Sol Invictus

Chapter Seventeen: Sanji Getto ✓

"You okay, old lady?"

"Worry about your own damn self," Zeff grumbled, eyes narrowing.

Luffy laughed and shook her head, dismissing the older woman's comment. "Me? This is nothing. More than I can say for that guy. You said you didn't need it, but then you go and blast someone's face off!" she joked. She paused thoughtfully and added, "You're a real good shot though. It's kinda cool."

The chef gave her a sidelong look and casually rolled the pistol in her hand. "You pick things up as a pirate."

Luffy hummed in agreement and squinted past the tussle between Sanji and Gin at the fallen body of Pearl. His worst mistake, she supposed, was trying to strike at Sanji when his back was turned. Rather than dodge Gin's oncoming hit, Zeff had taken that time to instead aim the gun Luffy had filched off a Krieg pirate earlier during Gear Second, and then fire it at Pearl so the man's attack would fail and he'd be incapacitated for the rest of the battle. For all her harsh words and coarse demeanor, Zeff really did care for the blond, not that she'd actually admit it. Honestly… Luffy had given the woman the pistol to defend herself against Gin in case the hostage situation happened again – not to use it like this. But, well, it all worked out in the end so she guessed this was fine too.

Gin himself was currently rounding off with a pissed off Sanji, getting cussed out and beaten black and blue for daring to sink to such low means against the cook's mentor. And probably to blow off the blond's anxiety from the close call that had just occurred, now that she thought of it. Luffy glanced down at the short spears jutting out from her body, the skin around the weapons still black from vulcanization. Six in total, scattered over her body, meant to kill Zeff before Luffy had intercepted. Apparently she'd pissed Krieg off enough for him to jump at the excuse of releasing his rage on an easier target; she didn't think getting rid of Pearl would have triggered such a response from the pirate otherwise. He was normally more likely to deride his subordinates for their losses than to avenge them.

She squinted harder, past the fights on deck and the gleam of the sun on the surface of the ocean. Krieg was surveying the unfolding of events with a dark look on his face, a slow, deliberate scan over the battlefield. As she yanked out each spike from her body – one under her ribs, one in her forearm, one in her thigh, one… – Luffy watched him contemplatively finger his remaining shield. If she wasn't mistaken, Krieg would pull out his most destructive weapon very, very soon.

Once they were all out, Luffy made an abortive movement to toss away the spikes, then thought better of it and pocketed them instead. "Say – all the windows in the Baratie are shut right? If, hypothetically, a poison bomb were to erupt right now, you'd be fine so long as you went inside and barricaded the front door right?"

Zeff narrowed her eyes and slowly replied, "The restaurant is currently a fortress. Hypothetically, if such a thing were to occur, I would indeed be safe inside. As would anyone else within it."

"That's good," she told Zeff, craning her neck to see how Sanji was currently faring. Gin was staggering between his attempts to avoid a series of almost lazy kicks and Sanji himself was— not quite relaxed, since they were still on a battlefield, but calm now. He looked assured, or perhaps reassured; in any case, he held an air of certainty through his unceasing focus that told her he was faring very well indeed. "Actually, that's great. 'Cus Krieg does have one you know. A poison bomb, that is. And he looks like he's one insult away from using it, so you should really get on that, since I'm gonna be calling him a weakling pretty soon and all."

With a stupendous scowl, the lead chef opened her mouth, looking like she had several choice words for the rookie pirate.

Luffy merely blinked at her and handed her a couple long pieces of wood to use as a crutch.

Zeff grit her teeth together, scowled even harder, and then sighed deeply in frustration. Bemused, Luffy watched her clunk off for a moment before she remembered herself and trotted towards Sanji's fight. She arrived just in time for Gin to slump over her arm, unconscious.

Probably unconscious, she amended, bracing her shoulder against the limp weight of the body.

"Miss," Sanji said, at first eyeing her shoving a hand down Gin's trouser pockets with a bewildered look and then eyeing her injuries, as she was quite noticeably dripping blood over the pirate's shirt. "Are you—you alright?"

"Completely fine! Doesn't even hurt," she assured him. She wasn't even lying, which —

… well.

Her hand settled on the object she was looking for, and she pulled it out with a resolutely cheerful, "Aha!" before shoving it onto Gin's face and settling him down so he faced the restaurant. "Will you lend me a hand, Sanji? Zeff's going to barricade herself into Baratie with the other chefs very soon, so for a little while, it's just gonna be you and me to deal with the huge jerkwad over there," Luffy said, jerking her chin at Krieg.

Sanji's eyes followed in the direction she'd gestured to narrow dangerously on Krieg. Without looking away, he reached up to the cigarette still hanging from his mouth and idly flicked it onto the deck – and then viciously ground it to dust with his heel. "It would be my pleasure," he told her, lips curling into a sub-zero smile.

Luffy reached forward to grasp his hand, and when he glanced at her, bemused, she beamed goofily back at him. "My first combo attack with our chef!" she cheered, swinging their arms. "It's getting me fired up!"

Sanji's expression reflexively softened, and he instinctively squeezed the smaller hand in his. "Yeah, me too—" he began to say, until his ears caught up with his brain and his face fell into annoyed lines, his grip loosening. "I said I'm not joining your crew!" he snapped. A curled brow twitched when he realized that his outburst had fallen on deaf ears, and Luffy had already left his side.

"But first," called Luffy, scuttling over to a nearby group of fallen pirates. "Gas masks."

Sanji stared deadpan at her awkward half-bent shuffle and leisurely followed behind with his longer legs. "Gas masks?"

"Gas masks." She sent him a thumbs up and continued to rummage. "I once heard a rumour about a pirate called Krieg, who destroyed a village with poison gas. Rumours are rumours, but when all of the crew carries gas masks… and if it's really poison that can kill a whole village, then it must be huge. Probably the big finale." With a shark grin slowly stretching her mouth, she glanced up at Sanji and offered him a mask. "But I've gotten him eager to end the show, and I'm very good at crashing the stage, you see."

"And how do you plan on doing that?" Sanji asked. He knelt down beside her, one leg folding neatly under him, and cautiously plucked up his designated mask to peer at it.

Luffy leaned in close enough that she could see gooseflesh rising on the nape of his neck, and whispered, "Well…"

Once the insult was bombastically delivered and Krieg erupted in a fit of rage, both captain and chef got into position. Luffy wiggled her fingers in her pockets and bent forward as Sanji widened his stance, the two of them watching keenly as Krieg pulled the trigger. The moment the missiles began to bloom open midair, she jerked the mask out of her pocket and over her face, knowing without looking that her cook was doing the same.

As the poison billowed towards them in a noxious cloud, a black booted leg reared back. Luffy leapt onto it and coiled up like a spring; her other hand clenched into a fist and slipped out of her pocket, threw itself back, back, back, and then when the poison rolled over them completely and not a single thing could be seen…

Sanji kicked.

Silence.

The battlefield fell into immediate stasis. The gas was so thick that it seemed to muffle out the entire world, and yet even to breathe felt too loud. Wearing the mask was worse, for it felt like you would never again be able to hear anything but the trembling of your own pulse against your eardrums. No one could see anything until the poison cleared, and each slow second felt like death.

The seventh minute of the battle passed like this, stagnant and soundless.

Eight minutes, and the poison slowly began to dissipate, thinning into the atmosphere. At the ninth, the dark silhouette of two figures on an expanse of driftwood could faintly be made out through the smog, the outline of a small, many-armed bodhisattva looming over a titan on his knees. There appeared to be some sort of intense movement between them that forced the poison to billow out from this nucleus; bystanders could feel the gas crawling along their skin as it escaped from the violence. As the tenth minute licked on, the poison diffused enough into the atmosphere that it became safe to take off the masks, and a full portrait of the battle between the two captains revealed itself in crisp detail.

Neither captain was where they had been prior to the explosion of poison, and it was clear that while the rest of the battlefield had been in a mute torpor, the fight between these two had been relentless.

Or rather – Luffy had been relentless. It wasn't that she had sprouted multiple arms: it was that her punches were at such a speed that the average eye succumbed to the illusion of it. Krieg was being forced further and further back by Luffy's unending onslaught, attempting to brace himself against it but capable of little else. His armoured forearms crossed over his head, and clutched desperately in his hands was his hole-ridden spiked cape, with which he tried to fend off her fists. Several more small holes were simply shredded into it, and her arms reached beyond to land all over Krieg's defense. When her punches met his armour, there was indeed a staggering impact that shook his bones and his breath, but it was the occasional blow to his unprotected lower body that truly rattled him.

For clenched between her fingers were his very own spears, three in each fist. Each spear was longer than the spikes on his cape, just long enough in her hands to tear through the cape before it tore through her, and sharp enough to pierce through flesh and tendon and muscle with little resistance. They were made of a material that wasn't quite as strong as wootz steel but could shatter bone with sufficient force, and the girl punched like a freight train. He bled from where they had been cleaved straight into his legs, and he could only call himself lucky she hadn't hit anything very important. He was being destroyed with his own weapon. The irony was literally killing him.

"I am the strongest! I won't be defeated by the likes of you!" he bellowed, even as he reeled back and hacked blood into the gas mask that he hadn't the time to remove. If she let up even for a moment, he could reach for any of his tricks, could angle the flamethrower or weighted net from his vambraces. Just a moment. Just a single moment… He glared out the corner of his eyes at the remainder of his crew through the cracked glass of his eyepiece. "You bastards! Do something!"

"D-Don…!" they replied, and reached for whatever weapons were closest, whether guns or crossbows. Two booted feet violently disrupted their scramble.

"Hello," said Sanji, standing on a few pirates' faces. He ran a hand through his fringe, thoroughly mussed from the mask, and bared his teeth at the pirates in something that might have been a smile if it were not so menacing. "I hope you aren't planning on interfering, because then I may have to interfere with your next breath."

The shadow cast by his hand over the angles of his face, in conjunction with his inhuman expression, made his words substantially more terrifying than any punishment Krieg could ever give. The pirates dropped their weapons in abject fear.

But right then, the moment that Krieg had so desperately been awaiting happened: Luffy faltered.

Her leg buckled from under her, and her fists went off mark. With this final frenzied attack, she had effectively leapt far past the threshold of proper function and now her body would start showing signs of strain from its misuse.

The eleventh minute had arrived, without warning or fanfare.

Krieg's expression turned gleeful as he capitalized on Luffy's moment of weakness. In the split-second break before her anticipated next punch, he thrust his right arm in her direction and cast out the net he'd been itching to use, heavy lead weights flying forward.

However, as Luffy alone knew that what outwardly seemed to be a mere stumble was a forewarning that far worse was to come, she had already changed her plan of attack to accommodate. The instant she felt her leg spasm, Luffy had relaxed all the muscles in her body and bonelessly dropped to the ground. In her descent, her arms stretched out; the net soared overhead to clatter just behind her as hands clasped vice-like around Krieg's ankles. A corner of the netting draped over one of her calves, and she hooked her foot into the rope.

"What—" the Pirate Fleet Admiral had time to say, his victorious expression distorting to shock as Luffy yanked him with all her strength and kicked her foot forward. The wood underneath them was slick with seawater and blood, and the large man's stance was already unbalanced. He went down with the thundering crack of a felled oak and the net followed soon after, coiling around him like a possessive lover and catching on the angles of his armour when he tried to scramble up.

Krieg was a very heavy man, largely due to size and muscle mass. For the wootz steel to be so strong, it must also be dense, and that meant that it, too, was very heavy, especially since he wore so much of it. On top of that, the other captain also carried his many assorted weapons on his body; machine guns, bombs, spears – his single shield already tipped the scales at half a ton. Perhaps Krieg could swim, and certainly he wasn't a devil fruit user like her, but that didn't mean he wouldn't sink. Tangled in his own net, water weighing his clothing and filling up under his armour, he would plummet to the seafloor like a boulder. He may have the strength of several men, but he'd be oxygen deprived, disorientated from the water, weakened from her earlier blitz, and his movements would be both slow and limited. If he could single-handedly haul himself out of the ocean in this state, he honestly deserved to win this fight.

Krieg stared at her with crazed eyes, nearly frothing at the mouth. "I am the greatest, I am the strongest! I won't lose, I can't lose!" he screamed, his voice hoarse and the whites of his eyes gleaming. "I am the great Pirate Fleet Admiral, Don Krieg! I REFUSE TO BE DEFEATED BY ANYONE!"

"I'm anyone," Luffy replied, stretching both of her arms behind her. She grinned wildly at him. "And I've already beaten you!"

Krieg gave a wordless roar as her arms finally made their forceful return and launched him straight into the sea, far, far away from the Baratie.

Watching him fly off, the captain let out a ragged breath and turned to go back to the restaurant, only to stumble and fall on her face.

"Ow," she said. Perhaps ending the battle a couple minutes before collapse had been cutting it a bit close. She scraped herself up and continued on, feeling the adrenaline that was sustaining her body receding with every step. Individual muscles shutting down in rapid succession, Luffy clumsily trudged along as if slogging through quicksand. It took her a full minute to travel even half the distance back to the ship, which was enough time for the Going Merry to crest over the far side of Baratie.

Usopp stood leaning over the railing, one hand over his eyes as he scanned left and right. Spotting her straight away, he began to wave vigorously at her and anxiously called out, "Luffy!"

What a worrywart, even though she was completely fine. Luffy laughed a little and threw up her hands, wanting to wave back at him to show him she was okay. The movement of her arm caused her entire body to sway, and she promptly slid on a patch of her own blood, spilled during her first advance towards Krieg. Her gaze fell as well and met Sanji's, widened in concern.

"Miss, watch out!" he shouted in alarm, stepping forward from where he stood beside the now conscious Gin. Luffy smiled dopily at him and tumbled head first into the ocean.

She blinked, and saltwater stung her eyes. Sagging debris drifted past her under a murky film.

She blinked, and felt her limbs losing any last vestige of strength. Her body slowly relinquished itself to the narcotic compulsion of the wide open sea.

She blinked, and in her last moment of coherence, Luffy opened up her pain pathways and allowed agony to course through her like a shockwave.

Underwater, no one would hear her scream.

Sanji tore through the water as fast as he could, powerful legs propelling him forward like a bullet. Fortunately the girl hadn't sunk far, though she was plummeting rather quicker than she should be, given her weight. He reached forward, scooping up her tiny body into an arm with barely any effort, and briefly wondered how so much power could be contained in someone so small.

They resurfaced in the next moment and Sanji immediately pulled the little pirate captain up first, laying her on her side and smacking her back until she began coughing violently. He breathed a sigh of relief and dragged himself up next to her.

"You alright there?" he asked, when her eyes blearily opened a crack. She mouthed something to him that was too quiet to hear. Sanji hunched closer and proffered her his ear, trying not to watch a rivulet of water meandering into the dip of her throat and down the curve of her shoulder. "What was that?"

The young woman weakly grasped at his shoulder and craned up. He held her shoulders to make it easier on her and listened closely. "As soon as I wake up…" she said in a hoarse, frantic whisper. "Soon as I wake up, you have to…"

His brows creased, her sudden agitation affecting him. "Yes? What do you need me to do?"

"You gotta…" she hissed desperately. "Gotta…"

"What? What is it?"

"Gotta… gimme… food…" she sighed, and then promptly began to snore in his arms.

Sanji stared at the impossible, incomprehensible girl in his arms and then in the next moment he threw his head back as a hearty, loud guffaw erupted from deep within his belly. He howled with laughter and thought, I could follow this girl to the end of the world and I wouldn't be bored a single day.

He thought, I owe her a debt even my death couldn't repay.

He thought:

Okay.

Sanji blew a white plume through the open window, watched it ponderously spiral away to join a passing cloud. Several more thin slips of smoke chased after it, twining together and soon losing shape before the cloud could be reached. He frowned, stubbing out his cigarette and turned back to the slumbering woman beside him, finding more peace in the slow rise and fall of her breaths than in his own bad habits.

This young lady, this pirate captain – she had saved Zeff's life thrice. The first when she had caught the knife that would have permanently paralyzed Zeff; the second when she'd blocked those spears meant for his mentor with her own body; the third when she'd defeated Krieg, and thus saved all of Baratie. And all three occasions had been brought about by Sanji, by his folly and his weakness. Returning his due to her was beyond his current means; it was not something that could be accomplished today, or the day next, or the week following. Then, it was clear as day what must be done.

He would have to devote himself to her in the way she had wanted, and hope it was enough.

A low groan startled Sanji out of his reverie, and he refocused his gaze on the girl stirring on the bed.

Even before she opened her eyes, she rasped, "Hat."

"Next to you, on the nightstand," Sanji said, grabbing a tall glass from the desk and striding to her side. He helped her up with a hand spread between her shoulder blades and touched the lip of the cup to her mouth; Luffy drained it in one long draught, with a little gasp when she finished.

He walked a little ways to put away the glass again, and smiled wryly when she remained stably sitting up even without his support. He already knew without it being made so obvious; it wasn't that she needed him to help her, it was that pampering her made him feel better, more useful.

There was a loud crunch behind him and he turned back to see that she'd already located the basket of food on the bedside table, right under her hat. She looked up at him with rounded eyes and bulging cheeks. "Yoo can'd hab 'ny," she garbled through a mouth stuffed to the seams. She quickly shoved another forkful in and gave him a deeply suspicious look.

"I wasn't going to ask," he replied with a lopsided smile.

She gulped down and stuck her hand back in the basket. "Good, 'cuz I'm not gonna share!"

Sitting quietly by Luffy's bedside, Sanji watched her decimate the interior of the large hamper without so much as a blink. When she upturned the basket and not a single crumb fell out, he finally said, "They're having a feast downstairs, so there's no need to make that face. I've packed my belongings so I'll be ready to head out the moment you're done eating, if you will take me."

Luffy straightened up so quickly that she bounced a little on the mattress and her face brightened up with a large grin. "Does that mean—"

"You have done an immeasurable service for this restaurant, my home, and for my mentor, to whom I owe my own life," Sanji began, sedately staying her enthusiasm so that he could first explain himself. The small captain's smile froze on her face and her expression turned a little strange. He stood and bowed to her. "I cannot ever repay what you have done, but please allow me to try. Please let me join your pirate crew. I will devote myself in your service."

There was a long, stale silence. Sanji remained bowed; he had seen the frown forming on Luffy's brows as he spoke and he feared what sort of face she was making.

A sudden, tiny, "No," broke the stalemate, delivered in the most petulant voice he had ever heard. His head rose in time to see the girl twisting away from him and throwing the covers over her head. Sanji stared speechlessly at her small body, huddled stubbornly under the sheets, for several minutes until it was clear she wasn't willing to emerge from the cocoon or say another word.

Baffled and not a little hurt, the blond eventually left the room, softly closing the door behind him.

Notes —

if you have qualms with the title, i dare you to come up with a better one. (this is a lie. whoever comes up with a proper one, i'll… pat u on the back and steal it)

contrary to common belief im not dead and neither is this fic, sorry for the century long delay. if you havent abandoned me yet, here is the long awaited chapter 17. thanks for the support and the reviews, just an "i love this!" put my mind back to this fic, even if i only ended up fiddling out maybe two words at a time. reading the long ones really made my day, and those of you who took the time to review every single chapter (you know who you are) really encouraged me to go back and write a lot more, especially through this last stretch.

by the way, if you have a question, make an account or log in or it will probably never get answered because updating habits lol. even if you have an account there's a chance it wont get answered if im busy and then forget, let alone anons… trololololol if you see this please just make an account im begging you i've seen you for yeaRS

to the guest who spams a copy pasta of about a bajillion pleases beseeching me to 'update this and my other fics soon' to almost all of my fics and also every chapter: while i appreciate your enthusiasm, seeing so much of the same messages in my inbox kills me a little. i would much prefer to know your actual thoughts on the chapter, and i dont believe that someone could possibly be thinking that many pleases that often. pls and thnks

to the guest who reread this story 3 times and gave me feedback a few months ago: yes. you are correct. both work, but i call this a self-insert and not an oc-insert 100% because of the initials. there is actually no other reason. i've thought about calling it an oc-insert instead several times, but that's stopped me each time. where else would i find such a coincidence? smh

-i guess i'll be doing transvida

-by the way, i've been wondering this, but who actually thought or worried that i'd kill zeff?

-finally: sorry for scrub ending, it was this or you wait another 10 years. the next chapter is scheduled for february 2019 stay tuned guys lol