Property of Sanji 12b
He helps Sanji with the cleaning up before haring upstairs and grabbing his book from his trashed room, glad that he won’t be around when Franky discovers what Ace and Luffy have done. He dresses in a hurry and bumps into a surprised Sanji in the hallway.
“Robin’s?” Zoro asks hopefully, holding up his book and its secret message to Sanji. The blonde smiles slowly and warmly, threatening to turn Zoro’s insides to mush again. Sanji nods and leads the way to the car and together he and Sanji go off to Robin’s. They’re barely through the door before they once again encounter the ever rude Mr 3 on their way to Robin’s library.
The ride there has made him antsy to get his message to Nami, he’s eager to see her again or at least speak to her. He doesn’t know what he’s feeling at the moment and Nami was always so good at sorting through his emotions for him. He knows that Sanji doesn’t understand why it’s so important for him to get this book back but does he really have to stop in the entrance to the library and talk to Robin about boring party shit?
“You know it’s your uncle’s surprise party tonight yes?” Robin says silkily, brushing her long hair out of her eyes as she gazes at Sanji.
“What? No, that’s a surprise to me too. When was this planned from?” Sanji frowns at her over the table in the middle of the library where Robin is serving freshly brewed coffee.
“Hm, yesterday was when I heard about it. Which is unusual for your father, he’s usually an advance planner. And your uncle’s birthday is months away.” Robin remarks coolly.
“I wonder why he’s doing it then. Are you going?” Sanji hums thoughtfully.
BORING. Zoro sneaks off to the fiction section that he was in before and carefully replaces the book on the shelf. Curiously he opens up any other book that he remembers reading with Nami but none of the others have messages in. Warily he looks around, he can’t see Nami watching him anywhere but she must have some means of keeping an eye on the bookshelf. He scans for cameras but sees none.
Could she be in the building? Surely she couldn’t hide here with all of Robin’s staff patrolling? He wants to explore and find out but getting caught would be bad news and he’d have no way to explain it. It wasn’t as if Sanji and Robin didn’t know he was here after all, and Mr. 3 hates him enough already, doubtlessly he would use any opportunity to get him in trouble. But… Nami wouldn’t just do the safe thing would she? No, she’d be stealthy and sneak off to find him.
Steeling himself he makes his way to the end of the stacks and glances about. There’s no one else there and he can still hear Sanji’s dulcet tones along with Robin’s as they talk, they’re paying no attention to his absence or have probably attributed it to him getting caught up in reading like he did last time they were here.
Not too far along the long bookshelf lined wall before him is a door, he sneaks over to it light footed and slips through the door, not daring to close it behind him for the sound it might make. He’s inside a corridor in Robin’s massive stately home, he’s never been in this part before and he’s no idea where Nami might be if she even is here. He thinks of her and then sets off in a random direction hoping that his instincts might know the way.
He keeps his ears pricked for any staff that might be wandering around but thankfully sees none, soon enough he comes to a gently winding staircase. There are leaves engraved on the wooden banister and leaf patterns on the carpet, the theme seems to stretch through Robin’s entire home.
Zoro thinks for a moment at the foot of the stairs. If Robin is here, by or against her own will she still needs a place to sleep, so that means that he has to go upstairs to the bedrooms. If Nami is hiding here then she’s likely doing so in the attic, which still means up. So up he goes. He ghosts up the stairs as quickly and quietly as possible and makes his way down the corridor that it opens into.
Something bright catches his eye in the muted forest scheme. On a mahogany table next to an elegant terracotta pot is something sky blue. He walks closer to it and sees that it’s three medium length poles with spheres at the end of each one, they remind him vaguely of Nami’s old bo staff, they too look like they fit together into one pole.
It’s a curious object with no obvious purpose, it’s not obviously on display like the vases and paintings that decorate the place, it just seems to have been left here. But why and what is it? Curiously he touches one, it suddenly radiates hot air, it’s like sticking his hand inside an oven. Warily he pulls it back and finds that the next he touch is like sticking his hand inside a freezer. Further curious he looks at the remaining pole with its matching ball. He touches it.
The electric shock it gives him courses almost instantly through his whole body, strong enough to convulse his muscles to snap his arm back away from it painfully. He’s only just able to catch himself from yelling loudly. He shakes his hand, his entire arm is tingling with all of the hairs on it standing on end, he’s glad he touched it with his undamaged arm, he’s not sure how his synthetic muscle might respond to a shock like-
“COLLAR REMOVAL ATTEMPT DETECTED.” The artificial voice which has been silence since he was released from the institute suddenly booms inside his head.
“Oh shit, no I wasn’t trying to-” He hisses in a panic, hopefully it’ll hear him and not punish him.
“INITIATING DETERRANT.” It says. Well, crap.
Zoro drops instantly to his knees, so fast that it makes the joints hurt at the jolt, he bends into a formal submissive bow. Sometimes that’s enough to show the stupid collar that he’s not trying to escape or take it off and avoid the shock, once when he was off of the institute for three whole days the thing started giving him shocks every five minutes, each one stronger than the last until he got back.
Unfortunately this time it’s not enough to avoid the shock. It courses through his system with enough power to make his muscles violently jerk out of his control, it throws him into the opposite wall hard enough to make him lose consciousness briefly. He opens his eyes fuzzily as a blonde woman with oranges on her dress runs by him with the blue thing in her hand, but she fits into the mental category of “women who aren’t Nami” and he passes out again.
By the time he comes to Robin is knelt over him and Sanji’s leaning over him with his hand on Zoro’s collar. He’s got a phone in one hand and a scowl on his face.
“Well your system is wrong Zoro didn’t try to- Zoro! You’re awake, do you feel okay?” Sanji asks suddenly, looking at him.
“I’m fine.” He manages to croak out.
“You’re lucky, if this ever happens again I’ll make it my personal mission to hunt you down and destroy you, do you understand me? I advise you to check your clearly malfunctioning systems.” Sanji growls out down the phone and ends the call.
“What…?” Zoro groans, sitting up with some help from Sanji.
“They said that the collar sensed that you got shocked by something, and that they shocked you back in response. Apparently the people monitoring these things thought that you were trying to escape and “acted accordingly”, assholes.” Sanji growls and steadies Zoro’s shoulder.
He looks around but the blue pole thing is missing, all three parts of it. The woman he saw must have taken it.
“What were you doing up here anyway Zoro?” Robin asks, her voice silky and dangerous but her smile pleasant.
“Lost.” Zoro lies, closing his eyes and resting his aching head on Sanji’s shoulder. He’s hurt enough for that to be enough explanation without seeming odd, he’s not sure that he has the brainpower right now to think up anything more convincing either. His ears are still ringing from the impact against the wall behind him and the shock.
“His sense of direction is so awful, you wouldn’t believe it.” Sanji laughs weakly and strokes Zoro’s hair.
“Indeed.” Robin agrees, clearly not believing either of them. Thankfully Sanji at least is being honest and is unaware that it’s a lie on his part.
“He gets lost in my house all the time, he claims that the rooms move.” Sanji teases lightly.
“Shut up, they do.” He protests weakly against Sanji’s shoulder.
“See? I’m taking you home Zoro, can you stand?” the blonde asks, gently pulling him to his feet. Zoro obliges and stands on unsteady legs. Robin is watching him more like a hawk than the Christmassy bird that she’s named after so he plays up the disorientated thing a little more.
“This way?” He asks, turning further down the corridor that he was going down.
“No, dumbass, this way. See?” Sanji sighs, looking at Robin with a small smirk and tugging Zoro back the way that he came.
“I’ll see you boys tonight, if Zoro is better of course.” Robin calls after them. Sanji turns and looks over Zoro’s shoulder, flashing her a beaming smile, one that Zoro is starting to recognise as being exaggerated and not quite real.
“Of course my lovely Robin-chwan!” Sanji calls back waving enthusiastically.
They get into the car together, Zoro’s head still ringing a little from the shock. Sanji buckles himself up, flicks the appropriate switches and takes off.
“So…” He says idly, adjusting the rear view mirror as he does so.
“Are you going to tell me why you were really upstairs in Robin’s house?” Sanji asks.
Zoro says nothing but remembers his words in the book: “The Prince and I have never from the beginning lied to each other.”
“I don’t want to tell you.” He answers honestly.
That at least seems to surprise the cook who looks at him slightly startled by his words.
“Oh?” He says eventually.
“It’s not that I don’t trust you, I’m just… not sure of this myself yet. So I don’t want to talk about it.” Zoro sighs, looking out of the window.
“Is this to do with Ace? Are you in trouble? Did he say something…?” Sanji asks, his hands tightening on the wheel almost imperceptibly.
“No, nothing like that.” Zoro answers, shaking his head.
“Okay then.” The blonde nods finally any drops the topic of conversation. They fly back to Sanji’s house and park up in the garage,
Franky and Usopp are already in there sat around a worktable and tinkering with the inner workings of some machine. Zoro hops out of the car and sidles over to them, keeping a curious but wary distance, he’s aware that things that Usopp makes have an unfortunate tendency of exploding. When it appears that nothing is looking too dangerous Zoro comes closer.
“What’re you doing?” Zoro queries as he hops up to sit on the edge of the work table.
“Tweaking this, it ought to make the cars go faster.” The long nose explains holding up a small mechanical thing that’s about orange sized, Zoro has no idea what it’s called or where it goes in a car.
“Or it could possibly blow them up.” Franky remarks, unhappy at the prospect of his precious machines being damaged.
“That… sounds like a bad idea.” Zoro points out.
“Most things that Usopp says are. Crap, I need to get ready for this board meeting and go. Usopp, make sure Zoro gets to my father’s for eight okay? My uncle is apparently getting a surprise party.” Sanji says offhandedly as he exits the room.
“More time with Sanji’s family huh?” Franky comments, looking up at Zoro over his sunglasses.
“I would genuinely rather be electrocuted.” He says flatly, seriously thinking that if getting another shock from his collar would get him out of having to talk to Sanji’s ghastly uncle he’d completely go for that deal.
“I would rather that he was electrocuted.” The mechanic suggests with a grin.
“Amen.” Zoro smirks back.
When Sanji re-enters the room Franky is inspecting Zoro’s synthetic muscle with an impressed and jealous eye, if the technology had been around when he’d had his accident and he’d been rich enough then he would have loved to have had muscle like that.
Zoro looks up, midway through flexing his fingers so Franky can watch his muscles move. Sanji is dressed in a sharp but conservative suit with none of his usual style, his shirt is snow white and stiffly starched in a way that looks highly uncomfortable. His feet are closed into pointy tapered shoes that look nowhere near as dangerous as the cook’s usual black reinforced footwear and his neck is collared with a shiny black tie.
“How do I look?” Sanji asks, gesturing down to his suit.
“Like you’re attending the funeral for your sense of style.” Zoro answers with a smirk.
“Oh, I was going for the funeral of my integrity, but that too.” The blonde grouses, tugging at the collar of his shirt.
“I hate my father and his awful company, I hate all those scumbag board members. This is why I’ve always tried to stay away from it all and make my money my way, I never wanted to get involved in this.” He growls, his fists tightening.
“Just because you’re pretending to be someone you’re not to get your father off your back doesn’t mean that’s who you are.” Zoro points out wisely, he’s had to tell himself more or less the same over and over ever since he sold himself.
“That actually helps…thanks.” Sanji says quietly, and picks a briefcase up off of the floor with a deep sigh.
“Wow, you actually have a briefcase. I might have to revise my opinion here, you’re a complete corporate tool now.” He teases, prompting Sanji to scowl at him and smack him over the head with the damn thing.
“Hey! I’m injured here! You’re supposed to be nice to me!” Zoro laughs, batting the offending case away with his good hand.
“Make sure he shows up tonight, I don’t want to have to deal with my family alone any more than I need to!” Sanji orders Usopp and stomps off to his car in a huff.
“Have fun at work sweetie!” Zoro calls after Sanji, unable to stop himself from laughing. Franky and Usopp also dissolve into fits of giggles. Sanji simply flips him off and grumpily gets into his car. As he reverses out though Zoro can spot the small smile on the blonde’s face and that’s enough to make Zoro feel confident that Sanji will be okay.
Zoro shows up to the party perfectly prepared, he looks just like he’s supposed to. Despite what Nami always accused him of he did pay attention in a lot of his classes and he knows that a large part of his job is to make Sanji look good, the blonde wasn’t what he expected but he is still Sanji’s mate. Regardless of their actually good relationship behind closed doors Zoro was supposed to make Sanji look good in public and right now it seemed like Sanji’s father was less than pleased with how his son was conducting himself. So it was his job to repair that, however little he wanted to do so.
He looks good in his suit, damn good in fact and from the stares that he’s drawing as he enters the building. He slides out of his usual walk and takes every part of himself that he thinks of as real and locks it away inside, this person that he’s pretending to be isn’t him and doesn’t reflect who his is, he knows that. It just… helps to remind himself of that. Instead he slinks through the crowds of guests at Spandam’s party in his perfect black suit trimmed with gold buttons and detail. He’d remembered Robin’s help on the day of his ceremony and borrowed some golden dust from Usopp. He’d used enough of it on his skin to give him an almost imperceptible shine, enough to play off of the natural bronze tone in his complexion and echo the gold at his ear and his throat.
He deliberately ignores the looks, stares and flirtatious smiles from everyone that he passes, he’s not interested in them and every word that they speak reminds him of why. They all refer to him in hushed tones as “that”. ‘Look at that’ or ‘who owns that gorgeous one?’ he’s not a person to them, not like he is to Sanji.
Speaking of the blonde he spies Sanji propping up a bar in the corner of the room and this time Zoro’s smile is genuine. Sanji has many talents but he’s nowhere near as good at lying about who he is and pretending to be enjoying himself when he’s not as Zoro is. He smiles and slinks over to Sanji.
“Master.” He purrs in Sanji’s ear, making the blonde jolt under his touch.
“Zor-oh…” Sanji says, his sentence derailing as Sanji’s blue eye visibly runs up and down him making Zoro feel smug and pleased instead of slightly dirty like everyone else’s looks have made him feel so far.
“You look…” Sanji says clearly struggling to find the right words.
“One of us had to make you look good and with one of us standing around scowling and looking like they’ve come from a funeral I had to pull your weight too didn’t I?” He teases.
“Being smug isn’t attractive you know moss-head.” The blonde shoots back.
“News to me.” Zoro hums and leans into Sanji’s side. He scours the room through his lashes and spies Spandam and Fullbody watching them like hawks. He frowns, he should perhaps be doing something to mend Sanji’s damaged reputation as far as his father is concerned. Zoro scans the room and spots Hina standing not too far away talking to Brook, as if sensing his eyes on her she looks over and Zoro smiles at her. She says something to Brook before making her way over to them with an intrigued expression on her face.
“Lady Hina.” He smiles as she comes closer.
“My lady!” Sanji echoes happily as he sees her. He remembers Sanji not being certain about Hina, having liked her but not known if she was “real”.
“Sir Prince and… Zoro wasn’t it?” Hina says looking at them both.
“Ah, yes. Sorry that you didn’t meet Zoro at your party before, he was… unwell and had to go home.” Sanji lies quickly. He hadn’t been ill, he’d just dealt badly with having to talk about Nami again.
“So I hear. You’re quite the unlucky man Zoro, getting sick, getting injured.” Hina says with a slightly dangerous undercurrent to her voice, clearly she thinks the same about his burnt arm as Smoker had. Well, he could fix that.
“It was an accident, but look, they fixed it for me. It’s all synthetic muscle, apparently as I heal it’ll be replaced by my own again.” He explains with a broad smile as he pulls back his shirtsleeve enough for her to see.
“Oh my.” Hina exclaims, peering at the clear tissue.
“Zoro! Lady Hina might not want to see your arm!” Sanji yelps, trying to pull him away.
“Hina likes it.” The pink haired woman responds childishly and runs a thumb over the fake skin.
“Sanji wanted to apologise by the way, to Smoker. I understand that he’s a friend of yours.” Zoro says smoothly, he catches Sanji’s expression which clearly telegraphs that the last thing he wants to do is apologise to Smoker, much less ever speak to him again.
“He was worried about me, and highly strung, so he wasn’t as nice as he could have been.” Zoro adds.
“They accused me of hurting you!” Sanji exclaims with a pout. Zoro watches Hina’s eyes flick to Sanji as if she’s trying for herself to assess whether or not Sanji really did hurt him. Zoro decides then and there that he can’t try to manipulate Hina into believing him, he just has to be real with Sanji for a moment, he’s not sure if Smoker’s smile and mysterious words at the end of his last visit meant that the same had convinced him.
“I think it’s nice.” He says quietly, pulling his shirt sleeve down again.
“I know that they were wrong, but don’t you think it’s a good thing that the police were trying to protect a mate? I never thought any police officer would do that.” He adds with a sigh as he tries to button up his cuff, even though he’s left handed the slippery golden button is giving him a bit of trouble.
“I know, but you don’t need protecting from me.” Sanji grouses. The blonde huffs and catches his wrist, doing up the button for him smoothly.
“They don’t know that.” Zoro points out. Sanji makes a disparaging noise through his nose and seems surprised when Hina giggles, Zoro wonders if Sanji had actually somehow forgotten Hina was there or whether he had just forgot that she could hear them.
“You know,” Hina says slowly, giving Sanji a sly smile, “Hina thinks that she may have misjudged you.”
Zoro has no idea why Hina is still talking about herself in the third person but Sanji’s pleasantly surprised look makes him happy.
“See you around.” Hina says and waves as she walks off. Sanji looks from her retreating form back to him a few times in surprise and confusion.
“Did… did you somehow just convince Hina to like me? I’ve been trying to get her to talk to me for ages but she’s always been really distant with me.” Sanji says in shock, his hand still lingering warmly on Zoro’s sleeve.
“I did say I was here to make you look good didn’t I?” Zoro smirks back.
“Ass.” Sanji retorts with a small scowl.
“Anyway, she probably thought that you were like Spandam, most people are actually like the rest of their family. All I did was show her that you’re not your father.” He explains. Sanji seems surprised at his words, he wonders just how much Sanji worries about being seen to be like that bastard, the thought seems to disgust him on the whole.
Zoro takes a chance and looks across at Spandam and Fullbody who are still watching him with disapproving eyes, perhaps they didn’t want him making Sanji look good to someone who clearly doesn’t like them. Well, fuck them. What were they going to do anyway? Suspicion prickles at the back of Zoro’s neck, hot under his collar, when he sees Spandam glance over to the door and smile nastily.
He feels the subtle change in the room before he understands it. No one has done anything obvious to cause it from what Zoro can see but the change is there, it’s a tension that runs thick through the air and hums like an angry wasp.
The untrained eye might not spot anything wrong with the room, people are still laughing and talking but Zoro can feel the change. The mate’s laughs are more brittle, their eyes sharper and more wary. As a mate Zoro is used to reading people’s moods, especially the moods of other mates, a ripple of sudden tension or a room of people quickly turning formal was often all the warning you would get that someone important had come into the room. This reaction however was much more sinister, quiet terror runs through every mate in the room and though Zoro can’t see its source he starts to feel it too. His skin breaks out in goose bumps and the hair on the back of his neck stands on end.
Warily he turns his head and looks, careful of making any obvious searching movements. It’s then that he sees him. He’s in the doorway talking to Spandam, his sickening grin broad with its missing teeth. Zoro sucks in a panicked breath and steps closer to Sanji, he notices plenty of other mates doing the same, edging closer to their masters or even plastering themselves against them.
“Zoro, what’s wrong? You’ve gone all pale.” Sanji murmurs at his side, looking at him worriedly. Zoro fixes his gaze on Sanji and deliberately doesn’t look at him.
“Remember how I told you that mates can be returned if we don’t fulfil our obligations?” He asks quietly.
“Yes.” Sanji says, a sour look coming across his face at the idea.
“Well, since almost no one buys second hand mates didn’t you wonder why we don’t deliberately try to get returned?” He points out.
“You… you said that they threaten you first, and then if you still refused… you said that someone like me would be entitled to a new mate.” Sanji says slowly, the idea dawning on him.
“Yeah, they haul us in and threaten us, didn’t you wonder what they could threaten us with that would be worse than being forced to be fucked by someone we hate against our will?” He hisses irritably and glances over to where he is standing near Spandam and Fullbody.
“I don’t know… but… but I do know someone that does buy second hand mates, look, there he is.” Sanji says obliviously pointing right at him.
“Don’t fucking point at him!” Zoro snaps as quietly as he can and snatches Sanji’s hand back.
“Are you so fucking stupid that you’ve not noticed that since he came in every mate in this room is terrified? He is what they threaten us with. He is what they keep us in line with and he is who we’d sooner do anything than be bought by!” Zoro grits out as quickly and quietly as he can.
Zoro chances another glance over his shoulder. He is coming their way!
“But… why? Are you sure that it’s him? My father knows him…” Sanji says back under his breath as he frowns slightly, clearly not comprehending the situation.
“Of course it’s him! You think I wouldn’t know?! He brings his previous mates back to the institute with him when he picks up anyone that’s been returned. He brings back the last mate he took and they’re always dead Sanji, either broken and dead on the inside or dead on the outside and in bits!” he says in quiet but mounting hysteria.
Zoro chances a look up as a hot bolt of genuine fear runs through him, he is closing in. That sickened deranged smile spreads across his face and Zoro is truly afraid, a thousand times more afraid of this man that he had ever been of Sanji. He slides behind the blonde, putting his master between him and a fate truly worse than death.
All he can see in his minds eye is the faces of mates that he’d known, people he’d grown up with and seen laughing, brought back with him when the next unlucky soul was brought back. Their eyes would always be dead with nothing of their mind still inside them. They would obey any command and do anything asked of them. His fellow mates had tried before to get some reaction out of them, to prove that there was still something inside, but any light in them had been taken, swallowed by his darkness.
He broke you, made you forget who and what you were. No matter how strong the person, no matter how determined or strong willed the mate had been they’d come back with dead eyes and no soul. The lucky ones came back just dead, but they all wondered how long they’d suffered before being killed. None of them wanted to risk landing in his ownership. He was what children in the institute wept about and what still haunted the nightmares of every mate at every age.
Zoro turns and lets the mask of bland innocent obedience fall over his face. He can see Sanji’s concerned blue eyes looking at him through a curtain of gold but Zoro can’t afford to react, not now.
“Sir Prince, I’ve not seen you for some time. I’m sad to say that we’ve only really met each other in passing.” He says. Zoro deliberately doesn’t make eye contact with him, it’s too dangerous. Instead he stares at Sanji’s shoulder, his eyes downcast meekly. Sanji’s body language isn’t angry but it’s wary, clearly he believes Zoro enough to be wary of this man, but poor naïve Sanji still doesn’t understand just how evil the institute is, of course he doesn’t quite grasp the horror that this man holds.
“Yes, Blackbeard isn’t it?” Sanji says in a carefully neutral tone. Inside Zoro winces at the man’s name, a childish habit but no one at the institute said his name. They all feared that somehow he could hear you if you did and would come for you.
“Call me Teach.” He says with a jovial laugh.
“Teach.” Sanji echoes, not offering any obvious route for further discussion, clearly hoping that he’ll go away.
“I must say that your mate is quite lovely, very pretty. Is he what you’d hoped for?” He says with a dangerous lilt to his voice.
“Zoro is great thank you. I really don’t-” Sanji replies with a polite but clearly displeased tone to his voice.
“He looks completely new in fact, not even like you’ve broken him in.” he remarks. Zoro’s eyes widen at that as he understands. Spandam knows him, and doubtlessly knows how the system for returning mates works. Spandam clearly doesn’t approve of his and Sanji’s relationship, or perhaps doesn’t believe that Sanji and him are having sex, or rather that Sanji is forcing him to. Either way, this is a threat, loud and clear. He looks up in Spandam’s direction through his eyelashes and sees that Spandam is grinning nastily, yes, this is definitely deliberate.
“What do you- oh. I hardly think that’s an appropriate topic of conversation thank you!” Sanji replies haughtily as he catches his meaning.
“If you’re having trouble breaking him in or if he’s not to your liking I’d be happy to take him off of your hands, he’d be so much fun I’m sure.” He says suddenly reaching forward with gigantic dark hands and grabbing Zoro’s chin, deliberately forcing Zoro’s gaze up and into his dark terrible eyes.
There’s no point pretending that if he doesn’t think his name he’ll leave him alone. Blackbeard has him, he’s looking right at him and he’s touching him. There’s no hiding now. His eyes are dark and evil in a way that makes Zoro’s skin absolutely crawl. A terrified breath ghosts out of Zoro’s lips and Blackbeard’s smirk widens.
“THUNDERBOLT TEMPO!” A voice yells, breaking the stillness in the room. A flash of light and a burst of explosion throw the three of them apart.
All of Zoro’s hairs are standing on end and not out of fear, static runs across his skin and he is the quickest out of the three of them to recover. He gasps and sits up.
A thrill of excitement races through the mates in the room and Zoro feels the word on each of their lips, said in hushed tones or even just mouthed. Nami. Vivi had been right, she was a legend now. The one who escaped.
Zoro stares up at the high window and sees her, the shock of her orange hair curling around her masked face, it’s undoubtedly her and she’s alive. She is dressed head to toe in black with a black mask over her eyes and the top of her hair. In her right hand is the long blue staff with the balls on it, pointed right at Blackbeard.
“Thunderbolt tempo!” She shouts, leaping from the window, swinging the pole and shooting a fork of lightning at Spandam. Unfortunately though a bodyguard throws himself between the two of them and takes the clearly fatal shock himself.
“Get her!” Fullbody yells furiously, pointing a furious finger at Nami. Bodyguards stream into the room and several level pistols at her, the sound of their cocking rings loudly through the room.
“You’re surrounded, surrender!” Fullbody shouts triumphantly. Zoro knows what’s coming next.
“You wish to surrender to me? Very well, I accept.” Nami grins cockily, quoting the book word for word. Fullbody doesn’t seem to know what to do with that answer, it clearly wasn’t what he was expecting.
“What are you waiting for you fools? Shoot her!” He eventually snaps, the guards seem to come to and raise their rifles.
Nami suddenly spins the pole in her hand and immediately the room is filled with steam.
“Mirage Tempo!” she yells. The room is somehow filled with dozens of versions of her, all slightly distorted. Suddenly Nami bursts into a run, the steam and the copies of her making it impossible to follow which one is the real Nami. A copy of her flees past Zoro but he can already tell that it’s not her, the real Nami slid out of the window in a haze of steam whilst her doubles flee through the room until she’s out of sight and her mirage affect dissipates.
“What the hell?” Sanji gasps in confusion. Sanji doesn’t understand it but Zoro does, that was a failed assassination attempt of Spandam’s life, and possibly on Blackbeard’s as well. The scum in question is still sat on the floor opposite Zoro, his eyes wide with both shock and apparently amusement. The rich bastards in the room are panicked, one of their own was just nearly killed and several injured, and yet Blackbeard throws his head back and laughs loudly. The scumbag laughs louder and louder until everyone in the room is looking at him like he’s crazy. With Blackbeard’s clear madness and the sudden attempt on Spandam’s life the party breaks up quickly.
Zoro stares into the night sky as they leave the building and wonders where Nami has run off to. Surely she’ll try to find him now? And if she doesn’t he knows exactly where she is now beyond a doubt, she’s with Robin and she is alive.