Sorry to any monster chapter fan out there, this one's only around 25k.
Disclaimer: I do not own One Piece, so anything that you see in this fic and that you can recognise as belonging to One Piece is not mine. If I did own it, I wouldn't have to write fanfiction. Duh. Also, I don't own the picture.
Part One - Dive|rgence
Free
I have only ever ran away
(and it felt like being trapped in my own fear,
in my own head)
but now that I run away with you,
running feels like fighting
tastes like freedom
sounds like happiness
(like living a dream)
〪〪〪〜〜⏆〜〜〭〭〭
Usopp thinks hard about what Sanji told him as Nami half-carries him out of the room where their blond crewmate is now fighting the CP9 agent.
I'll take care of what you can't do.
So just think.
Right now, what do we need?
What can you do to help that none of us can?
They don't need him to get so hurt he can't even carry his own weight anymore, and he can't fight against enemies who run faster than he can aim.
Nami drags the both of them in an empty room down the hall, and the two of them crumple to the ground to catch their breath over their throbbing injuries.
(His injuries that are so much more numerous than hers and yet feel like they're worth so much less,
because after all, he got them all in fights that he didn't win.
And after all, no matter how much he hates it,
no matter how many times Chopper reminds them that their health is important and that ruining themselves won't get them closer to their dreams,
pain and strength and worth still sound so similar in his thoughts.
From the conversations he heard between Sanji and his female crewmates, he thinks that 'being a man' rhymes a lot with those, too.
He thinks that his dream might have looked a lot like that, when he first said that he wanted to become a brave warrior of the sea.
He doesn't think that's what he wants it to mean, anymore.
He'd rather have it be about the strength of being kind when it would be easier to not care, and the importance of saving and protecting even if it means running.)
Usopp tilts to the side, everything spinning around him from what might just be blood loss, and falls on his back.
A stretch of blue sky stares back at him from where the upper half of the Tower slid off its base.
We're pirates, not mercenaries, Elynna told him not so long ago.
Because strength isn't just fighting skill, and how good a fighter you are isn't everything.
So where does his strength lie?
What is he good at?
He's good at making his crewmates laugh.
He's good at putting stars in people's eyes and a smile on their face with his stories.
He's good at getting overwhelmed by his own fear to the point of feeling sick, and at ignoring it.
And he's always, always been good at shooting.
Woah, you're so strong Usopp! He remembers Luffy saying through the awe of his laughter when he used a cannon for the first time and hit his target as if it was the thousandth he ever aimed for it. It's decided, then! You'll be our sniper!
He blinks up at the sky, as blue as it was on that day when his Captain made him feel like he could do anything —like he was a pirate not just in name but in worth, too.
Right now, his nakama are fighting for these keys, but who will get them to Robin, who has already left the Tower?
Right now, his nakama are fighting with all they have, so how much strength will they really have left, to fight for their escape against a Buster Call?
"Nami-kun." He says.
She pauses in the middle of bandaging the hole in her shoulder to meet his eyes.
"Yeah?"
He tears a large piece of cloth from his cape, and holds it out to her.
"When Zoro-kun and Sanji-kun are done with their fight, please bring their keys to me at the top of the Tower."
"The top of the— But I still have to take a look at your injuries!" She exclaims as he slowly sits up and she leans forward, hands reaching out as if she thinks he might break in pieces under the strain of such a simple movement and she wants to catch them all.
He catches one of her hands and squeezes the piece of cloth between their joined fingers, the other patting his satchel.
"Please do not worry, Nami-kun. I have everything I need, and the enemy I will fight will never be able to fight back where I am going."
She looks at their hands, then at his face and the mask on it, and then sighs as her fingers close around the red piece of cloth, squeezing his fingers at the same time.
"Alright, I'll do that. But no pushing yourself too far anymore, you hear me?"
"Loud and clear, Nami-kun. I shall make full use of my strategic retreat skills should the need arise."
"You better, you idiot. I'll join you as soon as the two idiots are done being reckless."
"Then we shall see each other soon. Please make sure to scold them as needed for both of us and Usopp-kun."
She gives him a somewhat exasperated look, checks both sides of the hallway, and slips out of the room.
He follows her as soon as his hands stop shaking too much for him to ignore it.
〪〪〪〜〜⏆〜〜〭〭〭
He doesn't know how.
But he knows.
He knows that it's not Luffy or Robin or even Elynna coming out onto the bridge, even before anyone actually makes it out of the first pillar.
He doesn't know how, but he's not exactly surprised to recognise Franky, either.
The Marines from their escape ship who have formed a guard of honour up the flight of stairs leading to the bridge only seem to see him when he's already halfway through the bridge, and a group of them immediately gathers at the end of the bridge, getting in position to fire.
Usopp's eyes settle on what seems to be the commanding officer, who stands right under the arc of the small gate decorated with the symbol of the World Government and opens his mouth to order them to fire.
As if it will protect him.
The first of his explosive munitions lands right in his face before the man can say a word, sending him tumbling down the stairs.
Some of his soldiers immediately let go of their weapons to go assist him, leaving Usopp with more than enough time to shoot down all those who were still aiming for Franky.
Then the rest of the Marines pour out of the ship and up the stairs and the battle starts for real, because even he can't shoot down that many people.
Franky doesn't have an infinite amount of his own munitions either, but between the two of them Usopp feels confident in swearing to himself that he will accomplish his missions no matter what.
None of it is a game, even if the distance and the wind is enough to eat up the screams of those he hits.
(Because what seems like every cell in his body hurts too much for this to be a game.
Because he might still die, because all the others might still die.
Because he's been using actually harmful munitions for some time now, and people who think that a cause which pretends that anything good can come out of crushing two people and using their pieces as a foundation of that anything is a cause worth fighting for are people who won't be stopped by rotten eggs and tabasco sauce.
Because what did happen and what almost happened to Robin and Franky is not a game.)
But he's been shooting cannonballs at enemy ships through storms and distances like this thanks to what the best navigator of the East Blue has taught him about winds and currents for months, and he's built the Kabuto for challenging shots like these.
As far as the difficulty of his shots is concerned, it might as well be a game, even with the whistling call of a voice that laps on the edge of his hearing like a persistent, distracting wave.
〪〪〪〜〜⏆〜〜〭〭〭
There's way more soldiers coming from this ship than there is any right to be.
Or at least that's what Franky thinks for the nth time as yet another wave of soldiers rushes at him from the stairs leading down to the ship he's supposed to gain control of to prepare the Straw Hats' evasion.
Well, half of the wave, really, because there's an impressive amount of munitions with delightfully creative effects flying around him and shooting down about half of the soldiers before they even cross the small gate that marks the beginning of the Bridge of Hesitation.
None of the munitions have even come close to touching him since the beginning, even with all the moving around he's doing.
And while he hasn't had the time to check yet, several of the soldiers screamed something about the sniper shooting from the top of the Tower of Justice.
He's pretty sure most people wouldn't even be able to see individuals on the bridge from there, let alone shoot them down so accurately.
It's batshit crazy, complete bullshit, and exactly the type of insanity that comes with working with the Straw Hats, as he's come to learn.
At this point, he doesn't even know why he's still surprised.
"Weapons Left!"
The cannonball crashes through what's left of the group, and he smirks in satisfaction as the next group hesitates to follow, the soldiers apparently starting to realise that their number is the only thing they have going for them —and that it's not going to be enough to take him down, especially with Long Nose backing him up.
Then a few munitions hit the ground, and thick smoke billows through the air to form a tall wall of grey clouds between him and the Marines.
"Yo, Franky-san! You lost your bet!" A voice calls out behind him, and he can almost feel the way his face falls into something far more disgruntled.
"We didn't bet anything." He rebukes stiffly as Nico Robin and Schwarz slow to a stop next to him. "And you only had two enemies to take care of. I already lost count of how many dozens I took down."
"Shame. I should've made you bet something."
"Play nice." Robin hums softly with an amused smile.
"What's with that sword, anyway?" Franky grunts before the girl can annoy him again, jerking his chin towards the imposing blade strapped to her back.
Her answering grin spells Trouble too much to be called a smile.
"Just a souvenir."
The sound of an incoming call cuts off his reply, and he grumbles as he fishes his Den Den Mushi out of his shirt.
"Franky-kun, do you copy? This is Sogeking, the great King of Snipers calling!"
"Uh? Yeah, it's me. How did you get my number?"
"Kokoro-san gave it to us in the Sea Train, and Nami-kun gave me the Den Den Mushi earlier."
"Should've known that old hag had something to do with it. Well, whatever. Thanks for your help, by the way. You're one hell of a sniper, Long Nose."
"But of course, Franky-kun! We should hurry before the smoke screen is blown away by the wind, however! There should be a small package wrapped in red cloth somewhere next to you."
Casting a cursory glance around him, Franky nods.
"Yeah, I see it."
"Perfect! The two remaining keys are inside, if the two you had before could not unlock Robin-kun's handcuffs."
Franky watches as the eyes of the woman in question light up.
(It's only then that he notices how clear of a blue they are,
as if she's been surviving on the edge of giving up and dying all this time, and it's only now that she's alive enough for it to show in her eyes.)
He promptly stuffs the snail into Schwarz' hands —there's no way he's letting someone like her anywhere near those keys— and hurries to retrieve the package.
The key number 5 fits just right, and the next moment the heavy weight of the seastone handcuffs clatters against the ground loudly.
Nico Robin doesn't even wince as she lifts her hands in front of her face, despite the clearly chafed skin around her wrists and the way her movement is made jerky by all the hours spent with her arms bent behind her back.
Instead, she just looks at her unbound hands like she's been chained for much, much longer than a few hours, and cries.
Her knees suddenly give way under her weight, and by the time his hand closes gently around her forearm she already has a hand on Schwarz' shoulder.
The girl takes on most of her weight without budging, one hand pressing against the older woman's ribs to keep her upright.
"Woah there, lady, don't faint on me now—"
"I'm fine." The last survivor of Ohara tells him with a smile of thanks as she straightens up.
Then she carefully takes the Den Den Mushi from the younger girl's hands and lifts it up.
"Mister Sni—" She pauses, breath ragged with the words her mouth shapes but that her voice doesn't speak. "Usopp. Thank you —so much. For everything you've done."
"No worries, Robin!" The kid answers, breaking character for just a moment as his voice suddenly brightens. "Besides, I was not alone in this endeavour! I am but a messenger of all the efforts your nakama have put into vainquishing the ones who guarded those keys, and I have no doubt that Luffy-kun and Elynna-kun have also done their very best on their sides! Our struggle is only just starting, but I'm sure you will be of great help in the fight to come! As Elynna-kun told us, do your worst!"
And then the Den Den Mushi goes right back to sleep.
Franky squints at the woman in annoyance.
"No, really, who is that Elynna chick? And I thought some Ann kid was also part of your crew…"
Nico Robin blinks at him, a few tears still clinging to her eyelashes even as her eyes suddenly crinkle with a very different emotion.
"Oh, no." She smiles at him, a little too amused for his taste. "Ann is the Captain's nickname for Elynna. They're actually the same person —and the Straw Hats' First Mate."
"... Wait, it's not Roronoa?"
The smile gets just a tiny bit wider and just a tiny bit more amused.
"No. It's—"
"Me." Schwarz interrupts with a raise of her hand.
Silence.
Silence, as Franky stares at Nico Robin's face and waits for her to call out the lie, the sick joke —whatever the Marine's new fucked-up way to get her kicks should be called.
The woman just keeps smiling.
"What." He says eventually.
Schwarz wriggles her fingers.
"Hi." She says blankly.
The silence just gets longer and deeper.
And then Nico Robin starts to actually laugh, soft chuckles slipping from behind her hand and making the other girl finally react as her mouth twitches up into an actual, honest-to-god smirk that Schwarz —or Elynna or whatever the fuck her name is— makes absolutely no effort to smother.
If they still could, he thinks he might feel his cheeks heat with his anger.
As it is, his veins pulse with the annoyance ringing through his skull, and his fingers twitch —right before he lunges to grab the Straw Hats' First Mate by the collar and lift her up in the air with one hand.
"You think this is funny?"
"Yep." The girl has the nerve to answer with all the self-assurance of someone who isn't dangling in the air in the grip of Water Seven's top crime lord.
Then again, being self-assured and lacking more than a few brain cells is probably a must for the members of that crew considering the stunts they keep pull—
His eyes narrow.
"Wait a minute. When we met in Water Seven, you guys had already—"
"—blown your house to bits and beaten your men to a pulp? Hell yeah. Fun times, that. Nice tourist-y sight. Even if I couldn't take part in it, since, you know, I was busy taking care of the crewmate you guys beat black and blue first."
He duly ignores that last comment.
"And you didn't think to say anything?!"
"... Well, you didn't ask."
His jaw clenches.
"Oi, Nico Robin."
"Yes?"
"How the hell is she still alive?" He asks with a shake of the girl in question, whose body sways listlessly in time with his grip.
"Ah. Elynna doesn't usually put this much effort into… driving people up the wall, shall we say. I think she likes you. Congratulations."
He looks back at the brat with a dubious grunt.
The brat stares back blandly, and does the most brat-like thing she can.
She blows him a kiss.
His face falls.
"I'm gonna kill her." He announces to no one in particular.
"Don't you dare, you coward! Release her this instant!" A voice calls out angrily.
Looking to the side, Franky finds himself with a wall of soldiers instead of the clouds of smoke from earlier, which have all thinned into nothing.
And said soldiers are pointing their rifles at him.
"Hah?! She's not even a real—"
"The two criminals are on the run. I'm gonna die. Please send help." Elynna interrupts him flatly, still hanging limply in his grip without making any attempt to even look like she's struggling to escape.
The distinct lack of credibility doesn't seem to bother the Marines in the least, because they're yelling something else about Franky being a 'coward' for 'taking their comrade hostage' when a whistling, thunderous sound draws everyone's attention to the towering splash of water that explodes near the Gates of Justice and the portion of the barrier that circles the entire island right next to it.
That, and the ten warships that are emerging on the horizon beyond said Gates, big enough even from where he stands for Franky to conclude that they're probably taller than actual Giants.
Then another cannonball hurtles through the air, and knocks the upper half of the Tower of Justice that was sliced in two straight into the blackhole of water down below.
Robin's laughter chokes to a stop at the same time that Franky realises that wait a damn minute, wasn't Long Nose—
"Usopp—"
He's never had an interest in trying to reproduce the full spectrum of sensations human skin can experience during the eight years he's spent adding modifications to the body he made himself to survive, but the artificial skin he has now can still pick up on some inklings of tactile impressions.
So just like he felt a slight, tickling sensation when a few bullets hit him earlier, he feels the first layer of metal under his skin gives with a slight creak under the desperation of Elynna's grip as she suddenly takes hold of his arm, a trickle of faint warmth alerting him to the blood dripping down his forearm from where her hands can't even circle his wrist.
(She's too pale for him to see the blood drain from her face the way it does with her crewmate
but the widening of her eyes makes them even larger, leaves even more space to see the abrupt, shell-shocked gouging out of her heart fill them up like something eating her up from the inside.
It's the first time that he really feels all the years that separate them
—all the years that she doesn't have.)
He's quick to draw out his Den Den Mushi again, and the answer comes just as rapidly.
"Franky, this is Sanji! Usopp's safe, we're going down right now to join you at the bridge!"
"Safe?! I'll have you know, I'm mortally wounded, you numbskull! Youngsters these days have no respect for super-normal superheroes!"
"I swear, you better not be thinking of screaming like this the whole way, because I will drop you—"
The swordsman's reply is abruptly cut off by the end of the call, but the shortness of it doesn't stop it from being enough.
Enough for colour to come back in Robin's face as she allows herself to close her eyes and sigh in relief.
Enough for Elynna to fall slack in his grip all over again as she blinks away the rushed heartbreak in her eyes to pat his forearm.
"Alright, Boss. Time to get to work."
He rolls his eyes, gaze drifting back towards the soldiers who are too busy nervously watching the ships get bigger and bigger and bigger to pay attention to them.
He smirks.
"Guess so."
"... I don't like that loo—"
He winds his arm back, and launches her straight into the group.
The few Marines who see her coming scream.
She doesn't.
Instead, she lands feet first in someone's chest, hands grabbing the face of another soldier each.
The three men are promptly smashed down into the ground.
"What—" A soldier stutters, hesitantly raising his rifle as if he isn't quite sure what to do with it.
The girl straightens up quickly, raising both hands in the air at the same time —so quickly that she ends up punching the Marines behind her in the nose and the jaw respectively.
"So sorry." She says listlessly as she finally unfolds her fists into open, empty hands. "I'm clumsy."
The diversion is enough for Nico Robin's hands to bloom all over the members of the unit and proceed to slap them into bruised heaps of unconsciousness.
"When I said time to get to work," his co-prisoner's First Mate starts as she nonchalantly makes her way through the various bodies and back to them, "that's not exactly what I meant."
He crosses his arms and only smirks wider at the satisfaction of knowing he's the one who caused the dull look of aggravation on her face.
"Tough. That's what you get."
"Can't we just get along for the sake of killing people and sticking it to the World Government?"
"Nah. I don't do business with people I don't like."
The girl sniffs.
"Fine. I'll just have to make you like me, then."
"I'd like to see you try."
Robin's eyes trail between the two of them in amusement.
She makes no move to take care of the two soldiers who are regaining consciousness.
"Watch me."
"I am watching."
"Oh, good."
Elynna promptly shruggs off her raincoat to ball it up and throw it hard enough in the first Marine's stomach that he bends in two at the waist, breath knocked out of him with the impact.
The second man has the time to race through barely a third of the distance separating them before a bunched up Marine shirt hits him square in the face.
Franky's flying fist knocks them both out before they can recover.
"That's it?"
"Nah, wasn't my point."
He raises an eyebrow as his fist slots back into place, and straightens up to look down at her, arms crossing over his chest.
"Oh?"
She places both hands on her hips.
"Just showing that I can be a pervert too." She tells him with a pointed look at his own outfit and all the assertiveness she must have needed to pull off her farce in the Sea Train.
And then—
"Shame is for the weak." She adds.
He would laugh, if he didn't see the gesture for what it is —a baring of who she is after all the lies she told him.
If she wasn't making herself vulnerable in a place like this as if she trusts him to make sure nothing happens to her.
If she didn't just take off the clothes embroidered with the symbol of the Marines to display the weapons hidden underneath all this time —and that definitely wouldn't normally belong in the skillset of a spy.
(He would laugh, if her taking off her shirt didn't display every detail of the way most of the skin of her torso is tinged with blues and violets where it's not hidden by her bra, the colours looking all the more violent against how pallid the unmarred parts of her skin are,
or the way rudimentary bandages could almost look like her actual skin if not for the way they're stained with the blood of the wounds they hide.
He would laugh, but Nico Robin isn't smiling anymore, and her eyes look like she could do all the things the stories he's heard accuse her of.
Especially the bad things, and especially those from the worst stories.)
"Hm. Not bad."
Her shoulders slouch.
"Stop playing hard to get." She gripes.
He raises a mocking eyebrow.
Revenge is sweet.
"You're the one who started it with your stupid mind games." He grins back. "So? What else you've got?"
She steps back to avoid the jab of a sword from the Marine Franky was about to riddle with bullets, since he's too close for her to have the time to take out her weapons.
Then she grabs him by the collar and rams her fist into his throat.
Right.
He almost forgot how he met her for a moment, but clearly she doesn't need blades to be dangerous.
The body goes limp in her grip.
"Hey," she says suddenly, "doesn't the Franky Family have some kind of recycling-but-make-it-criminal business?"
"It's ship dismantling." He corrects her, crossing his arms over his chest with a huff. "And what does that have to do with anything?"
"I can do recycling, too."
She lets go, and holds up her fist as if it does anything to illustrate her argum—
His eyes narrow.
Drift lower to the body at her feet.
Go back up.
"You stabbed him. In the throat. With a candy stick."
"Do you like me yet?"
"You call that recycling?"
"... I knew I should have aimed for the eyeballs. Would've looked more like the original product that way. Still gave it a second life, though."
Behind her, Robin's nose scrunches up in a way that manages to be impressively refined considering the dirt and blood that is smeared over her face.
And this time Franky does laugh.
Loud screaming quickly cuts him off, though, coming from what he assumed to be the leading officer of the ship when he first stepped onto the bridge.
But the screams aren't directed at them.
Rather, the man is yelling in the opposite direction, down the stairs leading to his ship.
"Hurry up, all of you! We have three criminals on the loose to take care of and— I said stop running, you idiotic cowards! The Vice-Admirals know we're here, they won't attack the Bridge as long as we're on it!"
That's when a message of the Buster Call's leading Vice-Admiral circulates between all ten warships, easy to hear given the volume and the fact that some of said ships have already reached the bridge they're standing on.
Franky watches the officer's face crumble like wet, torn paper for a moment as orders to spare the Bridge of Hesitation temporarily for no other reason than because Nico Robin was confirmed to be there resonate through the air.
The man looks like his worldview was just a pair of glasses that just got wrenched off his face and stomped on, and although Franky doesn't have very high standards when it comes to how much decency Marines can show, he didn't expect such a blatant lack of care, either.
(Even if only to keep up the charade.
Because otherwise, how can so many people keep dedicating their life —in every sense of the words— to this institution and everything it represents when it's so open about its callousness towards its own members?
Necessary evils only go so far, and too often go too far.
He's stopped believing that there's anything necessary about most of what the World Government gets up to a long time ago, let alone believing that they're worth trusting with his life.
Refusing to cooperate with the CP9 might be what finally brings back to him the attention that should have killed him eight years ago, but the truth is that he hasn't been a citizen of this world for just as long.)
He expects even less the sheer horror that is the Buster Call.
Because when the warships start to actually shell their own stronghold, the first salvo is enough to create dozens of columns of black, toxic smoke that rise up to the blue, eversummer sky as if they want to swallow the sun and choke it to nothing.
There's barely any pause between the sounds of every ship shooting another barrage of cannonballs.
(It sounds like something is trying to break through this reality to crush it to dust
or simply to break it all down to pieces all those trapped here will be left to bleed themselves on —except for the people who made these pieces happen in the first place.)
He watches as fire spreads across the Main Island, the crackling adding to the pandemonium of the cannonballs in the same way the flames devour the remains of the buildings the projectiles lay to ruin.
(It's the opposite of an oasis.
Like its own little piece of hell floating right there in the ocean,
on the edge of falling right back down to where it comes from.
Something that has no right to exist in this world and is now being burned to cinders for daring to try anyway.
He thinks of the soldiers firing these cannonballs and the people who sent these soldiers in the first place, and figures that the World Government probably does believe themselves to be divine.)
If the noise of rifles being aimed at his back didn't force him into turning around to face the incoming soldiers, perhaps he would stay to watch an entire island be crumbled into nothing.
(Stay and watch, because he can't go back there, so their luck and their skill is the only thing left to his family to survive.
Stay and watch, because watching and hoping is the only thing left to him until he can yell at them for following him in the first place.)
He wrenches himself away from the view nonetheless, and finds that Nico Robin hasn't even turned around when he sees her knees hit the ground, arms wrapped so tight around herself she might be coming just shy of dislocating her own bones.
"Oi, Nico Robin!"
But even without all the thunderous noises around them, he's not sure his voice would reach her and—
Shit.
This is bad.
Between Elynna's injuries and her fighting style that isn't designed to take out large numbers of people, and the fact that he used quite a bit of cola to take down all the soldiers from earlier already, the older woman is clearly their main fighter right now.
Except that by now he knows enough to tell how badly seeing the Buster Call in action is bound to affect her, and he has no idea how to handle someone breaking down in the middle of a situation like this.
But apparently, he doesn't need to.
"Franky-san, cover for us for a minute. I'm borrowing your Den Den Mushi." The Straw Hats' First Mate tells him as she passes him by.
He nods tightly, lobbing the snail in her direction and watching the girl set it on the ground as she kneels down in front of her crewmate to take hold of her wrists and pry them apart slowly, carefully, coaxing her into putting her arms around herself instead without flinching, even when blind panic makes the older woman's hold tighten and her nails dig in and claw at a skin already more bruises and bloodied bandages than unblemished white.
Her own arms don't move, don't even hint at the intention to hold or touch Robin's back.
Then she's dialing a number, and voices are filtering into his ears even over the cannonballs of the warships and his own bullets.
(It's all this, perhaps,
more than everything else,
that convinces him that Elynna of the Straw Hats is an alright girl more than she is an annoying little shit.)
"Franky? Are you alright?! What about Robin-chan?!"
"It's Elynna."
A pause, and then the three men on the other side of the line explode into a cacophony of I'm so glad to hear you! and are you okay?! and what the fuck did you think you were doing without even warning us you crazy woman—
"Where are you right now?"
"Oh, we're in the underground passage. I think Kokoro-san's granddaughter is the one who painted arrows to point us in the right direction."
"You're with Robin, right?" Roronoa follows up.
"Yeah, we're on the bridge. Hope you can hear us despite the cannons."
There's another pause as the two women's crewmates catch on to the underlying meaning, before—
"Sanji-kun, Zoro-kun! My brave comrades! Let me tell you the story of my new weapon, the Kabuto! It all started—"
"I'm dropping you." The swordsman hisses. "You can walk the rest of the way."
"How uncouth of you! It's not everyday you get to spend some time in the company of a superhero—"
"Do we look like our shithead of a Captain?"
"—who is trying to help you pass the time faster! You make for quite dreadful company in such a dreary environment, you know! Come on, chop chop! Hurry up! I am not spending a moment more than I need to in the presence of such ungrateful people —and I have very grievous wounds to heal!"
"As if that stupid gorilla can go faster."
"You trying to say something, love cook?"
"I'm saying that you can't match my speed. What are you, deaf or stupid?"
"Better than deaf and stupid—"
"Argh! Slow down, you barbarians! Need I remind you that I have all six of my ribs broken?! Show a bit of respect for the sacrifices I made!"
"... You know you're contradicting yourself, right?" Elynna interrupts the incoming tirade.
"You have more ribs than that, you idiot." Roronoa tacks on.
"I can't believe you didn't pay attention when Chopper was teaching us." The cook sighs wistfully. "Not listening to your best friend is almost as bad a crime as making a lady cry."
"... What?! Usopp-kun ignored his best friend?! I shall endeavour to teach him a lesson on the importance of friendship— Slow down I said, slow down! Must you jostle me so?!"
"... Hey, cook. Bet you can't go faster."
"Wait wait wait! Stop! Alright, I give! Jeez, I was just trying to make conversation—"
"You sucked at it." Both the cook and the swordsman inform him.
"—but I guess you're just hopeless. Elynna-kun, do tell me, how did your noble undercover task go?"
"If I hadn't wanted to kill a bunch of people so badly, I would have died of laughter." Elynna deadpans.
"... That's, uh, good? I suppose."
"Please tell me you took off that uniform, Elynna-chan." The cook takes over. "I much prefer how you usually look."
"I took off the uniform."
"I'm glad—"
"Fucking hell," Roronoa swears loudly, "tell me you put something else on, Lynn."
"... I put something else on."
"That's a lie!" The sharpshooter shrieks. "I know it! My own expertise in the matter gave me a kind of sixth sense for these things ever since I fought—"
"Shut up, Usopp!" Two voices bark loudly.
Wrapping a dozen of soldiers together tightly with the chain of his Strong Right, Franky grins in amusement as he proceeds to throw them around and into smaller groups of Marines.
Still, he's worried enough —and the Marines are weak enough— that he makes the time to cast a few glances behind him that allow him to notice the way Robin's hold on her younger crewmate gradually slackens until she lifts her face from where it was tucked in the hollow of Elynna's throat.
"You good, Nico Robin?" He calls out, and gets a weak but steady smile in return.
"Yes. Thank you for your help, Franky. I'm fine now. We're not Ohara, after all."
"You got it, Sophia." The First Mate smiles fleetingly as she gets the both of them back on their feet and unstrap the sword in her back, wordlessly entrusting it to her crewmate. "Now if someone finds a clean Marine shirt in this mess, I'm interested."
"Shame getting to you, kid?"
"No," she refutes nonchalantly as her eyes fall on the sword her earlier victim dropped onto the ground not far from her, a vicious grin taking over her features and warping them into something downright unholy given the state of her face. "But how else am I supposed to slip into enemy ranks to stab people in the back —literally and figuratively?"
Franky barks out another laugh, and this time does high-five the hand the girl holds out as the three of them step forward to meet the new wave of soldiers rushing up the stairs.
〪〪〪〜〜⏆〜〜〭〭〭
They don't die drowning in the underground passage, but the old lady from the train station being actually a mermaid comes this close to finishing the job.
"So it's true that mermaids don't actually exist?!"
"Shit, I thought that them being dugongs was just a bar story…"
"Of course I'm a mermaid, you stupid boys! An icefish mermaid!"
Sanji frowns at the ground, teeth clenching around his sodden cigarette.
Of course Kokoro-san is a mermaid.
Why would mermaids only be young and the kind of beautiful that fits men's desires?
They're living beings, not fantasies.
"... Kokoro-san. Why do the stories about mermaids only talk about their beauty?"
The elder of their group blinks down at him, and throws her head back to take a swig of the bottle that she somehow didn't lose in the mess of their escape.
"The Fish-Men's Island isn't easy to access, boy. Most of the people who go there are pirates or slave traders, and most of those are men. The only mermaids they're interested in are usually the young and pretty ones."
"... That's disgusting." Nami says, slow and seething, after a moment during which her shoulders tense, the way they always do when she remembers being a slave herself to the ones that the rest of the world considers lowly —and the weight they made her carry.
"Rightly said, girlie. And before any of you asks, the tail fin of female Merfolk splits in two around the age of thirty. It's what allowed me to come live on the surface. Now, are you going to thank me for saving your life or what?"
"Thank you, Kokoro-san!" They chorus dutifully.
It causes Robin to laugh softly, and the sound makes both Chopper and Nami perk up immediately, the latter jumping to her feet as the little reindeer rolls over to propel himself in the air and latch onto her shoulders when she passes him by, steadying his grip on her right before she reaches the older woman.
"Robin!" She cries out as she grips the historian's arms almost desperately —but the way she shakes her is gentle despite the vehemence of her voice. "You're such an idiot, you… stupid!"
Robin just smiles.
"So I was told."
"You should've just killed them —or at least send us a message in English, but not make us run after you like this! Now I just know that we're all going to end up with a wanted poster, and the Marines are going to be so annoying!"
"We're aiming for the top. It's gonna happen anyway."
"Shut up, Zoro!"
"Robinnnnn! I missed youuuuuuu! I'm so sorry I wasn't there when they took you!" Chopper wails.
"I'm sorry, everyone. I put us in a lot of trouble, but it won't happen again."
"Damn right it won't." The swordsman grumbles.
"... Really?"
Robin smiles, and reaches out a hand to brush it over Chopper's fur.
"Really, Chopper."
The reindeer beams, and then lets out a noise of incomprehension as all his strength suddenly leaves him, sending him tumbling down the navigator's back and straight into the arms of Sanji, who moved just in time to catch him.
The cook looks down just long enough to smile at him reassuringly before his eyes are back to cataloguing every scratch on their crewmate's skin with a worried, angry crease to his forehead that is almost entirely faded away by the relief that swoops over his entire body language as he measures the sincerity of Robin's smile.
Nami sniffles too, eyes prickling with incoming tears that she blinks away in favour of relieved laughter as she reaches behind her to snatch Sanji's sleeve and bring him into the hug, making sure to keep her hold loose on the older woman and the hug short.
"That's cool and all, Nico Robin, but the Marines are definitely gonna be gunning for you anyway." Franky reminds them gruffly.
"Like hell they are." Zoro scowls darkly, echoed by Nami's tightening hold on her new staff.
"Is that why they haven't fired at the bridge yet?" Sanji frowns.
"Yeah." The gangster confirms. "They have orders to get her alive, so for now they're focusing on the island. But they'll be coming for us when they're done, and even if they'll probably have to be careful about shooting, we'll still end up with a warship's worth of soldiers each to deal with."
The full extent of the threat they're about to face only silences the Straw Hats for a short moment before—
"As if Robin-chan isn't worth fighting that and more."
"Zoro, I'll erase your debt if you take half of mine."
"Hah! Bring it on, witch."
"Don't worry, Chopper. I'll take care of all of yours."
"... That a challenge, stupid love cook?"
"Wouldn't feel like it if you could really take care of two ships on your own, cactus face."
"Oi, Usopp. I'm handling yours."
"But of course, Zoro-kun! I am myself already at the peak of my strength, so it's only fair that I leave them to you for your training!"
"But… I want to help, too!"
"Let them have at it, Chopper. For once that their stupidity is useful, might as well take advantage of it."
"... You're scary, Nami. Is that why Zoro calls you a witch?"
"Oh, come on! Not you, too!"
"It's almost awe-inspiring how I've barely been gone for five minutes, and yet the number of patients is already at least three times higher." A voice interrupts them from the stairs leading under the deck.
Kokoro laughs, because as far as she's concerned, what's awe-inspiring is that they still have it in them to bicker like this when they're seriously hurt and about to dive right back into one hell of a fight.
"Hope you didn't count me in that, I'm perfectly fine." Franky grumbles.
Elynna doesn't even look at him.
"Toxic masculinity has no place in this alliance. It's great if you can keep going despite being injured, but when you have the opportunity to get yourself treated, it's the pragmatic and smart thing to do. I wasn't giving you a choice."
No one pipes up to help him.
Even the swordsman, who in fact looks more something between proud and satisfied, so Franky settles down —with a bit more grumbling for the sake of it.
And then Usopp screams.
"What the hell happened?!"
Elynna looks down at the bloody shirt he's pointing at.
"Oh, that? Don't worry, it's not my blood. Mostly."
"That's not reassuring at all!"
"Look, I didn't really have the time to consider the details, and Sophia was kind of more important—"
"You call that a detail?!" The sniper interrupts her, the nickname not seeming to give him even the briefest of pauses.
"The way I dress? Well yeah—"
"I'm talking about the blood, damnit, the blood! There's no way that is detail-y!"
"Detail-y isn't a word, but do I give you shit about the way you speak?"
"Yes!"
"... That was a rhetorical question."
"Still yes!"
Franky finds himself chuckling along with the others at the banter despite the fact that they aren't anywhere close enough to finishing this war to justify the sudden light-heartedness, even as the pirates' First Mate rolls her eyes and tells her crewmates to start taking care of each other's wounds —something that the reindeer seems absolutely ready to boss people around for despite being unable to move himself.
Zoro is the only one who doesn't even crack a smile.
Instead, as Elynna passes him by to give out medical supplies, he grabs her lightly by the elbow, and reaches up to tug off the Marine cap she stole from one of the soldiers she chased off their new ship and pulled down low over her face.
Usopp's reaction is hard to tell under his cloak and his mask, but Sanji's hold on Chopper tightens with a need to protect that comes too late as his wide eyes take in the damage, and Nami breathes in sharply like a blow from a blind spot.
"What happened." Zoro asks, quiet like a sharpened blade resting against naked skin as his gaze takes in the damage.
Elynna just rolls her eyes again.
"Don't be so dramatic. You don't look so good either, you know."
It's true.
None of them do.
They all just walked out of a confrontation with some of the best fighters the World Government has to offer, and it shows.
But regardless of the fact that Chopper can barely move and that his breathing still isn't stable, their First Mate definitely looks the worst out of all of them.
More than that, there's something relentless about the swollen bruises stretching across her face in black and blue and red where some cuts are still sluggishly bleeding, something that makes Zoro glance at Nami's rapidly paling face.
(Nami, who has been stealing from pirates all over the East Blue on her own for years, and paid the price for that more than a few times before she got the hang of it.
Nami, who knows very well what the undefinable difference between the hurt caused by the violence of a fight and that caused by the violence there is no possibility to fight back against looks like,
Nami, who is already looking over the rest of Elynna's body as if she can see all the other wounds under the coat hiding her arms and the bloody shirt hiding her torso and the dark pants where blood stains would be almost invisible.)
His jaw clenches.
"What. Happened?"
Elynna sighs.
"Got locked up with CP9 trainees. We didn't get along." She drawls with as much enthusiasm as Luffy being told to be patient.
"How many?"
"Eh,'' she shrugs, waving a dismissive hand in the air. "Something between twenty and thirty. It's blurry."
She takes a step closer to take back her cap (that was almost certainly someone else's when the day started) until they're almost touching, but Zoro tucks it behind his back.
She gives him a mildly annoyed look, clearly not willing to exert the kind of effort it would take to try and grab it when the reach of her arm is shorter than his.
He meets her stare with his own.
He doesn't intend to make this drag on any longer than it has to —they all have better things to do and there's no point in annoying each other— but he won't leave this place satisfied unless he hears a particular sentence from her mouth.
"And?"
Elynna clicks her tongue.
"They're dead."
Usopp gulps loudly somewhere behind her.
"All of them?!"
"Nah. It's not like I needed to kill them all to get out."
Then she pauses.
"The ones who are left might wish I did, though."
Zoro leans a bit forward in interest without caring much that it would make it easier for Elynna to take the cap back, now that he's reasonably sure she's been hurt as a result of a fight where she was disadvantaged rather than a fight against someone who went above and beyond to hurt her for the sake of it.
"Yeah?"
She got angry in Cocoyashi, but in Alabasta too.
When she disappeared in search of Crocodile.
It's his Captain who beat the man and the Marines who put him in prison, but she looked way too satisfied whenever his name came up in the days that followed for her to not have done something.
Something else.
(He's not the only one holding back during their spars so that they don't damage the ship or each other too badly anymore, either.
But more than that, and even though she does taunt and tease, during spars or outside of them, he knows very well that he'll never bear the brunt of that side of her when she's angry.
And while she definitely needed help to learn how to fight, whether in hand-to-hand or swordsmanship—
He doesn't think she needs anyone to help her pick up something like psychological warfare.)
Elynna doesn't reach for the cap.
She just tips her chin higher to better meet his gaze.
"... Yeah. Wrong place, wrong time kind of thing." She explains vaguely in a distant sort of way that shows exactly how little she cares for the wreckage she probably left behind her in that tunnel. "They just happened to be there when I realised how mad I actually was about this whole mess."
Zoro raises an eyebrow, but places her cap between her collarbones anyway and pushes her back one step, the twitch of his lips just a bit too savage to really count as a grin.
"Good."
She considers him for a moment as if waiting for a 'but'.
When he says nothing else, her fingers close around her cap and she turns around, obligingly handing it over when Nami swiftly closes the distance between them with one hand outstretched.
"Hermes, mind going below deck?" She starts even as the navigator adjusts the cap over her head, thumb brushing carefully over the mess of her face. "There'll be a kitchen on your right. I think we could all use something to regain some energy."
The cook's eyes linger, but he eventually nods and sets Chopper down.
"Of course, Elynna-chan."
"Something quick, if possible. You have to get patched up as well. Also, if I can get someone with steady hands for my wounds, because I don't think I had the time to take out all the pieces of glass before I got punched in the face."
"... I'll take care of it." Franky volunteers when he spies Nami's scrunching face and Zoro's clenched jaw and all the bandages Sogeking is already wrapped into. "I turned myself into a cyborg, so it's no big deal."
Elynna barely casts him a glance before shrugging her agreement, waving the others towards where Chopper is so he can guide them through any procedure they might have a problem with.
Franky sits, and proceeds to clean and disinfect his hands as best as he can with the supplies Elynna found as she gets out of her shirt and settles down opposite to him, taking off the bandages she made to stave off the bleeding of cuts and wounds that could be from bullets just like they could come from Shigan attacks.
"Legs?" He asks as he surveys her thoughtfully to rank the damage in terms of urgency.
"It's fine. There's only one serious wound and I took care of it already. Most of the stuff is here." She answers with a vague gesture at her upper body and her face.
He nods, and gets to work.
He would never want to replace his men, or Kiwi and Mozu, but he's used to taking care of them, and they complain loudly, try to wrestle each other even when they're being stitched up —and then complain some more because all their moving about makes the needle go in the wrong direction.
The Straw Hats' First Mate is a much better patient.
She obviously has medical knowledge judging by the way she moves to orient herself at the best angle for him to work before he even needs to say anything, and besides the tightening of her eyes, the hitches in her breathing and the slight flinches, she keeps as still as she can.
"Should we switch roles after this?" She asks at some point.
"It's fine." He grunts. "I don't need any help."
"I know."
"I have artificial skin." He adds, sensing a 'but' in her tone.
"Doesn't look like artificial blood to me." She retorts, eyes tracing the blood smeared on his temple from where he wiped it off before it could get in his eyes.
He sends her a look that all his men know to mean drop it.
She stares back at him with a mocking raise of an eyebrow that says make me.
He's changed his mind.
He'd rather be taking care of ten of his subordinates right now.
But then he reaches the piece of cloth wrapped around the wrist of her right hand that is particularly bloodied, and unties it to reveal a bruise.
A bruise that circles her entire wrist.
A distinctly hand-shaped bruise.
He stares down at it for a moment, and slowly splays her fingers in his palm, making sure to keep the movement light and not lose sight of how strong his grip can be without him noticing.
The silence stretches through the seconds.
His eyes remain stuck on the two missing fingernails in her hand.
(Her shaking hand.)
He looks up.
The Straw Hats' First Mate meets his gaze without flinching, her back to the rest of her crew and hiding the evidence of her lies where it lays bared between them.
Some of her wounds might actually come from fighting off twenty or so people all on her own, but this—
You don't get this kind of wound in a fight.
This is torture, pure and simple.
And yet, she openly entrusts the treatment of the consequences to him, a man she met barely a day before and who spent most of these twenty-four hours as something closer to her enemy than her ally.
If this is because she doesn't want to show the proof of the most absolute kind of helplessness to her friends, who also happen to be her subordinates, then Franky has spent enough time being a leader to understand.
It can't always be done, but leaders are supposed to remain strong and steady, especially in a situation where tensions are running so high and it's so imperative for people to keep as clear a mind as possible.
(In truth, it can never be done.
Because the ideal leader never falters, never fails, never loses.
Only gods and dead people can reach that kind of ideal.)
If this is a move to elicit some sympathy from him after the stunt she pulled in order to smooth over their relationship while they're allies, then he has to begrudgingly admit that it might just be working —and that it only shows him how much of herself she's willing to lay down for her crew, pride included.
He might find the girl more annoying than funny and he might still be pissed about how she had the gall to prank him in the middle of an all-out war against the World Government's secret assassination unit, but still.
The way she treated him doesn't really matter, even if he almost dragged her back home with him right then and there when he first met her.
(Her and her kick and the way she looked like she wanted the boys who tried to harass her in that alleyway to stay and fight back
if only to have someone she wouldn't regret taking the tension tightening her shoulders out on.)
Because in the end, they're strangers.
There was no reason for her to blow up her cover just to be nice to him —even if he kind of still wants to punch her for keeping up the charade longer than she needed to.
The Straw Hats, though?
They're her subordinates, and clearly much more than that.
To them, she owes plenty.
Gave it all too, and then probably some more, from what he's seen.
And that?
That is what matters.
Besides, everything that happened between them doesn't mean he can't respect the hell out of her, and he does.
At the end of the day, he figures that he can't call himself an ally of the Straw Hat Pirates if he can't get along with their First Mate.
"... I don't think you could help me much if you've never seen a cyborg before." He eventually says.
He doesn't really have the time to explain to her the intricacies of treating wounds in areas where what is left of his human skin meets metal, but—
"A few bullets grazed my back though, and it's the only part of my body that isn't modified."
"I'll take a look at it, then."
〪〪〪〜〜⏆〜〜〭〭〭
He's barely done cleaning the superficial cuts that litter his face, standing in front of the mirror in the leading officer's cabin, when a voice booms through the entirety of Enies Lobby, sending the air vibrating with the intensity of it and the echoes of its diffusion through all the Buster Call's warships.
—fifty people—
—the entrance of the island—
No survivors.
He watches his own face in the mirror, the way all the artificial skin gives nothing away of how numb the world sounds and how cold his insides feel except for the wretched stretching of his features around the sudden, gaping wound of the news.
(He doesn't know how to treat that wound,
just like he has never been able to deal with Tom-san's absence,
despite patching his body up and making it stronger than any fully human body has any right to be,
despite all the time he's spent protecting the city his mentor loved so dearly and surrounding himself with all the people he helped when no one else would, the same way Tom-san did for him.
Except not exactly in the same way,
—just like he's never been half the shipwright Tom-san was—
because he let them down and left them behind just a few hours ago, and now they've all paid the price for his mistake instead of him.
Just like with Tom-san.)
The Straw Hats who are still on the deck step out of his way when he comes rushing up the stairs.
None of them attempts to stop him when he jumps off the ship and onto the steps climbing up to the bridge.
He slides to a stop harsh enough that it would make most people's feet bleed under the arch that marks the beginning of the long stretch of stone, chest heaving with an exertion.
(The kind of exertion you can never train yourself out of,
because grief has a way of making even mundane tasks feel hundreds of times harder as if those who departed were additional limbs granting support in every minute of every day, and now—
And now they're just not here anymore.)
Still, he casts his gaze as far as it can go, scouring frantically through the raging flames and toxic fumes and crumbling buildings for any sign of life, even if the Main Island is too far for it to matter.
The grim silence of the swordsman and the cook next to him just leadens the implacable weight of the announcement a bit more.
He grits his teeth, but in the end the thing clawing at his chest and up his throat has to go somewhere.
"Oi, Straw Hat! All your friends are safe and waiting for you, so hurry up! I won't forgive you if you die here!"
There's no response, but the air keeps rumbling with the sounds of the battle happening in the first pillar supporting the other end of the bridge.
"... Let's go." The Straw Hats' swordsman eventually says in a low voice as he turns his back on the expanse of ruins Franky still finds himself staring at. "They're going to come for us. We can't afford to stand here until Luffy is done."
Franky feels the weight of his eyes linger on him until he nods to show his awareness of the words, and then the swordsman passes him by, silently yielding the space for Franky to collect himself.
But the Marines don't, and he clenches his teeth and wrenches himself away as the leading Vice-Admiral's voice spreads through the air with orders to head for the ship occupied by what is left of the pirates and eliminate them.
"Wait, where did Sanji go?! He was here a minute ago!" Sogeking's voice reaches them, skipping over the suffix as if his diguise isn't enough to contain the sudden burst of anxiety caused by the abrupt turn for the worse that their situation has taken.
"I can't believe that idiot up and disappeared now of all time—" The swordsman grumbles, not seeming particularly worried. "Leave him! He can handle himself."
"Zoro!" Nami calls out from the ship's deck as they rush down the stairs leading to it. "We're ready to head out as soon as Luffy joins us! Is Lynna with you?"
"Hah? I thought she was with you!"
"She disappeared a few minutes ago." Robin answers with lips pressed tight but firm as she watches the warships surround them.
Zoro jumps over the last few steps, boots thumping loudly against the floorboards of the deck before he straightens up.
"Damn woman. Didn't even tell us what her plan is." He grumbles under his breath, cracking his neck to the side to try and stave off some of the creeping adrenaline that demands he draws his katana out now.
"Is it gonna be okay? She was still wearing a Marine uniform when she left, wasn't she?" Franky asks as he joins him.
"Doubt she didn't take that into consideration. It'll be fine." He waves off the worry, scanning his crewmates and their three allies —although the mermaid and her granddaughter won't be much help in the frontal fight that was about to start.
Well.
It's not like Lynn ever put much effort in pep talks anyway.
"Alright. You all know this, but right now this ship is our only chance at getting out from here. No matter what, we've got to keep it whole until Luffy joins us."
Maybe he should be more concerned for Robin and her ability to remain steady in the face of something he knows already destroyed her home, but the woman has survived alone for twenty years, and so when she gives him a nod that feels no less confident than she usually is even if more tense, his gaze strays towards Nami and Usopp.
Although they hardly hide anymore whenever the Merry is assaulted by Marines the way they used to when they were in East Blue, the both of them —and Chopper— have always been more restrained in their attacks.
Sanji might hold back, but it's more about the sheer gap between his strength and that of an average soldier than anything else, and even then his kicks can be lethal.
Elynna tends to avoid killing or maiming as well, but he doubts she cares as much or in the same way about the lives she spares as his three other crewmates.
He doesn't particularly care whether they kill the soldiers about to attack them, though.
As long as they don't get back up within two minutes to attack again, his two crewmates can deal with this however they want as far as he's concerned.
Nami seems to understand, because she nods as well, even if the way she holds her staff is less eager and more stiff now that the anger driving her since they departed from Water Seven has mostly left her.
"Got it."
"Do not worry, Zoro-kun." Usopp tacks on from beside her, barricading himself in his role tight enough to stifle the nervous shuffle of feet Zoro was expecting to see as he strands straighter and puffs out his chest instead. "I shall endeavour to help you to the best of my abilities! However, I should tell you that I think it best if we split up so as to make it harder for them to surround us!"
Zoro nods, glancing back behind him and at the ships gathering around their end of the bridge as orders thrum through the air for soldiers to prepare for battle.
"Nami, you'll stay here." He starts.
The stairs leading to the ship will force would-be attackers to stick together, and Nami's new attacks work especially well against groups —as long as there are no allies in said group.
"I will remain here as well, then." Robin volunteers, probably having followed his line of thinking, and he nods in agreement.
Her power made her able to support Nami's attacks without endangering herself, and if needed she would be ruthless where their navigator might falter.
"Franky, Usopp. We'll be up on the bridge to ward off the rest."
The gangster nods grimly, and with a last exchange of looks they all move to their respective positions.
By the time Zoro and the two others have spread themselves to the first third of the bridge, giving themselves enough space to not get in the way of each other's attacks while still being close to help one another relatively quickly if needed, dozens of officers are lined up on the railings of the warships surrounding them, every low-ranked Marine ordered to back off and let the two hundred officers ranked Captain or higher handle the fight.
"Captain? Isn't it that Smoker guy's rank?!"
Zoro frowns as Usopp's voice reaches his ears.
He's never cared to remember the man's official rank, but there's a chance he's at least that high if he was in charge of a place like Loguetown all on his own.
"Some of them probably have Devil Fruit powers, then."
"What?! Give me a break!"
"Relax, Sogeking. Just throw 'em off the bridge and it'll be fine!" Franky replies loudly as Zoro shifts his stance lower in preparation for the first wave of attackers.
His eyes stay trained on the ship he's identified as the one of the Vice-Admiral leading the Buster Call, and quickly hone in on the officer who draws himself up to yell out something even as he leaps off the edge with his fist reared back.
"Charg—"
Silence takes his voice suddenly like a life cut short, and his body falls limply the rest of the way, hitting the stones of the Bridge of Hesitation with the dull, splatting sound of a piece of meat being slapped onto the cutting board.
It feels like the silence falls along with him with how heavy it feels as everyone stares down at the handle protruding from his back.
The handle of a Marine sword.
The sight only catches Zoro off-guard for a fraction of second before he smirks.
Unless you have a very good reason to fall back on defense from the get go, don't do it.
Strike first, and strike hard.
It was one of the first lessons he drilled in Elynna's head as soon as he started training her, knowing how easily she defaults to caution in every decision she makes.
He takes in the stunned silence of every Marine struggling to piece together what happened and the implications of it —a traitor in their ranks, dressed just like the rest of them and here to kill— and the fumbling of the few officers who followed after their leader before he was even done calling the attack as they flounder in the air like headless chickens, and recognises the twist that his First Mate put to that lesson in the same way she built her own style of fighting around every other piece of advice he gave her.
Looks like he guessed right.
And if this is what his teacher meant when he said that some people can cut others down with emotional damage just as efficiently as a swordsman does with a blade, then he's damn glad he's not one of those Marines.
Usopp's shots are quick on his heels as he leaps to dispose of the falling officers while they're still distracted.
"What are you waiting for?" He smirks up at those still standing on the railings as soon as he lands back on the bridge. "We don't have all day."
"Zoro-kun! Can you please—"
"K— Kill these filthy pirates! Charge!"
"—not do that. I hate you."
〪〪〪〜〜⏆〜〜〭〭〭
Elynna sticks to the bridge.
It's not just because it would be dangerous for her to sneak in the ranks of the soldiers attacking Robin and Nami considering the range of their navigator's attacks that Zoro knows that.
It's the fact that he keeps count of the number of soldiers coming at him with each new wave of incoming officers, but most of the time finds himself a few people off his initial count by the time he's done taking care of his attackers.
It's the few bodies whose injuries he glimpses long enough to recognise the characteristic shapes of the wounds made by his First Mate's weapons.
It's the insidious effects of her actions that spread through the ranks of Marine officers, an increasing number of them putting space between each other in case their colleagues try to attack them at the same time as him, getting distracted because they're trying to watch their back while fighting him.
Individually, most of the officers don't actually come anywhere close to Smoker, but given the sheer number of them and his own fight against Kaku, he appreciates the help.
By the ten minute mark, he's still pretty much unscathed —until he finds himself facing the one officer out of all the ones swarming the bridge who is the very worst match for him.
In less than a minute he finds himself down one sword and with a hand closed like a vice on his forearm as rust creeps over and through his skin, his articulations creaking to a stop before he can tear himself away.
And then it vanishes.
A kukri stabs into the ground right next to the man's foot, making him back away instinctively.
It's not enough to avoid the Exploding Star that crashes into his face, sending him stumbling back into a half-screaming, half-coughing fit as he chokes onto the coloured clouds with every inhale.
Zoro only needs to follow the surrounding Marines' eyes to find Elynna among them, even as he feels Usopp's presence near his own back.
"You!"
"Traitor!"
"Excuse you, I'm a perfectly respectable mercenary. It's just that the Straw Hats hired us to disguise as a Marine and then kill a bunch of you instead of… you know, just straight up killing you."
"The nerve of you! We'd never do something so underhanded!" Usopp protests, apparently a bit too invested in his role, though it only seems to reinforce the Marines' belief that they are underhanded.
Zoro thinks it's probably the mask.
"Shut up, pirate! Even for a criminal, this is the height of immorality!"
"Why, the gall of you! I can't believe you would trust the word of a mercenary over a hero's!"
Zoro snorts.
He's pretty sure their First Mate would do something this 'underhanded', because the pensive look in her eyes looks an awful lot like a shit, I should have done that for real.
"Kill her!"
"Let me do it!"
"No! She killed my best friend! She's mine!"
"Possessiveness doesn't look good on you, dude. Also, weird fetish. Just saying."
"... I'm gonna kill her!"
"No! We need her alive if we want to dismantle the network of mercenaries she's part of!"
"... Wait, what do you mean 'us'?" One officer suddenly asks with narrowed eyes.
"Hm? Oh, well me and Li, of course. Koyama and Honda, too. And Henkins. And—"
She drones on, listing off a dozen names and seemingly indifferent to the cacophony growing around them as she slowly eases away until she's right next to Zoro and Usopp.
The reactions of the Marines involve a lot of screams and range from Impossible! I've known him for eight years! He could never do that! to I knew these two were behaving weirdly! and even I knew it! I've taken care of him, sir!
"How the heck did you find us so many allies in so little time?!" Usopp hisses even as he presses a Marine sword in Zoro's hands to replace the katana that rusted away to nothing.
"Bribery."
"Are you kidding me?!"
"Yes. If I really had these guys onboard, I wouldn't have thrown them to the wolves like this."
"Clearly people they know, though." Zoro points out.
"That they are. I just memorised random names from their uniforms while running around. Won't stop them for long, but it's long enough for the three of us."
Zoro surveys the mess of officers arguing over each other around him, and leans his back against that of his two crewmates with a smirk.
"You're a fucking menace."
"I love you too."
Usopp sighs loudly.
"I'll have you know that you're both menaces."
"Thanks." Zoro says dryly, the smirk in Elynna's voice as the same word comes out of her mouth at the exact same time a near physical thing that makes his mouth twitch.
Usopp sighs even more loudly.
〪〪〪〜〜⏆〜〜〭〭〭
It becomes almost impossible to slip away in the crowd of Marines again after she blows her cover to help Zoro.
Even after they take down the initial group of soldiers, there's always someone who's seen her cut down a Marine, or stand back-to-back with Zoro, or support Usopp.
She quickly gives up any pretence in favour of taking down more soldiers regardless of the attention it brings as their number increases, progressively moving away to join Franky.
It leaves her completely unprepared when Usopp's voice stretches across the entire bridge calling for their Captain to stand up.
Her eyes pick him from the crowd in just a few seconds, and she freezes as she sees the mask in his hand instead of on his face.
(The mask Hermes told her he took because he was scared but wanted to help more than he wanted to hide, and only found this as a compromise.
The mask he took to hide his face should it land on a wanted poster, and they all know that he wants it to get that little bit closer to dream and to his father —that it still scares him for himself and for Kaya and his friends back home who might suffer as a result.)
Franky's reinforced body is pretty much the only thing that saves her from the volley of arrows that a Marine shoots her way.
"Head in the game, Sis!"
"Thanks!" She replies, slightly breathless as she ducks low under the swing of a sword, swipes the feet of the man wielding it from under him and grabs him by the collar to whirl him in the way of another incoming attack.
"What's he doing?" The cyborg asks with a grunt at the effort of heaving all the soldiers wrapped in the chain of his fist into the air and off the bridge while Usopp hurls childish taunts at Rob Lucci.
"Making himself bait to psych the Captain up, apparently."
Shooting a couple of cannonballs to give them both a bit of respite, he raises a dubious eyebrow.
"Is it gonna work?"
She shrugs, brow scrunched into a frown and mouth pulled down by something that isn't just worry.
"Psychologically? Definitely. Not so sure about the rest."
"And he can't beat Lucci."
"No. Not alone, at least." She clarifies, holding out a hand towards him.
It doesn't take him long to understand and give her Robin's seastone handcuffs that she asked him to pick up after they cleared out their escape ship.
"It's gonna take some work to put a leash on someone like this guy. Want me to create a diversion?"
"Nah, I've got it."
After all, what better diversion than to suddenly lose his Devil Fruit power?
She doesn't have a lot of energy left, and a fighter of his caliber will adapt quickly, but between her and Fang there should still be enough time to rid them of that part of his abilities for good.
"If he does come here, I'd rather you get Hawk— I mean, that you get Usopp out of his way so you guys can support us in long-range."
"And if he doesn't come?"
She pauses for a moment to turn and slip a kukri right between the two lower ribs of the Marine trying to hit her from behind and kicks him onto the sword another was about to try and skewer her with, a closed tessen tumbling into her palm so she can launch it at the second man's skull before she throws herself into a forward roll to take back her weapon while Franky breathes a flash of fire over her head at the dozen of soldiers rushing at them.
"Then good for us." She shrugs while getting up. "Our Captain's job is to believe in the best, and mine is to prepare for the worst."
They don't need to use too much of their attention to keep an eye on the crew's sniper.
His screams of yes! Come on, Luffy, kick his ass! and you better not die before I can kill you for getting me into this mess! are enough to clue them into the fact that Lucci is busy fighting Luffy again.
All of it gives even them a boost of energy against the seemingly unending waves of soldiers, and even more so when Franky's men and the Galley-La employees suddenly start shouting over the din of the fight through the Den Den Mushi network of the Buster Call's warships, having somehow all escaped the attack that was supposed to have killed them.
Franky promptly bursts into tears right then and there, giving Elynna the opportunity to pay him back for his earlier save.
The general feeling of being part of a miracle only lasts until ten seconds after Luffy's scream of let's all go home together, Robin! when they realise that the rubber boy can't get back up and the Marines blow up the ship they're supposed to escape with.
Sanji comes back from wherever he disappeared to just in time to save Chopper as well as Kokoro and her granddaughter from being blown to pieces along with the ship, but the warships keep shooting cannonball after cannonball at both sides of the bridge without any regard for all the soldiers who are also there, until all of them and the surviving Marines are left crowding the last portion of the bridge still standing as the warships all turn to aim their cannons at the half-collapsed pillar where Luffy is stuck.
"Luffy, please! Stand up!"
"Oi, Luffy— move!"
"Is there really nothing you can do, Luffy?!"
"Come on, Straw Hat! Don't tell me we're going to give up now!"
"Come on, Luffy, this isn't funny! You just have to get here with your powers! Just— Stand up, damnit!"
Jaw clenched and mouth pulled into a snarl, Elynna sends a bullet ricocheting off a tessen and into another soldier's shoulder before she lefts go of her fan, catching it with her other hand while she reaches out and pulls the gunman close, kicking him hard in the shin to trip him gut first into her open tessen as she wrenches his pistol from his hand and fires off randomly over his shoulder to give herself some space as she backs away from the line she and the others have formed, dropping the soldier still covering her as soon as she's close enough to where Usopp is standing on one of the steel girders that used to support the weight of the bridge.
She delivers a solid punch to his shoulder before he can scream another plea in Luffy's direction.
"Ow!" The sharpshooter yelps. "What—"
"That's enough!" She snaps loudly, more out of sheer frustration than just to be heard, before she jabs a thumb over her shoulder at the soldiers who are still left standing. "Stop screaming and start shooting, Hawk."
She looks over her shoulder at where the rest of her crewmates are, noting with grim satisfaction that they've stopped yelling at their Captain as well, even if Franky's subordinates are still doing exactly that through the Den Den Mushi speakers.
"Same for the rest of you! Make them back the fuck off, I need some space!" She barks as she pulls Usopp away from the edge and shoves him towards the others. "Sophia, come here!"
"But—" Usopp starts, and just as quickly stops when he's met with a glare and a finger jabbing viciously into his chest.
"Enough, I said. Sea King might be one of the best out there when it comes to pushing past his limits, but it always has a price, Hawk. He can't do it indefinitely, and expecting him to do that isn't just stupid, it's disrespectful towards all the efforts he's already made to push himself this far."
"Well what are we supposed to do, then?!"
"Get him ourselves." She replies as Robin joins them.
Usopp's shoulders slump, and he carefully puts his mask back on.
"I was— I was just scared."
"... I know." She sighs. "Just don't do that shit again. And I'm sorry if I hurt you. I got angry and wasn't as mindful of your injuries as I should have been."
There's no time to talk more, so she quickly turns to Robin.
"Can you catch me half-way?"
The archaeologist raises an eyebrow before looking out at the distance separating them from the room where Luffy is still lying.
Then understanding smoothes over her face, and she smiles.
"Yes."
Elynna smiles back fleetingly, and turns to walk back the few feet Franky and the rest of the crew managed to clear for her.
Then she whirls back around and starts running.
"What is she—"
"Lynna?!"
"What the hell—"
"Oi, Nico Robin, stop her!"
"Elynna-chan!"
Her feet pound against the stones, then against the metallic girder Usopp was standing on—
And then she jumps.
Falls.
Down down down, the screams that follow her swallowed by the rushing wind and the roar of the sea.
Within a handful of seconds she's already a bit more than halfway between the bridge and the pillar and almost level with the hole Luffy's giant fist blew through the pillar's wall during his fight.
That's when one of Robin's hands blooms from the external wall above the hole, arm growing from hand over and over until the last one clasps Elynna's own outstretched hand.
The chain of arms swings her right into the hole, and she tucks herself into a roll upon landing, using the momentum to push herself back to her feet and close the remaining distance between her and Luffy.
〪〪〪〜〜⏆〜〜〭〭〭
"Yo, Sea King."
The words barely make it through the blank, loud haze that blankets Luffy's entire mind.
Everything hurts in a way that feels too full of it and empty of everything else, and with every breath he feels blood blurt from the wounds inside of him.
He can't even feel his body, but he tries to smile as best as he can anyway.
"Sorry, Ann. I'm really trying to move, but—"
His First mate cuts him off with a blank look that tells him to shut his mouth and stop thinking while he's at it, because it's her job and she's better at it anyway.
"What are you talking about? You did your job already. Quit saying stupid stuff and let me take care of the rest."
Oh.
Yeah.
That makes sense.
He takes care of the biggest things, and she takes care of all the stuff that make the biggest things matter.
He nods weakly and closes his eyes, trying to relax past the pain clamouring and crowding through every inch of his skin to get some sleep —only to receive the lightest flick of Elynna's fingers against his forehead.
"Hey!"
"No sleeping allowed."
"What?! But I wanna sleep!" He whines, and then coughs as his lungs attempt to keep up with the air needed for even just that, but he ignores it and carries on, eyebrows scrunching as much in pain as in annoyance. "You said my job was done, too!"
"It is. And you did good. Better than that, even. But the best way for me to check if you have any severe brain damage is to see how long you can stay awake. I'll share the cheesecake Hermes makes for me next time he prepares one if you do that for me."
He blinks at her.
His second attempt at a smile is much easier.
"Alright, then!"
His First Mate works quickly as the warships outside load their cannons, assessing the damage with as little contact as possible before she proceeds to cut his shirt into ribbons and starts staunching the bleeding of as many external injuries as she can.
"... This is—" He stops, choking out a whimper when Elynna tightens a makeshift bandage around his torso as support for his broken ribs. "Bad, huh?"
"Yeah. Pretty bad."
"... Sorry. We might die here."
He says it half-heartedly, because it will suck if they do die here.
But he doesn't regret any of what he did to get here, and none of the people he's recruited in his crew would ever abandon a nakama, so he knows that it's the same for all the others.
Elynna hums, muttering an apology of her own as she sits him up to hoist him on her back and proceeds to knot his arms around her neck and his legs around her waist so that he doesn't risk falling off her back.
"I'm not accepting any apology from you before the World Government apologises for what they did to Sophia."
"Prepare to fire! Five!"
Cheek squished against her shoulder, he struggles to blink away the blur from his eyes as the pain rushes back and reminds him of all the places in him that are still bleeding and hurting.
Then the words register in his brain, and he snickers even if everything hurts all the more for it, until something sings through the air and into his ears, drawing his attention more surely than the loud count of Four!
It's not the first time he's heard it, but it's the first time his head is clear enough over the pain for him to understand what it says.
"D'you hear that voice?"
"A voice? … No. What does it say?"
"Three!"
"... To the sea." He answers, unable to even look up but hearing Usopp's voice echo his own all the same.
There's barely a pause before his First Mate speaks up, and no shred of hesitation in her voice.
"Alright, then. When plans and normal thinking fail you, you still have faith and crazy crewmates, I guess."
He grins, sagging further into her back as she lets out a shrill whistle to get the rest of their crew's attention before gesturing downward at the turbulent sea.
"Yep!"
Then he bumps his forehead against the back of her neck, the low, messy bun of her hair tickling his skin as he does.
"Yeah?"
"You did good." He says simply, because talking hurts, and she's gotten smarter about this, so maybe she'll get it.
(If she doesn't, he'll just say it in a way her stupid brain can understand, no matter how much it hurts.)
"Two!"
"... Thanks. I'm proud of you, too. Best Captain and best First Mate, right?"
Uh.
That sounds nice.
Really nice.
"Yeah!" He beams, and then shoves his smile into the crook of her shoulder, even if she smells more like blood and ruins than herself.
He ends up laughing anyway, and then hacking and then complaining about all of it.
"One!"
The wind chomps through all that as they jump.
〪〪〪〜〜⏆〜〜〭〭〭
When Sanji reaches the last step of the rope ladder leading to the Merry Go's railing, he expects to see his First Mate, his Captain and whoever brought their ship here.
But instead he finds his Captain lying on the deck and smiling at him without even the strength to lift a hand and wave it at him like he normally would, and Elynna's voice falls to him from where she's checking the state of the main sail.
"Great, you're here. Is everyone alright?"
"As good as can be." He answers pensively as he steps onto the deck to free the way for Zoro —and the kid-rabbit duo he's carrying. "Have you seen who brought the Merry?"
"What?"
Her job done, she jumps down and lands smoothly on the deck, straightening up to give him a weird look.
"There's no one else here. The Merry came alone, Hermes."
Now it's Sanji's turn to give her a weird look.
"That's not poss—"
She flicks him in the forehead, and then steps closer to straighten his tie.
"Like my idol would say, it's the theory that should stick to the facts, not the other way around. Besides, we have a ship to escape with, and that's the only thing I care about." Then she turns towards where most of the crew is still sprawled around Luffy and raises her voice. "Oi, Sea King's the only one who gets a free pass right now! Get to work before we're blown to hell! Kokoro-san, you're the one who drove the other Sea Train here, right?"
"That I am, missy."
"Rain— I mean, Nami is already in the kitchen to work out the path we're going to take. The helm is there as well, so if you could work with her to steer the ship…"
"Leave it to me, lass. I test-ran a lot more ships than I did Sea Trains in my prime."
"Thanks. Hebi, get Luffy downstairs to see what you can do for now. And take the kids with you while you're at it." She adds with a vague gesture towards where Chimney and her pet are running around inspecting the ship. "We don't need them messing around and potentially getting hurt."
She doesn't add anything about them having seen enough traumatising stuff for a lifetime in the last twenty-four hours while in their hearing range, but Chopper gets it anyway and nods, mentally running through the kind of tasks and distractions he can give the little girl while he takes care of Luffy's wounds so she doesn't have to see them.
Elynna nods back, gazes across the stretch of the deck to see that everyone else got up to check the Merry's state and get in position to follow Nami's directions as soon as she'll give them, and hurries to join them.
〪〪〪〜〜⏆〜〜〭〭〭
The Merry is so small compared to the warships that it's a toss-up whether it makes it easier for them to make their way between said warships and avoid their attacks or whether it makes it extra difficult, considering the sheer amount of water the ships move around them and the fact that even one cannonball meeting its goal would be enough to blow the Merry to smithereens.
The Gates of Justice suddenly starting to close shortly after the Merry gets moving —and finds herself almost completely surrounded by all the warships that were gathered around the pillar— helps a lot, even if there shouldn't be anyone left to close them.
The swirling currents that immediately reform promptly send the huge ships of the Marines crashing into each other, upsetting the precision of their shots in the process until they're flying way off their predicted paths and into other Marine ships instead.
"Huh." Sanji grins next to a gaping Usopp. "Didn't think it would work that well."
"You did that?!" Franky asks with an impressed raise of his eyebrow and a finger pointed at the mess happening in front of them.
"Uh? Yeah. There has to be a control room for doors that huge, so I got its location out of a few Marines back in the tower and launched the closure."
"... I forgive you for disappearing right before the great battle, Sanji-kun. This is good work."
"... I wasn't asking for forgiveness."
"You could've warned us, idiot."
"You're a genius, Sanji!" Luffy laughs even as Chopper drags him towards his makeshift sick bay.
Sanji jabs a thumb in his Captain's direction, and smirks smugly at Zoro.
"See, cactus head? That's how you say thank you."
"Fuck off, stupid cook."
"You're the stupid one. Luffy just said I'm a genius."
"It's Luffy." The swordsman points out with an impressed glare.
From where she and Robin are folding the sail according to Nami's orders now that their navigator has worked out which path to take between the currents and the enemy ships, Elynna puts a stop to the budding verbal sparring match before it can descend into an actual fight when they're still far from being safe.
"If I wasn't busy, I could kiss you for that, Hermes."
The cook promptly becomes a frozen mess of flustered surprise, and Zoro scoffs before dragging Usopp back towards the stern of the ship, since most of the Marines' attacks will be aimed there once they get themselves back in order and start catching up to the Merry.
"I thought we agreed to take it slow with the whole 'making him accept affection' thing." Nami says dryly when Elynna steps into the kitchen to take her next orders.
"My intelligence kink acted up." Her First Mate replies with a shrug.
"Shut up and get me some water. I'm gonna have to scream a lot over all that noise. And no, we don't have the time for the sex joke you just came up with."
Between Nami's directives and Zoro, Usopp and Sanji's as-of-now perfect defence that leaves Elynna, Franky and Robin's multiple arms free to man the ship as needed, they manage to get out of the worst of the currents where most of the warships are gathered, but the Marines are quick to give chase.
Chopper joins them on the deck as quickly as he can to help, having left Chimney under the deck with the notebooks where Usopp wrote down all the stories he entertains the crew with.
Somehow, someway, Luffy makes his way up not long after him with the sheer strength of his neck and jaw muscles, since he can't move anything from the neck down.
"Leave some… for me! I wanna fight!"
"Go back to sleep, dumbass. You can't even stand up." Zoro replies bluntly between two volleys of cannonballs without even looking at him.
"Yeah, shithead. Come back when you feel better." Sanji adds, looking slightly disgruntled that he has to agree with the swordsman on anything.
"Nooooo! You'll be done by then! I wanna fight, Captain's orders!"
His two crewmates roll their eyes with surprising synchronisation as Usopp runs back to the boys' cabin for more munitions, and swiftly close in on their Captain to each grab two of his limbs and stretch him between the two of them, leaving his middle section to catch the biggest number of cannonballs to have come at them yet.
"What the hell are you guys doing?!" Usopp screams as he rushes back to them right as Zoro and Sanji swing Luffy's body and the weight of the dozen of explosive shells back at the warships.
"Defending the ship." The two boys respond as one.
"I leave for five seconds and that's what you came up with?! You're crazy!"
"Thanks." His three crewmates answer with a thumbs up.
"I give up." The sniper decides, and promptly goes back to shooting Exploding Stars at the incoming cannonballs.
They fall back into their initial rhythm quickly, picking up Luffy whenever they get too annoyed with his complaints.
At some point, though, they notice three ships much closer to the size of the Merry making their way between two warships.
Three Marine ships.
"Where the hell are these guys coming from?" Franky grumbles as he squints at the sight of them in the distance and prepares to switch roles with Usopp, who is getting very short on munitions. "I didn't see them when the Buster Call ships came through the gates."
"Might be the guys from the gates' control room." Sanji offers quietly as he lands after kicking away one more cannonball. "They were receiving a call telling them to evacuate the place when I came in."
"Who cares?" Zoro interrupts them bluntly. "They're going to catch up to us a lot faster than the rest of the fleet, and with the state of the Merry even a cannonball from them could sink us."
"We know that, stupid gorilla!" Sanji snaps as he scowls at him. "But it's not like the other ships are going to stop firing at us!"
"Well start thinking of solutions instead of wasting time on things that don't matter!"
Franky shoots an incoming volley of cannonballs into exploding mid-air and turns to the two bickering crewmates, about to try and snap them out of it when Usopp crosses his arms and nods decisively to himself.
"Hm. Hm. I understand."
And then he abruptly pushes Sanji and Zoro away from each other, raising his voice so it carries across the entire deck.
"Elynna-kun, my young Padawan! I believe it is time for you to show the results of your training!"
Luffy gives him a curious look from his place on the floor.
"Why are you talking like Usopp, Sogeking?"
There's an awkward pause, and then an even more awkward cough as Usopp clears his throat from behind his mask.
"I mean— I believe it is time for you to show the results of your training, Usopp-kun's young Padawan! Forgive my enthusiasm. I heard so much about this training from Usopp-kun, it feels like I've trained her myself sometimes."
"Dumbass." Zoro mutters as he prepares to jump and slash to pieces another barrage of excessively big munitions from the warships.
"Don't be mean, Fang. It's stage fright." Elynna replies as she joins them at the back of the ship.
"Anyway!" Usopp interrupts them, pointing at the three smaller ships that have already cleared half the distance between them. "Elynna-kun, if you please."
"Yeah, Yeah. I'm borrowing your special seat for a sec, Captain."
Once she's standing on the sheep figurehead, she takes out both of her kukris from where they were sheathed under her shirt.
"I might need some help in case there's some slack to be picked up." She warns.
"It's fine, Sis, there's four of us."
"Yeah, don't worry, Ann!"
"Shut up, Captain. You can't even move. Just do what you need to, Elynna-chan."
"If I may, gentlemen." Usopp cuts in. "I would advise you to be careful if you need to jump while Elynna-kun is doing this."
That earns him a disbelieving stare from Zoro clearly asking for details, because come off it, she has the best spatial awareness out of all of us.
The sharpshooter shakes his head in response.
"It takes a lot of focus for her to do this, and she's not used to doing it with friends or allies within her range yet."
Ahead of them Elynna hums as she eyes the quickly disappearing distance left between them and their smaller pursuers.
Then her grip goes lax around the hilt of her blades, and they fall.
Except, not really.
They stop barely a foot lower, swinging gently with the rocking of the boat at the end of the twin black cords that Elynna is now holding.
Zoro sucks in a breath even as Franky and Luffy blink in confusion.
"What the f—"
The closest ship in the middle shoots three cannonballs their way.
Elynna swings her left arm back just the slightest bit for momentum, letting go of the cord to let its length expand and gripping it again barely a second later before she sweeps her arm horizontally through the air in front of her.
The flying blade follows, and cuts through all three of the shells.
Franky lets out an admirative whistle.
Usopp laughs loudly, hands propped on his hips and chest puffed with pride.
Sanji and Zoro just gape, and at their feet their Captain is this close to drooling.
Then Elynna yanks the kukri back, letting go of the cord when the blade is close enough to grip the base of it just before the hilt it's tied to, and restarts the process with the right blade at the same time, letting go of more length to reach the men on the ship.
The long, curved knife slashes into three men like they're just flesh and no bones before she tugs on the cord, twisting on herself until she's almost facing away from the ships and looking over her shoulder at the next incoming ship on the first one's left.
This time she gives the most reach she can to her left-hand blade, letting go of the cord until it's only hanging from where it's tied around her wrist.
She orients the sweep of her arm upwards, sending her blade tearing through her target's main sail from bottom to top, leaving it stranded there as the Merry keeps sailing out of its shooting range.
By the time the kukri flies back close enough for her to catch it she's already facing the ships again and turning towards the last one on the right of the two others, giving as much length as she can to her other blade when it goes flying.
It stabs through the torso of one Marine, and she uses him to bowl over three or four others before the body falls to the ground.
Then she takes back just a bit of length, before sweeping her arm in the opposite direction, cutting down the three front cannons.
She yanks back, and at the same time Sanji jumps in the way of the three cannonballs the first ship's soldiers managed to shoot after they stopped freaking out.
Two explode after being hit by Franky's bullets, and the cook kicks the last one back towards its owners.
Elynna's blade slaps back into her palm, and Sanji lands on the Merry's deck as she exhales a long breath of tension before turning back around to jump down from her perch.
Franky shoots down another attack from the warships almost absently, noting that they're pretty much out of shooting range by now, and the resulting noise is like a trigger.
"That…. That was so cool!" Luffy suddenly shouts with starry eyes, laughing almost manically.
Next to him Sanji looks so close to keeling over from sheer worship that Franky is surprised he actually noticed that last attack from the smaller ship.
"Pretty impressive, Sis."
Elynna shrugs.
"I just have the basics right now."
Zoro rolls his eyes at that.
"Stop thinking about that for one minute. You and Usopp did a damn good job on this."
The sharpshooter in question laughs again at that, even louder from behind his mask.
"Indeed, indeed, Young Padawan! This was a most admirable performance on your part! Usopp-kun would be very proud, yes, yes." He declares as he enthusiastically and repeatedly slaps Elynna in the back, earning himself a look that says I'm so done with your bullshit.
And then he sputters to a sudden stop, before straightening and pointing an accusing finger at Zoro.
"Wait a damn minute, that's not what we're supposed to be talking about! Since when can Elynna-kun cut through steel like this, huh?!"
"Fang can do that since Alabasta." The girl in question tells him dryly. "Did you and Usopp-kun really think he wouldn't teach me?"
The swordsman just smirks, although he didn't so much teach her as he dumped everything his own teacher told him when he was trying to teach him that particular skill through meditation on her.
It was a method that suited Elynna much more than his own, and one that challenged her to get past her overthinking tendencies at the same time, which was a great bonus as far as he was concerned, both because that tendency distracted her and made her hesitate in fights and because it usually made her spiral into negative thoughts that did her no good the rest of the time.
Usopp gapes for a few more moments and then pounces, grabbing the swordsman by the arm and dragging him away from the rest of the group with surprising force considering the difference in weight —and muscle mass— between the two of them.
"What the hell—"
"Zoro-kun, my good man." Usopp interrupts him with his hands on the swordsman's shoulders, lowering his voice even if Luffy is firing questions about his First Mate's new skill loud enough to cover their conversation and then some. "I do think that we should work together from now on."
"Hah?"
"For Elynna's training, you dolt!" He hisses, switching back to his normal voice with the distraction of all the tortu— uh, training ideas flying through his mind.
"The hell are you two plotting over there?" Their First Mate calls out, evidently not distracted enough to not be suspicious.
The sniper jolts, whirls around while readjusting his mask, and then—
"Your demise, if you do not withdraw from the war of childish taunts that started before this most honourable crew was even formed!" He answers as dramatically as he can while drawing himself up.
Elynna just raises an eyebrow.
"Excuse you, I'll have you know that my jokes are strictly 16+ rated."
"This!" The sharpshooter shrieks in return with a finger pointed at her. "This is exactly what I'm talking about!"
"Hm. Looks like it's mutually assured destruction, then. It was nice knowing you, I guess."
"Don't phrase it like that, damnit!"
"I don't know why you even asked the question. I'm clearly the most self-destructive member of this crew."
That earns her a slap at the back of her head from a recovering Luffy in the process of getting to his feet but with enough energy to stretch his arm that far, and a hard shove from Zoro as he joins them again, still pensively looking between Usopp and Elynna.
"Hey, the idiots up there!" Nami calls out loudly from the base of the stairs leading down to the main deck. "Hurry up, we've already taken out everything to celebrate our survival! And Lynna, stop boasting about the one thing we all dislike about you!"
〪〪〪〜〜⏆〜〜〭〭〭
Initially, they left some drinks and food on the ship after taking all their things to the hotel in Water Seven because they were planning to have a goodbye feast on the ship.
As it is, the goodbye feast turns into a thanks Merry feast and a hell yeah we're alive fuck the Marines feast all rolled into one.
Franky joins them after a quick call to the Sea Train's Den Den Mushi number to check on his subordinates, and by then Usopp, who still doesn't want to admit how much of a lightweight he actually is, is already well on his way to being tipsy.
"Usopp!"
"Usooooopp!"
Luffy and Chopper echo each other as they run around the ship looking for the sharpshooter of their crew, swearing up and down that they definitely heard his voice during the big fight, for real.
"You idiots, I'm right here!" Usopp explodes after a few minutes, throwing his mask off as he jumps to his feet, voice losing the more pompous, more solemn depth from his Sogeking role.
There's a moment of silence as both sides stare at each other, while the rest of the crew watches them do so with varying degrees of interest.
"... Eh?!"
"What?!"
"I don't know what would have been more surprising." Nami sighs with an exasperation that can't help but sound fond. "That they really didn't know it was Usopp all this time, or that they knew and were just pretending not to."
Zoro and Sanji snort simultaneously, answer the second option at the same time, and then proceed to glare at each for it.
It just brings their Captain and the reindeer's attention to the rest of them.
"Wait— You guys knew?!"
Nami rolls her eyes.
"It was obvious." Zoro scoffs.
"Very obvious." Nami confirms.
"Painfully so." Elynna tacks on.
"Even the brainless gorilla saw through it in a few seconds." Sanji feels the need to add.
"Even I could tell the moment I saw him." Franky contributes helpfully.
"Hey!" Usopp protests. "It was a good act! It fooled them!"
And so saying he points at his two crewmates, who are still gaping, staring between his cape and his face without any sign of stopping.
The four others follow the line of his finger and then look back at him, faces falling into the same severely unimpressed expression.
"They're idiots." They rebuke him bluntly at the same time, making Franky snort in amusement and Robin giggle from the sidelines.
Usopp considers the argument for all of five seconds before he sags back into a sitting position.
"Well, true—"
"Hey!" Luffy whines.
"You guys are mean!" Chopper wails.
"How did you even miss it, Chopper?" Zoro chastises him slightly as he leans forward to grab a jug of sake, glaring at Nami when she snatches it up before him. "You have the best sense of smell by far."
"Usopp always smells too much like gunpowder and other weird stuff for me to know his actual scent! I thought it was just because Sogeking has the same interests!"
"... No, wait, what do you mean 'weird stuff'?" Usopp interrupts him with an agitated glance at where Elynna and Nami are already snickering and watching him, clearly having committed the moment to memory for future teasing purposes.
"Yeah! And his voice was different too!" Luffy protests.
"I said, what 'weird stuff'?!"
Chopper blinks innocently.
He's pretty much the only one among them who can pull off the expression and still look sincere doing it.
"Stuff from your experiments, why?"
"Why did you do that, anyway?" Luffy asks without giving the sharpshooter any time to relax.
"... Because it was scary, okay?! Scary!" The boy in question explodes, banging his fist repeatedly on the deck at his side and picking up a plate to shove all the appetizers left on it down his throat for emotional support. "This is the World Government we're talking about, and there's an old Marine guy in the village next to mine! He might be retired and pretty nice for a Marine, but he'll recognise my face if he sees all of it on a bounty poster! I don't want Kaya-chan and the others to have problems!"
There's a short silence during which Chopper looks at him with awed, teary eyes that show he's thinking really hard that Sogeking might not exist, but you'd make a great hero, Usopp.
He doesn't have the time to say it before Usopp sighs.
"Also, it was fun."
Chopper's jaw drops in outrage.
Luffy bursts out laughing.
"It was great! I want to see Sogeking again soon, okay?!"
"Yeah, yeah. I'll write a story with him."
"Cool! You're super nice, Usopp! I really didn't think about everyone back home when I got a bounty! The mayor is probably just pissed off, though."
And then their Captain laughs again, although even Franky isn't particularly taken aback by his careless attitude by now.
"You're an idiot." Nami tells him fondly with a roll of her eyes. "I'm not worried about Cocoyashi, since no one really likes the Marines there, but will your dad and everyone at the Baratie be alright, Sanji-kun? Lynna said you had a deal with the Marines, and you were pretty well-known over there."
Still in the middle of chewing, Sanji shrugs, and Nami promptly smothers the victorious smile that threatens to take over her face, because it has been exactly seven weeks and three days since her and Elynna have started 'accidentally' calling Zeff Sanji's dad right in front of the cook from time to time, and it's the first time he doesn't actually correct her.
She chances a glance at Elynna, who definitely looks like she's thinking about all the pictures of Den Den Mushi she might be able to take if Sanji actually calls Zeff that during a call, and the smile blooms over her face anyway.
"Nah, it's fine. The old man rarely let me out of the kitchens when the Marines were there, since I usually ended up kicking them out for being assholes. Besides, they're tough. The Marine who'll manage to bother these idiots just because I might have worked with them before I even became a pirate isn't born yet."
"The Baratie?" Franky cuts in with a raised eyebrow. "I heard about it from some travellers. Very good food. Heard you can go there no matter who you are. Good place for a nice fight too, apparently."
Sanji immediately brightens up, and launches straight into a fervent advertisement speech.
〪〪〪〜〜⏆〜〜〭〭〭
"I propose a toast! To my young Padawan for her spectacular performance of her new skill —and for flourishing so magnificently under my most helpful tutelage!"
"You're switching back to Sogeking, Usopp."
"Shut up, Nami."
The navigator glares at him with eyes that say don't take that tone with me, dumbass but is fortunately for him immediately distracted when Luffy tugs insistently on her arm and starts miming the performance in question with gusto, Nami's eyebrows progressively climbing higher towards her hairline until she leans past Luffy and steals the goat cheese-stewed fig toast Elynna was about to shove into her mouth, regardless of the fact that she was doing her job when her First Mate was fighting off the three ships.
"... So who are we toasting to, exactly?"
"The both of us, my dear Padawan, the both of us. But mainly me."
"Figures." Elynna grumbles, still eyeing the remaining crumbs of her stolen toast that litter her thumb.
"Behind every great fighter, there is a great master who should be acknowledged instead of left behind in the shadows of History!"
"Quite right, Usopp." Robin approves.
"Wasn't my first performance, though." Elynna mentions, off-handed and nonchalant.
"I am grateful for the support of a figure such as you, Robin. This is a cause that has been dear to my heart since I met—" Usopp chokes on the drink he was sipping on, and abruptly turns to his First Mate. "What did you just say?!"
"I said that it wasn't the first time I used what you helped me learn in a fight."
Usopp chokes again.
"The— The audacity!" He sputters. "The absolute gall of you! How could you?! When I wasn't here to give it the majestic prelude it deserves and get all the credit for it! When did this happen?!"
Elynna sips slowly on her fruit juice cocktail as if he isn't staring at her and looking ready to shake the answers out of her if she doesn't start talking right there and then.
"In the train, when Hermes was about to do stomething stupid." She starts as she raises one finger of her good hand.
"I'm so very honoured, Elynna-chan!" The cook gushes even as he frowns in confusion while parsing through his memories for the moment in question.
Chopper pats the cook on the knee in congratulations, not looking quite sure what he's congratulating him for.
Usopp just stares at the finger, looking faint at the implication.
〪〪〪〜〜⏆〜〜〭〭〭
Elynna lunged out of the Air Door Blueno left open, knocking Robin out of the way and out of her memories in the same movement.
Then she reached for the CP9 agent's impressively broad shoulders and flipped herself over him.
She landed in front of him, and a light shove was enough to send Usopp sprawling back in his state.
She was pivoting around Blueno's large form before the sniper's back even met the floor, hand sliding under the back of her shirt and through the slipknot meant for her wrist that was hooked on the hilt of the blade she then gripped.
The kukri left her hand in the next second to bury itself in the back of the seat Sanji was about to jump over.
She raised her arm just a bit to bring the cord right in the path of Sanji's ankle, sending him tripping and cursing as he suddenly found his face rushing to meet the carpeted floor instead.
Then Elynna's free hand latched onto the back of his collar while the other yanked the blade back into her grip, and she pivoted on one foot, using his momentum and her own to throw him towards Usopp even as she sheathed the kukri behind her back.
There.
At least he was just a bit safer, for now.
〪〪〪〜〜⏆〜〜〭〭〭
"Then in the bunker I got locked in." Elynna goes on with a second finger that makes Usopp blanch.
〪〪〪〜〜⏆〜〜〭〭〭
As soon as the elevator started to move down, the metal sheet flew off with nothing to keep it in place.
She stepped off the ledge.
Falling straight through the opening, she missed the skull of the agent by barely an inch as he flattened himself out of the way like a piece of paper in the wind, and then surged forward with a finger ready.
But even though she was nowhere close to knowing how to use Kami-e, her last-minute evasion skills were still top-notch.
They managed to dance out of each other's attack three times in a row before he thrusted another Shigan towards her and she bent backward until her back was parallel to the ground to avoid it.
She let one kukri sail just a few inches above the ground towards the opposite wall of the elevator with the slipknot tightening around her wrist while she threw the other at the agent's head, leaving the slipknot of that one around the hilt as it went straight into the same wall when the man unnaturally twisted out of the way.
Leaving the cord loose on the ground, she rolled in the opposite direction, forcing him to follow her so he could attack.
And then she pulled on the cord to tighten it, and tripped him.
The steel guard of her tessen broke his nose before his back even hit the ground.
He still managed to roll out of the way of the kick she aimed at his stomach —and that led him straight into putting himself just right where she needed him to as she spun on herself and stomped her foot down, fracturing his ribs right before the hilt of the kukri that snapped back into her outstretched hand hit his skull and knocked him out.
She broke his ankles for good measure and got out at the armoury floor, leaving him to be discovered by the guys near the office.
Twelve.
〪〪〪〜〜⏆〜〜〭〭〭
A Tekkai fist hit her in the stomach, sending her flying, and she rolled with it before springing back to her feet at the corner right before crashing into the wall.
She raced down the new hallway, heavy steps following close.
But this man clearly specialised in heavy-hitting and attack in general, so he didn't catch up as she ran towards the end of the hallway and the large, heavy steel doors at the end of it that she guessed to be the entrance to the armoury.
She didn't even slow down, and maybe the man thought she was going to try and crash through the doors, because he laughed.
"Not so funny when you're the prey, huh?! You shouldn't have messed with us, you little psycho! I've got ya—"
She raced up the doors and flipped herself off them.
He abruptly slowed down, but it was too late.
Instead of behind him, she landed right on his shoulders, kukri already stabbing deep into his arm even if not as deep as it should have thanks to the Tekkai armour he was already activating.
It was still enough to distract him into releasing it.
Before the scream was even out of his throat she was wrapping the cord tied to her blade around his throat, tightening her thighs around his head and pulling.
He choked, hands grasping at her thighs, fingers sinking through flesh and muscles with the ease of a Shigan-user.
She cried out, her wavering weight on top of his sending the both of them stumbling backwards, but just as he urgently breathed in a lungful of air and instinctive panic she tugged on both ends of the cord, closing it even tighter around his airway.
He fainted and crashed on his back within a few moments.
She fell into a backward roll to break her fall, stumbling to her feet with a slew of curse words as the pain in her thighs flared.
Placing two fingers on the pulse point of his wrist told her he was still alive, so she broke one of his knees to put him out of commission, knocked him out when the pain woke him up, and tore pieces of the white shirt under his black World Government suit to bandage her thighs and staunch the bleeding before she left him there.
Eleven.
〪〪〪〜〜⏆〜〜〭〭〭
The Shigan aiming for her heart pierced through a wall.
A slash of an open tessen, and blood gushed out of the severed veins in the man's wrist.
Three.
The first bullet hit him in the thigh, and he fell, leaving Elynna unprotected except for the arm and leg she folded in front of herself to protect her vital points.
But not before noticing the bloody footprints attached to thin air.
There was no second bullet.
Just her kukri singing through the air, guided by the flick of her wrist into slicing diagonally down through the Devil Fruit user's head.
Just his body, hitting the floor.
Well, most of it.
She didn't bother looking for the second half of his face.
Two.
〪〪〪〜〜⏆〜〜〭〭〭
"The gall!" Usopp chokes out again, looking on the verge of apoplexy.
"There was Spandam and the elephant, too." Robin adds lightly.
"And Spanda and the elephant." Elynna confirms with a nod and a third finger raised, perfectly willing and able to be snide and petty even as the man's corpse lies rotting somewhere in the destroyed island.
Now Usopp just seems resigned to his fate, and shrugs off that last one while Zoro mutters something like 'goddamn zoo' with a look that asks where and more importantly why the hell there was an elephant on the damn island in the first place.
"Alright, he was a special case. I guess I can forgive you for that one."
〪〪〪〜〜⏆〜〜〭〭〭
Rushing out from the cover of a pile of boxes as Robin's voice called out a warning, Elynna barely escaped the giant trunk-sword that slashed down right where she was standing, jumped off a wall to change directions and twisted to throw a kukri in the animal's flank.
The animal bellowed, aggressively trying to shake it off while she gripped the cord tied to the blade, the movement sending her swinging through the air.
She didn't bother holding back when she happened to close in on where Spandam is cowering, and kicked him savagely in the ribs just like he did to her crewmate in his office.
Except she was a lot stronger than him and he was a lot weaker than Robin, so it worked much better.
〪〪〪〜〜⏆〜〜〭〭〭
"Where's he, anyway?" Nami asks, anger rushing up her spine and into her features at the mere mention of the man. "I swear, he better not have gotten away, or—"
Robin and Elynna exchange a glance, and then turn to the rest of them with light, nearly identical smiles that Usopp immediately takes to calling The Twin Smiles of Terror in his head.
"He's dead."
Even Chopper doesn't look even the slightest bit sad at that, and Franky grunts in approval.
"Better not have been a quiet death."
Both women exchange another smile that says there's a joke there that they're the only ones to hear.
Robin's pale eyes crease as she blows gently over her newly-filled cup of tea with a serene smile.
"Oh, it was, all things considered. He went very quietly."
Elynna nods sagely from her seat next to her.
"Very painfully, too."
Luffy crosses his arms, and nods as solemnly as he can.
He prefers to let his enemies live and crush their dreams instead, especially the ones he really doesn't like.
Letting them die feels too nice.
But it's true that Spanda's face was very punchable.
Kickable, too.
Hitable, really.
It's a pretty difficult choice, so he gets it.
He would have had trouble holding back too, and the guy seemed really weak.
"I can't believe you did this to me!" Usopp wails loudly, apparently still stuck on the matter of his ruined surprise and having knocked back an entire tankard of beer in the meantime, skipping right over 'tipsy' and straight into 'quite clearly drunk' territory.
"You know, most of the people who saw it are either part of the crew, dead, or traumatised enough that they probably won't remember seeing it, if they even did in the first place."
"That doesn't make me feel any better!"
"... That's just because you're weird. I tried my best."
"Don't blame this on me!"
"Well!" Nami interrupts them loudly to avoid having to sit through another of the sniper's diatribes. "I say, this calls for another round of drinks!"
"No! Another feast!"
"You already ate half the food we have, Luffy." Sanji explains patiently.
"... So we still have the other half, right?"
"Yeah, but will you hold up all the way back to Water Seven with nothing left to eat after you're done?"
His Captain's whole face scrunches up in thought for three seconds maximum.
"We'll just fish! I want food!"
"Fine, fine."
〪〪〪〜〜⏆〜〜〭〭〭
They meet the biggest ship of the Galley-La Company hosting what seems like all of its shipwrights after about four hours of sailing.
That's when the bow of the ship fractures almost all the way down, stopping just shy of breaking away from the rest of the ship entirely.
Luffy stumbles where he was standing on his special seat to greet the men from Water Seven, throwing a wide-eyed look over his shoulder as Usopp and Chopper panic, calling the ship's name as if it's the prayer that will put it back together.
Then he looks back at Water Seven's mayor, the man who is supposed to be the finest shipwright of the city if not the world.
"Sea King." Elynna's voice stops him from where she's firmly pulling Usopp away from the edge of the crack in Merry's body.
But Merry is here, with them, and so Luffy has to ask again.
Just to be sure that he did everything he could.
"Hey! You told us that Merry couldn't sail anymore, but she still got here! Doesn't that mean that you guys can repair her?! Please, old man!"
The almost pained faces of most of the shipwrights as they look down at their ship's new wound is an answer in and of itself.
"Anyone who tells you they can repair that is trying to swindle you, Straw Hat." Franky confirms grimly with a finger pointed straight at the yawning gap between most of the crew and the bow where Luffy is. "If I have to hazard a guess, the fact that the Merry got here has more to do with her Klabautermann than anything else."
The word sends a flurry of whispers through the crowd of shipwrights and a ripple of uncomprehending looks between the pirates that prompts Franky to quickly explain what a Klabautermann is.
"I agree with Franky." The mayor eventually says, making more than a few heads whip around among his subordinates even as he starts to recount what happened on his side, and how he found the Merry in an even worse state of disrepair after following a voice calling for help.
"I've never heard of a Klabautermann powerful enough to retain a physical presence for such a long time, let alone to man herself towards a specific destination through the kind of Aqua Laguna we had this year during that time, but… It's the only theory I've been able to come up with that fits with what I've experienced."
Then he sighs, and seems truly sincere when he goes on.
"Regardless of that, I've already done everything I can for this ship, and even your Klabautermann won't be able to do more than this. In fact, I would say that the damage it just suffered is the sign that the Klabautermann has reached her last limit as well. The last thing you can do for her is choose how you want to say goodbye. If only because you saved me yesterday and formed such an admirable bond with your ship, Galley-La will help you to the best of its ability with any option you might choose. We'll leave you to discuss what you want to do."
And then he turns around, waving his men away and throwing out a long rope to allow Franky, Kokoro and her granddaughter to join them so as to leave the pirates alone.
Luffy immediately crosses his arms with his stubborn face on, already indicating that he won't budge on whatever he's going to say.
"I don't know any fun rituals, but I don't want to let the Merry sink."
No one bothers correcting his mistake this time around.
Instead Chopper nods with teary eyes.
"I heard the bottom of the ocean is very cold. It must be lonely."
"... Alright." Nami agrees with a slow nod. "But should we do it here or ask the Galley-La guys to lug Merry back to Water Seven?"
"Here." Usopp pipes up quietly, making all of them turn to him. "She's a ship. We can't say goodbye on land."
He hesitates, but no one else says anything, so he keeps going after a stuttering breath that hints at the tears he's already trying to hold back even as they roughen his voice in his throat.
"I heard about… a ritual. From Elbaf."
He looks helplessly at the one person among them who is likely to know what he's talking about, and Robin smiles back gently, taking over to do most of the talking.
"A non-negligible number of recorded instances where a Klabautermann was said to have been seen happened among a crew of Giants. They live much longer than us, and have a much higher chance of developing the kind of bond necessary for a Klabautermann to show herself. The Giants of Elbaf, in particular, tend to leave their islands for a very long period of time, so they spend a lot of time on their ship, which becomes a very important part of their lives."
She pauses, seeming to gather everything she knows in her head to parse out any element that she deems unnecessary for them to know to take an enlightened decision before she goes on.
"While it's not the case for every Giant tribe, the Giants from Elbaf have a very particular view about death that ties very tightly into notions of honour. They have a lot of different funerary rituals depending on the station and the life led by the deceased person. One of them is intended only for the greatest members of the tribe, who are often also its greatest fighters, and consists of a funeral pyre in order for the smoke to bring the deceased's spirit to the sky, where the Elbaf Giants believe that the most deserving souls find their rest. I have never come across any document recounting this practice being done for a ship only, but that doesn't mean that it didn't happen."
Then her gaze stretches across the expanse of the Merry, and she looks back at Usopp with another smile.
"Besides, I think that Merry definitely deserves such an honour after carrying us this far and coming to save us today."
〪〪〪〜〜⏆〜〜〭〭〭
So they stand on the railing of the Galley-La ship that faces the Merry, and Luffy steps with Usopp on a rowboat that brings them closer so they can both throw a torch on the ship's deck and then join the rest of the crew.
"There." Luffy says, quiet in a way they've perhaps never seen. "We didn't want you to be alone down there, Merry, so we'll say goodbye all together like this. We'll think about you lots, though. We still have some pictures of you. We'll put them on our next ship so you can still travel with us, promise."
"And I'll frame them so Luffy doesn't tear them to pieces like the idiot he is." Usopp adds, but his voice wobbles through the taunt, and for once Luffy doesn't react to it at all. "So you see, we'll get a new ship, but we're not replacing you."
His next sentence dies before it even starts as the first sob makes it past his best attempt at pushing it back down.
Instead, it's another voice that speaks, tinkling and childish yet groaning like old wood, bubbling up and down the octaves like something normally throatless trying to replicate a human voice.
"I'm sorry."
Fire crackles, the main mast groans as the metal plates holding it up start to melt, and the fading ashes of the sails rain down on them.
"I'm sorry I couldn't carry you further, everyone. I wish I could have been strong enough to keep going, but…" The trill of the voice wavers, and then there's a figure short like a little kid standing on Luffy's special seat, wearing a sailor's raincoat and seemingly made only of night sky and ocean mist. "You're safe, now, and I'm glad I was able to do that much."
The sudden whispers crowding the deck behind the crew are barely heard over the noise of Usopp starting to cry in earnest, prompting Nami and Chopper to do the same as Luffy begins to scream about how we're the ones who should say sorry and list seemingly every time one of them has failed to treat the Merry as a proper friend as if he's been dredging up the memories for days in order not to forget even one of them, tears streaming down his face and fingers tightening painfully around Elynna's hand just like his own is being crushed by Usopp's grip.
"Thank you." The sniper sobs, not seeming to realise he's even saying the words. "Thank you, Merry! I'm sorry—"
"Don't be silly." Merry answers, and even under the hood of her outfit they can see the smile on her face, so alike the smile on the sheep head she's standing on that it makes Usopp sob even harder.
And then she bows.
Chopper starts wailing about how much he loves Merry from where he's clutching Zoro's leg, Robin gently brushing her fingers over his back as Nami crouches down between Elynna and Sanji, her hold on their wrist the only thing keeping her from falling off the railing with how much the sobs shake her.
"Thank you. Thank you for allowing me to sail again. I saw so many wonderful things with all of you. Everyday was an adventure, and I've never had as much fun as when I was carrying you all. Thank you for treating me like a nakama, even though you never met me until today. There's no other crew I would have rather sailed with than the Straw Hat Pirates."
The main mast crumbles into the rising flames behind the Klabautermann as she turns just a bit, orienting herself more towards the end of the line formed by the pirates.
Then she bows again, but lower this time.
Not the bow of a nakama to a nakama.
The bow of a servant to their master.
Formal.
Deep.
And in that moment, full of a deference that feels earnest.
It's hard to tell who it's for until she speaks.
"I also want to thank you, Elynna-sama. I never would have found you all in time if not for you allowing me to anchor myself to your presence. It was a great honour to have been blessed by the touch of one such as you, and I will forever be grateful to you for giving me this chance."
Elynna tilts her head, the weird pull she only noticed when it got stronger right before the Merry appeared now much more understandable.
She just thought it was this body pushing the abilities she has to the surface in reaction to her own sense of oh shit we're gonna die to pull some deus ex machina miracle move and get them all out of the line of fire.
But apparently it was just their ship using her as a damn anchor.
Which she didn't exactly 'allow', at least not consciously.
But she guesses her subconscious would agree to pretty much anything coming from an entity that is so dear to her crewmates —and can save their damn lives.
She sighs.
Weirder shit has happened, and she's certainly not going to complain about the results in this particular instance.
So she shrugs as best as she can with both hands held in a vice-grip.
"Don't sweat it. And quit it with the bowing, Merry. You paid me back with damn good interests and that's the only thing I care about, so there's no need for that shit."
Not that she will hesitate to pull the rank she apparently has with another Klabautermann if it ever happens to be necessary, but the Merry is a dying ship who is obviously loyal to her crewmates, and this is a funeral for someone her crewmates consider to be a nakama.
She's not about to bring non-human politics or whatever the hell this is into it.
Merry's smile is a bit more sad as she straightens up enough to face all of them again.
"Thank you all again. Please, remain the same Straw Hats I carried till now on the next ship that will have the honour to take you on her deck. If there is a place for my kind to be after this world, I will be watching you fulfilling your dreams. Goodbye, everyone."
And then she fades away, the biggest part of her already made invisible by the towering wall of flames that is now licking at the edges of where the bow broke away from the rest of her.
Usopp screams.
〪〪〪〜〜⏆〜〜〭〭〭
She urges both Usopp and Luffy down before they're even done crying, not ready to let them stand just a few inches from hurtling down towards the sea when their legs are so wobbly and their attention so far away from the fall they're risking —and her own arms feel like wet noodles at best.
She meets Iceburg's eyes and he nods, confirming that he did get their letter.
Ignoring the curiosity in his eyes, she jumps down after her crewmates, trying to work some feeling back into her hands.
She stumbles when she lands.
Nami turns around at the sound, eyebrows furrowed in worry above her red-rimmed eyes.
"Lynna?"
But her First Mate isn't quite looking at her, the direction the only eye she can actually open gazes at just a bit off.
"We're as safe as can be now, right?"
Nami watches with even more concern as Chopper straightens himself out of his tears to narrow his gaze onto the other girl in Doctor Mode.
"… Yeah." She sniffles, and nods as she softens her voice some more to spare her own throat and the headache they're probably all nursing after spending all this time in the middle of a Buster Call. "Yeah, we're safe."
"Good."
And then Elynna promptly collapses forward before Nami can even ask anything.
A smattering of arms flowering from the deck saves her just in time from breaking her nose face-first against the planks, before carefully turning her to lay on her back.
"Lynna?!"
Chopper quickly trots over, checking her over rapidly through her clothes with gentle presses of his hooves before he sits back with a long sigh that feels more like a release of pressure and worry than a sigh.
"Ann?" Luffy pants as he stumbles closer to the rest of them with his arm around Usopp's shoulder, although it's hard to say who is supporting who's weight. "Is she alright?"
Face shuttered in the forced but soft neutrality they're all used to whenever they're seeing him in the sick bay, Chopper nods slowly.
"She needs a lot of rest, but she should be okay in a few days. I just have to treat her wounds properly."
Then he looks up at where they're all gathered around him, eyes still teary but severe even as he jabs an accusatory hoof in their direction from the height of his tiny form and what do you think you're doing frown.
"And that goes for all of you! There was no time to treat anyone correctly earlier, and you all worsened your injuries while we were escaping. You need rest! There's no fighting to be done right now, so my orders come first if I think it's necessary for your health!"
Luffy pulls a face at that even as he sways on his feet.
"But I'm the Capt—"
Chopper's what do you think you're doing frown promptly turns into a I know what you're doing and it's stupid so shut up and listen to me glare.
Luffy's mouth snaps shut.
His doctor sniffs in satisfaction under the amused stares of more than a few shipwrights and Sanji's muttered 'idiot'.
"Is there any room that we can use as a sick bay here?" The reindeer asks politely as he turns to Water Seven's mayor, who smiles back while gently petting the mouse resting on his shoulder.
"We have one, feel free to make use of it while we travel back to Water Seven. I figured there would be injured people to look after, so I asked one of Galley-La's doctors and the few orderlies we could spare after the attack on our quarters to follow us. They should be there already and will be able to help you. You seem quite spent yourself, after all."
He gives indications as to where the room in question is, and watches with amusement as a single look from the small reindeer makes his former co-apprentice grumble but eventually follow the group of pirates under the deck.
〪〪〪〜〜⏆〜〜〭〭〭
I'd be sad over the fact that this is chapter 4/5 of Enies Lobby if the next chapter and the following arcs didn't make me feel like I ate enough sugar to stay awake for at least a solid week.
Hope the Enies Lobby power-up satisfied you!
#FTSFact13: I didn't come up with the bright idea of Elynna using her kukris like that all on my own. Credit for that inspiration goes to Shenhua from the Black Lagoon manga/anime. By the way, you're looking for badass female fighters? Definitely the way to go. Don't expect them to be super badass and super nice/sane/ethical, though.
Anyway, there's this woman in Black Lagoon who uses kukris that way. Since her technique is pretty graceful I automatically ended up thinking about it when I was planning the development of Elynna's fighting skills —and figured this would make for a good Enies Lobby power-up to match that of the other Straw Hats. I put below the link of the only video I found with Shenhua's fighting scenes, with the part that really inspired me at 0:55.
https: slashslahs www dot youtube dot com slash watch?v=r811vC8fRY0
Also I don't know if it was confirmed in canon and I don't remember where I first read that theory, but there's this headcannon about how Usopp starts developing Observation Haki very early in the series, and I think that quite a few elements in Enies Lobby totally fit that idea. Also Usopp deserves more spotlight so you'll just have to deal with it.
Thanks to all of you for taking the time to read/comment/bookmark this as always, and I hope you enjoyed the chapter! Take care!