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Something Worth Dying For	By : slj812000 Category: +M to R > One Piece Views: 10730 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 2
Disclaimer: I do not own One Piece, nor the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

Chapter List
- 16
- 17
- 18
Chapter Seventeen: Sabo
The plan had been set into motion, although about six hours before any of them were ready for it.
This morning, while on the phone with Koala arranging the details of the meticulous job they were plotting, Sabo’s little brother Luffy made a break out of the house. It probably shouldn’t have surprised Sabo, since Luffy was at that rebellious age that made him want to defy the old man and would escape from the house eventually, but he hadn’t pegged Luffy to lose his temper and leave without any of them. Sabo had assumed his little brother would follow his lead, as per usual.
That was, apparently, the first mistake. The second was to believe that Luffy wouldn’t go back to the yakuza stronghold in attempt to rescue his friend on his own. And maybe he wasn’t in the building, or on his own. The old man had still not found Luffy or his friends’ whereabouts, six hours later. Didn’t do anything to put Sabo’s mind at ease.
The third mistake was to believe that if he did in fact go back to that building, that Luffy would not be able to get himself into Arlong Park, let alone cause a disturbance. That had been, of them all, the most costly mistake.
Because now Sabo was watching from an alley in Red Line District as people began flocking out of the building that housed the yakuza headquarters Arlong Park in droves. At first, he had considered that maybe the mass exodus was a daily occurrence around lunch time. Who knew? Sabo was no salaryman. Maybe office people preferred to go out to lunch rather than stay in the office.
That theory proved wrong when Sabo caught the sound of sirens on the wind. It could have been a coincidence, but Sabo’s line of work didn’t allow such things as coincidences to simply be dismissed. Every coincidence had to be checked out, so he immediately dialed Koala. She was supposed to be in an internet café a few blocks away, doing the ‘dirty’ work.
Koala was their number one hacker, above all else. Yeah, she could do other things too, like infiltrate targeted organizations and even knock a few shitheads around without any difficulty. Similarly, Sabo himself and the other guys in the organization could do some hacking when the occasion called for it. But Koala was the best at hacking, and in this dire of a situation, Sabo wanted the best on the job.
Simultaneously, she was supposed to be hacking into the building’s security system to shut down their cameras when the time came as well as keep tabs on dispatch for the police and positioning their team members. It definitely wasn’t an easy job, but Sabo knew Koala had the capacity to get the job done. She wasn’t the best for no reason.
“What’s the status in that building?” he inquired as soon as she picked up. He heard furious typing at a keyboard in the background.
“Fire alarm has been set off on the fourth floor,” Koala informed him. “I just finished hacking into the security of that building. It’s nothing to scoff at. I’m working on getting a hold of the cameras right now, but I thought this soiree wasn’t going down until six?”
She sounded a little irritated. It didn’t surprise him. Koala liked things to go according to plan. She said it was better that way in terms of reducing casualties on their side, and yeah, it was probably true. But Koala wasn’t good at handling changes on the fly. That’s why Sabo was in charge today and not Koala; sometimes a person had to account for the unpredictable.
Like Luffy.
It was true. Ever since he was a child, Luffy had been the least predictable among the three of them. Ace liked to think that Sabo had this great understanding of their little brother, but in truth, Sabo probably just was better and dissecting Luffy’s motives. And it wasn’t hard on this occasion.
According to Ace, Luffy had a friend that was in trouble, also being held in Fishman Village as a Mermaid. It was a little odd, but Sabo wasn’t too surprised. He knew that the orange-haired girl was being forced to prostitute at sixteen, so why not others? And why wouldn’t Luffy go after someone he held dear? He had gotten into a lot of fights as a child (in which Sabo and Ace usually had to clean up after him) when someone had even mentioned harm against someone he loved.
“There’s a boagie in the stairwell. Headed upstairs,” Koala told him, cursing under her breath. Sabo smirked. The fire alarm being tripped and being forced to execute their plans ahead of schedule probably pissed her off a little, but that there was obviously someone in the process of infiltrating Arlong Park ahead of them likely irked her to no end. But if nothing else, she was a professional, so she would get the job done.
Koala was probably the closest to him, both in rank and as a personal acquaintance, of all of Dragon’s Revolutionaries. But that didn’t mean she put up with his shit at all. On the contrary, Koala was the first to call him out if she thought he’d done something stupid. He expected her to be in rare form today, nitpicking him left and right, probably already loathing the fact that she had to answer to himself.
Typically, Dragon was the man in charge. He issued the orders and the rest of them carried them out. On a few occasions, Sabo had been charged with relaying orders from Dragon, but never before had he been put in charge of everything. Koala had likely already complained to Dragon about having to answer to him, if Sabo had to guess.
“Looks like someone got a little impatient,” Sabo murmured. In his mind, he could picture Luffy’s carefree grin and his impetuous nature pushing him to storm a yakuza stronghold by himself. “What’s the word on our positions?”
“Inazuma, Bunny Joe and Hack have made it to their respective locations,” Koala listed off. “Everyone else is still in transit.”
Damn. That wasn’t too hot. He really shouldn’t be upset at having three men in place with only six hours notice, but all of them would have been better. He could imagine that the old man didn’t have his team of non-dirty cops even briefed on the situation yet. Hell, he probably didn’t even know this was going down already.
“ETAs?” he asked, hoping for some good news.
“Twenty minutes at least,” Koala diagnosed. Well, that wasn’t too bad, he supposed. “But possibly more. Traffic sucks at lunch hour.”
That was probably true. And having the fire department and some of the dirty cops out and about was bound to slow them down even more. Crap. Looks like he’d be flying by the seat of his pants for this one.
Whatever. Sabo could handle it. He’d seen worse odds and he’d come through mostly unscathed and his team intact. He just had to focus on what was important and everything would be fine.
In his mind, he pictured the orange-haired girl in her laundry room, hiding her face in her hands as she tried her hardest not to break down crying. She had vehemently denied his help to the very end, but there was no way he could not help her. She was too…too innocent? Nah, that wasn’t the right word. Maybe too kind? No, self-sacrificing. Yeah, that was it. She was too self-sacrificing, which struck a chord with him and he couldn’t leave her alone.
Sabo noticed that the amount of people flocking from the building was down to a trickle. Now was the time, if they were going to do it. If any cops besides the old man’s showed up, none of them were getting into that building without a very public fight. Something the old man was poignantly trying to avoid.
“Tell the others to move in,” Sabo instructed. “We’re going to secure the ground floor and set the contingency plan into motion. The rest of the team gets to deal with any leftovers on the street for being late.”
Koala huffed in annoyance. “You can’t just change the plan as you see fit, Sabo.”
“Yes I can,” he contradicted easily. “The Boss put me in charge of this shindig, remember?”
Koala tried to argue with him further, but Sabo hung up on her. He didn’t have time to listen to her bitching and couldn’t stand aside anymore. No one had been able to find Luffy all morning, and Sabo was a hundred percent sure it was because he was already in that building. Well, as the resident big brother on duty, Sabo needed to go take care of his little brother, since Ace was otherwise occupied.
Ace. Who’d have ever thought that Ace would find a girlfriend? Certainly not Sabo. Ace was too much of a wild spirit like himself to be tamed by a single person. Or so Sabo had thought. Still, the image of Ace standing in his kitchen fretting on whom to go after first, Luffy or his girlfriend, was one that Sabo would not soon forget. He was going to be making fun of Ace for years to come.
In the end, Sabo had told him to go to his girlfriend since Luffy had another able-bodied brother on the scene. Ace had looked grateful, but not necessarily relieved, at the prospect. But still, off Ace had gone off to be the prince on a white horse for his girlfriend, whom he was sure was going to be in danger the moment anyone set foot into Arlong Park. He was supposed to take the girl to the old man’s office for safe keeping before coming back to set the fire that would ultimately let them in the building, but now that plan had gone by the wayside.
Sabo took off out of the alley and across the street. Despite Koala’s probable irritation with him, he saw that she had at least relayed his order. Bunny Joe, Hack, and Inazuma were also on their way to the building. As he reached the front doors and pulled, he found the door to be locked. Sabo rolled his eyes when he saw that the manual slide locks had been thrown into place. Really? Did they think that would stop someone? These were glass doors.
Speaking of glass, he heard a window shatter and looked up. From one of the top floors (the sixteenth, if he had to guess) came the flailing body of a man falling rapidly towards the pavement. Sabo didn’t bother to watch the man splat on the ground, automatically tuning out the screams of the bystanders. He was too busy staring up at the hole created by the man’s impromptu exit of the building. At the edge of it was the figure of a young man with dark hair.
“Well, the party’s started,” Sabo lamented, knowing it was his little brother in the wake of the shattered window. Now that the glass had been shattered, the sound of bullets being fired was prevalent on the wind. “No need to hold back anymore.”
Sabo took out his gun and shot through the glass door, stepping through to the lobby of the building. The other three were right behind him, already armed themselves. The lobby appeared empty at first glance, but Sabo figured that was probably just an illusion. He’d be very surprised if he didn’t find at least thirty men waiting to do the dirty business of guarding the front doors.
“Spread out,” Sabo ordered. “I want every possible entry or exit covered.”
Despite the number that Sabo expected, just two men held the lobby. They had been cowering behind the front desk until Hack walked by, headed for the stairwell at the back of the building. There was a brief shoot out that Hack handled in less than ten seconds and was on his way to the stairwell again.
Inazuma and Bunny Joe went to opposite sides of the building to cover emergency exits, cautiously skirting the room, but there was no one else to subdue. Sabo had remained standing at the shattered front entryway so he had a good view when the first patrol car pulled up out front of the building.
A man whose face spoke volumes towards the likelihood of deceit stepped out of the car in plain clothes, a hat and long trench coat. He had three uniformed officers with him and immediately Sabo knew them to not be on the IO list. The IO list, or Informed Officers list, was the list of trusted officers the old man was supposed to be gathering. No one was to show up in uniform, as to not alert the yakuza of their arrival.
These men, Sabo took as enemies. Traditionally, anyone who had the misfortune to be called Sabo’s enemy usually found themselves in a body bag within a very short period of time. However, that damn busybodied old man had put stipulations on the whole who-he-was-allowed-to-kill list. Officers like this were to be detained for questioning. It was a pain, but Sabo also reveled in the fact that the old man didn’t decree what condition the officers had to be in when they were questioned.
Lazily, Sabo walked towards the front desk leaned against it casually as he waited for the officers to do their so-called duty. It took a long time, which irritated him quite a bit. Now that he had seen Luffy, Sabo was eager to go to his little brother. Instead, he was stuck watching the newly arrived officers blab to each other outside, probably trying to determine how to handle the situation, for at least a minute. In that minute, Sabo heard more echoes of gunshots coming in from the shattered doorway that added to his desire to go upstairs.
The officers obviously heard the gunshots too, and finally their dallying came to an end. They walked into the building, guns drawn and looking cautious. Sabo smirked, planning on having a goodtime with these morons.
“Yo,” he greeted lazily. The four officers paused to regard him.
“My, my,” commented the rat-ish looking one in the trench coat. “I had thought I knew all of East Blue’s current fire brigade. I see that I am mistaken. For surely, there cannot be a civilian standing so nonchalantly in the lobby of a building that has triggered a fire alarm.”
“You’re half right,” Sabo admitted. “I’m definitely not a civilian. But I also ain’t a part of no fire brigade.”
“Oh?” the rat man asked, drawing out the one syllable word for a few seconds. “Then, may I ask just who employs you?”
Sabo grinned recklessly. “The Dragon.”
The rat man did as Sabo expected and paled at the answer.
His Boss, Dragon, was not surprisingly referred to as The Dragon in the various unlawful circles. He was quite renowned, having a very distinct reputation for the particular skill set he and his subordinates provided. They weren’t necessarily the run of the mill felons, but they also didn’t follow the law very often either. That didn’t stop the law providers from referring to them as criminals, though.
“Were you hoping that I would answer the Sawshark?” Sabo guessed, referring to Arlong Park’s boss by one of his aliases. Sabo had been very thorough in his investigations in the last few weeks. “That’s what he goes by, isn’t it? Arlong, boss of the infamous yakuza that operates in the area called Fishman Village?”
The rat man sneered and looked to one of his compatriots, jutting his chin in a terse gesture towards Sabo. The officer leveled his gun to fire but was beaten to the punch. Sabo had pulled his gun and disarmed all of them in a matter of seconds, shooting the weapons right out of their hands. The cost was a puny bullet through the hand, hardly life-threatening, but by the way the four men pissed and whined about the pain, he would have supposed they’d been shot in the gut and were bleeding out.
“So, do tell,” Sabo said, walking over to the whiney men slowly, “how many of your kind are on their way? I’d like to give my men a guestimate.”
“My kind?” the rat man huffed angrily, holding his hand gingerly as he backed away. The other officers followed suit. Oh, no, these little bastards were not going to make a break for it; not on his watch.
“Yes, your kind,” Sabo repeated, aiming his gun and shooting again. Four more shots popped off and all four men were on the ground, each clutching a leg and howling. “Dirty pigs. Crooked cops. Slit lickers who take bribes from the yakuza.”
The rat man sneered again, which was a feat since he was also cringing in pain. “Don’t act so superior. You work for a man who is little more than a terrorist.”
Sabo shrugged, admitting it. It was the truth after all. “Well, we don’t observe all morals, but we observe the important ones.”
Like not prostituting minors. Not abandoning the defenseless. And not letting unjust killings go unpunished.
For good measure (and probably because his train of thought had brought the ire back to him), Sabo stomped on the rat-faced man’s other leg, breaking it down close to his ankle. Somehow, Sabo knew that this man was integral in Arlong’s plans, and therefore, probably directly linked in the imprisonment and selling the body of the orange-haired girl. The man howled in pain and cursed him while the other three men cowered away.
“So I’ll ask again,” Sabo repeated. “How many of you trash are on the way here?”
It was not the rat man who spoke up, but one of the officers. “Three units were called!”
Sabo figured that this cowardly man probably saw some sort of salvation in admitting the truth, but Sabo wasn’t the forgiving sort of guy. He was actually the opposite. The kind that held onto grudges until the end of time. But that officer didn’t know that, so he was looking like he had a bright fluorescent use-me sign on his chest.
“Only three units?” Sabo repeated, disappointed. “All we muster is three units? Surely you must need more men than that.”
He snatched the radio off of the belt of the moaning rat man and tossed it to the officer.
“Call it in,” Sabo instructed. “Every available officer. Send them here right now.”
The officer looked a little dubious at the instruction. Sabo leveled his gun at one of the other officers and shot him in the shoulder.
“Every second you wait is going to be another bullet fired,” Sabo promised, ejecting an empty magazine and loading a new one. The officer no longer hesitated.
“This is Officer Kadzuki down at Red District Suites!” he shouted into the radio. “Shots fired! Captain Nezumi is down and we’ve all suffered injuries! This is not a joke! Red District Suites is under attack by a…a group of terrorists! Send anything you’ve got!”
Sabo smiled, listening to the banter on the radio as several voices tried to confirm or deny the officer’s proclamation. He’d just killed two birds with one stone. The old man would be informed of that call, and would at least be brought up to speed that this was going down now, not later. Plus, every shit eating bastard of the police was bound to roll up and show their true colors.
There was something else that needed to be done first, though. He sent a nod to Inazuma and Bunny Joe, watching each of them take a square of plastic explosive out of their pockets and adhere it to the main supports of the building. Hack was supposed to do the same, but he appeared to be distracted. Eyeing Hack, Sabo saw him lean into the doorway of the stairwell, his gun pulled and his head cocked to the side as if he was listening.
“What is it, Hack?” Sabo asked, watching the man tense.
“Two problems,” Hack answered. “Reinforcements from above, but they’re not coming down. Likely they’re going to join the fight on the sixteenth floor.”
Fuck. More men headed toward Luffy, Sabo interpreted. Not a good thing.
“What else?” Sabo asked, knowing that wasn’t the only problem. Hack had said there were two.
“I’m pretty sure this stairwell leads down to a parking garage,” Hack relayed. “And by the sounds of it, there are more reinforcements there getting ready to make their way up. A lot more.”
Well, this was about to become a handful. Sabo glanced outside and saw Terry Gilteo and Raise Max intermingled with the crowd, keeping an eye out on the outside. They’d have to do.
Sabo grabbed his phone and dialed Koala. She picked up on the first ring.
“I’ve managed to jam their cameras, but they have someone working on restoring the security measures as fast as I try to block them,” Koala told him, not waiting to be addressed. “I’m busy. What do you need?”
She was pissed. More than a little, too. Well, that was just too fucking bad. She was going to have to just deal with it right now.
“Send in Terry and Max,” Sabo ordered. “I’ve got to go upstairs and I want to make sure the fort remains held.”
“Got it,” Koala snapped, disconnecting.
Eyeing the crowd again, Sabo saw the two men break from it and head his way. Glancing down, he took in the man in the trench coat, who he took to be the so-called Captain Nezumi. The man cringed in obvious fear. Disgusting.
“You’re coming with me, sucker,” Sabo declared, punching the maimed man hard in the head and knocking him out cold. He then hoisted the rat man over his shoulder, planning on using him as collateral if needed. Despite the old man’s orders, Sabo just had a feeling that this fucker had to die. He turned to Terry, who had just walked through the shattered doorway.
“Your project is the oncoming circus,” Sabo told him, pointing lazily towards the men on the floor. “The dirty pig squadron should be on its way. Let them in and detain them, but keep them breathing.”
Terry nodded understanding. Sabo took his burden and headed towards Hack at the stairwell. The fucker was heavy. No way was Sabo going to climb sixteen floors with this shithead over his shoulder. As Sabo approached the stairwell, he started to hear the obvious rabble of men down below.
“Keep them blocked down in the parking garage,” Sabo instructed Hack. “I’m going up and I don’t want any Fish on my back.”
Hack grunted in understanding. Sabo took out his phone again. Koala made him wait five rings before answering.
“What now?” she hissed. “I told you I’m busy!”
“I need an elevator ride to the sixteenth floor,” Sabo relayed as the first three promised squad cars arrived. Terry and Max had moved the three wounded officers off to line one of the walls, where Inazuma was keeping an eye on them. “And make sure whoever’s left outside covers the parking garage. Let as many of those bastard Fish in as they can, but no one goes out.”
“Fine,” she huffed. “Blocking the security system was getting tiresome anyway. I’ll open individual doors if you want, but keeping them all open and the elevators locked down is too much work with all of this other bullshit you’re making me do.”
Sabo tuned out her rant and waited at the elevators. After a moment, the door pinged open and Sabo got on and ended his call. He pressed the button marked sixteen and waited for Koala to make the elevator ascend. As he rose, his phone vibrated. Sabo looked down at it incredulously.
Who the hell was calling him right now? Surely not Koala. She was hopping pissed at him and probably didn’t want to hear his voice anymore than necessary. Beyond that, there was the Boss, but he was supposed to be down in a restaurant watching the situation. He probably wouldn’t call, even if he’d spotted a problem. He’d probably let Sabo try to figure it out on his own. Who else was left? He looked at the caller ID.
Ace.
Of course, he wouldn’t know that the proverbial party had started. Sabo answered the call, wondering how he was going to explain the situation to Ace without exciting a panic in his brother. Nothing good came to mind.
“Hey, now’s not a good time,” Sabo greeted truthfully. “I’m kind of on my way to clean up after Luffy.”
“I have a problem,” Ace groaned into the phone raspily as a female voice warbled in the background about thinking they were safe for the moment. Sabo felt every hair on his body stand on end.
“What’s wrong?” Sabo asked, watching as he passed the third floor.
“I was right; they came for her,” Ace grunted. “I didn’t think it’d be this soon. I’m in a little over my head. I could use some back up.”
In all of their lives together, Ace had never once asked for any type of help. Even when he had clearly needed it. Sabo felt his blood run cold.
“Tell me what you need,” Sabo demanded. “I’ll make it happen.”
“You need a doctor, Ace!” urged the woman’s voice in the background. “The bleeding isn’t stopping!”
What the hell had happened to him? Sabo watched the seventh floor pass.
“I need someone who can stop a hit man,” Ace told him. “Because that’s what I’m up against, and I’m losing.”
A hit man? Why had a hit man gone after his brother and his girlfriend? Ace had thought maybe a goon or two might show up, but a hit man? Sabo’s mind scrambled to come up with a solution. Every man Sabo had at his disposal was engaged in this job, and he was on his way to support Luffy himself. There was no one left. And if he did manage to find someone to send, would it be in time?
“Where are you?” Sabo asked, still mulling out what he could possibly do.
“Shells Town Junior High,” Ace replied with a wet sounding gurgle in his voice. Shit, did he have a punctured lung? “In the basement near the boiler room.”
“I’ll figure out something,” Sabo promised Ace, and though it pained him to let go of that line to his brother, he ended the call.
Desperately, Sabo dialed the Boss. When Dragon had put him in charge of this job, Sabo had felt confident. Even when Dragon had told him that he would not assist him in any way, aside from advice. Sabo had doubted he’d need it. He believed it was his time to shine. His time to prove he could handle the responsibility that Dragon had bestowed on him. And that he’d be able to do it without fail.
But this…
“Yes?” Dragon answered, sounding bored.
“I have a problem,” Sabo stated in a rush. “A problem I don’t know how to fix.”
“And that is?”
“My brother is being attacked by a hit man,” Sabo rattled off, watching the eleventh floor pass.
“Luffy is in that building with you,” Dragon stated calmly. “You cannot find a way to him?”
The question was an insinuation of incompetence, and Sabo felt riled at it. But panic for Ace overrode the irritation for now.
“My other brother,” Sabo clarified. “Ace.”
Dragon snorted in amusement. That, Sabo could not suppress his anger at. Dragon was not a man who made attachments to people, so Sabo’s desire to protect his brothers probably did seem amusing to him, but one of their deaths was not cause for amusement. Hell, Luffy was his own son, for fuck’s sake.
“You are otherwise engaged?” Dragon verified. No doubt, from where he sat, Dragon could probably see the others involved with the tasks Sabo had given them.
“I’m on my way to Luffy,” Sabo answered. “He’s severely out-numbered.”
That was a supposition, actually. Sabo didn’t know how bad his little brother was fairing against the Fish, but Luffy was just a kid against a room full of yakuza. Maybe Luffy had some of his friends with him, but that was what, three extra people? Four teenage boys against a hundred or two Fish. It was the makings of a slaughter.
“Just what am I supposed to do?” Sabo demanded in a frustrated yell. He was passing the fourteenth floor.
Dragon hummed. “You could abandon your post and go after Ace. As the head of this job, it is within your power to call a fall back and go after him.”
“I can’t abandon Luffy!” Sabo snapped. Damn it, didn’t he feel anything for his own son?
“Those are the only two choices you have,” Dragon told him. “Assist Luffy or assist Ace. You must choose which one is the right thing to do. In this situation especially, I cannot choose it for you.”
Dragon hung up and Sabo stared desperately at the closed doors of the elevator that were sure to open any moment. What could he do? He couldn’t save both of them. Dragon was telling Sabo that he had to make a choice between saving Luffy and saving Ace.
The doors opened on the sixteenth floor.
- 16
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Something Worth Dying For