Huge Revolution

XXV: Enervating Mist

Back upon the Thousand Sunny, Yusei had found himself under enforced rest by doctor's orders, and chafing a bit. "Chopper-san, I have to fix the Thousand Sunny-"

"No!" Chopper admonished. "You almost died of blood loss, Yusei! Sunny and your mechanical girlfriend can wait!"

"There's no rush, Yusei!" Franky agreed mid-pose.

"Then, at least let me talk to Master Caesar-"

"No!" Ace and Luffy intervened.

"Letting you mad scientists talk will kill our brains before we even deal with Doflamingo!" Ace declared, to full nodding. "Do you remember Water Seven? Those Galley-La guys, especially Paulie, looked like they were going to tie you permanently there! I almost really died of boredom!"

"You got on Paulie's good side? Nice, bro!" Franky gave a thumbs up.

Across the deck of the Sunny, Caesar was sniffing, staring into the distance as a mourner of the current anti-intellectual wave keeping him away from a truly excellent sounding board. "My sounding board..."

"Didn't Yusei provide most of the ideas?" Sanji asked.

"S- Shut up!" Caesar yelled back, earning a kick to the face.

Yusei was still pleading. "T- Then, a pen-!"

"No," Zoro admonished. "How long did you go without sleep? You're on mandatory bed rest. Luffy, back me up here."

"Huh?" Luffy asked, currently sprawled out under the weight of Portgas D. Ace.

"...whatever," Zoro fell back into default first-mate mode. "Chopper, take him to the infirmary."

"Should I go along?" Law stood up, pocketing the slim pamphlet he had been reading.

"You're a guest, you should stay," Robin smiled. "You read Daniel Boater, Captain Trafalgar? I wasn't aware that you kept up with men of letters. The Economics of Piracy is a fascinating outlook."

"You've read him as well, Nico Robin-ya?" Law asked, neither of them noting Yusei's sudden pause in the background that allowed Chopper to drag him towards the infirmary.

"He makes very ironic observations on the state of the world," Robin answered. "I heard that the World Government's tightening restrictions of the printing press is partially because of him."

"I find him to be a romantic idealist, but a good arguer," Law commented, sighing. "In this age of piracy, he'll forever remain a nom de plume. Still, to pen his dream and publish it, even with royal backing, he's got guts."

"I see that Alabasta is doing well enough to release this man's works," Robin non-committally added. "After all, this man takes a very scientific approach to the subject, presents a rather anti-monarchical argument backed by Nefetari Vivi herself, and presents questions as if untouched by the cynicism of the world itself."

All three comments would have drawn blood were they any more pointed. Robin knew that the Crown Princess of Alabasta was an honorary Straw Hat, after all.

"You guys were in Alabasta?" Luffy spoke loudly in the middle of one of Ace's stories. "Did you guys see Vivi?"

"Yes," Ace grinned. "She really helped us a lot in Alabasta."

"Vivi-chan? How nostalgic!" Sanji called, glancing back into the galley. "Does anyone want a midnight snack?"

"What is it, Sanji-san?" Yusei asked, narrowly avoiding being burnt by a raging Kin'emon racing after Zoro.

"Oh," Sanji drawled. "It's pizza."

"Pida?" Kin'emon mispronounced, sheathing his sword. "Is that man making strange cuisine again?"

"Now that you mention it..." Yusei was still struggling for the deck, but Chopper transformed into Heavy Point.

"I told you not to aggravate that wound for a while!" Chopper nearly freaked. "Yusei! Are you turning into another Zoro?"

"That guy won't die so easily," Ace drawled in commentary as Yusei was literally carried through the galley.

"Aki, tell them I'm alright!" Yusei shouted, trying to escape.

"Yusei..." Aki's smile turned brittle. "If you wake up before tomorrow morning, I'll tie you to the bed~"

The Strawhat men and even Kin'emon immediately retreated. "Scary..."

"B- But supper-!"

"Later!" Chopper hauled the handyman towards the infirmary. "I'm going to sedate you!"

"W- Wait, Chopper-san...! Let go, please!"

"Good night, Yusei~" Aki waved, still with the serenely psychotic smile.

"I'm so jealous..." Sanji was biting his handkerchief to bits as Yusei was carted back to be put to bed, despite very vocal protests that he wasn't a child.

"Then break your head," Zoro pointed out bluntly from his slumped position on deck.

Cue the mood whiplash. "What was that, shitty marimo?"

"Why..." Away from the increasing noise of organised chaos that greeted Nami walking out from her bath with Momonosuke, Law just sighed in the midst of discussing the rising academic Boater with Robin.

"You are considering Yusei, correct?" Robin questioned. "Why he is on this ship, of all places... that miracle that he performed, as one of the only few of us to meet Luffy at Marineford..."

"That doesn't matter, Robin-ya," Law muttered.

"Your expression reveals nothing, but your very being is eloquent, Captain Trafalgar," Robin inclined her head, rising from her chair. "That thought has occurred to you. More than once. It frightens you, as it did me."

Law's lips parted slightly as Robin walked away towards the galley. "Me...? Frightened... what power does hell hold, if we cannot dream of heaven?"

"What?! The secret flower garden that is the women's room?!" The effect was sort of ruined by Sanji, Brook and Kin'emon yelling at Momonosuke. "You're the worst, you brat!"

"Say, Yusei," Chopper considered in the middle of settling the handyman, secretly tucking away his empty syringe. "When did the insomnia start?"

"I've always been insomniac," Yusei shrugged, wrapped in the bedsheets. "It's fine."

"But, you sleep fine with the rest of us, and when we were on Fishman Island you slept fine on the Sunny," Chopper pointed out.

"Yeah, it's strange," Yusei acknowledged. "It's like the Thousand Sunny is protecting us in our sleep."

"Yeah," Chopper agreed. "This is the ship that inherited Merry's will, after all. If the Sunny has a guardian... it must be Merry's will."

"Going Merry..." Yusei murmured, eyelids growing heavier. "The Going Merry II is named after the original?"

"Yes."

"I... this is unfair, Chopper-san."

"You don't say," Chopper laughed uneasily. "It'll be worse for you if you didn't sleep. How did you manage to sleep when you were a kid, I can't even imagine it."

"I..." Yusei blinked. "I used to dream that I had giant robot protectors led by Optimus Prime."

"Really?!" Chopper sparkled.

"Zzz..."

"What's with the 'to be continued'..." the doctor snapped, before slowly closing the door behind him. "Giant robot protectors... Yusei sure has quite the imagination..."

Up on the deck, Usopp, nearly jumped as a splash resounded in the ocean night. A Sea Owl hooted in the distance, and he relaxed, though the spear that Kin'emon had conjured for Chopper and him stayed in his hand.

Waves lapped at the hull of the Thousand Sunny, so deceptively calm that almost neither of them noticed when she alighted by the ship's figurehead. Nearing the ship, a shimmer seemed to veil it, almost too delicate a barrier against most malefactors of the spiritual persuasion.

"How strange," Maille whispered, almost to herself as she drifted down to the sea level, avoiding the veil as unseen by ordinary eyes as herself. "No ordinary ship would come with its own guardian kobold. That's one location without him, at least... could he have escaped? And I was supposed to retrieve that blank card he stole..."

Beep-beep, beep-beep- she pulled out a card, conjuring the mirror of the Nekroz to hold up to eye level. "It's me."

"..."

"He ran," the masked girl replied as the waves under her feet calmed, and the Sunny was stuck even more than its anchor already guaranteed, idle as painted ship upon painted ocean. Only passing breezes and the relative distance kept her from being overheard. "Why would I know?"

The calm was disrupted as a hand erupted, closing around her ankle. Without even a glance, Maille stomped down, her stiletto heel drawing a thin line of blood as the grabbed leg rose, to find the Yang Zing Duelist dangling from her risen limb.

"I take that back," she spoke to the mirror. "He's here. I'm hanging up now."

"Was that your employer?" Draco quietly murmured as he let go, hovering with his own wings.

"Yes," Maille imparted, legs dangling back down as her stole shuddered in the wind. "Before that, why did you steal that card?"

"Bakura," Draco replied. "I've just sent it along. If you go now, you could intercept it before it reaches the Thief King."

Maille frowned, turning to fly in a different direction, but something made her pause and turn back. Silver needles glittered from where they had been thrust through her chignon, and sapphires glittered from her gown as the petticoats fluttered in the wind. "You..."

In the wake of a giant, the seas receded, a giant wave gaping like the lips of an ocean god. "T- That's impossible!" a certain sharpshooter cried out. "Nami! Tsunami!"

Chaos erupted onboard the pirate ship, but Maille gave them as much mind as one would a fly as she glared at an escaping Draco. "What?!"

"That card, or this ship of innocents," Draco stated. "Your employers are such human-loving creatures, and I know that you have a soft spot for them as well."

"You-"

"Curse all you like, Maille," Draco commented. "If that card is gone, then a large chunk of the Clustering Stars lose their power, as do their Duelist. Messiah Draconis will fall into chaos!"

"If you wish, you can screw around all you like and conquer Messiah Draconis," Maille's frame trembled with rage as she drew a card.

"Are those lives with finite lifespans really worth caring about?" Draco questioned, head tilted, moonlight gleaming on his mask in pale gold. "It's just one ship out of many."

"You and yours will never stop at one," the card was brandished as the silhouette of a dragon seemed to envelop her body as she started to fly. "I'll take you all on! Tricoteuse Defarge!"

Mist billowed, enveloping them, the Thousand Sunny, and the cries of panic were stifled out. Slowly, a breeze cleaved the mist apart, revealing only a shimmering wave immortalised in ice, and a curve, almost like the hull of a ship...

Yusei once used the false name Daniel in the animé, and a boater is a type of straw hat. He's still quite an academic at heart :).

I couldn't resist the Transformers jibe. Especially since it's been lampshaded that the newly-created Jet Warrior looks like Jetfire from Transformers. Also since Accel Synchron looks like a Transformed Yusei Go.

To be continued... Please review!