Chapter Text
Zoro lets the village doctor look over the cut on his chest. It barely hurts, barely feels like anything compared to the older, angrier wound left by Mihawk, but Koala had pinned him with a glare until he submitted to the doctor’s exam.
He did it less because he’s intimidated by her, and moreso because he knows this will be the last time. They’ve arrived at the Conomi Islands, identified the problem and fixed it, and now Koala can report back to Dragon. And now, Zoro’s business with the Revolutionary Army is done.
Ten years of his life, just like that.
The entire village is partying by the time Zoro extricates himself from the doctor, his torso wrapped in bandages yet again. It only takes him a moment to find Koala, next to the redhead that this entire was for, because of, their heads bent together where they sit at a quiet bench. Zoro makes sure to kick at the gravel as he approaches, steps loud and slow, but Nami still flinches at his approach. Koala notices, one hand on Nami’s bare arm—bandaged from where she had stabbed herself, the tattoo that marked her—as she smiles up at Zoro.
“Feeling better?” she asks as Zoro sits on her other side. He grunts, leaning against the stone back of the bench. To Nami, Koala says, “Don’t mind him, he doesn’t have any manners.”
Zoro kicks out at her leg and Koala responds by grinding her heel down on the top of his boot. He barely feels it, steel-toed and thick leather, but message fucking received. “It wasn’t that bad,” he grumbles, because it wasn’t. Koala just hums sweetly.
“Zoro, this is Nami. She’s the Straw Hat’s navigator.” Koala leans back as she introduces them.
In the dying light of the sun, the bonfire the villagers are laughing around, Zoro can see how the day has worn on Nami. It’s hard to imagine it’s been just a day, that morning he stood across from Mihawk on the Baratie, but he’s no stranger to the ways the days stretch long and hard on the Seas. Nami’s eyes are red and puffy, and Zoro wonders how many times she’s cried.
He doesn’t ask that. He doesn’t say anything but: “You good at it?”
Nami lifts her chin. “I’m going to map out the entire world,” she says. That’s a grand goal. It reminds him of Sabo in a way, his dream to keep a log of all his travels. He had an entire shelf in their room dedicated to his logbooks.
When he laughs, it’s not mean, or unkind. “The Pirate King, a cook who wants to find the All Blue, and a woman who wants to map the entire world… This crew’s filled with interesting people, huh?”
It makes Nami smile, a quirk of her lips. It’s gone just as quickly, though. “Why did you help me?” Her voice is quiet in the night. Zoro has to strain to hear her over the noise of the party. “Luffy, I get, because I was part of their crew, but you two don’t know me.”
Zoro hears the undercurrent of it: What do I owe you? He knows Koala hears it too, because she just sighs. They’ve heard it a hundred times before, with that they do. There’s no such thing as freedom without a price. Without a reason. For people like Nami, it’s hard to take because it’s the right thing at face value.
“When I was little, I was a slave to the Celestial Dragons,” Koala starts off with. The way she says it is carefully detached, like there’s a veil between her and the memories. “Three years into my time there, a fish-man named Fisher Tiger ransacked Mariejois and freed hundreds of us. He was the captain of the Sun Pirates—the crew Arlong used to run with. I remember Arlong from a few weeks I spent on their ship returning home. I remember he was cruel, too stuck in his ways… When I heard he was here, that he had his own crew, I knew it didn’t mean anything good.
“If it makes you feel better, you can think it was a personal vendetta. But the truth is that I can’t stand injustice. The truth is that you, your village, needed saving, and so we helped you.” Koala slumps into Zoro’s side once she finishes speaking. He keeps a careful eye on her, and then Nami, sees the way her shoulders drop. And then Koala adds: “And this one is a little charmed by your captain.”
“Fuck off,” Zoro grumbles, but he can’t help the way his face heats up. He doesn’t have the words to explain it.
Luffy is like a force of nature. That’s what Zoro thought, watching them face Don Krieg. He heard Red-Leg Zeff say something like blind spear of determination, and it was fitting. Luffy is just—simple. It’s easy for Zoro to follow their thoughts, the way their words and actions fit together. And they want to be Pirate King. It’s a grand dream, as grand as Zoro’s.
“Luffy sure is something,” Nami agrees. She gives Zoro a sidelong look. “Did they make you join the crew?”
Zoro shakes his head. He doesn’t want to voice it—that he wants to, that he wants to follow Luffy on their journey—because he doesn’t want to set himself up for disappointment.
Nami makes a noise but doesn’t push it. She reaches out and takes Koala’s hand and tells her, “I’m glad we’re both free of him.” It sits between them for a moment until she rises from her spot. Zoro watches her until he realizes she’s making her way to Luffy, who’s holding court with that blonde cook and random villagers. They’re grinning broadly, bandages wrapped around their arms. Zoro stares until Koala elbows him in the side.
“This is it, then,” she says. It’s hard to read her tone. She’s the best of them at undercover missions, at masking her true emotions. Zoro hates how she attained the skill, but sometimes he hates that she has the skill even more.
“Are you still mad?”
“I’m not—mad,” which means she is. “I’m just… I’m used to people leaving. But I don’t think I’ve ever gotten any good at dealing with it. You’re one of my best friends, Zoro, and I’m going to miss you. And maybe I’m a little mad, yes.”
“I’m not leaving you,” Zoro says, because he’s not. “If anything, you and Sabo are the reasons I stayed for so long.”
Koala sniffles. It’s the lead-up to her crying, which is the last thing Zoro wants to deal with. She leans her head on his shoulder, both of them overlooking the party. Nami has joined her crew, and Luffy has one arm around her waist as they tear into a plate of food. The four of them look happy, even with all their injuries.
“You want to join them, don’t you?” she asks. “Roronoa Zoro, fearsome pirate.”
“Roronoa Zoro, greatest swordsman in the world,” he counters. And then, after a long moment, “Yeah. I do.”
“They seem like a good team,” Koala says. “Not better than Sabo and I, of course.”
Zoro tightens his grip on her. “No one can beat you two,” he promises. He watches as Luffy stretches their arms out, grabbing a plate from a passing villager and a bottle of booze from another. And then Luffy breaks away from their little group and heads towards Zoro and Koala.
When Luffy gets close enough, they push the plate of food in Koala’s lap and the booze into Zoro’s free hand. How they figured that out, Zoro doesn’t know. Like this, closer, Zoro can see the way the fight with Arlong has left them bruised. Still, Luffy is made of rubber—it always bounces back.
“Join my crew,” Luffy says, an imperial command rather than a question. “I need a swordsman!”
Zoro catches Koala’s eye and grins. “No,” he says. “I don’t have time to be a pirate if I’m going to be the world’s greatest swordsman.”
“That’s exactly why you should join my crew!” Luffy huffs, pouting at him. “I’m going to be the Pirate King, so I should have the world’s greatest swordsman at my side.”
“Is that so?” Zoro asks.
Luffy grins. “You caught me! You’re a good guy, ‘cause you helped us with Nami.”
Zoro stares at them. You’re a good guy. Luffy must not pay attention to the newspaper, or bounties. Zoro doesn’t know how many of him that have been released with his scowling face with the name DEMON OF REBELLION underneath an ever-increasing number. He knows what he does is good, trying to help people all across the Seas, but he’s never been called a good guy.
Zoro’s too sharp for that, too bloodthirsty, got too much ambition in his veins.
“If you say so,” Zoro says, after too much time has passed. Luffy’s smile doesn’t dim. “And what about my dream? Is me joining your little crew going to interfere with me becoming the world’s greatest swordsman?”
“I would never get in the way of someone’s dream!” Luffy says, another imperial statement from them. “I can promise you that.”
It feels weightier than it should be, this promise from a teenager. There’s just something about Luffy, despite their airiness, despite being so quick to laugh and so quick to smile. Zoro looks at them and sees a crown.
“You got yourself a pirate, then,” Zoro says. It feels like looking at the sun, golden warmth, when Luffy smiles at him.
“Yes!” Luffy cheers. They wrap their arms around Zoro, as best they can with Koala in the way, in a rubbery hug. “Now I just need a musician, a doctor, another musician... Oi, Sanji, what other people do I need on a crew?”
And then they bound, back to the rest of their crewmates. Zoro watches them go, his new captain, and feels it settle into place inside of him. “It’ll be like I’m with you and Sabo still.”
Koala laughs. It’s strained and quiet, and she tries to burrow into his side like she’s trying to become one with him. “I don’t think we’ll find anyone that can replace you, Zoro.”
He’s not replacing them, he’s not. But Zoro knows he doesn’t have the right words to explain that. So he just tightens his grip on her, crushing her to his side like they could merge into one person. It’d be nice, to not have to miss her. Zoro thinks he’s already starting to.
In the morning, Zoro boards the Going Merry with the Straw Hat Pirates. The harbor is free of any other boats, including the ketch he and Koala traveled in. That’s the thing with goodbyes. None of them are any good at it.
Sailing with the Straw Hats is the closest thing to being a normal teenager, Zoro thinks. He’s the oldest, besides the cook, and days on the Going Merry are lazy and unhurried, a marked contrast from how he spent his days with the Revolutionary Army. Zoro doesn’t slack on his training, working out and doing katas in his free time, but the rest of his new crew doesn’t seem as bothered.
Luffy is motivated by their stomach more than anything else, whether it be fishing for dinner or launching themself at a passing island for food. Usopp spends most of his time tinkering on deck, creating miniature bombs and traps. (He hadn’t been too appreciative when Zoro stopped to admire his work and offhandedly mentioned, I really could’ve used shit like this when we were sieging a castle.) Nami splits her time between drawing maps of the East Blue, recreating the work she did for Arlong, and resting among her mikan trees. The cook, at least, spends most of his time in the kitchen. He bitches at Zoro, who bitches back, feeling the closest he’s gotten to arguing with Ivankov since they were caught.
It’s fun. Zoro hasn’t thought of sailing as fun before. It was a means to an end: get to an island that needs their help and help then, then return to Baltigo. The ships the Revolutionary Army used weren’t much bigger than the Going Merry, always small enough for a small crew, but they were more… nondescript. There’s no hiding what type of ship the Going Merry is, not with the black flag raised proud.
Nami at least appreciates the fact that Zoro has more sailing knowledge than the rest of them, making a point of thanking him everytime Zoro furls the sails without her asking. It makes Sanji bitch at Zoro more, so Zoro bitches back, and Luffy just laughs amongst their arguing.
They’re coming up on the last island before Reverse Mountain, Loguetown. Zoro’s never been, but he knows all about it. Loguetown has the highest marine presence of any island in the East Blue to scare off pirates hoping to cross into the Grand Line. Zoro informs Nami, who tells the rest of the crew that they’re only going to dock long enough to stock up for the journey and leave.
This was wishful thinking on both parts.
Loguetown has a weird air to it. Zoro knows this was where Gol D. Roger died, inciting both the golden age of piracy but also Dragon into starting the Revolutionary Army. Besides that, it’s nondescript. It’s normal. People come and go, uncaring that they stand in a place that started so much. The island has tried to scrub itself of its past, but it still lingers.
Zoro, missing two swords since his run-in with Mihawk, goes looking for a sword shop. Instead, he finds a ghost. The woman—a marine, he notices, in a way that makes his blood curl—looks just like Kuina. There’s none of Kuina’s anger, though, her brash attitude or her grace. The marine with a dead girl’s face is clumsy and awkward, but when she unsheathes her sword, it’s like seeing what an adult Kuina would be like.
What she should have been like.
It’s unsettling. It’s even worse when she follows him, when she holds Wado in her hands looking far too much like the girl Zoro left behind. Zoro doesn’t believe in divine retribution, not from the false gods lording over this world or any others, but for a moment he thinks it’s finally comes for him. He’s strayed from his path and he’s been found wanting.
He only thinks that for a few minutes. There’s a sword calling out to him, hungry and wanting, and Zoro knows how that feels. He doesn’t care about a curse. A sword isn’t meant to languish in a bin next to rusted hilts and dull edges. Kitetsu doesn’t cut him on the way down, and Zoro thinks it’s her way of saying thanks.
Then he finds out Luffy is on the execution platform, and starts running.
The execution square is clustered with people, all of them looking at where Luffy has their head stuffed into a pillory. It’s a fight, everything poured into ensuring Luffy lives, the man Zoro has dedicated his life to, but he’s not fast enough. It’s shameful, to be this useless to his new captain. Luffy looks out over the crowd and yells: “Sorry. I’m dead!” And then they laugh, a gum-filled smile that’s impossible to miss. Zoro stutters to a halt, walking as the sword swings done, at Luffy’s smile, at Luffy’s declaration.
There’s a flash of lightning that turns the entire world white. The noise is resounding, booming across the square like a thousand cannons firing at once. Zoro’s ears ring as the noise fades, as the light fades, and he sees the execution platform upended on its side. From the rubble, Luffy stands, looking unharmed from the lightning, unharmed from the fall.
Next to him, Sanji asks, “Do you believe in a higher power?” his voice filled with incredulity.
Zoro looks at Luffy and replies, “Don’t talk nonsense.” It’s not a higher power that saved Luffy. He knows that much. “Now let’s fucking run!”
The marines are easy to slice through. Despite Loguetown being on the precipice of Reverse Mountain, the East Blue is still calm waters. They don’t employ the strongest marines here. Zoro takes slight satisfaction in how they’re destroying the marine base here. It isn’t until the ghost steps in front of him that he falters. She’s too much like Kuina, in a way that infuriates him. He should kill her, another one of the marines’ dogs, but he doesn’t. He’s not sure why that is.
The weather turns bad, fast, familiar in a way Zoro doesn’t think about until he sees the figure standing over Smoker and Luffy. He’d recognize the man anywhere, the shape of him, the way he turns the air electric with his haki.
“You don’t have to follow me like I’m a child, Dragon!” Zoro calls out to him, grabbing onto Luffy’s arm and ripping them out of the way. “Go meddle in someone else’s life!”
He doesn’t want to admit he’s pleased, in a way, to see Dragon one more time. Even if they can’t talk. For Dragon to help him, no less. It’s a reminder: the revolution will still help him. As he runs, Luffy tucked under his arm, Sanji joins after a moment, yelling at Zoro about fighting a girl. When he looks behind himself, because he can’t help it, Dragon is gone, disappeared into the shadows like he always has. The rain keeps pelting down.
The Going Merry can barely keep itself afloat in the roiling waters. Still, Nami barks out orders that brings them closer and closer to Reverse Mountain. It’s fitting, for this crew, Zoro thinks as the wind tosses the boat around. There hasn’t been much calm for the days he’s been sailing with them.
He likes it.
The cook drags a water barrel into the middle of the deck, grinning wildly in the way all of them are grinning wildly. He slams his foot onto the top of the barrel and declares his dream: “I’m going to find the All Blue!”
Zoro laughs, water splashing across the deck, the rain falling into his eyes, as they fall in with him, declaring their dreams. Luffy says I’m gonna be King of the Pirates! for the second time that day, that hour, and Zoro knows it to be a prophecy that will one day come to pass. His own dream is the same; he’ll be the world’s greatest swordsman, no matter what it takes. Nami shouts, “I’m going to draw a map of the world!” and her laughter rings clear despite the storm. And even with Usopp’s courage running out, with the storm and the marines around them, he still says in his wobbly voice: “I’m going to become a brave warrior of the sea!”
The storm tosses them from side to side, and Zoro doubts that it’s a natural storm. It’s what follows a man like Luffy—this is what will forever be in their wake, a storm that tears down history for something new, something better, to be built in its place. The same resolve he’s seen in Dragon, in Kuma, in Sabo and Koala, he sees it in Luffy too. Zoro knows there will never be a dull day as long as he’s following Luffy.