Entrance

Zoro did his best to keep his mind on the fight, dodging blows with his fledgling grasp of the Colour of Observation and aiming strong hits at his teacher. Mihawk was making him wear weights and increasing the load regularly, but the real reason he couldn't keep up today was Fox had gone into labour all of ten hours ago and the pain and Kajin's nerves were interfering with his ability to concentrate. He was trying his hardest to pay attention to the fight –there was a good chance of lethal injury if he didn't– but part of his own brain was also panicking and his divided focus was preventing him from making any real progress. He knew he couldn't be there, was resigned to not being there and had apologized repeatedly to Fox already for not being there, but that didn't stop him from wanting to be there.

Then suddenly there was an emotional spike from Kajin, a roil of terror and delight from Fox and Zoro failed to dodge backwards fast enough to avoid a lunge towards his face; there was sharp pain, a squish and half his vision vanished as the tip of Yoru's black blade scraped down his forehead, through his eyelid and utterly destroyed his left eyeball, scraping the back of his eye-socket with a crunch.

"Pathetic," Mihawk said coolly, pulling the sword back and shaking off blood and jelly-like fluid from the tip of his blade. "Why am I bothering with you at all if you are not prepared to give me your full attention?"

Zoro stood stolidly where he was, blood and goo sliding down his left cheek and dripping off his jaw to paint marbled lines of red down his chest.

"Well?" the hawk-eyed swordsman snapped.

The younger man bowed his head. "Fox is giving birth," he muttered apologetically. "It's difficult to concentrate when she's broadcasting."

Mihawk stilled. "Now?" he asked, startled.

"Yeah." Zoro said shortly as another ripple of phantom sensation tore through his abdomen. He knew he was only getting echoes but they were really distracting, if not all that painful.

The World's Greatest Swordsman stared at him thoughtfully. "You can reach her in an instant, can you not?" he pointed out.

"Yes," Zoro agreed testily –a side-effect of being bound to Fox was the ability to hijack her teleportation trick to reach her from any distance– "but I agreed to train for the next two years and I don't break my promises." Fox understood and loved him for that trait so he would never, ever as much as consider breaking a promise.

Mihawk turned and sheathed his sword. "I have no use for a student who is unable to pay attention to his lessons," the hawk-eyed man said dismissively. "We will resume this tomorrow morning." He walked away. "Do not return late."

Zoro blinked, winced at an unexpectedly strong contraction then realised he'd been given permission to rush to his lover's side. Quickly cleaning and sheathing his blades and uncaring of his numerous bleeding wounds and ruined left eye, the green-haired swordsman vanished in a flash of white.

Law had witnessed several births as part of his medical training and knew all the things that could go wrong and how to spot them before they became life-threatening, but he'd never actually done any midwifery before. Fortunately his patient had, so all he really had to do was remain calm, keep a watchful eye out for complications, monitor her progress and not drop the baby when it was eventually born. He was fine with all that; less easy to put up with was the eight-foot fire Logia pacing nervously along the balcony behind the screens and raising the ambient temperature from 'cool' to 'slightly uncomfortable'. Law was accustomed to cold weather and the broiling heat radiating from the nervous bodyguard was stifling to the point that he'd had to remove his hat and jumper so as to prevent himself from sweating. Had his patient been made uncomfortable he could have justified ordering Spadille to go further away, but Fox was wearing a short tunic that stopped a few inches down her thighs and nothing else, seemed perfectly comfortable despite her labour pains and had yet to make any sounds of complaint beyond the occasional grunt. Her waters had just broken, so it probably wouldn't take much longer.

Fox hissed, hands clenching over her thighs as she crouched over the sterile mat Law had laid out to protect her and the baby from the very cold stone floor.

"Deep breaths," the Surgeon of Death reminded her laconically, keeping a weather eye on her to ensure he could intervene should she show even the smallest sign of losing control over her Devil Fruit Ability. She had not used her teleportation trick at all in the final month since arriving her last fortnightly check-up six weeks ago had briefly induced false labour pains, and Law did not particularly want to be blamed by the nervous guard should something Devil Fruit related happen to the baby. Fox had given him a Sea Stone knife and told him to stab her through the foot should she prove unable to suppress her Ability, but so far it seemed he wouldn't get the chance. A pity; she'd stabbed him in the arm –admittedly with a steel blade– during her check-up three weeks previously in a moment of hormonal irrationality and he felt inclined to return the gesture.

There was a flash and suddenly there was a bleeding, half-dressed green-haired swordsman standing to his patient's left. Law tensed, then recognised the newcomer and turned his attention back to his patient: it was the Pirate Hunter.

"Kitsune?" the green-haired man asked, kneeling and tapping his fingers lightly on the trembling woman's shoulder.

"Asura," Fox responded, another rippling spasm shaking her body. "Soon."

The swordsman nodded, shifted around to place one bloody hand flat against his lover's lower back and sat still, his only working eye following Law guardedly.

"So, you're the father, Pirate Hunter-ya," Law commented. "Where have you been?" Most of the world believed the Straw-Hat Pirates dead after their abrupt disappearance from Sabaody, with Straw-Hat himself the likely only survivor.

"Training," the swordsman grunted shortly, tilting his head as more blood oozed slowly from his sunken eye-socket and multiple other wounds. Law was about to probe further when Fox shifted, made a nasty keening sound in her throat and shuddered.

"Already?" Law mused, bending down to get a better look. "Yep, you're fully dilated. Push!" He ordered briskly as he sat up again, kneeling in front of her with the knife threaded through his belt. "In time with the contractions now Fox-ya; push!"

Fox grunted again and beside her Roronoa twitched. Law ignored the other man; it wouldn't be long now.

Two hours after being permitted to attend his daughter's birth Zoro stared in wonderment as his Kitsune cradled their daughter to her chest, rocking gently and cooing as she stroked the tiny baby's reddened face, as that was the only part not wrapped up in a warm blanket. The swordsman ignored the doctor briskly attending to his various wounds even as the grey-eyed pirate captain used a probe to lift his ruined eyelid and scraped the inside of the socket clean to prevent infection. So what if it hurt? He was a father; he and Fox had created the beautiful little girl with fluffy hair the colour of limes that was suckling at his lover's breast. Movement to his right made him tense for a moment before he realised who was there; he would need to get much better with the Colour of Observation to counter his new handicap.

"Asura."

"Kajin," Zoro replied absently, his eye flicking back to his daughter. "Isn't she beautiful?"

"They both are," the flame Logia replied, dropping to sit cross-legged on the rug. "What's her name?"

Zoro paused, remembering the mermaid custom Fox had told him about that required a father to name their child as an acknowledgement of their shared blood. He'd called the little girl 'Moth' ever since he'd realised she existed, but looking at his daughter he recognised she needed a prettier name, a name that demonstrated how special she was to him.

"Roronoa Mariposa," he decided.

Fox caressed their baby's cheek with a gentle finger. "Welcome to the world, Roronoa Mariposa. It's not as good as it might be, but we'll look after you until you're strong enough to stand on your own two feet and beat back those who wish you harm," she murmured. "No daughter of mine could ever be anything but strong."

Zoro resolved then and there to ensure nothing and no-one ever survived threatening his daughter, no matter who they were. "I'll kill anyone who tries to harm you, Mariposa-chan," he promised quietly as Trafalgar Law stitched his face back together.

"And I'll make sure there aren't any bodies left to find," Kajin agreed softly.

This story is getting rather unwieldy, so I'm going to wrap it up here. I may do a few one-shots to cover further time-skip events or I might not; I may even write a sequel once Oda has revealed what he has in mind for the rest of the plot, but that's some time away. In the mean time, thanks to everyone for reading and special thanks to all my wonderful reviewers! I'd never have got this far without you!