One Piece belongs to Eiichiro Oda
Kingdom Hearts characters belong to Square Enix and Disney
OCs belong to me.
-Chapter Two Hundred and Forty-Five-
"Changing my opponent, huh?" Jyabura questioned. "Doesn't matter to me" he grinned, not really caring who it was he fought in the end.
"For now, I'm going to stay here and do what you can't" Sanji told Sniper King. "You need to do what I can't do" he said.
"Huh?" Sniper King questioned.
"Think carefully, read the situation" Sanji said. "As long as we have you, there's a chance we can save Robin—you hear me, Usopp?" he asked, using the sniper's real name as if wanting to stress the importance of this situation.
"As long as you have me...there's a chance we can save Robin" Sniper King quietly repeated. "How? What are you talking about?" he frowned as Jyabura howled, now looking ready for a fight.
"Get out of here!" Sanji ordered the minute the agent disappeared from sight.
"Right!" Nami nodded as she grabbed hold of my arm. "Come on, Usopp! Skylar!" she wasted no time in taking hold of the long-nosed pirate's arm as well as she began to drag us behind her.
"Right behind you!" I nodded, quick to get my legs moving and rushing right beside her so that I wouldn't be dragged.
"Ow! Geez, I'm still injured, you know?!" Sniper King snapped as he seemed to be having more difficulties in getting his feet underneath him to run alongside us.
"Shut up!" Nami snapped right back, dragging the sharpshooter behind us without a care as we ran—not in the mood for any of his complaining due to how important it was that we get going. "Staying here and getting kill will hurt more!" she huffed.
"That's a pretty good point" Sniper King agreed. "Wait! Now I get it!" he suddenly gasped in realization as we made our way down the hallway.
"Get what?" Nami frowned.
"What exactly did you think of?" I questioned.
"We can save Robin as long as I'm here! We can save her, dammit!" Sniper King exclaimed as he finally stood up.
"Whoa! Okay, do you really have to get so carried away about it?" Nami asked, startled by the way he had suddenly jumped up on his own two feet, now full of energy and ready to go.
"I don't think that's a bad thing, this newfound confidence might help us out a lot" I chuckled.
"Come on, let's go!" Sniper King urged as he rushed on ahead, leaving us both behind.
"Hey, wait up!" Nami shouted as she grabbed my hand as she and I ran after him.
"I got it! I got it! We can save her!" Sniper King cheered.
"Will you shut up! That's not exactly something we want the wolf to hear!" Nami snapped.
"I think he's too busy with Sanji to do anything!" I smiled as I listened to the faint sounds of fighting coming from behind us—sounds that were starting to get fainter and fainter the further we got.
-Later-
"Kokoro! Chimney! Gonbe!" Nami shouted towards the three the minute she spotted them up ahead of us. "Thanks for leaving the guide marks!" she thanked, recalling the arrows that had been painted on the walls and floor and pointing us in the right direction—at some point, Sniper King and turned back and allowed Nami and I to rush on ahead of him, claiming that there was something important that he needed to do.
"Yeah, they were really handy!" I nodded in agreement.
"Yeah! It's the pirate ladies!" Chimney cheered.
"Did you guys feel that giant tremor?" Nami curiously asked, referring back to the way the building had seemed to just shake just moments ago while we were making our way down the secret passage. It did not surprise me that there were hidden passageways in this building, with how large it was, it'd make sense that certain officials would want shortcuts that would help them in reaching their destinations quicker—especially if the building itself was under attack.
"Sounds like the party's starting up there for sure" Kokoro grinned.
"Cannon fire! Cannon fire!" Chimney excitedly chanted before we all came to a halt the minute the ground started to shake once more as it took a few minutes for the tremors to subside. Once we were sure it was safe to start moving again, we picked back up on our running.
"Was that cannon fire?" Nami curiously asked.
"Perhaps the Buster Call already started" I bit my lower lip, feeling sick to my stomach at the thought of what was happening above. We weren't too far from where Marine Headquarters was, it wouldn't take the warships that long to reach here.
"You can always leave it to those Navy boys to put on a good show!" Kokoro laughed.
"Awesome! They're firing cannons!" Chimney childishly exclaimed as if excited by the idea.
"It's not the same as shooting off fireworks, you know?!" Nami snapped at the child which only caused me to laugh, unable to really find myself upset with the little girl's lack of knowledge that cannon fire was meant to be feared, not something to be excited about. "Anyways, do you guys know where Luffy's at?" she asked.
"Yeah, I haven't seen him this whole time—where is he?" I curiously asked, noting how I hadn't seen a single sign of our captain since we all separated and went our separated ways earlier to get the keys.
"Oh yeah, pirate ladies, it was the coolest thing I've ever seen! Did you see those great big doors back there?" Chimney asked us, referring back to the two large metal doors we had seen crumpled up and smashed in back when we first found the entrance to this passage. "The pirate guy knocked them down!" she exclaimed.
"Luffy did?" Nami owlishly blinked.
"Ha! That's our captain!" I laughed, not all that shocked that the damage we had seen was caused by the rubber man himself.
"It was awesome! Even though he got all small from it" Chimney said.
"Small?" I repeated, slowly blinking as I watched how she nodded her head, acting as if there wasn't anything weird about what she had just told us.
"Wait! Back up—he got all small?!" Nami frowned, taken aback by this new information. "He said, "Third Gear" then busted through the iron doors and turned small? What is going on?" she asked as she repeated what the little girl had said.
"I don't know, but that Straw Hat sure is a lot of fun!" Kokoro laughed.
"Yeah, Granny! The pirate guy is almost as awesome as you are!" Chimney eagerly nodded in agreement.
"Aw" I silently breathed out, finding it quite cute that the child thought so highly of her grandmother.
"None of this is making any sense to me at all, what about you, Skylar?" Nami asked.
"I'm just as lost as you are" I shrugged, watching as the ginger haired woman frowned before shaking her head.
"Anyway, we better hurry" she said, not wanting to waste time in getting lost in our thoughts over what had happened with Luffy.
"Hey, Granny, I think I hear something weird coming this way" Chimney suddenly said as a sudden and strange sound started to echo throughout the passageway.
"Yeah, I hear something too" Nami nodded.
"Sounds...sounds like running water" I frowned, looking around the enclosed hallway only to find nothing that would have been able to make such a sound.
"We don't have time to go worrying about any strange sounds, if it's coming this way, we'll find out what it is soon enough" Kokoro waved off all three of our concerns, seemingly not startled by the fact that the sound of rushing water shouldn't normally be heard in a place like this. "We're going to make those government jerks pay!" she huffed.
"Granny, you're the coolest!" Chimney awed.
"Is that…" Nami trailed off, her eyes widening as we all finally came to a screeching halt and stared up at the huge gush of water that came barreling down the hallway and straight towards us. Screams ripped through our throats as we turned on our heels, quickly scampering back the way we had come from. "Why is there water?! Why is this happening?! There's no way out!
"There's no way out! Somebody, help us!" the navigator babbled, frightfully asking a million questions at once as she grabbed my shoulder and began to practically shake me from side to side as we ran.
"I don't know! Why are you asking me?!" I shouted.
"Where's this water coming from, Granny?!" Chimney cried.
"I don't know, Chimney, just keep running!" Kokoro shouted as the only sounds that now bounced off the stone walls of this hallway was the roaring wave behind us and our screams.
"Chia Pet!" I shouted the minute I spotted Zoro, Sanji, and Sniper King up ahead. I couldn't help the way I sighed in relief when I noticed that one of them was carrying Chopper, good, he was safe.
"Skylar?" Zoro questioned before he and the three halted upon seeing the wave behind us.
"Hey, check it out, the pirate guys are here too!" Chimney pointed out.
"Don't just stand there! Do something about this water!" Nami cried.
"Well, I'm open to suggestions!" Zoro called back, looking annoyed with how quick the ginger was to start demanding them to do something about this wave.
"I told you! Why wouldn't you two listen to me?!" Sniper King snapped.
"N-Nami? S-Skylar? They're…they're running right into my arms!" Sanji swooned as hearts floated around him which caused me to sweat drop.
"I wonder why" Sniper King deadpanned.
"Dammit! We're stuck in here!" Zoro grounded out through clenched teeth as he slashed at the stone walls. "I can't cut it, what the hell is this wall made of?!" he frowned.
"We're underwater, remember? If they made this place to withstand that much water pressure, it's pretty tough" Sanji reminded him.
"Then there's nowhere to escape!" Sniper King wailed as I sucked in a large amount of air and threw myself straight towards Zoro right before we were fully swallowed up by the wave. I felt his arms encircle around me as he held me close, our bodies being knocked around in the water and it wasn't long before it became abundantly clear that even an impressive set of lungs couldn't withstand this much pressure. I watched as black dots suddenly started to appear in my vision that was slowly starting to blur the longer I was deprived of air. My lungs felt as if they were on fire—practically screaming and begging for me to breathe even though there was no air around for me to breathe. I was quickly taken aback though when a piece of fabric suddenly wrapped around me and the others, pressing us all tightly against one another as it began to carry us against the current of the water...what?
Weakly looking forward, I thought I was dreaming the moment I saw who exactly was pulling us. I couldn't help but believe that I must have already blacked out as I found it difficult to wrap my head around what I was exactly seeing. A slim pink tail that wiggled around in the water and golden hair that flowed down the back of a slim, curvaceous woman's body...tail? Woman's body? Does that mean we've been saved by a…?
"I'm swimming as fast as this tail will let me, none of you are dying on my watch!" Kokoro's loud voice cut through the water which caused my eyes to widen as whatever illusion I was seeing shattered. That once slim tail now had some weight to it, along with the woman's body that was attached to it—no longer did it look slim and curvaceous like I had first thought. Oh. Our mouth fell open in shock at this sudden discovery and already did I regret my actions the moment I felt a gush of water rush right into my lungs. "Everyone, breath!" the old woman exclaimed as we burst through the surface of the water and crash-landed on the deck of a Navy ship, for a minute I thought I heard a scream of surprise—or was that horror?—when we surfaced.
I coughed and hacked up as much water as I could the minute we surfaced, hands and knees pressed flat against the wooden deck of the Navy ship as copious amounts of water came spewing from my mouth and to the ground—splattering against the surface like vomit as I attempted to exile it all from my lungs. My body violently shook for but a moment at the flash of a memory of when father had tried to "teach" me how to hold my breath for long periods of time. Yeah, shoving seawater down my throat and holding my head under a bucket of water sure was a lot of help. But as my shock and fear subsided, I finally spared a glance towards the old woman, unable to stop myself from bursting out into a fit of laughter. How amusing.
"Don't you die on me!" Kokoro frowned as my ears perked up to the sound of Franky's screams—ah, so he was the one I had heard screaming when we had surfaced. "Hey, all of you, wake up! Come on!" I held my stomach as I sat up on my knees, still laughing at how bizarre all of this was. Who knew that the first mermaid that I ever got to see with my very own eyes was an old woman who almost resembled a Dugong in her mermaid form? I wasn't fully surprised by the existence of mermaids, if Fishmen were real then why couldn't they be?
But despite how mean the thought was in comparing her to a Dugong, I soon found myself calming down and smiling just a little—even if she wasn't the most attractive mermaid out there, there was something comforting about knowing that the belief that mermaids were eternally beautiful was false. I always recalled how some of the women back at the village would get quite mad at their husbands whenever the men would start talking about mermaids—annoyed with the way their husbands would sigh and practically drool over themselves at the thought of meeting such beautiful creatures, creatures that beauty was meant to surpass even a human woman's.
"Say something!" Franky pleaded as he looked at the others who were still sort of out of it, watching how they all spat up water, still looking to be in a state of shock over what they had just discovered—sure, I had been shocked as well, but I didn't see a need to act like I was traumatized by it. I crawled my way over to Zoro, hands pressed down on either side of his head as I curiously peered down as his panting form. "They made it! They're all still alive!" the blue haired man cheered. "It's a miracle, I can't believe it, they must have seen something down there that must have put them in a state of shock!"
"Oh yeah, you have no idea" I chuckled.
"Whatever it was, it saved their lives—if they hadn't passed out, they would have swallowed enough water to kill them" Franky said as I thought over what he had said and perhaps he was right, that short moment of shock that had me blacking out before my sense was shocked back awake by us resurfacing had been enough to not cause me to suck in too much water.
"Well, either way, they're still alive" Kokoro smiled. "Though, it does make you wonder what they could have seen down there that spooked them so much" she softly laughed.
"Yes, I wonder that as well" I snorted.
"I bet it was you!" Franky accused the old woman…well, I mean, he's not exactly wrong to accuse her.
"Well looky there, you're the one that pirate boy wanted to rescue so bad, aren't you?" Kokoro suddenly asked which caused me to look up and smile the moment I spotted Robin. "Yeah, I remember now, we met at the ship station—you Straw Hats are something else, back then, I never would have thought you guys could pull off a stunt like this" she admitted as she finally started to put some pants on after her tail had split back into legs.
"If you don't hurry up and put some damn clothes on, I'll gouge my eyes out!" Franky snapped.
"When he said he was going to be King of the Pirates, I got to admit, I laughed" Kokoro said which caused my smile to widen even more as I now started to gently poke at Zoro's face in an attempt to wake him up. "But now, after everything that's happened, I bet he can actually do it!" the old woman laughed which in return caused Robin to smile.
"Come on, Zoro, do you need mouth to mouth or something?" I questioned as I continued to poke his face, watching as everyone now started to cough and slowly sit up one by one—all of them now coming to, their shock having finally settled enough for them to wake back up.
"Yes" Zoro coughed, sitting up as he now wrapped an arm around me and pulled me close until the tip of our noses were touching.
"Oh, look at that, you're perfectly fine now it seems" I innocently smiled which only caused him to huff in slight annoyance.
"Is…is Nami and Skylar okay?" Sanji weakly asked.
"As lively as ever, you guys are tough" Franky remarked.
"Welcome to the land of the living" Kokoro grinned as I leaned up and pecked the pouting swordsman's cheek.
"Gah! It wasn't a nightmare—mermaids really don't exist!" Sniper King suddenly cried out the moment he spotted the old woman which caused me to frown. Just because the woman didn't fit the standards that humans have created for what a mermaid should look like did not mean she wasn't one.
"So, all those old sailor stories are true? Every time you think you see a mermaid, it's actually a Dugong!" Zoro cried.
"Why the hell are you upset about this?!" I snapped as I struck the back of his head, I can understand now why those women back at the village would get upset whenever their husbands would react so strongly to the idea of mermaids.
"Shut up, you bastards! She hasn't even confessed to being a mermaid yet—stop trying to kill my fantasies!" Sanji snapped, his voice strained as if he was trying to hold back his despair.
"If you want to be specific, I'm an Ice Fish Mermaid" Kokoro said.
"Stop it! Don't say another word!" Sanji angrily snapped as I narrowed my eyes.
"There's no way, what kind of mermaid lives on dry land and has legs and feet?!" Sniper King asked, truly not wanting to believe that such a woman like Kokoro was a mermaid.
"You're all so damn rude, you know that?" I frowned, crossing my arms as I glared at the three men for their straight-up rudeness towards the older woman.
"I refuse to accept this!" Sanji wailed as he angrily smashed his fist against the deck of the ship. I huffed, looking the other way as Zoro wrapped his arms around my waist and buried his face into my neck—pressing delicate little kisses along my flesh as if attempting to soothe my annoyance with him and the other two. "Mermaids should be more like…mermaids should be more like a…like all the sailors say! A slender, sexy body, beautiful skin, long flowing hair, graceful, gorgeous!" the cook grinned, his one visible eye turning into a heart as he became lost in his fantasies. My face was flushed from the delicate kisses I was receiving, but still, I ignored the swordsman before my eyes widened and laughter bubbled up from the back of my throat the minute I felt his fingers suddenly start to attack my sides as if he thought this was the better alternative in getting me to come around when he saw that the kisses weren't working.
"Okay! I give!" I laughed as I tried to push him away. "I forgive you! Please, stop!" I continued to just howl with laughter, smiling the moment I heard Zoro laugh as well as he pulled me flush against him and once again buried his face into my neck where I felt him smile.
"Good" he muttered, sounding pleased that I was no longer irritated with him at least.
"It's not fair!" Sanji soon wailed as he snapped out of his love-struck daze upon hearing Kokoro's laughter as if she found his distress to be the most amusing thing in the world.
"Just to educate you boys, when we mermaids get to be about thirty-years-old, our tailfin forks in two and we can walk on land like regular old humans" Kokoro explained.
"Is that so?" I hummed. "I've heard plenty of stories about mermaids from sailors back on Fair Haven, but I've never heard about this, interesting" I said, intrigued by this new information as it now made me start to wonder how the woman was like in her youth before her tail had split and she came up on land.
"If you ever make it to Fishman Island, you'll see what I'm talking about" Kokoro said.
"Their tails split?" Sniper King questioned. "Oh! I get it, I heard the same thing happens to a cat's tail if they live to be a hundred then they become goblins!" he perked up, quick to lump in what the woman was telling him to such a ridiculous notion as the one that he had just said.
"Ah, so she's a goblin cat" Sanji was quick to agree as he hit his fist against his hands.
"You're all still being rude, jerks!" I snapped at the two which caused Zoro to chuckle.
"Don't lock mermaids in with those monsters!" Kokoro scowled. "Enough about that, where are your manners? Didn't I just save your lives?" she huffed.
"Oh, right! Thank you!" I smiled at the old woman as I gently took her hand in mine, gently shaking it which caused her to widely smile before she looked towards the three men that had been nothing but rude towards her this entire time.
"Thank you, Granny Kokoro" the three thanked, not sounding too pleased about doing it qhich caused both Kokoro and I to laugh.
"Don't mention it!" the old woman smiled as I sweat dropped the moment I spotted how love-struck Sanji became the minute he caught sight of Robin.
"Robin, my love!" he cooed.
"Whoa! What happened? Where am I?" Chopper coughed as he woke up, frantically looking around in an attempt to gather his bearings.
"Robin!" both he and Nami soon cried as they flung themselves towards the raven-haired woman the minute they saw her which caused me to chuckle as Sanji missed her entirely and hit the mast instead. Wiggling out of Zoro's grasp and ignoring the small grunt he gave in displeasure to me suddenly leaving his arms, I made my way over to the three.
"I'm so glad we made it in time!" Nami cried. "You're not hurt, are you?" she worriedly asked.
"Robin's back!" Chopper sobbed as he practically clung to the woman like his life depended on it.
"We all missed you!" I brightly smiled up at the raven-haired woman as she looked between the three of us before smiling as well.
"Yes, because of all of you...thank you so much" Robin smiled as I couldn't stop the tears that sprung up in my eye as I joined in on hugging the older woman with the other two. I was just so happy and relieved to see her alright—to finally have her back on the crew.
A/N: Enjoy
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