12: A Debt


Zoro's Point of View

It was my last mission before I retired. I wasn't going to continue fighting priests when my fated was one, but I owed a debt to an old friend and she'd begrudgingly said it was okay if I knocked them out instead of killing them. After she yelled at me to get the fuck over it of course. Stupid Nami.

I was dancing around the battlefield, hitting every priest I came in contact with, with the back of my blade.

Don't think about it. Don't think about it. Don't think about it. I thought to myself as my mind kept making connections between those I fought and my fated. One wore a red cloak. Another had a similar hat. They could have known each other. They could have been friends. Don't think about it. Don't think about it. Don't think about it.

"ZORO!" I turned to see my beloved shooting a priest in the arm who had aimed his gun at me. His red vest had been replaced by a new one and when my gaze went to his eyes I saw they were like ice, he was pissed.

"Luffy?! What the hell are you doing here?!" I said as I used my sword to deflect a knife away from his head. Well, I was fucking pissed too.

"Looking for you, stupid! I thought you said you weren't going to do this anymore!" He yelled over the commotion. Why, oh, why did humans have to be so damn reckless and so fucking breakable at the same time?

"I owe a debt to a friend. I figured I'd get this over with and then we could move away." I explained as quickly as possible while slamming the back of my sword into the gut of a priest who'd been about to attack me. He fell to the ground clutching his abdomen.

"Why didn't you tell me?! I could've been here helping you sooner!" Two knives flew from his hand, hitting a priest in the arms and pinning him to the ground. That's why he's pissed?! Seriously?!

"I won't ask you to kill for me!" I yelled back. "Go home Luffy! This isn't your fight!" Suddenly a sharp object came flying at me, hitting me in my left eye before I could dodge or block it. I froze as I felt the silver burn the area around the wound.

"ZORO!" I heard my little priest scream in the background, and as the pain finally sent me to the ground he caught me. Pulling the blade from my eye, he ripped the bandana from my head and wrapped it tightly around my wound. I saw him holding back tears with my good eye. A crazed vampire trying to rape him doesn't make him cry, but me losing an eye brings those tears to the surface? What the hell kind of fucked up logic is that? I was about to reassure him and point out that little fact when someone else spoke up. I'd almost forgotten I was in the middle of a battlefield.

"Why are you helping this demon Luffy?!" A familiar voice asked angrily. Oh, now I was REALLY pissed. I knew that voice. I fucking knew the bastard that owned that voice.

"I love him, why the hell wouldn't I help him, Lucci!" I dully realized that that was the first time either of us had actually said we loved the other and a part of me wanted to kiss my little priest right then and there, but the acute pain in my eye and the danger radiating all around us forced that part of me deep down inside of myself. I could make love to him later, when our lives weren't at risk.

"You can't seriously mean that! He's not even human!" His voice was full of disgust and a low growl that I'm pretty sure only Luffy and I could hear rumbled up my throat.

"He's not a demon either!" I finally managed to look up and see Lucci. He was covered in blood, none of which seemed to belong to him.

"He's lied to you. Tricked you into fighting for him." The bastard snarled angrily.

"I'd never lie to my fated!" I said defiantly. Who did this bitch think he was insulted our bond like that? Not that he'd known about it when he insulted it, but still.

"Oh, so that fated BS really does exist." A smile as maniacal as they come crept onto his face. "I know how to fix this." He came at Luffy, pointing his new scythe at his head, but I moved to a crouch, ignoring my tired mind and blocked him just in time. We started exchanging blows back and forth, neither of us gaining any ground. We were too evenly matched, even though I had three blades and he had one. We were of equal strength and speed, especially since I was tired and injured. But even if I wasn't it wouldn't have been a surprise to find him on the winning side of this war against creatures stronger than him. He wasn't one of those fake priests that the real ones forced to fight for them. He was the real deal and had probably trained his whole life to fight vampires.

I was too focused on his scythe, too concentrated on protecting my lover, too prideful and self-assured of my impending win to notice. The only warning I got came from the dagger that embedded itself in his left arm, but when he ignored it so did I. I figured Luffy was trying to help, and he was, but I was too wrapped up in the fight to see the more important detail. To see the small dagger he drew in his free hand until it had landed in my leg, forcing me to stumble and fall to my knee. I saw the blade of his scythe swing toward me and knew I didn't have enough time to respond. Then, out of nowhere, I was pushed back, red fabric filled my vision and the smell of familiar blood hit my nose. Faster than his body could fall, the monsters scythe turned and slashed across his chest a second time. My blades fell from my mouth and hands.

"LUFFY!" I yelled at the top of my lungs as if begging life to rewind, just this once, so that I could take his place. I caught him in my arms as he fell to the ground, the familiar weight of his body had turned limp. The man I'd held in my arms as we kissed just the other day was dying in them now.

"No, no, no, no, no. NO! I'M NOT GOING TO LET YOU DIE!" I yelled at his crimson coated body. His chest was covered in blood that began to pool around us as he coughed up even more.

"Well, that didn't go as planned." Lucci complained as if he were talking about a broken nail. I bit into my lover's neck to take all but the last of his blood, leaving enough so that what he lost would actually help in my endeavor.

"Tsk, he defended you and now you're eating his corpse. Fated, what a load of shit." Lucci said as I let go of Luffy's neck and dug my nails into my palm until it bled, then I let my blood trickle into his mouth.

Please let it work. Please let it work. Please let it work! I thought to myself as I looked at his body for some sort of a response. It had to work. I'd rather die if it didn't. The insistent tug at my heart that I had felt since the moment I looked into his eyes was slowly fading, and filling the void it left behind was a wall of agonizing loneliness.

"Please." I whispered silently, asking life to give me just this one favor. Screw me over on everything else till the end of time, but give me this... I got a response alright, but it was the exact opposite of what I wanted. I heard his heart flutter to a stop. "No." I whispered.

"What, are you going to beg for your life now?" The idiot priest who'd been looking at me as though I'd gone insane misunderstood. My world was over. There was no point in continuing on. Tears streaked down my face and a feeling of overwhelming loss came over me. That connection, the sparks, his smiling face. It was all over, I'd never see or hear or feel him again.

"Why haven't you killed me yet?" I asked the first question my beloved had asked me. Oh, how the tables had turned. Except, the man in front of me now was a bastard, and the perfect creature lying dead in my arms was my broken red thread of fate.

"What? Do you have a death wish or something?" A valid question. A question I probably would have asked Luffy if he hadn't been so impossibly perfect for me in the most interesting and off-putting of ways. If he hadn't been fated for me. If I hadn't been fated for him.

"No point continuing on if I've got no reason to live." He had said something similar. I remembered our first meeting well, and now that I was in a similar situation I understood why he had seemed so willing to die at my hand. He had nothing left to live for but himself, and that's not a good enough reason when you've run out of options.

I saw the glint of the scythe as if came for my neck.