Archive of Our Own

Sanji learned about soulmates on his tenth birthday.

There was nothing like a party put on by a passionate crew of gourmet cooks, with all the resources of the brand-new Baratie and their tremendous, indulgent affection for their youngest member (and unofficial mascot) standing ready for them. All this attention, all this praise, all these people celebrating him simply for being alive nearly overwhelmed him. So much, all of them focused on him, as though their attention and their favor and their happiness was a weight on his shoulders… He stared at the massive birthday cake, bigger than three of him, and fought a paradoxical urge to cry.

Sébaste, his favorite among the rowdy staff, leaned over to wrap an arm around his shoulders, as though to put a bit of a shield between Sanji’s skinny body and the boisterous air of the party.

“Hey, hey, no tears on your special day,” the lean, almost dainty pastry chef chided. “Be happy in your heart, and then even your soulmate can be happy with you, hm?” Sébaste was a romantic; he entertained the kitchen with his tales of romantic conquests all over East Blue as he cooked, the string of maidens whose hearts had been offered to him in his travels. He looked like a poet, long wavy hair and billowing shirts that somehow never got in the way, and Sanji thought him the absolute picture of how he wanted to grow up. If anyone here would be talking about soulmates, it would be Sébaste.

“My soulmate?” He looked up, the overwhelming feeling trickling away into curiosity. “I have one?” He’d heard of soulmates — everyone had! — but always in books, always as something that heroes, or maybe sometimes villains, had. Not little boys who just wanted to cook!

“Your soulmate!” Sébaste nodded firmly. “Everyone has one, you know! I do, Patty does, Carne does, Owner Zeff does, and you do too.” He poked Sanji’s chest lightly, right over his heart. “Haven’t you ever felt it, right in here? A little feeling beside your heart, emotions that aren’t what’s happening for you? That’s what your soulmate is feeling. Your hearts are linked, and you’ll always feel each other. There’s someone in this world who will always want you to be happy, and who you’ll always want to make happy. That’s how it works.”

“Oh…!” Sanji’s eyes went wide at the thought. Someone whose happiness he would be able to feel when he did nice things for them? He’d always be able to feel if they were sad, so he could know when he needed to cheer them up? He didn’t think he’d felt anything very dramatic before now, but as he focused, tried to feel within himself, he thought….

Ah. Yes, just like Sébaste had said. A little knot of feeling, nestled right against his heart (or what he thought was his heart) — determined, he thought. Lots of determination. A hard sort of focus that made him think of his twice-weekly fighting lessons with Zeff. There was something beautiful about it, like a diamond nestled in his chest, focused and perfect.

Hello, my soulmate, he thought at it. I can’t wait to meet you. I bet you’re very pretty in person, too.

Patty demanded his attention, then; the big man was about to cut the cake, and since Sanji was the guest of honor, he would get the first piece. How much did he want?

Later, when his stomach was full of cake and contentment, and the party was starting to devolve into sloppy drinking (for the adults), a terrible realization struck Sanji.

Your soulmate could feel what you felt, Sébaste said. Right now, Sanji felt really good — full, warm, happy, loved. But until now? Until Zeff started teaching him, started putting him back together while they watched Baratie grow from beams in a shipyard?

Germa. His siblings. Years of trying and failing to measure up, years of living in fear of every test put in front of him, every training that was simply an excuse for a beating, every time his brothers got bored and wanted a victim. Years of abject, paralyzing fear, of grinding inadequacy. Years of being the failure, the weakling. Months of starvation on the Rock, and the desperate fear of a repeat afterward, all the time he had spent in the hospital stealing food and hoarding it away so that he would never, ever go hungry again.

Had his soulmate felt all of that? Had they (she, it had to be she, of course) — had she been afraid too, because he was? Had she starved alongside him, dragged by the heart through hell?

He wasn’t comfortably full anymore. Now, he felt sick, his stomach trying to twist in on itself, turning happiness into nausea. Before he even met his soulmate, before he even knew that he could have a soulmate, he had made her suffer so terribly. What sort of a person did that make him? If he ever found his soulmate — and oh, he wanted to — how could he do anything but fall on his face in front of her and beg her to forgive him?

There was only one answer. He couldn’t change the past. Couldn’t change what he’d been through, what he’d felt. What he’d made her feel. But he could do better. He could gather up his resolve, that from here on out, he would never inflict that pain on her again.

Quietly, he slipped out from the party, standing at the Baratie’s rail and staring across the moonlit water. And there, alone with the sea and the moon and the knowledge that this feeling in his chest, this beautiful crystal resolve, was the other half of his soul, he pressed a hand over his heart and made a promise.

Whoever you are, wherever you are — I’ll never make you suffer my fear again. I’ll be strong like you’re strong, determined like you’re determined. I’ll be worthy of you. He pressed his hand down, focused himself inward, pushed everything he had toward that beautiful diamond determination in his chest. I’ll be strong for you.

The next day, as the lunch rush was winding down, he went to Zeff.

“Hey, old man! Training just twice a week is too lazy!” He put his hands on his hips, filled with resolve. “I’m ten now, so I should train every day! Teach me to be really really strong!” The stronger he was, the less he would have to fear. The old Sanji had been afraid and miserable because he was weak. The new Sanji, the Sanji he would make himself become, would be so strong that nothing could scare him.

And that was a promise.

For as long as he could remember, Zoro had felt fear and misery.

He was not afraid. He was not miserable. He was tough, he was strong, he was determined. Nothing scared him. But he felt those things, a searing heat in his chest like a red-hot coal sitting beside his heart. Something inside him was profoundly unhappy, desperately afraid. It burned while he trained; it burned while he meditated; it burned while he slept. Sometimes it blazed hot and painful, and sometimes it subsided to a banked, glowing ache, but it never went out.

When he was eight, he asked a doctor about it. The pain had grown intense; at dinner, with all the dojo trainees lined up together to eat, he had choked on his food with the sudden blaze, worse than he’d ever felt before, a heavy blow that seemed to numb his lungs, his heart, everything. Something — something terrible had happened. He didn’t know what, he didn’t even know how he knew it was a something — all he knew was that the bottom had fallen out of the world, and everything was wrong. A dreadful choking grief beyond words drowned his lungs, filled his stomach, stopped his heart.

He mumbled an excuse to the other boys through numb lips and stumbled away from the table, his legs awkward and stiff beneath him. He felt like he had once during a bad fever, his head spinning and his body sluggish and gawky, unwilling to obey his commands. It took all his will to force one foot in front of the other, to hold himself upright and keep moving, all he could do to make his way into town, to the house of the town doctor.

In a normal day, it was a short distance, barely five minutes’ dash from the dojo — a distance often dashed, as rambunctious boys cracked each others’ skulls in half-trained, rowdy bouts. Tonight, it seemed like miles, felt like an eternity of the earth had passed before he stood at the door, gasping for air and pounding for the doctor.

And yet, there was nothing wrong with him.

The doctor didn’t think he was faking; the old man believed him entirely, saw the truth in Zoro’s wide eyes, in his youthful fear that he was going to die, that his heart or his lungs were simply going to stop from this horrific anguish that had grown so strong. And after he’d examined everything of Zoro, probed and pushed and poked and listened, he sat back on his heels and frowned.

“I think it must be your soulmate, boy. You said this is like those feelings you’ve had for a long time?”

Zoro nodded miserably. The pain hadn’t ebbed, although the initial shock of it was starting to wear into something different, an abiding pressure instead of a shocking impact. “It’s like,” he said, drawing a hard, deliberate breath into his lungs. “But it’s so much worse. And I’ve always felt those. They’re normal.” A pause, and then he added, stubbornly, “I’m not afraid!”

“No, you aren’t,” the doctor agreed soothingly. “But perhaps your soulmate is.”

As Zoro walked back to the dojo a few hours and a long explanation later, he clenched a hand over his heart and tried out a newfound resolve. This feeling in his chest, this pain that had always been there, this fear that never, ever went away — someone out there was feeling it. Not as a secondary, not as a floating aside detached from everyday life. This was that person’s life. Their hurt and fear were immediate, were caused by the world around them. Wherever they were, whoever they were, he could feel it — they were small and afraid, and now they were so, so alone.

I will find you, he promised that feeling, that other person — wondering if they could feel him, wondering if his thoughts could reach them the way their fear reached him. I swear it. I’ll get big and strong, and then I’ll come for you, and I’ll take you away from whatever’s making you feel like that. I’m going to be the greatest swordsman in the world, and nothing will be able to hurt you.

The pain continued. His chest ached. But now, his heart wasn’t hurting; it was full of determination, full of his own strength. He wasn’t helplessly absorbing his soulmate’s fear; he was recording it, remembering it, preparing himself for the day he would find them and put an end to that fear once and for all.

Thirteen years and change later, Zoro leaned against a railing designed to look like his captain’s outstretched arm and stared at the sea. It wasn’t even going to be a full day before they reached Zou, and once there, they’d surely hit the ground running just like always, ready to plunge ahead into the next adventure, the next phase of the path toward Luffy’s goal.

It was too fucking easy to stay busy with that shit. To train, to sleep, to fight, and to think to himself, Maybe I’ll find the words tomorrow. It was a lie — the only lie he’d admit to telling, and that only to himself. Only fair, since the lie itself was also only for him.

Sanji was his soulmate. He’d known for ages — suspected it since their first damn meeting, so many years and miles ago at that floating restaurant. Known it beyond even the breath of a shadow of a doubt since Thriller Bark. The knowledge pressed itself on his chest, weighed him down. He wanted to speak up, wanted to say something — to search for recognition from the cook, to see something in those blue eyes beyond the spark of battle or the irritation of lazy days. He didn’t even care (he told himself) if the cook wanted to make anything of it or not — only to be acknowledged, to know that Sanji felt it as he did, that would be enough.

But nothing he’d seen in the time they’d sailed together had ever suggested that Sanji knew anything. His behavior toward Zoro had never changed in any way that suggested he felt Zoro in his heart. Either a warming or a hardening, either of those could have said it, but no. Only the same bickering, the same trivial provocations and irritations, the same smooth battlefield cohesion.

For that matter, he’d never heard the cook so much as breathe the word — which, now that he considered it, was odd. Wouldn’t such a romantic wax just as rhapsodic about soulmates as he did about beautiful women, eternal loyalty, undying love? Strange, that. Perhaps —

A hammer-blow to his chest stopped his thought in its tracks. Not a physical blow, no, he was alone and undisturbed at the rail, but suddenly, out of nowhere, the little feeling next to his heart that was Sanji was radiating painful shock, an emotional surge so strong and sudden it knocked the wind out of his lungs. Zoro could do nothing but grit his teeth, pressing the heel of his hand against his chest as his heart pounded, his entire body tingling with an adrenaline surge that had no outlet. Whatever was happening, he was too far away, would be too goddamn late by the time he got to the rest of the crew…

As quickly as it had come on, the pain faded — did not vanish, but subsided beneath a rush of hard, grim determination. Whatever the situation was, Sanji was handling it in the only way he knew how — Zoro did not know what that was, could not know what was happening, could not read Sanji’s thoughts or see through his eyes to know what was befalling the half of the crew that were under the cook’s leadership.

But underneath the hard determination, underneath the mature calculation that Zoro could feel pressing on his heart, powerful echoes of the fear and misery that had marked his childhood sense of Sanji reverberated, echoing back and forth like ripples in a bowl of water, rebounding over and over and over.

Zoro gritted his teeth and tried to will more wind into the sails, tried to will this stupid, creepy ship to sail faster toward Zou. Whatever was happening, he needed to be there.

They were two days out from Zou — two days of damnably clear weather, disgustingly fair sailing, and why couldn’t the Grand Line be its fickle self and blow up a storm? — when Sanji felt a wave of furious betrayal wash over him. It was not his own; his feelings were furious, yes, and bitter and resigned and a thousand other things he didn’t care to sort through. But he held in himself no sense of betrayal, and that meant that this could only have come from his soulmate.

He wasn’t alone — he was hardly permitted to be alone on this voyage. His escort recognized that if unmonitored, he would break free. Somehow — and the how never really mattered, did it? Strawhats found a way — he would slip out of their grasp. So they watched him.

Being watched, unwilling to reveal so much of his feelings, he didn’t touch his chest, didn’t try to soothe down the burning sensation. He merely leaned back in his seat and closed his eyes. Wherever his soulmate was, she — she, he insisted upon she inside his own mind, insisted that any suspicions he held to the contrary had to be wrong — was feeling more, and more sharply, than he’d sensed from her in a long time, enough to entirely drown out the determination that was a constant companion.

And you know exactly why that is, a little traitorous voice whispered in his mind. You know exactly what that person just learned.

No. He would not accept it. Nothing had been said, no suspicions voiced, no acknowledgements made. Any chance alignments, the feeling in his heart and the look on a certain person’s face, that was only coincidence, and therefore meaningless.

And now it didn’t matter, because he was sailing away, and no matter how hard he thought, no matter how many clever gambits or strategies he came up with, he could not see any path back to his nakama.

Left unobserved, he could get away from this ship — fling himself overboard, into the cold uncaring waves of the ocean, and blue-walk til his spirit gave out, then swim til his limbs did too. He could escape them. But that would only be to a clean death in the ocean. They had sailed too far, with winds too favorable to this ugly fate; no human could swim the return and live. There was little chance to steal a dinghy — he hadn’t seen any such thing anywhere aboard, not that he’d been given much liberty to look.

And once they reached their destination? He would be deep in Big Mom’s territory. The chances of slipping out were — if he was to make any guess — nearly nil. And even if he did make that escape, even if he did flee the fate laid out for him — the cost was so dreadfully high. He could suffer for his own sake and not flinch, but if he fled, he would not be the one who suffered. No, the price of his freedom — even freedom in death — would be paid by Zeff, paid by every living soul at Baratie. Would be paid by the ladies of Momoiro Island, who were strange and bizarre but had welcomed him generously and taught him a great deal. Would be paid by his nakama, if ever they let down their guard for even the slightest moment.

I’m sorry, he thought to the furious blaze in his chest, before his constant self-censorship could stop him. I’m sorry to do this to you. To everyone.

Suppressed fury boiled in Zoro’s veins. The whole damn stupid story — Sanji throwing Nami, Chopper, and Brook to safety, but staying behind himself, facing down Bege and his goons like some heroic last stand, writing that blithe fucking note like he was popping over to the other side of town to buy a fucking ham instead of deserting his goddamn nakama...

No, he was fucking done with it, and rage boiled in his veins, under his skin, as he laid out for the others exactly what Sanji’s desertion meant. “Just think about it! We’re on a course that can’t be changed. We destroyed the research lab on Punk Hazard to wreck Doflamingo’s business. HIs biggest trading partner was Kaido. Now that we’ve destroyed the factory on Dressrosa, Kaido’s the very next one in line to jump on us!” As if it wasn’t damn obvious. As if Luffy hadn’t been there for every step of planning, every step of action. As if he weren’t their captain, their leader, the one with the dream of the One Piece to drive them all forward, not off to the side — not wasting time on stupid, pointless, faithless cooks.

“We’re on a collision course with Kaido! And then the cook goes and gets in Big Mom’s face — it’s pure fucking twirlybrow idiocy!”

It was more than that — it was an utter betrayal. Betrayal of the half of the crew he’d led to Zou, leaving them to fend for themselves. Betrayal of Kin’emon and his companions, looking to the Strawhats for aid and safety against Kaido. Betrayal of Luffy, putting him in the sights of a second Emperor when they were already squarely facing one.

Betrayal of Zoro, of the bond he carried in his heart. But then, I never said a word to him. It didn’t matter. The chance was flown. Sanji had left them, had intentionally separated himself when he could have stayed, and Zoro didn’t doubt the assertion that he had no way to return.

Can you feel it, bastard? he asked his heart furiously, nettled only further by the low, acidic despair he felt in his chest. If Sanji hated this so fucking much, he should have gotten himself free with the others! Can you feel how pissed I am? You’d better. You’d better be fucking sorry, and if I ever see your face again —

He couldn’t make himself finish the thought, not in any honesty. The desire to smash Sanji’s face in was equally matched by the simple desire to see him again, no matter how or when or where. To not let this be the end. Despite his best efforts, despite his knowledge that the man could never return the feeling, Zoro had fallen in love with the cook long ago.

But he’ll be married off to some girl. Salt in the wound that was the new gaping hole in their crew. That’s what he really wants, isn’t it?

“We can’t figure it out ourselves!” Luffy said, hot and impatient as always. “So let’s go ask Sanji!”

“Forget it!” Couldn’t he see?! If they dropped their path to go haring off after Sanji… Zoro knew better than to think anything could be done quietly. They’d be challenging two of the four Emperors at once, losing their momentum, compromising everything. Compromising Luffy’s dream.

Luffy looked all set to argue with him — dumbass, this was his own course Zoro was trying to defend here! — but at least Zoro had backup.

“Did you forget?” Usopp snapped, less stammering and more forceful than before. “You already insulted Big Mom! Don’t go and make it worse!”

“Without a plan or some kind of muscle behind us, we’re gonna get smashed flat!” Franky added, scowling, and Robin nodded solemn agreement.

“She’s an emperor, Luffy. This isn’t like back on the other side of the Grand Line. We need to stay focused.” Less dramatic, but her firm tone said it all.

And yet, even so, their fucking dumbass captain was undeterred. “We’ll go quietly, then!” As if he’d ever done anything quietly in his entire damned life.

Stupid. Stupid, stupid, stupid. Sanji got them in this fucking mess, ran off and left them all behind for some fucking tea party, and now they were going to toss everything aside, ruin everything they were working toward, intentionally expose themselves to twice as much danger when they were already up against threats that looked to test them to the breaking point…

Zoro was never going to forgive Sanji for this.

He didn’t want to go talk to Pekoms. Didn’t want to dig any further into this foolishness. They had their course, they had to keep moving forward. Sanji had left them.

(Sanji had left him.)

Zoro threw himself down onto a bench outside the airy hospital wing and closed his eyes, scowling. Inside, Nami hotly denied the existence of this Germa 66, and his stomach went sour. None of it meant anything to him, and yet, he couldn’t keep himself from putting the pieces together. Sanji’s pain in childhood, his single allusion to being from North Blue — something he never followed up on, never explained how he got from North to East, never explained his past farther back than working on a passenger liner before Zeff got ahold of him.

Knowing that, Zoro could place a very precise bet on just when Sanji had gotten the job on that liner. It’d be right about the time his chest stopped hurting, carrying around fear and unhappiness. Wouldn’t it?

Should have told us, cook. Did you think we’d hate you for it?

“Sanji’s on my crew!” Luffy howled from inside, and the injured Mink countered, “Before that, he is the son of Vinsmoke!”

Vinsmoke. Zoro’d never heard the name before today, and he never wanted to hear it again. Bullshit, all of this, top to bottom. He wished his chest would stop aching.

He was never going to be yours. This soulbond was bullshit from the start and you knew it.

From the start…

Zoro closed his eyes and pressed the heel of his hand to his chest, the same gesture he’d repeated so many times as a child, feeling this same despairing, frightened ache beside his heart.

I’ll find you, he’d promised back then. I’ll come find you and beat up whoever’s making you so scared. And then the fear had ebbed away and the misery had been replaced with a broad sense of contentment, occasional ups and downs of a normal childhood life, and he’d felt the task lifted from his shoulders, his focus once again utterly bent on his own ambition.

Now… Now, here it was again, a circle back to that same feeling, but now, so much had changed.

“I’m going alone, Nami!” Luffy declared, sharp and loud as always, and Zoro sat straight up. No. Not denial, not anger, not frustration with Luffy’s impulsive behavior. Simple knowledge that in no way would he allow his captain to undertake this journey alone. The last time he’d stood without his crew before the massed forces of an imposing enemy, two years ago, they’d nearly lost him. And—

And now this. Luffy proposing to go alone to Whole Cake Island — never. Impossible.

Zoro had made a promise to his soulmate, all those years ago. Had made a commitment to his captain, not so many years ago.

Luffy bounced out of the hospital, all smiles despite the situation. “Zoro! Didja hear all that?”

How the fuck was he smiling? Zoro merely glared at him. “Yeah.”

“Shishishi, look at your face! You’re really worried about Sanji, I bet!”

“He’s a dumbass. Now shut up or I’m gonna kick you.” He only realized the word he’d said after it slipped out of his mouth — kick, not cut.

Stupid cook. Stupid Big Mom. Stupid Vinsmokes. Stupid Luffy. Stupid Zoro, for being in the middle of this all.

Zoro’s first impression of the Germa ship was that it was the stupidest goddamn thing he’d ever laid eyes on.

A snail. A giant, living snail like a disgustingly overgrown denden mushi, but instead of simple communication equipment built into it, there was a fucking fort on its back, a massive marker “66” on its face declaring its allegiance. And staring down at them, a cloaked figure who looked — as far as he could tell — like some kind of demented knock-off version of Sanji.

“Sanji! Sanji!” Chopper shouted, waving his hooves, and Zoro barely resisted the urge to swat the little doctor flat.

“It’s not him, dumbass! Come on, your nose should know even if your eyes don’t!”

But even Nami had joined in, waving her arm. “Sanji!”

Zoro’s teeth ground audibly. “All of you!” he roared at their little crew. “It’s not the fucking cook! Do you think he’d be acting like that, just starin’ at us?” It was easier to say that than what he really felt — the knowledge that this wasn’t Sanji came first and foremost from his heart, from the cold knowledge that his soulmate was still far from here. But he could never admit such a thing to the rest of the crew.

“How can you be so sure about that, from this distance?” Brook asked, turning to look at him with a curious tilt to his head — or at least, what passed for curiosity on his expressionless bony face. “It’s terribly hard to see… at least for me, without eyes!”

“You’re right about that, at least,” the hooded stranger called down to him, and Zoro was proven right by the voice — not the cook, neither in timbre nor in tone. And yet, similar all the same — a far stronger version of the accent that Sanji had nearly eliminated, an odd archaic rounding of vowels that only appeared in the cook’s speech in moments of great stress. “Just what are you doing here, Strawhats?”

“Sanji, do you have medicines on that ship?” Chopper called up, evidently ignoring everything else. “Luffy ate a poison fish — he’s so sick! I’ve used up everything I have onboard!”

“Stop calling me Sanji!” Finally, the hooded figure swept off his concealing cloak, revealing a burlier frame and a head of bright green hair. “My name is Yonji!”

Sanji and Yonji, seriously? Zoro rolled his eye and muttered, “You have got to be fucking kidding me. Is there a one and a two, too?”

But no one was listening to him — Chopper continued to beg “Sanji” for medicine, while the cook’s little brother — not a hard guess there, not with a stupid naming scheme like that — alternately leered at Nami and taunted Chopper about what medicines they might or might not have aboard. Until—

“Yonji! Stop being a tightfisted idiot!” A woman’s voice snapped from the deck of the snail ship, right before a hard blow slammed into Yonji, sending him flying over the rail and into the waves with an angry shout.

Then, a blur of pink flew — no, a woman in a pink dress and cloak leaped in a graceful arc, down from the deck of the Germa ship to land on Sunny’s lawn. In an instant, Zoro had Shusui bared and ready for action, but her stance as she alighted on the grass was open, unthreatening.

“Sorry about that,” she said, in that same accent that wasn’t quite North Blue, but wasn’t anything else either. “My little brother’s barely human. He’s cold to the core.”

“Reiju!” the brother in question bellowed over the water. “How dare you humiliate me like that!”

“I didn’t do anything, you’re doing that on your own!” she shot back over her shoulder, then smiled back at the assembled group on the lawn.

The smile struck Zoro like a blow, mingled rage and loss. For that moment, with that bright look, the family resemblance was like a punch to his gut. Sanji had never smiled at him like that, but he’d seen the same look turned on so many other people. And now, all too possibly, he’d never see it again.

Pekoms was babbling something about Germa technology, and long-dead royalty, but Reiju only laughed. “You’re not quite right, sir,” she said. “We’re still very much royalty to this day. Our father the king will be heading for Reverie shortly, once Sanji is properly married. But for the moment… let me have a look.”

She strode over to Luffy, leaned over him — and now Zoro’s sword did dart out, the blade resting against her throat in mute threat. “Don’t think I’m giving you free access to my captain,” he growled. “Just what do you think you’re doing?”

The threat didn’t seem to faze her in the slightest; she merely looked up and arched one curling eyebrow. “Helping. Didn’t your little pet here,” — “I’m not a pet, I’m a doctor!” Chopper interjected — “say that your captain is terribly ill? He certainly looks it.”

“And?”

“And I can help. Looking at him, I’d guess he ate the skin of an armored stonefish, didn’t he? It’s a potent toxin. Even a small patch of skin is enough to fell a giant. But fortunately for you, I’m here.” She took a careful step away from Zoro’s sword. “I can heal him, if you’ll let me. That toxin is one of my favorite delicacies.”

He let the sword fall. “Delicacies.”

She merely smiled, all overdone mystique. “Mm. Exactly. Now…” She knelt down beside Luffy, and — ignoring the foam around his mouth — pressed her lips to his.

Zoro wasn’t certain, but he thought he’d bitten off some sort of disgusted protest. That didn’t look like any damned medical treatment he’d ever seen! But before he could rush her, knock her away from whatever the fuck she was doing to Luffy, Chopper cried out.

“Look! The rash, it’s moving! It’s pulling back!”

And it was. The ugly marks that had spread over Luffy’s body were receding, as though this Reiju woman were sucking them out through his mouth. As the rash receded, the wings of her cloak spread around her as though she were preparing to take flight.

Finally, she sat back; a faint trace of the same rash showed around her mouth for a moment, but faded before Zoro’s gaze.

“Delicious,” she murmured, her eyes bright. “Thank you for the meal.”

With a loud gasp, Luffy sat up — blinked in confusion, and then stared at Reiju. “... Sanji?”

“She’s a woman, dumbass!” Zoro snapped. Had everyone forgotten what the cook looked like already?

“Oh.” Carrot dived onto Luffy’s lap, rubbing her cheek enthusiastically against him, but he hardly seemed to notice, staring at Reiju with a look of ferocious concentration.

“You have my thanks,” she added, “for taking such good care of my little brother.”

It wasn’t until they were sailing away that a grim thought rose to the surface of Zoro’s mind. That Yonji, the cook’s younger brother — he hadn’t looked to be all that much younger than Sanji was. Hell, it wouldn’t be surprising if the two were actually twins, save for the difference in their appearance. He’d been one of the ones surrounding Sanji during that miserable childhood, then. And from the look of things, and from Reiju’s offhand, insulting comment — barely human — he’d been one of the reasons for that crushing misery that had marked Zoro’s childhood.

And… He hated to think of this, hated to draw a comparison, but once it drifted into his head, the idea stuck. Green hair.

Was that why the cook was such a fucking shitstain about his appearance? Moss, algae, mold, grass, any insulting comparison he could come up with, he did. Did he look at Zoro’s green hair and see echoes of a loathed family member?

If so — if Zoro was a perpetual reminder of things better forgotten — then it really made this whole soulmate business a wreck from the start.

This whole damn place was too sweet.

Cotton candy feel from the sky — Chopper was overjoyed, but Zoro felt disgustingly sticky, and the cloying scent that filled the air made him want to gag. None of them had gotten much to eat since Luffy’s misadventure with the entire damned contents of the pantry, but even ravenous, Zoro wasn’t ready to start eating it.

Chocolate fountains. Chocolate buildings. Chocolate clothing. The entire place was a fucking offense to his senses.

But worst of all was the girl sitting in front of them, all blushes and giggles and dreamy sighs. This place was too sweet, and this Pudding girl — Charlotte Pudding, Big Mom’s own daughter, and Sanji’s goddamn fiancee, was too damned sweet.

She’d appeared seemingly out of nowhere, bailed Luffy and Chopper out of their own idiocy and what was about to be a massive fucking scene, played sweetness and blushes, and then just as quickly pulled a knife on them when Luffy just had to go and blurt out his name and ambition as he always fucking did.

And then just as quickly, the knife vanished again, and she was back to being the delicate, trembling maiden, as though nothing had just happened. As though everyone would just forget that she’d threatened them a moment before, as she now waxed rhapsodic about what a gentleman the cook was.

Even worse? Everyone fucking believed it. Even Nami, usually the hardhead when it came to trickery, was swayed by the innocent act — then again, Nami did have a weakness for beautiful women. Not as bad as the cook’s, not by half, but even so. It was bad enough that she’d fallen as far as she had.

“In the end,” Pudding said, all tragic downcast eyes, “he shared something with me. ‘I can’t marry you,’ he said to me, ‘even though you’re so lovely.’ He’s such a gentleman! So kind! But he said, ‘I have to return to my friends.’ And now I see you here, ready to risk yourselves for him. Truly, that’s a bond I have to support!”

“WHAAAT?!” Chopper, Nami, Brook, and even idiot Luffy all gaped in shock, but Zoro only rolled his eyes. Of course the cook would say that. He fawned over women, but he never actually sealed the deal. The one time it looked like he might, of course he turned it down. Pudding was a liar, that sang out loud and clear to him, but that, that was nothing but truth.

“So! I’m sure Mama will find another husband for me,” she said brightly. “Maybe one even better than Sanji! So, let me give you a map. It’s how we her children get around the islands without Mama breathing down our necks.” And Zoro glared as everyone fell all over her, praising and thanking and beaming.

So Big Mom was this terrifying force that no one crossed, but here Pudding was, this slim little girl who played so hard at being harmless, casually stating her willingness to defy? That was rotten as old eggs. He looked up, caught Pedro’s eye — the only other one here who properly understood this bullshit.

Pedro leaned over to him. “What she’s drawing isn’t wrong,” he rumbled in Zoro’s ear. “But we’ll keep our eyes open. Big Mom’s children aren’t stupid or innnocent — not the ones who survive, anyway. She’s planning something.”

All Zoro could do was nod. “Whatever she’s planning,” he said grimly, “We’ll deal with it.”

“Sanji! Saaaaanji!” Luffy leaned over the rail as they approached the main island. “Look! Zoro, do you see him there?”

Zoro, beside his captain, squinted at the shoreline. A figure stood there, golden hair glinting in the sun, standing with a familiar lackadaisical stance as though waiting for them to arrive.

“You’re stupid,” he said bluntly. “That’s not the cook.”

“How can you say that?” Nami was at his other side, waving toward the figure. “Heyyy, Sanji! You owe me big for this trip, do you hear? You’d better be ready to work real hard to pay it off!”

But when they landed — he was gone, as though he’d never been there. No footprints showed on the headland where they left Sunny. Not even a single blade of grass seemed to have been disturbed.

“I’m telling you,” Zoro grumbled as they headed into the forest that stood between their secluded anchorage and the looming vault of Big Mom’s cake-castle. “That wasn’t the stupid cook.”

“Then what was it?” Nami rolled her eyes. “Look, just shut up and stick close to us, Zoro.”

They headed into the woods, not running full out but keeping their pace brisk and steady. There was a long way to go, and they couldn’t dawdle if they wanted to get to Sanji in time for the tea party.

A donut bridge spanned a river that smelled stickily of fruit juice; as they reached the center of it, Haki warned Zoro — he saw Luffy twitch with a similar heads-up feeling — and he threw himself off it as a massive green something — no, an alligator — reared up out of the flowing juice and snapped at the entirety of the bridge.

Fuck.

Well, now the fucking bridge was gone, and so were his damn crewmates! How fucking easily did they get separated, honestly. Every damn time, just like that, he looked away for a second and then they vanished.

But he wasn’t about to worry about them; Luffy could take care of himself and the others, and there were only two sides of the river they could be on, right? One Zoro was on and one the others were.

(He couldn’t see them on the other bank, but that was beside the point.)

The point was, he had to get to Sanji. Had to find out what was really going on here, how much of a liar Pudding really was, and most importantly — drag the cook back where he belonged and put an end to this whole stupidity.

There wasn’t any path in the forest; there never really was, in forests. In Zoro’s experience, trees routinely shifted around, landmarks he thought he’d passed would come up again and again. This forest was — at least at first — no different from any other. Somewhere, he could hear Luffy’s angry shouts, could hear Nami and Chopper’s blending with them. But every time he angled in the direction of those shouts, the woods became thick, impassable, brambles tangled around his ankles and trees so dense they seemed a wall.

He could cut through them. He could simply unleash destruction and create a direct line of absolute devastation reaching from here to his nakama. Let all his terrible anger with the cook, his frustration with Luffy, his hunger from the voyage and the hard hot knot of despair that was his soulbond drive his swords in a whirlwind of fury that would carry him all the way to the wayward curly-brow and drag him home again, or at least have it out with him properly if he truly meant to leave them.

But. Big Mom. Kaido. Luffy’s ambitions, and what their crew and their alliance with the Heart Pirates could handle. They meant to be stealthy, meant to make this a quick, quiet mission. Not that he expected it to stay that way, not when Luffy was in the equation, but he would not be the one to shatter their quiet and draw Big Mom’s wrath down on their heads!

So. Running through the woods, snarling at the vines that blocked his path, not bothering his mind one bit with landmarks that vanished and reappeared over and over, not trying to do anything but follow the draw of his heart and his instinct.

A wall of trees blocked him, but through their branches he could see light and clear sky. Around him, a susurration of wind in leaves, a rising and falling sound that was almost words, almost a song.

He didn’t see the deceitful paths we made… he didn’t follow the landmarks we moved here and there… the forest of seduction did not seduce him… What is this man? What is he doing? We have failed… We have failed…

There was no gap in the trees — but that could be easily fixed. One tree in a forest could not be detected so soon, right? He raised his swords and focused his will, and as he sliced his way free of this stupid, bloody forest, he thought he heard a scream.

Free of the woods, Zoro took stock of his position. Off to one side, the looming, sugary architecture of Big Mom’s territory made his teeth itch purely to look at. Cake, surrounded by candy and sweets and everything he hated most — and he couldn’t help but try to picture the cook in these surroundings. All of it food, all of it precisely the kind of art the man excelled at, but Zoro knew that Sanji disliked empty sweets; did he see the emptiness here? Or did the prospect of marrying into this land, marrying a woman who made sweetness her art, delight him?

Stupid, useless question. It didn’t matter right now. There was nothing Zoro could do about that until he found the goddamn cook, and until he did, he wasn’t going to worry about it.

(Or so he told himself.)

Off to his other side, grey towers that had nothing of sweetness or artificial harmony to them; brutal spires, crooked and curving like hard stone mushrooms. Germa. He headed toward them, half-closing his eye as he moved to focus on the feeling of his soulbond in his chest. It would not lead him to Sanji — at least, it had never done so before. But it had told him when the Sanji he saw was false. Maybe it could do more than he’d ever thought.

He reached the point where the land gave way; a short, steep embankment led down to the water, and the snail-ships of Germa rode low, their decks not so far from the edge of the waterfront. Was there a bridge to take him across, or would he have to gather himself and leap it? Zoro was not the sky-walker among the crew; this was a gap that would have given Sanji no trouble, and the irony disturbed him, that it was Sanji’s skill that was needed to reach the damn cook. It would be easier returning with him.

(If Sanji consented to return, that was.)

Don’t think of it. He has to. The despair that ate at his heart, the sadness and horror that filled him, they all told Zoro what he needed to know. Sanji didn’t want this, didn’t want to marry Pudding, didn’t want to leave the crew.

And yet he had.

Reluctantly, he concluded he would have to leap across. He strode back from the shore, gathered himself, poured strength and determination and pure angry will into his legs, and took his running start —

There. Barely cleared it; his hands slapped down onto the white-painted rail, his feet kicking against the edge of the artificial deck, and he pulled himself over the railing and into the Germa Kingdom.

Until today, Sanji had almost entirely forgotten about the metal plate affixed to his spine back on Drum Island. It had healed up smoothly and completely, and with Chopper’s ongoing attention it had rarely given him trouble as they journeyed through the Grand Line. The only exception had been the lightning strike on Skypeia…

And then, of course, Niji’s knee driven into his back, a powerful jolt of electricity delivered directly to that metal plate. Even through the pain of the beating that ensued, the powerful shock had his back aching, every single detail of the plate and the screws that attached it to his spine stringently detailed in its painful outline.

And he had not been able to raise a hand to defend himself, not without putting Zeff’s life in danger. It could all be a bluff, he knew, could all be nothing more than a lie used to keep him compliant. But he could not take that risk, could not chance Zeff’s life on it being a bluff.

He flung himself down on the elegant sofa in the room he’d been assigned in the castle — not his old one, this, and it had been outfitted as though he were an actual prince of Germa, as though he belonged here — and started to rest his throbbing, swollen, bruised face in his hands. Thought better of that, quickly.

The air of Whole Cake Island was stifling — too warm, very slightly too humid, sticky-sweet in a way that had quickly come to nauseate him. And with Germa floating serenely in the bay of the island, that same cloying air blew in the great balcony window of this room, choking him with its miasmatic scent. If he went out to the balcony, he would only find more of the same — no fresh air here, no clean scent of the sea. No reprieve. The lab his brothers had shown him had been full of harsh chemical scents, as ugly in its own way as this sickly sugary air.

At least he still had his cigarettes.

Behind him, he heard the door to his room open and then close again. He didn’t turn to look, didn’t even bother with a touch of Haki to see who had entered. Whoever it was, he couldn’t find it in himself right now to care all that much. He was surrounded by enemies. The best he could hope for would be a servant, someone who at least would bear him no specific ill-will.

“If you’re going to throw over the whole crew for a girl, you should at least pick one who isn’t a fucking liar.”

Zoro!?

He whirled, staring at his crewmate in open disbelief.

Zoro was just inside the closed door, staring at him with a look of flat annoyance. “I know you’ve got no fucking taste in women,” he added, “but this is a new low for you, Swirly.”

“What are you doing here?” Sanji’s heart sank, horror gripping him. With so many lives hanging in the balance, so many people to whom he owed so much held hostage against his compliant cooperation — Zoro’s sudden appearance was a harbinger of disaster.

“That’s a funny way to say, ‘Oh, Zoro, thank you for coming to bail my stupid ass out of this stupid trap.’ Did you really think Luffy was gonna just shrug and sail off without you?” Now Zoro stepped toward him, anger radiating. “What the fuck is wrong with you, cook? You’re not the one who gets caught by stupid blackmail bullshit like this.”

“I don’t have a choice.” No, no, no. Zoro here — Luffy here — who else had come? Who else was about to get sucked into the stupid hell that was Sanji’s unfinished business with his family, that was his flailing attempts to get free of this hideous entanglement?

“Bullshit.” Of course Zoro wouldn’t believe it — of fucking course he wouldn’t believe it, because the goddamn swordsman was an immovable object of pure willpower, would never bend to something so trivial as a threat to the lives of his loved ones.

(Diamond-hard determination nestled beside his heart, a source of strength and motivation since he first learned of it…)

“Bullshit, cook,” Zoro repeated, scowling. “You always have a choice. You could have told us. You could have waited.”

“And then what? I try to dodge it, and it keeps dogging my footsteps until I finally come and deal with it, and in the meantime, everyone I care about suffers.” He shook his head, tired, despairing.

“And then you fucking accept that your nakama want to help you with your problems, idiot! Did you think we wouldn’t stand by you, just like we did for Robin when it was her problems that came back to bite her?”

How could he explain it? This — Germa was something that should never have come back to haunt him. Judge had made him promise to disclaim their connection, had made him vow that he was no longer Vinsmoke, would never acknowledge the great King Judge of Germa as his (miserable, unwanted excuse for a) father. But that clearly only went one way; the life he thought he’d left behind forever had not been finished with him, after all, and had wrapped its ugly tentacles around him again.

“And while I wait around, or refuse to go with them when they came for me — who dies? Who am I willing to sacrifice instead of dealing with my own problems?” he shot back at Zoro, shaking his head. “I’m not as selfish as you, mosshead.”

“So instead you sacrifice your crew!” A cold look came into Zoro’s eye, something calculating and ugly. “How do you think Nami feels, huh? She was right there with you, and you wouldn’t take her help. She was beside herself when we got to Zou.”

He was doing it on purpose — doing it just to see Sanji’s pain, the bastard. (No, he wasn’t; Sanji’s heart pounded with feelings of betrayal that didn’t belong to him, with fury and disappointment and something suspiciously close to heartbreak. He hardened himself against it all, ignored it. Not now. Not ever. This means nothing.)

The manipulation, damn the mosshead’s stupid cunning, worked. His heart twisted with the knowledge that Nami — yes, and Brook and Chopper too — would feel tremendously guilty that he’d simply pushed them aside and taken everything on alone. Nami’s expression, in particular… there was a reason he’d made is apology to her. She was — she was special to him, in a way that had nothing to do with soulmates or his tremendous affection for every woman he met. She’d been the first, in a lot of ways — the first woman he’d been truly friends with, the first he’d gotten to know that wasn’t either related to him or a servant. And her, above all, that he’d betrayed most dearly, by hiding his past, by lying quietly to her.

“... I never thought this would come back to me,” he said quietly. “Give her — give everyone my apologies. I have to see this through; there’s no choice.”

“The fuck I’m gonna do that. Either face everyone yourself or turn your tail and run away in shame. Those are your choices.” Zoro’s voice was hard, and hardness was all Sanji could feel in his chest.

“Fuck you! I’m not making a choice that other people have to bleed and die for! My freedom isn’t worth that!” Why couldn’t Zoro see that?!

“So you’re staying.” Zoro glared at him, his voice thick with distaste as he spoke, each word bitten off.

“If I leave, I’m useless to you anyway.” Zoro gave him a strange look, and Sanji sighed and held up one hand, the explosive cuff on his wrist flashing. “Remember the auction house on Sabaody? The hideous fucking collars they put on Camie-chan and the others? It’s the same thing. Leave, piss them off, or try to break these cuffs, and… well.”

Zoro’s breath sucked in as he stared at the cuff — understanding, Sanji thought, just what the stakes were. But then he shook his head, and put a hand to one of his swords. “And that can be dealt with, cook. Stop making excuses.”

“It’s not a fucking excuse! Why is that so hard to understand? If I go back with you, or if I don’t — it doesn’t matter.” Sanji didn’t even realized he’d reached for his head until he felt the sting in his skull, and realized how tightly his hands were fisted in his hair. “I’m useless to you now, and to Luffy. Go back to him and tell him to leave. You can find another cook! It’s not like I’m the only one in the world.” Despair tore at his heart — tangible to his poor soulmate, he knew, just like everything he’d suffered since Bege handed him that damned invitation.

Zoro was staring at him, as though stunned by his outburst.

“Just — just leave, marimo. I’m useless to you. I’m useless to everyone. Go away. This is what I was born for, and I guess I can’t escape that fate. It was nice to try, and we had some good times, but it’s over now — for me, at least.”

He turned, his heart heavy, and stared out at the blue sky beyond his window.

To his back, Zoro said, “... I thought better of you, cook. How long has it been, and you don’t get it? We don’t bow our heads to fate.” His voice went harsh, mocking. “But maybe if you’re going to fold like this, you don’t deserve to be one of us anyway.”

Sanji buried his aching, throbbing face in his hands, and didn’t hear it when Zoro slammed the door behind him.

“... So, that’s where the fucking idiot stands,” Zoro said, scowling. He’d finally found Luffy and Nami — or they’d found him, Nami claimed — near the edge of the forest after what felt like hours of searching. Luffy lolled on the ground, bloated with the familiar aftereffects of his habitual gluttony and groaning something about never wanting to see another cracker in his life. He’d babbled something about Chopper and Carrot and mirrors and duplicates and a man in the ground, all of it confusing nonsense as far as Zoro was concerned, and there was some weird tree looming over them, obedient to Nami for some reason Zoro couldn’t possibly fathom. Fucking thing probably owed her money or some stupid shit like that.

Nami frowned. “... That fits in with what he said to me, back on Zou,” she said, her words slow and reluctant; she opened her mouth as though to say more, but then hesitated and looked to Luffy instead.

Their captain just shook his head. Was his distended belly shrinking right before Zoro’s eyes? “They made it real hard, but we’re gonna get him back. Stupid little cuffs aren’t gonna stop us!”

“Don’t forget about the stupid blackmail,” Zoro reminded him. “I’d bet they’re lying about that — why send someone all the fuckoff way to East Blue when they can just bullshit the cook and he’ll swallow it so he can play the hero?”

“We need a plan,” Nami said firmly. “Zoro, I’m glad you found him so we know what we’re up against. He can’t just walk away and leave us with all this — look. You know him as well as I do.” A pause, a light in her eye that Zoro didn’t like at all. “... Maybe even better.”

“The fuck I do,” he grumbled, but she rolled right over him to continue. “He’s not going to act in self-interest unless he knows no one else will suffer for it. Stupid self-sacrificing idiot he is… So that means that we have to tackle the things holding him back from returning to us. That means—”

Luffy interrupted her. “Look over there! Nami, I think he’s in that carriage!” He waved a hand toward a riotous procession in the distance, soldiers lining the way and cheering as something — a carriage, Zoro thought — rolled its way from Germa toward the looming pastry castle of Whole Cake Island.

“Wait, Luffy!” Nami shook her head as their captain bounced to his feet. “I was just saying that we have to think about this…!” But Luffy was already in motion, bounding toward the procession without any hint that Nami’s words had registered.

As usual.

Zoro and Nami exchanged long, exhausted looks, and followed their captain.

“Sanji! Saaaaanjiiiiiii!” Luffy flung himself through the guarding soldiers and at the massive carriage window. “Sanji, I came to get you! It’s time to come home with us!”

Zoro didn’t hear Sanji’s answer — he was too focused on keeping a group of armed soldiers at bay, away from his captain’s vulnerable back — but he felt the pulse of pure, unalloyed despair that seemed to strike him numb — could nearly hear Sanji’s thoughts. No, no, no!

And then Luffy flew backward from the carriage, and Zoro clearly heard Sanji’s voice from inside, cold and haughty and remote as he had never heard the cook before, had never dreamed the cook could ever sound.

“Don’t trouble yourself, Yonji. I can deal with this myself.”

And the figure that followed Luffy out of the carriage, a blur of rich clothes and glittering gold and liquid-smooth movements, barely seemed like Sanji at all.

“Leave,” he declared loudly — the word enunciated so that everyone around him would hear, loud and clear, and Zoro could feel Sanji’s heart break as he spoke. “You filthy lowlifes, you have no place speaking to me!”

Zoro whirled, feeling the threat come now not from the soldiers, not from the Vinsmoke royals still in the carriage, but from the cook — from Sanji, from one of their own nakama, from his goddamned soulmate, and everything was breaking, everything was shattered to pieces, everything was wrong.

“My name is Vinsmoke Sanji!” he declared, still in that ringing tone. “Royal blood flows in my veins! It was a pleasant diversion, sailing with you all for a little while, but this is where I belong!”

Luffy picked himself up out of the dirt, pressing his hat back down on his head, and shook himself all over, staring at Sanji with an expression that began in shock and quickly slid toward pain and hard determination.

Sanji continued. “So leave, run back to your dirty little ship, follow your criminal paths to the gallows or the bottom of the sea. I will spend the rest of my life in power and luxury! And if you don’t leave…” He raised one foot in a familiar stance, his entire body tense with the readiness for battle, “I will kill you here.”

It was a lie. Zoro knew it was a lie. The arrogant stance, the prideful words and tone, every bit of it — no, not every bit. The threat was all too real, and Sanji’s heart (not the cook, not now) was shattered in a thousand pieces in his chest

But that didn’t excuse anything. And if Sanji meant to turn on Luffy, meant to choose compliance with the ugly blackmail held over his head instead of placing his faith in Luffy, then that was his choice, and his regret didn’t mean a damned thing.

“Zoro,” Luffy gritted out, “don’t interfere.”

“Luffy—”

“Don’t!” And Luffy swung his gaze to Zoro, every inch a captain, his brown-black eyes clear in determination and sadness. “Sheathe your sword and don’t move.”

“You can’t honestly expect me to—”

“Captain’s. Orders.” The words rang heavy and clear, as heavy as Sanji’s pronouncements, as heavy as the atmosphere that settled around Luffy like a mantle. “Stay back.”

And then that heavy gaze swung off Zoro, back to Sanji, and Zoro stood in place, watching, barely breathing with rage and grief and despair and betrayal and borrowed grief, as Sanji beat an unresisting Luffy into the ground, over and over, his face a mask that did nothing to hide his pain. Turned on him with fire and fury, holding nothing back — treated him as an enemy, as less than an enemy. As a contemptible pest, even as his heart shattered with love.

Finally, it was over.

“Sanji!” Luffy howled from where he lay in the sugary grass, bleeding and burned and trembling in what Zoro knew was real pain. “I’m not leaving this spot! And I’m not gonna eat anything — ever again — unless it comes from you! If you don’t come back to me with food, I’ll starve right in this spot!” At any other time, in any other circumstance, it would be a laughable threat. Luffy could barely go an hour without wanting to eat. But in his words, Zoro heard deadly seriousness, heard commitment — and he knew Sanji could hear it too.

Sanji turned away in a swirl of his crimson cloak, and Zoro could not — could not let him simply walk away.

“Coward.”

He spat the word at Sanji’s back, furious and bitter and utterly uncaring for Sanji’s grief — uncaring for the sharp pulse of bitter pain that spiked in his own chest to say it. It didn’t matter, because it hadn’t stopped him. He’d turned on Luffy, spat contempt at all of them, at Luffy, and had followed that contempt with violence.

“Go live in your castle, then,” he added. “I’ll be staying here, with my captain. Because unlike you, I know what loyalty means.”

And as Sanji climbed back into his carriage and and the procession rolled away, Zoro knew Sanji was weeping. Could feel every tear in his own heart.

Didn’t care. Served the bastard right. He should hurt.

“You can’t be serious,” Nami said later, sitting beside Luffy with her knees pulled to her chest. “Luffy, you heard what Pound said in the forest. Big Mom sends her whole army after anyone who defeats one of her commanders. We’re right here in the open, you told all those soldiers and guards we weren’t going to move, and you’re already exhausted from beating up that Cracker guy!”

Luffy, sprawled in the grass, scowled. All the bulk he’d possessed earlier was long gone — and was it Zoro’s imagination, or did Luffy even look a little scrawnier than normal? Smaller, thinner, as though some part of his essence was missing. But maybe that was only the damned cook’s — not a cook anymore, by his own words, no, that damned prince’s — betrayal.

“Sanji’s going to come back,” their captain said stubbornly. “And when he does, I’m going to be right here waiting for him. It’s a promise.”

Zoro was silent. He’d given his word, and he wouldn’t take it back — if Luffy meant to stay here, then Zoro would stay beside him til the bitter end. But he felt, in his gut, that the end would be bitter. That it would not be an end of triumph or reunion, but of blood and pain.

Of death.

Luffy can’t die here. That was a beacon. He knew it, deep in his soul, that Luffy’s destiny was more than this, more than starvation or imprisonment here in this surreal, sugary hell. But at the same time, he knew just as strongly that Luffy would not be bound by destiny — that in a contest between the hand of fate and Luffy’s will, Luffy would win, even to his own ruin.

“Luffy,” Nami said, despair thick in her voice, “he’s not coming. Didn’t you hear him? He’s turned his back on us.”

“He’s going to come,” Luffy repeated, as though the mere fact of his saying so would make it happen. “He will.”

The tree that loomed over them bent upward with a groan of flexing wood. “Mama’s in a rage,” he said ominously. “Look at those lowering clouds…”

“It’s no natural storm.” Nami’s voice fell to a tremulous hush. “I can feel that.”

“It’s the sign of her anger! She knows what you did to Cracker, and her armies will be coming soon. She’s setting them on their way… when the storm reaches us, so will they. And then we’ll die.” The tree’s voice was ragged with fear.

Luffy was silent for a long moment. Then, quietly, he said, “... Zoro, Nami, Tree-dude. None of you made promises to Sanji. You don’t have to stay.”

“Don’t be an idiot,” Zoro said, breaking his stony silence for his captain as he would for no one else. “You’re my captain. I have to stay.”

He could not convince Luffy to leave; there were no words that would move Luffy from his spot, and no words that would answer Nami or Kingbaum’s fear. Luffy would stay here, and Zoro would stay beside his captain, and either they would defeat Big Mom’s armies or they would die here, with their dreams forever unrealized, and that guilt would be something Sanji would have to carry for the rest of his life.

And he would. For all his haughty words, for all his stupid smoke-filled mouth had claimed about not caring, Zoro knew the lies he’d heard, knew that Sanji’s heart yearned to be back with them. Knew that the guilt was already crushing the cook, had been driving him into the ground since long before he’d punted Luffy out of the carriage. Knew that Sanji’s despair had only been growing for days now — knew that Sanji was choking on it, helpless and suffering.

It didn’t matter. Sanji might feel guilty as all hell but it was his actions that spoke.

Let him suffer.

(Let him suffer for breaking Zoro’s heart, the bastard.)

There was a faint rumble in the ground, as though an earthquake approached. But this was no earthquake; opening his senses, Zoro could feel the army, could see through Haki the glowing auras like a bioluminescent tide rolling toward them.

Luffy saw them too; he pushed himself to his feet with a sigh, rolling his shoulders and falling into a wide, balanced stance. “Come and get me!” he shouted. “All of you, just try me! My feet won’t move from this spot!”

And then the tide washed over them.

The clouds blocked the sun and moon, so that Zoro did not know, in the end, how long they fought. The battle had begun during the day, and when it ended, inky night surrounded them.

It seemed impossible, but during the long hours of battle in the soaking too-sweet rain, Zoro had lost track of Sanji’s emotions. The pain and heartbreak that had seemed to freeze his breath in his lungs had faded behind the unrelenting onslaught, behind the surge upon surge upon surge of powerful enemies and less-powerful attendants, behind Zoro’s grim determination to defend his captain no matter the cost. He had no attention to spare for the cook-no-more, no attention for anything but the desperate battle before him.

And now, as the sheeting rain continued to fall around them, the last enemy on the field dropped to her knees, gurgling on blood from a vicious slice, and Zoro waited for the next attack that did not come...

Was it over?

Behind him, Luffy lay in the grass and wheezed with exhaustion, every breath coming as an audible rasp in the sudden stillness. Their captain had not been fresh going into this battle — had been exhausted, still, from dealing with Cracker, and then on top of that, Sanji’s treacherous attack had driven Luffy to the brink. And Nami — Nami had not been so badly tired already, but she was not one of their prime fighters. If it had only been the two of them here, if Zoro had not been fresh and ready to fight…

He didn’t want to think about how it would have ended.

But it didn’t matter, because they were here. Kingbaum had been split from shorn crown to root, but still seemed to live. Nami was on her knees beside Luffy, her head hanging low as she panted with exhaustion. And Luffy…

Luffy was shrivelled, shrunken, as though he’d aged a thousand years over the course of one terrible day and night. Even in the dim moonlight that filtered through the clearing clouds, Zoro could see the great wrinkles that had formed, crevasses across that brow and pulling at his lips, deep sags under his eyes. It truly was a vision of old age, come on so suddenly.

“Zoro,” Luffy said, his voice little more than a whisper. “Zoro, I did it. I didn’t move. I’m still right here.”

“You did it,” Zoro agreed, and in his heart, he cursed Sanji for driving them all to this. “You kept your word, captain.”

“He’s gonna come,” Luffy added. “He’s gonna come, and he’ll come right here to me, ‘cause he knows where to find me.” He paused, then, and eyed Zoro with a strangely thoughtful light in his tired eyes. “... He’s gonna come for you too, Zoro.”

That was the moment that Zoro realized how much track he’d lost of Sanji’s feelings — no, not lost track, set aside for more important things, for his captain and not the fucking Prince of Swirlybrow Kingdom. It was tempting to leave it that way — to harden himself away from the feeling in his chest, to reject the very notion of having a soulmate, if Sanji meant to leave them as he did.

And yet, even as he weighed that thought, he found himself reaching to that place in his chest, searching for the feeling he’d pushed aside in the midst of battle.

For days, all he had felt from Sanji was despair, hopelessness, anger, pain, grief — all the profound pain that this place, these people, inflicted. But as Zoro turned his attention inward now, as he reached without even thinking about it back to his soulmate, he felt despair shatter into determination, felt anger and pain burst into —

Into hope.

Nami and Luffy, he realized, were both watching his face intently, and when he scowled at them, Luffy smiled.

“Sanji’s coming.”

As he reached the field of battle, Sanji slowed from his desperate rush. Was it even remotely possible that Luffy and the others were still here? He’d seen the terrible army rushing past Germa’s procession, what felt like a lifetime ago instead of the previous afternoon. Three people, and one of them terribly beaten — that guilt would be his for the rest of his life — what chance could they stand against such an onslaught? And yet, if anyone could, Luffy and Zoro would.

He didn’t tap Haki to search for them; the thought crossed his mind, but he discarded it for no fully formed reason he could have voiced. It wasn’t right — was cheating somehow, making it too easy on him. In this sea of fallen enemies, he needed to search, needed to struggle, instead of simply making a beeline for his captain. Needed to understand just what he had put them through, his beloved nakama who had come to bring him back.

There were so many. An entire battlefield, broad swathes of enemies cut down and shattered, struck by lightning, smashed by ferocious fists and slashed by unstoppable swords. All this, from three people — his comrades, so strong, so determined. Making their stand here because Luffy promised him, because Luffy’s determination would not be shaken. Because Luffy had faith that Sanji would come back to him.

He didn’t deserve them. Sanji did not deserve a single moment of Luffy’s faith, Luffy’s suffering on this field of battle. Luffy should not have waited for him here — should have turned and left, should have accepted that Sanji was no fit crewman to see him to the end of the journey.

But he wouldn’t. Sanji knew he wouldn’t. Luffy did not lose faith in people. Did not regret his choices, did not regret his nakama.

Through the rain, a glimmer of green caught his eye. Zoro, standing at Luffy’s side as promised. Standing, unbowed, defending his captain. And despite himself, his heart leapt.

There you are.

His approach was slow; he could not rush to them, could not come as though he belonged before Luffy, as though it were natural to place himself in the company of those who did not betray.

(Nami had wavered, but that was hardly the same; Arlong Park was so long ago. He should have known better by now.)

When he finally drew close, his breath caught in his throat and his heart ached at the sight of Luffy. It was only the past afternoon that they had faced each other — was it truly that Luffy needed him so very much? Needed his labor, his care, the food his hands prepared? Could he really place this precious life in the hands of another?

(But could he do anything else? Reiju had said the cuffs on his wrists were fake, but she had not so dismissed the threat to Zeff’s life…)

Luffy lolled against a piece of rubble — no, a portion of the enormous tree that had accompanied him earlier. Had it fallen in this battle? No matter, he could not think of it, Luffy drew his attention, Luffy there with Nami and Zoro at his left and right hands. All three of them watched him; Luffy with dawning hope and anticipation clear on his face, Nami with wary hesitance that — he thought, he hoped — hid a veiled hope of her own, and Zoro…

The swordsman was unreadable as always, his expression blank, harsh, forbidding. There was no forgiveness there.

Luffy broke the silence first. “Sanji…!”

“I told you to leave,” Sanji said, and his voice emerged thick, strangled, his pain obvious. “I told you…”

Luffy only laughed. “As if I was gonna.”

His heart afire with guilt, Sanji set his basket down in front of Luffy. “I dropped it on the way,” he said, as though confessing his sins. “It’s been rained on. I didn’t even know what I was doing when I made it. It’s the worst. What a failure, right? It’s…”

His words went ignored, Luffy snatching the basket up and digging into it without even a trace of hesitation. Sanji couldn’t watch him — looked away, looked down to the muddy, bloody earth that told the tale of the struggle undertaken here.

(Because of him. His fault. Suffering laid at his feet.)

“Sanji, it’s good!” Luffy’s voice was full of smiles, full of joy, and Sanji could not take it anymore; he buried his eyes against his hand, trying to hide the burn of tears, trying to choke down the sobs that wanted to choke him.

“You liar! It’s terrible. Unworthy. But — there. It’s yours. Now please, leave me here.” The words burned their way out of him, his longing and hopes and dreams all sacrificed with his own volition.

“What!?” It was Nami, beside Luffy, who reacted. “But — you came back…”

“I disrespected my captain,” Sanji answered her — not a contradiction, not a counter, but an answer. “And injured him to the best of my ability. I have no right to return. Such a thing… no captain can accept. I would be a poison to your crew.”

“You understand it,” Zoro said then, and his voice was granite.

(Like his heart.)

“I understand it,” Sanji agreed. “My transgression.”

“You lied,” Zoro added. “When you insulted us. When you called yourself a prince.”

“Yes.”

“Zoro told us what you said to him,” Nami said. “What your family is holding over your head.”

“It’s true,” Sanji said. “If I do anything to upset them — if I don’t go along with this — if I don’t bend my head and comply, then my old man — who gave me everything, who has been my greatest savior, the only father I could want — and all his crew will be killed! And their blood will be on my hands.

“And,” he added, seeing Nami take a breath to speak, “my shitty family — Big Mom is going to kill them at the ceremony. It is a trap for them. They’ll be disarmed, and there are weapons that will strike them dead. They aren’t anything to me — they aren’t family — but I can’t let them go blindly to their deaths. To let helpless people be slaughtered… I can’t do it, not when I could stop it.”

Was it only his imagination, or was the granite-and-ice feeling of anger in his heart — what he could no longer deny was Zoro — thawing a little? Perhaps, something like approval at his resolve?

“Because of this,” he summarized, “I can’t go with you. I’m trapped here. So — all of you, please go. I have to see this through to the end. Do what I can to avert the plan. If I fail, I’ll die as a Vinsmoke. If I succeed — I’ll figure something out. But I can’t leave.”

Luffy rose to his feet, his expression sliding into a scowl. “Sanji,” he said, drawing out the syllables in a sudden burst of anger, “you’re sayin’ a whole lot of things, but you’re still not telling us the truth. I’m not gonna forgive you if you keep lying to me!”

“I’m not! This is all the truth!” Sanji protested. Every word he’d said, it was all nothing but true!

“LIAR!” And a fist lashed out, slamming into Sanji’s face, flinging him backward, down into the wet earth. “Liar! Liar! Liar! Tell me the truth, Sanji!”

Slowly, heavily, Sanji pushed himself to his knees. Looked up at Luffy, at Nami, at Zoro — three faces, three beloved nakama. Nami, the first woman he could ever say was his friend. Luffy, the captain to whom he owed so very much. And Zoro…

Zoro. The man who was his soulmate. For so long, he’d hidden from that truth; for so long, he hadn’t realized. And now, like this, in front of him, he felt so entirely exposed. Every moment of pain he suffered, Zoro had felt. Every tear he’d shed had had its echo in Zoro’s heart. Every moment of fear, of despair, of isolation, of grief — Zoro had known.

And the truth burst out of him, a wrenching cry that could not be held back.

“I want to go home! Home to Sunny, home to you!”

To you. To all of you — to Luffy as his captain, yes, and to his nakama, to every single one of them. To be accepted again, to be Black-Leg Sanji the pirate, the cook, the man who fought and served. To feed his beloved chosen family. To love them in his service, and to be loved by them.

“That’s better!” Luffy’s entire affect had changed in a moment, from anger to smiles; despite the mud and blood all over him, he looked suddenly radiant, rejuvenated by the filthy, waterlogged, bruised and damaged food Sanji had brought — as though the food itself didn’t matter, as though it was only the fact of it coming from Sanji’s hands that gave it all the nutrition it needed.

But Sanji wasn’t done. Still kneeling in the mud, he looked to Nami and Zoro — searching each of them for the same forgiveness Luffy was beaming on him. “Nami-san,” he said, without any flirtatious drawl on the honorific, and then, “... Zoro.” Not mosshead, not algae or cactus or idiot. None of that right now. He needed to offer his repentance.

And he saw Zoro understand it, lift his chin a little in acknowledgment of the regret in Sanji’s address to him.

“I insulted all of you,” he went on. “Falsely. It was a lie. I meant — I meant to drive you away, but even so, it was an insult. Can I — I — I can’t ask for forgiveness. But can I be your nakama again?”

Nami and Zoro exchanged a long look, the two of them; neither meant to speak for the other hastily. Sanji made no attempt to interpret the looks, but simply waited, letting his gaze fall back to the mud.

Finally, Zoro said, “You fucked up. But you’re not the only one who has. And you got your shit figured out, in the end.”

Nami added, “I can’t exactly say I haven’t done the same, after all.”

“So,” Zoro took over again from her, smoothly, “it ain’t forgotten. But — welcome back, cook.” And for once, the word was layered with acceptance — a title, a place, a way to belong.

“Now!” Luffy laughed, mad and happy as always, “let’s wreck that wedding!”

Whole Cake Island fell away to Sunny’s stern, their departure safeguarded by Jinbe and his fishmen, as well as Sanji’s shitty family — who were, it seemed, at least capable of demonstrating something on the order of gratitude, even if Zoro wasn’t about to forgive them for a single goddamned minute of mutual suffering he and Sanji had been through.

It was over. They had Sanji back. Relief and joy were mixed with sorrow at the loss of Pedro, and Zoro knew his death weighed heavily on the cook. Not undeservedly, in his opinion, but it was what it was, and Pedro had chosen his end.

He’d been chewing over his thoughts since Sanji returned to them, and he knew he had to act. He’d come so close to losing Sanji without ever having said anything — and that, at least, had to change. Sanji had chosen the Strawhats, had chosen Luffy. Whether or not he would choose Zoro was an open question, but if this thing between them continued unsaid, it would be a rock on Zoro’s back. Before, it had always seemed as though there would be a later, a time when perhaps things would be different, when Sanji might accept the confession more readily.

But that was an excuse, and the thought of Sanji running off to marry some girl, unknowing that his soulmate had sailed beside him this whole time — that had been so intolerable that Zoro knew he could not risk it again. He had to act, had to say it, and let Sanji react as he would.

He found Sanji standing at the rail, staring out across the sea meditatively. The cook still smelled faintly of cake, and the slump of his shoulders was pure exhaustion. Not that any of them were in much better shape — but they had the rubbings of Big Mom’s poneglyph, courtesy of Brook, and they were on their way out. The little locus of Sanji in Zoro’s chest felt meditative, regretful, grateful. Mixed emotions, all subdued.

Zoro stepped up to the rail beside Sanji and paused there, searching for a way to open the conversation. Searching his heart for Sanji’s feelings, for some scrap of evidence that the cook might accept what he was about to say. This wouldn’t be easy. He’d bound himself to secrecy for so long.

The easiest thing about never confessing your feelings was never having to have them shot down, after all.

Finally, he took a breath. “... You’ve pissed me off since the day we met.” Not a romantic start — even he knew that — but a true one, and between them, he thought more truth was the better plan. “But… you’ve known that.”

Silence, for a long moment; the cook exhaled smoke that the wind immediately whipped away. “Yeah,” he agreed. “We’ve both pissed each other off. But… that’s okay. Isn’t it?” A small, sidelong glance at Zoro, searching him in turn.

It was all damned hard to say. Committing to honesty was one thing, but actually putting it into words was something else. “It was your family all along. When you were a kid…”

Now Zoro turned, looking directly at the cook, faced him and searched for understanding. If Sanji didn’t know, didn’t at least suspect what they were to each other, that would sound like nonsense. But…

But no. He saw recognition. Felt it, in his chest.

“Mostly,” Sanji agreed. “Not all, but nearly.” A hesitation, a long pause, as he visibly searched for words to say. “...I’m sorry you had to feel all that.”

Of fucking course that was his take — and a fucking apology, from the asshole who never apologized to Zoro? It was hard not to punch him right then. But it was also classic Sanji, to take his own hurts as deserved. “Don’t be stupid.”

“No, that’s your job.” The words had no bite to them — were nothing more or less than their normal interactions. Silently, the exchange had meant, we’re still okay, right? and yes, we’re still okay. Crushing the eggshells they might have instead walked on.

Again, silence fell between them, but it was expectant, unresolved. More to come.

Finally, Zoro broke it again. “Pretty shitty thing to do,” he said, “marrying someone else in front of your soulmate like that. Doesn’t sound much like your chivalry bullshit, cook.” There. He’d actually said the damned word. No more dancing around it. Right out there in the open, for Sanji to accept him or tell him to get lost.

“If you’d have listened to me, it wouldn’t have been in front of you,” Sanji retorted — but did not reject the word, did not reject what it meant. And that… that sounded an awful lot like acceptance to Zoro.

“Because you meant for us to sail away and leave you.”

“Because I was going to handle that bullshit myself.”

“Or die trying.” Zoro’s glare was flat. “And you would’ve died trying, too. None of that. Nakama trust each other.”

“... Soulmates trust each other,” Sanji added, his voice going soft. Tentative, almost, in applying that label to them — Zoro heard the question in it, and why the hell was Sanji making it a question? He was here to ask that damned question himself.

He swallowed. “If you want to be.”

Sanji glanced around, searching for any observers — but there were none; for the moment, they were alone on deck. Then he looked back at Zoro. “Do you think we can make this work?”

“Hell if I know. I want to punch your stupid face in at least twice a day. But…” Talking about feelings was bullshit. But important bullshit, at least right now. Zoro looked at Sanji — really looked at him, traced the lines of his face, the soft sweep of his hair tugged by the wind, the incongruously dark goatee that had finally grown in to be more than scruff. The fucker was unfairly beautiful.

“It’d be boring if you didn’t,” Sanji agreed, a small smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. “Just know I’ll kick your stupid fists away first.” And then he hesitated too, looked down — looked at Zoro’s hand on the rail. “... If you’ll still have me, after all the stupid bullshit I just put you through.”

Zoro snorted — and reached to Sanji, taking one of his hands in his. “That was pretty stupid, all right. But you got over it.” His fingers traced over Sanji’s wrist, where the stupid fake cuff had sat. If those had been real… But they hadn’t been. No point in thinking about what hadn’t happened.

“Eventually. With help.” Another furtive little glance around — and then Sanji closed the last of the space between them, stepping up to Zoro, and pressed a light, quick kiss to his lips. And paused, noses bumping, did not withdraw. “Thank you,” he breathed against Zoro’s mouth, and, “I’m sorry.”

“You’re welcome,” Zoro answered, wrapping an arm around Sanji’s waist and holding him right where he wanted him, in close, chest to chest where their hearts could beat together. “You’re a dumbass. But you’re my dumbass now.”

“For as long as you’ll keep putting up with me,” Sanji agreed. “Fair warning, marimo, I’m not going to let go easily.”

“I’d be pissed if you did.”

They were sailing from danger into danger; there was a lot to fill Sanji in on with the Wano plot, and dealing with Kaido was going to be harder than dealing with Big Mom. But for the moment, they had peace, and they had each other. Zoro’s chest was full of warmth, happiness, acceptance. He had his soulmate, and together, they could face anything.