In retrospect, hiking was the last thing Sanji wanted to do, having had no more than an hour's sleep for the past few nights. They'd only been trekking through the foliage of Upper Yard for a few minutes and he was already flagging.
Nami put a hand on his shoulder.
"You okay?"
Sanji swallowed, trying to even out his breathing. "Yeah, I'll be fine."
"Not far away now," spoke a gravelly voice, belonging to Masira.
Shoujou laughed, a dry and wheezing sound. "Tired already? Kids these days, not enough energy."
Sanji glared at the two hikers walking ahead of them. He began to doubt that they were going to be of any help at all.
After meeting them at a cafe at the edge of the city, Masira and Shoujou drove them to Upper Yard and lead them deeper into the forest. Sanji wasn't sure how they managed to know their way amongst the trees. Some kind of built in hiking satnav or something. He'd already lost his sense of bearing after the road disappeared from view. All the while, the two hikers filled the silence with their guffaws and wheezing laughter and stories of other hikes they'd been on.
Masira and Shoujou were brothers. Sanji had never seen siblings who looked so different from each other. Masira had stockier upper body build, that narrowed down to a tiny waist He could almost fit into a perfect triangle. But Shoujou was more pear-shaped, and chose to dye his hair a vibrant lime green. Just like a certain spectre that Sanji could think of.
Despite these differences, the two brothers closely resembled a pair of gorillas, and that thought alone was enough to satisfy Sanji's urge to insult them.
"Tell us again how you found the body," said Nami, once they got moving again.
"Yes, yes, but don't expect me to remember much," replied Masira. "This was so long ago. I've seen plenty of other dead bodies since!"
Shoujou snickered. "Yes, but I remember it as clear as day. It was horrible. You never forget a sight like that."
"And to think he was still alive!"
"When did you find him?" Sanji asked, cutting them off before they could ramble on again.
Masira frowned. "Just last year, like I said."
"No, idiot," Shoujou slapped him at the back of his head. "He wants specifics."
The green-haired hiker brother slowed his pace so that he walked beside Nami and Sanji.
"It was a morning just like this," Shoujou continued to explain. "We were actually scaling the cliff side."
"Cliff?" Sanji exclaimed.
"You may as well just tell 'em when we get there," Masira interrupted. "It'll be better if we show you."
"We'll show you when we get there," Shoujou corrected. "But I can tell you more. We were scaling the cliff side, and I just looked down momentarily and I thought I could see something through the trees."
"Uh, I was the one who saw him first."
"You saw him and thought he was a dead bear! I was the one who identified his humanity and told us to get down to him as soon as possible!"
"I still saw him first!"
Sanji sighed as the pair of them walked ahead, bickering and squabbling. Nami leaned closer to him.
"I'm starting to get a head ache with these two," she whispered.
Sanji nodded. "I just hope dragging us all the way out here is worth something…"
"Oh! We're here," Masira suddenly exclaimed, as their bickering died down.
Sanji and Nami caught up to them. They stopped at a small opening, the trees thinned around them. As Sanji glanced up above the tree line, he saw the cliff looming over them. It was high, probably a good few stories, but small enough that just the top peeked up over the edge of the forest.
"This is where he was," said Shoujou, calling their attention to a spot on the ground. "Lying face down in a puddle of his own blood, all cut up, it was horrible."
"We were just coming down over there," added Masira, gesturing to the side of the cliff face visible over the tree line. "I looked down and saw something through the trees."
"I noticed it was a body," said Shoujou, glaring at his brother. "We scaled down as fast as we could. I called the emergency services on our way down."
"How did you know he was still alive?" asked Sanji.
"We didn't!" Masira exclaimed, eyes wide. "When I got to him, saw all the blood and the broken branches, I thought he must've flung himself off the cliff and died."
Shoujou tapped the backpack strapped behind him. "We always bring first aid kits with us on our hikes. I was still on the phone to the emergency team, so Masira treated him."
"I tried waking him but he wasn't responding," said Masira. "So I checked for a pulse. I couldn't believe he was still alive. I tried to patch up his wounds as best as I could, until the rescue copter came."
Nami frowned. "You said you thought he must've fallen from the cliff. Then… What about his wounds?"
"That's what I said!" said Shoujou. "There's no way he could've gotten that cut up from the trees. I told you, Masira. Someone tried to murder that poor boy."
"What kind of human could've done that?" Masira turned to Nami. "You don't understand, the guy was covered in slashes. Like something with huge claws attacked him! It must've been a forest monster."
Shoujou made a gagging sound. "Monster? Now you're just being ridiculous."
"Did you notice anyone else around?" asked Nami, cutting them off before they could start bickering again. "Or did you see anything strange?"
"No," said Shoujou, frowning. "To be honest, he looked like he'd been there for a while before we came. The blood was all dry and he was pale as a sheet."
"There weren't any tracks," added Masira. "That's why I thought he must've fallen from the top of the cliff."
Nami turned to Sanji. "What do you think?"
Sanji hummed. As soon as the brothers started talking about the body, he'd tuned them out. He already knew what Zoro looked like, his spectre retained the condition of his physical body before he went under the coma. Instead, Sanji inspected the area they were in.
He should've expected there to be nothing, the incident did happen a year ago. There was no way there would have been anything else around. But he still felt disappointed at finding nothing at all. Sanji glanced up at the cliff face again.
"You guys came from the top of the cliff?" he asked the brothers.
Masira and Shoujou nodded.
"There's a dirt path that comes off the main road and leads right to the top," said Masira. "We parked at the roadside. We were planning on hiking up to the cliff, abseiling down, then hiking back to our car."
"Can you take us up there?"
The brothers exchanged glances before nodding in unison.
"It'll be easier if we drove there," said Shoujou. "Let's get back to the car."
As they left the clearing, Nami leaned over to Sanji again.
"What's on your mind?" she asked.
Sanji glanced over his shoulder at the clearing before it disappeared behind a throng of trees.
"Masira was probably partly right about Zoro falling from the cliff," he voiced his thoughts low enough that only Nami could hear. "I don't know… It just doesn't add up how he ended up at the bottom of the cliff, this far into the woods, unless he came from up there."
"Or, unless he was chased here," said Nami. "What the hell would he be doing in the woods alone, anyway?"
Sanji shrugged, thinking back to his previous conversations with Koshiro.
"Maybe…" Sanji began. "Maybe he called someone out here for a duel?"
"A duel?" Nami snorted. "What, for real?"
"Koshiro said Zoro was very devoted to swordsmanship. He said he almost died in his last match at a tournament. What if... He called someone out here- no. What if someone called him out here for a duel and left him for dead?"
He stopped as a thought struck him. "What if they fought at the top of the cliff? What if the fight went wrong, and his attacker thought he'd killed him. So to get rid of the body, he threw Zoro off the cliff?"
Nami scrunched her brows. "All that sounds incredibly unlikely."
"Hey, you two better not lag behind too much and get lost!" Shoujou called out to them.
Sanji started following them again. "I guess we'll find out when we get to the cliff top."
It was past midday by the time they pulled up on the cliff top. Sanji frowned as he saw two other cars parked there already. A couple of dog-walkers left one of the cars and proceeded to walk down the dirt path. A small family of five were having a picnic on the other side of the cliff top beside their car. The picnic reminded Sanji about lunch, and he suggested that they take a break for a while before continuing with investigations. He was glad he'd brought extra food for the hikers now.
"Mm! Hey, kid, you made this?" Masira spoke through a mouthful of fried rice. "This is good!"
Shoujou couldn't even express his compliments but it was written clearly on his face as he gobbled down Sanji's lunch.
Nami laughed, as she politely nibbled on her salad. Talk about a rose between two thorns.
"Sanji's training to be a chef," she said. "His father owns a restaurant."
"Just training?" Shoujou's brows rose, nearly touching his hairline. "You're practically a chef already!"
Sanji shrugged off the compliments and got out of the car, deciding to stretch his legs. He walked around for a bit, lighting up a cigarette and taking in a comforting drag of nicotine. Glancing at the ground, Sanji noticed that the dirt of the cliff top was covered in tyre tracks and footprints.
"Do a lot of people come up here often?" he called back to the hikers in their car.
Masira grunted as he swallowed his mouthful of food this time before answering.
"I guess so. Not very often, though. There's not much to do up here but camp out and hike."
"You say that like it's a bad thing," said Shoujou, and the pair were off guffawing again.
Sanji went back to observing his surroundings. It was the perfect place for a crime, though. Far from the city, not visited often, no surveillance cameras around at all.
He walked to the edge of the cliff, a little taken aback that there wasn't a protective fence around it at least. But he supposed that was down to the fact that nobody really came up here.
"Great view, huh?" said Nami, appearing beside him with her container of salad in hand.
Sanji glanced out at the rolling hills full of evergreen trees that stretched out before them like an unmoving ocean. He hummed in agreement before peering down over the edge of the cliff.
"Long way down though," he said.
"Hey! Careful! Don't slip off the edge now!" Shoujou called over to them from the car.
Nami waved back. "We'll be fine!"
She edged a little closer. "I can't believe he survived getting slashed and thrown off the cliff."
"If his spectre is able to haunt me while he's still technically alive, then I wouldn't put anything past him anymore," said Sanji. He moved back from the cliff edge so that Nami would too.
"So what's next, detective Sanji?" she chirped, throwing a mock salute.
Sanji cracked a smile, but it faltered on his face.
"I don't know… I wasn't sure what to expect coming up here. I mean, I knew it wasn't likely we'd find anything. But it kinda sucks to see there's actually nothing here."
They fell silent, Nami quietly munching away at spinach leaves while Sanji smoked.
"Sanji," she began, her voice rolling out in the way it does when she's about to suggest something the other person might not like. Sanji braced himself.
"Have you ever tried talking to the spectres before? Not just Zoro, other ones."
Sanji shook his head. "It's not like it's easy… We live on two separate places of existence. Even if I tried to communicate, it's distorted. Like… Like calling someone on a low phone signal, or talking to someone who can only speak a different language, you know?"
"Well, I was just thinking… If we can't get a lived eyewitness account, why not try a dead one? Are there any spectres around now? What if they were there that night Zoro got attacked? Maybe they could tell you something?"
He'd never thought of doing that before. Sanji glanced around at the bare cliff top. The family were starting to pack up their picnic. Apart from them, he couldn't see or sense anyone else nearby. But spectres were funny like that. Sometimes he'd have to get close to be able to see them.
"I don't know," he said. "But I guess it's worth a shot."
Nami smiled. "Alright. I'll leave you to it. I'll go ask the gorilla brothers and see what else I can find out about this place."
Sanji watched her walk back to the car, before he decided to circle the edge of the cliff. All the while, his eyes trailed along the trees tops swaying in the breeze below.
He stopped when he got to the spot where he thought Zoro fell from. There were less trees at the bottom, and as Sanji leaned closer to the edge, he could see the patches of grass and dirt between the branches. He stepped away from the edge. Zoro definitely fell from the cliff, that much Sanji was certain of. But what happened that night? Did he fall, or did someone push him off? How did he get cut up so bad?
The rev of a car engine had Sanji spinning back to the others. But Nami and the hiker brothers were still eating in the car with the doors wide open. He glanced at the family, still packing up their picnic and gathering their energetic children. Sanji frowned. Was there another car coming up the drive?
He took a step back when something cracked under his shoe. Lifting his foot, he saw something glinting under the rocks and dirt. The car engine sounded again, and a piercing headache split into Sanji's skull.
Pressing a hand to his temple, he looked about. Nothing. No new cars, and the family had just finished folding up their picnic blanket into the boot. Sanji leaned over on the ground and picked up the glinting object, holding it up in the air. It was an earring, long and golden, twitching in Sanji's shaky grasp.
The revving got louder. Sanji looked up and saw a car pull up at the edge of the cliff just before him. He squinted, the headache making the edges of his vision blurry. Why did this car park so close to him? Glancing back over his shoulder, he saw that nobody else seemed to notice the vehicle.
"Just hurry up and get rid of him!"
Sanji glanced back at the car. The doors opened, and three shapes got out. One of them passed through Sanji, sending a chill down the blonde's spine. Sanji hunched over, shaking as the air wrapped him in a cold embrace. This was another spectre...
"Help me out here! He's heavy!"
Gasping for breath, Sanji moved forward and reached for the car. His fingers passed through it, and he whipped back his hand with a small cry. It was so cold, the touch felt like a zap of static shot through his body.
He heard the boot open and saw the shapes crowded around the back of the car. What was happening? Sanji moved approached them, watching as all three shapes pulled out another from the back of the car.
"Is he even still alive?"
"Who cares? He won't be for long."
Sanji saw something glinting fall from the mass of blurred shapes that moved to the cliff edge. When he looked at the ground, there was nothing. But the gold earing slipped from his grasp and landed in the dirt.
Something pushed him from behind and he staggered forward, closer to the shapes huddled along the edge.
"On three!"
Sanji watched as something parted from the three shapes, plummeting slowly towards the trees below. All the blood drained from Sanji's head, leaving a ringing in his ear. As he squinted, the blurry spectre that fell from the cliff sharpened. A young man with green hair, cut up and covered in blood.
"SANJI!"
A shrill cry came from Nami. Sanji turned around. Dark, void-like eyes stared at him through a veil of red. Sanji startled and staggered backwards. The bloodied man reached out, wet fingers tapping at his shoulder.
Sanji blacked out, the ground disappearing from beneath his feet.
"Sanji! Sanji!"
He came to. The weight of gravity pulled on his legs. Sanji's eyes flickered opened and he glanced down at the expanse of forest below him. His stomach lurched and he clung to the arm the gripped tight across his chest.
"It's alright, kid," Masira's voice grunted behind him. "I got you."
"Pull him up!" Shoujou called from the cliff top. "Masira!"
Another set of hands grabbed at the shoulders of Sanji's jacket and he felt himself being lifted and dropped onto the ground. Panting, Sanji scooted backwards away from the edge of the cliff, as Masira flung himself up over the ledge beside him.
"Oh my god, Sanji," Nami knelt down on the ground beside him fear painted in her wide eyes.
"Didn't I tell you?" said Shoujou. "I told you to watch you step!"
Masira waved a hand at his brother, before turning and clasping a heavy hand on Sanji's shoulder.
"You alright, kid?"
The air still struggled to squeeze into Sanji's lungs. Beads of cold sweat dripped down his face. His arms were shaking, struggling to hold himself up. But he nodded anyway, swallowing around the lump in his throat.
Footsteps padded towards them, and Sanji turned to see the father from the family approach them.
"Hey, is everything okay?"
Sanji couldn't look up to meet his eyes. Masira got up and dusted his hands off on the knees of his trousers.
"Yeah, we're good. Don't worry."
Shoujou sighed, extending a hand to Sanji.
"C'mon. We better head back into town."
Sanji batted his hand away and moved to pick himself up from the ground.
His head spun, but he managed to stay upright. Nami's hand found his arm.
"Are you sure, you're alright?" she asked.
Sanji only nodded again, not trusting his voice enough to speak right now. Masira and Shoujou walked towards the car, distracting the concerned family that now watched on from a distance.
Nami walked ahead, but stayed close and waited for Sanji to catch up. He was stooped over the ground, squinting at the dirt. The earring. It glinted up at him through the dirt where it slipped from his hand.
He bent down and pinched the gold between his fingers again. It was solid. At least this wasn't a spectre. But what was that vision he'd witnessed before he slipped from the cliff?
"Sanji?" Nami's concerned voice pierced the veil of his thoughts.
He looked up and forced a wobble of smile on his face, pocketing the earring before following Nami back to the car.