Wasuremono: The Things We Leave Behind
Author's note - Oh man, it just gets longer and longer between these things. Thank you for your patience, everyone.
Would you like to SEE the Magpie pirates? Swiss and her crew pose in a group shot! To check them out just look at the following address WHICH THIS DAMN THING WILL NOT LET ME PUT IN THE STORY! It just disappears when I upload it. So I'll DESCRIBE the address. Double-yoo, double-yoo, double-yoo, dot, deviantart, dot com, slash, deviation, slash, 16827042, slash. Sorry for the difficulty.
For those who have understandably forgotten, we left Sanji and Solomon at a stand-off in the center of a hall of mirrors, with a woozy, love-potion-saturated Nami in the balance! Fortunately Nami seems to have cleared her stomach of the offending brew...
Since I keep saying there's going to be a fight, and then putting it off, let's start this one with
Chapter 7: A Blizzard of Projectiles
shot past Sanji as Solomon fired wildly, scraping Nami's multicolored vomit off his suit while moaning about how disgusting it was. Fortunately the same surprise splattering that had caused him to involuntarily pull the trigger had caused him to jerk the bow away from Nami's head, and the crossbolt bolts lodged harmlessly in the wall.
A multiple-shot crossbow, Sanji wondered. It was just another example of advanced Grand Line technology. He's have to be careful or he - or worse, Nami - could end up a pincushion.
"Ugh! You repulsive girl!" Solomon spat, pushing Nami away. "Do you know how much some of those cost to make?"
"Um... Solomon, darling? I ... I mean..." The navigator paused, confused, her stomach empty of potions but the residue still in her bloodstream. "What's going on?" She sank to her knees and put her head in her hands. "And whose side am I on?"
"Nami-san, he's trying to use you! Come over h" Sanji was silenced by a bolt whistling by scant centimeters from his face.
"That's enough out of your." Solomon said. "I'll give you one last chance to back off and leave peacefully, only because I've got to brew up more potions for Nam-Nam and if I have to splatter your head, she might have trouble keeping them down."
"You've just made a mistake." Sanji smiled.
"Like hell. I've got ten bolts ready to go straight through your brain."
"Your mistake was in taking the bow off of Nami-san!" Sanji launched himself in the air like a rocket. "I don't mind risking MY head!"
"IDIOT!" Solomon sprayed bolts at the shock of blond hair covering the presumed location of Sanji's left eye - but of course, by the time he managed to fire, the cook was no longer where he'd been aiming. He scarcely had time to wonder where his target had gotten to when he was being driven backwards by a flurry of kicks to the chest. Before he could even focus on his assailant, he was driven backwards, hitting the wall hard.
To the perverted chemist's credit, he didn't go down that easily. Wiping bits of mud off his increasingly messy shirt with one hand, Solomon raised his crossbow back into position, tracking Sanji carefully. The next bolt ripped the shoulder out of the cook's suit.
Unfortunately for him, two chances at Sanji were all he got. And when his bolts again failed to hit squarely, his target didn't go for a kick to the body this time. Instead, Solomon felt his crossbow splinter in his hand as Sanji delivered a powerful straight kick right to the firing point, smashing the weapon into bits.
Dropping the useless mess of wood, Solomon felt around desperately for another weapon. Now he regretted pouring his entire pharmacopeia into that wretched girl. Some of them had been smoke bombs, after all, and right now all he wanted was to escape.
Sanji grinned in triumph, raising one leg nearly vertically over his head to deliver a slow, but powerful finishing blow. This one should drive that bastard through the floor, he thought, starting the descent.
"No! Don't hurt him!" Nami cried in horror, the remnants of her powerful, unnatural affection still oozing through her endocrine system. "I think I love him!" She flung herself in front of Solomon, who eagerly ducked behind his shield of convenience. To Sanji's horrified eyes, it seemed as though it happened in show motion. There wasn't time to stop the downward motion of his shoe as it slammed into the crown of Nami's head.
"I... I ... ooh." The navigator's eyes glazed over and she crumbled to the floor, unconscious.
"Well, she's out of the way, at least." Solomon sniffed, trying to regained his composure. "Aha!" He pulled out the syringe he'd brandished earlier. "I knew I had a weapon somewhere. Shall we fight for real now, without the tart getting in the way?"
"Y- You..." Sanji's voice croaked. "YOU..." His face deepened to a boiling purplish red.
"Oh, honestly, the little slut will live, if that's what you're upset about. Although I wouldn't ask her to solve a story problem anytime soon or anything".
"YOU... MADE... ME... STRIKE... NAMI... SAAAAAAAAN!"
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Robin's eye twitched as the enormous crack appeared in the wall of the darkened Hall of Mirrors. Fortunately, she had good reflexes. She hit the ground a split second before the shock wave blasted the wall into particles.
Covering her face to shield herself from the shower of splinters and glass shards, she nevertheless caught a glimpse of a human body, limbs twisted at odd angles, rocketing out of the blackness and missing her by a hair as it flew overhead.
When she chanced a look, Robin was met with the sight of a new tunnel punched right into the side of the building, apparently created by whatever had just exploded out of it. As she stared, a figure staggered out.
Sanji cradled the unconscious Nami tenderly in his arms. When he caught sight of Robin, he sank to his knees. "Please... she's hurt... get her to Chopper." he rasped. "I can't carry her fast enough... I think I broke my leg kicking that bastard... and... I'm sorry, I guess I wrecked the Hall of Mirrors after all... Robin-chan." With that, he slumped over face-first into the ground, his hold on Nami firm even as he lapsed into dreamless unconsciousness.
XXXXXXX
Meanwhile, deep in the woods...
"Eeeek! Get your hands away from me, pervo!" Tento shrieked as those horrible rubber grabbers struck all around in gatling-like flurries, narrowly missing her. She clutched her straw prize to her chest, determined not to let the wild beast following her have his hat back even if it cost her every other piece of clothing she had... which was entirely possible. She felt herself being seized and yanked back again, hurriedly shrugging out of another layer of clothes. Her pursuer roared in anger as, for the twelfth time, he pulled nothing but an empty article of apparel out of the underbrush.
Tento turned and ran in a new direction, hoping to lose her pursuer at last. It was much easier to run now, she noticed, now that close to half her layers had been stripped off. But oh, how it hurt to lose those layers! They were all valuable memorabilia from the wardrobes of famous pirates as well! Still, for the legendary straw hat that had adorned the head of first Shanks and then Luffy, it was worth giving up a lot. Blinking sweat out of her eyes, the exhausted woman pumped her short legs even harder under her remaining six skirts in an attempt to outdistance the equally determined and much longer-legged pirate captain.
Somewhere far behind, Luffy cursed in anger, realizing that once again he'd been given the slip. Brushing leaves and twigs out of his tangled hair, he looked down at the latest bit of cloth ripped from his quarry's back. "I'LL GET MY HAT BACK!" he bellowed into the night. "YOU WON'T GET AWAY!" As he threw aside the black jacket, replete with gold-embossed and highly stylized poop-coil designs, he felt a strange familiarity tugging at the back of his mind, but tossed that aside as well and continued the chase.
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"What's the situation?" Chopper asked, the normally playful deer completely sober and businesslike as his medical training took over.
"The cook has a damaged leg, and maybe other injuries. I think the navigator may have a concussion." Robin withdrew her extra sets of hands into the ground, laying the two down on the floor of the hut as gently as she could. "And then there's this one." She dropped Solomon's twisted body with somewhat less care. "I think our chivalrous friend may have been a bit overzealous in defending the navigator's honor. But you may as well try to save him, if you can. I've got to get going."
"Don't you want to stay here?" Chopper asked in concern as he examined Sanji's leg. "There might be more of these people
around. There's safety in numbers"
"You and the sharpshooter are here. I'm sure you two can protect Sherry, Reggie, and our casualties on your own. Besides, of the three who are supposed to be showing up, one is down for the count and one has, I'm sure, her hands very full with the captain. That leaves one, and I know who he's after."
Chopper mentally inventoried the crew. "Zoro?"
"I'm sure he can handle that big fool. But I do have a - let's say a previous agreement with our swordsman, so I'd better go and honor it." Robin reached down and scratched Chopper's furry head. "I'll leave you to your work, Doctor."
The little reindeer tilted his head in puzzlement as the dark-haired archaelogist walked off in the direction of the Merry. A previous agreement, he wondered. But there was no time to ponder now, he had patients to heal.
End of Chapter 7 I'll try not to take as long with the next one! Thanks to everyone who's read so far!
In the next chapter of "Wasuremono" - has the santoryu style met its match when Zoro faces a practicioner of yontoryu four-swords style? Well, probably not. But then why won't Zoro deliver a finishing blow...? The revealing of the much-overhyped thing Robin and Zoro were doing, coming in hopefully much less than four months!