"You will kill Monkey D. Luffy," Morgan said, and he said, "No," in return, for the tenth time, or the hundredth. Zoro didn't know anymore. Time must have passed, he thought, but he wasn't sure. Usually he could count the minutes as he counted strokes of his sword, or push-ups on the deck, but he couldn't move now, even to count off on his fingers, and the numbers wouldn't stay fixed in his mind. By the time he could think of three, he was unsure whether the previous number had actually been two.

Morgan's demand had stopped making sense long before. He recognized the sounds of the words, but their meaning slipped through his grasp, same as the numbers. He said no now only because he had every time before.

He was tired, though he couldn't sleep; if his eyes closed, Morgan would order them open again, and sluggishly he would obey. The roiling of his stomach could be hunger, or nausea, he wasn't sure; and the wounds on his neck throbbed with a distant, aching chill, like the numbness of frostbite. Two wounds, where the snake had bitten him, the first time, and then the next time, Morgan, holding the creature in his fist, pressing the fangs to his throat, while its thin coils thrashed futilely against his chest.

Morgan was shouting now; perhaps he had been for a while. Perhaps he had always been shouting. Sounds were almost as distant as the pain of the wounds, like he was sinking underwater and that voice was only the shadow of a ship sailing over him, too far away to see or save him. He heard Morgan's punch hit his jaw before he felt it. Unless he wasn't feeling it at all, but only remembering the impact from the blows before.

"No," he said, with his numb tongue in his numb mouth, because it was what he had to say.

Morgan backed off, turned away. Zoro felt his eyes begin to close, couldn't stop them. He aimed to be the strongest in the world but those lids were too heavy to lift. But Morgan opened them again with another blow he didn't really feel, another word he didn't really understand.

Morgan's hand was before his eyes, moving, squirming, long brown finger twisting in hypnotic loops. No, not his finger, but the snake. Its mouth gaped wide, fleshy pink with liquid glimmering on the needle fangs. Their sharp prick was the most real thing Zoro had felt in minutes, or maybe years, but too soon it was over, and he was sinking deeper.

Morgan spoke again, but Zoro didn't hear him. His eyes were still fixed open, but he couldn't see with them anymore. He should be able to keep time by his heartbeat, but it was barely audible, and getting slower, an inaccurate, irregular clock.

Some scrap of Morgan's speech drifted down to him where he was drowning, the syllables sparking memories in the darkness. A battered straw hat, a wild laugh. Monkey D. Luffy, he knew that name. Not his own name; he knew it better than his own name. He might one day become the strongest swordsman, but that name would still be more famous than his, that man still greater.

In that moment he remembered what he refused, and why.

"I will never kill my captain," Zoro said, clearly, the last thing he said, before he dropped entirely out of the conscious, living world.

o o o

This was Monkey D. Luffy, standing before him; this was the captain of the Strawhat Pirates, and the man Zoro was here to kill.

Zoro picked himself up off the ground, splashed to his feet in the rubble, teeth locked and fists curled around the hilts of his swords.

He had been hunting Luffy for so long, but seeing him now, standing before him, was unreal, like a dream, like something that could never happen at all. The pirate had taken off the infamous straw hat, set it aside in the hands of his crewmember, and the rain flattened his hair over his forehead in black stripes. His brow was lowered, wide eyes narrowed, and his fists were clenched at his sides.

"Zoro," he said, and strange as it had been to hear the other pirates say his name, this was the strangest of all. None of the pleading confusion of the others' voices could be heard in their captain's tone. Only anger, in that single name, a fearsome, all-consuming rage to match his own.

What had he expected? He had attacked Luffy's crew, challenged and hurt his people. Hurt his pride. Pirate captains didn't care about their men's lives, but to defeat their crews was to illuminate their own weakness, that they could only get the weak to follow them.

--None of them had been weak, not the damn cook, not the reindeer monster, not the sniper with all his determination or the orange-haired girl with her staff or Nico Robin. That Zoro had been the stronger did not make them pathetic; he was the fighter, and they were not--

And now, here was the monster Monkey D. Luffy, shorter and skinnier than most of his crew, a scrawny, soaked boy. But there was the terrible strength of a devil fruit in those wiry arms.

Watching Luffy, waiting for the coming attack, for a single terrifying instant of vertigo Zoro felt unprepared. Undefended, wide open. Like he was missing something--like he had lost something, like something unimaginably important had been taken from him.

But Wadou Ichimonji was between his teeth and his other two swords were in his hands and there was nothing else. Just the absolute rage in the pirate captain's glare.

Zoro braced himself, boots set against the slick cobblestone, then charged.

o o o

"Why are you here, Roronoa Zoro?"

There were brief flashes of clarity through the muddle, impressions more than memories. His jaw being pried open, so something bitter could be poured down his throat. "--the antidote, that third bite was too much even for you, Roronoa. Drink this, if you don't want to die."

"I'm not going to die." He couldn't die, not yet, not when he had not done everything he needed to do. Not the strongest yet.

He hadn't died. He had slept, and then fangs piercing his neck awoke him, though not completely. He couldn't fully awaken, for all he could open his eyes and speak; his mind was still somewhere behind the veil of dreams, where everything ran together and made such perfect sense that there was no way or reason to explain any of it.

"You're a pirate hunter," Morgan said, or maybe he was asking a question, or maybe the question hadn't been asked yet. He held up Zoro's wanted poster, tapped the reward listed at the bottom, all the zeroes. "Why would a pirate hunter sail with pirates? Why should a bounty hunter have his own bounty?"

"Earned that bounty," Zoro told him, not without pride. "Whiskey Peak, I fought them all."

"But why did you fight them? For whom did you defeat those men?"

"For them. My crewmates. Luffy and the others." Zoro frowned. Somewhere in the back of his mind he thought he had answered this before, explained this all already, but he couldn't be sure. Couldn't be sure of anything he said; phrases floated around him like ghosts, his words, Morgan's words, blurred together until it was hard enough just figuring out their meaning, much less recalling who had spoken them.

"So it's because of Luffy you have that bounty."

Of course it was. Why else? He was Luffy's swordsman, wasn't he?

"His fault. Monkey D. Luffy's fault. Say it."

"Luffy's fault," he repeated.

"Who did you fight at Whiskey Peak, Roronoa Zoro?"

"Baroque Works--bounty hunters--"

"Who else? Who did you fight there, and fail to defeat?"

"Didn't..." Zoro knew the answer, but there was something wrong about saying it, even knowing it was true.

"Who?" Morgan asked again.

He had to answer, honestly, "Luffy."

"Monkey D. Luffy. The only pirate you've never defeated, besides Mihawk himself. Isn't that right, Roronoa Zoro?"

"That's not..." True, it sounded like it was, but it couldn't be true. Truth wouldn't make an honest man as angry as hearing that made him. A lie, somehow, a lie so terrible that it made Zoro see red, made him try to reach out and strike the man speaking it. Iron chains held his arms back, weighed him down; he struggled against them.

Morgan looked surprised, taking a step back before he recollected himself. "You're the pirate hunter. Why did you let a pirate escape undefeated--"

"Shut up!"

The chains rattled. He should be strong enough to break free of them, but for some reason (the snake, hissing in his memory) he barely had the power to raise his arms, his body heavier still than the iron, useless as a devil fruit eater's underwater.

"But you didn't let him escape, did you, Roronoa Zoro? You went with him--you went after him. Followed him." Morgan came closer again, looming over him, until he could see nothing but the man's iron jaw and the mad glitter of his eyes. "You're the pirate hunter. He's a pirate. You must hunt him. That's what you are. You must be hunting him."

"No," Zoro said; his tongue shaped the word easily, familiarly.

His body was bracing for a blow, but none came. Morgan only grabbed his chin, wrenched up his head so they were eye-to-eye. "You came here, to this island, because of him, didn't you? Why are you here, Roronoa Zoro? Whose fault is it that you are here?"

He didn't want to say it. He didn't even know why not, only that he shouldn't. Deep in his memory someone was saying his name, but he barely recognized the voice, or those merry black eyes.

"Why?" Morgan repeated, and slapped his cheek, but perfunctorily. Not punishing, as if he were only trying to wake him up. "Answer me. Whose fault is it that you're here?"

If he didn't speak he couldn't breathe. "Monkey D. Luffy."

It was like a crushing weight had been lifted. Like a light had gone out. He could breathe again. He could see nothing. Just Morgan's pale eyes.

"Who did you come here for? Who did you come here to hunt?" Morgan asked. "Answer me. Who are you hunting, Roronoa Zoro?"

There was only one answer. "Monkey D. Luffy."

"Good," Morgan said. "Very good," and he smiled.

o o o

"Oni-Giri!"

Instead of fighting back, Luffy dodged Zoro's blow, stretching to grab the chimney across the street and catapulting out of the way.

It had only been an experimental strike, testing strengths; the real engagement had yet to begin. Zoro straightened from the attack's finishing stance and turned to face the pirate. As a bounty hunter, he could offer the chance of surrender now, but it would not be taken.

He could feel eyes at his back, the woman, the cook, watching them, huddled in the rain. They wouldn't interfere. Nothing they could do now anyway.

"You mean it," the captain said. Luffy had landed crouched, straightened up slowly and did not strike back, not right away. He asked no questions, just received the answers given in Zoro's attack. And his voice was even, though his fists balled at his sides were shaking with his anger. "You're serious.

"I told you once, Zoro, a while ago," the captain said, his voice low and shaking like his fists. "If I ever got in the way of you being the strongest, you could kill me. That was your right, always."

Luffy raised his head, and his eyes flashed. "But not them. Even if they got in your way. I never said you could hurt any of them. I'm going to fight you, Zoro."

Of course. As they had to, as they had always been meant to. Predator and prey, pirate hunter and pirate captain. There had never been any doubt.

"Good," Zoro said, and raised his swords again, as Luffy charged.

No, really, it will be. X my heart. I can't promise when, but it will be completed. Never give up, never surrender! ...Or something of the sort.

Great to know people are keeping the faith - thank you so much for all the reviews! Wow, over 300 - you guys rock!
A few people have been a bit pushy - this is fanfic, after all, I do it strictly for fun, and feeling forced into it makes it less than fun. But most of you readers have been really nice about it, very understanding - I don't mind the gentle reminders that you're waiting, helps motivate me! As a fanfic reader myself, I do know where you're coming from...and the frustration is worse as the author, to not have the time to write as much as I'd like. But rest assured, I'm not dropping this story - and I hope y'all continue to enjoy it!