The Long Way Back to Himself

Salt Needle Cay was a narrow island of white stone cliffs, brackish pools, and wind-cut arches, sitting low in the sea except for one tall central spire that sailors used as a landmark. Usopp spotted it in the distance, between the Cactus Islands and Little Garden. Luffy said they should stop, Nami argued about what it might do to the log pose, Sanji pointed out they left Whisky Peak in a hurry without having time to restock. 

Vivi cast the deciding vote. “If they have a harbor, I can find a ship to Alabasta.”

Zoro knew Luffy had already decided they were going to take Vivi all the way to Alabasta, so he didn’t expect her to have any luck. Still, a stopover would be good. One of his wounds from the fight with the Baroque Works agents at Whisky Peak was aggravating him. As much as he disliked doctors and bandages, he knew better than to let something fester. 

Usopp steered them into the harbor, docking them at an empty spot in the network of connecting piers that stretched into the sea. There were other ships moored, one Jolly Roger flag flapping, the rest merchant vessels. No Marine flags were in sight. 

Zoro lowered the gangplank, and they split up, heading into town. Luffy didn’t hesitate to grab Vivi and Nami and launch across the docks with shocked and angry screams. Karoo honked in protest. Zoro huffed a quiet laugh. That took care of Vivi. 

Zoro followed Usopp and Sanji for a bit, the two of them discussing the heat values of peppers, whatever that meant. The town itself speared between the cliffs, long and narrow, built from white stone and timber. Dark pine trees dotted the cliff faces above it, clinging sideways where the rock allowed, their bent trunks combed hard by the sea wind.

The shops crowded close along the main street, their fronts shaded by striped canvas and patched sailcloth awnings. A fishmonger had silver bodies laid on beds of crushed shell ice. A rope seller worked outside his door with coils stacked up to his knees and hooks hanging from the lintel. Farther down, a spice shop kept its shutters propped open, and the smell coming from it was sharp enough to make Zoro’s nose prickle even from the street. Sanji, of course, slowed there.

The locals moved around them in sun-bleached clothes, loose trousers, rolled sleeves, and headscarves tied tight against the wind. Most had brown, weathered skin and pale marks at their wrists where rope or bracelets usually sat. A few wore strings of red shells at their belts, the same kind tied along the paths outside town.

The whole island smelled of salt, wet limestone, and sun-baked seaweed. As Sanji and Usopp stopped to shop, Zoro continued on. He had money for drinks, courtesy of the Baroque Works agents’ pockets, but he made himself deal with the wound first.

The doctor was old, sun-browned, and unimpressed by swordsmen. He took one look at Zoro, pointed at the stool, and didn’t ask for much more than where the worst cut was. Zoro sat because arguing would take longer. The old man peeled back the bandage, clicked his tongue at whatever he saw, then cleaned the wound with something that stung hard enough to make Zoro’s jaw tighten. The doctor slapped on a thick green salve that smelled like pine resin and pepper, then wrapped it tight with clean bandages. 

Zoro paid him with Baroque Works money and left. Killing the afternoon in a tavern sounded like a good way to spend the rest of the day.

He wandered a while, somehow kept finding the same cliff face, but eventually he stumbled upon the tavern. It sat half-dug into the white stone at the bend of a narrow street, with a low timber front and a signboard made from an old ship’s rudder. The paint had faded until the name was barely readable, but the carved mug beside it got the point across. Pine branches hung in bundles over the door 

Inside, the ceiling beams were low, darkened by smoke and age. The windows were narrow slits cut toward the sea, letting in hard strips of afternoon light. Nets, cork floats, and cracked oars covered the walls. Behind the bar, bottles sat in crooked rows between jars of pickled peppers, dried fish, and something pale floating in cloudy liquor. 

Locals sat with their backs to the walls, boots hooked around chair legs, hands wrapped around mugs. A few wore knives openly at their belts. Most looked up when Zoro came in, eyed the swords at his hip, then went back to drinking. 

Zoro went up to the bar, ordered a tankard of beer, then took a table off to one side. He leaned his chair back against the wall, propped a boot on the table, and took a long drink. The beer was hoppy and strong, a lot better than he’d expected from a place half-built into a cliff. Good thing he had enough money for more. 

He people-watched for a while, drinking his beer, ordering another when the tankard ran dry. The locals came and went, some lingering, others just dropping by for a quick drink before heading out again. He could tell the visitors to the island by the clothing. Merchant sailors sat around one table, discussing ship repairs. A trio of rough-looking customers, likely the other pirates, laughed ribaldly as they gestured toward the locals.

Nestled in a shadowed corner, two men sat close together, heads bowed toward each other, knuckles bumping where they wrapped around their tankards. Zoro’s attention caught there for half a breath longer than it should have. They weren’t whispering over a job or planning which pockets to cut. One of them smiled into his beer, small and private. The other leaned closer and said something that made his shoulder brush the first man’s. 

Zoro’s hand clenched around his tankard. He glanced around the rest of the tavern, but no one seemed to be paying the men any mind. Either they didn’t notice, or they didn’t care. Maybe on the Grand Line, it didn’t matter. 

The tension eased, and Zoro went back to drinking his beer. The barkeep wiped down mugs. A woman near the door laughed over a dice throw. Someone at the next table cursed into his drink about the tide taking his mooring line. He turned his tankard between both hands and settled deeper into his chair, letting the noise of the place wash over him.

By the third beer, the tavern had shifted around him. A few fishermen left with their coats over their shoulders. Two more locals came in smelling like pine pitch and wet rope. The strip of light from the window moved off the floor and climbed the opposite wall. Zoro leaned farther back in his chair, boot still on the table, half-watching the couple still in the corner enjoying their time.

He was halfway through his fourth beer when the tavern door opened again. Sanji stepped in with a paper-wrapped bundle under one arm and his jacket slung over his shoulder, hair mussed by the wind, cigarette between his lips. He paused just inside, scanned the room once, and found Zoro immediately.

“Thought you’d be here,” Sanji said as he walked up to the table. “C’mon, Nami-swan says we’re heading out.”

Zoro figured as much. He drained the rest of the tankard while Sanji’s gaze wandered over the bar.

Sanji made a faintly baffled sound. “Look at that.”

Zoro lowered the tankard. Sanji was looking toward the shadowed corner, where the two men had shifted closer, one hand curled into the other’s shirt as they kissed. Something clenched hard in Zoro’s gut. “What about it?”

“There are beautiful women everywhere.” Sanji sighed with a shake of his head. “Some men have no taste.”

Sanji’s frown stayed fixed on the corner. His brows pulled together like he’d found something that made no sense. The shake of his head looked too close to the ones Zoro remembered, boys laughing like the answer was obvious and ugly. By the time Sanji said some men, Zoro’s stomach had already dropped. 

His chest tightened as he pushed to his feet, chair scraping against the wood floor. He didn’t look back at the couple. He didn’t look at Sanji, either. He just strode to the door and went outside.

The wind whistling between the narrow cliffs chimed through his earrings. Zoro picked the direction he thought the Merry was in, but after a few steps, a hand caught at his haramaki.

“The other way, idiot.”

Zoro knocked Sanji’s hand off and pivoted hard enough that his boots scraped grit across the stone. He needed to get away from Sanji. From his face. From that stupid comment still cutting under his ribs. 

Sanji muttered something behind him, probably an insult, but Zoro kept walking.

The Merry waited at the docks, her hull rocking with the tide. Usopp was already aboard with a bundle of supplies. Nami stood near the rail, one hand on her hip, shouting down at Luffy to stop horsing around and get onboard. Vivi was at the forward sail, easing the line free so they could catch enough wind to leave the harbor. Sanji went ahead with the paper-wrapped bundle, calling up to the ladies with adoration.

Zoro climbed aboard without saying a word. He went up the ratlines to the yard, waiting on Nami’s order to loose the mainsail.

The crew moved below him, loud and normal. Lines were hauled in. Usopp complained about splinters. Luffy laughed from the dock until Sanji kicked him aboard. Nami called the command, Zoro freed the canvas, and the mainsail dropped with a heavy snap as the wind caught it. The Merry eased away from Salt Needle Cay, leaving the white cliffs and dark pines behind.

Zoro didn’t watch the island shrink. The second they were clear of the inlet, he dropped down into the men’s quarters. The air belowdeck was warmer, close with wood, canvas, and old salt. He laid his katanas on the couch, took up his weights, and started training.

He trained because that was how he dealt with things. Lift. Breathe. Set it down. Lift again. Make his body hurt somewhere else.

The training didn’t shut Sanji up. 

Some men have no taste.

Zoro’s grip tightened around the weight until his palms ached. He tried to shove the sting in his eyes down with everything else. Tried to make it into sweat, muscle, motion, anything he could control.

It didn’t work. He wondered how he was supposed to deal with someone on the crew finding him disgusting.

For a second, he was fourteen again, back to figuring out that he liked boys instead of girls and learning how fast that could turn people cruel. Names spat at him in corridors. Empty seats beside him at meals. Boys refusing to bathe in the same room. Beds dragged as far from his as the shared room allowed. Rotten food and other filthy things shoved under his covers for him to find later. 

He finally moved into the old barn behind the dojo. Trained through dinner and snuck in for food late at night. Bathed in the stream when he could find it. Slept on dirt with one blanket and his swords beside him. The only time he saw the other boys was during sessions with Koushirou, and then he let his bokken keep the distance for him.

He was sixteen, in town near the harbor, doing his best not to get drowned by a crew of sailors who’d stopped for provisions. One of them had been good-looking. Zoro had said something without thinking, or looked too long, or let too much show on his face. The sailor took offense. Zoro was strong with his swords, but there were a lot of them.

He was seventeen, out on his own, still hearing the same vile names, still having to defend himself for looking at the wrong man too long. Still wondering how his existence could make people that angry.

He was eighteen, trying to be like everyone else. Talking to girls. Letting them touch him. Letting himself be with them because that was what men were supposed to want. He felt like he was lying to them, and he loathed himself for it. Eventually he stopped and decided he wouldn’t look at anyone with interest again. Not women. Not men. No one. When arousal came, he ignored it completely. He wouldn’t even let himself imagine a face. If he could’ve cut that part out of himself and been done with it, he would have.

He was nineteen, and Sanji had just ripped away the thought of a place where people might care about him even if he liked men.

He worked his muscles until he couldn’t lift anymore, let the salt from his sweat be the excuse for the blurriness in his vision. Then he wiped down with a towel, curled up in a corner with his swords, and tried to will the ache in his heart away. 

Zoro avoided Sanji after that. Avoided everyone, as much as he could on a small ship. He kept to himself, trained brutally, and napped where he wouldn’t be seen. Insomnia kept him awake, and he found himself going to bed later and later, then waking again after only a few hours. He ate without saying anything unless someone asked him a direct question. He didn’t argue when Nami found him and ordered him to do some chore. He took over most of the night watches and used the time to train more.

Through it all, his waking hours felt like dragging around a heavy blanket over his head and shoulders. Fatigue drained his energy, even as he fought past it. There was a permanent, heavy knot under his breastbone. He lost weight because he wasn’t very hungry, and the muscle he put on stayed lean. His mind played shitty comments about himself in a loop: you’re disgusting, you’re abnormal, you’re making everyone uncomfortable, you’re worthless, you’ll never be strong enough, you’ll never be good enough, you’re a waste of space.

Little Garden came and went, and left scars across his ankles and his thoughts – you can’t protect anyone. Nami got sick, and the stopover at Drum Island netted them a ship’s doctor and gave Zoro a better tolerance for training in the cold. The Merry continued sailing toward Alabasta, bringing Vivi home.

Chopper dragged the crew in one by one for an initial consultation, to get baselines, give checkups, and call them all assholes for complimenting him. Zoro managed to avoid him, too, for a few days, until he got cornered in the crow’s nest and guilted by earnestness into complying.

They sat in the men’s quarters, in the corner dedicated to the makeshift infirmary. They were alone. It was late afternoon, and everyone else was on deck doing whatever. Zoro answered questions shortly, let Chopper poke and prod, and prepared to go back to training when it was done.

“Zoro,” Chopper said, clipboard in his hand, the lanterns on the wall casting his top hat molten red. “I think you might be depressed.”

Zoro stared at Chopper, not really caring what he had to say. “So?”

“Do you remember when you started feeling tired all the time, or when you stopped being able to fall asleep?”

Zoro tensed. “What’s that got to do with anything?”

“I’m trying to find out if it’s a reaction to specific stressors or an event, or if it’s been going on for a long period of time.”

“It’s nothing. I’m fine.”

“Zoro, you’re not fine.” The concern in Chopper’s voice was sincere. “I’m a doctor. Let me help you.”

Zoro’s shoulders drew tight, and a headache started throbbing behind his left eye. “Unless you have some magic pill that makes me not–” He cut himself off, fingers curling hard around the edge of the bench where he sat. “You can’t do anything.”

“I can listen.”

Zoro’s chest hurt at that. They had to go and find a doctor that tugged at his protective instincts and looked like a toy reindeer with a medical bag – big round eyes, little hooves, skinny legs, and a hat almost bigger than the rest of him.

“It’s–” Zoro stopped, swallowed, and started again. “Someone said something. It’s not a big deal.”

“If it hurt you, it is a big deal,” Chopper said. “Everyone called me a monster. It hurt a lot. But you guys still want me here anyway, and I’m so happy I can burst!”

A faint smile tugged at Zoro’s lips because of Chopper’s joy, but it disappeared quickly. Because that was the problem, wasn’t it? He might not be wanted on the ship anymore. He’d been avoiding the inevitable. He already knew how Sanji felt. The others probably felt the same way. Experience had taught him that. It was only a matter of time before they wouldn’t want to eat beside him, or they moved their hammocks away.

Chopper still wore a smile when he addressed Zoro again, but his voice turned firmer. “If you don’t want to talk to me, that’s okay for now. But as your doctor, I think you need to talk to someone. One of your friends. Or all of them. I know I just came on board, so you might be more comfortable talking with someone else on the crew than me.”

Zoro looked away. “Sure. I’ll do that. We done now?”

“Yes, we’re done.” Chopper produced a purple sucker and offered it to Zoro. “Come find me anytime if you change your mind about talking to me.”

Zoro took the sucker with a nod, then pushed off the bench and climbed out on deck. He tucked the sucker into his pocket. He took Chopper’s words to heart, though probably not the way Chopper intended. Zoro needed to find out what the rest of the crew thought.

Nami was seated on a chair on deck, sunning herself in a bikini while she read the newspaper. Zoro walked over to her, determined to get this done and over with fast, like ripping off a taped bandage.

“Oi, Nami,” he said, folding his arms defensively, his body casting a shadow over her as he stopped beside her chair. “What’d you do if I told you I liked guys?”

Nami peered up at him through her sunglasses. “Hm. It would explain a lot.”

Zoro’s jaw tightened. “What does that mean?”

“It explains why this,” she said, pointing to her bared cleavage, “doesn’t make you act like a normal guy.”

You’re abnormal. Zoro nodded stiffly, then continued to the stern deck. He passed Vivi at the base of the stairs, where she was giving Karoo a beak polishing, and went up. Usopp helmed the whipstaff, checking the log pose now and again.

“Hey, Zoro,” Usopp greeted casually. “The mighty helmsman has kept us on course to Alabasta, even though grisly death and destruction await. But I am a brave captain who will face untold danger to help Princess Vivi. And Nami threatened to beat me over the head again if I took us off course.”

Zoro liked Usopp, who really was a coward but tried his best to overcome that. Zoro appreciated him striving to do better. Zoro did the same every day. But right now, it didn’t matter if he liked Usopp or not. He repeated what he’d asked Nami. “What’d you do if I told you I liked guys?”

Usopp froze for a moment, staring at him with widening eyes. “Uh… that’s great. Hah-hah-hah. I kinda like Kaya, though. Not that you aren’t great and big and scary, but…”

Zoro scowled. “I’m not hitting on you.”

Usopp looked relieved. “Oh, good.”

Zoro stared at him for a beat longer, then turned to go. Usopp’s voice caught him halfway to the stairs. “Should I stop changing in front of you?”

A cold ball knotted in his chest. “What do you mean?”

“Well, I’m obviously buff. And handsome. Women can’t keep their hands off me. And, uh, men, too.” Usopp laughed nervously again. “So I thought, great, another burden of beauty, and I didn’t want to make it awkward. I mean, for you. I don’t want you thinking you have to leave or turn around or anything. If anyone makes it weird, I’ll tell them to shut up. As your friend.”

You’re making everyone uncomfortable. Zoro’s fingernails bit into his palms. “It won’t be a problem.”

“Good, good.” Usopp took a breath and exhaled. “If you need help, Captain Usopp can help. That’s why I’m the greatest captain. Just let me know.” He paused, then added, “Great talk, buddy o’pal o’mine.”

Zoro didn’t answer. He continued down the steps, crossed the deck, and climbed up to the prow. Luffy lounged sideways on the ram’s figurehead, tucked between the horns, straw hat shading his eyes from the sun.

Zoro stood there a moment, looking at his captain. The person who believed in him. Who he’d sailed with the longest. Who he trusted more than anyone. Who always told the truth.

“Hey, Luffy,” Zoro said, throat tight. “What’d you do if I told you I liked guys?”

Luffy didn’t even shift. “Okay.”

“Okay?” Zoro said.

“Yeah, okay,” Luffy said from beneath the shade of his hat. “I don’t like ’em, but if you do, okay.”

“You don’t care?”

“Why should I?”

You’re worthless. Zoro swallowed and nodded, eyes stinging against the sun. He took the sucker out of his pocket and set it on the figurehead next to Luffy. “From Chopper.”

“Cool! Thanks.” Luffy grabbed the sucker, opened it, and stuck it in his mouth. “Would be better if it was a meat-sucker.”

Zoro started to walk away. Like Usopp, Luffy’s voice made him pause.

“Ne, Zoro, is this why you’ve been acting weird lately? The guy thing?”

Zoro wanted to brush it off, but he’d never lied to Luffy. “Yeah.”

“Seems like a waste of time to be worried about it–”

You’re a waste of space.

“We’re nakama,” Luffy went on. “It doesn’t change anything.”

“Right.”

It should have helped. Some distant, reasonable part of him knew it should have helped. The rest of him only heard how much trouble he’d caused by making Luffy say it at all. 

The wind snapped at the sails, and the Merry rolled with a wave. Overhead, a pulley knocked against the mast. A flock of birds flew in a V formation, dark specks against the blue sky.

Zoro climbed onto the rail, then up the rigging to the crow’s nest perched above the mainsail. He pulled his katanas free from his belt and sank down into the bucket with his back against the mast. His chin dropped against his chest, eyes closed tight, as he tried to breathe through the sharp pain in his chest.

He’d been right. The others felt the same way. His presence was causing problems, just like it had in the past.

You’re disgusting, you’re abnormal, you’re making everyone uncomfortable, you’re worthless, you’ll never be strong enough, you’ll never be good enough, you’re a waste of space.

Zoro rested his forehead on his bent knee. What was he going to do? 

They reached Alabasta, where the desert sun beat down on their heads and turned the deck hot underfoot. They stopped in Nanohana for provisions and clothing better suited for the climate. Of course, things didn’t go smoothly. Smoker was there, and the crew had to make a quick escape back to the Merry. Vivi told them they’d take the Merry upriver and go from there.

Then Ace appeared.

Luffy’s brother, cocky, tanned, and freckled. He stopped just to check up on Luffy, give him something, and promise they’d meet again on the high seas. He was going after Blackbeard. He also had a skiff.

Zoro stood back while they talked, arms folded, sweat drying under the loose Alabasta robe he’d bought in town. The crew crowded the deck around Luffy, loud with surprise and questions and the kind of easy excitement Zoro hadn’t been able to reach in weeks. He watched Ace grin at Luffy like leaving was simple. Like sailing away from people who cared about him didn’t have to rip anything open.

A thought came into his head almost immediately – Ace was leaving. He had a boat. He wasn’t part of the crew.

When Ace jumped down onto the skiff, telling Luffy he had to leave, Zoro moved before he could give himself time to think better of it. He stepped to the rail, one hand closing around the sun-warmed wood. The skiff below was small, built for one person, maybe two if they didn’t care about comfort. But this was Luffy’s brother, and if Zoro was going to trust anyone to take him away from the Merry without getting Luffy killed over it, it would be him.

“Take me with you.”

The words hit the air hard. 

Everyone went still.

Zoro could feel the stunned eyes of the crew on his back. Usopp stopped mid-sentence. Nami gasped. Somewhere behind him, Chopper made a small, hurt sound that Zoro shoved away because he couldn’t afford to hear it. Sanji went quiet, too, and that silence cut worse than any question.

Ace tipped his head back, holding his hat against the wind as he blinked up at Zoro. “Well, I wasn’t expecting that.”

“Zoro?” Luffy’s voice held confusion. He stood beside him at the rail, close enough that Zoro could feel the question in him before he asked it.

Zoro turned to Luffy. There was a deep, gutting pain in his chest, but his face stayed still because he knew how to do that. “I need to go, Captain.”

He didn’t belong on the Merry anymore. He’d tried to make himself smaller, quieter, easier to ignore, and it still wasn’t enough. He was taking up space. Eating at their table. Sleeping near them. Standing where they had to look at him and decide what they thought of him. His existence caused problems. It always had.

He needed to free them of his presence before they had to push him out themselves.

Luffy looked at him for a very long moment. The deck creaked beneath them. The wind moved hot and dry over Zoro’s face. Behind him, nobody spoke.

“I promised I wouldn’t get in your way,” Luffy said at last. “If you want to go, you can. But I’m not letting you leave the crew.”

Zoro’s throat tightened. He would take it. Luffy would realize it was better this way soon enough. They all would. Distance would make it easier. They could remember him as useful instead of as something uncomfortable trapped in the same quarters with them.

Luffy turned his head toward Ace. “Take Zoro with you. He can help you with Blackbeard. He’s a really good swordsman.”

Ace looked from Luffy, to Zoro, then back to Luffy again. His expression shifted, just a little, like he was starting to understand this was heavier than a strange request from one of his little brother’s friends. Then he shrugged. “Whatever you say, Luffy.”

Protests rose behind Zoro at once.

“What?”

“Zoro, wait!”

“What the hell are you doing?”

Chopper’s voice cracked through the others. “You can’t just leave!”

Zoro’s grip tightened on the rail until the wood pressed hard into his palms. He didn’t turn around. If he looked at them, he might see anger. Or relief. Or pity. He didn’t know which would hurt worse.

Luffy held up a hand, and the crew quieted somewhat, all half-swallowed words and restless movement.

“You’ll always have nakama here waiting for you to come back,” Luffy said.

You’re disgusting, you’re abnormal, you’re making everyone uncomfortable, you’re worthless, you’ll never be strong enough, you’ll never be good enough, you’re a waste of space.

Zoro pressed both hands on the rail. His elbows locked. “Permission to disembark.”

Luffy waited a beat.

Then he nodded.

Zoro vaulted over the rail before anyone could say his name again, landing beside Ace on the skiff. The little boat rocked hard under his weight, and he caught his balance quickly, one hand dropping toward his swords out of habit. The Merry loomed above them, all familiar wood and white sail and voices he couldn’t let himself answer.

Ace finished coiling the tie-off and tucked it beneath the compartment below his feet. “You’ll need to hold on to the mast. Don’t let go.”

Zoro nodded. He climbed onto the engine housing and wrapped a hand around the short mast.

Ace glanced up at Luffy again, his grin returning, though it didn’t look as careless now. “See you, little brother.”

“See you, Ace. Zoro,” Luffy called back.

Zoro didn’t look up again.

Not when the crew charged the rail.

Not when Nami shouted his name like an order.

Not when Usopp yelled something too fast to make out.

Not when Chopper cried, “Zoro!”

Not when Sanji’s voice cut through the rest, sharp and furious. “Marimo!”

Ace’s feet lit with flames. The engine roared to life, heat blasting across the skiff in a hard wave. Zoro’s wet palms tightened around the mast as the little boat shot forward, the noise swallowing the crew’s voices and leaving the Merry behind.

Ace piloted the skiff directly at the Baroque Works ships closing in. “Hold on!” he shouted. He launched himself into the air. A second later, the skiff dove underwater.

Cold seawater slammed into Zoro, shocking after the dry heat of Alabasta. He clenched his teeth, shut his eyes against the salt, and held on as the boat drove beneath the surface. The mast shuddered under his hand. His robe dragged heavy against his legs. Overhead, the shadow of a hull passed dark and close.

Then the skiff burst up on the other side.

Ace came down in front of Zoro again like this was all normal, flame curling around his feet and laughter in his throat. “Nice to see you can listen.”

Dripping wet, Alabasta robe clinging to his legs, Zoro just tilted his head.

The sea opened in front of them, the skiff skimming fast across the waves. Wind buffeted against Zoro. Heat from Ace’s flames rose around him, drying salt on his skin. Behind them, the Merry grew smaller.

Zoro kept his eyes forward. 

He didn’t know what the future held. Blackbeard. Ace. Whatever waited past the next stretch of sea. 

At least he wouldn’t be a burden to the crew anymore.

Zoro didn’t expect the first place Ace stopped to be a ship just to have a meal.

Worse, the ship belonged to Buggy the Clown.

It looked like a circus had crashed into a pirate vessel and no one had bothered to separate the wreckage. Bright cloth banners snapped from the rigging. Painted barrels were stacked near the mast. The figurehead looked like an elephant in a bad wig, and half the crew wore stripes, greasepaint, or pieces of costume mixed in with normal sailor’s gear. Under all of that, it was still a ship: tarred rope, worn planks, salt-stiff sails, cannons run out beneath painted shutters, and men with knives at their belts.

Zoro decided not to care. There was food.

“You!” Buggy shouted, pointing at Zoro the moment they made themselves known. “Where’s the rest of your crew? I’m taking down Luffy!”

Zoro rubbed his ear, then picked up a drumstick from the table in front of him. “Don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“You’re Roronoa Zoro!”

“Never heard of him.”

“We’ve already met! You’re wearing three swords!”

Zoro bit into the drumstick. “Lots of people wear swords.”

Buggy’s face went red enough to match his nose.

“I know where you can find Luffy,” Ace said.

Zoro cut a glance at him, but Ace only smiled. Then he promptly fell asleep, head dropping back like someone had cut his strings.

Buggy’s crew went into an uproar. Chairs scraped. Someone knocked over a jug. A man in striped pants shouted that they should capture Ace while he was unconscious, and someone else yelled that nobody who fell asleep in the middle of a threat could be trusted. Buggy raised both hands, snapping at them to shut up before they ruined whatever advantage they supposedly had.

Zoro was ignored, which was fine by him. He kept eating. The meat was over-salted, but there was plenty of it.

Ace abruptly woke and rejoined the conversation as if he’d been listening all along. “So you know the old man?”

“He’s awake!” Buggy shouted.

Ace stretched, grinning like he hadn’t just nearly planted his face in dinner. “Hey, don’t let me stop you. It’s a party, right?” He jumped to his feet, grabbed a mug from the table, and lifted it high. “Let’s live it up.”

For some reason, Buggy agreed immediately. “He’s right! It’s a party!”

The crew cheered like that made sense. Someone started juggling knives. Someone else hauled out a drum. The ship rocked under stomping feet, circus banners snapping overhead while the cannons stayed loaded below them.

Zoro looked from Ace to the chaos he’d caused in under a minute.

That was how he confirmed Ace and Luffy were definitely brothers.

They ended up in the Lulusia Kingdom next. Zoro thought to part ways with Ace there.

It was a decent-sized town, built along rivers that cut through the island in bright, busy channels. Stone bridges crossed the water at uneven intervals. Barges moved between market docks, loaded with sacks of grain, barrels of fish, and crates of fruit. The streets were narrow but crowded, with laundry strung between upper windows and vendors shouting from shaded stalls. It was the kind of place where a man could disappear for a while, take work if he needed it, and catch a ride off the island when he felt like it.

Zoro could do that. He’d done it before.

Ace wouldn’t let him.

“No way,” Ace said, grin on his face even as he shook his head. “I promised Luffy I’d take care of you, and I take my promises seriously.”

“You never promised him that,” Zoro said.

“It was said in spirit.” Ace flung an arm around Zoro’s shoulders and propelled him down the street before Zoro could step away. “Besides, you’ve got a face like you’re about to sleep in an alley.”

Zoro scowled. “I’ve slept in worse places.”

“That’s not the argument you think it is.”

“I can take care of myself.”

“Sure,” Ace said easily. “And I can leave you here, report back to Luffy someday, and tell him I dumped his swordsman in a random kingdom because he glared at me hard enough. Sounds great.”

Zoro didn’t have an answer for that.

Ace’s grin widened like he knew it. “Let’s go. I heard someone looking like Blackbeard is on this island.”

Blackbeard wasn’t on the island. They infiltrated a Marine base just to deliver a letter. They got caught. They escaped. They learned Blackbeard’s location from a Marine scout ship and headed toward Banaro Island.

Traveling with Ace was at least distracting enough to keep Zoro out of his head. The fatigue still remained, and so did the insomnia, but Ace slept enough for both of them anyway. Zoro was hungrier than he’d been in weeks, too, and since Ace was always hungry, they stopped often enough that Zoro ate his fill without having to think about it.

The heavy knot still lingered beneath his breastbone, reminding him to stay on guard. Ace didn't have to keep him. The skiff had room for one. Lulusia had been a decent enough place to disappear into. Zoro had half-expected Ace to point him at the nearest port and call it done. He hadn't. Zoro didn't know what to do with that, so he didn't try.

No one else, ever, was going to learn he liked guys. From now on, he’d do what worked in the past. Let women fawn over him. Let them touch his arm, lean close, giggle against his shoulder where people could see. He’d show everyone he was just like them, even if it made his stomach turn and left him hating himself after. It was better than the alternative.

Banaro Island had huge rocks facing up in different directions, called Banana Rock. A clapboard town ran between them, all sun-bleached boards, dust, and uneven streets. People in cowboy hats, plaid shirts, and boots moved between storefronts and saloons, pausing to stare at the two strangers coming through town.

It only took a few minutes to find Blackbeard and his crew.

Before Ace climbed onto a roof, he looked back at Zoro. “This is my fight, but I don’t mind you beating up on his crew.”

Zoro smirked with a bloodthirsty tilt. He drew his bandana and tied it over his head. “Sounds like fun.”

It was fun, for a very short time.

He took out several of Blackbeard’s men around the perimeter of the street, blades cutting through guns, belts, coats, and flesh. Men dropped. Others backed away, shouting. Zoro moved through them hard and fast, making space, keeping the smaller fights away from Ace.

Then Blackbeard activated his Devil Fruit.

Blackness spread outward in wide, crawling streaks across the street. It didn’t move like shadow. It moved like something thick and hungry, pulling loose boards, dropped weapons, barrels, and chunks of stone into itself as it went. Zoro got too close to one edge, and the pull yanked hard at his boots.

His stomach lurched.

“Move!” he shouted to the townspeople nearby. “Get away from it!”

“Don’t touch it! We have to get out of here!” someone else yelled.

“Go through the forest!” Zoro barked. “Get to the shore!”

He stopped fighting Blackbeard’s men and started moving people instead. He shoved a man away from a collapsing porch. Grabbed a woman by the back of her shirt before the spreading dark reached her heels. Hauled up people who tripped and shoved them back toward the trees. A crying child stood in the middle of the street, screaming for his mother, so Zoro scooped him up under one arm and ran.

The blackness continued to spread, fanning outward, swallowing the town board by board. It took whole storefronts, wagons, lamps, fences, and pieces of the street itself. Zoro ran hard, breath coming in quick pants, the child bawling against his side.

They made it to the coast. The townspeople milled along the shore, panicked and scattered, some wading knee-deep into the water as if distance alone could save them. The child’s mother found Zoro a moment later and nearly tore the kid from his arms, sobbing thanks he barely heard.

Zoro nodded once and darted up the nearest angled rock to get a better view.

From there, he watched the town vanish.

The whole place folded into the darkness, drawn down until there was nothing left but a wide, black mass where streets and buildings had been. For one breath, the island went still.

Then the town exploded back into view.

Crushed timber, splintered boards, broken signs, barrels, roof beams, and torn cloth blasted upward and rained down in pieces. The town came back wrong, flattened and shattered, dumped across the ground where it had stood.

“Shit,” Zoro breathed.

Then he leapt down from the rock and ran back toward where he’d last seen Ace.

He lost the direction twice. Everything looked wrong now. Paths had been chewed up, buildings were gone, and dust hung thick enough to turn the air brown. He ran in circles until he found the edge of the destruction. Part of the woods had been crushed flat, trees reduced to green and brown pulp across the ground. Through the broken gap, he caught sight of two figures in the distance.

Then darkness and fire collided.

The blast nearly threw him off his feet. Heat slammed into his face. Dust ripped past him. Banana Rock crumbled ahead under the force of it, huge pieces breaking loose and crashing down with ground-shaking force.

When the dust thinned, Zoro kept running.

“Ace!”

Ace was down.

Bleeding. Unconscious. Still.

Blackbeard stood over him.

Zoro skidded in the dust, drew all three swords, and launched himself forward without thinking about anything except cutting Blackbeard down.

His blades bit in, but the darkness dragged at the cuts, swallowing force before the blow could finish. Darkness clung to the steel as they cut, dragging at the edges, making the air around his swords feel thick. Zoro landed and turned fast, boots digging into ruined earth.

Blackbeard laughed. “What’s this? A toy swordsman trying to take on me?”

Zoro reset his stance and bared his teeth around Wado. He wasn’t giving up. He crossed two swords in front of him, the blades catching the light as he drove forward, rotation building through his shoulders, arms, and wrists. Momentum pulled through his whole body. Every step bit into the ground.

“Santoryu Ogi: Sanzen Sekai!”

He struck with all three swords at once.

Blackbeard staggered under the blow.

For half a second, Zoro thought he had him.

Then Blackbeard straightened. He didn’t fall. He didn’t even look afraid. He laughed again, bigger this time, the sound rolling across the ruined town. “You’ve got determination,” he said. “How about it? Join my crew.”

“Never,” Zoro snarled.

He attacked again.

The last thing he knew was darkness.

Icicles hung from his face and ears. Frost coated every bit of exposed skin, crusted in his hair, stiffened his lashes, and bit into the cuts on his knuckles. It hurt to breathe. Every gasp scraped down his throat and came out in short puffs of white. He blinked hard, cracking ice at the corners of his eyes, and forced his head up.

His wrists were shackled in front of him. The cuffs were seastone, heavy and cold enough to feel like they were burning into bone. A short length of chain hung between them – long enough that he could move his hands, climb, fight if he had to. 

He was in a prison of some sort. A huge one. The cell was carved into rock and sealed with thick black bars rimed white from the cold. Beyond them stretched an open, icy courtyard, all blue shadow and hard-packed snow, with more barred doors cut into the walls around it. The air glittered with blown frost.

Other men of different sizes wore black and white striped uniforms. Some huddled in corners, blue from the cold. Some sat too still, frozen solid where they’d dropped. A few were missing hands or feet. Frostbite had taken them, or the guards had. Zoro didn’t know which, and the place looked like it didn’t care either way.

“Where the fuck am I?” he managed to gasp out. Speaking made his throat seize. His voice came out rough, thin, and half-frozen.

The man nearest him, who looked more icicle than person, shifted just enough for ice to crack along his shoulders. “Level Five. Impel Down.”

“Shit.” Zoro knew what Impel Down was. The Marine prison in the Grand Line. Six levels of underwater hell for pirates and criminals who’d gone against the Marines. He’d heard enough stories about it in passing – enough to know no one talked about leaving. “How the hell did I get here?”

“You were brought in yesterday,” the man said. His lips barely moved. “Prize of one of the Warlords. Surprised you’re not on Six, since you’re one of Whitebeard’s crew.”

“M’not,” Zoro said.

He wrapped his arms around himself as much as the chain allowed. His swords were gone. His haramaki was gone. Everything useful had been taken, and under the cold, his body felt like someone had beaten him hollow and left the inside bruised. His ribs ached when he breathed. His shoulder throbbed. His head felt packed with snow. His fingers were already stiff, the tips half-numb and clumsy, and his ears burned in a way that meant the cold had settled in hard.

“Sucks to be you, then,” the man said, and settled back into creaking silence.

Outside the cells, wolves howled to each other across the frozen courtyard. Zoro turned his head enough to see them moving through the white, massive and lean, noses low to the ground. They roamed between the cell blocks like guards, sniffing at doors, pausing when prisoners shifted too loudly. One lifted its head and stared toward Zoro’s cell with red eyes.

Zoro shifted on the frozen floor and made himself breathe through it. He’d had cold-weather training on Drum Island. He knew how cold bit first at fingers, ears, toes, and then deeper. Knew shivering meant his body was still trying. Knew stopping too long was dangerous. Knew confusion was bad, sleepiness was worse, and feeling warm out of nowhere meant he was probably dying.

He was nineteen, stubborn as hell, and built tougher than most people. This wouldn’t kill him. He wouldn’t let it.

Thinking of Drum Island made him think of Chopper. Chopper would be yelling in his ear about frostbite and hypothermia. He’d be climbing all over him, checking his fingers, smacking his arm, telling him he was an idiot in that too-high doctor voice. The thought made the ache in Zoro’s chest flare so sharply that, for a second, it hurt worse than the cold.

He had no idea where Chopper was now. No idea where any of the Straw Hats were. They’d helped Vivi. He knew that much. Luffy would’ve made sure of it. The others would’ve fought until Alabasta was safe because that was what they did. But after that? Where had they sailed? What had they faced? Were they okay? Had anyone gotten hurt because he wasn’t there?

Zoro shoved the guilt down before it could get its teeth in. He could miss them. He could miss being part of the crew. He could miss Luffy’s stupid laugh and Chopper’s fussing and Nami’s orders and Usopp’s lies and Sanji’s cooking.

He could miss all of it and still know leaving had been the right thing to do. They didn’t need his disgusting presence around on top of everything else they faced.

You’re disgusting, you’re abnormal. You’re making everyone uncomfortable, you’re worthless, you’ll never be strong enough, you’ll never be good enough, you’re a waste of space.

Now he was a waste of space in prison.

Seemed fitting for a degenerate like him.

Zoro rubbed his arms hard, trying to get some feeling back into his hands. The cuffs knocked together with a dull clink. Ace was here, too, apparently a level down. That meant Zoro had a job. He needed to figure out how to get out of this cell, get down there, and help him. The imaginary promise went both ways. Ace had taken him because of Luffy. Zoro wasn’t going to let something happen to Luffy’s brother while he was still breathing.

He pushed to his feet. His knees nearly gave. He locked them, jaw tight, and examined the cell.

A couple of the other prisoners laughed at him. The sound came out weak and mean through chattering teeth. “Ain’t getting out until they want to beat on you a bit,” one of them said.

Zoro ignored them.

The bars were probably seastone, same as the cuffs. Even without a Devil Fruit, he didn’t like the look of them. Thick, square, too smooth under the ice, set deep into the floor and ceiling. But the walls around them were rock. Frozen rock, but still rock. Rock could be broken.

Too bad he didn’t have his katanas. He’d be out in seconds.

He looked up, scanning the wall above the gate, searching for damage. The cold made everything shine the same pale blue-white, but eventually he spotted a small crack in one stone, high enough that he’d have to climb the gate to reach it.

He blew on his hands. It didn’t help much. Then he started up.

The chain between his cuffs clinked against the bars as he climbed. It didn’t stop him, but it made every movement awkward, forcing his hands to stay closer together and his shoulders to do more work. More chuckles rose behind him, along with a hoarse, “Dumb bastard.”

The bars burned cold through his palms. Ice crushed under his grip. His feet slipped twice before he found enough purchase to climb, shoulders straining, fingers going numb and then painful in a way that felt wrong. By the time he reached the top of the gate, his palms felt like fire. He was sure he’d left skin behind on the ice-covered metal.

He braced one boot against a crossbar and pushed up on his toes to reach the cracked stone. The first hit with the side of his fist shattered ice loose. It came down in sharp pieces, bouncing off his shoulder and face. The rock barely dented.

Zoro hit it again. Then again.

The impact ran up his arm and into his shoulder. Pain sparked through his knuckles. The chain jerked between his wrists every time he drew back too far. He adjusted without thinking, shortened the motion, used his shoulder and hips instead of reach. He hit the crack until the skin split, then hit it with the heel of his hand, then his fist again. The prisoners behind him stopped laughing after a while, or maybe he stopped hearing them over the blood rushing in his ears.

His breath came hard and white. Hit. Brace. Hit again.

Eventually, he had to stop. His body had started to stiffen from the cold despite the sweat dampening his back. Sweat was bad here. Chopper’s voice would’ve had a whole lecture about it. Wet skin stole heat faster. Wet clothes killed. Zoro looked at the stone instead.

A shallow dent marked the crack now. It was working. Slow as hell, but working.

A small smile pulled at his mouth before the cold made it hurt.

He climbed down and settled against the gate itself, shoulders pressed to the bars because the metal at least kept him upright. The blood on his hand froze quickly, dark and stiff across his knuckles. His fingers shook when he flexed them. The tips had gone pale, then red, then pale again. Bad sign. He tucked them under his arms for a while and forced feeling back into them until it burned.

About an hour later, food was delivered. Frozen food. Nearly inedible. It hit the floor with dull clacks, hard blocks of bread or rice or whatever it had been before the cold got to it. Those with the strength stomped on theirs to break it up, then sucked on corners until the ice melted even as it froze their mouths.

There was no cup. No bucket. No water he could see. Just ice on the walls, ice on the bars, ice crusted over everything.

Zoro broke a piece of ice off the gate and put it in his mouth. It burned against his tongue before it melted. He sucked it down anyway, drop by drop, and felt the cold slide into his stomach. Drinking made him colder. Not drinking would kill him faster. Great choices.

He ate the same way, sucking on frozen corners until they softened enough to chew. His tongue and lips went numb immediately. Twice, the food stuck to split skin and tore it when he pulled away. He ate anyway because he needed strength, and because refusing food was stupid.

Eating took as much out of him as hitting the rock.

Afterward, his eyelids grew heavy. The cold had seeped deep into his bones now, and without movement, his shivering worsened. His shoulders jerked with it. His teeth clicked together until his jaw ached. His thoughts kept slowing at the edges, and he had to drag them back by force. Cell. Gate. Crack in the wall. Ace below. Get out. Don’t sleep too long.

From beneath his lashes, he saw men bunching up along the walls. Two pressed back-to-back. Three huddled beneath a torn scrap of cloth that did almost nothing. One prisoner tucked his hands under another man’s arms, and the other let him, both of them shaking too hard to care about anything except warmth.

Zoro’s chest tightened. Anxiety moved sharply through him. He’d never do that. He’d survive on his own.

He curled his knees to his chest and tucked his arms into his sleeves to wrap them around his middle, chain trapped against his stomach. His haramaki was gone, and he hated that more now than when he’d first noticed. It would’ve helped. It would’ve been something familiar. Something of his.

He pressed his frozen hands against his cold skin, clamped his teeth against the chattering, and lowered his head. Sleep dragged at him, and he let it take him under.

Days passed the same way. Or nights. Or whatever counted between sleeping and eating frozen food.

There was only false light on Level Five, deep beneath the sea. Blue-white glare off ice. Shadows where men huddled. The same frozen courtyard beyond the bars, the same wolves moving through it, the same breath leaving everyone in thin white clouds. Zoro didn’t know what time it was, what day it was, or how long he’d actually been there. It felt like days. Days of banging his fist against the rock. Days of bone-deep cold and numbness. Days of the seastone cuffs dragging at his wrists every time he climbed, the chain knocking softly against the bars, the metal biting deeper whenever his hands shook too hard to control.

His body kept trying to quit on him. His fingers were stiff most of the time now. The tips had gone from red to pale, then blue, then a bruised purple that made even Zoro pause when he looked at them. His nose and lips felt the same way, numb until they burned, burning until they went numb again. The skin across his knuckles split every time he hit the rock, and the blood froze almost as soon as it surfaced. His breath scraped. His chest hurt. Sometimes his thoughts slowed until he had to repeat the same things in his head to keep them straight. Cell. Gate. Crack. Ace.

The insomnia helped at first, in a stupid way. He couldn’t stay asleep long, no matter how exhausted he was. He’d drift under for a little while, then jerk awake shivering, teeth clicking, heart hammering like his body had dragged him back by the throat. It kept him from sinking too deep into the cold. Kept him moving. Kept him alive.

Then the sleep started lasting longer. Zoro didn’t like that.

He’d wake with his hands tucked under his arms and no feeling in the tips of his fingers, breath shallow, body too heavy to move right away. Once, he opened his eyes and couldn’t remember where he was for several seconds. Just white light, iron bars, cold stone, and the sound of wolves beyond the gate. That scared him more than the frostbite. Confusion meant the cold was getting further in.

But still he pressed on, refusing to give up. He wouldn’t let Ace down. Wouldn’t let Luffy down. He’d endure and survive until this rock broke through, and then he’d figure out how to get free.

Men dropped dead around him, succumbing to the cold, left to turn to solid ice where they fell. The living shifted around the bodies when they could. When they couldn’t, they used them as windbreaks and stopped looking ashamed about it. The wolves howled at the gate, claws scraping against the frozen floor outside, trying to get in whenever someone stopped moving for too long.

Zoro ate. Sucked ice when his tongue got too thick and dry, even though the cold water settled in his gut like a stone. Slept badly, then less badly, which was worse. Curled around himself with the chain trapped against his stomach. Woke shaking or barely shaking at all, which was always the bad one. Then he climbed again, braced himself against the gate, and worked on the rock until that became his whole world.

Hit. Breathe. Don’t fall. Hit again.

Eventually, a big enough piece of rock broke loose that he caught it against his chest before it could fall. It was jagged, heavy, and sharp along one broken edge. Not a sword. Barely a knife. But it fit in his hand.

An icy grin split his lips. Now he could get somewhere.

Even though he had a hole started, he needed to be on the ground to put all his strength into it. The weakest points would be the upper corners of the gate, where the wall turned into a hard ninety-degree angle around the bars. The load had to carry there. If he could cut one crack wide enough, a whole chunk of wall might come down.

He closed his eyes, focusing. His breath came slow and white. His fingers were stiff around the jagged rock, the bandages on his hands already stained dark where blood had frozen, thawed, and frozen again. The seastone cuffs sat heavy on his wrists, chain hanging between them, cold metal knocking softly against itself when he adjusted his grip.

He drew into a meditative state, gathering what strength the cold hadn’t taken. Then he opened his eyes and struck. “Sanjuroku Pound Ho.”

The force slammed into the cracked stone.

For a beat, nothing happened. 

Then the rock shuddered. A crack shot upward at an angle, splitting through ice and stone with a deep, splintering groan. Silence followed for one breath. Then the wall rumbled.

Zoro jumped back as the upper corner of the cell started collapsing. Other prisoners scrambled out of the way, shouting hoarse warnings through chattering teeth. Stone broke loose in heavy chunks. Ice shattered across the floor. The noise filled the cell until it was all Zoro could hear.

When it settled, he could see clearly out of the cell. A grin cracked across his frozen mouth.

He didn’t hesitate. He squeezed through the hole the fallen rock had made and stumbled out onto the ice of the open courtyard. His boots slipped once before he found his balance, shoulders hunched against the wind cutting across Level Five.

Being out of the cell didn’t mean he was free. Growls rose immediately.

The white wolves turned toward him, lean bodies low, red eyes fixed, teeth bared through frosted muzzles. One lifted its head and howled. Others answered from farther across the courtyard, their claws scraping over the ice as they gathered.

Zoro tightened his grip on the jagged rock. It wasn’t a sword – not even close – but it had an edge, and he had a will that wouldn’t fail. He wasn’t going to die here.

The first wolf leapt at him, aiming to knock him down. Zoro stepped aside and slashed with the rock shard. The cut opened across the beast’s shoulder, and blood sprayed red onto the white ground. The wolf crashed past him, yelping.

Zoro’s grin widened. Two came next. Then three. He pulled on everything he had. Footwork. Timing. Angles. The little movement the cuffs allowed. He kept his hands close, adjusted around the chain, and used his whole body to drive each strike. The fight was brutal and bloody, all teeth, claws, hot breath, and white fur flashing through blue light.

He didn’t get out of it untouched. Claws tore through his bicep. Another set raked his thigh. A lucky bite took a chunk from his calf before he drove the rock shard into the wolf’s neck and kicked it away.

He didn’t go down. He didn’t give up.

Sweat soaked his brow and the back of his prison shirt. That was bad in the cold, but there was no way around it now. Blood ran freely from his wounds, warm for half a second before it started thickening and freezing against his skin. The wolves seemed to multiply. More came from between the cell blocks, drawn by the hole, the blood, the noise.

Zoro darted toward a wall away from the cells, putting stone at his back so they couldn’t surround him from every side.

He barely registered other prisoners squeezing through the hole he’d made. Some ran for the visible stairs. Wolves broke off to chase them. Agonized cries filled the courtyard, cut short by snarling.

Zoro couldn’t think about them. He could only concentrate on himself. On staying alive. On keeping the shard in his hand and the wolves in front of him until every one of them was dead. Then he could take the stairs. Then he could get to Ace.

The fight dragged on. More wolves fell to single heavy strikes, bodies sliding across ice and leaving red streaks behind. More charged him. His body wasn’t cold anymore, which was its own warning. His muscles burned. His breath came in harsh pants. His fingers kept trying to stiffen around the rock, so he gripped harder until his hands shook from effort instead of cold.

He would not lose.

He didn’t expect hands to grab him from behind and yank.

Zoro let out a startled shout as he was dragged backward. His shoulders hit stone. He saw another wolf leap toward him, jaws open, claws outstretched.

Then a rock-faced steel door swung shut. The wolf slammed into it hard enough to shake dust from the ceiling. It snarled and threw itself against the door again. Then again. After a few seconds, the sound faded, leaving only Zoro’s panting and a voice near his ear. “Got ya.”

The hands released him. Zoro spun, makeshift weapon raised.

A beefy man stood in front of him, built thick through the neck and shoulders, with a sharp nose, heavy brows, and veins standing out across his forehead. He had long black hair, sideburns, a high hairline, red lipstick, purple-lensed sunglasses, and a red flower tucked into his hair. His shirt was purple with blue polka dots and a pink design across the front. Below that, he wore a black thong, leggings, and boots. A dragon tattoo curled down one arm beside an old scar.

Zoro stared at him for a second. Then he remembered to keep his weapon up. “Who are you?”

“Francois,” the man said. “And you’ve been Oni Sleeve Pulled.”

He said it like Zoro should know what that meant. Zoro didn’t.

Francois didn’t wait for him to ask. “Come on. Follow me.”

He bent, picked up a lantern from the floor, and started walking down a tunnel carved into the rock.

Zoro hesitated. The man had just pulled him out of the courtyard before a wolf landed on him. Zoro would’ve won, eventually, but the help had been useful.

He followed.

Francois led the way through the tunnel, lantern light flickering across rough stone and old support beams. The passage was narrow enough that Zoro’s shoulders nearly brushed the walls in places. Pipes ran overhead, sweating condensation that turned from frost to water the farther they went. The cold started to fade as the tunnel slanted downward and inward, away from Level Five’s open courtyard.

By the time they reached another steel door, Zoro could feel his body starting to thaw. It hurt worse in some ways. His fingers burned. His ears burned. The cuts on his arms and thigh woke up all at once, stinging and throbbing as blood moved properly again. He clenched his jaw and said nothing.

Francois opened the door.

Noise hit first. Music. Laughter. Clinking plates. Voices raised over one another. Then light. Bright neon, warm gold, blue, pink, green, and red spilling over polished floors and painted walls. Zoro stepped into what looked like a nightclub built into the guts of a prison. One large room spread out in front of him, part sit-down café, part discotheque, with a cabaret stage at the far end. Small tables crowded the floor. Booths lined the walls. A bar curved along one side, stocked with bottles and glasses that glowed under colored lights. A glittering curtain hung behind the stage, and the whole place smelled of food, perfume, sweat, liquor, and heat.

“Welcome to Newkama Land,” Francois said, dousing the lantern. He walked through like this was normal.

Zoro followed more slowly.

There was a nightclub in Impel Down.

Men, women, and people Zoro couldn’t sort neatly into either category sat at small tables, laughing, eating, drinking, and leaning into each other under rainbow lights. Some wore dresses, cropped jackets, short skirts, flowing sleeves, fishnets, feathers, heels, boots, aprons, makeup, or nothing that matched anything else. Some were clearly cross-dressing. Some weren’t. A few had full beards and lipstick. A few wore plain shirts and trousers and looked tougher than the guards upstairs. Someone crossed the room in a glittering dress, carrying a tray of drinks like they owned the whole prison. 

A pair of men danced past, both in fishnets, one with more makeup than a store and the other laughing so hard he nearly tripped. A woman smoked a long cigarette beside another well-dressed woman, their hands linked on the tabletop. Near the stage, two men kissed openly, one perched on the other’s knee, both smiling into it like no one had ever told them they should hide.

More than one couple occupied the shadowed corners. Men with women. Men with men. Women with women. People in heels, in wigs, in tailored trousers, in dresses, in broad shoulders and painted mouths, kissing and talking and touching like it was easy. 

Zoro’s breath hitched. It had nothing to do with the wolf fight.

This place was filled with people touching freely. Same-gender couples swaying together on the dance floor. Men leaning into men. Women pressing shoulders together. People sitting close, laughing with their faces inches apart, hands on waists, hands on thighs, heads tipped together. Like it didn’t matter. Like no one cared. Like no one was waiting to spit a name or shove them away or drag a bed across the room.

“What is this place?” Zoro asked. His grip tightened around the rock shard until the edge bit into his bandages. His wounds were starting to itch as his body warmed, then burn, then throb hard enough that he had to lock his knees.

“Paradise within Hell,” Francois replied. “A place where everyone’s free to be who they are without judgment or crimination. Iva spotted someone on the monitors breaking out. Very impressive, by the way. He sent me to grab you before the wolves could finish you off.”

“Iva?” Zoro said. He was barely listening. A man in a skirt appeared to be kneeling in front of another man in a red bouffant wig and a bristle-brush mustache. For one bewildered second, Zoro thought it was a proposal. Then he realized the first man was helping fasten the other’s shoe. Both of them were laughing.

“The leader of the Newkama,” Francois said. “You’ll meet him soon, I’m sure. For now, we should get you to our doctor. You’re looking pretty messed up.”

Zoro nodded. He still couldn’t stop staring. What the hell was this place?

Francois took him down another tunnel off the main room. They passed dormitories with curtains hung across doorways and clothes draped over lines. A kitchen entrance opened briefly on heat, steam, and the smell of meat. A security room flashed with stacks of monitors, Den Den Mushi lenses blinking in rows. There were storage shelves packed with clothes, wigs, boots, blankets, and makeup. Bathrooms steamed behind half-closed doors, and someone inside was singing badly enough that several voices yelled for them to stop.

Francois knocked on a doorframe and ushered Zoro into an infirmary. “Doctor. This is…” Francois paused. “I didn’t get your name.”

“Roronoa Zoro.”

The infirmary was smaller than the main room but cleaner, carved out of stone and warmed by pipes running along the walls. Lanterns hung from hooks overhead. A few metal-framed beds stood in a row, each with folded blankets at the foot. Shelves held jars of salve, rolls of bandages, bottles of medicine, splints, needles, thread, and stacks of folded cloth. A battered desk sat in one corner under a wall of notes, diagrams, and prisoner charts. The whole place smelled sharply of alcohol, herbs, old blood, and boiled linen.

The doctor was an old guy in a lab coat, with white hair, wrinkles, and a permanent scowl. He took one look at Zoro and clicked his tongue. “You did a number on yourself. Sit. Let’s get those cuffs off first.”

Zoro sat on the nearest bed. It creaked under him. He set the stone shard at his side, still within reach, and tried to ignore how warm the room felt against his frozen skin. He felt raw and confused and too visible under the lights.

Francois left. The doctor pulled out a key ring and sorted through it. “Hands.”

Zoro lifted them. The doctor unlocked the cuffs. The metal came away with a wet, tearing sting where frost and dried blood had stuck them to his skin. Zoro’s wrists were red and scraped underneath, the skin split in places from cold and pressure.

“Hold still,” the doctor said before Zoro could move.

“Who are you?” Zoro asked after a moment. “Are you a prisoner?”

“Sort of.” The doctor dropped the cuffs into a metal tray with a heavy clatter. “Old pirate. They thawed me out from Five years ago. Those of us here were prisoners who got brought in and never bothered trying to escape after we found this place.”

“And where are we exactly?”

“Hidden level in the prison.” The doctor started cleaning Zoro’s wounds with something that stung like fire. “So we’re both free and not free at the same time.”

Zoro fell silent as the doctor worked. Free enough for the time being, then. Free in a hidden level where music played inside Impel Down’s walls. Free in a place where some men dressed like women, some didn’t, some women dressed sharp enough to make sailors look sloppy, people called themselves whatever they wanted, and some of them kissed each other in the open. 

His chest tightened again.

“Is everyone here…” Zoro’s jaw worked. The word stuck behind his teeth. He forced it out anyway. “Gay?”

He’d never said it out loud before. Hearing it in his own voice made every muscle in his body tense.

“Nah,” the doctor said, wrapping a bandage around Zoro’s bicep. “Maybe a third, if you want a number. More of the men and the Newkama than the women. It just looks like more because no one is afraid down here.”

Afraid. Zoro hated how well that fit.

The doctor finished patching him up. His fingers were ugly at the tips, swollen and discolored, but the frostbite hadn’t taken them. His nose and lips were damaged but still there. The doctor slathered on salve, wrapped what needed wrapping, and told him not to start another wolf fight for at least a day.

Zoro had a strong constitution. He’d had worse injuries. He figured he’d heal.

The doctor ushered him out, and Zoro stood in the tunnel corridor for a moment. He needed to get to Ace. But he also needed his swords. He wouldn’t be any help unarmed. The rock shard had worked on wolves and stone. It wouldn’t be enough for whatever stood between him and Level Six.

He went up the hallway, looking for the security office he’d passed earlier. He made it to one end of the long corridor without finding it, then turned around and went back the other direction.

Eventually, he found it. A man in a cowboy hat sat behind the monitors, boots kicked up on a console, one hand resting near a mug of coffee. Rows of screens showed different parts of the prison: corridors, cells, stairwells, guard stations, other levels, the café.

“Hey,” Zoro said. “I need to find my swords.”

The man tilted his hat up to study him. “Looking a little raw to be thinking about escape.”

Zoro’s mouth flattened. “Can you help or not?”

“Sure.” The man sat forward. “We have all sorts of weapons–”

“No. I need my own swords. The ones I came here with,” Zoro said.

The man arched his brow, then shrugged. “Confiscated weapons are all kept in first-floor storage.”

He moved to the controls, and the Den Den Mushi system pulled up a large room on one monitor. Barrels of swords stood in rows. Guns lined racks. Larger weapons leaned against the wall, tagged and stacked like inventory.

Zoro leaned closer. He couldn’t see his katanas. He’d have to search in person. “How do I get there?”

“There are tunnels that lead up to every floor,” the man said. “More behind the walls. One leads near this room.” He tapped the monitor.

Zoro frowned. “If it’s that easy to get up there, why doesn’t everyone escape?”

The man shrugged. “We’ve got a nice community down here. For some people, it’s better than outside, if you get my drift.” He motioned to another monitor, this one pointed at the café. Two men were slow dancing badly while several people clapped and heckled them. “Plus, armed doesn’t mean you get past all the guards, the beasts, the traps, the poison, the surveillance, and whatever else they throw at you. Then you still need a boat off this place.”

Shit. Zoro hadn’t thought about that. He could get Ace out and still be trapped in the middle of the Calm Belt.

His stomach suddenly growled loudly.

The man laughed. “Canteen’s up the hall, or you can get something in the café.”

Zoro nodded his thanks and went to find food. He’d think better on a full stomach.

The canteen was attached to the kitchen, set up like the institutional dining halls he’d seen in Marine towns and training facilities. Long metal tables ran in rows across a plain stone room. Benches were bolted to the floor. Trays stacked at one end, dented from use. A serving line separated the dining area from the kitchen, where huge pots steamed over burners and cooks moved through heat and noise efficiently. The walls were scrubbed clean but old, with painted signs reminding people to clean up after themselves, return plates, and stop stealing forks.

Compared to Level Five, it was paradise.

A woman behind the line was happy to cook for him. She had thick arms, a shaved head, gold hoops in both ears, and a voice loud enough to carry over the clatter of pots. “You need protein, sugar, and something hot,” she said, already loading a plate. 

Zoro took the plate and grabbed a seat at one of the long tables. The food was simple: rice, beans, stewed meat, greens, and broth poured into a chipped bowl. Steam curled up into his face. His stomach cramped at the smell.

He dug into the first unfrozen meal he’d had in who knew how long. It was fantastic. Not Sanji’s level, but it tasted great. Warmth spread down his throat, into his chest, into his stomach. His hands shook around the fork, and he hated that, so he ate faster until he could pretend it was hunger instead.

Around him, people came and went with trays. Some were still dressed for the club. Some wore work aprons. Some wore plain shirts, skirts, trousers, dresses, or things Zoro didn’t have names for. A man and woman argued cheerfully over the last piece of bread until she stole it and he kissed her knuckles in defeat. Two men sat across from each other sharing a bowl of fruit, stealing bites off each other’s forks. A broad-shouldered person with bright lipstick leaned over to kiss a woman’s cheek before heading back toward the kitchen. Nobody stared. Nobody made a face. Nobody moved away. 

Zoro looked down at his plate. His mind slipped to the cook. Sanji would complain about the beans being overcooked. He’d say the broth needed more salt, then somehow fix it in thirty seconds. He’d feed everyone properly, even while calling them idiots.

What were they doing now?

Had Sanji picked up the slack? Stepped into Zoro’s role, filling in for him as well as keeping his own? Zoro trusted Sanji’s strength. Trusted his skill. Trusted him to fight hard enough to keep the crew alive.

But Sanji already had a job. They all did.

Guilt suddenly gnawed at Zoro, sharp and ugly. He’d left the crew a man down. Walked away from his captain. Stepped out of his role as protector because he’d decided his presence was worse than his absence.

Maybe it wasn’t. Maybe leaving had only made everything harder.

Zoro looked at his empty plate, soaked with leftover juices. Maybe he shouldn’t have left. Maybe he could’ve stuck it out. Kept avoiding them. Slept outside or in storage. Changed when no one was around. Took his meals separately. Stayed out of Sanji’s way. Stayed out of everyone’s way. Then he’d still have been there when it mattered, to fight.

You’re disgusting, you’re abnormal, his mind reminded him at once. You’re making everyone uncomfortable, you’re worthless, you’ll never be strong enough, you’ll never be good enough, you’re a waste of space.

Zoro’s bandaged fingers tightened around the fork. “Stop,” he whispered to himself, raw.

“Stop what, Roro-boy?”

Zoro turned his head sharply.

Someone had taken a seat beside him on the bench. A woman? A man? Both, maybe. Zoro couldn’t sort it fast enough.

They were huge, with a head almost too large for their body, an indigo afro, long lashes, and an odd, pointed chin shaped like an arrowhead. Heavy makeup framed their eyes and mouth, dramatic without looking careless. A crown sat on top of their hair – no, two crowns, one queen’s crown with a king’s crown stacked above it.

They wore a reddish-purple leotard with a high collar and a deep V that dropped almost to their stomach. Matching gloves. Matching boots. A pearl necklace. Net leggings, with a net cape draped down their back. Below the deep V, a Jolly Roger tattoo marked their chest.

Everything about them should’ve looked impossible. Instead, they sat there like the whole room had been built around them.

“Stop what, Roro-boy?” they asked again, smiling wide enough to show teeth. He, Zoro thought, with that voice.

Zoro didn’t answer the question, instead he said, “Who are you?”

“Mmmfufufu, why I’m Iva, Queen of Newkama Land,” Iva said. “And you’re Roronoa Zoro, according to Francois."

“Yeah.” Zoro set down his fork and picked up the large mug of tea the canteen worker gave him. He took a sip. It was too sweet for his taste, but that was probably for the better since he’d been drinking icicles for however many days.

“Haven’t heard of you,” Iva said, crossing a fishnet clad knee over the other. “Surprised, since Level Five houses the prisoners whose the bounties of 100,000,000 and over are kept.”

“Thought I was one of Whitebeard’s crew,” Zoro said. 

“But you’re not.”

“No.” Zoro’s fingers tightened around his mug. Guilt gnawed at him. “I’m a Straw Hat.”

Iva tapped his finger to his painted lips. “I’ve heard of Straw Hat-boy. Beat Croco-boy, who's now down on Six.”

A smile tugged at Zoro’s lips. “So they did win,” he said, almost to himself.

Iva raised a blue brow. “Wouldn’t you know?”

Zoro dropped his gaze to his tea. Guilt gnawed at him again. “Wasn’t there.”

“I smell a story,” Iva said, shifting closer. “And it sounds like you need to share, Roro-boy.”

Zoro’s shoulders tightened. He didn’t like talking to people in general, let alone sharing something personal. 

Chopper’s voice drifted through his head. “I think you need to talk to someone.”

Zoro pressed his lips together, feeling the sting from where they were chapped and split. Guilt and something else, something deeper carved at him. He turned the mug in his hand. Iva sat patiently beside him, not pressing, but not giving him a pass, either.

Maybe telling a stranger was easier. Iva didn’t know the crew. Didn’t know what Zoro had been before he left. Didn’t have a place on the Merry for Zoro to lose.

He didn’t look at Iva when he began speaking.

“Found out I disgust my crew, because I…” he paused, swallowed, and pushed on, “...like guys.”

Iva hummed quietly. “That must’ve hurt.”

“Yeah.” Zoro’s fingers tightened on the mug again. 

“Did they say something specific?” 

Zoro nodded. “Two men were kissing. The cook saw. Made a face. Said there were beautiful women around and those men had no taste.”

“That was all?”

Zoro’s eyes cut to Iva.

Iva held up both hands. “Not small. I’m asking if those were the words.”

“Those were the words.”

“And what did you hear?”

Zoro looked away. The answer sat in his throat like ice. “That men like me are disgusting.”

Iva went quiet.

“Then I asked the others,” Zoro said. “Nami said it made sense because I didn’t act normal around women. Usopp asked if he should stop changing in front of me. Luffy said it didn’t matter.”

“And you believed all of that meant the same thing.”

“It did.”

“No, Roro-boy.” Iva’s voice gentled, but didn’t soften into pity. “It felt the same. That isn’t always the same thing.”

Zoro stared at the table.

Iva tapped one long nail against the bench. “You know the difference between an enemy’s blade and a friend bumping into an old wound, yes?”

“Still hurts.”

“Yes, but one is trying to cut you,” Iva said, straightforwardly. “The other may need to be told where the wound is.”

Zoro's jaw tightened briefly. 

You’re disgusting, you’re abnormal, you’re making everyone uncomfortable, you’re worthless, you’ll never be strong enough, you’ll never be good enough, you’re a waste of space, went round again in his head. 

He brought his hand up to his forehead and pressed hard against it. “I left because I didn’t want them to be forced to put up with me.”

“Are you sure?”

Zoro looked at Iva sharply. “Of course I’m sure.”

Iva held up his gloved hands. “I’m not arguing, Roro-boy. Just trying to get all the facts.”

“The fact is that my crew didn’t want me there, so I left to make it better for them.”

Iva tilted his head, the crown shifting on his purple hair. “Did they tell you that?”

Zoro frowned. “No. They didn’t have to. I’ve been through it before.”

“Oh, Roro-boy. Not all people are the same.”

Zoro tensed again, becoming angry. “I know what I know.”

“Are you sure?” Iva leaned in again. “Because it sounds like your past might’ve colored your present in an ugly shade.”

Zoro thumped down the mug. Tea sloshed over the rim. “You trying to piss me off on purpose?”

“No. I’m showing you a truth you might have missed.”

Zoro shoved to his feet with a glare. “Yeah, well, keep your opinions to yourself.”

He grabbed the mug, thumped it on the tray, and grabbed the tray. He stalked over to the return bin, setting everything inside the tub. Then he left the canteen, anger in his steps.

How dare he say that Zoro had been wrong? Zoro was there. He’d heard it himself. It hadn’t been a mistake.

You’re disgusting, you’re abnormal, you’re making everyone uncomfortable, you’re worthless, you’ll never be strong enough, you’ll never be good enough, you’re a waste of space.

Zoro slammed his bandaged fist against the corridor wall. Sparks of pain radiated through his hand and up his arm. “Idiot,” he muttered to himself.

Chopper would’ve said worse. Chopper would’ve climbed up his leg, grabbed his wrist, and yelled about stitches and frostbite and reopening wounds. The thought made the anger twist sideways into something sharper. He’d left Chopper, too. Left all of them, then ended up here, punching walls in a secret prison nightclub because a stranger had said maybe his crew hadn’t hated him correctly.

Zoro flexed his fingers. Pain bit through the bandages.

He needed his swords. He needed to get to Ace. He needed to stop standing around thinking about Sanji’s face in that tavern, Usopp’s nervous laugh, Nami’s sunglasses, Luffy saying it didn’t change anything like that should’ve been enough.

It hadn’t been enough. 

That didn’t make Zoro wrong.

He pushed away from the wall and kept walking. The corridor bent left, then split. One passage sloped down toward music and warm light. The other narrowed into stone, pipes, and dim lanterns. Zoro chose the narrow one because it looked less like a place people wanted him to stop and talk.

After three turns, he found himself back at the edge of the main room. “Damn it.”

Music rolled over him, bright and loud. Someone on the stage was singing off-key while two people in feathered jackets clapped along like it was the best thing they’d ever heard. At a table near the wall, a man in a loose green shirt had his head tipped back, laughing while another man painted something glittering onto his eyelids with careful strokes. Two women leaned shoulder to shoulder over a shared plate, one stealing food from the other’s fork and getting kissed for it. A man and woman argued over cards nearby, both grinning too hard for the argument to mean much. 

No one flinched from any of it. No one looked around first. No one checked who was watching before touching the person beside them.

Zoro stood there too long.

A hand touched his elbow.

He jerked back, already turning.

Francois lifted both hands. “Easy. I like these arms attached.”

Zoro lowered his fist, jaw tight.

Francois glanced at the bandage. “Did you hit something?”

“No.”

“Convincing.” Francois nodded down the corridor. “Thought I might show you where you can get a change of clothes, then a bed.”

Zoro needed to get his swords, find Ace, and figure out a way out of this place. But a change of clothes wouldn’t hurt. The prison clothes were stiff with sweat, blood, and cold. He nodded.

Francois led him back down the corridor to the room that looked like a clothing shop. Racks stood along the walls, packed tight with shirts, trousers, dresses, coats, skirts, scarves, belts, and things Zoro didn’t have names for. Shelves held folded fabric and stacks of towels. Boots lined the floor in uneven rows. Wigs sat on stands near a cracked mirror, and a long table in the center was crowded with thread, needles, scissors, buttons, and half-finished clothes.

Francois lounged in the doorway after showing Zoro inside. “You can have anything that fits. We make our own clothes here, so don’t concern yourself with payment or anything.”

Zoro hadn’t even thought of that, but he nodded anyway. He searched through the clothes until he found a plain black pair of trousers and a black, long-sleeved shirt. He still had his boots, so he didn’t need footwear.

Francois showed him to one of the dormitories next. The room was carved long and low into the stone, warmer than the corridors, with pipes running along the far wall and lanterns hung between them. Single bunks filled most of the space in two rows, each one narrow but clean, with a pillow and folded blankets at the foot. Some beds had curtains strung around them for privacy. Others had jackets, bags, wigs, or books tucked beneath them. A few were occupied, people sleeping hard under blankets or talking quietly on neighboring beds.

Francois pointed out a free bunk near the back. “You can have that one. There are a lot of strict rules down here, but no curfew or anything.”

“Thanks,” Zoro said, setting the new clothes down on it. “Won’t be staying, though. I need to get my swords up on Level One.”

Francois lifted a brow. “We have weapons here.”

“Not the same.” Zoro pulled off his prison top, wincing as the wolf wounds pulled beneath the bandages.

Francois was quiet for a moment, studying him. Then he said, “If you can wait a day or two, I can get a party together and raid the confiscated weapons storage with you.” He grinned. “We could use some more firepower.”

Zoro thought about refusing. But rooms had a habit of not being where they were supposed to be, and he still needed a way out after finding Ace. More people who knew the prison would help.

He agreed with a short nod. “All right.”

“Great.” Francois pushed away from the door. “Iva’s putting on a show in a bit in the main club. You should check it out.”

With that, he left.

Zoro turned his attention back to changing, shedding the prison trousers and pulling on the new ones. The clean fabric felt strange against his skin. Too soft. Too warm. He pulled the shirt over his head, careful around the bandages, then sat down to put his boots back on.

Fatigue washed over him immediately. His body felt heavy all at once, like it had only been waiting for him to sit down before trying to drag him under. He glanced at the pillow on the bunk. It wouldn’t hurt to have a nap, since he wasn’t going anywhere yet. He recovered better with sleep.

Zoro stretched out on the single bunk. The mattress was thin, the blanket rough, and the pillow smelled faintly of laundry soap. It was still better than frozen stone.

Within seconds, he was asleep.

Zoro slept longer than he usually did lately. The injuries and the cold had taken a lot out of him, and the bed was warm enough that his body stayed down instead of dragging him awake every hour. When he finally opened his eyes, he found about half the beds occupied. People were getting dressed, pulling on shirts, buttoning jackets, lacing boots, fixing wigs, tying scarves, and arguing quietly over who had stolen whose hairbrush.

Zoro sat up slowly. His body answered with a dull list of complaints. Everything hurt, but it hurt in the way things did when they were healing instead of dying, so he ignored most of it.

He followed someone to the communal bathroom to wash up. It was long and tiled, with sinks along one wall, shower stalls along the other, and pipes running overhead, hissing with heat. Steam fogged the mirrors in patches. Towels hung from hooks. Someone had left a jar of face paint open by one sink, and someone else had drawn a lipstick heart on the corner of the glass.

Zoro washed his face, then looked up. He saw himself in the mirror for the first time in a while.

It wasn’t a pretty sight. His nose still showed damage from the frostbite, red and rough at the tip. His ears were the same. His face looked gaunt, too pale and too thin, with hard lines at his cheeks that hadn’t been there before. Deep circles rimmed his eyes even though he’d slept. His hair stuck up worse than usual. Bandages wrapped his wrists, hands, arm, thigh, and calf. 

His gaze held a sadness that wouldn’t leave.

Depression, Chopper said in his head.

Zoro turned away from the mirror.

The sound of voices and the smell of food drew him back to the canteen. The room was half-crowded, men and women chatting amicably while eating breakfast. Different people worked behind the line this time, moving between huge pans, pots, and trays with the same brisk efficiency as the woman from before. Plates clattered. Benches scraped. Someone laughed near the back wall. Someone else complained that the coffee was terrible, and the person beside them told them to stop drinking three cups of it, then.

Zoro took the tray they handed him and looked around for a seat. There was space at the end of a table with a group of men dressed similar to him, plain shirts and trousers, no makeup, no glitter, no feathers. One of them had a shaved head. Another had a scar across his cheek. They barely glanced at Zoro before going back to their food.

Zoro slid onto the bench, took a sip of tea, then dug in. Breakfast was pancakes, eggs, hash, and potatoes. All good. Hot. Filling. Nothing like the cook’s.

His hand tightened around his fork. He didn’t want to think about Sanji. Or the rest of the crew. Not right now.

I’m showing you a truth you might have missed, Iva said through his mind.

Zoro’s jaw tightened. He wasn’t wrong. He couldn’t be. Because if he was wrong, he’d left for no reason. Left them without a swordsman. Left them without help. Left Luffy after promising he would never lose again. Left Chopper after Chopper had told him to talk to someone. Left Sanji to cover his place in a fight and protect everyone.

He clenched his jaw and breathed through his nose. It wouldn’t do any good to regret it now. What was done was done. All he could do was press forward, rescue Ace, and get the hell out of Impel Down.

The day passed with him mostly napping, recovering from his time on Level Five. In between, he returned to the security room to watch the feed on Level Six, but he couldn’t tell where Ace was.

He also found a weight room when the bathroom moved on him. It was tucked behind a sliding wall that absolutely hadn’t been there the first time he passed it. The room was small but stocked: iron weights, benches, sandbags, weighted poles, grip trainers, and a cracked mirror along one wall.

Zoro used it, less than he wanted, but enough to make his blood move and remind his body it still belonged to him. Chopper yelled in his head about his injuries the whole time.

Throughout the day, he saw people going about their business, doing assigned jobs or hanging out. Cooks worked. Someone carried a stack of towels down the hall. Two people argued over costumes in the clothing room. A group practiced dance steps near the club stage, counting badly and laughing when they all turned the wrong way. People touched each other easily here: hands on shoulders, arms around waists, kisses dropped onto cheeks, someone leaning against someone else because they were tired and no one made it into anything ugly.

He tried not to stare when a more ambitious couple made use of a bed in the dormitory, mostly hidden under a blanket. Flashes of skin. Soft laughter. A low sound from someone’s throat that made Zoro’s neck go hot.

He left the dormitory fast, refusing to imagine one of those men as himself.

Francois found him later, leaning against the corridor wall outside the security room. “Good news. We’re ready to go the day after tomorrow. Early.”

Zoro focused on the news rather than on anything else going on around him. The freedom people had in Newkama Land to be themselves without fear or doubt wasn’t something he wanted to think about too long. He wasn’t staying. This place wasn’t his. It couldn’t be. It was a stop on the way to Ace, then out. That was all.

The next day repeated the pattern of the first. Food. Sleep. Weight room. More sleep. His nose and ears looked better when he checked the mirror, though still rough. His fingers had color again. His hands and most of the wolf wounds had closed by the end of the night, except for the deepest bite in his calf and the claw marks along his bicep. Good enough.

The raid on the Level One weapons storage went so smoothly that Zoro kept waiting for the other shoe to drop.

A former prisoner with a tunneling Devil Fruit had dug passages throughout Impel Down, hidden behind walls, beneath floors, and between levels. Francois led the way with two others, all of them carrying bags and weapons borrowed from Newkama Land’s own stores. They moved through cramped tunnels with ease, stopping at certain turns to listen for guards, then continuing when the path was clear.

The storage room was massive, lined wall to wall with confiscated weapons. Barrels of swords. Racks of guns. Chains, axes, spears, clubs, knives, strange-shaped blades, and weapons Zoro couldn’t name. Tags hung from some. Others had been dumped in piles like junk.

He found his katanas after ten minutes of searching. Wado first. His hand closed around the hilt, and something in his chest loosened so sharply it almost hurt. Then Sandai Kitetsu. Then Yubashiri. All three, safe. Zoro slid them back through his belt where they belonged.

The rest of the group gathered additional weapons, stuffing bags, strapping blades to their backs, passing guns between them. No alarms. No guards. No fight. They were back in Newkama Land within an hour. Zoro kept one hand resting against his swords the whole way.

Having them back didn’t fix everything. It helped, though. The pressure in his chest eased by a fraction. 

The man in the cowboy hat looked up from the monitors when Zoro entered. “Got them, then.”

Zoro didn’t answer. He stepped closer to the wall of screens, scanning cells, corridors, stairwells, guard stations, beasts, moving shadows. “Show me how to get to Level Six.”

The man leaned back in his chair. “Can’t do that.”

Zoro’s gaze cut to him. “You did before.”

“I showed you what’s on the monitor,” the man said. “I didn’t show you how to reach Six.”

“Then show me now.”

“No.”

Zoro’s hand settled on Wado’s hilt.

The man’s expression didn’t change much, but his boots came off the console. “You can glare all you want. Nobody shows anyone the tunnel down without Iva’s go-ahead.”

“I don’t need permission.”

“Down here, you do.”

Zoro took one step forward.

The man stood, one hand lifting, not quite defensive and not quite surrender. “Listen, swordsman. Level Six isn’t a storeroom. You don’t sneak down, grab a friend, and walk back whistling. You get caught, you’re locked down there, too. Tortured until they figure out where you came from. Then they find us, and everybody down here pays for it.”

Ace was below them. He was in a cell, waiting to be taken to execution, because Zoro had failed to stop Blackbeard. Because he’d gone with Ace and still hadn’t been strong enough. Because he’d left the Merry and told himself it meant he wasn’t a burden anymore, only to become one somewhere else. 

His fingers tightened around Wado’s hilt until the wrap pressed into the torn places beneath his bandages. “I’m going.”

“Then talk to Iva.”

Zoro turned and left. He didn’t know where Iva was, but Zoro would find him. Or he’d find the tunnel first. He wasn’t waiting for permission. Rooms moved around in this place, corridors bent wrong, doors appeared where stone had been before, but Level Six was down and that was enough to start with. 

He took the first passage that sloped lower. After ten minutes, he found himself outside the canteen. “Damn it.”

A woman carrying a crate of onions looked him over. “Lost?”

“No.”

“Sure, honey.” She jerked her chin toward the main room. “If you’re looking for Iva, he’s busy.”

Zoro’s mouth flattened and kept walking. Ace. That was all that mattered. Not Iva. Not Francois. Not the security man. Not the way Newkama Land kept trying to make him look at things he didn’t want to look at. Not the couples laughing in corners. Not the men dancing with men. Not the way nobody flinched when a broad-shouldered person in a blue dress kissed a man at the edge of the stage and the people nearby just kept eating. 

If Zoro got to Ace, maybe something in him would settle. Maybe the knot under his breastbone would loosen. Maybe leaving the crew would have meant something other than running away. Maybe he could look at Luffy again someday and say he’d protected his brother, at least. He’d done that much.

Maybe he could stop hearing it.

You’re disgusting, you’re abnormal, you’re making everyone uncomfortable, you’re worthless, you’ll never be strong enough, you’ll never be good enough, you’re a waste of space.

Zoro stopped at a split in the corridor and pressed the heel of his hand hard against his forehead.

“Shut up,” he muttered.

A few people passing with laundry baskets glanced his way, then wisely kept going.

He chose the left passage. It led him to bathrooms. He turned around, chose another, and found a storage room full of brooms. A third passage brought him to a narrow hall lined with pipes. That looked promising. It sloped down, the air cooler, the stone rougher under his palm. He followed it, shoulders tight, every step feeling more useful than sitting around waiting for permission.

Halfway down, a steel door blocked the way. A flat slab of metal set into the rock. Zoro drew Wado.

“Wouldn’t do that.” Francois stood behind him, arms folded, one shoulder against the wall like he’d been there the whole time.

Zoro didn’t lower the sword. “Don’t try to stop me.” 

Francois looked at the door, then back at him. “That doesn’t go to Level Six.”

Zoro narrowed his eyes.

“It goes to waste disposal.” Francois’s mouth twitched. “Unless your plan is to rescue Fire Fist by smelling terrible, in which case, very bold.”

Zoro sheathed Wado with more force than necessary.

Francois’s expression sobered. “I know what you’re trying to do.”

“Then you know I don’t have time to stand here.”

“You don’t know where you’re going.”

“I’ll find it.”

“You’ll find guards. Or wolves. Or poison. Or Magellan.” Francois stepped closer, voice lowering. “And if you force your way into the wrong tunnel, you risk everyone here.”

Zoro’s jaw locked. There it was again. His presence causing problems. His need putting other people in danger. Even here, in a place that wasn’t his, he was already a threat to the people who’d helped him. He hated how little he had to argue with it. 

Francois must have seen something on his face, because his voice softened a fraction. “That’s not me telling you to give up. That’s me telling you to go through Iva.”

“Iva will say no.”

“Maybe. Maybe not. But if he says yes, you get a route, people who know the prison, and a chance that doesn’t end with you endangering us all.”

Zoro looked past him, down the passage, at the useless steel door. Ace was still below. Every second Zoro spent talking was another second Ace stayed there.

“Where is he?” Zoro asked.

Francois smiled, small and approving. “Main room.”

Zoro walked past him.

By the time they reached the main room, the mood had shifted. The music still played, but people weren’t dancing as much. A cluster had gathered near the security corridor. Others leaned over tables, speaking in quick bursts. Someone hurried past with a stack of papers. Another person called for someone to get Iva.

Zoro slowed. Francois did, too. 

“What happened?” Francois asked a woman in a red jacket.

She shook her head, eyes bright with excitement. “Chaos upstairs.”

“That’s not new.”

“No, real chaos. Level One, Level Two, maybe Three by now. Guards running everywhere.”

Zoro stepped closer despite himself. “What kind of chaos?”

“Prisoners loose,” she said. “Some clown started something.”

“A clown?” Francois repeated.

“Big red nose, loud as hell.” The woman waved a hand. “Somebody said there’s a ballerina, too. Or a man dancing like one. Or both. Reports are messy.”

Zoro stared at her. A clown. A ballerina. That sounded stupid enough to be real.

Another voice called from the security room. “Straw hat! They said one of them’s wearing a straw hat!”

The room went strange around him. Not quiet. Newkama Land didn’t seem capable of quiet. But the sound pulled back from Zoro’s ears, like he’d gone underwater.

Straw hat.

His hand tightened around Wado.

No. No, Luffy was on the Merry. With the crew. Where he should be. Where Zoro had left him. Where Zoro had told himself Luffy was better without him. 

Someone else shouted from the monitors, “They’re heading to Level Four!”

Zoro’s feet carried him swiftly toward the shout. He shoved through the people near the security room. The man in the cowboy hat was at the controls, no boots on the console now, all screens shifting fast beneath his hands.

“Where?” Zoro demanded.

The man didn’t look away from the monitors. “Reports came from upper levels. He’s with the clown and that Okama from Level Two. Guards are scrambling.”

Zoro leaned toward the screens, scanning every flicker of movement. “Show me.”

“I’m trying.”

The monitors changed. Corridors. Stairs. Guards running. Prisoners flooding through passageways. A flash of red nose. A blur of striped pants. Then another screen caught a small figure in a red vest and blue shorts, straw hat hanging against his back as he ran full tilt down a corridor.

Zoro’s chest seized.

Luffy.

For one second, all the ugly noise in his head stopped. Then it came back worse. What the hell was Luffy doing here?

Had he come for Ace? Of course he had. Had he come alone? Possibly. Zoro didn’t see any of the crew. Had he thrown himself straight into the worst prison in the world because that was what Luffy did when someone he loved was taken from him?

Of course he had.

Zoro’s stomach twisted hard enough that he almost doubled over.

He should have been there.

He should have been at Luffy’s side when he found out. Should have been there to stop him from charging in alone, or to charge with him, or to stand between him and whatever tried to kill him. That was his place. That had always been his place.

He’d left it empty.

“Where is he going?” Zoro asked, voice low.

The security man’s hands moved over the controls. “Down.”

Zoro’s gaze stayed locked on the screen.

Luffy ran. Shouted. Hit guards. Got hit. Kept going. His face was set in that stubborn, fearless way Zoro knew too well. Going down. Toward Ace.

Zoro turned. Francois blocked the doorway.

“Move,” Zoro said.

“No.”

Zoro’s hand went to his swords.

Francois didn’t flinch. “You still need Iva.”

“I don’t have time for Iva.”

“You’re going after Straw Hat and Fire Fist through the most dangerous levels in Impel Down. You absolutely have time for the one person here who can keep you from getting everyone killed.”

Zoro’s teeth ground together.

Behind Francois, the crowd parted.

Iva entered like the room had been waiting for him, crown high, cape shifting behind him, makeup perfect and eyes sharp beneath heavy lashes. The noise around him dipped, not gone, but held.

“I hear Straw Hat-boy has arrived,” Iva said.

Zoro faced him fully. “Show me the way to Level Six.”

Iva’s gaze moved over him. The swords at his hip. The bandages. The set of his shoulders. Whatever was on his face that Zoro couldn’t force back into place fast enough.

“You were going even without permission,” Iva said.

“Yeah.”

“Mmm.” Iva tapped one painted nail against his cheek. “For Fire Fist?”

Zoro swallowed. “For Ace.”

“And now for Straw Hat-boy, too?”

Zoro didn’t answer fast enough.

Iva’s expression shifted. Not soft. Not pitying. Worse. Understanding.

Zoro hated it. “He’s my captain.”

“Is he?” Iva asked.

Anger flared hot through the cold places still left inside him. “Don’t.”

Iva held his gaze.

Zoro’s fingers curled at his sides. “He’s my captain.”

The words came out rougher the second time.

He didn’t know if he had the right to say them anymore. He’d left. He’d asked permission and Luffy had given it, but he’d still left. Walked away. Decided for everyone that his absence was better. Decided Luffy would be better off without him and then called it loyalty because that was easier than calling it fear.

But the screen had shown Luffy running through Impel Down, and every part of Zoro that still worked had turned toward him.

Captain.

Nakama.

Home, if he was still allowed to think that.

Iva watched him for another long second. Then he turned to the security man. “Pull up the routes. Let’s see if we can lead them down here.”

The security man moved fast, hands passing over controls, screens shifting in quick jumps. Corridors. Stairwells. Guard posts. A flash of running prisoners. A door slamming shut. Someone shouting silently on a monitor with no sound.

Zoro stood close enough to the screens that his shoulder nearly brushed the console. The screen flickered, then caught Luffy again.

Zoro’s breath stopped. Luffy was moving, but barely. His body dragged itself forward more than ran now, skin darkened in places, face twisted with pain. Even through the monitor, Zoro could see something was wrong. Very wrong. The guy with him had one arm around Luffy, hauling him along, half-carrying him through the frozen corridor as Luffy stumbled and kept trying to move anyway.

“What happened to him?” Zoro demanded.

“Magellan,” someone behind him said. “Poison Devil Fruit.”

Zoro’s hand closed around Wado so hard his bandaged fingers pulled. Luffy had fought the warden. Of course he had. He’d come crashing through Impel Down for Ace and fought whatever stood in front of him because that was Luffy. Because Zoro hadn’t been there to stand in front of him first. 

The thought hit hard enough to make him still. 

On the monitor, Luffy buckled. The other guy caught him, shouted something, and dragged him upright again.

Zoro moved for the door.

Iva’s voice cut across the room. “Stop.”

Zoro stopped, but only because every person between him and the corridor shifted at once, blocking him without looking like they’d planned it.

His shoulders rose. “He’s dying.”

“Yes,” Iva said.

One of the people at the screens cursed. “Wolves are moving.”

The security man changed feeds. White bodies poured through the frozen courtyard, noses low, then heads lifting. They had caught the scent.

Iva looked at the monitors, then made the decision. “Francois. Take three. Intercept at the central tower access. Bring Straw Hat-boy and his friend down alive.” 

“I’m going,” Zoro said.

Iva’s gaze snapped to him.

Zoro met it. “He’s my captain.”

Iva didn’t argue. “Then keep your head attached, Roro-boy.”

Zoro was already moving. Francois led them through a side passage at a run, not toward the main club this time but deeper into the stone behind it. Two others came with them, one carrying a lantern, the other a coil of rope and a short spear. Zoro hated following. Hated every turn that wasn’t straight toward Luffy. Hated the way the tunnels twisted and dipped, the way hidden doors opened only when Francois pressed specific stones, the way the whole prison seemed built to slow him down.

The air grew colder with every step. By the time they reached the access door, frost rimed the hinges and Zoro could hear the wolves clearly. Howls. Growls. Claws scraping over ice. A voice shouting hoarsely through it all.

Francois shoved the door open. Cold slammed into them.

Level Five spread out beyond the hidden opening, blue-white and vicious. The central tower loomed nearby, its base half-buried in ice and shadow. Luffy and the other man were maybe thirty paces away, staggering toward them while wolves closed from both sides.

Luffy looked worse in person. His skin was mottled. His breathing came in ragged pulls. His eyes were open, but unfocused, jaw clenched like staying conscious took everything he had. The other man had blood on his face and tears frozen along his cheeks, but he kept dragging Luffy forward, refusing to let him fall.

A wolf lunged. Zoro drew before it finished the leap. “Santoryu...”

Steel flashed through the cold. The wolf hit the ground in pieces, red spilling across ice. The other man jerked his head up. Luffy did, too.

For one impossible second, his eyes focused. Then his whole face lit up.

“Zoro!” Luffy rasped, voice wrecked and bright at the same time. “You’re here!”

Luffy sounding happy to see him hit harder than any wolf could have. 

Of course I’m here, he wanted to say. I belong at your side.

His mouth didn’t move. Because he hadn’t been there. He hadn’t been at Luffy’s side in Alabasta. Hadn’t been there after. Hadn’t been there when Luffy found out Ace was being executed. Hadn’t been there when Luffy broke into Impel Down alone and fought Magellan and got poisoned badly enough that his body was shutting down in front of Zoro’s eyes.

Guilt stabbed through him, sharply under the ribs.

“Idiot,” Zoro said instead, rough and useless.

Luffy smiled anyway. Then his knees gave.

Zoro moved, but the other man already had him. Francois and the others rushed in. Wolves charged from the left, and Zoro turned to meet them because that, at least, he could do. Steel in hand. Enemy in front of him. Protect what was behind him. Simple.

He cut down the first wolf, kicked the second away, and drove Sandai Kitetsu through the third’s throat before it could reach Francois. The spear carrier hauled the other man toward the door. Francois got an arm under Luffy, then swore as Luffy’s weight sagged almost completely.

“Move!” Francois shouted.

Zoro backed with them, blades out, cutting anything that came close. Wolf blood steamed faintly on the ice. The cold bit through his new clothes and into his bandages, but he barely felt it now. Luffy’s voice kept ringing through him.

You’re here.

Not why did you leave. Not where were you. Not get away from me.

You’re here.

They dragged Luffy and the other man through the access door. Zoro was last in, blocking the opening until Francois slammed the door shut. A wolf hit it a heartbeat later, hard enough to shake the frame.

The corridor filled with panting. The other man collapsed first, hitting his knees and then the floor. “Straw Hat-chan,” he gasped, reaching weakly.

Luffy hung limp between Francois and one of the others. Zoro stepped toward him.

Iva swept in from the far end of the corridor. For once, there was nothing theatrical in his face. His eyes went sharp as he took in Luffy’s skin, his breathing, the poison damage written all over him. “Bring him.”

“Iva–” Zoro started.

“No time,” Iva interrupted. “If you want him alive, you let me work.”

Zoro’s hands tightened around his swords. Every part of him wanted to follow. To stay beside Luffy. To put himself between Luffy and anything else that could hurt him. That was where he should have been from the start.

But Iva was right. Zoro couldn’t cut poison.

Francois and the others carried Luffy away at a run. Iva followed, cape snapping behind him. The other man tried to push himself up, made it halfway, then passed out fully, cheek hitting the floor. Someone knelt beside him at once. Zoro stood in the corridor, swords still drawn, useless with them.

A door at the end of the passage swung shut. He stared in that direction. His captain was on the other side, dying from poison because he’d come for Ace alone. Because Zoro had left. Because Zoro had decided his own shame mattered more than standing where he belonged.

No. That wasn’t fair. He’d thought he was helping. He’d thought leaving made things better for them. He’d thought–

He’d thought wrong.

The possibility opened under him, wide and cold.

Zoro sheathed his swords with stiff hands and turned away before anyone could look at him too closely. People were moving around him, helping the other man, checking on each other, heading back toward their other jobs. 

Zoro made himself scarce. The corridors blurred a little as he walked. He wasn’t lost so much as not caring where his feet went. Music still pulsed somewhere in Newkama Land, quieter now under the emergency. Voices passed him. Someone laughed too loudly in the main room, then cut off when another person hushed them. Life kept moving around him because this place knew how to survive inside disaster.

Zoro found the weight room. Or the weight room found him. He didn’t care which.

The small room was empty. Iron weights sat stacked against the wall. Benches lined one side. Sandbags hung from hooks, patched and re-patched. A cracked mirror stretched across the far wall, splitting reflections into uneven pieces.

Zoro shut the door behind him. For a few seconds, he just stood there. Then he saw himself in the mirror.

Black shirt. Black trousers. Swords at his hip. His wrists were scraped raw from the cuffs, his knuckles split, and a small bit of frostbite damage still marked his nose and ears. The bite in his calf was still wrapped under his trouser leg, but the rest of the bandages were gone. His face looked too thin. His eyes looked worse. Hollow. Tired. Caught somewhere between anger and something that had been sitting in him for so long he almost didn’t recognize it as hurt anymore. 

Luffy had smiled at him.

Nearly dead, poisoned, barely able to stand, and Luffy had smiled like Zoro being there was good.

Zoro’s chest folded in on itself. He grabbed the nearest weight, lifted it once, then set it down too hard. The clang rang through the room.

Again.

Lift. Lower.

Again.

His arms shook before they should have. His injuries pulled. Chopper’s voice would’ve yelled at him. Iva’s voice pressed in, too, unwanted.

It felt the same. That isn’t always the same thing.

Zoro’s jaw clenched. He lifted again, breathing through his nose, trying to make the motion take over. Trying to turn guilt into muscle, into sweat, into anything with a use. 

Luffy’s voice cut through anyway. Zoro! You’re here!

Zoro set the weight down and gripped the edge of the bench until his fingers hurt.

“I wasn’t,” he said to the empty room. The mirror threw him back at himself in broken pieces. “I wasn’t there.”

The other man – Bon – who’d helped Luffy showed a loyalty that scraped Zoro raw. Zoro didn’t know who he was, didn’t know if he was an ally picked up in the prison or crew that replaced Zoro on the ship. Zoro didn’t ask.

While Bon waited outside Luffy’s door, Zoro kept far away. His own self-loathing stopped him from waiting there like he still belonged.

He stayed in the weight room instead, where the cracked mirror split him into pieces every time he moved. He trained until his muscles burned, then kept going because standing still was worse.

Somewhere deeper in Newkama Land, Luffy screamed. The sound carried through the tunnels in pieces, raw enough to make Zoro’s hand clamp around Wado’s hilt. More than once, he made it as far as the corridor outside Luffy’s room before turning back. Bon was always there, planted outside the door like he’d decided the world would have to go through him first. Zoro understood that too well to hate him for it.

He hated himself instead.

Luffy had people now. People who hadn’t left. People who’d dragged him through poison and wolves and hell because they still knew where they belonged.

Zoro went back to the weight room.

The screaming stopped hours later. Newkama Land held its breath for a while. Then shouting broke out, feet pounding through the corridors, voices rising all at once. Zoro stepped out just as someone ran past with both arms full of food.

“He’s awake!” they shouted. “Straw Hat’s awake, and he’s hungry!”

Zoro’s chest seized so hard he had to brace one hand against the wall. Of course Luffy was hungry. Of course.

By the time Zoro reached the main room, the place had turned into a supply line. Plates, bowls, meat, rice, bread, soup, fruit, whatever the kitchen had – all of it moved toward Luffy. People laughed as they ran. Someone yelled that he was eating them out of house and home. Someone else yelled back that if a boy could survive Magellan’s poison, he could have the damn food.

Zoro stood at the edge of it, useless again.

Then the crowd shifted. Luffy wore his red shirt unbuttoned, straw hat where it belonged. He looked terrible. Better than before, but terrible. Too pale under the bruising, too drawn, his body running on will and food and whatever Iva had done to keep him alive. Bon collapsed almost immediately after seeing him, and Luffy dropped beside him with a panic that made Zoro’s throat tighten.

The room moved around them. Iva explained something. People lifted Bon carefully and carried him away. Luffy bowed his head to him, serious in a way that always looked strange on his face and always meant more than most people understood.

Then Luffy looked up. His gaze found Zoro across the room. “Zoro!”

He said it like before. Like seeing Zoro was good. Like Zoro had only been gone a few minutes and had shown up exactly when he was supposed to.

Zoro’s feet moved before his head caught up.

Luffy met him halfway, still shaky, still running on Iva’s cure, grinning anyway. “You’re really here!”

Zoro stopped in front of him. His hands wanted to fold. His arms wanted to cross. His body wanted to put some kind of barrier between them because Luffy was looking at him too directly.

But Luffy didn’t hesitate. He stepped in and hugged him, like there was nothing to decide. 

Zoro froze. Luffy’s arms locked around him tight, face pressed against Zoro’s chest for one hard second like Zoro being there was something solid he could grab onto. He was too hot from poison and treatment, too alive and too close to dying at the same time.

Zoro’s eyes stung. He didn’t deserve this. He didn’t deserve Luffy holding onto him like he hadn’t left. Like he still belonged there. Like Luffy had been waiting for him to show up.

“Idiot,” Zoro said, voice rough.

Luffy pulled back, still grinning. “You’re here.”

“Yeah,” Zoro said.

Luffy’s grin widened for half a second before his face tightened with urgency. His hand went to the Vivre Card. “Ace is still below. We have to go get him before they move him.”

There it was. The plan. The only plan that mattered.

Zoro nodded. “Then we go.”

Luffy looked at him, eyes sharp beneath the exhaustion. “You’re coming?”

Zoro looked away. He deserved the question. He’d left. He’d made Luffy watch him leave, then told himself Luffy would be better off. He’d given up his place and then wanted it back the second Luffy appeared.

“I should’ve been there,” Zoro said.

Luffy blinked. “You’re here now.”

“That’s not the same.”

“Yeah,” Luffy said. “But you’re here now.”

Zoro’s jaw tightened. It shouldn’t have been that simple. It couldn’t be that simple. There had to be anger somewhere. A demand. A why. Something Zoro could take, something he could stand under because he’d earned it.

Luffy only looked at him like he was being slow.

“I left,” Zoro said, low.

“I know.”

“I left the crew.”

“No, you didn’t.”

Zoro’s head snapped back toward him.

Luffy frowned a little, like he was annoyed he had to explain something obvious while Ace was still waiting. “I said you could go. I didn’t say you could quit.”

Something in Zoro’s chest hurt.

“I’m still your captain,” Luffy said.

Zoro’s throat tightened. “Yeah.”

“So come on.” Luffy turned toward the route Iva’s people were preparing, like that settled it. “We’re getting Ace.”

Zoro stood there for one second too long.

Luffy paused and glanced back. “Zoro?”

The old voices tried to rise again.

You’re disgusting, you’re abnormal, you’re making everyone uncomfortable, you’re worthless, you’ll never be strong enough, you’ll never be good enough, you’re a waste of space.

But Luffy was standing in front of him, poisoned, exhausted, impatient, and completely certain.

Zoro put his hand on Wado. “Coming, Captain.”

Luffy smiled. It was quick, bright, and gone almost immediately because Iva swept in with orders, warnings, and a voice big enough to move the whole room at once. Zoro barely listened to most of it. Ace was below. Luffy was beside him. That was enough to hold onto for now.

Newkama Land erupted into movement around them. People gathered weapons, keys, rope, food, anything that might help. Iva took command like a storm in heels and a crown. The route to Level Six opened behind the walls.

Zoro moved with Luffy toward the passage. He still felt the guilt. It sat under his ribs, heavy and ugly. He still didn’t know what he was allowed to be when this was over. Didn’t know if the crew would look at him the same way, didn’t know if Sanji would, didn’t know if any of the hurt in him had a place to go.

But Luffy had said, You’re here now.

So Zoro stayed at his side.

They moved through the hidden tunnels hard and fast, Iva leading, others behind, Luffy pushing forward like pain was just another locked door. Zoro kept half a step to his right, close enough to catch him if his legs gave out, far enough that he could pretend he wasn’t hovering. The passage spat them out near the stairs to Level Six. 

Eternal Hell was quieter than Zoro expected. Cells stretched into the dark, massive bars and deeper shadows, prisoners who felt more like disasters waiting in cages than men. Zoro’s skin prickled as they moved through. The air was heavy, warmer than Level Five, but dead in a way the freezing level hadn’t been. 

Luffy ran ahead, shouting Ace’s name. No answer came.

They found the cell. Empty. For one second, Luffy stood there like his body had stopped understanding how to move. Then he grabbed the bars. “ACE!”

Zoro’s hand tightened around Wado. Too late. They were too late. All of this – the poison, the screaming, Bon half-dead on the floor, the wolves, the tunnels – and Ace was already gone.

A voice came from another cell. Calm. Deep. “They have taken him to the execution.”

The Fish-man in the cell where Ace should’ve been, told them what happened, offered to help Luffy with the war about to begin. Luffy accepted immediately – of course he did – and they freed Jinbe as their ways out were blocked off by Impel Down’s security systems. 

Another voice, rougher and edged with amusement, followed from nearby. “If you’re going to Marineford, Straw Hat, I can be of help.” 

A man stood behind another set of bars, coat hanging off his shoulders, one gold hook catching the dim light. Zoro didn’t know his face. He knew the name when someone spat it.

Crocodile.

The Warlord who’d held Vivi’s kingdom hostage. The head of Baroque Works. The reason Whisky Peak had gone bloody, the reason Vivi had been running, the reason Alabasta had nearly torn itself apart. He was in prison.

Zoro looked at the man behind the bars, then at Luffy. So they really had done it. They’d beaten him. They’d saved Vivi’s kingdom. Zoro hadn’t doubted it, but it was good to have it confirmed. Until he remembered it was done without any help from him.

Crocodile joined the team, because Luffy made allies wherever he went, even with former enemies. Crocodile gave them a way to escape Level Six through the ceiling, with the help of Inazuma’s Snip-Snip Devil’s Fruit power. 

Zoro remembered pieces more than a straight path. Jinbe’s strength clearing space when the corridors got too tight. Crocodile’s sand cutting through guards, doors, and mechanisms with the same dry contempt he seemed to have for everything else. Iva’s voice driving people forward, loud enough to punch through alarms, panic, and stone. Luffy running at the center of it all, not letting anything get in his way.

More people joined the escape as they climbed. Buggy was there somehow – what the hell was he doing in Impel Down? – along with Mr. 3 from Little Garden, looking terrified and useful in almost equal measure. Alarms screamed. Gates dropped. Poison filled corridors. Guards came in waves. Prisoners poured after them because Luffy had a way of turning impossible things into crowds.

Zoro fought until the prison blurred into bodies, steel, blood, stone, and shouted directions. Up. Down. Left. Wrong way. Back. Move.

Bon was there, laughing and crying and throwing himself into danger with a loyalty that scraped Zoro raw every time he saw it. He kept choosing Luffy. Kept protecting him. Kept putting himself between Luffy and whatever came next. Kept making the choice Zoro should have made.

By the time they reached a ship, Impel Down was roaring behind them.

Zoro didn’t understand half of what had happened. Gates opened and closed. Someone shouted about the Gates of Justice. Marines fired from every side. The sea churned white beneath cannon fire.

Then Bon’s voice came through. He was still inside. He had stayed behind. For Luffy. For all of them.

Zoro went cold in a way Level Five hadn’t managed.

Luffy shouted. Others shouted. The ship kept moving because it had to. Because Bon had made it possible. Because loyalty, real loyalty, sometimes looked like staying where death could reach you so someone else got away.

Zoro stood at the rail with his hand locked around Wado’s hilt and hated himself so sharply he could barely breathe. Bon had done what Zoro hadn’t.

He had stayed.

Marineford swallowed everything after that.

The ship came in through chaos, and war rose around them like a wall. Marines. Pirates. Cannon fire. Ice. Smoke. Blood. Giants. Pacifistas. Shouts from every direction. Whitebeard’s forces crashing against the full strength of the Marines. The execution platform high above it all.

Ace was there. Luffy saw him and ran. Zoro tried to stay with him. He failed almost immediately.

A cannon blast split the ground between them. A wave of Marines surged in. Someone huge swung a weapon that forced Zoro back three full steps. Luffy disappeared into the crush, still driving toward Ace, still shouting his brother’s name.

Zoro cut his way forward because there was nothing else to do. He fought Marines until his arms burned. Cut rifles apart. Took down swordsmen. Drove through ranks that closed again behind him. Every time he caught a glimpse of the platform, Luffy was somewhere else, higher, closer, further away, carried by the chaos like the whole war had become one enormous current.

Then a Marine captain stepped into Zoro’s path. The man’s hand brushed Yubashiri.

For one stupid second, Zoro didn’t understand what had happened. Then the blade rusted. His sword – the light, clean, good blade from Loguetown, the one given to him because a shopkeeper had seen his courage and trusted him with a family heirloom – crumbled in his hand.

Zoro froze.

The Marine moved again.

Zoro barely got back in time, fury blanking his vision. He struck with Wado and Sandai, driving the man back, but Yubashiri was gone. Not broken. Not chipped. Gone to rust and flakes, ruined by a touch before Zoro could protect it.

Another failure. Another thing he should have been strong enough to stop.

He snarled around Wado and cut the next Marine who came at him hard enough to send him flying. Someone dropped a standard-issue sword nearby. Zoro kicked it up into his hand. It was too heavy in the wrong place, dull compared to what he’d lost, nothing like Yubashiri. He used it anyway. 

The battlefield shifted again. Whitebeard’s crew surged forward, commanders moving like storms in human shapes. For a while, Zoro fought near strangers who fought like family, all of them trying to tear open a path to the same platform. He saw fire. Ice. Sand. Blood. Luffy’s red vest between bodies, then gone.

Then he saw Mihawk. The world narrowed. 

Mihawk stood across the battlefield, blade in hand, calm as if war was weather. He fought against them because that was where the Warlords stood. His sword moved, and men fell. No wasted motion. No strain. Not even effort Zoro could read clearly from a distance.

Zoro’s grip tightened around the borrowed sword.

He wasn’t ready.

The realization landed without mercy. He’d known he wasn’t ready to beat Mihawk. That had been true since Baratie. But seeing him here, in the middle of a war Zoro could barely keep up with, made the gap feel worse. Wider. Absolute.

You’ll never be strong enough.

A figure stepped in against Mihawk before Zoro could move. Someone else took the clash that Zoro couldn’t. Steel rang across the battlefield.

Zoro hated the relief that followed. He hated needing someone else to stand in that place. He turned away and cut down the Marine lunging for his side. 

Move. Fight. Find Luffy. Find Ace.

The platform broke open sometime later. Zoro didn’t see how it happened. He was too far, trapped in a knot of Marines and pirates, blood running into his eye from a cut near his temple. He heard the roar first. Then he looked up and saw the platform emptying, chains gone, Ace no longer where he had been.

Luffy and Ace were off the platform. Alive. Free.

For the first time since Impel Down, Zoro’s chest opened enough to let air in. They did it.

He drove forward, trying to reach where he could see Iva in the distance. If he could get to Iva, maybe he could find Luffy. If he could find Luffy, he could put himself back where he should have been all along.

Then the sound came. Luffy’s howl tore across Marineford.

It cut through cannon fire, orders, battle cries, and the crash of bodies. It was raw enough to stop Zoro where he stood.

A pressure followed it.

Zoro felt it roll over the battlefield, huge and invisible, pressing against the air hard enough that his skin prickled. Men closer to the center dropped where they stood, Marines and pirates both folding to the ground like their bodies had simply quit. Zoro was too far out for it to take him. The force reached him thinned by distance and bodies and the whole damned war between them, but it still drove a hard line down his spine. His knees flexed before he locked them.

For one second, he couldn’t move. He didn’t know what it was. Didn’t have a name for it. He only knew it came from Luffy, from that scream, from something in his captain cracking open so violently the battlefield felt it.

His heart seized.

No.

No.

He turned toward the sound. A wall of bodies slammed between him and the direction of Luffy’s voice. Marines charged. Pirates scattered. Someone shouted that Fire Fist was down. Someone else screamed that Akainu had done it. He shoved forward, cutting, stumbling, slipping in blood and broken stone.

“Luffy!” he shouted.

The battlefield swallowed his voice.

He tried again. Couldn’t reach him.

The war fractured after that. Whitebeard’s rage. Blackbeard’s arrival. The ground cracking. Orders to retreat. People pulling the wounded back. Zoro kept trying to fight his way toward Luffy and kept getting swept sideways by the crush. His borrowed sword snapped against a Marine’s axe, leaving him with Wado and Sandai again, Yubashiri gone, Luffy gone, Ace gone.

Failure stacked itself up inside him until he could barely see through it. 

He found the Newkama by accident, or they found him. Francois grabbed him by the back of his shirt before a cannon blast took the ground out from under him.

“This way!” Francois shouted.

“I need Luffy!”

“You need to live long enough to see him!”

Zoro fought him for half a second, then saw Iva’s people moving toward one of marine’s warships. They were dragging wounded, hauling each other up, jumping for the rail as the ship pulled near enough to board.

Zoro climbed because he couldn’t do anything else. He landed hard on the deck, bloody, down a sword, shaking with exhaustion and fury. Newkama spilled around him. Pirates. Prisoners. Injured men and women and people who had no business surviving the day, all of them breathing because someone had pulled them out of the war.

Zoro went straight to the rail. Marineford burned behind them.

“Iva,” he rasped when the queen finally appeared on deck. “Luffy.”

Iva’s face held no performance now. “Straw Hat-boy escaped,” Iva said.

Zoro’s hand closed around the rail. Air came back into his lungs.

Then Iva said, “Fire Fist did not.”

Zoro couldn’t move. For a second, he was back on Ace’s skiff, wet with seawater, watching the horizon open. Back in Banaro, Ace down at Blackbeard’s feet. Back in Level Six, too late. Back on Marineford, hearing Luffy scream and failing to reach him.

Ace was dead. Luffy’s brother was dead.

Zoro had left the crew to stop being a burden, and he’d still failed at the one thing that might have made leaving mean anything. He hadn’t saved Luffy’s brother. 

His hand slid from the rail. He sat down hard on the deck. 

The warship carried them away from Marineford, away from smoke and blood and the place where everything had broken. Zoro barely tracked the route. There was only open sea, the stolen Marine ship, the wounded scattered across the deck, and the submarine floating nearby like something pulled out of another world.

Luffy was inside that submarine. The surgeon who’d taken him off the battlefield had preserved his life for now. That was the phrase Zoro heard and hated immediately. For now. Critical condition. Still alive. Not safe. Not awake. Not okay.

Zoro stood on the deck with one hand locked around Wado’s hilt, bloody, exhausted, down a sword, and unable to do anything useful.

Hancock was there, too, having found them somehow. Marines on her ship stood turned to stone behind her, proof that she’d handled her own problems before asking about Luffy. She spoke to the surgeon, voice sharp with fear she tried to dress up as command. The surgeon answered flatly. Luffy was alive. Barely.

Jinbe emerged from the submarine not long after, wounded and grim. He thanked the surgeon for saving his life, then refused to rest when Iva told him to. His concern wasn’t for his wounds. It was for Luffy waking up to a world where Ace was gone.

Zoro’s stomach turned. He looked toward the submarine hatch. Luffy was in there. His captain was in there, unconscious, broken open by grief Zoro hadn’t reached in time to stop. Zoro’s feet shifted before he thought about it.

Iva’s hand came down on his shoulder. “No.”

Zoro’s jaw tightened. “He needs me.”

“He needs the doctor,” Iva said. “And he needs somewhere safe.”

“I can be there.”

“You can stand there and punish yourself where he can’t even see you,” Iva said, not cruelly. “That is not the same thing.” 

Zoro’s temper snapped hot through the numbness. “Don’t.”

Iva held his gaze. Around them, the Newkama were cheering through their exhaustion, crying and laughing because the war was over, because Impel Down was behind them, because Kamabakka Kingdom was suddenly more than a dream. Their freedom cracked open on the deck while Zoro stood there feeling like every step he’d taken had led to another failure.

Hancock demanded a Den Den Mushi, already arranging passage through the Calm Belt. Amazon Lily, someone said. An island where Marines wouldn’t find Luffy easily. A place where he could recover.

A place where Zoro couldn’t follow.

He knew it before anyone said it. The Kuja didn’t allow men. Hancock might make an exception for the surgeon because Luffy needed him. Maybe Jinbe, because he was wounded and had helped Luffy. But Zoro was just another man on the deck with blood drying on his clothes and no right to demand anything.

“He’s my captain,” Zoro said, quieter.

“Yes,” Iva said. “And right now, the best thing you can do for him is stop pretending standing outside a sickroom will fix what’s breaking inside you.”

The point hit wrong. Everything hit wrong. 

Zoro looked toward the submarine again. “I should be there.”

“Yes,” Iva said. “You should have been many places.”

Zoro flinched before he could stop himself.

Iva saw it and kept going anyway. “But right now, Straw Hat-boy is alive. He is with a doctor. He’ll be taken somewhere the Marines cannot easily reach. You tearing yourself apart beside him won’t heal him faster.”

“I’m fine.”

“No, Roro-boy. You’re not.” Iva’s voice softened without losing force. “You’re loyal. You’re strong. You’re punishing yourself and calling it what you deserve, Roro-boy. It’s eating you alive.” 

Zoro’s hand tightened on Wado.

The Newkama cheered again nearby, someone shouting about home, about Kamabakka, about being free. Zoro didn’t look at them. He kept his eyes on the submarine hatch, as if staring hard enough could make Luffy wake up, could make Ace alive, could put Zoro back where he should have been before everything went wrong.

Iva’s hand squeezed his shoulder once. “Come with us.”

Zoro’s eyes cut to him.

“To Momoiro Island,” Iva said. “Kamabakka Kingdom. A place with color, noise, too much food, too many opinions, and people who have survived being told they were wrong for existing.” His mouth curved. “It’ll be excellent for you.”

Zoro looked toward the submarine again. Luffy was alive. Ace was dead. Yubashiri was gone. The crew was somewhere beyond his reach.

And Zoro stood on a stolen Marine ship in the middle of the sea, with guilt and shame sitting under his ribs like it had always belonged there.

He didn’t know how to go back. He didn’t know how to stay.

Iva waited.

Zoro closed his eyes for one breath, then opened them. “Fine.”

Iva’s smile widened. “Good.”

“I’m not wearing a dress.”

“Mmmfufufu. We’ll start with breakfast, then.”

Zoro looked away. For the first time in days, the ugly voices in his head didn’t disappear, but they had to compete with something else.

Luffy saying, You’re here.

Iva saying, You’re not fine.

And somewhere under both of them, quiet and not yet believed, the thought that maybe getting stronger meant more than lifting a sword. 

Momoiro Island was pink from shore to hilltop: pink sand, pink grass, pink flowers, pink-leaved trees, and pink animals moving through the brush, perched on rooftops, or grazing in fields beyond the roads. 

Kamabakka Kingdom filled the island with color, noise, and movement. Houses had painted shutters, lace curtains, wide porches, and flower boxes crowded under the windows. Okama and Newkama moved through the streets in gowns, trousers, heels, boots, makeup, work aprons, jewelry, or whatever they felt like wearing that day, calling greetings across the road and arguing from windows.

The whole place smelled like flowers, sea salt, soap, hot oil, and food. Kitchens stayed busy at nearly every hour, with cooks chopping, frying, shouting, tasting, and correcting each other over enormous pots and long counters. Attack Cuisine was treated like training and art at once, and the cooks handled knives, pans, spices, and recipes with the same seriousness Zoro gave swords.

Iva started asking what had happened while he’d been gone before they’d even cleared the beach. People answered as they walked, giving him pieces of island business: kitchen repairs, training disputes, delayed fabric from Lulusia, new arrivals needing rooms, and an unidentified man still unconscious in the hospital ward after appearing on the south beach without a ship. Iva sorted through it all without slowing down, handing out orders for food, beds, guards, doctors, and whatever else needed doing. 

Someone named Tibany ushered Zoro off to show him to a small cabin where he’d be staying after a few words from Iva. “We’ll talk later, Roro-boy,” Iva said, before being swept away with island business. 

Tibany led Zoro up from the beach, along a packed-earth path bordered by pink grass and flowering shrubs. The cabin waited near a line of trees, small, pink, and set up for one occupant. Inside, there was a narrow bed, a small table, two chairs, and a simple cooking corner with a stove, kettle, pan, and stacked dishes. An equally pink bathroom was tucked behind a pocket door.

Zoro stood in the middle of it, one hand still resting near his swords.

“It’s tradition, normally, that you’d be put in a dress,” Tibany told him. “But Queen Iva said that wasn’t why you were here.”

The curiosity was obvious in the Okama’s voice. Zoro didn’t answer it.

Tibany looked him over, then seemed to get the hint. “If you need anything, just ask anyone and they’ll point you in the right direction.”

Zoro nodded. Tibany waited a moment longer, maybe expecting words, then gave up and left.

The cabin fell quiet. Outside the window, pink leaves rustled in the trees, and voices drifted in from somewhere down the path. Zoro stood in the middle of the cabin for a long time, unmoving, Marineford playing over and over again in his head. Was there anything he could’ve done to stop it? Had he actually tried his hardest? Would Luffy look at him as a failure the next time they met?

If they met. There was no guarantee.

The thought gutted him.

Zoro’s jaw clenched. He moved to the table and set his swords on its surface. Wado. Sandai Kitetsu. The remains of Yubashiri in its sheath. He rested his hand on the dead sword, and guilt swamped him all over again.

You’re not good enough.

Zoro wanted to scream. To rage. To destroy everything in the quaint pink cabin. The alternative was crying, and if he started, he might not stop.

He’d promised Luffy he would never lose again. But he had. Again and again. He’d lost to Blackbeard, and Ace had been captured. He’d failed to rescue Ace from Impel Down. Failed to reach Luffy at Marineford. Failed to stop Ace from dying. Failed to keep Yubashiri intact. Failed to stay where he belonged.

Failed himself, too, somewhere underneath all of it.

Zoro smacked his hand against the chair, knocking it to the floor. Then he pressed the heels of his hands against his stinging eyes. A raw sound tore out of him and filled the cabin.

Zoro tried to stop it. He clamped his teeth, grabbed the fallen chair, righted it too hard, then just stood there with his hands on the back of it. His breathing wouldn’t settle. He hated that he was crying, even if it was mostly silent. He hated the cabin, the pink walls, the quiet, the fact that the only enemy in it was him.

Outside, voices moved past in bursts of laughter. Someone called to someone else in a voice high with delight. Another voice answered, deep and fond. Footsteps passed. The whole island kept going as if men didn’t die, as if little brothers didn’t scream until the sound cut through an entire war, as if swords didn’t break and crews didn’t get left behind.

He wiped his face with the heel of his hand, rough enough to hurt, then stood there until his breathing evened out by force. It didn’t make him feel better. It only made him quieter.

Yubashiri lay on the table beside Wado and Sandai Kitetsu, useless in its sheath. Zoro stared at it.

“Sorry,” he said, a whisper that meant nothing. The sword stayed dead. Ace stayed dead. Luffy stayed somewhere Zoro couldn’t reach.

His legs started shaking. That pissed him off enough that he sat down before they could give out on him. Life kept moving on this stupid pink island, loud and warm and full of people who didn’t know how much had just broken.

Zoro pressed both hands against his knees. He needed to train. He needed to get stronger. He needed to stop sitting there like a useless bastard.

His body didn’t move. The ugly loop started again, quieter this time, meaner for it.

You’re disgusting, you’re abnormal, you’re making everyone uncomfortable, you’re worthless, you’ll never be strong enough, you’ll never be good enough, you’re a waste of space.

Zoro closed his eyes. “Shut up,” he whispered.

It didn’t.

The remainder of the day dragged into night and into day again. Zoro slept little, but moved even less. Once he lay on the bed, he just didn’t want to get up anymore. What was the point?

You’re a waste of space.

He stared up at the ceiling boards. The cabin was quiet except for the faint creak of wood and the occasional tick from the little refrigerator in the cooking corner. His body felt sluggish. Heavy in the wrong way – not tired, but like moving would take too much effort. His head felt heavy, too, stuffed with cotton and rocks.

He knew he should get up. Train. Eat. Take a piss. Do something other than lie there. But a part of him asked, Why bother? So he could fail some more? Kuina was probably so ashamed of him, she’d turned her back on him in the heavens.

The knock on the door was sharp.

Zoro ignored it.

A second later, the door opened anyway.

Iva stood there, filling the entire doorframe, all purple hair and enormous eyelashes. He strode into the cabin like he owned it. Which, Zoro supposed, he did, considering he was Queen of Kamabakka Kingdom.

Zoro made himself sit up on the edge of the bed. It took effort. His expression settled into a scowl. “I didn’t answer for a reason.”

“Oh, Roro-boy, I know.” Iva put his hands on his red-clad hips. He was less diva, more business today, in plain black stockings instead of fishnets and a closed red leotard with a white collar and black tie. “But I’m not about to let grief eat you up.”

“I’m not grieving.” Zoro’s voice came out clipped. Ace wasn’t his brother. He hadn’t known him that long. “I barely knew him.”

“You crossed a prison and a war for him.”

“For Luffy.”

“For Luffy’s brother,” Iva corrected.

Zoro looked at the table. Wado’s hilt sat angled toward him. Sandai Kitetsu rested beside it. Yubashiri’s dead weight waited in its sheath. He should clean the blades. Check the edges. Strip and rewrap what needed it. Do something useful. “I failed.”

“You survived a place built to make survival impossible.”

“Ace didn’t.”

“No.”

Iva said it bluntly. Zoro breathed through his nose.

Iva leaned back against the counter, arms folded. “Ace died at Marineford. That is true. Luffy is alive. That is also true. You helped make that second truth possible.”

Zoro shook his head once.

“Roro-boy.”

“I wasn’t there when it mattered.”

“You were there when you could be.”

“That’s not enough.”

“No,” Iva said. “Sometimes it isn’t.”

Zoro looked up sharply. Iva’s face held no pity, which was good. Pity made him want to bite.

“Grief has a way of clouding judgment,” Iva went on. “So does self-loathing.”

Zoro’s jaw clenched as his chest went tight. “I’m fine.”

“Mmmfufufu!” Iva cackled. “Roro-boy, you’re about as fine as a diva without her wig.”

Zoro looked away, hands gripping his knees.

“You’ve already told me some. That’s why I invited you here.” Iva stepped closer, not enough to crowd him, but enough that Zoro couldn’t pretend he wasn’t there. “Pain is a liar with excellent timing. It uses familiar voices. It takes a clumsy question and turns it into disgust. It takes surprise and turns it into rejection. It takes love from a rubber boy and makes it sound like indifference.”

Zoro’s fingers curled into his knees. For a second, he was fourteen again, sitting with his back against a cold wall while boys on the other side of the bathhouse laughed too loud. He could smell wet wood and soap and old sweat. He could hear someone say don’t change near him, and someone else say that’s sick, and the door sliding shut because they’d all left together and he hadn’t moved.

“I didn’t make it up,” he said.

Iva’s face softened, but his voice stayed steady. “No. You didn’t.”

Zoro’s chest ached. He looked down, furious at himself for feeling it, at his eyes for stinging, at Iva for standing there and being right where Zoro could hear him.

“You were hurt,” Iva said. “Badly. Then you saw a kind of freedom you wanted, and in the next breath, someone made it sound ugly. That would tear open anyone with a pulse.”

Zoro shook his head. “I should’ve handled it.”

“With what tools? Silence? Training? Bleeding quietly and pretending you’re fine?” Iva snorted. “You’re very good at those. But that’s not healing.”

“I don’t need healing.”

“You do, and not the kind that requires bandages.” Iva moved to the small table, glanced at the swords, and left them untouched. "This is an island where people come to accept who they are inside and learn how to live with that – hopefully without fear." 

Zoro said nothing.

“You won’t be able to move forward until you’ve conquered your own self-loathing over who you are,” Iva said bluntly. “Whether or not you return to your crew, you deserve to feel at peace with yourself.”

“You say that like it’s easy,” Zoro said.

Iva laughed again. “Mmmfufufu! Oh, Roro-boy, it’ll probably be the hardest thing you’ve ever done. But you’re in the right place.” He turned toward the door. “We’ll begin your training after we eat.”

Zoro glanced at him with a frown. “Training?”

Iva grinned over his shoulder. “You’ll see.”

Training started with an ordered bath. The hot water took the worst of Impel Down and Marineford off his skin in layers. Blood, salt, smoke, sweat, old bandages, the sour stink of prison, all of it loosened under soap and heat until the water turned cloudy around him. He scrubbed until his skin stung. He washed his hair twice. 

Afterward, he bandaged the few wounds he’d gotten at Marineford, then dressed in the simple, clean clothes provided. Then, he sat at the little table and cleaned his swords with a kit that had been left for him.

Wado came first. Then Sandai Kitetsu. His hands knew this part. Cloth. Oil. Edge. Guard. Hilt. Check for nicks. Check for damage. Breathe. Move slowly. Pay attention. No wasted motion.

Yubashiri came last.

Zoro set the broken sword across the cloth and stared at it for a long time. The blade had served him well. Fast, light, clean in his hand. A good sword, given freely by a man who’d decided Zoro was worth trusting with it. It had crossed the Grand Line with him. Fought Marines, pirates, Baroque Works agents, and worse. It had cut through things that should’ve killed him. It had stayed with him until the end.

And then Shu’s rust had eaten it.

Zoro’s jaw tightened. He wanted to think he’d failed it. He’d been too weak, too slow, too far from ready, and Yubashiri had paid for it. But that wasn’t the whole truth. Yubashiri had given everything it had. Right to the last swing. Calling that failure felt wrong.

So when Iva sent word that Momoiro had a small graveyard, Zoro didn’t argue. 

He expected to go alone. He preferred it that way. A swordsman burying his own blade was his own business.

But when he stepped outside with Yubashiri wrapped in cloth, Francois was waiting near the path. So were the security man with the cowboy hat and several of the Newkama who’d escaped Impel Down with them. None of them spoke at first. None of them smiled. Even on an island where every flower looked like it had been painted too bright, they stood with their heads bowed and their hands folded or clasped at their sides. 

Zoro stopped on the porch. “What are you doing?”

Francois lifted his chin. His face was solemn, his makeup careful despite the early hour. “Coming with you.”

“You don’t have to.”

“We know.”

Zoro looked at the others. No one moved. His grip tightened around the wrapped sword. Part of him wanted to tell them to leave. Another part of him had no idea what to do with people showing up for a sword they hadn’t carried.

The graveyard sat on a low rise beyond the cabins, near a stand of pink-barked trees. The grass was soft and short beneath his boots. Small markers stood in uneven rows, some carved from pale stone, some made from wood, some painted in bright colors, some plain. Ribbons fluttered from a few of them. Fresh flowers sat in jars. Shells lined one grave in a careful circle. Another had a cooking spoon tied to the marker with a strip of blue cloth.

Zoro found a place near the edge, where the hill faced the sea. The ground was firm. He unwrapped Yubashiri, folded the cloth, and set it aside. Then he drove what remained of the sword into the earth with both hands.

Wind moved over the rise, warm and carrying the salt off the water. Somewhere farther down the hill, someone was laughing in the village, but the sound was distant enough that it didn’t break the stillness. Zoro kept his hands on Yubashiri’s hilt.

Francois stepped forward first. He bowed to the sword. “Thank you,” he said, voice quiet. “For helping us.”

Zoro’s throat tightened hard. His first instinct was to reject it. Yubashiri hadn’t saved everyone. Zoro hadn’t saved Ace. Bon was still in Impel Down, probably dead, because the rest of them had escaped. Marineford was behind them with too many dead and too many failures to count.

But denying Francois felt like denying the sword. Yubashiri had helped. It had fought. It had done everything a sword could do. So Zoro said nothing.

One by one, the others bowed, too. Some murmured thanks. Some only touched two fingers to their own chest and lowered their heads. One wiped an eye and pretended they hadn't. The man in the cowboy hat removed his hat and held it against his chest.

After the others had stepped back, the cowboy-hat man looked at Zoro. “Did it have a name?”

Zoro looked at the sword planted in the ground. “Yubashiri.”

“A good name.”

“It was a good sword.”

“Who gave it to you?”

“A man in Loguetown. Ipponmatsu.” Zoro swallowed. “He gave it to me after I tested Sandai Kitetsu. Said he’d been waiting for someone worthy to pass it on to.”

The man nodded, as if that mattered. “And you carried it.”

“Yeah.”

“You mourn it.”

Zoro looked at him, then at the others gathered in the small graveyard. “It’s a sword.”

“It was yours.”

The words settled in the space between them. Zoro looked back at Yubashiri. In Loguetown, he’d held his arm out and thrown Sandai Kitetsu into the air, letting the cursed blade decide whether it would take him or accept him. He could still remember the slice of air, the turn of steel, the way his own pulse had gone quiet.

You’ll never be good enough.

The thought came sharp and familiar.

But Sandai Kitetsu had passed him by that day. It had chosen his will over its curse. It still fought with him now, blade to hand, hand to body, body to breath.

Yubashiri had chosen him differently. No curse. No test of luck. Just a shopkeeper looking at him and deciding he was worthy of a treasure.

Zoro bowed his head. His hand stayed on the hilt for one more breath. Then he stepped back.

The service, if that was what it was, ended with that. People touched his shoulder as they passed, light and brief, then left him alone with the grave until he was ready to follow.

He expected Iva to be waiting with some lecture about grief or healing or whatever. Instead, Francois stood farther down the path and waved him over. He took Zoro to a cleared stretch of ground near the cabins, where boulders had been piled beside an unfinished walkway. The path wound between the little houses in uneven patches, some sections already packed with pink gravel, others still bare dirt. 

Francois pointed at the stones. “We need more gravel for the paths. Iva said you could smash these up however you want.”

Zoro stared at the pile. He supposed he needed to earn his keep, and it’d be decent training. Maybe that’s why he’d been assigned it. “Okay.”

Francois patted him on the shoulder, then left.

For a while, Zoro only stood in front of the pile with Wado and Sandai Kitetsu at his side and Yubashiri’s empty place heavy in his awareness. The wind moved over the grass. His clean clothes pulled slightly at his shoulders. 

He drew Wado first. Then Sandai Kitetsu. He hadn’t cut stone in a while.

The first strike split the nearest boulder cleanly in two. The shock traveled up his arms, into his shoulders, and down through his stance. He adjusted his feet. Drew breath. Cut again.

He worked larger pieces into smaller ones. Smaller ones into chunks. Chunks into rough gravel. He didn’t rush. Each cut had to be controlled or the stone splintered wrong. The blades had to meet the rock at the right angle, with enough force to divide it, but not so much that he wasted movement or jarred his own wrists.

By the time the sun shifted higher, sweat ran down his neck and soaked into the collar of his shirt. Dust stuck to his forearms. Chips of stone scattered around his boots. His breathing came hard, but clear. His body hurt in ways he understood.

A tall Okama stopped at the edge of the clearing. Zoro noticed them and kept cutting.

They wore a fitted pencil skirt, impossible heels, and a blouse the same violent pink as half the flowers on the island. Dark stubble lined their jaw. Their hair was pinned up with two lacquered sticks, and they carried themself with the easy balance of someone who could run in those heels if they felt like it.

They watched him split another stone. “Iva’s got you making gravel,” they said.

Zoro lowered his sword. “Yeah.”

“And you’re using your swords to do it.”

“It’s practice.”

“Is it fun?”

Zoro frowned. He hadn’t thought about it that way. The boulders were there. The paths needed gravel. His swords were in his hands. Every cut made the work cleaner, smaller, easier to measure. Big rock to small rock. Bad angle corrected on the next strike. Force adjusted until the blade passed through without wasting motion. It was simple. Useful. His body understood it.

“Yeah,” he said, a little surprised by the answer. “It is.”

“Interesting.” The Okama only tipped their head, studying the blades. “Do you always treat your swords like that?”

Zoro’s eyes narrowed. “Like what?”

“Like they’re tools.”

His grip tightened.

Then the Okama gestured lightly toward the neat rows of cut stone. “Calm down, swordsman. I didn’t say only tools.”

Zoro held their gaze for another second before looking down at Wado. Dust clung near the guard. He’d clean it later. Properly. “They’re swords. They’re meant to cut.”

“And they’re a part of you?”

“Yeah.”

“That why you clean them every time?”

Zoro frowned.

The Okama nodded toward the blades. “They’re in good shape. No rust. No neglect. You oil them, sharpen them, check them. You pay attention.”

“Of course I do.”

“Why?” 

Zoro’s frown deepened. “Because a swordsman is nothing without his blades.”

“So you give them the reverence they deserve,” the Okama said. 

Zoro looked at Wado, then at Sandai Kitetsu. “Yeah. I do.”

The Okama smiled slightly. “Do you give yourself the same?”

Zoro went still. The clearing seemed to get too quiet. He heard the wind through the pink trees. The distant clink of dishes from the village. His own breathing, still uneven from work. “What?”

“You said they’re part of you.” The Okama adjusted one bracelet on their wrist. “You clean them. Sharpen the steel. Protect the edge. Give a fallen blade a grave. You understand care when it belongs to a sword.”

Zoro didn’t answer.

The Okama’s voice stayed casual, almost kind, which made it worse. “So I’m asking whether the swordsman gets any of that reverence, too.”

Zoro stared at them. He didn’t know what to say because the question made no sense and too much sense at the same time. His body was for training. For fighting. For taking hits. For standing back up. He ate because weakness was stupid. Slept when he had to. Wrapped wounds because bleeding out helped no one. That wasn’t reverence. That was maintenance.

Wasn’t it?

The Okama stepped back. “Think about it,” they said, and started down the path.

Zoro watched them go for three strides before calling after them. “Who are you?”

They turned, walking backward with perfect balance in those ridiculous heels. “Claudette.” Then they smiled wider. “Or Claude, on other days. I’m your therapist.”

Zoro stared. “I didn’t agree to that.”

“You agreed to training.”

“That’s different.”

“Sometimes,” Claudette said. “See you around, swordsman.”

They turned again and continued toward the village.

Zoro stood in the clearing with dust on his boots, two swords in his hands, and Yubashiri buried on the hill behind him.

After a long moment, he looked down at Wado. Then at Sandai Kitetsu. The blades needed cleaning after this. His arms did, too. His hands. The cuts under the bandages. The bruises he’d been ignoring. The exhaustion in his legs.

So I’m asking whether the swordsman gets any of that reverence, too.

He lifted Sandai Kitetsu and cut another boulder clean in half. 

Zoro kept cutting until the pile of boulders had turned into several uneven mounds of gravel. Pink dust coated his boots and the bottom of his trousers. More clung to his forearms, stuck in sweat, and gathered at the edge of his shirt collar. Wado and Sandai Kitetsu needed cleaning again. So did he.

He was lining up another cut when Tibany appeared at the edge of the cleared ground.

“Time for lunch,” Tibany said.

Zoro lowered his swords. “I’m busy.”

Tibany glanced at the pile, then back at him. “Queen Iva said to bring you now.”

Zoro’s jaw tightened. He looked at the boulders, then at the path, then at the swords in his hands. He could keep going. There was enough stone left to work for hours. The motion was simple. Repetitive. Easier than thinking.

Tibany only waited.

Zoro sheathed his swords. “Fine.”

Tibany led him down the path toward the busier part of the village. Food stalls lined one side of a small square, bright awnings stretched overhead to block the sun. Steam rose from griddles and pots. The air smelled of frying oil, rice, grilled fish, sweet dough, spices, and something sharp enough to make Zoro’s nose prickle. People stood in loose lines or sat at scattered little tables, eating between errands, work, and conversation.

Iva waited at one of the tables near a stall with enormous pans set over open flames. A plate of food sat across from him. “Sit,” Iva said, pointing. 

Zoro sat. The plate held rice, grilled meat, vegetables, eggs, and something fried on the side. There was tea, too, and a bowl of udon soup with steam curling off the surface.

“I’m not that hungry,” Zoro said.

Iva looked at him over folded hands. “Eat.”

Zoro picked up the chopsticks. The first bite made his stomach twist, then settle, then demand more. He ate because Iva was watching. Then he ate because his body wanted it. 

Iva let him get through half the plate before speaking. “Your training has rules.”

Zoro swallowed. “I thought cutting rocks was the training.”

“That was a job.”

“I used my swords.”

“I heard.”

“So it was training.”

“No.” Iva tapped one painted nail against the table. “It was a job you did with swords.”

Zoro’s mouth flattened.

“Here are your training rules,” Iva said. “You will eat three times a day.” He began ticking off his fingers. “You will sleep in your cabin at night. You will bathe every day. You will put on clean clothes every day. You will tend your wounds. You will do the jobs assigned to you. You will meet with Claudette when told.”

Zoro stopped eating. “That’s not training.”

“It is here.”

“No weights?”

“No.”

“No drills?”

“Not yet.”

Zoro stared at him.

Iva’s expression stayed firm. “You already know how to train your physical strength. That’s not what I’m teaching you.”

Zoro’s fingers tightened around the chopsticks.

Iva pointed toward the plate. “This is training because strength needs fuel, and you look like you’ve been running on willpower and little else. Bathing is training because you’re going to learn between indifference and neglecting yourself. Sleep is training because exhaustion makes every ugly thought sound smarter. Work is training because the island needs things done, and you need to remember your body can be useful without it being attached to fighting.”

Zoro looked away. The square moved around them. Oil hissed on a griddle. Someone laughed near the next stall. A cook called for more chopped onions. A pair of Okama walked past carrying paper bowls, one in a dress, one in trousers, both talking about a recipe with serious concentration.

Iva’s voice lowered. “You take better care of those swords than you take of yourself.”

Zoro’s gaze dropped to Wado and Sandai Kitetsu at his side.

“You clean them. Check them. Protect the edge. You even buried the one you lost properly.” Iva pointed one painted nail at him, sounding like Claudette. Or maybe Claudette sounded like Iva. “Now you will learn to give the swordsman some of that care, too.”

Zoro didn’t answer. He didn’t know how.

Iva leaned back. “Finish eating. Then you can finish crushing the rock. After that, clean your swords, then yourself. Then rest. Tomorrow, you’ll have another job.”

“What job?”

“The kind that needs doing.”

Zoro looked at the unfinished plate. This was stupid. Eating wasn’t training. Bathing wasn’t training. Sleeping wasn’t training. None of it fixed anything. None of it got him closer to Luffy, or made up for leaving the crew, or brought Ace and Yubashiri back. 

But Iva had given him an order, and he’d agreed to this.

So Zoro ate. He finished the plate, then the soup, then the tea. Bussed his table. Then he went to finish the gravel.

It took him longer than it should have to find the rocks again. The square fed into three paths, all of them pink, all of them bordered by the same flowering shrubs and too-bright grass. He ended up behind a laundry line first, then near a row of animal pens, then back at the edge of the square where one of the cooks pointed silently down the correct path with a knife still in hand.

Zoro nodded once and kept walking.

By the time he found the unfinished walkway, his irritation had sharpened enough that cutting stone felt like a relief. He drew Wado and Sandai Kitetsu, set his stance, and went back to work.

He worked until the remaining boulders had been reduced to rough gravel. It wasn’t hard enough to count as real training. By the end, his breathing was steady and the work was done. 

The path back to the cabin should’ve been easy. It wasn’t. Everything looked the same: pink grass, pink flowers, pink shutters, pink roofs. He took four wrong turns before he found the right door. 

He cleaned the pink grit from his swords first. Wiped down the hilts, checked the edges, worked cloth and oil over steel until every trace of dust was gone. Then he set Wado and Sandai Kitetsu on the table with care.

You take better care of those swords than you take of yourself.

Zoro scowled at nothing. Then he looked down at his hands. Dust sat along his knuckles and under his nails. Sweat had dried at the inside of his elbows and collar. His shirt stuck slightly to his back, and pink grit clung to the cuffs of his trousers.

He pushed away from the small table and went into the bathroom. He washed the dust and sweat off properly, replaced the few bandages that still needed it, and lay down before he could think too much about why. 

Zoro had woken after a few broken stretches of sleep, which was better than none. His body wanted more. His head didn’t. He lay on his back for a while, staring at the ceiling boards and listening to the cabin settle around him, until the thought of staying there became worse than getting up. 

He ate because Iva had ordered it. The small kitchen had been stocked with provisions. He made eggs over rice because that was one of the few things he knew how to cook. Ate it standing up. It was bland and tasteless. 

Eventually, Tibany appeared at the door with a job. 

The docks sat below the main village, where the pink sand gave way to planks, ropes, storage sheds, and boats pulled half onto shore. The water was bright under the morning sun. Pink gulls strutted along the railings like they owned the place, pecking at dropped rice and screaming at anyone who came too close. 

Tibany pointed to a stack of crates near a shed. “These need to go to the various kitchens. Flour, rice, dried fruit, oil, and spices. Each one gets a stack.”

Zoro nodded and picked up a third of them in one go, but then he couldn’t see over the top.

Memory caught before he could stop it. Sanji’s hand at his elbow. Sanji’s irritated voice telling him left, no, your other left, you idiot. Sanji walking beside him like Zoro getting lost was annoying but expected, like correcting his path was just part of the day.

He grit his teeth, set down all but two of the crates, and started walking.

The path from the docks to the kitchens wound up through town, past pink-leaved trees, small houses, food stalls not yet open for the day, and people sweeping front steps or hanging laundry. The first trip took longer than it should have because he picked the wrong road and ended up beside a pen of pink, long-eared animals that stared at him while chewing.

The second trip went better. 

The third, he got turned around again.

By the fifth, a woman in a yellow dress pointed silently to the right before he could ask. Zoro nodded once and kept walking.

He moved crates all morning. The work had nothing to do with swords, weights, or fighting. It barely counted as hard labor. Just work. Kitchens needed food and someone had to get it there. Today, it was his job.

Midday, Francois found him carrying a crate of oil jars. “You’re going the wrong way,” he said.

Zoro stopped.

Francois pointed behind him. “Village is that way.”

“I know.”

“Of course.”

Zoro turned around.

Francois fell into step beside him, arms loose at his sides, flower in his hair bright against the sun. “Lunch after you drop those off.”

Zoro grunted. “Don’t need a babysitter.”

“Were you planning on taking a break to eat?”

Zoro didn’t answer. 

“Everything I’ve seen from you shows you’re a dedicated man,” Francois said. “Surprised you’re not dedicated to Iva’s training.”

Zoro’s jaw shifted. That was a dirty way to put it. “So you drew the short straw.” 

Francois waved that off before Zoro finished scowling. “No one drew anything. Iva wants me to help you out,” he said. “Give you reminders. Check on you. Thought you’d be okay with a familiar face.” He shrugged his wide shoulders. “I would’ve done it even without the directive.” 

Zoro exhaled with irritation, but let Francois join him. 

Lunch was rice packed around fish and vegetables, still warm, wrapped neatly enough that he could eat with one hand. It was good. Simple, but good. He ate quickly. Francois ate with him but didn’t talk, which Zoro was glad for. When Zoro finished, he went back to the docks. 

By afternoon, the storage shed was empty. His shirt stuck to his back. His hands were dirty from the crates, dust worked into the creases of his palms and under his nails. He hadn’t trained. Hadn’t done anything to better himself, as far as he was concerned. But the crates were moved, the kitchens were stocked, and the job was done. 

He stood at the end of the dock for a minute, looking at the water. The dock shifted faintly beneath his boots with each slap of the waves against the pilings. A coil of rope sat near his foot, stiff with salt. Farther down, a small boat knocked against its tie line, wood bumping wood in a dull, steady rhythm. Gulls screamed overhead and wheeled toward the fish-cleaning tables near the beach. 

You’re wasting time.

The thought came quietly. Zoro’s fingers curled.

You’re not training. You’re not getting stronger. You’re hiding on a pink island while Luffy suffers somewhere you can’t reach. You left. You failed. You’re worthless.

His gaze went distant. The dock blurred at the edges. The water stayed bright. The gulls kept screaming. Zoro didn’t move. He clenched his fingers until his blunt fingernails dug into his palm.

A voice spoke from his left. “What were you thinking about, just now?”

Zoro blinked. Claudette stood a few feet away, one hand resting on a parasol handle, dressed in a pale blue blouse, tailored trousers, and red heels that had no business on dock planks. Their hair was pinned back today, and their jaw was clean-shaven. The parasol tilted against the sun, throwing a neat patch of shade over their shoulder and part of the dock. 

Zoro looked away. “Nothing.”

“That’s a lie.”

His jaw tightened.

A gull dropped toward the dock, landed near a forgotten scrap of bait, then flapped away when Zoro shifted his boot. Claudette stepped closer, stopping beside him but leaving space between them. Their heels clicked once against the boards, then stilled. “Your eyes went distant, but you weren’t looking at the horizon. So what did it say?”

“What?”

“The ugly thing in your head.”

Zoro’s shoulders drew tight.

Claudette didn’t push the question again. Just waited.

The gulls screamed again. A rope knocked against a mast. Water lapped at the pilings. A voice called from the path, too far away for Zoro to catch the words, and another answered. 

Zoro hated that he answered, but he’d agreed to the training and he didn’t go back on his word. “That I’m wasting time.”

“And?”

His teeth pressed together. He stared at the water instead of at Claudette. “That I’m not getting stronger. That Luffy’s somewhere else. That I left. That I failed. That I’m worthless.”

Claudette tilted her head. The parasol shifted with them, its shadow sliding across the dock boards. “Do you think it’s true?”

“I know it is.”

Claudette hummed. “Which ones of those are actual facts?”

Zoro cut an annoyed glance at them. “They all are.”

“No, some are self-blame, not facts.” Claudette adjusted the parasol. “Tell me, which are the facts?”

Zoro looked back out over the water. His shoulders remained tense. A wave struck the dock hard enough to send a faint spray against one piling. He watched the white foam break apart. But he made himself answer the question. “I’m not getting stronger–”

“Are you answering a question that you don’t want to answer?” Claudette interrupted. “That takes strength.”

Zoro’s lips pursed. His thumbnail dug into the side of his fist. “Luffy’s somewhere else. I left.”

Claudette nodded. “Both facts.”

“I failed–”

“Did you?”

Zoro exhaled harshly. “Ace is dead. Luffy got hurt. What else would you call it?”

“Shitty circumstances.”

Zoro glared. “Circumstances that wouldn’t have happened if I hadn’t–”

Claudette interrupted again. “Hadn’t what? Ordered the marines to execute a pirate? Convinced Whitebeard to start a war? Amassed an armada in one location, not to mention the Warlords?”

Zoro clenched his jaw. The boat at the tie line bumped the dock again, again, again. “I should’ve been better.”

“Did you do your best?” Claudette asked. “Give everything you had?”

Zoro pressed his lips together. He had, he knew he had. He remembered the cold in his hands, the weight of his swords, the crush of bodies at Marineford, Luffy’s voice tearing through the battlefield. He remembered running and cutting and still being too far away. He remembered every second of not being enough. 

Claudette’s expression didn’t change. They waited as if silence was an answer, too. Eventually, they spoke again. “Sometimes, no matter how hard we fight, we’re not going to succeed. That’s life.”

Zoro had vowed to Luffy that he’d never lose again. “Not my life.”

“And that’s why you’re here.”

He ground his teeth again. For a moment, neither of them spoke. The sun flashed hard on the water. The air smelled like salt, fish, warm planks, and something sweet drifting from the cabins. Claudette looked out over the water as if they’d only stopped by to enjoy the view. 

“Tell me, do you like fishing?”

Zoro was thrown by the question. His eyes narrowed. “Yeah.”

They nodded. “Good. Every afternoon between three and four, I want you to go to the south beach and fish. I’ll arrange for a pole and bait to be brought to your cabin.”

Zoro’s brow furrowed. First she called him out, now she wanted him to fish? “Okay…”

“This isn’t an excuse to nap,” Claudette said. “I expect you to bring back fish. And no, you can’t use your swords.”

Zoro’s hand went automatically to the hilts at his side. “Wasn’t planning on it.”

Claudette inclined their head. “I’ll check with you tomorrow at five, at your cabin. We’ll have your fish for supper.”

With that, they turned on a pointed heel and walked off.

Zoro watched them go, then turned back toward the water. 

White caps crested on the waves when they got closer to the dock. The gulls moved off farther down the coastline, chasing someone carrying a bucket. The little boat knocked once more against the tie line, then settled. 

Which are the facts? Claudette’s question reverberated in his thoughts.

His mind provided an immediate answer.

You’re still worthless. 

The next morning, Zoro spread gravel.

He found the unfinished paths after only two wrong turns, which was either progress or luck. The gravel now filled wheelbarrows, off to the side of the path. A rake leaned against a fence post beside them. A shovel had been stabbed into the dirt nearby.

He shoveled gravel onto the path, then used the rake to spread it out evenly. The work was slower than cutting stone. He had to judge the slope, break up clumps, push the gravel into low places, and tamp it down so it wouldn’t shift underfoot the first time someone walked through in heels. 

By late morning, several Okama had already crossed the path, testing it without asking. One in a green dress paused, stamped a heel against the gravel, then gave Zoro a satisfied nod before continuing on. 

He worked until Tibany came to collect him for late lunch. Afterward, Zoro found his cabin with only one wrong turn, cleaned the dust from his hands, and saw the fishing pole leaning beside the door. A small tin of bait sat on the table.

Zoro picked up the pole and bait, and left.

Finding the south beach took longer than it should have. He passed the same pink-barked tree three times. Ended up near the kitchens once. Reached a narrow goat path that led to a storage shed and nowhere else. Eventually, he found a slope that dropped toward open water and followed it down through low pink grass and clusters of bright flowers until the land opened onto the beach. 

The sand was pink. The south beach curved wide and empty beneath the afternoon sun, with waves running in clean white lines onto shore. Pink sandpipers darted back and forth at the water’s edge, chasing the retreating surf on quick little legs, then fleeing when the next wave rolled in. A few pink crabs scuttled sideways near a patch of shells, disappearing into holes when Zoro got too close.

Zoro stood there for a moment, looking at the water. Then he sat on a flat rock, tugged off his boots, and rolled his trouser cuffs to his knees. He baited the hook, stepped into the shallows, and cast out. The line landed past the first break.

The sun sat high overhead, bright enough to flatten the water into glare. Mid-afternoon heat pressed down on his shoulders. The surf tugged at his legs, pushing and pulling with every wave, and his feet sank slowly into the sandy bottom. Wind off the water rang through his earrings and tossed his hair into his face.

Zoro planted his stance and waited. He was going to catch dinner. He had been given a pole. He had bait. He had water in front of him. The task was simple. Catch fish. Bring them back. Eat them.

He waited.

Nothing bit.

He adjusted his grip on the pole. 

Still nothing.

After a while, he reeled in, checked the bait, cast farther, and waited again. The sand shifted under his feet. The water slapped at his calves. The pink sandpipers kept running along the shore.

Zoro’s jaw tightened. He moved down the beach and tried again.

Nothing.

He moved farther, toward a cluster of rocks breaking the water near the shore. Better. At least there was something there. But the sun sat directly above it, and the water was too clear, too open. No shade. No weeds. No dock pilings. No place for fish to hide.

The docks would’ve been better. Underneath them, especially. Cooler water. Shade. Structure. The kind of place fish actually gathered. Early morning would’ve been better, too, when the sun first touched the horizon and the water hadn’t heated yet. Twilight could work. Mid-afternoon on an open beach was about as useful as fishing in a wash bucket.

Zoro stared at the line. Claudette had known that. Probably. Maybe. His grip tightened. 

Still, he stayed until the hour was up. He cast again and again, changing distance, angle, bait depth, position. He tried near the rocks, then farther down where the surf cut a deeper groove into the sand. He watched the water, read the pull of it, waited for movement that never came.

By the time he reeled in for the last time, the bait was waterlogged and the bucket was still full.

Zoro stood in the shallows, wet to the knees, scowling at the sea. Then he went back.

Finding the cabin took longer with wet feet, boots in one hand, fishing pole in the other, and irritation sitting hot under his ribs. He ended up behind the same laundry line as the day before, then near the animal pens, then somehow back on the south path again before he finally found the cabin.

He washed his feet in the bathroom, dried off, and set the bucket on the small table. Twenty minutes later, Claudette knocked.

Zoro opened the door. They stood outside in a pale yellow blouse, fitted trousers, and low shoes this time, hair pinned back with one loose strand against their cheek. Their gaze went to the bucket.

“No fish?” they said.

“No fish,” Zoro repeated. Claudette stepped inside when he moved back. He shut the door. “Wrong time of day.”

Claudette looked at him.

“Wrong place, too,” he said. “Open beach. No shade. No cover. Fish weren’t going to sit there waiting for me. Docks would’ve been better. Early morning would’ve been better. Twilight might’ve worked.”

Claudette nodded. “Did you do your best?”

Zoro frowned. “Yeah.”

“Did you try different spots?”

“Yes.”

“Different casts?”

“Yes.”

“Did you stay the whole hour?”

“Yes.”

“Then you did all I asked.”

“I didn’t catch anything.”

“That wasn’t my question.”

Zoro crossed his arms.

Claudette took the chair at the table without asking. “Could you have done something different to cause success?”

“I just told you. Different time. Different place.”

“But those weren’t the circumstances you were given.”

Zoro’s mouth opened. Then closed.

Claudette waited.

The cabin was quiet around them. The full bait bucket sat between them on the table. No fish. No dinner. No evidence that effort had mattered. 

His fingers curled against his arms. 

Sometimes, no matter how hard we fight, we’re not going to succeed. That’s life. 

Zoro looked at the bucket. He had done the work. He had used what he had. He had tried different angles, different positions, different depths. He had stayed the whole time.

He still failed.

Not because he was worthless. Not because he hadn’t wanted it enough. Not because he was too weak to hold a pole in the water properly. Because the sun had been too high, the beach too open, and the fish elsewhere.

He hated how hard that hit him.

Claudette leaned back slightly. “Some failures are information. Not judgment.”

Zoro stared at the bucket a moment longer. “That’s what this was?”

“Partly.”

“What was the other part?”

“Dinner.”

“I didn’t catch dinner.”

“No,” Claudette said. “So we’ll eat somewhere else.”

Zoro looked up.

Claudette stood. “Come on. There’s a stand near the north road that makes good grilled fish.”

His eyes narrowed. “This whole thing was to make a point?”

“This whole thing was to make several points.”

“I don’t like you.”

“I know.” Claudette smiled faintly and walked to the door. “We’ll see what you catch tomorrow.”

Zoro looked at the full bucket again. Tomorrow. Different circumstances? Same beach? Same hour? He didn’t know. 

He grabbed his swords and followed.

Zoro was sent to the same spot to fish the next day. He still didn’t catch anything. 

“You made your point,” he told Claudette when they met him that night.

“Part of one,” Claudette said, crossing one black stocking clad knee over the other. They both sat at the small table in Zoro’s cabin, the still full bait bucket between them. “I want you to keep fishing at that spot.”

Zoro scowled. “I already said you made your point.”

“And we’re going to reinforce it,” Claudette said. “But now I also want you to look at it in a different way.”

“How?”

“That you don’t need to succeed.”

“I thought that was already the point.”

“No. The circumstances aren’t right for fishing, but that doesn’t mean you still shouldn’t do your best.” 

Zoro was becoming frustrated. “What are you getting at?”

"I want you to be able to walk away from that beach and say you did everything you could – and not turn it into an indictment."  

Zoro stared at them.

Claudette tapped one nail against the bait bucket. “No fish means no fish. It doesn’t mean useless swordsman, weak man, bad crewmate, failed protector, or worthlessness. It means no fish.”

Zoro looked at the bait bucket. No fish means no fish. His mind didn’t like that. It wanted the other message. No fish meant failure. Failure meant weakness. Weakness meant everything else, all of it lined up and ready to cut him open. 

His jaw worked. “Sounds like an excuse.” 

“It can be,” Claudette said. “That’s why I asked if you did everything you could with what you had.”

“I did.”

“Then say that.”

Zoro’s eyes narrowed.

Claudette waited.

The cabin sat quiet around them. A faint breeze stirred the pink curtains over the partially open window. The bait bucket smelled faintly of brine between them. 

Zoro looked at it instead of Claudette. “I did everything I could with what I had.”

“And?”

He exhaled through his nose. “No fish means no fish.”

Claudette nodded once. “Good.”

“It sounds stupid.”

“Most useful things do before they work.” Claudette stood, smoothing one hand over their skirt. “Tomorrow, I want the same thing. Show up. Do your best. Pay attention. Come back. Tell me what happened without insulting yourself.” 

Zoro leaned back in his chair, arms crossing over his chest. “That all?” he said sarcastically.

“For tomorrow, that’s enough.”

They moved to the door, then paused with one hand on the frame.

“Zoro.”

He glanced over.

Claudette’s expression was calm. “You’re allowed to be angry. You’re allowed to want a different outcome. But stop making everything into another reason to hate yourself.”

Zoro didn’t answer.

Claudette accepted that and left. The door closed softly behind them.

Zoro sat at the table for a while, staring at the bucket. The chair creaked beneath him when he shifted. The bait was still there, unused and faintly sour from the heat.

Eventually, his stomach growled. 

Zoro scowled, stood, and picked up the bucket to set it in the fridge. Then he grabbed his swords and went to find dinner.

For the next few days, Zoro did the jobs he was given. He spread gravel, carried rice, sharpened kitchen knives under the eye of a cook who cared more about edge angle than most swordsmen he’d met, patched a fence around pink animals that kept trying to chew his shirt, and hauled water barrels because someone said they needed moving. He ate when he was told. Bathed after work. Francois checked on him often enough to be annoying, but didn’t talk unless Zoro wanted to. 

Every afternoon, Zoro went to the south beach with the pole and bait, stood in the shallows, cast into the wrong water at the wrong hour, and caught nothing. He still did his best. He moved positions, tried deeper water, changed the cast, and waited the whole hour.  

By the fourth night, Zoro sat across from Claude at the small table in his cabin, a notebook resting between them. Claude wore trousers today, dark and well-fitted, with a pale shirt rolled at the sleeves and no lipstick. Their hair was tied back at the nape of the neck. Same person, different look. Zoro’s mind took an extra second to sort that out, but it didn’t bother him. 

The bait bucket wasn’t on the table this time. Claude noticed. “Did you fish today?” they asked.

“Yeah.”

“Same time and place?”

“Yeah.”

“And?”

“Nothing.”

Claude nodded. “Did you do your best?”

Zoro leaned back in the chair. “You know I did.”

“I want you to answer anyway.”

Zoro’s jaw shifted. “Yeah. I did my best.”

“And was that good enough?”

His first answer was no. It came fast. No gap between the question and the answer. He didn’t even have to think. 

You’ll never be good enough.

Zoro’s gaze dropped to the tabletop.

You’re worthless.

His fingers curled against his knee.

You’re a waste of space.

Claude’s voice cut through it. “There.”

Zoro’s mouth flattened. “What?” 

Claude tapped one finger against the table. “Your eyes went somewhere else again.” 

Zoro looked away.

Claude let the silence sit for a breath. “What did it say this time?”

Zoro’s teeth ground together. 

Claude waited.

The cabin felt too small. The table between them had scratches in the paint. Wado and Sandai Kitetsu rested along the wall. The little refrigerator gave off a faint metal tick. Zoro focused on that instead of Claude’s face.

“You’ll never be good enough,” he said finally, in a low voice. “You’re worthless. You’re a waste of space.” 

“It’s called negative self-talk,” Claude said. “There are other fancy medical terms for it, but the only thing you need to know is that it feeds on itself if you do it long enough, making it stronger and more persistent.”

“So?”

“So we're going to give you a way to interrupt it.”

Zoro glanced at him. 

Claude went on. “When the negative list starts, you cut in with acceptance statements.”

“Acceptance statements,” Zoro repeated flatly.

“I accept love into my life. I accept acceptance into my life.”

Zoro stared at him like he’d started speaking another language. 

“I accept confidence into my life. I accept caring into my life. I accept peace into my life. I accept who I am.”

“That’s the dumbest thing I’ve heard since getting here.” 

“Maybe.”

“I’m not saying that.”

“You don’t have to believe any of it yet,” Claude said. “You only have to interrupt the pattern.”

Claude picked up the pencil beside their notebook and wrote on the page. Claude turned the paper around so Zoro could see the list. Their handwriting was neat and plain.

Zoro looked at the paper, then at Claude. “This is supposed to fix me?”

“No.”

That answer caught him off guard.

Claude leaned back. “Nothing fixes you easily. This isn’t a miracle cure. It’s a way to reshape your thinking. Stop the negativity from feeding on itself. It takes practice and discipline. Something I know you’re good at.”

Zoro looked down at the paper again. “So what? I just say these then?”

“Yes. Every time you start to hear that ugly voice in your head,” Claude said, tearing out the paper and setting it on the table. “Say all of them. Then when you tell yourself it’s stupid, say them again.”

Zoro pressed his lips together.

“I also want you to say them out loud, every morning when you wake up,” Claude told him. 

“Why?”

“Because you don’t only need it when the voice gets loud. You need it when things are quiet, too.” 

Zoro folded the paper once, badly, and shoved it into his pocket.

Claude stood, picked up the notebook, moved to the door, then paused. “Your best was good enough today.”

Zoro said nothing.

“No fish,” Claude said. “Still good enough.”

Then they left.

Zoro sat in the cabin after the door closed, jaw tight, paper digging against his thigh through his pocket. His mind replied to Claude’s statement.

You’ll never be good enough.

His fingers curled. He pulled the paper out and stared at the neat lines until the words started looking like marks instead of sense.

I accept love into my life.

His mouth twisted. Stupid. He folded the paper again, worse than before, and shoved it back into his pocket.

Claude could call it discipline all they wanted. Repeating pretty little sentences didn’t change anything. It didn’t make him stronger. 

Zoro pushed to his feet. He had a job to do tomorrow. Gravel, crates, floors, whatever they handed him. That was real. Work was real. Swords were real. Pain was real.

The paper stayed in his pocket.

Zoro woke before the light had fully settled through the curtains, staring at the ceiling boards with his jaw already tight. He’d slept. Not well, but longer than he had been. Long enough that his body felt heavy in a different way, less hollow and more reluctant to move.

The paper Claude had given him sat on the small table beside the bed, Wado and Sandai Kitetsu leaning against the table within reach.

Zoro stared at it. Then he turned onto his side, away from the table. 

It was stupid. He didn’t need to start the day reciting from a piece of paper. He needed to get up, wash, eat, find whatever job Iva had decided counted as training today, and stop wasting time. Saying things he didn’t believe out loud wasn’t going to make him stronger. It wasn’t going to fix Marineford. It wasn’t going to bring Ace back, or Yubashiri, or put him beside Luffy where he should’ve been.

You’ll never be good enough.

Zoro shut his eyes.

You’re worthless.

His hand curled against the blanket.

You’re a waste of–

He threw the blanket off and sat up hard enough that the bed frame creaked. “Fine,” he growled. He snatched the paper off the bedside table and unfolded it. Claude’s neat handwriting filled a portion of the page. 

Zoro looked at the first line for a long moment. He set the paper down. Then he stood, went to the bathroom and washed up.

But setting it down again didn’t make it go away. Claude had written it. Iva had ordered him to work with Claude. Zoro had agreed to this, in whatever stupid way agreeing had happened. He’d taken the paper himself. No one had forced it into his pocket. 

When he returned, he picked it up again. His throat already felt tight, which pissed him off. They were just words. He’d shouted attack names with a sword in his mouth. He’d challenged men stronger than him. He’d faced Mihawk, Blackbeard, Marines, a hundred Baroque Works agents, freezing hell, and war. He could say six stupid lines in an empty cabin. 

Zoro breathed through his nose. “I accept love into my life.” 

It came out flat. Almost hostile. He hated it immediately.

Love wasn’t something he accepted. Love was Luffy throwing his arms around him while half-dead from poison. Love was Chopper trying to help and Zoro walking away. Love was a crew he’d left because he’d decided they were better without him. Love was dangerous because once he had it, losing it cut deeper than any sword.

His fingers tightened on the paper. “I accept acceptance into my life.”

That one sounded worse. Acceptance from who? Himself? His crew? People who’d dragged beds away from him? Sanji with his disbelieving head shake in a tavern? Zoro’s jaw clenched before the thought could keep going.

Claude had said to interrupt the pattern. Not argue with it. Not win. Interrupt it.

“I accept confidence into my life.”

That one should’ve been easy. Zoro had confidence. He knew his skill. Knew his swords. Knew his dream. Knew he could take pain and keep moving.

Then Mihawk stood across the battlefield in his mind, calm and untouchable. Yubashiri rusted in his hand. Ace fell. Luffy screamed.

His grip tightened around the paper until it creased. Confidence wasn’t the same as thinking he mattered. It wasn’t the same as believing the body holding the swords deserved anything except more work, more pain, more use.

He looked at Wado. He took care of Wado because it mattered. Because Kuina had mattered. Because the promise mattered.

He looked down at his own hand around the paper, knuckles rough, small cuts half-healed. Claude’s voice came back, calm and irritating.

So I’m asking whether the swordsman gets any of that reverence, too.

Zoro swallowed. “I accept caring into my life.”

That one hit softer and worse. Caring from other people. Caring for other people. Caring for himself, apparently, though that still felt like a trick question. Caring was Chopper’s little hooves on his arm. Luffy’s grin. Nami throwing orders at him because she expected him to be there. Usopp trying so hard to help that he made a mess of it. Sanji cooking something specific for him, because of his training, because he wasn’t fond of things too sweet.

His chest tightened. 

He pushed on. “I accept peace into my life.”

The cabin stayed still. Sanji’s frown stayed in memory, along with the scrape of Zoro’s chair, the tavern door, and the cold certainty that Sanji had seen something disgusting. Nami’s careful look stayed there, too. Usopp’s awkward question. Luffy saying it didn’t matter. The choice to leave. The belief that the crew would breathe easier without him. Impel Down stayed in memory. Level Five cold, wolves at the gate, frozen bars, blood on ice. Marineford stayed there, too – Ace falling, Luffy’s scream, Zoro too far away to stop any of it. All of it was there. Here, there was only a small room, a pink curtain, a cold stove, two swords leaning against the bedside table, and his own breathing. 

Peace didn’t feel real. 

“I accept who I am.”

His mouth went dry. He stared at the line until the letters started to blur slightly.

Who he was.

A swordsman. Luffy’s swordsman, if Luffy still wanted him. A man who’d left. A man who’d failed. A man who liked other men. A man who’d been hurt by that before and would get hurt again.

His hand shook once. He hated that. Zoro folded the paper and dropped it on the bedside table. He stood there for another breath, then picked it back up and tucked it into his pocket. He was supposed to use it any time the negative talk started up. 

A knock came at the door as he pulled on his boots. Zoro opened it to find Tibany on the step, hands folded neatly in front of them. "Breakfast first,” Tibany said. “Then the east pen fence.”

Zoro grunted and stepped outside, pulling the door shut behind him.

Halfway down the path, the thought tried again.

You’re worthless.

Zoro’s fingers brushed the folded paper in his pocket. His jaw tightened. Quietly, so Tibany wouldn’t hear, he muttered, “I accept acceptance into my life.”

It still sounded stupid. 

The east pen fence took most of the morning. It wasn’t difficult, just annoying. The pink animals on the other side kept sticking their long noses through the gaps, snuffling at his sleeves, his hair, the tool belt someone had handed him, and once the hilt of Sandai Kitetsu before Zoro shoved its face back with his palm.

“Chew that and die,” he told it.

The animal blinked wide pink eyes at him and tried to eat the fence post instead.

By the time he finished, his shirt was dirty, his hands smelled like wood shavings and animal spit, and three sections of fence stood straight enough that the animals would stay where they belonged.

Tibany appeared near the path shortly after, carrying a folded note. “Queen Iva says you’re expected at your cabin.”

Zoro tucked the hammer back into the tool belt. “For what?”

“Cooking lesson.”

Zoro stared at them. Tibany only held out the note. Zoro took it and opened it.

Cooking is training. Don’t argue with the teacher.
– Iva

Zoro crumpled the note in one hand. “I know how to cook.”

Tibany smiled. “I’m only the messenger.”

Zoro exhaled through his nose. “Fine.”

He returned the tools, washed the worst of the dirt from his hands at an outdoor basin, then found his way back to the cabin with only two wrong turns.

The man in the cowboy hat was waiting on the porch. Zoro knew him from Newkama Land and the security room, from monitors, and from the quiet way he’d stood at Yubashiri’s burial. He wore the same hat now, tipped low against the sun, paired with boots, dark trousers, a faded button-down shirt with the sleeves rolled to his elbows, and a vest with too many pockets.

Zoro stepped onto the porch and opened the door. “You’re cooking?”

“Teaching,” the man said, following him inside. “Name’s Raine, since I don’t think I ever gave it.”

“Zoro.”

“I know.”

Raine crossed to the cooking corner and set a basket on the counter. Sweet potatoes, beans, chicken wrapped in paper, a crock of thick yogurt, a wedge of hard cheese, dark bread, dried fruit, a jar of nut paste, greens, garlic, and several small packets of spices came out one by one. He moved like he knew the space, or like any kitchen was familiar once he found the knife, pan, and stove.

Zoro leaned against the table, arms crossed. “Thought everyone here dressed differently, most of the time.”

Raine glanced at him. Zoro realized too late that sounded stupid.

Raine didn’t seem offended. He only set a cutting board down. “Different from what?”

Zoro’s mouth flattened. “You know what I mean.”

“I do.” Raine took off his hat and hung it on the back of a chair. His hair was cropped short, dark at the roots and silvering near the temples. “You expected a dress.”

Zoro looked away first. “Seems to be the theme.”

“For some.” Raine washed his hands at the small sink. “Not for me.”

Zoro’s gaze shifted back.

Raine dried his hands on a towel and looked at him directly. “Iva can change bodies, male to female, or the opposite. That’s what happened to me.” He touched two fingers briefly to his chest, then dropped his hand. “People used to call me a woman because that’s the body they saw. Iva helped the outside match who I actually am.” His mouth tipped slightly. “I understand what this island means by finding the part of yourself you were taught to bury.”

Zoro tipped his head in understanding.

Raine pushed the cutting board toward him. “Wash your hands. Then chop these.”

Zoro washed his hands. When he turned back, Raine handed him a knife. It was a kitchen knife, sharp and plain, with a wood handle worn smooth from use. Zoro weighed it automatically, then set the knife to the vegetables and started cutting.

Raine watched for three seconds. “Slower.”

Zoro’s hand paused.

“You’re chopping like someone’s timing you,” Raine said. “Nobody is. Make the pieces even.”

“They’re going in the same pan.”

“And if half are thick and half are thin, half will be underdone and half will be mush.” Raine tapped the board. “Even.”

Zoro looked at the vegetables. Then he cut slower.

The first lesson, apparently, was chicken, sweet potatoes, greens, and beans. Nothing fancy. Nothing Sanji would’ve called impressive. Zoro pushed the thought aside before it could get its teeth in. Mostly.

“Meals aren’t just something to fill the stomach,” Raine said as he checked the pan heat.

Zoro snorted. “That’s exactly what they are.”

“That’s what food is when you’re only trying to stay alive.”

Zoro looked at him.

“You’ve already proved you can survive,” Raine continued. “Everyone here knows that. Level Five, Marineford, whatever came before all that. You know how to keep moving when your body has almost nothing left.”

Zoro’s fingers tightened around the knife handle. 

“But this island doesn’t treat food that way,” Raine said. “Attack Cuisine is built around the body. Strength, healing, endurance, focus, energy, recovery. The good cooks here can build a meal around what someone needs from their bones out.”

“I’m learning that?”

Raine laughed once. “No.”

Zoro frowned.

“You’re learning how to cook a decent meal beyond fish, eggs, and rice.” Raine tipped the cut sweet potatoes into a bowl. “Attack Cuisine is advanced. What I’m teaching you is simpler. Still important.” 

Zoro looked at the ingredients on the counter. Sweet potatoes. Beans. Chicken. Yogurt. Cheese. Bread. Nut paste. Dried fruit. It looked like too much. 

“You’re too lean,” Raine said, matter-of-fact. “Not in a training way. In a body’s-been-burning-more-than-it’s-getting way.”

Zoro looked away.

Raine didn’t press the point harder. “Food repairs muscle. Helps wounds close. Keeps your head steadier. Gives you energy before standing upright starts feeling like work.” 

“That’s still fuel.”

“Sure,” Raine said. “But there’s a difference between feeding a body and throwing something in it so it stops complaining.” 

Zoro hated that he understood the difference.

Raine pointed to the pain. “Add oil to that, enough to coat the bottom.”

Zoro crossed his arms, then uncrossed them when Raine kept pointing.

He cooked. Badly at first. Too much heat. Too much movement. Raine made him lower the flame and leave the sweet potatoes alone long enough to brown. Then came the chicken. Then the beans. Then the greens near the end so they softened without turning limp.

Raine showed him how to season without dumping everything in at once. Salt first. Then garlic. Then a little heat. Taste. Wait. Taste again. Add fat when the food needed it. Add water when the pan dried out. Let the beans take the seasoning instead of rushing them.

Zoro had to slow down instead of eating fast because the food was there. Salt, heat, fat, texture, whether the chicken stayed tender, whether the sweet potatoes had softened enough – all of it mattered. 

It was work. Different work.

By the time they sat at the small table, two bowls and a plate between them, Zoro was hungrier than he’d expected.

Raine handed him chopsticks. “Eat.”

Zoro took a bite. It was decent. 

Raine waited.

Zoro chewed, swallowed, and frowned at the bowl. “Needs more salt.”

Raine grinned. “Then next time, add more.”

They ate for a while without talking. The food was warm, and the cabin smelled like oil, garlic, chicken, and greens instead of dust and old grief. Zoro didn’t want to think about that, so he ate another bite. Then another.

The bowl emptied faster than he meant it to.

Raine saw it and pushed the bread and cheese closer. “Eat that, too.”

Zoro looked at him.

“You need to put weight back on.”

Zoro took the bread. It was dense and dark, with a hard crust. The cheese was sharp enough to bite back. 

“Protein, fat, sugar,” Raine said. “Easy. Good between meals.” 

Zoro ate it. It tasted good.

When they finished, Raine set his chopsticks down. “You’ll cook for yourself three times this week.”

Zoro looked up. “I thought this was one lesson.”

“It is. First lesson.”

“I can get food from stalls.”

“You can. Sometimes you should.” Raine leaned back. “But cooking makes you look at food differently. You stop treating it like a necessity and instead as caring for yourself.”

Zoro looked down at the empty bowl.

“I’m not asking for complicated meals,” Raine went on. “You’re not learning Attack Cuisine. You’re learning enough to feed yourself like your body matters.” 

Zoro’s jaw shifted.

Raine let that sit for a second, then continued. “Doesn’t have to be fancy. Meat or beans. Bread or potatoes. Some fat. Some fruit. Something green. Food that helps you put weight back on, rebuild muscle, and recover properly.” 

Zoro huffed through his nose. “Fine.”

Raine stood and gathered the empty dishes. Zoro reached for them automatically, and Raine let him take his own bowl to the sink. They washed together, shoulder to shoulder in the cramped cooking corner, Raine rinsing, Zoro drying.

When the dishes were stacked, Raine took his hat and moved toward the door. “Tomorrow, I’ll be here for breakfast.”

“Okay.”

Raine put his hat on and opened the door.

Zoro watched him step onto the porch. “Why cooking?”

Raine turned back. “Because you take care of your swords, don’t you? Why not yourself?” 

Zoro went still. 

So I’m asking whether the swordsman gets any of that reverence, too. Claudette’s voice came back so clearly they may as well have been in the room.

Raine didn’t know about that. Or maybe he did. Everyone on this island seemed to talk.

Raine tipped his hat. “Have a good morning, swordsman.”

Then he left.

Zoro stood in the cooking corner, staring at the clean dishes. 

You’re not worth–

His hand moved to his pocket. The folded list was there. Zoro gritted his teeth as he drew it out and unfolded it. He read it to himself. “I accept love into my life…”

Raine came by for cooking lessons, teaching him meals that had enough protein, fat, and starch to actually do something for a body instead of just sitting in the stomach. Zoro learned enough to keep things balanced and not to burn everything. He still ate from stalls when someone collected him. Still fished at the south beach and caught nothing.

Each morning, Tibany brought him a job: hauling, spreading gravel, repairing steps, carrying supplies, clearing brush, patching fences. He did all of it.

He met Claudette or Claude every day, depending on who they were when they arrived. Sometimes they talked. Sometimes Zoro sat there scowling while Claudette asked questions he hated but answered anyway.

He hadn’t drawn his swords for training in a while. He kept Wado and Sandai Kitetsu clean. He oiled the steel, checked the edges, wrapped and rewrapped the grips, and set them within reach every night. But he didn’t train with them. No drills. No sparring. No cutting until his arms shook. Iva kept saying he already knew how to train his body and that wasn’t the point yet.

He also said the list every morning. He had it memorized now, which pissed him off more than the paper had. He’d stand beside the table, or sit on the edge of the bed, or stare at the pink bathroom wall while brushing his teeth and mutter through it like a punishment.

“I accept love into my life. I accept acceptance into my life. I accept confidence into my life. I accept caring into my life. I accept peace into my life. I accept who I am.”

Some mornings, it felt like nothing. Some mornings, the words got stuck behind his teeth. Some mornings, the negative loop tried to start before he’d even opened his eyes, and he had to cut it off one line at a time.

You’ll never be good enough.

I accept confidence into my life.

You’re worthless.

I accept acceptance into my life.

You’re a waste of space.

I accept who I am.

It didn’t fix him. He still woke up heavy some days. Still lost track of conversations when guilt got its hooks in. Still looked at the empty space where Yubashiri should’ve been and felt something inside him drop. Still thought about Luffy, Ace, Sanji, the crew, and the Merry until his chest hurt. But the loop didn’t always get to finish anymore.

Claude said it counted for something, apparently. Zoro thought Claude had a bad definition of counting.

On the day Claudette brought him to the mirror room, Zoro had spent the morning carrying baskets of vegetables from one of the gardens to a row of food stalls near the main road. At lunch, Raine made him cook lentil stew, roasted squash, greens, and flatbread for two, then stayed until dishes were done. After that, Zoro went fishing, caught nothing, and didn’t call himself useless when he came back.

Claudette arrived at his cabin at five, wearing a dark green dress, low boots, and lipstick the color of plums. “Come with me.”

Zoro frowned. “Where?”

“Somewhere with a mirror.”

“I have a mirror.”

“You have a bathroom mirror, and you’ll try to leave halfway through.”

Zoro stared at them.

Claudette smiled slightly. “See? I know you.”

“I’m not doing anything weird.”

“Oh, you absolutely are,” they said, and turned toward the path. “That’s why I wore comfortable shoes.”

Zoro considered not following. Then he followed.

The room sat in one of the smaller buildings near the center of town, tucked behind a clothing shop and a storage room full of folded towels, ribbons, spare shoes, and emergency feather boas. Claudette said it was for new arrivals who wanted help figuring out how they liked to look once nobody was telling them what they were allowed to be.

It wasn’t much. Four pale walls, a chair, a washbasin, a rack of clothes in different cuts and colors, a shelf with combs, clean cloths, hairpins, powder, soap, and little pots Zoro didn’t want explained. A full-length mirror stood against the far wall. The mirror had a few scratches near the bottom and a carved pink frame.

Zoro stopped just inside the door. Claudette shut it behind them and then gestured toward the mirror. “Stand there.”

Zoro’s shoulders tensed already, but he moved where told. He stood in front of the mirror. His reflection looked back.

He was healthier than when he’d arrived. He could see that much. His face wasn’t as gaunt. The frostbite damage on his nose and ears had healed. His shoulders filled out his shirt better. His eyes still looked tired, but less dead. Wado and Sandai Kitetsu sat at his hip. The empty space still bothered him. 

Claudette came to stand off to one side, out of the reflection’s center. “I want you to look at yourself,” they said. “And say, ‘I like men.’”

Zoro went still. Every muscle locked so fast it almost hurt.

This wasn’t like the list. He could dislike it and say it anyway because Claudette had made it into a discipline drill, and discipline made sense even when the drill was ridiculous. Even when it was helping. 

This was different. This was the thing under the whole mess. The thing he’d said to Nami, Usopp, and Luffy on the Merry because he’d needed to know whether he should leave. The thing he’d learned to shove down, hide, ignore, walk around, and punish himself for wanting.

Claudette nodded toward the mirror. “Go on.”

Zoro’s fingers curled. “I already know it.”

“I didn’t ask whether you knew it.”

“I said it before.”

“To other people,” Claudette said. “Say it to yourself.”

Zoro looked at the mirror. His reflection still looked back. Same scar. Same earrings. Same mouth pressed flat. His hair had grown longer. A faint scratch marked one cheek from a fence nail he’d been too annoyed to avoid that morning. 

Claudette waited. Zoro said nothing. His mouth wouldn’t move.

He was nineteen and fourteen again and every age between. Bathhouse steam. Boys laughing too loud. Beds dragged across the room. A sailor’s hand shoving his head underwater. Some girl’s fingers on his arm while his stomach turned and he hated himself for letting her believe he wanted what everyone else wanted. Sanji’s voice in a tavern. His own body going hot with want and then cold with disgust because wanting anything had always come with a price.

The silence stretched. Claudette didn’t help him. 

Zoro’s throat worked once. “I like men,” he said. It came out too low. Almost nothing.

“Again.”

Zoro’s eyes cut to them in the mirror. “I said it.”

“And now you’ll say it again.” 

Anger snapped through him, quick and useful. “I like men.”

“Again.”

“What the hell do you want from me?”

“The fact,” Claudette said. “Not a confession. Not an apology. Not something you spit out because you think it proves every ugly thing anyone ever said. Say it like a fact.” 

Zoro’s chest rose and fell once, hard. A fact.

Wado was Kuina’s. Sandai Kitetsu was cursed. Yubashiri was gone. Luffy was his captain. The sea was dangerous. Zoro got lost whether he wanted to admit it or not. Mihawk was the strongest swordsman in the world.

You’re disgusting.

Zoro’s jaw locked and he jerked his gaze from the mirror. His breathing went rough through his nose. “I accept love into my life. I accept acceptance into my life,” he muttered. “I accept confidence into my life…”

Claudette just watched quietly until he finished the list. Then they kept waiting.

Zoro looked at the mirror again. The words tried to stick behind his teeth. He forced them out anyway. “I like men.”

His reflection didn’t change. That was stupid, because of course it didn’t. Saying it couldn’t change the scar across his chest, or the shape of his face, or the set of his shoulders, or the swordsman standing in the glass with his fists clenched like he expected the mirror to swing first. 

Claudette nodded once. “Again.”

Zoro’s teeth clicked together. “I like men.”

Then they said, “And?”

Zoro’s eyes shifted toward them in the mirror. “And what?”

Claudette stepped away from the door. “Finish the thought.”

“I said what you told me to say.”

“Yes.”

“So we’re done.”

“No.”

Zoro turned around fully. “Claudette.”

“Zoro.” Claudette came to stand beside him, not too close, both of them reflected in the mirror now. Claudette looked put together, neat, patient, irritating. Zoro looked like he wanted to bite through the edge of the sink. 

Claudette said, “I like men. And there is nothing wrong with that.”

His stomach turned. “No.”

“Yes.”

“No.”

“There’s nothing wrong with liking men.”

“Stop.”

“There’s nothing wrong with you liking men.”

Zoro turned away from the mirror. “Stop.”

Claudette’s gaze didn’t soften into pity. They just waited.

His fingers twitched toward his swords. “I’m not saying that.”

“You don’t have to believe it yet.”

“I’m not saying it.”

“You can say you like guys now,” they said. “It hurts, but you can say it. This is where the old trauma hits hardest.”

“Shut up.”

“Not today.”

Zoro’s breath came through his nose, sharp and uneven.

Claudette pointed to the mirror. “Look again.”

“No.”

“Look again.”

He wanted to leave. He wanted to draw his swords and cut something down until the pressure in his chest eased. He wanted to go to the south beach and stand in the wrong water catching nothing because at least that failure made sense.

Instead, he looked. His reflection was still there. Same scar. Same eyes. Same shoulders. Same swords. Same man.

Claudette’s voice lowered slightly. “Say it.”

Zoro’s throat felt tight. “I like men.”

“And?”

He couldn’t. The words sat there, too heavy and too exposed.

There’s nothing wrong with that.

His mouth shaped the first sound and stopped. Claudette waited.

Zoro’s eyes stung, and he hated that, hated it so much his jaw ached from holding still. “I can’t.”

“Not yet,” Claudette said.

He looked away from the mirror again.

“Not yet is different from never,” they said. “You got the first fact out. That’s enough for today.”

It didn’t feel like enough. It felt like losing to a sentence.

Zoro wiped the heel of his hand hard across one eye before anything could fall.

Claudette pretended not to notice. “Say the list before we leave.”

Zoro glared at the floor. He’d already failed the other sentence. Now they wanted the list, too. More words he didn’t believe. More proof that his own head had become something he couldn’t beat by force.

The ugly thoughts crowded in fast, mean and familiar.

You’re disgusting. You’re abnormal. You make people uncomfortable.

“Zoro.”

He swallowed hard. “I accept love into my life,” he said, rough and quiet.

Claudette said nothing.

“I accept acceptance into my life.” His voice sounded angry. Good. Let it sound angry.

“I accept confidence into my life. I accept caring into my life.” His hands shook once, so he tightened them into fists. “I accept peace into my life.”

The last one stuck. He forced it out anyway, jaw tight, eyes fixed on the floor. “I accept who I am.” 

Silence filled the little room for a moment, then Claudette spoke again. “That’s it for today.”

Zoro breathed out through his nose. “That’s it?”

“For today,” Claudette repeated. “You’ll say the first part again tomorrow.”

“And the other part?”

“When you can.”

“What if I can’t?”

“You will.” Claudette opened the door. “You’re stubborn, and I’m patient. Terrible combination for avoidance.”

Zoro let out a rough breath that wasn’t a laugh.

Claudette’s mouth curved, but they didn’t push it further. They opened the door, letting in noise and warm light. The room felt smaller with the way out standing open. “Tomorrow, we try again.” 

Zoro looked back at the mirror. His reflection waited there, jaw tight, shoulders stiff, still angry, still standing.

He didn’t answer Claudette. He left the room and went to get dinner.

The next morning, Zoro woke up with Claudette’s session still sitting under his skin. He stared at the ceiling boards for a while, jaw tight, waiting for the old thoughts to start. They didn’t, not right away. That almost made it worse. His head felt like it was standing back, watching him, waiting to see what he’d do with the quiet.

He got up before it could turn into something else.

The folded list sat on the table. Zoro picked it up, even though he didn’t need to read it anymore.

“I accept love into my life.” His voice sounded rough from sleep. “I accept acceptance into my life. I accept confidence into my life. I accept caring into my life. I accept peace into my life.”

He stopped there. The last line waited.

Zoro looked toward the small bathroom, where the pink-framed mirror over the sink caught a narrow slice of his shoulder and jaw. Not enough to see all of himself. More than enough to remember yesterday.

I like men.

His fingers tightened around the paper. “I accept who I am,” he said, low.

It still sounded wrong. 

Tibany came after breakfast and brought him to a row of food stalls near the main road. The job for the day was replacing cracked steps and leveling loose boards before someone broke an ankle. The work was simple enough. Pull the bad board. Measure. Cut. Nail. Test the weight. Move to the next one. 

Zoro worked with a hammer, pry bar, saw, and a box of nails while the island moved around him. The stalls opened one by one, awnings pulled out, counters wiped down, pots lit, knives put to work. Oil heated in shallow pans. Dough slapped against floured boards. Fish went over coals. Someone shouted for more onions, someone shouted back that if they wanted onions so badly, they could grow another arm and chop them themselves.

Zoro kept his head down and fixed the steps. It should’ve been easy to ignore everyone. It wasn’t.

Two stalls down, a man in a blue dress leaned over the counter to kiss the cheek of the man working beside him. The other man grumbled without heat and shoved a bowl into his hands. “If you’re going to distract me, carry that to table three.”

“Such romance,” the first man said.

“Such unpaid labor,” the second answered.

They both laughed.

Zoro’s hammer paused halfway to a nail.

No one stared. No one made a face. A woman at the next stall rolled her eyes and told them to flirt after the breakfast rush. A customer called out that table three was still waiting. The man in the blue dress took the bowl, blew a kiss back toward the kitchen, and walked off.

Zoro looked down at the nail. His chest had gone tight, but not the same way as before. Not panic exactly. More like his body had braced for a hit that didn’t come.

He drove the nail in. 

A little while later, two men at the end of one of the long tables argued over the last fried potato until one leaned across and bit it off the other’s fork. 

Someone booed. Someone else applauded. The man in the yellow dress laughed so hard he nearly dropped his tea. 

Zoro watched for half a second too long, waiting for the turn. The sneer. The shove. The sudden cold.

Instead, a cook yelled at them to stop blocking the end of the table if they were done flirting over stolen potatoes.

He went back to the boards.

By midday, he had replaced five steps and leveled three more. His hands smelled like wood dust and nails. Sweat stuck his shirt to the middle of his back. The work wasn’t hard, but it took attention.

A little later, a woman with broad shoulders, heavy earrings, and a voice that carried across the whole row of stalls stopped near him with a tray balanced on one hand.

“Careful with that corner,” she told him. “Last person who fixed it left it too high.”

Zoro glanced at the step. “I saw.”

“Good.” She shifted the tray to her other hand. “Lunch for you.”

Zoro accepted the plate she gave him. “Thanks.”

“No problem, hun,” she said with a wink, then walked off. 

Zoro blinked. The wink came and went before he figured out whether he was supposed to do anything about it. By then she was already gone. 

He ate lunch instead of thinking about it anymore.

After lunch, Tibany came by with a bundle of replacement hinges and led Zoro to a storage shed behind one of the larger cooking stalls. The shed door sagged crookedly, and the frame had warped enough that it scraped the ground every time someone opened it. Zoro fixed it.

While he worked, people passed in and out around him. A man in a skirt carried sacks of flour. Another in plain trousers and a faded shirt corrected one of the former prisoners Zoro recognized on how to carry a pot without spilling it. A woman with a deep voice and a pink scarf around her hair sharpened a cleaver on a whetstone while humming. Two older Okama argued over whether the soup needed more ginger, and a few of the Newkama from Impel Down sorted crates for the Revolutionary ship leaving at dusk. 

He finished the shed door and tested it twice. It swung cleanly. He packed up the tools and went fishing.

The beach looked the same as it had every day. Pink sand. Bright water. Pink sandpipers running from the surf, then chasing it back down. Pink crabs scuttling near shells. Open shallows with no shade and no cover for fish.

Zoro took off his boots, rolled his cuffs, baited the hook, and cast out.

He caught nothing.

He adjusted where he stood. Cast farther. Moved closer to the rocks. Changed the depth. Watched the water. Felt the surf tug at his calves and the sand shift under his feet. The wind rang in his earrings and shoved his hair into his eyes.

Still nothing.

No fish meant no fish.

At five, Claudette picked him up at the cabin. They went back to the room with the mirror. 

Zoro stood in front of his reflection. His shirt had a streak of dust across one shoulder from the shed door. His hair was wind-tangled from the beach. He looked annoyed. 

Claudette stood off to the side. “Say it.”

Zoro breathed through his nose. “I like men.”

It came out clearer than yesterday. His stomach still tightened. His shoulders still went tense. But the room didn’t tilt. The words didn’t catch. Claudette didn’t make a big deal out of it.

“Again,” Claudette said.

Zoro’s eyes narrowed. “I like men.”

“And?”

Zoro’s jaw locked. There it was again. The rest of it. The part that felt like lowering his guard on purpose. 

There’s nothing wrong with that.

He couldn’t say it. He looked away first.

Claudette nodded once, taking the answer for what it was. “List.” 

Zoro muttered it through clenched teeth. “I accept love into my life. I accept acceptance into my life. I accept confidence into my life. I accept caring into my life. I accept peace into my life. I accept who I am.”

Claudette held his gaze. “You rushed acceptance.”

Zoro paused.

“You’ve been rushing that one,” Claudette said.

Zoro looked back at the mirror. Acceptance. He hated that word. It wanted too much from him. Acceptance from himself. From other people. From a crew he’d left. From a cook whose voice still lived under his ribs in the worst way.

“I accept acceptance into my life,” he said finally.

Claudette nodded. “Good.” They stepped back and opened the door. “Tomorrow, same time.” 

Zoro left the mirror room and went to find dinner. He passed the same food stalls from earlier. The evening rush had started, and the square had filled with people eating, talking, flirting, arguing, calling for extra sauce, laughing too loudly, and moving around each other like this place had never needed to be anything except what it was.

Near the stall with the blue awning, the two men from earlier in the day stood shoulder to shoulder, packing leftovers into containers. One leaned briefly against the other, tired. The other shifted to take his weight without stopping his work.

Zoro looked at them. His chest tightened. The ugly thought stirred, though weaker this time.

Abnormal.

Zoro shoved one hand into his pocket and touched the folded paper. He ran through the list in his head. He made himself not rush through acceptance.

A pink gull screamed from a rooftop.

Zoro looked up. “Shut up.”

The gull screamed again.

Zoro went to get dinner.

The next few days were like that. He saw a Newkama in a long purple coat waiting outside the infirmary with a bouquet of flowers and a scowl sharp enough to cut through stone. When the doctor came out, the Newkama shoved the flowers at him like he was starting a fight. The doctor took them, inspected the stems, and said, “What’re these?”

“They’re flowers.”

“I can see that.”

“They’re for you, asshole.”

The doctor smiled, just a little.

Zoro kept walking.

Another afternoon, he helped repair a roof for a woman named Pera, who had a low voice, strong hands, and a laugh that shook her whole chest. She told him which shingles to replace and corrected his nail spacing from the ground.

When the work was done, she brought him water and a piece of dark bread with cheese folded inside. “Raine said you’re still putting weight back on,” she said.

Zoro took the bread. “People talk too much.”

“Eat.”

He ate. 

As time passed, Zoro started noticing the people around him more. He’d known from the start that this was an island for Okama and Newkama, but after the mirror work, he started noticing different things. Faces. Clothes. Voices. The way people moved when they weren’t bracing for someone to sneer. 

Men held hands on the road. Women traded lipstick outside the bathhouse and kissed each other goodbye before walking in different directions. People wore what they wanted and answered to whatever name they gave. Some were loud about it. Some were quiet. Some flirted with everyone. Some seemed settled with one person and bored by the rest of the world. Some looked like they could break a Marine in half and then spent an hour arguing over ribbon color.

At first, Zoro braced every time he saw it. His shoulders went tight. His eyes cut around, searching for the person who would spit, laugh, shove, sneer, turn it into a problem. But nothing changed. Sometimes people got heckled, but it was for being dramatic, cheap, late, badly dressed, too loud, terrible at cards, worse at dancing, or stupid enough to burn garlic in oil. It wasn’t for wanting who they wanted. 

Zoro didn’t know what to do with that.

Most evenings, he ended up near the stalls if he wasn’t too tired. There were tables set outside under faded umbrellas and rough wooden pergolas, with lanterns hung from the beams and beer passed out in chipped mugs. People ate, drank, argued, laughed too loud, and dragged chairs around until half the paths were blocked.

Francois found him there more often as the weeks went on.

At first, Francois had checked on him because it was his job. A quick look at his face, his hands, his plate, the way he sat. A few questions Zoro gave bad answers to. Then, somewhere along the way, the checking turned into sitting. Francois would drop into the chair across from him with beer, food, or some story he thought was funny, and Zoro would grunt at the right places until Francois decided that counted as conversation. 

One night, Zoro sat near the edge of the tables with a mug of beer, a skewer, and a bowl of bean stew because the woman at the stall had said beer wasn’t dinner and then stared until he bought food, too, even though he’d already eaten. 

Music played near the beer stall, three people with drums and one with a stringed instrument Zoro didn’t know the name of. A couple of people had started dancing in the open space between tables. Badly.

Two Okama were the worst of them. One was trying to lead. The other kept stepping on his feet. They were both laughing too hard to fix it.

Zoro thought their footwork was terrible. 

He shook his head, relaxing back in his seat, bringing his beer to his lips. The mug stopped halfway as realization set in. 

His face stayed cool. His stomach stayed steady. The old reflex to look away didn’t happen. His mind didn’t automatically go to an ugly place. The only thing he’d thought was that their footwork was terrible. 

It should have felt bigger. Stranger. Instead, it was almost ordinary. Two Okama were dancing badly, no one cared except to laugh when they stepped wrong, and Zoro had watched without turning it into something wrong with himself. 

Then the taller Okama spun the shorter one straight into a table, and three people yelled at them for nearly spilling the soup.

Zoro snorted into his beer.

Francois dropped into the chair across from him a moment later. “What?”

“Nothing.”

Francois glanced toward the dancers. One of them was apologizing to the soup. “They’re bad.”

“Very.”

“You could do better?”

Zoro looked at him like he’d said something insane. “No.”

Francois’ mouth twitched. “Good to know you have limits.”

Zoro tipped his mug to Francois in acknowledgement, then drank his beer.

Weeks passed in work, food, salt air, and sentences of acceptance repeated every day. More than once on most days, but less often than before.

His face looked fuller in the mirror over the sink. He’d gone up more than one size in clothes. Sleep came rough some nights, but most nights he got more of it. He ate before anyone reminded him to, and sometimes cooked for himself without Raine standing over his shoulder. Fishing became just fishing. He did his best, and if he caught nothing, he packed up and found something else for dinner. 

His jobs kept changing: rope, laundry tubs, market tables, storm debris, fence posts, baskets from the garden plots. None of it was swordwork or weight training, but his body stayed busy.

One morning, Tibany sent him to the kitchen. More of the former prisoners from Newkama Land were leaving that afternoon, heading out with a Revolutionary ship bound for elsewhere. A fair number had already gone. The people staying on Momoiro tended to be transfeminine Newkama and those who enjoyed cross-dressing. Zoro didn’t know all the words for it. People stayed. People left. People dressed how they wanted. If there were fewer traditional-looking men in trousers around, he didn’t think anything of it. 

The kitchen was already hot when he arrived. Big pots steamed on iron burners. Knives worked over boards in quick, hard rhythms. Someone was frying flatbread near the back, and someone else had three pans going at once. Raine pointed Zoro to a counter with baskets of greens, squash, onions, carrots, and already peeled potatoes. “Chop those up. Even pieces.”

Zoro washed his hands, took the knife, and started. The potatoes needed to go in first. Starch. Weight. Long burn. Good for people hauling ropes, loading crates, sailing out, or recovering from injury. Carrots next, cut thick so they held up. Squash after that because it cooked softer and sweeter. Onions, to be cooked with oil and salt, because meals needed flavor as much as fuel. Greens near the end to keep them from going limp before serving. 

Chicken would fit with it. Browned first, probably, then set aside so it didn’t turn dry while the potatoes softened. Fish would cook too fast for the same pan. Pork would need more time and more attention than he felt like giving it. Beef would be too heavy unless it was cut thin. Chicken, then. 

Zoro paused with the knife over the board. He wasn’t cooking for himself right now. Raine had gotten in his head. 

With a wry twist of his lips, he went back to chopping.

By lunch, Zoro had chopped enough potatoes, carrots, squash, onions, and greens to feed half the island. His hands smelled like onions, his eyes wouldn’t stop stinging, and vegetable peels sat piled high in the scrap bins. When the party meal started, a cook waved him away from the prep counter and pointed him toward the plates.

Zoro took one and found a small table in the shade near the side of the kitchen. The cooks had gone with grilled chicken, which made him huff a quiet laugh, with a sauce that had more heat than he expected. 

Iva joined him a few minutes later, plate in hand, crown bobbing slightly as he ducked under the shade. He settled across from Zoro, took one bite, then spent the next minute watching Zoro eat. 

Zoro looked up. “What?”

“You seem much lighter these days, Roro-boy.”

Zoro frowned down at his bowl. “I’m heavier.”

“Mmmfufufu! Physically, yes. That’s good, too.” Iva tapped one painted nail against his cup. “But that’s not what I meant.”

Zoro kept eating.

Iva smiled like that was an answer by itself.

Around them, people ate and enjoyed the going away party. Plates clinked. Conversation carried. Laughter rose and fell. Pink gulls hopped across the ground, hoping for scraps. 

“How are the ugly voices?” Iva eventually asked, but his voice stayed easy. 

Zoro paused. It hadn’t vanished. Some mornings, it still got teeth in him before he could sit up. Some nights, grief still opened under his ribs for Ace, for Yubashiri, for the crew he’d left and the place he didn’t know if he could return to. But the voice came less. Quieter. It lost its place more easily when he interrupted it.

“Less,” Zoro said.

Iva nodded once, letting the answer stand. 

Before he could say anything else, someone hurried over from the hospital road and bent near Iva’s ear. Zoro kept eating, but caught pieces. The man from the south beach. Still unconscious. Responding when touched now. A twitch when someone checked his hand. A shift when they pressed near his shoulder.

Iva’s expression sharpened and he stood. “We’ll talk later, Roro-boy.”

Zoro nodded, already looking back at his plate. He thought about asking Raine if he’d teach him the recipe for this sauce.

A few days later, Claudette brought him back to the mirror room at five. 

He stood in front of it.

Claudette didn’t have to point. “Say it.”

Zoro looked at himself. Fuller face. Clearer eyes. Hair too long. Same scar. Same swords. Same man.

“I like men.”

“Again.”

“I like men.”

“And?”

Zoro’s jaw shifted. The first part came out with less problems now. The second part still caught on something deep and sore. He breathed through his nose. “There’s nothing wrong with liking men.”

Claudette waited. Zoro looked at them in the mirror.

“That’s true,” she said. “Make it yours.”

His fingers curled once, then loosened. “There’s…” He stopped. Tried again. “There’s nothing wrong with me liking men.”

It came out rough. Almost angry. But it came out.

Claudette nodded. “Good.”

Zoro stood there with the sentence hanging in the air and nothing to fight afterward. 

He didn’t say it again.

Claudette didn’t make him.

Later that week, he ended up near the stalls with Francois. They sat under one of the rough wooden pergolas with chipped mugs of beer and a plate of grilled skewers between them. Lanterns hung from the beams overhead. People moved through the tables around them, talking, eating, leaning over one another for salt or sauce or the last piece of bread. 

Francois dropped into the chair across from him with a mug of beer. “Animal pens today?”

“Yeah.”

“How’d that go?”

Zoro picked up his own mug. “We’re not eating them for dinner.”

Francois laughed, then glanced toward the road where two of the animals were being led past on rope halters, both pink from nose to tail. Zoro watched them go. One stopped walking to chew on the rope. The person leading it sighed like this happened every day.

“Why are they all pink?” Zoro asked.

Francois looked at him. “The animals?”

“Everything. Animals. Trees. Grass. Birds. Sand. Crabs. Probably the fish, too, but they’re too smart to bite where Claudette sends me.”

Francois leaned back in his chair, considering. “I could give you three answers. One is scientific, one is local legend, and one is what I think.”

Zoro took a drink. “Shortest one.”

“The island likes pink.”

Zoro stared at him.

Francois smiled. “That was what I think.”

“That’s stupid.”

“Yes. The local legend is worse.”

Zoro looked back toward the animal, which had now gotten the rope into its mouth and seemed pleased with itself. “Tell me the scientific one.”

“Something in the soil and plants, supposedly. Minerals, pigments, generations of animals eating what grows here. I don’t know. Ask a scientist if you want the boring version with long words.”

“And the legend?”

Francois’s grin widened. “A queen threw a tantrum so beautiful the island blushed forever.”

Zoro paused with the mug halfway to his mouth. Francois looked entirely too pleased.

“I hate that one most,” Zoro said. 

Francois only laughed.

When the day was done, he found his cabin on the first try. He walked back out again to double check, but it was his. 

He took a bath, washing the day’s work, salt air, and road dust from his skin. Afterward, he dried off, pulled on clean clothes, and fixed himself a snack without thinking much about it. Cheese. Apple slices. Crackers. Enough to keep his stomach from waking him up later. 

He checked Wado and Sandai Kitetsu while he ate. The steel was clean, the wraps held tight, and the edges were exactly as they should be. He wiped them with a cloth anyway, light and careful, then set them back within reach. 

The dishes took less than a minute to wash. Then he went into the bathroom to brush his teeth.

The mirror over the sink caught him squarely this time. Zoro paused with the toothbrush in one hand.

He looked better than he expected. Still tired, but less wrecked. The scar across his chest showed where the collar had shifted, and his earrings caught the bathroom light when he turned his head. 

For the first time in longer than he could remember, Zoro looked at himself and liked what he saw. 

He finished brushing his teeth, rinsed his mouth, and went to bed.

The window was open enough to let in warm air. Outside, chorus frogs chirped from the grass and low shrubs, loud and steady in the dark.

He was sure they were all pink.

Iva let him into the training yard on a morning that smelled like salt, hot grass, and fried dough from the stalls.

Zoro had finished breakfast, washed his dishes, and gone through the list with the paper still folded in his pocket instead of in his hand.

“I accept love into my life. I accept acceptance into my life. I accept confidence into my life. I accept caring into my life. I accept peace into my life. I accept who I am.”

He didn’t know if he believed all of it. Some mornings, parts of it sat easier. Some mornings, acceptance still felt like a blade held too close to his throat. But the list worked, irritatingly enough. The ugly thoughts came less often now, and when they did, he could get between them and himself before they finished cutting.

So when Tibany brought him to the training yard instead of another path, kitchen, fence, shed, or animal pen, Zoro stopped walking.

The yard sat on packed dirt between two rows of pink-barked trees. Practice posts stood at one end. Straw targets had been tied in place. Old marks crossed the ground where heels, blades, and heavier weapons had dragged through the dirt.

Iva waited near the center of the yard, arms folded, crown bright above his hair. He wore a black satin robe open over a laced corset top, boxing shorts, fishnets, and scuffed training boots. 

Zoro’s hand settled reflexively near Wado at his hip. 

Iva smiled. “You may draw them today.” 

Zoro’s eyes narrowed. “That a trick?”

“Mmmfufufu. Suspicion looks better on you than despair, Roro-boy.”

“I’m serious.”

“So am I.” Iva pointed one long nail toward the center of the yard. “You’ve been doing the work. Eating. Sleeping. Fishing. Jobs. Claude’s sessions. Raine’s cooking lessons. All very annoying for you, I’m sure.”

“Very.”

“Good. Now we see what happens when you’re handed the thing you actually want.”

Zoro looked toward the posts. His fingers flexed once. “Sword work.”

“Yes. Sword work.” Iva’s smile thinned into something sharper. “Practice, Roro-boy. That means practice. It doesn’t mean turning this yard into a punishment pit.” 

Zoro scowled. “I know how to train.”

“I know that.” Iva stepped closer. “The question is whether you know how to stop.”

Zoro’s jaw set. He nodded shortly.

Iva moved over to a chair beside a table with a pink umbrella, a Bloody Mary in a large glass awaiting him. He gestured with a hand for Zoro to get on with it. 

Zoro drew Wado first. The sound of the blade leaving the sheath moved through him like a clean breath. Sandai Kitetsu followed, the weight familiar and wrong at the same time because Yubashiri’s place stayed empty. His hip still expected a third balance point. His stance still wanted to adjust for a blade that was buried on the hill.

The dirt was solid under his boots. Wind moved through his hair and tickled his earrings. His fingers adjusted around familiar grips, and something in his chest eased. The swords felt right in his hands. 

The first cut came slow. Then another. Then another. It felt like forever since he’d done this, but his shoulders remembered. His wrists remembered. His feet settled into the ground, and the whole world narrowed down to edge, breath, angle, weight. Wado moved smoothly. Sandai Kitetsu pulled with its familiar hunger, and Zoro let it, but only as far as he chose. The missing sword made him adjust. He shifted his stance by half an inch, moved his weight sooner, let the second blade finish where the third would have carried through. 

Again. Then again. Better.

He worked through basic cuts first. Then footwork. Turns. Shifts. Draw. Reset. Draw again. Simple motions. Clean motions. Drills he’d done so many times that his body could find them half-asleep. It felt good. 

He kept going. Sweat gathered along his neck. His muscles warmed. His breath deepened. He moved through forms, then footwork, then controlled cuts against one of the practice posts. The first strike hit solid. The second bit deeper. The third sent a split running through the wood. 

Iva watched from the side of the yard. Zoro ignored him. 

The sequence ended. Zoro reset. Foot back. Shoulder down. Blades up. He hit the post harder. Wood dust snapped into the air. The impact jarred through his wrists.

Zoro stared at the new split in the post. He could be faster. His foot slid back into position. Wado came up. Sandai Kitetsu followed. The next strike bit hard enough to jolt his arm.

Better. Still not enough.

Again.

Zoro’s feet stayed planted. The crack in the post widened. Wood dust jumped from the cut and stuck to the sweat on his forearm. His breathing had gone too hard for the work he’d done. He noticed it, ignored it, and brought Wado around again. The blade hit lower than he meant.

His grip tightened.

Again.

He kept going. The post cracked deeper.

Again.

Sweat stung his eye. He didn't blink. 

Again.

Yubashiri was gone. Ace had fallen. Luffy had screamed. Mihawk had stood untouched. 

Again. 

He was too weak. Still soft. Unprepared.

Again.

“Enough.”

Zoro swung.

A massive hand caught Zoro’s wrist. The blade stopped cold.

Zoro froze.

Iva stood beside him now, close enough that Zoro had to tilt his head back. “I said enough.”

Zoro yanked his wrist free and stepped back. “I heard you.”

“Then why did you swing?”

“I was finishing the cut.”

“No.” Iva’s voice lost some of its theatrical lift. “Tell me what you were thinking.”

Zoro clenched his jaw. He knew what Iva meant. 

Iva waited.

Zoro made an annoyed sound in his throat. “That I was too weak, still.”

“Then we’re done for today.” 

“I can keep going.”

“Yes,” Iva said. “That was never the question.”

Zoro breathed hard through his nose.

Iva pointed toward the water jug on the table. “Drink.”

Zoro didn’t move. Iva’s lashes lowered.

Zoro sheathed Sandai Kitetsu with a hard click, then Wado. He crossed to the table, grabbed the jug, and drank. Water ran cold down his throat and into his stomach. His hands still wanted the hilts. His shoulders still wanted the next sequence. His head wanted to be angry because anger was easier than admitting Iva had stopped him at the exact place where training had started turning into punishment.

He set the jug down too hard. Iva didn’t comment.

“Tomorrow, we’ll go again,” Iva said instead, picking up his nearly empty glass. He swept out of the training yard, crown catching the sun. 

Zoro looked toward the practice posts. His body could have kept going for hours. He could’ve pushed through pain until his muscles broke and he couldn’t move anymore. 

The question is whether you know how to stop.

Zoro picked up the water jug and took it with him as he left.

The next day, Zoro showed up in the training yard after four people redirected him to the right path. Iva was already seated at the table in the shade, filing his nails idly. He acknowledged Zoro with a tilt of his head. “Begin.”

Zoro stepped to the center of the training yard, and began.

He ran through katas first. Draw and sheath. Draw and sheath. Discipline, posture, and calmness over aggression. With one sword, then two.

Then he moved into drills. Longer sequences, shifts and turns, forward and back. He was still aware of the missing sword at his side, compensating his balance. 

The morning sun flashed against the blades. A shadow from a circling hawk floated across the pink dirt. Sweat beaded along his hairline and dampened his shirt. 

He kept it slow. Annoyingly slow. Clean cuts. Controlled steps. Full reset after each sequence. His body wanted more, but he held it back. That was harder than driving forward. Much harder. Stopping before exhaustion felt unfinished, like leaving a fight while the enemy still stood.

But there was no enemy. Just posts. Dirt. Pink trees. Iva watching.

He moved to the training posts. Centered and struck. Precision over strength. Precision over speed. 

When that started to not feel like enough, he sped up. Attacked with purpose. Started splintering the post.

Not strong enough.

Zoro heard the thought, loud and clear. Almost automatically, he began reciting to break the pattern before it formed. “I accept love into my life. I accept acceptance into my life…”

His body slowed. The thought didn't finish. By the time he reached the last line, he'd caught what he'd started doing – turning training into punishment again. 

He sheathed his swords, looked over toward Iva. Iva tipped his mimosa at Zoro. 

He didn’t say to stop. Zoro looked back at the splintered posts. Then he turned his back and went through the katas again instead. Sharp, steady. Almost meditative. 

Then the drills once more. He kept them controlled. Step, cut, turn, reset. His breath stayed even. Dust shifted under his feet and settled again. 

For a while, it worked. The motions stayed precise. His shoulders stayed loose. Wado and Sandai Kitetsu moved where he told them to, and the missing weight at his side became something he adjusted around instead of fought against.

Then he noticed the half-inch drag in the cut. His foot turned late. The next turn should’ve snapped tighter. The last reset had taken too long. None of it was sloppy. Sloppy could be corrected. Good had to become better. He knew what that meant. He pushed past it anyway. 

One more sequence. Sharper. Faster. Harder.

His grip tightened. He added speed and strength, stirring up dust, creating slices of wind, pushing himself. Each movement became that much crisper, that much harder. Sweat gathered at his brow, and his shirt clung to his back. Sunlight glinted off the katanas.

“Enough,” Iva called out.

Zoro frowned, wanting to keep going, knowing he could. “I’ve barely started.”

“And now it’s time to stop.” Iva motioned him over. “Drink. Take a break.”

Zoro sheathed his swords, and walked over to the table. He drank from the jug waiting for him. Setting it down, he used the hem of his shirt to wipe the sweat from his face. “How long of a break?”

“Depends. What are you thinking about right now?”

Zoro frowned again. “Doing more training.”

“Why?”

Zoro paused at the question. It seemed stupid. “Because I need to train.”

“Why?” Iva asked again, sipping his drink.

“Because I need to be stronger.”

“Then you’re done,” Iva said. “We’ll go again tomorrow.”

Zoro stared at him. “You gonna tell me why?”

“No,” Iva said with a wide grin. “Mmmfufufu!”

Zoro exhaled with annoyance, picked up his jug, and walked away. 

Because I need to be stronger. It was the right answer. It had always been the right answer. 

Apparently, Iva disagreed.

Claude came by at five. Zoro had been sitting on the cabin steps, waiting. He hadn’t caught any fish – no surprise, though he thought he might have felt a nibble at one point – and had fixed himself a snack to tide him over until dinner. He’d been experimenting with pairings. Flatbread with almond butter and dried apricots worked. Salted plum with bean paste had been a mistake.

Claude stopped at the bottom of the steps. Dark trousers, white shirt, suspenders, boots polished enough to catch the last bit of evening light. Hair tied back. Face bare. From a distance, anyone would read them as a man and keep walking. “Ready?”

“No,” Zoro said, but he got up anyway. 

They headed down the path, past small cabins, over the gravel he’d laid, and a row of pink flowers growing along a low stone wall. The evening air smelled like sea and spice from the food stalls serving dinner. Voices blended in the distance.

“How did sword training go today?” Claude asked as they walked.

Zoro huffed a breath. “You already know.”

“I do.” Claude smirked. “I want to hear it from you.”

“I got stopped,” Zoro said flatly. 

“Why’d he stop you?”

“Because I said I needed to be stronger.”

“And why was that a problem?”

Zoro grumbled. “I have no clue.”

The path curved toward a small garden with benches set around a stone basin. Zoro saw that one of the benches needed leveling. He’d see if he could fix it tomorrow. 

“You know the difference between need and want?” Claude said, as they continued down the path. 

“I’m not stupid.”

“Then tell me.”

“They’re the same thing.” Claude hummed. Zoro knew what that sound meant. “You’re going to tell me I’m wrong.”

“If they were the same thing, they’d be the same word,” Claude said.

“They mean the same.”

“No, they don’t.” Claude slid their hands into their pockets. “Need is an obligation. A requirement. Or a lack of something essential.”

“Yeah. And?”

“Want is different,” Claude said. “Want means you’re still allowed to choose.”

Zoro went silent. Claude let it stretch until Zoro filled it. “I chose to train.”

Claude nodded. “You did.”

“I wanted to train more.”

“Want or need?”

Zoro opened his mouth to say they were the same thing again, but shut it. 

“Think about it,” Claude said, as they reached their destination. They opened the door, allowed Zoro to precede them inside.

The mirror room was quiet, warm from the day, and smelled faintly of soap and powder. The mirror waited against the wall in its carved pink frame. Zoro stepped in front of it before Claude told him. 

Claude stood beside him today, close enough that both of them were in the mirror. Claude looked like a man in a white shirt and suspenders. Zoro looked at them, then at himself. 

“You know what to do,” Claude said. 

Zoro looked at his reflection. “I like men.”

The sentence came out as a fact. Rough, maybe. Still blunt. Still his voice going a little lower around it. But it didn’t crawl out of him like a confession. It didn’t come with his shoulders halfway to his ears.

Claude nodded. “Good. Say that part again.” 

Zoro looked at himself again. “I like men,” he said, because now he could, and because it was just a fact about him. Nothing more.

“Yes,” Claude said. “And?” 

Zoro’s mouth went dry. The second part still felt like lowering a sword with someone swinging toward his head. “There’s nothing wrong–” he started, then stopped. Claude stood beside him in the mirror looking like another man, and something in Zoro's chest pulled sideways. 

He curled his fingers into fists. He forced himself to say it. “There’s nothing wrong with me liking men.” It came out strained, but it came out.

Claude nodded. “Again.” 

Zoro’s gaze cut toward them, then back to his own eyes in the reflection. No matter how many times they did this, he still saw fear. It pissed him off. “There’s nothing wrong with me liking men,” he growled.

“Again. Less anger.”

Zoro set his jaw. “There’s nothing wrong with me liking men,” he said, quieter that time.

Claude smiled, small enough that Zoro could stand it. “Good.”

Zoro still felt annoyed with himself. With Claude. With having to say it. “Still feels wrong.”

“Of course it does.”

He frowned.

Claude shrugged. “You spent years being taught the opposite. A few months of work isn’t going to undo it all.”

Zoro looked at the mirror. At his annoyed face. At the tightness around his eyes and the thin set of his mouth. “I want it to stop feeling wrong.”

Claude’s smile remained. “That’s a good want to have.” 

Want. Not need, want. His choice. 

Zoro closed his eyes for half a breath, then opened them. He could see what Claude meant now. Not all of it. Enough to irritate him. Enough to understand that changing the word wasn’t the point if the thought behind it stayed the same. 

He looked at himself in the mirror one more time. “I like men.” He paused, swallowed, said the words with determination. “And there’s nothing wrong with me liking men.”

It was still rough. Still stilted. Still not fully believed. But he’d get there. 

Claude stepped back. “That’s good for tonight.”

Zoro relaxed his hands. Took a breath, held it, and let it out slowly. “I need a drink.” He paused, catching what he said. Did he need a drink or just want it?

He shot Claude an irritated look. “Now you got me thinking about words.”

Claude chuckled, opening the door. “That’s usually how they get you.”

Iva was again in the training yard when Zoro arrived the next morning. The yard sat bright under the sun, packed dirt scuffed from the last two sessions, the cracked training post still standing near the far end with fresh splits running down one side. A water jug waited on the table under the pink umbrella. Beside it sat Iva’s drink, fat and red and rimmed with salt.

Iva wore a sleeveless black top, a short skirt over training shorts, fishnets, and boots. Zoro wasn’t sure why he wore training clothes when he only watched.

Zoro hadn’t slept well last night, and he ended up at the same dead end by the laundry building on the walk over seven times in a row. By the time he arrived, his mood had soured enough that sword training sounded even better than usual. 

Iva gestured imperiously. “Begin.”

Zoro stopped near the center of the yard. The practice posts stood where he’d left them, one split down the middle from the day before. Straw targets had been tied up again. Fresh water waited on the table. Dust sat loose over the packed ground. 

The first sequence was basic. One sword. Draw, cut, turn, reset. He kept it slow enough that each movement had to land right. His feet adjusted to the empty place at his hip without chasing it.

The second sequence used both swords. Forward, side-step, cut across, turn through, draw back. Sandai Kitetsu pulled hard in his hand, eager as ever. Zoro let it bite into the movement without letting it take over.

The third sequence was faster. Not too fast, but fast enough to feel good. He struck the first target and cut through the straw cleanly. The second took a diagonal hit that bit deeper than he intended. His shoulders wanted another pass immediately. Fix the angle. Sharpen the turn. Make it better.

Not good enough.

His grip tightened. Need pushed up behind it. 

Zoro stopped. The swords stayed lowered at his sides. Dust shifted around his boots. Sweat gathered at the back of his neck. His body wanted the next sequence. His head offered all the reasons.

He could fix it now.

He should fix it now.

He needed to fix it now.

Not good enough.

Zoro breathed in. “I accept love into my life. I accept acceptance into my life.” He closed his eyes, felt the hilts in his hands. “I accept confidence into my life. I accept caring into my life.” He could feel Iva watching. “I accept peace into my life. I accept who I am.”

The pressure didn’t disappear. It eased enough for him to think past it. 

He looked over at Iva. “I don’t need to train, do I.” He said it as a statement, not a question. 

Iva’s smile was quick and wide. “Mmmfufufu. No, you don’t.”

Zoro adjusted his grip on his katanas. “But I want to train.”

“For what reason?” Iva asked.

Not good enough. Not strong enough, his mind immediately supplied.

He stopped again, recited all his sentences in his head. I accept love into my life, I accept acceptance into my life…

He took another deep breath, glanced at the targets, then down at Wado. The sun shone along its edge, the white of the hilt blazing strong. “I want to be the World’s Greatest Swordsman.”

“What else?”

Zoro shifted his gaze to Sandai Kitetsu. The black blade. Cursed. The one who found him worthy to wield. “I want to be stronger.”

“Why?” 

Not good–

Zoro cut off the thought. I accept confidence into my life. He made himself think of an actual reason, not a reactive one. “To protect Luffy.”

“Why?” Iva pressed.

“To keep my promise to him.”

“What if you can’t?”

No fish means no fish.

“I’ll know I did my best to try.”

Iva hummed. “Any other reasons?”

Zoro frowned. Wasn’t that enough? 

Iva motioned to the jug. “Drink. We’ll continue tomorrow.”

Zoro sheathed his swords slowly. The answer should’ve been easy. Stronger was stronger. Protection was protection. A promise was a promise. He didn’t understand why Iva kept digging like there was something buried under all of it. 

He crossed to the table and picked up the jug. The water was lukewarm, even though it had been in the shade. He still wanted to train, but he knew Iva wouldn’t let him continue.

Any other reasons?

Zoro looked back at the targets. He had reasons. Good ones. Real ones. So why did it feel like Iva was waiting for one he hadn’t found yet?

Iva didn’t say anything more, just took his margarita with a short “Ta-ta” and left.

Zoro walked away from the training yard with his swords at his hip and the question following him down the path. Any other reasons?

He took the wrong turn by the laundry building again. This time, he noticed after only three steps, turned around, and kept walking.

It bothered him all day. Through the job Tibany collected him for – fixing the roof on one of the clothing stores – through lunch, through fishing and his mirror work with Claude. He thought about asking Claude what Iva meant, but for some reason it felt like cheating. Claude had already provided the difference between need and want. He could figure the rest out on his own.

What did he want? Not need, want. 

To be the World’s Greatest Swordsman. 

To protect Luffy.

To keep his promises. 

To be able to say that he liked men and that there was nothing wrong with him for it and mean it.

To stop the ugly voice in his head.

To sleep through the night.

To not feel weak.

Zoro paused at that one, as he stood at his kitchen sink, dirty plate and soapy rag in hand. He could easily hear both Iva and Claudette chime in his head, Does it matter if you’re weak?

Yes, it mattered. 

But no, it didn’t. 

He didn’t need to train. He wanted to, but he didn’t need to. He wanted to be stronger, but he didn’t need to be. He could fix roofs, chop wood, break rocks, and wire fences just fine. He wasn’t obligated to be stronger. It wasn’t essential in the way that food or water was essential. It would make his dream unreachable, but he didn't need to reach it. He wanted to, for himself, for Kuina. But he didn’t need to achieve it.

And Luffy. He wanted to protect Luffy. Stand with him. Help him achieve his own dream. All wants. But did he need to?

No.

Would Luffy see him as weak?

No.

The answer was obvious. Immediate. Luffy wanted to be friends with people who helped themselves, who strived to be who they wanted to be. And if Zoro wanted something else, something that didn’t involve driving himself relentlessly, he had a feeling Luffy would be okay with that. 

So what did he want for himself? If he put aside Luffy, put aside Kuina and his dream, what did he actually want?

Zoro ran the soapy rag over the dish, rinsed it off, and set it in the rack. He cleaned the pan he’d cooked dinner with as well as the utensils, as he thought through the answer. 

He wanted to be healthy. 

The dinner dishes pointed that out. He’d made his own meal, balanced, good for him, for energy, for more than just something to fill his stomach. 

He also wanted to be healthy in his head. To sleep well. To not feel fatigued. To get rid of the negative thoughts. To feel better about himself. To make the sentences true.

I accept love – for myself – into my life.

I accept acceptance – of myself.

I accept confidence – in myself.

I accept care – for myself.

I accept peace – for myself.

I accept who I am.

Zoro drained the sink, wiped the counter, and draped the used rag over the tap. He knew he also wanted to be okay with liking men. To truly believe there was nothing wrong in it. So he could be at peace with that part of him. “I accept peace into my life,” he said quietly.

Well, damn. Those sentences weren’t stupid after all.

Zoro took a beer from the fridge and went outside to sit on the porch. Moonlight gave the island a silvery glow. Stars studded the night sky. A soft breeze blew through the air. The frogs chorused. Other cabins around him were dark, the residents either in the village or retired for the night.

Zoro tipped the beer back, leaned against the porch post, and let himself keep asking. What else did he want?

A few days passed before Iva called for him again. Zoro worked between them. Fixed a window shutter that kept banging in the wind. Helped unload a supply ship. Patched another animal pen after one of the pink long-eared bastards chewed through a latch and spent half the morning eating laundry. Fished at the south beach, fed a few worms to the sandpipers, chased crabs until he collected enough for dinner.

On the fourth morning, Tibany brought him to the training yard. Iva was already there beneath the pink umbrella, reclined in his chair with one leg crossed over the other. A drink sat on the table beside the water jug, pale red, thick with ice, sitting in a wide, curved glass with a little slice of fruit hooked over the rim. It had a swirly straw.

The yard had been reset. Two practice posts stood upright at the far end, fresh and unmarked. Straw targets hung from a crossbeam. The ground had been raked, though old scars still showed beneath the top layer of dirt. He was surprised it hadn’t been one of his jobs. Then again, Iva probably knew Zoro would use it as an excuse to train.

Iva started the training like he had the other days. “Begin.”

Katas first. Zoro fell into the rhythm of draw and sheath, keeping focus on the way he performed each move. Then came the drills, sliding from one to the other, as much muscle memory as skill. When he switched to attacks at the training posts, he went slow instead of fast, precise instead of hard, until his katanas barely kissed the wood every time. Then he sped up the pace and the force without changing intent. 

Sweat came quickly from exertion and the island heat. His muscles began burning from the workout, slowly but there. His blades were a flashing blur in the sunlight. Dirt kicked up and divots appeared in the ground beside the post from the whips of energy from his swords.

Harder. Faster. Again. Zoro’s grip tightened. The next strike bit into the post, a cut into the rough wood. Splinters blew outward. Unintended. Uncontrolled. Not good enough.

Zoro stopped mid-strike. Dust moved around his ankles. His breath came hard, and his body fought him for the next cut. Wado and Sandai Kitetsu sat ready in his hands. The post stood in front of him, marked but standing.

Zoro looked at the cut again. Bad angle. Fixable. Tomorrow, if he wanted. Later, if he chose. It didn’t have to be corrected with his teeth clenched and his thoughts acting against him.

He waited for Iva to call him out, but there was nothing. A glance over earned him a finger wave as Iva drank his daiquiri. 

He took a breath, centered himself, and reset. He’d give it another go. Target sequence. Kiss the post, not cut it. 

He started again. This time, he kept the movement small. Step, turn, draw, strike. The blade stopped at the surface instead of biting in, close enough to raise a pale line in the dust on the wood. He did it again from the other side. Then again from a lower angle. Wado touched and left. Sandai Kitetsu followed, matching the same narrow control. His arms wanted to drive through. His shoulders wanted the impact. Zoro held both back and made every strike end exactly where he decided. 

When he caught his thoughts going bad this time – they were easy to hear, they weren’t subtle – he stopped. Sheathed his swords. Wiped his face with the hem of his shirt. Then he went over to the table to take a drink.

Iva’s face was pleased as he sipped from his swirly straw. Zoro picked up the water jug and drank. The water was still cool, and his breathing was steady. His body wanted more, but the want sat differently now. It didn’t have claws in him. It didn’t feel like he’d lose something essential if he walked away.

He could keep training.

He could also stop.

Iva leaned forward, elbows on the table. “Tell me what happened.”

“I trained.”

“And?”

“I stopped.”

“Because?”

“Because my mind kept telling me I’m not good enough.”

Iva tilted his head, crown shifting in his purple hairdo. “Are you good enough?”

Zoro felt the tension immediately seize his shoulders, but he was aware of it, caught it, let it go. “Probably not,” he said. “But I’ll get there.”

“Mmmfufufu,” Iva laughed softly. “Tell me, Roro-boy – what do you want?”

“To get stronger.”

“For what reason?”

It was the same question as the other day. This time, Zoro knew the answer. “To better myself.”

Iva leaned back in his chair. “Any other reason?”

Zoro shook his head. “There doesn’t need to be.”

Iva laughed, bright and loud, then picked up the daiquiri again. “You’re starting to understand.”

“Don’t sound so surprised.”

“Oh, I’m not surprised.” Iva glanced at him. “You’re stubborn enough to survive your own healing out of spite.”

Zoro huffed. “Sounds like me.”

“It does.” Iva looked toward the targets. “Again.”

Zoro blinked. “Thought we were done.”

“You stopped because you chose to. Now choose again.” Iva pointed toward the yard. “Go train. However you want. Then stop where you decide.”

Zoro stared at him for a moment. Then he walked back to the center of the yard. He chose a simple two-sword form first, then changed his mind. Something sharper. Not harder. Sharper. Wado led. Sandai Kitetsu followed. Step forward, low cut, turn through, upward strike, cross slash, full stop. Five movements.

He drew.

The first movement flowed into the second. His feet shifted right. The turn came smoother than before. The upward strike clipped the post higher than planned, but he let the next slash follow the line instead of forcing it back.

Full stop.

Dust settled. His pulse beat steady in his ears. The target hung split, uneven but cut through.

Zoro sheathed both swords. He wanted to do it again. So he did, a second time. Then a third. Then a fourth. Posts slashed through from a distance, then slashed through close up. It was satisfying to make them split into pieces. He decided to try to split them further, catch the larger pieces as they started to fall, cut them into tiny bits of sawdust. 

At the end of the row of wooden fighting posts were the steel ones that flanked the training ground, supports to hang straw dummies and targets from. He turned his strikes on them, just to see what he could do. No other reason.

He sheared clean through the steel, then cut the falling metal into smaller pieces before it hit the ground.  

A smile of amazement spread over his lips and he laughed with delight. “Did you see that?!”

“Mmmfufufu! I did!” Iva clapped his hands. “Well done, Roro-boy. You can cut steel.”

Zoro grinned at him, then back at the fallen metal post. He turned on his heel, looking for another one. “I want to do that again.”

“I’m not stopping you.”

Zoro closed in on a new target, got close enough to strike, and tried again. He already knew he could do it. It was no different than cutting up wooden posts or boulders for gravel. 

His katanas sheared through the metal like it was made of paper.

Zoro laughed again. This was fun.

Iva didn’t stop him from decimating all the steel support posts, the other wooden training posts, and turning the straw dummies into powder just because he could. When the only thing left standing was the table, chairs, and umbrella, Zoro stopped. He sheathed his swords, dusted off his hands, and grabbed the jug off the table, still grinning.

Iva looked him over like a proud sensei in a lot of makeup. “How’d that feel?”

“Fun.” Zoro flopped into the other chair. “Satisfying.”

Iva’s big eyes twinkled. “That’s how it should always be.”

Zoro took a drink from the jug, water spilling around the rim. He wiped his wet mouth with the back of his wrist. “Fun, you mean?”

“Satisfying,” Iva said. “Hard work, effort, pushing yourself to be better should leave you feeling satisfied. Not angry with yourself.”

Zoro understood what he was saying. “And if it doesn’t?”

“You stop.” 

Zoro scratched his thumb along Wado’s hilt. “Because I don’t need to train.”

“No.”

“I can always do it again tomorrow.”

“Yes.”

“If I want to.”

“Yes.”

Zoro looked out over the mess of the training yard. “I’m going to get stronger. Better.”

“Of that, I have no doubt.” Iva stood, picking up his empty glass. “Just remember to do it for the right reasons.” 

And Zoro knew those reasons now.

“I have a Den Den call to make,” Iva said, then gestured toward the yard. “And you have work to do.”

“Figured you’d say that.”

“Mmmfufufu,” Iva laughed, and left.

Zoro sat in the shade of the umbrella for a while longer, drinking the rest of the water, finishing cooling down. Clouds shifted overhead, moving in front of the sun. A pink bird landed on one of the fence posts surrounding the yard. It hopped down to the ground and began pecking through the straw dust.

Satisfaction still hummed in his bones. He could cut steel. 

With a grin lingering on his lips, he got up and went to find material to fix the training yard.

A few weeks passed with the same routines. Wake up, say the list, get out of bed. Some mornings, he said them to the ceiling. Some mornings, into the pillow. Some mornings, through his teeth while the ugly voice tried to get there first. It still sounded stupid sometimes. He said it anyway.

Then the day started, whatever it held. Make breakfast, wash up. Wait for a message if he had a job or going to the training yard. Zoro fixed doors, carried supplies, repaired another fence, sharpened tools, patched a roof, cleared brush away from a storage shed, and once spent an entire morning trying to round up a loose flock only to wind up just as lost as them. 

On days he trained, Iva was always there with a drink. He’d start when he was told to begin. End where he’d decided to end. Stop if the thought shifted from wanting to improve into needing to prove something. Some days he caught it early. Some days Iva caught it late. Zoro disliked those days, but they happened less. 

He still fished at three. Still caught nothing. No fish meant no fish.

Most evenings, he had a beer with Francois near the stalls. Sometimes they talked. Sometimes Francois talked and Zoro listened. Sometimes neither of them said much as people did their thing around them – laughter and conversation, loud arguments, people leaning on each other because they could. 

He worked with Claude and the mirror.

 “I like men,” Zoro would say.

“And?”

“There’s nothing wrong with me liking men.”

Some days it came out rough. Some days it came out quieter. Once it came out almost steady. He wasn’t there yet. He knew he’d get there.

On a hot morning, after Zoro had finished training and stopped before Iva had to call him off, Iva told him to sit. A red cosmopolitan in a triangular glass garnished with a lime twist sat half-empty at Iva’s elbow. 

“I have made arrangements,” Iva said.

Zoro drank the water from the always present jug and wiped his mouth with the back of a hand. “For what?”

“For you to continue your training elsewhere.” Iva lifted the glass and shifted the lime. “If you want.” 

If you want.

Zoro looked toward the posts. His last sequence had cut through the target where he’d planned. The third cut still needed work, but it could wait until tomorrow. Except maybe there wasn’t a tomorrow here.

Zoro turned his attention back to Iva. “Why?”

“Because you know how to stop.” Iva looked at him over the rim of the glass. “And because you know you still want to go.” 

Zoro didn’t answer. He did want to go. That was the problem and the relief of it. Momoiro had stopped feeling like a place he’d been dumped to survive. It had become a comfortable refuge where he’d learned to look at himself in the mirror and start to like what he saw again. 

Iva set the glass down. “Also, I’ve been holding a message for you.”

Zoro went still.

“From Straw Hat-boy.”

“Luffy?” Zoro’s throat tightened. He'd known Luffy pulled through – been told that months ago – but nothing since. 

Iva nodded. “He said to let you know the crew is meeting on Sabaody on a specific date, to sail to the New World.” 

The crew.

Meeting.

Sabaody.

Luffy expected him to come.

Longing hit so hard he almost stood. He wanted the Merry under his feet. Luffy’s voice shouting over the deck. Nami’s yelling at them to shut up. Usopp’s long-winded stories. Sanji in the kitchen, with his cigarette smoke and sharp mouth. His crew. His captain. His home, if he could still call it that.

He looked down at his hands. “I still want to get stronger.” 

Iva’s gaze stayed on him.

Zoro’s gaze shifted to Wado’s hilt. “For myself first.”

Iva’s smile was quieter this time. “Good.”

Zoro swallowed. “Then Luffy.”

“Of course.”

“And the crew.”

“Of course,” Iva said again. “You still have plenty of time.”

Zoro nodded once. Plenty of time. It didn’t feel like plenty. It felt like a blade’s edge. A location. A date. A promise waiting ahead. But it was time. He could use it.

Preparations to leave began the next day.

Zoro cleaned the cabin because leaving a mess behind felt wrong. He stripped the bed, folded the blanket, wiped down the cooking corner, washed the last dishes, swept dust out from under the table, and found three onion skins under the stove that he tossed in the bin. He returned the fishing pole and bait bucket. 

Raine came by with a wrapped bundle of food for the trip and a smaller packet of dried fruit, nuts, and dark crackers.

“You’ll eat,” Raine said.

“Yeah.”

“Not just when someone reminds you.”

“Yeah.”

“Protein when you can. Greens. Fruit. Enough starch if you’re training hard.”

“I know.”

Raine looked at him for a moment. “You look better than when you got here.”

Zoro glanced away.

“Keep it that way.”

Zoro nodded. “Thanks.”

Raine nodded. His cowboy hat sat low, shadowing his eyes. “Keep cooking when you can.”

“I will.”

“Good.” Raine touched two fingers briefly to the brim of his hat, then left before the moment got bigger.

Claude arrived later that afternoon. They were Claude again: trousers, shirt, boots, hair tied back, face bare. Zoro wondered if that was deliberate. Probably. Claude didn’t do much by accident. 

Zoro was outside the cabin, oiling Wado. Sandai Kitetsu lay already cleaned beside him. The empty loop at his hip sat visible from where the swords rested across his knees.

Claude sat on the step beside him. “Leaving tomorrow.”

“Yeah.”

“Good.”

Zoro glanced over.

Claude’s expression stayed calm. “That isn’t dismissal. It means you’re ready for the next part.”

Zoro worked the cloth over Wado’s blade. “I’m still bad at the mirror.”

“You’re better than you were.”

“Still bad.”

“Yes.”

Zoro snorted.

Claude’s mouth tipped slightly. “Keep working. Use whatever mirror you find. Say the list every morning. Say it when you need it. Especially when you think you don’t.”

Zoro looked at the blade in his hands. “I know.”

“I know you know,” Claude said. “I’m saying it anyway.”

Zoro set Wado down carefully. “There’s nothing wrong with me liking men.”

Claude didn’t move. 

The afternoon stayed quiet around them. Wind stirred the pink flowers by the porch. Somewhere down the path, Tibany laughed at something. 

Zoro looked at the sword instead of Claude. “Still feels wrong.”

“I know.”

“I’ll get there.”

Claude nodded once. “You will.”

“Yeah. I will.”

Claude’s expression softened a little, but they didn’t make it sentimental. “You’ve done good work, Zoro.” 

He looked out over the pink trees that grew around the cabins. “Yeah,” he said, very low.

Claude left him with that.

Francois found him that evening near the outdoor tables.

The stalls were loud, full of dinner smoke, beer, lantern light, and people chatting amicably. Zoro had a mug in front of him and a plate of fried mushrooms. Francois dropped into the chair across from him and sat there for a while without saying much. 

Finally, Francois said, “You’re leaving.”

“Yeah.” 

“You know where?”

“No.”

Zoro ate a mushroom.

For a while, they sat like they usually did. Francois talked. Zoro listened. People passed around them, laughing, carrying plates, pulling chairs under the pergolas. Someone spilled beer. Someone else threatened violence over a missing dumpling. Music started near the far stall, a little off-tempo.

Eventually, the evening waned, Zoro wanted to take a bath then have time to clean the tub. He rose to buss his table. Francois was there when he turned around. 

“Can I?” Francois said, arms held out.

Zoro tensed. He thought of the list. The mirror. The island. Luffy’s arms around him in Impel Down, when Zoro had thought he deserved nothing and Luffy had held him like there was nothing to decide. 

“Yeah,” Zoro said. 

The hug was firm and brief. Francois smelled like beer, soap, and the fried dough from the stall behind him. Zoro’s shoulders went hard at first. His hands hovered awkwardly at his sides. The ugly voice stirred. He cut it off before it took away from this. I accept caring into my life.

His hands came up, stiff, and patted Francois once on the back.

Francois squeezed once, then let him go. 

That night, Zoro slept. He woke once when the wind shifted and rattled the window. But he turned over, breathed through the first edge of unease, and fell asleep again.

Morning came. He said the list. He cooked breakfast. He ate. He cleaned the dishes and put them away. Then he took Wado and Sandai Kitetsu, the wrapped food from Raine, the list in his pocket, and the few clothes he’d been given on the island, and followed Tibany down to the dock. 

Iva waited aboard a ship with a crew of Newkama and others bound for different islands. Some waved from the rail. Some shouted farewells toward people onshore. Cargo finished being loaded, ropes hauled, sails readied. The ship left with the tide. 

Zoro stood near the rail as Momoiro pulled away behind them.

The island shrank slowly. Pink houses. White paths. Training yard somewhere beyond the buildings. Food stalls, animal pens, cabins, shore where he’d failed to fish and fed worms to birds instead.

Francois waved from the dock with both arms. Raine stood beside him, arms folded. Claude lifted one hand.

Zoro raised his own.

Then the ship turned, wind caught the sails, and Momoiro slid out of sight.

It took a few days to reach the next island.

The voyage was mostly quiet. Zoro trained lightly on deck when the crew allowed space for it, cooked for himself twice in the cramped galley, ate what Raine had packed, and slept in a narrow bunk that smelled of salt and old wood. He got lost belowdeck twice and once ended up in a room full of wigs, spare boots, and three people playing cards around a barrel. Nobody seemed surprised. 

Iva spent most of the trip doing whatever Iva did. Planning. Sending messages. Drinking things with fruit in them. Shouting at Den Den Mushi. Laughing at his own jokes. Giving raucous performances. Occasionally appearing beside Zoro to tell him not to overtrain, then vanishing again in a wave of perfume and authority. 

Some of the Newkama disembarked at other stops. Others stayed on, bound elsewhere. Iva said little about where they were going. 

On the fourth morning, the sky changed. Clouds lowered into a thick gray ceiling. The air cooled. Fog spread over the water in long white sheets. The island rose ahead through it, dark and dense, covered in forest beneath an overcast sky. Mountain-like hills jutted upward beyond the trees, their peaks curling inward like hooked fingers. Ruined structures clung to some of the slopes, broken walls and towers visible through gaps in the mist.

The ship dropped anchor offshore.

A boat took Zoro and Iva to a rocky stretch of shore. Waves broke white against black stone. The air smelled of rain, wet leaves, and old earth. Behind the beach, the forest waited thick and dark, with pieces of ruined wall half-swallowed by vines. 

Zoro stepped onto the shore. His boots hit slick stone. Iva followed, carrying something long wrapped in cloth.

Zoro looked at it. Iva held it out. “Thought you might want this.”

Zoro took the bundle. It had weight. His fingers tightened before he unwrapped it. Inside was a katana.

The sheath was pink. The hilt was pink, too, wrapped neatly and better made than the color had any right to suggest. Zoro stared at it for a second, then drew the blade partway. Strong steel. Decent balance. Not Yubashiri. But a sword. A real one.

Iva watched him study it. “It should do until you find a suitable replacement.”

Zoro slid the blade back into the sheath. For a moment, he only held it. Then he tucked the sheath through the empty loop at his hip.

The weight settled into place. The right side of his body remembered what it had been missing. Three swords again. The balance wasn’t perfect. The sword was different. The hilt sat wrong under his hand because it was new, because it wasn’t his yet. But the empty loop was empty no longer. 

The knot he’d been carrying under his ribs eased a little. 

He rested his hand over the pink hilt. “Thanks.”

Iva smiled. “You are welcome, Roro-boy.”

A shout came from the boat. “Queen Iva! Transponder call! The hospital says the patient opened his eyes!”

Iva’s head turned sharply toward the ship. “Coming!” 

Then he turned back to Zoro. The fog moved between them, thin and gray. “You’ve come far from when I first met you.” 

Zoro looked at the trees. “Still got farther to go.” 

“Yes.” Iva’s voice was steady. “Don’t let your training on Momoiro go to waste.” 

Zoro’s hand settled over Wado, Sandai Kitetsu, and the new pink hilt in turn. “I promise.”

Iva nodded, satisfied.

Zoro shifted the pack on his shoulder and looked inland again. “Am I supposed to be meeting someone here, or what?” 

“You’ll figure it out.” Iva stepped backward toward the boat. “Mmmfufufu! Air kisses!”

He blew several of them with both hands, hopped neatly back into the boat, and let the crew row him away before Zoro could demand an actual answer.

Zoro stood on the rocky shore and watched the boat return to the ship. Watched the ship raise sail. Watched it turn through the fog and pull away until the pink flags vanished into gray. 

Then he turned toward the island interior. Forest waited ahead, dense and black with wet branches. Ruins rose behind it, broken stone half-swallowed by green. Wind moved through the trees with a low, rough sound. Somewhere deeper in, something screamed.

Zoro adjusted the new sword at his hip. The brush ahead snapped. Then the trees moved.

Huge shapes crashed through the forest, breaking branches and shoving aside trunks. Gorilla-like creatures, massive and dark-furred, charged from the tree line. They carried swords, clubs, and spears in hands too big for any normal weapon. Their eyes fixed on Zoro. Their teeth bared.

Zoro’s mouth curved. He drew the pink sword. The new blade came free with a clean ring. 

“Time to find out what you can do.”

Zoro sat on a broken ruin wall, breathing hard, wiping blood and dirt from the pink sword. The stone beneath him was damp and cold through his trousers. Fog moved between the trees and through the shattered archways behind him. Water dripped steadily from leaves onto old stone. The air smelled like wet earth, moss, blood, and the sharp iron tang left after a fight. 

He was sweaty, bruised, cut, and bleeding from several places that would need looking at eventually. Victorious, though.

The pink sword had held. That was the first thing he cared about. The second was that it had a decent edge. Better than decent, actually. The balance still felt strange, too light near the guard and a little stiff through the turn, but it hadn’t chipped when one of the gorillas brought a club down hard enough to crack stone. It hadn’t bent. It hadn’t shivered in his hand like cheap steel.

It wasn’t Yubashiri.

He wiped the blade again, slower this time.

Around him, the gorilla things lay scattered across the shore and the broken path leading inland. One had gone down halfway through a stone arch, its huge arm folded under it, spear snapped beside its hand. Another sprawled near the trees, breathing shallowly through its teeth. Two more were piled against a cracked column where Zoro had sent them with a two-sword strike and a kick to the chest.

The fight had been good. Messy, but good.

Sweat ran down the side of his face. A cut on his shoulder bled into his sleeve. His ribs ached where one of the bastards had caught him with the flat of a blade. His thigh stung from a spear graze, and his knuckles were split again.

Zoro tipped the pink sword to catch the gray light and checked the edge. Clean. He nodded once, then set the cloth to Wado next. The swords would get a proper tending when he stopped for the night… somewhere. Likely in the ruins, if he didn’t find anyone on the island. Iva didn’t say there’d be anyone, only that this was where he’d continue training. Maybe he was just going to fight the gorilla things, if there were more of them.

The island stayed quiet except for his breathing, the distant crash of waves, and the wind moving through the black trees. Fog dragged low over the ruins. Broken stone walls jutted out of the ground at odd angles, slick with moss and old rain. Farther inland, the forest pressed close, thick enough that the shadows looked solid. 

He weirdly missed all the pink.

He finished wiping the blades and secured them at his hip. Then he checked the cuts on his arms and side. Shallow. Messy. Bleeding enough to be irritating, but nothing serious. One bruise along his ribs pulled when he breathed too deep. His left shoulder ached from blocking a spear haft with more force than he’d planned. 

He shifted his bag off his shoulders to retrieve the bandages he knew were inside. He could ignore the injuries – had many times – but there was no reason to at the moment. I accept care into my life had a purpose behind it. Not neglecting himself was a part of it.

He used water from the flask hanging off his bag to clean the cuts, then bandaged the deeper ones. The shallow ones had already stopped bleeding. They’d all be healed by the next day, now that he was eating well. He was actually heavier than he’d ever been, full faced with softness around the middle. He knew he’d trim down once he started working out fully again, exchanging it for muscle. But he also knew he shouldn’t allow that as an excuse to not stay eating healthily.

He took a drink from the flask before putting it and the unused bandages away. Shouldering the pack again, he stood on the wall, rolled his shoulder once, and looked toward the ruins climbing into the fog. He should head inland, see if there was anyone here to find. 

He stepped down from the ruined wall and started walking.

The path cut through what was left of an old courtyard. Broken paving stones showed through the moss in uneven patches. Half a fountain sat tilted near one wall, its basin full of black water and fallen leaves. Vines crawled over cracked arches. Tree roots had pushed through the stone in thick knots, splitting steps and lifting slabs until the whole place looked like it had been abandoned, buried, and then dragged halfway back out again. Fog hung low between the walls and gathered around his boots as he moved.

Ahead, a sound drifted through the trees.

Zoro stopped.

It came light at first, almost swallowed by the fog. A faint hum, maybe, or someone talking to themselves too far away for the words to carry. He listened, one hand already near his swords.

Something moved above the path.

At first, it looked like a shape passing between the fog and the black branches. Too small for one of the gorilla things. Too steady for a bird. It drifted closer, smooth and slow, with no footsteps and no rustle of leaves underfoot.

Zoro’s fingers brushed Wado’s hilt.

The fog shifted between the ruined walls. For a moment, he saw nothing but black trees, slick stone, and the broken line of the path half-buried under moss.

Then a girl floated into view.

Actually floated.

She hovered above the path as if walking was something she’d heard about and decided sounded inconvenient. A black parasol rested over one shoulder, tilted against the mist despite the total lack of sunlight. She wore black shorts, striped stockings, red boots, and a velvet red top that looked too nice for the island. Her hair hung long and pale around her face, and she looked at him like he was something ugly that had crawled out of the tide.

Zoro stared up at her. 

She stared back. Then her gaze dropped to the gorillas scattered behind him, the blood on his clothes, the fresh bandages, and the swords at his hip. Her mouth pursed. “So not cute.”

Her hair was pink. Zoro’s mouth twitched with amusement. “Who are you?”

“Who are you?” she countered. 

“Roronoa Zoro,” he said, because he had no reason to hide. 

“Hm. So you’re the guest I’m supposed to be meeting.” She twirled her parasol, still eyeing him disdainfully. “I’m Perona. You may call me Your Royal Highness or My Esteemed Ghost Princess.”

“Perona,” Zoro said, because like hell was he going to call her that other stuff.

Perona’s face screwed up in a snit. “Ooh! You are definitely Not Cute!”

Zoro scratched the back of his head, still wary but at the moment she wasn’t a threat. “You were supposed to meet me?” he said. Was she the person going to train him?

“Hmph. Yes.” Perona spun mid-air and started floating in the opposite direction. “Let’s go. I have better things to do than fetch stray swordsmen.”

Zoro watched her for a moment, then followed. 

The path inland had probably been a road once. Now it was broken stone, moss, and mud, with roots pushing up through the cracks and thorny vines dragging over the edges. Zoro followed Perona through the fog while water dripped from black branches overhead and something small skittered away under a fallen slab. The island stayed damp and cold around him. Ruined walls appeared and vanished between the trees. Half-collapsed arches leaned over the path. Old statues watched from the undergrowth with their faces worn smooth by rain. Perona floated ahead without looking back, parasol tilted over one shoulder, red boots never touching the ground. 

Zoro kept one hand near his swords and watched the trees as much as he watched her. More gorilla things could come out of the forest. Something worse could, too. The island felt old, wet, and hostile in a way Momoiro never had. 

The trees began to thin near the top of a rise. Perona drifted through the last stretch of fog, and the land opened ahead.

A castle rose from the hills.

It stood dark against the overcast sky, all steep roofs, long windows, broken towers, and stone walls climbing out of the forest. Parts of it had crumbled. Other parts looked sharp enough to still be occupied. Vines crawled up the lower walls, and shattered battlements cut jagged lines into the gray light. Behind it, the hills curled inward around the structure, their peaks bent like hooked claws above the mist. 

Zoro stopped for half a second. Perona glanced back. “Don’t stand there gawking. It’s gloomy, drafty, and haunted in the best way.”

Zoro looked from the castle to the forest around it. “Sounds friendly,” he said, and kept walking.

The path climbed toward the castle in uneven switchbacks, passing through broken gates and stretches of wall half-swallowed by moss. The stones under Zoro’s boots grew larger and better fitted the higher they went, though age and weather had split plenty of them. Rainwater sat in cracks. Vines crawled over carved edges. Black trees leaned close on either side, their branches scraping softly against one another in the wind. Above them, the castle rose bigger with every step: dark stone, narrow windows, steep roofs, and towers cutting into the low gray sky. 

Perona floated through the outer gate first, not slowing as she crossed the cracked courtyard. Zoro followed, eyes moving over the broken statues, the old scorch marks on the stone, the weeds forcing their way between the paving blocks. The place looked abandoned and occupied at the same time.

The main steps spread wide at the top of the slope, worn down the middle from years of weather and whatever had lived here before the island went quiet. Someone stood on them. 

Zoro stopped, his body snapping alert. 

Perona floated a little higher, looking entirely too pleased with herself. “I brought him.”

Dracule Mihawk waited before the castle doors in a deep red coat and tall black boots. He looked exactly as Zoro remembered him: calm, sharp-eyed, and untouched by the gloom around him. Like he’d been standing there for hours because waiting cost him nothing. 

The World’s Greatest Swordsman looked down at him from the castle steps. “Roronoa.”

The last time Zoro saw Mihawk, it had been across Marineford’s battlefield. Mihawk had stood with the Warlords against them, while Zoro had been half-broken, outmatched, and nowhere near ready to face him. That was where they’d lost. Where Ace had died, Luffy had broken, and Zoro had left the battlefield down a sword and full of failure. 

Not good enough.

Zoro’s hand went immediately to the pocket where his list was kept. I accept love into my life. I accept acceptance into my life. It was hard to concentrate on the words with Mihawk staring down at him, but he made himself go through the whole list. I accept confidence into my life, I accept caring into my life. I accept peace into my life. I accept who I am.

Who he was right now, was Roronoa Zoro, a swordsman in need of training and Iva had arranged for him to come here for that. To this island, where Dracule Mihawk was waiting for him. 

Zoro sank to his knees on the rough stone, bowing in dogeza to Mihawk. “Please, teach me swordsmanship!”

He heard Perona gasp and then laugh above him. “Horo-horo-horo-horo-horo!”

Then the silence stretched. Zoro did not move. Accepting confidence sometimes meant bowing to someone else’s knowledge and authority, literally in this instance. 

Finally, Mihawk spoke. “Hn. I misjudged you, Roronoa. You would beg an enemy to teach you. Have you no shame?”

Zoro kept his forehead against the stone. The ground was cold beneath his skin. His hands were braced on either side of him, fingers curled hard enough that grit pressed under his nails. “I just want to find what it is I should do. I want to become stronger!” 

“If that’s the case, defeat the humandrills first. Now, leave. I have no use for a boring man. It seems I overestimated you.”

Zoro’s jaw tightened. The words hit, but he’d been hit by worse inside his own head. “Those gorilla things? I already defeated them. But I’m not stupid enough to think I can beat you yet.”

Mihawk went silent. 

The fog moved over the steps. Somewhere above Zoro, Perona made a small, impatient sound, but she didn’t interrupt. Zoro stayed where he was. Kneeling. Head down. Pride scraped raw and set aside because pride wouldn’t get him back to Luffy any stronger than he’d left.

“Hn,” Mihawk said at last. “Then for what purpose should I instruct you?” 

Zoro knew this answer, because he’d said it once before. “To better myself.”

There was another beat of silence. Then, “It seems you’ve found something more important than ambition.”

A boot shifted against stone. Zoro didn’t raise his head yet, even though every muscle in his back wanted to tighten and move. “Come along, then. Ghost Girl, help him with his injuries.”

“Hmph! Don’t order me around!” Perona said.

Zoro raised his head in time to see Mihawk enter the open door of the castle. The red coat disappeared into the dim hall beyond, leaving only the echo of his steps on old stone.

For a second, Zoro stayed kneeling. Then Perona swooped down and got right into his face. “You’d better not be a pain in the butt! I already have to deal with him. I don’t want to put up with two of you!”

Zoro blinked at her. 

Then every tense nerve in him loosened at once. 

Relief hit first, sharp enough to make his breath come out wrong. After it came something brighter, something he barely knew what to do with. Dracule Mihawk was going to train him. The World’s Greatest Swordsman was going to train him in the advanced way of the sword.

He’d asked. He’d bowed. He’d meant it. And Mihawk had said yes.

Thank you, Iva, he thought, as he pushed to his feet. 

His legs shook once when he stood. He ignored it, adjusted his swords at his side, and followed Perona into the castle.

Zoro stood on Sabaody Archipelago with his chest tight and his palms slightly damp. He and Perona had arrived by small skiff, piloted by Perona, because, as she’d put it, “We want to go to Sabaody, not some island in the West Blue.”

It was the day Luffy had said to meet him. To meet up with the crew. 

Overhead, the blue sky showed in broken patches beyond the huge bubbling mangroves that made up the archipelago. Sabaody spread out in a series of groves joined at the roots, solid enough for roads, shops, docks, and whole towns built between the trees. Each grove had some kind of designated function, but Zoro hadn’t paid much attention to Perona’s lecture. He’d get lost anyway. 

Zoro rolled his shoulders beneath his backpack. It was stuffed with clothing, bandages, and snacks he’d made himself. He’d gotten taller during his time on Kuraigana, broader through the chest and shoulders, with more muscle packed onto a frame that had already known work. He’d also lost an eye, which was neither here nor there. His hair was longer now, brushed back from his forehead, and he wore a dark green long coat secured with a red sash. His three swords sat in their loops at his side. 

He inhaled the scent of mangrove, market spices, hot resin, and the sea behind them. People moved past in all kinds of clothes, some in light fabrics, some in suits, some wearing clear bubble helmets over their heads. Conversations overlapped on every side. Vendors called from stalls. Somewhere nearby, a bubble popped with a soft wet sound. 

Zoro didn’t know exactly where they were supposed to meet. He figured he’d ask around for the Going Merry. It had to be docked somewhere. It wasn’t where he and Perona had tied up – he hadn’t seen the ram’s figurehead among the ships in the harbor.

“I want to go shopping,” Perona said, opening her parasol beside him. She was dressed in layered black and white ruffles with a wide black top hat, looking pleased with herself and irritated with the entire island at the same time. The eternal log pose back to Kuraigana sat on her wrist. 

He’d spent more than a year with Perona, living with Mihawk in the castle. She was loud, obnoxious, demanding, and Zoro wouldn’t change anything about her. They’d grown close, which was probably easier when there were only three people on an island and one of them was Mihawk. When she’d asked why Zoro sometimes stopped and recited some weird list under his breath, he’d told her about it and what it was for. A few days later, she’d written one for herself, including things like, “I accept that I am the prettiest princess in existence,” and “I accept not everything will be Cute, even though it should be.”

Her heart was in the right place.

They’d already said their real goodbye before leaving Kuraigana, privately and awkwardly, in case Sabaody went wrong. Perona had pretended not to care. Zoro had pretended to believe her. 

Zoro had worked a lot on himself during his time on Kuraigana. Not just with swordsmanship, though there had been plenty of that. He’d kept up with the things Momoiro gave him, too. Discipline without punishment. Strength without self-destruction. Food. Rest. Catching the bad thoughts before they got their teeth too deep. Saying the sentences even on days they felt stupid.

He was stronger than he’d ever been. Healthier, too. More confident. More settled in his own skin. He could look in a mirror now and see himself without the old pain taking over his face.

He wasn’t cured, because that sort of thing didn’t fully disappear. But he knew how to take care of himself now.

“I need to ask around about the Merry,” he told Perona. 

She looped her arm in his. “You can do it at the shops!”

Zoro looked down at her arm, then at her face. She stared back, utterly unmoved. He let her drag him shopping because she wasn’t wrong.

They went from place to place, grove to grove, and Zoro carried her bubble bags as she collected clothes, ribbons, gloves, lace, and other things he didn’t care about. The bags floated overhead on strings and bumped softly against each other whenever he stopped too fast. Between shops, he asked store owners, stall workers, and sometimes other shoppers about the Going Merry. 

No one had heard of it. That bothered him.

By late morning, someone told him there were more docks in the tourist area. Then someone else said Grove 42 saw a lot of traffic. Perona wanted to look at a hat shop nearby, so they headed that way.

Grove 42 yielded no Merry. Zoro stood near the docks with Perona’s shopping bubbles tugging lightly at his wrist, staring over the ships. No ram’s head, no familiar hull. The anxiety that had been sitting under his ribs all morning tightened. What if he’d missed them? What if they’d already left? What if Luffy had changed his mind?

Zoro closed his eye for a moment and forced himself to breathe. Luffy wouldn’t have sent the message if he didn’t want him there. Luffy wouldn’t leave without seeing him first. Luffy had looked at him in Impel Down, poisoned and half-dead, and smiled because Zoro was there. Whatever else had changed, that hadn’t.

He breathed in again. He needed to do something that wasn’t shopping. 

“I want to go fishing,” he told Perona, offloading her shopping bubbles to her. They bobbed overhead lightly on their strings.

Perona blinked at him. “Now?”

“Yeah.” No fish meant no fish, and Zoro needed to not concentrate on circumstances right now. 

Perona wrinkled her nose. “You’re going to get all smelly.”

“I don’t care.” Zoro turned in a slow circle until he spotted a row of fishmonger stalls. “See you later.”

“Fine. Don’t be a dummy and get lost!” she called after him as he walked away.

Zoro lifted one hand without turning around.

He asked along the stalls until he found someone willing to take him out. The man pointed him back toward the docks and told him to wait at his boat. 

It took Zoro longer than it should have to find the docks again. The mangroves kept getting in the way. Paths curved where they shouldn’t. Signs pointed in directions that made no sense. Twice, he came back to the same fruit stand. The third time, the woman behind it told him he was going the wrong way before he said anything.

Eventually, he found the pier. The fisherman’s boat was tied at the end, larger than Zoro expected. Too large for one man and a few fish, unless the fish around Sabaody were enormous. Maybe there were sea kings nearby. That would at least make the day more interesting.

No one was aboard yet. Zoro climbed on and waited near the mast. The deck shifted under him with the water. Sun warmed his shoulders. His backpack made a decent cushion when he sat with his back against the wood.

He was tired all at once. The last few days had worn at him more than he’d wanted to admit. The closer they got to Sabaody, the harder it had been to sleep. He’d kept thinking about the crew. About Luffy. About whether everyone would look different. Whether they’d be angry. Whether the crew would still look at him the same way, or worse, in some new way Zoro didn’t know how to handle. 

Zoro tipped his head back against the mast and closed his eye. The fisherman would wake him when he arrived.

He awoke to the sound of many voices and the sight of the ship he was on sinking beneath the waves. 

Confusion greeted him first. Who were these people? Was the fisherman holding a charter?

He grabbed the arm of the first person who passed close enough. “What’s going on?”

The man looked at him like he was strange. “We’re on our way to Fish-Man Island.”

Panic seized Zoro’s chest. “No, no, no. I can’t go to Fish-Man Island. I’m supposed to be on Sabaody.”

“Sucks to be you,” the man said, then walked away, shaking his head and mumbling, “The captain can sure pick ‘em.”

Zoro sat upright against the mast, shoulders tight, eye focused on the sea getting darker beyond some sort of bubble wall. The ship was going deeper. He was going deeper. Away from Sabaody. Away from his chance to rejoin his crew. 

He shot to his feet. That was not going to happen. He put his hand on Sandai Kitetsu’s hilt. Armament haki slid along the sheathed blade. “Ittoryu…”

Within a blink, he drew Sandai Kitetsu and drove a single strike through the deck. The wood split with a crack that shook the hull, the force propelling them upward in a surge. The ship burst from the water, cleaved clean in half, and crashed back down in an explosion of foam and sound, both halves already sinking.

“You destroyed our dreams!” he heard someone shout at him, but Zoro ignored it. Amidst the spray of water and fallen crew on the broken deck, Zoro used the collapsed mast to dart across to land, leaping the rest of the way to solid mangrove roots.

He spotted the fisherman first, staring with wide eyes and a gaping mouth. A few tourists had stopped on the nearby path to stare. Someone was taking notes. A camera flashed. “You told me the wrong ship!” Zoro snapped at the fisherman as he stalked over. 

“Sure about that, marimo?”

Zoro froze, breath catching hard at the familiar voice. He slowly turned his head.

Sanji stood nearby, holding a handful of bubble strings, dressed in a suit with a cigarette dangling from his lips. His hair was longer, parted on the other side, revealing the opposite curl of his eyebrow. He looked taller, more built, filling out the suit. He had a neatly trimmed goatee now, instead of the scruff on his chin Zoro remembered. His revealed blue eye remained focused on Zoro and he seemed unnaturally calm.

“Cook,” Zoro managed to get out through his tight throat. 

“About time you showed up. Been covering your back for too long,” Sanji said, taking the spent cigarette from his lips. He crushed it under his shoe. “Not that I couldn’t handle it. But it’s better when you’re around to pick up the slack.”

A rush filled Zoro’s chest, his ears. Been covering your back. It’s better when you’re around. 

“An annoying purple-haired Queen said you’d be here,” Sanji went on, sliding his hand casually into his pocket. “I’ve been on the lookout for you. Should’ve figured you’d get on the wrong ship.”

Zoro opened his mouth to say something, but his voice wouldn’t come together. “Cook…”

Sanji met his eye, and something softened around his mouth. “Yeah, I missed you, too, asshole.”

The corner of Zoro’s eye began to sting as emotion tried to overwhelm him. He forced it down, clearing his throat hard. As much as he wanted to just accept it, Sanji had been the trigger into the cascade of depression that resulted in Zoro’s leaving the Merry.

And so, he forced himself to hold Sanji’s gaze and say roughly, “I like men. And there’s nothing wrong with my liking them.”

Sanji’s visible eye widened slightly. “Of course there isn’t.”

Zoro stared at him. “That wasn’t what you said before.” 

Redness spread across Sanji’s cheeks and he looked away. “Right. Well, spending time on Momoiro opened my eyes very clearly. But if you tell anyone we had to wear dresses there, I will cave your head in with my new abilities.”

Zoro felt something slowly release inside. “You had to wear a dress?”

Sanji’s gaze shot to Zoro again. “Of course I did. It’s tradition. Even though I fought it for as long as I could.”

Zoro tried to picture Sanji in a dress and a laugh that was more than just humor fell from his lips. “I didn’t have to wear one.”

Sanji’s mouth dropped. “You bastard! How did you get out of it?!”

Zoro smirked. “Guess I’m just better than you.”

That lit Sanji up. “That’s it! I’ve spent over a year in hell training my legs for this. I’m going to kick your ass.”

“Bring it on. I’ll cut you in half,” Zoro taunted, drawing his pink katana.

They started fighting right there on the shoreline, exchanging kicks and strikes, Sanji’s shoe heel ringing clearly against the metal blade. It was exhilarating. And fun. And so familiar that it made Zoro’s chest tight again. He’d missed this, so much.

Around them, the people from the destroyed ship stood dripping on the mangrove roots, watching with varying degrees of outrage and resignation. The fisherman had backed up several feet. Nobody intervened.

By silent signal, they both stopped at once. Zoro sheathed his sword and Sanji lit a new cigarette. “C’mon, shit swordsman. I’ll take you to the Sunny.”

Zoro fell into step beside him, settling his backpack better on his shoulders. “The what?”

“Oh, you don’t know.” Sanji exhaled a puff of smoke. “The Merry’s gone. We have a new ship, the Thousand Sunny.”

“Oh.” Zoro felt a pang at that. The Merry had been a good ship. “Usopp must’ve been crushed.”

“Yeah. Lots of shit went down, but I’ll let him tell you about it, if he wants,” Sanji said. 

They walked toward the docks Zoro had checked for the Merry at earlier. “What else has changed?” he asked. 

“Hm. Got a few new crewmates. Robin. Franky. Brook.” Sanji exhaled his cigarette smoke. “Vivi stayed behind in Alabasta.”

“I thought she would,” Zoro said. He wondered what these new crewmates were like. Luffy chose them, and Zoro trusted him. Time apart hadn’t changed that, only clarified it. 

The old anxiety crept in, though. What if these new people reacted badly to his liking men? He still didn’t know what Usopp and Nami were going to say now. Sanji’s response had changed from being on Momoiro. Could the others have had similar experiences? Would he be accepted now?

The negative thinking wasn’t doing him any good. He couldn’t control what other people thought, and he hadn’t given them a chance yet. Things could be fine. He’d address it when it was in front of him. 

Sanji led him to a ship larger than the Merry, with a lion’s head surrounded by a pointed mane as its figurehead. They went up the gangplank. The ship – the Thousand Sunny – had a deck lawn, multiple trees, and tiered levels. Standing near a rail, coiling rope, was a large man with enormous round shoulders, square tattooed forearms, and cropped blue hair, wearing the smallest red speedo imaginable along with an open floral shirt. 

“Hey! You must be Zoro.” The man dropped the coil of rope on the deck, crossed over, and offered a hand. “Cook-bro found you.”

Zoro titled his head back to look up at the man as he took the offered hand. “Yeah. That’s me.”

“I’m Franky,” Franky said. He released Zoro’s hand then struck a pose, arms above his head, square forearms pressed together to form a full tattooed star. “It’s SUPER to meet you.”

Sanji snorted and headed toward a set of stairs.

“Uh, yeah. Great.” Zoro glanced around, as he set his backpack down. The deck grass bent under the breeze, and the trees planted along the lawn rustled above the low creak of the ship. They seemed to be the only ones there. “Anyone else aboard?”

“Not yet,” Franky said. “Everyone’s on the island now. Even Luffy-bro. Should all be back soon.”

Zoro nodded. He took a short breath, then made himself ask, “You good with my liking men?”

Franky cocked his head. “Why wouldn’t I be? Love is love, and it’s all SUPER!” He struck another pose. This time, his nipples began flashing with colorful lights. 

Zoro blinked. “Right. Thanks.”

The Sunny shifted gently under his boots, different from the Merry in every way: wider deck, springy grass beneath his soles, trees rustling overhead. His backpack sat near the rail where he’d dropped it, looking more at home on the Sunny than Zoro felt yet. 

“Zoro?”

Zoro turned at the voice behind him and was greeted with a punch to the face. “You bastard! How could you leave us?!” Nami yelled at him. 

Then he was smothered in a hug, her arms strangling him around the neck. “I missed you so much, you stupid, stupid idiot. I’m charging you for all my emotional distress, with three hundred percent interest.”

“Three hundred percent!” Zoro gurgled through the chokehold. His cheek throbbed. Nami smelled like tangerines and a fresh, clean rain. He wasn’t a hugger, but he wrapped his arms around her and hugged her back. 

“Maybe four hundred.” Nami sniffed loudly in his ear, then let go of him. As soon as she was on her feet, she punched him again. “I’m so mad at you!”

“Ow, woman! That hurt.” 

He heard a quiet laugh behind Nami. “Nami, is there a reason you’re pummeling this poor man?” A tall raven-haired woman with narrow features and a slight curve to her mouth climbed off the gangplank and onto the ship. 

“Because he’s an idiot,” Nami said. Now that Zoro got to see her, she looked older. More mature. Her hair tumbled around her shoulders, but she had the same spitfire eyes. 

The other woman extended her hand to Zoro as she approached. “I’m Robin. You must be our swordsman. I’ve heard much about you.”

Zoro didn’t know if that was a good thing or a bad one. “Zoro,” he said, shaking her hand.

“Zoro!” he heard a squeal, and an instant later, a ball of fur launched itself at him.

Zoro caught Chopper and a genuine smile crossed his lips. “Chopper!”

“You’re back! I’m so glad!” Chopper cheered, hugging him tightly. “Luffy said you’d come, and he was right.”

“Yeah.” Zoro set Chopper back on his feet. “I came.”

“Yo-ho-ho, do my eyes deceive me, or is this the other swordsman I’ve been dying to meet?” A very tall skeleton with only the side halves of an afro stepped onto the ship. “Of course, I have no eyes – because I’m a skeleton! Yo-ho-ho-ho!”

Zoro stared for a moment, then went with it. “Yeah, I’m Zoro.”

“Brook.” Brook bowed formally at the waist. His feather boa brushed the grass, his long legs encased in brightly patterned bell bottoms. The afternoon light caught on the brass fittings near the rail behind him, and somewhere below, bubbles popped softly against the hull. “The Straw Hats most humble musician.”

Two new crew members, plus the two old ones gathered around meant Zoro should get it over with. “I like men,” he said with flat fact. “If this is going to be a problem, tell me now.”

Nami gave him a strange look. “Why would you think that? I’m a lesbian.”

Chopper piped up. “It’s completely normal, Zoro. Who you’re attracted to is a matter of biology.”

“It’s lovely that you would share that with us, Zoro-san,” Robin said. “Know that you only have support from me.”

“It’s fine by me! I have sung many a ballad about manly love.” Brook pulled a violin from nowhere and brought it to his skeletal chin. “Here’s one called He Shivered Me Timbers. Yo-ho-ho-ho!”

Brook began to play and sing with loud abandon.

“He shivered me timbers with a wink and a grin,

Raised my mast high when the tide rolled in,

Then he polished my deck till the moon went dim – yo-ho-ho-ho!” 

Zoro stared in horror. Robin giggled behind her hand. Franky started dancing and shouting “YEOW!” Chopper joined in, hooves thumping over the grass. The ship rocked under the sudden movement, ropes clicking softly against the mast while Brook’s violin cut through the warm air. 

Nami sighed heavily. “Now I’m going to have this song stuck in my head all night. Thanks a lot.”

Zoro looked at her. “Have you always been a lesbian?”

Nami rolled her eyes. “Yes. I was sleeping with Vivi almost the entire time she was onboard.”

“Oh.” Zoro let that sink in. If she’d liked women all along, then why would she have had a problem with Zoro liking men? Or had he heard something that wasn’t there? He knew from Claudette that depression and past trauma had a way of distorting the truth. 

“Did no one invite the Great Captain Usopp to the party?”

Zoro turned, and Usopp stepped onto the ship off the gangplank. He was taller, built, and his hair went past his shoulders now. Zoro was surprised by how strong he now looked.

Usopp caught sight of him and a huge smile broke out on his face. “Zoro! You’re back!” He rushed forward and grabbed Zoro in a hug. It was short – and strong – and then Usopp let go. “Of course, I knew you’d be back. In fact, I’m the glue that held everyone else together. They were all heartbroken you’d left. But I told the crew, Chin up! Zoro has important business to attend to, but he will return, you have Captain Usopp’s guarantee! And everyone knows my guarantee is golden.”

“I still like men,” Zoro said, to get it out there.

“And I still like Kaya.” Usopp shot him with finger guns. “But good on you to keep shooting your shot. I’ve only gotten more handsome and I have to beat people off with sticks now. Everyone! Men, women. One very enthusiastic sea hippo.”

Again, like Nami, Usopp seemed to not care. He wasn’t nervous or uncomfortable. Had it all been in Zoro’s mind or had Usopp had his eyes opened, like Sanji.

Did it matter?

The answer settled under the noise of Brook’s violin, the creak of the Sunny’s rigging, and Nami’s long-suffering sigh. 

Zoro’s shoulders relaxed, and he felt a smirk pull at his lips. “Sea hippo?”

“Eh-heh-heh. I cannot wait to tell you about my time on Boin Island. I faced so much danger.” Usopp flexed his biceps. It was actually impressive. “You’d better watch out. I’ve become as strong as you!”

Sanji returned to the deck with an expression of ludicrousness. “What’s all this noise?”

“Brook is regaling us with a male love song,” Robin said.

Sanji turned to look at her, and blood gushed suddenly from his nose so hard he was knocked off his feet.

Chopper and Franky continued performing terrible choreography while Brook’s violin song went on. The rainbow colored nipple lights started flashing again. 

“His anchor dropped deep where the waters were warm,

He rode out the swell through the thunder and storm,

Then he rang my old bell till the break of morn – yo-ho-ho-ho!” 

“ZORO!!!”

Zoro turned once again, only to be tackled to the deck. He and the rubber monster whose arms were snaked tightly around him skidded across the grass, leaving a furrow behind and kicking up the clean smell of crushed green. He crashed into the other side of the deck hard enough to rattle the rail, head ringing.

“YOU’RE HERE!!!” Luffy shouted directly into Zoro’s ear. 

Zoro started laughing, hugging Luffy in return. Emotion bubbled strong in his chest, making his eye blur. “Yeah. I’m here.”

Luffy drew his head up to beam brightly at Zoro. “Now the crew’s whole again. We’re going to meet Jinbe on Fish-Man Island. Then we’re going to find the One Piece, and I’m going to become King of the Pirates!”

Damn, he’d missed Luffy. He did have one thing he needed to say, though. “Permission to come back aboard, Captain?”

“Of course!” Luffy said, without any hesitation. “We’ve all been waiting for you.”

Zoro's chest went warm and tight. 

“So,” Luffy said, untangling them. They both sat up against the side rail, Luffy’s hat hanging around his neck. “Are you feeling like yourself again?”

Zoro looked over at the others across the deck. Chopper, Franky, and now Usopp dancing; Brook still playing and singing; Nami pinching her nose like she had a headache; Robin smiling; Sanji passed out in the grass. None of whom had rejected him. All of them welcoming him in their own way. 

He hadn’t asked Luffy the question about his sexuality. He didn’t need to. He already knew the answer. 

“No,” he said, looking back at Luffy with a smile. “I’m feeling like myself for the first time.”

Luffy smiled widely at him. “Great!” He turned and shouted across the deck. “Hey, Sanji! Make a feast! With lots of meat!”

Sanji twitched on the deck. Chopper finally noticed they were a man down and started screaming. “Aaah! Sanji’s unconscious! Call a doctor!”

“You’re the doctor,” five voices chorused.

“Oh, hey,” Luffy said, turning back to Zoro. “Sanji got you a sword. It belonged to some samurai zombie on Thriller Bark. Brook said its name is Shusui.”

Zoro looked toward Sanji, who was being hoisted over Chopper’s heavy point shoulder. He dangled limply, blood trailing behind him from his nose, as Chopper carried him up a set of steps. “He did?”

“Yeah. Said you’d like it.” Luffy wrapped his arms several times around his knees. “Thriller Bark was crazy. There was this guy who looked like an onion who stole shadows. And that’s where we got Brook. He knows Laboon!”

Zoro blinked. “Laboon?”

“Yeah!” Luffy said. “Brook’s the pirate Laboon’s been waiting for! Isn’t that great?”

“Yeah,” Zoro said, though his attention had gone back to the steps where Chopper had carried Sanji.

Sanji had got him a sword. Sanji had kept it for him. Sanji had been angry, probably. Loud about it, probably. Annoying as hell, definitely. But he’d still looked at Shusui and thought Zoro should have it. Like he knew Zoro was coming back.

It’s better when you’re around. 

Zoro let out a quiet breath through his nose. “Idiot cook.” 

Luffy kept talking. He bounced from Laboon back to Brook to some skeleton horse thing to a giant woman with ghosts, none of it in an order Zoro could follow. Brook’s violin wailed. Franky shouted something about choreography. Nami yelled for everyone to stop encouraging him. Brook took that as encouragement. 

“His cannon fired twice with a glorious boom,

We shook every lantern in the captain’s room,

Then he left me all boned and no more bloom – yo-ho-ho-ho!” 

Zoro let the words wash over him. Luffy was warm beside him, solid and alive, all elbows and straw hat and bright certainty. The Sunny rocked beneath them, steady against the dock ropes. Grass brushed Zoro’s palm where his hand rested beside him, and the late sun warmed the rail at his back. The crew kept up with the chaos across the deck. 

It felt good to be home.

End