Gyaaah! OMGosh! I had to write this! I know I have a sequel to work on, and an on-going story to finish, but, this couldn't wait! It's multiple chapter again, soo... Well, I was inspired to do this when I listened to the song 'Dein Herz', or, 'Your Heart' by Damien Dawn.
Enjoy!
EDIT: The chapter title roughly translates to "You are within reach." Also, revamped (HA) the chapter a bit as of 6/23/13. ;)
"'Sometimes, it takes the smallest things to start a chain reaction beyond control. Sometimes, the people faced with that chain reaction are not deserving, whether of cruelty or miracle. Sometimes, they are not human...
"'In our world, there are many unholy things,'" Sanji read aloud. He looked up to his two quivering friends and raised his eyebrows. "Where did you get this old thing?" he asked, holding up the delicate yellowed pages bound together by a fraying ribbon.
"You have to keep reading it, Sanji!" Luffy said, pulling the pitiful book open to a certain page. The words were hand-written, a sloppy though classic italic cursive, and mostly read like they were written in the old centuries. Which Sanji would be easily convinced of.
The blond eyed his friends, before pulling his gaze back down to the tiny flourished letters and reading aloud once more; "'I've come across monsters, demons, if you'll believe. Evil creatures, blood thirsty, each with a taste for different flesh,'" Sanji paused when Usopp yelped and hid behind Luffy, who laughed and told his friend it was just a fairytale. "'They crave humans, as they have succeeded in being what no demon could ever be; pure.'"
Sanji snorted, closing the book and placing it softly on the table, though it still let out some dust. "I don't know what the hell kinda shit this guy was smoking, but this is just idiotic," Sanji told them, leaning back in his chair.
Luffy let out a goofy laugh, but Usopp frowned, offended. The longnose leaned forward, elbows on the table. "What do you mean? This isn't fiction; this is an honest-to-God journal!" Usopp defended, though he himself seemed to hope it was only fiction.
"It's cool, right, Sanji?" Luffy asked, sliding the book across the table to his own seat. "Me and Usopp just found it buried in a-!"
"Luffy! Shut up!" Usopp clapped a hand over his friend's mouth, holding the back of his head with the other. He laughed nervously, watching Sanji. "It was just in a dusty corner in the back of the library!"
Sanji raised a curly eyebrow, smirking at his friends. "You and Luffy were in the library?" he asked, briefly narrowing his eyes at the two. They were never ones for proper studying. Luffy, because he's an idiot, and Usopp because he got good grades without studying. Or so he said. In any case, Sanji couldn't picture the two of them browsing titles in an ancient section of the library.
Luffy wrenched Usopp's hand from his face and spouted the words before Usopp's lalalaing could do any good; "We dug it up from the graveyard!"
"You did what?" Sanji, assisted by a much more feminine voice off to his right, questioned loudly. They all turned their attention to the redhead who was glaring them down, hands on her hips, leg locked dangerously. "Nami-san!" Sanji greeted, standing from his seat and walking over to her. "As lovely as ever, Madame~!"
"Lovely like a banshee..." Usopp mumbled in the background. No one could react before Nami had pitched an encyclopedia at his head.
"Usopp!" Luffy knelt beside his unconscious friend on the floor, pulling at his abnormal nose to try and wake him. "You're so mean!" Luffy accused Nami, shaking the sleeping longnose by his shoulders and subsequently knocking his head against the cold tile floor.
Nami just scoffed, rolling her eyes. "I may be mean, but you are felons!" she said sharply, pointing a well-manicured finger at Luffy and Usopp as a whole.
"Now, Nami-san, they can't possibly have dug that thing up. From anywhere, let alone a graveyard," Sanji reasoned, leading Nami by the hand over to the book that had been discarded unintentionally during the commotion. He picked it up off the edge of the table and offered it to Nami. "See? This couldn't pass for having been buried," Sanji pointed out.
Nami examined the front page that crinkled under her touch. "You're right, I guess. We should get Robin to take a look at this," Nami decided, nodding. Sanji agreed fervently, looking forward to his future encounter with the lovely Nico Robin.
"Cool!" Luffy shouted, excitedly. "Should I get the trunk and the other things?"
Nami and Sanji looked at him. "Trunk?" Nami asked. "Like, buried chest kind of trunk?" Currency appeared in her eyes as she looked down at the book in her hands. She swept her fingers over a dust-covered section of the first page and squinted at the lettering she uncovered. "Journal of Gol D. Roger?" she questioned.
Sanji leaned over Nami's shoulder and read the line she pointed to. "That's what it looks like," he said, nodding. "That's odd. I could swear I've heard that name before."
"I know him!"
Again, attention was drawn to Luffy. "What do you mean you know him?" Nami asked.
Luffy shrugged, grinning his signature grin. "I learned about him in History class! He was so cool!" Luffy announced, standing from the floor where the forgotten Usopp stirred.
"Woah, woah, woah, wait!" Sanji said, holding up his hands. "You're telling me that you actually retained some helpful knowledge? From school? From a class you called boring?"
Luffy nodded in response.
"Unbelievable." Nami gawked. "Who is he? A Prince? Better yet, a King? A loaded author? Anybody famous?" she questioned ferociously, taking a step closer to Luffy with each of her rapid-fire inquiries.
The straw hat-wearing boy laughed at Nami's eager disposition and shook his head. "A quack," he said, smiling brighter, if possible.
Nami's jaw hit the floor. "B-but, he's at least a rich quack, right?"
Luffy shook his head again. "Actually, I don't know. He was a ruthless thief, from what I heard. He was supposed to be pretty famous and really powerful!" Luffy ranted, straightening his hat on his head. "Robin said he was called crazy by everybody because he was really ambitious, whatever that means."
"Ambitious about what?" Sanji asked. He had to admit he was getting kind of curious about this supposed quack. Nami had lost all interest, of course, because Luffy hadn't said the words "rich," "beli," or anything relating.
"I don't know," Luffy said, shrugging. He tilted his head to the side and frowned, creating his "I R thinking" face. "He did some pretty awesome stuff, though," Luffy mumbled, tapping a finger to his chin. Sanji figured they would be there for a while if they left Luffy to thinking for very long. In any case, they were hanging out in a business establishment that was about to open for lunch; an establishment which Sanji happened to work at.
"Are you guys gonna stay for lunch?" Sanji asked, bowing to Nami and then heading off towards the counter slash bar that took up the length of the wall.
"Of course. As long as there's a friend discount?" Nami smiled in a seductive, devilish way. The same way she always did when there was the slightest chance she could save or earn money. Of course, Sanji fell for that smile every time it made an appearance, especially when it was aimed at him.
The moment Sanji agreed to give a discount, Luffy was jumping up and down, clapping. "Yeah! Foooood! Sanji, I want meat!" Luffy shouted.
Usopp sat upright. "It's lunch time already?" he asked, sounding perfectly well and wake.
Sanji started taking chairs off of the well-crafted wooden tables and placing them on the floor, just as staff members started showing up here and there. He greeted a few of his fellow chefs and directed the waiters to wipe down the tables before they opened for the day.
For the most part, his friends were watching him work, but after a minute, Nami sighed. "Now-" She turned towards Usopp and Luffy, who had reset themselves at their table. "What was this about digging in the graveyard?"
oOo
The lunch rush had come and gone, leaving the staff of the Baratie confused and relieved. They were always strangely busy during mid-day, despite the size and population of the town the restaurant was settled in. There were much bigger and nicer-looking restaurants around, but half the people seemed to prefer the Baratie for their lunch breaks and dinner outings. Perhaps that was why Sanji was always tired.
Then again, there were many contributing factors in Sanji's daily exhaustion, a version of which he was beginning to feel already. He had school five days a week and the dinner shift after that, except for Friday. He works every possible shift on the weekends unless the shifts get rearranged. Of course he cooks for his friends whenever they ask him to and hangs out with them whenever he's free. His dad doesn't clean a thing in their living quarters upstairs from the restaurant, so he ends up doing all the chores. All in all, Sanji had a shitload of things to do. Never a dull moment, as they say.
"Sanji-kun! We're all headed over to that new tourist-trap," Nami announced, waving at Sanji as he pushed through the doors into the kitchen.
A minute later, Sanji was standing behind the window to the kitchen, above the liquor bottles. "Have fun~! I'll call you if I can make it!" Sanji waved, smiling brightly at Nami as she sighed. She led the other two out the door, sparing another wave at Sanji before disappearing to the left of the glass double-doors.
"You better be there, Sanji!" Luffy called, as he hurried after Nami.
Sanji laughed, glad that his friends still wanted to hang out with him after all the work he'd been doing. He was sure he would have stopped being so enthusiastic if he'd been neglected by a friend for work as long as he'd been neglecting them. It was all an accident, of course. He did want to be around them, especially Nami-san. But, Sanji thought as he was called back into the kitchen, that's not something easily accomplished when your dad is a hard-ass restaurant owner.
Zeff was merciless the moment Sanji proclaimed himself an adult. Well, he'd been merciless anyway, but when Sanji said he wanted to be taken seriously, Zeff took it to a whole new level. Of course, as tiring as it was, Sanji was one of the most respected chefs in the restaurant, second only to Zeff, and he was certainly a very talked-about chef island-wide. It was a small island, so many people told him, bitterly, that it was no big feat to be recognized. Sanji often wondered if they were right, if he was more insignificant than he was originally led to believe. He didn't tell his friends about that stupid, stupid concern of his. He didn't want Nami's "why the hell would you think that?" or Usopp's "your food is the best, Sanji!" or Luffy's "who said that? I'll kick their ass!". No matter how flattering it might be, Sanji didn't want people close to him to say he was the best. He wanted to hear it from a total stranger. A gorgeous, voluptuous stranger, with no boyfriend and a taste for fine cuisine. Oh, indeed, that was what Sanji wanted.
Weaving around behind other shouting, angry chefs, Sanji barely had any time to think about getting off work. He didn't know how much time was passing, though it seemed to fly by while working in the kitchen. After starting work at eleven in the morning, Sanji's break came at five, and he had an hour to do as he pleased. Usually he had a little snack and took a nap, maybe phoned his friends. Today, he thought, he'd go see a new tourist-trap. That is, if Nami, Usopp and Luffy stayed that long.
He would undoubtedly call them at five and figure out what they were doing. It was no fun to spend his break completely alone. He did enjoy when some, perhaps lonely-looking, beautiful women were dining when he went on break. But, those occasions were few and far between, much to Sanji's dismay.
The day wore into eve without slow, and Sanji had to be told to go on break because he'd been so absorbed in his artful work. That was good for keeping up with business, of course, but by the time Sanji had realized he wanted to call Nami, the clock read five thirty-two, and he was pretty sure no one would stay at the same tourist-trap for six hours. Though, if anyone could do it, Luffy could.
Sanji shook his head, relaxing into the couch in the upstairs apartment of the Baratie. I'll hang out with them some other time, Sanji thought, stretching out and closing his eyes. He felt bad for missing another perfect Sunday with his lovely Nami-swan, but not bad enough that he couldn't nap.
oOo
He watched closely as all the people passed his shrine, taking pictures, reading the historical facts off the map, saying the occasional prayer. He hadn't expected any visitors, but that didn't stop them the last couple of weeks. He'd heard them all talk, and that's how he knew it had been over a decade since his last visitor. They used strange words, odd speech patterns, some of which he'd picked up in the short period of time modern people had been visiting his shrine.
He was not particularly ecstatic that a path had been trampled in his perfect, lush grass, but he did like seeing the people in their individual states of awe and small children saying goofy prayers for only his shrine to hear. The teenaged crowd, however, was not one he favored. They were rude, loud, obnoxious, and had a complete lack of culture. Oh, yes, he wouldn't care if the teenaged population decided he was too boring to visit.
The shrine had stood for hundreds of years, occasionally earning a flow of visitors, and not one person in that time did he hate quite so much as modern-day teenagers. A crude species, he deemed them. Some days he even contemplated leaving his shrine to get away from them. Leaving. He knew he couldn't do that; the others wouldn't allow it. Not that he cared what the others would allow. He was his own man; he could do what he wanted. It just so happened that he felt cooperative for the last few decades, staying put like a good little boy.
Actually, he thought it was about time he go out for a walk, stretch his legs. Something that would subtly piss the others off. And even though it sounded simple, a walk would do just that. Especially if he walked with the humans, in their own territory. That would drive the others to the brink of insanity, he knew. But they wouldn't be able to do a damn thing about it.
Smiling at the thought, he slipped off as a shadow in the trees, running along behind the shrine and around the people. He couldn't meet with them yet. He'd have to build up a speech pattern similar to that of a modern-day adult human. Learning the technology might also help him. In fact, it would. He'd seen many of the humans with flashy devices, which he decided were evil, and noisy beeping devices, small ones, shiny little things that seemed to attach to the side of one's face.
He had quite a challenge ahead of him, but it was nothing the world's greatest swordsman couldn't handle...