Savior -Luffy-

-6-

As soon as my bubble popped, I refused to be locked into a bubble with three men, especially two that would kill each other if their foot went over one side too far. Luffy had saved the ship, making the beast he tamed ever-so-easily to become his friend attack the giant and sea king that threatened our crew. Now, here we are, enjoying our time with Camie and the rest of the mermaids at the coastline that the royals would arrive at soon.

"I wanna swim," Luffy pouts. I laugh lightly and splash in the water as if to mock him.

"Too bad you'd need a bubble," I retort. He sticks his tongue out at me and all I do in return is laugh lightly. I felt a light tickling on my legs and looked down to see the seawater bubbling and swirling in circles around my thighs. I was about to question it when the said royals appeared above us on a giant whale.

"Quick, you have to hide!" Camie instructs. I nod and drag Luffy towards the side with Chopper in tow. When the whale comes down, I can see the three brothers speaking with Camie and the other mermaids. That's when I remembered exactly where Sanji would be hiding and what would cause a huge problem for all of us soon.

"Luffy," I whisper. The man whips his attention to me. "Sanji's nose is gonna bleed right now-" And then, on cue, the man himself shoots into the air with a stream of blood trailing behind him. I groan and place my hand against my face in annoyance. "Nevermind." Luffy runs out from behind the rock we hid with and goes to Sanji's side.

"Sanji!" Chopper yells.

"Serves those filthy humans right," I heard muttering behind me and froze. "Humans have no right to be here, let alone in the arms of mermaids."

"That's right!" Another voice agrees. "They should leave as soon as they can!"

"Shut up." My voice was low and I felt myself shiver at the sound of it. It didn't sound like it was me.

"May?" Camie asks softly. "Are you alright?"

"Y-yeah," I mutter. "I'm fine. Let's worry about Sanji." She nods slowly before going to join the others beside Sanji.

"Maybe he'll bleed out and we won't have to worry about it." The voices spoke amongst themselves again and I groaned, dropping to my knees with my hands over my ears.

"Shut up," I whispered. "Stop talking!" The voices were getting so loud I couldn't shut them out with my hands anymore. What was happening? Was this Observation Haki? No, I already knew I had that in a minimum amount. So what is this? I felt two hands encase my wrists and saw Luffy when I slowly opened my eyes to meet his.

"Are you okay?"

"I'm-" I was about to lie, but with Luffy, there was never a need to do so. "I don't know. I can hear what they're saying about us."

"Like Observation Haki?"

"Yeah, but this is different." I sigh. "I don't know how to explain it."

"Okay," He simply states. "Well, we can figure it out later. Right now we need to save Sanji." I nod and look over my shoulder at the crowd that watched us.

"Look at her scar," One loudly spoke, making it more obvious they didn't care if we heard them. "No one would want to touch someone that looks mangled like that." I feel my fingernails digging crescent shapes into my palms. "She probably shows it off like some kind of prize."

"No one finds that attractive," Another agrees with a grimace. "She's probably only on the crew for-" A hand wraps my waist, cutting off my focus on their words. A thumb attached to the hand rubs against my scar with a fondness that relaxes me immediately. I look over my shoulder at Luffy, watching his harsh glare sink into the skulls of the fishmen that surrounded each other. Camie warned us of the fishmen's hatred for humans.