/kanthia notes-
This chapter contains a large amount of violence and character death.
If you are squeemish or under the age of thirteen, take note and
caution yourself.
You have been warned.
Chapter the Fourth- Believing in Everything, Knowing Nothing at All
It is kind of funny. He has always wanted it, yet never really thought about what it looked like. Some said gold, some diamonds. But what can gold or diamonds do that guarantee your position as the King of all Pirates?
He understands now, for this is the King of all Treasure.
It is difficult to tell what it looks like. The only things that remain constant are its silverfish tone and its spherical shape; otherwise it is constantly changing from shiny to dull, from solid to liquid, from floating to sitting impatiently on its pedestal.
It is an object animated. Somehow, he knows that it is waiting with irritation for him to come closer, to touch it. A sphere of pallid silver hanging in delicate balance, slipping in and out of reality.
He reaches out. Eternity sighs in response as his dirty fingers inch towards the object before him.
Contact.
It is strangely soft and warm; as though, like him, it is blessed with life. Sensing his presence, the One Piece turns toward him (without truly turning at all) and smiles (without truly smiling at all) before speaking into his mind.
Monkey D. Luffy/He shivers when it speaks. It is the voice he has heard his entire life, the voice that drew him to the sea in the first place. The voice of the One Piece in his head.
Why are you alive?- /I'm not. I died.
Don't be silly/
It's true. I'm dead and dreaming.
You only dream when you're asleep/. You're very much awake, Luffy/
There is no use arguing with the One Piece. With his hand still on it, he sits down on the rocky floor and looks up, impatiently, waiting for an explanation. His mind reaches out to the One Piece once again.
Tell me.
Tell you what?- /
Tell me why you killed my nakama.
My, you picked that up fast/
Picked
what up?
Never mind/
It sighs and forces the images into Luffy's virgin mind.
It was a storm.
It was a rather large storm.
It was the largest storm he had ever seen.
Nami was on deck with everyone else, yelling out orders to do this and tie down that and all that sort of whatnot. The cook was doing everything she said with vigour, the marksman's body getting in the way most of the time. The poor liar was driven speechless upon seeing their current predicament.
He ran a thick hand through his mossy locks, beads of sweat lacing through his fingers though the night was warm. He had never known fear quite like this for a long time running. It was quite simple, actually; they got through this, and they were at Raftel.
The sky was pitch-black without a single cloud to block out the swollen red orb of a moon, dripping and bleeding into the crimson stars. The water, too; the colour of night. The tiny caravel seemed so out of place in all the darkness and blood, and evidently the island agreed.
The entire horizon was covered in a tempest that reached up for miles into the sky: a wall of raging wind and storming hailstones of which no ship could pass through. He hoped to the Dear Lord watching over them that they were somehow special enough to get through, that their ship was small enough, that they would live, live, live on to touch land again.
It was a different feeling than the one he had when they had run into Hawk Eyes Mihawk only a few months ago. That feeling was of fear as well, but all of the sudden that fear seemed so small in comparison. Mihawk was a man; he was conquerable. This was raw nature in its most refined fury.
As they moved closer to the storm, they knew they had no chance. Nothing but a miracle would save them now; but God damn them if they weren't going to try anyways. It was a hell of warping winds and lightning tearing fissures in the tormented sky; all circling like mad dogs around what was undoubtedly Raftel in its eye.
The
wind started to pick up. They had to yell to be heard above the
coming storm.
"You
guys, if you have anything to say, say it now. Not all of us are
going to get through this alive."
"I'm sorry I stole your
Manjuu again, Usopp. I didn't mean to after what happened in
Alabastra.""Don't
worry about it. I never would have survived without you." The
marksman was crying again. Fur and lies in an embrace of friendship.
"Sanji,
I'm so sorry for hitting you so many times."
"It
was of no matter, Nami-san. Your beauty was worth it."
There
was a tug on his sleeve. "Zoro?"
He
turned and looked into his captain's wide eyes, the breath forced
out of him when he saw what rested there.
His
captain was scared. There was no doubt about that, the fear that had
never shown up on his face finally choosing the perfect moment to
come out. He could barely hear him over the rising wind.
"Zoro…are
you going to die?"
He
was silent, surprised at the person whose death Luffy dreaded the most.
"Zoro…are
my nakama going to die?" Large tears were gathering in his spacious
eyes, threatening to loose their unrefined emotion to the world that
had never known such emotion from the supposedly heartless Straw Hat
captain.
It
was too late to turn back as he gathered the tiny body in his arms
and pulled his captain tight to his chest, calling to his nakama to
join him. They did so without a second thought, six bodies
intertwined sharing tears while staring death in the face.
The first gale struck.
The main sail was torn off as the main mast snapped neatly in half; scattering the six in all directions. The mast came crashing down onto the deck of the caravel with a heavy thud, splintered wood flying in all directions. The cook took a sliver through the arm and fell to the wooden floorboards below him, a huge gaping hole replacing his left elbow, neatly soaking the vessel a startled crimson. The captain started rushed over to his side but instead got clipped by a larger sliver, nearly slashing his stomach open.
It started to rain.
Hailstones the size of the heads of men began to torment the battered ship. Holes and the subsequent appearance of water deemed the ship soon unable to float. The doctor and the marksman, with the cook thrown over his shoulder, ran belowdecks to try to fill in some of the worse holes knowing that it was an unbelievable futility.
Lighting danced in the anguished, unfeeling firmament.
Despite the pouring rain and hail, bolts of light that dared to come a little too close began their diminutive fires in the soaked, wooden vessel. Small fires quickly became larger and started their small war with the rain for supremacy. The navigator conducted electricity better than most would've thought and was struck hard and swiftly, knocking her over the side of the ship into the churning waters, blood seeping out of her head from impact.
A cry from a woman who had conquered the unconquerable, who had defeated the demons of her past, who lived on to pursue the dream she had forgotten for a long time running. A scream from a woman whose last map to complete a pictorial index of the world was hanging to dry in the galley. And then silence.
Thunder shook the caravel, shaking wooden planks apart into nothing but dead trees. It plunged deeper into the cold water, an injured boar fighting on to its death. The lower sections of the ship began spilling water into the upper sections.
A reindeer that had never needed nor been able to swim took his last sweet breath before submitting himself to the awaiting waters. His body washed out of the sinking ship and into the sea a million miles deep below. His cure for the cancerous cells that had plagued humanity for centuries was being verified five thousand kilometres away.
And the ship fought on to the growing shoreline in the distance.
The marksman's head met a hailstone of the same size. There was a moment of absolute nothing as his skull shattered, sending tiny shards of bone into his brain. He began laughing to tears as the pain melted away and the darkness became everything. Far away, a man with his likeness burst into tears, his red-haired captain wondering what was wrong but without the heart to ask.
He lied himself his last lie, that it was only a dream, and slipped into nothing.
Raftel grew in the distance. They were so close to safety, so close…
A wave of water so strong it was almost solid crashed into the Going Merry, splitting it neatly in half. The cook, already half-conscious from pain, was washed overboard for the second time in his life; there was no one to save him this time. Drawn to him by the scent of fresh blood, a shark from North Blue and a Bluefin from West Blue bumped noses with him before setting off in opposite directions. Nicotine-stained lungs fought for air that did not exist, finally surrendering and bequeathing his body to the All Blue.
The agonized Going Merry slipped silently into the black sea. Working on pure reflex after the shock of seeing his nakama die, the swordsman grabbed his captain by his soaked vest and began swimming for the coast. Tainted by the foul curse of Demon Fruit and soaked with blood, his captain was barely alive. He did the only thing he knew to keep his captain awake.
"Luffy?"
He grunted, assaulted by waves and hail and who-knows-what.
Luffy's
eyes fluttered open. If he could take a full breath, he would have
sighed from relief.
"…Ai, Zo…ro?"
"Are
you…okay?" In his whole life, he had always trained the strength
in his arms to defeat men. This time, he could not win. His strength
was fading quickly.
"Zoro…where
are we?" Luffy had taken a hit to the head somewhere, amnesia
already beginning its swift path of destruction inside his mind.
He wasn't going to make it.
He had to save his captain.
The shore was so close.
He
leaned over so that his mouth almost touched his captain's."Luffy?"
"Zoro?"
"I'm
not going to be there with you when you become the Pirate King." He
wrapped his arms around Luffy's waist. "And I never thanked you
for saving me from that Morgan bastard. So thanks."
"No…problem."
"Remember
when I told you that if you ever got in the way of my dreams, I'd
make you commit Hara-kiri?"
A nod that couldn't have been a
nod, it was so slight."I have one last thing to ask you."
"A…ai,
Zoro."
He drew back his captain, eyes trained on the growing shoreline.
"…live."
Luffy flew through the calming storm. Having given up his last ounce of strength to give him flight, Zoro slipped under the calming surface of the water. He had lost to the wind and the rain and the hail and the world. Everyone had lost.
Still sinking, he slid the Wadou out of its scabbard and kissed its blade. Only silent seconds separated him from her face. He blessed the life he was about to lose, blessed his luck, blessed his nakama, blessed his captain. He guided the Wadou up his stomach to the precise location of his slowed heart.
The Hawk's gravestone had his name engraved on it.
That is why, child, they call this island the Island of Broken Dreams/
There is a tattered silence, as though the threads of sound have come undone and are lying at his feet.
I am going to kill you.
That's what Gol D. Roger said, child/
But aren't you his treasure?
The One Piece scoffed. His treasure lies below/. I have been here, nurturing the Tree of Demons since the beginning of time/
You still haven't told me why you killed my nakama.
A
sigh. No-one can know of my existence, young Luffy/. My power
is infinite, my possibilities limitless/. If I were to fall into the
hands of man, there would surely be no hope for Mankind to be saved
from his own greed/
So what will you do
with me? Why did I survive and not my nakama?
Most men die
within sight of Raftel/. You…were special, like your father/
Father?
/kanthia writes-
if you are screaming/ scarred for life/ a dubbie, please do not come to kanthia's house with burning objects.
raftel is most likely in its second-to-last chapter. there will probably be a sequel, though, if it ever gets written.
this chapter is dedicated to Leon-kun. please, please, please get well soon. I can't live without you.
