Zoro looked from the priestess to the insensate cook and back again. "You--he--you--oh, that son of a..." Catching himself in time, he shook his head, crouched next to the little girl, though keeping a careful distance between them. "Look," he said, "it's okay. This is some kind of misunderstanding, I bet it was just an accident. Right?"

She nodded again, her head still down. "I didn't--I didn't mean to..."

"Sanji didn't mean to, either, I'm sure. Maybe if you told your father--"

"But he did. I didn't mean to let him, I should've been faster, but he did, and now...he's..." She quivered with sobs, the beads chiming. "I tried to say he didn't, but they didn't believe me. They all saw. She saw," and the girl cried harder. "She knows. I can't hear her now. I went to the fountain and I drank, but the goddess, she w-won't speak to me anymore."

"But she will, if Sanji finishes this thing."

"Yes, but..." She shook her head, so violently her short straight hair whipped around, dislodging the round cap. "I don't want...he was so nice to me..."

"Yeah," Zoro said, "he would be--look, you have to stop crying. He really hates it when girls cry."

"B-but it's my--my fault--"

"Sanji chose to do this thing, your father told you that, right? He wanted to do it because he didn't want you to cry or be upset. And..." Could they really have been serious about the only other way? When she was this little? Maybe Sanji had misunderstood... "--And he's not hurt that bad. He's lived through a lot worse than this."

"He has?" She looked up at that, her eyes red and filled with more tears, but momentarily startled out of that wretched sobbing, at least.

"Yeah. Haven't you heard? We're pirates. We've been all sorts of places, fought all kinds of people. He's gotten beat up a lot before. But he's a strong guy, he always wins, even when he gets hurt, and he always gets better. Soon as this is over with he'll be fine. So you don't have to cry for him."

"But..." She snuffled, wiped her dripping nose with one sleeve. "But I don't want him hurt, I didn't want...I didn't want him to have to. I tried...this morning, I went down to the sea, and I drank, but the moon goddess won't talk to me yet, I'm too young. I wanted to try again, because if she would have me, then it wouldn't matter, he could go away with you. But the seawater made me sick, and my lady wouldn't let me drink anymore."

"It's okay," Zoro said. "Don't make yourself sick, he wouldn't like that either."

"Oh." She sniffled more. "But..."

"Are you supposed to be here?" Zoro asked her. "Without a guard or anything? Since you're so important?"

She ducked her head again, mumbled, "I told my lady I was going to the priestess room in this tower. If I get back soon she won't know. I'm not supposed to but I wanted...I wanted to see him. Father wouldn't tell me, but I know about the Seven Deaths, and I wanted to see him before..."

"Before what?"

"Before the fifth death. Tonight. Father didn't allow me to be there before, but now I have to be." She wiped her eyes--that faucet of tears finally seemed to have shut off--and her voice became more certain, if stilted, as she recited, "The deaths before were the deaths of men. The final three are the deaths of the goddess, and I have to be there."

"Deaths of the goddess."

She put her hands over her mouth. "I can't--"

"I know, you can't tell me." Zoro got up. "One tonight, and the last two tomorrow, and then this is over, right? The ceremony's only three days. Any idea what time it'll be done?"

The priestess scrambled up as well, her robes flying. "It should be by evening?"

"Should be?"

She dropped her head. "I--I don't know for sure. I've never seen it. We haven't granted the Seven Deaths since I became priestess."

Which couldn't have been all that long ago. "So what happened to the last priestess? She die?"

"No!" Her eyes were earnestly wide. "She had a baby, so the goddesses left her alone to be a mother. So we needed a priestess, and there weren't any other girls who wanted to...and I like it, I like the goddess, she's kinder than anyone says--but now I wish I wasn't. I wish I never had."

"If your goddess is so nice, why don't you just ask her to let him off the hook--never mind. She's not talking to you now. Right." From the way those big eyes were wavering, Zoro thought the tears might be starting again, quickly said, "It's okay. It's just one more day, right?"

It didn't cheer her much. "Yes, but..." and she bit her lip. "The last day's when death becomes real, that's what they all say. Everyone who's seen it before. Though in some legends, the man lives."

The sun must have gone behind the clouds; it felt like the room's temperature dropped ten degrees. "Hold on." He shouldn't have spoken so sharply; she jumped and quivered and he forced his voice level again, measured his words carefully. "Some legends? But people have seen this done before, when it's been for real--what's happened to the men those times?"

"They--they die," she gulped. "Always. By the end of the ceremony, it's too much, and they... It's not fair, he shouldn't--I don't want...but you said, you said he's strong."

"Yeah." Zoro looked her straight in the eyes. Easier to meet that innocent, unhappy gaze than look at the man asleep on the couch behind them. "He's strong. Don't worry about it, he'll be all right."

The little girl swallowed, stared up at him. "You'll make sure? You'll make sure he doesn't die?"

"I don't need to," Zoro said, and smiled. "I told you, he's strong. He doesn't need me. I promise. He's not gonna die."

She blinked, and then she smiled back bravely, straightening up to her full height, which was slightly higher than his waist. "Okay." She bowed to him, said very politely, "Thank you."

"Yeah, yeah." Zoro waved it off. "You should get back before you're in trouble."

"Yes!" Springing up, she rushed out the door, pausing in the corridor to glance back nervously. He gave her an encouraging nod, and she nodded back, whispered, "Goodbye," and then carefully closed the screen with both hands. The patter of her little slippers sounded down the hall.

Zoro looked down at Sanji. He hadn't stirred once the entire time, even his snoring lapsed into quiet. Silent as a corpse--and Zoro shook his head to dispel that thought. His chest was still rising and falling as he breathed; the guy needed rest as much as anything else, and that at least was allowed.

But he didn't go back out on the balcony right away, just stood in the chamber for a long moment, counting the seconds between each breath.

* * *

Sanji woke at the first tolling of the evening bell, sitting up with a start. Zoro, on the central bench, watched him blink disorientedly, shoving his hair out of his eye with one hand. The low bell rang again and he froze, relaxed as he recognized the sound.

He looked to the door first, saw no one and turned back to Zoro as he swung his legs down off the side of the couch. "Time for dinner?"

"Yeah." Zoro didn't move.

"You're not going?"

"I can grab something later, their kitchen's always open."

"Ah." Obviously not fully awake yet, Sanji processed that in silence, finally roused himself to stiffly stretch. "Well, that was a good nap." He shot Zoro a narrow-eyed smirk. "Thanks for the couch."

Zoro didn't reply, returning that taunting stare with a sober appraisal. The blond didn't look much better for the sleep. He was usually fair, but his face now was wan, except for the dark shadows around his eyes. Something gaunt about that aspect, though it was too soon for starvation to really show, and the cook was always on the skinny side anyway. But there was a pinched look to him, hunger and thirst hollowing his cheeks, and not quite suppressed pain etching faint lines across his brow, like hairline cracks in a smooth shell.

Sanji shifted restlessly under the scrutiny, breaking eye contact, and Zoro looked away, just as uncomfortable with the closeness of that observation. Clearing his throat, he said, "You had a visitor earlier. The priestess dropped by to see how you were doing."

"What?" Sanji's head jerked up again, eyes widening. "She--you saw her?"

"Kinda young for you, isn't she?" Zoro slammed his hands down on the bench, which was solid enough not to rattle, and the cook didn't flinch. "Dammit, why didn't you say something?"

"Why? It wouldn't have changed anything. Besides, you said you didn't want to know."

"So what happened? Really? Because you sure as hell didn't do anything actually indecent to that little girl."

"I did enough, apparently." He brought up his hand, to rub his temples, or maybe to shade his eyes from Zoro's glare. "I'm walking by the temple, and I see this girl trip--she's running into the temple and her robe snags on the gate, and she falls down, tears her sleeve half-off and lands hard, scrapes up her elbow. And there's those two priests standing guard, but the jerks don't even move, just stand there like lumps staring at a little girl lying on the ground, trying not to cry. So I think I'll teach them some manners by example and give her a hand up, make sure she wasn't really hurt.

"But she ripped her sleeve, so when I take her arm, it's her bare arm, and I'm not wearing gloves. And next thing you know the priests are shrieking, everyone on the street is staring, the girl's crying for real, and I have to wait for the high priest to come to explain just how badly I screwed up."

"That's all."

"It was enough." Sanji laughed, a short, humorless bark. "Boring, huh? Not nearly as good as you were imagining, sorry."

"All this, just for that? This is crazy." Zoro clenched his fist, drove it into his palm. He would have drawn his swords but there was nothing here to slash, no one but Sanji to fight and while the urge to beat sense into him was strong, stronger was the awareness of that drawn look, the slight trembling of his hands that he was trying to hide. "You didn't do anything--there's no reason for you to do this. No way these guys would actually kill a little girl, not for that--"

"No." Sanji's hand came down, his gaze fixing on Zoro. "They would. That bastard high priest..." He exhaled, a long sigh. "He'd do it. He'd do it and then he'd turn the knife on himself, I'd bet, but he'd still do it. He wouldn't have a choice."

"Like hell he doesn't--"

"They don't. It's what they believe." Sanji shook his head. "Not just faith, here, what they've got going with their goddesses. Didn't you notice this city has no standing army? We're in the middle of the Grand Line, most of the people on the seas are pirates, but they've got an open port, not a single cannon. I heard in the marketplace--it was why I was at the temple, I was curious. They haven't been sacked in a century. There's all kinds of stories about the pirates who do try to come here, sudden storms on dead calm seas, log poses mysteriously shattered, fevers breaking out in the crews. And the few that do get through, there's plenty of warning, by the time they arrive the whole city's ready for them."

"We didn't have much trouble getting here."

"No, and we're not the only pirates to come, either. Some ships stop by regularly, it sounds like, to buy and trade. Their goddesses are good judges of character. If we'd meant any harm it probably wouldn't have been so easy."

"If that goddess is such a good judge, then why'd she throw a tantrum over a guy holding her priestess's hand for a second?"

Sanji shrugged. "It's the rules."

"Damned unreasonable woman."

"A lady doesn't have to be reasonable."

"And neither do you? You're as crazy as them, putting up with this."

"It's not that big a deal. Maybe if I were a short-tempered impatient bastard like you, it's be hard, but for me..." He reached into his breast pocket, extracted a crooked cigarette and stuck it in his mouth while he felt around for his matches. "Besides, it was my mistake. The guards and the priestess, they both tried to tell me...I should've listened to her, but I thought she was just being brave about getting hurt." He lit the cigarette without too much effort, took a short drag and coughed behind his fist.

"It wasn't your fault," Zoro said, angrily, annoyed that he had to say so. This would be easier if it had been the cursed cook's fault. It would be damned hard to argue his innocence with the high priest and the other when everyone already knew he was innocent, and were going ahead with this lunacy anyway. "If their priestess is so damn important, she shouldn't have just been wandering around without guards. They could've at least hung a sign around her neck to warn chivalrous idiots to keep off--Sanji?"

Sanji had coughed again, and kept coughing, a violent fit that set his shoulders shaking. "Sanji!" Zoro said, but the blond couldn't answer, fighting for breath between that convulsive hacking. He curled over his stomach, trying to swallow it back and failing. Zoro grabbed his shoulders before he could fall off the couch, held him steady until the fit finally passed and Sanji sagged on the cushions, gasping, his head hanging down as he shuddered.

The cigarette was still in his hand, squeezed between his fingers, tip smoldering orange. Zoro snatched it, closed his fist over the butt to extinguish that burn, then reached into Sanji's shirt pocket and swiped the case before the blond could bat his hand away.

"Give those back," Sanji wheezed, grabbing for it.

Zoro pulled it out of reach, stuffed the case into his pocket. "No way."

"Goddamn it, they're mine--" He almost set himself coughing again, choked it back with a painful-sounding swallow.

"Look, I'm no doctor, but these are killing you now and you've got enough things trying to do that already."

"It's none of your business, you stupid son of a bitch." Sanji straightened himself up, drew a long breath that restored too little color to his pallid face, but his expression was calm, his voice level, if hoarse. "Give it up. You're a lousy mother, you'd make one ugly woman."

"I am not a--"

"Then quit acting like one." Sanji held out his hand. "Let me be a big boy and give me back my cigarettes. I'm fi--"

"Shut the fuck up," Zoro growled. "No you're not. If you were any paler you'd be see-through, and the way you've been rubbing your head you have one hell of a headache. And your hand's shaking."

Sanji blinked at his outstretched arm as if he hadn't noticed that last, yanked it back. "That's just--you think I can't take this? You think I'm a--"

"That priestess," Zoro said, and Sanji shut his mouth. "She said that except for stories, no one survives this thing." Sanji didn't reply, and Zoro remarked, "She kept apologizing. She was pretty upset. Crying about it."

"Shit." Sanji's jaw clenched tight enough that a muscle in his cheek ticked. "I told her--"

"You knew, didn't you, when you agreed. They mentioned that to you, how no one actually makes it through this."

He nodded.

"I promised her you would. Gave her my word, and yours." Zoro crossed his arms, looked down at him. "So what else did they tell you? The priestess was saying the ceremony tonight's different. Something about the goddess's deaths, instead of...whatever the others were. I can't remember what she called them."

"Deaths of men," Sanji said. "They told me that, but they didn't mention what it meant." He glanced at the windows, bathed scarlet by the sunset. "Guess I'll be finding out soon."

"Only three to go," Zoro said. "We'll--you'll be done tomorrow."

Sanji nodded again.

"Looking forward to getting it over with?"

Sanji stared, clearly wondering if he possibly could be serious, and Zoro smirked back at him until the blond rolled his eyes. "Oh, no," he replied, "this is great, I'd rather it were a week at least. It's practically a resort."

"And you could use some purification anyway."

"Bet you're wishing it were longer. Lots of practice space, free room, free food."

"Your cooking's better," Zoro said without thinking.

Honest surprise crossed Sanji's face, and then he twisted it into cool nonchalance. "Not that I would've expected you to be able to tell."

"Yeah, well." Zoro shrugged. "There aren't that many professional cooks on the Grand Line. People got better things to do. Which means it'd be a pain to have to find another one."

"Wouldn't want to put all of you out."

"Besides, Nami's so used to your drinks and things that she's bound to bitch without them. Moreso, I mean."

Sanji's mouth opened and stuck there; Zoro could see the conflict in his eyes, instinct to defend Nami-san warring with delight at the thought that she might miss his specialties. He compromised by closing his mouth and simply glaring at Zoro. It was, as they go, a shockingly mild display of Love Cook patheticness, but Zoro was content to see it. Sanji couldn't be hurting that much if he could still moon like a fool. Hell, if Zoro were Nami, Sanji probably wouldn't even notice he were hurting at all.

At least he wouldn't show it. He had no problems behaving like a total idiot around a woman, but showing weakness was another thing altogether. Not as if he were anyway. Whatever else one could say about the cook, Sanji wasn't weak. Zoro hadn't been lying to that little priestess. "It better not take too long tomorrow," he said. "Otherwise everyone'll get impatient, they might come looking for us."

"Maybe I should ask them to hurry it up," Sanji replied, wryly.

"Yeah, do that," Zoro said. "This place is getting boring anyway. And there's no reason to drag it out, it's not like you won't be able to handle whatever they throw at you."

That same confused surprise appeared again, lasted a moment longer as Sanji tried to improvise the proper parry. He finally settled on a simple, "Yeah." Leaning back casually, he remarked, "So, since we agree this is nothing big--give back my cigarettes?"

"Like hell," Zoro said easily.

Sanji shrugged. "Jerk."

The silence sat companionably for a few moments as the light outside faded, until Sanji cocked his head, sitting up on the couch. "Guess dinner's over."

Zoro listened closely, only just made out faint footsteps on distant stairs. His crewmate obviously had no trouble hearing that approach, however. Sanji's hands jerked up to his collar to fix his nonexistent tie, fell again when his fingers found nothing.

"Hey," Zoro said, went over and picked up his jacket where he had dropped it--just the night before?--and brought it back to the couch. "Here."

Sanji stood to take it, then stumbled, his face a pale blur in the darkening room. Zoro caught his arm, steadied him. For a moment he was supporting most of the cook's weight, and then Sanji straightened up, pulled away. "Just stood too quickly," he growled, as if he were answering a question Zoro hadn't thought to ask. "Just a little dizzy, I'm fi--" He cut himself off, ripped the coat from Zoro's offering hands and yanked it on with quick motions that didn't quite hide his stiffness, and his shoulders twitched as he moved too sharply.

"Watch it," Zoro warned, "if you open up those cuts you might get blood on your shirt again." To say nothing of losing more blood, which he clearly could not afford, but Sanji knew that as well as he did.

The blond buttoned the double-breasted jacket and smoothed the pinstripe shirt collar with a practiced gesture, adjusted the sleeve cuffs and gave the jacket a final tug to straighten the worst of the wrinkles. It all looked very close to natural, and when the screen slid aside and the high priest entered, his two priests behind him bearing bright lamps, Zoro saw some small amazement on the large man's bearded face. He didn't know Sanji; this neatly attired, collected man was not the abused victim he was expecting.

And if Sanji's steps wobbled a bit as he walked over, he still strode with enough confidence that none of the priests attempted to interfere. The two underlings moved to flank him, while the high priest looked back at Zoro, his expression, now that momentary disbelief had passed, unreadable.

Just to see the reaction in those slate gray eyes, Zoro raised his voice, said, "Say hi to the priestess for me."

"You got it," Sanji breezed back.

Hard to tell what the priest's mouth was doing under the beard, but the his dark brows were furrowed down. He said nothing, however, turning away with a graceful alacrity unexpected in a bulky man.

"Hey, cook," Zoro reminded as Sanji crossed the threshold, "I gave her my word, so you better not make me a liar."

"Don't worry." Sanji turned his head enough for Zoro to see the profile of his grin. "I don't break promises to girls."

And then they were gone.

to be continued...

Yep, there was a little more to this priestess deal then Sanji was letting on...and a little more to the deaths as well. This is when they start getting...fun. Firedraygon97 - Sanji-torture appeals to quite a lot of us, it seems. ^^ He's a natural-born whipping boy. I blame Hirata Hiroaki, his voice just screams for...er...screaming.

More fan art! From my sister this time - so very cool of her! It's awesome to actually see some of these images that are so vivid in my mind...
gnine.deviantart.com

The next chapter might be a little delayed, but rest assured, there's plenty more to come - stay tuned!