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Chapter Text

Three years had passed since Luffy's lifelong dream to be King of the Pirates had been achieved. Three years since his discovery of the One Piece had set off a chain reaction, toppling the World Government from the bottom up. Three years since that shockwave had shaken the Marines to the core and finally started its reformation. Those series of events three years ago resonated across the world...but for Zoro, it was just another Tuesday. And on this Tuesday evening, he had just woken up from one of his sporadic naps…in his bed? No, no, it couldn’t be, he rarely ever actually slept there nowadays and even when he did, it never felt this uncomfortable and stiff. Opening his good eye, he could not see much around him, the room being darker than night. Then the smell hit him. The scent of dank still water, of the rot of dead rodents, and of other desiccated and forgotten things left in a cold and unfeeling area. Pushing his body up, he felt around him, the bed he was on simply being a slab of suspend metal and the walls being suspiciously moist stone.

He was in a cell.

Fuck, how the hell had he been captured. Were the rest of the crew also captured? A quick pat down told him that not only had his swords been confiscated but…he had even been stripped down to his fundoshi! He squeezed his thighs together, instinctively, feeling a cold breeze shooting up somewhere it did not belong. Think, man, think, he thought to himself. WHAT happened for him to end up like this? Zoro wracked his brain, putting together what pieces he could remember. He was…he was on the Sunny, doing the night watch with the kitchen gremlin. To avoid any fighting, they had taken to being on the opposite ends of the ship at all times. It was deep into the night, meaning they were the only souls awake under the cloudy sky and relatively calm sea. And then…and then…

Zoro groaned to himself when he could not remember anything after that. He had to have been drugged and brought here if that was the case, but by whom?

He perked his ears when he heard muffled noises from above and away from him. He looked towards it, the dungeon still dark, but now he could make out the faintest sliver of light coming from under a doorway, most likely at the top of a staircase. As if on cue, the clicks of several heavy locks echoed and the metal door squeaked open, a masked guard reaching in to flick a light switch on the wall. The room lit up, Zoro having to squint his eye as it adjusted to the blinding and sterile brightness.

His remaining eye immediately widened when he caught sight of the trio coming down to his cell: the hulking Judge Vinsmoke, his eyes locked on Zoro with a look of absolute contempt, Caesar Clown, floating down the stairs, taking absolute glee in the situation one of his old enemies was in, and trailing behind them was...no...no, it could NOT be her. Zoro looked away, not wanting to dwell on the woman behind the men who obviously did not want to be there.

Judge and Caesar stood in front of the cell, leering down at the now swordless swordsman. Zoro had to rotate his head up 45 degrees just to be at eye level with them. They probably wanted him to get up, to slam himself to the bars in an attempt to struggle against the situation and demand answers from them. He would not let them have that satisfaction. He simply scowled and sat up with his legs crossed and arms crossed over his chest. A few beats of silence and dagger filled glares went by until the tall blond spoke.

“Well, she could have chosen a worse person to sire with.”

The horned man scoffed.

“Could have? He’s a part of that meddling crew that made up the worst month of my life! It’s almost ironic that she would copulate with,” he gestured to Zoro, “this mangy thing.”

Judge snorted, eyeing up the green haired man’s form. Zoro could feel something bubbling under his gaze, like an absolute hatred for him. 

“I am not saying he’s an EXEMPLARY specimen, per se, but at least it was not some dime a dozen gutter rat.”

“Hmm, true…”

"So then...Roronoa Zoro, is it?" Judge sneered. Zoro simply nodded in return. "You have no idea how much trouble I had to go through just to find your identity. Finding your location was the easy part, though. It is not as if there is a person in the North Blue who does not know all about the Straw Hat pirates."

"Mm, yeah," Zoro hummed. 

"And do you even know why you’re here in the first place?”

“How about you explain that to me since you’re the one who drugged and locked me up in the first place,” the green haired man hissed, “and I can understand you taking the swords, but why the hell did you strip me down to my underwear?”

Judge pinched his temples, looking already fed up from the pushback. Caesar stuck his tongue out at the swordsman and Zoro made a mental note to beat him the hardest when he got out.

“I should have expected someone of your standing to not make note of who or where you are sticking yourself into. You’re here because your seed had infected my bloodline that i have spent years cultivating and working on.”

The tall blond’s teeth were grinding now, the words being forced as he was growing angrier and perturbed by the second. Zoro could spot the woman, who had been doing her best to keep out of his eyesight by huddling behind Judge, quake a little from the man’s comment.

“But I shouldn’t just shoulder the entire blame on you. We would not even be here if my daughter knew how to keep her legs shut.”

Judge and Caesar stepped back, letting the accused woman be front and center for Zoro.

It was Reiju, or rather, “Rei”, which is what she called herself when she had hooked up with the swordsman. Without any makeup or glasses, Zoro could finally see her for who she really was, with her curled eyebrows and matching 6’s on the front of her thighs. When he saw her coming down the stairs, his mind connected the dots and knew immediately how he had been duped, but he did not want to believe it. There was no way he had impregnated Vinsmoke Reiju, princess of the Germa Kingdom, Poison Pink of Germa 66, and most importantly, Sanji’s beloved sister. 

Yet here she was, a bump protruding from the stomach area of her dress.

The older woman herself was surprised from suddenly being revealed for a second before grim resignation kicked in. The pair stared at each other for a while, Zoro’s mouth slightly agape and singular eye widened as much as possible, and Reiju quietly picking at the bandages around her right hand.

“While the…result of this tryst may still prove useful, with some work needing to be done about it, I am still not allowing either of you off the hook for this. Reiju is going to be under much stricter surveillance from now on, but you, sir, have two options: we can either make this situation somewhat better by you joining Germa 66 and serving under me.”

“Or?” Zoro pressed, clearly uninterested with this initial offer. Judge clenched his fists.

“OR, you work under me, but you will have no rights, no titles, nothing. You will essentially be the lowest ranking work horse here.”

Zoro clucked his tongue, Reiju doing her best to try to stay out of his sight.

“So what’s the point in all of this? Seems like I lose either way, so why the choice?”

“Because,” Judge hissed, “you need to serve as an example.”

“Of what?” Zoro growled. The large blond shot forward, hands clasping at the bars of the cell as he got as close as he could to Zoro.

“Of lowlifes like you who think they can just spread their inferior genetics into my daughter and move on with their lives!”

The green blond could see that the elder Vinsmoke’s grip on the metal was so tight and powerful, they began to bend under his fingers.

“Not ONCE has Reiju EVER disobeyed me so flagrantly in her life, leaving Germa at night, fornicating with the likes of you, and hiding the product of that for MONTHS,” he pointed an accusatory finger at the nearly nude swordsman, “YOU changed her. And I cannot have people running around thinking they can wrap my creations around their finger.”

“Bullshit!” Zoro snapped back, “She was as willing-“

“SHUT,” Judge commanded in a booming voice that silenced the room, Reiju flinching behind him, and even Caesar looking uncomfortable at this side of the man, “Now, make your choice: are we going to do this calmly and peacefully, or is it going to be the hard way?”

Zoro gave him a steadfast look, scrunching his brow.

“My only loyalty is to Monkey D. Luffy of the Strawhats and no one else.”

Steam seem to spout from Judge’s nostrils as he snorted.

“Fine…fine then…your work will await you tomorrow at dawn. I will see which of the household servants need someone to do hard, physical labor for them that they would prefer not to do themselves.”

Zoro flashed a malicious sneer. Judge thought he could keep him chained up here? Maybe his age was finally getting to him. Even without his swords, he was not the greatest swordsman in the world for nothing. Zoro could work his way through swathes of troops with even a butter knife.

“Shirorororo~” Caesar simpered as he saw the gears turn in Zoro’s head. The green blond turned his head to the horned scientist.

“What’s so funny?”

“Oh, nothing,” he twittered, “it’s just…if you think you can easily escape or try to call for help, I’ve already covered that base. Look at your wrists and ankles.”

Perplexed, Zoro looked down at the aforementioned areas and found that they now sported a set of tattoos, thick black rings that wrapped around the body parts.

“What the-“

“It’s one of my newest inventions,” Caesar licked his lips, “a tattoo with ink made of a special magnetic material that can be turned on and off at the push of a button, forming ankle and hand cuffs that can’t be removed. For example…”

He reached into his coat and brought out a small remote, showing it off to Zoro before pressing the red button in the middle of it. Without a moment of delay, the tattoos gave off an overwhelming force that attracted one another, slamming his wrists and ankles together. The green haired swordsman struggled to pull his limbs away from each other, but no matter how hard he pulled, he could not get them apart.

Caesar sniggered as Zoro fell from his bed before he pressed the button again, allowing the swordsman to rip his wrists and ankles away from each other.

“So if you ever try to get off the snails, we can stop you dead in your tracks. Try to hop off of one and onto, say, a passing ship? I can leave you paralyzed as you fall into the water.”

Caesar cackled as he put the remote away. Fuck, they must have had him on some strong stuff if he did not even feel the tattooing process.

“The line ends here, Roronoa Zoro,” Judge interjected, turning away, “this is your new home now. Better get used to it.”

Zoro wanted to scream. He wanted to slam himself against the bars, telling Judge that he WAS going to find a way out, no matter how long it would take…but when he thought about being trapped here, he thought about the hole it left in his crew.

“Hold on,” he put a hand up, “My crew…where are they?”

The king of Germa looked back with a side.

“Don’t worry. I’ve kept my word with Sanji on leaving him alone, which includes your precious crew. Left them alive, even…though just barely.”

A vein began to protrude from Zoro’s temple, enraged at the thought of this man laying a single finger on his loved ones.

“Bastard…” he murmured.

“Anyways,” Judge began up the stairs, his daughter and partner following behind, “it’s late now. At least you finally know your fate. See you tomorrow…” he left off with a dark tone. Reiju never said a word the whole time, her lips tightly pursed, but when she was at the doorway at the top of the stairs, she turned slightly to look back at Zoro, her eyes telling him everything: “I’m so, so sorry.”.

Still, she disappeared through the doorway, Caesar being the last to leave. The man was obviously relishing in Zoro’s situation, leaving him with the statement of “Sweet Dreams” before turning off the lights and shutting the door, one hand in his lab coat to press the remote.

Bringing Zoro here was not just to torture him, it was to torture her too.

Her father knew that, after putting up so much resistance to not divulge the father of her child to him for so long, that she needed to learn what happens when she tried to protect others from his warpath. What he undoubtedly had in mind for the swordsman was hard labor, essentially enslaving him, in order to break his spirit. Her father would have even made him go naked if not for his precious lab partner suggesting that it might be best, for his own eyes, if he had at least one piece of clothing on.

After being dismissed to her room after the ordeal, Reiju felt sick again for the first time in two months. This was not supposed to happen, NONE of this was supposed to happen. She just wanted to get a distant glimpse of her brother, just one more time and then she would go back to her confinement…but then there was that stupid, sexy swordsman…

Despite being surrounded by men, Reiju never had much interest in them until she saw the green blond in person for the first time. She had to hold herself back as not to blow her disguise and stand out in the crowd at the banquet, but seeing him sip that sake made her heart beat like a timpani and, well, her nether regions moisten. A lot. Because of that, she simply had to get a taste of him, even if only for one night.

It was too bad neither of them considered using protection.

She did her best to cover up the pregnancy in the early months, carefully curating her clothes to hide any hint of a bump, swallowing down her horrendous nausea, and putting a tighter lock on her emotions, all while she tried to formulate SOMETHING to do about the situation before she started to show more prominently. Unfortunately, it all came to ahead when she and her brothers had to do their yearly physicals and the secret was out.

Her father never hurt her physically, at least not intentionally or outside of training. But on that day, Reiju felt that if not for the child in her, he DEFINITELY would have left her as a crumbled and bloody pile on the floor.

After that, she was confined to the Germa Kingdom more than before, forbidden to leave it under any circumstances until after the child was born. Her brothers had turned on her seemingly overnight, never laying a finger on her like they did Sanji, but her enhanced hearing led her to listening in on all the sneering and comments they made about her getting knocked up by a nobody normal person. To top it all off, she was under observation not just by obstetrician and gynecologist, but a flurry of other scientists, including the creepy horned one, due to them wanting to see how her enhanced genetics would effect this child and possibly be passed down to them. She was a lab rat in its pen, a sample slide under a microscope, she was…just another test subject.

But she had gotten used to that role, gotten used to her body not being under her own control, and she could take it like she always had. The one light she could always hold onto was that it was JUST here being subjected to this and no one, her brother, Zoro, or any other outsider, would be pulled into the inner workings of the kingdom.

And her father had dashed those hopes in one fell swoop. 

Shutting her bedroom door behind her, Reiju laid down on her bed, looking up at the ceiling that was lightly brushed with moonlight. Her hand lay on the crest of her stomach, lightly tapping her fingers on it. She just…could not stand to see the man there. After the way he had wonderfully treated her that night they were together and the fact her brother was close to him, the idea of him being treated like a mule from now on because of her was not something she would stand for. But it was not as if she could just outright rebel. Judge had covered his bases and forbade her from talking to the swordsman, which was the only way she could stay silent for that display in the dungeon. She would find a way around it somehow, but she had to consider if Zoro would even want to speak to her now. Reiju did not blame him, but it would put a wrench in any plans to help in his escape.

The pink blonde’s breath got caught for a moment when she felt a flutter of movement in her stomach. Ah, yes. She was so preoccupied that she had nearly forgotten that now was the time of day the baby would get energetic. It was such a strange and alien feeling when they started moving a month ago, but now, she found it almost grounding. Her lips slightly tugging, she gave her stomach a rub.

“I’m guessing your finally awake.” She said to the child. There was no verbal response, of course, but they moved again when hearing their mother’s voice. Reiju noted how whenever she talked to her child, they got excited and would kick, stretch and roll around. 

“Well, that was your father back there,” she continued, “I wish you got to see him under better circumstances. Though, I guess you will truly meet each other when I finally push you out into the world.”

It was a bitter thought, one that used to be bittersweet. The idea of seeing her child once they were born. Before, she thought about how she would go about things after birth, seeing the fruits of her literal labor, bringing them somewhere else than Germa to live their life, and having them not live the life she had lived. With that now down the drain, she had to contend with the fact that while she would at least have the best possible medical care for that event, there would be no warmth, no prospects of a normal future, hell, maybe even the chance to just hold her child would be out the window too. That was less than four months away now and the woman shooed those thoughts away as her baby did what felt like a flip.

Shivering a bit from the nippy air, Reiju got under the covers, still holding her stomach, looking forward to anymore movement. She would at least enjoy this period while it lasted.

“I’m…sorry in advance for the way this turned out,” she commented, “I don’t even have a name for you yet and it has been five months in. It is most likely that father will force on onto you, though. Knowing him, probably something like ‘Goji’ or ‘Goju’.”. She dryly chuckled to herself at that one, the child kicking when hearing her chest rumble.

“But, hey, even if you are stuck on here…I will always be here for you.”

She felt a little uncertain with that statement, the feeling compounding on itself when there was no movement corresponding to her speaking. Her mind…was still wrong. She was not like her mother, who at the very least had enough free will to oppose her father enough to produce the sole ray of sunshine that is Sanji. Meanwhile, his word was law for her. Disobedience, at least anything as defiant as taking a toxin to counteract a surgery, was just something Reiju was programmed against. If he wanted to do something to her child, she…she would just have to take. She turned to lay on her side, eyes fixated on nothing in particular.

Tomorrow…tomorrow, she would do SOMETHING, even if it was wrong. She had grown too far attached to this child just to let them become another one of her or her brothers (while not religious in the slightest, the revelation had made her hope and pray they were not a boy). They never asked for this, Zoro never asked for this, so Reiju would shoulder the responsibility.

Putting a pillow under her stomach, her fingertips brushed against her abdomen in a way that slightly pushed against it. To her surprise, a tiny fist jabbed back at her fingers. That simple act made her heart flutter in a way she could neither describe or comprehend. With a smile tugging her lips, she spoke more time to the growing child.

“At least you are happy and healthy right now. I hope we can keep that going.”

With a makeshift respirator over his face, making each of his puffing breaths muted, Chopper was dashing back and forth between patients in the infirmary, checking vitals, observing their status and keeping Luffy and Robin breathing, getting fresh air into their lungs and ridding them more and more of the crystallized seastone powder out of their lungs. The ship’s captain started heaving, gagging as if to vomit, and the young reindeer caught it just in time to catch the now watery expulsion into a bucket. Sanji could no longer watch much more, limping through the hallway to the upper deck, where Frank was repairing the front mast, the splintered wood now bending at a 90 degree angle. The cook turned his attention to their navigator, all bandaged up from the previous evening’s events, was giving commands to Jinbei on where to steer to get to the nearest populated island as soon as possible.

He took a huff of his cigarette, so much so, that he almost sucked the whole thing down in one breath. Sanji let the tobacco pool in his lungs for a minute, soothing his nerves to an extent before slowly letting it out.

Sanji’s father was a lot of things, almost none of them good, but he was honest to his word about never bothering him again. The seas had been peaceful from his presence for the blond until last night. Sure, the soldiers had done their best to just drop in from whatever devices they had to ride the clouds and snatch Zoro up, but it quickly got out of hand when the fighting awoke everyone else. In a very efficient fashion, they made sure everyone who provided resistance was put out of commission, but not killed. Though, Luffy and Robin, who had taken the brunt of what seemed to be a seastone infused gas, were cutting it close to the edge. He’d heard that Caesar Clown had joined forces with Germa 66 a few years ago, but the cruelty in such a weapon like that had his fingerprints all over it. 

He could still see the memories clearly, like it was last night all over again. Zoro, with tranquilizer darts peppering his body, leaving him in a nearly comatose state, being hoisted up by a wire, as the soldiers began to ascend up. The blond, being the only one left standing at this point, albeit bloodied and bruised, shot forward to try and cut the winch with a flaming kick. His effort was halted when a Germa soldier flew in to intercept him, jutting a heel forward and directly into the side of Sanji’s knee, dislocating it. He cried out in pain, falling to the ground, where the soldier positioned himself in front of him. This one did not look like the others, being a Model MB, glasses and all, but instead of being clean shaven, he sported a beard growing past his neck and beneath his cowl, Sanji could see the protrusion of a hairbun under it. The soldier looked down on Sanji, not of pity or pride for taking him down in one shot, but of a melancholy that made him look past the blond.

“I’m sorry, Sanji,” he said with a smooth and monotone voice, “I don’t want this as much as you do.”

“Who the hell are-“

He put his hand up to stop his sentence.

“That doesn’t matter now. I can’t say if you’ll see your friend again, but just know…Reiju never wanted this either, so don’t blame her…please.”

With that last word, the man tugged on the winch attached to him uniform, Sanji gobsmacked as he was pulled up and, ultimately, Zoro was spirited away.

Even now, all Sanji could think about was whatever that strange soldier had breadcrumbed to him. Zoro and Reiju…what was the connection? The swordsman was not there during the wedding fiasco at Big Mom’s and Sanji had tried to mitigate giving many details about his family to his remaining friends who were not there at the time. So what was it?

The blond took another drag, shorter this time due to most of the cigarette being burned up from the previous drag.

Well, whatever the case, once they pulled themselves back together, Sanji knew that their next objective would be to rescue Zoro, no matter the cost.

Hopefully, they would get there in time before the horrors of Germa 66 were fully enacted upon him…

Chapter Text

The whole night, Zoro could not think about anything else but his crew. Perhaps he was a terrible person for focusing solely on that when he just had something equally as important revealed to him, but the swordsman could not help himself. He trusted when Judge said they were not dead...but there were other, worse things than death, and with that psycho clown man with him, the two could cook up horrors beyond most people's imaginations. Zoro had to trust his crew in being able to hold their own (they HAD taken on the entire government and Imu themselves, after all), but some part of him could not help but think of the worst case scenarios. If a bunch of soldiers could take him, the world's strongest swordsman, down, then it meant Luffy, Sanji, and all the others were fair game too.

He could see rays of sunlight began to climb up and into his cell. Time had seemed to pass so slowly last night with his thoughts racing, yet he did not notice the passage of time in the slightest until now. Zoro thought back to Judge's words from the evening before, how his refusal to work with Germa was going to leave him as the lowest man on the totem pole. He had a gut feeling it would most likely involve some sort of hard labor or other hardships in order to "punish" him for dare impregnating the princess of Germa, but he would simply have to steel himself for the trials. Escape would have to wait, seeing as he was not only stripped of his swords, but now had restraints in his skin that could be turned on and off. Zoro thought about finding something sharp and just slicing off those pieces of skin, but he firstly did not want to bleed to death if he nicked the wrong vein, but also because he knew his captors would not let him get off that easily.

Speaking of the devil, the door to the dungeon groaned as it was opened in one swift movement. A tunnel of light poured down on the green haired man as he turned his head up to see who was entering. Muscular and stiff, the man wore a Germa soldier uniform, though it also had the addition of a red and black kepi hat, adorned in gold with the insignia of the Germa Kingdom, and a short black cape around his shoulders. Unlike many other soldiers, though, he had a long and black neatly groomed beard going down to this chest. In his left hand was a tray containing a serving of bread and eggs with a cup of water, all balanced with the precision of an experienced waiter. He looked directly at the swordsman as he glided down the stairs, sunglasses betraying no emotion.

“Good morning to you, Mister Zoro,” the soldier greeted with a perfectly flat affect.

“Mmm.” Zoro only offered a grunt back. The man took no heed of this, padding over to the cell and opening a slot on the floor to slide the tray through. He took a few steps back and leaned against the wall, arms crossed, gaze fixated on the prisoner. Zoro shot daggers at him back as he pulled the tray towards him. It was not much, definitely not as good as Sanji’s cooking, but it would at least fill his stomach, which was already growling. 

“Please do eat as much as you can,” the soldier commented, “we have a long day ahead of us.”

“Like what?” Zoro could not help being curious on what was in store for him now. The Germa soldier reached into his cloak, pulling out a clipboard and pen that had been nestled under his arm the whole time.

“Firstly, the cooks got first dibs on you and require you to help reorganize all their stock and supplies, then you will work down near the snail breeding grounds to clean up the slime from yesterday’s breeding session, afterwards, the laundry for all four castles need to be done, and then finally, it is onto the blacksmith’s grounds, where you are needed in order to man the bellows and dump coal into the fire for the rest of the day, which at that point, should be about four hours,”

The man looked up from his board after the long spiel.

“Any questions?”

Zoro sniffed at the man.

“…No.” Even if they all, especially the last one, sounded like dirty work no one else wanted to do that were passed off onto him because of his predicament, the green blond felt that these were all something he could handle, at least until he found some sort of plan to escape from this place or when his nakama inevitably came to rescue him. 

“Good, that’s great to hear,” the man replied, “by the way, the name is Rodrick, Colonel Rodrick, to be specific, but you can just call me Colonel. In fact, you should probably call me Colonel when we are out there. I would think you do not want to get into more trouble out there.”

“What are you, my handler?”

Rodrick nodded.

“Why in fact, I am. I have been assigned specifically to keep any eye on you, hence why not just any random soldier is taking charge of you while I get back to work,” he twirled some of his dark mustache on his index finger, “Mister Judge wants us to be very carefully when it comes to handling you, seeing as even without the swords you are one formidable opponent,” the man pushed his glasses up, “It’s hard not to take him seriously since I got to see your ferocity last night.”

And then it dawned on Zoro. Something in the back of his head had been nagging at him the entire time he was speaking to this man and he now remembered that this was the leader behind the team who kidnapped him. The memories were fuzzy, no doubt from the drugs they shot into him, but the details matched. That deadpan voice, the beard, the way he held himself with such nonchalance…

“Hmph, guess I wasn’t ferocious enough then if you’re still in one piece in front of me.”

The bearded man waved a hand, deflecting the aggression.

“No need for such harsh words, Mister Zoro. It was not like I wanted to do that to you in the first place…” his voice trailed off, but only for a second before he snapped back into place, “besides, it is not going to be beneficial to either party, me and you, if we spend this morning fighting. If you get all your tasks done quick enough, you might be able to squeeze in a few more hours of sleep for tomorrow’s task.”

“And what’s that going to be?”

Rodrick’s lips pulled down into a wry frown.

“Under direct orders from Vinsmoke Judge, I am not allowed to share that information with you.”

Zoro huffed but accepted this. Sanji did tell him that the soldiers of Germa were modified to never disobey orders, so squeezing any information from him would be a no go.

“Fine,” he finally replied, pushing back the now empty tray and glass, “let’s just get this over with as soon as possible.”

“Wonderful, let us get you dressed up, then.”

From the other side of his cape, he produced not only a long coil of rope, but also a metal collar, thick and solid with a locking mechanism and blue bulbs adorning the circumference.

“Figures they wouldn’t give me actual clothes to wear,” the swordsman commented bitterly, “what’s the collar for, another device to keep me trapped here?”

“Oh no, it’s not for that, your tattoo cuffs do the job well enough, it is more of an…incentivizer.”

Zoro could already feel that this “incentive device” was designed to cause him suffering, but he still mushed on to ask “What does it do?”

“It’s quite simple; if you resist or procrastinate during the job, and the people you are working under complain to me about it, I am to press this button,” he brings out a small remote, “and it will send an electric current through your body for as long as I hold it.”

“Huh…wow, I’m so glad I asked.”

“No problem. Now, I don’t want to do this next part, personally, but I am obliged to, so no hard feelings about this.”

The colonel pops his hand into his cape and presses something. In an instant, Zoro’s wrists and ankles snap together, the suddenness and force of it catching the swordsman off guard.

"There we go. Now, let's get this collar and rope on you, and it's off to the races."

Zoro made a mental note of popping this man third, after Judge and Caesar of course, once he was able to bust out and get his swords back.

Many things people said about Reiju were things she could agree with. Cunning and manipulative? Why yes, she had to be those, in fact. Good at following orders? It was not like she had a choice. But to say that she was just a cog in her father’s machine and all these traits were all that she was, all she could ever dream to be, was verifiably false.

She was good at crunching numbers, too.

One of the aspects of having a massive private army and being military for hire that was often overlooked by the layman was how much mundane paperwork and accounting was involved. Each soldier was a mouth to feed, a set of arms that needed weapons placed in them, a body that needed to be clothed and bedded, a head that needed to be accounted for when it came to training, housing and all the other amenities for living and fighting. This was not accounting for the non soldiers and their needs and pay too. Reiju had been the one to shoulder that job ever since her father deemed her old enough to take over the role.

Usually, now that her duty to Germa had been stripped to strictly clerical work due to extenuating circumstances, she would be in her office, toiling away in a climate controlled room with comfy seating. But this was more than a normal day, the snails were about to cross the Red Line from East Blue to West Blue for the upcoming mission on Havnor in about a week. This meant having to go some time without being able to resupply on essentials such as food (for both humans and the animals), medical equipment, medical supplies, the parts for certain vehicles and machinery, parts and supplies for just the lab, clothing, construction materials, and the list went on and on. If this were a more sane organization controlled by someone who is not a megalomaniac, she would receive a report from all the relevant parties and would go from there.

Since she did not live in such a world, she had to go from place to place to confirm what they said they needed was true and absolutely not asking for more than required.

This is why she was currently on her knees having to go through the protocol of inspecting the item reported as broken, one of the ovens in the royal kitchen, when it was obviously damaged at the glass from its shattered viewing area and the fact that the inside was covered in soot and broken metal. Using the end of her pen, she delicately tapped the handle of the door that was hanging off, and almost comedically, it immediately fell to the floor. Yep, definitely broken beyond repair.

“Hmm, alright then, I guess we can afford to send an order for another oven,” she reported to the head chef, Cosette, who had been shaking in her boots the entire time.

“Really, Lady Reiju, I have NO idea who did this, but we are definitely still lo-“

Reiju put a hand up before heaving herself onto her feet.

“Yes, I know, someone messed with the oven when they should not have, which caused…this,” she gestured to the stove, “the most important part is that we get a replacement for this as soon as possible.” The princess wrote down the condition of the oven and a note to put in an order for a new one. The freckled head chef swallowed and nodded. 

"What shall we do in the me-meantime then?"

"We will just have to subside without baked goods for a while then."

"But-but, what if the princes need bread or something that's b-baked? I can't turn them down exactly."

"Yes you can," Reiju said, "if anyone gives you trouble then..." she had to fight the urge to say 'tell them I don't have one to pull out of my ass for them' and instead replied with "tell them that I already put in an order for a new oven."

Cosette nodded and gave a shaky half bow.

"Yes, my lady." she hastily affirmed before turning around and to order a chef to clean up the mess. When the head chef was out of view, Reiju let out a sigh and stretched out her arms and back, hearing a crack as she did so. She was only about a third way through her list of the rounds she would have to make and it was almost noon already. She desperately needed to sit down for a few minutes, just a little break so she had enough energy to check on the tailors next. 

One would have thought she would not have to do all this physical work as her pregnancy wore on and just standing too long made her dizzy, but seeing how her father treated her mother when she herself was expecting, Reiju was not surprised in the slightest. Though in this case, she wondered if this was also to intentionally hurt her for daring to obtain her condition. Though that thought was brushed away when she remembered that her father and brothers would not DEIGN to work this position, yet still wanted to reap the benefits of their conquests with reckless abandon and she was left tugging back their leashes.

Finding a nearby bench, she placed herself down and spent a minute just breathing. The kitchen would not look her way, mainly because he presence alone was uncomfortable, but that was fine, she was used to being feared to an extent.

With this moment of respite, she allowed her mind to wander from work for a bit. Of course, it never landed on anything pleasurable. It went straight for what had been residing in the back of her mind, Zoro.

She was truly worried about what her father had in store for him. Being the lowliest soldier in Germa had many consequences, not including death. The biggest one for those clones who failed to live up to their peers, but were not quite bad enough to be culled, was to be assigned as the sparring partner for her and her brothers. It was not too different from a death sentence, considering how many bodies they had piled up, but a greater majority lived, though in complete agony as their broken bodies were wheeled to the medical wing to fight another day. If Zoro were to go against one of her brothers…well, it was starting to make her sweat, and it wasn’t because of all the activity that caused the perspiration.

Her father would not allow the man to die, he and that freak clown man wanted to see him pay for his “sins”, but considering how her brothers were absolute monsters and the swordsman would definitely not be allowed to use any swords, her mind began to conjure up images of her child’s father with broken bones, ripped tendons and muscles, and her just standing there on the sidelines.

‘Aren’t you already used to just standing around while the ones you care about suffer? Why so horrified now?’ A thought twisted itself into her head. Reiju pursed her lips. Yes, she was a coward, but what power did she truly have? Sure, she was modified like most of her brothers, but they had been freakishly powerful since birth while she had to be worked on as a child. They were bigger than her, stronger than her, and even if she tried to fight them back, there was the large looming presence that was her father and the fact she could never ever fight him. He could thrash her around if he felt inclined and her mind would hold her back from lifting a finger. Because of that, she had to focus on herself, to live another day so she could…well, she was not sure why she kept going after Sanji left. Perhaps out of pure animal instinct for survival. But now she had another reason to keep going, now two, considering yesterday’s events.

The woman caught herself picking at her bandaged hand. Between the fabric, she could see a bit of the nearly black bruised skin. Finding out her father had kidnapped Zoro and brought him back to Germa all because she could not hold her ground for once…it lit something up inside of her. More than a fire, it was a burning heat, waves of rage, at her father, at herself, and it manifested in her absolutely destroying one of the walls in her bathroom. Yonji had got to her in time before she could punch anything else and actually break her hand, but she had done enough damage to leave her offending extremity in immense pain and totally bruised. Of course, it was healing quickly due to repairs to her exoskeleton and the fact her body could heal quicker than regular people if no skin was punctured, but it still needed to be wrapped up for another day or two. It was one of the few times since this pregnancy that her masked slipped off and her true emotions became revealed and she knew it would not be the last. But…she could NOT allow it to happen again. Her only line of defense against her family was crumbling like wet tissue paper, even more so since the reveal of her condition, and that meant she would be useless to them, useless like how Sanji was considered. She was not resilient like Sanji, though, because she had NOTHING, she had no dreams, no ambitions of her own, no-

No. This was not the time to spiral out. Too much was resting on her back for her to become undone. She had a little slip up, that was it. 

Still, it was becoming very inconvenient when he emotions would torrent out like that. No longer could she keep them bottled up, as now she would be left with pieces of glass in her hands. Trying harder to keep them down would not work, she already figured, as they would just inevitably explode like a molotov. And now with Zoro around...

She would have to find a private release for them, but at a later date.

Right now, she had spent enough time resting and needed to get to the next stop for her rounds. Pulling herself up, Reiju left the kitchen for the tailors, putting her work first before any scheming could proceed.

Chapter Text

Caesar Clown had felt so much more giddy and actually happy the past few days than he had in the previous months. With all the doom and gloom that had been brought about the past two months from one of Judge’s precious pups getting herself bred, having one of the Straw Hats be brought to the base of operations for all sorts of pain and humiliation was just the pick-me-up he needed. In fact, when he had some spare time earlier in the day, he would find a spot with the perfect view of the mossy swordsman being made to carry back breaking weight or accidentally slip on some snail slime and get covered in the foul smelling muck, and those viewings would make his cold, cold little heart get that just warmer.

Unfortunately, the good times never last, and the Straw Hat’s right hand man was ushered back to the dungeon for the day. Pity, he would have savored seeing him get shocked one more time, but there was no time to complain. He had to give Judge a weekly report on all the findings and progress down in the labs. Going into his gaseous form, he crept down the rock walls, down the cobblestone paths, and finally, was in his lab. Judge was already waiting there, leaned against a wall in a rare display of casualness.

“So,” the blond gruffly began, “what is it today?”

“First off, not even a hello?”

Judge rolled his eyes at Caesar’s comment.

“Secondly,” he pulled a clipboard out from his lab coat, “so far, the test run with the CloudScratchers went swimmingly. Only took them 2 hours to go from the West Blue to the North Blue and another 2 hours back. Though, we’re going to need to work on their stamina as they’ve been lazing in their pens ever since you brought that Straw Hat here…or it could be they’re just acting like cats.”

Judge nodded along, twirling the end of his mustache with his pointer finger.

“And how are those…explosive rats you are working on?” He slightly grimaced when mentioning the rats. Caesar lit up at the mention, flicking through his pages to get to the relevent report.

“Oh! Oh yes, them! They’re incendiary organs are starting to grow in quite good now, and it’s not even noticeable to the naked eye! I think in about a month or two, we could start letting them out onto any targets and remotely detonate when needed.”

“That’s…good to hear.” Judge looked off distantly. Ok, now Caesar was getting a little peeved from this detached attitude from his lab partner. He had been putting up with his excessive brooding for long enough now and he was about sick of it, especially when he was not even listening when HE had something he was excited about to present. He pressed a bony finger into the blond's chest.

"Alright, that's it, what is bothering you NOW? I thought you’d feel better with that scrubber headed swordsman being put through the wringer, but nooooo.”

The gaseous man crossed his arms petulantly. A vein appeared to pop up on the side of Judge’s forehead, but he breathed slowly to compose himself before speaking.

“Even so, that does not change that Reiju blatantly offered herself up out there like a dog in heat. Do you know how much of my work would have gone down the drain if someone got their hands on that child and used them as their own weapon?! All my work, for nothing!”

Caesar resisted the urge to roll his eyes until they went to the back of his head.

“And yet, both of them are right here with you, with no chance for no one to steal your work or any of that. Hell, didn’t you say you were going to find out what your grandchild’s gender is tomorrow? Shouldn’t you look forward to that a LITTLE?”

“Eh, not really. I couldn’t control this from the start like I could with Sora, so there’s no way that it could be a boy.”

Ugh, if there was one thing Caesar could go without concerning his partner, it was his propensity to value men over women. Not because the horned scientist himself was some bleeding heart, but because he felt like Judge was not utilizing his resources well enough. But he could not say that now…or ever to his face, really.

“Well,” he began, “it’s a 50/50 chance, so maybe-“

“I don’t like ‘maybes’. ‘Maybes’ are what led me to putting up with Sanji for so long.”

“But this isn’t LIKE Sanji, Judge,” Caesar said through gritted teeth, “so maybe lighten up and listen to what I’VE been working on instead of brooding like-like-“ the words failed to materialize, but his attitude said everything. Judge looked at Caesar like a detached husband looking at his wife as she asked for him to care for more about her besides what food and housework she provided for him.

“Uggggghhh,” Caesar groaned, “You know what? Here, take this.” He shoved his clipboard of notes into Judge’s chest. He stormed out of the lab, underling scientists practically leaping out of his way. The melancholic control freak could read about what he had been working on when he finally got his head out of his ass. He could not wait for it to get to the ninth month and he could finally actually work with him like a colleague again. 

God, he needed a drink.

Yonji could practically feel his blood pushing in and out of his veins as his excitement built for tomorrow. He only got to meet half of the Straw Hat crew at the time when reunited with his failure of a brother at Big Mom’s archipelago. While he would have loved to see the lovely Nami once again, being able to spar with Greatest Swordsman Zoro had a great promise. The man had chewed through enough soldiers during his sparring sessions that it was becoming busy work now. Headlock a soldier, crunch them until something popped, and they would be out cold and carried off. Booooring. It was becoming mind numbingly dull.

But with this new opponent in the ring, the promise of a half decent fight was enthralling. The green haired man could barely hide his desire at the dinner table, his behavior catching the attention of his two brothers.

“What’s got you all fired up?” Niji inquired while picking at the steak tartare he was no longer interested in. Yonji had already gulped down a plate of it and was currently mowing through the second while Ichiji nibbled at his and watched the conversation.

“Oh, you have no idea how awesome tomorrow is gonna be. Dad told me that I’m gonna fight that Zoro dude in a sparring match tomorrow!”

His blue haired brother scoffed.

“Oh please, what makes you think he’ll be any more interesting than the other cannon fodder?"

"Because he's the right hand man of the Pirate King! He's got to be worth his salt!”

Niji scoffed and leaned back in his chair. Even behind his dark glasses, Yonji could see him roll his eyes.

“And yet, he still got captured and trapped here. Can’t be that strong.”

“He will not be sedated tomorrow, though,” Ichiji calmed butted in, “that could make all the difference between then and now.”

The green haired man gestured to his red haired elder brother.

“See, even Ichiji sees his potential.”

"But at the same time, he is a swordsman, and since tomorrow will be a sparring match, he might be debilitated in a way."

Yonji deflated momentarily before hitting the table with his fist.

“Damn it, don’t kill my excitement, man!”

Ichiji shrugged without any emotion on his face.

“I am just stating the facts.”

“Mmm, well, I’ll check it out anyways,” Niji said as he spun his fork between his fingers, “ain’t got anything else I wanna do, so maybe seeing Reiju’s boytoy get thrashed will be something.”

“It may be, it may not be.” Ichiji pushed his now empty plate back, signaling for a servant to pick it up.

Well, whatever the case, Yonji looked forward to tomorrow.

“Chopperrrrrr, let me go, we gotta get Zoro back…”

Luffy struggled in the arms of Chopper’s muscular Heavy Point, but even as he tried to get out of them, the effects of the gas still neutralized much of his strength and he flopped loosely like a fish in his raspy voice. The reindeer frowned sympathetically.

“Not yet, Luffy, you need to heal up more before he try to find Germa.”

“But…but Zoro…”

It was breaking Chopper’s heart twofold, seeing his captain like this while also thinking about how Zoro was truly gone and they had no leads yet. No reports in the newspaper on their activity, no trail of destruction, nothing. It did not help that the havoc wrought by the soldiers meant the Straw Hats had to dock at a nearby island for the time being. The Sunny had been in worse situations in the past, but the crew was never this wiped out with it. 

Putting Luffy back onto his cot in the medical room, Chopper let the rest of his residual strength fade before his captain finally gave his body a rest. Robin was much more amiable with needing to rest, but the doctor could tell the noxious gas equally left her sapped. He would have to check on the two in about half an hour.

In the meantime, he needed to get to the dining hall to join in the discussion with everyone else on what to do next. After everything and everyone recovered enough, they would go looking for the swordsman and Germa 66 in the process. How long it would take, though, he was not sure. Luffy and Robin mainly needed to heal from the gas, but Sanji had a dislocated knee, Nami was bruised and had cuts almost everywhere, Usopp’s right arm and hand were broken, and to add to that, the perpetrators had actually managed to break pieces of the ship, making Franky work round the clock to heal his creation.

“-and then he just went up with the rest of the soldiers."

Chopper made it to the dining hall, now in his brain point form. Everyone was gathered around the table, attention on Sanji as he finished telling them as much as he knew. Nami rubbed her chin, wincing a little from the sting of touching the bruise there. Chopper managed to get to his seat before the redhead spoke.

"So, do you think your sister is connected with this?"

Sanji was about to shake his head before pausing.

"Well, from what that bearded guy said, if she is, it's definitely not because she choose to."

"Even so, it doesn't explain why kidnap Zoro like that. If it is not something she wants, then, what do you think Judge wants out of him?"

Having already puffed through one cigarette in less than a minute, Sanji quickly pulled out and lit another. Ever since Zoro had been taken, by Germa no less, the blond had turned his smoking to chainsmoking, his whole being smelling like anxiety and cigarettes. Chopper resisted the urge to wrinkle his nose at the stench, not wanting to make the man feel even worse.

"That's where I'm at a dead end."

"Wait, guys, I may have a theory about this."

Usopp raised his good hand, turning everyone's attention to him.

"Go on," Nami pushed.

"Ok, so, hear me out, what if they took Zoro to your sister...because they're trying to pull off...a breeding program.

Crickets were all that replied to the long nosed man's conspiracy theory and his face turned red and blustering.

"L-look, there's not much to go off of, that's the best I've got."

Sanji sighed deeply and tapped the ash of his cigarette off into a nearby ash tray.

"Honestly, with how much we know, that very well could be true, even if we don't want it to be."

"This is so awful," Nami moaned, "we're never going to get him back at this rate."

"Hey, Nami-sis, don't say that," Franky tried to reassure, "we just got to find even a trace of where Germa and their snails are going and we can set sail there."

"And how are we going to do that? Even if they leave a trail of war in their wake, lots of rebellions and violence have been going down lately. How do we separate what is what?"

It was then that a light bulb flashed into Chopper's head. They DID know someone who could give them a lead after all...maybe. It was a big maybe, considering this person's fixation was on something at least Germa related, but it was best to at least try this connection than do nothing at all. He cleared his throat to get everyone's attention. When the melancholy was too strong even for that, he made the loudest fake cough he could to get all eyes on him.

"Umm, guys? I think I have an idea on a possible lead."

Everyone leaned in closer, hanging on to his every word.

"But first, we have to find a way to contact the Heart Pirates."

Chapter Text

A morning for Reiju did not truly start until she could slip into a warm shower and after scrubbing herself clean, spend a few minutes just basking in the wet warmth. Being able to have that time of the day where she could relax her body and muscles to an extent before having to continue the rest of the day under tension was needed for her to keep going. She knew she would be admonished by her father for wasting water and time if he knew about her longer showers, but that was only if he knew. One of the good things about keeping her emotions under lock and key is that whenever she could find little things that she could derive even a sliver of joy from, it was hers and hers alone, with no one else knowing about it and being able to ruin it for any reason.

And considering what her father had in store for her today, she was going to need any morsel of goodness she could get her hands on.

As the warm water washed over her face, Reiju thought back to how the servant who had delivered her dinner (she had preferred to eat her meals away from her family now, not wanting to feel the gaze of their judgment while eating) had also delivered the news of her needing to go down to the labs tomorrow with the king for a medical appointment. They did not divulge details, as they had not been provided them, but Reiju knew exactly what this appointment was for. The woman was far along enough that the gender of the child in her could now be determined. Germa technology was advanced enough that they had the machinery to look inside of her and she dreaded to see which way the coin flipped.

Reiju should not have been partial to a gender as a mother to be, but this was not just about preferences, it was about the potential fate she could see for her baby just because of which sex they may have. While she herself was not considered a "failure" like Sanji was, there was always an underlying current of being lesser than her brothers in a way purely because she was a woman. One of the most useful things a woman could do was to produce more male heirs and Reiju knew her father was banking on having another boy in the family. She never understood, considering the type of man he is, why Judge never moved on to another woman to breed after her mother died, but perhaps it was a boon that some poor woman was swept into Germa.

Still, even if the pregnancy was unexpected for him, she knew her father would turn this around into something positive for himself. More children, more heirs, more test subjects, more men like her brothers…

But a girl would not be out of the woods. They would go through the same treatment she has endured, perhaps even worse as she would solely be surrounded by murderers and death. Reiju knew, too, that no matter how she tried, she would never live up to the positivity and humanity her mother practically radiated. She would never be able to fill her child up with the needed components to make her as good as Sanji and this fact gnawed at her. 

She took a breath in, held it, and then slowly let it out.

Even if both options were not savory, they were only the options she had if her child stayed in Germa. If she could somehow get them away, let them free into the big blue world, then maybe...

Reiju turned off the water, grabbing a towel hanging near the shower before getting out. She dried herself off and was about to reach for her clothes when she remembered that she left them on her bed. Letting out an annoyed sigh, she wrapped the towel around herself before stepping into her room. She passed by the full length mirror nearby, glancing at herself at first before turning that glance into a full body turn and assessment. It had been a while since she had fully looked at her form. There was no real reason why she had not done so, none at all. She just did not feel like it and nothing else.

...Okay, maybe there was one reason.

It was something she would never admit (not like she had anyone she was willing to share anything to), but Reiju was almost afraid to see how she was looking now that she was starting to balloon. Her body did not look too different in the first trimester, but now in the second trimester and beyond, she was definitely looking much more fecund. This would not bother most people, but the last pregnancy Reiju had ever witnessed was very scarring. Her mother, her poor, poor mother, was made to carry four times the amount the average pregnant woman would usually carry, leaving her bed bound for the final months of her gestation. Reiju’s younger self witnessed all this and much more, the medical complications, the way her mother's body morphed and bloated into something unfamiliar and alien. The worst, part, undoubtedly, was when he father brought her to see the boys be extracted via c section, seeing her mother be cut open in the operating theater.

 “Drink it in, Reiju,” he said as the doctor’s were pulling Niji out, “this is history in the making.”

He did not want her to forgot the moment, and she sure did remember. She remembered especially how angry that smile on her mother’s stomach looked while she was in recovery. It was like a mocking grin, as if knowing what effect its presence had on the three year old girl.

All these events painted a picture for Reiju, despite logic and statistics from the books she read on the topic saying otherwise, of pregnancy being something that should be feared. It changed you and not for the better, taking away more of more of your abilities until there was nothing left you could do but wait it out. Until the day they would finally be taken away from you.

But then again, this was not the same situation as then. For one, she was only carrying one child, which would put less strain on her body compared to quadruplets, but secondly, she was different from her mother Sora. Maybe…maybe things would not be so bad with her in particular. It could be a smooth pregnancy with no complications and the biggest concern should be how much she was filling her head with fear…

…Fat chance of that, but it was something that could be latched onto like a teddy bear for a scared child. It was at least enough to convince herself to give her body a once over, which was going to be necessary moving forward anyways.

Making sure the curtains were drawn so she did not accidentally flash the kingdom, Reiju unwrapped her towel and observed her nude form.

The first thing she took note of was how softer she had gotten. While not chiseled like her brothers despite her tremendous strength, she had always kept a sort of hourglass figure, one that was now filling out. Her muscles were less defined now and swelling was occurring on her ankles and wrists, only rounding her further. 

Not only that, but along with the softening, and despite her efforts to use as much vitamin E cream as she could, the angry red lightning strikes of stretch marks were starting to form and creep up her stomach and down her thighs, resting above the 66 tattoos on her legs. They were small for now but would undoubtedly grow and stick out as the final months went on. Her breasts were growing too, losing their perkiness and sagging above her midsection, also not helping the stretch mark situation.

She was…normal. Her form was that of a textbook photo marking how things would look at the weeks she was at, down to her getting that “glow” she had always read about. Whether that glow was the kind of the sun setting over the horizon or the glow of radioactive material that was about to turn any living creature into go was yet to be seen.It was a far cry from what had been imprinted on her mind and it gave her some slight relief. Just slight relief. She still had to see what her child's gender would be with her father and she was damned with either path.

Speaking of the devil, a knock came to Reiju's door, slinging her back into the moment as she quickly wrapped her towel around herself again.

"Lady Reiju," a female servant's voice came from behind the wooden door, "your father requests your presence at the royal clinic."

"I will be with you in a minute," she coolly replied, "thank you for informing me."

Pursing her lips, the pink haired princess finally got to dressing herself, steeling herself for the impending appointment.

While the green haired swordsman had steeled himself to be thoroughly worked like a mule for his first day in Germa, he was not anticipating the humiliation wrought upon him by doing so in front of every day people evidently uncomfortable of his presence. It was definitely because he was a pissed off near naked prisoner being made to work around ordinary people, but Zoro could feel the eyes burrowing into him and it just soured his mood even more. The feeling was only bolstered by the work he was made to do, the worst of which being cleaning all the slime in the breeding caverns for the ship snails. He got some of it in his mouth accidentally after a slip and now that bitter and musky taste would not leave his tongue and throat. It even soured him being served his favorite, plain white rice, for his dinner last night. If anything, though, the soreness and tiredness of his muscles made it easy for him to just lay down and pass out for the entire night until Rodrick woke him up. He did not say anything at first, passing the food to Zoro and assuming a military rest position. The swordsman could see the slightest tug of the edges of his lips pulling downwards, giving the ghost of a frown.

Neither party said a word until Zoro finished his extremely plain yet adequately nutritional meal.

"So what humiliation am I being subjected to today?"

"Well...technically, it will not be humiliating if you're skilled enough, but the king and princes expect your failure."

The mention of the princes caught Zoro's attention. He had not met Sanji's brothers or even seen them yet, but from what little the blond had said about them, his image of them was already soured.

"Why are those three involved?"

"Because...you are going to have to spar with Prince Yonji today."

"...You're shitting me."

Rodrick shook his head. "Afraid I'm not. Judge just handed me the orders early this morning. I even picked up the clothes you have to wear for it, picked out by the King's science partner himself."

Oh, fucking great. He had a feeling that gasbag took enjoyment in some way of him working his ass off yesterday. Even if he did not see him, his slime ball presence was very much there, probably meshing with the snail slime.

“How bad is it?” He bluntly asked. Rodrick cleared his throat to give a sliver of time to delay the inevitable before reaching into his uniform’s pocket to and pulling out a lime green piece of clothing and wrestling shoes. Oh God no.

Zoro took it and unfurled it and his face twisted into a disgusted grimace.

It was the unholy and bastard love child of a leotard and a mankini. It would cover up some of him, but expose much more of his body in...weirdly lewd ways. And now that he had a closer look of the thing, was that fucking glitter??? He was going to look a total pervert if he wore this thing!

He gave Rodrick a serious stare, glare hardening.

"What consequences would there be if I refused to wear this?"

"I've been ordered, in that case, to turn your tattoo shackles on and put it on you myself."

The only thing worse than wearing the…thing was if someone had to dress him up with it. Grumbling how he would stick his sword so far up where the sun does not shine in Caesar, the swordsman acquiesced and put on the garment. The material was breathable and light, but that was cold comfort.

“Well then,” his handler commented, “you look…nicely green now. Like a ripe lime.”

“Fuck off.”

“…I was trying find some way to compliment you to make you feel a bit better.”

Zoro breathed in, and slowly let it out while pinching the bridge of his nose.

“Ok, so this sparring thing, how does it work around here?”

Rodrick put his hands behind his back, prepping for his spiel.

“Well, the first thing you are going to want to know is that there are no weapons involved on either side. It is purely hand to hand combat, plus your abilities if you have them. No one is going to die, we are going to make sure of that, but it is meant mainly for the princes’ training…and entertainment, sometimes. Personally, if you ask me, I'd prepare myself for some wrestling since Prince Yonji IS a powerful grappler. The last few guys who went against him got thrown hundreds of feet out of the ring and into the sea."

Wrestling, huh…well, shit. Zoro was a swordsman, after all, and he flourished the most when with his weapons. Without them he was competent, but against someone who was more versed with hand to hand combat was when he started to crumble.

Well, there was no use in floundering about this. He was going to get dragged to the arena either way, so it was best to pony up and shut up.

“Ok,” the swordsman replied. That would have been the end of that, but in the moment, Zoro decided to tack on something he has been wanting to know about.

“So, like, is this gonna be a private thing or public?”

“Public. The usually involve most of the soldiers and the Vinsmoke family being in attendance. Citizens may watch, but most don’t because these can get…messy.”

“Is the whole family going to be there today?”

Rodrick picked up on what Zoro was getting at and shook his head.

"Judge and Lady Reiju will not be there today due to a health related appointment."

Damn. He did not know what he expected, seeing as her father seemed to have an iron grip over her, but Zoro at least wished to see her again, perhaps even talk to her, even if that would require getting her away from Judge, because...hell, where did he even start? Even after digesting the fact that his pull out technique had failed so miserably this time that he knocked up a woman, that woman out of all people had to be Sanji’s sister. Sure, he didn’t know it was her at the time, his hormones swaying his decision making slightly and the fact she had on makeup so good that he didn’t see her leg tattoos or the curly brow, but the fact still remained that it was HER. He still awaited for his crew’s arrival, but had to figure out how he was going to handle the love cook once he found out this. This all was not bringing up the fact that he was still sort of the fence about the woman herself. All he knew about her before getting dragged here was what Sanji told him and...well, she definitely was better than their brothers, but better did not mean good. She was still a part of Germa, still participating in it, and always putting on a mask. He did not know how much he should trust her, especially seeing how their situation occurred from her donning a false identity, but he also knew that he HAD to trust her to some extent as there were not many other options.

And none of that was bringing up the fact that Zoro was going to be a father soon.

He was not a bum, even if having a child was not in his near future plans, and had no intentions of leaving his child behind here. He still had to figure out what to do after that, all the parental and caretaker stuff, but one of his biggest priorities now besides getting out of this hell hole kingdom was bringing his kid along with him. The biggest snag there, though, was that he absolutely needed Reiju to work with him on this and right now he could not even speak with her.

“Mister Zoro?” Rodrick snapped his fingers to gain back the swordsman attention. The green haired man grunted from being perturbed, but knew he would have to be pulled away from his thoughts for a while. He had a fight to get to.

“Ok ok, let’s just go now.” He put his wrists together, his soldier handler clicking the button to close them together. Rodrick retrieved some rope from a pocket and began to tie the green haired captive’s wrists together, which Zoro gave a quizzical look to.

“Is it really needed to keep tying me up when you already have my wrists stuck?”

“Eh, it’s more like…a leash. So you don’t get lost.” This brought out a pang of anger from Zoro.

“I can follow you very well.”

“So all the newspapers, eyewitnesses, and your crew themselves are liars?”

“Look,” Zoro raised his voice, “it just so happens in those instances that the areas were always confusing and-“

Rodrick gave a chuckle he tried to hide in his hand. “Ok ok, I get it. Let me rephrase, then: this castle is very confusing and I would not want you, an outsider, to get easily lost here.”

“Hmph,” he shot his handler a short glance, as deadly as a bullet, and looked away.

Once his already bound wrists were wrapped up with rope, Rodrick led Zoro from the cell and brought him out of the dungeon. Zoro used the time to think about how he was going to deal with Yonji. The last time he had really done hand to hand wrestling was when he got pulled into fights with other boys at the dojo as a kid. Rusty was not enough to describe him. There was also the fact that this Yonji most likely had much more experience and from what he heard from Sanji, was a big bruiser. He probably had an advantage over Zoro from weight and height alone. 

If he wanted to get out of this in one piece, he would have to find a way to get it over as possible and most likely need to deploy dirty tactics.

The pair made it to a pair of large wooden doors, Rodrick knocking on it in a certain pattern in order to signal for the soldiers outside to open the doors. Slowly opening, Zoro could see the crowd outside, their hollering that was muffled earlier hitting him like a sea train. They were all clone soldiers of varying sizes, turning their attention and quieting down as the green haired swordsman marched out into the yard. Now being able to see many of the soldiers up close and all together, it was uncanny how they all looked like they came from one big family tumbleweed. Zoro also noticed how many of them were clean shaven and had minimal facial hair and short hair, making him question why Rodrick looked the way he did even more now. 

The crowd soon switched from silence to roaring jeers and sneering at the swordsman and his ridiculous outfit. Zoro chose not to listen to them, instead craning his head around the clone soldiers to get a look at his opponent as his handler led him to the middle.

Yonji was a spitting image of Sanji if he worked out like a maniac and grew a few inches. And was green. His hair slicked back, he wore his own wrestling singlet, a proper one, along with white wrestling shoes. What stuck out to him was what he could see of a tattoo on the man’s chest. Square geometric designs wrapped around his pectorals and crept up his neck before stopping at his collarbone. The other thing that stuck out to Zoro too was how weird he looked without a fringe covering half his face. One look at Yonji and Zoro realized why the lovecook always kept one side of his face hidden. He’d also hide his face if his brows looked so stupid together like that.

That was the least of the issues he already had with this man. His stance, his sharp smirk and even the way he crossed his arms all made him come off as an overly confident bully, one who thought he was better than everyone else and could do whatever he wanted to others with no repercussions. It made Zoro want to lay him out on the ground as soon as possible. 

Yonji bounced on his heels as he caught sight of Zoro. Rodrick untied and unbound the green haired man’s wrists as he got into arena area.

“So, this is the famous Roronoa Zoro, huh?” He scanned Zoro up and down, giggling at his purposefully ridiculous outfit, “I never took you for the…glitz and glitter type.”

Zoro scowled and unconsciously tugged on one of the straps of his leotard abomination.

“You know damn well this is not of my own volition.

“Yeah, yeah, I’ve heard that Caesar the Clown has a bone to pick with you and has been pulling some strings.”

“HEY, it’s just Caesar Clown, you little-“

Once the eyes were on him, Caesar choked on what he was about to say, ducking down into the crowd with his cameko snail. Zoro sent him a hellish glare. Watching AND recording this? Maybe Zoro would have to put him on the top of his hit list after all. Yonji seemed amused by this interaction.

“I guess EVERYONE really wants to see our little match. Why don’t we make sure this is an interesting one?”

Zoro kept his slightly pissed off face, not wanting to give the other green haired man any reaction to feed off of. He still wanted to punch him, of course, but he had a feeling that giving into those feelings would end up with him in traction. If only he had his swords…

He clenched his fists, veins in his arms popping up. No, this was no time to mourn his tools of trade, he just had to focus on the here and now.

The soldiers, ever loyal to the royal family, were all hyping up and cheering on Yonji before the match even started, only fueling the man’s ego more. Hmmm, maybe with all the ego inflating, it could be an advantage for the swordsman to overpower him.

“Alright, men!” A soldier, short but stout, stepped out of the crowd, hands outstretched and a yellow ascot in one hand, “we’re about to start this spar, so stay back!”

They all followed, moving into place until forming a perfect ring around the pair of green haired men and the lone soldier. The way they moved into perfect position in synchronicity with no missteps was a bit creepy.

Yonji hunched down into position, barely containing his excitement. 

Zoro tried to copy his position as best as possible. The shorter soldier raised the yellow cloth up, everyone in the audience on the edge of their non existent seats.

He swung it down forcefully.

“Go!”

Reiju was more than used to medical check ups and the invasive poking, prodding and collecting of data that entailed. She had been doing it ever since she received her enhancements and never complained once about them. At least not out loud. She had to accept that her body was no longer hers years ago, to expect at any moment to be called down and inspected like a show dog. The woman just wished that her child was not about to get that sort of judgment now. Her father was there already, the large man finally wearing something non-combative, but not casual, for once. He instead wore a dark grey three piece suit, lab coat hanging in the crook of his right arm. He had probably just came out of the research lab for this. His eyes flicked down to his daughter, dark sclera piercing through her.

“So you have made it.”

Reiju nodded, bowing slightly. “I came as soon as I was called, father.”

“Good. Now come, this is extremely important.”

She followed her father like a trained hound as he made his way into the medical bay. The obstetrician and nurses were already on standby, all heads flicking towards the king and his daughter. Reiju noticed that one of the scientists was there too, probably to gather information on her child for research into how to modify them once they were born.

“Ah, your majesties!” The obstetrician gave a curt bow, his spiky hair shaking with the movement of his head, “we already have all the equipment warmed up. Just allow us to do a few checks of the princess first and we can get to the ultrasound.”

“Hmph,” the tall blond sneered, “be as thorough as possible.”

“As always, sir.”

The nurses led Reiju to the examination chair and sat her down, promptly beginning the usual routine of taking her vitals. She was used enough to being pulled around like a trained animal, though this time any sort of touch was making her skin itch. Not an itch on the skin itself, but an uncomfortable feeling that raised up at any hands that brushed against them. As the staff began to take her blood pressure, heart rate, and other vitals, Reiju glanced up to her father. His own gaze bared down on everyone like the powerful rays of the sun on a sweltering day. A lot of weight was being placed onto everyone by him at the moment, even if the results were ultimately out of their control. Some of the medical staff were even sweating a little from that hot pressure. She could already see how his brain was ticking off like an abacus, calculating what to do in either gender situation. Judge already saw her child as making the best out of a “bad” situation, now he was working out how…”bad” for him it was. 

Seeing this made the uncomfortable itch Reiju had worsen.

The nurses took down the results of their checks and gave them to the doctor. His eyes scanned the papers as he combed his free hand through his hair.

“Respiration normal, heart rate ok…the blood pressure is a little higher than I would like it to be-“

“What is the rate?” Judge interjected suddenly. The doctor, to which Reiju now remembered his name, Dr.Wu, flinched minutely at the booming voice before replying.

“I-it’s 128 over 83. I think we should keep an eye on that in case this could lead to preeclampsia.”

Judge nodded.

“Is that all?”

“Y-yes, sir,”

“Good, send a copy of that to the lab,” he motioned to the scientist on the sidelines, “Now, the ultrasound.”

Oh joy, here it comes. The moment of truth.

Breathe in.

Breathe out.

The ultrasound machine was one of the few useful pieces of Germa technology that Reiju could see having potential to revolutionize the medical field. It was too bad it was like her and would never see the outside of the castle walls. Using pre existing sonar technology, they were able to use the sound waves in order to see inside of someone in a 2d image. It had already seen much use being able to diagnose any tumors or pregnancies in the workers of Germa 66 and now the eldest Vinsmoke was going to be added to the list of recipients.

Too bad the piece of tech was producing more anxiety for her than anything. 

Not even allowed to pull her shirt up on her own, the nurses pulled it up for her, exposing her stomach. Reiju’s now healed hand twitched but nothing else indicated what she felt. One thing that was going to follow her during the whole pregnancy was how self conscious she felt for the first time about her body when it came to her stomach. It was like she was baring a vulnerable part of herself for the first time ever and it made her skin crawl how much people focused on it.

Dr.Wu retrieved the wand from the machine, the black monitor screen behind him continuously giving an electrical hum. Next to him, a nurse brought out a small container of clear gel, lathering some of it on her fingers. She rubbed it on Reiju’s pronounced stomach, the pink haired woman’s skin now feeling like it would rip away from her body to get away from all the touching of that area. The doctor neared with the instrument.

Breathe in.

Breathe out.

Judge watched from the sidelines with bated breath, all the staff there twitching with anticipation.

Once some adjustments of placement on of the wand were made on her womb area, Reiju and Zoro’s child came into view. And for once, one of the very few times she had ever done so, Reiju temporarily let her emotional shields down to marvel at this glance she got of her child.

She had seen ultrasound photos before, mainly when her mother was gravid with her brothers, but seeing HER child floating in there up on the snowy static screen, making small movements, moving their feet while she felt it at the same ti-oh god, were they sucking their thumb?

If her ability to let herself cry had not been sanded off years ago and if her father were not there, she felt that she would have fallen apart this very moment like wet paper at seeing her baby for the first time. Instead, she gasped gripped the seat as she kept herself in check. As much as her hormones threatened to blow up the dam, the most she 

Reiju was so lost in the moment further connecting with her child that she almost forgot about the point of this procedure. Almost.

“Ahh, I can see what, um, the g-gender.” Dr.Wu’s expression turned morose at what he saw. Judge’s brows knitted in impatience.

“What. Is. It?”

“It’s…it’s a girl.”

The other shoe had finally dropped and the tension had finally released for her father. He shoulders slumped as his expression turned to one of disappointment accompanied by a sigh. When seeing that he did not blow up from news he did not want to hear, the rest of the medical staff and the scientist beside him could now breathe a sigh of relief.

Reiju could not do the same, though.

“Of all the…” Judge began, “Ok, this is not the end of the world, only a set back. This can be…salvaged.”

The way he spoke of Reiju’s child, her daughter, was a knife to the heart, though it would have to make room with all the other ones first.

The gravity gender reveal was laying its full weight on her now. A daughter…she was having a little girl. A little girl that was going to come into this world pure and innocent of the sins of her family, of the sins of her…mother.

The doors to the medical area burst open as a soldier, gasping from running all the way here, barreled in. Her father snapped around, his mood taking a nose dive now that he was interrupted.

“What’s going on?” He hissed. The clone soldier gulped down a few more lungfuls of air before answering.

“Yonji…prisoner…gone wrong…incident…”

Judge gritted his teeth and curled his hand into a fist.

“Beautiful, bloody beautiful, right after I get this news…”

A few minutes earlier…

Zoro was now beginning to wonder why Sanji decided to call him the “green gorilla” when his younger brother existed.

Yonji’s stance was seemingly impregnable, any attempt to sweep him down or get him to fall was useless. The swordsman gave up quickly trying to sweep or kick him down as his body felt like steel and hitting it like that hurt himself. He’d have to focus on keeping his own stance on the ground.

On the upper end, he was desperately defending himself from any other throws ensnaring him. He slipped up a minute ago and gave the Vinsmoke the opportunity to grab his waist, lift him up and slam him down on his side. The swordsman did not feel that any of his bones were broken, but everything on that side HURT.

At this moment, Yonji had gotten behind him and wrapped an arm around the swordsman’s neck, starting to bend him backwards as if trying to fold him. This presented an opportunity though as his arms were still free. Reaching behind himself, he grabbed Yonji by the back of his head and using all his strength he had at the moment, wrenched his whole body forward, lifting and throwing the larger man in front of him with a surprisingly hard “thud”. Any noises the crowd made were amplified at watching the “beloved” prince be thrown. The green haired prince did not immediately get up, though. He took a second to let out a joyous laugh and rolled over before popping up onto his feet.

“Woo, that actually stung a little!” And Yonji dove back into Zoro. 

The best way to describe the rest of the battle was crushing. Even though he managed to defend himself from anymore throws, Yonji still had the advantage of experience over Zoro and quickly turned to keeping Zoro in his grasp at almost all times. While the swordsman was able to grab and sloppily throw Yonji a few more times, each one harder than the last and making the ground crack more, this emboldened the green haired prince, increasing his taunts per minutes and making him more aggressive with his moves. 

He did not want to admit it, but Zoro was starting to lose steam, and fast. Struggling against the brawnier man was taking its toll on his body and even dirty tricks like throwing gravel in his face and elbowing him in the sternum did nothing to slow him down. Ending this fast was something easier said than done, now he just wanted it to end before the man could attempt to throw him again.

Luckily, if he could look at it like that, keeping the fight going this long with Sanji’s younger brother was making the sparring last longer as he basked in lording over the right hand of the Pirate King. At this moment, when he had gotten Zoro to fall to the ground, he clamped down on his neck with his thighs in a vice grip, not giving him any room to breathe or wiggle out. His hands firmly grasped Zoro’s calves and wrenched them backwards, inching the green haired man’s feet closer to his back. At this rate, Zoro felt that his spine would break under all this tension. 

Yonji turned to him, yelling over the audience who had now become loud background noise.

“How you holding up, mossman?”

Zoro’s eyes burned with a fire of rage at hearing this green haired curlybow call him by the name only HIS curlybrow could say.

“Can’t…breathe…you…big ape.”

Yonji squeezed his thighs tighter and bent Zoro more harshly.

“Damn, already? And here I thought we were just getting started. Laaaame.”

He accentuated the drawn out last word with a pull that made Zoro wince in pain.

“Ahh well, toys break sometimes. I’ll try not to mess you up too badly.”

Fuck, he was going to get his back broken if you did not do something quick. But what options were there? His hands could do nothing to against the brute’s muscular physique and his legs were crunched together by Yonji’s hands. There had to be some way he could, perhaps, use his teeth to get out of his hold before he either passed out or was snapped in half. 

It was then that Zoro noticed how close his face was to…something between the prince’s legs. A part of his bulge that was moved around to not get crushed by his powerful thighs. If he craned his neck closer to it, the swordsman could…

Well, it would not be the first time he had a man’s nuts in his mouth and it probably would not be the last.

Present

Something…stirred within Ichiji at that moment. It was not something that happened often, or ever, if he correctly recalled, but seeing Yonji yowl at about three octaves higher than his normal voice, and medics setting up a little tent around his groin region as they attempted to treat his most likely swollen and sore family jewels, well…he felt some sort of sympathy. It was more in the way of imagining himself in that situation and cringing at how it would feel, but it was something new nevertheless.

Niji, who was leaning close to get a good look at the action going on, had now reeled back and contorted his face into that of pure horror and disgust.

“Dear God, there’s teeth marks here!” One of the medics exclaimed a little too loudly. Niji’s frown deepened.

“Fuck, I can’t believe that mossy swordsman took a bite out of Yonji!” He turned to his older brother, “Do you think he’s going to lose one of them?”

Ichiji cupped his chin in his hand and hummed in thought.

“Well, from the looks of it, he was mostly protected by his singlet, and I did not see any blood, so it is most likely a superficial wound. Hurts like hell, though.”

“I thought we had exoskeletons for situations like this, man.”

“We do, just not there.”

“Ugh, apparently,” Niji craned his neck to look at something else but Yonji’s pain, finding a distraction almost immediately. He snickered and pointed down.

“Hey, Ichiji, take a look at what’s happening to the boytoy.”

Looking over, next to their brother, Zoro’s bearded handler was fighting off other enraged soldiers from taking a piece out of the man, his prowess in hand to hand combat showing as he tossed clones back like bags of flour. It was unsurprising that they would go after Roronoa. The clones were programmed to have total loyalty to the royal family, defending them in times of needs (or when they needed meat shields). Any attempt to injure a Vinsmoke and they would be swarmed like a defenseless caterpillar against an army of ants. Perhaps it was a good thing then that father assigned someone tough like that bearded clone to protect him from more serious injuries.

“Huh,” the red haired prince mused at the pure chaos, “perhaps we should have had him do the sparring.”

“Where’s the fun in that, though?” Niji sneered.

In that moment, their father stomped onto the balcony, Reiju close behind him. His eyes bulged at the unfolding situation below him.

“What in the HELL is going on down here!?”

Everyone on the ground stopped what they were doing and looked up at the king of Germa. Scanning the crowd, Judge stopped and focused on his youngest son, who was now being laid out on a stretcher. Something looking like concern spread across his aged face.

“What happened to Yonji?” He looked at Ichiji. The red haired man shrugged.

“Zoro bit his testicles.” He laid out plainly.

“He WHAT?” Judge and Reiju said in unison. Curious, he had not seen Reiju be that expressive ever.

“Yeah, he bit him like a dog.” Niji chirped. Judge cradled his face in his hands, trying to hold himself back from screaming. Reiju was not looking too hot either, mouth slightly agape at what she had just heard. Niji noticed this too and pounced on the opportunity to make a jab.

“Damn, it must hurt you Reiju to see your man in a-“

“Niji, please, shut up,” Judge sniped. He pointed accusingly at Zoro, his face turning red. The swordsman looked up, his one eyed gaze defiant and evidently feeling no guilt over what he had done. Even worse, he crossed his arms in front of their father.

Oh yes, this would not end well.

“You!” Judge snarled, “Youuuuuu…you little…you were supposed to SPAR, not actually hurt my son like that!”

“Well,” Zoro shouted back, “maybe he needs better training so he would not leave himself open like that.”

The remaining Vinsmoke siblings took a step back to avoid the upcoming storm of insults to be exchanged. Reiju bumped into him on accident and she jumped away from him as quick as a cat from water. It did not seem that there was going to be much gleaned from the interaction between his father and the prisoner at the moment, so he decided to see what he could get from Reiju on where her and father had been.

“So…where were you?”

Any sort of shock from the current events were ironed out of Reiju’s face now. She leaned against the stone door frame.

“He did not tell you?”

“You know father chooses not to fill us in on your ‘womanly affairs’.”

The pink haired woman sighed.

“Did an ultrasound. She’s a girl.”

Ahh, that made sense. Their father had been eager to know the gender of the child and now was the appropriate time to take a look. So they were having a niece, huh…He felt that Niji and Yonji would be disappointed by another girl coming into the fray, but Ichiji did not feel much of anything about that. Only wondering if this girl would be on par with everyone else or be a failure like her uncle.

Niji took immense pleasure watching their father threaten to come down and give the swordsman a piece of his mind and fume when Zoro yawned to his face.

“Hey,” Reiju wrapped an arm around her growing midsection to support it, “what is going on with that hideous outfit on Zoro?”

“A little gift from the goatman, I heard.”

Reiju groaned.

“God damn, not him.”

Ichiji solemnly nodded. If there was one thing his sister and him passionately agreed on, it was of their distaste for Caesar Clown.

“Yes, him. I even saw him bring a cameko snail to record the fi-“

“He RECORDED this!?” Judge sputtered. His grip on the railing was enough to break two chunks off of it. He looked either on the end of screaming or ripping out his hair. 

“You know what? I am too damn stressed to think of a proper punishment for you right now, Roronoa,” he turned his head to Zoro’s handler, “no food for him for the rest of the week.”

The bearded soldier nodded, Ichiji noticing out of the corner of his eye how Reiju clenched her jaw shut at this.

“Fine, don’t give me any food, then,” Zoro retorted, “I’ll live.”.

And with that, his handler was ordered to turn all his tattoo cuffs and drag him away with his face to the ground. As the pirate threw in a few more expletives towards their father, Judge turned away and grumbled that he was going to find out the extent of Yonji’s injuries, and find Caesar, and stormed off. The remaining three siblings stood on the balcony awkwardly.

“Hey, I earjacked a little and heard you had an ultrasound,” Niji poked his head into their space, “what was the ge-“

“I need to get back to work. Need to get the inventory done before we land for a restock.”

Reiju hurried off in the opposite direction, not giving the brothers a second glance. Niji sucked on his teeth.

“Bitch.”

Chapter Text

When it came to the "Sora, Warrior of the Sea" comics, the fans for it could be...obsessive, to say the least. They would dissect and analyze every frame, every line of drawing, every aspect of each issue and catalog it through newsletters passed around amongst each other. The difference though between them and other comic fans is that because Germa was real (albeit, very different from the fictionalized version) and the comics were based off of their real endeavors. Though, every aspect of this information was heavily edited and change as not to give the kingdom even more free advertising for their services. It would not be a good idea to tell people where exactly this guns for hire kingdom would be, especially when it came to people looking to acquire their “talent”. While the fans who could decipher this truth about Germa thankfully did not sell this information to the highest bidder, they did not do it for any gain of their own. In fact it, it seemed much more to be like a game, to see who could figure it out first and get as much details as possible, just for bragging rights. After that, the info would be sat upon.

This was all to explain why Sanji and the crew were calling upon the Surgeon of Death to let his fan boy out and tell them what he knew about Germa 66’s activities.

“…and this all relates back to the Obscure War spin off where Sora watches their partner, Suzume, be crushed in battle while they can do nothing but watch. This event was so damaging for him that it even resonated throughout the multiver-“

“So, Law, what about those latest issues of the mainline series?” Nami loudly steered the conversation back on track. Sanji silently thanked her as having to hear more than he had to about his biological family, even in comic book form and with entirely made up sections, made his stomach tie into knots. Law sighed on the other side.

“Ok, ok, fine, I got a little worked up in the moment.”

“You spent a whole two minutes talking about that non stop.”

“Anyways,” the surgeon brushed off, “me and the gentlemen from the newsletter poured over the previous arc and we think that the next place they’re headed is going to be in the West Blue. The islands they’ve been going to in the East Blue are all on a path west and from the looks of it, they're probably going to the major merchant port near the Red Line, Cinnabar Island."

"And are you absolutely sure about this?" Nami leaned closer to the snail, it's imitation of Law not changing in expression.

"The newsletter guys and I have never been wrong before."

Noticing his current cigarette had burned down to a nub, Sanji brought out another one and lit it with the still burning end of the one currently in his mouth. He exhaled a plume of smoke as he replaced the old cigarette with the new one, harshly snuffing out the unusable nub in a nearby ashtray.

"The East Blue, huh? We could probably cut through the Grand Line and catch up to them."

"In less than a week? That might be a bit of a tall ord-"

"We gotta do it, Traffy!"Luffy leapt up, his shaky hand grasping the transponder snails receiver. He had recovered scarily fast from being bed ridden from the sea stone gas and was completely gung-ho about raiding Germa to get Zoro, no questions asked, but the captain was not one hundred percent back to his bouncy self.

"They took Zoro for whatever reason and I'm not having that, especially since they promised not to bother Sanji anymore!"

His legs began to wobble and Usopp rushed to steady Luffy with his good arm.

"Yare yare, I know they did, Luffy," Law drawled, "but they ARE the evil army, after all. Besides, they technically are not bothering Sanji directly."

The rubbery captain's brow furrowed.

"Even so, they took Zoro and are doing whatever they want with him! We have to raid them with full force!"

"What did I tell you earlier about how long it would take?"

"Actually, Law-bro," Franky butted in, leaning over Luffy's shoulder, "the ship does have the Rabbit Screw, meaning we could put the pedal to the metal, though it'll definitely burn up our fuel and we can't use it all the way. At least it'll give us a SUPER headstart."

"Mmmmm," Law hummed, "that sounds good, but you guys still gotta cut through the Grand Line in time before those snails start climbing. One minute too late and you're stonewalled for the time being until they get to the West Blue. It might be safest to get to the West Blue first and wait for them there."

"But that would mean leaving Zoro with them for longer..." Usopp's voice trembled. His mind was no doubtably conjuring up a movie serial worth of horrible ideas of what could be going on. The snail transponder lowered its eye stalks in a gloomy manner.

"I know, it's not ideal, but it might be the best overall."

"Well, do we at least know which island they're going to make making their way to after they cross the Red Line?"

 Law paused for a second, the snail rubbing its lips together in an attempt to impersonate what the caller was doing.

"That is where things get fuzzy. We don't have direct communication with Germa, of course, so we cannot know EXACTLY which island they have made a deal with at this moment, though there is a cluster of islands we think they are going to."

"And how many islands does that archipelago have?" Nami squinted at the snail.

"Over fifty. Many of which are of larger size and have their own kingdoms."

The mood between the Strawhats fell even lower now. Sanji snuffed out his now nub of a cigarette and started on another one. He didn't kill his brothers and his biological father when he had the chance to because it was just wrong for him to do that, but a darker and angrier part of him now wished he could have let them perish when he had the chance. Now...now Zoro was gone and it was all their God damn fault!

Screw Judge, screw Ichiji, screw Niji, screw Yonji and screw Reij-

No. No, that was not fair to include her with the rest of them. Sure, maybe she wasn’t a saint, but she wasn’t quite horrible to him either. He wondered if she was treating Zoro the way she did to him when he was in that dungeon himself for six months; from a distance, but better than nothing.

"Hold on," Robin's calm voice broke onto the scene, "Law, may I suggest something?"

"Ok, shoot."

"Your submarine is faster than our Thousand Sunny, correct?"

Franky looked a little hurt at that question but masked it as Law replied.

"Yes."

"And it can make long trips across the Grand Line, also correct?"

"Also yes."

"And you are near our ship?"

"Yes we ar-oh," realization hit the pirate captain before he snapped back, "wait wait wait, before we get ahead of-"

"An alliance, yes!" Luffy's eyes sparkled with renewed energy at the idea.

There as a moment of silence on Law's end, followed by a long, long sigh.

"Ok, yep, let's do the alliance thing. Again.”

“Hooray!” Luffy did a little jump in the air at this. Sanji could hear Law mumble something unintelligible under his breath.

“One condition, though,” Law managed to steady himself back into his monotone self, “We unfortunately cannot bring everyone onto the sub. Space is limited on here already and adding nine more people might overdo it.”

Luffy’s mood shifted downwards a little at this but not totally. Even without seeing it, Law, could pick up on the pirate king’s disappointment.

“But, I can take, at most, five of you, so discuss amongst yourselves who’s coming.”

“We can definitely do that, Traffy!” Luffy turned to face the whole remaining crew. The light and hope in his eyes was returning once again.

“We got this in the bag, guys! We’re gonna get Zoro back!”

While everyone else was having tempered excitement at the development, himself included, Sanji couldn’t help but bring the idea gnawing at the back of his mind to the front while Law was still on the line. Amidst the celebration, the blond slid over near where Luffy was and picked up the receiver. 

“Hey Law, it's Sanji.”

“Oh, hey, man. Uhh, sorry for gushing about all the comic stuff earlier. I know it makes you uncomfortable but-”

“I'm not here about that, it's…look, I need your Germa comic nerd expertise for something that's eating away at me. It has to do with…’Poison Pink’.”

“What do you need to know about her?”

“What has she been doing there recently?”

The cook refused to ever in his life read the Sora comics, but they were an undoubtedly useful resource for seeing what his family had been up to, even on a surface level. With Reiju being connected to Zoro’s kidnapping in some nebulous way, any lead would be a good one. It might also allay some theories that had been sprouting around in his mind about their connection that were…crackpot to say the least. He had to laugh at himself for even thinking that there had been a long and secret love affair between the two that had only now culminated in a wedding at Germa or else he'd cry at how far his mind had gone during this whole debacle. Sleep was becoming harder and harder to get and it was showing.

“She hasn't been in any of the issues for a few months now, actually.”

Sanji’s heart skipped a beat.

“Are…are you sure?”

“Sanji, I have read all the comics and am completely caught up. Got an encyclopedia of everyone's appearances in my head and I know for certain that she seemingly dropped off the maps in the latest issues. Which kinda sucks, she's one of my favorites…outside of Sora, of course, because fawning over such a villain over the hero would be-”

Sanji had tuned Law out, letting him ramble, as the weight of what he said sunk onto him. If she wasn't in the comics…where was she then? Where was she that no one could see her even as his father and brothers went into battle? A stinging and awful thought struck him. Had they finally found out about what she did during the wedding? How she knew about the double cross and let it happen so they could all be destroyed? It would count as high treason for Judge and he would not take that from even his own children. Perhaps she was imprisoned, or maybe even…

“Whatcha doin’, Sanji?”

Feeling Luffy hop onto his back finally broke the cook from his train of thoughts. His captain was staring back at him with curiosity while Law still kept going on his end. 

“Luffy, can I make a request to add a secondary goal to this mission?”

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In all fairness, Yonji should have planned ahead when he choose to spar with the world's greatest swordsman. He did assume that because weapons would not be given to him, the match would at least be more in his favor. He probably should have factored in that a pirate of all people would go for low blows. Now, he was in his room, legs wide open as he sat on his bed and his gonads resting on a packet of ice. The doctors said that his family jewels would be intact, but they would be bruised and sore for the next few days. His father also came into the medical area to chide him for letting himself get humiliated like that in front of everyone and told him to do better. And of course, Niji was giving him shit about it all day. If Yonji had to hear a ball related pun one more time, someone was going to get their neck snapped.

God damn that Zoro...it was real fun to fight with him, but...he had LOST in the end. Vinsmoke Yonji did not LOSE, he was the pinnacle of raw strength, he had years of grappling and throwing under his belt, he was called WINCH GREEN, for fuck’s sake! Even if he had a worthy opponent, the match should have always been in his favor because he was his father’s success, not a failure.

But right now, he could not prove that worthiness and success to everyone while he recovered from his injury, which would be a little before they got to the next hit. The best he could do for nursing his ego at the moment was to indulge in some good old fashioned punching someone in the face. And he knew who exactly to enact that upon.

Shoving the pack of ice into his underwear, hissing as the cold made contact with his injured area, and marched out of his room, servants diving away out of his war path. It would be a bit of a trek to get to the dungeon, but it would all be worth it in the end. Yonji finally began to plan what exactly he would do to the green haired swordsman. He was not going to kill him, obviously, but he had to do something that would not grievously wound him. The prince already got enough of a tongue lashing from this father and did not want more of that if he broke Germa's new workhorse/toy. So that meant no broken bones (this time at least) and hurting him so much that he would not move the next day (again, at least this time). Hmm, perhaps just messing up his face would be enough. Hell, maybe he could return the favor and get a few ball shots in too. A grin creeped on his face from that thought.

By the time he got to the dungeon entrance, he kicked the door open, not caring if he broke it or not. He just wanted to catch the attention of the prisoner inside. When he went down the stairs, though, he saw that his act had not perturbed Zoro in the slightest. The man was in what looked like a position for meditation, eyes closed and posture stiff. The aloofness he displayed was pissing the bigger green haired man off. Hands in his pockets, he walked up to the bars and kicked them, ringing out a loud clang as his exoskeleton made contact with the

metal.

“What’s up, fuckface?” He snarled. No reaction from Zoro.

“Hey, answer me, mossman.” Still no response. Yonji’s lips curled downward into a frown. So, he was going to play the silent game, huh? He would have to escalate things a little to get the response he desired, then.

Rolling up his sleeves, he gripped two of the bars and with some effort (the bars had been reinforced after Sanji had escaped initially) managed to bend them enough to fit his broad shoulders through. This was not enough to stir the swordsman, even as Yonji walked up to him, looking directly down at his mossy looking hair.

“You know, you really embarrassed me back there during our sparring match.”

“Good.” So, he was finally able to yank an answer from Zoro, though it was not one he wanted. He decided to escalate things by giving him a relatively soft kick in the stomach. The swordsman twitched for a second but returned back to his meditative mode.

Oh, he was not having this.

Yonji grabbed Zoro by the shoulders and shoved him against the wall. Zoro finally opened his eyes, staring back with a deathly glare, but not because of the show of strength. He seemed more annoyed than anything from being interrupted, like he was looking down on the bright green haired man.

"Do you even know what your little toothy attack has done to me? Not only do my balls hurt like a bitch, but I've lost face!" he snarled, baring his teeth at Zoro.

"Oh yeah, and who's fault is that?" Zoro spat back, "I'm not the one who decided to keep someone's teeth in biting distance to their groin."

Truly pissed now, Yonji pulled the man back and slammed him into the wall hard enough to crack some of the stones behind the swordsman. Zoro grimaced but held steadfast.

"You think you're hot shit, don't you? You got one little nip in and you think you're better than me? Pfft, don't make me laugh."

"At least I actually worked for my strength instead of cheating my way through."

Oh. Oh no he did NOT. This was a level of disrespect that needed immediate correction. Yonji wound up a fist and aimed it directly at the swordsman's nose.

"You take that God damn back."

Zoro spat at him, a wad of spit hitting the prince's cheek.

Hmph. He gave him a chance at least.

His fist shot forward, intending to smash Zoro's nose to bits. But in the very last second, the prisoner moved his head out of the path, Yonji's fist going straight into the thick wall. With this momentary mistake, Zoro seized the prince's other arm, the one pinning down his shoulder, and, with the flexibility and skill of a very muscular monkey, wrapped his arms and legs around the appendage in order to get the prince off kilter and pull him down with his body weight. It worked and Yonji yelped as Zoro fell on his back and the green haired prince flat on his face. Fuck, he was majorly off his game!

When he felt the swordsman’s teeth graze his knuckles, ready to bite, Yonji pulled his arm back, jumping back onto his two feet and using his body to block the entrance he made out of the bars.

"You little fucker!"

"Back off, big man," Zoro coolly responded, "I'm gonna get out of this cell one way or another, and it can end with either you stepping aside or me forcing you there. I've got someone I gotta see."

The bigger man backed himself up until his shoulders nearly touched the bent bars. Like hell he was going to let this asshole out. His father may be distracted at the moment as he argued with Caesar on some footage the goat dude took, but he would hear about any attempted escapes and trace it back to him quick. Things were already bad enough today.

"Like hell I am! Who the hell are you trying to get to, anyways? Assassination attempts are not gonna work around here, pal."

Yonji put up his fists in expectation of any future blows. His balls were starting to hurt again from moving around so much but he ignored the pain as he watched Zoro's face harden into a look of determination.

“Your sister.”

Huh?

“You wanna assassinate my sister? The one bearing your kid? That’s fucked up, bro.”

The blush never left Zoro’s face even as his expression rapidly twisted into one of disgust and confusion.

“What the fu-Of course I’m not going to kill her, you dumbass! I have…other reasons…” he tapered off, shutting his mouth so fast his teeth clicked, like he remembered that he should be sharing this to one of his captors. Yonji pressed his lips together and raised a swirled brow.

“Then what’s your angle?”

“I just want to…I just…I wanna…” it almost seemed like his brain was clicking and clacking like a mechanical calculator on what to say next, “I just wanna…see her, if you catch my drift.”

The drift would not be caught by Yonji until a few seconds later. In doing so, his face scrunched up.

“Oh my God, don’t talk about banging my sister in front of me!”

“Wha-You asked!”

“Well I didn’t know it would be THAT!“

The vein on the man's temple throbbed again but he vented some of that mounting frustration by clucking his tongue.

“Will that be enough for you to let me by? I know you fellas can be horny bastards yourselves, so you should understand.”

Another thing Yonji did not appreciate was being talked like this by someone who was not his family. While Zoro was right that he understood the urgency of one wanting to get their dick wet, he still did not want a dressing down from his father for this, and most importantly, would not be ordered around by some…commoner, right hand man of the Pirate King or not.

“Understood or not, you’re still not getting through these bars without getting through me.”

Zoro chuffed, cracking his neck and knuckles.

“Fine by me.”

Yonji braced for impact as Zoro rushed up on the man, slamming his body at full force into his, clanging his back and shoulders fully against the cell bars as the sound of his exoskeleton hitting metal rang in the prince’s ears. Then the pushing began. Zoro was using all his might to try and push Yonji through the hole, grunting in the struggle. The youngest Vinsmoke stood his ground and grinded his heels into the floor, but he could feel himself sliding against the stone. He tried to counteract this by pressing his weight down onto Zoro to stop him. It didn't work and Zoro thrusted his body forward suddenly pushing Yonji’s butt and legs out of the bent bars.

Shit shit shit! He was not about to take two humiliating blows in one day!

He grabbed at the swordsman’s arms, attempting to push him away, which was a fruitless effort. Zoro reeled back for a second only to shove himself into Yonji again, this time his elbow hitting the larger man’s sternum. It probably hurt the swordsman more than it did the warrior prince himself, but it brought him off kilter long enough for the pressure applied by Zoro to sweep him off his feet and push both men out of the cell.

Shiiiiiit, no no no! Once out of the cell, Zoro quickly regained his bearings and rolled off of Yonji, making a beeline for the stairs. Pure animal instinct took over Yonji and he reached out and managed to grab Zoro by his ankle, making the man fall over flat on his face. Finally! An advantage!

Pulling the swordsman over, he immediately got on top of him, pinning him down with his weight. He sat on top of his stomach , ready to start whaling on him at any second. But, since he had some power over the man, he might as well treat his bruised and battered ego to some lording over.

“What are you gonna do now, sword boy? I'm gonna beat your face in so bad Reiju wouldn't want you unless you put a sack over your head.”

“Fat chance, greenbrow.”

“Heh,” Yonji closed the distance between his face and Zoro’s, grinning cruelly, “and just what are you gonna do about that?”

The next events happened so fast, as if in one smeary blur.

Zoro, his eyes showing a glimmer of an awful idea returned his smile with one more evil and demonic. The swordsman brought his head closer to Yonji’s, the prince expecting a headbutt, and was blown away when Zoro made contact with his slightly open mouth with his own.

He was…kissing him! And he obviously had experience with it, with the way he sucked and nibbled on his lips and had his tongue enter and maneuver in his mouth. Yonji should have been pulling away, walloping the swordsman for daring to do that, but…how could he even describe the feeling? It was so alien he couldn't put it in words.

Soon enough, though, his hands found their bearings and pushed the ground hard enough that he popped back up onto his two feet, stumbling back a few steps as if the ground was shaking. It at least felt like it. The world was spinning too. Another man just kissed him and he had no idea how to feel about it. Well…he didn't hate it at leas-

Out of the corner of his eye, Yonji caught a human shaped blob of pink at the top of the stairs and refocused his vision to the point of interest. It was…Reiju, wide eyed and baffled, like she had…seen…everything...

Fuck.

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Well...that was unexpected. She did not know what she expected when she could hear Yonji’s voice from the hallway leading to the dungeon, but Reiju definitely did not predict that her brother would be mashing lips with the father of her child. And he seemed to not expect it too, considering the blank deer in the headlights stare he was giving her. She in the beginning of formulating how to respond to this when in the blink of an eye, Yonji dropped the swordsman and dashed up to her, screeching to a stop when his face was only inches away from hers. He grasped her arms with desperation as he brought his head closer to her until their noses almost touched. His blue eyes were wild with bubbling anxiety.

"HowmuchofthatdidyouseeReijuhowmuchhowmuch???" the question came out as a long string of rushed syllables. His grip was starting to hurt now.

"I, uh, saw the kiss and strange position you were in?"

This seemed to not be the proper response as Yonji slumped back, releasing his hold on her as he buried his face into his hands and moaned.

"Nooo, NOOOOO!" his wails echoed throughout the stone walls. Good thing she closed the door on her way in. His self pity only lasted a few seconds as he sprung back into an upright stance.

“Hold on, just what the hell are you doing here?” He tried to shoot her a scrutinizing look despite being obviously shaken.

“I could ask you the same, especially considering the scene.”

Yonji blushed, stuttering up an answer.

“I just, uhhh, wanted to see the prisoner and rough him up a little. I'm mad at him and that's all I feel about him, ok?”

“Oh, you were roughing him up, alright.” 

Yonji groaned and facepalmed for walking right into her punchline.

“Ok, just, don’t tell anyone about this, ok? This is just something you, me, and…him know about.” He side eyed Zoro, who was getting back up and finding slight amusement in the chaos he had caused.

Oh…oh wow, she had no words for this. What could Reiju possibly say about the greatest opportunity just plopping in her lap like this so casually? After spending the last few days wracking her brain on what to do with Zoro now that many of her resources and privileges were restricted or revoked, this little incident just now suddenly showed up and practically handed her some good blackmail.
It was not something she used on her brothers, mainly because shame was something they rarely felt, no matter what they did, but there were things that did push their buttons in specific ways. One of the ways was their manly pride. Like her father, their sense of masculinity did not simply tiptoe near the line of chauvinistic male pride, but stomped all over the line and then walking past it. Why else would the second son be called the “first”? In this situation, something like being caught kissing another man and being in such an intimate situation with him would cause a bomb drop to their egos if spread around…

“Oh, so this is something we have to keep under wraps, huh?” She pondered with a false innocence, “Better not let Ichiji, Niji or Father get this information to their ears, right?”

“Yeah, exactly.”

“Well, dear brother, you can rest assured that I would never spill such sensitive information to them, I promise you that…however…”

Yonji’s body tensed up, his posture straightening as he took in what she was insinuating. Even Zoro leaned in to listen better.

“However?” Her green haired younger brother echoed back, as if to prompt her to continue.

“However, I cannot guarantee that such juicy gossip would not reach the ears of the servants. You know how they love to talk amongst each other about what happens with the royal family they serve. I’m sure such a ‘rumor’ would spread like a wildfire amongst them, too. And you know how those whispers eventually get to everyone’s ears.”

Reiju prepared herself for a blow up at this obvious flexing of blackmail material. She had built surface level rapport with Yonji over the years, but this would definitely smash it like a sledgehammer to glass. She could sacrifice that, take in his anger at her for holding such a thing over his head.

What she had not expected was for his reaction to be much quieter and not angry at all.

It was one…of betrayal. Of feeling betrayed. The shock of her doing this, followed by the look of a sad dog who had just been kicked by its owner, even if just for the briefest seconds. If the reaction had taken her aback, she shoved it down before it could show. She had to focus on her goal after all.

“Alright, what do you want?” Yonji asked her robotically. At least when he knew the cards were not in his favor, he would jump straight to business.

“One white and one horned transponder snail. I will also need access to the treasury after I have made my calls.”

Despite Reiju having the upper hand here, Yonji still furrowed his brow and exhaled in exasperation.

“That's a tall order, considering that everyone will KNOW when that vault is opened.”

“I know that,” Reiju limply waved her hand, “which is why I will tell you after my call when you will do it.”

Her brother’s gaze hardened like steel, as if trying to see through her like an X-ray. He'd find nothing though, as she had been living under such a gaze for years.

“It sounds to me like you wanna elope with Greeny down there.” 

“Why would you care if I do? You're not in any place right now to try and bargain with me.”

Yonji shrugged his shoulders, not meeting Reiju with eye contact.

“I mean, this is gonna throw away a lot of stuff for you, stuff you've done for us, stuff you've worked for, all down the drain when father sees you conspiring with the prisoner. I'm not totally concerned with what you wanna do with your life, hell if I care, but it'd suck to see father be more pissed than ever.”

Yonji could be stupid sometimes, but he was not dumb and quite observant, in fact (when his mind was not being ruled by his ego or his other head). The plan she had come up with would have pre-pregnancy her pulling her aside and making sure she was mentally fit enough to even be thinking. And truth be told, she was having reservations about the current escape plan she was cobbling together. The reward (freeing Zoro) was about equal to the risk (losing any and all privileges she had at Germa, maybe even some rights, too), but still had the sticky question of getting their daughter out of here too. This was time sensitive and she couldn't have both getting Zoro back with his crew and getting her daughter out of here without involving herself at one point. 

“Well, that's tough. If you don't like what I'm doing, then I'm not going to force you. But I will let the staff have a juicy morsel of gossip that they can chew on for years to come.”

This had the intended effect of making Yonji bristle. He closed his eyes, real tight, and made a strained humming noise considering his options. She’ll let him weigh the pros and cons of giving in. While that happened, Reiju took a momentary peek at Zoro, who was now sitting on the floor. She could see some bruises mainly around his shoulders and back from the sparring earlier, but nothing much worse, which was a good sign. His singular eye, the iris as black as coal, stared her down during her observation, wanting to say so many things to her but holding back so Reiju could finish her dealings with Yonji.

“Augh, fine,” Yonji spat, “I’ll see what I can do to get what you need!” He threw his hands in the air for dramatic effect.

“It’ll take a minute to do because your boy toy used my nuts as a chew toy, so I’m officially off the clock, but I’ll get it done as long as you keep quiet about this on your end about this…incident, alright?”

Reiju flashed him a smile that dripped with sweet insincerity.

“Cross my heart and hope to die.”

The younger brother simply huffed in response and shoved his hands into his pockets. He turned to waddle back upstairs but he turned back around to face the pair.

“Reiju…” The green haired prince seemed hesitant and embarrassed to force the next few words out of his mouth, “when you’re… satisfied with him, and all that, clean yourself extra well. The stink of the dungeon can get into your clothes pretty deep.”

With that, he left without another word, leaving Reiju confused on what the hell he was referring to.

Ahh, to hell with it. If she had the privilege of having emotions for herself right now, she would have felt giddy about how things were finally looking up for her plans, but again, not the time. Right now, she had a soon to be father to talk to.

“So…” Zoro started after waiting a bit for Yonji to truly storm off, “it…sure is something to see you again.”

The princess turned to directly face Zoro, promptly sitting down in a seiza position.

So. This was it. A face to face meeting between her and Zoro. For a moment, they said nothing and drank in each other's presence, as if to make sure they were really here. It was only when Zoro's eye migrated from her face to her midsection did the interaction truly start.

His eye was focused on the swell of her belly, mainly on how big it was. It was twice the size of when he last saw her. The swordsman looked up with true fear in his eyes.

“Is it…is it multiple?”

Oh, right. It had completely slipped her mind that she had hidden a satchel with food and supplies under her dress. She quickly went to untie the knot on the back and let the leather bag flop to the floor. Zoro breathed a sigh of relief at seeing that her stomach was the size it should be for one baby.

“Ok, phew, I thought for a second the whole quadruplets thing was hereditary. I…honestly have no idea how I'd handle that.”

No, it couldn't be genetic since the boys were made invitro-

And then Reiju remembered that she could not speak to the man. All the words drove right into a pile up in front of her closed lips and teeth. At least she had figured out a workaround that could possibly work. Reaching into her bag, she pulled out a medium sized notebook, still with that new book smell, and a ballpoint pen. Zoro gave her pen a quizzical look but let her write. She tried to jot it down fast but still make it legible. Once finished, she handed the open book to Zoro.

My apologies that I could not speak to you earlier when you got here. Judge has ordered me to not speak to you and I quite literally cannot disobey what he says.

“Ahh, I get it then,” Zoro flopped the book down on his lap before handing it back to Reiju, “So this is the only way you can communicate with me for now.”

Reiju nodded.

“Well…if it works, it works. So…if I can be blunt, do you know where they are keeping my swords?”

Reiju frowned slightly at this. She did know their location, but unfortunately, once the swordsman’s swords were taken to the treasury, her rights to enter it had been revoked and the passcode and locks were changed. She wrote in the notebook again and handed it back.

I do know where it is, but I unfortunately have no access to it.

“Well, if you tell me where it’s located, maybe I can find them myself.”

Reiju shot Zoro a withering look, as if to say “Really?”.

”God, not you too!” Zoro groaned, “Why does everyone keep thinking I’m bad with directions, I follow them to the-oh come on, don’t roll your eyes!”

The princess could not help herself. 

Would you like the short or long list of every way that plan could go wrong?

”…No list, please.”

Despite his objections to even the insinuation of being chronically unconsciously wanderlust, he knew this was not a war he was going to win. Besides, this was not the time to squabble.

This is precisely why I am having Yonji get us access to the treasury when the time is right.

The swordsman snapped his fingers at the realization.

“Ahhh, so that's why you asked Yonji to getcha access there. Hold on, you already have an escape plan cooked up, with the snails and everything?”

Reiju nodded again, though with less enthusiasm.

Sort of.

Zoro looked up from the notebook semi confused.

“Sort of?”

Finding the words to explain what problems she had was hard. Everything else she was on board with and if done right, could get Zoro and her daughter off of Germa and back with the Straw Hats. The only issue was that since her child still needed time in the oven, Reiju herself would have to go with them. She would have to free herself and be out there for once in her life and the prospect…the prospect should have elicited excitement in her but all it did was terrify. There was no mincing words about it, she was a monster. A monster who was self aware of her nature and had no choice about it, but still a killer beast no less. Never mind how that would affect the Strawhats to have her gallivanting around with them while Judge would be hot on their tails, imagine how it would affect her daughter if she had to bear the weight of her being her mother in more than just blood. She didn’t deserve to be released from her prison but her innocent child did.

…Of course, she could not tell Zoro any of that. Instead, she wrote down an alternative answer for him. One that was truthful but not the entire truth.

I need to work out any back up plans in case something gets in our way. For example, Caesar and his incessant obsession about out.

“Ugh, yeah, that fucker’s had his eyes on me since day one. Probably still made cause we stopped his experimenting on kids… oh fuck .” He exclaimed as his eyes migrated down to her belly. Yet another reason Reiju needed to get out of Germa, at least until the baby was born. With her father and Caesar combined, she did not want to think about what terrors for experiments and training they would unleash onto the baby girl.

“Yeah, we need to get the hell out of here as soon as possible. Though…fuck, it’s not like I don’t wanna see my crew again…but…I’m not sure how to feel about seeing erocook again.”

Reiju cocked her head, questioning his trepidation.

”It’s like…he always gets on me when it comes to how I interact with any women, even the most normal of things I do. Just because I don’t get stupid when I see a pair of boobs and a pretty face, well-“ he flicked his eyes down to the swell of her belly again, “not all the time, it doesn’t mean I’m some hater of women. But he’ll never hear that. And you're the only family he has left that he still likes, so I just know he’s gonna nail me onto a cross when I get back on the Sunny.”

Despite his tone, something flickered in his eye that was along the lines a deep fondness even if his words did not match that.

I’m sure Sanji would be very understanding of the situation. You’re still part of his family despite it all.

“Hmph, yeah, he’ll be understanding that he’s going to put his foot up my ass. But I shouldn’t be thinking about that,” he sighs, “dare I say, I miss him trying to burn me with those ‘flames of passion’. I’ll take being burned everyday by them if it means getting out of here.”

And I can promise you that I am going to make that happen. Now, I want to get down to some brass tacks on the plan while we are together right now.

“Right, right, gimme the low down.”

It was getting a bit harder to write everything down so quickly the longer sprints Reiju had to do. But she had no idea if anyone else was coming if Yonji sauntered down here before she did so it had to be done with haste. She gave him back the book, hoping her more manic scribbles were still legible.

Firstly, we’re going to make a call to your crew since they are a sea separated from us right now. That’s what the extra snails are for, as all lines on Germa are monitored out of the gate. We will make our location known to them and the circumstances surrounding your capture. We keep in contact to be constantly updated on their location. If they can make it to our next major stop before hitting the Red Line, Cinnabar Island, the next phase of the plan can start immediately. 

Yonji will let us into the treasury, we will get your swords back, reconvene with your crew who will be nearby, and get out of here. 

Zoro hummed after reading the plan over.

“I see, I see then. Sounds like a pretty solid plan AND I get to kick some ass. I hope Caesar just so happens to get himself caught in the crossfire, but knowing the fucker, he'll hole himself up in hi-huh?”

His train of thought was stopped as Reiju put up one hand and frantically wrote down with the other.

Please try not to kill anyone. I mean it.

She tapped the page with her pen for extra emphasis

“Well, hey, if things are going to get violent, I can't guarantee that my blades won't want to get a taste of blood.”

I know, but minimization is the key if we do not want more problems for your crew. If even Caesar is lost, Judge will follow you to the ends of the Earth to crush you, not accounting for the already apparent reason he would chase you all once this plan goes through.

“Hey, don't doubt us, we’ve handled big bullshit like him before.”

I understand that, but there is someone else we have to think about now, too.

Her hand slid down the curvature of her stomach, her daughter kicking in response. Zoro's expression hardened along with his spine stiffening. 

“...Alright, then I solemnly promise to not rough your family and Caesar up too much, at least not enough to kill.”

Reiju breathed a sigh of relief. She already had a gut feeling that Zoro was the type to not break a promise when made.

“I do have one question for the plan, though,” Zoro raised a finger, “how are you going to juggle opening the treasury to cause chaos and getting me to my swords? I feel like shit is gonna go down once that place is opened and I'll be stuck here until you get me.”

Ahh, yes, she did need him to be right with her when the final part of the plan was enacted. Though that would be tricky since Judge pulled out all the stops for them to be close…unless…unless…

Ah. She had an idea on how to get Zoro and her together, but it was going to hurt .

She started writing again and took a few minutes (thank goodness for Zoro being patient), but her idea was finally hastily inscribed onto the paper as she pushed the notebook back into the swordsman’s arms.

I have an idea for that middle part: I have a lot of paperwork in my office/storage space that needs to be moved to the main paperwork storage building. It is about a year’s worth of documentation of costs, casualties, tax forms, etcetera. This is along with all the other responsibilities I have with tracking expenses around here. Usually I would do the main task, the storage transfer myself, but am unable to do so because of extenuating circumstances. So I need someone to assist me with that. I cannot nominate you for that now, but father does not trust other people either for this job, slimming it down to just me and my brothers.

Essentially, I will choose the one I know is the worst out of the three when it comes to manual, “boring” labor and have them be my assistant for a day and only day so they can make things FUBAR enough that I'll be “forced” to ask father for a replacement of my own choosing, which will be you. Due to the nature of the work too, he will also be forced to lift my talking restriction, which is great because I think my hand is cramping up “talking” to you right now.

On that note, Reiju tried shaking the feeling back into her hand. She could write fast, but she was more of a long distance writer rather than a sprinter.

After finishing the text, Zoro gave her a look of genuine concern.

“I'm not trying to poke holes in your plan, Reiju, I do trust your intuition, but…can you really handle being around one of those jackasses for a whole day while also doing hard work? You've been handling them for years, I'm sure of that, but the circumstances are different and I'm just…I'm…” he was trying to force out the right words for this, “I’m just worried they might hurt you and the kid in some way and I won't be there to do anything about it. I'll probably be cleaning up the snail breeding caverns again tomorrow while you're dealing with one of the shitty evilbrows. I’d never be able to live with myself if I let my own kid get hurt like that…”

His tone was solemn and deadly serious with the slightest tinge of worry he was trying to smoosh down that emotion. Reiju herself was frozen in place. It was not quite shock that she felt, as she already knew Zoro was a protective man and was the type who actually cared about his offspring no matter what, but still…hearing some sort of care even tangentially thrown her way would always surprise her.

I have handled my brothers for over 24 years. What’s one more day?

Zoro analyzed her face and body language for any trace of hesitation or doubt of her words. Reiju knew he would not find anything, though.

“If you say so…just don’t choose greenbrow for that, it’ll make things awkward.

Ahh, Yonji. She had already struck him from the very short list because of his groin injury, but now that they were on the topic of him…

So what was that scene I walked into earlier?

This seemed to catch the man off guard, raising his hackles.

“Well, the dumbass wanted to go for round two again and I was not having that so we…tussled.”

So was the kiss a new fighting style? One Tongue Style?

Zoro groaned loudly and long. Again, Reiju was grateful that the door to the dungeon was closed or she would not have gotten this funny reaction out of the swordsman.

“Look, it was a bit of an underhanded tactic I had to use because the tub of fuck was on top of me. What the hell do you guys feed that dude anyways, bricks? Anywho, I did that to leave him dazed so I could suplex him and run out of this dank place. I have to say, though, he's not a good kisser at all. It was like tonguing a dead fish.”

Reiju elected to ignore that last comment.

You had a plan for after knocking him down?

“Ummm, kinda. I just knew I wanted to see you again, but not much else.”

Well, I appreciate the thought at least. Even though you would have been caught immediately.

“Yeah, yeah, I know, not the best idea, but it's all I had.”

And while we are on the subject, I also would like to know what Yonji was talking about earlier satisfaction when he left us be.

“Oh, that, well…I may have made a little fib when I accidentally revealed too much to greenbrow so I tried to say I was actually looking for you for…for…” It was surprising to see the swordsman actually look hesitant on finishing his answer, “augh, look, I tried to insinuate that I wanted you for sex and he bought it. Just to throw him off my trail.”

Oh. Huh. Reiju filed that tidbit of information away in her mind robotically, not really knowing what to do with it. 

“I didn’t mean it of course, sorry if that somehow got your hopes up, but…ugh, again, not my best plan.”

It’s okay. And my hopes were not brought up by that.

Things were quiet for a few seconds after that. What WAS she supposed to say to that? It’s not like…well Zoro was quite a looker, yes, but…it was just…god damn, she couldn’t even get her thoughts to be coherent for herself. 

She could not feel things for him again, not in that way, not ever since…

“Hey, while we are here, can I ask a stupid question?”

Reiju pursed her lips and thought about it for a second.

Go ahead.

"Well, don't be offended when I ask this," Reiju braced herself for what Zoro was going to say, "but why did you even go to bed with me in the first place? You seem like someone who is usually pretty cautious, so why take such a chance with me?"

Ah. Well, that was most likely the worst question he could have asked her. It was the one thing she absolutely did not want to answer even if a gun was pointed to her head. But Zoro’s want for an answer was worse than any firearm, so she would have to answer. God, where should she even start without sounding so…dumb? Ridiculous? Preposterous considering what she was usually like? Reiju thought back to the night that started it all…

🦋🦋🦋⚔️⚔️⚔️

Despite being a practiced actress due to her living situation, one act Reiju struggled with was playing the drunk. It required being able to be loose and unpredictable, two traits that were the polar opposite of her very core. There also was the fact that her body considered any and all alcohol “poison” and filtered any and all of its effects. It was like she was drinking flavored water. It was why when at the celebration party for the Straw Hats, Reiju simply took hummingbird sips of the hard apple cider in her hands. The apples on this island had to be some breed that had been cut off from the others in cultivation as it had a pleasant aromatic scent to it and the taste was like that of the scent of apple blossoms in taste form mixed with very sweet but with hints of tartness, along with the alcohol content, to bring you back down from the sugar high.

All in all, she would give Innsmouth Island’s cider an eight out of ten.

But the cider was not why she was here. Going between the crowd of bodies, Reiju was finally able to catch sight of the reason why she was here: Sanji…who was unfortunately making a fool of himself in front of women again, but that was a part of his charm, was it not?

Sitting at a wooden table and bench, she watched as the festivities were going on for the pirate crew saving the island from the old god that had been terrorizing it. She had tested her disguise out before on another island to see if she would be recognized and thankfully, her makeup and outfit coordination skills were good enough that no one had ever thought she was the Poison Princess. A reputation like that barred her from as many opportunities as it opened up. So here she was, being another face in the crowd watching her brother from a distance. It has been three years since she last saw him in person, three years since the wedding disaster. The only times she had been able to get a look at her baby brother were in news articles and some of the newfangled film serials. And it should have stayed that way. She would keep her distance and he would live his own life. A fair (at least for Sanji) arrangement that made everyone happy.

And then she almost died. Slowly. Painfully. Her nearly last moments swarmed with visions of the last person who actually cared about her turning his back and finally calling her what she already knew she was and never wanted to hear him say.

Needless to say, breaking an arrangement to bring herself out of the post recovery tar pits of despair was an understandable breach on her end.

Her second to last youngest brother was a light shining in the darkness, figuratively and literally so with the way the lights bounced off his golden hair. He was offering to feed the cat burglar, Nami, some of the soft and light colored pudding from the feast, overhearing his reasoning being “So your sweet hands do not have to do anymore work ”. The redhead relished in this attention flagrantly and it was no secret on the Grand Line that she basically used Sanji as a servant. But he never minded this, or hell, maybe he knew already and just kept on doing it because he was such a kind man. The kindest in the world, even.

Laying her head on the table, the world going sideways, she reminisced on the days she spent with her mother when she was bedridden, how the woman enjoyed anything Sanji made for her and did. He really was the greatest boy in the world. The greatest man in the world. A far better person than she could ever b- HOLY-MOLY!

Her self-deprecating thoughts were tied up and shoved into a closet faster than the eye could see as her brother turned to yell at the captain’s right hand man, bringing him into the princess' focus. She had seen the rest of the Strawhats she could not meet in the papers and bounty posters, including the swordsman, but this was her first time seeing all of them in person in one spot. And Zoro’s poster…did not do the man justice.

The pair was loud enough that she could hear their conversation from her spot.

”What the hell would you understand about treating a woman, shitty marimo!?”

”Not to act like a brainless servant monkey when one  is around you.”

“At least I’m not a heartless gorilla who-“

Their squabbling was interrupted by Nami conking both of them on the head and yelling at them for trying to start a physical fight with each other. Reiju almost wished they would start fighting so she could see his muscles ripple and move under his skin like-

All her muscles tensed as she tried her damndest to push away the thought. Where the hell did that come from? In all her life, she had not had any attraction to any person, but this pirate was making her feel all…warm and tingly inside. These feelings were for people who did not have their entire lives tied to a military mercenary empire. Besides, she should not harbor such feelings for one of her brother’s shipmates. That was his real family there and she needed to keep hersel-Oh Lord, look at those lips work that mug of cider!

It took all her energy to not slam her head right into the table for that one, prompting instead to simply laying her face down on the wood as the crowd around her went on with their merriment.
This was ridiculous, she shouldn't be acting like a dog in heat just because she had seen a well built man. She had seen plenty of them on Germa with the soldiers and it's not like the Straw Hats were barren of any other good looking men (sans Sanji, because eww to think of her brother in the proximity of sexiness). But there was something different about the swordsman…

Observing him, she could see how sweaty he was, undoubtedly from the recent battle and heat of mid spring on the Grand Line, how his clothes stuck to his body, which had every muscle defined like they were from an anatomy textbook-

Maybe she should stop looking at him. And stop looking at Sanji too because he was so close to the swordsman and her treacherous eyes would migrate away. She should focus on taking a peek at some of the other crew members she did not get a chance to see during the Big Mom incident. The cyborg, Franky, was quite a looker, both in an aesthetic and a showman sense, and was quite good with kids with the way he showed off the abilities of his implants to the children. The long nosed one too, Usopp, was easy on the eyes, albeit, the effect of that was dampened as he fought off Luffy from stealing off his plate like the pirate king was a naughty dog.
And then there was Jinbei…Jinbei~~~-alright, time to redirect her attention away from him too.

Finally, there was the enigmatic Nico Robin. The Demon Child, who had been a key player in finding Laught-God damn she was sitting next to Zoro!

It was at that point that Reiju felt something warm and thick down her top lip down to her chin. Wiping it away, she found that it was blood.

Oh God.

She was acting just like Sanji when he was around women.

Slugging down the rest of her cider, she tried to fill her mind with unsexy thoughts to flush out all the feelings she had for the gruff swordsman that were beginning to make her panties wet. Ok, ok, the snail breeding caverns, that was a good start, uh, uhhh, wheat biscuits , yes, very effective, very unsexy. The idea of the swordsman’s abs were still popping up in her head, though, so she needed a true bomb to salt the earth of her lavicious mind. 

And then her brain popped in the idea of her father naked. And that seemed to be the key as she physically cringed at the idea and dried up any feelings of lewdness along with her nosebleed. Reiju felt that it was enough to stymie those feelings from resurfacing again since the imagery her mind forced onto her was…something she wished never to see in real life.

Now was probably the time for her to take her leave. She wanted to stay longer to refill her will to live by watching Sanji, but she knew if she stayed any longer, she might do something unwise because of the-

OH

MY

GOD.

Out of the corner of her eye, Reiju had caught the swordsman flagrantly pulling his shirt off, the sweaty cloth being too much for him and he tossed it behind him. Sanji was yelling at him again but her own brother got pushed to the wayside as she locked into Zoro’s delicious muscles. His abs were so defined as a classical statue’s, and as chiseled as the stone they were made from, and his pecs were like a pair of dirigibles!

Reiju's eye twitched as more blood gushed from her nose. Her grip on the table tightened so much This was not simply a horny bomb on her psyche, it was the fourth Ancient Weapon! She could feel her sense and logic being locked up and the key thrown away as lust took the reins.

And then it happened. Her system overloaded with smut and newly awakened sexual passion, her gaze turned into a heart bulging out of her eye socket, her body soft and wiggly and her voice raising a few octaves in an over the top display reminiscent of the mating ritual of tropical male birds.
Her now limber waved side to side, arms in the air, as she shouted:

“Zoro-kyuuuun~!”

All the villagers in the vicinity turned to face the seemingly crazy woman and even Zoro himself glanced in her direction, but she was gone before anyone could find who just screamed to the captain's right hand man in that cutesy way.
Reiju had managed to fight the horny urges in time and dove under a table to catch her breath and manage herself. What in the hell did she just do? Why was she feeling this way at the worst possible moment? God, maybe she should bang her head against a rock until she stops being so stupid. But at the same time, doing that would ruin her makeup and she had no time to reapply it so she would just have to internalize the need to scream. While wrestling back for control, she still had the indelible carnal need for the green haired swordsman. Her insides felt so hot, she needed some release or else she would have her organs twist into knots. Stupid sexy Zoro!

Now she could not leave, at least not immediately. She could not go back to Germa all horned up like this as she already knew self pleasurement would not be enough. She did not simply want the man now, she NEEDED him. 
Making her way out from under the table, she brought her raid suit can nearer to the opening of her jacket so she could easily pull it out when she got to the point where she could take off back to the nearby Germa ships. Looks like things would have to prematurely end.

She wanted to stay longer, to soak up a little more of the sunshine so she could keep on living and surviving, but she would have to take what she could get. Reiju only was able to keep going the way she had done all these years because she had control over herself and losing that control for the briefest of moments back there was disconcerting. Without it, she would have been…well, probably locked away in a dungeon like Sanji had all those years ago. Having her body take the reins even if just for a second, it was quite terrifying.

…But…maybe, just maybe… a little taste of that was not so bad. 

Reiju stopped dead in her tracks at that thought. Of course it was bad! It would have meant that her over twenty years of “good behavior” was all for nothing! All those years of masking and all the years she would continue to mask would be all for naught!

…Then again, was that not all the more reason for her to give herself a little treat? 

Reiju could feel her heart beating so hard it thrummed in her chest and the core of her body was so hot now it felt like a furnace, hot enough to melt steel.

No, she did not deserve a “little treat”, she deserved to suffer the way she had for years. She was not a good person, or even just a person, so why should she-

Why should…

Why…

Why not?

How long had she gone without any pleasure in her life? It had been so long that she could not remember any start point for it. She always had Sanji’s wellbeing and thriving life to take pleasure in the knowledge of, but when had she done something for herself? Never, that was for sure. A little nibble was not something she should worry about. After all, she would go back to the sterile Germa for either option she chose, so why not go with the fun one?

Reiju was not sure at this point if it was her or her hormones doing the talking, but either way, the argument was sounding more convincing. She had lived spartan enough and would continue to do so. Not much else in life gave her any sort of stimulation that was not the sort of flight or fight response for survival, and drugs and alcohol couldn't be a distraction considering how her system filtered all their effects out. And it was not like her father would know this happened, considering he is asleep and miles away now. And this was her first time, too! The first time she's ever felt this passionately for someone that was not familial. A temporary passion maybe, but the swordsman’s presence was enough to override all her cautiousness and drive up her hormones where no one else was able to. He was special, that was for sure.

Reiju made a U-turn away from her destination (though it turned into a W-turn when she debated on going back), but did not go back directly to the banquet. She still had her lower face covered in blood from the nosebleed and went to find a water source to wash it off. The closest thing she could find was a water fountain and thought it might be her best bet as no one would be drinking from it anyways. As Reiju wiped her face, not caring about ruining some of the makeup now since it was better than trying to woo someone while looking like one got out of a pub brawl. As she flecked the residual drops off of her hands, she looked at her reflection once again in the water, the moon being the only source of light now.

She really did not look like herself when in the disguise. The makeup did some heavy lifting, covering up her tattoos and curly eyebrows, but the way she parted her hair, the way she had dressed and the accessories she wore like her sunglasses all combined together to form an entirely different yet somewhat similar person. 

He would not recognize her, which was good (though, it was not like the swordsman had actually seen her before in the first place), as she need not to entangle herself anymore with the Strawhats’ lives than she already has. Well, has and will do soon. But that would be temporary. The warmth inside of her had spread, making her entire torso feel hot to the touch and ready for action .

All that was left now was finding the swordsman, which…could be hard considering his infamous ability to go in the opposite of even clearly explained and laid out directions, but since he was with his crew they probably would at least keep him reined in for a certain area. 

As soon as Reiju went to look for him, though, she quickly stumbled upon him leaving the celebration and going to the outskirts of it and into the village with an evident pep in his step. Reiju watched, wondering what he was doing until he went into an alleyway. Ahh, he had to take a piss…well, better now than never.

Reiju stopped once more before making her move. Every muscle in her body ached to be taken by the man's strong self and her mind was awash with perfumed ardor, yet the one part of her mind, the one that was always aware, always vigilant, always afraid, clung on the idea of “Don't do this” like a piece of driftwood. Perhaps she could get away with this moment of passion if the swordsman wanted to do it too, but it was still uncharted territory for the woman. She knew how to be flirtatious and bend and mold others emotions, yes, but physical acts were something else entirely. Reiju had no idea how to be in control of such a thing or even if it was something to be in control of.

But these arguments were swept away by one thought: feeling this way, towards another person, was it not very human? Was it not human to want and not to need? To do something not for survival, not for fitting into the fold, but out of pure desire and feeling comfortable enough to express that?

Reiju may have been a monster, and always would be, but maybe with this newly started passion, she could play pretend, just for one night…

🦋🦋🦋⚔️⚔️⚔️

Reiju still could not believe that he agreed to such an act then and there, but she also had to consider all the factors such as adrenaline and the good times going on that would contribute to such acts of passion. God knows it was not her skills at seduction that got her that far. Or maybe he was also horned up like her at the time and she just could not see it, making it a happy coincidence for them both.

Well.

Not quite happy now , but still…

In the end, she decided to put down the much shortened but also true answer.

You are an interesting specimen.

“That’s, uhhh, certainly a way to put it.”

Well, she was not expecting an enthusiastic reaction to her response, but it was better than saying she went full Sanji Mode at the sight of him.

“Huh, now that I think back to that day, I feel a little bad that we screwed in that alleyway.”

Huh?

Huh?

Zoro shrugged nonchalantly.

“I mean, if they ask one day about how we met or something, what do we even say? I’d personally wanna give them the truth, but I know the witch would never let me hear the end of it so I gotta think of something else.”

Reiju could not tell if the swordsman was joking or not, but she leaned towards not once observing how contemplative his expression was.

But the other thing that put her off kilter was the implication of “we”. Both of them, together in their daughter’s life. Reiju needed to make sure that did not happen, but she would have to keep that to herself from now seeing as Zoro was implying otherwise.

I guess we will just have to wait until she is old enough to learn the truth.

Zoro quirked his brow right as Reiju registered what she had written down.

“‘She’? It's a girl?”

The woman slowly nodded.

“Oh…oh wow,” Zoro combed his fingers through his hair, soaking in the gender reveal, “wow.”

Reiju meant to tell him the child’s gender soon, though she wished to tell him when she got her voice back. It was something she felt would be better revealed through words than the much colder form of writing.

“How long did you know?”

Only since yesterday.

“Ahh,” Zoro crossed his arms, staring contemplatively at Reiju’s stomach. She wished more than any other moment now that she could crack open his head and see what the man was thinking. While not quite enigmatic, he still was not the type who wore his heart on his sleeve like Luffy or Sanji. Was he mad at her for all this but just pushing those emotions into a corner for their daughter? Was he more interested in having a son instead of a daughter? The questions started to swirl in her mind.

“Hey,” Zoro’s voice penetrated through the clouds, “can I…feel her?”

Reiju looked back at him, analyzing his face. While his expression was steely as usual, she could sense a tinge of uncertainty. Despite that she nodded and scooted closer to the man. Zoro inched an open hand closer to the swell of her stomach until his palm and fingers fully touched her midsection. It was at that moment that their daughter decided to give a hearty kick, right on the part of Reiju's stomach Zoro was touching. He pulled his hand back fast, as if he touched a hot iron, eye widening a little. The baby girl kept up her movements until Zoro worked himself up enough to feel her again. This time when he felt the kicks again, he inhaled and held it in his chest.

Reiju could relate. Feeling their daughter moving for the first time almost didn't seem like it was actually happening, like she had mistaken some other bodily process for it. Knowing that someone else’s life depended on you was something she was familiar with before, only now with a different context.

“Huh, strong kicks,” Zoro mused, “just like her uncle…”

The pair stayed silent for a moment, the only sound now being a “drip-drip” noise coming from somewhere.

Zoro brought his legs into a criss-cross position and brought his hands back to plant them on his knees. He corrected his expression to lose some of the emotion he was showing. 

“So…Reiju…I trust you know what you're doing with your plan and if you have faith in it, so do I. Even so, though, I have one thing to ask…well, there are more things I want to say, but one that relates to the plan: please do not bite off more than you can chew.”

The swordsman did not have anything else to say in that respect, only tilting his head forward slightly to emphasize his grave look. Reiju made a mental note to keep her distance (but not too much) for the first part of her plan tomorrow.

Okay then, I can do that.

“Are you sure?”

Affirmative.

With the way his head was positioned, a shadow covered Zoro’s good eye.

“Ok…” he took in a deep inhale and let out an equally deep exhale, “ok…just make sure you’re both safe and I will do my part.”

Reiju hummed and nodded. She could understand his fears, especially when he could not be there, but the princess still had enough confidence in handling her brothers. For the most part.

“Oh right, my other question,” Zoro’s gaze softened a little, “did you think of any names for her yet?”

Reiju was about to write again when she realized she never actually thought of any yet. She's been so focused on worrying about what she was to do with her child and her well-being that it never occurred to her that she should be thinking about things such as a name for her girl. Reiju was batting zero so far at being a good mother.
She shook her head.

“Well, if you don't have any in mind, I can suggest some. I mean, you can veto any of them if you want, but I think the kid should have a name if she's got a gender now, you know?” 

The princess nodded in agreement. She was about to transcribe them until she thought that it might be better if Zoro wrote them down himself. He could write it down the way he wanted it spelled and all that.

“Oh, me? Wouldn't your handwriting look better?”

Reiju was practically shoving the book and pen into his chest.

“AUGH, fine, fine, I'll do it,” he did not seem displeased despite what he said and took the items from her hands. The princess could practically see the gears turning in his head as he looked at the page, tapping his chin with the pen.
Inspiration struck him and he started to write, though part way through the process Reiju could see him crossing out one of his options. After a minute he gave her both the pen and book back.

“There we go. Sorry if they're not…the best names out there, but I never thought I was going to have a daughter that I'd need a name already thought out for. But I think these ones would be nice.”

Reiju poured over the list.

Tsumi
Hato
Tsubame
Tachi
Kuina
Suzume

The Germa princess’ first thought was how Zoro was not slick for trying to stick what was obviously a sword name onto the list of regular names, so she immediately crossed that out. The second thing she noticed was how he seemed to backtrack immediately on the “Kuina” with a great fervor, the scribbles he crossed it out with almost covering the entire thing. She made note of the detail but decided not to press the issue. 

The other names, though, she really liked the sound of them, especially “Suzume”. Something about it just rolled off the tongue and felt right. Reiju would still consider the other two, but her heart was set on that one.

I like these quite a bit. 

Zoro smiled.

“You can add some of your own if you want, but I thought these ones were just…nice. Something I feel like a kid wouldn't hate being named.”

He did not think a kid would not want to be named after an ancient sword? Well, swords were his things after all so maybe Reiju could not fault his logic too much.

Since she was going to throw the book in the fireplace once she got back to her room to destroy any evidence of this conversation, she ripped out the page of names and folded it up, placing it in her bosom. 

Her gut told that she should probably make her leave about now, since the guards being distracted by her father and Caesar fighting would not last forever, but she still had to give Zoro one more thing, one of the things she came for before getting off track with the other subjects. She cleared her throat and got up, Zoro jumping up to attempt to assist her with rising. Reiju frowned slightly, as she was not a total blimp who would need that help yet.

“You’re leaving already?”

Have to. I’m still expected to do my job around her despite everything.

Zoro hummed in understanding. He looked back at his cell, the two bars still bent. He sighed. 

“And I guess I should go back in there for the plan to work.” 

He walked over and back into the cell and turned around in front of the bent bars.

Reiju knew what he wanted her to do and went over to bend the metal back into place. She attempted to put them back at the same time, but found difficulty doing it one handed each. Zoro looked down at her with concern.

“Do you need he-” a glare from Reiju quieted him. She could still do this, she just needed to work smarter about it since the metal bars were probably reinforced since the last escape sixteen years ago. Steeling herself, she pushed each bar back into place with greater effort than before, putting both hands on each piece. Once back together, she took a second to breathe and reached down for the almost forgotten satchel she brought. Zoro looked on curiously until he saw what she had brought. Covered tightly by a steel lid was an ornate meal tray, to which when Reiju pulled off the lid, revealed a meal tray with a balanced but rich (in the monetary sense and food sense) meal. Lots of brown rice next to ratatouille and a cut of filet steak. She could see the green haired man’s eye brighten for a second before it was snuffed out.

“Hold on, that looks like a full and well balanced meal.”

Reiju nodded hesitantly. Shit, did he figure her out already? Zoro crossed his arms and shook his head.

“I appreciate the effort, but I’m not taking the food out of a pregnant woman’s mouth.”

The warrior princess groaned as she set the tray near the entrance of the meal slot. Figures he was sharp enough to know she would definitely be unable to request any more food than what was allotted to her. She attempted to push it through the food slot, inching it forward while keeping eye contact, but Zoro just blocked it with his hand.

“Look, I can survive going without food for while. You, no way.”

There was a finality in his words that made any ways to argue back die on her fingertips. For the most part at least.

I’d rather not see you go hungry and let said hunger get in the way of the plan.

Not the exact truth, as in reality she could not stand the thought of letting starvation be added to Zoro’s list of troubles because of her, but it could work. Surprisingly, Zoro dryly laughed it off.

“If you try to force it on me, I won’t eat it, even if I know Sanji would kill me if he found out.”

And that was the true bookend for that. Zoro was not the King of Hell, he was the King of Stonewalling.

Reiju took the defeat as gracefully as she could and put away the food back with its cover and into her bag. Packing everything up and ready to eat and go to bed, she turned to Zoro and waved him goodnight instead of writing it seeing as her hand was starting to cramp from her frantic scribbles. He waved back and got back into his meditating position as she left. Once out of his sight and earshot, Reiju let out any remaining tension in a long sigh while leaning up against a wall. This plan…was a bit of a slapped together job. But she reminded herself that the escape she orchestrated for Sanji as a child was also on the seat of her pants but it still went well.

She also had to remind herself, though, that these circumstances were different. She did not have the strength or stamina that she used to, and if all went well, she would be forced to leave Germa, forced to leave everything behind, including never seeing her mother’s gravestone again, all for the sake of others. 

Gathering her bearings and walking back to her room, making sure she was not seen, she thought about the afterwards, how she would find it hard to detach herself from her daughter so she could have a better life, but it would need to be done, it was inevitable, it was for the better.

It was something she could absolutely never tell a soul about. This heritage was her cross to bear, after all. Not Suzume, not Sanji, not anyone else.

All Reiju could hope was that Zoro would not pick up on her end game.

🦋🦋🦋⚔️⚔️⚔️

Yonji was having trouble sleeping and it was all stupid Reiju and stupid Zoro’s fault!

He tossed and turned in his extravagant bed, unable to find a sleeping position that just worked for him. Granted, his injury played a part in that, but the events that had just transpired were eating at him too. He had just been kissed by the captive and Reiju was now holding it over his head to get her way. It would be a cold day in hell before he let Niji and Ichiji get more material to jab him with so his hands were tied. It was either get the stuff she wanted or have his moment of weakness revealed.

The prince grit his teeth in anger. He hated feeling stuck because he was strong, he was one of Judge's beloved sons. There shouldn't have been any problems he couldn't bash a hole through and yet, here he was. Stuck between a rock and a hard place and now would be the fall guy for his sister’s machinations. He knew he'd be implicated for getting her the snails and opening the vault and the fallout from that…unless…

He could just lie later down the line, saying Reiju forcefully got the code for the treasury out of him, but that wouldn't be too believable since father ordered him and his brothers to not tell her that piece of information…

Yonji punched his pillow and swore under his breath. What did Reiju even find so captivating in that swordsmoss anyways, enough that she'd betray her own country over him? Sure he was strong and muscular and handsome and had soft, plush lips, but-

The green haired man stopped his train of thoughts and backed up. What the hell did he just think? Soft, plush lips? Like hell he did! That fucker smelled like sweat and dirt from all the work they put him under and was an animal compared to the Vinsmokes! He would never be attracted to someone as magical and delightful as hi-

Yonji buried his face into his pillow, screaming his mixed emotions out before putting it back and flopping onto it. What the hell was this feeling? It was…warm and fuzzy and directed at Roronoa Zoro. It wasn't hate but it wasn't amusement, it was something deeper, something he couldn't put his finger on. What he could say is that it felt nice. Feeling his lips with his fingertips, he traced around them, wondering why he did not feel so bad about that kiss…

…Bah, he was starting to sound like Sanji! All soft and mushy. He forcefully shut his eyes to try and get some sleep as the days ahead of him were going to be hard.

Chapter Text

Reiju really could not say that she took “pride”, per se, in her clerical work, but she did take it seriously. VERY seriously. With not much else in her life to actually do besides warmonger and train, and not wanting to let her mind dwell too much on the things she had done and seen, Reiju had thrown herself into her job and had perfected what she had done down to a science. Countless days she had spent just organizing files and papers, making the routine trips back and forth to the document warehouse, both retrieving and depositing paperwork there, being a one woman conveyor belt when it came to processing all sorts of forms, and so on. 

…No, it was not fulfilling work in the slightest, but being good at it was good for killing time. She had been killing time for 27 years.

But most importantly, it was usually something she could do all on her own. It started as her having to do it alone and she quickly adapted and needed no one else to do her job. Not until she got pregnant. The princess did her best to keep up with it all even when she felt her worst in the first trimester, morning sickness being her mortal enemy, yet a backlog still piled up slowly and steadily. It was especially apparent and staring down at her in her office now that it was becoming much more difficult to transport large amounts of papers back and forth as she treaded into the end of the second trimester. That, and even outside of physical labor, her factory line tactics were jammed up by fatigue that grinded everything to a halt and would not let up until she rested for a bit or had a small nap. Every minute she was not working was a minute wasted and Reiju could feel her father's specter-like presence lurking in the back of her mind with all the time wasted.

So, unfortunately for her, assistance was going to be inevitable at some point. While being behind the operations of everything was her domain (a domain she treasured since she was all by herself in it), she would have to share it for a while with one of her brothers. Which was good when it came to the wider plan with Zoro, but bad for her at the moment since she would have to deal with her brothers.

But who would she saddle with the task of essentially being her fall guy? She spent last night thinking about it and came a terrible conclusion:

Niji. God damn Niji.

While true that she had no affection for her other brothers, Niji was something else entirely. Yonji was a meat head but good at following her like a little puppy dog with only occasional complaints. Ichiji was silent and brooding, but also father's favorite as he embodied much of what he wanted his perfect soldier to be. Niji, on the other hand, embodied everything wrong with those who got their hands on power, and doubly so for a royal family member.

Spoiled, entitled, and would never lift a finger to do the type of work she does without being forced to, the blue haired man lived only for the sword and the luxuries being a Vinsmoke offered. In his mind, if he was already better than most other people, why try so hard? How nice that he had all the resources to think that way…

But, it was this ineptitude and attitude that would prove useful, even if it meant gritting her teeth the entire time. While her father had the ultimate authority around the kingdom, his hand could be forced, and if her brothers just HAPPENED to be useless when she needed immense help with maintaining literally everything, she could finally get some time alone and be able to speak to Zoro. And if gaining that meant spending time with her least favorite brother out of the three, then…

…Well, she would not die, that was for sure. But it sure was appealing right now…

“Ugh, Reiju!” the blue haired man yelled from a floor below, “Where the hell do these striped top boxes go?”

Her eye twitched as her grip tightened on the papers in her hands. Controlled breathing, Reiju, controlled breathing…feh, easier said than done. For some reason, Suzume was feeling quite lively today, and while she usually would welcome all the kicks and movements, with her soured mood, every jab to her side or organs made her wince.

“Can you specify what color they are?”

“It’s like, black and yellow.”

“...I already told you, those are our medical records, not the ones for everyone else in the kingdom, only the Vinsmokes, so do not mix them in-”

“Yeah, yeah, I heard you the first time.”

Her eye twitched again and she neatly put the stack of papers in her hands away before she could crumble them in her vice grip. Something that was becoming dangerously apparent as the day went on was how the hold she had on her emotions and displaying them was slipping as her pregnancy continued. It seemed cliche to blame it on the hormones, but that seemed to be the only explanation for why she either really wanted to cry so badly over the littlest of things or be ready to fly off the handle where there would have been cold and calculated responses. Is that one of the things Zoro had considered when he asked her yesterday if she was sure she could do this? Because if that was the case, maybe she really could not…

No. No backing down now. Reiju had gotten far enough into the weeds of things that there was no option for her to back out into safety. She had already roped Yonji into her plan, meaning she really could not stay at Germa anymore. Revealing her scheming here would show how duplicitous she was, and after that, events such as the wedding incident would probably click together for her father and brothers…

And yet somehow, thinking about leaving the place she had lived her entire life gave her pangs of melancholy in her heart…or maybe that was just pangs of pain from Suzume treating her kidneys like a pair of soccer balls.

“Woa-WOAH!” Reiju did not flinch when she heard Niji fall forward and splat right on the ground, metal clanking, the box of papers exploding everywhere, but she did allow a sigh to escape her chest.

Niji had been playing his role perfectly, first getting all huffy when father ordered him to be her helper, then loudly complaining all the way to the warehouse, and then being the absolute worst at listening to simple instructions and being as slow as possible about everything he did, dragging his feet. She really would just need one day of him on the job and she could perfectly prove to her father that she needed someone of her own choosing to work with. And yet…seeing her brother be so incompetent was stabbing into her like a knife.

Reiju peered at the scene as she made her way downstairs and slightly cringed at it. 

Niji was pushing himself back up to his feet, a crushed flat box under him and papers surrounding him on the ground. 

“Fucking hell…” he looked down at the mess he made and then at his sister, “uhhh, whoops.”

Reiju clucked her tongue.

“I guess we will have to clean that up.”

Niji groaned and put his hands on his hips.

“I still don't get why we gotta do this in the first place. This is…this is servant work!”

“Well, you know how father is with documentation and how protective he is of it.”

She got down on one knee and began to scoop up as many papers as she could.

“But, like, it's kind of stupid, don't you think?”

Yes, Reiju thought.

“If you have a problem, take it up with father.”

Niji said nothing else but grumbled as he helped her gather up the mess. Some of them had become crinkled and crumpled when Niji fell on them, but they were at least still legible. She could iron them later, as there still was the matter of the boxes she left behind on the upper floors that she had abandoned to fix this mistake.

Reiju and her brother spent about a minute cleaning up until they had stacked all the papers into a tall but neat stack. 

“Alright, now that we fixed that, somewhat, come with me.” She could see Niji’s face just peek around the pile he was carrying before she about-faced. 

“Wait a minute, I thought you had your own stuff to sort on the second level.” The blue haired prince rebutted.

“I do, but I obviously need to guide your own work since you cannot be left alone.”

Another bout of grumbles emanated from Niji, but he still went on to trail her as Reiju brought the pair to the family medical records section.

The layout of the document warehouse was intentionally confusing to the average layman, with everything looking the same and the matte filing cabinets towering to almost twice her height. Fortunately, her father had programmed a map of the place and all its areas into her when she first started her secretarial job, so navigating it was second nature to her. Hmm, the confusing nature of it was probably a reason Niji had problems doing simple tasks.

Good.

Suzume rumbled around inside of her again, giving a mean kick upwards. It was nothing that could knock the wind from her lungs, but it was yet another flicker of movement showing that the baby was going to be energetic out of the womb. Instinctively, Reiju wrapped a protective arm around her midsection. What had gotten her so excited? The princess could understand her thrums yesterday when getting to hear her father again, but today was much, much less pleasant (as if there was a pleasant day on Germa)...unless being around Niji was just so enthralling for her baby girl. If that was the case, poor thing, getting all kicky for not even one of her good uncles. Well, the singular good uncle, in this case.

A tiny foot jabbed her again, this time shifting slightly near her back. The princess frowned and hoped Suzume would either stay in that position or move somewhere else but there. Getting hit in the spine, even when it happened rarely, had to be her least favorite movements and negated all cuteness of her child for a moment when her already suffering lower back twitched in pain. She could not imagine how bad it would be in the later months. 

…Speaking of her back, Reiju could feel a pair of eyes boring into hers. Flicking herself around quickly, she caught her younger brother duck his head back behind the papers he was holding. Reiju’s first thought was how he was holding the stack haphazardly, quickly adjusting his arms so they straightened out, but her second thought seemed to be observing her when she reacted to her rambunctious child. That made her a bit uneasy.

Her brothers had not taken her condition too seriously, unlike their father, and their interest in her child was of casual curiosity, like they were not about to have a new family member coming into the picture. Reiju indulged them to the extent that they looked and never touched, but even then was never fully comfortable with the setup, especially when it came to someone like Niji who, for lack of a better term, just saw “womanly matters” as entirely not his problem and did not deign to care much about them. So to see him looking at her like that…it was quite out of character. She'd have to keep a better eye on Niji from now on.

Once making it to the section for family medical records, which was in a deep corner of the warehouse, Reiju signaled for Niji to stop.

“Now, I REALLY hope sorting this area should not be too hard for you.” She said, motioning to the main cabinets. All of them were color coded around the rims of each drawer according to each member of the family: black for father, red for Ichiji, blue for Niji, etc. The only one evidently missing was Sanji’s, but she heard that all of his files post leaving Germa were destroyed. Niji rolled his eyes under his sunglasses.

“Oh come on, even I could see which is which.”

“Really?”

“Really.” He forced the words out through gritted teeth. Placing the stack down on the floor, Niji ripped a document off the top. Before he could quickly scan it to see who it belonged to, Reiju snatched it out of his hands.

“That is your first problem: you need to sort by name first.”

Niji sucked on his teeth, frustration growing.

“Then why didn't we do that when I dropped all those papers in the first place?”

“Because, Niji, that was just to make sure we had all the documentation that I had so carefully categorized in the helpless box you body slammed. Besides…you know I cannot be on my knees for long.”

Her blue haired brother let out an extremely loud, drawn out sigh before resigning himself to his fate. Some expletives were muttered under his breath but Reiju paid no mind to it as she joined him. She immediately established all the piles for each family and began delegating the appropriate documentation to their places. Suzume, who had been quiet for a few minutes, decided to get back to work and jutted her foot out, causing Reiju to make a small “oof” sound. The princess still was wondering why she was more active than usual. Was it really excitement like she thought, or was something wrong? The movements and kicks themselves felt the same as always, but in more rapid succession. What if that was some sort of distress signal? Her child was trying to call for help and here she was sorting papers like a god damn monke-

“Hey, Earth to Reiju.”

The snapping of Niji’s fingers snapped Reiju out of her trance and she turned to him.

“What?” She said more harshly than she wanted to.

Niji put his hands up.

“Yo, don't bite my head off. I'm just trying to get your attention since you've been staring at your stomach for an entire minute.”

Reiju realized that she had been cradling the swell of her belly with both arms and quickly brought them back to her sides.

“I, uhh,” she fake cleared her throat, “my apologies about that.”

The princess went back to work, leaving no room for questions. And yet…Niji was still looking at her. From the glances she gave, she could tell he still had something he wanted to say about the baby. Well, he could keep staring, because Reiju had no intention of-

“You know, I've been thinking, but how does it feel to be fat for once?”

…

What.

Reiju creaked her neck around to glare at her brother, a vein beginning to show on her temple as her temper was being tested.

“Choose your next words very carefully.” She stated, holding back any emotion in her voice. Steady and calm, she needed to stay steady and calm.

Her brother carefully placed another sheet onto Ichiji’s pile as he considered this. At least Niji, with all his vocal knives he liked to sink into weak spots, knew better than to test his usually cool and collected sister.

“Look, maybe instead of ‘fat’, it's more like you're…softer, now.”

This managed to put some cool water on Reiju’s temper…a little bit.

“Do elaborate.”

“Well it's like…we're all pretty solid, right? All muscles and the bare minimum of fat? Add on the exoskeleton stuff and you realize that none of us have any curves, just sharp edges. But now that you've got baby stuff going on, all these edges on you are starting to fill out.”

Reiju raised a curly brow.

“And?”

“And…I dunno, it's just so new and alien to me to see one of my own family members like this. It's like you're a hen gravid with eg-”

“Okay, back to work,” Reiju snapped her gaze back to the paperwork at hand while Niji silently turned back towards his stacks. It stayed silent for most of the time after that, Reiju preferring this to her brother running his mouth.

Her frustration rising, eyeing Niji as he sloppily organized the papers, leaving the pile uneven and haphazard, Reiju felt Suzume roll around in her again. She took in a deep breath and let it out. She had no idea if babies could feel their mother’s emotions, but it seemed like Suzume was getting riled up every time her temper flared up. Perhaps it was just a bunch of coincidences that should not be taken seriously, but something felt off, she just could not put her finger on it…

“Hey, Reiju.”

The aforementioned princess, with all the paper organization done, turned to her brother.

“Yes?”

“Why do you gotta, like…fawn over the baby?”

Reiju was taken aback by this for only a second before composing herself again.

“Why do you ask?”

“Hey, don't answer a question with a que-”

“Why do you ask?” Eugh, once again, it came out harsher than she intended. Niji made a show of covering his ears like she was just screaming at him instead of raising her voice.

“Alright, alright, I guess it's because I've been watching you for a bit now and you keep…rubbing and holding your stomach like it's a damn genie lamp.”

Oh hell, so he had been observing her. Tightening her expression, she forgot about the papers for a minute and got up.

“It is natural for a mother to fawn over their child.” She answered matter-of-factly.

“Okay, but why,” Niji asked, genuinely puzzled.

“You are quite inquisitive today,” Reiju slightly widened the gap between them, “what caused this?”

“Again with the que-ok, fine, fine. I'll…humor you,” Niji shoved his hands in his pockets, “This whole situation…it's just been weird. And seeing how you act now because of the kid is weird.”

Reiju's blood turned cold in her veins at this statement. What Niji said could go into many different directions, but she hoped it was just him seeing the facade she put up and not him actually noticing her change in behavior to help out the swordsman.

“Like, when the hell did you become so caring? I guess it's natural so the kid doesn't get neglected or anything, but it just isn't you, you know?”

Reiju gritted her teeth hard so she would not make any incendiary comments.

“And you're so flighty, too! Like, what the hell was that where you told Ichiji all the stuff about the baby and completely ignored me! What the hell was that about?”

“I had no idea you cared about my…child, Niji.”

“Oh no, it's not really about the kid at this point,” he waved his hand flippantly, “it's more of the fact that you're acting like you aren't really part of our lives,” getting more and more passionate in his ranting, the prince began to pace, “like you're receding away from us, from the family, Reiju!”

Reiju’s daughter’s movements were really picking up, but another unusual feeling was alongside them now. It was like some phantom force was making her stomach muscles twitch and contract, albeit in minute amounts. Perhaps that itself was a side effect of how Niji was getting under skin at the moment. A part of this family? He should not make her laugh with such ridiculous statements. Blood was their only tie.

“Would things really change if I was gone?”

Reiju was shocked that the thought came out of her mouth instead of staying in her head. She clamped her jaws shut as Niji stopped in his tracks.

“...I guess…realistically, I would have to take your job in that scenario, which if I had to work like this everyday, I'd probably kill myself, but besides that…” there was a flicker, just a momentary one, of sorrow across her brother's face as he figured out what would happen. That alone would have knocked Reiju right on her back if she was not trying so hard right now to keep it together.

And then Niji blew up. Literally and figuratively. Reiju had a feeling he would release a burst of electricity from the way she felt the static on her skin and the air smelled like ozone, so she took several steps back as blue lightning coming from her brother’s body rushed out and surrounded him like a cage, the man roaring, exasperated. The twitching in her stomach picked up and she clutched the swell of her belly. It was starting to hurt a bit.

“Look, you’re not like that failure, Reiju, you have a home here, a purpose here! And even if life would go on with just the three of us, it’s not a change I would want ‘cause I like things the way they are!” His pacing turned back into walking and he made a beeline to Reiju as he went on and on. As much as she hated to think it, Reiju was starting to feel a little fearful with her brother barreling towards her and her daughter right after his electric outburst, and the fact that her stomach felt tingly and twitchy during this did nothing to assuage her nerves.

“But things are quite literally about to change, Niji,” Reiju’s voice had a slight waver, “I am quite literally changing as we speak.”

“Yeah, changing for the worse. Now all you do is obsess over that kid inside of you and act like I’m such an insect that you can’t even tell me the damn gender of the thing you’re changing yourself for! It’s like I don’t even know who you are anymore!”

Niji began huffing and his face slightly reddened, and a bit of sweat lining the collar of his shirt. Reiju…had not planned for this in the slightest, but how could she? Niji was an asshole, but a very emotionally detached and short sighted one. He had been playing that part beautifully up until now with the revelation of his true feelings, feelings her father had surgically removed. The princess had no idea how to handle her prince brother because, ironically, it was like she was dealing with an entirely new person.

But while grappling with that, what bothered her equally if not even more was what he was  saying, that she…that she belongs here, that she has a place here. Every statement he made was like an arrow to the chest because part of her agreed with that. A large chunk of her mind accepted that she was and always would be a Vinsmoke and she was right where she belonged. A family of monsters, cozy in their cave. 

And yet…deep, deep down, a much smaller but still breathing part of her said “No”.

Perhaps it was a fledgeling form of hope or denial, but it made it all the more unbearable to hear her brother talk about her and her remaining family members like they had any real connections.

“I just…I just want my goddamn sister back, okay!?”

Niji threw his hands in the air, voice gaining airiness as he ran out of breath. Reiju only blinked back in response initially.

“You do not know me,” Reiju breathed, “you do not know a thing about me.”

Niji gave a rough and dry laugh, tangling his fingers in his hair as he combed them through the electric blue strands.

“Don't know you? I've lived with you my entire goddamn life!”

“You have only known what I have chosen to give to you,” Reiju hissed. She immediately regretted saying it, of course, but her emotions seemed to force themselves out now.

“...I'm gonna overlook that statement you just made as just your hormones flaring up,” Niji’s voice was dangerously calm, “but my point still stands that I cannot WAIT for that kid to get cut or pushed or whatever out of you so we can finally be normal again, have a goddamn conversation again!”

“Normal!?” Reiju winced in pain from Suzume’s rapid movements and her muscles tightening and relaxing, “NONE OF THIS is normal in the slightest, you-you-”

The blue haired prince put his hand up in front of her to get her to stop talking, which only aggravated Reiju more.

“Fucking hell, you’re acting all hormonal and shit now. Why don’t you sit down for a minute and-”

The pink princess tried to slap her brother’s hand away, ready to punt him if the spasming and kicks in her stomach were not making it hard to move without worry and pain ripping through her abdomen, but having quick reaction times, Niji caught her hand in his, gripping hard enough to keep her from hitting him, but not enough to cause serious damage. Her daughter was beginning to still now, but her muscles in her stomach tingled and contracted so tightly like an electric current coursed through them that tears threatened to sting Reiju’s eyes from the agony of it.

“Do not DARE talk to me like I’m a child!”

Niji, reverting back to his douchebag self, scoffed.

“And what are you going to do about i-”

Neither of them could have predicted or anticipated the nearby filing cabinet flying right into Niji’s head and throwing him off his feet. As the echoes of metal hitting metal receded, Reiju snapped herself out of her frozen position, instinctively protecting her abdomen and backing away, quickly hitting a wall.

Her brother, slightly dazed, got back on his feet speedily and began to scan the perimeter for whoever threw that. He locked eyes with Reiju.

“What the hell did you do?”

“Me? I-I was right in front of you, how could I have-”

Another sting of muscular pain shot through Reiju and almost on cue, another filing cabinet ripped forward at an inhuman speed and hit Niji in the back. He yelped as he was bowled over, but the cabinet seemed to follow him downwards and press against him, trying to pin him down. Though, being a modified human with inhuman strength, he growled and punched the storage unit away, leaving a gaping hole in it and having it crash into other cabinets. 

“Come out, you fucker, and fight me!”

That might have been his biggest mistake. 

In an event that Reiju would not have believed to have happened if it did not occur in front of her own eyes, all the nearby filing cabinets leapt forward, spewing papers everywhere out as they began to pile onto her brother with reckless abandon. Sparks of electricity boomed from Niji as he tried to fend off the assaulting objects, but even when he smashed one, more followed in its wake and crunched together into him, trapping him as more and more of the things flew into each other. The crumpling of metal and Niji’s yells, which soon turned to screams, was deafening. 

The filing cabinets, pushed by an invisible force, were packed on so tightly, so violently forcing themselves into each other, that they began to bend and deform, forming a ball on top of Niji, who was now trapped by the metal and pressure. Whatever or whoever was doing this wanted her brother totally immobilized and unable to fight back.

And yet, during all of this, Reiju was not even paying full attention to the attack. She focused enough to keep track of what was going on, but she was not directly looking at her brother in peril. Instead, she focused on her stomach, the pain pulsing through her system at an inordinate rate. It almost felt like she was having contractions, but it was only in her abdominal area, and the push and pull of her muscles contracting and relaxing was far too fast. Reiju’s thoughts were only on Suzume at this moment, if she was okay, if she was having a premature birth or what-what was going on? Hugging her stomach tightly, the Germa princess never felt any more vulnerable and…helpless.

As soon as the battering of office supplies started, it ended soon after Niji was silent, the only noises left were of fluttering papers and paper pieces. Many of the cabinets were now ruined, resembling pieces of abstract art instead of receptacles for important documents. But…screw the documents. Screw the paperwork, screw the plan, screw everything right now, all that mattered was her daughter, her still very fragile and precious daughter. The pain, the spasms, it all stopped coincidentally when the barrage stopped, but Suzume was not moving.

No…nonononononononononono.

With bloodshot eyes and trembling hands, Reiju felt for any signs of life, any movements in her belly. Nothing after a second. Nothing after five seconds. Nothing after ten seconds. Her heart was beginning to drop at the twenty second mark. Her daughter’s life…her potential as a human being could not end just like thi-

A kick. Right against her left palm. And then some stirring, like the baby was readjusting positions, like she was not about to make her mother’s mask crumble into pieces at the thought of her not existing just like that. Tears stung the edges of Reiju’s eyes, but she did not cry nor did she breathe a sigh of relief. She was alive, ALIVE. The princess never felt more grateful for her child to still be here after what happened with the womb that held her, but there still was the issue of the recent attack at hand. Just what had happened, and why did it only target Niji? None of the cabinets went near her as the invisible force maneuvered them around and even with their clumsy movements, they knew how much pressure to apply and to keep going until Niji passed out-

And then Reiju had a gut feeling she wish never happened.

The spasms, the fact that she felt them worsen every time a cabinet was picked up and used, how they stopped only when there was no need for the intimidating presence to be tranquilized any further. Maybe there were not enough pieces to put together a more definitive theory, but with those facts alone, Reiju could feel the truth bearing down on her.

Suzume had powers, just like the rest of the modified humans. Powers that her father could exploit and train his granddaughter in strengthening so he could finally conquer the North Blue. Powers that, if the girl were to get out of the kingdom, she would be hounded for because she would not be considered a failure, but a success that needed to be kept in the family.

She really would be…a Vinsmoke.

Never more did Reiju wish that she still her mama, if only so she could lay her head on her lap and cry.

Chapter Text

Something very, very weird was going on in the Germa Kingdom, and Yonji hoped it would distract from what he had to do.

He also hoped, cynically, that Ichiji would not be the next person to either get beat up, when looking at the pattern of recent events.

The prince has made no grounds yet on getting the communicator snails for his sister, mainly interrupted by the emergency that so happened to occur in her sector with Niji. He was able to see the after effects of the attack on his brother as he was getting a testicular check up in the medical wing. Of course, some filing cabinets could not do REAL damage to any of them, such as broken bones or anything, but his exoskeleton was sure mangled and whoever had crushed him with the receptacles were able to conk his head so hard that he passed out. 

Hmph, serves you right for making fun of my balls, was his first thought.

His second thought was that something had managed to knock one of them out. Yonji had sometimes been made fun of for having a thick skull, but they weren't wrong, all of them had reinforced skulls. Their father had made sure of that, along with an extra protective lining around their brains, to prevent such an incident from easily occurring, since a downed soldier was a useless one.

Whoever had done this could pack a mean punch. And that was bad news for the rest of them. Ichiji seemed to agree on that and in the evening, the pair decided to pay their de facto middle brother a visit in the ward. Usually their healing factor could have gotten them all patched up by now from any major injuries, but the blue prince lived up to his title with almost all bruises and surface level injuries that, while not life threatening, hurt like hell. He had to be kept back just for their father’s peace of mind, since this was the second Vinsmoke prince to get injured, but the main treatment the doctors and scientists could do was prescribe some mild pain killers. Reiju, on the other hand, while perfectly fine physically, and the kid was ok, too, had seemed to recede even more than before. She said nothing while getting checked out by the medical staff and had basically locked herself in her room since then, only allowing the servants to bring her dinner.

His older sister certainly was not the most social butterfly (Yonji laughed inside at the unintentional pun), but he at least expected her to most likely check in on his progress with the task she gave him. She still had that kiss hanging over his head like a scimitar and it weighed on his chest like the fattest cat possible. Maybe he could get some answers on why that was from Niji.

Entering his room, the eldest and youngest brother caught sight of the middle brother in bed, his arms crossed, and staring directly at the ceiling with the maddest expression they have ever seen on him. Coming into the room itself, they could feel the static electricity hit them like a thick smog, making their hairs stand straight up. 

If looks could kill, the next few floors above them would have two scorched holes in them.

“Heyyy buddy,” Yonji tried to announce their presence. Niji’s eyes barely turned to look at them.

“What the hell do you two want?”

“We're mainly just curious about your condition, but also need to make sure you are going to heal up in time for the upcoming mission,” as usual, Ichiji was blunt and straightforward. Niji huffed and blew some stray strands of hair out of his face.

“I'm in pain and sore all around, but I’m pissed off more than anything,” he spat, trying to adjust himself to sit up and wincing before relenting. The two brothers pulled up some chairs to Niji’s bedside, Yonji placing his donut pillow down before sitting. His…sack was starting to heal up, but the pain had not left yet.

“Seriously,” Niji struggled himself up again, “when I find the fucker who did this, I’m going to rip his dick off!”

“...What if they do not have one?” Ichiji asked earnestly. Niji rolled his eyes at that.

“Whatever, SOMETHING is going to get ripped off and be painfully shoved somewhere no matter what.”

“Speaking of that…” Yonji butted himself in, “Do you think someone managed to penetrate our defenses?”

“Hmmm,” Ichiji hummed, “it's a non zero possibility, but still near zero. We have people watching every possible entrance at all hours of the day and there haven't been any breaches even up to a few hours ago. Besides, we have been at sea this entire time, whoever did this would have either have to have been a stowaway…or maybe even a mole.”

Yonji’s hands slightly clenched onto his thighs at this statement. Oh please, Ichiji, oh please please please don’t think about that idea too seriously. If he planted that seed into the troops, it would be nigh impossible to get into the communications room and Reiju would spill the beans at that point.

“Well…actually…” his second older brother, looking a little more mellow now, shifted in his position, “there was something I noticed at the time that was kinda off, but I didn’t think too much about it at the time.”

“And you did not tell father about this?” Ichiji raised a curly brow. Phew. Thanks for changing the topic Niji, Yonji thought.

The prince shrugged defensively.

“Hey, like I said, I thought nothing of it at the time, but like...fuck, lemme start from the beginning.

“So here I was, having to do the boring ass work with Reiju, when for some reason, something happened inside me.”

Niji placed a hand on his chest, slightly cringing from the touch.

“It started as me being curious about this whole pregnancy deal, ‘cause don’t lie to me, it’s weird that it happened in the first place, and to Reiju out of all people.”

“What, would you rather have bore a child instead?” Yonji bit down on his tongue to not laugh at Ichiji’s comment.

“Shut up. Anyways, my insides started to feel all jiggly and wiggly and shit when I thought about how…how sis is acting and all that.”

“Wiggly and jiggly?” Yonji crossed his arms, trying to play it off as nonchalant, “Did getting bumped on the head mess you up that bad?”

Niji hissed and looked ready to jump out of bed to get in his brother’s face.

“Can I get to the god damn point!? Fuck…like I said, something warm and…soft started filling up my chest and it made me act stupid. I was having my electricity come out and everything. And then Reiju got all pissy with me for no reason and talking nonsense, but, right before I got attacked, I could feel some sort of…static building up.”

“Static?” the eldest and youngest brothers questioned in unison. Niji nodded.

“It definitely was an electrical field, and thinking more about it, it could not have been mine. It was heavier, pouring down right on my electricity. I chalked it up to being some side effect of that mushy insides I mentioned, but now I’m sure it couldn’t be that.”

Ichiji rubbed his chin, leaning back in his seat.

“So this person of interest also has electrical powers of some sort, or maybe even electromagnetic powers, considering all they hit you with was metal filing cabinets.”

“Well, whatever it was, bastard was far reaching. It was like that field was not just around me, but the entire area.”

“That could either mean the attack was long ranged or, somehow, they were in the warehouse with you. Either way, it sounds a lot like we have an unneeded stowaway aboard…”

Oh fuck. Oh no no no, he was NOT about to let Ichiji ruin everything for him! He would have to change his name, face, and fingerprints and run off to the Calm Belt if his brothers ever found out that he got kissed by their prisoner and didn't think it was that bad in hindsi-

“WHAT IF,” Yonji jerked forward, “what if…the assailant…was the baby. The one inside of Reiju?”

…FUCK. Welp, his goose was cooked. His knee jerk reaction to Ichiji possibly tightening security led to him just blurting out what came to mind first and THIS was all he had. Might as well get that plastic surgery now. 

…At least, he would have continued to think that if Niji didn't make a face akin to a guilty dog who knows why the food suddenly disappeared.

“Yonji,” Ichiji calmly said, “how does that make any sense?”

“W-well, think of it like this,” the youngest brother was now too deep in to go back, “we all know Niji has been kinda…rude to Reiju during the pregnancy, and probably even more so than usual because he had to work a stinking job he hates. He probably said something REAL nasty to her, something that would make a hormonal pregnant woman hulk out. Something “wow, you're fat” or something in that ballpark.”

“...I did say that, yes,” Niji was both containing his rage at his younger brother for the slandering and still looking like a guilty dog. But that would be an issue for future Yonji.

“Exaaaaactly, and as we all know, Reiju's only got poison powers. Now, what other person was in the room besides you two?”

“...A fetus is not a person, dumbass…” Niji growled.

“Does ‘fetus’ not mean ‘little person'?”

“Of course it does, but-”

“PRECISELY!” Ichiji was watching this show Yonji was putting on with not much interaction until now, when his face had a slight crease above his brows, whatever that meant, “AND, I've heard babies can feel their mother's emotions while in the womb, so Reiju Jr over there has, by proxy, also been feeling all this stuff. And then it all culminated in the warehouse where they had gotten sick of Niji’s attitude and wanted to shut him up.”

“...so what you're implying is that Niji was beat up by a baby?” Ichiji finally commented. Yonji nodded enthusiastically to seal the deal. The aforementioned Niji was quiet, the static in the air now making a buzzing noise.

“But how exactly could they do such a thing while still in the womb?”

“Well, and hear me out on this, what if they've already got their abilities all developed now?”

“Oh?” 

“All of our enhancements came to us because father implanted ‘em into us in utero, but Reiju Jr already has the genes in them from conception, meaning they probably also develop their powers at a different rate, ya know?”

Ichiji rubbed his chin again. He…did not seem fully convinced by Yonji’s theory, and rightfully so, it was very slapdash and covering his own ass, but he was at least considering this angle.

“It would be useful if her child is developing her abilities already, as then she could be utilized much more quickly, but that is still just a theory, Yonji.”

“Well, what do you believe more, that our highly sophisticated and sensitive monitoring technology is faulty in any way, or that Reiju has a super tyke brewing?”

Yes, good, distract him by emphasizing how amazing the security was and needed no tightening, especially in the communications room. It seemed to work (as far as he could tell, considering how slight Ichiji’s expressions were) and his red haired brother let out a sigh.

“It sounds both like bullshit and legitimate at the same time. But if that is true, I should probably tell father about your theory. It might bring his mood up if anything.”

 “Yes, yes, great id-”

Yonji was suddenly cut off by his second oldest brother jumping out of bed and bouncing onto the youngest man, trying his best to wail on him as Yonji tried to defend himself.

“How dare you fuckers imply I was beat up by a damn baby!?” Niji roared, a sideswipe of his knuckles hitting Yonji’s nose. 

“No, not a baby, a fetus!” The green haired prince was trying to cover his face with his arms as Niji tried to pull them away.

“That's even worse!”

Ichiji rolled his eyes at the display and kicked the two apart like they were prissy dogs.

“How about you two save that fighting spirit for Havnor. Niji, get back to bed and heal up,” the blue haired prince reluctantly followed the orders, though made sure to give Yonji the bird, “And Yonji,” the red haired prince made a “follow me” motion with his hand, “come with me."

Wait, what?

“What do you need me for, bro?” He stood up, back as straight and stiff as a rail, donut pillow in hand.

“Well, your theory on Reiju’s spawn being the cause of this is most…interesting, and while I am not fully on board with it until I see more proof, I think you should tell father yourself about it, both to allay his nerves and further his experiments. If true, this child could rocket us to claiming the North Blue.”

The warrior prince held back the urge to gulp.

“Why can't you tell him, I'm the one who's injured.”

“Well, I'm not the one who came up with the theory and understand it the best. Besides,” he spoke more quietly, “if it is just a bunch of bunk, I won't have father be disappointed in me specifically.”

God damn it, of course Slippin’ Ichiji over here would throw him under the bus if it meant there was only reward and not risk for him. But as much as Yonji just wanted to run away and finish his end of the deal with Reiju, doing so would make him look more suspicious if he blew off his brother like that. It would make Ichiji think he had something to hide…which he did, but that was his business only.

So, he was forced to follow Ichiji, not looking forward to a derailment to his plan and his bullshitting being put on display, but all he'd have to do now was just stick to his story and get it over with as quick as possible. Yes, this was gonna work…it would have to.

But as he trailed behind his brother down to the labs, he thought back to something Yonji said, about all the mushy feelings he suddenly got in his chest. Yonji didn't say anything to Reiju about it last night because there were more…pressing matters at hand, but when she hung that kiss over his head, it…made his own insides feel weird. It wasn't heart palpitations or a heart attack, but his chest…hurt and felt like it was being twisted up. It was mushy, it was warm, and it was exactly what Niji described himself feeling. 

Something REAL weird was going on in Germa, but he couldn't just tell anyone about it. What if these feelings were…defects? He shuddered, not wanting to imagine that scenario. 

Maybe this was some sort of disease. A disease he just had to wait out and not let anyone know about because it would obviously heal up on its own. Yep, in fact, he should stop thinking about it. He should stop thinking about everything, really! Especially how Zoro was probably so lonely right now and maybe he could sneak a visit to the dungeon lat-

…Or maybe he should bang his head against a wall until he becomes less stupid.

🦋🦋🦋⚔️⚔️⚔️

(Earlier in the day)

When Zoro heard about an emergency with one of the Vinsmoke’s over Rodrick’s intercom, he damn near lost it. He was in the middle of rising out of the sewers, having just cleared out a nasty clog, when he saw several soldiers running off in the same direction and Rodrick’s face turning pale. Somehow, without knowing much, he just knew something was wrong with Reiju specifically, and it made his heart rate and blood pressure rise. Clutching the mucked up shovel in his hand, he ripped out of the manhole and spoke with force.

“What's going on?” 

His handler moved the microphone on his communicator away from his mouth, lips pursed.

“There was some sort of…attack in the document warehouse. Before you ask, Lady Reiju has not been injured, as far as I know.”

“As far as you know?” Zoro repeated, “So you DON'T know if she's in danger?” His hands tightened into fists, anxious to bust some perp’s nose in.

“Mister Zoro, the only person who is down and hurt right now is Lord Niji, it probably is just him.” Rodrick gave Zoro a look that felt like it was supposed to be sympathetic.

“Rodrick. Let me through.” He took a step forward, heart racing.

“You know I cannot do that, even if I wanted to.”

“I will run you over if you don't move.” Another step forward, his chest only inches away from the clone soldier’s. Rodrick did not take his eyes off of the swordsman as he inhaled. Something else sputtered out of his earpiece and he nodded.

“I have been instructed to take you back to your cell already until things are figured out.”

“MOVE.”

Zoro rushed his handler, attempting to shove him to the ground to get to the scene. Rodrick was hardy, though, and held his ground against the bull of a man. The green haired swordsman growled and attempted to sweep the bearded soldier off his feet, but Rodrick caught on and headbutted Zoro with enough force to make him see stars. In that moment of weakness, he grabbed the remote and closed up Zoro’s tattoo cuffs on both his ankles and wrists. This was not enough to completely stop the man, the swordsman thrashing around and trying to resist the magnets as much as he could, but it was fruitless in the face of his handler hoisting him off the ground like a piece of luggage and jogging both of them back into the castle. More noise came from the handler’s headset, which was almost thrown off with the way Zoro was jolting around to try and wiggle out of Rodrick’s grip.

He was brought down into the dungeon in record time, quickly thrown and locked into his cell, before finally regaining full movement of his limbs when the cuffs were deactivated. The first thing he did was rush to the bars, yelling at Rodrick and shaking the metal poles, ready to break them apart, but as soon as his soldier handler had brought him down here, he was gone. All Zoro was left with was his own anxieties manifesting as rage and wrath.

Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck.

He thought back to when Sanji would sometimes tell him about what exactly happened during his childhood, the way his brothers would torment and torture him in a pecking party of violence. Reiju was never a part of this because she played along and was kept under the boys’ radars, but what if things were different now? This whole debacle was definitely to cause some tension, especially seeing how Reiju had blackmailed Yonji yesterday. What if…what if he had told his brothers about the situation already to get ahead of it? And this was some twisted form of retribution from one of them? Rodrick may have said she wasn't in danger, but that was only known from what he had been told. Things could have escalated already and they fou-

The swordsman swallowed back the bile creeping up his throat, throwing himself down in a loose sitting position in the dark.

He should have…he should have pushed back on her harder. Told her that they could think of something else, anything but getting involved with the monsters.

Last night, he had put on a brave face for Reiju and their daughter, but on the inside he was having a semi meltdown. Not enough to actually go into shock because that was stupid, unproductive, and just NOT something Roronoa Zoro would do, but in his head, the seas were turbulent. Yesterday, he got to finally see his kid and that kick against his palm. Well, it just sealed the deal that there was a baby in there, his baby, his child, his daughter. Despite facing the strongest and most intimidating foes of the Grand Line, taking all damage and pain head on and never turning back, and defeating his own teacher in order to gain the title of the World's Greatest Swordsman…becoming a father was one of the most terrifying prospects he’d have to face. It didn’t mean he had no love for his daughter, in fact, seeing Reiju last night and ‘seeing’ his daughter again only strengthened his need to protect and get his baby girl out of this hell. But then, what was he going to do afterwards? Zoro felt he was hardly fit to be called a father. Big brother, yes, a teacher, yes, but being a parent to a little baby, a baby whose life would be determined by how he raised her? He had no idea what to do, what reference to base it off of, NOTHING. And none of that accounted for the fact that her life would be complicated right out of the womb because of her parentage. Judge and the evil brows would want to have her as a weapon if she could be one, and while things had simmered down with the Neo Marines, Zoro himself was still a pirate and swordsman with many enemies who hungered to brutalize any weak spots he had.

None of this accounted for how his crew would react, either. He was supposed to be more responsible than this! He was Luffy’s right hand man and he couldn't even prevent himself from getting captured! And now he was going to come crawling back with a child???

No…no, he shouldn't think like that. Zoro let out a long held breath.

His crew…they would adore his daughter. Curlybrow was a given, but he knew some of his crewmates like Nami and Franky had a softness for kids and would make great parents. Luffy would probably be all over the kid and make her part of the crew, Chopper would make sure to be the one overseeing and helping her development, Robin would be sure to teach her about all sorts of subjects once she was old enough, and so on and so forth. His daughter would be in good hands with his crew…but he couldn't see what he could offer her in this scenario. The only thing that could come to his mind was sword fighting and protecting her from the world as she forged her own path, but if swords were not what she wanted, all he had was being the World's Greatest Swordsman to her. 

As much as he loathed to think this, he wished he was a bit more like Sanji in this way. He could do without the perversion and lesser arm strength, but if there was one thing he had over Zoro it was the ability to be tender. His heart of gold was as soft as the metal, so he knew how to better navigate sensitive things when it came to people and kids. Where Zoro was defined by no nonsense statements and firm words, shit cook was much more well versed in flowery language with diplomatic cautiousness when it came to vulnerable people and women in general. He knew just what to say and what to do whereas Zoro would keep going the way he's always gone, forcing himself through an obstacle until the wall in front of him crumbled. It wasn't like Zoro couldn't love, but it was apparent he lacked some traits that would make him a good father. All he could really excel at for his girl was in his strength and sword ability, and right now, he didn't have his swords, leaving him stuck in a cage in a dank dungeon.

He was supposed to be a protector, yet here he was, stuck in a crummy cell, unable to do anything for his daughter and mother of his child. With no room to pace, the swordsman instead got on the floor and started doing pushups. He could meditate, but not now, not when his mind was racing and his body wanted to do something, to react in kind to what was going on. The swordsman considered maybe punching the bars until they'd break, but he'd probably break his own bones first. All he could do now was hone his strength and wait to see what had exactly transpired and how many people he needed to kill because of it.

And above all, he absolutely had to make things up to Reiju for being so useless right now.

🦋🦋🦋⚔️⚔️⚔️

Judge was looking the closest he could be to blowing his top. And all Caesar could do was roll his eyes at it. He was used to his lab partner having a huge stick up his ass, now being bigger and thornier than before, but he always found it tiring to deal with his tantrums. It wasn't like he didn't understand why he felt like that, it was never a happy day to see one of your creations get messed up like that, but he always thought it was such a foolish thing to make one’s own spawn into test subjects. Too many emotional connections and all that. It made one act soft to any sort of failure.

Like he had seen many years before, when the Germa king got all pissy like this, he would pace around the lab, skillfully avoiding bumping into anyone and anything around him, but he forged a path like the world's angriest steamroller. And he came down here asking for more reports in the first place! And yet here he was! Ignoring Caesar! Tantrum! Big baby man! Augh!

The smoky man planted his elbows on the table and began rubbing his temples. Hopefully no more of Judge’s superbrats would get hurt in some unforeseen way. Caesar knocked on the wooden table just in case.

The large blond passed by him again, his pace slowing and hands behind his back, but he equally took no notice of his lab partner. Hmm, you know what? He might as well bite the bullet and bring him back to reality before his science partner fell through the floor from the hole he was creating.

“Hey, Judge,” he leaned back in his chair as the king of Germa slightly slowed his pace again, “can you stop moping and help me with these lab reports?”

All the other lesser scientists in the lab froze up and turned to face Judge, waiting for the other shoe to drop with his temper. The king was now stopped, turned away from the horned man, yet even so, Caesar could imagine how his eye was twitching.

“You wouldn't understand a damn thing about how I feel, Clown.”

“I do understand, in fact. I understand you're getting all worried over nothing! Your kid is fine, for the most part, isn't he, so what's all this fuss?”

No sooner did he say that did Judge march over to him, pull up a chair and sit down in it, mean mugging Caesar. It was all done so quickly that the scientist almost crapped his pants in fear. Luckily, though, he did manage to pull himself out of his cowardly ways by reminding himself that Judge was a softie in all the ways that would get him out of physical injury.

“Listen here, Caesar; we may be partners in trying to finally run something indubitably better and perfect in Stella’s stupid face, but in this kingdom, everything rests in the palm of my hand. Nothing goes in or out without me overseeing it, controlling it, and passing my judgment over it. And right now, there's been quite a few things happening that are slipping between my fingers.”

He clenched his hands into tight fists, the leather of his gloves making a strangled squeak for help.

“First Reiju hides having a bastard on the way, though luckily I was able to grasp back control on that, then Yonji leaves himself wide open for a major groin injury, and now Niji has been blown off his feet by some mysterious force, and all a handful of days away before we have a major contract to get done! I need all hands on deck and everyone is dropping the ball!”

Ahh, so he was slipping more into his war side than his science side, then. It would explain why he had left the horned man holding everything together in the labs at the moment. But either way, Caesar was not too sympathetic to the plight. He was slightly pissed off every time Judge had to remind him that he was eating out of his hand because the scientist could not refute that. He had burned every bridge he had for funding his research exploits and made some very powerful enemies, so Germa was the final stop for Caesar. This was his last chance and he had no choice but to swallow his pride and take it, no matter how overbearing Judge got. But still…

“Ok, so you've had a bad few days, big whoop, by the time we get to the archipelago, they'll all be healed up and ready to ravage the landscape. Things will go smoothly as usual and all this will just be a minor wrinkle in the grand scheme of things.”

His words seemed to have some effect on the large man and he slightly relaxed his posture and some elements of tiredness showed on his brooding expression.

“Even so, there is still the question of whoever has just attacked my son and where they are at the moment. They cannot go too far considering there are no nearby islands for miles. And as much as I hate to do so, I have made Reiju take respite in her room away from all the paperwork for now if some threat agent is here with us. As much as I loathe that child being…made without my consent, I do need it alive to see to its usage.”

“So? Just make one of your boys do the work.’

Judge shook his head.

“It is not that simple.”

It LITERALLY was that simple.

“Bah,” the blond spat, “no matter what you say to try and allay me, nothing will make me feel better unless-”

Speaking of the devil, the entrance to the lab swung open, clacking steps making their way in and approaching the pair. Looking over, Caesar could see it was one of the royals he loathed the most, Ichiji. He never liked that kid and never would, along with his sister, with his aloof and almost unreadable attitude, yet also paired with an air of superiority that pissed Caesar Clown off. The way he looked down at him, like he was not a dog who would hold onto his leash for dear life if no one else held it. Behind him, though, was the much more agreeable Yonji, trailing his older brother, but looking like he did not want to be here right now.

You and me both, he thought to himself.

“Father,” Ichiji started off, smooth and suave, “I have something that may be of interest to you.”

🦋🦋🦋⚔️⚔️⚔️

Hours had passed since the incident and Reiju felt more useless than ever. Useless, useless, useless. Her stomach was a churning cauldron of anxiety and hopelessness and she wanted to vomit, but managed to hold it back.

Every corner and crevice of her had been checked, along with the baby, by the medical team after she communicated the situation to the outside. Nothing was wrong with either of them, of course, but she was still shaken despite her biggest fear at that moment, Suzume being injured, was alleviated. It did nothing to entirely soothe her nerves, though. There still was the fact that her child, her daughter, had some sort of ability like the rest of her and her remaining brothers. 

Some…stupid, stupid part of her had hoped so dearly that somehow Zoro’s genes would be dominant and Suzume could just be a normal child…but that was always going to be a pipe dream. Even Sanji, who she knew did not have all the modifications like the rest of his biological family, had some of his genes emerge when he used the raid suit, so she heard. Her father made sure that Germa genetics would claw their way out, gnashing teeth and screaming.

As of now, she was confined to her room, physically fine, but still made to stay in a relatively safe place since it was assumed some outsider had attacked her brother. Reiju knew the truth, but said nothing about it because she knew as soon as the fact of Suzume’s abilities came out, her father would spring into action to run experiments on his shiny new toy. The princess could already see herself being called down to his lab, whisked away to the experimentation rooms, and be subjected to God knows what just to see how Suzume would react to it. Hell, maybe his patented impatience would kick in at the new super soldier to mold and he'd cut the baby out of her ASAP, throwing Reiju to the sidelines and putting her daughter in some advanced incubator just so he could have complete control over Suzume's development like he could not have with his own daughter in her early years.

Reiju felt the muscles on her stomach pull slightly as Suzume kicked near her ribs. It was enough to ground her as she looked down at her growing belly.

“Ah, sorry, darling, was I making you worry again?”

She of course got no response but already knew the answer. The medical staff found that her blood pressure and heart rate skyrocketed temporarily after the incident and she did not need to give her daughter any more stress. Still, she could not make herself relax, not after the huge knot introduced to her plan. 

What the heck was she going to do now? While it was not like she could have predicted any of the variables that mucked up her plan, she should have at least had SOME sort of back up for Zoro and herself. Now she would most likely be under an even more scrutinizing watch, making it less likely she could sneak into the dungeon again. 
Though, it did not mean all would be lost, at least not so far. She still had that moment between Yonji and Zoro poking against her brother's back like a spring-loaded iron maiden, so getting the snails and treasury were still in the cards. Though, things were complicated now if she could not get direct access to at least speak to Zoro. If push came to shove, she could still just talk to the Straw Hats herself, but considering the circumstances, not having the swordsman be able to speak threw another wrench into the plan.
All they knew is that Zoro was kidnapped, and it was not like her track record with the pirates was squeaky clean…

Actually, what was she going to say when she brought Zoro back to his crew and tagged along? “Hello Luffy, Sanji, and the rest of you, sorry that the family you never wanted to see again took your second in command. Father is just mad at him after he impregnated me. Oh, did I forget to mention that I had sexual relations with Zoro under a false identity? And that I'll be staying with you until the baby is born?”.
Yes, she definitely would need to come up with a better dialogue to deliver for this situation. Especially when it came to Sanji…
She knew her brother would have a strong reaction to the situation initially and then be supportive and understanding of Zoro and his daughter, but when it came to her, it would be complicated. 

Perhaps, and only perhaps, he would forgive her for being a major reason why any of this was happening simply because of his code with women, but it certainly would not be a pleasant reunion. First she steals him away from the people who actually love him and now she's stolen away one of his crewmates? Reiju could imagine she would be on thin ice then. Though, it would not be the most major of issues in her plan. She was not going to stay there forever, after all, and as long as…as long as Sanji did not completely hate her after all this, she could keep going, keep meandering on with her life. Everyone gets what they want, the end.

As if on some dramatic cue, Suzume moved around again while the familiar tensing of Reiju’s muscles came upon the woman. This time, something moved. The princess caught sight of her desk across from her bed squealing across the floor as an invisible force gently but sloppily pulled it closer to her. It had to stop a few times for a moment, but it eventually clunked the wooden thing against the foot of her bed.

“Umm,” was all she could muster at first, “what was that for?”

Expectedly, she got no answer, and felt foolish for asking like she expected one. Reiju crawled over to the desk, wondering why her daughter had brought it over to her. She was not allowed to keep anything really important in it, being confined to her office, and the only thing of note was her…her field med book!

Wait, her field med book? 

Pulling out the drawer it was in, she heaved out the tome, worn from regular reading, and plopped it onto her bed. It was the latest in field medicine information and training, something her father had given to her on her 15th birthday. Not as a present, of course, heavens no, but because he thought she was old enough to learn all this to be an onsite medic for her brothers and herself, if push came to shove. Having an advanced healing factor was good and all, but it did not prevent massive hemorrhaging, food poisoning, bones not healing correctly, and so on and so forth. It made the most sense to assign her to such a role, both because of her poison abilities, but also While her siblings were not so foolhardy as to get banged up badly enough all the time to need her immediate her, when she was needed, she followed through with lightning efficiency. And of course, was never thanked for her work by either her brothers or father. Not like she expected that.

Even so, in a way, it could be said that she extracted what could be considered…satisfaction from the work. Not satisfaction from keeping up the Germa empire by maintaining its super soldiers, but just the work itself. Reiju had always enjoyed working with her hands and the job of field medic made ample use of that. It was why whenever she had some free time and nothing else to do, one of the few things she did for enjoyment was…read this book. 

…How did Suzume know that? Reiju had not been thinking about it in that moment, so…so…

“Hold on now,” she clutched her stomach, “are you…psychic?”

Nothing.

“Kick once for yes, twice for no.”

It took a few seconds but it finally hit Reiju how silly and stupid asking that question sounded. She groaned at herself and facepalmed. The princess kept forgetting, since she always found time to have one side conversations, how her child was still gestating and could not respond. 
Reiju at least, figured, though, Suzume could feel her anxiety, and judging from what she pulled over, brought something she found pleasurable. It…was was definitely something a child with no idea of the grand scope of things would do. 

Oh no…oh no no no, was her daughter becoming attached to her already? In utero?

This was more than a snag or knot in the plan, if her hunch was true, it was a balled up mess that would break all the threads. Reiju wanted the transaction to be quick, clean and with as little pain as possible, cutting herself off before her baby girl could get to attached to her and vice versa. Tears pricked her eyes once again but she blinked them back. Oh no, she had already cried enough at the warehouse, get it together!

Another movement from her daughter and spasm in her stomach, and the thick book was shoved closer to her. She looked down, hand on top of the cover image, depicting an old woodcut of several soldiers from an unfamiliar country lying bandaged up in a make shift medical bay.

Well…as much as her mind was racing right now on the present and all sorts of hypotheticals, one thing Reiju would make time for was her daughter. If she wanted her to so badly to do something she enjoyed, the warrior princess would do it for her sake. Suzume needed all the love and support she could give her at this stage, after all, especially since she would not be in the picture for the rest of them.


…Perhaps she could bide some of her time while figuring out how to navigate this roadblock by re-reading the section on field amputations. That chapter was always a page turner.

Chapter Text

When Reiju awoke the next morning, right at five in the morning because of her, quite literal, internal clock, she had found that she had fallen asleep at some point in a very unladylike sleeping position. Her blanket had been folded back and placed on her, even though she did not remember putting it on, and her open book acted as the head support, some of the pages sticking to her cheek due to the drool from last night. She would have to leave it out to dry lest she lose some of the content from the makeshift poultice chapter. 

Managing to unstick herself from the papers, she got up and laid the book neatly on her desk before starting her morning. As the princess got to making her bed, she let her body go into autopilot as she brought herself back to what she had been brainstorming yesterday.

Ok, so there was a little speedbump in the road, but after thinking about it, this still could be salvaged. Niji getting roughed up and Suzume’s abilities were unexpected, but there still was a job she needed to do. While Reiju did not expect to be doing any more documentation transfers and storing for a little bit, she still had to finish the rest of the audits and approvals, though thankfully, there would not be so much walking to be done before she got to the monotonous in-office factory time. While doing the sit down work was not as tiring as being on her feet, she could definitely find some excuse for needing a second pair of hands with her. Hmmm, perhaps, because the fleet was closing in on Cinnabar Island, she could just get her way this once just because her father needed her to get the job done before then.

Just as Reiju was beginning to cook up some believable excuse, though, a knock came at her door in the middle of her brushing her teeth. She spat out the foamy toothpaste in her mouth before speaking.

“Yes?”

Her father's voice responded promptly.

“Open your door; there has been a change in the…current arrangements.”

The princess’ heart froze and the toothbrush slipped from her grip. It was…a vague statement, as usual from her father, but she knew very well he was referring to their latest guest and his internment. What these changes were, though…well, better not to leave the man waiting, whether she was fully put together or not.

Prepping her face and body language, Reiju opened her door to let the entourage in.

Her father strided in first, followed by some clone soldiers, Zoro, and a bearded-wait, ZORO?

The princess had almost glossed over the man as he was carried in by some of the clone soldiers, his wrists and ankles with a long pole in-between them like he was a hunted boar being brought back to camp to be cooked. He immediately caught her gaze, loudly mumbling something that she could not make out due to the gag over his mouth. He began to struggle with his restraints, a fruitless effort considering how it was connected to him. Judge fake coughed to bring Reiju’s attention back to him and she snapped her gaze to match his.

“Reiju.” he gruffly greeted.

“Good morning, Father,” she equally replied bluntly, “It seems there is something important you want to tell me, seeing as our…prisoner is here.”

The older blond put his hands behind his back and shifted his gaze to stare daggers into the defiant pirate.

“Yes, this is quite important, in fact. Starting from today, I am lifting the ban on you speaking to our captive and have now upgraded his status into being your personal attendant.”

Reiju blinked.

Huh?

“Huh?”

“I know, this may be coming out of the blue for you, but I have been reassessing his treatment, especially in light of what happened with Niji and all the work you need to get done now. It would be best if he could prove more useful than just a laborer for the lessers and contributed much more to atone for his offenses.”

“I…I see then, father,” Reiju said while feeling frazzled in record time, “This is just so sudden considering…”

“Considering?” Judge pressed for an answer, the shadow from his helmet’s visor slightly covering his eyes.

“Considering that you did not want me to be able to talk to him or see him, because of what I had…done…”

Judge hummed, leaving the room silent for a second, before clasping a brawny hand on her shoulder.

“That was simply the past, my dearest daughter, and this is what I need done now, so… do not think too hard about it.”

So in other words, no more questions on this subject. Typical. She had trained herself enough to not stiffen or wrench away from his touch, but it did not dampen the feeling of ice spreading on her skin. 

“Understood, then. So, does this mean he is-”

“Yes, Zoro’s residency shall be relocated to your room. I am also lifting the order for you to not speak to him.”

Huh. Look at this, mentally knocking Reiju on her back twice in a row. Must be a record. The princess reigned in her heartbeat.

“I…see then.” Her father's grip tightened on her shoulder, not enough to hurt, but enough to keep her in place. It was more of a show of power, really.

“So, where is he going to sleep and eat the-OH.”

On cue, a pair of soldiers came in with a large dog bed, enough to fit an adult man on it, and a rather large dog food bowl. When Zoro caught a look at the items, Reiju could hear him say “are you fucking kidding me” through his gag. Pressing her lips together while still maintaining a neutral expression, she looked back at her father.

“Caesar’s doing, I am guessing?”

Some of the seriousness of her father’s expression broke down at the mention of his partner and he sighed.

“...Yes,” Judge grumbled out, “I have GOT to talk to him about this,” he mumbled under his breath, “Anywho, this is where Mister Roronoa will be stationed now. As soon as the tailors are done, some clothing will be sent up for him, too.”

“Is there anything else for me to know about?”

“No, that will be all.” Judge looked towards the bearded soldier, his name finally coming back to Reiju, Rodrick, and he pressed a button on the remote in his hand. Zoro immediately dropped to the floor and the guards holding the pole stepped back from him, blocking the door in case he made a run for it, as unlikely as that was. Once freed, Zoro ripped out the cloth tied around his mouth and scrambled up to his feet.

“Reiju! Are you and the baby ok?” 

Reiju almost parted her lips to reply but reminded herself that father was watching. He may have lifted the talking restriction just now, but there HAD to be some caveat to it. Instead, she just nodded at the swordsman. Zoro breathed out, somewhat relieved at this news before turning to the king of Germa. The princess was expecting Zoro to jump up and start beating the man considering the animosity radiating off of the swordsman, but the two just stared each other down. The guards all looked anxious, ready for something to give.

“...So,” Zoro started, crossing his arms, “the great king Judge had a change of heart. I am truly humbled by your mercy.” The sarcasm rolling off his tongue was venomous. 

“You should consider yourself lucky, cur,” her father snapped back, “you would have still been rotting in a dungeon right now if not for your usefulness. One wrong move and I could have you locked up and the key thrown away just like that.” Judge snapped his fingers for emphasis. 

Something seemed to bubble up in Zoro’s mouth, but with Reiju so close to him now and the talking restriction finally lifted, he thankfully kept his tongue held. He made no effort, though, to hide his utter contempt for the blond man in front of him, something Judge took in stride. 

“So now,” Judge continued, “if you are going to play nice, you can enjoy the amount of leash I am letting you have, as long as you do whatever my daughter needs from you and cause no more trouble, got it?”

The swordsman, ever resolute and stubborn, simply grunted as a reply.

“I am going to take that as a yes. Now then,” he gestured towards the guards and they all ushered out of the princess’ room, “I will make my leave. Sorry about interrupting your morning routine, Reiju.”

And just as soon as he came, Judge left, closing the door behind him and leaving his daughter shellshocked.

What. The. Actual. Fuck.

“I…I…what…how did…” Reiju’s usual put together and collected self had just been knocked over like a block tower. Out of all the snags she expected in her plan and how she could work around it with her time limit, she definitely did not expect her father to just turn around and drop Zoro right into her lap. This…this had to be a trap, right? There was no other explanation for it. This couldn’t be Zoro, it…it had to be some clone in a wig or a cyborg with a bug, Judge had finally caught onto her deceit and wanted definite proof of this before he punished her. And then what would she be able to do for Suzume and Zoro? 

“Hey, Reiju,” 

A hand was placed on her shoulder, grounding the woman as the swordsman himself protruded into her space.

“How do I know you're the real Zoro?” It was the first thing she had said, could say to him in months and almost immediately Reiju regretted saying it. Zoro did not seem too perturbed by such a strange question, although he cocked his head in confusion.

“If I wasn't the real me, shithead asshole back there probably wouldn't have looked at me like I was some nasty little bug.”

Okay, he was the real Zoro. Even though he always was the real Zoro and she did not think so for a minute because she was being stupid. Ugh.

But even so, that did not mean he was not being used in some machination. Even if it was just the two of them in her room, that did not eliminate the possibility of this being a set up. The timing and situation itself was all too convenient. Maybe she was being paranoid, but that same paranoia got her this far at least. If they were going to talk about anything of substance, really, a little white noise would be a good start.

“Well then, Zoro,” she said loudly, wrapping her hands around his bicep, “for your first act as my attendant, can you help me with bathing?”

Reiju expected some sort of flustering from the swordsman or a resolute “NO”, or even maybe playing along with the act. What she did not expect was an absolutely morbid look on his face. There were no hints of embarrassment, but there was plenty of fear.

Seeing that expression kicked the woman in the heart a little (or maybe Suzume was awake and taking aim at her ribs again), but she pushed past it as she quite literally dragged him across the room and into her personal bathroom, closing and locking the door behind them. She then got to work turning on all the faucets so gushing water from the sink and shower filled the room. It immediately started to make it a bit steamy, but that was of no matter. She brought herself close to Zoro and spoke quietly.

“I have to know, Zoro, did they do anything to you while you were in the dungeon? Did they implant anything in you at all?” Her hands were all over his neck and shoulders and moving done, feeling for any devices in him beyond the tattoo cuffs. Zoro swallowed then spoke.

“No, of course not. I’m not gonna let those bastards put anything else into me. They just woke me up and brought me straight here,” he gently pulled her hands off, “you don't have to worry about me, I've been through worse. I'm more worried about you and Suzume, in fact. What the hell happened with you and Niji?”

Resisting the urge to bristle at his question, Reiju quickly considered how to break the news to him while he looked at her with a pleading eye. It certainly would complicate things for the swordsman and the crew and she could not even be much help because how in the hell SHOULD someone raise a modified human child? Her father was certainly no beacon of inspiration and her mother…

“So…things went smooth at first, and then Niji started to act strange.”

“Strange how?” Something changed in Zoro’s voice, gaining a dangerous edge, sharp as a tiger’s claws.

“Strange as in…acting in a way he never has. He seemed to…care. And then things got a little heated between me and him, which led to…” words seemed to fail her now, Reiju’s mouth going dry. Zoro’s lips pressed together as something rumbled in him.

“Did he do anything to you.” His question came out as a command for the answer. The princess turned away from the pirate. 

“Zoro, I think Suzume has powers, like me and my brothers.”

The aggression seemed to drain away from the swordsman as her statement hit him like a bag of bricks to the face.

“What?”

“When Niji grabbed my wrist, suddenly, all the filing cabinets around us were lifted up by an invisible force and pummeled and crushed him with it. And during that whole time, my stomach was hurting quite a lot and…and Suzume was moving around violently.”

The steam had thickened at this point and made the bathroom have a film of haziness around it, condensation forming on the mirror. Zoro did not exhale for a minute, seemingly processing all this.

“But Suzume…she’s ok, right?”

“I…I did have a scare when she suddenly went still for too long for my liking, but ultimately, she has not shown any signs of harm. A-and that is not all, last night, when I was made to stay in my room, I was feeling quite upset because of…well, everything, to be honest, and I think she knew that because she brought over my field medicine book and…and…”

Despite the room being full of steam, Reiju was quickly running out of it. Just saying all the facts out loud just reinforced how crushing the situation had become.

“Well…damn…” Zoro muttered. The water from both faucets kept harshly hitting their respective porcelains.

“Does your family know about this?”

“No, no, Niji got knocked out during the original ordeal and I have not told any of them about this. God knows my father would love to capitalize on this.”

Zoro gave an affirmative grunt in response.

“So, what should we do next? Is the plan still on or do we gotta find another path?”

Reiju’s brow crinkled as she dipped into her thoughts. This new situation was…certainly surprising and quite a wrench in things, and the unknown was always something one must account for in even the best of operations, but as long as the pair got to Cinnabar Island in the first place, she could branch off the escape routes from there. Not all of them could be a trap. And if she was able to contact the Straw Hats in time, that would definitely open up the possibilities wider. Her family was strong, yes, but she also knew the captain of Zoro’s crew quite literally had the powers of a god if push came to shove.

“I still have Yonji on his way to retrieve the snails we need for more private communication and he should be delivering that soon, so I think we should stick to our course for now, which…I guess is easier now since you're working under me, one way or another.”

“That may be true, but this all smells funny.”

“I feel the same. Still, though, it would be best to contact and inform my brother and your crew of the current situation, let them know you are fine at the moment, and give them an estimation for how long until we dock. You should also know it will not be that Germa just stays there for a day and packs up, so they will have some extra time before we climb the Red Line.”

The swordsman said nothing during her debriefing, only nodding his head along to let the princess know he was listening.

“I see then. So we just have to be more careful on what we say to each other now because of…whatever the hell your dad is doing.”

“Exactly. I believe it would be most advantageous that we go along with this and act normal until we are somewhere safe to speak like here.”

“Got it.”

It would not be the most fool-proof plan, but it would be a plan at the very least. It was all either one could do with this monkey wrench thrown into the gears. While she looked collected on the outside, on the inside, Reiju was not quite at the screaming stage just yet, but the stage just before where the anger and frustrations were forming into sound. What the HELL was this game her father was playing? First he wanted to humiliate and work Zoro like a slave and now he was giving him directly to her like it was nothing? And while Zoro seemed none the wiser on his end too, this meant nowhere and no one was really safe to be around now…not like they were not that before, but the situation was being pumped up by this change. If stress was not bad for the baby, she would be at the level of it where one’s hair started to fall out.

Though, this new arrangement was not the only thing stressing her out…

While not QUITE a clean freak, Reiju had hygiene standards, and strict ones, too. While she had not mentioned it when he was brought in here (along with just blurting it out being plain impolite), it was undeniable that Zoro stank to the high heavens. Like sweat and waste all rolled into a mucky ball. She was surprised that her father and none of the soldiers even wrinkled their noses at the stench.

“Before we continue this, Zoro, how about you step into the shower before I do? You need it more.”

Zoro looked just a tiny bit offended by this insinuation but begrudgingly accepted it for the most part.

“Yeah…I've been overdue for my weekly shower and those assholes made me clean out a blockage in the sewers yesterday.”

It took Reiju a second to recover from the fact that this man showered once a week on the regular, but she quickly snapped back to normal and nodded in response.

“I will leave you for the time being so you ma-”

“Wait,” Zoro jerked forward a little too quickly, holding the princess in place with his rock hard hand holding hers, “Why don't you stay for now?”

Reiju could not tell if it was the heat around them that was making her face turn red or her body viscerally reacting to the swordsman’s statement.

“Why?”

“It's just that…look, I've been spending most of my time either sitting on my ass in a cramped dungeon or being ordered around like a donkey, all while the mother of my child and my child are out there in the open, who knows what happening to them. And there was nothing I could do. Do you know how shitty it is for that, an able bodied guy who can usually kick anyone's ass, to just watch that happen? I was…worried. Worried sick. And now that I have you both here, I don't wanna let my eye off of either of you.”

Reiju felt her heart do flips as he poured his feelings out to her. God, she really had put him in a metaphorical vice when she risked things with having Niji partner up with her. She could vividly imagine Zoro in that cold, cold dungeon, alone and stuck with just his thoughts. All because she had already to assure the already wary man that nothing would go wrong with Niji. She had really put his head in a metaphorical vice.

And yet…

“So what do I do, just watch you bathe.”

“I mean,” the green haired man scratched his chin, “if you wanna, sure, if you don't wanna, that's also fine, I just want both of you nearby.”

Reiju had no idea if Zoro realized the effect he had on her with the first half of the statement as she turned as red as a tomato.

“D-do not say things like that!”

“Like what?”

“That I am going to watch you shower!”

She hated how her voice started to squeak and Zoro raised a thin eyebrow.

“What, it's not like you haven't seen what's under the hood before.”

“Shower, now,” she commanded as she turned to face the wall. Zoro said nothing more as Reiju regained control of herself. 

They were just talking about adjusting their escape plan and Zoro caring for her and Suzume, how the hell could her mind whip right over to thinking about his-his hidden fourth sword-NO!

Horny Reiju needed to be chained up and locked away for the time being, maybe forever, because she literally had no time for her. Just because her and Zoro would be housed together did not mean they should be going at it like rabbits. Besides, he probably did not want her anyways because of several emerging circumstances (her true identity, the changes in her body, etc.), so that was that!

Besides, she had other, more important things to ruminate on, like whatever in the bloody hell her father was doing. What was his game with all this? What was his angle? To spy on her, do put her and Zoro in some sort of compromising situation so he could catch them? Something was fishy and she needed to batten down the information hatches if she still wanted the escape plan to go off without a hitch.

Since her brothers were practically in her father's pocket, it meant she needed to keep Yonji at a further arms length information wise while also needing him for his access to things. Then again, his toxic manly pride meant he'd rather die than let his brothers know a man kissed him, so perhaps he was still safe to have around to an extent. To an extent.

She just had to get in contact with the Straw Hats, get Zoro’s swords back, and then everything would fall into place. That would be the bare essentials of what needed to go right now. No matter what else happened, whatever new roadblocks decided to flop onto her path, if she could do the bare minimum, she might be able to get Zoro and Suzume out, just barely. And maybe then…well, she did not have much planned out for her own future, but at least she would not be this close to the level of stress where hair started to grey and fall out.

But that did not matter. Reiju’s wants and needs, whatever barely developed pieces of them existed did not matter. All that mattered now was giving her daughter a better life.

Metal scraped on metal as Zoro wrenched back the shower curtain, a towel already on his waist.

“...You know, don't tell Franky this, but that was the best shower I've ever used and had.”

Reiju returned his compliment with a semi genuine smile.

“I would hope so considering I had to help budget out and oversee updates to all the plumbing.”

“Well I would say that work paid off.”

“Glad to hear. Now then, there is one more thing we have to consider for the immediate future. When we get the white and horned snails, we are going to have to find a relatively quiet and stagnant place to make the call, one where it is unlikely someone will walk in on us. So, my room is not safe off the bat.”

“What other options do we got then?”

“I personally think it would be best when you are with me for the final audits I will be making today that we scope out the areas in the kingdom that would be best to make the call.”

“Mm. Sounds alright to me.”

“So, just keep all those factors in mind and after we are done with the rounds, we can compare them in my office or this bathroom, whichever works better.”

“So, just act normal while out there but keep a mental list of things. I think I can do that.”

“Good. Now then,” Reiju found another towel and threw it over and onto her shoulder, “I believe I need to get ready for the day.”

“Ahh, yeah, yeah, you're in your pajamas and everything.”

A bear of relative silence went by.

“...That is your cue to leave, Zoro.”

“Oh,” the younger man said with the surprise that came out of snapping out of one's thoughts, “you're sure?”

“Yes, I am sure,”

“So I don't have to help you bathe? You're positive? I know I was acting weird back there about it, but if you really need my assistance then-”

Reiju, in her mind, had to thwack Horny Reiju's fingers with a nightstick as she was attempting to file away the bars of her cell.

“I only said that because we do not know if my room is bugged. It was just a distraction.”

“I see…but if you do need help, I’ll be right outside your doo-”

“I will consider your proposal.” She firmly said as she shoved Zoro out the door and slammed it shut. Reiju raggedly sighed and squeezed her eyes shut for a few seconds. What Zoro was trying to do was understandable. It was painful for him to be stuck and unable to do anything for her and their daughter…but she still had to lay out her limits when she could. Stripping down and getting into the shower, the princess already was considering where to make the call. While not quite a surveillance state, the Germa Kingdom did not have many blind spots for below the board dealings to happen. She knew this very well considering how she had to find those spots when patching up Sanji when they were children. But over time, those places had changed and she had not quite kept up on which places she could act a bit more freely. Her office was the first choice to come to mind, seeing how far it was from the rest of her family’s living quarters, but it also was too obvious of a choice. The ship snails breeding caverns were essentially barren of any non snail life due to it just being an unpleasant place. The only caveat to that, though, was the fact that it turns out baby ship snails eat as much as caterpillars and some of their favorite foods happened to be transponder snails.

And then there was the Goldilocks out of the trio of locations, the one that she logically knew would be the best choice, just right, from how no one ever went into it and somewhere no one would suspect her and Zoro would be making a call…but she absolutely hated it. Reiju would rather just go into the courtyard and loudly blab the plan to the world than go into that room…and yet…

She was in no position to feel anything right now. Whether she liked it or not, the royal nursery was most likely their best option. She just had to make sure she would not vomit too much just being there.

Once finished with her shower, the princess turned all the faucets off and dried herself off. Seeing as she left no clothes nearby, she went outside (with a towel on, of course) and immediately caught sight of Zoro leaning against the wall next to the bathroom entrance. The way he crossed his arms and kept a stony gaze at his surroundings was like that of a bodyguard. He looked her way, steam billowing out behind her. Thankfully, it seemed that the tailors stopped by while she was in the shower as he finally had some clothes on, a very plain outfit of a white shirt, black pants and black boots.

“You good? No falls, no scrapes, nothing that I didn't hear?”

“Mm, no, you actually missed the battle I had to fight with a twenty foot tall soap lizard. It was an amazing scuffle, too.”

Her sarcasm seemed to be received well enough by Zoro, as he just rolled his eyes and made a not displeased chuff in response.

“Hey, I'm just trying to look out for you.”

“Understood. Now then, I believe I must get dressed now and eat breakfast. We have a bit of a day ahead of us. And before you ask, no.”

Zoro seemed somewhat taken back by her emphatic statement.

“What did I do now?”

“I already know you are going to ask if I need help with that and I do not, so my preemptive answer is no.”

“Come on, do you really think I would ask to help you get dressed?”

A beat of intentional silence passed by.

“...Fuck, how did you know?”

His earnestness wrenched a chuckle out of her.

“Call it a hunch.”

🦋🦋🦋⚔️⚔️⚔️

After getting the showering and getting dressed out of the way, the delivery of breakfast could not have come fast enough for the swordsman. He was a hardy man, yes, one of the strongest, even, but he had to admit that he was not used to not having food for any amount of time. Sanji would've always made sure he never went hungry…

When finally presented with his meal, a full fry up breakfast with all the trappings…ice cold reality was dunked on him when the servant said that they were explicitly told to slop it into the large dog bowl that had been provided for him. Even this act of humiliating the swordsman, though, did not assuage his appetite, especially when the smell was still making his mouth water, despite the presentation.

Reiju, feeling quite bad for his situation, offered for him to, at the very least, use her utensils instead of eating it like a dog once the servants left, but he refused. He had eaten a dirt coated rice ball before, he could survive eating out of some fancy dog bowl…even if afterwards he had to wash his face off because he had the remains of food all over it. He tried his best to stay clean and that's what mattered. After that, it was onto the meat of the day: being Reiju's assistant. 

The princess’ office was conveniently located very close to her room, almost like her bedroom had been situated there specifically for this. 

For a space meant only for one person to be working in, Zoro never imagined Reiju's office would be so VAST. The front area had the usual trappings, a fine oak desk and office chair, a few small cabinets with supplies, a nice sofa in front of the desk, and then behind all that…was the motherload of filing cabinets.

The metal receptacles filled half of the room, neatly aligned to form a half square hallway, and showed signs of age and being opened and closed thousands of times.

It was a place so dry and lifeless that he might as well have walked into a mini desert.

“So, uh, this is where you work, huh?” he said stupidly.

“Yes,” the older woman’s tone was soft but icy, like a fresh field of snow.

Reiju promptly strided over to her desk, a key she seemingly pulled out of nowhere in her hand, and she unlocked the drawer in the middle. Inside, there were thick stacks of paper from bottom to top, all neatly organized and with dividers between the different types. On top of the middle pile was a clipboard with a thick bundle of paper clipped onto it. 

“It looks like, despite everything else, you got dropped off onto me at a lucky time, relatively speaking” the princess picked up the clipboard and papers before retrieving a pen from her desk, “it looks like me working double time to get this done has put us a little ahead of schedule, despite recent events. There is only one place I need to audit next and then after that will be the fun part.”

Her voice seemed to be doused in a thick coating of tired and bitter sarcasm. This was something she was obviously resigned to doing but would make sure her displeasure was known.

“Just say the word on what I must do for this ‘fun part’.”

Zoro knew how he was sounding right now. He could already feel that Reiju's hackles were raised to an extent from how he had jumped to attend her needs like a repentant sinner, but God damn it, he just had to. Even if his attentiveness and bending over backwards was reminiscent of a certain lovesick cook, it still was the right thing to do considering the circumstances. 

Roronoa Zoro was no deadbeat, he wasn't like certain parents of some of his crewmates and wouldn't just allow a kid of his that he knew about be thrown to live wherever while he lived it up on the high seas. But, he did also know that a kid was a lot of responsibility, a stop one would have to make if they were pursuing another goal. It was why he worked damn hard all those years ago to forgo carnal temptations and focus only on his crew and training. Still, though, whether or not his dream was fulfilled already, it would be as much of a shame to leave his child and the mother of his child high and dry as it was for a swordsman to let his back be scarred, especially in a place as horrible as this. And truthfully…he had let them down for a while.

If he had found out about this baby before getting captured, he would have found a way to talk Luffy into storming the Germa Kingdom and getting Suzume and Reiju out of here (and maybe let Judge and Caesar “accidentally” run into his swords a couple hundred times).

If he knew about this circumstance earlier, he wanted to have been there for Reiju, support her in the ugly early stages of pregnancy, feel his daughter's first kicks, actually have his swords with him so he could show Germa what he thought of them in the way only he could.

But as always, if ifs and buts were candy and nuts…

“That depends,” Reiju tapped her chin with the end of her pen, “do you get carpal tunnel often?”

“Nah, I'm pretty good at keeping that from happening.”

“Good, because after this, the next step is authorizing, notarizing, and signing every single request from the audit. I think it would be best if you were able to do the stamping, those can be a killer on my wrists.”

Zoro nearly frowned at this but kept a straight face. No, it didn't matter if wasn't a fan of office work, he had to play off normally as the plan intended. 

“I can definitely do that. But that's after we look at this place, right?”

“Yes. Admittedly, this is something I have been putting off until the end for…reasons. I will just say it is trickier to deal with than the rest.”

He quirked a thin eyebrow.

“Tricky?”

“Yes, tricky.”

Zoro understood that they could not talk freely without any cover, but he was now very curious on what this place was and had to hold himself back from straight up asking what it could be. 

Well, he would find out one way or another.

“Oh, and how is your handwriting?”

“Legible.”

“Mm hmm, then I think you should do the writing when we are out there.”

The princess handed Zoro the clipboard and pen and motioned for him to follow her.

Being led through the castle, it truly was a castle, so much so it probably could be used as a picture example in a book defining what castles are. Grey stone walls surrounding them, undecorated except for some trimming near the bottom of the side walls. Nothing else adorned the halls, no paintings, no murals, no complex patterns, or really any patterns, of any kind. Everything felt so cold and sterile, which…sure, Zoro expected out of a castle, but from his travels and all the kingdoms he and his crew went to, the royal family of those countries had a castle and a palace. A palace where the family actually lived because a castle was a fortress and meant for survival, not for living.

And yet…here he was. In a castle where generations had spent their lives.

It was little wonder why Sanji wanted out of this place so badly.

Focusing his attention back on the woman in front of him, idly wondering how she had been able to live in such a place for so long herself without trying to escape. His mind decided to answer the question by bringing up some of the few times Sanji talked about his family.

“If she could, she would have left there long ago,” he took a long drag of his cigarette, his eyes staring dead ahead but his gaze was looking at something else, “She might have even agreed to come along when I asked to get her out of there. But my sister can't. She never can…”

Just letting the words melt into his consciousness like ice on a hot day was making his insides burn up. Fucking Judge…he was a weak fucking man, and it made Zoro hate that he had to kowtow to him for Suzume and Reiju’s sakes. That man was a coward, through and through. Since he couldn't command respect through being someone people could respect or even through fear, he chose to put whatever bull crap he made into his kids’ heads so they had no other choice but to obey. Without that tech, he'd be nothing and would have been turned into mince meat by stronger forces long ago, or, at the very least, be left a very sad and lonely old man.

Now outside and in the streets of Germa, he immediately took notice of how many of the passerbys were quite nosey and rubbernecking at his presence with the princess, most likely equally as confused as he was with Judge allowing this to happen. Even outside of the castle, everything was so grey and full of other dark and brooding colors. The people similarly dressed in drab browns and greys and even the sun seemed less bright than it should be. He could feel his own life, own color, being sucked out of him by the second.

Breaking him out of his thoughts, Reiju went and grabbed his hand, the sudden movement making his muscles jerk.

“You almost started veering off for a second. Stay close to me.” she stated matter of factly. Some blush brushed over the man’s face at this insinuation, his pride welling up.

“I wasn’t getting lost.”

“I never said you were.”

Hmph. Even if he did get lost here, it wouldn’t be his fault anyways since everything looked the damn same here. Reiju made it look so effortless with how she seemed to glide through the tight stone pathways that seemed to grow tighter and the buildings more cloistered together until it nearly felt claustrophobic. The amount of people around them began to thin, too, until eventually, it was just the two of them walking to wherever the hell this place was. It put him more on edge than he already was. Whenever things got too quiet for Zoro in the past, something bad was usually about to happen. Unconsciously, his hand reached to rest on where his swords should have been and his palm passed through air. Ah, right.

…The bastards watching over them better be taking proper care of his swords.

“We have arrived.”

With the woman stopping right in front of him, Zoro screeched to a stop. And after turning his head to where Reiju was looking, he finally found the one place in Germa with some life in it…sort of.

Sticking out from between all the pure stone buildings was a quite old looking wooden structure, not quite a mansion but far better than a house. Around it was some of the very rare spots of green in the entire kingdom, a mini garden surrounding the property and making it glow amongst its dreary neighbors even further. The right side of the house was cylindrical, almost like a miniature version of those spires in fairy tale books. It looked…like, at the very least, a summer home for royalty. In Germa. GERMA.

“What is this place?” Zoro asked, befuddled by this anomaly in such a cold and spartan place. With Reiju’s hand still gripping his own, he felt her hold on him tighten. Looking at her face, the woman's expression was tense and like she was about to be sick.

“This is the royal nursery.”

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Despite not visiting the nursery, not even glancing its way when she was in the area, in weeks since the last docking for supplies, not a speck of dust or a cobweb was in sight. From the way things such as the toy chest were ever so slightly moved from the position she last saw them in, Reiju could surmise that someone had been regularly coming in to check on and readjust all the objects in…the royal nursery.

It felt wrong to call it the baby's room.

Just being in the presence of it made her chest tighten and her jaw clench. Suzume must have felt her stress because she kicked hard, hard enough to make Reiju let out a little squeak. Glancing over at Zoro, he, not having all the memories of this place, did not have the amount of apprehension and uncomfortableness she had, but he also was not happy to see this place.

In a militaristic and advanced place like Germa, such a bright and seemingly innocent place like this stuck out like a sore thumb. It was quaint, it was mellow, it almost had an air of cheeriness to it with the neatly placed and well loved toys passed down through generations, it was all laid out as if eager to await the arrival of the new princess, it…

It was making her sick just being here. 

So much so that it drowned out the reason she had come here in the first place. Reiju never had an easy time coming here, especially after she had alienated the nanny away from even speaking to her again, but being here after knowing about Suzume’s potential powers and how it would hasten her father's dream of conquest, it made her head swim with feverish apprehension. All of a sudden the world was becoming wobbly and her vision fuzzy. Everything felt unstable suddenly and she feared her knees would buckle…until she felt Zoro loop his arm around hers in support. His face was stoic yet softened somewhat as he looked down at her.

“I've gotcha,” was all he said. It was all he had to say at this moment and Reiju was appreciative of that.

While using the swordsman as support, she pulled herself back onto her feet and pushed down her whirlpool of thoughts down until they were at least manageable.

“So this is…the last place I have to audit. Truthfully, I am sure father wants me to attend to the needs of this place first because of…the upcoming changes, but I am unable to do so because…because…”

Because she could not stand the sight of this place for various reasons, the biggest one being that this is where her daughter would spend her formative years if she was unable to escape.

“Anyways, Bernadette should have left a detailed list of what she needs for this room somewhere.”

“Wait, I thought you had to see these people in person?”

“I am supposed to, yes, but this is a special exemption ever since I…may have said some unkind things to her.” The last part of her sentence tapered off into near silence. “Unkind” was a nice way to put it. Reiju had been in such a mood being around the actually nice and polite woman who just wanted to do her job that she nearly told her to do the world a favor and…well, needless to say, her sudden and fiery fury at the woman left her in tears and running off. She hadn’t seen her since.

 Zoro, who was absentmindedly rocking a hobby horse by pushing it with his foot, stopped what he was doing when she said this.

“Geez, you gave her one hell of a dressing down?”

“Well, you could say that…” Reiju began looking around for where the woman had hidden the requested inventory list. It was the best way she and Bernadette could compromise for seeing each other ever since she had snapped that day. The list had to be hidden to make sure it really was from her and not an obvious forgery. Last time, it was taped under the dresser, so it had to be somewhere equally as covert this time. Zoro followed her lead and began to dig around for this list too.

“...I’m gonna take a shot in the dark and say this ‘Bernadette’ is a nanny of some sort?”

“Yes, she’s a bit green, too, but I suppose father wants that since the others were forced to retire.”

Checking inside the toy chest and under its lid were not fruitful so she tried to pull up the entire box off the floor to see if maybe the list was there. Though, forgetting that she had the father of her child with her, who was already anxious about her condition, led to Zoro running up and lifting it for her. Nothing. 

“Forced to retire? What the hell happened?”

“My brothers happened, Zoro,” she replied, hoisting herself from kneeling back onto her feet, “they went through a few nannies, actually. Even though they were born a bit too early, Ichiji, Niji and Yonji still had a lot of strength and superhuman abilities that they could not control, so father had to cycle through quite a few wet nurses and nannies in the early years.”

“Fuck…so they all got-”

“Injured in the line of duty? Yes, at least, that is what it says on their discharge papers.”

“Shit…”

“Mm hmm…have we checked in the crib, yet?”

“Ahh, no.”

Looking in the antiquated bed, the nanny had obviously spent time carefully laying out the bed to prep for Suzume's arrival. The sheets and bedding had even been tucked in under the mini mattress, how dandy. Having a gut feeling, Reiju picked up the mattress and, lol and behold, the crisply folded list was there.

“Looks like we found our culprit.”
Glancing at the paper, it tugged at her heart to see the requests for more cloth diapers and purple colored items and paint for the room. Evidently, the woman had a vision for this room, how lovely.
Reiju quickly handed off the list to Zoro like it was filthy and unclean and he clipped it onto the board.

“Huh, that was a lot more painless than I thought it would be.”

Maybe for you it was.
She swallowed that thought back down her throat.

“Now with that done, Mister Roronoa, now you know where we are going to be making a call to your crew.”

Zoro's expression barely changed, but she could tell he was befuddled by this.

“In here? With none of that white noise stuff? How are you sure this place isn't bugg-” the realization hit him while Reiju flashed him a knowing smile.

“Unless you found some and did not say anything, we should be safe. Along with that, this part of the kingdom is so old that it would be near impossible to rig up anything modern for bugging without destroying some of it. That, and since almost no one is ever here, I suspect father would not think of this of all places to be used for under the table communications.”

“Huh…clever girl…one question, though.”

“Ask away.”

“Will you be ok making the call and being here for that long? Like, emotionally ok?”

Her first instinct was to lie through her teeth and insist she would be ok. But Zoro saw her display earlier and knew this nursery was one that weighed heavy on her heart.

“I think…that as long as I have you around me, your presence is enough to keep me calm.”

And that was the truth. Just him holding her up just a while ago and saying that he got her was immensely grounding. Reiju realized right then that she had been here, in this wretched room, for this long without feeling awful and wanting to leave immediately because the swordsman was there.

“Yeah, I tend to have that effect on people,”
He may have said it half jokingly, but it was undeniable that he radiated the aura of a protector. Something that seemed so alien to her yet she was beginning to get attached to.

“Now then, now that we know this room is not bugged and you know where it is, we shoul-well, it probably does not matter if you know where it is, but still-”

Her slip of the tongue bristled against Zoro's skin.

“Hey, I can find this place just fine! You just gotta go down the, uhhh, street, and then make a turn at the…the guard station? Or the weapons depot,” she could see the gears turning in his head in real time before he snapped, “Bah! It's hard to explain this stuff, but I can navigate just fine!”

It was then a devilish smirk creeped along Reiju’s face. She felt a little bad for wounding the man's pride, but his stubbornness at a fact that almost everyone on the four blues knew about was amusing. Perhaps she should throw him a bone…or a reality check. They had to be at the office soon, sure, but she at the very least could afford him a bit of time.

“Alright, let us prove it then. I'll follow you back to my office, without giving you any advice or instructions, and if we are not back in, let us say, twenty minutes, I will take the reins.”

Clipboard stuffed between his bicep and torso, he crossed his arms in a confident display.

“You're on.”

🚬🚬🚬

Sanji was fine. Everything was fine because they were on their way to Germa to get Zoro. And maybe Reiju! Maybe. It was a big maybe.

He had offered to cook for the whole ship (submarine?) tonight, though he was turned down on this offer somewhat. The Polar Tang already had a cook, the giant Jean Bart, but he was at least welcome to being helped. Sanji desperately needed to be busy now and would take any cooking he could. Right now, his job was preparing the oysters, sea snails, and other shellfish harvested by the Heart Pirates crew. Jean Bart was working on the vegetables and the combined crews were in the attached mess hall. His own crew was on the sub’s transponder snail, contacting the remaining Straw Hats on the Thousand Sunny.

“Wait, wait, Jinbei,” Franky’s voice boomed, “can you put Sunny on the line? I just wanna talk to her for a bit.”

“Umm, I…okay then,” Jinbei’s slightly befuddled voice answered back. After a bit of fiddling on the other end of the line, it was silent, presumably because Jinbei put the receiver up to an inanimate wooden ship.

“Sunny, my baby,” the cyborg cried loudly, “how are you holding up without papa around? Oh, I should already know you're doing fine, despite…recent events,” he could hear Franky tearing up a little at that, “But don’t worry, c-cause we’ll be back before you know it!”

Law, watching from the sidelines, made a strained and quiet noise at this display but said nothing.

Sanji, too, missed the Sunny, though he more missed the crew members they had to leave behind. There was good reason for it, of course, as the Polar Tang was now packed with just half of his crew, and the Thousand Sunny was parked in a safe place while they went to Cinnabar Island, but leaving them behind when one of their missing members already left a big hole just widened that into a void. It had been a long time since they had to split up like this, though it was something that had to be done or it would be infinitely harder to get Zoro back. Luffy had taken it hard already, being less peppy than usual (except when it came to food, of course) and constantly asking Law’s navigator how much longer until they got there. He was ready to kick ass and take names, which did not mix well with having to wait to kick said ass. Everyone else held similar sentiments, though with much more patience and toned down just a little.

Sanji himself? He was fine, actually. Absolutely fine. His mind was not circling this potential connection between Zoro's kidnapping and his sister, his sister he still had complicated feelings for. And along with his non-existent anxieties, he too was fine with not being able to smoke, being on a submarine and all, and just having to suck on a lollipop if he wanted to keep his mouth busy.

He was nearly done shucking all the oysters they had at the moment, perhaps shoving his oyster knife under their shells a bit too hard and stabbing the meat, but it would all taste the same in the end. They would still be delicious, the ones for Rockefeller oysters, the ones for the seafood pasta, they were all perfectly fine.

“You know, if Cinnabar Island is still the same as I remember it all those years ago,” Brook’s voice chirped on the other end of the line, breaking Sanji from his thoughts for a moment, “they are quite known for their brothels and red light district. The last time I was there, though, was seventy years ago. Who knows, maybe it's a nunnery now, yo ho!”

“Of course you'd know all about that,” sweet Nami replied in an unimpressed tone.

Ahh, yes, it would just be a few more days until they got to the island. Just a few more days. Then Sanji would find Zoro, find out what was really going on, find out what his sister was doing and-

…Did he just assume Reiju had caused this? He shouldn't be doing that, especially since he was one of the few people who actually knew her…didn't he? 

When he left Germa all those years ago, one of the first things that Sanji did was forget. While it was not intentional, and he could never forget the broad strokes themselves, many of the details got lost in the shuffle. First it was little things. Whatever foods his siblings liked and disliked at the time, their birthdays, where their rooms were located, and so on and so forth. Then it ramped up, the details of their faces, what their voices sounded like, they all started to be erased from his mind like the tides washing away whatever art was drawn in the sand.

A long while ago, for a month, he had even completely forgotten his sister's name.

Even when he was forced to see his family again for the arranged marriage and he got to know a little more about Reiju, it wasn't much at the end of the day and he has not even caught sight of her in the three years since then. Sanji never even had the time to give her the transponder snail number for the ship, though he doubted she would have put it to use. And with Law (who he was somehow, for some reason, trusting for info about his family, he was trusting a god damn comic book nerd to read and analyze comics enough to know crucial information about his family, what the fuck-) telling him that Reiju had not been seen publicly in an extended period of time, it only made his mind swirl in a sea of possibilities. Possibilities that Zoro had been jammed into somehow and-fuck, was it getting hot in here or was it just him?

Jean Bart was now sauteing the vegetables while bending sideways to avoid Luffy’s stretched out arm reaching through the window, transponder snail in hand.

“Yo, Sanji, Chopper wants to talk to you!”

Grumbling some sort of complaint about being interrupted while cooking, he grabbed the snail and plopped it next to him.

“Hello Chopper,” he greeted robotically, eyes and hands focused on putting the oysters on ice.

“Sanji!” The younger doctor chirped back, “I heard you had to go cold turkey off your cigarettes while on the sub! You probably aren't doing well then, no?”

“Nope.”

“Ahh, it’s a shame, then, that Law doesn’t have any cigarette alternatives on board, going off of that so suddenly is bad for your mental health and body.”

“No, no, I am handling it perfectly fine. Everything is fine.”

A beat of silence passes by.

“Are you sure about that?”

“Yes. Now how is everything going with you guys?”

The cook felt a little bad waving off the little doctor’s concerns so quickly, especially since he called regularly to check on the crew on the submarine seeing that he could not be there himself. But at the same time, Chopper was always the best at using one prodding question to dig deeper into issues underneath the skin. And there were no problems here so he should stop digging. The reindeer would find nothing but ok thoughts and feelings. Because Sanji was A-OK!

Luffy had already agreed to his request to take Reiju with them if they found her (IF they found her), to do what he was unable to do three years ago.

“My hands are dirty…I deserve to die.”

His crew chattered on the phone. He replied with “yes”, “no”, or some sort of conversation continuing noise. He had moved onto working on the snails. Pan. Heat. Butter. He had done this enough that it made no effect on the flow of his thoughts.

Sanji had respected Reiju’s wishes to stay at Germa. But was that really her wishes or “her” wishes? Just another aspect of her enhancements keeping her on Judge’s leash. She had straight up told him she wanted to die and while he was not going to allow that to happen, he had still left her behind knowing that about her. And it was not like thoughts like that just went away because an attempt failed.

And in the back of his mind at the time, he knew that. He knew that there was still trouble bubbling there, but he had to focus on his crew, on going to Wano at the time, and over time, his biological family and his sister faded from his mind again. Sanji had his life and they had theirs. 

And now, one of his closest crew mates was taken back there…and he had no idea why. All because he had his life and they had theirs. He had allowed the darkness of Germa to fester and had no idea what was going on there anymore to gauge what was happening to anyone there. Was Reiju as generous to Zoro as she was with him and his captain, did she factor into what they were doing with Zoro, was…was she even around still?

The room got hotter and his chest got tighter.

Sanji should have ignored her wishes. Hell, maybe he should have even let Zeff down and go against his programming on women just that once, just that one time, because they might not be in this situation if he had done so. Maybe taking Reiju out of there would have had no effect on the way things were now and Zoro still would have been taken away, but…he had a gut feeling that it would have been different. It would have all been for the better if he had done something for the one person left in the kingdom who actually gave a damn about him. But he had just…moved on.

“Look what really matters to you!”

He moved on.

“You have those wonderful friends…”

He moved on.

“...and you’re never going to meet people like them again!”

He moved on.

He moved on.

He moved on.

He moved on.

He moved on.

He moved-

“Sanji, the transponder snail!” 

Violently ripped from his thoughts, Sanji looked down and his heart nearly exploded from how hard it was beating now when looking at the transponder snail now making a crackling and staticy voice in the hot pan with the other snails. His crew mates and the Heart Pirates were all making a commotion and noise at this while he put his hand into the hot and buttered pan without a second thought to scoop the thing out. It shivered in his hands and the voice of the crew on the Sunny was gone now. Everything was spinning now and his legs turned to jelly. Law quickly wrenched the creature from his hands before the cook fell to his knees and then fully flopped onto the floor. Everyone was around him, worried about him, their voices becoming muddled in his ears all while he felt like his heart had stopped and he couldn’t breathe anymore. 

One last thought raced through his mind in that moment:

I should have helped you find people who care about you too.