3/3

And still the damn thing was trying to get up! Despite the massive footprint in its chest, despite one leg not working at all, despite everything above its shoulders looking like it was made of so much jelly, it attempted to lift itself on its arms. And yet, it was clear to everyone that it wasn't going to last much longer. Just needed one… last… damn… push!

"HEY, MORIA!" Soundbite roared, his jaw set in a murderous scowl. "HOW'S THIS FOR A LITTLE DITTY! GASTRO-NATION!"

Without warning, the air was suddenly filled with the most skull-churning, gut-shredding grindcore I'd ever heard. On its own it was pretty bad.

"AAAAAAAAARGH!"

But going by how the shadows around us suddenly screamed and Oars' corpse started to writhe like it was undergoing an exorcism? I think there was more going on than what I was hearing.

"Gastro-Nation?" I asked quietly, warily eyeing Soundbite as he ground his teeth, a look of intense concentration on his face.

"For 'domination'," he grit out. "It's a triple-threat assault. FIRST LAYER IS TO MUTE THE AREA. YOU THINK WHAT YOU'RE HEARING IS LOUD? IT'S UP TO ELEVEN IN THERE. Second is that there's some Phony mixed in to stir the guts. But third? Ohohoh..." He shook his head slowly as a distinctly vindictive tone entered his voice. "THIRD IS WHEN I MAKE HIS BRAIN AND SKULL VIBRATE JUST SO. In the simplest of terms, it feels like his gray matter is grinding itself to paste from the inside out." Soundbite's grin grew absolutely satanic. "NEAT, RIGHT?"

"That's one word for it…" I muttered under my breath. I was silent for a bit before giving him an accusatory glance. "…you're gonna be blowing chunks because of this, aren't you?"

"Somebody get me a bucket…" he moaned queasily, letting his eyestalks hang. And despite quickly perking up, he still looked rather green. "OR COTTONTAIL'S TAIL."

"Somebody help me, I'm actually considering it," Su said offhandedly with no small amount of deserved awe as she watched Oars' corpse literally shake itself to pieces in its agonized convulsions. Massive chunks of flesh were sloughing off and shattering into chunks, though thankfully the flailing arms weren't producing oh for the love of—!

"DUCK!" I yelped as one of Oars' fingers soared towards us. Following my own advice, I threw myself to the ground, feeling a cold wind of a stupidly close miss brush my everything, followed by a loud crash. "Victory has never sucked so hard," I groused.

"Stupid giant… why couldn't Moria have used a sea king or something else that would be tasty?" Luffy grumbled as he got out from under the finger he's been slammed with.

"Wow, that nearly took your head off," Su blandly remarked.

"Get your LAST LICKS in, COTTONTAIL," Soundbite moaned. "'Cause I'm about to go MUTE. HURP!"

I repositioned my partner so that he was free to hock his lunch anywhere but on me as I watched the end of the body that had once been Oars the Titan. And what an end it was: simply put, the corpse gave up the ghost by just… literally falling apart at the seams. Every joint, every single one came undone, and just as soon as it had started thrashing, the being fell still. There was simply nothing left that it could possibly move. It… wasn't even a corpse, really. Just a pile of rotting, freezerburned meat.

"I-Is it over?"

Hey, I knew that quavering voice! I turned around to find Usopp, leaning heavily on a tree branch, walking towards us. "Hey, you sure you're healthy enough to be walking around?"

"He's fine!" Chopper called out. "He wasn't hit as badly as everyone else, and if he didn't think he could handle it he wouldn't be doing it. That's just who he is."

I thought over that, and then shrugged. If our doctor said so…

"Well, then, to answer your question, probably," I explained, indicating the mountain of flesh. "That was Moria's big trump card, and it's gone. Soundbite also rattled Moria's bell in the process." I frowned. "Though, Oars went down pretty easy compared to canon. But then again, Moria was overstressing it, and we'd already damaged it pretty badly, so I guess that makes sense?"

"Cross," Nami started testily as her halo started to darken. "If you are actually complaining about us having an easy time taking down a multi-story goliath, then so help me—!"

"I'm not complaining!" I hastily assured her. "Just… with our luck, if things turn out easier than expected, wouldn't you want to try and think of anything you might have missed?"

"Kill… you…"

"Gurk…" I choked, going ramrod straight. "Like, for example, a certain raging bastard still somehow having the strength to remain conscious?!"

Nobody had a response to that, on account of how they'd all apparently turned to stare at the renewed threat in gape-mouthed horror, and the second I joined them I completely understood why.

Bloodshot eyes completely rolled up in their sockets, a topographical map of bulging veins, pink foam dribbling from both corners of his mouth, and all tied together by the kind of shivering you only ever saw in the most hardcore of junkies and the kind of looks you only ever get by going through a meat grinder besides? Yeah, I think it's safe to say that we were currently witnessing Gecko Moria at the all-time lowest point in his life.

If he were anyone else, I'd probably find this kind of tenacity admirable. Given who he was, what he'd done and what he was most likely planning to do to us, however…

"Kill… you…" Moria gargled through all the blood and whatever other fluids were clogging his throat. "Kill… you…"

Yeah, not my idea of fun.

"Okay…" I breathed sotto voce as I delicately raised Lassoo's barrel. "Everybody, he's still stalling out from pure rage. No sudden movements, nothing to set him off. Just get ready to take him out all at once, very, very—!"

"Kill… you… Kill… kill… kill…"

Ooooh that vocal devolution was not a good sign.

CR-CR-CRACK!

Nor Moria's teeth cracking in his mouth from just how hard he was clenching them. "KILL YOU ALL! NIIIIIDHOOOOOOOGG!"

The yell to attack was on the tip of my tongue when a mass of blackness that I barely recognized as a Doppelman erupted between Moria and us. I braced myself for an assault from the ragged simulacrum, but the rather than attack us, the shady demon instead started clawing at the ground, ripping out handful after handful of… of…

"Uh… guys…" Luffy asked slowly, his voice rife with confusion. "How come the shadow's eating other shadows?"

As much as the very idea sounds utterly ludicrous… indeed, the Doppelman was shredding what shadows it could get its ragged claws on, tearing them out by the talonful and shoving them down its gaping gullet. I honestly couldn't comprehend the action until I noticed the thing starting to swell, and suddenly everything clicked into place like the gears of a freaking doomsday device.

"No… no fucking way…" I drew out in breathless terror, already starting to inch away on trembling legs. Fuck adrenaline rushes, if what I thought was happening was actually happening—!

"Cross! Talk! NOW!" Nami snapped, her panicked voice managing to ground me in reality.

"M-Moria once showed that he could manipulate reality, actual flesh, via manipulating the shape of someone's shadow!" I babbled. "How he warped it was harmless enough, b-but they still had the same general mass. B-But now, his own shadow, i-it's taking in extra mass from the shadows! A-And that name, Nidhogg…"

I gulped audibly, trying and failing to clear the ash that had filled my mouth.

"That's the name of… a dragon…" I finally croaked, staring at the gradually distending gut of the shadow demon in horror. "The dragon… of the end of the world."

It took all of two seconds for that to sink in, and as Doppelman began devouring a straight-up stream of shadows from the earth and both it and its caster really started to swell up, everyone recoiled in horror.

"Cross," Nami whispered with rapidly mounting dread. "Are you trying to say that Moria's going to turn himself into a dragon!?"

I shook my head, slowly at first but accelerating as my panic really started to hit its stride. "I think he's going to damn well try," I hissed, spinning around and throwing Funkfreed. "And I'm not planning on sticking around to find out!" I was halfway up the elephant's back before he'd even fully transformed, and he was stamping his legs impatiently as was.

"Hey, Cross, wait a—!" Luffy started to protest.

"LUFFY!" Chopper barked. He was carrying Robin, Conis, and a frantic Su on his shoulders, the latter two clearly still unable to move. "We can stay here and fight Moria or we can get our friends somewhere safe, but if we try and do both then someone's going to get hurt in a way I won't be able to fix!"

That brought Luffy up short. The rubber man cast a final glance at the Asgard-sized blimp that Moria had become before gritting his teeth, shooting an arm out to snag Boss and booking it like Garp was on his ass. "EVERYONE RUN!"

"Don't have to tell me twice!" Funkfreed brayed as he stampeded after our captain as fast as he could, Franky and Lola grabbing their way onto the sword's bulk as he passed.

And so, for the first time in the crew's history, the Straw Hat Pirates began retreating from the battlefield, hauling ass and hauling our friends' asses besides. What we would do once we got them to safety was still up in the air, but it was better than leaving them where they could easily be trampled in the pummeling, no matter who was on the receiving end. For now, I was just glad that the attack took so much setup, because it was buying us the time we needed to put distance between ourselves and the doubly mad Warlord.

Which was a damn good thing, because looking over my shoulder, I could scarcely believe how rapidly the situation had devolved: Moria and his shadow were both massively gorged, and the shadow's suction had grown to the point where, judging by how trails of shadow were lancing through the air to its maw, it was devouring the very same thorn hedge Moria had used to pen us all in. That was both encouraging, and a reason for yet more panic.

Still, either way, the build-up meant we had time. I just hoped we had enough.

"Uh, guys?" Franky shouted warily. "Don't wanna start any panic or nuthin', but that shadow-puppet thing just stopped eating!"

I started to turn in my seat to look back—

KRNCHRRRCH!

And then I snapped my head forward and kept my eyes locked firmly dead ahead, because there was no way in hell that I was going to so much as glance at the source of that… that… ergh, even the mere thought brings me inches from tossing my entire digestive tract.

The closest approximation I can think of would be a meat grinder. A titanic, industrial-grade meat grinder. Snapping, crunching, squishing, ripping, grinding, all these sounds and more sounded through the air, and each was more flesh-filled than the noise ever had any right to be.

However, just as soon as the noises started, they stopped dead, leaving behind a far-too-still silence that permeated the air as thickly as the Florian's fog.

If only it could have lasted.

"GROOOOOOOAAAAAAARGH!"

"GAH!"

I let loose a yelp of both shock and pain as I was literally slapped upside the back of my head by a wall of pure sound and air pressure. So strong was the force of the bellow that we were all sent tumbling due to our mere proximity, not even Funkfreed's massive bulk capable of doing keeping him upright. The sound of shattering glass echoed in my ringing ears, the shards thankfully going nowhere near us. Instead, we were engulfed in wind-blown grit and ballistic bits of dead flesh, and I'm honestly unsure what was worse.

Lemme tell you, regaining your wits only to find yourself lying face down in a pile of desiccated human flesh and feeling like you've been worked over by the mob? Not an experience you want to have twice in one day, or at all. And yet, here I was having undergone that very same experience twice in the span of hours.

"Hate… this… island…" I moaned as I sat up and clutched my throbbing skull.

"You, me, and everyone who's been living on it for any amount of time," Lola tsked, wincing as she pushed herself to her feet.

"Contemplate burning this hellhole down later…" Nami grit out as she used a wall to claw her way to her feet, her clouds hastily patting down any dirt or rubble that the blast might have caked on her. "Figure out what just happened now. Did… did Moria really just—?"

"GROOOOARGH!"

We all froze as another roar echoed behind us. It was quieter, thankfully, but in all honesty? The lowered volume just made things worse. After all, higher volume leaves a bigger impact, but lower volume has all the details.

The gorey, echoing, twisted details.

In a moment of foolish thoughtlessness, I glanced over my shoulder in an effort to catch sight of our enemy—

"HURGH!"

And just as swiftly I snapped my head back, hunched forwards and clamped my hand over my mouth in order to arrest a second helping of bile. I-I hadn't actually seen Moria's form in that glance, the dust and fog were still hanging too thick for that, but I'd seen its silhouette, and that was enough. Sweet Lucifer's hellfire, it was more than enough for a lifetime.

As it turns out, I'd been both right and wrong in my assumption. Right in that Moria had obviously tried to turn himself into a dragon, but wrong in that he'd failed. At least, I considered it a failure, because the silhouette of the thing I could see in the distance, roaring and thrashing and demolishing section after section of the manor with its every careless movement? That… that was absolutely no dragon.

It was stretched, twisted, warped in ways I can't even begin to conceive of, and at its core, the very core of its being, this thing was every kind of wrong possible, but the one thing I absolutely refused to call it besides human was 'dragon'. Because this thing… this was another beast entirely, and I… I don't rightly know what.

Chopper was curled up on his knees, heaving violently as he clamped his hooves over his nose. "I-I-I can't even… I don't… the trauma he just put his body through! How is he still alive… t-this is just… just…"

"You know what?" I heard Lola say with a strained but flat voice. "I've done a lot of crazy shit on these oceans, done a lot of crazy shit today for this crew. But no way in hell am I fighting that."

I winced and turned my head to reply, and then I froze up as I noticed something crucial. "That's… actually a very good and very viable idea because that thing ate the thorn hedge!"

"What!?" most everyone yelped in shock, spinning around to confirm that, yes, the writhing wall of shadows was gone and the route to the forest and freedom was indeed free and clear.

"I have never been more thankful for an enemy getting high on rage in my entire life," Lassoo breathed reverentially.

"And I never thought I'd say this, but same here," Zoro grunted, yanking Conis onto his shoulder. "Now come on, everyone grab a body with a pulse and let's get out of here!"

Everyone gave signs of assent, and we started moving accordingly—

"Go on without me."

When a very familiar voice caused everyone to freeze, and turn to see our captain tossing his hat behind him and crouching down. Nami's clouds caught it automatically as Luffy's body turned red and began steaming.

"The plan all along was for me to kick Moria's ass, and I owe him that even more after what he's done to us," our captain spoke in a tone that didn't allow for even a hint of protest. "I'll finish him off. You guys go on and get back."

I exchanged hasty looks with my fellow officers before we all gave Luffy firm looks of our own. "We'll fall back to the treeline," I conceded. "But no way are we leaving you alone."

Luffy nodded with a steam-filled snort. "Good enough. Now, get moving. Franky!" He turned a side-glare on our shipwright.

"Right! Gimme a second, aaaand… there!" Said shipwright shifted around a bit in place before procuring a writhing bundle of darkness from… somewhere. "75 shadows, right up the old address! All yours, Luffy!" And with that, he tossed the umbral bundle at and into our captain, who hunched forwards with a groan.

As Luffy transformed and Moria remained occupied with wrecking his own domain, I couldn't help but feel a slight inkling of curiosity. Sure, I knew that we'd kept a cache of shadows in reserve for this exact sort of situation, but I hadn't known Franky had been hanging onto them this whole time. I guess I'd kind of assumed he'd lost them at some point. After all…

"Where… exactly were you keeping those shadows?" I asked slowly as I gave his wardrobe, or rather lack thereof, a onceover.

Franky grinned. "Oh, I kept them in my—!"

"On second thought, never mind, I really don't wanna—!"

"GrrrrRRRAAAAGH! HEY! MORIA!"

Our collective attention was suddenly arrested by a very pissed and now very big and very blue Luffy shooting forward, skidding to a halt in front of the smoky shadow that was once Moria—no, that was Nidhogg now—and bellowing in outrage.

Then, Luffy sucked in a chest-expanding whoosh of air…

"I AM THE MAN WHO WILL BECOME THE PIRATE KING!"

And shook us all to our very souls with a bellow that was accompanied… not so much by a —statement of fact, but more like a divine mandate. And while it inspired awe in most of us, others reacted a bit more… viscerally.

"GRR… GRAAAAAAAGH!" roared the unholy love child of Smaug and Tim Curry, head flung back.

Outrage that Luffy weathered with ease, glaring at the wyrm with neither fear nor hesitation, but simply primal disgust. "I'm going to be the Pirate King," Luffy repeated frigidly, with all the finality of declaring that the sky was blue. "And not you. It'll never be you. You can't be the Pirate King, because besides the fact it's gonna be me?"

Luffy crossed his arms with and stared down the monster.

"You're not actually a pirate."

I swear you could have sliced the following tension and silence both with a rusty spoon. But of course, like all tense silences, it was born only to be broken. In this case?

"GROOOOOOOAAAAAAARGH!"

By another ear-rending pseudo-draconian roar that, while it didn't send us all sprawling, still hit us like a semi-physical wave and left us all clutching our ears in agony.

All, of course, save Luffy, whose entirely sane reaction was to blur forwards, reel his arm back—

"GUM-GUM JET PISTOL!" CRUNCH!

And extend his fist into Nidhogg's jaw, sending the wyrm reeling. While the monstrosity was still reorienting itself, Luffy charged past its bulk and disappeared into the dust, heading into the manor's ruins. And once Nidhogg recovered, it ignored us in favor of giving chase with as much speed as its bloated, mangled frame could manage.

For a few seconds, we stared silently in the direction the two had gone. Then I felt a jab in my shoulder and I glanced over to Funkfreed.

"One night, and I've gone from having a lifetime of no combat to almost too much," he breathed. "It's official: even if I don't survive this, I made the right choice joining the Straw Hat Pirates."

"We get it, we get it," Lassoo chuffed as he started wandering around and grabbing the TDWS onto his back. "Now less talking, more hauling!"

And so we all set about gathering up our fallen comrades from where we'd left them without a moment's hesitation. Well, actually some hesitation.

"Hey, does anyone have any idea what the hell Luffy was on about?" Franky asked, wincing as he heaved Carue onto his back.

"Hell if I know, but I imagine he's going to break it down for Moria in the same breath he breaks his face," I replied, before nearly face-planting as their blows shook the ship again. "In the meantime, let's get a little more distance, shall we? Being on the same island as this shitshow's gonna be bad enough, I am not intent on experiencing ground zero!"

-o-

Monkey D. Luffy winces as he ducks under a grasping claw, eyeing his right arm, recently returned from a meeting with Nidhogg's soft core. Even with seventy-five shadows strengthening his rubber body's natural toughness, thin tracks of blood crisscross the limb.

Another claw comes in, and he hops back, rearing back one leg. "GUM-GUM JET STAMP!" he roars, one sandal-clad foot slamming into Nidhogg and pushing it back. This limb, too, comes back bloody, the sandal reduced to so many straw scraps. The beast roars in pain and rage, and somewhere in his heart he understands the unspoken question.

"Pirates sail the seas for a reason!" he yells, hopping over an overhead smash. As he winds back a fist, he continues to speak. "They sail for freedom! They sail for their dreams! I've run into a lot of people who called themselves pirates until now, but they had some kind of reason that kept them going, even if it was something stupid like money or power! You can't eat money, you can't eat power, and they don't help you get friends!"

The blow lands, pain stinging the limb like all the other blows. He ignores this, for he can take it, and his opponent is the one coming off the worst. That the shadows now grasp the limb is far more of a problem. He only has time for an exclaimed "OH—!" before Nidhogg slams into him and doesn't stop. The shadows lick at his chest and gut and vest, stinging like so many mosquitoes, and the two crash into the manor, wood and plaster and even stone giving way under their far stronger bodies. This is too much for the much-abused building, and the walls give way, collapsing the structure on top of their heads.

But even this doesn't stop Nidhogg, and it outraces the destruction, throwing him through the far wall. It shows no sign of stopping. He must stop it.

His sandals clap together, his muscles tense, and he roars: "GUM-GUM JET SPEAR!" A spearhead, formed by clasped toes, slams into Nidhogg's midsection, breaking its weakened grip and sending it flying back into the still-settling wreckage of the manor. For a moment, he takes his chance to catch his breath—and with a sudden pulse, he nearly loses control, his chest swelling up as the umbral souls empowering him attempt to return to their rightful place.

Time to end this.

Setting his feet, he pumps his fists in front of him, waiting for Nidhogg to reappear. And the shadow beast does not disappoint, erupting from the manorial wreckage roaring its defiance and accompanied by a plume of splinters and rock dust. With no regard to thought or strategy, it charges head-on at him.

It is perhaps the worst thing it could do.

"GUM-GUM JET GATLING!"

This time, it is not a single blow that the shadows can grasp and tear. It is not a single blow that Nidhogg's form, long past caring about damage, can simply shrug off. It is a barrage, fast and unrelenting and offering no purchase.

It is with the one hundred and seventy-third blow that the inevitable happens: he freezes, slumping to his knees, veins rising all over his body… and in a burst of the darkest of black, seventy-five shadows flee the body of Monkey D. Luffy, his skin reverting back to the usual bronze. He doesn't move. He can't.

And Nidhogg is in no better shape. The great beast writhes on the ground, roaring—or perhaps screaming—in pain and rage and grief and a hundred other emotions. Through his exhaustion, he eyes the great mast looming above him, and knows that he will need to draw it up that towering trunk.

But he is tired, so tired. His muscles ache with strain and lactic acid, his heart gallops like a panicked horse, lungs vainly trying to suck in enough oxygen. His very soul and will quiver with exhaustion, and a dozen different wounds sting him with pain.

And yet.

And yet every time his mind screams 'Fall!', he cannot. For he sees the monster in front of him, and he sees the smiles of his crew, his friends, and he knows down to his bones that he cannot let the two meet.

He will not fall. Only when the monster of shadow and hate falls, and not a second before. And it must fall soon, otherwise the decision becomes not his.

"BUT YOU!" he roars, briefly glancing up. "You don't care about any of that! All you want is the throne, and for what!?" Standing to his feet, he pins it with the best glare he has. "For revenge?! Because you lost your friends?! You don't even remember them! You're just sailing because of your pain! Because you don't know what else to do! And you're making everyone else hurt too, just because! You're not a pirate! You're not even a person! You're a shadow! A ghost! YOU DIED WITH YOUR CREW!"

Astoundingly, Nidhogg falls silent. A creature that roared and spat and snarled for its entire existence, that was always roiling and twitching and moving, freezes, utterly quiet. For several seconds that may actually be an eternity, the two stare at each other, and then he shuffles one foot back.

That movement provokes the beast, Nidhogg flipping to its feet and charging forward, still utterly silent. He stretches his arms up, grasping a spar and soaring into the sky as the rubber pulls back. Below, Nidhogg skids to a halt, reverses, and grasps the mast with its claws, beginning to climb. It climbs steadily, but slowly; he climbs in bursts, each taking him further up the mast. Blades of shadow shoot up, seeking to impale him, but swinging in the air as he does allows him to avoid all but minor nicks.

Within minutes, he has reached the top of the mast, the fog encompassing all even at this atmosphere and Nidhogg two spars down but rising fast. Gritting his teeth, he bites into his thumb, and blows. His arm swells, the air flowing into his chest and then other arm as he continues to blow. Within seconds, both arms are fit for a giant, and he cuts the flow in favor of taking a colossal breath into his chest, ribs stretching to fit. Sandaled feet grasp the mast and muscles in the back and chest flex, spinning him around into a tightly wound spring.

"GUUUUM-GUUUUM—!"

And then Nidhogg is there, faster than he had any right to be. Shadow skitters off the massive arms, merely adding to the thin lines already present, but umbral jaws find purchase in his gut.

"Gah!"

Air hisses out from the punctured torso, and he knows he must act now. And thankfully, his opponent is right there. Two massive arms pump, smashing into Nidhogg from above, dislodging him and sending him spiraling towards the ground far below.

"GIAAAANT STOOOORM!"

And he follows, screaming, spinning like a top. Each fist is a meteor with the weight of a mountain, and they fall like a monsoon rain, swift and unrelenting. The fists are too large to receive damage, and in any case, Nidhogg is now utterly senseless, unable to counterattack.

The torment is only ended when it is squashed between titanic fist and the small landmass floating on the sea. Dark shadows and a small dot in black and blue and bronze and red fly away, signifying to all one thing:

This fight is over.

-o-

K-K-K-KRACK!

"Sonnuvabitch!" I yelped, cartwheeling my arms in panic as the flipping island shattered beneath us.

I mean, it was to be expected of course after the cataclysmic beatdown we'd just seen Luffy deliver, of course, but it was another entirely to feel the very earth tremble beneath your feet. And then it was a tier all of its own when you and everyone around you had to scramble to stay together as massive rents and cracks ripped the earth apart, and seawater sloshed up and sprayed us in drenching, salty gouts.

Thankfully, the devastation was as swift as it was brutal, and as soon as it was over, we were left panting in shock, wet, dumbstruck… but alive.

Zoro huffed heavily as he stared at the crack before glancing at me. "Is this… going to be a regular thing?" he managed to get out.

I shook my head, a slight jerk in the motion. "Not until New World, that's for damn sure."

That got me a heck of a lot of attention, several people opening their mouths to speak at once—

"Wait…" Usopp cut in, hand shading his eyes. "Is that… Luffy?"

When they were all silenced by that query, and followed his line of vision.

And indeed, right there in the sky, sailing on the breeze of his own rapidly exhaling breath...

"WHO-O-O-O-O-OA! SOMEONE CA-A-A-ATCH ME!"

Was our captain, and the winner of this long and arduous fight, Monkey D. 'That Freaking GLORIOUS Straw Hat' Luffy!

"Oh, yeah, forgot he tends to do that…" I commented weakly. I paused briefly, tilting my head. "Somebody should catch him before he falls in the drink, huh?"

"I got this," Chopper said, weary but fond. Shifting to Heavy Point, he stepped forward, and then right, and then forward again, just in time for him to catch Luffy against his chest. His head leaned down, several curious hums coming from him, and then he turned around with a sunny grin. "Alright, he's not going to keel over immediately or bleed out anytime soon, so I hope you don't mind if I take a moment to celebrate the fact that we fucking survived that!"

I allowed a massive sigh of relief to exit my lungs, now that we were safe at last from that monster that Moria had somehow become. And out the corner of my eye I could see everyone else—Zoro, Sanji, Nami, Franky, Brook, Lola, Usopp, Lassoo, and Funkfreed—doing the same. But it couldn't be that simple; the second I began thinking about the whole fight with a perfectly clear head, my blood ran cold as I realized that there was something I had overlooked.

"Hold everything, guys."

"Not that tone, please not that tone, not now of all times, Cross," Usopp moaned, he and everyone else immediately on their guard.

"Sorry, Usopp, but I have to," I said, Lassoo and Funkfreed moving back towards me as I scanned around. "Thinking over the situation, all of the zombies were purified. All of the Mysterious Three were taken out. All of our allies were present and accounted for. And the mansion was a long way away from the graveyard, isolated from all the noise we were making. I wasn't able to spare enough thought for this until now with Moria's Awakened rampage, but thinking about it now?"

I turned so that I was facing everyone.

"If we sedated him—which we did—who or what woke him up from it?"

I registered the looks of horrified realization come onto my friends' faces… but just barely. What happened next was Eneru all over again, it just happened so freaking fast. A dark shadow looming behind me, the sound of fabric leaving flesh, and a soft, almost gentle voice, speaking a single word.

"Me."

I barely had enough time to start panicking when I felt something touch my head. Then everything went dark.

Cross-Brain AN: Some things simply cannot change…

Hornet AN: On a lighter note, when Moria was hit by the Nova Star, he was going to say "Rip your spines out through your nostrils." How that's anatomically possible will be left as an exercise to you, dear reader.