An Old Cliche:
the desert's rose
Chapter 05 - Kesenai Kiss Scene
By: L.R. Pelgina
beta read by: Starfirehime
For food and through tears - we'll always lend you a hand on our mothership
--Family; One Piece-Luffy Pirates
Authors Note: Made it on time! Sorry it came a little late in the day though. It was my best friend's birthday today sooo……. I took her out! Anyway, here it is! And extra long to make up for the short one last week! Thank you everyone for reviewing, I'd tell you all that individually but apparently we're not allowed reviewer responses in our stories any more! Oh well! Here is the story with a little more ZoroxVivi moments than usual as a Happy Birthday present for my reviewer Vivi. HAPPY BIRTHDAY…early. Thank you all so much and review please!
It was pitch black and Vivi couldn't see a thing. Even if there had been light at the bottom of this ship she probably wouldn't be able to see due to all the dust they had unsettled in their fall. She of course couldn't see the dust, but she was choking on it because it was so thick. Vivi coughed then began to try and get on her feet but found it to be difficult as she was on top of a few bodies. Around her Vivi could hear the others stirring awake.
"Who the hell is on top of me?" Zoro demanded!
"Ow! Someone's leg is in my face!" Nami whined.
"Chopper! Your horns are stabbing me!" Zoro continued.
"I landed on something soft!" Luffy insisted happily.
"Is there any way to light this place?" Vivi said herself, worrying about everyone and seemingly helping her to regain her courage to speak again.
"I've got something!" Usoppu said and the sounds of him rummaging through his bag could be heard soon after. And then suddenly lights came on almost out of nowhere, "Leave it to Captain Usoppu and his amazing light dials from Skypiea!" Usoppu shouted triumphantly.
Vivi looked around, curious to see who had landed where. Usoppu had landed in a far corner, apparently he had tried to break his fall with a rope tied to his belt but it had not been long enough or he hadn't reacted fast enough because the rope now lay around him. Sanji (who had just now realized who was on him) had passed out again due to the fact Nami had landed on him, halfway anyway. They were more tangled up with his face under her legs and vice-versa. This made Vivi blush but was nothing compared to the next thing she saw.
The "soft thing" Luffy had landed on turned out to be Miss AllSunday's chest in in the midst of the darkness and his curiosity he had decided to play with the "soft things" he had landed on, and despite the current lights on he had not yet stopped.
"Sencho! If you don't mind those are mine," Robin said calmly.
Nami however saw this as an injustice to all females and quickly untangled herself from Sanji to go kick Luffy into next week.
"OI! Vivi! You can get up now," Zoro said and all too suddenly Vivi realized she was in her own compromising situation.
Zoro was on top of Chopper's horns, pinning poor Chopper to the ground. Vivi had, however, landed on top of Zoro and Kohza both. Her chest in Zoro's face and Kohza's head was between her calves (that's the lower half of the leg for those of you who don't know! ). If Vivi was red before it held nothing to how she felt now.
Vivi quickly untangled herself from Kohza, who was also looking rather red, and quickly crawled off of Zoro. Apologizing to them both as she did.
Zoro was a slight red himself, but his heart was pounding in his ears and he couldn't hear any of Vivi's apologies. He was too embarrassed to even face her. So he stood in a hurry trying to clear his head. A long silence followed and the air tensed, until Chopper stood up dizzily due to the impact from Zoro falling on his head. Vivi then caught him as he fell from his dizziness.
"Toni-kun are you ok?" Vivi asked worried.
Chopper then muttered something that sounded like an "I'm fine" then proceeded to lose his footing straight into Vivi's arms.
The silence continued for a few seconds after word until Usoppu broke it.
"Where's Luffy?" he questioned.
Everyone looked around, surprised at first but when they remembered the person in discussion they all realized that they weren't that surprised he was missing at all.
"Damn Captain!" Zoro muttered out loud to himself, although he found that for once he was quite glad that Luffy had done something stupid because it broke up the awkward situation they were in.
Everyone (except Kohza) then sighed and nodded in agreement with Zoro.
"Does this Captain do this often?" Kohza asked Vivi.
Vivi nodded vigorously in return.
A click was heard in the corner and everyone turned to see a now awakened Sanji lighting a tell-tale cigarette, he inhaled the ash in it deeply for a second then blew out the smoke, "Well, shall we go and find our Captain then?" he asked.
Everyone nodded and prepared themselves to leave, that is of course everyone except Kohza.
"But we don't even know where we are!" Kohza protested, "Let alone if there are anymore traps like the last one waiting for us?"
"That doesn't matter," Sanji said.
"We're pirates and we don't go anywhere without our Captain," Nami finished, "We'll figure out how to get out of her after we find Luffy," she said as a small flash of berri signs passed through her eyes, "And the treasure of course,"
"YOU'RE the only one that cares about THAT!" Zoro repeated himself, "In any case there are four open doors at the bottom of this ship. We should probably split up and go search them all, since we don't know what door Luffy went through,"
Usoppu then came up with a brilliant plan.
"I've got a brilliant plan!" Usoppu exclaimed and ran over, holding up something in his hand.
Everyone gathered around him to see better, and Zoro noticed that Vivi once again placed herself as close to Kohza and as far away from Robin as she could.
"Everyone will pull a piece of paper from my hand. At the end of each paper is a color. There will be two papers of each color and the person who comes up with the same color as you will be your partner and we'll all go into the doors that match our colors with our partners to go find Luffy!" Usoppu said indicating the doors all had different color door frames, "I'll wait here for you guys to get back," he finished his legs shaking.
"YOU'RE GOING TOO!" everyone yelled at him.
Kohza picked first, black.
Then Sanji, yellow.
Nami also got yellow.
"NAMI-SWAN! IT'S FATE ISN'T IT!" Sanji exclaimed happily while dancing with a return of his famous red hearts flying around him.
Nami sweatdropped and walked with him to their assigned door.
Chopper was next, he got blue.
Then Zoro got green.
Robin also got blue.
"Oh! That means you're on my team!" Chopper said happily to Robin.
"Glad to have you," Robin smiled and they both went through their door.
Zoro heard Vivi sigh with what sounded like relief when Robin left the room and then went to go pick her color.
There were just two colors left, which meant she was either going to be Kohza's partner or Zoro's, leaving Usoppu with the aftermath. Vivi held her hand over the two remaining slips for just a moment, then pulled her paper...
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Luffy (who had gone through the blue door) was now staring at the largest swimming pool he had seen in his life. In fact he was pretty sure the whole room was a swimming pool. The hallway floor dropped straight down at a 90-degree angle and from where he was standing he couldn't even see the other side of the room. All he could see was water stretching around him from all sides, almost as if this old pirate man had put the very ocean inside his ship with some sort of magic. Luffy was fascinated by this and wished that he could get a closer look but knew that he couldn't.
"There you are Sencho," Robin said as she and Chopper approached him from behind.
"Luffy! You really should think things out before just running on ahead," Chopper lectured at him.
Luffy however paid no mind to Chopper's advice and grabbed the doctor instead.
"Look Chopper you can't even see the other side," Luffy smirked holding Chopper over the end of the hall so Chopper might be able to see clearly.
Chopper was impressed by more so puzzled, "Why do you think the old pirate Captain would put water in his boat?" he asked out loud.
"I suppose this would be one of the tests in order to get to the treasure," Robin replied smiling gently at Chopper.
"Huh? How can water be a test?" Luffy asked Robin.
"I think we're supposed to find our way to the other side Sencho," she answered.
"Oh!" Luffy said then looked around, "I've got an idea then!" he exclaimed happily.
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In the yellow room Sanji and Nami weren't fairing much better in figuring their situation out. The entire room was painted a bright yellow and it was entirely filled with levers. There were thousands of levers everywhere. Levers as far as the eye could see, levers on the ceiling, on the floor, and on all the walls as well, but no way out of the room. The door had closed behind them both as soon as they had entered it and Sanji couldn't even find the crack of where it HAD been due to all the bright paint messing with his eyes. Nami couldn't find it either.
"Can't you just kick the wall down?" Nami asked impatiently.
Sanji squeezed past a few levers in order to reach the wall and knocked on it faintly, then he put his ear up to it and shook his head in response.
"There's water on the other side of this wall," Sanji said.
"Well, how about the others," Nami asked.
Sanji went to each of the walls one by one and got the same results, even on the floor he heard the sound of water.
"THIS IS RIDICULOUS!" Nami shouted, "THERE CAN'T BE WATER ALL AROUND US!"
"Yes, well, this is probably one of those tests Robin-chan was reading to us about," Sanji said, "The idea is to trick us so that way we don't know which one IS real and end up breaking the wrong door or something like that. I suggest that we go up!" he pointed up to the ceiling, "I can always kick through the roof."
"How are we supposed to get up there?" Nami asked.
"Climb the levers," Sanji smiled.
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Zoro had never seen so much green in his life! And that was saying a lot because it was a color he often wore, but THIS was just ridiculous.
"What's with all the plants! This is worse then the forest in Skypiea," Zoro muttered out loud to himself as he climbed over a fallen log, "And all the green paint on the walls in the background is just making it worse, my eyes are going to start spinning soon."
His partner laughed behind him.
"Your green hair doesn't help much either. Neither do your clothes…. Did you HAVE to wear all green today?"
Since when did Vivi like to tease people? Whatever the case he was glad to see her in a better mood. Not like he'd let her know that though.
"Che," Zoro spat out.
Vivi laughed again, "I'm just kidding. I like your hair actually," she said.
Zoro froze where he stood, and his heart began to beat in his ears again, a hundred times faster than the normal pace.
"It's soft and it reminds me of Carue's down feathers. Besides, green is my favorite color," Vivi continued.
Carue's feathers…..
"Mr. Bushido? Are you alright?" Vivi asked after she noticed Zoro hadn't moved for a few moments, when she caught up with him she put a hand on his arm and he nearly jumped out of his skin.
"I - I got stuck for a second!" Zoro snapped, "I'm fine, lets go!" and he began walking ahead at a very quick pace.
"Mr. Bushido wait," Vivi said and rushed to try and keep up.
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Which means the one stuck with Usoppu…..
Kohza sighed. This….shell…or dial….or WHATEVER this pirate was calling it was really not helping them in the darkness.
"Don't you have any more of these we could use pirate?" Kohza asked the long-nosed man huddling behind him.
"I can't help it!" Usoppu yelled nervously in return, "I gave one to all the others in case they needed one and so I only have our two left!"
Kohza sighed again, the room they had to go into was PITCH black, swimming in tar would have been clearer. If not for these weird dial things that the pirate had had with him Kohza wouldn't have been able to see the nose on his face. Plus what was worse is that Vivi was now alone with that brute pirate. Who knew what could happen to her while he was stuck here in the dark.
What's more he was pretty sure they had stumbled into some sort of odd maze.
Kohza moved his hand along the wall and stepped forward a few feet, only to have the long-nosed pirate panic at the loss of human contact and run up and cling to him the way a frightened child might.
Kohza found he was sighing a lot these past couple of days.
"Could you maybe back off a little?" Kohza asked, "I can't concentrate with you shaking all over me,"
Usoppu reluctantly moved back about an inch, and waited.
"A little more maybe? I can still feel you breathing down my neck, and I can't find our way out of this maze in the dark AND with you distracting my train of thought!"
Usoppu took a step back and almost disappeared due to the darkness. Kohza could only hope it wasn't this dark where Vivi was stuck with that marimo man.
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Chopper was starting to have horrid flashbacks from Alabasta now that he realized what position he was in. Luffy had wrapped himself around some sort of pole that was just at the end of the hallway and was preparing himself to shot across the water, with Robin and Chopper in tow. The idea was that if Luffy didn't make it all the way across then Robin could use her power to catch them from the ceiling and hold them up. Of course Luffy had no idea about what to do after that happened, but this wouldn't have been the first stupid thing Chopper had done for Luffy and it probably wouldn't be the last. Robin however didn't seem to be worried at all. She grabbed hold of the captain and Chopper and even grew a few extra arms to hold them tighter.
"Ready everyone!" Luffy asked.
Robin responded with a yes and Chopper responded by covering his eyes and squealing loudly, and with that Luffy shot off. They flew for about a minute before they started to fall, and they got pretty far too, but Luffy STILL didn't see the end of the room. Which confused him because his eyesight was pretty good.
When they started to fall Robin was true to her word and grew some hands off the ceiling to catch them with, or at least she tried.
As they started to fall faster and faster towards the water Chopper began to panic, "ROBIN!" Chopper squealed, "WHY HAVEN'T YOU CAUGHT US YET!" he panicked.
"The ceiling is made out of marine-stone!" Robin said almost calmly.
"NANI!" Chopper and Luffy both screamed at the same time.
"WE'RE GONNA DIE!" Chopper whined, and then they hit the water.
And then bounced back up.
"Huh?" Luffy wondered aloud.
They all came back down but didn't bounce back this time but just stayed on the surface of the water.
"What happened?" Chopper asked from his huddled position, "I'm afraid to uncover my eyes. Are we dead yet?"
Luffy stretched and grabbed Chopper, "It wasn't water," Luffy said.
Chopper opened his eyes slowly and meagerly looked around.
It was true! They were all sitting on top of what they had thought to be water but turned out to be something else entirely.
"What is it?" Chopper asked wriggling free from Luffy and walking on the strange substance himself.
"I dunno," Luffy said then looked questioningly at Robin who seemed to be feeling around it herself.
"I think it's like some sort of gelatin," she answered sounding just as confused herself.
"Isn't that edible?" Luffy asked.
"Well, yes, but..."
Robin never got to finish, Luffy ripped out a pick chunk of the gelatin like substance and took a large bite.
"LUFFY?" Chopper shouted, surprised and yet not really surprised at what Luffy was doing.
But then Luffy spit it out, "YUCK! This is gross!" Luffy shouted and began to try and wipe the taste off his tongue.
Robin laughed.
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Sanji and Nami had both gotten about halfway up the wall by way of lever with no problems until, Sanji leaned on one the wrong way.
Click!
The lever moved and Sanji and Nami froze, preparing themselves for the worst, but nothing happened.
"Hmm, I guess these levers don't do anything after all," Sanji muttered to himself and began to climb again, helping Nami up along the way when she needed it.
And then it happened again, Nami stepped onto a lever and this time something did happen. The wall sprayed them lightly with a thin layer of some sticky substance.
"What the heck was THAT!" Nami yelled.
Sanji reached out and slowly ran his finger down her face.
Nami couldn't believe it. What was he doing? Why didn't she seem to mind? Why was she turning red? So Nami did the next best thing to hide her embarrassment, she got angry and swatted Sanji's hand away. Then turned her head. She turned back around just in time to see Sanji place the very same finger that had been on her face only seconds ago into his mouth. Now Nami was turning scarlet.
"CHOTTO! Sanji-kun! What do you think you are--"
"It's honey," Sanji said.
"Honey?"
Sanji nodded.
"But why spray us with honey?"
Sanji shrugged and they both fell silent for a moment. Which is why they heard it. There was a faint buzzing from what seemed to be far away, but it was getting closer.
"Sanji-kun, do you hear..." Nami trailed off when she noticed Sanji was looking at something behind her and had never looked so horrified in his life.
Nami, dreading, turned around herself to see what it was he was looking at just in time to see the large swarm of bugs engulf them both.
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Zoro stopped, "Did you hear something?" he asked Vivi.
Vivi stopped as well and listened.
"I didn't hear anything Mr. Bushido," Vivi said after listening for a moment.
Zoro shrugged and began moving again, Vivi followed along just behind him.
Zoro was quite surprised at the fact that she was able to keep up with his pace in this kind of terrain, he and Robin had had to help Nami across EVERYTHING in Skypiea, but Vivi was really holding her own out here. Of course Vivi had always impressed him. From the time that she told him, Nami and Luffy her story in Whiskey Peak, her going out of her way for her country and putting her life on the line to do it. To other things like in Little Garden when they had been caught on Mr. 3's giant candle of death and said that she would fight with him.
Vivi had never been afraid to risk her life and help in certain danger despite her weakness. She had even stood up to those huge banana crocodiles to try and help him and Luffy and some of the others out of that cage on Rainbase...
"Mr. Bushido," Vivi said quietly, bringing him out of his thoughts, "Can we really trust Miss AllSunday?"
Zoro frowned he knew this was going to come sooner or later but did she really have to ask him?
"Well," Zoro began, "The Captain trusts her and so do the rest of the crew...but I still don't really trust her completely. She may be planning something she might not, but either way I'm just going to leave her be until I find out which it is. And that's good enough for me. We can all draw our own conclusions about her. But if your worried about her doing something to you or your friend sideburns back there, don't! She wouldn't be stupid enough to pull something like that in front of the rest of us...and I won't allow something like that to happen. Ok?"
Zoro turned to see what she thought of his answer to find that she wasn't there! She had disappeared completely!
"What the!" Zoro yelled and ran back a few feet, searching for her but didn't see a trace of her, "OI! VIVI WHERE DID YOU GO!" he yelled after not being able to find her and hoping for an answer.
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Kohza could have sworn that the weird maze they were in was getting more crowed, the walls were narrowing down. Of course it was hard to tell when the long-nosed pirate wouldn't give him a few inches of space. Then he heard a low rumbling, very faint and only for a second but he was sure of what he had heard and he stopped. Usoppu ran into him again.
"What is it?" Usoppu asked at the worried look on Kohza's face.
"I think the walls are closing in on us, " Kohza said.
"WHAT?" Usoppu yelled.
"This is probably one of those tests. We probably have to find our way out before the walls close up and crush us," Kohza said.
"HOW CAN YOU BE SO CALM?" Usoppu demanded.
"Panicking won't help us to figure out how to get out of this!" Kohza replied.
"Can you cut through the walls with that sword of yours maybe?" Usoppu asked.
Kohza knocked on the wall, "They're made out of metal. Sorry but I can't cut through metal," he said, "Had it been wood then sure, but not metal,"
"I bet Zoro could cut through it," Usoppu muttered to himself.
"I'm sorry. What was that?"
"NOTHING!" Usoppu shouted and laughed nervously.
Kohza glared at him for a second, "Do YOU have anything in that bag of yours that can knock the walls away?" Kohza asked, "Any of these shell things that could do that?"
Usoppu wrapped his hand around the impact dial in his bag, "No," Usoppu said nervously as if Kohza could see straight through him and know what the impact dial could do.
"Well then lets hurry up and try to get out of here," Kohza said and began moving forward again.
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Sanji and Nami ran down all the levers as fast as they could go, sadly they tripped another lever in the process but didn't stick around to find out what it did or didn't do! Luckily for them it opened the door out of this mess.
The door opened quite quickly but began to close as soon as it had opened, fortunately the door didn't close as fast as it had opened. Sanji and Nami rushed through the door just as it closed behind them separating them from the horrid swarm of bugs. And then they both collapsed, exhausted. That was until Nami noticed the bug on Sanji's shoulder.
"Sanji...kun," Nami whispered then pointed at his shoulder, "there's a bug..."
Sanji turned his head slowly in order to try and see his shoulder and nearly died when he realized what was there.
Nami slowly got out her climatact and aimed for the bug with her lightening piece ready and then zapped the bug off of Sanji's shoulder. Sanji, who had closed his eyes during this process) opened them slowly again.
"Is it gone?"
"Yep," Nami said.
"NAMI-SWAN ARIGATOU!" Sanji yelled and ran to hug her, his infamous red hearts returning once again.
And Nami knocked him out.
"In any case what is this room," Nami questioned, trying to hide her nervousness again.
Sanji stood and looked around the room, this room was painted entirely white but had about three doors and a hole near the ceiling that looked like a large chute for laundry or garbage or something.
"Do you think one of these doors is the way out?" Nami asked.
"They can't be opened," Sanji pointed out, and that's when Nami realized none of the doors had handles.
"Can't you kick these out then?" Nami shouted.
"They all have the same sound coming from them as the other walls did, and the door that we DO know doesn't have water behind it has all those...bugs," Sanji shuddered.
"Then what do we do now?" Nami asked.
Sanji took out a new cigarette (that didn't taste like honey now) and lit it, "Wait and see," he said.
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Luffy, Chooper, and Robin learned a very important lesson that day. Walking on a jello-like substance was not easy work. And neither was figuring out the situation that would get them out of there. That was until Robin read what the test was on the wall.
"It says 'Find the way out'" Robin read.
"And..."
"That's it." Robin replied.
"HOW ARE WE SUPPOUSED TO FIGURE THAT OUT!" Chopper squealed, "We're gonna be stuck here forever aren't we?"
"I've got it!" Luffy exclaimed.
"Huh?"
"Got what?" Chopper asked.
"The way out of here, I've got it," Luffy said.
"What is it?" Robin asked curious herself.
"The door out is underneath the jello!"
"Huh?"
"We can't find the walls so the door has to be under the jello!" Luffy said as though it made perfect sense.
"And what makes you think that?" Chopper asked.
Luffy smiled, "Intuition," he said.
"We're gonna die!" Chopper replied.
Robin laughed, "Believe in the Captain," she said and grabbed onto Chopper as Luffy prepared and attack to break apart the jello.
"Hold on!" Luffy said, "Gum Gum PISTOL!"
And the jello split in half to revile a small brown door amidst all the blue paint and jello on a door in the corner. The group went down and opened it, this door dropped down into another room that had one single door on a wall. Luffy, Chopper, and Robin went through this door which took them to another room that was painted entirely white and had Sanji and Nami waiting inside.
"Yo!" Luffy said as he came in last behind Robin and Chopper.
"DON'T CLOSE THAT--" the door shut behind Luffy, "door," Sanji and Nami said at the same time.
"Huh?" Luffy said, "You don't wanna go out that way anyhow, it's weird!"
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Kohza was really starting to get nervous now. It seemed no matter how much he tried he couldn't figure out the way out! And things were really starting to become a tight pinch, literally! The walls had closed up so close around them that they were exactly even with Kohza's shoulders and that if Kohza wanted to move his arms any it would have to be straight out! The pirate he had come with still had a little elbowroom but Kohza still felt this was getting to be hopeless! Pretty soon he would have to start walking sideways. And of course the fact that he couldn't see didn't help much!
Kohza decided it would be better to turn sideways now rather than later. He really couldn't afford to die like this! What about Vivi? Who was going to make sure she was safe? He had never even told her –
A light dial whizzing past his head broke him from his thoughts.
"What the hell was that pirate?" Kohza began but instantly changed his mind when he saw a small brown door illuminated by the light of the shell, "How did you?"
Usoppu lifted up one of his goggles, "I thought I saw a slight glisten of a gold doorknob," he said, "So I used my slingshot to see if I was right!" he smirked.
Kohza was impressed, he never would have been able to see that!
"You must be a sniper!" Kohza said and Usoppu was shocked, "Sniper always have good eyesight… All of mine did anyway! It explains the goggles too. Eric always wore them as well!"
Usoppu had almost forgotten he was in the presence of the rebel leader from Alabasta.
"In any case, good work! Now let's get outta here before it gets any more crowded!
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Zoro was beginning to panic! He couldn't find Vivi anywhere and he was starting to get worried, not to mention lost! And the fact that she wasn't answering his calls wasn't helping his worries much either. He knew that he had always been one of the ones to preach and tell her to believe in her nakama because they wouldn't die so easy but Vivi was different and he couldn't help but worry. Why she was different he wasn't exactly sure yet! But he knew that if he didn't find her soon he didn't know if they would make it out of here at all!
Then he heard it. The slight rustle of bushes and cracking of twigs and sticks he had heard before. Only this time it was much closer. He slowly reached for Wado prepared to fight whatever it was that was coming for him. He spun around sword ready to with sticks and leaves and stuff in her hair. Zoro lowered his sword and watched as she picked a few leaves out of her hair.
"What happened to you?" Zoro asked.
"I fell down a hole," Vivi said, "I had to use my peacock slashers in order to catch myself! But I think I found the way out!"
Zoro put his sword away and Vivi led him to a door on a wall not far from where they were. Zoro walked over slowly and tried the handle. It wouldn't turn!
"The knob doesn't turn," Zoro said offhandedly to Vivi.
"Really? I wonder if there's another way out of here then?" She said.
"I could just break it," Zoro offered.
Vivi shrugged and Zoro took that as the closest he was going to get to a yes, so Zoro kicked in the door and he and Vivi took a step in to the room together, only to have the floor drop out from under them, again!
But Vivi thought fast this time and extended her peacock slashers so catch a tree just as the fell the grabbed Zoro's hand to keep them from falling.
Zoro was quite shocked that he had stopped falling but then noticed what Vivi had done.
"Now what?" Vivi asked, not sure what to do now.
Zoro looked around for something to grab a hold of but found nothing. A few seconds of silence followed but then Vivi broke it.
"Mr. Bushido….."
"What?"
"You're heavy….." Vivi whined.
Zoro frowned up at her then something hit his face, something warm, and wet. He reached up a hand and wiped it off to see what it was and was shocked at what he saw.
"Vivi! Are you bleeding!" Zoro shouted at the princess.
Vivi didn't answer so Zoro looked up to see where she was bleeding from and then noticed what had happened.
The pinky wrap on Vivi's slashers wasn't strong enough to hold them so Vivi had wrapped her hand around the slashers at the last second in order to get a better grip, and they were cutting into hand because of all the extra weight.
A few more drops landed on Zoro and then he couldn't take it anymore.
"Vivi! Drop me!" Zoro demanded.
"WHAT!"
"You'll cut through your whole hand otherwise!"
"SO! You'd cut off your feet for me!"
"That's different!"
"HOW IS IT DIFFERENT!"
"I'm gonna let go of you know so you let go of me!"
"NO!"
Zoro let go of her hand but Vivi still struggled to hang on, causing the slashers to cut into her hands deeper and more blood to flow.
"VIVI! LET GO OF ME!"
"We don't know what's down there! What if you get hurt!"
"I WON'T! Trust me! Let go!"
But Vivi didn't want to let go, instead he slipped.
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Kohza and Usoppu rushed through their door and into the white room just as the walls closed shut behind them, both of the gasping for breath.
Sanji looked at the walls behind them, "Well, I guess that's not the way out," Sanji said and threw his cigarette on the floor, "I guess the ceiling is th—"
Zoro fell through the chute in the ceiling.
Kohza looked up, "Weren't you with Vivi?" he asked breathless.
Zoro rolled over and stood, ready to find a way back up to Vivi.
"Zoro….that blood—!" Chopper yelled.
Sanji looked up the hole, "If that's not it—" he began but didn't get to finish, because Vivi fell in face first into the room. Face to face, and lip to lip for that matter, onto Sanji, knocking him onto the floor. And this was how Vivi and Sanji both got their first, lip to lip kiss.
Authors Note pt.2: Thanks so much for reading. Review and let me know what you think! Thanks again. Next update will be on Dec. 2 or maybe 3! I have a lot of midterms this week soooo…. Otanoshimini!