One Piece belongs to Eiichiro Oda
Kingdom Hearts characters belong to Square Enix and Disney
OCs belong to me.
-Chapter Two Hundred and Sixty-Eight-
"What a pain, looks like Robin's theory looked to be spot on" Sanji frowned.
"None of our attacks can harm them, but if they pass through our bodies, we'll be rendered helpless" Robin said. "They might prove troublesome if we have to fight them" she pointed out.
"No kidding" Sanji and I said as we stared at our three depressed crew members.
"What a strange island" Robin remarked as I softly smiled at the adorable laugh the ghosts gave off before they finally left, leaving us alone once more as our three depressed crewmates slowly picked themselves back up and we started back on our journey through the forest.
"You know what? Screw you, ghost! I don't want to have you as a pet anymore—I want to crush you!" Luffy angrily shouted.
"Whatever their weak point is, I'll find it! Just you wait!" Franky growled as he cracked his knuckles.
"I should call you dog food!" Sanji laughed from his spot on Cerberus next to Robin.
"Shut up!" Zoro embarrassingly snapped as I covered my mouth to try and hold back my laughter.
"No, wait, sorry" Sanji apologized. "You said you're not fit to be dog food" he snickered as Zoro continued to seethe, grumbling as both the blond and Cerberus now laughed at him.
"If you're dog food, does that make Skylar the dog? I'm sure she wouldn't mind taking a bite out of you" Robin chuckled which caused me to choke on my own spit as all laughter died out in my chest and my cheeks exploded with color.
"Robin!" I cried out.
"Nah, it would be the other way around then if that were the case" Zoro smirked as I harshly smacked his arm.
"Zoro!"
"The patchwork creatures made with the numbers on them may look frightening, but they seem easy enough to defeat" Robin remarked. "But the ghost, on the other hand, seemed to be the exact opposite" she said.
"There was one of them on the ship earlier, they showed up then vanished, seems to me like they're watching us" Sanji said. "If that's the case, then who's pulling the strings?" he asked and it wasn't long before the scenery changed from a forest to a graveyard.
"Hey, check it out! It's a giant graveyard, cool!" Luffy grinned as my eyes wandered over all of the tombstones—trying to read the names carved onto them with little luck as many of them seem faded or looked to be deteriorating. "Perfect place for a picnic, don't you think?" he asked.
"Great idea, captain" I giggled.
"No way! This atmosphere will ruin the taste!" Sanji snapped.
"What? Are you crazy?" Luffy frowned. "Food is awesome, it never tastes bad anyways!" he argued.
"Yeah, maybe not for you—anyways, let's get moving" Sanji grumbled, ready to start walking again before stopping the moment a loud groan was heard. I watched with curious eyes as one of the dead bodies suddenly started to claw his way out of his own grave—trying his best to look intimidating as he did so. Luffy was the first one to react as he calmly walked over to the dead body and gently pushed him back into his grave.
"Hey! Don't put me back in the ground, jackass!" the zombie snapped.
"It's an old man with serious injuries!" Luffy gasped.
"Are you nuts?! It's a zombie!" Zoro, Sanji, Franky, and I snapped.
"Don't make fun of me!" the zombie snarled as even more of them started to claw their way out of their graves.
"Are zombies usually this energetic?" Sanji sweat dropped.
"No, I don't think so" I shook my head. "Most stories claim that they're very sluggish and slow, which I assume would be due to their rotting state" I hummed in thought.
"Now I'll show you how dangerous zombies can really be!" one of the zombies proclaimed.
"Oh? You guys want to fight, huh?" Luffy grinned. "Then I'll show you how dangerous pirates can be" he said as he cracked his knuckles.
"Six Hundred Million Beli Jackpot!" it was quite easy taking all of the zombies down to a point that neither Robin nor I really had to lift a finger as we watched how the men settled the fight before it even really had a chance to begin.
"So, what are you doing out here? Huh?" Luffy curiously asked as he sat down.
"Well, zombie stuff mostly, you know? Being buried" one of the zombies answered.
"Hanging out, rotting and stuff."
"Yeah, pretty much, rotting and hanging out."
"Yep, same here."
"You're not lying to me, are you?" Luffy asked, eyes narrowing as he glared down the group.
"No, really! That's the truth, we swear—zombie stuff, that's all!" the zombies shook in fear.
"I see, then let me ask you something, did a man with a long nose, a woman with orange hair, and a reindeer that looks like a raccoon dog come through here?" Luffy asked.
"Oh yeah! Right! Right! Right, we may have seen them, but we're not supposed to tell!" one of the zombies nodded.
"Sorry, we can't."
"Yeah, we're under specific orders not to share any information about stuff like that with anyone, sorry about that."
"Yeah, we have our orders."
"Orders!" they all started to chant.
"Oh, I see" Luffy said. "So you're not going to tell me, huh?" he questioned as he began to crack his knuckles once more.
"I mean, yeah, we saw them" the zombies quickly corrected themselves.
"These zombies are wimps" Zoro said.
"They don't have much of a backbone, that's for sure" I agreed.
"Wow" Franky whistled.
"Those guys are a part of my crew—listen up, you didn't do anything to them, did you?" Luffy asked.
"Wait, they're a part of your crew?" one of the zombies questioned as he removed his head.
"No, we didn't, right?"
"Right, we did nothing at all."
"Nothing at all."
"Nothing at all!" they all started to chant.
"I want the truth right now!" Luffy demanded, not buying what any of the dead men were saying.
"This guy did something" one of the zombies suddenly pointed towards the now headless zombie.
"Hey! Shut up, tattletale! And anyway, you're the one that bit them!" the headless zombie snapped.
"Actually, we all did" a different zombie piped up.
"Idiot! Shut up!" they all snapped before shaking as we all beat them up once again.
"Looks like they ran out of here and ran for that mansion" Luffy said after we had finally gotten the information that we needed. "I'm glad they're alright, not sure about Brook though" he said.
"That's fine, don't worry about him" Sanji said as we started to leave the graveyard.
"Let's find the others" Zoro said.
"Oh man, how lame, those zombies were a bunch of weaklings!" Luffy huffed, displeased that the first zombies we had ever encountered were nothing more than a bunch of wimps that weren't really that strong.
"Yep, pounding their sorry faces in doesn't even count as a warm-up" Franky agreed.
"Still, this is no time to let your guard down, you never know when someone a lot stronger than those guys is going to pop up" Zoro said.
"Whoa—wait, you're not getting scared are you, buddy?" Sanji asked which caused me to snicker at his mocking tone. "Going to cry?" he teased.
"Up yours! I'm not scared, a swordsman is never afraid of the dark!" Zoro irritably snapped.
"We'll see when I knock your lights out!" Sanji growled as I soon found myself squished between the two.
"Come on! You want a piece of me?!" Zoro snapped.
"I don't care if you two fight, but can you please do it when I'm not right between the two of you?!" I snapped as I harshly pushed the two away from one another.
"Wait, stop! Hold on a minute!" someone suddenly piped up as we all looked towards the direction of the voice to see that someone was making their way towards us. "I saw you fight those zombies, all of you have such unbelievable strength—there's something I like to talk to you about, would you please listen?" the man asked as he held the lantern in his hand close to his face.
"Old man with serious injuries!" Luffy gasped.
"Idiot! We told you they're zombies!" Franky, Sanji, and Zoro snapped.
"You guys sure this is a zombie?" I questioned, squinting my eyes as I examined the man before us more closely.
"Uh...actually, he's right on the money" the man said.
"That's too confusing! Can't you just be a zombie, geez!" the three snapped.
"Alright, so what did you want to tell us?" Luffy asked.
"There's an evil man who must be brought down and I think you youngsters are strong enough to do it" the man told us as he suddenly dropped to his knees. "He's left a trail of victims in his wake, if you defeat him, they'll all be rescued—if you help me get my shadow back, I'll be ever so thankful" he said.
"Your shadow?" Sanji questioned.
"Hold on, did we just find another guy who had his shadow taken away?" Franky asked.
"It would appear so" I said.
"Let me take a look" Luffy said as he bent down. "It's true! See, he really doesn't have a shadow—he's just like Brook!" he gaped as he motioned for us to look at the ground where the man's shadow should have been.
"Well, damn, that sucks" Zoro said as he crossed his arms. "So, who did that to you? Is he here somewhere on this island?" he asked.
"Mor-Moriah!" the man stuttered out which caught Robin and me by surprise. "His name is Moriah and he's terrifying!" the old man wailed.
"Moriah?" Robin and I questioned.
"You don't mean Gekko Moriah by any chance?" Robin questioned as I swallowed thickly.
"That's right! Yes, that's him!" the man nodded.
"Robin? Skylar? Do you know this guy?" Luffy asked.
"Yes, but only by name" Robin answered as I only nodded. Indeed, I was in the same boat as her—when it came to the Warlords of the Sea, I only knew them by name with a few details here and there, of course it was hard to know all of them since Warlords can easily change throughout time...though that's rare. "If I remember correctly, his former bounty was even higher than yours, Luffy" the raven-haired woman recalled.
"Wait, former? So that means…" Sanji trailed off.
"Yes, Gekko Moriah is one of the Seven Warlords of the Sea" I nodded.
"He is?" the others asked.
"Are you sure? Really?" Luffy asked.
"Yeah, Gekko Moriah is a man of many mysteries" Robin nodded.
"But what's a big shot like that doing in a dump hole like this?" Franky frowned.
"I'm not sure exactly, what I can tell you is that he left behind many victims, most of which are wandering around lost in this very forest" the man informed us.
"Just how many is many?" Zoro asked.
"Who knows?" the man shrugged. "The fact that you were all invited here as well means Moriah is out to get to you too, no doubt about it" he warned.
"Invited? We weren't—" Zoro shook his head before realization hit us all by what the man meant by invited. "I see" he nodded.
"We hide in the dark forest, scared of the zombies and creatures here, we can't head out to sea because we'll be exposed to the sun!" the man cried. "With the body weaken the way it is, it's hard to find the will to keep on living! Once, just once before I die, I want to walk into the sun! To feel its warmth on my skin!" he wept. "Just one more time!" he wailed.
"That's awful! How touching, you've been through so much—such a gut-wrenching story!" Franky cried. "But I'm not crying, got it, jerk! You won't make me cry!" he sobbed.
"There, there" I cooed, trying to comfort the sobbing cyborg.
"Oh, come on, you big crybaby" Zoro rolled his eyes. "You're way too compassionate about this kind of stuff" he scoffed.
"Enough of this" Sanji said. "Hey, creepy grandpa, only ladies get to persuade me with their tears—show a little backbone, will ya?!" he frowned.
"Well, you're in luck, we're actually looking for a guy that steals shadows and I'm pretty sure he's the one" Luffy said. "If he's coming after us then that just makes things easier, I'm going to kick his ass and if that saves you while we're at it, it's fine by me" he grinned. "Okay?"
"Oh! That's very kind of you, thank you! Thank you! You've given me hope!" the man brightened.
"We can't thank you enough!" someone else shouted from the shadows.
A/N: Enjoy
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