One Piece belongs to Eiichiro Oda
Kingdom Hearts characters belong to Square Enix and Disney
OCs belong to me.
-Chapter Fifty-Four-
"Yes, 4:30 is when it goes off" Vivi nodded, giving us the exact time the bomb had been planned to detonate.
"That soon?" Nami worriedly noted, worrying her lower lip as she looked at the clock tower.
"According to what Crocodile said—if the cannon is shot, no one within five kilometers from here will survive" Vivi frowned.
"Five kilometers? That means…" Nami released a startled gasp as the severity of what the princess had said hit her.
"Both the Rebel and Royal Armies will be completely wiped out!" Chopper cried out.
"He just plans on killing them all?" I frowned.
"That damn Crocodile!" Sanji growled, glaring up toward the top of the palace.
"What the hell are we supposed to do?!" Usopp frantically asked, already starting to panic.
"We find the cannon, we stop the cannoneer from shooting" Zoro calmly stated as if it was that simple.
"The cannoneer?" Chopper questioned.
"Okay, but how do we find him?" Usopp asked.
"And in ten minutes?" Nami questioned.
"Well, not by standing around here" Zoro said.
"True, but we can't just go running around like a bunch of chickens with their heads cut off" I argued. "We need to at least have some basic idea of where the cannon might be located" I pointed out.
"Okay" Usopp nodded, now looking to be in deep thought. "We know that everything in this area is going to explode, so that means the cannon guy has to be far away—doesn't he?" he reasonably asked. "Or else he'd blow up with the rest of us" he rationalized.
"No way, no—he's close" Vivi frowned with the shake of her head. "The cannoneer is most certainly near the palace square" she firmly stated as if she was stating a simple fact.
"What? Are you serious, Vivi?" Usopp nervously frowned as he slowly processed what she had just said. "But that means he's going to be caught in the explosion too" he quickly pointed out as if pointing out a flaw in her logic.
"I guess that shouldn't be too surprising, it is Crocodile" Nami said after mulling over what the princess had said.
"Yeah, I'm pretty sure if the man ever did succeed in this crazy plan of his he would immediately slaughter everyone that helped him" I nodded after a moment's thought.
"What?! He's just going to let his own men die?!" Chopper gasped in horror.
"He's just plain evil..." Sanji grumbled in disgust.
"Come on, let's go" Zoro motioned before quickly reacting alongside Sanji the second a Billion suddenly tried to attack Vivi from behind. Usopp screamed as more of them suddenly appeared out of seemingly nowhere.
"Looks like we found you, princess" one of the men chuckled.
"I wonder how big of a promotion Crocodile will give us for killing you" another snickered.
"Billions" Vivi scowled.
"Not surprising that they're crawling around the place" I sighed. "Crocodile probably has them placed all over the place just to ensure his plan would go off without a hitch" I assumed.
"It looks like we'll lose some time" Sanji huffed, already looking ready for a fight.
"He's right, let's not waste all of it gibber-jabbering" Zoro nodded.
"Let's go!" the two ordered.
"I'll go ahead—come on, Skylar" Nami suddenly said, grabbing hold of my arm as she took off.
"Wha...okay" I said, not putting up a fight as the ginger swept me away.
"Yeah, us too" Usopp and Chopper nodded, quick to follow after.
"Let's split up, we need to get out of this dust cloud if we're going to find anything" Usopp suggested, causing us all to nod in agreement. It wasn't long before we each branched away from one another, taking off in different directions with the hope of covering more ground.
"If I was a cannon, where would I be hidden?" I muttered to myself in thought. "Somewhere big, spacious, and obviously hidden…are there any places like that around here?" I pondered, doing my best to avoid the stray bullets that would whizz past. Occasionally, I'd feel myself starting to slow down—breathing now ragged as I'd lean over in agony any time my chest and shoulder would start to become too much. There was also the sense of dizziness that would accompany the irritated throbbing of my wounds, making the sensation of nausea that now coiled deep inside my stomach worse. "Whoa!" I flinched as my feet became entangled with one another, hands flying out as gravity now started to take hold and drag me down.
"I got you" Zoro said, practically appearing out of nowhere and grabbing hold of my arm as he stopped my descent before effortlessly picking me up in the process as he now started to carry me.
"Zoro? Where did you come from?" I asked, tilting my head as my arms automatically wrapped around his neck. "I thought you would have gotten lost by now" I confessed.
"I will drop you" he growled in return, cheeks growing warm in embarrassment.
"We got to keep moving, you two!" Usopp suddenly piped up from somewhere behind.
"Oh, Usopp, I didn't see you there" I said, peering over Zoro's shoulder. "But you're right, we need to keep moving" I agreed, pointing straight ahead as Zoro nodded in agreement. "Shouldn't you maybe be carrying Usopp and not me?" I asked the moment I saw the sharpshooter struggling to keep up, his stumbling far worse than mine had been earlier thanks to the copious amount of bandages wrapped around his body.
"He's doing fine" Zoro grunted.
"Yeah...he sure is doing just peachy" I sweat dropped as I continued to watch the tightly bandaged-up pirate struggle to keep up with us.
"Oh crap!" Usopp suddenly gasped in realization. "I just thought of something—if this entire area is going to be blown up in eight minutes, doesn't that mean we're going to be blown up right along with it? I don't like blowing up!" he whimpered.
"I mean, I would assume so" I nodded, causing his whimpering to only worsen. "But, on the bright side, at least it'll probably be a quick and painless death if that makes you feel any better."
"It doesn't!" Usopp snapped.
"There's no time to think about that, you two" Zoro frowned as we finally exited the battlefield, the dust cloud instantly turning into clear air now that we were on the outskirts of the fighting.
"Look up there!" Usopp pointed the second he spotted a rather large cannon on the roof of one of the nearby houses. "That's it, but do you think we'll be able to get up there quickly enough?" he worriedly asked. Zoro only grunted before gently moving me onto his back.
"Hold on tight..." he softly murmured as I nodded, tightly wrapping my arms around his neck and my legs around his midsection like a koala. I blushed the moment I felt him grab hold of my legs before he ran forward, occasionally jumping on people's backs to quickly get through the crowd of soldiers. Naturally, some voiced their complaints while others took slashes at the swordsman in response.
"Hey, are you with the Rebel Army?" a guard asked once we finally reached the cannon.
"I don't have time for you" Zoro huffed as he knocked the guard out.
"Wait a minute, this cannon doesn't—"
"Now cut it up, Zoro!" Usopp interrupted me the minute he climbed up onto the roof, having finally caught up with us. I frowned in response, feeling utterly confused for two reasons:
Why would a Royal guard be guarding the cannon instead of a normal Billion?
And.
Why did the cannon itself look as if it hadn't been used in years?
"This isn't it—it's covered in moss" Zoro deadpanned, noticing the same problem I had as he finally took a good look at the cannon's appearance before lightly kicking it and causing it to break in half.
-Later-
"Hahaha! Now you die" Usopp laughed, poorly trying to imitate Crocodile.
"Boo!" I called, giving him a thumb's down.
"What are you doing?" Zoro irritably growled, clearly not amused with the sharpshooter's antics.
"A very poor Crocodile imitation—Luffy would have done it so better" I playfully teased.
"What am I doing? I'm trying to get inside Crocodile's head, that's what—like if I were him, where would I want to shoot a cannon from?" Usopp explained. "Also, shut up! I know Luffy would have done a better imitation!" he embarrassingly snapped, causing me to giggle as I stuck my tongue out at the sharpshooter.
"Just keep looking, you two! We only have five minutes!" Zoro angrily snapped in annoyance.
-Later-
"I can't believe we lost him!" Usopp cried out as we ran through the battlefield, still looking for the cannon even after losing sight of Zoro who had seemingly disappeared on the both of us after we made the mistake of taking our eyes off him for a split second.
"I mean, it was bound to happen sometime sooner or later" I said. "So is it really all that surprising that we lost him?" I said.
"You're not wrong, but..." Usopp frowned. "I mean, he was just beside us a few seconds ago, you would have thought one of us would have noticed him wandering off" he pointed out as he heaved a heavy sigh.
"Honey, this is Zoro we're talking about, you could keep your eye on him all day and you'd still lose him" I said.
"Yeah, that's truth..." Usopp sweat dropped, dejectedly nodding in agreement before suddenly yelping in surprise when a stray bullet suddenly flew past. "Ah! Stop shooting at us!" he irritably snapped as a few soldiers on both sides now started to mistake us for being on the opposite side. I didn't care much as the sharpshooter did as such a mistake was bound to happen sooner or later with how out of place we both looked amongst the fighting soldiers. I soon skidded to a halt though when I did suddenly spot a familiar princess just standing amongst the fighting men, quietly talking to herself.
"Open space...oh! Yes, that place would work!" she suddenly exclaimed, hitting her balled-up fist against the palm of her hand as if she had just remembered something. Quickly making my way towards the princess, I left Usopp be as he seemed to be rather busy arguing with the soldiers around us to really bother taking notice of Vivi himself.
"That's dangerous! I told you to stop shooting at us—taste my Smoke Sharp!" he angrily snapped as he finally started to retaliate back against the men.
"It's perfect, it's hidden and it's big..." Vivi murmured to herself, still lost in her own thoughts.
"Hey, you know it's not safe to stand in the middle of an active battlefield, right?" I asked, ignoring the Usopp who continued to argue with the soldiers around us as I grabbed hold of the princess' shoulder in an attempt to gain her attention.
"Oh!" she flinched, jumping back and quickly whirling her head around before instantly relaxing the moment she spotted me. "Skylar? When did you get here?" she curiously asked.
"Just a while ago—so do you have an idea where the cannon is?" I asked, watching as she quickly nodded before her gaze brightened when she finally spotted Usopp who was now boasting about something to himself. Without a second thought, she reached out and quickly grabbed hold of his nose. Harshly yanking him toward us.
"What?! Skylar, help!" Usopp fearfully cried in a panic, flailing around before quickly settling down the second he saw it was only the princess. "Oh, it's you, Vivi" he relaxed, voice now nasally sounding thanks to the tight hold the princess had on his nose. "So where you able to find the cannon here?" he asked, essentially repeating the same question I had already asked.
"I know now—I figured it out!" Vivi excitedly exclaimed in response as she eagerly looked between the two of us.
"What—you know? Where?!" Usopp quickly asked.
"That's great, but how are we going to let the others know where to go?" I asked, finally realizing the flaw in our earlier plan of splitting up. "We can't exactly waste time in looking for them all" I pointed out, gaze flickering all around us at the men that continued to fight within the depths of the dust cloud they were kicking up.
"Hold on, I might know how" Usopp offered as he started to dig around inside his bag. "There it is! I'll go ahead and signal them that way we don't have to waste time trying to find them all" he smiled as he pulled out his slingshot and aimed it upwards. "But you're sure about this—right?" he asked, waiting for the princess to nod before finally shooting a red flare into the sky.
A/N: Enjoy
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