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The island was quiet. Too quiet.
When the Straw Hats arrived, it had looked like any other peaceful stop on their journey—tall cliffs covered in mist, a small town nestled on the coast, and forests that seemed to stretch on endlessly. But something about the air was wrong. Sanji felt it first, that chill that settled into his bones. The crew joked about it—Luffy even laughed, saying how they’d been through much worse—but Sanji couldn’t shake the feeling.
There was someone...or something... watching them.
They decided to split up and gather supplies. Zoro and Nami went toward the town to negotiate with the locals, Usopp and Chopper checked the ship, and Robin and Franky headed to investigate the island’s history. Luffy, of course, ran off on his own to explore, not even waiting for anyone to tag along. Sanji volunteered to scout the woods for edible plants and herbs. He liked being alone in moments like this, where he could focus, breathe. But today, the isolation only made the unsettling feeling worse.
As he ventured deeper into the forest, the mist grew thicker, swirling around the trees in strange patterns. The silence was oppressive, the only sounds being his footsteps crunching on the dead leaves beneath him. Even the birds were absent. Sanji stopped, glancing around with a frown.
"Where the hell is everything?"
It didn’t make sense. Forests were usually alive with the sounds of insects, animals, the wind through the leaves. But here—nothing. Just silence.
Sanji pressed forward, trying to ignore the gnawing unease in his gut. But after an hour of searching, the quiet began to get to him. He turned back toward the ship, feeling a prickling at the back of his neck. He wasn't sure why, but he couldn't shake the feeling that someone was following him. Every few minutes, he glanced over his shoulder, but saw nothing but trees and mist.
And then he heard it.
A faint whisper.
Sanji froze, straining to hear. The whisper came again, soft and low, almost indistinguishable from the wind. He couldn’t make out the words, but the sound chilled him to the core. His skin crawled as the whisper grew louder, more insistent.
Sanji...
It sounded like it was coming from all around him. His heart raced as he turned in a slow circle, scanning the mist for any sign of movement. But there was nothing. No one.
"Who’s there?" Sanji called, his voice steady but tense. His fingers twiched, itching for a smoke to ground him and give him some sort of comfort.
No answer. Just that whisper, wrapping around him like a cold breath on the back of his neck.
Suddenly, the ground beneath his feet gave way. With a yelp, Sanji plunged into darkness, the air rushing past him as he fell. His body hit the ground with a bone-rattling thud, the wind knocked out of him. Pain shot through his ribs as he gasped for air, his vision swimming.
He laid there for a moment, stunned, trying to gather his thoughts. His surroundings were pitch black, the air damp and musty. Slowly, painfully, he pushed himself to his feet, his breath coming in shallow, ragged bursts.
"What the hell..." he muttered, clutching his side.
It was a cave. A massive, underground cavern that stretched endlessly into the darkness. The only light came from the faintly glowing moss clinging to the walls, casting an eerie green hue over everything. He wasn’t sure how far he’d fallen, but there was no way out that he could see.
The whisper was gone, but the silence here was even more oppressive. The hairs on the back of his neck stood on end as he scanned the cavern, his body tense. He could feel it again—that presence. Something was here with him. Watching. Waiting. Ready.
“Alright,” Sanji muttered under his breath, forcing himself to move. “Just find a way out of here. No biggie.”
But as he stepped forward, something caught his eye. A shadow—tall, gaunt, and impossibly thin—moved at the edge of his vision. Sanji spun around, one leg raised ready to attack, but again—nothing. The cavern was empty, save for the moss and the jagged rocks jutting out from the floor.
His heart pounded in his chest, and his breath quickened. It felt like the walls were closing in on him, the darkness pressing down, suffocating. The cold seeped into his skin, numbing his fingers, his face. He tried to focus, tried to stay calm, but the air was thick with something he couldn’t explain. Something ancient. Malevolent.
Then, the whispers returned.
But this time, they were different. Louder. Closer.
Sanji... Sanji...
His stomach churned, and his pulse thundered in his ears. The voices were all around him now, overlapping, intertwining, their words distorted, unintelligible—but his name... his name came through clear.
And then, from the darkness, a figure stepped forward.
Sanji’s breath hitched as he saw it—a figure, emaciated, skeletal, its skin stretched thin over bones. Its eyes—hollow, sunken, but glowing faintly—bored into him, and for the first time in a long time, Sanji felt real fear.
The figure raised its hand, and Sanji took a step back, his heart hammering in his chest. His instincts screamed at him to run, to do something, but his feet felt glued to the ground, his mind clouded with confusion and dread.
The figure’s mouth moved, but no words came out. Instead, a flood of memories—his memories—flashed before his eyes.
Zeff... the Baratie... the All Blue... the days on the rock... starving, dying... Luffy... his crew...
Each memory hit him like a physical blow, knocking the air out of his lungs. He saw himself on that floating rock, days without food, the gnawing hunger twisting his stomach. He saw Zeff, giving up everything for him. He saw his friends, laughing, fighting, and then—he saw them dead, their bodies broken, bloodied, their lifeless eyes staring at him in accusation.
"No..." Sanji whispered, his voice hoarse. "No, this isn’t real..."
The whispers grew louder, the figure drawing closer, its eyes burning into him. Sanji stumbled back, gasping for breath, his mind reeling. The cavern seemed to warp around him, the walls shifting, closing in.
“Get out of my head!” Sanji yelled, clutching his temples as the memories twisted into nightmares.
The figure didn’t stop. It reached out with a skeletal hand, its touch freezing, burning at the same time. Sanji’s knees buckled, and he collapsed to the ground, choking on the air, his vision blurring. He tried to fight, to push the thing away, but his body wouldn’t move. His strength was draining from him, seeping into the cold, dark earth.
Then came the voices again—his own voice, distorted, sickening.
"You weren’t strong enough. You weren’t fast enough. You let them die. You’re worthless. Just like your family always said."
“No...” Sanji’s voice broke, tears burning at his eyes. “I didn’t...”
But the whispers didn’t stop. They surrounded him, suffocated him, until all he could hear was his own despair, echoing in the cavern like a death knell.
The figure leaned down, its face inches from Sanji’s. Its hollow eyes stared deep into his soul, and for a moment, Sanji felt something worse than fear.
He felt nothing.
A void. Empty, consuming. It whispered to him, promising peace, an end to the suffering, to the pain.
Just let go.
Sanji’s eyelids fluttered. His body felt so heavy, so tired. Maybe it would be easier. Maybe this was how it ended.
Above, on the surface, the Straw Hats searched frantically. Zoro hacked through the forest, shouting Sanji’s name, while Nami and Usopp scoured the island’s cliffs. Luffy, wild with panic, darted back and forth, yelling, punching at the mist as if it would answer him.
“He’s here somewhere,” Robin said, her voice uncharacteristically urgent. “We have to find him. Now.”
It had been two days. Two days without their cook, they had waited for him to come back for too long.
Deep below, Sanji was slipping.
The darkness whispered to him, pulling him under. His heart slowed, his breath faltering. The figure’s cold hand hovered over his chest, ready to snuff out the last bit of warmth he had left.
Just as his vision went black, something cut through the whispers—a voice. Not the eerie voices of the cave, but a real one.
"Sanji!"
It was Luffy’s voice, clear and strong, cutting through the suffocating darkness like a lifeline.
"Sanji, don’t you dare die on me!"
The figure recoiled, hissing, its skeletal hand retracting. Sanji’s eyes fluttered open, and for the first time, he saw a glimmer of light piercing the cave’s ceiling.
Hours later, when they pulled him from the cavern, Sanji was barely conscious. His body was cold, his skin pale, and his breaths shallow. The crew crowded around him, worry etched on their faces.
“Sanji!” Luffy cried, shaking him. “Wake up!”
Zoro’s jaw was tight, his fists clenched. “Damn it, cook... don’t you dare.”
But Sanji couldn’t speak. He lay there, staring blankly at the sky, the last traces of the cavern’s whispers still echoing in his mind.
The cook felt like he was floating, his consciousness drifting in and out. The voices of his crewmates were muffled, distant. He could barely register the fact that they had pulled him from the cave. All he felt was the cold. It gripped him, not just physically, but deep within, as if something had hollowed him out from the inside.
The sun above him felt wrong, too bright, too warm for the emptiness in his chest. His body trembled, his breaths coming in shallow, uneven gasps. He heard Luffy’s frantic voice, the sound of Zoro’s low growl, but the words didn’t fully reach him.
He was still in that cave. Still staring into the hollow eyes of that figure. He could feel its presence lingering in his mind, even now, as if it had left a mark—a scar—on his soul.
Just let go.
That voice… his voice… still echoed in his head, taunting him, pulling him back toward the void. Sanji’s chest tightened, the weight of those words suffocating him. He tried to speak, to reassure his friends that he was fine, but nothing came out. His mouth was dry, his throat raw, and every inch of him ached with exhaustion.
“Sanji!” Nami’s voice cut through the fog, sharper than the rest. She knelt beside him, her hand gripping his shoulder as she looked into his face. “Sanji, you have to say something! Please!”
His lips parted, but the words wouldn’t come. All he could do was stare up at her, his gaze empty, haunted. Nami’s face twisted with worry, her hand tightening around him.
“He’s freezing,” Chopper said, his voice shaky. “We need to get him warm, now.”
Zoro stood by, his hands clenched into fists, frustration and concern warring in his eyes. “What the hell happened down there?”
Luffy was pacing back and forth, his face twisted in anger and confusion. He hated this—hated seeing his crewmate like this, so broken, so... un-Sanji-like. “Sanji!” he shouted again, his voice desperate now. “Snap out of it! Come on!”
But Sanji couldn’t snap out of it. He couldn’t escape the weight pressing down on his chest, the cold creeping through his veins. The warmth of his crewmates, their concern, their desperate voices—it all felt so far away.
It was like he was still in that cave.
They carried him back to the Thousand Sunny, their movements hurried and tense. Chopper worked frantically to warm him up, wrapping him in blankets and checking his vitals, but nothing seemed to pull Sanji out of the fog he was trapped in. His body was here, with his crew, but his mind... his mind was still locked in that place, where the cold and the whispers consumed him.
The crew gathered around, all of them shaken by what had happened. It wasn’t like Sanji to break, to fall apart like this. He was their cook, their fighter, one of the strongest among them. But now, lying on the deck with a haunted, distant look in his eyes, he seemed like a shadow of the man they knew.
Robin sat nearby, her arms crossed, a thoughtful yet deeply troubled expression on her face. “Something happened to him down there,” she said quietly, her voice laced with concern. “Something... more than just physical.”
Nami shook her head, her eyes red from worry. “But what? What could’ve done this to him? He’s not... he’s not even responding.”
“There was something in that cave,” Zoro muttered, his gaze hard as he stared at Sanji’s still form. “Something that got into his head.”
"I wonder what happened to Cook-bro", Franky shook his head and sighed. "This is no good"
“We need to do something!” Luffy growled, slamming his fist into the railing. His usual carefree nature was gone, replaced by a raw, simmering anger. “I’m not just going to sit here and watch him like this!”
Chopper’s face was grim as he worked, trying to stabilize Sanji’s condition. “I’ve done everything I can physically... but whatever happened down there, it’s not something I can treat with medicine.”
They all fell silent at that. The weight of the situation pressed down on them like a suffocating blanket. Sanji wasn’t just injured—he was broken, and none of them knew how to fix it.
Days passed, and Sanji didn’t improve.
He ate little, barely spoke, and when he did, it was in short, hollow whispers. His hands shook when he tried to cook, and he spent most of his time staring out at the sea, his eyes unfocused. The fire that usually burned so brightly within him had been snuffed out, leaving behind only a flicker of what he once was.
At night, it was worse. The crew could hear him from the lower deck, thrashing in his hammock, caught in the grip of nightmares. Sometimes he would scream—low, guttural sounds that made their hearts lurch. Other times, he would whisper to himself, muttering words they couldn’t make out.
One night, Nami couldn’t take it anymore. She went to his room, finding him sitting on the edge of his hammock, his face buried in his hands. His whole body was trembling.
“Sanji,” she said softly, stepping closer. “You need to talk to us. Please... we’re worried about you.”
Sanji didn’t look up. His hands clenched into fists, his knuckles white. “I can’t...”
“Can’t what?” Nami asked, her voice trembling. “Sanji, we can help you, but you need to tell us what happened.”
He was silent for a long time, the only sound in the room the soft creaking of the ship. Finally, he spoke, his voice barely above a whisper.
“I saw them die.”
Nami’s heart dropped. “Who?”
“My crew,” Sanji whispered, his voice breaking. “I saw all of you... dead. Broken. And it was... my fault.”
Nami’s eyes filled with tears as she knelt beside him. “Sanji, that wasn’t real. We’re here. We’re alive.”
But Sanji shook his head, his body trembling harder. “It felt real. It was so real... I heard the voices... they told me... they told me I wasn’t strong enough. That I let you all die. That I—”
“Stop it!” Nami cried, grabbing his hands. “That’s not true! You’ve saved us more times than I can count! You’ve always been there for us!”
Sanji’s breath hitched, his eyes glassy and distant. “It won’t stop. The voices... they won’t stop.”
Nami’s heart broke as she looked into his eyes, seeing the deep, endless pain there. Whatever had happened to him in that cave, it had left scars—wounds—that went far deeper than any physical injury. And Sanji, the man who always carried the weight of others’ burdens, who always fought with everything he had, was drowning under the weight of it.
That night, Sanji’s nightmares came again, worse than ever. The crew heard him screaming from below deck, and they rushed to his side, but when they reached him, he was already lost in the terror of his mind.
“Sanji!” Zoro shook him roughly, trying to snap him out of it, but Sanji’s eyes were wide and unfocused, his breath coming in panicked gasps. He clawed at his chest, as if trying to tear something out of himself, his body shaking violently.
“Get out of my head!” Sanji screamed, his voice hoarse, desperate. “Get out!”
Luffy grabbed him by the shoulders, shaking him. “Sanji! Wake up! It’s not real!”
But Sanji didn’t hear him. His screams turned into sobs, broken and raw, as he collapsed onto the floor, his body curling in on itself. The crew stood there, helpless, watching as their friend—their brother—was torn apart from the inside.