Chapter Text
The staring match between the crew and their suddenly-alive captain didn't last long.
Luffy's face transitioned from shocked to frightened and then to unadulterated panic. The next moment, he was already hoisting himself up using the cross as support. He couldn't get a good hold of it though as his hands continuously slipped and his weakened legs seemed to refuse to fully carry his weight.
One didn't need to be a doctor to realize just how severely injured he was. He looked dead tired, thoroughly exhausted, even keeping himself upright seemed to cost him all of his remaining strength. It ran out rather quickly too. The moment Luffy managed to regain his footing, his knees buckled underneath him.
At that instant, all eight Straw Hat pirates surged forward in eagerness to help their captain and to steady him. To offer their unconditional support, to assure that they were never going to leave him alone and would follow him to the end of the world. Then maybe they would scold him for scaring them, reprimand him for threatening to leave them alone, admonish him for giving them false news of dying before spoiling and pampering him as much as they wanted and he allowed.
Unsurprisingly, Sanji was the first one to reach the teen. His hand shot out to catch the falling body as his mouth opened to ask, "Are you alright, Lu—"
His Observation Haki screamed.
The blond reacted almost a fraction too late and the Haki-hardened fist passed a mere inch from his head. The wind pressure generated by the sheer force and speed of that punch left a shallow graze on his cheek. Out of reflex, Sanji backed off, shock and disbelief stealing the air out of his lungs.
The rest of the crew stopped behind him, no one able to truly believe what they had just witnessed.
Luffy had attacked Sanji?
The rebound of his own rubber limb snapping into place sent Luffy staggering. He found his footing by making a small jump back, landing clumsily into a crouch. Winding his arm around his stomach, he sucked in a breath that sounded suspiciously like a strangled groan of pain, and soon after blood trickled down from the corner of his mouth. Black eyes, however, never strayed from the group in front of him, and there was so much enmity and resentment bleeding into his glare that it sent shivers down their spines.
Usopp arms instinctively went up into a placating gesture as if pacifying a spooked animal. "Calm down Luffy, we can talk about this?" he spoke with hesitancy, scared to trigger an aggressive reaction.
"Luffy, don't you recognize us?!" Nami's voice tore from her throat, palpable desperation making her heart pound against her ribcage. "It's us!"
The teen wiped the blood from his mouth with a quick flick of his wrist, wincing when he accidentally brushed across the burned flesh around his neck, and then replied slowly, "I can see that." His voice was cold and harsh, biting in a way that the Straw Hats never knew their captain was capable of. "Though, there are some weirdos mixed in."
The uneasiness made Brook's blood run cold in his veins, despite his lack of both. "Luffy-san, what are you talking about?" he asked, carefully and genuinely baffled.
"You're scaring me, Luffy," Chopper sniffled, trying to gather his wits about him. His nakama needed medical attention and he needed it now! "You're injured! It's my duty to look after your injuries!"
Luffy's eyebrows furrowed slightly.
Franky stood, arms angled uncertainly by his sides, the internal conflict being evident in his wavered stance. "That's not super at all, Luffy!" he called, his metal-laden arms remaining abnormally slack.
Robin remained silent in her observations. She noticed how his expression seemed to be saturated with intense mistrust, bitterness, and ever-present weariness. She felt as though she were looking into a broken mirror from the past—not quite the same, but not entirely different. Her face from her numbing, lonely, and dark past. Her face before she met her nakama, before they saved her. Her heart trembled at the implication.
Zoro didn't utter a word either. With a thunderous scowl, he observed Luffy, puzzling over his sudden hostile behavior towards them. His keen gaze didn't miss how the younger man subtly shifted his body to alleviate the burden from his left side and spine and registered a variety of alarmed twitches his muscles made at the crew's slightest movement. As if expecting a sneak attack or ambush and was ready to defend himself from all sides.
"Luffy, let's return to Sunny and talk it all out at the dinner table," Sanji suggested kindly, though precarious. He kept chewing on his cigarette, an unhealthy, nervous habit that reared its ugly head when he was especially agitated or concerned. "I'll cook as much meat as you like."
That appeared to be an absolutely wrong thing to say. Luffy's eyes narrowed dangerously, lips curling into a snarl, and he growled out, "What are you playing at, Vinsmoke?"
Sanji froze, every cell in his body going taut while his mind tried to comprehend the fact that Luffy knew. His jaw went slack for a brief second before tightening so hard that he accidentally bit his cigarette in two.
"Did you hit your head or something?" the rubber teen continued, not really paying attention to the blond's strange reaction. Or confusion of the others. "I don't know what you all are trying to accomplish here." He heaved his body slightly up as he spoke, swayed, but stubbornly maintained his posture by the sheer willpower alone. One hand gripped one of his knees while the other's knuckles touched the ground. "But I'm not staying to figure it out."
"No, Luffy!" the reindeer screamed, eyes blown wide in panic. The stance of the Second Gear was all too familiar for him and the crew. "Don't use it!" he pleaded. Luffy ignored his warnings and pumped his legs. Fear consumed Chopper, terror swelling inside his chest as he watched steam slowly began to rise out of the teen's suddenly pink-tinted skin. "You could—"
And then their captain vanished in a blur.
"—die!"
Chopper's high-pitched, anxious cry echoed into the distance. The Straw Hats stared dumbly at the empty spot, at a small eddy of dust such a high-speed movement swept up from the ground. It gradually settled down, blanketing the grass and soil. Now that they were looking at it, there were evident stains of fresh blood here and there, the red droplets shining brightly in the sunlight and penetrating their guilt-ridden consciences like knives.
The straw hat laid forgotten on the ground near the lonesome grave. Luffy hadn't taken it with him. He didn't seem to care about it at all. This disconnection with his prized possession was just another piece of the vexing puzzle.
Robin walked towards the cross and picked up the abandoned hat. Her movement jerked the crew out of their stunned stupor.
Usopp decided that to unravel this bizarre mystery, he had to start from something easier. "What do you mean by Luffy could die, Chopper?" he inquired as he turned to look at their extremely distraught doctor. "Sure, that technique puts a great strain on his body, but—"
"You don't understand!" the little Zoan user yelled on the verge of panic. "He's injured! I-I-I couldn't fully examine the extent of it, but from what I could see, it's serious! The last time Luffy sustained such damage was probably during his fight in Thriller Bark!"
That brought everyone's mind into a grinding halt, fear sinking into their guts like a chunk of ice, burning their insides with its extreme coldness.
The crew knew about Zoro's sacrifice on Thriller Bark. No one spoke about it, not all of them were even aware that the rest of them knew or how they got hold of that knowledge. The only one who definitely was left out of the loop was Luffy, every Straw Hats going out of their way to assure that it stayed that way.
Sure, they knew the real reason why their captain was so high-spirited in the aftermath of that battle, but they could also remember the state he had been before the new Warlord showed himself. The damage had been devastating. Luffy was hurt so badly and certainly pushed his body to its limits and beyond that. Far, far beyond that.
If the Straw Hats were worried sick back then, they were absolutely on the edge of panic right now.
Would they have to experience losing their rubbery idiot again when they just got him back?
"Okay…" Nami expelled all air out of her lungs in a single exhale. "Okay, okay, okay," she rambled, rubbing her forehead to ease the headache as her mind worked in overdrive to find an explanation to all of this mess. "Is it that why Luffy doesn't seem to remember us? Because he's hurt?"
"I—" Chopper paused, lips twitching down into a thoughtful frown. "I don't know. If he received head trauma… But he's rubber! He should be immune to blunt damage! And I didn't see any lacerations on his head!"
"There are ways to bypass the Devil Fruit powers. Like Haki," Sanji pointed out quietly. His lighter closed with a soft click after lighting a new cigarette and he quickly stuffed his hands into the pockets of his pants before anyone noticed them shaking.
"But it's not true that Luffy-san doesn't remember us," Brook chimed in, his fingers curling around the handle of his cane so hard that his phalanges creaked. "Not entirely."
Franky nodded his buzz-cut head in agreement. "Yeah, he seemed to recognize some of us."
"But we don't really know why, do we?" Usopp asked, glancing around his nakama, waiting for someone to have a eureka moment and solve this problem. To his dismay, everyone appeared as confused as he was.
"I don't care if Luffy doesn't—" Chopper's throat cramped up, a new sob clawing its way up. He gulped it down and braved forward. "I don't care if Luffy doesn't remember me, I still want to help him!"
A gentle smile perched on Robin's lips as she uttered, "Of course, Chopper. We all feel the same." Then she pressed Luffy's straw hat into their youngest crewmember's hands for comfort and to help him anchor himself down.
Zoro stared at the forest where Luffy disappeared. His fingers brushed across all of his meito hilts, trailing the twists and turns of their wrappings, until he shifted them into a strong grip around Wado Ichimonji, bringing forth the familiar sense of confidence and stability; the feeling that was hard to grasp and kept slipping in and out of focus these past two years. Then he finally spoke, "We're going to find Luffy and fix this."
And where Robin's voice was soothing velvet that seemed to just caress everyone's hearts, Zoro's was firm and solid, causing their bodies to straighten and minds to concentrate. Those words didn't come from just the swordsman of the Straw Hat Pirates. Even if the title had never been used, the crew knew, at this moment, it was their First Mate speaking.
"We won't fail our Captain again," Zoro said, no, commanded as he looked into each of their eyes, glaring through them straight into their souls and hammering the order—for it couldn't have been taken as anything else—like a final nail in the coffin of their insecurities. "Never again."
The Captain of the Straw Hats was their guiding light first and foremost, but the First Mate's primary duty was to become a pillar of strength for the crew in the times of need.
Zoro watched, satisfied, as his seven nakama gathered themselves and their expression hardened with a resolve imprinting itself onto their features.
"Alright." Nami put her hands on her hips as she surveyed the crew. "We need to figure out the quickest way to find Luffy."
"We should split into teams," Franky suggested. "That way we can cover more ground."
"I crafted special smoke signals that we could use," Usopp said, digging through his satchel before pulling the intended gadgets with a victorious 'Aha!' "But I have only a couple with me, the rest is on the ship."
Chopper also finished browsing through his own inventory, Luffy's straw hat safely pulled on top of his own hat. "I need to go back to Sunny!" he exclaimed, slipping his backpack on. "I didn't bring the necessary supplies to treat… to treat such serious injuries."
"I'll accompany you," Robin volunteered. "We can retrieve Usopp's additional smoke signals at the same time."
"We should not forget that Luffy-san might not want to accept our help." Brook's straightforward and somewhat cruel albeit fair observation instantly put a damper on the group's steadily rising mood.
"Let's worry about it once we find him," Sanji proposed. As he glanced at Nami, he brightened up and his eyes filled with hearts. "Let's make the team of love, Nami-swan! Just the two of us! I swear to protect you with my life!"
The navigator pursed her lips. There was something innately off with the blond's sudden burst of flirtatious comments, but she couldn't quite put a finger on what was amiss.
"Cook," Zoro called and Sanji stiffened at his steely tone. "Why did Luffy address you as Vinsmoke?"
"Oh, yeah," Nami agreed. "I was wondering about that too."
Sanji's hands were in the white-knuckled fists inside his pockets. After a few abnormally long seconds, he averted his eyes, unable to endure the demanding gazes of his nakama suddenly fixated solely on him.
"We don't have time for this!" Chopper shrieked, beyond upset that they were all loitering around uselessly. "Luffy needs us!"
"Guuuuuys!"
Usopp's shrill scream inevitably made everyone to look at their sniper and see what got him all riled up. And then they saw it.
The sky was cracking again. But this time it wasn't just one crack, there were several of them, glowing with purplish-white light from within. Various sized fissures, rifts, and crevices spread over the whole expanse of the dome above the island, growing bigger with each passing second. Occasionally the cracks met, merging together, and the splitting accelerated in double the speed.
"Oh, shit."
Who exactly voiced this remark was irrelevant, because it perfectly summed the thoughts of all the Straw Hats at this moment.
Then, the sky exploded.
Zoro groaned in his position among the broken boughs of the bush where he was tossed by the blast of the sky shattering. Chopper got blown straight into his lap, so at least that kept the little reindeer safe.
"Oi, Chopper, you okay there?" the swordsman asked as he pulled himself up and cracked his stiff neck.
The doctor of the Straw Hats started to move, moaning and rubbing the abused parts of his body. "Yeah, everything still in place," he replied. "You?"
"I'm fine," Zoro grumbled out, already pushing himself to his feet.
After a quick once-over to make sure it was true, Chopper jumped down and immediately raced away to check on the others.
Zoro noticed Nami standing on the hill nearby, head lifted up as she watched the sky. If the deep lines of apprehension etched on her face were anything to go by, it seemed that they landed themselves into yet another mess.
He followed her gaze.
The sky was still there, fortunately, but now it had numerous streams of colorful light weaving across it from one side of the island to the other, the edges disappearing into the thick fog that surrounded the land from all directions.
Zoro stopped next to the navigator, his scowl matching hers in intensity. "How bad?"
Nami let out a soft 'hmm' as her expression sunk into itself even further. "I'm not sure," she replied in honesty. There was worry, annoyance, uncertainty, and many other emotions seeping into her response. "I watched those rocks appear out of thin air," she pointed towards the bay and the rock formation now being washed by the waves in its corner, not that far from the Thousand Sunny, "and there were trees that disappeared over there. And also…" The woman hesitated before taking a breath and pushing forward. "Luffy's grave also disapp—" She blinked at the wooden cross that continued standing tall despite the several assaults of cataclysmic winds. Nami growled, throwing her arms up, obviously frustrated. "What's going on?! It was gone a minute ago!"
Zoro said nothing, his sharp gaze scanning the objects his nakama just pointed out, willing to see something that the navigator might have overlooked and could help them to understand the current situation better.
"Doesn't that fog look familiar, Nami?" Robin's steady voice resounded from behind their backs and soon the archeologist joined the duo on a hill overlooking the bay.
"What do you mean?"
"The Rainbow Mist."
Nami's suddenly wide eyes darted to look at the mysterious fog again. "I need to examine it from up close," was her conclusion in the end, leaving her in a distressed rush of air. "I'm worried about Luffy, but we won't be able to help him if we don't know what's going on here and be prepared to deal with whatever this is."
"I still need to go to Sunny," Chopper piped in from beside the three pirates. "Everyone is okay, but Franky got stuck so others are trying to get him out," he reported dutifully.
"Alright, I'm going with you and Robin to Sunny. I want to take the waver to check out that rock formation and the fog. You," the navigator's finger pressed against Zoro's chest, "are coming with us." She peered at him through half-lidded eyes, daring to object. "We can't let you get yourself lost on the island while we know nothing about our situation."
"Wha—You—I'm not—!" the man sputtered in denial eliciting amused chuckles from Robin and Chopper. "Oi!" Nami, however, ignored him with grace. "You damn witch…"
There was a whoop of triumph followed by a booming 'Suuuuuper comeback!' from the spot where the other Straw Hats were preoccupied with untangling their cyborg from the position he got himself into.
"Usopp, Franky, Brook, and Sanji-kun will start with the search of our wayward Captain. You heard me, boys?" Three 'Aye!' and one delighted 'Aye, aye, Nami-swan~!" reached Nami's ears and she nodded. "Let's move then!"
Zoro was still grumbling his displeasure out even after Nami sped up away from the Thousand Sunny on the waver.
"I'm going to grab what I need!" Chopper exclaimed, already sprinting towards the stairs up.
"And I'll search for Usopp's smoke signals," Robin informed as she started walking to the aquarium bar door so that she could go through it and down to the workshops. "Don't get lost in the meantime, Zoro."
A throbbing vein popped on Zoro's forehead and he flared up like an agitated firecracker, "Who's getting lost?!"
The dark-haired woman laughed lightly. Suddenly, she spotted a few drops of red on the otherwise pristine green lawn and her body froze. "Wait!" she shouted, an obvious urgency layering her voice.
Zoro frowned and Chopper skidded to a halt two steps away from the stairs. Both turned to the archeologist, mutely demanding for an explanation.
Robin's eyes tracked the barely noticeable bloody and dirty trail from the railing to the boy's room, then across the lawn to the aquarium room, from there going around the tree with swings and up the stairs to the upper deck. "He's here," she whispered, sounding a bit breathless. "Luffy."
Chopper gasped and instantly shifted into his full-grown reindeer form, sniffing the air. And there it was—the scent he had yearned to smell for two excruciating long, lonely years. Despite it being sullied by the horrible stench of blood and burned rubber right now, it still was immensely comforting, intimately familiar.
Zoro also focused, spreading his Observation Haki to blanket the whole ship. And he found it. He was in motion even before he could confirm that this flicker of life was indeed his captain.
The free Straw Hats raced up the stairs, across the upper deck, around the galley, and through the door to the infirmary. The door slammed open with the force that almost left it embedded into the wall.
It startled the person inside. He jerked in surprise and the medicine bottle he held slipped through his fingers, shattering into dozens of small glass pieces. Spilled healing liquid quickly soaked into the wooden floorboards.
Luffy looked so vulnerable at this very moment, so hopeless, in a desperate need for the smallest act of kindness. Completely and utterly defeated.
The trio's hearts skipped a beat, the sight forever seared into the back of their eyelids. Somehow, it felt worse than the image of Luffy screaming and crying when his nakama were cruelly ripped away from him one by one. At least then he had someone to fight for.
Yet, this Luffy looked like he had absolutely no one. No one to fight for. No one to live for.
The Straw Hats couldn't even begin to identify what they felt seeing their captain in such a state. Sadness? Anger? Grief? Terror? The need to rain their rightful wrath upon those who managed to put such expression on their Sun?
Probably all of it and more. Much, much more.
But in a blink of an eye, all those seemingly out of place emotions were wiped clean, tucked away where no one could see, replaced with an alert and cautious face. Luffy's eyes jotted around the room, lingered on the second exit for a bit, but then settled back on the three people. Observing, searching, judging.
With a poof, Chopper returned to his usual child-like form.
A tiny pinch between Luffy's eyebrows was the only reaction to his transformation. He took a small step back, however, when the little reindeer made one forward.
"Let me—let me help you, Luffy!" The pure anguish raised Chopper's already high-pitched voice by a few octaves higher. "Let me take care of your injuries!"
Few intense seconds ticked by in the deathly silence.
"Are you a doctor?"
Chopper felt like someone just poured a bucket of ice-cold water on him. Luffy's question, such a simple and harmless inquiry, was a glaring proof that he did not remember him. "Yes…" he mumbled around the ball in his throat that threatened to choke him. But Luffy needed him and he wasn't about to abandon him for such a pathetic reason. "Yes," he said louder, scrubbing at his face to not let tears fall. "Yes! I'm the doctor!" he yelled at the top of his lungs. "I'm the doctor of the Straw Hat Pirates!"
The guarded, calculating stare from his captain had almost crushed Chopper. He was fidgeting, he knew that, practically vibrating with the urge to start the treatment.
And his perseverance was rewarded with a tired, "Fine."
The little doctor went through his cabinets and drawers like a hurricane. Within a brief period Luffy took to walk from the desk to the bed on the other side of the infirmary, he already had a mountain of all the necessary supplies dumped on the bed.
"No pills," the teen said with a finality that left no room for disapproval as he saw the little Zoan user fiddling with the pill bottle. "Also just basic treatment."
"Wha… But, Luffy!" Chopper let out a whine of distress. He was upset, rightfully so. If he disagreed, his idiot captain might just run away again. But the basics were galaxies away from enough to treat all of his injuries! His brain soon turned to a mental soup of conflicting instructions.
"We won't fail out Captain again. Never again."
In that case, his basic medical care would have to become equal to other doctor's full treatment. Chopper almost slapped himself. It was such a simple solution. "Okay. Now sit."
A ghost of a smile passed the rubber teen's lips. As swiftly as it appeared, it vanished, safely hidden behind the mask of neutrality. He seemed relatively at ease around the young doctor, but the same couldn't be said about the presence of the other two pirates. He continuously kept his eyes on them, his vigilance never wavering. Not even then he briefly turned his back at them as he sat on the bed, an action done obviously on purpose.
There was a wound sliced into his flesh, going from his left shoulder to the small of his back. Some parts were blackened and crusted with charcoal, the edges of the tattered red vest charred as if burnt by an open fire.
Zoro clenched his teeth, silver eye turning into an ocean of smoldering rage. He was a master swordsman, so he could tell with a single glance that this particular cut was done by a sword with intent to cause as much pain as possible. Not deep enough to instantly kill a person, but big enough to let him gradually lose strength and eventually bleed out.
Not to mention, it was located on his back, the area that no self-respecting swordsmen with honor and pride in their bladed partners should have ever attacked deliberately.
Chopper started to work on Luffy's extensive amount of cuts, bruises, and burns, while the man himself scrutinized the other two people's reaction. Robin showed no outward feelings, perfect poker face firmly in place, but the swordsman's left him noticeably baffled.
"Did you… did you try to cauterize this?" the reindeer asked, hands trembling as he carefully poured a medicine on the gash to disinfect it.
"I got kicked into the burning tree," Luffy replied, unconcerned as though he was talking about the weather. "So it stopped the bleeding, huh. How lucky."
Zoro shuffled to the desk, feeling the rubber teen's wary gaze boring into him all the way there, and leaned against it, one hand resting loosely on his katana and the other gripping the edge of the desk.
Now that Chopper could examine it from up close, he could see that the burn around Luffy's throat had a distinctive form of two palms. Almost like someone attempted to strangle him while their hands were on fire. The reindeer didn't dare to ask directly and so decided to seek an explanation in a roundabout way. "Did you get these neck burns from the same tree?" he prodded carefully.
However, the soft and tight, "No," was all he got this time.
The silence that followed threatened to suffocate them.
This time it was Luffy who decided to break it. "Why are you called Straw Hat Pirates?"
"Our Captain used to wear the straw hat that Chopper is safeguarding at the moment," Robin replied. She smiled kindly when the teen glanced at her. "It was his greatest treasure."
"Used to?"
"He was killed."
"And you think I'm him?"
That made Robin pause. Luffy replied without a change in tone, yet capable of sounding so skeptical. This paranoid, hardened, weary variation of her captain fell out of her comprehension level. She couldn't get a good read on him at all, his ability to conceal his true emotions rivaled hers.
That notion alone threw Robin off balance.
None of the archeologist's inner misgivings were displayed outwards. Her friendly smile didn't falter in the slightest either. "You do look alike," she pointed out, testing what his reply would be to that.
"Dead people don't come back."
He was riling them up, Robin realized with sudden clarity. Taunting them, baiting, trying to get a rise out of them, so that they revealed their true colors. That plan had one big drawback—they would have had some kind of ulterior motive. They didn't. Unless their wish to take care of the person they all loved so unconditionally was worthy to call it like that.
Zoro's mind was stuck on a completely different matter. Something was nagging at him, whispering to his instincts, but the moment he tried to grasp it, it slithered out of his reach. There was a blazing desire to know, so he asked, "Who gave you that wound?"
Luffy's attention snapped back at him. The tension in the room reached new heights, the stillness fraught with all the unasked and unanswered questions.
Luffy smirked. Just a tiny twist of his lips as if he knew something while they were still fumbling in the dark. "It was done by the Pirate Hunter, Roronoa Zoro."
The swordsman lost the grip on the desk for a single, heart-stopping second before tightening it again.
"Zoro would never do that!"
"It's funny that the Pirate Hunter would try to kill me," Luffy continued, ignoring Chopper's little defensive outburst, those familiar and yet somehow different features awash with uncharacteristic vicious amusement. "Because I never officially became a pirate."
Zoro's hold on the desk grew stronger, his other hand unconsciously squeezing Wado's hilt. "What is your dream?" His voice was coarse, thick with unnamed emotions.
Luffy blinked. That obviously wasn't a question he had expected.
But as he continued to stare at the swordsman, slowly, steadily, his whole demeanor began to shift. Something—force, spirit, sheer power—stirred, flickered into existence, quickly overflowing and choking the air in the room. Commanding and unyielding. Like a steel, nay, a colossal titanium wall that Zoro had no hope to ever be able to cut.
This was the presence of the true Conqueror. The presence of the future Pirate Kin—
"I don't have one."
And all of it was gone in a flash, visibly suppressed, reeled in, and caged inside the moment those words hit the air.
There was a sharp crack sound as the desk gave way under Zoro's grasp.