"I can't show him my back..." Zoro managed, pushing himself up. His hand slipped in the pool of his own blood pooling beneath him, sending him crashing back to the floor. "I have to keep fighting!"
"Zoro, stop!" Luffy shouted, resting by not far away, leaning against the wall. He had just finished his own fight, and the paralysis darts had finally taken effect. Zoro had around ten of the same darts lodged in his chest, each one powerful enough to fell a dragon in thirty seconds. Luffy had fallen with two. "He'll kill you!"
"If I stop… he's going to kill us both." Zoro had recovered from his earlier fall, standing up.
"ZORO!" Luffy screamed in a desperate attempt to stop his first mate from staggering back into the fight, his movements slowing.
"I would gladly give my life for you, Luffy" Zoro smiled, picking up his swords, he turned to his enemy, a large man of a heavy build by the name of Orge.
"Zoro, is it?" he asked, pulling from behind him a long flat sword.
"Sure." He crossed his sword in front of him "I don't tell my name to scum, though."
"Scum? Eh?" Orge laughed, readying his sword, "I'll show you how 'scum' fight!" He lunged, bringing the huge broadsword in an arc around his head. Zoro easily blocked it, deflecting the blow and sending a counter up toward his face. He jumped back, dodging most of the strike, but it nicked the side of his face, leaving a long shallow gash from his jaw to his hairline.
"Too bad. I know how scum fight." He stared at him, "And I don't need a demonstration."
"I'm sure you do, seeing as you're scum yourself, along with your friends and your captain."
"Zoro! Hurry! The poison!" Luffy shouted, his voice strained and pleading. "I don't want you to die!"
"Yes Sir!" Zoro turned back to Orge, "Sorry kid, looks like I don't have time to play with you. I gotta go. Times up." He sheathed two swords, leaving only Shuusui in his left hand.
"Like I'm going to let you go!" Zoro grinned, and waited for him to lunge before ducking underneath him, leaving his sword directly in his path. Orge was unable to change his direction or stop and thus could only watch as the legendary blade sliced open his ribcage. He flew into the wall, unconscious.
"Zoro, we gotta run!" Luffy called as Zoro stood.
"Of course captain." He sheathed Shuusui and pulled Luffy over his back, starting back toward the place where their crew waited. Soon, Zoro began to stagger, he nearly dropped Luffy twice and almost fell many more times, before finally reaching the ship. He carried Luffy up the ladder with the help of robin and Sanji.
"Zoro, thanks!" Luffy smiled as chopper began to work on his wounds. "Are you alright?"
"Of course, don't worry about me." Zoro smiled back and made an attempt to walk over to his usual spot at the mast. Chopper quickly finished with Luffy, pulling the darts from his chest and placing them behind him, he looked up just as Zoro stumbled and, unable to keep his footing, fell to the grassy deck, landing flat on his back.
"Zoro!" He rushed over and knelt beside him. "What's wrong?"
In response, Zoro curled into the fetal position, a grimace of pain spreading over his face.
"Zoro, let me take out the darts at least!" Chopper tried his best to force Zoro onto his back, even morphing into his monster form in an attempt. Reverting to his original form he called over Sanji and robin. "Sanji! Robin! Help me turn him so I can get the darts out!"
"Of course, doctor-san." Robin summoned a large number of arms, some pushing and others pulling until Zoro lay spread- eagle on his back. He appeared to be asleep, that or he had passed out. Sanji crouched next to him, ready to hold him down if needed. Luffy managed to rise and came to help, Robin wrapped arms around him pinning him to the deck. Chopper turned and grabbed a dart tightly. He pulled and the swordsman they had believed to be asleep was definitely not asleep anymore. Robin wrapped an extra twenty arms around his abdomen. The green-haired man twisted and writhed, attempting to escape the hold of the many arms. Luffy pressed down on Zoro's shoulders, holding him down. "He's so strong!"
"I know! I'm having trouble as well!" Sanji replied. Zoro twisted once more, nearly dislodging both Sanji and Luffy. Chopper managed to get one projectile out, and moved to the next, this one buried almost to the end in Zoro's chest. He pulled and Zoro arched his back, growling. Another yank earned a shout from the swordsman. Finally chopper realized that there was no way pulling would work, so he began to cut it out. Finally dislodging it, a large pool of blood began to spread underneath him. Chopper moved on, tugging at the dart as hard as he could. Zoro screamed. The noise expelled an aura of pain, suffering and death. It was the sound someone would make if being subjected to horrible, and painful torture. In truth, that's exactly what Zoro felt. Every ounce of pain in his being was forced out in this scream, only to be replaced by more. It was so much worse than Thriller bark. So much worse.
"Please… I can't take any more… somebody help…" Zoro's voice was gravely and filled with every type of pain imaginable. "…Help… me…"
"I can't watch this… I can't…" Zoro never pleaded with anyone, for any reason, ever. But now, he was asking them to help him, because he, the most oblivious to pain I might add, was in too much pain and couldn't take it anymore. Luffy began to understand his pain as he watched his first-mates pupils shrink as he screamed again and pushed back tears.
"Hurts… too much… hurts to… live… help…" he stared up at his captain, begging for help.
"I can't… Chopper sys they need to come out now or you'll die!" Luffy told him, "I don't want Zoro to die! Please don't die!"
Zoro stared at Luffy and he saw the one thing that he had never seen on Zoro's face and hoped to never see again. Fear. Terror even. It rolled off him in waves, the entire ship could feel it, and every hair on the back of their necks stood up. Luffy turned to chopper, hoping to end his first-mates pain quickly.
"Let me do it." Chopper nodded and stepped back. Luffy collected the remaining darts in his hands all at once, pulling them all out at once. "Okay, we're done!"
Zoro moaned and as soon as he was released, he turned onto his side, curling into a tight ball, his arms crossed over his chest. He muttered things to himself, they were disjointed sentences, and didn't string together. Luffy could hear only some of it. "Hurts… their done… chest hurt… arms hurt… legs… head… feet… hands... neck… everywhere hurt… Luffy help… save Luffy… help…"
Without warning, Zoro began to shake uncontrollably, his skin paled even more, leaving a complexion of nearly pure white. His eyes seemed unfocused and his words were no longer comprehensible.
"What's wrong with Zoro?!" Luffy asked Chopper, worriedly.
"The paralysis combined with its self and his blood stream, creating some sort of horrible reaction, there was too much at once, nothing can survive that much. He should be dead already. His heart might stop at any point, we need to get him downstairs!" Chopper demanded, "He's probably going to be delirious, he needs constant attention."
Luffy moved to his first mate and slid one arm under his knees and the other around his shoulders, carrying him bridal style to the ships hospital. Zoro then muttered the only audible words since he had gone pale, "Sorry" and "Home now" before promptly passing out in Luffy's arms. Luffy set him carefully down on the bed furthest from the door, and sat next to him. He refused to move from his first mates side for the days it took Zoro to wake up. Sanji brought him his food, along with a new bottle of sake every day incase Zoro woke up. When he finally did wake up, six sat next to him.
"Zoro!" Luffy noticed the swordsman was awake only when a large hand ruffled his hair. He had been sleeping on the older man's chest, again.
"Hey, Lu." Zoro smiled softly, his color returning slightly.
"Zoro… I thought you were dead." Zoro's smile disappeared quickly.
"Do you trust me so little?" Zoro scowled "Of course I wouldn't die from that."
"You woke up once two nights ago and asked me to kill you before you passed out again." Luffy stated, his voice rising.
"Shit." Zoro lowered his head and buried his face in his hands. "Sorry…"
"It's alright, as long as you don't still want that."
"It hurt… still does..." as if to prove his point, he the pain monitor next to him spiked and he growled. "Damn it all."
"I know." Luffy pointed to the monitor. "I can see it."
"Well shit. Why'd he have to do that?" Zoro growled, this time in anger.
"He needed to make sure, it didn't pass the red line there at the top. That's a normal human's pain bar, the blue in the middle, the red is halfway to yours. Your max pain level won't fit on the machine."
"Geez." Zoro suddenly realized something. "Can we get n accurate reading from this? I wanna see something."
"Sure, ill get Chopper." He did, and the reindeer shooed Luffy out, demanding time to talk to Zoro alone. Much complaining was heard from the captain.
"So what did you want, Zoro" he asked, readying pain medication.
"I wanna see something."
"What is it?"
"Do you have pain readings from thriller bark?"
"Of course I do." Chopper rifled through some papers on his desk, finally finding the one he was looking for. "Okay, here. This chart exactly what was recorded on the monitor." He pointed to a blue line on the page. "This is the normal pain for a regular human before they would be permanently crippled." HE pulled another sheet from behind it and held it over the other. The red bar at the top is half of yours.
"Half?"
"Yeah." Chopper said, pointing down at a spiked line just above the blue line. "This is your readings from thriller back, right here."
"Not much."
"Not to you anyway, if anyone else in the crew had that amount of pain, except maybe Luffy, they would have died."
"And what about the pain readings for now?"
"There." He pointed at a line nearly three times the height of thriller bark. "Your heart couldn't take the pressure."
"It still can't."
"What do you mean?" Chopper looked up at him worriedly.
"Still hurts. A lot." He pointed up at the monitor screen, the line had jumped up past the halfway point and was now somewhere far off the screen.
"Why, didn't you tell me?" Chopper handed him painkillers, but he pushed them away.
"Made it worse…" he moaned, "get Lu…"
"LUFFY!" Chopper called and he came bursting in.
"What's wrong!?"
"It's Zoro, he wanted me to get you."
"Zoro! Are you okay?"
"Yeah…" He Gestured at chopper to go, and waved away his protests.
"You don't look alright." He pointed up at the screen.
"I'll be fine. Lu, I wanted to talk to you…" He blushed slightly, "I SWEAR, I WILL KILL YOU IF YOU LISTEN!" a small laugh echoed through the room along with a chorus of "Yes, Sir" and receding footsteps.
"What did you want to say?" Luffy asked, sitting next to him on the bed.
"I wanted to tell you something really important…"
"What?"
"Luffy, I love you." Tiny smile spread across his face.
"I love you too." Luffy grabbed his hand with both of his.
"Lu, I'm dying." Zoro said. "Will you stay here with me?"
"Of course I will!" Tears began to fall, dripping onto the bandages wrapping Zoro's chest.
"Sorry, captain. I broke my promise. I lost." He grinned and wiped Luffy's tears away with his free hand. "Don't cry."
"I should be the one who's sorry-"Luffy's word were cut off by a slap from his first-mate.
"NO! It's my fault, and I don't care what you did!" Luffy nodded, rubbing his cheek. He quickly wiped away the tears.
"Sorry."
"'S okay." Zoro cupped his hand around Luffy's chin, and the younger man leaned into it. "Let a dying man have what he wants okay? Don't blame yourself for anything I did, okay?"
"Okay…" Luffy thought for a moment, "What do you want then?"
"Not that much." Zoro slid his hand around to the back of Luffy's neck and pulled him toward him with what little strength he still had. He wrapped his other hand around his waist, dragging him into a tight hug. Luffy hid his face in the crook of his neck and Zoro buried his nose in Luffy's hair. Luffy lifted his head, wrapping his arms around Zoro's neck. Zoro closed the distance between them, pressing his lips to Luffy's. Luffy smiled. Suddenly the monitor beeped twice and Luffy looked over at it in horror. The bar was nearly vertical and it stayed high above the Red bar, off screen and didn't come back down. Zoro groaned slightly before his arms fell to his sides, releasing Luffy and he sat back, placing a hand over Zoro's heart.
"I love you, captain…" he said before closing his eyes. The monitor stopped, the bar falling quickly back down to zero.
"ZORO!"