For a whole minute no one moved or spoke. Then—
"What is this doing here?" Nami whispered, still staring at Bellemère.
Her words seemed to break the others out of their reverie.
"I dunno," Zoro muttered, his eyes darting from Kuina to the other subjects of the painting. "It feels like whoever or whatever's behind this shit knew we were coming here. First the roses, now this . . ."
Sanji looked down and laughed shakily. "I didn't think I'd be seeing the old man so soon," he said to himself.
"T-They're okay, aren't they?" Usopp whispered, his eyes darting between Kaya and Zeff, the only two he had ever met. "They're not . . . ?"
Chopper had tears in his eyes. "I-I dunno about the others . . . but Doctor is . . ."
Usopp knelt and held him comfortingly. "If we find the guy who painted this thing, I'll beat him up," he promised.
"Robin, is she . . ." Nami whispered, looking at the woman with white hair.
Robin nodded. "I only met her once. To see her again, like this . . ." she frowned slightly. "It's disturbing, to say the least. As far as we know, Guertena is the artist of every work in this twisted gallery—at least, from what you five have told us."
Nami nodded.
"The thing is," Robin continued, "Weiss Guertena died sixty years ago. I don't think he could have known any of these people."
"This isn't helping my sanity," Sanji muttered.
Luffy slowly reached out a hand and brushed his fingers against the painted figure of the blond-haired boy.
"Why . . ." he said softly. "Why can't this painting come alive . . . ?"
Zoro gently took Luffy's outstretched arm and lowered it. "Don't," he said quietly. "It's not worth it."
Luffy looked at him and nodded slowly. "Yeah," he agreed, turning away from the painting.
Sanji turned away as well, looking around the rest of the room. "I don't think there's anything else in here worth checking out," he said abruptly.
"One moment," Robin said. She stepped away from the painting at last and went over to the bookshelves. A second later she frowned.
"Odd," she murmured. "These aren't real—they're sculpted into the shelves."
"Can we leave?" Chopper whimpered. "It's nice and safe here, but we gotta get out of this gallery . . ."
"Yeah, we should get going," Sanji agreed. He strode to the door and tried to turn the handle.
"Open it already," Zoro snapped.
Sanji jiggled the handle. "It's locked," he said bleakly. "We're stuck in here."
"You gotta be kidding!" Usopp shrieked. "It was open just a few minutes ago!"
THUMP THUMP THUMP
Sanji backed away from the door. "They're on the other side," he hissed. "This isn't good . . ."
THUMP THUMP THUMP
"There must be another way out," Robin said, her eyes darting around the room. "If only there was a window . . ."
THUMP THUMP THUMP
"Those painting women can get through windows," Zoro said. "It's probably better that there aren't any."
THUMP THUMP THUMP
BANG-BANG-CRASH
Nami, Usopp, and Chopper screamed. A yellow lady had burst through the wall to the right of the painting.
"She hasn't noticed us yet," Zoro hissed. "Run!"
Everyone ducked around the woman and crawled through the large hole in the wall.
Outside was pure chaos. Painting ladies of every color roamed the halls—how could they crawl so quickly with only their hands?—and the headless statues had come alive, clumping around with arms raised like Frankenstein's monster. There were more mannequin heads lining the halls than ever before.
"This way!" Sanji yelled. "There's another door! Maybe it's unlocked now!"
The others followed him, dodging around the possessed artworks, occasionally getting scratched or bit—
"There!"
Sanji pointed to a slightly ajar door down an aisle. He and the others ducked and dodged around a red headless statue and threw themselves inside it—Zoro slammed the door shut behind them and everyone let out a sigh of relief.
"Thank god," Usopp sighed. "We all made it out alive . . ."
Luffy looked around and his eyes widened. "Nami," he said quietly.
"Huh?" Chopper said blankly.
"Nami's missing," Luffy said in horror.
Sanji's eyes widened. "Nami-swan!" he yelled. "How could I have been so careless!?"
He threw open the door and charged back into the room. The headless statues and painting ladies had not ceased their relentless roaming and assault.
Sanji quickly found Nami. She was lying on the ground, surrounded by painting ladies and headless statues. Her withered orange rose was next to her, two petals clinging to the stalk. As Sanji approached, one of the red ladies took a swipe at her, and one of the petals broke off.
"DON'T TOUCH HER!" Sanji roared, and he kicked the red lady in the face. She snarled and bit his leg—a blue petal fell to the ground. Sanji kicked her away and turned to Nami, throwing himself over her and protecting her and her rose from further damage.
"It's okay, Nami-swan," Sanji whispered. "They won't hurt you anymore."
He scooped her up, holding her away from the harmful scratches of the artwork, and tucked her dying rose next to his own relatively healthy one. He ran as lightly as possible back to the door, getting scratched along the way—but refusing to let Nami be injured.
He finally charged back through the door and fell to his knees. The others gasped.
"Is she—?" Chopper whimpered.
Nami was covered in blood. It dripped down her skin and dyed her clothes dark.
"She's alive," Sanji whispered, tears falling from his eyes. "Barely . . . we need to heal her rose now."
Luffy gently picked her up. Sanji looked at him desperately and Luffy nodded. "Don't worry, I got her," he said quietly. Sanji relaxed slightly.
He and the others followed Luffy down the nondescript and unusually quiet gray hallway. At the end was a door. Zoro opened it for Luffy and the pirate captain carried his navigator in.
The room was relatively small. An abstract painting titled Untitled hung on the wall opposite. Short bookshelves were on either side of a small table bearing a light blue vase.
"Thank god," Zoro said in relief. "That one doesn't run out of water."
Chopper and Robin watched curiously as Sanji tenderly placed Nami's rose inside. Before their eyes, the petals bloomed into place, the stalk straightened, and within a minute it was full and healthy once more.
Luffy gently laid Nami on the ground. Her eyes were still closed, but her breathing was stronger.
Sanji took off his jacket, folded it up, and placed it beneath her head. "We'll let her rest," he said quietly, "and then we'll get going when we're all ready. Any objections?"
The others remained silent. Sanji took out his handkerchief, dipped it into the vase, and began cleaning the blood off of Nami as the others placed their roses in to regain the few petals they'd lost.
They had been in the room for perhaps five minutes. Robin was examining some of the books (as these were real, readable things) while the others either sat against the wall or chatted quietly.
"I hate myself," Sanji said, staring at the floor. "I let Nami-swan get hurt and I kicked a lady . . ."
"One of the painting ladies, right?" Usopp asked. "Don't beat yourself up over that. They're not real."
"If it helps," Robin said, taking out a small notebook and pen, "I read that Guertena once stated that those women are really men in drag."
Sanji raised an eyebrow. "That does help."
"Really? He did?" Zoro said in surprise.
Robin glanced over at him and winked, pursing her lips as if to shush him. She put her pen to the paper, but frowned and shook it.
"Oh, it's out of ink," she said regretfully. "I forgot to refill before we came here."
"Oh—" Usopp reached into his pocket and tossed something to Robin. She caught it easily and looked at it. It was a small bottle of Tabasco sauce.
"You can use that in place of ink," Usopp offered, grinning.
"Ah . . . thank you," Robin said in surprise with a slight smile. "That's rather creative."
She dipped her pen in the sauce and started writing something down.
"Hey, that reminds me . . ." Luffy reached into his pocket and brought out something small. He handed it to Chopper.
"Candy?" Chopper whispered excitedly.
Luffy nodded and grinned. "I stole it from the kitchen earlier! But it turned out that I don't like that kind. I had to eat five of them before I realized it. So you can have that one!"
"Thanks!" Chopper said happily. "I'll eat it later." He lifted up his hat and stowed the candy underneath there.
"Sorry, you stole what from the kitchen?" Sanji said, looking up at Luffy irritably.
Luffy looked away and whistled.
"Mm . . ."
Everyone looked to the floor to see Nami slowly sitting up. "Where are we?" she murmured.
"Nami-swan!" Sanji cried. "My love, I'm so sorry for letting you get hurt, I am not worthy of—"
"Oh," Nami gasped. "I remember . . . guys, I'm so sorry—they caught me—"
"Shut up," Zoro said. "It's fine."
She smiled slightly.
"Don't you speak to a lady like—" Sanji began, but Nami cut him off.
"Sanji-kun, it's fine," she said. "Did you bring me back here . . . ? Thank you."
As Sanji sang praises to the heavens of how lovely it was to receive Nami-swan's thanks, Nami stood, checked herself over, and handed Sanji back his coat.
"This was a new outfit, too," she said with a sigh, staring down at her blood-stained clothes.
"Are we all ready to head out?" Robin asked, shutting the book and replacing it gently. The others gave words of assent.
"We should get going, then," she said, and everyone stepped out of the small room. Just outside was a gray staircase, which they descended to the floor below.
