Disclaimer: I do not own One Piece.
A/N: Thanks for your kind review 159753c! Hope you enjoy this next chapter :)
Chapter 4: Under the Weather
...
Luffy's addled brain had finally come to the delayed conclusion that what he was feeling was not hunger. He had experienced hunger a lot of times in his life so far – especially since eating the Gum Gum fruit – but it had never made his throat hurt or make everything spinny.
Luffy even felt sick, so the idea of eating food was the last thing he wanted to do. Right now all he wanted to do was curl up on a soft bed and have the kind and warm hearted Makino look after him.
Luffy thought about Makino, that nice lady from Foosha Village who wore a smile and yellow checkered bandana every day he saw her.
Luffy's favourite thing about Makino was how generous she was. She always obliged when he'd ask for food from the bar – even giving him extra big portions of meat to help him become a "a big and strong pirate". Makino had held onto him as he said farewell to Shanks, providing that presence that he needed to assure him that he wasn't alone.
Luffy never knew his mother so he didn't know what having a Mother was like, but he imagined that it would feel something like what he felt when he was with Makino.
Although it was true that the thoughts that filled Luffy's brain were primarily focused around eating or training to become strong, Luffy did sometimes have deep thoughts.
He sometimes wondered why it was that he didn't have parents like other children did. He had noticed it more back when he was living in Foosha Village when he'd see kids sitting happily on a grown up's shoulders as they walked around the harbour. He had received a couple of piggyback rides from his Grandpa Garp but he was too old to be his father and Luffy hadn't dared ask about his heritage as the old man's favourite form of communication with him was with his fist.
Luffy decided that if Mothers were anything like what Makino was then the world was lucky to have them as far as he was concerned.
...
Unfortunately in the present moment, Luffy was faced with the harsh reality that he was alone in the depths of the Mount Corvo jungle. He couldn't rely on anyone but himself to save Ace's life. So Luffy pushed the hopes of a soft bed and a mother's touch away from his mind and willed his feet to move forward. Getting his limbs to cooperate though felt like wading through a dense bog and it was as though his mind was clouded over with fog.
Every movement was slow and clumsy.
Furthermore, to make matters worse, it seemed that the weather had chosen that moment to oppose Luffy's quest for the Aoilander flower. Luffy felt a drop of rain fall onto his cheek followed by more.
Luffy didn't see this as a bad thing though; he actually found cooling comfort from the cold droplets that began steadily falling onto his body which still raged with heat and was only getting hotter as the day progressed.
'That was another thing...' Luffy thought, 'I'm too hot.'
Up until this point he had rationalised that the unnatural heat was just due to an unexpectedly humid day as it was Summer after all. But given all his other fast accumulating symptoms, it seemed likely that he would have to add a fever to that list.
This was not a good sign and being out in the rain would only make things worse. Not that Luffy knew that. He happily let the rain soak his t-shirt and stuck out his parched tongue to try and catch some rain in his mouth to quench his thirst and soothe his sore throat.
…
A couple of minutes later, the rain lessened its shower to a subtle spitting. Luffy looked up from the grove he was in and noticed that could see the sky after hours of being under a dark covering of trees. Luffy gulped when he realised that the tiny glimpse of blue sky was being devoured by a deep grey cloud above him and sensed that the rain would return in the form of a furious storm.
'I better hurry,' Luffy thought. 'At least I can see a bit more here'.
Luffy cast his eyes to the ground and took a confident step forward but stopped short as his whole field of vision tipped as though he was in a capsizing boat on the sea.
The sudden dizziness forced him to grip the trunk of a nearby tree to keep from falling. A piercing ringing assaulted Luffy's ears and his peripheral vision was swallowed up by darkness; any remaining details his eyes could see became warped and distorted as though looking through a kaleidoscope.
This unpleasant episode continued for about five minutes then finally lifted and Luffy opened his eyes to find that he had collapsed to the ground.
Luckily Luffy had fallen onto another soft patch of grass and not the fairly large group of rocks inches to his right. Luffy shakily rolled onto his back to help with his breathing as his chest was so tight.
'This quest isn't going so well huh' Luffy sighed. He had barely made any progress in the last hour, what with the time being taken up with coughing fits and dizzy spells.
Luffy knew that he needed to stand up and keep going but he felt so tired and his body felt like it was shutting down.
Tears began to crowd Luffy's eyes, turning his already blurred vision into one big smudge of colours.
"I can't do this" Luffy sobbed, his voice raspy and weak. He coughed and the tears fell down his face and mingled with the rain drops.
"It's too h-hard… A-Ace"
...
Luffy raised his head and called to the jungle from where his body lay,
"Where is it?
Where's the flower?
WHERE!
Aoi…-whatever it's called-" Luffy broke off coughing "w-wh…ere are you?"
The jungle was silent except for the sound of pattering rain drops on the leaves of the trees.
…
...
...
In the next few minutes Luffy's emotions changed like the whipping up of a storm on a quiet sea.
He was no longer sad, he was angry.
More angry than Luffy had ever been - more than when that mountain bandit had attacked the man he looked up to and admired and Shanks had not retaliated. Luffy felt like he could not contain this anger in his small body.
Anger at his weakness.
Anger that his body was failing him.
Anger that he couldn't find a simple flower.
Anger that he might lose the only person who could be his friend.
...
Loneliness was what Luffy dreaded the most, far more than any pain or sickness that could befall him. Luffy couldn't let Ace die. He wouldn't.
Thinking about that memory of Shanks reminded him of his precious straw hat which was on his back pressed against the ground.
"I won't give up… Shanks" Luffy whispered.
He shakily sat up and placed the Straw hat on his head. Feeling the hat on his head gave him courage and hope, so he got to his feet despite the aching in his limbs.
A gust of wind blew through the grove and Luffy reflexively put his hand to his head to keep his hat on when he noticed a soft texture against his thumb, very unlike the coarse texture of straw. Whatever it was was very small and had somehow gotten stuck in the straw weave of his hat. Luffy took it off to investigate and saw something stuck in the rim.
Something that brought tears to Luffy's eyes.
Tears of joy.
For nestled in the rim of his straw hat was a little blue petal.
…
Luffy couldn't believe his eyes when he saw the flash of blue in his hat. It was like the hat had been searching on his behalf while he was unconscious. But that was silly right? It was just a hat – Luffy's treasure – but still a hat. Luffy decided to stop wondering how this miracle had occurred and instead began furtively looking down around his feet to see where it had come from. He guessed he would need more than just one petal to ensure Ace's complete recovery so he was more eager than ever to track down the flower.
'I must be close!' Luffy thought
Backtracking a few steps he saw the group of rocks near where he had fallen and noticed a crevice in between them which his hand was small enough to fit through. He pushed the smaller of the two rocks aside and crouching down he looked and saw something incredible beneath.
"I did it!" Luffy shouted despite his sore throat. He had found what could only be the Aoilander flower. It had deep blue petals and several golden leaves on the stem which glimmered in the shadowy recesses of the rock as light shone on the flower for the first time in many years.
It was a shy and lonely plant having hidden under that rock for so long, but that had protected it from being harvested by the command of selfish nobles or trampled on by ignorant beasts. Luffy smiled widely and gently pulled the stalk with his fingers and brought the flower into the light.
"Thank you Aoi-chan" Luffy said to the flower, tears of joy streaming down his cheeks.
"You'll be able to make Ace better again!"
...
A/N: Yay! The flower has been found :) but the story is far from over, stay tuned for more...
By the way, in case you didn't know, Aoi is Japanese for 'Blue'
HH x