Stolen // One Piece

chapter twenty-six

As they neared the top of the mountain, Luffy began to feel a knot grow in his stomach, tightening with each step he took. He felt uneasy, like he was being watched. The voices in the back of his head began nagging at him.

Not going to make it, one voice told him. It sounded like Garp, gravelly and husky and old-man-ish and condescending. The knot grew tighter.

Death is waiting, said another. This one sounded more like Ace, soft and melancholic, and Luffy wished desperately the voice would whisper something more... enthusiastic, or kind. Luffy huffed, pushing the voices away.

Only an idiot would continue, boomed Shanks from the corner of his mind, and Luffy could practically see the eye roll and disbelieving head shake. He felt his heart squeeze a bit in self-loathing but he continued.

You're putting Kaito in danger, a quiet, melodic female voice added, and Luffy couldn't put it to a face. The woman sounded warm, and comforting, but all at once he could hear the worry lining her voice. It was such a familiar sound, and yet, he was sure he had never heard anything like it. You have to be careful, Little One, it continued, both of you are in grave danger. Luffy ignored the voice, mentally shoving the voice into whatever memory box it escaped from.

"Luffy?" Kaito interrupted, voice trembling in fear. The aforementioned brunet whipped his head to the side, to see the younger boy standing incredibly still, face frozen in fear. The older boy stopped, and turned to see what Kaito was staring at.

Luffy's stomach dropped.

Bluejam was only twenty feet in front of the two, arms crossed and a malicious smile darkening his already vicious features.

Luffy's first instinct was to try and fight, but he soon realized how dangerous that would be because of his injuries, and so instead, he grabbed Kaito, threw him over his shoulder, and turned to run in one fell swoop, but he stopped. Behind the pair, hundreds of Bluejam's pirates began pouring out from behind the trees on the path, and surrounded them.

"Well, fuck," Luffy said, carefully putting Kaito down. The older boy wanted desperately to try and escape, but he knew if he tried he would fail and if he failed, Kaito would die. So he surrendered, albeit mostly unwillingly.

"Hello again, Luffy."

~ ~ • ~ ~

Luffy and Kaito were chained and dragged back down the mountain, undoing all the progress they had made. Luffy was honestly more annoyed about that than being recaptured, surprisingly.

Currently, as they stood in the dense mountain-base forest, a blade was pressed against his Adam's Apple, but he dared not move as several feet across from him was Kaito, frozen in place. Another one of the Bluejam pirates had the barrel of a gun pressed to the boy's temple, his bulky, sausage-like finger resting dangerously on the trigger.

"Do you know, Luffy, what I'm going to do to you?" Bluejam put a steady hand on Luffy's shoulder, digging his thumb into the recently reopened wound by his collarbone. The boy winced. "I'm going to make you watch as I kill your little friends, and I will make you stare into their pleading eyes, and they will beg for me to let them live, and you will watch." Luffy felt a small amount of fear, but with every emphasized word Bluejam spoke, spittle came flying out like a continuously used flute, which made being intimidated difficult. Luffy sighed.

"Doesn't that seem just a little bit much, to you? Like, you've already got me," he moved his head to gesture at the chains binding his wrists, "so why do you want to waste your time on a group of people that have literally nothing to do with my escape?" Bluejam narrowed his beady eyes.

"I want you to suffer." With that, Bluejam turned to one of his goons, and stuck out his hand. The burly goon handed him some kind of small vial, filled with a dark green plant, that looked kind of like moss.

Bluejam removed the cork and turned to Luffy, a malicious smirk playing at his lips. Luffy was at once intrigued and terrified of the contents in that vial. He had tried enough of the medicinal drugs Chopper kept onboard (most of these instances were out of curiosity and left Chopper irked) to know that many caused hallucinations and others could cause death.

"What is it you want, Bluejam?" Luffy asked, eyeing the vial. "Other than revenge, I mean. Money?" Bluejam began pinching at the contents of the vial, failing to grab the moss-like drug inside. "A map?" Bluejam huffed, his patience with the vial thinning rapidly. "Jewels?" The evil pirate motioned at another one of his goons to remove the contents of the vial, who also failed. "Treasure?" Annoyed, Bluejam grabbed the vial from the goon and threw it down on the ground, and pinched the bridge of his nose when it did not shatter. "Honor? Nobility?" Bluejam's head snatched up, and Luffy shivered under his intense gaze.

"No pirate like you could even grant me a chance at nobility." Luffy swallowed the lump in his throat.

"I could ask my grandpa to convince the other marines to grant you nobility. Or," he began as Bluejam turned, "or I could even make my father grant you a place as nobility." With this, Bluejam froze in place, and Luffy could practically hear the gears turning in his head.

Bluejam shrugged, stomped on the bottle, and the crunch of glass made Luffy's stomach churn. The evil pirate bent down, grabbed the moss-like drug, and brushed the pieces of glass off. He stood, turned to Luffy, and nodded at the pirate that held his shoulders.

Luffy's mouth was forced open. Bluejam shoved his hand down Luffy's throat, and forced the drug down. It tasted like copper, and had the consistency of dirt.

"Ew," mumbled Bluejam, wiping the boy's saliva off of his hand.

"Please! Just let us go! I promise I can get you to be a noble, but please just let us go," Luffy begged. His head had already started pounding. 

Bluejam crossed his arms, paused for a moment, and then nodded at both of the goons. Luffy and Kaito were released, but the bindings remained. They walked quickly from the other pirates.

"We're free!" Kaito said excitedly, the largest smile that Luffy had ever seen lighting up his features.

"I can't wait for you to meet my crew," Luffy replied, just happy that Kaito was safe.

At that moment, a single shot rang out, echoing through the trees and scaring the birds away.

Kaito fell to the ground.