Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The Grand Line was quiet for once, too quiet, in Sanji’s opinion.

The sea stretched calm and silver around the Thousand Sunny, waves lapping gently against the hull. No whirlpools. No sky-islands falling out of clouds. No bizarre marine wildlife trying to board the ship. Just… peace. A concept that never lasts long with the straw hat crew.

Sanji leaned on the railing, cigarette barely lit, and frowned into the salty thick air. Peace was fine. But quiet? Quiet was dangerous.

They were two weeks past Wano. Kaido was gone. Big Mom too. The alliance had held, if barely, Yamato had stayed behind as had Momo. Luffy had smiled like nothing hurt. But the crew (when no one was watching) moved slower, as though each member of the crew were lost in their own thoughts.

Zoro still wore his bandages like they were a part of his uniform.

Nami hadn’t yelled in three days.

Even Luffy’s appetite had diminished to that of a normal human being (for now).

They were healing. Supposedly, but Sanji didn’t feel like he was. Physically he knew he was fine and that was the problem. After everything they had gone through, the hits he took and gave. There should be something more than a limp, something more than an improperly set knee to prove he had gone through the same hell as the rest of the crew, yet there was nothing and that scared him.

So yes He was fine physically but the same could not be said of his mental state, looking for any reason to keep his mind and body occupied he just moved, cooked, cleaned, fixed torn clothes, watched Zoro from across the deck and said nothing.

“Yo! Sanji!”

Usopp’s voice cut through the afternoon like a pebble skipping water. Sanji turned, flicking ash over the side of the ship, a little annoyed at his smoke break being interrupted.

Usopp waved from the galley door, flour streaked up one arm. “You left the oven on again!”

Sanji blinked.

Right. He had been baking something. Bread? Or was that yesterday?

“Shit. Handle it!” Sanji called back. “You’ve watched me cook enough!”

Usopp made a strangled sound. “You’re gonna turn me into a sous chef by accident!”

Sanji smiled trying to hide the fact that it concerned him that he’d got so lost in his thoughts he had forgotten something as simple as turning off the fucking oven.

Turning back to the sea his smile vanished. A deep frown etching its way onto his face.

The others were scattered across the ship. Chopper and Robin sat under the shade of the crows nest, quietly reviewing new medicinal herbs they had received from the people of Wano. Nami, trusting Jinbei at the helm, dozed away in a hammock, her log pose swinging beside her. Brook’s violin drifted faintly from below deck, promises of a new song on the horizon.

Franky had taken it upon himself to reinforce every damn rail on the Sunny “just in case,” even though they hadn’t been attacked in days.

And Zoro…

Sanji looked up.

Zoro was asleep. Or at least pretending to be. Lounging near the figurehead, swords beside him, arms behind his head like a perfectly relaxed asshole.

Sanji narrowed his eyes.

There was a tension in Zoro’s shoulders that didn’t match the pose. Barely there. But Sanji had seen it before—when the swordsman was injured but didn’t want anyone to notice. He understood that feeling intimately. He’d been limping for three days, and no one had mentioned it. Maybe they didn’t see. Maybe they did.

He couldn’t tell which was worse.

The sun dipped low, light turning golden across the deck.

Sanji finally moved. He walked with practiced ease, no limp, no wince, but his right knee screamed each time his foot touched down. A leftover from Onigashima. Something cracked under Queen’s strength and never quite reset.

Chopper had offered to look at it once, but the pain was somewhat of a reassurance so Sanji so had simply smiled, lit a cigarette, and changed the subject.

Dinner prep was silent, which wasn’t unusual, but it felt different tonight.

The galley still smelled like fresh dough, roasted spices, and citrus peel, but it didn’t feel like home. Sanji moved between counters like a ghost. Ingredients chopped themselves under his hands. Steam rose, pots hissed, the stove clinked—normal sounds, but distant as though it were coming from an adjacent room.

Footsteps came up behind him. He didn’t have to turn to recognise the heavy footfall of the swordsman's boots on the wooden floor.

“You're off today.”

Sanji didn’t pause what he was doing. “No more than usual. Or maybe you're just finally sobering up enough to notice.”

Zoro stepped beside him, reaching past to grab a clean cup.

“You’re burning the garlic.”

Sanji swore and spun, pulling the pan off the flame just in time. The scent had just begun to go acrid. He stared at the pan. Then at Zoro. The swordsman was watching him, not smug, not taunting. Just... watching.

Sanji’s voice was quiet. “You gonna say something?”

Zoro shrugged. “You already know.”

For a moment, the galley held its breath. The sizzle of cooling oil. The slow drip of broth. Sanji’s fingers still gripping the pan’s handle too tight. Zoro didn’t move, he didn't smirk or say anything more.

And that was what made it worse.

Sanji muttered, “I’m not gonna break, marimo.”

Zoro took a slow sip from the cup, ignoring the jab. “Didn’t say you would.”

“You think I’m slacking? That it?”

Zoro looked at him sideways. “You’re overworking .”

Sanji blinked, startled.

Zoro set the cup down. “You're doing everything like you’re trying to outrun something.”

Sanji turned back to the counter and washed the pan a little too aggressively. “Maybe I just want the crew taken care of. Sorry I’m not napping through life like you.”

Zoro didn’t rise to the bait. He stood for a moment longer, then turned to leave.

“Whatever you’re fighting, cook... just don’t lose.”

The door shut behind him with a soft click and left the cook with the sound of running water and the smell of garlic wafting through the galley. Sanji stood still. The garlic was definitely burned and beyond saving.

He threw it away, started over, and didn’t look up again.

Dinner passed without incident. Everyone praised the food. Luffy had three servings (appetite having returned when the hunger pangs got too strong). Nami claimed the last of the fruit salad before Usopp could blink. Even Brook said it made his “phantom stomach” ache with happiness.

But Sanji didn’t really taste his own cooking. He smiled at the compliments and refilled everyone's drinks making sure to dance around his lovely ladies no matter how much his knee protested the action. He washed the plates the moment they emptied and quietly removed himself before dessert.

No one said anything.

Not even Zoro.

Later that night, Sanji sat alone near the kitchen window. His cigarette glows faintly in the dark, the end flaring every time he inhales. He could still feel Queen’s laugh in his head. Still felt the weight of that moment—the mechanical pressure crushing down, the fire curling beneath his skin, the cold panic that he hadn’t been strong enough.

And the worst part—

The moment he was strong enough.

Too strong.

When the pain stopped.

And the fear started.

“What am I becoming?”

He buried the thought under smoke.

Zoro couldn’t sleep. He lay on the deck, arms crossed behind his head, staring up at the stars. The usual quiet hum of the Sunny was there—the creak of ropes, the slap of water against the hull—but it all felt so far away.

He thought about Sanji’s face in the galley. The flat way he’d spoken, the mechanical movements, the lack of insults that usually flowed without effort.

Zoro didn’t like it. He didn’t know why he didn’t like it. But the feeling twisted under his ribs like a sword that didn’t want to be drawn.

He closed his eyes but didn’t sleep.

Below deck, Robin passed Sanji on the way to her room.

She paused. “You’re up late.”

Sanji shrugged. “Habit.”

Robin smiled gently. “You don’t need to keep watching over us, you know.”

Sanji’s smile was automatic. “Can’t help it. It’s all in the job description,.”

Robin tilted her head. “And who wrote that job?”

Sanji didn’t answer.

The next morning brought wind. Nothing dangerous—not yet—but enough to make the sails strain, the ropes hum, and the Sunny sway with purpose.

Franky shouted from the helm, “Stormfront’s shifting to port! Might wanna steer wide!”

Nami was already at her maps, adjusting their heading. Luffy stood near the figurehead, grinning at the wind like it was a game whilst Brook played an eerie, fast-paced tune that matched the energy in the air.

Sanji brought out breakfast and distributed it without flair. Warm pastries, Rice balls with pickled plum, even a few handmade bento boxes. He didn’t sit down to eat. He didn’t eat at all.

Around midday, the stormfront shifted again, but something else came with it. A dot on the horizon, moving fast.

Usopp squinted through a scope. “Uhh… not a ship. Not just a ship.”

Chopper climbed the rail beside him. “What does that mean!?”

“Means whatever it is, it’s not sailing. It’s skipping, like a stone.”

Zoro appeared beside them, swords at his hip. “A weapon?”

Franky scanned it with a rudimentary lens from his forearm. “Looks like something cobbled together. Maybe marine scrap. But it’s moving too damn fast.”

Robin frowned. “Automated?”

Before they could answer, the object cleared the horizon with a hiss of steam and an arc of light.

It was a ship, yes, but not in any traditional sense. Two steel hulls welded together. A propulsion system that spat flame and coughed smoke. A forward cannon flanked by rotating spike panels, and what looked like a ram outfitted with scrap-metal teeth.

“Oh good,” Sanji muttered. “Floating death trash.”

Luffy grinned. “I like floating death trash!”

Zoro drew one sword not taking his eye off the strange ship. “Think it’s friendly?”

Usopp ducked behind a barrel. “Since when is anything friendly!?”

The question was answered as soon as it was voiced. The enemy didn’t talk, did not shout or cheer or scream in excitement at the prospect of a fight. It just fired. A white-hot cannonball hissed over the deck and exploded into the sea, sending spray high enough to soak the crow’s nest.

Luffy shouted, “Time to fight!”

The Straw Hats burst into motion.

Zoro leapt to intercept a second blast with a perfect diagonal slice that split the cannonball mid-air. It exploded to either side of him, sending a wave of heat across the bow and up the swordsman’s back.

Sanji was already in the air, flipping past the railing, spinning into a sky walk and kicking toward the enemy vessel with flames already trailing from his heel. The ship’s deck was empty, save for automatons, they were crudely built, poorly balanced, but packed with explosives.

“Homemade kamikaze bots. Cute,” Sanji muttered.

He failed to notice that not each bot was made the same.

He spun through them like a flame tornado, shattering steel limbs and kicking a bomb-bot off course before it could reach the Sunny. One had decided to climb up behind him, not necessarily larger than the rest but there was something about, something off. It launched just as he landed, catching him hard across the shoulder and detonating mid-impact. The pain was immediate and hot, hotter than anything he had ever felt before.

The world went white.

Back on the Sunny, Zoro’s head snapped toward the blast, sensing something different about this explosion. “Cook!”

Chopper cried out. “I see him, he’s falling!”

Luffy stretched both arms toward Sanji’s airborne form, caught him mid-fall, and yanked him back onto the deck in a blur of motion. Smoke poured off of him, his jacket was charred black across the shoulder. One eyebrow was singed.

He was laughing, but when Luffy let him down, his legs buckled. Zoro caught him before he hit the deck.

“I’m fine,” Sanji wheezed.

Zoro looked at the burned jacket. At the blood seeping through the left sleeve.

“No, you’re not.”

Sanji tried to stand. “It’s nothing. Just a—” He collapsed back down.

Zoro caught him before his head hit the deck this time.

Sanji’s body went heavy all at once, like someone cut the strings. His breathing came fast but shallow, and when Zoro shifted him, the left side of his shirt clung to his body, blood soaking through fabric and blackened thread.

Chopper was at his side instantly. “He’s bleeding. It’s not stopping.”

Franky dropped down beside them after having destroyed the unmanned ship's bots with the rest of the crew, his wrench already in hand. “I’ll start fixing the damage to the hull—”

“No,” Zoro barked. “You’re staying here.”

Franky blinked. “What?”

Zoro didn’t look up. “We need hands. Your hands.”

Brook stepped in, unusually quiet. “I’ll help with the ship.”

Robin had already disappeared toward the infirmary, likely prepping it before they arrived.

Luffy stood nearby, his face unreadable. Not smiling or joking. He looked at Sanji the way he looked at treasure when it wasn’t shiny like it was important , even if it wasn’t loud.

Sanji groaned.

Zoro leaned in. “Oi. You still with us?”

A rasp. “Did I... win?”

Zoro snorted. “You broke twentyfive bots and yourself.”

“Solid ratio,” Sanji slurred. 

Chopper looked grim. “His left shoulder blade is cracked. Third-degree burns. Internal bleeding. Maybe more. We need to move him.”

Zoro lifted him without asking. Sanji hissed but didn’t fight it, didn’t have the strength to.

The infirmary was still warm from the last time someone got hurt. That someone had been Zoro. Sanji had made fun of him for not knowing when to stop bleeding. Now it was Zoro’s turn but he didn’t say a word. Just helped Chopper lower Sanji to the bed and stood back while the reindeer went to work, hooves shaking.

Robin passed Zoro a clean cloth. He took it and wiped soot from Sanji’s forehead coming away black and red.

“His body’s rejecting the painkillers,” Chopper said, eyes wide. “They’re metabolizing too fast.”

Robin’s brow furrowed. “What does that mean?”

Chopper swallowed. “It means... he’s healing faster. Too fast. Not naturally.”

Zoro’s eyes narrowed. “Like with the raid suit?”

Chopper nodded. “Or what it did to him.”

Zoro’s hand gripped the railing at the side of the bed. “What do you mean what it did to him”

Chopper looked down not saying a word but a dark sad look formed as he remembered what happened with Queen.

Sanji stirred. “Don’t... blame the suit...”

Zoro leaned in. “What do we blame, then?”

Sanji didn’t open his eyes. “Me.”

Zoro clenched his jaw. “Don’t be an idiot.”

Sanji’s breath caught. “Too late.”

The room dimmed as the Sunny rocked gently on open water. Outside, the last of the enemy ship smoldered into the sea. Inside, something worse had just started to burn. The infirmary quieted after Sanji passed out again. Not the calm kind of unconsciousness, his face twitched, jaw clenched, hands curled like he was still trying to fight something only he could see.

Zoro didn’t leave. 

Robin left a fresh stack of bandages and retreated, silent.

Chopper hovered at Sanji’s side for a while, then eventually curled up in the chair by the window, whispering something to himself that sounded like an apology.

Zoro just watched.

The burns were worse than they looked at first—deep, patterned, incomplete. The blast had hit a strange angle. The skin had started to reform before Chopper even finished the disinfectant, knitting faster than it should.

Zoro remembered something like this from Wano. When Sanji moved like something inside him was working faster than he was. When the pain stopped before it should have. And that terrified him.

Sometime past midnight, Sanji stirred again.

Zoro sat up. “You’re awake.”

A grunt, barely a nod. Then a whisper. “How bad?”

Zoro didn’t answer right away.

Sanji opened one eye. “That bad, huh.”

“You were lucky.”

Sanji snorted. “I hate that word.”

“Get used to it.”

They sat in silence for a long while. Zoro broke it first.

“Why didn’t you dodge?”

Sanji’s eyes flicked toward him, confused.

“That last hit. The bot behind you. You saw it, didn’t you?”

Sanji’s jaw tightened.

“Had to finish the others first.”

“That’s not how you fight.”

“Maybe I changed.”

Zoro leaned forward. “Maybe you’re being reckless.”

“ You’re calling me reckless?”

“You’re not built like me.”

Sanji smiled bitterly. “Maybe I am.”

The words sat between them like a loaded weapon.

“Don’t say that,” he said. Not with anger, just steel. Sanji looked away.

The room grew quiet again whilst outside, the ship rocked gently, completely ignorant to the storm brewing inside the ships medical bay. Tensions were high and Zoro didn't want to admit that he was worried about the cook who had been so off recently.

The air was still when Zoro finally stood. “You’re not alone, you know.”

Sanji closed his eyes. “Feels like it.”

Zoro walked to the door. Pausing as he goes to open it.

“Then maybe stop running from the rest of us, dumbass.”

Later that night, the others checked in one by one. Luffy came and sat by the bed for two minutes, said nothing, then walked out with his hands behind his head, whistling low and tuneless.

Nami brought tea, left it untouched on the side table.

Jinbe brought soup that also remained untouched despite the cook's own thoughts of food wastage.

Usopp offered a box of sweets he’d hidden “for emergencies only.”

Brook asked if he could play something soft to help him relax. 

Chopper never really left the room, too scared something may happen if he were left alone.

Robin sat in the window reading her book, providing silent support.

Franky offering himself up for any task that Sanji may want or need doing.

Zoro returned when everyone else was gone and the cook had succumbed to fitful sleep. He didn’t say anything, just dropped a blanket over Sanji’s legs, sat down and waited.

Sanji slept, but it wasn’t peaceful. His fingers twitched, his mouth moved and deep under his skin, something flickered—something mechanical, something alien, something Germa. But over it all, above the ash and steel and blood, was something else.

Zoro.

Sitting there.

Still.

Present.

Unmoving.

And in some part of Sanji’s mind not twisted by flame or trauma or guilt. That meant he was still here, still Sanji. For now.

The next morning brought a strange kind of stillness.

Sanji was asleep, or pretending to be, one arm slung across his stomach, the other tucked over his eyes to block out the sun creeping through the medbay porthole. His expression was too still to be peaceful.

Zoro hadn’t moved from the nearby chair. He wasn’t sleeping either, he watched intently and thought. At some point, Robin entered with a quiet knock and two cups of coffee. She handed one to Zoro.

“You stayed the whole night?”

Zoro took the cup. “Someone had to.”

Robin sat by the window. “You care more than you pretend.”

He didn’t answer.

Robin tilted her head. “You saw the changes in him before the others did.”

Still no response. She didn’t push.

After a moment, she spoke again. “It’s not just physical. That... fire inside him? It’s not always his.”

Zoro’s grip tightened on the cup. “It should’ve been me out there.”

Robin blinked. “What?”

Zoro’s voice was low. “I could’ve taken the blast. It should’ve been me.”

Robin studied him for a long moment. “Sanji wouldn’t have let you.”

Zoro gave a bitter half-laugh. “I know.”

Sanji for his part, having heard the conversation decided to keep quiet and feign sleep, feeling too awkward to try and deny anything being said but feeling a pang at Zoro's dejected tone.

On the deck, Nami stood by the railing with Chopper and Usopp, watching small waves break gently against the Sunny’s hull.

“He’s gonna be okay, right?” Usopp asked. “Like... okay-okay?”

Chopper sighed. “He’s healing fast. Too fast. But that’s not the problem.”

Nami glanced over. “Then what is?”

Chopper shifted uncomfortably. “It’s him. His body’s recovering, but his... mind isn’t keeping up.”

Usopp frowned. “Like trauma?”

Chopper nodded. “He’s hiding it well. But that’s the part that scares me.”

Nami’s hands clenched at her sides. “He didn’t even ask for help when he was on fire. What does that tell you?”

Usopp’s voice was small. “He’s too stubborn for his own good”

They didn’t speak after that. Instead the watched as Franky worked on a dented railing and didn’t sing. Brook hummed but didn’t play as he assisted in the Sunnys repairs.

Luffy perched high on the mast and stared down at the deck with a look that wasn’t his usual carefree mask. It felt like the ship itself was holding its breath.

That afternoon, Sanji woke again after managing to get some sleep.

Zoro sat beside him, reading something, badly, and upside down.

“Still pretending to read, huh?” Sanji rasped.

Zoro looked up, a little surprised. “You sound like shit.”

“You look like shit.”

Zoro gave him the faintest smirk. “There he is.”

Sanji turned his face toward the ceiling. “You’re still here.”

Zoro shrugged. “Sunny’s not that big.”

They let the silence stretch.

Sanji’s voice was quieter now. “Did anyone else get hurt?”

“No. You took the brunt.”

Sanji nodded once. “Good.”

Then, quieter: “Wouldn’t have mattered if I had.”

Zoro’s face darkened. “Don’t.”

Sanji closed his eyes again. “It’s true.”

Zoro stood.

“Where are you going?” Sanji asked, eyes barely open.

“Out. Before I say something you won’t forgive me for.”

Zoro didn’t go far. He stopped at the threshold of the infirmary, one hand braced against the doorframe, jaw tight.

Wouldn’t have mattered if I had.

The words rang in his head like a dull blade hitting stone.

He didn’t know why it stung. Maybe because it was Sanji. Maybe because it was familiar. That quiet, internal rot of not being enough, not being worth enough. He knew what that felt like. That’s what made it worse.

Behind him, Sanji shifted on the cot. Zoro could hear the rustle of sheets, the quiet click of the IV tube as it bumped the frame. He could imagine Sanji trying to sit up again, probably to prove something to no one. But he didn’t turn back. He didn’t have to.

Sanji’s voice came, rough and flat. “You think I’m losing it?”

Zoro exhaled. “No.”

A beat.

Then “You’re carrying too much. And pretending it doesn’t hurt.”

Another pause.

“That’s worse.”

Sanji didn’t answer. But Zoro heard the sigh. The kind that carried months of pressure—Kaido’s fire, Queen’s tech, the Raid Suit’s whispers, Judge’s legacy. And underneath it, the ache of the crew’s laughter echoing without him in it.

Zoro stepped back in and sat down, closer this time. Sanji didn’t look up at him. But he didn’t stop him, either.

“Do you remember,” Zoro said slowly, “what you told me after Enies Lobby?”

Sanji blinked. “You’ll have to be more specific. I insult you a lot. ”

Zoro didn’t smile. “You said... ‘You’re not the only one willing to die for him.’”

Sanji turned toward him, just slightly.

Zoro met his eyes. “That’s still true. For all of them. Not just Luffy.”

Sanji swallowed.

Zoro didn’t move. “So don’t throw yourself away like it only affects you.”

Sanji’s voice broke a little. “I’m not trying to.”

Zoro nodded. “Good.”

Then softer: “Because I don’t think I could watch you disappear again.”

The silence stretched, heavier than lead. Finally, Sanji spoke. Quiet. Honest.

“Do you think I’m changing?”

Zoro answered without hesitation. “Yes.”

Sanji flinched. But Zoro kept going.

“But I don’t think you’re lost. ”

Sanji looked at him. Really looked.

“You mean that?”

Zoro’s eyes didn’t waver. “I don’t lie. Especially not to you.”

He looked deep in thought before continuing “ What did Chopper mean by the raid suit doing something to you?”

Sanji looked away before he let out a deep sigh and pulled a cigarette from the table next to his bed. Lighting it and inhaling deeply before letting out another sigh, this time accompanied by the familiar smell that the swordsman now associated with the cook.

“Choppers gonna kill you if he finds you smoking in here.”

“That depends, you gonna tell him?”

Zoro shakes his head and replies “Give me an honest answer and it’ll be our little secret.”

Sanji takes his time but ultimately tells him the truth, about his failed existence, his brothers success, the raid suits abilities and how he believes the raid suit has kick started his own mutations to finally awaken.

The wind outside had eased and the Sunny swayed gently again. Sanji sank back into the pillow, eyes on the ceiling, breath slow. He didn’t speak again that day.

Zoro didn’t say anything more either. He didn't leave when he noticed the cooks eyes close and his breathing even out, he sat leaning in close and watched the cooks chest rise and fall with each breath.

And when Sanji’s hand twitched in his sleep, once, then again, Zoro didn’t take it. But he didn’t pull away, either.

The spark had been lit.

They didn’t know it yet.

But the fire was coming.

Chapter Text

The sea was mercifully still, but no one trusted it.

Zoro stood on the main deck, arms crossed, gaze locked on the horizon like he could will the waves to behave for longer. He hadn’t slept. Not really. The chair he'd occupied through the night sat empty now, but the weight in his chest hadn’t left with it. His hand hovered near his sword, as if instinct alone might keep things from falling apart again.

Behind him, soft steps creaked across the wood. Not Robin. Not Nami. Too heavy for Chopper. Just steady enough to belong to someone who never moved without meaning.

“Storm’s passed,” Jinbe said, coming to a stop beside him.

Zoro didn’t turn. “That one, yeah.”

Jinbe rested his large hands behind his back, watching the sea with that same unreadable calm he always carried. But Zoro had now fought beside him enough to know the signs: the slow blink, the slight twitch in his gills when something was bothering him.

“You blame yourself,” Jinbe said plainly.

Zoro frowned. “I should’ve gotten to him faster.”

Jinbe didn’t answer immediately. The sea hissed gently against the Sunny’s hull below. A gull cried somewhere overhead.

“You think he would’ve let you?” Jinbe asked, at last.

Zoro said nothing.

“He’s not weak,” Jinbe continued. “But he’s also not unbreakable. None of us are.”

Zoro scoffed, dry. “Could’ve fooled him.”

“He’s a protector, like you” Jinbe said, quieter this time. “Always has been. Sometimes people like that forget to protect themselves.”

Zoro finally looked at him. “And you?”

“I’ve learned the hard way,” Jinbe said. “But he’s younger. Stubborn. He’ll carry the whole damn ship if no one stops him.”

Zoro turned back to the water. “He said it wouldn’t have mattered if he’d died.”

Jinbe’s expression didn’t change, but something behind his eyes flickered. “Then he’s hurting more than he lets on.”

Zoro nodded once. “Yeah.”

They stood in silence again, the wind tugging softly at the sails, ropes creaking with movement. The ship, for all its usual life, felt muted. Like it too was holding its breath.

Zoro clenched his jaw. “We need to be ready.”

“For what?”

“I don’t know,” Zoro muttered. “But that ship and those bots. That wasn’t random.”

Jinbe’s voice was a low rumble. “No. It wasn’t.”

Zoro looked toward the direction of the workshop, where Franky and Usopp were unusually quiet.

“Think they found something?”

“If they did,” Jinbe said, “we’ll know soon enough.”

Below deck, the workshop buzzed softly with mechanical clicks, the sound of tools tapping metal, and Usopp muttering under his breath.

He was elbow-deep in a half-melted casing, grease smudged across his brow, goggles fogged from heat and nerves. “Who builds something like this?” he mumbled. “This is a health violation.... Or twelve.”

Franky knelt beside the bench, twisting a fractured steel panel with practiced care. His usual boisterous attitude was nowhere to be found. Instead, his movements were measured, precise, like something was bothering him too much to let him miss a single detail.

“This scrap’s real weird, bro,” he muttered. “Like someone bolted six different systems together and prayed it wouldn’t fall apart. And gave it teeth.”

Usopp held up a coiled wire bundle. “This isn’t Marine tech, right? It’s too… janky.”

Franky shook his head. “Nope. Not even close. Looks like it came from an old deep-sea junker. But here—”

He flipped one of the twisted panels over, squinting at the underside.

Most of it had been blackened by fire or pitted from impact. But there, just barely visible beneath layers of soot and melted outer shell was a faint engraving. A logo. Or at least part of one.

Usopp leaned closer. “Wait, is that… a swirl?”

Franky grabbed a rag and wiped at the scorch mark. A flake of metal peeled away under his thumb, revealing the curve of a 6, and the ghost of another behind it.

Usopp froze. “That’s not… it’s not what I think it is, right?”

Franky didn’t answer. Not at first. He tilted the piece in the light again. “Can’t be sure.”

“But it looks like Germa.”

Franky sighed. “Yeah. It does.”

Usopp dropped the cable bundle. “Oh hell. You think it’s a leftover from Sanji’s old man?”

“No way,” Franky said, voice low. “They burned those bridges. They wouldn’t risk coming this close.”

Usopp looked around, as if the walls could hear them. “Then what the hell are they doing here?” shouting as he points to the remnants of the bots they had fought.

Franky didn’t answer right away. Instead, he reached into a crate and pulled out a second bot core, smaller, less damaged, but still scarred. The same faint swirl. The same attempt to scrub it out.

“This one too,” he said grimly.

Usopp sat back on his heels. “So someone’s using Germa junk to build kamikaze bots?”

Franky nodded once. “Or trying to make us think they are.”

Usopp swallowed. “Do we… do we tell Sanji?”

Franky’s jaw tightened.

“…Not yet,” he said.

Sanji woke up to the sound of a kettle.

Not the shrill whistle of a stovetop kettle, his kind of kettle, but the smaller, the quieter one that Chopper used for brewing medicinal teas. A gentle clink of ceramic against wood followed, then the soft scratch of paper being flipped in a book. The infirmary was warm again, light spilling through the porthole, golden and soft. For a moment, he could almost pretend everything was fine.

Until he moved.

His whole body lit up like someone had dragged a blowtorch down his side. The pain was fast, sharp, electric, more memory than sensation. He hissed before he could stop it, then immediately went still, jaw clenched, hoping he hadn’t been loud enough to alert—

“Sanji! Don’t move!”

Too late.

Chopper scrambled out of the chair beside his desk, book and blanket falling to the floor. He was across the room in two quick steps, hooves on Sanji’s arm before he could try sitting up again.

“I’m fine,” Sanji muttered, already trying to roll onto one elbow.

“No, you’re not!” Chopper said, louder than usual. “You’ve got internal bruising, your burns are still closing, and your shoulder blade is cracked! You can’t just—just get up like that!”

Sanji winced but kept moving. “I’ve had worse.”

“Not recently,” Chopper snapped, eyes wide and glassy. “Stop acting like this is nothing!”

Sanji froze.

The silence that followed felt heavier than any bandage. He met Chopper’s eyes, saw the fear in them, not just the kind that came with being a doctor, but the kind that came with being their doctor. Their friend.

“…Sorry,” Sanji said quietly.

Chopper pulled back just enough to let him breathe, but didn’t leave. “You don’t have to apologize. Just… don’t lie about how bad it is.”

Sanji lowered his gaze. “Habit.”

Chopper sighed and picked up the blanket from the floor, brushing it off. “You haven’t eaten.”

“I’m not hungry.”

“You always say that when something’s wrong.”

Sanji tried to chuckle, but it came out thin. “What gave it away?”

Chopper didn’t laugh. Instead, he poured a cup of the tea and set it on the bedside table. “You don’t have to fix everything, Sanji. You’re not supposed to.”

Sanji didn’t answer. He didn’t have one.

He managed to sit up by mid-afternoon.

Chopper had eventually gone to check on Brook, who had somehow managed to get his violin strings tangled in one of the rigging lines. Robin came by with more books and a soft nod, but didn’t speak. Nami poked her head in once, smiled when she saw him upright, and left without a word. The quietness of it all made Sanji feel like a ghost in his own bed.

He waited until the room was empty, then swung his legs over the side of the cot. His foot hit the floor with a thud louder than it should’ve been. Everything inside him protested the motion. The burn on his shoulder flared. The bandages tugged. His head swam. But he stood unsteady, teeth gritted, hands braced on the bed frame. He just had to walk. That was it. One lap around the medbay. Maybe get a cup of water himself. Prove he could still do something.

Halfway across the room, he stumbled. His knee buckled under him with a white-hot stab of pain. His palm slammed against the wall to stop the fall, and he cursed under his breath as the impact jarred his healing ribs and shoulder. He slumped there for a moment, breathing shallow, forehead pressed against cool wood.

“Still think you’re fine?” The voice came from the doorway.

Zoro.

Sanji didn’t lift his head. “You spying on me now?”

Zoro stepped inside, slow and quiet, like he didn’t want to startle him. “Hard not to, when you’re crashing into walls like a drunk giraffe.”

Sanji rolled his eyes and finally looked up. “You come here to insult me or help me back to bed?”

Zoro crossed his arms. “Depends. Are you gonna be stupid again?”

Sanji didn’t answer. He didn’t have the energy for sarcasm. Or pride. Zoro sighed and moved to his side. He didn’t touch him, not right away. Just stood close enough for Sanji to lean on if he chose to.

Sanji hesitated. Then, quietly, leaned into him. It wasn’t much. Just a shoulder. Just balance. But it was more than either of them usually allowed. Zoro helped him back to the bed without saying anything more. The silence between them had shifted—less sharp, less barbed. Something closer to… familiar.

Sanji sat down, hand still pressed to his side. “I hate this.”

“I know.”

“I should be better than this.”

“You’re alive. That’s better.”

Sanji looked at him, surprised by the softness in his voice.

Zoro didn’t meet his gaze. “Don’t make Chopper yell at you again.”

“I wasn’t trying to”

“I know.”

They let the silence settle again. This time, it didn’t hurt as much.

Sanji slept again, the kind of deep, dreamless sleep that only comes from exhaustion that runs bone-deep. Zoro stayed close, sitting at the edge of the room, arms folded and eyes half-lidded like he wasn’t watching. But he was. He watched the rise and fall of Sanji’s chest. The twitch of his fingers now and then. The slight furrow in his brow that never quite eased, even unconscious.

Chopper returned after a while, arms full of bandages and fresh gauze. He paused when he saw Zoro still there.

“You should rest,” Chopper said gently.

Zoro shrugged. “I’ll rest when he can walk ten feet without breaking something.”

Chopper set the supplies down and came over to check the IV line. “He pushes himself too fast.”

“You let him stand.”

“I left for fifteen minutes,” Chopper huffed. “He was supposed to stay in bed .”

Zoro grunted. “You know he wasn’t going to.”

Chopper looked down. “I know.”

There was a long pause, filled only by the soft ticking of the clock on the wall and the rhythmic sound of Sanji breathing.

“I didn’t know he was still in pain,” Chopper admitted quietly. “After Wano, I thought… I thought he’d tell me if something felt wrong.”

Zoro tilted his head. “He probably didn’t want you to worry.”

“He didn’t want anyone to worry,” Chopper said bitterly. “Even now, he’s probably thinking about dinner instead of himself.”

Zoro didn’t answer. He didn’t have to. They both knew it was true.

On the upper deck, Nami sat with a notebook in her lap, but she wasn’t writing. She was watching the way the ship creaked differently when Sanji wasn’t moving through it. Meals were still being made, thanks to Robin and Jinbe. Clothes were being washed, kind of, with Brook and Usopp trading off. But nothing moved the way it used to. There was no rhythm. No pulse.

Jinbe joined her quietly, leaning against the rail.

She looked up. “He’s not doing well.”

Jinbe gave a soft sound of agreement. “He hides it well. But it’s there.”

“Too well,” Nami said, frowning. “I didn’t even notice the limp until Zoro said something.”

Jinbe turned his gaze to the horizon. “He doesn’t like to be seen as vulnerable.”

“He doesn’t have to carry everything.”

“No,” Jinbe agreed. “But he’s the kind of man who will, if no one stops him.”

Nami nodded slowly. “Do you think he’s scared?”

“I think he’s terrified,” Jinbe said. “Not of dying. But of what he’s becoming.”

Nami shivered, despite the sun. “I hate that he’s dealing with it alone.”

“He’s not,” Jinbe said. “Not anymore.”

By the time the sun dipped lower, the crew had started to reorganise themselves. Robin handed out task lists a little gentler than Sanji’s version, but no less effective.

Brook tuned his violin and played soft music as he cleaned the upper deck, skating around with brush heads strapped to his feet. Franky did the cooking, which everyone tolerated with a surprising amount of bravery. Luffy helped, too, though mostly by staying out of the way and watching the horizon.

Sanji's absence was felt in the rhythm, in the small details. No one adjusted the sails with his eye for speed. No one remembered how Nami liked her tea, or how Usopp avoided anything too spicy. There were dishes, but no garnish. Hot meals, but no love in the plating.

They were afloat, but they weren’t quite sailing.

Back below deck, Sanji stirred again near sunset. The light had shifted across the floor. His shoulder ached, and he turned slowly toward the sound of pages turning. Zoro sat nearby again, book in hand. Same upside-down orientation. Same complete lack of actual reading.

“…You’re still here,” Sanji rasped.

Zoro didn’t look up. “Didn’t feel like training.”

Sanji didn’t believe him for a second, but didn’t say so.He turned his head slowly, taking in the quiet room. Someone had cleaned up the tea. Folded the sheets better than he remembered. There was soup on the bedside table, still warm.

“…They’re managing then?” he asked.

Zoro flipped a page. “Barely.”

Sanji’s jaw clenched. “Good.”

Zoro looked at him finally. “That sound like good news to you?”

“Means they don’t need me.”

Zoro stood abruptly, tossing the book onto the table. “Don’t do that.”

Sanji blinked. “Do what?”

“Pretend that not being needed is a relief. ”

Sanji looked away. “I didn’t say—”

“You don’t have to say it,” Zoro growled. “You wear it on your damn face.”

The silence between them turned thick, brittle.

Sanji closed his eyes. “They’re better off if I’m not slowing them down.”

Zoro stepped closer, jaw tight. “No one thinks that.”

“I do.”

Zoro didn’t respond right away.

He let out a long, slow breath. “That’s the part that scares me.”

The sun had begun to dip when Usopp and Franky called the meeting.

“Something’s off,” Usopp said, pacing the deck. “And not just ‘Sanji’s-acting-weird’ off. Like, actual off.”

The crew gathered slowly. Zoro leaned on the mast, arms crossed. Luffy swung down from the rigging with a quiet thud. Robin closed her book with a soft snap . Brook, Nami and Chopper emerged from below deck, their expressions already tense.

Jinbe joined last, rolling his shoulders in thought. “This is about the bots, isn’t it?”

Franky nodded, face unusually grim. He dropped a wrapped bundle of scorched metal onto the deck with a heavy clunk . The plating was twisted, scorched, nearly unrecognizable. But not entirely.

Usopp crouched next to it, holding up a cracked lens piece and a mangled bit of mechanical tubing. “We salvaged this off the busted ship. Thought it was just marine scrap welded together. But…”

He flipped the plating over.

There, almost invisible under soot and melted steel, was the faint curve of a logo—etched into the metal, partially scrubbed out, but still unmistakable.

Two blocky sixes, one upside down in a yin and yang way to form the eyes of what used to be a skull, now so scrubbed off it's lost the look but the resemblance is clear.

Germa 66.

The air on deck went still.

Nami’s breath caught.

Zoro pushed off the mast with slow, deliberate motion.

Robin stepped forward, dark eyes narrowing. “That’s not a coincidence.”

Brook knelt closer, his voice unusually soft. “They tried to burn it off. Like they didn’t want anyone to see it.”

Chopper looked between them. “Wait… you mean Sanji’s family ? That Germa?”

“Yes,” Robin said quietly.

“Sanji’s been avoiding even saying their name since Whole Cake,” Nami muttered. “He told us he was done with them.”

“Maybe they’re not done with him,” Zoro said.

Luffy hadn’t spoken. He stared down at the plate, jaw tight, lips pressed into a hard line. Not angry. Not confused. Just focused. Luffy focused was always dangerous.

Jinbe crouched beside the wreckage. “This ship… was it built by Germa, or repurposed from their parts?”

“Hard to say,” Franky admitted. “It’s cobbled together, but it’s not random. The propulsion system? Too advanced for your usual pirate trash heap. They’ve got tech that moves like science division stuff. Streamlined. Efficient. Lethal. ”

Usopp scratched his head. “I thought they were land-locked. Didn’t the Germa kingdom sink?”

“They have the snail ships. They don't need any sails or propulsion devices when they have living creatures as their transport,” Nami muttered. “Their entire fleet moves over the sea like a train. That ship today? It didn’t need sails either but no snails either. It hunted us. ”

Jinbe’s face darkened. “And Sanji was the only one it hit.”

The words landed with weight.

Zoro’s hands curled at his sides. “You think it was sent for him?”

Brook looked up. “Then why attack the Sunny?”

Robin’s tone was measured. “Testing range. Testing response. Or maybe… it was a warning.”

Luffy stepped forward, eyes locked on the insignia. “Why now?”

That question echoed in the quiet.

Franky shook his head. “We didn’t see anything like this during Wano. Nothing near Elbaf. But now, two weeks out, we get hit with a suicide-bot battleship that goes for Sanji? And blows up with tech that burns straight through his Raid Suit mutation?”

Chopper flinched. “You think they… knew ?”

Nami looked at him, then at the mark again. “You’re saying someone built that bot specifically to get through Sanji?”

Robin’s voice came cool and calm. “Or test if they could.”

Zoro stepped forward. “Then who? Judge?”

“I thought he severed ties,” Nami said. “He gave Sanji up once already.”

Robin folded her arms. “There are others. Enemies of Germa. Or remnants of it. Even rivals who might want to exploit the tech. If someone salvaged part of their fleet…”

“…they could be rebuilding,” Franky finished. “Or worse — repurposing.”

Chopper’s voice was small. “And using Sanji to test how strong the new versions are.”

The wind moved across the deck like it was listening. No one spoke for a long moment.

Then Jinbe broke the silence. “What does Sanji know?”

Zoro answered first. “Nothing.”

“You don't plan to tell him” It wasn't a question, in Jinbe's opinion why ask a question you already know the answer to.

“He just survived a deep-tissue burn and internal haemorrhaging. Chopper had to sedate him with triple dose anaesthetics that barely worked. You want me to tell him someone might be trying to weaponise his childhood trauma ?”

Jinbe nodded slowly. “Point taken.”

Usopp looked conflicted. “So… are we going to keep this from him?”

Chopper shifted nervously. “It might set his healing back.”

“It might break him,” Nami added, arms wrapped around herself.

Brook looked down at the deck. “He already looks so tired. Even when he smiles.”

Robin’s tone was quieter now. “He always did.”

Franky ran a hand through his hair, sighing. “You think it’s that bad? That it’d mess him up?”

Zoro didn’t answer.

He didn’t have to. Because only three people on that ship had seen Sanji collapse into himself on Whole Cake Island. Only three had watched him kneel in the rain, holding back tears as his hands bled from feeding a starving crew that came to save him anyway. Only three had heard the words Sanji once said:

“I was never supposed to be born.”

The silence turned thick again. Then Luffy spoke. And the voice that came out was not the boyish, carefree sound they were used to. It was low. Steady.

“We protect him. That’s all that matters.”

Zoro looked over at him. “Even if it means lying?”

Luffy didn’t look away from the metal. “We don’t lie. We wait. Until he’s strong enough.”

“And if they come again?” Robin asked.

Luffy’s jaw tightened. “Then we break their ship into scrap.”

The infirmary was too quiet.

Sanji lay in the cot, propped up slightly, one arm draped over his stomach, the other stretched stiffly by his side. The bandages on his chest had been changed three times that day. Chopper hadn’t said what was wrong, only that his vitals were “weird” and that his temperature was “wrong.” Whatever that meant. The pain wasn’t sharp anymore. It was deeper. Constant. Like something inside him was trying to pulse its way out.

But Sanji kept his face still.

Zoro had visited that morning. Robin came by at lunch. Nami poked her head in, offered a small smile, and said she’d be back with tea.

Now, the room was empty. And it was too quiet inside the small room. Somewhere above him, on the deck, voices murmured. He couldn’t make out words, but the tone was unmistakable, low, serious, not the kind of conversation the crew normally had.

Not a joke. Not a squabble over who stole the last rice ball.

Sanji closed his eyes and listened harder. His temples throbbed with effort. A name reached him, not said loudly, not clearly.

"Germa."

His stomach turned.

He sat up too fast. A burst of dizziness caught him by surprise, and his shoulder throbbed under the fresh dressing. He hissed through his teeth and swung his legs over the edge of the bed. The floor tilted when he stood. He stayed upright only because the wall caught him.

The deck meeting had ended by the time he got to the stairs slowly, hand braced on the rail. The voices had scattered. Footsteps retreated. Doors closed. The familiar creak of Brook’s violin floated faintly from below deck again.

The ship pretended nothing happened. Just like the crew did when he entered a room now. Sanji stood on the landing, shoulder sagging slightly, breath shallow, one hand still clenched on the bannister.

His knee buckled without warning.

It wasn’t dramatic. It was worse than that, it was subtle. Silent. One moment he was upright, the next, his weight shifted wrong and the bad leg simply gave. He caught himself on the railing. But his breath hitched as something sharp twisted through his ribs. His hand trembled. The world spun.

He didn’t fall. But it was close.

Back in the galley and away from Sanji, Chopper stared at his latest scan.

The results were worse than before. Faster degeneration. Cell recovery was inconsistent, it was fast on the surface but erratic beneath it. His burns were knitting wrong. One of his ribs had reset off-centre. His body wasn’t just healing unnaturally — it was fighting itself.

“Something’s wrong,” Chopper whispered.

Robin, seated beside the window, closed her book and set it down gently. “With his body?”

Chopper nodded. “Yes. But also... not just that.”

Robin tilted her head.

Chopper’s voice dropped lower. “He’s not scared of the pain. He’s scared of what it means.”

Franky, Jinbe, and Usopp sat huddled in the workshop. The scrap bots were laid out like corpses on a makeshift table, some half-dismantled, others melted at the core. Jinbe reached for one with a long gouge near the base, a melted insignia barely visible in the frame.

“What do you make of that?” he asked, gesturing.

Franky squinted through a magnifier. “Looks like something was scratched off here too. another symbol, maybe.”

Usopp leaned in. “I thought that looked familiar. Hang on—”

He grabbed a battered blueprint from his pile. It was from Wano, collected from Queen’s lab. There were scorch marks and rips, but one corner had a label half-torn away.

The part that remained?

“GER-”

They didn’t say it. They didn’t have to.

Franky ran a scanner over the chip embedded in the bot’s central drive. The screen flickered. Numbers, then chemical patterns, then something else — genetic code.

“I don’t think these were just built from their tech,” he said quietly. “I think they’re modified. Bio-mechanical.”

“Cyborgs?” Usopp asked, stunned.

“Soldiers,” Franky corrected.

Jinbe’s voice was heavy. “You’re saying these are... remnants?”

Franky nodded. “Or worse — stolen pieces. Reprogrammed. But Germa-made, originally. No doubt.”

Silence stretched.

Usopp finally whispered, “Pleeaaassseee can we tell him?”

“No,” said Robin, who had appeared quietly at the door. “Not yet.”

They turned to her.

She held a cup of untouched tea, and her expression was gentle but serious.

“He’s barely standing as it is.”

Zoro returned to the infirmary late that night. He didn’t say anything at first, just stepped inside, closed the door, and took a seat. Sanji was sitting upright, one leg folded stiffly, arms crossed like he hadn’t moved in hours.

“You look like hell,” Zoro said eventually.

Sanji snorted. “Feel like it.”

Zoro tossed him a clean water bottle. “Chopper says you’re not drinking enough.”

“Not his problem.”

“It is now.”

Sanji didn’t argue, but he didn’t drink either.

Zoro leaned back in the chair, arms crossed behind his head. “You tried to sneak upstairs earlier.”

Sanji didn’t flinch. “Maybe.”

“You made it halfway.”

Sanji shrugged, but the motion clearly hurt.

Zoro let the silence stretch. Then, “We’re not hiding anything.”

Sanji looked up sharply. “I didn’t say—”

“But we are protecting you.”

Sanji’s voice went cold. “Don’t.”

Zoro’s gaze didn’t waver. “You’d do the same.”

“That’s different.”

“How?”

Sanji didn’t answer.

Zoro let out a breath through his nose. “Don’t make me knock you out just to keep you in the bed.”

Sanji smirked weakly. “You couldn’t. Not in my condition.”

Zoro raised a brow. “That’s exactly when I could.”

That night, no one slept well. Robin read in the hallway outside the medbay. Chopper went over the data three times, looking for something he’d missed. Jinbe stayed up reinforcing the rudder supports, pretending he wasn’t thinking about Germa. Luffy sat on the masthead, arms behind his head, watching the sea with eyes too serious for someone with a straw hat.

And Sanji…

…stared at the ceiling and listened to the sound of his own heartbeat stuttering beneath the bandages.

He didn’t know what was wrong yet.

But he knew something was coming.

And whatever it was — it had his name written on it.

Chapter Text

It was just past midnight when Luffy climbed to the top of the mast and sat down, arms tucked behind his head, eyes locked on the dark sky. His face set in an unreadable expression, but to those who knew him they would know that he is lost in thought.

Below, the Thousand Sunny drifted quiet and steady on calm seas. The sails were furled, the storm had passed. The ocean was resting.

The crew was not.

Luffy stared at the stars. He didn’t count them. He didn’t think of how far they'd traveled or how many islands lay ahead. His mind was full but not of dreams.

Of voices.

Of faces.

Of pain he couldn’t punch.

He remembered Sanji crumpling into Zoro’s arms, smoke still rising from his clothes. He remembered the sound Chopper made when he peeled back the bandages and saw the burns beneath. He remembered Zoro’s face, not angry, not cold. Just... tight . Controlled, like something was pulling him too taut.

He remembered what Sanji said, when he thought no one could hear:
"Wouldn’t have mattered if I had."

That was the one Luffy couldn’t shake.

He didn’t know how to fix people when it wasn’t their body that was broken. He could break mountains. He could split the sea. He could scream and stretch and soar, but he couldn’t touch the kind of pain that lived in someone’s chest like a second heartbeat.

And it felt like everyone was carrying one now. Zoro hadn’t cracked a real insult in three days. Robin read the same page of her book over and over. Nami cleaned the compass lens twice that morning, even though it wasn’t dirty. Even Brook played quieter, his music slow and unsure, like it was searching for something.

And Sanji…

Sanji was pretending. Everyone could see it. But no one said anything. So Luffy would.

At sunrise, Luffy jumped down from the mast and landed lightly on the deck. The crew was just beginning to stir, soft footsteps, the smell of warm water heating in the galley, Usopp muttering about bolt measurements in his half asleep state.

Luffy didn’t wait. He walked straight to the table in the galley and slammed his hands down. Not hard. But enough.

Zoro looked up from where he was cleaning his blade. Nami paused mid-stretch. Chopper froze, hooves still wrapped in gauze. Even Jinbe blinked mid-sip of tea. Robin raised an eyebrow but closed her book politely.

Luffy took a breath. It wasn’t deep. He didn’t need it to be.

“I want to talk.”

Everyone stared as Luffy stayed standing. He looked at each one of them, eyes steady.

“About Sanji.”

Zoro was the first to respond. “What about him?”

“He’s not okay,” Luffy said simply. “And we’re letting him think he is.”

Brook said softly, “He wants us to think he is.”

Luffy shook his head. “That doesn’t mean we let him.”

There was a pause.

Chopper glanced down at his notes. “His body’s not healing right. Not like it should. I’ve seen recovery like this once before, Wano, after the fight with Queen. But this is worse.”

“Worse how?” Nami asked.

“It’s not just fast. It’s wrong. Like something’s repairing him on the outside while he’s breaking on the inside.”

Franky frowned. “Sounds like tech corruption. Internal overrides. Could be a side effect of—”

“Germa,” Robin said quietly.

The name hung in the air like smoke.

Usopp shifted uncomfortably. “Do we know for sure?”

Robin nodded once. “Franky and Jinbe found that mark. Faded. Under scorched metal. Matches their older mech models. The ones used before they started cloning soldiers.”

Nami looked pale. “Why would someone use that kind of tech now?”

“To hurt him,” Zoro answered flatly. “Because they knew it would.”

Chopper looked down. “He doesn’t even know we found the insignia. He’s barely conscious half the time.”

“Then we don’t tell him yet,” Jinbe rumbled. “Not until we understand the full extent.”

“No.” Luffy’s voice was calm but firm. “I’m telling him.”

They all turned at that.

Robin leaned forward. “Captain…”

“I’m not telling him about the tech. Not yet.” Luffy exhaled. “I’m telling him he’s not alone. ”

The crew didn’t argue. They didn’t need to.

Luffy set to leave the galley without waiting for anyone to follow. He walked away like he always did with quiet certainty, feet bare, posture loose, head high. This time, he stopped just outside the infirmary door, without knocking he lets himself into the infirmary.

Sanji wasn’t asleep. He hadn’t been for hours. He stared at the ceiling again. His ribs ached. His knee throbbed. He couldn’t tell if the heat under his skin was fever or rage anymore. When the door opened, he didn’t move.

“I’m not hungry,” he muttered.

“Good,” Luffy said. “I didn’t bring food.”

That made Sanji blink. He turned his head. Luffy stood by the door, arms crossed, not with impatience, but presence. Solid. Real. Watching him.

“You’re up early,” Sanji said, voice thin.

“I was already up.”

“You usually sleep through storms.”

Luffy tilted his head. “This one’s quieter.”

Sanji tried to smirk. It didn’t reach his eyes. Luffy walked over and pulled up a chair. Sat. Waited.

Sanji closed his eyes. They sat in silence for nearly a minute.

Finally, Luffy said, “You scared us.”

Sanji’s brow twitched. “Didn’t mean to.”

“I know.”

Another pause.

“You scared me. ”

That one hit harder.

Sanji opened his eyes slowly. “…You?”

Luffy nodded. “You’re my cook.”

Sanji snorted softly. “I thought I was your pain in the ass.”

“You’re that too.”

They both smiled but it faded quickly.

Luffy leaned forward. “You can’t fall apart without telling us.”

A little surprised by the statement Sanji’s voice dropped. “I’m not.”

“Yes, you are.”

“…I’m trying not to.” 

Luffy nodded. “That’s what I mean.”

Sanji looked away feeling a little confused.

Luffy didn’t move. “You don’t have to be strong all the time.”

“You do.”

Luffy blinked. “No. I have to be there. That’s not the same.”

Sanji went quiet.

Luffy leaned his arms on his knees. “You think if you show weakness, we’ll fall apart. That we’ll stop trusting you. That the crew won’t feel safe.”

Sanji said nothing.

“But it’s the opposite. If you break alone… that’s what makes us fall apart.”

Sanji closed his eyes again, giving in to Luffy. “Don’t know if I know how to stop.”

Luffy smiled, soft and small. “That’s okay. I can wait.”

Sanji hadn’t smoked since the second fall. Chopper had hidden his cigarettes after that, called it “doctor’s orders” and tried to make it a joke, but Sanji saw the way his hands trembled when he said it. Now, he just lay there. Awake. Listening to the wind.

Luffy hadn’t moved from his seat.

Sanji finally spoke. “You’re being serious.”

“Sometimes I am.”

“It doesn’t suit you.”

Luffy didn’t smile. “You say that a lot. But you never say why.”

Sanji turned his head to the side, slowly. The bandages pulled tight across his neck.

“Because when you’re serious, it means we’re in trouble.”

Luffy nodded. “We are.”

“…Because of me.”

“No,” Luffy said. “Because of what happened to you.”

Sanji let out a slow breath. “Same thing.”

Luffy didn’t argue. Didn’t rush. Just watched him.

“I know why you did what you did at Whole Cake,” he said, voice low.

Sanji froze.

“I know what they did to you,” Luffy added.

The cook’s jaw tensed.

“I didn’t understand it then. Not all of it.” Luffy sat forward, elbows on knees. “But I get it now. Some people hurt you. Deep. And you thought you had to carry it so no one else would feel it.”

Sanji didn’t respond.

“You made yourself small so we wouldn’t worry. You smiled while they stripped you down. You cooked meals with a broken hand. You bled into napkins. You walked through fire. Metaphorically of course”

Sanji swallowed, once.

“And then when we finally pulled you out, you tried to pretend you’d never been in it.”

Luffy leaned closer.

“I let you pretend. Back then.”

He paused.

“But I’m not letting you pretend anymore.”

Sanji laughed. Just once. It wasn’t joyful. It was the kind of laugh someone lets out when they’re cornered and trying not to cry.

“I’m not pretending now,” he said.

“You are.”

Sanji turned his head again, looked him full in the eyes. “What makes you so sure?”

“Because I’ve done it too.”

Sanji blinked.

Luffy stared at him, not smiling.

“Marineford. Ace. Sabo. Shanks. You think I smile all the time because I’m happy?”

Sanji said nothing.

“I smile because if I don’t… I’ll remember how scared I was. How alone I felt. How useless.”

The silence rang like a dropped blade.

Sanji didn’t move.

Luffy leaned back. “I’m not asking you to cry. Or fall apart. Or be like me.”

“Good. That’d be a disaster.”

Luffy grinned. “Exactly.”

Then he looked serious again.

“I’m asking you to stay. With us. Not just your body. Your heart.”

Sanji turned his face to the ceiling.

“You don’t have to fight this alone.”

Sanji breathed in. Shaky. Unsteady.

“You don’t have to hate what’s in you.”

That hit hard. Sanji sat up, slow and stiff. His body screamed with the effort. Luffy didn’t stop him. Sanji looked down at his own hands. One was wrapped tight. The other shook when he clenched it.

“I don’t know if it’s me anymore,” he said, voice raw. “The healing. The fire. The strength. It feels like something else. Something I don’t recognize.”

Luffy stood and walked over to the side of the bed and knelt beside it. Not to make himself small. Not to pity but to be eye-level.

“Maybe it is something else,” he said.

Sanji’s eyes flicked toward him.

“But if it is… we’ll figure it out. Together.”

Sanji clenched his jaw. “What if it gets worse?”

“Then we stop it.”

“What if you can’t?”

“Then we keep trying.”

Sanji looked away. “What if I hurt someone?”

“Then we stop you.” Luffy’s voice didn’t waver. “And we still love you.”

Sanji flinched.

“You don’t have to earn your place here again,” Luffy said softly. “You never lost it.”

For a long time, they didn’t speak. The ship rocked gently. The wind shifted. Somewhere, Brook’s violin started up again, soft and slow.

Luffy stood finally, stretching once. “We’re docking on a supply island today.”

Sanji nodded.

“Chopper says you’re not ready to walk yet.”

“I’ll fake it.”

Luffy grinned. “He’ll tie you to the bed if you try.”

Sanji smirked. “He wouldn’t.”

Luffy headed for the door. “He would. And I’ll help him.”

He paused with one hand on the frame.

“You don’t have to be strong all the time.”

Sanji replied, “You’ve said that.”

“I’ll keep saying it until you believe me.”

He left quietly.

Later in the day, Chopper found Sanji sitting upright again.

“Are you in pain?”

“Yes.”

“Do you want me to increase your meds?”

“No.”

“…Do you want company?”

Sanji looked at him. “I’d like a cigarette.”

Chopper rolled his eyes. “Pick something less likely to kill you.”

Sanji smiled faintly. Chopper sat beside him on the edge of the cot, tiny legs dangling.

“I’m glad you’re talking again.”

“Was I not?”

“Not really.”

They sat in silence for a moment.

Sanji finally whispered, “He’s a better captain than I thought.”

Chopper blinked. “Luffy?”

“Yeah.”

Chopper smiled. “Yeah. He really is.”

The island came into view just after midday.

A gentle slope of green hills, a crescent-shaped harbour, and rows of docked ships told the crew everything they needed to know: not dangerous, not interesting, just enough.

A rest stop. A chance to repair, resupply, and breathe. 

The Sunny pulled in slowly, her hull still patched from the last skirmish. Franky stood tall at the helm, Nami guiding with steady hands, Jinbe calling distances with a sailor’s precision.

Sanji didn’t watch from the deck. He lay in the infirmary, head tilted just enough to see the edge of sunlight creep across the porthole.

He hated it. Chopper had insisted he stay put.

“You’re still healing.”

“I’m always healing,” Sanji muttered.

But he didn’t fight it. Not out loud. Inside, he was boiling.

His body burned from within, not just the pain, not just the fever that came and went, but a heat he couldn’t name. A wrongness . Like something under his skin wanted to move before he told it to. His joints felt tight. His reflexes too sharp. Like someone had wound him up too far and forgotten to let go.

He kept imagining a tick-tick-tick behind his ears.

“Do you want anything?” Chopper asked, trying to be casual. “A book? Something sweet? Music?”

Sanji shrugged. “Vodka?”

Chopper frowned. “Nice try.”

The reindeer left with a shake of his head, but Sanji didn’t miss the quick glance he shot at the IV drip. It was subtle, but Sanji caught it.

They were watching for something.

Not recovery.

Change.

On deck, the crew disembarked. Brook played a cheerful tune as he stepped onto the dock. Nami had a list in her hand before she even hit the boards.

Zoro didn’t get off. He stood by the rail, arms crossed, staring at the open sea. Robin approached quietly.

“You’re not going ashore?”

“Not yet.”

She joined him, her gaze drifting to the horizon. “You’re thinking about him.”

Zoro didn’t respond.

Robin smiled faintly. “You hide concern like you hide your swords. Poorly.”

“I’m not hiding anything.”

“You’re staring at the ocean like it insulted your mother.”

Zoro sighed.

“He’s not better,” he said finally. “Even if he says he is.”

Robin’s voice softened. “You’ve been watching him closely.”

“He’s not breathing like he should. He’s clenching his teeth when he thinks no one’s looking. The pain’s not gone. And whatever that explosion did to him…” Zoro’s hand curled against the wood. “It didn’t just burn him.”

Robin looked down. “You think the tech in that bot was Germa?”

“I think it’s worse than that.”

She tilted her head. “How?”

Zoro’s eyes narrowed. “Because he hasn’t asked.”

Robin looked confused. “Asked what?”

Zoro’s voice dropped. “He hasn’t asked where it came from. What it was. Who made it. He always wants to know. Always. But this time, I think he’s scared of the answer.”

Robin exhaled slowly. “You want to tell the crew.”

“They should know.”

She studied him a moment longer. “Then tell them.” And with that she left him to join the others on dry land.

The island’s main town hugged the harbor like an old friend, stone streets, crooked rooftops, open markets that smelled of salt, spice, and mischief. Nami took one step off the Sunny and sighed, smiling like she’d been holding her breath for days.

“Finally. A place that doesn’t reek of cannon smoke.”

Robin followed beside her, lace parasol twirling lazily over one shoulder. “And one where we don’t immediately need to bribe or threaten someone.”

Behind them, Jinbe hauled a large wicker basket on each shoulder, filled with empty pouches and half a dozen folded produce bags.

“I hope this won’t be the usual ‘quick stop’ that turns into an international incident,” he said politely.

Nami patted his arm. “Relax. That only happens when Luffy’s unsupervised.”

Jinbe raised an eyebrow. “Which he currently is.”

“Correction,” Robin said, her tone playful, “he’s with Franky.”

“So….. unsupervised,” Jinbe replied dryly.

Robin let out a little giggle at the statement.

They reached the market in good time. The air buzzed with bartering, the chime of bells over shop doors, and the clatter of crates. Stall owners called out daily specials of dried sea plums, thunder lemons and medicinal salts.

Nami wasted no time.

She directed Jinbe toward the dry goods section and began barking exact weights and prices in rapid-fire shorthand. Robin drifted behind her, stopping every so often to run her fingers along spines of old books or jars of rare flowers pressed into glass.

Jinbe, dutiful as ever, balanced the quickly growing weight of their haul with a stoic grace.

At a spice stall, Nami picked up a small silver tin and frowned. “This is the stuff Sanji always complains we’re out of.”

Robin leaned over to read the label. “Red curry blend. He called it ‘the good kind’ back in Dressrosa.”

Nami hesitated. “Should we get two?”

Jinbe nodded. “He’ll be cooking again soon.”

Nami didn’t reply. She just slipped the tin into her basket and moved on.

Usopp appeared twenty minutes later, arms full of wildly unnecessary purchases: a wooden slingshot carved to look like a fish, several novelty “pirate pins” shaped like skulls in sunhats, and a candy sculpture he was trying very hard not to eat before showing Chopper.

“Hey! You guys ditched me!” he panted, weaving through the crowd.

“You weren’t awake,” Nami said without turning.

“I was spiritually awake,” he argued, “and also physically asleep.”

Robin smiled. “What did you find?”

“Amazing things,” Usopp grinned. “Also I saw a stand selling meat-flavored popsicles and thought, ‘Huh. That’s so stupid Sanji would absolutely ban Luffy from trying it.’ So I bought three.”

Nami eyed him. “And you think he’ll… appreciate that?”

“Sanji? No. Luffy? Absolutely.”

Robin chuckled, then asked softly, “Did you find anything he’d like?”

Usopp’s grin faded, just a little. “...Yeah. There’s a little bakery by the canal. The kind that labels every ingredient. He’d have liked that.”

They were quiet for a moment.

Jinbe shifted the baskets on his arms. “Let’s finish the list.”

Elsewhere in town, the Food Cart Disaster Squad had hit full momentum.

“I want five of those !” Luffy pointed dramatically at a sizzling stall of skewered kraken meat glazed in honey soy. “And seven of those twisty fried bread things!”

“You just ate—" Franky started.

Too late.

Luffy had already launched himself at the counter like a seagull on a hotdog. The vendor blinked as a long arm wrapped around half the display and reeled it back into Luffy’s mouth.

“You have to pay!” Chopper shouted, flailing his tiny arms as he scrambled after him.

“I will! ” Luffy mumbled through a mouthful of sauce. “Eventually!”

Franky sighed, half laughing. “SUPER supervision, my foot.”

He dropped a few coins onto the stand, apologizing with a mechanical hand pressed to his chest. “You’ll wanna double the meat next time. Trust me. He eats like a black hole with opinions.”

Three stalls later, Chopper had four cotton candy cones balanced on his antlers, Franky was carrying a small grilled squid skewer for Sanji (“Don’t know if he can eat it yet, but hell, it’s the thought”), and Luffy was poking his fingers into an unfamiliar fruit with a face of suspicion.

“Think this would explode if you bite it?”

Franky shrugged. “Only one way to find out.”

Chopper yelped. “NO!”

Luffy pouted. “Sanji woulda let me.”

Franky raised an eyebrow. “ Sanji would’ve smacked it out of your hand and told you it was poisonous.”

“Then made something ten times better from it,” Chopper added quietly.

They were all quiet for a moment. Luffy plucked the fruit from his hand and set it back on the stall.

“Hey, wait up!” Brook jogged toward them from a side alley, violin strapped to his back, his long legs carrying him faster than expected. “I found the most delightful bakery, and the owner let me play outside for tips!”

Luffy grinned. “Did you get any?”

“No, but I got applause and a coupon for free dessert!” Brook twirled a receipt triumphantly. “Sadly, I have no stomach to enjoy it. Yohohohohoo”

Franky patted his shoulder. “Then it’s ours by default. Let’s split it.”

They sat on a bench by the canal, sharing the sticky-sweet rice pastries Brook had “earned,” and watching the town bustle around them.

“Wish Sanji was here,” Luffy said, mouth full.

Chopper nodded. “He would’ve liked this.”

Franky leaned back on the bench. “It ain’t the same without the yelling.”

Brook tilted his head. “I wonder if he knows we’re thinking of him.”

Luffy wiped his mouth and looked toward the harbour. “He will.”

Back on the Sunny, the ship rocked gently against the dock, ropes creaking in a rhythm older than time. Zoro hadn’t moved much since the others left. He sat on the starboard rail, arms crossed, gaze fixed not on the sea, but on the lower deck where a single window glowed faintly in the infirmary.

He’d sharpened his swords twice. Done one round of sit-ups. Tried sleeping. It didn’t take. Now, he just… waited. The wind shifted slightly. A gull cried out and landed nearby. Zoro didn’t flinch.

When no distraction would work on him, he decided to check in on their curly-browed cook.

Inside the infirmary, Sanji was pretending to sleep again. Zoro knew because the rhythm of his breath was wrong. Too measured. Too even. He’d gotten good at reading things that didn’t want to be read.

Sanji shifted slightly under the sheet, like someone trying to move only when no one’s watching. Zoro didn’t move, but his hand tightened around the hilt at his side.

He wasn’t expecting a fight.

But he was expecting something.

Sanji’s world was made of inches. One inch to shift his knee without pulling the burn on his shoulder. Two inches to tilt his head just enough to see the edge of the open door through the reflection in a test tube. Three inches between the pain he could hide and the kind he couldn’t.

He was still sweating. The fever hadn’t broken. His skin itched in ways that didn’t feel like healing. It felt like something new. Something waiting. And it scared him.

He shifted again, quietly. The IV tugged at his arm, and he stopped. He didn’t want Chopper to come back and find him like this, half-drenched, fully alert, heart pounding like a drum with no rhythm.

The door creaked slightly. Sanji’s eyes snapped open. But it wasn’t Chopper.

It was Zoro.

“You sleep like shit,” the swordsman muttered.

Sanji didn’t reply. He let his eyes close again. “You watching me now?”

“Someone has to.”

“Lucky me.”

Zoro walked to the chair by the bed and sat. Not close, not far. Just there.

“I thought you’d go with the others,” Sanji said, voice raspy.

“I don’t like shopping.”

“You don’t like people.”

“Also true.”

They sat in silence for a while.

Sanji kept his face turned to the wall, but Zoro could see the tension in his jaw. The way his hand twitched beneath the blanket, like he couldn’t quite stop the nerves from firing.

“I’m not gonna break,” Sanji said quietly.

Zoro didn’t answer right away.

Then: “No. But you’re gonna bend so far you forget what straight feels like.”

Sanji scoffed. “Poetic. Did Robin write that for you?”

Zoro didn’t rise to it. He watched. Waited. Then asked, low: “What’s under your skin, cook?”

Sanji didn’t answer. 

Not for a long time.

Outside, the sun was starting to lower, and the crew was returning.

The faint sound of Nami arguing with Usopp about candy prices drifted over the dock. Franky’s voice boomed, “SUPER catch of the day!” as he showed off a bag of rare oils.

Robin’s laugh floated gently behind them. Luffy was shouting about some new dessert, and Chopper was demanding a taste “for scientific reasons.”

But on the ship, in the quiet of the infirmary, Zoro just watched Sanji breathe.

And somewhere under that breath, he knew—

It wasn’t over.

Not even close.

The galley was alive with sound. Not loud, not raucous — just full . Footsteps on polished wood. Nami’s voice cutting through Usopp’s excuses. Robin’s soft laughter. Chopper clinking glassware with practiced precision. Brook humming faintly from the doorway.

Dinner smelled like an ocean feast, grilled fish, soft rice, crisp greens. Chopper had taken point again, this time with help from Robin and a loose recipe Sanji once scrawled into the back of a cookbook: “Simple meals for idiot pirates who think seasoning is optional.”

The table was set for nine.

Only eight would sit.

Franky thudded in last, arms full of parts and groceries. He dumped a bag on the nearest counter, but instead of unloading tools or cola, he reached into a smaller parcel, unwrapped a thin paper layer, and pulled out a grilled squid skewer, slightly bent, but still fragrant.

“Still warm,” he muttered, almost to himself. Then, louder, “He mentioned this back in Wano. Said he hadn’t had one in years.”

He placed it gently on a side plate and slid it in front of the empty seat at the head of the table. Sanji’s seat.

Nobody touched it.

Nami smiled softly. “He’ll appreciate it.”

“He better,” Franky grinned. “Took me an hour to track down the stall. And the vendor did not want to part with his last one for the few berries I had to offer.”

“I distracted him,” Brook offered. “By playing him a love song. About seafood.”

“...You sang to a squid vendor?” Usopp asked.

Brook’s empty sockets twinkled. “A romantic squid vendor.”

They laughed, a little — enough to ease the quiet in the room.

But still, the ninth chair remained empty.

“He’s resting,” Chopper said when Jinbe glanced toward the door. “Sleeping. I think.”

“Still in pain?” Robin asked.

Chopper hesitated. “More like… restless. His system keeps rejecting anything I give him to slow his healing. And… his nerves aren’t firing like they should.”

Zoro sat by the far wall, arms crossed. He hadn’t spoken since sitting down.

“Does he know?”

Chopper shook his head. “He knows something’s wrong. But not how bad.”

“Sounds familiar,” Nami said under her breath.

Zoro looked up then. “Franky. You said you were going through the bot cores again?”

Franky nodded. “Yeah. Did a full scan before dumping the last of the shells. And, uh... found something I missed.”

He pulled a data drive from his belt and plugged it into a small reader. A flickering projection of internal schematics hovered over the center of the table, grainy, crude, but clear enough.

“This one had a sealed compartment. Almost missed it.”

A thin silver capsule flickered into view on the display, tucked within the bot’s chest frame.

“Self-repair nanites,” Franky said. “Experimental stuff. Tiny, hyper-aggressive. Designed to rebuild circuits and flesh on the fly.”

“Germa,” Robin said, voice firm.

Luffy looked up slowly. “That’s their kind of thing, right?”

Brook looked between them. “You’re all sure?”

Usopp frowned. “Wait. These things can repair flesh ?”

Franky shrugged. “Well… synthetic flesh. Cybernetics. But yeah. And Chopper’s scans showed Sanji’s shoulder had… traces . Like something tried to fix him after the burn. And failed.”

Chopper nodded grimly. “Like his body was trying to do something it didn’t understand.”

Zoro’s voice was low. “That explosion didn’t just hurt him. It triggered something.”

Silence followed.

Brook cleared his throat. “Should we tell him?”

“No,” Nami said instantly.

Luffy didn’t respond. He just looked back at the squid skewer.

Robin leaned forward. “Some of the crew still don’t know what happened at Whole Cake.”

Jinbe glanced around. “Then maybe we should.”

“Not yet,” Zoro said. “They need the full picture first. Not just horror stories and a name.”

Robin met his gaze. “You intend to give it to them?”

Zoro nodded once.

Chopper looked down. “He won’t like that.”

“I know,” Zoro replied.

Later, after the plates were cleared and most of the crew had drifted to other tasks, the grilled squid skewer still sat untouched at the head of the table.

Zoro passed by it as he left the galley, didn’t even glance at it. But he paused just just the door, before returning and grabbing the plated squid with a grunt. Robin came to stand beside him, coffee in hand.

“You’ll need to tell them more soon,” she said quietly. “They deserve to know who’s fighting beside them. And why he fights the way he does.”

Zoro nodded. “I will.”

Robin studied him for a long moment. “He’s not the only one changing, you know.”

Zoro didn’t respond. Just turned and walked toward the infirmary.

Chapter Text

The sky turned the colour of bruised iron by morning.

It wasn’t the kind of storm you sailed through. Not unless you were desperate or stupid. And the Straw Hats, for all their boldness, had learned the value of patience when the clouds came in low and heavy like this.

So they stayed docked.

The wind had shifted sometime in the early dawn, rolling in thick and salty from the south. It carried the scent of coming rain, static on the tongue, and the quiet warning of waves that hadn’t crested yet. A storm was building, not sudden, not violent, but slow and steady, creeping across the horizon like something with intent.

Franky double-checked the mooring lines twice. Jinbe reinforced the hull buffers. Nami marked the edge of the pressure change and didn’t argue when Luffy called for a delay on their departure. They’d stay until it passed.

Inside the galley, breakfast was light. Bread, broth, citrus slices. Chopper had made a second plate, untouched. Sanji hadn’t left the infirmary. But they heard him earlier in the morning pacing. Briefly.

Then silence again.

Zoro hadn’t slept. He’d stayed by the galley door for most of the night, swords idle, thoughts anything but. Now, as the crew gathered for the day’s plan, he set his cup down and said it plainly:

“They need to know.”

The room quieted. Robin closed her book. Brook stopped tuning his violin. Usopp looked up from sorting through a box of new bolts.

“You mean,” Nami said carefully, “Whole Cake.”

Zoro nodded.

Chopper hesitated. “But… Sanji never wanted to talk about that.”

Zoro’s voice was steady, but not unkind. “He doesn’t have to. I will.”

Luffy didn’t stop him.

Robin folded her hands. “Go on.”

Zoro stood from his place at the table, the low groan of the ship’s boards echoing beneath him as wind pressed against the hull.

“They need to know,” he repeated.

Usopp furrowed his brow. “Zoro… you weren’t there. At Whole Cake. How do you know the details?”

Nami folded her arms. “Yeah, Sanji barely talks about it. Not even with me.”

Unfazed by their doubting stares he simply states. “We talked, or rather he did.”

Brook tilted his head. “You’re saying he told you ?”

Zoro didn’t flinch. “Yeah.”

That silenced the room. For a moment, only the faint rattle of hanging mugs and the whine of wind through the rigging filled the gap.

“He told you?” Chopper echoed, blinking. “When?”

“Night after Wano,” Zoro said, almost like it was obvious. “We were the only two awake. He’d been drinking. I (for once) wasn’t. He just… talked.”

Usopp leaned forward. “But you guys are always at each other’s throats. Why would he—?”

“Because I didn’t ask him not to,” Zoro interrupted, eyes steady.

That stopped them again.

Robin spoke gently. “And he trusted you.” It wasn't a question, more a statement to add onto what Zoro had said.

Zoro’s jaw tightened a fraction. “He didn’t call it that. He just… needed someone to hear it and not flinch. I didn’t flinch.”

Brook tilted his head. “Did you say anything back?”

“No, didn't need to. I just listened.”

Luffy, who had been silent until now, cracked a small grin. “That’s why I picked both of you.”

Nami blinked. “Picked?”

“As crew,” Luffy said, resting his chin on his arms. “They’re not the same, they're different and they fit. That’s why they work so well together and because they're both kind people.”

No one argued. Zoro stepped around the table and placed a small object on it,  a folded scrap of old paper, water-stained and creased from travel. It was Sanji’s handwriting on the inside. Half a recipe. Half a confession.

“He gave me that after,” Zoro said. “Said he was gonna give it to me before everything went down, was meant for if he didn’t come back from Wano, I was to give it to you all. Said it explained everything.”

Chopper picked it up with careful hooves. “Why still give it to you after the fact?”

“Drunk?” Everyone shrugged at that.

“But he did come back, from Wano I mean.” Franky muttered.

Zoro nodded. “So he burned the second page.”

Robin’s expression softened. “And you never told anyone.”

“It wasn’t mine to tell,” Zoro said. Then added, “Until now.”

Zoro turned back toward the crew, eyes shadowed but sharp. His voice, when it came, wasn’t loud but it cut clean through the room.

“Sanji’s not just scared of what he might become. He’s scared it's already happened.”

That landed.

Chopper looked stricken.

Usopp lowered his eyes.

Nami’s knuckles tightened around her tea.

Zoro continued, steady and grim:

“He doesn’t say it. He won’t. But every time something hurts him and he gets back up faster than he should, every time his body does something his heart didn’t ask for, it’s like he’s losing ground. Like he’s not sure if the man still standing is even him anymore.”

No one spoke for a moment. Only the distant roll of thunder, closer now.

Robin gently closed her book and gave the swordsman a knowing look. “It says all that in the note?”

Zoro’s eyes flicked toward her, and for the briefest second, a faint blush touched his cheeks, subtle enough to miss unless you were looking. Robin was.

“Not in so many words,” he muttered, glancing away. “But the cook’s pretty easy to read once you know how to open him up.”

There was a pause.

The rest of the crew blinked. Usopp coughed awkwardly. Brook’s skull twitched like he was suppressing a laugh. Even Nami bit her lip.

Robin, of course, didn’t let it slide. “You make it a habit of opening up our cook-san, do you?” she asked, lips curled into a sly smirk.

A couple of quiet chuckles rippled around the table. Chopper squeaked, “Is this… flirting?” Luffy, predictably, just tilted his head in confusion.

“That’s not what I meant and you know it,” Zoro grumbled, not meeting anyone’s eyes. “This is supposed to be serious.”

“Of course,” Robin said smoothly. “Please, do continue.” The smirk never left her face, but the mood sobered again as the crew leaned in to listen.

The galley was quiet again, the weight of unspoken things pressing down between them. Rain hadn’t started yet, but thunder crept closer, stalking the horizon with slow, deliberate steps.

Zoro folded his arms, gaze steady. “Whole Cake Island wasn’t just a mission gone sideways. It was a trap.”

Usopp shifted in his seat. “Yeah… Sanji got pulled back to his family, right?”

“Not pulled. Dragged.”

Some faces looked confused. Others, those who'd been there just looked tired.

“I wasn’t there,” Zoro continued. “But after Wano… he told me. Not everything. Just enough.”

Nobody reacted with shock. Just a pause, the kind that comes when something hard is being said out loud again.

Robin met his gaze. “He chose to.”

Zoro nodded. “Because I’d listen.”

Nami’s mouth tightened, eyes lowered. Brook’s bony fingers curled loosely around his teacup. Zoro leaned forward slightly. “He didn’t grow up in a house. He grew up in a lab. His father, Judge, didn’t want a son. He wanted a soldier. Four of them. But Sanji didn’t turn out right.”

“Because he felt,” Robin said.

“Yeah. That was the defect,” Zoro said bluntly. “He cried, he feared and he loved. So they called him weak. Tried to beat it out of him. Locked him away. Told him he didn’t count. Ingrained it in him that he was worthless.”

Chopper's hooves clenched tightly in his lap.

“His sister, Reiju, helped him escape. He ended up with Zeff. Learned to cook. Learned to fight. Built himself back up.”

Usopp frowned. “So why go back?”

“They didn’t give him a choice,” Zoro said. “Threatened Zeff, threatened us. Used the wedding. Promised peace. And he thought… if he went quietly, we’d all be safe.”

Brook’s voice came soft. “He went alone.”

Zoro nodded. “And stayed alone. Even when Luffy came for him. Even when you were all ready to fight. He tried to push everyone away. Even fought Luffy.”

“I remember,” Nami said, arms crossed tight across her chest.

“He told me,” Zoro added, voice quieter, “he was ready to die there. Thought it was the only way to protect everyone.”

The only sound for a moment was the soft creak of timbers and wind pressing against the hull.

“He almost did,” Zoro said. “They put explosive cuffs on him. Wore them for days. Still cooked. Still bowed to that bastard father. Still planned to marry a girl he didn’t know.”

“Pudding,” Robin muttered.

“He didn’t realise she was mocking him until it was almost over, by then he accepted his fate.”

Brook exhaled, shaky. “And then Luffy came.”

Zoro didn’t respond. He didn’t need to. Nami remembered: “I’m not eating until you come back.”

“He came back,” Zoro said. “But not whole.”

Chopper wiped at his eye with the back of one hoof.

“I didn’t ask him to tell me,” Zoro added. “He just did. After Wano and again after the fire started changing him.”

Franky’s brow furrowed. “He thought it was connected?”

“He was sure,” Zoro said. “Said it felt like… something inside was waking up. Stuff he buried years ago. Stuff they tried to force into him. And when that bot hit him—”

He stopped. Jaw clenched.

“He recognized it.”

Robin’s voice was low. “Fear.”

“Not of pain,” Zoro said. “Not death. Fear that it was happening again. That the change was back. And this time, he couldn’t stop it.”

The table was silent. Luffy, who had been staring down at his hands, finally looked up. His voice was calm. “Then we stop it.”

Zoro met his gaze. “That’s not gonna be easy.”

Luffy gave a small, crooked smile. “Neither is being family. But he’s ours.”

Thunder cracked loud above them, no longer distant. Rain began to tap against the deck, soft but certain. The Sunny would stay docked. But inside the warm light of the galley, the crew sat closer than they had in days. They didn’t know what was coming next.

But they knew what mattered most.

They would face it together.

The storm had them grounded.

Waves tapped against the hull like nervous fingers. The Sunny creaked softly as wind teased the sails, but no one moved to tighten ropes again. Everything that could be done, had been. Now, they waited.

Below deck, the air was thick with the smell of wet wood and warm citrus oil from the galley lamps. Most of the crew had settled into their own silences, going off to do their own thing. Up top in the Library, three figures lingered by the windows, wrapped in the hush of rain and low voices.

Robin sat with her legs tucked beneath her, a small cup of tea balanced in her hand. Her eyes watched the rain but didn’t seem to see it. Nami stood nearby, arms crossed tightly under her chest, the ghost of a frown on her lips. Brook leaned on the edge of the nearby table, one foot tapping out a silent rhythm, not quite a song.

“He’s not okay,” Nami said softly.

Neither of the others responded right away.

“We knew that already,” Robin murmured eventually. “But today… it hit harder.”

Nami’s brow furrowed. “He looked worse after Thriller Bark. After Wano. Hell, even after Enies Lobby. But this……this is different. He’s not just injured. He’s... hollowing.”

Brook nodded once, bones clicking. “I’ve seen that kind of silence before. People who are dying… or people who think they should be.”

Nami’s hands tightened around her arms.

Robin tilted her head. “You were there. Both of you. At Whole Cake. You saw more than most.”

“I saw him break,” Nami said without hesitation. “Over and over. He kept getting up like it was duty, not choice. He lied to our faces. Hit Luffy. And when he finally told the truth, it was like he still didn’t believe we’d come for him.”

Brook added quietly, “He cried when we left.”

That silence came again, heavier now.

Robin sipped her tea. “And yet… you still hold him so close.”

Nami looked over. “Because he never stopped protecting us. Even when he thought he didn’t deserve to.”

Brook’s skull dipped. “We owe him more than jokes and second plates.”

Robin gave a soft smile, sad at the edges. “And maybe… the only thing stronger than his guilt is his love. That’s why it hurts him so deeply.”

Nami sat down beside her, the tension finally breaking. “You weren’t there, Robin. But if you had been… I think you’d have seen it too. The way he stood between his hell and us like he thought he could shield us from it.”

“He still does,” Robin said gently.

“Yeah,” Nami whispered. “He does.”

They sat there for a while, the three of them. Listening to the storm as it rolled closer. It wasn’t dramatic. Not yet. Just… looming.

Brook broke the silence one last time. “When someone like Sanji forgets his worth… we have to remind him. Even when he doesn’t want to hear it.”

Robin nodded. “Especially then.”

With that in mind Nami pushed off and made her way to the door. “You off are you?” Robin asks as a small smile graces her lips.

“Gonna see if I can help remind him.” She smiles as she closes the door behind her, making her way down to the galley.

The rain had turned heavier, though the storm still hadn’t broken. Just a slow, steady rhythm beating on the hull like a clock counting down to something.

Nami pushed the infirmary door open with her hip, balancing a cup of tea in both hands. She didn’t speak at first. Just walked in and set one cup on the side table, the other pressed into her own palms for warmth.

Sanji lay propped up slightly, not quite asleep, not fully present either.

He blinked as she approached. “You’re up late.”

“You’re surprised?” she said, managing a small smile.

“A little.” He shifted slightly. “You usually sleep well after a safe docking.”

Nami raised an eyebrow at that. “You keeping track of my sleep now?”

Sanji didn’t smile. Not in the usual way. No wink. No hand over heart. Just a small shrug.

“You always notice the rest of us,” he said quietly. “I figured someone should notice you back.”

That caught her off guard. Just for a second. She looked down at the cup in her hands, then back at him.

“You sound weird.”

He huffed a breath — maybe a laugh. Maybe not. “Weird how?”

“I don’t know,” she said, taking the seat beside his bed. “You’re just… quieter. Not trying so hard.”

He looked away, eyes toward the rain-beaten window. “Trying takes energy.”

That hit her in a way she didn’t expect. She didn’t answer immediately.

He reached out a hand, the one not wrapped in gauze, and nudged the tea she’d left for him closer. Didn’t drink it. Just rested his fingers against the ceramic.

“I used to think… if I said the right things, made people laugh, flattered the right way, it’d keep the worst parts of me out of sight.”

Nami glanced over at him, her expression unreadable.

“That’s not like you,” she said softly. Not judgmental. Just honest.

“I know,” Sanji murmured. “I don’t feel like me right now.”

Nami sat back slightly, watching him more closely. The way his shoulders curved inward instead of back. The absence of tension that usually came from trying to perform something — charm, bravado, deflection.

It struck her, suddenly, how unguarded he was. And how rare that truly was. She didn’t say any of it aloud. Instead, she reached out and gently tapped his knuckles where they brushed the tea cup.

“You’re still you,” she said simply. “Even when it doesn’t feel like it.”

He didn’t reply, but his hand didn’t pull away.

And for the first time in days, Nami let herself sit there, no teasing, no demanding, no pretending she wasn’t worried, just there, beside him, with the sound of the rain between them.

Watching a version of Sanji she’d never seen before. One that made her chest ache in a different way. She wouldn’t bring it up. Not yet. But she wouldn’t forget it, either.

The storm deepened by the hour. Outside, rain slicked the deck in uneven rhythms. It wasn’t heavy yet, just steady, insistent. The kind of rain that didn’t come to crash, just to linger.

Inside the infirmary, Sanji lay still. One arm draped over his forehead, eyes closed but far from sleep. The pulse at his temple ticked faster than it should have. He didn’t care. The blanket itched. The air felt too warm. His own skin sat wrong on his bones.

Nami’s visit had been welcome, he’d even drunk the tea she made. It was nice, just sitting with his crewmates, not having to wade through the deep shit for once.
It was part of why he’d come to appreciate the marimo’s presence too, even if he still made his jabs.

But the quiet didn’t stay comforting. As time passed, the stillness became sharp. Like he was stuck inside a body with the wrong blueprint.

He shifted his leg slightly. The bandage tugged at his thigh, and something beneath the skin pulsed, not in pain, not even discomfort. Just… unfamiliar. Like a wire left live in a wall. Waiting.

His breath stuttered.
Tick.
 Tick.
   Tick.

That phantom sound again, under his skull, behind his ribs, somewhere deep in the tissue.
Not real.
Not possible.
But there.

Chopper had checked his vitals twice that morning. Said everything was within range. But his voice had been too careful. Too polite. Too even. Sanji knew the difference between concern and calculation. They were watching him now. Not for healing. Not for progress. But for deviation.

He gritted his teeth.

He remembered the fire. Not Queen’s fire but his own. The way it didn’t burn him. The way it obeyed.

He remembered the raw edge of his heel shattering steel. The absence of ache when his bones should’ve cracked. The bruises that never came. The cuts that sealed before the blood could fully leave.

And worse — he remembered standing in a mirror, seeing a version of himself that didn’t blink. That held its stance too perfectly. Like muscle memory had overridden the man .

He hated that moment more than any of it.
Not the pain.
Not the betrayal.
Not even the collar around his neck at Whole Cake.

He hated not recognizing himself .

The worst part wasn’t the change.

It was that it felt familiar. Like he’d been this once before. Or maybe… was always meant to be.

His hand twitched against the blanket. The bandages across his knuckles were clean now, but he still saw blood when he looked too long.

Tick.

He breathed out slowly. Tried to count the rain. Tried to listen to the timbers creak and remember the Sunny, his ship, his home, was still beneath him. That he hadn’t drifted.

He focused on the warmth. On the sound of the others somewhere above:
Luffy’s laugh, muffled but wild.
Nami’s scolding tone — familiar, sharp, safe.
Brook’s humming. Robin’s low voice. Franky’s tools clinking. Usopp’s dramatic wheezing after a run down the hall.

They were all still here.

That mattered. More than he’d ever say. More than he thought it would.

He rolled onto his side, wincing, and stared at the wall. Not looking for anything. Just needing something solid to anchor to. Something to remind him this was real.

Not Germa. Not the past. Not the dream where everything had burned away and he’d stood there, untouched, unmoved .

A part of him still thought he should’ve stayed behind in Wano. That maybe that would’ve been easier.
Quieter.

But Luffy had said something that day after the fight, after the bandages, when they’d stood on the edge of the capital and watched the fireworks begin.

"You're not broken. You're still you."

Sanji wasn’t sure he believed that. But he wanted to. God, he wanted to.

He closed his eyes again.

Just long enough to pretend.