A/n: This may be my last update for the next two weeks. Or maybe I'll upload another soon, not very sure. Either ways, enjoy memory-less ZoSan!
Thank you for the favorites and follows and reviews! And for reading!
Love~
Chapter 22
Zoro blinked and coughed, squinting to see through his foggy vision, his senses on over drive and searching for information as to whether he was in danger or relatively safe. It took him a whole minute to be able to see reasonably well and a few more to struggle into a half sitting position. He leaned his full weight on his uninjured arm and looked around, dazed and confused. He twisted his neck from side to side and up to down, hearing the reassuring cracks that atleast his head was securely on his shoulders – for the time being. He took in a shallow breath through his mouth and held it, forcing himself into a sitting position while his single eye darted around, looking for something to lean against. When he spotted a broken piece of mangled metal, he dragged himself toward it.
He cursed as he felt the skin on his elbow tear and felt the heat of his blood dribbling down his forearm. Once he was propped up against the deformed metal, he huffed a sigh and began focusing on his surroundings.
As far as he could remember – which honestly wasn't very far – he had been doing something of utmost importance before he blacked out. For one thing, he knew he hadn't been alone. Somehow, his lack of memory seemed to prove his suspicions. That, and he was sure he hadn't been in the dingy dump of scrap metal and broken parts he was currently in.
He tilted his head upwards and squinted against the blinding sun, trying to decipher something other than deformed objects. All he could tell, was that he was surrounded by mountains of garbage and he had somehow ended up at the bottom of it.
'Thrown, more likely,' was the immediate thought that followed the newly perceived information.
The fact that whoever had thrown him down a mountain of garbage, had had enough time to do it, proved that he had been knocked out pretty good and for a reasonably long time too. He wasn't sure how much time had passed, as his vague memories of what had happened prior to him blacking out were far too vague to even give too much importance to.
He grumbled incoherently and scratched at his closed eye, feeling the uncomfortable tingling sensation in his empty socket that he always felt when something was extremely wrong. He gave himself a moment to berate himself and then focused on the most pressing task at hand.
To figure out where the hell he was and how the hell he was going to get out.
He turned to look at his body, scanning slowly upwards from his feet - focusing so hard he could've seen through muscle and bone -discerning the extent of his injuries.
His legs seemed fine, except for a couple cracked bones maybe. Nothing a temporary cast made of metal couldn't take care of. His left arm was badly damaged. He was sure almost all of his bones were broken and the arm just hung limply to his side, bloody and broken. The bandages on his chest had slipped off and even he had to wince at the sight of the deep gashes and puss filled gouges. Apparently he'd been roughed up pretty bad, was on the path to recovery and then had been roughed up some more. He had to snort with amusement at the sudden thought that occurred to him.
It seemed like all his life was filled with, was beating and getting beaten up and then the cycle went on endlessly, but for some goddamned reason he always made It out alive.
That made him pause in his observations. Something tickled in the back of his mind. Something important. It was telling him he had found something more important than mindless fighting and killing and the satisfaction of bandaging his own scars.
There was flash of brilliant blue and startling gold and Zoro groaned, slapping his good hand to his face, breathing heavily. His vision shook and quivered, like he was watching a bad video. And trying to recollect whatever he had seen, shot a sharp sting through his brain that fizzled and crackled in his skull like a jolt of lightning was electrocuting him.
He didn't know how long it was, till he could breathe again, but when he came to, he was lying on his side, curled up against the ground, tears running down his face along with blood. His brain seemed to be far less receptive than he remembered. His vision was a soft blur of colours that seemed to have a life of their own. His chest was heaving for air and every breath caused him to retch and spit blood.
Stray slivers of thoughts and memories were darting through his half conscious mind, begging to be paid attention to, screaming to be acknowledged. But Zoro was too tired, too drained, too resigned to his fate to bother.
Something about this situation seemed to spark a sense of Déjà vu and something about a method of erasing memory and the consequences of attempting to recollect the forbidden memory crossed his mind.
But Zoro didn't think something like that was of too much importance. Especially since he had experienced first hand what would happen if he tried to remember. That made him think again, how someone else could have died from experiencing what he had experienced, but for some reason he was still alive – although barely – and that probably meant something.
That single inkling of an idea seemed to churn something within him back to life. His vision began to refocus and his body seared with pain, proving that he was still alive and he still had things to do.
He struggled to sit up, his chest still heaving from the burden of having to take in and leave out air even though it should have been freed of its task. His limbs felt rusty and old, like they too refused to accept that they were being forced back to life when they should have been dead. Which gave him all the more reason to push himself to stand up, force his buckling knees to straighten up, force his creaking joints to click into place and steady him.
His brain whirred loudly in his cranium, seeming to be the only part of him that was glad to be alive. Zoro panted at the amount of exertion and leaned his arm against whatever was next to him. His body teetered dangerously, showing him that his sense of balance hadn't stabilized yet, but was on the way there.
He found it odd that he could only see on one side for some reason and his brain was telling him he should be able to see everything on the left too. He tried to raise his left arm to his face, but he was surprised that his arm wouldn't move and hurt if he tried. He frowned in confusion and leaned his hip against his support, reaching to his face with his good arm. He gently ghosted his fingers across what should have been his left eye and had to swallow when he felt a long gash and a skin covered hollow space where his eyeball should have been.
Zoro's eyebrows furrowed some more in confusion, unsure of how he was supposed to react to this information. Any normal person would cry in shock and probably panic himself to death, but Zoro seemed perfectly calm and accepting, almost like he had known all along that his lack of an eye was an imminent part of him.
He felt something else, a weird emotion that he was quite sure he wasn't supposed to feel in the situation he was in—he felt pride. Proud that his eyes had been sliced out, apparently.
Zoro groaned again, rubbing his temples. He was currently having identity issues, he realized. He wasn't very sure who he was or what he was supposed to do, his character or his personality or his behavior. He knew it, but didn't know at the same time. And that left him very muddled and confused.
While he was dealing with his sudden loss of recognition of the notion of who he was and the very fabric of his existence, there was a slight rustle at the top of one of the mountains of garbage around him. He immediately stiffened and his senses perked up, alert for anything and everything. He didn't move from his position, but shifted his hand ever so slightly, so he could glance towards the direction of the sound through the gaps in his fingers.
There was more rustling and the harder Zoro concentrated, the more obvious it became that whoever it was, wasn't attacking him, but rather was just stumbling around in confusion. There was loud crack – causing Zoro's mind to form the mental image of his left arm reaching for his side and his left hand grasping the hilt of a sword. The image left him distraught and momentarily disoriented, but a sudden yelp followed by the sound of someone tumbling down, caused him to snap his head up and move so he was standing upright on his feet. Something in the back of his mind was saying he shouldn't be able to stand up without support and he was only able to, because of all the adrenaline flowing through his veins, but he effectively ignored it.
He waited for the cloud of dust to clear, before he carefully inched towards whoever had fallen down the mound. The person seemed to be unconscious, from the way their unmoving body lay in the ground and Zoro eased into a crouch a safe distance away from the man – although he could have easily been a woman, with his slight body and slender figure – observing him to see if he would make any sudden movements.
When it seemed like the man was really and truly unconscious, Zoro sat cross-legged and eyed him carefully, from head to toe.
The first thought that came to him, was that the man was beautiful. Too beautiful to be a man, in fact. If it weren't for his facial hair, thick sinewy neck, broad, sculpted shoulders and well-defined muscles, Zoro would have honestly thought he was a woman.
The man had striking gold hair that shimmered in the sun, like it was alive. His face was quite wide and well-sculpted, with sharp cheekbones and well defined features. His eyebrows were very weird though. They curved into little swirls at one end and both swirls were in the same direction, which was honestly more weird than the fact that they were curved—atleast to Zoro.
He was wearing some sort of loose material that looked like a worn out dressing gown, like the ones patients wore in hospitals, with ties in the front that exposed his heavily bandaged chest. The bandages were bloody and loose and Zoro's fingers twitched with a sudden need to redo them – which he ignored, again. Even from under the bandages, Zoro could make out the ridges and depressions of his abdominal muscles and the way his hips curved in and out perfectly, almost too curvy for a man.
Zoro's eye widened slightly when he looked at the man's legs, because they were very well toned, with strong calves and stiff thighs, like those of a runner or an athlete. Zoro's eye wandered back to the man's face, wondering who this person could be, and he jumped three feet in the air, with a loud yelp.
The blond had both eyes open wide and he was staring so intently at Zoro, he had a strong urge to either run away or throw a boulder at him. The blond simply continued to stare at Zoro, unblinking, his eyes as huge as saucers, those cerulean orbs looking at and into Zoro, like they were dissecting and recreating the swordsman from his very core.
Zoro shifted to a half crouch, the mental image of him reaching for his swords, flashing through his mind again. He brushed away the thought and stared back at the blond, although it was extremely unnerving, as the man's simply looked back at him blankly without moving or speaking.
Zoro cleared his throat and took a deep breath, steadying his racing heart and settling from the sudden shock. For some reason his mind was telling him he was supposed to attack strangers before asking questions, but something about this man was undeniably familiar, yet undoubtedly strange. So he just cleared his throat and decided he may as well say something since the other didn't seem to want to move anytime soon.
"O-Oi! Wh-Who the hell are you?"
His voice cracked in the end, but he didn't think the other noticed. In fact, it didn't seem like the blond had even heard him. Zoro ducked his head and looked at the mound of garbage behind the blond, where he rolled down.
"Did you fall over? What are you doing here? I'm talking to you, oi!"
The glazed blue eyes just stared vacantly at him and Zoro wondered if he was possessed. He stretched a hand and poked him in the cheek, just to make sure. The second their skin touched, a jolt passed through Zoro, and from the way the blond twitched, he seemed to have felt it too.
The man's unfocused eyes finally seemed to register Zoro's existence and actually see him for the first time. His eyebrows immediately crinkled in confusion and Zoro saw fear along with the confusion, as those eyes sparkled with life. The man then parted his lips ever so slightly and Zoro was almost surprised by the rough, manly voice that came out of them.
"Who the hell are you?!"
A/n: Yup, that's officially their first meeting ladies and gentlemen! -cackles evilly- this story is just taking unprecedented turns, but I'm not unhappy about it.
Next chapter will be from Sanji's POV and how he reacts to his lack of memory. Look forward to it!
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P.s, the question about the previous chapter and what Robin had scrawled on the wall will be answered soon enough! I don't want to ruin it!
Love~
Love~