Epilogue!
Title: Aftermath of it all
Theme: Set #3 - Steel
Claim: Zoro
Words: 1508
Rating: PG
Warnings: Language, Sanji, language! Also, continues from Return of an old nemesis and Vengeance on the avenger, so you'll want to read those first if you haven't already.
Disclaimers: I don't own One Piece.
Acknowledgments: Last in a series inspired by a pic by sybile, and major thanks to zelda_addict for beta-ing this for me again! And since it's Mother's Day already over here, thank you Mummy for reading "Goldilocks and the Three Bears" 26 times in a row to me when I was three 1.5 (according to her) (I would insist, "Again!" after each rendition), thus sparking off a love of reading (and writing) that hasn't waned since.
Sanji left the rest of the crew to mop up whatever was left of Silvertongue and headed into the galley, knowing his gannet of a captain would be demanding dinner as soon as the excitement wore off. He got some rice going, then took out the fresh fish he'd bought in town, washed it, laid it out on the chopping board, picked up his best filleting knife - and hesitated.
Something felt wrong.
He was holding his knife wrong.
Ridiculous, he told himself. He'd done this so many times, day after day for years now. He could wield knives simultaneously in both hands. He could cut as thin and as fast as anyone in the four Blues and still have every slice come out perfectly regular. How could he be doing this wrong?
And yet a niggling doubt still remained.
Dammit, cook, at least hold it like a katana... The line replayed through his head like the recording of a Tone Dial.
That had to be it. But why would the marimo be telling him how to hold his katana? Zoro never let anyone near the non-business end of those pointy sticks of his if he could help it. He was so protective of those swords, they never left his side. He talked to them, he showered with them, he cuddled up to them like he was making love to them. The closest Sanji had ever gotten to those blades was the sole of a shoe.
So why did he have this dim memory of having Zoro's most precious katana in his hands?
I was so close to having him killed!
What's he talking about, marimo?
Nothing. And then that evasive look.
Sanji's jaw tightened. When Zoro claimed that nothing had happened, it always meant the opposite.
Fucking bastard, always so ready to sacrifice himself...
Disregarding the waiting fish, he stamped over to the galley door and flung it open. "Oi! Marimo! Get your idiot ass in here right now!"
Zoro looked up from where he was being tended to by Chopper. "Go order someone else around," he responded lazily. "I'm busy."
"Actually, Zoro, I'm done." Chopper cast a nervous look over at where Sanji was slowly beginning to smoulder. "You'd better get over there."
"Tch. This'd better be important, shit cook," Zoro said, but he looked vaguely discomfited by the summons, especially when Sanji slammed the galley door shut with one foot and glared at him confrontationally.
"What?" Zoro barked, thrusting his hands into his pockets, carefully avoiding Sanji's eye.
"Give me that sword." Sanji reached for the hilt of the white katana.
"What? No! Why?" Zoro said, reflexively shielding Wado from the cook's grasp.
"So I can kill you properly this time," Sanji snarled.
Zoro grimaced. "You remember?"
"I know that I almost killed you."
"So what? It's not like we don't already half-kill each other everyday, anyway..."
"I've had enough fucking guilt to last me a lifetime, without having to be the guy who murdered his nakama as well!" Sanji hissed.
"But you didn't kill me. Besides, who else was I supposed to choose? One of them?" Zoro gestured to the ship beyond the door. "Can you imagine how they'd react, if they found out what they'd done?"
Sanji's jaw dropped. "You mean you chose me to do that?" he said slowly.
"Damn, I thought you'd already figured out that part."
"Why choose me? Why would how I feel be any different from how any of them would feel?" Sanji demanded, gesturing towards the door.
"I chose you because I trusted you to realise that it was necessary. It had to be one of you. Even if you were conscious, if you'd been given the choice instead of me, would you have let Luffy do it? Chopper? Nami?"
Sanji stared at Zoro for a moment, then turned away. "Fine, I would've done it," he admitted grudgingly. "But it should never have come down to that in the first place!"
"What was I supposed to do? The man could control minds!" Zoro asked in frustration.
"You could've, I don't know, begged or something!" Sanji invented on the spot, instantly realising how Zoro would take the idea.
Zoro turned an incredulous look on Sanji. "Begged?" His tone was one of pure disgust.
"What, you're willing to beg on your knees for your captain's life, but not your own?"
"Back then was different!"
"So you were just going to give up and let me kill you? Let all your promises go to waste?" Sanji asked cuttingly, knowing that was the one thing he could say that could actually hurt Zoro.
Sure enough, he was rewarded with a reflexive wince. "I didn't give up, I...had a back-up plan," Zoro said defensively.
"A back-up plan?" Sanji didn't look at all mollified. "What kind of shitty plan did you come up with this time? 'I'll let him chop off my head, so when my brain's gone and Silvertongue can't control me anymore, I can fight back'?"
"No, it was a much better plan that that."
Sanji pinched the bridge of his nose to stem the rising migraine. "What, then?"
"You've seen me cut through steel, right?" Zoro pulled Wado Ichimonji out of its sheath.
"Yeah, so what?"
"Ever since I learned to do that, I could cut through nothing, too."
"Oi! Watch where you're pointing that...thing," Sanji calmed down as he realised that apart from exerting a dull pressure on his sternum, the blade digging into his chest was doing nothing at all. "Interesting. But does that work if someone else is wielding the blade?"
"I think so, so long as my swordsman's spirit is greater than theirs."
"You think so? What kind of half-assed plan is that, if you didn't know whether it would work? What was Plan B?" Sanji demanded.
"That was Plan B," Zoro admitted. "But I'm sure it would've worked. Here, try it." He flipped Wado Ichimonji, catching it by its blade - show-off, Sanji thought - and handed it over.
"You sure about this?" Sanji asked hesitantly, grasping the hilt. Beating Zoro up as part of their usual fights was one thing, but actually poking the marimo with a sword so sharp he'd seen it cut through whole ships was another.
"'Course I'm sure. Go on, try it. No, don't hold it like that, like this." Zoro adjusted Sanji's grip. "See?" Zoro said proudly, as the point of the blade stopped at his flesh, unable to cut through despite the thrust Sanji was putting behind it.
"That's pretty impressive," Sanji conceded. "What about if I try this then?" he asked, changing his stance, just as the door to the galley swung open.
"Sanji, I was wondering...WHAT ON EARTH ARE YOU TWO DOING?" Chopper shouted, as the two of them gave a start at the doctor's sudden entrance, causing the blade to slide along Zoro's arm, leaving a trail of blood behind it.
"Whoops," Zoro said, frowning at his bleeding arm.
"What the hell? You told me this wouldn't hurt you!" Sanji yelled.
"It wouldn't have hurt me, if I hadn't been distracted!" Zoro explained, gritting his teeth against the sharp pain.
"What were you two thinking? Do you have some kind of blood fetish or something?" Chopper squawked indignantly, brandishing a roll of bandages.
"It was just an experiment! Chopper, no! Ow..."
.
Chopper sighed as he unpacked his herbs once more. Sanji had grumpily declared since (a) there was marimo blood all over his formerly spotlessly clean counter, and (b) the kitchen staff had suffered a vicious assault from the emergency food supply, dinner would be a bit late, so Chopper now had the time to finish off the herb-grinding he'd been working on earlier.
Swish. Swoop. On the other side of the deck, Zoro was back at his katas again, this time sporting a fresh bandage around his arm and an equally fresh lump on his head. Chopper had tried to stop him, given the wound and his earlier sufferings, but Zoro just shook his head stubbornly and said the injury proved he needed more training. The cut was too shallow for Chopper to argue otherwise, so he'd given up protesting.
Chopper watched Zoro for a few moments, then returned to his herbs with a will. He was going to work hard, he decided, as hard as Zoro worked to become stronger, as hard as Sanji worked to keep them all fed. He would become a better doctor - no, the best doctor in the world, one capable of curing any injury and any illness. But even then, he wasn't sure if he'd ever find a cure for the idiocy of two hopelessly idiotic idiots named Zoro and Sanji.
.....
I love Zoro's ability to cut through nothing way too much :-P
That's it for this series! Although I am planning to mention these events in a future fic...
And now, back to fighting jet-lag...zzzzz.
EDIT: The comments below inspired an omake. Thanks all! :-)
Theme: Set #3 - Steel
Claim: Zoro
Words: 1508
Rating: PG
Warnings: Language, Sanji, language! Also, continues from Return of an old nemesis and Vengeance on the avenger, so you'll want to read those first if you haven't already.
Disclaimers: I don't own One Piece.
Acknowledgments: Last in a series inspired by a pic by sybile, and major thanks to zelda_addict for beta-ing this for me again! And since it's Mother's Day already over here, thank you Mummy for reading "Goldilocks and the Three Bears" 26 times in a row to me when I was three 1.5 (according to her) (I would insist, "Again!" after each rendition), thus sparking off a love of reading (and writing) that hasn't waned since.
Sanji left the rest of the crew to mop up whatever was left of Silvertongue and headed into the galley, knowing his gannet of a captain would be demanding dinner as soon as the excitement wore off. He got some rice going, then took out the fresh fish he'd bought in town, washed it, laid it out on the chopping board, picked up his best filleting knife - and hesitated.
Something felt wrong.
He was holding his knife wrong.
Ridiculous, he told himself. He'd done this so many times, day after day for years now. He could wield knives simultaneously in both hands. He could cut as thin and as fast as anyone in the four Blues and still have every slice come out perfectly regular. How could he be doing this wrong?
And yet a niggling doubt still remained.
Dammit, cook, at least hold it like a katana... The line replayed through his head like the recording of a Tone Dial.
That had to be it. But why would the marimo be telling him how to hold his katana? Zoro never let anyone near the non-business end of those pointy sticks of his if he could help it. He was so protective of those swords, they never left his side. He talked to them, he showered with them, he cuddled up to them like he was making love to them. The closest Sanji had ever gotten to those blades was the sole of a shoe.
So why did he have this dim memory of having Zoro's most precious katana in his hands?
I was so close to having him killed!
What's he talking about, marimo?
Nothing. And then that evasive look.
Sanji's jaw tightened. When Zoro claimed that nothing had happened, it always meant the opposite.
Fucking bastard, always so ready to sacrifice himself...
Disregarding the waiting fish, he stamped over to the galley door and flung it open. "Oi! Marimo! Get your idiot ass in here right now!"
Zoro looked up from where he was being tended to by Chopper. "Go order someone else around," he responded lazily. "I'm busy."
"Actually, Zoro, I'm done." Chopper cast a nervous look over at where Sanji was slowly beginning to smoulder. "You'd better get over there."
"Tch. This'd better be important, shit cook," Zoro said, but he looked vaguely discomfited by the summons, especially when Sanji slammed the galley door shut with one foot and glared at him confrontationally.
"What?" Zoro barked, thrusting his hands into his pockets, carefully avoiding Sanji's eye.
"Give me that sword." Sanji reached for the hilt of the white katana.
"What? No! Why?" Zoro said, reflexively shielding Wado from the cook's grasp.
"So I can kill you properly this time," Sanji snarled.
Zoro grimaced. "You remember?"
"I know that I almost killed you."
"So what? It's not like we don't already half-kill each other everyday, anyway..."
"I've had enough fucking guilt to last me a lifetime, without having to be the guy who murdered his nakama as well!" Sanji hissed.
"But you didn't kill me. Besides, who else was I supposed to choose? One of them?" Zoro gestured to the ship beyond the door. "Can you imagine how they'd react, if they found out what they'd done?"
Sanji's jaw dropped. "You mean you chose me to do that?" he said slowly.
"Damn, I thought you'd already figured out that part."
"Why choose me? Why would how I feel be any different from how any of them would feel?" Sanji demanded, gesturing towards the door.
"I chose you because I trusted you to realise that it was necessary. It had to be one of you. Even if you were conscious, if you'd been given the choice instead of me, would you have let Luffy do it? Chopper? Nami?"
Sanji stared at Zoro for a moment, then turned away. "Fine, I would've done it," he admitted grudgingly. "But it should never have come down to that in the first place!"
"What was I supposed to do? The man could control minds!" Zoro asked in frustration.
"You could've, I don't know, begged or something!" Sanji invented on the spot, instantly realising how Zoro would take the idea.
Zoro turned an incredulous look on Sanji. "Begged?" His tone was one of pure disgust.
"What, you're willing to beg on your knees for your captain's life, but not your own?"
"Back then was different!"
"So you were just going to give up and let me kill you? Let all your promises go to waste?" Sanji asked cuttingly, knowing that was the one thing he could say that could actually hurt Zoro.
Sure enough, he was rewarded with a reflexive wince. "I didn't give up, I...had a back-up plan," Zoro said defensively.
"A back-up plan?" Sanji didn't look at all mollified. "What kind of shitty plan did you come up with this time? 'I'll let him chop off my head, so when my brain's gone and Silvertongue can't control me anymore, I can fight back'?"
"No, it was a much better plan that that."
Sanji pinched the bridge of his nose to stem the rising migraine. "What, then?"
"You've seen me cut through steel, right?" Zoro pulled Wado Ichimonji out of its sheath.
"Yeah, so what?"
"Ever since I learned to do that, I could cut through nothing, too."
"Oi! Watch where you're pointing that...thing," Sanji calmed down as he realised that apart from exerting a dull pressure on his sternum, the blade digging into his chest was doing nothing at all. "Interesting. But does that work if someone else is wielding the blade?"
"I think so, so long as my swordsman's spirit is greater than theirs."
"You think so? What kind of half-assed plan is that, if you didn't know whether it would work? What was Plan B?" Sanji demanded.
"That was Plan B," Zoro admitted. "But I'm sure it would've worked. Here, try it." He flipped Wado Ichimonji, catching it by its blade - show-off, Sanji thought - and handed it over.
"You sure about this?" Sanji asked hesitantly, grasping the hilt. Beating Zoro up as part of their usual fights was one thing, but actually poking the marimo with a sword so sharp he'd seen it cut through whole ships was another.
"'Course I'm sure. Go on, try it. No, don't hold it like that, like this." Zoro adjusted Sanji's grip. "See?" Zoro said proudly, as the point of the blade stopped at his flesh, unable to cut through despite the thrust Sanji was putting behind it.
"That's pretty impressive," Sanji conceded. "What about if I try this then?" he asked, changing his stance, just as the door to the galley swung open.
"Sanji, I was wondering...WHAT ON EARTH ARE YOU TWO DOING?" Chopper shouted, as the two of them gave a start at the doctor's sudden entrance, causing the blade to slide along Zoro's arm, leaving a trail of blood behind it.
"Whoops," Zoro said, frowning at his bleeding arm.
"What the hell? You told me this wouldn't hurt you!" Sanji yelled.
"It wouldn't have hurt me, if I hadn't been distracted!" Zoro explained, gritting his teeth against the sharp pain.
"What were you two thinking? Do you have some kind of blood fetish or something?" Chopper squawked indignantly, brandishing a roll of bandages.
"It was just an experiment! Chopper, no! Ow..."
.
Chopper sighed as he unpacked his herbs once more. Sanji had grumpily declared since (a) there was marimo blood all over his formerly spotlessly clean counter, and (b) the kitchen staff had suffered a vicious assault from the emergency food supply, dinner would be a bit late, so Chopper now had the time to finish off the herb-grinding he'd been working on earlier.
Swish. Swoop. On the other side of the deck, Zoro was back at his katas again, this time sporting a fresh bandage around his arm and an equally fresh lump on his head. Chopper had tried to stop him, given the wound and his earlier sufferings, but Zoro just shook his head stubbornly and said the injury proved he needed more training. The cut was too shallow for Chopper to argue otherwise, so he'd given up protesting.
Chopper watched Zoro for a few moments, then returned to his herbs with a will. He was going to work hard, he decided, as hard as Zoro worked to become stronger, as hard as Sanji worked to keep them all fed. He would become a better doctor - no, the best doctor in the world, one capable of curing any injury and any illness. But even then, he wasn't sure if he'd ever find a cure for the idiocy of two hopelessly idiotic idiots named Zoro and Sanji.
.....
I love Zoro's ability to cut through nothing way too much :-P
That's it for this series! Although I am planning to mention these events in a future fic...
And now, back to fighting jet-lag...zzzzz.
EDIT: The comments below inspired an omake. Thanks all! :-)