I don't own anything but my ideas.
The Ender
The Baratie was stunning. Ceilings that towered over their heads and dwarfed them like fairies in a magical kingdom were speckled with glistening chandeliers. Tall, narrow windows stretched from about Zoro-height to the top of the room, giving the early morning light that had started to stream in an ethereal, almost religious feel as the room was illuminated. The art lining the walls had been selected with care, abstract and provoking and blue like the walls and the ocean theme that swallowed the building. There was a spiral staircase in the center of the ballroom-sized dining hall leading up to a balcony of tables, each adorned with candles and flowers that looked no more than a day old. White table clothes ghosted down like mist over thick, mahogany tables and gave the intricate, carved ocean designs of the backs of the chairs a solid background with which one could fully appreciate the majesty of the hand-carved chairs.
The Baratie was stunning, but it hadn't fared so well since the arrival of its earlier unwelcome visitors.
Bodies of what must have been trusted right-hand men and women littered the floor, strewn like branches torn from trees in a violent storm. Blood speckled the pristine white tablecloths, and both the elegant tables and breath-taking chairs had upset in what was clearly a very violent struggle—perhaps even used as weapons and projectiles in the fight.
Zoro could taste the blood in the air even before they walked into the restaurant. There was so much of it everywhere. He held his breath and closed his eyes, willing his body to ignore the smell that made his body moan with hunger. He'd had some blood in the car before they'd arrived, but the sheer amount of it and the delicious composite of smells from so many different people would be too much for him to handle if he kept breathing regularly. He took an unconscious step forward and felt something soft under the sole of his boot. He swallowed, bracing himself for a limb or a digit of a person, but when he looked down the brilliant red of the roses that had once decorated the tables made his breath come to a slow and smothered stop in his throat. Roses were Sanji's preferred flower to gift to women.
A deadly calm sank into Zoro's mind and body and he strode into the demolished restaurant, everyone behind him quickly following in tow—not one to miss the excitement whenever it decided to show its face.
"Do you think we missed them?" Usopp asked quietly, face buried behind his mask, hands, and slingshot loaded with pepper spray pellets, but he was still shaking.
Franky shook his head, nudging one of the bodies with his foot disappointedly. "Their rides are outside—wouldn't be able to go very far without those, bro. They're in here."
Chopper knelt between two people and laid his hands over their mouths, withdrawing them sadly after a moment. "How many people did he bring, do you think?" he whispered, looking to Luffy. Luffy didn't answer, his eyes steeled as he scanned the shadows surrounding the room. There was a lot of damage, but honestly, it wouldn't have been very hard for just Sanji to take care of this on his own.
"Upstairs?" Nami murmured.
"The upstairs seems to be an extension of the restaurant," Robin spoke up, her voice calm and quiet. Her fingers were raised, ready with her kyusho-jitsu—her ninja-fast pressure point fighting that almost gave her the appearance of having multiple arms and legs when she moved fast enough. "Perhaps in the back, or downstairs. It's quiet, so whatever is happening has started already."
"This way," Zoro spoke up suddenly, striding towards the double doors layered with oceanic paintings tucked behind the spiral staircase. "I can feel him."
His reasoning needed no convincing. No one even thought to distrust his new skillset.
-oOo-
Zeff Redleg wasn't stupid.
Initially the plan had been to threaten him with injury to Sanji, but Caesar hadn't been too keen on the idea of triggering their subject in the negative manner and possibly turning the volatile creature he'd created against him. It wasn't even a guarantee that Zeff would tell them anything even if Sanji were in danger. He wasn't stupid enough to tell Sanji anything if he showed up unannounced with no word from Shanks, semi-catatonic and asking about a hacker that had gone into hiding after he'd already been kidnapped. He wasn't stupid enough to answer any questions Sanji would ask over the phone.
Which left, in Caesar's opinion, really only one option.
Caesar would ask Zeff the questions, and every time Zeff didn't answer or lied to him, Caesar would tell Sanji to leave another mark on Zeff. A big mark. And progressing to bigger and bigger the longer they were there with no answers.
But first, he had to prime the subject.
"Your son killed Zoro Roronoa four days ago."
Zeff's eyes went dark, a dread and understanding sinking into his expression, splattered with blood from the first hit—a broken nose, child's play in this type of profession. He didn't bother looking up at Sanji again. Seeing the robotic, dead expression on his son's face wouldn't make this any easier. It hadn't taken very long once he started hearing the slaughter Sanji had committed to figure out what was about to happen. It wasn't worth the time trying to run; he'd never make it very far. He'd had time to down one drink before they had found him.
"It makes sense, doesn't it?" Caesar was grinning. Sanji was standing by his side, his back strong but his head slightly off kilt, and his eyes wouldn't focus on anything in particular. Behind them, eight men in thick, black, bullet-proof padding and helmets stood with guns almost half the length of a full grown man. They seemed unsure of their place now that Zeff's people had been eliminated. Caesar had yet to acknowledge them again since they'd entered the room. So they stood at the back of the room with their assault riffles at their sides, waiting for the entertainment to start. All had at least some experience with Caesar's methods, and it was never anything less than thrilling.
"How could such a strong boy, who had worked so hard to retain his humanity, possibly have been able to be influenced like this, right Sanji?"
Sanji made no indication that he'd heard anything, but Caesar didn't stop smiling.
"His lover, dead by his hands—his own monstrous, uncontrollable, lethal hands. What do you think killing his father would do to him?"
"…He doesn't know me," Zeff growled, wiping the blood from his swelling lip. The little eggplant hit hard. Only a couple more of those to the head before he wouldn't be able to see straight.
"Not right now," Caesar agreed. "Not until I want him to. Sanji, again."
Sanji strode forward with the immediate reaction of a programed machine, eyes locked on the older man's, and then his foot found Zeff's face again and Zeff was launched, sprawling over backwards and choking on the blood that dripped down his throat. He rolled to his side the moment his vision was centered enough to find the ground and spit fragments of shattered teeth onto the floor.
"I think Sanji would benefit much more from seeing you already dead—cold and stiff. Maybe I'll have him hold you. I'm told it was quite endearing when he cradled Roronoa and shielded him with his own body, as if protecting the brute would do anything to help him or keep him alive. So sweet."
It wasn't a foolproof plan, but Sanji really was the old man's only weakness, and it was possible that with the threat of Sanji coming back into consciousness and realizing that he was the one to kill his father, Zeff might actually talk.
"All we want is her name. Give us the name of the hacker you helped get into hiding, and this will all be over,"
Zeff steeled himself, letting his gaze drift down to the floor.
Zeff wasn't stupid.
Caesar had come with Sanji and just a couple of men, who—if the fact that only Sanji was standing here—had died in the process of getting to him. It was actually possible that Sanji had killed everyone, including Doflamingo's men. If his orders were to do anything to get to Zeff, with his reflexes, he wouldn't have wasted time finding out who was who before he dropped them. It was just Caesar and Sanji here, no Doflamingo, no backup.
"There isn't a single possibility of Sanji and I getting out of this alive."
"How's that?" Caesar asked coolly.
"Even if you let me live, which I really doubt, you will take him, and everything that he is from him. And I won't live and know the I allowed that to happen."
Caesar just stared at him flatly, not in the least bit amused by the stalling.
"I will not condone your torturing, but it's obvious that even if I comply, it won't stop, and I won't be part of it."
"But you already are. Just hearing Roronoa's name triggers your son now. Imagine when I have two names to work off of. Maybe I'll condition him to perform different tasks based on whether I use you or Roronoa to trigger him. That could be fun." Caesar's grin had returned. "And come now, you think we'd let such a glorious resource go to waste on such a little project? We're nowhere near through the first couple of steps. We need the name of the hacker. Her location would be helpful as well, but that won't be hard for us to find once we know who she is. After that, Sanji's blood—and the perfection of the viral cocktail in him—will allow us to create the most powerful army in the universe. People will cower to us from every corner of the globe, all power having been returned to Doflamingo, as it rightfully should be."
Ah. So that was it.
"You're crazy to think I'd help you."
"Sanji, harder."
Zeff braced himself, steeling his shoulders and keeping his eyes on the floor as he heard the solid steps finding their way back to his side.
"With your hands, if you please."
Zeff's eyes popped, nearly dropping out of his head, and his gaze met Sanji's dead expression as Sanji raised his hand, and in an invisible moment his fist had snapped down, driving into Zeff's head like a train and cracking his forehead solidly against the ground. Zeff gasped, spitting blood from the spaces now missing teeth in his mouth and looked up at Sanji in horror to find his hand dripping with red.
Is that my blood or his?
Zeff couldn't tell if Sanji had done any damage to himself, and honestly any injuries wouldn't last long with Sanji's healing rate, but Zeff couldn't keep himself from shaking at the idea of Sanji hurting his hands.
Zeff gritted his teeth. Caesar would make Sanji kill him with his hands, with the tools for his art. Sanji would never cook again after this even if he did manage to escape.
"Oh good, a reaction from you. I was starting to think this was going to be much more difficult than I'd originally thought."
Zeff looked up into Sanji's brilliant, iridescent eyes, looking back at him with such stagnant vacancy. A sad smile found its way onto his face despite himself.
"Your eye looks better," he said quietly. Maybe luck would be on his side and Sanji would hear him. Or Caesar wouldn't.
"A gift to our new friend," Caesar supplied, clearly pleased with himself. Sanji had some minor new scarring around the eye, but the lid was supple and secure, blinking exactly in time with his other eye. Its stunning color had returned, echoed and intensified by the blue of the Baratie walls. "In exchange for helping us."
"…Little Eggplant," Zeff tried again, filtering out everything from Caesar. "You don't have to—"
"No, he doesn't," Caesar agreed. "He wants to. All research we do on him will of course help him to be more in control of himself, to be calmer and steadier."
Zeff's eyes narrowed sharply. "He's lying, Eggplant—"
"Remember why we're here, Sanji. Think of all the other NSPH who won't suffer because of everything you're doing here."
Sanji hadn't moved aside from blinking. Zeff wasn't even sure that his eyes were really on him. Maybe Sanji was seeing right through him to the bloodied tiles below.
"We have a job to do, Sanji, and I'm afraid Redleg isn't cooperating as we hoped him to. It seems that we must take the steps I prepared you for, the ones I warned you we may have to."
Sanji raised his hands slowly until they were in front of his face, but his eyes weren't tracking anything he was doing. He wasn't seeing anything in front of him.
Zeff watched in mounting horror as Sanji stretched out his fingers, and then gripped his right forefinger in his left hand and pulled.
"No!" he yelped as the skin pulled taught, the joint and bones straining to hold together.
"Her name, Redleg."
"Eggplant, you don't want to do this!"
"We need her name."
Zeff heaved himself up, slipping on the pooling blood beneath him and crashing back to the ground. His peg leg struck Sanji's shin sharply, but Sanji hadn't even felt it.
Snap.
A feral sound erupted from Zeff's mouth as Sanji's finger broke, a small wince finally making its way into his eyes. He was on his feet in an instant, almost unsure of how he got there, his hands set for Caesar's throat.
"Sanji!"
Sanji's foot found Zeff's chest, and Zeff lifted into the air, his lungs forced empty from the blow. He let out a sharp, hacking sound and hit the floor hard, sliding backwards on the slick kitchen tiles and smashing into the counters behind him, cutting boards of all shapes and sizes raining down on him from above. His eyes, filled with water and his vision rocking back and forth, found Sanji, where he was still holding the broken finger in his grip.
"I can have him take it off," Caesar offered.
"Eggplant, please…" Zeff barely heard the whisper leave his tongue.
"Last chance. And then I have him start on the other fingers. The name of the hacker you helped into hiding three months ago."
"I guess that would be you, wouldn't it, Ro?"
"It does sound like me they want, Franky."
Caesar shrieked, all eyes whirling to the double doors where a mass of uncharacteristic black stood, bodies taught and ready for the volatile situation that was very likely to occur.
The eight men—shocked at their sudden inclusion in the moment—whirled with their guns. Luffy snapped forward like a rubber band, grabbing the heads of the two men closest to him and cracking them together. Their heads burst with blood like melons, skulls dented, and fell heavily to the floor in a spray of blood. He whirled to Caesar, glare as dark as the young man could make it, which—granted—wasn't much, but the look was so foreign on his face that it fostered its own sense of terror and forebodingness.
Franky and Brook lunged. Brook's sword whipped like a snake, slicing one men open from neck to stomach as Franky threw the other clear across the room where he landed hard on the restaurant's enormous spread of burners, the grates and tools laid across it exploding from under him and clattering across the floor in an echoing dissonance. Robin's fingers found nerve points in the neck of the man closest to her and he dropped to his knees before he'd even had the chance to lift his gun, his eyes rolling back into his head as he sagged heavily into the tiles, his tongue lolling out of his mouth. Once he was on the floor she jabbed him like a rattlesnake three times in three different spots in his chest and neck and he started to shake, his throat gurgling as it filled with liquid.
The man behind the one who Robin had brought to the floor screamed suddenly, scrubbing at his eyes and nose as something thick and pungent spread its way across his face. Usopp—slingshot held tightly in his other hand—drove his fist into the man's throat harshly and he crashed backwards into the wall behind him.
Nami's staff cracked across one of the last standing men's face and he tumbled into the man standing next to him, his gun going off and littering the ceiling with a spray of wild bullets. Nami dropped to the floor to avoid the shower of shrapnel and Chopper dove over her, rolling over the unconscious man's body to wrap his legs around the last man's arms to keep him from raising his gun again. The man kicked wildly for a moment before Chopper tore his helmet off and grabbed his hair, smashing his face into the ground repeatedly until he lay still, and then he shoved the body off of him, scrambling back to the safety of the crew.
Caesar stood gaping, his eyes wide and stuck on Zoro, his black bandana pulled down tight over his eyes—eye, thick scar mostly obscured by the black cloth, a smattering of tattered yellow embroidery that used to form the shape of something akin to a sun, or a virus, ornamenting the back of the cloth—the only color on his body aside from his loud green hair.
"You." Caesar's voice bled through the air like a thick miasma, his face pulling in tight in fury as his fists started to shake by his side. Zoro's eyes bled black, his fangs ripping through his gums and creeping towards his lips around Wado as they extended, screaming to find their way into Caesar's throat, wailing for his blood to decorate the floor. His grip tightened around Shusui and Sandai Kitetsu and he took a step forward.
"Sanji!"
For a moment, Zoro forgot that Sanji wouldn't appear in front of him faster than the eye could hope to see. Sanji's astounding grace and fluidity never wavered, as it never had before, and Zoro's eyes followed every exquisite movement Sanji made as if he were strolling instead of rocketing towards him. Zoro couldn't help the gentle sigh that found its way into his throat, the swell in his chest, the calm that somehow worked its way into his every nerve even with Sanji's fangs and teeth coming at him like bullets.
Sanji was here in front of him.
Sanji was ok.
Zoro rolled his blades away from Sanji's hands, and Sanji collided with him like a asteroid hurtling in from space. Zoro felt his bones shake—and maybe even the building around them shake—but his feet held strong against the floor, Sanji's grip rattling against his as the cook snarled at him like a feral creature.
The sigh in Zoro's throat had turned into a smirk tugging at the edges of his lips. "Your eye's better," he said quietly, knowing Sanji would hear him.
Sanji's striking blue eyes popped at the sound of his voice and he threw himself back, landing on the other side of the room in a tight crouch, baring his fangs in threat. Sanji's eyes weren't black. He wasn't angry. He might not have even known what he was doing.
Zoro's eyes quickly found Zeff where Robin and Chopper had run to his side, helping him into a sitting position so they could pull him out of the way of the fight. Zeff's clothes were soaked through with blood, several bones in his face broken and teeth missing visible through black eyes and swollen lips. Zoro's gaze snapped back to Sanji and found the blood on the cook's hands and shoes. Zoro's eyebrows pulled together, his lips pinching tight. If he had time he might have felt sadness for Sanji when the cook came to and realized what had happened, but right now his focus was bringing Sanji back to him.
"Sanji!" Caesar screamed and Sanji's head whipped to him like a guard dog, ready for his next command. Zoro's blood roiled like magma in his veins, a low snarl rising in his throat at the man who dared to think that Sanji was his. Caesar looked scared, his eyes wide with the possibility of Sanji recognizing Zoro. "Remember why we're here! Remember that we have to delete the NSPH from the network—we have to stop atrocities like the ones that happened to you from happening to others! These people, like the old man, will get in the way of that!"
Sanji whirled back to him instantly, his iridescent blue eyes fading to a deep grey as his fears and traumas started to sink back into the orders. Zoro readied himself with churning rage held just at bay, resigning himself to fight if he couldn't get through to Sanji.
"Sanji, stop. You don't want to do this," he said firmly as Sanji straightened, still hunched and ready to spring, claws off of the floor and trained on Zoro's body. Zoro watched Sanji's every twitch, every breath, every blink and lack thereof, waiting for the cook to come at him.
Behind him, Zoro felt everyone ready themselves for the fight and he waved them back harshly with Shusui, ignoring the angry trill the sword gave him for taking it away from the heat of the fight. He took a deliberate step toward Sanji, watching the unsure waver in the cook's eyes at the sudden advance, but Sanji didn't stop coming forward. Zoro latched onto that hesitation, praying to everything that he didn't believe in that Sanji still knew who he was in his heart—that Sanji knew who both he and Zoro were.
Sanji's claws slashed out and Zoro knocked them away with the flat side of Shusui to quiet its annoyed vibrations, reminding it what was in front of them. The closer he got the more Sanji's grey eyes flickered—flickered away from him, to Caesar and back—from grey to blue and back. Sanji was in there. He could feel Zoro's strength. He could probably sense the virus in Zoro's body, and it was keeping him from lunging for Zoro's throat. Sanji finally took one stumbling step back, lashing out again with his claws—shaky and indirect this time—and Zoro knocked him away again.
"What are you doing?!" Caesar bellowed, making Sanji's face pinch in fear and he lashed at Zoro again, taking another wobbly step backwards, his fangs still bared but with no bite behind the threat. His eyes were almost completely blue now, and he was looking for an out, his eyes finding openings around Zoro to try to dart through. Zoro held a sword in each spot, following the movement of Sanji's eyes.
"You don't have to run, cook."
"Attack him!" Caesar screamed, slamming a fist onto the counter nearest to him. Sanji jumped sharply and Zoro sucked in a surprised breath, not expecting the sudden movement, missing the next time Sanji's claws snapped forward and they sliced through his shoulder before he could block.
Zoro's blood hit Sanji's fingers and Sanji's eyes went wide. He fell backwards a couple of steps, staring at the thick, red substance on his fingers in utter confusion.
He can smell the virus. Zoro grimaced, hoping that Sanji wouldn't convince himself out of not attacking him.
"Come on, Sanji, wake up. This is the experiments."
"You are our strongest! The strongest of any NSPH ever created!"
"They gave you something that's messing with your head. This isn't you."
"You are the only NSPH Major to make it past puberty! You are the alpha of all NSPH! A perfect machine for killing! Kill him!"
Sanji was frozen, both in mind and body, staring at the blood on his fingers, the beginnings of realization starting to come back into his eyes.
"Do you really want Zeff dead? The man who saved you?"
Sanji flinched violently, his eyes snapping to where Zeff was still on the floor with Robin and Chopper and now Nami and Usopp at his side, all ready to defend him should Sanji lose himself again.
"You told me once that you owed you life to Zeff. That you could never repay him. Do you really want him dead?"
Sanji shut his eyes, shaking his head, trying to rid himself of whatever fog was flooding his mind.
"You cannot back off! You are the most superior of all NSPH! We gave you your strength for this! Kill Roronoa!"
"This isn't you. The monster behind you turned you into this."
Sanji's eyes flicked back to where Caesar was standing and Caesar shrieked, pulling back from the counter, but Sanji only took another shaky step backwards. His back hit the wall on his next step and he sank to the ground, curling in on himself as Zoro kept coming.
Somewhere in the back of Zoro's mind, Zoro saw Law sitting in front of him—a small, broken child on the floor of Doflamingo's research facilities, convinced into giving his life to these monsters.
"We were so worried, Sanji."
"GET UP!"
"They hurt Law too. They got him into underground fighting by promising things they would never give him. They tried to kill him—to teach him to die for Doflamingo. Caesar's the reason you were kidnapped from Zeff's territory in the first place. He's the reason we found you dying in a crate in the back of a truck."
Sanji's eyes snapped open, bleeding a thick inky black as his gaze found Caesar and Caesar gaped, stumbling back silently as if that would keep him from being seen.
"Caesar broke into the military network and stole the NSPH virus formula. He infected hundreds of infants, raising them and killing them for his research. His information was destroyed by Law and Kid when Law escaped from them and he's been trying to rebuild it again ever since. You were the key to rebuilding that research."
"It's a lie! Don't listen to him! I will hurt you like you've never felt pain before, you miserable animal!"
Sanji clapped his hands over his ears, shutting his eyes tight and tucking his face into his knees. Zoro watched a slow rocking start in Sanji's shoulders and got on his knees, reaching for Sanji's slumped form. He looked so small and frail, so unlike the person Zoro had met just a few short months ago. That Sanji was strong and fearless, years after being taken out of the research facility. This Sanji… Zoro was meeting the Sanji from moments after being broken out.
Zoro's fingers touched Sanji's arm—barely laid his skin on Sanji's sleeve—and Sanji snapped forward, sinking his teeth into Zoro's arm and yanking back just as quickly. Zoro heard Chopper shriek behind him and then go silent in confusion.
"Why aren't you feeding?!"
A soft smile touched Zoro's face as it dawned on him why Sanji had been so unwilling to attack him, looking gently into Sanji's terrified, beautiful eyes.
Sanji remembered.
"You already got me, shit-cook. NSPH don't drink other NSPH."
Sanji swallowed heavily, his gaze finding the floor before he looked back into Zoro's eyes, the fear behind his eyes starting to fade.
"…Do you remember my name?" Zoro asked carefully, scared that he was asking too early. What if Sanji didn't? No, he was too strong. "Please don't have forgotten me." Sanji was too strong. Zoro knew in his heart that Sanji was too strong—no matter what was done to him, no matter how much he had been hurt—to forget the people he loved.
Sanji blinked heavily, his brows knitting with understanding and sadness. He looked over at Caesar once more, swallowed the remaining fear in his expression, and murmured, "…Z-Zoro."
Caesar bolted for the door, Luffy, Franky, and Brook bolting after him, Luffy screaming excitedly that he wanted Flamingo, Nami screaming for them not to let Blackbeard get away if they saw him.
Zoro sank forward and grabbed Sanji, pulling him into a tight hug, feeling Sanji tense in his arms and not caring if he was attacked or bitten. He needed to hold Sanji, to feel him in his arms, to feel his heartbeat against his own. Sanji's hands found Zoro's chest and shoved hard, trying to wriggle out of his grip, and Zoro held him tighter.
"You won't bite me. You didn't bite Zeff after two months of starving to death with his blood across the room. You're stronger than this, stronger than the virus, stronger than Caesar."
Sanji stopped pushing, a calm settling into his body as Zoro gripped him. Zoro held him tighter, burying his head in Sanji's neck and hair, breathing in Sanji's smell like it was the only oxygen left on the planet.
"Come back to me, Sanji. I love you. You know that. I know you know that. You haven't forgotten, you've hidden it away. But it's there. I'm there. We're there. Come back."
Sanji didn't move and Zoro paused, stagnant fear sinking back into him that—despite the cook remembering him, he wouldn't want to come back, and then Sanji's nervous arms wrapped around his torso and the cook tucked his face into Zoro's chest, sucking in a shaky breath.
Sanji's breath picked up suddenly, melding into shaking hyperventilating as words began pouring from his mouth, too muffled in Zoro's shirt for anyone but Zoro's NSPH senses to pick up.
"I-I… I-I couldn't… stop—I couldn't stop. I couldn't make i-it stop—it just kept coming—it was all so black, just—just like back then. It wouldn't stop. It wouldn't stop. I-I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry—"
"Stop, love cook, goddamnit you're here and you know who I am and I don't fucking care."
"I love you. I love you. I love you so fucking much."
"Me too, cook."
"…Don't let them take me again. I don't want to lose you again."
"You never lost me cook. I was always here, I was always coming for you—"
"N-No… he took me. I lost you. I… I almost killed you. H-He took me and everything was so black and I lost how important you were and-and how important—fuck, Zeff—!" Sanji's back went rigid in a heartbeat as he strained to see the old man. Zoro shifted, unwilling to let Sanji go but angling himself so that Sanji could see Chopper bandaging the old man.
"He's fine, he's fine, just a lot of blood. He's completely fine and he's worried about you so we should go see him."
Sanji sank back again at the thought of getting close to his father. Zoro winced, understanding Sanji's realization that he had almost killed his father. "…I lost you all. I… I knew who you were, but… I lost you. You were just there. You weren't… mine. You weren't my memories, my experiences, my thoughts, my… I don't know what happened… I don't want—"
Sanji was blubbering and he might not have stopped any time soon, and Zoro ducked in without a second thought, pressing his lips to Sanji's. Sanji melted, Zoro's touch finally getting to him, and let himself be held.
"I will never leave you, and they can't have you. I'm yours and at your mercy. Always. I wont ever leave."
Sanji just held him, sighing into his shirt.
Robin appeared above the two and Zoro looked up to find her with a sad determination in her eyes.
"…What you said about Caesar trying to recreate his research… how far along in the process do you think he is?"
Zoro blinked, not even sure where to begin answering that. Law had said Sanji was the key, but who knew what else that meant towards what they had done. And he didn't want to give her that type of vague response with Sanji here.
She continued without waiting for him.
"I'm going to do what Caesar said, whether or not he was lying to get Sanji to follow along with him"—Zoro felt Sanji flinch in his arms and gripped him tighter. Robin saw the exchange and winced but didn't stop—"I'm going to hack into the server and delete all remnants of the NSPH virus and formula. If I can get into the governmental network with my equipment, I can find everywhere the virus is on any computer with the linked connections, and I'm going to delete it all. And then I'm going to locate all of the facilities acting with NSPH and we're going to go to them and get every NSPH out and eviscerate everything and everyone who had contact with the facilities. I'm going to talk to Shanks and Zeff to get money and weapons and we're going to leave it all in ashes and end this horrendous cycle. And I want you two to come with me because you are NSPH and the other NSPH—no matter how traumatized they are—will be able to sense that you are… kin. You'll be the easiest way for us to enact this plan and I want to do it once and I want to do it correctly. And then I want to find everyone that Doflamingo promised Sanji to and I want to eviscerate them too. You don't have to come along for that, but I need your help for the first part."
Zoro loosened his grip as Sanji raised his head, looking up at Robin with steady and watery eyes, nodding to her with a deep breath. She smiled gently back at him, welcoming him home with her eyes.
The End (Part 1)
Hey everyone! I want to thank you all from the bottom of my heart for sticking with me through such a crazy journey. This story has been something I've working on for over six years now and it feels like not long ago that I thought I might not be able to finish it at all, so I want to thank everyone for being a part of this exploration for me and for pouring so much love into this story to fuel me to the end. I know this chapter is much shorter than most of the others; I was grappling with how long to make it, and ultimately what I decided was to split the end into an "actual" end and an epilogue instead of one enormous chapter that felt disjointed and rushed. I've left some things unexplained at this point and I don't want you to worry that I will leave them indefinitely; they just need their own space and their own time. Writing the whole thing at once also would have taken me twice the time it already has and you've all been waiting for so long, so here is The End Part 1. Part 2 to come soon! :)
