Waking up to the noisy, boisterous caterwauling of many voices belting out 'Bink's Sake', Jiru, the Mugiwara Pirate's valued treasure hunter, moaned and attempted to cover her ears to block out the awful sound.
"Oh, Jiru, you're awake!" The happy, relieved voice of the brown-furred doctor drifted into her ears.
"Chopper, make it stop…that horrid racket…I'm going to…" the bed-ridden, height-challenged female suddenly felt the sharp, rising nausea starting from her gut. Tossing her body to the side, she managed to avoid those who would be disturbed while she exhumed her stomach's meager contents.
"Jiru, that is just disgusting. I'm adding 60,000 Beri to your debt." The even-toned voice of the tangerine-haired navigator drifted from above Jiru's head.
Shakily, she wiped her mouth with a hand. Dropping back onto the rather stiff bed, Jiru turned her eyes to Nami's voice. "S-sorry, Nami-san, my stomach did it."
Making the stern-acting navigator laugh, Jiru's stomach did another flip; but she managed to grit her teeth against the rising feeling. Chopper hovered frantically over her as the he stood on a stool to reach.
"Are, you ok, Jiru? You're not going to hurl again, are you?" The squeaking nervousness of his doctor's voice made her smile. "You ought to see a doctor. Wait, I'm a doctor!"
"No, I'm ok. I'm not going to barf again. Promise." The tired pirate gave the concerned doctor a close-lipped smile. She didn't want Chopper to smell her barf-breath.
Then, clinching her eyes and ears against the still noisy music and partying, she turned her attention inward. The greatest pains came from her right foot, lower gut and head. Most likely her foot was broken from the debris that fell on it while she was shielding Luffy with her body from Kuma's Ursa Air-Bomb. Her gut, she wasn't at all sure what caused that hollow pain, while her head was hazy and groggy from emotional stress and exhaustion.
Slowly moving her limbs and torso, she found numerous cuts, bruises and aches to accompany those three major pains. Nothing felt like it was impaled, missing or infected. Of course, she had Tony Tony Chopper taking care of her. The treasure-hunter trusted the blue-nosed reindeer to always keep her more or less in one piece, which brought her back to the emotional pain of remembering Zoro's hellish deal with the Tyrant.
"ZORO!" Jiru bolted upright to frantically look for the swordsman.
She had managed to stay conscious long enough to witness Zoro's noble, idiotic sacrifice by taking Luffy's pain. The sight of Zoro's near, possibly dead, bloody body had seared her very soul with terror and despair. She would have used her own life-force or their child's to keep him alive had the other Shichibukai not approached her after his interaction with the swordsman. Her Reiki-Reiki no Mi (Aura-Aura Fruit) had the ability to manipulate the ever-present flowing energy of Aura that all living things emitted. She could have transplanted more living energy into the dying male; but it had just been an idea, she had never done such an act before.
XXX
'The fetus within you is dying; and is most likely dead and your stomach is hemorrhaging.' The high-set eyes looked down at the trembling Treasure Hunter. 'I am offering my power to repel the damage in your uterus, Golden Thief; otherwise you might not survive long enough to seek medical attention.'
'How…what the hell do you know about my child, you bastard bear.' Jiru had hissed back to the giant. She hardly was in a position to use her Fight or Flight instinct. Her physical energy was rock-bottom empty and Luffy was still behind her – there was no way she was going to abandon her position and allow Kuma a straight shot at Luffy. It wasn't like she could move any way, her left foot was numb and refused to function.
'I'm a cyborg. I can see your internal data, and thus your bodily injuries.' His cold tone of voice made her shiver. Was he telling her the truth? Could he really have that type of vision that peered within a person's body? She half-way believed it of him. Her Reiki-Reiki no Mi powers allowed her insight and certain knowledge of people by reading their Auras; the waves of energy they produced. A cyborg could very well have X-ray vision.
'Why are you doing this? Haven't you done enough damage here, you ass-munch government bastard?'
'That is none of your concern, Golden Thief.' Kuma's tall, hulking mass stood motionless as he answered her. 'I am simply offering you a chance to save yourself.'
'Was that the same damned offer you gave Zoro-chan!'
'Very well, I'll leave you with the rest of the Mugiwaras.' The Paw-Paw User turned to go.
'NO! Wait…I accept your offer…just…don't say anything about it.' Jiru buckled and pounded the broken, stony ground in frustration. 'Just do it.'
Kuma reached down and lifted her high into the air, leveling her eyes with his and touched her abdomen with his ungloved 'paw'.
'I assure you that nobody will ever know about this, Golden Thief.' With that, the Shichibukai expelled the tiny mass of death and blood from her most sacred organ. Unable to look at what he had expelled, the treasure hunter just stared at the screaming swordsman yards away, her tears streaming faster and faster until they blinded her vision.
'Forgive me Zoro-chan…just…don't hate me.' Her mind echoed into the dismal abyss of pain.
Finally, with a soft 'pop', the wound housed within her stomach exited her body. Kuma lowered her gently to the ground, his other hand holding the red-tinted orb of mass he expelled.
'Farewell, Golden Thief, expect no favors from this meeting.'
Barely holding onto consciousness, Jiru watched Kuma simply vanish, leaving the scene and going back to whatever hell-spawned place he came from.
'Forgive me, Luffy, Zoro…Kuma was right…my child was dead.' Jiru cried herself into unconsciousness, vaguely aware that Zoro had stopped his banshee-like screaming.
'Zoro, please….please don't die too…'
XXX
"Jiru, lie back down, you shouldn't be twisting your stomach like that!" Chopper cried - no - ordered her to. The chibi-sized doctor morphed into his large-body mode to try and restrain her. Jiru, after finding what she sought, allowed the human-sized reindeer to lower her back to the table-bed.
"Is that shit-marimo breathing, like as in: alive!" Her relieved tears flowed slowly again as her gaze held steady on the make-shift med-bed next to her. Zoro laid there, bandaged in semblance to a white-mummy; unmoving like the dead; but breathing.
The swordsman looked more injured than she had ever seen him. She could only grasp unknown numbers to predict the amount of time since Zoro had been medically treated. His bandages were currently off-white-grey; rather that the blackish-red expected of a freely bleeding body. Just how many gauzy layers did Chopper peel through to stop Zoro's bleeding, she could only imagine.
"Yes, yes, he is alive, just barely." Chopper's grim voice didn't help at all. "What happened to him anyway?"
"He…" She steeled herself to explain the horrible set of events.
"YOU'RE AWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAKEEEE!" Luffy's excited voice cut through the noisy background and interrupted the doctor's quiet place. Extended, rubbery arms cut through Jiru's defenses to wrap around her tender waist. Those arms were followed by the rest of the body as Luffy careened into her, knocking them both off the table.
"Luffy, wait!" Jiru yelped. Chopper was startled and then angry as their captain disrupted the quarantined 'healing' area, knocking one of his patient off the bed.
Nami, too, became angry as Luffy managed to soften Jiru's ground-landing by shifting his body. He landed as Nami's outraged fist missed its mark and hit the treasure hunter's shoulder.
"OUCH, Nami what was that for?" Jiru hissed in surprise. Beneath her, Luffy had his back to the rocky, gritty ground as he laughed jubilantly up to his precious nakama.
"Oops, sorry, Jiru-san, I was aiming for Luffy." Nami, the Mugiwara Navigator, managed to look guilty.
"Oi, Luffy, you idiot! You made Nami-chwan hit Jiru-chan!" The baritone, raspy voice of a blonde-headed cook interrupted the pair. Sanji entered from the left-side of Jiru's vision, the trademark cigarette hanging off his lips as the cook stalked angrily up to them.
"Oi, yourself, Sanji-kun; smoking is bad." Jiru, having landed safely on top of Luffy's rubbery body, opted not to start hitting Luffy for being silly. Her broken, swollen ankle sent her nerves screaming in pain. She shifted the foot away from Luffy's wiggling legs.
"Jiru, you're awake! I'm so glad you're ok!" The light, playful voice of the ship's sniper, Usoppu, rang to her.
"You people ought to…" The hunter began to tell the gathering crowd to move away from the prone, sleeping body of Zoro. She tried hard to shift her foot into a position that hurt less. Luffy's constant movement made it difficult to keep her foot immobile.
"Hay, Chibi-Sis, you're up! SUUUUPPPAAA!" Franky's voice made the treasure hunter's lips curve upward into an amused smirk.
In her quick-moving awareness, Jiru knew the Mugiwara pirates were converging on her position. Robin was most likely to enter next; or not, as the moving bodies of Sanji, Usoppu, Franky and Nami split away long enough to allow Jiru to glimpse the calmly sitting presence of Robin yards away. The dark-haired Archeologist gave a small smile, waved and leaned her elbow on the makeshift table that held her tea-cup. Jiru had to give the woman due credit, as Robin was intelligent enough to know when to give people their space.
Not that Jiru blamed the current crowd that bustled around her: Luffy was her optimistic, happy-go-lucky idiot-captain that always wanted to share the joy. Chopper and Nami had been there first, so they had some right to be there. However, the presence of Sanji, Usoppu and Franky began to make Chopper's 'hospital' area crowded.
"YOHOOHOHOHOHOHOHOH!" A new, now-familiar laugh entered the melee, and Jiru knew that Chopper was going to snap. Brooke, the re-dead skeleton with his trademark afro and freshly minted Mugiwara, had ceased whatever he had been doing and joined the mix.
"ENOUGH!" Jiru ordered sharply, and used her Reiki-Reiki no Mi powers to create a wall of compressed air to gently separate the quarrelling forms of Sanji, Usoppu, Franky and Brooke from her and Zoro's medical beds.
"Please back off!" She raised her voice to be heard over the separated pirates' complaints. "Chopper is TRYING to heal Zoro and me, so back away slowly and do whatever."
"Shishishishishi, relax, Jiru, they're just happy you're ok." Luffy's voice came from behind. The rubbery captain shifted and slid out from underneath her, keeping his arms wrapped around her waist.
"Luffy-chan, but…they might wake Zoro up and he needs to rest!" She helplessly responded. She dropped the air-wall as Luffy's shifting body jostled her ankle, making her hiss in pain.
"JIRU!" Chopper's voice cried out. "Let her go, Luffy, she needs to not move her foot."
"But, Chopper, I wanna hold onto her now she's awake!" Luffy whined back. His statement put a slight blush on her cheeks.
"Oi, baka! Listen to what Chopper is saying!" Sanji tucked his hands in his pockets, holding back, with effort, the need to kick Luffy.
"Luffy-san, Chopper is right, she does need to rest after losing the ba-…" Nami's voice was cut short as she realized what she was going to say: 'Losing the baby'.
Jiru stopped squirming as she felt Luffy go tense and stiff behind her. It was like his joy instantaneously flipped into something negative.
"Luffy? What's wrong?" Her voice sounded small. Twisting painfully around to look at Luffy's lowered face, the treasure-hunter felt her throat clench tight. It was then she became aware of more presences closing in around her.
Looking up to see just who they were, Jiru gasped as she registered the hundreds of rescued victims that had their shadows stolen by the defeated Moria. Leading them was the large, pink-haired woman who looked strong enough to break the treasure hunter in half. Next to the woman, Lola, stood, both of whom had to be first-mates or something similar, two men that had pained looks on their faces. Turning back to her friends, the girl saw the same, haunted, poorly-hidden, pain on their faces.
"What's wrong!" the dark-haired pirate turned back to Luffy, who hadn't lifted his head to respond to her. "What's going on? Did something happen!"
"Ah, uh….Jiru-chan, don't you remember?" Usoppu broke the eerie silence. "Don't you remember what happened to you?"
By now, her shyness was on the verge of socially panicking in front of the group of strangers. She had both her hands on Luffy's shoulders. "What! What don't I remember! Luffy tell me?"
"Jiru-chan…" Sanji's soft voice answered her. "You…you lost the baby, your baby." The cook removed his cigarette as he avoided her eyes. The injured treasure-hunter felt her blood wash through her like a wave of ice, causing her fingers to constrict on Luffy's shoulders. Denial came and left in the same instant, before it shattered on suppressed memories.
"Oh…god…no…" The horrid memories of her actions slammed down into her skull. Did they know the truth? Did they all know that she purposely allowed Kuma to abort the dying life that had been the result of two men within her? She didn't want Luffy to know the shameful, brutal truth until it was too late; even then she would have be pained to tell her captain the truth of the matter – how she became pregnant. That was moot point, now that she no longer was pregnant.
Turning her head to Luffy, Jiru heard herself moan in anguish. The cat was out of the proverbial bag; but it didn't help that she ended up losing the child after all – Zoro had extracted a promise from her to let it live. Whether that anguish was for herself, for her lost child, or for making Luffy sad and worried about her, she didn't know; but Luffy's arms instantly came back up around her, holding her tight.
"Luffy, I…" She began to explain, but her captain only lifted his head and stared straight into her eyes. She normally didn't make eye contact like this, and blinked.
"It's ok, Jiru-chan, these things happen." His serious black-brown eyes bore into hers as she felt her resolution waver. "You fought against Oz so hard, and did such a good job…"
"Luffy…" Jiru repeated his name before the emotional dam burst. Knowing an unconscious Zoro was behind her and Luffy's uncharacteristic seriousness were straws that broke the camel's back. Thrusting her face forward to Luffy's shoulder, she hid it from the unwanted, unknown crowd that gathered and let the tears pour out.
Barely registering Luffy's arms curling around her twice, the treasure hunter just let her guilt, pain, anger and sorrow flow out with her tears. She felt herself cry miserably until she drifted off to sleep.