A final crosscut and the last soldier fell to the floor with a low guttural noise. Sliding the blades back into their sheathes, the swordsman stepped over the fallen soldiers and continued along the corridor. His vision wavered in and out of focus as he made his way through the dimly lit passage while listening for other marine soldiers. They had noticed his escape by now; the soldiers he just had defeated had said, "There he is!" when they had spotted him.

However, it seemed as if something else troubled the marines. Even though he didn't know exactly what it was, he was sure that he could guess who could be causing it. The small group of soldiers they had sent after him had almost insulted him. Six soldiers armed with nothing but swords and their wits.

Still, they had been of some assistance to him. Now he knew where to look for his crewmates. What had that Marine told him again? Down the hall, right turn when the corridor splits up in two directions and then up the stairs at the far end… Probably a trap, but following any directions was definitely better than wandering aimlessly around the base. If he could only keep the wounds from opening again, he'd be able to preserve enough of his energy to protect the others if he had to. This time, he wouldn't fail them.

Tightening the black cloth tied around his head, he felt the world slipping back in focus and decided to speed up the pace a little bit. Down the corridor, right where the passage split in different directions… Why was it so quiet? There had to be Marine soldiers all over the base looking for him, so why was the corridor so empty?

He reached the end of the corridor, leaning against the wall with one hand supporting his bodyweight as multicoloured spots danced in front of his eyes. Growling, he shook his head and started climbing the stairs. Losing some blood was no reason to stop. He had been worse off than this before. At least he didn't have a fever this time.

Halfway up the stairs, he stopped and listened. There were voices and footsteps coming from the corridor at the top of the stairs. Unsheathing Wadou, he started moving up the stairs, silently as a predator. Moving along the wall to the top of the stairs, he could hear the voices and footsteps grow stronger as their owners got closer to the stairs. There weren't many of them, not more than three, judging by the sound of the voices.

Taking a deep breath to clear his head, he took a firmer grip around the hilt of the sword and leaned his back against the stonewall behind him. The owners of the voices were close, and in some part of his mind, he knew that he recognized them, but the signal didn't reach the conscious part of his mind immediately.

He stepped out from the staircase, his sword lifted, only vaguely aware of the figures in front of him as he let his sword cut through the air. He could hear someone scream and felt the impact as the blade hit something that was harder than the material he had intended to cut through. Then he heard two familiar voices burst out in unison:

"Zoro?"

And then another voice, all too familiar and annoying:

"What the hell are you doing, you moron?"


Short chapter this time, as I feared it would be.

Mavado – Thank you so much for your review, you're absolutely right. Ruffy (it's funny how great it feels to call him Ruffy instead of Luffy) did lose his hat, I had completely forgot about that. You're also right about the hinges, as they should be on the outside since the door to the cell opens outwards (opening it inwards would mean a great risk to the guards who have to reach into the cell to close the door) and that would make it far more effective to punch them open than to pull. I think I'm going to rewrite Chapter 8, because now that I've realized my mistakes, I won't be able to read it without getting annoyed. Ha, ha.

I haven't planned the end of the story in detail yet, but I'm not sure if I can return them to Alabasta or not. I think I need to work out what could have happened to the Going Merry and how they are going to get away from the base first.