Chapter 7.
The patient
A few hours has gone past since breakfast and the crew is relaxing on the ship. Chopper's medicine had worked very well and Nami's occasional unmerciful screams hadn't sound any different than usual.
Brook was sitting in the middle of the lawn and played his violin. The crew had again and again ensured him that there was nothing he could do to help today. After all, there was nothing even the rest of the crew could do anymore. Everything was already done and since they were docked to an island, nothing in particular needed some kind of maintenance.
The skeleton musician played many different songs and every now and then he stopped to tune his instrument a little. If he couldn't do anything helpful, than he could at least intensify the relaxing atmosphere even more and at the same time do something he liked.
It was a peaceful day at the Sunny. Everyone was just taking it easy and enjoyed their own activities. It sure had been a while since the Strawhats could've been this carefree. Of course, as higly wanted pirates they could never be totally eased but a little more than usual, at least.
Even though the crew was free to do what they wanted, everybody still found themselves remaining on their lion headed ship. The weather was bright and warm in a comfortable way, the sun seemed to be careful not to overdo anything.
The relaxing music appeared to have an exceptional effect on one particular green haired nakama. The swordsman hadn't moved from his sleeping spot for quite some time now. He was laying on his back in the small grass, holding his swords in some sort of awkward grasp in his right hand.
Not far from him, the little doctor was sitting on the swing. He sometimes let out a small giggle while going back and forward.
Turning his gaze a little more to the right, the musician could see two beautiful women, also relaxing. The navigator was sunbathing and occasionally exchanged a few words with her raven haired nakama sitting next to her. She was, however, seated in a chair while reading a book. Every now and then she would take a zip of the cooling drink the cook had made for them.
Lacking anything else to do, Franky and Usopp both were down in their respective workshops inventing things.
Their captain was perhaps the only one who didn't quite enjoy all this relaxing. He would restlessly jump around on the ship and state how boring everyone was. Sometimes he walked up to Nami and informed her that he was bored. One time he had tried with Zoro but after getting no other response than a grunting, he continued nagging on the navigator.
"Luffy, can't you just sit still for one minute?" she tiredly complained the fifth time he tried.
"No, Nami! I want an adventure and you can't sit still when you want to have an adventure!" he anxiously answered.
"Perhaps we can have a picnic a little later on, ne, kÅkaishi-san?" asked the archaeologist and smiled at both of her crewmates.
"Hmm, yeah, that actually sounds like a pretty good idea!" Nami happily replied, "Will that do, Luffy?"
"Yes! We're going to have an adventure! We're going to have meat, right?" He turned right away and headed for the kitchen, "Sanji! Prepare a lot's of-"
The sound of the infirmary door being slammed open cut the captain off, "Okay, where the HELL am I?!"
The doctor let out a small scream of surprise and fell down from the swing, landing on the swordsman's face. Zoro was immediately up wondering what was happening and tried to get free from the brown hairball blocking his sight.
"Dammit, Chopper! Get off me!"
Everybody else turned their gaze upwards and saw a green haired woman standing at the beginning of the stairs. Her red empty looking eyes filled with something the captain, musician, navigator and archaeologist couldn't decide to be either confusion or anger.
"Wait.. hey I remember you!" she said while looking at the raven haired woman. Her gaze suddenly changed to a more neutral one. She started to walk down the stairs, "And you!" she said while looking at the swordsman who had now released himself from the little doctors grip.
The little doctor was in mere seconds suddenly climbing up and down on the woman, "WHAT ARE YOU DOING!? HOW CAN YOU STAND UP!? YOU NEED TO REST YOUR FOOT MORE!"
"What the..!" She took Chopper with both her arms and held him in front of her, "Haha! What the hell are you? Tanuki..?"
"I'M A REINDEER!" he yelled as he angrily transformed into his heavy point.
The woman stepped away from Chopper a little and started to laugh hysterically.
Luffy watched the woman with an astonished face. Then he pointed at her and turned to the swordsman, "Zoro, is that your sister?"
"WHAT, NO!" the swordsman yelled angrily and grimaced at his captain.
"But you both have green-"
"That's not the same haircolour at all!" Nami had stepped up and punched him over the head, "Are you colour-blind or something?! Geez."
The woman had simply walked past Chopper while still laughing and was now standing before the rest of the crew on the lawn.
At the same time, Sanji, Usopp and Franky turned up to see what was going on.
"Hey, what are you-" started Franky but then he saw the person causing all the commotion, "Oi, nee-chan, wasn't your foot hurt?"
Sanji immediately formed his heart eyes and started do dance his way down the stairs as well, "Melloriiiiiiiiiiine!"
"Huh? My foot? I don't know, maybe it was. There was some annoying bandaging around it when I woke up," she answered the shipwright and shrugged.
"But how..?" started Usopp and made a confused face.
"Ha..?" she looked around to see that everybody had the same confused faces, "What?"
"Your foot is broken! It should be totally out of use!" yelled the doctor who had turned into his normally used brain point once again, "Now stand still! I have to examine you!"
"Oh! I always forget to tell people," she said, giggled and smacked herself in the head lightly. Then she turned to the little reindeer, "That's not necessary, whatever my foot have been through - to be honest, I don't remember, haha, but anyways - it will always heal up again. Fun ain't it?"
"That's so coooooooooool!" yelled the amazed Luffy while stars replaced his eyes.
"I know, right!" she answered the black haired captain while seeming to be just as much amazed by her own power.
"Kiwa-san," Robin said, "Do you mind explaining how this works?"
The woman turned back to the others, "Ok, but hey! Where's my swords?"
"Umm we kind of put them away..." said Nami unsurely.
"Soo ka? Well anyways, it doesn't matter. Hey you!" She pointed at Zoro, "You have swords, cut me somewhere."
"Haaaaa?!" The swordsman awkwardly stepped away a little.
"Yeah, just do it. Wherever you want," Kiwa said casually, "Or... don't cut any limbs off, okay?"
"What...No! Are you crazy?"
"I'll be fine! I promise! You don't have to do it that deep if you're too much of a pus- I mean... If you don't want to. It's just easier for me to explain this way."
"What was that?!"
"Oi, shitty marimo! Don't you dare even touch that woman!" yelled Sanji.
"Shut it, curly kokku! Why would I cut up someone for no reason!?"
"Oh, man what a pain..." Kiwa said to herself and sighed, "Why am I even explaining this to you?"
While the two men were still arguing there was a green blur as Kiwa ran to unsheat and fetch Sandai Kitetsu and then back to stand at the same place as before.
"Hey you bitch, give me back my swo-!"
Zoro didn't finish the sentence but widened his eyes as he saw Kiwa forcefully showing the sword deeply into the left side of her stomach. She let out only a faint grunt of pain but didn't even hunch over.
"AAAAAAAAAHHH! WHAT ARE YOU DOING!?" Chopper screamed in panic, "SOMEONE CALL A DOCTOR!"
The others were stunned. Usopp screamed with his tongue rolling outside of his mouth.
"I thought it might been a little too much for you to push it out on the other side," Kiwa said casually and laughed, "Oh, there was no one sensitive I hope?"
No one said a word and appearing as if she hadn't even thought about her last words, Kiwa pulled the sword out again. It left a big wound with only a small sipper of blood coming out of it.
"Here, sorry for taking it but it seemed to like it at last." She threw the sword back to Zoro.
"You- you could tell?" the swordsman stumbled and shook his head to get the recent picture out of his head. He felt the up flowing satisfaction coming from Sandai Kitetsu.
"Well, of course, it might have wanted more than this puny amount." She wiped the small blood stream onto her finger and then brushed it off on her shorts, "But I could feel that is was up for the job," she laughed.
"Ar- are- are you gonna be alright with that!?" yelled the sniper and pointed at the wound, shivers still running through his body.
"Ha? Oh, yeah! Watch now! See? The cut's already smaller."
"What..? Sugoi..." Nami said astonished and watched closer.
"Yeah, isn't it?" Kiwa made a dumb looking grinning face, put her hand at her sides and laughed. "Surely, you know about devil fruits? I mean, you have a user right here." She pointed at Chopper, "I've eaten the 'ken ken no mi', I can recover very fast! I doesn't matter how deep the wound, I'll still recover up in no time!"
"That's so COOOOOOOOOOOL!" Luffy jumped up and down and his sparkling eyes barely followed him, "Are you like immortal!?"
"YES I AM! Wait.. no I'm not!" Kiwa laughed again, "It just takes a hell of a time killing me!"
Everybody relaxed a little more by now, and Nami was almost angry, grasping her fist she yelled, "In what way was that easier than just telling us!?"
"Haha! I don't really know," she answered and scratched the back of her head, "I guess I find it funny seeing how people will react!"
"But Kiwa-san, even though you have great recover abilities, you still feel pain, don't you?" asked Robin.
"You saw me tense a little, huh?"
"Yes, but it was still not even close too how a normal human would take it. Can it be that you've had your devil fruit power for very long?"
"Oi, what do you mean, Robin?" wondered the sniper.
"Oh, you're one hell of an inspector, aren't you?" Kiwa laughed and smiled, "You're absolutely right. I heard about the devil fruit when I was 6 years old. Then when I found one, I didn't doubt one second to eat it. Tasted like shit, though. Anyway, it is as I suspect you may already think, I've become careless because I lack fear from physical pain."
"And what does that mean, exactly?" grunted Zoro.
"Eh? And you wouldn't know?!" yelled Nami.
"Shut up, woman!"
"Oi bastard! Don't speak to Nami-san like that, or do you want me to kick your sorry ass?"
"Yeah, if you can stop hypnotizing me with that stupid eyebrow of yours!"
"What did you say? Now I'm pissed!"
"Bring it on, frea-!"
"Shut up!" The navigator punched them both to the ground, "I'm getting so tired of that!"
Kiwa only laughed about the situation, "Man, you guys are hilarious!" Then she pulled herself together again, "Okay, so it means that every normal human is afraid of getting hurt. It's like a defensive mechanism built in our system for preventing us to get hurt physically and it makes us feel pain in order to tell us what we should avoid. It's pretty much what prevents us from dying. I, however, haven't had any use of that mechanism because of my ability, and also knowing that mentally, I have learned to ignore pain to this degree. Understand?"
"Soo ka," said Luffy and hit his right clenched hand in his other opened one, "So you ARE a mystery person!"
"That is quite interesting, Kiwa-san," said the archaeologist, "You must have endured a lot to come to that point where you don't even notice that your foot is snapped in two."
"Yo-ho-ho-ho! That's pretty amazing, Kiwa-san!"
"Yeah, I've been through a lot, even though I haven't been to sea for so long yet."
"So, you're a pirate, huh, nee-chan?" asked Franky.
"Yes! I just became one!"
Not much to say! I was pretty unhappy with the former chapter so I sort of worked a little more at this one. However, I don't really know if I'm happy with this chapter either xD
The name of the Devil Fruit, "ken ken no mi", I don't know if it suits very well but anyway, it means like "strength" or "health" and it sounded short and nice xD
Review please :) Even the smallest misspelling is worth to report, I want to learn! ^^
