„You vermin! You did this, I just know it!" Wapol snarled, his voice a petulant screech that grated in the snowy silence. He pointed a trembling, accusing finger at Mario.
„Didn't we already send you flying?" Luffy asked, genuinely confused as to why the man was back.
„These guys again?" Sanji sighed, lighting a fresh cigarette with a flick of his wrist, the flame a tiny, defiant spark of normalcy.
Mario ignored them completely. His world had narrowed to Nami. He gently checked her forehead, her pulse, ensuring the avalanche hadn't worsened her condition. The fever was still a raging inferno beneath her skin. These clowns were a distraction he couldn't afford.
„OI! You! You're the one who blew me out to sea!" Wapol shrieked, his face turning purple with rage. „And now you're ignoring… ME???" The sheer audacity of being overlooked was a greater insult than being punched.
„Chess! New law! Write it down! Whoever ignores the king receives capital punishment!"
„Hey, listen, tin man," Sanji said, blowing a stream of smoke. „We don't have time to deal with you. We have a sick person. A real sick person, not someone who's just sick in the head. We need to bring her to a doctor now, so if you could just—"
"INSOLENCE!" Wapol screamed, his patience snapping. In a flash of spite, he didn't point at Sanji or Luffy, but directly at the helpless Nami.
Faster than anyone could have anticipated, Chess complied, drawing two massive arrows and firing them with lethal precision straight at the unconscious navigator.
Time seemed to slow. Mario's mind screamed, but his body was already moving, a pure, instinctual reaction born of desperate protectiveness. He threw himself in front of Nami, twisting to shield her completely.
Tek—!
The thought was there, but the technique wasn't. There was no time to solidify his flesh. A sickening, wet thud echoed as the first arrowhead punched deep into his right shoulder, the force spinning him. The second followed, burying itself in his side with a brutal impact. Mario grunted, a spray of crimson blood misting the white snow as he staggered, the breath driven from his lungs.
"YOU SON OF A BITCH!" Luffy's roar was one of pure, unadulterated fury. He launched himself at Wapol, a rubbery missile of vengeance, and the fight was on.
Sanji was at Mario's side in an instant, his face a mask of horror. „Oi! MARIO! Are you okay?!"
„I'm… fine…" Mario gasped, the words a ragged struggle. Every breath sent a fresh lance of fire through his torso. „Listen, Sanji… Luffy can't deal with all three of them alone. You need to help him."
„Help my ass! You need help!" Sanji retorted, his eyes fixed on the arrows protruding from Mario's body.
„I'm fine!" Mario grunted, his jaw clenched tight against the agony. With a brutal, decisive motion, he snapped the shafts of the arrows off, leaving the barbed heads embedded in his flesh to stem the bleeding. The pain was blinding, but he shoved it down into a dark corner of his mind.
„Listen, please. I'll take Nami up the mountain. I can do it. When I meet the doctor, he can heal me. You and Luffy are stronger now; you can make quick work of these three. When you're done, sprint after me. Help me if I'm not already there."
„You are in no state to carry her!" Sanji argued, his voice tight.
„Please, Sanji! I can't fight like this, but I can carry her. You know I can!" Mario panted, his eyes pleading, his determination shining through the pain.„But if we fight, they could target Nami again!"
Sanji looked at Mario, disbelief and reluctance warring on his face. But he saw the iron will in Mario's eyes and knew he was right. Luffy, already engaged in a furious battle with Wapol, Chess, and Kuromarimo, needed his help to end this quickly.
„Damnit!" Sanji cursed, finally relenting. He carefully helped hoist Nami onto Mario's back, the navigator's dead weight pressing against the fresh, gruesome wounds. Mario hissed in pain but held firm, using ripped strips of his own clothing to bind the wounds tightly, applying agonizing pressure.
„Go! And don't look back!" Sanji ordered, his voice low and intense. „We'll be right behind you."
With a final, grim nod, Mario turned and began to run. Each footfall was a jolt of white-hot agony that shot from his wounds through his entire body. His breath came in ragged, painful gasps, his vision swimming at the edges. But he ran. He ran through the pain, through the blood soaking his clothes, his focus locked on the distant peak and the witch's castle that held Nami's only hope. He would not stop. He could not stop.
The sounds of battle—the thwump of Luffy's punches, the crack of Sanji's kicks, and Wapol's enraged squeals—faded into a distant echo, swallowed by the howling wind and the pounding of blood in Mario's ears. He was alone now, with only the mountain, the storm, and the precious, burning weight on his back.
The pain from the arrowheads buried in his shoulder and side was a living, breathing entity inside him. It was a white-hot agony he had never known in either of his lifetimes—a deep, grinding fire that flared with every jarring step and every labored breath. But paradoxically, it was also an anchor. It cut through the fog of exhaustion and fear, sharpening his senses to a razor's edge, keeping him painfully, terribly sober and focused on the single, monumental task before him.
Soon, the terrain shifted, rising into the most bizarre geological formation he had ever witnessed. The Drum Rock loomed before him, a colossal, near-vertical pillar of rock that looked less like a mountain and more like a giant, petrified tree stump reaching for the heavens. It was comical, surreal, and utterly daunting.
He didn't allow himself to think. Thinking was a luxury that led to doubt, and doubt would be the end of them both. He simply acted. Finding handholds in the frozen rock, he began the ascent. The wind roared, trying to pry him from the cliff face. Icy pellets of snow stung his face and hands, which were quickly growing numb, the feeling fading from his fingertips. But he did not stop.
His body fell into a rhythm—a painful, grinding, but steady rhythm. Reach, grip, pull. Reach, grip, pull. He wasn't a man climbing a mountain anymore; he was a machine, a vessel for a single, unwavering purpose.
He didn't know what was driving him forward. It wasn't just love, or duty, or even fear. It was something deeper, something primal that had been stirred awake inside him. It was the same iron will that had allowed Roger to draw Haki inward, the same stubborn refusal to yield that defined Luffy. In this moment of absolute extremity, all the useless thoughts, the meta-knowledge, the anxieties about the future, simply burned away, leaving only a core of pure, unadulterated resolve.
Only one phrase echoed in the silent, focused chamber of his mind, a mantra that matched the rhythm of his climb:
One by one. One by one.
One handhold after another. One painful breath after another. One step closer to saving her. Nothing else existed.
***
It's dark… Too dark. Did I die this time for real?
The thought drifted through a formless void, a quiet echo in an expanse of nothing. There was no pain, no cold, no weight on his back—just an endless, silent black.
Suddenly—PAIN!
It wasn't the sharp, tearing agony of the arrows, but a deep, throbbing ache that radiated from his shoulder and side.
Simultaneously, a wave of warmth washed over him, a stark contrast to the biting cold that was his last memory. He could feel the soft give of a mattress beneath him, the weight of blankets.
He snapped his eyes open, his breath catching in his throat. He was in a bed, a real bed, in a room made of dark, sturdy wood. A fire crackled merrily in a hearth, casting dancing shadows. He tried to sit up, and a fresh jolt of pain made him gasp.
"Ouch!"
He looked down at his body. His torso and shoulder were neatly wrapped in clean, white bandages. The arrows were gone.
Clank!
A high-pitched, startled squeal followed the sound of something metal hitting the stone floor.
Mario's head whipped toward the noise. There, frozen in place with his hooves in the air, was a small, blue-nosed reindeer wearing a giant pink hat. His eyes were wide with sheer, unadulterated panic.
"Chopper…" Mario murmured, the name slipping out before his sleep-addled, pain-fogged brain could engage a filter.
The effect was instantaneous. The small reindeer's—Chopper's—eyes bulged so wide they looked like they might pop right out of his head. His entire body trembled.
"HYAAAAA! How… how do you know my name?!" he shrieked, his voice pitching even higher with terror and confusion.
Now, both of them were frozen, locked in a mutual stare of profound shock. Mario was shocked he was alive, shocked to be here, and shocked at his own careless slip.
Chopper was shocked that this strange, wounded human, who had arrived in the most dramatic way possible, knew his name—a name he was sure no outsider could possibly know. The only sound in the room was the crackling of the fire and their own stunned silence.