It was late at night and the moon was clear. A man, once a feared pirate, walked along the empty beach. He no longer sailed the ocean the same way, having stopped when the sea claimed his captain for itself during one terrible storm. He saw no point in being a pirate if it weren't for his captain, after all. He used to sail the sea in search of a title, but he'd already claimed it. It didn't feel quite as worthwhile, though, not when he'd trained his blade for years to become the greatest only to lose the person most important to him to an enemy that couldn't be defeated by any blade.
Zoro had once heard a legend titled "The Spirits of the Seas" which said that each of the seas of the world had a spirit. The spirits' forms were fluid, though they could only take the forms of things that had died in their waters. According to the tale, New World's hunger was insatiable. No form it could take was good enough. It drowned sailor after sailor to try their faces, but none ever felt right. It wanted someone powerful, someone who's name reached the farthest corners of its expanse. It would do whatever it could to collect as many forms as possible until it found one to suit itself. If this was true, the power of the second Pirate King must have been irresistible to the New World's spirit. Zoro found Luffy's end anticlimactic, for such a bright star to be burned out in such a pathetic way. Luffy did not go out fighting, he did not go out in a blaze of glory. He left no last words to inspire a generation. He didn't even leave a body to mourn. He just left, and in his place was a hole that could not be filled.
Zoro couldn't find home on the sea that'd taken the reason it felt like home in the first place, so he'd stopped adventuring. The sea didn't have the same wonder it'd once held for Zoro. The wind in Zoro's sails had lost his breath beneath the waves, and Zoro was left drifting aimlessly. His compass meant nothing without someone to give him direction. Zoro was lost and without purpose. His name reached the heavens like he'd dreamed, he only hoped it could also reach the bottom of the sea.
His friends had each dealt with their grief differently. Zoro dealt with his in isolation. He had jumped in the water for Luffy and Luffy had drowned due to his failure to find Luffy in time. How was Zoro meant to look his crew in the eye when it was his fault their captain died? He knew none of them blamed him, but he blamed himself venomously enough for the lot of them combined.
Zoro walked along the white sands of a beach. He did not know what island he was on, nor did he care. He didn't know if it was inhabited or not, though he didn't care about that, either. He could defend himself well enough. Zoro was fairly certain that the island was deserted, until he saw someone in the water.
Zoro couldn't quite make the swimmer out from so far away, other than black hair. They seemed to be swimming. Ordinarily Zoro wouldn't care, but this person seemed to radiate power. Even from the shore, Zoro could feel something ancient, fearsome, and unreal rolling off them in waves. They seemed to notice Zoro on the island and began to swim towards the edge, nearly thirty feet away from Zoro on the beach.
Zoro started walking, as if pulled like the tides by the moon. As the person emerged from the water, Zoro could make them out. What stood out to him about the person most was a scar on their chest. It was large, taking up their entire chest, and in the shape of an X. Zoro moved faster as the person walked up on the dry sand. They wore an open red shirt and a straw hat was tied around their neck. Though it was impossible, this person was someone Zoro would recognize anywhere.
Zoro met Luffy's eyes, and they were blue. There were no pupils or irises, and they glowed like the sea in the moonlight, so bright Zoro could see it even when he was so far off. Other than his eyes, everything about Luffy was the exact same as the day he fell overboard. Zoro walked closer still. He felt direction again for the first time in a year, the drive to move forwards and only forwards. Luffy, stony-faced and cold, did not move from his spot in the sand. A terrible thought plagued Zoro as he made his way to Luffy, one he'd had since the day Luffy's body disappeared into New World's water. It was a question whose answer Zoro didn't want to hear but needed to know. Zoro stopped in front of Luffy and met his gaze again. From only two feet away, Zoro could see Luffy's eyes seemed to shimmer like the sea beside them.
"Luffy?" Zoro asked. Luffy did not react. "Do you hate me?"
"You are Roronoa Zoro, are you not?" Luffy asked. His voice sounded different. Something about his voice seemed off.
"Yes, I am," Zoro said, though Luffy should've known his name already.
"I am not who you think I am," Luffy said. "Though when I look at your face, I can tell you already knew this."
"Then who are you?" Zoro asked.
"No one human," the person who was not Luffy said. He seemed almost regal and rigid in the way he held himself, not like the bouncy and loose way Luffy used to. "Have you ever heard of a story about the spirits of the seas?"
"I've heard of it," Zoro said. "What are you trying to say?"
"I am the New World. I took your Captain a year ago to use as my own," the person who was not Luffy-the New World itself-said, looking at the arms of the form it was using as if admiring itself. "He was an extraordinary man. I had to have him for myself."
"You killed him," Zoro said, beginning to process the fact Luffy did not just die; he was murdered deliberately, by the very sea itself.
"I did," New World admitted calmly, as if saying the time or remarking on the weather. It continued to look at its-Luffy's-body, now inspecting the nails on Luffy's hand, disinterested. "I was not able to have the last Pirate King, I was not going to let this one escape."
"Was there any way I could have saved him?" Zoro asked.
"Possibly," New World said. "Or, I could have drowned you both."
"I'll kill you," Zoro said, now angry. He was facing down the person who killed Luffy and it didn't even care what it did. His hand tightened on the hilt of a sword. "I'll cut you to pieces!"
"Are you going to cut the entire ocean to pieces?" New World asked. It sounded mocking. "Good luck, Roronoa Zoro. You are just as foolish as they say."
"Shut up," Zoro said. He drew a sword.
"Drawing a sword on your own captain... A mutiny, is it?" New World asked.
"You're not my captain," Zoro said. He stepped forward again, sword at New World's neck. As he was about to cut it, he faltered. How was he supposed to fight something with Luffy's face?
New World smiled at Zoro, and it was cruel and cold. It looked nothing like any face Luffy had ever made, nothing like Luffy.
Zoro took the moment where New World didn't look like Luffy and decided to strike.
New World was sliced clean through the chest, New World's borrowed shoulders and neck a solid inches away from the rest his body. Yet New World just continued to smile, despite the damage. Zoro could see inside of New World after the cut, and it was water the same blue as New World's empty eyes. New World's borrowed chest stuck back together and sealed again, as if nothing had happened.
Zoro encased his sword in haki and tried again. He got the same result, so he tried again. He tried over and over to do some kind of lasting damage as New World smiled at him.
"Has it sunk in yet?" New World asked. "I cannot die. No matter how many times you cut me, you cannot kill the sea. I will always be here. You cannot hurt me."
"Shut up." Zoro growled, and the smile fell off New World's stolen face. It now looked compassionate, and Zoro trusted Luffy's face despite himself. His attack began to slow.
"You blame yourself for his death, for failing to find him. You attack me because you need someone else to point fingers at," New World said, still unfazed by Zoro's sword. "You miss him."
"What's it to you?" Zoro asked, however he lowered his sword. Zoro wouldn't deny that he missed Luffy, and he couldn't deny that he blamed himself.
"I can help you be with him again," New World offered. It held out its hand to Zoro. "The bottom of my ocean is where he lives now. I can take you to him."
"You're going to kill me," Zoro said. "You want to have my form as well?"
"I do, I will not lie," New World said. "You are an extraordinary man, Roronoa Zoro, but you are lonely without the one you love. I can fix this for you: I can bring you to him, but it will come at a price."
"I'm willing to pay any price," Zoro said. He took the hand still offered to him, not to shake it but to hold it. It was hard not to believe someone with a face he trusted so much.
"Then we should go," New World said, turning to face the water it had come out of. Zoro watched it. He pretended he was with Luffy, not someone with Luffy's face. As they began to walk towards the water, Zoro told himself he and Luffy were going somewhere new, somewhere exciting. It would be an adventure. Luffy loved those, and Zoro loved to see him smile.
"Hey, can you do me a favor?" Zoro asked.
"A favor," New World repeated. "I suppose I could."
"Could you smile for me? Just once?" Zoro asked.
"You miss your Captain's smile?" New World asked. Zoro nodded. New World looked at him and gave him the most sincere smile it could muster. Even made by a fake, Luffy's smile was still one of the greatest things Zoro had ever seen.
"Thanks," Zoro said. His shoes touched the water and a wave crashed on the shore around their feet. His hand tightened on New World's-on Luffy's, he told himself-and they went further into the water. It was freezing, but Zoro didn't care. He was up to his knees.
It occurred to Zoro that it was unlikely his friends would likely never knew what happened to him. Roronoa Zoro would vanish, never to be heard from again. He was up to his waist in water, hand-in-hand with the most powerful sea on the planet. He doubted he could back out now, even if he wanted to. He didn't.
"Could you tell my crew I died? They deserve to know." Zoro said.
"If they are on this sea, I can tell them." New World said.
"You'll take me to him?" Zoro asked. "You won't just kill me and leave me here?"
"I will take you to him, I promise," New World said. Zoro's shoes were filled with water, and the weighed down on him. His swords by his side added to the weight. The hole in Zoro left by Luffy's absence felt as though it were filling as Zoro's chest went under.
Zoro focused again on pretending. He was holding hands with Luffy, no one else. He was up to his neck in water and denial, but neither bothered him. New World- no, Luffy was already under. He was shorter, after all. He had no need to hold his breath, and neither did Zoro. They were together again, as Zoro's head went underwater.
Zoro turned his eye to Luffy and stopped him from walking. He leaned down further underwater and kissed him. It was something Zoro missed, and as he closed his eyes he decided there wasn't any other way he'd rather go out, even if it wasn't completely real.
The kiss was breathtaking.
A body was taken to its final resting place, not six feet under the dirt but several hundred feet under the sea. The sea released the hand of the man's body and locked it with the hand of another body already on the sea floor. With this, Zoro was at peace.