AN: Eiichiro Oda owns One Piece!

Hey :) It'll be short notes today since I'm really not feeling well :P Me and my mum are both down with a fairly nasty bug so we're both still in our beds, but I couldn't let you down by not updating. The update on my life is that my car died (actually died, never moving again died) on Friday night, so I had to grab a driver (my mum) to take me and my granny grocery shopping (my only current 'job', but it's actually pretty fun and something to look forward to) yesterday. Ok, so I'm gonna get this proofread and posted quick so I can go back to trying to sleep this off :P Please enjoy!


Chapter Seven – The Bomb

"Mr 12! Mr 12! Please, wake up!"

Robin?

"Mr 12! I need to get to the palace! Please!"

The Nami girl.

"And what's...that got...to do with me...?" He struggled out, trying to push himself up so that he could sit.

"We all need to meet our Captain at the Palace. I can't make it there on my own..." The girl practically begged, stirring his curiosity.

He started to study her, checking her wounds...there was nothing fatal, so why was she so adamant that she needed help? Why was she asking him? He was the enemy. He had helped her. He'd saved her from Mr 1, but where was Miss Doublefinger? He glanced past her, seeing no-one following her. Had the girl defeated Mr 1's partner? How had she come away almost unhar...

"Your foot."

"I sacrificed it for the sake of my Nakama...The pain that Vivi must have been going through...this must be nothing in comparison, but I need to make it to the palace. I need you to take me to the palace!" She explained, reaching out and grabbing tightly onto his arm.

Nakama. He'd protected this girl and fought Mr 1 for the sake of Robin, his only 'Nakama'. He'd do anything to keep her safe and that was what the girl was trying to do. She was asking a man who was supposed to be an enemy to help her, for the sake of her Nakama. He'd help her. He'd help her even if she'd caused him nothing but trouble. As long as Crocodile didn't see him helping the pirates, Robin would be safe. He just had to hope that their mission was almost over – he was starting to run a little short of blood.

"Fine, I'll help, but I can only take you to the edge of the square outside it – if Crocodile sees me, then my Nakama will die. If she dies because I helped you, don't expect me to be very forgiving." He threatened, starting to stand up. "Now, what exactly am I supposed to do to help you?"

"Carry me. I can't walk, so I need you to carry me!" She exclaimed, standing up with him.

"Seriously!? My injuries are obviously much worse than yours...and you expect me to carry you?!" He half-yelled in disbelief.

"Oh shut up! You're a man, stop whining! I just need you to get me to the palace! I'll get off at the edge of the square so Crocodile doesn't see you!" She snapped back, sounding damn ungrateful considering what she was asking him for. "I can barely stand because of my foot! Not to mention my leg!...Oh, I think I'm going to faint..."

"Liar!" He growled, before sighing with resignation as he got up and collected his other two katanas, then turning towards her. "Just get on, Damn Witch."

"Thank you~!"

He watched her hobble into the square from behind one of the buildings, hoping the current sand storm gave him enough cover. A giant bird swooped down from the sky, a man on his back, before rising back out of the sand cloud, the Princess now with them. There. He'd made sure that the Witch had gotten to the square in time for her Captain's arrival. Perhaps now he could make his way to the rendezvous point and take a nap while he waited on the damn woman. Yeah, a nap sounded good.

Now, which way was it to the rendezvous point?

He wandered through the streets, searching for the designated meeting place. Was it even still standing? He couldn't find anything that looked remotely like the place that Robin had shown him, but it had to be somewhere, right? Even if it wasn't still standing, he should be about to find it. She should be arriving soon anyway. She'd wanted to be out of the city by four thirty and that was creeping closer at a horribly fast pace. If he didn't make it there in time, she'd think he was dead. He was half dead, but he wasn't about to die on her. He had to make it to the rendezvous point...in six minutes.

He was already late.

He turned a corner, almost running into Marines. What the hell were Marines doing here? There wasn't supposed to be any in this country, right? They certainly seemed to be surprised to see him, in fact, they were almost looking at him disbelievingly. Robin wouldn't have sent Marines to find him; she'd just have used her ability. What did these men want with him?

"Look, I don't have time for this." He sighed, getting annoyed with them getting in his way.

"Idiot, how did you get all the way out here?! What do you think you're doing?!" One of the Marines yelled back at him.

"That's what I should be asking you!" Zoro snapped back, remembering the current Civil War going on in the square in front of the palace.

"Turn back! Go back to the last corner and head north! That'll take you to the square – you're crew is there!" Shouted another one as he unknowingly cleared up the misunderstanding.

"Go back and take a right. This is the wrong way." Repeated another.

"Are you stupid or something?!" Yelled the first.

"Stupid?" He uttered, staring at them in disbelief.

The damn Marines had somehow managed to mistake him for one of the Strawhat Pirates. He was supposed to be finding Robin, not their damn crew! He'd just come from the damn square. This really wasn't his day, was it? Well, Robin should have left the city without him by now, given the time, but something was telling him that she was still there somewhere. What was she waiting for? Was she really waiting on him? She was risking her life to stand around waiting on him? No. If she'd been waiting on him, she'd have used her ability to find him and direct him to her by now.

Something had gone wrong.

He silently cursed, fighting the urge to look for her as he followed the Marines' directions towards the Strawhats. He had nothing left to lose at this point, so what was the harm in helping them? If she was about to die, then they'd failed. If she died, he had no-one to move forward with. He'd be continuing on alone, without her, to find Mihawk. It just wasn't fair. How the hell was he having this much bad luck?! Hell, knowing how things had been going for him, it wouldn't be all that surprising if the life was slowly draining out of her as rocks fell down around her. She'd told him not to come looking for her if she didn't make it to the rendezvous point in time, but it was damn hard not to run to the edge of the city looking for her.

"Clock tower!" He grinned, seeing the tall building stretching out of the sandstorm – well, the Marines had been telling him to go north!

He raced to the entrance and started running up the stairs in search of the Strawhats. He didn't know what they wanted him to do, but by now he'd fought Mr 1 and carried the damn Witch to the square immediately after for them, so there couldn't be anything much worse that they could put him through. He'd just have to think of it as training. He was training to become stronger by running around risking his life for a bunch of kids playing pirate. If Robin wasn't dead when he finally found her, he'd kill her.

"OI! NAMI-SWAN~! VIVI-CHWAN~!"

He paused where he was, meters away from the top. What had that been? Had it been one of the crew? He decided they must be meeting at the top like he'd thought and continued upwards, ignoring the weird yelling coming from below him. He reached the roof and stopped, realising there were people yelling back to the weird guy that had clearly been following him up moments before. What were they yelling about? He leant out over the edge of the building.

"Yo! I've been looking for you guys!" He yelled down, seeing Nami and her friends standing at the bottom and a blonde man hanging out the window two floors below him.

"WHO THE HELL ARE YOU?!" Yelled the blonde man back up at him.

"What are you guys doing all the way over there?" He called back down, ignoring the blonde, wondering why they'd stopped if they were supposed to be meeting at the top.

"OI! ANSWER ME!" The blonde yelled, clearly annoyed at being ignored. "AND WHAT DO YOU MEAN BY US BEING ALL THE WAY OVER HERE?!"

"I dunno! The Marines kept saying "Go north! Go north!", so I went up this building!" He called back down to the blonde, still wondering why the hell he'd had to come here in the first place.

"'NORTH' AND 'UP' ARE COMPLETELY DIFFERENT!" The blonde yelled, irritating Zoro – did the idiot want his help or not?!

"Anyway! Good for both of you! Just keep climbing and beat up whoever's going to fire the cannon!" Ordered the long nosed man from the ground, trying to end their argument.

Zoro leaned further over the edge as the conversation became too quiet to hear. What had the guy meant by 'keep climbing'? There was literally nowhere left for him to go. He looked around the rooftop, wondering what the idiot could be talking about. There was just the actual clock tower left and no way to get into it. He paused and reran the long nosed idiot's words through his head...He'd yelled something about a cannon being fired? Why was there a cannon being fired and why was he supposed to stop it? Just what, exactly, was going on? Was this something to do with the fact that Robin had wanted out the city by half four? What exactly was this cannon firing?

Zoro continued to study the tower, searching for a way up. Maybe he could cut it? Well, he could definitely cut it, but would that just make the situation worse? What was the situation? Movement caught his eye and he looked up, horror spreading over him as he watched the clock face slowly swing open, revealing a giant cannon. So that was the cannon. And the two people on the edge were probably the people he was supposed to stop...those people being damn Mr 7 and Miss Father's-Day...the damn sharpshooters. Oh, this day just couldn't get any worse.

He looked back over the edge, spotting Nami now standing alone. Where had the other three gone? He leant over further and seen the three of them stacked, one on top of the other. What the hell was the Witch planning? He watched as she crossed a small metal pole with one twice the size in front of her. He could hear that she was calling something, but what? How the hell was she planning to stop Mr 7 and his partner by stacking her friends and waving blue poles around?

He watched as she swiped her arm downwards, releasing the smaller pole, sending it spinning towards the stack of people. His eyes shot wide as the stack suddenly got launched upwards, just as the spinning pole must have made contact. He watched as the reindeer pushed itself off the back of the long nosed man, just as the blonde leapt out of the window. The blonde kicked the reindeer upwards, sending himself hurtling towards the ground.

So that was the plan.

He was supposed to launch the reindeer and the princess.

He could do that.

"ALRIGHT, HERE THEY COME!" The blonde yelled up to him as he fell, Zoro watching the princess and the reindeer flying up to meet him.

All he had to do was get them to the top. He gripped the hilt of Wado and looked up at the clock tower, trying to decide how much power he needed. He turned back to the flying pair. He stepped onto the edge and crouched, readying himself as he drew two of his katanas. They reached level with him.

"Right, leave it to me!" He called out, holding his katanas outwards.

He rolled himself off the edge from his crouched position, turning to face upwards as the reindeer slowly began to fall again.

"KATANAS!" The reindeer yelled.

"Idiot, don't be scared! I'm using the back of the blades!" He lectured, crossing them above him for the reindeer to push off of. "Now get a good footing! Be careful – those two up there are real weirdoes!"

"Yeah, I know them!" Replied the princess. "No..." she gasped as they were spotted.

"Hold on! We're in mid-air! If they shoot at us...!" He exclaimed, trying not to panic as the sharpshooters aimed at them.

"We have to do something! They're a sniper pair!" The princess called out, clearly no idea who Zoro was.

"Reindeer! I'm going to launch you up there! Do what you can after that!" He yelled out, determined they weren't going to fail.

"Me?!" The reindeer exclaimed, looking down at him in horror.

"Ready!? Let's do this!" He yelled, hearing their simultaneous agreement.

He heard the gun shots as he launched them, forcing himself downwards at an accelerated rate. Had he done enough? Were they about to be- He cried out as the two strange bullets collided just above his shoulder. They exploded, hitting him directly as he hurtled towards the ground. Was this it? He'd been put through a day of hell, a day of almost dying several times, just to be shot after leaping off a building? His life had lead to this point? The damn woman dying somewhere alone and him falling through the air towards the ground, sliced up and shot? Had he done her proud, helping her toys? Well, maybe he'd survive this, right? He'd survive this and go after Mihawk...just as he had been...only this time, he'd be alone again.

He coughed out as he hit the ground, winded by the impact.

"What? You're still alive?" The blonde asked, a hint of what sounded like disappointment in his voice.

"T-The explosion...?" He began, grinning up at the idiot. "...I've been through worse."

He sat up, wincing, to look up at the clock tower as he waited to find out if the princess had stopped Mr 7 and Miss Father's-Day. He glanced at the others, smiling to himself, as he thought about what they must have all gone through for the girl, what they'd all just done. He still wasn't sure what was going on, but it was impressive the lengths these idiots were willing to go to.

"What happened?" The reindeer asked, suddenly small, as he reached them. You never did know what a Zoan type was going to be able to do.

"Something funny's going on up there." He replied, accepting that the princess should have reappeared by now.

"Vivi...hasn't come out..." Nami muttered, her eyes focused solely on the hole in the side of clock tower.

"HELP! EVERYONE!" The princess suddenly screamed, leaning over the edge to shout down to them.

"Vivi!?" Nami exclaimed, everyone around her wondering what had happened, why the princess was so terrified.

"The bomb has a timer!" Vivi yelled down. Bomb? This was all about a damn bomb! "IT'S STILL GOING TO EXPLODE!"

SHIT! What the hell were they going to do?! If that thing exploded, it would kill them all! What size of area was the damn thing going to effect?! That must have been why Robin had wanted out the city by half four! Shit! Why hadn't she told him?! If she'd told him, he could have dealt with this the second he'd realised the plan had failed! Now they were both going to die, even thought he'd survived everything else! Wait...the timer...shit...he couldn't have stopped this anyway...they would have all died...even if she had told him...Maybe she hadn't even known...? Maybe Crocodile had said something else to her...? Well it didn't matter now.

They were both about to be wiped out along with the Strawhats. And the Marines, Royal Guard and the Rebel Army for that matter.


Hope you enjoyed that! ^_^ I feel like I constantly leave you with a dying Zoro...? Ah, well, next chapter is the last one and I'll post a side chapter with it! ^_^ There's a break in the middle of the next chapter and said break shall be covered by a side chapter! ;P Next one is called 'Just Ordinary Partners' (and don't take that as a disappointing-sounding ending, please! It'll make sense when you read it! XD )


Zorin is ZoroxRobin, thanks! ^_^ You're welcome, but hopefully this one wasn't too disappointing! Kinda feels like not a lot happens in this one. When I was rewatching, I noticed how key he was in this scene, so I had to keep him in the city a little longer :P We couldn't have him just standing outside a building waiting on Robin while he was about to be blown up without any warning! ;P

megaME-chwan, I AM SO SORRY! ;-; You hid in your cry corner while I was away?! SORRY! ;-; It makes me really happy to hear that his thoughts got to you *grins*, I'm not sorry at all! *pats you on the back guiltily* I'm sure you know what's going to happen next chapter, but I think you'll prefer the side chapter 3;P (Hopefully) the next chapter ends humorously ;P

R. N. Zuzu, thank you! XD And here's some more dying Zoro for you! He's thrown himself of a building and been shot! Now a bomb is about to blow him up! XD If you ever wonder how many near-death experiences you can have in one day, you really should ask Zoro! XD Well the wait is over! At least for this chapter 3;P Next Monday you'll get to find out how this finishes ;P


And so, I shall now go back to trying to sleep this off...then get back to writing requests when I wake up...I'm honestly scared to eat ;-; There might be a random update this week, but please don't hold your breath! Also, for those of you waiting patiently on an update of a certain story, I'm planning on updating it at midnight tonight...(6pm (Mexico City), 8pm (Sau Paulo), 12am (Lagos), 8am (Tokyo), and 9am (Sydney) – yes, I googled to find out which were the largest cities of each continent. Yes, I got annoyed when Google kept telling me I meant 'Australia' and I don't even live there...Does this annoy anyone who does? (I am not trying to start an argument, I'm just really nosy and I knew what I meant from doing Geography :/ )) Have a good week! ^_^