Ace's name was on his lips as he screamed at his brother. He never understood how they could be so brave. Even when the adults were cowering. Sabo was screaming as well from besides him as his grip tightened on Luffy.

"Go!" Ace screamed as he dodged an attack at him. They had found the monster. It was a shame no one else had lived very long after that. Now it was just Luffy and his brothers. And he was terrified soon it would just be him.

"We're not going to leave you!" Sabo yelled as Luffy held his hand tighter. Somewhere in the back of his head he thought it was really lame of the future pirate king needed someone to hold his hand but a much bigger part of him was terrified and clung to any comfort he could get.

"I said run!" Ace yelled as he sprinted back.

"And I said not without you idiot!" Sabo snapped. To Luffy's surprise he could feel Sabo trembling in his grip. Was it fear or adrenalin?

"Look out!" Luffy cried as the monster rounded upon Ace.

Ace yelled at them to run one last time as he took off down a tunnel. Sabo cussed and moved to follow him before stopping as he realized Luffy wasn't moving.

"Are you scared?"

Not even bothering to deny it Luffy nodded. He wanted to go after them but his legs just wouldn't move. He couldn't remember feeling fear like this before.

"It's okay Lu." Sabo said as he tried to pull his grip away. "Stay here. I'll go get Ace and we will come back for you."

Still Luffy didn't let go.

"I don't have time right now Luffy you need to let me go."

"No!"

"Let go!"

"NO!"

XXX

Night 3

The crew was roughly awakened to the sound of screaming.

The boy's cabin was awake within seconds as they all shot up, sleep quickly ebbing away.

"What the hell is that?" Sanji swore as he threw his blankets aside. The rest of the crew was right beside him.

"What is that?" Chopper repeated terrified as he clung to Zoro.

"Aren't we supposed to be the only ones out here?" Franky asked darkly.

"Apparently not." Zoro said as he grabbed his swords. "Let's go get the girls."

"Where's Luffy?" Usopp said making the crew look down at his empty bed.

"Shit," Zoro cussed as he ran out from the room, the rest of them trailing behind.

The sun wouldn't rise for quite a while leaving the deck blanketed in darkness. Even so using their lanterns they were able to distinguish a familiar lump from the rest of the ship. To their vast relief Luffy was curled up on his side very much asleep and oblivious to the noise around them.

"Luffy," Brook, being the kind old man he was, bent down to shake the kid awake. "You shouldn't sleep outside, you will catch cold."

Luffy whined but sat up never the less rubbing sleep from his eyes. He looked around him at the crew in surprise.

"What are you guys doing?" He questioned, slurring his words sleepily.

"Someone's out there." Franky told him. "They were screaming."

Luffy's eyes widened a fraction as he turned to look at the black sea around them before turning back to face them.

"Nobody was screaming." He told them seriously.

"YES THEY WERE!" Sanji said angrily storming up to Luffy who rose to his feet to meet the chef.

"We all heard it. Someone out there needs help."

"Sanji," Luffy told him quietly but seriously. "There's no one out there."

"How do you know that?" Sanji said irritably as he took a step closer to Luffy. "Because you keep saying that and telling us not to worry but it feels like we should be."

Luffy didn't say anything, instead he continued to stare at the cook, his dark eyes unusually thoughtful.

The lack of defense only seemed to irritate Sanji more. "Speaking of which when are you going to tell us who you've been arguing with this whole time huh? You've been acting awfully weird since we got trapped here. Always staring off into the distance, looking at the damn ocean!" Sanji gestured behind him. "Whats so god damn interesting about this fucking ocean HUH CAPTAIN? Why don't you tell us?"

"Sanji!" Nami hissed as she came out of her cabin, pulling a jacket tightly around her. "Stop yelling." Robin followed closely behind.

"Nami!" Chopper cried in alarm. "There was screaming."

"We heard." Nami said seriously. "We were waiting for you guys to deal with it. Who is it?"

"Why don't you ask him." Sanji said pointing an accusatory finger at Luffy. "He seems to know what's going on here but for whatever reason he's not telling us."

Nami gave him a very unimpressed look. "Yea right," She said sarcastically. "For once Luffy is the one who knows exactly what's going on. He's just keeping it to himself for fun." What part of that sounds like him?"

"None of it!" Sanji said exasperated. "But you all have to admit, he's not acting like himself. Are we not even going to ask him what he was doing sleeping out here? And if there's really no one out here then who the hell was he arguing with yesterday? Now all of a sudden there's a scream and he just…."

"ENOUGH," Zoro's yelled not liking where this was going or what Sanji was implying. He would not let the love cook say another bad thing about his captain. Besides after last night he had thought they were on the same page. Sanji had agreed to follow Luffy's lead. This was not what following a lead looked like.

The scream sounded again sending shivers of fear down the pirate's spines.

"Luffy bro that sure sounds real." Franky said uncertainly.

Luffy shook his head, "There's no one out there but us." He repeated firmly.

"So are you saying you don't hear that?" Sanji demanded.

Luffy tilted his head, his face impartial.

"The screaming! Do you hear it?"

He nodded slowly.

"Then how can you say no one else is out there?"

"I don't know what it is." He said honestly. "But I know it's not a person."

"How could you possibly know that?" Usopp said uncertainly.

Luffy shrugged. "I just do."

"That's not answer." Sanji growled.

"It's good enough for me!" Zoro said defensively stepping forwards. Sanji's attitude was pissing him off more than usual.

"I'll trust captain on this one." Robin agreed.

"Your sure about this Luffy?" Nami asked.

Luffy nodded.

"Fine," She sighed. "I'll go along then." The rest of the crew nodded.

Sanji sighed wearily before the fire disappeared from his eyes.

"Fine." He said finally. "What now?"

But Luffy wasn't listening. His dark eyes were staring off to the side, near the ships railing.

"Maybe we should go inside?" Brook suggested. "We might feel better there then out here."

"Yes please." Chopper said hugging himself tightly. "It's scary out here…. No its not!" He decided. "There's nothing scary out here but we should go inside right now because I'm scared….or not!"

Franky laughed. "You said it little man."

The crew moved to head inside when Luffy snapped.

"SHUT UP!" He screamed making the crew freeze in their tracks. Luffy sounded uncharacteristically angry. This was a tone he hardly used when his friends were around.

They stared at him for a moment in surprise.

"Luffy?" Usopp asked after a second of silence. The crew was still surprised by his outburst. But Luffy wasn't looking at them. Instead his gaze was fixed on the troubled ocean beyond the deck.

The group once again scanned the surrounding oceans still seeing nothing.

"Luffy..." Franky started unsure of how to ask this. "Can you hear something we can't?"

When Luffy still didn't respond Zoro roughly grabbed his shoulders forcing him to face his crew. "Luffy!" He snapped as the boys gaze finally shifted over to them.

"You just told us no one was out there!" Nami snapped not in the mood for this. "Who the hell were you talking to because it isn't us."

Zoro shook his head sadly. Luffy was really bad at this. And they had just convinced everyone to drop it.

"Ah," Luffy said looking at his friend's troubled faces. His expression told them that he hadn't realized he had spoken out loud until now. He gave them a weird look before looking back to the sea.

"Luffy what do you hear?" Franky asked softer but more urgently this time.

Luffy frowned at him, "What do you hear?"

"Nothing bro, I hear nothing. So we're all wondering what you seem to be picking up with those monkey ears of yours."

Luffy reached up to feel his ears not doubt wondering what money ears were like. "It's a dead sea," He told them.

Nami nodded, "We know that."

But as Sanji looked over at him Zoro couldn't help but wonder if they really did know.

XXX

Zoro was sleeping above the deck. The clouds made it rather cold and he was starting to miss the sun but he could deal with it. He was trying to watch over the crew and the ocean at the same time. Luffy lay on his stomach a few feet away sleeping peacefully, like he had been doing all week. Zoro had started to think that instead of lazing around as he first suspected Luffy was indeed carefully monitoring everything from his unassuming place on the grass. That would explain why he kept sleeping on the deck.

To Zoro's surprise Luffy's eyes slid open for the first time that day. But instead of looking towards to water he instead looked over at the galley door above them. Zoro followed his gaze confused.

He understood a few seconds later when the door open and Robin emerged with her usual grace. Luffy blinked over at him before putting his head down once more.

That must have been that observation thing he and Sanji seemed to have. That would explain how Luffy could watch over everything without even opening his eyes. Zoro felt his stomach tighten a bit. Luffy was really serious about this. It was only a matter of time before the crew caught on.

"May I have a minute of your time swordsman?" Robin asked pleasantly as Zoro stood up. Content that Luffy was guarding their friends with or without his help he followed the woman back up the stairs and into the library.

Let it be noted that Zoro spent very little time in here. When Usopp and Luffy were being too noisy everywhere else he would occasionally nap in here as the two boys avoided this room like the plague.

"What is it?" Zoro asked as Robin shut the door behind him.

"I've been doing a bit of reading." Robin told him lightly. "Ever since we got trapped here."

This was bound to be interesting. "Find anything we can use."

"I'm afraid you're not going to like it."

"I'm sure I won't." Zoro said gruffly. But better this then be completely in the dark.

"I'll tell you what I've found but this must stay between us. I don't think Sencho wants us knowing anything about this."

Zoro agreed with her as well. He knew despite his simplistic view Luffy had a reason for keeping them in the dark, and it was a damn good one. He could only hope that what he and Robin were doing wouldn't disrupt that.

"If you're trying to obey the captain then why are you telling me this?"

Robin leaned against the edge of the desk. "I don't mean any disrespect to Sencho but I'm worried about him."

Zoro snorted. "How's that? He can take care of himself."

"He takes on too much." Robin said running her fingers over the spines of the books. "Just last week he almost died."

"It's going to take more than a dumb sharkman to take down Luffy." Zoro told her unimpressed.

"Of course," She agreed. "But no matter how strong he is he's still only human."

"What's your point?" Zoro asked feeling defensive.

"That if Luffy keeps taking on everything like this he is going to drive himself into an early grave."

"Luffy's going to be pirate king!" Zoro snapped.

"That he will," Robin agreed. "But I don't want to have to bury him afterwards." There was a slight bite in her words and Zoro finally understood what she was getting at.

"What do you need me to do?"

Robin smirked humorlessly, "Funny I'm talking to you about this. You suffer from the same problem as the captain. But I think if anyone's in a position to help it may be you. So I will tell you everything I know in hopes that you may be able to do something about it."

Zoro nodded wordlessly. Like hell Luffy was going to die before him. He couldn't call himself the greatest swordsman if he outlives his captain.

Robin nodded understanding. "Well then the first thing you should know is there is no eyewitness accounts."

"Meaning?"

"Meaning that no one has made if back from here before, at the very least I've never heard about it if they have."

He didn't like the sound of that. "If no one survived why there is anything written at all?"

"There isn't very much. The main reference was from nearly fifty years ago. And although none of the crew survived a ship was recovered. No one knew where it had come from or where it had disappeared but it looked like it belonged to a pirate crew."

"But no one was on it?" Zoro asked.

Robin shook her head. "No it was completely empty. It drifted across the path of a marine ship. They searched it from top to bottom but there was nothing."

"Then how do we know it was related to this?"

Robin smirked darkly at that. "There was a note. Written in blood on one of the walls." She ruffled around in the stack of papers behind her. "I wasn't sure the two were connected until this morning when Luffy said that we are in a dead sea."

"So, didn't Nami tell us that's when this all started?"

"Yes but Nami was speaking from a scientific point of view. She called this a dead sea because the salinity levels are too high to support life. The blood note reference a 'sea of the dead,' I believe that's what Luffy was talking about."

She handed him a paper from the stack. "I remember learning about this in the O'Hara Library when I was a little girl. It's not perfect but that's what I remember the note saying. I have a very good memory." She added when Zoro gave her a sideways look.

Zoro read over the paper once with a frown as he re-read it.

.

If you wish to find us you needn't look far

For we will find you

And drag you into the deepest pits of despair

Play with us you must

But beware the victors do not always play fair

And one by one you always fall

For fear is a weapon used by all

We take those we want

And sharpen the bones of those who we do not

As for the flesh you flaunt

It will feed the rest

Until the master seeks the soul of his desire

Sealed with a kiss is his fire

Beware when the gates break

For a prison of our own design we will make

And those who stand before us will kneel at our master's feet

For there are worse fates then death

Be wary of a sea filled with tears

Beware the sea of the dead

.

"What the hell?" He asked. "What is this! Poetry night." It sounded like it was written by a crazy person.

"Kissing, games, the master? What is this talking about?"

"I'm not entirely sure." Robin admitted. "But I can tell you it's not good. I think it was written as an insult to the world government."

"You can't be sure it's related to this just because of the 'sea of the dead' line. I mean a lot of places have dead people. Plus tons of people hate the world government."

Robin shook her head. "I am fairly confident in my ability. As you should be." She tapped the pile of books besides her. "It is referenced in lore by many different names. Purgatory is a popular one or the underworld. Either way it hardly matters. The point is that this is a very real place and we are being toyed with."

"For what purpose?" Zoro cried frustrated. "If they really are out there why don't they just attack us already?"

"I'm afraid it's much worse than that." Robin told him. "Whatever they are they live in the water we currently float upon. I imagine it wouldn't be very hard to sink our boat."

Zoro shuttered at that. Out here, in the middle of nowhere. They would surely die. His hand rested on his swords and he felt himself calm.

"Then why haven't they?"

Robin looked out the window at the troubled waters. "As the note said I believe they are playing a game."

"How is it a game if we don't even know we are playing?"

"It may not be a game meant for us?"

"Then who…." Zoro trailed off as he followed his gaze out the window. "Luffy," He breathed.

"He is the captain," Robin said. "Perhaps they think he represents the crew."

"So what do we do?"

Robin shook her head. "There is not much we can do with such limited information. We must pray Luffy wins."

"He will." Zoro said confidently.

"They will not let him win." Robin reminded Zoro. "Even if he manages to stop them we have no idea how we got here. It is not on any maps and I doubt there is a physical way to get out."

"We will manage." Zoro said. No room for argument in his tone. "Can you keep looking for more information on these guys?"

Robin nodded.

"This stays between us?" Zoro asked and she agreed.

"We will follow Sencho's lead as always. If anyone can beat them it's him."

Zoro nodded as he turned to the door, leaving Robin to her work. When he stepped outside he was only partially surprised to find someone sitting against the wall.

"We need to put a bell on you," He grumbled as he shut the library door.

Nami looked up at him, her eyes serious. "And you need to work on your poker face. You are a terrible liar. Do really think it's okay to keep this from the rest of them?"

"It's not my call." Zoro reminded her. "Luffy's the one who decided that and if you disagree by all means tell everyone. Start a mutiny while you're at it."

Nami rolled her eyes as she stood up. A little shaky. For a girl who ran at the first sight of danger Zoro had always been impressed with how brave she was when she thought no one was looking.

"Yea yea I get it. I don't need a lecture from you of all people. But know this. If this is how I die I'm going to haunt your ass into the next world." She headed towards the library.

"Where are you going?"

"To help Robin." She said simply.

XXX

When Zoro left Luffy moved from the grass to below deck. He knew what was coming and he didn't particularly like it but if it meant keeping his nakama safe he would do anything. He climbed down the ladder looking around the dark room. The shadows seemed to shift and move around him.

"Insssolent subordinatesss," A silky voice hissed in his ear but when he turned there was nothing behind him.

Luffy didn't know what subordinates meant but he didn't like his nakama being called it.

"They're not." He argued. "Their smart and loyal and they're going to kick your butt.

"Loyalty? Evvenn now they are behind your backsss." Luffy felt something cool rest on his neck and he rolled his shoulders in discomfort.

"Theyyy are suspicioussss of you."

"No!"

"Theyyy will betraaay you."

"Shut up!" Luffy clenched his fist. "Don't say bad things about my friends."

"The femalesss and the insssolent one try to find a wayyy to destroy ussss."

"Good." Luffy said as the weight slid from his shoulders down his arm. He struggled free, spinning back around as the glittering blackness behind him grinned, showing a pair of jagged teeth. A truly ugly sight.

"I hope they kick your ass."

"You tooo are inssssolent. We will deal with you in time."

"Come at me." Luffy spat out.

"But Firssst. The swordsssssman. He much be taught a lessssson."

"You can't touch Zoro." Luffy hissed.

"Heee tried to desssstroy me. He will pay dearly."

"That's not against the rules." Luffy reminded it as he once again felt the smooth yet damp touch as a glittering black hand felt his face. Why this thing so was touchy he had no idea. It didn't have skin of its own and it seemed fascinated with his.

"I cannnot let him go."

"And if you touch him I'll make you regret it." Luffy spat out.

The figure titled its head curiously. A strangely human like gesture considering Luffy was sure this creature was the furthest possible thing from a human. It stroked his cheek with one of its talon like fingers. "Theeeen you?"

"Me what?"

"Willl you take the punissssshhment in hisss place?"

Luffy looked at the ceiling above him. Usually he would not hesitate to take pain if it meant keeping his friends safe. But if he did this there would be no one to look out for them.

The they could look after each other. Luffy knew they were trying their best to understand. Hopefully they knew enough to know what to do. He trusted his friends with his life after all. They were his nakama.

"Yes!" He said. "Do your worst."

Four days to go

XXX

So Luffy is going to be out of commission for a little while. That leaves the crew to sort themselves out as things take a drastic turn next chapter. As you can see all of the crew basically know they are screwed.

Animago: Obrigado por me chamar de corajoso! Estou muito feliz que você goste da história. Também luvo Luffy. Ele é uma bola de adorkableness. Espero que você também goste deste capítulo. Obrigado pela amável revisão!

DaLantis: Thank you! I hope I can keep that up. I shall do my best! Thank you for the review.

Mythsandchaos: AH! Nice reviews yay! I'm really glad you stuck with me. I think it got a little nonsensical at the poem but I promise that all meant something. Thank you for the enthusiasm. I hope you like this chapter as well!

OrangeCowboyHat: Thank you! I shall keep trying

Fairykick: I am so glad you like it! Here is some more. Thank you for the review! I'm glad I didn't lose you with my twisty plot.