If only his legs would stop shaking. Usopp was walking behind his friends, keeping an eye out for more Marines who could be sneaking up on them from behind. They had already run into a large patrol just as they had left their cellblock, but after a minor fight where Sanji had been responsible for most of the fighting, they had taken off through the corridor as fast as they could.
Now they were in a corridor without windows or doors. It seemed to go on forever, and now the marksman could hear strange noises coming from the far end of the passage. It had to be the deadly and fearsome Skull Dragon, resting far in the cave on a mound of human bones. Only he, the brave captain Usopp and of course his loyal crew could defeat the dragon and save the land…
He received an elbow to his already sore ribs and snapped out of his daydream. Nami's eyes met his with a very irritated expression.
"Stop mumbling, they'll hear you!" she snapped, her hands leaning on her hips.
Usopp sent her a cold glare, even if he knew that she was right. He hadn't even noticed that he had been narrating his own daydream again.
"You're not being awfully quiet yourself, you know."
The marksman suddenly saw stars dancing in front of his eyes as Sanji'shard shoe-clad footwas slammed down hard on top of his head. He hissed between his teeth and covered his head with his hands to protect himself from gettingkicked again.
"Don't speak to Nami-san that way!" the cook ordered, turning to Nami for attention.
Rubbing his head, the marksman glared at the cook, who only smiled goofily towards Nami. Usopp shook his head slowly and continued to keep an eye out behind them when he tried to keep himself from retreating into his world of fantasies again. Suddenly, he bumped into someone and almost ended up falling backwards on the floor while holding back a howl of surprise.
"Look, there are some stairs there," Nami said, looking more excited than she sounded. "Maybe we'll have better luck if we follow those stairs?"
Sanji was overjoyed. He strutted by Nami's side, still smiling goofily and praising every move the navigator made.
"Nami-san is so attentive. Intelligence and beauty, Nami-san has it all!"
The marksman rolled his eyes. He caught himself wishing that someone – other than himself, of course – could make the cook shut up for once.
The chef couldn't help himself but praise the navigator, even for the small thing as noticing the stairs – which wasn't actually a thing to praise if Nami hadn't been the one to mention it; the large hole in the wall where the stairs went down to the next floor wasn't hard to see even in the dim light in the corridor. He needed to do that, not only to try to raise her spirit but to keep his own attention away from his aching feet. His ribs were quite sore as well, but as long as he didn't move around too much, he wouldn't risk the broken ribs to puncture one of his lungs or any other organs for that matter. Broken ribs were something he was used to, and the pain was easy to ignore when he had something – or someone – else to think about.
They were near the stairs when something flew out from behind the corner. The gleam of metal caught the cook's eye and he swung his leg in a wide half circle to block the blow from the blade. As the heel of his shoe made contact with the sword, he could hear the sniper's surprised scream and the navigator's gasp before both crewmembers burst out in unison:
"Zoro?"
The cook looked at the swordsman, feeling the blade press against the hard heel of his shoe.
"What the hell are you doing, you moron?" he asked, not letting his leg relax even though his foot was protesting against the weight of the sword. "Are you trying to kill us or something?"
"If I had been trying to kill you, you wouldn't have been able to block my attack that easily," the swordsman growled while sliding the sword back into its scabbard, allowing the chef to put his foot back on the ground.
"Right…" the chef put his hands in his pockets and looked at the swordsman. The man's posture was different from his usual straight and relaxed pose; his back was tense and his head was hanging against his chest, even though he clearly was trying to keep his chin up. Sanji also noticed, very vaguely, that the bloodstain covering the white shirt was larger than he remembered it from when he had seen the swordsman two days earlier.
"You look like hell, Zoro" he stated casually.
The swordsman's eyes wandered from Sanji to Usopp to Nami.
"Yeah well, you don't look all too lively yourself," he commented with an amused undertone in his voice before adding: "I was looking for you."
Sanji wondered silently to himself if Zoro had found them all on his own or if it had been by pure luck as usual. The man normally couldn't find his way out of a shoebox on his own. The chef shook his head and walked past the swordsman towards the stairs. Turning around by the top of the stairs, he looked at his crewmates.
"Well, you found us. Now let's find him and get the hell out of here."
He could hear the others follow him as the started to go down the stairs, ignoring the pain that shot up through his legs for every step he took.
Zoro walked behind the others as they descended to the floor below. Sanji walked first, followed by Nami and Usopp, since they both were more or less defenceless. Then he remembered.
"Oi, Usopp…" he said, reaching behind his back. "I found something earlier and I think it belongs to you."
The marksman stopped walking and turned around to face Zoro. Handing over the slingshot to the black-haired man, Zoro thought – and feared – for a second that the marksman was going to throw himself around his (Zoro's) neck, so he moved a little bit to the side. But the marksman didn't throw himself at Zoro; he just took the slingshot, looked closely at it as if to check for damage and smiled widely when he didn't find anything on it.
"Thanks, Zoro," he said, tucking the slingshot in one of the pockets of his brown pants. "Not everyone knows to return someone else's possessions unharmed… Right, Sanji?" He took off his headset with the goggles and swept his hair back before he tied the brown, bloodstained bandana around his head. Then he put the goggles back in their place above his forehead and looked very contented.
The cook sent Usopp a cold glare over his shoulder as they continued down the last steps of the stairs and out in the corridor. After walking through the passage, they reached the fork in the road. Zoro nodded for the others to continue straight forward.
"I came from that other direction," he said shortly, remembering vaguely that he had turned right before going up the stairs which would make it somewhat logical to go in the other direction to find the rest of the crew. "Nothing but rooms filled with Marines over there."
"Did you expect something else?" the cook said with a tired, yet annoyingly teasing voice. "We're in a damn Marine Base, shithead."
"Shut up." Zoro muttered, not interested in an argument that would only drain his energy further. "If you don't want to take this way, you don't have to. But I'm going this way whether you are coming with me or not."
The effort it had taken to keep his voice steady and sounding normal made the world spin in front of the swordsman's eyes, but he tried his best to stay steady and upright as he walked past his crewmates and continued into the corridor in front of them. There was a change in the way his balance was altered, though; he could clearly notice that it took less time to recover than it had before. It was a good thing, but he also started to notice what damage the lack of sleep had caused. Not a good thing.
When we get out of here, I'm going to sleep for a month… Zoro thought to himself, feeling a headache creeping up on him.
Nami looked from Zoro to Usopp and Sanji. While she was starting to get annoyed by their never-ending arguments about the smallest of things, it was a relief to see them all act like they used to. But there was something in Zoro's voice that hadn't been completely normal for the swordsman. As she looked at Sanji, she thought for a second that she could see something in his eye (the one that wasn't hidden behind the wall of blonde hair) that told her that he also had noticed it, even if it only was subconsciously.
"We're going with him," she stated, nodding in the direction of the green-haired man who was slowly disappearing in the shadows of the windowless corridor. "He says that he's already been over there, so going there would be a waste of time. And we might not have much time to spare, don't you agree, Sanji-kun?"
The cook looked like he was about to disagree, but then he sighed and nodded as he put his hands in his pockets again. The navigator smiled at him and turned to follow the swordsman. She could hear the cook and sniper follow her, one of them a little less eagerly than the other.
"Zoro! Wait up!" she called out, not very loud, but loud enough for the swordsman to hear it.
They caught up with him further down the corridor. Sanji tried a few times to start another fight with the swordsman, but when Zoro only replied with mutters and grunts, the cook gave up and started asking Usopp how many days, hours and minutes were left until he was free to cook whatever he pleased again. It was definitely not one of the cook's better moods. Compared to this, Nami almost wished that he would start his normal, annoying wooing, since that was easier to ignore.
Suddenly, the corridor came to an end, where the only ways to continue were two sets of stairs; one to the right leading up and another one to the leftthat led down.
"Now what?" the marksman asked, looking from the left set of stairs to the right.
"Where would you keep someone who had eaten a Devil's Fruit?" Nami asked no one in particular. "Except for cages of Seastone, since I don't think any Marine would risk putting someone with, for example, the ability to turn into smoke or fire in a normal cell."
"In a dungeon below water level?" Sanji suggested. "Oi, Zoro! Where are you going?"
Nami turned around just in time to catch a glimpse of the white and green disappear down the stairs on the left. She hurried after him, hearing the footsteps of the other two behind her.
"Are you sure this is the right way?" she asked as she caught up with the swordsman again. "What if we just end up getting caught like rats down there?"
The swordsman stopped and looked over his shoulder at Nami, his eyes glistening in the dim light.
"I'm just following my gut. Besides, you came from the upper floor, didn't you? If my ears didn't fail me, I thought you had searched the upper floor already."
"We've got company!"
Nami's reply died on her lips as the cook's voice was heard, followed by the sound of his footsteps as he ran up the stairs and then the cries of unknown voices. Looking up at the marksman who was standing in the middle of the stairs, his legs shaking, Nami called out to him.
"Usopp! Stay with Sanji-kun. I'll go with Zoro, you two can catch up with us later, okay?"
"Oh-Okay!" the marksman's trembling voice called back. "Later, then!"
Before Nami followed Zoro down the stairs, she could hear Usopp call out a new version of one of his special attacks, followed by Sanji's annoyed voice.
"Make yourself useful for once in your life, Usopp!"
The navigator smiled to herself and turned around the corner at the foot of the stairs, heading into the maze of the upper dungeons.
In the heat of the battle, Usopp noticed something that made him feel cold all over and also made him lose his focus on the battle for a moment. Three of the ten Marines were women. Sanji didn't seem to have noticed them yet, but that was only because of two of the other Marines who had thrown themselves around his feet and was trying to hold him down. The cook, who was looking rather irritated, were trying to get free while keeping three other Marines at bay without risking to damage his hands. He was spinning around in one place as fast as he could with the Marines still attached to his lower legs, sending kicks into thin air or into the walls while muttering curses aimed at everyone around him.
A snapping sound was heard just above the marksman's left ear and when he turned to the side, he was staring straight into the barrel of a pistol aimed directly at his head. Usopp's heart raced and he felt his stomach freeze to a solid ice cube as he locked eyes with the female marine who held the pistol in her hand. He could feel the other Marines who weren't busy trying to avoid Sanji's kicks grab hold of his arms.
"Pirate scum…" the woman holding the gun muttered; her ice blue eyes sharp as a hawk's.
Usopp's eyes darkened as he glared at the Marines holding him. His brain worked frantically to find a way to escape from this highly troublesome situation. Images of familiar faces flashed before his eyes. Kaya… Carrot, Pepper and Onion… His mother, laying on her deathbed… Nami… Sanji… Zoro… Chopper and Luffy… Vivi…
He couldn't die, not by a bullet through his brain shot by a Marine while he was held down by two or three other Marines! He would be the brave warrior of the four seas, and no one was going to keep him from reaching that goal.
Then things started to happen really fast.
He could see a shadow in the corner of his eye and felt a light jerk in his right arm as one of the Marines were thrown back by some unidentified force. Then a deafening explosion echoed between the walls and Usopp's left shoulder was on fire. Temporarily blinded by the white-hot pain that pulsated through his arm and out in the side of his chest, the marksman flailed his unharmed arm and his legs wildly while his own war cry echoed in his ears, feeling a bitter satisfaction each time his punches and kicks hit something soft and he heard the unfamiliar voices cry out in pain.
Hah! He thought, forcing a grin over the excruciating pain in his left upper arm. This is what you get for messing with captain Usopp!
After another few seconds, he felt a hand grab hold of his right ankle and stopped flailing, finding himself in an awkward position with his right leg high in the air, and the rest of his body bent to the left towards the floor. When he looked up at the person holding his foot - the only person in the room who still possessed the ability to stand up - he gulped nervously. Sanji didn't look very happy.
"What the hell do you think you're doing?" the cook growled, letting go of the marksman's leg. Usopp fell to the ground, crying out in pain as he landed on the stone floor, his left arm crushed under his own bodyweight. He looked around, one eye still firmly shut and his teeth clenched as he tried to push the pain away. Around him, the Marines were laying on the floor, seemingly unconscious, even the female soldiers. The marksman looked back at the blonde man, realizing the reason to the cook's bad mood.
"Sa-Sanji…" he started, but his voice trailed off as the cook grabbed the shoulder straps of his pants and lifted him from the floor.
"I hope you realize what you've done, you shitty sniper." he hissed, staring furiously at Usopp. "Not only did you hit a woman, you hit three women!"
The marksman stepped back, grabbing Sanji's thin wrist with his sound hand and pulled away from the cook's grip. He glared at the blonde man, ignoring the numb feeling in the pit of his stomach, his shaking legs and the pain in his arm as he tried to look rebellious and unafraid. He didn't quite succeed; the dark glare the cook sent back at him was enough to make him shiver with fear. Still, he managed to keep his voice steady.
"I know what I did, and right now, I don't care if you beat me to a bloody pulp the first thing you do when we get back to the Going Merry, but we have more important things to take care of first!"
He knew that he would regret saying that he didn't care about getting beaten up later, but he comforted himself by thinking that Chopper would be on the boat as well, ready to treat any damage Sanji could cause him for defending himself against Marines who happened to be female. He turned around and started walking down the stairs to the left, his right hand clenched around his left upper arm. He pulled the bandana off his head and tried to tie it around the wound while large colourful spots flickered before his eyes.
"You're going to bleed to death before you get that right…" Sanji's voice came from behind him. "Give me your arm."
Looking to his left, the marksman was surprised to see Sanji walking next to him. He hadn't heard the man's footsteps close up on him. Holding out his arm with some hesitation, Usopp tried not to shudder or scream when the injury sent new flashes of pain through his body. During the short moment before Sanji tied the brown cloth tightly around his arm – maybe even a little too tight, but Usopp didn't think that mentioning it would be a good idea – his eyes confirmed what he had already assumed in his mind. There was an entrance wound where the bullet had entered his arm, but there was to exit wound on the other side.
The last time he had been shot, back in Syrup village, the bullet had gone straight through his arm, leaving nothing but two pale circular scars on both sides of his left arm. He usually kept his striped wristband over the scars, but now one of the scars was covered by the black X that was drawn onto his skin.
"Thanks…" Usopp said, not referring only to the provisional bandage around his arm. "For sending that Marine flying at the one who was holding me down."
The cook shrugged as he passed Usopp on their way down. He turned to look over his shoulder at the marksman, his facial expression strangely calm and relaxed.
"Don't mention it. You looked like you could use some assistance and he was seriously getting on my last nerve. But don't think that I've forgotten what you did. You'll get yours when we get back to the Going Merry."
Usopp didn't reply, he just looked at the cook for a moment, nodded and continued down the stairs, his right hand clasped around the wounded area of his arm.
Okay, this chapter turned out a little longer than I expected. I was almost about to call this chapter "The chapter that refused to end"… But I guess it kind of makes up for chapter nine's shortness…
It's not the best thing I've ever written, and I think I brought them all OOC somewhere in the chapter. I've tried my best to add details and some personality to the story, but I'd appreciate it if you could point out things that I need to think about when I continue writing this story.
