Title: About a sacrifice

Characters: Sanji, Zoro

Genre: Drabble translation, General, Angst

Summary: "Take my life… But leave him his!" In a fleeting struggle for the sacrifice, protecting one's nakama to the limit is the only thing to do. For both of them…

Drabble written from this cult moment of the manga ("Zoro the pirates hunter", chapter 485, volume 50).

Disclaimer: One Piece owns to its author, Eiichiro Oda.

Note: Here is another translation of one of my French drabbles, named Sacrifice. As I said in Oratorio canto, for those who would not have read it, English is not my mother tongue and I do translation entirely on my own (and with a dictionnary on line, eh!). So it's likely not perfect, and I would be grateful if you could point grammar or vocabulary mistakes and stuff out to me if you see any of them. :) Thanks!

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Sacrifice

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...my life– to protect the crew– personal ambition– captain– Lord of the pirates. This husky and worn-out voice, beyond doubt, it's his. I have heard enough to order my legs to push away the ruins that half-bury me, because of the explosion, and to support me, just the time to do what needs to be done. The time to give my life for his, actually. I can't stay on the ground now that I have witnessed this; I can't pretend being unconscious, even if I was on the brink of faint. Physically, I'm knackered.

What with this sacrifice story? Do you really think you'll be able to survive, for giving your dream up that easily? So much pride and presumption from you disgusts me. I would have done the same, I am doing the same, but I need to cling to this raw and primitive feeling not to crack – and do what I have to do.

I step forward and interrupt you, ignoring you after directing some reprimand at you about this dream you don't hesitate to trample underfoot. The reason you give it up, so obvious, I pretend not to think about. Leave it to me. Speaking to the bloody oafish responsible for our misfortune, I show off a little, describing me as the future most dangerous man of the crew, too damn underestimated by the government, to persuade him to kill me in your place. I don't let you decide, Zoro. At least, there are so many things I would have liked to live by your sides guys, and everything ends up here. I say I have always got ready for when I will have to go, but I bluff again. Who the hell can be ready to die just after surviving the assaults of a zombie monster and seeing his own body half-melting in the sunshine? No remorse, no regret – bullshits again. I didn't want to die before finding All Blue, you know...

But if the price to pay to have any chance to discover it, is the life of a nakama, it's okay to give it up. How could I wish to live with the guilt of not have tried anything to save my captain and a nakama... Even if this nakama is you, you dumbass!

I'm so determined to be the one who will sacrifice him for Luffy that I go on with a detached tone. This is the way I leave you, mates – so much the better, don't like the goodbyes that go on and on. But don't you dare, shitty swordsman, not to pass on my farewells which will be posthumous. Never forgive you if you do.

Unshakable, and since there is no more danger now that my fate is sealed, I don't watch out. The violent knock that hits me in the ribs, likely already all broken, makes me turn to my attacker, nothing less than you. Bast– That's fucked up, my body doesn't even respond anymore. And you don't make a move to keep my hand which loosens its hold around your arm as I'm losing consciousness. Till the end, you will have made fun of me. Because you save me against my will. Because you could have just let it go with, and accept to be saved, for once.

That will have not dragged on, for a goodbye, as terse as always... Not a word, a very last blow... And a cold as stone glance that reflects nothing more than reprobation: "Your time hasn't come yet, moron."