(One Piece) Book of Oneshots and Such

Magician AU

(Familiar! Katakuri X Magician! Reader) You have finally come of age to find a familiar. Problem is, you got separated from the rest of the group and are now hopelessly lost.

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"Fucking trees!" Once again losing your footing on the uneven forest floor, you slid down a ledge and fell face first into the mossy ground- and no, it was not pleasant, you nearly broke your nose on a branch! So don't laugh!

Scrunching your face up in an expression of agony, you just stared into the deep dark abyss that was your very existence and felt every bitter thought you've had for the past three hours come rising up from within your unreasonably angry brain.

Nothing bad will happen until you get to the camp! They said, All you have to do is stay with the group! They said.

Forcing yourself back up again, you rubbed your head tenderly before properly regaining your balance and standing back up again, now feeling a little more than a bit pissed with your current plight.

Well, they said nothing about what to do when you're getting attacked by a startled Behemoth and end up falling off a cliff!

Now, not only were you separated from the rest of your group, but you had no idea whatsoever where the trail to the camping grounds were anymore! After you fell off the cliff your senses of direction blurred somewhere and you lost all sense of self.

Groaning angrily, you caught wind of a throaty chuckle as the trees rustled above and proceeded to internally go on a rampage.

By now you were sure this was the work of a creature, and the disembodied chuckle only confirmed your fears, but you couldn't do a thing about it since you had no idea which creature it was.

Every creature required different steps, different protocols, and all that magical shit, if you did something even remotely wrong there was the chance of being killed and eaten or worse, married to some magical deity.

You promptly gagged at the thought.

Pouting to yourself at that, you only accepted your fate and trudged on, waiting for whatever the creature was to have his fill of your misery before moving on, hoping that it was just mischievous considering a more aggressive beast would have already lunged at you by now.

As the trees inevitably got thicker and thicker, you struggled more and more to keep your feet from tripping over dug up roots and coiling vines.

Once you made it by a cluster of weeping willows, the tiny hairs on your back jumped on end as a horrible wailing pounded your ears, in response, the branches above you shook wildly as the creatures that have been tormenting you fled in a blind dash.

Whatever was making that horrid sound was obviously something greater than those tricksters, and you should have run off too, but..

Whatever it was, it was definitely in a lot of pain, the screams it was letting out were akin to bloody murder, and it made your skin crawl thinking that somebody was being tortured to death.

The heavy guilt of knowing there was a creature in immediate need for help and refusing to offer aid really nagged at your kindly nature, and you knew this would probably haunt you for a while if you didn't at least see what it was.

Against your better judgement, you clumsily crept through the weeping willows and parted the leafy curtains, unveiling a creature struggling in a bewitched monster hunting trap.

You didn't recognize it from your official hand-guide, but that didn't disenchant you in the least.

It was a demi-human with their leg trapped within the bloody maiden style spikes of a poacher trap, clawing and scrapping at the device with desperation, however, it only proceeded to make the trap tighten and draw out more blood, staining the grass of the small enclosure a deep red.