As payment for the suit, Kaito had been thorough in destroying the system that keeps Thriller Bark drifting on the sea. The island is slowly sinking, and everyone needs to get to the shore where the ships still wait.
After the long, hellish night that Moria forced upon them, there's not much energy to spare for more than a silent run. It's almost over, she thinks with something close to relief as the Thousand Sunny comes into sight.
Behind you, something whispers to her.
She draws her sword and swivels around, wings flaring out threateningly. Zoro follows her movements barely a heartbeat behind, and soon all the pirates have stopped in their mad dash to draw their weapons.
It's him.
There's a face now to that familiar presence that's been observing them all night. Blank, white eyes survey them from beneath a hat on which fuzzy, brown bear ears peek out. The man's lower face is hidden beneath a coat, but he manages to speak well enough to the snail held in his grip.
"Just as we have finished replacing Crocodile, another Warlord has fallen?" The Den Den Mushi speaks out, tiny and near insignificant in the palm of the man.
"It appears he has been killed by a swordsman," the man says impassively while staring at her.
"The Straw Hat's swordsman?"
"Perhaps."
There's no way this person who's been watching the whole night thinks Zoro had a hand in Moria's death. Those blank eyes continue boring into hers, and she feels sweat drip down the back of her neck.
"We can't show the world such weakness. Leave no witnesses alive. Destroy everything on that island," the Den Den Mushi orders before falling silent with a click.
She feels the people around her tense up, but she doesn't move her gaze from the threat before her.
"I see. That huge body that rivals Moria's. That's the Warlord Bartholomew Kuma!" One of the Rolling Pirates says with horror.
She feels her hand spasm. Another Warlord already. There's no way everyone can continue fighting after what they've been through. There's no way she can protect them all.
"I will spare their lives in exchange for your head, captain of the Straw Hat Pirates," Kuma says, moving his gaze to Luffy.
Luffy doesn't say anything, but the fighting stance he enters is all that needs to be said. The expression on his face is far more serious than any she's ever seen before. Luffy's crew steps up beside him one by one.
"Don't even think about it. We'd never give up our captain," Zoro scoffs, Wado Ichimonji going in-between his teeth.
"You've got a lot of nerve thinking we'd just hand him up on a silver platter," Sanji snarls while lifting his leg.
"Not ever!" Chopper cries, growing larger with a glare.
"Not even if my body breaks!" Franky shouts before posing dramatically.
"It's all or nothing!" Usopp yells bringing up his slingshot.
"He wouldn't allow us to sacrifice ourselves," Robin adds, crossing her arms, "so how could we stand by and do nothing?"
"I, too, will not stand by," Brook says, tipping his hat while holding up a blade.
Some of the Rolling Pirates behind them flee while others bring up their weapons with shaking hands. Chilla is somewhere behind her, aiming her shoulder cannon straight at Kuma.
She doesn't move, doesn't speak, but her hand goes to her sword's hilt all the same. As long as Zoro and his precious people continue fighting, so shall she.
Kuma remains silent while his white eyes move from each of them, lingering for a long time on Luffy.
"I'm going to kick your ass!" Luffy suddenly cries, lunging at Kuma as his arms move like a rain of bullets.
Not a single punch lands, and she snaps her neck to where Kuma is now standing far out of Luffy's range. The Warlord was so fast, he didn't appear to even move.
Kuma lifts a hand, and pink, animal-like paw pads stand out against human skin. A bubble forms from Kuma's hand, taking the shape of the paw pads attached to his fingers. It grows to a size even bigger than the Warlord.
It's a Devil Fruit.
It's a bomb.
There's no time to warn the others. She only just brings in her wings to shield her face and arms before the world disappears in a flash of light. Sound fades away, and her skin begins burning. Her knees buckle, but she remains standing.
The world ends.
She has no other way to describe it when sight returns to her, when metal feathers begin falling to her feet, or when she's the only one left standing in the ashes.
Usopp's body lies near her. She stares at him. He was nowhere near her. Usopp's heart still beats. It has to.
"An incomplete weapon created by the World Government, I am Pacifista. Dr. Vegapunk, a genius scientist and the greatest brain in the world, has built me into what I am."
Kuma's voice is steady and emotionless. He looms over Luffy who's attempting to stand. The Straw Hat captain never manages it.
She steps forward. Tsubasa de Tobu is already in her hand. Zoro moves up beside her, snarling with swords at the ready. A quick glance tells her that he's beaten and bruised but still capable of fighting.
"I have already given my best offer, but if you can show me that the Straw Hats have already been defeated, I will have no choice but to leave," Kuma says, looking straight at her.
He's talking to you.
She stops suddenly, nearly causing Zoro to trip over her. Kuma's gaze moves to Zoro, and she feels a chill go down her spine.
"Defeat Roronoa Zoro so that he is unable to stand back up."
Luffy begins shouting something—he's struggling to stand, but his knee won't respond; he's hitting the ground now—but she can't make out anything he says. Zoro faces Kuma, lips moving, but it's all muffled, like her ears have been stuffed with cotton.
She can understand Kuma just fine; his words are ringing crystal clear.
Defeat Zoro, not kill. This is the only reason that she does not fly at Kuma in a rage just for uttering the words. That she doesn't do more than stare as if thinking it over.
And damn her if she isn't thinking it over.
She is fond of the Straw Hats, but if it came down to their lives or his, she'd pick Zoro every time. Darkly, she imagines leaning forward and taking Luffy's head. She doesn't know if Kuma would keep his word, but it'd be better than lifting her blade to her dearest friend.
Zoro would never forgive her if she hurt anyone but himself. He'd probably try to kill her in earnest.
She's not stupid. Even though she'd choose Zoro's life over anyone else's, her life is worth less than anyone he calls crew. He would take her head before he took Luffy's, no contest.
(It stings, not being the most important person to anyone.)
Perhaps this line of reasoning is why she lifts her sword in the end. Zoro stares at her over the tip of Tsubasa de Tobu's blade. Slowly, he nods.
The fact that he agrees to her silent declaration does not make this easier.
"I won't go down so easily," Zoro tells her with all the pride of a swordsman.
"But you will," she says bitterly. "I'll make this quick."
Somewhere along the way, Zoro picked up another sword. He unsheathes all three blades, ready to give it everything he has. Zoro is expecting her to come at him from the front, swinging her katana as if this was a duel.
That won't be happening, not this time.
Lend me your strength, Kaito.
Strike as silent as the shadows, is the whisper that echoes in her soul.
Taking a deep breath, she removes her emotions and distances herself from the world. Her grip on her sword changes ever so slightly, and she places her right leg in front of her left. Everything feels all together familiar and strange, like something she knows but hasn't practiced yet.
She moves.
Zoro's back is in front of her, and she thrusts her blade. It sinks into his flesh. Her strike is clean and precise, missing anything of importance. Carefully, she slides the blade out the same angle it went in with the same amount of strength.
She watches emotionlessly as Zoro crumples to the ground. She feels Luffy's scream more than she can hear it. She watches him crawl over to Zoro's body, watches as he shakes Zoro as if there isn't blood gushing out at an alarming rate.
She runs a sleeve over Tsubasa de Tobu's blade and frowns at her warped reflection. She places the sword into its scabbard and replaces it with a knife. She uses it to cut the sleeves off her kimono.
Her kimono sleeves are no doubt dirty, as are the layers beneath it, but it's all she has to offer.
She throws the material at Luffy before hitting him in the back of the head with all her strength. It doesn't physically hurt him, but the force of her punch sends him straight into Zoro's wound. It's enough.
"The Straw Hats lie defeated. Their swordsman was not the one who struck Gecko Moria down," she says, daring Kuma to argue against it.
"Yes, it was not Roronoa Zoro or the Straw Hat Pirates," Kuma agrees.
Kuma disappears immediately, and she closes her eyes with a sigh. For all that her senses screamed danger at her, the feeling radiating from Kuma seemed oddly gentle in comparison.
Despite his orders, Kuma didn't kill everyone—perhaps not even anyone—and hadn't demanded Zoro's death. This whole setup screams defiance against the World Government. She finds herself too tired to think much of it.
"I am his sword," she comments blankly, "but even blades can hurt their owners."
Luffy doesn't say a word as he keeps her torn sleeves over Zoro's back and stomach. She leaves him to it, choosing to gather everyone who'd been blown away from Kuma's blast. She's able to slap Sanji and Franky awake.
She doesn't respond when they demand to know what happened to Zoro. She doesn't look as they take Zoro from Luffy and carry him to the Thousand Sunny, or how they rouse their captain into moving from where he kneels in blood.
She keeps busy by dragging people to the ship. When she's finished with that, she moves on to helping a revived Chopper bandage up all the patients he's too busy to help.
(Zoro's injuries don't take as long to treat as she thought they would.
"It was the best stab wound he could have hoped for," Chopper says as part of his nervous chatter. "It's really neat—well, not really neat—but normally the blade twists and drags out. But this is like—"
She doesn't know what expression she makes, but Chopper makes a wounded noise before deciding to talk loudly about the weather.)
Sanji and Franky fill Nami in on what happened before going to do their jobs: food and ship repairs. Nami retreats to her maps, and Luffy disappears.
It's not until she's leaning against the railing, watching as Thriller Bark goes under water, that she realizes there's nothing left for her do. There's nothing left but to think.
Her wings are damaged, the sun is hot on her bare arms, and she hasn't slept in over a day. Zoro's blood is on her hands, and she doesn't feel a shred of remorse.
After all that, she doesn't feel a damn bit of guilt. If anything, she feels angry at how weak they all are. She wasn't strong enough to defeat Moria and Kuma, Zoro wasn't strong enough to stop her, and Luffy wasn't strong enough to save Zoro.
How aggravating it all is.
She glances to the bow of the ship and feels something unpleasant well up inside her. Her feet move before she can stop herself.
"Luffy," she calls out before stopping short.
I can't trust you with Zoro, she wants to say to the hunched over figure staring out silently at the ocean.
Thankfully, she's able to bite back the words, able to think reasonably. She doesn't own Zoro just as he doesn't own her. She can't stop him from following this man into danger any more than she can stop flying into it herself.
She has no right to stop anyone from following their dreams.
Looking at Luffy whose eyes are hidden beneath his hat's brim, there's no need to tell him that he's not strong enough. Luffy already knows.
"The world's greatest swordsman will need the best captain to follow," she ends up saying softly. "Don't let him down."
She leaves him there to continue staring out at the ocean and decides to get some sleep. She'll probably stop feeling so bitchy once she gets some rest.
She collapses onto her bed, only bothering to remove her wings and the remaining portion of her kimono. She falls asleep instantly. To her disappointment, her dreams are normal. She's not upset enough to be haunted by nightmares.
(That, more than anything, truly upsets her.)
"We're giving Brook's ship to the Rolling Pirates," Nami tells her when she stumbles into the dining room half a day later. "Franky says he can fix it up in a day or two."
Nami isn't the only one at the table, but she can't place any names to the faces that peer back at her. She pillows her head on her arms and thinks about getting something to eat.
"You ever wake up one day and realize you're a heartless killer?" She blurts out.
The chatter and clinking of dishes come to a halt. She doesn't move from where she's resting on her arms, but it takes all her willpower not to fidget under the weight of so many stares.
"No," Nami says eventually.
She didn't think so.
"If this is about Zoro, he's awake if you want to talk to him," Nami offers awkwardly when the silence drags on too long.
"Already?"
"That muscle head's a freak like that," Nami nods. "Go see him. You'll be giving Chopper a break from screaming about stitches."
"I think I'll do that," she says, getting up.
She completely forgets to eat.
...
She has to track down Zoro. He won't stay in the infirmary now that he's awake, and his usual training spots are full of strangers. She finds him in her usual spot: in the ship's garden.
Zoro is lifting weights shirtless, and she gets a good look at the bandages wrapped around his torso. They're clean, and no blood is leaking through. He's paler than normal, but there's no dizziness reflected in his eyes. Zoro looks almost completely fine, and she finds it annoying.
"Hey," he says gruffly.
"Hey," she nods.
She crosses her arms and stares at him silently. She wishes desperately for her kimono; she's walking around in her t-shirt and pants until she can get a replacement. It feels weird.
"Your back is going to scar, you know," she says.
(They're young and reckless, sparring each and every day. Still, the scars she leaves on him are nothing more than shallow cuts. They litter his arms, his legs, his torso—but never his back.
No matter how many times she tells him to give up, he doesn't turn away from her.
"I never want a scar on my back! It's a shame for swordsmen!" Zoro tells her, scowling just from the thought.
"I wouldn't worry. You'll probably be dead if you get struck from behind," she deadpans.
"Even then! I don't want anyone thinking I ran away like a coward!"
She doesn't bother pointing out that running away isn't the only way to get a scar like that. After all, no one can stop themselves from getting struck from behind by someone they trust. But Zoro will have to learn that lesson himself.)
"You'll carry that scar for the rest of your life. I suppose you can tell everyone your ex stabbed you in the back," she laughs quietly.
Zoro drops his weights immediately and stands up so fast she reaches to catch him on reflex. He moves to stand so close to her that she has to take a step back.
"You're not getting away that easily," he growls.
So he caught her message.
"I hurt you," she points out.
"But I hurt you more," Zoro refutes. "That scar is something I'll have to live with."
No doubt he considers the scar worth the price of saving his crew. If she's being generous, perhaps he feels it's payment for her own actions. It's a sharp reminder that the man in front of her is no longer the boy she once knew.
"I'm sorry, but I can't do this. We'll go our separate ways at the next island," she says, turning away.
She can't continue trying to love someone she'll just keep hurting.
"I mean it, Kuina. I won't let you run away this time."
Zoro's words are spoken so seriously, for a second, she almost believes him. She shakes her head and smiles thinly. She's never lost to him, not once.
"I'd like to see you stop me," she challenges before jumping down to the deck below.