Sanji's eyes open to unbelievable whiteness, it's everywhere in his field of vision, seemingly without end. His first thoughts are of Zoro. He remembers Zoro's weak look, his small sad smile at seeing him go. Something inside of him recoils from the very idea that he left Zoro behind. He feels a little sick actually.

He sits up unevenly from where he had been sprawled on more white nothingness. Just behind him and slightly to the right is some water, what sounds like a river. It's a little way away but he can see people clustered around it and talking rapidly, although he can't make out their words. If this is the afterlife then it's not much for him to tell Zoro about when he goes back. Something primal inside of him writes again in pain and this time it's enough to prompt him to look down.

There is this… thing sticking out of his chest. Just slightly off centre there is a big red… thing! He'd say that it's like a rope but it's clearly made of something tougher, it reminds him almost of suspension bridge cables if those things were red and bleeding. Surprisingly enough it's not disgust or horror that washes over him as he stares down at the bleeding knotted cable coming from his chest but a deep instinctual fear. The thing twitches like some kind of snake with it's fangs in his heart and it sends a spasm of pain through Sanji's entire being.

He yelps and clutches at it and the pain intensifies, it feels worse than any burn or cut he's ever felt. He feels like it's ripping him apart from the inside, as if thousands of tiny teeth are pulling him apart molecule by molecule. He curls up, sobbing and screaming because this is pain beyond pain.

Someone to his side curses and rolls him onto his back, he recognises the face but he can't devote enough of his mind to place it when he hurts so much that he can barely remember his own name. He howls animalistically as he is picked up, jolting the thing sprouting from his sternum. He writhes and thrashes and is vaguely aware of being dropped through something and landing on something hard. As his back makes contact with the ground the pain level drops to something tolerable.

He rolls onto his side and curls up, still coughing out sobs as the pain ebbs a little more.

"Whoa, easy, easy. Come on, you're going to be okay." A voice says soothingly.

He forces his eyes open and looks up at the distinctive face above him, his mind scrambles and finally places it.

"Usopp." He croaks, making the liar smile slightly.

"So you found him then." A young girl's voice says in an unimpressed tone.

"Oi, you could have helped!" Usopp shoots back indignantly and moves slightly allowing Sanji to see. The girl is small, no more than seven years old, with bright orange hair and lavender eyes. She's bickering with Usopp about… something, him possibly. He doesn't listen. His eyes instead are fixed on something hanging from a green thread around the girl's neck, it seems familiar and the thing in his chest aches a little less to see it. He reaches for it until his finger presses on the glass, bringing a small wave of pain relief flooding through him.

"It's Zoro." He breathes without really understanding his words. The glass is round like a bauble with a red and black metallic arrow floating inside of it. It's smooth to the touch and he can see now that he's sat up a little closer to the girl that the thing is a sort of three dimensional compass. As he touches it the needle follows his finger around, no matter where he slides it. It points to him. When he takes his hand back though it flickers around briefly before pointing back towards the direction that Sanji instinctively knows is north.

"Zoro gave it to me." The little girl says by way of explanation.

"Zoro was my age when he found me, I'd gotten lost in a forest. I was there for so long. I couldn't find my way out, I kept getting turned around to where I started again. Then Zoro found me, he gave me this, said it'd help me find my way out. We walked out of the forest together but then I vanished before I could give it back." The girl explains childishly. Sanji's mind struggles to catch up, this girl had died and Zoro had helped her.

"It's his sense of direction." Usopp chuckles. Sanji's eyes widen and he touches the warm glass again, the needle shivers, seeming somehow happy, and follows his fingers around the glass again.

A laugh bubbles out of him, no wonder Zoro was always ass backwards lost if he'd given this thing away.

"Nami was the first one that Zoro helped, just after his parents died and he started to see. As you can see, she's not the only one that valued his help." Another female voice says above him. He looks up, it's Robin looking down on him.

Unsteadily he stands and as the pain fades more he's able to notice more, he's surrounded by people. Robin and Usopp are nearest to him, with the little girl. But further away are hundreds of people, all milling around looking at him and the thing in his chest.

He looks down at the thing in his chest again, it doesn't hurt so much now, it's more like a dull ache. And it looks less like a steel rope now and more like one of those velvet museum ropes. It is however still dripping blood in a disconcerting way and every so often it writhes like a snake and sends a spasm of pain through him.

"What… what is this?" he asks reaching up uncertainly, not sure if he dares to touch it again after the last dose of pain.

"Don't touch it!" A boy in a straw hat yelps and drags his hand away.

"Eesh, doesn't he know anything? Didn't he drink from the river?" A slightly older guy to the side says, he's wearing a cowboy hat with faces on and he smells slightly… singed.

"No, he didn't have time. He was in too much pain and I had to get him here." Usopp answers with a shake of his head.

"Will someone please explain what's going on here?" He demands impatiently, looking around the group.

"That thing in your chest is… have you ever heard of the idea of a red string of fate? A line connecting soul mates to each other?" Robin begins in an academic tone, her blue eyes holding him fast to the spot.

"I guess…" He frowns uncertainly.

"Well, that's what you get after lifetimes. Thousands on thousands of those strings knotted together to form a bond that's stronger than you are. Most people don't do that to themselves because, as you just found out, it can go disastrously wrong." Robin points out, gesturing to the thing in his chest.

"You weren't supposed to die, but you weren't supposed to go either. Not like you just did. You left Zoro here alone." Robin adds with an air of accusation.

"You, you told me to make up for my mistake!" Sanji says defensively, why is it that whenever he sees Robin he feels like his entire integrity as a man is being attacked?

"Not by making him promise to stay here when you left!" The raven haired lady snaps angrily, her fists balling threateningly at her sides.

"Hey, calm down! He didn't know!" The straw-hat guy says leaping between them and parting them. He looks between the two of them until they both calm down a little. Robin huffs and steps back, diverting her gaze away into the distance with a scowl.

"You know sometimes when old people who have been in love forever die that one of them goes first only to be shortly followed by the other? Sometimes only days after?" Usopp explains gently, touching him on the shoulder.

"Yeah?" Sanji frowns, not liking the sound of where he was going with this.

"When you died Zoro's time started running out. It slowed a little when you met him again, even your presence in death was enough to do that, but it never stopped slipping away. That didn't stop when he solved your murder and you left this world, it got worse." Usopp continues looking uncomfortable with what he has to say.

"He didn't know it, but when he tried to jump off of that building he was trying to follow you. Only his stupid feet found the one building in the city that you were tethered to. The only thing that he can reliably find without this is you." Nami sighs, holding up the glass compass which obligingly briefly flicks away from north to point at him before returning to its mark.

Sanji's brain whirrs to keep up. Zoro had said something about that… when he had pressed the man about killing himself he'd said… that it'd been like a light had gone out of the world, like he no longer belonged there.

"But… wouldn't I have been stuck there without Zoro?" He frowns, remembering his futile attempts to escape before the moss head found him.

"No, when he died his leaving would have pulled you with him. Unlike me, who if you hadn't have met Zoro and kept him wandering around I'd be rotted away by now. So some of us are happy that you two ran into each other again." Usopp says sharply, glaring up at Robin who scowls back at him.

"Good for you, but this is hurting Zoro!" She retorts waspishly, her hands on her wide hips.

"This is hurting him?" Sanji yelps, panic flooding his system. He doesn't want to hurt Zoro, he'd give anything to keep the man from pain, something gives him the sensation that he always has. Well, if this rope coming out of his heart is hurting Zoro then it has to go! He reaches up and wraps his hands around it and pulls.

Blinding agony explodes in his head and he collapses to the ground with a scream. He lashes out with every limb until the pain fades.

"You IDIOT! You're torturing him!" Robin shouts in his ear. That stills him at once. The hands that he hadn't even realised were restraining him let him go carefully. He relaxes against the floor, it's concrete under him, a road he realises. By his face the red cord rests, stretching out down the road, through the feet of the crowd that has gathered. He tilts his face towards it until his cheek and ear are pressed against it. It's warm and his ear can pick up a frantic heartbeat through it, Zoro's heartbeat.

"Sanji, you need to listen to us. With you being on the other side there's a problem. You can't go back to Zoro so-" The straw hat guy starts but Sanji isn't listening. He can't go back to Zoro? Bullshit. He's got a line from his heart to Zoro's, he'll find him and he'll stop this pain. He'll protect him. He launches to his feet, scattering startled people around him and sprints forward. The rope gives no slack as he moves, as if it's coiling back into an endless spool in his ribcage. The people that were gathered behind him have started chasing him, yelling at him to stop but he won't stop. Not whilst Zoro needs him.

Another stab of pain shoots through him but he flies like the wind anyway, hurtling through living people and buildings alike. He recognises this place it's his and Zoro's city, he's back in the real world. Zoro is slumped against a building in an alleyway, his hand over his heart and his teeth gritted tightly.

The rope between them is mere meters long now but the closeness doesn't seem to have appeased it. It lashes violently like some predatory animal, sending a snap of pain through him. Zoro's body arcs away from the wall and a scream rips from his lips. One hand clenches against the wall, sending his nails skittering up be brickwork whilst the other presses hard over his heart.

"Zoro, it's okay, I'm here." He says reaching for Zoro. He tries to put his hand on Zoro's sweat beaded forehead but his hand slides right through. It doesn't feel like it did when he was a ghost, like he was sliding through something wet and cold, this time it's as intangible as swiping your hand through someone's shadow – he doesn't feel a thing. And neither does Zoro by the look of him.

The wave of pain passes and Zoro slides slightly down the wall with a groan. He tries to speak to Zoro again but the green haired man can't hear him.

"He's not going to hear you, you can't go back. This world is shut to you, it took me ages to get to talk to you when you were already dead. That's what's causing all of this for Zoro, you can't go anywhere- but he can." Robin says from behind him, evidently she had been hot on his tail.

"You… you don't mean that this is killing him? Is he having a heart attack or something?" Sanji says in horror, pressing his hand to Zoro's heart. There had to be something that he could do wasn't there? Zoro had given him his energy before he had exploded into golden light, couldn't he give some back to heal him if that was the problem?

"No, you're not listening. He doesn't belong in this world, wherever the two of you are you belong there together and seeing as how you can't come back to this world properly as you're dead, Zoro can't stay here. He has to die. When you died he instinctively tried to follow you, but you made him promise not to do that so he's stayed here. Only now the world itself is rejecting him." Robin explains carefully.

"But the pain…?" He questions looking at her.

"Is your bond reacting to the separation." She answers.

Sanji turns his gaze back to Zoro's pained face. The man pushes away from the wall unsteadily and stumbles off through Sanji and Robin, back out onto the street. Sanji stares miserably after him hating the helpless feeling.

"Well, if he can't see me and I'm not making this any better by being closer why did you bring me here?" Sanji demands unhappily, he can't stand seeing Zoro so hurt.

Robin looks away sharply at that, and bites her lip. Sanji hates to upset a woman but what she's doing to him is downright cruel.

"Because… because I hope that I'm wrong. I hope that Zoro will be able to see you soon, that your bond will be enough to allow him to see you. Because I don't want him to be alone when it happens." She says quietly.

"Zoro wasn't my son, I didn't have any children. But… I fostered him, I looked after him. And he was so fragile when I first took him in, his parents had died and I didn't know it but he was dealing with this power that he didn't understand." Robin says sadly, watching him stumble down the street.

"I'm not his mother but I want to believe that some of the honourable man that he is today is because of me. I just wish that I'd done more, that I'd done or said something so that he would have told me about this kind of thing. And if the least that I can do to make up for that is bringing him the most important person in the world to him when he's at his weakest that's what I'll do!" Her eyes are alight with passion now, full of protectiveness and loyalty that Sanji recognises from Zeff. The protective instinct of a parent.

Sanji doesn't want to ask, he doesn't want to form the question to the answer that he dreads that Robin will give him, he doesn't want to look at the sad knowing eyes of the others that have gathered around him again. But he has to.

"When… when it happens?" He asks shakily.

"When he dies." The guy in the cowboy hat says simply.

"No." He breathes backing up away from them.

"No!" He yells chasing after Zoro. He won't let Zoro die, he can't! He will make this right, even if Robin thinks that he can't, even if it takes everything that he has. Maybe he can possess someone again for blocks of time, enough to keep Zoro alive and out of pain.

He sprints after Zoro. He can't really say whether he sees it coming or feels it coming but something makes him glance up in time to see the air conditioning unit sliding free of its home on the windowsill four stories above Zoro. He knows that it's going to hit Zoro, he knows that just as he knows that it will surely kill the man. He doesn't know what else to do but reach for the cord coming from his chest and yank on it. He pulls on it hard enough to wrench a scream from himself and to make Zoro stumble back in pain and double over.

The air conditioning unit explodes into a million pieces on the floor before the unharmed Zoro. The psychic breathes deep and panicky as he backs up, staring in horror at the machine that nearly just ended his life. Shaking his head he walks around it wide eyed and glancing up every so often with freshly renewed caution, trailing his spectral crowd behind him.

"Are you just going to keep doing that forever Sanji? The pain is only going to get worse for both of you the longer that you're apart." Usopp calls after him. He's probably right but he just can't bear to allow Zoro to die if he can stop it, every inch of his soul cries out against the idea.

"Zoro, please… please hear me. Don't die." He begs quietly, his hand on Zoro's back as the man walks. Zoro pauses and for a second he thinks that Zoro has heard him, the man turns his head as if trying to place a sound. And it's not until the truck flies through his intangible body that he realises that it wasn't him that Zoro had thought he heard.

He thinks that he's in shock. Can you be in shock when you're dead and without a body? If you can then that's what he is in. Brick and mortar dust cloud his vision for a second but as it clears Sanji's wide eyes take in the massive hole in the wall that Zoro was just walking by that is now filled with the back end of a truck. Zoro isn't… isn't where he was just standing, almost comically one of his shoes is on the floor. Those shitty converses with duct tape wrapped around them to hold them together, the stupid tape that Zoro had painted white to try to blend it in.

He's sure that he screams, he's not sure what, probably Zoro's name. But he flies through the wall and follows the direction that the cable coming from his chest leads.

There is plaster dust raining down from the ceiling and steam spurting out of parts of the ruined shop, it looks like it was some kind of closed down second hand junk furniture shop. He screams Zoro's name for all the good that it'll do him, he can't see Zoro anywhere on the floor or cushioned like he'd hoped on something soft. The rope in his chest doesn't lead that way anyway, not like he had hoped it would.

With hesitation he makes his way to the front of the truck where it lies embedded in the back wall of the shop. His eyes pick up the flash of green and his heart breaks. Zoro is slumped face-down over the hood of the truck, pinned between it and the wall. There is... blood, a lot of it. Blood up the wall, on the floor and across the front of the truck and its window.

"Zoro..." he whines. The physical pain in his chest from the cord between them has stopped but the emotional pain of seeing Zoro like this is worse. He doesn't know whether he wants Zoro to be alive or not.

He doesn't get a say in the matter however, as Zoro's chest rises and falls shakily. Zoro hacks out a cough with an unhealthily large flow of blood running down his chin. Sanji doesn't know what to do, part of him wants to murder the truck driver for doing this to Zoro regardless of whether this was an accident or not, but even if he could he doesn't want to leave Zoro's side.

"Sssan-ji."

Sanji's gaze snaps back to Zoro who is looking up at him with a weak smile.

"He CAN see you!" Robin exclaims behind him in a choked voice.

"I'm here Zoro." he assures the man, reaching over and pressing his intangible palm in Zoro's and the other in Zoro's bleeding hairline.

"I'm here." he repeats a little more steadily.

Zoro tries to push himself up on his elbows but an unpleasant and slightly organic tearing noise stops Zoro with a painful looking flinch.

"Stay still idiot! Just... just focus on me okay?" Sanji scolds him.

Breathing raggedly Zoro slumps back onto the hood and looks up at Sanji.

"You came back." Zoro says raspily.

"I should have come back sooner, I leave you for five minutes and look what happens." Sanji says forcing a strained laugh out. He needs to keep Zoro distracted from the pain. He's no doctor but even he can see that Zoro hasn't got long like this, all he wants is for it to be as painless for Zoro as is physically possible.

"Two months." Zoro corrects him weakly, with a weak flutter of his eyelids.

"It... It didn't seem more than five minutes where I was..." He breathes in horror.

"I'm so sorry for everything Zoro, I screwed this all up. I never meant to leave you alone, I never meant for THIS to happen." he sobs trying to hold Zoro's hand tighter but his fingers just slide through. All he wants is to touch Zoro and make this better.

"Oi Nami, you don't need to see this. Come on." Usopp's voice says behind Sanji as he tries to usher the girl out and away from the gory scene.

"But- but I need to give this back to Zoro." Nami's tearful voice says as she holds up the shining bauble that is Zoro's sense of direction.

"Give it to him next time yeah?" Usopp says gently, giving Sanji an idea.

He turns back to Zoro with a forced smile and strokes his fingers down Zoro's cheek even though he's fairly certain that Zoro can't feel it.

"Hey, I'll tell you what." he says forcing a brightness that he doesn't feel into his voice.

"You believe in reincarnation right? Well, it looks like you might be right." he says remembering Robin's words about the connection between them, she said that it was made over thousands of lifetimes.

"Just... just be strong a little longer and we can go and try this again. Only this time we won't die and we'll find each other, won't we?" He insists.

"I could kick your ass if you're alive." Zoro says weakly with a blood tinged grin.

"Psha, you can try! And… and I'll cook for you, you'll get to eat my food, like you were supposed to. We could see the world, have adventures, do whatever we want. Got it?" He smiles a little more genuinely now.

Zoro nods weakly, his skin is even paler now, paler than Sanji ever was. He rests his forehead on the hood of the truck and shudders.

"'Cold." Zoro mumbles sluggishly.

"I'm not going anywhere, not without you." Sanji says vehemently. He moves a little closer to Zoro, his hand still in Zoro's. Zoro is starting to feel a little more solid to him now and a glance out of the corner of his eye confirms that Zoro's hand has some ghostly looking fingers just touching Sanji's. It seems that Zoro is losing sensation in his extremities, dying bit by bit and moving more into Sanji's new world. He squeezes Zoro's hand and leans over so that his head is resting just by Zoro's. Zoro's breathing is shallow and erratic, sounding laboured and hard come by.

"Does… it hurt?" Zoro says in something that is little more than a weak breath shaped by his lips.

"You have a truck in your chest and you're asking me if dying hurts?" Sanji laughs bitterly. Zoro doesn't answer him though, just blinks in a lazy and uncoordinated way.

"No, it doesn't hurt. It's like waking up. You know that feeling when you're still all warm and sleepy under the covers? It's just like that." He lies smoothly. For him waking up on the other side was excruciating, but that could easily have been from his connection to Zoro being snapped taut, he's not going to tell Zoro that though.

Zoro's red lips quirk slightly at him. Sanji feels it happen more than sees it, perhaps Zoro's eyes unfocus a little but instead he feels Zoro move slightly as his… soul disconnects from his body. There is the same golden light that Sanji is now familiar with.

He grips Zoro's hand harder, he is not going to lose him, not after all of this. He holds on to Zoro for all that he is worth and trusts that wherever Zoro goes he will go too. The world seems to pull upwards and the things around him and spirits around him blur out of sight.

When he comes to it is like waking up, he feels warm and safe. The sky above him is endlessly white and he feels soft grass under his bare skin beneath him. There is a nose pressed into his pulse point in his neck and soft lips against the join between his neck and his shoulders, there is an arm around his waist and he knows without looking that it is Zoro. He feels Zoro's heart in his own chest, not that he has a physical heart of course, or a physical chest for that matter, but he feels Zoro. It feels similar to how he felt when Zoro kissed him, he felt the familiar shores of Zoro's soul, only now he's in there and being lapped by the waves.

He opens his eyes and looks at Zoro who smirks toothily at him.

"You again?" Zoro teases, pushing himself up on his arms and holding himself above Sanji. He looks different maybe, if Sanji doesn't focus he swears that he can see a thousand different but incredibly similar faces, he can see millions of scars that both are and aren't there. But that green hair, the dark eyes and clever snarky mouth are unchanging.

"So we have done this before then?" Sanji asks, having suspected that they had from Robin's words but having taken heed from Zoro that Robin was not always… honest.

Looking down at their chests though he can't see the twisted cable that connected them, it's not there anymore. Instead, almost as thin as spider silk is a ruby red line from Zoro's heart down to his, it feels new. When he looks up at Zoro again though there's a frown on the other man's face.

"You've forgotten?" He asks.

"I don't… I guess?" He shrugs not knowing what it is that he doesn't know.

"Your memory is terrible sometimes." Zoro remarks with a roll of his eyes. He gives Sanji a considering and slightly predatory look and leans in closer.

"This always jogs my memory." He mutters and kisses Sanji gently. Sanji shivers all over and smiles into the kiss.

When Zoro pulls away though he notices something, not memories coming back as Zoro intended but he spots a dark swirling cloud in the previously unbroken expanse of white. Zoro seems to spot his gaze and glances up. The sky is spinning now, with dark grey clouds swirling ominously like… like a twister. He's feeling confused and unsure until Zoro's gaze snaps back to him with steely determination and an edge of fear, then Sanji starts to feel panicky.

"What's happening for it to be this soon? I barely even saw you this last time, I can't lose you again so quickly! It hurts too much!" Zoro says fiercely, yanking them both to their feet. Zoro grabs his hand firmly and yanks him off into a run. They sprint along the grass under their feet but as Sanji looks up he realises that they're just looping around in a way that he's sure has nothing to do with Zoro's missing sense of direction.

"We're not getting anywhere!" He exclaims, pulling Zoro to a stop. The marimo glances up at the steadily descending twister with a glare.

"You're right." He agrees bitterly as the wind picks up to worrying levels.

"What's happening?" He asks Zoro as he steps closer, fearful of losing the other man in the wind.

"It's starting again, the reincarnation. Listen to me, come here." Zoro says loudly over the wind whistling in Sanji's ears.

"Look at my face, remember me. Look for me, I can't be apart from you like last time again, it feels too wrong." Zoro orders him, clutching Sanji's face in his hands.

"I don't understand!" He shouts over the wind, his hair whipping him in the face.

"Just promise me that you won't forget! Remember my face!" Zoro yells to him.

Sanji doesn't get time to reply though as the force of the twister finally sucks them up off of the floor. His feet flail in the air. He snags his arm onto Zoro's though, his hand locked on Zoro's elbow and Zoro's locked on his.

"Promise me that you won't forget me!" Zoro demands again in a scream.

"I- I PROMISE!" Sanji yells for all he's worth. They're spinning uncontrollably now and he feels his grip on Zoro failing. A bright light opens behind Zoro and the forces on them get stronger, trying to spin them apart.

"I WON'T FORGET YOU!" He shouts as his hand slips down to Zoro's wrist. His eyes lock on Zoro's dark ones one last time before they're ripped apart into the blinding light.