Warm Memories and Brotherly Bonds

Chapter 39: Strong World

"AND WE WERE SO DAMN CLOSE!" Sanji roared out to the sky, feeling close to tearing out his hair, "THIS CLOSE! AND THAT SHITTY SLIME GOES RUNNING OFF! IF IT WANTS TO FIGHT SO DAMN BADLY WHY DOESN'T IT STOP RUNNING?!"

Sanji had spent the last ten minutes yelling his frustrations out before he sat down on a large rock and sighed.

"Feel better?" Robin asked.

"Hell ya," he muttered bitterly as he pulled out a new cigarette and popped it into his mouth as he looked around for his lighter. To make a long story short, they were almost to the ruins before the slime escaped once again. Everyone was losing their tempers over this matter, and were seriously getting ticked off by the slime's refusal to cooperate. When slime Moria appeared, he was just as teasing and taunted them as badly as the real one did.

He wasn't able to steal their shadows or conquer up one to block their attacks, but they were no more powerful against him than using water guns. The one good thing about him was that he also started to run around them like he did with Luffy in Thriller Bark. As Robin explained, he had been hiding in those memories and absorbs everything about the person it was becoming until it acts just like them.

The Slime-Moria went running off, and this worked to their advantage because they were able to start leading it back to the temple. Once Robin got their bearings straight, she was able to tell them exactly which way to go, and they started to herd it right back to the hole it climbed out of. They were making good progress, and they were just getting their hopes up with the slime seemed to realize that something was wrong and disappeared in a ball of muck again.

They all came out of that fight much better than against the real Moria, but their rage and frustration had reached a point that they were about ready to kill anything that moved around them.

"From now on," Zoro growled, his hands shaking so badly from suppressed anger, that he couldn't hold his swords straight. "We head back to the temple. We're going to stay as close as possible until it comes back... and we are going to do it so quickly that its head is going to spin!"

"I'm with you on that," Franky said before he let a loud cry of irritation and punched through a giant rock that just happened to be in the way. "WE WERE SO CLOSE! THAT CLOSE!"

"I, too, am growing tired of this fight," Brook sighed tiredly. "I'm so worn out that I can barely keep my eyes open. Ah! Not that I have eyes anymore!"

"Now's not the time, Brook," Usopp grumbled from where he lay on his back in the grass and panted there like a dog when it was hot.

"At least no one was hurt?" Chopper tried to point out as Nami held onto him, like a teddy bear.

"I rather get my ass handed to me than run around playing hide-n-seek with this thing!" Sanji snapped at him, kicking a tree over in anger.

"Not that that's saying much," Zoro said with a shrug, "Since you'd get your ass kicked no matter what."

"WHAT WAS THAT?! YOU WANT TO HAVE A GO WITH ME?!" Sanji roared, "THAT DOES IT! NEXT TIME WE HAVE A MEAL YOU BETTER WATCH YOURSELF!"

"Go ahead," Zoro retorted, feeling glad that he could vent some of his own frustrations onto the cook, "I'll digest poison! Razorblades! Anything! Hell, I proved that I can do it just by eating your food to begin with!"

The two were now so angry that it really looked as though they were going to kill the other. Nami was forced to give them both two hard punches to the head to get them to grow up, but the others were all silently happy when a new memory popped up because they could avoid the fighting.

Yet this new memory caught their attention because they were back on the Sunny and the night sky was filled with sparkling stars. Seeing how beautiful they were almost made them forget about what they were doing until they spotted several of the men on deck. Memory Zoro was resting his back against mast as past Sanji was up where the ship's wheel was and was lowering the anchors for the night.