CHAPTER SIX

Trois Bleu

That evening

"Oi, boss, are you doing okay?" Planchet asked.

Sanji started in surprise. He hadn't noticed the young man enter the storeroom, where he had been leaning against the wall, rubbing his temple.

"Ah, yeah, just a bit of a headache," Sanji told him, quickly straightening his posture. "Are you looking for something in here?"

"No, Kitty asked me to find you. She said there's a table asking about you."

"I'll be out in just a minute, then," Sanji responded.

As soon as Planchet left, letting the door to the storeroom click shut, the chef sank down to the ground and clutched his head between his knees. It wasn't a lie; his head indeed ached, but there was something far more traumatic assaulting his senses.

It was ludicrous that he had let himself be affected by something so damn meaningless. It wasn't the first time he had been triggered by a random event or snippet of a conversation he had overheard, but usually it wouldn't grip him this badly. More typically, the feeling just became lost in the general numbness that consumed him, before it could noticeably impair him.

Get it together, shitty old man, he thought to himself angrily. The only thing you have to do is this job, so how fucking worthless are you if you can't even do it right.

He sucked in a ragged breath. It had only been a stray comment one shitty brat said to another shitty brat; two young men with an overgrown sense of entitlement having an utterly inane conversation. He'd seen them before—not that it mattered. He just happened to overhear a comment one of them made, which, to any other person, would have been purely meaningless.

"If you ever manage to beat me at a game of shogi, it will be cause for celebration, for sure. Why, I'll throw you a damn party myself," he stated arrogantly.

As the two young men laughed obnoxiously in disgusting unison, Sanji felt like the breath had been forcibly stamped out of his lungs.

Now, in the storeroom, the chef cursed under his breath, clutching strands of white-and-faded-blonde hair in his fingers. As if that dream that had woken him up wasn't bad enough, now here he was, thinking about that time.

That conversation...

With all his willpower, he desperately tried to refrain from remembering those agonizing final words he had said that day; words that had echoed in his mind countless times.

Thousand Sunny

Over twenty years ago

Zoro had just confronted the cook about Chopper's warning, as he plucked the freshly-lit cigarette from Sanji's grasp.

"Seriously, what the hell?" Sanji shouted at Zoro, once he had reclaimed it.

"I'm talking about when Chopper told you to stop smoking, dumbass."

That awful way the shitty marimo drew out the word dumbass... Sanji clenched his teeth in aggravation.

Still, Zoro continued. "What was that, half a year ago? And look at you now, coughing like a damned old man."

Glowering at him, Sanji continued to flagrantly suck on the cigarette, defiantly exhaling smoke toward the swordsman. "Yeah, what about it?"

"He noticed when he was in your body, didn't he?" Zoro asked. It had been awhile, but Zoro could have only been referring to one time; when Trafalgar Law used his Shambles ability on them, back on Punk Hazard, and the young doctor's consciousness had temporarily been housed in Sanji's body. "Chopper told you he could tell there was something wrong with your lungs at that time—"

"Tch, he's a doctor—of course he's going to tell me to stop smoking," the cook interrupted snidely. "And how the hell do you know about that, anyway?"

"Had Chopper ever really told you that before, though?" Zoro said carefully, ignoring the question.

Sanji was silent; he hadn't, but he would never admit the obnoxious swordsman was right.

"I can tell something's wrong by listening to you."

"Tch, what would you know," Sanji muttered.

"That cough. And you... you've had a hard time catching your breath lately," he said hesitantly, his eye narrowing slightly.

"Why do you care, shitty marimo?"

Zoro averted his gaze. "It's one thing to get taken out in a battle, but over something like this..." he trailed off.

"What, are you talking about dying, marimo? Tch, that's taking it a bit far." Sanji shrugged nonchalantly, taking an exaggerated puff. "Besides, if I die from smoking, then you should be relieved I'm gone."

"Oi..." Zoro's brow furrowed deeply. "You really think, after everything, I'd be happy over that?"

Obstinately, he took another long, pensive drag.

"Sure, why not? I'd be happy." Smirking haughtily, Sanji turned his back to Zoro. "I'd be so happy, I'd throw a fucking party," he called over his shoulder as he exited the room.

Trois Bleu

Back in the present

Ah, damn, he had remembered it...

Sanji felt it in a heavy wave; the crippling remorse over that conversation, wrought by the guilt of the past all over again. That awful, soul-crushing regret that he had never, ever been able to forget, even as he tried to bury it deep beneath the darkest crevices of his mind.

Those had been his last words to Zoro before he died. The next day, they landed in that place, and he was taken out in that freakish accident, forever lost beneath innumerable tons of rubble.

Even now, when he thought about it, the pain of the wound felt as fresh as it did in the moment he had realized the shitty marimo was really gone forever.

But this was nothing new; he had been dealing with this for half a lifetime now. And the thing about life was that it had to go on. No matter how shitty it was.

After sucking in a few deep breaths, he rose to his feet again. Listlessly, he exited the storeroom, and headed toward the seating area of the Trois Bleu. As his tired, deadened eyes scanned the tables of customers, he knew immediately which ones had been asking for him. With one more deep breath, he turned the corners of his mouth into the best fake smile he could muster.

Sanji's patio

Later that night

Wine wasn't going to be enough tonight. And it was definitely going to be too troublesome to keep going inside to refill his glass. He was already prepared; a large, full bottle of bourbon and two glasses were set out on the small patio table. After all, that shitty man in black, Isshin, was sure to show up again tonight.

And a short while later, he did. By that point, the full bottle had been lowered by about three glasses, and Sanji was starting to feel a sort of pleasant numbness in his lips and fingertips. Without even asking if Isshin wanted any bourbon, he went ahead and filled the second glass. Sanji watched smugly as the man clad in black reached for it and took a long sip without a second thought. He hadn't seemed too picky about his booze, from what Sanji had watched him drink over these last couple of weeks.

"I would've thought you'd handle your liquor better," Isshin commented, once they had gotten through about two-thirds of the bottle, and Sanji had long since passed the line of being inebriated.

"I don't think I'm doing too bad," the cook replied, his speech slightly slower than usual, but not quite slurred.

"Tch, come on, we're even sharing this bottle. You were bad off when we left that man's bar that time, too."

"I used to be a pirate, but it doesn't mean I can fucking drink like one," Sanji replied sharply, sinking back in the chair and covering his eyes with one arm. His head was swimming, and it was a great feeling. When thoughts became too hard to form, it was impossible to think about difficult things.

Glancing from beneath his arm, he felt a prick of annoyance as he observed Isshin, who was leaning back in his chair, finishing the contents of his glass in a greedy gulp. He was really growing weary of this idiotic world's-strongest-swordsman, who kept inviting himself over, and showing up in his restaurant. He was sick of the ridiculous black headdress he wore, sick of his obnoxious grin, sick of the way that so many aspects of him made him think of that man.

"I'm actually envious, it takes a hell of a lot for me to feel it," Isshin commented, dragging Sanji away from his hostile thoughts.

"That's a shame, considering the whole point of drinking is to not feel it," Sanji muttered.

"Hah?" the man in black asked, turning toward him.

"Nevermind," Sanji sighed. It was too troublesome to explain.

"So, this is drinking to forget, is it," Isshin murmured after a moment of silence.

"Tch, since when does that ever work."

Isshin shrugged. "I don't have the answer to that." He reached over to grab the bourbon bottle, refilling first Sanji's glass and then his own. "But what are you trying to forget, is what I'm wondering."

Sanji gloomily took a sip of his newly topped-off drink.

"Ah, I got it," Isshin said suddenly, turning to look up at the house behind them. "You used to have a woman here with you?"

"Hah?!" Sanji exclaimed, nearly spilling his drink in surprise. He furrowed his brow deeply as he stared at Isshin. "Where the hell did that come from?"

He nodded solemnly, the feathers of his headdress swaying slightly at the motion. "It's coming together now. You had a wife, who just couldn't take it anymore, and took off with the children. That's why you live here all by yourself."

"Oi, I already told you the reason I have this house," Sanji protested, sitting upright and turning his legs in the other man's direction, facing him dead-on. "I've never had a wife, and I sure as hell don't have any kids."

"You sure about that?"

Sanji's eyebrow twitched wildly. "Yes. I'm fucking sure of it. What the hell is wrong with you?"

Isshin shrugged again. "I just mean, you never know, that's all."

"I do know," the cook said, rolling his eyes. "Huh, what about you, though?"

"What about me?"

"Do you have a family out there?" Sanji asked somberly.

"No, never had interest in any of it," Isshin replied seriously.

"Yeah? No kids you might not know about?"

"Nah," he said nonchalantly, clearly not as fazed by the question as Sanji had been.

"I see," Sanji said with a nod, the vein in his forehead pulsating in mild irritation at the direction of the conversation.

"Although, sometimes I..." Isshin started, his low voice rumbling pensively.

Sanji glanced over at him, noticing he was clenching his jaw slightly, his head tilted downward. "Sometimes you what?" he asked finally, after an inordinately long silence.

"Eh, nevermind," Isshin said, smiling. "I forget what I was going to say."

Crow's Nest

Twenty-two years ago

"Hah? What are you trying to say, shitty swordsman?" Sanji glared, jabbing his head into Zoro's face.

"I'm just saying you're more of a dumbass ero-cook than ever, stupid nosebleed," Zoro growled back, shoving his face forward until their foreheads touched.

"Who are you to talk, when all you've got rolling around in those stupid marimo brains is thoughts of training." He pushed forward a little with his forehead, not really bothered by the contact.

"Tch, I hope you pass out from blood loss, curly brow." Another shove with his face. This time, their noses touched.

They had only been reunited for a couple of weeks, but already, Sanji found himself being constantly sucked into Zoro's endless idiocy. He couldn't help it; whenever the swordsman opened his mouth, he wanted to vehemently oppose whatever he had just said.

With none of the other crew members around to intervene, they continued their quarrel for an inordinately long time. They might've continued for longer, but they had been sitting next to each other on the long bench wrapping around most of the Crow's Nest, sipping at two large mugs of mead, and they apparently had a mutual agreement that they would stay seated until their glasses were empty. Or maybe just until Sanji's temper finally snapped.

But before it came to that, the two men simmered down and peevishly backed away from each over. It was only after they separated that Sanji realized just how close they had been sitting during their quarrel. Sanji heaved a sigh as he sank bank on the bench, casually digging in the front of his pocket for a cigarette.

"Didn't you come up here to train, anyway? Why the hell are we drinking?"

Zoro shrugged. "Change of plans. It's... been awhile."

Sanji cast a sidelong glance at the swordsman, who was sitting a short distance away to his right. From this angle, he knew the other man couldn't quite see him. He studied the long scar covering his left eye, caused by a wound that appeared to have so deeply penetrated the skin on his face.

Zoro turned his head incrementally, just enough so he could faintly see Sanji in his periphery. "What are you staring at, shit-cook?"

"Why would I be staring at the likes of you, shitty marimo?" he muttered moodily, averting his gaze. He did wonder what the cause was; but whatever it may be, he knew Zoro would not talk about anything he wasn't ready to talk about. Really, even after being separated for two years, the somber swordsman was as terrible at ever at conversation.

So even though curiosity made the words dance dangerously close to the edge of his lips, he didn't ask the question. Instead, he inhaled the pungent smoke of his cigarette deeply, leaning his head back as he exhaled. They lapsed into a comfortable silence for awhile.

The silence was probably best, because the moment they started speaking again, yet another argument broke out. Their glasses now empty, this time, they had no excuse not to get rowdy or to prolong their exposure to each other. Rising to their feet, they resumed their somewhat ridiculous head-butts back and forth. He found himself grasping Zoro's shoulders sharply, and in turn, the marimo's hands gripped him by the wrists.

The cook shoved him forward. Zoro shoved back harder. Then Sanji shifted his weight lower, heaving his body forward heavily, hoping the difference in equilibrium would be enough to throw the other man off balance. And then, a moment too late, he noticed the swordsman's heel making hard contact with a carelessly abandoned barbel.

Zoro lost his balance, and Sanji, who had been leaning all of his weight against the green-haired man, expecting to be braced, tumbled forward as well. He tried to regain his footing at the last second, but Zoro still tightly grabbed his arms and he wound up collapsing on top of him.

His elbow hit the ground hard, and for a moment he winced as the pain reverberated up the not-so-funny part of his bone. After a moment, he became aware that he was laying on top of Zoro, his cheek pressed flush against the other man's face, which inexplicably seemed a few degrees warmer than it had when their foreheads had pressed together a short while before.

"Oi, you okay?" Zoro asked roughly.

"What the hell wouldn't I be?" Sanji muttered with irritation.

"Then why the hell are you just lying there?"

"I'm getting up, give me a damned minute, shitty marimo," he cursed. He tried his best to pull himself away with minimal contact with the swordsman's body—but it wasn't really possible, considering how completely he had fallen on top of him.

And then, his fucking body did something so horrible and unreasonable, the cook stupidly froze before he could remove himself from the swordsman... instead of getting the hell up so it would go unnoticed.

It had to just be bad timing; maybe if he had fallen on top of Nami or Robin's sexy, curvaceous bodies, he would have thought differently, but there was no reason why the hard, sinewy body of the marimo should do anything for him. Even if it had been awhile for him, that sure as hell didn't matter. He wasn't that broken from not seeing a real woman for two years. No matter what, this situation should have made him endlessly limp, so that he couldn't get it to rise even if his life depended on it.

Still, no matter how logically his brain assembled thoughts like these, the hard, unwanted visitor in his pants defiantly bulged outward—unmistakeably digging into Zoro's thigh. All the cook could manage to do was continue staring forward, utterly frozen in horror.

A flicker of an emotion sparked across Zoro's face that made Sanji inwardly cringe. He couldn't tell if the swordsman was in shock or just embarrassed for him, but it didn't matter; he was humiliated and petrified, so he probably couldn't have interpreted it right no matter what that look meant.

Then the other man's expression simplified, instantly becoming a blank slate, and he stared up at Sanji. When he finally spoke—which was probably only about a second later, but to Sanji, it felt like an eternity—there was a slight tug of the corner of his mouth to one side. "Is it too hard to get up, ero-cook?"

The breath snagged in his throat, and he madly scrambled to peel himself off of Zoro, all the while far too fucking conscious of just how obvious it must have felt. He was fucking incensed at the swordsman's double entendre, and fucking furious at himself for what had just happened. There was no lying that it was something in his pocket, or a bulky zipper, or some other equally ridiculous excuse. It was conspicuous and distinct—and there was no way he could lie to another guy about it. He would know.

He clearly already knew.

Abruptly rising to his feet, Sanji ensured that he kept his gaze averted as he somewhat desperately lit another cigarette, sucking it in deeply as he tried to figure out what to say.

"Oi, cook," Zoro said, furrowing his brow.

"What?" Sanji asked moodily, too preoccupied with fiddling with his lighter to turn around.

"Shit happens," he said simply. Then Sanji heard the sound of heavy footsteps followed by the door to the Crow's Nest swinging open.

Blinking in surprise, Sanji turned to face him. A blunder like that should have given Zoro enough munitions to keep harassing him for quite some time. He didn't expect him to just brush it off like it was nothing.

"I'm not saying I'm gonna get a hard-on for you," Zoro clarified, as his body was half-way out of the Crow's Nest, "but I don't think you need to make a face like that over something so unimportant."

Even after Zoro was gone, Sanji continued studying the trap door for some time, momentarily even forgetting the cigarette loosely dangling from his lips.

Finally, he drew in a deep breath, sinking into the bench behind the wall. "I don't know what the hell is up with you sometimes, shitty swordsman," he muttered to himself.

That stupid fucking moss-headed enigma of a man.

Sanji's bedroom

Present time, much later that night

Ah, that's right, Sanji thought, as he laid back on his bed. We did have that kind of beginning.

He wasn't really sure what had sparked that kind of memory, but at the very least, it didn't leave him feeling like the ground had been wrenched from underneath him. Maybe the alcohol still swimming through his bloodstream, leaving him feeling pleasantly numb, was partially to thank for that, though.

Begrudgingly, the chef pulled himself into a sitting position. He was still fully clothed and he had not yet unmade the bed.

It was strange how the simple conversation had left him feeling so exhausted. Not that he and that enigmatic man really had that long of conversations. They tended to talk in bursts, and then just sort of drank in quiet silence most of the time. How long had it been going on? Only a couple of weeks, at most, but it felt far too long.

The meager conversation was probably exhausting because Sanji was not accustomed to that kind of contact anymore. Besides the spurious pleasantries he exchanged with his customers and the townsfolk, and the minimal time he spent interacting with his staff in the course of business, it had been awhile since he had been sincerely friendly with anyone to this degree, this often.

It was a little odd, actually. Isshin didn't seem like the kind of man to rashly approach people or start conversations. In fact, the small reputation he had picked up around the town was that he was generally somber and unapproachable.

Sanji snorted. That seemed a far cry from the nonchalant man who kept showing up on his patio, but they were entitled to their opinion.

Reluctantly, he pulled himself to his feet and walked over to the dresser to the far end of his room. Slowly, he pulled open the drawer, biting his lip as he stared down into it. After a moment, he reached into the pocket of his suit coat and pulled out a folded piece of cloth. Once he had replaced it in the drawer, he sullenly clicked it closed and started to remove his clothes.

His mind drifted back to that memory of Zoro. Even now, a flush of embarrassment and humiliation rolled over him as he recalled how he felt, when his body had surged with such a desire as he tumbled on top of the swordsman.

It wasn't really a beginning at all, but maybe it was the window into the absurd, contemptible thing it turned into.

And just like its wretched beginning, it also came to a fucked up end.

An uninhabited island in the New World

Over twenty years ago

Although they were all a little disappointed that the island did not appear to be settled, there was no doubt that it was nothing short of picturesque. The landscaping was completely breathtaking. Dramatic cliffs shot up out of the ground, appearing to grow out of nowhere. And at the base, they were laced with sandy, white beaches.

Sanji stood in awe, looking up at the towering cliffs, wondering just how far they extended above him. He felt like even if they stacked eight or nine Sunny's on top of each other, mast and all, the tip-top would still not reach the upper-most point of the rocky heights.

Gazing upward from the beach, he noticed that the cliffs actually seemed to gradually start to overhang, so that when he stood with his back to the rock, he could not see the sky when he stared directly overhead.

"It looks like it's going to be hard to do any exploring here," Nami commented, who was also staring upward at the towering walls of rock, a slight crinkle in her brow.

"We could try to climb them and see if there's anything up there," Robin mentioned. "Although one misstep, and we'd surely plummet to our deaths."

The cook suddenly realized that the height of the precipice was vaguely reminiscent of the vast structure in the Drum Rockies, where his crew mate used to live—except for the warm, summer sunshine beating down, in a sharp contrast to the snow. Sanji glanced over at Chopper, who was staring upward, mouth hanging agape.

Grinning, Sanji bent over and patted him on the shoulder. "Kind of reminds you of that place, huh?"

The reindeer glanced over at him, an openly concerned expression on his face. "Ah... At first I thought it was kind of like where Drum Castle is. But for some reason, I get a bad feeling when I look up at these... I never felt like that there."

Sanji started to question him further, but then his captain's piercing voice wailed from a ways down the beach.

"Oi, Sanji, you'll climb it with us, right?" Luffy shouted, arms outstretched over his head and he waved to get Sanji's attention.

Usopp, standing next to Luffy, shook his head violently from side to side, eyes bulging slightly. "Oi oi, Luffy. I never said I was going to go with you!" he protested.

"I'll go," Zoro said, crossing his arms. For a moment, the swordsman's gaze flicked toward Sanji, and the cook clenched his jaw, expecting a goading comment. But instead, the other man broke the eye contact as quickly as it was made, defiantly turning away so his line of vision would not accidentally stray to the cook again.

Sanji's brow twitched in annoyance, but really, it wasn't that surprising... They hadn't spoken a word to each other for a couple of days now. It would probably blow over at some point, but even if it didn't, he had no particular reason to care. Even if it did make him inexplicably feel a little cranky, being ignored by the green-haired man, it was still no good reason to worry about it too much.

"Even if we climb it—which I am very opposed to, by the way—we don't really have much reason to believe there's anything up there," Usopp pointed out.

"That's true," Nami agreed, nodding slightly as she continued to gaze upward.

"We won't know unless we go!" Luffy said energetically.

The cook wasn't particularly against the idea—but as he looked down the long, albeit narrow, expanse of snow-white sand stretched out in front of them, images of long, wet hair and swimsuits filled his head. And honestly, that sounded a hell of a lot better than climbing some hot rocks in the beating sun. Besides, from the way the sand looked, he suspected by the time the high tide came along, the sand would be covered and water would reached the edge of the cliffs, so it was now or never.

"Why don't we have some lunch first while we think about it?" Sanji broke in, outstretching his hand toward the beach. "We could make due with a pretty nice picnic out here."

With minimal coaxing—particularly with the promise of barbecued meat and chilled drinks—the crew expressed their approval. And so, the blonde-haired man diligently set to work preparing a decadent beach meal.

It was serene, sitting out on picnic blankets on the fine, pale sand. The weather was temperate and pleasant. The sun shone brightly, and Sanji was thankful that they hadn't pulled up to another end of the island, where they would be enshrouded in shadows at this time of day.

As they leisurely tried to decide whether they should try to scale the cliff, or try sailing further around the island first to see if there would be an easier place to get to the pinnacle of the rocky peaks, Sanji noticed a faint rumbling in the ground. He didn't think much of it as he started to pick up some off the empty plates and glasses that were starting to accumulate on the beach.

Really, he would have liked to have spent more time out there, relaxing on the sand, admiring Nami-san and Robin-chan in their bikinis. These moments made life worth living, after all. He glanced down at the water line; the tide had risen slightly, but they probably had a few more hours before the beach would disappear entirely.

Sanji opened his mouth to suggest they wait until tomorrow to try tackling the climb, but a more distinct rumbling sensation stopped the words in his throat.

Brow furrowing, he glanced downward at the sand. Indeed, as another tremor passed, he could see the larger pebbles in the sand trembling. And then, he felt a couple tiny pieces of debris hit him on the shoulder.

The cook looked up in horror. It was kind of astonishing how sometimes, the most dangerous catastrophes looked like they were happening in slow motion. As the rocks trembled and shifted, he gaped upward at it, dumbfounded. And then, at a deceitfully creeping pace, the cliff unhurriedly started to topple over.

And then his body sprang into action, as he began to move by instinct only, the sole thought on his mind being the need to get everyone to safety. At first, only small pieces of the shifting rocks were falling to the ground, but the size of the debris was undoubtedly increasing, as the grains became pebbles; the pebbles became rocks; the rocks became boulders; and then it was just great pieces of megalith raining down, as the daunting crags began to lean over them at more and more severe of an angle.

Franky hollered at everyone to get on the ship so they could use the Coup de Burst to get out of danger—although Sanji could barely hear the cyborg's loud voice over the awful cacophony of crumbling rocks. They had to move quickly; not even the Adam Wood could survive hundreds of thousands of tons of sedimentary rock crushing it.

As the last of them got on the ship, Sanji did his best to kick away the larger boulders that threatened to damage the ship. He glanced at the beach, now covered in darkness from the onerous, shifting cliff overhead, the abandoned dishes and picnic blankets already partially coated in dust and crumbled rocks.

He heard Nami barking out commands, and he heard Franky shout it was almost ready, and then the cries of Usopp and Chopper as they apparently came to the conclusion that it was too late, and they were all about to be crushed.

Sanji glanced to his side, and saw Luffy was next to him, a look of stark determination on his face as his fists began to gleam metallic from the armament haki. They gave each other a knowing look, and then the two men leapt toward the falling rocks in unison, setting their sights on the main body of the cliff that was mere seconds away from crashing down and engulfing the entire ship. Sanji gave it a flurry of his more ferocious kicks as Luffy released his gomu gomu no gatling gun; and for a very brief moment, it was pushed back incrementally.

With rising frenzy, Sanji could see they still wouldn't make it in time. He prepared to try again, and then suddenly, a blur of green shot past the edges of his peripheral vision with such tremendous force, Sanji could feel the ominous pressure emanating from it. Three swords drawn, Zoro hit the falling rubble of the cliff so forcefully that it was pushed back substantially.

"Franky's doing it now!" Nami yelled.

"Hold on, Zoro's not on the ship," Usopp shouted back at her.

"Do it now!" Zoro bellowed through clenched teeth. "You can come back for me later!"

"Same here!" Luffy shouted, jumping through the air after Zoro.

"Dammit, you idiots!" Nami screamed, a tinge of hysteria in her voice. "We'll be back for you soon!"

Sanji knew the kind of face she must have been making at that moment, being pressed to make such an unimaginable decision. It broke his heart to think about what she must have been feeling, but he was too busy fixing his attention on the swordsman and his captain to turn around.

A split second later, Nami called out to Franky, and the ship surged forward so quickly, Sanji was barely able to focus on what happened next as a chunk of rock, at least the size of the Mini-Merry, broke away and nearly landed right where Robin and Chopper were gripping the rail of the ship.

So quickly, Sanji didn't have time to react himself, Luffy reached out with a stretched limb and grabbed the side of the Sunny, snapping himself back in the direction of ship, kicking the enormous boulder out of the way just in the nick of time. His body tumbled onto the deck of the ship.

And then the ship was soaring through the air from the force of the Coup de Burst, and Sanji desperately tried to fix his attention back to where Zoro was, but he could barely make out a thing.

For a split second, his heart nearly leapt into his throat as he thought he may have seen the crumbling rocks engulf a flash of green, but he quickly talked himself down from the ledge. He could barely see what was happening, after all; it may not have even been the swordsman he was seeing. Besides, Zoro wasn't the kind of person who would get taken down by a couple of damn pebbles...

I'd throw a fucking party.

He shook his head, wondering why those words had suddenly popped into his head. Although he had no intention of apologizing, he admitted to himself that perhaps he had been a bit harsh in that conversation.

The chef wondered why he had such a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach.

The same island

Eight hours later

Like hot air, Sanji's hysteria steadily started to rise, as the hours gradually slipped through his fingers.

He had no idea how long it had been since the sun went down. Not that it mattered—sun or no sun, they had to keep looking. Too much time had elapsed; there was no time for sleep or food. They had to search.

He became vaguely aware of some of his other crew mates coming a little bit unglued, but as much as he tried to concern himself with it, he was only fixated on the pieces of rubble he frantically shoveled from one spot to another.

The only one he began to become more aware of was Luffy. It was to be expected; even he had an abstract sense of just how much his captain desired to protect them. Just how much he might fucking lose it if he failed at his task.

What's more, Sanji empathized and commiserated so much, he felt a knot in the back of his throat. He should have stayed back with Zoro; and surely, Luffy was regretting that he had to propel himself back to the ship at the last minute, too. Even if it was to save his other nakama, the idea of a choice of one or the other would never sit will with Luffy. It was always all-in for him. There was no compromise.

Until reality forced a cruel and irrevocable compromise on him. Like today.

With a shaking hand, Sanji tried to light the cigarette hanging out of his mouth. It took three or four tries for the flame to finally ignite—far more than what he had the patience for. He had not been able to locate the lighter he normally carried with him, but it's not like he cared if it was lost. He was just pissed that it took so long to light the cigarette, when he didn't have those kinds of precious seconds to waste.

His body ached and his hands were covered with cuts and scrapes from moving the vast amounts of rock and rubble.

Everyone used every ability and tool they had to search every inch of that place. Those who could swim took turns diving into the water to see if they could find any traces of him underneath the ocean's surface.

The couple of traces they found never included the swordsman himself.

With a trembling hand, Sanji squeezed a dirty, water-logged strip of black cloth. The stupid bandana Zoro always had on him had washed ashore, when the tide started to fall in the small hours of the morning.

"What a shitty find," Sanji murmured under his breath, clutching it ever tighter.

If he died... I'd throw a fucking party.

The breath hitched in his throat. As the night had worn on, the last conversation had begun to endlessly loop in his mind.

No, he wouldn't let it be the last; the shitty swordsman was probably sleeping somewhere under the rocks, and any moment now, he might burst out, rubbing sleep from his eye, with a lame excuse about how he hadn't bothered to show himself earlier because he was taking a nap.

Hours began to turn into days, and the hysteria was falling, only to fade into something more akin to despair.

Any moment... he would burst out... claiming he needed a couple-day-long nap.

Right, shitty marimo?