Zoro sits on a pile of junk by the seaside of Water 7, and watches the sun set on the Grand Line.
They arrived back here two days ago, in significantly more depressed spirits after the Merry's funeral than they'd been in after escaping Enies Lobby. Lucy, who woke up right before they were met by Iceberg's fleet and just in time to see the ship crack, passed out not long after they were hauled up into the larger ships, her tears still drying on her cheeks. The rest of them followed not long after, although Zoro stayed awake until they made it back to Water 7 and Iceberg showed them to a trailer in his company headquarters. Determining them safe enough for now, and with everyone treated and asleep, Zoro finally passed out himself.
He woke up only this morning. Nami and Robin both got up before him, and Usopp left the trailer at some point, but the rest of the crew was still asleep, and utterly safe in the compound.
Zoro, feeling restless, got up, grabbed his swords, and took a walk. He found some vendors that recognized him and apologetically foisted some food on him, apparently feeling pretty guilty for chasing the crew all over town the other day.
He eventually stumbled his way down to the junkyard, and took a seat. He then meditated for an hour or so, and when he opened his eyes the sun was large and the sky red.
He's sorry to see the Merry go.
Zoro agreed with Lucy's initial verdict on the ship, thought it would be kinder to let the Merry sleep peacefully than drive her to the ocean's bottom. Still, the funeral for the magic ship that saved them all one last time tore at him. It tore at all of them, and they understood completely the pain each other felt at the Merry's departure and final farewell.
But Zoro is grieving someone else too.
Carefully, and with the respect owed to any blade, Zoro removes the remains of Yuubashiri from its hilt.
The draw is light, with over three quarters of his blade missing. Steel scrapes softly against the scabbard and then the jagged, unnatural break catches as it's fully removed.
Zoro inspects it, holds the sharp edge of the blade away from him as he takes in the damage.
It's not pretty. That Marine's Devil Fruit ability was apparently to rust through everything, and though the damage he inflicted on Zoro disappeared as soon as he broke contact, it was too late for his sword.
It stings that a grunt like that Marine crippled him so badly, took one of his weapons away for good.
Zoro supposes he should just be grateful the Marine didn't get Wado Ichimonji. Zoro would never forgive himself if he destroyed Kuina's sword before it became the implement of the World's Greatest Swordsman. It needs to be in perfect condition when his goal is complete and he offers it back to Sensei.
There's no hope to fix the blade. Zoro's not a craftsman, but he knows that. He can't even use Yuubashiri as a tanto because the length is wrong and the steel fragile from the Marine's attack, not to mention he has no training or skill with a blade that short.
Zoro can't hear Yuubashiri's voice anymore, the way he can Kitetsu's and increasingly, Wado's. Though quiet, there was always a soft tone from the blade, a low, humble thrum that balanced Kitetsu's bloodlust with Wado's icy clarity, made it easier to wield the three fine blades at once.
Even as he handles the remains of the blade, he feels nothing, and as he gazes at the black lacquer hilt, the gold inlays, he can't help but grieve for the loss of a devoted partner.
He wonders if that old man at Loguetown, who gave him Yuubashiri for free, would regret giving him the sword if he knew how it met its end. It was the man's family sword, after all, and the finest thing he had to offer Zoro at the time.
If Zoro could, he would tell the old man of every time Yuubashiri saved his life, saved his nakama's lives, saved countries. He would tell him how he learned to cut through steel with this sword, to hear the breath of things with Yuubashiri thrumming in his right hand, and Kitetsu howling in his left. He'd say thank you for the blade, express his regrets at its fate.
It was a good sword. The best he's ever lost.
He holds it up to the sun, and squints at the metal, observing its cracks as they flash in the sunlight.
"Zoro!" A familiar voice calls.
Zoro turns, his arm falling slowly as he recognizes his captain walking toward him, a smile on her face but significantly slower than usual. She's wearing blue shorts and a red and white tank top with the Galley-La logo on it, midriff covered for once, but she's still wearing her sandals and she looks relaxed rather than ready to go to war.
"Lucy," he greets. "You're awake."
Lucy shrugs. "I woke up a little while ago. Still pretty tired, but everyone was wondering where you went, and I wanted to take a walk, so I decided to go look for you."
Zoro raises an eyebrow. "You didn't tell anyone you were leaving, did you?"
Lucy can't lie to save her life, so to save herself from his wrath she pouts at him and blinks innocently. "Noooo?" Then, because she's Lucy, she immediately moves on from the topic without consequence. "What're you doing out here? And when did you get a knife?"
Ouch.
"Thinking," he tells her, and ignores the second question.
Lucy, clearly not satisfied with that answer, sits on a pile of junk beside him, cheerfully wrapping her arms around her knees. "What about?"
Zoro tenses a little, because part of the reason he came out here was so he could be alone, have a little time by himself to grieve his loss. No one else on the crew is a swordsman, they couldn't possibly get it. And, honestly, Zoro could do with a little alone time.
But Lucy is the person Zoro wants to be with even when he wants to be alone.
Besides, he's not going to let her walk back alone when she still looks like she could keel over anytime.
Zoro doesn't usually let people touch his swords. Sometimes it's a necessity, like when Chopper brought him Kitetsu, but generally, he prefers the others don't touch his blades. Especially Wado. Even now he doesn't really want to hand over Yuubashiri, not even to Lucy.
But then, this is Lucy, and he trusts Lucy like he trusts no one else.
He offers her the hilt.
Lucy recognizes it immediately and gasps. Tentatively, and with a quick, questioning glance at Zoro, she takes Yuubashiri's remains and traces the hilt with her fingers carefully, almost reverently, with a sorrowful look on her face.
"How?" She asks, inspecting the rusted edge of the blade.
"Rust Rust Fruit."
"Can it be fixed?"
"No."
Lucy looks pained. "Oh Zoro, I'm sorry." She's acting like he's grieving for a friend that died.
It's weird how her sympathy actually makes him feel better. From anyone else it would have felt condescending or pitying.
Then Lucy holds the broken blade across both her palms, and performs an awkward little bow to the sword. "Thank you for protecting Zoro all this time, Yuubashiri."
And weirdly, that's what makes his heart feel lighter, makes the loss feel a bit smoother.
"Should we…should we have a funeral? Like we did for the Merry?"
Most swordsmen don't do anything special for their broken blades. But then, most blades aren't as fine as Zoro's.
Zoro isn't particularly sentimental, but he considers for a moment the idea of walking around with only two swords at his waist and dumping the scabbard and hilt at a metal shop somewhere, and it just doesn't feel right.
"Not yet," he tells her. "I've looked through the sword shops here. It's…not their craft." Which is a bit of an understatement. For such a trading hub Water 7 really didn't offer much for crafts not related to ships, shipping, and ship building. Except food, apparently—Sanji was raving the other day about how interesting the cuisine is here.
Lucy nods, and doesn't question his decision. Then gently, respectfully, she offers Zoro the hilt, and he slides the remains of his sword home in its lacquered scabbard.
The weight feels a bit off, but that's probably just his imagination.
Lucy peers at him and cocks her head to the side. "Do you want me to leave? I'm sorry for intruding earlier, I should have asked—"
"You can stay." If it was anyone else he would have told them to get lost, but…it's Lucy. And he actually is feeling a little better about his loss now. Lucy nods, gives him a small smile, and sways like she does when she's lost too much blood and hasn't replenished her energy.
"I'm done here, actually," he tells her. He's surprised to find it's the truth. "Let's go back."
Lucy inspects him for a second, like she thinks he's lying to her. Then she grins. "You couldn't find your way back on your own, could you?"
Zoro scowls at her. "I haven't tried yet." Which isn't explicitly true—he was going to meditate on one of the Galley-La docking towers when he ended up at the beach—but whatever. "And I don't want to hear it from you, of all people." Lucy's sense of direction, according to Nami, is only a few grades improved from his own. They usually end up where they need to be when they need to be there, though.
Lucy winks at him, smile tired. "Yeah, but I don't get lost walking in a straight line."
Zoro scowls at her, and can't comment because that actually happened more than once while they were on the run the other day here in Water 7.
They stand, brush themselves off, and then Lucy's expression turns serious. "We'll find you a new sword somewhere. And then I'll help you have a funeral for Yuubashiri, if you want."
Zoro takes in her expression, the earnest tightening of her eyes and sympathetic line of her mouth, and knows she means every word.
It doesn't mean everything's fine now—they still don't have a ship and Usopp still hangs over all of them, and Zoro really is in a bind without three swords—but it does ease the loss a little.
So he nods to her, and knows his expression is softer than anyone else would ever think him capable of. "Okay."
Three days after their return to Water 7, everyone is awake and on the mend except Lucy, who collapsed after returning to the guest house with Zoro and hasn't woken since. That kind of pisses him off a little—why wasn't anyone watching her to make sure she didn't pull shit like this, this is Lucy they're talking about—and also afflicts him with no small sense of guilt since he didn't realize anything was amiss until the halfway back to the guest house. At that point she had to be carried, white faced and trembling, as he ran to get her to Chopper.
Chopper says she's fine, but probably won't wake up for another day or so, because she shouldn't have been walking around and whatever technique she used to kill Lucci depletes her of energy in a way he's never seen before.
They all wince a little at that.
Anyway, none of them feel much inclined to leave her alone today, which is how they all end up spending the afternoon relaxing in the guest house as Franky offers to build them a ship.
Then the wall explodes.
It would be endearing how all of them throw themselves between Lucy and the intrusion if they weren't desperately trying to figure out what was going on.
Zoro can't see his features but there's a hulking man standing in the center of the hole in the wall.
"Who the hell are you?" Nami demands. The dust clears and Zoro's stomach drops as he makes out a Marine uniform, and what looks to be about an entire ship full of crew members.
Zoro is about to order Usopp and Chopper to take Lucy and run while the rest of them try to hold them off here, but then the massive Marine steps up into the little house and Zoro hesitates.
Something about him looks…familiar.
"So..." the Marine has a low, booming voice even though his tone sounds vaguely conversational. "You're the bunch of misfits my granddaughter calls nakama."
Zoro's mind possibly breaks a little, because there's only one person he could be referring to and she's currently unconscious in the bed behind him. Zoro would turn to give a disbelieving glance at his captain, but he's too well-trained to take his eye off the enemy, and instead he just goes a little slack-jawed.
And maybe it's because they're so shocked that the Marine manages to get a question put to them. "Now," something red tinges the air around him, and then a massive, meaty hand bigger than Zoro's head snaps out and grabs him and Sanji by the throat, lifts them off their feet so they choke. "WHICH ONE OF YOU HAS BEEN DEFILING MY GRANDDAUGHTER."
What.
Wait what in the actual—
If Zoro wasn't blacking out from lack of oxygen he would be freaking the fuck out.
He draws Kitetsu, lets it flash in the sunlight as a courtesy warning before he mutilates Lucy's grandfather, and then draws a cut that could slice through iron across the man's wrist with the wicked blade.
It bounces off.
What in the actual—
"No one has defiled her to my knowledge, Marine-san," Robin offers calmly, like she isn't the most probable reason for a Marine visit but miraculously seems to not be this one's priority. His grip slackens a little at her words. "Although I think it safe to say Zoro—our swordsman—has probably come the closest."
Well. So much for trusting Robin.
The Marine drops Sanji immediately, who grabs his throat and coughs on all fours.
"YOU'VE BEEN DOING WHAT TO MY GRANDDAUGHTER?"
Zoro's not even sure what he'd say to the Marine if he could speak at the moment. He settles for just glaring and trying to hack his head off this time.
No dice, but the attempt seems to enrage the—larger, so much larger—man, and he swings his massive hand and sends Zoro into the wall on the far side of the room so hard he feels his back snap support beams. It's probably only due to Galley-La's excellent engineering that he doesn't bring the back half of the building down.
"I'LL KILL YOU IF YOU TOUCHED HER BEFORE A WEDDING."
Zoro doesn't squeak but he's told later that the sound was very close. "W-wedding?!"
"I'll send you his head in a box if he does so inappropriately, Lucy's grandpa-san."
Zoro stumbles out of the Zoro-shaped hole in the wall, and throws the nearest dining implement at the cook's head. It's a salt shaker. Sanji catches it.
"NOT HELPING, SANJI," Nami shrieks. Then she turns to the Marine, pasting on a sweet smile. "Lucy has no romantic relationships that I know of, Marine-san."
"Hm, but I think we would all be a bit relieved if they would just admit their feelings on the matter," Robin adds, completely unhelpfully.
The Marine turns to Sanji. "You. I like you. Do that." Then he turns to Zoro, who by now has made his way back to the group. "YOU." Zoro glares, standing between the old man and Lucy. Like hell he'd just let the crazy bastard anywhere near her. Lucy's never even mentioned him before. The Marine cocks his grey head, grizzled face twitching in slight amusement. "You just don't know when to quit, do you?"
Zoro says nothing, just glares with his hand poised on his blades.
The Marine looks almost amused for a second, and says. "You might even be more stubborn than my granddaughter."
Zoro disagrees. "No one is more stubborn than Lucy."
"JUST HOW FAMILIAR WITH MY GRANDDAUGHTER ARE YOU?"
Zoro's eyes widen just in time to see the Marine's fist plough straight into his chest, and send him once more into the wall. This time he cracks concrete.
Zoro looks up to glare at the Marine blearily, but the man's attention has shifted.
"Don't be so rude, granddaughter! Time to get up!"
Zoro hears Chopper yell, "Please Lucy's grandpa, she needs to sleep!" and manages to blink away the probable concussion enough to see the Marine grab the side of the bed and overturn it in one swift movement, the bed flying up and implanting itself in the ceiling and the mattress flopping down at Nami's feet.
Lucy rolls on the floor, and ridiculously, sleeps on.
The marine raises his fist, kisses it, and roars "UUUUUAAAAH, FIST OF LOVE!"
"OI! WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU'RE DOING?" Sanji yells.
Zoro's eyes widen as he processes what's about to happen, and he leaps forward, his two working swords crossed in a defensive position. He and Sanji land their attacks at the exact same time, trying to catch the descending fist across the knuckles, Zoro crouched over Lucy's blissfully unaware form and bracing for all he's worth.
The Marine's massive fist is slowed, barely, but then pummels through their line and both of them go flying this time. Zoro just barely sees the man manage to connect a hit to Lucy's forehead before slamming headfirst into the wall, for the third time in the last sixty seconds.
Shit.
"Ow ow ow ow ow!" Lucy's high-pitched whine echoes through the room. "It hurts! It hurts!"
Sanji gets up quicker than Zoro, since he has only flown into one wall today, and flutters around Lucy like a very concerned butterfly. "It hurts? Lucy-san you're made of rubber! How could it hurt—"
But Lucy completely ignores him when she takes in the massive, bearded man grinning down at her. "Ehhh?! Gramps?!"
Zoro stumbles out of the wall—again—and strides over as evenly as he can to stand behind Lucy, glaring at the Marine.
"Hello, Lucy," Zoro notices that they have matching scars around their left eyes, and wonders if it happened at the same time. "I hear you've been doing reckless things."
Lucy frowns, clearly irritated. "The Marines are the one who blew up your base, not me."
Nami groans in the corner. "Don't confirm when they haven't accused yet, Lucy."
Lucy rubs her forehead. "But it's true!"
The Marine, thankfully, says nothing. Zoro does notice that a few of the men waiting outside seem a little agitated by the accusation, though.
"Oi! How dare you hit a lady! And your own granddaughter, too!" Sanji screeches.
The Marine looks unimpressed. "Oh please, that was just a love tap."
"NOT TO MY INJURED PATIENT, YOU DOLT."
The Marine cocks his head to the side, peering at Chopper. "…a tanuki?"
"I'M A REINDEER."
"Anyway, Lucy, don't you owe me an apology?" The marine says beseechingly.
Lucy looks utterly lost. "For what?"
And, completely out of the blue, the Marine slams another fist across her forehead. Zoro doesn't even have a chance to try and deflect it this time, and Lucy whines in pain. "You don't call, you don't write! Your nakama don't even know who I am! Don't you think I deserve at least that, your grandfather for whom you cause so much trouble?"
"STOP THAT, IT HURTS, DAMMIT!"
"HOW DARE YOU HIT LUCY-SAN."
"Are you, by any chance, Monkey D. Garp?" Robin asks politely, the she-devil.
The whole room freezes.
"Th—that Garp? The famous Marine that cornered Gol D. Roger so many times?" Nami stutters.
Even Zoro is impressed. Tales of Garp were heard all over the world—they said it was like he had a homing beacon on the late Pirate King.
"Yeah, don't fight him." Lucy confirms. The way she says it almost sounds like a rule she has to remind herself of frequently.
What in the fuck.
"Gramps has nearly killed me several times in the past."
What in the fuck.
It's weird being so in synch with Sanji on something because just as Zoro is reaching for his swords again Sanji shifts into an offensive pose.
"I never tried to kill you!"
"YOU THREW ME OVER BOTTOMLESS CLIFFS."
"Endurance training!"
"YOU LEFT ME IN THE JUNGLE."
"Survival training!"
"YOU TIED ME TO A BALLOON."
"Problem-solving and mental cognition!"
"I WAS FIVE FOR ALL OF THOSE THINGS."
"So much," Nami whimpers. "This explains so much…"
"I was training you up to be a good Marine! One that dresses with appropriate modesty!"
"I WANTED TO BE A PIRATE, AND I'LL DRESS HOWEVER I GODDAMN FEEL LIKE."
Zoro isn't even sure where to start with any of this.
"DON'T YOU CURSE AT ME YOUNG LADY."
"FUCK THAT."
"I'M GOING TO TEACH YOU MANNERS IF IT KILLS YOU."
The fist comes down on Lucy's forehead—again—and Zoro, maybe stupidly, tries to pull her behind him this time only to have her shove him off to aggressively face down her grandfather.
"PIRATES DON'T NEED MANNERS."
Garp's expression changes from unruffled to annoyed. "This pirate obsession of yours is all Red-Hair's fault, the bastard."
"Didn't you just tell her not to swear?" Franky asks.
"SHANKS SAVED MY LIFE, DON'T YOU DARE SPEAK ILL OF HIM."
Zoro…Zoro has never seen Lucy quite this emotional, not in this particular way. He's never seen her fight like this with someone either, not for her own sake. She looks upset—maybe genuinely—but also pleased and furious. It seems…personal, in a way it usually isn't.
"DON'T YOU TELL YOUR GRANDPA WHAT TO DO."
The punch this time clearly packs a little more wallop because Lucy flies back, straight into Zoro, who falls painfully onto the floor with Lucy on top of him.
"Jeez, I'm sorry, stop doing that!"
"Do you even know what type of person Red Hair is?" Garp asks, and it sounds like a conversation they've had a few times. Then his eyes narrow at Zoro. "You! Paws off my granddaughter."
Zoro glowers. "You're the one that hit her."
Lucy ignores them both and her eyes light up through the reflexive tears of pain as she scrambles off of Zoro. "Do you know where he is? Are he and the others alright?"
Garp sighs, like even he isn't capable of out-stubborning Lucy. "As far as I know. He's a Yonko."
Lucy relaxes, and looks at her hat fondly. "That's good. I'm glad they're safe."
Like most of them, Lucy doesn't talk about her past much. She's only mentioned Shanks a handful of times, and most of those have been glib answers about the hat that really don't explain much. Zoro did know beforehand that he saved her life, and that he was the first person who told Lucy about the One Piece, although she insists that she wanted to be a pirate before she met him.
He did not know he's a Yonko.
Garp looks around, like he's only just now noticing the damage to the building. "…huh. I did that?"
Garp's aids look long-suffering when they chorus, "Yes, Vice-Admiral."
What in the fuck.
Zoro drops the F bomb a lot in this chapter. Having two members of the Monkey family around will do that to you.
Tell me if you laughed at Garp's scene! I meant for it to be funny, so let me know if I did it right!