Muffled yelling. The crack of gravel under rubber tires. Grunted swearing and hushed cursing between three gruff voices. The metallic slide and slam of a van's side door.
"Get 'em in, quick."
Large rough hands grabbed Sanji's arm and lifted him from the hard floor of the van. His feet dragged along the gravel. More muffled yelling.
Luffy…
Thwack!
"Ow! Fuck!"
"Jesus, someone shut this kid up!"
"Just bring 'em both inside! The boss'll deal with them."
Sanji cracked his eyes open, blinking against the sudden brightness, as he saw the wooden entryway of the dojo pass him by.
Groaning, he pulled against the hands that dragged him, but his muscles weren't responding as well as he'd hoped.
"This one's coming to."
"Better tie them up, quick."
Sanji grunted as he felt himself dropped into a chair. He heard a muffled oomph behind him and the scraping of another chair on wooden floor. Roughly, his arms were looped behind the back of the chair, and his wrists were bound together with thick rope and itched at his skin.
Sanji blinked and shook his head, feeling his bearings slowly return. They were at the Kuina Dojo, in the vast and empty space of the training room. It was dark outside, and the low lanterns around the room only lit so much of it in a golden glow.
He heard the chair beside him rock and jitter on the floor. Sanji turned to see Luffy tied up beside him, with a gag around his mouth. It didn't shut him up though. He glared furiously at the three men around them, his insults coming out muffle through the cloth gag.
Sanji followed his glance to their kidnappers. The plump man and the tall, grey-haired one Sanji recognized from when he visited with Nami. There was a third guy, smaller than the other two but with long, gangly arms and a cat-like grin.
"Jesus Christ, will you shut up?" grumbled the plump man. He strode over to Luffy and struck him across the face with the back of his hand.
"Luffy!" cried Sanji, struggling against his bonds.
The smaller man snickered. "Nice one."
"Sham, Buchi, enough," said the grey-haired man. "The boss is here."
Sanji glanced at the sound of soft, slow footsteps. Through the open doorway, a tall man entered, with black hair slicked back and a pair of round glasses on his face.
Sanji's breath hitched in his throat. "K-koshiro?"
The man chuckled, fixing his glasses on his face with the base of his palm.
"You know, I always hated it when people got me confused for my brother. Ironic that I would take up his guise in order to have my way."
Sanji gritted his teeth, as he watched the impostor circle the room towards Luffy. Brother... Sanji remembered the picture in the study. The two men stood side by side, looking impossibly similar.
"Who are you?" said Sanji.
The man grinned, but it quickly fell from his face and he turned to look at Luffy as though the boy was an unwanted pile of rubbish.
"Jango, I though I specifically told you to only get the blonde one?"
He turned to the man with grey-hair, who flaked at under his glare.
"Er, well, you see, sir… Um… The other one was making a racket, so we had to bring him along too, so he wouldn't yap. You dig?"
The man sighed. "I suppose it wouldn't matter if we added another body to the pile…"
"Don't fucking ignore me," spat Sanji, accompanied by Luffy's muffled shouts. "Who the fuck are you?"
The impostor gave Sanji a level glance. "My name is Kuro. I helped Koshiro look after that little brat."
He turned to the two other subordinated stood idly by.
"Sham, get my gloves."
The smaller man nodded and slinked out of the dojo. This wasn't good. Something bad was about to happen, and they needed to get out of here fast.
"I don't understand," said Sanji, as leaned back in his chair. While he spoke, he began to wriggle his wrists out of the rope bindings. "Why would you lie to people and pretend to be your brother?"
Kuro's eyes gleamed. "Oh, Sanji-kun. You mean to say, you've been snooping around this much, and you haven't even worked it out yet?"
He laughed, turning around just Sham returned with a long, metal box. He held it lengthways and presented it to Kuro, who clicked it open. There was a clanking of metal against metal, as Kuro pulled something out of the box and slipped it on. When he turned around, Sanji's eyes widened.
Kuro wielded black leather gloves, with each finger tipped by a long, steel blade. They looked like giant cat claws. Sanji's head throbbed. The bloodied man flickered in his mind, the cuts all over his body gushing out rivers of red. He remembered the spectre, pulling five long blades from the gash at his side.
"It was you…" said Sanji, his voice sounding hollow. "You're the one who tried to kill Zoro."
Kuro grinned, fixing his glasses with the base of his palm again, the five blades pointing well away from his face. The other three men around the room cackled like hyenas.
"Genious, isn't it?" purred Kuro. "Who would ever suspect poor old Koshiro to ever be the murderer?"
"Why did you do it?" Sanji demanded, his voice fiery. "And where's the real Koshiro?"
"Where do you think?" Kuro tapped the blades of his fingers together.
Sanji felt a fire boil in his gut.
"So you killed your own brother, and Zoro too. Except you didn't really finish the job. Zoro's still alive, at the hospital. Then… then why did you…"
Sanji head throbbed again. Another wall crumbled in his mind. He remembered the letter in the study. The paper work…
"You… you weren't really looking after Zoro," Sanji voiced his thoughts. "You were waiting for the inheritance money. That's why you said you were thinking of pulling the plug on him after he turned eighteen!"
Kuro narrowed his eyes. "How did you know about the inheritance?"
"You did all this for money?" Sanji exclaimed. "You killed your own brother, just for money?"
Kuro lunged forward, gripping Sanji's chair with his claws. The wood splintered and cracked as the metal pierced through them. Sanji gasped, relieved that the blades missed him.
"Don't talk like you know me," Kuro hissed, his voice low and dangerous. "Do you have any idea what my brother did?"
He pushed off the chair with his foot, yanking out his claws from the wood. Sanji leaned back on the chair, feeling it give a litte under his weight. Good. He'll use that when the time was right.
"My brother left Japan, left our family dojo, and flew all the way here to build his own," Kuro explained, his face contorted into a scowl. "He abandoned our dojo! The one our forefathers put their blood sweat and tears into building up. The dojo was never the same after he left. Our business started to run to the ground, and all he could do was patter around in this foreign land, training that useless brat of a swordsman."
Kuro began to pace the floor, his hands folded behind him, blades pinging off each other as he spoke.
"I flew all the way out here to appeal to him. I hoped that he would return home and restore our dojo to its former glory. But do you know what he said to me instead?"
Kuro laughed, it was strained and Sanji shuddered at the sound of it.
"He said he knew the dojo had been in trouble for a long time now. That was why he built a second dojo here. He jumped ship before it sank, the traitor. He had no right to call himself the first son."
"That's why you killed him?" said Sanji.
"I challenged him to a fight. A duel between brothers. Of course, he was miles stronger than I was, but I had to win. I had to make him see sense."
Sanji gawked. "You cheated."
"It was easy. Koshiro was to trusting of me as a brother. He should have known better. Never turn your back on an opponent," Kuro continued.
"I had to make him see the error of his ways. He was a traitor, a stain on the family name. I had only intended to off Koshiro. But, of course, that punk of a loyal dog of his had to be there. Luckily, Zoro didn't have his swords on him, and he was too shocked at his beloved sensei's death. So I took advantage of that, and sliced him up. Cut him into ribbons. Disposed of the two bodies and covered our tracks."
Kuro laughed, making Sanji's stomach churn. This guy was psychotic, past the point of logical understanding.
"Of course, two dead swordsmen weren't going to bring back the dojo. But imagine my surprise, when the police turn up here a few days later, mistaking me for my dead brother and telling me that Zoro had been found and was in hospital."
"They told me he was in a coma. I was planning to visit him once, then pull the cord when no-one was looking. But then, I learned about the inheritance. There was enough money in there to rebuild the dojo back home. I read up on the paper work, and by rights, if Zoro wasn't able to receive the money himself, it would be given to the next of kin, Koshiro."
Kuro grinned, looking smug. "So I stuck around, and waited patiently. Bid my time."
"That' a bit of flawed plan," Sanji groused. "What would you have done if Zoro woke up? You killed Koshiro in front of him, didn't you?"
"Of course I knew of that risk," said Kuro. "There's no way he'd be fooled that I was Koshiro. So, the only other option was to keep him under."
Sanji gulped. "What?"
"Subconscious hypnotism," answered Jango. "I'm quite practiced in the art of fooling the human mind. I knew Zoro's coma was trauma induced, so we did small, unnoticeable things to lengthen his sleep. Things like hearing Kuro's voice everyday, listening to music he doesn't like, and filling the room with scents he associated with sleep."
"You fuck," Sanji muttered. "You were forcing him to stay in his coma?"
Jango grinned. "Quite ingenious, really."
Sanji could only shake his head. No wonder Zoro's spectre was defying all laws of the spectral realm and trying to breach contact with someone. This Jango guy was dangerous. Now he understood how he'd forgotten all that information he found at the study. Jango literally did put a mental block on his memories.
"And now, to undo all of this knowledge you've just learnt," chirped Kuro. He nodded at the hypnotist, who produced a circular pendant on a string and dangled it before the two boys.
"Watch the circle, boys," said Jango. "I think it's best you forget you ever had anything to do with Zoro Roronoa and this dojo."
Sanji screwed his eyes shut. No. He was not giving up this evidence that easily. As Jango began to sway the pendant, Sanji kicked out and caught the man at the back of his knee.
"Ah!" cried Jango, dropping the pendant and falling to the ground. Luffy grunted, rocking forward on his chair, before he teetered and landed head first on the hypnotist's hands with a crack.
"Augh!" Jango screeched, shoving Luffy with his free hand and sitting up. The fingers on his right hand were bent and twisted in an awkward shape. "My hand!"
"Enough!" Kuro's voice pierced through the chaos. He loomed over Sanji, raising a clawed hand high about his head. "I'll just kill you here and now and be done with it!"
"No!" cried a girl's voice.
Sanji's heart froze, as he saw Nami run into the scene, wielding a metal pipe and launching at Kuro.
"Nami!" he cried, Luffy's muffled shouts accompanying him.
Kuro spun around, long claws swiped through the air. Nami yelped and fell backwards. The metal pipe in her hand split into five pieces. She gawked at the broken pipe.
"Run!" cried Sanji. "Get away from here!"
Luffy squirmed on the floor trying to right himself. Nami scrambled to her feet, but Buchi caught hold of her arm.
"Don't let her get away!" ordered Kuro, as Sham blocked the exit.
Kuro turned and kicked at Jango who was till on the floor. "Get up you, you pathetic fool."
He waltzed over to Nami, metal claws clinking against each other.
"A friend of yours, is she?" purred Kuro, grinning at Sanji and Luffy as he hovered a claw before her delicate face.
"Mmmmmfmmmfm!" Luffy struggled double time on the floor.
"Don't you dare, fucking touch her," hissed Sanji. How the hell did Nami get here, anyway?
Kuro laughed.
"You're too late, anyway," Nami interrupted him. "I called the cops. They should be here any minute now."
"Is that so?" said Kuro. "Then we better get a move on. It's a shame the cops aren't gonna make it in time to save three, unlucky teenagers from the fire…"
Nami squirmed against Buchi's grip. "Fire? What fire?"
Kuro merely grinned, and nodded at Buchi. "Tie her to that other guy's chair. Sham, get the room ready."
Sham chuckled with glee as he skipped to the other side of the room and pulled apart some floorboards. Sanji watched wide-eyed, as the scrawny man pulled out jerry can after jerry can, and began to bathe the room in a thick, yellow liquid.
Petrol saturated into the air, Luffy began to cough under his gag. Buchi secured Nami to Luffy's chair.
"Get your fucking hands off me!" Nami cried, pulling away from his grip. Something heavy fell from her jacket pocket, and she hastened to hide it under her leg.
"What's that?" growled Bucchi, spotting it in time. "Were you recording us, bitch?"
Nami yelped as he yanked at her hair, but she didn't budge.
"Leave her, you bastard!" Sanji hissed.
"Hand it over!" Bucchi let go of her hair and move to grab her shoulder. Through Nami's top, Sanji saw the red hand print glow and smoke began to rise from it. Bucchi touched it.
"Yargh!" he whipped his hand back. Something sparked at the contact, and when Buchi stilled, his hand was ablaze.
"Jesus!" cried Jango.
"Buchi!" Sham rushed to help him, but stopped as the fire spread across the plump man's arm and through the rest of his body.
With a curdling cry, he dropped to the flood and rolled out the flames, forgetting that the room was now coated in petrol. The whole floor lit up at once.
"Fools!" cried Kuro. "Idiots! Do I have to do everything myself?"
He strode to Nami, but Sanji acted quicker. In the chaos of the growing inferno, Sanji tilted his chair backwards and braced himself. With a splintering smash, his chair shattered and he slipped out of the ropes.
Dodging a flame, Sanji kicked out and set Kuro sprawling across the room. He ran to his friends, delivering two strong kicks to the chair Luffy was tied to.
"Get them!" he heard Kuro yell over the roaring fire. "Don't let them escape!"
"Split up! Get out of here!" Sanji instructed, as he pulled both Luffy and Nami to their feet. He grabbed the small Dictaphone that Nami was hiding, and crossed the room in the opposite direction, before the fire could engulf his pathway.
Smoke began to fill the dojo, and in the swivelling hot air, Sanji made out Kuro's form through the flames.
"Find them!" cried the man. "Kill them! We can't afford any mistakes now!"
"Kuro!" Sanji yelled over the flames.
The mad man spun around, his glasses glinting the fire. Sanji held up the Dictaphone.
That's right, bastard. Come after me.
With a roar, Kuro came slashing through the flames, thundering after Sanji. His cat claws danced in the air. Sanji turned tail and ran, leaving the training room and scrambling upstairs.