It's Here!
A chapter and a half because, as I said before, I got stuck on what was originally meant to be Chapter 7, so I just axed the whole thing. What remains is still here, however, since it does happen -- it just doesn't justify an entire chapter. What am I getting at? Well...
All Their Sins
Chapter 7: Idolatry
Rating: Mature
Notes: Un-edited like woah, but I wanted to post because it's been just so damn long. This is dedicated to geuna and nonoji , who believed me when I said there would be another chapter, someday.
On the border between Life and Death, balanced on a razor's edge so sharp it could mend as well as cut, lay Life's desire to continue on past Death. On this edge, born of the two great certainties upon whose borders it encroached, was the Fountain of Future Generations (known, to the unenlightened, as 'sex').
With a soft sigh, Nami closed The Light of the Maidu. It was the founder-cum-god's own writings, and would have been far easier reading had the man half the flair for prose that he did for the dramatic. 'Tiring' did not begin to describe the thick book, although if one added 'trite' it was close. She could have simply memorized the forty-seven Tenets of the Maidu, as was expected of her, but Nami wanted to understand this strange, theocratic criminal empire that she had found herself in. The better to crush you, she thought waspishly as she shoved the book away across the coffee table. She'd been hoping for some distraction during the waiting period leading up to her introduction to the Living God Himself, but the book had hardly helped to that end.
"Annie?" A soft knock accompanied the call, and a second later Yasue-mama's head popped through the door. "All ready, poppet?" The little woman slipped in, her soft foot-falls suggesting years of discretion and careful maneuvering in this world. "Let's have a look at you." She took Nami by the shoulders, then leaned back to study her, as though this posture would allow her the best vantage to check Nami's appearance. "Quite proper, dearie. Well done." She almost managed not to sound surprised. No doubt she had expected this to be another in their on-going contest of wills, over which Nami felt they had, inexplicably, bonded on some level. But she had donned light white dress without question. Its soft fabric and simple cut were oddly chaste, considering what it meant that she was here and being forced to wear it.
"You have lovely taste, Yasue-mama," Nami murmured. Let the old woman make what she could of that. "Is there anything else I should know?"
Yasue-mama's sharp eyes met hers, then flicked away. "You've learned the Tenets?"
"All forty-seven."
"There are forty-eight."
Nami smiled. "Number thirty-six is an amendment to nineteen." The twist of Yasue-mama's mouth said she knew it too, and had challenged Nami because... the almost-smile wasn't nearly so forthcoming about why Yasue-mama had thought to test her, or what she made of her findings.
"Hurry along and show the others how much you've learned," the old woman said, the words containing only the slightest hint of a bite.
Show the others, huh? Nami thought as she strode down the corridor, following Yasue-mama's pointedly detailed instructions. "It won't do to have you getting lost again," had been the woman's exact words, but Nami suspected that Yasue-mama knew she would have been able to find the audience room without directions. She'd seen a lot during her wanderings while lost; she just hoped Yasue-mama didn't realize how much. She'd been kept in almost complete isolation since her arrival half a day ago. The only person she'd seen besides Yasue-mama had been the young man who'd brought the fried rice, and Nami suspected that had been an accident. Likely she wasn't supposed to see anyone but Yasue-mama. Perhaps her captors thought she might form a bond with the old woman, as prisoners at Impel Down had been known to do with their guards (although Nami couldn't, at the moment, remember the medical name Chopper had given the condition).
It was with some relief that, when she slipped through the large doors to the audience room, she found she wasn't the first to arrive. If she had been planning anything - an ambush, a coup, insinuation tactics - she would have wanted to be the first. This, though, was not a time for action: this was reconnaissance, and therefore not a time to be noticed.
The room was long-ish, its proportions suggesting a careful study of classical architecture. A floor of polished stone, slightly wider than the double doors Nami had entered through, ran the length of the room to a similar door in the far wall. It was bordered on each side by pools of water, through which ran a line of fountains. The water arched high, giving the impression of an arched colonnade. All this Nami observed in a heartbeat: she'd slipped through here before, although the fountains had been turned off at the time. Her main attention went to the half dozen women and single man already gathered. Some knelt at seemingly random intervals along the walkway: likely their accustomed place in a line that had yet to properly form. Others were standing quietly, obviously awaiting a chance to speak to the woman who stood at the center of the pathway. The woman whose eyes were fixed on Nami.
Nami broke the eye contact and looked away, shifting uncomfortably. Inside, she was calm and cold, her purpose diamond clear and hard. To this woman - a whore, by her white dress, but one of some distinction, since hers was elegantly cut, expensive silk - Nami would be a confident young woman overwhelmed by what she was experiencing. Not a mouse, not a trouble-maker, only another girl with nothing remarkable about her, who would be noticed, then ignored, then forgotten.
He was awake now, but Zoro neither opened his eyes nor moved. That had been his mistake last time, and see where is had gotten him? Not that he knew where he was, but based on the manner of his coming, it couldn’t be anywhere pleasant.
After he'd lost the dumbass cook, Zoro had continued to wander the streets of Kapila Aranya, searching for any sign of his missing crewmates. It had reached the point where he no longer bothered asking if anyone had seen them, but simply started wrecking havoc. If either of them were around, he'd reasoned, they would make themselves known and maybe aid him in the destruction of whatever building was falling down around their ears. Sadly, even this extremely efficient method of searching had failed to locate the cook and the navigator.
So he'd taken a nap in a temple. Zoro didn’t care much about temples, one way or the other. He'd been in quite a few in his time: meditated in them when he was training, accepted their hospitality while traveling as a bounty hunter, stolen from them as a pirate, explored abandoned ones under the direction of Robin… Zoro didn't hold to any religion, so temples were simply buildings, and it was ther people that inhabited them that determined his actions.
The guys in this particular temple had been weird, with their giant statues of penises, but the temples was warm and dark and fairly quiet, so he'd been willing to live and let live. He'd sneak a nap in the corner, and the monks could get on with their chanting and bowing. Really, there was no reason for them to take offence as his presence there. But they had.
He'd been woken by shouting, and when he'd responded by punching the noisy bastard into a pillar - before he'd even opened his eyes - well… things had just gone downhill from there. There'd been a lot more shouting, mostly about blasphemy and sinners and "in the name of the Maidu," and there'd been a couple of guys with spears…
It shouldn't have been a problem. It wouldn't have been a problem, except there had also been a couple of guys with blow darts, and whatever they'd shot him with had knocked him out cold. Fuck, but that was embarrassing. He needed to train more so that, even if he couldn't dodge the darts - which he ought to be able to - then they'd just bounce off him. Maybe he should build up an immunity to poisons as well, although he had a feeling Chopper would disapprove of that plan. Better not to get hit in the first place, really.
Feigning unconsciousness, Zoro took stock of his surroundings. He was lying on something cold, rough, hard, and just a little bit damp… a stone floor, probably in a jail of some sort. No surprise there: who ever woke up in luxury after being kidnapped? His hands weren't tied - that supported the jail theory, because the only reason not to tie someone up was that they couldn't escape anyway.
And there were voices.
"Poor fuck. Someone did a number on him already." The man's tone didn't match his sympathetic words.
"Won't put up much of a fight, then." Zoro privately named the second speaker 'Weasel Face.' The man's voice had the nasal quality of an oft-broken nose, and something about that way he spoke made Zoro imagine a thin, sycophantic little man who would cozy up to the biggest bully in the room, regardless of how odious that person might be.
There was a grunt from some distance away. "They never do, by the time they get to you," said someone, their voice the deep rumble of distant thunder.
And that, right there, completely confirmed Zoro's impression that he was in a jail. Zoro had been in his share of jails, and they all had a couple of things in common: ugly décor, shitty food, and a pecking order for who got to nail the new meat. Zoro preferred to deal with all three by knocking a big-ass hole in the wall and strolling back to freedom. Unfortunately, that didn't look to be the best option right now, mostly because the stone floor and pervasive damp suggested that this was more like a cave than most of his previous prisons, which meant busting through a wall would just lead him to more wall.
So, options. Continue to pretend he was unconscious: he wouldn't have to talk to these fuckers, but he had no reason to believe they'd leave him alone. They were probably just as willing to peg him while he was passed out. Not a good option. Which left waking up and letting them know just how fucking stupid they would have to be to cross him. Zoro preferred that option.
"Finished comparing cock lengths, ya fuckers?" he growled, heaving himself to his - bare - feet. Some jackass had stolen his boots. Fucking hell. Wasn't that just the icing on the cake?
"Oh look," said the first man. "Our new friend thinks he's tough." Beside him, Weasel Face chortled.
"You look like a man who knows the score," said the fat man in the corner, the one with the deep voice. "So just bend over and take it like a man, no?" He chuckled to himself. Everyone else joined in. Well, I guess that shows who's the biggest fuck in this hole, Zoro thought.
"You sure?" asked a languid voice. It's owner was reclined against the wall, doing his best to look cool and disinterested. "He's just another of the Pirate Hunter's impostors. He'll squeal like a virgin, with tears in his eyes."
Zoro glanced at the man. There was something about him that suggested he had once been a marine - one of those skinny, faceless nobodies who were just cannon fodder for any pirate on the Grand Line. At Enies Lobby he'd taken out, what, thirty guys like that with a single strike? "You an expert on the Pirate Hunter or somethin'?" he asked.
"Could say that." The guy's smirk was just barely visible under the brim of his cap. "Kicked him in the teeth, once. Can't believe the fuck has such a high bounty - those bastards at HQ must be getting senile.
Zoro was spared having to ask for more details by the first man. "Like fuck you did. Where was that, then?"
"Serving under Axe-Hand Morgan. You've heard of him, of course." There were murmurs of assent - these men had indeed heard of Morgan, if only just. Captains might be famous in the Blues, but Vice-Admirals and Admirals roamed the Grand Line, and being a captain just wasn't all that impressive in comparison. Not that any of these men would dream of taking on a marine captain.
Zoro still didn't remember this man - he was just cannon fodder, after all - but he remembered Morgan. And there certainly had been a few little shits who, wanting to impress Helmeppo and thereby gain favour with Morgan, had taken some shots at Zoro when he was in the stocks.
"Should have stayed in East Blue," Zoro told the man, and kicked him in the face.
Zoro wasn't the dumbass cook, so he didn't normally bother much with kicks, but he'd figured he ought to return like for like. And seeing the stupid bastard slump to the ground, unconscious, with a mouth full of broken teeth, really warmed his heart.
"What the fuck did you just…" began one man, but the fat man cut him off.
"So you're him, then."
Zoro shrugged. "Guess so."
"Bit petty for a man of your stature," Fatty said. "I'm surprised you remembered him."
"Didn't. He just pissed me off."
Fatty nodded in understanding. "Fair enough, fair enough. So tell me, Pirate Hunter - that is, if you don't mind my asking - what's a man like you doing here?"
Zoro just shrugged. No sense in telling these bastards anything. "Where's 'here'?"
That brought a chuckle from Fatty, and a few uncertain laughs from his hangers-on who didn't get the joke, but thought they might be expected to laugh anyway. "Here, my friend, is Shang-tu, the dark heart of Kapila Aranya. Garden of a thousand entertainments. All that rot." He looked suspiciously at Zoro. "You've never heard of it."
"No."
"Strange man. Shang-tu is known throughout the underworld as the utopia of illicit entertainment. The paradise."
"I know what 'utopia' means," Zoro snapped, his temper momentarily getting the better of him.
Fatty just chuckled. "A thousand apologies, my friend. I am used to dealing with pirates and scum who are quite as stupid as they look. So, Shang-tu… it was a gambling house, once, but now it's a brothel and a dozen other things besides. A cult, for one." He hummed thoughtfully to himself. "Its owner - its god, I should say, since that's how he styles himself - is known as the Maidu. He uses his cult of personality to rule the criminal empire of Kapila Aranya." Fatty smiled genially. "Not going too fast am I, my friend?"
"I understand," Zoro said simply. Privately, he thought, what a fucked-up bastard. "Go on."
"Not much more to say, really." Fatty sounded almost sorry about this. "It makes for a fascinating anthropological study, but I doubt a man such as you would be much interested."
A man such as you… a man of your stature… fuck. Zoro was pretty sure Fatty was hitting on him, in some strange way, but perhaps it was merely the man's mannerism. Either way, busting out was looking more and more like a good option.
"So what are we doing here?"
"Such deep questions for one so young," Fatty murmured. "But I know that's not what you meant. We," a sweep of his thick hand indicated all the men in the cell, "are all the, ah, collected ones who are too ugly to be of use upstairs. In the brothel," he added, as though Zoro needed the clarification. "We'll fight to the death for their entertainment." It sounded like he relished the idea. Perhaps he did - his reaction when Zoro had kicked the ex-marine's face in had shown that Fatty wasn't averse to violence.
Zoro's attention was caught by the phrase 'collected ones,' which seemed more important than 'fight to the death' in any case. "Anyone who disappears ends up here?" he asked.
"Who can say?" Fatty mused. "Many do, of course. I was in charge of the, ah, collection for a time, until that bitch Yasue…" he trailed off, but Zoro wasn't all that interested in Fatty's past. Perhaps the navigator and the cook were here. If they were, then it was all to the good: Zoro had had enough of a rest, and was in the mood to start bashing heads again.