I do not own Bleach nor One Piece. I am not going to say anything witty to that effect about what would be if I did for either or preferably both...because I'm greedy like that!With that said, this story is for entertainment purposes only and I hope you I hope you enjoy this whilst I brood.
A Reaper amongst Straw Hats
Chapter 6: Oh the stories to tell...
Enies Lobby
Burtch!
A soot covered eye under a frizzled afro of orange hair cracked open in pure horror as its owner quickly came to realize that the train car he was in moved.
"Oh dear god... not again!"
Grrrt-Thunk!
Already he was crawling his way to the nearest door he could see, incidentally it was also the furthest door from himself due to his panicked state overriding any compulsion to think logically. Sadly however though the open door he saw the train was on the move and already gaining speed...
THUMP! SLAM!
... And whatever they had run over had slammed the door shut. "Nooo!"
"WOOT-WOOT!"
XVX
Three minutes later
"WOOT-WOOT!"
BA-THUMP!
Seeing as he was the only one in the cabin he couldn't help but feel mildly relieved upon letting out a pathetic whimper, one which begged whatever god was out there that the train wasn't flying again. That this mild feeling of weightlessness which threatened to lift him off the floor was just some sort of electricity induced hallucination of them falling once more!
CRASH!
Sadly all his hopes were dashed as he was smashed against the wall as a disorganized mass of blackened, twitching limbs and mildly crooked body parts. As the shrieking of metal on stone resonated within his ears like some unholy beast shrieking in pain, the train began to tumble once more with a vicious familiarity he wished he wasn't acquainted with. Before long he and just about everything else came to be planted into another wall, he himself groaning in both pain and defeat as the train slammed onto its side and came to a grinding halt.
A part of him wanted to move to take stock of the situation he found himself in, yet at the same time he didn't want to either. Between his aching body, spasming muscles and the general lack of strength he was tempted to stay there and fall asleep with the mild hope that either when he woke up that this was all a dream, specifically that he didn't endure a nightmarish train with justified lunatics aboard it who may or may not have electrocuted him as collateral damage, or else that when he woke up he was as far from the Rocket Man as he could be... and that it was destroyed for good measure. Sadly however he couldn't help but suspect that he wouldn't get the luxury of a dreamless, exhaustion induced sleep as the familiar, vigorous yells of a pirate captain managed to creep through the battered wooden walls. Soon enough a chorus of shouts followed the previous one. When it died down he found himself straining to hear anything else be it movement or otherwise only to find silence permeating the cabin.
Scratch that. Someone was speaking again. He couldn't hear a legitimate word but they were speaking loudly enough to be heard... Not that it helped him in the least.
With a grunt he managed to push himself up into a sitting position once more and rested himself against the wall. As he waited for what may come, whatever it is, he decided to at least try to knock some of the soot off his person.
"WHAT?!"
Despite his fatigue which had him accidently whack the back of his head against the wall with a pained grimace, he couldn't help but ponder what that unified shout was about as he stared at the looming door above him. Regardless the shouting continued as if they were having an obnoxiously loud conversation with someone. Not that he could hear them word for word.
Eventually it died down and, with nothing better to do, begrudgingly he tried to find what rest he could in his spot to recoup his stamina. The train ride had certainly done him no favors. The lightning induced coma was certainly detrimental to his health no matter the case.
Cr-brrrn!
With an annoyed glare he couldn't help but stare up at the source which was evidently the door as a familiar bob of orange hair peered down at him in mild surprise.
XVX
Ten minutes later
"Can you remind me how this came to happen?" Ichigo came to rhetorically ask as he watched the scenery of a nondescript stone hallway rush past him. He had his arms crossed over his chest, a scowl on his face the likes of which was hardly seen as he bounced up and down along the back of Water Seven's premier criminal Franky, courtesy of a pair of ropes lashed around his shoulders to tie him to the blue haired man.
"You tell me Kid! You tell me!" Franky half heartedly snarled as he gazed as hard as he could into each room with an open door as well as any signs placed upon the closed doors within the hallway. "Just be sure to tell me if you spot the kitchen! I already used more than two bottles today and I'm running on fumes! If they catch us now then you better hope you can muster up the energy to stand you lazy bastard!"
"Yeah, sure..." Ichigo grumbled, his brow furrowed to an annoyed crease. He, like Franky, was not amused in the least by this predicament. And frankly, no pun intended, he'd rather be staggering down the halls under his own, albeit limited, power if they needed him that badly! But no. As it stood the yelling he heard earlier was mostly of them speaking to someone who said they were a part of CP9. This person also had a loud mouth, both figuratively and literally, telling them that apparently that not only where the other members lurking elsewhere within the very tower they were running in, split up in as a matter of fact, but each member had a key which would unlock the stone handcuffs that both bound Robin and sealed her devil fruit powers simultaneously by mere contact. More specifically only one of the assassins of CP9 had a key which unlocked the handcuffs, the others being decoys. With that in mind and under threat of the assassins ditching their keys should they go after Robin first whom was being escorted to the Gates of Justice at this very moment, the Straw Hats plus Franky and himself had came to the conclusion of splitting up... more or less; Luffy had long since ran off before anyone thought to check for Ichigo in the train and bring him up to speed. Of course given his state was now worse than before, rather than be left behind with Kokoro, her granddaughter and pet, they deemed that in the event of an emergency it was most likely best that one of them carried Ichigo till he recovered, eliminating a need to spend valuable energy in rushing from one place to another. On paper it sounded like a valid enough idea. In reality though where most of the people present had a fighting style that required both great mobility and free agility alongside the occasional use of wit... neither he nor Franky were particularly fond with the final result of the former being tied to the back of the latter.
"Hm?! That area looks like a kitchen!" Franky suddenly yelled as he began to run faster. Try as he might however, Ichigo wasn't able to see where they were going in the least.
Crash!
The older man came to a rough, halting stop however as someone not only made their presence known by smashing a set of crates, or at least that's what it sounded like to the foreman, but he was laughing an odd laugh as well.
"Chapapapapa! I'm Silent Fukurou! I like rumors! Do you want the key?"
"Damn it!" Franky growled as he tugged at the rope and slipped it off. "I still haven't refilled my cola yet! I hope you got enough energy to fight, Kid!" In the meantime the man, a particularly rotund man with a ball shaped body and a zipper for a mouth of all things as he came to learn, laughed his odd laugh at them as Ichigo staggered away like he was a drunk.
As he staggered away and grabbed at a wall for support, Franky lunged in, fists brought close to his body in a boxer's stance. "Franky—" he yelled as Fukurou tensed up and took the first hit, "—Boxing!" The larger man took the next it and the one after that, all the while his eyes had become white and blank with pain. Franky took a step back and threw a forth punch but the time it took for him to prepare was enough for the ball-shaped man to gather his wits and simply vanish as if he had teleported. Though Ichigo didn't exactly see where he disappeared to, Fukurou's large mass was hard to miss when he reappeared out of thin air, grabbed a decorative shelf of iron lining the walls above them and perched himself on the wall whilst roughly coughing. "What's with your punches? You're no ordinary human!"
Though guarded, Franky's posture relaxed a bit as he seemingly observed the CP9 agent. "No matter how much you harden your body to make it like iron, my fists are real iron," he answered. A moment later he smirked. "Oi! Kid!" Ichigo perked up as he pushed himself off the wall yet kept a hand on it all the same. "The Kitchen is nearby. Be sure to at least get me three bottles of cola if you find any!"
His brow furrowed in mild confusion but he nodded all the same with a low "alright." He had heard his fair share of rumors between his coworkers, regular people he was simply close enough to overhear and even the sailors who came in for ship repairs, upgrades and purchases. Cyborgs, evidently, were common enough to be heard of but seldom encountered much like Power Holders, the eaters of Devil Fruits. The most common type that was encountered were simply people with obvious prosthetic limbs made for combat, or at least they were more easily spotted than others. But there were tales of more subtle alterations, often those attributed to secret societies and the like in terms of efficient assassins and indomitable bodyguards who ran on odd sources of fuel for their abilities... Apparently not only Franky was a cyborg himself but it seemed his own power source was cola of all things... He could take a few wild guesses as to how that was possible, but it didn't make it any less ludicrous to him.
Grunting himself, he unsteadily made his way to the open door of the kitchen as marked by a set of open crates filled with fruits and vegetables. He barely had gotten close enough to graze them when Fukurou appeared once more in a flicker and swung at him with an open palm as if it smack him into the wall.
"STRONG RIGHT!"
Only for he himself to be bashed into the wall as half of a hairy arm smashed into the agent and grab onto him. "Your fight's with me you wimp!" Franky roared as he used his remaining hand to grab onto the chain and reel the larger man away from Ichigo.
Gladly enough Ichigo took the chance and ushered himself further. As he carefully navigated through the pulped and smashed edibles so as to avoid slipping he grabbed at his badge as a precaution...
Soon enough he reached the threshold of the kitchen and slipped through it. He glanced over his shoulder and found Franky utilizing the chain of his arm as a flail which bashed the CP9 agent against the walls whilst simultaneously keeping him from fleeing. Not wanting to leave things to chance however, Ichigo grabbed at the closed the door as a modicum of defense if not a last minute warning.
"Now where to find cola..."
The kitchen was what one would expect for a tower as large as it was. Perhaps even larger. Numerous counters with kitchen utensils and abandoned food in various states of preparation atop of which were lined along the middle of the room, leaving the sides wide open for the hustle and bustle of dishes, orders and casual would-be snackers coming to and fro. On the ceiling, on the hooks attached to said ceiling, were various haunches of meat, some of which looked to have been in varying states of preparation as well before everyone evacuated. Off to the sides, the back of the room from where he stood and to his right, was an oaken door and an exceptionally large fridge respectively. Seeing as he was nearest to the fridge he went to it first.
Crash!
He stopped altogether and rested his hand along a counter that ran along the wall adjacent to the fridge as he spied on the dust cloud at the other side of the fridge. As the smoke dissipated he was quick to make out a giant of a man in a black suit garnished with a green tie standing at the hole in the wall. His hair was exceptionally long, reaching all the way down to his waist in as semi-wild locks of white-pink hair. In his hands was a staff with a ring on the end of which that bore two individual rings within its loop, a khakkara if he recalled correctly. But most distinguishable of all was the face the man had his face painted much like a kabuki actor, his face white whilst, his eyes given eyeliner and his lips painted with a dark blue lipstick. To add onto his kabuki appearance was a pair of zori on his feet where green socks protected his feet. Before him and on the grown was a man, a especially hairy one liken to a gorilla or perhaps America's bigfoot minus the exposed skin, wearing maroon shorts, a red jacket, a blue backpack with a small white X on which, and a pink top hat... Chopper, most likely in his 'human' form.
"Damn it! Three minutes have already passed? I used a rumble ball too soon." He looked up at the man as he was quietly, overdramatically posing as Chopper spoke to himself. "What am I going to do?"
Not knowing what he was talking about and thus far unnoticed, not wanting to chance a fight too soon he quietly crept forwarf much to his teeth gritting chagrin; as much as he would've liked to help, the mere fact that he needed to support himself for the most part to get to one point to another did not speak well for his chances in a fight. Ichigo quietly crept forward to the fridge.
"Yoyoi!" The man standing above Chopper proclaimed as he began to spin his staff in hand. The reindeer, as much as he looked otherwise, began to crawl away, incidentally towards Ichigo whom had yet to be noticed by some strange luck. "Disappear from this world! This is the finishing blow! Yoyoi—" He took a step forward in a charge only for the doctor to scramble to his feet, yank the door to the fridge open without even looking and braced himself against it as the man slammed into it without realizing it. Stunned, he barely offered any resistance as the reindeer yelled "you bastard!" as he slammed him inside the fridge and, after discovering a lock, locked him inside it...
"... I was going to check that for cola," Ichigo deadpanned, eliciting a shocked cry from Chooper as he spun around and gawked at him.
"Huh—wha... What are you doing here?!" he cried as he clutched at his chest as if to prevent a heart attack.
Ichigo with a deadpan glare pointed at the fridge, unfettered in the least by the Straw Hat. "Franky sent me in here to get him some cola... and I was going to see if that fridge had any."
"Huh? Franky?" Chopper tilted his head in confusion. In return Ichigo palmed at his own face.
"The guy with the blue hair," he mumbled loud enough to be heard.
"Ah! The punk!" He didn't dignify that with a response. "Why should I help you help him? He's the reason Usopp left!"
With a quiet groan he peered out from a gap between his fingers and glared at the smoldering doctor. "Because," he ground out, "assuming I was even at fifty percent in the next hour, do you really want to turn away all the help you can get in rescuing Robin?"
Immediately the reindeer looked up with tears in his eyes as he bit at his bottom lip. "I don't! Robin!" he cried. In the meantime Ichigo palmed his face again despite already palming his face to begin with. "Just get three bottles of cola," he muttered.
"Huh? Why cola?"
"Because," he drew his hand away to bluntly glower at him, "apparently Franky is a vyborg who runs on cola to power himself. Or at least empower his attacks."
Chopper stared at him for a moment with a stern, severe frown on his face. "What kind of idiot actually gets stronger with cola?"
"Apparently Franky! Now get the cola if it's in there!" Ichigo barked as he pointed at the fridge with his free hand.
"Whaah?! Why me?!" Chopper shot back almost frantically.
"Because I have to hold onto this counter to stand straight!" Ichigo roared with a clenched fist held next to his face, his teeth grinding as he glares daggers at him. "On top of that, YOU shoved him in there to begin with! Your mess!"
With a grimace and a bit of trepidation he turned to the fridge. "Well he is on our side now..." he grumbled before steeling himself. "If I open and close the door within a second, he can't come out!" he reasoned to himself as he grabbed at the door's handle with one hand and gripped the locking mechanism. "Here we go!"
Click-Poom!
"Yoyoi! The door has—"
Tinkle!
Slam-Click!
"Here!" he sighed in relief as he handed Ichigo three bottles. Ichigo only stared at him in an incredulous, deadpan manner in return. Curious, he looked down and quickly discovered that not only were the bottles red but, upon grabbing one and holding it up to look at the label, found the image of a tomato on it.
"I'm not going to go all the way there and make my way back if he throws a fit about this."
"Alright!" Chopper sighed as he set the bottles onto the counter and once more took a hold of the fridge's handle.
Click-Poom!
"Yoyoi! The door has—"
Tinkle!
Slam-Click!
"Here!" Again he handed Ichigo three glass bottles. He was quicker to notice his annoyed stare and this looked to the bottles once more to find them not only yellow but a generic symbol for tea stamped on their labels. "You sure—?"
"Just keep going."
With a groan the humanoid reindeer again grabbed the handle and the lock.
Click-Poom!
"Yoyoi! The door has—"
Tinkle!
Slam-Click!
"Here!" He handed Ichigo three more bottles only to hesitate when he was scrutinizing the bottles. He held one up, an unusual gourd design, and red the band and its print before presenting it to Ichigo. "Look! Cola!"
"I see that," he bit back with a mild growl in his response. A moment later he calmed himself and jerked his thumb back towards the door from where he came from. "Sorry to ask you this though, but, could you give them to Franky for me?"
"Huh? Why?" He tilted his head in evident confusion. It was quickly lost when Ichigo pointed to the fact that he hadn't let go of the counter, dawning on him the fact Ichigo still felt weary. "Oh, right. You haven't recovered yet..." He looked pensive for a moment as he chewed on his bottom lip before nodding to himself. "Right! Stay here! I might just have something to help you out when I get back!" Immediately he dashed past Ichigo who was in the midst of a mild groan.
"And where exactly am I to go?" he mumbled to himself. He switched hands and began to hobble away, just in case—
BANMF!
-the big one from before smashed his way out of the fridge.
"I... I... I... I..."
Hesitantly Ichigo looked over his shoulder with a sweat drop clinging to his head as smoke now filled the majority of the room. Actually it seemed more like a set of flour sacks were obliterated by the fridge door that was embedded in one of the kitchen isles.
"I... I... I... I... I..."
A hand stuck through, palm flat and fingers spread. Soon enough the smokescreen cleared to showcase the entirety of the man, cheeks swollen and littered with the remnants of food... Blinking, Ichigo had to do a double take by turning fully around to indeed confirm that in the matter of minutes he had been in the fridge, the 'giant' had indeed been fattened up to irregular proportions. "I had a feast!"
Awed and stunned, Ichigo offered nothing more than a blank, incredulous, disbelieving stare...
"Yoyoi!" The man snapped the end of his staff against the ground with such force it rattled the rings on it jingle whilst the man faced him. "I do not recall seeing you before!" he declared with a dramatic roll of his head. "Are you... Are you... Are you..." He began to hop away to his right, away from the fridge with one leg curled but held up in the air whilst the other did the hopping. "Are you... Are you..." He began to hop back to where he was before. "Are you... one of the Straw Hats?" He slapped his foot against the ground and slammed his staff hard enough on the ground to again jostle the rings on it once more whilst he scrutinized him with one eye, the other squinted shut.
"No," he answered honestly though he couldn't help but feel his flesh crawling in anticipation as the taller man stared down at him. Already his senses where kicking into high gear as he gripped the badge a little harder for a fight to come.
"Then you must be..."
Ichigo squinted at him.
"Must be..."
His gripped tightened once more.
"Must be..."
He readied to vault himself away from the edge.
"A visitor?"
He almost face faulted... "Yes..."
"Ah, then," he held out a hand. "Would you be so kind," he annunciated as he dramatically rolled his head, "as to show me your visitor's pass?"
Ichigo could feel the blood drain from his face as he realized his short lived luck had ran out. Something the giant of a man quickly realized with a grim frown. "I see..." He gripped his staff with both hands and slammed the butt end on the ground. "If you really are a visitor whom has tragically lost his pass then I apologize! But by circumstance I must take caution and assume the worst! For what it's worth I'll make your death as swift as and as beautiful as sakura blossoms in the wind! Life Return!" His hair began to lift and wave as if it were alive, aided only slightly by some unfelt wind glancing through the kitchen. "Digest!" While he couldn't vouch for the rest of his body, his face inexplicably became skinny enough for his skin to be taut, stretching across his face almost forcibly as all the fat he mysteriously gained had vanished. "Absorb!" A moment later his face and presumably his body hidden underneath his suit regained its normal appearance much to the fullbringer's wide-eyed shock.
"You don't see that every day," he muttered to himself as the larger man took a step back, his staff overhead in both hands with the end pointed at him.
"Is there any final... final... final... final requests?" the man asked boisterously.
The teenager scowled at him and looked around himself for perhaps something to throw at the man to by him time. At the most there was what appeared to have been an open can sitting nearby. A regular can one would get from a vending machine, one filled with coffee no less. With nothing else within sight, much less reach, he glanced over to the man to find him perfectly still as if granting him unspoken permission to reach for it. Cautiously he did without reprisal and grabbed the can. He swished it around and judged it to be a fifth full at best— a poor distraction at best if he flung it at the CP9 agent. Instead he took it for himself and drank it. It wouldn't be much of a boost if any but it was worth a shot...
With a sigh he clapped the can down on the counter and cracked his neck for all the good it would do. With a fresh glare he brought his attention back to the agent and gently pushed himself away from the counter, badge at the ready to his side. Quietly and resolutely he cracked his neck as the two continued to stare one another down. "Well I was hoping to recover a little more before this, given what's at stake..."
"But it really can't be helped now, can it?"
"Yoyoi!
In the same time it took for the man to pulled his staff back in preparation for a concise strike, Ichigo garbed himself with his fullbring. Likewise His blade was held aloft to the side, already starting to glow blue as it was being wreathed in energy.
"Finger Pistol—!"
"Getsuga—!"
Simultaneous their respective weapons lurched at one another, one extending out at a speed his eye couldn't hope to catch whilst the other flung everything he could offer on short notice.
"Q!"
"TENSHO!"
The blows impacted with one another. Unfortunately all Ichigo knew as a certain fact that the force of each other's attacks sent one another flying into different walls... and that whatever had happened, be it a miscalculated shot due to his own attack or perhaps his fullbring taking the brunt of the attack, he was seeing nothing but white pain as he clutched at his shoulder even as he was sent through the wall into an adjacent room...
Without power and with little note on his part his badge, now deprived of power, clattered on the ground as he clutched at his shoulder in tight-lipped pain. Eyes squinted tight and trying not to cry, he fingers and palmed his shoulder in a barely discernable effort to both assess the damage done but most of all attempt to ease the indescribable pain that tore and clawed at both his muscles, nerves and even bones.
"Ichigo!"
"Hey Kid!"
"Yoyoi (Cough!)!"
"Oi! Go find the kid! I'm gonna beat him to a pulp!"
"Right!"
"Ichigo!" He could barely discern Chopper's presence in any way, shape or form besides the sensory void that was his presence. "Hang on!" He could hear a faint ruffling but didn't dare open his eyes to confirm what was going on in favor of gritting his teeth as the pain roared along his shoulder. "And there!"
"Grt!"
While nowhere near as painful as the pain throbbing in his shoulder, it was sharp enough to elicit an eye to pop open and tear up as a needle was whipped out from his skin. In seconds flat however both the stinging sensation of the injection site as well as the mind tearing trhobbing of his shoulder began to fade away into nothing. He muttered his thanks soon enough and attempted to push himself up...
He grunted and pushed with all his might only to find no more strength within his entire body than to move his arm and legs, both of were equally numb, most likely from the injection. Try as he might he was utterly helpless and mercy to Chopper's pushing of the teenager's body to have him lie on his back. To make matters worse he could already feel himself becoming drowsy once more, his adrenaline from the brief fight and from the subsequent blow were most likely the only thing keeping him awake long enough to half-hear Chopper's quick assessment of the damage down to him; He was sure as hell that that coffee wasn't helping at this point.
"Hey! Can you hear me?!" Chopper yelled at him. Groggily he shifted his head toward the reindeer now back in his minute humanoid form, his eyes involuntarily closing on their own despite fighting to stay awake. Taking this as a unspoken yes for the moment Chopper reached into his back and pulled out a large syringe filled with a dark red substance. "Normally I wouldn't recommend this but..." He held up the syringe for emphasis. "Considering the fights we find ourselves in, I cannot help but be worried about a what if situation should we need someone the most only for them to be in a state liken to your own right now. For that reason I been experimenting with various formulas in hopes of creating a booster shot, so to speak, to revive weary crewmates... To be honest I never tested any of them, let alone this one. As such I have no idea what the repercussions would be if I used it right now." He looked him in his closing eyes.
Crash!
In the brief moment he looked away to discern the noise, the foreman slowly, wearily smirked to himself...
"Sure, why not?"
XVX
Fifteen seconds later, perimeter wall
Panting and fighting back a groan, Kumadori spun his staff overhead as he faced the cyborg as the man pulled the 'skin' off from his right hand to reveal the metal beneath it.
"Getsuga Tensho!"
A bolt of a wave of blue energy screamed out of the hole in the wall made from their earlier struggle originating in the kitchen and slammed into the agent. Soon enough as the wave dissipated there was nothing where the man stood. In the parapet he stood in front of however was a new hole... By the time Franky blinked in confusion, Ichigo stood atop of said hole, again clad in his fullbring and looking down at the ground below.
"Hey, hey! So you survived, eh Kid?" Franky commented with a grin as he slipped his 'skin' back on. By the time Chopper raced out, the older man on a hunch went to the parapet and looked out to the ground below to see a bloodied and pulverized Kumadori sprawled out onto on the ground beneath the wall.
"I'm going to check for a key." Without preamble the teenager jumped down and ran to the man. Almost as soon as he reached him Ichigo kneeled down and began to pick his pockets with enough strength and haste to tear at the unconscious man's clothing.
"Hey wait! Nami already stolen his key!" Ichigo looked up at Chopper, now again in his larger form, to see him leaning over the wall to shout down at him. Thanks to a flicker of movement he soon spied on Franky as he grinned and produced a key of his own. "I got the key from fatso too! Thanks by the way for sending the fur ball out with my cola!"
"WAAH! You got a key too?! Wait, is it the Number Two key?"
The man paused, lifted up his shades and looked to the head of the key. "No. Why?"
"Because apparently the keys and the handcuffs are numbered so that they work specifically for each other! Not only that but Zoro and Sniper King got cuffed by one of them and they can only be opened by the Number Two key!"
"Ugh—!"
"HI EVERYONE!"
Literally popping out of a crate stashed against the base of the wall much like an American Jack-in-the-box was Chimney and her pet. As Ichigo gawked at them, the other two leaned over the wall to see what was going on.
XVX
Ten minutes later, Underground Hallway
As it was quickly made known, the ragtag group split up once more. Chopper ran off to find Nami after being given the key that once belong to Fukurou. As for Franky and himself, they took to the tunnel that ran between the Tower of Law to the satellite towers in the distance that sat before the looming, gargantuan gate known as the Gate of Justice. Presumably the tunnel ran straight to what was called the Bridge of Hesitation which in turn lead to the gate itself. It was also the same tunnel that Luffy took according to the girl. Regardless, energized and praying to whatever deity that would listen to him after turning off his fullbring to ensure he didn't crash any time soon, the both of them ran full tilt in a desperate bid to catch up to even a straggler of those who had gone before them.
"You know, this is much nicer than when I had to drag you around!"
"Shut up!"
They continued to run in renewed but relative silence.
"You know, I've been thinking," Franky spoke up. He paused for a moment but seeing as Icihigo wasn't intent on humoring him with a question, he continued. "Though I can understand Iceburg at least trying to give chase while on Water Seven... Galley-La as a whole has less reason to be here. Between my guys and the Straw Hats, they have personal reasons to be here. As much as I love to hate him sometimes, Iceburg isn't even halfway callous enough to even think about deliberately sending anyone into the maw of the beast to get the blueprints back. Hell, if anything I wouldn't be surprised if he started working on some countermeasure as we speak!"
"Huh? What blueprints?"
"Wait!" He snapped his head towards the teenager as they continued to run down the hallway. "You mean to tell me that you joined a raid on a Government island without knowing what it was about? Jeez! Are you some kind of moron with a death wish!?"
"Hey!" he growled back. "This isn't my first time doing something like this! Besides, after coming all this way I'm not exactly going to ignore a bunch of people trying to rescue their friend!"
"Huh? That's your reason?" he incredulously asked the orange haired teenager. For a moment Franky was silent, just staring at him through his sunglasses. Soon enough he burst out laughing, eliciting a growl from the teenager as the man focused his attention back to the path before them.
"What's so funny?!"
"You're attempting to free one of the most wanted people by The Government simply because her friends are trying to rescue her?" he laughed, wiping a tear from his eye as he did so whereas the teenager was critically silent... "I guess there are worse reasons!" the man added with a grin.
"... why is it that she's a wanted person?" Ichigo asked out of the blue.
"You're asking that now? Jeez!" The cyborg shook his head. "Ah well... this tunnel doesn't look like it's nearing the end anyway!"
"Have you ever heard of Poneglyhs?"
"No."
"Ah... Long story short, they're these giant blocks of indestructible stone. Each one is scripted with a long dead language that no one is capable of deciphering... but there are rumors. Supposedly these things, or at least some of them, read out the blueprints of ancient weapons from the past. Powerful ones too! As such the World Government outlawed the reading of the Poneglyphs and put to death those that can!" Franky fell silent for a moment...
"But Robin can read them, right?" Ichigo deduced. Out of the corner of his eye he spotted Franky nodding.
"Yeah..."
"But that doesn't explain why your here."
The older man smirked.
"Jeez, clever much?" He shook his head. "Well, I can't say I know what they were thinking at the time but somewhere along the way someone managed to draw out the designs for one of those weapons: The Pluton; a warship unlike any other you'll find in the world... Not that long ago I was the one guarding it. Not only that but I burned it as well. Thanks to that, Robin is their only ticket to get their hands on the Pluton now!" His grin was now lost.
"A long line of shipwrights have kept it a secret for as long as they could from the World Government. I'll probably never know their names, much less their reasoning to do so. But Tom took what secrets he could with him to his grave to protect those plans. Iceburg gave them to me and made a dummy set since he knew the World Government would come around sniffing for them again. And I burned them rather than let them have it. I'll be damned if I put all that work to waste if I slip up now and let them take probably the only person left who can read the Poneglyph for Pluton!"
"All the more reason the hurry up then!"
With an extra bit of effort Ichigo began to pull ahead of the man.
"Hey! I'm the one who's super this week you brat!" Grunting, he dashed forth to keep pace as the two continued to race down the tunnel. Soon enough the two a light at the end of the tunnel at long last and made an even greater effort to get to it. Once they crossed the threshold both came to an abrupt stop to observe the state of the semi-wrecked room.
CRASH!
Both came to guard themselves however as the wall next to the doorway exploded in a cloud of debris and dust. From it as the cloud was dissipating Luffy landed in a crouch, one fist planted on the ground as he glared at something ahead of them.
"You... Straw Hat!" Franky called out in surprise as he lowered his arms. From his side Ichigo peeked out with a scowl and looked toward the middle of the room for a potential enemy...
Lucci stood at a distance from them, scowling as well with a dangerous, calculating glint in his eye. He was missing his top hat and his pet pigeon was erratically flying in circles above him. Around him in the circular room were numerous smashed crates. Behind him was a large set of double doors.
"Ah! Franky! What're you doing here, you jerk!"
"You idiot! Enough with the attitude already! I'm on your side right now! Just give it up!" Franky roared back. He then looked out in the same direction Ichigo was staring, on the same thought no less. "Lucci, huh? So you're having a tough time against him?"
"Do you need a hand?" the older man asked as he grabbed his left arm as he lifted it towards the CP9 agent. Listening carefully, Ichigo could've sworn he heard a distinct whirring of gears at work for just a brief moment.
"No," Luffy answered as he brought his own attention of Lucci. "More importantly, please stop Robin."
The both of them glanced to Luffy. "You can get to the Gates of Justice through the doors behind the pigeon guy. Robin already went through them!" If there wasn't a glare to them before, his eyes gained an edge to them as he intently stared at a relatively impassive Lucci. "I'll restrain him."
Frankly smugly huffed as he grinned. "Just leave it to us, you jerk!"
In the meantime Lucci's eyes squinted at them as he kept switching from one to the next...
"Let's do it."
Lucci's eyes widened as Ichigo's fullbring came into being. Already his sword was drawn back, energy coating the blade. Rather than cry out the name of the attack, Ichigo flung out the attack, causing the man to vanish into thin air to avoid the attack as it slashed through the air. During his disappearance, Ichigo grabbed Franky by his shoulder and in the older man's surprise he flung him over his shoulder with a "hey!" Before he could attempt to struggle, Ichigo kicked himself off the ground and zipped through the room, ramming into the door and nearly skidding straight into a wall as a result of which. Easily enough he slammed a foot down and skidded to a halt before glancing to his left where a light was, finding a staircase before him. Without wasting a second he kicked himself up into the air to the furthest point in the circular wall surrounding the stairwell. In quick succession he began to ascend the tower, bypassing the stairs completely from one jump to the next in a seemingly endless loop.
But soon enough he crashed without warning, both literally and figuratively.
It was perhaps the moment after he bounded off the wall, right before he attempted to land on the wall that he realized his fullbring dissipated from his person once more without his intent. It was also that moment that he felt dizzy, that the world was unsettled right before him even after he smashed himself into the wall and tumbled down some of the stairs with neither a yelp or even a jolt of pain wracking itself through his body.
"What the—oof!" As soon as he could, Franky sat up and fixed Ichigo under an annoyed glare until he found him unmoving and out of sorts. "Hey! Kid! Are you alright?" Immediately he clapped a hand on him and shook his body to illicit a reaction. As for the teenager himself, he didn't react further than opening and clenching his open hand as his eyes fought hard to focus on the slanted world before him. With a grunt he brought that same hand up and into his field of vision where he continued to open and clench it as if it were some foreign object he was trying to recognize.
"I think that shot is wearing off..." he managed to grumble. Even his own mouth felt disjointed and alien to himself, especially his tongue. Already he could feel his strength gradually ebbing away... "Or worse yet the side effects are kicking in."
"Aw come on! And here I was swallowing my pride for the sake of catching up with them!" Sighing, he stood up, grabbed Ichigo by the shirt and hefted him onto his shoulder liken to what Ichigo had done moments beforehand. "But it looks like I'll have to continue carrying your ass around!"
"Oh shut up," Ichigo groaned.
"Heh! Make me, you lazy kid!"
And with a grin he began to dash up the circular stairs in all haste.
XVX
"Finally! A doorway!" With an extra burst of speed he sped forward across the first landing of a seemingly endless staircase. "I was really getting sick of these stairs!"
In his haste he slammed his foot along a blue tile. It wasn't the only one he ran across or on but it was the only one to depressed ever so slightly, not that either of them noticed. Regretfully however they came to realize what it triggered all too soon much too late.
KA-BOOM!
For better or worse Ichigo's dulled, displaced state prevented him from feeling the explosion proper. As such he wasn't able to tell if he was actually harmed or, as was Franky's case, simply blown through the wall with the fullbringer in tow, screaming in surprise all the while as they hurtled through to the sea below.
"DAMN IT...!"
He reached out and managed to grab onto the siding of the tower by pure luck during his fall. Just as quickly as he grabbed it however he was slammed into the side of the building with enough force to not only almost lose his desperate grip but almost drop Ichigo as well.
"Damn it! That" he growled again as he looked up. He came to grimace as he quickly realized that if he were to scale the tower to even the gaping hole of where they were in a timely manner then he would need both hands... and time wasn't exactly on their side. "Hey Kid... do you still got some juice left in ya?"
Hanging limply from his shoulder, Ichigo clutched his free hand in an experimental fashion once more as he weighed his experience with the fullbring to his current predicament, as well as accounting potential blood loss from shrapnel amongst other injuries he may have suffered... All he knew was that by luck Franky took the brunt of the explosive trap and even then he seemed fine. He was of course a cyborg, meaning damage was relative point between the two of them.
Still...
"Yeah."
"Then you better not screw things up till I get there!"
As he expected, Franky hefted his arm back, his grip firm on the foreman's shirt and flung the orange haired teenager up as high as he could. A second later Ichigo garbed his fullbring for what may be the very last time and launched himself further into the air. Easily enough he reached halfway up the height of the bridge attached to the tower in one leap. With another he vaulted over it and landed unsteadily onto the stone; the impact alone threatened to have him buckle at the knees whereas the subsequent steps to balance himself out was a labor onto itself now that he lost feeling for most of his body.
"AH! WHO ARE YOU?!"'
Like a drunk man he swerved and staggered in place to spot the one who shouted at him. Unfortunately it was at that exact moment that his vision began to heavily blur as he spotted two people on the bridge with him. To make matters worse he couldn't make one out from the other, especially since they were so close.
"No matter!" The blurr to the left raised a hazy arm up and grabbed something. From the dull 'sching!" he heard he could only assume it was a sword. "Die You Filfthy—"
Like before Ichigo let loose a nameless bolt of an attack. Unlike before with Lucci the attack caught the target square in the chest with perfect accuracy despite his impaired vision, leaving the other person unscathed. In turn the other figure looked back to stare at the man, or at least he thought that was what they were doing, before turning to him and running. In response his hand clenched around the handle of the sword but, upon as careful an observation he could manage, lowered his guard as the other figure seemingly neither had arms nor seemed intent on avenging the man he struck down. In a matter of moments he was at last able to make her out as a woman. A black haired woman wearing a black dress with her arms bound behind her no less unless his sudden squinting to regain focus was horribly wrong.
"Thank you," she all but gasped as she ran behind him. "But who are you?"
At first Ichigo didn't feel inclined to answer her at all though not out of malice or to be rude as his perception of the world dulled more and more, his vision worsening. He smirked however and shook his head as he took stock of his situation. "A moron with a death wish as someone would say," he answered her with a sardonic smirk for himself as his body began to shake from the familiar strain of the fullbring.
As if noticing his condition, she spoke up once more as urgently as she could without demanding it. "We best leave before the guards stationed on the other side realize what has happened."
"Right..." Despite the risk of collapse in the imminent future he turned around and followed her with some hesitation. Wide as it was he could barely make out the ground beneath his feet, much less the woman who now hurried across it as she became a black blur that he could only hope to keep pace with. Unfortunately he could only guess at how far they actually gotten before an elephant trumpeted its abrupt arrival out of nowhere, the ground shaking all the while.
"Typical..." His hand gripped his sword a little tighter. "Well, I guess it's better than just dropping on the ground." Like so many times before his weapon was coated with the ethereal energy that begged to be released.
"Wait!"
He solemnly smirked just before turning on his heel, his sword drawn back and ablaze with power whilst his poor vision defined the poor details of an elephant with a pair of swords for tusks. Its trunk was that of a massive saber as well.
"Getsuga... TENSHO!"