Death can't have her

Meeting Shiki's friend

Disclaimer: I do not own One Piece or anything related to it except for my OC and unrelated plots in this. I also do not own any pictures.

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The red headed woman struggled to run in the cloak of darkness, she managed to morph one of her arms into a wing and flapped it towards the skeletons, creating a gust of wind between them. 

She was not going to die in this dump!

She ran with what little energy she had, covered in dirt from head to toe, small scratches on her hands and face, some tears on her sleeve but other than that, no serious injuries, just running low on energy.

Taking shelter in the dead-looking forest, she hid behind one of the many trees, slumping down against the rough barks, scowling in pain, her legs were burning from forcing herself to keep running even when they gave her an icy burn.

She didn't know how long she had been hiding trying to regain her breath, time doesn't show on this cursed island, she could barely see anything with the leaves giving almost no light from the trees. The island probably couldn't receive any light from the mist clouding the island. 

She should be lucky that the mist wasn't from the sea.

She froze when she heard something being dragged through the dirt towards her. Stilling her breathing, she tried to get up. Anything pale or white stood out in the dark.

Especially the skeleton which was suddenly right in front of her. Axe in its bony hands, dragging it along the ground.

She nearly yelped and stumbled back, her red eyes wide, staring at the illogical picture.

How could a skeleton, all bones and all, carry a big ass axe?! Wait! No, that was not the problem right now!

She could see the skeleton lifting the axe up in a ricketing, rusty manner, but before it could swing down on her, a scythe suddenly appeared by the skeleton's bony hip, swinging the bones across with such force that it shattered against a tree.

When she saw who it was, she couldn't help but chuckle dryly, "Haha, you look like the grim reaper..." the shadowed figure had their hood over their head, sleeves that flowed out, the tail of the cloak loose and eerie looking, scythe in their pale hands, "... Shiki."

Shiki stepped forward, her golden eye glimmering in the dark, she offered her hand to the red head who gratefully accepted it and was pulled up to her feet, standing taller than Shiki by two heads.

"Reika." Shiki greeted, putting her scythe against her shoulder, the blade pointed at the ground.

"Shiki, what are you doing here?" the red haired woman breathed a sigh of relief, she felt like her legs could turn into jelly any time now.

"A broken chef's knife told me you were in trouble." Shiki stated bluntly, looking around her with a frown, something putrid in the air tried to evade her noise and she kept trying to sniff it away.

Reika glomped onto Shiki, rubbing their cheeks together, a happy grin on her face, "Well thanks for saving me."

"Why are you here?" Shiki asked, her head moving up and down with the motion.

"I've got a lead that he might be here." Reika said, letting go and turning around to head back to the castle, it wasn't really a castle, it just had the shape of one and didn't have any levels.

Shiki hummed and followed Reika back to the castle.

There was only a few Skeleton guards there which Shiki took care of while Reika stood in front of the double doors, lifting a foot up, she used as much force she had left to kick it open...only to see the inside empty.