AN: 'Kusho Kusho no Mi' is the variation that I could think of a Paramecia-type Devil Fruit. Pretty sure 'kuusho' is 'empty space' in Japanese, but that's my knowledge based on someone else's rusty knowledge of the language.
Also, because of its nightmarish dark-like content, this chapter might seem morbid to you. Well, maybe. I don't know…what's your intensity tolerance? Check your pulse once in a while. Oh, and eat your veggies.
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Chapter One: Zoro's Ambition
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Something cold dripped onto his face. Sanjii brought a hand to swat at it as he regained consciousness, light flooding his vision at a throbbing pace. He slowly sat up—
Whack.
"Damn!" His other hand flew to the top of his head, where a bump was already beginning to form. Somehow, he'd fallen asleep under the kitchen counter. And the cold liquid that was dripping on him was…soy sauce, by the look of it. A gleaming line of it coated the edge of the counter, occasionally beading up and plummeting to the floor.
After rising to his feet, the cook first noticed the broken bottle on the counter and the plates of half-eaten food on the table across from him. Lying on the floor three feet from the table was an unconscious Franky, breaking the silence with his rattling snores, and…
Robin-san!
She was slumped against the wall, her eyes closed. Somehow, he managed to cross the room in anf instant and knelt by her side. "Robin-san! My precious Robin-san, please wake up! You'll catch a cold sleeping on the floor like this!"
He wasn't afraid of melodrama. The moment something bad happens to either Nami-swan or Robin-san, he will always be helpless to do anything but make them feel better. Sanji watched her face carefully, and after a few moments, the archaeologist opened her eyes a crack afnd looked up at him.
"What…is going on?" She used a hand to push herself off the floor. Simultaneously, the heavy clunking of the cyborg behind them announced that Franky was also awake. The trio of them stood around the disheveled kitchen, basked in the confusion of the moment.
"How did I end up on the floor?" Franky scratched his head, still facing the opposite direction. "What the hell? Where is everyone?"
" Luffy and the others, they're missing," Robin pointed out, grabbing his attention. Franky turned around. "I thought we had just started to eat dinner, when something hit the ship. It seems we survived, though."
"Well, the food's still on the table. Our captain can't be far," pointed out Sanji. Mostly convinced that Robin was unhurt, he pulled out a cigarette and lit it, inhaling slowly. "If everyone fell asleep, they're probably on the ship somewhere."
"Wrong!"
All three tensed up at the unmistakably juvenile, nasally voice that filled the kitchen doorway. There stood a very short kid with a head of messy blue dreadlocks. In his hand, he held the handle of a bag that was easily the size of his body. It was tattered and the handle was chipped, giving the impression that this piece of luggage didn't often leave its master's grasp.
"You are so wrong, it's embarrassing!" the kid barked again, from behind his brown scarf. "Beware, you pitiful pirates! You're now in the domain of the great, amazing, most-feared bounty hunter in the world, so great in fact that he owns a whole island by himself! So greatly feared in fact, that no pirate has ever managed to escape his terrifying, dastardly claws!" This was shortly followed by a rehearsed laugh of what might have been triumph. It would have made Usopp wince.
A very awkward second or two passed, where only the sound of the waves and a collection of crickets could be heard. The blue-haired kid blinked. "Huh? You're not impressed?"
"Who the hell are you!?" shouted the trio of Straw Hats at once.
Their intruder winced and jumped behind his leather bag. Sanji gradually stalked towards him, took the cigarette from his mouth and stared the kid down. "Tell us where our crew is, jerk."
The boy clutched his bag. "I won't be intimidated by you, foul pirate! I'll only tell you because it was an order, not because I'm scared of you! The amazing Green-Eyed Geremy is afraid of only one thing, and that is—omph!"
His voice was cut short by the shoe that was placed on top of his face. The Sunny's cook stood with one leg raised, hands in his pockets and teeth grit tightly. "Now you have three seconds."
"Okay, okay, okay, okay!" 'Green-Eyed Geremy' pulled back, dragging the bag with him. "The Nightmares have them. But I only let them borrow my island! It's mine, got it? I'll take you to your nakama right now but you have to get them out of here really quick! And after that, you've gotta promise you'll beat up the Nightmares and never come back again!"
Behind him, Sanji heard Robin gasp slightly, He glanced backwards with just his eyes and waited for an explanation.
"The Nightmares…are here? But they're supposed to be in prison…" She sounded almost frightened. "This isn't good. If he's telling the truth, we only have a little time before our friends die."
Shock rippled through the room. "W-What!?" cried both Sanji and Franky.
"Oh, good, you know about them already!" Geremy remarked with a relieved sigh. Then he immediately went back to his former charade. "B-But still, you heinous criminals will pay for your sins after we take care of the Nightmares!"
It took a few moments, but gradually Sanji realized that the ship was not rocking under their feet. There were sounds of waves crashing against the shore outside, and crickets, which meant…Sanji looked up, over the edge of the Thousand Sunny to take in their surroundings. He then went pale.
"Shit, we're on an island!" he shouted, running to the edge of the ship. Franky and Robin chased after him, and they all looked down towards the hull. They were standing on a beach…or rather, the ship was sitting on a beach. Not in the water. Aground.
"Oi, calm down already!" snapped the blue-haired kid, jumping onto the railing next to them. "I put your ship here so it wouldn't float away while you guys were asleep."
Three heads slowly turned on him, and Sanji growled, "Why the hell would you do that?"
The kid shrugged. "The anchor's way too heavy for me to lift."
Sanji almost fell over.
"You put the ship here? You can't lift an anchor, so how did you lift the ship?" Robin wanted to know, leaning back on the railing with a calm expression.
"Easy, you foul-smelling pirate! I put it inside this!" Geremy gave his well-used bag a short kick. Then he grinned proudly. "I ate the Kusho Kusho no Mi when I was little."
They blinked at him.
Geremy frowned. "It means I can change the amount of space inside of things, you stupid pirates. I could put an entire island inside if I wanted to!"
Franky scratched his chin. "That's one of the strangest Devil Fruit powers I've ever heard of."
"Shut up!" Geremy snapped. "If you want to save your nakama, I'll take you to see them, but if you get caught by the Nightmares, which you evil no-gooders probably will, you can't tell them I helped you!"
"Why are you helping us?" asked Robin.
"None of your business, wench! Now get inside the bag before I change my mind and let the Nightmares get you, too!"
Sanji stared down at the boy with a smirk, flicking a bit of ash in his direction. "Sorry, but I don't like getting inside of strange bags without knowing—h-h-hey, Robin-san!"
The black-haired woman was standing next to the kid's open bag, getting ready to step inside. Her eyes flickered over to the cook. "What? Our captain and our friends need our help. If we don't hurry, we'll never rescue them in time."
"The lady has a point, cook," said Franky, though he looked at the kid's bag with a strange expression. He cracked his knuckles. "Straw Hat wouldn't stand around waiting for someone to explain. Let's go get our crew back."
"I'll explain everything I know once we find the others," promised Robin. "Let's go, Sanji."
"Get in, hurry, hurry, hurry!" cried Geremy, as a sudden gust of wind picked up and rattled the ship's furled sails. "They might be on their way back already, idiots!"
Sanji watched as Robin calmly stepped into the top of the open bag and…vanished. After stretching his arms, Franky too leapt into the dark gaping hole that seemed to lead to nowhere at all. Eye twitching slightly, the cook leaned over to peer inside of the strange object…when he felt something kick him from behind. After that, he was falling head-first into an empty voice, screaming—
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The sound of the metal blade scraping against the sheath made Zoro shudder. That sound never bothered him before, never once in his lifetime, but since it was coming from the skeleton fifteen feet in front of him, it scared the hell out of him. His other opponents were definitely dead, but Brook still unsheathed his sword and dropped the end of his cane on the ground. The tip of the blade was pointed at him.
"What are you doing?" the swordsman growled around the hilt of his katana. "I've got no time to play around! Go somewhere else!"
"I couldn't possibly leave already," came Brook's chilling response, sounding far too happy considering the situation. "Didn't you know that we are rivals, Zoro? In order for you to be a great swordsman, you have to finish me, too! Yo-hohohoho!"
"The hell—" Zoro grit his teeth tightly. "Why are you laughing? I don't want to fight you!"
"Yohoho! It's not about want you want! Having come this far, I thought you would have realized that by now. But let's not talk each other's ears off—not that I have any ears!"
Zoro never expected the musician to lunge at him after a lame joke like that, but with another burst of laughter that sounded more like a battle cry, Brook suddenly did. The green-haired man just managed to dodge to his left before the skeleton's blade swept by, and brought both his left and right katana up in order to block it as it came arcing down. Paralyzed with indecision, Zoro strained backwards under the weight of Brook's attacked. Sweat beaded over his eyes.
Since when was…this skeleton…so…heavy? Zoro gripped his swords even tighter, pushing forward with all his might. Acting on impulse, he rolled his body around and loosened their death-grip, thrusting his elbow into the middle of Brook's spine to knock him down. The skeleton did fall, landing on his face. But after half a second, he gathered his long limbs and stood up again. Zoro's eyes widened.
He blocked the next thrust, then parried the following swing, and continued to knock his opponent's blade away time after time. Somewhere in the back of his mind he was expecting Brook to give up, or suddenly declare that he was just kidding around, but the ferocity of the musician's attacks was too much. Brook was an exceptional fighter, but nowhere near his league. It would just take a few simple moves to end the fight, but he had no intention of hurting his nakama. After a minute, Zoro side-stepped and used the blunt edges of his katanas to knock the skeleton back again.
"Stop!" he shouted angrily.
"Go!" Brook exclaimed, laughing in return as he swept towards him. Like a bell chiming, their blades struck again, and Zoro was forced into another deadlock, to stare into the somewhat maniacal eye sockets of his opponent. Rainwater washed over his numerous small cuts, but that sting didn't even register in comparison to the pain of his next realization. He had to fight back. With enough restraint, he could just knock the skeleton out and wait for his true opponent to arrive. Wherever the hell Luffy and his other nakama were, they needed to get here soon to take care of this.
"You're not giving me a choice," he told the skeleton. "I can't hold back anymore. I don't know what's wrong with you, but I promise…" He closed his eyes for a moment and then opened them. "I'll figure it out when I've defeated 'him'."
Brook tilted his head slightly, his sword still locked between Zoro's left and right katana. "Oh?" After another moment, the skeleton sighed softly, and added with no conviction, "Too late."
And then he simply vanished. In a swirl of black smoke that filled the rainy air and promptly disappeared, the musician was gone. Zoro tensed, a shaken grunt only partially leaving his throat, because he sensed the fatal strike coming from behind even before he heard the splash of Brook's shoe in the mud. In a flash, the swordsman whirled around, arching his right blade to knock the oncoming sword away one last time.
"Yo-hoho—!"
Cut off abruptly, his skeletal nakama stood in front of him and stared at nothing. Something invisible and sharp pierced Zoro's heart at this revelation. His katana was poised just next to Brook's neck. Then the musician's skull, afro still intact, toppled from his bony shoulders. After a painfully long second, his body slowly keeled over, hitting the ground with a sickening splash.
The three blades in Zoro's possession fell around his feet. He collapsed to his knees.
It was a joke. It was some kind of sick joke. Luffy, Usopp, Chopper, even Sanji and Nam—they'd gone too far. Any minute now they would come out from behind the pillars and Brook would stand up, pick up his head, laughing at him for being so gullible. Unable to breath, the green-haired swordsman knelt, glaring at the skull sitting so still in the puddle in front of him, willing it to start moving, to laugh again.
But the only sounds came from the rain. Even though Zoro managed to choke out a breath or two, the shock of what he'd done did not change.
The soaked plateau was shattered with the swordsman's scream of futility.
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Sanji tumbled onto a very hard surface, rolled over and landed with his back against a sharp rock. Cursing a word that made ruthless pirates cringe, he sprang to his feet and turned to face the culprit of his pain with a snarl…that died when he saw Robin-san standing in front of him.
Franky also stood there, looking at their environment and scratching his neck thoughtfully. Their 'escort', Geremy was shaking his upside-down leather bag, as though expecting something else to come out. He then drew the strings shut and sat on top of it, sighing. "Okay, I got you all here. Hurry up and rescue this guy already. If she wakes up before we get out of here, we're dead!"
Sanji looked down at his hands, then his legs, and it occurred to him that his cigarette went out. Irritably, he took out his lighter and lit it again. That's when he saw the glowing green prison in front of them. The freshly glowing cigarette dropped from his lips and died.
They were inside a cave without an entrance or exit. The rough walls of the chamber reflected the light of the object in the center with an eeriness no fog-infested swamp or dark, haunted lagoon ever had. The trio of Straw Hats took a moment to stare at the strange creature inside the cube-shaped light and its second occupant: Zoro.
Sanji blinked. "Shit."
The monster with her arms wrapped around Zoro's head had the body of a horse laying on the ground with its legs folded. The swordsman was sitting with his back against her torso, somewhat tangled in the Nightmare's long, ugly, stringy hair. Zoro's face was beaded with sweat and twitched with an expression of obvious anguish. As the light from the surrounding prison that entrapped the Nightmare and their nakama shone one, a sense of dread came over them.
"Z-Zoro!" The cook started forward on impulse, but Robin's hand appeared out of nowhere and seized his wrist.
"Wait, Sanji," she said. "The five Nightmares are creatures with a very rare Devil Fruit power. As soon as you step inside their prison, you'll become part of their visions."
"Mmm hmm," agreed the blue-haired kid, leaning back casually against the wall. "You can only get near them when they're not dreaming. You can go inside, but a filthy pirate like you probably won't last three seconds against her nightmares."
"Shut up, brat," replied Sanji, losing his mood to banter with the annoying Devil Fruit user. "One of us has to stop this, and Franky's right. If Luffy were here, he'd already be inside. I'm going."
"Wait!" Robin cried, before he could get any closer. He looked back at her, torn between going and listening to his previous Robin-san.
"Whatever you see…whatever's happening inside, don't believe any of it. Your only priority is to get Zoro back." Her eyes narrowed with concern, and the cook felt part of his insides melt. Forcing that thought aside, he gave a curt nod and faced the monster's prison again.
Putting all of his strength into his legs, he leapt into the air and crashed into the glowing green wall, and was instantly pulled into a nightmare.
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No more enemies came. It seemed like Zoro was alone, in the midst of a battlefield he created with his own ambition. The bodies of several swordsmen lay strewn about, the rivers forming between the blades of grass and serrated rocks streaked with blood. Blood coming from every corpse, except one.
A dull flash of lightning brought him back to his senses, if partially. Zoro looked up, swallowing to try and ease his parched throat. Behind the skull, and behind that, behind Brook's body, he saw someone sitting cross-legged in the mud. The blue shorts, the red vest, and the straw hat bent forward to cover his eyes…it was Luffy, at last. His captain didn't move for a long time.
Zoro recognized the frown on Luffy's face, and knew already that he'd just lost his second comrade. Once everyone learned about this, he'd lose everyone. He'd killed one of their own. Whatever Luffy had in mind, he deserved it.
Like a man before his execution, Zoro lowered his gaze again and unfocused his eyes. "L-Luffy…"
Luffy inhaled sharply, and something twisted inside of the swordsman. The captain of the Straw Hats raised his head to glare at him, portraying the calm before the storm. His fingers gripping his knees tightly, Luffy opened his mouth and growled, "He…was…our…nakama!"
His captain shot forward like a rubber arrow, and Zoro simply waited for the blow to fall on him. Luffy's fist joined his face and the swordsman's unresisting body went sailing backwards for several meters before landing heavily on the ground and sliding a few more feet.
Zoro didn't bother to sit up. Accident or no, he'd done what he'd done. Even if he didn't get the shit kicked out of him by Luffy, it would be some time before he could force himself to move. As the shape of his captain appeared above him, fist balled tightly and drawn back for a second, possibly heavier blow…Zoro just stared at the sky.
And stared.
A full minute passed, and the swordsman dared to focus his eyes slightly at the figure standing over him. The straw hat was gone and so was the red vest—replaced by the nonchalant stance of someone else, a slouched posture that was only too familiar. Sanji extended a hand toward him, the other hooked inside his pocket. Waiting.
"Get your ass up already. It's fucking cold out here."
Stunned, Zoro didn't move. Three seconds later, he felt the cook's heavy boot collide with his ribs. "Oi! I said 'get up'. You lazy bastard."
And still, when the green-haired Zoro didn't move, Sanji appeared to give up and finally grabbed the swordsman by his shirt, pulling him off the ground. "You're really gonna regret making me carry you, you son of a bitch."
Despite wanting to, Zoro still couldn't make his body move. He threw all of his effort into lifting one of his arms to push the cook away, and froze in horror when he saw his fingertips. They were dissolving. Like steam, the tendrils of black smoke that floated from the slowly disintegrating flesh and bone rose in front of his eyes. He then noticed that it was happening all over his body, eating away even faster with every passing second.
Suddenly, he was being dragged through the grass and through the rough stones, toward the field outside of the pillars. A clutching sensation around his heart sucked the air right out of his lungs, but hardly was he given a moment to think about it than the cold rain and smell of blood went away. With a scream from the depths of his chest, Zoro woke from the nightmare and threw himself forward.
He first hit Sanji, who miraculously went from dragging him to standing right in his path, and they went rolling across the cave floor together. As soon as they came to a stop, a very large hand picked Zoro up and set him down again. The swordsman stumbled for a moment before regaining his balance. All three of his swords were on his belt, still sheathed. His cuts and bruises were gone. And now he was inside a cave, surrounded by Robin, Franky, and Sanji—on the ground still and muttering something under his breath—with a strange kid in the background snickering uncontrollably.
Before that could register, a deafening shriek filled the chamber and Zoro looked at the source—the creature inside the light box was writhing angrily, and it leapt to all four of its hooves. All of her wrath lasted about five seconds, because her head abruptly blossomed into a smoking fireball. Then the headless corpse of the monster flopped over.
Franky stepped back and powered down his arm cannon, closing the hand before pumping it into the air triumphantly. "Super!"
Zoro gaped at the sight and gradually found his gaze wandering over to Robin, who crossed her arms with a grateful smile. Sanji stood up next to her, showing the swordsman an impolite finger.
"Are you okay?" the black-haired pirate asked gently.
"N-Not really…" Zoro was still in a state of shellshock. Once more, he found his body wouldn't listen to him.
"We managed to get you out," Sanji remarked, relighting another cigarette. In spite of his most recent adventure, he didn't look any worse than he had before stepping into the prison. "Nami-san, Luffy, Usopp, Chopper and Brook are still missing. These Nightmares are going to pay for letting my dinner go to waste like that."
Zoro shot a glare at him. "What?" he growled. Brook? But Brook was…
"Hurry up, already! Geez you shitty pirates are slow!" cried the blue-haired kid, kicking his bag.
And as if on cue, the cave began to tremble around them.
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