The vast and endless encasement that was Zoro's mindscape had never felt so small, so confined.

Zoro, not for the first time (and certainly not for the last), glared at his older self. The self-proclaimed "Bushido" was sitting in a cross-legged pose, thumbs of each hand pressed together as he breathed in and out.

That was another thing. What the hell was with Bushido, it still somehow felt like a loss against the older man that he had mentally started referring to him by Bushido (the problem was that any insults could also apply to him), and meditating?

Bushido seemed to abhor the idea of doing anything else if meditation was an option. Whenever they weren't talking, and talk they did (Zoro would be a fool to ignore any pearls of wisdom a more experienced swordsman bestowed, even if they were mere scraps), Bushido was meditating.

And the worst part was that Zoro couldn't think of a better way for Bushido to spend his time, meditating seemed like the optimal solution. Conversations between the two were always awkward, both trying and failing to avoid the elephant in the room: that fact that they were two people in a body built for one. Add in the fact that Bushido was angry about Zoro killing that octopus fishman (which frankly sucked, Zoro was dying to ask what that strange sixth sense he had used had been about), who he had gathered had been a friend of Bushido's in the future, and conversations were a guranteed no.

Sparing was also out of the question completely. Both men had too much emotional baggage and, besides that, knew each other too well. Well, Bushido certainly knew Zoro a great deal more than Zoro knew Bushido but he was pretty sure he knew Bushido's general fighting style...he had invented it after all. And that was ignoring still the fact the Bushido being as strong as he was, incomprehensibly strong from what Zoro had seen of it, any spar would be laughably one-sided.

A fact that Zoro could personally attest to, having fought Bushido only an hour or so ago (though God only knows how long had passed outside the mindscape. Days? Weeks? The possibilities made his head spin so he tried his damn best to focus only in the moment….easier said than done when there was nothing to focus on besides the meditating green-haired enigma).

He had been destroyed.

Utterly.

If Zoro was being generous, a rarity for him, the spar had lasted ten seconds at most. Bushido had flickered out of existence (What had Bushido called it again? Soru?), momentarily leaving a bewildered Zoro wondering if Bushido had somehow ascended to the afterlife and if that meant Zoro was back in control, before reappearing and delivering a vicious sucker punch to Zoro's upturned head.

Seeing double, and with ringing ears, Zoro had fallen to his knees with a groan. Every battle-honed sense in his body screamed for him to keep moving, stopping and groveling on the ground would mean his death, so he rolled to the side. With a snarl, he had hurled himself back to his feet and into the air, he had attempted a desperate tackle.

An ebony fist had awaited his effort, smashing into his face while an equally hardened leg ruptured his ribcage.

The next few minutes (seconds?) had been a haze. Slipping between a crude caricature sleep (there was nowhere further to retreat to, this was the final haven of the mind after all) and fits of surreal awakeness where his eyesight swam in front of him, glimmers of colours that did not exist in the blackness shooting across like dying stars.

Eventually, with a loud groan, he rolled over onto his hands and knees. One arm snaked up to cradle his burning chest, nearly crying out as he felt the way the skin sagged (the once sturdy collection of bones reduced to something you'd expect to see at the bottom of a used mortar). Teeth bared, Kuina's vow echoing through his head, he glared up at Bushido. "I wouldn't risk killing me," Zoro managed to rasp, "no clue what will happen to you if I go."

The older swordsman had shot him a look that conveyed just how lowly he thought of his younger self, eye full of condescension and a sort of sad pity. "Are you an idiot?"

Anger had twisted his face, drawing out the worst features in him, as he snarled. "Shut the hell up." It was a testament to his self-restraint that he did not lash out. A small niggling voice at the back of his mind muttered that it was a testament to his cowardice.

Bushido had only sighed, the simple action causing Zoro's teeth to grind against each other. "Listen...where are we exactly?"

Righteous indignation had welled up inside of Zoro, thundering through his veins like hot lead, and he unsteadily rose to his feet. The simple action nearly made him scream, shards of bone gleefully tearing and hacking away at his stomach lining, only his pride (that underlying characteristic of his was both a boon and a bane) kept his mouth closed and his vocal cords silent. A beat passed, unwilling to speak out loud (unwilling to hear if his voice would break and make him whimper), he hissed. "In a prison."

The ebony on the older man had seemed to gleam in the dark void. "Don't be coy."

He had trembled, a twitchy mixture of pain and rage, fists curling and uncurling repeatedly. "I'm not," he finally said, voice full of venom, "that's exactly what this is."

"Fine, be like that." Bushido had rolled his eyes, more fuel for Zoro's fire. "But it's a mental prison."

The emphasis on the word had made Zoro pause momentarily, but it took far more than that to hold back the flames of righteous anger, before he had snarled back. "Even worse. I could at least have a decent shot at escaping a real prison."

"You really are insistent on focusing on the negatives of this, aren't you? No matter." Bushido has responded with a small smirk. "Mental. As in, not real."

Zoro had stilled, shrewdly squinting across the void at the older man. "What?"

"You are imagining the pain, subconsciously commanding your nerves to conjure it up," Bushido had explained, amusement dancing in his good eye, "I doubt it would work on a normal person nearly effectively. But you and me, well, we're familiar with the concept of dishing out and taking pain. We can simulate it."

Zoro had paused, mouth hanging open. It couldn't be that easy...could it? Could he really just wish away the pain? Focusing on the powdered remains of his ribcage bubbling in his gut, he imagined the bones regrowing and locking back together into their original position. Pain had smashed through his body, coursing from head to toe. That time he did scream, the howl echoed through the void. Throat raw, he had fallen to his knees again.

Another paroxysm of pain had swept through his body, leaving him curled in a ball on the ground. A moment of respite, and then the burning hot pain flared again. Sweaty hands had clawed at his gut as he struggled to even draw breath, and, for a single moment, he thought his mind was going to shatter from the pain. His sanity had been slipping and shattering, weathered and cracked at the edges.

Then the pain had passes and his hands were pressed against a no longer sagging gut: ribcage restored. Discreetly dabbing at his eyes, whether he had cried even he would never know, he had rolled to his feet. Absent-mindedly, he had fixed his broken and bleeding nose, a sharp flare of pain throbbing under the skin as the nose had cracked back into place. Feeling like he had been declawed, from a prowling tiger to a little kitten, he gazed up at Bushido.

"Well." Bushido had given him an awkward smile, the edges not reaching his eye. "Seems my theory was correct."

Not feeling the once so easy to grasp anger, he hadn't retorted. And so the silence had continued until now. Seconds blurred into minutes, minutes into hours. Looking at his mediating older self, he had finally decided to break the ice again. "How much time do you think has passed?" He ventured.

Bushido's good eye cracked open and he sighed. "Who knows?" He shrugged, an ugly self-deprecating smirk on his face, and spoke. "I'd guess it's been a week, give or take. Body should nearly be good to go."

The unspoken if the Straw Hats had bothered to get them a doctor hung between them in the air, sending a shudder down Zoro's spine.

Licking his lips, Zoro said. "So, time travel?"

Bushido stiffened slightly, eye getting that faraway look that occurs when one is reliving old memories, his lips thinning into a line. "What of it?" His voice sounded light and casual to the common ear but to someone who knew him, really knew him, it was laced heavily with hurt and warning.

Zoro should know, it was the voice he used when someone asked why he wanted to be the best.

Zoro took a deep breath, it was now or never, and asked the question that had been plaguing him since he had been trapped in the mindscape. "I know the main reason you travelled back was to save that Luffy guy but...I just wondered…" Zoro trailed off, eyes not quite meeting Bushido's blank stare.

Bushido nodded tightly, the thin lips morphing into a grimace. "Out with it."

Zoro took the plunge, knowing the answer could change things between them completely. "Did you fulfill Kuina's wish? Did you uphold the vow you made when you picked up her blade?"

The guilty look in Bushido's one eye, filled with pain, was answer enough.

And Zoro, on some level, understood.

Finally understood.


"It's Wapol! He's returned!"

The panicked, terrified yell just about broke through the glaze that was Sanji's mind. The frantic undertone swimming though the sluggish river that was Sanji's thought process. For a few seconds he continued to suck the last dregs of precious nicotine, slurping the old tobacco between his lips as he tried to comprehend the simple sentence, his fried brain turning the sentence over and over again in his mind.

A hesitant voice. "Sanji?"

Sanji cocked his head to the side slightly and looked at the voice's owner: a beautiful blue-haired girl, Vivi his mind supplied helpfully after a moment, who's worried blue eyes glittered up at him. "What are you going to do?"

The nicotine brushed against his teeth, and he could imagine his teeth yellowing (might as well reflect the scum he was inside), as he stared at her. "About what?"

Her brow furrowed. "About Wapol, of course."

Wapol? Where had he heard that before? Oh, oh right, the villager running around like a chicken whose head had been chopped off. He watched him, already retreating back into the safe haven that was his tired mind, when flesh smacked against flesh and sharp pain blossomed across his cheek.

One hand almost absent-mindedly scratched at the cheek, momentarily relishing in the fresh sensory input, and an involuntary goofy smile tugged at his lips. He rocked on his heels, nearly toppling over, and felt his eyes begin to glaze over again. "Ow," he said, more for the sake of it than anything.

The girl, Vivi, seized the lapels of his suit jacket and pulled him forward, scrunching the fine material between her shaking fingers, and so that their heads were inches from each other. He could feel the warm air from her breath wafting across his skin as she hissed, "get your damn act together!"

He blinked, feeling the grains of sleep in his eyelashes, and finally croaked out. "What?"

Another slap. More pain to get him awake, keep him standing. "I'm saying that it's about damn time you stopped wallowing in self pity and did your bloody job."

Spitting out the chewed remains of the cigarette, and dimly realising with a small flush of shame that he had never even lit the cancer stick, he replied. "I'm the cook."

"A sorry sleep-deprived excuse for a cook who's been starving himself, yeah," she said, ignoring Usopp's gasp and the way Sanji had been sent reeling back by the callous words, "but you're also the highest ranking crew member here so bloody well do something!"

Wide awake, eyes panicked, his mind jump-started from excuse to cover up with rapid fire speed. How had she noticed? He thought that he had covered his tracks...thought he was being coy with his "naps" in the kitchen and the way he started to divide his meal portions, the largest going to Luffy even if the captain's hunger levels were tiny compared to their usual standard, amongst the crews. Thought that his penance had gone unnoticed by all. "N-no," he protested weakly.

Vivi glowered up with him, hands on her hips. "And don't you worry, we will be dealing with those afterwards but, for now, go out there and beat the crap out of that egotistical king!"

Sanji staggered towards the door that led from Dalton's house to the sleepy village, obeying orders (not fleeing, never fleeing), his skin gone completely pale white. Away from Usopp's horrified gaze and Vivi's accusing stare. "Oh, and Sanji?" He turned, half knowing, half dreading, and Vivi was a blur. A second later and the red apple was being stuffed down his throat and Vivi, looking every bit the warrior princess in that moment, holding his mouth shut.

His choices were clear: break his fast and penance for what he had done to Nami (he had ruined her, he had to suffer alongside her...it was the least he could've done) or eat and not choke and survive.

He swallowed the apple mush.

It tasted like ash and curdled milk going doing his throat but he ate it.

By god, he ate it.

Tears dripping down his face as he realized just how much of an idiot he had been (starving himself to make up for something? Zef would've killed him for doing something so asinine), mind in perfect clarity despite nearly a week working off little to no sleep, Sanji marched to defeat an egotistical mad king.

Marched to protect the only doctor who could help from the threat.

Marched for Nami.


Tony Tony Chopper often told himself that he didn't care that humans hated and were disgusted by him on sight. Told himself that he didn't wilt in on himself when patient opened their eyes, oh and the joy that Chopper felt when people who he wasn't sure would pull through opened their eyes again, and saw the emotions in their eyes when they laid eyes on Chopper.

Happiness, relief, confusion, curiosity and so many, many more.

And then Chopper spoke.

Anger, fear, disgust and horror in its many forms.

So Choppe had long ago decided that it wasn't worth getting worked up about humans, where they were from and how they had ended up the way they were. No, all Chopper cared about was how they had gotten their injuries and how to treat them. Yes, it was much simpler that way. Took the sting out of their rejection.

Then a single man had climbed the tallest of the Drum Rockies with two people loosely tied across his back, a woman covered in jagged, crude stitchings and a man infected with a disease long thought eradicated.

The rock had shattered and crumbled beneath the man, his fingers obsidian (Doctorine had only cackled when Chopper had mentioned the strange disappearing armour, he wondered if she didn't believe him) as he had climbed to the top. Chopper had grabbed the man as he reached the top and, for the few seconds before the man had collapsed, there had been a heaviness in the air.

Even now, the mere memory of it made his fur bristle and stand on end. Chopper hadn't even tried to explain it to Doctorine, couldn't have. No words could describe the feeling. Still...something happened.

His hooves clip-clopping against the dreary stone floor brought him back to the present, shivering despite his fur as he made his patient rounds. He passed the room that held the two male patients and peaked inside. Moonlight bathed the room in its glow, illuminating the two beds and their occupants.

The green-haired had thrown his quilt off since Chopper's last round and was spread-eagled across the bed, dressed only in boxers in the drafty room. The mess of scar tissue that made up the center of his chest was proudly on display, a stark contrast to the tanned skin beside it. He was sweating less, and no longer moaning, a good sign that his fever was letting up.

As he struggled to toss the heavy quilt back on the unconscious man, his short arms trembling from the effort, he shook his head. Honestly how does someone manage to contract a disease thought eradicated centuries ago? Smoothing out the quilt with one hoof, he gently peeled back the eyelid of the man's ruined eye. A milky iris stared back up at him, and not for the first time, Chopper wondered what was wrong with it.

Chopper glanced at the black-haired teen, who had squirreled himself up in quilt while he was asleep, and began changing his bandages. Satisfied that the frostbite had healed and that gangrene had not set in, and that the week old slash wounds had not been infected, he finished the bandaging with a flourish. Sparing the men one last glance, he left the room.

Onto his final patient: the stitching girl as he had started calling her.

He entered the room absent-mindedly, thinking of new concoctions to test the next time Doctorine let him experiment, when the was brought up short. Stitching girl was sitting upright in bed and looking straight at him. She gave him an awkward little wave, the moonlight catching off her twined skin. "Hi."

"H-hey," Chopper instinctively mumbled, he immediately winced and poked his hooves against each other, before steeling his resolve and looking up at the stitching girl. He would not falter when he saw the usual disgust and fear humans felt when they saw a talking animal.

Wouldn't let it hurt him.

Instead the girl smiled, the simple action making her brown eyes sparkle and lighting up the room, and instantly became the prettiest girl Chopper had ever seen. "I'm Nami. What's your name?"

She didn't hate or fear him. She only wanted to know his name.

This time he did not mumble or stutter. This time his voice was filled with inexplicable pride.

"Tony Tony Chopper, resident doctor."