So sorry for the long pause again!
First of all, thanks to everyone who reviewed! You are great =DD
DarkAndStormyNight: Yep...Blackbeard is just cruel! Well,you got that right! :D
mugiwara-christal: Yes yes...but there´s a good reason why they take too long^^ (I hope I understood right, if not, then sorry =) )
SniperKingSogeking0341: Well, I guess none expected that^^ This story is full of surprises! (I hope lol) :)
secrethearts: Thank you very much! Really? Sounds good^^ Tell me when you´ve updated your story, okay? :)
Disclaimer: I don´t own One Piece, it belongs to Oda-sensei!
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Chapter 25 - The secret is...
The seven friends were walking right behind the Indian warriors, talking about this and that and desperately tried to think of something nice. That was when suddenly Robin spoke up, gaining the other´s attention.
"Ne, Minna, I know it´s late, probably too late, but...I wanted to apologize for my earlier actions." Robin said as she walked besides her nakama. Zoro just rose a brow at the female Indian but kept his mouth shut. Sanji, of course, forgave the beauty immediately and expressed that in form of his famous ´noodle dance´. This however caused Nami and Usopp to roll their eyes.
"No need for apologizing. We know you were forced by them." Nami spoke up, managing a soft and true smile which brought Robin to smile, too. Franky and the long-nosed Indian smiled in agreement.
"That´s right.. I got somehow caught by them before and they told me if I wanted to safe my tribe then I would have to help them catching Luffy...You already knew?" she asked, although she already had guessed that.
"You don´t need to be Edison to realize they blackmailed you." the orange haired girl said again, making Franky, Usopp and Sanji rise their eyebrows.
"Who?"
"Maaan...you don´t know him?" Nami moaned, slightly annoyed.
Robin just giggled and Nami sighed in defeat. It seemed when Luffy was not there then others would take his playing dump part.
The swordsman rolled his eyes, annoyed by the others, especially by his brother.
"You stupid or somethin´? Haven´t you heard of Thomas Edison before? He´s famous you moron! He´s the guy who invented that bulb stuff!" Zoro grumbled annoyed, only adressing his blondie-brother.
Sanji bit his last cigarette in anger, his visible eye twitching. "What was that, Crap-swordsman?"
"Don´t make me repeat, you curly-deaf-blondie!" Zoro said arrogantly and the next moment the two brothers were busy with fighting and insulting each other.
"GUYS!" Nami yelled but it was no good.
The black-haired woman giggled. She found it somehow interesting how the two brothers always invented new insults.
"What´s so funny about that?" the orange-haired girl shouted, blood boiling.
"How creative they are!" the female Indian commented and irritated Nami with that. "Eh?" was the confused answer.
"Ha ha ha! OF COURSE do I know Edison! Who doesn´t know that guy? I was just kidding!" Usopp said, being in his ´I am a great warrior and I know everything!´ state and he was just being ignored.
Franky, luckily, stopped the brothers actions who were really pissed to say the least. "Safe your energie for the fight! It´s not the time anyway!" the blue-haired-man told them who babbled a not audioable answer.
"Yohohoho~! What an interesting relationship you have!" Brook said almost happy, but more surprised. Usopp smiled at his friend.
"You´ll get used to them." he said with a smirk.
Before anyone could answer, Robin shut them up with following words.
"Look! We´re there!"
Finally, after walking the long way to there, the Indians and Luffy´s nakama arrived at the strange castle. As soon as it came in sight it sent small shivers down everyone´s spine. Just the view of it was somewhat creepy.
A dark and old looking building in the middle of nowhere, in this arctic desert like area, half-snowbounded. Who would want to build a castle at a remote and cold place? And the main question: Why ? What on earth was the reason to do so? None of them could answer that.
But on the other hand they all knew how insane Blackbeard and Crocodile were - so why spending time wondering about their crazy actions?
"Alright, we´re there. Be prepared for a bloody and long fight with really cruel enemies! Our main enemies are Crocodile and Blackbeard, don´t forget that! These two monsters have many many innocent men who are forced by them to fight, so try to only attack the two heads!
I don´t know how many they are, but I know that no matter if there´s hundred or thousands of them, we´ll win!" Garp started, encouraging his warriors a lot.
Usopp roughly and quickly translated into English as the chief spoke in a special Indian language. Robin smiled at her chief. The old guy´s spirit was back finally!
"Alright, guys! Now ya can fight!" Franky commented to Sanji and Zoro who simply nodded in return.
The nakama inhaled the cool air one more time, preparing to fight, before Garp lifted his arm, a weapon in his hand, shouting:
"Let´s go!" many loud cheers echoed through the cold air and everyone followed as the old chief began to run towards the wooden door of the castle.
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"Zehahahaha! Isn´t it great? Isn´t it absolutely fantastic?" Blackbeard yelled amused, his eyes wide.
Luffy found himself speechless. He couldn´t help but thinking many things at the same time. His thoughts raced through his tired mind and he found himself not being able to stop them from doing so. Luffy was confused to say the least.
His hands were handcuffed and there was no way he could flee. But truth be told: At the moment he just didn´t feel like fleeing. Maybe this sounded strange or ridiculous but then, who could blame him in a situation like this?
A few questions shot through his head: What about his nakama? His mother´s tribe? What about Chopper? He really wanted to know where they were and what they were doing. Were they worrying for him? Searching for him? Were they alright? He bit his lip. There was another important question as he gulped down, inhaling as much as possible of the chilling air around him.
So... this was the secret? His beloved father´s secret he´d been hiding for so many years?
Blackbeard laughed once again, his breath could be seen due to the cold air.
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"This must be the door with Luffy right?" Franky asked as he stopped in front of a wooden door that was locked. The others rolled their eyes but before anyone could respond, the green-haired man had already sliced it in two.
"Don´t waste your time with stupid questions!" Zoro said and went in, ready to fight the bastards that had kidnapped Luffy.
"Nice job, Zoro!" Nami commented and the nakama ran in quickly. Now they would beat the shit out of Crocodile and his partner! Now they could finally free Luffy!
"Luffy!" Usopp yelled happily into the room. At the moment he really didn´t give a damn if there were two dangerous and strong men with him. All that counted for him right now was that they could help him and see him again! Everything would be all right from now on!
Unfortunately, he got no answer. They found the room dark and, much to their dislike, very quiet. In fact, too quiet.
"Damn it all!" Sanji cursed loudly, not caring if there was a lady present at the moment. But Nami didn´t care, she and the others had other problems. And if Nami was honest, then she felt like cursing and swearing now, too.
"This is..." Usopp began, not finishing his sentence as he and the other nakama entered the dark room. They had gotten some candles thanks to Nami and could see enough to say that the room was completely empty. If you exclude a bloody corpse of Crocodile, a broken chair and a small candle on the floor.
"What on earth happened here?" Franky wanted to know, lifting his dark sunglasses to see better in the darkness. But what he saw wasn´t nice so he turned his glance away from Crocodile.
"This fucking asshole!" the blond cook sweared again, not liking this at all: The room were they had to leave Luffy with the two bastards was empty! There was no Blackbeard, no Luffy... only blood splattered on the floor. As the young man bent down to get a better look at the destroyed chair he immediately knew what must have happened here and gritted his teeth in hate as he stared at the not too dry blood.
"They must´ve left not too long ago by the looks of the blood." Zoro said, glaring down at the corpse of the man with the golden hook. But Zoro didn´t feel sorry for the man, not at all. He knew this guy had been a real bastard so this was what he deserved. Snorting, he closed his eyes.
"What..are we going to do now?" Usopp said, fighting with tears. "He´s taken Luffy with him, right? He´s...still alive, right?" he asked, sobbing slightly. The young Indian didn´t like this place at all!
They had managed to fight their way through the followers of Crocodile and Blackbeard towards this room in the cellar where Luffy had been supposed to be.
Unfortunately they were hit by the horrofied truth: Not only they found a corpse, Crocodile, brutally murdered but also Blackbeard and Luffy gone without a trace!
Garp didn´t even know that his grandson was missing. He and his brave men were still busy with fighting against the so called The Black´s Baroque - their worst enemy´s men.
"Shut your mouth! Don´t even think about it!" Nami shrieked and glared at the long-nosed Indian for saying something like this. "Luffy´s alive, got it? We´ll find him!"
"H-hai!" Usopp said, nodding. He so hoped that the orange haired girl was right. He wiped away his tears and clenched his fist. He would make sure Luffy was alright! He would help as best as he could!
"My god..." came quietly from Robin and the other nakama´s attention was on her in no time. The Indian was kneeling on the dirty ground, carefully lifting an all too familiar object. Nami and Usopp gasped, Zoro remained silent but slightly shocked and Sanji and Franky both bit their lips in anger.
"Don´t tell me that´s..." Nami began, a hand covering her mouth as she neared Robin and the ripped-in-two object. Robin only nodded with an emotionless expression.
"Yes. It´s Luffy´s strawhat."
"These...!" Franky grumbled. The tall man knew very well how much the old hat meant to Luffy as well as the others. And seeing it in that shape.. made them furious. Not only that, Blackbeard had taken their friend to god-know-where! How were they supposed to find the teen like that? And if they found him eventually, would he be alive?
Franky shaked his head to get rid off these thoughts. "Bro´s and Si´s, we should tell the old man and go for a search as fast as possible! Staying in this depressing room won´t bring Strawhat-bro back ya know! So let´s go!" he said and the others agreed without protest.
Franky was absolutely right. They shouldn´t give up yet! The little group of friends stormed out of the castle only to find a big war going on outside. Zoro abprubtly stopped as he saw the terrifying scene before them.
There were a lot more men than they´d expected to be! And it seemed more as a massacre than a battle! Blood splattered here and there, colouring the white snow in deep crimson. Battle cries and shouts of pain echoed through the air. It was an awful sight and the nakama gasped in shock.
All above, the brave and strong Indians seemed to be less than the huge amounts of enemie´s! It didn´t look very good for the Indians, no at all!
"Oh my god!" was all Usopp could manage to say as he gasped, eyes widened in horror. "D-do they even know one of their bosses is dead? And the other´s gone?"
Silence was all he got as a reply, but then Usopp hadn´t really expected someone to answer. He could guess himself. It was more than obvious they didn´t knew, otherwise there wouldn´t be a reason to fight.
"W-what should we do? This is terrible!" Nami said, grabbing her head as she quickly turned away.
"Let´s go!" Zoro suddenly said and turned to run towards the other direction - into the forest. His nakama, especially his brother, looked after him as if he was completely insane and started to follow him.
"Zoro! Where are you running to?" Nami shrieked nervous, clenching her nails into Luffy´s worn out strawhat she was holding tightly onto her breast.
"Wait a minute! What the hell are you doing? What about helping them? Are you really that blind or what? They are going to lose!" Sanji shouted madly as he and the others finally caught up with him, grabbing his brother´s arm to stop the marimo.
Zoro turned around instantly, grabbing the curly-eyebrowed´s collar. "And what the hell are YOU doing? What about helping Luffy?" he yelled and Sanji flinched slightly at the swordsman´s sudden rude and harsh tone. Robin, standing behind Zoro, nodded.
"Kenshi-san´s right. It is a very difficult situation indeed, but we have to save Luffy first. Then we can help Garp-san and the others. Besides, our tribe isn´t weak, they are really strong and proud fighters." she spoke in a calm but firm voice.
Sanji gave in. "... All right. But we have to hurry" Somehow Robin-chwan and Zoro were right, Luffy was the main reason they were fighting, but still... leaving the brave Indians wasn´t an easy thing to do. And to make it worse: they didn´t even have a clue in which direction Blackbeard and Luffy went...
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"So you little trash, this is Shanks secret! Are you surprised?" Blackbeard smirked at the shocked strawhat teen. It was dark but the ugly man had a big torch lit so that Luffy could perfectly make out the other´s face. But he wished it wasn´t so bright so that he wouldn´t have to see that...face.
"Th-this is it...? This is the reason you´ve killed my parents and my brother...? The reason why you´ve observed me for so long?" Luffy asked in almost a whisper. Blackbeard nodded, showing some of his missing teeth.
"It is. Isn´t it great?" the tall man said, lifting his arms as he looked around himself.
Luffy bit his lip as he felt tears forming in his eyes. He kneeled down on the ground. He´d already known it as it came in sight not too long ago, as Blackbeard had taken him with him to see his father´s secret as a last moment in his life. Of course Luffy had struggled for dear life but it had been useless. And now he was there again, in this cold and dark place, not wanting it to be true.
In fact, his father´s great secret, Akagami Shank´s secret, was the very cave Usopp and himself had discovered not too long ago! The same cave where they´d had an argument, the same cave where they had found the huge amount gold everywhere! And that was the reason Blackbeard and Crocodile had wanted the mine so much! Because of something almost every single human longes for: Money.
Blackbeard´s laugh echoed through his head, he could feel his heart beating loudly. It was too much! This stupid stupid cave! It was the beginning of this whole shit! He couldn´t help but remembering the argument with Usopp. Luffy hit the ground with his fist, furious and unbelievable sad at the same time. Disappointed.
But of course not in his father, Shanks, nor in his friends. The strawhat teen was completely disappointed in himself. He remembered the little fight with Usopp very well, and he had the same aim as his worst enemy! Luffy hated himself in that moment more than anyone else in the world.
How could he? How could he have thought the same way as this man and his damned partner?
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I hope Luffy´s alright...
"Garp-san, behind you!" one of the Indians, a young man with a beautiful face, shouted towards his chief. Mentioned old man, snapping out of his thoughts, managed to duck and beat the man that had tried to attack him from behind.
"Thanks!" he said, grinning slightly. Then Garp added:" What a coward." and grumbled at the dead man.
Then the old chief sighed, wiping blood from his forehead. The battle was slowly reaching it´s climax and to say that it wasn´t an easy job to fight against these men was a complete understatement! It was harder than expected, but giving up was out of question for both sides! Especially for the Indians who had been suffering under these two men and their poor followers for quite a long time. They had decided to break the chains they´d been handcuffed with and finally fight to be free! And not only for themselves, but for the sake of their chief´s long lost grandson, Monkey D. Luffy!
He´s been Nayeli, who had been respected and loved by everyone in the tribe, only son, so it´s only natural for them to fight for Luffy. On top of that it would make their emotionless and mentally broken down chief happy and maybe he would find his courage to live on again.
"I wonder if they´ll come..." Garp said absently, looking towards the sky as if there he would get an answer. Then he closed his eyes, deeply inhaling one more time
before he opened them again at once and began to fight alongside his brave men again.
They will come. I´m sure they will, even if we have been enemies for so long. They will fight with us and then everything´s going to be okay again.
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"He is nowhere to be seen! Let´s search somewhere else!" Nami decided, stopping abprubtly. Her nakama turned to her, agreeing. The little group had been searching in a huge forest but there was no trace of Blackbeard or Luffy.
"At least there must be a footprint or something. Anything!" Sanji commented as the blonde scratched his head in thought. It was impossible to vanish like this! They must have overlooked something!
"Where would you go if you where Blackbeard?" Usopp asked Franky out of the blue who just shaked his head.
"Err..no idea" the man answered.
"Hmm..what is his plan? What does this man intent to do? And why has Luffy to go with him? There must be a reasonable explanation" the long nose began to think further but his thoughts were interrubted by a certain orange-haired girl.
"Usopp! That´s not the time for such bad jokes!" she yelled, not happy with his acting at all.
"Ow! Nami! I was being serious!" came a whine as an answer. The Indian rubbed his head.
"Maybe nagahana-kun is not so wrong," said Robin, " if we figure out what happened back than and why exactly Blackbeard took Luffy with him then perhaps we can find out where they went to."
"Huh?" Nami frowned. "You serious?"
Robin simply ignored the girl´s question. "I guess he found out about Shanks´ secret.. hadn´t he and Crocodile been after it? No one seemed to know what it was except for the two men." she explained. "Anyways, if they figured it out, then it´s clear what happened next."
"Blackbeard killed Crocodile." Zoro said, arms crossed over his chest. Slowly, he and the others got what Robin was trying to do. Maybe it would help?
"Yes!" Usopp said, " and next he decided to leave the castle to... show Luffy his father´s secret because after all, Luffy hadn´t known about it...Does that make sense?" he asked the others, not sure himself.
"It does.. that´s very likely to have happened." Robin encouraged him, smiling slightly. They were nearing the most important part!
"But we have to know what the secret is and how they found out! Luffy didn´t know about it, remember? So how did they suddenly knew?" Franky meant, not liking to think so much at once.
"Where would you hide your biggest secret?" Franky asked more himself than the others.
"You´re right. The important part is missing.." Nami sighed, watching her breath in the freezing air. It was really chilling in the forest and she began to feel her cold and hurting feet. Before, the female teenager hadn´t noticed in the whole stress but now that they were standing.. she rubbed her arms.
"Well,..." Sanji started, an idea beginning to form in his mind. He stared at the half-destroyed strawhat in Nami´s hands and soon everyone else followed his glance."
"Right! What about the strawhat? It looks like something-" Usopp began as he got the same idea as the blond cook, but was interrupted by the same.
"- like something had been inside of it." the young man with the curly eyebrow finished, nodding slightly. Yes, it would make sense.
"Yosh! Why not? That´s a good idea!" Franky grinned.
"Uhm.. maybe... err... gold? Or diamonds..?" Usopp suggested but at the same time he knew it was wrong.
"Nuh-uh, Usopp-bro.."
"... what kind of secret could have had the right size to fit inside of the strawhat? Plus, it must have been something soft or at least nothing that would break easily. Something not too heavy either." Zoro reminded his nakama as he eyed the strawhat where everyone else´s glance rested on.
That was the point where the nakama had to stop. What could fit in a hat? Something light? Something you can´t feel? What kind of secret was that small and unimpressive but very precious at the same time?
After a few minutes of thinking, the Indian beauty named Robin had the essential idea.
"It didn´t have to be the secret itself, maybe a hint, where it is" the female Indian said as she was looking thoughtfully at the hat. None of her nakama had the chance to answer as Robin herself was quicker.
"It must have been a simple and small map." she said. A small smile appeared on her lips. That was it. That was the important thing.
Her nakama also smiled at that. "Robin, you´re a genious do you know that?" Nami complimented and Franky showed the thump-up at the Indian who giggled.
"So.. a special kind of treasure map?" the eighteen-years-old girl said and the others nodded in agreement. That´s the point! Now... a treasure map of what?
The happy atmosphere however didn´t last long as the long nosed Indian interrupted. He gulped down. "Guys... I think I know what Shanks secret is.."
All eyes turned to the curly-haired guy, holding their breathes in excitement. "Spit it out, Usopp!" Nami said, wanting to hear what it was.
"Well... I´ve told you about the strange cave Luffy and me had found.." the others nodded, " ehmm, yeah, ... I think, Crocodile and Blackbeard wanted the gold mine that had belonged to no one else than Shanks!"
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Soo, the great secret is finally told! You surprised? Well, I hope so :3 Maybe it wasn´t that great, but I thought it was... not so bad after all^^
Hope you liked the idea and if not, then maybe the rest of the chapter?
Reviews are, of course, always greatly appreciated! =D
So please leave a comment ;D!