-1 Waking in an unfamiliar place is considered very disorienting. For a pirate, it was part of the job. After a while, they just learned to deal with it. As a result, when Roronoa Zoro opened his eyes, he was perfectly prepared for the unknown surroundings. What he wasn't prepared for, though, was the face hovering over his.

He'd had his share of physicians in the same position, but they were all either furry or reasonably older. The person staring at him was a doe-eyed teenage girl. It was like so many nightmares he managed to obtain while napping. Next, she was probably going to lean in, and… a shudder ran through his spine at the thought.

She did nothing. She didn't even flinch. A small smile was plastered to her face, but she didn't even say anything. To Zoro, that might have been insulting his mother for the way he reacted. His hand shot out and grabbed the collar of her shirt (which was, by the way, a simple brown tee) and started demanding answers. They were the standard, of course.

"Where am I?!" he demanded, though far more serenely than his body language dictated.

"…"she said nothing, and only cocked her head.

"What am I doing here?!"

Once again, she said nothing, her short brown hair bobbing as she moved her head.

"Where are my swords?!"

When no reply came to that question, the swordsman's temper started building. You could tell because his veins started popping out, and his worry-lines deepened. The young female could tell too, and visibly tensed, but continued to be mute. She braced herself for whatever the sailor was going to say next, knowing it would be loud from the amount of breath he drew.

"WHERE THE HELL ARE MY NAKAMA?!" he asked finally, blowing her curls behind her with the sheer voice of his lungs. She shrugged. When she didn't answer again, but made a little movement he was too irritated to notice, Zoro flung the blue-eyed girl down. He didn't mean to, really, but with his brute strength, it was hard not to. She landed with a loud 'THUMP!', which was followed by the sound of someone using stairs not too far away. Whoever it was either stomped like a heavyweight, or was one.

While Zoro caught his breath, having expended every last bit of it, he heard the footsteps approach urgently towards the door to the cabin the two were in. The girl looked relieved, but Zoro had a bad feeling. It was the same feeling that he had when Tashigi approached. He was about to be thoroughly punished by karma for the misuse of his superhuman strength.

His inevitable discipline came in the form of a brawny merman who pushed the doorway, his eyes wide with worry. Zoro actually tensed further, if possible, having never seen a fish-man with that expression. It soon turned into one he recognized, however when Hart saw his human on the ground, shaking, while their charity project was standing up, his hands still outstretched like he'd tossed something. One word was uttered from the merman's pale lips. "Busted."

The thrashing that ensued was quite painful to the green-haired man, but in no way deadly. Hart had been kind enough to only use his fists. Had he brought his mane out, the former pirate hunter would have been in critical condition in a matter of seconds. Hart's partner also seemed relieved at his choice of weaponry. She hadn't rescued the pirate just to have him killed in a violent and back-handed way. Therefore, when Hart's strong hands helped her off the cabin floor, she was completely satisfied that justice had been done. Hart, on the other hand, just brimmed with confidence for having taught the stranger a lesson.

Zoro felt nothing at all, because he had been rendered unconscious by the thrashing. It was a strange world he had landed himself into. Well, to be more accurate, drowned into. You can't really land in the sea. You can sea in the sea, right? Landing, as described by the term, had something to do with land. With or without this understanding, life went on.

Yes, life did go on. From a cellular perspective, not much had changed on the Going Merry. From an subatomic perspective, however, it was massive (but since no one cares about metaphysical ramblings other than fans of the field, this phenomena shall not be described). Even so, the plane it affected the most was the ridge above Monkey D. Luffy's eyebrows.

The captain's facial expression, specifically the one he wore on his eyes, was very insightful. It could be said that the boy captain held his heart on his sleeve. This, of course, was a misconception because he avoided sleeves like they were evil incarnate. He carried it in his face, leading back to the point that had been mentioned before.

Right then, at about dawn, the captain's eyebrows were taught, aching from the strain of scanning the horizon at all times. A very unbecoming line was appearing above them, chiseling a worry mark into his features. It wasn't like him; not at all.

Normally Luffy was very happy. Exceedingly so, as a matter of fact. His optimism knew very few limits, and was often as fancy-free as a monkey on stimulants. Then again, more than just his optimism carried that characteristic. His life, his mannerisms, his very being was like a ray of light… albeit a very annoying one. When that light was mercilessly doused out of existence by something like the loss of a best friend, it was replaced with deadweight. That was ironic in itself since the young dreamer had spent so much energy convincing his remaining crew members of his first-mate's safety.

The ever-present straw hat atop Luffy's head blew slightly off-center, a warm wind caressing the muggy haze that surrounded his head. The rubber man barely reacted at first, but his hand eventually moved to put it right. All movement he mustered was sluggish and without drive. It wasn't merely because of depression, however. Nor was it from sleep deprivation. No. It was from the deprivation of the one thing the infamous Monkey D. Luffy swore he'd never go without. Meat. He had refused every meal, causing several nakama to pinch themselves, and others to get medically checked for hallucinogens. When the results were negative, most of the crew simply went about their day, confident in the swordsman's safe return.

It might have had a likeness to confidence, but Ussop was just as scared as Luffy was. In his eyes, and in the prying eyes of the navigator, this had been his fault (Sanji, on the other hand regarding him as a hero.)

What had he been doing on the watch? Sleeping. He had dozed off while doing the ONE thing that Luffy and the others had depended on him for. Granted, his self-loathing and pity might have lessened considerable if he had only thought to the cause of his mid-day drowsiness; Nami had blackmailed him into taking her watch the night before.

Nami's confidence was also an act. She was worried for Zoro. Of course she was! He was her nakama, too. It didn't matter how many times the two had threatened to kill each other, they were parts of a functioning whole! The whole was unraveling far too quickly for her to have faith in the stupid first mate at all. She hated him for this. She hated Ussop for this. Most of all, though, she hated herself for this.

In all that time they'd spent together, she had never even uttered a single compliment to the poor guy's face. The last conversation they had was about interest rates that he was paying to her after a lucrative set-up she'd lured him into. It wasn't his fault he was wired that way, right? Obviously he was just dropped too many times as a child. As for his scary face, it was probably just genetics giving him a bad hand!

Nami's pen tapped the still-blank parchment. If only to at least keep things semi-normal, she had to carry on with normalcy. So why couldn't she simply take the ruler and pen to make a line? It wasn't hard! She did it daily! She urged, and her hand didn't respond. Unfortunately, her urging had the effect of breaking the pen. Ink shot all over her hands and onto her clothes. In a huff, she wandered off to wash her hands and try again.

The constantly observant cook watched the navigator as she struggled to complete her simple task. Of all the crew, his confidence in the shitty swordsman was probably the highest. It wasn't because he liked him, of course. Quite the opposite. He merely knew that the bastard was too tenacious to die that easily. It would be too easy for him. He couldn't help but feel pity for the flustered Nami, though. Without even realizing what his hands had begun, Sanji mopped up the ink from the floor.

As for the rest of the crew, Chopper was gullible and Robin was apathetic, so that was that-"that" being a verbal variable meaning something else in every respect. Without the word "that", writing becomes a tedious affair which can be blamed on the emphasis of the word in most English dialects. In this particular case, "that" being 'that' was supposed to mean that the two were satisfied and fully efficient despite the lack of Zoro's presence. Either because they believed the captain where he didn't himself, or because they simply didn't care one way or the other. The prize for being a keen observer of the obvious is to be rewarded to whomever assigns those reasons correctly.

Ramblings from the deviating deity what writes this crap indicate that she wants reviews and a taco. Whichever comes first shall have her undivided attention and may cause the next chapter to come faster. Stop throwing away aluminum cans!: D