One Piece (Love Story) [Part One]

Chapter One Hundred and Thirty Eight [Rewritten]

-Chapter One Hundred and Thirty-Eight-

"And it won't be long before I have the bell!" Eneru declared, sounding quite certain of himself. "You seem surprised—did you really think that you, a mere human, could ever get the better of me? How foolish of you!" he scoffed while lifting a finger that now glowed an electric blue.

"Robin!" Nami frightfully cried, terrified at what was about to happen as she picked up quickly on what the man had planned to do.

"You wouldn't..." I tensed as I also realized what the man was about to do.

"There's nothing I hate more in this world than a cold calculating woman!" Eneru sneered, shooting the ball of electricity that had been building up on the tip of his finger right toward the raven-haired woman.

-Everybody's P.O.V-

It was like a throwback to Alabasta...at least, that's how it felt to Nami as she fearfully witnessed that same rush of impulsiveness reappear. Gasping as Skylar's body jerked and moved without any real thought, her feet carrying her before anyone could even think to stop her.

"Move!" she watched how the brunette shoved Robin away, taking her place and letting her body absorb the attack—taking the damage head-on without stopping to think her actions through or if it would be wise at all...

She shivered at the scream that followed.

It was a scream that painfully shook each of the Straw Hats to their core as they watched in horror how the brunette's body violently started to jerk and convulse with wisps of hair standing up as the smell of burning flesh now permeated through the air until finally, she stilled. She perhaps swayed for a moment or two on her feet before her body finally started to tilt back—eyes now rolling themselves to the back of her head as she lost all consciousness as if her mind couldn't withstand the immense amount of pain she now found herself in.

"Idiot!" Zoro shouted, the first to react as he quickly caught her before she could hit the ground—the warmness of her body making him wince as he shakily pulled her close to his chest in a protective manner. Despite the tightness in his chest, he felt an immense rage slowly start to swallow him the longer he held her close, not liking how unnaturally hot her skin now felt against his own as she lay still in his arms. "Dumbass why'd you..." he couldn't finish that sentence as he listened to the faint wheezing of her shallow breathing. He felt a desperate need to just press his ear flush against her chest in the hopes that he would still be able to hear a heartbeat and know that she was still kicking and that those shallow wheezes of hers weren't a sign of something worse to come. But he restrained himself from doing so...at least he wanted to believe that it was the restraint that kept him from doing such a thing and not the fear that if he did, he might find a shallow heartbeat.

"Skylar..." Nami thickly swallowed, afraid to speak any louder than she already was as she worriedly looked toward the brunette's still and charred body. Despite her fear and frustration with the brunette's impulsiveness...she wasn't really surprised...

She knew that if the brunette was willing to take a spike through the chest for her then who's to say that she wouldn't take a dose of lightning for the others?

She didn't really understand why the brunette did it nor what compelled her to do such reckless things—wasn't it normally human nature to selfishly wish to preserve oneself over all else? Did the brunette truly hold them all so dearly in her heart that she never wanted to witness them suffer? That felt like the only explanation in Nami's mind that sounded logical as there really was no other reason why someone's first instinct would be to jump headfirst into danger to prevent another's possible death. Sure, there are times were the brunette could be pretty logical and understand that jumping head first wasn't always the answer...but then there were times like this where all logic seemed to just fly right out the window. It was almost as if she only really reacted when she could see the danger clearly with nothing there to obscure or hide it from her sight—it's almost as if she only really reacted when she truly feared that death was a real possibility.