AN: This chapter will have quite a push in plot development—necessary, if I'm ever going to get this done. I never meant this to be a major hurt/comfort kind of story centered on Brook, but there will be some of that involved. Bit by bit, we're cracking the case. Anyway, enjoy.
Chapter Seven: The Quake
Zoro was not known for his good sense of direction.
Which made it fortunate that his captain was Straw Hat Luffy, because he didn't need any navigational skill to find that idiot. Sooner or later, one way or another, Luffy made his presence known. In style.
Such as the loud 'crack' of stone, followed by an explosion, gunshots, shouting and a large cloud of dust. The force of which was so close that Zoro had to cover his eye with an arm to protect it from debris as it funneled down the alleyway on his left.
"The pirates are attacking! Call south gate! Send for reinforcements!" shrieked a soldier as he fled past the swordsman's position. Zoro sighed and ran down the narrow path towards the source of the commotion.
He found Luffy squatting on the edge of a fallen chunk of building, looking down at a half-crushed and unconscious man in uniform. Picking his nose. The younger man looked up. "Oi, Zoro! Where have you been?"
"You ran off!" the swordsman barked back. "Tch, never mind. Why are you attacking the soldiers at random? We're after the ones holding our friends hostage."
His captain looked at him for a moment, perfectly serious. He looked down at the fallen soldier at their feet. "They were saying bad things about Brook. Usopp and Nami, too."
He wanted to remind his captain that treating everyone who said nasty things about their nakama like an enemy would only bring about more trouble. But what was the point? Besides, Zoro would have hardly been able to stay neutral in that situation. He was many things, but not a hypocrite.
"Zoro," Luffy said, his tone changing. "Something's wrong with Brook."
Offhandedly, Zoro jabbed the soldier on the ground with the end of a sheathed Shusui to make sure he was out, and responded, "Hnn?"
The captain dangled his legs over the stone and folded his arms. "These guys said Brook couldn't play music. I can't remember the last time Brook played, either."
No, neither could Zoro—it had been at least three days ago, maybe even before the incident happened. There was nothing wrong with that; their musician needed time to adapt. He wouldn't be able to fight or play an instrument until his body adjusted to the changes.
Except that Luffy took notice of it. It wasn't commonplace for their captain to worry about something trivial. He usually complained if Brook didn't play music as often as he wanted—which was always—so maybe the sheer absence of it a big deal. That could be it.
"Sounds like he's pulling an elaborate scheme," he told his captain. "He hasn't figured out how to act when he's human yet. He'll play something when the crew's back together."
Luffy looked like he wanted to believe that, and argue at the same time, but the next moment was interrupted when the ground below the city began to tremble—then shake. Luffy fell off his perch and bounced back up on unsteady feet as Zoro grabbed something to hold onto.
"What the hell is going on now?" barked the swordsman.
When Brook opened his eyes, Mince-san was gone. The door to the cell was wide open. In fact, it was off its hinges. It was also darker inside the cell, and much quieter still.
Carefully, he stood up on two wobbly legs, using the cracked wall to steady himself. The lack of light, he noticed right away, was because the window was completely gone, leaving him in a room entirely cut off from the topside world. The bars to the cell were also crooked—and he realized then that part of the ceiling had caved in near the door.
The Swallowed Palace—a palace slowly sinking into the ground. Apparently, it had sunk a little bit more.
But the last thing he recalled—
He had fallen into an unconscious state when attempting to separate his soul and body. There was a sick feeling in his gut. It had been quite foolish to try that—this living body needed a soul to survive, unlike an empty skeleton. If he had somehow succeeded, he would have returned to a corpse. Or not at all?
It was a childish risk, in any case.
Where was Mince-san? He hoped the flutist young lady had seized the opportunity and fled for her life. He held no ill will towards her for abandoning him. There was nothing but a common love for music that tied them together, and she seemed quite capable of taking care of herself.
It didn't matter now; he had to escape and go save Sanji-san, and Robin-san. They were in grave—
No. Nami-san and Usopp-san.
Why had he thought differently? Sanji-san and Robin-san were safe aboard the Thousand Sunny; it was the others who accompanied him on the shopping trip. Where were they now?
This was surely some side effect of attempting the Soul Separation. Too bad; he had so little else that could be useful right now. No sword, no music, no soul powers...just a feeble old man in a younger man's body, waiting for someone to get his shadow back.
If only Yorki-san could come find him already...
Robin gently blew the dust from the pages. The shaking had finally stopped, and the other patrons to the library carried on as if this were no great ordeal. The library was fully intact, except for the trickling of dust and stone from the ceiling.
Calmly, she turned the pages to the tome in front of her. She was hidden behind some seclusive bookcases, giving examination to a book that had been well guarded in a closed-off room. It seemed the history, as well as the mystery of this kingdom was kept from all but the highest of classes. Or in her case, a woman with determination and a very useful Devil Fruit.
So far, the book imparted nothing but bland details about the foundation of El Lo Misca. Wars, warriors, heroes, kings and monsters all danced in front of her eyes. There were many mentions of the Devil Fruit powers, but nothing of an artifact that could strengthen them.
Then she came upon something very interesting.
A page missing. Not just missing, but torn out. The only page in the book to have been removed, and it was nestled right next to the chapter headingHeaven's Pen.
Robin's eyes widened as she began to read.
Usopp felt was the ground shake. Then it heaved. Then Nami's hand shot out and seized his arm, pulling him down as the ceiling above them cracked and began to collapse. Their guards scattered to avoid the falling debris and secure a position along the wall, each shouting to one another to secure the prisoners, though none were willing to risk his life to do so.
But Nami—Nami wasn't having any of this. She was opportunistic.
So she dragged a sputtering Usopp back to his feet, yelling at him to shut up and run, and began running down the corridor without even considering the right direction. Cracks were forming in the walls around them, splitting massive stones and toppling pillars. By the time the earthquake stopped, the duo was left panting and hiding behind a pile of rubble, coughing through the upturned dust.
"What the hell just happened?" Usopp half-shrieked, waving a hand in front of his face. "Was that Luffy and Zoro's doing?"
"They wouldn't tear the place down like that if they thought it might hurt us!" she snapped, balling her fists. "I don't care what just happened; we have to get out of here and back to the ship."
"W-W-W-Wait!" Usopp babbled, grabbing her wrist before she could take off. "What about B-Brook? We're just going back without him?"
"No, we're going to go get someone who can rescue him! They've got our weapons and money. We're completely and utterly helpless."
"Well, yeah, but-"
Suddenly, Nami seized him by the straps of his overalls and gave him a single shake. "Usopp! What good is it going to do Brook if we get killed trying to rescue him without a plan, without backup? I promise; we're not running away. We're just regrouping. Okay?"
Usopp's face burned a little at that—why the hell did she assume he was worried about running away? He was the one suggesting they go back! He pushed it aside though, because no matter how he looked at it, she was right. It was by immense fortune an earthquake happened at just the right time to give them this opportunity. Now they could go report what had happened and mount a real rescue team to get their musician back.
He just had a really bad feeling. A really, really bad one. There was something off about all this. Something rotten.
"Yeah, okay," he agreed finally.
Take care of yourself, Brook, he thought desperately as he took off behind Nami, towards the surface. Just a little bit longer.
Sanji kicked the fifth soldier out of the way and glanced backwards to Chopper, who was similarly dispatching of three more men in his Kung Fu Point form. They were surrounded by unconscious bodies, and rubble.
The cook reached down and grabbed a semi-awake soldier by the collar, giving him a brisk shake. "Tell us where our friends are, and I won't have to kick some manners into you," he told him around the cigarette in his mouth. "Where is the Pool of Justice?"
In response, the man just grinned a gurgling, bloody grin, rolled his eyes back into his head and passed out. Sanji dropped him and scowled.
The earthquake was a bad sign. They were only a short distance from the palace dungeon; so far, the only resistance they had met were handfuls of servants and soldiers all preoccupied with the tremor's aftermath. For some reason, the cook got the impression they were more afraid of what had caused the disaster, rather than the quake itself.
"Oi, Chopper," he said, after the little doctor knocked out the last, foolishly brave soldier. "Let's hurry and find Nami-san and that shitty skeleton. I guess Usopp, too."
"He's not a skeleton!" barked the reindeer in mid-transformation; back in his normal Brain Point, his face was contorted angrily, in it's cute sort of way. "Quit calling him that!"
Sanji's return smile was interrupted by a wall-trembling roar. He barely had time to turn around as a 500-pound pure bullet of muscle and fur came charging at them from the doors to the dungeon. At the last moment, Sanji raised a leg, bracing himself to guard against the full frontal assault of a mammoth-man hybrid.
"Ninety-three! NINETY-THREE!" howled the attacker.
"Concasse!" he yelled, after spinning a sideways kick into the Zoan-user's face. The massive, shaggy man flew into the wall and lay unmoving in the resulting dust cloud and crater.
Chopper was immediately rushing to the unconscious man's side—a man now, reverting from the red-eyed demon mammoth he had been moments before. He did a quick check of his vitals, and found his pulse erratic, his breathing laboured and he had a fever.
"He should be okay," he announced after a moment. He turned to Sanji unhappily. "I don't think he's one of the soldiers...I think he's been poisoned."
Sanji made a non-committal sound. "We're here to rescue Nami-swan and the others. He can wait."
A little dejectedly, the doctor nodded and took off at a dash beside his nakama. Down the stairs, through the busted jail door and into a very dark, underground corridor lined with cells and broken furniture they went.
The damage was bad here; above-ground, the palace had some broken ceiling tiles, a couple of cave-ins and a lot of dust. Here, however, the ceiling had collapsed in several places. The bars on the prison cells were bent and skewed, and Sanji had the feeling some of the broken ones weren't vacant until recently.
"Nami-swaaaan!" he yelled into the empty corridor. Only a whistling wind and the rattling of someone's tin cup in the distance answered him.
"Usopp! Brook!" Chopper echoed, trotting along with Sanji in tow. "Where are you?"
"Maybe they got out already and are headed to the ship," the cook suggested, taking a long drag of his cigarette. "Doesn't look like anyone's left here."
Chopper had stopped, too, and stared at a wall as the thoughts flitted through his mind. Neither of them were even a little winded, but with each passing moment, the kingdom's armed forces were gathering in every direction to converge on their position. If they spent too much time here, an army might come after them sooner than later.
The sound of footsteps interrupted his train of thought. Sanji blinked in surprise, still not used to seeing Brook in the flesh—but Brook it was, calmly striding towards them out of the shadows, dragging a hand along the wall to support himself.
"Brook!" Chopper cried with joy and relief, sprinting over to meet the musician.
"Are you alright?" Sanji asked. The first question he wanted to ask, he had to swallow—asking about Nami's whereabouts, in this case, needed to be secondary. His Nami-swan could eat solid food, for one: a feat the former skeleton hadn't exactly managed yet.
"Ah, I feel fine, thank you..." There was an odd lilt to Brook's voice, and his expression was both tired and dubious. He looked from Chopper to Sanji, as though seeing them for the first time. "Chopper-san...?"
"What's wrong?" Intuitive as ever, the reindeer was already putting on his stethoscope so that he could check on his patient.
"Where am I?"
Sanji's eyebrow twitched, and his mouth went dry. "You mean, you don't remember?"
"I recall being here with Mince-san, because I could not play the violin..." There was a strained, whimsical tone to his voice as his said that. "And they had taken someone to be executed. Are the others on board the ship?"
"We all came into the city to find you, Usopp and Nami," Chopper explained, tugging on the tall man's sleeve to make him crouch down to his level—which Brook did not, because he didn't seem to notice the doctor's attentions. "You might be dehydrated. It can cause confusion and short-term memory loss like this."
"Oh, I see." There was a bit of a laugh in those words, and Sanji relaxed a tiny bit. Then their musician looked at him, politely, to add, "My apologies for my rudeness, young man. I am Brook; may I ask your name?"
TBC