Zoro, on his knees, stared ahead of him, his mind turning over and over the events that had occurred.

I lost… to such a weakling… how… my swords… my worst fear come true…

Worst fear! He put a hand to his head. That's right… that weird thing said something about facing our worst fears! But how… how can I move on?

He took some deep breaths and tried to calm himself. He stood up and relaxed, thinking over and over: This isn't real. This isn't real.

And when he was fully relaxed and calm, something odd happened. He felt the pain in his back go away – feeling it, he found that the wounds had disappeared; there weren't even any scars left. When he looked down at his side, his swords had reappeared. He took them out and experimentally cut down a nearby boulder. He felt good about it, and knew that his proper fighting power had returned.

Something ahead of him suddenly shone bright. He looked over and squinted. Getting a good feeling, he sheathed his swords and headed towards it. The light enveloped him entirely, and he closed his eyes, fearing that he might go blind in his other eye if he continued to look…

He opened his eye when the light faded and looked around. He was in a large room, a large gray room, with lit torches around the walls. An open doorway was on the wall opposite where they had come from. He glanced at it, and then looked behind him. His eye widened.

On the floor was a white line, splitting up the room so that there was about five feet from it to the open doorway where Zoro was. Behind the line were a large space and a doorway that was closed off by a chunk of cement. In that large space…

Luffy was near the left side of the wall, on his hands and knees, crying while sobbing "No… no…" Nami was crying as well, looking as if she was sitting in a chair and writing something while someone pushed her head down. Sanji was running around the entire area, screaming, which was scary and, in a twisted way, funny. Franky had dropped to his knees, covering up his face while tears leaked from underneath his sunglasses. Brook was reaching out to something while calling out hoarsely "Laboon… Laboon, come back! Laboon!"

Of course. They must be facing the illusion of their worst fear…

He strode up to his captain and grabbed him by the shoulders, lifting him up to face him. Luffy's tear-streaked face looked dully back.

"Oi, Luffy! Get up already! We've got a turnip to find, remember!?"

Luffy whispered "Why…? You didn't have to come back… Zoro… you could have left me here…"

"I'm not leaving you here, idiot!"

"You already hurt me." Luffy stared at Zoro. "Why do you have to make my hurt bigger?"

Zoro stared at him and let go of his shoulders. Luffy dropped back on his hands and knees. He went over to Nami next, lifting up her head – seeing as it looked like nothing was pushing it.

"Nami. Pull yourself together. We've got to get going!"

She looked up, fresh tears spilling out of her eyes. "You can stop reminding me, you know. I'm doing it already! I know my friends are d-d-dead—" she sobbed. "Just kill me too!"

"Kill you?" Zoro stared at her as she looked up at him, before she rubbed at her eyes and turned them back downwards.

He left her and managed to catch Sanji as he ran around the room. "Shit-cook, what the hell are you doing? We need to help Usopp!"

Sanji screamed and struggled in his grip. "L-let go of me, you shitty freak of nature!" he looked behind him and screamed again. "No! Let go, damn it! No way in hell you're getting me into that thing!"

Zoro's grip loosened, and Sanji made a break for it. He continued to run around the room, fleeing from his invisible pursuers.

Results were similar with Franky and Brook. Zoro didn't manage to get a relevant response out of either of them. Eventually, he decided to sit outside of the white line (for he realized that stepping inside it would make him part of the hallucinations), wait for the others to come to their senses, and have a bottle of booze in the meantime.

Nami carefully drew the perimeter of the island on the map-in-progress, carefully keeping her hand as steady as possible. She remembered the price to pay for screwing up even the smallest detail. Arlong sat in a chair across the room, gulping down a drink of some sort while keeping an eye on her.

No… how? How did this happen? They couldn't have lost to Arlong! They just couldn't have! I know… I know I could beat him! If I only had my Clima Takt… I could beat this bastard and escape!

Something caught her eye and she looked up. She gasped. There, in the open shelves of the desk, were the three pieces of the Sorcery Clima Takt.

Getting an idea, she knocked over the ink bottle, letting the contents spill onto the desk and floor. Arlong glared at her. She gasped in fake surprise. "Sorry! I'll get a fresh one!"

He eyed her before muttering something about a punishment later. She snuck her hand into the shelves, reaching for the pieces of the Clima Takt.

Yes!

She deftly flipped up the pieces and snapped them together. Arlong stood up. "What the–?"

"Mirage Tempo – Fata Morgana!" She jumped out of her chair and spun the Clima Takt and several copies of herself appeared – some normal-sized, some large and fat, some tiny. Arlong scowled and slashed away one of them, only to have it dissolve beneath his webbed fingers.

"Hm…?"

Nami waited, invisible, until Arlong had slashed away all of the copies. She then deftly created thunderclouds above his head and made herself visible. He whipped around at the shimmering sound and snarled.

"You bitch," he growled. "Just wait until I get my hands on you!"

She nodded at the clouds. "You won't be getting your filthy hands on anything, Arlong! Professor Nami predicts that severe thunderstorms in your immediate area will strike an ugly purple fishman within the next five seconds!"

"Eh?" he looked up and his eyes widened. Lightning came down from the clouds, searing his skin, making him scream and twitch. Eventually, he fell to the ground, unmoving. Nami cautiously approached him and poked him with the Takt. He didn't move.

She sighed. Tears of happiness spilled from her eyes again as she relaxed. Free of the threat. Her worst fear vanquished. Now all she had to do was escape.

"Ooh, good job, Nami!"

She jumped and turned around. Luffy had his hands on his hips and was staring down at the unmoving form of Arlong. The rest of the crew was there, too – alive and well.

"Guys…? How?" she whispered. "I thought that Arlong…"

Usopp frowned and felt himself. "Well… I thought so too! But then I woke up, and…" he shrugged.

"Guys… you're alive…"

Luffy laughed. "Of course we're alive! It's okay, Nami!"

She wiped some tears from her eyes and looked behind the crew. There was a bright light… or something. She approached it slowly, glancing at her friends, all of whom nodded encouragingly. She took a breath and stepped into the light. It covered her and she shut her eyes…

…only to open them and see Zoro sitting against a wall, gulping down a bottle of sake.

"Zoro!" she exclaimed. "Zoro, what—weren't you just back—" she looked behind her and gasped. "What—"

"Hey, Nami," he said, setting down the bottle. "Glad to see you got out of that. Here, sit down. I'll explain what's happening."

"That makes sense, I guess…" she said once he'd finished. Noticing that Brook was crying "Laboon!", she said "Um, say, could you hear what I was saying?"

"…yeah. I kind of guessed what was happening."

"Oh." She looked away and sat down next to him. "Could you not mention it to the others…?"

"Yeah, no problem."

"Thank you."