Disclaimer: I don't own One Piece. If I did, Zoro and Sanji would never wear shirts. Like, ever.

I decided this this fanfic need a theme song. The theme song for Tomorrow's Romance Dawn will be One Piece Opening 14, "Fight Together," the English version done by MidiGuyFDdp21 on Youtube. Check it out, it's nicely done. I chose this instead of the Japanese version because MidiGuyFDdp21 used some lyrics that will fit this perfectly later on.

Chapter 3: Roronoa, Meet Zoro. And Vice Versa.

Location: Near the Fruit Glade, Kāla

Erity's eyebrow twitched. It was days like these that made her wonder why she worked with these people.

"Explain to me," she said, squeezing the bridge of her nose, "how exactly you two got like this again?"

Yari and Runo glared down at her. "SHUT UP AND GET US DOWN!"

By "get us down," they meant to free them from the giant- and incredibly vicious- venus flytraps they had 'mysteriously' gotten attacked by and caught in.

That's right. Venus flytraps. Giant ones.

Erity rolled her eyes. The whole picture before her would have been almost funny, if this hadn't happened two times already. So much for lethal New World bounty hunters. The boss said they had come highly recommended, so she didn't doubt their skills. It was their intelligence level that was going to cause issues. These two were complete buffoons.

"Take a picture, it'll last longer!" Runo shouted as one of the flytraps attempted to bite down on him. "Help us out here!"

"Come on, Runo," she said in a whiny tone. "You've gotten out of tighter spots than that. And this the third time today!"

"FLYTRAPS ARE NOT AIR DUCTS AND BOXES! HELP US OR JUST DIE!"

Erity rolled her eyes again and grabbed one of the men's sabers from its sheathe. She was no swordsman, and she knew those flytraps were stronger than any mere sword, but she could at least get them to let go. (She didn't really even have to use the sword in reality, but at this point, she was fed up.) She jumped forward and stabbed the blade into the flytraps' maws. The plants shrieked (can plants shriek?) and dropped their would-be meals. Runo and Yari ran away as fast as they could, giving the men a chance to come in with flamethrowers. (And Vaughan said bringing the flamethrowers would be self-indulgent. Ha!)

Yari and Runo stood next to Erity now, panting. The latter gave them a harsh glare.

"What?" Yari asked.

"I'm ashamed to be seen with you," Erity replied, turning to walk away.

"Hey, don't blame us for that!" Runo protested, walking quickly beside her. "Yari and I are supposed the brains of this operation! You and the Vamp are the muscle!"

Ironic, Erity thought. Given I once saw you toss the anchor like it was a baseball.

"Vaughan is not a vampire. I checked," Yari added. "And as for my contribution to the argument, how were we supposed to know that coward had such... unusual ammunition?"

"He was in the New World and a member of that crew," Erity huffed. "You should have expected him to be strong despite also being a coward. And don't the two of you have Kenbunshoku Haki? You should literally be able to see his attacks coming, or at least know where he is!"

"We can hear his 'voice', but for whatever reason, we cannot pinpoint it. And knowing an attack is coming does not help if we are unable to avoid it," Yari replied simply. "Even a novice knows that."

"Ooh, burn!" Runo snickered.

Erity rolled her eyes once again (geez, if she kept this up, she'd be as dizzy as a dodo bird by the end of the day). "Forget it. Have the men had any luck yet?"

Yari shook her head. "None whatsoever. They have not found any trace of the boss's treasure. Oh, and five of them got eaten."

She added that last part as something of a side note, causing Erity to nearly miss the fact she said it at all.

"What do you mean 'they got eaten?'" Erity demanded.

"They waded through the island's lake, and a sea king got them."

"... What was a sea king doing in a lake?"

"Who knows?" Runo shrugged, his usual feral smile on. "We are on Kāla. This is the kind of place that's supposed to drive you mad. Nothing makes sense here."

Erity sighed and rubbed her temple. Maybe joining up on this venture hadn't been the best of ideas. If she had known how many headaches it was going to cause, she would have never agreed to it in the first place. No one would blame her if she quit now and went home... the others would be happy to have her back. But that wasn't an option- she was no quitter, not with stuff like this. Not to mention she wouldn't be able to take the disappointed, exasperated looks she would receive upon returning empty handed. She also actually liked bounty-hunting and she got to do that with the boss's group. Turning in scumbag pirates' bounties was fun. Turning in bounties in general was fun. Not that she would turn in her queen's bounty. She wasn't that heartless.

It was then Erity noticed they had arrived at the part of the forest where all those fruit trees were. It was perfect timing, too. She was famished and some fruit was exactly what she needed. As she approached a peach tree, she remembered how they found this place. It was after she and Vaughan had taken care of that weird kid, and Vaughan had to help finish off that moss-headed swordsman-

Wait a second.

Erity walked backward a few feet and looked down. There was blood on the grass and signs of a fight all around.

But no body.

Erity pursed her lips. This was where they left his body; she remembered it specifically because she recalled arguing with Vaughan about just leaving a high-bountied pirate behind when they could turn in his corpse later (Vaughan argued that his price would be dropped thirty percent, therefore not worth it). She didn't have anything against the swordsman, and actually would have preferred it if he didn't die. But money was money; one could never have too much of that. Anyway, the guy had taken seven darts of tranquilizer, and she recalled Vaughan telling her just one of those darts held enough tranq to drop an elephant. There was no way he could have survived; but a dead body didn't just get up and walk away, so how-

POP!

"ERITY!"

Erity looked up to find a very familiar sight indeed and she immediately forgot about the missing body. She had other problems to deal with now.

"SERIOUSLY?! AGAIN?"

Location: Up a Tree that is a Relatively Safe Distance from the Fruit Glade, Kāla

He pulled down his goggles, sighing. This was the fourth time those freaks had let themselves get caught by that same attack. It wouldn't be long before they began figuring out ways to get out of it. However, he would cross that bridge when he came to it, and would for now continue with his current plan.

He grit his teeth. Dang it, why didn't the others listen to him? He knew coming to this island was a bad idea. The island was covered in fog and a current practically dragged their ship there. Didn't they learn about what happened whenever their crew came ashore islands with fog after their experiences on Thriller Bark? Did anyone listen to him? Did anyone ever listen to him? No, they didn't, because pretty much everyone else on the crew had a death wish!

And then all this had happened. He didn't know where the others were, except maybe the few that freak with the feral grin had gotten a hold of, but he didn't like the blood on the ground in the glade. It could easily belong to any one of his crewmates.

He had considered going after the ones that were kidnapped, but decided against it. The last time he went after something stolen alone... didn't go so well. He was stronger now than he was back then, but he knew his limits. Storming the proverbial castle was a two-man job, preferably if that second man was a member of the crew's Monster Trio.

So he would watch, wait, and hinder their progress. These bounty hunters were searching for something on this island, and he wasn't about to let them have whatever they wanted.

Location: Aboard the Going Merry, anchored in the water outside of Kāla (Cause if you haven't figured out this is where they are by now, now you know.)

"Time, time. I can't tell you much," the brat said with a shrug. "Time does pretty much whatever it wants here."

He raised an eyebrow. "What is that supposed to mean?"

"Tell you what, how about you figure it out and tell me later. Sound good to you, Moss Hair?"

The brat had disappeared into the trees before he could reprimand her for that comment. It wasn't long after that did he encounter one of the other visitors to the island.

"Okay, Mr. Tough Guy. How much pain can you handle?"

"Pain remembers, you know. What does your pain remember?"

"Wow, you are not even screaming. That is some high tolerance you got there."

Talk about a psycho. Then someone else came.

"Their crew is of low priority right now. Let the tranqs stop his heart and let's go. We don't have time for him."

Then darkness came.

"Zoro, wake up!"

Zoro's good eye snapped open at his captain's voice. His vision was blurred, but it was quickly clearing up. His shoulder ached and his head throbbed, but it wasn't so bad that he couldn't ignore it. He was lying on something soft, and a blanket was pulled over his body.

So that meant he wasn't in the jungle anymore. Was he back on the Sunny? He didn't remember anything after blacking out... or more specifically, after that red-eyed freak hit him with tranq darts. He scowled inwardly. He couldn't believe he let himself be brought down by something as pathetic as tranquilizer darts. If the cook ever learned about this (and chances were he already had), he'd never let him live it down.

"Zoro?" Luffy's voice broke in. He began poking Zoro's head. "Zooooorrroooo. You awake?"

"His eyes- er, eye opened, crappy captain. He's awake," the cook's voice said, being ever so considerate by standing on Zoro's blind side.

Not that it mattered. His vision was still a little swimmy. Though, why did the cook sound so uneasy?

"Then how come he hasn't said anything?" Luffy asked. "He's just lying there."

"I'm awake, Luffy" Zoro rasped, swatting the rubber boy's hand away. He immediately regretted talking, for his throat felt dry and nasty. He needed a drink of water, badly. He pushed himself into a sitting position, which immediately sent a flare of pain through his shoulder.

The pain was minimal compared to what that witch had put him through earlier, but it was enough to make him clutch the afflicted shoulder.

"Don't sit up!" Chopper's voice shrieked. "You'll tear open your stitches!"

Zoro began to roll his eye, but stopped midway. This was Chopper's usual spiel, but it sounded different this time. Chopper sounded nervous, or even almost... scared.

The cook sounded uneasy, and Chopper sounded scared. What was wrong? What had happened that was making his crewmates act so strange?

"I'm fine, Chopper," Zoro said in what he hoped was a reassuring tone. "You know I've had much worse than a sliced-up shoulder." He coughed. "Damn it. Can somebody get me some water or something?"

A cup was thrust into his hands a minute later by who he assumed was Nami. Would his stupid vision just clear up already? He didn't need to be blind in both his eyes. Getting used to just having one eye was annoying enough.

"So, Zoro," Luffy said. "How'd you end up in the mystery jungle?"

"And unconscious, for that matter?" Nami added. She too sounded strange, like she was talking to a stranger instead of her crewmate.

Zoro took a sip and shrugged, and this time he ignored the pain it brought. "I was walking with Brook and he got lost. I ended up in the jungle so I started looking for him, but then this creepy girl showed up and we fought." He scowled. "She didn't win. Some red eyed freak showed up and knocked me out. I'll explain more later. Anyway, did anything happen before you guys brought me back to the Sunny? Cook, Nami, and Chopper are all acting weird."

"What's the Sunny?" someone asked.

Zoro turned to give the speaker a look that asked if they were stupid. "You know, the Thousand Sunny? The name of our-"

He froze. His vision had cleared up almost entirely by this point, and he was quite surprised to see the speaker was someone who should not have been there. Someone who he hadn't seen in over two years, and her duck.

"Vivi? Carue?" he asked, trying not to sound too incredulous. "What are you guys doing here?"

Vivi hadn't changed a bit, and neither had Carue, which Zoro found odd. His crew certainly looked a little different after two years, so wouldn't Vivi have changed in some way? She looked exactly the way she did when she said goodbye to the Straw Hats, minus the princess get up. She was even wearing that pink t-shirt with the black x's Nami had given her.

Vivi crossed her arms. "I've been here for awhile now... Mr. Bushido. More than two weeks, in fact."

Carue nodded in agreement.

Zoro would have felt a little nostalgic at being called by his old nickname if the circumstances were different. What did Vivi mean she had been on the ship for almost two weeks? They were on Sabaody two weeks ago!

"I think we all would have noticed you if you had been on board, Vivi," Zoro argued. "How did you get all the way out here? Last I checked, we left you in Alabasta after Luffy kicked that sand croc's ass, and we haven't seen you since."

Vivi looked startled and... what would be a good word? Driven? Yeah, that was it. She looked driven. "Sand croc? Do you mean Crocodile?"

"Do you know any other sand crocs?" Zoro deadpanned.

"Sand croc? Shishishi, that's funny!" Luffy laughed. "Why do you call him that?"

Zoro turned to remind Luffy that he was the one who came up with that nickname, but the words faded from his mind before he even said them. Luffy looked... different. He was lankier, and, even though he was crouching, Zoro could tell he was a little shorter. As for Luffy's eyes, they were... brighter. Brighter than they had been recent days anyway.

Luffy was also wearing that old red vest of his instead of the cardigan he favored now, but it showed enough of Luffy's chest reveal something was missing.

"Luffy..." Zoro said slowly. "Where's your scar?"

Luffy blinked, then pointed under his eye. "You mean this one?"

"Not the one under your eye, you moron! I was talking about the one on your chest!"

"I don't have a scar on my chest."

"Yeah, you do. It's big, red, and shaped like an 'x.' Scars like that don't just disappear, so where did yours go?"

Luffy frowned as his brow furrowed, and Zoro recognized it as Luffy's "I'm slightly confused and/or troubled" look. What was wrong with Luffy? Forgetting an old adversary's nickname was one thing (though how Luffy could ever forget anything about Crocodile was beyond him); forgetting you had a scar and said scar being missing was another. Not to mention Vivi and Carue were there when they definitely were not supposed to be. How in the world did they get on the Sunny? They hadn't been on the ship when they left Dock Island, they hadn't been on the ship when they left Fishman Island, and they definitely hadn't been on the ship when they left Sabaody Archipelago. Anytime before that, no one had been on the ship.

Zoro was getting a bad feeling about this. It was the same feeling he got either right before a fight, or right before he was in for the headache of the century. And why wasn't anyone else saying anything? Why were they all just standing there in the galley, acting out of character and-

Wait a second. Zoro's eye scanned the room, and saw they were in a galley. Just not the Sunny's.

"No way..." he said in an almost whisper.

Luffy cocked his head. "Zoro? Is there something wrong?"

This was impossible. There was no way he could be back in this galley. There was absolutely no conceivable way he could ever be back in this particular galley.

"Is he alright?" Zoro heard Vivi whisper. "He looks like he's seen a ghost."

"You got me. I've only ever seen 'Zoro' look that freaked out once," he heard Usopp reply.

Zoro kicked off his blankets and jumped to his feet, immediately earning cries of protest from Chopper. He noticed his swords were laying on the galley table (How many times had he eaten on that table? He even carved his initials into it when the cook wasn't looking), so he snatched them up, shoved them through his haramaki, rammed his way past his crew, and gripped the knob of the door leading outside.

"Hey, hold on!" Chopper shouted fearfully. "You shouldn't be moving so much!"

"Watch who you're pushing, Mosshead!" Sanji added.

Zoro ignored them, pushed the door open, and ran out towards the deck.

After which he immediately stopped, causing him to slide a little due to inertia. He took in his surroundings, trying not to look too "freaked out", as Usopp put it. (If anyone should have been freaked out in this situation, it should have been the longnose.)

The sun was setting, painting the deck in reds and golds. This deck had no soft grass; only splintery planks were under his feet as he walked down the stairs to the main deck. The only source of greenery anywhere were Nami's tangerine trees. Robin's flowerbed was not there, and neither was Usopp's garden. There was only one mast, and it was covered in metal plates from the time the captain ripped it off. The crow's nest looked painfully small compared to the observatory, and the helm was back in the galley instead of on deck. The figurehead was not a lion/sunflower/sun/whatever, but a cute smiling sheep's head. Even that looked like it was about to fall off, what with the plate around it's neck from the time a whale knocked it clean off.

It was a small, humble ship, and Zoro knew he wouldn't want it to look any other way. This didn't, however, change the fact that this ship wasn't supposed to be here. This ship was gone, dang it. It was gone, it was dead, he had watched it burn along with everyone else-

Zoro took a deep breath and let it out through his nose. He was not going to lose control of his emotions over this. Recollecting himself, he walked over to the figurehead and gently rested his palm against it.

"Merry," he said softly. "What are you doing here? What's Vivi doing here? Just what the hell is going on?"

"That's what we should be asking."

Zoro's eye widened. It was his voice that said that, but he hadn't been the one who said it. He turned around in time to see the speaker emerge from around the corner he had been watching from.

That was when the day went from weird to just downright creepy. He recognized this young man's face, and that was because he saw it everyday in the mirror. At least, he saw everyday in the mirror back when he had both his eyes.

"Sorry I stepped out," the young man said. "Nami made me. Whispered something about not wanting you to freak."

Zoro's eye trailed from the young man's face to his three swords. Two of them were currently supposed to be strapped to his own hip, and they were. The third he had left behind on Thriller Bark.

"Yeah, bizarre, huh?" the younger of the two asked.

"To put it mildly," Zoro scoffed. He ran his hand through his hair. "Stupid Grand Line Islands..."

The rest of the crew must have decided now would be a good time to come after Zoro, because they all filed out of the galley and on to the deck. Now that they were in front of Zoro, he could see they too were different, just like Luffy had been. Nami's hair was shorter and she was wearing the old log pose instead the new one she got from Fishman Island. Curlicue's hair was parted back to the way it had been before their crew's separation, and he didn't have the new muscle mass he'd gained. And speaking of a lack of muscle mass, Usopp was back to looking like a toothpick in overalls. Chopper wasn't as lightly colored, and he was wearing his pink hat without the blue cap he now put over it. Vivi and Carue, of course, were self-explanatory.

Nami gasped, looking at their surroundings in bewilderment. "Why the heck is the sun setting? It's only noon!"

"Wow, that took longer than I thought it would!" Luffy said, adjusting his hat. "It felt like only a few minutes!"

"It WAS a few minutes!" Usopp hollered. "The sun shouldn't be setting!"

"It's just like all the ripe fruit," Vivi said to herself. "It's like the seasons and the sun are out of sync with everything else."

"Hey, Mosshead!" Sanji shouted at the younger of the two Mossheads. "You could've told us this was happening! The sun setting six hours early would have been nice to know!"

The younger man ignored the cook, instead only focusing on Zoro. He crossed his arms, as if he were waiting for something.

Zoro knit his eyebrows and also crossed his arms. "...What's your name?"

"Roronoa Zoro," the younger man replied. "You?"

"Roronoa Zoro."

"...How old are you?"

"I'm twenty one. I'm going to take a wild guess and say you're nineteen."

"Good guess."

Both Zoros stared at each other, and what was running through their minds was anyone's guess. They both pulled off the exact same poker face. The rest of the crew watched the exchange in silence, waiting for some of kind reaction.

The older Zoro felt his shoulder throb, and looked down to see bright red staining the bandages. Just as Chopper predicted, he'd torn open his stitches.

"You might want to get that looked at," the younger Zoro commented.

Older Zoro clutched the wounded shoulder. "I've had worse. It's fine."

"It's not fine!" Chopper hollered, running over to the older swordsman. "Get back in the galley right now so I can fix this!"

Older Zoro glanced down at the reindeer. Younger Zoro had a scary enough face as it is, but the fact the Older Zoro was missing an eye made him look scarier.

"Uh... i-if you w-wouldn't mind, t-that is," Chopper stuttered, now looking ready to bolt.

Younger Zoro noticed flash of emotion appear and disappear quickly over Older Zoro's features. It was... hurt. It hurt Older Zoro that the young doctor was afraid of him. Younger Zoro thought that was a little out of character, but didn't comment.

"I don't mind, Chopper," Older Zoro sighed at last. He began walking toward the galley. "Let's just get this over with."

Chopper nodded hesitantly and followed after him. Only the younger swordsman noticed when the elder swordsman made a quick glance at their captain before looking away. Once the elder swordsman and the reindeer were inside, said captain turned to Sanji.

"Hey, Sanji, get started on dinner. I'm hungry and I bet Other Zoro is too," Luffy commanded with a grin.

"Is your stomach all you can think about?!" Sanji shouted. "What about the fact we currently have two Mossheads on the Merry? And what do you mean, 'dinner?" It's lunch time!"

"But the sun is setting," Luffy replied. "That means it'll be night soon, and that means dinner. As for Zoro, what's to think? Zoro is Zoro; there's just two of him now, and one of them's a little different."

Sanji heaved an aggravated sigh. He never understood Luffy's logic, and he had a feeling he never would.

"Best just to do what he says, Sanji," Usopp said, patting the chef's back. "I have feeling we're going to have one long night ahead of us, and eating a little food would be good place to start."

"I agree with Usopp," Vivi added. "Some dinner might be a good icebreaker with the Other Mr. Bushido. We can ask him how he got here while we eat."

"You're so practical Vivi-chwan, that's an excellent idea!" Sanji praised joyfully. "Only you could think of such a brilliant notion!"

"Hey!" Usopp protested.

"I'll get started on our dinner-for-lunch right away!" Sanji continued.

"Yosh! Dinner-for-lunch!" Luffy cheered.

The captain, cook, chef, princess, and duck all filed back into the galley. Younger Zoro remained on deck, a serious expression on his face. Nami remained as well.

"Zoro, are you coming?" Nami asked quietly. She sighed. "I wouldn't blame you if you didn't want to come in. I can only imagine how I would feel if an older version of me showed up. It would bother me a little, I guess. And then there's all this stuff with the island and the sunset. Everything is so strange here, and I want to know what's happening."

Younger Zoro didn't answer right away, and for a moment Nami thought that maybe he hadn't been paying attention. She was about to speak up and get his attention, but he beat her to it.

"I'm not bothered by him personally," he sighed, rubbing his neck and turning to face the navigator. "What bothers me is what he might represent."

Nami wasn't sure what the swordsman meant by that, but he didn't elaborate. He instead silently walked past her and started climbing up to the crow's nest.

"See you later," he said. "Call me when dinner's ready."

Nami frowned, but didn't try to stop him. She had a feeling he needed a little time to himself right now. Without another word, she went to join the others in the galley.

Next Time:

"Just tell me the most recent thing that has happened to you all," Roronoa said. "I'm trying to figure out how far back I've gone."

"Well, we left Drum Island two days ago," Vivi offered.

Roronoa spit out his sake.