Part 7: Human or Reindeer?

Chapter 3/6: What it means to raise the skull and crossbones

Chopper remembered Dr Hilruk as his father, his friend, his everything. The first one who treated him with kindness, who taught him was kindness even was. Who showed him care.

Chopper remembered how he had killed him.

"Kindness can't save shit! You need proper knowledge and experience!"

Doctorine's words were still a sharp blade in his heart. Hilruk had died right here before the castle, blown himself up rather than getting shot by Wapol's soldiers, rather than dying from Chopper's lack of understanding.

But Hilruk had wanted him to live. With nowhere else to turn his grief and fury Chopper turned to Doctorine, waving Hilruk's pirate flag in his determination to become everything the doctor had hoped for. Because Chopper held Hilruk's teachings in his heart, that there are no such thing as incurable illnesses.

He'd cried a lot that day. Over his failure. Over Hilruk, and for everything the doctor had believed in. The skull and crossbones Hilruk had raised and held in his heart now fluttered in the wind atop the highest tower, a banner of hope and a reminder. It was everything Chopper had to give him strength and faith. It was everything Chopper had left of doctor Hilruk.

It had been hard. It had been cold. It helped that Doctorine wasn't kind to him. She wouldn't hold back and beat him bloody when he messed up, when he forgot it was about individuals first and the medicine second. The pain helped, kept him grounded. Held the tears back and his will strong.

"Doctor Hilruk wanted to save this country," he told Wapol and his ministers as he stood in his human form. "You're not setting foot in this castle. If you want to take down doctor's flag, you'll have to go over my dead body!"

"Wapol-sama! It's the monster from that time!"

Monster. Chopper wondered if the word would ever stop haunting him, hurting like a nail in his heart. But he'd stopped flinching every time it was used on him.

Wapol was smirking. "I see, so everyone in this country, down to the last one, has all gathered here. With Dalton dead, after we clean up here, there will be nobody left who'd dare revolt against me again!"

"True, true indeed. Today will see the glorious rebirth of the renowned Drum Kingdom," Chess agreed smoothly, looking as pleased at the aspect as Wapol.

Chopper stood up, but was unconsciously holding himself like a reindeer ready to fight: head slightly lowered and stance wide. He fully expected, was fully prepared to fight alone. He was used to it, the hollow feeling inside that never went away completely. That's why he was stunned to immobility when the other man came up beside him, rubbing a bump on the head with Doctorine telling him something about being backup.

The first attack was directed at Doctorine, a large, round and black thing. Chopper had not expected that and was late to react. But the other man raised a leg and caught the puffy projectile, an elegantly smooth movement that left Chopper baffled. Was it natural for humans to lift their legs that high? And sideways too!

"Hey now, Afro Man," the man snarled around the smoking stick in his mouth. "What kind of manners are those, throwing stuff at a lady."

Doctorine looked pleased, and Chopper filed away the word 'lady' for now. This was neither time or place to ask for the meaning of words he'd never heard before.

But the enemy was grinning. "Got you. There's more where that came from." Another two balls of fluff came flying and attached themselves to the blond.

"What… what are these? Hey, reindeer, don't just stand there! Get these shitty things off me!"

Chopper was used to fight alone. Never had anyone asked for his help before. So he approached the other man clumsily and grabbed one of the balls. It felt like hair? But it was packed with statics and wouldn't come off no matter how hard Chopper waved his arms.

"Disgusting!"

"Don't give them back! Take one! They're grossing me out!"

A sing-song tone and a flash of red caught both of their attention. Chess had set his arrowhead of fire and was aiming at them.

"Shit! Don't tell me these things burn," the man hissed.

"Plan decoy," Chopper hastily left all the afros on the other and ran.

"Oh, good… wait! I'm a decoy?! Shit! OW! HOT"

Chopper was too late to stop the fire arrow from launching, but still went at the archer, meaning to knock him out, when Wapol suddenly beat him to it, and opened his mouth. Chopper was midair and couldn't stop his forward momentum.

Sanji was rolling in the snow, putting out the fire that thankfully was no more than kindle, meant to get a fire starting rather than burning for long. He was just rolling back onto his feet when he saw the reindeer disappear into the tin-man's mouth, the feet sticking out between the teeth.

Exactly like Ruffy yesterday. But unlike yesterday, there was no sound of choking and spitting.

"I'm back!"

"Ruffy jump onto my leg!" Sanji called desperately. If he ran forward the other two would just try to hinder him.

The girl didn't hesitate. Like a bird she perched on Sanji's leg and held on as the cook spun around once to gain momentum and then shot his captain at the chewing king pirate.

"Air assault!"

He felt the resistance in his lower back when Ruffy took off with her own power as well as his. His back had hurt ever since he woke up, but pain had never stopped him before.

Ruffy collided with the eater's diaphragm feet first with a funny sound that had Sanji think of watermelons wrapped in foil. The reindeer came flying out of his mouth, small and bleeding from where his hindlegs had been bitten, but otherwise fine. Ruffy kicked off the eater, who crashed into his mount that flew back far enough to fall off the edge of the mountain. The two soldiers rushed forward and caught their leader before he too fell off.

'Too bad,' Sanji thought to himself and stretched his spine, hoping to relieve the pain.

Ruffy picked the reindeer out of the air as she bounced back to Sanji's side and set the little guy down. It took a moment for it to catch up with what had just happened and shake off the spittle that had gotten stuck on him.

"Th-thank you… you guys are… amazing."

Ruffy and Sanji both grinned at him. Sanji took notice Ruffy was wearing Nami-san's jacket rather than her own. Yellow didn't look as good on Ruffy.

Wapol had been disgraced before, but never like this. With Isshi-20 at his beck and call he'd never been in pain for long, but they weren't here now. In all of his life, the only one who had ever managed to land a hit on him were his father and the little bitch pirate he was now going to kill more than once. He needed them to see they couldn't defy him! He was the king! And nobody attacked him and got away with it!

"They will die," he growled as Chess and Kuromarimo pulled him up from over the edge of the cliff.

"Your majesty, are you in pain?" Kuromarimo demanded.

"These people are stronger than we thought!" Chess added, looking perfectly shocked, like he couldn't digest what had just happened. That anyone had actually dared to up and attack his king (for a second time!) when he was right there!

"They will die!" Wapol repeated. "They'll know my power. The time has come to unleash the Devour Factory!"

"King Wapol!?" Kuromarimo sounded awfully delighted. Wapol didn't have to use his power often, but his loyal followers certainly enjoyed it when he did. They liked the show of power and Wapol loved to show it.

"Chess! Repeat today's menu!"

"Yes, my liege!" Chess fumbled in his hurry to pull out a little booklet where he kept track of what the king devoured during the day. "On the ship this morning your excellency had one cannon sauteed in butter and one fresh cannon with a bullet and black powder salad. In Big Horn you devoured one flambéed house." Chess stared at the list, horrified at how short it was. The Devour devil fruit did just that; devour, and it wasn't good for the king to go hungry. The fight with the lapins earlier and the hours it had been since Wapol last ate must have made the king horrifically short-tempered.

Wapol lifted his head and grinned madly at the staring pirates. "You will tremble before the powers of my devil fruit! I am what I eat!" He pulled out the metal and wood and fire he'd eaten during the day, cannons and a grilled house. It wouldn't be quite as impressive as it would have if he'd had his normal full meals today, but he was king of Drum Kingdom, the mightiest man on the island! "Behold! Devour mutation! Wapol House!"

Sanji cared about food. It was the whole reason he became a cook at all. When he met Zeff, got stranded on that bare cliff and realized what hunger truly was and was unexpectantly rescued, both by Zeff and from the cliff, it had become a need to feed the hungry. But the food was still something he cared about. To hear what this king idiot was eating, it hurt somewhere deep and personal. Because this man was a king, because he just ate without a care about what it was.

Watching how the king's body pulsated, how it grew and changed shape, the cook felt the muscles around his eyes twitch. He really did become a house, complete with a door in his stomach and chimney on his head.

"This is the power of the Devour fruit! Watch closely!"

Sanji reacted before the king stopped speaking, something in his mind translated the look in the his eye, or its direction, fast enough to throw himself at Ruffy and cover her eyes before the now house man ate his own men.

"Don't look, Ruffy," he breathed earnestly.

"Cannibal!" the little reindeer shouted.

In his heart Sanji felt something, a peculiar sense of horror that he knew, on some level, wasn't his own. But it faded just as soon as he felt it, mellowing out like a wave.

"They're not dead," Ruffy said, though she didn't fight Sanji's hold. "I can just barely hear their heartbeats. The devil fruit is… infecting them."

Sanji didn't know a whole lot about devil fruits, aside from what he'd read in that overexaggerating book long ago and what was commonly known; that the fruits gave the eaters the power of the devil. But Ruffy was his captain, and he trusted her words.

"What does that mean?" he asked her.

He felt her arm circle his waist and squeeze, clinging onto him nervously. "I don't know. It sounds disgusting."

Sanji held his hand over his captain's eyes and held her close as the enemy swallowed and let out steam like a pressure cooker. And then the door to his stomach opened. From within came… a voice?

"We are… the mightiest warrior of Drum Kingdom!"

The creature stepped out, and Sanji relaxed his hold on Ruffy. It was too dumb to be scary.

"I am Chessmarimo!"

"You're a shitty idiot!" Sanji retorted. Because all that had happened was that the two henchmen had become one that sat atop the other. He'd been frightened for nothing!

"Don't underestimate him," came the old granny's voice from behind them.

"Doctorine?"

"If that guy was as weak as you assume, the people would have overthrown the government years ago."

Ruffy was still staring at the… creature in front of her, trying to understand what exactly she was looking at. It was one body with two faces, one lower than the two sets of arms and the other higher. And it had two heartbeats beating in tandem with the devil fruit user behind it, erasing a lot of their individuality.

"Is that a… puppet?" she asked, perplexed.

Wapol ignored her. "The first article of law of Drum Kingdom's constitution state; Whoever defy rule of the king must die. This land is my country. This castle is my throne. And that quack doctor's pirate flag is a disgrace! It dirties my fort!"

Ruffy saw the Jamaguchi lift a cannon-arm and fire high. Following the ball's trajectory she made eye contact with a skull and crossbones flag moments before it was hit at the base.

She heard it in the little reindeer's heart, a connection between the flag and him that meant more to him than anything else, even his life.

"I have raised this flag…! I don't care…! …ith my life on the line!"

Ruffy heard the words, broken off sentences as they sounded off all at once, and knew, without the shadow of a doubt, that the person who had raised that flag was dead, and yet was still fighting. But the people here didn't know. They didn't understand that whoever had raised that flag was still here, had left a voice behind, and now they were screaming.

"Even if I die…!"

With the determination of the ghost egging her on Ruffy raced up the wall of the castle wall and caught the falling pole. It wasn't meant to fall. It was fighting something mighty strong without a care for how impossible it was.

"They burnt my flag."

Aki's words from long ago, her pain and rage as she said them.

"I've lost everything but my life. That is all I have that I can still decide over."

"How? You're here? You're chained."

"Ha! How young you are. Don't you know? As long as you're alive you can fight. Yes, my flag burned, but so does my soul and heart. Just because they were strong enough to take my everything, it will not defeat me."

Ruffy gasped in the cold air as she climbed the roof back to the top and reinstalled the flag where it unfolded in the wind. It seemed to puff out its chest, proudly showing the world that it wouldn't fall so easily.

"I will fight like a pirate!"

Down below Ruffy saw a flash of fire. The reindeer had been shot. Ruffy couldn't hear anything from this height, but for the voice washed in the black material fluttering in the gust around her, she needed them all to know. This was not about them.

"JAMAGUCHI!"

She had their attention. They were pointing at her.

"DO YOU KNOW WHAT THIS FLAG REPRESENT? A BUNSH OF FRAUDS WHO'S NEVER RISKED ANYTHING! YOU CAN'T WIN AGAINST THE ONE WHO RAISED THIS FLAG!"

On the ground, shot down at close range because he remembered with great confusion how the doctor had told him to not hate, Chopper stared up. The banner fluttered in the wind, held up by that girl. A sense came over him. A presence. A scent on the wind.

'Doctor?'

"Why, the sea is full of pirates. You'll set out to sea one day too, to see how small your worries really are."

"Who cares about that rotten piece of rag?!" Wapol's indignant voice cut through the air. "I am king! This is my castle! That filthy thing is annoying! Raise it if you want. I'll just shoot you down with it!"

The girl didn't move! "Get down!" Chopper yelled at her.

"Ruffy!"

KA-BOOM.

Wapol laughed happily. But Chopper couldn't even react. Because through the smoke from the explosion, he could see the banner. It looked like Hilruk.

Ruffy still stood on the roof, flag in hand, sooty and with a light nosebleed from the shockwave of the explosion. The cannonball hadn't even hit her, just the other side of the roof. She looked down at the Jamaguchi with pity, her golden eyes stark against the black of the flag. Someone with nothing to fight for, who believed in power that was so easy to take away.

"There are so many concepts of power. Some hold it only because others let them."

Almen's words.

The world spread out beyond the edge of the cliff. From her position Ruffy had the most amazing view. The clouds were dispersing, allowing the evening sun to illuminate the world below in gold that reflected off the glittering snow, broken off by dark patches of villages, and beyond them still, beyond the shore, the sea stretched out infinitely. It was possible, Ruffy supposed, to imagine you owned everything when it was spread out like a treasure before you like this.

As if the sea could be owned.

"This land is ill, but I will cure it."

Ruffy glanced at the flag. The intent of the owner gazed over the same view as she and wished. But their wish wasn't to rule. It wanted to heal and… protect.

Ruffy's sharp eyes followed the bond this banner had and landed on an astounded little face.

"THIS FLAG WAS RAISED AS A PROMISE!" she shouted down at her gaping enemies. "IT STANDS HERE AS A SYMBOL OF FAITH AND HOPE. WHAT RIGHT DOES NOBODIES LIKE YOU HAVE TO COME AND TRY TO TEAR IT DOWN?! REINDEER!" She saw the little guy jump at being addressed. "I'M GOING TO SEND THESE GUYS FLYING. WHAT ABOUT YOU?"

Chopper's jaw slackened. Him? What was he going to…?

By this point Wapol was hopping mad. "Dumboll! If you want to protect that piece of filth that badly then you can go ahead and die with it!"

Chopper jumped up. Wapol. Ruffy was right. Wapol had no place in this land. It was he who made it sick! He was the cancer! And Chopper was not going to allow him to shoot down doctor's flag!

"King Wapol, watch out!"

The creature, the ministers, whatever they had become, stopped Chopper's fist. But the reindeer-man still took it as a win. Wapol's attention was now on him.

"I won't let you lay a single finger on King Wapol," Chessmarimo declared. They still had two mouths and separate voices, but they spoke as one.

Then, with the whistling sound that sounded like it belonged to a bird, Ruffy came flying from the sky, forcing Wapol and his creation to jump apart.

"Mugiwara?!" Because it was the girl who was digging her way out of the snow where she'd landed. She looked small when he was in his human form. "Are you okay?"

"Fine as can be. Can you fight that thing by yourself?"

The reindeer turned and glared in the direction Ruffy pointed. Chessmarimo.

He puffed his chest out. "Easy!"

The enemy laughed. "You? Fight me? I'm the mightiest warrior Drum Kingdom has ever seen!" Chopper shrank, and Chessmarimo studied him with sneers on their faces. "What kind of creature are you? That abominable snowman people gossiped about some half dozen years back? A one of a kind with no kin in the world. Why are you even joining hands with those humans when they'll just hunt you down when you're done!"

A hand touched Chopper's shoulder. A steady, unyielding presence stood at his back.

"Don't be absurd. This is my nakama. He is one of us."

Ruffy's hand moved away, but her existence stayed with him.

I am here. I trust you.