The goings-on at Thriller Bark were always unnatural. It was only natural, ironically enough, seeing as the island was populated by sentient paintings and trophies, there were creepers in the crypt, laughing ghosts flitting through the air, and said air was absolutely thick with eldritch fog. Unnatural was synonymous with 'normal' on the island.
But even as relatively unnatural as Thriller Bark was, the sight of a speedo-clad cyborg swinging around a giant pair of flaming oaks linked by a chain to bash down the walking dead as though he were playing a macabre, jumbo-sized game of Whack-A-Mole was a whole new level of 'weird' for the island's ghastly inhabitants.
"C'MON, YOU ROTTIN' ASSHATS!" Franky cackled, hoisting his flaming makeshift nunchaku. "I GOT LOADS MORE WHERE THAT CAME FROM!"
"HEY!" one of the zombies protested indignantly as it poked its head out from behind the XL-sized headstone it'd been hiding behind. "YOU'RE NOT ALLOWED TO BE FREAKIER THAN US! THIS IS OUR TURF! THAT'S OUR RIGHT, YOU BIG METAL BASTARD!"
"Huh? Is that so?" Franky blinked in surprise. "Well, then, if that's the case—!"
SLAM!
"GAH!" the zombie howled in shock as both he and the gravestone were smashed into the ground.
"—I DON'T REALLY GIVE A DAMN!" the cyborg roared at the top of his lungs.
Currently, the Straw Hat-led war against the unnatural inhabitants of Thriller Bark was going apace. For all that the zombies outnumbered the living pirates nearly a dozen revenants to a man, the warm-blooded faction of the war vastly outskilled and/or outpowered most of the zombies. The gap was, on average, big enough to take out the zombies one at a time.
However…
"YOU BASTARD!" the smashed zombie roared, peeling himself off the soil, lumps of stone falling from flesh, ignited in several places
Franky frowned grimly as he was forced to take a step back on account of the flattened undead and a half-dozen others surging forward, a veritable tide of dead flesh rushing at him.
The fact remained that, for all that the Straw Hats were holding their own against the zombies, neither were they making any progress. After all, the zombies might have been without any noteworthy skills, but they were also without any pain. And without pain, they had no reason to stop attacking. And not just personally, either. Every minute, more and more zombies of all shapes and sizes were arriving from all over the manor and the rest of the island, adding to the bulk of the brawl. Sure, they were salting them all…
"RAAAAGH!" Luffy bellowed, his voice echoing a hundred times over with righteous fury. This fury was thoroughly reinforced by the reverberating roar of the flaming chainsaw that topped his pipe, complemented by the hockey mask he wore, and accentuated by the fact that he was a hulking blue muscleman almost as tall as Moriah.
The icing on the cake was the screams of the zombies and their desiccated flesh as they were both rent asunder by the swings of Luffy's nightmarish weapon.
Franky held back a bark of laughter as he watched the zombies literally fall to pieces. And sure, they were managing to incapacitate the zombies in a variety of other ways…
"CHAAAARGE!"
Franky's grin died as a fresh crowd of zombies literally threw themselves into the fray.
…But the unfortunate fact was that for each one they put down, three more and counting took their place. It was just a dozen-to-one now, but sooner or later it'd be two dozen, then three, then however many more until either Moriah ran out of zombies or they started losing people, whichever came first.
And not even Luffy was stupid enough to bet on the zombies running out first.
Still, one thought cheered Franky and prompted him to heft his nunchuks again: the zombies weren't the only ones with reinforcements coming.
The Straw Hats had their own people waiting in the manor's wings, and once they were all good and ready, they'd be getting reinforcements of their own.
"This is gonna take all night," Franky grumbled. Snorting, he readjusted his nunchuks. "Eh, whatever; Cross and the rest'll be here soon enough."
-o-
"This is taking forever," I groused.
Unfortunately for us all, the process of getting from Point A (the dining room) to Point B (the base of Hogback's tower) was proving to be leagues more complicated than it had any right to be. Seriously, all we had to do was drop off Hogback, who wasn't even struggling due to Conis dragging his unconscious carcass along by the ankle. But there was an… obstacle in the way of that particular endeavour.
"Right up ahead…" Soundbite informed us, his voice brimming with exasperation.
We took the turn he indicated…
"SONNUVABITCH!"
And our hit-and-miss guide expressed what we were all feeling as we were greeted once again with a dead-end hallway.
"Fifth in as many minutes…" Lassoo chuffed dryly.
"'Easy to navigate, you said, 'know your way around this place like the back of your shell, you said," Usopp commented with a sidelong glance at my partner. "What happened to our self-proclaimed 'god of noise?' And while I'm on it, have you ever even seen the back of your shell?"
"BITE ME!" the snail exploded. "I CAN'T HEAR SHIT WHEN THERE'S NOTHING TO HEAR! These asshats have ghost walking down to an art form. MY MAP IS HIT AND MISS AT BEST. AND BESIDES THAT, I NEED TO BE CAREFUL TO MAKE SURE—!"
"Hey! What's going on here?!"
Soundbite's eye twitched furiously. "That doesn't happen."
We all turned around to behold a quartet of shambling horrors staring at us from the intersection. Three of the patchwork wad-brains were wearing metal buckets on their head and the fourth was sporting… a… orange rubber traffic cone?
"…morbid curiosity here, where the heck did you dig that little piece of headgear up?" I wondered.
The zombies' response to my wholly innocent query was quite rude… namely, they all roared and charged at us.
'Attempted' being the keyword here, seeing as Conis, Usopp and Lassoo promptly dispatched them all with an air of ease bordering on, well… boredom.
"Come on!" Lassoo yipped. "Isn't there anybody more—nope! Nope nope nope! Not saying it!"
"At this point, I'm bored enough that I'd be willing to risk saying it," Robin muttered, before speaking up. "But before we stumble into another dead-end passage, I'd like to try something else."
With that, hands sprouted from the floor, propping up the unconscious Hogback—and then repeatedly bitch-slapping him.
Seriously. There was no other way to describe it. And in fairness, it did the trick; Hogback's head jerked off the floor, wheezing against the napkin gag we'd thought to stuff in his mouth on our way out of the dining room. His expression as he froze under our combined gazes was priceless, too.
"Do try to face this with some dignity," Robin drawled, sprouting another hand on his neck that clamped onto a very specific part of his throat. "Now, I trust you'll recognize that that is your carotid artery I'm holding, yes? Let me be blunt: if we deliver you to Chopper, there is a good chance you will not survive the encounter. However, if we remain in these labyrinthine corridors for five more minutes…"
Hogback did his name proud when he squealed at Robin twisting the flesh she was holding.
"I can guarantee that you will not survive me. So, all of that being said…" Robin's hands sprouted all around the doctor, and both shoved and pulled him to his feet, so that she could smile frigidly in his face. "Which way to your laboratory, Mister Hogback?"
Hogback shivered in place for a few seconds before hesitantly shuffling past her and back down the way we'd come.
I cocked an eyebrow and leaned in close to Robin as we followed. "Do you think he realizes that anything you could possibly do to him would be a fair sight kinder than whatever it is Chopper's got up his sleeves?" I whispered.
Robin's response was to chuckle beneath her breath. "Oooh, I'm certain he'll figure it out in due time."
"Well, seeing as we've got time to burn…" Lassoo hummed thoughtfully. "Anybody up for I Spy?"
"Any other day, maybe," Conis sighed with a despondent look as she reloaded her guns with fresh shots of salt. "Right now, I'm too preoccupied worrying about how Su is doing…"
For whatever reason, that set Soundbite off, sniggering like a loon.
-o-
"HEY, WAKE UP!"
THWACK!
"GWAH!" a painting-zombie snorted awake as a hefty weight was slammed into its jaw. That done, it glared bloody murder at its equally lopsided compatriot as it readjusted its top hat. "What was that for?!"
"Get pissed at me later, you lethargic loitering louts!" the bodybuilder-like zombie snarled, swinging its head back and forth to address the entire hallway and the dozen or so paintings that had just been roused. "Right now, you need to get off your damn wall and get moving, quick!"
"Eh?" another of the paintings blinked in confusion, sleep still clouding its mind. "The heck are you talking about?! What's—?!"
KA-BOOM!
Almost as if in response, a catastrophic explosion rang out in the distance.
"We're being attacked, flat-faces!" the bodybuilder snapped, glancing fearfully towards the site of the explosion. "Full-frontal assault on the manor! It's all hands on deck, even Surprises like you! So, get your flat-asses in motion already!"
"Gah, alright, alright!" the painting yelped, the lot of them hastily hopping their frames off the wall before dragging themselves away.
"So, what, we've got an attack on the front doors? Is it really that bad!?" asked one of them.
"It's worse, damn it!" the bipedal brawler ranted as he led the way. "We've got no chain of command! Nin, Bao and Gyoro went to wake Master Moriah forever ago, but we haven't heard anything from any of them! And from what I've heard, Hogback's insisting that we all steer the hell clear of his dining room so that he can keep the 'guests' he has fooled, Perona and Absalom both just up and disappeared into thin air, and no laughing!"
"Wasn't gonna!" the painting hastily coughed out.
"Anyway…" the musclebuilder shook his head grimly. "Ryuma's trying to take command, but he's also itching to fight, so that's no help. None of the other Generals has anywhere near as much clout as him, Hildon's never had to command so many of us at once, and there's the fact that there's somebody in the damn manor slaughtering us wholesale!"
"Really? How are they doing it?"
"Nobody freaking knows!" The revenant threw his arms up in frustration. "They don't leave any survivors! All we know is that they're hitting them faster than they can react, and that for some reason they always leave one zombie standing so that they can realize they're screwed before salting them too! It's totally frustrating!"
"…Uh, how would you know that if they're all purified?"
"Because every site I've been to, most of the zombies look like they just fell in place, but there's always the one zombie that looks terrified. It's not hard to figure out that they watched the rest fall, and had just enough time to panic before they lost their shadow, too!"
"So… you kinda mean like your situation now?"
"Eh? What the hell are you talking about—?"
The zombie froze in his tracks. Then, very slowly, he turned around, and what little blood was in his face left it as he took in the Surprise Zombies he had roused, one and all, lying on the ground, truly lifeless. He started frantically looking around, one musclebound hand over his mouth and the other clenched into a fist, ready to deck whoever tried to—
"Ahem."
A quiet cough came from beneath him, and he looked down to see a frankly adorable little white fox sitting at his feet, looking up at him with its head tilted. He blinked in confusion.
"I'm a little over a foot long, tiny, and I'm far faster than you could ever hope to be," Su flatly stated. "Run."
If there was one good thing to be said about the situation, it was that that particular zombie wouldn't have to live with the shame of being terrified out of his wits by something smaller than one of his fists.
Instead, he chose to spend his final moments running like hell was on his heels, which… technically it was.
When he suddenly felt the rat's claws climbing up his back, the zombie screamed for help…
"BUT NO ONE CAME…"
And then he felt something get shoved down his throat, and all was oblivion.
Su eyed the still-cool corpse and hopped off of it before glancing up at the air. "Third time you've used that line. Reference?"
"Ohhh, you're just living what I like to call a…" Soundbite chuckled malevolently. "Genocide Run."
A minor sweatdrop hung from the back of Su's head at that. "Sounds… sinister."
"OHHH, IT IS, IT IS. BUT FOR ONCE, I don't feel like a scumbag FOR LISTENING IN! This is actually kinda fun!"
"Heh, that's for sure!" Su snorted happily as she pounded one paw in the other. "I'm going through these clowns like Robin through Marine bones! It feels nice to be doing this much damage!"
"Enjoy the dream, mon ami, enjoy—EH? Hang on a…" Soundbite trailed off into silence for a second before 'tsk'ing in exasperation. "DAMN IT, THE ZOMBIES ARE COORDINATING A FRONT, GOTTA BREAK THAT UP. You're gonna have to go blind for a bit. SORRY."
"Meh, fine by me, I'm getting good at this," Su waved her tail dismissively, even as she started padding back to the spider-tunnels. "Any parting advice?"
"Nah, you're—OH, WAIT, ONE THING! DID YA NOTICE THAT TOWER FIVE FLOORS UP and six corridors westwards?"
"Eh…" Su swished her tail thoughtfully as she started spelunking the wall's catacombs. "I think so, while I was in the north wing. What about it?"
"Don't go into it, OR ELSE."
"Eh?" Su blinked in surprise, coming to a sudden halt. "'Or else' what?" She started to climb again, before suddenly slipping a foot when a flat, droning voice spoke bloody murder in her ear.
"YOU'RE GONNA HAVE A BAD TIME… GOT IT?"
"Aheheh… yeah, got it…" Su shivered fearfully.
"Glad to hear it!" Soundbite said, his smile back in his voice. "Have fun!" And with that, the omnipotent voyeur's trademark electric whine snapped out of place.
The very instant she was out from under the vocal barrel, a mischievous smirk came across Su's muzzle, and she made a beeline in a very specific direction. Six corridors west, and five floors up, and with only a few scant spider-mice in the way, she reached her destination in no time at all.
Snickering eagerly, she pushed open a trapdoor that led up and into the tower's base - and then blinked in confusion at the hollowed out and, more importantly, web-filled tube of stone.
"The heck…?" she mused as she slowly crawled up into the tower. "What is this place, the den of those rat-rachnids? Why the hell wouldn't Soundbite want me coming here? I mean, psh, c'mon." She sat on her haunches and shrugged her forelegs with a shake of her head. "With the rate I've been tearing through those ratfinks, I doubt there are even over a dozen left in this manor! C'mon, what's the big deal?"
"I believe that honour…" a silky-smooth voice purred above the cloud fox, causing a shiver to run up her suddenly ramrod-straight spine. "Would belong to me."
Veeeeery slowly, Su tilted her head up, and stared headlong into the twitching rictus-grin of the far too literal spider-monkey that was hanging above her by its too-too-too many legs, as well as the dozen-or-so smaller but no less vicious grins that were crawling around it.
"Now, then," Tararan leered venomously. "What were you saying… about my mice?"
The rodent-rachnid hybrids skittering around their boss all tittered malevolently in agreement.
"Uhhh…"
Su was saved from having to answer by an electronic whine heralding her backup's return.
"OK, back in business, YOU MAY RESUME YOUR USUAL WORSHI—!" Soundbite choked off a sentence into his tirade and remained silent for a moment before sighing morosely. "Dare I ask WHY?"
"…I wanted the challenge?" Su weakly offered.
"…Ironically? THAT'S THE SAME JUSTIFICATION MOST PEOPLE GIVE FOR THE GENOCIDE RUN."
Su's ear and tail drooped miserably. "Ooooh fuck me."
Tararan's head all but split in half as he opened his mouth wide, unveiling a pair of twitching mandibles. "Gladly."
And with that, the beast wrenched its limbs free from the walls and allowed several metric tons of flesh and chitin to plummet towards the self-titled powder-fox.
"Yow!" Su yelped as she all but flung herself away from the falling spider-monkey-zombie, which slammed into where she'd been seconds before and kicked up a cloud of dust Skidding to a halt, she spared a half-second to glance over her shoulder before hastily shooting into motion as a titanic spider leg slammed clean through the brick she'd been standing on moments earlier.
"Hahahahaha! That's it, little tunnel rat!" Tararan cackled as he raised and slammed down another one of his legs, Su smoothly flowing around it. "Run! Flee! You cannot escape!" Another leg slammed down, and only a hasty pirouette saved the cloud fox from two superfluous new orifices.
"Wasn't planning to!" Su snarled, finally skidding behind the massive zombie and tensing her legs for a leap. Tension that allowed her to jump back when Tararan's massive rear slammed into the stonework, shattering it. "Are you serious?!"
"Monkey monkey! I have no blind spots!" the zombie bragged. "But you are a quick little tunnel rat, aren't you?" Raising one of its hands, it snapped its fingers. "Get 'er, boys."
Gritting her teeth, Su jumped back right as a small web stuck itself to the stone, shooting a glare up at the spider-mice infesting the lines above her.
"Right, that's it, I'm sick of being target practice!" she snapped, dodging several more webs before hopping up onto one of the larger—and more importantly, drier-looking—ones attached to the walls. "Time for a counterattack!"
One spider-mouse, too low to the ground, was salted immediately. The rest just cackled at her before shooting more webs. With the lines, it was easy to dodge them; it was much harder to actually get at the damn things. They were hopping around like chinchillas on speed, and despite her lofty words about counterattacks, it was all she could do to stay ahead of their webs.
"Sticky Spider Net!"
And that was without the giga-sized asshole crawling around below her, complicating her life!
Bending back on her hind legs in a move that would have done Neo proud, Su watched in slack-jawed amazement as a stream of webbing thicker than she was only just shot past her, sweeping three of the spider-mice with it.
"Right, gotta remember him, too…" she muttered. Then a thought occurred to her, and she eyed the chittering spider-mice above her, then Tararan. "I~de~a~!"
Hopping onto the web she'd identified, she tracked the spider mice readying their attack runs. Just needed to get them in the right spot, and—
"Hey, Tartarface!" she shouted down.
"Monkey monkey! It's Tararan!" the zombie in question snapped.
"Couldn't care less~!" Su sang back, idly spinning around another web. "Look, this has been bugging me this entire time: is that actually your ass you're sporting, or do you just have a plus-sized beetle chewing on your—?"
Any further taunts were killed flat by a wave of killing intent flooding the room and freezing everyone in place.
"You. Are. Dead,"Tararan chittered venomously, his mandibles twitching with ill-repressed desire to rip and shred.
Silence fell on the tower, the spider-mice shivering in terror… until said terror was aborted by seven shadows shooting up into the ceiling via Su flicking her paw at their slack jaws.
"Well, didn't quite get what I was planning for, but it's all working out so beautifully that I can't complain," Su sneered, her tail flickering again to bring up a visible gob of salt. "So. Shall we do this properly this time?"
To her surprise and worry, Tararan's furious rictus-snarl melted into a sneer to match her own. "Yessssss, let's."
Before Su could act, a chittering sound reached her ears, and she spun around to find the three spider-mice that Tararan had inadvertently webbed earlier on her six and puckering up to spit their webs.
"Ah, shit," Su groaned, right before all three hit, wrapping her up in a neat little ball that bounced off the wall and onto the floor. "Owww… Lemme guess… I forgot that spiders don't get stuck in their own webs?"
"Eeheehee, eeheehee!" the spider-mice danced around joyously as they revelled in their victory. Or, basically, overganging up on a single Cloud Fox without any notable offensive capabilities.
Fingers like steel wrapped around her face, and the cloud fox was lifted up and treated to a close-up view of Tararan's open gullet. Needless to say, it was not a pretty sight.
"Dude. Whoever your dentist is, you need to—" Su began, before getting cut off by Tararan dropping her into his mouth and swallowing her whole.
"Monkey monkey… ah, blessed silence…" the spider-monkey-zombie sighed as he retracted his mandibles into his maw, the surviving spider-mice dancing around him in joyous exultation. That made the crash when their chieftain suddenly collapsed in a boneless heap all the deeper, his shadow-soul shooting out of his slack jaws.
A second after the astral embodiment escaped, Su hopped out as well, shaking herself down in order to dislodge what webbing remained stuck to her. "Honestly, now…" she sighed despondently. "Swallowing me whole like that, when my tail's weighing heavy with salt? Unbelievable. I mean, really, apart from my bandanna, I'm nude. Where did he think I was keeping this stuff, up my ass?"
"SOME PEOPLE JUST really aren't smart like that!" Soundbite cackled.
"Eeeyup…" Su sighed, casting a sidelong glance at the remaining spider-mice. Somehow, all three clenched up even more. "Oh, you're still here? Alright, then, who wants the salt first?"
The mice promptly shot away like their abdomens were on fire.
Su gave them a little time to run before allowing a smirk to cross her muzzle. "I might be the first fox anywhere in the history of ever to say this…"
She then shot after the mice in a blur of white.
"But, oh, how I love the hunt!"
-o-
"She took down Tararan on her own?!"
That would probably be the only time ever that Hogback and I spoke in perfect unison.
"IF BY TARARAN you mean the uber-sized double-exterminator package, THEN YUP!" Soundbite grinned from eyestalk to eyestalk, specifically directing his leer at Hogback. "Dunno where you got those brains of his, but I SUGGEST GETTING YOUR MONEY BACK! HEEHEEHEEHOOHOOHOOhahaha!"
"Yay, Su!" Conis pumped her fists enthusiastically, a massive grin on her face. "Good for her, I'm happy she's having fun!"
"In a… zombie-filled… haunted manor…" Usopp reiterated slowly.
That earned him an oblivious look from our gunner. "Yes, what's your point?"
Usopp worked his jaw for a second before slumping with a sigh of defeat. "Sometimes I miss the days when the world made sense, I really, really do…"
Hogback, meanwhile, remained frozen, staring back at the snail with a gaping mouth before slowly jerking his eyes forward, his fearful shivering redoubling. "This can't be happening, this can't be happening, this can't be—!"
"Save some of that fear and terror for Chopper, Hoggy," Lassoo chuffed even as he kept his nose pointed in the air, sniffing for any traces of necrotized flesh coming our way. "Seriously, if you thought you were crazy before—?"
"I am not crazy!" Hogback snarled, life actually flowing back in him. "I am not and have never been anything less than the absolute picture of mental health! It is a legitimate fact proven by a symposium of scientists the world over, which I myself was a part of, that doctors are incapable of suffering from the pedestrian affliction recognized as 'going mad'! The word you're looking for in my field is 'medical genius'! And you can see the proof of it for yourself, right behind these—"
"I think…"
We all froze as a chilling voice cut in, and watched with varying levels of trepidation as a titan of fur and fury walked out from behind an upcoming doorframe.
"That your conclusion could use some independent scrutiny," a very heavy Heavy Point Chopper growled, glaring syringes into Hogback's by-now sweat-coated spectacles.
"Ugugugugugugugugu—GURK!" The surgeon's sputtering was choked off by Chopper's fist clamping down onto the folds of his throat and single-handedly lifting him into the air.
"Let's see if you still stand by your opinion once I'm through with you, HOGBACK," our crewmate spat in his ex-idol's waxy face.
"Damn, dude…" Soundbite whistled in awe.
"This is the first time I've ever actually used this word," Robin murmured with a slightly taken-aback look. "But ditto."
"Yeah, yeah, yeah, he's freaky as all hell, we get that, we already know that from extreme personal experience…"
I glanced to the side and caught sight of the TDWS shifting around uncomfortably, their tails all twitching with ill-repressed eagerness.
"But now that he's got his pincushion, can we go already!?" Leo pleaded desperately.
I shot a slight smirk at the dugongs. "Eager to get to the battlefront, I take it?"
"THERE IS AN ARMY OF ZOMBIES OUT THERE, AND WE'RE NOT IN THE MIDDLE OF FIGHTING IT!" Mikey burst out, steam all but howling from where his ears would be. "DO YOU SEE HOW THE NATURAL ORDER IS BEING PERVERTED HERE!?"
I snickered at the reaction before deciding to do them the favour of jabbing my thumb over my shoulder. "Alright, alright, at ea—!"
"THAT'S CONSENT, GOGOGO!"
"—Gwah!?" I transitioned into a yelp of shock when I was nearly bowled over by the quarter's freaking slipstream! It was only Robin's hasty intervention that prevented me from falling on my ass.
"Tenacious little devils, aren't they?" she chuckled.
I took a moment to get my bearings back on track, a chuckle escaping my lips. "And we wouldn't have them any other way. And speaking of mentally unsound crewmates, hey Chopper!" I was actually quite proud of myself for not flinching when he transitioned a fraction of his glare from Hogback's sweat-soaked face. "Don't mean to break your buzz here, but I think the roll you're on is epic, seriously. I just wanted to let you know… don't do anything I wouldn't do."
"Uh…" Lassoo raised a paw uncertainly. "Isn't that kind of… superfluous, considering your whole… 'Spandam episode'?"
My grin took on a decidedly blood-laden overtone. "I stand by every word I just said."
Hogback's whimpering intensified as Chopper, Lassoo, and Robin matched my grin, and that was the last I saw before our doctor started dragging him away by his neck, the doors to the lab's stairwell ominously slamming shut behind him.
There was a moment of silence before, naturally…
"ALRIGHT, THEN!"
Soundbite broke it with a bang.
"Break out your parkas, kiddies, BECAUSE OUR NEXT DESTINATION IS NONE OTHER than Freezer 900!"
-o-
The events that would one day be published as the first-and-final war of Thriller Bark continued to rage before the mansion where the masters of the island dwelled. No zombie on Thriller Bark was inactive now; the Generals were being roused, and every other cadaver was assembling to fend off the infamous Straw Hat Pirates.
The fight seemed even as it was; for all that the invaders knew the zombies' weakness, the ones who weren't smart enough to guard their mouths were long since purified, and the remainder were putting up a decent fight. On the other hand, for all that the zombies were impervious to pain, they were quite simply only able to stand against the pirates because of their superior numbers.
Yet, for all of the warring, two figures moved through the crowd, not attempting to strike any combatants. Likewise, none of the combatants attempted to strike them. They moved unimpeded, side-by-side, towards the dead center of the fight. A point where another similarly uninvolved figure was approaching, walking at a perfectly leisurely stroll.
The reason that nobody was attempting to attack either of the noncombatants was simple: neither pirate nor zombie had any desire whatsoever to interfere with three of the most infamous swordsmen known to Thriller Bark, whether they were on the same side or not.
Zoro stayed a few steps back as Brook stood across from the zombie who bore his shadow, regarding him with the most polite of impassiveness. Ryuma, in turn, did nothing besides granting the skeleton the honour of his full attention. For an endless minute, all they did was stare at each other, their lack of eyes doing nothing to ease the tension driving all their allies and enemies alike away from them.
Finally, Ryuma broke the scene when he tilted his head ever so slightly to the side. "Yohoho…one more time, then, old boy?" the past-and-present samurai breathed quietly.
Brook stood still for a few seconds longer before slowly reaching up and drawing the brim of his top hat down over his eyes. "When we last met, my mind was awhirl with emotion. I let my grief and my desperation cloud my intuition as a swordsman. I see now what I could not then: that while you might hold my skills in spirit… in flesh, you far surpass me. And so, I concede any battles I might fight with you…"
The gentleman skeleton raised his head and glared at the samurai with defiant resolve. "But I refuse to end my fight here," he growled, heat flaring in his every word. "Rather, I choose to take the option that was robbed of me so many years ago: I started this fight, and I have done all that I can…"
"Meaning that now," Zoro spoke up solemnly, stepping forward as he tied his bandanna around his head. "It's my turn."
Brook's demeanour promptly lightened up, and he gave the closest approximation to a sunny smile he could. "Ah, yes, and for the record, while I appreciate your help, the fact remains that you're my very last hope in the whole wide world for escaping this hell with my pride as a swordsman, so if you lose, I'm going to haunt you until well after you die."
Zoro scoffed as he drew both Kitetsu III and the seriously old, yet equally ready, katana he'd found on the Rumbars' ship. "So, no pressure, then."
"Exactly!"
Zoro rolled his eyes a final time before turning them on Ryuma. His swords remained at his side, relaxed, and yet his guard was ironclad. Ryuma, for his part, betrayed nothing, and after several tense seconds under Zoro's gaze, he tilted his head back and chuckled.
"Yohohoho! I feel like some tremendous predator is sizing me up! It feels almost…" The cadaver tilted its head to its side. "Familiar."
Drawing his sword, Ryuma threw his head back and outright laughed. "Yohohoho! I accept this battle!"
The samurai had scarcely finished speaking before Kitetsu and the old katana swung in, held at just the right length to bisect him at the neck and just below the breastbone, Wado sneaking in at the shoulder level. A black blade, a wavy water pattern decorating it, flashed up, halting the swords.
It could not, however, halt the momentum of Zoro's swing. Despite bracing, Ryuma was sent skidding to the side, though his guard remained raised.
This was a good thing, as Zoro crossed his arms, blades pointed outward, their tips nearly touching. "Bull…" he growled, before sprinting forward. "Needles!"
To an outside observer, the sudden flip the swordsman went through as his blades met Ryuma's would have seemed like magic. Zoro, though, saw the truth: the zombie's black blade slipping between his, milliseconds before they would have stabbed him, and spinning. It was, essentially, a judo move with a sword, and as he landed, Zoro felt his respect for both the opponent in front of him and the owner of the shadow fueling said opponent go up a notch.
He had no time to think more on that, though, for Ryuma was on him, black blade thrusting forward to be caught on his crossed swords. Zoro made to counterattack, but the zombie withdrew himself, planting his other hand on the hilt and then double-tapping both Kitetsu and the old blade in a move that was both soft and delicate, and yet brought all the force of a hammer.
'Damn, a sword-breaking technique!' he realized just a second too late. Kitetsu rang from the abuse, but held; the uppity-old-timer in his other hand, however… well, suffice to say he went out with a bang.
"Yohohoho!" Ryuma chuckled at the look on Zoro's face. "I'm terribly sorry, I know it's not sporting, but I just have this feeling, you see! My instincts are telling me that if I hold anything back against you, then I shall surely perish! Yohohoho~!"
Neither of the combatants noticed Brook clamping his hands on his jawbone to refrain from saying, 'But you're already dead.' Zoro's inattentiveness was due to his recalling that Cross had mentioned this zombie came from the New World. Which meant…
"…Does that mean you're going to be using… what was it called… Haki?" Zoro asked with a grimace.
"Haki?" Ryuma parroted, his head tilting to the side. "I've heard rumours, but I'm afraid I cannot use it myself."
Zoro spared a glance over his shoulder at the fight's observer before heaving a sigh. "…I see," he mused, reaching up to Wado. "Well, in that case—!"
"Catch!"
Acting on instinct, Zoro snapped his hand out and easily snatched a sword with a very familiar pair of tusks on its hilt out of the air.
"Sorry to butt in like this," Funkfreed vibrated in his palm. "And I know I'm not exactly the katana you're used to, which is why you're not using Brook's, but I've got a strong will and… and… and c'mon, this is a fight between two master swordsmen! A once-in-a-wielder's lifetime opportunity! I couldn't resist! Please let me fight!"
"My word, that sword is talking!" Ryuma exclaimed.
Ignoring the zombie's outburst, Zoro silently hefted Funkfreed a few times before slipping back into his original relaxed stance. "Don't transform, or I'll throw you away, even if it kills me."
"Wouldn't even if you paid me…" the Zoan-blade breathed euphorically. "I wouldn't miss this for all the peanuts in the world."
That done, Zoro turned his gaze back to Ryuma. "Alright, thanks for letting me sort this out. Shall we get back to it?"
"Hold a moment," the samurai said, holding out a hand. "After that display, I believe I owe you…" He reached up to grip the collar of his scarf. "A courtesy of my own."
There was an immediate reaction to the samurai grabbing his neckwear, but it wasn't from him or Zoro or Brook either. Rather…
"OH, CRAP, RUN!"
It was from his fellow zombies, who, content up until now with merely keeping their distance and observing as they fought the enemy pirates, were running away from the fight as though their undead asses were on fire.
"OUTTA THE WAY, OUTTA THE WAY!"
"WATCH YOUR HEADS!"
"RYUMA'S GOING ALL-OUT! HEAD FOR THE FUCKING HILLS!"
Brook whipped his head to and fro, watching in confusion as the zombies retreated with extreme prejudice, the rest of the Straw Hats and the Rolling Pirates hot on their tails, leaving no one else to witness the fight. "What on earth…?"
"You'll have to forgive them," Ryuma hummed as he tugged his scarf down. The action drew the undivided attention of his opponent, as it unveiled a knot of surgical thread that was taut against his throat. "More than a few of them have been the victims of… unfortunate mishaps whenever I do this."
Zoro tensed as his instincts screamed. "'This' being…?" he grit out.
Ryuma stilled, his lipless grin turning feral. "Why… whenever I go all-out, of course."
And without further ado, Ryuma grabbed a thread of the knot and yanked, pulling it undone and letting the lines loose.
For a moment, nothing happened. Then, streams of dark ooze began seeping out of his body. Arms, legs, torso, all bled profusely with something that was clearly not healthy and just as clearly not organic. The flow lasted less than a minute, but it made the display no less disturbing.
Brook's hyoid bounced fearfully as he took in the desecration of his shadow's vessel. "W-What on earth—!?"
"Hahahaha! Ahhhh, yes!" Brook jumped in shock when Ryuma suddenly barked with laughter, swinging his torso left and right in obvious stretching motions. "Ooooh, this feels so good! I haven't felt this light in a long time! Now, then!" He eagerly held his blade up. "Just to be sure…"
The zombie-samurai swung his blade out, and all three of the Straw Hats stiffened in shock, and (even a little bit on Zoro's part) fear as their battlefield suddenly became devoid of all traces of fog.
"Ahhh…" Ryuma's sigh as he leaned his forehead against the back of his blade was almost euphoric. "Much better…"
The Straw Hats all stared at the display before them. Then, Funkfreed whispered a single word, in a whisper that was equal parts terrified and exhilarated.
"Lead."
"Indeed…" Ryuma chuckled grimly, cracking his neck back and forth. "A precautionary measure, Doctor Hogback implemented in me after the… third, I think? The third time I sliced a tower in half while practicing. Everyone was tired of cleaning up after me, so they decided that I'd be better off weighted down. I'm only ever allowed to truly let loose when I have need, and for once…"
A glint entered Ryuma's socket as he fell into a positively masterful ready-position.
"I have it…" the revenant breathed.
As Brook's already bone-white complexion grew even paler, Zoro's already eager grin became downright feral, easily matching Ryuma's. "Interesting."
This time, Zoro waited for the attack to come. He wasn't disappointed; Ryuma blurred out of existence. Spinning around, he planted Funkfreed in the ground, black blade slamming into him an instant later. Rearing back, Zoro stabbed forward with Kitetsu, only for Ryuma to vanish again, blurring back into existence behind his opponent.
"Zo—"
That was as far as Brook got before Zoro leaned his head back, catching the black blade on Wado Ichimonji. With his opponent at least briefly locked, he pulled Funkfreed out of the dirt and spun, Kitetsu joining the Zoan blade.
"Hawk Wave!"
Ryuma jumped over the sweeping steel and the razor-sharp wind they created, his sword sliding off Zoro's and carving a thin line on his cheek. The zombie landed, Zoro swung back upright, and then they charged, blades clashing and locking like a pair of bull elephants in full musth, the shockwave kicking up dirt and dust around them.
"Incredible…" Brook breathed.
"Impressive," Zoro grunted, before glancing at the sword in Ryuma's hands. "Now I recognize that sword: that's the black blade, the dragon-slayer Shusui." His eyes narrowed, seeming to come to a decision. "You're holding my sword."
"Hmm?" Ryuma's socket blinked, and then he stiffened in realization, narrowing it as he angled his Shusui so that it glinted in the battle-light. "Oho… so, this is your sword, is it?"
The shadows of Zoro's bandana seemed to tint pitch-black, and his eyes shone like hot coals in the gloom. "Damn right it is."
"Hmph. Well, if that's the case…" Breaking the lock, Ryuma leapt back, holding his blade in a basic kendo stance. "Come and take it."
With that, some sort of energy, in the kind of light blue of tropical seas and the hottest of flames, flared to life around the zombie. For a moment, the energy was just that: energy, wild and untamed, but then it started to take form. And the form it took…
Brook's jaw nearly dislocated with how low it dropped. "I-I don't believe my eyes…" he whispered.
Was that of a dragon? A 'mere' shade of one, perhaps, but a dragon nonetheless. Specifically, the energy coalesced into a positively colossal eastern dragon, whose bulk remained coiled and writhing in the sky while its head bowed to earth, to Ryuma. The swordsman was still visible through the spectre's form, but the abyssal blade, Shusui, was indistinguishable from the titanic obsidian tusk that formed the dragon's underbite.
"One Sword Style," Ryuma(The Dragon) intoned imperiously, the air thrumming with his voice, his voice thrumming with pure power. "Dragon Fang Stance."
Ryuma (The Dragon) raised his blade high (coiled to strike). "Prepare yourself, Roronoa Zoro!"
It didn't take a genius to see the implications, and Zoro was moving even before Ryuma (The Dragon) swung his blade down (lashed out like lightning).
"Dragon(Heaven) Slayer!"
It was a good thing Zoro was moving before the attack was completed, as the strike of the dragon was almost instant. And the impact… well, it wasn't so much an 'impact' born of the corporeal world as it was a force of almost cosmic proportions. A whole tract of earth just… ceased to be.
The fact that a goodly chunk of the forest was missing, too, was concerning, yes, but as Zoro observed the scar in the earth, he couldn't help but feel like he was missing something crucial.
"My apologies, swordsman…"
Zoro snapped his attention over to Ryuma(The re-coiled Dragon) and blinked in confusion when he realized the opposing swordsman was staring skyward for some reason.
"But I simply could not help myself…" the samurai(dragon) continued, his tone wistful.
With the undead swordsman apparently not going to attack for the moment, Zoro followed his line of sight. What he saw left him frozen. "No way…" he choked out.
Overcome with his own curiosity, Brook followed his fellow swordsman's gaze, but his befuddlement persisted, head tilted to the side. "What are you all looking at? All I see is a beautiful night sky." He stared skyward a moment longer before a sheen of cold sweat somehow shone on his bony brow. "Wait a second…"
"Habit…" Ryuma(The Dragon) sighed longingly as he watched the swath of stars shining down on them. "Such an iron-wrought thing, no?"
"You make a habit of slashing the sky open?!" Zoro bit out.
"Forget the sky!" Brook shrieked in terror. "He cut clean through the whole of the Florian!"
"Well, that technique was developed for slaying dragons[-]. It only makes sense that it would be able to reach the sky, no?" Ryuma(The Dragon) chuckled as the fog closed back up again. "I'm quite proud to say that not one of my prey ever survived… and neither shall you."
"Tch!" Zoro grunted as he snapped his attention back to his opponent, who was rearing back for another strike. "108 Calibre Phoenix!"
The attack roared in to strike Ryuma(The Dragon), but aura or not, the samurai(dragon) was just as fast, and neatly sidestepped(weaved around) the razor wind so that it carried on into the distance.
"A bird daring to stand up against a dragon[-]? Foolishness!"Ryuma(The Dragon) scoffed. "Let me show you how it's really done! Dragon(Heaven) Slayer!"
The dragon rent the heavens again, Zoro only just managing to dodge by the grace of a frantic dive and roll, and the second he was on his feet, he was sprinting towards his opponent. Unfortunately, while closing the distance between him and his opponent was an undeniable necessity, it had the unfortunate side effect of leaving him with a lot of forward momentum that made dodging the next strike all but impossible.
So with dodging unfeasible, the only option left…
"Demon…" Zoro snarled, crossing his arms and blades across his chest, a shadowy cloaked figure shimmering into view behind him. "Oni Giri!"
Was to counter with the best he had.
CLANG!
Zoro barely withheld a sigh of relief even as, for only the second time in his life, the 'best he had' was utterly repelled. Thankfully, his ego was kept from bruising on account of how holding off a heaven-rending strike from a world-class swordsman was far less humiliating than his first experience, but there were two undeniable problems with this minor victory.
First, the recoil of his survival left him wide open. And second, Ryuma(The Dragon) was suddenly directly in his face.
"Dragon[-] topples demon," the zombie(Dragon) intoned grimly. "Fall."
Shusui swung up, the dragon following, and the beast engulfed Zoro, launching him up into the sky as it rent the Florian fog once again. Brook couldn't help but gape in horror as, moments after the dragon swooped back down to earth, a blur of a form plummeted towards the ground like a biological meteor. It was on the way down that the extent of Zoro's damage became apparent.
Small burns and cuts decorated the swordsman's body like a macabre wall pattern, dripping blood that flowed in thin streams. His shirt, naturally, was hanging in tatters, and his pants weren't in good condition, either. It was his eyes, though, that were the worst: they'd rolled up into the back of his head, leaving only the whites visible.
But, just before reaching the ground, a curious thing happened: Zoro's eyes suddenly snapped back into focus, and he flipped in midair, managing to stick a three-point landing before painfully pulling himself to his full height.
"I am getting…" Zoro growled out painfully. "Fucking tired of losing my damn shirts…"
"Oh my…" Brook gaped in awe.
"Hmph… you're quite impressive," Ryuma(The Dragon) snorted with no small amount of respect.
"And you're annoying," Zoro snarled.
"I beg your pardon?" Ryuma(The Dragon) cocked his brow in confusion.
"You're holding back," Funkfreed called out. "You can say what you want, but Shusui's too proud to lie. He's only holding back because you're not letting him go all-out."
"…is it wrong to want a good battle to last as long as possible?" Ryuma(Dragon) intoned softly.
"It is," Zoro grunted as he slowly fell into his ready-stance, his arms crossed over his chest again. "When I can take it."
Ryuma(The Dragon) stared silently at him before slowly sheathing his blade(drawing back, flames roiling in his maw). "On your head be it."
And with that, he slowly slid his left foot forward, leaning onto it while his other shoulder faced his opponent, his hand hovering inches from the hilt (coils writhed and snapped in the sky, muscles and tendons tensing and untensing like a wave of flesh).
All Brook could do was hold his breath as the tension slowly but steadily ramped into an almost tangible howl, the wind thrashing and clashing between the two swordsmen. Until finally, Ryuma(The Dragon) moved first.
"Dragon(Heaven)[GOD] Slayer."
This time, Brook couldn't see the attack at all; it was so fast. All he saw was a flash of light. And then, when the spots cleared from his vision, the manse of Thriller Bark was illuminated by the veil of moonlight that shone upon it.
This feat was made possible by the fact that an entire hemisphere of Florian mist had been eviscerated in the strike, even taking the topmost parts of the manor's tallest towers along with it.
Brook was not quite as distressed from this development as he would normally be, though, on account of how the manor had been behind Ryuma for the duration of the fight.
As Brook parsed this development, the dust settled, and the two fighters became visible again.
There was just an instant of Zoro possessing six arms and three faces, so brief Brook almost believed he'd imagined it, that faded into him merely holding one sword pointed out. And Ryuma…
Well… there was simply no way to sugarcoat matters: the zombie was currently missing about, oh, half his torso. The revenant was barely standing, and Shusui was only just hanging in his remaining outstretched hand.
"Im…impressive…" Ryuma wheezed, swaying on his feet as he slowly adopted a more at-ease stance. His breath was no doubt scarce due to the loss of one of his lungs. "To turn my own attack on me… with interest, no less… masterful… but that form… the Asura, yes? I thought they were… creatures of destruction?"
Zoro chuckled, tinged with his own pain as he removed Wado from his mouth and started sheathing both it and Kitetsu, as well as dropping Funkfreed so he could stand on his own legs. "Common mistake. Two castes of Asura, one good and one bad. Vritra Stance is for offence, while what you just experienced was Varuna Stance."
"Counterattacks and defence… impressive…" Ryuma chuckled breathlessly. "If you have not named that attack yet… might I request… Do you utilize the term 'Samsara'? I believe…" His empty gaze grew slightly fond. "I have just experienced the truth of it…"
Zoro nodded solemnly. "I will."
"Glad… to hear it… ah, yes…" He held up Shusui. "He is yours, of course. But if I may… say my goodbyes?"
The Pirate Hunter didn't even hesitate to nod solemnly.
Ryuma nodded back before slowly turning his gaze to Brook. "I apologize…" he breathed somberly. "For my transgressions against you. My actions when last we met were… inexcusable."
Brook stared at him for a second before gripping his top hat and bowing his head. "And yet I forgive you anyway," Brook whispered. "In spite of the circumstances…" He slowly raised his head, and looked Ryuma in his empty eyes. "I am proud that of all the bodies on this island, my shadow was granted the honour of giving the greatest samurai in the history of Wano, if not the world, a second lease on life."
The Humming Swordsman drew his blade and raised it in salute. "Sir, it has been a privilege."
Ryuma nodded shakily, then turned his gaze away and upward, towards the moon. The samurai regarded the silver disk in silence even as the fog slowly started to encroach on the heavens again, falling to his knees. Twin streams of tears welled from the corpse's empty eyes, glinting in the moonlight.
"After five long years of darkness… to see the heavens one last time…" he whispered.
After a minute more of contemplation, Ryuma slowly turned his attention downward and traced Shusui's blade in the dirt, running it through the by now salt-laden soil of the battlefield. And then, once he was satisfied, he held his grim blade out at arm's length and flipped it in his palm, so that Shusui's tip rested on his stomach.
"Hear my last request," Ryuma spoke up a final time, his voice unwavering and full of strength. "When you reach the shores of Wano, and they see your black blade, tell them this! Both times…"
Ryuma tilted his head back and sucked in a deep breath before bellowing to the heavens.
"I, RYUMA OF WANO, LIVED A GOOD LIFE!"
And with his last vestiges of strength, he shoved his blade up to the hilt in his stomach and jerked it to the side.
Almost exactly as the Florian devoured the final slivers of moonlight, Brook's shadow silently slid clean from the corpse's side, and an aged hand fell from the hilt it had been gripping…
And so Ryuma of Wano died for the second time.