One Piece belongs to Eiichiro Oda
Kingdom Hearts characters belong to Square Enix and Disney
OCs belong to me.
-Chapter Thirty-Four-
"You sure?" Luffy questioned.
"Any idea where you'll be heading next?" Sanji curiously asked.
"I have a lead on Blackbeard's whereabouts—Scorpion heard about a man who saw him out west, guess we'll see" Ace shrugged, digging around inside his pocket before pulling out a folded-up piece of paper. "Luffy" he called out, tossing the piece of paper to his brother as he did so. "Hey, do yourself a favor and hang onto that."
"But it's just a scrap of paper...?" Luffy questioningly muttered.
"That scrap of paper will reunite us one day" Ace smiled.
"Yeah?" Luffy questioned.
"You don't want it?"
"No, I'll keep it."
"It's perfectly natural for a guy to worry about his bundling kid brother, right?" Ace asked. "He might be a bit much for all of you to handle, but take good care of him for me" he bowed, causing us all to smile. "Luffy, when we meet again—we'll both be top pirates."
"Right" Luffy grinned.
"The top, you and me" Ace repeated as he returned his brother's grin.
"Bye!" our attention was soon dragged away from Ace when we suddenly heard Chip and Dip's voices. Looking in their direction, it didn't take long to spot them waving goodbye from their seat right on top of Popo.
"Bye!" Luffy happily waved back. "Huh? Where did Ace go?" he asked, the first to notice his brother's disappearance the moment he turned back.
"He disappeared" Zoro remarked.
"And just like that, he's gone like the wind" I whistled, amazed by how quick and silent he had been in his departure.
"Yeah" Usopp and Chopper nodded.
"Good old First Fist Ace" Sanji sighed.
"But we'll see him again" Luffy smiled.
"Yeah, I'm sure of it" Nami agreed with a smile of her own.
-The Next Day-
"Jesus" I jolted the second the peaceful silence between us all was suddenly disrupted by the loudest and most anger-filled scream I've ever heard.
"What's he doing?" Nami asked as Luffy went barreling past us all and out into the desert.
"He appears to be freaking out by the looks of it" I answered. "Maybe the heat's finally gotten to him" I suggested.
"How is he running on air?" Sanji questioned, watching as our captain started to run circles around the group. Angrily he continued to scream his head off as he started to jump around, looking more and more like a madman with every passing second.
"He must have eaten another cactus—he's gone crazy" Usopp sighed.
"He...he ate a cactus?" I asked. "Like spikes and all?" I cringed at the thought, unable to imagine the sort of pain that came with getting cactus needles stuck to your tongue.
"Geez, why can't he stay out of trouble for more than five minutes?" Nami frowned. "Chopper" she called back.
"I don't think he'll be much help" Zoro pointed out, casting a glance back to the reindeer that looked to be on the verge of passing out any second now.
"Yeah, he's in bad shape" Nami agreed. "Well, up to you then."
"Why is it my job?!" Zoro snapped.
"I seem to remember a certain debt you owe me" she playfully hummed, not giving him much room to argue as he tensed right up.
"Wow, you're gonna hold that over his head for all eternity, aren't you?" I asked, raising an eyebrow as the woman quietly and deviously laughed to herself. Sighing a little, I soon smiled before turning my attention towards Zoro. "Look, someone needs to go get him before he wanders too far off—it's not going to hurt you to do it" I said.
"Yeah, but—"
"No buts about it, you're the most suitable for the job" I cut him off before he could argue. "Please" I begged, giving him the best puppy dog face that I knew how to give. Mentally, I grinned the moment I saw the blush that quickly spread across his cheeks as he huffed and turned on his heel, now following after the captain while quietly grumbling insults to himself as he dragged Chopper along with him.
"Have fun you two" Nami chirped with a wave. "Right, now let's get going" she smiled, urging us to continue.
"But don't you think we should wait for the others?" Vivi asked.
"Yeah, we don't want them losing us" I agreed, not comfortable with the thought of just leaving after three of her crewmates just wandered off into the desert.
"They can catch up by following our footsteps" Sanji said, causing me to sweat drop.
"Yeah, let's just forget about what happened last time we did that..." I quietly grumbled with the roll of my eyes as we continued onward.
"Knowing them, they shouldn't have a hard time finding us again" Nami confidently smiled. "In the meantime, we can find someplace to relax" she suggested, already taking the blonde's side and causing me to sigh.
"Sounds good to me" Usopp agreed.
-Later-
"I'm exhausted, why don't we take a break" Nami offered, sounding as if she and the rest of us ladies had been riding on the back of a camel this entire time as we came upon the remains of a long-forgotten building.
"Of course, Nami" Sanji happily agreed.
"Oh, come on, Usopp—you really are pathetic" Nami scowled the second she saw just how exhausted the sharpshooter was as his body instantly collapsed the minute we stopped walking.
"Easy for you to say! You got to ride Eyelash—I've been walking the whole time!" Usopp whined.
"Thank you, Eyelash" Nami praised, patting the top of the camel's head in the process.
"I mean, he's got a point" I said, hopping down from Eyelashes back as I started to stretch. My feet mindlessly bouncing as I stretched out my arms and back after sitting for quite a while.
"Do you want to start walking with him?" Nami asked.
"No" I scoffed with the roll of my eyes. "If being a woman means I don't have to walk if I don't want to, then I'm gladly going to take advantage of that" I said, smiling as I reached out and began scratching underneath Eyelash's chin.
"That's what I thought" she grinned.
"And here I thought you were on my side" Usopp whimpered as I gave him a shrug.
"How are you holding up, Skylar?" Vivi suddenly asked.
"Huh?" I tilted my head, taken aback by the worried look the princess was giving me as I halted in my petting of Eyelash.
"You've been rather jittery since we left Luffy and them behind—are you perhaps still concerned about them?" she asked.
"More like are you concerned about a certain someone?" Nami buttered in, a certain glint in her eyes as a sly smile stretched across her lips. "Perhaps you're worried about a certain swordsman" she lightly teased.
"E-excuse me?" I sputtered out as my face started to feel warm, quick to return to petting the camel as if distract myself. "If anything, I'm actually worried about all of them," I laughed, "besides, even if I was only worried about Zoro, what's it to you? We all know how terrible his sense of direction is" I argued.
"Though that's true, we both know that's not the only reason you're worried about him" Nami grinned.
"She's right" Vivi giggled.
"What other reason would I possibly have?" I asked, the warmth of my face only getting worse as already I could feel it start to spread to the tip of my ears and down my neck.
"You like him" the two teasingly sang together.
"W-wha..." I balked at the suggestion, the gears in my head creaking to a halt at the sudden accusation as I stopped once more in my petting of Eyelash much to his displeasure. "W-we're just friends—nothing more!" I spat, not seeing where they got such a ridiculous idea. It was perfectly natural for friends to be affectionate with one another—even back then he and I had been affectionate with one another, long before my crush on him had really started to grow...but they didn't need to know that.
"Teasing aside" Vivi said, stopping me before either I or Nami could say anymore. "I am curious how the other three will find us here?" Vivi curiously asked.
"Aw, but I was having fun teasing here" Nami lightly whined, causing me to grumble as I once again went back to petting Eyelash the moment I felt him lightly nudge me with his snout. "But, to answer your question, we're on top of a hill" she answered. "Meaning we should still be visible even from a pretty long distance" she explained, her reason sounding somewhat solid.
"I hope you're right..." Vivi mumbled.
"So, how long do we have before we get there?" Nami asked.
"Since we made it to these ruins, we should be able to get to Yuba by night—if we keep walking" Vivi answered, taking a moment to calculate just how much further we had to go before we reached our destination.
"Finally, we're getting close" Nami smiled.
"I say, feels like we've been walking in the desert forever" I nodded, now giving my full attention to the camel as I started to wonder if there was any food small enough I could willingly give him as a treat for all his hard work in carrying Nami, Vivi, and I without the others complaining.
"So, these ruins are of old buildings and stuff?" Sanji questioned, quick in changing the topic of the conversation.
"Yes, and they've been sitting here for a long time, I guess" Vivi nodded as she gave the ruins a once over. "Civilization started here in Alabasta thousands of years ago, many kingdoms have risen and fallen since that time and for many reasons—resettlement in search of water, the occasional war...ruins of civilizations like this one exist throughout the country, many of them we know almost nothing about" she explained, quick to give us all a little history lesson about her homeland.
"And centuries pass one by one, leading to the current Alabasta Kingdom" Sanji concluded for her. "An epic that always repeats—kingdoms rise and fall, here one day and gone the next, it's romantic" he sighed.
"How's that romantic?" I asked with a raised brow, not seeing anything really ideal about the natural course of history and its tendency to go in circles.
"Sanji!" Nami scolded as the blond jolted and covered his mouth after realizing what he had said.
"Um...my apologies—really, sorry, Vivi" he apologized. "I was just babbling on, pay no attention to me" he dismissively waved.
"It's alright, actually, I found myself thinking the same thing lately" Vivi confessed with a smile. "What makes a country? Not its ruler—even if the ruler dies the country's people will keep living on. Culture? Faith?
"Those can remain the same even when the country's rule changes...is it necessary to try and preserve everything just now? What needs protection?" she asked, mainly speaking to herself now as she became lost in thought. "And what do we let go of?" she pondered. "I've been thinking about this ever since the sand pirates and the town with the fake Rebel soldiers—it's all just so complicated now...oh! Sorry, I'm just babbling about this—I'm sure these are questions without answers, but at least there's one thing I do know."
A/N: Enjoy
Please Review, Favorite, and Follow.