Chapter Ten

He was an idiot. A huge big idiot with no sense of reason, or that was what Nami  thought at the moment she sat beside Zoro on the sickbay bed biting down on her nails in worry and anticipation.

Abura was a new fishman villian that just  popped out of nowhere and happened to be an accomplice of one of Nami's enemy. Arlong. The Straw Hats had been trying their best to avoid that fish man and his fellow acolytes but it seemed bad luck liked to rain on their parade.

It was evening now and they had finally escaped Abura's invasion. Because of Zoro, everyone left unhurt. The cannonball that was headed straight towards the deck, straight towards Nami, was sliced in two by non other than the green haired samurai. He dashed into action, unsheathing his sword in a split second and moving his hand in a swift but hard and dangerous left swing slicing the ball in half.

No one had ever seen such rush of power in Zoro especially without a Devil fruit. His agility was on another whole level and Nami could have easily called it the rush of adrenaline at the moment but it really wasn't. And she knew it.

A sudden burst of power despite his weakness and condition, and his ability to cut a 5000pound cannon ball heading in hot towards her.

Zoro saved her life at the minute, but as a result he tore up his wound again and blood seeped out. He spat and coughed out blood before collapsing on the deck unconscious. Nami raged at that sight, leaving her bearings and wits and destroying the ship with her strongest lightening skill before controlling the wind to push the ship out of the area.

No time was wasted as Sanji hastily scooped Zoro up in his arms and rushed him down to the med bay. Zoro's body was extremely burning and the blood that emerged was black with bits of blue liquid seeping out and mixing in with his blood. That wasn't the only shocking thing that they discovered in the process of trying to dress is wound and resew the cut.

When Nami had removed the part of his cloth covering his wound they all gasped in horror. The cut skin looked greyish and wrinkled around the opening of the wound, the blood seeped out slowly now bringing along that blue liquid with it. But the most shocking thing was his viens. There were black viens that begun from the wounds and spread around his torso. One large black vien was almost at his heart.

None of them had ever come across something like this. The horrid sight of the injury had Usopp gagging and vomiting out the small open window in the sick bay.

" Okay, what the hell is that!" Usopp cried, wiping the side of his mouth with the back of his gloved hand.

"I -i don't know, it looks like an infection." Nami stuttered gulping at how dangerous and deadly the sight of the veins looked.

" It looks? It is an infection! What the hell does that look like to you!" Sanji cut in covering his mouth and feeling utterly disgusted.

"I know that I just...." Nami bit her lips reaching out to press the pale skin above the vein on Zoro's skin." I haven't seen this kind of thing before,"

Zoro hissed at her touch pulling away from her fingers with a sour look on his face.

" I think we all have not seen this kind of condition before." Luffy added finding it difficult to look away from Zoro's horrid injury.

"Yeah, no shit Captain!" Usopp gagged again the minute his gaze collided with the injury again. He felt sick and he felt like he was going to puke out all the whole food he had stuffed in him last night.

" Quit making Zoro feel like trash with your gaging dreadlocks!" Nami snapped utterly peeved at his behaviors towards the sight of the injury.

"Leave him be, if I could move I would have puked my entire dinner out too!" Zoro groaned in pain rubbing his head in light gentle circles." Another migraine is coming in, I feel faint."

"And your temperature hasn't improved yet." Luffy added placing the back of his palm to Zoro's head and almost hissing at the heat." That must be a huge pain in the ass."

"You've got no idea" Zoro hummed closing his eyes.

" Fuck, I don't have any knowledge on how to deal with complex Infections. I mean, knife poison? Easy to dictate with a little alchemy but this I..... I don't have a slightest idea....." Nami began to freak out silently. She was out of ideas, she'd tried all she could but all it did was only slow down the rate of the infection or possibly make it worse. Wound infections don't take more than three days to kill it's victim, but this was an infection caused by a sea monster. She was certain that Zoro did even have a full day to live.

"Nami....what do we do now? What ever your decision is, we will fully support it." Sanji spoke up breaking the silence in the room and placing a hand on her shoulder. She flinched, his touch dragging her out of her trance. She was completed helpless now and she hated it. That familiar feeling of being useless was the main reason why she got stronger.

Before she learnt how to weather manipulate, during an attack or ambush or raid or battle she would always strongly depend on her teammates to fight for her, even protect her. Ideally useless. Her skills in the medical line was one of the ways that she was sure that even if she lost her abilities to fight she would still be a great help to the crew and not just be a freeloader bringing dead weight upon dear miss A Thousand Sunny.

But with Zoro...

What was she going to do now?

"Usopp!" She called standing up to her feet.

Usopp looked at her in shock at her outburst." Uh, yes?" He asked, pushing his stray dreadlocks away from his face.

" Set a course for reverse. We are heading back to Mock Town." She demanded solemnly.

"Wait what!" Her teammates chorused in shock, Zoro abandoning his headache to focus on the insane teammate in front of him.

"Mock Town? Are you crazy! We rode out of there on time for a reason!" Luffy protested.

"Yeah and now we have another reason to go back." Nami counteracted.

"Are you insane?" Sanji added steppingstone before her in a sense of asserting dominance." We go back and find the Marines there then what do we do? This is a case of your Captain's grandfather who by the way is hell bent on stopping his grandson. Do you want your head rolling Nami? Because I'm sure as hell the Marines don't care about the no fighting pact of Mock Town and the moment the other bounty hunters get a load of that, your head will be exchanged for Berry! "

" Yeah Sanji is right I do kinda wanna keep my head "Usopp added." I mean, don't you know how much you are worth? "

" We don't have a choice "

" Yes we do and it is going forward to safety. "Luffy yelled." No one us going back to mock town and that is final."

" Listen to me all of you! Zoro may not last long with the way things are looking! How long till we reach another shore, huhn? One week? Maybe two! We don't have that time. Maybe we do but we aren't certain we can't take the risk. I won't!"

" Mock Town is a death row scheduled if we go back there! Every Marine will be out for our necks Nami! "Sanji cried trying to make her see reason.

" I know that!"

" I don't think you do! "He screamed back.

" No, Sanji. I do!" She said, voice trembling." Listen, I'm helpless, hopeless, and useless right now and I don't know what I am fucking doing. But if.....if there is even a flicker of hope that on Mock Town we can find some miracle physician or something I don't know that can help Zoro. I am taking that chance! "

" I disagree. "Zoro's voice finally broke the dam. Nami looked at him in disbelief and shock. Despite his life being on the line he still was willing to risk it every single time he had. She was outraged. Zoro held a hand up when he saw her lips part to speak." Nami, as much as this argument concerns my health, more on my life, I disagree with your idea."

" You can't be serious! "She sneered.

" See? He gets it! "Luffy said, but sealed his lips the moment Nami spared a glance go shoot a murderous glint in her eyes.

" Nami, there will be no saving me if we are all captured. And you know that we've been captured a lot of times by Grandpa Luffy's team, the only reason why we are still here is because Toby always helped us. If we go there, I'm already dead, and so is all of us. I can't fight for myself, and if they caught all you idiot won't let me go! "

" Do you want to die? "She bit her lips hards, trying to stop the tears from spilling.

" No, not really." He sighed running a hand through his hair in distress and exhaustion." But we have no choice, we move on and I will try my best to hold on. I will do as you say, I will rest, I will eat, I will sleep but please! Anything but going back to Mock Town."

She fell silent, staring at him straight in his eyes. He was right. Deep down she knew he was right, she knew that they were all right. But her determination blinded the real body of the repercussions for her decisions. He said he would rest,that should be enough for her to at least hope on his life being sustained.....

But, for how long. They were just delaying the inevitable. But there really was no choice.

"Usopp, let down the additional sails and push this old girl as fast as you can!" She finally capitulated tapping her foot on the brown wooden floorboards of the room.

"Yes ma'am." Usopp let out a sigh of relief placing his hand on his chest before dashing out of the room and up to the deck to sail the ship much more faster....well as fast as it could now due to the recent damages Abura had inflicted on a thousand sunny. Especially after Usopp's repairs, he felt like wailing especially after seeing the huge hole that the cannon fired at them had created in Usopp's factory.

"Thank you." Sanji said nodding in acknowledgment at his teammates.

She looked away with a dejected sign." We should get back to work and try to pretend that no one is dying. Please."

"Sure I'll go help Usopp on deck." Luffy excused himself leaving the stressed atmosphere of the room quickly.

"I'll go make breakfast, you must be starving." Sanji smiled at her placing at platonic kiss to her cheek and rubbing her back affectionately. He smiled at Zoro and gave him a thumbs up. " Hang in there, tiger. If you survive, I will make you the best rice meal you have ever tasted."

"You brat" Zoro's grinned." Now I have no excuses to die."

Sanji chuckled leaving the room.

When he was gone, the two of them looked at each other for a while. Zoro smiled at her first, breaking the long awkward silence." So what should I do next doctor? Rest?I'm sure."

She smiled." Yes.....rest."