Night Before the Raid

Almost crashed cuz I was looking at a bird LMAOOO. Also, would this count as my beach episode????????? Also-also, I have been drawing Zoro a lot.---

I shifted the box I was holding to my other hand and looked around the beach, "How much longer is it gonna take? I still don't recognize any of this."

"We should be pretty close by now," Nami said. Otama had given her instructions before we left since she was the one who helped Luffy and I hide the Sunny.

We were currently walking along the coast holding all of the boxes that Hitetsu gave us, which were still filled with armor. It was the night before the raid, and we were meeting up with Usopp and Franky, who were off restoring ships prior to this. The meeting point was the Sunny so that we could take off whenever we saw fit.

I shifted the crate again. "Hey," I looked to the side when Zoro's voice came in my direction. He looked between me and the box. "Give me that."

"Give it to you?" I repeated, raising a brow. "Why? I already have it."

"It's difficult to walk with it in the sand," he responded, looking down at my sinking sandaled feet and then back at the box.

I pursed my lips and hummed. "I mean, I guess you can have it if you wanna be all chivalrous all of a sudden," I said, stopping to hand him the crate. If I don't have to hold it, then I won't. 

He rolled his good eye and grabbed the crate from my hands, putting it on his shoulder. "Did you end up talking to the cook?" he asked, as we began walking again.

I nodded, "Yea, why do you ask?"

His eye glanced behind us quickly before making contact with mine again. "Maybe because he looks even shittier than usual," he answered.

My eyes directed behind us. Sanji was dragging his feet while looking lost in thought, his cigarette between his lips drooping like it was picking up on his feelings. "Welp, can't say I expected him to turn out like that, but... he'll come to his senses in a bit," I muttered, looking forward again. With a shake of my head, I turned my eyes back to Zoro. "How did the training with Enma go?"

He made a face and grunted, "Better. It's still being difficult. It'll get better when I get to fight with it."

"Yea, maybe it'll trauma bond with you," I chuckled. There was a moment of silence which led me to think about the whole situation we're about to enter again. I then voiced my thoughts, "It might be waiting to see how you fair against Kaido. After all, it has fought against him with it's previous user."

"I didn't think about that..." he mumbled to himself, giving the sword a glance.

"If it doesn't warm up to you by then, just call for me. I'll come to your rescue," I half-joked, grinning.

His lips curled into a half smile, "Yea right. Like you'd be able to handle anyone that I couldn't."

"I definitely could. I could beat you up right now, actually. We could spar like you were so inclined to do when we were in the forest earlier," I boasted. I followed this with a flex of my arms.

He took a look at me and huffed in amusement, shaking his head, "You're ridiculous. Plus, I won't be losing to anyone in the first place. You're the one that's gonna come crying to me instead."

"Wow, really? With the way this conversation is going, I think I might be the one fighting you when the raid starts," I laughed. He faced forward again and let his smile stay on his lips.

It was then that we caught sight of a small fire a few meters down the beach. Two figures sat by it. It was Usopp and Franky. They stood up once they saw us, waving their hands. Zoro and Luffy set down the crates of armor when we got to their little campsite. They immediately took interest in the stuff inside of them, fawning over the helmet stylings and such.

Luffy surprisingly took his armor off, stating that he would rather present as a pirate in this raid rather than a samurai. When I took a seat, Nami quickly plopped down next to me. This got her a sour look from Luffy, as he was about to take the spot she stole, but he moved on when Usopp started posing with his newly chosen armor.

"Soooooo I saw you talking with Sanji earlier today..." she trailed off, crossing her legs over one another. I motioned for her to continue. She grinned and said, "I was just wondering what it was about. He hasn't said anything to anyone after you two chatted. Not to mention that he looks like his mind is out in space."

I sighed and took another glance at the blond. I slapped a hand over my mouth when I saw him, trying not to laugh. He'd faceplanted the sand and was just lying there, making no effort to move. "He's... not gonna be like that when the raid happens tomorrow, is he...?" I mumbled.

She giggled and shook her head, "Probably not. If it turns out that he's still in this daze tomorrow, I'll drop kick him."

"Ah... how lovely..." I sweatdropped.

"...It's strange, really," she sighed. Her expression was one of surprise. "I told him to snap out of it earlier to carry the crates. He didn't even have the mental capacity to respond. You've really done a number on him."

I dragged my hands down my face, "Ahhhh don't say that, I'll start feeling guilty."

She nudged my side with her elbow and smirked really big, "No need to feel guilty. Getting him like that is a major accomplishment, in a way." She got up and went to talk to Robin after that, leaving me with my confusion.

My hands shifted to rest under my chin as my elbows stayed propped on my knees. I don't want to be thinking about boy problems while I fight in an almost-war. If Terry or my dad saw me right now, they'd be telling me that relationships are not allowed anyway. I smiled a little at the thought of it.

"Uhhhh... are you alright?" Usopp questioned. I could see him through the spaces between my fingers. His expression told me he had no idea what was going on, but he was asking anyway.

I let out an exaggerated sigh and replied, "No clue. Thanks for asking, though. How about you, how're you?"

He stood upright and posed with his outfit, "I'm doing great! I could handle anything right now!"

"Yea? Wanna spar then?" I asked, my mood lifting to match his.

He put a hand up and shook his head, "No, no. I'm alright. I take back what I said."

I chuckled and stood up, "I figured. How'd it go with the Minks? All the ships are done?"

The sniper grinned and let his hand drop down to his side, "Yea! It was easy with all the help, not to mention the ships are huge so we didn't have to prepare that many ships in total. There were some we didn't bother using."

"Really? That's a relief. I-"

I was cut off by a huge explosion that went off not far off from our camp. "Hey, wasn't that in the direction of the Sunny?!" Chopper yelled from behind us.

"Ah, man!" Usopp groaned, taking off toward the ship with Franky following close behind him.

The rest of us stayed behind, knowing damn well that we're not too great with fixing things. The two of them came back a couple minutes later with the remains of our sails, saying that everything else is completely intact. It was made out of hella expensive wood, after all. If the ship had actually blown up, I think we'd have to get a refund.

"This needs to get patch this up, we've gotta get going soon!" Nami panicked, looking at the ruined sails.

I rubbed my chin and looked at the burned-up fabric. "Nami, Robin. I think we may have to give up our bed sheets to stitch this up, since the boys don't have actual beds like we do. Unless we take their blankets," I said, looking at the other two women.

Nami sighed and Robin nodded, "We can get new ones as soon as the raid is over."

"Great, I'll go get em," I said, taking off towards the ship.

"I'll come, too!" Luffy cheered, running through the sand after me while his huge black coat waved behind him like a flag.

"DON'T TOUCH OUR ROOM, LUFFY!" Nami screamed out for him to hear.

He didn't respond, just kept a big grin on his face as he caught up with me. "Seriously, don't break anything," I told him. "I'm temporarily in charge of you in Nami's eyes for sure."

He laughed, "I won't do anything! I'm just coming with you!"

I shook my head, hoping for the best and continuing to the ship. When we got to it, I jumped to the deck and so did he. We walked over to the girls' room and I walked in with my captain behind me. I tugged off the sheet to my bed and then took the other two sheets as well. I threw my blanket on the pile in my arms as well. A special donation to the cause. When I turned around, I saw that Luffy was staring at the desk I kept in here.

When I strolled up behind him, I saw that he was specifically looking at the den den mushi I kept. It was modeled after Paulie since he's the one who sent it to me. "You use this?" he asked, picking it up. "Why does it look like that guy?"

"That guy?" I repeated with a huff of amusement.

"Yea! The rope guy!" he clarified as he motioned to the snail dramatically.

"It's because he sent it to me. I like to talk with all the people from Galley-La," I answered his question and took the snail from his hands to place it back on my desk, holding the sheets to my body with my other arm.

He grabbed the pile of sheets from me and balled them up before mumbling, "How come I didn't know?"

I shrugged, "Because it's a me thing. Plus, not everyone knows. Robin and Nami know because they literally sleep in here, and Usopp knows too, but only because of something that happened a while back. I wasn't leaving you out on purpose."

"Stiiiiiiiiiiilllllllllllllll," he groaned, dragging his feet over to the door.

I bumped shoulders with him and laughed, "Alright, I'll tell you when I have my next call. You can talk to them."

The sulking expression fell from his face and his huge grin replaced it, "Alright! Be sure to remember!" He bumped his shoulder with mine as a punctuation of his sentence, a little harder than I did to him.

For some reason, I decided that I had to bump him back. So I did. I bumped him a little harder than he did to me. I didn't make eye contact with him as a way to tell him not to get me back, like the game was over. Because I was going to win. My hand reached for the door so I could let him out of the room, but his shoulder collided with mine, making me have to steady my feet.

I looked at him. He didn't make eye contact, just walked out of the door that I kind of knocked open, smiling and talking about something I couldn't even hear due to my focus being on something else. I walked past him and bumped his shoulder, making him fall flat on his face with the sheets to the side of him.

"OH UH-" I panicked for a second, then I decided to not even finish what I was gonna say. I jumped off the boat and sprinted across the sand back to the camp. I could hear him jump off the boat right after me.

You know that moment when you're playing a game with your friends, and you're running from them, and it starts ACTUALLY getting scary because you're so focused on winning that your brain has turned the whole game into a life-or-death situation. Yea, that's what's happening right now. My heart is going a hundred miles a minute.

Even though I knew my mind was in this state of thrill-caused panic, I turned around to look at where Luffy was. He was right behind me. I let out an embarrassing shriek and he tackled me to the sand.

He tried to get up as soon as we crashed, but I grabbed his arm, keeping him to me in order to punch him in the shoulder aggressively. We rolled around for a little bit, childishly pushing each other's faces. In a few seconds the two of us stopped and just started laughing.

"So..... I'm gonna take these...." Usopp's voice cut through our insane laughter, successfully getting me to calm down.

Taking a quick glance around me, I realized that we were fairly close to the camp and everyone was looking at us strangely, well besides Sanji and Zoro. Zoro is off somewhere, and Sanji is still face down in the sand. I cleared my throat and got off of Luffy, who I was half sprawled across. Usopp had gathered the sheets that Luffy and I had kind of thrown to the side, forgetting that's what we went to the ship to do in the first place.

Luffy got up and dusted himself off beside me, his smile still on his face. "What's everybody looking at?" he chimed, placing his hat on his head, an item which had fallen off of him with all the tumbling in the sand.

"Yea, nothing to see here, avert your eyes," I followed up.

Nami rolled her eyes and got up from her seat, "You two are way too energetic together. Just tell me you left the room before doing all of that stuff."

I put a hand up, "Don't worry, we didn't break anything in the room."

Her gaze turned to Luffy. He nodded. She nodded in approval and walked over to Usopp and Franky to talk to them about... sails? I don't really know.

It was then that my shoulder received yet another bump. Of course, it was Luffy again. I gave him a look. He grinned. I smiled back at him. That's when he gave me a firm shove and went running into the forest. I stumbled back a little.

It took me a second to compute what just happened before I went running after him. I followed the sound of his laughter, as I couldn't really see him with all the trees and the lack of light. During my chase after my captain, my observation haki picked up on something.

I dropped to the floor as a blade cut through the tree I was about to pass. "WHAT THE FUCK!" I shouted in surprised, my eyes nearly popping out of my head at the unexpected attack.

"Just who the hell- oh. Why are you here, (y/n)?" the question came with Zoro's voice, his tone nonchalant.

"I WAS JUST CHASING LUFFY!" I yelled, still in a daze from almost being cut in half. I guess he's still training Enma. "Goddamn, man! I almost died!"

He shrugged, "You wouldn't have died."

My eyebrow twitched, "I wouldn't have died?! Do you know how-"

"(Y/N)!!" Luffy's voice went echoing around us, cutting me off. My attention shifted from Zoro and back to my original purpose for being here.

"Luffy!!!" I called back, spinning around as I said it as if it was going to spread my voice some more.

"Split my ears, why don't you," Zoro grumbled sarcastically, moving away from me and bringing his sword down on to the tree that he sent to the ground earlier.

I waved my hand, "Yea, yea. No need to be jealous."

"I'm not too sure about that," he grunted, cutting the log again.

Just as he said that, Luffy came flying out of the darkness. His arms wrapped around me and we tumbled for a second. Once we came to a stop, thanks to a tree and Luffy's head, the rubber man's arms retracted from me and he laughed, "How did you get lost? I thought you were supposed to be chasing me."

"Zoro almost sliced me up," I replied, motioning to the swordsman who had stopped swinging his blade around to look at us.

Luffy gave the green head a glance and stood up off me to grab my hand, pulling me in another direction. "Let's go this way then! Zoro isn't a part of this!" Luffy chimed, marching ahead.

"A part of what?" the taller man questioned, looking between the two of us.

"A part of.... A part of the game!" the teen announced, sounding a little lost when he trailed off in the beginning.

"Right, right. I'll make my own game with her next time," Zoro replied, his voice very dismissive.

At that, Luffy gripped my hand a little harder and pulled me along to some other part of the forest. I tugged my hand from his once he slowed down a little. Luffy came to a complete stop after I had done that. He didn't get to say anything before I knocked his shoulder with mine harshly, taking off deeper into the forest as I laughed manically. Luffy's laughter followed suit.

~~~

I flopped onto my back and panted aggressively, my captain doing the same a second later. "Now I'm tired. We shouldn't have ran around for so long," I complained. That's right, stop any weird thoughts right now, all of you.

"We can sleep when we get to the ship," Luffy huffed out, wiping sweat from his brow.

"That's actually a great idea. I'll probably sleep on the lawn since I have no sheets," I thought aloud.

He nodded, "I'll sleep there too then."

"Hopefully we don't get stepped on," I joked.

"It happens a lot," Luffy commented.

"Not for me," I shrugged.

He shook his head tiredly, "That's not fair."

A comfortable silence fell over us as we caught our breath some more. It's interesting how much Luffy makes me forget about all the bad shit we're about to go through. It's like he gives me his positivity whenever I'm in his happiness radius. I think it's like that for everyone he meets.

"Luffy, you're like a beacon of good feelings," I told him. "And your smile is cute."

"My smile?" he repeated.

I nodded, "Yea. It's great. Infectious, even. You-"

A startled noise involuntarily came out of me when his hand suddenly covered my face loosely. I grabbed it and moved it away, looking toward the black-haired male in confusion. He had turned over and was looking at me. I felt like I was in some kind of romance novel. It's night, the moon is my only source of light, we're both laying in a quiet forest and I'm holding his hand. Not to mention... he's red. My grip on his hand loosened and I blinked in surprise, looking at his flustered face. It was a new expression.

"OI! YOU GUYS HAVE TO COME BACK TO THE SHIP! WE'RE LATE!"

Usopp's voice. My hand fully grabbed his again and I stood up, pulling him with me. I smiled, "Hey, let's go back, we've got a raid to fight."

He stared at me a second before smiling wide and gripping my hand tightly.

"Okay!"

---Anyway.... The reason why this is LATE ASF is bc I made another chapter following the episodes n then i was like no i dont like that. So i skipped some episodes n didnt like that either. AND THEN I decided on another fluffy chapter instead which was hard to write. So here we are

LOVE YALL, PLUS MY CLASS IS OVER <3I MIGHT UPDATE ON MY SMUT BOOK FINALLY. BYE