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As the bright light enveloped his body, Zoro knew his day had gone to absolute shit.
“Zoro! Two Zoros!”
“Oh my…”
“Could be a devil fruit.”
“What else would it be, Nami…”
“Is he hurt? Get a doctor!”
Zoro’s breath hissed out from between his teeth as his eye squinted open. He found himself flat on his back under a harsh noon sun. Disoriented. When the last thing he remembered was a night raid by some wanna-be pirates on an island whose name he could barely recall. A surprise attack that was less threat and more annoyance. Everything going smoothly until those no-names pulled out some even more annoying devil fruit abilities. All of it filtering back to him now. In flashes of light and yells of his name.
Zoro threw an arm over his face. “Fuck.”
He could still smell the acrid smoke of the shoreline on fire. Could hear Robin’s warnings echoing in his ears on what exactly the enemy captain’s devil fruit was capable of. But, shit, Usopp had been in danger. And now Zoro was somewhere decidedly not where he was supposed to be.
So again—fuck.
The question wasn’t really where he ended up—the familiar voices and familiar feeling of grass turf beneath his back were obvious enough—but when. Zoro supposed he could figure that out easily if he would just remove his arm from his face and look around.
Though all things considered, he’d rather just take a nap instead.
As he lay there, he didn’t need observation haki to feel the growing tension in the air. The voices had gone quiet since his initial appearance, undoubtedly waiting for someone to come to a decision about him. Someone, Zoro mused, well—the captain obviously—and Zoro could hear his approach long before he opened his eye. Knew before he even felt the instant cool of a body leaning over, blocking the sun. The untidy mop of black hair he’d see when lifting his arm—because if the instant familiarity of this grassy deck hadn’t tipped him off it would have been the easy gait of the ship’s captain and the tell-tale slap of threadbare sandals. A laugh like wind through sails—shishishi.
When Zoro opened his eye again all he saw was the young face of his grinning captain. Luffy in ruffled red and head tipped way forward into his space. Hands stuffed in those raggedy cuffed shorts. Just like Zoro remembered him.
“Luffy get back,” a sharp voice said, a familiar glare prickling at Zoro’s skin. Nami had stepped forward, hands gripped tight around that old weather baton Zoro hadn’t seen her use in ages. “It’s a trick. Our Zoro is right over there.” A wrist-clink of gold on glass as she pointed across the deck.
Zoro’s gaze followed her outstretched arm. No surprises there. Everyone he expected to see spread out across the Sunny’s deck. His crew but not his crew. Luffy up front, of course. Chopper crouched close behind. Nami at Luffy’s flank, distrust brimming in her amber eyes. Robin’s arms crossed at the ready, eyeing him thoughtfully.
Zoro sighed, looking over his captain’s shoulder at the cloudless sky above. “Not a trick,” he told them.
At that, Franky stepped closer from his spot at the helm, looking intrigued more than anything while Brook seemed more caught by surprise at the entire situation, violin limp in hand. The cook was off to the side, plates shattered at his feet no doubt caused by Zoro’s own flashy arrival. Usopp close by and half cowering even as he held Kabuto aloft and aimed straight for Zoro with a steady hand. Zoro felt oddly proud at that.
And then his eye caught on the last figure. A mirror of himself, younger obviously, but not by so much. Younger like how the rest of the crew was younger.
He was missing an eye as well. So, that narrowed down the time frame, at least.
His other self watched him blankly. Scanning up and down his frame. Zeroing in on his face and the glints of gold that were almost identical to his own. His swords were not drawn. But his jaw was clenched in a familiar way Zoro knew. Close to snapping. Ready for a fight at the slightest hint of danger to his crew. Be it with swords, knuckles, or his teeth. It wouldn’t matter.
“Careful, Luffy,” was all his younger self said, eye never straying from Zoro’s, body language growing increasingly tense as Luffy made no move to distance himself from the interloper.
Luffy paused and glanced back at his own Zoro, pouting, his tongue pressed to the inside of his cheek. A small concession he’d only give his first mate—that moment’s hesitation. Not enough though. Seeing as Luffy made no move to distance himself, not even an arm’s length away from Zoro’s own. If he were an enemy he could slice off his foolhardy captain’s head before anyone had time to blink. A threat his other self had clearly already picked up on.
Zoro watched, interested, as his mirror-self’s hand drifted towards his blades.
“Eh? It’s just Zoro,” Luffy cut in, loudly. He crouched down to peer further into Zoro’s face. Blocking Zoro from the younger swordsman’s line of sight. “You’re mine ain’tcha?”
Zoro chuckled in response, feeling the pent-up stress he hadn’t noticed before, slowly easing from his body.
“‘Course, Captain,” he replied, with a small grin.
“Yosh!” Luffy sprung up. “Nami set sail!”
And like a balloon popped—that was the end of it. Nami sighed and started shouting directions at Franky and Brook to rig the sails. Chopper jumped up to see if Zoro had any injuries from his unexpected arrival. Activity swirled around to get the Sunny back on course.
Robin lowered her hands. Enigmatic smile still in place.
“Devil fruit?” she asked, and Zoro could tell everyone was still listening. Except maybe Luffy who had bounded over to his first mate, laughing and pointing back at them.
“Yeah,” Zoro sighed. “Time-Time Fruit model whatever the fuck—“ Zoro rubbed his head, gently batting Chopper’s helping hooves away.
“Just a bump,” he said, feeling where his head had slammed into the deck. Chopper looked ready to retaliate but—
“Do you recall this, then?” Robin wondered, flowered hands popping up and moving Chopper from Zoro to rest on her own lap as she crouched by Zoro in the grass. There was a slight furrow in her brow as strands of raven hair wisped across her face from the sea wind. “Or has your appearance created an alternate timeline somehow…”
Huh. Zoro looked around the ship, again. Back at the broken plates their cook dropped upon his arrival. Something itching at the back of his mind. The thing was, he didn’t remember this at all, and he’d never been the smart one on the crew but he’s pretty sure he would’ve remembered a time-traveling version of himself popping up if it had happened to him.
“When are we anyway?” he asked instead.
“Just left Fishman Island,” said Usopp, popping up at Robin’s shoulder. Now that potential danger had passed he seemed much more comfortable getting up close.
Ah. Zoro smiled, looking at them all again and seeing the confidence. They stood tall, happy and triumphant. Hot off the adrenalin of taking on their first enemy of the New World. It was stupid easy to tell now that he was looking.
But that also meant…Zoro frowned turning towards the clear blue waters surrounding them. “And you haven’t reached another island yet?”
“We’re going to danger island!” Luffy yelled, launching himself back towards the older pirate. Zoro moved his shoulder slightly, just enough for the captain to sling-shot past him and run headlong into the mast.
Before Luffy could bounce back up Nami was leaning over him, hands on her hips and eyes murderous.
“We are not!”
Luffy, up like a shot, scowled back. “I told you the captain chooses!”
“We’ve discussed this, Captain.” Nami breathed in and out, a calming technique that would’ve had Zoro backing up as far as he could if it were aimed at him. “And you agreed. We are going to the quiet island first to re-up supplies.” She pointed at the stillest arrow on her Log Pose. “You know. On account of you already. Eating. All. The. Food.”
Sanji's hand came out of nowhere to clamp tight at Luffy’s collar. “Yes, Captain,” Sanji mimicked. “Wanna run by me again how ninety percent of our food storage disappeared in a day?”
Luffy floundered, looking off to the side, lips pursed. “I told you. I don’t know…”
Nami clapped her hands. “Well, that settles that.” She tapped her Log Pose. “This is our heading. Luffy, go help Brook unfurl the sails. We’ll see a new island before the sun sets.”
A grin split Luffy’s whole face as he launched a rubbery appendage towards the masthead and slung himself up, nearly knocking Brook into the sea. ”My! You almost gave me a heart attack...if I had a heart! Yohoho!” Luffy’s laugh echoed around the ship bright and loud, his grumbling forgotten with the promise of a new island.
Robin smiled and stood. Chopper still in her arms. A few sprouting hands helped Zoro to his feet.
“Do you know how to get back?” she asked.
Zoro frowned, some of that unease sinking back into his bones. He was useless here, stuck in a time he didn’t belong. “Nothin’ to be done from this side,” he answered. “I’ll wait for my crew to fix it on their end.”
He hoped so anyway. As the wind started to whip across his face and the Sunny cut through the waves Zoro desperately wanted to be back in his own time with his own crew. Make sure they were safe even when he trusted they were. No point in thinking otherwise while he was stuck here.
As the sounds of activity continued around him Zoro wandered across the deck. Still aware of multiple pairs of eyes keen on his back. He took the steps two at a time as he made his way to the helm’s platform and the wooden rails near the figurehead. Zoro placed a hand on the sun-warmed wood.
“Hey, Sunny,” he murmured, patting at the rail. With his head tilted towards the sky Zoro could almost forget his situation. Sunny felt exactly the same as always, the sturdiness beneath his boots grounding him and at odds with the way everything else felt unmoored. How his skin felt too tight around his bones as if the air itself knew he didn’t belong.
“Keep standing like that and your face will burn,” came a voice. “Don’t worry I'll be fine, though, considering—”
Zoro grinned. “No skin?”
“Yohoho…” Brook chuckled. “Just the same.”
Brook made an awkward gesture, hesitating before a boney hand lightly grasped at Zoro’s forearm. “I’m sure the us on the other side will finish up soon and you’ll be returned,” he said. “I understand being out of time can feel unpleasant…”
Out of everyone, the changes to Brook were negligible. He looked the exact same as the Brook he’d been fighting back to back with not even an hour ago. He would look the same a hundred years from now as far as they knew. Zoro felt a sudden ache in his chest.
“It’s not a great feeling."
“No,” Brook agreed, “I suppose it’s not.”
There were as many differences in their situations as there were similarities. Brook caught in a fog-shrouded prison for decades, trapped on the ghost ship of his former crew long dead and gone. Not like Zoro who knew with certainty that his crew would survive and that he would return to his own time greeted by the boisterous laugh of his captain.
But, still, there was a certain kinship. There had been since the beginning—when Zoro returned Brook’s shadow in exchange for Shusui. But now, even more so, both men out of time, as Brook said. Zoro suddenly wondered how Brook felt those first days out of the fog. If his bones ever felt brittle like Time itself wouldn’t allow him the free pass. And it suddenly dawned on Zoro that he had never asked.
“Are you alright?” Zoro asked after a pause. “With us...”
Brook hummed. “Yes, of course,” he said. “It was hard in the beginning. Harder when we were separated but unlike you, this is my second chance. You should decide what you’re here for.”
Zoro sighed, elbows balanced on the wood rails. “I’m just here to sightsee.”
“Well then, try not to blink,” advised Brook, plucking a few strands from his violin. “Of course, I won’t either because I don’t have—”
Brook stopped at the sound of heavy footsteps.
“—I don't know about this, bro…” Franky’s voice warbled close by.
A sudden spike in his observation haki had Zoro turning around.
His younger self stalked forward, bandana tied and Wado clamped between his teeth. Nami looked furious behind him, a twist of her mouth that spoke of not being able to stop him from doing something stupid.
But Zoro couldn’t say he was surprised by this. After all, he would do the same thing.
“Fight me,” his younger self said.
Zoro smirked as he rolled his neck and loosened up his shoulders. “You’ll lose.”
His younger self twisted Kitetsu in his palm. “I better.”
They moved back towards the open space of the main deck as Zoro slid Wado from its sheath. The sword hummed in excitement at the opportunity of a test against its own steel.
Nice to know his younger self thought so highly of him, Zoro thought, watching the sea shine reflect off his opponent’s drawn swords. Wado was still a moonbeam, even in the high noon light, and the sheen off Kitetsu looked ready to slice through bone. And then Shusui, he should have expected it drawn against him but it was still halting to see that midnight void of a blade again. More so than any blade he’d ever handled, Shusui commanded regal attention from anyone unlucky enough to taste its edge. And it was damn good to see it again.
But still, even up against all three didn’t mean he would draw out another blade besides Wado.
His other self narrowed his eye as he watched Zoro take a rudimentary fighting stance.
“You underestimating me?” he asked.
“Nah,” Zoro replied, turning the snow-white blade lazily in his palm. “I’m estimating you just enough.”
Sanji and Nami cackled from where they stood near the starboard side. Luffy had taken notice and began cheering still perched on the top rung of the masthead. Looks like they’ll have an audience on their hands. Brook and Franky made their way towards Robin and Usopp underneath the oak tree while Chopper paced back and forth in front of the infirmary door.
“Kick his ass, Zoro!” Luffy yelled.
Franky whistled. “Which one, bro?”
Luffy wound himself thrice around the lower half of the mast for a better view. “Who cares!”
Zoro’s footwork started slow. The light tread was so familiar he could replicate it in his sleep. Stepwork like the icy flow of the stream behind a dojo from a lifetime ago. Smooth like winter water and sharp like fragmenting frost across its surface—sharp points of divergence, never predictable. Except to the one person he was now against.
His younger self mirrored the movements, cautious. Waiting for a variation in technique. A change in style that would mark them different. But there would be none. Truth be told there wasn’t so much time between the him now and the one he faced. Just experience. Power. The ability to better follow the ebb and flow of the fight. Quicker recognition of the arc of a blade and the movement of his body to get where he wanted to be.
An easy parry, a thrust that had his younger self taking a deeper defensive stance. Neither man using armament haki but Zoro still had more power and control over his blows than what the other could achieve without damaging the ship.
The younger man was smart though and always, always quick to adapt. Using his three swords against Zoro’s one and the confined space of the ship to his advantage. He arced his blades at an angle that only allowed Zoro the ability to deflect two while he dodged the hiss of Kitetsu by lunging to the side.
Chopper gasped and Luffy cheered in the background.
Zoro huffed, eyeing his other self and almost expecting to see the curve of a smirk. But no. Serious as always. And he shouldn’t have been surprised. Now that Zoro knew exactly what time period he’d been dropped into. He recalled those first steps back on Sabaody, blood singing with excitement at seeing his captain and his crew whole again, and then immediately falling into a new adventure. A chance to prove that those two years had meant something. How Zoro had gotten stronger for the sake of the man and the dream that binded them both.
Zoro spun sideways quicker than his opponent could react before bringing down an easy slash that had his younger self stumbling back. Zoro followed up with a series of test blows with Wado so quick that even with three swords the other man could barely keep up.
There, Zoro thought, see what I am. Stronger now. Better to protect our crew. Getting stronger all the time. See what I’ve become and know how it reflects on you. A worthy swordsman for the King of the Pirates.
Anything else would make you look bad, right Luffy?
Another strike had his opponent stepping back with a grunt. Zoro continued to rain down slashes like a thunderstorm. There wasn’t a single opening for the other to exploit and his younger self knew it. With that realization, a hard gleam entered his eye and he shifted, pulling his blades closer to his body, trance-like.
His younger self was a half step into a new stance. A familiar stance. One born of the weight of their dream—a name great enough to reach the heavens. The air around them grew heavy with bloodlust. And Zoro should have seen it coming with the way his own thoughts had pulled during the spar. He understood.
Doesn’t mean he’ll let it happen though.
Zoro lunged, switching Wado from his right palm to left so quick the younger man had no time to readjust his movements. Zoro had him flat on his back before the other could blink. Playtime over.
Zoro clicked his tongue. “Better save that one for later, yeah?”
His younger self blinked up at him, surprised. And then guilty as his brain caught up to his movements and the stance he had taken.
“Right,” he grumbled, grabbing Zoro’s offered hand to pull himself up. He looked put out. A grimace on his face Zoro knew spoke of wounded pride and an urge to train to make up for his shortcomings. His younger self had just finished two grueling years of training and emerged victorious from Fishman Island with barely a scratch. But Zoro knew that fact was grating on the man as well when all he could do was watch as his captain spilled too much blood to liberate another kingdom.
Before he could make good on those inner thoughts and lock himself away in the crow’s nest a rubbery body collided with him.
“All Zoros are so cool, huh Zoro!” Luffy all but yelled in the younger man’s ear. “So cool!”
Zoro watched, bemused as his younger self rolled his eye in response. He sheathed his swords and allowed Luffy to wrap around him further. Zoro bit back a grin at how quickly Luffy was able to mollify the younger man’s wounded pride at the loss.
“Best swordsman in the whole world,” Luffy declared, lightly headbutting him.
“Not yet,” the other replied, mulishly.
Luffy huffed, flicking at the younger man’s golden earrings. “I said best you don't gotta be strongest yet to be the best, Zoroo.”
“Pretty sure you do,” Sanji called out. With the spar concluded, he twirled around Robin and Nami offering them frothy pink drinks.
Lower, Luffy said, “Don’t listen to ‘im.”
“He’s right for once.”
“Nah,” the captain replied easily before unwinding himself and bounding over to Sanji and demanding a drink for himself.
The twin green swordsmen watched him go, their blood still singing from the spar and awash in the certainty their captain had in their collective abilities.
After a moment the younger man sighed, glancing sidelong at Zoro. “Sorry,” he muttered. “The crew would never forgive me if I cut Sunny to pieces.”
“Eh? I wouldn’t’ve let that happen,” Zoro said, “and neither would you.” He clapped the young man on the back. “Besides, even with it, you wouldn’t have won.”
Zoro watched as the first true grin spread across the younger man's face. “Good thing,” he replied. “The only thing worse than losing now would be learning my future self is weak.”
With his head tilted back towards the sun, Zoro laughed.
“Without a doubt,” he said.
When the island came into view it left a lot to be desired.
As Nami called Franky to drop anchor Zoro scanned their new destination. The reason this island had the stillest needle on the Log Pose, Zoro thought, was because it was barely an island at all. The island was tiny, nothing more than an outcropping of dense patched green on rock with a half-moon slice of shoreline. When they disembarked, Robin discovered most of the trees were fruit-bearing and the overbrush looked home to some type of small boar-like creature. So with their food crisis soon averted the crew split up to gather what they could.
Zoro, for his part, wasn’t doing much more than sightseeing as he picked a random direction and started walking. Leaving before anyone could rope him into plucking trees or chasing a pig.
He didn’t get more than a dozen steps before he heard a shout and a rush of wind. While the rest of the crew had walked off to gather supplies—and in Luffy’s case to explore—Nami ran to catch up to him. She wore a sundress and a wide-brimmed sun hat that Zoro didn’t even want to guess at the number of berries involved, or—more likely—the sticky fingers that acquired them. She stopped running when she noticed Zoro pause, her bare feet sinking into the soft sand.
Zoro made a show of eyeing her ill-suited get-up. More luxury vacation than food gathering.
“You gonna catch a pig in that?” he asked.
“The others can play scavenger hunt,” Nami huffed, pulling from her pocket an old beaten notebook and wax pencil. Zoro recognized the notebook instantly as home to the more rudimentary maps and sketches she made when visiting a new island before she returned to the ship and added them to her world map.
“Okay,” she said, tapping the pencil impatiently on a blank page. “I’m ready.”
Zoro frowned. “For?”
“For you to tell me what I need to know about the future. Any treasure chests you care to share the locations of?” Nami grinned while Zoro rolled his eye, a muttered ‘witch’ under his breath that only made Nami smile wider. She continued, ticking off her fingers; “Places to avoid. People to trust, or people not to trust. Ways to protect us. Tell me so I can protect my crew.”
Zoro crossed his arms. “I don’t think,” he said, carefully. “That it turned out so well for the last person who asked for big answers instead of finding out for themself.”
Nami scoffed. “I’m not Usopp,” she said. “And I’m not stupid enough to ask in front of Luffy.”
Zoro scratched at his temples, feeling a headache coming on. He wasn’t smart enough for this shit but this entire situation felt like something he shouldn’t mess with. “I’ve been thinking,” he said. “And I already told ya I don’t remember any of this happening. Which probably means once this is over you won’t neither.”
She waved her pencil right under his nose. “Duh—you think I didn’t already realize that? It’s why I brought this in the first place. Maybe if I wrote it down it won't disappear.”
“And maybe it will,” Zoro said. “Listen, we never stumbled across some mystery message that solved all our problems after Fishman Island, and who knows what we would’ve fucked up if we had. There’s suffering out there, suffering that we stopped and a whole lot more that we didn’t but I don’t think it’ll make a lick of difference if I told you either way.”
Nami remained silent but the hard look in her eyes hadn’t faded.
Zoro blew out a gust of air. “I don't think we’re—” he made a vague gesture in the air, “from different universes or whatever Robin was thinkin’ about that’s why I don’t wanna fuck things up.”
“Why?”
“I’m not sure yet.”
Just an itch in the back of his mind.
Nami rolled her eyes. Zoro understood. He wasn’t really the one to think things out before acting—too much like their captain in that regard. He plowed ahead. “And since we’re the same there’s no point in asking any of your damned questions,” he repeated, trying to convince her as much as himself. “That should be answer enough even if it makes me a hypocrite.”
“And why’s that?”
“Because,” he said, stepping forward in her space. “If something had happened to us, to our crew, then I would tell you everything. Consequences be damned. So I'm a hypocrite ‘cause I’d do anything to change it. If it was one of us.”
For a brief moment, he imagined himself thrown further back in time. Back before Marineford or Sabaody. He would sacrifice both arms to save his crew that pain. To save his captain a brother.
“You’re easier to talk to,” Nami finally said. “Not that you aren’t always easy—by the way—to me at least. It was just the three of us when this all started, after all.” She turned towards the shoreline and watched the sparkling waves break against the beach. “We haven’t been back together long,” she continued. “And some things still weigh too heavy. You’ve always shouldered the most of it you know…I don't think you realize it most of the time, but you always wore it well.”
“I don’t know about that.”
“Well,” she said, stretching her hands high and rolling her neck. “Enough of this. Now that my master plan has failed I’m going back to camp. Since I got us all to this island in one piece I’m not lifting another finger ‘til we set sail again.” She smiled at him, her eyes creasing at the corners. “Try not to get too lost or we might have to leave you here.”
“Hey—!”
Nami cackled, pausing and then stepping forward and wrapping her arms tight around him for a brief moment before she turned on her heel and made her way back up the embankment. Strawberry hair swaying in the breeze.
He watched her disappear around the bend, before moving into the sparse forest. Everyone on his side better be okay. Almost half a day had passed now since he’d landed himself here. Not yet a worrying amount of time, especially if those wannabe pirates had fled before Luffy could beat them up. Which he would. And then Zoro would be back where he belonged.
But the dull ache of worry in his chest remained.
He thought about what he’d said to Nami and wondered if he truly believed it. If the right choice was to keep his mouth shut. He shook his head to clear it. He’d always been one to stick to his intuition and he wasn’t going to change that up now. Besides, he passed another clump of trees with familiar-looking yellow fruit and recalled the broken plates upon his arrival. The itch in his head was louder than before and he was beginning to suspect he was missing something obvious.
As Zoro continued his aimless trek he noticed the trees growing more compact before breaking open into a small clearing. Everything colored in a dappled green.
Zoro felt him immediately.
There was never a moment when he didn’t know exactly where his captain was. Even easier now with a young captain still so green.
Without warning a rubber punch whistled by his ear and buried itself into a nearby tree. Zoro tsk’d.
“Dangerous to do that against someone with swords, Captain,” he said, Wado already in hand, the familiar white braid warm against his palm. He pressed the flat of the blade against Luffy’s bare skin still stretched out across the clearing. “Try not being too much of an idiot, eh?”
Luffy scoffed in response, the midnight shine of armament haki sweeping up his arm as he yanked the rubbery appendage back. Zoro rolled his eye.
“That won’t help. I could still cut you clean through,” Zoro said.
Luffy bounced around on the balls of his feet, his sandals making dull thuds on the forest floor. Zoro felt a small thrill wash over him as Luffy’s grin went mean. “Try.”
Oh, he wanted a fight. Well, Zoro kinda wanted one too even if it wouldn’t last too long.
“Okay,” he said, clamping Wado between his teeth and drawing out his other swords.
“You got new ones,” Luffy said, making a show of stretching his limbs side-to-side. “Zoro wanted to ask you about ‘em. I know he thinks they’re cool.”
“They are cool.”
“Yeah!”
“He’ll find out himself.”
Luffy nodded, agreeably. “Get ready!”
They traded blows in a familiar rhythm. The wet heat of the island weighed on them and made it feel like they were arcing through water instead of air. Luffy’s punches still felt like steel even if they were easily deflected off the flats of Zoro’s blades. Neither of them truly serious about the fight. Zoro’s movements felt more like a dance. Luffy orbiting around him with his flailing impossible limbs trying to find an opening. He wasn’t using any gears.
Zoro slapped away another fist aiming for his face with a flash of his blade and jumped over a rubber leg that had swung out to trip him.
Luffy boo’ed. “That one usually works!”
“Yeah.” Zoro sent out an air slash that had Luffy tumbling back. “I know.”
Luffy stuck out his tongue before launching himself up in the canopy. Leaves rustled as he disappeared into the foliage.
Everything went silent.
Zoro stilled, he could still sense Luffy easily. Crouched on the front branches. He wasn’t doing anything else. No arm cocked or leg coiling out preparing to strike. Luffy seemed content in just watching him.
So Zoro waited.
Minutes stretched on silent before he felt it. Weaker than what he was used to but still so familiar. The air whistling harsh in the dead heat, weighed down by the spirit of a King.
It wasn’t strong enough to make his knees buckle or his head feel heavy. It never had. If anything Luffy’s Colour of the Supreme King had always served to amp Zoro up. His blood sparking with the promise of a good fight. A fight with his life on the line. Reflexively Zoro’s own conqueror’s haki shot through the air around them. He always liked the feel of Luffy’s haki against his own.
Just as quickly as Luffy’s haki had ripped apart the air around them, it was gone. Zoro had barely time to react before he got an armful of his young and giddy captain. Limbs coiled around his shoulders and his waist. Grabby hands excitedly pulled at his hair.
“Oh—oh Zoro!” Luffy’s grip on his hair had Zoro’s head tilting back. Luffy was inches away from his face and grinning wildly. “I knew it. I knew it!” Luffy crowed.
“Oh you did? Even now, huh?”
“When old man Rayleigh explained it. I knew Zoro would have it. For sure.”
Zoro huffed out a laugh. He hadn’t known that. But it made something pleasing bubble up in his chest. Knowing his captain had such faith in him.
As they made their way back to camp, Luffy shifted, still clinging to Zoro’s back and chatting about how cool this island was. How blue the sea looked. How green the jungle was. Zoro listened even when he thought this island looked nothing more than a bunch of rocks and sand and clumps of green in between. Zoro couldn’t stop his smile knowing Luffy’s excitement for adventure even in the smallest, most mundane islands remained the same for all the time he’d known him.
By the time the pair reached the main beach again—This way, Zoro. No, no this way! Follow the sand, idiot!—Franky had already set up a makeshift camp. The beginnings of a bonfire threw dancing shadows across the shoreline as the sun dipped lower in the sky.
The rest of the crew were spread on blankets and chairs hauled from the Sunny. They watched on in amusement when Zoro turned up with their captain coiled around him. More than one glanced back at his younger self which had Zoro swallowing up a laugh because of course everyone saw the similarities between himself and their own swordsman. The one whom Luffy most often chose to wrap himself around when he didn’t want to walk or was just generally trying to be a nuisance. And the one who always—always—let him.
Time wouldn’t change that.
Dinner consisted of dozens of meat and yellow fruit skewers cooked over fire. Luffy grumbled as Sanji swatted away his elongated arm from snatching at their almost-cooked meal. Zoro felt a puff of air against his neck as Luffy sighed and instead began occupying himself by flicking Zoro's earrings back and forth.
“Hey,” Luffy said. “Where’s Zoro’s—”
Zoro unceremoniously dropped him by the crackling fire.
When dinner was finally ready everyone fell into the familiar routine that mostly consisted of half eating and half shielding their food from wandering rubber hands.
“Ne, why’s Zoro missing an earring?” Luffy asked around a mouthful of food. “I wanted’ta ask earlier.”
“Hm?” Zoro took a slow sip of ale.
“I wondered about that as well,” Robin piped up, setting down her plate.
Zoro could feel everyone’s eyes focused on him as he ran his fingers over his ear to feel the two golden teardrops and then the simple gold stud.
He shrugged. “Gave one away.”
Sanji looked up from his spot turning meat skewers over the fire, surprised. “What really?”
“Didn’t know everyone was so invested in ‘em,” Zoro said, crossing his arms.
“Ah!” Usopp turned, pointing an accusing finger at their navigator. “Nami, you’ve taken debt collecting too far making Zoro pay with his earrings!”
Nami huffed. “Yeah, no,” she said, nose stuck up in the air. “No matter how bad his debt is—which I, for the sake of the argument, will assume is extensive. Even me in the future wouldn’t collect on those.” She squinted at Zoro from across the bonfire. “They aren’t even real gold.”
Zoro shot a glance at his younger self who was looking at the missing earing intently just like he had when Zoro first showed up. He remained silent.
“So are you going to tell us, bro?” Franky pressed.
Zoro shrugged. “Someone important.”
Robin grinned wide, eyes glittering in the reflected light of the bonfire.
Zoro couldn’t help but grin back. Trust Robin to get it before anyone else.
Brook let out a soft, “Yohoho.”
Chopper had stars in his eyes.
“Wait.” Sanji looked as if he’d sucked a lemon. “Marimo—”
Chopper clapped his hooves together. “Is it someone we know?”
Zoro laid back in the sand, a smile pulling at his cheek. “Couldn’t say.”
“Oh shove off—” Nami said, excited. “You gotta tell us.”
“Can’t.” Zoro placed a hand over his chest and looked at Nami with sincerity. “I wouldn’t want to deprive you of the obscene amount of berries you’ll score on the betting pool.”
A pause, then Nami gave him two thumbs up. “Understood.”
“Hey!” Usopp shot up. “But I still want to know!”
Nami slung one arm over his shoulders and patted his cheek with her other hand. “Not on your life.”
Usopp grumbled in response before settling down again, annoyed and pink-faced. Zoro shot a look at his younger self to see him no longer paying attention. Luffy had clambered by his side and seemed to be regaling him on his island adventures of the day. It wasn’t long after, that everyone started to drift back towards the Sunny for the night.
Back on the ship, Zoro offered to take the first watch. “I’d rather be awake when I’m pulled back,” he shrugged. Usopp didn’t need more convincing than that to give up his shift. Zoro settled against the oak tree on the main deck, the rope swing swaying gently in the night breeze. He passed the time tending his blades.
“Still no idea when you’ll be leaving us?”
It was Robin, her gait steady and almost completely silent but instantly recognizable to Zoro who had spent the better part of all the naps he ever took memorizing everyone’s footsteps across the Sunny. Helpful and quicker than observation haki in knowing where his crew was at any given moment.
Zoro sighed. “Whenever my crew kicks that devil fruit user’s ass, probably,” he said. “Shouldn’t be too long. I don’t remember this island. But I know the next.”
As he leaned back the sturdiness of the bark steadied him. Pieces of this bizarre fruit felt like they were finally starting to fall in place. He wondered how much quicker his Robin would have figured it all out had she been the one sent to the past instead of him.
“That devil fruit does more than send someone back in time,” he said, trying to get the half-formed thoughts out of his head, building on what he already told Nami on the beach. “The more I think back to right after Fishman the more I know there's a gap. I remember half of the plates being missing after Fishman Island and no one could figure out why. We blamed Luffy even though we know he’s a shit liar and was adamant he hadn’t touched ‘em. I saw the cook smash the whole lot today when I got here. And the fruit from this island," Zoro continued, the big picture finally coming into focus. "I remember eating ones just like 'em, we even shared with some Marines—long story, you'll find out soon enough—back then we had no idea where they came from. Just showed up in food storage. Reversing the fruit must make your memories of this time also disappear. It’s the only way I can figure a power like this working.” Zoro’s head tilted back and he caught a glimpse of stars through the tree branches. “I guess I can tell you this ‘cause you won’t remember when I'm gone but we know the base model Time-Time Fruit can’t go backward in time, at all, so I’m guessing memory loss is this fruit’s restriction.”
Robin nodded, thoughtful. “Fascinating,” she said, and Zoro knew she was filing away the information even if she wouldn’t remember. Maybe after this conversation she’ll write it down, and see if she could somehow keep the knowledge. She probably wouldn’t tell even if she had. He’d have to ask her when he got back.
“I have many more questions but it's probably best to wait.” She smiled, the warmth reaching her eyes. Zoro smiled back, one of his favorite sights in the world were her happy eyes. So different from before, when she first joined them, when her eyes looked more like the edge-sharp gleam of chipped glass, no matter how wide the smile.
Zoro’s head nodded in agreement as he watched her turn heel and make her way to the other end of the ship and up to the observatory. She was on watch too. Zoro breathed out slowly and set his swords aside to begin a simple meditation for the next hour. Attempting to clear his mind of the worry still lingering in his guts about his crew in the future.
He only got through the first set of breathing techniques when he heard a new set of footsteps approaching. Steps he couldn’t immediately recognize which meant they could only be from one person.
Zoro cracked his eye open.
“I heard you telling Robin that we’ll all forget once you go back,” his younger self said, he was dressed down in black pants and a threadbare white shirt. The moon cast shadows along his face and Zoro could barely believe he ever looked so young such a relatively short time ago.
“That’s right,” Zoro said.
“So tell me.”
“Whether you’re the world’s greatest swordsman?”
“Whether Luffy is the Pirate King.”
Zoro leaned back. “We’re close. He will. But that’s not anything you don’t already know.”
His younger self clenched at his own sword. “He will.”
“It’s funny,” Zoro said, eying the other thoughtfully. “This whole journey, our whole life since we met him. We run into all these other crews, all these pirates who believe their captain will be King. But we know they’re wrong. That their dreams are futile.”
His other self nodded. “Nothin’ we can do about that.”
“Right,” Zoro agreed. “But it makes us strive for his sake, doesn’t it? Because he chose to share with us this impossible dream. And yet, if given the choice he would sacrifice it all for any one of us. Without a thought.”
“That’s why we’re here though,” his younger self said. “To make sure that doesn’t happen. Our dream is meaningless now without his. No point in being the best without him.” The statement rolls off the younger man’s tongue so easily that Zoro was almost surprised by it. Even when he knew it to be true. Had said so himself. Knew it from the moment he swore his sword and his broken body to the future King of the Pirates on a floating restaurant in the East Blue. Again in front of Kuma the Tyrant. Dracule Mihawk.
It was different to hear someone else say it, though. When he never gave it much thought because of the bone-deep certainty of it. But if someone were to give voice to the vow at all, of course, it would be another version of himself.
“So,” his younger self said, cutting through his thoughts. “Who’d you give it to?”
Zoro watched as the younger man thumbed at his third gold earring.
“You’d never leave the crew,” he continued, going for casual. “So it’s someone on board.”
Zoro leaned forward, amused. “Yes.”
“Well, I don’t know how many more members joined so—”
“You know who it is.”
The younger man stared at him blankly. And Zoro understood, because there was a difference between loving someone and loving someone as easy as breathing, so easy you don't even think to call it love because people can live without love but they can't live without air. Loving some idiot since East Blue and a dinghy that could barely hold the weight of them. The way it happened so quick, cementing under his skin with easy recognition but no true desire to change their course.
There was a difference between knowing and realizing.
But as the gears started to turn Zoro caught the moment of awareness.
“Ah.” The younger man scrubbed a hand over his temples. He chuckled.”You’re not fuckin’ with me?”
“Nah,” Zoro replied. “No point in that when you won’t remember this conversation anyway.”
His younger self stilled, and Zoro imagined in that moment he was trying to rearrange his worldview. How a revelation like this would shift things, for him, for the crew. The younger man suddenly stood and with a slight nod, he turned, making his way to the boys’ bunks.
Softly, barely loud enough for Zoro to hear, his younger self muttered, “Not that this changes anything.”
Zoro agreed. There was simple truth to it, he supposed. Too easy for them to slip from strangers to friends to something more. With each new line crossed nothing fundamentally changed. Because from that very first day, they saw each other completely. Their conviction and understanding of each other so crystal clear that the rest of the crew often complained about how they could communicate with just looks and body language instead of speech. Even more annoying, they'd say, when the captain and first mate didn’t even realize they were doing it.
Their relationship was teetering on a precipice since they met. It’s why Nami would win her betting pool, in the future, she who saw it from practically the beginning and could pinpoint the moment of freefall.
Alone again, the hours slipped by more freely as Zoro returned to tending his blades. He wasn’t sure when he'd be pulled back forward in time. Whether it would be during or after a fight, best to be ready regardless. He’d moved on from Enma to Wado when he heard the boy’s dorm creak open. Curious he leaned to the side to see who it was when neither the night nor his watch was close to over.
Luffy half stumbled onto the deck with sweat-soaked skin and glazed eyes. He didn’t notice Zoro sitting there as he began to pace up and down the grass lawn, violently scrubbing at his hands.
Without a word as Luffy passed by him on quick steps, Zoro reached out and grabbed Luffy’s wrist, swiftly tugging him down. Luffy said nothing as he slumped to Zoro’s side. This close Zoro could see the redness of his eyes and the tears still clinging to his lashes.
Silently, Zoro pressed a sheathed Wado into Luffy’s hands. Luffy gripped the sword tight. The familiarity of the action tightened something in Zoro’s chest, heavy and unbearable. His younger self will offer this exact comfort in a few weeks time. After Punk Hazzard.
When Zoro first lent his sword to Luffy he almost worried Luffy’s grip would snap the blade in half. But no. Wado was strong. Had to be. Wado would not yield even under her captain’s monstrous strength. The blade that bore Kuina’s dream and his own, sworn again to his captain’s and intertwined with the oath to protect their crew to the last breath—or die trying.
And he doesn’t know how to put this great big feeling into words, how it pumps through his veins like lifeblood. But he knows as Luffy’s fingers start to unclench, how he looks at Zoro with the naked vulnerability he only ever shows his first mate. That time didn’t matter because Luffy understood like he always has.
“Time your breath to the waves.”
It was a funny saying he picked up, and one that Luffy had always found hilarious. Match his breath with the thing that would snatch it away if given the chance. But Zoro knew it helped during those bad nights when Luffy awoke in terror—or worse, the nights he woke from a dream and the creeping realization it could no longer be reality.
As Luffy’s shallow breaths started to deepen, Zoro matched the tempo with his own, slipping easily into a calm meditation that had been drilled into him since he was a child with broken wooden swords and a losing streak a mile long.
Luffy began to shiver as the sweat cooled on his skin. The movement exposing his bare chest to the smattering of moonbeams glancing through tree leaves. The light casting harsh lines against the starburst scar on his chest.
Luffy stopped, his hand briefly running along the scar before dropping.
“Sorry,” he said. “I know Zoro hates it.”
“Huh?” Zoro said, confused. “I was just wonderin’ if you were cold.”
“No, I—,” Luffy frowned as if wondering if he should be cold before brushing the thought away with a shake of his head. “I know you hate it,” he repeated.
Ah. So this wasn’t about him. Or at least not about him presently. “I don’t hate it,” he said.
“But you did," Luffy pressed. "He does right now.”
“It’s not…” Zoro shook his head. “It only makes him hate himself.”
Luffy’s brow furrowed. “That’s stupid.”
“Doesn’t matter.” Zoro shrugged. “He won’t tell you this. Not for ages. But from the very moment I was dumped on Kuraigana I was trying to get back to you. To our crew. I had no idea what was going on. And when I found out…” Zoro’s voice turned gentle. It’s only been two years for this Luffy. Not long enough, never long enough not to hurt. “When I found out what happened I went a little crazy. And I would have done anything to get to you. But I stayed because you ordered it. So instead, I did everything I could so we’d never be in that situation again.”
“Do you hate me for it?” Luffy’s voice was steady now, but it was thin. Do you hate me for it? But that’s also not the question he’s really asking.
Does his Zoro, the one sleeping in the bunks right now, hate his captain for the decision? Making Zoro stay away, putting a pause on their dreams and ambitions. If I have to abandon my dream for any reason…then I’m going to make you commit hara kiri!
“No,” Zoro said simply. Everything was different now. He could no longer tell where his dream ended and Luffy’s began. So intertwined as they were. How could Luffy become the King of the Pirates without the World’s Strongest Swordsman at his side? How could Zoro deserve the title if he couldn’t make his captain a King?
More than anything he hated himself for being so weak. For knowing he needed those two years and the kick to his pride. The feeling did not go away when they reunited on Sabaody. It remained even after he defeated stronger and stronger enemies. The feeling remains with him even now, in some ways. Zoro thinks he’ll live with it forever.
Zoro turned to Luffy. “He only wishes he was there. He’ll never stop wishing it.”
Luffy opened his mouth and then closed it, looking like he wanted to argue. Then slowly, he said, “At Impel Down, I met Bon Clay again…” Luffy paused and swallowed. Zoro remembered the pit in his stomach when Sanji told him what Bon Clay had done. How his sacrifice made it possible for Luffy to escape the prison in the first place. Luffy continued, “When Bon-chan first found me he wore your face.”
Zoro had not known that.
“I thought you had somehow found me. I wished it was true the whole time I was down there,” Luffy quietly admitted. “But we can’t change the past.”
“Said to the time traveler.”
“You told Robin we’ll forget.”
“How’d you—?”
Like a switch flipped Luffy laughed, obnoxious and loud enough to wake half the ship.
“I’m the captain,” he said, conspiratorially. “I always know what's happening!”
“That’s the biggest lie I ever heard.”
Luffy chuckled before getting to his feet, eyes no longer clouded from the pain of moments before. They both knew there was more to be said, still so much pain and tears and rage between the two of them. But not now and not with the cheat that came from a future Zoro who fell from the sky. The real conversations would come later, painful cathartic moments that Zoro remembered because they didn't happen here—in this forgotten space of time—but on the cold shores of Punk Hazzard and the forests of Zou.
Luffy patted Zoro on the head, pulling Zoro from his thoughts. Luffy's fingertips light against his skull, tap tap tap.
“Thanks, Zoro,” he said, simply.
“Rest easy, Captain.”
As the sun rose, the sky remained cloudless and the water calm. He’d stayed up the rest of the night brushing off offers from Franky and Brook to replace him on watch. No use sleeping when he could be pulled away at any moment. Instead, he found comfort in his usual spot and folded himself against the starboard rails as he started to hear the sounds of the kitchen coming to life.
With the morning sun, they pulled anchor and were back at sea again. The waves rolled against the Sunny in such a way that sea spray continually misted across the ship. As the Sunny cut across the waves, sunbeams mixed with the spray to create fleeting rainbows across the deck.
The mist-soaked air felt good with the heat of a new day. He tried to let it distract him from the fact that he was still stuck in the past. Almost twenty-four hours now.
So he set to what he always did when the restlessness crept under his skin.
He trained.
Picking a spot at the corner of the lawn he began a routine footwork exercise with only Wado in hand. After, when his limbs felt warmed and stretched he began executing more complex maneuvers, passing Wado rapidly between his hands to slice at the air like molten silver. As the sun rose higher, most of the crew made their way to the upper decks of the ship. Robin reading to Chopper. Nami with her maps and an iced coffee. Clinks of metal as Franky and Usopp worked on some gadget or other. Brook had come earlier asking about breakfast only to be turned away by Sanji, who still had half an hour left of preparations.
Zoro shrugged off his outer coat to escape some of the heat and was about to take a trip to the crow’s nest to grab some weights.
“Zoro.”
It felt like a fissure cracked through the air. Not unlike conqueror’s haki but somehow heavier, a vice around his lungs.
Zoro tried to turn, confused at a sudden rubbery grip on his shoulder. “Captain?”
This was the first time he’d seen Luffy all morning. And Zoro knew firsthand how easily Luffy’s mood could swing, so much like the sea he couldn’t touch. But he had no idea what, in so short a time, could make his name sound like that coming out his captain’s mouth.
A rage not directed at him since that ill-fated day on Whiskey Peak.
“Your back,” was all Luffy said, hand still tight and digging into Zoro’s shoulder.
“Hah?”
Zoro felt pressure on his back, barely, Luffy’s hand running down the length of it—and suddenly, he knew what he let slip. The mottled waxy skin of thick scars starting from his shoulder blades all the way down his spine.
“How?” Luffy demanded.
“Ah,” Zoro said, throat tight. “It’s nothing. Just bein’ careless.”
Truthfully, he mostly forgot they were there. Except when it rained or the weather was about to change. They would ache then, deep into his muscle, worse than all his other scars. After the incident—long after—when it no longer gave Nami a haunted look to see. She would joke that the wound was almost as good at sensing a change in air pressure as her.
Luffy turned on his heel and stomped towards his younger self, who moments ago had just left the washroom. Luffy started pulling at his clothes with a murderous look on his face.
“Oi—Luffy lay off. I don’t have it.” The yet hanging in the air like a curse. This younger version of himself eyed Zoro’s back with a peculiar expression. “So I get some more scars,” he said. “Who cares. You weren’t this bothered when it was my dammed eye.”
Luffy looked ready to punch him.
As Zoro watched the confrontation between the captain and his younger self unfold he felt a bit sick. He wondered if he should intervene somehow, with what he didn't know. Before he could make up his mind Zoro heard a small shuffling to his left. Sanji had stepped out of the kitchen and was leaned up against the ship rail, cigarette held to his lips.
“Scars on the back are a swordsman’s shame,” Sanji said, staring unblinkingly at Zoro. He was positioned away from the increasingly tense scene between the captain and first mate, attention solely focused on the older swordsman. “That’s what you said," he continued. "At the Baratie.”
Something about his tone made it clear he wasn’t just talking about the Baratie. But also, that bloody patch of earth on a ghost ship leagues and leagues away.
“There are bigger shames,” Zoro replied.
“Only one,” Sanji said, quietly. “For you.”
Zoro stayed silent.
Luffy turned back to him, still murderous and marching forward. “What happened.”
Zoro shrugged. “What does it matter you won’t remember the answer.”
“I’m your captain,” Luffy said, eyes gone blank in fury. “This is an order.”
“You’re n—” he tried to say but the deflection died on his tongue as Luffy continued to stare.
“I am,” Luffy said.
Zoro ran a hand through his hair.
“Blackbeard,” he spit out, quick like how he rips off his bandages when Chopper isn’t looking.
Luffy grit his teeth. “Blackbeard...” he repeated under his breath. “You lost?”
“No.”
“I lost?”
Zoro grimaced. Struck with the memory. Dragging his captain from a black vortex, half shred apart. When that blackness caught hold of him instead, ripping at his skin in an effort to keep him there.
“We’re just rescheduling to a future date.”
Something painful shot through Luffy’s expression. Too familiar. The same look that haunted Zoro for weeks after they’d escaped from Blackbeard in the first place.
“You got it because of me,” Luffy whispered.
“I would have taken the same blow for anyone on this crew.”
“But you didn't.”
“No,” he sighed. “I didn’t.”
A noise between a growl and a shout erupted from Luffy’s throat. He began to pace, hands rubbing together as if he was trying to wash them. Zoro selfishly wished to be pulled back into his own time right about now. He and Luffy barely got through the fallout the first time when his wounds were fresh. He didn’t want to live through take two especially knowing where Luffy’s head was at right now—and how could he not? This was exactly why Zoro would take Thriller Bark to the grave.
Luffy had already lost a brother because they valued Luffy’s life more than their own. Zoro was too much like Ace in that regard, unapologetically so. Even when he knew it caused Luffy pain.
“Chopper, a scar like that. How would it—”
“Luffy, stop.” His younger self clamped both hands on Luffy’s shoulders, tight. “He doesn’t regret it. And I won’t either.”
“I will!” Luffy shouted.
“And you’ll live with that,” the other man replied, voice like steel. “I can’t stop you. But you are the captain. So carry the scars, like you always have, and get stronger from them.”
It was a strange scene to witness, Zoro thought. Knowing he once said this to Luffy even if he couldn’t remember. Those words felt good though, solid on his tongue and he knew with a certainty that he had said them. Meant them too.
The captain and first mate continued to stare, his younger self’s hands still gripped iron tight on Luffy’s shoulders. Almost imperceptibly Zoro noticed the tension bleed from Luffy—like sails after the final gust of a hurricane, Luffy deflated.
Zoro wondered if this is what everyone meant when they complained about him and Luffy speaking without words. Because even from the outside it seemed clear what was being said.
But maybe that just came with the territory.
With Luffy no longer looking ready to throw punches, the crew slowly got back to their routine. Sanji disappeared into the kitchen while Nami went to sit by Robin and Chopper. Zoro picked up his coat from the ground and discretely pulled it back on, covering the scars.
Luffy stretched his arms to grab the Sunny’s mane and slungshot himself across the ship to curl up on the figurehead. Calmer now, but still glaring at the sea, arms wrapped tight around his knees.
Zoro looked out towards the horizon. The tiny island already long gone. Some dark storm clouds were just starting to form, miles and miles away. The Sunny would get caught in that storm as it sailed forth to a new adventure. One that would shake the world. No doubt they'll receive Kinemon’s distress signal today.
If everything Zoro guessed turned out true then he would be long gone by then.
Luffy’s temper had always burned bright and fast. This was no secret to his crew and, truth be told, no secret to his enemies either.
So, Zoro was hardly surprised when he heard the tell-tale slap of sandals behind him.
“You’ll be leaving soon,” Luffy said. Not a question. Even now, Luffy could always tell what he was thinking. Just like how Zoro knew exactly what Luffy would ask next now that he'd realized their time was running out.
“Who’d Zoro give his earring to?”
There it was.
Zoro turned to face him. “Ya know, your Zoro asked me that too.”
“Didja tell ‘im?”
“Nah,” Zoro said. “Didn’t need to.”
“Hmmm,” Luffy’s lips pursed. “And we won’t remember once Zoro leaves.”
“Not a thing.”
Luffy grumbled, blowing a raspberry. He stretched his arms and grabbed Zoro around the shoulders pulling him down closer to Luffy’s own height. He pressed a kiss hard and warm against Zoro’s lips before letting go.
Huh.
“Your Zoro needed more hints than that to figure it out.”
Luffy shrugged. “Zoro’s my swordsman. You even said so when you first got here.”
Zoro didn’t have it in him to feel surprised. It’s always been this way, after all. Synced up from the start. Love and loyalty—just a straight line and at the end—Luffy and Zoro.
So, of course, Luffy would know.
“How long?” Luffy demanded.
Zoro squinted at the sun. “Eh, not too long.”
“Too long,” Luffy moaned, shoulders drooping twice as low as anyone without his devil fruit would manage before suddenly snapping back into place.”Gotta find Zoro!” He all but yelled, bounding off a couple of steps, swiveling back, and kissing Zoro again. A quick peck on each eye.
“Tell Luffy I did that he’ll be jealous.”
Zoro’s shoulders shook with a laugh. “Aye, Captain.”
As Luffy shot off it wasn’t five seconds before Zoro heard his own voice: “Oi, Luffy. What the fu—“ and then a squeal at a pitch only their resident doctor could manage.
Zoro climbed down the steps back to the main deck of the Sunny. Sanji had brought out picnic blankets and set up brunch on the grassy green turf. But no one had yet settled down to eat.
Chopper, both hooves covering his mouth. Nami yelling that another million berri would be added to Zoro’s debt for morning disturbances. Not that his younger self was paying her any mind with his arms full of Luffy and getting kissed within an inch of his life.
Strange. How he and Luffy already had their first kiss and didn’t even remember it.
It was right then when he felt it. An alien pressure building behind his ribcage.
“Ah,” he said, getting their attention. “I think this is my cue.”
He barely had time to smile at them. His crew. The best crew. Before everything disappeared in a flash of violet.
“—Zoro!" A boisterous laugh. "Someone get Chopper. Zoro’s back!”
Once again Zoro found himself flat on his back on the deck of the Sunny. His captain leaning over him, blocking the sun.
Noise all around, the crew surrounding him. All their faces were relieved and in Nami’s case scolding.
“Don’t get mad at him,” Usopp wailed. “It was my fault!”
“I’m fine,” Zoro groaned, sitting up. He looked at Usopp, “Seriously don’t worry about it.”
“I’m a worrier!”
“Stop worrying or I’ll make you train with me for a month.”
“Looks like Zoro’s a-okay!” Usopp said with a salute.
Nami sighed. “Don’t ever worry us like that again, will you?”
“Ah, no promises—”
His captain, sick of waiting, clambered into his lap, callused hands on either side of his face. Brown eyes, equal parts worried and relieved, mere inches from his own.
“Zoro’s back,” Luffy said again, his voice lower now and laced with all sorts of questions. What happened? What do you need? Are you hurt? Show me any wounds and I promise I won’t tell Chopper…at least until you’re out of earshot.
Zoro rolled his eye, I’m fine, Luffy. Promise. “You finally beat ‘em, eh?”
Luffy’s affronted shout was answer enough. “Of course! Woulda been sooner but they kept runnin’ away!”
“Someone on their crew had a molerat fruit. Almost like in Alabasta,” said Usopp, coming up from behind. Chopper on his shoulders. “They kept burrowing away.”
Luffy swung his fist out wide. “We played wack-o-mole,” he grinned.
Zoro acquiesced to Chopper’s check-up even when his only injury was the repeated hits to the head via time-traveling devil fruit. Chopper still wrapped his head like a mummy.
With Zoro back and the raiders gone, Nami decided it was time to set sail again. Jinbe at the helm was a pleasant sight. Back in his own time again with more of his nakama on board.
Zoro felt warmth on his shoulder as Luffy’s head rested there. Zoro slung his arm around his captain, pulling him close and dropping a brief kiss on his temple.
“What did Zoro see?” Luffy asked, curious.
Zoro laughed, lightly tugging on the single gold drop hanging from Luffy’s ear.
“Luffy, you’re not gonna believe this.”