Asteria Nightmare

Part thirteen of a fanfiction by Velkyn Karma

Note: Sorry for the wait! Just as I finished my final edits on this, I was unexpectedly called to go out to dinner with some visiting family members.

Disclaimer: I do not own, or pretend to own, One Piece or any of its subsequent characters, plots or other ideas. That right belongs solely to Eiichiro Oda. The only thing that belongs to me here is the concept for the story.

"You're early, Lord Breeze."
"Of course I am. I had to make certain this wasn't a trap of some sort. This isn't a trap of some sort, right?"
~The Well of Ascension, Brandon Sanderson

Getting to the city walls took a little under a half hour of careful jogging, but the trip itself was uneventful. She and Sanji-kun dodged behind ancient, abandoned houses and down the centers of rocky, currently dry ditches that the navigator thought might have been the remains of a one-time irrigation system for the empty fields outside the city. Although they saw a few Nightmare patrols, they were able to keep out of sight of the roaming Harvesters and Shepherds, ducking behind and into the broken remains of the old civilization all around them until the hellish creatures had passed. The monsters didn't smell them either, thanks to Chopper. Before they had left their shelter, the reindeer had passed the two a small bottle of spray that would neutralize their scent.

"It will only last a short while," the doctor had explained, "that's why I didn't volunteer it for our preparations, but if it helps you not get caught you can take it."

Nami had to hand it to the little reindeer: the solution had done wonders. She couldn't even smell the heavy scent of cigarettes that had long since sunk into Sanji-kun's suits. It might not last long, but it would certainly help their reconnaissance mission.

So it was that they reached Oneirosa's towering walls without incident, ducking into the deep shadows at its base as they searched for some sort of opening. Sanji-kun pointed out the city's southern gates with a sharp, but silent, gesture. Nami had spotted them as well, but after a moment shook her head. While the heavy stone doors that had once blocked the entrance appeared to have long since been broken down, leaving the city permanently open and exposed on its southern side, the creatures were obviously intelligent enough to recognize this as a potential weakness. Harvesters crawled back and forth over Oneirosa's threshold, up the broken doors, even upside-down at the top of the gate archway. Sanji-kun could probably kill the creatures easily enough, but at the expense of advertising exactly where they were, and that wasn't a gamble Nami was willing to take.

"Come on," she breathed, voice barely audible, but Sanji-kun nodded immediately and followed after her as she trotted along the base of the wall, away from the creatures. She let him watch her back, and trailed one hand carefully along the old, crumbling stone of the city wall, keeping her eyes peeled for anything unusual. There was always more than one way into any city or town, she knew from her past experiences as a thief, even in newer cities still being cared for. Thieves could almost never leave by the common exits, not without getting caught. If there was a way out, there was a way in too. And with a city several hundred years in disrepair, the chances of a less than reputable entrance were even greater.

Not ten minutes later she found it, grinning triumphantly to herself at her success. A smaller gate, probably once used for mounted cavaliers or soldiers bypassing the crowds at the main gate, had been carved into the side of the wall ages ago. Once upon a time the doorway had probably been less than twice her height, although the door itself had long since vanished...probably rotted away, or destroyed. The Nightmares, probably the Generals, had blocked up the doorway with large, heavy stones. But the abominations clearly weren't made for building things, only destroying them, and the wall and stones had long since started crumbling, leaving cracks wide enough for a small human being.

Sanji-kun wanted to go first, but Nami vetoed him firmly, handing him her Clima-Tact after removing one of the cords to wrap around her fist. "I'm smaller than you, Sanji-kun," she stated firmly. "If anything is on the other side, I can probably get back through this crack faster than you can. It's safer for me to go first." He had protested as loudly as he dared, but she ignored him, wiggling into the largest of the cracks as she began to work her way into the city.

Sanji-kun fell silent—which she expected, since he would never go so far as to forcefully pull her back out—and she set her mind to her work. The crack in the wall was big enough for a person, but only barely, and was tricky to maneuver through. She had to walk sideways, sidestepping awkwardly over broken-down rubble at her feet, and had to practically hold her breath as she sucked in her chest (a minor disadvantage to her otherwise extremely beneficial cleavage; it was of no consequence, really). It was a good thing she'd taken off her Clima-Tact before starting—there was no way she'd be able to make it through, otherwise. But after several minutes she was finally able to work her way through to the other side, and poked her head carefully out of the wall into the interior of Oneirosa, her Sunny-cord wrapped hand at the ready.

She saw dusty, gray streets and broken down buildings that looked like they might have been shops once upon a time, but nothing moved, and she saw not a hint of a Nightmare.

"It's clear," she whispered back through the crack. "Hurry. And throw me my Clima-Tact first. Carefully."

Sanji-kun did as bid, carefully tossing the three pieces as close as he could with all the strange bends in the crack. Nami had to climb partway back in, but was able to retrieve her weapon easily enough, and replaced the weapon on the straps at her leg after re-affixing the Sunny's cord to it. Sanji-kun came next, wiggling his way through the crack as best as he was able. Once he got stuck for a moment, being much larger than Nami, and it was only thanks to his Red Leg-granted flexibility that he was able to maneuver his way out at all.

But at last he, too, was through, crouching next to her as he stretched his legs in preparation and checked that the sailcloth tied to his shoes was still intact. Nami nodded in quiet satisfaction. They were in, for now. That crack wouldn't be of much use tomorrow—they'd certainly never get Zoro and Robin through it in their current states, and Franky was too large to fit through it at all—but they hadn't been seen for now, and that suited her purposes fine.

"Keep an eye out for anything that might be useful," Nami said, trusting that Sanji-kun would actually be capable of finding useful things. "Anything that tells us where this Queen of the Night is, or where the Dreamshards might be kept. Anything that gives us an edge when we storm this place tomorrow. Once we know where to head, I can try to map out a route for us to take to get there fast."

"Of course, Nami-san," Sanji-kun said immediately, and he was already looking around, his one visible eye glancing about sharply as he searched for clues and threats alike. Doing the same, Nami took a deep breath and then slunk down the closest street, all of her senses on full alert for anything dangerous approaching.

They moved carefully but quickly, aware with each passing second of the sun falling still lower above them. Nami knew she definitely did not want to be caught in Oneirosa for very long after dark fell, even with all the precautions they'd taken, and was determined to make this self-given mission go as fast as possible while still being as efficient as she could. So she darted quietly between streets, behind ancient buildings and broken-down rubble that passed for cover, and kept her eyes open for anything, any clue, that they could use to find her nakama's Dreamshards. Sanji-kun kept pace with her easily, spreading out enough that they could cover the streets fully when searching, while still close enough to come to her aid if necessary.

But despite all their preparedness, Nami was quickly coming to realize after a mere fifteen minutes of efficient searching that they were getting nowhere. At first glance, the streets of Oneirosa had seemed well organized, arranged in neat blocks that would be easy to navigate and mentally record in her head. But she soon came to realize the city was anything but organized. The streets twisted and doubled back on themselves so frequently that Nami almost felt like she was trapped on a mobius strip, and it was a wonder the alleys led anywhere at all when their routes were so circular. After the third time stumbling across the same city square in as many minutes, she was beginning to wonder if the place could be navigated through at all (and also if this was how Zoro felt when he went anywhere). And that was before factoring in the wreckage of the city too; some streets were so blocked off with collapsed buildings and old rubble that they essentially functioned as dead-ends, making the explorations even more difficult. Thankfully, Sanji-kun was intelligent enough not to comment, and if she had any frustrated satisfaction from the whole mess at all, it was that he looked just as confused as she did.

Worse still were the patrols. It had become painfully obvious to the two Straw Hats that the creatures' nest of Oneirosa was patrolled frequently and heavily by all three of the combative types of Nightmares, and trying to avoid them was a nightmare in and of itself. All too frequently they would find themselves out in the middle of a street when the telltale sound of clicking spider legs or the slap of hundreds of propelling hands could be heard just up ahead. In those situations they had little choice but to drop whatever they were doing and dart for the nearest form of cover, crouching behind the broken skeletons of shops or homes, or inside buildings that creaked frighteningly in their old age, until the monstrous, frightening creatures passed. Once, when there was no other cover to be had, Sanji-kun had been forced to snatch her up and leap atop the nearest shop, thankfully only one story in height. The impact of landing had cracked the ancient roof and nearly sent the both of them plummeting through it, but they were able to scramble to a safer corner and anxiously wait for the clicking of six Harvesters to fade as the horrible creatures passed.

Even now, even with the ability to fight them off, and even with the experience of having killed more than one of the monsters herself, Nami nevertheless found herself shivering at the nearly tangible cloud of fear the creatures seemed to exude in the depths of their massive nest. She frequently glanced towards wherever Sanji-kun was hiding, reassuring herself that she wasn't alone after all. Now that she was here, she was glad he'd insisted upon coming. The city felt a little less hopeless than it would have if she were totally alone, apart from the Nightmares that had long since overrun it.

Still, they did make a little progress, for all their frustrations. Despite getting turned around so many times, Nami was pretty sure they were still managing to go north, where she assumed the center of the city was. It was difficult to say, though. The sun was getting very low in the sky now, and even though the buildings were old and crumbling they still towered above her, obscuring much of the sky from view. Still, she trusted her instincts, and she'd always been good at instinctively knowing the cardinal directions, at least. And while it was extremely difficult to mentally map out the city in her head as they travelled, for every dead end or turnabout she made sure she memorized some portion of her surroundings, a particular building or an odd-shaped hole in the cobblestones, as a landmark to make sure they didn't take the wrong route again.

Sanji-kun was able to make a discovery, too, perhaps half an hour into their search. They had reached another square in the city—Oneirosa seemed to have quite a lot of them, open spaces with the broken remains of fountains or statues that had probably once been ideal gathering places back in its heyday—and after careful observation had decided to cross it. The squares were tricky; running across them was a risk, because there was no place to hide if a patrol decided to arrive at that moment, out in the open. But as far as Nami could tell they needed to move forward, on the other side, in order to move further into the heart of the city.

So they began the dash across, but halfway Sanji-kun suddenly stopped and veered towards the center of the clearing, where a pile of cracked stones indicated a structure of some sort that had once stood there. It took Nami several seconds to realize she couldn't hear Sanji-kun's footsteps behind her anymore, and then she slid to a stop, swearing under her breath as she turned around to rejoin him.

"What are you doing?" she hissed lowly, trying very hard to not start yelling—that certainly wouldn't help matters any. "We're going to get caught!"

"My apologies, Nami-san," Sanji-kun said immediately. "I just...I thought I saw something." He gestured to the stones on the broken cobbles, and now that she was closer Nami realized several of them were broad and flat, if a bit worn from age.

"They look like...signposts?" she observed slowly, frowning. "And is that writing?"

"That's what I thought," Sanji-kun agreed. "And I think it is, look..." Crouching down next to one of the flat tablets, he brushed some of the dust and dirt from its face and pointed triumphantly at one of the three characters carved into its surface. "This is the one Robin-chan taught us!"

"That's the dream character, alright," Nami agreed, brushing her hair behind her ear as she looked at the small tablet over Sanji-kun's shoulder. "The second one, that one that really worried her...the different one." She glanced at the other two characters that 'dream' was next to, but they were incomprehensible to her, a collection of more hard shapes and squiggly lines that meant nothing at all as far as she were concerned. She hissed in frustration. Why did Robin have to have her dream stolen? This was probably a very important hint to the organization of the city, and they couldn't even read it without her!

"There were other tablets like this too," Sanji-kun said, tapping the flat bit of stone as he spoke. "At the corners of some of the bigger streets, and I think I saw parts of one in another city square. This is the first one that looked mostly intact, though. I think they're supposed to be like street signs."

"Good work, Sanji-kun," she congratulated him, and even in the depths of this Nightmare nest his face split into an enormous lovesick grin at her praise. Thankfully he was at least smart enough not to start shouting with delight; that would certainly attract all the Nightmares in the area. "Can you tell which way that particular one was pointing? If it's giving directions to something related to dreams, I think it's a safe bet that we want to find it."

Sanji-kun nodded, and pushed several of the tablets around like puzzle pieces, trying to roughly reconstruct the ancient signpost from its broken-down state. The stones grated alarmingly on the cobbles, and Nami winced, glancing around the clearing anxiously. She expected the Nightmares to come trampling into the clearing after them, screaming bloody murder and blasting them with waves of anxiety and fear. Thankfully none of the creatures showed up, and moments later Sanji-kun stood.

"It's hard to say," he finally muttered with a sigh. "I'm a cook, not an archaeologist. If only Robin-chan were here—" He grimaced, shook his head as he cut himself off, and continued with forced calm and a quick gesture, "I think it's this way, though."

Nami didn't hesitate, darting off down the street Sanji-kun pointed to. They had spent too much time in this clearing already, and she absolutely did not want to be spotted. Sanji-kun followed hot on her heels, looking just as determined as she felt.

From there, the going was slightly easier—Nami thought, anyway. They found several more of the signposts at regular intervals, sometimes planted at the end of streets, other times located in the middle of other clearings. Most of these were in poor condition, but there was usually enough left for them to roughly reconstruct the signposts or at least make an educated guess as to the directions they were giving, and they always looked for and followed the 'dream' character when they could. It was ultimately a shot in the dark, and she still wasn't entirely sure what it was they were heading towards, but she had a good feeling—relatively speaking—about the direction they were heading in. As far as she could tell, they were still heading generally north, although it wasn't always easy to gauge; the signs pointed them in unusual directions, twisting sideways and even backwards, but the unusual curves of the city's routes ultimately led to them moving forward in the end. It felt a bit like running around in a maze based off a celtic knot she'd seen on a ring back on Adamantina. But they were moving north, and progress was progress.

And she could tell they were progressing in another way, too, because the patrols were getting more frequent, and the number of Nightmares they had to hide from was rising.

At first Nami almost didn't notice. By now, a good forty-five minutes into their search, it was practically second nature to drop everything and dart for the nearest hiding place at the sounds of clicking, scraping, and hissing ahead or behind them, and it took her a while to realize she was hearing those sounds increasingly more often. The further they followed the signposts' estimated directions into Oneirosa, though, the more they had to stop for patrols, and the longer it took for the much larger sizes of the groups to pass. It was terrifying to see so many of the creatures so close, frequently only an arms-length or two away from wherever she'd chosen to hide as they shuffled and clicked past indifferently, but at the same time it was probably a good sign. After all, her nakama's dreams would have been taken deep into the heart of the Nightmares' nest, where the Queen of the Night almost certainly resided, and wherever the majority of them gathered was probably where they needed to go.

Unfortunately it made progressing much further very difficult. The Nightmare patrols were becoming too frequent now, and barely had Nami and Sanji-kun crawled their way out of their hiding places before the next tell-tale signs of yet another traveling pack of Nightmares came, forcing them to go right back into hiding. There had even been one terrifying ten-minute stretch of time during which the Nightmares hadn't let up at all, forcing Nami to crouch in a shivering panic behind a small pile of rubble that felt entirely too inadequate and exposed as a hiding place. She spent the frighteningly long time-span clutching one section of her Clima-Tact and wondering if she would be able to escape at all, or if the creatures would just keep coming for an eternity until she had rotted away into dust like everything else in this accursed city. She hadn't even been able to see Sanji-kun then, hiding as he was on the opposite side of the street, and that had been the one moment of time during which she felt truly alone and abandoned in the whole world; the only human left in Oneirosa, on Asteria...hell, maybe in the Grand Line, in the world.

The Nightmares' steady traffic had eventually let up, however, and both Nami and Sanji-kun gratefully took the opportunity to leap from their hiding places and dart back down the street the way they'd come, hiding in a side-alley while catching their breath and their senses again.

"We can't go forward this way anymore," Nami panted softly under her breath. Her shivering had mostly stopped by now, but she still felt very cold, and it had nothing to do with the setting sun or the temperature in the city. Sanji-kun only nodded in agreement, his one visible eye shifting between watching her and the streets for more of the creatures.

"But we have to still keep going forward," Nami said stubbornly, after a moment, trying to organize her thoughts. "We know the Nightmares live up ahead, but there's still dozens, maybe hundreds of buildings to choose from, and we still don't know where those Dreamshards are being kept."

"We could fight," Sanji-kun said, tapping one of his shoes on the ground, the way he always did before he unleashed an especially powerful attack. But his voice sounded doubtful, and there was a frown on his face.

Nami shook her head. "Not an option," she said firmly. "There's too many for you and me to fight on our own, even with the Sunny to help us. Even if we could, the things would be even more wary tomorrow, and we don't want to let them prepare at all." Sanji-kun said nothing, and she paced back and forth, trying to think.

It clicked for her suddenly. "The roofs," she said. "Sanji-kun, can you get us on the buildings?"

He looked immediately wary. "Probably," he said, still sounding doubtful, "But Nami-san, last time that happened the roof almost caved in on us. I don't think it's safe."

"We'll have to be careful," she said firmly, "But I think it's possible. We've seen Generals up there, right? They have to weigh more than we do." That was true. Although the majority of the Nightmares seemed to prefer traveling on the ground, on the streets, they had seen one or two Generals leaping between the tops of buildings above them; they had been especially difficult to hide from. Nami did not like the thought of running into one of those up on the rooftops, but it was probably a safer way to travel than down on the streets. She suspected the Shepherds and Harvesters were either too heavy or too cumbersome to traverse the buildings, and she hadn't seen too many of the Generals up there, either.

Sanji-kun still looked concerned, but after a moment he nodded. "Okay," he said. "Just give me a second to scout it out, first." And before she could protest he'd already crouched deeply and leapt straight up, catching the edge of a low roof with one hand and clambering his way up, over, and out of her line of vision. Nami winced despite herself—although Sanji-kun would never, ever admit it, he was clearly on the edge of exhaustion by now. Normally he would have been able to make that leap without using his hands at all, or risk cutting them up on the rough, uneven stone. More than ever she was aware of how quickly they had to finish up this mission.

Sanji-kun was only gone for five minutes—she counted every second in her head—although it felt like far longer. Then he leapt down next to her, stumbling slightly, another testament to his wearing strength. "It looks safe," he said after a moment. "I didn't see any Nightmares up there, and there's a pretty decent route up to one of the taller buildings. Roofs seem pretty firm too. And you're not going to believe what I saw..."

He sounded surprised, maybe even awed, and Nami was intrigued despite herself. She let him pick her up to transport them up to the roofs again, and after several heart-stopping (but not nearly as fast as usual) near-vertical leaps he set her down again on a patch of relatively sturdy stone. They were on one of the taller buildings in Oneirosa now, one that had stayed surprisingly well intact despite the hundreds of years of aging and lack of upkeep.

"Look," Sanji-kun said, pointing north. The surprise was still in his voice. Nami turned to look in the direction he was pointing at—and gasped at what her eyes met.

There was a crystal spire rising from what looked like the dead center of the city. It was thick, at least three or four times the width of the Sunny's main mast, and it towered over the other buildings clustered near it, like an adult among toddlers. The spire was set atop a wide dome, also made of crystal, which dove downward into a series of crystalline pillars and other, smaller domes that eventually vanished amongst the buildings.

It was a building as well, Nami realized after a moment of awed staring; not just a construct or statue made out of crystal, but a genuine building, large enough to contain hundreds of people. And unlike the other, dilapidated shops and homes surrounding it, the crystalline construction bore no signs of disrepair. Its many domes and pillars stood strong and tall, glittering fiercely in the last rays of the sun, reflecting myriads of colors all around itself like a hundred thousand prisms that had been seamlessly melded together merely for the pleasure of the building's viewers. It was a stunningly beautiful sight, one Nami did not ever expect to see in the middle of this Nightmare-infested hell.

"It looks like a Dreamshard," Sanji-kun said next to her, still sounding just as shocked as she now felt. "Like somebody took a huge Dreamshard and just carved it up."

"You're right," Nami said, and frowned. Something about that sounded familiar...

"Dreams," she said suddenly. "Back in the first village we came to, Robin translated something about a Temple of Dreams. She mentioned it again when we were hiding in Remia. This must be it...that is the Temple of Dreams."

"Brilliant, Nami-san," Sanji-kun said, although his voice still contained some measure of surprise at the fantastic sight. "But...Robin-chan also said the Nightmares came from Oneirosa. The Temple is in the middle of the city, where the Nightmares seem to come from..."

He let it hang, but Nami had already come to the same conclusion. "They're tied to that Temple some how," she said, her voice grim. "I'm willing to bet Luffy's, Zoro's, and Robin's Dreamshards are in there, somewhere. And the Queen of the Night, too, whatever she is."

"Probably," Sanji-kun agreed, and he, too, looked grim. Suddenly, for all its beauty, the Temple of Dreams felt dark, concealing, as though the building itself was doing its level best to keep them from helping their friends. Already it was giving Nami the same crawling feeling in her stomach that she got whenever the Nightmares passed, and she felt deeply with every fiber of her being that she did not want to get any closer to it than she already was. There was something evil in there, something so dangerous and cold and cruel that it had somehow contributed to the end of a civilization hundreds of years ago, and she wanted no part of it.

But if it was her Dreamshard in there, Luffy wouldn't stop. If it meant retrieving her dream for her, Luffy would punch furious holes in every single Nightmare and every crystal dome; Zoro would slice the pillars to dust, leave no hiding place unexposed; Robin would search every crack and crevice with her hundreds of hands for the little glimmer of hope that belonged to her nakama. Nami knew that without a shadow of a doubt, and knew without hesitation that even if her every instinct, her every fear, screamed that she should not take a step closer, that she would do it anyway for them.

"Let's go," Nami said, gripping her Clima-Tact tightly for reassurance. "It's still a ways away, and we need to find the fastest way there for tomorrow, and see what we're up against."

"Of course, Nami-san!" Sanji-kun agreed immediately. "I won't let anything happen to you, Nami-san, but...be careful anyway."

"You don't have to tell me that," she muttered under her breath, and set off for the roof edge, towards the closest nearby building. A quick glance allowed her to judge the distance, and, using the Clima-Tact as an improvised vaulting pole, she was able to launch herself across. Sanji-kun followed with a quick jump of his own.

It was a little easier to move over the rooftops after that, although traveling by building-top offered its own challenges. They didn't have to be quite as careful about the patrols in the streets, especially if they consisted of only Harvesters; the creatures couldn't look up, so as long as they didn't make any loud noises or cast shadows down onto the cobblestones they could leap from building to building whenever they chose. They did have to keep a lookout for Generals traveling by rooftop with them, but they were usually far away, and it was easy enough to crouch behind rooftop rubble to avoid detection on the rare occasion that one of the snake-armed creatures passed too close.

A more pressing concern was the stability of the rooftops. Most of them were decently sound, but one or two cracked alarmingly under their weights when they landed or walked. Twice Sanji-kun, who weighed more than she did, actually did break through the stone surfaces. The first time it had only been one foot, but the second time he nearly crashed through to the room below with a barely-stifled curse, and only a quick leap had saved them both. They'd been afraid they had attracted the attention of the Nightmares then for sure, and spent a terrifying five minutes huddled two buildings over waiting for an attack. But nothing came for them, and they continued on more carefully after that.

The entire time Nami kept a close watch on the streets below, trying to memorize them as best as possible for an assault tomorrow. While the rooftops were certainly more linear, there was no way they'd be able to travel as a full group up here, especially when Zoro and Robin wouldn't be able to make the jumps on their own. And if Sanji-kun was heavy enough to break through in some places, she was certain that mostly-metal Franky, or Chopper in some of his larger forms, wouldn't be supported at all up here. So she mapped out the city mentally from above, burning the images of the streets below her into her mind over and over as she leapt over them.

Until at last they were as close as Nami was sure they could possibly get, without being discovered. They were still some six blocks distant from the Temple of Dreams, which did not sit very well with her, but there was nothing else they could really do to get closer.

Because even at this distance, they could see the Temple grounds, buildings, and streets ahead were swarming with Nightmares of all kinds. Generals, Shepherds, Harvesters...the creatures consisted of one seething mass, walking over each other, barely noticing the others' presence, crawling up and down and over walls, floors, roofs, rubble. Any surface available was covered in the disgusting creatures, like a roiling anthill after a miniscule scrap of food was dropped on it. The only surface that remained pristine, uncluttered with the filthy mismatched creatures, was the Temple of Dreams. The creatures did not touch its crystal surfaces, although Nami was sure the building wasn't repelling them completely. She couldn't see any entranceways into the Temple from here—six blocks of broken city buildings still blocked her vision—but she was positive the creatures were able to get inside it as well.

They ducked down quickly behind the raised ridge of the building they were currently standing on, and Sanji-kun swore under his breath, muttering something about shitty spiders. He reached inside his suit jacket for a cigarette, hesitated, and then almost sullenly replaced it and the carton back inside his inner coat pocket.

"That's a lot of Nightmares," Nami said with a grimace. "I didn't realize there were so many...that's more than even the small army that attacked us when we left Remia!"

Sanji-kun nodded grimly, and added, "I didn't see any of those Attendants, either. Wherever they are, these things obviously try to keep them protected. Those Dreamshards could still be anywhere."

Nami shook her head in frustration. "They're probably inside that Temple," she said after a moment, but that still didn't help matters any. The Temple of Dreams was enormous, large enough to rival a small palace, and even if they could get inside it finding three small Dreamshards would be all but impossible.

"You're right," Sanji-kun agreed. "The Temple is the most likely place to check. But we can't do anything else here, Nami-san. There's no way we can get closer without starting a fight, and it's dark now."

Nami looked up in surprise at the sky. Sanji-kun was right. There were still a few soft pink and orange lines off in the distance, the last hints of the sun, but for the most part night had fallen, casting a hazy dark blue color over her surroundings. How had the time gone so quickly?

But she suddenly realized how imperative it was that they get out of Oneirosa now, and she nodded, acknowledging Sanji-kun's perfectly valid point. "Let's leave," she said, shivering slightly as she glanced around at the cold blue tones of the city. "We'll report what we found to the others, eat, sleep...and get ready for tomorrow."

The cook nodded, and they set off back over the rooftops, moving as fast as they could in the dark without risking the attention of the Nightmares or a broken neck. Nami followed the route she had traced one more time, committing each and every twist and turn to memory as she leapt over the streets. She could see Sanji-kun glancing below them with a look of concentration on his face, doing just the same. So much the better. If one of them were knocked out, or Heaven forbid had their Dreamshard stolen, the other would at least be able to guide.

It took a frightening hour to find their way back in the dark, even traveling by rooftop, and by then Sanji-kun wasn't even attempting to hide his fatigue anymore—an even more dangerous sign that they had to get out of there fast. For one terrifying moment, as they leapt down to the streets, Nami was afraid the Nightmares had somehow discovered their entry and had blocked off the crack they'd used to break in while she and Sanji-kun were exploring. Her eyes passed over it several times, and to her swimming, tired vision had difficulty acknowledging the tiny route. But eventually she found it and squeezed her way through carefully, Sanji-kun tossing her weapon after her and following just behind. Then they were running as fast as they could from the walls, darting between cover as they slipped away from the towering walls of Oneirosa to report what they had discovered—good and bad.

Hahaha. They went north until they couldn't go north anymore, and then they went north by Zoro's definition. This was a very northward chapter. Except when they left. I guess that was south.

~Velkynkarma