Disastrous Split

Mikoto stirred. He rolled over onto his stomach and reached out with his hand. He didn't feel the calming comfort of his own sheets. He felt soft grass. He struggled to sit up and immediately regretted it. His head let loose a furious pounding that nearly floored him. He flopped back to the grassy floor and held his head with both hands. He opened his eyes and glanced around him between the immense throbs of pain.

The ship was gone…which was worrying since the last thing Mikoto remembered was being in it. Instead what surrounded him was dead, brown grass and trees that looked like they had been scorched black. He paused for a second longer as he looked beneath the tree and found possibly the worst thing yet, a tombstone. Mikoto struggled to his feet and walked up to it. He placed his hand on it and collapsed in front of it, his entire body sagging to the ground. He ran his fingers over the cold stone as he examined it for another second or two.

The writing was covered with a soot of sorts and Mikoto took a few seconds to examine the soot, wondering where it came from before wiping it away to reveal the words. 'Here lies 'Red Haired' Shanks'. Mikoto jumped back in an instant as he felt the strength leave his entire body. The tomb of 'Red Haired' Shanks? He remembered stories of that pirate! The pirate who ended the Whitebeard War, the pirate who started Luffy on his journey! This was that man! Or whatever was left of him.

Mikoto thought for a few seconds about digging up his bones and making sure if it was him. But…the only thing he knew about Shanks was that he had red hair…and he wasn't even completely sure of that. He struggled with the thought of unearthing the man's skeleton for a few more seconds until a more pressing question managed to wiggle its way into his head.

"Where's my crew?" Mikoto asked out loud, swiveling his head first to the right then left and then back again. He cocked his head and took a quick whiff of the air, hoping to smell…what was it he was hoping to smell? He paused for a moment as he tried to think of his crew. Nothing came to mind. No faces, no names, nothing. He knew he had a crew, he knew he had a ship that mysteriously went missing, but nothing else was really coming to him. He scratched his head furiously as he tried to think of them, but he couldn't remember them? Was one of them named…Shadow?

"HEY!" Mikoto shouted. "MY CREW GOT LOST! CAN ANYONE HELP ME FIND THEM? THEY MAY OR MAY NOT ANSWER TO THE NAME SHADOW!" He paused for a few seconds looking around for someone to answer his call when his eyes fell on Shank's tombstone. "UNLESS YOU'RE A GHOST! IF YOU'RE A GHOST DON'T ANSWER! OR ZOMBIE! DON'T ANSWER IF YOU ARE A ZOMBIE EITHER!" No one yelled back to answer him.

"I'm either all alone on this island," concluded Mikoto with another glance around. "Or I'm all alone on an island with zombies and ghosts." Mikoto never wished to be alone on an entire island all by himself more than he did so now. Unless it was the ghost of Red Haired Shanks it might be nice to talk to him…would a ghost still have red hair? Mikoto began to walk in search of his crew while trying to answer that question. Maybe he should be called Ghost Haired Ghost Shanks, the Ghost? If Mikoto was a ghost he would be named Ghost Coyote Ghost-koto.

The thoughts of his missing crew, disappeared. It was the furthest thing in his mind right now as he headed out. His mind kept track of very little. The fact that he had discovered Shank's grave was interesting and demanded his total attention, regardless of how little attention he should have to spare. It should after all, be completely focused on finding his crew…whoever they were.

(-With Zesiro-)

The large Fishman fidgeted a bit as he sat up in what used to be a luscious green forest. A look around him told him more than he wanted to know. The field had been burned alongside the trees, there was still smoke rising up from some of them. He muttered something beneath his breath as he looked around. The pain in his shoulder was probably from whatever attacked their ship. It was the middle of the night when Hiro-Shu asked for everyone to come to the top of the deck because something had hit them. When the crew got up there…they were stormed at high speed. Their ship was rocked and they were thrown free from it. Meaning he was separated from his crew due to some unimaginable force. He drew his swords and slowly crept forward through the dense woods in search of them.

Suddenly he felt alone. He paused as he looked around. Thoughts from the past flooded into his mind, memories from the past. He thought back. He remembered seeing Sanada fall, Nito and Ichi leaving him. He was all alone now. In this dense empty forest. He tried to calm down. But it was hot here, a cool breeze was here sailing in from the ocean, but overall it was warm. Bitter thoughts kept creeping up on him. He was playing the scene of Sanada falling.

He thought of it. He saw the cannon fire. It was slow-motion as Zesiro thought of it. A cannonball the size of him, blowing through his friend's shoulder was what he saw again and again. The shoulder's flesh was being torn through in a frightening fashion. Zesiro had no idea what to do. There was nothing he could do…the wound was huge, completely unfixable. If only he hadn't been there at the URA, if only he never went to the slave labor camp. Everything could be traced back there…all of Sanada's poor luck was right there.

Nito and Ichi were gone. As far as Zesiro was concerned everything was going wrong now. The URA was just a signal for everything to go wrong apparently. Death, imprisonment, being separated. Zesiro was never one who needed the comfort of others. However, after all of this stuff went down…something was wrong and he needed some help just to calm down and distract him. The name 'Shigoro' pounded itself into his brain. The last thing he remembered talking to Nito and Ichi about. He felt his heart rate rise, he was getting angry he needed to calm down. He shook his head and picked up the pace through the forest, he needed to get away.

Zesiro continued to trek down the forests when he heard a light shuffling. He spared himself another look around to examine the world around him. He almost immediately noticed he couldn't see the shore-line, his ship, or any friends in any direction. That meant the island was big, possibly big enough for its own village. Zesiro crept down and disappeared behind a tree. He waited patiently behind it as he looked on.

There were three of them. Three humans? Maybe? It was hard to make out through the dense woods and even denser darkness that cloaked the island. They could've been Fishmen, imps, or the devil himself and Zesiro couldn't tell the difference. He tried to move forward again when he saw them turn their heads in different directions as if inspecting the location. They let loose a slurred garble in a language that Zesiro could never understand. He tried to stay patient as he looked on at the strange creatures, debating about whether it was worth risking it coming into the open and asking them for directions.

Before he could come to a decision they continued on their path. They didn't walk right was the first thing Zesiro noticed. They dragged their feet, if a log was in their way, they didn't walk around it at all, and if they just tripped over it, they got back up and kept walking. Zesiro was immediately glad that he didn't introduce himself to them when he first saw them. It was obvious that they weren't someone Zesiro would classify as 'friends'. Nonetheless they were his only hint at an intelligent civilization. He lowered his stance and continued tracking them through the dense forest, hoping that they didn't have any more slurring, tripping friends.

(-With Sage-)

Sage clutched a long twig as she moved around her target. She was lucky, unlike the rest of the crew she had woken up with the ship in sight almost immediately. However, in Sage's opinion she wasn't quite sure what constituted as luck anymore. While she may be able to see the ship she could also see what surrounded it. Land, land, and more land. It was grounded completely in the middle of the island with a short shelf of mountains to the north of it. However it got to this place of the island definitely wasn't natural.

She made a quick note of the mountains they stretched on a little forever past the ship, maybe as big as a ship and a half. It stretched on further. They were a little higher than the ship, meaning anybody on the other side of the mountain wouldn't find their ship. A string of smooth boulders stretched down and around forming a large C. The other side of the mountain shelf stretched to the other side, there was a weirdly shaped, almost box-like stone on the end. She ignored it and returned her attention to their ship.

Sage kept her eye on their old ship trying to find anything amiss. Nothing was happening on the ship it seemed, none of the lights had been turned on, she didn't hear any sounds emanating from it either. She took a deep breath as she moved forward and into the clearing. She paused temporarily as she noticed beneath the ship were a group of squashed trees. She shook those trees out from her head and went onto the ship.

She grabbed the rope ladder and went up it and onto the ship. Her feet hit the deck with a heavy thud, she froze. She didn't move for a few seconds, waiting for something to happen and make her leap off of the ship and onto the ground, bursting into a full sprint and back into the woods. When nothing happened she let out her breath and moved in deeper into the ship. The ship seemed twisted into a completely new setting. The hallways no longer seemed to run straight, they appeared as if they were bobbing and weaving throughout the entire ship. She crept forward.

She suddenly entered into the hallway and paused again. On the wall were their bounty posters. Mikoto's bright idea was to post them up on the wall as a kind of motivation. However, in the dark light of the inner ship since all the lights were out she really couldn't make them out too well. She paused as she saw hers. Someone had drawn a mustache on her picture with a marker. This wasn't the first time Ridley had done something so childish. She quickly ripped Ridley's from the wall and let it drop to the floor. She continued down the path. She stopped almost immediately again.

The last bounty poster wasn't familiar to her. It looked like an incredible old man, wrinkles on top of wrinkles, like all water had been driven out of his body. She waited another few moments trying to place the face. When she couldn't she scoffed and shook her head. Suddenly a large gust of warm breath washed over her face. Her eyes snapped onto the man before her. This time rather than just focusing on his face, her eyes traveled down his greasy, worn-out, dehydrated body. "Oh," she said as she came to the realization that the man in front of her was in fact flesh and blood…or at the very least flesh. His body seemed dehydrated of all fluids including the precious red one.

"Rorh," spoke the man in an unintelligible gibberish. His two arms flew out as he tried to grab Sage. His arms wrapped around her despite he struggles. His dirty, almost ancient-like smell wafted up and into Sage's nostrils. She turned her head aside in disgust. "Yuuuees thar ghumin to merstir." The language was still indecipherable, but he began to pull her in a weird bear-hug-like fashion down the hall. Sage pressed her two hands against the man's abdomen.

"Pressure ball!" Sage let loose a large amount of pressure using her Devil Fruit, forcing the man up and off of her and threw the air…and right into the wall. She took a breath thankful that the awful smelling man had been pushed off of her finally. Only problem was his smell was still in the air. She swatted at her nose trying to knock the smell out of it. When her hand came back down, she felt stringy and stretched skin beneath it. She paused and clenched her eyes shut. Had the man covered the distance that fast, wrapping his arms back around her…she slowly opened her eyes to see not the man she had previously beaten, not the man…just his arms, still clinging to her clothes.

Sage let loose a blood-curdling scream that could rip the ground asunder. She wasn't about to wait around for the man to come back and get his arms. She knocked them both loose, swatting at them and sending them to the ground. After that, regardless of the fact that this was her ship, she bolted, her little lithe legs carrying at her at incredible speeds out of there.

Once she was outside and X number of miles away from the blasted ship and whoever that was in it, she finally stopped. She probably wouldn't have if she had a choice, she fell to the ground out of sheer fatigue. She looked to her left and right, whatever that was she wasn't about to stop and wait for it or its friends to come and catch up. This island oozed 'disaster waiting to happen'. First off the blasted thing that stranded them here, then the thing she just encountered, and finally whatever it was that flew the ship straight into the middle of the island. It must've had gargantuan strength in order to do so!

She paused as she leaned back up against the tree finally safe from the horror that was currently taking over their ship. She was trying to calm down. She redirected her gaze up to the sky. There was a dark cloud setting in. There was a strong wind blowing down here and sweeping around the island. It was a cool fall breeze. The storm rolling in wasn't the best of the news. It meant rain and lightning and they didn't have any shelter of any form. Their ship had been hijacked. She supposed they could all get a little wet for a day.

Suddenly an arm tightened around Sage's neck, cutting off airflow to her lungs and forcing a sharp gasp out between her lips.

(-With Hiro-Shu-)

The storm set in with a ferocious pounding of rain. The occasional thunder would boom across the island striking fear into anyone around. There was little to no wind. The pellets of rain sloshed loudly into the ground with every second that passed. The rain completely reduced visibility to almost nothing. Anyone on the island would be stuck in a wet, sloppy, near blind state. All the meanwhile a horrible creeping sense of horror set in.

Hiro-Shu struggled through the island. He couldn't see much around him, the rain casted a heavy cloak that ruined his vision. He barely saw anything in front of him and he was being extra cautious to not trip over any downed trees. He took another break and looked around. He took a deep breath and shrugged. He tapped his foot on the ground and felt another thick drip of mud stick to it and try to suck him back to the ground and prevent him from moving.

Hiro-Shu groaned as he continued to trudge through these horrible conditions. He needed to find his crew at the very least. If he could find the ship that would be a good achievement as well, however, he knew that the crew took first priority. He tried to keep an ear out for Ridley's obnoxious music, but the pitter-patter of the rain and the crashing thunder drown any possible noise out.

Hiro-Shu kept on trudging across the muddied ground. He didn't feel like doing much of anything. He kept his eyes up to the sky. With the weather being the way it was, he was expecting strong gusts rather than no winds at all. It reminded Hiro-Shu of the eye of a hurricane. Those few precious moments before the whole world came crashing down in an instant. Maybe it was his own wild imagination that was running off with him right now, but he felt like he really needed to find his crew before something happens.

A desert island in the middle of a rainstorm, the crew was separated right after a horrible battle. It was enough to send chills up someone's back. It was as if the world was asking for something horrible to happen to them. They survived one horror story made by man to be thrown into a natural horror story.

Trying to Survive

B-O-N-U-S UPDATE! I mentioned last chapter about having a bunch of backlog for this story. So here is a bonus update to keep you guys all coming back for more!

I mentioned to some people about wanting to write a horror arc. Labyrinth Designer sent me the prompt for this arc. I decided to run with it. I have never written anything remotely close to horror before, heck, I don't even watch horror movies, so this is completely experimental. But it still has all the Infinity Pirates goodness you have come to expect.

Next up, a lot of people have mentioned not being able to find the Infinity Pirate artwork, so here is the URL. (Just take out the spaces and stuff). cspacian412 . deviantart art/ Saga-of-the-Infinity-Pirates-372751017 It is a short gif just showing what I imagine all of the Infinity Pirates (except for Zesiro) looks like. I JUST CAN'T DRAW THAT FISHMAN!