One Piece belongs to Eiichiro Oda
Kingdom Hearts characters belong to Square Enix and Disney
OCs belong to me.

-Chapter Twenty-Five-

"Okay, enough with the sand already—I'm not impressed anymore!" Luffy demanded, finally growing annoyed with the storm as he squinted his eyes and tightly held onto his hat so it wouldn't be blown away.

"I don't think the sand cares if you're impressed or not!" I called over the roaring winds.

"I should have mentioned it earlier—sandstorms are another one of the desert's dangers!" Vivi shouted, using her arms to shield her face from the harsh wind that blew sand in our faces.

"You got to start remembering this stuff!" Usopp screamed as he was knocked off his feet and blown back. I found myself feeling rather disorientated by the time the storm had subsided, my head now spinning as my eyes stung and watered at the grainy sensation of sand in my eyes and inside every orifice on my face.

"What the hell was that?" Zoro grunted as he sat up, knocking off the blown-over tent and copious amounts of sand that had covered him while he slept through the storm. I coughed, spitting up a few grains of sand that had worked its way inside my mouth as I made an attempt to stand only to halt when I found that I couldn't.

"Uh..." peering down, I was greeted by the sight of my entire lower half buried underneath a pile of sand. Once again did I try to pull myself free, only to be met with the same result as my body stayed firmly in place. Heaving a sigh, I soon began to dig at the sand pressed against my lower half in an attempt to loosen it.

"Here" I didn't make it far before I felt a strong pair of hands loop underneath my arms and effortlessly yank me right out of the pile of sand as if I weighed absolutely nothing.

"Oh, thanks" I widely smiled up at Zoro as he helped me to my feet. "What was that?" my ears twitched the second he grumbled, his words barely intelligible...yet I was certain I had heard the word, "friend," being said. My heart leapt at the thought even as that small voice in the back of my mind bitterly reminded me that we were technically friends already—to mistake his words for a confession of remembrance was stupid.

"I said no problem" he said a little louder this time, causing me to owlishly blink as my shoulders deflated just the slightest. With the shake of my head, I quickly regained my smile the moment I saw his eyebrow raise in a questioning manner.

"Can't a guy sleep in?" Sanji groaned, finally emerging from the sand along with the others that had been buried.

"Dammit, Luffy..." Usopp groaned the second the rubber man kicked more sand in his face as he was trying to get back up and out of the sand.

-Later-

"Hey, Sanji, let's have some more of those box lunches" Luffy suddenly suggested after a good while of walking through the desert once more.

"Not yet, not until Vivi says so" the blond dismissed. Lowly did I start to whistle, mindlessly swinging Zoro and mine arms back and forth in an attempt to both quell the boredom I was starting to feel and to distract myself from the slow building heat of the day that was only getting strong the higher the sun started to rise.

"Come on, Vivi, how about it? Let's eat—doesn't that sound good?" Luffy pleaded, attempting to coax the princess into telling Sanji to give out the food so he could eat.

"But we're not even a tenth of the way to Yuba, Luffy" Vivi argued. "We have to make our food last the way there" she reasoned.

"I'd rather not end up starving to death in the desert for the vultures to eat just because of your gluttony..." I muttered under my breath which caused the swordsman beside me to snort.

"That's silly, Vivi, haven't you heard the old proverb?" Luffy frowned. "Make sure you eat whenever you're hungry" he quoted.

"Now hold on a minute, I'm sure that was never a proverb" I sweat dropped.

"Yeah, it is" he quickly defended.

"Ugh! Quit making things up, you big fat liar!" Usopp groaned from where he was dragging himself at the back of the group.

"Okay, if you're that hungry, I'll tell you what" Vivi suddenly smiled, caving just a little to the rubber man's demands. "Why don't we stop and eat at the next group of rocks we come to?" she offered.

"Alright—rocks it is! Onward to the next group of rocks!" Luffy cheered. "Okay, guys," he suddenly began, "whoever wins at rock, paper, scissors has to carry everybody's stuff!" he proclaimed without any real rhyme or reason.

"Quit deciding things!" Usopp snapped.

"Don't you mean whoever loses carries the stuff?" Sanji questioned.

"Yeah" I nodded. "Normally the loser gets the short end of the stick, not the winner" I said, raising an eyebrow.

"And ready...go!" Luffy shouted. "Rock, paper, scissors!" he ignored us, throwing his hand as he started the game before anyone really had a chance to agree.

"Wait!" Sanji snapped.

"Now, hold on!" Nami butted in.

"You started late!" Zoro groaned, causing the captain to burst out into a fit of laughter

"Ha! I win!" he happily cheered.

"Of course, you won—you barely gave us any time to react!" I exclaimed.

"Idiot!" Nami snapped.

-Later-

"Ah...so heavy...!" Luffy whined as started to fall behind the group thanks to the added weight of everyone else's belongings. "Why am I doing all the work?" he frowned.

"Don't you remember?" I asked.

"You said winner carries all, now shut up and haul" Sanji added.

"And make sure you don't drop anything" Nami said.

"You don't think it'd hurt to help him a little, do you?" I sighed, unable to stop myself from feeling a little bit of sympathy for the captain's plight despite it being his own fault. I frowned, the sounds of his struggling whines reminding me of the way Sora would sound whenever he was distressed over something.

"It's his own damn fault, so there's no point in showing him any sympathy" Zoro grunted, unbothered by the rubber man's sounds of frustration.

"Hey, guys, I spotted rocks straight ahead!" Usopp suddenly shouted.

"You mean it?! It's lunchtime!" Luffy cheered, his energy suddenly coming right back to him as he rushed right past everyone and toward the group of rocks the sharpshooter had spotted off in the distance.

"Luffy, not so fast!" Usopp shouted before heaving a sigh when he saw his words go unheard by the captain who barreled on ahead. With a shake of our heads, we soon followed while keeping the same pace as before.

"I need help!" it didn't really take that long before Luffy came running back, now shouting and waving his arms in a panic.

"Eh? Didn't Luffy have something with him earlier?" I asked upon noticing that something was different about his person the close he got as if he was missing something.

"I think he did" Nami agreed, squinting her eyes and examining him as he drew closer.

"That's weird, why is he coming back?" Usopp questioned.

"There's a whole flock of injured birds here that can't move! We need a doctor, Chopper!" Luffy shouted, causing the reindeer's ears to twitch as he quickly hopped off the makeshift sled Zoro had been pulling him and hurried towards the rubber man. He didn't need to say anything or hear anymore, his duty as a doctor clearly taking over right away upon hearing that someone was in need of his help. "Alright, let's go!" the captain gave a firm nod once he saw the doctor coming and prepared to take back off toward the pile of rocks.

"Coming!" Chopper shouted, hurriedly following after.

"We got to help those birds!" Luffy proclaimed.

"What birds? Wait a minute, Luffy—those birds might not be who you think they are!" Vivi suddenly shouted in a panic, causing the rubber man to come to a skidding halt as he now looked back at her in confusion.

-Later-

"Ah!" Luffy screamed in shock, head now frantically looking left and right in search of the belongings he had left behind after spotting the "injured" birds and running back to come and get the rest of us.

"All our stuff is gone!" Zoro grounded out.

"We've been robbed!" Nami wailed.

"But I saw them! There was a whole flock of dying birds lying right here!" Luffy defended as I patted Vivi's back in comfort the minute I saw the dejected look on her face.

"I'm so sorry, I should have mentioned it earlier..." she depressingly sighed. "Warusagi Birds are desert bandits that deceive travelers and steal their belongings" she explained.

"You got to be kidding me!" Luffy screamed as he clutched his head in distress.

"Who knew birds could be such savages" I whistled, impressed by the devious and almost cutthroat nature of these birds in their pursuit of survival.

"You mean these birds play dead?" Usopp questioned. "What a lousy bunch of crooks!"

"This is all my fault..." Vivi sadly muttered.

"Hey now, no one's blaming you" I said, trying to comfort her. "You had no way of knowing that Luffy would have been the one to run into those birds" I reasoned, assuring her that it wasn't her fault that this had happened.

"Those birds tricked me!" Luffy growled.

"Luffy, you dolt, is that all you have to say for yourself?" Sanji frowned. "There was three days' worth of supplies in those packs and you had to go off and let a bunch of stupid birds rob us blind in the middle of the desert! How are we supposed to get across this wasteland without food or water?!" he snapped as he snatched the front of Luffy's robe. "I hope you're proud of yourself!"

"Come on, it's not my fault—they outsmarted me!" Luffy quickly defended.

"You mean you're dumber than a bird!" Sanji sneered, practically shoving his face into the captain's as his anger continued to rise.

"Look, the human body can go without food for at least a month, possibly longer depending on body fat" I reasoned in an attempt to placate the two. "Our only real problem here is water, something we really can't go that long without" I said, aware that there was no getting around the loss of what was currently our only source of freshwater.

"What's that?" Luffy snapped, the gears in his head finally done turning as he fully processed the insult that had been lobbed at him.

"Are you two even listening?!" I snapped.

"They're too caught up in their fighting to even listen to anything we have to say..." Nami grumbled in irritation, too frustrated to even bother stopping the two that were currently bickering with one another.

"Tell me about it" I huffed while crossing my arms.

"Knock it off you two" Zoro said, using a more direct approach in trying to get the two to stop fighting.

"No, you're not that smart" Sanji ignored Zoro as he gave a comeback to whatever it was Luffy had just said to him.

"Just save your energy, at times like this, it's better to let them have at it" Ace said, already brushing the two off.

"Fine with me" Zoro sighed, removing the hood of his robe as he tiredly plopped down on a nearby rock. "Let's just take a break," he suggested, "this heat is starting to wear on everybody's nerves, I'm sure we'll manage food and water wise—it's nothing that will kill us right away—so let's just put it out of our minds for now" he said as I plopped down beside him as well, thankful to finally be off my feet for a while.

A/N: Enjoy

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