Author's Note: Ah, damn, the weather's starting to get hot again… XP mosquitoes are coming back too… 'sigh'
Disclaimer: I don't own…
Chapter Four: Nakama
The crew picked themselves off the ground, groaning and rubbing sore parts.
Zoro rubbed his head, wondering at what he had seen. Right before they had all been blown clear into the sky by Hoshi, he saw a tear fall out of her eye, and her eyes had changed from that cruel blue to the familiar aqua, just for an instant.
Chopper lay on the ground, spirals in his eyes. "Ahh…."
"What just happened? Where are we?" Nami groaned.
"You came flying out of the sky in front of my shop," said an old woman. Looking up, Zoro froze.
"Ah! It's you!" he yelled, pointing at her.
"Zoro, you know her?" Nami asked questioningly.
"She's the old woman who is the master at making absolutely no sense when she feels like it," he growled.
The woman cackled. "Yes it's me, young'un. 'If we'd had more time for discussion, we should probably have made a great many more mistakes.'"
She cackled again as they looked at her uncomprehendingly. "Fortunately for you all, that's one quote that I believe in. Now, if you don't mind, what have you all been up to? Youngsters don't come flying out of the sky and voices don't scream out of thin air on regular days, not as long as I've been alive."
She hobbled up the stairs and opened the door to her shop as rain started to fall from the sky. "Come in for a cup of tea and tell me. Don't forget to keep it short."
"I see," the old woman sighed. "So that's what happened."
The Straw Hats were all gathered around her table, holding their steaming cups of tea.
"Well, you kids have been through your share of troubles, haven't you?"
Sakura's eyes were downcast. "Neh, bassan… was it my fault Hoshi left?"
"What?!"
"Before she left… I got mad at her. I didn't know what was happening then, so I annoyed her. I got mad because she wouldn't tell me what was wrong, so I kept bothering her. I told her… I told her that…" Sakura's eyes filled with tears. "I told her that I wanted her to die and go to hell. But I didn't mean it! Not like this!!" Her tears overflowed and spilled down her cheeks.
"BAKA!" the old lady roared, hitting Sakura upside the head with her cane. "It was a child's remark! Your friend is way to smart to take that sort of statement seriously!!"
"OUCH!" Sakura yelled.
"Well, what do we do now?" Nami asked. "Hoshi doesn't want to return to the crew."
Chopper was crying into his tea. "Hoshi…"
Zoro wasn't having any tea. He stood in a corner, staring out a window, his face unreadable as the rain poured down.
Luffy, Usopp, and Sanji were all staring into their tea as if hoping the answers would be held within the depths of the brownish water.
Robin delicately sipped hers.
The old woman looked around and gaped. Suddenly, she went on a mad rampage, hitting every part of all seven of them with her cane. "WHY ARE YOU ALL SO UPSET?! ARE YOU ALL IDIOTS?!?" she roared.
"AH! THE TEA-OBASSAN'S LOST HER MIND!" Luffy and Usopp yelled, scrambling over tables as they tried to get away... unsucessfully.
Five minutes later, the obassan sat down and rubbed her shoulders. "Man, I haven't been that active in years!" she laughed at the crew. They all sported at least one big puffy bump. "Something about you guys just makes me feel young again!"
"That's great Tea-obassan, but why'd you hit us?" Luffy asked.
"Don't you guys get it?" she demanded, waving her cane around again. "That friend of yours is one of the best you've got!"
"What?!"
The old woman sighed. "That nakama, Hoshi, you said? You guys said that you suspected this was the island where she was created?"
They all nodded. The old woman continued. "Well, that would mean that the laboratory you all tried to attack was a World Government base!! And this," she said, gesturing around, "has been made into a World Government island without the consent of the people living here! If she had not ditched you all while you were still out at sea, they would have sent a fleet of battleships to attack you, you all waving your pirate flag like that, and you'd all be dead!!"
There was a shocked silence as the crew did some thinking.
"Then… that means, Hoshi actually saved us?!" Usopp asked in a choked voice. "All that talk about hating us… it was all an act?!"
Nami was trembling. "All those horrible things she said… she was just trying to push us away, so we wouldn't get hurt?!"
"I'm fed up with this pathetic ship. I'm leaving, and I'm not coming back."
"Don't expect to see me ever again."
"I hate you, and I hate this whole bastard crew."
"I don't want to come back to your damn ship anymore."
"If you guys don't leave… I'm going to kill you all myself."
"I'm sick and tired of you all! Get the hell out of here!"
"Bingo!" the old lady cackled. "Took long enough for you idiots to catch on, didn't it?"
Robin put her tea cup down on the table. "If you think about it, there's another reason Hoshi said all those things," she commented. Everyone turned their heads towards her as she continued. "To convince the World Government to do or to not do something, you have to offer something as a bargain, something that they would gain in exchange for accepting your agreement. I think Gakushi-san must have offered herself back to the World Government in return for our safe passage through and departure from this island. She didn't want us to save her, or else that would mean that she had not held up her end of the bargain, so she tried to sever ties with us by saying those things. It must have been extremely painful for her."
Usopp started crying. "H-Hoshi is t-truly our n-nakama…"
Nami sighed in relief, putting her face into her hands as a grin almost split her face in two. "Thank goodness… that does sound more like Hoshi."
Luffy laughed... and laughed... and laughed... and laughed...
Everyone sweatdropped. "Did you even understand what Robin said?"
"No, but I got the idea that Hoshi's still our friend, and that's all I need to know!!"
"Ah, my precious Hoshi-chan made such a sacrifice, all for the sake of our lo-"
"SHUT UP SANJI!!" everyone yelled.
Zoro leaned his head back against the wall and concentrated on not letting the relief show on his face. So Hoshi really didn't hate the crew, they hadn't been just another phase of her life on the run... But also… an echo of Hoshi's scream of pain when she was stabbed through the middle at Kiken Island came back to him. The pain she must have suffered to separate herself like that from the crew must have been a thousand times worse than that. He clenched his teeth.
"Well, it's only a theory," Robin reminded them as Luffy, Usopp, and Chopper started dancing around. "It may not be true. Hoshi could have gone to the World Government for other reasons as well and not for our sakes. There is the possibility that she really does consider herself no longer a part of the crew."
"DON'T SPOIL THE MOOD WITH YOUR DAMN LOGIC!!" Nami yelled.
The old lady stood up. "I'll give you all my house to sleep in tonight," she said. "It's getting late, almost eleven 'o clock now. You need your rest first, think over what you want to believe, then decide what to do in the morning."
Watching her nakama fly away on the wind she had created, Hoshi felt her resolve flicker and die. Falling to her knees, she clutched her belly and retched. She felt them land somewhere on the edge of the forest. Drawing in a deep breath, she screamed, "AND DON'T COME BACK!", creating a wind to carry her words to wherever the crew was.
Tears trickled out of her eyes as she hugged herself, rocking back and forth slightly. I'm sorry, she thought, biting her lip. I'm so… so… sorry!! A raindrop fell on top of her head. More followed, making dark spots on her clothes.
"Impressive performance," the boss commented as the front door slid open. "Even I was almost fooled by your act there… I would have been, if I weren't seeing you with my own eyes right now."
"Shut up, you bastard," Hoshi muttered, standing and wiping her tears. "It's your fault I had to do it… this stupid World Government base…"
"It is thanks to the World Government that you exist at all today."
"Hurrah," Hoshi drawled. "I'm alive to be forced to throw away some of the only people who've ever cared about me. How wonderful," she said, her voice cracking.
The boss gave her thirty seconds before speaking again. "I believe you still have a maze to finish?"
"Damn you and damn this place to hell," Hoshi spat.
The boss opened the door. "This way, 413."
"What a gentleman," Hoshi said sarcastically, walking back into the building. "Tea time's at eleven, then?"
"Not quite," the boss chuckled. "I prefer to get my sleep."
"Aw, how quaint. You have a place to lie your head and know in that shitty head of yours that you're in control. Good for you."
"Do not push my limits," the boss barked. "Get back to the lab and do your maze."
"Hai hai," Hoshi drawled, raising up one hand as she walked down the hall.
"413."
"What is it now?!"
"Keep in mind that you are replaceable. Since we have your DNA samples, we could easily grow another one of you. The only reason I have not had you killed for your cheek yet is because it would take eighteen valuable years to get another specimen up to your level. Though that is not a sacrifice I would not be happy to make, I will make it if I deem it necessary. Understand?"
Hoshi looked at him through dull eyes. "You finished?"
The boss got a stress mark on his head. "Why you-"
Hoshi raised one hand to cut him off. "What more can you do to me?" she asked in a hollow, dead voice. "You made me throw away the only people I cared about in this damn world. Tell me how much deeper you can hurt me without killing me."
The boss looked amused. "Might I remind you that our agreement was your proposal?"
"What choice did I have?!" Hoshi snapped. "If I had sailed here with them, you would have killed them all so you could get me back."
"You could have let them be killed. We know from our observations that you have seen people you were foolish enough to trust be killed countless times. Have you still not learned your lesson?"
"These guys are different," Hoshi murmured. "They knew I was a monster but still… they let me onto their ship and treated me like a real person, not a pet. They all have impossible dreams, but they follow them with such idiotic passion. I…" A tear slid down her cheek. "I don't want to get in their way."
"How touching. So you have enough room in your life for sentimental attachment?" the boss asked cynically.
Hoshi laughed darkly. "No, I don't have room in my life for sentimental attachment since I know you'll use the ones I trust against me. And still…" Memories of the past few weeks flooded into her mind…
Luffy, eating more than she had ever humanly thought possible and laughing like a maniac no matter the situation…
Nami, so full of fire and yelling at the crew to keep their hands off her tangerines…
Usopp, telling lies so proudly standing on top of a barrel…
Chopper, doing his happy dance while calling everyone assholes…
Sanji, being the blonde perverted cook of the crew…
Robin, so kind and gentle and logical, always willing to help out…
And Zoro…
"I'm stupid enough to go out and make friends like them," she whispered as tears ran down her cheeks in a fresh flood. She turned her head away and wiped her eyes with her forearm.
"How touching. Go finish your maze now, you're boring me with this unseemly display of affection. If they decide to return, I'll call for you again."
In the morning, it had stopped raining. Zoro sat up as the rising sun hit his face through the window. Surprisingly, he was the first one up, judging by everyone else sleeping in odd positions around the living room behind the shop. After scribbling a note to the crew, he stepped outside the shop and started walking around town. He had a lot to think about.
Hoshi… he wondered what was the real truth out of the two Robin had stated last night.
At the moment though, he didn't know, and he didn't really care. What he wanted to do was to beat the shit out of the people at that laboratory. They had been the cause of all her pain and her indecision, so that made them the bad guys, World Government or no. Once he had figured out who the bad people were, the rest was pretty simple… hunt them down and beat the crap out of them. He grinned. Maybe thinking like Luffy wasn't such a bad thing after all… it definitely made everything less complicated.
Suddenly, he felt a cold bolt run up his back and turned to see people coming out of the alleyways holding guns. They pointed the black barrels at him. "Roranora Zoro," one of the men said. "I'm afraid you will have to come with us."
Well didn't this make everything easier? The bad guys had come looking for him.
Hoshi cried out in pain. This morning's test was to see how much electricity her body could stand, resulting in the whitecoats shoving her into a metal box with stickers holding down wires over specific parts of her body. It was completely dark. Hoshi felt fear start to eat her common sense. She HATED the dark with a burning fiery passion…
When the next wave of electricity was inserted into her body, she screamed to the high heavens. This one was at least five hundred volts stronger than the last one. She dimly heard voices outside the box…
"Damn! Who put the electricity up so high!?"
"No one did, it was a freak machine malfunction."
"Hurry and get it out of there! We need to get it to the medical personnel or it's not going to last long!!"
'It?' Hoshi thought sluggishly as she was thrown onto a trolley and wheeled to another part of the building.
"Jeez, Zoro went out for a walk?" Nami growled, skimming over the note that the swordsman had written. "We're going to have to go look for him later or else he'll never find his way back…"
"He won't?" Chopper asked.
"He's got the worst sense of direction known to mankind," Nami said empathetically. Then she reconsidered. "Except for that guy," she stated, jabbing her thumb at Luffy who was chowing down breakfast.
She turned and faced the old lady. "Obassan, thanks for letting us stay at your place last night!"
The lady cackled. "No problem, it was my pleasure! Have you all decided what you're going to do?"
"We're going to attack the place and get Hoshi back!" Luffy said through a mouthful of food.
Usopp sweatdropped. "Easygoing as always…"
A voice came over the loudspeakers. "DELIVER 413 TO HOLDING ROOM TWELVE. REPEAT: DELIVER 413 TO HOLDING ROOM TWELVE."
"Damn," one of the doctors muttered. "I still haven't gotten all her burns yet."
"Well, we need to do what the loudspeaker says," his assistant pointed out.
"Why the hell do they want her in Holding room 12? The Holding rooms are for criminals!"
Hoshi was wondering that too as they pushed her to her feet and made her walk. The boss was waiting for her outside the door. "Ah, 413. I believe you'll find the person inside of… special interest," he commented as she walked down the corridor.
She scowled darkly. "What is it now?"
The boss smiled. "You'll see."
Something clicked when Hoshi saw the smirk on his face, and her eyes widened with rage. "You promised not to touch them if I came back!" she roared at him. "You promised!"
The boss' eyes narrowed as he smirked. "I promised with my fingers crossed."
She lunged for him. "You damn bast-"
The boss opened the door and the three gunmen accompanying him pointed their guns at the person sitting inside. "I am a what, exactly?" he asked manevolently.
Hoshi ground her teeth and bit her tongue, stopping her fist one inch from his face. The man smiled. "That's better." He opened the door further. "I am a kind man. I will give you half an hour with your former nakama, then he will be released, and you can resume your tests." He pushed Hoshi into the room and locked the door behind her.
Hoshi didn't waste any time. She ran up to the man who was sitting on a bench and chained to the wall by meter-long shackles on his wrists and ankles. Stopping short about two feet in front of him, she stared down at him, trying to decide whether to hug him or punch him first.
"Yo, Hoshi," Zoro grinned, looking up. He raised a hand in greeting. "Been doing well?"