Title Ascension
b Rating PG-13 for swearing, blood, and death
Pairings Zoro/Sanji, Nami/Luffy, Luffy/Usopp (Omg! I'm trying something different!)
Warning and Excuse Call me crazy… or depressed, but this just popped into my head… I know… I have a habit of wandering from my other fics -.- Anyway, a warning for character death is needed, since this is about how each of the Pirates will die. I know, depressing…
Disclaimer I don't own One Piece... only the idea of this story

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

A single shot signifies more than impending death. It signifies a beginning to many things. A shot can start a race, a fight, a journey… it can be in remembrance to something significant… it can be in homage of the lives lost in a war.

In this particular case, the shot that was fired, cutting a scarlet line in the cheek of a giggling sharpshooter, was both a beginning of a fight, and the beginning of the end. It attracted the attention of the gathered pirates, sending them scattering for their posts as more bullets rained down. The captain laughed, taking in a deep breath and blowing his body up like a balloon, catching the shots and sending them catapulting back at the soldiers.

It was supposed to be a fight like any other… after all, those marines were nothing special.

But it wasn't.

It happened in an instant, and many things could have led to it.

Maybe it was the cannonball that hit the water near the right of the ship. Maybe it was the sword that Zoro had to duck under. Maybe it was the sniggering marine recruit that thought it 'brilliant' to swipe his leg at Zoro's feet from where he was hidden between a barrel and the wall. Either way, it all ended up with Zoro loosing his balance and finding his swords sliding across deck, a gun aimed at his forehead and two swords at his throat.

All activity on the ship stopped as a hoarse cry alerted the rest of the crew to the swordsman's position. The marines were trying to stop the progress of the rest of the crew blasting, punching, kicking, and shoving their way towards Zoro, but nothing was working… and Zoro wasn't really sure that anything was going to work. After all, he was staring a loaded, ready to fire gun and metal was shallowly cutting into the skin of his neck. The end looked pretty near, and frankly… he didn't want the crew to harm themselves trying to help him. It was that macho manliness thing kicking in again.

The man holding the gun (Zoro recognized the pattern on his jacket and identified him as a Captain) drew back his lips in a sneer, cracking his wrist in his preparation to fire the gun. It was all an unneeded show to the poor little marine boy poking his head up from behind the barrel.

"Looks like this is the end of Pirate 'Hunter' Roronoa Zoro," the man said, his voice mocking as he steadied the gun in his shaking (probably more out of anticipation than fear) hand. The men at either side of Zoro lessened their pressure onto the swords, and Zoro narrowed his shadowed eyes to glare at both of them.

But when he turned to glare, they were gone.

One second they were there, swords ghosting over the skin on his neck, and the next a very unconscious marine had barreled into them, flying through the air with a force that only two people could have generated… and judging by the shoe-print on his face, Zoro automatically knew who had bought him a few more seconds of time.

Well, more than a few, for the Captain was sputtering in disbelief, his finger limp on the trigger. Zoro took that moment to push himself up, glancing over to the side to see the cook that had come to his rescue.

There he was, the idiotic blonde in that equally idiotic suit he always wore. But something was wrong, something wasn't right, for Sanji was currently letting out a stream of profanities that Zoro recognized as the ones currently associated with his name, as he ran towards Zoro's position. The swordsman furrowed his brow and frowned as Sanji reached him, grabbed his shoulders, and attempted to throw both of them out of the way, landing heavily on the deck as a horrible, booming sound finally reached Zoro's ears through the pounding of adrenaline and the slight prick of pain he felt in his side. Sanji was sprawled on top of him, chest moving in scarily irregular heaves, and Zoro placed two hands on his shoulders, not attempting to move them, but just trying to figure what had i happened. /i

Then, as he saw the smoking gun ripped out of the snickering Captain's hands by a snarling, mad-faced Luffy, a Luffy he had rarely seen in his life, everything crashed down on him in one painful, sickening realization.

In the split second that he had turned his head to look at Sanji, the marine Captain had regained his ability to control his body and had cocked his gun. In the time it took for the blonde to run over to him, he had pulled the trigger, and that booming sound that took forever to reach his muddled brain had been the sound of a pistol going off at close range.

And, of course, this all boiled down to the trembling cook on top of him who i still /i hadn't made a move to get off of Zoro.

It was giving the swordsman a really bad feeling in the pit of his stomach, the kind of feeling you get when the world and everything you knew was ripped out from under you.

"Sanji?" he ventured, allowing his eyes to return to the mess of blonde hair below his nose. The head weakly moved, but the direction it did so made that sinking feeling increase ten-fold. Sanji had shaken his head. He had said no to a question Zoro's mind hadn't even formulated yet. He had answered a question that never wanted to leave Zoro's lips. He had confirmed Zoro's darkest suspicions… and explained that steady feeling of warm liquid soaking through his haramaki and into his shirt. "No…" he said, his voice merely a gasp and he wrapped his arms around the Cook's shoulders, rolling them over so that Sanji's head and back rested against the deck as he rolled off of the cook, his hand resting on and applying a slight pressure to the part of the black suit that was stained a deep crimson. The fabric felt wet and slick beneath his fingers, adding to his growing sense of panic and anger. The chef's eyes were closed, his face pale and a slight trickle of blood was moving down his face from his lips as he let his head roll to one side, cheek pressed against the deck as he attempted to cough. It was a pitiful sound, but it made Sanji's entire body jump and tremble as crimson flecks painted the wood.

The battle was gone, and Zoro could hear and see nothing besides Sanji laying on the wood, his harsh gasps of the chef's breathing filling his ears and mind until they sounded like cannon fire.

"Goddammit, you stupid love-cook," he croaked out, still kneeling with one hand pressed over the bleeding wound. "You couldn't have just kicked something at his stupid hand? You couldn't have just yelled for Robin to get the gun? You… god… why?" Zoro closed his eyes, screwing them shut against the prickling of what he knew would be tears in his eyes.

There was a slight tug on his sleeve by a shaky hand, and Zoro's eyes snapped open, searching for and finding that tired, dull blue eye staring up at him from a face with a look of annoyance slapped on it. Sanji had rolled his head up, bangs slightly displaced over his cheek, causing the second eye, the one that Zoro had only seen on a few occasions, to peer up at him through the fringe of blonde hair. Absently, almost without realizing he did it, Zoro reached up, brushing the bangs back off of Sanji's face as they just sat there, staring at each other with understanding, pain, and just general annoyance written in the depths of their eyes.

"You…" Sanji's voice was so soft that Zoro wasn't even sure he heard it. "… are such a… fuckin'… idiot," those lips, so often clamped around a cigarette or spouting words that no one would expect to come from such a kind looking face, quirked upwards in a smile… not a smirk, but a smile that Zoro had only seen directed at him a handful of times. "Couldn't have moved on your own, huh?" he asked, voice getting more and more crackly. Zoro hardly noticed a furry figure enter his vision and kneel on the other side of the chef, choked words of comfort coming from behind twin waterfalls of tears. Sanji's hand fell from his shirt, and Zoro used every one of his honed and perfected reflexes to snatch it out of midair and tug Sanji's arm up, pressing the curled and limp knuckles to his lips as he stared at the cook, everything he wanted to say but couldn't in that simple gesture.

"Sanji…" a voice, a voice that wasn't his own, snapped Zoro out of the world he had created for the two of them, and he all but glared at Luffy before he saw it… the face he never wanted to see again in his life… the face of ultimate despair and agony… a face that looked like Luffy had lost the one thing guiding him forward through life, the face of someone who doubted their dream.

"Don't…" Sanji said, and Zoro was surprised at how strong the blonde's voice seemed, despite the constantly fading light in his eyes and the pallor and cold that was sweeping across his already creamy skin, "…even start to… doubt," Sanji's tone left no questions, and despite the severity of the situation, it wrung a tearful smile out of Luffy. "Oi, Marimo," Sanji's voice was weak again, and when he turned his blue eyes to look at Zoro, the swordsman had a feeling that the cook wasn't even seeing him anymore. "Find that damn ocean for me… go… and smoke in it… or something… and… kick that shitty… geezer in his… shitty head for me, yeah?"

By the time Zoro opened his mouth to respond, Sanji's eyes had fallen closed and his body shook with his last labored breath before everything was still and the only sound heard were the sobs of everyone, every single one, of the crew.

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

I'd forgotten how it felt to be shot… it had been a while, after all. Sure, Luffy's punches and the whacks of Zoro's sheathed swords helped remember the pain… but I'd forgotten how sudden and without warning that bullet could go right through a human body, snuffing out a life without any effort. It was kind of an eerie feeling that made the outer reaches of my body go instantly numb as the fabric I had been clenching with anger fell away from my fingers, my body heading down to the deck, following the swordsman I had bodily shoved out of the way. By the time we landed on deck, I barely felt it, and instead leaned into the warm, familiar feel of Zoro's body against mine. I couldn't think, couldn't hear… and all I could do was shake my head at whatever Zoro had said, mainly trying to shake off the buzz of something that made fear grow in the pit of my stomach.

When he turned me over, I could think and breathe again, although it hurt to do so. Honestly, when you're shot in the chest, its not always the best thing to press down on the wound.

But then again, that look the swordsman was giving me was one of fear, and it made everything clear in that one second of coherent thought.

I was dying.

Goddamnfuckingshit I was dying.

That would explain the eerie numbness I felt instead of head-splitting pain, though.

Still, my mouth was moving, and I could hardly hear what I was saying, so I let it run, taking in everyone's faces with a sense of calm… until I looked into Zoro's eyes, desperately wishing I could still feel the fingers pressed up against his lips. How I yearned for that to be the last thing I felt, not the hardness of the deck and the wetness of my own blood. Then, everything started spinning, whirling out of focus, and I heard myself asking Zoro to fulfill my dream for me… to find that ocean and do something so totally me and so unlike him in it. For some reason, I could feel tears in my eyes, and right before my vision tunneled I could see the tears in his too… the understanding as he tried to speak…

… and then there was light.

It was okay. I was okay… in that moment after I closed my eyes, I felt warm, and a smile brushed over my face. I was happy, and even though I missed them, even though I knew they would miss me, I knew that someday we would all meet in this place I hadn't even set eyes on yet. I knew that no matter what happened, the purity of our souls would bring us all together, one by one, to sail on this sea in the ship we said farewell to. The smell of orange blossoms and the familiar creaking of wood against its metal bandages filled my ears, and as I finally opened my eyes that feeling of calm intensified. It didn't matter that I was dead, it didn't matter that I had tears rolling down my eyes.

I had finally come to that friend who had been waiting patiently for me. I was the first to join it, and I could feel its happiness in every fiber of my being.

"Sorry we made you wait so long," I said, my voice echoing in the stillness of whatever ocean we sailed on. "But lets hope it's a long while until the rest of the crew finds us… How about I go cook us something… how does that sound Merry?"

Out of the corner of my eye, in the mist and light of the clouds surrounding us, I swore I saw the dim outline of a figure nod as a wispy smile of utter joy crossed its features.

I could survive here… after all, in the days of pirates, it wouldn't be long until someone stumbled across us, floating in this heavenly place so unlike any mortal's dream of heaven.

I finally felt like I was home, a simple housekeeper cooking dinner for his returning family. For once, I didn't care if they let the food get cold.