Warmth. A gentle, caressing warmth flooding my senses, then the chills return. Then the warmth, then the chills, and so on. A cycle of numbness and gooseflesh crawling over my skin. 

There's air, heated and stale, rushing silently down my throat, filling my lungs, then dissipating just as quickly, only to be replaced moments later.

Then, like fingers crushing my windpipe, stifling that precious oxygen, fetid, putrid water clogging up my throat, prickling the back of my nose. My body jolts on its own, flinging me to the side as the saltwater surges up from my aching lunges, splattering across the coarse wood scraping my fingertips, my cheek. I heave a shuddering breath, punctuated by several agonizingly wet coughs. 

Gentle hands rub small circles into my trembling back, then slip under my arm and guide me upright, though even that slight motion causes my head to reel and I immediately slump to the side, my face smacking into someone's chest. 

Despite myself, despite the furious pounding of my head, despite the distant sounds of gunfire permeating the air, my lips curve into an easy smile, carefree as Luffy's usual display. "Hey, Swordsman. Fancy meeting you here."

I hear him sigh, a simple puff of air carrying his frustration to my supremely amused ears. "You never change, do you?"

"Of course not," I say plainly. Jagged claws rip down the sides of my throat with every word, every panting breath. I touch a hand to my neck feebly, absolutely ecstatic at this new development. "That would defeat the purpose of my renowned charm."

Zoro's knuckles rap pointedly at the back of my head, eliciting both a strangled curse and soft gasp from my thick, dusty tongue - both of which he pays no heed. "Don't try to be funny," he says as he eases me off his damp chest, unceremoniously peeling my cheek from his clingy shirt, and sits me back, hands gripping my shoulders. From his tone of voice, I'd normally suspect he was on the verge of delivering some damning commentary, something poking fun at my inability to escape dangerously stupid situations or my knack for giving Death the brush-off. But no such snide remark comes as his flinty eyes scrutinize my no-doubt shamelessly shabby appearance, flicking over the soggy bandages now glued to my neck, sliding up to the claw marks marring my face.

His hand cups my chin, jerks my head to the side as he leans closer. "These'll definitely scar," he says, expression pensive, giving no regards to how my neck is wrenched at a vexing angle until I (rather childishly) pinch his arm and he flinches back, scowling that trademark scowl of his. Seriously, though, that and his Mihawk-esque smirk should be patented - the look comes alive, achieves the desired effect, only when it's Roronoa Zoro modeling it.

Point is, he's a terrifying individual with the penetrating glare to match, and anyone who fails to understand this is a wondrously blissful idiot. A little like how I was before actually coming face-to-face with the man behind the headline.

"I don't particularly care." The prospect of my losing whatever sex appeal I currently have due to disfigurement is the least of my worries. "If they scar, they scar. Now, onto important shit: Why am I not dead and where the hell are we?"

Zoro, uncharacteristically sullen, sets his jaw. A ticking muscle pulses just beneath the corner of his mouth. "You're better off not knowing who rescued us. Save yourself the mental scarring."

I blink, baffled, but decide it's in my best interest not to question him. 

"As for where we are--"

"We've acquired a Marine ship, Miss Swordsman, and as of right now we're not very far off the coast of Enies Lobby."

That voice. I straighten reflexively, fingers curling around the sodden fabric of my jeans (yet again these people are forcing me to break out a new pair). Zoro, possibly sensing my unease, tousles my hair a moment, pats my cheek in farewell (for what feels like an unnecessary repeat of only hours before), before moving away to speak with Sogeking - or has he returned to being Usopp, yet?

Anxiety crawls over my skin, pinching taut any nerves left intact, as I crane my neck, glancing over my shoulder.

Robin smiles - her calm, cool smile that only a few days ago presided over a meaningless debate between Usopp and I over which was more frightening: Luffy deprived of lunch or Nami robbed of anything - and the facade crumbles. 

A short, stunted laugh escapes her as I throw myself at her, skinny arms around her neck, a burble of joy and annoyance on my lips. 

"I freaking told you, idiots like us keep our word! We said we'd save your ass - which you better be grateful at this point - and we did. Tell me we're not badass, Robin."

Carefully disentangling herself from my arms, she offers another smile, radiating a new found warmth I very much appreciate. "Yes, I've no doubt of your badassery, Raya. You've defied my expectations enough to see that clearly."

For a moment, I'm cast back to the empty streets of Water 7, watching Robin from across the waterway. Struggling not to risk an impromptu drowning to wring her skinny neck for saying something similar. But that wasn't Robin, I remind myself, mentally slapping my cheeks. This is the Robin you know and love. Get used to it. 

In spite of recent circumstances, I doubt I've been the most forgiving person on the vast blue seas these past few torturous days, but that doesn't stop me from flushing every bad thought or misconception I've had about Robin - from her time as Miss All Sunday to her most recent "betrayal" - out of my system with a few hastily shed tears. This is a situation worth crying over, this deserves the waterworks, because I'm happy. And from the faintly amused look Robin wears, no doubt she understands my sentiments.

"Never, and I mean never, go off the deep end like that again, Robin," I say firmly, my hands latched onto her shoulders, wrinkling the leather of her jacket without care, "or I will find your ass and haul you back here before you have time to even sketch out one of your goddamn genius schemes. So save me the trouble, ok?"

She looks as though she's trying not to laugh as she opens her mouth to answer, but we're interrupted by Usopp's - Sogeking's? - valiant cry of, "Where's Luffy now?!"

Releasing Robin with a strained smile, I hop over to the railing overlooking Enies Lobby, my palms flat against the wood to balance me as I lift off on my toes and peer out through the vaporous smoke. "My guess is our cap'n still out there." I glance over my shoulder, looking for confirmation. "He was gonna go after Lucci's furry ass, wasn't he?"

Zoro inclines his head, the smoothness of his expression wavering slightly with the corners of his mouth curling into that signature smirk of his.

"They're close, then! Why don't we lend a hand?"

"Don't even try," Zoro warns Usopp without skipping a beat. "That pigeon guy's not an ordinary guy. It's a bad idea to get involved in that fight and get separated. We have to keep our escape route open. Even if a fleet of enemy warships comes after us, we'll wait for Luffy right here. That's what we should do."

I find myself searching upwards, my eyes following the rather violent movements of the inky clouds as they crash into one another and form some black expanse that's expanded to veil the entire cobalt sky. There's a storm coming alright, I muse, immersed in the background chatter of my crew mates while we await the undisputed return of our beloved idiot captain, one that's probably gonna make Aqua Laguna look like a sun-shower. That's just what we need, isn't it? After all, the Straw Hats wouldn't be the Straw Hats if we didn't have an apocalyptic nightmare riding our tail... 

I'm thrust back into the greedy clutches of reality by the crackling, static-imbued voice jolting through dozens of speakers: "...we have confirmed that approximately fifty pirates, including some giants, are at the main gate."

Of course Franky - who, despite his reluctance to wear actual pants that don't assault various senses of mine, has been growing on me since he took a beating for Robin's sake and apparently rescued Chopper - ecstatically begins a series of cheers for his nakama, believing them to have gotten off the island through sheer force of luck. And I'm smiling, too, caught up in his rush of enthusiasm, also carried away with the belief that Paulie's most likely stuck in with that group. 

"We have completed the obliteration mission."

My body grows rigid, tension bubbling just beneath my sheath of skin. Blood wells up from beneath my beaten nails as they dig shallow crescents into the wooden railing. My head whips around, trailing after the source of the monotone voice, which seems to emanating from the impossible amount of warships that've been circling us for Kami knows how long.

"By means of fire, death is confirmed for all of them. As it stands, it is impossible to have any survivors left on the island. The number of survivors on the Enies Lobby main island is z e r o."

Everything after that is just white noise, indistinct ramblings my mind instantly rejects. Zero survivors. Of their own accord, my legs spin me around, ignoring my protesting guy, my throbbing head, and stiffly march me across the deck, then make an abrupt turnaround and propel me right back to the railing. Pacing. I'm just pacing, trying to make sense of what I've heard. 

This isn't what was supposed to happen. I know when the Franky Family and Galley-La workers agreed to tag along on this insane suicide mission, we were all painfully aware that there would be casulties. You don't infiltrate a complex belonging to an elite, all-encompassing organization like the World Government without staining a few hands red. Hell, it was a suicide mission. 

But this isn't right. 

What did they do to deserve this? Help out a rag-tag group of pirates who were rescuing someone who didn't want to be rescued?

This world's tendency to repay kindness with cruelty is... sickening, for lack of a more articulate word.

I stop suddenly, fingers clawed into my hair, face contorted into what I'm assuming is some gross mask of grief and livid fury, and turn to face my friends, who've all fallen into various degrees of despair.

Robin sums it quite nicely by saying, "You cannot see humans... on the map. They just erased an island from the world map without hesitation. That's what the Buster Call is."

And then Frank is screaming in a voice so raw with pain and loss that my own throat closes up hearing it: "Hurry up, Straw Hat! Your nakama are waiting for you here! Bastard I'll never forgive you if you end up dead!"

I return to my railing. There's nothing I can do from here but fight the back the pain - both physical and not - that's threatening to send me back into cataclysmic slumber. Because the next time I fall into that welcoming darkness, I might not wake up, and that's a burden that I won't be inflicting on anyone so long as there's breath in this battered body. 

Luffy especially would take my death harshly, and rightly so. It's the job of a captain to protect his subordinates, to lead them in times of crisis - but it's also their job not to die and leave those subordinates in a state of disarray so great that they can be wiped out with a flick of Fate's wrist.

"He won't die. He won't die. He won't die. He... can't die." The words fall under my breath like a broke, ritualistic chant that does nothing for my fraying nerves. An image of Paulie's face - smiling because he's found a girl who values modesty over sex appeal - hits me like a physical blow, and I nearly double over, my forehead scraping agonizingly into the railing's splintered surface. The gash striping my cheek resumes its irritating stinging as salty tears drip into the open wounds.

Another pang seizes my chest, a dull ache thudding in the space just behind my heart. I can feel several pairs of eyes on me, most notably Zoro's, because that's what he would do in this situation. Analyze the problem, pick through his options and decide which would be the most effective. I doubt he's come to any sort fo decision regarding my tears, seeing as I so seldom shed them. And it's that thought, oddly enough, that has me raising my head and leveling a fiercely inappropriate smile at him, which he returns with a blank look and a cocked brow.

Something about the idea of Zoro tackling my emotional breakdown with cold logic just... makes me want to laugh. Even now, with the stakes so damn high and our lives practically forfeited, even as the voice relays another message over the speaker system, informing us none-too-gently that the warships are about to engage, and that specifically they're interested in taking out the Pirate Hunter Zoro, the Devil's Child Nico Robin, and the Red-Haired Demon Raya - even now, I'm smiling, however pitiful it make look on my tear-stained face.

Taking in the baffled looks of my nakama in stride, I deftly dry my tears with the blood-matted collar of my shirt, probably streaking my face with fresh crimson lines, and ask, "How many Marines do you think I can take out before someone manages to skewer me with something sharp and Sea Prism-y?"