Inside a private quarters on the third floor of the Whole Cake Chateau.
"W-What did you say!?" Sanji's pupils dilated, his entire body shaking with profound shock.
"You are the child who retained his humanity—the soul our mother risked her life to protect. That is why you are gentler than anyone else," Reiju said from her sickbed. The eldest daughter of the Vinsmoke Family stared softly at her younger brother.
Sanji stood frozen, unable to find his composure for an immeasurable length of time. He stood there smoking in complete silence, a chaotic torrent of childhood memories rushing through his mind.
Mother...
"So, what do you plan to do now?" Reiju pressed once more, breaking the quiet.
"What about you?" Sanji countered, choosing not to answer her directly.
"Are you actually worrying about me?" A subtle, alluring smile played on Reiju's beautiful face. But a moment later, her expression darkened, and she shook her head. "Though I managed to retain my human emotions, my hands have long been stained with the blood of countless innocents."
"Germa will be completely erased from existence tomorrow. Once that happens, your benefactor in the East Blue will never be threatened again. For you, this is the best possible outcome."
"Sanji! Look closely at what truly matters to you. If you walk away now, you will never encounter comrades like them again for the rest of your life!"
From the moment she witnessed Luffy and the others invading a Yonko's stronghold just to bring him home, Reiju knew the Straw Hat Pirates held Sanji in absolute reverence. To completely disregard the terrifying reality of an Emperor's domain over a single crewmate spoke volumes of Luffy's unyielding devotion.
"Get some rest. I'm leaving," Sanji muttered after a long pause. He turned and began walking slowly toward the exit.
Reiju watched his retreating figure, remaining silent. She had already said everything that needed to be said; the final choice rested entirely on his shoulders.
Stepping out into the corridor, Sanji walked aimlessly through the castle, Reiju's parting words echoing relentlessly through his consciousness. If there was a single regret left in his life, it was undoubtedly that unfinished voyage...
"You're a damn good cook! Come board my ship and be a pirate!"
Those familiar, chaotic invitations that marked the dawn of his journey swirled in his ears, refusing to fade.
Clutching the picnic basket that had been thoroughly soaked by the torrential rain, Sanji's face was devoid of animation, his movements mimicking those of a hollow shell. The colossal pressure of a Yonko's domain loomed over him like an unyielding mountain; he had too many vulnerabilities to consider, too many precious things he wished to shield. Yet, he possessed no leverage, forced to watch his circumstances unravel in utter helplessness.
Under the weight of this crushing despair, his perception of reality had become thoroughly warped.
Helplessness, pessimism, and absolute despair...
Within the haze of his mind, snapshots of his vibrant, raucous days with the Straw Hat crew materialized one after another.
Luffy, Usopp, Robin, Nami, Chopper, Franky, Brook... and Zoro!
His thoughts were a tangled mess, and by the time his senses finally snapped back to reality, Sanji realized his feet had carried him completely out of the chateau's perimeter.
Standing alone on the desolate, rain-slicked street, a sudden, profound hollowness bloomed within his chest. He felt as though he had no destination left in the world, entirely blind to where his future was supposed to lie.
"Sanji! I'll stay right here and wait for you! I only eat the food you make! If you don't come back, I'll starve to death right here!"
A sudden jolt of electricity shot through Sanji's spirit. Luffy's desperate, gut-wrenching scream filled every single cell of his body with absolute clarity.
Locking his gaze onto a specific trajectory, his legs blurred into a series of rapid afterimages. His body moved entirely on instinct, accelerating with every stride. With every foot of ground he covered toward the promised location, the suffocating agony in his chest eased a fraction.
Yet, a profound sense of terror simultaneously bloomed within his soul. He felt utterly unworthy of facing the members of the Straw Hat crew; he had subjected the captain who had traveled thousands of miles to rescue him to brutal physical and verbal degradation. That was an immutable, agonizing truth that could never be erased.
He didn't know what primordial force was driving his body to sprint with such reckless abandon, but he couldn't stop.
Finally, he burst into the perimeter of the battlefield, which had been reduced to a total wasteland.
Shattered weapons littered the ground, countless bodies lay motionless, and the earth itself was fractured into jagged chasms. It was blatantly obvious that a catastrophic conflict had taken place here.
"They caused a commotion of this scale..." Sanji didn't have the luxury to overthink. He frantically began overturning debris, searching one quadrant after another.
Not him... not him... still not him...
Just as Sanji located a figure whose attire closely mirrored Luffy's, a calm voice drifted from his flank.
"He's already dead."
Sanji's body went completely rigid. His pupils shrank to pinpricks, and the damp cigarette slipped from his lips, tumbling silently to the mud. As tears began to rapidly pool in his eyes, he remained utterly speechless, choked by horror.
"I'm not lying to you. He really is dead; I was the one who cut him down," the voice continued.
BOOM!
Sanji erupted into a violent frenzy. Searing flames ignited across his leg as he drove a catastrophic kick straight toward Kenshin's position.
Yes—the man standing beside him was indeed Kenshin.
"AAAAAGH!" Sanji roared, a primal, animalistic scream tearing from his throat.
A single, devastating realization consumed his consciousness: I was the one who killed Luffy...
Clang! Kenshin smoothly cleared a section of his blade from its sheath, blocking the incoming fiery heel with absolute precision.
"You bastard!"
Finding his initial strike neutralized, Sanji launched himself into the air, his legs weaving into a rapid, cross-cutting barrage of flaming kicks.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
Without exception, every single concussive blow was neatly parried by Kenshin's steel. A sharp, cold glint flared within Kenshin's eyes as arcs of violent lightning began to crackle along the length of his blade, and he unleashed a blistering counter-slash.
BOOM!
The earth collapsed under the feedback of the strike, and Kenshin instantly followed up with three blindingly fast slashes in rapid succession. The assault was as swift as a lightning strike; an ordinary combatant stood absolutely zero mathematical chance of evading under these parameters.
However, a faint crimson glow flashed within Sanji's eyes. Moving purely on sub-second reaction speeds, he performed a series of micro-maneuvers in mid-air, successfully threading the needle through Kenshin's attack vectors.
Both fighters touched down simultaneously. Kenshin shot a calculating, appreciative glance toward the cook, and the steel of his blade slowly began to darken into a polished, pitch black.
He was coating the steel in a dense layer of Armament Haki.
Sanji slowly raised his leg, his aura burning with intense fury. Both men stood poised at a razor-thin edge of lethality.
"Kenshin, what's going on? Did another enemy show up?" At that exact moment, a slouched, exhausted silhouette materialized from behind a massive boulder situated to Kenshin's rear.
"Huh? LUFFY!!" Sanji's eyes went wide, his jaw dropping in sheer disbelief.
The completely drained Luffy snapped out of his lethargy the exact microsecond his eyes locked onto Sanji, his spirit instantly surging to its peak.
"Sanji! You actually came, ahahaha! Cough... But seriously, you took way too damn long."
"Drake, is this the cook you were waiting for?" Kenshin asked, realizing a severe miscommunication had occurred. He smoothly slid his longsword back into its scabbard with a crisp click.
"Yep!" Luffy grinned broadly, nodding with absolute conviction before his gaze softened, resting entirely on Sanji.
Seeing Luffy breathing and completely intact, the crushing weight that had suffocated Sanji's heart finally evaporated.
Grumble... RUMBLE...
A thunderous, rolling roar suddenly erupted from Luffy's midsection, and his legs instantly gave out, causing him to collapse flat onto his backside. After enduring a night of continuous, high-intensity combat without a single calorie of sustenance, his physical parameters had long since breached their absolute threshold.
One had to remember that for an entity like Luffy, the baseline energy required simply to maintain vital functions was more than triple that of a conventional human. To survive an extended battle under these extreme restrictions was nothing short of a miracle.
"Eat it if you can still chew," Sanji muttered, setting the rain-soaked basket down directly in front of Luffy. He turned his back to the captain, sitting down a short distance away on the dirt. "It got drenched in the storm, and I dropped the basket on the way here..."
Luffy peeled back the cover of the container, his lips slowly curling into a massive, triumphant grin. He snatched a mangled chicken leg and stuffed it directly into his mouth, crunching through it before swallowing hard. "DELICIOUS!"
"Mphf... nom, nom, nom... Gulp... Delicious!"
"Stop lying to yourself," Sanji whispered, propping his forehead against his palm as his voice choked with a dense, weeping tremor.
"Isn't this literally a collection of everyone's favorite things? The sandwiches and hamburgers Robin and Franky love the most... nom, nom, nom..."
"This is seriously the best thing ever! Man, I really wish they were all here to try some, crunch, crunch, gulp..." Luffy laughed through a mouth full of food, tears of sheer joy mixing with the rain on his face.
Kenshin stood a short distance away, choosing not to utter a single word. He simply watched the two in absolute silence.
This was a space that belonged strictly to the two of them.