It's almost over now

The straw hat pirates laughed as Sanji cooked up lunch for them in his kitchen. Robin had grabbed a few fine pieces of shells and had made the design that Franky and Usopp were working on to be even more grand then they had first hoped, or thought, it would be. They had also stored the shells down below so that Usopp could polish them when they were needed, though the marksman was not as thrilled about that as he was.

"The next challenge they have for us is…" Nami read the list a bit and grinned. "The jungle hunt." Scouting around the faces she locked onto Chopper. "It explains here that we are allowed to use anything we can collect from the island's jungle, I believe Chopper and…" looking once more around the crew she frowned. "Brook, why don't you give it a shot." The bone man nodded as he started chuckling out 'yohohoho' before they all dug into the food Sanji placed in front of them.

"Anything else on that list that we should plan on ahead of time?" Sanji and the rest of the crew turned to look at Franky as he spoke while he ate with less gusto then usual. "It would be better to plan out who to use now then making a mistake and not using them when it calls for…"

"You're right; the rules only state we can use one member once." Looking around the team again Nami sighed placing the paper down and looking over the next few weeks designated.

"Tomorrow is the jungle hunt." She wrote down the nine names of her nakama at the side of the paper and she scribbled of Robins'. "Chopper you are going to do the jungle hunt. The next mini contest is… the maps: where you must devices a sketch of your castle and place it with your crews seal in the area where you are building your castle. During two days a member of your party must protect that plan from another member of a different party. All the while your party will have one member to try and snatch other scrolls." Nami looked up and grinned with one of her many twisted smiles as if she knew she had already won this round.

"Eh? Is everything alright Nami?" Sanji asked while he began to clean up his kitchen, though he swore something was off, and he watched the beli signs light up like fire.

"Franky, you are going to protect our 'map'. Sanji, you will be the one to get the other persons." She looked down and grinned. "For each map we steal we get that persons area. This is perfect for us pirates." The crew nodded with their own smiles. This was going to be like taking candy from a baby.

He cursed as he was lost once again, why was it so difficult to stay on the right track, in the small village on this island. Jen and Sam had gone to talk to the other four who had come, their group usually consisted of twelve but some were in pirate crews with well known bounties now, and he sighed before blinking back the yawning tears that grew in his eyes.

"How the hell did I end up in the forest?" he looked around at bit before sighing, again, and he trudged forward with a little less conviction to actually caring where he went. This is why he told the cook he would be gone for the whole day, Jen nor Sam could walk out into the open like he could nor could they point him in the right direction due to his SENSE of direction.

"You know," Zoro paused hearing that voice of a very familiar person. "I'm astounded you're still alive." The grin on his face grew as he walked forward and there in front of him was Portgas D. Ace.

"Yeah, I'm just surprised you showed your sleepy ass head, Ace." He looked around, in hopes they were alone, before Ace chuckled motioning him to sit.

"I'm alone, I can't exactly skip my duties just like you, now can I." Ace seemed to relax a bit before taking a deep breath and his smile faltered a bit. "I heard Luffy and you guys were involved in the contest this island has every year or so… will that conflict with the schedule?"

The fact that Ace was hear, Zoro slowly decided to think, was because the Marines were having a problem with something. Maybe the lack of those bastards… though… "He came also, didn't he." His face drooped as he thought of this horrible fact.

"Yeah, the four that came were the no bounties, the others are moving tonight." The two nodded for a few minutes before they heard what sounded like Luffy and Sanji screaming up a storm. A grin spread out on their faces as they stood and left to the ship, Zoro following Ace.

Sanji raised his fist to his head as Luffy finished the last of his cake that he spent hours working on for the girls. They had barely finished breakfast at the moment before Luffy had stretched his hand out and swallowed the cake whole.

That had caused the major fight but it grew when the door opened and Sanji's kick, missing Luffy who dodged at the last second, hit square in Zoro's chin sending him falling to the floor. The whole room went silent, shocked was Sanji, when Zoro stayed flat on his back blood dripping down his chin from his mouth.

"Oi, Zoro?" Sanji gulped out when the big lug still didn't move.

"Well, that was unexpected." Every head snapped up to look at Ace looking down on Zoro's face. "I told him to knock, seems like he didn't."

Luffy sprinted forward hugging his brother before laughing, "Zoro's fine." Ace, who quickly dropped to the ground at how 'believing' Luffy was when the green first mate still had not moved… but… there was a slow growing pool of blood.

That might not be good for either of them later on this week… considering what was happening, it was often that the red messages were sent.

Please forgive spelling and Grammar.