One Piece: Freedom, Chpt. 9

As she slowly neared the holes in the wall that somewhat resembled their former appearances as windows and doors, she felt the fighting slow and stall outside of the building.  What’s going on? she thought.  Did they win?  Did they… fall?  Tears filled her eyes at the morbid idea and she tried to hobble faster towards the battleground.  She poked her head around the rubble surrounding the space that the door had previously occupied and witnessed Zoro and Sanji standing on the front lawn surrounded by fallen marines and guards, blood spattered everywhere.  They themselves had sustained a moderate amount of damage; scrapes, bruises, and few deeper gashes.  The marines now had surrounded them completely from a distance; a line of vice-admirals stood in front of them poised to attack.  Behind them she could see the arbiter and some of the more prominent owners of the island; it appeared that they were the ones who called in the navy, although she still didn’t understand why the navy would bother protecting the island’s slave trade.  She noticed snipers lining windows and rooves across the street, all taking aim at the chef and swordsman, but if the bullet holes in the rubble around them were any indication, it appeared they were having a great deal of difficulty actually hitting them even as they were fighting the navy officers.  Sanji casually lit up a cigarette, waiting for them to make their move; but none dared.  Zoro smirked, “Are they really all too chicken-shit to come at us?”

Iris smiled and summoned up her strength and will once again to push aside her pain and injuries and stand tall; she would fight, even if it killed her.  She took the scythes from her back and walked slowly out to stand beside them.  Feeling someone approach them from behind, they both glanced in her direction, eyes widening when they realized who it was.  “Iris!” Zoro exclaimed in shock, first at seeing her there on the battlefield with them, but second at her condition.  “What are you doing here?!  Why would you come here?  You should be recovering at the ship!” he spoke sharply, studying her eyes for explanation, worry more than anger filling his own.

She met his gaze, holding it for as long as the battle would allow her and drinking in the concern, the emotion, the… fear?  Was that fear she saw in his eyes?  Of what?  Just moments ago he was calling the marines chicken-shit, what could possibly frighten Roronoa Zoro?  And why the sudden change in his demeanor?  He had been so confident, what was this torrent of emotion she saw in his face?  She took a strained breath before speaking, causing Zoro only more alarm.  “I came here to fight with the Straw Hats,” she said, voice full of both pain and hope, then added shyly and more quietly to him alone, “I wanted to fight at your side,” hoping he understood what she meant as it was too difficult for her to breathe and explain further.  Zoro only stared at her in disbelief and sorrow; losing all focus on the battle and failing to notice the advance of the vice-admirals behind him.

“Got it!” Usopp yelled in triumph as the software was successfully reprogrammed and the GPS system was shut down.  “Let’s go meet up with the others and burn this place to the ground.”  

“First, let’s use the system to find the vault and unlock it.  Then, we can go find the others.  We’ve got all the monsters out there, it’s not like they’re really going to be in rough shape or anything,” Nami said excitedly, anticipating an enormous increase in the Straw Hats’ wealth soon.  Usopp and Robin only smirked at Nami’s enthusiasm, then two of the three turned to the door to see a pool of blood where Iris had been.  They had been so focused in their work that they only now noticed that Iris had disappeared.

“I-Iris?” Usopp called out, with no answer.  “She’s gone!”

“Where could she have gotten off to?  And how?!  She’s a mess!” Nami declared, searching rapidly through surveillance files to find the vault.  Like a divining rod, she quickly found what she was looking for and made a mental note of the vault’s location.

“There’s no time now to figure out where or why, let’s meet up with the others and we can all search for her,” Robin said calmly.  Nami and Usopp nodded in agreement and headed towards the nearest sounds of explosions, which turned out to be Luffy’s group at the loading dock, and Chopper was with them now as well.  Nami, Robin, and Usopp stood in the gaping hole in the side of the building, and studied the scene in front of them.  It was an open area, and the platoons of marines were no longer approaching them at this point; too many had already fallen.  They were regrouping quite a distance away from Luffy, Franky, Chopper and Brook; but Nami noticed something strange.  The groups that were being formed were not regular soldiers, but all ranked officers; vice-captains, captains, and even vice-admirals.  Nami finally took a moment to wonder at what the navy was doing here, anyway.  Hadn’t the World Government long ago abandoned this island as a lost cause?

“Luffy, we took the control room out, let’s get the money, find the others, and get out of here!” Nami yelled at him across the debris filled plaza.

“Nami!  You guys are alright!  Okay, good, let’s go,” he answered, turning to run towards them, but the navy officers seemed to have other ideas.  Luffy glared at them, and intimidated them with Conqueror’s Haki.  As much fun as the battle had been to this point, he was looking forward to burning the building down with the rest of his crew.  “What’s the navy doing here anyway?”

“I don’t know, but they’re not really giving us many opportunities to ask,” Nami said as they hurried back inside.

“Oi, have you seen Iris anywhere?” Usopp asked anxiously as they made their way to the front of the building, Zoro and Sanji being the only ones left to regroup with.

“You saw her?!  Is she alright?” Chopper asked hopefully, but said hope dwindled quickly as he saw the distress written across the others’ faces.  “What happened?”

“Robin and I were captured by the guards and being held in the basement, and she and Usopp came and rescued us.  But she was wounded and when we got to the control room, she disappeared.  We don’t know where she went,” Nami answered worriedly.

“She came to fight?!” Franky asked.

“Yeah, she’s pretty strong too!” Usopp exclaimed.  “She uses Haki and war scythes.”

The four that had just joined them looked at him in disbelief.  “Don’t look at me like that!  Why would I make something like that up?  Ask Robin and Nami, they saw her fight too!” Usopp defended.  The two girls nodded reluctantly; they were quite aware of how ridiculous it sounded, and wouldn’t have believed it either if they hadn’t seen it themselves.

“We’ll explain later, right now we’ve got to find everyone and finish this,” Nami said, then had another thought.  “I’m going to start looking for Iris, you go get Sanji and Zoro,” she added hastily with and devious grin and money dancing in her eyes.

“Uh-huh, clearly that was concern in her eyes as she practically flew towards the vault,” Usopp muttered; the rest only chuckled as they watched her dash off down a hall and then raced to the front doors.  They could hear crashes and blasts coming from the front of the building where Sanij and Zoro were; there had been a lull in the battle, but now it seemed the fighting had resumed at full strength.  The crew arrived at the rubble still attempting to present itself as the front doors, and looked on at the battleground that had rapidly descended into desperate.

The fight briefly paused as Zoro, Sanji, and Iris were now cornered by a squadron of officers, battling fiercely back to back to back, but it was painfully clear that they were on the defensive and losing ground.  The vice-admirals had taken advantage of Sanji’s and Zoro’s distraction by the arrival of Iris and swiftly descended upon the trio, attacking mercilessly, each strike intending to kill.  All used Haki, and several were devil fruit eaters, and the rapid barrage of their attacks made it difficult to assess what abilities each had and how to effectively counter and defend against them.  The assault of sniper attacks had stopped in order to avoid shooting the officers; that was the only saving grace of the situation at hand.  Now, both sides were calculating the most effective move to make next.

Sanji, Iris, and Zoro moved simultaneously, refusing to let the vice-admirals control the pace of the battle and turning back towards the offensive.  Sanji unleased a fiery flurry of kicks on at least a dozen of the officers in front of him, ducking and dodging an uncountable number of attacks from weapons, devil-fruit abilities, and armament Haki in doing so.  But even he couldn’t keep up with the onslaught of strikes, and an armament fist caught him in the back as the ground beneath his feet crumbled from a devil-fruit eater who could control the soil.  One of his legs was caught in the newly created hole and vice-admirals descended upon him from every direction; slashing, chopping, and pummeling the chef.

Iris wasn’t faring any better, she was facing off against fewer opponents but they were no less skilled than Sanji’s enemies.  Swords swished through the air at her from all sides, and the Straw Hats could see the strength that Usopp, Nami, and Robin had been talking about earlier.  Her eyes were closed, focusing all her remaining energy on observation, allowing her to land several strong slashes on the vice-admirals with her scythes.  Robin and Usopp noticed that her injuries had taken their toll, however; she was struggling with her right scythe and her arm wasn’t moving or reacting as quickly as her left.  On top of that, her stance had weakened; she was being pushed back far more easily than she had been before, and it became clear that her right leg wasn’t able to support her as well as before.  The vice-admirals quickly discerned her weaknesses and targeted the injured areas immediately, a club smashing into her right knee and snapping it inward, and a sword catching her right scythe and twisting her arm in an unnatural direction, causing her to shriek in pain as her shoulder was easily pulled out of socket once again.  A third officer took the opportunity to run her through with his cutlass.

Zoro turned at her cry of pain, just in time to see her fall to the vice-admiral’s sword.  He rushed to her, attracting the attention of her remaining enemies and facing off now against over twenty opponents.  He unleashed a fevered series of demon slashes, tiger traps, and dragon twisters to protect her from further damage; but for every strike he landed, three direct hits landed on him.  He fought through his ever increasing injuries as he sliced up the officer who had felled her to within an inch of his life before the impact of the other vice-admirals’ attacks forced him to his knees on the ground next to Iris.

Luffy and the others hesitated in horror witnessing two of the strongest members of their crew being worn down and slowly defeated.  The Straw Hats rushed in to fend off the attacks from the remaining vice-admirals and assist their crewmates.  Even the vice-admirals’ confidence wavered in the face of the majority of the strength of the Straw Hat crew, and they signaled a retreat.  Sanji was finally able to free himself from the earth trap that he had been caught in and joined Luffy and the others in chasing them off and saw them begin to regroup several blocks away as Chopper rushed to Iris and Zoro.

“No, no, no…” Zoro was repeating to himself as he turned her over and took in the damage she had sustained.  There was the huge hole running through her torso now, but he also noticed the bruising along her left side from her broken ribs and the deep stab would on her right; he couldn’t believe that she had come to the battlefield to fight with him with such serious wounds.  He lifted her head and studied her face for signs of life; Chopper placed a hesitant hand on the side of her neck, checking for a pulse.

“Zoro, she’s still alive.  Her pulse is weak and uneven, but it’s there,” he said quietly.  Zoro looked at him with panic and tears in his eyes.  Chopper winced at the unbridled agony in his face and hated what he had to say next.  “We’ll have to bring her back to the ship for me to fix her up; it looks like her lung is punctured, her ribs are broken, and she has massive internal bleeding.  But…” he hesitated, “it’s not very likely that she’ll even make it to the ship, much less through another surgery.”

Zoro’s head spun trying to put this together; she couldn’t die, she said she wouldn’t.  She wouldn’t burden him with her death, leaving him to regret and wish he had done more.  The tears spilled over silently and out of sight of the others; they had all fought with all their might, but what he regretted most now was not telling her once how beautiful she was, how compassionate she was, or how strong she was, both physically and in spirit.  Luffy walked up behind them.  “What are you waiting for?  Get back to the ship, we’ll take care of burning this place down.”  Zoro lifted his eyes from the maimed woman in his arms to his captain.  “You know it, too, don’t you?  That she’s strong?  She’s already part of our crew, she won’t die.  So you and Chopper need to take her back to the ship and get her fixed up fast.”  Zoro nodded, reassured by his captain’s confidence and renewed his determination to help her be free of this island, once and for all.