Chapter 5: Saviors
(Hello all. This is my very first published fanfic. Please feel free to leave any comments at all and have a great day.)
Disclaimer: I do not known any of the One Piece characters. This is a non-canon work of fiction.
Warning: I do realize that Kairee comes off like a Mary Sue, yes. Haha, I suppose I just ended up writing her that way. Whether that retracts from the experience or not is entirely up to the reader. I do hope you all enjoy the story, though.
….
To Kairee, it was plain to see that the longarms were adept at fighting in this environment to confuse and overpower their enemies. If only she could use her ability, she'd be able to blow all the fog away! Right now, all she could do to help was cream at them to dodge or block or…. A moment of realization dawned on her as she figured out what she needed to do.
"Bepo! Duck and leg sweep at 5 o'clock!" She could barely see his ears twitching as he listened and Sersis, making a long swipe of his arm holding a deadly blade, when the bear ducked low and brought his opponent down with a splash of the murky mud.
"Tern, three steps back and spin right!" The bandana's man did as he was told as Barm closed in with a lunge and his knife in the air. Right as Tern had spun right out of the way, the blade had been plunged deep into a mangrove tree and was stuck fast.
"Beluga, dodge left! Puffin, five steps to your 10 o'clock and strike!" Following her instructions, the starhat narrowly missed a knife in the head form the large Umeri. Meanwhile, Puffin found himself behind his opponent and took him down at the knees.
"That noisy bitch!" Grave spat, looking towards the voice of the captive girl who was coaching her allies below her left and right. "I'll teach her a lesson-"
"Room: Scan." No sooner had Grave heard the words, a long blade cut out of the dense fog and the longarm had dodged left, just having narrowly missed getting his arm cut off, and several strands of his rough red hair fell to the ground.
"I don't think you should be diverting your attention so haphazardly, Grave-ya. Especially since surgeons are used to operating on blind instincts alone."
"Law, behind you!"
A thick tangle of vines with a sharpened spire at the end, burst from the fog and had nearly struck him through the chest. Then, to the right, another deadly spire erupted, and then another from the front, and then from below, til he found himself dodging and cutting through the endless barrage of attacking foliage, trying in vain to focus on Grave's location.
"Now who's attention his diverted, little Captain?" Grave's voice seemed to echo from all around. "Why don't you be a good little kitty and just roll over and die?"
Kairee wanted to give him help, but the vines were attacking too low for her to see them.
He continued to evade and cut down the deadly green spires, waiting for a chance for a counter-attack, until he felt a sharp point pierce right through his arm and he let out a cry of pain. He looked at his right arm and saw that he was pinned through to the tree behind him.
"Bingo! Finally caught him!"
"Law! He's coming straight for you!" Kairee cried desperately. His hat, however, stood unmoving in the thick fog, and Grave advance with great speed, his hook raised overhead.
"Law, please! He's right in front of you!"
And then he was, and he brought his hook down like an executioner's axe on the Heart Captain's hat.
"LAW!"
Grave grinned triumphantly, but it quickly disappeared once he realized that there was no one wearing the hat that hung upon a branch and now fell to the ground with his blow. Nor was there anyone attached to the dismembered arm pinned to the tree, its edge cut so clean that no blood fell except for where the vines had pierced through.
"Looking for me?
Grave's blood ran cold when he heard the voice right at his ear, and he could not respond before Law said, "Mes" and drove his hand at Grave's back, right over where his heart sat, and it came shooting out in front of him, encased in a cube of ice, then hit the tree and fell straight into Law's hat as Grave fell on his hands and knees, his whole body suddenly overcome with incredible weakness and exhaustion.
The now one-armed Captain walked calmly past his fallen opponent. He cut the vines that had trapped his right arm and pulled it out, then reattached it using his ability, sutured and bandaged the large wound. Then he stooped down to pick up his hat, and with it, the block of ice with the beating heart inside.
As though it had learned of Grave's defeat and had decided to abandon him, the fog had lifted, though only as much to allow visibility, and the sun's rays began to shine right through the thick boughs and trunks of the mangroves with the coming of sunrise. Everyone halted their fighting at this sudden daybreak, and were stunned even more so at the scene of the two Captains.
Law faced towards the opposing crew while holding up the heart of the fallen captain behind him and his voice came out calm and even. "The fight is over. Give up now or your captain's life will be snuffed out."
The Heart Pirates cheered, while the longarms were filled with shock and disbelief as they watched their captain heaving and cursing upon the muck-coated ground.
"You bastard," he panted, "You'll pay dearly for this!"
Kairee, who had been celebrating the victory, realized that it had been premature when she noticed that down below, one member of Grave's crew was missing, and she suddenly felt a malicious presence behind her.
All at once, she felt the touch of sharp steel at her throat while her head was drawn back, and a voice called out, "Not so fast, Captain Law!"
Everyone looked up to find Sersis holding Kairee at knife's edge. The color drained from Law and his crew's faces, while the longarms reveled in their crewmate's clever tactic.
"Good job, Sersis! Make 'em pay!" Grave exclaimed wearily, getting to his feet by using a nearby mangrove tree for support.
Law grit his teeth and motioned to move but Sersis said sinisterly, "Don't you dare try anything, Captain Law. Her head will be off as soon as I see fit."
He stared straight at the girl held hostage upon his own ship, and she saw desperate frustration set in his face, which slowly turned into a hard-faced surrender as he raised his hands in the air, and in one he assured the heart's safety for everyone to see.
"Good boy," he sneered, as Kairee did her best to keep from gulping down the lump in her throat.
"Law, it's not worth it," she told him weakly.
Surprisingly, he shook his head and smiled, quite triumphant.
It was only in the next moment that she understood, because, quite suddenly, the grip on her head slackened and the edge at her neck fell away as Sersis dropped to the ground, while below her she saw the faces of both friends and foes who all looked as dumbstruck as she felt she was, save the smiling doctor.
A colorful feathered dart was stuck to the back of his head and the girl looked behind her and found Bepo leap onto the ship, beaming at her as he retrieved the key from the knocked-out pirate's pocket and unlocked the restraining seastone cuffs that at once fell away.
"Bepo! Thank you!" She leapt up and tightly embraced her large, fuzzy friend, who returned the gesture warmly. Out of the corner of her eye, however, she noticed her allies cheering, but a figure moved just behind them and a tight line shone like death in the sunlight.
Her whole body moved swift as a squall and descended upon the field where Shachi and Penguin stood, both of whom had been preoccupied with exchanging celebrations that they did not take notice that behind them, their embittered opponent's, who realized they were wholly defeated, had launched one final attack on them.
The two had only enough time to turn their heads when a large wave of wind blew past them and crashed into the charging longarms, sweeping them off their feet. Buraki and Lassert were swiftly shot into the air, engulfed in a small twister, and thrown onto the ground, finally laying in the muck groggy and unmoving.
Kairee rematerialized in front of them and smiled somewhat bashfully at Penguin and Shachi.
"You two okay?"
Penguin grinned warmly and nodded, while Shachi didn't say a thing while not exactly looking at her.
"You damned bitch!" Grave had recovered himself enough to stand up, but it was clear that his legs strained to support him and his face was lined with sweat. "I'm not through yet!"
"Yes you are." The voice came deep and slow and it came from the shadow beyond the mangroves, and from it had also emerged an arrow drawn and aimed at the back of Grave's head.
He froze when he sensed the danger he was in, speaking carefully.
"Kwai?"
A young man with a bald head and colorful tattoo markings on half of his face stepped out from the shade. His eyes were hard and he kept his bow taut and the arrow steady as he moved.
"Don't you dare speak my name, you devil."
Grave attempted to raise his arms, but the arrow found itself touching the scalp of his head to halt him.
"Move and I will let the arrow fly."
"Come now, Kwai," the longarm sneered. "We both know you don't have the guts to kill me. It's against your beliefs." The last words he said had been said in an amused matter-of-fact tone.
Kwai was silent for several moments as all eyes were set on him, and finally he spoke. "You are right, unfortunately." He lowered the bow and arrow, and at once Grave began to laugh loudly, but it stopped immediately when he felt something cold and heavy close around his wrists.
At once, he felt the power he regained drain from his body and he fell down on one knee, the looked up at the man who smiled down at him triumphantly.
"I cannot kill you. But I will leave it up to that man there."
"Well well," Law's voice came easy, as did his languid smirk, when he stepped forward towards the defeated captain, tossing the heart into the air precariously.
"Should I make you and crew into my next operating dummies?"
As soon as the remainder of Grave's crew, Barm and Umeri, heard these words, the color went out of their faces and they decided to make a break for the cover of the thick trees. But just before they made it, and array of spears popped out from the shadows before them, and with them appeared Kwai's companions, all tribesmen with tattoos on their face and bodies of varying patterns and designs, and with the same set eyes of conviction.
"Damned cowards," Grave spat angrily.
Law walked right up to him and held the heart firmly in his hand. "You know, if I squeeze hard enough, you'd have a very agonizing death." Grave's sweat started to come in waves as he grit his teeth resentfully. He seemed to want to spit out a hateful remark, but for the first time, it seemed that he had nothing to say regarding his eventual doom, as now it seemed evident that there was no escape, and simply glared at the younger captain.
"Or maybe I should make you all beg for mercy like you intended for us?"
After saying this, Law seemed to catch himself midway in a thought, and he turned away from his captive and looked expectantly at Kairee, who was caught in surprise at his recognition of her presence. He looked at her carefully, but not with the glaring intensity of their previous interactions, but as though he had recalled something about her, something that seemed to shine her in a new light.
He didn't speak, and, uncomfortable with the tension, she decided to ask, "W-What is it?"
He seemed deep in thought, and then suddenly smirked, as though he found something amusing. "Aren't you going say anything about mercy?"
She realized that he meant Grave and his crew. She shifted, not looking at him.
"I… I don't really think it's my place to say anything, to be honest." It surprised and alarmed her that he seemed to know what she was thinking, and added quickly, "You're the Captain, after all. Whatever you decide goes, of course…"
He seemed unprepared for this statement, as if he'd momentarily forgotten his position in the crew, but his lazy smile returned easily.
"You always had something on your mind anyway," he mused, mostly to himself.
When she asked "What?" from not understanding, he said something that sounded like "Conscience," and turned away before she could respond with more confusion.
The Heart Captain smirked down at Grave with finality. "Crew, let's send them off."