"Eh?! A foreigner! Are you serious, Nami?" Bright eyes sparkled from the shadows made by a bright yellow straw hat.

"Yeah, it's pretty scary isn't it? Knowing that we're breaking the law just by helping him." The flaming hair was pulled behind one ear in trepidation.

"Sugoi…ow!" A bump rose from under the redhead's fist.

"Luffy, this is serious! I want you to go meet him, just to make sure that he's okay."

"Ehh, I'm sure he's cool. I mean, you said he had green hair right?"

"Sigh…"

---

"Oi, marimo, get up. The Head said he's coming to meet you right now," Sanji poked the snoring swordsman with his toe.

"Who's this Head you guys keep going on about?" Zoro asked grumpily, stepping out of bed and stiffly pulling the robe he was borrowing from Sanji over his bandaged frame. "Dartboard, your clothes are too tight around the shoulders."

"Shut up! If you're well enough to get up, then you can help with the chores. The whole Clan will be meeting here for dinner, so we need to cook a lot of food."

Bickering all the way down the stairs and into the kitchen, Zoro stopped and stared at the sheer volume of food that was piled on the counters. "Hey, how many people are we talking about here?"

Sanji grinned. "Just nine, including us. But I don't know if this will be enough to feed us all. C'mon, let's start peeling those radishes."

Zoro mechanically began to work, still looking shocked. There were strings of fish in deep stone boxes to keep them fresh, sacks of potatoes and onions, enough heads of lettuce to point to a massacre, jars of pickled cabbages and ginger, a giant pot of rice crackling over the fire, and what appeared to be a small herd of cows.

"Once you're done with those radishes, I need you to start washing the vegetables and peeling the potatoes." Sanji ordered, his hands moving gracefully to sprinkle a handful of spices into a pot of boiling water before moving to chop up the pile of beef. "Ugh, beef is so expensive, it's a good thing Luffy's paying for all of this."

"Luffy?" Zoro asked, roughly scrubbing the lettuce.

"Oi oi, watch it, if you do it too hard then the lettuce will bruise and rip. Gently. Good. Luffy's our Head, but we'll introduce you to him when he comes."

A couple of hours later, the meal was finally finished. The food was arranged on a giant circular table equipped with a wheel ("Usopp and Franky helped us to make it," Sanji said with a proud grin) that allowed it to spin, letting anyone around the table have access to the food.

"Want some tea?" Sanji offered the small blue pot, but Zoro shook his head.

"You don't have anything a little stronger, do you?" he asked.

Sanji frowned. "We have sake, but I don't want you getting tipsy before the meal."

Zoro scoffed. "I could drink through two barrels of hard Russian vodka in a single sitting, and still not be drunk at all." Sanji pulled a bottle of sake from a cabinet and warmed it up before handing it to Zoro.

"Thanks," Zoro said gratefully, pouring the sake into a small saucer before giving the pot back. "Are you going to drink?"

Sanji shook his head. "You may have an ungodly alcohol tolerance, but I can just barely hold my own liquor."

They sat in silence, enjoying the chirping of the birds that gradually faded away as the sky began to darken. "The cherry blossoms should be out right now," Zoro muttered, looking wistfully out the window.

Suddenly, the peace was shattered by an earth-rending roar.

"SANJI, NIKUUUUU!"

"What the hell?" Zoro leapt up, reaching towards his waist for the swords that weren't there—he had left them against the wall while he cooked.

The door was flung open as a stream of people poured in. At the head was a lean young man who jumped around like a monkey. His straw hat hung onto his head for dear life, and he exuded an aura of energy that threatened to overwhelm Zoro. A black scar slashed under one eye while unruly black hair rustled in the wind of his motion.

Behind him came an extremely harried Nami, who was followed by Chopper and a man with an absurdly long nose. After the long-nose came a man with frizzy hair wearing a formal kimono, followed by a more mature looking woman with black hair and a wild man that must have been a gangster. His hair was blue, which mollified the marimo a little.

"Sanji, the food smells great!" the man with the straw hat beamed, already reaching for a steaming steak.

"No eating until everyone's settled, Luffy," Sanji growled, his foot landing solidly on the man's hand.

Zoro found himself sitting across from the Straw Hat between the blue-haired man and Chopper. He was a little disgusted to see how half of the group seemed to be more concerned with eating as much as they could without any interest in savoring the food until he saw how the Straw Hat ate. He's a human vacuum, he thought. With all the rush of eating, there was little time for introductions.

It took a surprisingly short amount of time for the food to disappear, and everyone leaned back in satisfaction. Sanji brought out tea for everyone, with sake for Zoro and a bottle of dark brown liquid for the blue-haired man.

"Aaah, that was good, Sanji. Is there any dessert? Ow!" Straw Hat rubbed his head as Nami smacked him.

"Luffy! Shouldn't we get down to business?" she said, her voice dangerously low. He gulped, and started over again.

"I'm Monkey D. Luffy, Head of the Mugiwara Clan. Nice to meet you!" he said cheerfully, grinning widely.

"Ah…I'm Roronoa Zoro. Hajimemashite." As introductions went around the table, Zoro stared incredulously at the boy with the straw hat. He was the head of their clan? He seemed so irresponsible and childish. Truly, a wild child.

"So, swordsman-san, why don't you tell us a little about yourself?" Robin, the woman with the dark hair, smiled at him over her cup. Her smile was sweet, but he felt a little cautious. She looked like a dangerous woman. Her eyes held a glimmer of intelligence that, mixed with her beauty, could make a lethal combination.

"I was the captain of the Forte Rhum until my ship was sunk a few days ago. I was born in Japan but moved to France after getting lost on my way to a competition in a neighboring island." He glared at the long-nosed Usopp and Luffy as they chuckled. "Hrmph. Anyways, I've been training as a swordsman all my life, and I'm looking for a certain man. If I beat him, then I'll be able to claim the title of strongest swordsman and fulfill my dream."

"That's so impressive, bro," Franky said, his eyes watering with tears. His blue hair stood straight up in the air but quivered with emotion. "You've been traveling this entire time just to fulfill your dream…that's so emotional…"

Zoro downed the last drop of sake from the bottle. "Do you think you could tell me a little about yourselves? It's a bit odd staying with people that I don't know anything about."

Sanji and Nami exchanged glances, sharing a conversation in the span on a few seconds through sheer mental connection and eye contact.

Can we trust him? He IS still French, even if he was born here.

…I think we can, Nami-san, but we should wait…just to make sure.

So be it.

"Well, Sanji and I run the Baratie restaurant," Nami began cheerfully, waving a hand around the general area.

Robin raised her eyebrows, and picked up from there. "Ah…I run a small bookstore a few streets down. It's called Ohara Books and Printing, if you'd like to stop by."

"Hahaha, you'd better take someone with you if you want to come," Usopp guffawed, "Or you'll get lost. I'm a blacksmith. My forge is closer inland than the Baratie. It's called Syrup Metals."

Zoro glared at Usopp again, who shrank back in his seat and mumbled "Sorrysorrysorry."

"I'm a shipwright. I live near the docks, and run the Water 7 Shipping Company. Most people know us as the Franky Family, though," Franky said proudly, pumping a star-tattooed arm in the air. "We're always wandering around the town so if you're in a spot of trouble, just call us out and we'll help."

Brooke grinned, his thin face looking almost skeletal in the lamplight. "Yohohoho, I manage the Rumba theater and music establishment near the center of town. We're quite well-known, don't you know! Yohohoho…"

"I'm a house doctor. I don't have a clinic yet, but I usually visit other houses when they need my services," Chopper piped up. "Soon, Franky and Usopp said they'll help me build one though~!"

"I didn't know it was possible for a tanuki to treat humans," Zoro teased, keeping his face serious.

"Shut up, you bastard! I—" Chopper yelled, but was stopped when Robin gently placed a hand on his arm. "—er, I'm just a really hairy human?"

"His mother tried to shave all that hair off of him and it grew back even more thickly," Robin said blandly. "The hooves and horns are just cosplay. It's a little hobby of his."

Zoro was skeptical, but looked at Luffy expectantly. "Me? Oh! It's my turn! My gramps is in the bakufu, so I work with him sometimes. Usually my brother and I just work with the normal police, though."

"What the—? Doesn't that mean you have to turn me in, then?" Zoro sputtered, already beginning to rise.

"Shishishi, don't worry about it," Luffy laughed lightly. "You're pretty cool. I won't turn you in. You said you were a swordsman, right? I'm sure I could get you a job with the government, if you wanted."

"Luffy, isn't avoiding the government what I should be going for, rather than running straight into their ranks? Anyway, with politics the way they are right now, someone's bound to recognize me." Zoro rubbed his head ruefully. "With green hair, it's kind of unavoidable."

"Eeeeh? Well, maybe you can open up a dojo or something. Nami, any ideas?" Luffy nonchalantly picked his nose.

"I heard that they were going to tear down an abandoned old dojo near the eastern end of the city. We could probably get the land for cheap, since it's so decrepit," Nami said, and suddenly her eyes flashed. "But you'll pay us back, won't you?"

Zoro was taken aback by the sudden gleam in her eyes and stammered, "Of course! I have my honor."

When Nami leaned back with a very satisfied smile, he knew that he had dug himself deeper than he anticipated.

"Yosha, then Zoro will get that dojo and start training students," Luffy repeated resolutely, nodding sagely. "Let's go around town! I want to show you all the cool things." Before Zoro could protest, he was already being pulled out the door.

"O-oi! Wait!" Zoro protested in vain as he managed to snag his swords on the way out. Everyone else soon followed suit.

Sanji looked around at the mess of dirty dishes, and sighed.