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

-Chapter Seventy-Five-

"Fine, you win—how about one more game, huh? Please" Nami practically begged, clasping her hands together as she pleaded for the older man to play another around.

"I never took you for a sore loser, Nami" I raised an eyebrow, confused by the ginger's desperation over losing a simple game of chess. I could understand being competitive, but to get this worked up over a single loss felt rather silly.

"Sure thing, there's nothing better than playing chess against a good-looking girl and getting your shoulders rubbed" the old man grinned, settling back down into his chair as he motioned towards the disembodied hands that were currently giving him a massage before proceeding to set the chess board back up.

"Huh? Hey, you're back—how was the fishing?" I asked, quick to stand and wave the moment I spotted Luffy, Usopp, and Zoro returning.

"It was great!" Luffy grinned as he waved back. "Some catch, huh?" he laughed, proudly showing off the large fish that he and the other two had caught as he seemed to just brighten when I nodded in agreement. "Sanji! Make something yummy again, will you?!"

"Sure, I'm all over it" Sanji nodded.

"Hey, old man" Usopp said. "If there's anything else at all that you'd like to eat or have us do, don't be afraid to speak up, okay? Because we'll be more than happy to do anything you want" he offered with a smile.

"Yep, it'll be no trouble at all, so don't hold back on the requests" I nodded.

"Nah, I think I can die happy now" the old man smile, peacefully closing his eyes as he relaxed back into his chair. "Heaven, I'm in heaven" he blissfully sighed.

"Don't even think that way!" Luffy cried.

"Sure, times are short..." Sanji sniffed.

"But stay positive!" Usopp whimpered.

"No matter how long you've got!" the three cried as they fell to the ground in a sobbing heap.

"I think you're being a bit too dramatic there" I sweat dropped.

"Hey, guys, can we have a word?" Zoro suddenly asked, motioning for the three sulking men to come over to him. Curious, I followed as well and laid myself over the squatting swordsman's back. Wrapping my arms around his neck, I rested my chin on his shoulder and gave him my best smile when he turned his head to look at me with a raised brow. "Excuse me?" he asked.

"You're excused" I grinned, chuckling as he snorted and grumbled something under his breath that I hadn't been able to hear yet still made my grin grow all the same.

"What's that?" Usopp asked, already motioning for the swordsman to get on with whatever it was he wanted to say.

"About that old guy—he's only got three days to live, right?" Zoro asked.

"That's right, only three" Sanji nodded, gaze narrowed in slight irritation before looking away as he lowly grumbled to himself.

"That's what Chopper said" I hummed.

"He's only got three days left to live..." Luffy sniffed, already on the verge of crying once again.

"That's really the only briefest moment in time, isn't it?" Usopp whimpered, roughly rubbing his teary eyes before finally breaking down along with the other two.

"Yeah, very brief," Zoro bluntly agreed, "and in that brief moment, three days had already gone by."

"Really? Huh?" I took a second to think, silently counting the number of days that have passed since Chopper told us the terrible news. "Time sure does flyby—amazed none of us noticed" I whistled in amazement, surprised that it had taken this long for someone to realize that three days had already gone by in the blink of an eye and nothing had changed.

"Huh? Say what now?" Luffy, Sanji, and Usopp blinked as their crying came to an immediate halt.

"You're right, so how is it that he's still alive and kicking?" Usopp frowned.

"What's more, he looks even healthier than he did before—doesn't he?" Sanji pointed out as he finally took notice of the old man's lively attitude.

"Wow, it's almost like we all forgot that we have an amazing doctor on our crew" I sarcastically responded as they furrowed their brows in thought. I couldn't tell if they were just simply ignoring me or if they truly weren't catching onto what I was saying, surely they had to know that Chopper wouldn't have just simply given up on caring for the man just because he was running on limited time.

"How about some more cheese?" the old man suddenly asked, holding up his empty plate and shaking it as if to emphasize that he really needed more.

"Hey, gramps, here's today's medicine—make sure you take it right away" Chopper said, exiting the hut and handing the old man a bottle of medicine.

"No way, I'm done—makes the food taste bad" the old man childishly huffed, shaking his head before laughing as he once again cornered Nami's king. "Ah-ha! Checkmate!" he grinned.

"Not again!" Nami cried in frustration.

"Chopper, I thought you said that the old guy wasn't supposed to live for more than three days" Zoro piped up, instantly catching the doctor's attention.

"From the way he looks, he might be good for another thirty years, for the very least" Sanji pointed out. "Did you misdiagnose him?" he curiously asked.

"No, impossible, though if I did it wouldn't really be a bad thing in this case—would it?" Chopper asked, causing me to softly smile.

"No, it wouldn't be a bad thing" I shook my head. "In fact, being wrong about something like that is the best thing to happen" I reassured him, causing him to sight in relief as the worry in his shoulders instantly relaxed.

"Hey now, that's not the issue here" Usopp abruptly cut in. "If he's not dying, then no matter what anyone says, I'm leaving this island right now" he huffed as he stood up.

"Yeah, I'm not going to hang around here kissing up to that old geezer for the rest of my life..." Sanji grumbled in agreement as he pushed himself up off the ground as well.

"I want to get back to having adventures" Luffy nodded.

"That settles it then—Nami, we're setting sail" Zoro said as he stood, causing my arms to instantly tighten their hold around his neck as I was dragged upwards with him.

"Wow, you're really that determined to win, aren't you?" I whistled when I noticed that the ginger was playing yet another round of chess with the old man. With furrowed brows and a look of pure concentration, she dismissively waved us off before finally making her move.

"What? Are we supposed to hang around here cooling our heels while you play another game of chess?" Usopp frowned. Noticing just how determined she was to absolutely win this time, I started to feel a little uncomfortable as I realized that the more she lost, the more stressed she seemed to become. Something didn't feel quite right about her behavior—even a sore loser knew when to eventually give up and move on.

"Nami...are you really upset about losing some silly game of chess or is it something else?" I suddenly asked, sliding off Zoro's back. Nami only heaved a defeated sigh, her shoulders slumping as she now looked down in guilt.

"I can't quit playing now, okay..." she dejectedly murmured before suddenly growing nervous. "I lost so many games to gramps that I ended up pawning the ship to him..." she hesitantly confessed, causing the old man to snicker.

"You what?!" everyone shouted as the ginger cringed away.

"W-why in the world would you think to ever pawn away something like that?!" I asked, baffled by her confession.

"What are pirates that lost their ship supposed to do, huh?!" Usopp angrily shouted.

"Don't worry, guys, I'm sure I can get it back!" Nami frantically cried out in an attempt to soothe us.

"Checkmate" the old man grinned, causing the navigator to scream in utter frustration as she realized she had lost once again.

"Stop playing!" Usopp snapped as he and the others quickly surrounded her in an attempt to keep her from playing another round and potentially pawning away more of our stuff. I sweat dropped at the havoc that broke out around me as everyone started to scream at everyone else. "Stop playing this stupid game, right now! Who knows what else we might end up losing!" the sharpshooter angrily huffed as he kicked the leg of the table.

"If you want to get your ship back, then you're just going have to work on this island until you pay me back as much as it's worth" the old man teased, holding his chessboard above his head as if to keep it from being destroyed in the chaos. Once he felt it was safe enough, he sat it back down on the table before pulling out his abacus. "By my reckoning...you're going to be working for me for the next ten years, so how's tricks with you?" he laughed as some of the men drew back from him with disgruntled looks.

"Looks like we're in quite the pickle, Baxter" I sighed, leaning down to pet the goat that walked up beside me as he gave a low bleat in return. Looking up at me, he seemingly nodded in agreement as if he understood me. "Bet you're happy though..." I silently huffed with a smile when I felt him rub against me, gently bumping his head to the palm of my hand as if encouraging me to keep petting him some more. Eventually, with a heavy sigh, Nami pulled herself away from the table and sulked away from everyone.

"I'm sorry..." she whimpered, dropping to her knees as she covered her face and started to cry. "I thought if I got lucky, I could get the old man to tell us where his treasure is stashed away..." she dejectedly admitted.

"Are you still going on about that?" Usopp asked, crossing his arms as our navigator nervously looked away from us all. "Our only option now is to leave the old man and run away, who's with me?" he sighed.

"Uh-uh, not me" Luffy suddenly shook his head.

"Come on, what are you talking about, Luffy?" Usopp frowned as he stared at our captain in disbelief. "We're all just lucky that Zoro was paying attention, 'cause if he hadn't been, we might have spent the rest of our lives on this island waiting on that old man—hand and foot."

"You just got to accept it" Zoro said.

"He's right, and weren't you saying earlier how you wanted to get back to adventuring?" I questioned.

"She's right, you're not going to have any adventures around here, Luffy" Sanji nodded in agreement. "It's time, we're moving on" he said.

"No way" the captain huffed as he childishly turned away from us.

"Luffy" Usopp warned.

"A gambling wager is just like a promise, isn't it? I'm not going to do anything to break a promise!" Luffy firmly stated, causing my lips to twitch upwards.

"I'll admit, that's some impressive logic and determination you have there for your beliefs" I smiled.

"Now's not the time to really admire his stubbornness..." Zoro grumbled.

"Look, this is no time to get hung up on details" Usopp huffed before turning to Zoro. "Zoro, what do you think we should do?" he asked.

"Hey, the captain is the one who decides this" Zoro said, immediately backing out of having to take the responsibility of deciding what we should do.

"Luffy!" Usopp whined.

"I said no and that's what I meant" Luffy frowned.

"That's checkmate" Robin suddenly spoke up, catching everyone's attention.

A/N: Enjoy

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