PART SIX: Valhalla
Usopp coughed as he waved the smoke out of his face. He straightened up from the cannon and held his hand over his eyes as he peered across the water towards the beach.
"Did he make it?" Nami asked cautiously as she joined him at the ship's railing.
"Direct hit!" Usopp whooped as Luffy collided with the towering figure of Juzo Rameses.
"Is Sanji there?"
"Yes! And Zoro too!" Usopp pointed out their crewmates upon the sand.
"Are they all right?"
"I can't tell…" His exuberance dwindled into hesitant concern.
Robin adjusted her cowboy hat, casting a cold shadow across her normally warm, enchanting eyes.
"You two stay on the ship." She instructed her friends as Chopper hopped up onto the railing beside her.
"What? Where are you guys going?" Nami spun in sudden panic to look at the two Devil Fruit Eaters.
Robin's voice went as cold as her eyes. "To pick a fight."
Sanji awkwardly struggled to his feet, clutching at the tree his head had very nearly been crushed against.
"Marion!" He cried out. "Get back here!"
The green-haired woman had not reappeared since she had vanished several moments ago with Bishop in tow, and he was suddenly terrified that despite the busted ankle that the satyr may have managed to overpower her somewhere else on the island.
There came a furious guttural roar and Luffy was catapulted back out of the undergrowth and ricocheted across the sand like a skipping stone. He landed in a disheveled inverted heap just short of the waterline and glared at Sanji from between his own legs.
"SANJI! YOU JERK! WHY DID YOU LEAVE?"
Before the cook could even consider how best to answer that question Rameses leapt back onto the sand like an enraged wildebeest and tore the sea stone cuff free from his wrist with his teeth like it was made of gauze. His enormous parson's hat was gone, and greenish blood stained his neck and chest from the open wound under his jaw.
He tore off his shredded jacket and smashed his right fist into his chest and roared the furious challenge of a creature that was ready to die if it meant dragging its quarry to hell with him. Sanji felt the roar reverberate between his bones as if it had originated from inside his own chest, and the deranged pirate stared him down with his soulless crimson eyes.
Then… Zoro was there.
"Thousand Sword Strike!"
Zoro hurled himself directly into the brute's massive chest, his katanas slicing from every angle. Several dozen of the quill tips protruding from the grotesque hunchback were severed, blunting most of his potential missiles. Blood spurted from numerous gashes across his chest, arms and legs, but his towering bulk remained upright.
The grim-faced swordsman landed upon the sand as Luffy righted himself. Sanji limped forward to stand on Luffy's left, with Zoro on their captain's right.
Luffy cracked his knuckles as Sanji lit up a fresh smoke between his bruised fingers.
"This is the Rameses guy?" Luffy asked with furious irritation.
"Yep…" Sanji exhaled a tobacco cloud.
A corroborating grunt escaped from behind the sword grip that was clenched between Zoro's teeth.
Rameses snarled as he charged forward at the trio.
"Let's kick his ass…." Luffy glowered.
Tashigi made eye contact with Nami from the beach as the Straw Hat's ship dropped its anchor in the bay. The navigator waved at her and she returned the gesture in exhausted appreciation, and then her relief turned into joyous exhilaration as she noticed two additional ships entering the bay in the Straw Hat's wake. One was the third Black Clover ship Kraken's Fang, and the other was Smoker's second Navy battleship.
The reinforcements had arrived.
"Gomu Gomu no… Rifle!"
As Rameses fired a torrent of sharp and blunted quills alike in their direction, Zoro leapt through the air spinning like an enraged buzz saw and carved an opening for Luffy and Sanji to escape through. Luffy's fist made direct contact with the spot between Juzo's eyes and Sanji landed a kick directly into the creature's gut.
Even more vile green blood exploded from between the brute's teeth as Sanji's blow knocked the wind out of him. Luffy winced as he retracted his extendable arm and examined his bloodied knuckles.
"It's like punching a granite pincushion." He hissed and he shook his hand fiercely as though he had burned it.
The three young men attacked Rameses from different directions, intentionally keeping from grouping together so the pirate couldn't fire another round of deadly spikes at them.
Zoro continued to strike from behind, slashing at his back and cutting away as many quills as he could before they could be fired. Sanji repeatedly aimed precision kicks at Rameses' lower body, specifically legs and lower gut, trying to knock him off balance, while Luffy focused on the face and head, delivering blow after devastating blow.
Sanji had no idea how the giant was enduring such a beating, bleeding from a thousand different wounds while simultaneously being able to regenerate and fire a seemingly endless supply of barbed quills.
Luffy fluidly dodged two spiked projectiles by contorting his elastic body at an impossible angle and raised his leg high into the air.
"Gomu Gomu no… Battle Axe!"
Luffy's heel fell downward and connected with Rameses' temple, finally knocking him to his knees.
Zoro sprang through the air and brought down his katanas vertically as if to slice the brute down the middle, but the mutant scarecrow raised his meaty forearm and blocked the attack, blades embedding themselves in his thick flesh but failing to cut clean through. Zoro's eyebrows shot up and his eyes widened, amazed his attack had failed to do more damage, but then a boulder-sized fist collided with him and sent him flying across the beach.
Sanji touched his cigarette to the heel of his shoe and it erupted into flame. He swung his leg wide like a pendulum and planted it between two ribs on the left side of his chest, and Sanji heard an ear-piercing crack as something snapped, but Rameses remained upright upon his knees.
"Gomu Gomu no… Bazooka!"
Luffy's arms shot out behind him as far as he could stretch them before they recoiled with his fists aimed directly at Rameses' throat. Instead, the brute caught Luffy's blows directly between his jaws and bit down hard into the rubbery flesh.
"OW! OW! OW!" Luffy wailed as Rameses reached out and grabbed the boy in his clawed hand and squeezed.
"Miserable wretch!" Rameses snarled as he spat out Luffy's hands with a fresh spew of green blood and hurled him directly into the sea.
"No!" Sanji gasped as Luffy hit the water.
He was about to sprint into the shallows and save him before he noticed Zoro had already beaten him to it. Despite bleeding from a fresh gash across his chin, the swordsman dove into the sea without hesitation to rescue their captain.
Sanji turned back to Rameses in fury.
"That's the last time you'll hurt one of my friends."
Rameses was swaying on his feet slightly, eyes unfocused as he heaved in great gasps of oxygen. He hacked up blood and mucus during a horrific coughing fit, which seemed to snap him out of his temporary trance, and he hissed in impatient rage as he set his sights on Sanji yet again.
The young man raised his blazing foot up at a ninety-degree angle and Sanji threatened him through clenched teeth.
"Hit me again. I promise one of us won't get back up."
"Dom Fleur!"
Graceful feminine hands and arms began to sprout all along the sand by Rameses' boots and up along the massive pirate's legs and arms, and suddenly he was completely entwined in dozens of them, digging their nails into his wounds, cutting off his circulation and firmly rooting him to the spot.
"Now, Chopper!" Robin cried out.
The Straw Hat's trusty reindeer, now enlarged into his bulky human form charged towards the scarecrow on two legs like a berserk sea train without its brakes. Chopper slammed himself into Rameses as Robin released him and the pirate was hurled backward, landing flat on his back in the sand, cracking several protruding quills in half as he fell.
Even in his largest form Chopper was still considerably smaller than Rameses, but at least he had the muscle mass required to finally knock the deranged psycho off his feet and into the dust.
Robin's arms sprouted from the sand again and held Rameses in place upon the ground, holding him tightly around the neck, shoulders, elbows and knees. Chopper climbed up onto the broad chest and began pummeling the man's scarred face with a fury of punches that could have rivaled one of Luffy's storm of fists.
Sanji buried his foot in the sand and extinguished the fire for the second time. He gasped for breath as he sank to his knees. It was over. Rameses was down. They had him. It wasn't how he had wanted it to happen, putting his crew in the line of fire, but he should have expected as much to know they wouldn't be far behind him, determine not to let him face this threat alone.
He looked up the beach and saw Smoker and the Black Clover Pirate Ink limping up the beach in their direction, Smoker leaning on his broken Jitte. Over to his right, Zoro had emerged from the water with Luffy hanging over his shoulder, hacking up enough salt water to drown a whale.
Glancing behind him he saw Tashigi speaking with the marines that had just arrived, handing a shackled Lady Rook over to them, one of her hands bandaged and bloody. Just behind the marine's ship he could make out two more, and one was his own, the distant forms of Nami and Usopp waving to him from the foredeck.
The marine and Black Clover pirate casualties had been immense. Their bodies still dotted the beach in both directions, and for that Sanji was distraught, feeling a pang of guilt that there hadn't been more he could have done to prevent the slaughter, but at least those brave men and women had chosen to join this fight, whereas his crew had been dragged into it.
At least none of his friends had been hurt.
A deafening roar split the relative tranquil stillness of the moment as he suddenly heard Robin gasp in pain.
His head shot up to look in her direction and saw to his horror the young woman was losing her grip on Rameses, and tears were welling in her eyes as she fought to concentrate and hold the beast down.
Rameses roared again and tore Robin's multitude of secondary arms and hands up from the sand, breaking numerous wrists and fingers in the process. He smashed his fist into Chopper's ear and the reindeer went sprawling into the wet sand.
Robin cried out in distress as she fell to her knees and Rameses wrenched himself back up, tearing himself free of the woman's grip, and Sanji saw blood spurt from the defeated broken appendages. He had never asked Robin if her duplicate arms ever felt any pain when she used her devil fruit ability, but judging by the tears streaming down her face, it was evident they most definitely did.
Robin collapsed forward as Chopper climbed to his feet and delivered two rapid punches into the monster's gut, but Rameses grabbed their doctor friend by the throat and lifted him skyward.
"Second Gear!" Luffy screamed from across the beach as he crouched down and slammed his fist into the ground, charging up his body for the elevated energy attack.
Rameses made eye contact with Luffy and bellowed a challenge from between his broken teeth. He slammed Chopper down at his feet and leaned forward, launching a barrage of spiked quills in every direction.
Smoker hurled himself down upon both Ink and Robin, shielding them with his much wider girth.
Zoro spun his katanas rapidly, sheltering himself and Luffy and blocking the assault. Chopper, at Rameses' feet at ground zero, was too close to the source to be impaled.
Sanji however, was wide open and vulnerable.
He closed his eyes and prepared to be skewered by an uncertain number of missiles, which if he was lucky, would hit him in a spot that would bring death quickly.
But any quills designated for him at that moment never found their target.
Marion reappeared in front of him.
Half a second after Rameses' attack ended, Zoro stepped aside and Luffy launched himself directly at their enemy and buried his fists so deeply into the brute's chest it collapsed both his lungs and dislocated his arms.
Rameses let out a rattling, gasping cry like he was drowning on dry land and collapsed onto his side, completely unconscious, purple tongue hanging out like he was a dehydrated dog.
Luffy hit the sand, shaking his fists in pain as he glanced around.
"Is everyone all right?" He asked.
In response, Sanji let out a bone-chilling, mortified wail.
Marion had appeared directly in front of Sanji, intending to shield them both with a large fragment of shattered wood, likely a section of deck from one of the two destroyed ships, but the shield was now in two pieces being clasped separately in her delicate hands as though it were still intact.
Sanji hadn't heard the crack of the board breaking, but he heard the moment of dull, mocking silence before Marion coughed and blood splattered across the inside of her shield in front of her face.
She dropped both sections of wood and fell backward into Sanji's arms, blood staining her chin and eyes opened wide in shock.
Three quills had found her in total. One had buried itself in her upper right thigh at an awkward angle, likely causing a serious gash but wouldn't be life-threatening. The second one was worse. It had pierced her left shoulder and had very likely broken her collarbone, the tip protruding defiantly out her back, leaking slow droplets of blood.
The third spike had been the deciding one. It had broken through her ineffective shield and embedded itself in her torso, just below her left breast, and was deep enough for Sanji to know it wouldn't be freed without draining her life away with it.
Sanji fell backward onto the sand and held Marion upright as best he could in his arms.
"CHOPPER!" Sanji wailed for their doctor.
The reindeer shrunk himself down to his standard size and sprinted over to where the woman required his attention.
"No! Captain!" Ink cried out as he staggered to his feet and followed in the reindeer's tracks.
A deafening silence hung over the group as everyone stared in Marion's direction. Zoro took his sword from his mouth and buried it tip down in the sand and stared downwards solemnly, knowing without having to look the magnitude of what had happened. Luffy's face was blank, but his eyes were wide and terrified as if his adolescent brain couldn't comprehend that one of their number was not going to get back up.
Robin and Smoker regained their feet and Robin removed her hat and placed it delicately over her chest as she watched Sanji break down into uncontrollable sobs.
From further up the beach Tashigi had been making her way towards them with Nami and Usopp following close behind, but the young officer suddenly stopped in her tracks and her hands flew up to her mouth as she realized what had happened. Nami took a few additional steps as well before she heard Sanji crying. She had no idea who the woman was that he was cradling in his arms or what exactly had happened to her, but she knew it was bad, and the sound of her friend in pain tore open her own heart. Suddenly, without fully knowing why, she was in tears as well.
"Chopper, do something!" Sanji pleaded as he pressed his hand over her chest, trying in vain to stop the bleeding.
For the first several seconds the tiny doctor's face was set in grim determination as he opened his bag and attempted to treat the wound, but it only took a few additional moments for his face to fall and he made eye contact with Sanji, his crestfallen expression showcased with more clarity than words ever could the reality of the situation.
"No! Marion! Talk to me! Don't go!" Sanji wailed as tears ran down his cheeks. He took her hand in his and squeezed it, but he was no longer sure the woman could feel him there anymore.
"I was wrong Marion! I forgive you! Please! I was wrong!"
For a split second her eyes seemed to flicker with gratitude as she gazed skyward, perhaps recognizing his voice, and the faintest of smirks played at the side of her mouth as if in response.
And then she was gone.
"Marion! Please! I love you!" Sanji choked on his words and buried his face into the young woman's shoulder, his tears soaking into her hair.
"I'm so sorry…" Chopper whispered as he took a respectful step back to stand next to Ink, who's hands were clasped at the sides of his head as he looked down at his fallen captain in disbelief.
Sanji's sobs continued as the rest of the group formed a half-circle around him. Nami fell to her knees and wept harder than she had in a long time, desperately wanting to reach out to comfort him but knowing she couldn't. Whatever was there between Sanji and this Marion woman had clearly been there long before she had known him, and she didn't have the heart to attempt to put herself between them, even with the purest of intentions.
Robin walked over to where Nami knelt in the sand and sat down beside her to wrap her arms around her. Tashigi removed her glasses before walking over to Zoro to rest her own tear-stained face on his shoulder, and to her immense surprise and relief, he let her, putting his own arm around her in response.
Luffy picked up his hat from the sand and brushed it off before setting it back down low over his face to hide his own tears.
"I'm sorry Sanji…" The young man whispered with the faintest of trembles in his voice.
The sea breeze enveloped the group as they all stood in solidarity for their fallen ally, but none of them felt its warmth. Sanji sobbed for another several minutes, but no one spoke a word until his tears had subsided.