A crash of brass and percussion erupted downstairs.
Zoro startled so hard he nearly rolled out of bed.
The chorus joined in a second later.
He opened one eye.
Dies Irae.
Somebody in the family that owned Kuraigana before Mihawk had installed the doorbell sometime in the late twentieth century. The mechanism connected to speakers hidden throughout the ground floor and several upstairs corridors, which meant anyone at the front door got a warning while everyone inside got the Last Judgment at full volume.
Mihawk had kept it because removing it would damage the paneling. Zoro suspected that wasn’t the only reason.
The chorus proclaimed judgment again.
“Yeah, yeah. I’m coming.” Zoro pushed himself up on one elbow and squinted toward the windows. Heavy curtains covered most of the morning light. A pale strip showed between the fabric and the stone frame, gray from the clouds outside.
The doorbell finished. Then started again.
“Fuck.” Zoro sat up fully and rubbed his face. His hair had flattened on one side overnight and stuck out everywhere else. Three small gold drop earrings in his left ear clicked together when he turned his head. The scar over his closed left eye pulled faintly when he yawned.
He’d worked late. The cavalry saber downstairs had come in with a bad modern sharpening job, half the original edge geometry ground away. Fixing somebody else’s work always took longer. He remembered finishing the polish sometime after three, cleaning the stones, and putting the blade away.
The choir came crashing back in.
Zoro got out of bed. Cold stone pressed against his feet. He wore briefs and nothing else, which was enough for walking around his own home. His bedroom held more warmth than the corridor beyond it. The hall smelled faintly of old stone and the wood polish the housekeeper used when Mihawk remembered to schedule her.
Zoro stepped out and stopped. He looked left, then right. His bedroom door stood open behind him, which at least gave him a starting point.
He went right.
Thirty seconds later, he stopped again. The stairs weren’t this way. “Shit.”
He turned around.
Kuraigana had been expanded several times over several hundred years. Every owner had apparently wanted another wing, another stairwell, or three more rooms that connected to nothing useful. Corridors changed direction around walls thicker than they needed to be. Half-flights of stairs appeared where a normal house would have used a doorway.
Zoro had lived here for years. Some days that helped. Today didn’t look promising.
He reached a junction and found one of the signs taped beneath a portrait.
FRONT HALL ↓
Below it, in Perona’s handwriting:
YES, DOWNSTAIRS. THAT’S WHAT THE ARROW MEANS.
Zoro followed it.
Morning light came through narrow windows along the stairwell, catching dust over the worn steps. The castle stayed cool even in summer, and the stone beneath his hand was colder than the air.
The doorbell started again while he was halfway down. The choir and brass crashed back through the speakers at full force, followed by another pounding burst of percussion.
“Quit doing that,” Zoro grumbled.
The music kept going undeterred. By the time he reached the front hall, he was awake enough to be irritated. Nobody rang that thing three times by accident.
The hall occupied most of the old central keep. The floor had been worn smooth through the middle, though tool marks still showed near the walls. A broad staircase divided at the landing above. Iron chandeliers hung from dark beams overhead, still fitted with the ugly flame-shaped bulbs Mihawk refused to replace because modern fixtures were, according to him, offensive.
The choir was still bellowing about divine judgment when Zoro pulled back the iron latch and opened one side of the front door.
For several seconds, he thought he might still be asleep.
Two large vans sat in the circular drive. People were unloading equipment across the steps and gravel. Black cases stood in rows beside the nearest van. Folded stands leaned against each other. Someone carried a camera rig past the fountain while another person dragged a wheeled case toward the door.
The grounds behind them were dark from rain that had fallen overnight. Water still clung to the clipped hedges and collected in shallow depressions between the gravel. Mist sat low beyond the outer wall, thinning under a brighter patch of morning sky.
A blond man stood directly in front of Zoro with one hand near the doorbell panel. He was about Zoro’s height, though narrower through the shoulders and waist. White dress shirt, sleeves rolled neatly to the elbows. Dark vest. Dark trousers. Polished shoes on damp stone. Blond hair fell across his forehead and covered one eye. A neat goatee framed his mouth.
His visible eye fixed on Zoro, then dropped. The man’s gaze traveled over Zoro’s chest, paused at the briefs, then moved slowly back up again. Zoro looked down, too. Bare chest. Briefs. Bare feet. The long scar across his chest was pale now. So were the smaller marks over his forearms and hands. He was broad through the shoulders and heavily muscled. He lifted because he liked being strong, and the conditioning helped when he did stage combat. Most of what he knew about swords came from taking them apart, putting them back together, studying them, and using them.
“Well,” the man said. His mouth curved. “Either my reputation as a catch precedes me, or I’ve caught you at a very good time.”
“What?”
The smile changed slightly. “Zoro Roronoa?”
“Yeah?” Zoro said.
“Sanji Blackleg.” He held out one hand. “Perona said you’d be expecting us.”
Zoro looked at the hand, then at his face. “Who’s us?”
Sanji lowered his hand after a beat and gestured vaguely toward the driveway. “Grand Line After Dark.”
That meant nothing to Zoro.
“The television show.”
Still nothing.
“The paranormal show.”
Zoro looked past him toward the vans again. One had GRAND LINE AFTER DARK printed across the side beneath a skull worked into a camera lens.
“We’re filming here for the week,” Sanji said.
Zoro looked back at him. “Perona set this up?”
“She handled the booking.”
“She didn’t tell me.”
Sanji glanced toward the equipment already unloaded onto the drive. “That’s a problem.”
“Yeah.”
“You want to call her?”
“Yeah,” Zoro said, and closed the door. The thick oak cut most of the noise from outside. He slid the latch back into place and stood in the front hall for a second. Then he headed for the stairs. He needed his phone. His phone should be in his bedroom.
Getting back there took longer than it should have. Zoro went up the main stairs, took the first corridor on the landing, and realized after two turns that he’d entered the guest wing. He doubled back and followed a faded sign toward the bedrooms. That got him to a narrow stairwell, which got him to a gallery overlooking the inner courtyard.
He stopped beside one of the tall windows. Wrong place. Drops from the night’s rain still streaked the glass. Below, the enclosed courtyard was empty except for two stone planters Perona had filled with black flowers before leaving. The paving stones were wet and darker around the drains.
A sign was taped to the wall beside him.
BEDROOMS ←
A small ghost was drawn underneath it.
Zoro frowned at the arrow. The sign was supposed to help. It wasn’t helping.
He retraced the route, tried another corridor, and found his room twenty minutes after leaving the front door.
The phone wasn’t beside the bed. He checked the charger first, then the desk and bathroom counter. He lifted the clothes from the chair one piece at a time and dropped them back. Nothing.
Zoro stood in the middle of the room and tried to reconstruct the night before. Workshop. Saber. Tea. More saber. Upstairs. Phone. He remembered reading something before falling asleep.
He pulled the blanket back, found nothing, then checked beneath the pillow. The phone was there. Thirty-seven notifications waited on the lock screen. Most were from Perona, which he usually ignored, and was why thirty-seven of them had piled up. The first message was nine days old.
PERONA:
hey dork
PERONA:
remember those people i said might come to the castle
PERONA:
you don’t because you were staring at a sword
PERONA:
they’re filming here next week
Zoro scrolled.
PERONA:
paranormal show
PERONA:
the one with the cute blond
PERONA:
and the guy who talks to dead people
PERONA:
they have access to the castle + grounds + locked areas
PERONA:
they signed a waiver
PERONA:
they’ll be staying in the guest wing
PERONA:
the housekeeper should have made the rooms up already
PERONA:
it’s okay for them to use the kitchen
PERONA:
mihawk says his study is OFF LIMITS
PERONA:
our bedrooms too obviously
PERONA:
AND THE WINE CELLAR
PERONA:
especially the wine cellar
PERONA:
if they touch one bottle mihawk will know
PERONA:
that was a hint for you too
A few messages later:
PERONA:
monday morning
PERONA:
this is your warning
PERONA:
in writing
PERONA:
so don’t start with nobody told you
Yesterday:
PERONA:
THEY COME TOMORROW
Then, this morning:
PERONA:
they should be there around 8
Two minutes later:
PERONA:
wear pants before you answer the door
Zoro locked the phone. Dies Irae erupted again from below. “Fuck.”
He left the room. The return trip took twelve minutes, which was better. By the time he reached the front hall, voices had gathered outside. Wheels scraped over gravel. Somebody shouted about a light stand. Someone else shouted back that they had it.
Zoro opened the door.
Sanji had moved off to one side beneath the stone arch and was smoking. He took the cigarette from his mouth when Zoro appeared and crushed it beneath his shoe before pocketing the butt. “Good morning again.”
“Perona says you can film.”
Sanji smiled. “Excellent.”
“Bedrooms are private. So is Mihawk’s study and the wine cellar.”
“Understood.”
Zoro stepped back from the doorway.
Sanji’s gaze dropped again. He made no attempt to hide it. “Don’t get dressed on my account.”
Zoro frowned. “Why would I get dressed for you?”
Sanji stared at him for a beat, then smiled wider. “You’re going to be dangerous once you’ve had coffee.”
“What?”
“Nothing.”
Zoro moved aside.
Sanji stepped into the hall. The smell of cigarette smoke came in with him, along with the cool damp air from outside. Zoro pushed the door wider for the people already carrying equipment up the steps.
Sanji stopped almost immediately and looked up. His attention moved over the beams, the iron chandeliers, then the staircase. “Holy shit.”
“What?” Zoro said with a frown.
“This place is incredible.”
“It’s a house.”
“That’s a very generous use of the word.”
People were coming closer now. One of the wheeled cases bumped against the first step outside.
Zoro lifted a hand. “I have my own rules.”
Sanji shifted back toward him immediately.
“No touching any swords.”
“Fine.”
“No moving any swords.”
“Fine.”
“No drawing any of them.”
“I’m sensing a theme here.”
Zoro went on. “Don’t go into the armory. Don’t move any of the signs.”
Sanji nodded. “Done.”
“If something gets damaged, you pay for it.”
“Of course.” Then Sanji added, “Small issue. I can agree to all of that for myself. Production rules go through Nami.”
“Who’s Nami?”
“Our producer.” Sanji looked toward the drive and pointed with two fingers. “Red hair, with the tablet.”
Zoro followed the gesture. A red-haired woman stood beside the rear van, checking something on a tablet while directing two people unloading equipment.
Sanji glanced farther into the castle. “Different question. Can I use the kitchen?”
“Perona already said you could.”
“I know,” Sanji said. “But she’s not here, and it’d be rude not to ask first.”
Zoro shrugged. “Go ahead.”
“Thanks.” Sanji looked toward the nearest archway. A handwritten sign beside it read KITCHEN with an arrow beneath. He pointed at it. “I’m trusting this.”
“Your problem.”
That got a short laugh. Sanji headed off without another question.
Zoro watched him go until somebody nearly backed an equipment case into him. Then everyone came in at once. The front hall filled fast.
A huge blue-haired man carried two cases through the doorway and loudly declared the castle super before someone behind him told him to keep moving. A long-nosed guy came in arguing that one of the cases needed to stay upright. Someone with an afro and large headphones stopped just inside the door and turned his head, listening to the room.
Then someone else was there. Shorter. Black hair. Red jacket. Sandals despite the wet gravel outside. He stopped directly in front of Zoro and grinned. “Whoa.”
The guy leaned closer, staring at the scar over Zoro’s left eye. “What happened?”
“Accident.”
“Cool scar.”
“Thanks.”
“I’m Luffy.”
“Zoro.”
Someone behind Luffy said, “Luffy, you’re blocking the door.”
Luffy looked over his shoulder. A man with a sunburst tattoo peeking through a floral patterned shirt carrying a camera rig was waiting for him to clear the doorway.
“Oh, sorry, Jinbe.” Luffy stepped aside, then immediately turned back toward Zoro as the rest of the crew streamed around them. “You live here?”
“Yeah.”
“Cool.”
Then somebody called Luffy’s name from outside and he wandered off.
The front hall kept filling. A small guy in a pink hat hurried past carrying a medical bag. A black-haired woman followed at a slower pace, taking in the hall. Someone asked where power outlets were. Someone else asked about the stairs. The blue-haired man shouted that he’d found a good equipment staging area. The long-nosed guy shouted back that a hallway was not a staging area. A burst of radio static cut through the room.
Zoro’s jaw tightened. The sound bounced off the stone and beams. Wheels rattled across the floor. Case latches snapped open. Voices overlapped from three directions. Too much.
He stepped away from the doorway and rubbed one thumb against the side of his index finger. Names had happened somewhere in there. He had retained Luffy because Luffy had stood in front of him. Sanji because Sanji was currently somewhere in the castle trying to find the kitchen. Nami because he needed to talk to her. Everyone else had already blurred together.
He went outside. The air felt better immediately. Cool. Damp. Open. Water from the night’s rain still dripped from the edge of the roof into the gravel. The mist beyond the wall had started thinning, and the dark line of the woods was clearer now. A few breaks had opened in the clouds overhead.
Nami stood beside the van with her tablet. Zoro walked over. “You’re Nami?”
She looked up. Her eyes went to his face. Then down. Then back up. “Yes.”
“I need to talk to you about rules.”
“Sure.”
Zoro started to speak, but Nami lifted one hand. “After you put pants on.”
He stopped. “What?”
“Pants.”
Zoro looked down. He still wore only his briefs.
Nami tucked the tablet against her side. “Go put some on. Then we’ll talk.”
Zoro looked back toward the castle. From inside, Sanji shouted, “Someone go and grab the coffee from the van!”
That was going to be a problem.
By ten, Zoro had pants on. Jeans, black T-shirt, boots. He’d also found coffee, though only because Sanji had made an entire pot and left it on the kitchen counter with mugs beside it. Zoro had taken one without asking.
The castle had been loud since breakfast. Cases rolled over stone. Doors opened and closed. Franky tested outlets with a meter and complained about wiring that had been installed well before he was born. Usopp carried a clipboard around and kept adding notes to it in increasingly large handwriting. Brook wore his headphones even when nothing was connected to them. Chopper had already asked twice where the first-aid room was, despite the fact that he was carrying the medical supplies with him. Zoro had learned those names. Mostly.
Nami stood in the great hall with her tablet and directed everyone else. Apparently, Robin had already given the crew a location brief on the drive in: documented construction dates, ownership history, Perona's reports of moving signs, closing doors, and knocking near the chapel. Anything buried in the family's private records would have to wait until they knew what they were looking for.
“Walkthrough first,” Nami said. “Then we place equipment. Primary cameras in the great hall, chapel corridor, and east stairwell. Usopp, flag anything during the walkthrough that matches Perona's reports. Franky, check power before anybody plugs in.”
Franky raised a hand. “What about suction mounts?”
Nami gave him a long look.
“Cool. Asking for a friend.”
Zoro stood near the bottom of the staircase with his coffee and watched them sort themselves out.
Luffy had found a suit of armor near the west wall and was trying to lift its visor.
“Don’t,” Zoro said.
Luffy stopped. “Why?”
“It falls off.”
“Oh.” He opened it anyway. The visor fell off.
Zoro caught it before it hit the floor.
Luffy grinned. “Nice.”
Zoro put it back in place.
Nami pointed toward the arch leading into the west corridor. “We’re moving.”
The group moved. Zoro followed because somebody needed to make sure they didn’t end up in Mihawk’s study or start mounting infrared cameras to the armory door.
They made it as far as the great hall doorway before Nami stopped them again. “Hosts. Opening.”
Sanji handed his coffee to Robin and moved beside Luffy without asking where his mark was. Luffy wandered half a step past his. Sanji caught the back of his jacket and pulled him into place. “Stay.”
“I am staying.”
“You’re moving.”
Jinbe raised the camera.
The change in Sanji was immediate. One second he was arguing with Luffy. The next he faced the lens with his shoulders squared and his voice lower.
“For the next several nights, Grand Line After Dark will be investigating Kuraigana Castle, a nineteenth-century estate with reports of moving objects, unexplained knocking, and activity concentrated around the north side of the house.”
Luffy looked toward the upper gallery instead of the camera. “There’s already somebody here.”
Sanji paused. “Already?”
“He’s upstairs.”
Sanji looked toward the gallery, then back at Jinbe. “Apparently we're starting early.”
“Keep that,” Nami said, and then they moved on.
The great hall sat at the center of the older part of the castle. It had once been used for meals large enough to require servants, though now it held a long table Mihawk rarely used, two heavy cabinets, several portraits, and enough empty floor space for Perona to complain that the room looked unfinished.
Nami started assigning positions. “Camera there. Wide angle from the opposite corner. Audio in the middle if Brook can run it without cables across the floor.”
Brook adjusted his headphones. “I can manage. I don’t need much room. I’ve always been comfortable close to the bone.”
Usopp groaned. “You need to come up with better material.”
Brook smiled. “Only if inspiration strikes.”
Zoro noted that. Brook. Bone jokes. Tall, thin, afro, tinted glasses, sound equipment. Franky was easier. Huge, blue hair, loud enough to hear from another floor, responsible for cameras, power, and apparently anything involving tools. Usopp handled the paranormal equipment and kept the investigation log, though he also narrated whenever a camera pointed near him. Long nose. Talked when he was nervous. Stories that got longer every time he told them. Jinbe carried the shoulder camera and spoke less than anyone except Zoro. Large, broad, calm. Zoro approved of him already.
Robin had black hair, read old papers and family records without being asked, and occasionally said things that made Usopp visibly regret standing near her. Chopper was small, sweet, and apparently a doctor, though he’d forgotten that fact during breakfast when Franky cut his thumb opening a case. Nami ran everything. Luffy and Sanji were the hosts. Sanji also cooked for everyone.
Nami led them through the west corridor toward the dining room and kitchen. The castle changed from older stone to newer paneling halfway down, evidence of one of the additions. The ceilings lowered. Windows got larger. Whoever had rebuilt this part had cared more about comfort than defense.
“This whole section is structurally okay?” Nami asked.
“Yeah,” Zoro said.
“Any restrictions?”
“Don’t put anything in front of that door.”
She followed his gesture to a narrow service door between two cabinets. “Why?”
“Pantry.”
Usopp sighed. “I was hoping for a hidden passage.”
Zoro frowned. “It’s a pantry.”
Robin said, “It could still contain a body.”
“It doesn’t,” Zoro said.
“How do you know?” Usopp asked.
“I use it.”
Usopp opened his mouth, thought better of it, and kept walking.
The kitchen occupied a large room at the back of the west wing, warmer than most of the castle because it had been modernized properly. Stainless steel appliances sat against old stone walls. A long wooden worktable filled the middle. Copper pans hung over one end, mostly decorative because Sanji had already found the ones that were actually useful and moved them closer to the stove.
Sanji was there now, checking something on his phone while leaning against the counter. “You’re mapping the kitchen?” he asked Nami.
“Possible overnight camera,” Nami said.
“No.”
“That wasn’t a question.”
“It is now.”
Nami turned toward him.
Sanji lifted one hand. “I cook in here. You mount a camera over my shoulder, you’re getting eight hours of chopping onions.”
“Could be compelling television.”
“Then I want a producer credit.”
Nami moved on.
Sanji caught Zoro on the way past and glanced down at the jeans. “You found clothes.”
“Yeah. Even though you told me not to get dressed for you for some reason.”
“I did. You ignored excellent advice.”
Nami called Sanji’s name from the corridor. He pushed away from the counter. “Coming.”
Zoro took a drink of coffee and watched him go, trying to work out what exactly had been excellent about the advice.
The rest of the walkthrough took longer. The stairs to the bedrooms split from the main landing, one side leading toward Mihawk’s rooms and study, the other toward guest rooms and the section Zoro used. Nami marked the private corridor off on her tablet. Zoro pointed out the signs and told everyone to leave them where they were. Perona had added more over the years.
BEDROOMS.
KITCHEN.
ARMORY.
FRONT HALL.
DON’T FOLLOW ZORO.
That one had a second arrow beneath it pointing in the opposite direction. Franky laughed for a full ten seconds. Zoro ignored him.
The armory was on the lower service level, kind of like a basement, reached by a broad set of stone stairs that opened near the old servants’ corridor. The air cooled as they went down. Electricity had been added there later, and the fixtures were bright because Zoro needed to see what he was doing. The armory door stayed shut.
Nami stopped in front of it. “This is your workshop?”
“Yeah,” Zoro said.
“We’ll need a quick establishing shot.”
“No.”
“A doorway shot.”
“No.”
“Door closed?”
Zoro considered that. “Fine.”
Nami marked something on the tablet. “Done.”
Usopp leaned toward the lock. “What’s in there?”
“Swords,” Zoro replied.
“How many?”
“Depends.”
“On what?”
“What I’m working on.”
Usopp waited for more. Zoro didn’t add anything more.
Robin touched Usopp’s elbow and steered him away.
They climbed back to the ground floor. The sealed north wing lay beyond the chapel corridor, on the north side of the castle. Mihawk kept that section locked because part of the ceiling had water damage and one staircase had been declared unsafe by an engineer two years ago.
The door was heavy oak with newer hardware fitted into old ironwork. Nami stopped there. “This is the section Perona specifically mentioned.”
“Yeah.”
“You have a key?”
“Probably.”
“Where?”
“Somewhere.”
Nami closed her eyes for a second. “Can you find it?”
“Eventually.”
“How long does eventually usually mean?”
Zoro thought about it.
Nami lifted one hand. “Never mind. Find it when you can.”
Robin ran her fingers over the old wood around the frame. “This section was already closed when Mihawk bought the property?”
“Yeah,” Zoro said. “He opened it back up after he bought the place. Had people look at the damage.”
“And then?”
“Got worse. Engineer said the stairs weren’t safe, so Mihawk locked the whole section.”
“How long ago?”
“Two years.”
Robin nodded. “And before that, you used it?”
“Sometimes. Until I stopped.”
Nami made another note on her tablet, then turned them back toward the main corridor. Franky started asking about available outlets near the chapel corridor while Brook adjusted something on his recorder. Zoro fell in behind them.
Luffy had been standing beside Franky, but now he wasn’t. Zoro noticed because Luffy had been directly in front of him thirty seconds earlier, swaying back and forth on his heels while Nami talked about mounting thermal cameras. Now the space was empty.
“Hey, Nami?”
“What?” she said.
“Where’d Luffy go?” Zoro asked.
Nami glanced at her tablet. “Walking.”
“By himself?”
“For now.”
Zoro frowned. “That normal?”
“First pass. Robin doesn't tell him anything about a location until he's had a chance to wander through it.”
Robin nodded. “If he gives us information later, we want to know he didn't get it from me.”
“And you just let him go wherever?”
Nami checked the screen again. “He's still miked.”
She went back to her tablet. Nobody else appeared to care. Franky had already started talking about battery life. Brook was testing levels. Jinbe moved farther down the corridor to check an angle with the camera. Zoro followed them because apparently letting one of the hosts wander off alone was part of the job.
They found Luffy five minutes later. He was sitting halfway up a narrow side staircase with his elbows on his knees, talking toward the landing above him.
“Yeah,” he said, then paused. “No, we came in the front.”
Another pause.
“I don’t know.”
Zoro stopped at the bottom of the stairs.
Luffy nodded at empty air. “Perona’s gone.”
Robin came up beside Zoro.
“He’s talking to someone?” Zoro asked.
“Yes.”
“Who?”
“We’ll find out,” Robin said with a mysterious smile.
Zoro frowned. “You believe him.”
Robin inclined her head. “Usually.”
“That happens a lot?”
“Yes.”
Luffy laughed at something Zoro couldn’t hear.
Usopp leaned around Robin. “Last month he spent forty minutes talking to a dead fisherman about bait.”
“He was right about the boat,” Franky said.
“That’s not the point.”
“It was exactly where he said it’d be.”
Usopp folded his arms. “I still hated it.”
Zoro looked back at Luffy. There was nobody visible on the landing. He was starting to think the entire crew was weird.
By one, the castle smelled different. Zoro noticed it halfway down the stairs. Garlic first. Then onion. The smell traveled through the central hall and into the older corridors where food smells normally never reached. It followed him past the gallery and down the west passage.
He hadn’t been heading toward the kitchen, but somehow he ended up there anyway.
Sanji had taken over the entire room. Two pans occupied the stove. A stockpot simmered on the back burner. Chicken browned in batches beside a tray of sliced vegetables. Rice steamed in another pot. Someone had brought groceries in from the vans and stacked them along one counter: produce, bread, cartons of eggs, meat packed in coolers.
Sanji stood at the worktable chopping parsley. The knife moved fast and stayed close to the board. Zoro stopped near the doorway.
Sanji noticed him. “Help you?”
“No.”
Sanji arched an eyebrow that seemed to curl in one corner, not stopping his knifework. “You’ve been standing there for thirty seconds.”
“I’m looking,” Zoro said.
“At me?”
“The knife.”
Sanji glanced down at it. “Too bad.”
Zoro wasn’t sure what that response meant, but he came closer. The blade was eight inches, western chef’s knife, good profile, decent steel. Sanji’s grip sat farther forward than most people used, thumb and forefinger controlling the blade instead of strangling the handle.
“You sharpen it yourself?” he asked.
Sanji nodded. ”I do.”
“What angle?”
Sanji set the knife down. “About fifteen degrees a side. Sometimes a little lower if I’m only using it for vegetables.”
Zoro nodded. “That’s good.”
“High praise.”
“You’d know if it was wrong.”
Sanji picked the knife up again and went back to the parsley. “You always interrogate people about edge maintenance before lunch?”
“Only if they’re doing it right. Or wrong.”
“That almost sounded flirtatious.”
“It wasn’t.”
“I can work with almost,” Sanji said with a swift smile.
Zoro leaned one hip against the end of the table. “Why’re you cooking?”
Sanji scraped the parsley into a bowl, then reached for a lemon. “Because people generally object when I let them starve.”
“You’re one of the hosts.”
Sanji glanced over. “Very observant.”
“I thought you did the show.”
“I do.”
“And this?”
Sanji squeezed lemon over the chicken. “This is what happens if I don’t want Franky calling protein bars dinner, Luffy eating whatever he finds first, and Usopp forgetting food exists when he’s wound up.”
“Is he always wound up?”
“Pretty much.”
Zoro watched Sanji squeeze lemon over the chicken. “What about everybody else?”
“Robin remembers. Nami gets busy. Jinbe eats when food appears. Chopper gets distracted.”
“And Brook?”
Sanji turned toward the doorway as Brook passed carrying a boom pole. “Brook lives on tea, crackers, and decisions he made in the seventies.”
Brook slowed. “Some of those decisions were excellent.”
“I’m sure they were,” Sanji said.
“Several even involved very good music,” Brook said, then continued down the hall.
A pot lid rattled faintly behind Sanji. He turned the burner down without looking. Zoro noticed there was less polish in him here. He still wore the vest. His sleeves were still rolled evenly. His hair still sat where it had that morning. But he moved through the kitchen without stopping to think about where anything was, and he kept track of three pans and a pot while talking.
“You could just order food,” Zoro said.
“Out here?”
Zoro thought about the road to town and how much he had to tip the pizza guy to drive out this far. “Yeah, point.”
Sanji pointed the knife at him. “And I’m not feeding ten people takeout for a week.”
“Ten?”
“The crew.”
Zoro counted. Sanji. Luffy. Nami. Robin. Franky. Usopp. Jinbe. Brook. Chopper. That was nine. “You’re nine.”
Sanji kept chopping. “And you make ten.”
Zoro paused. “You’re cooking for me?”
Sanji gave him a quick grin. “You’re putting up with us for a week. Least I can do is dazzle you with my charms.”
Zoro rubbed his thumb against a callus on the side of his forefinger. “Food’s probably more effective.”
Sanji laughed.
Lunch happened in the great hall because Nami refused to let everyone eat around the equipment. Sanji carried food in on platters. Chicken with lemon and herbs. Rice. Roasted peppers, zucchini, and onions. Bread warmed in the oven.
Luffy appeared before the first plate hit the table. Zoro still didn’t know where he’d been. Everyone else followed the food. The room got loud again, but differently. Less equipment noise. More talking. Franky told a story about a generator failure on a shoot in Nevada. Usopp corrected every detail, then told his own version, which was longer and less believable. Chopper laughed with his mouth full until Nami told him to swallow first.
Robin asked Zoro about the chapel and the sealed north wing beyond it. He answered what he knew, which wasn’t much. Mihawk had bought the castle from the estate that owned it after the previous family went bankrupt. Some areas had already been closed when he took possession. The north wing had stayed that way because repairing it had never been urgent.
“Anything unusual happen over there?” Robin asked.
Zoro thought about it. “Depends what counts.”
“Anything you couldn't immediately explain.”
“Doors shut sometimes. Heard scratching in the walls a few times. There was knocking under the chapel floor sometimes.”
Robin looked interested. “And you never investigated?”
Zoro shrugged. “Mice. Pipes. Old building. Didn’t care.”
“Any deaths?” Robin asked.
Usopp stopped chewing.
Zoro frowned. “In the castle?”
“Yes.”
“Probably.”
Usopp put his fork down. “Can you say that with less confidence?”
“People lived here for hundreds of years,” Zoro said.
“That doesn’t help.”
Robin smiled into her glass.
Nami looked up from her tablet. “We need that on camera.”
Zoro frowned. “You just heard it.”
“The audience didn't.”
“They can hear Robin.”
“They're going to hear you.”
Sanji, standing nearby with his microphone pack in one hand, smiled. “I'll be gentle.”
“What’s that got to do with anything?” Zoro said.
Sanji's smile widened. Nami closed her eyes briefly.
Ten minutes later Zoro was sitting in one of the great-hall chairs with Jinbe's camera pointed at him and Sanji in the chair opposite. One of the light panels had been turned toward them. Zoro had already been told twice not to look directly at Jinbe and still didn't understand why that mattered.
Nami lifted three fingers, then two, then one.
Sanji settled back. “You’ve lived at Kuraigana a while?”
“Yeah.”
“How long?”
“Since I was a teenager.”
“And in all that time, how often have you heard knocking beneath the chapel?” Sanji asked.
“I don't know.”
Sanji waited.
Zoro waited, too.
Sanji kept waiting.
“Sometimes,” Zoro finally said.
Sanji’s lips tipped up. “Once a year sometimes? Once a month sometimes? Every Tuesday at three?”
“Why would it be Tuesdays?”
“It was an example.”
“Oh.” Zoro thought again. “Every couple months, maybe. More in winter.”
Sanji nodded. “Always beneath the chapel?”
“Mostly.”
“Mostly?”
“Sometimes it sounds farther north.”
“Toward the closed wing.”
“Yeah.”
Sanji shifted one ankle over his knee. “Have you ever tried to find out what's making it?”
“No.”
“Not once?”
“No.”
“Years of mysterious knocking underneath a fifteenth-century castle, and you never got curious?”
“It wasn't mysterious.”
Sanji's mouth twitched. “What was it?”
“Pipes.”
“What about the doors?” Sanji asked.
“What about them?”
“You said they sometimes close by themselves.”
“Yeah.”
“How often?”
Zoro shrugged. “Enough.”
“Enough for what?”
“To notice.”
Sanji stared at him for a beat. “You make interviewing you a dentist’s dream.”
“My teeth are fine,” Zoro said flatly.
Somebody behind the camera made a small choking sound.
Sanji pressed his lips together and looked down for a second. “All right. Specific questions. Have you personally seen a door move when nobody was touching it?”
“Yeah.”
“More than once?”
“Yeah.”
“Windows open?”
“Sometimes.”
“Windy?”
“Sometimes.”
“And when they weren't?”
Zoro considered that. “Old hinges.”
“You've checked them?” Sanji said.
“Some.”
“And?”
“Some are bad.”
Sanji leaned forward slightly. “And the ones that aren't?”
Zoro looked past him toward the west corridor. “Don't know.”
For once, Sanji didn't immediately fill the silence. Then he asked, “What about the signs?”
Zoro looked back at him. “What about them?”
“Perona told us they move.”
“They do.”
That got Sanji's attention. “You believe that?”
“I know they move.”
“But the knocking is pipes.”
“Probably.”
“The doors are hinges.”
“Usually.”
“And the signs?”
“Somebody moves them.”
“Who?”
“I don't know.”
“So your position is that the castle isn't haunted, but an unidentified person has spent years moving directional signs around while apparently never being seen.”
“Yeah.”
Sanji stared at him.
Zoro frowned. “What?”
“Nothing. I'm just enjoying your scientific rigor.”
“I never said I was a scientist.”
“No, sweetheart. That much is becoming clear.”
Zoro heard Nami make a sound from somewhere behind Jinbe.
Sanji continued before Zoro could ask what he meant. “Has anything else happened here that you couldn't explain?”
Zoro thought about it. “Stuff goes missing.”
“What kind of stuff?”
“Tools. Keys. Phone.”
“You lose your phone.”
“I find it again.”
“That is generally how losing things works.”
“No, sometimes it's somewhere I didn't put it.”
Sanji's expression changed slightly. “You're sure?”
“Yeah.”
“How?”
“Because I remember where I put some things.”
Sanji held his gaze for a moment, then nodded instead of making another joke. “Anything else? Cold spots, perhaps?”
Zoro nodded. “Yeah. There are cold spots. It's a castle.”
Sanji’s lips twitched. “Right.”
“Stone gets cold.”
“Also right.”
“And there are drafts.”
“I was waiting for drafts.”
“There are a lot of drafts.”
“I've noticed.”
Zoro glanced toward the nearest window. “That one's bad.”
Sanji followed his gaze. “We'll alert the spirits to contact maintenance.”
Zoro looked back at him. “Why would they know anything about windows?”
Sanji pressed his lips together again.
From behind the camera, Jinbe said quietly, “Still rolling.”
“I know,” Sanji said.
Zoro frowned. “Was that supposed to be funny?”
“Don't worry about it.”
“All right.”
Sanji took a second before continuing. “Have you ever felt threatened here?”
“No.”
The answer came fast enough that Sanji's teasing disappeared.
“Never?”
“No.”
“Not by the knocking, the doors, anything in the north wing?” Sanji asked.
“Haven't been in the north wing since Mihawk closed it.”
“And before that?”
Zoro searched his memory. “Didn't like the stairs.”
“Because they're unsafe?”
“Because I fell.”
Sanji went still. “You fell down them?”
“Not all the way.”
“How far?”
“Couple steps.”
“When?”
“Years ago.”
“Before they were condemned?”
“Yeah.”
Sanji's jaw tightened briefly before he smoothed it out. “Anything happen that caused the fall?”
“My balance is bad.”
The room behind the camera seemed to get quieter.
Sanji didn't ask why. Instead Sanji said, “So as far as you're concerned, nothing in Kuraigana has ever tried to hurt you.”
“No.”
“Nothing has frightened you.”
Zoro considered it. “Perona hid behind a curtain once.”
Sanji blinked.
“She jumped out.”
“That isn't what I meant.”
“It was frightening.”
A laugh escaped Jinbe this time.
Sanji looked toward the camera. “Can we use that?”
“Absolutely,” Nami said.
Zoro frowned. “Use it for what?”
“The episode,” Sanji replied.
“Why?”
“Because people will like you.”
That sounded different. Zoro studied him.
Sanji seemed to realize it a second later and his mouth curved. “Try not to look so alarmed.”
“I'm not,” Zoro said.
“Devastated, then.”
“Still not.”
Sanji leaned back in his chair. “Last question. If we prove something genuinely unexplained is happening here, will you admit Perona was right?”
“No.”
Sanji laughed. “You didn't even think about it.”
“She'd be unbearable.”
“So you'd deny the existence of ghosts to avoid giving your sister the satisfaction.”
“I'd find another explanation.”
“Even if Luffy introduces you to one?”
Zoro glanced across the hall. Luffy was standing near the windows, apparently watching something outside.
“If I can see it.”
Sanji followed his gaze. “That's your standard?”
“Yeah.”
Sanji looked back at him. “All right. We'll see what we can do.”
Nami called, “Cut.”
Jinbe lowered the camera. Sanji stayed where he was.
“That was it?” Zoro asked.
“For now,” Sanji said.
“You asked most of the same things Robin did.”
“Yeah.”
“Why?”
“Because Robin was asking for us.” Sanji nodded toward Jinbe's camera. “I was asking for them.”
“The camera?”
“See? You're learning.”
Zoro stood.
Sanji's gaze dropped briefly before returning to his face.
“You're staring again,” Zoro said.
Sanji smiled. “And you're starting to notice.”
Robin called Sanji's name from across the room. He stood and backed away a step. “We'll work on the rest.”
“What rest?” Zoro said.
Sanji's smile widened as he turned toward Robin. “Exactly.”
Nami intercepted Zoro before he could leave and held out her tablet. “One more thing.”
Zoro looked at the screen. “What?”
“Appearance release. The property release is already handled. This lets us use the interview and any footage of you in the episode.”
“You already filmed me.”
“Yes. We still need permission to air it.” Nami handed Zoro the stylus. “Read it first.”
He did. Most of it was straightforward. His name. Permission to use his image and voice. The production company. The episode. He stopped at one section. “You can edit what I said?”
“We have to edit,” Nami said. “You talked to Sanji for twenty minutes.”
Sanji put a hand to his chest. “And every second was riveting.”
Zoro gave Sanji a frown, then looked back at the release. “You can make it sound like I said something I didn’t?”
“No.” Nami’s answer came immediately. “We can shorten it, rearrange the interview around the episode, and cut things that don’t matter. We don’t fabricate answers.”
Zoro considered that, then signed.
Nami took the tablet back. “Thank you.”
“That’s it?”
“Now that’s it.”
Later, they started placing equipment. By four, the great hall had two cameras, three motion sensors, and an audio recorder hidden behind a cabinet. The chapel corridor got another camera and a temperature sensor. Franky ran cables along the baseboards and secured them with removable clips after Nami rejected his first two ideas.
Zoro went to use the toilet. It took him forty minutes to find his own bedroom and another thirty to find everyone else again. He swore someone moved the signs.
He had just reached the west corridor when Usopp said, “There! It did it again.”
Franky crossed to him and crouched beside the camera cable. “Show me.”
Usopp tapped something on the small monitor and replayed the footage. Brook stood beside him with one side of his headphones pressed tight against his ear.
“What happened?” Zoro asked.
Usopp pointed at the screen. “The camera cut out.”
“For how long?”
“Two seconds.”
“Three,” Franky said without looking up from the connector.
“It was two.”
Brook adjusted the headphone against one ear. “There was also a drop in ambient sound.”
Franky scrubbed backward through the footage. “It starts right when the temperature sensor spikes.”
“Where?” Usopp asked.
Franky pointed toward the north end of the corridor.
Usopp looked in that direction. “Meaning?”
“The room went quiet on the recording,” Brook said.
Franky checked the cable again. “Connection’s fine.”
Usopp folded his arms. “So what caused it?”
“Voltage dip, maybe.” Franky sat back on his heels. “Old wiring does weird stuff.”
“The recorder could have glitched at the same time,” Brook said.
Usopp frowned. “Both at once?”
“Could happen.”
Zoro looked toward the chapel corridor. The interior door halfway down it was closed. He remembered it being open earlier. “Did somebody shut that?”
Usopp followed his attention. “The door?”
“Yeah.”
“I didn’t.”
Franky shook his head. “Wasn’t me.”
“I’ve been here,” Brook said.
Zoro walked down the corridor and tried the handle. Unlocked. He opened it. Nothing stood behind it. The short passage beyond continued toward the north side of the castle, colder than the west hall, with a narrow window at the far end.
“Must’ve been a draft,” Franky said from behind him.
Zoro checked the hinges. The door opened inward. He pushed it halfway open and let go. It stayed there. “It does this sometimes,” he said.
Franky looked up. “One of the doors you were talking about?”
“Yeah.”
Usopp pointed at the hinges. “You blamed those.”
“Some of them are bad.”
Franky crouched beside the door and checked the hinge plates. “These aren’t.”
By evening, the castle had changed. Small red lights glowed in corners. Cables followed the baseboards. Cameras faced hallways that normally sat empty for days at a time. The kitchen still smelled faintly of dinner even after Sanji finished cleaning it.
People had taken over the guest rooms, too. Doors that usually stayed shut were open now, with bags on chairs and chargers stretched toward outlets. Voices carried along the upper corridors. Chopper went past the landing in socks with a towel around his shoulders. Franky shouted something and got three answers from different directions.
Zoro went downstairs. The armory door closed behind him with a solid click, cutting most of the castle away.
The armory was long and low-ceilinged, with stone walls and bright task lights fixed over the workbench. Sword racks lined the far wall, each piece tagged and spaced apart. Metal cabinets held tools and restoration supplies. Sharpening stones, oils, cloths, and a magnifier crowded one end of the bench, while the cavalry saber waited beneath the lamp where Zoro had left it.
Zoro sat on the stool and turned on the bench light. For the first time all day, nobody was talking within earshot. He picked up the saber and checked the edge beneath the light. The bevel was even. The remaining roll was gone. The polish still needed another pass.
Footsteps crossed the corridor outside the armory, followed by the rattle of someone dragging an equipment case over the uneven stone. They faded toward the stairs.
After a few minutes, he noticed a faint red glow beneath the armory door. One of Franky’s overnight sensors had been placed in the corridor outside. Zoro watched the light blink twice. Then he reached over with his boot and nudged a box until the glow disappeared.
Zoro spent most of the next day working in his armory – he had a deadline – and returned to find two light panels aimed toward the west arch, black tape marking positions on the floor, and Jinbe standing behind a shoulder camera while Nami checked the image on a monitor. Usopp had a handheld meter clipped to his belt and another device in his hand. Franky sat at a folding table near the wall with three monitors, a laptop, and enough cables to cover most of the tabletop.
Luffy stood halfway down the west corridor talking to nobody. Robin leaned against the edge of the long table with a folder open in her hands, well behind the filming setup, far enough from Luffy and Jinbe that any conversation wouldn’t carry into the shot. Brook adjusted the levels on a cassette recorder while Franky monitored the digital audio coming through the cameras and wireless mics. Chopper sat cross-legged on a chair eating crackers from a packet and watching everything.
Zoro ended up beside Robin. “What are they doing?”
She turned one page in the folder. “Filming Luffy.”
“He’s talking.”
“Yes.”
“To the dead guy?”
“We think so.”
Zoro watched Luffy nod toward the empty section of corridor. “You don’t know who it is?”
“Not yet.”
“Then what are you filming?”
Robin closed the folder over one finger to keep her place. “Luffy’s side of the conversation. Later we’ll compare what he says with anything the equipment records and whatever historical information we can verify.”
Zoro glanced toward the camera. Jinbe had it braced against his shoulder, angled slightly past Luffy rather than directly at him.
“Why’s he filming the wall?”
“He isn’t.” Robin indicated the small monitor mounted on the side of Jinbe’s rig. “Luffy is on the left third of the frame. The empty space gives the audience somewhere to understand the other person is supposed to be.”
“There’s nobody there.”
“For us.”
“Camera can’t see ghosts either.”
“We haven’t caught one yet.”
Usopp stepped into the corridor several feet behind Luffy and raised the handheld device. “We’re getting another fluctuation near the north wall,” he said, voice suddenly deeper and more deliberate than it had been five minutes ago. “Same location as the temperature drop earlier today.”
Zoro turned toward Robin. “Why’s he talking like that?”
“He’s narrating.”
“For who?”
“The audience.”
“They aren’t here.”
“They will be when it airs.”
Zoro took a second to work through that. “So he just talks to the camera?”
“Yes.”
“About an empty hallway.”
“Yes.”
Usopp continued with complete conviction. “Whatever Luffy is communicating with appears to be staying close to the older section of the castle.”
Zoro listened another few seconds. “He sounds different.”
Robin’s mouth curved. “He’s a natural storyteller.”
Franky tapped something on one of his screens and adjusted a slider. Zoro could see four camera feeds at once: the great hall, chapel corridor, east stairwell, and Luffy from Jinbe’s camera.
“What’s Franky doing?”
“Watching the fixed feeds and monitoring the sensors. Motion, temperature, electromagnetic changes. He also keeps track of the equipment itself so we can rule out technical failures.”
“Those things actually find ghosts?”
Robin tipped her head slightly. “They find changes in the room.”
“That’s different.”
“It is.”
Zoro approved of that answer more than he’d expected. “What counts?”
“As evidence?”
“Yeah.”
Robin reopened the folder. “Something recorded by more than one source is stronger. Audio that nobody present remembers making. Movement without an obvious physical cause.” She nodded toward Brook. “That's also why he carries the cassette recorder. The cameras and wireless microphones are digital. His recorder isn't connected to any of them. If the same sound appears on both systems, it's harder to blame a single equipment failure. Information Luffy gives us that we can verify independently afterward. One strange reading usually means very little by itself.”
“So most of it’s nothing.”
“Most of it is old wiring, bad batteries, loose floorboards, temperature differences, insects, distant traffic, people forgetting what they touched.”
Zoro glanced toward the chapel corridor. “And drafts.”
“And drafts.”
Usopp moved closer to Luffy and asked, “Can you tell whether whoever you’re speaking to has been here long?”
Luffy frowned toward the empty hallway. “Yeah.”
Usopp waited.
Luffy waited, too.
“Well?” Usopp prompted.
“He said a long time.”
“How long?”
Luffy shrugged. “Long.”
Usopp’s shoulders dropped.
Robin said quietly, “Sometimes the historical research carries more of the episode.”
Zoro snorted.
The sound caught Sanji’s attention from across the room. He had changed clothes for filming. The vest remained, but the white shirt had been replaced by a dark blue one, sleeves rolled to the forearms. A small microphone had been clipped near the opening at his throat. Somebody had done something to his hair, too. The blond fringe still covered one eye, only neater now.
He crossed toward Zoro while Nami reset something with Jinbe. “Enjoying the show?”
“I don’t know yet.”
Sanji stopped beside him. “I could give you a private demonstration later.”
“Of what?”
Robin lowered her folder slightly.
Sanji’s mouth curved. “Whatever part interests you most.”
“The sensors make more sense than I thought.”
There was a short silence.
Robin covered her mouth with two fingers.
Sanji exhaled through his nose. “Naturally.”
Zoro frowned. “What?”
“Nothing, sweetheart.”
Zoro drank from the bottle of water he’d brought up from the armory.
Sanji’s attention followed the movement for a second before Nami called, “Sanji, mark.”
“Coming.”
“I don’t see you moving.”
“I’m distracted.”
Nami followed his attention to Zoro. “Clearly.”
Sanji smiled and went back to his mark.
Zoro leaned slightly toward Robin. “Was that another thing I was supposed to understand?”
“Yes.”
“What did he mean?”
“I think you should ask him.”
Zoro considered that. “Probably easier.”
Robin’s smile widened.
The daytime setup finished after eight. They stopped long enough to eat, though Sanji somehow managed to get dinner onto the table while also changing batteries in his microphone pack and arguing with Nami about the shooting schedule.
Zoro had watched him cook the night before. This was different. Sanji moved between crew and equipment without losing track of either. He checked whether Chopper had eaten, handed Brook tea before Brook asked for it, and shoved a plate toward Usopp while Usopp was still trying to review notes. Then Nami called him away, and he switched immediately back into whatever version of himself belonged in front of a camera.
Night filming started in the chapel corridor, which ran along one side of the chapel itself. Most of the castle lights went off for it. Franky left low LED markers near cables and stairs so nobody broke an ankle. The old corridor became a strip of dark stone interrupted by equipment screens and the weak spill from the camera lights.
Zoro stood outside the main setup. Nami had told him he could watch as long as he stayed behind Jinbe and kept quiet when they were rolling. He’d asked why he needed to stay behind Jinbe.
“Because otherwise you’ll be in the shot.”
“What shot?”
“The one Jinbe is filming.”
“I can stand next to him.”
“You’ll still be in his peripheral frame.”
“Then he should point it somewhere else.”
Nami had pressed two fingers against her forehead.
Zoro had stayed behind Jinbe.
Sanji and Luffy stood farther down the corridor near the door that had shut by itself the previous afternoon. Luffy wore the same clothes he’d had on all day. Sanji had added a jacket. Nami counted them into the scene with her fingers.
Sanji changed the moment she finished. Zoro noticed it immediately. His posture straightened a little. His voice lowered. Even his pauses were different.
“We had our first equipment anomaly in this corridor yesterday afternoon,” Sanji said toward Jinbe’s camera. “A brief loss of video and audio with no confirmed technical cause. At roughly the same time, this door was found closed after being left open during setup.”
Luffy put one hand on the handle. “Maybe the ghost closed it.”
Sanji turned toward him. “Or maybe someone closed a door in a building containing ten people.”
“The ghost counts as a person.”
“We have yet to establish there is a ghost.”
“He was talking to me.”
“You talk to pigeons.”
“They talk back.”
“That is exactly my concern.”
Luffy grinned.
Zoro shifted his weight. Sanji was good at this. Luffy followed whatever caught his attention; Sanji made it into something another person could follow. The skepticism sounded genuine even though Zoro had already heard Robin explain that Sanji had seen enough over the past year to believe Luffy experienced something real. He kept the questions moving without making Luffy sound stupid. When Luffy wandered off topic, Sanji brought him back. When Usopp called out a temperature change from farther down the hall, Sanji folded it into the segment without breaking pace. There was polish there, but it had purpose.
Sanji turned slightly toward the door. “So if our unseen host is feeling cooperative tonight, I’d personally appreciate something more compelling than excusable drafts.”
Luffy leaned closer to the wood. “He said that was rude.”
Sanji’s expression stayed composed. “Tell him I’m open to being convinced.”
Nami called, “Cut.”
Sanji relaxed immediately. “Was that okay?”
“Again from ‘our unseen host,’” Nami said. “Jinbe lost focus for half a second when Luffy moved.”
“Wasn’t me,” Jinbe said.
“I know.”
Luffy had already wandered toward the wall.
Sanji took the small bottle of water Robin handed him and noticed Zoro nearby. “Well?”
“What?” Zoro said.
“You’ve been watching me for twenty minutes.”
Zoro thought about correcting that, then realized Sanji was right. “You’re different on camera.”
Sanji unscrewed the bottle. “Better or worse?”
“Different.”
“That’s devastating. Here I was hoping you’d say irresistible.”
“You talk more off camera.”
Sanji paused with the bottle near his mouth. A grin spread across his face. “You noticed.”
“You keep saying things.”
“That I do.”
“Most of them don’t make sense.”
“Give me time.”
“What happens then?”
Sanji stepped a little closer. “Eventually, I’m hoping one lands.”
“Where?”
Sanji closed his eyes for a second. Behind him, Robin made a soft sound that might have been a laugh.
Zoro frowned. “What?”
Sanji opened his eyes again. “I adore talking to you.”
“Why?”
“Because apparently I enjoy a challenge.”
Nami called him back.
Sanji pointed two fingers at Zoro as he walked away. “Don’t go anywhere.”
“I live here.”
Sanji almost walked into a light stand. Zoro watched Franky catch it before it tipped.
The second take went faster. After that, they split into smaller groups. Jinbe stayed with Luffy, Sanji, and Robin for the main investigation. Usopp and Franky worked from a monitor station set up near the great hall. Brook moved between rooms with his audio recorder and headphones, checking microphones and collecting what he called room tone.
Zoro followed for a while, mostly because nobody had told him to stop.
They filmed in the great hall first. Luffy wandered between the long table and the west wall, occasionally answering questions nobody else could hear. Robin asked him short, specific things: man or woman, how old, whether he knew a name. Luffy didn’t.
“He doesn’t remember,” Luffy said.
Robin kept her voice even. “His own name?”
“No. Says nobody used it in a long time.”
Sanji stood off camera now, arms folded. “That’s convenient.”
Luffy pointed toward him. “He says you’re mean.”
“I’ve been called worse.”
“He likes your hair.”
Sanji touched the blond fringe over his eye. “See? Finally, a spirit with taste.”
“He says Zoro’s is better.”
Silence held for one beat.
Sanji turned his head.
Zoro was standing beside Jinbe. “What?”
Luffy laughed.
Sanji sighed. “Great. Even the ghosts are after him.”
Zoro frowned. “After me for what?”
Jinbe made a low sound behind the camera.
Sanji rubbed a hand over his face. “You’re going to kill me.”
“Why would I do that?”
Luffy laughed harder.
Nami’s voice came through the radio clipped to Jinbe’s belt. “Can we please keep moving?”
They moved.
The next room was smaller, one of the old sitting rooms off the ground-floor north passage, before the locked north wing. Most of its furniture had been covered years ago because nobody used it. Franky had uncovered two chairs for filming and left the rest alone.
Brook went in first to check the audio. He made it three steps inside before stopping and lifting one hand. Jinbe stopped behind him, and Zoro nearly walked into the camera rig.
Brook adjusted the headphones over both ears and listened for a few seconds. Then he rewound something on the recorder and played it back.
Sanji stepped closer. “What did you get?”
“I’m uncertain.”
Brook replayed the same section. His usual smile had disappeared.
“Can you tell what it is?” Robin asked.
“Not yet.”
He disconnected one cable from the recorder and plugged in a small external speaker.
Jinbe reached for the radio at his belt. “Nami, can you come to the north sitting room? Brook caught something.”
A minute later, footsteps sounded in the corridor. Nami came in first, with Franky behind her. Usopp stayed at the monitor station.
“What happened?” Nami asked.
Brook held up the recorder. “I was taking a room tone. There’s something on the track.”
Franky moved nearer. “Equipment noise?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Play it.”
Brook did.
A low hiss from the recorder. A faint shift of fabric. Someone breathing farther from the microphone. Then a voice. One word.
“Below.”
Brook stopped the recording. Nobody spoke. Zoro glanced around the room. Sanji stood near the covered sofa. Robin had one hand resting on her folder. Jinbe still held the camera, though it was pointed toward the floor now. Luffy was smiling.
“Again,” Nami said.
Brook replayed it.
“Below.”
The voice was low. Male, probably. The consonants were clear enough that Zoro could make out the word without being told what to hear.
Usopp came through the radio. “Who said that?”
Nobody answered.
Nami checked each person in the room. “Did anyone speak while Brook was recording?”
“No,” Robin said.
Sanji shook his head.
“I didn’t,” Jinbe said.
Zoro hadn’t.
Luffy pointed toward the far corner. “He didn’t either.”
Everyone turned toward the empty corner.
Sanji lowered his voice. “You didn’t hear him say it?”
“No.” Luffy's smile had disappeared. “That wasn't him.”
“Is he still here?” Robin asked.
Luffy nodded, then looked toward the floor. His expression changed.
“What?” Nami asked.
“He says there's somebody else here.”
Usopp looked immediately toward the door. “Here as in the room?”
Luffy listened. “Below us.”
Brook replayed the recording once more.
“Below.”
Luffy got to his feet. “He doesn't want to stay in here.”
Same word. Same voice. Sanji’s professional expression had disappeared. He wasn’t frightened exactly. Zoro couldn’t tell what he was, but he’d stopped performing.
Nami held out her hand. “Tape.”
Brook ejected the cassette and handed it to Nami.
“Room and time?” she asked.
“North sitting room. Eleven forty-three.”
“Usopp?”
“Already logged.”
Nami wrote the room and time on the cassette case also and handed Brook a fresh tape. Franky was already checking the fixed-camera timecode against the temperature sensor.
“Ready,” Brook said.
A heavy clunk came from behind them. Everyone turned. The door slammed hard enough to shake the latch.
Usopp stared with wide eyes. “Nobody touched that.”
For a second, nobody moved. Then Nami pointed at Jinbe. “Keep rolling.”
“Never cut,” Jinbe said. He shifted the camera toward the door while Brook turned his recorder in the same direction.
Nami looked at Zoro. “Does this do that normally?"
“It’s a door. They close.”
Sanji crossed the room and tried the handle. The door opened normally. The corridor outside was empty. Sanji stepped through and checked the hinges while Jinbe filmed over his shoulder. Nothing loose. He pressed the latch with his thumb. It moved smoothly.
He closed the door halfway and let go. It stayed where he left it. He pushed it wider. Same thing.
Luffy stared at the door instead of laughing.
From somewhere beneath the floor came a dull impact. Then another.
Zoro looked down. “Those pipes are annoying.”
Franky stared at him. “No.”
Nami was looking down at her feet, her expression gone thoughtful. “Zoro.”
“Yeah?”
“What’s below this room?”
Zoro pictured the castle. That rarely worked. He tried another way. The room they were in had two windows facing the north courtyard, which he could see from where he stood. The corridor outside ran along the interior wall. The old servants’ stair was farther west. The armory was south and one level down. The chapel passage connected back toward the center of the castle, while the sealed wing continued farther north. He knew because he’d memorized which directions went with each part of Kuraigana.
He rubbed his thumb over the side of his index finger as he searched his memory for other matched directions. “There used to be another level.”
Robin straightened. “Used to?”
“Part of the old north level was filled in.”
Nami stepped closer. “When?”
“I don’t know.”
“Before Mihawk?”
“Yeah.”
“How do you know?”
Zoro thought about it. A memory surfaced slowly. Perona sitting on the floor outside Mihawk’s study surrounded by boxes because Mihawk had told her to stop going through old documents in his study and she had interpreted that as permission to move into the hallway. “She found plans.”
“Perona?”
“Years ago.”
Robin was already reaching for her notebook. “What kind of plans?”
“Building plans. Old ones.”
“What did they show?”
Zoro rubbed his thumb harder. “Rooms under the north side of the castle.”
“Crypt?” Robin asked.
“Some. Part of it ran under the chapel.”
“Some?”
“There was storage. Servants’ access. Something else.”
Zoro tried to remember. Stone room. Narrow. Something connected to the chapel. He could see the faded plan better than he could remember what Perona had called the room.
“Vigil room,” he said eventually. A strange name for a room.
Robin wrote it down. “All connected on the same old lower level?”
“Yeah.”
“Do you remember anything else?”
“There was a name.”
Nami asked, “Whose?”
Zoro tried to pull that up, too. Perona had circled it in pink because she’d hated the old handwriting. He remembered the circle better than the name itself. “Started with V.”
Robin waited.
Zoro shook his head once. “That’s it.”
“It’s enough.”
He glanced at her notebook. She’d written:
LOWER NORTH LEVEL
VIGIL ROOM
NAME – V?
Robin tapped the pen against the page. “Do the plans still exist?”
“Probably.”
Nami sighed. “Where?”
Zoro knew where. The room came up immediately: Mihawk’s desk, the cabinet beneath the windows, shelves along the wall. “Mihawk’s…”
The next word was gone.
He stopped.
Nami waited, apparently assuming he was thinking about where Mihawk kept them. Zoro rubbed his thumb against the side of his index finger and tried again. He could picture the room. He knew exactly where it was, even though sometimes it moved. The stupid ordinary word still wouldn’t come.
Sanji glanced at him. Zoro noticed, but Sanji didn’t offer a word or ask a question.
“Study,” Zoro got out a few seconds later. “Mihawk’s study.”
“Which we can’t go in,” Nami said.
“Yeah. But I can try and find them.”
Robin closed the notebook. “Perona may also remember.”
Nami pulled out her phone. Sanji stayed beside Zoro while everyone moved on. He didn’t mention the pause.
Nami sent Perona a message and turned back toward the room. “Nobody touches anything more until Franky checks the door and Brook duplicates that audio. Jinbe, I want a pickup explaining what happened while it’s fresh. Robin, stay with Luffy. Usopp, pull camera three and save the previous ten minutes.”
Everyone moved. Sanji stayed beside Zoro for another moment.
“You know,” he said, voice low enough that the others wouldn’t hear, “being useful is very attractive on you.”
“I’m useful most days.”
“I’m sure you are.”
“I restore swords for a living.”
Sanji’s eye narrowed with amusement. “Keep talking.”
“I also appraise them.”
“Filthy.”
Zoro frowned. “Appraising is just paperwork.”
“I know.”
“And research.”
“You’re making it worse.”
“How?”
Sanji smiled and stepped backward toward where Nami was setting the next shot. “I’ll explain when you’re less distracting.”
“I’m just standing here.”
“I know.”
“What’s distracting about that?”
Sanji’s eye traveled over him and back to his face. “Mostly the part where you’re standing there,” he said, then walked away.
Zoro watched him join Jinbe near the open door. He was still weird. The whole crew was weird.
Jinbe raised the camera. Sanji took his place beside the door. The shift happened again: shoulders settled, voice controlled, attention on the lens.
“About ten minutes ago,” Sanji began, “our sound technician captured a voice in this room that none of us remember hearing at the time.”
He paused. Zoro knew now that the pause was deliberate.
“The voice appears to say one word.”
He paused again. Zoro figured this was where they’d put in the word heard on the tape.
Sanji continued without changing expression. “A few minutes later, the door behind me closed without anyone visibly touching it. Our resident skeptic has already blamed similar incidents on drafts and old hinges. Franky checked this one afterward and found no obvious mechanical cause.”
Robin joined Sanji on camera and explained what Zoro had remembered about the lower level. She kept it careful. Old plans. Filled-in rooms. A possible vigil chamber beneath the north side of the castle. No claims beyond what they could confirm.
By the time filming stopped, it was after midnight. Franky left two cameras running overnight. Brook set an audio recorder in the sitting room and another near the chapel corridor. A motion sensor sat outside the sealed wing with a small green indicator light. Nobody joked about catching something while they slept.
Zoro stayed in the hall while Nami reviewed the overnight setup with Franky. Usopp checked the door twice before leaving it open. Robin took photos of the corridor and wrote down the distance between the room and the sealed-wing entrance. Luffy had wandered back toward the great hall, talking quietly to the Groundskeeper again.
Sanji passed Zoro on his way toward the stairs. “Tired?”
“No.”
“Good. I was worried I’d worn you out.”
“I was just watching.”
Sanji stopped on the first stair. For a second, he said nothing. Then he laughed, head dropping. “Good night, swordsman.”
“I’m not a swordsman. I restore and appraise swords. I do stage combat at Ren fairs and conventions sometimes, but that’s not the same thing.”
“That objection is somehow becoming endearing.”
“It’s accurate.”
“I know.”
Sanji went upstairs. Zoro remained at the bottom of the staircase until he disappeared around the landing. He still wasn’t sure why Sanji kept talking to him that way. He was beginning to recognize when he was doing it, though.
Maybe he’d figure the rest out in the morning.
Zoro’s phone woke him, vibrating under his cheek. He’d fallen asleep reading something on it and it had ended up between his face and the pillow. He blinked slowly, focusing blurrily on the light peeking from between the heavy curtains of his bedroom.
The phone vibrated again. Zoro fished it out from under his face and stared blearily at the lock screen. Perona was texting. He unlocked the phone as it vibrated again in his hand, another message coming through.
PERONA:
nami texted me last night
PERONA:
what did you people do
ZORO:
nothing
Three dots appeared immediately.
PERONA:
you found a mystery voice saying BELOW and a door shut itself
PERONA:
THIS IS WHY I CALLED THEM
ZORO:
you called them because of mice
PERONA:
I CALLED THEM BECAUSE THIS PLACE IS HAUNTED
ZORO:
there are mice
PERONA:
the signs move when nobody touches them
PERONA:
doors close by themselves
PERONA:
something has been knocking under the chapel for YEARS
ZORO:
pipes
PERONA:
THERE ARE NO PIPES
Zoro paused. Franky had said the same thing.
ZORO:
you sent them the castle stuff?
PERONA:
months ago
PERONA:
history + pictures + everything weird that happens here
PERONA:
they wanted to film
ZORO:
mihawk agreed to this?
PERONA:
eventually
ZORO:
you knew about rooms under the chapel
PERONA:
oh
PERONA:
those
Zoro waited.
PERONA:
there were plans in mihawk’s study
PERONA:
blue paper maybe
PERONA:
or gray
PERONA:
old
ZORO:
helpful
PERONA:
you’re welcome ugly brother
ZORO:
name started with V
The dots appeared again, disappeared, then came back.
PERONA:
i remember a V
PERONA:
maybe victor?
PERONA:
vincent?
PERONA:
virgil?
PERONA:
something old fashioned
ZORO:
which box?
PERONA:
no clue
ZORO:
you went through them
PERONA:
YEARS AGO
PERONA:
i was bored
PERONA:
try the cabinet by the windows
PERONA:
mihawk keeps house papers separate from family stuff
Then:
PERONA:
and don’t let the tv people in his study
Zoro frowned.
ZORO:
i know
PERONA:
especially blondie
ZORO:
why especially him
PERONA:
because you keep talking about him
ZORO:
i don’t
PERONA:
you mentioned him twice when you texted me about the keys
ZORO:
no i didn’t
PERONA:
you asked if people normally say things that don’t make sense on purpose
PERONA:
then described him
PERONA:
in detail
ZORO:
that was relevant
PERONA:
sure
PERONA:
i don’t even think you know the color of my hair
ZORO:
i do
ZORO:
it’s purple
PERONA:
IT’S PINK
Zoro put the phone face down on the nightstand and went back to ignoring her.
Thirty minutes later, he got up for real, cleaned up, and went to look for the papers in Mihawk’s study. He passed where Franky and Usopp were reviewing the footage from the night before.
The overnight equipment had produced twenty-three minutes of useful footage and six hours of nothing. According to Franky, that was normal.
What wasn't normal was the north sitting-room camera losing focus four times between three fourteen and three twenty-two. The temperature sensor dropped five degrees during the same eight minutes. Brook's recorder had picked up several dull impacts underneath the room, plus a drag or a scraping sound.
“Stupid plumbing,” Zoro said.
Franky looked at him. “There's no plumbing under that room.”
“Then the building settled.”
“Four times?”
“Old building.”
Usopp pointed at him. “You are ruining my job.”
Zoro left them to it. Mihawk’s study was on the upper floor of the residential wing, opposite the section Zoro used. Zoro followed the signs. It still took him twenty-three minutes to reach it.
The study door stood at the end beneath a tall arched window. Morning sunlight showed through the glass, pale against the old runner and dark paneling. The brass handle caught enough of it to shine.
Zoro stopped in front of the door. Mihawk had never told him he couldn’t go inside. That wasn’t the same thing as being invited to go through his papers.
When Zoro was younger, the study had mostly meant being called in to discuss something. School. Money. Work. The time he broke three ribs and insisted he hadn’t because breathing still worked. Later it became contracts Mihawk wanted him to read properly before signing, appraisals he wanted a second opinion on, auction catalogs dropped open across the desk with a finger marking something interesting.
Zoro had been in the room hundreds of times. He’d gone through Mihawk’s desk drawers exactly zero times.
He put his hand on the knob. He could always blame Perona. He had her texts telling him where to look.
The study smelled of leather, paper, and the faint cedar oil Mihawk used on the furniture. Two tall windows faced the grounds. Heavy curtains had been left open, and sunlight reached across one side of the rug. Mihawk’s desk occupied the center of the room, broad and dark, with nothing on it except a blotter, two pens, and a closed book. Shelves covered most of one wall. The other held framed maps, several swords, and a long cabinet beneath the windows.
Zoro started with the cabinet. The first drawer contained property tax records. The second had invoices from roofers, stoneworkers, electricians, and one company that had spent six months repairing the western drainage system before declaring part of it impossible. The third drawer held folders.
Zoro pulled them out one at a time and put them on the floor.
RESTORATION – SOUTH TOWER.
ELECTRICAL.
ROOF.
CHAPEL.
He stopped. The folder was thick. Zoro carried it to the desk and opened it beneath the lamp.
Recent reports came first. Structural inspections. Estimates. Photographs of cracks in the north stairwell. A survey from three years ago marked several sections unsafe for regular use. He moved those aside.
Older copies sat beneath them, some photocopied from originals that had browned around the edges. Zoro worked backward through dates until the modern paper gave way to thin sheets with typed notes stapled to them. Mihawk appeared to have organized records by subject first, date second. If the plans existed, they would be here or close to it. He kept going.
A survey from 1968. Renovation drawings from 1932. A plumbing plan with most of the lines crossed out in red pencil. Then blue-gray paper showed beneath the rest. Zoro pulled it free.
The sheet had been folded four times. He opened it carefully on the desk and weighted one corner with Mihawk’s book. Kuraigana’s north side appeared in thin white lines. Zoro bent over it. The ground-floor plan showed the chapel first. Long rectangular room, narrow apse, side passage. The corridor toward the sealed north wing ran behind it.
A second drawing showed the level beneath it. Stairs. Storage. Crypt. A narrow servants’ passage. And farther north, almost directly beneath the sitting room where Brook had recorded the voice, three small chambers connected by a short corridor. One was labeled Vigil.
Zoro put his finger against it. “Found you.”
He searched the edges of the plan. Dates appeared in the lower corner. Original construction, 1842. Alterations, 1871. Lower north access closed, 1906.
Zoro frowned. Someone had written beside the vigil room in ink rather than printing. V. A. Nothing else. He checked the back. Blank. There had been a full name somewhere. He remembered Perona reading it aloud and making fun of it. He needed another record.
Zoro went back to the folder. Minutes passed. He worked through each piece in order rather than grabbing at anything that looked old. Structural reports. Repair invoices. Correspondence. Several letters between a previous owner and a builder about sealing part of the lower corridor. Those got set aside. One mentioned damp. Another mentioned subsidence. A third used the phrase undesirable access. Zoro read that one twice. The letter was dated November 1906.
Sir,
As requested, the lower north passage has been permanently closed at both approaches. The former access beneath the chapel has been filled to the specified depth, and the stair from the north service corridor has been removed. No further entrance remains from the inhabited portion of the house.
Zoro’s thumb stopped at the bottom of the page. Nothing important. Just confirmation that the work had been done. He set it beside the plan.
A floorboard creaked in the corridor. Zoro raised his head. Another step followed. Then somebody knocked softly against the open study door.
Sanji appeared in the doorway sometime after Zoro had worked his way through the first stack of folders. He wore jeans and a dark T-shirt, his blond hair still loose across his forehead, and carried two mugs of coffee. “You missed breakfast.”
Zoro kept reading. “Wasn’t hungry.”
“Nami sent me to find you.” Sanji leaned one shoulder against the doorframe and took in the open cabinet, the folders on the floor, and the building plan spread across Mihawk’s desk. “I see you’ve gone straight to burglary.”
“It’s Mihawk’s study.”
“Yes. The room we were explicitly told to stay out of.”
“You were.”
Sanji’s mouth curved. “So you do know how to make a man feel special.”
Zoro turned another page. “You’re still not allowed in.”
“Then I’ll admire you from a legally distinct distance.”
“You’re already inside the doorway.”
Sanji checked his feet. The toe of one shoe had crossed the threshold. He moved it back, then held up the second mug. “Does coffee qualify for diplomatic immunity?”
Zoro paused. “What kind?”
“Black.”
“Come in.”
Sanji laughed and crossed the threshold. “Good to know where your principles end.”
He set the mug beside Zoro, far enough from the papers, then rested one hip against the edge of the desk. Zoro picked up the coffee and drank. Sanji had remembered how he took it from the day before.
“What are you looking for?” Sanji asked.
“Building plans. Perona said they were in…” Zoro stopped. He knew what he meant. Square things that held paper, made of cardboard. But the word wouldn’t come.
His thumb pressed against the side of his index finger.
Sanji followed his glance toward the windows, then looked back at him. He didn’t say anything.
“Boxes,” Zoro finally got out. “Maybe. On blue paper or gray.”
“Impressively specific.”
“She said they were old.”
“That narrows it down in a castle.”
Zoro ignored that. He pulled out another folded sheet and opened it beside the first plan. The lower chambers were still drawn, but the passage leading north had been crossed through in darker ink. He shifted both sheets beneath the desk lamp. “Can you read that?”
Sanji leaned over his shoulder. “You invited me in and immediately put me to work. Bold.”
“There.” Zoro tapped the handwriting beside the vigil room.
Sanji bent closer, one hand braced on the desk. His shoulder brushed Zoro’s upper arm before he settled beside him. “V.A.”
“I know that.”
“Then why did you ask me?”
“Thought you might see more.”
Sanji angled his head. “Flattered you think my eyesight has special powers.”
“Maybe you should brush your hair back so you can see out of both eyes.”
His mouth twitched. “And somehow you still manage to say romantic things to me.”
“That wasn’t romantic.”
“So you think.”
Zoro moved the lamp instead of answering.
Sanji picked up the newer plan carefully and held it closer to the light. “There’s more writing in the margin.”
“Where?”
“Here.”
The ink had faded almost to brown. Zoro leaned in until their heads nearly touched, but the letters remained indistinct. “Can’t read it.”
“Neither can I.”
“You just said there was more.”
“There is more. I just can’t read it.”
Zoro opened the top drawer of Mihawk’s desk looking for a magnifier. He found pens. The second drawer held stationery and sealing wax Mihawk probably hadn’t used in twenty years. The third contained several small notebooks.
“Do you know where he keeps a magnifying glass?” Sanji asked.
“No.”
“You know where anything is in this room?”
“Some things.”
Sanji took out his phone. “Picture and zoom?”
“Then he’ll have proof you’ve been in here.” Zoro angled the paper beneath the desk lamp instead. Sanji held one corner flat while he adjusted it. The letters sharpened enough to read.
AUB—
Zoro stopped.
Sanji caught the change. “Recognize it?”
“Part of it.”
He knew the name. Perona had read it aloud years ago while sitting on the floor outside Mihawk’s study with half the contents of one of these cabinets around her. She’d written something in pink pen beside it and laughed.
Aub.
Auber.
Aubrey.
Zoro stared at the faded letters for another few seconds. “Aubert,” Zoro said after a moment.
Sanji checked the plan. “V. Aubert?”
“Yeah.”
“First name?”
“Don’t have it yet.” Zoro reached for another folder. His fingers caught two sheets at once, and both slipped to the floor. “Shit.”
He bent to retrieve them. When he straightened, his balance shifted enough that he caught himself against the desk.
Sanji’s hand came up and stopped a few inches from his arm. “You good?”
“Yeah.”
The room settled. Zoro put the papers back where they belonged and checked the order against the dates.
Sanji had gone quiet.
“What?” Zoro said.
“Is that what you meant about your balance?”
“Yeah.”
Sanji nodded toward the cabinet beneath the windows. “And earlier? You knew what you were looking for, but you couldn’t say what it was.”
Zoro knew what he meant. “Couldn’t get the word.”
“Boxes.”
“Yeah.”
Sanji nodded. “That happen a lot?”
“Sometimes. Since the accident.”
Sanji rested one hand against the desk. “Accident?”
Zoro pulled another document from the folder. “Head injury. Lost the left eye. Balance got worse. Words disappear sometimes. Getting lost got worse.”
“How bad was it?”
“At first?”
“Yeah.”
“Bad.” Zoro unfolded the document. “Couldn’t walk straight. Forgot where rooms were while I was still in them. Couldn’t read for a while.”
Sanji’s fingers tightened once against the edge of the desk. “That’s why the signs are everywhere?”
“Partly.”
“You got lost before the accident, too?”
“Yeah.” Zoro moved another page aside. “Bright lights and too much noise were already a problem.”
Sanji nodded. He didn’t tell Zoro that things could have been worse. He didn’t say anything about how well Zoro was doing now. Zoro liked that.
He pulled another stack toward himself. “Mihawk used to finish words for me.”
“Used to?”
“I told him I’d stab him if he kept it up.”
Sanji gave him a quick grin. “Effective.”
“Yeah.”
They returned to the papers. Sanji watched how Zoro handled them and started doing the same, lifting sheets by the corners and keeping every stack in its original order. When Zoro handed him a folder, he checked the dates instead of flipping through at random.
After a while Sanji said, “My family used to do something similar.”
“Finish words?”
“Decide what I meant before I got to say it.”
Zoro glanced toward the letter in Sanji’s hands.
“My first family, anyway.” Sanji put the letter into the finished stack. “They were pretty good at it. Or terrible.”
That didn't sound like one of Sanji's jokes.
Sanji reached for another page. “Zeff was different. He mostly yelled.”
“For what?”
“Everything. Knife work. Timing. Waste. Breathing too loudly near the stove.”
“Knife work?” Zoro asked immediately.
“See that got your attention.”
“It matters.”
“I know.” Sanji put the letter into the finished stack. “Zeff’s basically my dad, by the way. Not biologically.”
“Mihawk’s not mine biologically either.”
“I gathered.”
“Perona either.”
“I gathered that, too.”
Zoro opened another folder. “Mihawk adopted her first.”
“And you?”
“Later.”
“How much later?”
“Years.”
Sanji waited, leaving the question where it was.
“I met him because of swords,” Zoro said.
“That tracks.”
“He was doing an appraisal event. I was sixteen. Told him he’d mislabeled a reproduction.”
Sanji’s eyebrows lifted. “Had he?”
“No.”
A laugh escaped him. “Please tell me you argued anyway.”
“For forty minutes.”
“And then?”
“He showed me why I was wrong.”
“That sounds painfully on brand for you.”
Zoro considered it. “Yeah.”
He moved another letter aside.
Sanji leaned against the desk beside him. “So Mihawk eventually adopted the teenager who spent forty minutes explaining swords to him incorrectly.”
“I wasn’t wrong about everything,” Zoro said. “He used the wrong terminology for the hilt construction.”
The next folder contained household accounts from the turn of the century. Most of it was useless: coal deliveries, repairs, food purchases, staff wages. Sanji took half the stack and sat on the corner of the desk. “Would you actually have stabbed Mihawk?”
Zoro thought about it. “He would’ve blocked me.”
“You two have a very healthy relationship.”
“Neither of us has been sick in years.”
Sanji stared at him for a second, then smiled. “Damn, you’re precious.”
There he went saying weird things again. Zoro had no idea what that was supposed to mean.
Sanji kept reading. Zoro returned to his own stack. A page halfway through the ledger had been folded at the upper corner. He flattened it and checked the date. October 1906. Household expenses filled the left side. Staff names ran down the right. His finger stopped halfway down. Aubert.
“Found it.”
Sanji slid off the desk and came around beside him. The entry read:
AUBERT, VICTOR – NORTH HOUSE ATTENDANT
Below it, in another hand:
Dismissed 19 October.
Zoro followed the entries farther down the page, then turned forward through the ledger. Three pages later he stopped again.
November 2.
Payment to Dr. H. Mercer – attendance following death of V. Aubert.
Sanji leaned closer to read it. Neither spoke for a moment.
Zoro pulled the building plan back across the desk. The lower north access had been sealed in November 1906. The contractor’s letter confirming the work was dated November 18.
Sanji put the ledger beside it. “Victor Aubert.”
“Yeah.”
“North house attendant.”
“Dismissed October nineteenth.”
“And dead November second.”
Zoro put one finger on the construction letter. “Then they sealed this sixteen days later.”
Sanji looked at Zoro. “We should get this to Robin.”
“Yeah.”
They put the rest of the papers back first. Zoro checked the order against the dates while Sanji returned the folders to the cabinet. The ledger, plan, and contractor’s letter stayed on the desk.
Sanji folded the plan along its existing creases. “You planning to mention I was in here?”
“To Mihawk?”
“Yeah.”
“Perona said I could find the files.”
“She said you could.”
“You were helping.”
Sanji smiled. “You’re a very convenient accomplice.”
“I found the papers.”
“And I followed you into the forbidden study.”
“You followed the coffee in.”
“That version is much less romantic.”
Zoro gathered the ledger and letters. “Still what happened.”
Sanji’s smile widened. “Keep telling yourself that.”
Zoro headed for the door.
Victor Aubert’s name was written across three separate records. Whatever had happened beneath the north side of the castle, they finally had someone Robin could look for.
Robin had taken over one end of the great hall table with her laptop, a notebook, and the photographs Zoro had sent from Mihawk’s study. The actual ledger and building plans sat beside her, still in the order she’d told him to keep them. Morning light reached across the table from the tall windows, catching the dust that had collected around the equipment cases overnight. Robin was reporting on what she’d found now that she had a name.
“His employer reported that Aubert had left the property after his dismissal. According to this, he failed to collect wages owed to him and left several personal possessions behind.”
Usopp, standing behind her chair, frowned. “People don’t usually abandon their money.”
“Sometimes they do,” Robin said. “But possessions and unpaid wages together are worth noting.”
Sanji came over from the other end of the table, drying his hands on a dish towel. Luffy had stopped eating. Zoro noticed him listening toward the windows again. Sanji noticed, too.
“The groundskeeper know anything?” Sanji asked Luffy.
Luffy waited a few seconds before answering. “He remembers people saying Victor went away.”
“Did he see him leave?”
Luffy shook his head.
Robin had stopped giving Luffy details as soon as the first voice appeared. That was apparently another production rule. She could ask neutral questions, but she wasn't supposed to feed him information he hadn't already heard in front of everyone.
Now Victor's name and dismissal date were already known to the entire room, so she could use them. “Ask whether he saw Victor after October nineteenth.”
Another pause. This one lasted longer.
Luffy’s brow furrowed. “Yeah.”
Robin’s pen stopped. “After he was supposedly gone?”
“Yeah.”
“Where?”
Luffy listened longer this time. “Near the chapel.”
Franky pulled out the chair beside Robin and sat down. “What was Victor doing?”
Zoro looked toward the north side of the castle even though several walls stood between them and the chapel corridor.
Luffy asked. The answer took longer. “He says Victor was arguing with somebody.”
“Who?” Nami asked.
Luffy shook his head. “He couldn’t see. He was outside.”
“Did he speak to him later?” Robin asked.
Luffy's expression changed. “No.”
“Why?”
Another long pause.
“He was told to stay away from that part of the castle.”
Robin watched him. “And he did?”
Luffy nodded slowly. “He says he heard Victor sometimes.”
Nobody spoke for a moment.
“Heard him doing what?” Sanji asked.
Luffy looked toward the north side of the castle. “He won’t say.”
Robin wrote that down, then opened another archive result. “I found more.”
The second article was dated October twenty-third. This one wasn’t about Victor directly. It was a short local notice about a noise complaint from a tenant cottage on the Kuraigana estate. Robin read the relevant section out loud before speaking. “Someone reported repeated shouting and knocking from beneath the north chapel late at night. The witness believed the man was calling for assistance.”
Nami tapped the table once. “Do we know whether anyone investigated?”
Robin scrolled. “The complaint was dismissed. The estate told the constable that renovation work was taking place beneath the chapel.”
Zoro frowned. “There wasn’t renovation work.”
Robin turned toward him. “You’re sure?”
“The contractor letter was in November.”
“The sealing work.”
“Yeah.”
“And anything before that?”
Zoro thought through the papers he and Sanji had sorted. Estimates. Repairs. Structural work. Nothing dated October. “No.”
Robin wrote another note. “Then either there was work we haven’t found records for, or the explanation was false.”
Usopp came over with a mug in one hand. “What’d I miss?”
“Possible confinement beneath the chapel that may have led to a slow and painful death,” Robin said.
Usopp stared. “Next time, don’t tell me.”
Robin ignored him and pulled up a third record. “There’s also an entry in the town physician’s account book from October twenty-sixth. The physician charged Kuraigana House for treatment supplies but didn’t record a patient's name.”
“What supplies?” Chopper asked from across the table.
Robin enlarged the scan.
Chopper abandoned his breakfast and hurried over. “Bandages. Antiseptic. Fever powder.” He leaned closer. “And laudanum.”
Usopp made a face. “That sounds bad.”
“It was used for pain,” Chopper said. “And other stuff. A lot of stuff. People used it too much.”
Robin tapped the date. “Seven days after Victor was dismissed.”
Sanji’s expression had gone flat. “If those supplies were for him…”
“We don’t know that yet,” Robin said.
“But Perona remembered something about food or medicine,” Zoro said.
Robin nodded. “Which makes this worth following up on.”
Nami pulled the old building plan toward the center of the table. “Then we need to know whether there’s still any physical route to the lower chambers.”
Zoro looked down at the drawing. Earlier, the chapel corridor and sealed north wing had been getting treated as one problem since the crew arrived. They weren’t. “This part’s separate,” he said. Nami came around the table while Zoro put one finger against the corridor where Brook had recorded the voice. “This is the chapel passage. You’ve already been here.”
Then he moved north. “This is the wing Mihawk closed.”
“The water-damaged section,” Nami said. Zoro nodded.
Robin leaned over the plan. “And the vigil chambers?”
“Below.”
“Below which section?”
Zoro traced the old stair marked along the north wall. “Mostly this one.”
Nami frowned. “So the sealed wing isn’t blocking the chapel.”
“No. It may be blocking the only remaining route below.”
Franky came over from the equipment table. “Original access got filled in back in 1906, right?”
Zoro tapped the contractor’s letter. “From the inhabited side.”
“But this stair was still here.”
“On the old plan.”
Franky studied it. “And the stairs that reach it now?”
“Condemned.”
“How condemned?”
“Engineer said don’t use it.”
Franky nodded. “That’s pretty condemned.”
Nami pointed at Zoro. “You said you could find the key.”
Zoro pulled out his phone and texted Perona.
ZORO:
I need the north wing key
Her answer arrived almost immediately.
PERONA:
mihawk has it
ZORO:
where
PERONA:
mudroom key board
PERONA:
behind the coats because apparently hanging coats in front of keys is elegant
PERONA:
top row right side
PERONA:
brass tag says NORTH
A second message arrived before Zoro could put the phone away.
PERONA:
and before you ask YES the stairs are still bad
PERONA:
the engineer literally said condemned
PERONA:
which means DO NOT FALL THROUGH THEM
ZORO:
wasn’t planning to
ZORO:
you mentioned Aubert was in three records
PERONA:
probably
ZORO:
what was the third one?
The typing indicator came and went several times.
PERONA:
something with food?
PERONA:
meal deliveries maybe
PERONA:
i remember thinking it was creepy
PERONA:
could’ve been medicine though
PERONA:
sorry
PERONA:
also tell blondie i said hi
Zoro locked the phone.
Sanji had apparently been following his expression. “Perona mention me?”
Zoro put his phone in his pocket. “She said hi.”
“How sweet. Your sister likes me.”
“She doesn’t know you.”
“Neither did you three days ago, and look how well this is going.”
Zoro considered the last three days. “You keep saying weird things.”
Sanji’s smile widened.
Nami pushed the plan toward Franky. “Get what you need. We’re opening the north wing.”
The mudroom was easier to find with Sanji beside him. Not because Sanji knew where it was. He didn’t. He followed Zoro through one wrong turn, down a short service hall, then back through the dining room without complaining. Then he pointed at the sign and they followed the arrows.
Zoro moved two coats aside and found the key board behind them. The brass tags were old but readable. WEST GATE. CELLAR. TOWER. SHED. Several hooks were empty. NORTH hung at the far end.
Zoro took the key down. It was heavy, iron rather than brass, with a wide bow and simple wards cut into the end.
Sanji leaned closer. “It looks capable of opening a dungeon.”
“There’s no dungeon,” Zoro said.
“Disappointing.” Sanji rested an elbow against the doorframe. “If there were, I’d let you chain me up.”
Zoro checked the key against the tag, then looked at him. “Why?”
Sanji’s lips parted.
“You could get out easier if your hands were free,” Zoro added.
For a second, Sanji said nothing. Then he laughed and bent forward, one hand over his face.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
Zoro turned the key ring around one finger. “That was another sex thing.”
Sanji straightened slowly. “Was that a guess?”
“No. You keep doing it.”
“I do.”
“To me.”
“Yes.”
Zoro slipped the key into his pocket. “Why?”
Sanji’s expression changed. The teasing stayed, but less of it. “You’re asking now?”
“Yeah.”
Sanji stepped closer. “Because I think you’re gorgeous. Because you’ve got a mouth on you even when you don’t realize it. Because watching you talk about swords is doing serious damage to my dignity.”
Zoro absorbed that.
Sanji waited.
“And because,” he added, “I’ve been flirting with you since you answered the door in your underwear.”
“I know that part now.”
A grin broke across Sanji’s face. “Are you interested?”
The question was direct enough that Zoro preferred it. “In what?”
Sanji’s grin faltered for half a beat. Then he stepped closer still. “Me.”
Zoro took a moment to consider him. Same height. Blond hair over one eye. Neat goatee. Good hands. Loud mouth. Cooked for everyone without being asked. Remembered how Zoro took his coffee after one day.
Zoro had dated before. He knew liking someone’s attention wasn’t the same as wanting them. Wanting usually took longer, when it happened at all. He had thought about Sanji more than necessary, though. “Maybe.”
Sanji went very still.
Zoro opened the mudroom door. “They need the key.”
Behind him, Sanji muttered, “You’re going to be the death of me.”
Zoro stopped. “That one’s flirting, too, right?”
“Yes.”
“Okay,” Zoro said. He kept walking.
The north wing door stood at the far end of the ground-floor chapel passage, around a turn the crew had mostly ignored because the locked section had offered them nothing useful before Victor Aubert had a name.
Franky waited with a compact tool bag and two portable lights. Jinbe had the shoulder camera. Chopper carried his medical bag. Luffy rocked on his heels, miked up and ready to go. Sanji had his mic on as well. Nami stayed near the entrance to coordinate with Robin, Brook, and Usopp, who were monitoring the fixed cameras and audio from the great hall.
Nami touched the radio at her shoulder. “Same rules as we discussed. Franky goes first. Nobody passes him until he clears the floor. Jinbe stays where Franky tells him. If Franky or Chopper says out, everybody comes out.”
Nami looked directly at Luffy. “That includes you.”
“I know.”
“I’m saying it because you don’t.”
Chopper adjusted the strap of his medical bag. “And nobody touches the stairs until Franky checks them.”
Franky looked at Zoro. “Open it.”
Zoro fitted the key into the lock. It resisted halfway, so he pulled it out, checked the wards, then tried again with less upward pressure. The lock turned. Cold air came through when he opened the door.
Something knocked from deeper inside the wing. Three hard impacts, spaced unevenly.
Everyone stopped.
Zoro looked down the dark corridor. “That’s nothing.”
Usopp stared into the darkness. “Same knocking you mentioned in the interview?”
“Yeah. Still old pipes.”
Franky aimed his flashlight farther down the hall. “There aren't any pipes running through this section.”
Zoro considered that. “Mice, then.”
“Those are some ambitious mice,” Sanji said.
The wing had been closed for two years, but the damage inside was older than that. Water stains ran down the plaster where the stone walls had been covered during some later renovation. Part of the ceiling near the first room showed brown discoloration. Dust coated the floor, marked near the doorway by old boot prints from the last inspection. The smell was damp wood, plaster, and old fabric.
Franky had already read the engineer's report before they unlocked the door. Nami had made him pull it up twice, once for himself and once for Chopper. Franky handled the show's technical systems, but apparently had construction credentials, too. Nami had explained that after Zoro asked why the man running camera cables was also allowed to review structural reports.
Franky stepped in first and aimed his flashlight downward. “Nobody goes anywhere I haven’t checked.”
Luffy moved after him.
Franky caught his jacket. “Bro.”
“I was following you.”
“You were passing me.”
“Oh.”
Chopper pointed at him. “Listen to Franky! I don’t want to have to be a doctor!”
Everyone paused.
Chopper blinked. “I mean, I am a doctor. I just don’t want anyone to need me.”
They moved farther in. The north wing had once held several bedrooms and a sitting room. Most of the furniture was gone. What remained sat beneath dust sheets. One section of floor near the outside wall had buckled from water intrusion, forcing them close to the interior side of the corridor.
Jinbe filmed from behind Franky. Zoro stayed near the middle, while Sanji stayed near Zoro.
“You don’t have to keep following me,” Zoro said.
“I’m not.”
“You’ve been beside me since we opened the door.”
“Maybe I enjoy the view.”
Zoro caught that one. He glanced over, found Sanji smiling, then faced forward again. Sanji still didn't move away. That felt different now. Less confusing. More noticeable.
The stairwell was at the far end of the wing. A second door blocked it, though this one was unlocked.
Franky opened it a few inches and stopped. “Yeah. That’s bad.”
Nami’s voice came through Jinbe’s radio. “What does that mean?”
“It means nobody touches anything.”
Zoro moved close enough to see past him. The stairs descended along the outer wall before turning at a landing. The first few treads looked intact. The seventh had split across the front edge. Water damage darkened the timber farther down, and a section of railing had pulled partly free of the stone.
A narrow window near the landing had been boarded from the outside. No daylight reached the bottom.
Franky swept his flashlight down. “There’s a lower landing.” He crouched and pressed one hand against the first tread without stepping onto it. “Nobody goes down until I know whether it can hold weight.”
Luffy leaned around Jinbe. “The other one’s down there.”
Sanji glanced at him. “The one from the recording?”
Luffy nodded. He wasn't smiling. “He's been down there the whole time.”
Robin's voice came through the radio. “Victor?”
Luffy tilted his head. “Maybe.”
“Is the groundskeeper still with you?”
Luffy listened for a moment. “He’s back by the door.”
“Why?”
Luffy listened. His mouth tightened. “He won't come closer.”
“Because of the stairs?”
Luffy shook his head. “Because of him.”
Zoro glanced toward the corridor behind them, though there was nothing to see. Sanji’s shoulder brushed Zoro’s. Neither moved away.
Franky reached into his bag for a small inspection light. The portable lamp behind them flickered once, then again. Then the lamp went out.
Jinbe’s camera light came on automatically, and white glare hit Zoro’s right eye. His vision blew out.
Someone spoke through the radio at the same time. Usopp, too loud through static. A sensor started beeping on Franky’s belt. Then the stairwell door tore out of Franky's hand and slammed flat against the wall.
The sound caused Zoro to lose the floor.
His balance went sideways before he understood he’d moved. Franky shouted something about backing up. Jinbe shifted, and the camera light swept across Zoro again.
A sharp crack came from the stairwell.
Luffy’s foot slipped off the edge of the top step.
Sanji caught him. One hand fisted in the back of Luffy’s jacket and yanked hard enough to pull him against the corridor wall just as part of the railing tore loose. Wood dropped into the stairwell and struck twice on the way down.
Chopper screamed. Luffy laughed.
Zoro tried to step back, but his boot caught wrong. The corridor tilted again, his body correcting in the opposite direction too late. Noise crowded together until individual voices stopped separating. Radio static. Chopper shouting at Luffy. Franky swearing. The equipment alarm still beeping.
The word he needed disappeared.
Wall.
Back.
Stop.
Help.
None of them came out.
A hand closed around his upper arm. “Zoro.”
Sanji.
Zoro turned toward the voice. Sanji moved into his field of vision, blocking part of the camera light. “Jinbe, turn that off.”
The glare vanished. Franky’s flashlight remained, pointed toward the floor.
“Turn that radio down, will you?” Sanji said over the noise.
Jinbe reached for it. The static stopped, and the corridor shrank back to the sounds that actually belonged there: breathing, Chopper fussing over Luffy, a faint settling creak from the stairs. Franky turned off the sensor alarm.
Sanji kept hold of Zoro’s arm. “There’s a wall behind you. Half a step.”
Zoro moved back until the stone met his shoulder. Sanji stayed in front of him. He didn’t ask what was wrong or make Zoro explain. “Stay there.”
Zoro nodded again.
Across the corridor, Chopper had forced Luffy onto the floor. “Your hand is bleeding!”
Luffy held it up. A shallow scrape crossed his palm. “It’s tiny.”
“It’s blood!”
“You’re a doctor.”
Chopper froze. “Oh.” Then he lunged for his medical bag.
The absurdity of it helped.
Zoro breathed through his nose and waited. His hearing separated another layer. Franky was checking the broken rail without touching it. Jinbe had lowered the camera. Sanji’s thumb rested against the seam of Zoro’s T-shirt sleeve.
Zoro looked down at it, then up.
Sanji caught the movement. “Better?”
“Yeah.”
“Still dizzy?”
“Some.”
“I’m going to let go.”
“Okay.”
Sanji loosened his hand slowly. Zoro stayed upright, though Sanji remained close enough to catch him again.
Zoro rubbed his thumb along the side of his index finger and waited for the pressure behind his eye to ease.
“You remembered,” he said.
Sanji’s brow furrowed. “What?”
“The light. Noise.”
“You told me yesterday.”
Zoro had. He didn’t think Sanji would remember. Most people didn’t care enough to do so.
Sanji had caught Luffy before he went down the stairs, then noticed Zoro before anyone else did. He’d fixed the light and the radio without making Zoro explain himself in front of everybody.
Zoro looked at him properly. Sanji was still watching him. No grin. No line waiting behind his teeth. The earlier conversation in the mudroom came back. Because I think you’re gorgeous. Because watching you talk about swords is doing serious damage to my dignity.
Zoro had understood that Sanji wanted him. That part was straightforward. He hadn't understood Sanji was paying attention when sex wasn't the point.
“Oh.”
Sanji’s mouth tightened. “What?”
“You actually mean it.”
A pause. “What part?”
“The flirting.”
Sanji stared at him. “I thought we established that in the mudroom.”
“You said you were interested.”
“Yes.”
“I thought you meant sex.”
Sanji blinked. “I do mean sex.”
“I know. I didn’t know you meant anything else.”
The amusement left Sanji’s face. “I don’t know how serious yet. But I’m not doing it because I’m bored, and I’m not fucking with you.”
“I know that now.”
Something in Sanji’s shoulders eased.
Then Luffy called from the floor, “Can you kiss later? Chopper’s putting a bandage on me.”
Chopper gasped. “Luffy!”
Sanji covered his face.
Zoro frowned. “Nobody said anything about kissing.”
Franky made a strangled sound and turned toward the stairwell.
Sanji lowered his hand. “I’m begging you to let me survive one crisis at a time.”
“You’re fine.”
“Physically.”
Zoro considered that. “Okay.”
A scrape sounded from below.
Every trace of humor disappeared.
Franky lifted the flashlight and aimed it down the stairs, but nothing moved in the beam.
Luffy turned toward the darkness.
Chopper grabbed the back of his jacket. “No.”
“Aw,” Luffy pouted.
Nami’s voice came cautiously through the radio after Jinbe switched it on again. “Status?”
Franky answered first. “Rail failed. Luffy almost went over. He’s got a scrape.”
“I’m treating it!” Chopper called.
Nami paused. “And Zoro? We saw on the monitor something went wrong.”
Zoro opened his mouth, but the right word stuck again.
Sanji answered before the silence became noticeable. “Balance issue. He’s okay. We killed the camera light and radio for a minute.”
“Understood,” Nami said after a short pause. “Everybody out.”
Franky nodded. “Agreed.”
Nobody argued.
They backed out in the order Franky gave them. Jinbe kept the camera light off. Chopper stayed close enough to Luffy to grab him again if necessary. Sanji walked beside Zoro.
At the end of the north corridor, Luffy stopped and listened. “He wants to tell me something.”
“The groundskeeper?” Robin asked over the radio.
“Yeah. He says Victor didn’t leave after he got fired.”
“Where was he?” Robin asked.
Luffy listened again. His expression changed. “Downstairs.”
“By choice?”
Luffy shook his head before the question was finished. “No.”
Zoro thought of Perona’s message. Meals. Maybe medicine.
Robin spoke again. “Can he tell us how long?”
Luffy waited. “A while.”
“How long is a while?”
“He doesn’t know. He says people brought Victor food.”
Usopp’s voice came over the radio, subdued now. “Oh.”
Robin was quiet for several seconds. “That may be the third record Perona remembered.”
Zoro’s hand tightened around the key in his pocket.
Victor Aubert hadn’t simply died somewhere on the estate. Someone may have kept him below the chapel after dismissing him.
Then he died.
Then the family sealed the route.
Sanji’s jaw tightened beside him.
Nami cut in. “We’re done with the wing for today. Lock it.”
Zoro did. The key turned harder going back. He checked the latch twice before following the others toward the great hall.
Chopper took over one end of the table and cleaned Luffy's hand properly despite Luffy insisting it had stopped hurting ten minutes ago. Then he came straight to Zoro, checked his right pupil, asked about nausea, headache, vision changes, and whether the dizziness was different from his usual balance problems. Zoro answered until Chopper was satisfied enough to let him sit with water and strict instructions not to get up quickly.
Franky and Jinbe went through the equipment failure together. Brook worked through the stairwell audio while Usopp checked his event log against the sensor timestamps. Robin went back to her computer.
Zoro sat in one of the chairs near the wall with water Sanji had handed him. His balance had mostly settled, though turning his head too quickly still gave him a short pull to the left. Sanji took the chair beside him.
For several minutes, neither said anything. Zoro drank. Sanji stayed.
Eventually Zoro said, “Maybe.”
Sanji glanced over. “Maybe what?”
“You asked if I was interested.”
A corner of Sanji’s mouth lifted. “I did.”
“Maybe means probably.”
“Does it now?” Sanji’s mouth started to curve more, but Robin spoke up from the table before he could say anything more.
“I searched the local records for any possibility of requiring quarantine at Kuraigana during that period. There isn’t one. No reported outbreak, either.”
“So they did it themselves,” Nami said.
Robin opened another scan. “The physician who billed Kuraigana on October twenty-sixth also kept appointment notes. Most of the book is missing, but the surviving index lists the house visit.”
“Anything medical?” Chopper asked.
“One word beside it.”
Robin zoomed farther. Even Zoro could read that one from where he sat. Confinement.
Nobody said anything for several seconds.
Usopp finally broke the silence. “That seems very bad.”
“Yes,” Robin said.
“Could mean somebody was confined to bed,” Chopper offered, though he sounded less certain now.
Robin nodded. “It could. The language alone isn’t enough to tell us what the physician meant.”
Zoro looked toward the old plan spread across the table. The vigil room sat beneath the north side of the castle in thin white lines.
“How big was the room?” Sanji asked.
Franky measured the printed scale with his thumb, then traced the walls. “Maybe eight feet by ten.”
“Window?”
“No.”
“Other door?”
Franky followed the old passage. “One.”
The original access had led back toward the chapel before the 1906 alterations removed it.
“And the stair we almost died on reaches the same lower corridor?” Sanji said.
Franky planted both hands on the table. “Looks like it.”
“Then we need another way.”
Nami turned toward Franky. “Is there another way?”
“Probably.” Franky pointed to the outside wall on the plan. “Old structures this size usually have ventilation, drainage, maintenance access, something. Nobody builds a room under a stone building and seals every route unless they want moisture to eat the whole foundation.”
Zoro looked at the marks near the outer wall. There were three small rectangles he’d assumed were structural notes. Franky pointed at them. “These could be vents.”
Robin rotated the plan toward herself. “One of the later surveys may show them from outside.”
She opened the photographs Zoro had taken in Mihawk’s study and moved through them until she found the 1932 renovation drawing. Franky bent over her shoulder.
“There.” He tapped the screen. “North foundation. Three openings.”
Nami looked between him and the plan. “Can we get through one?”
“Not a person. Maybe a camera.”
“And after that?”
Franky straightened. “Depends what we see.”
Zoro looked toward the windows. The north side of the castle faced the older part of the grounds, beyond the chapel wall and the overgrown terrace. He knew roughly how to get there from outside.
Roughly.
“We can find them,” Franky said.
Across the room, Brook lifted one side of his headphones. “I have something from the stairwell.”
Brook rolled his chair closer to Robin and played a section through the monitor speakers. At first Zoro heard Franky’s voice, the sensor alarm, the crack of the railing, and Chopper shouting. Brook adjusted the track and replayed it from a few seconds earlier.
“There,” he said.
The room went quiet.
Brook played it again.
Under the equipment noise, a voice came through faintly but clearly enough to separate from the others.
“Help me.”
Usopp stopped moving. “That wasn’t one of us.”
“No,” Brook said.
Franky came over from the other side of the table. “Play it again.”
Brook did.
“Help me.”
The voice was low and rough, buried beneath the hiss of the recording but still understandable.
Sanji stood beside his chair now, one hand resting against the back. “That’s Victor.”
Nobody argued.
Robin pulled the old building plan closer. “Then the question is what he wants help with.”
“Getting out seems pretty high on the list,” Usopp said.
“Maybe,” Robin said. “But he’s been dead for more than a century. We shouldn’t assume the problem is as simple as opening a door.”
Nami turned to Franky. “Let’s find those vents.”
By nine the next morning, Franky had half the north terrace dug up. Nami got permission from Mihawk to dig after talking to Zoro. The weather had settled into the same low gray that had hung over Kuraigana for most of the week. Overnight rain had darkened the stone and left the ground soft beneath the overgrown shrubs along the north wall. Water still clung to the ivy where it climbed the older masonry, and the grass beyond the terrace bent under its own damp weight.
Zoro stood nearby with his hands in the pockets of his jacket and watched Franky disappear almost to the waist behind a collapsed section of hedge.
“Found another one!” Franky called.
Nami looked up from her tablet. “Another actual vent or another hole in the wall?”
“Have some faith.”
“You said that about the last one.”
“The last one was structurally interesting.”
“It was a drain.”
“A super drain.”
Usopp, who had been holding one end of a measuring tape, sighed and let it retract.
They had found all three foundation openings yesterday before Nami called the search for lack of light. Two had been almost completely buried by later landscaping. The third sat behind a section of ivy and had been bricked over sometime after the 1932 plan was drawn.
Franky had chosen the middle opening because the stone around it looked sound and because the cavity behind it ran toward the vigil room rather than away from it.
That had been yesterday’s progress. Today, he intended to get a camera inside.
Zoro had no idea where the north terrace connected to half the castle behind him. From inside, he could reach the chapel corridor after enough wrong turns. Outside, the castle became another problem entirely. Walls met at angles he didn’t recognize from the rooms behind them. Old additions changed roof height without changing the line of the foundation. A buttress near the chapel looked familiar from one side and wrong from the other.
Sanji had started following him whenever he wandered more than twenty feet from the group. He hadn’t commented on it. Yet.
Zoro crossed toward Franky. Sanji finished whatever he was saying to Robin and appeared beside him a minute later.
Zoro waited a few seconds. Sanji didn't say anything. “What?”
“Nothing,” Sanji said, but stayed.
“Hold this,” Franky said.
Zoro took the flashlight Franky handed him and aimed it where Franky pointed.
The opening was about twelve inches high and maybe eighteen across, cut through dressed stone close to ground level. Franky had cleared packed soil from the front and removed an old rusted grille yesterday. Behind it, darkness continued farther than the flashlight reached.
Franky pulled a small inspection camera from his case. The lens sat on the end of a flexible cable, narrow enough to feed through gaps that wouldn’t take an arm.
Usopp crouched beside him. “What if something grabs it?”
Franky looked over. “Then I buy another camera.”
“That’s your answer?”
“What do you want me to say?”
“I want you to say nothing will grab it!”
Franky fed the cable into the opening. “Nothing will grab it.”
“You said that too fast.”
Zoro handed the flashlight to Jinbe when Franky asked for more room. Sanji moved in beside him, close enough that their sleeves touched when Zoro folded his arms.
“You cold?” Sanji asked.
“No.” Zoro glanced at him. Sanji was wearing a dark wool coat over his shirt, the collar turned up against the damp. His hair had started curling slightly at the ends from the moisture in the air. “You look cold, though.”
Sanji smiled. “Aw. Worried about me?”
“Only if you’re cold,” Zoro said.
Sanji’s smile widened. “Gonna cuddle up with me. Share body heat?”
“No. You should go inside.”
Sanji shook his head and laughed softly. “Precious.”
“Got something,” Franky said.
Everyone crowded closer to the monitor. Nami elbowed Usopp out of her way. Robin came over from the folding table she’d set up beneath an awning. Brook lowered his headphones around his neck. Luffy had been sitting on the low terrace wall outside the chapel windows, talking quietly toward an empty patch of grass, but he hopped down when Franky called.
The camera image showed stone. Franky twisted the cable. More stone. Then the view widened. A room appeared.
Nobody spoke for several seconds. The camera had come through high on one wall. Below it sat a small rectangular chamber, exactly where the plan said it should be. Stone walls. Uneven floor. No window. The remains of a narrow wooden cot had collapsed against one side. Something dark lay on the floor beside it, mostly hidden beneath the broken frame.
Chopper moved closer to the monitor. “Can you angle down?”
Franky tried. The cable struck the inside edge of the vent.
“That's all I've got.”
Robin’s voice came quiet. “Can you get the door?”
Franky worked the cable around. The door filled the monitor. Heavy timber, iron strap hinges, black with age. Then the camera caught the latch.
Zoro leaned closer. The hardware was on the corridor side, not inside the room. A horizontal iron bar sat in brackets mounted across the outer face of the door. Most of it had corroded into one dark mass, but the shape was still obvious.
Usopp whispered, “Oh.”
Zoro kept his eyes on the screen. The bar couldn’t be lifted from inside. No interior latch. No handle. No hinges. Nothing Victor could have used to open the door himself.
Sanji’s hand touched Zoro’s lower back and stayed there. Zoro didn’t comment.
Robin took a photograph of the monitor. “That settles one question.”
“He didn’t lock himself in,” Nami said.
“No.”
A dull sound came through the inspection camera's microphone. Once. Then again.
Franky stopped moving the cable.
Luffy had gone still again and looked toward the castle wall. “He knows we found him.”
“The groundskeeper?”
Luffy shook his head. “Victor.”
Franky pulled the camera back slightly and started mapping the room. There was another narrow opening near floor level on the opposite wall, mostly blocked by rubble. The old plan showed that side connecting toward the original chapel access.
“That’s our route,” Franky said.
Nami looked at the opening. “Can we get through it?”
“Not from out here. Too narrow, and widening this side would mean taking apart foundation stone I don’t want to touch.”
“So chapel side.”
Franky nodded.
Zoro looked up at the castle. The 1906 contractor had filled the original passage from the inhabited side. Somewhere behind the chapel wall was masonry added specifically to remove access to the lower corridor. Getting through that would take longer.
It did.
By eleven, Franky had found the old infill behind a section of later paneling in a ground-floor storage room off the chapel corridor. The outer facing had been redone sometime in the twentieth century, but behind it the masonry changed. Smaller stone. Different mortar. Packed rubble in the center.
Franky stood with both hands on his hips. “This is it.”
Nami checked the time. “How long?”
Franky looked at the wall, then at his tools. “Hours.”
“How many?”
“Enough that asking won’t help.”
Nami exhaled through her nose. “Fine.”
Chopper pointed at everyone. “Masks.”
Usopp groaned. “Again?”
“Yes! Dust is bad for you.”
“We’re not even breaking anything yet.”
“You can breathe dust before the dust knows you’re ready.”
Nobody knew what that meant. Chopper handed out masks.
Nami spent fifteen minutes on the phone before Franky touched the wall. Perona couldn't authorize structural work on her own, so Mihawk ended up on speaker from wherever he'd gone. Franky explained exactly what he'd found, which section of masonry he intended to remove, and why he believed it was later infill rather than load-bearing stone.
Mihawk asked three questions. Franky answered them.
“Proceed,” Mihawk said.
Nami made him send the approval in writing via email, as well. Only then did Franky unpack the drill.
Franky started with the outer layer. The work was slow because he refused to attack the wall blindly. He checked the mortar, drilled shallow test holes, stopped twice to compare the cavity against the plans, then removed stone one piece at a time where he could.
Zoro stayed out of his way. That was harder than it sounded, since he was the one who lived here. He understood metal. Blades. Fittings. Corrosion. Balance. What pressure did to steel and what happened when somebody forced a seized component before understanding why it had seized. Stone was Franky’s problem.
So Zoro carried tools when asked, held lights, and otherwise kept his hands to himself. Sanji kept appearing beside him with food. The first time it was coffee, made the way Zoro took it. The second time, half a sandwich wrapped in paper.
“I’m working,” Zoro said.
“You’re watching Franky work.”
“Same thing.”
“It absolutely isn’t.”
Zoro took the sandwich.
Sanji smiled. “Good boy.”
Zoro frowned.
Sanji noticed and grinned wider. “That one get you?”
“It was supposed to?”
“Oh, sweetheart.”
Zoro took a bite. Sanji’s smile turned pleased. Zoro’s face felt warmer. He took another bite and went back to watching Franky work.
By noon, Robin had found the last piece they needed. She had been working from the great hall, where the archive connection was better, and came down the corridor carrying her laptop and a stack of printed pages. “I found the dispute.”
Franky stopped drilling. Nami looked up from her tablet. Robin set the laptop on a folding chair. “It wasn’t theft.”
“What wasn’t?” Jinbe asked. He’d been filming the entire time, under Nami’s direction. Brook also kept the audio recording.
“The reason Victor was dismissed.” She turned the screen so they could see. The record came from a civil complaint filed by a local supplier two years after Victor’s death. Most of it had nothing to do with him. Buried in the correspondence, though, was a copied statement from a former Kuraigana servant.
Robin read from her notes rather than the scan. “Victor Aubert handled household accounts for the estate in addition to his attendant duties. He discovered that the estate steward had been diverting wages and charging household expenses to staff accounts.”
Usopp frowned. “So the steward was stealing.”
“Essentially.”
“What did Victor do?”
“Confronted him.”
Sanji folded his arms. “And got fired.”
“Yes.” Robin scrolled. “He threatened to take the records to the constable. The steward dismissed him before he could.”
Nami’s expression tightened. “That still doesn’t explain locking him up.”
“There’s more.” Robin turned another page. “According to the servant’s statement, Victor returned to the house after being dismissed and demanded his wages and papers. There was an argument. He was injured during it.”
Chopper moved closer. “How?”
“Head wound, possibly from a fall.”
Zoro thought of the physician’s supplies. Bandages. Fever powder. Laudanum.
Robin continued. “The steward apparently panicked. Victor was put in the vigil room while they decided what to do.”
Usopp stared at her. “They locked him in a basement because they didn’t want him to tell anybody they stole money?”
“Initially, probably because he was injured, angry, and threatening legal action. Then they lied and said he had left.”
“And after that?” Nami asked.
Robin’s fingers rested on the edge of the laptop. “After that, letting him out meant admitting the lie.”
Nobody spoke.
It was worse in a different way. No plan to kill him. No elaborate conspiracy. Just one bad decision followed by another. They brought food. They brought medicine. They kept telling themselves he could stay there another day. Then another. Until he died.
“Cowards,” Sanji said quietly.
Robin closed the laptop partway. “Likely.”
Zoro looked at the wall Franky was opening. Victor had been twenty feet away from people going about their lives in the rooms above him. Maybe less. “Did the family know?” he asked.
Robin shook her head. “I can’t tell yet. The steward definitely did. At least two servants carried food. Someone called the physician. Whether the owner understood the full situation is unclear.”
Franky put his mask back on. “Let’s open the damn wall.”
Nobody objected.
The work continued. By two, the opening was large enough for Franky to shine a light into the old passage. By three, he could get one arm through. By four, they could see the vigil-room door from the chapel side.
“Twenty more minutes,” Franky said.
“You said that forty minutes ago,” Nami pointed out.
“This time I mean it.”
“You said that, too.”
Franky removed another block. The gap widened enough for a person to crawl through.
Chopper immediately objected. “No.”
Franky looked over. “No what?”
“No one is crawling into old holes.”
Franky looked at Nami. Nami glanced at Chopper, then back at Franky. “Bigger.”
Franky sighed. “Doctor wins.”
Chopper brightened. “I do?”
“Yes.”
“Great!” He immediately looked worried again. “Wait. Is that bad?”
It took another hour. The passage was barely wide enough when Franky finally called it. He went first. Jinbe followed with a small camera. Zoro came after them because it was his home. Sanji came because nobody had managed to stop him.
The passage was narrow and low, the ceiling forcing Zoro to duck for part of it. Dust coated the stone under his boots. Franky’s temporary lights ran along one wall on battery power, giving them enough illumination without overloading the old wiring.
The vigil-room door waited at the end. Franky stopped in front of the door and looked over the hardware. The iron bar still sat across the outside, rusted into the brackets. One hinge had swollen around the pin, and the wood beneath it had darkened with age and damp.
He looked at Zoro as he pulled a crowbar from his belt. “You sure I can pry this?”
Zoro crouched and checked the bar, then the brackets holding it to the stone. “Yeah.” If Mihawk objected, he’d deal with it.
Franky wedged the end behind the bar and leaned into it. Metal groaned. Rust cracked loose from the bracket and scattered across the floor. He reset the crowbar and pulled harder. The bracket tore free with a hard snap.
The second bracket held longer, then tore loose from the mortar. The bar dropped at one end with a heavy clang. Franky caught it before it hit the floor. “There we go.”
Franky next drove the crowbar between the door and frame near the upper hinge. This time he didn’t bother being gentle. Wood cracked. The hinge pulled halfway out. He reset his grip and shoved again. The screws tore free. The top corner of the door dropped toward him.
Zoro caught the edge and pushed it outward while Franky took the weight. “Got it?”
“Yeah.”
Franky and Zoro dragged the ruined door far enough aside to clear the opening. The vigil room beyond was smaller than it had looked through the inspection camera, barely large enough for the collapsed cot and a narrow strip of floor around it.
Jinbe came forward first and stopped in the passage with the camera braced against his shoulder. He stayed outside the room, framing the doorway.
Chopper saw the remains first. “Stop.”
Everyone did.
His voice changed. “Nobody goes in.”
Nami came immediately over the radio. “Are those human remains?”
Chopper stared through the doorway. “Yeah.”
“Then we’re done.”
Jinbe lowered the camera.
“Stay where you are,” Nami said. “Don’t touch the doorway, the room, or anything inside it. Franky, nobody crosses that threshold. Robin, document what we can see. Usopp, mark the time. I’m calling it in.”
Robin opened her notebook and began recording the location and what was visible from the passage.
“Time logged,” Usopp said over the radio.
The room was still visible from the passage. The cot had collapsed against one wall, and a narrow shelf above it had rotted until only brackets remained. Victor’s remains lay on the floor near the door, one arm extended across the stone toward the threshold.
Robin stopped beside Jinbe. “Can we document what’s visible without entering?”
Nami was quiet for a moment. “Wide shots from the passage only.”
Jinbe raised the camera again. “How much?” he asked.
“Doorway first. Then the room as it is. No close-up on the remains.”
Jinbe adjusted his position by inches until he could see past the broken door without stepping over the threshold.
Robin opened her notebook and began recording the time, location, who was present, and when Chopper had identified the remains. Usopp’s voice came over the radio from farther back in the passage. “Logged here, too.”
Franky shifted his flashlight toward the wall beside the collapsed cot.
Robin leaned slightly forward. “There are marks.”
Jinbe changed the angle enough to catch them. Scratched lines covered a section of stone near where the cot had stood, grouped in sets of five. There were enough that Zoro lost count somewhere past forty.
Sanji swore under his breath.
Usopp’s voice came faintly through the radio. “Are those days?”
“We don’t know,” Robin said. “Log them as tally marks. Nothing more.”
“Got it.”
Near the remains sat a small metal box, its edges badly corroded and the lid partly collapsed. Franky aimed the flashlight toward it without moving closer.
“Tin,” Zoro said.
Robin studied it from the passage. Something thin and dark remained inside, flattened beneath the damaged lid.
“Could be paper,” she said.
“Could be,” Nami answered over the radio. “We’ll try to find out from whoever processes the scene.”
Robin nodded. “Agreed.”
Chopper had gone still beside Franky. “There’s something on the wrist.”
Jinbe glanced toward the monitor mounted to his camera.
“Can you get it without moving?” Nami asked.
Jinbe adjusted the zoom. The image trembled briefly, then settled.
Zoro could see it on the small side monitor: a narrow iron band still circled one wrist, dark with corrosion. Jinbe tightened the shot enough to make out two stamped letters without centering the remains themselves.
V.A.
Robin exhaled slowly. “That supports the identification.”
“Supports,” Nami repeated. Robin nodded and wrote something in her notebook.
Luffy shifted behind them. He wasn’t looking at the remains. His attention stayed fixed somewhere inside the room. “He’s here.”
Franky glanced back. “Victor?”
Luffy nodded.
Robin turned toward him. “Can he understand us?”
“Yeah.”
She faced the doorway. “Victor Aubert, we found you.”
Luffy went still for several seconds. Then he nodded. “He heard you.”
Footsteps approached from farther up the passage. Nami appeared at the wider end of the excavation but stopped before the group clustered near the doorway. Brook and Usopp remained with the monitor and recording equipment behind her.
“I’ve called it in,” she said. “They’re figuring out who has jurisdiction and I’m expecting a callback.”
Robin rested one hand against her notebook. “I’ll document the dismissal, the confinement, the false claim that you left Kuraigana, and everything we found afterward.”
Luffy listened again. His face shifted as whatever Victor said reached him.
“What?” Robin asked.
“He says they told everyone he left.”
Robin’s mouth tightened. “We know.”
“He kept trying to tell them he was still here.”
Zoro looked past the doorway at the tally marks beside the cot, then at the arm stretched toward the threshold.
Robin faced the room again. “People will know you were here now. They’ll know you didn’t leave.”
Luffy listened for another moment, then smiled. “He says thank you.”
Sanji’s hand brushed Zoro’s beside the broken door. Zoro looked down. Sanji didn’t grab him or try to pull him closer. His fingers rested against Zoro’s for a second and waited.
Zoro turned his hand and laced their fingers together.
Sanji’s thumb moved once across his knuckles.
Luffy glanced back toward the passage behind them, then toward the doorway again. “The groundskeeper came closer.”
“Where is he?” Robin asked.
“Back by Franky.”
Franky looked automatically over his shoulder.
“You can’t see him,” Luffy said.
“I know, bro. Still checking.”
Luffy listened for a few seconds. “He says he’s sorry.”
Robin looked toward the empty passage. “For what?”
Luffy’s smile disappeared. He listened longer this time. “He heard Victor.”
Nobody spoke.
“When?” Robin asked.
“Back then. When they had him down here.” Luffy looked into the vigil room. “He knew Victor was still in the castle. He heard him knocking. He was told to stay away, so he did.”
Sanji’s hand tightened around Zoro’s.
Luffy glanced toward the empty passage again. “He thought somebody else would help.”
Zoro looked at the marks beside the cot, then at the arm stretched toward the doorway.
“He says he’s been sorry ever since.”
The groundskeeper had spent more than a century wandering Kuraigana while avoiding the one place where Victor remained. At the condemned stairs, he’d stopped rather than come any closer. It hadn’t been the stairs keeping him back.
Now the passage was open and the door that had kept Victor inside lay broken against the wall.
Luffy looked toward Franky. “He’s closer now.”
Nami looked toward Jinbe. “One statement before we clear the passage.”
Jinbe checked his framing. “From here?”
“From here. Nothing past the doorway.”
Robin moved to the side of the passage where the vigil room remained visible behind her without showing the remains directly.
Jinbe raised the camera.
Robin gave the facts plainly. Victor Aubert. North house attendant. Dismissed October nineteenth, 1906. Recorded dead by November second. Evidence indicated he had been confined beneath the chapel after his dismissal, despite the family’s representatives claiming he had left the property. The passage was sealed later that month. Human remains had now been discovered in the vigil room, but identification had not yet been formally established.
When she finished, Jinbe lowered the camera.
“That’s it,” Nami said. “Everybody out except Franky.”
Franky started working out how to protect the opened passage without touching anything beyond the threshold. Jinbe backed away with the camera lowered. Brook and Usopp began shutting down the equipment nearest the chapel so nobody would have a reason to return before the authorities arrived.
Chopper pointed toward the masks. “Nobody takes those off until we’re upstairs. Then hands washed. Clothes brushed off outside the living areas. And nobody touches their face.”
Luffy immediately touched his face. Chopper slapped his hand away.
Nami was already moving toward the chapel with her phone at her ear.
Sanji still hadn’t let go of Zoro’s hand.
They followed the others back through the passage together. Zoro had to turn sideways once, where Franky’s equipment narrowed the route. Sanji shifted with him without releasing his fingers.
Once they reached the wider chapel storage room, Zoro looked down at their joined hands. “You planning to keep that?”
Sanji followed his gaze. “I was hoping.”
Zoro considered it. “Okay.”
A smile pulled at Sanji’s mouth. “Dangerous word.”
“It means okay.”
“I know.”
“You keep assigning extra meanings.”
“That’s one of my charms.”
“You said you were dazzling me with those.”
Sanji brightened. “You remembered.”
“It was weird.”
“I’ll take it.”
Through the chapel windows, the gray day had already started turning toward evening. Franky’s tools covered the floor, dust coated the tarps, and Nami stood near the far wall with her phone pressed to her ear.
Luffy passed behind them on his way toward the great hall. Zoro caught his sleeve with his free hand. “Victor gone?”
Luffy stopped and glanced back toward the chapel. Then he smiled. “Yeah.”
The chapel was quiet behind them.
“The groundskeeper?”
“He’s staying.” Luffy wandered off.
Sanji tugged Zoro’s hand. “You coming?”
Zoro looked back toward the passage. Franky had braced the opening without crossing the vigil-room threshold. The ruined door was propped safely out of the way, and the room itself would stay untouched until the authorities arrived.
Nothing there needed him anymore.
“Yeah,” he said, turning back to Sanji. “Come on.”
The first problem after finding a body beneath Kuraigana Castle was figuring out who had jurisdiction over a body that had been dead for more than a century.
Nami spent most of the next hour on the phone. She started with the local police, got transferred twice, repeated that the remains were human three times, and eventually ended up speaking to somebody from the county coroner’s office. That conversation generated another call to the historic preservation office, then one to the property insurer after Nami remembered that Franky had removed part of a wall to reach the room.
Robin sat at the dining table with the photographs, scans, and notes arranged around her laptop while Nami paced between the windows. Every time someone on the phone asked when they’d discovered the remains or how they knew who the dead man might be, Robin supplied the dates and sources without having to search for them.
“Victor Aubert,” she said for what had to be the fifth time. “A-U-B-E-R-T. He was employed at Kuraigana House in 1906.”
Nami held out the phone. Robin took it.
Zoro went back to eating. Sanji had put lunch in front of him ten minutes earlier and told him that if he let it get cold after Sanji spent all morning feeding people who kept wandering away from the table, he was going to take it personally. Zoro had asked why. Sanji had stared at him.
Then Zoro remembered and said, “Right. You do that.”
Sanji had called him a bastard and given him another hot roll.
Across the room, Franky and Usopp were packing equipment that had been cleared from the chapel side of the castle. Nobody was allowed back into the opened passage until the authorities arrived. Franky had braced the access, covered it, and put enough warning tape around it to make Usopp complain that it looked like a crime scene.
“It is a crime scene,” Robin said without looking up from the phone.
Usopp stopped.
“Technically,” Nami added, “we don’t know that.”
“That did not help.”
Chopper came through carrying a box of masks and stopped beside Zoro. “How’s your head from yesterday?”
“Fine,” Zoro said.
“Dizzy?”
“No.”
“Headache?”
“No.”
“Nausea?”
“No.”
Chopper narrowed his eyes. “Would you tell me if you had any of those?”
“Yeah.”
“Really?”
Zoro took another bite.
Chopper considered him for a few seconds, then apparently decided he believed him. “Okay. Don’t go climbing anything for at least another day, to be safe.”
“I wasn’t going to.”
“That has never stopped Luffy.”
“I’m not Luffy.”
From the other side of the room, Luffy yelled, “I heard that!”
Chopper spun around. “You’re not allowed to climb anything either!”
Luffy grinned and went back to eating.
It took until late afternoon for somebody official to arrive. Two county officers came first, followed by a woman from the coroner’s office who spent ten minutes asking Franky whether the passage was structurally safe before she would go near it. Franky answered every question seriously until she asked whether he was a licensed contractor.
“Among other things,” he said.
Nami stepped between them before the conversation could go anywhere unhelpful.
The next few hours were slower. The crew stayed out of the way while photographs were taken and the remains examined where they lay. Robin handed over copies of everything she had found and kept the originals separate. When the investigator asked how they had identified Victor Aubert before seeing the initials on the wristband, Robin gave her the documentary trail and left out the parts involving ghosts.
That was probably wise.
Zoro sat in the great hall and worked on the cavalry saber he had abandoned several days earlier. He’d prefer to be in the armory, but with strangers still moving through the castle, he wanted to stay where he could see what was going on. He got twenty minutes into cleaning corrosion from the guard before Sanji sat across from him and pushed a cup of coffee within reach.
Zoro glanced at it. “Thanks.”
Sanji leaned forward, forearms against the table. “Is that the one you were working on when we got here?”
“Yeah.”
Sanji watched while Zoro worked the tip of a wooden pick into the narrow space beside the guard. Someone called Sanji's name from the other end of the hall. He looked over.
“You need him?” Nami called.
“No,” Robin answered.
Sanji turned back to the saber. “What are you actually doing to it?”
“Getting the corrosion off without taking the finish with it.”
Sanji looked at the saber more closely. “And you can tell the difference?”
“Yeah.”
“How?”
Zoro stopped working. “You want the long answer?”
Sanji smiled. “You have a long answer?”
“Very.”
“Well, now I definitely want it.”
Zoro turned the saber slightly so Sanji could see the guard under the magnifier. “This part’s active corrosion. See where it’s rougher?”
Sanji moved his chair closer.
Zoro started explaining and was still at it twenty minutes later. Sanji seemed content to let him, asking just enough questions to keep him going until movement in the hall finally pulled Zoro’s attention away from the saber.
By early evening, the remains had been removed. Robin came back into the great hall after the coroner’s team left carrying a receipt for the evidence they had taken and the name of the person who would contact Mihawk as property owner. Nami followed a few minutes later with her phone pressed to her ear and ended the call by saying, “No, we are absolutely not releasing footage before the family is notified.”
She hung up.
“Which family?” Zoro asked.
“Victor’s, if they can find any descendants.”
“He died in 1906.”
“Yes, Zoro. I’m aware.”
“Just checking.”
Nami dropped into the nearest chair. For the first time since arriving at Kuraigana, she had nothing in her hands. No tablet. No phone. No schedule. She leaned back and closed her eyes.
Franky came through carrying two equipment cases. “We got clearance to close the chapel access.”
Nami opened one eye. “Properly.”
“Obviously.”
“No embellishment.”
Franky looked offended. “Masonry is an art!”
Mihawk would decide what happened permanently to the passage once he returned, but for now Franky fitted a temporary barrier across the opening rather than filling it again. The vigil room would remain accessible through the chapel side if investigators needed to return. Zoro approved what needed approval, and kept himself busy with work.
The groundskeeper said goodbye after dinner.
Sanji cooked because apparently discovering human remains beneath a castle did not exempt anyone from needing vast amounts of food. By then most of the gear had been packed, and the great hall looked wrong without cables running across the floor. Zoro had gotten used to stepping over them. He noticed that only because there was nothing to step over anymore.
Everyone ended up around the dining table for one last meal. Sanji made enough food for twice the number of people present, which Luffy treated as an invitation rather than an error.
Brook was halfway through telling Usopp that he personally had always suspected the disturbance originated below the chapel when Luffy stopped eating. Nobody missed it this time.
Robin set down her fork. “Groundskeeper?”
Luffy nodded. He turned slightly toward the empty chair beside the windows. Zoro had started associating that part of the room with him.
“What’s he saying?” Chopper asked.
Luffy listened. “He says you’re all very loud.”
Usopp pointed at Franky. “That’s him.”
Franky pointed back. “You screamed at a coat rack.”
“It moved.”
“It was on wheels.”
Luffy laughed. “He likes you.”
“Me?”
“No. Franky.”
Usopp slumped.
Luffy listened again. “He says Robin asks too many questions.”
Robin smiled. “True.”
“He says Brook’s music is weird.”
Brook put a hand against his chest. “At last, a critic from my preferred demographic.”
Zoro didn’t know what that meant. Neither did Chopper, judging by his face.
Luffy’s attention shifted toward Sanji. “He says your hair still looks stupid.”
Sanji stopped with his fork halfway to his mouth. “Excuse me?”
“He likes it.”
“That is not what you just said.”
“He said both.”
Sanji muttered something in French.
Then Luffy looked toward Zoro. Zoro waited. “He says you should stop pretending the castle moves.”
“It does.”
Luffy listened. “He says it doesn’t.”
“Then the signs move.”
Another pause. Luffy grinned. “He says maybe.”
Zoro pointed at the empty chair. “I knew it.”
Sanji laughed hard enough to put his fork down.
Luffy stayed focused on the chair after the others settled again. His smile softened. “He says he’s going.”
The room quieted.
Chopper looked around. “Going where?”
Luffy shrugged. “Just going.”
Robin leaned her elbows lightly against the table. “Does he want anything?”
Luffy listened. Then shook his head. “He says the house is fine.”
He listened a little longer. “Oh. He says tell Mihawk the west chimney still leaks.”
Zoro frowned. “It does?”
Luffy nodded, then smiled toward the empty chair. “Bye.”
A few seconds passed. Then he picked up his fork and stole a piece of meat from Usopp’s plate. Usopp slapped his hand. Nobody asked whether the groundskeeper had gone somewhere else or simply stopped showing up.
The packing finished the next morning. Kuraigana emptied in reverse. Franky and Usopp took down the remaining sensors while arguing about which of them had been right about the north wall. Franky claimed his foundation theory had solved the case. Usopp claimed he had said from the beginning that something terrible was beneath the chapel.
“You said the suit of armor was possessed,” Franky reminded him.
“It could have been.”
“It wasn’t.”
“That doesn’t invalidate my instincts.”
Brook packed the last audio case and announced that the investigation had been “quite lively for a place with so many dead residents.”
Chopper made everyone walk past him before loading the vans so he could check for cuts, strains, breathing problems, dizziness, and what he called “post-castle symptoms.”
Jinbe carried the heaviest cases without commenting on any of it.
Robin spent another hour at the dining table compiling everything for the official follow-up. She had already arranged to send copies of the historical records to the county investigator and the local archive. Whatever eventually appeared in the episode would come later.
Nami had apparently decided there would still be an episode. She just wasn’t allowing anyone to call it the Victor Aubert episode. “His death isn’t branding,” she said when Usopp suggested it.
Perona returned before Mihawk. Her taxi arrived while Franky was loading the second van. Zoro was outside because somebody had told him he was needed there, though by the time he reached the drive nobody seemed to know who.
Perona got out wearing black boots, a pink coat, and sunglasses despite the overcast sky. She took one look at the equipment, then at the section of police caution tape visible through the chapel window. “What did you do?”
Zoro shrugged. “Found a body.”
Perona froze.
Sanji, standing beside one of the vans, covered his mouth.
Perona slowly removed her sunglasses. “You found a what?”
“Body.”
She stared at him.
“You asked.”
“I asked what you did!”
“Yeah.”
Perona looked past him toward the castle. “There’s an actual body?”
“Was.”
Her face changed. For a few seconds she seemed to forget whatever insult she had been preparing. Then she smacked Zoro on the arm. “You could have texted me!”
“I did.”
“You said ‘found Aubert.’ I thought you found more paperwork!”
“That’s your fault.”
“How is that my fault?”
“You assumed.”
Perona made an angry noise and turned toward Sanji. “You.”
Sanji straightened. “Me?”
“You were supposed to keep him from doing anything stupid.”
Zoro frowned. “Nobody told him that.”
Perona ignored him. “Did he fall down anything?”
“No.”
“Get lost?”
“Yes.”
“Hit his head?”
“No.”
“Flirt back?”
Sanji paused.
Her smile was much too pleased.
Zoro narrowed his eye. Perona got that look whenever she thought somebody might be interested in him. Usually right before she started interfering. “What?”
“Nothing.”
Sanji stared at her for a moment. Then his expression changed. “You knew I was coming.”
“You host the show.”
“That's not what I meant.”
Perona's smile widened.
Sanji looked toward Zoro, then back at her. “You left him here on purpose.”
“I live here,” Zoro said.
“Yes, sweetheart, I'm aware.”
Zoro looked between them. “What are you talking about?”
“Nothing,” they said together.
Before Zoro could ask again, Perona hooked her arm through his and started dragging him toward the castle. “Show me where the corpse was.”
“The body’s gone,” Zoro said.
“You know what I mean.”
Mihawk arrived two hours later and reacted to the entire situation by standing in the chapel storage room, looking at the temporary access Franky had installed, and saying, “I leave for one week.”
Zoro leaned against the wall. “You bought a haunted castle.”
“I bought a structurally interesting property.”
“There was a dead guy under it.”
“So I’m told.”
Perona stood behind Mihawk and mouthed haunted castle at Zoro.
Mihawk noticed in the reflection of a framed picture. “Perona.”
She stopped.
He examined the bracing Franky had left, read Robin’s summary, and asked three questions about the investigator’s access before apparently accepting that the castle would remain standing.
Then he looked at Zoro. “And the television crew?”
“Leaving.”
Mihawk glanced through the open chapel door, where Sanji was carrying a box toward the front hall. “Regrettable.”
Zoro frowned. “Why?”
“Your sister has been insufferable for months about you meeting–”
“Mihawk,” Perona said sharply.
Mihawk stopped and raised one eyebrow.
Zoro frowned. “Meeting who?”
“The television people,” Perona said immediately.
The answer came too fast. “There was another reason,” Zoro said.
“No.”
“There was.”
Perona folded her arms. “Fine. I’ve been arguing with people online about Kuraigana for months. They kept saying the haunting stories were made up to make the castle sound interesting, so I wanted the show here to prove them wrong.”
Zoro considered that. It sounded exactly like something Perona would waste months doing. He looked at Mihawk. “Did you know about that?”
“I was informed at length.”
Perona scowled. “They were wrong.”
“That was not the part of your argument I found persuasive.”
Her head snapped toward him.
Zoro frowned. “What part was?”
“The potential benefits of allowing the production access.”
Perona stared at Mihawk.
“And why didn’t you stay?” Zoro asked Perona.
“Because watching you deal with a television crew sounded much funnier from somewhere else.”
“That’s it?”
“Yes.”
Zoro looked toward the front hall, where Sanji had stopped to talk to Luffy. A second later Sanji glanced back and found him watching. He smiled.
Zoro rubbed his thumb against the side of his index finger. “Then all this just happened.”
Mihawk followed his gaze. “Fortuitous.”
Perona’s face went pink. “Stay out of this.”
“What’s fortuitous?” Zoro said.
“Nothing,” Perona said.
Mihawk turned away before she could glare at him again.
Zoro understood none of it. He decided he didn’t care enough to keep asking.
By evening, most of the crew had gone. One van left with Franky, Usopp, Brook, Chopper, and Jinbe. Nami and Robin stayed another hour finishing paperwork before taking the second.
Sanji stayed behind. Zoro didn’t ask why at first. Sanji had cooked dinner again. Smaller this time. Just enough for Zoro, Mihawk, Perona, Sanji, and Luffy, who had somehow reappeared despite supposedly leaving with Franky.
Nami came back for him. Then the castle got quiet. Actually quiet. No equipment cases in the halls. No radios. No Usopp yelling from another room. No Franky testing something electrical. No Brook playing back audio at strange hours. No Chopper demanding somebody sit down because they had acquired a bruise.
The castle felt right again. Zoro preferred it that way.
Sanji was still there.
That was fine, too.
Zoro stood in the front hall. Sanji stood beside him with his overnight bag at his feet. A lone car remained in the driveway. “You leaving?”
Sanji looked over. “Do you want me to?”
“No.”
Sanji smiled. “Then I’m staying.”
“Okay.” Zoro stood there for a second. Then he said, “Want to see my swords?”
Sanji narrowed his eye. “Before I answer, I need clarification.”
“About what?”
“Is that finally an innuendo?”
“No.”
“You actually mean swords.”
“Yeah.”
Sanji rubbed both hands over his face. When Sanji dropped them, he was smiling. “Sure. Show me your swords.”
Zoro led the way to the armory. It only took three wrong turns and a redirection to reach it.
Sanji stopped in the doorway. The work lights were already on over the benches. Sword racks lined the far wall, each piece tagged and spaced apart. Metal cabinets held tools and restoration supplies. The cavalry saber sat beneath the magnifier where Zoro had left it earlier.
He started with the cavalry saber because it was already on the bench. Then he showed Sanji a late nineteenth-century naval cutlass with a replaced grip, a reproduction rapier he’d built for a stage production, and a damaged katana he was waiting to restore until the owner decided whether preserving the original wrap mattered more than making it usable.
Sanji asked questions. Good ones. Most people asked whether swords were sharp or expensive. Sanji wanted to know how Zoro could tell when a fitting had been replaced, why one blade bent differently from another, and how much damage could be repaired before a sword stopped being the same sword.
Zoro showed him. At some point they ended up sitting on stools beside the main bench. Sanji held a reproduction guard in both hands while Zoro explained how the casting marks gave it away.
“You made this?”
“Yeah.”
“It’s beautiful.”
“It’s wrong.”
Sanji looked at him. “You just said you made it.”
“I did.”
“And it’s wrong?”
“The original reference was bad.”
“Can anybody else tell?”
“Yeah.”
“Anybody who isn’t you?”
Zoro considered that. “Maybe Mihawk.”
Sanji laughed. Zoro liked that sound more in the armory than he had upstairs.
They stayed there longer than he expected. Sanji didn’t get bored. Eventually Zoro ran out of immediate things to show him and talk about.
Sanji set the guard in his hand carefully back on the cloth. “So.”
“So what?”
“I have now seen your swords.”
“Yeah.”
“Actual swords.”
“Yeah?”
“I just want the record to reflect that after a week of me throwing every firty line I could think of at you, this is the move that worked.”
Zoro frowned. “What move?”
“Inviting me down here and talking about swords for an hour.”
“I wasn’t making a move.”
“I know.” Sanji laughed again and leaned one elbow against the bench.
The answer Zoro had given him in the mudroom wasn't maybe anymore. Zoro wanted to kiss him. So he did.
Sanji made a startled sound against his mouth before grabbing the front of Zoro’s shirt and kissing him back. That lasted long enough for Zoro to decide he wanted more of it.
When they separated, Sanji was breathing harder. “Well,” he said.
Zoro touched his own mouth with his thumb. Sanji’s gaze followed the movement.
Zoro thought about the conversation in the mudroom. “Want to have sex now?”
Sanji started laughing. He bent forward until his forehead hit Zoro’s shoulder. Zoro waited for him to finish. Eventually Sanji lifted his head. “Yes.”
“Okay.” Zoro stood and held out his hand.
Sanji looked at it, then up at him. “You know, normally I’d have something incredibly clever to say here.”
“Do you?”
“No.”
“Good.”
Sanji laughed and took his hand.
They made it out of the armory and halfway upstairs before Zoro took a wrong turn. He corrected it, missed the next staircase, and eventually stopped at an intersection of two corridors.
Sanji leaned against the wall. “Please tell me you know where your bedroom is.”
“Usually.”
Sanji started laughing again. Then stopped long enough to kiss him again, right there in the hallway.
Zoro decided the long way had its advantages.
End