky responded almost immediately in voice and action). And Luffy, I gotta say I love him. He’s watching the whole thing on the t.v., cheering Zoro on!

And to top it all off, while everything is coming to a head, with Zoro, Sanji, Robin, Nami, Franky, Usopp, and Brook causing a ruckus with the samurai in challenging the shogun himself in the center of the capital and getting attacked by his ‘lap dog’ and men, and while Luffy is facing Queen’s rage and trying to find a way to save a drowning Killer and Kidd, what else could happen besides Big Mom with Chopper and Carrot come literally crashing in! I mean, I never was happier to see her in my life.

I can’t wait for next week! I can’t wait to see where this goes! I really wanted to use that joke about how it’s not over until the fat lady sings since she came crashing into the party, but the end of Whole Cake Island already took that one from me, so for now I guess I’ll just say that I cant wait to watch Big Mom wreck Queen’s shit!

[rad-neto]

“Feels Like Drowning.”

@lawlu-events | FOR THE LAWLU BIG BANG 2018 | artwork by @ariririsu 

He was in love.

A simple conclusion brought together by a series of not exactly unfortunate events. He was quite simply in love and almost terrifyingly so.

Oh god.

He was in love.

It wasn’t as simple as he thought it was going to be, actually. In fact, he is rather terrified. He was in love and scared and he had never felt something as amazing as those two emotions smashed together like some disgusting sandwich.

At twenty-seven years old he fell in love for the very first time and it felt like drowning.

Trafalgar D. Water Law, P.h.D. in a lot of things that aren’t particularly important to this story. But he was a medical person, to be unspecific. He was medical and magical, like most folk were. Magical, that is, not medical. Although there were plenty of medical people out there, just to clarify. But Law was a wizard as well as a surgeon and it came in handy in tricky situations, he supposed. Like saving the life of a seventeen year old boy who had gotten himself impaled on a thing. Yes, a thing, just a thing because a surgery that happened two years ago was two years too long for him to bother remembering what exactly a person was impaled with because two years ago it didn’t really matter to him.

Two years later it did matter a lot more than he expected because two years later a lot of unexpected things began to occur in his life, that on any normal day he would question, but there was no normal day left for him to be allowed to ponder those thoughts. Two years later, he met a boy named Monkey D. Luffy, a wizard like him. A freakishly powerful wizard who could probably split mountains with a simple armament spell casted on his fist. Not only that, but Luffy had, like, a lot of insanely powerful wizard friends who scared Law a lot, not that he would ever admit that.

But he supposed it was his fault anyway for saving Luffy’s life two years ago.

It started in January. He received a knock on his door at five in the evening. It was a Saturday and it was his day off and he was just about to order some dinner from that Thai restaurant down the street when it happened. With a sigh, Law set down his cell phone and walked up to the door, opening it without checking the peep hole first. On the other side was two men. They were both the same height, roughly. One had wavy blonde hair and a burn that covered the left side of his face which would seem terrifying if it weren’t for the fact that his smile was gentle and kind and not at all psychotic like you would expect. The other had black hair and several freckles decorating his face. He didn’t look as friendly as the other man, but Law willed himself to be unbothered by it.

“Can I help you?” he asked, hoping he didn’t sound as impatient as he felt.

“Sorry for bothering you,” the blonde one said. “But we had just moved in next door and we kinda felt the need to introduce ourselves to the neighbors. My name is Sabo and this is my brother Ace and we also have a little brother named Luffy but he’s out with his friends right now so it’s just us at the moment. I made casserole as a gift.” He held up a foil covered container Law just now noticed and before he could say anything it was pushed into his hands.

From a crack in the foil, he could smell the dish and its savory, cheesy aroma had his stomach aching. “Thank you,” he said, almost unsurely. “I’m Dr. Trafalgar Law, it’s a pleasure meeting you.” Again, with the formalities. He was tired of speaking so politely after having to do so much of it at the hospital already.

The brothers left him with brief instructions of how to heat up the casserole if it gets too cold before returning to the apartment beside his. He really was grateful for the food, it saved him from wasting money on mediocre Thai food takeout. Law spent the next few hours preparing and eating dinner alone while watching reruns of Doctor Who on his box TV.

While being a surgeon does get him a lot of money, Law was more of the type to conserve his money rather than spend it recklessly on things that weren’t essential to him like a fancy house or car. Hell, he didn’t even drive to work, he took the bus just so he could save a couple dollars that he could use to pay rent and his bills.

He shoveled another bite of casserole into his mouth, chewing slowly as he watched the opening sequence of the Doctor Who episode began to play. One might think a life like this was lonely, but he didn’t mind it. Not at all. Not even a little bit. Not even when he wakes up alone in his bed, the sheets cold and the silence deafening. Not even when he eats dinner alone, watching television until he passes out on his couch. Not even when he unlocks the door to his apartment and walks into an empty home. He wasn’t lonely. He wasn’t lonely at all.

Suddenly, his door blasted open and he was sprayed with bits of wood and brick.

Of course he was surprised by this. Exploding doors was not a common occurrence. It wasn’t even mentioned in the advert when he found this vacant apartment a few years ago.

Law coughed up the smoke that had invaded the lungs, swiping at the dust in the air as he stood from his seat and approached his ruined doorway. On the floor of his apartment was a boy. A boy wearing a straw hat and sandals. The boy laid there for a few moments before slowly detaching himself from the ground, dust and debris covering every part of him. He coughed once.

“Hi,” the boy said cheerily, grinning at Law.

“You destroyed my door.”

Sabo and Ace suddenly appeared from what used to be his doorway, concern etched in their expressions. “Luffy!” Sabo exclaimed in surprise. It took him a moment to connect the dots and his pleasant surprise turned to disapproval. “Luffy, what did we say about using destructive spells indoors?”

“Not to?” the boy answered unsurely, looking up at his brother with an innocent and sheepish smile.

Ace grabbed Luffy by the collar and dragged him out into the hallway as Sabo repeatedly apologized for his brother’s behavior and that he would deal with the damage immediately. Law could do nothing except blink as the three of them disappeared, the door repairing itself after being hit with a quick spell from the blonde brother.

He believed those brothers were the most bizarre neighbors he had ever met in his entire life.

After tidying up his apartment with a series of cleaning spells, Law went to bed. He slept only briefly before waking and, well, getting on with his day. It was still the weekend so he intended to spend what was left of it relaxing, something he didn’t get to do often on any other day. He wore comfortable clothes: a pair of joggers and a plain t-shirt. He thought of all the things he needed to do and was glad that he didn’t need to leave his apartment at all unless he wanted to. And he didn’t want to. Not at all.

Law laid on his couch and read a book. And it wasn’t a medicine related book at all. It was a book with a real story, with characters and plot and it was the best thing he had ever read since before he became a surgeon. What was he even reading? Probably Neil Gaiman or something, he had a handful of his books. But it didn’t matter to him because he was actually reading a book because he wanted to not because he had to. And he liked that. Doing things for pleasure, not for work. And that was something he was not going to do today. Work.

A knock on his newly-repaired door interrupted his book reading and he grumbled as he doggy eared the page he was on and set the novel on his coffee table.

Who dares to interrupt my reading time? He thought in a very Mufasa sounding voice, which he immediately regretted and erased the memory of ever thinking in such a way. It was embarrassing to say the least.

Opening the door, he saw the straw hat boy from last night. Luffy, he believed. Law rose a brow at him, urging him to speak.

“Uh, well,” Luffy began, frowning in thought. “Sabo said I had to apologize for breaking your door last night. So, sorry, I guess.” He grinned brightly and it was almost blinding.

Despite his words, Luffy didn’t sound very apologetic at all. Law decided to ignore that and tell him he already forgave him so he can go back to his own apartment so that Law could be left alone, again. But then Luffy held up a pie dish.

“Sabo also made you this! As a gift. It’s really tasty, Sabo always makes tasty things, but not as much as Sanji does. Sanji’s my friend! He cooks in a real fancy restaurant downtown. But he’s also very good at kicking things and it’s fun when he and Zoro fight all the time. Oh, Zoro is my other friend, he has green hair and uses three swords to fight and it’s super cool! One time he fought a dragon can you believe that? Because I can, I saw it with my own two eyes,” Luffy rambled, pointing at his eyes for emphasis.

It was clear that he had more to say and Law wasn’t really interested in any of it, but he was trying not to be rude so he did something he wouldn’t have expected himself to do in a million years and invited the boy into his apartment. Luffy walked in cheerily and set the pie on the table, sitting on top of it as he continued to talk about his friends.

“Besides Zoro and Sanji, there’s also Nami, Robin, Chopper, Usopp, Franky, Brook, Jinbei,” he counted them off on his fingers as Law grabbed plates for the pie. “Nami is real mean sometimes, and stingy and greedy and other bad things. But she can be nice, too. She lives on a tangerine orchard with her big sister Nojiko. Nojiko is nicer than Nami but Nami is my friend because she’s mean. It’s a whole thing.” Law sliced the pie and scooped a piece for himself and Luffy. “Robin is super serious. Well, sometimes she makes a joke that I don’t really understand and she says weird stuff like “I hope we don’t die” or something like that. It’s weird but kinda funny too, especially when she scares Nami and Usopp. Speaking of Usopp, he has this real long nose, he looks kinda like Pinocchio and—yes, I’d like ice cream with my slice, thanks—and he’s a real wimp but he’s brave when he wants to be and that’s what’s great about him.” Law set the plate of pie beside Luffy and sat down in front of him with a bored expression. “Then there’s Chopper who’s a talking reindeer. He’s also a doctor and he’s super funny. Do you know any talking animal doctors?” He shoveled a portion of pie into his mouth, chewing obnoxiously.

Law had made himself tea and sipped from his mug before answering. “Yes, actually, I do. One of my colleagues is a polar bear mink,” he said, taking a bite of his own pie.

Luffy’s eyes lit up like light bulbs. “A talking polar bear?” he exclaimed excitedly, bits of crust and filling spraying from his mouth and Law had to grimace.

“Yes,” he confirmed, pulling out his cell phone and browsing through it to find a picture. Once he found one, he showed it to the boy. “His name is Bepo and he works as my assistant surgeon.”

Luffy grinned at that, teeth stained red from the cherry filling and crumbs were wedged between them. It was a hideous smile and yet Law found it strangely charming. Which he would never admit. Ever. He put his phone back in his pocket and focused his attention onto his pie. When he looked up, he saw that Luffy had practically inhaled his slice of pie and he was unsure if he should be impressed or horrified.

“Oh yeah,” Luffy burped. And I mean actually burped. Somehow he managed to create words from a disgusting noise. “I forgot to introduce myself. Sabo says that’s bad manners.” Obviously Luffy had been minding his manners throughout his entire visit. “My name’s Monkey D. Luffy! I’m gonna become King of the Wizards!”

It was a ridiculous ambition because becoming King of the Wizards was a myth and more of a children’s fairytale, but he decided not to say anything about that. “Dr. Trafalgar D. Water Law,” he introduced in turn. “I’m a surgeon at the hospital downtown.”

“‘S nice to meet you, Torao!” That wasn’t his name but okay, whatever, he was tired.

Luffy hopped down from his seat on the table and dusted the crumbs off his shorts. “Thanks for the pie. I’ll come again later to hang out! We’ll be the best of friends!” And then he waved. And then he left.

Law should be upset that Luffy had just invited himself over for whenever he felt like coming, but he was terrified to find that he was actually looking forward to his next visit. He was just too damn charming.

Luffy visited frequently. At first, he came only on the weekends, but then he started visiting in the middle of the week, and then he started bringing along some of his friends. The first time, he had showed up with his brother Ace. Now Law was fine with that because Ace was also his neighbor and he did his best to make them comfortable and to avoid the intimidating glare he would feel directed at the back of his head every time he turned around. Then Luffy began bringing others to his apartment.

He met Zoro on a Wednesday, after he had finished up at work and got home early that evening. He hadn’t even changed out of his clothes yet when there was a knock on his door. His heart leapt in his chest as he expected it to be Luffy on the other side (but again, he would never admit that his heart did any acrobatics in his chest at all) and he opened it to find, yes, it was Luffy! But also a tall green haired man standing right behind him.

“Heya, Torao! I brought Zoro with me this time! I told him you had a cool sword and he said he wanted to see it,” Luffy was already walking past Law and into the apartment, friend in tow. Law watched as they approached the nodachi displayed on his wall, a cursed sword that his uncle Doflamingo bought for him as a Christmas gift, but he wasn’t superstitious so he kept the sword because it looked like a cool decoration.

“Hey, Torao, what was your sword named again?” Luffy asked suddenly.

Law shut the door and joined them by the nodachi. “Kikoku,” he answered. “It’s supposed to be cursed.”

He would have found the way Luffy looked absolutely thrilled at the prospect of a cursed sword worrisome if it weren’t for the fact that his chest felt incredibly tight and his cheeks felt they were burning at four hundred and fifty one degrees Fahrenheit. But besides that, Zoro looked just as excited as Luffy, in his own way of course.

“A cursed blade, huh? Just like my Sandai Kitetsu,” he patted the hilt of one of his swords for emphasis. “You ever used it before?”

Law suddenly felt a bit suspicious. “Er, no, not really. I’ve only ever used it as a decoration,” he answered unsurely.

Zoro frowned. “Disappointing.”

It was then that Law realized that Zoro might have intended to challenge him to a duel had he been able to use Kikoku. He already didn’t like this. Luffy took control of the conversation from there, talking excitedly about his day and how he saw his friend Jinbei riding an actual whale shark in the ocean. And after sharing a dessert and some tea, Luffy and Zoro left and Law was left alone.

He was afraid that this would become a thing. Not the whole Luffy visiting situation, that was already a thing and a thing that he enjoyed, but he meant Luffy visiting with his other friends. From Zoro alone Law decided that meeting the rest of Luffy’s crew would be a stressful and possibly terrifying experience. He didn’t want it to happen again.

It happened again.

Luffy returned on a Saturday with not just one, but two friends accompanying him and Law had to refrain from groaning. He could refuse to let them in. He should refuse to let them in. But Luffy’s gleeful grin and the excitement that twinkled in his eyes, those things made it difficult for Law to do anything except for step aside and invite them into his apartment.

This time it was Usopp and Chopper who had entered his abode and they were surprisingly pleasant company. Usopp and Luffy shared a bowl of snacks on the floor while they played a game of Go Fish. Law actually managed to befriend Chopper as they exchanged medical advice and patient stories.

“Nami was actually my first patient,” the reindeer doctor had told him. “She had caught a really bad fever so Nojiko and everyone brought her to the nearest clinic. My mentor Doctrine was out when they came so I did my best to help and that’s how we all became friends.”

Law thought that those were strange circumstances to become friends under, but then he remembered how Cora-san had adopted him after Law had stabbed him with the intent to rob him of all his belongings, and the thought was dismissed.

He wasn’t surprised the next day when Luffy decided to show up with a cyborg of all things standing in the hallway.

Law was able to meet a majority of Luffy’s friends in about a week, and he sure had a lot of them. He met a fishman, a mermaid, a skeleton, and other interesting species. It was... a lot to take in, even if he was a wizard who could do things just as bizarre with a wave of his hand.

But he felt that he was barely anything at all when Luffy was far more powerful than he was, both magically and physically. That fact would have hurt his pride if he didn’t find it insanely attractive. And that was something new to him. Admitting that he found Luffy attractive. He had come to terms with his emotions after spending many sleepless nights having arguments with himself over whether or not he was completely infatuated with an idiot wearing a straw hat.

He cried himself to sleep after that realization.

When Luffy showed up on his doorstep on a Saturday, a bouquet of flowers in his hands and a wide grin on his face, Law was confused.

“What’s this for?” he asked, staring at the arrangement of carnations and daisies that had been pushed into his arms.

Luffy gave a short laugh. “Sabo said ‘If you’re gonna take Law to Sanji’s place, you gotta give him a gift first.’ So I asked Robin to make you something nice and she gave me those,” he said as though everything was explained perfectly. “Oh, right. I forgot to say that I was taking you to Sanji’s restaurant tonight! It’s real fancy but I don’t think he’ll care if we show up in regular clothes. I don’t have anything nicer than this anyway.”

Law was so confused.

Was this- Was this a date? Was Luffy taking him out to dinner? On a date? Was this really happening right now?

Before he could ask any one of those questions, Luffy took him by the hand and dragged him out the door. Law managed to shut and lock it as he was taken away and maybe his spotted jeans and black and yellow hoodie were too casual for a fancy restaurant, but he felt that he couldn’t care because this might be a real date with Luffy.

Oh god. This might be a real date with Luffy.

He tried not to think too hard about this entire scenario as he sat beside Luffy on the bus. He tried not to think too hard about their hands still clasped together as Luffy rambled about how delicious Sanji’s food was. He tried not to think in general.

The bus stopped a street away from a big, shiny restaurant that had people lined up outside in the chilly night as they waited for a seat to be open. Luffy ignored the line completely and a tough looking guy dressed in a kitchen apron and had a silver name tag that read “Patty” in bold text escorted them inside. Law had to keep his jaw from dropping because Luffy wasn’t exaggerating when he said this place was fancy.

It was a French-style restaurant. Its tables were all decorated the same, adorned with candles and flowers for the centerpieces. The tablecloths were a pristine white, not a single stain could be seen. The china was the finest porcelain he had ever seen, making his own traditional Japanese tea set look like a children’s play thing. There were three golden chandeliers that surrounded a large modern styled glass chandelier in the center. A spiral staircase sat off to the side that led to upper level and balcony seating. The ceiling had a gorgeous mural of some biblical painting that he didn’t know the name of.

Law had never felt more insecure than he did in that moment.

Patty lead them through the restaurant to a set of double doors in the back. They were brought through the kitchens that was a cacophony of clattering dishes and banging pots. But despite the noise, the food smelled amazing. His stomach growled as they passed and he tried to pass it off as background noise, ignoring the embarrassed flush that spread across his cheeks. There was another door at the back of the kitchens and when it was opened, he saw a corridor that lead to another door.

Just how big was this restaurant, anyway?

Naturally, they walked to the end of the hall and behind the other door was a private room. There was a table set up like all the other ones were. White tablecloth, flowers and candles, blue velvet seats. There were floor to ceiling windows on the other side that looked over the ocean. It smelled like roses.

A part of his brain nagged at him, telling him that this was disgustingly corny. He was about to voice that opinion, too, until he saw Luffy’s face, slightly dimmed by the lack of light but his always present smile was brightening it ten times better than any candle could. He realized that Luffy was smiling at him.

“Do you like it?” Luffy asked him, and it took him a moment to understand that he was talking about the room. Why was his brain functioning so slowly tonight?

“Yeah,” he said and his throat felt dry and he needed something to drink but all he did was sit down and watch as Luffy sat in front of him.

Patty poured them their waters and left the jug on the table before exiting the room. Law lifted his glass and took three large gulps, leaving only a quarter left. He has never felt so nervous before. Luffy was staring at him. Simply staring at him. Except it wasn’t that simple because Law felt extremely vulnerable under that gaze. He didn’t know what to do or say. It was incredible.

“Sanji is making us a special meal,” Luffy told him, breaking the silence finally. “I already told him that you don’t like bread so you don’t have to worry about that.”

Law was going to die.

He was going to die in this five star restaurant with a beautiful view of the ocean, sitting in a private room with this person who he was absolutely head over heels in love with and he was okay with that. But before he could actually pass on to the afterlife, the door opened and a blonde man with a cart of food entered the room.

“Sanji!” Luffy greeted excitedly, grinning at his friend.

The chef returned the smile and put out his cigarette on an empty tray that was sitting on top of his cart. “Alright, shitty customers. I have your first course, the entrée,” he removed the lid of one dish. “Vichyssoise, a thick soup made of boiled and puréed leeks, onions, potatoes, cream, and chicken stock. Please enjoy.” Sanji set two bowls of the soup in front of them before leaving them alone once more.

Luffy immediately lifted the bowl of its plate and tipped its contents into his mouth hungrily. Law had lifted his spoon to his mouth but paused to watch him consume his soup in a messy manner. He blinked a moment before tasting his soup carefully. It was delicious.

Sanji returned a few moments later with wine. “Luffy can’t have this but you can if you want,” he had said but Law refused. He was hesitant about consuming alcohol when he was already drunk on his own emotions. If that even made sense.

Sanji shrugged and left again and by the time Law had finished his soup, he returned with another cart of food. “Voilà votre plat principal,” he said as he introduced them to their next dish and this routine continued all the way to their final course. They had ice cream sundaes for dessert and even though it was simple, with just ice cream with wafers and syrup, it was just as delicious as the rest of the meal had been.

When Law asked how much it all cost, Sanji had insisted that it was on the house. In his surprise, he looked to Luffy who happened to be looking right back at him with that grin on his face and he was falling in love all over again.

They left the restaurant, after thanking Sanji and everyone else for the pleasant evening, and Luffy was walking back to the apartment with him (I mean, of course he was, they were neighbors) and it was a long walk but not unpleasant. Somewhere along the way he had realized he had forgotten to bring his jacket and it was kinda chilly, but he didn’t want to say anything and he didn’t have to because Luffy just looked at him and cast a warming spell and suddenly he felt like he was wrapped in a soft blanket. Law felt like he was blushing and he hoped that it wasn’t obvious, but Luffy didn’t say anything about it as he held his hand again and talked about the stars and how maybe he should be an astronaut.

When they got to his apartment, Law paused by the door, one hand on the knob as he considered what to say. “Thank you,” he muttered, facing away for a moment before turning to look Luffy in the eye. “I had a nice night.”

Luffy grinned and their hands were still connected and Law was about to pull away when suddenly he was being kissed and even though it only lasted a second it sent sparks throughout his body and he could do nothing but stare as Luffy let go of his hand and escaped to his own apartment.

The next morning, Law couldn’t help but wonder if that was all a dream.

He got up like he always did but he was sort of in a daze. He still hadn’t been able to process everything that happened the previous night because Luffy had kissed him. And he was ninety percent sure that they had just went on a date.

He even thought that this was some sort of spell and did some extensive research on the possibility of last night being just a very realistic illusion but he knew in his gut that it had really happened.

Jesus Christ.

All of that really happened.

Law held his head in his hands as he leaned over his mug of coffee, sitting at his dining table in utter distress. This was not good for his heart. He was behaving like a twelve year-old girl with a crush and it was the worst. A knock on the door pulled him from his thoughts and wiped at the bags under his eyes before answering. Luffy was standing there and he decided that this boy was going to be the death of him. He was going to die of exploding emotions. Or something like that.

“Torao!” Luffy greeted excitedly.

Law wondered how he could do that. Act so casual like he hadn’t kissed him last night. Then he remembered that Luffy doesn’t even know the word “shame.” He stepped aside to let him in and Luffy immediately jumped onto his sofa. He joined him silently.

They had to talk. Law needed to sort out his feelings and the only way he could do that was talk about them to Luffy of all people.

“Last night,” he began quietly as Luffy was surfing through his channels on the television. “When you, er, kissed me.”

“Oh, that? Sabo told me it’s what I’m supposed to do after walking you home. He said it’s “the nice thing to do,” Luffy commented as he stopped his browsing and settled for an old western playing on some obscure channel.

Oh.

“And the dinner?”

“An excuse to get you to meet Sanji and taste his food. He’s a real good cook, right?” he grinned at him.

Oh.

That made... sense. He supposed.

Law didn’t say anything for a long while. Luffy was expecting an answer from him and he gave a mumbled “yeah.” The boy returned his attention to the television then and he was left to his thoughts. Of course it was all just in his head. He couldn’t believe he thought that Luffy actually felt that way about him. Ah, he wanted to crawl into a hole and die.

“I have to get ready for work,” it was a lie. “I’m working overtime.” It was Sunday and it was his day off.

“Oh, okay,” Luffy said, surprised. “Guess I’ll just come back later. Have fun being an adult!”

And then he was gone.

And Law was alone.

Instead of trying to move on from his supposed unrequited feelings, he locked himself in his apartment, ignoring his door for the rest of the day and ate away his emotions. The next day he’s going to see that he’s gained half a pound and he’ll regret it then, but right now he’s going to eat everything in his refrigerator and watch Mamma Mia! until he passes out with a bucket of ice cream in his arms and a spoon in his mouth.

Law definitely wasn’t avoiding Luffy.

Waking up at an ungodly hour to get ready for work and leaving before anyone else should be awake is not avoiding. Staying late at the hospital until it’s practically midnight and then going home is most definitely not avoiding.

And it wasn’t like he was losing sleep over this, he slept plenty in his office during his breaks and he slept for four hours at home and he was a doctor, he knew that four hours was the absolute minimum to having a healthy rest.

He also ignored Luffy’s text messages.

Not that he would call it ignoring.

More like setting aside for later. If later meant never.

But everything was fine. He spent less time at home and worked more. He wasn’t stressed at all. He was eating protein bars for breakfast and bland hospital food for lunch so his diet was set. Dinner didn’t even happen. He was fine. Everything was fine. He’s got everything worked out and it’ll all blow over like the toupee on Donald Trump’s head.

So it didn’t “blow over” like he hoped it would.

The weekend came and he really couldn’t handle any more overtime so he stayed home. And of course there was a knock on his door. He wanted to ignore it. He was going to ignore it and hope that whoever was at the door would go away.

“Hey, Torao, it’s me.”

Damn. Why did the universe seem to hate him?

“Uh, I get that you’ve been busy and stuff, but you haven’t been answering my texts and stuff and it’s got me kinda worried. If you’re in trouble I can help you out, y’know. ‘Cause we’re friends and all.”

Law still didn’t answer. He remained seated on his sofa, wrapped in a warm blanket. Luffy didn’t say anything for awhile after that and for a moment he thought he left. But then he started talking again.

“If you don’t wanna talk to me, that’s okay. I’ll just talk to you. You don’t have to listen if you don’t wanna, but I’m gonna do it anyway.” And he did. Luffy was outside his door for hours, talking about what he did all week, describing a new dish Sanji made, telling him about some mini-venture he went on with his friends.

“The other day, I was talking to Sabo about you,” Law perked up at that. “I told him that I really liked hanging out with you and stuff and that you’re probably my most favorite person in the entire world, besides Ace and Sabo, of course. I told him that some day, Torao and I are gonna get married because that’s what you do when you want to be with someone forever, right? And I wanna be with you forever, Torao because you’re my bestest friend and I’m never gonna let you go.”

Law opened the door suddenly and Luffy was standing there, a surprised expression on his face.

“That was really corny,” Law said, frowning. “And bestest is a stupid word. And you can’t just decide to marry me out of the blue there has to be some sort of build-up.”

But Luffy just blinked at him and there was a plate of half eaten steak in his hands that he just noticed and suddenly Luffy was grinning like an idiot.

“I saved some of Sanji’s dish for you but I got hungry so I ate some.”

Law couldn’t believe that he was so in love that he let Luffy into his apartment to share half a lukewarm steak.

[bearxclaws-archive-blog]

Arc Headcanons // PRE-SKIP PT.2

Flings more random thoughts and headcanons onto the dash! Heading into Water 7~ And again, there may will be hints of Sanji x Anita ‘cause I’m still as trashy as last time. Long af. Congrats if you get through any of it.

WATER 7 / ENIES LOBBY

— Arc Outfit

— Anita immediately takes to how odd Chimney is, showing off her incredibly soft side for children. Likely pays no attention to what Kokoro and the rest of the crew are saying because she’s too busy showing off for Chimney and Gonbe.

— Back on the ship           Anita: ................. Wait where are we going?           Nami: You listen about as well as Luffy does.           Anita: Thank you.

— She hasn’t been with Merry for very long, but she is the first ship Anita’s any time on. There is an attachment there despite only being with the crew for a few months. Almost wishes Gus ( the half-giant back home ) was with them. He wasn’t a great carpenter, but he was pretty damn good considering he had to fix most of the broken equipment on his own.

— Anita leaves the ship at the same time as Robin and Chopper but doesn’t go with them. As much as she liked spending time with them all, she kind of wants to find where she can get those cool masks she finds some of the people wearing. Ends up buying one that looks like a bear. Adds it to her keepsake box later.

— Runs into Sanji while wearing it, attempts to amuse him but sees he’s a little perturbed. Since she isn’t super close to Robin, she doesn’t share his unease once they find Chopper alone. She assumed Robin’s just off doing her own thing. At this point, she only sees Robin as an aloof mother figure. She’s, at least, a smidgen better than her own mother. Doesn’t dislike her, but doesn’t feel particularly close to her.

— She messes around with Usopp enough that she too is worried about what his reaction might be to hearing Merry is beyond repair. She’s heard plenty of his stories about home and Kaya and continues to ask to hear about them, so a small part of her feels worry settle in her stomach.

— Doesn’t help to find him, however. She stays on the ship with Nami to protect the remainder of their money.

— The argument between Luffy and Usopp does rattle her quite a bit because she thought she was the only one that felt useless. She would have never guessed that Usopp did too. Recalling how determined Luffy had been to get his friends back on Anita’s home island, it’s worrying for her to see him getting physical with a member of his crew. She hasn’t witnesses any sort of discord between them before now, save for maybe Sanji and Zoro but even then she’s quickly realized that they just behave that way. Seeing their cook actually kick Luffy doesn’t make it better, and — in a rare display of fear — she’ll shrink into a corner and watch.

— After her ringleader died and someone she thought was a friend betrayed them, the thought of abandonment terrifies her. Watching Usopp leave hurts. She’s one of the ones begging him to come back.

— It’s a habit of hers to shut down when she’s upset. She does and says nothing. Just sits on deck with her legs between Merry’s railing and looking out in the direction Usopp walked off in. She doesn’t know why this is having such an effect on her. People have come and gone from the circus more than a handful of times, and it’s never had her this upset. Doesn’t realize she’s becoming extremely attached to the crew.

— Losing Merry and Usopp is the first time she cries in years, if it can be counted as crying. There’s no sobbing or rolling tears, but she’s distressed to the point that she’s got a heavy knot in her throat and her eyes are wet.

— Even though she seems to be reluctant to do much, Sanji asks her if she’ll come along with him and Chopper after Zoro refuses. She doesn’t really want to, but he makes a valid argument that a reindeer and bear nose together are better than his.

— Anita isn’t the type to be subtle, so she intends to march right up to Usopp and tell him about Aqua Laguna because they seems like the smartest isea, but Sanji and Chopper insist they have to be sneaky about it. Shouting ‘off-handedly’ about it while being near Merry is totally sneaky.  .  .

— Anita’s still numb from witnessing Usopp’s resignation from the crew and, somehow, isn’t surprised to find out that Robin plans on leaving too. She doesn’t shout and attempt to get to her like Chopper and Usopp too, but her ears are back and she’s shaking while in her bear form.

— When Sanji tells her and Chopper to find Luffy, Chopper’s the first to go. Anita hesitates and presses her gigantic bear head against his chest. Lets out little huffs and makes him promise he’ll be alright. Losing three crew mates is hard enough, and she openly worries for the first time that he’ll end up lost too if he goes off on his own. All she needs it a few scratches behind the ear and an honest promise, and she’ll go.

— Zoro using the back of his blades is like Anita swatting at people with the back of her paws. Still hurts like hell despite their intentions.

— Compared to other zoan users, Anita feels inferior because he hasn’t made an attempt at her hybrid form. She has her human form and her full-beast form, and that’s it. She’s capable of it, but lacks the confidence and knowledge. So knowing Chopper can take on multiple forms and seeing how strong Lucci is as a zoan is a huge blow to her confidence.

— Iceburg’s manor being on fire causes panic in Anita and it’s harder for her to escape. It might take Chopper headbutting some sense into her before she ends up outside.

— Despite not being close to Robin, Anita is relieved that she didn’t leave them because she dislike them.

— She doesn’t go to save either Luffy or Zoro knowing Nami and Chopper have it handled, but laughs plenty knowing they were stuck. 

— Anita is already aware of Impel Down. Whether or not he had the actual authority to, Ashikaga often threatened to send people to Impel Down for obstruction of justice if they tried to help targeted pirates or stop the Marines from capturing them.

— Nami makes sure to get extra meat so Anita has something to eat alongside Luffy’s portion and Zoro’s sake. Gets her plenty of fruit too. Anita’s kind of surprised Nami remembered that she liked fruit so much.

— Second Outfit ( after they change on train ) Anita’s stubbornness with clothes is different in this verse than it is her main one because Nami is there to help her lighten up a bit and wear slightly more colorful / feminine things without making her feel overly girlie. Still has a tomboy look. Doesn’t think she looks cute, but she does.

— Anita is lowkey relieved to hear Sanji is alright. Shh. His scent from when she nudged her head against him still lingers and it’s giving her dokis. GDI.

— Dumb as she can be, she knows Sogeking is Usopp. Might ask for an autograph too just to be a smart-ass. If she gets one, it’s going right into her keepsake box.

— All I can see after Rocket Man crashes and Sanji and Zoro beat some of the Marines is Anita literally chewing on one of the Marines they defeated like they’re a toy.

— She hates Enies Lobby. Too many Marines, too involved with the Government. Her bias is showing and she sort of hates that Zoro, Luffy and Sanji are so strong. She wants to fight some of them herself purely because she’s loathes them.

— The situations are completely different, but there is one common theme between Anita and Robin; Marines ruined their home. If she ever finds any of this out, she’ll feel significantly closer to Robin and at least attempt not to avoid her. I mean, over time she’ll start to feel closer to her anyway, but knowing that would be like a short-cut to feeling more comfortable around her.

— The first time Anita sees fire destroy something in a beneficial way is when Luffy tells Usopp to burn the government flag. Still terrifies her, but she’s seen what she fears do something good.

— Everyone fighting to get Robin back learned something new with their combat abilities during this arc. I’m not entirely sure what Anita’s thing should be. All she does is fight in her bear mode, unless ( like Nami’s Clima-tact ) Usopp helped craft her those dial-gauntlets that she wears in her full-beast form. This might be her first chance to use them if she gets into more of a fight. Probably hurts like hell to use them, but they won’t hurt as much to a bear as they would a human. Helps knock people further / do a little more damage while being a tank.

I don’t want her to have a hybrid form because Chopper is already a hybrid for the most part. And most people don’t seem to use their full-beast form often. Not that I can remember, anyway. She’ll want to feel like she HAS to be like Lucci, Jabra and Kaku to be powerful like them, but she doesn’t. She’s plenty supportive and powerful in fights as she is. Plus, she gets stronger post-skip.

— Anita’s whole role in the fights with the keys is very minimal. I can’t have her take away any of the learning the Straw Hats do, so she might as well be trying to help Chopper calm down while not knowing just how much of a rampage he’s in. Or, to be grossly shippy, she could stay with Sanji when he’s bubbled up. At least until he was drenched and well enough to fight. She’s as confused by his code as Nami is and doesn’t reprimand her when she whacked him. She thinks it’s silly, but she doesn’t think he’s change who he is.

— If she manages to catch glimpses of Sanji’s new fighting style, a part of her will be slightly afraid of him. She knows for a fact that she would never use it on her because of who he is, but she won’t be able to fight near him. She will worry that her fur might catch fire if he’s too close. Doesn’t mean she’s always avoid him, but getting them to do any sort of combo together might be impossible if he intends to use Diable Jambe.

— Once Kokoro saves them all from drowning, Anita is absolutely going to collapse with Chopper and give him bear snuggles. Anyone that ever gets hurt gets a bear blanket / pillow. Robin gets a bear hug too. She’s gotta. Anita’s too much of a softie deep down to not be happy that she’s alright.

— Too much of a softie to not to get choked up during Merry’s funeral.

— Anita will be infinitely glad that they took all of their stuff off of Merry and that the people that took their stuff returned it to them. Her keepsake box is safe! 

— She won’t be the least bit happy to learn that her captain’s grandfather is a Marine, but even she can’t be suspicious because it’s blindly obvious Luffy doesn’t want to be like him.

— She may have a devil fruit and can’t swim because of it, but she will take an inner tube and use it in the pool. You cannot stop her!! Swimsuit 

— Anita get a bounty. She can’t be mistaken for a pet as easily as Chopper can, so she has a legitimate bounty. I’m just not sure how much it should be. She couldn’t do any real, significant fighting during Enies Lobby, so it might be less than Nami’s? She’ll have the second lowest bounty, Chopper’s being abysmal. But, at the same time, she’d be as ‘out there’ as the monster trio because tank. So would she be noticed more and seen as a threat? I honestly don’t know what the government would think of her. Aaah, I don’t know! I’m torn between it being either B 14,000,000 or B 17,000,000. Might need opinions on that.

— Her poster is probably of her bear form looking like it’s swiping at the camera. Probably actually hit the guy taking the picture too. Whoops. Did she have to pay for breaking it? Absolutely. Did she actually pay? Hell no. Nami would kill her for spending MORE money after the part drained them.

— Sanji, she secretly loves you, but she’s going to laugh at your poster. I think she’s always going to laugh at other peoples misfortune, but she doesn’t mean anything by it. He’ll get a little pat and she might let slip that she thinks he looks way better than the poster. Oops. What? Shh. No, she didn’t say that.

— She has no part in the mess with Franky’s briefs. No, thank you. Covers her eyes too because she’s shy about that sort of thing. Not a prude. Just inexperienced and unfamiliar. Plus, it’s Franky. She doesn’t wanna see his junk.

— Anita is one of the ones begging Luffy to let Usopp come back. She doesn’t quite see it the same way as Zoro does. People would leave and come back to the circus, and they’d welcome them back with open arms. It feels wrong to leave Usopp behind.

— She has no idea what to name the new ship but agrees with any of the names Luffy comes up with that has ‘bear’ in it. She’s biased. Likes Thousand Sunny, though.

— I should probably point out that Anita can drink as well as Nami and Zoro can. She’s an affectionate and silly drunk once she gets beyond being buzzed. Likes to lean on people and hug on them. 

[genogenocrazycatman]

Stillwater - Chapter 3

Stillwater [Archive of Our Own, FanFiction.Net, Mibba]

Characters: Original Female Character, Monkey D. Luffy, Rorona Zoro, Vinsmoke Sanji, Nami, Usopp, Tony Tony Chopper, Nefeltari Vivi

***

"We build as only children know to build

We made a way where there's a will

No slowing down or standing still

Innocent and reckless

"How did we get so old and never notice

How did we gain the world and lose the moment

Rise and fall, the tide surrounds us

And drowns us all"

-Hands Like Houses

***

“What in the world is with this snow?” Nami grumbled, staring out the window.

I glanced up and looked at the flakes that were falling from the sky. They were large and fluffy, and the bright white was a stark contrast against the deep navy color of the seas. The ship looked gorgeous, frosted in the stuff.

Zoro was out on the deck, napping despite the snow accumulating on top of him. I was concerned at first, but Usopp and Luffy had both assured me that the swordsman would be more irritated that I woke him up than he would be by frostbite, before they ran outside to play in the snow.

Sanji went after them, with a shovel to clear the deck.

I did the dishes left behind, happy to be able to do something useful.

Our two strays were sitting at the table wrapped up in blankets.

I chuckled as Usopp and Luffy’s snowman building escalated into a full blown snow ball fight. Nami grumbled irritated by their antics.

The pair made me think of my younger siblings, Mar and Grove. No doubt if the two were here, they’d be with the boys, hurling snow balls at them. Thinking about them, caused a mix of embarrassment and disgusted to rise within me at my earlier pity. As if I’d stay away from home forever.

It wasn’t pity that I’d be met with but worry, and they had every right to be worried. I kept attempting what was essentially a suicide mission.

I was pulled by my thoughts by one whining Mr. 9.

“Hey, you, Doesn’t this ship have a heater?”

Ms. Wednesday joined in. “I’m cold.”

“Shut up!” Nami snapped. “You guys aren’t guests. Go help shovel snow or something.”

The sky was illuminated by a flash of lightning, the corresponding thunderclap following after.  The wind picked up, causing the snowflakes to swirl in the air.

“Lightning? What on Earth is going on with the weather around here? It was sunny up until recently. The next moment it started snowing and now lightning. The seasons, as well as the weather, go around randomly. It’s just like Crocus said.”

“That’s how it is in the Grand Line,” Ms. Wednesday said.

I looked over at Nami and nodded. “Weather changes at the drop of a hat here, from one extreme to another. The islands usually have somewhat of a pattern, but on the ocean it’s almost constantly in flux. Same for the currents and winds.”

“Speaking of, you haven’t been steering for a while now. Is that really okay?” Ms. Wednesday asked.

I pressed my lips into a straight line. I didn’t like the smugness in her tone, but she had a point.

“I just checked the direction.”

I set down the dish I was washing and headed for the steering pole. “Check again,” I told Nami.

It was a rookie mistake, and I was partially at fault, because I should’ve reminded her to check it more often.

Nami let out a scream.

I winced at the sound. “Really not necessary,” I muttered under my breath.

“No way!” She rushed out to shout orders at the others. “Turn the ship around 180 degrees! Hurry!”

“A 180 degrees? Why’re we going back?”

“Did you forget something?”

“We’re going in the wrong direction,” I called.

“When I looked away from the log pose for one second… The waves were calm earlier.”

“Doesn’t matter. Nothing here makes sense. ”

“Are you really a navigator?” Wednesday shot.

“Watch it,” I warned, shooting her a glare.

It was too late. Nami kicked them both outside. “Go help already!”

“Brace the yard. Receive the wind from the starboard. Turn the ship 180 degrees to the left. Usopp-“

Nami barked out orders to everyone.

We’d just barely corrected our course, when the wind changed again. This time it blew out the cold and ushered in the spring time air. The wind changed blowing away the cold and bringing in the spring time air.

The strong winds intensified the waves, which swelled to over ten feet, making it even harder for me to steer.

“Iceberg at ten o’clock!” Usopp shouted.

A fog rolled in, reducing our visibility, I couldn’t make out the iceberg and to make matters worse everyone was in a panic.

“What’s going on? This is crazy!”

“We’re gonna die!”

“This is life on the Grand Line!” I yelled at all of them. “People have gotten used to it, and so will you, but not if you don’t focus and get moving!” I pulled the steering pole as far as it would go. Even in a ship as nimble as a caravel, we didn’t have enough time to avoid hitting the iceberg.

I cringed at the sound of wood crushing and splintering.

“Nami, water’s coming in from the bottom of the Merry.”

“Then  go patch it.”

Usopp ran below deck with Ms. Wednesday to patch the Merry’s hull.

The wind picked up once more, but this time was different. I could feel it in my soul. I took one second to peer outside. The winds howled as they brought in the darkest clouds we had seen yet. I looked down at the water, navy in the earlier storm, the water was now black like ink, lapping at the ship.

“Shit,” I swore.

This wasn’t a normal storm. It was fiercer, more violent. It was as if the storm had it out for us and was finally getting its chance to take out its anger.

Sanji, quickly whipped up some rice balls to keep everyone energized.

“Nami, switch,” I told her.

She ran back up to take the helm, while I took her place on the deck.

The storm lasted for a long while, but we managed to last longer. The storm eventually blew over. The sun came out from, where it had been hiding behind the clouds. The winds died down as did the waves.

It was over.

That storm had been a message from the Sea Devil himself. He was angry. Unfortunately for him, the others had no clue, and even if they did, I was sure that they would’ve been like me and simply not cared.

The crew and our strays collapsed on the deck, save for Luffy, who took a seat on the figurehead, and myself, who went back into the kitchen to finish up those last few dishes.

Once I was done, I fixed up some sandwiches and drinks, giving Sanji a break. He needed it. I didn’t.

I was sure that we were near Whisky Peak now. The weather had been stable. I kept glancing at Nami’s logpose as well, just to make sure.

I walked back out on deck and set the tray down with everything on it. “Here you go guys. Have a drink, eat a sandwich. You’ll start to feel better. And do we have a sewing kit somewhere, cause I ‘ll take care of the tear in the sail.”

“You aren’t human,” Usopp groaned.

I tensed at first. It was involuntary and lucky for me, no one noticed. I quickly relaxed and chuckled. “Just seems that I’m better conditioned than you are.”

Zoro groaned, from where he was still sitting on the deck. He stretched out his muscles and pulled himself up to his feet, walking over to us.

“Would you look at that, Sleeping Beauty finally woke up,” I teased.

“Sewing kit is in our room,” Nami answered me.

“Thanks Nami.”

I headed back inside. Once I was down in the room I shared with Nami, I let out a sigh. I wasn’t exhausted physically, though my hands stung from rope burn, but that was minor and would probably be healed up within the next couple of hours.

Mentally though I was pretty drained. Trying to get the crew to keep their heads about them was pretty much an impossible task. They were all so panicky. I understood that the weather was dangerous, and that could be scary, but goodness. It was as if it was the end of the world.

That last storm didn’t help matters. They were terrified, and I was pissed. It’s hard to keep people calm, when all you want to do is lash out and snap.

I found the sewing kit and grabbed some rope, heading back out on deck.

Everyone was up and moving again, staring at the island ahead of us.

“Hey Mimi! We made it!” Luffy cheered.

“I see that.”

I walked up and joined them. I had never seen an island like this one. The land itself was domed shaped with massive cacti dotting the landscape.

“So this is Whisky Peak. Hey, where’d are strays go?”

“The jumped ship and swam,” Zoro answered.

“Weird.” I shrugged. “Oh well. I’m gonna head up and stitch that sail real fast.”

***

Notes:

***

Previous | Next

***

Master List | Mobile Version

[iprincezzinuyoukai]

10 Days Of LawLu 2K17, Day 1: S is for…

We return with another ten days of LawLu, my One Piece OTP *Feels the furious look of her other otps* I love you too!

Notes and Warnings: The other option was Sadness. But this is not sad so jokes on me!

Edited: January/06/2018

Sailing

All the pirates had their own reasons why they had joined a crew and had set sail for who knows when to return. For Law and Luffy, their motives for setting sail were different and, at the same time, similar.

For Luffy, sailing means adventures in exotic places, treasures with hundreds of coins and jewels, food fifteen times a day, nakamas with which he would fight and laugh at their side, exciting fights and parties that will last all day and night.

For Law, sailing means leaving everything behind but not forgetting, getting revenge on who stole everything, nightmares in the middle of the night but waking up before they became more real, without help unless it meant a benefit for him and his crew who would follow him despite knowing who he really is.

Then both crews met, giving way to a chain of events that seemed to have been planned by fate. Both formed a powerful and fearsome alliance (though many still believed that it had been a big mistake). And before everyone could realize, both crews were already sailing at the same time.

Trafalgar Law was a man who had nothing to lose, or so he thought until he met that hollow-headed pirate who had put all his world and plans go mad, and before he could put a personal barrier between them, Mugiwara-ya had become a drug for his system that was becoming increasingly difficult to withdraw. And that addiction was one that Trafalgar had tried to avoid during his entire trip, because he knew that it was what caused more pain than happiness, and Trafalgar had no cure for that.

“And you’ve to call me every day.” Luffy followed Trafalgar everywhere, today was the last day of the alliance, finally Luffy had defeated Big Mom and brought Sanji, and with Torao, both had managed to beat Kaido.

That meant that from tomorrow Torao and his nakamas, especially Bepo, would no longer be sailing in the sea with them. The alliance was over and not with a betrayal like Usopp and Nami had feared at the beginning of this idea. Robin had warned him many times about the alliances and the end of these, but what Luffy felt wasn’t something his archaeologist had mentioned. It was even something he had never felt before.

“Maybe,” Trafalgar said vaguely and without much encouragement.

Luffy pursed his lips when he saw that Torao was taking another bag with what was inside, for Luffy, that didn’t interest him. “Nami also said that there would probably be a storm.”

“Yes, Nami-ya had told us.” Trafalgar was still responding with his usual mood, although deep down he was already exasperated.

Finally, after a long time he was already free of this alliance. The pirate alliance was over, there was no longer any reason, objective or purpose to continue together... That sounded as if he was implying that he and Mugiwara were together... Something that maybe didn’t seem like a bad idea – The best thing was to leave now that there was nothing. Because when his feelings increase, sailing would be one of his problems. “Anyway, my ship is a submarine, we won’t suffer the storm like a normal ship.”

Trafalgar had already left the cabin where he had left the bags with the treasure that Kaido had in his position. Nami had been reluctant to share the treasure.

“Even so, you should be careful.” Luffy followed him, walking behind him. “What happens if something falls from the sky and hits the sea right where you are?”

“So I hope our deaths are as quick as possible.”

Luffy made a slight moan, “You’ve strange answers for everything. What are you going to do with the SMILE that you found in Kaido’s lair?”

Trafalgar paused before continuing. During his battle with Kaido, Trafalgar had found the remains of the SMILE that Doflamingo exchanged with the Yonko. “Who knows, maybe become the new King of the Underworld.”

“Well, as long as you’re not the Pirate King.”

“It’s a title for which I’ll continue fighting.”

“What?! But you’ll be the King of the Underworld.”

Trafalgar smiled slightly at Mugiwara’s argument, if the younger Captain wanted to argue against him, it would be a great waste of time for both of them. “What are you trying to do?” Trafalgar left the bag full of treasures on the floor of the pirate ship. “Obviously you’re not fighting for the title of Pirate King.”

Mugiwara’s face changed completely, “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

He’s lying. Trafalgar thought. Yes, this was what I feared. If only he had these one-sided feelings, there would be no problem, he could overcome this, he knew many places where he could gradually forget Luffy, maybe not at all. But if the other Captain felt the same, this completely screwed up the whole situation. “I think you can be honest with me.”

Mugiwara’s face changed to another expression that he wasn’t entirely sure he wanted to say it.

“So?”

“It’s just – It’s hard, you understand? And I don’t understand. I’ve seen too many friends sailing. I said goodbye to Vivi, Shirahoshi, even Rayleigh, and nothing changed. When Big Mom was defeated, Bege was a common farewell, nothing to be friends or anything. Even when I saw Ace and Sabo set sail, I knew there would be no problems if I saw them again, but now... Now I don’t know if I would see Torao again.”

Oh, shit, this was too interesting for him to turn around, say some simple words that wouldn’t matter and end all this. That would be the easy escape. “Why do you think that?”

“I don’t know. What if one day Robin gets her newspaper and reads something about you? Where I can’t save my friends.”

First, it was an offense to his person that Mugiwara considers him to be someone who’s easily defeated, wounded or killed. Secondly, he didn’t know if he was more upset by the fact that Mugiwara made him feel special or, at the same time, he compared him to one of his many friends the young Captain had in the world. Third, Trafalgar knew that he was drowned in the neck in trouble and what he was about to do would only drown him more. “Didn’t you tell me to call you every day?” Trafalgar reminded Luffy of his own words. “If it’s the only way I can calm that strange anxiety of yours, then I have no problem trying to be your doctor again.”

Luffy seemed to think about it, finally the frown disappeared and it was like seeing the old Luffy again, “Okay, but don’t tell Chopper, he’ll be upset with me if I never consult with him first. Oh! Is it possible that if our ships are close, we can meet again and have parties?”

Trafalgar shrugged, “I don’t see why not. My crew and yours loved the moments we were together.”

Sailing was going to be one of his biggest problems in the future.

[gildedmuse]

For what it's worth, I feel it's not really an argument, just a discussion. And for the record, I will discuss most forms of media (movies, TV, books, comics, theater...) all day if no one stops me. I was seriously using my time to put together a post based on another person who innocently replied to me and then got barraged with about two hundred questions in return, so I certainly don't mind fielding a few of my own.

Now that you mention it, I'm fairly sure you are correct. When we first meet Dragon in the anime (which is... Let me slaughter this spelling... Lougetown? Maybe?) I do not think they give you any information about him at all. I think he appears in a guest of wind, causes a mild electrical storm with some property damage, smirks mysteriously and magic winds himself away.

It was a while ago, but that is my very biased recall of it.

However, I had the advantage of watched with three veterans (and gave always been one who prefers spoilers - that's how I know Vinsmoke is the dad to measure all bad dads by!) And while usually only Nathaniel will give in to my asking for information, I think Em and Merri were so amused by my (what I would consider righteous) anger, demanding the show tell me:

Who the hell that was?

What the fuck just happened?

That they decided to take pity and tell me straight out. It's probably part of what shaped my view of him. Cause I feel like the anime waits to drop that bomb until near Marinford, by which point I know who that fucker was and everytime he appeared I knew he was doing something not seeing Luffy.

On the other hand, I don't think I realized who Usopp's father was until it was pointed out to me and I am sure the only reason I recognize his name is because my siblings. It would be like being mad at Nami's dad. I don't know, he could have been horrible. I don't know the guy or anything about him though so I'm gonna save my anger for someone like Hordy Jones (how DARE you suggest Zoro could not win a fight with a fishman under water. How DARE you kind sir! Also, umm, I guess it's bad he tried to drown everyone and caused rascism and oh wait he burned my precious goldfish queen's pamphlets! Screw that guy!)

("No, don't be... Wait, is a 'son' one of those things you house and feed, occasionally spend time with or perhaps simply ignore but have around anyway out if a sense of responsibility... Oh, no. No I'm thinking if a house cat. Right, son like biological offspring. Yeah, I guess." - Dragon's answer, more or less)

Just your friendly daily reminder that Dragon is just the worst dad.

[genogenocrazycatman]

Stillwater - Chapter 11

Stillwater [Archive of Our Own, FanFiction.Net, Mibba]

Characters: Original Female Character, Monkey D. Luffy, Rorona Zoro, Vinsmoke Sanji, Nami, Usopp, Tony Tony Chopper, Nefeltari Vivi

***

"We build as only children know to build

We made a way where there's a will

No slowing down or standing still

Innocent and reckless

"How did we get so old and never notice

How did we gain the world and lose the moment

Rise and fall, the tide surrounds us

And drowns us all"

-Hands Like Houses

***

“Mira, you should be with Luffy and Sanji,” Vivi said, still staring in the direction that Luffy and Sanji had headed, a still very ill Nami on Luffy’s back.

The day after the fight with Wapol, we had lucked out and found an island. Unfortunately, that’s where our luck seemingly ran out. The people of the island weren’t particularly fond of pirates, putting it mildly. They had met us at the mouth of the river that we sailed into with their weapons drawn, demanding that we leave. The situation quickly became hostile, but Vivi ever so prudent, neutralized the situation. The people of the island allowed us to land.

That led to strike of bad luck number two. The island had no doctors. Well that wasn’t true. There was one doctor, who Dalton, the apparent leader around this place, and the rest of the people called a witch. The nickname did little to inspire confidence. If that wasn’t bad enough. The witchy doctor lived in a castle on top of the highest peak in the land.

This had no effect on Luffy or Nami. Despite her current condition and common sense saying that it was entirely too dangerous, Nami insisted that she head up the mountain, so that we could get Vivi back to Alabasta as quick as possible, which of course our reckless captain had no issue with. Sanji decided he was going too, not trusting Luffy to get there without harming Nami in some way.

“They’ll be fine,” I assured Vivi.  “Sanji won’t let anything happen to Nami, and Luffy won’t let anything happen to either of them. They don’t need me.”

“Still… You shouldn’t be worried about me.”

I was in the village with Vivi and Usopp, and Dalton. Sani had started going on an on about how he had everything under control and would ensure that Nami got the treatment she needed, and that neither Vivi nor myself should subject ourselves to the harsh environment. Luffy nodded in agreement, saying, “It’ll be fine.”

I was inclined to agree with him. With Sanji to make sure he didn’t do anything stupid, they’d be fine.

Zoro and Carue were back on the Merry keeping watch.

“I’m not,” I said. “No point in wasting energy, when they have it under control.” I looked towards the spot next to Dalton. “Do you mind?”

“No, go ahead,” he said.

I tightened my cloak around myself and plopped down onto the ground, leaning back against the brick of Dalton’s house. I decided that if we were going to sit here, I might as well make the best of it and try sense working on that sense of mine some more.

It would���ve been easier, if I wasn’t dealing with people like Luffy and Zoro. The average person’s aura wasn’t strong enough for me to detect it. Usually, only the supernatural was on my radar. Spirits, curses, demons, beings like my father, myself and my siblings, devil fruit users too. Back home, there were so many that it damn near drove me insane. It was a constant buzzing in my head that just never went away. Cal had told me that if I trained, I would eventually be able to handle it. I had thought that was a crock, and instead of training, I did everything in my power to block it out, which looking back at it was stupid.

Cal was right. She was right most of the time, though I’d never tell her that. Here I was doing exactly what she had told me, wishing that I had listened sooner, so that Zoro, Kitetsu and Luffy wouldn’t be such a problem.

I sighed. There was no point in thinking about what I should have done. I had to focus on what I should do going forward. The first step was familiarizing myself with Kitetsu and Luffy, so that they no longer overwhelmed me. Kitetsu, while far more unpleasant in nature, was the easiest one to familiarize myself with, no where near as strong as the blinding light that was Luffy. Zoro’s energy was much weaker. It wasn’t strong enough to overwhelm me, but it was easily over powered by Kitetsu and Luffy. If I could withstand Kitetsu and Luffy, then it was likely that everything else, would be much easier to deal with, save for extreme numbers. There was no way to work on that without throwing myself into a crowd of devil fruit users or cursed objects, so that was going to have to wait. Until then though, I could work on my accuracy and the speed with which I could locate people and things.

“We did once have some here on this island. Some doctors. However, all of them left some time ago for certain reasons. They were very good at what they did, when they were still here. We were even well known for the advanced medicine that was practiced here on this island,” Dalton said.

I was gonna have to split my attention between Kitetsu and listening to Dalton, an additional challenge. I wasn’t always going to be able to completely concentrate, so it was helpful.

“So what went wrong?” Vivi asked.

I opened my mind up and was surprised, when I almost immediately noticed the devil fruit near me. With some distance between me, Luffy and Kitetsu, I could actually notice devil fruits, seeing as they weren’t being drowned out by that damn blade or my damn captain. I gave Dalton a once over, looking for some obvious change that may have occurred from eating the fruit, but found none. There was no indication as to what the fruit was or what power he had as a result.

“A few months ago, we suffered a vicious attack, and our country was destroyed by pirates.”

I perked up, my attention switching from Dalton’s devil fruit to his words.

Vivi and Usopp gasped.

“No wonder you gave us the reception you did,” I said.

“Yes. After the attack, the word pirate still terrifies everyone around here. Sorry for the way that we treated you. Their group was small as well, only five people. The captain called himself Blackbeard. Their power was so incredible that they destroyed our entire country faster than you would believe.”

“And there were only five of them fighting?” Vivi questioned. “That’s impossible.”

“It’s possible. I’ve met single men, who could bring entire nations to their knees.”

“What?!” Usopp cried, looking at me alarmed.

“Not the norm,” I tried to pacify him. I kept it to myself that I suspected Luffy was one of those people.

“What’s more, there are some here, who actually believe it was good for the country,” Dalton added.

“What could possibly be good about that happening?” Vivi asked.

“That’s crazy!” Usopp exclaimed. “Who would say something horrible like that anyway?”

Dalton gave the pair a small smile. “Thank you. I agree, but they have their reasons. The king, who ruled here before the attack was a horrible man. His rule was despised by all of the citizens. Our country used to be known as Drum Kingdom, and our king’s name was Wapol.”

“Oh you gotta be kidding me,” I muttered.

“Yes, remember him. I know that man,” Vivi said, some type of realization dawning upon her.

“Not Wapol.”

“What’s that? You mean you know who Wapol is?”

“On our way in,” I explained. “He attacked us. He was looking for a log pose or an eternal pose to bring him here.”

“Yes, there’s no question about it now. I remember it clearly. I’m sure I met him at a monarch meeting that my father took me to. I was still very young then, but I remember it to this day.”

“A monarch meeting? Who are you?”

Vivi was flustered, trying to recover after her slip up.

“Doesn’t matter,” I cut in. “We met Wapol, and he’s trying to return to this land.”

“I don’t understand what’s going on here. He said he was a pirate. He didn’t say anything about being a king,” Usopp said.

“He’s just calling himself a pirate as some kind of disguise. In truth Wapol’s only wondering the seas, trying desperately to return to this island,” Dalton explained.

“So then Wapol and the people who are on his ship with him were kicked off the island, because they were no match for the pirates? Is that what happened?”

Vivi was getting more and more worked up, desperately trying to rationalize the situation.

“That’s not it. No. When it happened, when we were attacked, Wapol’s army didn’t even try to fight! In fact, the second he learned how strong the pirates were, Wapol grabbed his cronies and ran like a coward! He was the first to abandon the country and flee out to sea! After that, the country felt utter despair. We were left behind by our king.”

“What kind of king would abandon his country?! A king abandon his people? Just the thought of that makes me absolutely sick.”

“Vivi,” Usopp said, his tone quiet, encouraging her to calm down.

“You’re exactly right,” Dalton agreed. “The one good thing that came out of it was the end to Wapol’s tyrannical rule. The people, who were left on this island, have come together now. We’re trying to create a new country, so what we fear most right now is the return of Wapol and his followers, the return of his rule. We can’t afford for him to come back now. With the country so unstable, it would be the end of us. We want to build ourselves a new peaceful nation on this island.”

I nodded. It was a nice thought, but peace wasn’t easily achieved. “I’m sure you will, but you’d be wise to remember that the road to peace is often paved with adversity and conflict.”

We lapsed into silence for a moment, everyone absorbing the new information. I rested my head back and closed my eyes, deciding to seek out Kitetsu once more. It took me longer than I would’ve liked, but I did eventually lock on to the demon sword. I hadn’t expected it to move, since Zoro was on the Merry, but I was happy with my ability to find it. I wasn’t struggling against it as much as before either, which was a bonus.

“The snow’s really picking up,” Usopp noted.

“Tell me something. Who are you guys?” Dalton asked.

“Why do you ask that?”

“You’re a group of only seven people, traveling the Grand Line on a ship without a doctor. It seems incredibly reckless.”

“In case you forgot, we’re pirates. That’s the reason you pointed all those guns at us remember? Now we may be a small group true, but with a brave warrior-“

“Incredibly reckless appears to be our captain’s M.O.,” I said, cutting Usopp off. “We were hoping to recruit a doctor here on this island.”

“We weren’t expecting the doctor here to be a witch living in a castle,” Usopp said.

“Well she’s all we have. You guys certainly seem to be different than the pirates we’re used to.”

I smiled. “Good.”

“Hello Dalton. I was looking for you,” a large woman said, walking over to our little group.

“What can I do for you?” Dalton asked, standing up.

“I head the newcomers were looking for Dr. Kureha.”

“Yes, but the sick woman’s friends have already taken her up the mountain,” Dalton explained.

“Well that’s too bad, because I heard that the doctor’s in Cocoa Weed right now.”

It took the four of us a second to process what the woman had said, before the others all reacted at once.

“SHE’S WHERE?!” they yelled.

“You mean Nami and the others have already passed her?” Usopp asked.

I sighed. “Damn it.” I stood up. “We have to get that witch to the castle and fast.”

“Your friends, we could call them back-“

“No,” Usopp said, shaking his head. “Sanji and Luffy are freakishly strong. There’s no way that we can catch up to them. We just have to find that witch and make sure she goes to the castle.”

Vivi nodded in agreement.

“Very well. Follow me. We’ll take the sled.”

The sled was hooked up to two large rams. Dalton took up the front seat, while Usopp, Vivi and I sat in the back. We hauled ass to the next village, where hopefully the doctor still was.

“I’m sorry. This is my mistake. I was aware that the doctor had come to town from the mountain in the last few days, but I assumed she had left and wouldn’t be back for quite some time.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Usopp assured him. “This isn’t your fault. The problem here is how abnormally strong Luffy and Sanji are. Even if we go up the mountain after them, there’s no way that we would catch up to them. If we are able to find the witch in this Cocoa Weed place, we just have to tell her to get back up the mountain as quickly as she can.”

“You’re right. That’s true. We have no other choice.”

“Forgive us. Forgive this land for having no other doctors.”

“Don’t’ say that. This isn’t something that you have to be apologizing for, Dalton.”

“She’s right about that.”

I shared Vivi and Usopp’s sentiments.

“Let’s hurry,” Dalton said.

“Dalton, you haven’t told us, who you are yet. It doesn’t seem like you’re an ordinary villager. You have a certain way of speaking that makes me think of a military officer.” I could tell that Usopp had been sitting on this train of thought for a while, probably since we had met Dalton.

“Plus, most civilians don’t have devil fruit powers,” I added, deciding that we might as well try to get as much information as possible.

“What?” Usopp and Vivi asked shocked, looking at me.

“You’re correct. Both of you. I did serve this country, under our former tyrant, Wapol. I became the captain of this country’s security guard long ago, during the time that Wapol’s father ruled here. However, the time came, when the king died and then his rule was handed down to his son Wapol. When that happened, this country changed. Wapol exiled all the doctors, but kept the twenty best as his personal physicians. Anyone, who needed treatment had to beg him for it. If they disobeyed him, or spoke ill of him, they were denied.”

I had heard tales of similar behavior time and time again. No longer did it shock me. At the same time, I wasn’t numb to it. I was angry at this man. I was disgusted by his behavior. It just didn’t hit me as hard as Usopp, and nowhere nearly as hard as it hit Vivi.

“So from then on anyone who got sick had no choice, but to throw themselves at Wapol’s mercy and hope that the 20 MDs would treat them,” Usopp summarized.

“Yes. And pay the excessive medical fees.”

“So basically, Wapol was ruling the country by taking the citizens lives and holding them hostage. That’s not ruling. What sort of king would do that? That’s tyranny.”

I put a hand on Vivi’s shoulder, and gently squeezed, bringing her back down. I knew that this was hard for her to hear. Vivi cared so much about her people. She had risked her life to protect her people, and then to hear that someone else gave up on his without a fight. It was an insult to all rulers.

She slumped, the anger and fight draining from her. I gave her a reassuring smile, and slung an arm around her shoulders, pulling her into a side hug.

It was silent after that, but that silence didn’t last long. At the speed we were traveling, Cocoa Weed came upon us quick. We headed to a restaurant at the center of the village. According to Dalton, it was the busiest place in town, the only real place that people gathered. If we were going to find out where the witch was, it was our best bet.

I was a bit concerned about the place, considering that the door had seemingly been ripped off it’s hinges, an older man repairing it.

“Dalton,” the man greeted.

Dalton nodded in acknowledgement.

The inside was chilly, not surprising given the lack of a door. The people were separated into two main groups, one set around the bar, the other around a couch, where a little boy was laying, legs bandaged up. Some were scattered about at the tables.

“Dalton,” the man at the center of the bar greeted, surprised. “What brings you here?”

“We hear that Dr. Kureha was in the village. We were hoping that someone knew, where she was. It’s urgent.”

“You’re a bit too late I’m afraid. She was just here, but she’s left.”

“Wait? What are you telling us? You mean the witch left this town just here a few minutes ago? Oh you gotta be kidding me! This is ridiculous!”

“She left after she made my sickness all better,” the little boy said.

“If you’re looking for the doctor, she already left.”

‘We got that already, bud,’ I thought.

“We have to find her. Can you tell us, where she was heading, when she left here?”

“I think I know,” a man sitting at one of the tables spoke up. “I heard from somebody else that she was heading to Gyasta.”

“Gyasta?”

“Which is where?” I asked, not liking Dalton’s tone.

“If we were going to Gyasta from Big Horn, we would go in the opposite direction we took to get here.”

“You mean we already passed her?”

“Of course,” I grumbled. This was starting to get annoying. We didn’t have time for this nonsense.

“Ice skating is very popular there,” Dalton said.

“What does that have to do with anything?!” Usopp yelled.

“Relax,” I instructed him.

“We need to get going to that town,” Vivi said. “At this point, we don’t really have any time to lose.”

“Yeah, you’re right,” Usopp conceded, settling down.

“Dalton!”

All eyes turned towards the door, where a man came stumbling in. He was beat to hell, body bloodied and bruised. He was struggling to remain upright, using the doorframe to support himself. He was clearly exhausted, gasping for breath. “I found you at last.”

“Yes, Garth, but I thought you were standing watch today.”

Apparently, the man’s injuries weren’t enough for Dalton to realize that something must’ve gone wrong.

Garth finally collapsed. Dalton caught him just before he hit the floor. “What’s the matter? I can tell you’ve been badly injured. Tell me what went wrong.”

“Every watchman, except for me, they’ve all been killed, Dalton.”

“WHAT?!”

“This thing- This submarine sail boat, it came out of nowhere and it attacked us.”

“Oh no,” I groaned.

“They killed every one of the watchmen. We couldn’t stop them.”

“Who are they? Please? I don’t understand. Please explain this.”

“PLEASE DALTON YOU HAVE TO HELP US! We aren’t strong enough to fight them, you have to do something.”

“What’s wrong?” Usopp asked.

“It was them?” Dalton asked, putting the pieces together.

“It was Wapol, Wapol and his men. They came back.”

The crowd erupted into worried whispers.

Dalton, rose to his full height and ran off.

“Shit!” I swore, starting after him.

“Mira!” Vivi cried.

“Take the sled!” I yelled at Usopp and Vivi. “Find the witch! Zoro’s by himself on the ship with half sawed off legs. There’s too many for him to take on by himself without the Merry taking any hits. I don’t care how strong he is!”

“Dalton!” I yelled after him.

“You can’t stop me! I have to do this!” he said, getting on the back of someone’s horse.

“I’m not trying to. You’re doing what you have to, to protect your own, just like I have to. I’m going with you. I need to get back to the ship.”

Dalton, grabbed my hand and hoisted me up on the back of the horse and snapped the reins.

The ride was silent for the most part, until Dalton spoke. “Your name is Mira, correct?”

“It is.”

“Mira, tell me how did you know I had a devil fruit?”

“It’s a long story, but in short I can sense them. I’m rusty though. Only recently have I started training that skill again. If Luffy or Zoro had been around, I might never have noticed it.”

He seemed to mull that over for a moment.

“Here.” He handed me the reigns. “There’s a fork in the path up ahead. Go left. Protect your ship.”

I didn’t question it. A second later his body began to shift, growing and twisting. It took a few seconds before I could recognize what it was he was shifting into, but once I did, it was undeniable. The ox ox fruit, model: bison.

He hopped off of the horse and galloped away.

“Good luck!” I yelled after him.

***

Notes:

***

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***

Master List | Mobile Version

[genogenocrazycatman]

Stillwater - Chapter 12

Stillwater [Archive of Our Own, FanFiction.Net, Mibba]

Characters: Original Female Character, Monkey D. Luffy, Rorona Zoro, Vinsmoke Sanji, Nami, Usopp, Tony Tony Chopper, Nefeltari Vivi

***

"We build as only children know to build

We made a way where there's a will

No slowing down or standing still

Innocent and reckless

"How did we get so old and never notice

How did we gain the world and lose the moment

Rise and fall, the tide surrounds us

And drowns us all"

-Hands Like Houses

***

“What a shame. Already over? Well that was disappointing wasn’t it?” Zoro said, sticking three swords in the ground. I had to assume they were stolen. They most certainly weren’t his. Wado, Kitetsu and Yubashiri were currently at my hip.

Bodies littered the ground around Zoro, and the people of Big Horn were staring at him in awe. Clearly, Zoro had taken all of these men out, but considering their lack of skill, I wasn’t particularly impressed. In fact, I was rather irritated.

“Right, Zoro! That was a good job, just like I told you to do! Yeah!”

“What about what I told you to do?” I asked, Usopp coming up behind him, still on the horse that Dalton had nabbed from Cocoa Weed.

I had made it to the Merry only to find the ship seemingly abandoned. I was confused at first, because I was sure that Kitetsu was there. A short search revealed the sword, its two companions, Zoro’s shoes, coat, shirt, socks and haramaki on deck, but not their owner.

I was worried. Where the hell was he? What the hell had happened? Had Wapol’s men gotten him and Carue? I was still thinking these questions over, when a thunderous sound caught my attention. There wasn’t a storm brewing. The sky was cloudy, but they were regular snow clouds. There was no sign of thunder snow. I trained my eyes on the island. An avalanche was coming down the mountain, a massive one considering I could recognize it, despite being as far away as I was. There wasn’t a doubt in my mind that Sanji and Luffy were the cause of it.

They caused it. They could handle it. I wouldn’t have been able to catch up to them anyways.

I wasn’t sure how far away was far enough, but I knew that I was probably far enough away to be safe. After all, I was on the ship. Fortunately for me, and the horse the snow hadn’t reached us. It did make things more difficult, because now there were no tracks for me to look for.

I had to find Zoro, and the only idea I had was to seek out his very presence, which was faint in comparison to that damn sword.

I would’ve liked to have trained more, to have practiced, but that wasn’t an option. I closed my eyes and did everything in my power to push out that dam demon sword and to lock onto Zoro. Kitetsu was madness. It was anger and blood lust and violence, but Zoro wasn’t. Zoro was determination, pride, and honor.

The second I was able to lock onto him, I was moving again back to Big Horn, stopping only to fish a half frozen Carue out of the river.

“You,” I started, pointedly looking at Zoro. “You are supposed to be watching the Merry with Carue, and yet I found your stuff on the Merry without you and the duck half frozen in the river.”

My words snapped Zoro out of his boasting, Usopp out of his lying and Vivi out of her amazement.

“Carue!” she cried, rushing over, and hugging the duck. “Oh my goodness! What happened to you?

“He’s alive,” I told her. “Cold, but alive.”

I looked at Usopp. “You two are supposed to be in Gyasta. Why are you in Big Horn?”

“The avalanche,” he answered.

“The doctor,” I reminded him. “Nami. That didn’t just go away, and where is Dalton?” I asked, realizing that he was missing from this scenario.

“He was shot and buried under the avalanche. We have to find him.” That brought the crowd back into it, their shock becoming worry and concern for their de facto leader.

I shook my head. “Hopeless the whole lot of you.” I tossed my bag full or Zoro’s stuff at him. “Get dressed.”

I closed my eyes and once again, opened my mind, trying to sense out Dalton’s devil fruit this time instead of Zoro.

“Don’t just sit there! Do something!”  someone yelled at me.

“I am,” I growled out, trying to focus. I had managed with Zoro. I could do it again. It was just frustrating that it took so long and that it required so much concentration, even though he couldn’t be that far away.

“Mira-“ Vivi said. She was treading carefully, trying not to upset me.

I put a hand up to stop her. “Got ya.” I stood up and walked over to the patch of snow, where I knew Dalton was and started digging, revealing his face after a moment.

“Yo!” I called, beckoning the others over. Immediately, they got to work, helping me dig the big man out.

“This is horrible! I don’t feel a heartbeat!” a man yelled.

“Damn it!” I swore. No way of telling how long his heart had been stopped, how much damage it had done. ‘I should’ve been faster.’

I moved to start CPR. I didn’t know what good it could really do. Even if I could keep his blood pumping, there was no doctor to try to fix the damage. There was no chance that he would make it up the mountain in this condition.

“He’s too large. A tiny girl like you isn’t strong enough to-“

I ignored the person speaking, starting the chest compressions with ease.

“No! Dalton! Please wake up! Please Dalton! You have to!” Vivi cried, taking his large hand in her much smaller one.

Everyone around us, just looked on sadly.

“Vivi. Mira,” Usopp said gently.

“No,” I said sternly. I could still feel that devil fruit. Until it disappeared, he wasn’t dead.

“You can’t die! Dalton please!”

“Don’t worry. He’s not dead.”

I glanced towards the voice, seeing Wapol’s private doctors standing there.

“The 20 MDs?!”

“He will be, if we don’t act soon. He has severe frost bite,” another said.

“We can begin treatment immediately, if you’ll let us.”

“Hey what do you know, there are doctors here. That’s funny. I thought I heard that there weren’t any in this country,” Zoro noted.

Usopp filled Zoro in. “There are a few doctors, but these guys are the 20 MDs. They work exclusively for Wapol, so that makes them bad doctors.”

“That’s right! We can’t trust any of you! Traitors! You expect us to leave Dalton with you? You surrendered to Wapol without a fight and turned your backs on us.”

“Wapol probably sent you here to kill Dalton.”

“Please, if you want to save him, just do as I say.”

“They’re cowards,” I said, still doing compressions. “That doesn’t make them bad doctors. It just means that they’re more motivated by fear than anything.” I looked up at the 20 MDs. “I don’t know your intentions. Maybe you’ve had a change of heart and are finally doing the right thing. I don’t care. You’re going to save him. If you don’t, I’m going to make the rest of what will be your short existence an absolute hell.”

“The 20 of us are still doctors. Even though we were forced against our will to serve only Wapol, we’ve always worked to advance our medical research for the benefit of all the patients in this country. It was all because of a certain quack, who taught us never to give up. We can’t afford to lose any more men like him.”

“Then quit standing there, and get to work,” I barked.

The doctors immediately got to work, one of them taking over for me. I stepped back and took a deep breath. I looked around at all the people gathered, staring.

“See about unburying one of these houses,” I ordered the crowd. “Dalton’s going to need some place warm and a bed to rest in. I’ll watch the doctors.”

They all seemed hesitant at first, but Zoro and Usopp took charge, leading the digging effort, getting the people doing something.

Vivi stayed at first, but I urged her to go check on Carue.

I wasn’t a doctor. I couldn’t say that I fully understood what it was that the 20 MDs were doing. I couldn’t trust what I was seeing, due to my limited knowledge, but neither could the others. Unlike them, I could handle this. I could watch as the doctors treated Dalton. I wasn’t close to the man. I hadn’t been out right wronged by the doctors. I had no reason to trust them sure, but I also didn’t have that need for revenge that the others did. I wasn’t like Vivi, so emotionally involved at this point, you would’ve thought that she’d dealt with Wapol’s tyranny firsthand as opposed through the stories of others.

They managed to stabilize him, just as the crowd managed to clear a path to the door of someone’s home. I helped carry Dalton, setting him on the bed in the home. The doctors were then able to perform the more delicate procedures necessary to save Dalton. It took hours, but at long last they were done. Now the only thing we could do was wait for him to wake up.

A few of the villagers came inside to wait. They watched as the doctors continued to monitor Dalton. It was a tense atmosphere, but that tension was released, when Dalton opened his eyes.

“It’s a miracle!”

“He’s awake!”

I stood there while the doctors did a few tests and once overs. Dalton wasn’t fully there yet, having just woken up, but according to the doctors everything looked good.

With Dalton awake, my watch was over. I popped off of the wall that I had been leaning against and stretched, heading out, while everyone crowded around Dalton. Once outside, I took a deep breath the freezing air helping to clear that last but of tension out of my body. Then I went looking for Vivi, Zoro and Usopp. Carue was in the house in another room, wrapped in blankets sitting near a fire.

“You’re worried about Nami, and Luffy, and Sanji and Dalton. And everything that’s going on in Alabasta.”

I followed the sound of Usopp’s voice. “Vivi, can’t you see it? You’re carrying too many burdens on your shoulders. Calm down. You don’t need to go up there at all. You know why? Cause those three are fine. That’s Luffy, and Sanji and Nami up there. I have faith in them.”

“Thanks a lot. You’re full of wisdom, Usopp,” Vivi complimented the sniper.

“No. He’s full of crap,” Zoro argued. “He’s just afraid to go up that mountain.”

I found them standing between two houses by a fence, just a few down from where Dalton was being treated. Zoro was poking Usopp, whose legs were shaking with fear, in the forehead repeatedly.

“Agh! I heard there were things like yetis and huge man-eating bunnies up there! I don’t want to get eaten!”

“Then say so at the start coward.”

I rolled my eyes, but laughed. “Zoro, leave Usopp alone. It was a nice sentiment, even if it was just because he’s scared.”

“Mira, how’s Dalton?” Vivi asked.

“He was just waking up, when I left,” I told them.

“That’s a relief,” Vivi said.

“He’s a tough one. He’ll be fine.”

The door to the house opened, and Dalton came stumbling out.

“It’s Dalton!”

“Thank goodness!”

“What is that idiot doing?” I asked.

“Can someone please tell me who this guy is?” Zoro asked.

“Dalton, please listen to reason.”

“Get out of my way. We can’t let Wapol retake the castle. We can’t.”

“So that’s where you’re heading? The castle?” Vivi asked.

“In your condition?” Usopp added.

“My country is far more important,” Dalton said. “HE CANNOT SUCCEED! I WILL NOT LET THAT HAPPEN! NOT NOW NOT EVER WAPOL MUST PERISH!”

“But you’re not strong enough to fight them in your condition sir.”

“And the rest of us are no fight for them either.”

“I’m going to settle this thing once and for all. I’ll stop Wapol, even if it kills me.”

“Got admire his determination and his dedication to his country,” I said. “But I put forth entirely too much effort in to keeping him alive to let him go and kill himself.”

Usopp moved first walking over and stepping in Dalton’s path. I watched on, curious as to what he was gonna do. Dalton was a brave warrior, something that we knew Usopp admired. It was interesting to see that his approach was. I doubted he was going to try to talk Dalton out of it. This kind of heroic endeavor was just the kind of thing that Usopp loved.

Not surprisingly, Usopp was on Dalton’s side. What as surprising was that Usopp planned to carry Dalton up the mountain.

“Oh this is gonna be sad,” I said.

“Embarrassing,” Zoro added.

It was. The thought was nice, but Usopp just wasn’t strong enough to carry Dalton. He gave it a good try though.

“Alright, go help him,” I said to Zoro. “You’re the only one, who can carry him without dragging him on the ground.”

I could lift Dalton. It would be easy. I just wasn’t tall enough to carry him without dragging his feet and considering that he had frostbite that probably wasn’t the best idea.

Zoro shook his head, walking over and lifting Dalton up on his shoulder.

“Are you gonna sit there and whine or are you coming with us?” Zoro asked Usopp.

I hurried over, catching up with them.

Usopp was yelling at Zoro about stealing his thunder, hitting and kicking him.

“Boys, play nice,” I scolded, trying to hide my amusement.

“Hey! Hold up. There’s an easier way up to the castle,” someone called out. “Instead of walking, take the rope way.”

“The rope way? That’s impossible. There hasn’t been one connected to Wapol’s castle in a while.”

“Someone must’ve just recently reconnected one, because I just saw it. There was a rope going from the castle to a big white tree outside of Gyasta.”

‘Of course, where we should’ve headed to begin with.’

We along with a number of the Drum Island residents headed to Gyasta. At the base of the rope was a gondola, which Vivi, Usopp, Zoro, Dalton, myself and roughly a dozen men crowded into. It was entirely too crowd, resulting in it being slow moving, but it was at least moving.

Dalton was seething, where he sat.

“You need to settle down. You’re just going to worsen your condition, if you keep behaving like this,” I said.

My words were ignored. He continued to rant and rave. I understood he was upset, but he was going to die, if he didn’t settle down.

I finally understood why I was ignored, when he pulled multiple sticks of dynamite out of his jacket.

“When we get up there, everyone take cover. There are going to be explosions, once I get inside.”

I was the only one still paying attention to the top of the mountain, the smoke that had started to come from it along with a few loud crashes. ‘Captain made it,’ I thought, grinning. “Dalton, when we get up there. You are going to sit down and take it easy,” I told him.

“Wapol-“ he started.

“Luffy!” I shot back. “Our captain is up there. Our navigator. Our cook. That’s what Wapol ran into, when he came up here to reclaim that castle.”

Everyone started looking up at the castle like I was.

“She’s right,” Usopp said, sounding smug. “You brought that dynamite to blow up Wapol, but there isn’t going to be any Wapol to blow up.”

“I know he doesn’t look like much, but I’m willing to put the fate of my own country in Luffy’s hands. You should have faith that he will protect yours,” Vivi said.

“But he doesn’t know-“

I smiled back at Vivi and Dalton. “That bastard ate part of our ship, tried to eat Luffy, and if he’s up there, has likely threatened Nami and Sanji.”

“Luffy’s gonna kick his ass,” Zoro said.

The people of Drum just looked at us, probably thinking that we were mad. I didn’t blame them. If I had been in their position, I’d have my doubts to. I turned, keeping my eyes trained on the mountain top.

Sure enough, a few moments later, what looked to be a much thinner Wapol rocketed overhead.

“Atta boy, Luffy,” I praised.

We made it to the top, Zoro, Usopp and I getting off and going ahead to scout out the area. We didn’t know, who else was with Wapol or even for sure if the guy that had been launched off the island even was Wapol.

Usopp, who had declared that he was going to go ahead and brave whatever dangers there would be, was cowering behind Zoro by the time we reach the top of the staircase that led from the gondola bay to the outside world.

“Hey! What the hell are you doing?” Zoro asked, swatting at Usopp, trying to get him to release his leg.

“Just watching your back.”

‘Idiots,’ I thought fondly.

The view from up here was gorgeous.

A familiar scream caused me to spin around and Zoro and Usopp to stop bickering. Luffy had rocketed himself towards us… Because of course he did.

“LUFFY!” the other two screamed in panic.

They dove out of the way of our captain. I braced myself, digging my feet into the ground as much as I could, but with the snow it was difficult. I caught Luffy around the torso, the impact caused me to slide back roughly twenty feet, before coming to a stop.

Luffy started laughing. “Nice catch, Mira!”

“Thanks, Captain,” I responded, chuckling.

“Why’d you do that, you moron?!” Zoro raged.

I set Luffy back on his feet, and stood up properly, dusting the snow off of myself.

“I didn’t recognize you,” Luffy explained. “I thought you were more of Big Mouth’s guards ready to fight. I’m surprised you came up here. Well not you Zoro, Mira, but Usopp, aren’t you usually scared of doing stuff like climbing mountains?”

“HAHAHAHA! Yeah right,” Usopp scoffed. “Whenever there’s a towering peak in front of me, I climb it, but let me tell you scaling that mountain hand over hand was no picnic.”

“Actually, we took a rope way car,” Vivi explained, causing Usopp to topple over. “Nami and Sanji are they alright?”

“Yeah! Both of them are just fine.”

“Thank goodness.”

“I knew you had it all under control.”

“So what was that you were doing on top of the castle a few minutes ago?” Zoro asked.

“Beating the crap out of the king,” Luffy said.

“Dalton,” I greeted, seeing him exit the stairwell. “You’re just in time.”

“You mean that person I saw flying through the air was actually Wapol?” Dalton asked, disbelief clear on his face. “You beat him?”

“Yep. I sure did.”

“And his two henchmen what happened to them?”

“Well the reindeer beat him up.”

“But those two? A reindeer?” Dalton was still struggling to accept it.

“Reindeer?” I asked.  “Another zoan?”

“Hey Usopp, I made a new friend. You gotta meet him. Get this. He’s a reindeer.”

‘Leave it to Luffy.’

Dalton notice something in the trees. I followed his gaze to wear a little reindeer was standing. I think it was trying to hide, but it was backwards. I had thought that, when Luffy said a reindeer he had found a human that had eaten the ox ox fruit, model reindeer, but based on his appeared this appeared to be a reindeer that had eaten a human human fruit.

I wasn’t thinking about that at the time though that came later, because my first thought, which tumbled out of my mouth on its own was, “So freaking cute.”

Dalton bowed to the reindeer, thanking it for helping the country. The rest of the people of Drum finally made their way over to us. They all looked at the reindeer.

“What? What is that strange creature behind that tree?”

“It almost looks like a reindeer.”

“No. You’re wrong. It’s a monster.”

Humans. Ignorant creatures. Afraid of what they didn’t know of what they didn’t understand.

“No! Don’t shoot him!” Dalton ordered.

Something finally registered in Usopp’s head, because he screamed, eyes nearly popping out of his head. “It’s a yeti! Somebody shoot it!”

The words of the people upset the reindeer, who sped off into the forest, crying.

I spun around and knocked Usopp upside the head, at the same time as Luffy.

“You jerk face!” Luffy yelled. “He’s not a yeti, you idiot! He’s my new friend!”

“You coward! He wasn’t hurting you! Don’t go screaming fire until you know something’s a threat!”

You’d figure that after Little Garden Usopp would’ve realized that things weren’t always what they seemed, but no. Fear controlled him more than anything else.

“You scared him so bad he ran away,” Luffy continued.

“If you could kill Dorry and Broggy would you have just shot them on sight? You wouldn’t have a master then would you?”

“You’re right. You’re right. I’m sorry.”

“It’s not us that you need to say sorry to,” Luffy said.

Usopp slumped in defeat.

“I’m gonna go get him, so that you can apologize.” With that Luffy took off after the reindeer.

“I never seen Mira get this mad. Way to go Usopp,” Zoro jabbed.

“I’m not mad,” I corrected. “I’m annoyed that a crewmate of mine would behave in such a manner. I know what it’s like to be afraid. I also know what it’s like to be the thing that people are afraid of. It hurts, especially, when you know that the only reason people are still afraid of you is because they won’t give you a chance.”

I glared at the villagers, who looked appropriately sheepish.

“The doctor is here right? We need to get Dalton to her.”

“The girl’s right,” a voice called out.

The villagers gasped. “Doctor Kureha?!”

“Yeah. Good to see you too. Now be useful and get the injured guy to the medical ward.”

“I recognize you! You’re that damn old hag from before!” Zoro yelled.

You would think that seeing a woman dressed like she’s twenty, despite probably being seven times that, would be a dead giveaway that she was sensitive to the whole age thing, but apparently not to Zoro. Kureha brought her fist down on top of his head, knocking him to the ground. I could see the goose egg forming.

“You had that one coming,” I told him.

I shook my head. “Someone keep his feet from dragging,” I said, hoisting Dalton up over my shoulder.

The villagers were all still.

“I’d do what the girl says, or you’re going to be in pain like this man here,” Kureha said.

That got them all moving, lifting Dalton’s feet as we headed to the medical ward.

***

Notes:

***

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***

Master List | Mobile Version

[genogenocrazycatman]

Stillwater - Chapter 14

Stillwater [Archive of Our Own, FanFiction.Net, Mibba]

Characters: Original Female Character, Monkey D. Luffy, Rorona Zoro, Vinsmoke Sanji, Nami, Usopp, Tony Tony Chopper, Nefeltari Vivi

"We build as only children know to build

We made a way where there's a will

No slowing down or standing still

Innocent and reckless

"How did we get so old and never notice

How did we gain the world and lose the moment

Rise and fall, the tide surrounds us

And drowns us all"

-Hands Like Houses

***

“What in the world was that?” I asked, pausing my polishing of the furniture, when I felt the ship suddenly rock.

“Luffy, what else,” Nami said, standing in the door way of our shared room. “Looks good.” She nodded towards the bar. “Smells good too.”

“Not a bad polish,” I said, looking at the container, “But I’m sure that I could probably make my own from the peels of your tangerines, if you start saving them for me.”

“Really?”

“Yeah totally. People have been using lemon and orange oils to polish furniture for years. I don’t see why tangerine wouldn’t work.”

“Huh. I’ll have to start keeping them for you then. I’m gathering everyone up for a quick crew meeting, you good to head on up or do you need a minute?”

“Nah. I’m good. I’ll finish up later.”

I set my stuff down and followed Nami out. “The boys were all hanging out on the aft deck. Nami went back to get them. Vivi was already standing on the main deck. I plopped down on the ground, sitting crisscross and resting my head in my hand.

“Hey, listen up you guys. We’ll be landing at Alabasta soon, and this is no time to be joking around. Like a pack of hyenas. Come on.”

“Yes ma’am,” The boys all grumbled, save for Chopper, who hadn’t suffered through enough bossy Nami to be properly put off.

“So what is Alabasta then?” he asked as they descended the stairs.

“It’s the country, where Vivi’s father rules,” Nami explained.

“Yeah, except there’s this guy named Crocodile, who’s trying to take over the country right now,” Usopp elaborated.

“And Crocodile’s one of the seven war lords of the sea,” Sanji added.

“Who are those guys?”

“Government sanctioned pirates,” I answered.

“The government actually supports pirates?”

“In exchange for doing the governments bidding, and bringing in other pirates, they get to do whatever else they want without fear of the marines.”

“Pretty weird, huh?”

“I’m really looking forward to meeting this Crocodile guy.”

Luffy was the only one. I had never run into any of the war lords. I considered myself lucky that way. The last thing I needed or wanted was anyone associated with the government having knowledge of me or my family. It was bad enough that three of the four emperors did. While they were significantly more powerful than any of the war lords, they were focused solely on their own agendas, none of which included me anymore.

“Crocodile is considered a hero back home. He helps get rid of the pirates, who attack Alabasta. However, his good deeds only appear good on the surface. He is an evil man. In truth, he’s manipulating the citizens of Alabasta to bring about a civil war, so that he can take over the country. No one has realized what Crocodile’s doing yet, not the people, not even my father,” Vivi explained.

I had to give to Crocodile. It was a smart plan. Crocodile would be lauded as a hero, if he successful took over. The man, who brought an end to Alabasta’s civil war. Someone that the people would want to , appearing as a hero, while secretly

“Right. This should be fun. All we have to do is beat up that Crocosilde guy.”

“Yes, but order to do that, we have to avert the civil war in Alabasta and get Baroque Works out of the picture.”

“Baroque Works?” Chopper asked.

“Oh yeah. You don’t know anything about them either. To be honest, I don’t completely understand what’s going on with them myself. They have a really complicated system of agents, bosses and partners.”

“The system is actually pretty simple...”

I followed Vivi’s explanation of the organization, which led to the realization that all of the high-ranking officials were one their way to Alabasta too, as well as many of the 2,000 foot soldiers. Not that averting a civil war was ever going to be easy, but it was getting increasingly more complicated. Luffy’s only concern was Crocodile, which was to be expected. If only, it was only that simple.

“Well first thing’s first. We have to get to Alabasta, but that doesn’t mean you get to mess around until then. Use the next couple of days to get ready.”

We all nodded and voiced our agreement.

“Hey, Mimi?”

“Yeah, Luffy?”

“Since Nami’s all better, does this mean you’ll tell everyone that you’re a vampire?”

Had I been sitting in a chair, I probably would’ve fallen out of it. I wouldn’t really expect anything less from Luffy, but still.

Sanji reacted quickly, making up for my lack of reaction. “Luffy, how dare you insinuate that our lovely Mira is a vampire?! I should kick your teeth down your throat for just suggesting such a thing!”

“A vampire?!” Chopper and Usopp yelled, terrified at the prospect.

“Guys there’s no such thing as vampires. I told you to stop screwing around, Luffy,” Nami scolded.

Unlike the others, Zoro and Vivi had caught on yo my distress. The pair both looked at me. Vivi was concerned, her soft gaze filled with worry. Zoro narrowed his eyes, his gaze wary.

“Mimi,” Luffy whined, two goose eggs on his head, one from Nami and one from Sanji. “You said after Nami got better.”

I should’ve said after Alabasta. That would’ve been smarter.

Luffy was looking at me with a slight pout and those big eyes. It wasn’t a puppy dog pout, but it was close enough for me to cave. ‘Damn it.’ I didn’t think I would ever be immune to a puppy dog pout. I had tried and tried to build up a tolerance to it, but still big eyes and pouty lips usually got me to cave or yell for Cal, so that she could deal with it, but she wasn’t here right now.

“I did,” I said, dragging my hand down my face. “And I thought we agreed that I wasn’t a vampire?”

I had tried figuring out how it was that I was going to go about this. Sure, Luffy believed me right off the bat, but it was Luffy. He was more concerned about Chopper being a magical transforming reindeer than a doctor, a chance to have the devil’s daughter on board, even better. Sanji said he believed me. It sure felt like he did, but maybe that was just part of his nature. After all, Sanji was looking for something that many didn’t think exist, the All Blue. Not that it was a direct correlation, but it seemed that Sanji was more open to the impossible.

“Wait what?” Nami asked, turning to look at me.

Everyone was looking at me.

Sanji, sighed lighting another cigarette and taking a drag.

“Mira, what’s Luffy talking about?” Vivi asked.

“Well, I’m not a vampire, if that helps,” I started. “But I’m not human either.” I gave them a second to take that in.

“You look human,” Chopper said. He sniffed. “You smell human, mostly.”

“Mostly?” Usopp asked.

“She kind of smells like the ocean.”

“I’m still here,” I reminded them, causing the pair to look at me again.

“Is this some kind of joke?” Zoro asked.

“That must be it! You really had us going, Mira!” Usopp slapped his thigh.

“She’s not joking,” Sanji said.

Usopp’s face twisted into a look of confusion.

“You’re in on it, Shit Cook?”

“There’s nothing to be in on,” I interjected, before Sanji and Zoro could start fighting. “Look. Here’s the deal. Many of the legends that people talk about are based in some type of reality. They might have been distorted over time, but there’s usually a shred of truth at their core. I say this, because you’re not going to believe, what I’m about to say. Not at first. Maybe not ever. I can’t change that. I’m not really looking to, but I made a promise to Luffy, so here we go. I’m the daughter of the sea devil.”

I got blank stares. I just kept going. They were going to catch up or sit there in disbelief. If it was the latter, then I could just leave them there stunned and deal with it later.

“And I do mean the sea devil. I’m not just using that phrase to call him an asshole.” ‘Although he is an absolute fucking asshole.’ “It’s through my blood, through him, that I can move water like I do. It’s an ability I was born with. I never ate a devil fruit. The reason why I don’t go into the water is because I can’t use my powers on or when I’m in salt water. And while I’m not immortal like he is, I’m very old and very hard to kill.”

“Isn’t it cool?” Luffy giggled.

“That’s impossible,” Vivi said.

I shrugged. I knew what I was saying was true, but I still felt stupid. It was like telling your older sibling that you were afraid of the monster in your closet, only to have them tell you that, “Monsters aren’t real,” and, “You’re a wuss.”  This was a terrible idea. Who the hell just ran around telling people that their the devil’s child?

The air got heavy. Even if they thought I was full of shit, it was clear that I didn’t think so. They were trying to figure out how to deal with the situation. What do you do, when you think your crewmate is starting to lose it?

“Let’s say you really are the sea devil’s daughter. How’d you end up in Logue Town?” Usopp asked. “Wouldn’t you be in like his evil lair or whatever?”

“I washed up there,” I answered honestly.

“Washed up?”

I groaned, my pride taking a hit. “I picked a fight with him, and got my ass kicked, again. He launched me out to sea, and used the currents to beach me at Logue Town.”

“Picked a fight?”

“Our relationship is complicated.”

“How complicated?” Vivi asked. She didn’t seem to believe me, but she also didn’t seem to think that I was totally out of my mind.

“I’ve been trying to kill him for decades now with little to no success.”

“You can’t be serious,” Nami said, seeming to be firmly on the “she’s lost it” side of things. She was annoyed, which wasn’t really surprising. She was concerned about getting Vivi to Alabasta first for foremost. Distracting everybody from their goal for such a stupid sounding confession was bound to piss her off. “The Sea Devil? Really? That’s farfetched, even for Usopp.”

“Yeah, Mira. Can you prove it?” Usopp asked.

“I can prove that I’m not human.” I closed my eyes. When I opened them, my irises, which were a medium shade of grey lighten to a shade of silver that was almost glowing, and my pupils were now rectangular.

Usopp screamed, grabbing onto Chopper, who was shaking.

Nami’s eyes were wide as were Vivi’s. “Back in Little Garden?”

I nodded. I closed them, returning to them to their previous state. “I don’t look human, naturally. The same power that allows me to manipulate water, allows me to change my appearance, so that I can blend in with humans. In Little Garden, I shifted my eyes back, so that that girl’s traps didn’t work on me, since I see things differently.”

“If you are telling the truth, that means you’ve been lying to us from the beginning,” Zoro pointed out. His voice was hard. “In which case, why should we trust you now? How do we know that you’re not a threat?”

I looked over at him. His arms were crossed over his chest. He believed me. He wouldn’t be upset like he was otherwise.

“I have been,” I confirmed. “And you shouldn’t, because you don’t. You don’t know basically anything about me. You know some of my skills, cooking, cleaning, sewing, fighting. You know I’m strong and that I heal quick. You have no idea, where I came from, or what I can do? I never told you, who my father is or that my very presence puts you in danger. That storm that hit us right before Whisky Peak, that was my father’s doing. He doesn’t seem to be fond of the idea of me joining a pirate crew, and there are others out there, who want me dead. Keeping me around is foolish.”

“So you’d leave willingly?”

“No one’s leaving,” Luffy said, matching Zoro’s seriousness.

Zoro’s gaze shifted from me to Luffy. “You’ve already made a decision?”

Luffy nodded.

I think it was finally settling in on the others that what I was saying was true. Luffy believing me was one thing, but Zoro was another. They also had to come to grasp with the realization that they knew very little about me. I had listened to them tell stories about their homes. I had eve asked questions, but had offered up little in return.

“Mira’s a part of this crew. It doesn’t matter, who her dad is. She’s our stewardess. I’m not changing my mind.”

Zoro said nothing, standing up and walking off.

I sighed, leaning my head back against the Merry and closing my eyes.

Sanji patted my shoulder and stood up.

“Don’t even think about it,” I said, opening one eye to look at him. “He’s allowed to be mad, and you’re not going to give him shit for it.” Sanji looked ready to protest.

“Sanji, I’m kind of hungry. Do we have any pudding?” Nami asked.

“I’ll go make some right now, Nami-swan!” Sanji said, rushing towards the kitchen, Nami following behind.

The mention of food, returned Luffy to his usual cheerful energetic self. “Sanji can you make pudding with meat?”  He chased after the love struck cook.

Wait! I’ll come with you!” Usopp cried, afraid of being left with me.

That left Vivi and Chopper. Chopper seemed frozen, where he was.

“Mira.”

I looked at Vivi.

“Thanks for telling us,” she said, giving me a small smile. “I know that was hard for you. I don’t know what I believe, but I know that you’re good people, and that’s the important part. I’m sure the others will realize that, even Mr. Bushido.”

I gave her a smile in return.

She stood up and headed inside.

The only one left was Chopper. I felt so bad. Hey welcome to your new home. I’m the daughter of evil incarnate. “You don’t have to stay,” I told him. “It’s okay that you keep your distance. I won’t take it personally. I know you’re scared.”

“No. It’s okay,” he said, sounding the exact opposite. He slowly walked over, taking the spot next to me. I kept my eyes on him, but didn’t interrupt him. “Can I ask you some questions?”

“Sure. I can’t promise I’ll have an answer, but I’ll try.”

“I just- I was gonna ask you guys about your medical histories anyways, so that I have a good background for when I need to treat you, but considering you’re not human, I want to get yours first. I need to know what’s different about you, so that if something goes wrong I can treat you properly.”

I smiled down at him. He was terrified, but still was making sure that he could perform his job to the best of his abilities. “You’re very serious about your work. It’s an admirable.”

“Complimenting me won’t make me happy,” he said.

“Uh huh. Sure. Well… First off, you don’t have to worry much about me. I have advanced healing capabilities and regeneration abilities.”

“Really?!” he asked, sounding amazed.

“Yep.”

“That’s amazing. How does it work? Do you know what this could mean for the medical community? How did it originate? Wait! I need a note book and a pen. I need to document this as part of your history.”

I chuckled at the reindeer. He was so cute, and so excitable.

I stood up. “Come on. Let’s head down to the girl’s room. I’ll fill you in. I can’t tell you much about my parents. My mother died, when I was a toddler, and I don’t know much about my father aside from him being a bastard. Cal would be better at this than me.  It’s going to be a lot, if you want to know about injuries though.”

“You’ve had a lot of injuries?” he asked concerned.

“I’ve got advanced healing and regeneration, a tendency to do really dumb stuff and a lot of time. Yeah. I’ve had a lot.”

***

Notes: I don't really like how this turned out. Initially, I wanted to give the sea devil's back story in this too but that was a bit much, especially, because some of them are still struggling with whether or not they even believe what it is that Mira's saying.So just a brief rundown:-Luffy believes her and is excited to have a "not" vampire on the ship.-Zoro's believes her and is pissed, but Luffy's already made a decision, so there isn't anything that he can do about it.-Sanji believes her and is fine with everything.-Usopp's on the fence, and he's scared.-Chopper's believes her and is scared, but has a job to do.-Vivi's confused, but believes that Mira is a good person.-Nami is on the fence, but is more concerned with getting Vivi to Alabasta than anything else, so she'll deal with it later.Also I mentioned that Mira disguises herself as a human and can't use her powers on salt water or when she's in it, and I'll explain that more later, but once again, there are things that I think people are going to be curious about immediately.1.) Oda said that devil fruit users are weak to all water, not just sea water.-She didn't eat a devil fruit. Additionally, this is my fanfic. I'll destroy cannon if I please. If you don't like it, don't read it.2.) Does she get weak in water?-Powerless? Yes. Physically weak? No.3.) Can Mira disguise herself as anything?-Nope. Basically, there's her natural form and then her human one. That's it. She can change the human one's appearance, but not just willy-nilly. It takes time, so she doesn't do it often.Thanks for reading. See yinz next time.

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