Frostbite, Chapter 4
Before that, I would like to thank ALL of my reviewers and readers. I'm also sorry for the update being so late, I had a busy week.
Enjoy!
It wasn't that Nami didn't care about her nakama, not at all. It was that it was so cold outside in the woods, her coat had frosted over in some places.
Therefore, she was going to bitch and moan throughout the entire search for them.
"Oh~! It's so cold~!" She pouted as she trudged along the path.
"Who are you complaining to?" Usopp scolded her as the trees dropped more snow on them. "It's not like Sanji's here to cater to your every whim. For all we know, he and Zoro could be dead somewhere," he turned and faced her. "Frozen to the core, beyond help!"
"Shut up!" Nami punched Usopp into a tree, "don't say crap like that! They're fine, so don't try to guilt-trip me with lies!"
At least they were doing better than Luffy and Chopper, who were, mistakenly, paired together.
"Wow! Chopper, look at this!" Luffy stopped walking and pointed at the nearing cliff. On it's side were frozen bird nests, eggs and all.
"Luffy! Those poor things are dead from the cold. They have to be!" Chopper realized what he said a moment later. "L-Luffy…do…do you think Sanji and Zoro are okay? No matter what I try, I can't shake the feeling that they're in trouble."
"Don't worry," Luffy squatted to meet his eyes, "our nakama can't die here."
"What makes you so sure?" Chopper whispered, shaking. Tears formed at the corners of his eyes, and his lower lip trembled. Luffy smiled at the doctor, who grabbed his torn coat and cried. "Th-Thank you, L…Luffy."
They made zero progress, unlike Robin and their new friends.
"Tell me, Robin-san," Roxi began, "who exactly are we looking for? What do they look like, I mean."
"Hmm…well, Swordsman-san has green hair, and is wearing a long, dark blue-green coat. Cook-san has blonde hair, a swirl in his visible eyebrow, and is in a black coat." Robin smiled and looked to her left, gazing at the white-grey sea.
"Swordsman-san is very stubborn, and has no sense of direction. He and Cook-san fight over the littlest things, so destruction is what we are looking for," out-of-the-blue, she frowned. "Swordsman-san did seem off when I last saw him, though."
"Oh, really? How so?" Mox butted in, earning a glare from his sister.
"He did not try to argue at all. Almost anything Cook-san does sets him off." Mox stopped abruptly.
"Which way did they take, exactly? Your navigator said that you came from the south side. Was it a labeled trail or something else?"
"The former. Our captain found a sign with a large, pink, dotted-line circle on it," the sibling's eyes' widened to about the size of Luffy's stomach after a feast.
"WHAT?" The two asked in perfect unison. Robin actually began to feel uneasy after being in such a creepy gaze for so long.
"Is there something wrong with the trail they took?"
"HELL, YES!" Roxi screeched as Mox looked at Robin like she said that Zoro and Sanji weren't their allies. (A/N: a 'you're telling me this now?' look) "We need to head to the mountain right now! They might be alive if they're as strong as you said, but we have to meet them there."
"Wait, what are you talking about?" Robin was lost in transaction.
"Well," Mox took over, "the trail your friends took was not the right one, for starters. It goes through a dense forest, a high, an ice-coated mountain ridge, and a giant tundra. Also, the temperature drops even lower around and on the mountain. But, there is a rescue cabin along the way, so there's a possibility that they haven't frozen or exhausted to death. The point is, only natives can survive that way around the island without fatal injury."
Robin knew better than to have that much faith in Zoro and Sanji.
"Captain-san and Doctor-san are the closest to the mountain, but Navigator-san and Long Nose-kun should be at the edge of the forest. By this time, they should be the closest." Mox and Roxi nodded and took off, Robin in tow.
Swordsman-san, Cook-san…
That's funny…my leg doesn't hurt… I coulda sworn that it was freezing out…but…it's not… Why is that? The world was perpetual darkness to Sanji, and he liked it that way. Nami-san… Robin-chan… The only side effect of the shadow land was that thoughts came so slowly! One really hit the cook when it came.
Zoro!
Sanji shot out into the painfully strong light at warp speed, making him gasp weakly.
"Zoro… Where the fuck are you?" Sanji slowly brought his arms up to rub the snow out of his eyes.
Snow… It took the blonde a moment to register what exactly had happened. I think I passed out at the edge of the field. He sat up on his knees, wincing at the pain in his leg.
"Hmm…" the gears Sanji's head turned faster. "Holy shit! What the Hell happened?" He noticed the deep slashes in his coat, some reaching and cutting his skin. The sheet-bag full of food he had made was in tatters next to him.
"Animals… Zoro!" Zoro had been pushed off his back next to him and was perfectly still. "Dear God… Zoro! C'mon, say something!" Sanji pulled him into his arms and shook him lightly.
"Nnnngh… Ssn…jee…" the cook thanked God, but soon observed that Zoro's covering was in worse shape than his own. It was almost only sleeves and bits of wool, sticky in the deep, bloody cuts on his back.
"Shitty animals…" he cursed. "You'll die if you're exposed too much," Sanji slipped off his warm sheathing and put it on Zoro, leaving him in just his dress shirt and tie.
My body temperature must be lowering, since I don't feel the cold anymore. Oh, well. Nothing to do about that now but get to the others. The cook had lost track of time and was following his instincts, but was not about to die on a goddamn frozen island. For the umpteenth time, Sanji ran away with Zoro in a careful piggyback. Trees soon entered his vision, dark green and white.
"Must be getting closer. Chopper is just beyond that forest," his stomach growled. "Not now. Poor Zoro must be starving, the last thing I gave him was hot water." Sanji noticed the sick irony of the moment.
We came to this island to replace the food those hogs ate. If Nami-san would just budget enough for a shitty lock on the fridge… No, if Luffy didn't eat every bite of meat and allow the others to think it's okay to steal food. Damn, now's not the time to point fingers, now is the time to get Shitty-Marimo to Chopper, and then figure out new ways to torture him.
Speaking of Zoro, what was going on in his head at the time?
"Sanji…" Zoro purred to his lover as they curled up in the Going Merry's crow's nest. However, there was no response.
"Sanji," he nudged him. The cook's head lolled onto Zoro's shoulder, eyes cloudy with matured death. His skin was frosty to the touch, and Zoro noticed the blood spatter on Sanji's dinner jacket and around his mouth.
"Sanji!" The swordsman pushed the blonde off onto the base of the wooden basket and crouched over him. "Oh, God. Shit, no. This isn't happening. THIS ISN'T HAPPENING!" Zoro cried out like a wounded animal.
"You're wrong, Marimo. It is," Sanji's corpse spoke, his gore-coated lips flaking dried blood. He smiled, sadistic and chilling. He grabbed Zoro's wrists and flipped over, straddling the green-haired man at the waist.
"You let me die," Sanji sneered and pulled his wrists higher, "and you didn't care. You just kept walking, as if me screaming in pain wasn't your concern." He pulled Zoro's wrists further above him and he could feel his shoulders preparing to burst out of their sockets.
"Sa…Sanji… You know I…would never…do that!" Speaking was incredibly difficult, as though a hand was pinching his vocal chords. Turns out, Sanji's was doing just that.
"Yeah, right. If that's true, why am I dead?" Sanji's hand tightened, and Zoro saw stars. A sickening pop rang into the swordsman's ears as his shoulders dislocated.
A gurgle replaced Zoro's cry in pain, and both hands wrapped around his neck. Breathing was impossible. The world darkened as it stopped altogether.
"Goodbye, Marimo. See you in Hell, you shitty bastard," was the last thing Zoro heard as he-
Zoro gasped aloud and startled Sanji, who stumbled on his frostbitten feet.
"I'd say it's time for a little break," the exhausted cook muttered as he stooped under an evergreen tree. There was a surprisingly large amount of space under the branches, which curved sharply just above Sanji's head, forming a roof. The ground was free of snow and had a pine-needle floor.
"Weird. It's not really cold here… Shit, my body temperature must be lowering," the blonde moved Zoro onto the ground, catching a glance at his face. Still stained bright red and sweaty. "Hope you don't mind, Marimo," Sanji moved closer to him, "but your sharing some of this toasty body heat with me."
The cook snuggled in close, glad to feel warmth on his hands, which were shoved up the back of his coat. It felt nice…too bad he couldn't just stay like that way forever…so close to Zoro.
" So sleepy… Guess it can't hurt to take a little nap…" Sanji murmured as he nuzzled Zoro's face with his own, smiling lightly. He closed his eyes; glad to be able to rest before he took off again.
If he ever woke up.
"SANJI~!" Luffy screamed out to the edge of the forest he walked by, "ZORO~!" The groups had reunited and fanned out around and in the forest since they actually had a clue about the missing ones' location.
"Luffy-san, screaming for them might cause an avalanche, so be careful." Roxi ordered as she, Luffy, and Chopper scouted the tree line.
"Okay," the word 'avalanche' distressed the captain, so he ceased and desisted. Chopper stopped dead in his tracks, eyes wide.
"What is it, Chopper-san?" The native girl inquired, bending to meet the reindeer's eyes.
"I think I have their scent, but I'm not sure," he sniffed the air to be sure. "No, I'm sure of it."
"Yosh! I'll alert the others!" Luffy fired his fist into the air and shot one of Usopp's signal stars, causing a massive red flash. Nami, Usopp, Robin, and Mox all looked in its direction and ran from their separate locations towards it.
"Luffy! Did you find them?" Usopp yelled as they arrived.
"No, but Chopper's found their scent. Lead the way, Chopper!" The captain answered as he nodded to the chibi doctor. Chopper promptly took off in his Speed Point, nose buried in the snow.
"This way! It's pretty faint, but I have it!" Blood soon entered the mix of steel-and-cigarettes in Chopper's olfactory organs, which worried him. The nakama ran into the trees, hopes soaring to the peak of the mountain. A large coniferous took up quite a bit of land, and it was no surprise that Chopper sprinted under it.
What was waiting for the remaining Strawhat Pirates was a real surprise, though.
"ZORO! SANJI!" Luffy and Usopp screeched in unison, with no response. Stunned silence fell around them, so much so that it was palpable. Nami reacted first.
"Chopper! Help them!" She barked.
"R-Right!" Chopper scampered over to the unconscious forms of Zoro and Sanji. "From what I can tell," he started, prying them apart, "Sanji is suffering from hypothermia and deep cuts. Zoro is…really sick. We need to move them immediately, or they'll die," turning to his Heavy Point, he plucked them up and cradled them.
"The quickest way is to directly backtrack. We should make it in time," Mox stated and lead the way back to Mushi-Mushi. Sanji panted as the doctor's body heat brought him to normal temperature. Zoro, on the other hand, didn't get better at all.
Are they going to make it? The entire crew wondered as they rushed to safety.
Okay, how is it so far? Sorry if it seems a little redundant, but I'm still new to fanfiction.
By the way, when I'm done with this, I might write a bunch of drabbles or an mpreg. Which do you think I should do?
Please review!
Fishy-Neko-Fangirl