Chapter Forty: Sanji

If the world of men were to end tomorrow, and Sanji somehow made it through the pillage of man, the women left in the world would still be well taken care of. It wasn't a learned behavior of Sanji's to be an advocate for all women; it was a core makeup of his being. From infancy, he'd once been told, he was utterly devoted to the happiness of women.

So when someone took away the happiness of a woman, never mind that it was one right before his eyes, nothing could stop him from doing everything he could to bring back that happiness. Even if it meant, well, humiliation at the hands of an enemy.

"He's a what?" Sanji repeated, his cigarette forgotten and tossed out the window as he all but climbed into the front seat of the beaten up sedan. Sanji's mind was flying a mile per minute, and he didn't think about his next question before it left his lips. "Miss Nami, please do not tell me that he has—"

"He deserves to die," Zoro cut Sanji off. Sanji bristled for a moment before he realized what he was about to ask. A brief moment of minuscule appreciation for the asshole's discretion was felt by Sanji, until he took in Zoro's expression. Oddly, Zoro didn't look confused at all. If anything, he looked as resolute as Sanji felt.

"That is all you need to know," Zoro went on. "And if any of you aren't okay with that or aren't planning on killing that man at the end of this, get out at the next stop sign."

Sanji was not about to step out of the car, nor was he going to let anyone else for that matter. They were all in this too far to back down now, as far as he was concerned. Nami was his number one priority within this group of idiots he called friends, as she should have been for all of them.

"Can we at least know who all we're going up against so there are no surprises?" Ussop asked, causing Sanji to recall that not everyone felt the same way about women as he did. But even as Ussop asked, rubbing his arms absently, there was no amount of desperate fear in his voice. More, he looked like he wished he'd grabbed a few knives from the kitchen before leaving.

"Likely, the entire faculty," Nami answered, drawing Sanji's attention again. The staff? Those sent to nurture and protect children? "Possibly some of the students too."

"Fuck," Sanji spat, lighting another cigarette and sitting back in the seat. Even some of the students? Sanji had been warned that the East Blue was the most corrupt of the Blues, but to corrupt children? Take away their innocence and force them to fight for their lives or what? Be raped? Killed?

"One last thing," Nami spoke up, stopping in front of the locked school gates. She gestured to the deer. "This is Chopper. He's looking for the school nurse, who is not a part of Crocodile's lot. He's not just a pet, he's competent. Treat him like he is. And don't leave him to the wolves or I'll skin you myself."

Sanji briefly glanced at the deer, wondering what it had done to earn Nami's protection, before looking back to her. She was black and blue nearly head to toe and probably mentally scarred, but still she fought on. She was, even looking as abused as she did, one of the most beautiful and admirable women he had ever met.

"Now get out," Nami ordered. "I'm going to ram through the gates with the car."

"But Nami-san," Sanji protested. "It should be one of us who does that. Your stamina must be near its limit."

"Out," Nami insisted, unmoving.

Sanji tried once more. "Let me kick through the gates. I can break the lock, I'm sure of it."

"Now," she commanded, giving him a dark look in the rear-view mirror.

Against every fiber of his being, Sanji left the back seat of the car. He was, of course, the last one to leave it, and the moment he was out, Nami backed up and rammed through the locked gates at probably twice the speed necessary to break through.

To Sanji's horror, she didn't stop in the foregrounds. The car careened through the grass, barely missing trees and bushes. Sanji took about five steps to follow, but knew he'd never be able to keep up with the car.

"Nami, wait!" Ussop cried.

"Nami-san!" Sanji called.

"Damn yankee."

Sanji looked at the other faces surrounding him, wondering if any of the fools had a better plan than himself.

"Fastest way to the principal's office is through the school," Zoro suggested, shrugging. "But it will likely be the path of most resistance."

"Fuck if I care," Sanji spat, dropping his spent cigarette and stomping it out. "You sure you'll be able to find it?"

"Eat shit, I'm going to the Kendo room first," Zoro bit back. "I need a sword. A real one."

That said, Zoro took off towards the school. Luffy was hot on his heels and Sanji ended up third in the race. He took over the lead, though, when the others came up short at the doors. Sanji wasted no time and kicked through the glass doors, sending shards flying.

He knew where he was headed; the principal's office was on the other side of the school but Sanji had been there on his first day to become 'acquainted' with the school's principal. Crocodile, though seeming like the average adult high on his authority over others, did not come off as bad the Nami and Zoro seemed to deem him, but when all was said and done, Sanji would defer to Nami's judgment. Someone had put her in that state, and by the ire in her voice as she spoke of Crocodile, Sanji chose to believe her that it was him.

At the first juncture of the hallways, the three of them split up. Not intentionally, but it just happened. Zoro went up the stairs and headed to wherever his directionally challenged head deemed was the way to the Kendo club room as Luffy charged forward past the both of them. Sanji had slowed for a moment, swearing that he'd heard Crocodile's voice from the left.

With a brief glance in the nearest room, Sanji froze in place. It was Crocodile. He was in the room, kicked back in a chair at the teacher's desk and chewing on a cigar. He did not notice Sanji; he was on the phone talking to someone.

"I see," he was saying. "Understood. I will see to it first thing Monday morning. Thank you for informing me."

Sanji was not one to beat around the bush; he walked into the room unabashedly and stood in front of the desk, demanding the attention of the bastard.

"I am afraid I must let you go, Hatchan," Crocodile said, raising an eyebrow at the intrusion. "I am needed at this moment. We'll be in touch."

Crocodile ended his call and sat up in the chair. He smirked as he came to standing, eyeing Sanji from head to toe. It gave him the creeps.

"Disgusting pedophile," Sanji spat. "Tell me, what drives a man to rape innocent children?"

Crocodile sneered. "Excuse me?"

Sanji was about to read him the riot act, but gunshots outside drew his attention, he glanced out the window and saw the car disappear around the corner of the school, bullets following its trail. Sanji wasn't sure that it was any better that Nami was not here with Crocodile; she was being shot at in the car.

When Sanji turned back to Crocodile, he was shocked to see the theatre teacher Bon Clay standing before him in Crocodile's clothes.

"What the—" Sanji started before he was slapped wickedly across the face.

"How dare you insult Crocodile-sama in such a way," Bon Clay cried in indignation. "Insolent boy, no matter how pretty you may be, I will not condone such insults to his character."

Momentarily shocked, Sanji took a second or two to realize that he'd been struck, let alone been reprimanded like a disobedient child.

"Oh you fucking quim," Sanji muttered, kicking into action, quite literally.

Sanji was neither stupid nor unobservant. He knew that when Zoro had moved them to action that morning, whether it be on a hunch or whatever, that the droopy-eyed dumb ass was right; they needed to be prepared for the next time.

Because their lives were the way that they were, there would always be a next time.

Zoro pushing them to be better wasn't just because he was a dick. Well, he was, but that wasn't the main reason he was pushing them today. Sanji understood where Zoro was coming from most of the time. Not that he agreed with he cretin, but he understood. And what had happened back on the sixteenth floor of that yakuza stronghold was a failure.

There would be no more failures.

Sanji attacked Bon Clay viciously. It may have even surprised Bon Clay at first, but the closet fairy was, if nothing else, limber and light on his feet. Sanji got maybe two or three good kicks in before Bon Clay recovered and was dancing about the room. Were those ballet moves?

Sanji thought he caught a glimpse of Ussop running past the room followed by the little deer and it reminded him of what he had been doing earlier. He very purposefully put his hands in his pants pockets and went back to kicking. Bon Clay seemed to find this transition amusing.

"Am I boring you?" he chortled. "Come now, you looked so cute flailing your arms about. Why stop now?"

Riled, Sanji nearly lost his balance.

"You don't deserved to be touched by these works of art," Sanji snapped, resetting his stance. He needed to remain calm. If he went down, he probably wouldn't be getting up again. These were assassins, not thugs. "My hands create masterpieces for all of the beautiful women of the world to enjoy. I will not soil them with the likes of you."

Bon Clay became irritated himself. "The disrespect of children these days. It's more than a little unsettling."

"The rape of the students by the faculty should be more unsettling," Sanji bit back, looking for openings as he kicked. He just had to be observant, like Ussop had been. It would come to him.

"Again with the accusations!" Bon Clay cried. "You do not have any proof of such allegations, do you?"

"The proof of the look on Nami-san's face when she said it spoke no lies," Sanji retaliated. "She was ashamed. And that marimo, he knew it too. How many students have your kind laid hands on?"

"Disgusting!" Bon Clay spat. "That anyone besides that bonehead Daz Bones would touch another student so pervertedly is ludicrous."

The fucking swim coach, too?!

Sanji did not manage to keep his cool, but it seemed that Bon Clay was taken aback with the ferocity of Sanji's renewed attacks. In moments, Sanji had him cornered.

"Sanji, stop! Please!"

Sanji abruptly paused and turned towards the classroom door. Nothing. No one there. But he had heard Nami's voice!

It was a costly hesitation. Sanji spied a silk scarf cross his vision before it encircled his neck tightly. Sanji took his hands out of his pockets and scraped at the silk scarf around his neck but could not get a grip on it as it tightened and began to crush his windpipe.

"Such a fool," Nami's voice said, somehow coming from Bon Clay's mouth as he stood behind him, tightening the scarf. "A sucker when it comes to the voice of a woman. Did you forget your opponent is the head of the drama department? I'm sure you did. I'm sure all thought went out of your mind at the sound of this little chit's voice, didn't it?"

Sanji was starting to see stars on the outside of his vision.

"We are assassins, boy," Crocodile's voice came this time. "We will not hesitate to kill the likes of you."

Think Sanji! Think! This flake had to have a weakness.

Well, aside from the obvious one.

A radio crackled and soon Sanji heard Crocodile's—the real Crocodile—voice speak.

"Report. Now."

"Mister Two, at your service!" Bon Clay sing-songed into the radio after a couple people answered.

Sanji ignored the additional voices on the radio. He was stuck on his previous thought: maybe the obvious move was the answer. Maybe Sanji should have done it from the start. Sanji kicked backwards as hard as he could and the clear tone of a man screaming in pain met his ears as the scarf loosened and fell away.

Sanji gasped for air and stumbled a few steps away as Bon Clay fell to the floor, holding his crotch and writhing in pain. Sanji didn't know who would recover first, but he had to have a plan in place in case it wasn't him. If Bon Clay came at him again, and there was no doubt that twat would be out to kill now, Sanji had to have some way to defend himself. He looked around the room and saw he nothing of value to aid him. So what did he do now? How did he defeat someone who could evade his attacks with ease and cripple him with their voice?

In Ussop's backyard, Sanji had thrown rocks at Ussop for like, thirty seconds before he realized his aim was shit and Ussop was quick as fuck to evade. So instead, he kicked the rocks around him on the ground. The rocks went infinitely faster towards their target so aim was less of a problem.

There was nothing on the floor in this room. Sanji had to change that. He picked up the nearest chair and threw it at the window. Yes, some of the glass went outside, but Sanji pulled the chair back into the classroom, causing glass to fly all over the floor.

"You!" Bon Clay growled, finally recovered enough speak. Sanji saw him climbing from his knees to his feet and knew that the time was now. Sanji began kicking shards of glass in Bon Clay's direction. Bon Clay was not as quick to avoid as before and was struck by some of the shards. "Not the face! Not the face!"

Sanji did not give two fucks about this twinkle-toes' face. He wanted nothing more than to get one straight into his vocal cord, but a different thought stopped him from doing so and he instead kicked more spikes of glass into the limbs of Bon Clay.

Soon, Bon Clay was stumbling from blood loss as much as slipping on his own blood on the floor. It was a few moments later that he fell to his knees again. Sanji cautiously approached, minding the blood on the floor and kicked Bon Clay in the stomach. The drama teacher doubled over and fell, not unconscious but unable to defend himself any further.

"Do with me what you will," he gargled. "This lot, they'll kill me for my failure to protect Crocodile-sama."

"Your devotion is misplaced," Sanji diagnosed. "Do you really think that a man who will beat the children left in his care is above raping them?"

Surprisingly, Bon Clay let out a sob. "I wanted to believe he was better than that. That a man could see the value in a person like me would not be such a cur. Someone who defended my talents to the others that dismissed me, I wanted him to be as virtuous as I imagined him to be."

"Death does not suit a man who was used and abused as unabashedly as the children in this school," Sanji decided. "Do one thing, and I will let you leave unobstructed. I'm sure a man of your talents can find a way to evade a group of assassins for a time."

Bon Clay sniffed. "A time, yes, but not forever."

"If we have our way," Sanji stated, "there will be no need after the end of today."

Bon Clay gave him a measured glance. "So cocky. What gives you such confidence?"

Sanji took out a crumpled cigarette from his pocket and lit it. "We win, or we die. That's it."

Bon Clay coughed a laugh. "I suppose you're not wrong there. What is this one thing I must do before my exit?"

"Get on that radio you have," Sanji instructed, "and use Crocodile's voice. Tell them all that the intruders, or whatever we are to you lot, have infiltrated your ranks and no one, not even the person standing next to them, can be trusted."

Bon Clay had a hard grin on his face. "A bold move. I cannot say that I am not impressed. You could feasibly take down half of the organization through distrust alone."

"Will you do it?" Sanji prodded.

Bon Clay shifted slightly and dug around in the clothes he wore, producing the radio. He paused for a moment.

"I won't make it out of this building alive if Crocodile hears me," Bon Clay predicted. "Still, I'm going to try."

His face went serious then, and he pressed the button on the radio.

"Attention all Weekdays and Numbers," Bon Clay spoke into the radio in a perfect imitation of Crocodile's voice. "The usurpers have infiltrated the organization. This is not a drill. Baroque Works has been compromised. Be advised that no one outside of the base can be trusted. This line is no longer safe. Abandon your post and regroup at the base."

Sanji almost blew a gasket when Bon Clay was done. "That's not what we agreed on!"

"No one will have a radio anymore to tell them they've been had," Bon Clay revealed, probably trying to pacify him. "They'll head back to the orphanage without question and if Crocodile heard that message, he'll be headed here momentarily."

Well at least Sanji wouldn't have to go anywhere.

Bon Clay dragged his body back to standing, but still looked pretty poorly off. Sanji didn't doubt what Bon Clay had predicted; if Crocodile heard him he would be dead within minutes. There would be no defense on his side.

"I won't thank you," Sanji said. "But I will assure you that you're doing the right thing by the students of this school. Maybe that will be of some consolation."

"Hardly," Bon Clay barked as he headed for the door. "But maybe now I can die with less weighing on my soul."

Bon Clay exited the room, and Sanji wondered if he would make it out of the school alive.

"Chopper!"

Sanji started and dashed to the window in time to see Nami being dragged off school grounds by that son of a bitch Trafalgar Water. She disappeared from his view and shortly thereafter, a motorbike could be heard kicking started.

"Fuck!" Sanji swore.

This was still salvageable. Nami was being removed from the school, which was not a bad thing, but Trafalgar Water did not look like the gentleman that Nami needed at the moment. He looked more like a thug kidnapping her again.

Sanji kicked a few more shards out of the window and jumped through it. He landed on the ground in the bushes precariously, trying not to hit the glass he'd sent out the window when he'd broken it. In his line of sight, the little deer went running past and headed to the school gates. Sanji watched the animal stick its head (there was something hanging from its antlers) around the corner briefly before it turned around forlornly and walked back the way it had come.

Though Sanji could relate to the little deer's dejection at Nami's departure without him, Sanji couldn't help but notice that there was something odd about the animal. Yes, Nami had said something about him being competent, but that meant he understood certain commands, right? Not like, really competent. That was absurd.

As Sanji watched, the little deer shook its head to relieve it of the items stuck to it . Suddenly, its ears perked up and he looked towards the doors to the school. His fur seemed to stand on end right before he came straight at Sanji and hopped behind the very bushes that Sanji was behind. The deer gave him one look (of recognition?) before his attention returned to the doors of the school.

Out stepped Bon Clay, looking worse than in the classroom. He struggled to get to the gates, leaving a trail of blood in his wake. Finally, a few steps from the gates, he fell to the ground, unmoving.

Sanji sighed. Bon Clay was an assassin and probably deserved to die for his crimes, but Sanji did not like being the dealer of death to a man who only wanted to believe, however wrongly, that the one person who accepted him and his odd intricacies was not a piece of shit.

"Poor bastard," Sanji muttered. The little deer, Chopper was it? Chopper looked at him and quirked his head to the side. Sanji addressed the deer directly. "You're supposed to be with Ussop. Nami told us not to abandon you, but did you abandon him I wonder?"

The animal simply stared at him, though Sanji thought he looked insulted, and a moment later, Chopper hopped the bushes and headed back the way he'd come. He stopped momentarily and turned to stare at Sanji, as if to ask if he was coming.

"Fucking deer," Sanji muttered, exiting the bushes and following Chopper. The deer led him closer to the west end of the school and hopped into a broken window. Sanji followed and was unprepared for what he saw.

Bodies. Everywhere.

Faculty bodies.

The bodies were riddled with punctures of different widths. It was odd. Some looked like knife marks, which would make sense since they were near the kitchens and Ussop probably wanted to stock up when he got to the school, but some were more round. Like bullet holes, but bigger.

Chopper was doing something weird. He looked like he was attempting to hide behind the teacher's desk, but his rear end was sticking out to reveal him. Sanji was about to point it out, but then stopped himself. It was a deer.

The gym teacher entered the room in a rage. He spotted Sanji and immediately bulldozed towards him. Sanji was not on balance at the moment, having stepped backwards reflexively and stepped on a body, and would have taken a hard hit if Chopper, the little deer who was apparently competent as fuck, hadn't saved him.

Chopper sprang from his hiding place and impaled the gym teacher with his antlers (that explained the weird holes in the faculty bodies), causing the man to stagger a bit to the left and miss his target. Sanji watched the man lumber by and sucked in a breath of shock: there were seven knives in the man's back, but he was still going, towing little Chopper along with him now.

Sanji grabbed at the deer, meaning to free him, but ultimately came back with a clump of fur in his fist. The animal yelped but was not dislodged. Sanji immediately knew the problem: the knives (and Chopper) were still stuck in him. He would not bleed out at this rate and the adrenaline keeping him going would not fade.

"Chopper! Where are you?"

The gym teacher's ire went towards the classroom door where Ussop's voice and come from. He began bulldozing in that direction and Sanji knew that Ussop would not know what was headed at him.

Sanji decided to once again utilize what was around him. He threw a vicious kick at the nearest body and sent it hurtling at the teacher. It hit dead on and did what it was supposed to; Sanji was now the object of his attention. With the floor slick with blood, Sanji wasn't sure there was much he could do about what was about to come barreling at him, but he needn't have worried.

Of all people, Sanji never expected to be rescued by his own enemy.

"Mister Four! What the hell are you doing, plodding around with knives and a deer sticking out of your body? Relieve yourself of the burdens immediately, you fool!"

It was Miss Crisp's voice, but when Sanji looked to the window where it had come from, he saw nothing. Poking his head out the window, since Mr. Goju had stopped in his tracks to relieve himself of Chopper, Sanji saw Bon Clay laid up under the window and throwing his voice to their advantage.

"I never liked him anyway," he told Sanji, giving him a thumbs up.

Sanji looked back at Mr. Goju and saw that he was flailing around and flexing his back in attempt to dislodge the knives. Already, his moves were sluggish due to the punctures that Chopper had caused—

Chopper! Sanji looked around the room for the little deer and found him tossed to the back of the room and stunned. Sanji went to him and assessed the damage. The deer was bleeding a little from his mouth but looked okay, other than stunned.

A loud thud drew Sanji's attention away from Chopper to see Mr. Goju fall to the ground, still flailing but with no vigor in his moves anymore. Blood loss, and the consequential loss of adrenaline, had stolen his strength. Finally, Ussop made it to the classroom.

"Whoa!" Ussop cried, taking in the scene. As Sanji had thought, Ussop was laden with knives, likely from the kitchen. He stooped to pick up the discarded knives as he took in the scene almost absently.

"Chopper, you're amazing," Ussop praised. "I don't know where Nami found you, but damn, are you a gem!"

The deer stumbled to its feet, shook himself, and then looked at Ussop with its tiny tail wagging.

"Stupid! I don't like your praise! Fool!"

Sanji's attention turned to the window where Bon Clay was hunkered down. Had he thrown his voice this far? He stepped over bodies and stuck his head out the window. Nope, Bon Clay was passed out on the ground. Sanji turned back to Ussop and Chopper. Ussop gave him a sheepish look.

"So, yeah," Ussop shrugged. "He talks. I'm going to process that later."

Sanji looked at Chopper and the deer seemed to wither under his stare. "Okay. He talks. Deal with it later. Got it."

Chopper still looked nervous, but Ussop ignored it and rubbed the deer's head vigorously. "We got to get to this 'base' or whatever. Crocodile was on the radio—"

"That was a ruse," Sanji revealed, "by that idiot Bon Clay. I put him up to it. If you want to take his life, he's outside the window, but I think that poor bastard has been as used as the children in this school. I will not be the one to do it."

Ussop looked a little green around the gills. "Not interested."

He had taken up petting Chopper almost absently. Maybe he was nervous too.

"We gotta find Crocodile before he makes it to the base," Sanji agreed. "Nami was carted off by that fucker Water and we've got two more idiots to account for too."

"Zoro's by the pools," Ussop told him. "I saw him out one of the windows when I grabbed the knives."

Okay. That just left Luffy unaccounted for.

Suddenly, glass shattering could be heard and a body dropped from the upstairs window. Sanji chuckled.

"Do you want to go back up Luffy or the marimo?" Sanji asked, pulling out his last cigarette.

"Neither," Ussop joked. "But I'm going to the roof. I can do the best damage from a distance."

Sanji nodded in acceptance. "Then the deer comes with me. I'm going to back up Luffy and that deer is quite the little warrior."

Chopper began squirming and whining, as if he was still too scared to say anything, but obviously pleased to be praised so.

Sanji and Ussop (and Chopper too—it was so weird to think of the deer as their comrade) headed out of the room and made their way to the stairs after Ussop replenished the last of his knives. Sanji broke from Ussop at the second floor and Chopper, somewhat reluctantly, went with himself as Ussop continued to climb the stairs.

"What was hanging off of your antlers earlier?" Sanji asked as they made their way towards the ruckus that was Luffy.

Chopper didn't seem like he was going to answer at first, but finally, "Intestines."

Sanji gave Chopper a look of disbelief. "You disemboweled someone?"

"Not on purpose!" Chopper cried. "He fell on me and I couldn't get him off. His intestines came out when I finally did."

Sanji saw that the little deer was about to have a panic attack. He was shaking like a leaf and his breath was coming out in little huffs. His eyes were wide and dilated and he looked ready to bolt. Sanji was going to have to do something about this if he wanted the deer not to become a potential nuisance.

He crouched down to Chopper's level and gently rubbed the deer's head. "I'm guessing you've never done anything like this before."

"I don't want to take lives," the little deer wept. "I want to save them. But I can't do one without inadvertently doing the other. I'm a monster."

Sanji sighed, taking in the last drag off of his cigarette before tossing it out a nearby broken window.

"If you save more lives than you take, I think you're doing it right," Sanji told him. "The school nurse; you want to save her, right?"

"Yes, but she's safe now, I think," Chopper revealed. "She went with the police back at the orphanage. But I wanted to go with Nami because she's—well, she's the best person I've ever met outside of Doctorine and Hiluluk."

Sanji had no idea who those people were, but he could sympathize with Chopper's feelings on Nami. She truly was the best. In so many ways.

"We are going to make sure that bad things don't happen to her anymore," Sanji told Chopper. "And not just her, but the entire student body at this school. So many students are hurt by these people on a daily basis. And we are here to stop that. So yes, we may kill five, ten, even twenty people today. But we're going to save hundreds. Can you live with that?"

Chopper sniffed twice. "Okay."

The little deer looked a little more resolute now. Thank fuck. Because the chaos that was Luffy was headed their way by the sounds of it. Sanji wiped his shoe bottoms off on his pant legs to assure that he would have grip when the wildness came. Chopper shook himself and though he positioned himself behind Sanji and a hidden manner, Sanji believed it was more for the element of surprise than fear.

"I'll kill you, you fucking brat!" screamed Mr. Galdino as he charged at Luffy, who had backed out of a classroom ahead of them. On his left and right, Miss Valentine and Miss King. Sanji immediately felt reservation against fighting women.

That is until Miss Valentine saw him and immediately raised two pistols to shoot at him.

"Fuck!" Sanji spat, ducking out of the way and yanking Chopper along with him. Bullets were barreling at them but Sanji dodged them in a frenzy. He was still not fast enough. He didn't take a bullet in the shoulder but it grazed him and threw him off his balance.

Damn his fucking balance!

Sanji tipped and tossed Chopper in order to save his furry butt from going down with him. Chopper scrambled when he hit the ground and looked like he was going to attack, but suddenly everyone's attention was on him.

"Get that fucking deer!"

All weapons ended up pointed in his direction. Chopper paused to spring, but did not count on Luffy grabbing his little tail and yanking him up into his arms, And then Luffy was bouncing off the walls. Literally. Chopper looked stunned at first but then got his hooves against Luffy's chest and pounced off of him when Luffy bounced off the next wall. He hit Mr. Galdino, antler first, square in the chest.

The ladies looked horrified for a moment before redirecting their attacks. Too little too late.

Luffy punched Miss King in the back of the head while his foot came around and connected with Miss Valentine's neck. There was a sickening crack and both ladies went down. Neither got up and Sanji was left to wonder which one of them was left alive. If either of them were.

"He's not here!" Luffy yelled. "We gotta go after him!"

"Slow down Luffy," Sanji urged, stopping the kid from running headlong down the hall towards the stairs. "Who isn't here?"

"Crocodile!" Luffy yelled again. "I saw him leave with Miss Blue and Mr. Bones. Like two minutes ago. And that one girl was with them."

"What girl?" Sanji asked, not following. So Crocodile had left and took some cronies. Okay, but where were they headed?

"The one from yesterday," Luffy answered. "The teal one."

Teal? Vivi? She was one of Crocodile's—

No, you don't know that yet, Sanji told himself.

"Did it look like she was being taken against her will?" Sanji asked, trying to clarify.

Luffy now looked confused, as if Sanji had asked an algebra question. "I don't know. Who cares? We gotta go after him."

Sanji usually had endless patience for Luffy but not at this moment. "It's important. Did she look like she was being taken against her will?"

Luffy looked frustrated. Like he didn't understand why the question had come up.

"Because if Crocodile did what he did to Nami, what's to say he isn't going to do it to Vivi?" Sanji guided him. Finally, understanding seemed to hit Luffy. He concentrated for a moment.

"She didn't look forced," he finally said and Sanji's heart sunk. "But she didn't look like she wanted to go either."

Sanji thought about that for a moment. If Luffy noticed that much, there was a chance that Vivi was not one of Crocodile's assassins. A small one, but Sanji could work with that.

With that settled, Sanji remembered Chopper. The poor little deer was still stuck with his antlers imbedded in Mr. Galdino. Sanji went over to him and helped relieve the deer of his burden.

"Okay," Sanji said. "We're going to find that moron Zoro and Ussop and we're leaving. Ussop was headed to the roof and Zoro was supposedly near the pools. We'll split up to get them and meet up in front of the school in five minutes. Got it?"

Luffy nodded and ran up the stairs without further goading. Sanji looked at Chopper.

"Which way are you going?" Sanji asked the little deer.

"With you," Chopper answered. "You're wounded. I can help."

"It's just a scratch," Sanji assured him. "But you're welcome to come with. Who knows what I'll find out by the pools."

It was true. Zoro might have a horde around him or he might just be lost. Either way, Chopper was pretty fucking handy in a fight, and Sanji knew their fight was far from over.

A/N: Hello! I have been absent for awhile. I sincerely apologize. I hope you enjoy this chapter and let me know that you're still with me!