Fic: Deep Blue Sea (Chapter Seven)
At long last... it's finished. The final chapter of Deep Blue Sea. (insert maniacal laughter). I've been working on this story for nigh on six months, if you count planning. And now it's finished. No keelhauling for me!
Thank yous go out to Tiff and Chibi and everyone else who sat and listened to me rant through the "crazy plotbunny" that was eating my brains back in July and August, finding me all sorts of nifty tidbits of legends and sea-myths that could give this story depth. Thanks to Chibi and Kaja for beta-ing and threats/pleadings that kept me encouraged, even when I wanted to give up.
Index:
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Interlude
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Title: Deep Blue Sea (Chapter Seven, Final Chapter)
Fandom: One Piece (c) Eiichiro Oda
Rating: PG-15 for language, violence, and mature themes
Summary: AU Warning. Myths and legends are reborn, men and monsters are set on conflicting paths, and all for the love of the Sea.
Chapter Seven:
There was a legend kept by the Sea’s younger children, the sirens and the selkies, regarding their elder relations the seamasters. Perhaps it was because the seamasters were the first born, already ancient before the first siren even drew breath. Perhaps it was because they were distant, seemingly aloof as they tended towards solitude over the company of kith and kin. Either way, the Children of the Deep Blue Sea whispered of the first-born that they had no souls and, upon death, became foam upon the Sea. Whether or not this was fact, the seamasters never said, and their younger ilk never discovered.
In truth, seamasters with unopened hearts did indeed become foam, returning to the mother that loved them best and that was their only love. The things that could, or would, bring death to the Sea’s best-beloved children did so in search of secrets that were lost forever when the merfolk died. Those precious few who gave away immortality threw their fates in with their beloveds, and if there was an afterlife, then surely they stayed united with their heart’s mate.
Sanji, however, had both an opened heart and his immortality, putting him in a unique - if precarious - situation. The weight of the chains dragged his benumbed body down to the depths of the ocean, far deeper than even he would ever dive in his true form. Weakly he fought the darkness that encroached on his mind, struggling to remember the Change he once could call so easily. The knowledge would not come, however; it slipped through his grasp like dry sand and dust.
Slowly his sense of self began to dissolve into the Sea. The early times went first and easiest, for they held nothing that did not already belong to her. Those thoughts and memories that were not naturally in her domain: pain, joy, friendship, and love; those resisted the fade, and he clung to them with the desperation that came only in the face of death.
Pain, he remembered clearly; it caused the cracks in the shell around his heart. He saw it on Usopp’s face when the selkie was small and alone, and when he defended the seamaster’s behavior when Sanji himself had not realized he was doing anything wrong. He felt it when he first looked on the empty space where Zeff’s leg was supposed to be, and ever after where the wooden peg failed to perfectly replace it, and he remembered that somehow the crusty old pirate thought he was worth giving up the pursuit of All Blue for.
Joy, he remembered warmly; it brought sweetness to temper the bitterness of pain, if not erase it altogether. The unfettered joy on Usopp’s face when Sanji gave him the sea-glass goggles was an image he kept close to his heart for many years in the selkie’s absence. The pure joy that Luffy exuded just by existing made it difficult for the seamaster to stay mad with the young captain, even if he did eat more than entire naval marine crew on leave.
Friendship, he remembered, and by now the darkness was ravenously devouring memories in speed proportional to how tightly he clung to them. But friendship was about connections, and those connections were perhaps even deeper than the Sea herself. After all, didn’t Luffy and Usopp hunt down the Flying Dutchman, the legendary ship of damnation and destruction, and even fired upon it, in the spirit of that connection? And had he himself not borne nearly unbearable suffering for the sake of the connection he had with the other Children of the Deep? And was there not another to whom he was connected…?
The memories of Luffy’s cry across the waves and the siren’s presence beneath the deck were suddenly wrenched from his grasp, and Sanji was faced with gaping emptiness as he tried to remember love. It was strange indeed, he thought, that the first creatures produced by the Sea’s first encounter with love would have so tenuous and yet so vital a comprehension of the thing.
For a moment, he lost himself in the dark. He ceased to be Sanji: seamaster, chef, prodigy of Red Leg Zeff, friend of Luffy and Usopp, protector of the redheaded siren, companion of Roronoa Zoro. He was part of the Sea, and as such, all that was hers belonged to him, too. In that space of time he came to know his mother’s reasoning for giving her gifts to her children as no other knew her mind, save perhaps the Beloved of the Sea.
Firstborn, the seamasters had more of the Sea in them than of human blood. They were given eternity because the Sea was eternal, but even the Sea could be lonely, and even the Sea was once in love. Her first Beloved had died within her very heart to express his love, and he rested forever more in the waters of All Blue because she could never let him go. For a seamaster to open his or her heart was, in essence, to bind their lives with those of others. Once seamasters knew that kind of connection, they never returned to their former lives of solitude. Seamasters loved with the same intensity as their mother, after all.
The gift of immortality that a seamaster offered a mortal was not true eternity, but it was close. The Sea’s power would protect them as long as they remained close to her, healing their wounds and staying the hands of time. Though the seamaster would be weakened, it would still be quite possible for the couple to live quite contentedly for many, many years. If and when the Undying decided to pass on, the seamaster was never long in following. When the seamaster died, the Undying often, but not always, followed suit. Sometimes they had unfinished business, like the swordsman with the black blade who refused to die except in battle to a worthy opponent. Some received their immortality out of a love they had never returned, but it was given anyway. There was a man… No, there was a sword.
At the bottom of the Sea there rested three swords. Two of them were rusted and useless, taken by the Sea’s change. The third, however, was pristine, a pearl-adorned katana of sublime quality, blessed by the Sea. Once it belonged to a seamaster, and as she lay dying she passed the sword to a man who tried to save and avenge her. She gave him eternity before she lost it in exchange for the strength he had given her.
The Sea remembered him, the Undying named Roronoa Zoro. She remembered how he fought the black-bladed swordsman in her daughter’s name, and she remembered how he brought her daughter home to die. She remembered how the sword became his, a sign of the last gift her daughter had to give, and how he used it to fight her bastard son, and how it was unceremoniously returned to her. She remembered how Zoro saved her son not once, but twice, and she remembered her son who could not be what he was.
And then her son remembered himself, who he was, what he was, and what he still had left to do.
Sanji thought of a curse that sounded like the drag of undertow and gathered all three swords in his arms, swimming through the dark water with a grim and savage smile.
There was only one good thing about being chained to an anchor at the bottom of the ocean, Zoro reflected, and that was that at that depth, the temperature and pressure made it impossible to feel the harpoon that skewered his torso. The thing about having the Sea as a source of power was that, unlike a normal human, being thousands of feet below the surface simply didn’t affect him with any serious detriment, like being crushed out of consciousness or drowning. He had no idea what happened to all the seawater he inhaled; it just seemed to evaporate inside him, possibly in a futile attempt to fix the impalement.
He tried again to strain against the bonds, but they refused to budge. All he managed to accomplish was to aggravate the wound again, and even that didn’t last since, being immersed in saltwater, the exposed part promptly healed. He really wasn’t looking forward to the first time one of the deep sea creatures got brave enough to start gnawing on him. The last thing he wanted was to be some kind of undersea all-you-can-eat.
Something brushed against his lips, and he jerked his head away in surprise.
“Stupid marimo, if you were already set in staying here, you could have said something earlier and saved me the trip,” came a familiar voice in a familiar language. Sea speech, apparently, wasn’t the least bit encumbered by being delivered underwater. If anything, the message seemed to be clearer than ever.
“You?” Zoro tried to gasp, but then there were hands cupping his face, warm despite the cold of the water, and lips on his, soft despite the rough salt of the water, and air passing into his admittedly compromised lungs.
“I brought you a present. It was a pain in the ass to get, so you better appreciate it.” The lips and hands withdrew, leaving him floundering in the cold that felt sharper for the absence. “She says you’ll know what to do with it, though I don’t see how.” Zoro opened his mouth to object, only to have the almost forgotten feeling of a pearl-adorned sword grip shoved between his teeth.
“Can’t shake the heavens if you can’t cut metal, right?” Another voice, a different voice, whispered to him, so faint that it might have come from the fringes of memory but for the fact that he couldn’t remember her ever saying anything like that before. Still, it sounded like something she would say.
He grinned around the hilt of his sword, for the sword belonged to him as much as the blood in his veins.
“Watch yourself,” he growled, and it sounded like the tide rushing out before a tsunami. He took a moment to gather and center his strength, and then, with a twist of the head like the impact of a tidal wave, he cut through the harpoon and chains.
One hand found his shoulder in the dark and pushed him free of the remaining iron shaft, and the seawater that filled the hole healed the injury instantly. Zoro flexed a moment, relishing the feeling of freedom for the first time in far too long.
“Hey, dumbass, they’re waiting for us topside.” He could almost here the sunlight grin as his hand was taken and he was suddenly jerked upwards. Though he swam as fast as he could, he could never keep up with the other, who was always pulling his arm to drag him along just a little bit faster.
Once they reached the Euphotic zone and light finally filtered into the water, he saw why. After all, there wasn’t a human alive who could swim as fast as a seamaster in his true form.
Zoro abruptly stopped swimming, taking a moment to absorb the sight of the sleek gray skin of Sanji’s tail. He had only seen it once before and hadn’t gotten to properly value the sight because the atmosphere of the Flying Dutchman ruined any impression it might have made. To a man who appreciated no passive beauty and studied only the aesthetics that came in the grace and power of action or keen edge of a blade, the sight was stunning nonetheless. The lean, trimly cut muscles of his human torso, the thicker, more powerful muscles of the tail… the way Sea and Man came together so cleanly, forming a creature that looked awkward and clumsy out of the water, but absolutely perfect within…
Sanji noticed the extra drag from his uncooperative companion and glanced back down at him, his brilliant, sea-colored eyes sharp with irritation.
“Hurry up!” He snapped, shoving the two swords tucked under his arm toward the Undying. “Luffy’s already fighting Arlong!”
“Wait, these are-“ The swordsman’s stare turned to the weapons. He remembered them well, but weren’t they just covered in rust and barnacles a minute ago?
Sanji’s expression softened as his gaze turned distant, as if listening to a whisper from the Sea that even Zoro couldn’t hear.
“For her love,” he said gently, pointing to the white sword between Zoro’s teeth, “for her hate,” to the red sword, “and for her vengeance,” to the black sword. “Arlong took them away. She’s giving them back.” He smiled before shaking himself out of the moment and pulling on Zoro’s arm again. “Now come on, we don’t have time to waste.”
They hit the surface hard, and Zoro greedily gasped for air. Sanji looked anxiously at the becalmed sea, searching for a way to get to the fight. The Going Merry was at the Dutchman’s stern, but Sanji couldn’t make a jump from the deck unless he was in his human form, and he couldn’t Change in water.
“Well, now what?” Zoro asked once he was recovered enough to speak above water.
“I’m working on it.” The seamaster muttered back, swimming closer to the smaller ship. “Ah, here! A ladder. You can climb up that and get to the Dutchman that way.”
“What about you?”
“Does it look like I can climb a ladder like this?” Sanji leaned back and smacked Zoro with his tail. “Go ahead of me; Luffy needs the backup. I’ll find somewhere to Change-“ The seamaster blinked as the Undying abruptly handed him all three swords and ducked underwater. A few seconds later, he came up under the blond, hauling the lean body across his shoulders as he grabbed the ladder and began to climb. Sanji showed amazing restraint in waiting until they were on board before smacking him for not warning him, though the stream of curses he muttered the whole way up caused the ship’s paint to peel.
Usopp could scold him later, he figured, once he had ensured that the selkie would survive to scold.
Sanji changed and gave Zoro back his weapons. The swordsman grabbed a black rag from the Merry’s deck and tied it around his head to keep the saltwater from his hair from running into his eyes. The seamaster and the Undying shared a look, the grim promise of long awaited retribution, and then they launched themselves at the Dutchman.
The scene on deck was a disaster. On one side, Usopp was backed up to the bowsprit, having attempted to distract the crew while Luffy fought Arlong. The sniper, however, had no strong close combat skills and was running low on ammunition, firing only when someone came too close or he could knock down more than one with his shot.
On the other side, Luffy fought Arlong, fists and feet crashing into the Bastard with all the force of tidal waves. The Bastard held his own, though, for he was tough enough to withstand the Sea’s might and he had a bite of his own. It was clear from the blood and holes in Luffy’s shirt that he had already discovered this.
Sanji lunged for the crowd closing in on Usopp, letting his legs crush bone and rend flesh with no remorse or hesitation. He remembered well how the crew mocked and jeered him during his fights with Zoro, laughing at how desperately he tried to protect the siren he’d never even seen by distracting Arlong. They all had a crash course in manners reserved for them, and the blond cook was only too happy to deliver.
The last crewman collapsed in front of Usopp, who stood ready to hit him with his slingshot. The lean blond figure standing nonchalantly on the man’s back grinned roguishly back at him.
“Sanji?” Usopp exclaimed happily, pulling up his sea-glass goggles to see his friend clearly. “You’re not dead!” Tears welled up in the selkie’s dark eyes as he quickly hugged the seamaster. “When we boarded, I couldn’t find you; I was afraid -“
“The Great Selkie Captain, afraid?” Sanji smirked, arching a curled eyebrow. “Say it isn’t so!”
“Laugh all you want, but Arlong was ranting about eating a seamaster heart.” Usopp sobered. “Luffy was so mad-Luffy!” The selkie started for the other side of the ship, but Sanji grabbed his arm.
“Zoro and I will help Luffy,” he said. “I need you to look for the siren.”
“But, Sanji-“ Usopp paused, torn between the desire to prove himself to his old friend and stand beside him in combat and the desire to stay relatively safer.
“Please.” He murmured, severe expression softening slightly. “I need to know she’s okay.” Usopp understood about keeping a lady safe, at least, and this way he didn’t have to worry about the selkie. From what the sniper told him of his adventures with Luffy, usually when his captain fought something, Usopp was rather far from the scene.
“Okay.” Usopp nodded, ducking into the belly of the damned ship. At least he was safe.
Zoro, meanwhile, jumped in alongside Luffy against Arlong, his three blades sharper and more deadly than ever before. Arlong’s shark-like skin was resistant to most of the damage, but still the swords managed to spill some of the Bastard’s blood. Beside the swordsman, Luffy wove between attacks with the Sea’s own grace, bending with inhuman dexterity inherent of the Sea to escape sharp, snapping teeth. The Beloved of the Sea lashed out with power-packed attacks of his own, her power giving him strength to match that of his opponent.
“You!” Arlong bellowed at Zoro when he finally caught a good look at him through the red battle haze. “I dropped you to the bottom of the ocean!”
“And now I’m back.’ Zoro grinned, crossing his blades in front of him. “By the way, your mother says ‘hi’.” He lunged, catching the Bastard in the side and drawing blood.
“Hey, we’ve been waiting for you!” Luffy crowed cheerfully to the swordsman as he used the break in the Bastard’s guard to land a half-dozen odd punches. “I’m Luffy! I’m going to have adventures on All Blue and be friends with seamasters and selkie and sirens. Wanna join my crew?”
If Zoro thought the recruitment offer was ill-timed or otherwise odd, he didn’t reveal it in his reaction, because he answered: “I’m Roronoa Zoro, and I’m going to be the swordsman whose name shakes the heavens. Sure.” And he spun into another attack. Arlong clipped him upside the head as he dodged, and then promptly bit into the Undying man’s shoulder. Zoro roared in pain but did not drop his swords. The Bastard took them from him once; he wouldn’t get them a second time.
Sanji dropped in then, having hopped into the rigging to flank the fight and gain the element of surprise. His foot smashed into Arlong’s back, causing the damned captain to lose his grip on Roronoa. The swordsman stumbled forwards, and Luffy filled the vacancy with attacks of his own.
The siren, apparently, found Usopp, for the two of them rode a wave to the deck where the fight took place. She looked unharmed, but like the others who had suffered at Arlong’s hands, she wore an expression that echoed of the Sea’s hatred. The splashing seawater from the wave healed Zoro’s wound, and he threw himself back into the fray, blades flashing.
For a long moment there was no sound on the ocean but that of battle. The Beloved, the Undying, and the Child of the Deep Blue Sea attacked Arlong with their full strength, and under the assault, blood flowed and bones cracked. Like Zoro’s three swords, they personified the Sea’s love, hate, and vengeance. The Bastard’s corruption and atrocity were judged and found guilty.
They paused before finishing him, unsure as to which should deliver the final blow.
“Eat… your… hearts…!” Arlong snarled weakly, wobbling like a lubber in a squall.
The siren stepped forward then, a beautiful but merciless smile on her lips as she leaned forward.
“Mother’s waiting,” she purred, and pushed him over the side of the boat. The Sea rose up to meet him, all coral fangs and narwhale horns, shark teeth and jellyfish stings. Her bastard son was at last in her power, and the Sea grabbed hold of him with all her might. He had much for which he had to answer.
No one moved as the surface of the Sea became as still as glass once more, the reverberation of Arlong’s final, almost incomprehensive curse dying in the air. Silence descended as the reality of the situation began to sink in, only to be shattered by a soft, deep groan. The remaining five exchanged confused looks until they realized that the sound came from the Dutchman herself.
With her cursed captain gone, the magic holding the patchwork man-o-war together began to unravel. Great sections of the ship fell away, sinking to the depths of the Sea with aching sighs of relief as they were at last able to go to their long denied rest.
The triumphant survivors quickly evacuated to the Going Merry and cast off, watching the Dutchman’s destruction with muted awe.
The moment didn’t last long, of course. Luffy turned to the siren and promptly offered her a position on the crew, proudly proclaiming that if she joined, they’d have a seamaster, a selkie, and a siren, and they could move on to the “have adventures and find the treasures of All Blue” part of his life’s dream. She laughed, a lilting, melodic tone like the trickle of water between rocks, and started haggling salary.
Sanji turned past Usopp, who was examining the state of the ship, and looked at Zoro. The Undying man had sheathed his swords and was staring impassively at the horizon, where the wall of clouds was breaking apart to reveal the clear blue sky.
“So.” The seamaster rocked back on his heels, looking away as he caught the swordsman’s attention.
“So?”
“Are you… sticking around?”
“Told your captain-friend I would.” He shrugged. “Why, did you miss me?”
“Yeah, right.” Sanji snorted, finally glancing over and catching the leer that blossomed across the other man’s face.
“Right.”
“I didn’t!”
“Uh-huh.”
“Shut the hell up, shitty swordsman!”
“HEY! What happened to Merry’s paint?”
And so, the Going Merry sailed to the horizon, where there awaited them adventures the likes of which were the foundations of legends. The Heart of the Sea was theirs to claim.
THE END
Note: The Euphotic Zone - the layer of the ocean where sunlight is sufficient to support photosynthesis. The exact depth measurement depends on a lot of factors, but for the sake of this story, it's really not important beyond "there's light".
If you've read the story, please comment. Even if you just want to say you hated it and want to know what I was smoking to come up with this craziness. Thank you for your time and attention.
Thank yous go out to Tiff and Chibi and everyone else who sat and listened to me rant through the "crazy plotbunny" that was eating my brains back in July and August, finding me all sorts of nifty tidbits of legends and sea-myths that could give this story depth. Thanks to Chibi and Kaja for beta-ing and threats/pleadings that kept me encouraged, even when I wanted to give up.
Index:
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Interlude
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Title: Deep Blue Sea (Chapter Seven, Final Chapter)
Fandom: One Piece (c) Eiichiro Oda
Rating: PG-15 for language, violence, and mature themes
Summary: AU Warning. Myths and legends are reborn, men and monsters are set on conflicting paths, and all for the love of the Sea.
Chapter Seven:
There was a legend kept by the Sea’s younger children, the sirens and the selkies, regarding their elder relations the seamasters. Perhaps it was because the seamasters were the first born, already ancient before the first siren even drew breath. Perhaps it was because they were distant, seemingly aloof as they tended towards solitude over the company of kith and kin. Either way, the Children of the Deep Blue Sea whispered of the first-born that they had no souls and, upon death, became foam upon the Sea. Whether or not this was fact, the seamasters never said, and their younger ilk never discovered.
In truth, seamasters with unopened hearts did indeed become foam, returning to the mother that loved them best and that was their only love. The things that could, or would, bring death to the Sea’s best-beloved children did so in search of secrets that were lost forever when the merfolk died. Those precious few who gave away immortality threw their fates in with their beloveds, and if there was an afterlife, then surely they stayed united with their heart’s mate.
Sanji, however, had both an opened heart and his immortality, putting him in a unique - if precarious - situation. The weight of the chains dragged his benumbed body down to the depths of the ocean, far deeper than even he would ever dive in his true form. Weakly he fought the darkness that encroached on his mind, struggling to remember the Change he once could call so easily. The knowledge would not come, however; it slipped through his grasp like dry sand and dust.
Slowly his sense of self began to dissolve into the Sea. The early times went first and easiest, for they held nothing that did not already belong to her. Those thoughts and memories that were not naturally in her domain: pain, joy, friendship, and love; those resisted the fade, and he clung to them with the desperation that came only in the face of death.
Pain, he remembered clearly; it caused the cracks in the shell around his heart. He saw it on Usopp’s face when the selkie was small and alone, and when he defended the seamaster’s behavior when Sanji himself had not realized he was doing anything wrong. He felt it when he first looked on the empty space where Zeff’s leg was supposed to be, and ever after where the wooden peg failed to perfectly replace it, and he remembered that somehow the crusty old pirate thought he was worth giving up the pursuit of All Blue for.
Joy, he remembered warmly; it brought sweetness to temper the bitterness of pain, if not erase it altogether. The unfettered joy on Usopp’s face when Sanji gave him the sea-glass goggles was an image he kept close to his heart for many years in the selkie’s absence. The pure joy that Luffy exuded just by existing made it difficult for the seamaster to stay mad with the young captain, even if he did eat more than entire naval marine crew on leave.
Friendship, he remembered, and by now the darkness was ravenously devouring memories in speed proportional to how tightly he clung to them. But friendship was about connections, and those connections were perhaps even deeper than the Sea herself. After all, didn’t Luffy and Usopp hunt down the Flying Dutchman, the legendary ship of damnation and destruction, and even fired upon it, in the spirit of that connection? And had he himself not borne nearly unbearable suffering for the sake of the connection he had with the other Children of the Deep? And was there not another to whom he was connected…?
The memories of Luffy’s cry across the waves and the siren’s presence beneath the deck were suddenly wrenched from his grasp, and Sanji was faced with gaping emptiness as he tried to remember love. It was strange indeed, he thought, that the first creatures produced by the Sea’s first encounter with love would have so tenuous and yet so vital a comprehension of the thing.
For a moment, he lost himself in the dark. He ceased to be Sanji: seamaster, chef, prodigy of Red Leg Zeff, friend of Luffy and Usopp, protector of the redheaded siren, companion of Roronoa Zoro. He was part of the Sea, and as such, all that was hers belonged to him, too. In that space of time he came to know his mother’s reasoning for giving her gifts to her children as no other knew her mind, save perhaps the Beloved of the Sea.
Firstborn, the seamasters had more of the Sea in them than of human blood. They were given eternity because the Sea was eternal, but even the Sea could be lonely, and even the Sea was once in love. Her first Beloved had died within her very heart to express his love, and he rested forever more in the waters of All Blue because she could never let him go. For a seamaster to open his or her heart was, in essence, to bind their lives with those of others. Once seamasters knew that kind of connection, they never returned to their former lives of solitude. Seamasters loved with the same intensity as their mother, after all.
The gift of immortality that a seamaster offered a mortal was not true eternity, but it was close. The Sea’s power would protect them as long as they remained close to her, healing their wounds and staying the hands of time. Though the seamaster would be weakened, it would still be quite possible for the couple to live quite contentedly for many, many years. If and when the Undying decided to pass on, the seamaster was never long in following. When the seamaster died, the Undying often, but not always, followed suit. Sometimes they had unfinished business, like the swordsman with the black blade who refused to die except in battle to a worthy opponent. Some received their immortality out of a love they had never returned, but it was given anyway. There was a man… No, there was a sword.
At the bottom of the Sea there rested three swords. Two of them were rusted and useless, taken by the Sea’s change. The third, however, was pristine, a pearl-adorned katana of sublime quality, blessed by the Sea. Once it belonged to a seamaster, and as she lay dying she passed the sword to a man who tried to save and avenge her. She gave him eternity before she lost it in exchange for the strength he had given her.
The Sea remembered him, the Undying named Roronoa Zoro. She remembered how he fought the black-bladed swordsman in her daughter’s name, and she remembered how he brought her daughter home to die. She remembered how the sword became his, a sign of the last gift her daughter had to give, and how he used it to fight her bastard son, and how it was unceremoniously returned to her. She remembered how Zoro saved her son not once, but twice, and she remembered her son who could not be what he was.
And then her son remembered himself, who he was, what he was, and what he still had left to do.
Sanji thought of a curse that sounded like the drag of undertow and gathered all three swords in his arms, swimming through the dark water with a grim and savage smile.
There was only one good thing about being chained to an anchor at the bottom of the ocean, Zoro reflected, and that was that at that depth, the temperature and pressure made it impossible to feel the harpoon that skewered his torso. The thing about having the Sea as a source of power was that, unlike a normal human, being thousands of feet below the surface simply didn’t affect him with any serious detriment, like being crushed out of consciousness or drowning. He had no idea what happened to all the seawater he inhaled; it just seemed to evaporate inside him, possibly in a futile attempt to fix the impalement.
He tried again to strain against the bonds, but they refused to budge. All he managed to accomplish was to aggravate the wound again, and even that didn’t last since, being immersed in saltwater, the exposed part promptly healed. He really wasn’t looking forward to the first time one of the deep sea creatures got brave enough to start gnawing on him. The last thing he wanted was to be some kind of undersea all-you-can-eat.
Something brushed against his lips, and he jerked his head away in surprise.
“Stupid marimo, if you were already set in staying here, you could have said something earlier and saved me the trip,” came a familiar voice in a familiar language. Sea speech, apparently, wasn’t the least bit encumbered by being delivered underwater. If anything, the message seemed to be clearer than ever.
“You?” Zoro tried to gasp, but then there were hands cupping his face, warm despite the cold of the water, and lips on his, soft despite the rough salt of the water, and air passing into his admittedly compromised lungs.
“I brought you a present. It was a pain in the ass to get, so you better appreciate it.” The lips and hands withdrew, leaving him floundering in the cold that felt sharper for the absence. “She says you’ll know what to do with it, though I don’t see how.” Zoro opened his mouth to object, only to have the almost forgotten feeling of a pearl-adorned sword grip shoved between his teeth.
“Can’t shake the heavens if you can’t cut metal, right?” Another voice, a different voice, whispered to him, so faint that it might have come from the fringes of memory but for the fact that he couldn’t remember her ever saying anything like that before. Still, it sounded like something she would say.
He grinned around the hilt of his sword, for the sword belonged to him as much as the blood in his veins.
“Watch yourself,” he growled, and it sounded like the tide rushing out before a tsunami. He took a moment to gather and center his strength, and then, with a twist of the head like the impact of a tidal wave, he cut through the harpoon and chains.
One hand found his shoulder in the dark and pushed him free of the remaining iron shaft, and the seawater that filled the hole healed the injury instantly. Zoro flexed a moment, relishing the feeling of freedom for the first time in far too long.
“Hey, dumbass, they’re waiting for us topside.” He could almost here the sunlight grin as his hand was taken and he was suddenly jerked upwards. Though he swam as fast as he could, he could never keep up with the other, who was always pulling his arm to drag him along just a little bit faster.
Once they reached the Euphotic zone and light finally filtered into the water, he saw why. After all, there wasn’t a human alive who could swim as fast as a seamaster in his true form.
Zoro abruptly stopped swimming, taking a moment to absorb the sight of the sleek gray skin of Sanji’s tail. He had only seen it once before and hadn’t gotten to properly value the sight because the atmosphere of the Flying Dutchman ruined any impression it might have made. To a man who appreciated no passive beauty and studied only the aesthetics that came in the grace and power of action or keen edge of a blade, the sight was stunning nonetheless. The lean, trimly cut muscles of his human torso, the thicker, more powerful muscles of the tail… the way Sea and Man came together so cleanly, forming a creature that looked awkward and clumsy out of the water, but absolutely perfect within…
Sanji noticed the extra drag from his uncooperative companion and glanced back down at him, his brilliant, sea-colored eyes sharp with irritation.
“Hurry up!” He snapped, shoving the two swords tucked under his arm toward the Undying. “Luffy’s already fighting Arlong!”
“Wait, these are-“ The swordsman’s stare turned to the weapons. He remembered them well, but weren’t they just covered in rust and barnacles a minute ago?
Sanji’s expression softened as his gaze turned distant, as if listening to a whisper from the Sea that even Zoro couldn’t hear.
“For her love,” he said gently, pointing to the white sword between Zoro’s teeth, “for her hate,” to the red sword, “and for her vengeance,” to the black sword. “Arlong took them away. She’s giving them back.” He smiled before shaking himself out of the moment and pulling on Zoro’s arm again. “Now come on, we don’t have time to waste.”
They hit the surface hard, and Zoro greedily gasped for air. Sanji looked anxiously at the becalmed sea, searching for a way to get to the fight. The Going Merry was at the Dutchman’s stern, but Sanji couldn’t make a jump from the deck unless he was in his human form, and he couldn’t Change in water.
“Well, now what?” Zoro asked once he was recovered enough to speak above water.
“I’m working on it.” The seamaster muttered back, swimming closer to the smaller ship. “Ah, here! A ladder. You can climb up that and get to the Dutchman that way.”
“What about you?”
“Does it look like I can climb a ladder like this?” Sanji leaned back and smacked Zoro with his tail. “Go ahead of me; Luffy needs the backup. I’ll find somewhere to Change-“ The seamaster blinked as the Undying abruptly handed him all three swords and ducked underwater. A few seconds later, he came up under the blond, hauling the lean body across his shoulders as he grabbed the ladder and began to climb. Sanji showed amazing restraint in waiting until they were on board before smacking him for not warning him, though the stream of curses he muttered the whole way up caused the ship’s paint to peel.
Usopp could scold him later, he figured, once he had ensured that the selkie would survive to scold.
Sanji changed and gave Zoro back his weapons. The swordsman grabbed a black rag from the Merry’s deck and tied it around his head to keep the saltwater from his hair from running into his eyes. The seamaster and the Undying shared a look, the grim promise of long awaited retribution, and then they launched themselves at the Dutchman.
The scene on deck was a disaster. On one side, Usopp was backed up to the bowsprit, having attempted to distract the crew while Luffy fought Arlong. The sniper, however, had no strong close combat skills and was running low on ammunition, firing only when someone came too close or he could knock down more than one with his shot.
On the other side, Luffy fought Arlong, fists and feet crashing into the Bastard with all the force of tidal waves. The Bastard held his own, though, for he was tough enough to withstand the Sea’s might and he had a bite of his own. It was clear from the blood and holes in Luffy’s shirt that he had already discovered this.
Sanji lunged for the crowd closing in on Usopp, letting his legs crush bone and rend flesh with no remorse or hesitation. He remembered well how the crew mocked and jeered him during his fights with Zoro, laughing at how desperately he tried to protect the siren he’d never even seen by distracting Arlong. They all had a crash course in manners reserved for them, and the blond cook was only too happy to deliver.
The last crewman collapsed in front of Usopp, who stood ready to hit him with his slingshot. The lean blond figure standing nonchalantly on the man’s back grinned roguishly back at him.
“Sanji?” Usopp exclaimed happily, pulling up his sea-glass goggles to see his friend clearly. “You’re not dead!” Tears welled up in the selkie’s dark eyes as he quickly hugged the seamaster. “When we boarded, I couldn’t find you; I was afraid -“
“The Great Selkie Captain, afraid?” Sanji smirked, arching a curled eyebrow. “Say it isn’t so!”
“Laugh all you want, but Arlong was ranting about eating a seamaster heart.” Usopp sobered. “Luffy was so mad-Luffy!” The selkie started for the other side of the ship, but Sanji grabbed his arm.
“Zoro and I will help Luffy,” he said. “I need you to look for the siren.”
“But, Sanji-“ Usopp paused, torn between the desire to prove himself to his old friend and stand beside him in combat and the desire to stay relatively safer.
“Please.” He murmured, severe expression softening slightly. “I need to know she’s okay.” Usopp understood about keeping a lady safe, at least, and this way he didn’t have to worry about the selkie. From what the sniper told him of his adventures with Luffy, usually when his captain fought something, Usopp was rather far from the scene.
“Okay.” Usopp nodded, ducking into the belly of the damned ship. At least he was safe.
Zoro, meanwhile, jumped in alongside Luffy against Arlong, his three blades sharper and more deadly than ever before. Arlong’s shark-like skin was resistant to most of the damage, but still the swords managed to spill some of the Bastard’s blood. Beside the swordsman, Luffy wove between attacks with the Sea’s own grace, bending with inhuman dexterity inherent of the Sea to escape sharp, snapping teeth. The Beloved of the Sea lashed out with power-packed attacks of his own, her power giving him strength to match that of his opponent.
“You!” Arlong bellowed at Zoro when he finally caught a good look at him through the red battle haze. “I dropped you to the bottom of the ocean!”
“And now I’m back.’ Zoro grinned, crossing his blades in front of him. “By the way, your mother says ‘hi’.” He lunged, catching the Bastard in the side and drawing blood.
“Hey, we’ve been waiting for you!” Luffy crowed cheerfully to the swordsman as he used the break in the Bastard’s guard to land a half-dozen odd punches. “I’m Luffy! I’m going to have adventures on All Blue and be friends with seamasters and selkie and sirens. Wanna join my crew?”
If Zoro thought the recruitment offer was ill-timed or otherwise odd, he didn’t reveal it in his reaction, because he answered: “I’m Roronoa Zoro, and I’m going to be the swordsman whose name shakes the heavens. Sure.” And he spun into another attack. Arlong clipped him upside the head as he dodged, and then promptly bit into the Undying man’s shoulder. Zoro roared in pain but did not drop his swords. The Bastard took them from him once; he wouldn’t get them a second time.
Sanji dropped in then, having hopped into the rigging to flank the fight and gain the element of surprise. His foot smashed into Arlong’s back, causing the damned captain to lose his grip on Roronoa. The swordsman stumbled forwards, and Luffy filled the vacancy with attacks of his own.
The siren, apparently, found Usopp, for the two of them rode a wave to the deck where the fight took place. She looked unharmed, but like the others who had suffered at Arlong’s hands, she wore an expression that echoed of the Sea’s hatred. The splashing seawater from the wave healed Zoro’s wound, and he threw himself back into the fray, blades flashing.
For a long moment there was no sound on the ocean but that of battle. The Beloved, the Undying, and the Child of the Deep Blue Sea attacked Arlong with their full strength, and under the assault, blood flowed and bones cracked. Like Zoro’s three swords, they personified the Sea’s love, hate, and vengeance. The Bastard’s corruption and atrocity were judged and found guilty.
They paused before finishing him, unsure as to which should deliver the final blow.
“Eat… your… hearts…!” Arlong snarled weakly, wobbling like a lubber in a squall.
The siren stepped forward then, a beautiful but merciless smile on her lips as she leaned forward.
“Mother’s waiting,” she purred, and pushed him over the side of the boat. The Sea rose up to meet him, all coral fangs and narwhale horns, shark teeth and jellyfish stings. Her bastard son was at last in her power, and the Sea grabbed hold of him with all her might. He had much for which he had to answer.
No one moved as the surface of the Sea became as still as glass once more, the reverberation of Arlong’s final, almost incomprehensive curse dying in the air. Silence descended as the reality of the situation began to sink in, only to be shattered by a soft, deep groan. The remaining five exchanged confused looks until they realized that the sound came from the Dutchman herself.
With her cursed captain gone, the magic holding the patchwork man-o-war together began to unravel. Great sections of the ship fell away, sinking to the depths of the Sea with aching sighs of relief as they were at last able to go to their long denied rest.
The triumphant survivors quickly evacuated to the Going Merry and cast off, watching the Dutchman’s destruction with muted awe.
The moment didn’t last long, of course. Luffy turned to the siren and promptly offered her a position on the crew, proudly proclaiming that if she joined, they’d have a seamaster, a selkie, and a siren, and they could move on to the “have adventures and find the treasures of All Blue” part of his life’s dream. She laughed, a lilting, melodic tone like the trickle of water between rocks, and started haggling salary.
Sanji turned past Usopp, who was examining the state of the ship, and looked at Zoro. The Undying man had sheathed his swords and was staring impassively at the horizon, where the wall of clouds was breaking apart to reveal the clear blue sky.
“So.” The seamaster rocked back on his heels, looking away as he caught the swordsman’s attention.
“So?”
“Are you… sticking around?”
“Told your captain-friend I would.” He shrugged. “Why, did you miss me?”
“Yeah, right.” Sanji snorted, finally glancing over and catching the leer that blossomed across the other man’s face.
“Right.”
“I didn’t!”
“Uh-huh.”
“Shut the hell up, shitty swordsman!”
“HEY! What happened to Merry’s paint?”
And so, the Going Merry sailed to the horizon, where there awaited them adventures the likes of which were the foundations of legends. The Heart of the Sea was theirs to claim.
THE END
Note: The Euphotic Zone - the layer of the ocean where sunlight is sufficient to support photosynthesis. The exact depth measurement depends on a lot of factors, but for the sake of this story, it's really not important beyond "there's light".
If you've read the story, please comment. Even if you just want to say you hated it and want to know what I was smoking to come up with this craziness. Thank you for your time and attention.