Hey, everyone. for some reason this story got deleted ._. strange, i know. so, i'll reupload it now :)
Title: Young Again
Author: ZOroronoaRO
Fandom: One Piece
Timeline: Before Ennies Lobby
Spoilers: Do not read if you care about spoilers
Summary: When the crew goes to a new island they find themselves with a blast from the past (lame summary, i know :P)
Young Again – Chapter Three
[Now or Never]
Luffy's stomach roared, asking for food. Luffy patted it as if it were a puppy, "I'm so hungry, the last thing I ate was those apples."
He looked around for any sign of food, but on the side of a volcano there wasn't much luck. He decided to look for food up the volcano, and in his search of food, he found something else.
"A cave!" he smiled with delight, forgetting his hunger momentarily.
He ran over to the opening and peered into it, the darkness shrouded everything but ten feet in front of him.
"Wow." He said, his words echoed off the sides of the wall.
Like a little child he took advantage of the echo, "WOW!" the words echoed back at him "WOW! Wow! wow. wow…..wow…."
He laughed and entered, taking his time in looking for something to do. After forty feet in, his foot knocked against something. He bent down and felt around for the mystery object, his hand knocked into something and he picked it up. He tried to see the object by holding it up to his face, but the darkness was too powerful.
"hmmm…it feels like a banana…"he thought, "No, wait! A tuna sandwich!"
Reminded of food, his stomach growled in protest. Luffy frowned, trying to decide if he should go back down and get some more apples, or continue in the mystery cave. After a couple seconds he pressed on into the cave.
He turned his head over his shoulder and he could barley see the opening!
Not looking where he was going, not that it mattered in the pitch black; Luffy ran into a wall and fell on his butt.
"Eh? The cave ended."
He looked around and saw another speck of light in a different direction.
"Oh! It turned!"
He got up and brushed himself off, mystery object still in hand.
He pouted a couple seconds because his adventure was short-lived and he was already leaving the cave, it was too soon for his adventure to end!
"I wonder if Nami is going to be mad at me for running off…" He pictured in his mind him coming back, "Where were you!?" Her face was feigningly scary, "I told you one hour! And no adventuring!"
He shivered, wincing. She was going to be so mad.
"Oy! There you are!"
Luffy snapped out of dream world and squinted through the darkness. A man's silhouette was in the exit of the cave and he was walking towards him, becoming more visible as he got closer.
A guy in his upper 20s, short hair, and normal physique stood in front of him, the darkness shrouded the rest of his features.
"We've been looking all over for you!" he said stepping closer.
"Who're you?" Luffy asked
"Oh, my apologies for not introducing myself. My name is Sanjuro; I've been helping your friends look for you."
"Really? They're looking for me?"
"Yeah, they told me you wore a straw hat and your name was Luffy, you're him right?"
Luffy smiled and nodded.
"Great! They're waiting on your ship for you, this way." Sanjuro pointed to the exit that was still a long way off and Luffy started towards it.
As they walked in silence, sweat dripped of Sanjuro's face, he had never used his power against a human before, he didn't know what exactly would happen, or if it would even work, or if it did work how long would it take.
He pushed the questions aside and gulped, it was now or never.
The crew made their way through the apple trees, only seeing a couple people that eyed them suspiciously.
They weaved back and forth through the tall trees, even a normal person could get lost in here, but with Nami as their guide and Chopper as their nose, they would make it trough in half the time.
They exited the orchard and looked at chopper, "Alright your turn. Find our captain." Sanji said
Chopper nodded and shrunk into reindeer mode, sniffing the air.
"I got something! This way!"
After walking around for a while, stopping every now and then to sniff the air, Chopper commented, "I think he's just over this ridge, but the sent is getting fainter."
"Then we'd better hurry." Nami said starting into a jog.
Nami ran over the ridge, the rest of the crew in her wake, and she spotted a cave.
"You think…?" She started
"Luffy could never resist a cave." Sanji said, lighting a new cigarette
"And the sent ends and the opening of the tunnel." Chopper added
The crew went over to the opening and Usopp stared into the darkness, knees quaking.
"W-what if Luffy isn't in there, but a huge bear that will swallow us whole?"
"Gah! Oh no!" Chopper screeched, forgetting if there was a bear, he would have smelt it.
"Wouldn't the bear have to chew us up to digest our bones?" Robin noted
"Robin! Don't say that kind of stuff!" Nami said, now alarmed.
"Don't worry Nami-san, Robin-Chan. The Prince will protect you!" he made a thumbs up sign and a twinkle sparked from his thumb.
Everyone was half-expecting a comment from Zoro making fun of Sanji, but it never came.
That's when Nami noticed Zoro wasn't even there!
"Where did that idiot go? I told him not to wander off!" Nami said, fuming.
"We've lost a pitiful man…" Sanji said coolly and entered the cave.
Everyone followed in after Sanji, the frightened duo last.
"L-Luffy…?" Usopp called out silently
"He wont hear you if you whisper, Usopp." Chopper reminded him.
"R-Right." Usopp cleared his throat and got up the courage to shout into the darkness, "LUFFY!!"
There was a brief silence.
"Usopp…?"
The call was faint and far off.
"So he is in here!" Usopp smiled and turned to the doctor, "Good job, Chopper!"
Concealed by the darkness, Chopper blushed and did a little dance, "Complementing me won't make me like you! Idiot!"
Sanji led the group farther into the tunnel, then ran into the wall.
"Oww…" He said rubbing his forehead, then noticed the little glimmer of light, "The tunnel turns, so be careful, and I think I see the exit."
Everyone maneuvered cautiously around the corner while Sanji strained his eyes to see. He saw two figures, one about as tall as him, and one small, almost like a child.
Sanji jogged forwards and saw the tall one turn and run out the exit.
"Wait! Luffy!" Sanji ran forwards, tripping slightly on a rock, and came to the exit.
No sign of Luffy.
Sanji sighed and turned back to the little kid; the rest of the crew caught up and stopped.
"Hey kid, do you know where Luffy is going?"
That's when Sanji noticed the boy was wearing a hat, and not just any hat.
"Luffy? I'M Luffy. Who're you?"
Sanjuro grabbed the pirates arm.
"Huh?" Luffy turned and looked at him, but Sanjuro didn't say anything.
Luffy was about to continue walking until heat erupted in his arm. Pain streaked through his body, numbing it and making it immobile. Needles pricked his skin and the air in his lungs was sucked right out.
He couldn't focus, the room started to spin, his vision blurred, and the world he knew was getting darker.
A faint whisper perked his ears, "LUFFY!"
His nakama! Usopp! He forgot about the man holding his arm and strained to inhale to call back to him, he screamed it in his mind, but wasn't sure if he said it or not.
Soon everything was black and he couldn't remember where he was.
He looked up to a man holding his arm, "Who're you?" asked Luffy, but he didn't look down at him, his eyes were fixed in the direction he heard footsteps.
"Come on." He yanked at Luffy's arm, the sudden jerk made Luffy fall over.
Where did he want to go? Luffy looked around where he was, he didn't recognize any of it, but it would sure be fun to train in a cave. Pirates liked caves, right? And he was training to be a pirate, so he needed to train in a cave.
While Luffy's mind worked, the man started to panic, "Come ON!"
Luffy got up and planted his feet, "No."
The man looked at the boy, "Yes!"
There was an incoherent murmur in the direction of the footsteps.
"No."
The man lost his patience and yanked at the kids arm, but all he got was Luffy's arm stretching.
His eyes doubled in size, "What the-?"
"Ow…" The words echoed slightly and the man started to freak out, "The tunnel turns, so be careful, and I think I see the exit."
He released Luffy's arm and made for the exit, disappearing into the daylight.
Luffy stood there, clueless.
"Wait, Luffy!"
Luffy turned to the sound of his name and a guy in a suit ran past him and stood in the arch of the cave. More people came out from the shadows of the cave and the blonde guy turned and looked at Luffy, "Hey kid, do you know where Luffy is going?"
Luffy looked at the blonde, confused, "Luffy? I'M Luffy. Who're you?"
Sanji eyed the small boy, not believing him at first, so he bent down and looked eye to eye.
His expression made his cigarette fall out of his mouth.
"What's wrong, Sanji-Kun?" Nami looked at Luffy and copied Sanji's expression.
The look spread throughout the crew when they saw their miniature captain.
"Why are you all surprised?"
"L-Luffy?" Usopp asked
The three and a half foot child looked at him strangely, "How do you all know my name?"
"How—what—when--?" the navigator couldn't get her thoughts straight.
"You guys are weird." Luffy said bluntly, then examined the cave, "I never knew there where caves in Foosha Village….COOL!"
The pint-sized pirate king ran back into the cave, happy as can be.
"W-wait!" Sanji said, grabbling on his arm, making it stretch.
Luffy frowned, "What?" he tugged on his arm a little and looked at the blonde.
"So you don't know what happened?"
"What do you mean?"
"What's the last thing you remember?" Sanji let go of his arm and it snapped into place.
"Well…." Luffy stood thinking, "Me and Ace were going up to the woods for my training! I'm training to be a pirate, and I need to practice my devil fruit powers! Wanna see?"
Luffy hooked two fingers on the inside of his mouth and stretched it out.
Sanji had seen this before, and wasn't fazed, but what he was astonished at was what in the world happened to Luffy to make him little?
Seeing no one was surprised, Luffy retracted his fingers and turned again to explore the cave, but tripped over his over sized clothes.
"Wait, Luffy. You need to come with us."
Luffy looked at the orange haired woman, "Why? I want to see the cave!"
"After you see the cave, can you come with us back to our ship?"
"You guys have a ship!?"
"Yeah, we're pirates after all."
"YOU GUYS ARE PIRATES!?"
The cave long forgotten, Luffy jumped up and down at the sight of pirates.
"No pirates ever visit our island except Shanks, who used to come here all the time!"
"alright then, it's decided!"
The group walked out of the cave, Luffy in front, and the rest behind him, in a discussion.
"So, does anyone have any idea what happened to him?" Usopp asked
"Not a clue, but we should keep him close, we need to find out what happened and change him back." Nami said watching the small boy slide down the edge of the mountain, unaware of anything but his fun.
"This IS the Grand Line." Sanji stated
Nami looked at Robin, "Robin, do you have any idea what could have happened to him?"
She shook her head, "There were no markings on the wall, so there's no sign of an ancient culture, and what I've heard about the island, the fast growing apples is the strangest it gets."
The crew contemplated what they were to do as they made their way down the twisting slopes, on their way to the Going-Merry.