A/N: Late update, I know. Was busy with back to school stuff.
This is another iffy chapter to me. Not as terrible as ch.3, in my opinion. I couldn't really fit in all I wanted in this chapter without making the writing look awkward, but I tried my best.
So here it is.
It all starts with one simple mistake.
A great number of ingredients are brought to the Orbit one late evening, no different than another. Though the waves are still and the night calm, there is a chaos that tears away at any sense of amity between chefs.
Sanji's extended family, all connected by their love of food, divide in a bitter rivalry.
Crates litter the floors, nailed tops propped open with crowbars or otherwise hacked off into skin splinting chips. They take up all available floor space, leaving little room to walk.
"Hey, I was using that, bastard!"
"Too bad, kid."
It happens once every year.
A new item is added to the menu―dessert this year. It's simple: create the best dish and you were promised a ten percent bonus by winter's solstice. Of course, it's not the money that appeals to Sanji, but the prestige that comes with the title of victor. After all, Sanji was still quite young and one of the newer chefs to work aboard the Orbit. His fellow colleagues looked down at his abilities, thinking his skills as nothing to sneeze at.
I'll show them, he thinks.
He's a prodigy when it comes to cooking. Sure, he may not have as much experience that refine his skills, but he has more than enough talent to make up for it.
He doesn't want to play safe.
An original creation then.
Fruit based perhaps?
He eyes the produce spilled on the counter.
The fruits originate from the many corners of the globe. Tropical oranges of the jungles, winter strawberries from the icy tundras of the north, violet desert mangos of the east, just to name a few. He's well adept in his knowledge of fruits and vegetables alike (he likes to keep note of them for future recipes). And yet. . .of the fruit that lays before him, there is one he doesn't recognize.
It's pitch black in colour, a soft-skinned fruit that lacks a gel-like shine. It's abstractly shaped, twisted in odd angles with a lumpy exterior to match.
Curious of its taste, Sanji gets a fruit knife and slices a small piece to sample.
His left eye winces at the taste.
Bitter.
Sanji learns death holds divergent scents for each individual it marks.
That's not to say crossing paths with one that nears their death equates one having a pleasant smell(granted by life's shortcomings). Once death placed its mark on its takings, a pervasive stench was expected. However, those stinks were distinguishable from one another. In a group of intertwining fetors of deaths (frightening a thought as it was,) Sanji could pinpoint the individual odors belonging to their respective persons.
It was a. . .useful gift at times.
It's how he finds Zoro.
His scent leads him into a bit of a goose chase. From the markets, through pawn shops, and out through the rural towns of the island. He whirls through pathways, turning at intersections and climbing up sharp inclined hills. The sun is at its peak, dampening his black vest with sweat and he inwardly curses Zoro for being a directional retard and for having stupid green hair (he knows he's being unoriginal at this point, the heat probably sizzling away at his creativity).
A merciful gust of wind blows at his side and Sanji delights in the billowing coolness. Zoro's scent carries on the wind, forcefully waft under his nose.
He visibly stiffens at the odor.
It takes Sanji quite a bit of time to familiarize himself with Zoro's specific death essence. If he had to describe it in words, he would say it was a foul mix of carcasses and manure; it was one of the better scents, believe it or not. However. . .there was something different about it this time. Something foul had been added to the odor, it was faint, but potent enough a scent to make his stomach churn.
He follows the trailing odor, feeling somewhat precarious about the whole thing (and a bit like a dog, to be honest). With each step he takes, he is crushed by the weightful smell. He doesn't understand. Zoro's odor of death has never smelt this strongly before.
It's then he realizes.
It's another person.
He's brought upon a shadowed alleyway, hidden from the town bustle and mild fervor of its citizens. The darkened path chills the heat off his skin, engulfing him in its gloom.
He swallows back a retching gag, brought in the center of its stench.
Zoro leans over a crumpled figure, his brows drawn and hands hovering with uncertainty.
It's almost amusing, watching Zoro look so concentrated yet unsure, but the atmosphere oozes with gravity and the situation calls for tact.
And so he steps forward.
And he pales.
Luffy's brother.
He stares at the faint silhouette, the frail vessel which embodies the fiery spirit that is Portgas D. Ace
Zoro extends two fingers towards the crook of his neck.
"Don't touch him!" he practically roars.
Zoro flinches at the command.
He just barely comes to terms with his added presence, surveying him with a mix of hurt and confusion. At his countenance and his unusual show of vulnerability, an apology forms on his tongue. But Sanji quickly catches himself. His jaw snaps to a close, his head jerking to the side as a final mark of refusal. "Step aside."
He takes Zoro's place on the ground, catching the swordsman's gaze in his peripheral vision.
He doesn't mean to come off sounding so. . .assholish.
Sanji holds certain superstitions when it came to death odors and the nature of his abilities. Like may have called to like (death in this case), but placed together and things could take a treacherous turn. Of course, Sanji had no solid proof of this, asides from the occasional pang in the gut, but he finds that his primal/intuitive reactions are always all too telling of what was to come. It would be foolish to dismiss them now.
Sanji observes the body.
Rapidly paling skin. Lips parted and tinted blue at the corners. Little warmth emanating from the skin. Chest―still. No signs of breathing, among other things.
He shows all signs of death.
But.
The stench remains.
That means. . .
His eyes snap open.
...
Sanji recalls Luffy saying something odd about his brother's sleeping patterns . . .of course, he'd only been half listening. He'd fixed his attention towards preparing breakfast, and, at the time, had been more focused on getting Luffy's thieving fingers away from his ingredients.
"Yeah, my brother sleeps like a log," he says, fingers not-so-subtly reaching for a plate of grilled pork. "This one time I thought he was dead and I almost buried him!" he laughs.
Ace tags along their grocery spree, at Sanji's request, no less.
Zoro is characteristically quiet as always (though Sanji silently suspects he's a tad too mute, as he ignores Sanji's more lighthearted jabs at his expense) leaving Sanji to make easy conversation with Luffy's older brother. However, beneath the amiable smiles and the niceties lies a calculative mentality. Thoughts in moving forward with his current predicament occupy his conscience.
Ace was going to die.
It was a mind numbing thought. Such a man of high caliber (and bounty) seemed invincible.
What are the means to his death? At what time would death strike? Would it be an easy passing? A painful one? Would Luffy bear witness his final moments, or worse, not at all?
These questions stir his morale.
Guilted him.
But Sanji couldn't possibly save Ace.
Could he?
No.
Zoro was his top priority.
It was bad enough that Sanji had challenged the fates all those years ago. Even then, with little knowledge of his own abilities and so little control, the end result had held detrimental effects. He mocks the fates once again with a committing resolve to save Zoro. No doubt, choosing to save Ace as well, would be regarded as a slap in the face (fictious anyway) for fate and death both.
Sanji tries to imagine Luffy's crying face―a messy blob of tears streaming down an elastic visage―broken at the news of his brother's death. It's a difficult image to conjure. His captain was one always found in high spirits. Morose moods unsuited him.
They reach the docks, cart full of various meats and spices, and rum of course.
The Thousand Sunny floats still on the rippling waves of the shore.
"Well, I guess I'll make my leave," announces Ace.
Sanji starts at the unexpected declare of departure but quickly eases into a faux show of cool.
"You're not going to let Luffy see you off first?"
He smiles. "I'm sure I'll meet him on the way."
"At least stay for dinner."
"Oh no, I couldn't. I have a long road ahead of me."
"All the more reason to," he insists.
He again politely declines.
Sanji bites down on his tongue, reflecting on his incessant need to keep Ace within reach of contact. Even Zoro picks up on it. It's thick, near palpable in the air. And though Sanji may have been undecided in his endgame, despite the many cons, he seemed to lean towards the more unfavorable of his two options.
Saving Ace.
I want to save him, or at least try.
The thought becomes an inadvertently spoken question.
He asks Ace to join their crew.
Well.
Not in those words exactly (really, just a weak proposition on Sanji's part) but by the reaction received, he might as well have.
Ace is shocked into silence, but Zoro breaks out of his.
"That's not for you to decide, idiot-cook."
He shoots Zoro a glare and he freezes, falling back into his odd, too-quiet silence.
Ace's eyes narrow, yet light, amused at these strange turn of events. "You don't even know where I plan on going."
Sanji feigns calm, reaching for a cigarette. "As pirates, aren't we all trying to get to the same place?"
He laughs, seeming to accept his answer. "That's true."
"Traveling with the Straw-hats. . .That does sound interesting." He looks between Sanji and Zoro.
And just like that.
The stench disappears.