The following parts of this chapter are spread out over a month, up to the next full moon.
At lunch, Chopper immediately asked Zoro if he was feeling okay.
"Yeah, I'm fine," Zoro muttered. "I was just tired."
He was feeling much better after sleeping all morning. He started on his sandwich.
"Whoa!" Usopp yelled suddenly.
Everyone stared at him. He pointed to Zoro. "Zoro, your eyes are yellow!"
"Huh?" Zoro said in surprise.
"Wow, they are!" Luffy exclaimed, staring at Zoro's eyes. The others leaned over to look.
"Why'd they change colors?" Luffy demanded. "Is it a cool superpower?"
"I've never seen eyes change color before," Brook commented. "But I have no eyes myself, so I can't see anything!"
"Zoro, maybe I should give you a checkup," Chopper said worriedly. "I know that eyes turning yellow can be a sign of diseases—"
Like werewolfism, Zoro thought sardonically, but kept silent.
"That kind of 'yellow eyes' refers to the whites turning yellow, not the irises," Robin explained to Chopper.
"The sun," Zoro said quickly.
"What?" Nami said.
"They . . . they probably turned yellow because of the sun," Zoro said. "Like how getting too much sun can lighten your hair. It can turn your eyes yellow if you're out in the sun too much."
"Really!?" Chopper exclaimed excitedly. "Cool!"
After some skeptical mutterings, the others decided to leave it at that.
Zoro was resting on the deck when Chopper came walking by. The little reindeer stopped, sniffed the air, turned to Zoro, and sniffed his hand.
"What are you doing?" Zoro muttered.
Chopper looked at him, puzzled. "You smell kind of funny."
"Excuse me?"
"I don't mean bad or anything," Chopper said hurriedly. "But . . . you smell kind of like a dog. Or a wolf."
"Maybe a dog brushed against me earlier," Zoro said, inventing wildly.
Chopper frowned. "Well, you kind of smell like . . . like if you were a dog. That's what you smell like, not really like if you were petting a different dog."
The little reindeer left it at that, though he was still puzzled.
Later, Zoro borrowed some of Sanji's cologne and covered himself with the stuff.
"Hey."
Sanji looked up to see Zoro poking his head in the kitchen. "I want meat tonight."
"What?"
"Meat," Zoro said. "For dinner. Just meat."
Sanji scowled. "You need to have some vegetables, too, for a balanced meal."
Zoro scowled back. "I don't want veggies, I want meat. And make it . . . uh . . . raw."
Sanji stared at him. "Raw meat?"
"Yeah," Zoro said, nodding.
"You mean rare," Sanji said flatly. "That's the one where it's still pink on the inside."
Zoro shrugged. "Alright, I guess that's okay."
"And you're still getting veggies with it."
Zoro stepped into the men's room and noticed something odd. Raising his nose to the air, he sniffed and caught the scent of . . . gunpowder. It reminded him of Usopp, somehow.
Following his nose, constantly sniffing, he went slowly around the room, following the recent scent. It took him to Usopp's locker and then back out the door. He followed it all the way around the deck until he walked straight into Usopp himself.
"What are you doing!?" Usopp snapped.
"Oh, sorry," Zoro said. "I was . . ." he paused. "Nothing."
Luffy laughed. "Usopp, c'mon, show me the new thing you made!"
Zoro frowned and approached Luffy, taking a deep sniff of his captain. He smelled of rubber and faintly like meat.
Luffy edged away. "Zoro, what are you doing?"
Zoro looked up, slightly embarrassed. "Uh—nothing," he said quickly, walking away. Luffy and Usopp shrugged and returned to their game.
"Hey, Luffy!" Usopp called in a stage whisper. "Over here!"
Luffy came up to Usopp, who was crouching by Zoro, napping on the deck.
"Watch this," Usopp whispered. He reached out and rubbed Zoro's stomach gently.
Zoro's leg kicked. Luffy's eyes lit up and he too reached over to rub Zoro's stomach. With both of them doing it, Zoro's leg kicked more and more, just like a dog's. His neck stretched up slightly.
Suddenly he woke up, blinked in confusion, and glared at the two. "What the hell are you idiots doing!?"
"Oh crap, run!"
"Moss-head!"
"What was that!? Dartboard!"
"Asshole!"
"Ero-cook!"
"Directionless piece of—"
Zoro's lips curled back. Baring his teeth, he growled with a low, deep sound that came from the back of his throat. Sanji, surprised, took a step backwards.
Zoro stopped growling, relaxing his face slightly. He looked very surprised and almost embarrassed; wheeling around, he quickly went out of the kitchen without another word.
"Zoro!" Luffy exclaimed excitedly. "Usopp and me found stuff!"
Zoro approached them to find them playing with a large pile of rubbish. "That's just trash," he muttered.
"One man's trash is another man's treasure," Usopp quoted. "Help us sort through this stuff!"
He passed a small handful of the stuff to Zoro, who took it, only to immediately drop it and yell in pain.
"That was a dirty trick!" he yelled.
"Huh?" Luffy said blankly.
"That shit burned me!" Zoro yelled.
Usopp frowned and picked it up. "It's not even warm."
Zoro cautiously tried to touch the stuff again, but he once again withdrew his hand, shaking it and blowing on it. As he did so, he spotted a few coins made of silver in the pile.
"Zoro, which one do you think would look better on me?"
Nami held up two shirts. One appeared to be gray and the other appeared to be neon yellow.
Zoro scowled. "Uh . . . the gray—I mean, the one in your left hand," he said, taking a guess.
Nami raised an eyebrow. Vanishing among the store's racks for a moment, she came back with another shirt. This one appeared to be mostly yellow with splashes of blue.
"This one?" she asked.
"I guess so?" he said.
She hit him. "I don't know why I bothered asking you! What are you, colorblind!? This is the ugliest shirt ever!"
Zoro scowled at her back.
The full moon was finally there. Zoro had been feeling sick all afternoon. Despite his efforts, he hadn't found anything about a werewolf cure in their library. The book that had seemed most promising, Supernatural Beings, had nothing on werewolves, and oddly enough, he found a single page on the subject in a mushroom encyclopedia, but that only contained basic information on the creature and a picture of a transformed werewolf.
He'd been sleeping for most of the day, though since he slept often in the first place the crew wasn't too worried. Once in a while the tail attached to his backside would wag involuntarily in response to something good, and Zoro was afraid that the others would notice the slight movement in the back of his pants, but he always managed to stop it before anyone saw.
Usopp was on lookout duty that night, and as everyone went to bed, Zoro approached him.
"Hey," he said. "Usopp, can you do me a favor?"
Usopp looked at him curiously.
"I'm gonna be up in the crow's nest tonight," Zoro said, gesturing to the place, "and I need you to promise that you won't go up there or look inside, no matter what you hear."
"Okay," Usopp agreed easily. "Why?"
Zoro froze. "Uh—I'm—working on a new secret technique. I can't let anyone see it yet."
Usopp looked extremely excited.
"I mean it," Zoro said warningly.
Usopp nodded, still looking excited, and Zoro departed for the crow's nest.
This time, knowing that Usopp was out on deck, he dragged an enormous weight over to cover the hatch, ensuring that he, in wolf form, wouldn't leap out. He was experiencing the same symptoms as last time—headache, stomachache, a fever-like temperature, and prickling all over his body.
He undressed, laying his clothes neatly on the bench, and sat down.
Soon the moon rose over the horizon. Zoro tried to keep his mind conscious and sane, but it was no use—pain wracked his body, he trembled uncontrollably, and he lost consciousness.
Usopp paced the deck, occasionally glancing up at the crow's nest. It was odd—Zoro had said he was working on a secret technique, but the lights weren't even on. Maybe he was using the light of the moon?
He jumped when he heard loud growling. If he didn't know better, he'd say that it came from the crow's nest . . .
And now he thought he heard some kind of clicking, like how a dog's nails sound against a hard floor. There was more growling, and this time Usopp was sure it came from the crow's nest.
Screw promises, Usopp had to know what the hell Zoro was up to.
He cautiously climbed the ropes leading up to the hatch, but when he reached it, he found his way blocked. Apparently Zoro had covered the opening with a weight.
Usopp hooked his legs around the rope and pushed up at the weight with all his strength. He succeeded in lifting it about six inches—and came face-to-face with the muzzle of a wolf, snarling, teeth bared.
The wolf snapped at Usopp, who screamed, dropped the weight, and slipped from his spot on the ropes, landing on the deck and bumping his head.
The next morning, the crew found Usopp lying unconscious in the same spot he'd fallen the night before.
"Hey," Sanji said, poking him. "Get up."
Usopp blinked his eyes open. "Ow, my head," he muttered, sitting up.
"What happened?" Chopper asked worriedly.
Usopp shook his head. "I—uh—oh! A wolf!"
The others looked around.
"Not here!" Usopp snapped. "Last night, I went up to the crow's nest, and I saw a wolf! It tried to bite me and then I fell down and hit my head!"
"Right," Nami said skeptically. "More like you had a bad dream after hitting your head."
"It's the truth!" Usopp exclaimed. "Wait—Zoro was up in the crow's nest last night! Oh no, what if he was attacked by the wolf!?"
At that moment, Zoro came down from the crow's nest, fully clothed and looking exhausted. "What's going on?" he asked.
Usopp stared at him. "I—you weren't attacked by the wolf?"
Zoro stared right back with a neutral look on his face. "Wolf?"
"I—I saw a wolf in the crow's nest last night," Usopp said. "I was going to check on you and—"
"I told you not to go up there," Zoro said flatly. "And besides, I don't know what you're talking about. I didn't see you, and there sure as hell wasn't any wolf or anyone but me up there last night."
"Well, that settles it," Franky said with a shrug.
"You were probably dreaming," Zoro said. "Really, sleeping when you're supposed to be on lookout duty . . ." he shook his head and went for the men's room. "I'm going to get some sleep. I'll be up for lunch."
Usopp stared at him.
"Sanji, I want breakfast!" Luffy demanded loudly. The others agreed and went off, leaving Usopp staring at them in disbelief.