Chapter 134: Blood in the Sand
The sun beat down hard on the Going Merry's deck, glinting off the sweat-slicked backs of the Straw Hats. Bruises bloomed on arms and legs like violet badges of honor. Zoro leaned against the mast, blood still dripping from his chin. Sanji flicked his cigarette away, shirt torn open. Chopper nervously cleaned his scraped hooves. And Usopp, arms shaking, knees bruised, lips bloodied, was still catching his breath.
Goku stood at the center of it all, shirtless, his wild hair dancing in the breeze. His chest heaved with calm rhythm, not even winded from the hours of sparring. He looked at each of them, one by one, like a war general inspecting his soldiers.
"This is it," he finally said. "Alabasta isn't just some detour to help Vivi. This is the moment the Grand Line tests us. This is war."
The wind quieted, the sea fell still, as if the world itself paused to listen.
"You think Crocodile's the end? He's the beginning. This is where we stop playing pirate and start making the world remember our name. You don't survive this sea by luck. You do it by breaking through."
He turned to Zoro. "Make them bleed."
To Sanji. "Crush their spirits."
Then finally, he walked to Usopp. The long-nosed sniper looked away, ashamed of the bruises he had gotten so easily.
Goku placed a hand on his shoulder. "Take them out before they take you out. You got it?"
Usopp swallowed. Nodded.
"Yeah... I got it."
---
In the present, as those words rung through the head of Usopp. The air was stale and dry, the scent of sweat and wet sand thick in every breath. The tunnels were a twisted web beneath Alabasta's capital, carved by time and nature, and now they were about to become a bloody arena.
Usopp and Chopper stood at the edge of a widening chamber. The walls trembled. Dust rained from the ceiling. Then...
BOOM!
A fireball exploded just ahead, and a baseball embedded with gunpowder rolled to a stop, sizzling in the sand.
Miss Merry Christmas's shrill voice echoed through the tunnel like nails on stone. "Hiiiii~! Found you, little rodents!"
From the shadows emerged the towering figure of Mr. 4, his face void of expression, bat dragging behind him like a guillotine.
And behind him, that damn dog, Lassoo, the cannon-shaped mutt, barked once and fired another explosive baseball from its mouth.
The tunnel shook with the blast. Usopp stumbled back, ears ringing, heart thundering in his chest.
"Usopp, what do we do?!" Chopper cried, transforming to Guard Point to shield them from falling debris.
Usopp stared at the smoke curling from Lassoo's mouth. His hands trembled. His knees knocked. And yet...
"Take them out before they take you out."
Goku's voice echoed in his mind like a gunshot.
"No more playing pirate," Usopp muttered.
Chopper blinked. "Huh?"
Usopp's expression hardened. Blood trickled from his forehead. He pulled out his slingshot and loaded it. "This is the real deal, Chopper. Time to step up. Every time these bastards see our flag, it should be a fucking hell."
Chopper's eyes widened, but then he nodded, fear melting into resolve.
Miss Merry Christmas cackled, diving into the earth with a mole-like rumble, tunneling fast toward them. "You're dead, weaklings!"
"Split up!" Usopp shouted. "Don't let them box us in!"
Miss Merry Christmas burst from the ground like a bullet, catching Usopp by the leg and slamming him into the wall. Bones cracked. Blood sprayed.
"AAGHH!!" Usopp screamed as his leg twisted unnaturally.
Chopper leapt at Mr. 4, horns glowing, but the man swung his iron bat with sickening force, catching Chopper in the ribs and launching him into the air.
Lassoo fired again. The bomb exploded right above Usopp, hurling his body across the tunnel. His nose split, blood flooding down his lips.
He couldn't feel his ribs anymore. One eye swelled shut. His fingers shook.
"Take them out…"
"No," he wheezed. "Not yet… not yet!"
He loaded fire stars into his slingshot and shot at Lassoo. The dog yelped as one of the stars lit its tail on fire.
Chopper, now in Heavy Point, returned with rage, slamming Mr. 4 into the rocks. But the man barely flinched. He grabbed Chopper by the throat and began to squeeze.
Usopp saw red.
"GET OFF HIM!"
He fired a hammer star at the ceiling above Mr. 4. It hit the stalactite dead center. The rocks came crashing down, stabbing through Mr. 4's shoulder. The bat dropped. Chopper gasped for breath and rolled aside.
Miss Merry Christmas tunneled toward Usopp again, he counted the seconds between the tremors.
"One… two… three—NOW!"
He dived and rolled. She burst out from the ground beneath him, into a tripwire he had set moments earlier.
Rocks exploded around her. She screamed as shrapnel tore across her face and arms.
"CHOPPER!" Usopp yelled. "Lure the dog toward her!"
Chopper transformed into Brain Point and ran circles around Lassoo. The dog barked, chased, right as another flaming baseball rolled toward the injured Miss Merry Christmas.
Usopp shot it mid-air.
KRA-KA-BOOM!
Blood and smoke filled the tunnel. Chopper shielded Usopp. The dust settled. The mole-woman was down, arm blown clean off, face shredded.
Only Mr. 4 remained, battered, leaking blood from multiple wounds.
Usopp limped forward, dragging his broken leg.
"You like baseball?" he spat, coughing blood.
He took Lassoo's last unlit bomb and lit it.
"Catch."
He loaded it into his slingshot, pulled it back to the very edge.
Then let go.
The bomb slammed straight into Mr. 4's open mouth.
BOOM.
His head vaporized in a cloud of fire and gore. His body hit the ground like a felled tree.
The tunnel fell into silence, broken only by the faint crackling of flame and the labored breathing of two survivors.
Chopper dragged Usopp back toward the wall. The sniper was barely conscious, face swollen, one eye shut, his nose crushed and bloodied.
"Y-You… you did it," Chopper said through tears.
Usopp chuckled, a wet cough that spilled more red down his chin.
"We stepped up… huh…?"
He leaned his head back, eyes closing.
"Goku'll be proud."
---
Elsewhere, a dry wind whispered through the shattered alleys of Alubarna. The once-bustling capital was now a ghost town, emptied by the looming war cries and pounding boots of the rebel army. Sand slithered between cracked cobblestones like a living serpent. Windows were shattered. Doors hung limply on rusted hinges.
Click. Click. Click.
The rhythmic sound of heels tapping against stone echoed through the stillness, sharp and mocking.
Miss Doublefinger walked calmly through the desolate ruins, her Baroque Works cloak fluttering behind her. Her dark lips curled upward into a smirk as she dragged her long fingers along a broken market stall, the metal creaking under her touch.
"All this chaos," she murmured, her voice low and venomous. "Just to save a dying kingdom."
She paused by a fallen fruit stand, casually picking up a rotten apple and squeezing it until it burst in her palm.
"A waste of time."
She stepped over a fallen signboard and turned down another alley. Her stilettos pierced the sand beneath with every step, cision, calculation, inevitability.
"You're all just children," she said to the air. "Playing pretend. Pirates? Please."
She stopped, eyes narrowing at the faint glint of something through a broken window across the plaza.
"Vivi should have kept her mouth shut. Let the adults play."
She walked forward again, slower now, each step a blade. "And you, little navigator..." Her smile widened. "I heard you were clever. Tricky. But there's a limit to cleverness when you're alone."
She walked into the courtyard of a partially destroyed house, its walls riddled with bullet holes and scorch marks from earlier skirmishes of the rebels passing through.
She stopped in front of a leaning wall.
Then she said it, soft and sinister.
"Found you."
Her palm slid open like a blooming flower, flesh turning sharp and glinting with metallic sheen.
SHUNK!
A razor-sharp spike extended from her hand with terrifying force, piercing through the wall like paper.
"AAAAAGH!!"
From behind the wall came Nami's scream, her left shoulder impaled by the spike, blood spraying against the crumbling stone in a crimson splash.
Miss Doublefinger licked her lips.
"You should've stayed in the back with the map and compass, sweetheart. Now look at you... trying to fight in a battlefield you don't belong in."
Nami staggered back from the wall, clutching her ruined shoulder, blood oozing through her fingers.
"W-We're not playing pirates," she gasped through clenched teeth.
But Miss Doublefinger only chuckled, retracting the spike with a sickening schlick.
"Oh, honey. That's exactly what you're doing."
She tilted her head, eyes glowing with cruel delight.
"And now, you'll bleed like one."