Chapter 4
"Hmmm... I dunno, Robin," Luffy said with furrowed brows. "Why do you think they'd be there?"
"Well, since the guard was leading Zoro-san and I down this hall," Robin said, motioning to the way she and Zoro had come from, "And he had this iron key with him, I think maybe he was going to fetch one more member of our crew before leading us to where ever he was planning on taking us."
"Oh, I guess that makes a little sense," Zoro nodded. He and Robin looked down at Luffy. He looked like he was thinking pretty hard about it, rubbing his chin with his hand.
"Hmmmmm... Okay. Maybe, I guess. Let's go that way, then!" Luffy finally decided, and began off in the direction they'd come from.
"I didn't notice before, because I assumed it was for the cuffs we have," Robin whispered to Zoro with a grin. "You think we'll find another member?"
"Maybe," Zoro shrugged, seemingly indifferent.
"Okay, so Luffy, can you some tell me all that you remember, then?" Robin said to him a little loudly, since he was up in front.
"Yeah, sure thing!" he turned around so that he was facing them and walking backwards. "I don't really remember much from the Sunny, I remember sitting in the kitchen with Chopper and Sanji, but then I was asleep? Like, I don't really know. Sanji told me to leave and he'd get Nami, but I was kind of fuzzy feeling. It's like when you get dropped in water, and you can't move, and all your muscles just kinda freeze, you know that feeling, Robin?" She nodded to him, and he continued. "Yeah, and then I remember being down that hallway, at the top of some stairs," he pointed behind them, "And the old guard there noticed I'd kind of woken up and freaked out and started calling for all kinds of back-up. He cuffed my ankles with seastone and took my sandals, old bastard!" he griped. "I got a good punch on him first, though. Then this green smoke just kind of filled the hallway and I was out again. Then I woke up about an hour later tied up in that room we just came from. Yep, that's really it, Robin! I haven't seen anyone yet but you guys." He was begging to slow down so that they could talk comfortably.
"Hmm, alright," Robin nodded. "Make a right here, Luffy," she said. He glanced over his shoulder, and took a few more steps back until he was even with the corner, and skipped to the right.
"So how are we going to know what door this key goes to?" Zoro asked.
"Maybe just look for locks that look like they're made out of the same stuff?" Luffy said, and looked to Robin for support. She gave him a smile and a little nod. "Alright! That shouldn't be too difficult!"
"Hey, the guard who was leading us is gone..." Zoro said quietly, when they reached the section in the hall where Robin had snapped their guard's neck. Before, he had been laying limply on the concrete floor, but now, his body was gone.
"Ooh, I wonder where he went to?" Robin smiled at him. "Maybe there are others wondering along these halls, just as we are."
"Oooooh!" Luffy looked at her over his shoulder, "Do you think it's people, Robin? Or maybe it's some kind of monster! Wow, this is so cool!" Robin chuckled and Zoro rolled his eyes.
They walked forward for awhile, inspecting doors and locks all down the hall. They would take corners, and hit a dead end every once in a while, forcing them to turn back several times. They tried several locks that looked similar to the way the key had been crafted, but none of them were working, for a while.
"Oh! Zoro, come look at this door!" Luffy called from ahead. Zoro nodded and he and Robin sped up their pace a little to meet him. "This lock looks kind of similar to the key you had," he pulled the key from his hat and held it up next to the lock on the door.
"Oh, Luffy you're right," Robin said. She held her hand out to him, "May I see it, please?" He handed it to her, and she looked at it closely, then examined the lock. "Hmm, it certainly looks like it was similarly crafted. There's no hurt in trying it, is there?" she smiled, and handed it back to Luffy, who grabbed it excitedly. Robin took a step back and examined the door itself. It was a wooded door, lined with black rusted metal. It looked easy enough to smash through, actually. But she let Luffy have his fun and try the key. There was something about this door that seemed different from the others around, though. The other wooden ones looked old and the wood had split. Luffy even peeked through a couple of cracked wooden doors out of curiosity. This one, the wood seemed new, even though the metal was obviously old. Curious.
The door clicked, and Luffy swung it open with a heave. "Whoa, it's a lot heavier than it looks!" he said.
A shrill scream broke through the calm air of the corridor from within this room. "Whoa!" Luffy shouted again, stepping into the room, without a thought at all. The room was pitch black, Robin couldn't see a single thing. The screaming pierced her ears, making them hurt, slightly. She cringed, and grabbed Luffy's arm, to pull him back through the door frame.
"Wait, Luffy!" she said loudly, "Go grab a lamp from the wall!"
He nodded, and flung his arm out a few feet away, and grabbed a lamp that hung up on the wall, then snapped it back toward him, careful not to spill the hot oil keeping it burning.
The scream has a painful scream that continued to carry on, paused with gasps of air and sobs of agony. It caused Robin pain to even hear it.
"Please!" the voice screamed. It sounded rough, and raw, like it had almost destroyed it's throat from shouting. "No more! I can't help you! I won't tell you! I'd rather die than do this again!" The screaming broke into painful heaving sobs from the back corner of the room.
"...This... it's gotta be...!" Luffy ran forward into the room with the lamp in his hand.
"Luffy, wait!" Robin called, reaching for him, but he was already halfway into the room.
He stopped in front of iron bars that were too close together for him to fit through, so he looked for a way around them, but there wasn't any. The room was divided in half by this wall of bars. He set the lamp down and grabbed two of the bars and pulled them away from each other with a lot of force, until they squealed and bent out, making a space big enough for him to squeeze through. Robin and Zoro met him in the middle of the room, as he slipped through the bars, and grabbed the lamp and pulled it through. Robin and Zoro stood and watched from the other side as he sprinted to the back.
Luffy ran to the left corner, where he kneeled next to a body curled up on the floor. It was a woman, with long gruel-smeared hair tied back into a messy ponytail. There was clearly blood on the floor all around the woman. Something about this woman seemed familiar to Robin. When Luffy rested his hand on her, and she looked up with panic in a pair of watery brown eyes, that looked sickly and sunken into a beautiful pale face, Robin realized who this woman was.
"Oh my god!" Luffy took her face in his hands, and looked into her eyes. "Are you alright?! Come on, we've gotta get her out of this, Zoro!" Luffy called to him. Zoro nodded, and grabbed the two bars that Luffy had bent out, and with a swift pull, broke them right out of the ceiling. He tossed them away, and grabbed Robin by the hand and pulled her through the gap he made in the bars. He ran toward the light of Luffy's gas lamp, and kneeled next to him on the floor. He shuffled over behind the bloody woman, and grabbed her arms. She was clearly frightened, but seemed a little comforted. Whether it was by their presence or the light of Luffy's lamp, Robin couldn't tell. With another pull, Zoro snapped the chain holding her tied to the wall by a fraying old rope. He leaned toward her, and with a little grunt he ripped the ropes apart, freeing her arms.
Without hesitation, as soon as her hands were free, she brought them around and threw them around Luffy's neck. "Luffy..." she sobbed, but this time, it was quiet, and hoarse.
"Come on, up you go!" Luffy shooshed her, pulling her up off the floor. "Come on, you're safe with us now, Nami!"
A/N: I'm here! I'm here! I've had several ideas come up for how I wanted this meeting to go, so I wrote it out several times, with an outline and everything, even! Haha, and now I've finally decided on a way that I thought best fit the direction of the story. Since this school quarter is coming to an end, hopefully I'll have time to update more than once every two months! I'll work on it, so please enjoy, and bare with me, a little! \(* . *)' /
