Fic post: Now We Are Six, part III
Aug. 10th, 2008 11:34 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rainsometimesTitle: Now We Are Six (Part III)
Rating: PG-13 in this part - for language only
Setting: Vaguely post-TB.
Pairing: None.
Summary and disclaimer at Part I.
Continued from Part II
At noon the following day Sanji, Usopp and Brook were trampling through the forest going back to camp, all of them still with the bodies of six-year-olds (minus flesh, in Brook’s case), and all of them quite exhausted.
The night and most of the morning had passed with little excitement, certainly not more than usual. None of the Strawhats knew very much about mushroom farming, but Sanji, Chopper and Robin had put their various scraps of knowledge together as well as they could. And the Time Mushrooms did seem to grow nicely, though at different rates. A couple of them were already 12 and 13 centimetres tall. Robin thought that if they kept growing like that, they would be of the right length for Franky and Brook to eat tomorrow afternoon. And by that time other mushrooms would already be the right length for others in the crew, she pointed out. They should do this with the oldest first, otherwise those would have to wait for a really long time.
Sanji had respectfully objected that while he thought this was very well-reasoned in general, he felt they should make an exception for Nami. He couldn’t bear to see her being so confused and lost, not remembering her crewmates at all - not even him. The biggest mushroom might be 18 centimetres this evening: shouldn’t this be reserved for Nami-baby? He’d been firmly voted down on this matter, however. At least Robin-honey had agreed with him that it was distressing, but she also said that Nami and Franky seemed to be coping fairly well for the moment. And their memory might still return soon, once the mustard left their system. Sanji had been forced to agree and then forced to try knocking some manners into Zoro, who’d muttered a derogatory remark about Nami-baby.
That had actually left Sanji with quite a few aches and smarts he tried to pretend weren’t there. Loath as he was to admit it, it seemed that six-year-old Zoro had already been unusually strong by then. Mosshead must have started his training real early: Sanji had been a bit more of a normal kid that age, when it came to fighting at least (cooking was a different matter). Not that a little strength difference would make Sanji back down from a fight or refrain from chastising louts who were insulting ladies. Even when the lady in question was transformed back into a six-year-old girl who just stared and either shrank away or started to laugh at him when he tried to help her.
That had all taken place before breakfast. After the morning meal, Sanji had announced they were getting low on supplies and had better forage for more. He’d taken Usopp and Brook with him and set off into the forest in search of edible things, with the intention of looking out for more Time Mushrooms at the same time. Luffy was going to explore the seashore again, this time with Zoro – which probably meant they were also deep into the forest by now. Robin and Chopper stayed behind to guard campsite and mushrooms and Nami-baby. Well, and Franky too, Sanji supposed with a shrug.
And now, here they were, all dirty and sweaty, limping and a little bloody, though only with surface wounds. Usopp looked fairly shaken and Sanji wasn’t sure he himself was looking quite as unconcerned as he’d like. Brook, on the other hand, already seemed to have forgotten his earlier terror and was whistling quite serenely now. Not too many minutes ago, he had been trembling like an aspen right along with them, as they’d been sitting on the thin branches of a far-too-slender birch while a huge, furious boar had rampaged below them, ramming its shoulders into the tree over and over again.
“It’s not just a question of reach,” Sanji muttered morosely now, responding to an earlier remark of Usopp’s. “You think I don’t know how to adapt to that? And it’s not even that these shitty legs are so goddamn fucking short.” He made a face and kicked at a stone on the uneven path. “I still know a lot of moves I could have used to take that goddamn shit-boar down. Aiming for its vital points, ducking out of its reach, not letting up – sure, I could have done it, even with my balance being all bent out of shape. But there’s no way without any muscle! Damnit, why the hell did I have to be such a shitty wimpy kid at this shitty age?”
Usopp sighed loudly and threw a pine-cone at him.
“You know, Sanji,” he said, “I don’t know what kinda childhood you had, but maybe you shouldn’t be so unhappy you weren’t a lean, mean killing-machine at the age of six. I mean, think about it, for heaven’s sake.”
Sanji couldn’t come up with a good reply to that, so he merely hunched up his shoulders, gnashed his teeth and groused something inarticulate. Man, he wanted a cigarette. Except now they just made him cough, which somehow felt like the most frustrating thing of all. Or nearly the most frustrating. Not being able to drag food back to camp was currently at the very top of the list.
“But I know what you mean,” continued Usopp, as he bent down to pick up another pine-cone. “I mean, I can’t use the Kabuto now but I still have my slingshot. Well, I've had to shorten the rubber band, since my arm is a lot shorter - but that close up, it still shouldn't be any trouble. It's weird. In my mind I knew just how to shoot it, and yet I kept missing.”
“Eh,” grunted Sanji. “You still hit it plenty of times.”
“Well, of course I did! I was a good shot even at this age! Don’t forget I had already defeated vicious hordes of three-eyed werewolves by then! Still…” said Usopp, sounding more musing than frustrated, “I couldn’t hit it right where I wanted, could I? Except for blinding it on one eye. Mostly it only seemed to make him get more angry.”
“Well, that only makes sense, doesn’t it, Mr. Usopp?” said Brook cheerfully, violin hefted on his shoulder. “Innate talent only takes you so long! And it’s practice that makes perfect!”
“Huh. I guess that makes sense,” said Sanji. “Maybe you don’t need much force to be a good sniper, but I bet you do need quite a bit of training, right? And your arms and hands don’t have that training right now. Not your eyes, either.”
“Weeell, I guess so,” said Usopp slowly, “but… you’d have thought it counted for more, the knowledge in your mind, I mean. Now it’s like you have to re-train yourself all over again. Only it’s useless, because it’s all going to come back anyway once we’re back to normal, right?”
“I sincerely hope so! Yohohoho!” laughed the six-year-old skeleton. “It’s certainly embarrassing when my fingers won’t know how to play a certain tune anymore, even though in my head I know exactly how it should go! To tell you the truth, I stick only to the simpler melodies right now! It’s making me feel quite inadequate, gentlemen!” Not that he looked it, taking little leaps as he talked and drawing the bow across the violin for a few sweeping chords.
“I’m not a gentleman,” objected Usopp, blinking slightly. “Anyway, I hadn’t really noticed, Brook. I mean, it was you who took down the boar back there after all, with that lullaby trick of yours.”
“Yohohoho, you are too kind!” Brook bowed graciously. “But I did strike quite a few false chords too, initially! Luckily it didn’t matter much.”
Sanji grunted something, then kicked at a pine-cone and squashed a beetle. It was true, Brook using his “Lullaby Flan” move on the furious boar – Sanji still didn’t get what its trouble had been, it wasn’t even as if they’d started attacking it yet, although he’d wanted to, of course – was what had finally put it down. Usopp’s array of slingshot Stars would probably have settled the thing otherwise, eventually. But the boar obviously had quite a bit of stamina and it might be that the creaking, swaying birch would have toppled over first, leaving them at the mercy of the beast. As for Sanji, all he had done was holding on for dear life to the tree and stopping Usopp from falling down when he over-extended himself. How pathetic.
Though admittedly, it was he who had gotten them up into the tree in the first place, drawing the boar’s attention away from the other two to give them time to scramble up before jumping up himself. At least some of his agility was still there – if not in his limbs then in his mind, and his mind could sometimes still force his limbs to behave as they should. He hadn’t known how to do back-flips when he was six, but he could do them now – though not without effort. It was all still pretty galling in Sanji’s eyes.
They traipsed in silence for awhile, steadily getting closer to the campsite and further away from the carcass of the boar behind them. It hadn’t seemed quite right to kill the dumb thing when it was asleep, but they had a crew to feed and couldn’t afford being squeamish. Sanji had wanted to drag it all back to the campsite directly, of course, but even with the three of them pushing as hard as they could the dead boar wouldn’t budge. Maybe one of them should have stayed guarding it but the other two kept making stupid objections to him staying behind alone and he wasn’t going to leave either of them there.
Sanji picked up his steps, feeling they should hurry back to the camp as soon as possible. He figured Chopper would be able to drag the boar back by himself easily, but if for some reason Chopper wasn’t there or couldn’t leave camp right now – Sanji’s currently pessimistic mind kept throwing up new possible obstacles – then he would probably need to bring his butcher-knives and carving-knives along for some on-the-spot butchery. But who knew how many scavengers there might be in this forest? It would be annoying as shit if all their trouble had been for absolutely nothing.
“It does seem pretty weird how the whole thing works,” said Usopp suddenly. “What’s in your mind and what’s in your body, I mean. I bet it must be real interesting to Chopper especially.”
And that was another thing, pondered Sanji. Chopper, the one person who hadn’t visibly changed at all, had seemed downright gloomy this morning. He’d looked briefly happy at the growth of the Time Mushrooms, but when Sanji had next happened to glance at him the reindeer had been looking away, his face frowning and his shoulders tense. Something was bothering him, but Sanji had no idea what it might be. Maybe he ought to talk to him.
“AAAAAAAAH oh hi guys LOOOOOK OOOOOUT!!!”
Sanji’s musings were abruptly cut short at what sounded like Luffy’s child voice screaming at them at the same time that something big, fast, aggressive and extremely sudden burst out of the nearby shrubbery in front of them with a huge roar.
Sanji had just about time to grab Usopp and leap out of the way of the creature’s path, hoping Brook would be fast and light enough to do the same. What the fuck are those idiots doing…? he wondered, not having time to look closer yet at whatever it was.
“AAAH!! A BEAR!” shouted Brook, clearing things up.
Sanji and Usopp got behind a handy rock and Sanji spun around. So it was. A very angry bear, possibly because of little Luffy who was presently sitting with his legs wrapped around his head trying to knock it out. Zoro was trying to cling to its hairy back, but was losing his grip now, and was forced to jump speedily out of the way into a bush before a huge paw hit him. Zoro might be pretty for a strong six-year-old but an adult bear would still bash his brains out if he hit him, Sanji realised with a chilling - if annoyingly irrelevant - sense of déjà vu.
Thankfully, Brook had managed to climb another tree, this time a sturdy oak. That meant he was probably the safest one, for now. Except he was looking very upset and kept gesturing frantically.
“Mr. Sanji!! Mr. Luffy!! My violin - !””
Oh shit. Sanji looked around but couldn’t see Brook’s precious instrument. He turned to glare at his captain instead.
“WHAT IN FUCKING SHITTY HELL DO YOU FUCKING THINK YOU’RE DOING, LUFFY?” he yelled, then winced at how high and thin his boy voice sounded. Still, the words needed to be said, even so. “Knock that goddamn shitty thing out instead of leading it to us! Follow directions from Mosshead, did you?”
“I’m trying! shouted Luffy back, while Zoro yelled an outraged “Hey!” from the bush he was slowly emerging from – why didn’t the stupid idiot have the sense to stay hidden? - right as the bear reached up to try to claw Luffy off of him, without success.
“I’d like to see you try and stop a rampaging bear right now, shit-cook!” Zoro went on, already waving a small branch around. “Not like your kicks could even tickle him!”
Sanji opened his mouth to retort but was abruptly pulled down behind the rock by Usopp.
“Stop drawing its attention here, idiot!” hissed Usopp urgently. “Also, get out of my way! FLAME STAR!” he shouted, letting loose. “Aw, hell, missed again!”
“Hey, you might hit Luffy like that,” Sanji pointed out. Rubber was resistant to flames, but still…
“I aim for the body,” Usopp explained. “Mostly the legs. GUNPOWDER STAR!”
“GUM GUM BAZOOKA!” Luffy shouted at the same time, his two-armed move hitting the bear on the head at the same time Usopp’s attack hit it on one of his back legs. Amazingly, the bear only swayed, but stayed conscious and upright. Then it roared angrily, swinging blindly around trying to hit as many enemies as it could, before moving towards Zoro again. That blockhead for some extremely stupid reason seemed determined not to run away this time, even taking a stance with the branch in his hand as if trying for a One-Sword Style move. The utter brainlessness of some of his crewmates never failed to astound Sanji.
“Stupid Mystery Bear!” shouted Luffy, hammering the bear now and again, trying to stop it from reaching Suicidal Branch-Wielding Boy. “Fall down, dummy!” The bear slowed down but didn’t stop or divert his attention elsewhere.
“LEAD STAR! Shit, missed again!” grumbled Usopp, though the pellet did hit the bear. But apparently not at the intended spot. “Hey, what’s wrong with you, Luffy?” he added.
“Don’t you see? No training!” said Sanji, having figured this out by now. “Right, Luffy?” he shouted as he started to move away from the rock, waving wildly in the hope of attracting the bear’s attention too. “That insane grandpa of yours hadn’t started training you yet when you were six, had he?”
“I’ve been trying to tell him that,” said Zoro with a scowl, sounding rather whiny in his six-year-old voice but still not backing away from his stance.
“Only a little!” Luffy shouted back. “I guess you’re right! Even if I stretch…” As he talked, he extended his left arm back and up, then further up, then further again until its end disappeared among the treetops.
“You’ve got momentum, but no muscle!” Sanji cried out, then ran towards the lumbering bear as fast as he could manage, kicking it on the wounded leg, then quickly leaped away. “But if you stretch out really far- ”
“Got it!” shouted Luffy, letting his left arm shoot further and further back while his right arm was pinching the bear’s ear. The bear seemed to sense something was up, for all of a sudden it got down on all fours and rammed its head straight into the oak where Brook was sitting.
“Oh my!” cried the startled skeleton, then craned his neck to look down. “Mr. Luffy, do you want my help down there? I could jump down on its back from here…”
“Nah, it’s fine! Just stay put, Brook!” shouted Luffy, having absorbed the impact without any trouble – at least that trait hadn’t changed, thankfully. The bear was turning its head towards Zoro again – Sanji could only suppose the thing had fixated on bright green hair like a bull on a red cape.
Sanji essayed another run at the bear, another quick, if laughably weak kick, and another leap away. The bear’s jaws snapped at his heels this time around. From behind the rock, Usopp swore at him.
He leapt up the nearest branch of yet another tree – a puny little aspen – and turned around right in time to see Luffy unfolding his legs from around the bear’s neck, leaping up from the bear the instant before his left arm came smashing down from a long way at incredible speed.
“GUM GUM PISTOL!”
This time, the bear smashed into the ground, driven half a metre into the earth, and stayed there. Luffy jumped high, did a back-flip, then another, then half of one as his balance kept overextending itself, his moves intended for his 17-year-body instead of a much shorter one. Eventually he hit the ground behind a grove of trees, out of Sanji’s sight but with a resounding crash.
“Guess that’s that, then,” said Zoro, and made as if to shove the branch he was holding into a sheathe at his side, then frowned and put it to his shoulder instead, looking embarrassed. Brook had already jumped down onto the ground and was ruffling through the bushes below the tree intently. He gave a small cry of sheer joy and held up his violin for his crewmates to see, quite mute with emotion for once.
Usopp cheered for Brook and Sanji smiled as well. Then Luffy came back and announced they should take the bear back to the campsite to eat. That made Sanji wake up and say, no, they shouldn’t, not until after they’d brought in the boar, because they’d been first and boars were tastier and more nutritious than bears. Why the hell should they go back looking for whatever tiny pig you’ve managed to tickle to death, Zoro wanted to know, when they had a perfectly good bear right here. Besides, they probably couldn’t remember where it was anyway, he added, and there was no way in hell Sanji would let him get away with that, so what with one thing and another they might have been there for quite a while except right then little Robin-honey and Franky came upon them and wanted to know what on earth they’d been doing over here, making all that noise. (Franky’s eyes went gratifyingly round and impressed when he saw the felled bear in its small crater.)
Robin-honey, bless her brilliant and ever-helpful wonder of a mind, immediately suggested how best to divvy up the work, and then ran back to get Chopper and Nami-baby to come help. Once they were all there Sanji knew for sure he’d be able to feed his crew properly tonight after all, and he let out a breath he must have been holding for hours now without knowing it.
Those stupid magic mushrooms who even the shitty old man hadn’t known about wouldn’t beat them. They’d get through this, Nami-baby and Franky would get their memories back, and they’d all get their years back. Every hard, unyielding, troublesome, happy, joyful, agonising, infuriating, fleeting and lingering second of them.
Sanji felt his feet itching in anticipation as he led the march back through the dark forest toward the boar’s carcass, idly dreaming of cigarettes the whole way.
To Be Concluded
Rating: PG-13 in this part - for language only
Setting: Vaguely post-TB.
Pairing: None.
Summary and disclaimer at Part I.
Continued from Part II
At noon the following day Sanji, Usopp and Brook were trampling through the forest going back to camp, all of them still with the bodies of six-year-olds (minus flesh, in Brook’s case), and all of them quite exhausted.
The night and most of the morning had passed with little excitement, certainly not more than usual. None of the Strawhats knew very much about mushroom farming, but Sanji, Chopper and Robin had put their various scraps of knowledge together as well as they could. And the Time Mushrooms did seem to grow nicely, though at different rates. A couple of them were already 12 and 13 centimetres tall. Robin thought that if they kept growing like that, they would be of the right length for Franky and Brook to eat tomorrow afternoon. And by that time other mushrooms would already be the right length for others in the crew, she pointed out. They should do this with the oldest first, otherwise those would have to wait for a really long time.
Sanji had respectfully objected that while he thought this was very well-reasoned in general, he felt they should make an exception for Nami. He couldn’t bear to see her being so confused and lost, not remembering her crewmates at all - not even him. The biggest mushroom might be 18 centimetres this evening: shouldn’t this be reserved for Nami-baby? He’d been firmly voted down on this matter, however. At least Robin-honey had agreed with him that it was distressing, but she also said that Nami and Franky seemed to be coping fairly well for the moment. And their memory might still return soon, once the mustard left their system. Sanji had been forced to agree and then forced to try knocking some manners into Zoro, who’d muttered a derogatory remark about Nami-baby.
That had actually left Sanji with quite a few aches and smarts he tried to pretend weren’t there. Loath as he was to admit it, it seemed that six-year-old Zoro had already been unusually strong by then. Mosshead must have started his training real early: Sanji had been a bit more of a normal kid that age, when it came to fighting at least (cooking was a different matter). Not that a little strength difference would make Sanji back down from a fight or refrain from chastising louts who were insulting ladies. Even when the lady in question was transformed back into a six-year-old girl who just stared and either shrank away or started to laugh at him when he tried to help her.
That had all taken place before breakfast. After the morning meal, Sanji had announced they were getting low on supplies and had better forage for more. He’d taken Usopp and Brook with him and set off into the forest in search of edible things, with the intention of looking out for more Time Mushrooms at the same time. Luffy was going to explore the seashore again, this time with Zoro – which probably meant they were also deep into the forest by now. Robin and Chopper stayed behind to guard campsite and mushrooms and Nami-baby. Well, and Franky too, Sanji supposed with a shrug.
And now, here they were, all dirty and sweaty, limping and a little bloody, though only with surface wounds. Usopp looked fairly shaken and Sanji wasn’t sure he himself was looking quite as unconcerned as he’d like. Brook, on the other hand, already seemed to have forgotten his earlier terror and was whistling quite serenely now. Not too many minutes ago, he had been trembling like an aspen right along with them, as they’d been sitting on the thin branches of a far-too-slender birch while a huge, furious boar had rampaged below them, ramming its shoulders into the tree over and over again.
“It’s not just a question of reach,” Sanji muttered morosely now, responding to an earlier remark of Usopp’s. “You think I don’t know how to adapt to that? And it’s not even that these shitty legs are so goddamn fucking short.” He made a face and kicked at a stone on the uneven path. “I still know a lot of moves I could have used to take that goddamn shit-boar down. Aiming for its vital points, ducking out of its reach, not letting up – sure, I could have done it, even with my balance being all bent out of shape. But there’s no way without any muscle! Damnit, why the hell did I have to be such a shitty wimpy kid at this shitty age?”
Usopp sighed loudly and threw a pine-cone at him.
“You know, Sanji,” he said, “I don’t know what kinda childhood you had, but maybe you shouldn’t be so unhappy you weren’t a lean, mean killing-machine at the age of six. I mean, think about it, for heaven’s sake.”
Sanji couldn’t come up with a good reply to that, so he merely hunched up his shoulders, gnashed his teeth and groused something inarticulate. Man, he wanted a cigarette. Except now they just made him cough, which somehow felt like the most frustrating thing of all. Or nearly the most frustrating. Not being able to drag food back to camp was currently at the very top of the list.
“But I know what you mean,” continued Usopp, as he bent down to pick up another pine-cone. “I mean, I can’t use the Kabuto now but I still have my slingshot. Well, I've had to shorten the rubber band, since my arm is a lot shorter - but that close up, it still shouldn't be any trouble. It's weird. In my mind I knew just how to shoot it, and yet I kept missing.”
“Eh,” grunted Sanji. “You still hit it plenty of times.”
“Well, of course I did! I was a good shot even at this age! Don’t forget I had already defeated vicious hordes of three-eyed werewolves by then! Still…” said Usopp, sounding more musing than frustrated, “I couldn’t hit it right where I wanted, could I? Except for blinding it on one eye. Mostly it only seemed to make him get more angry.”
“Well, that only makes sense, doesn’t it, Mr. Usopp?” said Brook cheerfully, violin hefted on his shoulder. “Innate talent only takes you so long! And it’s practice that makes perfect!”
“Huh. I guess that makes sense,” said Sanji. “Maybe you don’t need much force to be a good sniper, but I bet you do need quite a bit of training, right? And your arms and hands don’t have that training right now. Not your eyes, either.”
“Weeell, I guess so,” said Usopp slowly, “but… you’d have thought it counted for more, the knowledge in your mind, I mean. Now it’s like you have to re-train yourself all over again. Only it’s useless, because it’s all going to come back anyway once we’re back to normal, right?”
“I sincerely hope so! Yohohoho!” laughed the six-year-old skeleton. “It’s certainly embarrassing when my fingers won’t know how to play a certain tune anymore, even though in my head I know exactly how it should go! To tell you the truth, I stick only to the simpler melodies right now! It’s making me feel quite inadequate, gentlemen!” Not that he looked it, taking little leaps as he talked and drawing the bow across the violin for a few sweeping chords.
“I’m not a gentleman,” objected Usopp, blinking slightly. “Anyway, I hadn’t really noticed, Brook. I mean, it was you who took down the boar back there after all, with that lullaby trick of yours.”
“Yohohoho, you are too kind!” Brook bowed graciously. “But I did strike quite a few false chords too, initially! Luckily it didn’t matter much.”
Sanji grunted something, then kicked at a pine-cone and squashed a beetle. It was true, Brook using his “Lullaby Flan” move on the furious boar – Sanji still didn’t get what its trouble had been, it wasn’t even as if they’d started attacking it yet, although he’d wanted to, of course – was what had finally put it down. Usopp’s array of slingshot Stars would probably have settled the thing otherwise, eventually. But the boar obviously had quite a bit of stamina and it might be that the creaking, swaying birch would have toppled over first, leaving them at the mercy of the beast. As for Sanji, all he had done was holding on for dear life to the tree and stopping Usopp from falling down when he over-extended himself. How pathetic.
Though admittedly, it was he who had gotten them up into the tree in the first place, drawing the boar’s attention away from the other two to give them time to scramble up before jumping up himself. At least some of his agility was still there – if not in his limbs then in his mind, and his mind could sometimes still force his limbs to behave as they should. He hadn’t known how to do back-flips when he was six, but he could do them now – though not without effort. It was all still pretty galling in Sanji’s eyes.
They traipsed in silence for awhile, steadily getting closer to the campsite and further away from the carcass of the boar behind them. It hadn’t seemed quite right to kill the dumb thing when it was asleep, but they had a crew to feed and couldn’t afford being squeamish. Sanji had wanted to drag it all back to the campsite directly, of course, but even with the three of them pushing as hard as they could the dead boar wouldn’t budge. Maybe one of them should have stayed guarding it but the other two kept making stupid objections to him staying behind alone and he wasn’t going to leave either of them there.
Sanji picked up his steps, feeling they should hurry back to the camp as soon as possible. He figured Chopper would be able to drag the boar back by himself easily, but if for some reason Chopper wasn’t there or couldn’t leave camp right now – Sanji’s currently pessimistic mind kept throwing up new possible obstacles – then he would probably need to bring his butcher-knives and carving-knives along for some on-the-spot butchery. But who knew how many scavengers there might be in this forest? It would be annoying as shit if all their trouble had been for absolutely nothing.
“It does seem pretty weird how the whole thing works,” said Usopp suddenly. “What’s in your mind and what’s in your body, I mean. I bet it must be real interesting to Chopper especially.”
And that was another thing, pondered Sanji. Chopper, the one person who hadn’t visibly changed at all, had seemed downright gloomy this morning. He’d looked briefly happy at the growth of the Time Mushrooms, but when Sanji had next happened to glance at him the reindeer had been looking away, his face frowning and his shoulders tense. Something was bothering him, but Sanji had no idea what it might be. Maybe he ought to talk to him.
“AAAAAAAAH oh hi guys LOOOOOK OOOOOUT!!!”
Sanji’s musings were abruptly cut short at what sounded like Luffy’s child voice screaming at them at the same time that something big, fast, aggressive and extremely sudden burst out of the nearby shrubbery in front of them with a huge roar.
Sanji had just about time to grab Usopp and leap out of the way of the creature’s path, hoping Brook would be fast and light enough to do the same. What the fuck are those idiots doing…? he wondered, not having time to look closer yet at whatever it was.
“AAAH!! A BEAR!” shouted Brook, clearing things up.
Sanji and Usopp got behind a handy rock and Sanji spun around. So it was. A very angry bear, possibly because of little Luffy who was presently sitting with his legs wrapped around his head trying to knock it out. Zoro was trying to cling to its hairy back, but was losing his grip now, and was forced to jump speedily out of the way into a bush before a huge paw hit him. Zoro might be pretty for a strong six-year-old but an adult bear would still bash his brains out if he hit him, Sanji realised with a chilling - if annoyingly irrelevant - sense of déjà vu.
Thankfully, Brook had managed to climb another tree, this time a sturdy oak. That meant he was probably the safest one, for now. Except he was looking very upset and kept gesturing frantically.
“Mr. Sanji!! Mr. Luffy!! My violin - !””
Oh shit. Sanji looked around but couldn’t see Brook’s precious instrument. He turned to glare at his captain instead.
“WHAT IN FUCKING SHITTY HELL DO YOU FUCKING THINK YOU’RE DOING, LUFFY?” he yelled, then winced at how high and thin his boy voice sounded. Still, the words needed to be said, even so. “Knock that goddamn shitty thing out instead of leading it to us! Follow directions from Mosshead, did you?”
“I’m trying! shouted Luffy back, while Zoro yelled an outraged “Hey!” from the bush he was slowly emerging from – why didn’t the stupid idiot have the sense to stay hidden? - right as the bear reached up to try to claw Luffy off of him, without success.
“I’d like to see you try and stop a rampaging bear right now, shit-cook!” Zoro went on, already waving a small branch around. “Not like your kicks could even tickle him!”
Sanji opened his mouth to retort but was abruptly pulled down behind the rock by Usopp.
“Stop drawing its attention here, idiot!” hissed Usopp urgently. “Also, get out of my way! FLAME STAR!” he shouted, letting loose. “Aw, hell, missed again!”
“Hey, you might hit Luffy like that,” Sanji pointed out. Rubber was resistant to flames, but still…
“I aim for the body,” Usopp explained. “Mostly the legs. GUNPOWDER STAR!”
“GUM GUM BAZOOKA!” Luffy shouted at the same time, his two-armed move hitting the bear on the head at the same time Usopp’s attack hit it on one of his back legs. Amazingly, the bear only swayed, but stayed conscious and upright. Then it roared angrily, swinging blindly around trying to hit as many enemies as it could, before moving towards Zoro again. That blockhead for some extremely stupid reason seemed determined not to run away this time, even taking a stance with the branch in his hand as if trying for a One-Sword Style move. The utter brainlessness of some of his crewmates never failed to astound Sanji.
“Stupid Mystery Bear!” shouted Luffy, hammering the bear now and again, trying to stop it from reaching Suicidal Branch-Wielding Boy. “Fall down, dummy!” The bear slowed down but didn’t stop or divert his attention elsewhere.
“LEAD STAR! Shit, missed again!” grumbled Usopp, though the pellet did hit the bear. But apparently not at the intended spot. “Hey, what’s wrong with you, Luffy?” he added.
“Don’t you see? No training!” said Sanji, having figured this out by now. “Right, Luffy?” he shouted as he started to move away from the rock, waving wildly in the hope of attracting the bear’s attention too. “That insane grandpa of yours hadn’t started training you yet when you were six, had he?”
“I’ve been trying to tell him that,” said Zoro with a scowl, sounding rather whiny in his six-year-old voice but still not backing away from his stance.
“Only a little!” Luffy shouted back. “I guess you’re right! Even if I stretch…” As he talked, he extended his left arm back and up, then further up, then further again until its end disappeared among the treetops.
“You’ve got momentum, but no muscle!” Sanji cried out, then ran towards the lumbering bear as fast as he could manage, kicking it on the wounded leg, then quickly leaped away. “But if you stretch out really far- ”
“Got it!” shouted Luffy, letting his left arm shoot further and further back while his right arm was pinching the bear’s ear. The bear seemed to sense something was up, for all of a sudden it got down on all fours and rammed its head straight into the oak where Brook was sitting.
“Oh my!” cried the startled skeleton, then craned his neck to look down. “Mr. Luffy, do you want my help down there? I could jump down on its back from here…”
“Nah, it’s fine! Just stay put, Brook!” shouted Luffy, having absorbed the impact without any trouble – at least that trait hadn’t changed, thankfully. The bear was turning its head towards Zoro again – Sanji could only suppose the thing had fixated on bright green hair like a bull on a red cape.
Sanji essayed another run at the bear, another quick, if laughably weak kick, and another leap away. The bear’s jaws snapped at his heels this time around. From behind the rock, Usopp swore at him.
He leapt up the nearest branch of yet another tree – a puny little aspen – and turned around right in time to see Luffy unfolding his legs from around the bear’s neck, leaping up from the bear the instant before his left arm came smashing down from a long way at incredible speed.
“GUM GUM PISTOL!”
This time, the bear smashed into the ground, driven half a metre into the earth, and stayed there. Luffy jumped high, did a back-flip, then another, then half of one as his balance kept overextending itself, his moves intended for his 17-year-body instead of a much shorter one. Eventually he hit the ground behind a grove of trees, out of Sanji’s sight but with a resounding crash.
“Guess that’s that, then,” said Zoro, and made as if to shove the branch he was holding into a sheathe at his side, then frowned and put it to his shoulder instead, looking embarrassed. Brook had already jumped down onto the ground and was ruffling through the bushes below the tree intently. He gave a small cry of sheer joy and held up his violin for his crewmates to see, quite mute with emotion for once.
Usopp cheered for Brook and Sanji smiled as well. Then Luffy came back and announced they should take the bear back to the campsite to eat. That made Sanji wake up and say, no, they shouldn’t, not until after they’d brought in the boar, because they’d been first and boars were tastier and more nutritious than bears. Why the hell should they go back looking for whatever tiny pig you’ve managed to tickle to death, Zoro wanted to know, when they had a perfectly good bear right here. Besides, they probably couldn’t remember where it was anyway, he added, and there was no way in hell Sanji would let him get away with that, so what with one thing and another they might have been there for quite a while except right then little Robin-honey and Franky came upon them and wanted to know what on earth they’d been doing over here, making all that noise. (Franky’s eyes went gratifyingly round and impressed when he saw the felled bear in its small crater.)
Robin-honey, bless her brilliant and ever-helpful wonder of a mind, immediately suggested how best to divvy up the work, and then ran back to get Chopper and Nami-baby to come help. Once they were all there Sanji knew for sure he’d be able to feed his crew properly tonight after all, and he let out a breath he must have been holding for hours now without knowing it.
Those stupid magic mushrooms who even the shitty old man hadn’t known about wouldn’t beat them. They’d get through this, Nami-baby and Franky would get their memories back, and they’d all get their years back. Every hard, unyielding, troublesome, happy, joyful, agonising, infuriating, fleeting and lingering second of them.
Sanji felt his feet itching in anticipation as he led the march back through the dark forest toward the boar’s carcass, idly dreaming of cigarettes the whole way.
To Be Concluded