Chapter Text
•°♡°•
I need this, gimme one more chance to prove it
If I get through this, promise you this I won't be the same
I know it's stupid, I could never bear to lose it
Time to prove myself wrong
- Prove Myself, InMe
•°♡°•
Sanji is in trouble.
And he’s not thinking some light, funny, just a little bit problematic trouble that can be easily shaken aside. Oh no, he means a full on, alerting, awful piece of troubling shit that makes him lit a third cigarette in a row, sticking it into his mouth beside the other two.
Well, to be more precise, he is just a sad unlucky resultant of another variable which is no one else, truly one and only Roronoa fucking Zoro, the swordsman with a moss for brains who seems like he can’t care less nor put any mind into caring about the situation he puts them both in right now while picking a fight with another pirate crew.
Them both precisely since after one of ridiculously nasty fights they went through just a day ago the rest of the crew is currently unavailably unconscious in the sleeping quarters under the deck, while the clearly unfriendly crew of rather disgusting and frankly put unhygienic pirates tries to ride their ship with their own which one could only describe as a hilarious mix of a fortress and a tank. Hilariously looking but especially frustrating to sink.
Zoro clearly doesn’t care about their limited forces or the fact that the man he insults at the moment has a giant gun directed to his head, his face growing more and more red after every word from the swordsman’s mouth. Zoro doesn’t care.
But Sanji does.
He minds that a lot, actually. And while he is never one to express his worry or care through words - not if the other party isn’t a woman at least and especially if it is marimo of all people - he much rather prefers to kick the damn idiot unconscious and do things his own way without caring about him trying to up and sacrifice himself whenever he saw a chance. Well, as if right now for example as Zoro stands right in front of him, shielding him from the danger - completely subconsciously is what Sanji makes himself believe for his own sanity - his hand on top of his swords, ready to pull them any minute.
Sanji finds himself unable to do anything but hiss through his teeth the words that make his skin crawl with the undertone of cowardice he would never put himself together under any other circumstances than an unconscious nakama he wishes to protect more than anything.
“Don't be fucking stupid, we're getting out of here.”
But of course Zoro doesn't listen. He never does. Instead, he shoots him a stubborn stare, one that tells Sanji that he will do exactly the opposite of what he wants. As always.
“Make sure you get the others safely out of here, I'll stop them.”
‘You won’t do shit, get your sorry ass back here and help me get the fuck away', he wants to scream but it’s just no use and to surprise to literally no one, Zoro runs towards the unknown crew with unknown abilities on an unknown enemy ship- fortece- tank- whatever, drawing out his swords and avoiding the bullets by a hair while pushing his body behind the railing.
Sanji hisses colorful curses through his teeth, biting the cigarettes he has in his mouth in two and letting it fall onto the deck without any notice. Whatever, he forces himself to shrug, he can’t really do anything else but obey the words of probably the stupidest first mate known to mankind and get his terribly wounded crew as fast away as possible. If mosshead gets lost in the meantime and they would never find themselves again, that could be for a better.
For the record, it couldn't. Of course. Sanji is just being dramatic.
With a pounding anxiously heart to which he would never admit alive, he turns on his heel and forces the ship to cooperate in their pathetic escape route through an open canal Zoro cut for him. Luffy would most surely kill him for that. It doesn’t matter, it's not like he is able to help them fight the other crew off. It’s a miracle that he is even able to move them safely away from the crossfire so he’s sure they actually don’t get to complain later.
He sighs with his curses towards a certain swordsman, the other crew and the whole universe for making them so vulnerable in the first place almost as loud as regrets and uneasiness that makes his insides twist and head spin around. He looks back just for a second to see the sea painted red. He just hopes there is no Zoro's blood in there.
Meanwhile, Zoro thrives.
His swords are drinking the blood of the pirates like it's the new form of baptism. He cuts through the yelling men with only one goal in mind, to leave the odd ship an empty wreck. The anger, ugly frustration and an overwhelming aggravation of letting his nakama suffer the wounds, of not being able to take them onto himself instead and worse, of being so weak, not able to protect them from such fate, it all burns in his veins and makes him slice and stab and kill viciously whoever happens to stand in his way.
When he stops eventually in the inner corridor drown in dark blood, he pants into the stuffed air and wipes the dark warm liquid off his face with not much cleaner sleeve of his white shirt. There’s only one last pair of doors he didn’t try yet.
Looking down at his swords bathed in blood, he raises his left hand and cleans the blade on the material of his shirt before sheathing it to his side. With a free arm, he pushes the door open, immediately raising Wado in his right hand, ready to cut the air the second he senses danger.
But there’s not a sight of pirates alike to the ones that tried blowing his head off on the deck just a moment before and he seems to find himself in some kind of laboratory with a shriek of utter horror let out somewhere behind the desk filled with scattered papers.
“Ah! Please don’t kill me! Mercy, I beg, mercy!”
An old man cries out with his hands raised up defeatedly, his short and sickly skeletal frame shaking as he closes the distance, hiding behind various objects trashed in the room.
Zoro raises Wado warningly but falters as his eyes follow the man to the corner of the room.
“What the fu-”
His hand shakes and his eyes widen at the sight of dozens of glass with human remains and weird animals- worms- parasites? swirling around the green liquid. He nearly gags at the sight of a child’s body half eaten by a whatever-the-fuck swims in the glass, the eye popped out of the socket and grimace of utter horror written across forever freezed face.
There’s only a second he takes his eyes fully off the man.
A second too long.
“Die!”
Transportation? No, is he that fast? Maybe a devil fruit user?
None of it matters as before Zoro can come to any conclusion, he feels a sharp stab to his neck and as he tugs on it with a sharp yelp, he sees an empty needle falling to its death from his shaken palm. The side of his neck burns and he curses, wondering if that’s what got the child in the glass too.
His vision gets blurry, the whole room turns and melts in his eyes. He tightens the grip on Wado, grits his teeth furiously and slashes blindly, feeling only a slight satisfaction at the pained scream of agony from certainly hit old geezer. He doesn’t stay to see if it’s fatal, he can feel his lungs collapsing on him and he wobbles outside of the room, or so he hopes, only one thought overcoming his brain.
He needs to get back to his nakama.
Then it’s lights out.