Ch.9, yay!
"We sacrifice the White Devil men to Sharmilaya!"
It wasn't like he hadn't expected something like this, but the shock that followed slapped him in the back of the head like a thrown cinderblock. His life had been threatened many times before, but he always knew he'd be able to scrape out of those situations, one way or another. But then, he'd always fought men. In this village, the women were the warriors, the protectors, the providers. If he resisted, no doubt they'd fight, and no doubt they'd win.
But Zoro's face, his laughing eyes and smiling lips, flashing through his mind had Sanji yelling out a protest.
"No!" He screamed, and the force of the outburst had the Oonkaunawa quieting down and glaring at him. "You can't kill us like animals! We didn't mean to invade your land, we never hurt anyone! We'll never come to this island again, so just let us go!"
His fingers were wrapped around his cage's bars so tight his lower arms hurt. He was breathing hard. The natives of the island started yelling back at him, cursing him in their own language, throwing rocks at his cage. But he didn't care. He was devastated, horrified when he thought Zoro had died. If Sanji were to die with Zoro in the state he was in, he knew it would be much harder on the swordsman. He'd scour the Earth from island to island, searching for the smiling blonde cook in his mind, never thinking about or feeling anything but Sanji, knowing no release from the potion's spell.
Sanji wouldn't let that happen. He wouldn't subject Zoro to a life of longing and misery, just because a village of bitches wanted his head.
His nakama stared at him with bewilderment and shock, surprised he could yell at a lady with such anger. Or yell at one at all. All these women were beautiful, the ones with a less than pretty face having the kind of power that made you admire and adore them. But in his mind's eye, he'd tricked himself into thinking of them as genderless fiends for the time being, intent on keeping him from the man he was considering loving.
Nefereta spoke in a forced calm voice. She seemed like the kind of woman one followed the others of, no questions asked because she was respected as well as feared. She probably wasn't use to someone back talking her. Well, let the chivalrous Sanji be the first.
Ahwakei stood and bowed to her chief, transitioning Sanji's words into speech she could comprehend. When the translator finished, the woman chief flushed angrily, her hands tightening into fists at her sides. She stared down at Sanji with the most contemptuous glare he'd ever seen on such a beautiful face. But then she closed her eyes, took a deep breath and calmed herself. She turned from him and addressed her guard, ordering something before turning back to her subjects and raising her hands up high in the air. Whatever she said had her people cheering crazily again, and she turned her back to the roaring crowd, returning into her hut.
"This is not good for your friends," Ahwakei said to Nami when her chief was gone. "They will be sacrificed at sundown."
"What?" Nami yelped, turning desperately to her new friend like she had the answer tattooed onto her face. "Can't we-"
"There is one thing," Ahwakei said and put her hand on the thief's shoulder to guide her away. "Come, I tell you."
When the two men were alone, Sanji let out the foulest curse he could ever possibly make towards a woman and kicked at his bars, cracking them easily.
"Sanji!" Usopp gaped, still shocked by cook yelling at the chief.
"What?" He retorted. "Why does it surprise you? They're going to kill us, fucking kill us. Why shouldn't I be pissed?"
"It's not the anger that surprises me..." the sniper started to say, but Sanji cut him off.
"It's the way I yelled at her, a lady," he said. Usopp nodded and Sanji smirked. "These women are not ladies."
With that, he sat down and leaned back against the bars, wanting to close his mind to his imminent doom.
~~~ZsZsZsZs~~~
An hour before sunset, he was taken from his cage and led into a small hut, where Nami, Ahwakei and another woman sat waiting. Nami greeted him with a hug and Ahwakei saluted him with her people's death symbol, made for warriors who would most certainly not come back from war.
After the pleasantries, the other woman stood up form where she'd been sitting, mixing bowls of dyes and paint. She pushed Nami and Ahwakei out of the way and said something to Sanji. He looked helplessly to Ahwakei for a translation.
"Berdun say, Take off clothes."
"What?" Sanji squeaked.
"Special outfit must be worn when sacrificing to Sharmilaya," Ahwakei explained, making hurried hand gestures. "So take off clothes!"
Sanji gave a skeptical look towards the woman called Berdun, then began undressing. He undid his already loose tie and yanked it off, letting it fall to the packed dirt floor. His shirt came next, button by button until he slipped it off. He started to fold it carefully, just to spite Berdun, but she gave a growl and smacked it from his hands when she saw his intentions. He wasn't afraid of her in anyway, but anymore misbehavior and any chance of his survival was blown to pieces.
He gave a defiant grunt and bent to slip off his shoes. He kicked them out of the way, then started undoing his belt. Nami smiled awkwardly and blushed, turning her eyes away. Sanji smiled at her embarrassment, sure she would've been used to seeing naked men by now, and that someone so bold could be so timid. He unbuttoned his pants and unzipped his fly, and let them slip from his hips, taking his underwear with them, leaving him bare.
"So," he said cheerfully, rubbing his hands together. "Now what?"
Berdun shoved something at him, growling softly again. He took it and smiled gratefully at her. She sniffed distastefully and spun away.
Sanji eyed whatever it was she'd given him. It was a thin sheet of brown leather sewn into the shape of underwear and studded with turquoise beads around the hem. He shrugged and slipped it on, glad to be clothed again but still not intimidated by being naked.
Ahwakei stood and strode over to him, kneeling before him and taking out a small brown pouch. From it she drew a few pieces of jewelry and what looked like half a grass skirt, beads ending each blade. She tied the skirt around his waist and arranged it so the grass draped over his groin. Then she picked up the jewelry, and Sanji studied it as she tied the bracelet around his wrists. It looked to be made out of small animal bones, woven through three strings of black leather and held together with tree sap or some other natural adhesive. There were matching ankle bracelets and a choker, which Ahwakei tied around him before returning to her spot beside Nami.
Berdun came back to him, carrying the bowls of paint. She dipped her fingers into one containing white and grabbed Sanji's face roughly with her other hand, tracing his cheek bones with it before making two more lines underneath the first. He didn't dwell on the fact she'd seen half of his face, instead focusing on what she was drawing next.
She made a large white circle in the middle of his chest, extending two lines up to his shoulders and down his arms, splaying out to five at his fingers. Then she cleaned her hands and dipped each in red, pressing them down flat on either side of the newly drawn circle, letting the access spill down his torso. She turned him around and did the same on his shoulder blades, the rest cold and tickling as it slid down the curve of his back. He suppressed a shiver, thinking of how it would be if the paint was something edible, like honey or chocolate, and Zoro was there to lick it up.
He mentally shook his head, clearing his thoughts of the swordsman, knowing just what kind of mood thinking about him would put him in. Instead he pictured Luffy and Usopp in the same ensemble he wore now and had to suppress a chuckle.
When Berdun was finally finished, he was allowed to leave the hut, sporting red and white patterned dots on both sides of his legs. He was taken back to his now-repaired cage. Usopp whistled as the women locked him in.
"You look good," the sniper joked, but Sanji heard the strain in his voice, the force behind his laugh. Sanji could tell the poor man was scared shitless. Hell, he was scared shitless. He was just a way better actor.
Berdun took Usopp next, and some fifteen minutes later he returned, clad in an exact replica of what Sanji wore, green where there should've been red.
"She was scary," Usopp whimpered as he was shut in his cage. But of course Berdun intimidated the liar more so than she did the cook. Freaking chicken.
Sanji mumbled a reply, not sure what he said but knowing it made Usopp chuckle. He was too bust watching Chief Nefereta as she sprinkled salt and other minerals over and around a blood-soaked bamboo alter on a raised platform, mumbling sacred words and prayers and waving a staff above the bed. Men were setting torches, some sharpening knives not far off while others laid down palm leaves before the platform.
Sanji gulped, wondering if Nami's plan would work. She didn't tell them anything about it, just said there was a 50/50 chance of them being set free. She hadn't sounded very confident when she'd said it, though, and that made Sanji worry. He'd have gladly trusted her with his life anytime else, but now, when there was such an obviously low chance he would get to live...
Ten minutes before sunset, guards came and collected the condemned trio, poking them with the tips of their spears when they slowed or stopped. A large crowd had gathered around the alter, but they had left a path covered in palm leaves for them. They spat at the pirates, kicked dirt, threw pebbles and small rocks, cursed them. Usopp ducked away from the worst of it, but both Sanji and Luffy held their heads high and met the onslaught with smiles, nods, pleasant waves, imaginary hat tipping, how-do-you-do's. Their nonchalance angered the Ookaunawa, and the guards pushed them along until they forced them into bows in front of the alter.
Nefereta stood by the alter and smiled sarcastically at them as they were pushed to the ground. They weren't the only ones dressed up; her crown had been replaced by a large headdress of brightly colored feathers, her tiger pelt traded for a simple animal leather cape. Her make up matched the men's, black hands and dots the only difference. She wore the same choker, bracelets and underwear/grass skirt combo, but it looked natural against her dark skin. Her onyx hair was down, straight to her knees in length and flowing in the breeze that flickered the torchlight, seemingly dark brown or red in the fire's glow. Her topaz eyes were alight with dark pleasure. She held a twisted tree branch staff decorated with beads and feather in one hand, wickedly curved knife, carved to blood-chilling sharpness in the other.
When she spoke the roars from the crowd ceased. Ahwakei didn't offer any translation, too busy concentrating on her chief's speech, absently massaging a fidgeting Nami's shoulders. The chief talked for five minutes, Sanji only able to catch a word here or there that he knew. Boos and cheers accompanied most of the speech, and at the end, she asked the tribe in general a question. All the Oonkaunawas screamed their word for no, many shaking their heads, others pumping their fists and still more jumping up and down.
Ahwakei pushed Nami forward. She raised her hand timidly and said something in the native's language.
Nefereta turned and growled at her. Sanji stared at Nami. Was this her plan? He'd honestly thought she'd read the clouds and figured a huge storm was coming and they'd use the tribe's distraction to smuggled themselves out, or had planned to break through their ranks and escape by force. But he'd never expected the direct approach. She sure fooled him.
Nami talked some more in the Oonkaunawa's language, pointing to Sanji, Luffy and Usopp in turn as she did so. At the end, there was complete silence from all the natives as they wondered what to make of their new sister's request. Then Nefereta sighed and spoke.
Whatever it was she said, it made Nami totally ecstatic and she squealed happily, jumping into the air.
A bark from Nefereta shut her up. She pointed to Sanji with her staff, saying something in a sickly sweet drawl that made Sanji's insides freeze with apprehension. He guessed the woman chief had decided to free Luffy and Usopp, but Sanji was still condemned to death. When Ahwakei tiptoed up and whispered a translation for Nami, his suspicions were confirmed.
"What?" cried the navigator, converting back to English by accident? "You can't do that, you said you'd free them all!"
Nefereta barked again, and a guard grabbed nami, covering her mouth with a hand and grabbing her arms. Luffy started forward, but was forced back by the spears of the other guards. The sky erupted with the cries of the Oonkaunawa, and Nefereta screamed over the noise, silencing them quickly and very effectively. She stepped off the platform, raising her knife and pointing it straight at Sanji's heart as she strode towards him. She growled out a sentence, and the cook could see the bloodlust in her yellow eyes, read the one thought on her mind.
I want him dead...
It was inevitable. He was going to die, no matter how many people argued for his life, no matter how much he resisted. He was as good as dead already.
Nefereta ordered her guards to grab him, and so they did, twisting his arms up against his back, grabbing fistfuls of his hair and forcing his head down as they pushed him towards his deathbed.
"Hey, wait!" he exclaimed, struggling against the warrior's grip. They growled and pushed him harder, but he somehow broke from their grasp and turned to his nakama. He looked each one in the eye for as long as he could, stopping with his captain. "Luffy," he said, and the boy nodded an acknowledgment, in one of his scary serious moods. "Tell Zoro I'm sorry, kay?"
The woman grabbed him before he could reply and they forced him back on the path that led to his death. He went quietly this time, silently making his peace with the gods.
The walk to the alter seemed to last forever, each step lasting an hour, each beat of his heart stretching out for days. But finally he was walking up the three stairs to the top of the platform, breathing deep, savoring his last taste of fresh air-air in general. Every cell in his body seemed to numb with each step closer to the alter, until he couldn't even feel the wood under his bare feet, the breeze against his skin, the stray hairs in his eye, the tears on his cheeks.
The guards made him sit on the alter, and he lay down when ordered, shutting his eyes, wishing it was already over.
Nefereta raised her hands and made symbols over his body, muttering prayers and singing softly. He held his breath, willing the blade to pierce his heart right then, but Nefereta went on singing, the Oonkaunawa joining in halfway through. He tuned them out and listened for the sounds of his nakama. Nami was sobbing softly, the sound muffled, Luffy shushing her with a strained voice, Usopp doing his best to keep his breathing even. He smiled sadly. 'Idiots. Should've told them not to cry.'
The singing stopped. Nefereta said one last prayer, raised her knife high into the air, and brought it down with killing intent, plunging it into Sanji's heart.
Heyo, guys, I'm writing author's comments because now I know Rapt has fans and supporters ^^. Anyway, thanks so much for reading and sticking with Rapt so far. I've got so many people asking for more, more, more! So I promise I'll write as much as I can, just for all you awesome mother fauks, and I'll try not to let school and boyfriend issues get in the way. ^^ Though, both angst's are really good motivation... And don't be shy, tell me if I made nay mistakes!
Anyway, yay! See you next time : D