Loyalties
By AstroKender
Warnings: Swearing, Blood, Violence and Angst
Notes: Gah. This chapter was half done and still took forever to post! (I blame a certain someone who had gotten me obsessed with a thing called Chibaslash from a certain anime called Beck.) But fear not! The climax approachith! Slapped out there willy-nilly, don't be offended by any spelling/grammar mistakes. They will be fixed in time ;;; Plus, posted in word instead of notepad. Welcome to formatting!
Feedback: there is an annoying button at the bottom of the screen that, like Uragi, is just begging to be punched...
Disclaimers: One Piece belongs to Eichiro Oda, 4kids and various other affiliates. I don't own em, I don't make money off em, I just play with them.
Chapter 17
"Luffy!" Zoro shouted out hoarsely.
The swordsman made an aborted motion towards his captain before turning and charging at Uragi with a roar of absolute rage. The bounty hunter looked over at Zoro calmly, his smoking pistols still held aloft. Uragi dematerialized just as Zoro reached him, causing the pirate to overcompensate for the wild swing of his katanas.
Zoro hit the ground shoulder first, skidding across the wooden planks with the force of his momentum. Unable to keep his grip, Zoro felt his swords fly out of his hands. It was a long moment before the green-haired man found the strength to rise.
"Damn it…." Zoro's voice broke slightly as he stared through the frame of his arms at Luffy's fallen form. The rubber-boy wasn't moving. Zoro managed to push his chest a bit further off the ground before his arms gave out and he collapsed back onto the floor in exhaustion.
"So much for saviors, eh Roronoa?" Uragi commented lightly as he raised his foot to rest on top of the swordsman's head. "Now that I have my potential bounty, all I need is a ship. Things are shaping up well for me, don't you think?"
It was simple to ignore the heel grinding against his temple; Zoro didn't even feel it past the horrible ache in his chest. Zoro struggled to focus through a sluggishly swimming vision, his peripherals blocked by wood and leather. If Zoro could only crane his head a little to the left, he would still be able to see his captain.
Spying a blur of red and brown through the corner of one eye, Zoro's eyes widened as the indistinct form twitched. Gaping like a landed fish, the swordsman watched as the rubber-boy let out a small cough before jumping to his feet. Patting his chest with a wince, Luffy released a huge sigh.
"Whew! I thought I was a goner." He exclaimed cheerfully. Catching sight of Uragi and his makeshift footstool, the pirate captain squawked. "Hey!" he cried indignantly.
Like a giant rubber band, Luffy's arm sprang out, clotheslining Uragi across the neck and sending the stunned bounty hunter sprawling. Rather then retract, the stretchy appendage followed in pursuit, clasping firmly to something near Uragi's waist. In the blink of an eye, Zoro's white sheathed katana was at Luffy's side.
"That doesn't belong to you." Luffy told his adversary reproachfully.
"Why aren't you?" Zoro rasped as Luffy strolled up to him. The green-haired man had yet to regain his feet and looked as if he were in no hurry to change that fact.
"Why aren't I what?" Luffy asked, puzzled. He squatted next to Zoro comfortably, as if it were just another day on the Going Merry.
"A goner!" Zoro sighed, to tired to play word games with his air-headed captain.
"Ack! I forgot!" Luffy jumped to his feet and swiftly unbuttoned his shirt, revealing some sort of mud covered material underneath.
Zoro's mind tried desperately to process what his eyes were seeing. "The vest. Is that the leather vest I gave you? The one I traded in that other sword for?" Zoro demanded dazedly as he gingerly rolled over onto his back in order to get a better look.
"Yup. That's the one." Luffy patted the armor proudly, before picking the bullets out as if they were stray breadcrumbs.
"But you told me…you said you threw it away!" Zoro was confused and that never failed to piss him off. If he had the strength he would have shaken a straight answer out of the other boy.
"Heh." Luffy grinned mischievously. "It took a long time to find it after I tossed it into that swamp. If it weren't for that one log that looked like a drumstick I think I'd still be out there. But I'm not. I'm here."
Zoro stared at the amused crescents that made up Luffy's eyes and felt something bubble up through his chest. A helpless chuckle broke past the swordsman's lips as Zoro closed his eyes in resignation.
"Yes." He murmured wryly. "Yes, you are."
Their pleasant conversation was interrupted by the sound of a gunshot. Zoro's eyes snapped open in time to see Luffy's hand fly up in front of his own face. Zoro flinched reflexively as a small spray of blood threatened to blind his vision.
"Luffy! Are you all right?" The green-haired man heaved himself up into a sitting position.
Luffy's hand curled around a large musket as he slowly unshielded his face. The bladed end of Uragi's bullet had pierced clean through the rubber-boy's palm and now stuck out painfully between the tendons on the back of his hand.
Luffy wiped a stray splash of blood from his face before nonchalantly yanking the projectile from his flesh. A low growl rumbled up the rubber-boy's throat as he glared daggers at Uragi.
"You don't like to play fair, do you?" It was more of a statement than a question.
"One does what one must." Uragi replied as he discarded the now-useless firearm.
"I'm feeling like I must kick your ass." Luffy snarled back. "You with me, Zoro?" he asked his companion.
"Yeah." Zoro muttered darkly as he made as if to rise to his feet. The swordsman froze less than halfway, however, his face taking on the expression of one enduring excruciating pain.
Falling back with a gasp, Zoro clutched his chest mindlessly as he struggled to remember how to breathe. It felt as though his heart was being forcibly ripped from his body, taking his whole circulatory system with it. His whole body was alight with pain, but none so bad as which descended with crushing force upon his chest.
Zoro's vision was blacking out as he stared at Luffy's face hovering over his own. The boy was screaming something at him, but for some reason, Zoro couldn't hear him.
VVOOOVV
"So, can I have the name of my opponent, or should I just call you 'Spike'?" Sanji asked as he removed his jacket. He meticulously folded the garment before setting it aside and moving into a set of light stretches.
"Akima." The bulky man muttered gruffly after a moment's deliberation.
Sanji finished trying to get the water out of his shoes and straightened, his face showing that aloofness it always carried before a fight. The blonde's eyes were following Vivi overtly, however, as the blue-haired girl turned to face two men who had emerged from the brush, drawn by Akima's whistle. Sanji's gaze switched back to his opponent, a haughty smirk ghosting across his face.
"Well, Aki, I'm afraid today just isn't your lucky day."
His opponent answered with a barreling charge, his meaty fists flying out towards the cook with surprising swiftness and agility. Sanji easily sidesteps the potential blows, before swooping down with an attack of his own. A soggy size twelve hurtled towards the bigger man's head with the precision of an archer's shot.
It was to Sanji's shock that a muscular forearm blocked his kick as effortlessly as a flailing branch. It was to the blonde's further astonishment when a spike covered fist slammed into his gut with bone-crushing force. Sanji was thrown back a couple of meters, his feet skidding a half-moon in the sand as he fought to keep his footing.
"Heh. Not bad…" Sanji clutched his bleeding stomach as his right eye closed in a wince. "…For a sea urchin!" The blonde dashed forward once more and flipped himself agilely onto his hands so he could throw the force of both of his feet in an attack.
Sanji smirked when he felt his kicks connect, until a boot the was not his own flashed across his vision carrying with it a deadly looking spike heading straight towards his face. The cook turned his side kick into a leg press, hastily shoving his enemy away. But the sand below his hands wasn't solid enough to give him the necessary force to his attack and he heard more than felt his flesh tear as Akima's foot spike dug a long scratch across Sanji's scalp.
Stumbling upright, Sanji did his best to glare through the stream of blood running down his face. The cook grew angry under his opponent's impassive stare and he swung his leg in a sweeping upward motion that would connect which his aggressor's jaw and hopefully snap his neck, if Sanji was lucky. Arching himself in a back flip that would give his assault more momentum, Sanji unknowingly left himself open for attack.
Akima had ducked under Sanji's kick, dropping into a planned fall that allowed the spike on his elbow to drag down the blonde's unprotected back. Sanji screamed and hit the sand face down as pain raked up the pirate's spine. Sanji cursed his own foolishness as he waited for the final blow.
Sanji's head popped up when no more blows followed. Confused, the blonde quickly curled his legs beneath him and rose into a defensive crouch. His opponent stood a meter or so away, his arms crossed over his chest as if he were waiting for something.
"What's the deal, old man?" Sanji burst out angrily as he jumped to his feet. Being shown mercy was the same thing as being called weak in Sanji's book.
"Attacking someone when their down is not my way." The bigger man stated simply.
"What?" Sanji was stunned. What was even a speck of honor doing among these thugs? "Then why the hell are you working for that creep Uragi?" the cook asked.
"Uragi has a plan to get off this island. I follow him with the hope that I might one day get to see my daughter again."
Sanji could only stare at the other man blankly. Daughter? The blonde shook his head. He supposed the bad guys had to have families too. That didn't change their situation any. But that didn't make the cook feel any better about leaving the planet with one more orphan.
Thinking of families made Sanji unconsciously glance over his shoulder. The Going Merry was creeping closer to shore. Without the cannon-fire, the occupants had no idea that the fighting was still going on. If someone didn't warn them, the others will land themselves headlong into this battle.
Wait.
Sanji could have kicked himself. Swiveling his head back so swiftly that his neck cracked, the blonde's scouring eyes caught sight of Vivi fighting wildly among a circle of four men. Even with the numbers against her, the princess seemed to be holding her own and Sanji guessed that her battle wouldn't last much longer unless more men arrived.
And Sanji was going to make sure that didn't happen.
The cook flung himself into a powerful jump, swinging himself sideways in a gravity-defying crouch onto an astonished Akima's chest. Sanji's hand darted out, grasping the thin chain hanging from the older man's neck. Sanji's strong legs pushed off, sending him flying backwards to land just at the line of surf.
Sanji dangled Akima's whistle tauntingly. "Don't mind if I borrow this, right?" Sanji hurled the noisemaker over his shoulder and into the sea. "Oops. Dropped it."
Akima's face darkened only slightly as the impassive man leaned forward into a fighting position. Sanji grinned wildly.
"Come get me, you hedgehog!"
Uragi's henchman dashed forward, his spiked elbows pointed forward like the horns of a charging bull. As the man came close, Sanji threw himself backward into the surf; his legs curling upwards like a gear that propelled his enemy over him. Akima flew across the air and splashed into the ocean a couple of meters from shore.
"Vivi!" Sanji struggled quickly to his feet. "The cannon!" he called out.
"What?" Vivi called back distractedly.
"Shoot at the ship!"
Now that got her attention.
"What!"
VVOOOVV
"Zoro!"
Luffy crouched over his partner, feeling powerless as the swordsman arced backwards in pain. Zoro's breaths were coming out in sharp, irregular gasps as sweat tinted the color of blood streamed down his face. The Straw Hat Captain was watching his friend die, and he couldn't do a damn thing about it.
"Zoro…damn it…."
"You…." Luffy's head raised up, his dark eyes locking onto Uragi. Rage curled the rubber boy's lip up in a vicious snarl.
Like lightning, the boy was suddenly in movement, dashing towards the smirking bounty hunter with fist's pulled back to strike. Sandal clad feet slapped against the wooden floor with enough force that Uragi could feel the tremors beneath him. An animalistic roar reverberated across the open air, followed by two flying sets of knuckles aimed straight for Uragi's face.
"Gomu Gomu no Gatling Gun!"
Like pistons, Luffy's fists plowed forward and were pulled back, creating a devastating attack that could crush solid rock. But even his Devil's Fruit power was no match for Uragi's own when the bounty hunter simply vanished under the oncoming assault. The enemy melted into a black puddle and slithered away like a liquid snake.
"Damn it! Fight me, you bastard!" Luffy cried out as he sent his fist crashing into the liquefied entity. The black ooze merely flowed around the rubber boy's hands, however, and continued on its way across the floor.
"What's the point, Straw Hat?" Uragi's disembodied voice floated out. "Where does it all end? Until I kill you, or I end up dead? In the end, neither will save your swordsman."
Luffy glanced back helplessly at his fallen friend. Zoro had stopped struggling and now lay limply atop the warehouse floor. His heart wrenched painfully at the thought of losing Zoro and, without thinking about the consequences, the dark-haired boy quickly called out to his opponent.
"Uragi! Give him the cure!" Luffy demanded, his voice cracking.
"And why should I do that? Roronoa has caused me nothing but trouble, after all." Uragi sung mockingly as he reformed in the safety of the shadows.
"You want my bounty right? Well you can have it! Just cure him!" Luffy's fists clenched, driving his fingers deep into the wound on his right hand.
Uragi stepped forward, his reptilian eyes gleaming. "You mean you would trade—?"
"My head for Zoro's life. And the promise to leave him and the rest of my crew alone. Do you accept?"
"Roronoa will try to kill me as soon as he is able to stand."
Luffy gave a malicious grin. "So? You're good at running away."
Uragi smirked in turn. "Touché."
Staring the Straw Hat Captain down as if gauging his sincerity, Uragi's eyes narrowed thoughtfully. The longhaired man raised his hand, sending a tendril of black liquid slithering across the floor to stop at Luffy's feet. The ooze moved and shivered like something alive.
"Extend your wounded hand, then. And we shall seal the pact."
"The antidote first, Uragi." Luffy's face could have been etched in stone. Sighing, Uragi pulled out the bright vial of liquid and lobbed it carefully across the room, where it hit the floor at a roll. With amazing accuracy, the vial slowed and then stopped a mere hairsbreadth from Zoro's twitching hand.
"Now. Your hand, if you please."
Wordlessly, Luffy lifted up his bleeding palm, letting it hover about Uragi's dark pool of poison. A tense moment passed where nothing moved—the very air seemed to still. Luffy couldn't hear the crickets chirping outside, or the bullfrogs, or Uragi's words as the man's lips lifted up in an evil smirk. If he had heard, he would have been very angry indeed.
"I'm afraid we never agreed to leave you alive long enough to give Roronoa the antidote. Pity."
Like a living entity, Uragi's poison shot up from the floor and impaled into Luffy's hand like a liquid spear. Luffy jerked backwards in pain as a burning inferno ignited through his veins and seizing his spine in a paralyzing grip. The rubber boy shuddered violently and his eyes rolled back into his head.
"You god damn idiot!" Someone screamed from far away.
VVOOOVV
Zoro's heart was racing as if he had run a marathon. His body felt soaked with sweat and his muscles felt as though they had turned to jelly. But the all-encompassing pain in his chest was gone. The spell had passed leaving Zoro—for the moment—alive.
But for how much longer?
Panting, the swordsman struggled to sit up and found that he just didn't have the energy. Ever the stubborn one, Zoro twitched and fidgeted until he had rolled over onto his stomach. The movement left him dizzy and out of breath.
Zoro blinked uncomprehendingly. There, right before his eyes, nearly touching his nose, was Uragi's antidote vial. Was he hallucinating? Did Luffy beat Uragi in such a short amount of time? What the hell was going on?
Focusing was a problem at this point, but the green-haired man squinted at the area out of his immediate range, scouring the shadows for some clue as to their current situation. Gray light gave the interior of the warehouse a hazy and somewhat surreal appearance, so much that—when Zoro caught sight of Luffy—he was sure he was a figment of his imagination.
There was no way the real Luffy would so calmly extent his hand. His captain wouldn't so willingly let Uragi's poison shoot into his blood. There was no—
Zoro's eyes dropped once again down to the tiny vial of antidote, at the same moment that Luffy first stumbled backwards. A red haze of rage draped over Zoro's vision like a curtain and before he knew it he was screaming at the top of his lungs, the vial clutched in his fist.
"You god damned idiot!"
Luffy's eyes had rolled back into his head and he seemed to be struggling to take air into his lungs. Zoro watched helplessly as the first tremors of convulsions shook the dark-haired boy's thin body. Zoro knew, without a doubt, that his captain would be dead before his body had hit the floor.
Zoro wasn't sure how he had gotten up off the floor. He didn't know how he managed to cross the distance between himself and his captain so quickly. All he felt was the anger and his teeth ripping out a cork and his hand slamming against the rubber boy's forehead.
Zoro's charge did not halt when he reached his captain's side. He continued forward harshly, dragging Luffy down with him to slam with brutal force into the floor. The shock of the impact caused Luffy's mouth to drop open and Zoro hurriedly shoved the open vial inside, his palm still spread firmly across the dark-haired boy's face.
"Luffy…." Zoro said the name like both a curse and a prayer.
A bloody hand rose up and quickly smacked his hand away, causing the nearly empty antidote vial to skitter across the floor, amazingly without shattering. Two dark eyes glared up between Zoro's widespread fingers, lit by hell's own rage.
"What are you doing, idiot?" Luffy's snarl came out more like a cough as he struggled to his elbows weakly.
"Me?" Zoro had had enough. Grabbing onto his captain's shoulders, he slammed the boy back into the floor. "What the hell did you think you were trying to do? Do you want to die?" He screamed angrily into Luffy's face.
Luffy's expression had grown cold. "If I have to." He replied simply.
"What do you mean, 'if you have to'?" Zoro was too hurt and tired and emotionally drained to deal with these kinds of mind games. All he wanted to do was shake some sense into his stupid, stupid friend. Why the hell had Luffy even shown back up on this island in the first place? "There is no reason for you to even be here!" he snarled. "You can't become Pirate King if you're dead!"
Luffy's bloodshot eyes glimmered softly as the younger boy forced a sad smile onto his face.
"I can't do it without Zoro, either."
Any biting reply Zoro had prepared stuck in his throat. "You…" Zoro bowed his head, not willing to show the span of emotions crossing his face. If he had been one minute longer in coming back to his senses…. "Idiot." He muttered thickly.
A sixth sense tingled in Zoro's brain and he grabbed Luffy up and rolled them both a few meters of to the side just as a large stream of poison splatter onto the space they had just occupied. Luffy's breath caught as Zoro laid him back down; still recovering from the effects of Uragi's deadliest dose of poison. But he quickly flashed Zoro a smile and gave the swordsman a carefree 'thumbs up' gesture.
"Why is it that you fools don't understand how to die? I mean, really, should I draw you a diagram?"
Zoro's head raised slowly as his feral eyes latched onto his enemy. Uragi was pacing across the floor, clearly agitated and just a little bit nervous. It was Zoro's intention to make Uragi even more nervous by the time he was done with him. Much more nervous.
Zoro eyes wandered back to Luffy, who was staring up at him expectantly. Zoro smirked and flicked the rubber boy harshly on the forehead before reaching up and grasping the black cloth lying atop the boy's head. Pulling his bandanna from his captain's head, he slowly tied it over his own.
"Wait here." He muttered and Luffy broke out in a wide, but tired grin.
"Okay…" he mumbled as his eyelids drooped. "But just for a minute."
Zoro rose fluidly to his feet, with no trace of the weakness that had nearly incapacitated his body. Whether it was a miracle or just a dying man's last strength, Zoro didn't care. All he knew was that he wasn't going anywhere, hell or otherwise, until he saw that bastard bounty hunter dead.
In the span it took a normal man to blink, Zoro's swords were back in his hands. Heavily callused fingers raised Wadou to be clenched tightly between alabaster teeth. With his headband in place, Zoro one again took on the form of a demon.
And that demon had his sights set on shedding Uragi's blood. Drop by agonizing drop.
VVOOOVV