Firestorm (Ace x OC)

Chapter 15: Clear Skies Part 2

Ryoko hissed for a moment as cold metal touched the skin right above her lungs before coughs began to force their way out of her. Blood slipped past her lips, causing the marine to pull the ravenette child away protectively. The doctor quickly moved to the other side of the room and began to rummage through the many bottles of medicine and ingredients. Upon finding the right medicine she knelt down and offered the bottle to the saint. "this should help her get better, however, she is very ill and likely won't survive even with this medicine. I'm sorry I can not be of more use."

The child took the bottle of medicine from the doctor before looking toward Mattie, who followed the unspoken order and picked up Ryoko under his arm once again. Cecelia huffed in annoyance, stomping out of the room with the medicine still in hand, Mattie following her out of the doctor and back out towards the grey quarter. "What use is a broken toy," she whines as they walked through the city. Mattie didn't speak, allowing Cecelia to rant and rave about how unfair it was that her new friend couldn't be fixed like her other toys had been able to be. "If you're gonna break too fast then you'll just be thrown out anyway."

The three arrived at the edge of the grey terminal, Ryoko's eyes landed on the bottle in the girl's hand before her dull eyes widened as the bottle was thrown out towards the forest. Her blood began to pound in her ears as she was also abruptly tossed into the forest, her back hitting a tree just past the treeline and out of eyesight of the world noble and marine.

The girl weakly began to take stock of whatever injuries she had, but all that was painful was her lungs and her chest. Her eyes looked around her surroundings before she saw a glass bottle sticking out of loose ground. She began to pull herself over to the bottle and nearly burst into tears of relief as the bottle of medicine was still intact. 

As the pounding in her ears subsided, along with another round of bloody mucus-filled coughs, she began to hear the sound of running footsteps and three familiar voices. The feeling of safety rushed over her as she lay on the forest ground, looking over towards the three boys who had gotten their metal pipes. Had they planned to try and get her back? Tears began to fall at the very idea of them caring enough to do that for her.

"RYOKO!" Luffy exclaimed seeing the girl lying on the ground sobbing and coughing, "It's okay we came to rescue you!" he adds happily only to panic when she began to cry harder. He was quick to pull her into a tight hug as Ace unwrapped the blanket he had tied around his waist.

Ace placed the blanket on the ground before moving over and taking the sobbing and slightly bloody girl from him. He silently began to tie the blanket as it had been before and pulled the makeshift straps over his shoulders. This time instead of holding the straps he held onto the girl's legs, as if trying to keep her from running off again. "Oi, quit crying you're coming back with us now." 

Sabo moved and picked up the bottle of medication, he had been the one to see Ryoko and the bottle be thrown, his brow furrowed in confusion. The bottle was glass, so it was incredibly lucky that it didn't break when it hit the ground. He tucked it away in his pocket before moving to walk next to Ace. "We have the medicine, let's get home quickly," he says with a warm smile at the girl whose sobs had stopped.

A small coughing fit came from the girl, who covered her mouth with her arm before she weakly clutched onto the back of Ace's shirt, "...I'm sorry..." She whimpered as silent tears still rolled down her face. 

Ace simply sent a scowl over his shoulder, "Don't ever do that again got it?"

Ryoko put her forehead on his shoulder, she silently nodded her head as they all began their rapid walk towards Dadan's house. The girl began to doze off as her exhaustion hit her hard, the next thing she knew was the sudden shock of being woken up by Luffy yelling,