8. Not his battle (1/2)

so, here's the next chapter, after a long wait. when i had started writing this, i was side-tracked while correcting some minor things in the previous chapters, and couldn't find the main thread of the story again. but now it's here, so i won't keep you from reading it. i hope you'll enjoy it.

for a moment, sanji wasn't sure that he had heard right. he tried to get up from the deck, but his left arm and leg didn't seem to obey any command his mind sent out to them. his ears registered a faint twanging sound, but he was too focused on why his body wouldn't obey him to pay any real attention to it.

sanji almost cried out in surprise as something was wrapped around him, and he gasped as his aching ribs were crushed together while he was lifted from the deck. his feet flailed feebly as they lost contact with the wooden floor, and he clenched his teeth against the pain that rushed out from his chest into the rest of his body.

it was getting so hard to

eathe. through the strange haze surrounding him, sanji's attention was drawn upwards as someone growled in his ear.

"what the hell are you doing, sitting there like some idiot?"

grunting lightly in protest and a bit of pain, sanji found that he was being carried across the deck towards the railing. it took him an additional second to realize that the thing that was crushing his chest together was an arm. a tanned, muscular arm covered in scars.

oh, hell no… sanji groaned silently, now wishing that it was all just a horrible, horrible dream that he would wake up from at any moment.

"ow! easy, damn it," he managed to hiss between clenched teeth as his ribs gave a particularly stinging throb. as a reply, the arm was wrapped tighter around him, pressing almost all the air out of his lungs. trying not to gasp for air, sanji growled quietly, but was quieted by the same voice as before.

"hey, i wouldn't mind leaving you up here, but i don't think he would be happy about it."

sanji's aggression towards the swordsman suddenly faded, making room for the memory of what just had happened. krieg, the cannon, luffy's voice… and what about the cannonball? there hadn't been any explosion yet.

he felt a light jerk as zoro stepped up on the railing of the ship. sanji squirmed a little to point out that he wasn't completely thrilled about being rescued by zoro, or being carried in that fashion for that matter. when zoro leaped out from the ship, sanji glared at him over his shoulder, and that was when he spotted it - the red cannonball, which was soaring through the air back towards krieg's ship.

there was a moment of absolute silence, in which sanji barely had the time to wonder if he simply had gone deaf. then, when the cannonball made contact with the battleship, an earsplitting explosion shook the very air around them and left the chef's ears ringing. sanji could feel zoro's grip around him loosen as they were pushed forward by the shockwave, and he turned around in midair so that he could see the ship.

an enormous pillar of black smoke and flames rose from the main deck of the battleship, and the sound of more explosions came from inside the vessel. as he let his eyes sweep over the ship, sanji hoped intensely that krieg had his weapon storage in the prow of his ship, as far away from the explosions as possible. a larger explosion could tear them all to pieces.

the battleship's large main mast swayed violently for each explosion before it started to fall with a loud squeal of splintered wood. there were screams coming from all around sanji, both from his chefs and krieg's pirates, who had started to gather together in the water around the fin.

"ghk…" sanji wrapped his wounded arm around his chest as he landed on the wooden fin, a little less graceful than usual. more exactly, if he hadn't reached out his right foot and pushed himself away from the fin, he would have landed face-first on the floor. zoro landed next to him a

ief moment later, the clattering sound of the sheaths of his katana hitting the floor easing the ringing in sanji's ears.

gritting his teeth against the pain, sanji looked up at the falling mast as he tried to catch his

eath – his lungs felt like they weren't filling up with air like they should – and turned to zoro. he wasn't sure if he was looking at zoro to ask for help or simply to try to find some way of blaming the swordsman for everything that had happened since krieg had arrived.

"the mast," he said, panting lightly. "it's going to hit us."

"i'm not blind," zoro replied, less acidly than sanji would have expected. "get up so we can do something about it."

sanji nodded. he straightened his legs and

ushed some dust off his pants while he tried to estimate the severity of his injuries. his upper left thigh was throbbing a bit when he put his weight on it, but he didn't think that there would be any problem to use it for balance. the pain in his ribs had turned into a solid, droning throb, but it wasn't bothering him anymore. he was already adapting to his injuries, and he felt that he probably could fight again if he had to. but first he had to do something about the mast that threatened to crush his beloved restaurant.

zoro was already in the air when sanji leaped upwards. the chef could see the flashes of light reflected in the blades of the three katana as they were drawn from their sheaths. he could hear the sound of metal against wood, and saw the change in the falling mast's angle before he swept his right leg to the side. hot flashes of pain swept through his body and seemed to tear his body apart when his foot collided with the heavy wood and

oke it in half.

the

oken, airborne piece of the mast bent together at the point where sanji's kick had connected with it, and it was flung to the side, away from the restaurant while the other part continued to fall towards the wooden terrace.

the far end of the fin was shattered under the weight of the mastpiece, causing the other side of it to rise out of the water. the force behind the impact between the wooden floor and the falling piece of the mast pulled the restaurant and the ships that were still moored to the fin to the side and made it tilt heavily. a cacophony of frightened voices came from the carp-shaped ship as its starboard side was pressed down in the water.

sanji landed on the fin with a painful thud, a part of him wondering if his body parts were still attached to each other the way they should. it felt like some of them might have switched places without notifying him first. groaning, he looked up at the growing smoke pillar and the battleship that had started to tilt a little to the side.

he could hear voices calling his name and turned his head towards his restaurant, where two of his waiters were clinging to the outer railing for dear life. in the corner of his eye, he could still see movements aboard usopp's jigsaw puzzle of a pirate ship where she was moored to the tilting terrace next to the two smaller ships.

"don't just stand there!" sanji called out to the waiters aboard the sagatie. "release the fin and get my restaurant the hell away from here!

"you there!" he continued, turning towards a few of his employees who were still waiting for chopper to take care of their wounds aboard the meri go. all of them seemed to be shocked by the explosion, the falling mast and everything else that had happened. "cut loose those three ships and follow sagatie!"

"but owner…" one of the chefs stammered. "this ship is a pirate ship and…"

"there are children aboard it!" sanji cut off, not bothering to be the least patient. "if the captain has any complaints, he can thank me later when this chunk of shit metal--" he thrust his thumb in the direction of krieg's flaming battleship. "--isn't threatening to blow a hole in the ocean. now do as i say and do it now!"

as the men hurried to follow his orders, sanji sank down on the still tilting floor, his left arm once again wrapped around his chest. the amount of energy he had wasted by just keeping his voice steady had been ridiculously large, and he felt almost completely drained all of a sudden.

he could feel the light jerk as sagatie finally was freed from the damaged fin, and in the corner of his eye, he could see the meri go and the other two smaller boats casting loose. there was the sound of sails being set and filled with wind, followed by the soft hissing of the bow of ships cutting through the water. however, his attention wasn't on any of those things, but on the sound of sandals slip-slopping against the wooden floor.

"you sure know how to make an entrance," sanji said, still panting lightly with his eyes locked on a small crack in the floor by his feet. "i was starting to think you'd never show up."

there was no reply, and sanji looked up. to his left, zoro seemed to be occupied watching the smoke rising up from krieg's ship or keeping an eye out for more enemies, but the angle in which the swordsman tilted his head ever so lightly to the side revealed that he was watching sanji and luffy from the corner of his eye. of course, sanji thought, that so-called first mate had always seemed to know when he was supposed to stay out of something that wasn't his business. however, that had never kept him from eavesdropping, whether he was pretending to sleep or just standing around the corner.

of course, sanji understood the reason zoro did that. aboard the going merry, information wasn't that important. of course, you could always be certain that you got to know what you had to know, and if you still wanted to know more, you waited for someone to eavesdrop on. it was as simple as that. and the reason to that approach was standing right in front of sanji, wearing the same kind of red vest and blue jeans he had been wearing throughout most of their adventures. some things in life never really changed.

having seen ace so recently, sanji was struck by how much luffy looked like his older

other. even though he was still as lanky as he had always been, it was only after a year away from luffy that sanji noticed the similarities between the two

others. they had the same naturally messy hair; the same pointed jaw and even the same air of authority about them.

luffy was looking around at the departing ships, the damaged battleship and the wooden fin he was standing on with a very confused look on his face. sanji turned his eyes away from his former captain and looked towards krieg's battleship. there was still no sign of krieg himself, and sanji caught himself hoping that the cannonball had hit the pirate. that way, everyone could go back to their own lives and forget about the whole ordeal.

"i don't think i've ever experienced a day this rotten in my entire life," he muttered, light gasps for air slipping in between the words as he spoke. "luffy?"

he turned back to look at luffy, who was looking back at him with a curious expression in his wide eyes.

"yeah?" the pirates said with a very cheerful voice.

sanji coughed and loosened his tie a little more. he was starting to feel kind of desperate to get as much air into his lungs as he possible could, but it didn't seem like his body was willing to cooperate that easily.

"thanks for saving my restaurant."

"huh?" luffy turned to look after the ships that were sailing away from them. "that was your boat, sanji?"

he laughed and ran his fingers through his messy hair. it wasn't until then that sanji noticed that the man wasn't wearing his straw hat. could luffy have met up with the man who once gave him the old hat and returned it?

"i just came here but there was an explosion and all of a sudden, i heard nami telling me to watch out. then i saw this cannonball coming right for me…" when he spoke, luffy's eyes moved from sanji to the fleeing ships and then over the fin. then, he suddenly fell silent and raised his hand with a wide grin. "yo, zoro! i knew i'd find you here!"

hearing the swordsman greet luffy in return, sanji couldn't do anything but shake his head. luffy hadn't changed at all since the last time they met. slowly and stiffly, sanji got up from the floor, his eyes locked on the now slowly sinking battleship.

swaying where he was standing, sanji felt as if a giant invisible hand had been wrapped around his chest, squeezing the air out of his lungs with incredible force. he

oke down in a coughing fit, which he immediately tried to hold back. the

oken bones in his body cricked as he wrapped his arms around himself to stop the spastic coughing, and he sank down on one knee, fighting to regain control over himself. once the attack faded and sanji was on his knees on the floor, gasping for air like a fish on dry land, he still managed to growl and tried to pull away from the hand that was placed on his shoulder. he could feel two pair of eyes on him, and the concerned looks those eyes were giving him almost burned holes in his suit.

"i'm… fine…" he said

eathlessly, easing the grip around his chest to

ush zoro's hand from his shoulder.

as he looked past zoro up at the battleship, where a figure had made its way up to the railing, he frowned. he blinked faintly as the sun was reflected off the scratched surface of a

onze-colored armor.

"looks like shithead over there woke up."

the sound of a gunshot echoed over the water, and a bullet dug itself into the floor right in front of luffy's feet. luffy didn't even wince by the loud noise, but his eyes were drawn towards the tiny metal fragment in the floor in front of him. he almost looked like he was examining the item carefully before he looked up towards the direction the bullet had come from. sanji's eyes never left the figure standing up on the battleship, and he felt a bit disappointed that krieg still was alive.

krieg laughed hoarsely, accompanied by the clicking sound of guns being cocked.

"thought you were rid of me, didn't you?" he asked, shooting another bullet into the wooden fin, this time just barely missing sanji's left knee. not moving an inch from the spot where he was sitting, the chef glared at krieg, feeling the urge to kill the pirate rising for each minute.

"yeah, i got my hopes up for nothing," sanji muttered, trying to suppress yet another coughing turn. this time, he was glad that no one was trying to aid him when his body twitched in his attempts to keep himself from coughing.

"zoro, you two can go ahead without me. take sanji to chopper…"

the voice was calm, but between the coughs that still shook his body, sanji's trained ear could easily catch the faint, sharp tone between the words. once the attack subsided, sanji turned his head towards luffy, who was standing calmly on the fin while looking up at krieg. the pirate captain wasn't looking at sanji or zoro, but kept his eyes locked on the armored man aboard the battleship.

"you've done what you can, now i'll take care of this."

then he turned his head towards zoro and grinned. for a moment, sanji expected zoro to protest against luffy's order, but the swordsman simply looked at the pirate king and nodded:

"aye, captain."

when zoro's grip of his shoulder tightened, sanji growled and tried to move away again, but the green-head easily pulled him up from the floor and pushed him towards a small vessel that was moored to the edge of the terrace. it looked like a wooden raft trying to pass as a rowboat, with a flat bottom surrounded by semi-high edges - all of it built out of what looked like the remains of a shipwreck; there were even some old dried barnacles stuck to the inside of the aft railing.

"get in," zoro said curtly, giving sanji a light push between the shoulder blades to get him to hurry up a little.

stumbling into the boat, sanji sat down in the front, tiredly eyeing the puddles of water that had gathered in the bottom. great. he was trapped in a raft (which in his opinion still seemed to be posing as a rowboat) with zoro, while luffy fought the battle for him. a battle which sanji felt he should be fighting himself.

"it's not his fight…" he muttered, failing to hold back a violent cough that made his lungs feel as if they were going to explode.

the boat rocked as zoro stepped into it and sat down by the oars in the middle. he smirked as he rolled up the mooring line and threw it onto the bottom of the boat.

"of course not," he said calmly, grabbing the oars. "how many fights have you seen him fight for just his own sake?"

sanji turned his eyes back to the water at the bottom of the boat as they began moving away from the

oken fin. zoro had a point. most of the battles luffy had won over the years had been fought for someone else. of course, luffy would never have got into any of the fights if he hadn't got something out of it himself. but it had often seemed that he was satisfied with just knowing that he had beaten yet another strong enemy and put an end to their evil-doing. that he often saved whole cities or even countries was often just a very fortunate bonus. that, and of course the feast that usually followed the victory.

"right," sanji smirked as well as he could, but the expression turned out a little more crooked than he had intended as a sudden flash of pain spread across the left side of his face. clenching his teeth, he tried to act as if it didn't bother him, but he had the feeling that he didn't succeed to do so.

as from a far distance, he could hear krieg's voice as he spoke to luffy and luffy's voice as he calmly replied. however, the chef couldn't make out any words the men said. the voices started to melt together with the rhythmic splash of zoro's oars moving through the water, and sanji felt how he was getting more and more focused on getting air into his lungs than on anything else. his

oken ribs, wounded shoulder and thigh were all aching much worse than his face, but he didn't care about the pain as long as he could still draw one more

eath after the next. soon, he noticed how a dizzy feeling draped itself over him and he seemed to be slowly disconnected from the rest of the world.

"oi, zoro…" he said between two deep

eaths when he no longer could see clearly.

colorful sparks flashed before his eyes when he tried to move to a better position. he held his left arm wrapped loosely around his chest, but it still felt like someone had strapped a large metal band around him, which was slowly being tightened, allowing less and less air to enter his lungs.

"do you think you could row a little faster?"

"yeah, i guess… why?" zoro asked, an eye

ow raised in question as sanji tried to focus his gaze on the swordsman. he seemed to be a bit confused over the lack of insults in sanji's words.

"because…" sanji leaned forward over his knees as far as his ribs allowed and looked up at the blur of tanned skin and green that was zoro's face, trying to make it clear that he wasn't joking around. "because i can't

eathe…"

the world disappeared in complete darkness before his eyes, leaving him in a compact blackness where the distorted sound of the water splashing around him was the only thing that seemed to be somewhat real. sanji could feel how he started to tip over to one side as his body was relaxed. but just as he felt that he was about to fall into the water, the boat suddenly rocked and a pair of hands grabbed him by the shoulders and pulled him away from the edge to place him on the flat bottom.

he managed to stir a little where he lay in the puddles of water at the bottom of the boat, but the movement only seemed to push more air out of his lungs, so he stopped. when he felt the boat move again, he allowed himself to relax a bit, only focusing his energy on

eathing in and out and to stay awake.

"oi, you stupid cook." zoro's voice sounded distant in sanji's ears, but he could still hear the slightly annoyed and yet calm tone in the swordsman's voice. "i'm the one who's supposed to get this badly beat up, not you."

the bitter smirk in zoro's voice was badly disguised as the swordsman continued: "stupid bastard, it's just a ship. it's not worth dying for."

there was no real force behind the words, and sanji understood. zoro had said the exact same thing to usopp once, when the topic of letting going merry go to rest and getting a new, larger ship once again had caused the marksman to fall out with the whole crew in his attempts to convince them that merry was the only ship they would ever need.

to some people, a hat which is the symbol for an important promise is a priceless treasure. to others, a ship or a sword which holds a memory of the past has the same value. sanji had come to understand this better than ever the first time he stepped into the newly built and launched sagatie and felt the smell of wood and new steel, a smell that

ought him back twenty years, when he was still under the care of the shitty old man.

"is that right?" sanji managed to mutter, his right hand reaching up to remove his tie and unbutton the two top buttons of his shirt. "then why did you fight to protect it?"

"i was bored," came the simple answer, and sanji found that he didn't feel the need to argue about that. he turned his concentration away from zoro and focused on synchronizing his

eath with the sound of the oars splashing in and out of the water.

– e – e –

"ha, ha, ha, if it isn't the rubberkid," krieg planted his foot against the railing of his damaged ship and looked down towards the shattered terrace below. he laughed. "so, did you make it to the grand line and one piece, kid?"

"yeah," luffy replied calmly as he looked up at the older pirate. he was standing perfectly still, listening to the footsteps of his nakama as they stepped into zoro's boat. he still wasn't sure what had been going on before the cannonball almost hit him, and he didn't really care. all he did know was that sanji was hurt, and somehow, the old man up on the large ship seemed to be responsible for that. the same man who had shot a bullet at him. of course, he wouldn't have been hurt even if it had hit him, since bullets don't affect rubber, but it had startled him and he didn't like that.

the old man looked awfully familiar, but luffy couldn't remember if he had ever met him or just seen his face on a wanted-poster. his name was… err… name, name… luffy mentally poked his

ain to get some sort of response to his pondering. don was the only response he got, and that wasn't very helpful. don… don… nope, didn't ring a bell. bon, maybe? bon… bon… bon-chan? wait, that couldn't be right… that name only

ought an image of weird makeup and lots of pink to luffy's mind. he decided to let it rest, it didn't really matter anyway. he was hungry, and he had a feeling that he wouldn't get anything to eat until the old man had gone away.

"so you've been there, eh? then where is your crown, 'king of pirates'?" krieg said mockingly, apparently not aware that luffy had been seconds away of getting completely side-tracked.

"my navigator has it," luffy replied, pointing towards the direction he had last seen the large restaurant where he had seen nami and robin. "so i don't drop it in the ocean."

luffy ran his fingers through his hair to assure himself that he wasn't still wearing his precious treasure on his head. once he was convinced that he hadn't forgotten to leave it with nami, he let that thought slip into oblivion. absentmindedly picking his nose with his pinky, he tilted his head a little to the left.

"ne, old man," he said, his eyes drifting over towards sanji and zoro who had got into the little boat and were on their way to the larger ships and to chopper. "why don't you just take your men and get out of here?"

he looked up with a serious expression in his eyes when the man by the railing of the sinking ship started laughing.

"get out of here? why would i do that?" krieg spun the pistol he had fired earlier around his index finger and looked very cocky.

luffy simply grinned, but it was a slanted, shrewd grin that would have made the most fearless pirate feel uncomfortable. he stretched out his arms in front of him and cracked his knuckles one by one, still with the grin on his face.

"because you've already lost," he said, still staying perfectly calm. "sanji had already beaten you before i got here. but if you're so eager to get your ass kicked, i won't hold back at all."

"what's that supposed to mean?" krieg growled, still not moving from his spot by the railing. "he beat me before you got here, you say? how did you get that idea, kid?"

"you haven't managed to kill him," luffy replied. "and even if i hadn't come here, you wouldn't have beaten him."

krieg started to laugh again, but he didn't seem to be as sure of himself as before.

"oh? and why is that?"