Sol Invictus
Chapter Fourteen: Price of Life
As the entirety of Baratie worked itself into a frenzied panic, Luffy trotted her way towards a table near the back, housing half of her crew. Usopp was still aboard ship working on the creation of a new 'star', a new type of ammunition to load into his ginga pachinko, but the other two were here with her to keep company. And of course, there was Sanji over there, tracking the steady, ominous approach of Krieg's ship with a musing sort of gaze.
"Guys," she said, tilting her head low. "We need to move Merry, right now."
Zoro raised a brow and shifted a keen eye out the nearest window. The pair of bounty hunters who had temporarily joined them were currently staring out of it with wide eyes, a little out of earshot. "To where?"
"Opposite the direction that galleon just came in, maybe a mile out. And you'll need to anchor there for a bit before coming back when it's safe for her again." Both her nakama shifted to stand, but she shook her head. "Mmm, only one of you needs to go. Nami, just you and Usopp should be fine, right?"
Nami nodded briskly and set out to where the ship was docked, while Zoro languidly fell back into his chair.
"You sure you trust the witch to return with the ship?" he asked half jokingly, sliding a ceramic cup of still-hot tea between his hands.
"I'll always trust Nami," she firmly told him. Her first mate shook his head and grinned to himself, as if saying, of course.
In any case, it was an intuitive choice to send the navigator to take care of such matters, not to mention Zoro's appalling lack of direction. But it was more than that too. Because perhaps Zoro would live this encounter and perhaps he would not, but either way Mihawk and Zoro needed to find each other, and this was something she couldn't - wouldn't - stop from happening.
Luffy didn't want Zoro to die, of course she didn't, but neither could she claim the right to deprive him of his first taste of the top, of this decisive meeting between the lonely king of the castle and the almost-man who had dedicated his life to usurping that throne in the stead of another. She'd seen the gleam of his eyes when the Greatest Swordsman's epithet had come up, knew without doubt that this time, he had allowed himself to be subject to her whims accompanied with a purpose and a singular hope.
And most importantly -
The moment you interfere with my goal, I will have you cut open your own stomach in apology!
- she had too much to accomplish to be taking her own life at this juncture. Not that she knew whether stabbing herself in the stomach would actually kill her in this world, but it was the principal of the matter.
Leaving Zoro to the alarmed pleads of Johnny and Yosaku ("Let's go, aniki!"), Luffy wound through the scattered chairs and tables of patrons currently gathered along the sides of the room to find Sanji. She'd barely stepped beside him when a large, hulking figure appeared in the wide open doors of the restaurant.
"Excuse us," a deep, thundering voice rasped. "Could you give me some food and water? Money is no issue."
As patrons and cooks alike fell into confused murmurs and collectively inched as close as they dared, Sanji stood straighter, giving a cursory scan around the restaurant for prying eyes before his own landed warily on Luffy. The noirette merely grinned at him, angling her head towards the kitchen doors - and though his lips did not move, everything in Sanji's bearing gave her the salient feeling of being smiled at.
Her cook strode off to do as his duty dictated and she made her way forward once more, this time pushing her way to the front of the suddenly lively crowd with Patty's voice a loud beacon.
"Contact the marines now; there won't be a chance like this again. As if I'd give him food. All he's getting are handcuffs!"
Outbursts of agreement shuddered through the restaurant - and Luffy's thoughts were brought into herself.
In such a case as this, was anyone really in the wrong? It was human instinct to sympathize with the weak and downtrodden... but then what that other cook had just said was true, more than he even knew himself: if Krieg got fed, the lives of everyone here was endangered by the pirate's cruelty.
So could anyone really point fingers? He is in the wrong, she is in the right, did reality ever actually work like that?
And it really was a shameful sight to see, a pirate captain lowering his head to grovel even despite knowing that the disbelieving eyes of his first mate were on him. Being a captain meant you couldn't allow yourself to be so stripped of pride, at least in the presence of your crew. Was Krieg in such a poor state that his mantle had become nothing? Or was this another another trick, a play on human emotions to try to gain sympathy? Because Luffy couldn't respect anyone who would abandon their pride as a captain so easily, so halfheartedly.
Well, it didn't really matter. They would get fed, Don Krieg and his crew, and then she would beat them up once they got vicious. Simple.
So Luffy casually nudged the Popeye lookalike to the side when she heard the distinctive tap-tap-tapping of Sanji's leather shoes on wooden deck. Patty's dark eyes flickered on her for a moment, scanning her as if attempting to read on her face the motives behind what was for all intents and purposes a pointless action, before lifting to narrow in on Sanji's nonchalant expression as the cook she had claimed her own sweeped in with sustenance in both hands.
"What do you think you're doing," Patty demanded, trying to push past her and reaching out an arm for Sanji's collar. Luffy brushed the shove off easily, instead reaching out to grab the man's shoulder before he could try to wind around her instead.
"Don't," Luffy said, shaking her head at Patty.
From a distance away she could hear Carnie crying, "Sanji take that rice back!"
"Brat, don't get in my way!" Patty snapped, bringing her attention back to him. "Don't you know who that man is?!"
She shrugged and Sanji merely gave his fellow cooks a look; this set both Patty and Carnie set on a tirade about the dangers of 'Foul Play' Krieg, ending with Carnie's, "Just let that worthless man die, for the peace of this world!"
A wisp of wind curled on the bare skin of her arms, and she pushed Patty to the side. The true reason she'd chosen to stand where she was came alight as Luffy met Krieg's wildly swung bicep with an unwavering hand.
With a feral grin, she asked, "So this means you're done eating, right?"
Don Krieg narrowed his eyes and bore down on her with greater force, attempting but ultimately failing to make her budge. To the wide eyed audience it would seem almost as if Luffy's hand merely rested against the iron band of Krieg's armor, had it not been for the strain apparent in his muscles or the forward shift of her spine.
"You promised you wouldn't hurt anyone!" Gin cried from beside the other captain. "These are the people who saved my life!"
Krieg gave her an assessing gaze, before reaching out and grabbing Gin harshly by the shoulder.
"ARGH!"
"Gin!"
"I feel great, and I haven't lost my strength," Krieg mused, still scrutinizing her as his first mate crumpled to the ground. "So who are you?"
Luffy scowled back, incensed at this callous treatment of the man's own nakama. "You bastard, how could you just..."
"Hmm." Another appraising glance and she could see clear as day the moment he dismissed her as irrelevant, instead running his eyes over the rest of the ship's interior. A thrum of irritation shot through her veins - but it was immediately tempered by the conviction that his defeat later on would come from her fists. That was something she didn't doubt for a moment. "This is a very good restaurant. I'll take it."
"I see how it is now."
Both of the pirate captains' gazes canted to the side to see Sanji flicking out another cigarette, movements casual but sleety eyes pinpricks against the shadows caressing the angles of his face.
"Don Krieg. In such a large galleon there must be more of your crew. You are not the kind to put their needs over your own; if the state of the captain was such, then the state of your men must be even worse. How many need feeding?"
"One hundred crewmen," spoke the Pirate Fleet Admiral. "All of them injured and starving. Give me food enough for my subordinates and then get off this ship. I would have it for my own."
"... Here is what I'll do," Sanji said, hair shading his eyes and voice low, menacing. "I will give you the food and let you feed your men. And then..." He raised his head, eyes too blue and too sharp. "I will escort you off this ship. By force, if need be."
"Is that a challenge, scrawny chef?" A smirk stretched the large pirate's mouth. "We will see."
Alarmed by the Pirate Fleet Admiral's declaration of taking Baratie, the terrified customers scrambled out to their ships, their ferries and shuttles and cruise boats. The cooks, on the other hand, were incensed and not too afraid to show it, storming in front of Sanji and creating a circular wall between her chef and his destination.
One by one, the chefs pulled out their pistols and trained them at Sanji's head.
"Sanji, what the hell do you think you're doing? You're going to feed them, just so they can take Baratie? Do you really think you can handle a hundred pirates, on top of Don Krieg? We won't let you into the kitchen - so stop doing such foolish things!"
Luffy twitched and made to go help her cook, but then stopped herself. They wouldn't shoot him. She knew it already, if not from her foreknowledge, then from the lack of true hostility in the eyes of any of the other chefs. They didn't really want to hurt him, only wanted him to stop acting the idiot they thought he was. And Don Krieg was far too much of a sneaky bastard for her to take her gaze off him for any extended period. Besides, she wanted to see, to know -
"What are you waiting for?" Her chef taunted, spreading his arms wide with a smile like a knife's edge. "If you want to stop me, shoot me. I know I might lose - I know it's probable, even. But I just don't care right now. When I give food to hungry people, I don't want to think about the consequences." Sanji's brows crumpled into a scowl, and his humourless smile pulled down with it. "For a chef, if there is someone asking for food, then he must cook for them. This is the ideal I will always believe in. What's wrong with that?"
Luffy squeezed her eyes shut and grinned and grinned. Sanji would never be able to fathom how happy he had made her just by this, by the conviction smoldering in his eyes, threatening to burst into a wild, swirling conflagration if properly provoked. Just - she was glad. She really was.
Then Patty came in from behind and smashed Sanji harshly across the head, making the younger man stumble forward and disorienting him enough to be grabbed on all sides. Sanji stood limply in the hands of his fellow cooks, bright eyes angry, and she watched as Patty managed to unload a few misgivings he'd been harboring against the blond before pulling out a lobster shaped bazooka.
"After the meal," Popeye-bastard roared, hefting the weapon onto a shoulder and turning to Krieg, "Why don't you have some of this iron dessert? Indigestion meatball cannon!"
"Son of a - "
The cannon ball crashed into Don Krieg, sending him flying through the open doorway and smashing the man against the far railing of the deck. The impact triggered explosion blew one of the doors off a hinge; it swung inward and crashed into the adjacent wall with a loud thunk.
"Don!" cried Gin, tears still swollen in the corners of his eyes.
"Owner will have my head for that," Patty mourned, staring at the broken entrance.
Carnie reassured him with a, "It's fine, just collateral damage from protecting the restaurant," but Luffy was no longer paying attention.
A hulking figure rose from the singed stretch of wood where the other pirate had crash landed, smoke still spiraling from his body. "That's the best dessert you got, you lousy cook?"
Shocked gazes turned to Don Krieg as someone breathed, "It can't be...!"
"Serving that pile of crap for dessert... This is the worst restaurant I've ever been to," the man seethed, stalking forward with a dark look on his face. Except Luffy was still standing in his path, and she had no intention of going anywhere.
Reading the pull of his shoulders, the shift of his armor, Luffy extended an arm and caught the sweeping backhand that would have smashed into her cheek, steadily meeting the glower being directed at her.
"Get out of my way, little girl."
"But I don't want to," she replied, gracing him with a rather dull look. "And if I don't wanna, why should I? That's just dumb."
Something resembling a spasm overtook Krieg's left eye.
"I am the man who will find One Piece and become King of Pirates!" he snarled. "I have 50 fleet ships at my disposal and over five thousand men! With my powerful body and hidden weaponry, I am the strongest man! You will listen to me if I give you an order!"
"You don't need to shout, I'm right here," Luffy deadpanned. "And besides, you got something really wrong there. I'm gonna find One Piece and be the Pirate King, not you."
"Do you think this is a game, to say such things? I'll allow you to take back your words so stand aside."
"Who's joking?" she replied seriously. Her hand dropped loosely to her side. "I only spoke the truth. When I say I'm going to be Pirate King, it's because I'm going to be Pirate King."
Krieg narrowed his eyes at her and seemed to withdraw the slightest bit. Rather than anger, it was scorn that he met her with next. "As naïve as you are young," he spat. "A welp like you, what could you possibly know of the difficulties of this path? Ignorance will get you killed, chit; even my 5000 men were destroyed in Grand Line in just a week, all because I lacked information!"
Shock echoed through the ship and coalesced into furtive whispers of, "It can't be!" and "Even Don Krieg - " and "Five thousand men!" But no, that was not what she was listening for. Neither was the loud barking of the man standing too close for comfort, nor the distant shick of steel on scabbard, nor the rasping breaths of tobacco from a man gripping tightly onto the reins of his temper.
Rather, it was the approaching clunk of wood on wood, the heavy drag of cloth sack across rough deck, that she welcomed with quirked lips.
"Owner Zeff?!"
A bag her height wide and nearly as tall landed at her side. "Food for a hundred. Take it and get out."
Luffy took several steps back and saw exactly what she had anticipated; a blank-faced Zeff was extending an arm, having tossed the sack of food to the floor next to them.
She watched with interest as Krieg detailed Zeff's reputation, of how the cook-captain's leg had been so often dyed red from the blood of her enemies, of how the hordes of pirates who had tracked her down believing her weak had soon been forced to realize that being a women had only made her more cruel, more dangerous, watched as the head chef's expression changed not an inch despite the unearthing of her lost career. But when Krieg greedily ordered the cook's journal be relinquished to him, Luffy saw then the immoveable Zeff's eyes narrow defiantly, wrathfully, and saw deep brown pupils burn with the sheer audacity of this intruder. And indeed, Krieg was deserving of all of Zeff's rage and then some, because a captain's journal was such a personal thing, treasured memories of an entire crew bound in leather and glue, and for the man to so crassly demand it... Luffy was amazed at Zeff's composure, because she herself would have decked the bastard already.
She risked a glance at Sanji, wondering how he would react to this disparagement of his mentor. The blond was coiled like a spring, jaw pulled tight, long, slim body tense, and it looked as if he would tear past the hands holding him the moment the next insult on Zeff was uttered. The loss of one of her famed legs clearly weighed on him something unbearable.
"You won't give me the journal, is that it? Then I'll have to make sure you won't run off before I take it," Krieg said, and with a vicious twist of his lips he drew a pistol from the depths of his cloak and cocked it at Zeff's wooden leg.
As Krieg's finger tugged at the trigger, it was the shattered guilt that was beginning to dawn on Sanji's face that finally made her -
Just -
Snap.
"Gomu gomu no Gatling."
Once upon a time, a small boy lived in a small town on a small island in East Blue. He resided with his parents, a mildly successful merchant couple, and the village they called home was calm and idyllic. For the most part, the boy's childhood was content.
Unbeknownst to these villagers, underneath their homes lay an untapped gold mine that eventually brought the land under the attention of men too hungry for riches and with too few moral scruples to stay their hands from razing the town to ashes.
Only one survivor remained from the massacre.
So at the end of it all, with no love left in his heart and nothing else to live for, a ten year old boy vowed to wreak revenge upon the world - at any cost.
The rugged ground is scarred from the battle that has just taken place. Swords and knives litter the stone floor, layered under wooden debris and discarded bullets and lifeless bodies. The stone walls of the bandit cave hold only further evidence of his lone crusade against the rotten humans who once resided there.
It is done. His family is avenged.
The satisfaction, the victory he has sought for so long, the closure he has longed for, none of it is anywhere to be found. The rage has burnt out of him, and now… Now he feels nothing. All that remains is a pervasive emptiness, a hollowness that sinks into his bones and sloughs like mud in his veins.
He shuffles to the wide mouth of the cave with slow, stumbling steps and tilts his head back. There are no clouds to be found. The sun smolders bright and hot against a soft blue sky but the cheerful sight makes him feel only colder.
A dirt path winds over and down the hill on which he stands. He squints into the afternoon glare and is vaguely startled to see a large figure traveling the path, coming into view from the dip of the land.
It is a great, hulking behemoth of a man that approaches.
He himself is in no state to fight, and it makes him wonder if it would be better if the stranger proves hostile - he would be able to see his family then. If the opposite proves true, well... it is unfortunate, but he doesn't know what he will do with the rest of his life. Survival does not suit him so well without the all-consuming rage that has forced him along until now.
The man comes into focus and he realizes the stranger is limping, and looks too tired besides.
There will be no second battle today, he thinks with nebulous relief. Or perhaps it is instead disappointment that causes his shoulders to slump forward.
As the figure approaches further, tired, haggard eyes meet kin, and each man acknowledges the other. An interminably narrowed gaze flickers past him to survey the graveyard crafted by his hands. There is scrutiny in those eyes, and also a kind of recognition.
He himself cannot help but to register the assemblage of wounds and their effects on the other man's bearing; the limp of a leg, the blood soaking a torn tunic, the exhausted slope of shoulders that bespeak of a heavy burden lifted. Still, the man's spine is straight with pride and dark eyes gleam of victory and of wrongs made right, and he realizes that this, this is exactly how he envisioned himself in the aftermath of his own revenge.
But with a gesture to the spectacle trailing into the open-mouthed cave, the man brings him away from the stirrings of almost-admiration. A deep, thundering voice rasps, "Did you do this?"
Slowly, he nods.
"Follow me."
Lacking motivation for anything else, Gin follows.
Don Krieg has force of personality and overwhelming charisma. He has grand goals and the determination to achieve them. Everything about Krieg is larger than life, shoulders thrown back, eyes set blazing to the skies - nothing at all like Gin, who always walks slouched, gaze to the dirt, any semblance of a dream long forgotten.
Most importantly, Krieg gives him direction and a reason to live.
If a merciless killing machine is what his captain needs him to be, then so be it. It isn't as if that is such a far stretch from what Gin already is.
AN
:)
Pls don't kill me. :)
Hello people who wanted Gin (kurobook) and Krieg (my lovely darling lilyoftheval aka lily-san) fleshed out - that last part is for you.
In my version of things, Krieg is the same as Gin in so many ways, and yet unlike Gin, he doesn't despair his hardships, instead rising above them and using his anger as fuel for all his actions. He is determined not to lose to anyone again - at any cost. Sound familiar? Because the boy from once upon a time is not, in fact, Gin.
Anyway, the two had paths that strongly paralleled each other, but when they finally completed their goals, their reactions were so, so very different. Thus leading to the relationship we see in the manga.
It was a little frustrating to have to use "he" and "him" for an entire section, but I didn't want to give away who the character was until the very end. (Though of course, the more canny may have pieced it together before that part. ;)
I'm giving present tense a test run. Tell me what you think.
As a side note: when I said that Luffy was weaker, I meant this in the most physical sense of the word. Everyone is worrying that this Luffy is weak, or weaker than her crew.
No. No. Luffy is not weaker than Zoro or Sanji.
In a strength contest between canon Luffy and Sol!Luffy, canon Luffy will win every time. However, in a no-holds-barred battle between the two, Sol!Luffy will likely win. Why? Because she's smarter, and she knows more. And with that knowledge comes a better understanding of what her body is capable of. And just as, or perhaps more, importantly, she also has knowledge of what her opponents are capable of.
Besides, I said that she is weaker in comparison to canon Luffy, not that she is weak point-blank. As canon Luffy is very very very strong, that gives her a lot of leeway. I.e.: Sanji's legs may be stronger than her legs, and Zoro's arms may be stronger than her arms (as those are where their specializations lay), but in a physical fight she can still beat both of them. :)
By the way, new story up! (Again. Ugh.) It's a One Piece and Naruto crossover, Sakura-centric, called Firefly Dance. Yes, another one of those Sakura falls into OP-world stories - except this one, she's jumped in head first. I only have the prelude up, but here's a preview for the next chapter because I love you guys.
Preview: Firefly Dance
1 - Cotillion
Sakura lays on a bed of unfamiliar design, built from some sturdy wood. She is unrestrained, still clothed in her trousers and black shirt, right sleeve torn off, but her shinobi pouch is gone. Her injured arm has been bandaged, though no other medical care applied; it is just as well, as she doesn't need it. She sets her chakra to healing the acid burns.
Across the room is a broad desk under a window. A woman sits there with her back turned, bent over a large book. Her hair is black, glossy and straight, and she is obviously slim, clothed in a deep purple shirt that ends high along her torso and a short skirt of the same hue. Her skin is pale but has begun to tan in a way that says she has been in a desert environment for not quite a year, but more than a month.
Sakura has given no tells towards her woken state, so she considers using the element of surprise. She doesn't mean to attack the woman - there is no reason to suspect her as a hostile - but startling someone often has the convenient effect of catching them off-guard, resulting in a lower chance of dishonesty and increasing the potentiality of being given pertinent information.
That is, until her gaze slides to her right, the only part of the room she has not surveyed, and she sees a single, detached eye blinking at her from the beige wall. It's a woman's eye, large and hooded, the irises a pale blue and the dark teal pupils blown wide.
Sakura is not sure how to react to this. On the one hand, she's fought a god and traveled through realms and can bring back thousands of people from the brink of death in the space of a breath. On the other… it's an eye. And it's not attached to a face. And it's staring at her. She settles for laying very, very still and staring back at it.
The eye dissolves into a few drifting cherry blossom petals.
Additional AN
My dear readers and reviewers, I love you all very very much and also the moment I get to 500 followers I'm going to do something about it because wtf that is basically waaaay beyond the max possible followers I ever thought I'd get on one of my stories ever like ever and it's only 15 chapters in wtf what did I do right please tell me so I can do more of it and I'm running on aren't I will stop now (I mean I know there are 5 chapter stories with like 1000+ followers but those authors are other people, who have awesome other people skills, and are therefore not mediocre me)
I have absolutely no clue what I should do to celebrate when that point comes though (although it may also not ;w;). Please send in some of your ideas, guys! Nothing too long-term or heavy-effort, but it's basically a thank-you to you peeps, so you should all have a say.
PS- I have a One Piece tumblr. You will likely not regret checking it out. Though there are maybe a few nsfw reblogged pics so maybe take caution, maybe.