She does this as a ritual every night before she goes to sleep:

First, she holds out her hands, fingers splayed in front of her face. Then she presses each digit down, one at a time, until each one is associated with a name from her crew. She pictures each of their faces, and recalls a memory integral and characteristic of them and her relationship with each, and focuses until it feels real.

(For Zoro it's his laugh when she's truly entertained him, one way or another. It's the way he thrills at a fight, his eyes sharp and deadly and alive. It's the way he looked at her sometimes, the one that made longing and desire burn in her until it was all she could do to refrain from jumping him.)

Then she rolls onto her side, so her back faces the firepit, and imagines the warmth there is another body instead, one that smells like steel, sake, and blood. Thusly she falls asleep, hoping to dream once more.

When Lucy thinks of the word "father," nothing much comes to mind. She never had one, and if she occasionally wondered about it, and about her mother, not knowing didn't really bother her. Lucy had a Shanks, and a Gramps, and an Ace, and in one way or another all three of them filled roles in her life that some might consider fatherly.

Eight months into her training on Ruskaina, Lucy wonders if having a Rayleigh is similar to having a father.

It's not an idea she's ever voiced aloud. Rayleigh isn't her father, and she doesn't really want him to be. Rayleigh's never tried, either, to fulfil that role. It isn't in either of their natures, and she's a bit old, really, to start adopting new father figures. Not quite innocent enough. Not after Marineford.

(She's not a child now, will never be again, but the way Rayleigh teaches and guides her makes her think that maybe paternal instincts don't necessarily cease once innocence is lost.)

And the thing is, having Rayleigh around all the time has made her…aware, in a way she wasn't before, of certain deficiencies in her own childhood.

She's never been the subject of an adult's undivided attention for so long before.

It's not like there were no adults around when she was growing up. When she was really little, Makino took care of her when necessary—meaning, when Gramps wasn't around—but she was passed around the village a lot because Makino was so young at the time. Shanks was around, but he also wasn't—he usually only stayed in Foosha a day or two a week when he was wandering around East Blue those two years. Sometimes she wouldn't see him for a month or more at a time. As for Gramps, well…

Lucy's not ready to talk about Gramps.

Dadan was the closest thing to a parent she had. She and the rest of the bandits. And while Lucy is grateful for the childhood she had, and the chance to be Ace and Sabo's sister, well…a lot of what happened to them up to Sabo's death and the fire in Grey Terminal, like the thing with Porchemy, wouldn't have happened if they had closer supervision. She doesn't blame Dadan, but…she was always available in case of emergency. Not usually anytime else.

Rayleigh's not like that.

Rayleigh is constantly tracking her progress, her growth, even if he sometimes does it from a distance for her own sake, because this training is the kind where having a safety net makes it pointless. She can sense the care that goes into it, the genuine desire to see her improve. For the past eight months she's been his only priority.

It was weird at first. Uncomfortable. Lucy's never been under such scrutiny before, never had the expectations and authority of another thrust at her so suddenly. Not that she actually recognized any authority, or anything. She got used to it eventually though, used to the way she'd sometimes find an extra blanket draped over her in the morning, or Rayleigh's odd sense of humor, the stories he'd sometimes share.

She liked it, eventually. Enjoyed their friendship.

What Lucy has never understood is why Rayleigh went to such lengths for her and her crew. He didn't have to fight Kizaru in Sabaody (she's glad he did, so glad, because Zoro would be dead right now if he hadn't), but he did. He didn't have to come find her and offer to train her, but he did.

She thought it might be Shanks, at first. That Rayleigh was protecting them because he figured Shanks would want him to. But Rayleigh is a little too similar to her and Shanks for that kind of interference, and once she got to know him better, she ruled that idea out.

Eventually, over dinner one night, she asked.

"I'm grateful," she explained, emphatic. "It's just that I don't get it."

Rayleigh looks at her over his glasses, glinting in the firelight. "It's not usually like you to ask why someone does things."

Well yeah, because she can usually figure it out on her own, or it's none of her business. "You don't have to tell me if you don't want to," she responds, meaning it. She's curious, but it's nothing she needs to know. She knows Rayleigh. That's enough.

The old man takes another bite out of his waterfowl. "You remind me of someone. You and your whole crew, really. I suppose you could say I did it for nostalgia." Then Rayleigh smiles, and like always there's an edge of promise to it that's darker than the expression calls for. "But then you kids became my friends, and of course I couldn't turn my back on you then, could I?"

Lucy smiles at him so hard her cheeks hurt. "Nope!"

Lucy's glad they understand each other.

"Now, what were you saying about the giant ostrich that got the better of you? You tried to do something with your Haki?"

Lucy is…really glad Rayleigh decided to help.

There comes a day where Zoro realizes his desperation to grow stronger sometimes lifts into something purer—excitement, and the thrill of the battle.

It's been a while since he's felt like that in a fight. Not since fighting the giant Zombie-Lucy on Thriller Bark, really.

It makes sense. It was weirder, actually, that the feeling was missing for a while. He's always loved to fight. It's part of what makes him the swordsman he is. It's part of what he and Lucy share.

It makes him feel absurdly guilty, enjoying himself so much.

Lucy bends over backwards to avoid Rayliegh's Haki-fueled kick, and spins her legs upwards to deliver a blow to his face. He sways out of the way, and Lucy pushes off the ground roughly, her body twisting in mid-air, and she uses the momentum to gain speed for her punch even as she rears back, forcing herself into Rayleigh's space, and thrusts a fist covered in Armament Haki at his sternum.

It connects, but does no damage. Rayleigh's chest is covered in black, and her Observation Haki alerts her to an incoming threat, so she backflips away from him just in time to avoid a fist to the head.

Distance isn't a problem for her, though, so she winds up, fusing her arm in Haki and releases a furious blow toward Rayleigh.

Frustratingly, the smile never leaves his face as he sways down, avoiding her blow easily. It hits the mountain behind him instead.

The rockface cracks violently, a thirty-meter crater spiraling from the blow and the fault lines exposing themselves far beyond that. Rayleigh looks at it and gives a low whistle. Then he takes advantage of her unguarded ribcage to knock her back while she's overextended from the punch.

Lucy lands in a heap, her ribs on fire from Rayleigh's blow.

"You know, if you could manage to hit me one of these days with a punch like that, I think you'd do real damage." He offers as Lucy hauls herself up to her elbows, panting in the sweltering heat.

Lucy grins at Rayleigh, thrilled at the praise. "I will!" So far she's only been able to hit Rayleigh at close range, when she moves faster than he can react, even when using Observation Haki. Unfortunately, this does not allow much time for wind-up, and she's been informed that during training, using the randomization tactic she did with Eneru is considered cheating and not actually useful to building her skills.

She has his full blessing to be that creative on the battlefield though.

Rayleigh offers her a hand and a smile as she heaves herself up. "Not if you don't get your speed up to par. You can't rely on Gear Second all the time, you know. You'll be neglecting your basics that way."

Lucy nods, pouting a little. When she'd explained the mechanics of Gear Second Rayleigh had been one part horrified, one part impressed, and one part interested. He warned her that the use of her abilities that way was dangerous, especially to a person as young as Lucy, and that she should use it sparingly if possible. When she put up a fuss about not caring about that, he'd also told her that speeding up her abilities without Gear Second—her "base speed," as Rayleigh called it—would allow her to improve the technique, as the doping merely expands her baseline energy output to its maximum potential. Raising the baseline raises the potential.

He'd also started crying a little at the not caring part. He didn't explain why.

Rayleigh looks at the mountain she nearly shattered, and he chuckles a bit. "You know, you fight just like your grandpa. No restraint, either of you."

Lucy freezes entirely, and stares.

Rayleigh raises an eyebrow at her, noticing the reaction. "What? You knew I'd met him, right?"

And, yeah, she did. She knew Gramps chased Roger all over the world, so that meant he probably chased Rayleigh as well. And logically, that probably meant they'd fought a few times.

"What…" She swallows. "What did you think of him?"

Because much as she hates to admit it, she's still struggling with this.

Gramps didn't free Ace himself, didn't prevent the execution from happening.

Gramps let her hit him, let her get to Ace.

She doesn't know how to deal with the conflict in his ideals, or the subsequent frustrations with her own.

Rayleigh looks at her in sharp surprise. It's not the type of question she usually asks, because she likes to make opinions for herself. But it's been almost a year now and she still can't think about Gramps without feeling sick so she needs to try something new.

"Garp? I didn't know him well personally. Roger understood him better. Liked him, even. He was a good Marine though. Didn't tolerate the mistreatment of prisoners or civilians by his crews. Stood up to his officers when he felt they were wrong. Did his own thing when he felt like it." Rayleigh shakes his head, and Lucy can see the memories filing themselves away in his head. "Good fighter. Could stand toe-to-toe with Roger and not break a sweat."

Huh. Sounds a little like Smokey, actually. She remembers Alabasta, remembers the rain that came from nowhere and the Marines Nami told her about, the ones that looked away.

Rayleigh is studying her, a frown line of concern on his face. "Why do you ask? You know him much better than I ever could."

Lucy winces, recalling meals with Gramps and Ace and how he cried when Sabo died, how it felt to fall asleep on his shoulder at age five, when she believed him to be the biggest, strongest man in the world, utterly infallible, how she maybe wanted to be like him but a pirate.

She remembers him guarding the way to Ace, calling her by the Straw Hat moniker she's picked up thanks to Shanks' hat, and how it felt to have that familiarity ignored.

Lucy has always felt that people should follow their own dreams. Gramps is the one that taught her that. It's why she can be friends with Marines like Smokey and Coby and Gramps and still be a pirate. It's why she'd never begrudge her father for doing what his dreams require, or her grandfather for being gone so much of her childhood.

But this…

"Gramps didn't…he didn't help Ace. Back at Marineford. And he kinda stopped me, but also kinda let me get to Ace too. And I'm not—I haven't—" Lucy spreads her arms helplessly, not sure how to express what she means, not sure if she wants to.

Gramps doesn't need her forgiveness. Not really. Gramps will continue to be Gramps and probably not see her for another five or so years, and then he'll be acting like nothing happened, probably. But she wants to stop feeling so furious at him, wants to stop feeling so sad when she thinks of him, and forgiveness can do that.

Besides, it wasn't Gramps' job to save Ace. Not his or anyone else's. It was hers, and she failed.

So why can't she put this behind her?

Rayleigh seems to get it though, and nods sympathetically. "I see." He reaches out and claps her on the shoulder, encouraging and firm. "Everyone makes their own decisions, Lucy. Sometimes people clash on the important things."

Lucy nods. "I know, but," she shakes her head, trying to find the words. "But then why do I feel so upset?"

Rayleigh makes a low thinking noise. "Hm. Well, I suppose because you love him. And you know he loved your brother, too."

Lucy nods, and sniffs a little. "Yeah."

Rayleigh squeezes her shoulder again. "Forgiveness comes in time, Lucy. I can't say I would have made the same decisions as Garp did, but…" Rayleigh frowns, searching for the right words. "Your grandfather has been a Marine for a long time. He believes in what they do. He may have felt honor-bound to uphold their orders, as he has his whole life." Rayleigh hesitates. "I don't know the man well, but…at a certain point, defying one order, one ruling, on an issue so uncontroversial as the execution of a pirate, well…it would have felt like a wasted life, no? A wasted set of beliefs and values which have up until then carried him through. If a man gives that kind of thing up, then…well, what is he?"

Lucy grimaces at the wording, and shakes her head. "Convictionless." Gramps always said that was the worst thing a person could be. Shanks said similar things. It always amused her that two people so different could be so alike in that respect.

It doesn't seem so funny now.

"If you went into piracy only to discover it was solely about raping and pillaging, as the Marines would have it, what would you have done?"

Lucy shrugs, giving him a quizzical look. "Been a pirate? But a better one. That doesn't sound like real pirates to me."

Rayleigh's eyes dance behind his glasses and he chuckles. "Yes, I think you would have. I think perhaps your grandfather made the same choice a long time ago, and finally ran into the challenge that would leave him either a good Marine or a good man. I do not know if he fully chose either side."

Maybe for Gramps, being a Marine is like bearing a pirate flag—it's a mark of conviction. An ideal. A banner to sail under. A dream, and the constant pursuit of it.

She gets why he can't betray that, even if she doesn't understand it.

Still, if someone asked Lucy if she'd give up her dream for Ace, for Zoro, for any of her nakama's lives, she'd say yes in a heartbeat. She doesn't know why Gramps didn't do the same for Ace when he's the one who taught her about selflessness and kindness and what it means to love in the first place.

Maybe that's the issue. She never expected Gramps to go easy on her or Ace when they set out to sea, never expected him to make excuses for them. But maybe, somewhere deep down, she thought he'd sacrifice for them the way he always seemed to do for others.

The feeling of betrayal isn't as sharp now as it was that day in Marineford, not even as sharp as it was a few months ago. But it's still there, lingering under the skin.

"Have you ever forgiven someone for something like this?" She asks, looking up at Rayleigh carefully.

The old man sighs. "Yes. And I've found forgiveness is not often something one regrets." He releases his shoulder, and leans over to pick up his camping gear while Lucy does the same with her own pack. "It sounds to me like you have a choice, Lucy. To forgive your grandfather, and one day meet him at ease, or to refrain, and one day spurn him. I do not know which choice is best. That's something you have to decide for yourself." Then Rayleigh turns to her, and smiles. "Bearing a grudge seems very unlike you, however."

Lucy glances at Rayleigh, and shrugs. "It usually is." It's one thing that her nakama was always a bit confused about. Zoro figured it out eventually, especially after the Bellamy thing, but even he didn't always understand. She doesn't usually care when someone insults her, injures her, or anything else. If someone picks a fight, she ends it. If they hurt her nakama or her friends, she beats them up. Then she moves on, and forgets about it unless they come back, or remain a threat. A grudge usually doesn't enter the equation. She's never really been capable of long-term hate.

But usually the people she loves don't wrong people they love like this.

"We'll camp under that ridge tonight," Rayleigh declares, pointing to a mountainous overhang about three miles away. Lucy nods, and follows him, still thinking.

He sat with Ace, on the execution platform. She wonders if that was to comfort him or intimidate him, and she isn't sure she knows the answer. A year ago she did, but now…

Lucy doesn't hate Gramps. She's just…sad. Very sad. And she doesn't know if it can be fixed.

But Rayleigh's right. She can either forgive, or not. She can either accept that she, Gramps, and Ace all made choices, a lifetime's worth of choices, that led them to where they did, or she can't. Without Ace, the only remaining family she has outside her nakama is Gramps. Does she really want to push him away? Especially since Lucy is all Gramps has now too. Gramps doesn't have nakama either.

Okay. To forgive, or not. Forgiveness brings acceptance and calm and maybe, in the future, more time with Gramps. No forgiveness means…

Well. No forgiveness means nothing more can happen.

Lucy's not sure if this is one of those things though, where an apology is necessary. Like with Usopp.

Gramps has never apologized to Lucy in her life. She doesn't want him to. She thinks it would be weird if he did.

"Do you always need an apology to forgive someone?" She asks Rayleigh.

He gives her a surprised look over his shoulder, grey eyes flashing with surprise and maybe a hint of old pain. "…no. Sometimes forgiveness is just for you."

Lucy wonders who Rayleigh had to forgive, but doesn't even think to ask.

She wants Gramps in her life. She wanted Ace in her life too.

But, the thing is, she's accepted Ace's death. Accepted it months ago. And maybe…maybe she doesn't have to lose her Gramps along with him.

Maybe she can…like, half forgive him. Yeah. Like, half now, so she can stop being sad when thinking of him, and stop feeling upset over his choices, and half later, if they meet again and he offers an apology, so she can call him Gramps again and he can ruffle her hair like he used to.

Okay. This is a good plan.

Lucy waits for forgiveness.

Waits some more.

Lucy frowns.

Truth be told, she's never had to work so hard at forgiving someone. She doesn't usually think it's necessary. She either beats someone up and forgets about them or it doesn't matter enough to bother her.

But maybe it's something a little more formal than that, this time.

It's okay, Gramps, she thinks. He probably can't hear, but that's alright for now. I don't get why you did it that way, but it's okay. I think I understand a little better now. I forgive you.

And then something like acceptance washes over her, and it feels—

Free.

One day Rayleigh aims a fist at her chest, and in the midst of dodging, she suddenly isn't present anymore. She raises a hand to her eye, her left eye, and something is wrong.

The blow slams into her, catches her on the ribs, and her lapse is forgotten.

Somewhere a sea and sky away, red stains green hair and tanned skin and a steel-grey eye closes forever.

Lucy hasn't been keeping track of the days this month.

(it's intentional, because she knows which month this is, and—)

So when Rayleigh pulls out a sake bottle and cups and puts them in front of her, she looks up in surprise.

Rayleigh isn't a drinker—she hasn't seen him drink at all since meeting him in Shakky's bar—so it comes as a bit of a shock. When she looks into his eyes though, there's a kindly light there that makes her think it's not purely for recreation this time.

"It's an anniversary today," Rayleigh explains. "It's been a year since the War."

Lucy's stomach drops a little, even as she reaches out to accept the sake cup. She's healed since Ace's death, accepted it, but remembering it like this is still…hard.

But it's nice of Rayleigh. Kind of him. "Thanks," she tells him, smiling.

Rayleigh pours the liquor into the saucers, and sets it on a stump next to the fire. Lucy doesn't recognize the label, so it's probably not one of the cheap kinds Zoro usually gets.

"To great pirates," Rayleigh responds. They clink the glasses, and each take a sip. It's a little warm, but not bad, and the way it runs smoothly down her throat tells her it's more expensive than anything she's ever tried before.

"It's good," she tells him, meaning it. Zoro would know better, of course. Zoro would probably know the exact location it was distilled in and how long ago it was bottled.

"Boa-san left it last time the Kuja pirates left some food for us, upon my request. I thought a celebration would be in order."

Lucy grins. Hancock was not pleased when Rayleigh explained that she wasn't allowed to be on the island while Lucy trained her Haki, even going so far as to allege Rayleigh had…ulterior motives for wanting solitude on the island. Lucy trusted him though, and that was enough to get Hancock to back off. Lucy was grateful because even though she likes Hancock, she doesn't like Hancock the way Hancock insists she likes Lucy, and she's glad she doesn't have to deflect her advances every day. Lucy can only imagine what Hancock must have said to the request for alcohol. But, if she forked it over anyway…well that probably means she trusts Rayleigh now, which is good.

Lucy tips the saucer back again. It reminds her of the last time she shared a cup of sake with someone. There's a soft pang of melancholy resonating with the fuzziness in her head as she remembers both of the boys she shared it with are gone.

But she doesn't want to be sad. She doesn't need to be, not anymore. Ace and Sabo both wanted her to fulfill her dreams, move on to new seas ahead. They never wanted her to remain hung up on them, never wanted to hold her back.

Rayleigh seems to sense her mood, and asks the one thing that will put a smile on her face every time. "Tell me about your crew."

Lucy grins wide. "They're the best crew," she declares, meaning it. She can't wait to show them off to Shanks one day. He's going to have to agree. "There's Sanji, he's my cook and he likes girls and kicking Zoro. And there's Chopper, my doctor, and he likes sweet things and making sure Zoro doesn't reinjure himself and also swearing. Robin is my archaeologist, and she's really smart and funny and she is—was, teaching me to read." Lucy frowns a little, but assures herself she'll see them soon—in a year, even, which means they've been apart for longer than it will take to reunite. "Nami is my navigator, and she's a genius who can predict the weather really well. Franky is my shipwright, and he's really smart and doesn't like pants, and he makes super cool robots and stuff. Also, he's a cyborg." Lucy grins a little broader at that, remembering people's usual reaction to Franky. "Brook is my musician and he's a skeleton, and he's really polite and tells a lot of jokes about being undead. And Usopp is my liar and my sniper. He's also really smart and he's really good at inventing things." She swirls the remaining sake around in the saucer, a softer smile crossing her face. "Zoro is my swordsman, and my first mate. He's—he's cranky and loyal and drinks too much sake and he's going to be the World's Greatest Swordsman."

Rayleigh raises an eyebrow. "The green-haired kid with the bandages?"

Lucy nods, although her smile fractures a little at the thought of his injures. She hopes he's recovered by now. She doubts he waited to heal before he started training full tilt.

"I don't like him," Rayleigh says gruffly, and it's not his usual tone. He's normally so cheerful, it surprises Lucy a bit.

"Really? I love him," she tells Rayleigh, and it feels a little strange that she's confessed that to two people now before the boy in question. The next person to hear it, she resolves, will be Zoro himself.

"Hmm." Rayleigh sips from his own glass, looking more disgruntled than Lucy's ever seen him before, but somehow still giving off the same air of unflappability that Lucy is so familiar with. "Two years is a long separation," he acknowledged. "Are you nervous about seeing them again?"

Lucy smirks a little and shakes her head. "Nah."

"They must have changed. Including your swordsman."

"That's okay. I have too."

Rayleigh smiles, agreeing. "Ah. That's true."

And it is true. She's still going to be Pirate King, but…Impel Down, Marineford, Ace's death…the experience changed her. It had to. If it didn't, Lucy wouldn't be training with Rayleigh right now. She'd have gone off with her crew as soon as she could, and challenged the New World as they were. Her certainty in victory was broken. Her understanding of what victory takes has changed.

She never wants to lose anyone again. She refuses to.

She's sure everyone else has changed, too. Grown. That was the point, after all. She wonders how they've changed, though. She especially wonders how Zoro's changed.

She's not worried though. She knows who Zoro is, she knows who they all are.

"We'll meet soon enough," Lucy decides, tipping the saucer back to finish the cup. "And we'll fit together like we always did, and sail on to new seas ahead."

Something about Rayleigh seems rather chagrined, but when he smiles there's pride in his eyes regardless. "Aye, I think you will."

Once, when Zoro was small, he punched another boy in the face.

The other boy was from a wealthy family in the village, and everyone knew who he was. They fawned over his blonde hair and his cherubic cheeks soft with baby fat. His name was Daiki.

Zoro was an orphan, living on the streets at the time, and everyone knew who he was. They greeted him and his odd (foreign) coloring with a mix of irritation, disgust, indifference, and sometimes pity. His name was Roronoa.

Zoro and Daiki were the same age. Daiki had everything, and Zoro nothing.

The only time Zoro ever interacted with him though, was the day Daiki stole Zoro's apple. The old woman with the apple cart sometimes gave him the half-rotten ones she couldn't sell, and it was the only food Zoro managed to scrounge in the previous day and a half. Daiki, having wandered away from his parents and being a rather sheltered only child, saw Zoro's apple, decided he was hungry, and shouted "gimme that!"

Zoro, completely unamused, responded with a disgusted, "Why would I do that?"

Daiki, having had the advantage of proper nutrition, was much larger than Zoro, and pounced on him. Zoro, too weak to get him off, was pinned under the other boy. In the struggle, Daiki managed to wrest the apple out of Zoro's hand, and got off of him, uninterested in anything but the newly-acquired fruit.

Zoro scrambled up to his feet quickly, and latched onto Daiki's arm, trying to shake the apple loose. "Give that back!"

Daiki, having realized the apple was nearly inedible, ignored him and shouted, "Ew! It's rotten!"

Then he threw the apple in a manure pile.

That's when Zoro punched him.

He got a few good hits in too, before Daiki's parents showed up and pulled Zoro, half out of his mind and snarling, off their kid.

"Honestly, what do you have to say for yourself?" Daiki's father raged at Zoro. "Why would you attack someone like that?"

"He—!" Zoro protested, seething.

"Don't bother, Hideo," one of the village women inserted. She had sharp, bulging eyes that made Zoro feel like she could see inside him, and her skin was lined and translucent with age, her hair the color of steel. Despite her years she carried herself with rigid posture, a subtle hint of authority. It was said among the children that she knew all there was to know. "Some children are just born under bad stars. It's their fate to have darkness live inside them. That is why they are alone. That is why we give them the no-name."

Roronoa. The no-one name. A no-one child. Rejected. One apart. One alone.

Hideo sighed, and agreed. "I understand, Madam Chiyo." Then he glared at Zoro. "Don't attack my son again."

Then the villagers left, Daiki crying into his mother's skirts, and Zoro still in the street. He saw Madam Chiyo's flinty, judgmental face every night for weeks after the incident.

That was the first time, to Zoro's recollection, that someone told him people could be born bad. Zoro always believed he was one of them. Ever since that day in the market, he was always, always aware of a creeping blackness inside him, wrapped around his heart too firmly to dislodge or escape. He thought he could feel it sometimes, writhing under his skin.

His behavior reflected it, too. He had a temper, and never had an issue using violence to solve his problems. He was forever going just a step too far, acting a bit too aggressively, and people noticed. He didn't even realize that was unusual until one day when Sensei sat him down to explain that honor is more about restraint than satisfaction. As he got older, the impulses grew hotter, harder to control. Bloodlust, Sensei always said, would forever be Zoro's greatest enemy. Sensei advised constant control over himself, to let his mind rule, and not his heart.

As Zoro went out into the world more, he realized why Sensei was always so concerned with his self-restraint, why he drilled it into Zoro from the moment he set foot in the dojo.

Zoro wasn't necessarily a bad person, didn't go out of his way to harm people…but he wasn't good, either. He often went farther than others deemed necessary, when working as a bounty hunter. He would sever the limbs of thieves trying to shoot an innocent, or kill a rapist that fought back. It wasn't that Zoro did these things meaninglessly, or took pleasure in killing, it was just—those people were worth less than the ones they were trying to hurt. He never felt any guilt over it. Not even the first time.

Most civilians, Zoro found, were not like him. They had an invisible moral code that didn't make much sense to Zoro, too contradictory and weak, and sometimes he crossed their boundaries. Even other bounty hunters didn't enjoy the thrill of the fight, enjoy hurting as much as Zoro did. It was part of why he never stayed in one place for long.

He heard once that good men need no rules, and Zoro figures that's probably true. Zoro has a lot of them, stemming from the mandate Sensei once gave him, to "live honorably, however that may be."

Zoro figures Madam Chiyo was probably right about him—he was born with something dark inside. Sensei taught him how to control it though.

And the thing is, Zoro is used to thinking of himself this way. Not evil, probably, but definitely not good, either. He's not like Chopper, or even the stupid cook. He lives somewhere in the shades of grey, and he's pretty fine with that. So long as he controls his inner darkness, nothing he regrets later will happen.

But when he started travelling the Grand Line with Lucy, he discovered something.

Darkness is useful.

At least, Zoro's can be.

He first started realizing other people could sense his bloodlust somewhere around Skypiea. It was an unintentional intimidation tactic, and helped him win against that priest. Then came Enies Lobby, and the discovery of Asura.

To be honest, he's still not exactly sure how it works. Just that it feeds off of his own bloodlust and fury, and that it takes commitment because it hurts.

But it uses his own inner darkness, that part of himself which is cold and cruel and which even Lucy can't quite penetrate. The part where aggression and violence and all those lesser emotions live, and which Zoro has kept tightly sealed his whole life. And the thing is, it works. Asura is a powerful technique that increases his ability three-fold. How can he not question the idea that it should never be touched?

And now he's considering a technique that would probably make Sensei's head spin if he heard about it. This idea…it's playing with fire, in a way he usually doesn't.

It's inspired, actually, by what Mihawk told him about Conqueror's Haki. How it's an intimidation tactic. How it can harmlessly take out enemies too weak to ever put up a fight.

Zoro already knows how to use his aura to project his bloodlust, to warn opponents or rile them, depending on his goals. What if he could do the same thing, just…amplify it?

One day, he tries it. He's cornered by an ape who's being a pest, but who isn't really a threat to Zoro. Not anymore. While preoccupied with a more skilled opponent, Zoro takes a deep breath and—

He pictures Lucy's face in that newspaper, kneeling before Ace's corpse—what her screams must have sounded like. He holds it in his mind while he lets the darkness build and grow until bloodlust tingles in his fingers and nearly makes his movements erratic with anticipation for revenge. He scrapes his heart for even the desire to shed blood, to cause pain, until it goes beyond Lucy's agony, or his rage on her behalf, until it's just him channeling every last shred of darkness Zoro has ever possessed.

Then he pushes, right into his aura, and amplifies it by Kitetsu's howls, and—

Four of the apes around him whimper in terror, and the three on his level rear back in shock. The weaker ones lock up, paralyzed, and the stronger ones warily close ranks between them and Zoro, defensive. Zoro uses the opportunity to surprise them, sweeping under their feet with his heel, followed by Kitetsu. They go down easily, all seven of them.

Behind him, Mihawk shifts. "That was not Conqueror's Haki."

Zoro slides his katana home. "No," he agrees breathlessly. He's a little surprised it worked so well.

"…such a technique is difficult to control."

Yes, it is. But Zoro's been doing it his whole life. "Yeah."

Mihawk walks away without another word. Zoro stands in his circle of carnage, and surveys the damage.

Maybe this is why he has so much trouble admitting what he feels for Lucy. This, right here, with Zoro standing among seven bodies cut down almost entirely by his own inner darkness, and that because he's the type of person willing to tap into that well inside him and channel it. Maybe it's this that holds him back—that reminds him quietly, when he thinks of Lucy, that he's an animal deep down, a creature of baser instincts, with no mercy at his core. That although she isn't perfectly good, she's certainly not bad. She has faults, sure—she can be selfish and childish and irreverent and careless—but she doesn't have this inside. There's no black hole in Lucy, no void, and some part of him that's still five years old and hungry in the streets and feeling something bad crawl under his skin doesn't want to change that about her.

His name is Roronoa. It means alone. And now he's found friends, and a person he cares about more than his own dreams or life or anything else. But the thing is, Zoro has always, always been alone, and he doesn't know what to do with his darkness now that he isn't anymore.

Kuraigana's thick-limbed trees and waxy leaves groan heavily in the wind, and provide no absolution.

Hopefully that last Zoro passage didn't come too far out of left field for you guys. It adds something to his backstory, obviously, but I've been hinting at this throughout the story—especially back at Enies Lobby when Zoro and Lucy were talking about their family histories. It's not a thing I randomly came up with. It just hasn't really been relevant until now, because Zoro is…kind of at his low point here. He's trying to figure things out, and it's dredging up a lot of old issues that he dealt with incorrectly.

I don't know why Zoro is missing an eye, and it has not been revealed to my knowledge. I'm gonna go with training accident. However, because there's the possibility that Oda will one day flesh that out, I don't want to say anything too specific about it.

Okay, so, I love Garp. I think he's great, and I'm kind of sad that we haven't seen more of him. I mean, he could have shown up at Dressrosa like Sengoku did, but he didn't. I'm hoping we get to have a reunion between him and Luffy, and I'm really curious as to how it will go. Luffy didn't sound upset with him when Chin bao was talking about him in Dressrosa, but at some point he must have gone through some kind of forgiveness process because…grandpa didn't save his grandkid from execution. Younger grandkid was mutilated. Very capable grandpa has still not killed the guy who did it. There are some issues there.

Let me know what you think!