One Piece Fan Fiction ❯ Cursed Island of the Devil Fruit Gods ❯ Cling to Life ( Chapter 26 )

[ T - Teen: Not suitable for readers under 13 ]

Kagemaru's absence allowed Shishou a moment's comfort-she could move, without him delivering another fatal blow. How had she survived? He obviously intended to kill her with that strike. She felt numb, painless, as though she was a spirit, free-floating, but still in her body. She could have sworn she was heading towards the light...the green light from the volcano...but then it never engulfed her, it was as though it was disturbed and threw her back. Just what in the hell were Zoro and his friends doing? Even she didn't actually count on them to be able to upset the master in his own domain. But for now she was grateful...she had one last thing to accomplish before she passed on to the next life. Kagemaru may not have been the man he once was...but that was a weakness Zoro had to know if he was going to stand any chance against him. "Run, Anu...run." she sobbed softly, her tears being absorbed by the sand that hadn't yet been soaked in her blood. She crawled over the beach, not to her hut, but to a place Zoro hadn't seen yet, beyond the hut. It was two large stones carved into crosses, a sort of memorial. "Mother...father...forgive me..." she lay down before the stones, turning over onto her back, looking up at the cloudless sky and breathing harshly. "Hurry, Zoro..." tears streamed from her eyes. "I don't have much longer..."

Anu raced through the jungle, knocking down trees in his way and panting with exhaustion, ignoring the strain for the sake of his friend. He had to find the funny-smelling man and bring him back to Shishou...he could still smell her blood and it was getting stronger and stronger, she was losing more and more, her life force was fading...he felt her spirit calling out to him again, struggling to remain in her body. Animals were more able to sense those things, and it was worrying him. But suddenly something diverted his attention to something else. The trees and bushes and all the other plants were breathing, loudly, brought to life by a familiar force. Anu heard Jigyousho's cackle. He whimpered, but pressed on, now dodging larger falling trees, snake-like thorny vines, and sword-like grass jutting up beneath him, barely missing his paws.
"Bad doggie." Jigyousho cackled, his face appearing in the knotholes of trees as Anu passed them. "Kagemaru wanted to make sure the job was complete...now that the meddling bitch is taken care of, her little pet needs to join her master."
Anu growled and lunged at one of the trees, biting it in half with a powerful snap of his jaws. Jigyousho's body fell out of the tree, also snapped in half, and he lay dead before Anu. Anu growled, moving forward to devour the body, but Jigyousho's body began to take on the texture of wood and sprouted hundreds of thorns and Anu smelled poison in them, backing off. Vines emerged from the severed edges of Jigyousho's body and he pulled himself back together. "Nice try, Wolfie. I thought you didn't eat plants anyway?" Jigyousho sprouted vines from all over his body and they pulled him back up into a standing position. "That won't kill me, but it still hurt, brainless beast." his tone changed from amusement to anger. His right arm morphed into a very pointy branch, and extended so quickly Anu couldn't avoid it-it struck Anu in the left eye and rendered it blind. With one eye remaining, Anu gave a sharp cry that made Jigyousho cringe and gave Anu the opportunity to keep on running. "You blasted animal..." Jigyousho growled, but he heard a fluttering noise behind him, the familiar sound of Kagemaru rising up out of a shadow.
"Leave it be." Kagemaru told him. "I'd rather allow him to bring back that boy...I want him to see Shishou's corpse before I slice his head off. The look in his eyes before he finally dies...I want that grand prize."
"You're so selfish." Jigyousho sighed, but grinned. "Fine. Have it your way. But I want that glasses girl. And the redhead." he licked his lips.
"You'll get who I give you. The glasses girl is mine. She escaped my dungeon and I won't stand for it. She will die alongside the boy. The redhead is...interesting. As is the older woman. So unlike Shishou...they don't seem slaves to their emotions. Very well then...you may have the redhead. But you have to accept the long-nose. And the horned animal." Kagemaru laid out his terms.
"Oh, but that's distracting!" Jigyousho complained.
"You'd rather have the metal man and the one-eyed blond man?" Kagemaru tapped his foot impatiently.
"Oh, all right." Jigyousho sighed.
"Damn right it is. What I say goes. I get the boy and the glasses girl. They'll not escape my wrath again. It bothers me greatly why the master would care that their leader, that man-child, defeats Daikyojin. Each of us could defeat him with ease. Why is the straw hat boy being given a chance to join our ranks?" Kagemaru growled.
"Perhaps it is to fill the void left by your sister-" Jigyousho felt Kagemaru's shadowy sword pierce his mouth and come out the back of his head, then slice upward and split his head in two, decapitating Jigyousho completely. Jigyousho's body remained motionless, but it still looked alive. Small vines began to peek up out of the stump and they coiled around each other, until they layered upon each other enough to make it apparent that Jigyousho's body was regenerating its most vital organ. It took several seconds but a new head sprouted from Jigyousho's neck. He didn't look upset at Kagemaru's violent outburst, but rather amused. "Sorry! I guess you're still pretty touchy about that. After a thousand years, it's about time you did something...and I'm not the only one who thought so!" he held his hands up, as if surrendering so Kagemaru wouldn't lash out again.
"I begged the master to allow a fifth back then...to keep her at my side. She wasted such a golden opportunity. Maybe the master got used to the idea. It doesn't matter...the master wants what the master wants. Now go join the others. This fight is taking far longer than I thought. The master is keeping Daikyojin's soul from wandering. He must really want the straw hat boy to struggle for his position. We were handed the opportunity at the very beginning...our personalities were enough to get us recognized." Kagemaru crossed his arms. He sank back into the shadows and Jigyousho closed his eyes and transformed into a mass of tangled grass, falling to the ground and moving along the dirt at incredible speed.
Anu was already far ahead of them, but they were able to catch up quickly. He knew they were no longer after him, but his eye still ached. He couldn't stop them...he couldn't save Shishou...it was up to the funny-smelling man to do both of those things instead. But could he do them? Shishou said he could...he had to believe her. He owed it to her to try, to bring him back to her, at least, for taking him in as a cub when his mother died. He could still hear her voice, but it was fading. He ran faster and faster, the funny-smelling man's scent growing stronger. There was still hope he would make it in time.

Robin was deeply engaged in her fight with her opponent, and her hands were red and burned painfully, bringing tears to her eyes.
"Something the matter, our would-be Queen?" her opponent teased her. "With my Doku Doku no Mi, I, Yuudoku, cannot be touched or harmed by you. My whole body is a factory of toxins and acids, it creeps out of my every pore, among other places. There is a different deadly poison from every liquid I excrete, from my spit to my tears to my sweat, and beyond! Observe!" Yuudoku hocked and spat a generous amount of saliva onto a nearby rock. The rock began to smoke and a hole melted cleanly through it. "Scared?" he grinned menacingly.
Robin stood her ground. "Then I'll just have to attack you long-distance!" she crossed her arms. "Diez Fleur...Launch!" she announced. Yuudoku looked about, not seeing anything around.
"What is the meaning of this? Some bluff?" he sneered. Seconds later, something hit him hard in the back of the head, knocking him down to one knee. "What the hell?" he shouted angrily. He turned around and saw ten of Robin's duplicate hands clutching rocks. "Clever bitch..." Yuudoku snarled. All ten hands threw the rocks all at once, and he only managed to avoid half of them. He staggered about, clutching his most bruised spots, and glaring at Robin's confidently smiling face. "You think you've won? Hmph. You don't understand anything. Let me enlighten you as to why you'll never win." he told her. He turned and ran to a small garden-like structure and knelt down, picking the plants growing there. He held them up high enough for Robin to see them. They were not flowers, to say the least. They were ugly, thorny, and off-colored. "What do you think of these?" he chuckled sinisterly.
"What do you plan to do?" Robin narrowed her eyes. He clearly had something planned, and he seemed to believe it would stop her long-distance strategy from working.
"Observe." Yuudoku opened his mouth wide, his dirty tongue sliding out of his mouth. With one of the larger plants in hand, he slowly slid it into his mouth and swallowed it.
"That's disgusting!" Robin turned away and covered her mouth.
"Oh, but you're missing the best part!" Yuudoku laughed. As Robin dared to see what he was talking about, she gasped in shock. "Since my body excretes poisons naturally, when I ingest poisonous things, like plants, insects, reptiles, what have you...I become even stronger!" he bragged, flexing his biceps, which began to swell in muscle mass as he spoke. He began to gobble up the rest of the plants, until his entire body was swollen with muscles, making him look like a steroid-addled wrestler, with veins popping all over his body. "Just try to hurt me now! Those flimsy pebbles can't do a thing to me! But thanks for giving me an idea." he grinned, using his newfound muscle mass to pick up a boulder. He leaned back, taking it in one hand and throwing it in Robin's direction. Robin dove out of the way just in time, but the ground shook and the dust blew over heavily. Temporarily blind, she fumbled around desperately, hearing Yuudoku coming closer.
"Back off, you..." she coughed, standing back up and running away from him. She was in trouble now. She couldn't touch him and couldn't hurt him if all she could do was hurl a few stones. She was going to have to resort to drastic moves, but unfortunately she didn't know what they were-and he wasn't about to give her the time to think of them.
"Gotcha!" he finally caught up to her, and wrapped his thickened hands around her throat, lifting her bodily. Her throat was burning and she couldn't breathe. Without being able to chant as she normally would, she summoned one hand from the ground, and grabbed a loose clump of dirt and had it throw it into Yuudoku's eyes. He let go abruptly, throwing her down, and clutched his eyes, temporarily blinded. "You cheap trickster!" he lashed out with his hands, trying to grab her, but she was already on her feet and ready to strike again.
"Cien Fleur..." she choked out, her throat still sore and sporting very red hand prints, "Tower!"
A hundred hands sprouted from the ground, some popping out of others, until they formed a giant hand that towered above the two combatants. She commanded it to lift the boulder he'd thrown earlier and turned her hands into fists. "Cien Fleur, Crush!" she announced, and the towering hand slammed the boulder down onto Yuudoku's head. The boulder shattered and to Robin's horror it didn't seem to have hurt Yuudoku at all.
"I'm too strong for that to work!" he growled. His eyesight blurry, he nevertheless made out the shape of Robin's tower of arms and lunged at it. He wrapped his arms around it as best he could, and bit into it repeatedly. The tower vanished as Robin screamed in pain, as comparable, but smaller wounds appeared on her actual arms. "You're really making me angry! I was going to toy with you a bit longer but now I just want you to shrivel up and melt into a puddle of slime!"
Robin trembled. She was out of ideas and she couldn't ignore the pain much longer. "N-no.." she gulped, tears beginning to form in her eyes. She didn't see any of her friends anywhere...there was no one to help her, to save her.
"Oh, yes." Yuudoku cracked his knuckles, deliberately taking his time stalking towards her to prolong her terror. He grabbed her hair and slapped her hard across the face, leaving a burning redness on her cheek.
Robin's face was burning, and her scalp, and she wasn't able to breathe any longer, the noxious fumes of his evaporating sweat and his horrid breath were choking her so badly she couldn't even cough. She blacked out seconds later.
"What's this? I wanted you to be conscious for the final moments of pain!" Yuudoku growled, throwing her roughly to the ground.

Robin awakened in what she thought was the clutches of Yuudoku again, but the arms were gentle, thin, warm...comforting. She heard a familiar voice and opened her eyes. All around her was darkness, though a white spollight-like illumination allowed her to see what was happening, and she saw her mother's warm, smiling face looking back at her. Robin felt small, like she was a child again, even younger than when the horrible tragedy of Ohara happened. "M-mommy?" she said tearfully.
"It's okay, honey. Mommy has to go now. But here...this is mommy's treasure." Nico Olvia kissed her daughter's cheek and withdrew a Devil Fruit from her coat. "Eat this, honey. It'll protect you while I'm away, I promise." she gave Robin a gentle hug as Robin received the Devil Fruit and clutched it tightly, as though it was a smaller version of her beloved mother. Robin somehow knew that she was experiencing a flashback to a previous day, when she was very, very young, and even though the memory was painful, she knew how it was going to go, and did not try to do anything to change it. She felt her consciousness weakening, and merely watched as a spectator through the eyes of her childhood self.
"Don't go, Mommy..." Robin begged.
"I have to, sweetheart. Mommy needs to find something very important across the sea. I will be back though, you'll see. Someday..." Nico Olvia sighed. "But you keep on going to the library, and learn from Professor Clover. It's important, honey, for you to continue Mommy's work. We're the only ones who can. It's our destiny."
"B-but..." Robin sobbed.
"Eat the fruit, honey. Do it now...Mommy needs to know you'll be safe." Nico Olvia looked intensely into her daughter's eyes.
Robin frowned, but bit into the fruit. "I don't like it..." she said with a mouthful of the chewed-up fruit. Nico Olvia pushed her chin up so Robin had no choice but to swallow it. "What now?" Robin asked. "I feel funny..." she whined, dropping the rest of the fruit, which began to rot the moment it hit the ground. Its power was lost to it, granted by the single bite Robin took.
"It shouldn't be anything dangerous...I researched this Devil Fruit myself, it should be powerful but nothing too dangerous. Just try it out." Nico Olvia smiled.
Robin nodded. "Okay..." she took a deep breath and closed her eyes. Arms began to sprout out from all over the ground around them, waving like flowers in the wind.
"It's the Hana-Hana no Mi. You can summon those hands to make bad people go away. You must use that power often to get strong enough to use it properly. One day I want you to be strong enough to protect both of us when I come back, all right?" Nico Olvia kissed Robin's forehead.
"I'll try, Mommy." Robin promised.
"Cross your heart?" Nico Olvia giggled, making a cross over Robin's heart.
"Yep!" Robin created a hand and did the same to her mother. "Oh, I'm dizzy..." Robin clutched her head, stumbling around, and Nico Olvia's eyes widened as she gasped out loud. She opened up her coat and shirt, and underneath her bare skin it looked like one of Robin's artificial arms was grabbing her heart! "R-Robin..." she choked. Robin passed out and the arm vanished. Nico Olvia panted, her eyes watery, and picked up her unconscious daughter, holding her in her arms and cradling her. "Robin?" she stroked the girl's hair. Robin slowly opened her eyes and blinked a few times.
"M-mommy? What happened?" she asked.
"Nothing, honey." Nico Olvia lied. Her face was pale, and Robin, even that young, knew her mother was lying. "But you have to make me one more promise. Until you know how to use your new power, you must never, ever use it on another person, even if you're not trying to hurt them. Unless they're trying to hurt you." she explained.
"I promise, Mommy." Robin hugged around her mother's neck.
"That's my girl..." Nico Olvia smiled, closing her eyes. Robin felt her mother drifting away after that, out of her arms, the cold darkness chilled her.
"Mommy...come back..." she whimpered. And the darkness became light, intense light so great she couldn't escape it even with her eyes closed. And when she opened them again, she was back in what she knew was the present.

Everything seemed to be happening in slow motion, Yuudoku was coming at her now that she was conscious again, and he was reaching out to her again, for another round of choking, she assumed. "N-no...not again...Mommy..." Robin coughed, her throat slightly less pained than it had been before she blacked out. But no, things were back to normal. "No...not a little girl anymore...I will be strong..." she muttered.
" 'Mommy'? Have you lost your damned mind?" Yuudoku mocked her. "Well, no matter. You look like you'll still feel this plenty. I must remember to let you look at your face in a pond after I melt it." he laughed.
"You promise?" Robin sneered, suddenly feeling empowered and beginning to try to get back up from laying down.
"Huh? What are you talking about?" Yuudoku was taken aback by her new boldness. "False bravado aside, yeah, I promise. I promise you'll feel pain worse than you ever have before I kill you." he nodded.
"Cross your heart?" Robin chuckled, a frightful look in her eyes, as she sat up and made a cross with her index fingers.
"You talk nonsense..." Yuudoku started talking, but his breath caught in his throat. His eyes widened just as Nico Olvia's had in Robin's flashback dream, and underneath his muscular chest was the outline of an arm and hand clutching his heart. He began cringing in pain, trying to scream but barely able to gasp, and trickles of blood began to drip from his lips. He dropped to his knees, doubling over, convulsing, until he stopped moving altogether except for a weak tremble, his horrified eyes staring up at her like a frightened child.
"You may be able to burn my skin if I attack you from without...but if I attack you from within, you're defenseless." Robin stood up, until Yuudoku's eyes were completely bloodshot, and he passed out. "You think you could ever cause me worse pain than losing my mother...having a horrible family neglecting and hurting me for years...having my best friend murdered before my eyes, and then living as a fugitive for decades for a crime I never committed? Bastard...you don't know shit about pain." she finally called off her heart-crushing attack. "I promised myself I'd never do that again after I almost killed my mother. You forced my hand...literally. I hope you're satisfied." she kicked him while he was down, not that he felt it. "I'd better get back..." she sighed, walking back to her comrades.