A Chandlure Trainez Novella
The House on the Hill
The mansion sat atop a hill just outside the village of Morte. It wasn't in as much disrepair as the rumours down in the village had claimed. Sure, the walls and windows were dingy, the greyish-beige paint was peeling off the porch, doors and around the windows, and the lawn was positively overrun with weeds, but the windows were unbroken, and the front door solid. It was unassuming, and even Usopp had to wonder why this place, of all the possible places, was chosen as the haunt of choice for tests of bravery. Of course, when Luffy had heard rumours of a haunted mansion at the local bar, he insisted some of them go and check it out. And so, he dragged Zoro, Franky and Robin with him that evening.
All was well until the rest of the crew woke up the next morning and realized that the group had yet to return. With the log pose ready to set in a few hours, Nami, Usopp, Sanji and Law went out to find them. Leaving Chopper, Brook and Law's crew behind at the port.
The four of them stood at the bottom step of the porch leading up to the mansion, agitation filling their bodies with every second that passed. They could not sense, see or hear their friends anywhere.
"Are you sure this is the place?" Sanji asked, his eyebrows pressed together in confusion as smoke flowed up from his cigarette. His eyes scanned the windows, a frown on his face.
"That's what the villagers said," Usopp insisted. "Although, it looks much nicer than I thought it would be based on the descriptions."
Nami crossed her arms, "I know! I almost regret not coming with them last night. There is probably loads of treasure in there to steal!"
Sanji placed his hands in his pockets and gave an exasperated sigh. "They probably got bored and wandered off. There doesn't seem to be much to keep Luffy's attention here." Law hummed in agreement before he tensed, his hand moving to his sword.
There was a creak from the porch, and Usopp ran to hide behind Law, hands twisting in the other man's sweater. "If no one is here, how did that door just open?" he squeaked, knees shivering as he peered at the door from behind Law's back.
"Luffy!" Nami called, "Robin, Zoro, Franky- are you guys here!?" Only the echoes of her voice met her calls and she huffed in annoyance.
Law untangled himself from Usopp and made his way up the stairs, ignoring the scaredy cat's protests. Nami and the others followed suit, leaving Usopp no choice but to rush after them or be left alone on the front lawn.
Nami peered around Law's shoulder when she got through the front door and clicked her tongue. "This place isn't lived in, it doesn't even look abandoned. There's nothing here, not even much furniture."
"That's probably because everything that had been here met people like you first," Usopp muttered under his breath causing Law to give a snort of amusement.
"You don't talk about a lady like that, shit-head!" Sanji yelled, throwing out a leg.
Usopp dodged it and went to stand by Law's side. "I wouldn't if there was one here," he said snidely.
Nami chose not to dignify that with a response as she walked further into the house. She stood at the apex of the entryway which was the junction of three halls and a stairwell to the right. Peering straight ahead, she noticed there seemed to be a door that led to another hallway beside the stairwell. "There has to be someone taking care of the house at least. It's spotless, and there are still some things here. I think that's a suit of armour back down the corridor to the left, and there look to be some chests lined up against the wall beside it."
"Maybe it's a show house?" Usopp offered from beside Law's shoulder. He scanned each of the corridors carefully, thinking maybe his sharp eyes would catch something they hadn't. "One of those houses that architects show people who want a house built to show them a basic layout."
Sanji hummed, "I'm not sure, but whatever it is, something feels off about this place," Sanji murmured, he looked over to Usopp and Law and raised an eyebrow at how the Sniper was clinging to the surgeon. Upon catching Sanji's eye, Law rolled his eyes and gently pushed Usopp away.
"It's cold in here," Usopp commented, eyes carefully categorizing everything around them as if looking for something that had changed. "With the architecture being as it is, that's not a surprise." His eyes landed on Nami who was rubbing her arms, goosebumps covering them. He pulled his sweater off and handed it to her, jumping back with a shriek and dropping the item on the floor when the sound of something shattering resounded through the corridor from the right.
Nami quickly scooped up the sweater and pulled it over her head as she looked to the right. She brushed the sleeve of the sweater over her face to get rid of some loose strands of hair, and yelled down the hall, "Luffy, I swear if you are pulling some sort of stupid prank you will regret it!"
An eerie silence met her call.
Sanji turned to Law, watching silently for a moment as the surgeon gave the sniper his coat to put on. "I'll go see what that was," Sanji offered. He met Law's eye, only turning on his heel and leaving when he got the nod of affirmation from Law that he would look after Nami and Usopp.
A little ways down the corridor was a room. It was locked, so Sanji went on his way. There was another door at the very end of the corridor that was slightly ajar, so Sanji decided to check out the room there. He allowed his Haki to flow and tried to sense if there was anything he should be worried about, but he couldn't sense anything. Just like he hadn't been able to when they were outside. He didn't like that, because surely if Luffy and the others were there he would be able to sense them. He turned back and looked down the corridor to where Law, Usopp and Nami stood. They were there and he could hear bits and pieces of their conversation, but he couldn't detect them with his Haki either. He made a mental note to ask Law and Usopp about it after he checked out what was behind the door.
He opened the door with his foot and peeked in. To the right was a small living room, with three couches, a fireplace and a nice looking creme rug. In the middle of the room was an antique mahogany table set with four seats and place settings, one of the spots missing a plate. To the far left was a kitchen separated from the dining area by a large sterling silver island. The kitchen had cabinets, filled to the brim with silverware, dishes, cups, wine and non-perishables. Along the back wall was another door- although Sanji could not tell if it was to a basement or a backyard from his position.
He walked deeper into the room, intent on checking out the door when something crunched under his foot. He looked down at the pieces of a smashed plate under his wing-tip shoes. He crouched and pulled out a handkerchief before picking up one of the broken pieces and examining it.
It was a regular plate, like the type you would find at a run-of-the-mill restaurant. From its position on the floor, it looked as if it were knocked off the table. He stood, a frown adorning his face, and brushed off his pants.
He gave the room a cursory glance, but other than what was in the cabinets, and the three remaining place settings on the table, the rest of the place was barren. He wrapped the shard in his handkerchief to show the others and returned to the hallway, unable to get rid of the niggling feeling at the back of his neck that something was not right.
His frown deepened the closer he got to the front door. He could find neither hide nor hair of his crewmates. Not a sound from them could be heard from the other areas of the house.
He strode past the stairwell, and made a right there, down the corridor. It was a short walk before he was met with another door. He opened it and was met with another corridor, whose walls and floors were covered in dark wood and rich red paint. Up ahead was a room. It was just as void and clean as the kitchen area had been. The closet doors were all wide open, same with the wardrobe, dresser and desk drawers. The only thing he had been able to find was a crumpled up note on the desk. It was a To-Do list of sorts. Written upon the stationary was:
Repair the leaky toilets
refill the first aid kit on the second floor.
Fix the piano keys
Sanji flicked the note back down onto the desk and left the room. He tried the door next to the room he had just left, but it was locked, with a deadbolt, he noted. Odd, considering one does not usually use a deadbolt as the main lock for a room. He could get through the lock if he really wanted to, but he had no reason to destroy anything on the property, yet. Despite feeling like he wanted to. He walked back down the corridor, passed the stairwell, before yelling, "Usopp! Nami! Law!" he waited a moment to see if he would get a response, but all he got in return was his own echoed voice.
He sighed in frustration and went to the front door, thinking that perhaps they had gone outside. However, when he went to turn the handle, the door wouldn't budge. "What the hell?"
He kneeled down and peered at the lock. It wasn't the normal type of lock one would see on a front door. It was the type that you would lock, or unlock it, from both sides with a key, not just the outside. It had been unlocked when they came in, hadn't it? Otherwise, the door wouldn't have opened on its own. None of them had a key to the lock, not unless Luffy and the others found one and locked the door because they didn't realise anyone had been there. But, something in Sanji's gut told him that that wasn't likely.
This could be one of Usopp's tricks, he can get mischievous at times, but Law was unlikely to play such games. And sweet Nami-swan wasn't one to play such tricks or tolerate them herself. Sanji straightened and peered through the curtain covering the windows in the door, but it was to no avail because no one was on the front lawn.
Sanji lit another cigarette, feeling a bit aggravated at the turn of events. He stalked down the only other corridor he had yet to be down. The first door he met was locked, so he continued on his way, taking a right and walking down a slightly wider corridor. He approached another door, this one, made of mahogany wood and frosted glass, looked promising.
A shadow, much taller than Law, or even Brook, walked past as he studied the door. Sanji touched the handle but found that it, too, was locked. He locked on the door, certain that whoever was behind it was one of his crew. "Oi!" he called angrily, "Shit-heads, open the damn door!"
Silence was his only reply.
He tried the handle once more, but it was to no avail. He kicked the door, sucking on the end of his cigarette as he turned away from it angrily. As he turned, he noticed a final door at the very end of the corridor. He pressed his hand to the doorknob and sighed in relief when he was able to open it.
He wrinkled his nose at the mouldy smell that attacked his nostrils. Just past the poor was a small bathroom, a guest bathroom with just a toilet, a sink and a dark mahogany cabinet. There was a window, on the left, set high on the wall. It let in the setting sun, and Sanji cursed when he realised that likely meant that they would have to travel back through the woods in the dark. The thought didn't bother him any, but he knew Nami and Usopp would fail to be amused at the extra danger that travelling late at night in an unknown woods would afford. Luffy and the others were likely back at the ship by now, they must have somehow missed them on their way up to the mansion- how, Sanji would never be able to figure out. There was only one road that led up to the mansion, but nothing was out of the realm of possibility with Luffy and Zoro leading the charge.
Sanji idly glanced around the bathroom, but all there seemed to be was a pathetic blob of a bar of soap on the sink, and a mouldy smelling royal purple rug on the checkered floor. The toilet gurgled, and the sound of water drip, drip, dripped, rhythmically into a small pan under the porcelain bowl. Sanji noted that it looked as if the pan had been emptied recently, which supported Nami's hypothesis that someone was taking care of the place. He quickly checked the cabinet, noting the first aid kit there, before he gave up and left the bathroom.
He walked back down the corridor and turned down the hall to the stairwell. Having seen everything on the first floor, he decided that it was time to check out the second floor. As he mounted the staircase, he muttered and cursed. He was going to positively kill Usopp and the others when he got his hands on them. Usopp and Nami-swan, as sweet as she was, could get distracted easily given the right environment, but he had expected so much more from Law- he should have waited for him.
The first door he met when he ascended the stairs, stood to the lift of the stairwell. When he tried it, the door was unlocked and led to a bedroom. Inside stood a single bed off to the right, with bookshelves and a desk on the far wall opposite it. On the left was a comfortable looking double sofa, which sat atop a blue rug. On the wall furthest from the couch was a wardrobe. Unlike the bedroom downstairs, the drawers and doors to this one were closed. He glanced around, his eyes suddenly stopping when he saw something shine dully under the bed. He kneeled and carefully pulled out what was there.
It was Law's sword.
His eyes widened, and he quickly dropped the sword. He pulled out another handkerchief and grabbed the sword with it, not wanting to directly touch it. If Law's sword was as cursed as Zoro's, and it likely was, he didn't want to chance it trying to possess him. He carefully held the sword in front of him, before giving the room another quick glance before leaving the room.
He went down the corridor to the only other door on that side and opened it. Law's sword still being held uncomfortably in front of him.
The room he entered was another bedroom, with a bed on the right, a desk and multiple bookshelves on the back wall. A rug stood in the middle of the room, charcoal in colour. On the left side of the room, there was a curtain drawn covering what looked to be a closet of some sort.
He got a tingling feeling at the back of his neck looking at the curtain, and decided that there was as good a spot as any to look Gently, he placed Law's sword beside the curtain and pulled it open. He froze, his blood running cold at the sight before him.
Law was sat at the bottom of a staircase, which looked to lead up to an attic of some sort. He was clutching his chest and breathing heavily through his nose. His entire body was shaking as if he had been left out in the cold.
"Law! What the hell happened to you!?" Sanji exclaimed, his lit cigarette falling from his mouth. He cursed, and quickly put the butt out with his foot.
Law didn't respond to him. He looked to be having a lot of trouble breathing. It didn't seem as if he were able to catch his breath.. Sanji's eyebrows knitted with concern, he wasn't certain he had heard him at all. He crouched to eye level and said again.
"Law, it's Sanji. Are you okay? Can you hear me?"
Law blinked his eyes and nodded, licking his lips. He was still having trouble breathing, and each breath he took caused his body to shake so roughly that the stairwell was shaking. Sanji sighed, scratching his neck as he tried to think about what he did when Usopp got like that.
"Law, you need to sit up. Breathe with me- in, two, three, four, out, two, three, four." Law swallowed and sat up straighter. He closed his eyes, concentrating on matching his breathing to Sanji's own.
Eventually, his breathing slowed. Shakily, he wiped his face on the sleeve of his shirt, then exhaled sharply.
"I don't know what happened," Law admitted tiredly, leaning his head back against the wall. Sanji dug out a small water bottle from his pack and handed it over to Law, who took it gratefully. Suddenly, he was thankful he packed food and water before their trip to find the others.
Sanji nodded, shifting his body so that he could sit cross-legged at the bottom of the stairwell. "How did you get in here? Where are Nami and Usopp?"
Law frowned, "I'm not sure. Nami went upstairs ahead of me and disappeared. She said she was going to look for treasure. I don't know what happened to Usopp, we didn't go the same way. When I got up the stairs Nami dragged me with her. Something happened and I escaped in here and shut the door."
"Why did you hide in here?" It wasn't like Law to hide from… anything. He had about as much self-preservation as Luffy did. Even without his sword, his powers made him a practically unbeatable adversary.
"Something attacked us," Law looked past him into the bedroom and swallowed. "Something large. I didn't see much, it had happened too fast. But it wasn't human."
Sanji looked over his shoulder, noting that he had accidentally left the door to the bedroom open.
"Here," Law slipped his hand into his pocket and retrieved a key, handing it over to Sanji. "I found this here when I sat down. Maybe you can use it. Find Nami and Usopp, I can't go. It wouldn't be smart for me to walk yet."
Sanji nodded, studying the key in his hand. The label on the key was marked Library - G. Fl. Slowly, he stood, shoving the key into his coat pocket. "I'll go look for them, but make sure you stay here. It wouldn't be good for us to lose track of each other again. I'll come back to get you in a bit."
Law shivered, although there was no chill to be felt, and nodded his head.
"Don't move," Sanji said firmly. He did not need to go looking for this shit-head on top of Usopp and Nami. "I'll be back as soon as I can." He left another bottle of water and some food with Law before he shut the curtain and the bedroom door as he left the room.
Sanji decided that he would start on the first floor because that was where the key stated the Library was- and that was as good a place as any. Both Nami and Usopp had a penchant for getting lost in bookstores and any place where they might be with books was always a good bet.
Feeling whimsical, he decided to check the front door and tapped the handle, but it didn't budge. He let out a puff of annoyance before he went down the corridor that led to the kitchen. He stopped in front of the locked door in the middle of the corridor. On it was a plaque that said Library on it, not unlike the one on the door leading to the Library at his old home on Germa Kingdom.
He grinned, the key slipping right into the doorknob's lock. He found himself inside the Library a few seconds later. He pocketed the key and looked up just in time to see a tall grey-skinned figure disappear behind the middle row of bookshelves.
Sanji sucked in a breath and froze. He tried to suppress the anxious cough rising in his lungs, and swallow against the tightening in his throat. He made sure to catch the door to keep it from slamming shut. Whatever, or whoever, was there, he did not feel like alerting it to his presence just yet. He tried to think back to what Robin, Luffy, Franky and Zoro had been wearing the evening before, but neither had been wearing grey and whatever that had been wandering around the room was much taller than any of them in any case. Surely he was hallucinating.
The Library had the old book smell that many tended to have, and it was much colder than the rest of the rooms that he had visited so far. There were no windows in the room, and what little light there was came from the chandelier in the middle of the room.
From what Sanji could sense, there was no further movement in the room, and he suddenly felt stupid for his earlier cowardliness. He wasn't Usopp, after all! He made his way over to the table at the front of the room, to the right. Papers and books were scattered across the mahogany surface, and he took the time to look over the things there.
There were several leather-bound journals, half-filled with notes. Underneath the stack of journals was another key, very much like the one Sanji had in his pocket. He pulled the key out of his pocket to compare before he quickly lept back from the table. The move was purely instinctual, and it wasn't the first time that Sanji was thankful that he had grown up with Zeff and learned to act on his feet. A massive fist slammed into the wood where he had been, causing the journals and key to go flying across the floor.
"Flambage Shot!" Sanji quickly ignited his leg and jumped out of the way as the monster attacked him. He flipped into the air and landed a kick to its chest. The monster skidded back a few paces, giving Sanji the room he needed to escape. He pushed down on the door handle, only for it to click against the lock. He glanced at the knob and cursed. The damned thing had a lock on that side of the door as well. "What the fuck is wrong with this house," he hissed.
Sanji spun around, just in time to catch the next attack with his leg. He was thrown back, the force enough to crack the floorboards as he slid across them. He could feel the attack resonate through his bones and make his teeth click. The monster jerked its fist back from the flames of Sanji's leg and stalked back into the rows of bookcases.
Sanji stood, flabbergasted. Not only did his attacks not seem to do anything to the monster, the damned thing got bored with him and left! The gall of that… thing! Sanji shook his head and went back to the table to look for the keys that had been thrown to the floor during the attack. He found them by the bookshelf behind the table and snatched them up. He quickly made his way back to the door and forced the key into the lock, turning it with a successful click! The door opened and Sanji pulled the key from its confines.
He signed in relief once he was in the hallway, it was much warmer than the Library had been and much less creepy. He could see why Law would have run away from that thing, it was no joke and nothing you attacked it with seemed to bother it at all. He backed away from the door, and eyed it for a few moments, expecting the monster to crash through it, like Kool-Aid Man, at any moment.
But nothing happened.
Sanji closed his eyes and shook himself. He could use another cigarette, but he was down to his last three and needed for them to last. He studied the door for a moment before walking up to it and opening it again. He peeked his head inside, the door propped against his shoulder as he studied the room. He allowed himself to gain his bearings and tried to sense any danger. But no matter how much he tried, he couldn't sense anything. The room did feel different somehow, but why, he couldn't put his finger on.
He began to search the Library, checking every single aisle for any sign that the monster that had attacked him was still in the room. He found nothing. In fact, there was no sign that anything else had been in the room with him at all.
Sanji studied the books on the shelves, but nothing there caught his interest. Everything seemed to be more down Robin's alley, mostly historical and occult books. He made a note to come back later, but he needed to get a move on if he planned on finding Usopp and Nami any time soon.
He locked the door behind him and checked his pockets for the two keys, pulling them both out. The new key was almost identical to the one Law had given him. The tag had 4 Fl written across it.
Taking that as a sign of where he should go next, he started to make his way to the fourth floor, checking the doors of the second and third floors as he went, but he found that no doors, other than the ones that he already knew about on the second floor, were open.
He exited the stairwell on the fourth floor and walked down the corridor passed another stairwell. Beside the stairwell was another room. He used the key on the door and to his relief, the door opened.
The room looked to be a study of sorts. There was a desk and chair to the far left wall. A very old antique chair sat at the back wall along with another bookcase. The bookcase was pushed away from the wall on one side, as if something were behind it, not allowing it to lie flush against the wall.
Sanji tried to get a sense of the room before he entered, but like with every other place in the house, he felt nothing. He did, however, get a feeling that he should check out the bookcase, and so he went with his gut. He pulled the bookcase out more and looked behind it, eyebrows disappearing behind his bangs. Behind the bookshelf, jammed into a hole in the wall, was a den den mushi. Sanji crouched and lightly touched it.
"Are you okay?" he asked, not sure exactly what type of response he would get from the responder snail.
The den den mushi moved its head away from his hand and went to retreat inside its shell.
"Are you hiding?" he inquired.
The snail slid its head out of the shell and gave him a bored look. He sighed. Den den mushi were not his speciality. That ability lies solely with Usopp and Franky, but maybe Law could do something. Sanji thoughtfully touched the edge of the hole, trying to figure out what had made it. He hummed, if nothing else was discovered, he now knew that the den den mushi had gotten there somehow. Perhaps the hole was something that could be turned into a way out if they got desperate.
Sanji stood, "I need to keep looking from my crewmates. Would you like me to put the bookcase back?"
The den den mushi went back in its shell which Sanji took as a 'yes'. He put the bookshelf back and left the room, pausing in front of the door. He shrugged and decided to lock the door. Maybe it would keep the monster from attacking the den den mushi.
He walked passed the stairs and down the corridor, stopping when he saw the entrance to another room. Feeling lucky, he tried the key in his hand. He felt a tug of smugness when the key clicked and the door opened, revealing the room to him. It was another bedroom, just how many did this damn place have? It held two beds, three couches surrounding a coffee table, a wardrobe on the far wall and something that looked like a fuse box. Sanji decided it best not to go by the fuse box, that was something he trusted only to Usopp and Franky. He had enough electricity on Skypiea to last a lifetime. Between the two beds was a hole on the floor, probably one of the first signs that Sanji saw pointing to the place not being as closely cared for as they all previously thought. No one taking care of a house would leave an open hole in the flooring after all.
On the coffee table was a torn piece of paper with two coloured blocks drawn on it- one green and one blue. He abandoned the note on the table and looked around for the other half of the paper, but it had been an exercise in futility.
Figuring that there was nothing else he could find at this point and that he had kept Law alone for long enough, he returned to the second floor.
When he arrived at the bedroom housing Law, Sanji stopped at the door. The closet, which had been previously covered by a curtain when he left the room, had now been replaced by a metal door. Behind the door came a whirring sound, not unlike the sounds that come from some of Usopp's newfangled tools. Unsure about just how much more mindfuckery he could take for the evening, he carefully approached the door. "Law?" he called with uncertainty.
A whirring sound stopped from inside, "Sanji?"
"Yeah," he stuffed his hands into his pockets and watched the door uneasily. "Can you come out here?"
"Were you able to find Nami and Usopp?"
"Not yet. I did find a den den Mushi upstairs stuck inside one of the walls. It seemed more annoyed that I was there than anything else." Sanji didn't bother to mention that he was attacked by the monster, he didn't want to cause more panic than was already there. Not yet anyway.
"Hmm," Law grunted, and something whirred briefly again from behind the door. "Can you keep looking for them without me? We should try to get out of here as soon as possible."
Sanji raised an eyebrow, irritation flooding through him. "What the hell are you talking about? I just came back from looking for them."
"I'm not… ready," Law stated. "I've lost my sword and my devil fruit doesn't work well when I am weak."
Sanji began to protest but wound up snapping his jaw shut. With the monster's speed and indifference to his attacks, it wouldn't do good to have Law walking around without at least his powers in full working order. Sanji looked down, his eye-catching on the sword against the wall. He couldn't do a thing about Law's powers, Law's sword, however, he could help with.
"Your sword was in the bedroom at the end of the corridor. Here," the door gaped open just wide enough for Sanji to slide the sword through. "I could use your help finding the others, I've had no luck."
"I'm still feeling weak, I'll be no use in this state." Law implored, impatience colouring his tone. "I'll join you in a bit, can you please just check again?"
Sanji huffed in annoyance, "I'll be back." As he stalked from the room the whirring behind the door started up again. It sounded exactly like one of Usopp's drills, in fact, he was positive that it was. No one else had tools like their Sniper did, he made them himself after all. Which begs the question, what the hell was Law doing with one of Usopp's tools, and what was he hiding? Why?
To Be Continued...