Ameliorate ✦ One Piece

58

All four of them sprung into action, Nami, Vivi and Akira jumping down from the destroyed structure and rushing forward just as Miss Valentine stopped her retreat and started to go on the offensive. Her yellow umbrella sprung open, pointed at the sky as she began to soar above them with the help of her devil fruit.

"Happy Valentine's Day!" She yelled angrily as her weightless flight was brought to an end and she began to crash back down, headed straight for Usopp and about to land on his with who knows what level of weight.

But luckily, Nami reached them just in time, her staff slamming into the woman in yellow and throwing her backward before she could crash onto him. "Get away from my friend." She glared at Miss Valentine as she planted herself between the assassin and Usopp, Vivi right beside her.

"Our friend."

"Oh please, Miss Wednesday," the blonde sneered at Vivi. "You were never on my level."

Instead of focusing on her or the fight about to break out between the three women, Akira used the shielding Nami and Vivi were offering to grab onto Usopp and pull him from the danger zone, giving them the space they needed to spring into action while she pulled him to the side and knelt down beside him.

"What do you say we get our sharpshooter back to functional?" She asked him with a reassuring smile on her face.

"Sounds amazing," he responded, although it sounded more like a wailing groan because of all the pain he was in.

Which only made Akira get to work faster, hands reaching for his face and a frown coming over her features in sympathy as he hissed at the contact. But she didn't pull away. Her eyes closed as she focused, feeling the energy swirling within her and channelling it into her hands before she let it flow outwards. And once she was sure it was working she opened them again, looking down at the white mist swirling between them and sinking into his skin, the swelling of his eye starting to reduce.

But a sudden explosion behind them broke Akira's focus, making her snap her head back and glance at the source, eyes widening as she realized it must've been Zoro, still on the structure and deflecting Mr. 5's booger bombs. Ones for which he was an easy target as Akira noticed his legs still enveloped in white, the wax not having broken enough to release him as it had the rest of them.

"Roronoa Zoro, trapped like a rat." Mr. 5 wasn't discouraged by his first shot missing. He just laughed as he stalked the swordsman ominously. "You love to see it."

"Bet you do," Zoro said. "It's the only way you stand a chance."

"You even know how to fight without those swords?" Mr. 5 questioned with a scoff, his hand already reaching up and aiming for his own face, or nose to be more precise.

At least until Zoro spoke again. "You know how to fight without picking your nose?"

Mr. 5's hand instantly snapped back down, lips snarling in insult that had him choosing a different course soon enough. He flipped back his long coat, pulling a gun from within it and smirking over at Zoro cruelly.

Akira's mind flashed with the old saying of bringing a knife, or in this case a sword, to a gunfight, and after a string of muttered curse words, she pushed off of the ground. Her own hand reached for the daggers at her belt, happy to find that they hadn't disarmed her either, counting on the purple paint to keep her too scared to use them.

However, before she could let one of them fly, a hand on her wrist had her pausing, eyes glancing back at Usopp. "Wait," he said simply, straightening as much as he could as he brandished his own slingshot and loaded a tiny ball into it. "I've got this."

Akira stepped aside as he let it fly and watched the projectile hit Mr. 5's hand just as he pressed a finger against the trigger of the gun. Once again, he missed, the explosion hitting against the trees beyond Zoro and the structure on which he was stuck and making the assassin's eyes snap over to them enraged.