By Your Side

Chapter 2

After checking the Sunny, not finding anyone, our next best move was to climb the giant leg. We said bye to Barto and his crew as Kanjuro drew a pink looking uh... thing, poorly at that, and climbed on top of it as we made our way up.

After a long time, and a couple of failed attempts, we finally made it up to the top. "Ryunouske, great job, I'm so proud of you." Robin placed her hand on his head, voice cracking as tears pooled her eyes. "Oh dear, your changing back..."

I noticed how hard Ryunouske was breathing, fading back into a drawing. Awe poor guy, must've been hard carrying all of us to the top...

"Wow, you sure knocked it out of the park! Nice going-" Usopp stopped his praises, noticing what was happening. "NO HOLD ON!"

"RYUNOUSKE!" Luffy shouted, as he and Franky followed Usopp to where Robin and I were.

"You can't leave, we're not done thanking you!" Usopp exclaimed, as Ryunouske simply gave a closed eyed smile as he kept fading away.

"Please, Ryunouske!" The three shouted out, tears in their eyes.

"RYUNOUSKE!"

"I LOVE YOU BUDDY!"

"YOU'RE A TRUE HERO!"

I wiped the tears from my eyes, clasping my hands in front of me as they chanted his name over and over. "WE'LL NEVER FORGET YOU!"

"This is dumb." Law stated bluntly.

"It's just a crappy drawing." Zoro spoke up as the two were walking away.

"Show some respect, you jerks! You can a least thank him for bringing you all this way!" Usopp shouted at the two.

"Yeah, what he said!" I shouted, pointing at the two. "Ryunouske did all the work while you two just rode along!"

"We don't know this area well... let's stay alert." That's all Zoro said as he continued walking. He so serious, hmph. I pouted.

"Shishishi, hey Usopp, Ryunouske was great huh?" Luffy ran up to Usopp, cheering him up.

"Never stop looking ahead, see that?" Zoro spoke up once more, causing all of us to look in his direction. "Must be the gate to the country. There really is a civilization on the elephants back."

"Cool, come on!" Luffy shouted, running ahead to catch up.

"How'd you guys get over our friends death, already?" Usopp questioned, as Luffy and Franky completely forgot about Ryunouske.

"No point in thinking about it, you know how Luffy's mind works. As for Franky, he... well I don't know." I told Usopp before I began running after the others. "We better get going!"

———

Luffy, as always, took off on his own wanting to explore. As the rest of us made our way through the forest, somehow, trouble managed to find us.

We were attacked by one of the Minks when another one came out, telling us to head to the West.

"Usopp, I'm sure that they aren't dead." I sweat dropped as he kept wailing.

"But she said we'd find a corpse there, and you know what corpses are? DEAD THATS WHAT!" He rebutted back, as he flailed his arms.

"She did say corpse, which means they weren't eaten." Robin stared, as she thought it out.

"THATS NOT THE POINT, STOP BEING SO MORBID!" He screamed, still terrified of what's to come.

"Still, if that were the case, why not just kill us as well?" I mumbled out, not sure of anything.