Asteria Nightmare
Part eleven of a fanfiction by Velkyn Karma
Note: Well, this fic has officially bypassed Fortunae Gauntlet again...I love you guys so much, y'know that? :)
Disclaimer: I do not own, or pretend to own, One Piece or any of its subsequent characters, plots or other ideas. That right belongs solely to Eiichiro Oda. The only thing that belongs to me here is the concept for the story.
"One by one they were all becoming shades. Better pass boldly into that other world, in the full glory of some passion, than fade and wither dismally with age."
~The Dead, James Joyce
Nami didn't think she was sitting on the ground all that long before Franky came up to her, but it sure felt like she'd been there for ages, watching the disgusting, unearthly Nightmares retreat up the road and into the trees until none of them were visible anymore. Her furious, frustrated tears were starting to spill over onto her cheeks, and she clutched Sanji-kun's dream in her hand so hard she would have been afraid of breaking it if she didn't know with absolute certainty it was strong enough to withstand almost anything. The cheerful, determined, enthusiastic feelings and thoughts and scents it sent directly into her mind contrasted sharply with her own current feelings of failure and uselessness, starting a whirlpool of clashing emotions that just kept spinning out of control.
"Hey, girlie, you okay?" Franky asked seriously, crouching down in front of her. "They're gone now. They didn't hurt you badly, did they?" He eyed her injured arm with concern, and she saw him glancing over the rest of her, searching for more blood or bruises.
"N...no, I'm fine," she answered slowly, and shook her head in frustration, wiping her eyes with her free jacket sleeve hastily. She hated it when people saw her crying; it felt admitting she had no control, even though she knew Franky of all people wouldn't care. "My back's a little sore, is all, that thing knocked me down...and my arm," she added, gesturing unnecessarily with her uninjured hand towards the gash, which was starting to sting something awful now that the adrenaline rush was wearing off and the battle was over.
Franky offered her one huge hand to help her up, and she took it gratefully, stumbling to her shaky feet. Sanji-kun's Dreamshard was starting to make her feel a little ill now, so she hastily plucked it away from her bare skin and dragged her sleeve down, wrapping the gem in a section of the jean jacket to keep it from touching her palm. As before, the scents, sounds, images, thoughts, and emotions vanished instantly from her consciousness, although she was surprised to find her palm was raw and red where the gem had sat nestled until now, much like Zoro's hand had been when he touched his own sword.
I suppose it makes sense, she thought with a grimace. It's not my dream, even if I'll help him reach it. It doesn't belong to me, and it's too personal to let anyone else touch it completely...She stared down at the glittering jewel held carefully in her jacket sleeve with a grimace. It was larger than any of the ones on Adamantina, and far more vibrant. It would have easily been worth Zoro's bounty or more, if she brought it back to the island to sell it, but the very thought of trading it for beri made her sick to her stomach. It wasn't hers to sell. It was Sanji-kun's, and if she gave it away he would be a sickly husk of his former self until he wasted away from the absence of his own ambition. Not even One Piece itself would be worth that.
She sighed, closed her protected fist around the Dreamshard once more, and wearily staggered over to where she'd dropped Zoro's sword when the Nightmare had knocked her to the ground. She had to pick it up with her injured arm, and grimaced a little when moving pulled at the wound. But the sword had managed to save somebody's dream at least, if not its master's, and she supposed it didn't deserve to be left laying around on the dirt road like a useless piece of cast-off trash. Franky followed her, carrying his plank-weapon in one hand and scooping up her dropped pack and the other two swords with his other one, and the two made their way over to the rest of the group.
While Nami and Franky had made an offensive assault against the shadow-Nightmare, Chopper and Brook had moved in to protect the staggering, weakened Sanji-kun from the Nightmares still swarming about him. At the cook's instruction, they'd then turned back to the tree where Usopp was trying to protect their two other weakened nakama to provide support, driving the swarming, frustrated Nightmares away from the trunk with their Thousand Sunny-granted weaponry until the shadow-Nightmare had called the retreat. Now they were gathered about the trunk of the tree, Sanji-kun leaning against it tiredly while Brook and Chopper (now in Heavy Point) looked up into its lower branches, talking with somebody in its depths.
"—can lower Robin down," Nami could hear Usopp saying, as they got closer, "She hit her head when the Harvesters started shaking the trees to try and make us fall out, but I think she's still light enough for me to lower. I dunno if I can get Zoro out though, he's sort of...stuck."
"I am not," came a slurred, agitated voice from further up the tree. Nami almost would have laughed at the petulance in Zoro's tone, if the situation weren't so serious. " 'n I don't need any help, either."
"Sword-bro doesn't sound so good," Franky commented, frowning. "And how come he doesn't have these?" he added, holding up the two swords in one big hand, and pointedly eyeing the white one Nami was still carrying.
"It's a long story," Nami said tiredly. "But don't call him that."
"Eh? Don't call him Sword-bro? But he is our swordsman..."
"Not right now, he isn't," Nami said grimly. "I'll explain as soon as possible, but Zoro...got hit. By those things. And he doesn't remember that he's a swordsman anymore. Mentioning it...upsets him," she finished, which was the understatement of the year, but it was too chilling to try and explain that wild, unnatural chanting and panic that came on whenever they got close to mentioning someone's dream to a nakama who'd had it stolen.
"Don't mention anything about Robin being an archaeologist, either," she cautioned urgently, realizing that they had even more troubles to deal with now. With a glance down at her hand, still carefully cupping Sanji-kun's Dreamshard in a cloth-covered palm, she added, "or that Sanji-kun is looking for All Blue."
Franky gave her a dubious look, but finally nodded slowly, sensing that something important was going on. They reached the gathering of pirates, and Sanji-kun began fawning over Nami immediately, if weakly, insisting that he was going to make the Nightmares pay for putting a bloody gash in her beautiful skin. Nami shook her head in exasperation—his thoughts on women were not, apparently, a part of his dream—and watched with a little concern as Usopp managed to carefully lower a limp Robin down from the tree into Heavy Point Chopper's waiting arms.
"She's very pale," the doctor observed with a frown, as he laid her down gently at the base of the tree. "A lot of her symptoms resemble Luffy's..."
"The same thing happened to her," Usopp supplied grimly, from the lower branches of the tree. "The Nightmares that ate Luffy's dream ate hers, too." He opened his mouth to add something further, but there was a creaking noise from further up in the tree. Usopp looked up from his branch-seat curiously, and his eyes widened. "Wait, no, Zoro, don't do that, you're going to f—agh!"
Several sharp cracks and the heavy rustling of blood-red leaves filled the air, and seconds later Usopp was knocked from his comfortable perch as Zoro crashed ungracefully through the upper branches onto him. Brook and Chopper barely managed to scatter out of the way, dragging Robin with them, before Zoro and Usopp smashed into the ground in a heap of tangled limbs.
"Ow," Zoro muttered dazedly, and managed after a few weak attempts to roll off of Usopp, who immediately gasped for breath after having the wind knocked clean out of him. "Damn tree..."
"I told you I would've helped," Usopp managed to rasp, coughing and rubbing his nose painfully as he weakly attempted to sit up.
"I wasn't stuck," Zoro said, his voice still defensive. But he sounded exhausted too, and the dark lines under his eyes seemed worse from what Nami could tell. He did not make any attempts to sit up or stand, either, and the navigator was fairly sure it was because he lacked the strength to.
"Idiot marimo," Sanji-kun slurred. "You're completely useless, you know that?"
"Shut up, love-cook," Zoro hissed back, although the verbal sparring lacked its usual malevolence, and the both of them seemed too tired to even care. Sanji-kun winced and looked agitated at Zoro's insulting nickname, however, and Nami realized with a mental groan that it addressed aspects of Sanji-kun's dream. Cooking was intrinsically tied into his need to find the All Blue, after all, and therefore with his Dreamshard missing he'd be just as upset and confused being referred to as a cook as Zoro got when they referred to him as a swordsman. They'd have to do something about that, if they could.
Chopper looked worried. "Oh no," he said, voice anxious, as he reverted to Brain Point. "Not Zoro and Sanji too! We were too late..."
"Not exactly," Nami said. Even if they had been too late to stop those Dreamshard-thefts from happening to begin with, Nami was too grateful for their arrival at all to be bitter about that. "If you guys hadn't shown up when you did, we'd be dead," she said truthfully. "We were done for. And...and with your counter-attack, I managed to steal this back," she said, and triumphantly held out the glittering Dreamshard, still securely encased in her jacket.
"A Dreamshard!" the reindeer said delightedly, and Franky's and Brook's expressions seemed to light up at the sight of it as well.
"That's definitely gotta be over a hundred million's worth," the cyborg added, almost cheerfully. "At least we got some sort of profit out of this visit, right, sis? All we gotta do now is find the cure for our nakama and we're set."
Nami and Usopp stared at him, stunned, and even Sanji-kun, still weaving against the tree trunk dazedly, managed to give the cyborg a disbelieving look. "That's right," Usopp said slowly, after a moment. "You guys don't know yet, we only just figured it out with all the writing we found out here..."
"Know what?" the three new arrivals asked in confusion, and they looked a little worried now, as well.
"It's a long story," Nami said again. "Look, why don't we fortify a little here, in case the Nightmares come back, and make them a little more comfortable—" she gestured here to Zoro, Robin, and Sanji-kun; Zoro was crumpled awkwardly on his side still from the fall, Robin was still sprawled where she'd been dragged away to miss being fallen on, and Sanji-kun looked like he might crash soon if he didn't sit and rest for a bit, "—and we can trade information."
"Good idea," Chopper said seriously. "I want to take a look at that injury too, Nami, and for anybody else who got hurt since I saw you guys last."
"Might want to check on Luffy too," Franky added, gesturing to the sailcloth twisted over his shoulders and around his back. "It's been a while since the last check, since we bolted when we heard the commotion ahead, and I haven't heard him muttering in a while."
"Wait, Luffy's here?" Nami nearly shrieked. "You brought him? Are you crazy?"
"We couldn't leave him, Nami-san," Brook explained defensively, as the cyborg swung the cloth bundle down from his shoulders. "We discovered how to beat these Nightmare-creatures and thought you could make use of our assistance and discoveries, but we did not want to leave our captain unattended and unprotected back on the ship."
"I guess that makes sense," Nami admitted reluctantly, although she found herself unusually worried for her captain's safety all the same. Luffy was normally just as durable as the rubber he was made out of, and was usually capable of bouncing back from nearly anything with good cheer and steadfast determination. But with his dream stolen, he seemed unusually vulnerable, and she didn't like the thought of putting him in unnecessary danger.
Franky seemed to understand her reluctance, and said reassuringly, "It's cool, girlie. See, he's protected by the Sunny too, this is sailcloth from the ship itself. If any of those un-super things tried to hurt him they'd have their claws burned right off." He'd set the bundle on the ground now, and carefully folded the sailcloth sling back, revealing their captain, bundled up securely in an additional blanket. He did not look good. Like Zoro, the lines under his eyes had darkened further, and his skin was drawn and could have belonged to a corpse, not a living human being. Luffy's eyes were open now, a notable change since Nami had last seen him, but they stared blankly and did not appear to actually recognize or interact with anything around him. He was still catatonic, then, although Nami thought glumly that she really hadn't expected anything else, especially not after learning what he was really afflicted with.
"It's the best we can hope for, I guess," she admitted with a sigh. "Let's just get everybody taken care of."
Twenty minutes later the Straw Hats were assembled around the tree more comfortably, in marginally better shape than they'd been in before. Robin, Zoro, and Luffy were all leaning against the tree trunk, as comfortably as their nakama could make them. Robin had woken briefly after her small bump on the head, but other than looking around at them almost anxiously and whispering something inaudibly under her breath she had fallen back asleep. Zoro complained a little about Chopper treating his bite injury on his arm (as Nami had suspected, it had needed stitches), but he, too, dropped off into a weary slumber as soon as they stopped jostling him and left him alone against the tree. Luffy was perhaps the most worrying. He never stirred as they moved him about, but he did start muttering loudly, the same alarming sorts of things that Zoro had murmured the entire night before. "He does that a lot," Franky said, sounding both worried and apologetic. "Just ignore it, he'll stop in a bit."
Nami had tried to convince Sanji-kun to rest with the others, but despite thanking her profusely for her thoughtfulness he would have none of it. He sat with the rest of them on the old stumps and fallen logs Franky had dragged out of the forest for them, and though he swayed a little in his seat and still looked dazed and more than a little out of it, he was obviously putting a great deal of effort into staying awake and focusing on the rest of the pirates.
Chopper, Brook, and Franky were clearly more rested and prepared than the rest of them—it seemed the three of them had been able to get a decent night's rest, untroubled by nightmares of either variety. They obligingly kept an eye out for further attacks as they doled out some food from their own supplies or (in Chopper's case) treated the rest of the crew's injuries. Nami still felt exhausted even after her arm had been looked at and had a more solid meal, but at least she felt safer now, assured that they'd be able to defend themselves against further attacks if—or more like when—they came.
When they were all ready, they started talking, trading everything that they'd discovered in the past two days. Nami and Usopp were the only fully coherent members of their team left, and shared their discoveries on the origins of Dreamshards and the real cause of the nightmare-illness, with an occasional valiant attempt by Sanji-kun to interject with something useful. Franky, Chopper, and Brook shared in turn their battle with the Nightmares on the Sunny, and the subsequent discovery of the creatures' weaknesses against any part of the ship.
"At first we thought it was just the Adam Wood," Franky finished, as he dug into the enormous sack that Chopper had been carrying earlier, "but it turns out it's any part of the Sunny that will kill the creatures. They didn't like the rigging or sails either. So I brought some stuff for you guys too, and after seeing that fight, it looks like you need it!" He handed Usopp an enormous bag of nails to use as artillery, Nami three short lengths of cord to wrap around each of the three poles on the Clima-Tact, and Sanji-kun two squares of sailcloth that could be tied around his shoes without impeding his movement. The not-cook's fingers were burned when he attempted to accept the gift, and he swore loudly; in the end Usopp had to tie the cloth on for him, while Sanji-kun complained irritably. It looked a bit silly in the end, but if it meant they'd be able to kill the things in the future themselves, it'd be worth it.
"I brought stuff for them too," Franky added with a frown, glancing over at the slumbering Robin and Zoro, "but it doesn't look like they'd be able to use it after all..."
"Zoro wouldn't have needed it anyway, he had his sword," Usopp pointed out. "That worked too...well, just the one, but still..."
"Yeah, about that," Nami said suddenly. The others looked at her, and with a frown she said slowly, "I think I know why these things specifically damage the Nightmares."
"Really, girlie?" Franky said, and the others looked at her with mixed expressions of excitement and intrigue.
"Yeah," she said slowly. "Look, think about it. These things steal our dreams. Our ambitions. But they're always careful not to touch the Dreamshards, or as little as they can anyway. Only those Harvesters steal them, and even then they only carry them with their mandibles very carefully, like they don't want to touch them at all. I think what Sanji-kun said this morning was right...the creatures feed on something else, but they have to 'clean' their food first, to remove the poisonous dreams before they can eat."
Franky blinked in surprise, but then said suddenly, "Oh...I get what you're saying, girlie. Dreams hurt them, but it doesn't just have to be the dream itself. Any object connected to the dream is painful too. And my dream was to build the Sunny and take her around the world, so that hurts them, too. Right?"
"Exactly," Nami said, nodding in satisfaction. "And Zoro's sword, too. All of us have noticed by now, that white one is the one he treats with the most care and respect, and it obviously means a lot to him. He's had it since before I even met him and Luffy." She glanced at the sleeping not-swordsman, lowered her voice just in case, and added, "I'd bet anything that he swore on the white sword about his greatest swordsman dream, and that's why that one hurts these Nightmares while the other two don't."
"Fair enough," Usopp agreed. "It makes sense. Although, Luffy's hat should do the same then, too, right?"
"Probably, but it's probably best if we don't test that particular theory," Nami said, horrified at the notion of risking Luffy's precious straw hat in a battle. She could only imagine the expression on his face if—no, when—they restored his dream, only to find his hat had been ripped to shreds in a fight against Nightmares. She definitely didn't want to see that expression in real life. Imagining it was bad enough. The others nodded in agreement, horror on their own faces as well at the very thought.
"I think this is the reason these...these dream-items," Nami invented, not sure what else to call them, "end up burning anybody who's had their dream stolen. It happened to Zoro earlier when he tried to hold the white katana, and Sanji-kun got burned just now when he tried to hold a piece from the Sunny. Without a dream of their own, strong ambitions must hurt them, just like they hurt the Nightmares."
"Luffy-san was particularly distressed when we tried to settle him into the sling the first time," Brook observed. "That was why we ended up wrapping him in the blanket before putting him in the sailcloth."
"Did anybody bring his hat?" Usopp asked. "We could always test it." Although he looked a little worried at the idea.
Chopper hesitated, but then produced the straw hat from underneath his own, where the fuzzy pink brim and his own crown of antlers had protected the straw beneath. He seemed unsure of how to proceed though, and clutched the straw hat reluctantly in his little hooves, staring at Luffy anxiously.
Nami stood and took the hat gently from him, running her fingers over the rough surface of the treasured item that had given Luffy his dream and the pirates their name. She hesitated for a moment herself, but then, grimly determined, stepped over to the blandly staring, unresponsive Luffy, crouched beside him, and very, very carefully, brushed his cheek with the very edge of the hat's brim.
Almost immediately she could smell the very faint, almost nonexistent traces of burnt rubber, and wrinkled her nose a little at the scent. Luffy reacted for the first time to an outside source since Franky and the others had arrived: he whimpered softly under his breath, a plaintive, childlike noise that had Nami's heart wrenching, and weakly tried to jerk his head away. The ranting started almost immediately, and he whined his familiar yet still disturbing mantra with an exhausted voice, over and over. "Stolen...stolen...stolen..."
She jerked the hat away immediately and bit her lip until she could trust her voice to remain steady. "That tears it," she said slowly, when she'd finally recovered. "It's definitely dream items, and they're definitely vulnerable to them." She stepped away from her captain, wishing she could apologize or calm him down after starting his ranting all over again, but knowing instinctively there was nothing she could do to help.
Usopp silently held out his hand for the straw hat, and Nami gratefully handed it over. After seeing what it did to her captain, and partly causing it, she really wanted nothing to do with the thing right now. Usopp was sort of its secondary handler, apart from herself, whenever Luffy needed to get serious about a fight, so she didn't feel so bad handing it over to him. The sniper once again placed it under his own wraparound headgear, snug and safe, while she reclaimed her seat on the log.
The others still looked solemn after the new discovery, so Nami pushed the conversation on still further. "Brook's music stumps me, though," she said, regarding the skeleton and his violin curiously. "Your dream is to return to Laboon and keep your promise, isn't it? That doesn't have anything to do with music, but it still affects them."
"It doesn't kill them, though," Franky pointed out. "Just kinda freezes'em in place. And if they use that terror-call thing, the music kinda blocks it from working."
"That's right," Chopper agreed. "That creepy scream makes you feel all cold inside, but when Brook played his music, it felt warm."
"But that makes sense, does it not?" The skeleton said. "Music is more than just sound. It's emotion and feeling! Music is incredibly powerful and can affect how a person acts and thinks and what their state of mind is. From what I saw, these creatures do exactly the same thing, just with sad and fearful emotions...not, of course, that I could see anything at all, seeing as I have no eyes, yohohoho!"
"Well, Nami did just say the Nightmares probably feed on something else, and not the Dreamshards themselves," Usopp said thoughtfully. "And one of Robin's translations, the one about the Harvesters, implied that the Queen of the Night fed on fear and despair. Maybe they like to, I don't know, spice it up more? Make us even more scared so there's more to eat or it tastes better or something?"
"But they can't if Brook counteracts those feelings of fear and sadness with something cheerful," Nami concluded slowly. "I guess that makes sense. And if they like despair and fear so much, then happy, joyful emotions must have the same effect on them that the terror-blast does on us...that's why they freeze up!" Who knew their musician could have such a useful application? Such an advantage would definitely be helpful in the future. The others looked a little more heartened as well, and Brook yohoho-ed excitedly again, playing a short, excitable jig on the violin.
Nami found herself smiling as well, until she glanced back at their three unconscious, dreamless nakama, and the still exhausted-looking Sanji-kun; that sobered her instantly. "About the Dreamshards, and the dream items...I think it works both ways," she said slowly. They looked at her curiously, confused, and with a deep breath she held out her still red and raw palm. "That Dreamshard I got back did this to me," she explained. "I didn't really notice until I moved it, because it doesn't feel warm or anything, but it's like the dreams protect themselves when they're not in the person they belong to."
"That could be useful, right?" Chopper asked. "If Dreamshards have a self-defense mechanism or something, then maybe it'll be hard for these Nightmares to eat, or break, or whatever they do with them..."
"Maybe," she said quietly. "I just don't know." She didn't want to add that she doubted it, in the long run. These creatures had clearly been stealing Dreamshards for hundreds of years, and had to be experienced with them by now, but she didn't want to stamp on the little doctor's hopes.
Shaking her head, she added, "Whatever it is...after all that, I managed to get back one dream, at least." And, holding out her palm, with the Dreamshard still carefully clutched in her jacket sleeve, she turned towards Sanji-kun and said, "This one is yours."
Sanji-kun blinked in surprise, and said rather intelligently, "Eh?"
"How can you be sure?" Usopp asked, puzzled. "It doesn't have any distinguishing marks or anything, like a swirly eye—um, it doesn't have any marks," he stuttered lamely, as Sanji-kun glared at him.
"I know," she said grimly. "I...well, I heard it. I'm sorry, Sanji-kun," she added apologetically, knowing the apology meant nothing in the face of such an intense trespassing into somebody's private thoughts and hopes and memories, intentional or not. But it was all she could offer.
"Sorry?" The not-cook looked appalled. "Nami-san, I should be apologizing to you, I didn't mean to burn your lovely hand—"
"Don't apologize for your dream," she said sharply, and Sanji-kun, looking surprised and tired, jerked back on reflex. In a softer tone, she added, "I don't know exactly how to fix it being stolen, but it's yours, so...you'd better have it, I think..."
Sanji-kun still looked confused, and a little shaky. The void in his head, the one sitting in her hand at that very moment, was probably making it difficult for him to comprehend these abstract comments. More insistently, knowing perfectly well that she was about to really agitate him, she said, "Didn't you join Luffy's crew to see the All Blue, Sanji-kun?"
Almost instantly he froze. Then, much like Zoro had that very morning, he curled forward and went rigid, clutching at his head with his hands, and his breath began to rasp painfully. "What are...I...no, you..." he stammered, and he looked like he was about to be ill, and couldn't even comprehend why.
Usopp bit his lip at the familiar and frightening gestures, but seemed to get what Nami was trying to do, and offered shakily, "Yeah, that's right! You told me about it before, it's supposed to be a cook's paradise, right?"
"That's why you're here with us, right?" Nami pressed still further, harshly, but understanding the necessity of it all the same.
"No...no, I...not...can't rem-member," Sanji-kun rasped, and he was starting to tremble now, too, his one visible eye wide and staring. "Can't...n-nothing there...it...was...stolen..."
"Then take it back," Nami said sharply, and pulling one of his hands free from his head, she slapped the glittering Dreamshard in his palm.
Sanji-kun's stammering and gasping pants cut off almost instantly, and his fingers fisted around the gem with alarming speed, clenching possessively around it with such strength Nami was almost afraid he'd break his fingers. She stepped back quickly, and everyone else leaned forward intently, anxious to see if restoring the gem would be enough to save their nakama from a very short lifetime of emptiness and despair.
Nothing happened for a very long time, and Nami frowned, biting her lip. She was sure returning the shard to Sanji-kun would fix him somehow. If she could hear his thoughts and feel his dreams while holding it, it made sense that he would too, and she had hoped somehow that having such a sharp reminder of those intensely private things would fill the void in his head that the Nightmares had created. But Sanji-kun remained rigid, curled forward in what looked to be an incredibly uncomfortable pose, with his hand still raised and fisted around the shard where she'd forced it into his hand. He was silent still, no longer having difficulties breathing or stammering about something having been stolen, but he wasn't doing anything else either.
"Sanji?" Usopp asked, voice tentative. "Sanji, you okay?"
There was a sharp intake of breath from the cook, and he started slightly, as if suddenly shaken awake. Very slowly, he uncurled, sitting up straighter on the stump Franky had dragged out of the trees for him, bringing his fist and the invaluable Dreamshard within it possessively close to his chest. His one visible eye was still wide, and didn't seem to see any of them; it was like he was focusing on something that wasn't there. Having felt the effects of the shard herself, Nami was not surprised. If anything, she was sure a Dreamshard's effects would become stronger when held by the person they belonged to.
But still, he did look a little dazed, and combined with his unusually pale complexion it made him look quite sick. Nami was just about to open her mouth to ask if he was okay, when Sanji-kun blinked and glanced down at his fist. His fingers slowly uncurled, revealing traces of glittering, constantly changing light between his fingertips. Everyone watched in surprise as he stared down at the gem in his palm with a look of fierce determination, before lifting it and slamming it to his chest, directly over his heart.
Nami yelped in surprise at the sudden movement. She heard Chopper's and Brook's exclamations alongside hers, and Usopp asked with a bewildered tone, "Woah! What're you doing?" Nami could still see traces of glittering on the dark fabric of Sanji-kun's coat, but already it was fading rapidly, and within seconds it was completely gone. Sanji-kun gave a tired sigh, but nodded in satisfaction, and when he withdrew his hand the Dreamshard was gone.
The Straw Hats—what was left of them, anyway—stared at their cook in surprise. Sanji-kun blinked again, and, apparently realizing he was now being watched, glanced up to meet their eyes. "Something wrong?"
"What did you do?" Usopp asked, still sounding deeply confused. "Your Dreamshard is gone!"
"I...uh..." Sanji-kun looked almost as confused as Usopp sounded, and scowled a little at that—Nami knew he didn't like appearing clueless. "I'm not sure," the cook finally admitted with a tired shrug. "It just...it seemed like the right thing to do at the time."
"Then Sanji has his dream back?" Chopper asked, looking up at the cook hopefully before glancing around at the others.
Nami shrugged. "Only one way to find out," she said, and turning to Sanji-kun, asked him firmly, "Well? What's your dream? Why did you join the Straw Hat Pirates?"
"To find the All Blue," Sanji-kun answered promptly, and then paused in surprise. "Ah...I could reach it this time, it wasn't empty like before..." He shivered softly, the movement so imperceptible Nami almost didn't notice it, and she wisely kept her observation to herself. She'd had enough of delving into Sanji-kun's personal thoughts and feelings for one day as it was.
The others didn't appear to notice, however, and Usopp and Chopper in particular looked delighted. "Then he did get it back!" Usopp said, his tone a mix of excitement and relief, and Franky was blocking his face with one huge arm, his shouted insistences that he wasn't crying only partially drowned out by Brook's spontaneous enthusiastic ditty on the violin.
Nami was relieved to hear it as well, but Sanji-kun still looked tired, so she asked with a slight frown, "Are you okay? You still don't look very well."
His face broke into a grin almost instantly. "Nami-san, are you worried about me? That's so kind of you! With an angel like you looking out for me I'm sure I'll feel wonderful in no time—"
"Sanji-kun," she interrupted, not shouting, but with a firm, serious voice. He cut off almost instantly with a clack of teeth, and she repeated more insistently, "How do you feel?"
The cook paused, and seemed to be seriously considering the question and how to answer it while the rest of the crew watched him with anticipation. Then Sanji-kun raised his head and said slowly, truthfully, "Tired. Really tired. Not from getting my dream back—that was a little intense, but not exhausting, exactly. It's hard to explain. And I already feel like I'm getting my strength back. If I can just sit for a bit I'm sure I'll be fine. But...tired...from trying to maintain when All Blue was stolen from me."
His eyes narrowed for a moment, but then he shivered again, much more visibly than before. "There wasn't anything there. There wasn't a goal to work towards. There wasn't anything to live for. It was just like existing...no, like subsisting. Just trying to push through that was exhausting, and I only had to deal with it for a few minutes." He looked at Nami again, and the heartfelt thank you, so solemn and so genuine, was strong enough to almost make her want to take a step back in surprise.
Then the cook's gaze switched to their three still dreamless crew mates, and the sympathetic pity on his face was almost painful to look at. Nami couldn't blame him. He knew how they felt now, and he had only existed in the same state as them for less than an hour. Luffy was going on a full two days now, and Zoro wasn't far behind him. And if their current predicament was any indication, Robin wasn't going be getting her dream back anytime soon, either. They all had to be suffering in ways nobody else but Sanji-kun could comprehend.
"But you can remember everything from when your Dreamshard was missing?" Chopper inquired, with clinical curiosity. "The loss of the Dreamshard seemed to effect memory, from what you guys were telling us...does replacing it do the same, replacing the memories that were there?"
"No, it doesn't," Sanji-kun answered. "I can still remember everything from the moment they pulled it out of me. It's a bit fuzzy, like when you first wake up, but it's all there. I remember trying to protect Nami-san, and then when you guys arrived, and our whole conversation up until now."
"About protecting me," Nami said suddenly, with a snap of her fingers. "Something else happened then that was unusual."
The others looked at her in confusion—none of them had been nearby when Sanji-kun and herself had been swarmed. Sanji-kun himself looked deeply apologetic, and said with obvious guilt in his voice, "I'm so sorry, Nami-san, I was completely useless in that fight, you could have died or had your dream stolen because I wasn't—"
"No," she said sharply, and held her hand up to forestall him from further apologies. "That's just it," she continued, when he'd fallen silent, "you weren't useless, Sanji-kun. In fact, you were up minutes after the Nightmares stole your Dreamshard, and you weren't just on your feet—you were actually fighting. You were definitely weaker, but you were still able to stun a few of those Harvesters, and you didn't need babysitting. That's completely different from these three," she said, gesturing to Luffy, Zoro and Robin, still passed out cold underneath the tree. "Luffy passed out almost instantly and didn't get up again at all. Zoro did stand up, but he didn't know how to fight, and Usopp had to knock him out of the way. And Robin recovered too, but she was so weak she couldn't even stand. Why is it that you could fight, but they couldn't?"
"Maybe it's about the dream itself?" Usopp offered. "Luffy's dream is to become the Pirate King, and obviously there'll be a lot of fighting in that. And Zoro wants to be the best swordsman in the world, that's fighting too. But finding the All Blue isn't really a fighting dream..."
But Sanji-kun shook his head. "No, that's not it," he said slowly. "Robin-chan's dream doesn't fit into that. She wants to find the Poneglyphs and True History, there's no fighting tied into that goal either."
"Usopp's got a point, though," Franky said, arms crossed as he stared upwards thoughtfully. "Maybe not about the fighting part of the dream, but something about curly-cook's dream has to be different than the others. Dreams are the only thing this whole un-super mess has in common."
"Perhaps we should go through each of the dreams again?" Brook suggested. "Maybe we've been overlooking something that will help us solve this little dilemma."
Nami wasn't sure how this would help—everyone was familiar with everyone else's dreams on this crew—but she was at a loss for any other ideas, so she sighed and nodded. "Might as well. I guess we'll start from the beginning—our captain."
As one, the crew glanced over at the sleeping, pale, vulnerable-looking form of their leader; Luffy had not stirred or spoken again since he'd finally calmed from being burned by his own dream item. "Well, that's easy," Usopp said grimly. "Luffy's going to be the Pirate King. He only mentions that one at least once a day...funny how it doesn't actually sound crazy anymore, though."
The others nodded in agreement, and Nami privately thought back to the first moment she'd heard Luffy announce his dream. It felt like ages ago, back before she had even really officially joined the crew, when she was still stealing to buy her village back from Arlong. She'd thought he was crazy, when he announced with absolute confidence that he was going to be the Pirate King—no doubts, no maybes, no halfhearted desires, he was going to achieve that goal. Like he had possessed that dream for so long that it was the only conclusion available. And while she still considered her captain more than a little insane sometimes, she had no doubts herself by this point that Luffy would indeed become the Pirate King—if they could get his dream back, anyway.
"Zoro's next," Chopper continued. "That one's pretty easy too—he wants to be the world's greatest swordsman."
"Don't forget he has to beat Mihawk to do it," Sanji-kun added helpfully, but there was a slight frown on his face as he mentioned it. Nami was a bit fuzzy on the details, but she recalled vaguely that Zoro had encountered Mihawk once already, after she'd left the Baratie to return to Arlong so long ago now. In fact, Mihawk was responsible for the enormous scar cutting across their swordsman's chest from shoulder to hip. Luffy and Sanji-kun had witnessed that particular fight, which explained the cook's frown; like Luffy's dream, he'd probably seen enough to realize Zoro's dream also seemed impossible. But Zoro wouldn't back down on that dream either, Nami was sure. He'd certainly had it before Nami had met him. She remembered watching his fight with Cabaji the Acrobat, not too long after they'd met, and how he'd clearly mentioned preparing for 'him,' presumably Mihawk. Like Luffy, Zoro's dream stretched so far back that it was a part of his life before he'd even joined the Straw Hats, was so strong he wouldn't relinquish it for anything.
"Then sis comes next, right?" Franky continued the list, nodding to Nami. "With your navigator dream, making a map of the world."
Nami opened her mouth to agree, but Usopp was frowning, and Sanji-kun looked uncomfortable—like he might have mentioned something, but was too respectful to do so. Nami frowned, and with a gesture to Usopp said slowly, "What's wrong?"
"Well, it's just..." The sniper hesitated for a moment, and then blurted out quickly, "That wasn't your first dream, I mean, you weren't really a part of the crew at first because, y'know..."
"Because I was still with Arlong," Nami said slowly. Sanji-kun winced apologetically, and Chopper, Franky and Brook looked confused.
"It's a long story," she explained, at their questioning looks. "But although I met Luffy right after Zoro, I didn't actually choose to join Luffy to go to the Grand Line until...just after Sanji-kun, really. Luffy was the one who convinced me that my dream to draw a map of the world was worth following. Before that, I never really believed in it, I just wanted to try and finish my deal with Arlong. My map was an impossibility before Luffy..."
"Sorry," Usopp mumbled. "I didn't mean to bring up any bad memories...I just...I figured maybe it was important..."
"No," Nami said slowly, "I think you're right." She frowned to herself. Something about that seemed very important, but she couldn't quite place her finger on it. Her dream was much, much younger and less nurtured compared to Luffy's or Zoro's, who'd been following them their whole lives, as far as she could tell. She'd had to borrow a good deal of Luffy's own confidence and determination to even begin recognizing that her dream wasn't childish or immature at all, but genuinely worth following. She fully believed in it now of course, even without the help of her captain, but Luffy had been the one to push her into following it to begin with.
But that sounded very familiar...
"Sanji-kun," she said suddenly, an idea in mind, "Your dream, the All Blue—how long have you had it?"
"Hey!" Usopp interjected. "We skipped me and my great warrior of the sea dream!"
Nami ignored him and focused intently on their cook, who looked surprised. "Um...since I was eight, I think? Some cooks on the cruise ship I'd been working on told me stories about the All Blue, and I really wanted to see it."
"But you never acted on it," Nami pressed. "Why?"
Sanji-kun frowned, and lowered his head quickly, hiding his eyes from view. Nami could practically feel him radiating guilt. "The crap-geezer," he said slowly. "I...I decided to help him with his dream, instead. The Baratie."
Nami could tell there was a lot more left unsaid there, and guessed the situation was far more complex than that, but she didn't push. Sanji-kun's life was his own, and if he didn't want to share the details, she sure as hell wasn't going to force him. She could relate to that herself. Instead, she said, "But you're here now, after almost ten years, looking for the All Blue. What changed your mind?"
Sanji-kun looked up, blinked. "Isn't it the same for all of us? Luffy did. First he just wanted me to be his cook, but then he heard about my dream too and got all the more insistent. And I don't know...it sounds like a really silly dream, I guess, to follow some stories nobody's ever proven, but it seems way more real and possible now."
Nami nodded in satisfaction. Sanji-kun's story nearly matched her own, in that regard. "I think that's it," she said slowly. "The reason Sanji-kun could get up again, when the others couldn't."
"You lost me, sis," Franky said with a puzzled frown, while the others gave her equally confused looks.
"Luffy's had his dream his whole life. Luffy's dream is Luffy, basically. Without that goal to be the Pirate King, there's nothing else left," Nami explained, growing a little more excited at the discovery, even if the subject matter was grim.
"He's got us," Usopp said, sounding doubtful.
"But don't you see," Nami pressed, "We're a part of that dream. Luffy was always going on about how he needs to find a crew, and become the Pirate King, back when I first met him. He's mostly got a crew now, us, and now he always talks about how protecting us and helping us achieve our dreams is a part of being a good pirate captain, too. Everything about Luffy's life is his dream. That's why when it was stolen from him, he turned into...this." She gestured quietly towards their catatonic captain.
"Zoro and Robin, too," Nami added, gesturing to the two other sleeping crew mates. "Zoro's been focused on his swordsman dream for a long time. Definitely before I met him at least, and I've been around longer than any of the rest of you. We know it's a huge part of his life, and without it he's a shadow of his former self. And Robin—we know Robin has been running from the military for twenty years, escaping them while looking for the True History. That's an incredibly long time to be pursuing a dream, and every moment of her life was spent working towards that, or surviving long enough to get to the next clue.
"But Sanji-kun's dream is different," Nami continued. "I don't mean this in a bad way, Sanji-kun, because I did the same thing myself, but you haven't been living your dream until very recently. Not like they have. For them, it's a huge part—maybe the only part—of their lives, and they base all their decisions around those dreams. For us...we've lived other aspects of life, were never completely reliant on our dreams. They're strong to us now, and losing them will still be a painful experience, but there are other things to keep us going."
"I...maybe that's true, Nami-san," Sanji-kun said slowly, considering. "When I lost my Dreamshard it was...it was bad. But at the same time I knew you were in trouble, and I knew I had to try and help you if I could. I still remembered how to fight, so I just...tried to do what I could, I suppose."
"If that's the case, then Zoro and Robin must have a tiny bit of something else besides their dreams in them," Chopper said, looking at the two crew mates in question thoughtfully. "They're not catatonic like Luffy is. Zoro was able to get up for a little while, you said. And Robin woke up, too, even if she went right back to sleep shortly after."
"Zoro tried to fight too," Usopp added helpfully. "I mean, he did it really badly, and he had almost no effect, which is really weird to say about Zoro. But when it was just me and him when that swarm came he kept acting like he wanted to defend me."
Nami considered. "I guess that's true," she said to Chopper. "Robin changed a lot after we rescued her...she still wants to find the True History, but I think we all became very important to her, too. And I guess she did try to turn herself in for us, too, even if it would have ended her chances to find the True History..."
"And Sword-bro?" Franky asked.
"Zoro-san also has things he considers as important as his dream," Brook answered, surprisingly quietly. He did not elaborate, but to Nami's surprise Sanji-kun nodded grimly in agreement.
"Like what?" Chopper asked, puzzled, and Nami felt her own curiosity perking in interest as well.
But Brook looked rather hesitant to say anything more, and Sanji-kun said curtly, "It's not really important right now. Point is they can probably both function in a pinch, but not well. And even if we've figured this stuff out, it won't make the marimo any less useless than before, and Robin-chan won't be in any real condition to help, either."
Usopp nodded in agreement, and said rather pessimistically, "Sanji's right...even if we know how he could fight now, or why Luffy and Zoro and Robin are affected so bad, it still doesn't tell us how to help them. And maybe it's a little reassuring to know if some of us get our Dreamshards stolen we won't go totally catatonic like Luffy...but I'd much rather keep my dream to myself and not have it stolen at all!"
"No," Nami said decisively, "We did still learn something here. If we recover the Dreamshards, then we can replace their dreams. Before we were just guessing, but now we know for sure," she added, gesturing at Sanji-kun.
"So the plan hasn't changed. Before, we figured their Dreamshards would be taken to the city on this island, and we were going to steal them back. And we're still going to. But now," she finished grimly, hefting her Clima-Tact, and the lengths of Thousand Sunny cord wrapped around each section, "we know how to fight back. And those Nightmares are definitely going to regret ever trying to mess with the dreams of the Straw Hat Pirates."
Gaaaah...so long, sorry guys!
Fun Fact: The thing I most have in common with Luffy is that we're both raging carnivores. Meat is freakin' fantastic, the redder, the better, and I am extremely partial to a good steak, which my entire family seems to know. Were I to meet Sanji, I wouldn't ask him for a dessert—I'd request Fillet Mignon. My mother seriously wonders if I'm part vampire 'cause I like all the delicious meat-juices too...mmmm...X3
~VelkynKarma