Zoro could feel the hundreds of voices fighting and tugging at each other, the weaker voices were starting to get silenced ever so slowly, he couldn't wait anymore it would be faster to swim to the island at this rate if he waited till the ship sailed there everyone would have died already!

Suddenly Luffy stretched his arms he was ready to launch himself to the island, Kuina and Zoro already talked about the situation on the island and Luffy heard all about it, he didn't like what was happening over there so he decided to use his devil fruit powers to get there faster. Zoro jumped near him and grabbed him by the shoulders, Luffy looked at Zoro but Zoro just nodded his head.

Luffy smiled then like a slingshot, threw himself and Zoro towards the island, unfortunately, Luffy wasn't big enough to carry more than one person on his body so Kuina and Nami had to sail the ship towards the island.

Luffy and Zoro reached the island fairly easily with the help of Luffy's gum-gum rocket technique, on the shore of the island they could see a giant galleon ship with the figurehead of a black cat, the whole ship was black and no one was in sight but Zoro could feel the presences of the pirates on the island.

Zoro told Luffy:

"Follow me Luffy there are a lot of people here and we will need to split up to get all of them Ok?"

Luffy nodded his head, they would split up near the village and go in two different directions where they would take care of the pirates, the island wasn't big and the village had two parts in it, the outer layer of the village and the inner layer, the inner layer had the huge white mansion in it while the outer layer had the normal houses.

Zoro decided to focus on the outer layer since there were more pirates there and he was better to take care of them with his swordsmanship techniques, while Luffy also had some techniques that could be useful in this situation it would be better for him to go in the inner layer Zoro himself was enough to take care of the grunts.

Zoro suddenly appeared in front of a pirate and seconds later the pirates head left its shoulders, the cry of children attracted Zoro's situation as a bunch of pirates were now attacking three children who wore a tomato, radish, and garlic hats on their heads Zoro made his way quickly over to the children and dispatched of the pirates, the children were crying and scared but they approached Zoro immediately and said:

"Green haired big bro please save Captain Usopp!" Zoro didn't have time for their explanation so he asked just one thing:

"Tell me where he is!"

The children immediately told Zoro the location of Usopp:

"He is at the mansion, please Green Haired big bro help him, he was already injured by the villagers previously and now he is gone to help Kaya!"

Zoro didn't inquire about what happened to Usopp to make him anger the villagers nor who this Kaya person was, he could feel a relatively strong person now clashing with Luffy's presence as a weaker presence voice was slowly but surely starting to quiet.

He didn't know what to tell the children, he wasn't a doctor, even if Luffy beat the strong presence the Usopp guy had a very high chance of dying, he decided to not alarm the children and he started running towards the mansion, along the way he took care of all of the grunts and a weirdo with heart-shaped glasses and a cowboy outfit who wanted to hypnotize him, unfortunately for him Zoro's will was extremely strong and his hypnotism had no effect on him, the weirdo wasn't alone as a skinny and fat man who wore cat outfits were with him.

The duo wasn't strong so Zoro easily took care of them but still that took time thus he was a bit delayed, he still arrived quickly at the mansion where he found a very angry Luffy duking it out with a man with slicked-back dark hair and glasses who wore a butler uniform and had cat gloves with sharp iron claws on his hands, the man scoffed at Zoro appearance and said out loud:

"Hmph, another fool came to disrupt my plan but no matter, I will take care of you after I finish the straw-hat wearing kid!"

Luffy shouted:

"YOU DAMN KURO GUY, USOPP IS DYING I WILL KICK YOUR ASS!"

The man known as Usopp was quite away from the fight he was being nursed by a weak looking blonde-haired young woman, it seemed she had some medical knowledge as she was taking care of the claw wounds on Usopp's chest but it seemed he lost quite the high amount of blood as his face was pale.

Usopp was an average height skinny young man who wore brown overalls he had brown skin and a big nose he also had some goggles and a bandana strapped to his head, his hair seemed pretty bushy and he also had a white sash tied around his waist, he wore some brown shoes on his feet.

The blonde-haired young woman wore a simple white dress and she didn't look that healthy herself, Zoro was no doctor but he was sure she was sick of something.

Zoro didn't waste more than a few seconds looking at the duo, while Usopp was still in critical danger at least he was being taken care of by the young woman.

Zoro unsheathed his swords and he was ready to take care of Kuro quickly so he could finish with this unexpected adventure he didn't ask for.

But suddenly Luffy shouted towards Zoro:

"Zoro, no help! I need to take care of this bastard myself!"

Kuro snorted at Luffy's words seemingly thinking that there was no way the straw-hat wearing boy was able to take care of him at all. Luffy was very angry because he knew Usopp's father and he talked about Usopp when he was younger, Usopp's father Yasopp even suggested for Usopp to join Luffy's crew so Luffy thought of Usopp like some distant family member he never saw, Luffy took good care of his family so he became extremely enraged at Usopp's situation.

Luffy suddenly started to stretch his arm and roll it making it look like a spring, he quickly brought the arm on Kuro at high speeds making him unable to dodge the attack so he could only block it with his cat gloves, Luffy shouted out his attack's name as it collided with Kuro's gloves:

"Gum-Gum Rifle!" The attack hit Kuro head-on and then Luffy's arm unfurled making Kuro spin like a top wheel as he crashed into the mansion Kuro coughed out blood as he got out of the mansion walls and he muttered to himself:

"Its time to use that technique."

Kuro took a stance as he put both of his hands down and started swaying suddenly he disappeared from where he was and slashes started to appear around him and on the walls of the mansion.

Luffy's eyes widened as the slashes were random, he made sure to protect Kaya and Usopp as he approached the slashes direction, Luffy was slashed on his arm and a bit of blood started trickling down, Luffy smirked to himself as he suddenly grabbed at the air and he caught Kuro by the shoulders!

Kuro eyes widened behind his glasses as he said:

"How how did you find me?"

Luffy wasn't in the mood to respond to him as his neck stretched backward at fast speeds:

"Gum-Gum bell!"

His head snapped forwards and it met with Kuro's, Kuro's head snapped backward due to the impact as Luffy's skull was extremely hard, due to his anger Luffy put forth all of his strength in the headbutt, Kuro wasn't that physically strong so the impact from Luffy's headbutt snapped his neck like a twig effectively killing him.

Zoro was impressed by Luffy's battle tactics, his instincts were extremely good already what if he taught him Observation Haki on top? But he still didn't feel that he trusted him enough, he respected Luffy's decision of taking care of Kuro alone, even though he didn't know the details of what happened it should be something personal as he never saw Luffy get angry before, it should be a serious reason.

Zoro approached Luffy and patted him on the shoulder as he said:

"Good job there Luffy."

Luffy nodded his head and rushed towards Kaya as he said:

"How is Usopp?"

Usopp chuckled as his pale face trembled and he said:

"Captain Usopp is ok, thanks for helping me here Luffy *cough* *cough* hopefully I will live."

Kaya's eyes widened at Usopps words as she said with a trembling voice:

"You have to live Usopp-san, who else would tell me such great stories if you would die?"

Luffy immediately got a little closer and he said:

"Usopp, your father is Yasopp right?"

Usopp eyes widened as he asked:

"You know my father?"

Luffy smiled as he started to tell stories of Yasopp and his accuracy at shooting, suddenly mid-story Usopp started to cough out blood Kaya immediately wanted to see what was wrong with him but Usopp put a hand over at Kaya indicating that she didn't have to do anything and said:

"I think I won't come out of this alive *cough*" A smile was on his face as he said that, he coughed a bit more than said:

"I'm happy that my father is living out his dream as one of the officers of Red-haired Shanks one of the four emperors, it's just that.." Here his smile turned stiff and he frowned:

"It's just that he left me and my mother alone and I.. *cough* *cough* I..."

Usopp's hands started to tremble and his face turned even paler, something was wrong, the cuts weren't that deep why was he coughing out so much blood?

Kaya immediately went over and reexamined the cuts at first glance when she examined them at first they looked like normal cuts which she bandaged but now something purple was seeping out of the bandages, it was poison!

Kaya's eyes widened in horror it seemed that Kuro's claws were laced in poison! She looked towards Luffy he should have been poisoned as well but he looked alright, it seemed Luffy's immune system towards poison was quite high.

Kaya read countless books about medicine and she knew quite a lot, unfortunately, she had no time to practice due to her illness, which wasn't really an illness it was poison which Kuro slipped in her medicine and food.

Kaya indicated to Luffy to come closer as she said:

"I have a way to save Usopp, I need a bit of your blood, I haven't done this before but it's our only chance to save him, It seems you have very strong anti-corps that reject any foreign entities that enter your body that doesn't have good intentions, I should be able to make an antidote for the poison with your blood as your blood already countered the poison."

Luffy immediately kept an arm out so Kaya could extract blood from him, a syringe was ready to enter Luffy's arm which he kept as weak as possible, it took Kaya a few seconds to insert the syringe into the rubber straw-hat wearing boy but she succeeded and she drew quite a bit of blood out.

With the help of the blood and her knowledge of medicine and the ingredients she had on hand, she created a makeshift antidote which she quickly fed Usopp who was now unconscious.

Usopp suddenly started coughing out black blood and his face started to take a rosier color than before, it seemed the poison was taken care of.

Luffy and Kaya sighed at the same time, Luffy didn't want to see the son of a man he admired die while Kaya cared quite a lot about Usopp.

Zoro watched all of this happening impassively, even though he wouldn't want to watch an innocent die in front of him he couldn't do anything fo Usopp as he had no medical knowledge, now he realized that the crew needed a doctor as well, what if they got poisoned and they didn't know how to take care of it? Or if they encountered a deadly disease?

Luffy helped Kaya carry Usopp in the mansion where they put him on the couch, nearby was the body of the other butler of Kaya, Merry, he wore a blue butler uniform and had a hairstyle that made it look like a sheep was staying on his head.

Unfortunately Merry was the first victim of Kuro and he wasn't lucky enough to live till the antidote to the poison was made, Kaya started to cry silently as she saw Merry's body but she couldn't do anything for the dead man anymore.

Zoro walked inside the Mansion and said to Luffy:

"Luffy, we saved the villagers and Usopp, it's time to go we already did the best we can."

Luffy seemed reluctant to leave he wanted to wait till Usopp woke up then ask him to join his crew, Zoro saw that Luffy didn't want to leave yet and he sighed, hopefully, they wouldn't waste much time waiting around for the Usopp guy.

Zoro saw quite a lot of potential in Luffy, and he knew he couldn't go in alone the new world, he needed all the help he could get that's why he didn't leave east-blue already, he needed people who he could trust and that had high potential that could help him along the journey ahead of him, he didn't care if he was the captain, marine or pirate as long as he got to finish his goal. He joined Luffy only because he saw potential in him and at first he didn't like it, but Luffy started to grow on him, even though he wasn't particularly smart his potential at learning was quite high, well he was learning things that weren't academically inclined, everything else wouldn't stick to him even if you would put a super adhesive on him.

Zoro wouldn't take any orders from Luffy directly until he was at least his equal, he couldn't find himself listening to someone who was weaker than him, he would take Luffy's orders more as suggestions which he would or wouldn't act upon.

Zoro decided to wait for Kuina and Nami at the shore, they came twenty minutes later and Zoro informed them of everything that happened, Kuina herself said before he could inform her that they would wait for Luffy:

"Zoro, we should wait for Luffy and that Usopp guy, I know you don't really like it but.."

Zoro shook his head then said:

"It's ok Kuina I can wait, I already decided to wait before you and Nami came."

Kuina's eyes widened, it wasn't in Zoro's nature to do such a thing, Zoro was always quite distant and he didn't care much about strangers, why would he care about Usopp?

Zoro didn't actually care about Usopp but he decided to wait for Luffy's sake, he was there and he heard about the story of Yasopp, maybe his son would be as talented at sniping?

Zoro decided to wait and see, he wouldn't mind if Usopp joined the crew as long as he was obedient and was a good sniper.

Every big man had a good crew behind him and Zoro needed one as well, even now Koshiro's words were reverberating in his head:

"If only there was someone to stop me back then, someone to help me, maybe Kuina's mother wouldn't have died, please don't make the same mistakes as I did back then, you need a good crew behind your back, it doesn't matter where you find them but make sure they are loyal!"

Zoro took those words to heart as Koshiro's story moved him a bit, the story of two lover swordsmen going through adversities only for an accident to befell them of their own making. Zoro decided to not follow in the footsteps of Koshiro. He already had a good beginning crew, well technically it wasn't his crew but no one would listen to Luffy, Zoro didn't counter Luffy's sentence of him being the captain because he didn't care about such things, Luffy was captain only in name.

Zoro did start to respect Luffy after today's incident but he still didn't trust him enough, maybe with more time, he would start to trust him and teach him some Haki.

Usopp woke up a few days later.