Title: Death with you or life without you

Theme: #17 - Monster

Claim: ZoroxNami

Words: 1395

Rating: K+

Warnings: A few cusses here and there, nothing serious...

Disclaimer: I do not own One Piece. Just in case you confused me with the genius that Oda is.

She took a deep breath. This was probably one of the most dangerous, risky, crazy, life-threatening, and stupid things she was going to do in her life, if not the one.

But what could she possibly do? Everyone had escaped , everyone had left, but none of them had noticed... the seemingly simple and empty cave they had stopped by had a spell. A dark spell, a spell that captured their swordsman. One glance backwards and Nami had seen him being dragged inside that obscure cave, yet everyone kept going as if nothing was going on. She tried to warn them, to warn him, but none of them listened. The straw hats were already too far away, and Zoro was getting even further away...

So she had followed him and whatever had dragged him, cursing herself all the way. When he was free again, he was going to get punched so badly and his debt was going to raise so high she couldn't even calculate the interest in her head. In fact, why was she looking for him? It was always the other way around, she was the one being saved.

Nami smirked. She couldn't wait to rub that fact on his face.

Whatever light had been illuminating her path until this moment went out, and total darkness took over. Nami froze on her tracks, she couldn't even see the palm of her hand in front of her, was she supposed to walk in the dark? She just wanted to go lock herself up in her room right now and hide below her bed.

But of course, that wasn't an option. Her only option was to keep walking. And that's exactly what she did.

However, Nami wasn't stupid. She placed her hand on the cavern's wall and walked that way; if the strategy applied to mazes and labyrinths, why woulnd't it work here?

Yet it stopped working when the cold wall in contact with her hand disappeared. She stopped and touched the spot with both her hands, but it was in vain; it had literally vanished into thin air.

"What's wrong with this place?" she muttered. "Zoro? Are you here? Zor..."

Illumination came from nowhere. she didn't know how, but it did, and now she could see the stuff around her. And she didn't like it.

There was a long, narrow path made of black rocks below which was... nothing. Just a dark, big, empty nothing which scared her terribly, because she now heard something from that nothing. A menacing yet calm growl came from below and made her shiver.

Was this the only way? Was she supposed to continue through this tiny little path to get to the middle of nowhe-

Her eyes widened when she looked up. Zoro was there, but it wasn't simply him. He was suspended in midair, still a bit away from her, and his arms were outstretched to his sides Jesus-style. She could only fear the worst, but even if he presented bruises and nasty injuries and for some reason lacked his swords, he was still alive, she could see him slowly breathing.

And that was all she needed.

"Zoro!" she started running towards him.

She tried to drag out her Clima Tact, but she was horrified to discover she didn't possess it, it wasn't in it's usual spot below her skirt. Where she had secured it before leaving the ship. This was only getting scarier and scarier.

"Zoro! Come on, wake up!" she yelled.

However, the effect wasn't what she desired.

Something roared violently, the sound came from below, and it scared her even more. But even when the roaring of that huge, unknown monster continued, even when that path started shaking violently as if something was making it tremble on purpose, even with all that scary scenery, Nami didn't stop. She closed her eyes, but she didn't stop. She ran faster, but she didn't stop. She only stopped when he finally reached him.

When she did, whatever was holding him up let go of him, and he mercilessly fell on the ground before her. She sat besides him, shaking him, trying to wake him up.

"Nami? What are you doing here?" he asked with a low, rough voice.

"Come on, we have no time for explanations." she muttered. "We need to get out of here. Fast. Can you get up?"

"No, I can't." Zoro tried to stand up, but was unable to do so, some invisible force was pinning him down and any effort against it was useless. "I'm done for, Nami. Save yourself. There's a path right here."

Nami looked up and saw that, indeed, there was another path to their left. This path wasn't shaking, and it was wide and white-colored; it looked secure. But if he thought she was going to walk away, he was more stupid than what she initially thought.

"What are you saying? Of course I'm not leaving you!" yelled Nami, offended. "Come on, don't be such a baby."

She tried to help him stand up, grabbing him by the arm, but it was useless too.

Finally, the ground gave in and it broke in half. Nami hugged Zoro's body and screamed as they both fell together into that huge darkness where that horrible monster probably awaited for them.

"Are you stupid, witch? You could've saved yourself! Why did you fall too?" yelled Zoro to make himself be heard over Nami's screams.

"I can't do that! I don't want to live knowing that you're dead! If you're dead... then I'm dead too!"

Her reply was met with a smile. He was smiling. He was smiling on a time like this? Wait... was he laughing?

"What the hell is so funny?"

"Nothing." he said. Then smiled at her sweetly, like he had never smiled at her. "Thank you, Nami."

oo00oo00oo00oo00oo

"Nami!"

The reindeer's screams were enough to wake her up completely, even through she had just opened up her eyes. Wait a minute, how the hell did she get to them again? And why were they all gathered around them? Had she passed out? Last thing she remembered, she was falling down to darkness, yes, and Zoro was smil-

"No!" she jumped up, but the reindeer quickly transformed to make her stay where she lay. on the cold, dirty cave floor.

"Nami, you just woke up, please!" begged the doctor, trying to make his job easier.

"But, but..."

"So loud. Don't you ever sleep properly, witch?"

That voice was the only thing that was able to calm her down. She turned around and found the swordsman sitting against the cave's wall, a sword on his hands and one eye open to stare right back at her. Usopp sat next to him, examining Nami, while Robin walked around, examining the walls.

"Fascinating. This old ruins seem to explain what has happened to navigator-san." mentioned Robin.

"Please, would someone explain it to me?" asked Nami, free of Chopper's grasp but still dying to know the truth.

"It says here that this cave is, as long nose-kun predicted before entering, cursed."

"Heh. Tenth times a charm, you know."

"As I was saying" she proceeded, completely ignoring the interruption "the cave strikes on a single trespasser at a time, making him or her delusional, causing him, or her, to lose consciousness, fall victim of hallucinations and illusions."

"So, I entered an illusion?"

"Not exactly. The curse has a certain... method, as if judging people we could say." explained Robin. "You see, this illusion isn't temporary. We could've lost you forever, navigator-san."

"WHAT?"

"Yes, it is all explained right here. The illusion consists of the abduction of a person the victim deeply cares about. The victim is given two choices, either life without said person, or death together. If you make the right choice, you're free to lea-"

"Ok, we get it! We can leave other pirates to be cursed, thank you very much, see you..." yelled Usopp.

He started pushing Robin towards the exit, even through she still desired to examine the place a little more. As Nami stood up with a little help from Chopper, Zoro did so too, but adding a little remark before leaving after the other two.

"Thank you, Nami."

"Eh? For what?" she asked, genuinely confused.

He just replied with a smirk, "Hasn't anybody told you that you talk while sleeping?"