One Piece/Bleach- "Manifest"
Title: Manifest
Universe: One Piece/Bleach
Theme/Topic: N/A
Rating: PG-13
Character/Pairing/s: Sanji (mentions of Zoro)
Warnings/Spoilers: None I can imagine.
Word Count: 2,810
Summary: In the Thirteen Going on Fourteen universe- Sanji hears a voice.
Dedication: I was going to dedicate this to kotszok, but then I realized there is only bloody Sanji and no bloody Zoro. OOPS.
A/N: ER. I don’t know, really. The idea, the inspiration, the accent, it just sort of HAPPENED. The only thought I had before starting this was that it would only be fair, considering Zoro’s got you know, THREE. Also, sort of inspired by capslock_op’s weekly crossover day, EVEN THOUGH I MISSED IT ENTIRELY. AGAIN. And I really don’t have any better explanation than that. It’s 3 am and I’m still writing, OKAY?
Disclaimer: Not mine, though I wish constantly.
Distribution: Just lemme know.
He wasn’t self-conscious about it because as far as he was concerned, there was nothing to be self-conscious about.
And if other people thought it was something he should be self-conscious about, well, Sanji just rolled up his sleeves and showed them how much it wasn’t. Giving them outright proof that they were stupid and wrong was the fastest way to shut them up, after all.
Like, for instance, whenever the people who were-supposedly-under his and Zoro’s command asked where his zanpakutou was and if the man in charge of something as trivial as the commissary even had the right to a prestigious title like fukutaichou, Sanji simply lit a smoke and proceeded to kick them up and down the courtyard for a few hours-swords and all- until it was time to go start his preparations for the next meal.
Pretty soon everyone (in the fourteenth division at least) figured out that it was something their division vice-captain wasn’t self-conscious about. In fact, it was maybe even something he didn’t need to be self-conscious about.
Because they realized that there were indeed people in this world who didn’t have to carry weapons and could still make it hurt anyway.
Unfortunately, Zoro wasn’t one of those people (and for some god awful reason, he outranked Sanji).
“I got three,” he would glee at the chef, like that was something new, and then would proceed to promise that he’d protect Sanji no matter what, since Sanji was helpless and pathetic and sad and didn’t have anything cool like a sword with a name that could talk and do swirly shiny things with his reiatsu with. While he had three.
Sanji remembered a day long ago, when he got to make fun of the dumbass swordsman for talking to his swords and needing three in the freaking first place. Because back when they’d been alive-back in the real world- that sort of thing was straight up crazy.
But now, here, not only did everyone walk around with sharp pointy things strapped to their hips, they also all seemed to carry on meaningful conversations with them in their free time as well. And regrettably, Sanji was left to wonder if Zoro’d had the right idea all along (which chafed him something awful, to be honest).
Zoro only grinned at him and patted his zanpakutou. “Don’t worry sweetheart,” he leered at the chef, “I already said I’d protect you, didn’t I?”
Needless to say, Sanji ended up kicking Zoro in the head a lot, captain or no.
Because there was nothing to be self-conscious about.
But even still, after a few months-somewhere in-between all his meal planning, kicking Zoro in the head, and proving time and time again that he didn’t need a damned zanpakutou both to himself and his fucking asshole captain- he began hearing a voice.
In his dreams, he heard something whisper his name.
Eerily close, familiar and foreign all at the same time.
It laughed at him like Zoro did, but when the dream-him moved to kick it he always ended up flat on his own ass and confused-bowled over by some amazing force- like the wind itself was there with him, mocking him. Invisible.
Tonight he dreamed of not only that voice but a whole world that was a little bit sideways as well, and finding himself in such an abstract universe instantly made him panic, made him scramble desperately to find his bearings despite his knowing on some level that this was all some sort of stupid dream.
The voice repeated his name like an old friend.
Like it knew Sanji.
The chef responded by shouting angrily at it, telling the fucker to come out and fight fair. “What do you want, asshole?!” he screamed into the blank white sky above him-to the left of him, whatever- and thought the bastard really needed its ass kicked, whatever it was.
“Want? Moi? Acknowledgement, of course, cher!” the voice replied, and chuckled playfully before disappearing into nothing again, leaving the blond to himself in this weird universe of white sky and a million stationary black boxes. He thought they looked like refrigerators.
When he woke from those dreams he didn’t ever remember the details exactly- just the laughter- and it always put him in a bad enough mood that he usually kicked Zoro in the head more than once within the first few hours of their morning work.
Especially when the big meat head grinned and made his usual retarded cracks about how the blond’s zanpakutou was probably that big old kitchen knife he always seemed to have in his hand. “Sloppy and inelegant,” Zoro chortled-with rice stuck to the corner of his mouth- “just like the love chef would be with a sword.”
After-for the umpteenth time-assuring Zoro he didn’t need any sort of weapon besides his own two feet (i.e. by slamming one of them into the underside of the idiot marimo’s jaw), Sanji told his idiot captain he had food on his face before going outside to take a cigarette break and brood to himself.
He watched his cigarette smoke curl up into the blue sky overhead, and wondered why the image suddenly seem so startling, even after years and years of heavy smoking. A strong wind hit him halfway through his break and blew the light out entirely.
For some reason, it was really annoying.
But that was stupid, and so he told himself it was fine before going back inside to finish the lunch preparations.
There was nothing to be self-conscious about.
Which may or may not have been true, but as it turned out, he did need a zanpakutou after all.
He acknowledged it during his first-ever battle with an arrankar, and while he was getting the shit cut out of him by the grinning bastard, he thought that if he made it out of this alive somehow, Zoro would never let him live it down. Hell, if he died, the fucker probably wouldn’t let him live it down either.
Don’t got one. Could sure use one right about now, were his exact thoughts, and he almost couldn’t believe he was thinking them.
But no time to worry about that exactly, so he concentrated on fighting his hardest like he always did, with his life and his pride as a cook of the sea on the line.
All he could do was his best.
When the thing stabbed him right in the chest he went down in a brilliant shower of blood, though not before delivering one last, gasping kick to the creature’s face, chipping off bone fragments from its hideous mask with the force of the blow. It snarled and backhanded him into the trunk of an enormous tree, and as he felt ribs snap like twigs inside of him, he thought that now wouldn’t be such a bad time to return to the mortal world, maybe. He hoped he got to be a great chef of the sea again, in his next life.
“Such morbid thoughts so soon after my acknowledgement, my love? We have only known each other for a very short time, no? Where is your fire, hmm? Your joie de vivre? We’ve not danced together yet, and that would be such a crime, my young cher.”
That voice again, the laughing creature from his dreams. It was louder now, more insistent, perhaps even more amused than it had been when it visited him in sleep.
“Who are you?” the chef demanded as the world began to fade out from around him in slow motion. He wondered if this was true death maybe-the end of everything he was and could have been when faced with an almost unstoppable foe. “What do you want?”
“Ah, my sweet love, all I want is to get to know you better, yes? Wouldn’t you like that too?”
Annoying-it was all very annoying, and Sanji thought that if he was going to die, he’d rather die in peace, without this nagging whatever it was whispering low and sweet into his ear, while blood trickled out of his mouth, gushed from the wounds in his body. “Leave me alone.”
“Ah, such bitterness! You had such potential too, when I saw you. Love at first sight, no? Are you truly alright, cher, with dying like this?”
It did grate on Sanji a little, to know Zoro was probably out there having a grand old time while he couldn’t even hold himself up anymore, when he felt the life and reiatsu leaking out of him drip by drip while he was too tired to do anything about it. He hated to lose, after all. Most of all to that green-headed idiot bastard with three swords.
“Well?” the voice asked, and tendrils of smoke touched his skin, like fingers drawing gently across his face. “Shall we dance after all? Will you let me lead for just a little while?”
“Who are you?” he repeated, when he could speak again, when he forced himself pull his eyes open. He saw a familiar white sky above now, instead of that awful arrankar forest he’d been in, saw a sideways world of endless blocks and blocks and blocks rather than his last opponent’s gaping maw. “Where are we?”
“A familiar place, no? Somewhere inside of you. Little boxes of your life, stored away so neatly in your heart, cher! I’ve had such a lively time going through them all! But some, some I cannot open. Tragic, no? Perhaps you have a key.”
Sanji felt himself losing patience, and struggled-haphazardly-to his feet. Blood was everywhere. “Inside of me?”
“That is where zanpakutou come from, yes?”
And there it was.
Sanji felt the breath as it stole from his lungs, he now faced with the thing that had been eluding him for so long in this bizarre world called seireitei. “My…zanpakutou.”
“Oui! I’ve been trying very hard to speak to you, but you, you do not like the weapons, yes? I know that about you, I think. One box I could cut open by myself, cher.”
Cut?
Right. Right. Zanpakutou were katana. Like Zoro’s, like Zaraki’s, like everyone else’s.
“My… sword?” Sanji breathed aloud, and the whole concept was distasteful to him even if he could admit to needing the help. He had never had any interest in such things, after all.
He sighed, and it burned inside. “My sword.”
The wispy being laughed at him. “I am a blade, cher, there’s a difference, no? You should not generalize when you do not even know my name, I think.”
“Piss me off,” Sanji muttered, because he already couldn’t stand his zanpakutou and they’d just met. “So what’s the difference?”
“The difference? Well, I suppose I don’t have to be swung,” the voice purred, like it knew something Sanji didn’t. “That is okay with you, yes? I know that about you too, I think.”
Sanji sighed. “So? What do you want with me now?”
“To be great friends of course, my love,” the voice declared with infinite sweetness, all while a mysterious white smoke began to curl around the blond’s body. It was like a physical touch, and for just a moment-a second really- Sanji felt his wounds stop hurting, the blood stop gushing out of him as it slowed to a trickle. “Two is stronger than one, yes?” Pause. “But, I suppose, the choice is ultimately up to you, cher. Shall we dance together, finally?”
Sanji thought about this for a minute, vision blurring around the edges. He licked dry lips, took a slow breath. Smoke filled his lungs, and it was familiar. In the end, it was somehow, completely familiar. “If I say no, I die, right?”
“Oui. You are in no place to play with these new friends you have made, my lovely. But, it is as always, up to you.” The smoke withdrew from its cocoon around him then, and just as swiftly, the pain returned-Sanji gasped and staggered, falling to his knees.
In the distance, he thought he could hear the sounds of battle raging on, probably that idiot marimo causing widespread destruction as he let his massive reiatsu burn a hole in the very walls of the universe itself.
Fucking show off.
Sanji coughed and could feel the blood filling his lungs, could feel that dull ache rattling deep in his chest that would only get worse the longer he lingered like this.
Dying. It felt like dying.
He gritted his teeth.
Well fine then.
If he was a shinigami, he would have a zanpakutou. But on his own terms. He’d see what this laughing idiot could do for him.
That decided, he stumbled back onto his feet, stubborn, determined. “What do I have to do?” he asked, and glared hard at the swirling smoke.
The voice laughed-low and seductive. “Do? Mon ami, first thing is first no? Let me introduce myself.”
And then everything went white.
When he came to he was standing again-somehow-and filled with a strange strength that made the pain stop, made his injuries knit together, slowed his breathing to even and cleared the blurry edges around his vision.
A gust of wind blew through the dead forest-warm and familiar-causing the heads of several Arrankar to turn towards him again.
“Still alive?” the one who had stabbed him asked, and grinned, tossing aside the gutted body of one of the shinigami it’d been toying with. “Surprising, since you don’t even have a sword, fukutaichou.”
Sanji glared at it, and was more pissed off now than he’d been when he thought he was dying. “For the last time, I don’t need a goddamned sword!!!”
It smirked, amused at the little shinigami’s insistence despite his state of obvious injury. “So we shall see.” And then it was darting forward again, just as fast and dangerous as Sanji remembered.
He dodged the first swipe on instinct-somehow faster than the arrankar now- and felt the air carry him farther than he would have gone on his own, out of the creature’s reach. It was like flying for a moment, and just when he was about to question it, he felt a familiar presence laugh in his ear, light and euphoric. “Just a blade, yes?” it asked.
“Just a blade,” Sanji conceded with grim determination, and flexed his leg anticipatorily.
He looked down at the surprised Arrankar as it whirled to try and reroute its attack. “Let’s dance then, pain-in-my-ass.”
“How rude!” his zanpakutou laughed. “But I am charmed anyway, I think. Lead on, cher!”
Sanji didn’t need any more encouragement than that, and setting his mouth in a hard line, did exactly that. Turning mid-air, he used all the force of himself and that of his partner as well, gathering it around him as he pivoted, extended his right leg, and kicked as hard as he could.
The force of his attack-nothing but smoke and air- hurtled down at the fast approaching arrankar below.
And Sanji watched, almost disbelieving-yet somehow not- as the energy of his kick began to take form as it hurtled towards its target, white smoke curling hot around the edges until they formed instead, the curved edge of a blade. From air to steel in less than a second.
It carved the head right off of the attacking Arrankar, and the residual force was enough to disintegrate its body as well, blowing it away in particles of bloody dust.
The thing didn’t even have time to scream.
Sanji’s feet touched the ground a moment after, light and graceful.
He blinked, and stared at the arrankar-turned-bloodstain-in-the-dirt. “Huh.”
“Ah, I knew we would dance so well together, cher.”
And while that was all very well and good, Sanji simply grunted and turned then, sticking his hands casually into his pockets.
The glowing eyes of a dozen more opponents glared back at him. Them.
“That was only the first number, pain-in-my-ass,” he murmured, and flexed the muscles in his calves anticipatorily.
His zanpakutou only laughed, loud and bright. “My name, cher, my name!”
Sanji grinned as seven arrankar converged upon them, all at once. This blade of his really was going to be a no-good pain-in-his-ass. But at least they understood each other. “Alright, alright. Shut up and dance already… Hauteclere.”
The blade practically hummed with satisfaction at hearing its own name, and Sanji felt the reiatsu inside of him double from the mere sound of it.
“Now, cher,” Hauteclere sang, “now we are communicating.”
They swept forward then, and Sanji made a mental note to get the happy idiot to stop calling him that even if it killed them both.
But as it was, he supposed that they really did dance beautifully well together.
END
EDITS PLZ.
Universe: One Piece/Bleach
Theme/Topic: N/A
Rating: PG-13
Character/Pairing/s: Sanji (mentions of Zoro)
Warnings/Spoilers: None I can imagine.
Word Count: 2,810
Summary: In the Thirteen Going on Fourteen universe- Sanji hears a voice.
Dedication: I was going to dedicate this to kotszok, but then I realized there is only bloody Sanji and no bloody Zoro. OOPS.
A/N: ER. I don’t know, really. The idea, the inspiration, the accent, it just sort of HAPPENED. The only thought I had before starting this was that it would only be fair, considering Zoro’s got you know, THREE. Also, sort of inspired by capslock_op’s weekly crossover day, EVEN THOUGH I MISSED IT ENTIRELY. AGAIN. And I really don’t have any better explanation than that. It’s 3 am and I’m still writing, OKAY?
Disclaimer: Not mine, though I wish constantly.
Distribution: Just lemme know.
He wasn’t self-conscious about it because as far as he was concerned, there was nothing to be self-conscious about.
And if other people thought it was something he should be self-conscious about, well, Sanji just rolled up his sleeves and showed them how much it wasn’t. Giving them outright proof that they were stupid and wrong was the fastest way to shut them up, after all.
Like, for instance, whenever the people who were-supposedly-under his and Zoro’s command asked where his zanpakutou was and if the man in charge of something as trivial as the commissary even had the right to a prestigious title like fukutaichou, Sanji simply lit a smoke and proceeded to kick them up and down the courtyard for a few hours-swords and all- until it was time to go start his preparations for the next meal.
Pretty soon everyone (in the fourteenth division at least) figured out that it was something their division vice-captain wasn’t self-conscious about. In fact, it was maybe even something he didn’t need to be self-conscious about.
Because they realized that there were indeed people in this world who didn’t have to carry weapons and could still make it hurt anyway.
Unfortunately, Zoro wasn’t one of those people (and for some god awful reason, he outranked Sanji).
“I got three,” he would glee at the chef, like that was something new, and then would proceed to promise that he’d protect Sanji no matter what, since Sanji was helpless and pathetic and sad and didn’t have anything cool like a sword with a name that could talk and do swirly shiny things with his reiatsu with. While he had three.
Sanji remembered a day long ago, when he got to make fun of the dumbass swordsman for talking to his swords and needing three in the freaking first place. Because back when they’d been alive-back in the real world- that sort of thing was straight up crazy.
But now, here, not only did everyone walk around with sharp pointy things strapped to their hips, they also all seemed to carry on meaningful conversations with them in their free time as well. And regrettably, Sanji was left to wonder if Zoro’d had the right idea all along (which chafed him something awful, to be honest).
Zoro only grinned at him and patted his zanpakutou. “Don’t worry sweetheart,” he leered at the chef, “I already said I’d protect you, didn’t I?”
Needless to say, Sanji ended up kicking Zoro in the head a lot, captain or no.
Because there was nothing to be self-conscious about.
But even still, after a few months-somewhere in-between all his meal planning, kicking Zoro in the head, and proving time and time again that he didn’t need a damned zanpakutou both to himself and his fucking asshole captain- he began hearing a voice.
In his dreams, he heard something whisper his name.
Eerily close, familiar and foreign all at the same time.
It laughed at him like Zoro did, but when the dream-him moved to kick it he always ended up flat on his own ass and confused-bowled over by some amazing force- like the wind itself was there with him, mocking him. Invisible.
Tonight he dreamed of not only that voice but a whole world that was a little bit sideways as well, and finding himself in such an abstract universe instantly made him panic, made him scramble desperately to find his bearings despite his knowing on some level that this was all some sort of stupid dream.
The voice repeated his name like an old friend.
Like it knew Sanji.
The chef responded by shouting angrily at it, telling the fucker to come out and fight fair. “What do you want, asshole?!” he screamed into the blank white sky above him-to the left of him, whatever- and thought the bastard really needed its ass kicked, whatever it was.
“Want? Moi? Acknowledgement, of course, cher!” the voice replied, and chuckled playfully before disappearing into nothing again, leaving the blond to himself in this weird universe of white sky and a million stationary black boxes. He thought they looked like refrigerators.
When he woke from those dreams he didn’t ever remember the details exactly- just the laughter- and it always put him in a bad enough mood that he usually kicked Zoro in the head more than once within the first few hours of their morning work.
Especially when the big meat head grinned and made his usual retarded cracks about how the blond’s zanpakutou was probably that big old kitchen knife he always seemed to have in his hand. “Sloppy and inelegant,” Zoro chortled-with rice stuck to the corner of his mouth- “just like the love chef would be with a sword.”
After-for the umpteenth time-assuring Zoro he didn’t need any sort of weapon besides his own two feet (i.e. by slamming one of them into the underside of the idiot marimo’s jaw), Sanji told his idiot captain he had food on his face before going outside to take a cigarette break and brood to himself.
He watched his cigarette smoke curl up into the blue sky overhead, and wondered why the image suddenly seem so startling, even after years and years of heavy smoking. A strong wind hit him halfway through his break and blew the light out entirely.
For some reason, it was really annoying.
But that was stupid, and so he told himself it was fine before going back inside to finish the lunch preparations.
There was nothing to be self-conscious about.
Which may or may not have been true, but as it turned out, he did need a zanpakutou after all.
He acknowledged it during his first-ever battle with an arrankar, and while he was getting the shit cut out of him by the grinning bastard, he thought that if he made it out of this alive somehow, Zoro would never let him live it down. Hell, if he died, the fucker probably wouldn’t let him live it down either.
Don’t got one. Could sure use one right about now, were his exact thoughts, and he almost couldn’t believe he was thinking them.
But no time to worry about that exactly, so he concentrated on fighting his hardest like he always did, with his life and his pride as a cook of the sea on the line.
All he could do was his best.
When the thing stabbed him right in the chest he went down in a brilliant shower of blood, though not before delivering one last, gasping kick to the creature’s face, chipping off bone fragments from its hideous mask with the force of the blow. It snarled and backhanded him into the trunk of an enormous tree, and as he felt ribs snap like twigs inside of him, he thought that now wouldn’t be such a bad time to return to the mortal world, maybe. He hoped he got to be a great chef of the sea again, in his next life.
“Such morbid thoughts so soon after my acknowledgement, my love? We have only known each other for a very short time, no? Where is your fire, hmm? Your joie de vivre? We’ve not danced together yet, and that would be such a crime, my young cher.”
That voice again, the laughing creature from his dreams. It was louder now, more insistent, perhaps even more amused than it had been when it visited him in sleep.
“Who are you?” the chef demanded as the world began to fade out from around him in slow motion. He wondered if this was true death maybe-the end of everything he was and could have been when faced with an almost unstoppable foe. “What do you want?”
“Ah, my sweet love, all I want is to get to know you better, yes? Wouldn’t you like that too?”
Annoying-it was all very annoying, and Sanji thought that if he was going to die, he’d rather die in peace, without this nagging whatever it was whispering low and sweet into his ear, while blood trickled out of his mouth, gushed from the wounds in his body. “Leave me alone.”
“Ah, such bitterness! You had such potential too, when I saw you. Love at first sight, no? Are you truly alright, cher, with dying like this?”
It did grate on Sanji a little, to know Zoro was probably out there having a grand old time while he couldn’t even hold himself up anymore, when he felt the life and reiatsu leaking out of him drip by drip while he was too tired to do anything about it. He hated to lose, after all. Most of all to that green-headed idiot bastard with three swords.
“Well?” the voice asked, and tendrils of smoke touched his skin, like fingers drawing gently across his face. “Shall we dance after all? Will you let me lead for just a little while?”
“Who are you?” he repeated, when he could speak again, when he forced himself pull his eyes open. He saw a familiar white sky above now, instead of that awful arrankar forest he’d been in, saw a sideways world of endless blocks and blocks and blocks rather than his last opponent’s gaping maw. “Where are we?”
“A familiar place, no? Somewhere inside of you. Little boxes of your life, stored away so neatly in your heart, cher! I’ve had such a lively time going through them all! But some, some I cannot open. Tragic, no? Perhaps you have a key.”
Sanji felt himself losing patience, and struggled-haphazardly-to his feet. Blood was everywhere. “Inside of me?”
“That is where zanpakutou come from, yes?”
And there it was.
Sanji felt the breath as it stole from his lungs, he now faced with the thing that had been eluding him for so long in this bizarre world called seireitei. “My…zanpakutou.”
“Oui! I’ve been trying very hard to speak to you, but you, you do not like the weapons, yes? I know that about you, I think. One box I could cut open by myself, cher.”
Cut?
Right. Right. Zanpakutou were katana. Like Zoro’s, like Zaraki’s, like everyone else’s.
“My… sword?” Sanji breathed aloud, and the whole concept was distasteful to him even if he could admit to needing the help. He had never had any interest in such things, after all.
He sighed, and it burned inside. “My sword.”
The wispy being laughed at him. “I am a blade, cher, there’s a difference, no? You should not generalize when you do not even know my name, I think.”
“Piss me off,” Sanji muttered, because he already couldn’t stand his zanpakutou and they’d just met. “So what’s the difference?”
“The difference? Well, I suppose I don’t have to be swung,” the voice purred, like it knew something Sanji didn’t. “That is okay with you, yes? I know that about you too, I think.”
Sanji sighed. “So? What do you want with me now?”
“To be great friends of course, my love,” the voice declared with infinite sweetness, all while a mysterious white smoke began to curl around the blond’s body. It was like a physical touch, and for just a moment-a second really- Sanji felt his wounds stop hurting, the blood stop gushing out of him as it slowed to a trickle. “Two is stronger than one, yes?” Pause. “But, I suppose, the choice is ultimately up to you, cher. Shall we dance together, finally?”
Sanji thought about this for a minute, vision blurring around the edges. He licked dry lips, took a slow breath. Smoke filled his lungs, and it was familiar. In the end, it was somehow, completely familiar. “If I say no, I die, right?”
“Oui. You are in no place to play with these new friends you have made, my lovely. But, it is as always, up to you.” The smoke withdrew from its cocoon around him then, and just as swiftly, the pain returned-Sanji gasped and staggered, falling to his knees.
In the distance, he thought he could hear the sounds of battle raging on, probably that idiot marimo causing widespread destruction as he let his massive reiatsu burn a hole in the very walls of the universe itself.
Fucking show off.
Sanji coughed and could feel the blood filling his lungs, could feel that dull ache rattling deep in his chest that would only get worse the longer he lingered like this.
Dying. It felt like dying.
He gritted his teeth.
Well fine then.
If he was a shinigami, he would have a zanpakutou. But on his own terms. He’d see what this laughing idiot could do for him.
That decided, he stumbled back onto his feet, stubborn, determined. “What do I have to do?” he asked, and glared hard at the swirling smoke.
The voice laughed-low and seductive. “Do? Mon ami, first thing is first no? Let me introduce myself.”
And then everything went white.
When he came to he was standing again-somehow-and filled with a strange strength that made the pain stop, made his injuries knit together, slowed his breathing to even and cleared the blurry edges around his vision.
A gust of wind blew through the dead forest-warm and familiar-causing the heads of several Arrankar to turn towards him again.
“Still alive?” the one who had stabbed him asked, and grinned, tossing aside the gutted body of one of the shinigami it’d been toying with. “Surprising, since you don’t even have a sword, fukutaichou.”
Sanji glared at it, and was more pissed off now than he’d been when he thought he was dying. “For the last time, I don’t need a goddamned sword!!!”
It smirked, amused at the little shinigami’s insistence despite his state of obvious injury. “So we shall see.” And then it was darting forward again, just as fast and dangerous as Sanji remembered.
He dodged the first swipe on instinct-somehow faster than the arrankar now- and felt the air carry him farther than he would have gone on his own, out of the creature’s reach. It was like flying for a moment, and just when he was about to question it, he felt a familiar presence laugh in his ear, light and euphoric. “Just a blade, yes?” it asked.
“Just a blade,” Sanji conceded with grim determination, and flexed his leg anticipatorily.
He looked down at the surprised Arrankar as it whirled to try and reroute its attack. “Let’s dance then, pain-in-my-ass.”
“How rude!” his zanpakutou laughed. “But I am charmed anyway, I think. Lead on, cher!”
Sanji didn’t need any more encouragement than that, and setting his mouth in a hard line, did exactly that. Turning mid-air, he used all the force of himself and that of his partner as well, gathering it around him as he pivoted, extended his right leg, and kicked as hard as he could.
The force of his attack-nothing but smoke and air- hurtled down at the fast approaching arrankar below.
And Sanji watched, almost disbelieving-yet somehow not- as the energy of his kick began to take form as it hurtled towards its target, white smoke curling hot around the edges until they formed instead, the curved edge of a blade. From air to steel in less than a second.
It carved the head right off of the attacking Arrankar, and the residual force was enough to disintegrate its body as well, blowing it away in particles of bloody dust.
The thing didn’t even have time to scream.
Sanji’s feet touched the ground a moment after, light and graceful.
He blinked, and stared at the arrankar-turned-bloodstain-in-the-dirt. “Huh.”
“Ah, I knew we would dance so well together, cher.”
And while that was all very well and good, Sanji simply grunted and turned then, sticking his hands casually into his pockets.
The glowing eyes of a dozen more opponents glared back at him. Them.
“That was only the first number, pain-in-my-ass,” he murmured, and flexed the muscles in his calves anticipatorily.
His zanpakutou only laughed, loud and bright. “My name, cher, my name!”
Sanji grinned as seven arrankar converged upon them, all at once. This blade of his really was going to be a no-good pain-in-his-ass. But at least they understood each other. “Alright, alright. Shut up and dance already… Hauteclere.”
The blade practically hummed with satisfaction at hearing its own name, and Sanji felt the reiatsu inside of him double from the mere sound of it.
“Now, cher,” Hauteclere sang, “now we are communicating.”
They swept forward then, and Sanji made a mental note to get the happy idiot to stop calling him that even if it killed them both.
But as it was, he supposed that they really did dance beautifully well together.
END
EDITS PLZ.