The cook woke with Rikka slapping him across his face. Hard.
"Wake up, Sanji-kun!" she screamed at him, shaking him so vigorously his head knocked against the ground.
Sanji sat up, lightly fending off the priestess's attacks. His spine straightened as he realized she was crying.
"Rikka-chan! What happened? What's on fire?" he yelled, pushing himself off of the ground.
She wordlessly grabbed his face and turned his cheek so he could see behind him. Chopper was hulking in Heavy Point, repeatedly pressing on something laying on the ground. Sanji caught a flash of a green haramaki and he jumped up, stumbling over himself like a newborn foal to get to Zoro's side.
"What the hell?!" he gasped at the sight of the swordsman receiving chest compressions, his face blue.
"Sanji...He's not going to make it," Chopper wept, continuing to compress Zoro's chest.
Rikka stood and laid a hand on the doctor's shoulder. "Stop," she said firmly. "Sanji is the only one who can save him now."
"But he was just there, Rikka-chan!" the cook exclaimed, visibly shaking.
The burned and battered high priestess raised her head from the ground. "Only you can bring him back, Sanji. I'm going to make one last dream for you to find him. Come closer, we must do it quickly," she spoke as if she had grit stuck in her throat.
Sanji exchanged a fearful glance with Rikka, then kneeled by the priestess. She touched his forehead.
"Go find your soulmate. I'm not sure how long this will last. Good luck, and may the goddess be with you," her voice faded as the cook went under her spell once again.
It was night in the empty town he appeared in. The shadows thrown from rows of ghostly red lanterns hanging from the sloped, tiled roofs shifted and bled into each other like a shivering watercolor painting. It was both beautiful and revolting at the same time, as if swimming just beneath the dancing surface was something dark and dangerous.
Every part of him was screaming that he didn't belong there.
Down the line of houses he saw a single figure in a white yukata moving away from him. The green-haired man was without his swords, and from this distance he shifted and faded much like the background. Here the thread of fate was a wide strip of fine crimson silk dragging miserably on the stone street between them.
"Marimo!" The cook called, walking quickly towards him. He received no reaction from the swordsman, who was aimed at a handsome wooden building at the end of the row, a temple perhaps, set back and partially obscured by the beginnings of a forest.
"Oi, we need to get out of here!" Sanji yelled, catching up to him and pulling on his bicep to stop him.
Zoro ripped his arm free of Sanji's grasp. "What the hell are you doing, damn cook?!" he growled as he leveled a glare at him. He had both of his eyes, and Sanji thought he looked a little younger, his hair cut a little shorter like when they first met. How had he never noticed that Zoro was this good looking before?
The cook sighed with relief as he peered into the swordsman's eyes for an extra second, a slight tinge of pink spreading across his nose and cheeks.
"I'm taking you back to the real world, dumbass. Now come on," Sanji said, turning to leave.
But Zoro didn't follow.
"Quit bothering me, shit cook! I have places I gotta be," he griped, pointing down the road ahead.
"I haven't laid eyes my dojo since I left to accomplish my dream," he continued. "So get lost. You're not coming with me," he told him brusquely, shoving past the cook.
"Oh my god, you don't remember," Sanji realized, flinging a loud, echoing curse to the eaves above him. "We don't have time for this!"
Sanji snatched Zoro's hand and began pulling him along. "Just trust me, damn it," the cook said with exasperation.
The swordsman pushed him away, "Oi! Get off of me, curly brow!"
"Just listen. You're in danger. You need you to postpone your dojo visit or whatever and come with me right now," Sanji said imperatively, nearly biting the cigarette he held in his mouth in half.
"Eh? Since when have you given a shit whether I'm in danger or not, idiot cook?"
"I've cared a whole lot more about you than we both realized. You really don't remember yesterday?" the cook asked irritably.
"Remember what?" Zoro demanded.
An angry heat spread throughout Sanji's tightening chest. "Idiot! We slept together! Ring a bell?"
Zoro's face drained of color, his mouth dropping open in absolute shock. "What?! Quit fucking with me!"
"It's true, although I probably shouldn't have, because look where it's gotten me," the blond man sighed, stepping into the warm halo of the swordsman's body. He leaned in, his lips softly grazing the other man's, who for all his previous hostility did not pull away.
Zoro drew the cook in closer to him, slamming their chests together as he madly kissed Sanji back.
The cook suddenly remembered his mission and he reluctantly pulled away, breathing heavily. "As much fun as it would be to do this all day, we have to get back-oi!" Sanji exclaimed as Zoro shook loose from his arms and rushed around him.
"Leave me alone," Zoro muttered without turning around.
"Bastard! I swear I'm not messing with you! Can't you just take my word on something for once?!" Sanji snapped, frowning after his idiot lover.
As his gaze shifted up to the dojo in the distance he saw a pure white light, painfully bright in the darkness, encompassing the open entryway as if that was all there was beyond it.
The sharp edge of fear slashed through his entire body. If his instincts were correct, he couldn't let Zoro make it there.
Sanji began to run after the quick swordsman, but his legs seemed to move unnaturally slowly as he tried to follow him. Zoro was heading straight towards the light with an unusually good sense of direction, the gap between them widening faster than Sanji could advance.
The dream began to fade, and he could hear the muted sounds of his nakama's voices emerging from the background.
"Zoro! Wait, damn it! " he gasped through shuddering breaths as he watched his soul mate disappear further into the distance while he seemingly ran in place.
He looked down and he could see the hazy image of his own kneeling lap in the real world merging into the dream, stunting his progress forward.
"Idiot! Aren't you going to be the world's greatest swordsman?" he cried out, his fingers clawing uselessly after him, but the swordsman kept fading, shifting with the strange, oil slick-colored mist that began to pour from the dojo.
Through the smoky tendrils, he saw Zoro silhouetted by the backdrop of blinding light as he climbed the steps.
"Don't go…" Sanji whispered through clenched teeth, his eyes brimming with tears.
His posture suddenly straightened as his curled eyebrow lowered angrily over his hurricane-blue eye.
"I'm not letting you go! I'll pull you out of the afterlife if that's what it takes, you bastard!" he screamed at him, his legs finding their strength again.
Coils of blazing amber flames twisted up each leg, and he was a blur as he launched himself after Zoro, a glowing orange tail streaking behind him as he sky walked like a missile.
The cook skidded up the stairs as he landed. Zoro was bathed in the eerie, brilliant light, his long shadow falling over him. Sanji reached and grabbed a fistful of the swordsman's white yukata and tried yanking him backwards, but the fabric fell through his hand as if it had been made of cobwebs.
He could see straight through Zoro as he took a single step inside the brilliant doorway. A curtain of cold air descended over the cook as he skirted the edge of the threshold.
"Please don't go," Sanji begged, tears now sliding down his cheeks.
Zoro took another step into the next life.
"I love you," Sanji whispered.
From the the center of the intense light, he saw the nearly transparent shade of Zoro look over his shoulder.
The red thread snapped taut between them with a twang, brushing against Sanji's forearm. The surprised cook reached out and tentatively grasped the wide strand in his fingers.
It was soft without being slick, like the fine silk of a kimono. He found his grip and yanked with every shred of strength he could find in himself, trying to wrench the swordsman and the future he wanted with him from the irresistible lure of the sea of light before him.
The curtain of the dream began to lift, and through the dream he could see his friends' worried faces. They became more real, more defined as Zoro and the light he was fighting ceased to be. Sanji gasped as he realized he was fully back in reality.
His last chance had ended.
