Zoro awoke to a crick in his neck, and the sound of footsteps. The light in the windows was cool, the muted glow of pre-dawn washing out the stars.

Sanji was already awake, standing with his head cocked, listening to that approach. Sitting up, Zoro studied his angular frame, black slacks and white bandages in stark contrast with his pink skin. A little blood had seeped through the cotton along two lines, but otherwise the bandages looked clean, and he seemed steady on his feet. From his set stance, Zoro suspected he had been up for some time already. If he had ever slept.

He started to ask, but the footsteps had arrived, the bearded high priest accompanied by a younger man, also in priest robes, who Zoro recalled seeing at yesterday's dinner. That one stood silently by while the high priest said, "If you are ready, it's time."

"Awfully damn early, isn't it?" Zoro muttered, kneading his sore neck.

None of the others so much as glanced at him. "I'm ready," Sanji said, then held out his hands, added sardonically, "You want to make sure again?"

In the gray light Zoro could see the stripes on his wrists he had covered with his hands before, nowhere as vicious as the wreck of his back, but the abrasions from the binding were still rough and raw. The high priest lowered his head. "That won't be necessary for this."

Sanji nodded, then tossed something over his shoulder. Zoro caught the cigarette case. "Keep that safe," the cook requested, and followed the high priest.

"Hey," Zoro called, as their little party headed out. "How long will this one take?"

"It will be some time," the high priest said, and they were out the door.

Zoro waited until the last echo of their footsteps died, then stretched out again on the bench. But his neck was still bothering him, and his legs were starting to cramp from the awkward angle. Grumbling, he rolled over to face the pillar, but that was too claustrophobic. Rolling back, one sword hilt caught on the cloth cover, and he tumbled off the bench to the floor with a thud.

At least the damn cook hadn't been here for it. Zoro picked himself up, rubbing his hip where he had landed on the scabbards, contemplated the woven rug and decided to hell with it. He could nap later, catch up on the sleep he had missed with the early awakening; his stomach was rumbling now anyway, and there was true sunlight shining in the windows. The high priest hadn't said anything this time about keeping to his room, so he didn't hesitate to leave. No one in the halls, as he expected, damn screwy as this place was. Prisons without locks, prisoners without guards...only they weren't prisoners, he supposed. He at least felt more like a guest. And Sanji...

He wasn't going to think about the cook. Wherever the hell they had brought him. The stone corridors with their wooden trim all looked identical, but he took any stairs down that he found, nodding to the people he encountered, all of whom nodded back politely. In the central courtyard he ran across the blonde acolyte again. She was scrubbing the smooth stone rim of the fountain with a brush, and smiled up at him in a friendly way as he approached. "Good morning, sir."

"Yeah. Morning. Has breakfast been on yet?"

"We eat only the evening meal together. For the rest of the day one takes the food one wishes, when one wishes."

Would be nice if Sanji had that policy. It was damn annoying to have to dodge him if you wanted a bigger snack than a piece of fruit. The cook was far too possessive of ingredients; they belonged to the whole ship, didn't they? "Your cooks don't mind?"

"Whoever works in the kitchen that day may ask for help of whoever enters."

"Oh." Fair trade, he supposed. He looked around the courtyard. "Which way is the kitchen?"

"I'll show you." She started to climb up and automatically he extended his hand to help her, then hastily withdrew it.

"Sorry. Almost forgot. About being a guy."

She shook her head. "No, it's all right. There's no problem. I'm not the priestess." Her smile slipped as it had last night, supplanted by something uncomfortable. Guilt, maybe. He wondered if she had been one of the women Sanji had said were crying. He couldn't quite imagine those soft, plump fingers folded around the handle of a whip.

"So not all women get the special treatment?" he asked as she lead him back into the halls.

"The priestess is sworn to the goddess of spring," the acolyte explained. "She who melts the ice for us to drink," and she gestured back toward where Zoro guessed the fountain was. "But she's a reticent goddess, who won't address her voice to any but the chosen purest. Eventually the moon goddess will chose the priestess, and she is not so...strict. But now the priestess must be an untouched maiden, or we have no way to hear the goddess."

"Great," Zoro muttered. Sanji sure could pick them. A whole temple full of eligible, or at any rate not untouchable, women, and he of course had to go for the one impossible catch.

They descended a steep flight of stairs to the dining hall, deserted but for a couple priests at the end of one table, carrying on a discussion over bowls of rice. "The kitchen is through there," she explained, pointing to an entryway. "I've eaten already, I should get back to my morning task. If there's anything you wish--"

"Actually," Zoro said, "don't know who to ask, but that room they've got us in? It could use a cot or a bed or something. That bench isn't much good for sleeping."

"I'll see about that."

"Thanks."

"You're welcome," she said, and left him to collect food from more of these far too courteous people.

* * *

The garden was a better place for napping. Zoro found a convenient bench, and the various priests and visitors passing by didn't disturb him too much. But once the sun had fully risen it proved to be a bright, cloudless day, and while it was too cool to sleep in the shade, the light in his eyes was annoying. He exercised instead, locating a spot without an audience.

Time passed slowly, the sun sluggishly inching its way up into the blue sky. After a few hours, he made his way back to the temples, requesting directions along the way to find the tower room. 'Some time' was awfully unspecific, but when he asked for clarification the acolytes and priests only ducked their heads apologetically.

The blonde acolyte had been as good as her word. When he reached the chamber he found a sleeping couch, covered with a flat cushion as well as a few blankets and pillows. The curved wooden frame looked heavy, thick, square legs indenting the rug; must have been a job to get it up the stairs. It was backless, and long enough for him to stretch his length out on, though only a couple hand-spans wider than the bench, and not much softer.

He wasn't sleepy anyway. Going out to the balcony around the room, he paced its perimeter. The three towers of the temple were matched in height, all tall; this wasn't the highest room, and still the gardens below were reduced to a patchwork pattern of gray paths and green hedges, the people moving among them like slow-scurrying mice. One could distinguish acolytes from priests from regular citizens by the colors of their robes, but it was too high to recognize faces.

Past the gardens were the low walls surrounding the temple, and then spread the city, the houses with their domed roofs and the maze of narrow streets. The buildings grew scarcer as they rose up the abrupt slope of the mountains, gradually replaced by boulders and pines and patches of white snow.

He circled around to the balconies on the opposite side. The other two towers blocked some of his view, but couldn't hide the flat, blue-gray vastness of the sea beyond the city. Part of the harbor was visible, a copse of masts leafed in sails. He couldn't make out the Going Merry's Jolly Roger among the rest, but he knew it was there. Nami's couple days were only half up, and besides, they'd never set off without him or Sanji.

He caught himself missing the ship, the cramped, smelly confines of the main cabin and the constant creaking of the wooden hull on the water. He never had trouble finding a comfortable space to nap on the Going Merry. Zoro didn't much care whether he was on sea or land; he didn't get seasick, but neither did he miss the rocking of the waves, and while the water's unpredictability added an element of excitement to a fight, some attacks were more easily executed on solid ground. But after only two days he was sick of this island, with its mountains and the city and all those strangers scurrying below.

Leaning on the rail looking out toward the sea, he at last heard the whisper of the screen sliding aside. Returning inside, he found Sanji had stopped just past the doorway. The blond didn't look at Zoro, squinting instead at the windows. "It's still light?"

"It's not much past noon," Zoro told him.

"Huh. Thought it was longer than that." He advanced a few paces, blinked at the couch. "That's new?"

"Gonna break my neck, sleeping on that damn bench."

"Told you."

Zoro subjected him a long, searching look. The bandages were still clean, no new blood spotting the white, and the cook was steady on his feet, but he looked tired, shoulders slumped and his eyes behind the curtain of blond hair sunk into shadow. "Oh, look. That was nice," he remarked, possibly sarcastically.

Zoro looked. He had missed the blue pinstripe shirt, neatly folded and set on top of the blankets. Sanji shook it out, gave it a quick once-over and pulled it on, wincing only a little before carefully doing up the buttons. "They got all the blood out. I'm impressed," he said.

The bastard was doing it on purpose, Zoro was sure. "Okay, what happened, what'd they do this time?"

"Nothing." Sanji fumbled with the final button below the collar, finally forced it through and set about tucking in the shirt as he looked around the floor. "Don't see my tie, do you?"

"Really--"

"Nothing. Absolutely nothing. Nothing at all."

"How come I don't believe that?"

"Because you're dumb?" Sanji sat down on the couch. "You got my cigarettes?"

Zoro reached into his pocket, felt the case's smooth metal under his fingers. "Maybe."

Sanji rolled his eyes. "Don't be an asshole. Seriously. It was nothing. Nothing whatsoever. Fourth death is the death of sense. They just put me in a box for a few hours--wasn't a torture chamber, not too hot, not too cold, enough air. Whole thing was filled with silk, soft as a goddamn womb. I could've slept like the dead, which I guess was the point. Absolutely nothing."

"That's all?"

"That's all."

"Doesn't sound too bad." Zoro tossed him the case.

Sanji lifted one hand to snatch it from the air. "Hell, they even gave me something to drink."

"What about that no-water death?"

"Wasn't water. Just a few sips--not liquor, something bitter. Best damn thing I've ever drunk. I was getting a bit parched, there." He plucked out a cigarette, put it to his lips as he slipped the case into his breast pocket. Then shot Zoro a sharp look in answer to his frown. "No, it wasn't poison. Nothing like that. It's all ritual. Symbolism. Stone box shaped like a coffin, drop the lid down like you're burying someone in their grave. And then it's just darkness and silence. That's all."

"Relaxing."

"Yeah. Relaxing." Sanji took out a book of matches from the pocket of his pants and tore one off. "If it'd been you, they probably wouldn't have been able to wake you up for a week." He tried to strike the match on the book, scraped it too lightly to spark. "Nothing to disturb you at all, no light, no noise. You can't even move, all wrapped in that silk, and it's so soft, after a while you stop feeling it's there. Can't feel it. Even when you try."

His second try was too hard, and the cardboard bent. "You listen to just your breathing long enough, that goes away too, and then you're left trying to figure out if you actually are, when you can't hear it. Breathing." Adjusting his grip to the match's head, he struck it a third time. The match flared up in his fingers and he swore, dropped it with the book to the floor and stamped on it before the rug could burn.

Zoro bent over to pick up the book, lit a new match with one quick strike and held it up. Sanji put the tip of the cigarette into the tiny tongue of flame, let it catch and inhaled the smoke, his eyes falling half-closed in something like relief. "Thanks."

"If you weren't sleeping..."

"Couldn't. I tried. Sounds easy, but...maybe it was whatever was in that drink. I couldn't move but my mind kept running in circles, wouldn't stop." He took a drag, coughed on the smoke and stifled it with a fist to his mouth.

"So what were you thinking about?"

"Whatever. Recipes. Fighting. Beating you up." He smirked. "Nami-san and Robin-san skinny-dipping." His shrug was awkward, an uncoordinated heave of his shoulders under his shirt. "For a while. And then I don't remember."

"You did fall asleep."

"I was awake," Sanji said flatly. "Felt like a goddamn week. And I must've been thinking--you're alive, you're awake, your mind's doing something, right? I just can't remember. Nothing to remind me, in that darkness. Silence. I tried speaking and I couldn't hear my own voice. Maybe that drink locked up my vocal cords, or maybe they just had my ears closed somehow."

He drew on the cigarette as if he could devour the smoke, all but gulping it. "I thought about how bad I wanted a cig, I remember that. Wanted one even when I started thinking I was suffocating...tried to get them to let me out, but no one listened. And I couldn't tell if I actually was hitting anything. Guess I did, though," and he stared down at his hands, knotted into fists pressed into his knees. The knuckles were reddened, bruised. He opened one hand, studied the backs his spread fingers with a grimace. "Dammit, I don't believe I did that. Should've remembered to kick instead."

Zoro leaned over to examine the minor scrapes. "Doesn't look like you messed them up too badly."

"They don't hurt. Neither does my back, that much. I hardly even remembered it was hurt. They treated that, too, before they put me in the box. Any of those acolytes are better nurses than you'd ever make."

"I'm no medic. That's why we have Chopper."

"None of them were as good as him, no," Sanji allowed. Finishing the cigarette with another suppressed cough, he leaned back onto the cushions, a sigh escaping as he relaxed against the pillow.

"Hey." Zoro prodded his shoulder. "Don't get too comfortable, this is my couch."

"You can share."

"I don't share my bed with guys."

Sanji squinted up at him, annoyance flashing in his eye. Then, with deliberate, obnoxious languor, he stretched like a cat priming for a nap, sprawling out his legs and arms until he had effectively occupied every square centimeter of the narrow couch, shoving Zoro off the corner with one foot.

"Asshole," Zoro growled as he was pushed stumbling to his feet. "That's it, get off."

"Nah, I'm good here." Sanji settled back, then winced, picked himself up with his arms to flip onto his stomach. Clearly more comfortable without the pressure on his wounds, he hastily stretched out again before Zoro could reclaim his spot.

Zoro crossed his arms and glared. "I'll dump you off."

Sanji locked his arms around the cushion and gave him a long, lazy look. "Try."

"Didn't you spend all morning lounging around?"

"Not the same." Hooking one arm around a pillow, Sanji pulled it under his head and relaxed onto it. "This," and his hand tightened around the cover, wrinkling the fabric, "this is real."

"Real? That ceremony didn't sound false."

"Not the death." With his face sunk into the pillow his mutter was indistinct. "Everything else."

"What are you talking about?"

"Wasn't until the end. Near the end. I think." He didn't look at Zoro, eyes fixed on the fabric before his nose, close enough that the woven threads must have been only a blur. "I should've known, it happened before...back then, I thought I'd see a ship. The ship I was waiting for, coming to save us. I'd stare and stare and it would still be there, and then I'd blink and it would be gone. Because seeing something that wasn't there was better than seeing nothing at all. Like that all over again."

"You know you're not making sense."

Sanji chuckled, a scratchy stutter, not lifting his head from the pillow. "It didn't make sense, I knew that. But I couldn't help it, after a while. Being in there, and no way to be sure I actually was there at all, until I started to think maybe I wasn't. That I'd just imagined it. And then I thought that maybe I'd never left that damn rock, really, and this place was the dream. The Baratie, the Going Merry. All Blue, the Grand Line, One Piece...all of it, just something I'd made up to pass the time, and I was still on that rock, I was gonna be sitting there on that rock, waiting, forever.

"When they opened the box, for a second I thought I was waking up, and I didn't...it didn't make any difference, I thought I was just dreaming again, and it wasn't until...got back here, and you were here. Too damn annoying to have imagined. And this feels real." He breathed out, a long hissing exhalation. "I feel real."

"You are real," Zoro said. "And you're really on my couch. Where am I supposed to nap?"

"Bench's over there," Sanji mumbled. His eyes were closed and his grip on the cushions was relaxing as his breathing slowed into a steady rhythm.

Zoro waited in silence for a long moment, then asked, quietly, "Sanji?"

There was no reply. "Don't tell me you went and fell asleep on that couch."

Sanji murmured something indistinct, one hand twitching and then falling still as he snuggled his head deeper into the pillow.

Zoro sighed. "It's about damn time, idiot," he said, and went back out on the balcony to exercise.

* * *

Not much time had passed when Zoro's sword practice--he was testing single blade techniques, should the others be unavailable, and had almost worked out a one-sword variation of the demon slash--was interrupted by someone entering the room. "Dammit." Sheathing his katana, he climbed through the closest window from the balcony, asking, "It's only been an hour, don't you guys have better things to do than--"

He stopped. Instead of the expected high priest and minions, there was only a little girl, not even ten, round-faced and pink-cheeked, peeking out timidly from behind the sliding screen.

An acolyte, probably, come to gawk. "Hey," Zoro said.

She jumped, glanced at him and looked about to flee, but then her wide blue-gray eyes returned to Sanji, flopped on the couch, out like a light and snoring softly. "Is--is he--"

"Yeah, that's the sinner." Maybe she had been dared to come by another kid.

"I know." Apparently deciding he wasn't as scary as he looked, she sidled into the room, hands within the long sleeves clasped nervously before her. "Is he...is he hurting badly?"

Zoro sighed. "He's all right. He's just asleep now. Keep it down or you'll wake him." Though really, the way he was out, Sanji probably wouldn't stir to anything less than a cannon fired past his ear, or Nami asking for a favor.

She drew closer for a better look, tiptoeing cautiously, hands still hidden in her sleeves. Her robes he had first taken for an acolyte's, but while the deep blue was the same, the trim was silver, not gold, and all the folds of cloth were intricately embroidered in white silk, the same swirling patterns as the ceiling mosaic. Silver beads glittered along the hems and sleeves, and on the tiny white cap pinned to her brown locks. The beads jangled slightly and she tried to stop them with her arms, but that only set the rest of them ringing and she cringed, stood still so they all were quiet, staring at Sanji. "He--he looks really tired."

He did, Zoro had to agree. Somehow, asleep, the exhaustion and stress lining his brow were more obvious, and except for the slight vibration of his chest as he snored he was as motionless as a rock, not even twitching with dreams. "Yeah, well, he didn't get much sleep last night."

"They've been hurting him." Though she wasn't whispering, her voice was so timid he had to strain to hear it. "The ceremony, it hurts..."

"Death usually does. That's the point, I guess," Zoro said.

"I'm sorry." The little girl sniffled, and Zoro looked down at her, surprised. Tears were welling up in her round eyes, spilling down her cheeks and spotting the fancy robes. She put up her arms to catch them, covering her face with her sleeves and whimpering through them, "I'm sorry, I'm sorry..."

"Hey," Zoro said awkwardly, "it's not--you don't--" What were you supposed to do with a crying kid? Pat them on the head or something? He tried putting a hand on her shoulder, but she scrambled back, tripping over her robes and falling back onto the carpet.

"Sorry," Zoro said. He was a stranger, after all, and she was shy. "But look, you don't need to cry. He's not hurt that bad, and besides, you don't have anything to do with it--"

"No!" The girl curled into a ball, tucking her knees under her chin and wrapping her arms around them. She was still crying, shaking with soft sobs. Between them she gulped, "It was me--it's my fault--I'm sorry, it's all my fault!"

"It's not your fault," Zoro started to say, "this is all because of that--"

And then he got it, everything falling into place as sudden and sharp as a blow to the skull, and just as headache-inducing. "You're the priestess."

The little girl nodded miserably, her face hidden in her arms. "It was my fault, it was a mistake, I'm sorry..."

to be continued...

I honestly wasn't sure if anyone would read this. I seem to be a poor judge of these things ^^; So glad everyone's enjoying reading it as much as I am writing it! (and Sherry Marie, don't thank me - thank Oda-sensei for writing such damn irresistable characters...)

This fic has been possessing not only me but my friends as well. Naye has been drawing fanart! For my story! *squeaks happily*
Title pic here: members.chello.se/~miyume/7D/7deaths.jpg
chapter 3 scene: members.chello.se/~miyume/7D/flop.jpg
and from this chapter: members.chello.se/~miyume/7D/pillow.jpg
Thank you so much!