SPoK: The Unsuccessful Attempt
Nami was there to greet them outside the door of a room Sanji had never seen before. By his guess it was fairly close to the underground walkway to the Great Library. He could hear the gathering inside.
He smiled at the Grand Advisor, glad to see her again. She was as beautiful as ever.
Philos winked at the Prince and disappeared inside the door.
“Well… are you ready to face a harem of women who saw you wet and naked just this very morning?” she grinned, lacing her arm in his.
Sanji laughed nervously. “My old tutor never prepared me for this, that much is certain.”
“I’m sure everyone has told you this already, but you’ll be fine. There isn’t a single mean soul in that room. They’ll all be defensive and protective of Zoro, but you’ll have to accept that at face value.”
Sanji nodded.
“Just don’t let Eros talk you into drinking with him. It’s easy to get caught up in that man’s pace, and let’s just say you wouldn’t be the first one to end up head-in-a-bucket just before you are supposed to go to dinner with the King because of him.”
“Of course. I’ll save that for some other time.”
She smiled at him and his stomach fluttered.
“I’ll introduce you to Kalifa and Rasmiyah first, the mothers of his daughters. Ace told me what you did when you found out by the way - very graceful of you. Then of course his daughters, who I am sure will want to pull you away immediately, but I will have to introduce everyone else before that. And they will likely try to dominate your time, but you must try and make an effort to speak to everyone. I’ll try to help you there, but those girls are worse than their father in respect to being stubborn. Thankfully none of them have his sense of direction or green hair… And don’t worry about remembering everyone’s names. No one expects you to.”
Sanji sighed, his relief evident. He had some practice pulling names out of nowhere; he was a Prince after all, even if he was a lousy one. He’d experienced plenty of official gatherings that included endless crowds of nobles and dignitaries he was expected to treat as if he knew each one personally.
Nami led him into the room and once again he could feel their gazes as if they were pressing in on him. It lasted only a moment before everyone began to move, forming a somewhat scattered line across the room. Sanji could not immediately spot the King, but once he realized that was what he was trying to do, he reprimanded himself for it.
“We are here to honor and welcome the soon-to-be newest member of the harem of King Roronoa Zoro. If it pleases His Majesty… ah, where is he?”
Giggles could be heard from behind the literal wall of women and then several of them smiled, standing aside as Zoro, crown askew and grin plastered on his face, was led out into the open by two small girls tugging insistently at his hands. Another hung off his neck like a baby monkey.
Grand Advisor Nami did not miss a beat and continued, “Ah, yes. If it pleases His Majesty, please welcome Prince Sanji of Kiot.”
Everyone clapped, including Zoro and his daughters. Rika released her father’s neck, allowing him to stand straight.
Sanji followed Nami as she walked over to two women who were at the right side of the room. He presumed this was the ‘start’ of the line.
They must be the mothers.
“Zoro, release your daughters long enough to come and meet the Prince, if you please,” the sharp, blond woman said. Her voice reminded him very much of the old tutor he had mentioned earlier. He smiled at the fact that she was addressing Zoro as if he were no more important than a school boy.
“Go on girls,” he said, smiling at his daughters like fathers in love do. His gaze floated up to Sanji whose expression must have reflected some sort of amusement, because his face reddened and he quickly walked away.
Nami’s voice drew his attention back, “This is Kalifa and her daughters Kalila and Nadiya. This is Rasmiyah and her daughter Rika.”
Sanji bowed respectfully to Kalifa and Rasmiyah, who nodded solemnly and smiled warmly respectively, and then he knelt on one knee to the three little girls. He placed one hand over his heart and said, “I am honored to make your acquaintances.”
He held out his hand to Nadiya who, giggling, let Sanji take her hand and kiss it. Kalila ran eagerly forward to have hers kissed too, and Rika skipped the gesture altogether and ran straight into the Prince’s lap, knocking him on his rear. The other two followed suit and they began a barrage of questions about everything from where he was from to his hair color to whether or not Bonclaudius also pinched his cheeks.
Zoro scowled from across the room. “I’m sure I’ve taught them not to just jump in strangers’ laps. They just met him, they shouldn’t be jumping into his lap-”
“Ah, the jealous father.”
“Are you afraid they’ll like the Prince more than you?”
“He went through the same thing when Laertes joined the harem. He was convinced they would start calling Laertes ‘Papa’.”
“But one time Nadiya did and oh he was so mad!”
“They were much younger then, and Rika always used to cry when Zoro held her-”
“Could you at least wait until I’m not around to gossip about me?” Zoro’s frown remained.
“It is not gossip if its truth. You know they could never love anyone like they love you, so stop scowling. It’s a good thing they like him.”
The women collected their daughters, promising the anxious girls they would get a chance to talk to the Prince later. They curtsied to him, the sight of it making Sanji’s heart sing, and he briefly wondered if he was sporting the look Zoro had been earlier.
What followed was a line of introductions that went much faster than Sanji expected. He enjoyed trying to guess what it was about each woman that had gotten her into the harem in at least the physical sense. Even among the younger ones, it seemed they were all exceedingly mature except, perhaps, for one red head that was slightly ditzy. But even she was graceful. Sanji had half expected to see several copies of the same woman, but each was so amazingly different from the last.
Aside from the twins, of course.
Zoro, you damn lucky bastard.
As they neared the end of the line he realized that the last few people were the men.
“None of you need any introduction, so I’m not going to waste my time,” Nami sniffed. Philos made a face at her. “Sanji, remember to go back and speak to Kalifa and Rasmiyah. I have work that needs attending, so I’ll be leaving. Take care of him, boys, and keep Eros away from the wine.”
Sanji regretfully bade her farewell. He didn’t have long to mourn her absence though as he had a sneaking suspicion that someone, or rather, someones were staring at him. He could feel it. The Prince looked over the crowd to find who it might be, when he felt a tug on his toga.
He looked down and three little angels looked back up at him, all with big brown eyes and pouty lips. He would never have guessed that Rika had a different mother, though she was the only brunette among them. The other two had inherited Kalifa’s blond hair. They definitely had Zoro’s eyes…
“Come with us, everyone else is boring!”
“You have to listen to what we say, we’re princesses!”
“Don’t bully him Kali! You’ll make him cry! It’s okay, please come with us?”
Sanji chuckled and allowed himself be led to a corner of the room where Rasmiyah and Kalifa were seated on some cushions smoking a water pipe. Sanji suddenly felt a painful longing for his home, remembering how he, Solon, and his father would usually end the day by sharing a lavender flavored pipe.
“I apologize that our daughters are so insistent - a quality I’m sure you’ll recognize in their father if you haven’t already” Kalifa gave the slightest hint of a smile.
Sanji sat down and found that the girls had no intention of allowing him any personal space at all. Kalila sat on his right knee, Rika on his left and Nadiya right in the middle.
“Girls, he’s not furniture-”
“Its fine,” Sanji smiled, wondering if he had been like this with Solon when he was younger. He knew that he had several nieces and nephews by this point from his sisters, but they would most likely never return to Kiot. And with him being the youngest, he had not had the opportunity to interact with children much. Whereas Solon traveled around to other countries and met the children of other royal families, Sanji had no real need to. So he tried to remember how Solon treated him.
More than anything, he treated all women with reverence, and Zoro’s daughters would be no exception.
“I’m sure everyone made it seem like you had to come and pay your dues with us, lest we be slighted,” Rasmiyah winked at him. “The truth is that we’re rather harmless, so please come to us if you ever need anything. Are you faring alright? Hopefully the culture shock isn’t too unbearable.”
The Prince chuckled ruefully, “It is a challenge… but Grand Adviser Nami has been so helpful, and now that I know there are still more beautiful and generous women I can rely on, I have no cause for complaint.”
“Sometimes the boys can be foolish.” Kalifa pinned him with her stern gaze. “Do not let them pull you into their ridiculous antics, especially Philos.”
“Oh, Kalifa, they’re harmless,” her companion disagreed. “But sometimes I do wonder that there are more turbulent feelings among them than among the women...”
“It has been obvious to me since the day I met Zoro that he prefers men to women,” Kalifa explained. “And even though he has so few men in his harem, he is much more selective and passionate when choosing to appoint a man. Women come and go; the turnover rate is fairly high at least in comparison. But any man that has entered his harem has, for all intents and purposes, remained there. Only Ace moved on, but he is still by Zoro’s side at all times. And if or when his brother decides to leave, he’ll also remain by Zoro’s side.”
“Brother?” Sanji asked, noticing that his leg was starting to cramp from being in that position, but the girls were obviously not intending to move any time soon.
“Hm?” Rasmiyah asked.
“That is, who are you referring to when you say Ace’s brother? Alright ladies, here we go!” the Prince said, distracted, scooping up the two girls on his legs momentarily to allow him to straighten them out in front of him. The girls squawked in surprise then broke out into laughter.
“Oh, Lykaios of course.”
Sanji looked up, blinking. “…Ace and Lykaios are brothers?”
“Half,” Kalifa corrected. “They have the same father and are only a few months apart. I personally believe it played a big factor in Zoro’s decision to choose them as his guardians. Of course, he was only five years old at the time so it could have just been a whim. They used to look so much alike when they were younger…”
The news wasn’t particularly shocking; at least not, as shocking as the fact that Zoro had three daughters by two different concubines. Still, he had spent all that time with both of them and never known. Not that it was really that much time, but it felt like weeks had passed since he left home. It was just another one of those commonplace facts that everyone knew except him.
“So,” he let out a deep breath, “what other familial connections should I know about? Next I’ll be finding out that Eros is Laertes’ father.”
Rasmiyah smiled sympathetically. “With that man’s reputation, I wouldn’t be surprised. But you’ll become familiar with everyone’s connections soon enough and you’ll find yourself making equally strange connections in the mean time. Oh! Well, there is Ace’s younger brother who will be returning next week. They’re full brothers by the same father. He’s one of Zoro’s upper officers in the military- a Grand something- I can’t really keep up with the lingo-“
“Well, to be accurate, Luffy is not technically enlisted in the Decian military. He’s one of the Grand Peira - pirates that hold allegiances to the highest bidder, whether that bidder is a country, the World Government or another pirate. They are not held to the Law of the Sea or to the laws of any country.”
Sanji knew very well what the Grand Peira were. Kiot had an entire fleet of them who were used mainly for shipping slaves. If he could say anything for his father, it was that Spiridon put a stop to that during his active reign. But for the last several years in which the old King was bedridden, Sanji’s brothers actively pursued as many alliances with these murderers and thieves as they could get their hands on, an act that severely exacerbated the situation with the underdeveloped country of Shilat.
As if she could tell what he was thinking, Kalifa added, “Luffy and his crew are the only Grand Peira that Zoro has enlisted, so you can be sure that he is a good man. I don’t know of anyone that doesn’t have some special affection for Monkey D. Luffy.”
“I’m going to marry Luffy!” Rika proclaimed.
“You can’t marry two people, Rika! Yesterday you said you were marrying Sanji!”
Rika went extremely red in the face and said, “You promised not to tell, Nadi! Besides, you said you were going to marry him too!”
Nadiya promptly retaliated with a raspberry, and Kalila looked at Sanji in all seriousness and, shaking her head said, “Girls.”
***
Not wanting to dominate him entirely, Kalifa and Rasmiyah pried their girls away from the Prince and shooed him away, insisting he visit with some of the other women, though not for too long or else he would be exhausted by the time he was due for dinner.
He parted with the girls reluctantly, promising them that he would see them soon.
What happened next was very confusing and Sanji would never have been able to figure out what happened if it weren’t for all the witnesses afterwards.
He had only made it halfway across the room, catching the eyes of The Twins, when Rika came running after him, calling his name. He turned around to see what it was, but before his gaze could even lower to the little girl, his body erupted in goose bumps and a motion to his right made him flinch.
A figure - and that’s all Sanji could really see because, even though the entire world suddenly slowed to a stop at that moment, the dark blur was moving too fast for him to discern what it was. All Sanji knew was that it appeared out of nowhere, and it was making its way straight for Zoro’s daughter.
It could have been anything, but whatever it was, it set off all the danger alarms in the Prince’s body. Rika was a mere two steps from him and he didn’t even have time to turn his head to see what he was kicking before his right leg lashed out with a lethal force he reserved only for when he was training or having to defend himself against his brothers.
It seemed as though it went flying across the room before the sound of the impact of Sanji’s foot even reached his ears, which was then followed by the sound of impact it made against the stone wall of the room.
Then everything began to speed back up and the entire room was screaming. He intended to sweep forward and grab Rika, but Eros got to her first and suddenly Lykaios was in his face, screaming at him.
He only heard about two words before he stopped being able to hear anything at all. Everyone was moving and the Prince’s legs abruptly gave out and he fell into Lykaios’ arms. He was more confused than anything, knowing that something had happened to cause his brain to fall behind. Unfortunately the muted silence ended and the pain of being stabbed in the stomach hit him in full force.
“Don’t move, don’t speak-” and then he was being lifted into Lykaios’ arms and they were rushing down a hallway, several hallways, and there must have been a thousand people following them because it sounded like every single one of them was screaming all at once. It was more than Sanji could take, coupled with the searing heat emanating from his wound. He looked down and saw so much blood he couldn’t even see where he’d been stabbed.
“Lykaios-” he meant to say firmly, but instead it came out as a whisper he was sure the Guardian wouldn’t be able to hear over all the chaos.
“I said ‘don’t talk’.”
He wanted to tell Lykaios that that wouldn’t be an issue at this point, because he felt very much like he was going to pass out.
***
Part Two
He smiled at the Grand Advisor, glad to see her again. She was as beautiful as ever.
Philos winked at the Prince and disappeared inside the door.
“Well… are you ready to face a harem of women who saw you wet and naked just this very morning?” she grinned, lacing her arm in his.
Sanji laughed nervously. “My old tutor never prepared me for this, that much is certain.”
“I’m sure everyone has told you this already, but you’ll be fine. There isn’t a single mean soul in that room. They’ll all be defensive and protective of Zoro, but you’ll have to accept that at face value.”
Sanji nodded.
“Just don’t let Eros talk you into drinking with him. It’s easy to get caught up in that man’s pace, and let’s just say you wouldn’t be the first one to end up head-in-a-bucket just before you are supposed to go to dinner with the King because of him.”
“Of course. I’ll save that for some other time.”
She smiled at him and his stomach fluttered.
“I’ll introduce you to Kalifa and Rasmiyah first, the mothers of his daughters. Ace told me what you did when you found out by the way - very graceful of you. Then of course his daughters, who I am sure will want to pull you away immediately, but I will have to introduce everyone else before that. And they will likely try to dominate your time, but you must try and make an effort to speak to everyone. I’ll try to help you there, but those girls are worse than their father in respect to being stubborn. Thankfully none of them have his sense of direction or green hair… And don’t worry about remembering everyone’s names. No one expects you to.”
Sanji sighed, his relief evident. He had some practice pulling names out of nowhere; he was a Prince after all, even if he was a lousy one. He’d experienced plenty of official gatherings that included endless crowds of nobles and dignitaries he was expected to treat as if he knew each one personally.
Nami led him into the room and once again he could feel their gazes as if they were pressing in on him. It lasted only a moment before everyone began to move, forming a somewhat scattered line across the room. Sanji could not immediately spot the King, but once he realized that was what he was trying to do, he reprimanded himself for it.
“We are here to honor and welcome the soon-to-be newest member of the harem of King Roronoa Zoro. If it pleases His Majesty… ah, where is he?”
Giggles could be heard from behind the literal wall of women and then several of them smiled, standing aside as Zoro, crown askew and grin plastered on his face, was led out into the open by two small girls tugging insistently at his hands. Another hung off his neck like a baby monkey.
Grand Advisor Nami did not miss a beat and continued, “Ah, yes. If it pleases His Majesty, please welcome Prince Sanji of Kiot.”
Everyone clapped, including Zoro and his daughters. Rika released her father’s neck, allowing him to stand straight.
Sanji followed Nami as she walked over to two women who were at the right side of the room. He presumed this was the ‘start’ of the line.
They must be the mothers.
“Zoro, release your daughters long enough to come and meet the Prince, if you please,” the sharp, blond woman said. Her voice reminded him very much of the old tutor he had mentioned earlier. He smiled at the fact that she was addressing Zoro as if he were no more important than a school boy.
“Go on girls,” he said, smiling at his daughters like fathers in love do. His gaze floated up to Sanji whose expression must have reflected some sort of amusement, because his face reddened and he quickly walked away.
Nami’s voice drew his attention back, “This is Kalifa and her daughters Kalila and Nadiya. This is Rasmiyah and her daughter Rika.”
Sanji bowed respectfully to Kalifa and Rasmiyah, who nodded solemnly and smiled warmly respectively, and then he knelt on one knee to the three little girls. He placed one hand over his heart and said, “I am honored to make your acquaintances.”
He held out his hand to Nadiya who, giggling, let Sanji take her hand and kiss it. Kalila ran eagerly forward to have hers kissed too, and Rika skipped the gesture altogether and ran straight into the Prince’s lap, knocking him on his rear. The other two followed suit and they began a barrage of questions about everything from where he was from to his hair color to whether or not Bonclaudius also pinched his cheeks.
Zoro scowled from across the room. “I’m sure I’ve taught them not to just jump in strangers’ laps. They just met him, they shouldn’t be jumping into his lap-”
“Ah, the jealous father.”
“Are you afraid they’ll like the Prince more than you?”
“He went through the same thing when Laertes joined the harem. He was convinced they would start calling Laertes ‘Papa’.”
“But one time Nadiya did and oh he was so mad!”
“They were much younger then, and Rika always used to cry when Zoro held her-”
“Could you at least wait until I’m not around to gossip about me?” Zoro’s frown remained.
“It is not gossip if its truth. You know they could never love anyone like they love you, so stop scowling. It’s a good thing they like him.”
The women collected their daughters, promising the anxious girls they would get a chance to talk to the Prince later. They curtsied to him, the sight of it making Sanji’s heart sing, and he briefly wondered if he was sporting the look Zoro had been earlier.
What followed was a line of introductions that went much faster than Sanji expected. He enjoyed trying to guess what it was about each woman that had gotten her into the harem in at least the physical sense. Even among the younger ones, it seemed they were all exceedingly mature except, perhaps, for one red head that was slightly ditzy. But even she was graceful. Sanji had half expected to see several copies of the same woman, but each was so amazingly different from the last.
Aside from the twins, of course.
Zoro, you damn lucky bastard.
As they neared the end of the line he realized that the last few people were the men.
“None of you need any introduction, so I’m not going to waste my time,” Nami sniffed. Philos made a face at her. “Sanji, remember to go back and speak to Kalifa and Rasmiyah. I have work that needs attending, so I’ll be leaving. Take care of him, boys, and keep Eros away from the wine.”
Sanji regretfully bade her farewell. He didn’t have long to mourn her absence though as he had a sneaking suspicion that someone, or rather, someones were staring at him. He could feel it. The Prince looked over the crowd to find who it might be, when he felt a tug on his toga.
He looked down and three little angels looked back up at him, all with big brown eyes and pouty lips. He would never have guessed that Rika had a different mother, though she was the only brunette among them. The other two had inherited Kalifa’s blond hair. They definitely had Zoro’s eyes…
“Come with us, everyone else is boring!”
“You have to listen to what we say, we’re princesses!”
“Don’t bully him Kali! You’ll make him cry! It’s okay, please come with us?”
Sanji chuckled and allowed himself be led to a corner of the room where Rasmiyah and Kalifa were seated on some cushions smoking a water pipe. Sanji suddenly felt a painful longing for his home, remembering how he, Solon, and his father would usually end the day by sharing a lavender flavored pipe.
“I apologize that our daughters are so insistent - a quality I’m sure you’ll recognize in their father if you haven’t already” Kalifa gave the slightest hint of a smile.
Sanji sat down and found that the girls had no intention of allowing him any personal space at all. Kalila sat on his right knee, Rika on his left and Nadiya right in the middle.
“Girls, he’s not furniture-”
“Its fine,” Sanji smiled, wondering if he had been like this with Solon when he was younger. He knew that he had several nieces and nephews by this point from his sisters, but they would most likely never return to Kiot. And with him being the youngest, he had not had the opportunity to interact with children much. Whereas Solon traveled around to other countries and met the children of other royal families, Sanji had no real need to. So he tried to remember how Solon treated him.
More than anything, he treated all women with reverence, and Zoro’s daughters would be no exception.
“I’m sure everyone made it seem like you had to come and pay your dues with us, lest we be slighted,” Rasmiyah winked at him. “The truth is that we’re rather harmless, so please come to us if you ever need anything. Are you faring alright? Hopefully the culture shock isn’t too unbearable.”
The Prince chuckled ruefully, “It is a challenge… but Grand Adviser Nami has been so helpful, and now that I know there are still more beautiful and generous women I can rely on, I have no cause for complaint.”
“Sometimes the boys can be foolish.” Kalifa pinned him with her stern gaze. “Do not let them pull you into their ridiculous antics, especially Philos.”
“Oh, Kalifa, they’re harmless,” her companion disagreed. “But sometimes I do wonder that there are more turbulent feelings among them than among the women...”
“It has been obvious to me since the day I met Zoro that he prefers men to women,” Kalifa explained. “And even though he has so few men in his harem, he is much more selective and passionate when choosing to appoint a man. Women come and go; the turnover rate is fairly high at least in comparison. But any man that has entered his harem has, for all intents and purposes, remained there. Only Ace moved on, but he is still by Zoro’s side at all times. And if or when his brother decides to leave, he’ll also remain by Zoro’s side.”
“Brother?” Sanji asked, noticing that his leg was starting to cramp from being in that position, but the girls were obviously not intending to move any time soon.
“Hm?” Rasmiyah asked.
“That is, who are you referring to when you say Ace’s brother? Alright ladies, here we go!” the Prince said, distracted, scooping up the two girls on his legs momentarily to allow him to straighten them out in front of him. The girls squawked in surprise then broke out into laughter.
“Oh, Lykaios of course.”
Sanji looked up, blinking. “…Ace and Lykaios are brothers?”
“Half,” Kalifa corrected. “They have the same father and are only a few months apart. I personally believe it played a big factor in Zoro’s decision to choose them as his guardians. Of course, he was only five years old at the time so it could have just been a whim. They used to look so much alike when they were younger…”
The news wasn’t particularly shocking; at least not, as shocking as the fact that Zoro had three daughters by two different concubines. Still, he had spent all that time with both of them and never known. Not that it was really that much time, but it felt like weeks had passed since he left home. It was just another one of those commonplace facts that everyone knew except him.
“So,” he let out a deep breath, “what other familial connections should I know about? Next I’ll be finding out that Eros is Laertes’ father.”
Rasmiyah smiled sympathetically. “With that man’s reputation, I wouldn’t be surprised. But you’ll become familiar with everyone’s connections soon enough and you’ll find yourself making equally strange connections in the mean time. Oh! Well, there is Ace’s younger brother who will be returning next week. They’re full brothers by the same father. He’s one of Zoro’s upper officers in the military- a Grand something- I can’t really keep up with the lingo-“
“Well, to be accurate, Luffy is not technically enlisted in the Decian military. He’s one of the Grand Peira - pirates that hold allegiances to the highest bidder, whether that bidder is a country, the World Government or another pirate. They are not held to the Law of the Sea or to the laws of any country.”
Sanji knew very well what the Grand Peira were. Kiot had an entire fleet of them who were used mainly for shipping slaves. If he could say anything for his father, it was that Spiridon put a stop to that during his active reign. But for the last several years in which the old King was bedridden, Sanji’s brothers actively pursued as many alliances with these murderers and thieves as they could get their hands on, an act that severely exacerbated the situation with the underdeveloped country of Shilat.
As if she could tell what he was thinking, Kalifa added, “Luffy and his crew are the only Grand Peira that Zoro has enlisted, so you can be sure that he is a good man. I don’t know of anyone that doesn’t have some special affection for Monkey D. Luffy.”
“I’m going to marry Luffy!” Rika proclaimed.
“You can’t marry two people, Rika! Yesterday you said you were marrying Sanji!”
Rika went extremely red in the face and said, “You promised not to tell, Nadi! Besides, you said you were going to marry him too!”
Nadiya promptly retaliated with a raspberry, and Kalila looked at Sanji in all seriousness and, shaking her head said, “Girls.”
***
Not wanting to dominate him entirely, Kalifa and Rasmiyah pried their girls away from the Prince and shooed him away, insisting he visit with some of the other women, though not for too long or else he would be exhausted by the time he was due for dinner.
He parted with the girls reluctantly, promising them that he would see them soon.
What happened next was very confusing and Sanji would never have been able to figure out what happened if it weren’t for all the witnesses afterwards.
He had only made it halfway across the room, catching the eyes of The Twins, when Rika came running after him, calling his name. He turned around to see what it was, but before his gaze could even lower to the little girl, his body erupted in goose bumps and a motion to his right made him flinch.
A figure - and that’s all Sanji could really see because, even though the entire world suddenly slowed to a stop at that moment, the dark blur was moving too fast for him to discern what it was. All Sanji knew was that it appeared out of nowhere, and it was making its way straight for Zoro’s daughter.
It could have been anything, but whatever it was, it set off all the danger alarms in the Prince’s body. Rika was a mere two steps from him and he didn’t even have time to turn his head to see what he was kicking before his right leg lashed out with a lethal force he reserved only for when he was training or having to defend himself against his brothers.
It seemed as though it went flying across the room before the sound of the impact of Sanji’s foot even reached his ears, which was then followed by the sound of impact it made against the stone wall of the room.
Then everything began to speed back up and the entire room was screaming. He intended to sweep forward and grab Rika, but Eros got to her first and suddenly Lykaios was in his face, screaming at him.
He only heard about two words before he stopped being able to hear anything at all. Everyone was moving and the Prince’s legs abruptly gave out and he fell into Lykaios’ arms. He was more confused than anything, knowing that something had happened to cause his brain to fall behind. Unfortunately the muted silence ended and the pain of being stabbed in the stomach hit him in full force.
“Don’t move, don’t speak-” and then he was being lifted into Lykaios’ arms and they were rushing down a hallway, several hallways, and there must have been a thousand people following them because it sounded like every single one of them was screaming all at once. It was more than Sanji could take, coupled with the searing heat emanating from his wound. He looked down and saw so much blood he couldn’t even see where he’d been stabbed.
“Lykaios-” he meant to say firmly, but instead it came out as a whisper he was sure the Guardian wouldn’t be able to hear over all the chaos.
“I said ‘don’t talk’.”
He wanted to tell Lykaios that that wouldn’t be an issue at this point, because he felt very much like he was going to pass out.
***
Part Two