Better Buck Next Time
Kid Luffy hadn’t ended up doing what Sanji suggested (clearly) and Kunikida found himself evicting him from the Oxbridge torture chambers.
The boy had begrudgingly left, but not before telling his seniors that they’d need his help if they wanted to get any real torturing done.
Kunikida had taken the time to find some clothes to cover his glorious ass. He now wore a bin bag, a spare from Victor’s old days as the bin man studies teacher. It suited him quite well.
They sat Clay down at a table. His hands were cuffed to the table. They weren't sure how dangerous this man was, so it was better to be safe than sorry. He somehow had access to a lot of raisins, very frightening.
The torture room walls were covered with various instruments and weapons. Clay audibly gulped. He was looking forward to having more instruments forced inside of him after his experience swallowing Yuki’s shaft. He saved so many innocent, untainted students from Yuki’s large shaft and would damn well do it a million times over. After all, the boi was a victim of the trauma he’d experienced through the Triwizard Tournament he’d signed himself up for and the subsequent knightmares he experienced since.
The single bulb dimly lit the room, swinging above their heads, casting dark moving shadows on the faces of the interrogators. It made their faces all angles, as sharp as the knives that lined the wall behind Clay.
Kunikida was silent at first, watching their suspect through his glinting spectacles, arms crossed over his bin-bagged stomach. He watched Clay squirm in his seat, his eyes flickering from the weapons on the walls to his captors.
Finally, Clay spoke. “Konichiwa, Kunikida-kun,’ he said in a thikk Amerikan accent. His brows were furrowed angrily.
Zoro had not been paying attention until this point. His eyes glinted in anger - how dare this American piece of trash appropriate his heritage. His hand reached for his swords, accidentally pulling Tamaki’s handcuffed hand with it. Annoyed, he immediately destroyed the handcuffs. He wasn’t going to get lost in the torture chambers JEEZ he was here more often than any of them, it was the most relaxing part of the University. Plus, he always liked to spend quality time with Shanks and Hawkeye-Sensei.
Tanizaki winced. He’d never felt so personally offended in his lyfe. He vomited all over Kunikida’s ideal, not ideal.
“Clay. Clay, Clay, Clay,” Kunikida began, disappointment curling around each mention of his name.
“Kunikida-kun, Kunikida-kun. Kunikida-kun?” replied Clay innocently.
“Naruto!” said Naruto happily.
“I'm sure you know why you're here,” said Kunikida to Clay, ignoring Naruto.
“No! I have no idea!” Clay held out his hands, mimicking confusion.
“Why don't you tell me why you think you are here?” Kunikida pressed.
“I really d-dont know!‘ Clay’s hands shook. He clasped his hands in front of him. On the back of his thumb he had thirteen tally lines.
“Where are all the raisins from, Clay? Why do you have so many raisins?” Naruto leered from the corner. His scowl was menacing to Clay, mostly bc the boi was a wuss.
A tear slid down Clay’s cheek. “P-p-please, sempai, not the raisins! I-I-I - anything but the raisins!”
“Don’t push a man when he’s down,” Tamaki took Kunikida to the side and muttered in his ear. It was clear Clay had been pushed too hard. The man was shaking with fright, exceedingly close to pissing his pants.
“Tamaki’s right,” Tanizaki added. “Ask him the difficult questions, and he’ll clam right up. Start a little softer.”
Kunikida begrudgingly returned to Clay and pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose. If he couldn’t ask the rael questions that were disturbing him as a detective, perhaps it was time for something else. “Today, just two hours ago, Oxbridge was a victim of theft. The theft of a deer leg. We need that deer leg back, Clay. Can you tell me where you've taken it?”
“Nani?” cried Clay, pronouncing it like ‘nanny’. “A deer leg?” he suddenly paused, his eyes wide, clearly remembering something. “I know nothing of a deer leg,” he mumbled, not meeting Kunikida’s eye even though Kunikida’s eyes were now only a few millimetres away from his, as the ADA member leaned in ‘menacingly’.
“Listen, this is a big offence. But if you confess now, we can go easy on you. We can reduce your sentence from a death penalty to a lifetime of imprisonment and torture. How does that sound? Pretty good, am I right guys?” Kunikida turned to his fellow students. “Am I right, or am I right? I'm always right! In this school, in this torture chamber, I. AM. GOD!”
“Yare yare daze,” Clay scoffed, pronouncing it ‘yair yair daiz’. “This is a sugoi accusation. What evidence do you have? Eh? Nothing!” Clay looked surprisingly calm. Now the pressure had changed from the raisins to the deer leg, he had become more collected, but also more irritable. His eyes flickered with anger; it looked like he could lash out at any second.
“I know how to make him talk,” said Naruto, surprisingly sirius for once.
Kunikida smiled to himself. Clearly the ninja was about to use one of his advanced jutsus to intimidate and/or torture this criminal, and Kunikida was not one to oppose police brutality when it was so clearly required.
Naruto stepped forward as all those around him backed out of the way, his hands making the correct signs for this dangerous attacc. Clay gazed at him, enraptured. Sign language? If only he had taken that sign language course at school. He had been too busy covering up school shootings to be in attendance for it.
“Sexy Jutsu!” cried Naruto, shouting out his attacc name in true Shounen style.
Suddenly he transformed into a naked brunette woman that had smoke somehow concealing all the not-appropriate-for-TV bits of her body.
Kunikida’s nose gushed blood in a manner that even Sanji could not achieve. The force of the blood was so strong it lifted Kunikida up towards the ceiling of the chamber. After this, he would clearly need a blood transfusion, perhaps he would even need Yosano’s healing power. He didn’t seem to be showing any signs of being able to stop the blood flow.
“This - this- this IS MY IDEAL!” he shrieked, nose bleeding, mouth drooling, glasses fogging, waving his Ideal around getting it soaked in blood and drool, ruining it more effectively than vomit ever did.
“Naruto-kun, please, I’ll even break up with Firenze for you,” he pleaded, “just let me paint you like one of those French girls.”
Clay had a thing for women. He had a thing for any woman that showed a small indication of not hating him. As a virgin, regardless of the many long-term relationships he’d been in with various ghosts, he very much enjoyed any kind of exposure to the female body. His main problem was how he could only shag ghosts of dead people, making it difficult for him to plead sanity to the few rael people in his lyfe. He’d only kept the gun from Yuki’s attempted school shooting because he wasn’t entirely sure it was real.
Needless to say, Naruto’s sexi-jitsu was enough to make Clay’s veins thud, heart soar, temperature rise..
Kid Luffy poked his head into the torture chamber. By this point he was expecting his seniors to have called him in so he could showcase to them his new tricks. Uncle Hockey was a very talented man, it was entirely understandable that Chuuya had stopped talking when Hawkeye even suggested that another student was talented. Words like that from a master like Hawkeye were a shining endorsement.
‘No!’ Luffy cried. They were doing it all wrong! How dare these students ruin the holy sanctity of the torture chambers by defiling it with silly shenanigans??? Luffy had recently learnt of such gross acts in the hit song Pantasaurus. ‘Get out of my way!’ He cried. He’d do uncle Hawkeye proud!
Clay was thankfully strapped to the main torture chair, they’d just prised an old prime minister from it (his body had unfortunately gotten stuck after his skin melted). Uncle Hockey was very keen to teach kid Luffy about powerful historical figures in the world, and had knelt before him in that very torture chamber and told kid Luffy about how the man hadn’t supported women’s rights movements, hadn’t supported LGBTQ+ peoples, and didn’t like people who weren’t white. Hawkeye was trying to be not too brazen with the young boi, didn’t want to steal his innocence from him. He then proceeded to turn on the chair the man was sitting on, electrocuting him.
Luffy yeeted through all of the table legs and chair legs, dodged the students and flicked the switch by the big red button.
Clay started crying. In actuality he had never stopped, not since he’d been conceived. Bulging tears dropped off his cheeks. The tickling machine was redundant in the corner. No, Luffy had pulled out the big guns.
By this time, Naruto had realised his jutsu was too powerful for this group, perhaps for this world. The last thing he wanted to do was hurt his comrades, and in this moment even Kunikida was a comrade. He changed back to his original form, vowing to himself to only use this most-powerful weapon in the most dire of situations from now on. Even the nine-tails agreed, the sexi-jitsu’s power was unparalleled by anything in the entire universe. Kunikida’s blood flow was finally dying down, Zoro who had up til now remained indifferent, caught the man and brought him down, tossing him to the side in disgust. Even that idiotic cook Sanji wasn’t this embarrassing. Tanizaki held his head back for him, Tamaki kept a safe distance - didn’t want to get commoner blood on his £130,000,000 clothes or £250,000,000 shoes. Slowly, but surely, Kunikida managed to regain his strength as Clay patiently waited, Zoro napped, and Naruto ate ramen. After a good forty-five minutes of waiting, Kunikida jumped up more determined than ever to get a confession out of this villain.
“If it wasn't you that took Chopper’s leg, then what were you doing skulking around the grounds?” Kunikida pressed.
“Yeah! This isn't the first time you've been spotted either. You've been following us since we left Knottingham!” Tanizaki cried accusingly.
“Naru hodo… so you just ASSUMED it was me? Well when you assume, you make an ASS out of U and ME! And what an ass it is!” Clay commented mildly.
“We can't trust his word anyway! We all saw how he covered up Yuki’s attempt at a mass shooting! How do we no know that he didn't help the guy that took Chopper’s leg?” Tamaki asked.
“That's a great point,” Kunikida nodded. He was surprised that Tamaki had been able to contribute something so useful. “Well then Clay, what do you say to that?” Kunikida slammed his hands down on the desk, punctuating his words. He was at the end of his rope with this questioning.
“I-I-I-I don't know what to say! What do you WANT me to say? I just want to go home! I have some important tapes to be listening to right now! J-just get me out of here! I didn't do anything wrong!” Clay begged.
Kid luffy picked his nose, bored. Usually by this point he would have moved up the levels of torture, by Uncle Hockey had made him promise he wouldn’t TOUCH the other machines without his presence. If only the Great Luffini was out and about, alas Luffy had lost his wizard outfit and couldn’t risk having his rael identity discovered.
‘I don’t want to have to do this, Clay,” Tanizaki said slowly, “But I’m afraid you’ve left me no choice.”
“N-N-NOOO! T-Tanizaki! Tankizaki-san, y-y-you can’t! Please! You-you can’t!”
“I’m sorry.” Tanizaki was holding one plump raisin between his thumb and forefinger. Clay trembled.
“Just tell us what we need to know and no one has to get hurt,” Naruto said.
“I - please, have mercy, HAVE MERCY!” Clay begged.
Tanizaki squeezed the raisin between his fingers and flattened it entirely, fingers slick with raisin juice.
“No!” Clay sobbed. “No, no, no,” his head dropped on his shoulders, he shook it back and forth as if trying to shake out a bad memory. He bit his lower lip to keep his cries in, but he was entirely broken.
“Tanizaki,” Kunikda hissed, “I thought you said to start off EASY, not make him lose his mind!”
Tanizaki placed both his palms on the table and leant forward, leering at Clay, “We have twelve more raisins where that came from, and we’ll obliterate them one...by one…” voice low, tone steady and intimidating. Even Tamaki placed his hands over his mouth, not used to the soft-spoken Tanizaki speaking in such a harsh manner.
“N-no,” Clay cried, “Don’t. Don’t take away my last memory - of Hazel - uh, Hannah, sorry, i forgot her name, I only spoke to her once and then she killed herself because she was too sexy!!”
“Did YOU ever tell her that?” Tanizaki hissed, “Or did you just let this ‘Hannah’ pass through lyfe not thinking she was sexy enough?? Because that’s a crime in itself, you practically put the gun to her head.”
“S-she - she knew she was sexy! She had the best ass of the year, everyone knew it!” Clay’s sobs had only gotten worse once he saw Kunikida sketch out twelve more raisins and lay them in a row on the table before them.
“Wait stop! This is not gentleman-like behaviour! If this continues for much longer then I'm not sure I can stay. I can't support this treatment of Clay, even if he is a criminal. It just isn't right!” Tamaki announced. Unlike the others, he wasn't used to these kinds of situations. The sight of a man suffering in front of him was just too much to bear.
“Well then what do you suggest we do?!?” Kunikida yelled. “Just let Chopper down?”
“No!” Tamaki replied. But he wasn't sure. He kept his head bent, his fringe covering his eyes and casting a shadow over his face. Could he really watch twelve innocent raisins be tortured for a crime of another man??? Would he be able to live with himself to just stand by and do nothing? He clenched his fists angrily. What kind of man was he, really? When it all came down to it, was he just going to run away?
“Tamaki, trust me when I say this,” Kunikida stared at the boy darkly, bin bag creased by his elbow, “If you don’t stop being a wuss, I’ll tell Haruhi that you’re not actually her father.”
The blood in Tamaki’s face drained. He knew his daughter would not be able to survive through such a revelation. How could Kunikida say such a thing, hit him where it hurt?? The day before had been Father’s Day and Tamaki’s delightful little angel had gotten him a whole mechanical pencil from the Salvation Army and a cold, half-drunk mug of commoner’s coffee. He couldn’t break their precious bond, it would be too much for the babie girl.
“He’s not actually her father?” demanded Naruto, eyes wide, startled by this revelation. This was like being told Shanks was not actually Luffy’s uncle. It just wouldn’t make any sense! Was Naruto real, was any of this real? Did he even know these people, did they ever study together? How could he trust anything anymore, if even the most intrinsic truths were being questioned? Even Zoro stared in shock. You thought you knew a guy, but all you knew were the lies about the guy. Zoro and Naruto shared a look, the world crashing around both of them, a sense of kinship formed by this shared shocking experience.
“I hope you’re proud of yourself!” Tamaki cried, “Tearing another family part! Well believe me, when I leave to buy a bottle of milk, I come back!”
“My father never did,” Kid Luffy muttered, finger up his nostril. He stared upward, thinking back to the final time he saw his father; the man ruffled his hair, bags packed by the doorway, and told Luffy he’d be back with a bottle of semi-skimmed. He never was. Next time Luffy even saw a picture of his dad was on those wanted posters he saw everywhere.
Clay looked back and forth between his captors, watching the argument, eyes wide. How long would this suffering last for? If they didn't let him go soon, he really would kill himself this time!
“If you guys dont let me go soon, I really will kill myself this time!” Clay yelled.
Zoro sniffed, “He seems like the kind of guy who’d shoot himself in the head but survive and then somehow end up with a walking stick for no apparent reason.”
“Seconded,” Tanizaki piped up. He punched the table. “Would you look at that...three more raisins...destroyed.”
“Watashi o koroshite,” Clay whispered.
“What's that supposed to mean?” Zoro demanded. Was this scrawny little raisin-hoarding INSECT insulting them?!?
“Kill me!” Clay screamed.
“That can be arranged,” Zoro growled, not understanding that ‘kill me’ was a translation. He still thought whatever had been spoken earlier was some kind of diss. He may be ethnically Japanese, but the only exposure he’d ever had to the language was through anime.
Kunikida held an arm out to stop Zoro, and shook his head. “We don't care if you die or not Clay. But this is your last chance. Tell us what we want to know, or you'll have to watch another raisin die. It'll all be your fault. Another life lost, that you could have prevented. If only you cared enough to do something about it.”
It was the last straw hat for Clay. He’d watched four raisins die, then was told that if he committed suicide it wouldn’t matter. Would he even get a court case??? Would people eat his raisins and reminisce about Clay?
“I-I’ll tell you everything!” Clay cried, “P-please, just - just - don’t
“It all started a whole few hours ago…
Clay walked into the main Oxbridge common room. He’d heard that the fireplace was a place where not only were there fires, but one could see the head of their loved one. Clay missed head. So he went to the Oxbridge common room fire place and kneeled in front of it, ready to put his head in the flames.
Just then, a demonic man entered. “Shalom,” he greeted warmly.
“Shalom,” Clay turned toward the very attractive man.
“I have something to show you,” the demon said. “Follow me.”
The demon, Sebastian, led Clay to the bed chambers of the Oxbridge students, separated by gender and species. A small two-legged monstrosity lay on his back in the middle of a child-size race at themed crib, two legs absolutely perpendicular to his body, hooves pointed toward the ceiling.
“T-t-then,” Clay cried to his audience, “The demon held my head in place and m-made me watch while the antelope had his leg sawn off!”
“Antelope, or DEER?” Kunikida lent forward on the table, “This is an important distinction, Clay-chan…” Kunny-kun squinted at the Clay threateningly.
“Something with hooves,” replied Clay-chan. “A-a horse, or a small wooly mammoth, or - or…” Clay sweeted trying to think of more hooved animals.
“But who did the actual chopping?” Tamaki asked, on the edge of his seat.
“I - uh - brown hair, long brown hair - the best - the best ass - i - there’s nothing else, no other physical description,” Clay cried, “She’s just too unexceptional!”
“TELL US!” Kunikida roared, spittle showering Clay and making his hair drip.
“It was who it always is - the one who follows me,” Clay said dramatically, trying to blink Kunikida’s spittle from his vision, “She’ll take your legs too. ALL of your legs! Legs get cut, and legs get sucked. It’s all my fault i should have never allowed a ‘best ass’ list to be passed around. If only i had been more vigilant, no one would have to suffer,”
“What’s he on about?” said Zoro.
“Ghost!Hannah!” cried Clay. “She’s here right now. SHE’S BEHIND YOU. INSIDE KUN-KUN’S BIN BAG, CAN’T YOU SEE THE WAY SHE LEERS! SHE’S THE REASON I CAN’T GET LAID!”
The room collectively sighed in disappointment. Right when they thought they had found all the answers, Clay had revealed the truth. Or at least HIS truth.
“It’s funny how truth differs so much,” Tanizaki sighed introspectively. “Some people think someone else bins their suicide note, others interpret fear and social pressures as being a dickwad...I mean, someone could literally blame someone else for their death after they’ve had what would widely be considered a healthy romantic relationship.”
Tanizaki nodded in agreement. Clearly Tamaki had been watching too much of the hit TV show thirteen reasons why, not to be mistaken for the cooking show thirteen raisins why.
“I really wanted to shove it in dazai’s face that we solved the mystery before him too,” Kunikida said sadly.
Zoro and Naruto nodded in understanding. They too had rivals of sorts they had wanted to best, even if it was in something as meaningless as looking for a crippled reindeer’s leg.
“NANI? I-I-I-I don't understand. I told you what happened! What are you saying?” Clay shouted.
“Clay… there is no ghost!Hannah. Hannah died. We all saw it. It was all on the news. What you've been seeing, it's not real. You're hallucinating again,” Tamaki told him sadly.
“No! No that can't be true. I saw her!” Clay yelled, a vein showing on his head.
“Is he on drugs?” asked Kid Luffy. He didn’t know what the phrase meant really, but people seemed to use it in situations like these.
“It could be that he's telling the partial truth. He may have really seen the leg being stolen. But we know it wasn't Hannah. He must have edited the memory in his mind,” Kunkida told the group. He turned back to clay. “Clay?” he asked slowly, sweetly, like he was talking to a child. “Did you see where ‘Hannah’ took the leg?”
“N-n-no. I don't think so. Everything went so quick. I-i-i think she left the room with it. But I didn't follow her! She told me to leave her alone! Her eyes were telling me she wanted me to follow but her mouth told me to leave! So I did!” Clay sobbed. He was clearly reliving past trauma.
Tanizai sighed, shaking his head. “Alas if he was enrolled in this prestigious university perhaps we could go book him in to see Ayato once in a while, but as it is Clay we cannot do anything to help you.”
Zoro nodded, he understood exactly where Tanizaki was coming from.
Naruto nodded, he also agreed.
Tamaki nodded, though he wished there was more he could to help.
Kunikida nodded, for there was really nothing the students could do.
Luffy nodded, only because he wanted to be in on it even though he didn’t really get it.
Clay nodded, he understood the difficult situation that the students were in and didn’t want to get between them and the school. “Arigato gozaimas anyway.” he said to them in his strong American accent, and meant it.
And with that they all left him tied to the chair, kid Luffy following behind them. After all, what kind of friends would they be if they spent all of their time freeing Clay from his bounds rather than finding who was the real criminal who stole deer Chopper’s third leg?
“Let's meet with the others and tell them what we have found,” Kunikida sighed.