Just one more chapter to go. As I said in the last update, it will go up on August 7th. Thanks everyone for your comments, and sorry I didn't get back to you this time. I've been having a couple of crappy weeks, health-wise, and at the time of posting this I'm exhausted and running a little low on morale. Also, my apologies if some of the dialogue I had to lift from the manga is a little awkward - the only English translation I had access to at the time I wrote this was Mangapanda's, and though I tried to make it a little less bad, it is what it is.

With that said, I really hope you enjoy the chapter, and see you soon for the end! Take care!

40. Lessons taken to heart
(The only thing that's ever stopping me is me)

Saki had been following the rapidly changing vivre card for maybe five minutes, managing to draw a circle around a suspicious block of houses, when she saw several groups of policemen coming from different directions, yelling something about a toy house and running down the street, so she ducked out of the way before they could run her over.

Sadly for her, before she could make her exit, one of them locked eyes with her.

"Hey! You were in front of the Colosseum!"

So she had to run again, this time chased by three guys in a ridiculous outfit, because chances were that, if she stopped to fight there, she'd attract the attention of all the rest. She ran as fast as she could to shake them off, but even though they lost sight of her a few times, it didn't take long until they were tailing her again. There was also the matter that she didn't want to leave the area she painstakingly determined, because whoever she was looking for had to be there.

She turned a corner and ran into an alley, and the solution to her dilemma came in the form of a barred window with a water pipe next to it. She quickly glanced back and saw that the policemen weren't there, but she could hear them just nearby. Did she think she could climb it? Possibly. Did it look secure? No. Was that a good thing? If the subjections didn't give under her weight, absolutely, because no way a grown man equipped with all the paraphernalia those soldiers wore could go up.

She didn't have time to think any of this while her feet were still on the ground, though. She grabbed onto the bars, leaped from the windowsill to the pipe, and after a horrendous creak she prepared to fall backwards and crash, but the screws held on, and she shimmied her way up, barely jumping over the edge of the wall in time to hear the policemen bursting into the alley.

She lay on top of a terrace made of terracotta tiles, catching her breath, with her gaze vacant towards the sky and her ear trained on the sounds below, thinking that she could have used a Shachi to pull her up.

After a long minute, they seemed to go away, and she dared to peek out of her refuge.

She was on top of a second floor. Taller buildings obstructed her view of the city, but the she could cover some of the small streets around her. There wasn't any sign of the police anymore, or a lot of movement, for that matter. It looked like a residential area, so people were probably going about their day somewhere else.

She pulled out the vivre card again, its behavior unchanged form before. But if she couldn't see anybody it could belong to from there, did that mean they were in one of the houses?

This revelation that made Saki pay closer attention to the buildings surrounding her. All seemingly normal from outside, and she was about to give up and just run in the direction the police had gone to see if she could find a Straw Hat when she realized something wasn't quite right.

From her spot, she could see a small building with a terrace, just like the one she was in, and a door that led inside. But if she paid closer attention, she could see that there weren't any windows on the base floor.

That was definitely weird. Even warehouses needed a source of light and ventilation, no matter how small.

With some difficulty, because she had to climb on a nearby rooftop with old, wobbly tiles, she walked across it and leapt to the terrace of the odd building, ungracefully landing face-first when she took impulse to jump down and broke the roof tile she had been standing on.

Before picking herself up from the ground, she put her ear to the floor and listened. Nothing, as far as she could tell. She got up and walked to the door that would let her into the building. It was made of metal and locked, so kicking it in was probably a bad idea. It didn't even have a doorknob, but there was a keyhole. She couldn't see anything on the other side when she looked inside.

Changing her mind and now very happy that Shachi wasn't around to see this, she took off two hairpins from her hair, bended them, and started to fiddle with the lock. It wasn't long until she heard a click and she was able to pull the door open. The only downside of the operation was that now she had a strand of hair insistent in hanging in front of her face.

Instead of the regular staircase she had expected, there was a set of metal stairs that went down, but it was pitch black inside and the light that the open door provided didn't reach floor level. Going further in seemed like a terrible idea, but the vivre card wasn't only changing directions constantly now, it also seemed to be pushing down on her hand.

"Here goes nothing," she muttered, resolving to leave and go look for the source of the earlier disturbance if she didn't find anybody in there. She didn't want to waste any more time on a hunch, as much as the mysterious vivre card bothered her.

She walked down the stairs unsteadily, careful not to stick her feet in the gaps between the steps, and she let out a small sigh of relief when she stepped on solid ground. Her eyes adjusted little by little to the darkness, and as far as she could see, the house seemed to consist on one empty, single room. She thought for a second of finding the front door and sacrifice her last hairpins on that altar, but it was probably too dark to get any work on that lock done. Slowly, she started to walk with short steps further into the darkness, hands in front of her in case she bumped with something. This went on for a few seconds, until she noticed a level difference on the floor when she slid a foot forward. A hole, perhaps? She could sense a draft of air coming from below.

But she didn't have time to ponder this, because at that moment, a wind current shut the door to the terrace, and the sudden slam made her jump and lose her balance. Unable to touch the floor with the feet that had been hovering in the air, she fell forward, but she didn't hit the ground.

Rather, she hit her side as she started to slide down something – a tunnel? A tube? – and before she even had time to panic, something exploded below her, cutting the sliding ride short and sending her flying towards the ground among a shower of debris.

—

Law woke up inside the audience room of the palace, chained to the literal Heart seat that the position in the Donquixote Family had become, and surrounded by enemies. Aside from Doflamingo, Baby5, Buffalo and some nameless goons were there, and there was an old man sitting on the floor to the side, restrained as well. He could've gotten rid of everybody except Doflamingo if it weren't for the seastone.

He'd let himself be captured, so interrogation was a given. He didn't have any intentions of answering Doflamingo's questions, but his determination turned into confusion when he realized that he had no clue what he was talking about.

"Why are the Straw Hats working with the little people of Green Bit?!" Doflamingo asked, lounging in a chair in front of him and flanked by his men, and nonetheless sounding altered. "How did they get underground?! Why are they going after Sugar?!"

Law thought he did a good job to hide from his face all the mental calculations he was doing to figure out what Straw Hat could be possibly doing and who the fuck Sugar was. Not that he reached any satisfactory answers.

"If that's not a coincidence… then they must know the root of the darkness of this kingdom!"

When Law stayed silent, Baby5 slapped him, and a glare was enough to send her back to Buffalo crying. Still taking rejection as badly as ever.

"I told you, we have nothing to do with one another at this point. The alliance is no more. I don't understand a thing you're telling me."

Law honestly wished that last part had been a lie.

—

She landed hard on her right side and on top of some rubble. Around her, aside from the remains of whatever had exploded, there were crates, and she could smell the ocean. Looking up, she saw a ceiling above her, with several broken tubes protruding from it and pointing to where the center of the explosion had most likely been. There, in the middle of the ruins of a building, Saki didn't see the person she was looking for. Instead, it was Robin with one of her crewmates and a lot of tiny people with fluffy tails attacking a little girl and a huge man that had eaten a Devil Fruit and was dripping a sticky substance all over the place. That one had to be Trebol.

Lots of toys and a handful of humans were watching the fight, and Saki hid behind some crates and dialed a number with the Den Den Mushi without losing sight of the commotion.

"Koala," she said as soon as she heard her pick up the call, "I think I've found the secret port we were looking for."

"I'm at the Colosseum!" She replied, surprised. "Where are you?"

"Underground. I think I'm below you."

"Got it. Are you alone?"

"There are two Straw Hats, some kind of dwarves and Donquixote Family executives. They haven't seen me yet."

"Can you stay hidden until Sabo's done?"

"I could, but I think I should—" Robin looked like she was struggling to keep the girl immobilized.

"Go ahead," Koala replied before Saki could finish the sentence. "We'll be around if you need a hand."

"Thanks."

Saki started to come out of her hiding spot, intent on helping…

Helping who?

Fighting against Trebol and the girl were a handful of tiny people being attacked by small toys. The one Straw Hat that was with them was nowhere to be seen, and Saki didn't know any of them. Maybe it was best to wait and see what happened. That man could be planning something or have more friends around.

Saki had the feeling she had suddenly forgotten something very important. The same feeling the mysterious vive card gave her.

There was one single toy near the fray that wasn't fighting. A ragdoll with short messy hair and a face full of stitches wandered off in Saki's general direction, unnoticed, and Saki reached out for it and grabbed it when she approached the crates that she was hiding behind.

She lifted the doll to have it at eye level, and it didn't oppose any resistance.

"What are you?" She asked the doll.

There was no reply, but not for a lack of trying. The doll opened her mouth time and time again, as if wanting to speak, to no avail.

"So you can't talk," Saki said. "Or you aren't allowed to."

The doll stopped struggling then.

"Am I right?" She said, returning her attention to the fight. The little people were falling one after another. They didn't have a chance, and Saki wasn't looking forward to a two on one fight. She could wait a bit for Koala. "I know I've forgotten something."

Trebol then yelled at people to go back to work over the loudspeaker system, and the onlookers scattered.

A high pitched yell of a name she didn't recognize stopped the activity in the port once again. Saki was still holding the doll, and both of them had their eyes glued to the Donquixote Family members.

"Usoland will… save everything." The small voice spread to all the corners of the port thanks to the speakers. "The toys that are forced to work here every day… Our friends who are treated like slaves in the factory… The toys that look like they're having fun in the city, but inside they're weeping… The sad big humans that don't even realize that they lost their loved ones—"

Wait. What did that mean?

"Usoland will save everyone! He's a legendary hero!"

The argument between the small person and the Donquixote Family went on, but Saki wasn't paying much attention anymore. Instead, she looked at the doll she was holding against her chest. "Are you… Could you be a human? Is this their doing?"

Before she could get an answer, another yell shook the port. "Shut up! Usoland isn't a liar!"

Meanwhile, the doll seemed to be doing its best to reply. Exerting an obvious effort, like it was fighting with all its might against itself, the doll finally nodded.

The screams of the little people started to fill the air, and both Saki and the doll looked over at them to see that Trebol was stomping on them. Each stomp mad Saki wince.

She had already made a decision before the doll, with another great effort, managed to squeak out, "Please, help them!"

Saki put the doll on the ground, wondering if this was someone she knew – could it be one of the Straw Hats, or the person the vivre card pointed to? – and she got in position to run out of her hiding place, hand ready on the hilt of her sword.

She could launch a surprise attack, but with two of them, and assuming both had Devil Fruits, one could easily stop her while she attacked the other one. If only there was a small distraction—

The answer to her prayers came in the shape of the Straw Hat that the littles ones called Usoland making a grand entrance and shooting at Trebol, who shrugged off the attack like it was nothing and immediately retaliated by tying him up with that viscous substance he produced. Haki it was, then.

Saki sprinted as fast as she could over the debris, and Trebol was the first to notice her because the girl was busy examining a ball in her hand, but even when she saw Saki, she didn't seem to mind at all.

Trebol threw some goo at Saki that she cut with her sword, and she ran up to him to try and cut him in half, only her sword sank into him like she was cutting into honey and not a human body. Not a Logia, then. She took a step back to recover as a mass of whatever it was he produced rolled of his body to grab Saki, and she was ready to cut it once again when something unexpected happened.

The girl let out the shrillest scream Saki had heard in her life and fell unconscious, foaming at the mouth. Even Trebol's shock was so great that he stopped mid-attack to help the girl, and Saki didn't miss a beat, grabbed Usopp by the jacket and ran away with him. Where were Tsubaki, Hack and Robin, and how had she forgotten them until that moment? She was ready for the port workers that would surely come to stop her, and knowing that Koala and Sabo were on their way made her feel better about it.

But what Saki didn't expect at all was to suddenly be met by so many people, no toys in sight, and much less by the fighters she had seen earlier in the Colosseum.

—

Law still didn't know what was going on when Doflamingo was told that that so-called Sugar being knocked out, but the Den Den Mushis in the room blasted reports of toys turning to humans one after the other, and in the middle chaos that ensued, someone else came in the room at high speed.

The old man yelled, "Is that you, Kyros?!"

"Yes! I'm sorry to have kept you waiting for ten long years!"

And that was all the warning they had before the man that had just arrived, hoping on one leg and carrying a longsword, launched himself at Doflamingo and lopped off his head.

Law was shocked for a moment until he realized that it couldn't have been that easy. There had to be a trick. The Doflamingo he knew would have never gone down like that.

"Traffy! I'm here to save you!"

He didn't have any time to figure out what was actually going on, because then more people ran into the room and he internally panicked when he saw that it was Straw Hat with a woman in tow. He didn't even know why that got him anxious, but he was learning very quickly that there was something about Luffy doing things that activated his fight or flight response.

He should've been going after the factory! Was it still standing, or had the Straw Hats taken it down already and come back for him? Why was he wasting time with him?

"I'm glad you're still alive!"

"You weren't supposed to come here, Straw Hat! What about the factory?! Is it destroyed?!"

He didn't reply, instead advancing towards him with the key to his cuffs while the one-legged man downed enemy after enemy to free the other prisoner.

"I hate to disappoint you, but our alliance is finished!" Law hurried to say.

"Huh?! That's so selfish!" Straw Hat retorted. "Only I get to decide that! You shut up!"

"Who's being selfish now?!" He shot back. "With the alliance finished, we're enemies again! Set me free and I'll kill you!" Law, who until then had been under the delusion that he had any say in how their little collaboration went, realized that threats weren't the way to convince Straw Hat to do anything when he was promptly ignored and treated of a show of two Devil Fruit users trying to take off a pair of seastone handcuffs from a third one. "You're not even listening to me, are you?!"

Their efforts were for naught as the palace floor bucked under them, and they lost their balance, sending Law backwards, chair and all. Pica's figure emerged from the stone as Doflamingo's head came back to life.

—

A large blast shook the entire underground, and the ceiling crumbled.

Saki was sitting next to Usopp, Robin and the Tontattas when the first pieces of rubble started coming down, and before they knew what was going on, entire blocks of stone and a cascade of water crashed in from above, and they had to run, not just to avoid getting crushed, but because Trebol had forgotten about the girl to chase after them.

"What are you doing here?" Robin asked Saki.

"Looks like we all had the idea to go after the same guy at once!"

"That's good news," Robin said, and when they were about to pass a large boulder, she shouted, "Go with them and protect them! I'll hold him back!"

Robin pushed the boulder in front of her with a giant hand to stop Trebol's attack, and Saki was fully prepared to disregard Robin's instructions, because she was sick of people with self-sacrificial streaks, and attack Trebol when they were all stopped on their tracks.

Hajrudin, the giant she had seen competing at the tournament before, picked up Usopp with one hand and showed him to all the people who had been transformed into toys.

At Usopp's command, all the warriors joined the fight, and Saki felt she was missing too many vital pieces of information to understand what was going on, but they forced Trebol to make a strategic retreat, and that was all that mattered with so many injured people around.

Besides, if she wasn't mistaken, her companions had to be around, too. Sabo and Koala would have probably entered from the hole in the ceiling, Hack would have to be among the Colosseum fighters, and Tsubaki—

Of course! The vivre card was hers!

She pulled it out immediately, and it looked fine, no tearing or burning. Tsubaki had to be around, probably with Hack, if she had found him, and by the looks of it, both had been turned into toys for a while.

It didn't take long to find each other. The members of the Revolutionary Army had already banded together inside the port, and as soon as Koala laid eyes on Robin, who seemed ecstatic to see everyone again, she let out a squeal and jumped in her arms. Robin, taking advantage of this temporary respite, went on to introduce a semi-unconscious Usopp to her friends. Saki paid little attention to the introductions, though, because right after Koala jumped Robin, she was assaulted from the back by the wiry goblin that Tsubaki was.

"Oof!" She said upon impact. "Do I have to give you a piggyback ride now?"

Tsubaki clung to her, undeterred. "That was so weird. I got turned into a toy!"

"Yeah, I assumed as much. Are you okay!"

"Yeah, I'm fine. Did you forget about me? Everyone did! And I forgot about Hack! It was awful!"

"I did, and then I couldn't remember to who your vivre card belonged, so I sort of followed it here. Does that power wipe people's memories?"

"It does," Robin replied. "That's how Doflamingo managed to have so many slaves."

"He's been doing this for ten years!" One of the little people said, climbing onto Robin's shoulder and raising a needle above his head, like a sword. "But this ends today!"

His little friends, as beaten up as they were, cheered and started to move.

"And you are?" Sabo asked before he could jump off Robin.

"Leo of the Tontatta tribe!" He replied. "Today, we save our friends with the help of Usoland and his companions! Doflamingo will go down!"

And he leaped down and joined the charge.

"That was cute," Saki blurted out.

"So cute," Tsubaki repeated. Koala also looked enamored with the Tontattas, and Robin just chuckled.

"So, Robin," Sabo started, "a little context would go a long way."

"Of course," she replied. "If you could lend a hand, we could really use your help."

—

Pica tossed them all off the building, and when they landed on the plateau outside, Law had a perfect view of his worst nightmare, recreated in no small measure for him. Strings shot up into the sky to form a dome that covered the entire island.

"It's begun!" He blurted out without thinking. "The birdcage!" The others loked at him in confusion, and he explained, "Before the truth of what's going on here can get out, he's simply going to massacre the entire populace!"

It was hard to keep his mind in the present when all he could think about was of Cora's last words. For better or worse, this was going to end the same way it began – and this time, it was his job to make sure that it wasn't Doflamingo who came out on top.

—

"That fucking idiot," Saki said, rubing her forehead with both hands. "That fucking idiot really left everyone behind."

"We thought it was weird that he was alone, too."

"He didn't want to get the others mixed up in this," she said, and then to herself, "of course he didn't."

Robin looked at Saki with a little concern. "So it's personal."

"Yes, so personal he had to drag you into this." Because he couldn't do it alone, and he knew. "If you talk to him before I do, please tell him not to worry about Doflamingo, because I'm going to get him first."

Robin found Saki's frustration infinitely funny. Ah, to have reached a zen state. Maybe someday she would, too. "Our captain being who he is, we were bound to go against Doflamingo or Kaido sometime. It doesn't make a difference to us."

That may have been true, but she wasn't convinced. "Aren't you too calm about the whole situation?"

Robin smiled at her. "I have faith in Luffy."

Saki thought that she also had faith on Law's ability to dig himself into an even deeper hole, but she didn't want to rain on Robin's parade and it wasn't the time for lamentations.

The entire area started to shake, and somehow, the ground below the SMILE factory surged upwards and brought the building to the surface, and she saw the people who had been trapped in the underground climb the new column to escape.

Their little group remained on the sidelines, trying to decide what to do next. More people had arrived, and at this moment, it consisted of four members of the Revolutionary Army, two Straw Hats, a samurai, a princess of Dressrosa, and too many Tontattas to count. Oh, and Bartolomeo the Cannibal, who turned out to be a weirdo with a thing for the Straw Hat crew.

Screams filtered down from street level, but there was no way to know what was going on while they still were underground. It was then that Doflamingo's voice started to come out of the underground port's loudspeakers, offering the citizens of Dressrosa a choice: to kill him, or to capture the people who had gotten in his way.

But a choice for what? What was that earthquake just before?

Doflamingo started to list names as faces appeared on a big screen, and Saki almost missed hers waiting to see Law's. It was a relief, because that meant he was alive, had somehow gotten away, and thus her urge to punch someone in the face wasn't so great now. Luffy must have gotten to him in time. She was willing to take a page out of Robin's book now.

Oh, shit. That meant Law also knew she was there, now. Unless he was unconscious. Please let him be unconscious.

"Me too?!" Sabo blurted out.

Tsubaki latched onto one of Saki's arms and started and shook it frantically. "Why did you get a star?!"

"I kind of tried to stab him."

"You what?!"

"I knew I wasn't going to, but I had to try."

"You could've died!"

"Who would have told me three years ago that my head would be worth so much, huh?"

"Can you take this more seriously?!"

"I'm really trying not to."

But Doflamingo wasn't done.

"—the source of all evil, the guy who forced you into this cruel game! The one who takes his head will get 500 million beli!"

Usopp, who had barely been reanimated, fainted again when he heard the price for his head.

It seemed like every person in the warehouse suddenly zoomed in on them.

"Time to move," Saki said, patting Tsubaki's hands to make her let go. "And you have this back." She shoved the mini Den Den Mushi at Tsubaki.

"No, you should—"

"Shut up and give your elders some peace of mind."

Tsubaki accepted it with no words but a very indignant expression.

"Sabo, what do we do?" Koala asked.

"We're going to the surface. Fast!"

They ran, following Sabo, and they managed to lose Kin'emon, the samurai, along the way. There was no way out but to fight the people blocking their way, but it was going to be a tough climb, because more kept coming from behind with no end to them, or so it appeared until Bartolomeo stood in between the group and their pursuers, building a barrier that obstructed the path.

"Go to the surface!" He yelled.

At the same time, Robin took out her Den Den Mushi to call her companions.

"Zoro?"

"Yeah," came the reply.

"Where are you?"

"Robin? I'm with Luffy and the others now! This place is called the King's Plateau—"

"Robin, did you see that?!" Someone interrupted. It had to be Luffy. "Damn Mingo! Usopp was kinda hilarious. Rebecca ended up on the list, too, is she okay?!"

Rebecca stepped next to Robin so the receiver caught her voice. "I'm here, Lucy!"

And then there were mentions of a soldier, and Saki didn't understand what was going on in the conversation anymore, and switched her focus was on Koala and Tsubaki, who were breaking apart from the group – probably a good thing, considering there weren't bounties offered for them. Until yet another voice joined in the call, and she tripped when she heard it, fortunately managing not to faceplant.

"Nico-ya, have you seen Saki?!"

Saki turned immediately to Robin to stop her from answering, but Robin was too fast.

"Ah, that's right, I had a message for you," she said, without missing a beat, a devious smile adorning her face. "She said not to worry about Doflamingo, because she's going to get you first."

"What's that supposed to mean? Is she with you or—"

Someone hung up on the other side, and it sure as hell wasn't Law.

"I can't tell if that was cruel or brilliant," Saki told her.

"What do you mean?" She said innocently. "I just gave him your message."

—

Law realized that he had completely lost control of his life when Straw Hat cut the call, declared war on Doflamingo, grabbed him and Zoro by their necks, and jumped down the King's Plateau, all while Law was still handcuffed.

Perhaps it should have been obvious sooner, in retrospect.

—

The group climbed out of the underground port and onto the ruins of the Colosseum, which had somehow become adjacent to the King's Plateau, much smaller than the last time she'd seen it. Wasn't the castle supposed to be up there? Saki assumed it was the result of the earthquake they'd felt earlier, but she couldn't fathom how pieces of land had moved around. Some fucker with a Devil Fruit, for sure. She was so fed up with those.

Bartolomeo's barriers could only do so much before some of their pursuers started to get closer to them, since he had to dispel them to keep running with the group, and the only way to go was up the stands and the wall of the plateau. Saki was about to ask how in the blazes they were supposed to get up that wall – where, she tried not to think, was Luffy's group waiting for them – when Robin summoned a net made of interlaced arms and hands that officially became the creepiest ladder Saki had ever had to use, and the first thing she saw when she got to the top was a giant mass of rock in the shape of a gargantuan man protruding from another plateau across the city.

"What the—"

"That's Pica," Hack told her before she could finish the sentence. "The Stone-Stone Fruit user, remember?"

"That thing's huge. How are we going to stop it?" And she turned around to do a double take. "Wait, where's Sabo?"

Hack's reply was a sigh that conveyed perfectly the sentiment that she was not to ask that question again, ever.

Rebecca ran past them towards a black haired woman and an old man that were already there. There was no sight of Law, Luffy or Zoro anywhere.

"I'm more worried about what's up in the sky," Robin said.

In her defense, Saki would have probably noticed it right away if there hadn't been fifty things in her mind already, but it took Robin to point it out to realize what was going on, and why Doflamingo had told the inhabitants of Dressrosa that winning his game was the only way out.

"Is that a cage?" She asked.

Bar-like strings originated form a spot way above their heads and extended to encase the entire island. Saki wasn't sure if it was an optical illusion, but it seemed like the threads were shifting.

Robin must have been thinking along the same lines. "Do you see it move, too?"

"Yeah. You think it moves with Doflamingo, or it's getting smaller?"

"Who knows? Bad news in either case."

The screams were louder than ever. Down in the streets, people were randomly attacking each other, apparently against their will. It was chaos all around even before the Colosseum warriors ran towards the statue to attack it, and was that—was that Luffy heading the charge or—

It felt like the whole island shook when Pica punched the ground with his giant fist, and Saki lost sight of Luffy again among the flying debris and the dust, but after that, the statue stopped moving, and Bartolomeo's whining burst her eardrums. The members of the old royal family, meanwhile, got into an argument about helping the pirates that Saki couldn't care less about, because one of them was holding the key to the seastone handcuffs that Law was wearing and she was ready to wrestle it away from her if they didn't stop bickering soon.

It took the Tontatta begging for help and Princess Rebecca offering to take carry the key for the argument to be over.

There was another problem: most of them had a sizeable bounty on their heads and going to the palace was going to be a challenge with so many people after them, not to mention that Luffy's group had a good headstart on them and they needed to get the key to Law while he was, preferably, still alive to use his hands.

But the Tontattas had thought ahead of them, with Leo and another guy called Kabu suggesting to use the rooftops instead of the streets.

"Let's move out! We can't afford to waste time here! We must meet in this place once more!"

As cute and convincing as Leo was, Saki wasn't clear on how they were going to manage. They were too high up, for starters, and no way they could clear the jumps from rooftop to rooftop to get to the castle plateau, so she had to ask. "You can fly, but what about—"

Saki shut up the moment she realized that the thing she saw falling from the sky from the corner of her eye was a whole ass meteorite heading to the town, and she could only watch with eyes and mouth wide open how the thing crashed into the birdcage and was neatly sliced into much smaller pieces.

Message was received. She would just go with the flow and try to stop making sense of things. If Leo told her to jump, she'd ask how high.

Robin was ringing Luffy again to inform him that they had the key, and Saki was able to ascertain once more that Law was conscious and healthy enough to complain.

"Good afternoon, this is Leo from the Tontatta tribe!" The little guy said, introducing himself from Robin's shoulder. "We'll be heading towards you as fast as we can with Princess Rebecca, the giant chicken man, Robiland and—" Saki made frantic gestures in front of Leo to stop him from mentioning her, and seemed to get it, "—Kabu and I."

Excellent save.

"Nico-ya! What you said earlier, is—"

"Let's meet up at the Flower Field on the fourth level!" Leo said, ignoring the interruption.

It was Luffy who replied. "Eh? How're you guys gonna catch up with us?"

"Straw Hat, I was asking—"

"Leave the explanations for later!" Leo replied. "Anyway, see you at the Flower Field!"

—

It was a good thing that Law was still handcuffed, because he would have wrung Luffy's neck when the call cut off.

—

When Saki decided earlier that she would follow Leo's lead, she didn't mean this, and she felt less alone with her doubts upon seeing Rebecca's, Bartolomeo's, and above all, Robin's face. That was cause for worry.

"There has to be another way," Saki said, though there was only proof to the contrary.

Rebecca nodded vigorously. "There's no way these beetles can fly with a person riding it!"

"Let's just run to the city!" Robin suggested, another sign of how truly screwed they were, and Bartolomeo agreed right away.

"The let me explain!" Leo yelled, disregarding their concerns. "This is the Tontatta Airline jumping service! They can't fly because humans are heavy!" The four humans loudly agreed with that last part, but Leo still didn't listen to them. "Plus, we don't have time! Anyway, fly!"

The little bastard didn't explain shit, but he and his friends sure kicked them off the plateau.

Saki shrieked – and there was a lot of shrieking coming from everywhere at that moment, not that she could pay much attention to it – hung onto the ropes tied to the beetles for dear life and squeezed her eyes shut as soon as she looked down. To think that all along her destiny had been to end her life as a pancake in a city that didn't know what a straight line was—

But wait. She didn't feel like she was freefalling, or actually falling at all. It was easy to tell, even with closed eyes, because she fancied herself a connoisseur of the forces of gravity, and something wasn't working properly.

She opened her eyes again, and saw that the beetles tied to the thin ropes in each of her hands were giving their all to slow their fall.

"They can't fly, but they can decelerate the drop!" Leo told them, somewhere around Rebecca's general direction. "Make sure you skim the rooftops well! If you use them as a stepping stone and jump, they can help you rise up into the air!"

And while it was a huge relief that they weren't going to die in the most ridiculous way available to them at the moment, and Leo's instructions came right on time as they neared the first rooftop, Saki thought he could have told them while their feet were still on the ground.

"It feels like a balloon!" Bartolomeo was having the time of his life. Saki would've bet money that he had spent at least a whole day in Sabaody's amusement Park when he got there.

He wasn't wrong, though. Each time Saki's soles touched a rooftop and she jumped, she instinctively expected to drop down immediately, but instead she lost height reminded the same way a feather floated down. There was still some precision involved in the task, though, and that was both because they had to be mindful to get enough impulse, to get to the next rooftop, and because they were flying over a literal warzone, and even the sky wasn't safe.

"Beware of the attacks coming from below! We're aiming from the Sunflower Field on the fourth level!" Leo told them.

The route was down to the nearest rooftops, up the Pica statue's arm and head, and down to the third level to take one last jump to the fourth.

"Can you guys see anyone at the top of the statue?" Saki asked. It was still far away, but she was sure she had seen something moving.

"Yeah, someone's fighting!" Bartolomeo replied. "Robin-senpai, you don't have to worry! I'll watch your back!"

"I appreciate it," she replied politely. Saki was pretty sure that she was one of the persons in their group who needed help the least.

First jump from the statue's arm, and the view below wasn't colorful rooftops and terraces anymore, but stones and a wall of rock coming up ahead.

Second jump, and they gained altitude. There were noises up ahead, the unmistakable sound of metal against metal, and a sudden gust of hot wind at their backs made her look back. Somewhere below, great flames surged up, taller than the buildings, and fizzled out in an instant.

"Sabo's fighting in town!" Saki informed the group, but it was mostly for Robin's benefit.

"He must be taking care of the Marines!" She replied.

"He went to buy us time, didn't he," Saki said. It wasn't a question, because that was the exact kind of thing Sabo would do.

"Don't worry about him!" She looked a little concerned, herself, but there was nothing they could do about it. "He can deal with Fujitora!"

In other circumstances, Saki would have asked if he really was that strong, but she had seen the wall of fire and apparently he had been the one to wreck the Colosseum's floor, so she assumed Robin was right. Besides, she didn't have a lot of room left to worry about more things if she didn't want to curl into a ball the moment they were on solid ground again and wait until everything was over. She was reaching her limit. How could everything have gone so stupidly wrong in less than half a day?

Perhaps that wasn't a fair question, considering her own track record, but this had to be the biggest mess she'd found herself in so far, and she was aware that the common denominator all the other times had been the guy they were currently trying to deliver a key to, and that he could have already been freed if he had been able to sit still for five minutes.

She wasn't going to lie, it gave her some peace of mind to know that she hadn't gone completely soft, which, given the situation, wouldn't have been unreasonable, and that she kept finding reasons to stay mad at Law.

The third jump on the statue brought them close to the fight. Zoro and the man she guessed was Pica, because he looked like a miniature version of the statue they were on, were crossing swords. Rebecca was terrified when she saw him.

"Zoro! Stop the enemy for us!" Yelled Robin. "We've got something to do at the palace behind the statue!"

Saki didn't hear Zoro's reply, because then Pica disappeared and the statue started moving again with the intent of punching them.

And somehow, Zoro, the size of an ant compared to Pica's stone body, stopped it with an attack. She knew he was strong, but it was one thing reading about it and another seeing with her own two eyes. No wonder he had been one of the Supernovas in Sabaody, two years ago. Bartolomeo's ugly crying almost made sense after that timely rescue.

With a fourth jump and Zoro's help, they arrived to the plateau, and Leo's Den Den Mushi rang to inform him that the Tontatta princess wasn't at the factory, followed by instructions from the woman from before – Viola, did they call her? She remembered that name from the Revolutionary Army's info – to find her inside the palace.

They touched the third level's ground and took impulse one last time, and that was when their easy route disappeared, and someone aimed at them from below.

There was an explosion below Saki's feet that had gone off right where Bartolomeo was, as far as she could tell, but the blast stunned Saki for a crucial moment, and sent her flying away from the others as she let go of the ropes.

She couldn't see in the cloud of smoke and dust, and she definitely didn't have the means to ascertain if the others were okay before she fell to the ground and blacked out.

—

There weren't many things Law could do in the state he was in, hauled around by Straw Hat like a sack of potatoes that had accepted its destiny, but there were two main ones: fight back the urge to kill said man as soon as he was free of the handcuffs, and recount all the ways in which the day had gone wrong. Or weird. He wasn't sure which word was the most appropriate one, because, against all odds and despite the mess he was in, he was still alive, and apparently, so were the rest of the people he'd dragged along with him.

And it wasn't just him and the Straw Hats anymore, because not only Luffy had completely disregarded his wish to break off their alliance – warnings from the cook and the sniper while they still were in Punk Hazard flashed in his mind, warnings he hadn't understood then, but now realized he should have heeded anyway – but a group of warriors that had been participating in some sort of tournament suddenly had a bone to pick with Doflamingo and wanted to kill him too.

He understood that something good had come out of this, after all, when he realized that he wasn't worried anymore about being able to get to Doflamingo, but to personally be the one to claim his head. It wasn't a given that someone would be able to kill him, of course, but the birdcage and whatever he had done to those warriors made sure that he wasn't alone in his efforts anymore, and chances of success suddenly didn't seem so slim.

If they were going to do this, might as well stop freaking out about the plan that had fallen through and go with the flow. And that meant, for the time being, that he had to deal with being chained on the back of a white horse with Straw Hat and Cavendish, the horse's owner. Law's impressions of the guy after he tried to chop off his head were, mainly, that he was a dick and couldn't trust him as far as he could toss him, and at that moment, Law couldn't even have lifted the guy.

The ride up the plateau came to a halt when a group of giant tin soldiers with skeletal heads blocked their way and one bit the horse's head. Law didn't see this clearly, because the moment it happened, the horse reared up on its hind legs and he rolled off its back.

Their team consisted now of an unconscious horse, a man who could only get around hoping on one leg, a guy who was clearly spending way too much money on hair conditioner, Straw Hat, and him, immobilized and staring at the action with frustration. He could have disposed of the rabble in a second. How long did he have to wait for that goddamned key?

The heavens must have heard his prayers, because all of a sudden, Nico-ya dropped from the sky along with a green haired guy who fell head first into one of the soldiers and knocked it out momentarily. It didn't look like Saki was around, which may have been a good thing or not, because the last thing he wanted was to confirm that she, too, was caged in the island along everybody else, but he needed to know what the hell was up.

"Robin!" Straw Hat called out to her as she landed gracefully with her power.

"Luffy?! Traffy?! You were here the whole time?!"

"Nico-ya, where's the key?! Give it to me!"

But he, as was becoming routine that day, he was ignored in favor of a man rising from the ground in front of them. Gladius. They were fully into the executives' territory now.

Nico-ya ran to the side of the green-haired guy, standing between the enemies and the rest of them.

"Luffy, Traffy, Mr. Soldier! Please go to the Sunflower Field in the fourth level! Rebecca's got the key and she's waiting!"

Luffy's response was immediate, and it was potato sack hours again for Law. Luffy hauled him over his shoulder with blatant disregard for his dignity and the guy – Gladius called him Bartolomeo – created a giant barrier that blocked the explosion, then a set of stairs that went to the next level of the plateau. The man they called Mr. Soldier cleared the way up for them, and Cavendish stayed behind to stop the toy soldiers from crawling up.

Whatever happened from then on was up to Luffy and him, and Law swore that if he didn't get rid of the handcuffs in the next five minutes he'd find a way to bludgeon Straw Hat to death with them.

—

Saki came to her senses and crawled from under a pile of debris in time to hear another enormous explosion. She covered her face on instinct, but there wasn't even a gust of wind, and she looked ahead in time to see that Bartolomeo had made a barrier, then a set of stairs for the people around him, and then…

The two hats of the men running up the stairs were unmistakable. Some things never changed.

Technically speaking, Law wasn't running, since he was still wearing seastone. A small wave of satisfaction washed over her when she realized Luffy had unceremoniously tossed him over his shoulder and was carrying him in the most ungraceful way he could have chosen. The sensation was sweet enough to put aside the disappointment of missing them by seconds, but it wasn't like it mattered at this point. Either those two stopped Doflamingo, or everybody would be dead after a while, and then meeting up with them wouldn't matter all that much.

Saki ran up to where the Pirate Prince Cavendish was fighting off a bunch of toy soldiers, brandishing her own sword to attack one and give him a hand.

"You are—"

Another explosion did hit Bartolomeo this time, and suddenly Cavendish wasn't so concerned about the newcomer.

"What happened to your barrier?!"

"There's a limit to how many barriers I can make at once, and I've used it all on the staircase!" He managed to say as his face and mouth bled. "It doesn't matter if I die as long as I can be of use to Luffy-senpai!"

Saki was glad that she wasn't the only one thoroughly weirded out by this guy, considering Cavendish's confused expression when he looked at her for the briefest of seconds, wondering why. It was a good question. She'd been asking it repeatedly to herself for the last handful of hours.

"You're beyond help!" He yelled at Bartolomeo. "I'll be here with you until you can use your barriers again, so pull yourself together!"

At that same time, Robin shoved aside with five giant hands a soldier about to attack the fallen Bartolomeo.

"I understand how you feel now, Birdy. It's worth entrusting our captain with our lives! Luffy has always been our winning trump card!" And she then summoned rows of giant hands on both sides of Gladius. "I won't let you hurt Luffy!"

—

There was so much work ahead that, when Law was final rid of the handcuffs, he didn't have a second to waste on feeling happy, and finally – finally! – he was able to summon his Room to teleport to the palace with Straw Hat, leaving Mr. Soldier behind to deal with Diamante.

He had a feeling that the cumulative stress of the day was exactly the kind of thing his crew referred to when they told him he didn't need to be so stuck up all the time, and he hadn't even gotten started with the main event, so it was going to get worse. He swore to listen to them more often in the unlikely event he left Dressrosa alive.

It was a simple walk to the top, only interrupted by a little girl who passed away when some sort of projectile flew into the room through a window, until they came face to face with Doflamingo, sitting on his throne and flanked by Trebol.

—

Without any apparent reason, the toys stopped and then fell to the ground, disassembled, and they vanished to give way to bodies. Eight each, and thankfully all alive.

But that wasn't the end of their problems, because then the soldiers started to attack, and Bartolomeo's role was reduced to putting up a giant barrier to block Gladius' attacks.

"Robin, is there any way you can go up to the next level?" Saki asked. "Like with the net before?"

"It's too risky to make another one, but I could use my arms as steps!"

"Then go ahead! We can cover you! It's useless to have us all stuck down here!"

Robin hesitated. "But don't you want to get to the palace?"

Of course she did, but there was no way they could outrun al these people if some of them didn't stay behind to fight. "Your power's more useful than anything I can do! I'll follow when we're done with these guys!"

"That's right!" Bartolomeo intervened. "Go on ahead, Robin-senpai!"

"Okay!" She nodded, determined. "Be careful!"

"You too!"

Even among the noise of battle around and below them, and the shaking of the plateau from Zoro's and Pica's battle, a huge crash resounded from above, but they were too close to the rock wall to see what was happening. If Saki had to hazard a guess, she would have said that Law and Luffy were fighting already.

Better not think about it while her group had their hands full.

She kicked one of the attackers on the chin and she lost her balance as the ground wobbled under her, falling backwards.

"The whole ground's inflating!" Cavendish said as she picked herself up. Robin was still halfway through her makeshift staircase, and sure enough, the ground was stretching and rising like dough bread under them.

Saki ran as fast as her legs could carry her towards Bartolomeo and Cavendish followed suit, but as soon as Saki was behind Bartolomeo, he put a barrier up.

Cavendish halted before hitting it. "Let me inside the barrier!"

"No way! If I undo it, Robin-senpai will be in danger, and the enemy'll get in…"

"You let her in!" He snapped, pointing at Saki with his sword.

"She's Robin-senpai's friend!"

"Are you trying to kill him?!" Saki shouted, starting to panic before the imminent explosion. "He could be inside already!"

"Open up! I'm on your side too!"

The following explosion was much bigger than any they had endured so far, and it blew away everything it caught in its path: the tiled ground, Gladius' men, and… not Cavendish?

Bartolomeo had let him in at the last second, and, in retaliation, Cavendish was kicking his face and screaming his ears off, so of course Bartolomeo started arguing with him. Why did she always get stuck with the weirdest people?

She jogged around the barrier to keep fighting, but then she noticed that Gladius was aiming to the wall, and Robin was still there. She wouldn't be able to reach him in time, but she had to try—

When she saw it was impossible, she flung her rapier at Gladius, hoping to destabilize him, but she it was too late, and by the time it hit him, he had just shot his projectiles.

"Robin, watch—!"

She should have gotten at least points for trying, but then Bartolomeo did something extremely weird with the shape of his barrier and stretched it to cover Robin while he was still safe. Why hadn't he used that before?!

Frustrated beyond belief but still focused enough to feel the approaching presence, Saki ducked and slid on the now earthy ground to pick up her sword again as Cavendish launched an attack on Gladius from where she had been an instant before.

Both were about to hit each other when the three of them froze, watching Bartolomeo completely lose it and sweep all the men in front of him with his barrier.

But he didn't stop. He should have stopped, but he didn't, no matter how much Cavendish told him to, and it was time for all of them to bolt before they got flattened. She hated this. She hated these people, and this island, and she never thought the day she missed Baltigo would come, and yet there she was. Life took one down strange paths.

"Bartolomeo, stop!" Cavendish yelled. "We're here too, you know!"

"Sorry, Cabbage! There's a reason I can't stop now!"

"What is it?!"

"Who the fuck cares, just run!" Saki replied. "He's getting reinforcements!"

Cavendish didn't reply.

In fact, Cavendish passed Saki much, much faster than he'd been before, and the kid who had come to help Gladius fell to one swing of his sword, but he didn't stop at that. When he moved on his next target, Saki saw his blank, contorted face in the shape of a maniacal grin, and she turned around on reflex and started running back towards Bartolomeo, who had stopped his own rampage and was horrified at whatever not-Cavendish was doing behind her. She didn't know, and she didn't want to, but curiosity got the best of her and she turned around for a second.

Instinct took over as she blocked a sword attack with her own and she realized her mistake and the next slash came before she could see it, and call it a miracle, call it having a good haki teacher, but she managed to step out of the blade's way more or less in time – she thought she may have lost a few hairs in the process – and back away from not-Cavendish enough to get within sprinting distance of Bartolomeo.

The bastard was fast and wasn't relenting, and her arms wobbled when she tried to hold her sword steady when the next attack came.

Between gritted teeth, she let out something that sounded like, "Bartolomeoifyoudon'topenthebarrierI'mgoingtocomebackandhauntyou!"

She wasn't sure if he understood the words or just the spirit of the message. "I'm counting to three!"

"Fuck you, open up!"

"Hell no, you get in at the exact time or you don't. One!"

"Robin's going to hate you if I die!"

"Three! What are you waiting for!? Get moving!"

With all the upper body strength she could muster, she pushed back against not-Cavendish's sword, a little worried that hers was going to chip off or break, but it looked like his bent against the weight of hers, and at the same time, she could have sword her rapier took on a darker tint.

She could investigate that at another moment, though. With one last effort, she shoved not-Cavendish enough to make him take a small step back, and she ran like the wind until she was behind Bartolomeo and safe again.

Holy shit, she could feel her heartbeat in her throat. While she tried to steady her breathing, she wouldn't have been surprised if an organ or two came out of her mouth.

"Always…" She said to herself, struggling to recover her breath, "…the weirdos…"

"What's happening?!" Bartolomeo asked her. "There's someone really scary across the barrier!"

"Don't know," she said resting against the barrier, and she noticed it curve until they were encased by it. "He suddenly got like that. Are you scared?"

"Aren't you?!"

"I'm too high on adrenaline to feel."

Not-Cavendish suddenly ran into the barrier, giving Bartolomeo the scare of his life and making Saki jump and shriek too, but thankfully, it held up. Not so luckily, though, Not-Cavendish turned his attention towards the wall… and Robin, who was completely open to attack.

"Robin, he's after you!" Saki yelled, prompting Robin to turn in their direction while Bartolomeo yelled at the other man to stop.

And just like that, Not-Cavendish ran up the wall, like that was a thing that humans without Devil Fruit powers could do, and Robin caught him in a death grip when she summoned several arms on his body.

Saki sighed with relief and got mentally ready for the next near death experience as Bartolomeo had a fanboy meltdown next to her. She suddenly wanted out of the barrier so bad, even if it meant she'd have to take her chances with murderhobo outside again.

Then again, Cavendish seemed to be having a very interesting argument with himself that she couldn't hear from down there, so maybe he was going off the deep end and she was better off in her current company.

"Split personalities, huh…" Bartolomeo muttered.

"It's getting worse."

"Holy crap, they're now half and half!"

"Hey, the wall—"

Saki wasn't too keen on looking towards the gory mess Not-Cavendish had left behind, but she had to when she noticed the wall getting deformed, and saw Gladius standing in front of the wall, touching it.

Bartolomeo lunged at him with the same Power of Admiration that had fueled his previous rampage, but Gladius stopped him by shooting some sort of poisonous hair at him, and immediately started inflating his own body.

"My whole body's explosive, and if irritated enough, I'll explode… And when I do, I'll make sure to send needles a million times more potent to the two of them up there! But if you don't defeat me, you won't be able to stop the wall from exploding!"

It was a shitty choice, but the math was simple enough in Saki's mind. If the two above were going to get attacked anyway, it was better to get rid of the source of the problem, and she'd rather risk them being hit by needles than caught up in an explosion they couldn't escape. Bartolomeo seemingly was thinking along the same lines, with one key difference.

"Hey, Cabbage! I'll deal with that porcupine, but when the time comes, you make sure you shield Robin-senpai from those needles with your own body!"

"Are you insane?!" Saki yelled at him.

The one that replied wasn't Cavendish. "SHUT UP, BIRD!"

This was an argument Saki didn't want to be having with the clock ticking against them. "Let's attack him anyway, we don't have another choice!"

"I won't let Robin-senpai get hurt!"

"Robin doesn't need your protection!"

"I can't—I know!" He said all of a sudden, much brighter. "Leave it to me!"

"What are you—"

Bartolomeo ran headfirst towards Gladius, and Saki thought she'd had enough of suicidal lone wolves for a lifetime. She thought it harder when Bartolomeo built a barrier around him and Gladius, effectively enclosing them in an unbreakable bubble, pulled out a knife, and stabbed Gladius with it.

Saki covered herself without thinking at the sound of the explosion, but there was no need for it, because Bartolomeo's barrier kept everything but the noise inside.

He fell to the ground, heavily wounded, but Gladius was still up and already inflating the wall again.

Saki ran towards the barrier that was still there and knocked on it. "Bartolomeo, open up! I'll finish him!"

Dazed as he was by the explosion – or maybe deafened, could he even hear after receiving the blast point blank? – he didn't notice Saki until it was too late. He put down the barrier as the wall exploded, and Saki pressed on, ignoring the rubble falling from above, to drive her sword into Gladius. Bartolomeo didn't miss a beat and jumped into the air to deliver one last punch to Gladius' head.

When Saki looked up, she saw that Cavendish had jumped with Robin in tow onto the Sunflower Field.

She retrieved her weapon and poked at Gladius with a foot. There wasn't a reaction. It seemed like they were done.

Done and stuck, because Bartolomeo was exhausted and bleeding like crazy, and even if she had been able to the next level by herself, it would have felt wrong to leave him alone when there were enemies below and above them.

He dropped to the ground, sat down and looked up. Saki took a few steps back to try to get a glimpse of what was going on. She couldn't see the fight on the Sunflower Field, but she could see clouds of dust and bits of rock flying way up, and at the top of the palace, contrasting against the sun and the blue sky, the strings of the birdcage shooting up and the shadow of two men in the sky.

As a result of Zoro's unending fight with Pica, the ground shook with more force than ever and she heard the rock shift on the fourth level, where Robin and Cavendish were, but the noise of the ground breaking under their feet didn't stop even then, and when she peered over the edge, she saw rock spikes protruding from every surface on the second level. Zoro tried his best to stop him, and boy he could cut stuff even without a Devil Fruit, but Pica escaped him again, took control of the giant statue, and began to walk towards the King's Plateau.

At the very least, Usopp, Viola, and the old man no one had introduced to Saki but she seriously suspected was part of the royal family should have been there. Seeing Zoro run after the statue was like watching a disaster strike in slow motion. Bartolomeo moved closer to the edge of the plateau too, speechless at the sight. Even the fighting in the second level had stopped to watch what was about to happen.

If only Shachi and Penguin were here to place their bets, maybe the situation wouldn't have felt so do-or-die. She cracked a smile imagining that.

"Stop, ya big stone monster! Sogeking-senpai's on the plateau!"

"King Riku," said a ridiculously high pitched voice that Saki couldn't place at first, but then realized it was coming from the statue, who was about to slam its palm on the plateau. "You're no king! You don't even have the caliber of one!"

It happened in a matter of seconds. Something flew across the sky, and in an instant, the statue's entire torso was separated from its legs with a clean cut, then sliced in half vertically.

Bartolomeo freaked out. Saki freaked out too. Every onlooker in the whole country had to be freaking out and Saki was maybe starting to understand a little the fanboying of the ridiculous mess of a man standing next to her.

The left arm was next, cut in slices. Pica seemed to be immobilized, probably scrambling to find a safe piece of stone to hide, but Zoro's attack was relentless, and he finally came out of the statue coated in full body Armament haki.

With one final clash, the victor was decided as Pica fell towards the town and the remaining pieces of the statue were blown away by a blast coming from the ground.

"What the hell did I just see?" Saki mumbled to herself. It was a good thing that she wasn't expecting a reply, because Bartolomeo was foaming at the mouth. She hoped it was happiness and not anything serious, but she couldn't tell and the only doctor she knew around was going against the Hippocratic oath he had never sworn and trying to kill someone at the moment.

Saki sat on the ground too, and now that the adrenaline was starting to wear off she realized that she was beat and way more tired than she should have been even after virtually running across the entire island, so she assessed the damage.

Her knees were a bloody mess because she'd chosen the worst day to wear shorts, she had scrapes all around her body from the explosions, the cuts in the arms from Doflamingo's attack, and she was pretty sure that she had singed something because she could smell it. Hopefully just hair, but she took off her shirt to make sure, storing the vivre cards in her shorts as she did, and tied it around her waist.

There was something resembling a needle stuck in her right forearm, precisely in the middle of her tattoo, and the sight of that pissed her off. She was going to pull it out without further thought when she remembered that Gladius had said something before about poisonous hair. Maybe that was part of why she physically felt like shit, and not just that she was having one seriously crappy day. After all, she thought she had been coping pretty well so far.

The clear small mammal theme the guy had going on made her suspicious, and since he wasn't awake anymore to run his mouth, she wasn't going to take any chances.

"Did you know that porcupine quills are a bitch to remove because they are barbed and break when you pull them out?" She said, touching the needle to test how stuck it was. Maybe, if she could coat the thing in Armament haki…

Bartolomeo glance at her. "Huh? What are you talking about?"

After a bit of trying, the needle turned black and she pulled it out clean, stinging like crazy, and she somehow found the will to get up, walk to Gladius and stick it in his face. Would Law have been proud of her? He better. He also better be alive so she could tell him she had figured out how to do that all on her own.

"Fuck you," she said, relishing in being petty and already feeling a little less clumsy before turning to Bartolomeo. "You got hit by Porcupine Guy's poison hair, you know."

"You're a Heart Pirate?!"

Saki stopped in her tracks, wondering where the outburst had come from, until she realized that he must have seen the tattoo on her back. It wasn't like they had properly been introduced before.

"Uh, yeah? Do you need a hand to take out those?" The sooner he got the needles out, the sooner he would be able summon his barriers again, she guessed.

"You're a rival of Luffy-senpai!"

She grimaced. "Alright then, fuck you too." She was too tired to argue with an ungrateful idiot. "Give me a heads up when you can make some stairs again."

She watched him struggle with one of the needles stuck in his leg. Then another. He broke both, cursing each time, and Saki had enough, stomped her way up to him, and swatted his hand away when he reached for a third one. "Let me help, dumbass."

He didn't seem to have an answer for that, and he crossed his arms and looked away like a petulant child, but at least had the grace to turn red in embarrassment. Good lord, these people where exhausting. Where was Mack when she needed moral support?

After a handful of successful removals and much side-eyeing, Bartolomeo said, "…Nice tattoos, by the way."

Unbeknownst to him, those were the exact magical words she needed to hear to brighten up Saki's mood. "Thanks you!" She replied, unusually chipper. Maybe the guy wasn't so bad. "Yours too! Say, wouldn't you be interested in a new one after all this is over? I'm a tattoo artist!"

"Really?! Huh…" He seemed to actually ponder it for a moment. "Wouldn't that be disloyal?"

Saki sighed, and focused on the needles again. One day, she'd manage to get her hands on a random famous pirate. One day.

But for now, what she needed was patience, and she could only hope she wouldn't have to wait much longer to find out if there was even going to be a next day to look forward to. After what she had seen Zoro do, though, she could share in some of Robin's faith. Maybe that was what Law had seen in the Straw Hats, too. Maybe that would be the key to make it back home sound and safe.

Her crewmates were going to be so pissed at Law when they found out what he had made them miss, and that thought alone made her look forward to see how the next few hours would play out.