I just realized I forgot the disclaimers and warnings on a few chapters. Oh well, I'm too lazy to fix it. You know what's a little silly? I haven't deleted a single review from my e-mail inbox. I just can't bring myself to it. I love them all 3

(If you're confused about the whole mess in this story, feel free to ask me. It's hard to explain, but I'll do my best.)

Disclaimer: I don't own One Piece or any of it's characters, and I make no profit of this story, only fun. Did you seriously think One Piece was mine? You stupid son of a biscuit.

Warnings: Chapter contains swearing and violence.

Red Voident Dragon: Well… great minds think alike? ;)

Cb O chan: It all gets explained, don't worry! Yes, Luffy makes even the most serious circumstances laughable. That's why we love him so.

Fmdevil: Mwahaha, exactly as I intended it to! Thanks a lot for correcting that, you totally save me there xD

BrindyB: I'm glad you liked it, and yes, it's confusing as Hell. Bear with me, things will get clearer.

[[[ONE WAY TICKET TO HELL]]]

"S-s-sa… San… j-ji…" Nami stuttered. She shook her head in disbelief, never averting her eyes from the mangled corpse that was once her friend. He was dead. No matter how strong or durable or inhuman he was, he was definitely dead. There was no way anyone could survive that, unless they were Luffy or some freaky devil fruit user with the ability to re-grow bones.

But Sanji was neither, and now he was dead.

"Monster!" She screeched at Arlong, who was wiping the blood off his hands on his shorts. "You, you inhuman, disgusting, vile pathetic bastard! How could you?" Tears were pouring freely from her eyes, she grasped the grass beneath her in vain attempts to calm herself down.

Arlong chuckled and walked over to her. She didn't wait for him, but sprung up and jumped at him. He swung her away easily enough, but she got up s fast as a cat and leaped again. This time, he caught her, but she sunk her teeth into his wrist, trying to hit the Median vein. Again, he shook her off like a fly and she stumbled backwards. By now, she was blind with rage. "You already took Bellemere! Why do you need to kill someone else? Won't you just leave me be?" Arlong raised his fist at Nami, who didn't make any attempt to dodge. She just stood there, shouting her heart out at him.

"Why can't I love someone without you taking him?"

If Arlong intended to answer, he never got the chance. Before his fist collided with Nami, she felt herself being gently but firmly pushed away. It was so unexpected to feel such a friendly gesture all of a sudden she tumbled and had to use a nearby tree to steady herself. Her mind was still dazed, all she saw before her was Arlong frantically clutching his eyes. Someone grabbed her hand, "Nami-san? Can you walk?", he whispered in her ear. 'No… no, that's impossible…' When she didn't answer, he hauled her up piggy-back style. Soon, she was being carried away from Arlong, by Sanji.

"Sa…Sanji-kun?" She still refused to believe it too easily. If you got your hopes up too far, they were sure to be crushed down. Maybe she was just hallucinating, maybe she was already dead.

"At your service, as always, Nami-san. I'm sorry it took so long, I think my body went into shock for a moment. I hope you aren't injured?" Nami felt his muscles stiffen and move under his shirt, which surprisingly, wasn't blood-soaked. And, come to think of it, his head was perfectly fine instead of being smashed into an unsightly pulp. He seemed …fine. "Sanji, how is.. Did you..?" Sanji grinned; Nami couldn't see it clearly, but she heard it on his voice. "My assumptions were correct. It was just an illusion. I guess not only do we see things, but feel them too. I'm also guessing they're made so that we can't really fight them, seeing as how neither of us could even touch Mr. Fishface. If my other theories are correct, he's already disappeared now that you're away from him. Your mind is what made him come to life, after all." He laughed quietly. "It's not something I'd like to experience anytime again, if you pardon."

'Illsuion? Arlong wasn't real? Sanji wasn't killed? It didn't really happen?' Nami's mind ran in circles, but then stopped with a screech.

It wasn't real. Just a bad dream.

She clutched to Sanji's neck, and letting go of all her anger and fear, out of relief and happiness she cried her eyes out into his blue shirt.

[[[ONE WAY TICKET]]]

Luffy was lying on the forest floor. His head hurt a little, but not enough to make him care. He simply didn't feel like standing up.

His crewmate, Zoro, had betrayed him. Why? Luffy didn't know. Neither did he know why Zoro was acting so weird, like it had been Luffy who wronged him, or why he was all beaten and blue.

But Zoro had betrayed him.

Even if, when he momentarily knocked Luffy out in order to get away without being followed, he had used the blunt side of his sword, and made sure it didn't cause any damage.

Even when he had cut Luffy, it wasn't enough to really hurt him. Luffy knew Zoro; he could kill instantly with one, half-assed swing. Yet he had held back at Luffy, who was apparently his worst enemy now.

Luffy just didn't get it.

He heard footsteps approach, fast. 'Zoro?' He thought, but the thought was literally kicked out of his head when Sanji emerged from the thick row of pine trees with a forlorn-looking Nami on his back, tumbling over Luffy and falling. All of them ended up in a very tangled pile; Luffy on the bottom, under Sanji's waist, Nami sitting on top of Sanji's shoulders. The latter, Sanji didn't really mind.

"You guys! Where did you go?" Luffy was very happy to see them. Nami was happy to see him too, but first things first. "Luffy! You were the one who ran off on us!" She exclaimed as she put a shoe in his face, getting off Sanji in the process. "Mellorine~" Sanji mumbled, thrilled about his precious princess sitting on top of him. He had even seen up her skirt.

"Oh, Sanji-kun! Sorry, I guess I squashed you." She apologized. "You squashed me, too!" Luffy protested, but was ignored. "Not to worry, Nami-san, it's perfectly fine. You're as light as the feather of an angel's wing, love." Sanji wasn't just flattering her, he briefly wondered whether she was eating enough.

Seeing Sanji was all right and back to his usual self, she relaxed. Her knees were still shaking from shock over seeing her worst enemy appearing, her friend get killed before her eyes and nearly getting killed herself. She let herself sink to the ground, letting out a long breath. Sanji was immediately by her side, asking if she was ok. "I'm fine, Sanji-kun, just a little shaken." she answered.

"Why? What happened to you two?" Luffy asked. "We met Ar-…" Nami started, but her voice hitched when she spoke the merman's name. "Ar? Who's Ar? A new friend?" Luffy asked. Sanji saw Nami was in no state to talk about the incident, so he started talking himself. "Remember what we said about illusions?"

-"-

By the time Sanji was finished, Luffy was angry on behalf of his friends. "That fish-bastard? But I finished him for good! He didn't hurt you, did he?" Sanji sighed and explained, again, that illusions couldn't really hurt you, only make it seem and feel like they did. "And, like Kuina-san, we think they disappear when the imaginer is too far away. I threw some sand in Arlong's eyes, therefore we managed to escape him. Otherwise, he'd have followed us."

"By the way," Nami said, "where is Kuina-chan? She evaporated when you ran off, but we thought she was with you." When his running off was mentioned, Luffy's gaze darkened as he realized the reason he had done so in the first place.

"Guys… I saw Zoro." Sanji and Nami were instantly upon him, asking for answers. "Marimo-head? Here? Where is he? Is he all right? Where did he go? Did you talk to him?"

Sanji kept a flood of queations at Luffy, but Nami stopped him, allowing Luffy some time to speak. "I met him, yes, and talked to him too. But he's not alright." He looked down, with such a puzzled expression both of them had to feel sorry for him. "He's… he's pretty hurt, for one. But I think his mind's hurt, too. It's like he's got everything wrong." Neither Nami nor Sanji could read minds, and therefore had no idea what Luffy meant, so he had to explain to them.

-"-

"He attacked you? Him? You?" Nami couldn't help her voice breaking at the highest points of her questioning. The idea of Zoro attacking Luffy for no real reason was appalling to her. Granted, they had fought before, and yes, it had come to punches between them more frequently than anyone else. But those times, it was usually Zoro trying to knock some sense into his captain, or a friendly spar ending abruptly due to dinnertime. Never had he actually hurt Luffy before.

Luffy was so disheartened by telling them of his and Zoro's meeting, Nami didn't need to question whether he was telling the truth. One look at his low-hanging head told her all she needed. "But… I mean, why? You're like, his precious little brother. He would never let anyone hurt you, let alone do it himself." Luffy sighed. "I don't know, Nami. It was like he considered me a threat." Sanji frowned. It was evident to anyone who had even the tiniest amount of intuition that Luffy valued his crew above anything else. He was their protector, and they were his in turn. He didn't need to worry too much about them getting hurt, because not only could they take damn good care of themselves, but if it came to it, Luffy would make sure they were okay. He always did, and he liked it that way. But what if his own comrade, one of his beloved, was to betray him and, according to Luffy, positively hate him? And for no special reason, either.

Luffy spoke up, as if he'd read his mind. "Zoro wouldn't do something like this out of nowhere. He must have a reason. We just have to somehow find out what it is." Nami touched her chin in thought. "Maybe he's scheming, you know, something against our enemy? You know how he gets, if he has to do something dangerous he'll do it alone. There's no way he'll just up and tell us what happened." All of them agreed silently. Zoro was a bit like that, never involving anyone in his plans, like he didn't trust them enough. It was frustrating to no end.

"Yes, that Roronoa Zoro is quite a handful, even for me."

Nami looked at Sanji, confused. "Sanji, since when do you call Zoro 'Roronoa'?" She tensed a bit when she looked at Sanji, who had his legs planted in a fighting stance, his back curled and ready to attack.

"That wasn't me, Nami-san."

[[[ONE WAY TICKET]]]

Casually leaning up against a pine tree, an unfortunately familiar man was grinning at them from the tip of his hat. Nothing about him had changed, except he looked more…concrete. Before, he reminded them of smoke, sneaky and light. Now, he was more like obsidian; good-looking but alarmingly black and hard enough to crack a bone.

"You!" Luffy roared the instant he saw him, and pulled his arm back in order to snap it to the man's face. When his fist connected with what should have been the man's face, but was instead a tree trunk, said man was already behind them, sitting on the grass. "Easy, old bloke. No need for alarm, I'm not here to kill you. As if I could, you devil-fruit using bugger." Luffy didn't register the words, his mind swiveled around one thing and one thing only; this guy was the reason Zoro was here, which made him the reason they were here, and the reason Nami had to see Arlong again (she still looked alarmed) and probably the reason Zoro had gone bonkers. Therefore; punch the living lights out of him.

Before he managed to fling his rubbery arm back at the man, Nami was holding him back. "Hold it, Luffy! You can't hurt him, he's basically a God in here!"

"Luffy, we might need to hear what he has to say." she whispered so the Devil couldn't hear them, "He may have information about what happened to Zoro." At that, Luffy relaxed his muscles some, but his tension stayed. The Devil looked very pleased. "That's right, listen to the navigator lass. She's a bright one, she is. Although, much to my disappointment, not smart enough to figure out what's an illusion and what's not." Sanji was about to throw an insult and a how-dare-you-to-talk-to-Nami-san-that-way-I'll-snap-your-neck-and-cook-it, but Nami silenced him with the eye contact alone. She turned back to the Devil. "So, what is it you want from us? Clearly, you didn't appear just to observe us." the Devil jumped to his feet, and actually reminded them of a cat that had seen a mouse scurrying in the other end of the room. "Excellent question, love. See, I couldn't help but hear your little conversation, about the swordsman and his behavior. I intend to clear that up. Don't get me wrong," he raised his hands in a backing-off motion when Sanji and Luffy scoffed at him, "I'm not trying to keep you down by giving you false information. I'd just like to see the straw hat kid's reaction when he finds out what I did to his mate. I warn you, it ain't pretty. I am the Devil himself, after all." He grinned mischievously. "I love nothing more than breaking someone's spirit."

With a swirling of his cane, the air seemed to materialize, and they found themselves in a different place from the dark pine forest. Well, they weren't really there, per se. It was more like they were remembering something, seeing it in the back of their minds but not really in front of their eyes. Yet they saw each other, and the looks of dread and awareness. "Observe, children, my latest exhibit to my collection of broken toys."

They were on what appeared as a small mountain, with flat rocks and small patches of moss here and there. Up ahead, they saw Zoro, walking around in a very lost manner. Not that unusual for him, but still.

"…the hell? Where the hell am I?" He scratched the back of his head, looking around. "Can't even remember how I got here… oi, Luffy? Curly-brow? Anyone there?" No answer, save from the faint echo the hills called back to him. "Just great, just fucking great. I must have amnesia or something, I don't remember shit. And I don't even have my sword. Perfect conditions to be standing on Mount Nowhere. And… whoa, I'm talking to myself now." He shook his head trying to rid himself of the need for sound in the painfully quiet hillscape. The stillness didn't last long.

"I always knew you were a bit off in the head, moss face, but I never figured you were insane. Then again, it's not a surprise." Sanji walked towards Zoro, who was too happy to see someone to reply with a good insult. Instead, he retorted "Keep your wittyness to yourself, cook." and walked towards him.

Nami shot Sanji a questioning glance. "Sanji, you never said you'd met Zoro." Sanji shook his head. "I didn't. I've never had this conversation with him. That Devil bastard must be feeding us bullshit."

"Am not!" The Devil shot back in a very much so childish manner. "Shut up and watch, you bloody twat!" Sanji had every will to shout something back at the Devil so obviously enjoying himself.

He continued watching nonetheless.

"Where are we, anyway? I can't seem to remember how I got here." Zoro asked.

"Geez, Zoro, is your tiny brain cracking already? I thought it'd last at least a week more." Nami answered. Zoro wondered for a second where she had come from, but didn't spare it a second thought. His mind didn't seem to be working right. He muttered out a "Shut it, witch." before Nami interrupted again.

"I know you have memory loss, but hopefully you haven't forgotten about the debt you owe me?" She asked. "What the hell does that have to do with anything? I shouldn't even have this debt!" Zoro shouted back. "Have to do with anything? I just want my share before you get killed. I don't like robbing dead men, you know." She smiled sweetly, but wickedly at him. Zoro frowned. "What? What are you tal- AAGH!" Zoro shouted in pain as Nami, who had brought her hand to Zoro's shoulder while talking to him, ripped out one of his trademark earrings. Drops of blood flew from his head as he instinctively tossed it backwards.

"WHAT THE FLYING FUCK, YOU BITCH?" Zoro yelled at her. Nami tossed the earring into the air, catching it in her hand when it came down. "It's pretty much 100% gold, right? That'll do; for now."

Zoro, fuming with rage, attempted to jump Nami and retrieve his jewelry, but was stopped by Sanji's dress-shoe, which he managed to narrowly avoid. "Don't soil Nami-san with your filthy hands, cabbage-head." Sanji let out a puff of smoke, speaking in his usual, calm-threatening manner.

"Excuse me?" Zoro yelled back. "I don't know if you happened to miss it, but she just PLUCKED OUT MY FUCKING EARRING! Why the hell are you standing up for her?"

Sanji smiled around his cig. "If you're upset about one hole in the ear, bastard, you've got one hell of a shock awaiting you. A small rip is the least of your worries now." Zoro was about to bite back, but Sanji's leg came shooting at him so fast he had to jump to dodge. Landing on his feet, he was about to attack Sanji back, but was thrown to the side by a hard punch to his ribs. From a rubber fist.

Coughing and spluttering, he landed on his shoulder, but dodge-and-rolled so he was now crouching on the ground. 'Well, there goes one rib.' He thought as he felt up the tender area the attack had landed on, one rib clearly fractured. He followed the hand that had attacked him with his eyes as it retreated back to it's owner. His eyes found Luffy, standing in his usual outfit, grinning as always. "Luffy? What the hell was that for?"

Luffy giggled. "Come on, Zoro, you know when someone's fighting you. Why do you need to ask?" Zoro stared at him, mouth agape. Nami and Sanji walked over to Luffy, joining him each on one side.

"Okay, I don't know what's going on here, but all of you snap out of it, okay!" Zoro shouted at them. Luffy just laughed more. "Silly Zoro! Nothing's wrong with us, it's you that's need to snap out of it! Stop talking already! You have to fight us if you want to live, even if it won't do you any good."

Zoro swallowed. He had known Luffy for a long time, and been in enough battles wit him to know that his light talking was a concealed death-threat. He always reserved this kind of speaking for the people who's ass he was really going to kick. No matter how childish Luffy sounded, with that particular tone in the background, it was a promise of sure death.

"Luffy. What is this about?" Zoro asked one final time. He didn't like where this was going. How Nami took out her clima-tact, how Sanji tapped his toe in the ground, and how Luffy just stood there armes crossed and legs spread wide.

It was Nami who answered. "I can't believe you hadn't figured it out yet. Honestly, I didn't think anyone was that dumb. But, as always, you just had to prove me wrong, huh?"

"You really fell flat for all that comrade-crap. I thought you were at least more cautious than that, but boy, was I wrong." Sanji said. Zoro remained silent.

"Yeah, I kind of thought you were stronger than that." Luffy said. "It's not like I ever really intended you to be in my crew. I just needed someone to travel with until I found real crewmates. Once I got Nami, I was going to get rid of you. You know, ditch you in some port town or something. But she told me to wait until later, because you'd probably get a lot of bounty on your head. I promised she could keep the money, if I got to land the finishing blow on you." Luffy's smile grew wider, but his brow furrowed at the same. "I hate pirate hunters. It was hard waiting all this time to kill you, but it was worth it. Now I'll finally get to see your head off your body."

Zoro had stood up, and was in a ready-to-bolt-dodge-or-fight-back stance. He took in the sight of all of them standing in front of them, like muggers ganging up on an old, defenseless man. He smelled blood-lust, he tasted the familiar copper-like tinge of blood on his tongue, he heard Luffy's slight giggle and he felt his hips annoyingly bare when there were no swords to shield them. Every single one of his senses was screaming at him to run, that he was in over his head and would die at any given moment. But his mind was too busy spinning in circles to listen.

He should have listened. A bolt of lightning zapped right where his feet were and he would have been hit had he not jumped out of the way. As soon as he hit the ground, he saw a sole approaching his face at alarming speed and bent backwards, avoiding it by a hair. The shoe was followed by the shouts of "Gomu-gomu no Pistol!" and a fist as dangerous as a bullet dove for his chest. He managed to jumps backwards enough to minimize the impact, but it still knocked some breath out of him. Zoro was fairly sure he heard that slightly fractured rib break a little more. Luffy, his former captain, comrade, friend, casually trotted over, still smiling like he always did.

"You know, by having you on my ship all this time, I know all your weaknesses. And not just the ones in battle." Luffy taunted. " I know how you can't fight kids because you actually like them. I know how you won't attack someone if his back is turned to you or if he's lying down. But I also know how you get nightmares sometimes, about accidentally hurting one of us without meaning to or about walking down stairs, only to find a mangled body by the end of them." Luffy snorted, and Zoro felt himself blush out of awkwardness as the raven-haired boy revealed something he'd rather not have anyone know. "You even trusted me enough to hand me your swords. Even the one that girl gave you, your biggest treasure. I guess you blew it, hunh? Now you can't even try to protect yourself."

"And even if you did have your sword, you wouldn't be able to kill us, would you?" Robin continued.

'Wait, when did Robin get here? And there's Usopp and Chopper, too. Have they been here all this time?'

"Because you made the mistake of allowing us into your circle of trust. Even me, who you know should have killed from the moment you saw me on the ship."

All of them, his crew, were gathering on him, forcing him to back further and further away. He bypassed some pachinkos Usopp sent to him, one of them clipping his temple. He got caught by surprise as Chopper had snuck to his unguarded side and rammed him in the back in his Horn Point. Zoro stumbled, and got caught by Robin's hands. While all other times she had caught him, it was friendly and meant to protect, but this time she attempted to break his neck. Zoro twisted like an eel, kicking Robin hard in the wrist as he did so. She winced and her additional limbs vanished. A few meters away, she rubbed the spot he had kicked, a black bruise already forming. Sanji was dangerously enraged by Zoro hurting his beautiful angel and resumed trying his best to handicap Zoro. All the while, Zoro was trying not to hold back, but his body didn't seem to go along with trying to kill his ex-comrades. 'I don't have time to play nice guy! This is about kill or get killed! Even if they are-were my 'friends'…I am not giving them my head!'

Zoro let out a battle roar as he gave Usopp his best punch in the stomach, sending the boy rolling.

'Gloves off.'

-"-

The battle went on for a long while. It was amazing Zoro was still alive. Three of his ribs were broken, some of them almost beyond repair. A few zaps of lightening and FireStars from Nami and Usopp gave him some 3rd degree burns, most of them on his arms. Robin had broken his leg, which was twisted at an odd angle now. Chopper and Sanji had definitely given him a concussion (Funny how it's the doctor that hurt me.' despite his severe injuries, Zoro chuckled to himself, followed by 'Oh no, did I just laugh? I'm going nuts.'). But all the blows from Luffy resulted in his muscled being beaten like meat being tenderized, sometimes tearing them. Luffy had also landed a hit ion his stomach, and Zoro could practically feel his insides bleeding. Against all of them, and against Luffy and Sanji, who were the only ones to match and possibly outmatch his strength, in addition to not having even one sword, it was an unfair battle. Yet, somehow, Zoro was still standing.

But not for long.

When a well-aimed Exploding Star from Usopp hit him square in the face, he toppled backwards. Everyone had advanced on him to great lengths, so he was now standing on the edge of the cliff. When the explosion came, he fell over, plummeting towards the rocky foot of the mountain. His stomach lurched at the sudden lack of gravity, and he didn't realize his head and legs had switched places until too late. 'Ironic much? I'm going to break my neck falling, just like she did. Che… this is pathetic:' He braced himself for the clash of his head and the ground below, definitely resulting in the display of his brains. He was already battered and bruised, a fall so high should kill him.

But then again, a lot of things that should have killed him, never did.

-"-

Waking up from unconsciousness, Zoro coughed a considerable amount of blood before opening his eyes. It took him a long while to be able to move. He tried moving his fingers and toes first, seeing if his spine had been severed in any place. Next came moving his knees upwards, using his elbows to prop the rest of his body up. He half-sat in the midst of the rubble for a bit, thinking back to what had happened. He looked about to just drop down and die…

Until a very dangerous gleam settled in his eyes, making his strained muscled taut and his jaws clench.

He was not dying yet. Not here. Not because of them.

Not like this.

He stood up, staggering and swaying alarmingly to the side, but caught his balance and started walking/limping towards whatever looked like a safe haven; a forest.

Even as he tottered, badly damaged in every way, he still gave off an unwavering aura, one of not giving up.

Inside himself, he swore not to trust anyone again.

-"-

Without realizing it, Nami felt tears slide town her cheeks. The display she had just seen bordered on a horror movie, in and of itself. And seeing herself hurting someone so close to her was frightening at best.

Now that the strange window to the past was gone from her mind, Nami looked at Sanji and Luffy. Sanji was quite obviously experiencing the same thoughts as she was, as he brought a hand to his forehead trying to calm himself. In spite of all of his and Zoro's bickering, they were actually very close. It had to be strenuous for him as well, to see himself brutally beating his friend.

Nami moved over to Luffy, and was not surprised to find what she did. His eyes were wide open, and whether the tears were from keeping them so wide or from distress, Nami didn't know. He was shaking his head a little, denying the memory of seeing himself break and injure his best friend. What was most frightening of all was how much the other them had been in character. The voices were the same, the attacks were the same, the personas were the same. The only way to know it was fake was by knowing you had never done all that.

The Devil was almost squealing in utter joy as he watched their reactions. "See? This is why he hates you now, straw-hat Monkey D. Luffy. Because you betrayed his trust and tried to kill him! Doesn't it make sense?" He was eye-level with Luffy, who was still in a trance, not blinking, even when the Devil leaned in so far their noses almost touched. "His greatest fear, Monkey D. Luffy, was being betrayed by the people he loves and trusts, namely you people. He'll never let you near him again. Oh, just think, the acknowledgement and bonds you worked so hard on forming with the man are broken forever. And you know what's best?" the Devil's smile, if you could call it that, grew wider and he leaned back, barely keeping the laughter bubbling in his throat.

"When he first got his senses back, you know what he thought?" His voice changed all of a sudden, sounding just like Zoro's, so much it was creepy.

"'What did I do wrong? Did I fail as a crewmate, as a friend?… Is that why they hate me?'"

Sanji looked like he was going to be sick. Nami bit her lower lip, trying to restrain herself. Luffy had finally snapped from his hypnotic state, and was now looking in a mixture of anger, towards the man who had tortured his comrade, and fear, over hearing what would come next out of this disgusting Devil's mouth.

"He actually blamed himself for this! On top of being fatally injured and having a shattered pride, he was also self-loathing! Just when I thought it couldn't get better! In the end, of course, he stopped accusing himself of failing as crew, but instead beat his head against the stone for allowing himself to make the mistake to trust and care for people. That idiot's just too much!"

Luffy was shivering with emotion. Rage, fury, lust for blood, violence, fear, resentment, regret, sadness, disgust, loathing. He didn't even bother to shout gomu-gomu no when he desperately tried to land a fatal hit on the Devil, who only laughed, tilted his hat and took a bow before vanishing again like a dying wind.

[[[ONE WAY TICKET]]]

So, that's about the wrap. I feel like this chapter's short, but it's over 5000 words…ohwell, lol.

Zoro is the paranoid-non-trusting type, so I figured building trust in someone and then have it shattered would be something not-so-short of a nightmare to him.

-"-

"He's… he's pretty hurt, for one. But I think his mind's hurt, too.

Luffy saying something like 'His mind's hurt' is cute to me. Don't ask why.

But those times, it was usually Zoro trying to knock some sense into his captain, or a friendly spar ending abruptly due to dinnertime.

Notice how when they fight (whiskey Peak, Arabasta desert) it's always because Zoro's trying to help Luffy? Aw.

Now, he was more like obsidian; good-looking but alarmingly black and hard enough to crack a bone.

Google it. It's a pretty, black shining stone.

You can't hurt him, he's basically a God in here!"

Obvious pun is obvious, and intended.

-"-~Since you're already at the bottom, you might as well review~