Zoro was only barely sure of what was going on. Scarce minutes ago he had been up on the rooftop—"Luffy!" the Strawhat pirates below screamed their captain's name, as Zoro's sword drove forward to end their battle.

And Monkey D. Luffy himself just stood there, watching Zoro come at him, utterly unafraid. The moment before Zoro struck, it almost looked like the pirate smiled, the smile of a man who had so lived the life he wanted that there was no space in him for regret—

An impossible smile, and for the fractional instant between that smile and the stab of his katana, Zoro recalled...not an image, nothing so definite as a memory. But a feeling, déjà vu, that he had been here before—the smell of thunderclouds in the air, and the shout of a familiar voice—only Zoro had been shouting, too, his own throat hoarse with desperation, blood pounding in his ears and swords drawn as he threw himself forward, as fast as ever he had moved in his life. And still not fast enough, because above him the sword's blade was falling, as the man who would be pirate king smiled his impossible smile, and apologized for dying—

Then Zoro's sword plunged into the Strawhat captain's chest—and the trap was sprung, the trap he should have seen coming, rubber limbs winding around him like an octopus's tentacles, trapping him even as he fought. The air was thick with the ozone hum of ionization—one spark, twinkling like a star, and then the lightning struck.

Electricity burned through Zoro's veins, outlining the path of his nerves in dazzling agony, as powerful as one of Enel's strikes—

—Who was Enel?—

—As bright as the thunderbolt that had struck the scaffold in Loguetown, the miracle that had spared Monkey D. Luffy's life, saved his captain from the execution Zoro had not been fast enough to stop—

—His captain?—

But Zoro was faster now, stronger, as he had to be. Stronger than anyone, to become the swordsman who stood above all others in the world.

—To become the swordsman worthy of following the pirate king—

—Under his captain—

—But he was the pirate hunter Zoro, beholden to no one, neither pirate nor Marine; he answered to no one but himself. He could not put anyone's dream above his own, could not entrust that dream to any other; he had never met anyone with the strength or will to bear it—

—Never met anyone, until—

Zoro realized he was falling, distantly aware of the dropping sensation in the pit of his stomach; but he couldn't move, not even to open his eyes and see how far the ground was below him. Couldn't feel the hilt of his katana in his numb hands—he'd lost it, lost his last sword and lost the battle, and now he was falling into an endless bottomless abyss...

Was this it? But no, it couldn't be; he couldn't die here, not with his promise unfulfilled—

He was falling and rubber arms were wrapped around him, and a voice spoke in his ear, calm and confident as the devil himself, telling him, "Be my nakama, and I'll give you back your swords."

—Repeating the promise of before, all that time ago, on another island in a faraway sea, the first time Zoro had been Axe-hand Morgan's prisoner. The first time, when a crazy pirate boy had invaded the Marine base and saved him—saved his life and his dream and his future, and how had he ever forgotten that? How could he have forgotten that promise, and everything he'd gained with it, when he had accepted his swords from Luffy, a lifetime ago?

"Okay, Zoro?"

The next thing Zoro knew, he was lying in a puddle on cold stone, and all his concentration was dedicated to breathing—in and out, inhalation and exhalation, counterpoint to his heartbeat steadying in his ears. Rain dripped on his face, and voices washed over him—his crewmates, and the panic in their shouts dragged Zoro back to awareness, fighting his consciousness free from the aftermath of the electricity's agony.

Strange, though; it somehow felt like he'd been hearing his nakama shout like that for a while, but try as he might he couldn't remember what enemy they had been fighting. He and Luffy had been up on a rooftop together, but where had their opponent been? Zoro couldn't even recall what weapon or power the guy had had, much less a name or a face.

But wait, he could hear another voice now, not anyone from the Merry—a supercilious bleating, vaguely familiar in how it turned his stomach.

The Marine commodore, with his stupid hat and glasses and sneer—the commodore, exchanging smug assurances with Morgan in a dark room, with the rain beating on the windows—Morgan, and Zoro standing beside him. Listening as Morgan commanded.

"Who are you hunting?"

As if that fragmentary recollection was the final overflowing drop, the dam broke, a torrent of memories flooding his mind. The past few days, the past night, crashed over Zoro like an avalanche, crushing him, smothering him—

—You, it was you, it was you they were fighting; and you were fighting them, you were trying to—how could you—

—But his nakama were still in trouble. Had to deal with the Marines before he dealt with anything else, so Zoro pushed back that pain, suppressing it the same as he ignored the throbbing of his lightning-fried nerves and his burned hands, and got to his feet.

The Marines were watching him, warily, but not attacking. Too many for him to take barehanded, not fast enough, not with his crewmates in danger. All Zoro needed was a sword, one blade to even the odds.

The katana Luffy had promised to return to him, Wadou Ichimonji, was now in Luffy's hands. Zoro strode over to his captain, forcing his steps to be steady.

Luffy looked up at him, bleeding and panting for breath, but meeting Zoro's eyes with his expected, eternal fearlessness. Not that the Marine would have known; he was at the wrong angle to see Luffy's defiance.

Zoro didn't need to nod or say a word, didn't need to make any sign for his captain to understand. Luffy simply looked at him, then rolled over in time with Zoro's kick and let go of the sword.

Zoro took his white katana, raised it up. Behind and before him he heard his other nakama crying out in fear and dismay, and yeah, it would've hurt less to be stabbed with poisoned knives, but either way he didn't have time to bleed.

Instead he brought down the sword and neatly sliced through the net entangling Luffy. Behind him the Marine commodore squawked in alarm, as Zoro whirled to cut through the net trapping Chopper as well, so the little reindeer dropped out of the sack to the cobblestone. Zoro didn't bother pulling the blow, so the blade cut into the Marine holding Chopper's net as well, and the man went down with a cry of pain.

By then the other Marines had caught on; spurred by their commodore's frantic commands, they rushed him en masse. They weren't the real threat, however, and Zoro dispatched of most of them with a single-sword onigiri, followed by a tatsumaki to bring down the few left standing, as he charged for the most dangerous factor.

He wasn't sure if he'd make it—wasn't sure what he'd do once he did, but he had to figure out some way to stop Robin; under the commodore's mind control, she would be almost dangerous as he had been. The commodore was yelling at her and Morgan both, spittle flying as he screamed, "Take Roronoa down!" Zoro ignored him and kept moving—if he could knock Robin out, they could get one of the sea-stone nets around her, and then straighten her out later—

Only Robin didn't move to attack him, or even sidestep; instead she raised her head to look at him steadily, raised her hands—only two hands, not a dangerous multiplication—in a conciliatory gesture and said, "Please don't concern yourself with me, Swordsman-san; I'm not actually under his command."

Zoro stopped his sword's swing with sheer strength, the hilt a foot away from ramming her head—then almost believed he had miscalculated when Robin's calm expression suddenly darkened and she brought in her arms, closing her fingers into fists.

But no alien hands grabbed him; instead he heard a thud behind him, spun around to see Morgan, brought to his knees with his axe-handed arm twisted behind his back by two arms sprouted from his torso. The big man didn't try to struggle, passively accepting the restraint, eyes foggy and his iron jaw slack.

Before Zoro could figure out what was wrong with him, the commodore yelled, "All you pirates, stop at once! Or else your crewmate—!"

The officer had raised Zoro's red katana to Nami's neck, sleek edge pressing into her skin as the rain ran down the forged steel, tinged red with a trickle of blood. Sandai Kitetsu's cursed blade was yet ever thirsty.

Zoro froze, saw Robin do the same, as did Luffy on his other side, having just managed to stand up from the sea-stone net.

"You son of a bitch!" Nami, still held by the two remaining Marine troops, spat in the officer's eye defiantly. She might have hit; with the rain it was hard to tell. "I'll—"

"I would shut up," the commodore snapped. "There's no bounty on you, so no reason to spare you. Nor should any of you move," and he gestured to the rest of them with the sheathed black katana in his free hand. "If you don't want me to take this woman's attractive but ultimately worthless head, then put down your sword, Roronoa Zoro, and put the net back over Monkey D—"

Which was as far as he got before a black-shoed foot slammed into his arm with the unmistakable crunch of a snapped bone. The sword dropped harmlessly from the officer's suddenly limp fingers.

"Get your hands off Nami-san, you shitty Marine bastards!" Sanji hollered. He took out the two Marines holding her with a spinning double kick, and finished with a follow-up blow to the commodore's chin that sent him flying like a rag doll, coming down on top of the pile of troops Zoro had already felled. "How dare you call Nami-san's attractive head worthless, you—ow," the cook broke off with a wince, hunching over with his hand pressed to his side.

"Sanji-kun!" Nami crouched next to her erstwhile rescuer, helping prop him up, though for once Sanji didn't swoon at the attention. Instead he raised his head, staring at Zoro through his wet blond bangs, and staggered forward to put himself between the swordsman and Nami. He stepped on Kitetsu's blade as he did, deliberately trapping the sword under his heel.

"So what's it going to be, bastard?" Sanji panted, glaring at him. "Round three?"

Usually the challenge in the cook's voice would have raised Zoro's ire—except that it was nothing like how Sanji usually said it, not mocking insult but fierce determination, for all his shoulders under his soaked black suit were shaking with exhaustion.

Zoro had no idea how to answer. Wadou Ichimonji was still in his hand; he lowered the sword, sheathed it and with effort uncurled his fingers from around the white hilt. With the adrenaline of the fight ebbing, his hands were starting to sting, the burned palms throbbing.

But that pain was nowhere near as excruciating as the defiance in Sanji's eyes, in the wideness of Nami's as she stared at him, standing up straight but staying cautiously behind Sanji's shoulder. Distrust in those stares, and worse.

Zoro could recognize fear, having seen it in so many other faces looking at him before. But to see it in his nakama's eyes was a wholly different thing.

"I..." Zoro started to say, and stopped.

Footsteps sounded through the rain to either side of him, but every tread was familiar, nothing he needed to raise his sword against. Usopp's limping steps stumbled, and Chopper trotted over to assist him; Robin took only a single step, relaxing her stance.

And the slap of sandals through the puddles—Zoro didn't look over, keeping his head and gaze both forward as their captain passed him.

Luffy walked over to Sanji and Nami, asked quietly, "Where's my hat?"

"Here," Sanji said, handing over the battered treasure.

"Thanks." Luffy took the straw hat, set it back on his head with a nod, then looked between his crewmates once more and said, "Sanji, Nami. Gimme the swords."

"Luffy, are you..." Nami began, only to trail off.

Sanji didn't say anything, but lifted his foot from the Kitetsu's blade. Nami crouched, picked up the cursed katana and Yubashiri still in its sheath and handed them both to Luffy.

Luffy turned back around, and Zoro couldn't help but glance at his face under the straw hat's brim. Luffy wasn't smiling; Zoro couldn't read his expression otherwise. But he had the courage at least to meet his captain's wide dark eyes and not look away, as Luffy marched back over to him.

Luffy's red vest was stained dark with blood, stickier than the rain, and the wound showed brighter red underneath, where cloth and flesh had been stabbed through. But his hands were steady, bearing the weight of the two katana, and his voice was steady, too, as he asked, "Zoro, are you my nakama?"

Of course, Zoro wanted to say, always, for as long as you sail—but he'd foregone the right to that promise, after this night.

Instead he just said, "Yes."

"Okay," Luffy said, "then here," and he held out the swords to Zoro.

Zoro hesitated a moment, then took them, sliding Kitetsu safely back in its red scabbard, hooking Yubashiri's scabbard onto his haramaki with the other two.

It didn't surprise him, getting his swords back—they were his, part of his life, and until that ended he knew he would never lose his blades.

What surprised him was Luffy's grin as he took them, wild and pleased and just as impossibly, hugely, widely bright as it had been all that time ago, in a Marine base in East Blue, the first time he had won a swordsman to his crew.

o o o

Usopp wasn't sure what was going to happen when Zoro reclaimed his swords—was ready for anything, fingers clenched so hard around his slingshot's handle that they were cramping. If this was just a ruse, if Zoro was only pretending, and once he was re-armed he would cut Luffy down—

But Zoro didn't; instead he just sheathed his swords, and then stood there, hands at his sides and the rain beating down on his black bandana. With his jaw set and his eyes in shadow, he looked as dangerous a threat as he'd been for all the hellishly long night.

Except that Luffy before him was smiling, satisfied and absolutely sure. And from that Usopp knew that this was Zoro, the real Zoro, their Zoro, back on their side, their nakama again.

Usopp would have cried (for the first time tonight; it had only been rain before, no matter what Sanji might claim afterwards)—except that he couldn't, not yet. Not when Zoro was only standing there, saying nothing, and his crewmates were all staring at him, just as mute, and there had to be something Usopp could say to break that barrier of silence, a stick of conversational dynamite that would shatter the wall building between all of them—

He cleared his throat, but before he could say anything Robin beat him to it, stepping forward to say, "Captain-san, if I may—"

"Oh, no, Robin!" Chopper wailed, suddenly expanding to his full-sized man form and grabbing the net at his feet, wincing at the touch of the sea-stone. "D-don't hurt them, or I'll have to stop you—!"

"It's all right, Doctor-san," Robin said reassuringly. "You can put down that net; I'm not going to attack you."

"But—he said you were bitten," Usopp said, raising his slingshot and trying to stop his arms from trembling. "If you're hypnotized now—"

"I'm not," Robin said. "Look," and she leaned towards the doctor.

Chopper peered into her eyes, then pronounced with fervent relief, "They're clear!" He dropped the net, shrinking back down to his usual form. "Thank goodness!"

"I knew you'd never turn on us, Robin-chan!" Sanji sang out, waving with the arm not pressed to his ribs.

A strange doubting look crossed Robin's features, but so quickly Usopp might have only imagined it; then she smiled her calm smile and said, "I apologize for grabbing you before, Cook-san. I wasn't yet in a good position to betray my free will to the Marines, and besides Doctor-san seemed quite concerned about how you were straining yourself."

"It was no trouble at all," Sanji assured her. "The touch of Robin-chan's gentle hands could never trouble me!"

"But how'd you fool them, Robin?" Nami asked. "If the commodore had the snake—wouldn't he have noticed if it didn't really bite you?"

Robin brushed back the black hair falling on her neck, touching her fingers to the little mark there. "The mesmerang did bite me," she said. "I wasn't poisoned, however."

"It didn't have any venom left," Chopper realized. "Poisonous snakes have to make the venom in their fangs; it's a limited resource. After biting Morgan, and Zoro all the times before that..." He glanced up at Zoro, gulped and hastily, guiltily looked away.

If Zoro noticed, he gave no sign, continuing to stare silently ahead. He almost might have been poisoned again himself.

"Apparently so," Robin said, smoothing over the awkward pause. "As I'd assumed might be the case, given the behavior of other venomous animals. At any rate, I was unaffected, but I thought it prudent to play along, when the Marines still had their nets to recapture me." Her smile vanished, expression hardening as she looked back at the pile of groaning or insensate Marines. The commodore was sprawled on top of the heap like a broken harlequin doll, and Axe-hand Morgan slumped beside them, technically conscious but as inert. "I regret not being able to stop them myself, and spare all of you the trouble."

"They weren't any trouble either, Robin-chan!"

"Though they will be," Nami said, "once the rest of the commodore's crew come looking for him. Especially if they summon more ships for backup, or capture the Merry—we better get out of here fast, back to the docks and set sail tonight."

"Oh, no, Merry!" Chopper cried.

"Maybe they won't bother with us now, when they've got that guy," Sanji remarked, quirking his cigarette in Morgan's direction. "He's wanted, too, right?"

Luffy walked over towards the pile of Marines, wet sandals slapping on the street, and stopped before Morgan. "So these are the guys who did the stuff to Zoro, huh?"

He said it quietly, calmly, with no particular edge, and yet Usopp shivered anyway, as if the rain pattering on him had turned to sleet.

Zoro could've answered that better than any of them, but he didn't say anything, though he was watching Luffy, head down but eyes raised. So Usopp answered instead, "Y-yeah," tightening his jaw to keep his teeth from chattering. "That guy Morgan there, he was the one who did it, who got the snake and all. And the commodore's the one he made the deal with, to get back in the Marines, for our heads. Well, your head and Robin's, at least..."

Luffy cocked his head, looking up at Morgan. "I remember you," he said. "You'd caught Zoro before, too, the first time I got him to join."

Morgan of course didn't reply, glazed eyes staring mindlessly forward.

"He's still poisoned, Luffy," Chopper said. "Like he did to Zoro—he won't do anything now, not unless he's ordered to."

"That's it!" Nami snapped her fingers, smiling unexpectedly. "This is the perfect opportunity—we can order him to forget all about you and Zoro. Erase you from his memories, so he won't even know you exist to get revenge on."

"That is perfect!" Usopp said, brightening in spite of himself as he followed her wicked insight. "We leave him with the Marines, give them something to keep them busy—and then even if he escapes from them again, he'll never come after any of us."

Luffy cocked his head in the other direction, still looking up at Morgan. "Hmm," he said. "That'd work? He'd listen to me?"

"He'll listen to anything you tell him," Chopper said.

"Huh." Luffy reached up with one hand, grabbed Morgan by the metal chin and yanked his head down to his eye-level. The ex-Marine bent forward compliantly. "Oi," Luffy said, "can you hear me? Are you listening to what I say?"

Morgan's voice was slurred and creaky, as if his vocal chords were rusting in the rain along with his jaw. "Yeah."

"Then listen good, and remember this," Luffy said. "I'm Monkey D. Luffy, and I'm going to become the pirate king. And that guy over there, that's Roronoa Zoro, and he's going to become the best swordsman in the world. And everyone else, they're our nakama, mine and Zoro's.

"So you can keep capturing him, and you can keep trying to get revenge on us, as often as you want—but no matter how many times you try, we're always going to beat you, and we're always, always going to get Zoro back. Got it?"

"Got it," Morgan rasped, tonelessly obedient.

"Good," Luffy said. Then he snapped back his fist, twisting his arm as he did, and threw a spinning punch that caught Morgan square in the metal jaw, denting the iron and sending him crashing into the pile of Marines. The man's enormous body landed square on top of the commodore, effectively flattening the officer and the half a dozen men under him; it was only thanks to luck that Morgan's axe-bladed hand didn't decapitate any of them.

"Okay," Luffy said, turning to his crew without another look back at the groaning Marines. "Let's get to the Merry, everybody. It's time to leave this island."

to be concluded...

Ahh, my apologies for the wait! But we're almost through, only the epilogue to go now. (My style epilogue, which probably will make it the longest chapter in the story...)

As I've said before, my profoundest thanks to everyone who's taken the time to leave a review; for all the time I've been posting this story, you're what's kept me going, knowing that someone wanted to read it to the end. I hope you find it worth your time!