Chapter 7
A Friend in Need
Relief.
The feeling swept over him like a tidal wave, as Luffy stared at his brother's back, his heart still thumping painfully against his chest. He had no clue where Ace had come from or how he had even managed to find him, but he was sure that he had never been gladder of his presence than at that moment.
As the tension of the last few moments drained away, the urge to whoop or giggle with joy became overwhelming, but before Luffy could react in any way, a second figure suddenly burst from the bushes and hurried towards him at breakneck speed.
"Get up!" Sabo shouted, raising his staff as he ran, "Run, Luffy! NOW!"
And he jumped over the seven-year-old, blocking a sabre swipe from another pirate who had crept up behind Luffy's back unnoticed.
Sharply reminded that the danger had not passed with the arrival of his brothers, Luffy lurched forward and quickly scrambled to his feet. Annoyingly, his legs still felt remarkably like they were made of jelly, and for a moment he wavered from side to side. Taking on a fighting stance, he quickly tried to cover up his weakness by putting on a particularly grim expression. "Ace! Sabo!"
They were both here. He could not believe it, but they were both here, risking their lives for him, even though they had had such a bad fight earlier that day. And since he was still nowhere near Dadan's or their tree house's, they could not have just stumbled across him by sheer luck either – they had to have been looking for him.
"Yes, we're here, dumbass!" Ace shouted with gritted teeth, as he continued his glaring match with Kakashi. Rather than reacting to Ace's ambush, the pirate had simply stood up, dusted himself off, and was now staring at the freckled boy with a calculating expression on his face. "Now do us a favour and get the hell out of here!"
"Ahhh …," Kakashi sighed, understanding dawning on his face, "So you must be the other two brats. Decided to come and save him after all, have you? I would've stuck with your first choice and let him snuff it. He must be quite the dead weight in your little group."
The snarl that escaped Ace's throat in response was absolutely feral, and with reason gone out the window, he stormed at the man head-on.
"NO! DON'T!" Sabo managed to shout, when he caught sight of what was happening out of the corner of his eye, but he was far too busy with his own opponent to do anything to intervene. And speaking of opponents …
"Woah!" Luffy gasped, as he quickly scrambled out of the firing line of the bandana guy – Kouta, or something similar – who had taken aim at him while he had been busy staring at Ace.
"Bastard!" Sabo snarled, giving his current enemy an angry shove and turning to face the bandana wearer. He threw himself at him before Luffy could even think of a reaction, and started tussling with him in the grass, fighting to gain the upper hand.
"Luffy!" he shouted, as through what seemed like a minor miracle he managed to roll on top of the much larger man, his staff pressed against his enemy's throat with both hands in an attempt to hold him down. "Quickly! Do your gum gum pistol!"
Wide-eyed, Luffy stared at Sabo. Neither of his brothers had ever openly asked him for his assistance in a fight before – this was his chance to finally prove himself and show them that they could rely on him to do his part in their battles.
… But …
His fist trembled as he drew it back.
"Do it!" Sabo snarled, as he was nearly thrown off, "NOW!"
"ARGH!"
The pained cry made Luffy whirl around in shock just in time to see Ace being slammed into a tree by Kakashi, who seemed to have an iron grip on his brother's throat. 'No!'
A second familiar cry rang out behind him, and Luffy did not even need to turn around to know that Sabo had just lost his struggle with his enemy too, and was now the one being pinned to the ground.
"Ace! Sabo!"
"You better worry about your own fate kid …," a voice spoke up behind him, and before Luffy could even gasp in alarm, hands closed around him and picked him up in a restraining grip that would have hurt like hell if not for the fact that he was made of rubber.
Moments later, he found himself sitting on the forest floor, his two brothers dumped to his right and left, and all three of them tied up with a truly awful-smelling piece of rope. It stank of old shoes.
"Great," Sabo muttered, as he struggled to sit up properly, "I knew we shouldn't have rushed in like that …"
Indignantly, Ace threw Sabo a glare which was slightly hampered by the fact that half of his face was pressed against the forest floor at an awkward angle. He was about to reply, asking what else Sabo would have done to stop their younger brother from becoming the human version of a split bamboo cane, when he was yanked up brutally by one of their captors. "Shut up!"
From his better vantage point, Ace immediately noticed that Kakashi and three others of their enemies had lined themselves up in front of Luffy, Sabo and him. With some satisfaction, he saw that one of them was nervously rubbing at an angry red mark which ran across his throat – Sabo's work no doubt. His own opponent, on the other hand, looked for all the world as though he had just come back from a relaxing Sunday stroll. Bastard.
'Four enemies to the front, which means that the other two must be hiding somewhere behind us ..,' Sabo thought, trying to surreptitiously glance behind him under the cover of his hat. 'They've got us surrounded …'
"Yes," Kakashi's voice broke into Sabo's thoughts, startling him, "I ordered Souta and Kimura to keep an eye on you from over there. Obviously, they are going to tell me if you should try anything, which, by the way, would be extremely … inadvisable, let's say."
Sabo was not normally the violent type, but even he felt a strong urge to punch that guy in the face at that moment – in particular, when his ears picked up on the slight hitch in the breath of the person sitting next to him, who had been rather eerily quiet so far. Luffy. There was something very strange going on with his brother. Why had he hesitated?
Kakashi, meanwhile, sheathed his sabre. "Now that we have that settled, I've got a question for you." He paused for a second, tilting his head to the side as he seemed to contemplate what he had said. "Or rather I have a threat for you, if you like. Tell me where you have hidden our money or I will cut you in half."
Silence. Trying to not let his fear show, Luffy glanced at Sabo and Ace out of the corner of his eyes. They both had their mouths set in a firm line, seemingly piercing their enemy with their glares.
Finally, Kakashi slowly shook his head, the expression on his face still giving nothing away as to what he was thinking. "I admit, as far as threats go it's not a very imaginative one, but believe me – I will follow through on it."
"Earlier we were told to shut up, though," Ace countered, an obvious bite to his voice. Steely blue eyes turned towards him. "What's it going to be th-"
He abruptly cut himself off, nearly biting his own tongue, when a sabre all of a sudden was pressed against one of their throats. Luffy's.
"Tell me now."
It was said calmly, but the softness of the tone did nothing to hide its menace.
For what felt like an eternity, the three brothers were frozen in their places, neither Sabo nor Ace daring to even blink, even though it was not their throat that was currently under threat of being sliced open at the smallest movement. Luffy, meanwhile, could feel the saliva collecting in his mouth as he forced himself not to swallow, uncomfortably aware of the cold steel against his skin.
Then, at more or less the same moment, Sabo and Ace both whipped their heads around to switch their horrified stare from Luffy to Kakashi. "Alright, alright, we'll-"
"Boss …"
Confused at being interrupted, they looked at the bandana wearer, who had taken up a position to Kakashi's left. What could be the matter now?
Souta was, however, not looking at any of the three boys, but staring rather fixedly at something roughly behind Ace.
"Drop that weapon. Now."
A/N: Sorry guys that this is so short! I've been caught up in so much uni work lately that I've barely had the time to write! I stole away a couple of hours from my study time today though, and since I wanted to give you something after all these months, I decided to post it! Exam time will be over in a little more than a week, so hopefully I'll get to write more then and you won't have to wait quite as epically long again for the next part! Sorry again! But I still hope that you liked this part! And to those of you who may have started to worry that I'd abandoned this story: nope! :) Not going to happen any time soon, I promise! Till next time!
