Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Prologue: Shallows; 0-200

“ACE!” he screams, raw and bloody and broken—drawn out in a cry that reaches across the roiling waves like claws.

And Akainu laughs.

Around them, the sea churns, the sky above a mess of heavy clouds thick with the promise of rain—but the storm hasn’t begun. Not yet. (Not in any way that matters.) Still, the massive fishing boat rocks, tossed against the swells like a toy as Luffy lunges for his brother and for the human holding him aloft by the throat in the middle of the deck.

Ace’s tail—once a beautiful, pristine, abyssal-black—is a mess of snapped scales and viscera at the point where his torso connects, and still—Akainu braces one foot against its base and yanks, dragging the serrated, locked whaling harpoon through the pool of Ace’s guts.

There’s a burble of blood from Ace’s lips, but it’s nothing—a reaction, liquid forced through his body by function alone. Ace makes no sound.

Somewhere above the roar of the wind and waves, a voice wails his brother’s name over and over, but Luffy barely registers it—barely registers it as his own as he tries to drag himself across the slick wood, reaching out to kill or to save, he isn’t sure which—except there’s nothing left to save, except—no— maybe, maybe—

And then suddenly, Akainu stops—frowns. Drops Ace like he’s nothing in a heap and stomps one terrible, booted foot against his head. “You weren’t the one,” he shouts, furious, spitting, stomping again and again and again and again—

“Nothing changed! This is the age of man—the sea was supposed to be mine—the tides under my order—”

Then he freezes and turns—zeroing in on Luffy as he inches in agonizing increments through his own mess of blood and exhaustion. Akainu’s eyes narrow and the hand around his gore-tangled spear tightens, white-knuckled and violent.

“You. The one it was protecting—”

But Luffy just stares, reaching out for Ace, for Ace—even as his arms shake from the exertion of dragging his own body out of the water, of fending off half of Akainu’s hunting party—and the voice keeps sobbing Ace, Ace, Ace into the howling wind.

Akainu takes a step forward—

Something grabs Luffy from behind and Akainu snarls—just as familiar hands haul Luffy back, tossing him toward the edge of the deck. Sabo’s eyes are wide, unhinged, his face ashen and his own tail a barely-recognizable blue through the red mess around them.

“Go, go—” he yells, bracing his arm against Luffy’s own torso and dragging him back another length. “It’s too late! Iva says they’ve got mines—Luffy—the boat going to blow and we have to—”

Luffy tries to speak and no sound comes out—but the voice calling his brother’s name doesn’t stop. With everything he has left, he shoves Sabo aside and lurches forward again, smashing his brother against the deck hard enough to knock the air from his chest—because he has to get back—he has to tell Ace—

—and the human roars, rage incarnate, as he cocks his arm back to launch the horrific chew of metal and spikes—

—and Luffy barely registers it, because Ace is right there and he’s not moving and they need to go! He needs to get up and they need to go because they know the plan and Sabo said—

The world explodes.

Part I

(two years later)

No one tries to stop him as he ascends the massive yacht’s gangway, a lazy swing in his step and one arm casually draped across the sword hilts at his waist. It’s broad daylight, just past mid-afternoon under clear May skies, and the marina should be empty—devoid of day-trippers enjoying the half-decent early summer weather—but not deserted. Not like this.

They’d known, then—known he would be here today.

A muffled, strangled gasp breaks the eerie silence, and as Zoro turns he makes eye contact with some douchebag in loafers midway down the dock, wide-eyed and pale, who must have missed the memo. For a moment, Zoro just stares him down—before the man visibly quivers and scurries away.

Zoro scoffs.

They’re all avoiding him like pets who’ve pissed the carpet simply because one of their own has made it to his list. And they all know who he is, too, because this is the fuck-you money part of town; half the rich assholes who keep their yachts here are somewhere in his uncle’s books.

He wanders through the boat with no specific destination in mind and no clue of the floor plan. His target is here, after all. Zoro will find him eventually—he always does, no matter how long it takes.

Maybe that’s part of the fear, he thinks, and part of why Crocodile so rarely sends him out. He is more than capable of playing the long game, of embodying murder as a pursuit predator.

To wield that power too often would break the spell.

The yacht itself is just as quiet as the harbor, a great white abomination with floors and levels of all things—too many rooms and plush carpeting and a galley pulled from the bowels of some bullshit-fancy restaurant.

As he passes through one of at least two dining areas (or the same one twice, maybe) a massive, darkwood liquor cabinet catches his eye. Through the pane he can see rows of expensive, cut-glass bottles lined up like trophies—and he grins.

There’s a padlock on the case, but he doesn’t spare it a second glance. Nami might be able to pick it, but she’s not here—and he doesn’t particularly care about stealth. He hasn’t made a secret of his presence. No one has.

After a moment’s consideration, he grips the back of a nearby (heavily upholstered, expensive but not built for seafaring) dining chair and hurls it toward the cabinet just so. It catches on the wooden edge and cracks, clipping the side of the glass and shattering the whole thing—along with a third of the bottles. A third, but not all. Perfect.

The sound it all makes is near-deafening, and if his target has any denial left Zoro doubts it’ll last much longer.

No staff comes running at the noise, either, and he wonders idly if they’ve been sent home. It’s unlikely, really, given what he knows about his target. In all probability, they’ve fled or—at the very least—left their employer to his fate.

Shards of glass crack under his boots as he crosses to the destroyed mess, everything together worth more money than most people might see in a dozen lifetimes. Far more than the average public servant. Even a magistrate. Especially a magistrate.

And the liquor itself is also extremely, deeply illegal.

The bootlegged alcohol isn't his concern—not when there’s a high chance it’s come through their own organization. No, what his bosses have taken issue with is its brazen display—among other things. (Many other things.)

Zoro cracks open the empty doorframe—then grabs the biggest, gaudiest, most expensive-looking bottle still left standing and inspects it. Shrugs. Carries on his way with the neck held loosely in his hand as he wanders back into the bowels of the ship. He’ll consider it a tip for his hard work.

(Nami will get a kick out of that, he thinks.)

He finds the magistrate sitting straight-backed and sweating in a room that’s more study than personal office. Like the rest of the yacht, it’s ostentatious and terrible—a room to match the man who looks ready to piss himself the second Zoro kicks down his door. Because Zoro does kick down his door, just to be a little dramatic—he slams it open with his foot after standing outside a second too long, and his target lets out a yelp fit for the world’s most pathetic little dog.

Zoro doesn’t even have to say anything.

He just stands there, no swords drawn and a five-digit bottle of contraband rum in one hand, and the magistrate looks ready to vomit all over the papers in front of him. He doesn’t though—not immediately—and Zoro has to give him credit for that.

After a beat of silence, the judge starts to say something, more garbled exclamation than words, and Zoro raises an eyebrow. It’s enough for a new sheen of sweat to break out across his forehead.

“Mr. Roronoa, sir! I’ve b-been expecting you! I have a new proposal I think your employers might be interested in.” He starts to stand, but Zoro leans against the doorframe—blocking the exit in a way that’s both casual and predatory—and the judge immediately sits back down.

Zoro drawls, “Probably not, I’ll be honest,” and then regrets responding at all. Jobs always take twice as long when they start talking. Everyone always wants to bargain. And beg. And it’s a waste of his—and their—limited time.

Predictably, the man nods—all teeth and smiles and relief like death’s just agreed with him anyway. Zoro can see the whites of his eyes.

“Of course, of course—” the magistrate leans forward, nearly upending half the shit on his desk. “Then maybe I can offer you something. More than they’re paying you, I’m sure—there’s a rumor going around, you see, that someone with real power is willing to pay over two hundred-thousand dollars in exchange—”

Zoro shrugs, barely listening. This is too easy, easier than he’s worth, and he’s fully aware that he’s only on this job because of his status in the company. No challenge, no chase. Even though it should be a point of pride, the stupidity of the situation strikes him almost—well, it’s not demeaning, really, but some discomfort just to the left of it.

This isn’t a fight. The man in front of him is soft and wet.

Dinner.

“—ire a group of extremely competent seamen, you know—fisherman with experience catching exotic game, if you will—because they’ll have the best chance of killing it fi—”

The shrug turns into a stretch, and Zoro cracks the joints in his neck. It’s more to force the energy out of his system than because he needs it, but the judge in front of him pales—voice hitching up half an octave as he continues wheezing.

“—ecognize that many of the locals view it as some kind of religious icon o-or, I don’t know, a sea god, but surely you’re a more pragmatic man than tha—”

The begging begins.

Zoro sighs and steps fully into the room, crossing toward the giant desk where he sets the bottle of liquor. The man doesn’t even stop talking—just stares at it in horror as he tries desperately to save himself.

“—s far more than I owe Crocodile—or Mihawk, even, and—and that kind of money should be enough to clear any outstanding de—”

“It’s not about your debt,” Zoro breaks in, already wanting this over with. “You weren’t smart. We don’t keep you in office to make things harder for us—that’s not how it works.” He sighs.

For all that his priorities have changed since childhood, he still believes in giving his targets the chance to die with dignity, a courtesy explanation at best. Not that anyone ever takes it for what it is—a kind of mercy. (Not that he makes it easy.)

“It’s about respect,” he continues. “You knew you were going to piss off the wrong people—our people—the second you accepted his cash.”

With one hand, Zoro slowly starts to draw Kitetsu—and the acrid smell of ammonia fills the air. The magistrate really has pissed himself, and Zoro clicks his tongue in disgust.

Utterly shameless, the magistrate grovels, “Look—look, I admit it—dealing with Akainu was a mistake. Tell your boss—your bosses—I said the governor’s campaign was a mistake and I’ll give them everything—” and grasps at the bottom of Zoro’s jacket like a drowning man. Zoro places the Kitetsu’s edge against his neck and he freezes, trembling—openly weeping.

The whole thing would be pathetic, Zoro thinks, if it weren’t so predictable.

“Are those really going to be your last words?” Zoro asks, one eyebrow raised, and the judge just wails like a child.

The soft skin at his throat parts like warm butter.

On his way out of the study, Zoro swipes the blood from his sword onto the room’s plush red-velvet curtains and grabs the rum, inspecting its gold-trimmed label. It’s fancy fancy—the kind of prize his uncle might have lined up behind his own I-am-arrogant-asshole-with-power desk in a decanter of all things. Zoro can’t help but marvel at the stupidity and the audacity needed to flaunt an entire cabinet of the stuff—an elected official, no less—and, vaguely, he regrets smashing the bulk of it.

It’s the principle of the thing, though; good rum bought with a double bribe. No one reaps the rewards of betrayal. No one double-crosses the Cross Guild.

Still, Mihawk might appreciate the gift—so, naturally, Zoro is going to get absolutely smashed on it himself, his uncle be-damned. His next fight isn’t until tomorrow and Nami’s out on a job, so he has nothing better to do, really.

He doesn’t even bother concealing the rum on his way back to the gravel parking lot—just keeps it dangling loosely in his hand as he passes yacht after pristine pleasure yacht, another world entirely from the fisherman’s district down the shore. They’re barely boats at all, he thinks.

Even the marina’s shrine—a gaudy, gold-and-turquoise thing right at the edge of the water—is only vaguely recognizable. As Zoro crosses off the docks toward his motorcycle in the lot, he has no choice but to look it in the eyes—the twisting sea god, rendered with so much artistic liberty Zoro can’t tell where the fish ends and the man begins. The figure’s arms are outstretched in supplication to—something—with a massive dish in its hands, but the collection plate is empty. Why pray to the gods when you’ve got everything already, after all?

Not that he himself believes, really. They’d learned different lessons back at home, and—here, now, so many years later—he's never bothered to ask. One god’s just as good as the next, he figures; or no god at all.

When he finally reaches his bike, he tucks the bottle of rum into one of its soft leather saddlebags—but before he can remove his swords, someone approaches erratically from behind, gravel crunching under their feet as they run. They’re not a threat, though—and when he turns, Zoro sees one of the maintenance boys zipping toward him with a nervous energy, like he doesn’t want to be seen. Even though they’re in broad daylight, out in the middle of a lot.

His nickname fits, Zoro thinks—carrot, onion, celery, something. Vegetable One at best. There’s barely any room left up top with all the anxiety; earnest, talented, but so fucking skittish.

Zoro’s half-tempted to tell the kid outright that he’ll never make it onto his list—but there’s a chance, too, that he’ll screw up someday. And Zoro can’t guarantee anything, really, where his assignments are concerned.

So to put him out of his misery, Zoro just calls, “Hey, kid,” and the boy waves back.

“Mr. Roronoa, sir—” he starts, wheezing a little. “I’m glad I caught you. There’s a phone call for you in the boathouse.”

Zoro raises an eyebrow, but the kid doesn’t elaborate—just gestures back at the ornate staff offices for this side of the marina, Mariejois painted thick across the building in what Nami swears is honest-to-god gold leaf.

Zoro sighs and follows—and ignores the way a hush falls over the open room when they enter.

Vegetable Kid ushers him quickly into one of the offices, empty save for some groveling manager who’s clearly spineless enough to push the whole thing on one of his dock workers. The manager—some blond kid, young and incompetent enough to be a nepotism hire—doesn’t move, so Vegetable One just points to a great black rotary phone sitting off the receiver.

Zoro eyes it, but Vegetable One just says, “She doesn’t sound like she wants to be kept waiting,” and Zoro glances at him again. The kid gives a shaky, half-cocked smile in return.

(He’s not entirely a coward, then, even though there’s a green tinge to his skin and he looks ready to keel over.)

Zoro eyes him with new interest but doesn’t comment—just picks up the receiver and barely bites out, “What?” before Nami starts talking.

“Oh, good—I caught you before you left. We’re heading out in a few hours so I’ll need you to pick up dinner before you get here. I’m still making sure the route is clear so you have to go, but your cousin recommended it—so I called ahead and told them you’d be there in two hours. That should be enough time to actually find the place—”

Zoro squints at nothing, as though Nami were standing right in front of him. “What?” he repeats, more baffled than angry.

There’s a scoff on the other end of the line. “I don’t feel like dealing with Kaido’s morons alone tonight, so you’re coming with me,” she says, as though they’ve discussed this at length and this isn’t the first he’s hearing of it.

To his left, the manager starts to hiss something at the grimy maintenance boy—who still hasn’t left, waiting and watching Zoro with a nervous, curious gaze. Then the suit grabs Vegetable Kid’s upper arm, half-lifting him off the ground as he hauls him toward the door with fury in his eyes—and a simpering, apologetic look back at Zoro—and Zoro glares.

Still holding the phone to one ear, snaps with his free hand and the man jumps—immediately at attention—and lets go. Instead of chewing him out, though, Zoro ignores him altogether and makes eye contact with the boy instead, then jerks his head wordlessly toward the door. Vegetable Kid’s eyes widen even further, somehow, and he scampers away unharmed.

Into the receiver, Zoro snaps, “Oi, don’t just decide shit like that for yourself,” and the manager wrings his hands like he’s the one who’s been scolded.

Nami, however, is unfazed.

Of course.

Through the line, he hears her snort—and he can almost physically see the eyeroll she’s surely giving him.

“Okay, tough guy,” she replies. “What else were you even going to eat for dinner?” Vaguely, he thinks of the bottle of rum and wonders if Nami would know how much it’s really worth. The pause seems to tell Nami all she needs to know. “That’s what I thought,” she says, smug. “I had Helmeppo write down the address for you. We’re leaving at seven, so don’t be late.”

“Yeah, yeah,” he gripes—then he hangs up, scoffing, pretending to no one that the line isn’t already dead.

He’s not angry at the demand, because food is food and Nami is Nami—but he can read between the lines well enough. It’s a bribe wrapped in an order from someone without the authority; it’s an ask from a friend.

Nami has pride and this is the closest she’ll ever come to telling him she needs help with something on the job.

The manager jumps anyway, and Zoro takes the opportunity to glare at him again.

“Where is it?” he grunts without preamble.

Suddenly given purpose, Helmeppo fumbles over to his desk and pulls a piece of neatly-scrawled stationary (a little too fancy for a phone message) from his blotter.

(And Zoro wonders, vaguely, if he should be worried about the Navy showing up given how much the asshole’s sweating—alongside the fact that he’s just offed someone in Akainu’s pocket. Although, frankly, he’d be impressed if Helmeppo had the balls.)

Without so much as a thanks—or a glance back, even—Zoro snatches the card and turns on his heel, striding back out into the morning sun.

As he crosses the parking lot for the second time, he finally turns over the card—the Baratie. He’s never heard of it. It sounds pretentious, though—some French bullshit catering to this clientele, probably. Not him, and certainly not Nami. But it’s as good as anything, he supposes, as long as the food is decent.

(It does not take him two hours to get there, and he feels equally vindicated when—having been told Nami would pick up the order—some blond asshole ushers him around back, then shoves a pair of paper bags in his arms. Zoro doesn’t even get the chance to open his mouth for a thanks before the dickhead slams the Baratie’s door in his face.)

- - -

The weather holds, and the cargo district’s concrete loading bay is still and calm after dark, too. Through the new moon fog, they can’t see the warehouses themselves—like the whole world ends at the edge of the docks ahead and in the endless ocean behind. They wait in impatient silence, quiet only broken by the gentle waves lapping at the edge of Nami’s nameless fishing boat.

In the orange-yellow glow of the outdoor lights, Zoro can see a rainbow sheen reflecting off the water, some kind of vague and indefinable oil slick. There’s a thickness to it that clings to the edge of the sea wall, gathering in a glistening, iridescent line that plays tricks on the eyes—a second water line.

It reeks, too—like dead fish and rotting seaweed and something sour, but he can’t pinpoint exactly where the smell is coming from. He’s never noticed it before—the sheen, the scent—and he wonders if the currents have been pushing it out to sea rather than down the coast toward the harbor. They’re far but not that far, just on the outskirts of the island’s north side—close enough to have seen it.

But, then again—he rarely travels out this far. The warehouse district is Kaido’s territory, after all, and the only reason they’re even this close to his border at all is courtesy on Nami’s part.

Her decision to let Kaido’s men choose their rendezvous point is, Zoro thinks, an effort to keep things business as usual. In recent weeks, they’ve become harder and harder to pin down—something about sabotaged smuggling ships and lost cargo—most of which Zoro has only bothered paying attention to insofar as Nami is concerned. Which is to say, very little.

Even so, their buyers are late.

The short-wave radio in the wheelhouse clicks on in a burst of static and Nami sighs, long and annoyed, into the night air. It’s their cue. She waves her hand and Zoro leans back against the wall, slipping out of view easily enough in the moonless night.

He’s not technically supposed to be here—shouldn’t be, really, in any official capacity, particularly considering the politics of his position. But he barely follows the rules as they stand and Nami had been the one to ask. Still, no matter how badly he might relish the exercise, he knows not to involve himself unless he has to.

(Or unless he really feels like it, at least.)

A moment later, a black-rimmed truck slides into view—the kind of car favored by Jack and his ilk—and a man and woman emerge to greet them at the edge of the dock. There, they pause and make no move to board Nami’s boat, staying on land—and Nami doesn’t meet them halfway, either, feet planted firmly on deck.

There’s a beat of tension as the three of them face off before Nami finally sighs again.

“Took you long enough, Sheepshead,” she calls, firm but light—like she knows they’ve been rude but they also know Nami will let it slide because they’re allies and that’s what she’s supposed to do.

The pair laughs.

Sheepshead and Ginrummy look deeply stereotypical for this kind of job, Zoro thinks—like they’ve been peeled up from the pages of a mail-order catalog for hired goons. Both tall and muscular, both dressed in matching black suits; both jacked up on the stupid bravado that comes with being the subordinate of a subordinate to Kaido, as important as an acquaintance of a second cousin thrice removed. Zoro resists the urge to roll his eyes in the darkness.

“Well, thanks for hanging around,” Sheepshead drawls, and from his place in the shadows Zoro can’t tell if he’s smiling or his face is just fucked up and frozen that way.

Nami scoffs, crossing her arms as she strides across the deck toward the tangle of fishing nets at the boat’s stern—a massive pile of rope and tarp thrown over half a dozen meticulously-packed crates of smuggled booze. “I’m here to do a job, so I’d rather not leave before I’m paid,” she replies. Jack’s subordinates make no move to help with the exchange, though, and Zoro narrows his eyes—unseen.

“About that,” Ginrummy starts, waving a little vaguely as she glances over to Sheepshead—and they exchange a look. “We have a proposition for you.”

Nami shakes her head. “We’ve been through this before. You know I can’t negotiate for Arlong,” she says, and Zoro has to respect the fact that she only spits a little when she says his name.

“Not your boss,” Ginrummy shoots back, not even hiding her derision. “You.”

It feels like deja vu.

“I’m flattered, really,” Nami replies, sugar-sweet, “I can’t imagine why, though—I’m just the delivery girl.” Zoro hears the steel in her tone. Her patience is already wearing thin.

“Now we both know that isn’t true—” Sheepshead croons back, a little too eager. Ginrummy laughs, leaning forward over the edge of the dock, but Nami stands her ground—so Zoro stays put.

“Do you have my money or are you wasting my time again?” she snaps, dropping the facade, but Sheepshead just puts his hands out—a little placating, a little condescending. Nami clicks her tongue, and though her back is turned Zoro can imagine her face clearly enough.

Sheepshead seems unfazed, though. “This is better than money, doll. It’s an opportunity—”

“That wasn’t the deal—”

“Just hear us out!” he continues, cutting her off. “Rumor has it that you’re the one who actually runs these routes.” Nami doesn’t reply, and Zoro sees him light up, prematurely triumphant.

Ginrummy picks up the thread, grinning. “You know these waters like the back of your hand,” she says, “better than Arlong claims to.”

Zoro feels the sting even though it’s not directed toward him—the hit to Nami’s pride. Not at the statement—because that much is true; she is the best—but at what Nami has to do next.

She laughs, letting annoyance seep into her voice as she says, “We both know that’s not the case,” with a wave of her hand, but Ginrummy just shakes her head again.

“We’re serious,” she says, and Sheepshead nods vehemently. “The reward on this thing is going to be huge and you’d get a fair cut of the profit.”

This time, Sheepshead interjects. “Kaido’s not fucking around with this. He wants in on the hunt and he’s willing to pay good money for the best. You respect the water, and he needs someone like that—otherwise we’ll never find them.” As he speaks, his tone shifts to something fervent, almost.

Nami shifts her weight, puts a hand on her hip in mirrored condescension. “Get to the point if you’re going to waste my time,” she snaps.

Ginrummy holds up her hand. “This isn’t like last time, we promise!” she says, tone cocky and unapologetic. “This is something special. The new governor issued a bounty for dangerous marine wildlife, but we know the truth—”

Sheepshead breaks in, then, unable to contain his excitement. “—he’s hunting the sea gods! His criteria fits—and everyone knows his history.” He looks enamored, too—like he really believes it. Zoro resists the urge to sigh. “Imagine it—you’d get the fame of killing a god and you’d walk away with a sizable chunk of cash. No one could touch you—and you’d be under Kaido’s protection.”

Zoro sees Nami shift on her feet again, not a signal but a restlessness all the same. The exchange is taking too long—has taken too long already. Neither of them have time to listen to a history lesson on fishermen’s superstitions and the wives' tales that follow.

At the heart of the new city cropping up around them is a fishing town with generations stacked on generations—its own history still entrenched on the shore, out in the harbors, and buried in the beaches. Nami and Zoro don’t know, having grown up on their own islands with their own legends—both of them—but they know enough.

They’ve seen the shrines, seen the motions fishermen go through for calm seas and good luck, seen the supermoon festival lights from afar. What they’ve never seen is a sea god—and Zoro isn’t even sure he would care if one fell into his lap. They have other things to deal with. Self-examination of faith has never been high on either of their priority lists.

(Still—there’s something vaguely unsettling about the glee with which Sheepshead talks about the prospect of killing a god.)

With another sigh, Nami says, “I appreciate the offer,” not an ounce of sincerity in her voice. “However, I am going to have to insist you give me the fucking cash,” she rests one booted foot atop a nearby crate, then, and Zoro hears the bootleg bottles rattle inside, “or I’m leaving with everything.”

That riles them up well enough. “You ungrateful bitch,” the Sheepshead starts, tone shifting on a dime and temper quick to flare. “We’re offering you the opportun—”

He steps out of the shadows and sighs, bored and rough, like he’s been part of the conversation this whole time. “I say we go now,” he calls to Nami, purposely ignoring the pair on land. Unfazed, like she’d already been expecting him, Nami rolls her eyes, playing along even though neither of them are really joking. This isn’t a game, after all—no matter how much they act like it sometimes.

“Your call,” she replies, shrugging, letting the annoyance in her voice solidify, angry at the situation and angry that they have to do it this way when they both know she could kick their asses just as well—just not with the kind of immunity he might be able to. Or threaten to, at least.

Pissed at the interruption, Sheepshead puffs up like a canary, pivoting toward Zoro and already prepping for a fight. “And who the fuck are you?” he snaps, then he turns back to Nami, “This is a business exchange. You can’t just bring your boytoy out to—”

Zoro raises one eyebrow and at the same time, Ginrummy pales and snatches out to grab Sheepshead’s arm in a vice-grip. She’s staring wide-eyed at him, and Zoro resists the urge to bare his teeth for fun.

“Shut the fuck up,” she hisses, low and angry. “That’s fucking—look.”

By some miracle Sheepshead does shut up, then, and really looks at him—clocks the color of his hair, mossy but still visible in the yellow dock lights; clocks the gold jewelry dangling in his left ear; and, most importantly, clocks the three fine swords resting casually at his hip.

Zoro sees the blood drain from his face, too, and tries not to take a little satisfaction in it. Sheepshead has balls, though, and he presses on—turning back to Nami, a shaky sneer on his face. “Bringing muscle now?” he says, even as Ginrummy continues to chant, Shut up, shut up, shut up, with an increasing level of alarm—unable to tear her eyes from Zoro.

Zoro just makes a vague gesture with his hand, waving at the pair to wrap things up. “Let’s go,” he grunts again, glaring, and Ginrummy starts nodding like he’s going to break her neck—or like some stupid-looking bird, maybe.

“Yeah, yeah—of course,” she says, yanking her partner before he has a chance to open his mouth again. Sheepshead turns to snap at her, and in that moment Zoro exchanges a look of utter commiseration with Nami. He knows, then, that they’re going to get absolutely wasted after this—and on the good rum, too.

As Sheepshead and Ginrummy half-sprint back toward their car still idling by the docks, their hissed bickering echoes off the unseen warehouses around them—

“Get the hell off me!”

“Don’t you know who that is?”

“Some big-shot from the club, so what? I’ve heard about him—”

“No—I mean yes, he is, but—that’s fucking—that’s Roronoa fucking Zoro!”

“—shit, isn’t that—”

“He’s Mihawk’s kid!”

—and Nami relaxes a little, heaving another massive sigh (for the umpteenth time tonight).

A heavy breeze rolls in, then—and she shivers as it pushes the acrid, clammy fog deeper into their skin. For a moment, she stares at the sky, frowning, watching the black clouds above.

He thinks of the magistrate’s desperate insistence that hunting a sea god would save him, the insistence on money, money, money, and Zoro wonders if Nami is considering the offer on her own—whether to hunt it herself. He wouldn’t be surprised. The fact that either shared their plans speaks of desperation and naïveté in equal measure, both the judge and Jack’s men. How easy it would be to just take the opportunity for themselves.

He wants to ask, but doesn’t know how.

Then, suddenly, there’s a splash! to their left, like something massive hitting the water.

For a moment, Zoro wonders if someone has fallen in, but—no. A fish, probably. He glances toward the noise, but he can’t see anything through the rainbow slick.

The sound seems to snap Nami out of her thoughts; she shakes herself, refocusing on the tasks at hand. Zoro waits, but she doesn’t elaborate, so he decides not to try. If it’s important, she’ll tell him—she always does.

Then into the silence, Nami groans, “Augh, let’s get this shit over with,” and nods toward the nets and fabric still coiled over their delivery as cover. “At least help me move some of this. Make yourself useful.”

Moment passed, he grunts “Fuck off,” but doesn’t hesitate—just throws off one of the tarps and grabs two crates. Nami steps out of his way as he strides off the gangway, hauling the boxes up to the dock while she moves to grab one herself.

When he drops the crates they CRACK! against the concrete, and the sound echoes off the industrialism around them. The bottles inside don’t shatter—they’re too well-packed for that—but they do make enough of a racket that Nami glowers at him as he steps back on deck. He shrugs in response. If they’re as obnoxious as possible, maybe Assholes McGee: One and Two will hurry the fuck up with their money—and they can leave.

He glances over toward the idling car to see Ginrummy and Sheepshead still deep in an argument, Sheepshead gesturing wildly while Ginrummy seethes. They don’t even look up at the noise.

With a snort, Zoro grabs another crate and scowls. “This better not be a pattern,” he gripes. “Fucking—sea monsters.”

Nami just rolls her eyes and hefts a box of her own. “Almost hurricane season,” she says. “Makes people crazy.”

- - -

Hours later, they’re anchored in a cove far from both the harbor and the rendezvous point. It’s their own place, as close to a safehouse on the water as they’ll ever get, and over the years it’s become something like a refuge for them both. Away from the city’s violence, away from the marina’s watchful eyes, the cove is quiet. Here, they can breathe.

They’re sprawled, exhausted, on two stolen wood-and-fabric beach chairs dragged out to stargaze. Zoro dangles one arm over the side of his, beer held loosely in his hand as he tilts his head back and stares at the expanse above them. With no moon, it’s like they can reach up and touch the Milky Way. So far from the warehouse district, the water and the air are clear, the heavens on display in the ocean’s reflection.

They’ve demolished their leftovers from the Baratie and cracked open the rum from his morning job, and now they’re running on fumes—the two of them well on their way to drunk right alongside the loopy kind of exhaustion that comes with too many hours on too little sleep. It’s nearly three in the morning and he’s approaching his twentieth hour awake—and he knows Nami isn’t doing much better.

This is their routine. It’s always nearly the same, no matter how much time passes. They’ll go days, weeks without seeing each other sometimes—working their own jobs—but when they do meet it feels like the two of them against the world, going, going, going until they crash. In the morning, they’ll pay for it (they always do), but for now, they drink, holding onto the darkness—keeping the wreck of tomorrow at bay.

With a sigh, Nami clinks the sweating neck of her own beer against his, still fresh from the ice box down below, then she takes a long pull—and burps, grins, leaning to face him so she’s half curled-up in the chair. Her hair bunches up against the side of her face as she presses it into the fabric and idly, drunkenly, Zoro wonders if either of them will live long enough to turn gray.

“Mission accomplished,” she says with fake solemnity, balancing her bottle on one arm.

Zoro snickers, tilts his beer in mock salute, and swigs—burps back, “Hooray,” and Nami lets out a hysterical kind of giggle. After a moment, though, her snickers peter out and she scrubs one hand down her face, tired and wired all at once.

“God, I’m so fucking close,” she says, then drinks again. “He’s going to slip up soon—Arlong—I just know it. This whole sea god thing has everyone losing their minds.”

Zoro shrugs, squinting upward. “Today’s the first I’ve heard of it,” he says, and wonders if that’s really true or if he just hasn’t cared enough to pay attention.

Nami snorts, “Figures,” picking at the bottle’s paste-paper label with her nails. “It seems legitimate, though—although I can’t imagine where Akainu’s getting the cash. Two-hundred thousand dollars.”

“Campaign money, probably,” Zoro grunts.

“Or he’s made a deal with someone—one of us,” Nami replies, frowning as she takes another sip of her beer. “Big Mom, maybe, if Kaido’s still going for the bounty himself.”

But Zoro shakes his head. “No way,” he says, half a laugh. “His whole thing is taking back the waters. He’d drop dead before getting a loan from one of the gangs.”

“God, I wish. Wouldn’t that be ideal, him dropping dead,” Nami scoffs. “Maybe now that they’re down a cabinet member—thanks for that, by the way; busy morning for you—his next stupid bill won’t pass.”

Zoro raises his bottle again and Nami returns the gesture, a shadowy silhouette in the dark. He doesn’t say anything, just waits for her to continue. She’s in a pensive kind of mood, and he’s always been a listener, anyway.

After stripping the label off her beer completely and flicking the strips of damp paper overboard, she does. “If they start rolling out Naval patrols, we’re fucked.” She glowers at her bottle. “And the fishermen, too. They don’t get it—it’s an excuse to confiscate anything with value. He’s not going to stop with smugglers and—I don’t know—sea monsters.”

Zoro frowns right back. She’s right. (She usually is.) “He doesn’t give a shit when his people vanish,” Zoro says.

Although the magistrate himself isn’t worth missing—a slimy, power-hungry kind of man in the worst way—it’s the principle of his death that almost bothers him. He’s not the only one of Akainu’s associates to have made it onto his list (the third, maybe, or the fourth), and yet he knows the response will be nearly the same as the rest: silence, plain and simple. A saddened obituary in the paper, an even more boilerplate press response. Any consequence will happen behind closed doors, and even that will be legislative at best.

Still, Nami nods. “Exactly,” she says, waving one hand vaguely through the air for emphasis. “If he doesn’t care when his own cronies fall off the face of the earth, there’s no way he’s going to honor his word to everyone else. And now with this whole bounty thing? I can’t believe people are buying into it.”

“Money’s money,” Zoro shrugs in reply.

“I mean—yeah. Fair.” She sighs, lifts her bottle to the night sky like that might help her see how much she’s got left. “My point is that there’s no way Arlong can resist that kind of cash, just like the rest of them. And I know he believes in it.”

Idly, Zoro muses, “I bet Buggy does, too,” and Nami snorts into her beer.

“He would.”

A chilled breeze rolls across the water, and Nami shivers, tucking her legs further up into the lawn chair. With a roll of his eyes, Zoro just sits up and slips one arm out of his jacket.

“It’s total bullshit, if you ask me,” he grunts, swapping his beer between hands as he pulls his coat off the rest of the way. Without asking, he tosses it to her—where it lands in a heap on her lap and she yelps, barely moving her drink out of the way in time.

She shoots him a glare—but even so, she tucks it over her bare legs like a blanket as she sighs. “Maybe,” she says, then sips again. “It doesn’t have to be real though—just real enough that Arlong fucks up and pisses off somebody big.”

She sounds hopeful, almost—but tired, too. Zoro wants to reassure her somehow, to say something, but he doesn’t—because he can’t, not really. He’s never been good at that sort of thing, and anything he can think of is half a white lie, anyway.

And besides, she’s never wanted reassurance—not when it comes to that (Arlong and Cocoyasi and the money)—so he settles for hoping his jacket is warm and parrots, “Fair.” Nami hums wordlessly in response, an acknowledgment of his acknowledgment.

They lapse into silence, then, because what else is there to say? It’s not uncomfortable, though. Just peaceful. The midnight-ocean-quiet of lapping waves, ropes against metal, and hissing bottlecaps. They drag the basket closer for more food and shitty beer, lukewarm now that it’s been above deck for so long, but neither of them mind. Beer is beer is beer, after all. And they’ve both eaten worse.

Then, apropos of nothing and a little drunk, she says, “Mild summer, killer fall,” and Zoro audibly snorts.

“No way,” he replies, shaking his head even as she grins—smarmy and confident—over the rim of her bottle. “Don’t rope me into that shit with you again. No more weather bets. No.”

“Wow,” she sighs, batting her eyelashes. “You’re so cool and stoic. What a man. Afraid you’ll lose?”

“The fuck is wrong with you? No.”

She just huffs, switching tactics, and lets out an aggravated (melodramatic), “Oh, okay—coward.”

“No.”

“Augh! You’re the worst.”

“Maybe,” he snorts back, “but at least I’m not stupid.”

“I disagree—”

“Oi—”

“Fine. I wouldn’t get any money out of you, anyway,” she sniffs, almost grumbling but not quite—and the effect is largely ruined when she sticks her tongue out at him. He flips her the middle finger in return.

(She tucks his jacket closer around her legs. When he finishes his beer, she’s already handing him another.)

In the beginning, they’d been two angry teenagers pissed at the world, thrown together by time and circumstance. Brought along as part of Arlong’s deal, instinct for the sea honed to a fine point even at fifteen, she’d sworn fealty to his uncle right alongside her boss. And Zoro, trapped in his own way, had watched from the corner of the room (silent, grieving recent losses) and seen the rage in her eyes. Not at the job—because she really does control the routes of every smuggling vessel in their operation, and she really does know the sea like the back of her hand—but at the man himself. The black hole holding her home island hostage under a mountain of protection fees.

(Zoro hadn’t known, then, of his own lost causes.)

Even though Arlong—and, by extension, his gang—works for Mihawk and the Cross Guild, he still commands some measure of control over his own territory, a place Zoro’s been warned away from for reasons he knows but can’t quite understand. Cocoyasi’s sacrifice, part of the deal, the agreement—Arlong’s free reign for his resources and cooperation in exchange. It’s unfair, and he despises the politics of it all—the alliances, the hierarchy, the rules.

It’s why he knows, too, that his own future is fucked. What place does he have in the Guild long-term if he’s only cut out for fighting—for killing? Not the rest of it. He thinks of his sister for the first time in months (this is a lie) and her face is hazy, but the promise they’d made as kids—it’s crystal, even in its own childish naivete.

On a fundamental level he and Nami are both stuck spinning their wheels. As soon as he blinks, the seasons have changed. Today a favor, tomorrow a fight, the next a job. Repeat, repeat, repeat. The interest always raises, so she’s never got enough money; his uncle always wins, so he’s never got enough strength. So she works and works more and he fights and fights more. Trapped, but trapped together.

She is the closest thing he’s ever had—will ever have—to a friend, he thinks. Someone who understands the rules enough to play the game well, and who doesn’t hate the game itself so much as the people running it. In some other life, maybe they could have had more than each other and their jobs. But here, now, they’re just two untethered fuck-ups spinning out, unmoored but not out of control—not yet.

If he prayed, he would pray for freedom—but he doesn’t, because what would he even pray to? In the dark, he marvels at the capacity of the human mind to believe its own bullshit. The only god he worships is the small god of his own victory—heavy weights and alcohol and blood in the dirt after a fight. And the only god Nami worships is the small god of her own treasure hoard—her own ingenuity and the fishing boat under their feet and the smell of a ripe tangerine in the summer.

No sea monsters, no shrines, no conflicting myths.

But still. Two hundred thousand dollars.

- - -

When he jolts awake, the sun is just lighting up the horizon in a half-dark tint of deep, hazy purple. The empty bottle slips from his grasp onto the wooden deck with an CLANG! and in an instant, he’s sitting up—blinking blearily around because something woke him, something else, not that—

There’s a metal clatter from his left and he swings his head, searching the near-darkness—nothing. Nami’s beach chair is empty but his jacket’s been folded and left behind, and as silence descends again he knows in his gut that the noises aren’t coming from her. She’s below deck, curled up on the fold-out cot where she should be. Right?

Right?

“Oi,” he grunts, voice rough with sleep, but the quiet cove swallows up the sound and it doesn’t seem to go anywhere—

Suddenly, a CRASH! sounds up from the stern, near the cram of nets and ropes that are just that (fishing bullshit) now that all the bootlegged liquor has been pulled out from underneath—and Zoro is on his feet. It doesn’t sound like machinery—so it can’t be any of the boat’s measly hauling equipment.

As he advances, he wonders if he’d fucked up in joining Nami and they’ve been been tailed by Kaido’s men for it. It’s not the first time he’s followed her on a job, but there’s been a strange kind of undercurrent to the waters lately and Kaido himself has become unpredictable.

Even half-asleep and half-hungover, a fight wouldn’t be a challenge—not really. But it would be a pain in the ass.

“Hey,” he barks again, louder this time—clearer—and the rattling stops a again—

—before it’s replaced by what Zoro swears, swears is a muffled, “Shit!” and a wet, fatty kind of scramble that reminds him instantly of fish smacking the deck after a haul.

And yet. A human voice.

He doesn’t think—just rushes forward, already reaching for his sword. If they have been followed, it’s a ballsy move on Kaido’s part, because to take him on outside the ring is as good as challenging his uncle across company lines—and because he is who he is, too, there’s a guarantee the poor sap Kaido’s sent won’t make it out of the altercation alive. On purpose, even.

Zoro lunges for the back of the boat in one swift motion, but he’s too late. Before he can gather his bearings, there’s one final CLANG!—then the flash of something red in the early-morning moonlight—followed by a massive splash, like the sound of something big, person-sized or more, hitting the water.

Zoro dives for the railing, already leaning over to see where they’ve escaped because if he can identify the boat then—

But there’s nothing.

Just a foamy ring of ripples already dissolving into the sea, spreading outward from the overturned basket now bobbing alongside the hull.

Their overturned basket.

Zoro blinks, wondering just how much he’d had to drink—

And then Nami calls, “What are you doing?” from behind, voice sleepy and annoyed. He turns to see her halfway up the hatch, wrapped in a knit blanket, and he relaxes just a fraction—because there is no one else, he realizes. No dinghy in the darkness piled high with grunts from a rival family, and Nami is fine.

“Nothing,” he replies dumbly, standing alone in the middle of the deck with his sword drawn. He can physically feel her eyeroll from across the boat.

“Whatever,” she snorts, then yawns—long and tired in a way that has Zoro yawning, too. He hears his jaw crack in his ears and almost winces.

As she finishes climbing the ladder and hauls herself on deck, she sighs, stretching up and out with all the grace of a cat emerging from a comforter—rumpled, bleary-eyed, a little bit grumpy even as she’s trying not to laugh at him.

“Come on,” she says, “let’s start heading back. We’ve got a fight tomorrow,” she stops, makes a face, “—today.” Then she motions broadly toward the empty anchor reel. “If you’re awake enough to swing your sword around you’re awake enough to get us moving.”

As he sheathes Kitetsu, he gripes, “Yeah, yeah,” ignoring Nami as she sticks her tongue out at him. He’s already crossing the deck, though—shaking off the weirdness as he props his sword back with its companions on the beach chair.

He sets to work in the winch, raising anchor, and Nami tucks the blanket closer around her shoulders as she gathers his swords without a word. Then, with a vague wave, she disappears into the wheelhouse to chart their course back to the marina.

Absently, Zoro wonders if they have enough fresh water left for shitty coffee. They have a long day ahead—both of them—and the sun isn’t even up yet. They’ll need it.

(And as the anchor chain creaks in the near-silence she leaves behind, he tries to ignore the basket sinking just out of sight, disappearing into the dark early-morning depths. The basket that hasn’t been in the water long. The basket that he certainly hadn’t put there.)

- - -

When they pull into the marina a few hours later, it’s barely ten in the morning and the day has already felt endless. Nami gripes at him for the basket when she finally notices it’s missing, but they’d both had enough to drink the night before that the argument (if they can even call it that) dies out quickly. Zoro doesn’t mention what he’d seen because he hadn’t seen anything, really—just a blur in the darkness that he’s willing enough to write off as the product of his hangover.

In the end, Nami just sighs. It’s nothing, really, in the grand scheme of things—but he knows, too, that every penny counts.

Unlike Mariejois, their marina is small—a dingy, well-loved little thing compared to the massive gold-plated yacht club miles up the road. Despite the fact that it’s run by one of the largest criminal organizations in the area, Arlong Park is a working man’s docks through and through, home to the fisherman who keep the heart of their seaside town running, even as the buildings around them reach higher and the wealthy tourists flock like migratory birds to the gleaming promise of new luxury. Here, Nami’s worn-out, beat-up hauler—old and old-fashioned even when she’d bought it—is almost invisible amid the smattering of similar vessels.

Nami cuts the engine as they coast toward the docks, Zoro already positioned at the rail, checking the boat’s fenders just in case they come in too fast and scrape the wood—but they never do, because it’s Nami at the helm, and she could maneuver them anywhere with her eyes closed, he’s sure.

(Which is a curse in and of itself, too; having the skill to go anywhere makes the chains around her ankles that much heavier, he thinks.)

With practiced ease, he swings one leg up over the side and plants his foot on the edge of the dock, and in quick, muscle-memory knots, he ties them off to the posts. By the time he’s finished, Nami is standing on deck with her pack slung over one shoulder and his own bag at her feet.

“I still don’t understand why we have to go all the way back,” she calls, picking up the thread of a conversation they’d started at least an hour ago. “We’re going to be late enough as it is.”

Her voice echoes a little, bouncing off the creaking wood around them—the only other noise the hollow CLANG! of lines hitting metal masts and mechanisms. Around this time, everyone with work on the water has already long-since left, and those who aren’t are likely further inland, waiting for the harbormaster to reopen after his fisherman’s lunch.

Zoro just shrugs, reaching to help as she picks up his things and hands them over, then steps over the side herself. As he hefts his sword duffle—a long, nondescript bag to the casual observer, something entirely worse to anyone who might recognize him—over one shoulder, he grumbles, “We won’t be late.”

Nami just rolls her eyes as they start down the dock. “Yeah, we will—you’re in charge of getting us there,” she replies.

“Fuck off,” he gripes back. There isn’t any bite to the curse, though—not really. “It’s not my fault he’s too high and mighty to make the drop himself. Or get someone else to do it.”

Nami snorts. “He’s making you do it. That’s someone.”

“And if I don’t, neither of us get paid,” he shoots back, and he almost physically sees Nami concede the point—fair, indeed.

As they cross onto the gravel patch that serves as the marina’s haphazard loading bay, he sighs, knocking one massive shoulder against her much smaller frame. She shoots him a glare, but it doesn’t carry weight, either. They’re both still tired, and the meat of the day has just begun.

The lot is filled with a scattering of beat-up trucks, half the regular crowd of overnighters but enough extras, too, to raise their eyebrows.

In the distance, he can see a crowd gathered near the boathouse—the large-ish, semi-official-ish office where Arlong and his men manage the marina’s business, both legal and not. Less formal than the yacht club’s, but the center of operations all the same.

It’s bigger than the usual gathering and Zoro idly wonders what’s going on—but Nami hasn’t mentioned anything, and they’re both inclined to steer clear of the building even on their best days, anyway. If it’s important enough, he’ll hear about it eventually. He always does.

They cross toward his bike, one of the few motorcycles in the lot. Like Nami’s boat, it’s beat-up to be at home in the crowd. A once-sleek, black thing—only big enough to carry his shit and someone else, too. He likes the maneuverability a smaller bike offers. It’s better for jobs, for quick getaways—and for the adrenaline, too. Even though Perona has been on his ass to get a real car since his last accident, he refuses to give it up. It’s his—and that’s something.

When Nami doesn’t say anything else, he scrubs a hand through his hair and sighs awkwardly, never one for communication—even less so for reassurance.

“Look, when we get there—don’t even bother coming in, just stand in the shade or something,” he says, nonchalant—like it doesn’t matter to him what she does either way. Because it doesn’t, really. What matters is what she wants. And to see her boss’s bosses—well, he knows exactly how she feels about his uncle and the rest. “They might not even be at the house, anyway.”

Out of the corner of his eye he sees Nami shrug, frowning, staring into the distance—and he tucks his sword bag back under the seats, securing it in place while he waits for her to respond.

Suddenly, a shout rises up from the crowd around the boathouse—and when Zoro glances over, he sees a mop of pink hair pushing open the door. Coby, already frazzled before the day has even begun, waves a placating hand at the crowd even as he props open the doorstop, one arm balancing a stack of newsprint that sends the crowd into a frenzy. He can’t hear what Coby is saying, but Zoro can imagine it. The poor kid’s been working at the marina for a few years now—inadvertently trapped in the organization under Arlong after he’d set out to apprentice as a fisherman and picked a mafia-run harbor of all things.

Nami sighs—although their situations are different, they both do still feel sorry for the kid.

(Mostly.)

As the fisherman start to file in for the day, vying for the doorway and for Coby himself (or the papers he has in his hand, maybe), the boy stumbles, jostled against the throng—and the newsprint scatters just as a massive breeze rips across the harbor. The wind sets off a chorus of metal CLANGS! as every boat in the harbor rocks, followed by the indignant cries of the fisherman as everything in Coby’s hands immediately bursts out into the sky—across the lot—in a spray of black ink. They can hear his anguished little wail even from this distance, and Nami snorts, shaking her head.

Tension broken, Nami swings her leg across his motorcycle’s second seat, and Zoro catches her eye, exchanging an amused (but sympathetic—they’re not heartless) look. As he settles in front of her, Zoro starts to snicker, too, but doesn’t get the chance—because a newspaper smacks him in the face midair like an ill-timed gift from god. Nami does let out a real laugh, then, right in his ear at the absurdity of it, and Zoro feels his face heat as he pulls the paper away.

The headline—bold and black and all-caps—halts him in his tracks.

GOVERNOR OFFERS TWO HUNDRED THOUSAND DOLLARS TO KEEP OUR WATERS SAFE!

Big changes are on the horizon as newly-elected governor Akainu Sakazuki takes a hard stance against unchecked marine wildlife. To kick off the initiative, he has authorized payouts from the fish and game department to anyone presenting proof of unknown and dangerous oceanic predators off the coast, specifically proof of capture or kill. Authorities are calling it a “Fisherman’s Bounty”, with hunting bans temporarily lifted and the reward open to any civilian able to provide evidence for—

“Oh,” Nami says, and Zoro glances up to see her peering over his shoulder at the front-page article. “That,” She groans into his shoulder blades, “is definitely not going to make our lives harder at all.”

Zoro snorts, tossing the paper aside—and the wind immediately catches it, curling it up into the air with the stragglers still swirling around the lot.

“Open to any civilian,” Zoro replies as he squints back toward the boathouse. “Someone’s going to get themselves killed—that’s fuck you money.”

Nami just sighs again and wraps her arms around his middle, settling in to leave. “Oh, absolutely,” she says, almost weary. “And for once, we won’t be the ones doing it.”

- - -

The ride from the marina to his uncle’s house isn’t long, but it’s winding and rough. The road runs parallel to the ocean bluff, a straight drop off the edge of a cliff, then up through the inland forest.

Ever one for seclusion, the mansion sits on the ever-expanding city outskirts, still safe from encroaching industrialism in both its location and design. It’s a relic from an age rapidly shrinking in the rearview mirror of progress, all dark wood and hand-carved ornamentation, endless hallways and gas lamps and floor-to-ceiling windows. The front drive alone is a massive, curving path leftover from a time when horse-drawn carriages needed the space, and at the center of the loop is a giant marble fountain—dry now, simply because his uncle doesn’t care enough to keep it running, but a bawdy display of the building’s original extravagance all the same.

Maybe in another life, it could have been beautiful—full of staff, bustling with large parties and even larger families. Now, though, it sits almost entirely empty, only Mihawk himself in consistent residence while Zoro and his cousin move through its front door like ghosts. No one is entirely happy here, whether because of the house itself or what it stands for, but no one is entirely willing to leave, either—not really. Where else would they go?

One of the greatest benefits of their relative isolation (Mihawk’s insistance on secluding himself in the middle of assfuck nowhere) is that they’re all left well-enough alone, his uncle’s business partners rarely bothering to make the trip. Both live closer to the up-and-coming city, Crocodile ruling his corner from an equally-gaudy penthouse in the upper floors of some glistening building tall enough to scrape the sky—while Buggy lives… elsewhere. Zoro has never bothered to ask, and he’s only rarely worked with Buggy directly, anyway—instead involving himself in their smuggling operations through Nami herself.

Usually, that is.

As Zoro cracks his spine, stiff from the ride, he eyes the set of brand new, sleek vehicles that definitely don’t belong to either his uncle or Perona—and the two figures standing in the mansion’s shade, just past its entrance. Crocodile’s lackeys, following in his wake as often as Mihawk moves through the world alone. The woman watches them with a keen eye and serene smile, and the man at her side stands as stoic as ever.

Zoro doesn’t see any of Buggy’s people, but where one goes, the other follows—so he knows Buggy is inside, regardless.

Neither figure moves an inch as Zoro shrugs on his jacket, and Nami doesn’t get up immediately, either—just eyes them warily from across the crushed-shell drive. To anyone watching, it’s a stand-off—unintentional or not—but even from this distance Zoro can see the moment Daz dismisses her. Robin is another story, maybe, even as her expression stays unreadable.

Nami just stares right back—then rolls her eyes and dismounts. “Just hurry up,” she says, already pulling her hair out of its tie as she scrubs out her scalp. “We don’t have all day.”

Shade occupied but the open drive too hot and sun-direct to sit in while he’s inside, she waves him vaguely toward the house before turning off toward the mansion’s grounds—the overgrown side garden’s gate hanging open and untended in the opposite direction of Crocodile’s watch dogs.

They’re just four people in the sweeping network of Cross Guild’s many arms, after all, and were she and Zoro not friends, Zoro doubts they would have ever met. They have no real reason to interact—but Nami has every reason to be wary of them both.

“Yeah, yeah,” he grumbles back, not watching her go, not giving Robin a warning glare because to do so would be to mark Nami in her mind as someone important (although he knows she knows already—because it is her job to know).

Instead, he turns toward the house. He wants to get this over with as much as Nami, especially if the other two are here. The weather is mild, and half the second-floor windows are open, including his uncle’s study—leaving nothing to dampen the three-way argument happening inside.

As he approaches the front door, Crocodile’s shadow catches his eye and inclines her head. “Mr. Swordsman,” she greets, smile placid—anonymizing him in that terrible way she does, never letting him forget for a moment that Zoro is a function before he is a person. She reminds him of a snake sometimes—cold, calculating, deadly. “What a lovely surprise.”

The man at her side stays silent.

“Robin. Daz.” Zoro grunts in reply, but he doesn’t stop—while the two of them, he and Robin, occupy the same space in their organization’s hierarchy, they’re hardly allies. Half of the time, Zoro can’t tell what the woman is even thinking, and he doesn’t particularly care to. Robin inclines her head as he passes.

“I trust everything went well in court?” she asks, raising one eyebrow.

“Yeah, the judge’s dead—no issues,” Zoro bites back. He hates beating around the bush about it—his job. It’s stupid, he thinks—they all know what he does. What they all do.

Robin just hums vaguely in return. “Wonderful to hear.”

Without another word, Zoro pushes through the mansion’s massive front door—and is immediately accosted by the echoes of thunderous shouting as Crocodile and Buggy storm out of Mihawk’s office. The red velvet, gold-trimmed foyer is as old-fashioned and ornate as the mansion’s exterior, a wide center staircase crawling up to a hayloft-style, wraparound indoor balcony. His uncle’s study sits just to the right of it on the second floor, wide double doors thrown open with a BANG! that bounces off the dusty marble floors and clouded floor-to-ceiling windows.

“—s your fault he’s blaming us for this bullshit,” Crocodile spits, turning on his heel to jam a lit cigar inches from Buggy’s nose as the smaller man nearly stumbles into him from behind—obviously chasing, but whether they’ve been run out of Mihawk’s office or he’s following Crocodile himself, Zoro can’t tell. “This is your job, you useless sack of shit—but I’m not surprised you’d screw it up.”

Buggy throws his hands in the air like he’s going to fend off an attack (which he might be, really) but the hit never comes, because Crocodile is already turning again, rampaging down the stairs with so much force that his long, wool-and-fur duster billows out behind him.

Emboldened by Crocodile’s retreat, maybe, Buggy whines, “But I didn’t even do anything—!” as he scrambles after, glaring daggers at Crocodile’s back in a way that directly contradicts his plaintive tone.

Zoro has seen this song and dance too many times to count—the pleading, the wailing, and the violence. It is easy to forget, he thinks, that (in his own way) Buggy is just as dangerous, just as powerful as his uncle and his boss. If Mihawk is the sword, Crocodile is the poison—and Buggy is the friend who’ll break your arm while he’s shaking it, a smile on his face all the while. Easily underestimated and largely so intentionally. Zoro is continually baffled that Arlong is his subordinate, but that in and of itself speaks volumes how dangerous he truly is.

Still—he’s utterly punchable, a wet rag of a man, and Zoro is glad they so rarely interact.

“Obviously you did nothing,” Crocodile bites out, slamming the side of his fist against the railing as he stalks down the steps, Buggy hot on his heels and fingers flexing, clawlike, at the air behind Crocodile’s neck. Zoro isn’t stupid enough to bet against Nami’s prediction that the three of them will all kill each other one day.

Then, in a blink, Zoro watches Buggy’s face morph from murder back to a pathetic whimper.

“Well, not nothing,” he starts, “I meant—”

But Crocodile is already cutting him off, thundering, “That’s the problem. You were aware of the problem and did not fix it.” He whirls around a second time and again Buggy almost crashes into him—and Zoro wonders, then, if Crocodile is doing that on purpose, too. “We don’t have anything to do with whatever is happening to his ships mid-route—his own incompetence, probably—but as long as he thinks we do, we run the risk of losing an extremely lucrative fucking client. So fix it before the rest of this gets out of hand!”

“I know! I know, I’ll deal with it,” he wails, but even across the room Zoro can see a sadistic kind of gleam in his eye that makes him wonder if they’re all fucking with each other as much as humanly possible and getting off on it.

Because even though Crocodile is fuming, spitting, screaming at him—Buggy is still three steps behind. Which means he’s three steps above Croc on the stairs. And no matter how much Crocodile might want to loom and intimidate the smaller man, he physically can’t. He has to look up.

The bulging vein in Crocodile’s neck is visible even from a distance.

“See that you do,” he grits out, voice thick and haughty as if to overcompensate for the reversal of their positions.

Then Mihawk appears in the doorway of his study, a lazy gait to his step as he watches the exchange from the balcony rail (above them both) with an expression somewhere between haughty aggravation and disdain—and as the two of them turn to glare up at him simultaneously, Zoro regrets thinking the phrase “getting off on it” so much he wants to die. Because dear god.

Crocodile is the first to break by necessity, maybe, and he scoffs as he turns to continue his descent—and makes eye contact with Zoro, still standing in the doorway. He scowls, and—dismissing (ignoring) the other two altogether, snaps, “I don’t have time for you.”

Zoro just glares right back, unfazed. He’s deeply tempted to spit out some kind of retort, but instead just keeps his mouth shut—because to antagonize Croc would be to antagonize all of them (technically), and no matter what kind of internal game the three of them are playing he is still one step lower on the food chain.

That being said, they may be the bosses, but they’ll never all be his bosses—and as the family kind of family he has a special sort of immunity to their bullshit only he and Perona (and his own father, even at so much distance) share.

When he doesn’t respond but doesn’t back down—its own kind of insult—he watches as Crocodile’s face splotches red. By the time he reaches the foyer floor (Buggy dutifully scrambling after), Crocodile looks desperately like he wants to hit him, to take out his rage at his business partners on the final straw—but doesn’t. Instead, he whirls a third and final time—and smashes a fist directly into Buggy’s nose before he even has time to blink.

Buggy keens, blood immediately spurting across his face, but Crocodile just grabs him by the collar and shoves past Zoro, hauling Buggy out through the main entrance and bodily tossing him into the daylight, where he tumbles down the steps and lands in a heap in the drive.

With no one left to prop it open, the front door slams shut behind them—and the whole front wall of the house shakes. Which would be more impressive, Zoro thinks, if the house weren’t half-falling apart already. And if the pair’s shouts weren’t still sprayed across the room through its open windows—fading into the distance as they descend the drive.

Behind and above him, Zoro hears his uncle scoff, but he has no way of knowing what exactly for.

Then the first floor door to his left swings open and Perona emerges, bustling out into the foyer in a black bloom of fur and lace, pink hair curled into an ensemble of feathers and a massive designer purse slung over one arm—either unaware or uncaring of the chaos. As soon as she sees him, she stops mid-step and scowls.

“Oh,” she says, nasally voice dripping with the kind of distilled disdain only an older sister (or the closest approximation he has, now) could conjure. “You’re back.” Visibly, melodramatically, she looks him up and down and gives a disgusted shake of her head as she laments, “When was the last time you showered?”

For a moment Zoro forgets his uncle is watching the whole exchange, because this is the first time he’s seen her in days and she’s just so—he flips her his middle finger and she sticks her tongue out in return like they’re five and nine again, him yanking on her hair and her (bigger than him, then) bodily crushing him in response.

Above them, Mihawk clears his throat and they both blink—scolded without a word like they really are kids. Then Perona sniffs, tosses her hair, and strides for the door. She’s dressed to the nines with an overnight bag and she’s going out—and he does not ask—he does not care. Really. Because Perona can handle herself, and despite the care she’s put into her appearance it’s probably nowhere serious, and—well, they’re all criminals anyway, but—

His uncle’s voice cuts across the foyer, crisp and impatient as it bounces off the marble. “Roronoa,” he says, and it’s not a greeting—it’s a statement. As if they’re already midway through a conversation and this isn’t the first time they’ve seen each other in days, too. “Crocodile has an assignment for you.”

Zoro scoffs, shoving both hands in his pockets, and rocks on his heels because that isn’t what he’s expecting. In the momentary pause, Perona ducks out toward the door (unacknowledged), jamming an elbow into his side as she passes. Zoro doesn’t wince—just flips his middle finger at her again behind his back, because he’s truly a well of creativity.

His uncle raises an eyebrow at the exchange, but does not say anything. Because of course not. He rarely does, even when it matters.

The door closes—softer this time—behind Perona and he barely glances in her direction.

A beat of silence follows in her wake as Mihawk stares him down—until Zoro grunts, “Well, that’s his problem. He can tell me himself,” and wills his legs to move. Hands shoved into his pockets, he crosses toward the staircase with as much apathy as he can muster. Mihawk only watches his approach, unimpressed and vaguely uninterested—and Zoro feels like prey walking right into a trap, alone and vulnerable in the middle of an open, empty room. He regrets leaving his swords still tucked away on his bike. Without them, he feels naked.

Drawing out the moment, Mihawk waits until he’s nearly at the landing before he drawls, “Very well,” with barely a hint of inflection—as if he ever rises to Zoro’s bait, still waters always—then he pivots on his heel and turns, retreating back into his office.

Forced to follow, Zoro takes the remaining steps two at a time and tries to ignore the way his hurried footfalls echo across the hall—humiliating, forced to run after his uncle.

By the time he reaches the study door, though, Mihawk has already returned. In one extended hand, he holds the locked, black leather briefcase that this whole fucking detour had been for in the first place. Zoro scowls, deep and unpleasant, and snatches the case with all the petulance of a child—and Mihawk just stares back, impassive. Judging.

Without a word of thanks (either of them), his job is done.

Zoro turns back toward the stairs and does his best not to glance inside the study—but his eyes skirt across the massive desk, the framed oil paintings, the floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the neglected garden anyway. Through the glass, light catches a patch of vibrant orange amid the lush, overgrown greens and blooms, just as quickly there then gone. Mihawk doesn’t move an inch.

Instead, he waits until Zoro is swinging open the front door to call, “Do try not to die tonight,” across the hall, voice carrying and yet somehow still uncaring—and it’s the closest thing he will ever get to good luck.

He pretends not to hear.

- - -

Even though Robin and Daz—and Crocodile and Buggy—have long-since left, the briefcase comes with him through the garden gate anyway.

If the house is a monument to ages past, the grounds are a relic—twisted paths of a once-meticulously kept swathe of nature overcome by Nature itself. As children, they’d spent hours flitting between the vegetable beds, the rose bushes, the ornamental forest—but now, the woods triumph in their menace; the roses, bent and toothed, form an impenetrable wall more branch than leaf, a kind of labyrinth in and of itself; and the vegetable beds are nothing more half-disintegrated scraps of wood at odd angles, traps laid out by the passage of time. The paths have been scattered, crushed seashells giving way to moss and dirt, and the garden has become something like a labyrinth.

As Zoro trudges through, thorns and branches catch on his clothes, as though the very estate were trying to pen him in. It isn’t far from the truth, he thinks.

He finds Nami where he expects—nearly twenty minutes later at the edge of the woods, twice what it would have taken in years past. (He does not get lost—absolutely not.) She’s cross-legged on the stone bench, eyes closed in something more respect than reverence, but when he approaches she looks up and sighs—stands—brushes dirt from the bottom of her pants and starts picking her way back to him through the underbrush.

Sparing him the tree.

Out of sheer bull-headedness, maybe, he meets her halfway anyway, passing the briefcase over without question because she’s already reaching for it, the more capable of them both. Nami takes it with a sigh that’s more frustrated than sad (though the sadness is there, too—he can hear it) and she apologizes, quick and gruff.

“She makes me think of Nojiko,” she says, stepping around to lead them both back to the driveway. Zoro turns to follow—and he does not look at the carved kanji, worn with time and new growth; does not look at the shredded black ribbon, what’s left tangled in fibers through the branches; does not look at the worn path here, the clearest on the grounds, a subtle kind of maintained. It is a child’s memorial, carved in a fit of rage at having his life uprooted in so many ways so quickly, now transformed into something more after so many years.

(It’s a reminder of her—but now, in his stagnation, it is also a reminder of his failings.)

Instead, he says, “Four months left,” like she doesn’t already have the days counted in her head.

“Four months,” she repeats, and with every step away from the tree and toward the garden’s winding depths, she seems to stand just a little bit straighter. “Her last letter said Genzo helped fix the hole in the roof, but who knows—” she shakes her head. “Nojiko wouldn’t tell me if anything were wrong, anyway.”

Zoro shrugs. “You’ll just have to see for yourself, then.” And Nami nods—determined but tired, too.

“Yeah,” she says. “I guess so.”

Leaves and fallen twigs crunch underfoot as they pick their way through the underbrush—and after a beat of silence, he continues (haltingly, because he knows what he wants to say but not how to say it), “She’s fine, probably.”

Nami glances back at him, almost surprised, but Zoro just shrugs again in return and shoves both hands in his pockets, not looking away but almost—then Nami snorts, smiles a little, and rolls her eyes as she turns ahead.

“Of course she’s fine!” she retorts, waving a hand over her shoulder even as she steps forward with a new kind of vigor. “She’s my sister, after all. By the time the supermoon festival rolls around they’ll probably have—I don't know—built an entire house or something. Planted half an acre of new trees. Who knows!” she laughs, and it’s almost genuine. “I guess I’ll find out when I get there.”

Somewhat satisfied, she pushes ahead, and Zoro trails behind her—eyes on her back, watching. Waiting. And as though aware he’s keeping an eye on her, she doesn’t turn around—so he can’t see her face. Can’t read the expression there.

He can guess, though.

- - -

The music blares so loud he can feel the sweat vibrate on his chest.

In the interlude between fights, the club’s singer croons over a cacophony of brass and double bass—trumpets screaming out across the hall over pounding drums. The chaos of noise crashes against his head and sets his vision spinning—though he could owe half that to the adrenaline in his veins, the shitty shots he’s been downing without question in the last hour, or the musky haze of smoke and body odor in the air.

Like any self-respecting gambling den, the Shikkearu speakeasy is underground—a massive open room hidden in plain sight underneath two innocuous buildings at the edge of town. Its ceiling extends upward into a missing first floor, a mirror of Mihawk’s grand foyer in stone, wood, and brass with its single staircase and wraparound balcony. Half of the expanse is filled with open card tables, a long wooden bar extending along one wall and a raised stage against the far corner. To the opposite side, the night’s main source of entertainment (and indiscretion) stands, a fighting ring larger than anything regulation, rimmed with chain and surrounded by a crowd of hungry, sweaty patrons.

Without windows, a kind of sour miasma hangs heavy and never seems to dissipate—not even in the long morning hours when the whole room is empty, the night’s chaos finished.

Now, in the thick of it, he can barely see, let alone hear, let alone think—but it doesn’t matter, because the crowd parts for him as he rolls his neck, creating a path to the red-topped bar where Nami is holding court.

She’s dressed to the nines, gold rings and glittering sequins glinting off the gaslight overhead as she plays the part of a reputable bookie. Faster than Zoro can blink, she scribbles in her ledger, pulls tickets, and counts stacks of cash from a sleek, leather briefcase propped open on the bar. It’s her own personal set up—different from the case he’d retrieved from his uncle, the club’s overall bank—and it completes the look of wealth and status; the look that says, trust me with your money! All of your money!

For all intents and purposes, she is leagues above every other betting agent in the place, at least as far as the crush of well-dressed men waving bills in her face are concerned. She only runs above board and always puts the best odds on the crowd favorite for a guaranteed win—and Zoro always does win, which in turn keeps him in the club’s good graces. So the patrons are happy, the establishment is happy, and Nami is happy, too.

(And if she takes a healthy cut of every bet—well, that’s her business.)

No one tries to talk to him or, god forbid, touch him—but he glares around anyway, sliding in between the barstools until he’s pressed right up against the counter in front of her. Without looking up, Nami slides another shot of something toward him, then turns back to the man at her right who’s openly gawking at Zoro now—at all of him, right down to the swords at his hip.

True to his uncle’s life philosophy, the club has only a few rules: no firearms, stop when the referee calls a match, and no throwing fights—the latter worst of all, because it would destroy the point of the place. The ferocity of it. Every win he’s claimed has been earned, against swordsman and other alike. And tonight, two rounds in, his swords have tasted blood.

Nami leans forward into the man’s space, asking something, but he’ frozen—so Zoro tosses back the shot without breaking eye contact and the man turns red, watching the column of Zoro’s throat without shame—and then Nami waves another ticket in his face and that gets his attention. Finally. Just as Zoro turns away, leaning across the bar to grab a pitcher of water from behind the counter, he hears the man double his bet over the din.

He tries not to smirk—he has an image to maintain, after all.

By the time he’s standing straight again, Nami is shoving the man away, forcing him back into the throng as she slams the lid of her briefcase shut. “Round’s closed!” she shouts, grinning broadly (all teeth and sharp eyes) at the crowd still gathered. “Thanks for placing your bets!”

With one hand she gestures, shoo-ing them like rats into other corners of the club, away from the two of them. She’s not the only bookie here, after all—far from it—so they have plenty of options. (She’s just his bookie, they know.)

Half the crowd disburses with a grumble, but a few swaying patrons look like they’re about to argue. They’re mostly corporate types—new-moneyed, white-collar men in buttondowns and suspenders, dress shirts clinging to their skin and shirtsleeves rolled up to their elbows, sweaty and flushed with alcohol and the adrenaline of watching the night’s previous rounds. Some haven’t lost their blazers yet, and those are the real suckers—the bettors who haven’t been here long enough to loosen up, pockets still full of cash to burn and the overconfidence to believe they’ll walk away richer.

Zoro rests one arm against the hilts of his swords and just looks at them.

A ripple passes through the crowd.

Within moments, the bubble around him has grown to include Nami as a dozen grown men scuttle off like embarrassed teenagers.

Then, in one quick motion, he dumps the pitcher of water over his head. It’s cool against his skin and it stings, clearing the world in a shock as it pools on the stone floor at his feet. As he shakes his head, he feels the sweat and grime leftover from his last fight loosen—and he only clears his eyes in time to catch a mouthful of towel thrown directly at his face. Nami gives him a disgusted look, but it's the cleanest the floor’s been in years, probably—and it’s no worse than the blood and booze left at the end of each fight night, anyway.

Instead of responding, he just scrubs the towel over his sticky skin—then through his hair like a dog—and Nami grimaces when he tosses it back to her.

“Nice work,” she yells, holding the towel at a distance before she drops it behind the bar—out of sight. Probably in the trash can. “Three rounds, though? Took you long enough.”

Zoro just shrugs, leaning forward across the counter. “Oh, fuck off,” he says. “He had scythes.”

“My mistake, didn’t know you drew the line there, Mr. I-fight-with-a-sword-in-my-mouth,” she snorts back. Instead of snapping back, he just grabs her drink and downs it—and she lets out an indignant kind of Augh! as she gripes, “Oh, like you’re so normal!”

Over the blaring music, he can barely hear a word that she’s saying, but he’s used to it by now. He can read Nami well enough as she pokes at him. She’s enjoying herself, though, as much as she complains. There’s a glint in her eyes, the one she gets when she’s winning, and Zoro knows they’re about to cash out big.

Even so, Nami crosses her arms, tilting her head toward the ring behind him as she raises one eyebrow. “You wanna know?” she asks, but Zoro just shakes his head. From her vantage point at the bar, Nami has a clear view of the entire floor, from the bandstand to arena to the tucked-away couches in the club’s far corners. It’s not the best place for betting by any means, especially wedged on the working side of the speakeasy’s massive bar, but it is the best place to scope out his opponents during each night’s brackets.

Nami doesn’t seem surprised when he refuses—he’s never said yes before. Still, though, she’s never stopped asking and she’s never moved somewhere quieter, either. After so long, he thinks she likes the challenge of diagnosing a fight and adjusting her odds on the fly just as much as the con potential if he ever decides to take her up on the offer to cheat.

In response, she shrugs—and then the bartender sets two shots in front of them as if on cue. She’s a leggy blonde with a puppydog smile and a name Zoro can’t remember—not that it matters, because she’s only got eyes for Nami.

“Thanks, Wanda,” Nami coos, taking one of the two glasses with a wink that has Zoro rolling his eyes, too. He’s never actually asked how she’s been able to keep her place behind the bar on fight nights—an area technically off-limits to her, no matter who he is.

“No prob!” Wanda chirps, blowing a kiss as she scurries back to the next person waiting.

As he grabs his own shot, Zoro snickers at Nami, who rolls yer eyes in return, even while she grins—and they tip their shots back in a silent salute to one another before swallowing, hissing through their teeth in unison.

He’s lost count of how much he’s had to drink at this point, and the music isn’t helping—but he knows he’ll have a clear head in the ring no matter what. He always does. Like the crowd is out of focus and the fight is what’s real.

He’ll feel it after, maybe—or maybe not, depending on the day—but he’s still got one fight left and plenty of adrenaline running through his system.

A broad hand claps on his bare back hard enough to jolt him forward, and Zoro nearly drops the glass in his hand—and in front of him, Nami goes very still.

“Roronoa,” a voice drawls, and Zoro feels his skin crawl as he shoves back from the bar, smacking the man’s hand away. Zoro glares, but Jack just stares him down—holding his hands up in mock surrender as he takes an exaggerated step backwards.

Kaido’s third right hand (his left leg, really) is a big man—bigger than Zoro, even—with a wide chest that seems to take up twice the space he physically occupies, a permanent scowl etched under incongruously well-kept blond hair. What he lacks in charm he makes up in sadism, however—a fact which makes his presence in person that much more unsettling.

“The fuck do you want?” Zoro bites out, but his words are half-swallowed as the crowd gathered around the ring screams in approval at something, cutting off the band as the opposing bracket’s next round begins.

At the edge of his vision, Zoro sees a few heads turned in their direction—not regular patrons but his uncle’s men keeping an eye on them both. Because even though the Cross Guild’s speakeasy is technically open to the public, it’s still Cross Guild territory—and Jack is one of Kaido’s subordinates.

Jack just smiles. “Now, now,” he says, then turns his sharp, unreadable gaze on Nami, who’s watching him through a scowl of her own. “I wanted to apologize for the way my men acted last night.” He holds his hands out in offering, almost—the very picture of repentance.

Nami scoffs. “I’m not looking for job offers,” she says, and Jack nods, utterly amenable. It sets Zoro’s teeth on edge.

“Perfectly understandable,” he agrees, then he cuts his eyes to Zoro before turning back to Nami. A show, then. All of this is. “It was extremely inappropriate of them to try and recruit from another family, and for that I extend my regrets. I know no one in your organization tolerates betrayal, and I would never want to take you from their good graces,” he continues, and it’s almost too apologetic.

They both know Jack’s reputation, and Zoro doesn’t believe for a moment that he’s only here to smooth the wrinkles of inter-family diplomacy. Nami catches his eye—she’s picked up on the same thing.

Before either of them can respond, though, the crowd erupts again, and this time the cheering doesn’t stop—it just builds and builds until the announcer is yelling, too. Distracted, Zoro turns toward the noise along with everyone else nearby—which gives Jack just enough time to lean forward and hiss, “Just know Kaido doesn’t tolerate any bullshit, either,” directly into his ear, completely under cover of the noise. “So stay out of our way.”

Zoro jerks back, but it’s already too late—with another overly-friendly smack on his shoulder, Jack is already halfway to disappearing as he pushes through the undulating crowd and out the rear door. None of the staff give chase because Jack hasn’t technically done anything—entering the building isn’t a declaration of war.

Unsure if he’s just been threatened, Zoro turns to Nami—who looks just as alarmed as she stares beyond him toward the exit.

Neither of them have time to parse out the warning, though—because the announcer is already calling the match and calling for him, too—

“—ext fight will be our last of the night, so I hope you’ve placed your bets! Now give it up for our very own undefeated champion—Roronoa Zoro, The King of Hell!”

—and the crowd roars.

Part II

As the crab trap scrapes up the side of her boat, draining seaweed and sand back into the ocean, Nami throws her head back and groans. “What the hell?” And from across the deck, Zoro eyes the piles of twisted metal and frayed rope steadily accumulating with each passing hour. Once is a fluke, twice a coincidence—but this?

In one heaving, angry motion, she hauls her trap over the rail and tosses it with the rest. It’s half-crumpled, hit by something with enough force to make the whole thing look more like chicken wire than real eleven-gauge steel, the thick mesh punched through and peeled back—identical to the last four they’ve pulled up.

“Use shittier bait next time,” Zoro calls. “Stop giving the crabs meth.”

Nami just glares and peels off her thick workman’s gloves—leaving Zoro to haul up the buoy still bobbing in the water. “I don’t think it’s the bait,” she snaps back, and then she throws her hands up and stomps back toward the wheelhouse. “I think it’s sabotage.”

Zoro sighs as he leans over the side of the boat, yanking the slick rope up on deck. It doesn’t look tampered with, the thick growth of seaweed and algae still fully-formed along the whole thing. Instead, it’s as though something big and hungry tried to crack it open underwater, a crab shell in and of itself, and succeeded.

In the days since Jack’s cryptic warning, they’ve been impatiently waiting for the other shoe to drop. Although they’d tried to piece together whatever he’d been referring to, they’d both come up empty—and had instead resolved to wait. We’ll just ask them when they try to kill us, Nami had finally said—and Zoro had agreed. It made the most sense, after all. And with Jack’s reputation—there’s no way he wouldn’t try something if the opportunity ever arose.

(It’s been ages since anyone has tried to kill them, after all—they’re overdue.)

Destroying half of Nami’s crab traps, though? It’s certainly not the blood and violence he’d been expecting.

“Could be sabotage,” he grunts, conceding, finally dragging the buoy onboard. “Seems kind of petty to go after a hobby, though.”

Nami scowls at him again—this time through the wheelhouse window. It’s another calm day, with low swells and a faint but steady breeze, and they’ve got the whole place thrown open to let the air pass through.

“It’s still money,” she gripes before turning to check their navigational instruments. “I have to do something during the day or they’ll start asking questions down at the docks.”

Zoro rolls his eyes as he tosses the buoy in its own pile, then throws himself down on one of the low wood-and-fabric beach chairs they’ve dragged on deck again. It’s wedged up against the edge so he can dangle one leg off the side of the boat, toes just barely skimming the top of the water below.

“Maybe, maybe not,” he replies, poking through the chair’s pocket, hunting for their flask. “But you don’t have to fish.”

“I own a fishing boat,” Nami shouts back as he finds it, grins, unscrews the top, and takes a swig—then hisses.

Atrocious moonshine.

Oddly fitting, he thinks. Shitty day, shitty booze.

Scowling, he yells, “I don’t know, give tours?”

Nami barks out a laugh, then turns and leans her arms on the window frame. “Yeah, like there’s anything to see out here.” She holds out one hand and Zoro tosses the flask to her—and she catches it easily. Takes a sip of her own. Winces. “God, that’s garbage.”

“You filled it last time,” Zoro snorts as she caps and throws it back across the deck—then she disappears, ducking under the window to rummage out of sight. When she reemerges, she has a flask of her own—presumably not some moron’s piss-adjacent approximation of sellable hooch. “Oh, I hate you,” he says, eyeing it.

Nami just sticks her tongue out at him and Zoro sighs—but drinks again anyway. He’s not about to waste their alcohol, even the worst of it.

(Out of the corner of his eye, he sees a shadow pass over—under?—the sea, and a distant part of his brain registers something odd about it. There aren’t that many clouds in the sky—but he doesn’t know enough about the weather to really know, and he’s not paying that much attention, anyway. Seaweed, maybe, or an especially foamy crest.)

After a beat of silence, Nami hums, “I could do fishing charters, I guess.”

“I think you’re trying to tell me you really do like fishing,” Zoro replies, swinging his leg a little so that his toes touch the water with the next gentle wave.

“I don’t like fishing,” she replies. She rolls her eyes.

In response, Zoro leans back and smirks. “You can admit it—you actually adore fishing. I won’t judge.”

“You will absolutely judge.”

“I’ve seen your taste in women—if I were going to judge, I’d have done it by now.”

Nami lets out an indignant Augh! around a mouthful of liquor, and Zoro throws his head back to laugh as she coughs—and shoots him the middle finger even as her eyes water, utterly dampening the insult.

Then the boat rocks once, twice—an unexpected bump in the current, and Zoro’s foot dips deeper into the ocean for a moment—fully submerged and then out again, soaking his rolled-up pants to the calf.

Nami glances at the instruments in the cockpit, still recovering from her fit, but there must not be anything of note because a moment later she wanders out to lean against the wheelhouse door frame. “We could be hauling nets right now, you know,” she says. “Or hunting for that—I dunno, the sea god.”

Zoro shakes his head. “And miss the excitement? No way,” he deadpans, “I live for pulling up broken crab pots.”

“They weren’t broken when they went into the water,” she wails back. “Now I have to pay to get them repaired or buy new ones—and I don’t have any fucking crabs!”

“Thank god for that. I dunno if I could take witnessing a crab orgy right here on deck,” Zoro mumbles in response, swigging from his flask again, and Nami snorts—

“Don’t be jealous—just because it’s been ages for you—”

—and it’s his turn to choke, sputter, curse as he nearly flails out of the chair trying to flip her off and not drown in a drop of liquor all at once, and Nami laughs.

“Let the crabs fuck! They deserve it! Their lives are hard enou—”

Suddenly, the short wave radio in the wheelhouse crackles to life, beeping long and loud over an explosion of white noise—and both of them freeze. Before Nami can reach for it, the static resolves into a garbled, frantic voice neither of them recognize—

“—ot one! Someone get Kaido—Fuck! I can’t believe it’s real. We actually caught one! Tell him—”

The voice cuts off and there’s a burst of fuzz before another breaks in, shouting, “Wrong channel, moron! Do you want someone to hea—”

—and then the machine goes dead.

Zoro and Nami stare at each other for a moment, blinking into the sun—and the boat rocks again, followed by the sound of a massive splash off the port side. The noise snaps them both to attention, but they ignore it. Instead, Nami turns back to her equipment, frantically inspecting the cockpit’s various machines.

“We’re on my channel,” she half-shouts, full of glee, as Zoro hauls himself up and steps into the wheelhouse. “Unless someone’s eavesdropping, we’re the only ones who’ve heard it.”

Zoro crosses his arms and leans in to look over her shoulder—but it all just looks like numbers and dials to him. He frowns, thinking. “If it’s someone who knows your channel, it’s got to be one of your contacts—someone recent enough to still have his own radio tuned. And he said Kaido.”

Already, Nami is adjusting something at the wheel—then she throws a lever and the boat’s anemic outboard motor revs to life.

“We’re going,” she says, and the boat suddenly jerks as Nami swings the wheel—wrecked crab pots and beach chair sliding back toward the rail in an inevitable arc. The engine lets out a terrible whining noise but holds steady. When she looks at him, there’s a familiar delight in her eyes.

Zoro grips the door frame for balance as the deck rocks. And he grins. “We’re going to steal it?” he asks, even though he already knows the answer.

“If it’s real?” she replies, laughing. “Of course we’re going to steal it.”

- - -

There’s no opportunity for stealth. The moment they pull in view of the cargo district’s loading docks, they see the crowd of Kaido’s subordinates clustered in bunches around something that’s been dragged away from the edge—if the massive, sopping, kelp-tangled net left haphazard on the concrete is any indication.

Half of the men turn, weapons at the ready like they’re waiting for something—but no matter how trigger-happy they look, no one opens fire. They just watch their approach, and then the central cluster parts—and Jack glares at them from the heart of his subordinates. He has one foot resting on a lone, sealed crate and a hunting knife unsheathed in one of his hands.

Nami cuts the engine to idle and slips parallel to the shore, and Zoro doesn’t have to be told—swords secured at his hip, he’s already at the deck’s edge, already reaching out to snag a rope against one of the pilings. The knots are quick and dirty enough for a getaway if they need one—which they absolutely will, Zoro thinks as he surveys the crowd. Two against twenty-or-more aren’t terrible odds because they’re both armed, but if they’re going to pull this off it’ll be closer to Zoro against everyone while Nami snatches the creature.

If she can.

“I had a feeling you’d show up,” Jack shouts without preamble, a wild look in his eye that Zoro’s never seen before. There’s no beating around the bush, then—Jack isn’t the type. For all Zoro disagrees with his methods—Jack’s known more for his brutality than his finesse on jobs. If anything, Zoro can appreciate the lack of bullshit.

(The thought brings to mind Jack’s threat and he wonders, suddenly—stupidly—if this is their chance to ask what he meant.)

“Well, we got your call at the cathouse,” Zoro yells back, a feral grin on his face—already itching for a fight. “It seemed rude to stand up an appointment.”

A few of the men snicker—involuntarily, maybe, if the sickly pallor that immediately seeps into their skin is any indication—and Jack’s face turns a blotchy, angry red.

Before he says anything, though, Nami steps out of the wheelhouse, metal staff in-hand. She’s already armed—which means no one is really pretending. “Easy, boys,” she calls. “We just want to see if it’s real.”

Jack just snorts.

In response, Zoro shrugs, one hand resting on the hilts of the swords at his waist as he steps onto the dock. In his peripheral vision, he sees grips tighten on weapons, but still—no one shoots. Nami follows close behind, gesturing toward the crate with her free hand before raising it in mock-surrender.

“Can you blame us?” she says, “If you’ve really caught a sea god, who knows if we’ll get the chance again.”

Jack stares at her a moment, assessing them both, then he laughs, kicking the crate so hard it clatters against the concrete docks—

—and that’s when Zoro hears it. A whimper, almost. A child’s cry. Something not quite animal—not in any way he’s expecting. Something that makes a sick feeling churn in the pit of his gut alongside the adrenaline of their race to the docks.

At his left, Nami sucks in a breath through her teeth—hissing, almost—and he knows that it wasn’t his imagination.

Something is not right.

(He glances around, then, and realizes that half the men really do look ill—blood drained from their faces as they glance nervously around, eyes pinging from Jack to the crate under his foot to the ocean and back—)

“Fine! Why not?” Jack barks out, a deep kind of gleeful that seems wrong. “If you make it out of here alive, no one will believe you anyway.” A few of the men laugh with him—intentionally, this time, as Jack continues, “Maybe it’ll give you some of the sea god’s luck.”

“That’s what we’re hoping,” Nami replies, but she turns her head slightly and catches Zoro’s eye—just for a moment—and shoots him a look halfway between confused and alarmed. Zoro understands. There is a possibility—possibly a large possibility—that they have miscalculated the kind of crazy needed to hunt mythical sea monsters on faith alone.

Jack kicks the crate a second time, then, hard enough to displace the lid—and they hear the noise again, louder this time. It seems to stretch the grin on Jack’s face wider, and he reaches for whatever’s inside. In one swift motion, yanks out a tangle of weighted lines—and then the sound really does become an oh-so-human wail.

Zoro feels the ground drop out from underneath him, and Nami physically sways.

Deeply, deeply miscalculated.

Trapped in the fishing net is what looks to be a little girl, no more than six or seven, with ruddy purple hair and a dirty face splotched from crying and smeared with grime and blood from somewhere, pale skin already bruising. She has her eyes clenched shut and she’s practically curled into a ball, arms thrown over her head as she’s held aloft. If it weren’t for the trembling, whimpering noises, Zoro might easily mistake her for dead.

Instantly, Zoro has a hand on his swords and Nami lurches forward—but Jack grins, shaking the bundle like a doll.

“What the fuck?” Nami yells, knuckles white on her staff, but Jack just inspects his prize, calm as can be.

“It looks just like one of us! It talks like a human, too,” he says, almost impressed. Then he tilts his head. “Without the tail, perhaps. And the fins—” He shakes the net again, and the girl whimpers—

And Zoro does notice, then, that something is off. There’s something in the net with her, maybe—an iridescent, green thing like the body of a fish—the fins of which are bent against the ropes at an almost painful angle. But there has to be a mistake, like they’ve thrown in some giant tropical sea creature to collect the bounty, because undoubtedly, it’s—

“That’s a kid!” Nami growls, enraged, beating him to it. “Are you out of your fucking mind?”

Jack just looks at her like she’s stupid—glancing between Nami and the child he has in his grip. “No,” he shakes his head. “It’s a fish. An animal.” There’s a gleam in his eye that’s a shade closer to unhinged as he stares them all down. None of his men say anything, half enamored and half ill, and he steps closer, then, toward the two of them—

—and the ocean erupts.

A wave of seawater drenches the loading dock and rocks their boat hard enough to send the crab traps skidding across the deck—and a pair of feral, screaming growls tears through the air. Within seconds, something lithe and massive and angry claws itself out of the sea, sharp nails digging into the concrete deep enough to leave grooves as it hauls its body from the water, razor teeth gritted and hungry.

In the space of a breath, Zoro wonders—with startling clarity—if he’s having a breakdown.

Because the creature looks like the real fucking deal—the body of a dark-haired young man (or something like a young man, covered in swirls of shifting black from the tips of its curved claws to its human-like shoulders) grafted to the tail of a massive fish (or something like a fish, mottled red scales tapered like knives and iradescent in the orange sunset), all fangs and claws and spiny fins—and rage.

A sea monster. A sea god.

Snarling, it drags itself across the ground with startling, terrifying ease—using its own momentum and upper body strength to propel its own bulk forward. Some of lower recruits scream, terrified, and scatter outwards, running inland and half parallel to the water’s edge—and then a gunshot ricochets through the twilight, followed by another—then another—as Jack’s men instantly move to protect the two hundred-thousand dollar investment still clenched in their leader’s fist.

Zoro ducks, heart thundering in his ears as he draws Kitetsu—and at his left, he hears Nami shriek.

A second bulk, larger than the first and with a mop of blond, human-like hair, lunges out of the water—but instead of hauling itself up onto shore, it reaches one terrifying hand out to snag the ankle of a fleeing gunman and yank. In seconds, the man’s skull smashes into the concrete as he falls, but Zoro can’t even tell if he survives long enough to feel the blow because in an instant, the body is gone—dragged into the black ocean.

Nami turns to look at Zoro, whose eyes are wide and legs already pivoting to run, maybe—

—and then the little girl screams.

“Help! Luffy! Help me!”

And, god—she really does sound like a human child.

Nami makes the decision at the same time he does, and without hesitation she redirects, turning on her heel with her metal staff gripped in both hands as she smashes it into the temple of a man running straight for the water. In tandem, Zoro moves, curving right with one swift motion as he slices through the meat of another thug’s arm, forcing him to drop his gun—and half his hand, too.

Zoro knows, logically, that they’ve just made a huge fucking mistake—attacked members of a rival family in what looks like (and may have been) a bid to steal their fortune, but she’s—she’s just a fucking kid. And even they have lines that they do not cross.

Monster or not, they’ve put a baby in a sack and called it god, and if that’s what it means to believe he wants no fucking part of it.

As another gun fires—then clatters to the ground, the red creature to his right growls and plows forward, slithering across dry land with an almost practiced ease as it shoves aside men and weapons alike. It cuts a direct line for Jack as it snaps and spits, and Jack doesn’t even have time to react—he just thrusts his hunting knife outward in an arc that misses the creature by a mile. Then, in a blink, it’s sinking its teeth into his leg, latching on with its claws and tearing.

Jack screams in a way Zoro has only rarely heard, even in his own line of work. Suddenly, the gifters left around them all have their weapons focused directly on the monster, poised to defend their leader even as he writhes on the ground. The monster is as good as a massive target, all unprotected muscle in the middle of the open loading bay. Either it doesn’t realize what’s happening or it doesn’t care, because the beast doesn’t stop—just jerks its head outward and mutilates Jack, ripping his leg clean off at the knee.

Still, Jack doesn’t let go of the net. Instead, he grips the hunting knife still clenched in his hand and thrusts it downward, directly into the creature’s upper back. It growls, but doesn’t stop—

—and Zoro moves before he’s even fully aware of his own actions.

(He’s already fucked this whole thing up, anyway, he thinks—what are a few more bodies?)

In one swift movement he starts forward, disarming another man with a decisive slash to his wrist—already drawing Enma with his left and then smashing another thug’s temple with the sword’s hilt.

As their bodies hit the ground, half of the gunmen start to turn, distracted by the fact that he’s attacking them, not the creature. It’s a split second, but it’s long enough for Nami to leap in with a low grip on her staff as she swings the metal like a bat—and it smashes into the face of another gunman with a sickening crunch. He goes down like a lead weight and Nami grabs his pistol before he’s even fully hit the ground.

The little girl lets out another terrified wail as the red creature finally lets Jack’s body slump to the concrete, and for a moment Zoro wonders if they’ve made the wrong decision—wonders if it will attack them, too—but the monster just turns and grasps at the net.

With surprising (or unsurprising, maybe) ease, it tears at the ropes with its claws while the little one cries, “Luffy! Luffy! Luffy!” in a way that sounds terrible, tiny hands reaching for the bigger thing—and then it wraps her in its arms in a protective embrace as she buries her face in the crook of its not-quite-human neck. It’s bleeding freely from a jagged slice down its back and shoulder, but it doesn’t seem to notice.

They freeze there for a moment, the two of them, and Zoro swears he hears the creature talk back—but it sounds low in its throat and more growl than anything. Then it lurches, tries to move, and gets almost nowhere.

Zoro realizes the problem at the same time the creature seems to.

With its arms full, it has no way of dragging itself back to the ocean—not at this distance.

(Another thug goes down at Nami’s hand, and then the blue-and-blond blur heaves out from the ocean again, drowning one more attacker in the same grab-and-smash maneuver—and then there’s a third one, too, orange and purple—)

Zoro can practically see the creature in front of him thinking—scanning their surroundings—and then it stops. Turns to look him dead in the eye. Assessing.

(And for a split second, Zoro is hit with the strangest feeling—like he’s suspended in water, weightless and floating—and he understands with a kind of startling, painful clarity that nothing is ever going to be the same again.)

The creature flicks its eyes to the ocean, then back to Zoro, and it’s like they’ve had an entire conversation. Something just clicks. Then it grins, a mouth full of knives, and Zoro has the strangest urge to grin back.

Without hesitation, Zoro sheaths his swords, ignoring Nami’s frantic, “What the fuck are you doing?” as he steps forward and wraps both hands around the tapered base of the monster’s tail. He feels the tense muscle corded under his fingers, strong and taut with anticipation, and he glances up—sees the monster smiling like a human with more teeth and gore, sees the little girl staring at him with wide eyes. Sees the mutilated corpse of Jack, just a pile of meat that was once Kaido’s man. Makes his choice.

Zoro plants his feet against the ground, braces his legs, and heaves.

It’s the heaviest thing he’s ever lifted, its tail alone more packed mass than the average grown man, but Zoro is pumped up on kind of fuck you adrenaline he rarely feels even in his worst fights. In two massive pulls, he practically hurls the monster toward the sea, and he swears, swears, he can hear it laughing—or something like a laugh.

Nami catches on fast, turning to cover him with another block and disarm—then fires two shots from her stolen gun into the legs of another lackey.

She’s not fast enough, though.

As Zoro heaves a third time, forcing the creature and its offspring? charge? (they barely look anything alike, though they’re clearly the same species) the last few feet to the water's edge, he hears another gunshot too close and feels a searing pain rip along the edge of his shoulder. He almost loses his grip as the bullet tears through skin and muscle, but he holds onto the creature’s tail through sheer force of will—even as his brain starts to disengage his entire arm in agony.

The creature growls, but Zoro doesn’t stop—even when Nami yells his name, “Zoro!” and he hears another round of gunshots.

There’s a flash of blue and purple on the dark water as the other monsters shove their much-more-human heads to the surface. With one final burst of momentum, Zoro hauls the creature off the loading bay and sends it careening toward the sea in tangle of limbs and fins—

(“—Sabo, you promised your brother would stick to the fucking plan—”)

—and Nami grabs his uninjured arm and yanks, shoving him toward her boat. That gets him moving again.

Ignoring the pain in his shoulder, he draws Kitetsu once more and slices cleanly through the lines holding their vessel as Nami covers him, firing round after round into the distance.

When the gun finally clicks out, she tosses it into the sea—just in time for Zoro to grab her wrist, then, and haul her onto the deck in front of him. As soon as she’s off the dock, he braces both hands against the edge of the boat and shoves, gritting his teeth as he feels something warm and wet start to ooze down his shoulder. Then, miraculously, the engine roars to life—Nami has made a beeline for the cockpit and she’s already smashing levers, pressing buttons, gripping the door frame with one hand as the boat jerks.

Zoro leaps fully onto the stern just as Nami peels out into the open ocean and away from the warehouse district as fast as mechanically possible. Haphazard gunshots follow them into the evening air, but within seconds they’re too far to hear them—whoever they’ve left standing long enough to shoot in their wake.

- - -

Minutes (or hours) later, Nami finally lowers the engine to a crawl—then cuts it altogether, leaving them both in a kind of deafening quiet, untethered in more ways than one.

With one final burst of energy, Zoro hauls himself fully over the railing and onto the deck—and then just stays there, processing. Through the open wheelhouse doorway, he can see Nami standing stock-still, rigid and white-knuckled at the helm, where she’s been steering them practically on autopilot.

After a beat of silence she turns—blinks at him. Zoro blinks back.

And they both burst out laughing. Nami’s legs buckle as she clutches her sides and crouches in the wheelhouse, curled into a ball while balancing on the balls of her feet. “What the actual fuck?” she wheezes—high-pitched, incredulous, and utterly hysterical. “What the actual fuck?”

Zoro feels like he’s losing his mind, too, just a little, as he nearly doubles over—unsure whether his body wants to keep laughing or freeze. He’s not even sure where to begin—how absolutely fucked they are for possibly (probably) starting shit with another family? The realization that sea monsters are real? The fact that he’s been shot?

He blinks again, then—brain finally catching up with his limbs.

Oh, he thinks. He’s been shot.

He barely feels it when his body hits the deck.

- - -

When he regains consciousness, he’s sprawled across one of the beach chairs on deck, now pulled out of the crush of crab pots (also missing) and shoved against one wall of the wheelhouse. Nami has stripped him to the waist and banaged his shoulder, but the cotton is still seeping red and a large portion of his left arm has gone numb. After testing his limits with a stretch, though, he’s not particularly worried about permanent damage. Technically, this isn’t the first time he’s been shot—and he has enough mobility to move, to grip, to do everything important, which is the best possible sign the bullet hadn’t hit anything vital.

He does fucking hurt, though.

When Nami sticks her head out of the doorway and sees that he’s awake, she just sighs—but he’s known her long enough to hear the multitudes it contains. Relief, exasperation, frustration, fear. Without a word, she just walks over and sits on the edge of his lounger—then flops over, burying her face against his uninjured side as she lets out another shuddering breath.

The best he can do is wedge her closer without a word, but that’s all either of them need—they’ve never been the best at speaking, anyway. So they stay like that for some indeterminate amount of time, tucked together in the darkness, sticky and sweaty and exhausted—until Nami sits up. Swipes at her eyes.

And that is that.

They agree almost immediately that they can’t head back to the marina for fear of what they’ve started. While it is unlikely that Kaido would move to retaliate so soon, they have just as much to worry about from their own people, too. For stirring up trouble where it’s not wanted, any of their bosses would be well within their rights to demand retribution in an effort to placate Kaido for Jack’s death. Even Zoro. Especially Zoro.

(Because they’re fairly sure Jack is dead now.)

Even so, Zoro needs a doctor. Badly.

They circle through the open water until day breaks, Nami practically glued to the short-wave radio as they wait for news. And yet—nothing.

When another hour passes without word of the incident, Nami comes to a decision and Zoro has no choice but to agree. By mid-afternoon, they’re closer to shore, tucked away in their place, the cove.

As soon as they drop anchor, Nami all but shoves him below deck, barely extracting a promise that he’ll stay put before she disappears again. Then, minutes later, Zoro hears the tell-tale sound of her dinghy hitting the water, followed by the slosh of oars as she heads for the shore.

To his credit, he does stay put—he couldn’t leave even if he wanted, not with his shoulder wound left to fester in the gummy ocean spray for almost a full day now. Instead of waiting below deck, though, he raids the very dregs of their tiny galley cabinets and sprawls back out on his lounger with the shittiest bottle of liquor he can find—something more engine fuel than fit for human consumption. On purpose this time.

Over and over, he turns the events of the previous evening in his mind, still struggling to process the reality of it. Now that they’re safe (for the time being) and Nami has a plan, he’s finally left with a little bit of room to address the most baffling part of the whole thing—the fucking. Sea monsters.

He takes a sip of the clear liquor and stares at the clouds overhead without really seeing them.

The existence of them, yes, and that sea monster in particular—because he’d only gotten a good look at one of the big ones, really, and his brain is refusing to process that the baby hadn’t been a little human girl at least in some capacity.

Of all that he’d seen, though, that had been the closest to what he imagines might be a fucking—a sea god.

The black-and-red creature had all the outward appearance of something more animal than person, patterns undulating under pale, luminous skin—teeth and spines and claws. But when they’d locked eyes—he’d known. He’d seen it thinking, planning, communicating. He’d heard at least two of them speak, and he wonders if the voice from the water had been one of them, too. And if they’d been talking at all, really, or just mimicking human language like a parrot.

Except. Except.

The little one had called for help, had called someone’s name—

Luffy?

—and it responded.

Zoro’s never put much stock in the fishermen’s superstitions, despite spending so much of his life in town, on the water. He’s heard the unbelievable, stupid tales about giant squids and mysterious whirlpools and women in the sea hundreds of times. Seen the offerings in shrines by the shore, left in the rain for the gods, for a carved Nika. Watched the fervor whipped up by Akainu’s hunt with enough apprehension to realize people did believe.

And yet, he can’t deny what he’s seen. He can’t think himself out of it—something half man, half fish. Fucking. Mermaid. Or merman?

He takes another swig and holds the acrid moonshine in his mouth as long as he can without gagging, counterintuitively trying to clear his head with the burn.

Maybe it’s the alcohol, but the look in its eyes—it seems seared against the sky as he stares at the clouds, processing nothing.

Zoro has to know. He has to see it again, both to believe it had been real in the first place and to figure out what the fuck.

For a brief and terrible moment, he thinks he understands even some fraction of Akainu’s obsession.

If he goes the rest of his life with only a glimpse of whatever that was, the indescribable something of it, maybe there will be a hole in him forever. An empty place he’d never known existed, filled for an instant and then gone just as fast—a blink. A heartbeat.

As a breeze winds though the empty cove, rustling his hair and cooling the sweat on his face, he drinks. And he plans. And when Nami returns that evening with Chopper in tow, he’s somehow managed to convince himself he’s not entirely crazy.

- - -

Chopper is a smart decision—only affiliated with the Cross Guild in an informal capacity but trusted enough to keep their location a secret if shit really hits the fan.

He’s a scrawny kid, short and scruffy in an endearing kind of way—and smarter than either of them will ever be, at least when it comes to some things. He’s also a sweet kid, with an optimistic disposition completely at odds with his job—apprentice to one of the city’s back-alley surgeons, a legitimate doctor willing to work discreetly with the families.

He cleans Zoro’s injuries without prying for details, instead just griping about how long they’ve been festering and giving him strict instructions to keep them clean, damn it!

He’s well aware of Zoro’s track record when it comes to changing bandages, having taken care of him more than once after a particularly nasty fight. Nami nods along on his behalf, even as she paces—not because of his bullet wound, et al., (he’s been shot before; they both have), but because of the variables still in play while they’re stuck hiding out.

Nami does her best to wheedle information from him, but by the time Chopper leaves they still aren’t sure what kind of damage they’ve done. All he can offer is that there is no information—it’s been over a day, and despite the fact that news always travels fast in their circles Chopper hasn’t heard anything—not about Jack. Not about the child-monster. Not about the gifters they’d killed. And not about Kaido or Akainu, either.

It’s unsettling.

They stay off the grid for nearly a week, waiting for the guillotine to take them both out—and still, nothing happens. No manhunts, no report of an inter-organizational bounty, not even mention of the incident over any channel on the short-wave except to let other smugglers (and, ostensibly, legitimate dockworkers) know the cargo district has been shut down. Even so, they agree to lay low.

Because of his injury, Zoro stays on the boat while Nami ventures into civilization for supplies. He spends the bulk of each day on deck left to his own devices, staring across the sea as he tries to meditate or train. Despite its initial shock to his system, the bullet had only plowed through the meat of his arm—no bones broken or significant nerves damaged. Within a week, he’s pulled the stitches out himself and incorporated enough stretching into his usual routine to keep the scar tissue from fucking him up long-term. So he ignores Nami’s pointed remarks and continues to work out, even as the rest of his injury heals. He doesn’t have anything else to do, anyway.

(And when Nami isn’t looking, he tips half his meals into the water and watches the fish swarm—but it’s only ever just fish, and he feels stupid for even trying.)

Then, on the eighth day, Robin arrives.

With the cove inaccessible by road (it is a safe house, after all, or something like it) she appears on foot, emerging from the woods in silence. The moment he notices her, Zoro is on his feet with Nami close behind—like standing straighter will do anything if Robin decides to make a move. They’re wide open on deck, veritable sitting ducks if she’s come with a gun.

Instinctively, he reaches for his swords, ignoring the twinge in his shoulder—but Robin just holds her hands up, palms out in the universal sign of surrender. She doesn’t seem armed but Zoro doesn’t relax, because that doesn’t mean anything, really, in their line of work.

“I come in peace, Mr. Swordsman,” she calls across the water, an unbothered half-grin on her face as she picks her way along the rocky beach. She inclines her head to Nami, too—tacit acknowledgement of someone far below her rank that sets Zoro’s teeth on edge, because Nami wouldn’t even be on Robin’s radar if not for him.

“What do you want?” Nami shouts, gripping the prow’s railing as she leans over the side. Zoro scans the treeline for any sign of backup, but the woods are quiet—just like the rest of the cove around them.

Robin ignores the question. Instead, she practically purrs, “Ah, our dear Miss Navigator—how quiet the waters have been without you.”

It’s a power play even as she looks the picture of innocence—and they both nearly flinch, because that means Robin (and perhaps Crocodile, too) knows who’s really running the smuggling routes. Not Arlong, which—Zoro doesn’t entirely have time to consider the implications of, but he fully realizes isn’t great.

Again, Nami calls, “How did you find us?”

And again, instead of answering, Robin redirects. “I’ve come to relay the message that hiding makes you look entirely guilty,” she says, shrugging demurely, casually. “Far more so than going about your business as usual. If you’ll allow me aboard, I will explain.”

Zoro frowns and exchanges a look with Nami, who shakes her head ever-so-slightly. A trap, then. Definitely a trap.

Even so, Robin waits patiently, standing still but unbothered along the shoreline with both hands in the air. As Zoro watches, Nami gauges the distance to the wheelhouse—and he searches the trees. Absolutely nothing.

(There’s a ripple in the water, dark rings—then stillness. Silence.)

Zoro is the one to break the standoff. After too many moments, Zoro glares and levels Kitetsu at Robin across the water. Even if they run, they’ll be running blind. They need to know. And even though he doesn’t trust her she has come alone. As far as he can tell, at least.

“Fine,” he growls, “but if you try anything, I’ll gut you.”

Robin blinks at him, an unreadable—almost amused—expression on her face, but it’s gone so quickly Zoro’s half-convinced he’s imagined it. Then, she nods. “Of course,” she calls back, “I mean you no harm.”

Zoro finds the statement hard to believe.

And yet, there’s no ambush waiting for him when he retrieves her in the dinghy, and she sits—prim and quiet—until she steps up onto the deck of Nami’s boat with no hostility whatsoever and speaks.

The tale she weaves is as disconcerting as it is baffling.

“There were no survivors?” Nami repeats, incredulous, as Robin tilts her head—listening. Assessing.

Again, Zoro is reminded of a snake as he thinks of the gunshots following in their wake, echoing across the water. The black blurs on the docks. The shouting, the yelling. No survivors—impossible. Either a lie or a message—

“Technically, yes, there were,” she replies. “However, it does not seem any lived long after my best guess at your time of departure.” Her tone is blasé, and Zoro narrows his eyes.

“And who do we have to thank for that?” he asks, but Robin just looks at him, expression a mask—as always.

“Who can say,” she shrugs again.

Nami shakes her head, sitting heavily on one of the beach chairs. “What about the bullets?” she glances at Zoro, then—and at his swords. “Blade wounds, at least, have got to be identifiable.”

Robin just hums, unbothered, like what she’s telling them makes any sense at all. “When Kaido himself arrived to…” she pauses, an over-exaggerated thoughtfulness in her tone, “collect his prize—”

(She knows, then. Clearly. Somehow. Not about them, but about them. Zoro and Nami exchange a look, and there’s a tense coiling in his gut at the thought of her—and, by extension, Crocodile—getting their hands on the creatures. On the little one. They’d be no better than Jack, he thinks.)

“—every single body was mutilated beyond identification.”

Inexplicably, he thinks of the sea god’s razorblade teeth and the shreds of Jack on the concrete—but no, he’d thrown it back into the water. And it should have escaped—right?

When neither of them respond, Robin continues again. “Fundamentally,” she splays her fingers through the air, gesturing vaguely at both of them, “there’s nothing connecting either of you to the incident, so long as no one knows you were there in the first place.”

And there it is.

Zoro scowls as he hears Nami huff through her nose.

“Which you do,” Zoro says, “Obviously.” And Robin only smiles demurely.

“Which I do,” she replies.

It’s a clear threat, and yet—there’s something in her tone that tells Zoro she’s not issuing a challenge. Just informing them, maybe. For one strange, swirling moment, Zoro feels very small, suddenly keenly aware that he is just one piece in the much larger game of all this. Mihawk, Crocodile, Buggy—Kaido and Jack—Arlong. Robin herself. And Akainu, too—whose bullshit is largely responsible for tangling the web in the first place.

Into the silence that follows, Robin just smiles.

- - -

As it turns out, she is correct—which Zoro should not be entirely surprised by, he thinks. And in the immediate aftermath of the incident, two things happen.

Nami (with Chopper yelling in the background, too) forces Zoro to bow out of fights until his injury fully heals, no matter how vehemently he protests.

And with the loss of an officer and his men, Kaido—already paranoid—retreats into his foxhole and hunkers down. Deals dry up almost immediately, forcing Nami to look elsewhere for income and product, at least in the short term. Big Mom and the Germa family pick up the bulk of their exchanges for the month of May, inadvertently solving the problem of Kaido’s own inconsistency, but still—it’s not entirely enough to cover her quotas and her fees. Not without supplementary cash from the club.

As a result, Nami doubles her time on the water hauling nets—and Zoro joins her, because there is a kind of safety in numbers, even if the threat of retaliation from either end recedes with each passing day.

(And so that he has something to do, too, because he will not go to Crocodile and ask; he will not. And he fears, somehow, that they will reappear the moment he stays away from the ocean too long and he’ll miss it.)

Mihawk leaves him well-enough alone, and Crocodile doesn’t send someone to press him about the job he still hasn’t accepted—and for a few hazy, surreal weeks Zoro feels almost normal, like he’s just a fisherman in a crew of two. Like he’s nobody.

It’s exhilarating but terrible, too, because for the first time in years he has the space to really think about the broader strokes of his life—if any of this will ever end. And yet—if the weeks and months and years stretched out before him held something other than fighting and killing, running and smuggling, what would they contain? Not hauling nets, surely.

(He dreams of something else, something bigger. The dream of a child, too wide and grand for the real world but there all the same. And he thinks of someone gone but not forgotten, now just a tree in the yard, and wonders what she would say if she could see him now.)

Even though their buyer is different, the routine is the same—although Big Mom’s family stays as cautious as Kaido, Germa insists they meet in the open ocean rather than the outskirts of their own territory. It’s truly neutral ground—and a power play, too, even as whispers of sea monsters reach a fever pitch on land.

Because through the summer, that is the biggest change—the fervor.

The warehouse district massacre (because to the public, to the average fisherman it is a massacre when details finally disseminate) ignites a kind of fire in the local population. Within days of their return to the marina, Zoro and Nami watch group after group set out for the open sea in search of the creatures, huge swathes of nonbelievers now utterly convinced. Hunting parties, organized and militant like there’s a wild animal on the loose—which, Zoro supposes, there is.

More than once, they’re approached with offers to join for a cut of the bounty. They’re well known enough, and Zoro’s own reputation precedes him as a fighter among the locals more than anything else.

They refuse each one.

Akainu visits the marina, too—all pomp and circumstance and acrid cigar smoke, shouting from a makeshift podium outside the Arlong Park harbor office while his group of black-suited lackeys stand stoic at his side. He makes threats and promises in equal measure, a two-faced advocate for the working man’s safety and the health of their children as he conjures images of terrifying beasts lurking just below the surface, smashing their ships and poisoning their waters.

He shouldn’t even be there, not really—both because it’s a shitthole well below his station and because it’s not entirely a secret what Arlong Park really is, even (especially) among the rich and powerful. It’s half the reason their yachts are kept well enough away in Mariejois—to create the illusion of safety even when they’re all thick with the same heavy scent of blood and violence.

Nami and Zoro watch from the back of the crowd as Akainu spits and seethes, the blistered burn scars on his face and neck stark in the late summer sun—half the fishermen around them cheering even as others frown, shake their heads, mutter to themselves.

One day, the shrines (handmade and wooden, carved with love in a way the shrines in Mariejois are not) are in shards on the ground, smashed in the night—the next, they’re rebuilt, stronger with double the offerings as an apology for the destruction. One day, the nets on a hunting boat turn up in shreds—the next, they’re new and lined with barbs and razorwire, traps for torture more than death.

The divide grows.

Zoro and Nami survey the chaos from a distance, neither entirely willing to involve themselves lest they reveal just a little too much—and out of a strange sense of conflicted conscience, too. Zoro finds the whole thing especially disquieting. For all intents and purposes, a hunt should be exciting, the perfect remedy for his… whatever this is. Apathy. Malaise. Boredom.

And yet, he can’t help but think of the sea monster—think of its dark eyes, its shifting red-and-black scales, its grin. How it felt to hold the meat of its tail in his hands as it let him drag it across the concrete. Because he understands that, now—now that they know more about the damage the creatures caused in the aftermath of Zoro and Nami’s own escape. The monster had trusted him enough to get it—and the little one, too—to safety, when it could have just as easily killed them both instead.

He can’t bring himself to feel afraid of it, even after witnessing firsthand the creature’s power and brutality. In that moment, it had seemed so painfully human—and something else, too. Something more.

He doesn’t believe in the gods, but maybe—maybe, he thinks, he could believe in that.

So Zoro doesn’t want to hunt it. Not really.

He just desperately, desperately wants to see it again.

So without acknowledging it to himself—or to Nami, either—Zoro stays long after he’s healed and back in the ring, and they continue to fish.

With Nami’s pots still destroyed and shoved aside in the hold for some indeterminate later date, half of their days are spent hauling nets the old-fashioned way. Ostensibly, they’re stockpiling cash and resources—padding their pockets with legitimate income as hurricane season hits full-swing.

And yet, as he baits their nets with stranger and stranger things (raw whole-cuts of meat, an endless parade of half-prepared food, thirty bags of penny-candy opened and tossed), she says nothing—so he wonders if she wants to see them again, too.

Still, though—they always surface empty. Or empty of monsters, anyway. And Zoro begins, finally, to wonder if he’s actually, physically losing his mind.

(But sometimes, when they’re out on the water and the sea is quiet, their boat will rock apropos of nothing—and Zoro will swear, swear he sees a flash of red through the waves.)

Interlude I: Twilight; 200-1000

“He’ll be pissed if you screw up the plan,” Sabo says by way of greeting as he swims up from behind, tone largely unbothered despite the gravity of his statement. Luffy scowls—not at the thought of angering his father but at the implication he should care—and just keeps swimming forward, hauling his catch (a mammoth whale carcass fifteen times the size of them both) by the tail.

They’re just at the edge of where sunlight no longer touches below the surface, the world around them an empty expanse of darkness below, teal blue above—the seafloor a distant thing out here, so far from the continental shelf. It’s a wonder Sabo has even found him so far from base, but his brother has always had a kind of seventh-sense for finding trouble. And Luffy’s well aware that he is trouble.

(It’s at least halfway intentional, after all.)

A pair of mako sharks swarm in the distance, rocketing toward his prize—and Luffy just scowls at them too as Sabo eyes the whale, expression more intrigued than scolding.

“I’ve caught bigger, you know,” he says before Luffy—preoccupied with watching the wave of competition—can respond.

At the challenge, Luffy sticks his tongue out, attention diverted again. “No you haven’t,” he shoots back. “And I’m not going to screw up his plan—even though it sucks, anyway.”

Sabo waves a lazy hand, blue scales shimmering even in the dim light, pulling it in and reflecting it back. He’s built for the shallows the same way Luffy is built for the deep—and yet, they are brothers in every way that matters.

“I have caught bigger. You were just little at the time,” he says, nodding his head matter-of-fact, almost grinning, mostly teasing.

“No way,” Luffy gripes, “When I was little, you were little, too,” just as the makos zip into range—brave enough to try because they’re sharks and sharks are stupid, always assholes who think they’re the toughest in the sea—jaws already gaping wide—and Luffy glares. “This is mine,” he hisses, and instantly the makos recoil like they’ve been struck, shaking their heads and grinding their teeth as they shrink back. After a moment’s flailing, they turn and flee, two specks retreating into the unobscured distance.

When he looks back, Sabo is just watching him with one eyebrow raised, and Luffy sticks his tongue out again.

In response, Sabo rolls his eyes and swims ahead, then turns back, circling a little as he gathers his words, maybe. After a moment, he says, “Look, I’m just saying people are concerned. The orange one? Fine. I’ve seen her out on the water and she’s never done anything terrible. But the green one? He feels wrong. You guessed right about his character and I’m not surprised—really, I’m not; I’m on your side—but you can’t get attached.”

He sighs out through his gills, bubbles bursting up in a crest that ruffles his blond hair as Luffy passes with the whale—ignoring him. Not listening (or pretending not to listen) because he already disagrees.

Again, Sabo swims up beside him as he continues, tone sobering just a fraction. “You know the plan. You know what’s happening. You don’t get to pick and choose.”

And that has Luffy turning to face his brother, his own kind of serious—likely Sabo’s intention in the first place.

“Yes, I do,” Luffy says, matter-of-fact. “I can do whatever I want.”

And there’s a pause, then, as Sabo watches him—and Luffy just swims ahead, unfazed. Then Sabo shakes his head and sighs a second time. “You’re so fucking stubborn,” he says. “They’re just humans. This is what they do—they want something, so they’re bribing you.”

“Who cares?” Luffy replies, frowning. “That’s not any different from what anyone else does.”

“Yes, it is—”

“No, it’s not.”

Frowning, Sabo just shrugs, palms out, and turns to swim on his back facing Luffy. “Fine, then. I’m not going to stop you,” he says, as though he ever would. And like he ever could, since Luffy would find a way around him anyway. “I’m not going to stop Dragon, though, either. He’s going to keep going after the boats and it’s going to hurt when they die. When he dies.”

In response, Luffy tilts his head. “He won’t,” he replies, wondering for a moment if Sabo is a moron—but no, he’s one of the smartest people Luffy knows. He’s just stubborn too, maybe. “He’s mine.”

That makes Sabo pause, then, and Luffy watches the words turn in his head until he gets it. And his brother blinks—then snorts. “Okay,” Sabo concedes, rolling his eyes. “Okay, sure. Pick a human. God—brothers and bad taste, but at least Deuce was one of us.”

“Mean,” Luffy pouts in response, vaguely offended because Sabo had been there on the docks. He can’t fathom how anyone could see him without thinking—

Well, Koala is Koala, Luffy supposes, so maybe Sabo doesn’t get it.

Sabo just laughs, then he swims right up next to Luffy and grabs the other side of the whale’s tail fin, a peace offering. The easy quiet doesn’t last long, though—because they are brothers—and after a beat (carefully calculated for maximum impact, probably, if the mischievous glint in his eye is any indication) he says, “But have you even spoken to him?”

And Luffy stops—drawing them both up to a halt, whale and all—and blinks.

“Oh.”

Part III

By June, his shoulder has mostly healed—and their lives have settled into a new kind of normal. Zoro resumes a full regimen of training as soon as (before, really) Chopper gives him the all-clear, and at the cusp of summer he’s back in the ring on a sporadic rotation.

If anything, his absence only drives demand higher, compensating (almost) for his time away. It’s not long, but it’s enough to stir up an unsettling frenzy at the club when he does return—everyone clamoring to bet twice, thrice their usual—an inordinate amount of money falling to the underdog from anyone unfamiliar enough to think he’d actually lose even with a gunshot wound. For weeks, they walk away from the club with plenty of cash in-hand.

Still, though, Zoro doesn’t forget. He can’t.

So the cycle continues—fishing in the day, fighting and smuggling at night.

And then one evening, while he’s sprawled out in the fading sun thinking, Nami steps on deck with a paper bag in one hand and a wooden caddy of six smudged beer bottles in the other—and says, without preamble, “We don’t need the money, you know.”

He’s half-dangled over the side of the boat, legs under the rail and ankle-deep in the ocean, enjoying the contrast of cold-warm against his skin—and the feel of the water, too.

(He can’t stand it, now—being away from the sea. Knowing it’s there, somewhere out in the depths or the shallows or anywhere. In some small part of his mind he refuses to acknowledge, he feels like touching the ocean is akin touching it, too, a tenuous connection across leagues even if only to himself.)

At her statement, he blinks against the sunset and props himself up on his elbows.

“What?”

Nami sighs, crosses the deck, and sets the caddy of beer on his chest—then sits cross-legged next to him and sighs again.

“You don’t have to drive yourself crazy trying to catch it,” she says, and while she pulls out paper-wrapped folds of their dinner (she’s been to that restaurant again, he sees—the fancy one, with the guy who keeps sending her off with real food) he sits straighter, setting aside the caddy and already halfway to opening their drinks on the edge of the railing.

She continues, “We don’t need the reward money. We’re doing fine on our own.”

He frowns, and isn’t entirely sure how to respond, because this is Nami. He’s struck, then, by the weight of what she’s saying. Nami, turning down the possibility of enough money to buy her family out of Arlong’s control.

She wants to let them go.

Eventually, he settles for a grunted, “I know,” as noncommittal as possible as he shrugs, takes a swig of his beer. She eyes him skeptically, but doesn’t press. He hands her an opened bottle, trading for a wrapped sandwich, he sighs, too—and wonders if she’s right.

- - -

It’s hours later, long after dark, when Zoro breaks the glass.

They’re anchored out at the mouth of the cove, returned from a run into open water, and he’s just climbing up from the galley with their dented flask and another wrapped sandwich (soggy, now) in hand when it happens. Out of habit, maybe, they have continued to toast each successful exchange they survive unscathed and he’s not quite sober yet. But he’s approaching it against his will, perhaps.

As a result, he doesn’t see the empty bottle until it’s too late and he’s already kicked it halfway across the deck, where it skitters too-loud in the silent cove before cracking into half a dozen pieces against the side of the wheelhouse. Zoro winces, freezes—but he doesn’t hear any sign of Nami waking. She’s still tucked down below, half-drunk herself and dead asleep, oblivious to the world.

With a sigh, he crosses the deck—stumbling a little as he picks his way through the dark—but when he bends down to retrieve the glass he hisses as a razor-sharp shard slices deep into his palm. The pain has him reeling back, and without thinking he drops the bag of food—and the sandwich explodes across the deck in a shower of bread and meat and vegetables.

For a moment, Zoro just stares bleary-eyed down at the mess, vaguely unreal in the hazy half-moon glow, hand bleeding onto it all, and then he curses—and punts a glob of lovingly-shredded roast chicken the rest of the way into the sea.

The anemic splash! it makes as it hits the water feels unsatisfying.

Loathe as he is to admit it (because he’s met the guy who cooks it a few times now and god—what a piece of work), the food is good. It deserved better, he thinks—then wonders if he’s more intoxicated than he realizes, giving a sandwich thoughts and feelings.

He takes a swig from his flask and then, with a sigh, crouches down to start cleaning up the mess. He separates out the glass from the food, but the leftovers themselves are a lost cause. Which sucks, because he’ll have to sleep on a churning stomach or risk waking Nami in the search for more—both of which would (will, guaranteed) actively worsen the hangover he can already feel creeping up the back of his skull.

Without thinking—almost a habit, at this point, after so many weeks of baiting the ocean—he dumps the whole mess of food into the sea.

He watches it float there, and within seconds, the surface of the water is frenzied—just like every other time he’s tried.

He wonders if it’s pointless. He’s baiting fish and getting them, and he knows (rationally) he’s not going to make any more progress trying to catch a fucking mermaid than a hundred years’ worth of dedicated fishermen. Fuck, since the last month’s worth of dedicated fishermen.

And he wonders, too, if he should start taking Nami’s words to heart. If he should stop. If he’s well on his way to contracting the same disease that has Akainu in its grips—the obsession.

With another sigh, he drinks again and turns back to deal with the glass—and freezes.

Because suddenly, suddenly the fish are gone.

The food is still floating there, half-eaten, but the frenzy has almost completely scattered. Zoro feels his whole body go cold—and, with a start, he registers how quiet everything has gotten (the creatures on land silent, the splashing fish gone) even for midnight in the isolated cove—

—just as two bright eyes blink back at him from the darkness.

He nearly drops his flask, only remembering the broken glass in time to avoid it as he scrambles backwards—and watches in disbelief as a hand reaches up to grab the chicken bones, then disappears again, slipping below the surface with a soft ripple.

Zoro crouches, frozen, watching the rings fade away—and only realizes he’s holding his breath when he starts to feel lightheaded—

Then, just as he’s starting to believe he’s imagined the whole thing, spindly fingers reach up to grab the edge of the deck from the ocean—and a mop of black hair pops up to stare at him from over the side of the hull.

Zoro blinks.

The creature (is it the creature? Because it’s different, more human) blinks back.

Then it opens its mouth, teeth sharp but not nearly lethal enough to rip a man’s leg clean off anymore, and says, “You get hurt a lot. Did you know that?” as it tilts its head to the side—

And Zoro wonders just how safe the moonshine they’ve been drinking is if he’s fucking. Hallucinating.

But—he can feel the hard press of the deck beneath his bare feet, the salty sting of the fresh slice across his hand, the night breeze across his face. He stares at the creature—the sea god—watching him wide-eyed and innocent over the edge of the boat like it’s not in the open water.

On the docks, it had been monstrous, with razor fangs and claws—black scales along its face and arms. Now, though, it just looks… normal—or something close to it, anyway. Zoro knows, though, that this is the same creature. Because its—his gaze is the same. Exactly the same.

After a beat of silence, Zoro, utterly dumbfounded, replies, “I hadn’t noticed.”

The creature snorts, “You’re a little stupid, aren’t you?” and Zoro marvels at the way it’s nothing like the voice that’s been replaying in Zoro’s head for weeks—the rough, rumbling growls. Instead, he sounds as though he can’t be much older than Zoro himself. Younger, even.

And then Zoro blinks again, brain catching up—because what the fuck? Unbelievable. Rude, even.

“No,” Zoro replies, scowling. “I’m drunk.” The creature makes a face at that, almost amused—and before Zoro can process the words coming out of his own mouth he adds, “You’re just—you’re just a guy.”

And he wants to bash his head against the wall—even as he can feel a flare of heat burst across his face. Because sure, absolutely—he’s come face to face with a god of the sea and the first thing he does is call the man boring.

He’d consider throwing himself in the ocean for good measure, but that might actually make things worse.

And yet, the sea monster just throws his head back and laughs, showing all of his sharp teeth, and the sound is like a jolt of lightning right to Zoro’s chest.

Without thinking, Zoro sits down smack in the middle of the deck, exactly where he’s standing—because if he doesn’t get off his feet he thinks he might just collapse in a heap then and there—and in doing so, he presses his hand right on the pile of broken glass.

“Fuck!” he curses, startling himself more than anything—but the pain clears his head a little. When he lifts his hand for a better look, he sees that he’s opened the cut on his palm even wider and it’s bleeding freely, rivulets of red that muddle in the darkness.

There’s a splash, and Zoro looks up to see that the sea monster has disappeared—and he curses a second (third? fourth?) time, because if he’s blown his one chance—

Then the creature’s head pops over the edge of the hull again—and this time the rest of his body comes, too, as he hauls himself up over the side and then shimmies onto the deck. He’s carrying something in his mouth like a dog—maybe because both of his hands are occupied getting his own bulk up out of the water.

For the second time, Zoro is struck by just how huge he is—bigger than any fish he’s ever encountered, not that he is a fish, really. He’s human to the waist, with the torso of a fully-grown man who would be smaller than Zoro, maybe, if not for the tail extending beyond the length of proportional legs. It’s beautifully iridescent, with thick, wet scales a shade of red that looks like blood in the swirling moonlight—tipped at the end with spiny fins at once delicate and lethal. The same semi-translucent fins extend down each arm, and at his neck Zoro sees the slits of what might be gills, too.

But the rest of him—the rest of him looks human, with only a smattering of scales catching the light where his tail tapers into a muscular waist, then to a bare, scarred chest—rough and bubbled and gouged, like he’s been burned. His face, too, is round and wide-eyed, with a scar under one eye and a mop of black hair plastered to his forehead with seawater.

Zoro sits, frozen, bleeding hand still held aloft as the man-fish-god hauls himself forward then flops his tail to the side, dragging it across the deck until he’s practically sitting up with both arms free. Then, he spits the green thing out into his own left hand and grabs Zoro’s injured palm with the other.

And he fucking. Licks it.

Immediately, Zoro recoils, jerking his hand back as he lets out a strangled kind of yelp that he’s not entirely sure he’s ever made before, but the creature doesn’t let go—just frowns at him, pulls his hand with enough force to move Zoro’s entire body, and drags the flat of his tongue across Zoro’s palm. Again.

It feels like wet sandpaper.

“Fuck! Fucking—fuck!” Zoro shouts, garbled on his own surprise, and the creature freezes mid-lick as he blinks up at Zoro with a look of genuine confusion on his face.

“Wha—?” he asks, the word cut off as he speaks around his own tongue.

Zoro stares at him, flabbergasted. “What are you doing?”

The creature snorts, lifts his head, and responds, “Helping, dumbass,” so matter-of-factly Zoro wonders if he is hallucinating.

Then, before Zoro can respond, he takes the wad of green something in his other hand and presses it directly into the cut on Zoro’s palm. It stings, but this time Zoro doesn’t wince—doesn’t do anything, really, because he’s far more familiar with pain than whatever that was.

The licking.

The creature frowns at him, but Zoro just parrots, “Helping?” as he stares down at his own palm held in the monster’s soft, almost-human hands.

The creature rolls his eyes. “Yeah,” he says, “I brought it to thank you for all the food and everything else, because Sabo says that’s what you do, and it reminded me of your hair, and also I know you were hurt, and you were healing so slow, but now you’re bleeding again—” he raises his eyebrows at Zoro, then, “—so I guess you are just stupid.”

A beat of silence passes as Zoro’s brain struggles to catch up, still muddled with alcohol and awe, but all he can think to say is—

“What.”

The creature leans forward, studying him. “Thank you,” he says, slow and deliberate—almost polite, but teasing, too. “Especially for the food.”

“But I was trying to catch you,” Zoro replies, then he swallows. “At least at first.”

The creature giggles again.

“That’s what Sabo said,” he says, amused, as he presses the pads of his thumbs gentle-but-firm into the wet moss (because it is moss) in Zoro’s hand and doesn’t let go. “But I’m still counting it.” With one last shrug, he shoves Zoro’s hand back and adds, “That’s supposed to stop the bleeding,” without any further explanation. “So thanks!”

Then he turns back to the rail, smiling but already moving on, and Zoro is suddenly hit with the strangest kind of certainty that this is it—if the creature leaves now, he’ll probably never see him again.

Zoro thinks of the look they’d exchanged on the docks, that one moment suspended in time between them, and can’t fathom watching him go. So he does the first thing that comes to mind and reaches out, almost grasping at his wrist, and says, “Wait—wait—” and the man-fish-god stops—turns and looks at him with an indecipherable expression when Zoro doesn’t continue.

“Yeah?”

Zoro clears his throat. “Is Sabo the—” he swallows, “—the little one?”

And the creature relaxes, then grins at him again, and Zoro feels like he’s just stepped out of the ring a victor.

“No—that’s Tama,” he practically chirps, lighting up. “Sabo’s my brother! You met him, too.”

Zoro nods, absently pressing the glob of moss into his wound, just to have something to do with his hands. (And to mimic the feel, maybe, of the creature’s fingers on his—only seconds gone but missing all the same.)

He doesn’t feel drunk anymore, not really—just kind of unmoored.

“The blue one,” he says, half a question. The creature nods, and Zoro continues, “How’s Tama, then?” before he can jam his foot in his mouth again.

The creature leans forward, back in his space. “She says thanks!” he beams, “And thanks for the food, too—it’s hard to find safe stuff for her ‘cause of the water—” then he gestures down at Zoro’s hands, the moss, expression slipping to something half-amused, half-something else, “—but that’s from me. Just me.”

“Ah,” Zoro blinks at him again. “Well. Thanks—” then he frowns. “The water?”

The creature’s face really does falter, then, and Zoro swears he sees a crack of anger—before it’s gone in a flash. “The water’s messed up. It’s from the people on the docks,” he says, glancing back out to sea. “They’re poisoning the fish. And the offerings, too.”

Something starts to dawn on Zoro, then—slowly. “That’s how they got her.”

The sea god nods, expression still unreadable. Zoro thinks back to Robin’s warning in the cove so many weeks ago—thinks of why he’s walking around now, untouched.

“You killed them,” Zoro grunts. It’s not a question.

The creature cuts his sharp gaze back to Zoro and he blinks, a fraction of a second, before he nods again. “They were gonna come for you, too, ‘cause you helped us,” he says, blunt and unremorseful. “I know you weren’t friends or anything.”

Zoro snorts. “Yeah, not friends.” Understatement of the century, perhaps.

But he’s still watching Zoro. Assessing. “That doesn’t bother you,” he says, and it’s matter of fact, too—also not a question. “Us killing them.”

And Zoro hears the bark of laughter bubble out of his throat before he can help it.

“Nah—” he shakes his head, feeling just to the left of hysterical. “I’d be a hypocrite if it did.”

The creature tilts his head to the side, and then—suddenly—he’s grinning, too. And none of it makes sense, none of it at all, and that makes Zoro chuckle again.

Then, without warning, the sea god leans even further into Zoro’s space, pressing his face right up to Zoro’s own. He smells like the sea incarnate—fish and rot and sour and salt, a thousand dead things and a thousand live things, too. The beating heart of the world. Home.

And under the stars he beams and says, “Be mine, Zoro!”

His friend?

And Zoro blinks at him, dumbfounded, and says, “Ah, okay,” without a beat of hesitation (because what else can he say?) and the creature throws his head back and laughs.

It feels like something clicking into place.

Strangely, unconsciously, Zoro wants to reach out and touch him, to feel his soft skin on his own again—but he doesn’t—he can’t, because the creature is already turning back to the water. Seconds later, there’s a splash! as something (someone) else pokes his head over the side of the boat.

It’s the blond one, and now that he’s closer Zoro can see that one of his eyes is a milky, clouded white—and there’s another massive, rippling burn scar down the side of his face. Zoro doesn’t jump at his appearance, because he’s long past the point of surprise—but a small part of his brain gawks all the same.

The second creature eyes Zoro with an outwardly skeptical expression before turning to the other and raising his eyebrows.

“You found him?” he asks, tilting his head to one side a little—and Zoro feels vaguely unsettled. Somehow, despite his ostensibly softer appearance, he seems far more predatory than the one still pressed nearby. The way he looks now, at least.

The red one just grins. “Hi, Sabo!” he says, either not noticing or entirely ignoring the threatening lilt to his gaze. “This is Zoro!”

“Sure is,” the blond one (Sabo) nods, then—almost amused—says, “Good, because Koala is—”

Suddenly, a third monster appears—a redhead that seems horrifyingly familiar as she surfaces, already midway to glaring, taking stock of the entire situation in seconds.

“What the hell are you doing?” she hisses, “Both of you! And you—” then turns her scowl on Zoro, too, (and Zoro nearly does flinch this time, by muscle memory alone, because even though he has no idea what’s happening his brain still produces the image of an angry Nami). “I should kill you,” she says, and Zoro believes she’d at least try.

Neither the sea god nor Sabo look particularly concerned for his safety, though, as the sea god pouts, “But, Koala, he’s—!”

Just as the redhead (Koala?) reaches up to yank at Sabo’s hair and he yelps, cutting off whatever he’d been about to say.

“You,” Koala snaps, “were supposed to keep him in line!”

“I was unsupervised!” Sabo whines back, sounding nearly identical to his brother—and Zoro wonders if this is what having a stroke feels like. Gone is the glare, the unspoken threat of violence, and in its place is a whiny indignation that might set Zoro laughing again if the situation weren’t so… so bizarre.

“Well I’m supervising now.” Koala yanks Sabo’s hair again, and the red creature snickers—even as she snaps, “Get back here,” in his direction, too.

Unfazed, he turns to Zoro and waves a little, still grinning. “Bye, Zoro!” He practically chirps—and then he’s pivoting again, hauling himself across the deck with more power than grace.

Satisfied, Koala releases Sabo, and the two of them disappear back into the water.

Zoro blinks—

And then suddenly he’s scrambling to his feet, nearly forgetting about the broken glass in his haste to stand.

Just as the creature tips over the edge of the boat, he calls, half-frantic, “Wait—” and he thinks he’s missed his chance—but the sea god grips the side and hangs there, looking at him, head tilted to the side. Waiting. And Zoro wracks his brain, thinking back to the loading docks and everything he’d seen and heard, because Sabo, Koala, and—

“You’re Luffy,” he says.

The creature (Luffy?) lights up like the fucking sun, grinning wide and happy and wonderful, and he laughs, “Monkey D. Luffy!”

Then, before Zoro can respond, can even wonder how the hell he’d known Zoro’s name, too, Luffy lets go—and Zoro hears the splash! as his body hits the sea.

By the time his brain catches up, all three of them have vanished.

- - -

Surprisingly—or unsurprisingly, really, because she’d been there and she’s Nami—Nami accepts the truth of it when she finds him still sitting on deck, bleeding hand long-clotted, head reeling against the morning sun.

(Mostly, anyway.)

“Monkey, though? You’re sure that’s what he said?” she laughs, and Zoro can only shrug, dazed even through his hangover. She’s had the benefit of sleep—and a lack of mermaids—so she’s faring better than he is. For now, at least.

“It’s just a word,” he grumbles back, and Nami just snorts again, unfazed.

They’re side-by-side, wedged up against the wheelhouse and gazing out into the mouth of the cove, toward the open ocean. Zoro’s hand has been bandaged, and for once they’re nursing shitty coffee instead of shitty booze, greeting the day with the sun as it rises over the horizon and bathes the sky a deep, bloody red. Nami watches the thick blanket of clouds roll overhead with rapt attention, a furrow between her brows, even as she bumps her shoulder against his.

“Maybe,” she says. “But still. I’m inclined to believe you for that alone. You’re not that creative even when you’re wasted.” Zoro flips her his middle finger and she just shakes her head, deeply amused. “Luffy, then—that’s his name.”

“Luffy.” Zoro rolls the word around in his mouth, savoring the feel of it like fine rum. In the past however-long he’s been staring out at the sea, he still hasn’t entirely decided whether or not he should take up prayer—and how much of that thought is really a joke.

There must be something in his tone, though, because Nami eyes him, suddenly quieting. “He said Kaido’s men were poisoning the water,” she says, and Zoro blinks—then scowls.

(He thinks of the little girl, Tama—red-faced and bleeding, caught in a net simply because she’d wanted something to eat. A child poisoned for money. Now that he knows the whole truth of it, it seems even worse, somehow. Nami’s knuckles are white as she grips her own upper arms, and he wonders if she’s thinking of her, too.)

After a moment, he nods and says, “I don’t know if it’s intentional or just the run-off from whatever they’re doing over there, though—but at some point they started fucking with the shrines, too.”

“So they are sea gods, then? If they take the offerings,” Nami hums, frowning. “Do you think that means all of it’s real? Like the one Akainu’s trying to catch—”

“Who knows,” Zoro grouses. He sips his lukewarm coffee and makes a face—then sips again anyway.

“Very helpful—thanks,” Nami replies, rolling her eyes. Then she sighs. “I guess it doesn’t really matter. They’re real, which has to count for something.”

Zoro looks down at the cotton gauze wrapped around his hand and stays quiet. The moss is long gone—shriveled up and lost when they’d finally rallied enough to clean the mess of broken glass. His only proof, now, is the cut itself (which will heal) and the phantom ache from an old bullet wound (which will heal, too).

When he doesn’t say anything, Nami leans her head on his shoulder and groans, “You have got to lighten up. Eventually you’re going to have to accept the existential crisis for what it is and move on.”

Zoro snorts, then, and tilts his head back against the wheelhouse, staring up at the sky. “It’s not a crisis.”

“It’s absolutely a crisis.”

“I don’t have those.”

Nami barks out a laugh—unexpectedly loud in his ear—and Zoro almost winces as Nami startles herself with the sound of her own voice. (Maybe she is hungover, and he tries not to take satisfaction in it. Misery and company and all of that.)

“Eugh,” she moans, then drinks from her own tin mug. “You do, but it’s about saturation. Your whole life is one big crisis—mine too—so we don’t notice when it’s happening. Trust me. It’s like the eye of a hurricane.”

Zoro eyes her in the corner of his vision, but doesn’t move—can’t, because she’s still squished up against his side. “The what?”

“You know—the calm in the middle of a giant storm. It’s the most dangerous place to be because the weather tricks you into thinking everything’s fine.”

He blinks at her stupidly—then, after another beat of silence, he asks (strangled, because they’re skirting dangerously close to a heart-to-heart), “Are you in a crisis?”

“Nope,” she replies, light and amused and something else, too. “I don’t have those, either.”

- - -

The next day, it’s barely noon when one of the maintenance boys—Vegetable Two—sprints full-tilt down the marina docks (sweaty and gasping, halfway to throwing up) with a message from Nami demanding Zoro pick her up in town.

When Zoro pulls up outside the restaurant (he finds it largely without incident—they’ve been so many times now), she’s standing outside with two bags of paper-wrapped bundles too cumbersome to carry back on her own. Not that it’s much easier on Zoro’s motorcycle, really—which he reminds her—but she just tells him to figure it out.

The bags are filled to the brim with marrow bones, salted meat, and sausage of all things. Nami offers no explanation. Zoro does not need one. They fill the ice box to the edge and raise anchor.

It goes into the ocean, not in the nets but dumped along the way, and this becomes a part of their routine, too.

(And, sometimes, they will find strange things on deck at the break of dawn. Massive deep-sea shells the size of a grown man’s hand. Oxidized trinkets from lands far away, green and crusted with exposure to the ocean. Strips of kelp woven into patterns with glass and shells, dried stiff. And rocks covered in moss, too—so, so much bright green moss.)

(They don’t mention it, because really. Genuinely. They are not having a crisis.)

- - -

He’s halfway through hauling in the net when Nami screams, short and quick, and he nearly lets go of the winch in surprise. Zoro’s first instinct is to reach for his swords, but they’re halfway across the deck—back in the wheelhouse with the rest of their weapons—and when he turns, the spool of rope spins out just a fraction before he catches it again. He barely notices, though, because Nami has both hands pressed against her own mouth in surprise as she stares wide-eyed at the ropes suspended in the air—

“Zoro! Don’t drop me!”

—and the half-man currently lounging inside, surrounded by the fat silver amberjack of their catch. Or what’s left of it, anyway—because he’s yelling around the half-eaten something in his mouth and his arms are full of fish. Their fish.

“Luffy!” Zoro shouts back, a crack of surprised joy in his voice that sends an embarrassed heat rushing up the back of his neck.

Luffy grins back, wide and toothy, around a fish tail—and Zoro fumbles the winch a second time as the net drops another inch. (Luffy lets out a squawk of indignation.)

Oblivious, Nami gasps, “Luffy?” then whips her head between them as Zoro ties off the rope. “Luffy? But he’s—” then she frowns, eyes narrowing, “Are you eating—what the fuck!”

Luffy blinks at her, utterly flummoxed, and Zoro can’t help it—he lets out an involuntary bark of laughter, rough and loud and surprised. He hears Luffy giggle, too, but by the time Zoro turns Luffy’s already smothered it into some semblance of (unconvincing) remorse.

“Sorry, Nami—” Luffy whines, almost casual, and a breeze hits the boat just enough to rock the net in a lazy swing. Zoro is struck, suddenly, by the thought that he’s made an accidental mermaid hammock—and he laughs again.

Barely glancing his way, Nami throws her hands up in disbelief. “How do you even know my—my fish! That’s money! We gave you food!” And Zoro wonders if she’s really processing the monster in their—

“I know,” Luffy pouts, melodramatic more than anything, “but there was more in here and it looked—”

“Those were my fish! My fish!”

“But I was hungry!”

Nami legitimately stomps her foot, then, and shouts, “Well maybe I’ll sell you instead!”

And when Luffy wails mournfully in response, it’s almost impossible to believe that he’s the same wrathful creature from Kaido’s docks.

“You can’t do that,” he says, flailing his arms through the holes in the net and pressing his face against it. He looks genuinely, utterly ridiculous. “I’m a sea god.”

The declaration comes in the tone of a get out of jail free card—unserious and silly—and Zoro wonders if it would feel more weighty to his own ears if he weren’t watching his best friend argue (futilely) with a fish suspended mid-air.

Nami crosses her arms, utterly unmoved. “Oh, sure,” she shoots back. “A great and powerful sea god, definitely not trapped in my net.”

“Hey!” Luffy pouts—and he has the audacity to shove another amberjack in his mouth even as he’s talking. “I want to be here. This was a choice!” he turns his sharp eyes across the deck, then. “Right, Zoro?”

They’re both looking at him, now—and he resists the urge to clear his throat like a moron to stall for time. He’s particularly proud of the eloquent, “Uh,” that comes out of his mouth anyway.

Nami snorts, already turning away. “Frankly, it’s only fair,” she says. “I caught you, so I can do whatever I want.”

Luffy flails again and the net swings a second time, dislodging some of the fish trapped with him. They splash into the ocean just as he shouts, “First of all, my name is Luffy not Franky! And second of all—you wouldn’t, because that would be mean!”

As Luffy says it, one of the sharp fins down his forearm catches on the side of the rope, and Zoro watches the ensuing catastrophe in what feels like slow motion.

Within seconds, a massive tear opens up as the netting gives way—the frayed rope splitting further and further under the combined weight of both Luffy and what’s left of their haul. Nami yelps, rushing forward at the same time Zoro lunges for the rail—and Luffy lets out the most ridiculous noise they’ve ever heard as he careens through the air in a shower of fish and stupidity.

When he hits the water, he resurfaces almost immediately—only to be hit in the face once, twice—three times by fish still half-caught and falling from the shredded net above.

For a moment, the three of them just stare at one another—then Nami erupts, “You ruined it!”

“I didn’t do it on purpose this time!” Luffy calls back, the lower half of his face sinking just below the surface—and he really does look almost apologetic.

Nami makes an incoherent noise—then blinks—and as though realizing what he’s said, Luffy’s eyes go wide.

“This time?” she shrieks, leaning bodily over the railing, “What does tha—” then she herself cuts off with another strangled sound, “My fucking—my crab pots!” and a hysterical kind of laughter bubbles up from the water—just as Luffy ducks under the surface.

Zoro grabs the back of her shirt before she can throw herself overboard to kill him with her own two hands.

- - -

Half an hour later, Zoro is setting up the spare net while Nami directs—when Luffy pokes his head up to peer over the edge of the deck and giggles, “You had a second one! You can’t be mad at me!” like he has a death wish—

And at any other time, Zoro thinks, he would be more impressed at the speed (and violence) with which Nami manages to coerce Luffy into helping them recover what they’ve lost. Instead, though, he’s glued to the stern—ostensibly stowing the ruined supplies, but with eyes only for scales on the water as they putter out into the open ocean.

It seems absurd to assume that a sea monster would willingly subject himself to human fishing—and yet, if anyone could make that happen, it would be Nami. Even so, every time Luffy’s tail flashes in the sunlight, otherworldly red reflecting back through the surface, Zoro feels something loosen in his chest.

(Waiting, watching, hoping.)

Eventually, they furl the sail and set to work hauling in a new and semi-miraculous catch. And then another. And then another, until their stores are packed tighter than they’ve ever been. They spend the day busy, watching Luffy crest through the waves until the ship creaks with the weight of more fish than it’s ever had to handle. Enough to make a significant dent in Nami’s ever-growing debt to Arlong all at once, maybe, if they can sell it all.

By the time the sun starts to set and they’re done for the day, though, fish begin flopping on deck of their own (maybe) accord—then launching through the air in great arcs to smack against the wheelhouse windows. The first time is a surprise—the seventh time is funny—the sixteenth time, Nami sticks her head through the doorway and shouts, “Cut that shit out!” into the open ocean, only for one last fish to whizz past her head and splat! against the cockpit wall. “What the fuck—!”

Zoro hears a giggle over the side of the boat and mumbles, “She really might kill you, y’know,” without giving him away. Luffy doesn’t immediately respond, and when Zoro looks down, he sees Luffy’s dark eyes watching him over a smirk that promises trouble—and he barely has time to react before Luffy snags his ankle and tips him forward into the sea.

He’s not proud of the sound he makes as he hits the water—which is fine, really, because it’s drowned out by the sound of Luffy’s own laughter. When Zoro surfaces, swiping salt water from his stinging eyes, Luffy is circling him like prey—or like a dog with a new toy.

As he zips past again, Zoro smacks the surface of the sea with the flat of his palm, sputtering, “What the fuck!”

Something brushes against his leg and he physically resists the instinct to recoil as some weird, animal part of his brain screams Predator! Danger! Predator!—

Then Luffy surfaces inches from his face, grinning wide.

They’re so close Zoro feels the water displace around him, the massive bulk of Luffy’s tail swiping through the sea with enough force to disrupt the rhythm of his treading. He nearly goes under, buoyancy fucked, but in one swift motion Luffy hoists him up above the surface again—and Zoro spits a stream of saltwater directly into his face for the trouble. Luffy’s strong hands grip the sides of his chest and hold him upright without effort—and he doesn’t let go even as they float there, half-pressed together in the waves.

“Stupid Zoro,” Luffy laughs, “I thought you knew how to swim!”

“You’re trying to drown me!” he sputters back, and Nami snorts out a giggle from above.

Something swings in his peripheral vision, and he looks up to see her settling at the side of the boat, legs dangling over the side while braces her palms back on the deck in a lounge.

He reaches one arm out to splash her and misses by a mile, and she just raises an eyebrow—but there’s a flush to her cheeks, a brightness to her eyes that he hasn’t seen for a while. Years, maybe. It’s something like genuine happiness, and he wonders—vaguely—if this is what joy feels like, even as his clothes weigh him down and a thousand tiny injuries burn in the water.

Without warning, Luffy spins him in a whirring circle and Zoro yelps—utterly deep and manly—as instinct has him grabbing onto Luffy’s shoulders for stability. Luffy laughs again and his stomach flips, something just to the left of nausea—and he tells himself it’s the motion as he clings to Luffy. Then he shoves Luffy’s head underwater, bringing them both to a halt. Zoro only has a moment to feel triumphant—before realizing he’s accomplished exactly nothing.

Again, Nami snickers. “Genius,” she says as Luffy shoves back through the surface. “Try to drown the mermaid.”

“Fuck off.”

Zoro splashes her legs a second time and she swings her foot out in retaliation—nowhere close—but it’s the thought that counts and Zoro scowls back through the salt stinging his eyes. When Luffy giggles in his ear, Zoro realizes they’re just floating again. Luffy still has his hands on his waist like he really believes Zoro can’t swim, but it’s gentle, casual—like they belong there.

He can feel the scrape of Luffy’s spiny fins through the fabric of his shirt, the press of his warm palms on his chest—and he’s struck, then, that Luffy is warm. Warmer than the sea around them, at least. A wave bobs past and he’s so distracted he gets a mouth full of seawater for his trouble.

Coughing, he tries to shove away, but Luffy just holds him tighter, ignoring his struggle—then calls over his shoulder, “Nami! Nami, come in and play!”

Nami makes no move to get up. “No way,” she snorts, rolling her eyes. “Someone has to watch the boat.”

In response, Luffy pouts, melodramatically sinking below the waves until just his eyes are visible above the surface—and the motion drags Zoro down in the process.

Zoro manages one garbled, “Oi!” as Luffy accidentally (or intentionally, maybe, if the mischief in his expression means anything) dunks him—then he kicks Luffy’s tail as hard as he can. Luffy’s snickers bubble up around them and he lets go enough for Zoro to tread water on his own, but before he can swim too far Luffy reaches out and grabs the hem of his shirt like a tether, holding him in place.

Zoro scowls. Luffy ignores him.

Instead, he floats them both over to the side of the ship, and Zoro can practically see the thought forming in his head realtime—just as Luffy’s hand shoots out of the water to grab Nami’s ankle—

“Don’t you dare—” she hisses, but it’s already too late.

Luffy’s giggles rise to a fever-pitch as she splashes into the ocean alongside them, and Zoro chooses to be the bigger man by not pointing out that her first instinct is to lunge for Luffy and shove his head underwater, too. She clings to his back, hands on his shoulders as she holds him down, and he finally lets go of Zoro.

It’s just for a moment, but within an instant, Luffy’s head shoots up and he reaches out for Zoro’s shirt, this time yanking him closer deliberately even as Nami hangs on his neck from behind.

“You asshole!” she cries right in Luffy’s ear, waterlogged and doing her level-best to sound pissed. It’s not entirely convincing, as her mouth twitches up in a poorly-suppressed smile. “Put me back on the boat—”

“No!”

“Luffy!”

“Nami!” he whines back, mocking her, and Zoro can’t help it—he laughs—and gets a mouth full of saltwater for his trouble. As he sputters again, Nami snickers along with Luffy—and Zoro splashes them both in retaliation, which makes Luffy laugh harder while Nami swears—then swears even louder when Luffy spins, dragging them both in a whirl through the waves.

- - -

Eventually, the sun dips below the horizon and Nami sneezes. She’s on Zoro’s back now, and he can feel her shivering in the water. No matter how much they’ve kicked and splashed, Luffy hasn’t let either of them go, not entirely—and only when Nami demands (sniffles), “Take me back for real, Zoro,” does he realize why. She’s fucking freezing.

As he swims back, he realizes, too, that they’ve been in the water long enough to have floated away from Nami’s boat, but the three of them are still within easy swimming distance—something only possible if they’d kept an eye on it and worked to stay nearby as they drifted through the waves. And yet, Zoro knows he hasn’t been paying attention to it, and suspects that Nami hasn’t, either—or not making any effort to stay close, at least, as she’s been clinging on to either of them instead of treading water herself.

“Yeah, yeah,” Zoro gripes even as he blinks at Luffy, who just pouts over Zoro’s shoulder at Nami—who sneezes again.

Then a thought seems to occur to Luffy and he lights up.

“Nami, food!”

Nami snorts in Zoro’s ear, “You’ve been eating all day! Literally all day, because there’s no way every single—”

“But I’m hungry!” Luffy wails—and he flops over, floating onto his back as he twists to fix Zoro with the most pathetic look Zoro’s ever seen on a fish. “I’m starving!”

Without missing a beat, Zoro says, “You’re killing him,” and starts to shake his head.

Nami shoves him under.

By the time she hauls herself back over the railing, color has started to leech from the sky—turning the world a dark, murky gray. Trembling and soaked to the bone, she leans over the side to peer down at the two of them. Zoro makes no move to get out of the water.

“You coming?” she calls and Zoro hesitates—because it is fucking cold—but Luffy hasn’t let go of his shirt. Whether she can see Luffy’s grip or not, she seems to understand—and after a moment, she shrugs back, arms crossed over her chest—shivering again. “Suit yourself.” Then she turns to Luffy, who still looks utterly dejected, and snorts. “Fine! Fine, I’ll see what I have,”

And Luffy cheers as she disappears across the deck with a roll of her eyes.

As Luffy’s laughter dies down, Zoro begins to shiver himself—then, without warning, Luffy yanks him closer, grabbing onto his waist.

“Fuck!”

Giggling anew, Luffy doesn’t let go, and Zoro is struck again by just how warm he is. With the sun gone and the sea cooling in the night air, he seems to radiate heat. Instinctively, Zoro stops treading water, floating closer to Luffy like a beacon, and Luffy doesn’t seem to mind—just swims them around in lazy circles as stars wink into existence overhead.

It’s clear weather, unusually so for the season (according to Nami, at least), and the dark sky stretches out above them in parallel to an empty ocean. And he realizes, then, that they’re floating in the open sea at night—but Luffy doesn’t seem worried. And he wouldn’t, Zoro supposes.

Zoro thinks of the black-swirled, snarling creature on the docks and can’t imagine Luffy ever losing ground to some nocturnal predator.

Instead, Luffy just hums a song Zoro’s never heard before and stares up, eyes bright—as Zoro stares at him, watching, (marveling). Then Luffy flicks his eyes down and catches Zoro watching and grins—all teeth and joy.

Zoro feels it in his chest—

—and blurts, “Our names—how’d you know our names?”

“Ah!” Luffy snickers again as they spin through another slow rotation. “I was watching you,” he says, matter-of-fact.

“Creepy,” he grunts, but it seems more like something he should say and his heart isn’t in it. Mostly, he’s just curious, because he can’t think—

Then he blinks.

“That was you,” he half-gasps, and he wants to laugh. The basket of leftovers, yanked overboard in the middle of the night.

“You look really stupid when you sleep,” Luffy replies, snickering, and Zoro rolls his eyes—then his brain catches up with the implications of what Luffy’s just admitted.

“That was—” he frowns. “Shit, that was weeks ago.” Before Jack—before Zoro even knew if he believed in the sea gods, let alone if they were worth hunting for the bounty.

Luffy just shrugs. “You’re not part of those dock-guys’ gang, so it all worked out fine,” he says, and Zoro blinks, feeling like he’s missed part of the conversation—but before he can ask, Luffy lights up and grips him tighter—eyes full of glee. “Hey! We made it!”

Before Zoro can ask what the fuck he’s talking about, something shimmers under the dark surface of the water—then another, then another, then another—until the sea itself is indistinguishable from the expanse of stars overhead. Not a mirror—like its own night sky.

Luffy laughs—then he dunks them both and Zoro almost gasps, nearly inhaling twin lungfuls of water—but Luffy clamps one hand over his mouth and the feeling of suffocation instantly sets his head spinning.

That, or the sight.

As they float there, submerged, the black ocean lights up with a hundred-thousand blinks of blue and white and suddenly, inexplicably, the sea swarms with a galaxy of bioluminescent somethings.

For a dizzying moment, Zoro feels like he’s completely untethered from anything, suspended in another world. He can’t tell where the sea begins and the night sky ends—or vice versa. As the dots whirl around them, Zoro isn’t sure if Luffy is still swirling them or if the currents have taken over. They brush against his skin, lighting up their faces and the fathomless depths above, below, around them.

A burst of bubbles explodes from Luffy and Zoro can’t hear him below the surface, but he knows with some bone-deep certainty that he’s laughing again. And he wonders, then, if Luffy is always laughing. He always seems to be, at least.

His grip shifts, and Zoro’s whole world narrows down to the warmth of Luffy’s body—barely visible in the bioluminescent darkness, but a heavy presence Zoro can feel in the water. Like the ocean is moving around him, making room for Luffy and his joy. The frigid water has reduced his own limbs to tingling and for a strange moment, Luffy’s body feels more real than his own.

Then—Zoro chokes and realizes he needs to fucking breathe.

Startled bubbles burst from his own mouth as he pushes for the surface, but he can’t tell which way is up and just kicks—until Luffy grips him again and hauls him forward until he breaks through and gasps, coughing.

As he wheezes, spitting out ocean water, Luffy holds him upright—shifting Zoro onto his back like he’d been supporting Nami. “Stupid Zoro,” he hums, not particularly apologetic. “You should work on holding your breath.”

Zoro sputters. “That was minutes,” he says directly into Luffy’s ear, trying to shove off—but Luffy just grasps him in place. Despite his protests, though, Zoro stares around them at the glittering ocean and wonders how hard it would be to train his lung capacity. Genuinely.

As soon as he catches his breath, Luffy sinks them again without warning, this time pulling him deeper—deep enough to sweep their hands through the swarm. Zoro’s eyes burn in the salt water and struggle to focus on the expanse of a billion lights in the blackness, but he doesn’t blink. To miss even a second, he thinks, would be to lose something precious—even if he’s not quite sure what. Or why.

Luffy chatters away, words vibrating nonsensical against his cheek, but Zoro can’t make out anything he’s saying—so he just watches the world around them until he needs more air and Luffy pulls them back up again. He gulps down oxygen faster this time, already wanting to go back, and Luffy laughs—then dives.

By their third or fourth descent, they’re both covered—glowing streaks matted in their hair and smeared on their bodies, bright enough that they’re both nearly visible underwater themselves. When Luffy grins at him, he can see it—and the rest of him, too. An apex predator submerged in his natural environment. Smiling and happy and carefree, surrounded by the shining stars of the sea.

- - -

Nami helps Zoro haul himself up, bracing her weight against the deck and pulling him with both arms, and soon they’re side-by-side, legs dangling over the edge of the boat while Luffy floats on his back below. Zoro’s bare feet skim the surface of the ocean, his soaked boots (and half of his clothes, too) discarded and replaced with a blanket from below deck.

As the cool night air raises goosebumps on his damp skin, he takes a swig from their shared flask for warmth.

Nami has changed entirely, wide pants rolled up mid-calf as she swings her legs above the water next to him. She’s not so much eating her (second? third?) sandwich as deconstructing it, and when she tosses another chunk of cold chicken overboard Luffy catches it in his sharp mouth like it’s a game.

She laughs—takes another bite, then drops the rest to Luffy below, who eats it whole.

The basket between them (new—a replacement) is nearly empty, the long afternoon having worn them down enough to tear through a day’s worth of food in just a few minutes. Not the smartest move out at sea, maybe, but Zoro isn’t about to scoff at the generosity—and neither is Luffy, apparently, if he even realizes what Nami has done.

(Zoro wonders if the feast is half in thanks for helping them fish or if there’s something else to it, too. If it’s an offering in its own right.)

Nami nudges Zoro with her foot and Zoro hands her the flask without a word, but as she sips Luffy splashes their legs—gently, playfully—with his tail. The motion sets another swirl of soft blue somethings glowing around him as he giggles and starts to drift away, entertaining himself with the lights.

Suddenly, inexplicably, Zoro is struck by the weight of what he’s seeing.

Luffy has stuck by them for hours when by all rights he’s been a myth for hundreds of years—his kind, anyway. And yet, here he is—here they are. At any moment, he could have disappeared into the depths, but he hasn’t.

Zoro marvels at the glowing ocean spread out before them, framing the floating silhouette below.

He has a thousand questions on the tip of his tongue. He asks none of them.

Instead, Nami speaks up—after another swig from their flask and a long exhale into the night. “We’re even with the fish,” she calls as she passes the flask to Zoro and he drinks, too. Happy to be included, maybe, Luffy swims closer until he’s directly under them again. “But you still owe me for my traps, so don’t even think about—I dunno—vanishing or something.”

Luffy frowns up at her, expression vaguely condescending. “I can’t do that,” he says, and Nami blinks back.

“What?”

“Turn invisible,” he says, and there’s so much indignation in his tone Zoro can’t help it—he snorts, and Nami turns her bewildered expression on him.

“Maybe you’re stupid,” Zoro says, grinning down toward the water, and Luffy flicks his tail—splashing enough water to soak both he and Nami, and their things, too. Nami immediately lashes out to smack Zoro hard against his arm, nearly shoving him into the sea because she can’t reach Luffy and it’s half his fault, anyway—cursing violently all the while. Then (while the two of them laugh), she stands and storms off, dripping across the deck.

Already half-undressed, Zoro just sheds the ruined blanket and stretches, then, midway through, stops—and sees Luffy eyeing the soggy basket. He doesn’t even have the decency to look ashamed, just smiles widely up at Zoro when he catches him watching—and Zoro, buzzed and a little stupid himself, just rolls his eyes and tips the whole thing into the ocean.

Utterly delighted, Luffy crows, and whatever’s left of their provisions disappears in a splash.

By the time Nami returns, semi-dry and changed into an ancient sweater, it’s back on deck—empty.

As she sits down, scowling at them both, Zoro offers her the flask by way of apology, and she accepts without comment—but her face softens and she sighs. Drinks. Tucks her knees up under her sweater so they’re not exposed to the cold night air and peers down at Luffy, now lazing on his back and humming once again.

For a moment, she just watches him, and Zoro can’t blame her. Then—almost thoughtful—she asks, “Why are you even here?”

It’s an obvious question, one Zoro has been avoiding simply because he doesn’t want to draw attention to it, to do anything that might put the idea of leaving in Luffy’s head. And it contains multitudes, too—why are you here (so close to the surface, so close to the shore compared to the vastness of the ocean), why are you here with us, why are you still here?

And yet, utterly unbothered, Luffy only laughs, “I want to be here!” in reply. “I like you.”

He declares it so matter-of-fact, like it’s the most obvious thing in the world, like anyone would want to be around the two of them, a couple of fuck-up kids with bloodstained hands just trying to survive—and doing a frankly terrible job of it.

And then Luffy looks at Zoro, that strange unreadable expression back on his face, and says, “And you’re mine.”

Like before, too, the statement does strange things to Zoro’s chest.

He glances over to Nami and sees her watching him, utterly bewildered—and Zoro just blinks back. Because yes, fair—he did say that, didn’t he?

Then, giving up, Nami sighs. “Fine,” she says in reply. As if stalling for time, she untucks her knees and swings her legs back over the side of the boat again. “But why?”

Back in range, Luffy splashes their feet. “I dunno,” he says—then he grabs onto their ankles, one in each hand, like a tether holding him in place. They both start to gripe, but Luffy doesn’t try to pull them in—instead, he just floats. Nami wiggles her toes in his face and he giggles.

Finally, Zoro speaks up. “You had to have been following us for a reason,” he grunts, and Nami turns to him in surprise.

“Following us?”

Luffy hums. “I dunno,” he repeats, and Zoro can hear the frown in his voice. Like he’s thinking and hates it, tired of the same question over and over again. Or like there’s something he’s not telling them. “I was supposed to sink you, but you smelled like blood—like home—and I liked your hair—”

“I smelled like what—”

“—and you were lonely.”

The statement draws him up short, and he hears Nami suck in a breath, too. Luffy pats her ankle when he says it, and it feels like a blow to them both—because this moment, the two of them side-by-side on an empty boat in an empty sea, is the whole of their world and has been for years.

Except—now there’s a fish in the water holding onto their legs, warm and grounding when there’s no ground for miles.

“Rude—” Nami bites out, but there’s a strain in her voice and Zoro hands her the flask.

Luffy just tilts his head to the side, watching, frowning. “You’re upset I didn’t kill you?”

“What? No—” Nami says, shaking her head—then she stops herself. “Hang on, you’re sinking—what?”

Luffy hums an almost conversational, “Yeah?” like they’re discussing the weather.

Suddenly, fragments of the summer start falling into place, and a half-heard argument pings in the back of Zoro’s mind—along with everything he’s learned piecemeal from Luffy himself, who seems utterly disinclined to explain anything in full.

“You’ve been going after Kaido’s boats,” Zoro says, slow and deliberate as the bigger picture comes together. “Because of the poison. And you came after us—Nami—because we work with them.”

Nami makes the connection at the same time he does and blurts, “Ah!” just as Luffy splashes his tail against the surface of the water—an idle gesture. It sends another wave of bioluminescence over his scales and they glitter in the moonlight.

“But I didn’t sink you,” he practically insists, like the distinction is important. Which. Fair.

Instead of responding directly, Nami throws her hands in the air—and Zoro grabs for the flask before she can fling it in frustration. “That’s why Jack was—he thought we were doing it!”

It’s the final piece of the puzzle—the meeting he’d interrupted at Mihawk’s mansion, Jack’s threat in the club, why Jack himself hadn’t been particularly surprised they’d shown up to steal Tama even with the broadcast. And there’s something else, too—the larger implication of Robin’s threat to reveal their involvement in Jack’s death.

If Kaido already believes they’re responsible for sabotaging his supply lines, there’s no way he wouldn’t declare an all-out war if he thought they’d killed one of his top officers, too.

Still thinking, still talking, Nami pinches the bridge of her nose. “I feel like I age ten years every time you open your mouth. God. Their ships have been sinking since—” she stops again, blinks. “They’ve been poisoning the fish for months?” she asks, a kind of sick dread creeping into her tone. “With what?”

“I dunno,” Luffy replies, frowning. “They’re making something new and it’s weird.”

She turns to stare at the empty deck behind them, and Zoro follows the line of her gaze—to the hatch dead-center where they dump every catch into their hold. He catches on almost immediately.

“We’ve been eating it,” Zoro says, and he thinks of the sickly little girl in the net—and the sickly pallor of the maintenance boys at the harbor, too. “Everyone.”

Luffy makes the universal noise for I-don’t-know as the sea laps gently against his outstretched arms. He’s still holding onto them both, gazing up toward their pensive faces.

“You’ve been eating the fish just fine,” Zoro says, but when he glances at Nami he sees that she’s frowning, silent. Thinking.

“Tama’s not big enough to handle poison—she’s just a baby,” Luffy huffs back, like that explains everything. And maybe it does—Zoro certainly doesn’t know enough about sea monster anatomy to dispute the claim.

Suddenly, Nami stands, yanking her foot out of Luffy’s loose grip in the process—then she grabs for the drink in Zoro’s hands and chugs while Zoro blinks up at her.

She looks—conflicted. And pissed.

When she tosses it back to him, the flask is empty, but he doesn’t have time to complain before she curses, long and loud into the night, then throws open the hatch. And then Zoro understands.

Even if no one has realized they’re being poisoned—or even if it’s just affecting the weakest among them—or even if it’s worth hundreds of dollars—they can’t sell any of it.

They spend the next two hours shoveling everything they’ve caught back into the sea. Luffy cheers, circling the ship and eating as much as he can shove in his mouth, but the evening’s mood never lifts entirely.

By the time they finish, it’s well after midnight. They anchor in the cove instead of returning to the marina and still, Luffy stays. Half-delirious with exhaustion, Nami drags a pile of beach towels from below deck, she and Zoro too sticky with sweat and salt and exhaustion to ruin their cots, and—within moments, still mid-conversation—they collapse in a heap under the stars, feet and arms dangling over the edge to touch the sea below.

Interlude II: Midnight; 1000-4000

The moment he parts the cavemouth’s kelp curtain, Tama comes racing toward him, shouting, “Luffy!” as she rams headfirst into his chest. Despite the gray tinge to her scales and the almost translucent pallor to her skin—the dark circles under her eyes and the stick-thinness of her arms—her hug has enough force to send the spiny, many-legged yeti crabs in his hands tumbling through the water, down to the sandy ground. She wraps her little arms around his waist and holds him there, burying her face in his chest as she giggles.

“You’re so clingy,” Luffy whines back, half-shoving her off as the crabs scramble away and he scrambles after them. Tama laughs and doesn’t let go, just grips him and stays there, absolutely unhelpful while he gathers the creatures up—so he sets a few in her hair in retaliation.

It doesn’t have the intended effect (a healthy dose of teasing), but he doesn’t mind—because Tama’s delight is even better.

Small and ticklish, they tangle there—and she shrieks, “What are those?” as she paws at the little crabs.

“Dinner,” Luffy laughs right along with her, watching them skitter across his hands, fumbling to keep them all from escaping again and doing a frankly terrible job of it.

Perhaps roused by the commotion, Deuce swims around the inner cavern’s corner, unhurried but with one eyebrow raised as he casts a wary look over the scene. He nods a careful greeting, eyeing Luffy—and eyeing what he’s brought, too.

The moment she sees him, though, Tama turns, an elated grin on her face as she holds a handful of fuzzy crustaceans out to her caretaker. “Look,” she says. “Look what Luffy brought!” Deuce cringes as the grotesque little thing wiggles in his face, and Luffy can’t help but laugh again.

Teeth gritted, Deuce takes one of the crabs from her and holds it out, inspecting it in the shallow light still filtering through the seaweed. It flails, pinching at his fingers, but he just turns it over—looking at it—before he tilts his head at Luffy and tosses it back. Or tries to, really, because he misses by a decent length, and it skitters out of sight—lost.

Deuce winces again. Then, as if to cover, he says, “You’ve been to the Trench again,” almost skeptically—like it’s a question. Luffy feels Tama turn her head up to look at him, frowning, but he just shrugs in return.

“Food is food,” he says, and, to emphasize his own point, he shoves one of the squirming crabs into his mouth and bites. Its shell crunches into shards against the strength of his teeth, flaking off from the soft meat inside with ease.

Deuce blanches, but he doesn’t say anything again. He can’t argue with that, because food is food.

They both know in their own roundabout ways that Luffy hunting frees him up to help Marco take care of the others—the others like Tama, sick and sickly from the strange, rainbow slick creeping into their prey.

Curious, Tama reaches up to grasp at the cracked crab, picking at its insides until she pops some in her mouth, and as she chews on its strange white flesh her expression shifts into one of—confusion, more than anything. “It tastes different!” she says, then takes another bite.

“It’s a different species,” Deuce replies, taking the shell from her and poking out his own shred of meat. When he licks it, disgust ripples across his features and he looks like he might gag—but he doesn’t and swallows it anyway. Luffy approves. Even so, Deuce says (voice strained, whether from the taste or the statement itself, even though he’s clearly trying), “Don’t—don’t give that to your human. Trust me.”

Tama, ever-observant, sticks her tongue out at him. “It’s not that bad,” she sniffs, haughty in that way only six-year-olds can be, puffing out her little chest to show that she’s brave and strong and so much better than Deuce (and Zoro and Nami and all of her imagined competition for Luffy’s affection, because she knows what it’s like to be left behind and it’s terrifying). “I’d eat a million of them!”

Deuce has the decency to look genuinely scolded, and Luffy snickers. He wonders (not for the first time) how Deuce had ever been able to survive his brother—something he’d never had the chance to see, Ace long gone and fulfilling his own dreams when—well.

As though reading Luffy's thoughts, Deuce scowls. “You need to be careful,” he says. “You have no idea what’s down there. It’s dangerous.”

Luffy just grins back at him, all teeth, while Tama watches them both. “I’ll be fine,” he replies with a roll of his eyes.

It’s empty, anyway.

Part IV

Something else shifts, then, as Luffy becomes a permanent fixture in his life and it all becomes real.

Nami laughs at him, long and loud to tears, when they both realize that from Luffy’s perspective this has been the case for weeks. An endless stream of exchanges, food for treasure.

(“What are you, a bird? Only you,” she says, hands on her knees, wheezing with laughter, “would be dumb enough to befriend a sea monster without realizing it.”)

(He chooses not to dignify this with a response.)

Now unable (or unwilling) to fish, Nami doubles his fight card—and Zoro’s regular appearance in the tournament brackets takes up half the nights they aren’t already on the water.

The result is a lopsided, sleep-deprived sort of existence, however temporary. Days spent napping in the sun on deck with his legs dangling in the water, an invitation that gets him yanked overboard on more than one occasion, (Luffy bored and demanding his attention; Zoro always, always obliging, because how could he not?) And nights spent in the ring—not without injury, but always victorious.

Still, Zoro avoids the mansion (and his uncle and Crocodile) like the plague, especially with the knowledge of how much weight Robin’s threat truly carries. But the isolation doesn’t—can’t—last forever.

The first week of July, Mihawk finally emerges from the woodwork. Zoro knows he’s there the minute they walk through the Shikkearu’s doors, a physical pressure in the air that seems to have every single staff member on-edge—and a significant number of patrons, too.

It’s been weeks since they’ve last seen each other, but his uncle doesn’t seek him out. Mihawk just sits, watching the main floor from a table in the hayloft balcony above, surveying everything like a king as he sips a glass of imported red wine.

Zoro curses. Ignores him. Follows Nami to the bar and crosses his arms and waits as the night picks up speed. By the time the fights begin, though, Mihawk still hasn’t deigned to descend from his throne—so Zoro channels his frustration into crushing his opponents. The final round ends with a particularly-malicious shipwright—some idiot claiming martial arts bullshit counts toward some kind of four-sword style with the dumbest epithet Zoro’s ever heard—bleeding into the dirt, and only then does Nami finally force him up the stairs for both of their sakes.

In what minor rebellion he still has left, Zoro barely towels off before he sprawls himself in the chair across from his uncle, shirtless with his bandana still wrapped around his head, kicking his feet up on the empty table between them and grabbing the expensive wine bottle by the neck.

He drinks.

His uncle scowls.

“Your form has suffered. It is embarrassingly evident that you did not properly train whilst recovering from your mistake,” Mihawk drawls without preamble. As usual, he cuts to the bone.

“And what mistake would that be?” Zoro bites, rocking his chair back on two legs and ignoring Mihawk’s glare of disapproval. He asks half to gauge what he knows and half because he’s genuinely curious—because his uncle has been known to find fault with anything even on the best of days.

Mihawk doesn’t even blink.

“Distraction,” he says. The word has a physical weight as it thuds on the empty table between them, and instantly—Zoro is on edge. Because there’s something in Mihawk’s placid, icy tone that reads deeper than a single word. Not a warning, per se, but a message all the same.

Unwilling to give himself away (because he doesn’t know what his uncle is planning, not really), Zoro eyes him and drinks again. “I’m here, aren’t I?”

“This,” Mihawk replies crisply, “is your secondary priority, as you’re well aware.” He sets his wine glass on the table and folds his hands between them, staring—his disapproval palpable. “You are free to do as you please as long as you fulfill certain obligations to the company.”

Zoro glares and almost sits up, but he stops himself because he knows the disrespect of nonchalance irritates his uncle more than a challenge. Instead, he spits, “I didn’t know you were Croc’s messenger—or maybe I’m his lackey now, instead of yours.”

Mihawk’s mouth is a thin line, and as he reaches for his wine glass again—sipping, drawing out the moment while Zoro seethes, waiting for his uncle to rise to the bait even while knowing that he won’t—his eyes narrow. By the time he speaks, Zoro feels ready to explode.

“I am not your enemy,” his voice is calm as ever. “Remember that. Listen when I am speaking and for once at least attempt to absorb what I say.”

Suddenly, someone shouts—nondescript in the roar of the crowd still twisting to the music below, but it sets off an alarm bell in the back of Zoro’s brain. Instinctually, he turns toward the noise, peering over the balcony—only to see Nami pushing through dancing bodies, rushing for the door with nothing but her case shoved closed. The look on her face is indescribable—worry and fear and horror smashed into one.

He’s on his feet in an instant.

“Roronoa—” his uncle barks, stern and disappointed, but Zoro doesn’t care because something is wrong. Within moments, he’s shoving down the stairs and out the door after her.

- - -

They see the smoke and the light itself before they see the flames. In the pitch, moonless night it’s like a beacon, illuminating the haze like a scene from hell.

By the time Zoro’s bike skids outside the entrance to Arlong Park, police and firefighters have already blocked off the harbor itself—but the blockade doesn’t last long as people shove past, rushing with buckets and hoses to help the fishermen save their homes—their livelihood. Their marina.

Nami lets out a kind of pained moan and clamors off the motorcycle before Zoro even has the chance to fully stop. He doesn’t hesitate, just cuts the engine and drops the bike, rushing after her as she slips across the gravel. An officer reaches out to grab her arm, yanking her to a halt—and Zoro lands a fist to his jaw at the same time Nami slams her knee directly into his balls. Before the cop’s body hits the ground, they’re already jumping the barrier, sprinting toward the water.

The marina itself is in chaos, some docks completely engulfed while other fires stay isolated to the boats themselves. The smoke is thick and heavy, hanging in the air like a wool coat—with no breeze, it hits them full-force as they rush toward the flames. Within moments, it’s nearly impossible to breathe—and even harder to gauge how far the damage has spread.

Next to him, Nami coughs, ragged and dry, as she presses forward, and Zoro reaches for the first thing he can think of—the sweaty bandana still tied around his own head, leftover from the fight. Without thinking, he shoves it in her face, covering her nose and mouth—and she yanks him down to a rough crouch, closer to her height and below the thickest smokeline.

All around, fishermen and dockworkers shove past one another, some racing for their own boats to try salvage what they can while others frantically clamor on the blazing docks. Through the haze, Zoro sees more than one person throw themselves into the water, frantically swimming toward one collapsing vessel or another. Just as often, he hears screams he can’t pinpoint.

By the time they reach Nami’s shitty, floating slip, Zoro’s teeth are gritted so hard his jaw hurts, and Nami’s pained mantra of, “Please, please, please—” is louder than anything else in the blaze. The minute it comes into focus he feels his stomach sink. And then she wails, half in despair and half in surprise, because it’s gone.

Zoro pulls her to a halt before she runs onto the already-burning dock, half-wrestling her away from the flames and onto the beach where—finally—they stand at the water’s edge, ankle deep in the ocean in their shoes and not even feeling it. Even from this distance they can still see the mooring ropes tied to the wood, dangling—severed—into the orange water.

And yet—

Nami falls to her knees, splashing into the shallows. The nameless boat itself isn’t far, clearly visible in the distance as a distorted blob farther into the harbor. Floating away, untethered, but safe.

And then, suddenly, something massive, round, and human flails out of the water with a panicked yell, scrambling for purchase against the burning dock—just as a disembodied hand reaches up from the depths to grip his leg and claw him back down.

Zoro hears Nami gasp at his side—and before he can think, Zoro’s already shouting, “Luffy!”

The man surfaces again, a look of absolute terror on his face—followed by an all-too-familiar head of black hair. For a moment, Luffy stares across the water in their direction, unrecognizable and furious as he scans the beach, then he locks eyes with Zoro and pure relief lights up his face.

Luffy ducks under again, dragging his prey down with him, before the flailing man erupts from the sea, bodily thrown ashore from below. He lands with a sobbing wheeze and clambers at the sand, coughing, already gathering momentum to flee—but Luffy isn’t far behind, snapping, “Zoro!” as he resurfaces.

Within his name is an entire sentence.

Zoro slams one foot down into the man’s back, shoving him into the beach. In seconds, Kitetsu is unsheathed and pointed at his trembling neck.

There’s a beat of silence as they stare each other down, and then in the corner of his vision Nami moves and he turns—just in time to see her standing, stomping further into the sea, meeting Luffy halfway as he swims toward the shore.

Luffy doesn’t have time to react before she throws her arms around his neck—“Luffy!”—and strangles him.

“Nam—”

“Do you know how expensive rope is? Good rope?” she yells, and her voice cracks—full of fear and relief and tears, maybe. “You owe me treasure! I want real, genuine, honest-to-fucking-god, bottom-of-the-sea sunken treasure, you asshole!”

Luffy just reaches up and holds her wrists, unfazed, taking it. “Sorry, Nami,” he whines, soft and gentle, and his tone sounds sincere. It contains multitudes, too. An apology for carnage that isn’t his fault.

The man under Zoro’s heel lets out a whimper, then, and Luffy’s sharp gaze cuts through the night. In the glow of flames reflected on the water’s surface, his expression is unreadable. Otherworldly. Around them, the fire rages—and there’s a massive, groaning creak across the harbor as something collapses.

The man mumbles through his angry tears.

“What was that?” Zoro spits, and the man glares—but doesn’t move. He’s big, sure—with white hair and swirling, purple tattoos down one arm—but he’s blubbering like a nasty child. Reduced low from whatever height by Luffy, apparently. In the distance, he hears Nami start to trudge back onshore.

“I said you’ll g-get what’s coming to you for fucking with us—shit’s personal—you don’t even know who’s working for who anymore—” the man stutters, bleeding and miserable but almost proud of the damage—and then Zoro finally places him, hardly recognizable without his other half.

“Sheepshead,” he scowls. The man doesn’t deny it—but something about the situation feels off. He’s one of Jack’s men, and they were supposed to have been killed. “Where’s—what’s her name—Old Maid.” Usually where there’s one, there’s the other.

“Ginrummy,” Sheepshead spits, eyes ablaze. “She’s dead, you bastard—”

Before he can say anything else, Nami tromps right up to them both—wiping saltwater from her eyes and sniffling (from the smoke, probably) as she yells, “He did this?”

She doesn’t wait for an answer before kicking Sheepshead in the head so hard he slumps to the ground, unconscious.

- - -

By the time the sun rises, the fire has been doused and some semblance of order restored—but not without cost.

More than half of the docks have been reduced to ash, and half of what’s left standing is still too damaged for use. The ships themselves aren’t much better off. Nami’s boat isn’t the only to survive, not by far, but the comfort of those whose livelihoods have made it out relatively unscathed is stained by the disaster’s casualties.

Because in the morning, there are bodies, too—washing up on shore—burned, suffocated by smoke, drowned in the chaos. And still more unaccounted for.

(Miraculously, Mariejois’s own expensive yachts have been entirely unaffected by the flames—not a single fire started beyond the boardwalk divide.)

Now, Luffy has long-since disappeared, urged back into the sea by them both, but even through the blur of his own exhaustion Zoro can feel—with a prickle of certainty—that Luffy hasn’t gone far. He just knows.

As he drags yet another chunk of charred, crumbling wood out of the water, Zoro grunts. For most of the early hours, he’s been hauling debris toward the ever-growing piles in the lot alongside half-a-dozen other men. Around them, dockworkers and fishermen alike shout and the sound of hammering, sawing, prying echoes across the water—but still, a somber hush lays over the entire harbor. The world is wet and muted.

For all of their anger, their stirred-up fervor, these were the bystanders, caught up in a fight so much bigger than any of them.

In the distance, Nami is deep in conversation with Koby and two of the maintenance boys—and someone else, too, in grease-stained overalls with a nose unlike anything he’s ever seen. He can’t hear what they’re saying, but he can read the argument in their waving hands well enough.

Zoro drops the water-logged piling with the rest and wipes sooty, salty-sticky hands on his ruined pants, then stretches as he starts to make his way across the gravel. Koby looks on the verge of tears.

“—an’t let them dredge the harbor. There’s too much evidence that’s been—”

“Why the fuck has he been dumping crates in the—seriously? Here? That doesn’t make any sense—” Nami hisses, and the man in overalls whimpers.

“Please, I don’t want to know about any of this,” he says, inching away from the group. “You’re going to get me thrown in jail—” he looks up and locks eyes with Zoro, freezing in place, “—or killed—”

Then, suddenly, the door to the boathouse slams open with a BANG! and everything grinds to a halt as Arlong emerges, fuming.

He’s not a big man but his temper has a reputation even among locals who aren’t aware he’s anything more than the harbormaster. A hush seems to fall over the marina as workers stop to watch-but-not-watch him stalk toward Nami, whose face leeches of color even as she stands her ground.

Zoro reaches the group at the same time Arlong does, just in time to watch Arlong spit in her face, “Don’t think I’m stupid, Nami—” his voice rising until it carries across the lot. “I know you weren’t here last night because I know about your little side job. I’ve let it slide, but if you’re going to miss shit like this I want my own cut of the profits.”

Heads turn and there’s a malicious gleam in his eye—and Nami flinches. It’s a calculated move, especially for Arlong—who often yells first, plans later. People will draw their own conclusions from the declaration and act accordingly, even if they’re wrong and even if it’s not Nami’s job to run the marina in the first place. It’s Arlong’s.

Nami grits her teeth and snaps, “That wasn’t the deal—” but Arlong’s hand shoots out to grip her upper arm, nails digging into her skin.

“This cost me,” he hisses, voice low and dangerous in the air between them. “Don’t forget that I own you.”

Nami says nothing but there’s murder in her eyes—just as Zoro grabs Arlong’s wrist and squeezes hard enough to feel the bones grind together under his fingers. Arlong shrugs him off, posturing like he isn’t hurt even as he flexes his hand, and he glares at Zoro. Arlong doesn’t snap at him, though—he can’t. But at the same time, Zoro can’t reply either.

Arlong has Nami over his head, but Zoro has his own position in the organization over Arlong’s. The three of them are at an impasse yet again. Still, there’s a look in Arlong’s eyes that Zoro doesn’t like—something worse. Something new.

After a beat of tense silence, Arlong scoffs—then turns on his heel and stalks off, just as two of his men drag a bleeding Sheepshead out of the boathouse, arms slung over their shoulders like a drunkard. Right in broad daylight.

Followed by Robin.

As half the marina watches, they flank Sheepshead to a group of waiting vehicles. Robin acknowledges neither of them as she slides into the back of a sleek, black thing more at home up the harbor, while Arlong and his men shove Sheepshead in the trunk of a second. Arlong himself is the last to climb into his own car, hauling himself into the back as Robin’s driver speeds away. As he reaches to shut the door, he makes eye contact with Nami. Her fists clench at her sides.

Then, in a skid of tires and ash, they’re gone.

The crowd disperses quickly after that, attention only distracted for so long before they return to the disaster at hand.

The damage has been done, though. With both the parade across the lot and Arlong’s declaration, everyone now knows this wasn’t a freak accident but violence. Beyond the loss of infrastructure, despair turns slowly to rage.

The nail in the coffin comes in the form of Akainu himself. He shows up later in the afternoon, massive newspaper van in tow, ready to make a spectacle of the tragedy. To a seething crowd and with a security detail at his side, he rails about the need for tighter harbor patrols, campaigning for Naval law enforcement while the photographer snaps pictures of the exhausted, frenzied fishermen hard at work cleaning up the ashes of their lives.

By the time they give up, Zoro and Nami have both been awake for over thirty-six hours. They use the last of their collective energy to row out toward the relative quiet of Nami’s boat, now anchored offshore in the harbor itself with the rest of the (somewhat) intact vessels to avoid any sunken debris closer to the ruined docks. It’s charred, missing large swathes of rope, and the bulk of its fishing mechanism is destroyed—but it’s still seaworthy.

As soon as they tie the dinghy to Nami’s stern, they’re crawling belowdeck to hide from the noise and the midday sun. Zoro’s last thought before falling asleep is to wonder just how much Sheepshead might have said about what—and who—he’d seen. He doesn’t last long enough to bring it up with Nami, though—and within minutes, they’re passed out in a heap on one shitty, smoke-reeking cot, utterly exhausted.

- - -

When Zoro wakes, the world is dark and Nami has rolled off him, now wedged against the wall and snoring. He blinks like that might clear his vision, but night is night is night and there’s a blanket of clouds overhead thick enough to block out all the lights in the sky.

In the darkness, he finally has time to consider the weight of what’s happened—the damage. They’d been so worried about their own skin they’d failed to account for Kaido’s crazy—again. The same kind of crazy that would poison a child and stuff her in a box for money. It’s like Kaido wants a fight, poking his claws and his men in the worst possible places, roping Cross Guild and Akainu and all of them together into his bullshit. And still, Zoro can’t figure out the bigger picture—like there’s a piece missing that he just can’t grasp.

Carefully, he picks his way back on deck, feeling along the wall and moving as quietly as he can so as not to disturb Nami. He makes it up without incident—only smashing his shin once against the bottom rung of the ladder.

The harbor itself is eerily quiet, only the metallic CLANGS! of lines against metal masts, the creak of wooden hulls, and the gentle lap of waves around him. It’s a far cry from the chaos of the day—and of the night before, too.

The ocean absorbs even the smallest lights from the shore, eating them until there are only strange, muddy streaks amid the pitch blackness of the world around him.

Zoro picks a direction and walks until he feels the boat’s railing—then follows the line until he reaches the stern. In the dark, he folds himself down into the dinghy, pressing his head against the wooden hull at the waterline. It’s the closest he can be to curling up underwater, the little rowboat a cocoon in the ocean.

With a strange, half-asleep detachment, he wishes that the sea were a box he could fold himself inside, a thousand leagues of silent pressure for comfort. But it’s not—it’s water—so he settles for the rowboat and closes his eyes.

You smelled like blood—

The ship is Nami’s and Nami needs him to be strong, too—strong in ways that don’t involve killing. Which is the only thing he knows how to do, he thinks. Or the only thing he knows how to do well.

—like home—

The rowboat rocks and a wet hand reaches down over the edge of the hull to drip seawater on his head—and then onto the rest of him, too.

—and I liked your hair—

Zoro reaches up and grasps it.

—and you were lonely—

They sit in silence.

- - -

The next morning, Luffy is gone and in the dinghy is a pile of tarnished, salt-crusted gold jewelry with engravings neither of them can read. Nami bursts into tears when she sees it—then locks it in the bilge with the rest of her stash, well hidden (but compromised, now—now that they know Kaido is willing to go after their boats). Then she spikes their coffee with the best spiced rum they have left and they set about maneuvering the rowboat back to shore to join in with the repairs.

- - -

The next three days are a blur of work and sweat and exhaustion, until on the fourth, something changes.

When they reach shore, the man from the day after the fire is waiting on the intact docks with a massive canvas toolbag, wearing the exact same work overalls and looking like he’s barely slept, either.

Waving from the dinghy, Nami calls, “Thanks for doing this. Usopp, right?” and Zoro reaches out to steady the boat enough for the man—Usopp, presumably—to step in. He settles his tools in the bottom of the hull and eyes Zoro warily, but offers a shaky smile to Nami in return, anyway.

“Yeah—and you’re Nami?” She nods. “Better you than those assholes up at the yacht yard,” he grouses back. “I’d rather look at an old-school hauling mechanism than another state of the art engine that’s going to break in two years.”

Nami snorts. “You’d think with all that money they’d be able to buy quality,” she says, scooting over to make room as Usopp settles on the wooden seat. Then she gestures vaguely at Zoro, who starts rowing them back to her boat—still studying the newcomer.

He looks familiar even beyond their encounter a day before—but Zoro doesn’t make the connection until Vegetable Three comes racing down the shore with something in his hand.

He waves, and Usopp waves back, calling, “Just toss it!” across the water—and the kid does. Incredibly, Usopp catches it without batting an eye, and as he tosses it into his toolbag Zoro blinks.

“You’re the maintenance guy,” he grunts, blunt as can be, and Nami snickers.

Usopp forgets to be afraid of Zoro long enough to scowl. “Reductive—I prefer mechanical engineer, because half the time I’m engineering machines more than I’m maintaining anything, and I’m way too talented to be—”then he suddenly pales, cutting himself off mid-sentence as he realizes who he’s talking to, maybe.

Zoro just rolls his eyes.

“Genius maintenance guy, then,” Zoro drawls, and Nami kicks him. He just sticks his tongue out at her in return.

Still, Usopp clams up for the rest of the journey, and by the time they’re unloading onto Nami’s boat he’s back to avoiding eye contact with him altogether. Not that Zoro cares, really—Nami has always socialized more than he’s ever wanted to, largely because of her job. At the same time, though, he knows that she rarely lets anyone in. Not Wanda, not even Nojiko. He’s only managed it by virtue of knowing her from the beginning of the end of her life, being there all through the worst of Arlong in a way even her sister has not. The right (wrong) place at the right (wrong) time.

When they finally disembark, Zoro just ties off the rowboat and wanders toward the bow, away from where they’ll be working if Usopp is supposed to be doing something about their—her—wrecked fishing gear.

(He’s not even sure why it matters in the first place, not if they’ve given up fishing for now—but it might be more to keep up appearances than for any practical reason. Unless Nami really is passionate about fishing. The thought makes him snicker and Nami eyes him suspiciously.)

It doesn’t take long for Usopp to forget Zoro is there—or to decide he doesn’t bite, at the very least—and soon he’s chattering away as he pokes at the burned, bent system of pulleys and ropes that make Nami’s fishing boat a fishing boat.

Out of habit, Zoro settles with his back on the deck, arms behind his head—boots off as he dangles his bare feet over the edge of the railing. It’s still cloudy, with very little sun to warm either him or the ocean and unusually cool for early July, but he doesn’t mind. He’s used to the cool water by now. Not intending to nap but not resisting, either, he just closes his eyes to wait. If he were more of a hypocrite (or more willing to lie to himself about this, at least) he might wonder why he’s even here, useless and unnecessary with nothing to fight—even as the sea splashes up from below with the next wave and drenches his toes.

As the sounds of background conversation and metalwork fade to a kind of lulling hum, Zoro focuses on the feel of the cool wind on his skin, through his hair. Nami laughs, sharp and surprised, at something Usopp has said, and it’s a comforting sound. Some small part of him wonders what it would be like to have all the right angles of the boat filled with people—not just the two of them. And then he thinks of Mihawk’s warning, of Arlong’s warning, of the anchors around their ankles.

A shadow falls over his face and he opens his eyes to see Usopp standing over him, frowning. His hair is tied back in a bandana, now, and he’s donned a pair of well-worn workman’s gloves, but Nami is nowhere in sight. Below, maybe.

“You shouldn’t put your legs out like that, you know,” Usopp says—then stutters, waves his hands a little like Zoro’s going to leap up and strangle him. “Well, I mean, obviously you can do whatever you want—it’s just, you know—it’s bad luck!”

Zoro squints up at him. “What?”

Usopp just lets out a nervous laugh. “Oh, it’s just—you know, the stories! About sea monsters.” He waves broadly out toward the water, then back toward shore—the blackened boats, the ruined docks. “I think the gods are probably mad at us, so they might be looking for, uh—” he breaks off, but Zoro doesn’t say anything. Just waits, watches him sweat. Gives him time. After a beat, Usopp laughs again. “Didn’t your mom ever warn you about doing literally, exactly the thing you’re doing right now? Hanging over the edge?” he swallows. “Not that I’m telling you what to do!”

Zoro raises an eyebrow at him and Usopp just wrings his hands—and Zoro wonders why he’s started the conversation at all if he’s so goddamn terrified of him.

After a beat, Zoro takes pity on him. “No,” Zoro grunts, sitting up. He doesn’t take his feet out of the water. Usopp eyes him warily, but still—he seems to relax when Zoro doesn’t immediately lash out.

“Oh,” Usopp mutters.

They lapse into silence.

Glancing around, he sees that Nami still hasn’t reappeared—and as Usopp begins to rock back and forth on his heels, Zoro wishes he knew how to talk to people. Sober, at least. Then wonders why he even cares. (Then wonders why he cares that he cares—and that feels a little bit stupid and circular, so he stops thinking about it altogether.)

“I didn’t grow up around here,” he says, and Usopp jolts a little in surprise.

“What?”

God. “I’m from a different island,” Zoro repeats through gritted teeth, then he nods back toward the harbor. “So I didn’t hear about the local boogeyman as a kid.”

“Oh,” Usopp replies, “Oh, I don’t know why I thought—because of your un—” Zoro’s eyebrows inch higher, and Usopp swallows nervously before continuing, “Anyway. Well, basically—when I was a kid, my mom used to say that when things aren’t going well, you shouldn’t stick your feet or your arms or whatever in the water without looking,” he says, nodding seriously, “because Nika’s unhappy and the sea gods might drag you in to feed him.”

Almost out of habit, Zoro feels the urge to snort—and he immediately regrets it as Usopp’s genuinely earnest expression starts to fall. He scrambles to salvage what’s left of their frankly insane conversation (that isn’t so insane after all, really, since Zoro knows at least part of it is true).

A baffled, skeptical, “Nika?” is all he can muster on short-notice. It sounds familiar, but—

Vaguely, he feels like they’re just repeating questions back and forth to each other, and wonders if he’s been overthinking basic conversation for the last twenty-five years.

“Y-yeah,” Usopp replies, and then he trails off—and Zoro thinks he’s lost the thread of things entirely until Nami’s voice carries through the hatch as she emerges from below, log book in hand.

“I’ve heard that before. Is that who the shrines are for?” she calls, and Usopp jumps a little—even as Zoro rolls his eyes.

At the question (or maybe just Nami, a reprieve from talking to Zoro—who he's still vaguely afraid of) Usopp perks up. “Kind of! I mean, yeah—the big Sun God in the Trench. But also the sea gods themselves, and the missing Moon God—it’s a whole thing,” he says, waving his hands as Nami crosses the deck, book tucked under her arm. Usopp trails off again but she gestures him onward and plops next to Zoro, dangling her feet over the open water, too.

“Go on.”

He stares at them both before letting out a strangled kind of, “Do you actually want to know?”

Zoro and Nami exchange a look.

“We have a keen interest in the local wildlife,” Zoro drawls, and Nami snorts out a laugh. The sound startles Usopp, who might be one of the most skittish people Zoro has ever met—second only to Koby, maybe.

Nami elbows Zoro in the side, trying (and failing) to hide her smile as he flips her the middle finger in return. “Local legends, then,” she amends. Then she pats the deck beside them both. “Seriously, you might as well. Do you really want to go back and deal with all that?”

Usopp glances back toward the marina and grimaces. “Fair,” he says, and after a moment’s hesitation, he does sit—with his legs crossed and away from the edge of the deck. “I guess it sort of depends,” he starts, leaning toward them both. “Some people leave offerings for Nika himself, but most try to appease the sea gods because they’re—I don’t know—more immediate. The moon god is his own problem.” He waves a hand in emphasis, building momentum as he continues—

“Apparently—way back in the beginning of time, when humans weren’t, like, big players and the gods were way more active—the sun god got himself stuck under the surface of the ocean trying to play a trick on the moon. My mom used to say that the sun we see is just his reflection from far away, and that the real sun is down at the bottom of the sea—and he’s huge. The size of a house. Or a whole town—” Usopp gestures outward, encompassing the entire harbor, “—and because of that, he’s constantly hungry. So he made a deal with the sea gods who already lived underwater, and promised them luck and prosperity and, I don’t know, light, I guess—I’ve heard something about glowing fish out in the deep sea—if they made sure he was always fed.”

Nami raises an eyebrow. “And the eating children thing?”

“That was probably creative liberty,” Usopp admits with a fond kind of laugh. “My mom always loved a good story, and it probably kept me from accidentally drowning as a kid.”

And suddenly Zoro feels like an asshole. “You were joking earlier,” he says, finally realizing—and Usopp really does laugh, then, as Zoro feels heat creep up his neck in embarrassment.

“It wasn’t a very good joke,” Usopp replies good-naturedly, “if you didn’t know the story in the first place. But—no, they probably won’t pull you under.” Still, he flushes, too—and Zoro wonders if this is what it feels like to get along with someone normal.

Nami laughs at them both. “I don’t know about that,” she says, and Zoro shoots her a look. “At the very least, if he was going to get himself eaten it probably would’ve happened by now.”

“Fuck off,” Zoro gripes back, shoving her shoulder as Nami snickers—

—and there’s a splash as a voice pipes up from below, utterly indignant and vaguely offended. “I don’t eat people! You guys are so rude,” Luffy whines, and Zoro barks out a genuine laugh, half surprise and half delight. He can’t help it. It’s Luffy.

Usopp lets out a kind of keening, terrified moan (“What the hell—”) and Nami jerks forward in surprise, nearly toppling overboard. “Luffy!” she hisses. “We’re way too close to shore—you can’t be here.”

“But Nami,” he whines—quieter, now. “I don’t eat people.”

Ignoring Nami, Zoro kicks water in Luffy’s face—and Luffy spits a stream of seawater back at him. “Oh yeah? I’ve seen you with a whole human leg in your mouth,” Zoro says, even as Luffy protests.

“It wasn’t attached.”

Usopp, utterly pale as he stares overboard with eyes the size of saucers, lets out a shaky, “It wasn’t—?”

And Luffy nods vehemently, like the distinction makes all the difference. “That doesn’t count!” he declares, yanking on Zoro’s ankle—until Zoro kicks him in the head with his other foot. Luffy doesn’t even blink. “I didn’t eat it!”

“Both of you, shut it—” Nami says, shoving Zoro to the side, and both of them stop—although Luffy has the audacity to pout at her like a dejected puppy. She frowns down at him, then glances around at the other boats anchored in the harbor—and back toward the marina, where workers and fisherman alike are well in the throes of rebuilding.

It’s quiet, but they are by no means alone. Anyone with half-decent distance vision could glance over and see a fourth person floating in the water—and if anyone decided to look too closely—

They’re already on thin ice after Arlong’s threat, anyway.

Usopp has broken out into a sweat, muttering, “Is that—are you seeing—oh my god—” but he goes largely ignored as Nami continues—

“Are you suicidal?”

“I’m hungry,” Luffy whines again, swiping for Zoro’s ankle a second time—but even as he says it, Zoro can see Luffy taking everything in. The three of them, the boat, the docks—assessing in broad daylight.

Zoro wonders if hunger is all there is to it—or if Nami hissing at him, Zoro splashing water in his face; if giving them both a heart attack in the middle of the harbor—is why he’s really here. He’d been watching, after all. Watching close enough to catch the guy, to save Nami’s boat. To stop the fire from spreading. (To know, maybe, just how alone they really are.)

In his peripheral vision, Zoro sees Usopp put his head in his hands as he continues to moan, “I’ve lived a good life. I’m too young and cute and incredible to die like this. I deserve better—please, oh great and powerful god of the sea, I’m begging—”

“I think you should eat him, personally,” Zoro scoffs, and Luffy snickers as Nami smacks Zoro again.

“I’m serious,” she says, waving her log book at Luffy for emphasis. He dips down into the water so that only his sad, innocent eyes are visible—and Zoro snickers, too. Neither of them move. (Zoro knows she’s right, knows it’s dangerous, especially because Robin knows, but in this moment he can’t bring himself to care—not entirely.) Then Nami she throws her hands up in exasperation. “Fine! Fine, if you’re going to be a pain—Usopp, get it together. We’re leaving.”

Luffy lets out a bubbly cheer, eyes bright and clear and happy, before he dives in a swirl of glistening red—his tail splashing up to the surface for just a moment. Zoro kicks his legs in the water like a child to hide the sound, misting them all—and Nami shoots to her feet with a curse.

“Asshole!” She shakes out the log book, now wet, and Zoro actually does feel a little bit bad about that. He doesn’t apologize, though—and she just slaps the back of his head with the damp paper and stalks off toward the wheelhouse.

Finally, Usopp (pale and trembling still) stands on shaky legs and turns to follow—just in time for Zoro to grab his shirt and yank him back down. He may be a nervous wreck, but Zoro barely knows him—and two hundred-thousand dollars is still fuck you money.

“If you try to cash in on the bounty,” he says, low and dangerous, “I will hunt you like an animal.”

Usopp looks ready to cry, but he shakes his head anyway—aggressively. Vehemently. “N-no way—” he sputters, “There’s a-absolutely no way I’d tell anyone.” Even through near-tears, there’s a steely certainty in his gaze.

Zoro believes him.

- - -

Over the next hour Usopp calms down, completely reorienting his worldview in less than a fraction of the time it took either Nami or Zoro. Maybe he’s more willing to believe in monsters, maybe he already believed—or maybe he’s helped along by the fact that Luffy swims beside their boat from the moment they’re out of the harbor.

Rigging still destroyed, they’re forced to motor all the way to the cove, so it’s mid-afternoon when they finally stop for the day. Still, the time passes quickly with someone else onboard—or someone and a half, with Luffy in the water. It’s almost nice to have the company—even as Usopp spends half the trip working on the hauling mechanism, mumbling to himself and glancing out at the sea.

As soon as Zoro drops the anchor, Luffy clings to the chain and grins, then disappears in a whirlwind of fins and scales before Zoro can even process the hollered goodbye. Nami pokes her head up from the hatch belowdeck, halfway up the ladder, at the noise—and Zoro shrugs in response, absolutely, definitely not disappointed.

Usopp blinks down at the water. “Wait—!”

But Nami rolls her eyes. “We haven’t fed him yet,” she says broadly, to no one in particular. “Don’t worry, he’ll be back.”

(Because she’s surely not disappointed, either.)

Zoro settles in to wait—sitting back on the edge of the deck while the others return to work.

Nami retreats into the little galley and reemerges a moment later, tossing two brown bottles of shitty beer (all they have left, now that the marina is crawling with cops) without comment—and with an inordinate amount of confidence in his ability to catch them.

He does, of course, and Zoro pretends he doesn’t see Usopp’s impressed gape—smothered almost instantly as he snags Zoro’s eye and turns back to the disassembled mechanical thing spread out on the deck in front of him.

Zoro rolls his eyes even as he waves one bottle toward Nami in thanks—then he smacks their edges together on deck, uncapping both at the same time.

(He doesn’t miss Usopp’s, Holy shit—cool, either.)

(Maybe he has been overthinking friendship.)

Nami calls up from the galley again, this time shouting for Usopp. Zoro turns to see her passing their giant picnic basket up the ladder—just as a wave crests over the side of the boat, completely drenching him.

“What the fuck?” Zoro yells, and Luffy just laughs—soaking him again with one massive swipe of his tail. The saltwater burns his eyes and stings along his wounds still healing from the fight and the fire, and he hisses air through his teeth as he glares—

—and Luffy twirls a little purple-haired girl in the water, grinning.

“See?” he says, laughing as Zoro (bewildered) shakes out his hair like a dog. “He’s not scary!” When Zoro opens his eyes again, Luffy is holding her suspended in the air directly in front of his face, wide-eyed and green-scaled and tiny.

Zoro blinks. Tama blinks back.

And then she scowls, red-faced, tail flailing as she squirms in Luffy’s grip. “I didn’t say he was!” she declares, utterly indignant. “I’m not scared of anything!”

Luffy chuckles and lets her drop back into the water with a splash.

Alerted by the noise, Nami scrambles toward the rail, pressing in next to Zoro as Tama swims in angry circles—until Nami gasps, “Oh—you!” and the little girl zips behind Luffy, startled.

Luffy doesn’t let her hide. Instead, he just tugs Tama onto his head like a hat and holds her in place with both hands, preventing her escape even as she tries to wiggle.

“I thought you weren’t afraid of anything?” Luffy teases, giggling—and she growls, reaching down to yank at his lips until he frees her again. She splashes down, pounding her little fists against his chest while Luffy looks up and locks eyes with Zoro, beaming. “These are my friends!”

Usopp is the last to arrive, exclaiming, “There’s a little one!” and again, Tama retreats behind Luffy—but this time he just waits while she peers around him, staring defiantly at the three of them lined-up and watching her in return.

She looks healthy, Zoro thinks—vibrant and alive—a far cry from the weepy, bleeding little thing they’d rescued at the docks. Her scales shine iridescent blue-green even in the overcast weather, and there’s color in her cheeks—and strength in her voice.

It’s like letting out a breath Zoro hadn’t been aware he’d been holding tight in his lungs, and next to him Nami really does sigh.

“Oh, thank god, she’s okay,” she mumbles. She’s pale, too—a little sickly, and he wants to reach out but doesn’t because she sniffs, clears her throat, and glares at him (out of habit, maybe). He blinks back—caught off guard—and he wonders, then, if they should have talked about it more. If they should talk about anything more. What else is eating her up inside that he doesn’t know because they just don’t.

From below, Luffy hums, “What’re you supposed to say?” poking at Tama in the water and sticking his tongue out at her like he’s a kid himself.

In response, Tama huffs—then she grins, a great gleaming smile to rival Luffy’s own, right up at the three of them—to Zoro. “Thank you very much,” she says, enunciating each syllable in the way children so often do to sound more grown up. Luffy giggles.

And, because she’s looking right at him, Zoro grunts, “No big deal,” with a shrug—which makes Tama frown. She forgets to be afraid, maybe, as she swims a little closer and stares up at him from below.

“No,” she says firmly. “You got hurt. That’s a big deal.”

It’s a child’s logic—simple. Irrefutable. And inexplicably, it carves an ache out of Zoro’s own chest, Tama gazing at him with a kind of absolute certainty that he’s not sure what to do with. He can’t remember the last time he’s thought of his own injuries as anything other than an inevitable fact of life.

Zoro isn’t sure how to respond.

Thankfully, Nami claps her hands in the air once—snapping them all to attention, even Usopp.

“Okay—” she starts, but before she can even get a word out, Luffy cheers, Food! Food! Food! and Nami sighs. “Alright, alright,” she gripes, turning back to the basket now abandoned in the middle of the deck. Zoro can hear the smile in her voice. “You’ll have to make due with what we have, though—” she hefts it over to the edge and sets it down, then sits cross-legged as she pulls it open. “I haven’t exactly had the time to go back into town.”

(And they can’t exactly haul a shitload of raw meat with bait as an excuse—not with their fishing gear broken and half the marina keeping a wary eye on them anyway.)

Luffy nods like he’s listening, but out of the corner of his eye, Zoro sees his tail flick up and splash Usopp—still frozen and staring—directly in the face. He sputters and Zoro snorts just as Luffy and Tama both break out into giggles, completely distracted.

“I don’t think they care,” Zoro says, and he finally, finally takes a sip from his beer. Arguably, it’s even worse than before now that there’s seawater mixed in, but he drinks it with as much of a straight face as he can muster and nudges Usopp—drenched, dazed.

Usopp takes the other bottle with a look of shaky thanks and swigs, long and hefty—then gags, choking it out over the side of the boat. That sets Luffy and Tama giggling again, and Nami wheezes.

Surrounded by so much joy, Zoro can’t help but laugh, too.

- - -

Already soaked, it doesn’t take long for both Zoro and Usopp to tumble into the ocean—and for once, Zoro jumps in of his own accord before he’s dragged.

Tama’s laughter echoes off the trees in the cove as she plays an entirely one-sided game of Marco Polo with Usopp—zipping under the water and popping up impossibly fast in impossible locations while he swims around, blindfolded. Any hint of apprehension between both of them is long gone, cured by food and fun, and as he watches them play Zoro has the strangest feeling—that he’s going to know Usopp for the rest of his life.

Suddenly, Luffy surfaces next to him, so close Zoro can feel the heat of his body through the water and with enough force to send a wave of water up his nose. He snorts, scowling, and nearly loses the rhythm of his treading as Luffy steadies him with his tail.

“I told you to stop doing that,” he gripes, but Luffy just grins at him.

“Sorry, Zoro—” he says, and there’s not an ounce of sincerity in his voice. “But look at this!” He thrusts his hands up through the surface, a puddle of water collecting in his cupped palms like a little tidepool—and floating inside are half a dozen round, green balls of moss. “It’s you!”

From the side of the deck, Nami barks out a peal of laughter, and Luffy giggles—dumping the whole thing on his head without warning. Zoro sputters, shaking the water out of his eyes, but can feel the moss sticking in his hair and scowls.

Luffy just laughs even harder.

“It’s a good look for you,” Nami hollers. “Very natural.”

And Luffy adds, “I think they’re happy there,” with a decisive nod.

Zoro flips them both the middle finger with a splash, scowling—then takes a deep breath and dunks his head underwater, muffling their giggles as he scrubs the moss out of his hair.

When he resurfaces, it’s just in time to hear Usopp declare that even though he is the best Marco Polo player to ever exist, he’s going to let Tama win just this once out of the goodness of his heart—and Tama’s excited shrieks in response.

By the time Zoro rubs the saltwater out of his eyes, they’re already swimming back toward the boat, and he barely has a moment’s reprieve before Tama latches onto his back as they pass. She squishes her wet, baby cheek into his neck in a half-hug, and whispers something in that way children do, more a shout than anything. “You’re fine,” she says, voice muffled and bubbly. “I’ve decided I don’t mind,” then zips off before he can blink.

It doesn’t make sense, but before he can ask—he turns back to see Luffy watching him, a wide grin on his face, and Zoro blames the day’s exercise for the tightness in his chest, the heat on his face.

He dunks himself again.

Eventually, he and Usopp end up back on deck when Tama starts to wilt, tired from the excitement and still recovering from her own ordeal in the early summer. Usopp sidles right up next to Zoro and Nami, fully acclimated and dangling his feet over the edge while Luffy and Tama swim below. Tama, eyes dropping, lounges on Luffy’s chest as he floats on his back—but there’s a sleepy, joyful smile on her face that never leaves, even as she dozes.

Through an effort of what must be herculean willpower, Luffy hasn’t eaten them out of house and home—so while they drink another equally-terrible beer, Usopp tears into an apple, ravenous and long-recovered from any of the morning’s stress.

“So,” Usopp says around a mouthful of fruit. “I feel like I’ve been very cool about all of this so far—” Nami snorts and Usopp rolls his eyes in return, swallowing, “—but I really do have to ask. How the hell did you,” he gestures in Zoro’s general direction, “end up friends with one of the sea gods. You—Nami—I understand. Even I know how well you know the ocean.” (Nami shrugs, sipping from her own beer.) “But you—” Zoro raises an eyebrow, and Usopp cuts himself off with an almost sheepish grin. “Well, you know.” He doesn’t elaborate.

Before either Zoro or Nami can answer, though, Luffy pipes up from below. “Zoro gave me food!” he says proudly. Tama flops her little tail on Luffy’s stomach, mumbling in her sleep, and Luffy pats her back—and Zoro grunts, exchanging a look with Nami.

They’re not talking about it, then—the cargo district.

Usopp, oblivious, laughs and leans forward over the railing. “You’re easy to please, huh?” he asks, half-joking. “So I guess all the stories are true—”

“No,” Luffy scowls, splashing Usopp’s legs with his tail—but it’s a lazy motion, one that doesn’t disturb the little girl. “It was good food!”

“Oh yeah? Like what?” Usopp snickers back.

“Meat.”

He turns to Zoro—caught up in the moment, maybe—and snorts, “What, did you feed him one of your victims?” Then, as if realizing what he’s said, he pales as Zoro scowls. Nami scoffs and smacks Usopp on the side of the head hard. At the very least, the look on his face is genuine when he apologizes. “Sorry—too far, too far.”

Below, Luffy watches the exchange with an unreadable expression on his face, and Zoro swigs from his drink—long and deep, avoiding eye contact. He’s not sure what to do with the strange twist in his gut. It’s not embarrassment and it’s certainly not shame. And, fuck—he’s seen Luffy kill someone, and he knows there have been more. Why should it matter if Luffy’s seen him kill at least six someones?

Then in the blink of an eye it’s gone, and Luffy huffs as he splashes Usopp again.

“What difference does the kind of meat make? Meat is meat. It was tasty!” Luffy scowls, comically offended—and it’s almost endearing, right up until he says, “If Zoro fed me a person, I’d still eat it.”

Nami spits her beer into the ocean as she throws her head back and howls, laughter bouncing through the cove. Usopp backtracks immediately, all mirth gone from his expression as he frantically waves his hands, “Wait, wait—didn’t you say earlier that you don’t eat—oh my god.”

“I’d make an exception,” Luffy replies solemnly, “because it would probably be important.”

Nami covers her face with her hands, shoulders shaking as she laughs even harder.

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Zoro grunts, rolling his eyes at the three of them. There’s a mischievous kind of glint in Luffy’s eyes that tells him he’s joking, but he wonders, too, if that’s all there is to it.

(He decides he’s overthinking it. Luffy is a monster, after all.)

With a roll of his eyes, he drains the last of his beer and stands, ignoring Nami’s giggles and Usopp’s sputtering—and heads back for the galley in search of something better to drink, a lazy wave that goes largely ignored thrown back over his shoulder.

He hears Usopp scramble to salvage the conversation, chattering, “Okay, okay—moving on. What about, uh—what about… have you ever had a candy bar?”

And Nami picks up quickly, snapping her fingers, “Oh, you’d love chocola—”

Then Zoro turns toward the stern and freezes in place, muscles tense as he instinctively reaches for the swords that aren’t at his hip—instead, they’re stashed below, tucked away while they’ve been enjoying the afternoon.

The man peering over the opposite side of the boat’s railing just blinks back at him, unfazed—and then Zoro’s brain catches up with his eyes. Blond hair, a smattering of blue scales, burn scar to match—predatory gaze watching without comment, just out of sight of where they’ve been sitting on the other side of the boat.

Zoro wonders if he should be more unsettled than he is.

Instead, he grunts, “Didn’t know he had a babysitter,” then gestures vaguely below deck. “You want food, too?”

Sabo grins, wolfish and carefree, and even though they look nothing alike the sight is so Luffy that Zoro doesn’t doubt for a moment that they’re brothers. “I see why he picked you.”

“I’ll take that as a yes,” Zoro grunts, then he glances back toward the others, still happily babbling away, and climbs down the ladder.

He rummages until he unearths Nami’s not-so-secret flask (full, despite their apparently dwindling stash), then digs into the ice box and grabs a paper-wrapped roll of cold sausage.

When he reemerges, Sabo is back in the water, waiting patiently, an easy smile on his face—and Zoro wonders if he’s passed some kind of test without realizing it. He tosses the food to Sabo without comment. He doesn’t know Sabo well enough to judge whether he’s worth trusting, but it can’t hurt to play nice, he thinks. Especially if he’s watching Luffy.

Sabo tears into the meat with his teeth, and Zoro takes a swig of liquor—and grins. He can always trust Nami to hoard the best stuff for herself.

Just as he pivots to go, Sabo speaks up again around a mouthful of food—just loud enough for Zoro to hear. “I misjudged you,” he says, swallowing. “My apologies.” His eyes are sharp, but he seems sincere.

Zoro shrugs. “Wouldn’t have known either way,” he replies, turning back to lean against the rail. Behind him, he can hear the sounds of laughter as Usopp says something and the others erupt. Even Luffy. For a moment, Zoro wonders how they all look to Sabo—why he won’t join himself. “Figure it’s fair enough for your kind to be wary with everything that’s happened.”

Sabo tilts his head to the side and nods, perfectly amendable. “True. Luffy is an exception—he always is,” he shrugs. “But thank you—properly—for helping with Tama. She’s very precious to us.”

Zoro scoffs, “It’s fine,” because he isn’t sure what else to say—and because he’s still reeling from the sincerity of Tama’s own gratitude, too. He eyes Sabo, but he can’t see any resemblance there, either—and maybe it’s tactless, maybe it’s none of his business, but he can’t help but ask, “She your kid?”

Sabo shakes his head. Even so, there’s a sad kind of smile on his face—half-healed. “Yes and no,” he says. “Our brother took care of her, mostly, and now that he’s gone we all do what we can. Luffy especially. He feels responsible, maybe.”

“Ah,” Zoro replies, and he resists the urge to glance back toward the other side of the boat—toward Luffy. He hadn’t known. He’s coming to realize, slowly, that there is so much he doesn’t know—simply because he doesn’t know how to ask. (But then again, he’s never mentioned Kuina, either.) “Well, she’s a good kid,” he finishes lamely, scratching the back of his head.

Even so, Sabo chuckles. “Yeah, she is,” he says, and there’s a knowing, almost mischievous look in his eye as he continues, “Seems like she’s forgiven you. She loves him a lot, you know? Doesn’t like sharing.”

Zoro’s brow furrows, but before he can ask Sabo chucks the wad of wax paper back on deck and salutes—then he’s gone. Baffled, Zoro blinks at the ripples he’s left behind, and then another burst of giggles erupts from behind as Usopp squawks and Nami yells something in response.

He sips from the flask and turns back toward the others—and decides that he’ll figure it out eventually if it’s important enough.

- - -

“That’s mine,” Nami gripes, elbowing him in the ribs as he settles on the edge of the deck next to her.

“Really? I hadn’t noticed,” he drawls back—then takes another swig.

The minute his feet touch the water, Luffy crows, “Zoro!” and Zoro gets the strange, tight, sickly feeling in his chest again. Drinks. Raises his eyebrow at Luffy down below, who’s still lounging with Tama, a smile on his face.

“Yeah?”

“Start bringing me weird human food!” Luffy demands. To Zoro’s right, Nami and Usopp snicker—and he wonders how much he’s missed in the last few minutes. “Usopp said there’s all kinds of stuff. Burgers and fries and popcorn—”

“And hot dogs—” Usopp interjects, just as Nami adds, —and tangerine cake!

“—and more candy—”

“Oi, oi—” Zoro snorts, “I already gave you candy.”

Luffy pouts in return. “Stingy Zoro, that was forever ago,” he grumbles. “And it doesn’t count if you used it as bait.”

At the commotion, Tama rouses just a little—enough to raise her head and blink at Zoro, still half asleep. As if on cue, she mumbles, “I wanna try human candy—” already setting her head back down before she’s even finished her sentence.

Nami and Usopp laugh anew, and Zoro scrubs a hand through his hair, scowling. “Fine! Fine, whatever,” he says. “Don’t know where the hell I’m supposed to find any of that, though.”

Nami tilts her drink toward him in thought. “You could ask Sanji—”

“Who?”

“Baratie guy—”

“Hell no.”

Nami shrugs, rolling her eyes. “Suit yourself,” she says, just as Usopp hums, long and exaggerated, buzzed himself. (Zoro wonders, vaguely amused, how often he drinks—removed as he is from the more criminal elements in the harbor.)

“What about the supermoon festival? No one will think it’s weird if you’re carrying food.” Usopp shrugs, sipping his beer. Vaguely, Zoro feels sorry for him—and Usopp grimaces at the taste right on cue. But he doesn’t comment, just continues, “And it’ll keep me employed.”

Nami raises her eyebrows at Usopp. “You’re working the festival?”

He nods, listing to the side a little. “Yeah, yeah—they’re making it a whole thing this year to raise money for the—you know, for the damages,” he gestures out with both arms, almost dropping his beer. “Everyone’s gotta be involved, because we’re one big happy family, blah, blah, blah.”

She snorts. “What a load of bullshit,” she says. “I’m shocked they got everyone to cooperate. Last I heard, Arlong was bitching about charity and appearances.”

“Yeah, well,” Usopp replies, waving a hand. “At the end of the day, the fishermen are going to do what they want and he’s not going to turn down the publicity, because they’re the ones who—”

“Zoro! Bring me food from that!” Luffy laughs, and Usopp breaks off with a chuckle as Zoro rolls his eyes.

“You might as well,” Nami giggles. “I won’t be here, anyway—I’ll be home.”

Zoro blinks at that, brain finally catching up to the topic of conversation as he mentally counts the days—and yes, it’s almost the end of summer. In all the chaos, he’d nearly forgotten. Without a word, he bumps his shoulder against hers, and she snorts again, brushing it off.

(He knows, though, that it’s a strange, bittersweet time of year for her. The joy of returning to her island—to her sister— is tainted with the fact that each visit is conditional, the carrot of Arlong’s carrot-and-stick control; it’s the only time she’s allowed off this island.)

Luffy makes a whining kind of noise, then, and Zoro rolls his eyes. “Sure—fine, why not. That too,” he grumbles, and Luffy practically cheers. “You’re like a stray cat—I fed you once, and now you won’t leave me alone.”

“No,” Usopp interjects, shaking his head seriously—there’s a flush to his cheeks, and Nami laughs again.

Zoro realizes, perhaps belatedly, that they’re all starting to feel the afternoon—the heat and the exercise combining to strengthen the alcohol in their systems. Zoro takes another drink anyway, leaning further over the side. “No?” he asks, amused.

“He’s a sea god,” Usopp continues. “Food in exchange for luck, I already explained that. Not a cat.”

“I thought feeding cats gave you good luck, too?” Nami muses, peering down at Luffy. “Maybe you are, then.”

“All hail the mighty catfish,” Zoro deadpans, and Luffy flicks his tail up to smack against Zoro’s legs as Usopp laughs. Nami snickers, too, and leans against his shoulder as Zoro huffs—hiding his own smile—then looks into the basket still tucked behind them. It’s mostly empty now except for a few stray pieces of fruit.

He grabs an apple (tosses one to Usopp, too, who catches it even as he takes another swig from his own beer) and takes a massive bite. Below, Luffy hums a lazy, nonsensical song, smiling up at Zoro through dark bangs while Zoro maybe, finally grins a little stupidly right back, mouth full of food.

Fine, then—he thinks drunkenly—Fine, he’ll bring the festival to the fish.

What could possibly go wrong?

Interlude III: Abyssal; 4000-6000

The strange ache he hasn’t quite figured out yet—the one he gets when he thinks of Zoro—hasn’t gone away. No matter how much he tries to fill the emptiness with food, with treasure, with violence, with time, it stays. No matter how much he gives and takes, he never feels satisfied. It’s a pull somewhere deep inside, like the ocean itself tugging him forward—the tides fighting him, dragging him toward land when all he wants (all he’s ever wanted) is to go out to sea.

He wonders if this is how it was for Ace and Deuce, how it is for Sabo and Koala—wonders if that’s why the three of them (left) don’t care, not really—why they’re more concerned than anything, having written him off as another quirk of the strange things that make up Luffy (who is already so different from the rest of them) without ever asking why.

It’s a terrible thing—not terrible in a bad way so much as terrible in a big way. A massive, suffocating, pressing kind of feeling that he can’t entirely explain. Like he’s down at the bottom of the Trench (or like the bottom of the Trench itself is inside his chest) and he can’t get out.

He is hungry. And restless.

As the weather starts to cool, the humans on the concrete edge of the island begin to slither out of their holes once again—regrouping. Angry.

And then, one night, the Red Hunter appears.

Zoro is gone, off on land with the humans (which is not where he belongs, a voice in the back of his mind says), so Luffy follows his brother out to watch the waters on Dragon’s order. (Or—suggestion, really, because Luffy has never once been ordered and listened.) The poison, slowly dissipating since Tama’s rescue, has started to remmerge again—and so the cycle of sinking ships has begun anew.

Luffy sees him on the shore, standing right at the point where the water turns to warehouse, the burns on his face and neck stark, dark against the dock lights. Still and silent as a statue, watching—waiting for something, maybe. Out in the open and alive.

Luffy feels a growl rise in the back of his throat as he stares across the surface of the water—just as Akainu’s eyes snap toward him. It’s a blind stare, because he should be impossible to see at so much distance, and yet—

Sabo’s hand clamps down against Luffy’s gills and he gurgles, flailing, sinking below the waves while his brother hisses, “Don’t you dare—” and Luffy wants to lash out, because he’s right there—but when he blinks, he sees that Sabo’s own sharp teeth are gritted, his face contorted into a kind of rage he knows mirrors his own. Luffy struggles one more time (to make his point) before he relaxes, and only then does Sabo say, “It’s a trap. A trap.”

Through the night, a voice cuts like bubbling oil, slick and hot and dangerous. “I know you’re out there, little god,” it calls, taunting, “and I know you’ve been making friends. It won’t be long until I figure out who they are, so you might as well give yourself up.”

Then the Red Hunter laughs, and it is familiar. Horrific.

Luffy wants to scream.

And he realizes, with a sick, startling clarity, that he should have killed him—the human that started the fire—but Luffy had been distracted because he’d been afraid they’d been hurt, his humans. He’d been afraid he’d been hurt, Zoro, torn apart in heat and blood—but he hadn’t. They’d both been fine.

Except—he’d fucked up. He’d inadvertently let the human live, and now word has gotten back to Akainu that they’re connected. Now, the Red Hunter has begun to hunt.

Sabo drags him away, and in the flashing starlight they see it—the human weapons lined up on the shore, on the warehouse rooftops. New and lethal. Something has changed among the humans and the docks have become a fortress.

The only thing he can do is watch them. Watch out for them.Watch out for him.

Seething, angry (wanting, wanting, wanting) Luffy decimates the next ship they find marked with poison in open waters. He does not eat the humans, but their blood fills the water (and filters through his teeth) anyway.

Still, he hungers.

Chapter Text

Part V

As July shutters to a close, Usopp becomes a presence in their lives. It’s not unexpected—Zoro can’t imagine anyone meeting Luffy and not wanting to reorient their whole world around him. Even so, he and Nami let Usopp make his own excuses. Their hauling gear is more complicated to repair than he thought, and as soon as that project ends he just-so-happens to notice the stock of damaged nets and crab traps still in need of work, too.

He doesn’t charge, just lashes his dinghy next to theirs and sits on the deck, twisting metal with pliers as Nami pours over tidal maps in the wheelhouse and Zoro runs through his training routine in the hot late-summer sun.

And the company is… nice.

For all of his quivering and quaking, Usopp has a determination about him that he and Nami have muddled over the years—worn down by time and circumstance. He shows up between jobs with an inconsistent consistency, ready to chatter away about the boats he’s repairing, or how preparations for the boardwalk festival are coming along, or anything—local history, town gossip, and a healthy dose of highly-entertaining bullshit.

And when—finally—there’s nothing left to fix, he arrives with a bolt of red fabric twisted in the bottom of his pack—then another, then another—as the weather shifts and work ashore turns from rebuilding the docks to building stalls for the boardwalk festival.

Like it’s the most natural thing in the world, Usopp constructs costumes and decorations right there on deck, despite the salt water and the stinging breeze and the sea monster always seconds from dragging any of them into the ocean without warning. And despite the fact that he has his own workshop on dry land, shared with the Vegetables and full of tools, too.

The biggest surprise, though, is the kind of unexpected bravery that lurks beneath the surface of his skittish exterior. While he works, he does the one thing neither Zoro or Nami have been entirely willing to do, perhaps out of some unspoken fear that they’ll break the spell of the summer—

Usopp asks.

Mixed in with the endless chatter about his own life, he peppers Luffy with a hundred-thousand questions—and Luffy answers what he feels like answering, always amused (and always the nothing questions, like whether he poops or if he can eat rocks, not the big questions) until he calls Usopp boring and demands to know more about the human world instead.

And then—in the blink of an eye—the shore starts to flicker on at night, paper lanterns illuminating the water’s edge in the distance. As summer turns to fall, the coast comes alive.

The boardwalk, normally a strip of shame between Arlong Park and Mariejois, blossoms with sound and color—and soon Nami is packing her bags, marking each day with a new kind of buzz, watching the weather like a hawk as she readies for home. The seasonal changeover is always the most unpredictable—which is half the reason why (so Usopp says) it’s the most important time to celebrate, to offer up the best of what they have to the gods of the sea.

One night, half in jest, Nami asks Luffy if he wants anything—because it is a holiday for him, for them, after all. They learn very quickly that Luffy has a long memory when it comes to food.

So, like every year before, Zoro stays behind.

And yet—unlike every year before, he isn’t left alone.

- - -

The first night of the festival proper, Usopp stomps down the dock in full costume—red-cloaked and sun-masked—with a cloth bag slung over his shoulder and a scowl on his face. Zoro is waiting at the edge, arms crossed as he leans against the piling. Next to him, Nami’s loose-tied dinghy bobs in the waves, ready for the world’s laziest getaway.

At his approach, Zoro raises an eyebrow, but before he can say anything Usopp just hisses, “I can’t believe she made me do this. I feel like a criminal!” and shoves the bundle into Zoro’s arms without stopping.

In response, Zoro just rolls his eyes. “You are,” he says, slinging the bag over his shoulder.

If possible, Usopp’s scowl deepens. “I work for a criminal organization—I’m not a criminal,” he says, already backing away. “There’s a difference.”

Just to see how high he can spike Usopp’s blood pressure, Zoro drawls, “Is there?” entirely for fun, and not because he’s been waiting (impatiently, because Luffy is over there he doesn’t know what to do with himself).

“Yes, in my heart,” Usopp hisses back, “Now would you please just go so I can get back before anyone notices?” Usopp waves toward the dinghy—and then out at the harbor proper, where Nami’s boat is still anchored.

The marina is utterly quiet, nearly deserted as even the fishermen who live on their boats have descended on the town to run stalls and man booths. There is almost no one around to see their exchange, and there won’t be for hours. Still, Usopp glowers and for a moment, Zoro wonders if he’s going to shove Zoro into the water himself.

Far slower than is strictly necessary, Zoro lowers the bundle into the dinghy and does his level-best to keep a straight face while Usopp seethes, “Zoro!” and bounces on the balls of his feet, seconds from fleeing.

“Are you really telling me you’ve never stolen anything from those yachts up in Mariejois before?” Zoro asks, trying desperately not to laugh.

That brings Usopp up short, anxiety (momentarily) forgotten. “Well—no,” he replies, “but—but this is a fundraiser!”

“He caught the guy,” Zoro retorts, climbing down from the dock. “They owe him a reward, at least.”

“There’s a whole thing at the end—the memorial, the offerings,” Usopp hisses. “He’ll get plenty of food!”

“Yeah, well—this is what he wanted. Apparently it’s the principle of the thing,” Zoro replies. “It’s your own fault, anyway. You gave him the idea.” With one hand, he unties the knots holding him tethered to the wood, then pulls out one of the oars.

Usopp throws his hands up in aggravation. “You’ve been encouraging him! And I don’t see why you couldn’t have done this yourself if you weren’t going to pay!” (As if he hadn’t been the one to volunteer anyway, claiming Zoro would spend half the evening wandering through town, rendering the whole thing pointless.) Then Usopp yanks his yellow costume mask down, and (tone frustrated, but not seriously angry—not really) says, “Just tell him I said hi, okay?” before he turns on his heel and stomps away, huddling into his cloak as he goes.

With a lazy wave, Zoro snorts, “You got it,” and pushes off into the water—

—just as Luffy surfaces next to him and yells, “Thanks, Usopp!” all the way down the dock, his voice echoing across the marina.

Usopp jumps, nearly tripping over the edge of his cloak as he yelps a horrified, “T-That’s not my name! I don’t even know the guy!” that cracks halfway through—before scampering off.

As Luffy laughs alongside him, Zoro begins rowing, unable to help the snickers bubbling up out of his own throat, too.

“I thought you were going to stay back at the boat?” he nods toward the harbor as he heaves the oars back and forth, cutting through the water with a practiced ease. Luffy giggles again, wet and half-submerged, and when Zoro glances over he sees the eyes of a sea monster watching him over the surface, following the curve of his arms as he rows—an unreadable expression on his face.

Zoro blinks at him, momentarily faltering.

When he catches Zoro’s gaze, Luffy floats onto this back, pouting indignantly—and melodramatically.

“No way,” he says, as though Zoro might have really asked him to starve on his own—all trace of severity gone. “That’s so boring.”

Zoro snorts again, maneuvering one oar just enough to jab Luffy in the side before returning to his stride—and Luffy smacks the little rowboat with this tail, rocking it enough to splash water over the side. Zoro curses as he nearly loses his grip on the oars and glares.

“Oi! You really are going to get us seen at this rate,” he grumbles, not entirely serious—and Luffy just rocks the dinghy again. “Hey!”

“Zoro!”

“If you keep doing that, half this shit won’t even be edible anymore. Human food’s not supposed to be wet,” he gripes back, locking one of the oars to lift Usopp’s bag out of the water already starting to pool in the hull. When they’re back on dry land, he’ll have to tip the boat—if Luffy doesn’t sink the whole thing first. As if on cue, Luffy’s face twists into a grin that Zoro knows means trouble—so Zoro holds the backpack out over the ocean. “I’ll do it,” he says, shaking it a little. “Your loss.”

Luffy sticks his tongue out at him but retreats, giving the oars a wide berth too as Zoro settles back down to begin rowing again. “I’d still eat it,” he pouts. Zoro rolls his eyes. Of course he would.

By the time he ties off to the stern, Luffy has started swimming back and forth below the dinghy like something out of a horror story—rocking the boat just enough to be annoying, but not enough to do any real damage. Utterly incapable of behaving for more than five fucking minutes.

He surfaces again as Zoro hauls the bag up on deck, already chanting, “Snacks! Snacks! Snacks!” in barely-contained glee before Zoro has even fully boarded. For a moment, Zoro wonders if he’ll be dragged down by the leg before he can step over the rail—instead, Luffy splashes him.

It’s only marginally better.

“You’re such a pain,” Zoro gripes, and Luffy just snickers—so in retaliation, Zoro steps into the middle of the deck and tips the backpack upside down, emptying the whole thing directly onto the wood in a shower of cardboard and wax paper and aluminum wrapping. He blinks, almost surprised despite knowing what to expect.

Usopp has outdone himself to such a degree that Zoro might actually question his claims about petty theft—because he’s managed to steal half a snack stand’s worth of shitty supermarket junk food. Breakfast cereal, potato chips, candy bars, taffy, dried fruit, jerky, preserved pastries, and half-a-dozen things Zoro doesn’t even recognize. It is a veritable feast.

Immediately, Luffy splashes up, lifting his torso over the side of the boat as he whines, “No fair, Zoro!” in something close to genuine despair.

Grinning, smug, Zoro replies, “That’s what you get,” already moving toward the hatch in search of his own provisions for the night. Behind him, Luffy lets out a kind of incomprehensible grumbling noise, and then there’s the sound of a flailing behemoth as he hauls himself on deck.

When Zoro returns with a wooden caddy of beer (just moments later, really, because there’s a strange kind of energy in the air, a vibration in the moonlight he can feel under his skin and he doesn’t want to be away too long) Luffy is already tearing at the packaging, gnawing at the edge of a cardboard box with his sharp teeth.

Under the bright night sky, his massive tail is a beautiful thing, its wet iridescence reflecting back the orange supermoon with something like an otherworldly glow—half red-invisible in the darkness, half bright—one to match the gleam of his eyes, alert and mirror-like in the darkness. Fully out of the water, the translucent fins on his arms look soft, almost. Deceptively so, because Zoro has touched them (briefly, fleetingly) whilst swimming and he knows just how dangerous they really are.

Luffy is fully out in the open, now—something horrific and dangerous for them both on any other night—but the hush over the harbor feels like a safety blanket. A shield. Around them, the ocean seems half-alive, as though holding its breath waiting for something. Waiting for them.

As he sits, settling down on crossed legs in front of Luffy, three feet and a pile of supermarket junk between them, Zoro pulls a beer from the caddy and laughs.

Luffy is a body of lean muscle and predatory grace, the closest thing to a god Zoro’s ever believed in, and he’s chewing on a wad of wet paper.

“I can’t vouch for the packaging, so don’t blame me if it sucks,” Zoro says, uncapping his drink while Luffy frowns almost thoughtfully at the taste. Then, as Zoro takes a swig of his beer, Luffy spits out the cardboard and peers inside the box. Grins. Practically crows with delight.

The next however-long is carnage as Luffy demolishes everything he’s brought, each mediocre-to-disgusting thing a new and exciting marvel. As Zoro drinks he haltingly explains what each is to the best of his ability, but Luffy is only half listening, anyway—not that Zoro minds, really. Luffy is happy. And Luffy’s joy is contagious.

- - -

When Luffy finally sprawls out, having torn his way through enough food to make a lesser man gag, they’re surrounded by a blast radius of convenience store debris and the distance between them has shrunk. All limbs and spikes, he takes up half the deck (an exaggeration, maybe, but Zoro feels like he does—his presence a kind of all-consuming thing) and sighs happily into the cooling night air.

Zoro is on his third (maybe fourth, maybe fifth) drink, pleasantly buzzed—and later, maybe, that will be his excuse.

Without thinking, marveling in a way he rarely can, Zoro traces a finger down the length of Luffy’s tail, following the flow of his strange, half-visible scales. It feels unnatural, cold on the surface with a definable, radiating heat underneath that gives the illusion of wetness even out of the water. Muscular, firm but pliable, necessarily powerful.

Under his touch, Zoro feels Luffy still—and then he almost freezes, too, realizing what he’s done. But he doesn’t, because Luffy doesn’t seem to mind. He’s just looking at Zoro. Watching him. Licking his lips around shark-sharp teeth.

Drunk and stupid, Zoro takes a long pull of his beer and wonders if Luffy is still hungry.

And he wonders how different chips and seawater taste when there’s only salt left.

And instead, what actually comes out of his mouth is a completely separate third thing, because never once has he claimed to be a decent conversationalist.

“You were more fucked up when we met,” he says, and somewhere in the back of his brain alarm bells scream. Because this feels like deja vu, a parallel conversation to something from a lifetime (three months) ago. And just like before, he wants to bash his head against the hull the moment the words leave his mouth—but he doesn’t, because that might actually make the whole situation that much more embarrassing. So he just sits still. Doubles down, because sure—might as well dig the whole grave while he’s at it. “Y’know. Scary. Like a real monster. With the—scales.”

And Luffy laughs, flopping a little on deck, the spell of whatever that was broken in an instant. “Thanks!” he chirps, like the statement is a genuine compliment, and Zoro blinks with an unabashed sense of unearned triumph. It makes him more of a moron.

“Can you do it again?”

“Well, duh.”

“No, I mean—it’s not like an… adrenaline thing? Like people lifting cars in a crisis.”

Luffy tilts his head, intrigued. “Can you lift a car?”

And Zoro blinks back at him, momentarily distracted. “What? Maybe—I haven’t tried.”

“You should try, it might be cool,” Luffy replies, matter-of-fact.

Zoro scowls. “Stop derailing the conversation every time I try to ask about you.”

Luffy concedes, frowning vaguely—pouting more at the fact that Zoro can’t lift a car, maybe, than at the comment itself. (Distantly, Zoro wonders if he should add lifting cars to his training regimine, but that has absolutely nothing to do with this—at all.)

“Fine,” Luffy says, rolling his eyes as he props himself up on his elbows—giving Zoro something like his full attention, now.

Zoro swallows. Channels everything he’s learned about how to have a conversation from Usopp. Opens his mouth and— “Is that normal?”

(Because asking someone if they’re normal is an excellent start.)

Luffy tilts his head as if seriously considering the question. “Lifting cars?”

“Luffy.”

“Well, yes, it’s normal for me—”

“That’s not what I meant and you fucking know it—”

“—but no, I guess not.”

Zoro hums, bewildered. “Not even your brother?”

“Neither of them,” he replies. “Just me, I guess.”

Zoro frowns. “You don’t seem too concerned.”

“Should I be?”

“How would I know?” Zoro asks, incredulous, refusing to admit that he’d walked right into that one—really.

“Well, then you shouldn’t have brought it up,” Luffy snorts, and Zoro literally cannot argue with that. Before he can salvage what’s left of their conversation, though, Luffy plows ahead. “What, do you like me better that way? All—hunting and scary. You were pretty disappointed—”

“I was not disappointed. I wasn’t anything! You look fine now—not that you didn’t look fine then—better than fine—” Before he can finish the sentence and just die, Zoro snaps his jaw shut, forcibly cutting off his own words. Luffy blinks at him. Zoro clears his throat. “So are you just like… a different species or what?” he says, and mentally pats himself on the back for smoothing that over—

And Luffy snickers, “Zoro, you can’t just ask someone that!”

“Oh, fuck off,” Zoro replies, just at the edge of despair, and pinches the bridge of his nose to avoid looking at Luffy as he laughs. This is why he hates talking to people. He sucks at it. He wonders if by walking back on land he could leave this conversation and never speak again. Ever.

When he looks up, there’s a teasing glint in Luffy’s eyes and he’s grinning, the asshole, and Zoro—with a groan, exasperated—just tilts backwards and sprawls on his back, beer bottle balanced on his chest, throwing one arm over his eyes so he doesn’t have to look at him anymore.

Luffy reaches over to pat his leg, giggling.

“I hate you,” Zoro grunts.

“You really don’t,” Luffy snickers back.

And Zoro sighs, because, “No, I guess not,” and Luffy laughs again.

They lay in silence for a while, then, and Zoro stares up at the black expanse above them in wonder. With the lights from the boardwalk glistening in the distance, the night is almost devoid of stars—but the moon, full and glowing, is a great red thing in the sky, twice its normal size. A sturgeon supermoon, it adds to the strange atmosphere, something like a sun hanging above them in the middle of the dark.

He wishes he could freeze them both there, suspended in time.

It’s a strange thought. For years all he’s wished for is change—and now that things have changed, he wants it to stop. To stay. But he knows, now, that it can’t.

Soon, the weather will turn. There’s a humming on the horizon that even he’s aware of—Kaido’s tentative resurgence, notes passed to Nami under drinks with requests to meet because there’s something new to unveil, ready to deal; and the bounty, still looming large like a guillotine over all of their heads.

The summer—Luffy—has been a kind of respite. Months in limbo.

It cannot last forever.

And yet—god, god he wants it to be forever.

He scrubs a hand down his face and turns—only to find Luffy watching him in the darkness, that same indecipherable expression on his face.

Then Zoro asks the one thing they’ve all avoided—only joked about, really—because to broach the topic would be a kind of sin, maybe.

“Are you really gods?” he says, “Is all of that—about good fortune and prosperity and shit—is it real?”

And Luffy—he just shrugs. And grins.

“I dunno!” he replies, giggling almost. “Do you feel lucky?”

And more than anything, in this moment, he wants to answer yes, yes, look at you—god, yes—

But he doesn’t, because of course he doesn’t.

Instead, Zoro snorts. Rolls his eyes. Says, “I’d feel luckier if life weren’t so fucking complicated,” like some kind of pessimist, and wishes they lived in a world where his best friend didn’t owe a life-debt to a sadist and he could breathe underwater. “What about you? Whatever the stories here say.”

Luffy hums in response as though seriously considering, and then (after a moment) he shrugs again. “I’ve never thought about being lucky or not,” he replies. “I’ve never lost a fight, but that’s probably just ‘cause I’m strong.”

At that, Zoro props himself back on his side, up on one elbow, and takes another sip of his beer. Intrigued. “I’ll give you that—if you’re more of a monster than the average sea monster. Not once?”

Luffy sticks his tongue out at him, then, and his tail flops against the deck—amused and thinking. “Not since I was little, I guess. I’ve never met anything stronger.” He makes a face, then, like he’s remembering something fond. “’cept my brothers, maybe. But we haven’t fought in a long, long time.”

Zoro hums—and he thinks of his own sister, then, and he understands. “Sabo? Or the one who—”

“Ace. His name was Ace.”

Zoro nods. “Ace, then.”

Luffy just shrugs, matter-of-fact. “I’ll never know, I guess.”

And Zoro can’t argue with that, because it’s true. True for both of them, really. So he pivots back to teasing because he is curious—Luffy would demolish him in the water, but on land? He’s seen how powerful he could be, but Zoro is his own kind of predator. So he smirks. “What about humans, though?”

And that does bring Luffy up short, even just for a moment. He goes quiet, still full of idle motion but no longer laughing—and Zoro wonders if (realizes belatedly that) he’s said the wrong thing. He thinks of the poison, and of the bounty, and of the rumors.

But before he can take it back, Luffy scowls—and he lifts a hand to the rippled scar on his chest. The one to match Sabo’s eye—the one they’ve never brought up, because they all have their own scars, too.

“Humans are greedy,” Luffy says. “Ace died ‘cause you want power that isn’t yours.” Zoro wants to reach out and touch him, but Luffy’s fingers curl, claw-like, against his own skin—lost in memory, maybe. Angered but not angry. “You think you’re the biggest predator in the world, when all you’ve got is fire.”

“Fire?”

“Fire. Big and terrible and violent,” Luffy says, voice devoid of anything. “Guns and bombs and poison. It’s not power. And it’s not yours.”

Unsure what to do with himself, Zoro takes another sip of his beer. Watching, waiting. When Luffy doesn’t say anything else, he finally asks, “What, then? Whose power is it?” because he’s genuinely curious—and his voice comes out a little rough, because they’re in uncharted territory, now.

Luffy’s eyes snap to his, then—

“Mine.”

—and Zoro feels like all the air has been sucked out of his lungs, sucked out of the world. He’s grateful he’s already half-laying down, because the statement feels as monumental as it is incomprehensible, the kind of thing that could sweep a person off his feet with the weight of it; an admission or an acknowledgement that Zoro doesn’t have the full context to understand, just like half of what Luffy says, anyway.

The boat rocks, gentle in the night, and Luffy just stares at him.

Zoro licks his lips. Wants to know, suddenly, just how much power is power—and how much he’s really seen of what Luffy can do. Because the ocean is vast and deep and terrible, and there are giants with sharp claws and sharper teeth than he will ever truly know. And if Luffy is above them—

Then what is he, really?

(Even though he knows he can’t, he swears—somehow—that he can see Luffy’s scales shifting in the night, the changing invisible-iridescence of them a trick of the darkness, a swirling smoke of black-and-red.)

Unsure how to respond (because what he wants to say he can’t say) Zoro clears his throat. “I’m sorry about your brother,” he grunts, and it does not sound like enough.

“Me too,” Luffy replies. And then, after a pause, he nods. “But I’ve decided—when this is all over, I’m going to go out and see the world like Ace did. An adventure,” he says, spreading his arms wide above them—like he’s going to take the whole night sky and hold it to his chest. “I’m going to be free.”

The certainty in his voice knocks the wind out of Zoro’s lungs. The conviction, like there’s no way the world would deny him. It’s a statement of fact, not a statement of desire—not a wish, but a promise.

All his life, Zoro has wanted. He’s only ever been certain of one thing—his own ability to endure. He thinks of his sister, of the late night conversations stolen under blankets after lights out. Of a plan to leave and be a pair of someones other than who their father expected. And of the rest, too—of everything that came after.

(And he tries not to think of how heavy the slipped-in confession feels—when this is all over—his own deep and enduring fear, so obvious to Luffy and yet something Zoro refuses to acknowledge. Because this will end, eventually. It has to.)

“My sister wanted that,” he says, and it comes out breathy—like his mouth won’t form the word sister, not quite. Luffy turns his head to look at him, arms still held aloft, and his gaze is curious, surprised, but steady. Zoro clears his throat. He can’t put what he wants to say in the right order, so he just says nothing.

After a moment, Luffy hums, “I didn’t know you had a sister,” something just to the left of an observation. A prompt if he wants it, the opportunity to back out if he doesn’t.

Zoro huffs, an aggravated sound—frustrated with himself more than Luffy. As if he has any right to be, after what Luffy’s been through. Instead of answering immediately, he breaks eye contact and sighs again as he rolls onto his back. He folds one hand behind his head and balances the beer bottle on his chest again, gazing up at the night sky.

Luffy lets him stall—or maybe he’s just easily distracted, tail slapping idly against the deck as he fiddles with the crinkles of torn cardboard still littered around them.

Through gritted teeth, Zoro says, “She died,” and as both words come out just fine, he marvels at Luffy’s own ability to just. Admit it.

In his peripheral vision, Luffy turns to look at him again. “Like Ace,” he says, but Zoro just shakes his head—glaring up at the moon, still so angry for reasons he doesn’t understand. Because Zoro doesn’t understand it, not really—not even after so many years.

It’s like unlocking a box he’s kept sealed, thinking about all of the death and violence around them. Thinking about the implications of Luffy’s scars, of Ace’s death, of Tama’s poisoning—of the slaughter on the docks, the fire in the marina; the chunks of meat on the concrete and the burned bodies in the harbor. An endless parade of swords and fists and bullets—of chains around ankles and only one week home a year, because they can’t set down roots here lest any one of them fuck up too badly to deserve a single good thing.

“Not like Ace,” he almost spits. “She should’ve died like Ace—” Luffy sucks in a breath through his teeth, but Zoro plows ahead, the words pouring out of his throat like vomit. “She should’ve burned up in a blaze of blood and guns and—I don’t know—glory. We’re supposed to die violent deaths. We’re supposed to die doing something.”

Suddenly, he sits up—startling himself, like his body is sick with a need for motion and he can’t quite contain it. The disruption spills his drink, warm and terrible, sticky foam coating his hands and arms as he curses—and hurls it over the side of the boat. His chest heaves, but he can’t stop.

Luffy says nothing.

“The way we live—the things we’re raised to do; the way we’re raised to survive—she was meant to go out horrible, just like I’m meant to go out horrible,” he seethes, and Luffy lets him. “But she died at home. In our basement.” Not knowing what else to do with the inertia in his bones, he presses the heels of his palms into his eyes, ignoring the sting and smell of the god-awful beer. “She died at home in our basement. Alone. And it was an accident.”

Luffy looks at him, then—Luffy with the great burn scar on his chest, a constant reminder of his own tragedy for all to see. And he says, “Why does it matter how she died?”

And all Zoro can respond is, “Because she deserved better,” and it’s the truth. Of anyone—of any of them, Kuina deserved better.

“A better death?”

“I just wanted her death to mean something,” he says, and his voice doesn’t break. “Didn’t Ace’s?”

Luffy scoffs, then, and it’s a mean kind of sound—like Zoro is stupid, and like he’s not pouring his drunken guts across the deck and throwing up his heart, too.

“Death doesn’t mean anything,” he says. “It’s just death. If Ace’s death meant anything, it’s that I should’ve been stronger then—stronger like I am now.”

Zoro barks out a laugh that feels like a sneer and turns to look down at Luffy, pissed. Pissed because he doesn’t know what to think. Luffy just gazes back, steady—

“Is that your official stance, god?”

—and scowls.

“It doesn’t matter,” Luffy shoots back. “They’re dead. We’re not. Living matters.”

“How can you say it doesn’t matter when you’re—what fucking was it—going to go out on an adventure? Following in his footsteps or his dreams or whatever.”

Luffy glares. “Ace wanted family. And he got that—he got Tama and Deuce and the rest of them, so many more. Marco and Izou and Thatch and Haruta and—” he cuts himself off, then, and clicks his tongue in frustration. “He left because he wanted something and he found it,” Luffy continues, staring up at the great moon looming above them both. “I want something, too, but it’s not that.”

He looks out into the distance, then, and for the first time Zoro sees the embrace of the harbor for what it is—something cloying, smothering. The worst kind of cage compared to the whole of the sea.

And Zoro realizes (again, again, again) that there is so much he will never know; an entire history roiling like leviathan below the waves. So many somethings out there bigger than the islands and his uncle and his life. And he will never know any of it, because how much can the world really open up when the here and now is terrible enough?

And yet—

“I’m going to be free,” Luffy says, then he turns back to stare at Zoro, eyes piercing and bright in the dark. And in that moment, Zoro thinks he could believe it—believe in some kind of god. Because only a god could declare anything so assured, as though his will were some kind of inevitability.

And then Luffy asks, “What are you going to be?”

(And like a drowned man grasping for something, anything in open water, Zoro wants to say, With you—unbidden—so he clamps his jaw shut to keep the words from tumbling out. And he looks at Luffy’s silhouette, framed dark against the darker ocean around them, and wonders if he is doomed to want. To endure. If that’s all he’ll ever have.)

But instead, Zoro just scoffs again, low and dismissive, “I’m going to get the fuck out of here and be someone. Someone on my own terms,” he says, and it’s as good as parroting the question back at Luffy—but it’s something. Luffy’s expression doesn’t change—not really—but there’s a steel in his eyes. A certainty.

Then he grins.

“Come with me!” he says, as if it’s the most natural thing—and it’s not even a question. It’s a statement, maybe, or some declaration just to the left of a command. Like Zoro could say no, but he won’t, because it’s Luffy.

And yet—

“No way,” Zoro shakes his head, huffing as if a way out hasn’t just been handed to him. And maybe that’s part of his problem, some distant voice that sounds too much like Kuina thinks. Stubborn pride.

(But he thinks of Nami, can picture her sitting in Nojiko’s kitchen, laughing with her sister—peeling tangerines with bare, juice-stained hands, surrounded by sandbags for storm season, safe from the outside for one small, peaceful moment. And he knows if he were going to leave, she would have to come too—and she wouldn’t. Not yet.)

Luffy tilts his head to the side and laughs, unhurt, like he’d expected the answer anyway. Like he’s humoring Zoro, and Zoro can’t help it—after a moment, he chuckles, too.

The angry roar in the back of his brain starts to fade in that way all emotions do with time and alcohol, and as Luffy flicks the wad of wrapper in his general direction (missing by a mile and giggling harder) Zoro regrets chucking the last of his beer overboard.

“You will,” Luffy says, utterly certain, and Zoro just rolls his eyes.

Spell broken, Zoro leans back and reaches for the basket, fumbling for another drink—only to find it nearly empty, one bottle left. He clicks his tongue and, half-distracted, half-drunk, smacks the top of the bottle against the lip of the deck—only for the cap to CRACK! against the wood, peeling up at the edge without opening.

He makes a wordless noise of frustration and lifts it to his face, squinting in the darkness. He has enough sense not to pry it up with his fingers, but it’ll still be twice as hard to open without the right leverage—and it’s the last one.

Snickering at his failure, Luffy reaches for the bottle in his hands and swipes it before Zoro can protest—then he bites the cap, metal edge and all, and Zoro barely has time for a half-shouted, “That’s sharp, you idio—” before Luffy gags, shaken beer foaming up into his mouth as he pries it open.

Only Zoro’s reflexes save the glass from smashing as Luffy nearly drops it in surprise, lunging forward, but he’s not fast enough to avoid Luffy’s forehead as he jerks away from the shower of bitter alcohol.

Pain explodes in Zoro’s face—and Luffy yowls, recoiling. Only years of discipline in the ring keeps Zoro from crumpling at the feel of what might be a broken nose. Instead, he freezes, grip white-knuckled on the bottle as something warm and wet immediately pools down his chin, and through gritted teeth he hisses, “Fuck.”

“That hurt!” Luffy wails, clutching his forehead, and then he opens his eyes and scowls like Zoro isn’t bleeding on the deck right next to him. Indignant and offended, Luffy picks the ruined bottle cap out of his mouth, punctured on one of his bottom teeth—then bites it in half and spits it back out.

Choosing to ignore that completely, Zoro glares right back as he prods at the bridge of his nose—then winces. Not broken, but close. “Shut up,” he grunts, nasal and belated, tilting his head back. “Ugh.” Then he stands, fumbling down the beer and probably (definitely) spilling it.

Blinking up at him, Luffy has the decency to look mildly remorseful. “I’m sorry,” he whines, but the apology loses impact when a burble of laughter immediately bubbles out of his mouth.

“Asshole,” Zoro grumbles back, flipping the middle finger over his shoulder as he weaves his way below deck, still looking upward, trying to slow the bleeding. He makes it down the ladder on muscle memory alone as the boat rocks, compounding unsteadiness in his brain.

He doesn’t bother turning on any lights, just maneuvers by the orange moonlight coming through the hatches and portholes as he gropes for a towel or something in the entryway. His hand seizes the first soft thing he touches, and only when it’s pressed against his face, sopping up his bloody nose does he really flinch—because he's definitely just ruined one of Nami’s shirts.

(For a moment, he just stands there, bleeding into threadbare cotton, sobered by the pain but still reeling from their conversation enough to wonder how small the nameless boat must seem to someone capable of roaming the entire ocean without walls. And he wonders, suddenly, what Luffy meant so long ago about Zoro feeling like home; whether it was the blood and violence itself, or the feeling of familiar prying desperation—a kindred yearning for more.)

Then he shakes his head and curses again, turning back into the galley to rummage for the half-decent rum he knows Nami has started to procure from the bar.

After a moment—or longer, maybe, as the blood from his nose has finally stopped—a shadow falls over the galley and he looks up to see Luffy peering through the hatch from above, chin resting on his hands as he holds himself up.

“Anything else to eat?” he asks, and Zoro chucks the ruined shirt up at him without comment—and a glare. Luffy just bats it away, snickering. “I said I was sorry!”

“Is food seriously all you ever think about?” Zoro gripes back, reaching farther into the cabinet and trying to ignore the strange tumult of emotions in his chest. Just as Luffy starts to say something else, Zoro’s fingers clip the edge of his prize and he grins, triumphant—and pulls a clouded glass bottle from behind the ship-stove with a muffled, “Heh!”

From above, Luffy whines, “No,” almost offended. “I think about other stuff! Zoro!”

Zoro snorts and the motion sends a spasm of pain across his face—then another as he scowls. With a muffled curse, he yanks the stopper from the rum and drinks. His black eye (because he’s absolutely sure he’ll have one of those, too) will be tomorrow’s problem.

When he turns to make his way back up the ladder, Luffy pouts down at him—then, as if in protest, he doesn’t move when Zoro starts to climb. Instead, he just sags, dangling his arms through the raised entryway, completely blocking Zoro’s path.

Zoro resists the urge to sigh again and stops halfway up the ladder, one eyebrow raised. “Oh yeah? Like what?” He asks, resigning himself to a lengthy game of chicken. Luffy will get bored eventually and move, he knows—so he just takes another drink directly from the bottle and waits.

As if seriously considering the question, Luffy hums, “Like swimming, and fighting, and my friends, and where to find the most interesting treasure, and a bunch of stuff that’s not really important, and you—”

Mid-sip, Zoro chokes, nearly losing his grip on the bottle as Luffy giggles. The hardier alcohol burns in his nearly-empty stomach, saving him the embarrassment of awareness, and then he really does roll his eyes—and snorts, “I’m not one of your friends?”

Luffy shakes his head, eyes indecipherable even as his expression stays open. Carefree. Watching Zoro wipe at the spilled rum around his mouth, probably still covered in dried blood too.

“Nope!” he says, grinning wide and happy. “Zoro is Zoro. You’re mine.”

Somehow, it feels like the shitty little boat lights up with the force of his smile, and it takes a moment of suffocation for Zoro to realize he’s stopped breathing. Because even through the returning haze of drunkenness there’s a weight to the frankly ridiculous declaration that Zoro can’t quite figure out—something that sits in the back of his throat all the same.

He swallows down his heart and takes another step up the ladder, and another, and another until they’re face to face.

“You’ve said that before. What’s that supposed to mean?” he says, half a joke—half genuinely curious—and a third half to fill the silence.

Without warning, Luffy just leans forward and—kisses him.

It’s soft but not tentative—certain, like everything else that Luffy is—and for the second time Zoro nearly loses his balance, only catching himself because his whole body locks up, startled. Frozen. It feels natural, Luffy’s lips brushing against his in something more forceful than a caress.

Deliberate, like Zoro should have been expecting it the entire time.

And before he can think, before he can even process whether or not this is something he wants, whether or not he should be kissing back, it’s over and Luffy is already pulling away.

They stare at each other for a moment, Zoro blinking at Luffy framed against the moonlight while Luffy just giggles back, licking blood and rum off his lips. “Mine,” he repeats, full of joy. Then he turns around and slides out of the way, back to the main deck, leaving room for Zoro to pass and Zoro himself staring out into the night after him.

As if on autopilot, Zoro hauls himself back on deck, bottle of rum still in hand, and only when he’s standing dumbfounded and stupid on the deck does he let out a strangled kind of, “Oh,” voice thick and rough. “Oh.”

Mine.

Then, suddenly, a thought occurs to him and he blinks again—turns to Luffy, who’s now poking at the boxes and wax paper that they’ve left behind, hunting once again for something to eat. As if the kiss was just a kiss, and nothing more.

And maybe, to Luffy, it is.

Because, surely—

He doesn’t know shit about sea monsters and their—that—

(Because does he—? And does he—? And what does that mean?)

(Because—oh, oh, oh.)

Zoro shoves the whirl of emotions back down into a box at the pit of his stomach and washes it down with a healthy swig of alcohol. It feels like trying not to puke—in a good way and a terrible way all at once.

Wanting to do something, anything, he decides that if he’s going to regret the evening anyway, he might as well fuck up harder.

So drunk and dazed and wanting so, so bad for Luffy to just look at him again, he asks, “What else was on Usopp’s list?” And Luffy turns back with a gleam in his eye, like he’s already one step ahead. “I bet there’s even worse food at the festival.”

- - -

By the time he drags the dinghy back up onto the shore, Zoro has decided to stop thinking altogether, and it doesn’t take long to find a wheelbarrow strewn amid the chaos of construction debris still left behind.

When he returns to the water’s edge, Luffy is splashing impatiently in the shallows, tail smacking against the surface so loud it’s a miracle that someone from up at the boathouse hasn’t come to investigate. He drags the barrow as far out as he can, and Luffy half-clambors in as soon as Zoro is close enough, flailing around with a manic, chaos-promising giggle. He brings enough water with him to fill a puddle in the base of the whole thing, and the metal creaks under his weight—but holds.

And then, just like that, they’re off—Zoro snickering just as loud as he hauls Luffy up the shore, across the lot, and out onto the main road toward town. Toward humans. Toward a local population currently frothing at the mouth to skewer Luffy for two hundred-thousand dollars—or worship at his feet (tail? tail), depending on the day or the person.

Zoro feels like he’s left half of his brain back on the ladder, because there’s absolutely no way they’ll be able to pull this off unscathed. And yet—he absolutely, absolutely cannot bring himself to care.

They see the crowd before they see the festival itself, red and blue and gold lining the boardwalk rail as streams of colorful fabric glow in the streetlights. Here, the already-bright night is day, lanterns and lamps and the glow from food vendors lighting up the edge of the beach as far as the eye can see.

Around them, hundreds of bodies move through the open street in a cacophony of laughter and shouting—more than half in costume. Everywhere he turns, Zoro sees sun masks and sea creatures—face paint, paper mache headdresses, homemade costumes. Some look purchased directly from nearby stalls, but others look real—intricately designed and expertly crafted—and Zoro vaguely recalls Usopp’s mention of performances.

Before they pass through the entryway to the festival proper, more than one person turns to stare—and for one terrible, heart-stopping moment Zoro worries that they’ll die before they even make it to the food trucks—before someone tall and graceful in a golden kimono and pasteboard horned-eel mask lets go of her companion’s hand, bends over Luffy, and gushes. “Your costume is amazing! Oh my god, it looks so real!”

Luffy laughs and opens his mouth to reply, but Zoro cuts him off—sober enough, at least, to recognize how much of a bad idea it would be to let him answer. “Thanks—trade secret,” he grunts. Luffy peers back to stick his tongue out at Zoro, and Zoro just ignores him.

“Fair enough,” she says, but there’s a smile in her voice. The crowd undulates around them in waves, but the longer they stand still the more people start to turn—to gawk and ooh and ahh at Luffy in the wheelbarrow, tail flapping idly off the side as he grins up at the tall horned-eel-woman. “You should enter the costume contest, at the very least.”

Luffy lights up, crowing, “Contest—?”

—at the same time Zoro grunts, “Absolutely not—”

“Zoro!”

—and the woman just giggles in response.

“Alright, alright,” she coos, turning her head toward Zoro, mask and all. “At least think about it!” And then she waves and takes her partner’s hand again—and they’re gone, disappearing into the crowd.

Luffy leans into the wheelbarrow, tilting his head back to look at Zoro, and Zoro just raises both eyebrows—shakes his head. And Luffy laughs again, eyes dazzling in the brilliant lights.

It’s contagious, just like always—and as Zoro starts forward again he snorts, unable to help himself. “C’mon, you overgrown salmon. Stay on task.”

Luffy cheers, “Food!” and more heads turn (then turn again to whisper at their friends) as they cross under the massive, lantern-and-cloth draped archway and enter the main fairgrounds.

It’s like entering a different world. The beach, the boardwalk, and the waterfront street have been blocked off—with a row of vendors selling lovingly-crafted everything from trucks along the edge of the road and an array of stands set up on the sidewalk itself.

The air is thick with the smell of fry oil and sugar, of seaweed and salt. The sound of stall owners hawking their wares, of music from nowhere, of a thousand joyful conversations. Out toward the beach, children in costume scream, chasing ghost crabs on the sand, shrieking with laughter when the cold ocean rolls up over their toes.

The crowd isn’t limited to fishermen from the marina—it’s everyone, a cacophony from every corner of town, and for once (for once!) Zoro feels the strange comfort of anonymity.

Although the swords at his hip (because he is never without them, not even now) earn curious glances, Luffy is far more interesting. The glow of the evening is like a costume in and of itself, everyone gleeful and willing to see the easiest version of reality.

When he does end up in a mask—some white, horned thing shoved into his hands by an overeager merchant shouting Just advertise for me, okay, kid? after one glance at Luffy—he just shrugs, and it doesn’t feel like hiding. As he slips it over his head, Luffy beams, showing off all of his sharp teeth.

Zoro hauls him up to the first food stall they see, something greasy and sweet sold by a group of burly men in tank tops, dockworkers raising funds for their own. Unlike the merchants, the vendor barely spares them a glance throughout the entire exchange, so focused on moving through his massive line as quickly as possible. The only indication he recognizes Zoro at all is a raised eyebrow and a pause before he hollers, “Thank you for supporting the Galley-La recovery fund!” as he passes their paper cartons over the counter—then just as quickly he’s turned, already talking to the next person in line.

Luffy downs his deep-fried something in an instant, and the minute he turns back to Zoro—who’s barely taken a bite of his own—with stars in his eyes, Zoro knows there will be more petty theft before the night’s end. His own strategic appropriation of Nami’s personal cash (not her fund, never her fund) will not be enough to cover Luffy’s curiosity. With a roll of his eyes, Zoro takes one last bite of the terrible, cloying thing and tosses the rest of his food to Luffy, who cackles with delight.

They find something hearty next, spiced meat roasted and sliced into sandwiches, and as soon as he scarfs his own down Luffy whines—so they find another. And another. And by the time the street expands, vendors and merchants giving way to festival entertainment, Zoro has long-since eaten his fill—even after giving away half of everything he’s tried.

Soon, they begin to pass an array of wider stalls and raised wooden platforms filled with acts, musical and theatrical; then contests, auctions, and games.

Eyes wide, Luffy’s head swivels as he takes in the lights and sounds, grinning wide even as the crowd shifts to something rowdier, more bustling. Screaming cheers and good-natured cursing around carnival competitions clashes with music from the stands, a hometown band crooning out over a throng of people shoving for a closer look. Farther down the way, smaller productions line the streets—children's puppet shows, dancers, acrobats, street performers; strong men and fire-breathers, jugglers and portrait artists.

All around them, clothing bursts with color and detail—like a school of tropical fish. From street clothes and masks to elaborate costumes, the crowd is full of sharks and jellyfish, eels and crabs, suns and moons and sea monsters.

A little girl, dressed in a scaly skirt and clinging to her father’s back, points to Luffy and shrieks in delight, giggling as they move through the crowd—and Luffy just grins right back. Someone in a sun mask claps Zoro on the back and he turns, ready to glare—only for the man to give him a double thumbs up before gesturing from his mask to his swords. “So cool,” he says, “Everyone always forgets that,” and then he’s waving, moving back into the masses, Zoro already forgotten too.

Zoro blinks after him and from the wheelbarrow, Luffy giggles—then raucous applause rises up from somewhere to their left and Luffy thumps his tail against the edge hard, unable to sit still as he leans toward the noise. “Zoro! Zoro! Go there—”

And so he does.

They make their way to a standing-only crowd pressed around a stage of performers already halfway through their play, intricate and glittering against a foaming ocean backdrop as a singer to the right of the stage ends her narration.

Separated by a wall of blue fabric, one actor stands wreathed in gossamer gold and white, a row of sharp teeth painted up each cheek; the other, dressed in elaborate green and black—faceless aside from a stark-white, horned mask—sits frozen with a sword in his hands. A stage attendant crosses in front of them, announcing the beginning of the final act—and the crowd cheers again.

Unable to see the stage through the crowd, Luffy reaches back to yank at Zoro’s sleeve—and Zoro, drunk and stupid and a little bit happy, just shrugs—and reaches down to grasp Luffy’s back, then under the curve of his tail, hauling him up in his arms like a bride until Luffy is eye-level with the throng around them.

Cold water from the basin drenches Zoro’s front and he shivers as Luffy giggles in his ear, pressing his face close to Zoro’s as he cranes his neck to see the stage. His hot breath pools in the curve of Zoro’s ear, and the contrast does strange things to his already-muddled brain.

“God, you’re heavy,” Zoro grunts, and Luffy just shushes him. “You don’t even know what this is!”

“So? I want to see it!” Luffy laughs back, and then he leans forward—nearly pulling Zoro over as he shifts his weight—when the figures on stage start to move.

The performance itself is a dance, something caught between an opera and ballet, with shifting fabrics and wide, smooth movements. While the figure in black stays crouched, the figure in gold dances on his toes—miming laughter on his side of the undulating blue curtain. And as the singer begins again, Zoro realizes what they’re watching—a continuation of Usopp’s myth, of the sun god trapped under the sea.

“—playing his trick, the Sun, childish and silly, waited under the surface of the ocean for the Moon to reappear, unaware that his friend had settled down for a nap in the earth’s shadow—plunging the world into darkness, the first lunar eclipse.”

A black sheet slides down over the blue, turning the barrier between the two figures dark—and the gold actor’s movements shift from frenzied to solemn until he’s sitting across from the white-masked actor, still and unseen.

“For hours, he waited, until at last the Moon reappeared—” the black curtain lifts and the moon stands, dancing stiff and purposeful, and the gold figure starts to rouse, excited—

“But the Sun, too caught up in his game, had forgotten how to escape from the ocean. Too stubborn to ask for help, he refused to cry out for the Moon. He beat his fists against the surface of the water until, starving, he sank to the bottom of the sea—down to the Trench where no light touches, a lawless land inhabited by the gods of the sea.”

Stage-hands dressed as fish pull the gold figure away from the center and wreathe him in black as he mimes a struggle—and on the opposite side of the stage, the white-masked actor begins to pace.

“Distraught to wake and find his closest friend gone, the Moon searched across the sky—east to west, from new to full and back again, pulling the tides as he went—until he came across the land.” Suddenly, a second group of stage-hands emerges—dressed in exaggerated fisherman costumes, their faces streaked with paint. They wait at the edge of the stage, miming whispers, pointing at the Moon.

“Determined, the Moon thought to himself, This is the only place I haven’t looked, so the Sun must be here, among men, and he called upon the stars—” another group of actors gather, this time dressed in silver, “—and he said, I will return after I have searched the earth. Watch the sky in my stead, and the stars lashed themselves together, mimicking their master’s path through the night.”

As the silver dancers undulate, the moon throws off his robe to reveal a simple black tunic, identical to the fishermen. Then, he disappears into the crowd, ducking down as the dancers expertly cover him in props and stage makeup. Within moments, he looks the same as the rest.

“—after the Moon descended to the world of men, he did not return. The stars, unsure what to do, continued to follow his trail through the sky, but he never reappeared. The Moon, just as silly as the Sun in his own way, always looked to the Sun to chart his direction in the sky, and without him he was easily lost.

“Now well and truly stuck, the Sun—” the figure in gold mimes wrestling out of the tangle of blue, but as he does so his costume sheds, too, to reveal a glittering robe of white scales, “—resigned himself to life underwater, only his tiny reflection left to light the day. Too hungry to move, he bribed the wild gods of the sea with light in their Trench and luck in their long lives, and promised—”

Luffy huffs against his neck, restless, and Zoro looks down to see him peering back over his shoulder, out from the crowd to the other stalls. Zoro snorts, and Luffy—curious, distracted—looks up again, stars in his eyes.

“Bored?” Zoro drawls—and Luffy just pouts shamelessly in response.

“This isn’t the only thing,” he whines, “Let’s go somewhere else—let’s find a musician!”

“Alright, alright. For the record, you wanted to see this.” Zoro rolls his eyes and adjusts Luffy in his arms but doesn’t let go—not yet—until Luffy squishes his face against Zoro’s neck and makes a muffled, aggravated noise against his jugular. The sound vibrates against the back of his throat (all the way up to his injured nose) and he almost drops Luffy in surprise—and Luffy just laughs, a mean, snickering little sound that tells Zoro he’s done it entirely on purpose. “I’ll dump you in the road and leave you here,” Zoro grumbles, and Luffy just keeps giggling.

“No, you won’t,” he hums, and in response Zoro half-tosses him back into the wheelbarrow—ignoring Luffy’s yelp of surprise.

“Try me,” he bites out. He’s almost glad for the bruising surely around his eyes and the mask on his head, because his face feels hot—and he knows he’s red.

(He does not, does not, does not think of their kiss on the ladder. He does not.)

The minute he catches his breath, though, Luffy just laughs again—and points out into the crowd, toward the endless row of glistening entertainment—and they’re off again.

Just as before, they don’t stay in one place long, consistently distracted by something new at every turn. A tall, thin man serenades one corner with dulcet tunes from an old, worn violin; a woman and her pink-haired apprentice perform a shamisen duet; and further still, a young woman in red and white dances—all sequins and glitter—on the largest stage.

On and on they walk, passing games with massive prizes, too—more than half of which Luffy ropes him into playing with begging eyes alone. Luffy nearly gets them both thrown out of the goldfish-catching booth when the little things scatter, clumping at the opposite end of the pool; and they barely last a round in the shooting gallery, Zoro never well-suited to guns—but when they come across a high striker with its height record not yet broken (and a stall owner smarmy enough to think he can con them both) Zoro can’t resist the urge to show off just a little.

They’re ushered out of the crowd the moment Zoro locks eyes with the grinning, greasy man and he yells, “Step right up, step right up—you, sir—you’ve got ridiculous muscles, I can see it. A dockworker? A fisherman? No, no—don’t try to walk away—can you beat Foxy Silver Fox’s strongest? I bet you can’t!” a mile a minute.

Immediately, Luffy’s reeled in by the swindle, gazing starry-eyed up at Zoro with his head tilted back against the edge of the wheelbarrow. “Zoro—Zoro,” he says, practically rocking the entire thing in his excitement, “I bet you could,” and—well.

Of course he could.

The stall owner lights up as Zoro turns, already pivoting to the next part of his pitch. “Big fella, aren’t you? I’m sure this’ll be a cakewalk for you, kid!” he gestures to a giant hammer popped up against the massive, glowing number board, all smiles. “You know the rules—swing the mallet, ring the bell, win a prize—”

Suddenly, a petite, blue-haired woman sidles up to Zoro, pretending to be from the crowd as she sizes him up. “Well, well; standards must be getting lower if they let weaklings like you try games like this—” she starts, and Zoro snorts, wishing Nami could see him now.

“Save it,” he says, flicking a coin to the stall owner, utterly ignoring his sidekick as she blinks at him—script derailed—and Luffy giggles. “You were giving hand signals to each other across the entire sidewalk. Just give me the—thing.”

Called out, the two con artists exchange a look of bewilderment (forgetting they’re supposed to be strangers, maybe). Then the stallowner steps aside, smug expression already plastered back on his face. “I-I have no idea what you’re talking about, sir!” he says as he gestures toward the hammer. “Now, you’ve paid—your turn, please.”

Rolling his eyes, Zoro leaves Luffy bouncing in place as he hefts the massive thing, a pile driver’s sledgehammer painted in carnival colors, then points to the numbered board.

“Watch—” he calls over his shoulder. “There’s something along the track to slow the puck, and he,” he gestures to the stall owner, “has a lever somewhere he can pull. He was going to make it easy for her so I’d get hooked, then harder for me so I’d get riled up.” Out of the corner of his eye, he sees the man sweating as his voice carries, attracting the attention of passersby, but Zoro just turns back and grins at Luffy, the hefty mallet slung over one shoulder. “But I can win even with it rigged.”

“N-now, now,” the man stutters, placating, gesturing to no one as more people stop to watch, “I promise this is an honest establishment. I would never—”

Zoro drops the mallet on the pressure platform, no added force but enough gravity to do something, and the puck barely moves. The stall-owner pales, glancing around.

“Must be defective,” Zoro deadpans, and behind him Luffy snickers—along with a few of the onlookers.

Then Zoro picks up the mallet with both hands, swings in back and smashes it down, arms flexed, with so much force that the bell (barely secured, because the game is shoddily-made and it’s probably never been rung in the first place) spins off the top, echoing out onto the beach as it flies, lands, and rolls.

“A-And… we have a winner!” the stallowner cries, voice cracking, already backing away.

Around them the crowd gawks, but the only thing that matters to him is Luffy’s elated, “You’re so cool, Zoro!” that sets him to grinning.

They don’t even bother to collect his prize, both cackling like the devil as Zoro hauls the wheelbarrow back into the street, leaving a gaggle of irritated (and highly amused) festival-goers to deal swift and immediate justice in his wake.

Then, just before they’re completely out of sight, a familiar, nasally voice pipes up from the crowd—

“Zoro? Ohmygod, it is you—”

—and Zoro feels instantly sober.

Instinctually, he glances over his shoulder, but he already knows what to expect—a flash of pink out in the throng as Perona, squinting and glaring, waves at him through the crowd beside a bewildered-looking teenage girl. “I thought that was you. What are you—Hey, don’t ignore me—”

He glances down at Luffy, still giggling but looking at him curiously, now—and still out of sight, but not for much longer. And oh, god is she going to have questions. So, so many questions.

Without entirely thinking his plan through, Zoro grips the handles of the wheelbarrow with force and, in a rush of air, says (laughing), “Hang on tight—” and then he’s running, ignoring Perona’s half-yelled, You’re so rude, what the hell! as they push through the crowd.

It’s not that he thinks Perona is a danger to Luffy, really—because for all of her whining, she is family—but he’s not prepared to face the conclusions she will inevitably draw (because she’s family) when he’s not entirely sure of the answers himself.

Under the swinging, colorful, miraculous chaos of the festival, those problems (the kiss, Luffy, kissing Luffy) seem so much bigger, so much more important than the question of who (and what) Luffy is. And that, too, is something he wants to hold on to, at least for a moment.

They race through the street, howling with laughter as they nearly mow down festival goers, Luffy hollering at everything they pass. It’s not the most effective getaway, drawing more attention than they’ve fled, probably—but it’s fun. And by the time Zoro pulls them both to a stop in an alleyway blocks from the festival proper, he’s out of breath more from his own uncontrollable, wheezy giggling than the run itself.

“Who was that?” Luffy laughs, utterly delighted.

“My, uh, cousin—” Zoro snorts, hands on his knees as he leans back against the alleyway wall, “kinda. Don’t worry about it.”

Luffy eyes him, amused—but before he can say anything else, a new voice rises up from the darkness, menacing and assured.

Not Perona.

Someone new. Someone worse.

“You’re a long way from hell, Roronoa,” the man says, stepping out into the alleyway mouth. Away from the festival proper, the street is filled with more shadow than light, half-obscured as Zoro squints into the darkness. He’s vaguely familiar, sandy blond hair and two swords at his hip, but Zoro doesn’t immediately place him. He doesn’t look friendly, though—even if Zoro were the type to have friends.

“Hell of a way to greet a stranger. Did you practice that?” Zoro calls back as he stands, glares, rests one forearm on the hilts of the swords at his own hip. “Am I supposed to know you?”

The man clicks his tongue, clearly offended, then Zoro feels Luffy still behind him as three more shadows step into the night. The image of four figures in black, lined up in a row, triggers something in the back of Zoro’s mind (a podium, a newspaper van, thirty-six hours without sleep), and he blinks—then in an instant, he has Kitetsu drawn and pointed at the first, who draws both of his swords at once.

“You’re Akainu’s,” Zoro grits out, and Luffy makes a horrible kind of noise—

But he doesn’t have time to deal with that, because the swordsman spits, “Oh, you’ll remember that but not—” just as one of the other figures steps forward, his long black hair an inky nothingness in the alley shadows.

“Shut it, Kaku,” he says, already screwing the silencer on an equally black pistol. “We wouldn’t even be here if he’d had an accident in the ring like he was supposed to.”

The swordsman, Kaku, bares his teeth and curses, “Fuck off, Lucci,” and only then does Zoro place him.

As Lucci levels his pistol somewhere in the air between he and Luffy, not giving away his target yet, Zoro bites, “Sorry, Mountain Wind—I don’t remember every loser I crush,” and draws Enma, too, rotating his wrist (and the sword itself) to loosen the tendons still tense from gripping the wheelbarrow.

Behind him, Luffy’s rumbling growl builds, and Zoro’s still buzzed enough to think, they have no idea what they’re fucking with, alongside a quieter concern for why Luffy seems so pissed.

Kaku starts to respond, but Lucci cuts him off—voice decisive, clipped as it cuts through the night. “It’s nothing personal, Roronoa—just business,” and he fires.

The gun moves faster than Zoro can track, and with a flick of his wrist Lucci unloads two rounds in quick succession just as Luffy lunges, shoving Zoro down in time for both to whizz over their heads (knocking his costume mask off in the process). Using the momentum to his advantage, Zoro powers upward again from his crouch, both swords slicing through the air directly toward—

Kaku cuts him off, blocking Kitetsu and Enma with his own blades, but Zoro just presses forward, bearing down on his opponent with all of his strength. Kaku glares, pushes back—and then his left foot slips a fraction of a fraction of an inch on the uneven ground, and that’s all the opening Zoro needs.

Without warning, he ducks, further throwing Kaku off balance as he overcompensates for his slip—and then Zoro twists Enma and rams its blade through his gut. Kaku freezes, a wet kind of gurgle bubbling up around his curse, and he starts to crumple—just as one of the other members of Akainu’s security detail (grinning, mustachioed, in sunglasses of all things) levels a pistol in the empty space left behind as Kaku hits the ground.

Zoro barely has time to react before there’s a CRASH!—followed by four more consecutive gunshots—and then the dark blur of Lucci’s body practically flies through the air from behind him as Luffy snarls.

The third man, Zoro’s opponent, fires wide—too wide to be unintentional, creating a distraction to his own advantage so that Zoro almost misses the massive, silver hunting knife tucked backwards in his other hand, swinging wide from the side. With Kitetsu against his wrist, Zoro stops the blade just inches from his left eye—only after it scrapes up his side—and they freeze, a moment of deadlock in the chaos.

The man doesn’t seem the least bit phased that Kaku is collapsed on the ground and bleeding out between them, just keeps grinning as he says, “Wonder if I’ll get promoted,” then lifts his leg and jams it into Zoro’s chest, nearly knocking the wind out of his lungs.

Stunned, Zoro stumbles back a step, nearly tripping over Kaku’s body—but this isn’t roughhousing on deck or swimming in the ocean.

This is a fight.

And oh, Zoro is so, so good at fights.

With practiced ease, he bends forward, holding his breath for a fractional second until the spasm in his diaphragm contracts—even as he draws Wado and slips its hilt between his teeth. Then, hissing around his third sword, he moves.

His opponent is ready, already twisting the knife in his left hand outward even as he levels his pistol directly at Zoro. He’s fast, pivoting right for Zoro’s neck even as a gunshot fires—but Zoro is faster. He twists, rotating his whole body with everything he has, all packed muscle and discipline, and the man screams as both of his arms hit the ground—independently. Without hesitation, Zoro rams Kitetsu’s hilt into his neck, cutting off his air and in a choked gasp—then Zoro ends his misery directly through the heart.

Chest heaving, Zoro turns, ready to take on the remaining two—but with one last snarl, it’s over—Luffy’s massive, feral, angry weight crushing a muddle of blood and viscera across the alleyway cobblestones.

They freeze there—Luffy’s black, monstrous form a suffocating thing in the cramped space between buildings—and then he heaves a massive, angry sigh and that’s it. He slumps a little, face contorted into a scowl as black leeches into red, patterned swirls disappearing back under his skin and scales, and his spines retract to soft, translucent nothingness.

At the same time, already wincing at the thought of cleaning them later, Zoro sheathes his swords—then he kicks the crumpled corpse of one of their (dead) opponents and curses.

No matter how common gunshots and violence are in this part of town, realistically they have minutes before someone comes running toward the commotion. They need to get the fuck out and somehow, somehow make it back to the marina, but they’re both covered in blood and there’s still no way to guarantee they (or he, at least, because no one knows Luffy, even those who may have recognized Zoro throughout the evening) can’t be connected to the deaths. Luffy shifts, expression unreadable—

And then again—because Zoro can never know a moment’s peace—a new voice pipes up from the alleyway entrance, exhaled in a puff of cigarette smoke.

“God, how the fuck are you going to clean all this shit up?”

- - -

Baratie Guy does, apparently, have a name—Sanji—and he’s just as aggravating outside the restaurant as in. Things nearly devolve into a second fight then and there, until he explains—extremely poorly, Zoro thinks—that he’s not entirely unaware of what’s going on in a broad, vague sense. He promises to clarify as soon as they’re somewhere with more cover, but Zoro’s unconvinced—

Until Luffy, utterly unconcerned, declares that he’s hungry.

Zoro blinks at him, and Luffy shrugs—and Zoro decides to trust him, even as Sanji does a double, triple take, perhaps finally realizing that no, it’s not a costume. He barely bats an eye at the gore around them, which might be a more impressive apathy, Zoro thinks, if Luffy weren’t the reason.

Even quadruple homicide pales in comparison to the realization that mythical creatures walk (or swim) across the earth.

Clock ticking, they decide to leave the bodies where they are. It’s a gamble, but they finally reason that the more evidence in Zoro’s favor, the better—almost counterintuitively—because Akainu might be less inclined to publicize or even investigate a death that could connect him back to the Cross Guild.

Zoro dumps Luffy back in the wheelbarrow for lack of any better transportation, and then they’re off, Sanji leading them through the winding maze of alleys toward the heart of town—away from the festival and away from the ocean.

It takes an inordinate amount of time, Zoro thinks, because he (Sanji) keeps veering off course (losing them both)—but eventually they skid to a breathless halt outside the Baratie’s back door. By the time Sanji bustles him inside like a lost child, Zoro is ready to start killing (more) people—because he has the audacity to call him slow when Zoro’s been the one hauling a whole-ass sea monster halfway across the city. Except—the moment the three of them enter the rear room, wheelbarrow and all, Zoro stops dead in his tracks.

“What the fuck are you doing here?”

“Ah, Perona-chwan! Pudding-swan! You’re back!” Sanji chirps, pushing around him toward the two women perched on the empty kitchen's countertop, sitting side-by-side and sharing an industrial-sized tub of ice cream. Because why not, Zoro thinks—his night can’t get any fucking weirder.

As Sanji buzzes around them, asking if they’d like a pastry with their dessert—they should be ready any minute now—Perona brandishes her spoon as Zoro and says, “Ew, is that blood?” with a look of abject disgust.

She’s still dressed up for the festival, black dress all costume and lace like a flowing fish, but even then he can’t imagine her willingly setting foot here in her usual getup, either. And yet there’s an ease with which she lounges in the space that speaks of extensive time spent in the restaurant’s kitchen, nonetheless.

The girl beside her (Pudding, he assumes) peers around to stare at him with wide, doe-like eyes, attention waffling from Sanji to the rest of the room. Zoro has never seen her before, but she can’t be much older than her teens—and he realizes she’s the girl he’d spotted in the crowd, brown pigtails and all.

Without missing a beat, Pudding says, “It’s definitely blood,” shockingly unfazed as she tilts her head. “That had to be from an artery. Leg, neck, or ar—!”

Perona flicks her forehead and Pudding whines, puffing out her cheeks—and Perona just clicks her tongue. “Not cute. Be normal,” she scolds, ignoring Pudding’s pout.

And Zoro feels like he’s stepped into an alternate dimension, because in what world has Perona ever been qualified to tell someone what’s—

When Luffy giggles, “He cut off a guy’s arms!” from the wheelbarrow in front of him, drawing their attention fully for the first time. Perona and Pudding stare at him, half-dumbfounded, and Luffy just grins back, all teeth, the gorier of them both and decidedly the least normal person in the room.

Pudding scowls, opens her mouth to reply, but Perona snorts and beats her to it with a roll of her eyes. “And what did you do? Bathe in it? You’re both disgustin—” then stops herself and blinks. Squints. Blinks again (while Luffy plows ahead, utterly oblivious as he says, Well, no—) and asks, “Who the hell are you, anyway?” with a tone somewhere between disdain and skepticism.

“I’m Luffy!” he replies, still beaming.

She frowns and leans forward. “Not your name—I don’t give a shit. Who are you?” she presses, but she doesn’t wait for him to answer, just turns her disappointed glare on Zoro and continues, “Mihawk is not going to be happy if you’ve dragged some civilian into this no matter how badly you want to get lai—”

“Sanji, you promised food!” Luffy crows, smacking his tail against the edge of the wheelbarrow as he flops over the side, saving Zoro the effort of hara-kiri.

Three heads swivel toward Luffy at the racket, but Zoro (used to it by now, and perhaps starting to feel the effects of an early hangover after so much adrenaline), just snaps, “And what about you? Is this where you’ve been sneaking out to—” he gestures to Sanji, “And who the hell is that guy? Does Nami know he’s part of—”

“Oi, mosshe—”

“Both of you, shut up. He’s not part of anything,” Perona snaps, and Sanji clamps his jaw shut, glaring at Zoro over his shoulder before retreating into the kitchen proper through a swinging saloon door. Zoro glares right back, but he doesn’t respond—only because he can’t think of anything to add. Not because he’s listening to his cousin. At all.

After a beat to stare him down, Perona points after Sanji and says (slowly, like she’s talking to a very stupid child), “Raised by Germa,” then she points to Pudding, “Raised by Big Mom,” then points to herself, “Raised by Moria.”

Zoro blinks.

“You’re in a support group,” he says, bewildered.

“No,” Perona scowls, “I’m learning how to bake.”

Zoro squints. “From the butcher?”

And as if on cue, Sanji reappears, two delicate plates of swirling, sugar-dusted dough held in his hands as he kicks open the swinging door. With a flourish, he presents one to each of them (Pudding and Perona) and says, “Fresh palmier au chocolat for the ladies,” just as Pudding squeals with delight and Luffy immediately whines—

“Sanji!”

Sanji scowls right back, already turning toward the door again as he snaps, “Hang on, I don’t even fucking know if you can eat chocolate—” and then disappears again.

In his wake, Zoro starts to put the pieces together, however slowly he manages it. “You recommended the restaurant,” he grunts, and Perona shrugs, prim and unbothered as she dips her pastry directly into the giant container of ice cream.

“I didn’t think Nami would send you,” she sniffs, “and by the time she did come around it seemed like she was doing better—at least a little bit. Not that I care.”

Next to her, Pudding swings her legs off the countertop, humming to herself as she eats; without looking away from Zoro and Luffy, Perona affectionately yanks one of her pigtails, and Pudding sticks her tongue out at the back of Perona’s head in response. In front of him, Luffy giggles at the exchange.

Perona glares at Luffy, then, turning her nose up at them both. “I’m saying all of this with the expectation that you are smart enough to keep your fucking mouth shut—not that it matters, because you’re both standing here covered in—” she squints, eyeing the wheelbarrow. “And why are you even still in there, anyway? Freak—”

Just as Sanji comes through the door again, this time with a wooden tray absolutely laden with an array of sliced, cured meats in intricate piles (char-cuter-something, Zoro’s brain supplies unhelpfully).

He doesn’t even look up as he enters, staring intently down at the board in his hand and already halfway through a sentence like he’s talking more to himself than anyone else in the room, “—ssume this is fine, since I guess all the meat Nami-swan was picking up was for you—I don’t know why I thought she’d gotten a dog or something, but I guess that’s not too—Ah!” He looks up, then, melting under Perona’s icy gaze. “Pardon me for interrupting, Perona-chwan!”

She just rolls her eyes.

And Zoro, still reeling a little (and possibly focusing on the wrong thing), says, “I’ve seen him gnaw off a guy’s leg, so he’ll probably eat anything,” which brings everyone in the room to a screeching halt—

As Luffy turns back to glare up at him, whining, “Stop saying I eat people!”

And Pudding, spoon still in her mouth, pipes up (innocently), “Gee, so is your mutual interest in removing limbs, like, a sex thing or—?”

“Pudding!”

- - -

As Luffy demolishes his fancy meat board, Zoro explains (haltingly, with the fewest number of words possible) the broad strokes of their situation—and of Luffy himself.

To her credit, Pudding doesn’t even bat an eye and looks more curious than anything, still swinging her legs and eating her desserts while she takes it all in stride. Absently, Zoro wonders what kind of childhood she’s had if earth-shattering, worldview-shifting revelations about the nature of god and humanity barely give her pause. Or, he thinks—she could just be sixteen. (With what he knows of Big Mom’s gang, it might be a combination of both.)

Sanji, already aware, just leans back against the far counter and lights a cigarette with a hand that only barely shakes—staring and perhaps only now just realizing the full implications of what he’s seen.

And Perona just listens, scowling—more and more displeased with each passing word. When he finally finishes, she just gets up and grabs him, dragging him behind her as she pushes through to the restaurant’s dining room without a word. Zoro curses at her, yanked away from Luffy now watching them with wide eyes, but she doesn’t stop—and Luffy isn’t much help either, because Zoro hears Sanji ask, “I’ve heard humans taste like pork. ‘S that—?” as the door swings shut behind them.

Perona releases him as soon as they enter the main dining area and crosses the room in two strides to duck behind the wooden concierge stand. Then she reappears a moment later, already yanking the stopper from a bottle of imported, fancy fancy rum and a crystal glass. She takes a swig, hisses, pours—and holds the rest of the bottle out to Zoro without a word. It is both vaguely endearing and vaguely ominous.

Already too sober to deal with everything that has happened, Zoro grabs it from her and drinks.

The mess on his clothes and swords has started to dry, and the strange, cloying feeling only makes the whole evening that much more surreal. And then he winces, bending, the sticky-dried blood pulling at what he now realizes isn’t just his shirt but a wound, too—a slice, shallow but aggravating, where the be-knifed guard nicked his side. Half dazed, he wonders if the cops have found the bodies yet.

Then, without preamble, Perona says, “We funded the bounty. You should know that.”

And Zoro nearly chokes. “Akainu’s—Fucking. Mihawk?”

His cousin gestures noncommittally at nothing and sips from her glass, a pensive look on her face. “All three,” she says, “Akainu made a deal with them—took out a loan—and it looked like a safe bet because there was no way he’d ever pay out—because fucking. Mermaids, right? And we’d get interest on the return. But now as far as anyone can tell the money’s gone and no one can figure out where it went.”

Zoro stares at her, barely comprehending—struggling to catch up after the emotional whiplash of the entire evening. “What do you mean gone? How do you lose two hundred-thousand dollars?”

“You spend it,” she says, prim but serious, “and you spend it like you’re not going to pay it back.”

“Shit.”

“Yeah.”

Perona drinks again, staring into the dark liquid. Thinking. “There’s a possibility Akainu’s anticipating loose ends. If he knows he’s not going to repay the loan, he’ll end up on your list sooner rather than later. That could be why his security detail was after you.”

Zoro frowns, processing. “Why me, though? That seems stupid. Short-sighted. Croc’s got a whole roster of people. If it’s not me it’ll be someone else—Robin, probably.”

“You’ve got the highest profile,” Perona replies with a vague, almost habitual shrug. “If nothing else, killing you would make a statement—don’t fuck with me, that kind of thing.” She holds her drink to her temple and presses it there like a cold compress despite the fact that everything’s room temperature—like she’s got a headache coming on and it’s all Zoro’s fault. “And now, you’ve not only killed his bodyguards, you’re also protecting the fish.”

“Luffy can take care of himself,” Zoro snorts back, his instinct always to contradict her first, agree with her second.

Perona is not amused. She drains her glass and sets it back on the hostess’s podium, then sighs.

“Look, I’ve got my own problems to deal with here, so you’re going to have to fix this on your own,” she says, glancing back toward the closed kitchen entryway—like taking care of a maladapted teenager is more important than putting god back in the ocean. (Which, fair.)

Still, he scowls out of habit. “I never asked for your help,” he grunts, and she just rolls her eyes—

Then (for less than a blink) she fixes him with a look that’s so close to genuine concern Zoro thinks he might’ve imagined it. In that moment, she looks like a sister—a real one, not a dead one—and not just someone he’s ghosted through the same house alongside for years.

(And if they were normal, maybe, she would say something sentimental like, You don’t have to ask or I’ll always be here if you need me or I love you, we’re family, but they’re not—because he’s just killed four-ish people in an alleyway and that’s hardly anything; there’s a sea monster he may or may not want to kiss eating gourmet prosciutto fifteen feet away; and they’re only in each other’s lives because once upon a time his uncle decided to start adopting strays.)

Then, she gripes “Just—don’t die, okay? Then I’d actually have to work for once,” and turns on her heel, already walking away.

(But for the first time, Zoro takes it for what it is: almost exactly the same thing.)

- - -

After an inordinate and unnecessary amount of arguing, Sanji practically tosses Luffy into the bed of his shitty yellow Model 50 pickup and throws a canvas tarp over his head, just so Zoro will get in the damn car, already. Luffy is absolutely no help, laughing all the while, perfectly content to be manhandled by a near-stranger and already attached to Sanji just for the simple fact that he’d offered him food.

Zoro tries not to examine his own feelings about this and—glaring, deeply adamant that he could’ve gotten them both back to the marina just fine—climbs in after.

He spends the next fifteen minutes half-crushed in the pickup bed while he and Luffy sit crammed together under cover, physically holding Luffy back from the edge as Sanji weaves them through a twisting back route Zoro barely recognizes. Through the gaps between buildings, they can still see the festival lights bright and glistening in full swing—and Zoro wonders just how much time has really passed.

It feels like a year.

It has likely only been a few hours.

The blood on Luffy’s scales and skin has dried just as gummy as his own and Luffy’s fins dig into the wound on his side. Pressed up against his too-warm body, Zoro feels like he’s suffocating in the humid early-August night—and by the time they finally pull into Arlong Park, Zoro’s drenched in sweat and hot. But Luffy doesn’t seem to mind—just stays draped across him, giggling right up until the moment Sanji slams his car door and yanks the tarp off them both.

“We’re here. Now, get the fuck out of my car already,” he snaps, and even though Zoro can’t tell how much is real annoyance and how much is just posturing he’s still backed the car as close to the lot’s edge as he can. And, after a beat of hesitation, he still reaches over the side of the truck bed for Luffy—because they’ve abandoned their wheelbarrow for lack of space and they’re far enough from the docks to need it.

Only half-aware of what he’s doing, Zoro practically leaps out on his own—then grabs Luffy under the back and tail, bridal again—before Sanji can even finish closing his mouth. Luffy laughs in curve of his ear, pressing his head against Zoro’s neck while Zoro leans back to counterbalance—and Zoro physically fights the urge to stick his tongue out in triumph (like a fucking five year old) as Sanji stands, bewildered and a little bit irritated (despite having absolutely no right to, only a few hours acquainted with Luffy).

Zoro doesn’t even thank him for the ride—just glares as Sanji glares right back, then turns on his heel and heads back down to the beach as Sanji turns back to his car.

He barely makes in ten steps, however, before Luffy twists in his arms, wriggling to look over his shoulder as he yells, “Bring me food again soon, Sanji!” loud enough to echo across the lot.

Zoro physically winces, cursing just as Sanji curses back at them both. Even so, the chef throws his hands up and bites, “What are you—a fucking bottomless pit? Fine!” in a way that makes Zoro wonder, suddenly, just how many people they can really fit on Nami’s nameless little boat.

Because there was never a chance he’d say no—to Luffy, who could?

Luffy wriggles, laughs again, and Zoro wants to drop him because it’s like holding the world’s heaviest bonfire—but he doesn’t. Instead, he braces his legs and hauls them both toward the docks at something less than a run, because no matter how deserted the marina is they’re still out in the open.

As soon as he crests the hill toward the beach however, he nearly stumbles—having forgotten over the course of everything that the wooden dinghy is still dragged ashore and tipped upside down to drain. And as Luffy laughs softly in his ear while his scales slip against Zoro’s skin, Zoro decides (in one moment of utterly stupid clarity) two things: he does not want to let go, not now—not yet. And Luffy needs to know about the bounty, about Mihawk and his own role in it—about everything.

So instead of throwing him into the sea and righting the boat himself, he just—he keeps going, walking straight along the dock (Zoro? Zoro!)—and right off the edge.

When he hits the water, the night-cold ocean burns worse than Luffy himself, jolting every inch of his body alive as he sinks. He doesn’t try to swim, just clenches his muscles and squeezes his eyes shut, holds his breath in as he plummets—swords weighing him down.

For one fractional moment, everything is cold and dark and still and silent and he savors it.

Then Luffy squirms free and Zoro doesn’t have to hear clearly under the water to know that Luffy is laughing.

When Zoro opens his eyes, everything is black and orange—the dark water illuminated only by the massive August supermoon still hanging dim overhead. In the haze, he can see Luffy’s silhouette outlined against a distorted sky, no longer crammed in a shitty wheelbarrow but where he belongs—and then Zoro needs to breathe, so he kicks hard until he breaks through the surface and gasps.

Luffy is right on his heels, coming up inches from his face—doing that thing again as he swims too close, disrupts Zoro’s treading, holds him steady. And Zoro doesn’t waste any time, because he’s tired of thinking so fucking hard—tired of trying to figure everything out all at once, a puzzle he doesn’t even have all the pieces to solve.

So he sputters the seawater out of his mouth and tells Luffy what he knows—and Luffy just listens, floating with him as they drift through the dark harbor, away from the docks. And then Luffy nods, shrugs, and says, “He killed my brother, that’s why. Akainu,” so bluntly Zoro forgets to even pretend he’s swimming.

He’s not sure what he’s expecting but it’s not that; and yet, it’s not not that, either, because the connection makes a strange kind of sense. He’s heard stories about Akainu, about his accident at sea—and what are the odds? How many sea monsters, sea gods, mermaids, whatever can there be so close to the islands?

The rest of the story slots into place, and Luffy spins them around and around in lazy circles, unable to stay still, winding toward Nami’s boat out of habit, maybe—until they’re close enough to bump against its side. Bobbing there in the shadows cast by the moonlight overhead, all that comes out of Zoro’s mouth is a sincere, all-encompasing, “Fuck.”

(And he wants to say, I’m sorry, I get it; but that’s four words too many—and a hundred words too few.)

Luffy only shrugs again and says, “Yeah,” like there’s nothing else to say, and Zoro thinks of his words from earlier, a few hours and a lifetime ago—Death doesn’t mean anything. It’s just death.

Then his hand brushes against Zoro’s side, no longer sticky with blood but saltwater, and as his gentle (because they are gentle—here, now) fins graze against his wound Zoro winces, too swept up in the conversation and caught off guard. And Luffy frowns—and the spell is broken.

Out of concern or just to annoy him, maybe, Luffy pokes the wound again and Zoro smacks a palm against his face—and pushes away, back against the boat.

“What’s wrong with you?” he gripes, not particularly annoyed by the pain so much as the prodding itself, because he’s gotten enough of that from Nami and Chopper over the years. With his other hand, he grabs on to the edge of the rail and hauls himself up out of the sea as Luffy whines. The motion pulls at his side and he ignores it, because he’s not about to ask for help.

Once on deck, he squelches, utterly waterlogged through to the soles of his boots—and he realizes stepping into the ocean fully-clothed (and fully-armed—he’ll need to deal with the seawater on his blades sooner rather than later) might not have been the smartest idea.

He’s never claimed intelligence, though—and (tired, dead sober, apathetic to clothing on the best of days) he starts stripping right there on deck. His swords go first, unhooked from his belt and set inside in the wheelhouse. As he peels his sopping shirt over his head, he hears the tell-tale splash! of Luffy and his mischief—and when he opens his eyes, Luffy is sprawled out on deck in front of him, out of the ocean and watching him with his head resting on propped-up elbows.

And maybe it’s the evening as a whole or maybe it’s the dark turn to their conversation, but there’s something in Luffy’s unreadable gaze pinging off the part of his brain that warns, Predator! Predator!

Even though he knows (rationally) that Luffy is a monster in the realest, truest sense, Zoro has always been the most monstrous thing in any room. A death-omen with three swords and a long leash, every bit of him a lethal kind of man. So this—it’s a strange feeling. Something like the messy, shapeless awe on the concrete warehouse docks a lifetime ago—but different, too. Heavier.

They stare at each other for a long moment, before Zoro (breaks first) rolls his eyes and sits to deal with his shoes.

“What?” he says, not even sure why he feels the need to justify anything. “Nami would kill us both if I tracked a bunch of water below deck.”

Luffy hums absently, unbothered. Then he says, “You really do get hurt a lot,” half a laugh—as his eyes track the movements of Zoro’s torso, his arms; the curve of his muscles as he bends forward to unlace his boots. “You’re bleeding again.”

Zoro clicks his tongue and does his best to ignore him, unable to pinpoint exactly why he feels like he wants to pace around in circles and sleep for a hundred years at the same time. Muddled. Vibrating.

“That’s what happens when you get stabbed,” he says, yanking off one soaked shoe with more force than necessary. “You bleed. Are you gonna give me more moss or somethi—”

And then Luffy’s on top of him, pressing his back into the deck—and Zoro feels the sharp scrape of Luffy’s teeth against his side, gentle but there on the hollow just below his ribs as he presses the flat of his tongue against the wound on Zoro’s side—and Zoro gasps, back arching involuntarily—

And Luffy freezes, tongue half-out, staring up at him with wide eyes.

Zoro blinks back.

He wonders, stupidly, if Luffy is just as caught off guard by his own actions as Zoro is his. And he’s hit with a wave of deja vu, then—as he thinks of their first meeting, Luffy’s tongue on his bleeding hand in the middle of the night.

There is a possibility this is a misunderstanding. And he does not, does not want to fuck this up.

(And yet—Mine.)

“Zoro?” Luffy prompts, staring at him, and Zoro isn’t sure what to say—isn’t sure if he even can form words, crushed against the hard wooden deck while Luffy looms over him. Intentionally or not, he’s all lean muscle and raw power holding him down, jaw and teeth strong enough to rip off a grown man’s leg (and okay, okay—maybe it is a sex thing—) and wet with his own blood.

Zoro swallows and does not move.

Then something seems to click and Luffy’s expression shifts—gaze suddenly sharp and dangerous as he grins. “Ah,” he says, half a hum.

It’s a dangerous kind of sound, one that promises something more than the mischief of Luffy’s laughter, and Zoro starts to speak—

But Luffy dips his head and opens his mouth—then presses the flat of his tongue against his wound again and licks, utterly deliberate, trailing a stripe of spit and blood all the way up Zoro’s side and Zoro can’t help it. He moans—one hand grasping for the back of Luffy’s hair as he jerks once involuntarily, trying to escape the feeling but wanting more.

There’s a huff of air against his damp skin as Luffy laughs. Then he just lifts his head like Zoro isn’t trying with all his strength to keep Luffy’s hot mouth pressed into his skin (and failing, because Luffy is so, so much stronger than him, he realizes; oh, he realizes) and Zoro knows with stunning, sudden clarity that he’s well and truly fucked.

Because maybe. Maybe he does want to kiss the fish.

Maybe quite a lot, actually.

“Lu—” he starts, but Luffy is already moving, gripping one hand around his bicep, holding Zoro down as he drags his body up until he’s pressed fully against Zoro’s flank—bare chest sticky against Zoro’s own as his massive tail half-pins one of Zoro’s legs against the deck.

Then, without warning, Luffy leans down and opens his mouth against Zoro’s neck, against his jugular, and Zoro lets out a cracked, low, groaning noise—nothing he’s ever heard from his own throat. He wants to grasp, to scramble for purchase like he’s falling, but Luffy’s weight is keeping him utterly trapped. All he can do is buck, and the motion presses his own skin against Luffy’s teeth—and—

Oh.

He can’t tell if Luffy’s bitten him on purpose, but it doesn’t matter—like it’s instinct (and maybe it is) Luffy’s tongue laps against the blood and Zoro feels him suck—and he nearly blacks out.

“That’s why you were so weird earlier,” Luffy giggles, muffled against his neck. “Sabo said humans kiss soft, but you don’t.”

And without even trying, Luffy smashes Zoro’s wrists back against the deck, pinning them together above his head with his right hand. His left stays pressed next to Zoro’s head, holding his upper body up as he looms over Zoro (eyes dark and laughing) and then, in one fluid motion, he dips his head and mouths at the underside of Zoro’s neck again—just above the shallow bite marks Zoro can already feel.

“Luffy—” he hisses, half a gasp.

And there must be something in his tone, because Luffy looks up again, lifting his head to peer down at Zoro as he releases his arms. “Yeah?” he asks, a vague frown on face. Not disappointed, just waiting.

(In the dark, Zoro can almost see the shadows of his monstrous form at the edge of his skin, something lurking just below the surface—and the corners of his lips are stained red, red, red.)

Zoro doesn’t give himself time to think before he reaches up with both hands and grips the back of Luffy’s head, tangling his fingers through Luffy’s dark hair, and yanks his face down to meet his own. Luffy doesn’t resist—just lets Zoro smash their mouths together with a kind of desperate, keening ferocity that Zoro would find embarrassing if he were willing to admit his own sobriety.

It’s more violence than kiss, Luffy half-crushing him, and all sharp teeth and soft lips—and then Luffy laughs into him and it’s everything. It’s everything.

(It’s a chance. It’s a purpose. It’s a beacon in the dark. It’s god holding him in the palm of his hand and saying this one, this one, this one in a way he’s never thought mattered—not until now, not until this; not until the summer, the sea, the sun—like a piece he’s been missing for a thousand years slotting into place.)

“I’ll go with you,” Zoro rasps against his mouth, and the sounds are barely words so he repeats, “Luffy, when this is over—I’ll go with you. Out to sea. Anywhere—fucking. Wherever you want to go.”

Luffy lifts his head to beam down at him, eyes dancing. “Of course you will!” he declares. His chest is heaving but his voice carries strong. “I already decided it.”

And Zoro can’t help but grin back, breathless with heat and wonder—because of course. Of course.

(And tomorrow, Usopp will show up wide-eyed and awed, telling them how the shore’s edge lit up after midnight, glowing like the sky itself as the fishermen tossed their offerings into the waves—a thousand bioluminescent stars curling from the sea across sand.)

Interlude IV: Hadal; 6000-10924

“Are you insane?” Koala shrieks, gripping him by the shoulders hard enough to bruise—if he weren’t already a little worse for wear. Not that he minds, really. It’s a good kind of pain! (Not Koala’s—Zoro’s. Koala’s pain is scary.)

They’re not far from the islands, still near the reef and practically out in the open—because Luffy hadn’t made it very far at all before being absolutely, thoroughly caught. The coral itself is almost utterly deserted, everything nearby fleeing at the force of the sea gods’ argument.

Luffy glances at Sabo, who just stares placidly back. Still, his brother doesn’t seem too angry. Or he didn’t, not at first—not until he’d seen the scratch marks Luffy can feel stinging on his back. Then Sabo’s face had gone a little red and he’d gotten kind of quiet.

Luffy gets the feeling Sabo might like Zoro a little less, now, which is unfortunate—because Luffy likes Zoro a lot.

Then, turning away, he mumbles, “I dunno what you’re talking about,” and Koala just shakes him again.

“Don’t pull that shit with me,” she says, “We know you were up there! We’re not stupid! This is going way too far—you can’t just go to the surface where there are humans!”

“But Koala,” he whines back, giving up on subterfuge almost immediately. He’s never been very good at it, anyway. “It was fun! And Zoro was there, so it was fine.”

“You killed two people!”

Luffy snorts, rolling his eyes. “So? They were Akainu’s people.”

And that brings them both up short. For a moment, they all just look at each other. Then, finally, Sabo speaks up. “You have to be more careful,” he says, and Luffy scowls in response.

“I’m not a baby. I can take care of myself,” he shoots back. “You’ve always trusted me with stuff before. Why not this?”

Sabo shakes his head, swimming closer. “It’s not about trust. I know you can. You’re my brother. It’s my job to worry, especially if you’re going after some human whose idea of affection includes casual murder.”

Koala lets go, then, and they both look at him in that way he absolutely hates. Like they’re seeing him but seeing Ace, too. Or Ace’s body, maybe—only a body at all because he’d protected Luffy in the first place. They never talk about it because there’s nothing to talk about.

So Luffy just grins, because it’s Sabo and Koala and he gets it even if he doesn’t always understand, and he says, “Really, guys! It’s fine. Nothing’s going to happen. Zoro’s weird, and it’s good. And you already like everyone else! Stop worrying so much about this,” with a laugh.

Sabo and Koala exchange a look, and then they both sigh, and Sabo flicks his forehead—which is honestly so mean—before he concedes. “Fine, fine. It’s not like we could stop you anyway. Just keep your priorities straight, okay?”

“Seriously—you guys worry way too much!”

Part VI

Days later, when Nami returns and he rows out to pick her up at the edge of the dock, she takes one look at the bite marks and the bruises and says, “Please, please tell me my boat is still intact.”

By coincidence or design, both Sanji and Usopp are there, too—waiting for a ride out into harbor—and Zoro can see their eyes scan the water, looking for Luffy. Still, Usopp just blandly raises his eyebrows, because he’s already seen and tactfully said nothing; Sanji refuses to look him in the eye. Zoro only lets him into the dinghy because he’s hauling a cooler, making good on his promise.

And that is that.

Somehow, in the course of a few months, their lives have become so bustling and vibrant that everything before feels like a lonely, hazy dream. In May, there were two. In June, three. In July, four—and by the end of August, five. Nami’s boat feels lived-in and loved, Usopp and Nami taking to Sanji like a fish to water—and Luffy (the fish in question) is delighted, because Sanji always brings food. Good food, better than anything any of them have ever eaten that didn’t already come from the Baratie itself.

No one seems to mind that Zoro fights for a living, because they’ve all been touched by it in their own terrible ways. Sanji never talks about his own past, but Zoro knows enough about Germa through professional curiosity (and Nami) to understand why. Instead, he waxes poetic about the restaurant the same way Usopp rambles about his work on the docks, a welcome kind of normalcy that feels oddly grounding to two people still waist-deep in the mire and a sea monster hanging off (Zoro himself and) the side of the boat.

Then August turns to September and finally—inevitably—the summer ends.

They’re gathered in the cove, sprawled out across the deck while Usopp sits half-in, half-out of the wheelhouse with the disassembled radio spread out around him, a cluster of wire and metal anemically spitting out weather warnings, buzzing about an incoming warm front.

They’ve dragged out the beach chairs again, two no longer adequate really—but it doesn’t matter, because Nami is sunning (or attempting to) in one, wedged precariously against the rail and reading a book (or attempting to) as she fights the early-fall breeze rolling through. Every now and then, she glares up at the clouds like they’ve personally offended her, scowling out toward the graying horizon.

The other chair sits empty, Zoro dangling his legs over the edge of the deck (he’s almost never not touching the sea, now) with Sanji still down in the galley below, handing trays of lunch up through the hatch. In the water, Luffy floats with Tama (back again, because there’s someone new to meet) as she dives and resurfaces, giggling each time she hands hermit crab shells and glittering coral and sea glass to Luffy—who hands them to Zoro—who watches them with a drink in his hand and an indescribable kind of joy in his chest.

Then Usopp yells—an excited, surprised shout that makes everyone jump—

And music starts to blare, crackled but there through the radio speakers. “Hah! I knew I could do it!” he crows, laughing, fiddling with the dials until the sound clears and the volume is loud enough to carry across the entire cove.

Tama shrieks with glee, splashing around Luffy and reaching for Zoro’s legs in delight, and Nami leans out of her chair, grinning as Luffy laughs.

From the top of the ladder, Sanji grouses, “About damn time,” as he hauls himself up on deck for the last time, and Usopp just flips him off—but Sanji’s already bobbing his head, swaying to the swing jazz as it swells. Cocktail tray in hand, he shuffles toward Nami, and Zoro rolls his eyes—exchanging a commiserating, laughing look with Usopp. Then, as he watches, Usopp screws one last panel into place (haphazard, maybe, with how fast he does it—or he’s just that good) and stands, too, to join the rest of them.

Even as Sanji bends down to offer her a drink, Nami reaches over the side of the boat, gold bangles glinting in the sunlight as Tama—giggling—turns to grab her hand instead. “Nami, it’s music!” she squeals, and Nami laughs back, holding both of her tiny hands in one as Tama dangles off her arm. The weight nearly pulls Nami in, but she doesn’t seem to mind (not really), and Zoro just steadies her with his shoulder as she leans into him, swinging Tama back and forth.

She doesn’t take the drink from Sanji, too preoccupied, so Usopp swipes the fancy, fruity thing instead—and Sanji curses, lashing out to kick him in the shin. There’s no force behind it, though. Usopp easily dances out of the way, sipping through the straw with laughter in his eyes as Sanji lunges after him, threatening to throw him into the ocean—but not really furious, maybe, if the twitched upturn at the corner of his mouth is any indication.

And Zoro can’t help it—he laughs, too, throwing his head back at all of them as Luffy grabs the side of the boat and peers across, beaming at Usopp. “This is awesome!” he shouts, and Usopp grins right back.

“Of course it is! I did it!” he replies around the straw, ducking as Sanji aims for his head and gripes, At least savor it, asshole! Don’t just chug it!

Luffy giggles at them both and leans his head against the side of Zoro’s leg, still halfway in the ocean—so Zoro is squished with he and Nami on either side, Tama swirling through the water between them. And for the first time, Zoro truly, absolutely feels like he belongs.

So apropos of nothing (and over everyone’s laughter and shouting, the blaring music, and the sounds of the sea itself), he turns to Nami and says, “I think we should name the boat.”

Nami turns from Tama, then, still half-laughing—and it speaks to just how happy she is, too, that she says, “Sure, why not?”

Because there is a reason she has never bothered with names—never bothered to claim the boat as anything more than a place to sleep, Zoro knows. It’s as much a tool of her trade as any map or crate or gun. It’s a house, but it’s never been home. And yet—here, like this, maybe it could be. Maybe it is, even just for now.

Immediately, Luffy lights up and declares, “Name it Super Octopus Shark!” and Nami (rolling her eyes, stifling a snort) reaches across Zoro with her free hand to smack him in the side of the head. He just laughs.

(The motion also flops Tama across Zoro’s legs and she lets go of Nami to latch onto him instead—and she beams up at him, giggling from his lap as he grins right back.)

“No way,” Nami says, shaking her head, and—argument derailed, already walking over to the deck edge with Usopp not far behind—Sanji nods sagely in agreement.

“Absolutely not,” Sanji says. “She should be named something beautiful, majestic, powerful—like Nami-swan herself—”

“Oh, here we go—” Usopp snickers as he perches on Nami’s abandoned beach chair, still sipping his drink.

Sanji just leans with his back against the bow’s railing, tucks the tray under one arm, and fishes for the cigarette case in his pocket. “No, shut up, it’s good—Madame Baleine—”

Usopp snorts. “Balei—Whale? Madame Whale, really?”

“You speak French?” Sanji blinks, but before Usopp can answer Nami throws her hands up, scowling at them both.

“No! No, I’m not naming my boat after any fish.”

“But fish are cool,” Zoro says mildly—trying desperately not to laugh again and doing an excellent job of it, he thinks—

As Luffy whines, “Yeah, fish are cool, Nami!”

Nami gives them both a withering glare. “That means absolutely nothing from either of you. You’re the most biased of us all.”

As Tama pats his cheeks with her little hands and Luffy leans against his thigh, Zoro replies, “I’m not biased,” utterly deadpan.

(In the background, Usopp wheezes—and Sanji, mouth still twitching, finally lights his cigarette.)

“I’ve changed my mind!” Nami declares, “We’re not naming the boat.” As she does so, though, she leans over and tickles Tama’s exposed belly and the little girl squeals, squirming in Zoro’s lap—so her statement loses almost all of its weight. The noise distracts them all because Tama’s laughter is contagious, its own distilled form of joy.

Then Usopp snaps his fingers and beams. “Hang on—what about Merry? Y’know, like the kid’s rhyme?”

They all turn to look at him, then—and there’s a beat of silence as Tama’s giggles die down and she pokes at Luffy, who’s still hanging off the side of the boat and Zoro himself.

Sanji furrows his brow. “The what?”

Usopp blinks. “You know, the—good morning, merry sunshine—that one? From kindergarten?” When no one replies, he looks at them all utterly aghast. “What kind of childhoods did you have?” he says, and Zoro snorts—then glances at Nami, who glances at Sanji, who glances back at Zoro. Then the three of them exchange a look that’s half amusement, half commiseration—and Usopp throws his hands up. “Okay, okay; that one’s on me. Know your audience. But still—it’s a good name.”

Finally, Luffy pipes up and says, “I like it! Even though it’s not as good as my idea,” almost a pout, and Tama reaches over to pat the top of his head, even as she giggles.

Finally, Nami sighs—shakes her head. “Sure, why not,” she says, fighting a smile. “Merry it is.”

And that’s that—it’s decided.

With a shrug, Zoro raises his flask in a lazy toast, says, “To Merry, I guess,” and drinks—then Nami snatches it out of his hand, Usopp raises his cocktail, Sanji tilts his cigarette, and Luffy lifts Tama—to Merry!

And as the music plays on, they laugh.

- - -

It’s not long before Tama tires again, drifting to sleep sprawled across Zoro’s chest as he floats on his back—pulled into the sea by Luffy after they’d finished lunch. As she dozes, Zoro wonders if she’ll ever really recover from Kaido’s pollution—and wonders how much of what happened to her is his own fault, in some twisted way.

How much of the poison would have made it into the water anyway, a byproduct of Kaido’s dumping, if there hadn’t been a bounty to incentivize him? Would the shrine offerings—the safer alternative, even with the danger of coming ashore—have been poisoned at all? And would the human children, Usopp’s little assistants, have ever been affected?

Nami and Usopp have disappeared back into the wheelhouse to fiddle with the radio, and Luffy has wandered out into the broader cove for something. More food, maybe, hunted of his own accord.

Sanji is the only one left nearby, legs dangling off the side (one of them now, truly, with his pants rolled up to the knee and his bare feet skimming the ocean’s surface) as he leans back on one palm, smoking out into the afternoon.

Out of the corner of his eye, Zoro sees him watching them—a strange, indecipherable expression on his face—even as neither of them say a word. He knows the full truth of Tama now (and Usopp does, too) and his reaction had been… unexpected. For all of his blustering, Zoro has discovered that Sanji is rarely truly angry. Because that—that had been rage. Rage on Tama’s behalf.

Zoro understands the emotion, even if he doesn’t know the whole story.

He only realizes he’s started scowling (not at Sanji, but at the thoughts roiling in his brain) when Tama raises her head, eyes dropping, and mumbles, “Scary Zoro…” scowling right back in a baby mimic.

Zoro exhales through his nose. “’S cause I am scary,” he grumbles.

Tama just sticks her tongue out at him, already drifting off again, “Nuh-uh,” she says, tone like he’s stupid for even saying so.

(Out of sight, Nami and Usopp laugh at something only they can see. Sanji exhales a stream of smoke through the air. And in the distance, the sunlight glints off the red of Luffy’s scales as he dives and resurfaces.)

“Nah, I am,” he replies, and Tama giggles against his chest as his voice rumbles underneath her. “You’re just not afraid of anything, remember?”

“Yeah, that’s true,” she giggles back softly—and then she’s back asleep, tucked under his chin, and quiet descends once again.

Later, Zoro isn’t particularly surprised—or less surprised than he should be, maybe—when Sanji makes the suggestion.

- - -

“We should blow up the cargo district,” Sanji says casually around an unlit cigarette, entirely focused on flicking the wheel of his lighter.

It’s twilight, now—the sun not quite setting yet but nearly there—and Tama has long-since returned to the depths after Koala and Sabo appeared to collect her.

Nami is back in her beach chair, once again attempting to read—while Usopp lounges in the other, sketchbook in hand. Both of them are sipping fruit-filled monstrosities, now, Usopp having genuinely enjoyed his stolen drink enough to ask for another. And below, Zoro lounges in the bottom of the dinghy lashed to the boat’s side, Luffy crammed in next to him with his tail hanging over the edge as Zoro dozes like a cat in the warm sun—and Luffy’s body heat.

Sanji’s voice isn’t particularly loud, but it’s assured—like he’s been thinking about the statement for long enough to follow through.

Zoro opens his eyes and everyone else seems to stop in the middle of what they’re doing to look at Sanji—who just carries on as though he hasn’t said anything out of the ordinary.

Then, after a moment, Usopp frowns. “Wouldn’t that be—I dunno—bad?” he says, gesturing broadly with one hand, still holding his charcoal and smudged to the wrists. “Big picture bad. Inter-gang war bad.”

“So?” Sanji shrugs, “Fuck ‘em.”

No one can really argue with that.

In the best of silence that follows, Zoro is reminded that (other than Luffy, of course) Sanji is the only one of them who’s technically out, no matter how much he maintains a tenuous connection to the families. Sanji is working for Zeff—a normal civilian now, picked up from the ashes of the underworld’s violence the same way he and Perona were—only Mihawk kept them in.

And yet—here Sanji is, wanting to go back on his own terms, however hypothetically.

Nami leans over to raise her eyebrows at Zoro, who shrugs against Luffy’s side—and Luffy makes a rumbling noise in his chest, not quite a growl but not a happy sound, either. Like he’s thinking, maybe.

And then Nami hums. “It’s doable. Realistically, I mean,” she says, closing her book with a kind of finality that means they’re really talking about this now. Next to her, Usopp sips his drink, pensive.

Zoro frowns and sits up, too—ignoring Luffy’s halfhearted whine of protest. “There’s no way they wouldn’t pin it on us,” he says. “It would be easy enough to blame the Guild and claim retaliation for the fire.” Then he glances back at Luffy, whose expression is unreadable as he listens. (And Zoro is reminded, suddenly, of his own hatred.) “It wouldn’t be like last time.”

Sanji exhales. “Last time you had a cleanup crew,” he says, waving a cigarette toward the dinghy and—ostensibly—Luffy, only aware of their history in the broader sense, the post-massacre massacre. “I’m talking about engineering a situation where you wouldn’t even need one.” His tone stays mild, like they’re discussing the weather. Zoro is almost (almost!) impressed. Not that he would admit it.

Above, Nami hums again. “It could work if we play our cards right. Make it look like an accident—something wrong with their production. The buildings are connected with a sewer system that drains out into the ocean, but that also means the waste is accumulating right underneath them. Mistakes happen.” She pauses, reaches over absently to grab her drink—puzzling it out in her head. Then, glancing around at them all staring at her, she adds. “What? You’re not the only one who thinks they should rot.”

Zoro nods, because she’s not wrong—not by a long shot. Except, “Where the fuck are we going to get explosives?” he says, and both Nami and Sanji frown. Quiet descends. For a bunch of criminals, Zoro thinks, none of them are particularly prone to mass destruction.

After a moment, Usopp pipes up (almost embarrassed), “They’re actually—uh—very easy to make.” And they all turn to stare at him, then, as he fiddles with his straw. When he seems to realize they’re listening, though, he swells a little under the attention, suddenly animated. “I’m not just a pretty face,” he says, proud. “They keep me around for a reason—I’m good at what I do.”

Sanji raises his eyebrows in response, “Alright, so the maintenance guy—”

“Mechanical engineer—”

“—the mechanical engineer can build bombs,” he says, tapping the ash from his cigarette into the ocean with a roll of his eyes. “That solves that problem, then.”

Still lost in thought, Nami nods—and Zoro can almost physically see her working through a plan in her head. He’s known her long enough to recognize the signs. Then she frowns. “If we destroy the district, though, does that really solve the problem? Or would Kaido just build another facility somewhere else—pollute some other part of the waters?”

“So Kaido’s the problem,” Sanji says, nodding. “Excellent point, Nami-swan—”

“Woah, woah—” Usopp interjects, nearly spilling his drink as he whips his head between them. “You’re talking about taking out one of the bosses now. That’s—fuck—that’s different.”

But Nami just shakes her head. “It might be the safer bet—no Kaido means no Kaido to retaliate if we do fuck this up.”

At her response, Usopp withers a little. “Oi, oi—you’re talking like this is really going to happen.” He gestures widely around them, encompassing the boat, the cove, all of them. Then he looks at Nami and says, “What happens to you if Kaido’s gang goes down?”

Zoro feels a weight in the pit of his stomach, then, because he’s right. And yet—

Nami grins. “Jack shit,” she says. “I haven’t done a single run for him in weeks and I haven’t fallen behind on funds. And if we fix the fish problem—” she waves toward the still-unused hauling gear Usopp had repaired a lifetime ago, “I’ll have more money than I know what to do with. My problems shrink if he’s gone.”

And Zoro snorts loud and surprised. Nami catches his eye as he grins right back. “You do like fishing then,” he says, “Fuck, I knew it,” and Nami flips him the middle finger around a laugh.

“I do not!” she shouts back, determined but gleeful, too—already leaning forward. “I’ve decided what I’m going to do—I’m going to draw maps. I’m going to chart the whole island and then I’m going to leave and chart the rest of them, too—the whole archipelago. The whole world!” And as she says it, her whole body comes alive, eyes wide and mouth grinning, and she looks beyond them—beyond them all—out toward the open sea.

Her purpose.

And Zoro wants to yell, to laugh, to pick her up and spin her around because yes, yes—but he doesn’t. Instead, he just nods and says, “Damn right you will,” without a doubt in his mind.

Then, he feels Luffy shift behind him, massive tail curling into the water as he sits up. He’s been quiet up to this point, and the movement captures everyone’s attention because he’s Luffy.

When Zoro glances toward him, his expression is still shuttered, but there’s a ferociousness to him now—a quiet simmering something. “Get Kaido to the water,” he says, “because he’s mine.”

Overhead, the gray clouds rumble—a storm in the distance, far over the ocean.

And then—

“My, what an interesting conversation you’re all having today,” a voice carries across the cove, purring amusement, and in an instant everyone moves. Above, the others scramble, Sanji shooting to his feet and Nami white-knuckled on the railing as she stares out across the water—the rowboat nearly toppling as Zoro stands, because fuck, fuck—his swords are still on the boat (on Merry) and—

Usopp gasps, a breathy, afraid, “Oh my god, is that Demon Child—”

“Now, now—I’ve just come to see our dear Mr. Swordsman,” Robin says, already raising her arms as she crosses the beach toward the water’s edge, and Zoro is hit with the worst kind of deja vu. After so many weeks of silence and peace, the danger of Crocodile’s secretary had faded to the back of his mind; and Robin knew. She knew about the cove, and had some idea (maybe) about the monsters themselves.

Her gaze flicks across them all, and then stops—comes to rest on Luffy, now gripping the edge of the dinghy to hold himself up and watching her. Still, her expression doesn’t change.

Zoro bares his teeth. “What the fuck do you want?” he spits, and Robin just holds her empty palms out, a gesture of surrender as she turns her attention back to him.

“Our mutual employer sends his regards,” she replies. “You’ve been shirking your responsibilities, and I’ve been sent to remind you where your priorities lie.” Then she raises her palms higher as if to prove that she’s unarmed, and reaches into the inside pocket of her blazer with one hand. On deck, Nami curses and there’s the sound of a scuffle, but Zoro doesn’t take his eyes off Robin. Like before, they’d been complacent, sitting ducks out in the middle of the cove. Naive.

Without a word, Robin produces three white squares, nothing more than blobs in the distance as she holds them aloft between two fingers, but Zoro feels them like a hit to the diaphragm all the same.

“Get out of the boat, Luffy,” he bites, low and dangerous—not to run, but to fight if they need to, because Luffy is their best bet in the water. Luffy just looks at him for a beat before narrowing his eyes, scanning the horizon beyond; from the covemouth to the shoreline. Then, silent and vicious, he slips over the side, disappearing into the darkening sea.

Above him, there’s the clink of metal and Nami hisses his name. Zoro doesn’t even have to look up to know what it is, just reaches out as she tosses the bundle of his swords down to him, and then he’s dropping the rope, heading for shore.

Robin stays still, waiting serenely in the sand as he approaches and hauls up onto the beach—and only then does she cross toward him, meeting him halfway in a gesture of courtesy even as she keeps her hands raised. The cards are like a beacon in the overcast light.

Without preamble, she says, “How fascinating,” as her eyes search the water for a split second, looking for Luffy, maybe. Zoro wonders just how much she’d seen—how much she has seen over the weeks they’ve been visiting without worry.

And now—now they’ve been caught seriously discussing the annihilation of a rival family. Which is—in fact—very, very bad.

“Cut the shit,” he says, and Robin just shrugs placidly and holds out the cards: three crisp, pristine squares of folded stationery marked with her own looping script. It’s a kind of posturing, a tactile reminder of his job more serious than a message after a fight. Someone is pissed, then—likely Crocodile. But, then again, he’s always pissed.

“I’m simply passing along the message,” she replies as he snatches them out of her hand, one arm still resting on the hilts of his swords just in case. Before he can turn them over, though, she leans forward and says, “I’m compelled to ask—what is he like?” And Zoro blinks—but she seems only vaguely curious, like she wants to know but doesn’t really care if he responds one way or another.

She just looks at him as he narrows his eyes and grunts, “Dunno what you’re talking about,” but it’s futile; like lying to someone who already knows all the right answers. She’d seen him, after all.

Instead of turning, accepting the dodge for what it is (like she normally would, based on everything he’s ever known about her), she hums, “He doesn’t look nearly as lethal as damage to the cargo docks and Kaido’s ships suggested. I confess, I’m surprised.”

The statement catches him off guard—an open admission of what she knows, but not a question, either. Almost like she’s trying to have a conversation. He narrows his eyes. “Seems unfair. You don’t look lethal, either.”

Robin has the audacity to laugh—a soft, surprised chuckle that seems to startle even herself, if the fractional widening of her eyes is any indication. And then she presses her lips together in a demure smile and shoves her hands in the pockets of her coat. Zoro’s free hand twitches against Kitetsu’s hilt, but she doesn’t move. Just stands there, watching him with a bright kind of amusement.

Then, tilting her head to the side, she asks, “Do you love him?”

And Zoro stares at her, because that’s the last thing he is expecting—the last thing he would ever expect from her. She has been watching, then, and he wonders if it’s a trick, a trap of some kind. Again she waits, patient and still, for his response.

After a moment, he asks, “Who?” although he isn’t entirely sure he wants her answer, because he’s afraid he already knows.

“Your little god.” She nods toward the water behind him. “I’m quite curious. Do you love him?”

And Zoro doesn’t turn, doesn’t want to take his eyes off her, but he has no idea if Luffy has resurfaced again or if the others are okay. He resists the urge to check; they can take care of themselves, he knows that. But still.

It’s an instinct because they’re there—and because it’s the safest way to process her question. Not because he wants to avoid the answer (because god, god is it love? Is it love?) but because the answer itself doesn’t even matter.

If this is love, it’s everything.

It’s burning up from the inside; a searing hole in his guts—up his throat—out through his mouth every time he looks at Luffy, wanting to say things he doesn’t know how to say. It’s restlessness; a crawling through his muscles, like he’s being yanked across some unfathomable distance and yet still standing still every time he wants to touch his skin, run his fingers through his hair, grasp him in the water. It’s crushing his heart in his own bare hands; an offering in and of itself, given to the sea to devour.

If this is love—god, if this is love—

He flips the cards over, and there, in bold cut-glass script she’s written herself, he reads his next three targets.

Robin.

Nami.

Nika.

- - -

In an instant, he has Kitetsu at her neck—and she doesn’t even flinch, just stares him down with an expression somewhere between cold and serene; it’s impossible to tell.

Zoro bares his teeth and snaps, “Explain,” holding out the cards like they’re poison.

Robin just smiles serenely, unbothered by either the sword or her own name—and she wouldn’t be, he thinks. She’s the one who wrote it, whether on Crocodile’s order or some sick game of her own.

Her hands stay in her pockets and she doesn’t even attempt to step away as she shrugs—and Zoro’s sword scrapes against her neck. It’s not enough to draw blood but it’s something and still, she doesn’t move.

“It’s very straightforward, really,” Robin replies. “I am a liability. Your friend is a liability. Your companion is a problem in the first place.”

Zoro feels his jaw flex, tense. “I’ve never bothered to ask shit about my jobs before now, so take that as a courtesy,” he spits. “Tell me what the fuck this means.”

Still, Robin stares him down, almost amused. “I’ve never taken you for someone unintelligent, Mr. Swordsman,” she says.

“Yeah, well—I’ve never taken you for someone with a death wish,” he bites back. Even under overcast skies, his blade gleams.

“I’ve never particularly wished to be alive, either,” she muses in return, and there’s a smile in her voice that he can’t see.

“Then it doesn’t matter if you tell me.”

She nods, conceding, and she glances back behind him, toward the cove and the others still waiting. “I know too much,” she says. “Crocodile has never trusted me, and current circumstances have made that kind of working relationship unsustainable.”

Zoro glares at her, but she just stares him down until he says, “You lied and got caught, I assume.”

“Indeed.” She doesn’t elaborate. Zoro doesn’t care.

“And Nami?”

Robin lifts her hands out of her pockets, still empty, and gestures. “The governor's Naval Patrol has been approved under the table and we’re expecting it to pass legislation soon. The age of smuggling is over, it seems—and she has become too recognizable. Miss Navigator is a living target and a straight line back to the Cross Guild if law enforcement ever bothered to try. As such, your friend’s services are no longer required.”

“Bullshit.”

She pauses, then, and she raises her eyebrows like he’s some kind of misbehaving child. “I’ve lied about many things,” she says, “but today I can assure you I’m telling the truth.”

Zoro glares, tilting the sword against her throat.

“And Nika?”

“Our employer is quite convinced you’re acquainted, although I assume he means your companion in the broader sense.”

Zoro ignores the way she says it, unable to come up with a better qualifier on his own, but seethes all the same. “I should’ve known you wouldn’t keep your word,” he says.

“On the contrary,” she replies mildly, “I did. Arlong, however, was less than discreet.” Something snaps into place, then, and Zoro clicks his tongue—angry without a decent way to direct it. Fucking Sheepshead.

“So you did lie to Croc about us. About Luffy,” he says, and it’s not a question. “You never told him about what happened in the warehouse district.”

Robin just raises her eyebrows, intrigued, the first thing like real emotion he’s seen from her. “Is that his name? Luffy?”

“None of your fucking business.”

“Perhaps. But if you’re going to kill me anyway, I’d like to know who I’m dying for.” She tilts her head. “Because I would be dying for him, I think—if keeping his secret brought me here. Wouldn’t you do the same?”

He narrows his eyes, then, because this reeks of a trap. And yet, she doesn’t move. So he ignores the deliberate dig and says, “I haven’t decided whether you’re leaving here alive or not—don’t push your luck. How do I know you’re not going to slit my throat the minute I drop my sword?”

She lifts her hands out of her pockets, still empty and unarmed, and raises them in a slow, deliberate surrender. “It would be pointless of me to try,” she sighs. “If I kill you—” she tilts her head to indicate the cove behind him again, “I’m not sure who will get to me first, your monster or your sniper. They both look quite determined.”

Zoro growls. “You already said you don’t care if you die. That doesn’t mean shit.”

“Then it seems we are at an impasse,” she hums.

“Why does Croc want him dead?”

“Simple,” she replies; her tone like death itself is simply the weather, “no monster, no bounty. The money comes back to us. If nothing else, he’s pragmatic.”

Zoro snorts. “That seems like a leap of faith if the money’s already gone.”

“Yes, well,” Robin smiles and there’s a flicker of something almost real in it, too. “Akainu doesn’t know we know that.”

“It’s a trap for him.”

“It’s a trap for all of us, I’m afraid,” she replies. “Whether Akainu faces the consequences of his mistakes or not, his political policies are still in place, I have still lost my place in the organization, you are still compromised, and your monster is still nothing more than an interesting pelt warm and living—for now.”

“How the fuck am I compromised?” he spits, and in reply her smile solidifies—nothing more than a soft upturn of her lips, but genuine all the same.

“You’re not going to kill your friends,” she states—states—calm and assured. “I would call that compromised.”

Even though it’s true, Zoro still clicks his tongue. “He had to have known that when he gave the order.”

“On the contrary,” there’s almost a laugh in her voice now, “Your reputation precedes you, King of Hell. Everyone is quite convinced you’re a heartless bastard.”

And then, suddenly, he thinks of Mihawk in the club, insisting over the table that he listen, that he pay attention, that he train. He had known, then—known about at least one of the assignments, possibly two, as they accumulated. Nami first, then Luffy, if Robin’s name wasn’t added to his list until after the fire. And he had known, too—that Zoro wouldn’t follow through.

Distraction.

How very like his uncle, Zoro thinks, not to intervene. To let things happen and watch from above, nudging the pieces without ever playing. He wonders if Mihawk would bat an eye if this were a trap and Robin did decide to kill him. Likely not—because it would be Zoro’s fault for disobeying orders in the first place. And yet, he could have easily forced him to fulfill the assignments months ago and hadn’t. As always, only his uncle knows the rules to his own game.

Still, they aren’t done.

“Say I don’t kill you—say I don’t kill anyone on the list. What’s to stop you from turning back around and telling the rest of them we’re planning to kill Kaido to save your own skin?”

“Nothing, really,” she replies. “However, I find myself intrigued by the possibility of bringing a bit of chaos with me before I die. Perhaps it’s time our world saw a bit of change.” She turns her palms out and offers her neck. “The decision is yours—kill me and be done with it, or force me to live and I’ll join you. I don’t particularly care either way.”

They stand there, then, in a frozen moment in time—neither moving as Zoro works out the decision in his head. There are so many things that could go wrong, and he’s still not entirely convinced this isn’t a trap of some kind. And yet, Robin looks as sincere as she ever has, ever can. It could be an act, or she really could have something adjacent to a death wish—a wish to go out in flames, at the very least.

And then, from the shoreline just behind him, Luffy calls, “Hey, dock lady!” and Zoro has to physically resist the urge to turn around, because that would take his eyes off Robin and leave him ope—

Dock lady?

Luffy continues, “You know how it looks now, right? The whole place? On the inside?”

Robin leans to look around Zoro, wholly ignoring the blade at her throat as she replies, “Why, yes—I do,” matter-of-fact and intrigued.

“So it’s fine!” Luffy shouts back, almost dismissive. Like this whole stand-off hasn’t been a scale tipping back and forth between life-or-death for either of them. “Zoro, don’t kill her!” It’s almost a whine.

With a growl of frustration, Zoro lowers his sword.

Immediately, Robin moves—and Zoro jerks, ready to lash out again—but she doesn’t pivot toward him. Instead, she walks right up into the water until she’s shin-deep even in her clothes. Luffy is floating in the shallows, propped up on the edge of Merry’s rowboat, and Zoro wants to yell at him for being so fucking blasé when he doesn’t understand how dangerous she is—

And yet, even as Luffy watches her—open, curious—there’s a hard, assessing lilt to his gaze that stops Zoro from doing so.

Luffy knows something.

(Not for the first time, Zoro wonders what he does when he disappears.)

Behind him, lined up on the boat’s deck, Nami and Sanji stand frozen, watching and waiting as they flank Usopp, who has his eye pressed to the scope of a rifle leveled at them from across the water. (And oh, he thinks—Usopp, the mechanical engineer.)

Then Robin bows to Luffy ever so slightly, a sign of respect that none of them have ever even thought to give, and says, “Hello, little Nika. What a delight to finally meet you.”

Immediately, Luffy frowns. “I’m just Luffy,” he replies. “I’m not anyone’s god.”

“Fair enough,” Robin says, but there’s a smile in her voice that says she doesn’t quite agree. “Then may I join you, little monster?”

And Luffy just grins. “Of course!”

- - -

For a brief period in their childhood, Perona became fascinated with the idea of keeping pet snakes—and though the hobby itself never took (Perona being a woman of many fickle inclinations), Zoro remembers one strange fact from the entire ordeal: not social creatures by nature, some reptiles show affection by sitting perfectly calm and still. Content. Happy to simply exist with the people they like.

Robin, he discovers, is no exception.

She acclimates quickly, not quite meshing with the rest of them so much as perching on the sidelines, observing them—but there’s a softening to her all the same. For the first time in all the years he’s known her, even just in passing, she seems like more of a person. He doesn’t quite trust her—not really—but she’s never struck him as someone who acts so much as hides; he’s not sure she’s capable of conning them the same way Nami might, given the same circumstances.

Now that she’s been sent to deliver the message, though, Zoro knows they’re working on limited time.

The cove becomes their base of operations. After extensive deliberation, it’s decided that Robin and Nami should stay in hiding on the Merry—so Zoro, Usopp, and Sanji leave on foot to hitch a ride back toward the city. With Zoro going about business as usual but Robin and Nami missing, they’ll have a few days before anyone figures out he hasn’t actually killed them.

They take a risk putting Sanji back in the wild, pitting his instinct to keep the two of them safe against the need to answer any question posed by a woman—but it turns out they needn’t worry because Perona is Perona.

Before she even crosses paths with Sanji, she’s waiting at the back door to his uncle’s estate when he pulls up on his bike in the middle of the night, furious that he’d done it—and then even angrier when she learns he hadn’t and hadn’t told her. She refuses to speak to him for days after that (because Perona is Perona), but the next morning he catches a flash of pink through the overgrown foliage—off in the abandoned vegetable garden, toward the black-ribboned tree. (So he knows she will forgive him eventually.)

And yet—no matter how long Mihawk has been stalling for him (because even if he’s done nothing to stop it, Zoro knows there’s a reason this has dragged on for weeks), their reprieve is over. It’s only a matter of time before Crocodile sends someone else to do the jobs for him—with his own name at the top of their list.

Alone on the water, Nami and Robin get to work—the men visit in shifts, and the next time Zoro arrives they’ve covered half the Merry’s interior with notes, maps, and diagrams. Usopp helps where he can, pointing out scale or infrastructure inaccuracies, and together the three of them paint a layered picture of the warehouse district.

Beyond that, though, Usopp is a surprise. A week into planning, he shows up in the back of Sanji’s yellow truck with half his workshop packed into duffles—and half his workshop, too. Because mechanical engineer, Zoro discovers, covers more than yacht motors and fishing gear, and he’s forgotten that Usopp is as much a member of the Cross Guild as the rest of them.

Amid the tools, the chemicals, the parts, Usopp pulls out a rolled canvas tarp; with wide gestures, he unfolds it in an arc across the deck, and there—lined up with a bag of maintenance equipment and ammo—is a collection of three rifles at various ranges. He gets to work on what they’ll need to break in—and prepares to fight his own way, too, if he has to.

(Zoro teases him endlessly about his insistence that he’s not a criminal—and Usopp insists right back that he never denied working for a criminal organization. Not once.)

Luffy circles with them, keeping them company as often as he disappears out into the ocean—but even when he’s gone, he never feels far away.

And then, finally—halfway into September (there are six, now), they’re ready.

While the radio blasts music and sporadic coastal weather warnings, they gather in a circle on deck—drinks in hand, cross-legged, sprawled in beach chairs, splayed across wood.

Then Nami rolls the butcher paper out across an empty tarp between them, revealing an intricately-drawn diagram of the entire warehouse district compound. From the coastline to the interior of each building, every penstroke has the delicacy of a master mapmaker—including a second layer of semi-transparent parchment overlayed with a series of interconnected blue lines.

Usopp whistles, impressed. She grins right back, proud and rightfully so—then she begins.

“Assuming Robin’s information is accurate, this should be the layout of Kaido’s, well, fortress—” she flips the parchment paper up and down, showing the map with and without the extra lines “—and this is the storm sewer system underneath.”

The rest of them lean in, Luffy pressed right up to Zoro’s side looking desperate to touch, but Nami just shoots him a glare—and he pouts in response. Usopp snorts at both of them and Sanji flicks his forehead for interrupting, all while Robin watches with a small almost-smile on her face—until Nami turns her scowl out to the rest of them.

“Focus,” she snaps (and that just makes Luffy pout all the more), “Here, here, and here,” she points out three buildings scribbled over in green with the labels Kibi, Kuri, and Udon, “are the main production facilities for whatever the fuck they’re making over there.” She glances up at Robin, then around at the rest of them and fishes something out of her pocket—then smacks it down on the map in front of them. It’s a crumpled note scrawled in messy handwriting, written in code. “They’re calling it SMILE, but no one will tell me exactly what it is. Apparently someone named Doflamingo is moving up to replace Jack and he keeps trying to arrange a run, but we’re not going to let it get that far. That means they’re ready, though—so if this is going to happen, it has to happen now.”

She hands the note to Robin, who peers at it curiously like a puzzle, then she points to a massive building in the center of the district drawn with an almost comical horned skull. “This is Kaido’s office,” Nami continues, “He’s completely cut off from the outside here, no easy entrance or exit. Everything else is just extra. This is our target. If the main office goes down, we take the whole place with it.”

Moving the parchment map back in place, she stabs a finger down at each end of the blue diagram, right atop two red X’s at the edge of the sewer lines. “These are our entry points. Kaido’s absolutely paranoid about someone fucking up his production—”

“For good reason—” Zoro grumbles, and Nami just reaches over to smack his head without missing a beat.

“—so he has the seaside outfall and land-facing sewer main blocked off with grates. We’ll split into two teams; Sanji, Robin, and Zoro, you’ll be the distraction. Aboveground, there’s an armed guard station, electric gate, snipers—you name it.” She points to the X just inside what looks to be the main entrance to the compound on its land-facing side. “You’ll come in right through the front gate in Sanji’s truck. Make up an excuse, fake a delivery—doesn’t matter to me—”

“You got it, Nami-swan!”

“—just get as many people away from the coastal side as you can. Zoro, you’re going to break off in the chaos and drop down through this manhole here—” she traces back to a secondary mark “—on the inside of the compound so we don’t have to deal with the internal grate. While Sanji and Robin keep the guards busy, you’ll start heading for the office underground.”

(Zoro nods.)

“Usopp, Luffy, and I will bring Merry around here—” she points to the X marking the main sewer line’s ocean runoff, “and take care of this side so Luffy can get in, then we’ll scale the warehouses here to here—” she points to buildings along the outer edge, then moves inward, “and provide cover fire while disabling the lookouts he’s got stationed along the roofline. Luffy, you’ll meet with Zoro in the center—same destination.”

She gestures to Usopp, then, who suddenly perks up.

“Right!” he says, then he shuffles his own duffle toward them and rummages until he produces a series of small metal objects that would look halfway innocuous if they weren’t in the middle of discussing a mass bombing. “These are going to be your explosives—”

“Woah, woah!”

“—they’re not finished, dumbass!” Usopp snorts, and Sanji blinks back, almost embarrassed. Usopp rolls his eyes, then holds out the devices to Zoro and Luffy to inspect. “You’ll each have a couple of these to place underneath Kaido’s office and then along the sewer walls on your way through. In theory, a big enough charge should destabilize the whole place. The structures will crumble even if we don’t destroy the buildings themselves—we’re going for the foundations. Nami and I will use much, much smaller charges to break the sea grate. They’ll still make noise, which is why we need the distraction. But the big ones? Those are all you.”

Zoro nods, turning the little things over and over in his hands, and next to him Luffy watches in silence—absorbing (hopefully).

Nami picks up the thread again, gesturing back to the map. “Sanji, Robin—no matter what, you’re going to leave the way you came. Same with Usopp and I—we’ll take Merry and get the fuck out when our escape window starts to close. You two—” she looks at Zoro and Luffy, then—hard. “You’re going to be in the thick of it, so you’ll have to use your best judgment. Two entrance points mean two exit points if things go south. Once you meet up in the center, pick an end and escape that way. The goal isn’t to fight, it’s to sabotage and run—or swim—whatever.”

Luffy hums, but Usopp elbows him and he scowls, then nods. Zoro just shrugs.

Nami sighs, pinching the bridge of her nose, and Sanji grumbles, “Why does the whole plan hinge on these morons?”

“Oi—”

“Because,” Nami breaks in, cutting off the argument before it even begins as Zoro glares at Sanji over the map, “in the worst possible scenario, they have the highest chance of survival. And, Sanji—you’re out,” she says with a kind of vehemence that has them all paying attention. “If you get caught, Zeff and the Baratie go down, too. Same with you, Usopp—” she turns to him, then, and Zoro sees that he’s gone a little pale. “I don’t have to tell you this, but you’ve got to stay as close to the exit as possible. You’ve got the boys. Robin, Zoro, and I—we’re still too deep. But you guys? You’ve got people to go home to.”

Zoro scowls right back at her, though. “You’ve got Nojiko,” he says, and Nami visibly swallows—but she stays resolute.

“She’ll be fine without me,” Nami snaps, almost defensive in her willingness to sacrifice herself. “This might be better for her in the long run, anyway. If this is the final straw for Cross Guild cutting out the smuggling operation, maybe Arlong will move on and leave Cocoyasi in peace.”

“Bullshit,” he bites back. “That’s bullshit and you know it.”

She slams her fist against the deck, leaning forward into his face. “And what about Perona, huh? Or Mihawk?” she glances at Luffy, then—but Usopp throws his hands up before she can add anything else, half-throwing himself between them like they’re going to jump across the map at any moment.

“Come on, guys,” he whines, placating. “How about no one tries to die?”

Sanji rolls his eyes. “No one is trying to die,” he gripes, but there’s an edge to his voice that sounds forced. “Although—”

Then Luffy smacks his tail against the deck hard, maybe out of habit or maybe to snag everyone’s attention intentionally, and he says, “Alright!” determined and almost serious (but a little bit stupid, too). “Let’s kick Kaido’s ass, and then I’ll kick this Arlong guy’s ass—” then he turns to Robin, eyeing her despite her silence, “then I’ll kick Croco-whoever’s ass. So how about that?”

For a moment, they all just stare at him—and then Zoro snorts out a laugh, shoving Luffy’s head to the side. “You don’t even have legs, moron,” he says, “How’re you going to kick anyone?”

And Luffy flails back, smacking his face in return with one hand—then whipping his tail around to slam into Zoro’s back, knocking out of him so hard he wheezes—which utterly breaks the tension.

“H-hey, cut it out you two—”

“Nami-swan was talking, you dickheads!”

“Shut the fuck up, shit-cook—”

“But Sanji, he started it!”

Then Nami claps once, dispelling the chaos, refocusing them all on the task at hand—and as she glares them all down, Zoro pretends not to see the color in her cheeks, the way she clears her throat before she speaks. Because of course—what did she think? That any one of them would let her give up? And Robin right along with her, because Luffy has made her one of his, too—claimed her like Nami, Usopp, and Sanji.

Vaguely, Zoro marvels at the implications of what Luffy is saying—what they would be planning if they kept going. Dismantling not only Kaido’s gang, but major sections of the Cross Guild as well. And why stop there? If they’re going to be free, they all need to be free.

“Right,” Nami says, clearing her throat one last time as she wrangles them back. She gestures between them, indicating the two teams. “We won’t have any way to communicate once we split up, so everything has to be timed perfectly. We go in at ten; Sanji, Robin, you’re going to be pissed you’ve got to work for the restaurant after hours, and when it turns out you’ve been given the wrong address—something—give ‘em hell. You’re not getting paid enough for this shit, blah, blah, blah.”

“Yes, Miss Navigator.” (“Aye, Nami-swan!”)

“Luffy, Zoro—once you enter the sewers, you’ll have less than thirty minutes to get in and out. The sooner you can escape the better. Usopp—” she waves and he nods.

“The bombs will be set on a time limit,” Usopp says, and when he finishes rummaging through his bag a second time he produces five devices that look like jerry-rigged kitchen timers under glass, then passes one to each of them except Luffy. “That’s going to be the most important part. You’ve got fifteen minutes of wiggle room from our arrival time because we don’t know exactly how long it’s going to take you—” he gestures vaguely toward Sanji, Zoro, and Robin, “—to get to the drop-off point, but when I say you’ve got half an hour from then, you’ve got half an hour. Whether you’re out or not, they’ll blow at ten-forty-five.

“Those—” he continues, pointing to the watches, “we’ll set them exactly at ten, and that will tell you how much time you have left, no matter where you are. Luffy—” he shrugs almost sheepishly, “they’re not waterproof, so you’re just going to have to move fast.”

Nami fixes them all with a serious glare, then. “We need to be gone by then,” She says, looking into each of their eyes in turn.

Then, Luffy huffs, pouting despite the gravity of the situation. “But Nami,” he whines, “I want to fight him!” and Nami just clicks her tongue.

Before she can say anything, though, Robin speaks up for the first time all evening. “This is the best way to ensure everyone has the highest chance of survival and success,” she says matter-of-factly. “If we were to engage Kaido directly, we would lose any advantages we have in destroying the rest of the district.”

Across from her, Nami nods. “It’s going to be fast, it’s going to be messy, but it’s going to be thorough,” Nami insists. “By the end of this, Kaido will be wiped off the map and the poison run-off, the main contender for the bounty, whatever the hell they’re trying to put on the market—all of it will be gone.”

For a moment, they bask in the simple excellence of their plan, and Zoro can’t help but agree that it’s pretty fucking good. In, out, boom.

To his left, Sanji clicks on his lighter, igniting a fresh cigarette—then leaning away from the paper between them when Nami snaps at him. As he exhales out toward the sea, he says, “Weird kind of poetry to it—taking him out with the same shit he used against the harbor.”

Robin hums. “Fighting fire with fire, if you will,” she adds smoothly, already lifting her cocktail to her lips to hide her smile. “Quite literally, in fact.”

Nami has no qualms smirking and just raises her own drink in a genuine toast. “Fuck him—and we’ll figure out what to do about everything else after.”

Zoro can’t help but agree, lifting his flask with a wordless grunt—and at his side, Luffy beams, wide and full of teeth.

Then Nami smacks her palm down in the center of the map and grins right back. “Alright, everyone. Let’s go blow up some fucking buildings!”

- - -

In Zoro’s defense, the plan doesn’t fail immediately. He makes it into the sewers first. Then the whole thing goes to shit.

Sort of.

He figures out almost immediately that the map he’s been given makes no fucking sense, a random squiggle of blue at best—and if he wasn’t already keenly aware of how much time Nami poured into making it, he might actually blame her. (Instead, of course, he blames Sanji—who’d spent the length of Nami’s careful explanation flitting back and forth across the deck, offering her drinks and sweets, distracting Luffy and by extension distracting him.)

Still, he loses track of his turns almost immediately, the infrastructure guidelines along the concrete incomprehensible in near-total darkness. By the time he takes his seventh left, one hand running across the edge of the wall to stay on the walkway (and out of the storm sewer main rushing past, toxic current heading straight out to the ocean), his watch is inching toward thirty, already well past the leeway they’d been given to infiltrate.

By some miracle, his eighth turn looks correct—along with this ninth and tenth—so he starts dropping Usopp’s devices, and then he’s standing next to a series of arbitrary painted markings that look identical to the ones on Nami’s map. And fuck, fuck—he’s made it. Half-blind, searches the ground, but it’s just an empty walkway. No other explosives, no debris—nothing.

Luffy hasn’t been here, which could mean one of two things—this isn’t the right place, or something has happened.

Not willing to chance either possibility (but still relatively confident that this is it), he dumps the bulk of his explosives but keeps a few just in case, then turns—not heading back the way he’d come, but forward, toward the direction where Luffy should be emerging. And he curses. And curses again.

Now completely off course, he runs until he hears the sounds above start to change—shouting, gunfire—like a fight has broken out aboveground. So he curses a third time, because even if Luffy isn’t the cause it’s a clear indication that something has gone wrong.

Then, finally, Zoro hears the rage before he sees it, inhuman snarls ricocheting along the concrete at a deafening roar—so he curses yet again and tilts on his heel, sprinting right, right, left—until he skids to a halt under a bright spot in the darkness, a cracked-open manhole over a half-crumpled metal ladder. Through the opening, someone (human) screams, followed by the rapid pound of machine-gun fire.

And fuck, Luffy—

Without hesitation , he grips the broken ladder and hauls himself up, leaping through the floor more than climbing. He doesn’t stop—and within seconds, he’s on his feet in the middle of a brightly-lit warehouse, surrounded by smashed crates of something and a chaos of gunmen (alive and dead) he recognizes.

Behind him, Luffy snarls again, and Zoro draws two of his swords, already lunging to fight—and then he almost freezes (but doesn’t, because he has more discipline than that).

Even fully on land, Luffy is a horror, already in his monstrous form as he bears down on Arlong’s massive, gleaming machete with his teeth and claws.

Arlong. Arlong. Who shouldn’t even be here—so far outside the realm of their calculations that Zoro wonders if he’s seeing things. And yet undoubtedly it’s him.

(And Zoro remembers the look of triumph in Arlong’s eyes as he’d screamed at Nami in the parking lot; Sheepshead’s cryptic message in the sand; the strange convenience of the marina’s destruction when they’d both been away for the night; Crocodile’s sword, Zoro himself, conveniently pointed at Nami and Luffy and Robin, too. Arlong, who values money over every thing else, in the territory of a man just about to pour something new and deadly onto the market, and who is still the strongest contender for a nonexistent two hundred-thousand dollar bounty. The emotion Zoro feels is something past rage.)

It’s impossible to tell who is winning—whether Luffy or Arlong is defending, beast against blade or blade against beast. Arlong himself looks split halfway between elation and abject terror, pushing back just as hard while he yells, “Shoot it—just fucking shoot it—” and the men around them fumble with their weapons.

Zoro doesn’t give them the chance. In sweeping strokes, he swings his blades, disarming anyone within range. Under the weight of the adrenaline running through his veins, he tries to ignore how many familiar faces he cuts down—not because he regrets killing Arlong’s men, but because he regrets robbing Nami of the chance to do it herself. And yet, it’s an almost identical dance—Luffy locked in combat, Zoro at his back. So close to their first meeting Zoro wants to laugh right there in the middle of the fight—

And then Luffy and Arlong break away from each other.

Arlong stumbles back, still spitting orders even as he nearly trips over the broken floor, while Luffy overbalances, faltering for a fractional second. The pause is enough to break their rhythm.

As Zoro impales yet another gunman, Arlong notices him for the first time—eyes wide—and it’s enough of an opening for Luffy to body slam him right through the building’s wall and out into the night. Out into the open.

Zoro races after them, taking down anyone who crosses his path, but it’s too late—they’re rolling across the concrete, blood smearing in their wake, snarls and curses echoing across the metal industrialism as Luffy claws and Arlong kicks right back. The reaction is immediate, the sound of Sanji and Robin’s distraction abruptly fading then coming closer as the guards finally break away—heading toward the new (bigger) threat.

Zoro grins.

His grip tightens around his swords and he re-enters the fray. Fuck stealth—this he can do.

And he can do it so fucking well.

Over the din, Arlong spits, “—why the fuck are you he—?” but Luffy doesn’t even let him finish his sentence, just slams into him from the side again—and Arlong reaches around, wrapping his forearm around Luffy’s throat and lunging with his machete.

It connects just as gunfire cracks above them, raining down across the streets.

They’ve gone too far off course; Nami and Usopp haven’t cleared these rooftops, and Kaido has snipers.

Luffy doesn’t even blink—and in an instant, his teeth are buried in Arlong’s forearm, ignoring his own injuries, and Arlong lets out a strangled yell as he tries to jerk back—but Luffy doesn’t let go. The motion tears against Luffy’s razor-sharp mouth and Zoro sees the exact moment Arlong understands what’s about to happen—the widening of his eyes, the wordless scream—before Luffy bites down.

(Their limb-removal tally raises again.)

As Arlong stumbles back, jagged artery coating the dark road, he makes desperate eye contact with Zoro. He blindly claws at the air with his free (remaining) hand—yelling, “I’ll kill you—I’ll fucking kill you—” full of rage. “I meant what I said—I’ll kill you, I’ll kill her too—I’m going to be rich—”

And Luffy hisses, roiling patterns of black elongating as his body seems to shift with a kind of strange elegance, no longer a berserker-beast but some sleek, murderous thing.

Arlong doesn’t stand a chance.

By the time the back of his body hits the ground, he’s already dead—a shred of meat.

(It is satisfying, his death quick and dirty; he doesn’t deserve anything more.)

Then, in the distance, guards start dropping like flies—and when Zoro scans the buildings, he sees Usopp has replaced the rooftop gunmen, eyes trained through his sight as he picks off cannon fodder. Nami is nowhere in sight; Zoro hopes she’s already on her way back to the Merry to prepare for their escape.

Arlong’s death does very little to deter any of Kaido’s men and they keep coming, a different breed of enemy drawn by the presence of a sea monster and their rival’s biggest game.

He glances down at his watch—ten thirty-six—and curses.

From above, Usopp yells wordlessly and Zoro glances up to see him disengage his rifle, gesture wildly off in the distance behind him, and then disappear.

Time’s up.

As he fends off another enemy, Zoro shouts, “Luffy! Stick to the fucking plan! We need to go!” and blocks a hunting knife with one sword, impaling his attacker with the other. When he turns back around, Luffy is Luffy again—though bloody from the fight. Arlong’s blade had been a mean, lethal thing, and he’d been fighting to kill in an environment where Luffy lacked the advantage.

Still, Luffy throws off another body and starts making his way back toward Zoro—and back toward the sewers. His face is a mask of wrath. “I heard him from below,” he snarls, smashing his tail into someone’s leg hard enough that Zoro hears bone crack from a distance. “He knew she was alive and was going to start hunting for Nami himself.”

Zoro lets out his own wordless growl, and wishes that Arlong weren’t dead so he could land a blow of his own—and that Nami could, too. The revelation is another drop in the bucket, but it’s still— “Fucker,” Zoro seethes, and Luffy channels his anger into throwing another opponent across the concrete.

Zoro makes a beeline back for the smashed building wall, toward the sewer main entrance. Luffy isn’t far behind, moving swiftly across the ground with a practiced ease even as he bleeds freely onto the ground—but as he approaches, Zoro sees the strain in his muscles. He is hurt. Possibly worse than Zoro realizes—and then Zoro also realizes that Luffy doesn’t have his bag.

“Where are your explosives?” he shouts.

Even moving, Luffy manages to shrug, “I dunno,” he says, a little too uncaring. “I must’ve dropped them.”

“You lost them?”

Luffy scowls, “Not on purpose! There was a lot going on!”

Zoro wants to throttle him, but he’ll do it when they’re back on the Merry—because there’s no fucking way they’ll be able to find their way back to Sanji’s truck so far off course or with so little time left. Even if Nami and Usopp have gone, they’ll still be able to escape into the ocean itself. It’s the safest bet, especially if they’ve lost track of all the bombs.

Then, suddenly, the men around them start to fall back—

And a massive figure leaps down from one of the rooftops above, landing on his feet in the rubble like it’s nothing as he hefts a massive sledgehammer across his shoulders. His laughter booms across the concrete around them, stopping everyone in their tracks—loud, arrogant, incongruous against the carnage.

Zoro doesn’t falter, but he does turn—already blocking on a kind of instinct as Luffy pivots, too.

Kaido.

He’s only met the man once, maybe twice. Notoriously reclusive and equally ruthless, Kaido’s appearance lives up to his reputation. This is the man strong enough to run one of the most cutthroat gangs in the islands—to have sadists like Jack and Doflamingo under his protection, willing to listen to his orders. He’s not someone they can underestimate. He’s also the root of their problems.

If they can take him out here, the aftermath of the explosion won’t be left up to chance. He’ll be gone.

Maybe Luffy will get his fight, Zoro thinks.

Kaido approaches at a leisurely pace, kicking or stepping over bodies (the bodies of his own men) like they’re nothing as the living part for him in a wave. “Well, well, well—you’ve made a real mess of my shit,” he bellows, grinning wide right at the two of them before addressing Zoro. “But you’ve brought it right to me, so I’ll let you off easy.” He glances to the side, then, and seems to notice Arlong’s shredded corpse—and then he laughs again. “Or better yet, why don’t you join my gang? Hard enough to find good men these days—everyone’s got their own fucking agenda.” Almost casually, he lifts his sledgehammer with one arm and swings it through the air, an idle motion that’s a threat in and of itself.

Next to him, Luffy seethes low in his throat.

“No fucking way,” Zoro spits and then he draws Wado—sets it between his teeth.

Kaido shrugs good-naturedly, completely at odds with their surroundings. “Suit yourself,” he says—then he levels his hammer at Luffy. “Then you can just sit back and watch while I kill god and take the glory for myself.” With his free hand, he snaps at a random dogsbody, who jerks to attention. “Get Akainu on the fucking phone—”

—and Luffy lunges.

Scales once again black and glistening, he rockets into Kaido in a blur of claws and teeth—and Zoro isn’t far behind. Luffy’s first hit lands, digging into Kaido and latching on even as his fins shred every bit of flesh it touches—but Kaido doesn’t falter.

Without missing a beat, he drops his hammer and uses his free hand to grip Luffy by the neck, squeezing his massive fingers around Luffy’s throat as he pries him off—then tosses him bodily to the side like he’s nothing. Zoro shouts, rushing in with blades drawn, but Kaido curls one giant fist and lands a hit directly to his diaphragm. The force of the blow sends him reeling, and it’s enough time for Kaido to reach down and grab his sledgehammer again—just as Luffy regroups and leaps a second time.

This time, Kaido swings, both hands gripped on the handle of his weapon—and the massive, weighty thing connects against Luffy’s side mid-air with so much force that Zoro hears it and Luffy’s own heavy body ragdolls through the air, splattering blood across the concrete before he smashes into a nearby building—black and red and still.

Zoro gasps for breath around Wado but refuses to let it go, but the lack of oxygen takes its toll. When he attacks again, Kaido easily backhands him, undeterred by the sword in his mouth and as much an insult as a physical blow. The force of it nearly sends Zoro to the ground, but he stays standing—so Kaido just raises his hammer again, aiming for his head—

And then from the rubble, Luffy roars.

Snarling and spitting, he lunges out—and Kaido redirects, pivoting his hit just as Luffy launches himself—and the weapon connects again. This time, when Luffy smashes into the ruined wall, more of the structure starts to crumble, and Kaido doesn’t spare a second glance for Zoro himself—just follows the path until he’s standing right over Luffy (who isn’t fucking moving) and brings the sledgehammer down a third time—

Zoro aims for his exposed flank, running full speed to slash what should be a crippling blow, but Kaido isn’t even winded—just growls in annoyance and throws him off. This time, Zoro lands wrong—clipping off a piece of broken concrete that crushes something in his chest, and he gasps for air again and again—

As Kaido brings his sledgehammer down on Luffy’s body for the final time with a sickening CRUNCH!

And then suddenly, finally, everything is still.

(The fight lasts barely an instant, but god, god—it’s devastating.)

As Zoro watches through the blood dripping his eyes, Kaido throws his head back and laughs—then snaps again at the scattering of men still standing at the street entrance. “Somebody get that fucking governor. I want my money—”

Then in a blast of car horn and screaming, Sanji’s truck careens around the corner, engine revving as Robin mows down anyone not fast enough to leap out of the way, expression serene as always. Sanji is crouched in the bed, gripping the back—and as soon as he spots Zoro, he stands and shouts, “There you are, shithead—I knew you were going to screw this up!” and Zoro can’t tell how much of the insult is anger and how much is fear.

Gasping, he hauls himself up and grips his swords tighter, then grits his teeth—a second wind. “Shut the fuck up!” he yells back, even as Sanji leaps from the truck and runs.

Kaido blinks once, twice (still unfazed), then grins. “Well, if it isn’t Judge’s boy! I thought you were dead, Vinsmoke,” he hollers, just as Zoro kicks up momentum again and re-enters the fray. Zoro doesn’t even have to shout—Sanji already knows who to prioritize.

“I’m nobody’s,” Sanji spits back, sliding through the gravel as he beelines for Luffy’s body. Kaido moves to grab him but Zoro is already there, blocking the blow as Sanji dives, dragging Luffy out from underneath the debris while Zoro holds Kaido back.

“You’re still fighting me,” Zoro bites out, and Kaido has the audacity to laugh.

“Looks like the monster’s got himself a cult,” he says, “unless you’re going for the fortune yourself.”

Out of the corner of his eye, Zoro sees Robin leap out of the driver’s seat to help, hauling Luffy’s tail as they practically throw his unconscious body into the truck bed. Kaido growls, pivoting—so Zoro says the first thing he can think of as a distraction.

“The money’s gone,” he shouts, and that gets Kaido’s attention. “Akainu gave up waiting and decided to fund the search himself. The bounty’s been rescinded!” It’s mostly bullshit, partially Arlong’s own declaration about Nami, but it works—and with a roar of frustration, Kaido swings like Zoro is personally responsible for the news. There’s so much anger behind it Zoro feels his heels slip against the ground, but he stays upright even as Kaido hefts his hammer again.

In the distance, he hears the slam of a car door as Sanji shouts, “Get the fuck out of there—we’re out of time—”

But Kaido is already plowing ahead. “If that’s the way he wants to operate, then fine—” he shouts, turning back toward the truck. “I’ll take the sun god’s power for myself—”

Zoro lashes outward toward Kaido’s legs hard and fast enough to make him stumble. As he does, Robin (back in the driver’s seat) revs the engine—and across the lot, Zoro meets her gaze. For one infinitesimally small moment, they look at each other, and all the years trapped together as the Guild’s worst predators coalesce into a kind of pure understanding.

She jerks the wheel, reversing, and then they’re blasting backwards out of the chaos—Sanji still in the truck bed with Luffy’s body, shouting back at him even as Robin rips them away.

At their retreat, Kaido roars, pissed and already shouting orders, but Zoro doesn’t think—just moves. He has no fucking clue how much time they have left, watch already long-smashed in fight, but he knows it can’t be long. He grabs the bag of his own leftover explosives still strapped to his swordbelt and hurls them into the distance toward the disappearing truck, where they land with an anticlimactic thud far down the road.

(He prays to no god but Luffy that it will be enough.)

Kaido starts to sneer something, but Zoro cuts him off, tossing his swords to the side.

“You want money? Take me—” and Kaido turns back, still snarling but intrigued, maybe, as his attention redirects again. “I’m the heir to the Cross Guild, the fucking King of Hell. Mihawk would pay a fortune to get me back. And if he doesn’t, then you’ve taken out their greatest weapon—Roronoa fucking Zoro.”

Zoro knows it’s half a lie even as the words leave his mouth—not that he’s worth it, but that Kaido would get any money at all. Mihawk won’t come for him, too proud to pay a ransom and too uncaring to fight on his behalf. He has his own reputation to uphold, a ruthless swordsman more heartless vampire than man, the kind of person who makes his living off the backs of grown men trying to kill each other for fun.

If Kaido accepts the trade, he’s as good as dead—but the others need more time. Luffy needs more time.

(Luffy, Luffy, Luffy. He’ll be so pissed, Zoro thinks. He’ll be so pissed that I died. Four months wasn’t enough. He wanted eternity.)

Kaido eyes him, assessing, and then without warning he grins and swings—slamming the sledgehammer into Zoro’s side. Zoro hears something else crack and his vision blurs, blacking around the edges as he skids against the ground, Kaido not far behind.

“Now that’s some fucking loyalty!” he booms, utterly delighted. “It must be the real deal, then. A real god. So how about I take you both—”

Then something in the distance clicks, beeps—

And the entire warehouse district explodes.

Interlude V: The Challenger Deep; 10924

When they were small, they’d fallen into the Trench. Someone (a grandfather, a father, an enemy) had chased them to the edge and they hadn’t stopped—

Half an accident, half a dare, half in flight (because there were three of them, then) they’d tumbled down, down, down into the depths—ignoring the way their muscles ached, their limbs trembled, their breathes shallowed under the pressure. Somehow, the dark became darker, and they watched—whispering to one another through gritted teeth—as the swirling things around them became strange. Appendages like lures, translucent skin, organs reversed. Astronomically, terrifyingly large—and incomprehensibly small.

And eventually, finally—on fire, glowing just like the stories. Fish of flames, bioluminescent in the midnight-black like tiny stars. Like tiny suns.

They did not reach the bottom, the impossible chasm too vast and terrible, so they would never really know—but they saw (and felt) enough. At the tender age of old-enough-to-understand, they heard god’s bones whisper from beneath the sand: the only thing worse than death itself is the emptiness of surviving alone.

Part VII

Rain pelts the unfamiliar window in waves, a wall of gray blurred though the industrial glass—broken once, twice, as lightning flashes in the distance. Around him—white, a near sensory-overload even in the dim lighting.

He is alive.

He is alone.

With a raspy gasp, he shoots up—pushing to his feet against the spinning room and his body’s own half-sluggish response (like he’s barely there and it’s barely listening to him) as he claws at the bleach-white hospital linens. He’s covered in bandages tight around his arms and chest, and he knows even half-delirious that he’s hurt. Still, he doesn’t even pause—just tears the IV out of his arm and ignores the way it bleeds, already gritting his teeth against the nausea crawling up the back of his throat.

Because fuck—fuck, how long has it been? Where are the others? Where is Luffy? Did they make it ou—

The moment one bare foot touches the cool tile floor, he freezes, midway through tumbling off the bed, wearing nothing but gauze and a shitty hospital gown.

Across the room, Mihawk stares him down.

He’s perched silent and cross-legged in a chair near the closed hospital room entrance. Not blocking it, per se, but guarding it all the same. For a moment, they look at each other—Mihawk’s expression placid and unreadable as always. A perfect, lethal mask, even when he opens his mouth to speak.

“I would advise staying under medical supervision, Roronoa,” he says, as though they’re already midway through a conversation, “lest you exacerbate your frankly impressive accumulation of injuries any more than you already have.”

Zoro blinks at him. His uncle just stares back.

Then, stupidly (and he wonders if he does have a concussion) Zoro says, “You actually came to get me,” voice fucked from disuse (and screaming and smoke) in a tone half surprised, half disgusted, and (against his will, almost) a sliver grateful.

That he’s woken up at all is proof of Mihawk’s rescue, but to see it confirmed—not that he’d been picked up by the people he thought would care, but by the one person he was sure cared the least—he’s not sure what to do with the information, and it pings against the sides of his aching brain.

Blandly, Mihawk raises his eyebrows, not moving an inch. “Indeed.”

He does not elaborate.

Then a secondary thought occurs to Zoro and he narrows his eyes. “Are you going to kill me yourself, then? For what we did, or for being a liability?” he nearly spits, finally standing up as straight as he can. It’s not as impressive as he would like. No matter how much he grits his teeth, tenses—his body still wobbles.

Mihawk draws out the silence like a cat playing with prey, watching him struggle. Zoro’s swords are nowhere in sight and he knows challenging his uncle would be as good as suicide in his current state, but he’ll do it if he has to. Some muddled part of his brain questions why Mihawk would save him only to off him later, but his uncle has always been one for making dramatic statements.

Still, he doesn’t care.

He needs out. He needs to make sure they got away. But he has no idea what would be waiting on the other side of the door if he did make it through. Buggy and his men? Crocodile and the rest of Baroque Works?

Zoro flicks his gaze toward the window. With the door blocked, it’s his only escape route. He braces himself to run—

And then Mihawk says, “I have been considering a revival of the vegetable garden,” and Zoro decides he must have brain damage. Ignoring the way Zoro stares at him, his uncle simply hums, “Apparently cabbages are quite low-maintenance. It will be an interesting experiment.”

A beat of silence passes before Zoro finally asks, “Am I dead?”

One of Mihawk’s eyebrows climbs higher. “Not that I’m aware of. Would you have preferred death?”

“What?” Zoro physically resists the instinct to recoil, only holding his ground by willpower alone. His stomach roils. “No—fuck, no.”

“Then through your recovery, I will consider clearing the underbrush a necessary part of your training,” Mihawk responds with a decisive nod, and then—as though that’s the end of it (even though Zoro isn’t entirely sure what it is)—he stands, brushing imaginary dirt from the legs of his pants.

Before he can stop himself, Zoro says, “That’s it?” and Mihawk audibly sighs. The look he gives Zoro is so withering a lesser man might piss himself.

“It won’t be easy, I can assure you that,” he says. “From what I’ve read, there’s a rather significant amount of manual labor involved in agriculture cultivation—even before any seeds are planted. They’re a fall crop, which works in your favor; the timing of your need for discipline aligns quite nicely. Beyond the grounds themselves, we will—“

Zoro decides that he has, in fact, sustained extensive head trauma and this is all an elaborate hallucination. Still, Mihawk continues—saying more in this single sitting than Zoro’s heard him speak in years. All about fucking. Cabbages.

Finally, Zoro bites out, “I disobeyed orders,” cutting his uncle off mid-word because he does apparently have a death wish.

Mihawk stops, stares at him with a look of such casual disappointment that Zoro retracts his hallucination theory—not even a broken brain could recreate his uncle’s annoyance so crisp.

“Not mine,” he replies blandly. “Your assignment went quite well, in fact. Although I’m inclined to disagree with your methods, the traitor in our midst has been dealt with quite decisively. Arlong will no longer be an issue.”

And oh, oh. Zoro just stares at him, processing—before he feels himself nod. “Right,” he says, tone skeptical. Right.

Mihawk raises his eyebrows and says nothing.

He rocks forward on his feet, then, because if Mihawk is giving him a pass then fuck, he’s going to take it—but he’s not going to stay. Even though he’s familiar enough with grievous bodily injury to know he’s not going to make it far regardless, he will push through if he has to. And he does have to, because he has no idea if the others (if Luffy) survived and no clue how long he’s been here.

As if sensing his thoughts (or reading them across his face, maybe) Mihawk sighs again, done with the conversation, Zoro’s inner turmoil no longer interesting enough to hold his attention (true or not). Bored and wanting to return to work.

“We will begin as soon as you’re discharged,” he says, and then he turns, puts his hand on the doorknob—and stops. Flicks his gaze back to Zoro, then toward the storm still raging outside the window. Hums almost thoughtfully.

“When I was a child, we had our own legends, you know,” he says, and Zoro feels his muscles lock up again. “I can’t speak for what it is today, but Shimotsuki was a superstitious island. The story goes back generations—a great swordsman descended from the night sky and wandered for a hundred years before giving up his search to found a village of warriors.” Mihawk tilts his head, then—expression impenetrable.

Zoro swallows.

(He knows the story—the bare bones of it. The other side of the coin, half a myth that fits the greater whole separated by an ocean. Never once has he thought it meant anything at all.)

Eyes sharp but voice almost musing, Mihawk continues, “It’s always struck me as strange, though—why the swordsman would abandon his quest after so short a time in the grand scheme of eternity. Were I honor-bound to another in the same way he supposedly was, I doubt even a thousand years would be enough.” He turns the handle, then, and murmurs, “How strange we humans are—to mold our stories around our own importance. If he stopped at all, I believe it was to grieve. But I find it difficult to fathom he would not continue searching anyway.”

Then, before Zoro can say a word, he steps out into the hallway and closes the door behind him, leaving only the sound of pounding rain in his wake.

Zoro stands there for a moment, tense and hardly breathing as brain stutters to catch up with whatever the fuck kind of cryptic bullshit his uncle has said now—

When there’s a sudden, frantic knock at the window behind him. He nearly overcompensates the turn, still reeling from his thoughts and his injuries, but as soon as Nami sees him, she beams—sopping wet and relieved in the pouring rain. Through the glass, she mouths, Open up, asshole! but the effect is lost as her lip wobbles and her hair sticks plastered to her face.

Gritting his teeth against the pain and nausea, Zoro crosses to throw open the window and immediately Nami leans in to throw her arms around his neck, nearly toppling into the room as rain streams in. She has his sword bag and a duffle slung across her back and it smacks him in the face.

The hug only lasts a second, but it’s enough to knock the wind out of him; from below, Usopp’s voice pipes up, shaking and strained, “He’s awake? Thank god,” (and Sanji groans, god damn it—are you kidding me? Plan B?)

When Zoro leans out, instantly drenched himself, he sees that his room is on the second floor—and that Nami is balancing on Sanji’s shoulders (red-faced and no longer capable of human speech) while Sanji stands atop Usopp’s (ashen, trembling, having the worst day of his life). All three are bruised and bandaged to varying degrees, but all three are alive.

Then, before he can say anything, Nami’s climbing in, waving to the hissing pair below through the opened window as she turns, whispers-shouts, “Thanks, guys!” then shuts the window on their griping.

She doesn’t even wait for a response, just yanks the bag off her shoulders and stands there dripping on his hospital room floor, holding out his swords. “I swear to god,” she says, swiping the damp hair out of her face with her free hand, “if you ever do that again, I’ll kill you myself.”

She shakes the bag, then, prompting him to take it. Almost numb, he does.

“I’m not apologizing,” he grunts, voice rough. He blames—all of it.

“Figured you’d say that,” she sighs, then she shakes her head, already crossing the room to dump the duffle on his abandoned bed as he says, “Chopper sent me. There’s a lot you’ve missed, but we need to get you out of here now—”

Chopper?

—and within seconds, she’s tossing clothes in his direction, still talking. “It’s been days. You were delirious, in and out. We knew you would wake up—knew you’d be fine,” she mumbles through gritted teeth (like she’s trying to convince herself, maybe), “but Luffy won’t leave the fucking cove. We were going to get you whether you were coherent or not, but since you are—fuck, you can dress yourself. Plan B.” She blows a breath out through her nose, then, and Zoro realizes she’s bouncing on the balls of her feet, gaze pinging back and forth toward the door even as she keeps digging through the bag. Urgent.

(But his brain snags on one word—Luffy, Luffy, Luffy—he’s alive. He’s alive.)

“Tell me on the way,” he bites out, already pulling the hospital gown over his head right in the middle of the room. He grinds down the part of his brain that processes pain—the switch he flips during fights—even as the motion yanks at his injuries.

Nami doesn’t even blink, and when he pulls on a shirt and glances up again, she sends her personal flask careening toward his head. It’s full. He takes a swig and it’s vile, the worst dregs of their moonshine, but he knows it’ll be a better painkiller than anything he’s been given here.

Thanks to days (days!) without food and an already spinning head, the alcohol hits with a counterintuitive kind of clarity by the time he shoves on his boots, dulling his pain and in the process, the haze around his senses. When he looks up, Nami has changed into a dry set of smudged overalls borrowed from Usopp, her hair tucked up under a cap.

Then, three pebbles hit the window in rapid succession, and Nami stills—looks at him. “That’s the signal—” she zips the duffle and slings it over her shoulder as she hands him a hat of his own. “Let’s go.”

“The fuck is Plan B?” he asks, but Nami just ignores him as she crosses away from the window and toward the entrance.

Then she turns, grins the grin of Shikkearu’s most notorious bookie, and says, “We’re walking right through the front door.”

- - -

The second floor is deserted, Mihawk having long-since disappeared, but the minute they step out into the first floor they come face to face with utterly unadulterated chaos.

Despite Mihawk’s intervention in Zoro’s (probable) execution, there had apparently been guards stationed throughout the building, all of whom have now congregated in the waiting room around a writhing, sobbing Usopp—who is putting on the performance of his life.

He’s bloodied and sprawled on the floor amid upturned chairs and tables, and for a moment Zoro’s heart leaps in his throat—until Usopp yells, “Please, you have to help me! That pack of sixteen rabid raccoons came out of nowhere—” and Nami yanks Zoro by the arm when a group of nurses suddenly bursts from the ER, a gurney speeding between them as they race for Usopp.

Before they can reach him, he moans, lashing out at the crowd of guards, hissing and spitting like a wild animal. Even the toughest among them jerks away, and one of the nurses (who looks suspiciously like Wanda) shouts—

“Sirs, please, you have to stay back—rabies is incurable and extremely contagious—”

And Usopp wails, “Oh my god! I’m too young and beautiful to die—!”

Just as Sanji bursts in from a side door, also looking worse for wear and yelling, “There’s one loose in the maternity ward! For the love of god, somebody help! We can’t find the rest!” and utter mayhem erupts.

With their most identifiable features covered, he and Nami look like two visitors finished for the day, and they scramble out onto the rain-drenched sidewalk as half the waiting room flees into the storm, caught in the confusion.

Sanji’s shitty yellow truck is parked at the edge of the lot, dented and scratched and scorched to hell, with Zoro’s motorcycle in the bed. Even though Zoro’s already winded they make it there in record time. Before he even fully catches up, Nami throws down the back of the truck and jumps in, already hauling Zoro’s bike toward the edge.

“We’ll leave the truck—they’ll need a way out,” she says, and Zoro grunts wordlessly in response.

As he helps her haul it to the ground (ignoring the way it pulls at his definitely broken ribs and the stitches he can feel itching against his clothes) Zoro mumbles, “Do I even want to know what Plan A was?” and Nami smirks.

“Specialized team of doctors transfers your comatose semi-corpse to another hospital,” she says, hopping back down the ground. “There was a stolen ambulance involved. Admittedly, this is easier,” she shrugs—because of course this was the less elaborate con. “We just didn’t know if you’d be able to get out on your own.”

Zoro snorts as he reaches for the handlebars, but she beats him to it—swinging one leg over into the front seat and forcing Zoro to sit behind her. He doesn’t argue, which speaks to how shit he feels.

Instead, he props his feet up while she revs the engine, and within seconds they’re ripping through the rain.

(And if he presses his forehead into her shoulder, a mirror of so many months ago, she doesn’t say anything. And just like she hadn’t then, he doesn’t say, I’m so, so glad you’re alive, either.)

- - -

The engine’s roar is lost in the rage of the storm, wind clawing at their clothes and hair as Nami maneuvers them along the cliffside road, down toward the cove. Riding down the mountain, they can see the entire harbor spread out below them—a straight drop down with an expanse of rocky alcoves and beaches stretching down in the distance. On a clear day, only a few embankments shielded within the trees are truly hidden—the entire coastline spread out on the horizon, beaches and the town itself in full view.

It’s all a gray blur through the sheets of rain bearing down, but even from so far away Zoro can tell something is wrong. There are too many ships out even in this weather—rows and rows of white thrashing in the swells, searchlights like targets on the ocean, illuminating the waves. Overhead, thunder rumbles—but even that isn’t enough to drown out the sound of evacuation sirens from the town below.

As they round the next curve, Nami swerves, jerking the handlebars as she narrowly avoids the branches of a fallen tree, cursing—and Zoro’s stomach lurches. To distract himself, he shouts, “What the fuck is happening?” through gritted teeth, and Nami clicks her tongue.

“We blew up a major industrial sector, that’s what,” she yells back. “And Akainu used it. Luffy’s not a secret anymore—if he ever was—and now he’s mobilized the whole Navy for his own bullshit agenda.”

Zoro curses. “But why are they looking here? Luffy should be out in the—” with a massive roar, a surge of seawater crests over the beach, washing out the road below even as the wave immediately retreats back across the sand—and Nami jerks them to a halt, skidding on the slick concrete. “Shit.”

He feels her take a shaky breath before she screams, “Because of you, asshole! We thought you were dead!” against the rain. “The whole place went up and you weren’t there—Arlong’s dead, Kaido’s missing, and suddenly Akainu shows up combing the waters with fucking—machine guns. I’ve never seen anything like it. What were we supposed to think?” She gestures out toward the water below, then—toward the expanse of ships and weapons. “All that money went missing? Well, there it is.”

“Luffy couldn’t get out even if he wanted to,” Zoro says, and it’s not a question—it’s a horrible realization. With that kind of equipment—and the amount of money spent—there’s no way Luffy would be able to escape with this side of the entire island surrounded.

Nami just shakes her head. “That’s the problem—” she yells. “He won’t leave. We brought him to Chopper because we didn’t know what to do and the minute he woke up he went ballistic. Perona showed up a day later—don’t even ask how she knew we were there—and said someone made a deal with Mihawk for your corpse. Your corpse, Zoro! She didn’t even know you were alive until Mihawk showed up at the hospital!”

It’s like she’s slapped him in the face—rage and defeat roils in his gut. Only one person would have known about the trade, would have bothered to make good on the exchange.

“Kaido’s alive,” he spits, and Nami jerks around to look at him, face ashen and eyes bloodshot as they sit there, drenched to the bone. He doesn’t even feel it.

“No,” she breathes—then she slams her fist on the handlebars, shouting, “Fuck. Fuck!”

Then, before he can say anything else, she turns back around—revs the engine, and leans forward. With a jerk, the motorcycle skids as she kicks off, blasting down toward the flooding. Then, just as they reach the bottom of the hill, she yanks the front wheel—jumping them the last few feet off the straight drop, down into the beach below.

It’s not far, but it’s enough to jar every single broken bone in his body as the bike hits the ground, spinning out in the wet sand until Nami gets them under control. He feels the edge of his vision blur and he hears Nami hiss through her teeth, but she doesn’t stop—and then they’re speeding off across the coast.

“What?” he shouts, and she shakes her head, cursing over the wind.

“We walked right into his trap—I knew it was too easy,” she presses even farther forward. “We got word that someone was coming for you at the hospital, but there was hardly anyone there and they were all our guys. Which means—”

“Shit—”

“—we left them alone.”

- - -

With the roads fucked, they’re forced to cut along the beaches and then straight through the trees theslves—and by the time they finally burst through the forestline, it’s a miracle they haven’t died. Still, when the bike skids to a halt in the sand and the cove spreads out before them, Zoro doesn’t care. Because there—scorched and listing to the side, practically run aground—sits Merry. At the noise, both Robin and Chopper burst on deck, and Zoro’s glad to see them (so, so fucking glad), but he only has eyes for the waves. Because the last time he’d seen Luffy—

And then, suddenly, he’s there, a flash of red in the stormy ocean, and Zoro runs. He doesn’t even stop when he hits the water’s edge, just wades to his knees as Luffy yells, “Zoro! Zoro!” and tackles him into the shallows.

From above, he hears Chopper shout, “Get out of the ocean—you have injuries—” but Zoro doesn’t care. He just grasps at Luffy, who grasps right back—either laughing or crying or both, it’s impossible to tell in the rain. Luffy is covered in healing wounds of his own, stitched and battered, still just as hurt from the fight—but he’s here.

And then Nami stomps up behind them, calling up to the others, “Has anyone been here? Is everything okay?” reminding him of the danger.

Luffy stops, listening as Robin calls, “No—is something amiss?”

And the timing would be comical if it weren’t so horrific—because as soon as the words leave her mouth something crashes in the distance. At first, the sound is just another noise in the storm—then another, then another, until a massive military truck breaks through the trees, crushing everything in its path—engine roaring over the wind. And in the bed, gripping the roll bar with one hand and his sledgehammer in the other, stands Kaido.

He’s burned and bruised, but he doesn’t look beaten—not by a long shot. And as the truck bursts out onto the sand, he laughs.

“Thanks for leading me right to it, redhead! Couldn’t have made it without you,” he booms. Inside the cab, the driver shouts something incomprehensible into the mouthpiece of a shortwave radio, drowned out by Kaido and the raging wind.

They’re all up in an instant, but they’re unprepared. Zoro doesn’t even bother with this swordbelt, just yanks the blades out of their case as Chopper dives against the deck and Nami rushes for the abandoned bike. Robin is the first to move, years of training kicking in as she raises a gun (kept nearby, probably, if he knows her at all) and taking out the driver with almost pinpoint accuracy. The windshield shatters and the car spins out of control—but Kaido just leaps out onto the beach as it overturns, unbothered. Amused.

As he eyes her, glancing back and forth between Luffy and the boat, he grins. “The Demon Child, too! You really do have a collection going—or maybe you just have a thing for killers!”

And Luffy growls, scales already shifting as he lunges through the water. Zoro isn’t far behind, following his path parallel on the beach, rushing forward as Kaido hefts his weapon, confident and terrible. If they can keep him distracted, the others have a chance to escape—and if they can take Kaido out here and now, it will mitigate some of the damage they’ve caused.

As Zoro launches himself from the left, Luffy tears out of the sea from the right and Kaido swings—but they’ve done this once before. Tracking his movements, Zoro ducks, lashing out at Kaido’s legs—toward the wound he knows he’s already left there, a weak point. His blade connects as Luffy uses the momentum of the sledgehammer itself to ram his tail into Kaido’s twisted chest, knocking him backward just as Zoro slices forward through the meat of his thigh.

Kaido stumbles, but doesn’t go down—instead, he just keeps fucking laughing.

Without missing a beat he readjusts his grip on the sledgehammer and reverses course, bringing it back across hard and fast enough to slam into Luffy, still poised to strike again—and the force of the blow sends Luffy skidding back into Zoro, crushing him hard enough send them both sprawling across the beach.

They’re both up in an instant, back in the fray, leaping at Kaido from the left, right, left again—kicking up wet sand and blood barely distinguishable in the rain. In the overturned vehicle, the radio crackles to life, vomiting something indecipherable against the raging downpour—and out of the corner of his eye, Zoro sees Nami yelling at Chopper and Robin from the shore, motioning toward the ocean in the distance—toward the mouth of the cove—

And then, suddenly, something high-pitched and screaming sails through the air, hits the treeline, and erupts. And through the wind and rain, a massive white ship emerges (followed by another, and another, and another), shredding the outcroppings in its path with mortars as its searchlights cut through the darkness.

At its prow, Akainu stands, red and vile, screaming into the wind. “There you are, filth! You’re mine!”

And Luffy roars—turning out to face him—

Leaving his back open.

Kaido takes the opportunity and before Zoro can regain his own footing, he’s hauling the sledgehammer back and swinging—and the giant thing connects, crushing against Luffy’s side with so much force his spine bends at an unnatural angle, half-launching him back into the water. Luffy’s body tumbles, hitting the wet sand with a muted THUD! then rolling down into the surf—disappearing into the roiling waves.

Teeth gritted around Wado, Zoro curses, pushing forward—because he can’t think about it. Can’t lose focus (even though fuck, fuck—not again—) and this time he aims not for Kaido’s vitals, but for his arm. Kaido doesn’t even try to block, too focused on relishing his own victory and screaming out across the water as Akainu shouts back, both enraged—and Zoro’s blade connects, ripping through the tendons holding Kaido’s sledgehammer aloft.

As soon as the hit lands, Kaido snarls at him, but the sledgehammer hits the beach and Zoro is already moving too fast for him to regroup. Instead, Kaido swings with his fist, and a weighty punch crunches against Zoro’s face—smashing bone—but Zoro just keeps pushing forward, driving his swords upward. To avoid the blow, Kaido leaps back, and the movement puts more distance between him and the weapon.

Good.

As long as he can keep him—

Then Kaido’s wrist flicks to his belt, pissed but grinning—and suddenly, there’s a glint of silver in his left hand, and—

He feels the pain but doesn’t see it—because he can’t.

Jack’s hunting knife is white hot, halving his entire world as Kaido lashes out and Zoro feels something warm and wet gush down his face. He thinks he cries out but he can’t be sure, because one minute he’s on his feet, scrambling for a foothold in the rain—and the next he’s sprawled on his back as Kaido looms over him, one meaty, bladed fist raised, poised to smash his face again—

—and something slams into Kaido’s side, a blur of white and seawater and rage.

Zoro hears the creature snarl—and thunder cracks, deafening and heavenly, as the sky opens up.

It’s Luffy but it’s not—every beautiful scale a pristine, terrible white like he’s been skinned to the bone and bleached. The claws of his monstrous form have shifted into knife-like, lethal things—a row of razor-sharp spines extending down each arm and the length of his back. His hair, no longer black but just as white as the rest of him, frames a snarl of massive teeth and eyes the color of Kaido’s blood—and in the murky gray of the storm, he glows, stripes of raw bioluminescence and electricity swirling under his ethereal skin.

There’s a tingling, crackling pressure in the air that has the hair on the back of Zoro’s arms standing on end, and over the smell of rotting fish and sea-salt he’s hit with the stench of burning meat—as Kaido screams.

In the distance, Nami yells his name, and that gets him moving again—but his left arm buckles as he misjudges the distance to the ground because he can’t fucking see anything on his left side—

And Luffy’s tail whips around, slamming him back into the ground, even as the teeth buried in Kaido’s jugular tear, and Zoro’s about to yell at him when suddenly something huge and metal and deadly whizzes past and he jerks his head to see Akainu standing on the prow of his fishing boat, spear gun propped up one shoulder.

Luffy whirls and the motion eviscerates what’s left of Kaido’s neck—and Luffy (is it Luffy? Because god, god—) lets out an incomprehensible, monstrous roar toward the ocean.

Akainu—foaming and spitting—screams back, “I’ll fucking kill you this time—” just as another burst of thunder rips across the sky and something wild and electric fizzes across Zoro’s skin.

Zoro feels like he’s being crushed, like he can’t breathe—and he can’t tell what’s rain and what’s blood anymore. He lets go of the hilts still clenched in his hands, braces both palms on Luffy’s tail, and shoves—and Luffy whips back toward him, then, animal eyes wide. Then the weight is gone and Luffy is there next to him, claws cradling his face.

“Your eye! Zoro, your eye!” Luffy says, and even though it's barely a mess of sounds Zoro can understand him. He pushes Luffy’s hands away, already sitting up, grasping for the hilts of his swords.

“‘S fine, I’m fine,” he shouts back, but even he can hear the slur in his voice. And yet—he’s beyond processing any of it at this point, the pain from the cargo district melding together with this into so much agony that he’s lost track of any of it—he’s come right out the other side into total dissociation.

In the distance, machine-gunfire cracks, spraying the beach as one of the Naval ships fires—and he whips his head around, ignoring the vertigo—just in time to see Nami duck behind the ruined trees, Chopper and Robin at her side, off Merry and safe ashore. They need to do something, but none of them are equipped to handle this kind of long-range fight—and they’re so few. Barely anything compared to the swarm of Naval ships and Kaido’s men flooding through the ocean.

He looks back at the white thing that both is-and-isn’t Luffy and grabs his neck, ignoring the way his skin tingles against the current still running through Luffy’s body, the way the sharp fins at his gills dig into his hands—and then he presses their faces together, a kiss so bloody and desperate it’s as much goodbye as I love you.

(Because he does—he does. More than anything, I love you.)

Then before Luffy can say a word, he shouts, “You have to go back—you have to get into the ocean where you can fight!” and Zoro shoves him away, then, toward the water’s edge. Or tries to, because Luffy is impossible to budge, pressed right up against him and grasping him in the middle of a fucking battlefield.

“What about—”

Zoro pushes him again, then hauls himself to his feet, ignoring the way his muscles barely listen. “I’ll be fine! Someone has to protect the others!” he yells back. “Go where you have the fucking advantage—you need to—”

He feels the blow before he sees the blood, another pelt of bullets hailing down around them as one—two, maybe, he can’t even tell anymore—clips him, and Luffy snarls. Zoro doesn’t falter, though. He’s so far past the point of processing it that he knows his body is only going to go down when it physically stops working—so he just stumbles backwards, gripping at the hilt of his swords with numb hands.

In the dark air, electricity crackles along Luffy’s skin and scales as he turns, facing Akainu across the water—and he roars. Akainu, half like an animal himself, now—so full of rage and fervor—yells wordlessly back, throwing down his gun and stalking across the bow toward some other lethal, mounted thing, shoving men out of his way—practically throwing them to the deck or overboard.

Then from behind him, Chopper screams—Chopper, the youngest, the smallest, the least involved of them all—and Zoro whips around so fast he nearly loses his footing in the sand. It’s not a cry for help, though, it’s a warning—and something launches onto the beach feet to his left, a mortar shell that blasts apart on impact—

The force of the blow knocks Zoro off his feet, sprawling him back into the sand. All sound disappears, replaced by a terrible ringing as his ears fail to process the explosion—utterly destroying his balance—and Luffy dives for him, shaking his head like a dog to clear his own ears, maybe. Not that it will help.

The world is a blur of gray, muffled and near-silent even as Zoro sees another rip of gunfire tear across the beach—and working on autopilot, maybe, he shoves Luffy again—half-begging, half-demanding he get back into the water, needing him there because even if he dies Luffy will be safe. His entire life narrows down to this one moment, like a ghost caught in a death loop—

Luffy, Luffy, Luffy!

Luffy doesn’t listen, because why would he listen? And he grabs Zoro, hauling him back toward the treeline away from the water. Zoro digs his heels in, shoving them both to a halt, but that’s as counterintuitive as anything else in the face of Luffy’s determination. He just shoves harder, so Zoro shoves back—and this time something gives.

In the storm and the rain, Luffy stares down at him—a horror of gore and lightning—and Zoro shouts (voice broken because all he’s done is scream, not because this feels like a valediction), “I swore—I swore I’d follow you out to sea when this was over—so you have to leave me here and fight—Luffy—I’ll be fine! Luffy—”

The harpoon punches through Luffy’s chest from behind—blade erupting through his ribcage inches from Zoro’s own face—and Luffy freezes, sharp-and-wild mouth half open as a choked scream gurgles out instead of words. Lungs and guts shredded—blood erupts from his mouth in a spray of—

And Zoro cannot process what he’s seeing—reaches out—

Then Luffy’s body jerks in a vicious, grinding, mechanical whirl that Zoro can hear even over the rage of the sea, of the storm, as Akainu retracts the chain on the whaling harpoon’s other end—dragging Luffy’s body. A mass of white and red, his bulk ragdolls across the sand, the harpoon’s curved edges digging into his chest to keep him on the end—like a fish on a hook—a dead fish on a hook—

Luffy snarls, wet and ragged, clawing at the sand, but there’s nothing to grab—nothing, even as Zoro throws himself out for him, but the winch is too fast, too fast—like he’s being sucked into the ocean itself—

And then he’s gone, swallowed by the waves.

Zoro’s whole world seems to freeze in a moment, silent and deadly and terrible, and Akainu laughs.

Then, unable to do anything else, Zoro screams out into the wind—screams for Luffy over and over again until his throat is raw—and the storm swallows it up like he isn’t even there—a speck of nothing on the beach, watching helplessly as the rain and the sea erases Luffy’s blood like he’d never existed.

Zoro pounds at the sand, the wet clumps of it sticky and carving through his wounds like a thousand knives of seawater and tears, and he can barely see Akainu’s boat through the downpour, the distance, the waves, his own blood—but he tries—because the winch is still grinding even as it drags Luffy’s submerged body through the sea. The other end of the chain has to surface, it has to, and then Zoro will be able to see—to do something, because it all happened so fast, too fast, and Luffy can’t be—

The winch stops.

In increments that feel both instant and eternal, the ocean becomes a sheet of glass, every molecule of oxygen sucked from the atmosphere, rain locked in place before his eyes—and the sea, the air, the very sky itself stills—and suddenly, there’s a great groaning from the earth, the kind of sound that starts low in his feet and builds, builds, builds—

(Like drums under the sea, the rhythm of the ocean’s very currents brought to life—)

And then, overhead, the clouds begin to move, twisting, swirling—a hole in the sky, shot through like a bullet as the sun pierces through the darkness, a single cylinder of light so bright it’s blinding—

(And he remembers, then, Nami’s warning. The eye of the hurricane, the deadly calm of it, the danger of it—)

And with a low, terrible creak, Akainu’s boat tilts—

(And the rumble reaches his chest, a pounding, pounding, pounding—)

—and the sea splits.

(And oh, he thinks. Oh, the Sun God in the Trench.)

- - -

It is indescribable.

The sound, the rushing wreck of a thousand tons of water displaced, of a thousand trees falling, of a thousand buildings cracked to their very foundations. The way the air moves, a vacuum of wind thundering across the world around him, drawn to the center, to the—

Great white hands peeling back the ocean’s layers, reaching up from the center of the earth, tearing apart the land itself. Making way for something as the ocean swirls, a whirlpool in the blink of an eye as it breaks the very laws of nature and the—

Boats sitting, fractured pieces like shards of broken shells in a pile of sand—lifted in an opposite palm as the sea itself drains through its fingers, its claws. The men are smears, now, of red and black and nothing, no longer Kaido’s or Akainu’s but dead. And Akainu himself is nowhere, not even—

In the hole in the sky where lighting rips through the air from nowhere, from the very sun itself, and it’s so bright against the chaos it burns his eye—the eye he has left—and he wonders for a moment if he’s gone blind—

As the massive hand closes around the ship, crushing metal and machinery like paper (and sailors like ants), something else shifts below, something with eyes like blood and endless rows of teeth the size of men, with skin like whalebone and hair the very reflection of sun off seafoam—

—and Nika returns.

Epilogue: The Surface; 0

(two years later)

No one tries to stop him as he crosses the gravel parking lot, a lazy swing in his step and one arm casually draped across the sword hilts at his waist. It’s broad daylight, just past mid-afternoon under clear May skies, and the marina should be empty—devoid of day-trippers enjoying the half-decent early summer weather—but not deserted. Not like this.

They hadn’t known, then—hadn’t known he would be here today.

A muffled, strangled gasp breaks the eerie silence, and as Zoro turns he makes eye contact with one of the dockhands, a spindly kid utterly wide-eyed and pale at the sight of him. For a moment, Zoro just stares him down—before the boy visibly quivers and scurries back to the harbor office, glancing back every third step.

Zoro just rolls his eye and continues on his way, unhurried. They’ll figure he’s arrived out soon enough.

He stops at the base of the shrine, a handmade, twisting thing made from the upturned roots of a fallen tree, dragged out from the cove when they’d finally realized he wasn’t coming back. It’s Usopp’s best work, Zoro thinks—an entire expanse of stars strung from the root-branches, its body carved and painted with curving waves, swirling fish, and an intricate sun of gold in the center. Not a monument to some long-dead, forgotten thing, but a memorial for a friend.

In the silence, Zoro digs in the pocket of his jacket until he finds what he’s looking for—a roll of too-sweet taffy wrapped in wax paper, etched with characters from his home island. He flicks it into the bowl at the shrine’s base and then, after a moment of deliberation, smacks his palms together. He doesn’t close his eyes, though—not like a pilgrim or a penitent. Instead, his gaze wanders out across the sea.

“Sorry for the shitty offering,” he grunts, “but Nami told me to stop leaving beef jerky ‘cause of the smell.”

As always, the ocean doesn’t respond.

Not as always, there’s the loud CRASH! of a door slamming behind him, and then Nami’s voice carries across the lot. “You asshole!” she yells, furious, “You said you were coming back next week!”

He shoves his hands back in his pocket and sighs, turning on his heel—back toward the boathouse, where Nami is standing half-in, half-out, glaring and chest heaving like she’s just sprinted to the door. And maybe she has—he doesn’t fucking know. Her long hair (down to her waist now) is pulled back into a ponytail and she has her drafting glasses pushed all the way up onto her head, like she’d come directly from her office.

Behind her, Koby appears, red-faced and stuttering. He has his hands raised in placation, mumbling, “Ma’am, please, you’re scaring the—” even though Zoro knows he knows it’s useless. Not when she’s this pissed.

Predictably, Nami just plows right over Koby, jabbing her finger at Zoro from across the lot. “Fuck you! You’re screwing up my plans!” She throws her hands up as she shouts a wordless, “Augh!” then she turns back to Koby (who only flinches a little). “Go call—fuck!—start with Usopp, I guess!”

Given an order, Koby straightens a little as he declares, “Y-yes, Boss!” with a salute, before he disappears back into the building. In his wake, Nami pinches the bridge of her nose and sighs.

Zoro just raises his eyebrows at her. “I can go back,” he says, and Nami flips him the middle finger.

“Absolutely not!” she yells. “Welcome home!” Then she slams the boathouse door hard enough to rattle the sign above—East Blue Marina, written bold and bright, still new. (It doesn’t really move, though. Usopp’s craftsmanship would never be so shabby.) Through the building’s open windows, he hears her holler, “Helmeppo! I swear to fucking god—get off your ass and get everyone out! We’re closing early!” and Zoro laughs.

- - -

Sanji is the first to arrive, which is only fine because he brings food and Zoro hasn’t eaten since his arrival on the island—not because he missed the chef’s terrible insults. Sanji seems to feel the same; he’d only shown up first because Nami had been the one to call, after all.

After they finish unloading the coolers, Pudding waves from the Baratie’s delivery van and calls, “Later, freak! Good to see you!” with a snicker before she peels out of the parking lot. Zoro briefly wonders if she’s doing it intentionally these days—but the thought only lasts as long as it takes for Sanji to light a cigarette, because as soon as he has both hands free he hauls what he can and kicks Zoro to get the rest.

(In the pile, there’s a crate from Perona—six bottles of rum, unopened.)

Usopp comes next, overalls still wax-stained from work, and he doesn’t even hesitate before clapping Zoro on the back with one broad hand the moment he steps onto Merry’s deck. The force of it makes Zoro grin, and he throws his arm around Usopp’s shoulders in return—nearly making him drop the wooden box he’s carrying.

“Hey! Watch it! This is fragile!” Usopp gripes as he elbows him in the side, but he isn’t angry—he just laughs right back, before disappearing into the wheelhouse.

Robin and Chopper show up together, the latter sprinting down the dock ahead of her only to stop, walk, and very cooly board once he sees Zoro sprawled on one of the beach chairs—watching, sipping shitty beer because Sanji has refused to let him open the decent liquor until everyone arrives. The exaggerated maturity only lasts a moment, though, because Chopper’s never been very good at hiding his excitement (and even though he’s older now he’s still so young), and as Zoro sits straight he blurts, “How was it? Did you have fun? Did you bring anything interesting back?” rapid-fire, bouncing on his toes.

Robin chuckles, ruffling his hair as she climbs up behind him, ignoring the way he whines in return—then she turns her soft smile on Zoro and says, “It’s quite lovely to see you. It’s been rather quiet without you here these past few months.”

Zoro snorts in return. “Don’t librarians like that kind of thing?” he says, rolling his eye.

Robin just hums, content, as she gently pushes Chopper forward to find Usopp. “Perhaps,” she replies. “But the change of pace is always nice. Old habits die hard, I suppose.”

Zoro tips his beer in mock salute, and when Robin reemerges from the galley a few minutes later, she has a drink of her own.

Nami is the last to arrive, caught up in some last-minute financial meeting he barely understands the explanation for—and the moment she tosses her duffle below deck she shouts, “Let’s go, people!” before stepping behind the helm. Within minutes, there’s a cocktail in her hand and they’re motoring out of the harbor, Merry’s new engine purring through the ocean waves like a dream—utterly incongruous to her patched-up and well-loved exterior.

- - -

The cove isn’t so much a cove anymore—just a torn-up strip of land and beach and jagged rocks, the rough expanse broken every now and then by some pile of offerings or a makeshift shrine or simply an interesting, colorful pile of shells. More people come here now—whether to pay their respects or just see the place where it happened. The resurgence of the Sun God, the annihilation of a corrupt government, the eradication of half the archipelago’s crime syndicate, the epicenter of the largest tsunami in centuries—big, earth-shattering things that sometimes still hurt to think about.

It’s not a secret place, no longer a safehouse of any kind.

Even so, it’s still theirs.

By the time they anchor, the sun is already setting—so under the fading twilight, the party begins. As Sanji grills right on deck, Nami cracks open Perona’s welcome-home gift and hands him a full bottle (with a glass too, of course—they’re not animals), then she settles in the (stolen) beach chair next to him and clinks her own drink against his.

Across the deck Usopp and Chopper close the wheelhouse and begin setting up Usopp’s latest invention, with Robin on standby to tack up a white linen sheet over the doorway. Every now and then, Sanji hands her something to try—much to Usopp and Chopper’s continued annoyance, because they want a taste too, damn it!

Zoro and Nami watch as the four of them bicker and laugh, and Zoro can barely imagine that other life—when Merry was just a nameless, empty fishing boat and they were two lonely criminals staring up at the night sky. They’re still criminals, of course—they all are, because life would be too boring if they played by the rules; they’re just happier.

With a sigh, Nami nudges him with her bare foot, and he raises one eyebrow at her as he sips his drink.

“How was it?” she asks, and Zoro shrugs.

“Fine, I guess,” he grunts back. “No new leads, but I’m not exactly surprised. Found a book for Robin to translate, though—with some maps in the back. They’ve got that hiccup-cunt-dracula thing you were talking about, so maybe that’ll help.”

Nami nearly chokes and kicks him for real, then, as she tries not to drown in a drop of liquor. “You’re doing that on purpose—hic sunt dracones,” she snickers, “here there be dragons,” and Zoro drinks again to hide his smirk. She just rolls her eyes at him in return. “Once she’s done with it I’ll take a look. Maybe it’s someplace we haven’t looked yet.”

“We’ll see,” he replies. “Who knew it would be so hard to find a big hole in the ground.”

Nami tilts her head, then, and sighs. “You’re sure he’s there?” she asks, like they haven’t gone through this loop before—discussing endless possibilities. Looking and looking again, island after island after island.

And like every other time they’ve had this conversation over the past two years, he just snorts. “No fucking clue—still no sign of the others, either,” he says, then he drinks again. She waits. He shoots her a look. “Not gonna stop, though.”

That seems to satisfy her and she nods. Tilts her glass to him again. Dangles her foot over the side of the boat so her bare toes skim the ocean’s surface below. (He’s been doing the same all afternoon.)

Then Usopp crows, “Behold!” from across the deck, capturing their attention with a flourish as he waves his arms. Then he flicks a switch on the box—all wires and tubes and reels—and the blank white canvas comes to life in a flicker of light.

Immediately, Chopper yelps in delight, and Sanji mumbles, “Holy shit,” under his breath. Even Zoro has to admit he’s impressed.

Utterly beaming, Usopp gestures toward the moving pictures now displayed over the covered wheelhouse. “I’m calling this a portable projector!” he announces—then he jabs his finger at Zoro, who just placidly swirls his rum. Usopp scowls. “Oh, come on—look a little more excited!”

“I’m in awe of your genius, oh magnificent mechanical engineer,” Zoro drawls back, and at his side Nami snickers again.

“I bet if you sold that, you could make a fortune,” she adds, and without even looking Zoro holds out his hand. She slaps it—a high-five—and Robin snorts into her wine.

Chopper ignores them all, starry-eyed as he stares at the miracle of technology. “Well I think it’s amazing!” he says, and Usopp puffs right back up, not one to stay derailed for long.

“Of course it is,” he declares. “I made it. Now—tonight’s feature film will be The Mark of Zorro—”

“Oh, you definitely stole the tapes for that—”

“Could you guys just be quiet for two seconds? Please?”

Sanji scoffs around his cigarette, already passing around plates of food. “Why? It’s a silent film—”

“Fine!” Usopp throws his hands up. “No movie!” and Chopper wails in despair.

Trying (and failing) to hide her own laughter, Robin says, “We’re sorry, Mr. Longnose—everyone will behave—”

“I am literally begging you to stop calling me that—”

(They end up watching it twice, both because it is cool and because, predictably, they can’t get through a single showing without a thousand little distractions. By the time Robin carries a dozing Chopper to bed below deck, the rest of them are too drunk to pay attention, anyway. It’s the best evening Zoro’s had in weeks.)

- - -

It’s hours later, long after dark, when Zoro breaks the glass.

The rest of them have long-since retreated to their fold-out cots or built-in bunks (because there are real bunks, now; because this is home) full of food and booze and laughter. Still, he can’t sleep—that’s one thing that hasn’t changed.

He creeps on deck in the darkness that’s not really darkness under the bright full moon, the final dregs of a rum bottle in one hand and an apple in the other. He doesn’t see the wires from Usopp’s machine still spread across the wood until it’s too late and he’s already halfway to tripping—and for some reason his brain chooses to drop the bottle, not the food, as he lunges to save the projector before it smashes to the ground.

Frozen and blinking—still vaguely drunk—he stands there, staring at the mess and wondering if the others will come running only to see how utterly stupid he looks. Which he cannot have. Obviously.

Still operating at maximum efficiency, he rights the projector stand as best he can then crouches to pick up the shards of broken bottle—at which point he curses (distracted, because he’s still technically holding the apple, and he really does need two hands for this) and slices open his palm like an idiot. With a startled hiss, he drops the apple—then watches helplessly as it rolls across the deck, right over the edge.

No booze, and now no food.

Briefly, he considers just turning back around and going to bed.

Instead, he sighs—long and annoyed—and resumes gathering up the glass. And when he’s done, he walks right over to the railing and dumps that into the ocean, too—an absolutely flawless cover-up.

For a moment, he just stands there, staring out into the open ocean as he puts pressure on his bleeding hand and watches the way the moon bounces off the water. He can see all the way out to the horizon now that the cove is barely more than a barren inlet, and from here—on Merry’s little deck at the edge of their little island—the sea seems vast and impenetrable. An impossible thing to search. And yet—tomorrow (or today, really) he will wake up with the others and they will look anyway. Because how could they not?

The hole in his chest is still there—smaller, now that there are four other hearts to help fill the empty space, but it’s impossible not to notice the ache after knowing what it’s like to have the missing piece, even just for a little while. It hurts. But it would hurt worse, he thinks, if he stopped searching—and if he didn’t have anyone else to search with in the first place. He’s lonely, but he’s not alone—and that’s something. He can live with that if he has to. But. Still.

A cloud drifts in front of the moon, shrouding the deck (and the ocean too) and he sighs, then turns. It’s a sign from the universe, he thinks, to stop moping and go the fuck to sleep. This time he’s careful to avoid the wires now that he knows they’re there, but he still stumbles anyway, startled by a splash in the quiet distance. When his cut palm presses against the side of the wheelhouse as he flails for balance, he curses, because sure—his luck can’t get any worse, anyway.

Then in the darkness behind him, someone giggles, warm and giddy—and says, “You really do get hurt a lot. Did you know that?”

And it’s everything.