Stolen // One Piece

chapter one

    Luffy was nowhere to be seen.

    The crew had been searching for hours on end, in every nook and cranny, but they couldn't find him. He had missed dinner, and it was well into the dark and rainy night as they called for their captain.

    "When we find him," Nami growled, as she was incredibly tired, "I'm going to kill him." Usopp huffed in agreement, and checked in the barrel he stood next to. Nami groaned and rubbed her temples. He had to be somewhere, she mused silently, but where? The crew had gone over every single one of his hiding places, and checked even the most obvious places, but he remained missing. Where could he have gone?

    Nami's blood ran cold as a dark thought struck her mind.

    "CHECK THE WATER!" she shouted, frantically leaning over the side of the Thousand Sunny. The near-black waters churned angrily underneath the ship, splashing sea spray into the air. Behind her, she heard the others shouting over the boat's railings for Luffy. Nami's heart raced. Her brain told her he couldn't have fallen in, but it was the most logical assumption. Nami dove into the water.

    She was surrounded by darkness. The water was cold, and dangerous. It thrashed her body from side to side, and she wasn't sure if the pounding in her ears was the ocean or her heart. Her lungs began to burn, but she couldn't give up yet. Her fingers grasped aimlessly in the darkness. She swam down further into the blackness of the night.

    She was never going to find him. It was too dark, and she was too cold. The tips of her fingers and toes were going numb, and her head spun. She had no oxygen, but she couldn't force herself to swim up yet. The edges of her vision went black as her lungs screamed within the walls of her body. Suddenly, her fingers clutched fabric. Her body snapped back into focus as her eyes recognized hair, short and black and messy, and what appeared to be a red unbuttoned shirt.

    She couldn't leave the body there, on the off chance it was her idiot captain.

    Nami gripped the body in front of her as tightly as she could as she rocketed toward the surface. She kicked and kicked until her legs ached. Soon, her face broke the surface, and she pulled the body's head up with her. She gasped and sputtered for air, and shouted for help. As Zoro threw down a rope end, and held the other, Sanji slid down, and wrapped the rope end around the waist of the body. Zoro hoisted it up, and Robin cast down the rope ladder onto the ship.

    Nami couldn't move; she was so tired. Her head ached, her legs ached, her arms ached, everything ached. Sanji carried her up the ladder over his shoulder. He set her down, gently, on the deck of the Thousand Sunny. She laid there, cold and shivering, and turned her head to the boy on the deck.

    There was a scar under his eye.

    Luffy.

    She wanted to call out to him, but all she could manage was a cough. Tears poured down her face as Chopper pressed on his chest, and tried to restart his heart. Nami heard what sounded like screams, but everything was so muffled.

    Luffy laid there, cold and unresponding. Lifeless. Empty. His chest was still, his body pale and unmoving. Between her half-lidded eyes, she watched Zoro's lips form what looked to be a scream, and his sword come crashing down into the deck. He pushed Chopper out of the way and continued the reindeer's work on compressing the captain's chest. Chopper held Luffy's mouth and breathed into it every ten compressions.

    Suddenly, Luffy's body jerked. He turned his head to the side and vomited water onto the already soaked deck of the Sunny. He coughed until his body had no more water to dispel. The rest of the crew sat back and waited for him to finish, at once relieved and terrified for his life.