"AGH! Get your hands off of me!" Nami spun around and kicked her offender in the jaw, making them stumble back. "THUNDERBOLT TEMPO!"
A stroke of lightning electrocuted the man, leaving him to collapse on the floor. Nami was breathing heavily. They must have been fighting like this for an hour now. She was exhausted and the rest of them didn't look much better. Chopper had already used six rumble balls, but at least now he could control his monster point. Still, the doctor had taken too many hits, some of which were to act like a shield and protect the others when an attack couldn't be dodged. Nami had yelled out at him several times to take care of himself and not throw himself in danger so much, but he refused to listen. His words echoed in her head.
"I'll do whatever I can to keep you guys from getting hurt, no matter what it is. That's the job of a doctor."
She looked over at him, drenched in blood with a fierce, unforgiving expression, panting as he glared at his current opponent. That wasn't how she ever wanted to see the baby of their crew. He deserved happiness. But the world just wasn't like that, is it? Even the most exhausted people can't catch a break.
Brook had an expression that only screamed anger, which, Nami didn't know how that worked because he's all bones. But he pulled it off and she had never seen him more enraged. He quickly brought his sword up in a defensive pose as his opponent swordsman, who Nami didn't even see, lunged at him. Their swords crossed, making a scratching sound and they glared each other down. Brook looked like he was at his absolute limit, pushing against his sword with all his might. His opponent, however, was grinning like a maniac with a glint in his eyes. Suddenly, he got a burst of strength, or maybe he already had it, and Brook fell to the ground. The man held his sword to Brook's neck, who glared up at him.
Nami electrocuted another five opponents long enough to make sure the damage would knock them out, and then turned back to Brook. He was in sea prism handcuffs, passed out on the floor. She frantically looked back to Chopper who was lying on the floor, back in his original form, fur completely drenched in blood. Deep cuts and horrific holes covered his body, but his eyes remained open, unfocused, on Nami. And in that moment, her ears were fuzzy but her vision was clear. Everything seemed to be completely still and silent in those two seconds and she saw him mouth two words at her.
I'm sorry.
Sea prism handcuffs were forced around his wrists and a metal collar was forced around his neck. He winced but he didn't cry.
But Nami felt like crying. She felt sick. But she didn't puke, and she didn't cry. Something pieced her side, making her wince. She turned her eyes to see one of the men from Fishman Island, the one in the pink suit, grinning at her, pistol still aimed at her. His grin grew wider and before she could react, he shot her again, this time on her other side. She used her clima tact as a cane to support herself from falling over and breathed out a shaky breath.
Then something came to her.
Where was Sanji?
She stood up in a fighting position and aimed her tact at the man.
"Gust Swor-"
She was cut off when a firm grip latched onto her arm and jerked her away. Another man was trying to put sea prism cuffs on her, and had already got them on one of her wrists. With her free hand, she jabbed her clima tact into his chest in attempt to get him away, but there was no effect.
"You really think that will work, Girly? This is the New World. You're dealing with a Yonko's crew," he said, grinning down at her.
Nami looked down to where she tried to stab him and saw armament haki across his chest. Of course. He forcefully put the other half of the hand cuffs on her wrist and pinned her arms behind her back. She felt someone kick her, hard, in the stomach. Must have used armament haki.
She frantically jerked from side to side, throwing herself around, kicking and screaming, trying to free herself as the kicks got harder and harder.
"SANJI! …WHERE IS SANJI! SA-" she was silenced again when she received yet another kick.
"Black Leg Sanji…" she heard a new voice say from behind her. "That man... killed one of our executives."
What!?
Nami's head snapped up and jerked around to look at the new person.
Sanji never killed anyone, ever. He just valued life too much for that. So why would he..?
Liars. They were lying. Sanji would never kill anyone. There was no way. They were lying.
She continued jerking madly in every direction. "LIAR! THERE'S NO WAY SANJI WOULD EVER-"
Another kick. This time, it was across the face. But she continued, despite the constant kicks and punches. "SANJI WOULDN'T! YOU DID SOMETHING TO HIM! WHERE IS HE! TELL ME WHERE HE IS RIGHT NOW! SANJ-"
A loud shot stopped her dead in her tracks, and she looked down at her chest. A pool of blood was spilling down her stomach from it. She slowly and shakily turned her head over her shoulder to see the pink suited man, with a much more serious look on his face, pointing his pistol at her. He wasn't grinning anymore.
"That will be enough from you," he said darkly.
"Now, now, I'll answer your question," the other man spoke up. "Black Leg Sanji was taken into a very special room inside the ship, where he will pay for what he's done," he said with a sadistic look in his eye.
Special.. room…pay…
"DON'T YOU FUCKING TOUCH HIM!" she screamed out on the top of her lungs. She ignored the pain and continued jerking, trying to release herself from their grasp, but the more she moved, the more people grabbed onto her and kicked her, trying to keep her still. Maybe she got shot a few more times, she wasn't sure. At some point she stopped caring. All she could think about was what they were doing to Sanji. And she was terrified.
How did this happen?
Oh, right. They were reckless. But aren't they always? The only difference was that they didn't have the whole crew. That was it. They weren't together and Sanji was already injured and they challenged a Yonko. Nami didn't recall a time they had been more stupid. At least she did one thing right. Before she started fighting, she was talking to Momonosuke. She told him to, when things got hectic and everyone was busy, to do his best to fly to Dressrosa. Sure, that was risky and reckless as hell, and she put him in an extreme amount of danger, but what else could she do? They needed the rest of the strawhats. Momonosuke seemed to get off Big Mom's ship successfully and should have made it to Dressrosa by then. Hopefully help would come soon.
XXX
Sanji squeezed his eyes shut tighter. There seemed to be no limit to how hard he could clench his jaw. His teeth would crack at this rate. His hands were in tight fists, his nails digging into his palms so hard, blood ran down them. His toes were scrunched up, digging into the dirty cement floor. The room he was in was nearly pitch dark, the only light coming from the small amount of candles littering the room. Not that the darkness mattered, his eyes were shut anyway.
The room reeked of the thick scents of iron, sweat, and blood. The air felt heavy, as if it was weighing down on him, as he kneeled on his hands and knees. The only noise filling the thick atmosphere was the sounds of the chains around his ankles and wrists clanging with his every restrained movement and the sharp crack of the whip against his abused back. Blood spilled down his sides from his peeling back and he kept his head bowed low near his hands. With every whip he received, his entire body shook. His wrists and ankles would react by pulling up against the hard chains. His head would bow lower and his ears would ring. His legs felt like jelly and after putting all his weight on his elbows, his forearms felt numb. He really needed a cigarette at the moment.
The first dozen times had been drastically more painful. Sure, he'd dealt with severe pain before, his whole life in fact. He could deal with the physical pain, but it was the mentality of his fellow crew members going through who knows what and the fact that he couldn't fucking do anything. He grit his teeth harder. After several minutes of fighting and yelling against his abuser, he had given up on resistance. He was smart enough to know when there was no use. He'd racked his brain for something, anything, that he could do, but nothing came. So all he could do was hope that the others were alright.
He felt the sharp crack of what was probably the 30th whip. Who knows, he lost count after 12.
His breathing was ragged and uncontrolled. His mind was becoming clouded and his head hurt beyond compare. He tried to keep himself sane by counting the number of whips delivered to his back. When that didn't work, he thought about cooking because that always calmed him down. But then he started thinking too much about food, then he started thinking about hunger, and then he started remembering the pain, the emptiness, the feeling of his stomach eating at himself. Then he felt sick. He couldn't stop remembering the pain. Compared to that, this fucking whip was nothing.
At some point he forgot it was even still happening. It came back to him when it stopped and he heard footsteps walking up in front of him. They bent down and disconnected the handcuffs from the ground and reattached them to a chain hanging on the ceiling above him. They looked at him and smiled. Or rather, she looked at him and smiled. He was still breathing heavily and he had managed to open his eyes ever so slightly. He just glared back into her eyes. He never thought the day would come when he would despise a woman. It was quiet for a few seconds, neither one of them moving. Sanji just glared at her and she smiled sadistically back at him, tapping the handle of her whip on her hand. Then, out of nowhere, she cracked him across the jaw in a flash, pulling a pained groan from his slit lips. His head was turned to the side, slightly dipped down and he was back to breathing hard because damn if that didn't hurt.
She came closer and brought her hand up to his cheek that she hit and rubbed her fingers along the gash, making him wince. Her smile grew as she licked some of the blood off her fingertips. Sanji continued just staring at her and breathing harshly. His mind couldn't think straight. He was trying to keep it together as best he could but…
She slowly dragged her long, blood soaked fingers down his heaving chest and finally she spoke.
"It's a shame I have to destroy such a beautiful man as yourself," she smiled. "But don't worry. I've been ordered not to kill you. Mother has taken a special interest in you."
Sanji, for the first time in his life was completely turned off by a woman and for the first time in his life, he was 100% utterly fucking terrified of a woman. What a day this had been.
It was only seconds later that the whip cracked across his torso. His fingers continued to dig into his sweaty palms and his feet pulled at the chains. With his arms raised above his head in this new position, he was actually forced onto his toes. He grimaced with every strike and blood started to poor out from his peeling chest.
"Yeah," he heard her start again in a low tone, "I won't kill you. Though I'll have plenty of fun pulling exciting screams from that girl later."
Sanji's eyes snapped open.
"No…" he said shakily
"Yes!" came her excited reply immediately. "I'll have twice as much fun with her! Maybe I'll use more toys… and when I'm done with her, I can say goodbye to her as I trap her in the iron maiden!" she laughed.
No...
His voice wasn't shaking anymore. "Don't you lay a single finger on her so help me I-"
"Or you'll what!?" she asked in a loud, high pitched laugh.
"OR I'LL FUCKING KILL YOU!" he screamed, jerking and throwing himself all over the place, using all his strength to maybe break out of these hand cuffs. These sea fucking prism handcuffs.
He'd finally lost it. He'd fucking had it. He kept screaming, random howls of agony, pulling at the handcuffs and throwing his head back. He hated this woman for doing this to him. But he resented her for threatening his crew.
She started whipping him again, in the chest, across his stomach, his back, arms, legs, face, and neck, and she laughed maniacally while doing it. His lips had gashes through them and a mixture of blood and saliva was spat out every time he screamed Nami's name. The paleness of his skin was lost in the coat of blood pouring from his every limb. He was sweating a lot and couldn't feel his throat. Actually he couldn't feel anything. But he kept screaming and pulling. At some point, he was pretty sure she got a knife and started carving things in his stomach, pulling louder and more intense screams from deep within his chest that echoed through the dark room. And he pulled with all his might.
"NAHHHMIIIIII!"
His mind was far gone.
"NAMI! NAMI! NAMI!"
No, it had been gone for a long time now.
XXX
Nami was thrown against the edge of the ship with her hands cuffed behind her back and her feet cuffed to keep her from kicking. They'd taken her clima tact away. There was nothing she could do but keep her eyes from closing and hope. Everything was blurry. She couldn't feel anything at all after all the kicks in the gut and punches in the face she'd gotten. She almost passed out when someone kicked her neck. She was sure most of her bones were broken.
She couldn't scream anymore after spending at least 20 minutes doing nothing but scream Sanji's name. Who knew what they were doing to him. Maybe he was confronted by the actual Yonko herself, Big Mom. Maybe Big Mom had eaten him already. She just didn't know.
'He's probably being tortured.'
She might have started crying but she wasn't really sure. She hoped he was alive.
One of her eyes had refused to open. Her other one opened, lidded, and scanned the deck looking for Chopper or Brook. She saw him in the same state as when she saw him last; in his original form and drenched in blood to the point where there was no brown to be seen. Just red. He had lost his hat and clothes. He was just a lump of bloody meat. And she felt dead inside. She wanted to weep and to scream and for the first time since she worked for Arlong, she felt genuine rage. But her body just didn't allow it, didn't have the energy to do anything but lay there and keep one eye barely open and stare. She looked at Brook. Of course he wasn't bleeding. The sight wasn't nearly as disturbing as Chopper, but most of his bones were broken and cracked open, disconnected. He literally looked like a pile of bones. For once, as he wasn't his lively self, he looked dead. Nami's eye dropped to the gray cuffs around his hands. They didn't even stay on. She knew they weren't there to restrain him. One of Big Mom's crew members put them on him after he had been knocked out to drain his energy so he wouldn't wake up again; to keep him from using his devil fruit powers.
'Brook's devil fruit powers,' she thought. 'Brook's devil fruit is what brought him back from the dead. It's what ties his soul to this world.'
She stared at his pile of detached bones. 'Sea prism hand cuffs…. They cancel out devil fruit powers… nullify them… make the user weak… unable..'
She kept staring at him, blankly, her expression unchanging.
'Brook is in sea prism handcuffs.'
This time, she swore she felt the sting of her eye as it filled with tears. Nothing in her mind was really making sense. Everything seemed blurry and mixed up. She couldn't tell the truth from the wrong. Her emotions were all over the place but at the same time she felt nothing. She had never felt so hopeless. So empty.
'Sanji is being tortured.
Chopper is raw and nothing but blood.
And Brook is dead.'
X
A/N
I really don't have an excuse for this.
Chopper baby :( I'm so sorry you had to picture him like that, really.
Sanji finally finds a woman who thinks he's attractive but she happens to be his torturer. Poor Snaji.
After the story ends, Sanji is taken away and Nami is tortured next, but Luffy and Co come back with Momonosuke before she dies and when the sea prism hand cuffs are taken off Brook. He's all good. Kind of. He's alive at least? I seriously doubt he'd even 'die' in the first place but hey, this is my fanfiction, I decide what is possible and what's not.
Anyways, thanks for reading my happy fic.
-hebineko