So either the word deadline has lost all meaning to me, or I just think that Sunday and Tuesday are the same thing... Still dealing with a writer's block, but I'm going on a short holiday tomorrow (which is the real reason I choose the beginning of the months for my breaks), and that usually gives me loads of inspiration to write... usually

Story set: Timeless (but probably spoils stuff from Whole Cake Island?)


Not so ordinary after all pt. 2

Sanji was lying on his back, panting hard. He was completely exhausted and he honestly did not want to move away from this very comfortable spot on deck. He could hear the heavy breathings of both Luffy and Zoro somewhere not too far away. He was sure the others were exhausted as well, but they were all a little further away, scattered around the ship. This had been the third marine attack that day, and it was beginning to have an effect.

To make it short: Sanji had fucked up. And he totally blamed Zoro. However irrational it might seem, he blamed Zoro. He blamed Zoro for having randomly appeared and disturbed his thought process that night. Sanji never made mistakes, if he did there would be no point in his solo-missions, but this time he had made a mistake... all because of that stupid swordsman. He hoped Zoro knew that he was to blame, but the idiot had no brain and probably hadn't even put two and two together.

Basically, after having beaten up the people in the warehouse, Sanji (and Zoro) had not destroyed evidence that they had been there nor made sure that they could no longer be followed. Sanji was sure that the group they had beat up had pleaded with whoever government officials had come for them and then given them the necessary means to track strawhat Luffy.

However strong the strawhats were, there really was a limit to how many attacks they could take in a row, and, as unfortunate as it was, they couldn't keep using coup de burst to get away. They simply didn't have the fuels. So now they had to live with high level battles multiple times a day.

When the first attack had occurred, Sanji hadn't thought twice about it. They were pirates. Marine attacks were kind of an occupational hazard. The second time Sanji simply assumed that the team from earlier had given the information of their whereabouts to every marine base in the area. However, when they after the second attack had changed their course and got attacked again, Sanji suspected that something was up. The next day had been the same; three consecutive marine attacks, which no amount of zig-zag-not-following-the-log-pose sailing could stop. It was getting tiring to say the least.

Now they were on their fourth day, and Sanji was at a loss for what to do. Sanji was certain that if they could hold the marines off for long enough then the tracking on Luffy would wear off, but they might just lose a fight before that happened. Sanji had half expected that the effect would wear off after three days, but it hadn't, so now he was gunning for five days, which meant that, hopefully, this whole ordeal would be over soon.

He had proof that this was the case as well. The first three days the marines had attacked three times a day. Morning, noon and evening, but today, on the fourth day and the fifth day of the magical tracking, the marines had attacked three times when noon arrived. Sanji could tell. They were getting desperate. If today truly was their last chance then they only had a few more hours to work with, and ever since Sanji had started putting things together he had made sure to deal a lot of damage to their ships in order to keep the marines from following them. But that didn't really make this any easier.

Sanji slowly gathered the energy to sit up and looked around. He had the perfect meal in mind to help a weakened crew, but he honestly didn't have the energy to start that big of a project... but he forced himself to do it anyway. They needed to be prepared for the next attack which Sanji predicted would come within two hours...

And sure enough, two hours and a refreshing meal later, the Sunny was once again a battlefield. Usopp, Franky and Brook were taking care of the surrounding ships, while the rest of the strawhats fought to keep the marines from killing or taking anyone. In a messy situation like this, Sanji trusted his friends to take care of themselves... or scream if they needed help, and focused on his own opponents. There were very few marines who could stand up to Sanji for more than ten seconds, but they had numbers to their advantage, while the strawhats were dealing with complete exhaustion. And while this group of marines seemed a little on the weak side, Sanji quickly noticed something.

Generally when a big group of marines came for them, it seemed that they randomly charged at them with large numbers, while some of the stronger marines would take on Luffy and Zoro. This usually gave Sanji a lot of leeway as he was always completely underestimated, but this batch of marines were completely different. The strategy for dealing with Luffy seemed to be mostly the same. There were about three people surrounding him, all of whom seemed to be just at the weaker end of vice-admiral level. Normally, this shouldn't face Luffy, but Sanji had noticed that Luffy had tried very hard to take on more and more enemies over the last few days to allow the rest of the crew to relax, if just a little bit. So while Luffy still stood the strongest, he was also the one suffering from these attacks the most. Still, Sanji was sure he'd do fine, and if he needed it, Zoro was not even three metres away from his captain... Though it seemed that the swordsman was struggling more with his opponents than Luffy was with his... which was somewhat irregular.

While Luffy always dealt with the stronger enemies, Zoro always seemed to struggle just a little less than their lovable captain, but Sanji could understand what was causing the swordsman trouble. Zoro, more often than not, fought fellow swordsmen, who were often powered up by a weird devil fruit. And for Zoro who was aiming to become the best swordsman in the world, these people rarely posed too much of a challenge because of his experience and power. But this time Zoro was not fighting swordsmen or even weapon users. His opponents seemed to be mostly quick, martial artists, which really was what Zoro struggled with the most.

Sanji himself was now the one dealing with the swordsmen, which just so happened to be his achilles heel. All of Sanji's long ranged attacks involved fire, and on the Sunny he could not use those techniques, which meant he had to get close to his opponents to deal any sort of damage... but swordsmen were hard to get close to, especially the good ones. The only saving grace which both Zoro and Sanji benefited from was their regular fights. While their arguments and stupid fights didn't have much merit because their attacks had no thoughts behind them, they did have one daily sparring session which allowed them to deal with their respective weaknesses.

However, with fatigue peaking and having multiple swordsmen constantly attacking him, Sanji kind of wished he could switch positions with Zoro... but that was a stupid thought, and Sanji knew he had to deal with these people no matter what.

And so, putting his trust in his friends, Sanji stopped paying attention to anything but his enemies, and in a state of complete concentration, a flip in Sanji was flipped. As if eight years of suppressed training was suddenly remembered, Sanji's moves changed. He could put himself in the body of these swordsmen, predict their moves based on the sword they used, the power they had, the quality of their footwork, and Sanji's own habits and fighting capabilities. He wouldn't touch a sword, but he could vividly remember how it felt to wield the weapon. Sometimes it wasn't even that different to using kitchen knives, but he couldn't let similarities distract him.

Sanji moved swiftly among his enemies, dodging and attacking with a new found finesse. He wasn't even completely sure what he was doing, it was like he was in some sort of trance. But it worked. Once the last marine fell to his knees and lost consciousness, Sanji slowly pulled himself back to reality and glanced in the direction of Luffy and Zoro. Both seemed to have wrapped up their fights pretty easily, but Zoro was the one who caught his attention. From his glare, Sanji knew he'd been watching him for a while, but it was the little knowing smile and cocky head lift which pissed Sanji off the most. He didn't even know what the hell Zoro was thinking anymore, but it annoyed Sanji to no end and he kicked a downed marine out of frustration.

And then Zoro laughed again. It wasn't as much as the night after their little mission, but just as back then, Zoro seemed genuinely amused by something which Sanji definitely did not understand. Sanji mumbled something about making food to no one and angrily left for the kitchen. The others would clean up the mess, and he'd have a meal ready for them when they were done.

Sanji entered the kitchen, put on his apron, found the ingredients and picked up his favourite kitchen knife. For a second a chill went down his spine, but he shrugged it off an began cooking.


This was actually super hard to write because 1) goddamn writer's block and 2) I had this chapter imagined completely from Zoro's pov because of the side chapter... though that means that this chapter will actually make more sense with that story (whenever I decide to write that(hopefully before 2017))

Either way, I hope you all have a nice day :D