Missy

Panic! On the Bridge of Hesitation

I don't own One Piece. If I did, I wouldn't forget writing these little taglines and have to write one on the spot 5 days after posting the chapter. Oops.

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Left right left right left right left right...

It took pretty much everything you had left to keep your feet moving, to keep beating against the cold stone hallways as fast as your pounding heart could take. Every step hurt. It hurt so damn much. But you could make it. You would make it.

If you just kept... on... moving!

"You doin' alright there?"

"Ye-" Kronos even your voice sounded gravelly. You cleared your throat and tried again. "Yeah. I'm good."

"If you say so..." Franky muttered, glancing at you out the corner of his eyes. "But just letting you know, if you fall behind I'm gonna carry you."

Oh the horror... You chuckled despite yourself. "Then I guess I'll have to keep up huh?"

"Heh." A gleeful smirk grew on his face. "Guess so!"

"But do not push yourself." Mello grumbled while he focused on knitting your wounds back together. "Too much strain and the damage will be irreversible, even for our healing capabilities."

'Duly noted.'

Still- you thought to yourself as you placed a first foot on the spiral staircase leading up and out of this dingy tunnel- by that point it was probably too late. If you made it you made it, and if you didn't you... well... didn't.

And Robin would be lost for good.

Your fists clenched tighter. That couldn't happen. Not after all everyone had been through. Not after she had finally admitted to herself that she wanted to live. It couldn't...

The room was growing brighter. The higher you climbed the more the tunnel seemed so dark and unappealing. You grimaced, resisting the urge to shield yourself from the glare. How much time had you spent down in those things that the light of day was almost blinding? It was so... unsettling.

"Almost there, Li'l Sis!" Franky put on a burst of speed, pulling ahead as the doorway became finally visible in the distance. "Just a little bit further!"

Too unsettling for comfort. "Fra-"

KA-BOOM!

The moment he took a step across the threshold your vision was engulfed in a swathe of flame and you were knocked right off your feet. The staircase around you groaned, collapsing away in the shadow of a thick thick cloud of smoke as if it had never been there to begin with.

You grimaced. "Didn't think they'd resort to mines..."

"Agreed." Mello hummed as he span around and around your head, keeping you suspended in the air above. "It's a little late for them to be keeping up a line of defense, no?"

That was one way of putting it. Sighing, you used the cover of smoke to take a look around. It appeared Franky had been blown into the water either side, which wasn't ideal. You just counted your stars that you were light enough to just be blasted up instead of sideways.

"And that we just have enough energy to keep ourselves from falling to our deaths."

Even so... The explosion really had tossed you high. You could see the entire bridge from this height, as well as the Gates of...