Towering Memories and Treasured Dreams

Floor 9: Sea and Land

"This is getting good!" Franky cheered out as they went racing up the next flight of stairs. "C'mon! We're almost at the end of the battle! I can't wait to see myself kicking some ass!"

"Wait up!" Luffy and Usopp both yelled as they went running after him, jumping up onto his massive shoulders and laughed as Chopper leapt up onto Franky's head until they looked like some giant four headed monster making their way upwards.

Nami and Sanji went right up after them, still trying to warn them not to get careless or do anything stupid while they were here, before they would look at each other and wonder why they would say such a thing. They knew that they were never gonna listen.

Zoro just followed right behind them, starting to get annoyed as he was, once again, wondering what the point was for going up these stairs and seeing these memories. How was it even possible? Before, they were stuck on some kind of Ghost Island and running after some kind of living slime from hell or something. He just couldn't see the connection from that to this tower... or if there was even a connection at all. He could not help but feel that someone was leading them around on a leash... and it seemed that he wasn't the only one who was thinking like that.

He realized that Robin was starting to fall behind him and he stopped to look. He could just barely see her in the dark as she stood there, yet he knew her long enough to know that she was lost in thought.

"What is it?" he asked when he noticed how she suddenly stopped walking.

"I don't know," Robin said softly with a slight frown. "But I just have this bad feeling that we're not supposed to be here."

Zoro just looked on, wondering what he should say, but she shook her head a second later and seemed to force a smile as she reassured him, "Maybe being in this cold tower is making even me feel grim."

"Making even you feel grim?" he asked with an eyebrow raised. "You say morbid things all the time."

"Oh, I only say that for entertainment," she smirked. "Rarely do I mean it. I suppose I do it just to tease the others."

"More like scare them?" Zoro asked knowingly as her eyes seemed to shimmer at the idea.

"Hey guys!" Luffy's impatient whine called from the top of the stairs. "Hurry up! We wanna keep seeing more memories!"

"We better get going," Zoro muttered to her. "Or else the captain is gonna keep whining like that. Besides, I wanna see Hody get his ass kicked so hard that he shuts up." He added that last part in an undertone, more to himself then to her, but she heard it anyway and chuckled as the two of them continued up the rest of the way and onto the next floor.

Soon they were all back underwater... and the first thing they saw was that they were still next to the falling Noah, with Shirahoshi still holding onto the bubbled memory Luffy.

"Master Luffy, there's lots of air on Noah now!" Shirahoshi said just as the big bubble finished completely covering the ship and the whole thing was nestled inside it.

"Yeah, that's great," memory Luffy said before they heard Hody's laugh behind them again.

"You can't escape from me!" he threatened madly, already racing down to chase them.

"You know, all of this seems to be taking a long time," Usopp said as he watched the ship. "You think that the ship would've crashed into the island by now...? N-Not that I'm complaining or anything! I'm just saying that it's kinda strange."

"That's just because Hody's mouth keeps making it feel much longer than it is," Sanji offered with a shrug. "Forget about it and just watch him get beat."