First off….I'm SO sorry.
I've been working 10 hours a day five days a week. It's been pretty intense and I'm more often than not too exhausted to even be able to make dinner much less type out a chapter.
I hope you enjoy this lovely bit of angsty goodness as my personal apology to you for the wait.
The battle raged all around them, lightning flashed brightening the darkness for just a few seconds revealing bodies struggling on the deck of a ship, Zoro fought dipping and weaving in between his enemies as countless more marines poured onto the Sunny from both sides of the bobbing vessel.
It didn't help that it was raining cats and dogs.
The swordsman squinted underneath the black bandana currently tied around his head as the raindrops dripped from the material only to slide down his cheeks and pour off his chin. One green eye watched his foes as another flash glinted off his blades making the water streaking the swords glisten like stars. Zoro inhaled a deep breath before exhaling it slowly, his breath misting in the dark as another bolt of lightning streamed overhead before he lunged forward slicing the people who opposed him making screams echo off the timbers.
Luffy fought a group of marines not too far behind his first mate, cobalt eyes flashing with as much intensity as the electricity dancing across the midnight sky.
The young captain grunted as he swung a haki coated fist into the gut of his current dance partner, the mischievous mouth giving a satisfied smirk as he felt the ribs crumble underneath his knuckles. Luffy couldn't lie and say that he didn't enjoy fighting, there was just something about testing his strength against the worthy that made his blood burn with excitement, and the young man just couldn't turn down the chance to go all out against a few marines especially since they were so anxious to pick a fight in the first place.
Whirling around to leg whip a group of marines surging towards him, the black haired boy grinned maliciously as he aimed a jet pistol at one of the sailors running across the deck. Unfortunately that was a mistake that Luffy would soon quickly regret.
At the exact same moment that Luffy shot his arm, Zoro cut the marine down effectively taking his place in the crosshairs of Luffy's scope, and the young captain couldn't pull his fist before the feeling he had come to relish was now officially associated with one of his closest friends.
Zoro's eye widened as he watched the armored fist hurtle towards him in seeming slow motion, his mind reeling when the swordsman suddenly realized that his muscles were refusing to move. He couldn't explain it, but somehow even though his brain was screaming for him to get out of the way of what was most assuredly a devastating hit, he just couldn't. Zoro's body refused to acknowledge Luffy as a threat. The instinct within him that very firmly believed that Luffy would never hurt one of his nakama and would somehow manage to avoid hitting him took control and thus he couldn't build up a guard in time to brace for the impact, though that was an understatement when it actually hit.
An explosion of pain overwhelming his system and driving his entire body into numb shock quickly swept over the swordsman as he flew across the deck and his back slammed into the mast with a sickening crack. Spittle and blood flew from Zoro's open mouth as a ragged cry of sheer agony ripped its way up his throat.
"ZORO?!"
The entire crew, and even the marines they had been fighting, stopped at the wretched scream burdened with overwhelming guilt and fear as it cut through the air with the resonance of an atomic bomb. The captain, now heedless of their enemy, pelted across the deck his eyes wide with dread and chest heaving as terror clenched his heart in its icy fist and gave it a harsh squeeze. Falling to his knees, Luffy stretched out one shaking hand towards his first mate, gently angling the larger man's face towards him.
"Z-Zoro?"
One green eye fluttered open and a weak smirk decorated the masculine mouth "Hey Lu-Luff-…AUGH!"
The emerald orb once focused on his captain suddenly rolled back as the muscle bound frame gave a violent jerk before turning into harsh convulsions that arched his back and slammed his head into the wood of the deck. Luffy grit his teeth, sorrow and a massive wave of self-loathing over took the young man as he turned and bellowed over his shoulder.
"Chopper! Zoro's hurt! Franky, get the marines off our ship and get us out of here!"
The reindeer and cyborg nodded in unison as the crew flew into action. The blue haired man proceeded to prepare a Coup du Burst and as the Sunny flew through the air the Straw Hat Crew kicked their unwanted guests off the sides of the vessel while Chopper and Luffy held onto Zoro, both of them noting how the tremors slowly dissipated to feeble trembling.
At last the pirate ship crashed back into calmer waters where there were no enemies to be found for the moment, and a concerned crew circled around their fallen swordsman only to give silent gasps of shock at what they found.
The moss headed man lay on his back, blood trickling from the corners of his mouth while hooded eyes slowly began to flutter closed, but the thing that made them fall into startled shock were the state of his ribs…or to be more accurate, the space where his ribs used to be.
The right side of his chest was mercifully intact, but the left side was gruesome to say the least. The skin on his side sucked in to a macabre hollow where ribs would normally hold up the chest wall, and the family could only watch in disgusted horror as it pumped in and out desperately laying claim to any and all oxygen it could feed into now starving lungs. A wet gurgle could be heard in the back of his throat as blood from what was most assuredly a now collapsed lung crept up his gullet to overflow onto dry lips hanging agape as they labored for air.
"Oh…"Luffy looked at the wreckage he had wrought and immediately ran to the side of the ship heave the contents of his dinner into the ocean, which understandably took a while considering how much he normally ate.
Chopper winced at the sound of his captain retching, but his entire focus was on Zoro and somehow keeping him alive. The reindeer pursed his lips as his mind reeled with questions that demanded answers, one particularly loud one screaming how to help Zoro breathe.
The crew waited on pins and needles as Chopper examined the injury with gentle prods and pokes, grimacing each time one of them caused Zoro to give a wheezing groan of pain. Finally the small doctor spoke, his tone serious and professional "I need to stabilize his chest wall,"
"Ok," Nami nodded swallowing the urge to join her captain at the rail and puke at the sight "how do we do that?"
Chopper heaved a sigh "Unfortunately the only way I can do that is with a positive end expiratory pressure machine, and last I checked we don't have one of those."
Franky bit back the moan that built up in his throat as anger at himself burned hot in his chest, why hadn't he stocked the ship with one of those?! He didn't even know what the thing was in order to build it for the ship physician and now the shipwright could only rant at his own stupidity and shortsightedness while one of his crew lay close to death. Meanwhile Chopper was shaking his head with slight frustration.
"I can't see," he huffed "and we don't have the time or the luxury to get him into the infirmary. With the left side of his rib cage destroyed his sternum is putting dangerous amounts of pressure on his heart and moving him could mean puncturing it with one of the broken rib pieces.
"Then what do we do?!" Usopp finally burst before clapping his hands over his mouth sheepishly and casting an apologetic look at the reindeer for his meltdown.
Chopper closed his eyes, centering himself as he inhaled and exhaled gently before pinning his crew with the serious look they all knew came when he about to do something brilliant "Usopp get me some fish hooks and line, Franky I need a pulley system rigged over Zoro along with weights and Robin I need you to move Zoro as gently as possible just a few feet to the right where its dry. Brook, I need you to get alcohol to sterilize the hooks."
With a nod, the two inventors bolted while Robin bit her bottom lip in concentration before crossing her arms. Soft hands grew much slower than normal underneath the gasping swordsman so to tentatively lift him up off the deck. Zoro let out a harsh prolonged groan as his injury was jostled. Cradling his broken body, they passed him across the deck to an area where the rain wasn't present. Sanji and Nami knelt down along with Brook and surprisingly Luffy so that when the hands disappeared in their usual explosion of cherry blossom petals, the already suffering man wouldn't slam down onto the deck. Laying him down, the navigator noticed how cold and clammy the moss headed man's skin had become and jumped up so to race for a lantern. When she returned, her heart broke at what the light revealed.
The mouth that hung open in a silent plea for air was tinged heavy with blue, and the half-closed eyes already seemed sunken in while the muscular frame jerked and convulsed as its need for oxygen was denied. The skin sunk into the heavily bruised ribcage giving a horrifying view of the damage and desperate fingernails clawed at the wooden planking beneath him even as the swordsman teetered on the brink of unconsciousness.
Finally Usopp returned with the fish hooks just as Franky finished rigging the pulley system over their prone crewmate and attached the weights onto the other end of the line "What now?" the sniper asked.
"Now we stick the hooks into his chest and wrap them around his broken ribs so we can lift his ribcage back against his chest wall and relieve the pressure on his heart and lungs."
Nami turned her head as her hand flew to her mouth when bile suddenly leapt up the back of her throat "What can we do?" she finally said in a hoarse voice when she regained control of her gag reflex.
"Keep him still," the reindeer intoned solemnly "because this is going to hurt."
Luffy strode back over to the group, one arm wiping his chin as he knelt next to his first mate "Then that's what we'll do," he croaked, eyes dark and serious.
Gripping Zoro's head between her knees, Nami nodded at Sanji and Luffy who each took an arm while Franky and Usopp braced his legs. Chopper grimaced at the bloody task that lay ahead of him before shifting to heavy point and picking up one of the larger fish hooks "Beginning the insertion of the first hook."
Jabbing the end into the soft skin of the muscled man's ribcage, the entire crew ducked their heads when a strangled cry burst from the blue tinged lips. The next few minutes passed agonizingly slow making each second feel like an hour as the diminutive doctor shoved two more fish hooks into his side, wrapping the curve of the hook around the end of his broken rib before the sharp hook came out the other side with a grotesque pop. Finally his chore was done and the reindeer nodded at Franky.
"Attach the line of the hooks to the pulley system and then let go of the weights…gently,"
The shipwright wrapped the line around the hooks and then released the weights, watching as the ribcage lifted back up making the hollow disappear and the labored breathing suddenly even out despite the gurgling from the deflated rib. The crew leaned back in relief but Chopper shook his head firmly.
"We don't have time to relax just yet, we need to get him to the infirmary now."
Franky built a stretcher as Robin lifted their swordsman onto it, and finally the man was taken away, pulleys and all, to the infirmary. Luffy watched as Franky and Chopper maneuvered Zoro up the stairs and into the galley. The captain bit his bottom lip as sorrow overwhelmed his heart. He didn't know what the future held, but right now he had a swordsman to look after and Luffy didn't know what he would say when the man eventually woke up.
This is a two-parter, I hope you enjoyed the first part and please review your thoughts!
