"Are we there yet?"

"No, Lucy."

"Are we there yet?"

"No, Lucy."

"And now?"

"Lucy!" Nami snaps. She plucks one of her tangerines with a little more aggression than usual. "We have another week of sailing before we get to Wano. We're not there yet! Can it!"

Lucy pouts at her navigator, arms crossed over her chest. "I'm so bored though. And it's been weeks since Big Mom! And you won't let me cut my hair!"

Nami presses her palm to her forehead and lets out a long, slow breath. "I told you. Kin'emon said everyone wears their hair longer on Wano, especially adults, and especially women. We're going to try to blend in, so stop trying to cut off your hair with a butter knife, please."

Lucy scowls and crosses her arms. "It's itchy," she complains, and it is. It's too long now, resting on her collar bones and getting caught in her jacket. She hates it. She's tempted to rip it all out of her skull if this continues much longer.

Nami just rolls her eyes. "It wouldn't itch if you would properly wash it," she grumbles. "Go bother Brook if you're bored. Sanji-kun's busy with dinner."

Well that wasn't a bad suggestion. Lucy looks at Nami's basket of fruit with interest. "Is he making the fruit tart you like?"

Nami gives her a warning look, angling herself between Lucy and the fruits. There's no need, Lucy learned her lesson about touching Nami's tangerines ages ago. "Maybe."

Lucy grins at her. "Yummy! Call me when he finishes!" And then she runs off to the other end of the ship, where Brook is slowly strumming something on his guitar. Lucy lands in front of him on her knees, and laughs a little when he yelps in fright.

"Brook!" She greets, "Play me a song!"

Brook laughs and adjusts his guitar. "Of course, Lucy-san. What would you like to hear?"

Lucy considers, tilting her head to the wind. "Something beautiful."

Brook gives the impression of a smile, and strums all six strings as he thinks. "Ah. I have just the thing."

Of course he does. She thanks Brook preemptively and hops up to her place on Sunny's figurehead, her special seat atop the lion.

She doesn't sit though. She's got too much excitement in her blood for that. Instead, she wraps her arms around the spikes of Sunny's mane and leans forward so her body is tipped over the sea.

Brook's music drifts up to her, a melody woven with something like hope and joy and yearning too. She doesn't recognize it, hasn't heard him play it before, but it suits her mood regardless. And of course, it's beautiful. Brook would never disappoint her.

Lucy closes her eyes, feels the wind throw her hair back and her hat catch on the string around her neck. Positioned like this over Sunny's bow she can almost feel the heartbeat of the ship cutting through the waves in time with her own.

Brook's song swells, the yearning taking over for the moment. She thinks of the crew that she's meeting on Wano and aches. She opens her eyes, and the sea glows golden and shining as it lights the path to her nakama. Her heart lurches for them, and she can almost imagine she feels them, tiny pinpricks of color and sound and vibrancy in the distance reaching back for her.

Brook's music shifts again, ringing with play and laughter and recovery from heartbreak. She laughs a bit, delighted, and grins wider when she notes it's the sadness of the song that makes it beautiful, like a grain of sand in an oyster creates a pearl, like the way her dream aches in her bones.

Lucy closes her eyes again, lets the music take her where it will.

I'm coming, she promises the imagined souls her heart is thrown out to. Wait for me.

And Lucy swears—she can hear their answer in the strum of Brook's guitar, as if the sea itself connects them, her heart transmitted with the sky. When Brook's song ends and he transitions to another, she can feel the whole ocean swell in in response.

We'll keep them safe for you, the world seems to promise. Lucy offers back her thanks with a laugh and a smile, and trembles with the joy of beautiful things.

They arrive on Wano under a starry sky and a new moon. Law's submarine proves useful in getting around the island defenses without incident, and they depart the Polar Tang on the northwest side of the country.

"It's called Ringo," Kin'emon explains from the helmlsdeck. "It's a land of snow and ice, and it'll be easiest to enter here. This prefecture had a smaller population than all the rest even in its heyday. It'll be quiet now."

So Law orders the Polar Tang into a cove, and leaves a skeleton crew on the ship to maintain it under the waves while the rest of them troop onto the icy shores of Wano's coast.

Whatever Zoro was expecting of Wano, an icy winter island wasn't it. Still, there's the strangest sense of familiarity here, with the ice-frosted trees and snow-covered peaks of the mountains. Lucy would like this place, he thinks, and Chopper would too. Usopp catches his eye, a wistful look on the younger boy's face, and Zoro thinks their thoughts are probably similar.

Kin'emon finds clothes for them all quickly, but only by scavenging the empty homes they come across.

"Where are all the people?" Usopp asks, frowning at the striped hakama Kin'emon procures for him.

"Each child of Ringo born was gifted a katana, to be with them for all of their days. They were buried with them." Kin'emon's face is distant. "This used to be a place where samurai congregated. They resisted, before. They would have resisted until the last of them were gone."

They're all silent after that. Zoro rests a hand on Wado Ichimonji's hilt. It was Kuina's katana before, it still is. She would have been buried with it had Zoro not asked to carry it for her.

The trek through Ringo is long and deathly cold, and none of them waste much time asking questions or complaining. Some of them curse the cold but it makes Zoro's skin feel bright and alive with the bite of it, makes him want to train. Something about the austere winter landscape and the lonely shrines feels like a homecoming. It's almost like seeing the Sunny again back when he returned to Sabaody, though the joy he felt then is more akin to a bittersweet sorrow now. He would have liked to see Ringo when it was full of hardened samurai.

Raizo is more willing to tell tales of the people here than Kin'emon, and he offers them a few anecdotes over the chattering of his teeth.

"This is the homeland of Ryuma himself, scion of the Shimotsuki clan. His shrine is to the south of here, almost to Hakumai." Raizo gives Zoro a serious glance. "All of Wano will recognize Shusui on sight if they see it, and they will not be so understanding as us of a thief who insists on using it."

Zoro scowls at the ninja and shifts his grip to the black blade. "I'd like to see them say something about it."

Raizo just shakes his head and presses on. Kin'emon shivers and mutters about ghosts, but none of the Wano natives make another comment about Shusui.

"But, Shimotsuki," Zoro tests slowly, "I know that name."

Kanjuro looks back at him, dodging a snow-laden branch. "How so? The clan is…well we believe they're all dead now. It was one of the great houses of Wano. Ringo was their ancestral homeland, though they served in Hakumai as well."

Zoro shrugs, not sure how to explain the village he'd grown up in was named the same. Probably a coincidence, despite the apparent similarities in architectural taste.

"It's a village in East Blue," Robin chimes in, and Zoro turns to give her a confused look. She smiles, mysterious as always. "There's a dojo master there affiliated with the Revolutionaries."

Zoro raises an eyebrow. That seems…radical, for Sensei. He's a strong, kind, and honorable man, but Zoro can't see him ever leaving the dojo to go fight the government. Maybe it's a different dojo master?

"I really hate winter islands," Franky grumbles, and his joints are creaking a bit with cold. Zoro thinks about metal and fussy organs and acknowledges the older man's discomfort is probably more than a little significant.

"Don't worry," Momo assures the cyborg, smiling bright and with more excitement than Zoro's ever seen on his face, "The rest of my country is much more hospitable."

Zoro looks out over the frozen forests and tries not to feel insulted on its behalf. The rustle of wind through the trees seems to answer his efforts with brutal acknowledgement—the kind that refines and strengthens the body, refines the mind, and tests the heart.

Shusui's void expands in his grip, like it recognizes a kinship in the wind. Zoro can see how a place like this would breed samurai from birth.

Annoying as it is to be separated from her crew again, it's not too big a deal. Since fighting with Katakuri, the glow in the back of her head has stayed a fixture, the scope of her sight permanently expanded. She is, always, in the present moment and also an instant or two ahead. Lucy can feel her crew's presence on Wano, can hold the whole island in her sight now even if it's blurry and indistinct a mile or so out. Everyone's here except for Jimbei, the eight of them lighting up like stars across the island.

And Zoro is close. She can feel it. His Voice blazes not far away, the steady gong of his heartbeat ringing out to bolster her own senses.

She'd go to him immediately—it's been two months—but Tama…

Tama is a cute kid, excitable and brave. Lucy likes her.

She calls Lucy her big sister. It's the first time anyone's called her that, looked up to her like that. She can't just leave the kid alone.

And Ace knew her. Loved her, if Grandpa Nose is correct. By Tama's own admission, Ace was Tama's Shanks, her whole reason for wanting to set out to sea. Lucy would maybe save Tama based on that alone if she didn't already like the kid herself, if Tama's illness wasn't already her fault.

All this time and she's still following Ace across the sea. She'll have to reach Raftel before that stops, she thinks.

Lucy's never informed someone of his death before. Especially not someone who loves him. It hurts to watch the shock and horror and pain play out on Tama's little face. Lucy withstands it stoically, not willing to inflict her own pain on the kid.

"Where can I find a doctor?" She asks Tama's guardian. He tells her, and then lends her a red kimono with large blue patches to wear.

"All I have is a men's kimono," the guardian apologizes, "But it will be less suspicious than your ridiculous clothes."

Lucy scowls at him, but Grandpa Nose insists he's correct about the clothes. The kimono he lends her is comfortable enough, but she refuses to give up the bust strap. She's fought shirtless too many times by now—her enemies are really into disintegrating her clothes—and she's pretty sure Hancock made this thing with like, indestructible leather or something.

She's about to leave when something pings off her Haki. Something dark and malevolent and—there. Beneath the floorboard.

Lucy kicks it, hinging the loose floorboard upright, and withdraws the chest below.

"What—how did you do that?!" the guardian asks, but Lucy ignores him and unravels the casing.

Inside are two katana—one white, the other dark purple, like a bruise. Lucy's hand hovers over them before reaching for the solid purple one and grasping the scabbard.

It's heavy, and there's something…well she doesn't know. She's not a swordswoman. But it feels dark and powerful and the craftsmanship is exquisite, even to Lucy, who barely knows a good katana from a doornail.

"You cannot take the cursed blade Enma! It is sacred and it will kill you! Put that down this instant!" Grandpa Nose demands, but Lucy just slots it into her sash. She has a feeling about this.

"It was calling to me," she explains, because it is. She can't hear it exactly, there's no Voice, but she can feel it reaching out to her nonetheless. She wanders over to Tama, hoists her up, and turns towards Dog for a ride.

"Thanks for the katana!" Lucy calls over her shoulder. "I'm going to take it now!"

"IDIOT!" The Grandpa Nose shouts, but Lucy's already too far away to hear him.

On her back, Tama's skin feels too warm. It's Lucy's fault, for eating her birthday rice.

Lucy's going to find her something better than rice. And she's going to make sure the kid she and Ace both liked lives in a country where she can have food every day, and drink from the river without falling ill.

She swears it. For Tama, and for Ace.

Arriving at the Flower Capitol goes surprisingly smoothly, for all that the Wano outsiders are out of their depth with local customs. Kin'emon helps them assimilate into different roles around Wano while giving them very basic instructions on how not to make asses of themselves.

This is not a thing most of the Straw Hats would ever give a crap about, but they are trying too lay low, so Zoro tries to learn.

Robin and Usopp gain posts in the capitol, Robin to infiltrate Orochi's palace and Usopp to keep an ear to the ground on the streets. Franky is assigned to a carpenter in Hakumai to obtain blueprints for the raid, and Kin'emon takes one look at Zoro, gives up on giving him a post, and is told to simply not get noticed.

He finds that no one much cares about a lone swordsman who carries a gourd of sake everywhere. Zoro is no good at remembering to speak formally, but Kin'emon insisted it was better to try and fuck up than to just pretend it didn't matter. Both would grab attention, but the former would be dismissed more than the latter.

So Zoro wanders, mostly around the capitol, and does his best to not be noticed.

It's…easier than he thought. And that's…strange.

There's something about Wano. A familiarity in the way sakura blossoms keep falling year-round, the way the homes line the streets, the soil beneath his feet. It's not a sensation that's as strong in the capitol as it was in Ringo, but Zoro still notices it all the same. There's an energy in the air he likes, even if the people are constantly terrorized and he keeps having to pick his battles more than he would like. He uses only Wado and Kitetsu the few times he draws a blade, and keeps Shusui in its scabbard. He doesn't want to draw attention, after all.

And then the thing with the magistrate happens, and. Well.

Okay, so, killing the magistrate—possibly not Zoro's greatest idea. But fuck if he gives a shit, because that guy smells like blood and is trying to frame Zoro for his crimes, and Shusui screams at him in outrage like it never has before, moaning a void as great as the sky in protest as the murderer draws the black blade and defiles it with his touc.

So Zoro kills him, injures the rest of the idiots who tried to make him commit seppuku without any proof, and then wanders off to get drunk.

So irritating, seriously.

Well, then there are posters with his face on them, and Zoro feels a hunch pulling him to Kuri anyway, so the night of the next full moon he wanders into a wasteland with jerks beating up women and kids and takes up his actual title of ronin because they piss him off.

The people in Kuri don't have anything to pay him with. That's fine, he survives by hunting the animals out in the wastes and the river water is tasty. The locals look at him with some horror when he tells them this, but fuck if he knows why. Within a week he develops something of a reputation, and when capitol law enforcement comes looking for him, the people in Kuri don't say a word about the scarred ronin who's been mopping up Orochi's lackeys.

It's unnecessary and he tells people to knock it off, but they keep doing it anyway.

Day by day, the feeling in his gut grows. He's right where he needs to be, something is coming, but he doesn't know what.

He stays in Kuri for weeks like this.

He ends up sleeping beneath bridges, against trees. He keeps to the wastes, away from towns, and if he visits them it's to get a few supplies or buy a bottle of sake. It reminds him of his bounty-hunting days, before he met his girlfriend.

He thinks of Lucy often. He wonders how long it will be before she arrives with the others, if everything went as well as it seemed from the papers. Sometimes he looks toward Kuri's coast, Kitetsu burning in his palm, and he wants to follow the path to her.

But no. It's fine, he's exactly where he needs to be. His captain will be here soon.

It's nowhere near as bad as the separation on Kuraigana, but he still aches for missing her. He won't be happy until she's in arms reach and he can look her over, catalogue any new scars for safekeeping, see the smile on her face, feel her pressed against his ribcage.

At night, he always feels too cold. He's a light sleeper at the best of times, let alone when he keeps waking up because he tries to find her and the rest of his crew subconsciously. Two months apart apparently isn't enough to break the habit.

Between the restless sleep, his solitary existence in the wastes, and the devastating lack of access to alcohol, it's a real surprise when he wakes up one morning to find Shusui missing.

It's…impossible. He hasn't even drawn the katana since the magistrate. No one should know what it is.

He seethes over its loss. Wado and Kitetsu are no help, humming quietly in the back of his head with no concern towards their partner.

There's no sign of Shusui, no sign of the thief, and Zoro spends three days searching all of Kuri before he's forced to admit he's got no idea where his katana went. There's not even a whisper of a void on the wind, and no matter how many blacksmiths and shady arms dealers and swordsmen he shakes down, no one knows of a thief as skilled as the one that took Shusui.

Zoro's carried that blade for two and a half years, and his soul feels untethered without it. He should be able to hear it at least, but it was either taken so far away so quickly that he can't hear it now or something's interrupting the connection.

He thinks about going to search for it, thinks about heading to Hakumai or the Capitol or Kibi to hunt for the blade, but he can't make himself leave Kuri.

Something is coming. He's so, so sure of it, that this is exactly where he needs to be. Wado only confirms this when he leans on the blade for clarity. So no matter how much he wants to go scour all of Wano for his lost katana, he stays put because something is coming.

Two katana instead of three feels wrong. Still, Zoro hunkers down beside a tree, sips the last of his sake, and waits.

The wastes of Wano are…well, Lucy has seen countries devastated before, but the contrast between the greenery of Wano's coast and the empty dustbowl that is its interior is stunning. She's never been to a place that felt like poison before, not even Impel Down. It even smells acrid here.

The very land is screaming. It reaches for Lucy like it knows why she's here, why she came to this island in the first place. Lucy doesn't answer the call—can't really—but she listens nonetheless. There's history here, a long and unbroken chain of violence and poverty and stubbornness and fruitless hope.

She guides Dog across the yawning wastes despite the way it sends a chill up her spine.

It's only when she's about halfway to the doctor Grandpa Nose shooed her towards that she realizes she's heading directly for Zoro.

Coincidence? Maybe.

She urges Dog faster.

Her presence is masked right now to avoid attracting attention while she's got a sick kid with her, so it takes Zoro longer than usual to notice her, but she knows the exact instant he picks up on her presence. His Voice flares warm and solid, reaches for her. She can feel him turn in her direction, can feel the way his presence practically shouts at her, and her heartbeat speeds up in response. Anticipation bubbles in her belly.

I missed you. I missed you.

Two damn months.

She can feel her soul reaching for him, her heart pounding against her sternum like it's trying to fling itself at the one who claimed it. She finally spots him in the middle of the empty lands, jogging toward her with a visible grin on his face. Lucy smiles to match it, and after a few more strides of Dog's easy lope, she launches herself at him at full speed.

Zoro stops, squawks, and tries to square up to intercept her, but she's rocketing forward way too fast to be caught and they both end up tumbling in the rocky earth until Lucy manages to pin him down.

He looks so indignant lying there in the dirt under her that she laughs, breathless and giddy. After a moment Zoro laughs too, and the sound catches Lucy's breath in her lungs.

He's so warm beneath her palms, so vital with life and strength and heart. It's her swordsman, all bulging muscle and hard jaw and decisive scars and honor. His silver eye is as brilliant and stark as ever, his green hair just as ridiculous, and his earrings still fall from his ear in an even row down his neck. His skin is a few shades darker than it was before, but he's Zoro, he's hers, and he's right where he's supposed to be, like he's been waiting here for her to find him.

The look on his face is full of a mirrored joy, and something in her shivers into place. She feels more like herself than she has in weeks.

"What the hell are you wearing?" He asks, and tugs at the patched men's kimono falling off her shoulders. Lucy makes a face at him.

"I was told I couldn't wear my shorts," she complains, and Zoro huffs a laugh—the small one she likes, but not the belly laugh that lights her up with warmth and victory whenever she draws it out. "You look good like this though," she compliments, and it's the truth. The Wano clothes suit her swordsman. She likes the haori especially—it emphasizes the broadness of his shoulders.

Zoro's gaze deepens at the comment, and Lucy feels herself quiet in response, aching and needy and suddenly more yearning than giddy.

She traces his hairline with her right hand, swallowing hard when he leans into the touch and kisses the inside of her wrist. He keeps eye contact with her while he does it, like he's daring her to move, daring her to pull away.

She flushes, despite herself.

"Hey," she whispers, and she feels almost shy. Zoro sits up to take her face between his rough palms, and the movement rocks her back into his lap. Something about the bigness of his hands and the danger she knows he carries in them makes the gentleness he holds her with just a little heartbreaking in the best of ways.

He smells like blood and steel and sake, his scent strong enough to even drown out the poison of the wasteland around them.

"Hey," he answers just as quietly, and the way he looks at her makes her heart lurch in her chest like it just remembered how to beat, bursting with anticipation and delight and ferocity.

Lucy kisses him, just a sweet press of her mouth against his. She wants to show him how much she missed him in the softness of it. His lips are a bit chapped, but they're gentle against hers, matching her movement for movement and longing for longing. He tastes like sake and dango and…meat?

Lucy pulls back, mouth watering, and as Zoro blinks away surprise she asks, "Do you have meat?"

Zoro blinks at her, and then laughs the deep belly laugh she loves, and then draws her in to kiss her properly, his breath still hitching from laughter but refusing to give her space. He doesn't let her up for air and he kisses her like he wants to drown in her, and between the lack of oxygen and all the joy and affection and relief he's projecting, Lucy forgets about the meat. Instead, she grips his shoulders and pulls herself into him, filled with desperation and fire and need, like her body only just remembered their two month fast and wants to make up for lost time now.

Zoro bites her lip, a tiny thing that makes Lucy burn and shiver and Zoro smells so good—

"Zoro," she calls, because she likes the sound of his name and there's a noise in the back of his throat that she treasures, covets deep in her heart. She missed him. She missed him.

The furious press of his lips against hers, the way he simply lets her take as she shoves her tongue down his throat—it all makes her feel electric, even vivified out here in the emptiness of a country she's been asked to save. She's the freest she's ever been with Zoro here and strength in their limbs and she could live off of this feeling of reunion for weeks if Sanji would let her starve that long.

It's shocking when Dog whines behind her, insistent and loud and an unwelcome interruption to her hands' exploration of her swordsman's new outfit, but then Lucy remembers, groans, and pulls back.

Zoro looks confused by the sudden space between them, his eyebrows pinched unevenly and his scowl prominent. Lucy swallows the urge to kiss that look off his face and speaks before he takes matters into his own hands.

"I've got to tell you," she explains sheepishly. "Zoro, there's a kid."

Zoro's eye blows comically wide and his face pales. His hands tremble faintly on her flat, very much not-pregnant stomach, "You mean—you're—"

"No, thank god," Lucy assures him, and gasps a hysterical giggle at the sheer horror of that idea, and points to the giant yellow dog boar "Over there. There's a sick kid who passed out. She needs a doctor."

"Oh thank fuck," Zoro breathes, and slumps in relief. He doesn't make any move to let go of her though.

Lucy should stand up, brush herself off and get Tama to a doctor. She got a little carried away, seeing Zoro again. They need to leave now.

She hesitates, just for a heartbeat. She wants more time with him, wants to bask in this and soak him in and familiarize herself with all his new scars. She wants to stay right here, with Zoro wrapped around her and his silver eye crinkling at the corner and an uncharacteristically soft smile on his face.

Lucy takes a deep breath and stands. Zoro lets her, but he looks up at her with his palms pressed to the dirt and a devastating fondness in his eye and in his smirk and Lucy's body thrums like a plucked string in the face of it.

"C'mon," she calls, and she holds her hand out to help him up. "Let's go."

Zoro takes it and stands, but he doesn't let go when he's up. Instead, his thumb caresses her knuckles before he raises her hand to kiss the back of it.

"Aye, Sencho," he murmurs against her skin, voice low and rich and his eye locked on her face the whole time. He smirks like he knows exactly what he's doing, and he probably does because he's an asshole.

Lucy's cheeks burn, her face probably as red as the borrowed kimono, and she doesn't have it in her to object when Zoro rests his other hand on the nape of her neck and kisses her forehead, gentle and promising.

I missed you, she thinks, but there's no breath in her lungs to speak it to him.

Zoro notices her fluster, and looks entirely too pleased with himself when he pulls back and starts to lead her toward Dog.

"Hey, where the hell did you get that katana? I swear it's been screaming at me this whole—"

"You there! Are you the Ronin Zorojuro? Wanted across Wano?"

It's a voice that echoes against the barren land around them, and Lucy looks up to see a party approaching. Zoro groans and releases her hand to take up a defensive stance, his back to Dog.

There's something wrong with it.

Lucy frowns, studying her swordsman, and then her eyes widen in shock. "Where's Shusui?"

Zoro just shakes his head, lips pressed tight together. All previous softness is gone, his gaze locked on the intruders. Lucy blinks away the shock—how could Zoro lose his katana? It shouldn't be possible—and takes up her own stance, more offensive than defensive to compensate should Zoro need it.

There will be time later for her and Zoro to catch up properly. Right now there's a fight to win, and a kid to care for. She feels Zoro's focus sharpen at her side, senses it slice through the air like one of his blades.

They're together. There's nothing that could tear the two of them apart now, not even Kaido himself.

Lucy smiles at the aggressors charging them, and settles in for a fight.

One day, Zoro is going to manage a reunion with his girlfriend that doesn't get interrupted. One day it'll happen, and they'll be able to reunite properly, with like. Good sake and barbeque and a fight. Maybe fireworks and a bed, who knows.

Today is, unfortunately, not that day.

Also, why the hell is Lucy's katana so damn loud? He can barely hear Kitetsu and Wado over its racket.

Lucy starts to withdraw it—and holy shit he loves her but that is not a tool she should be in charge of, holy shit—and then she frowns.

"It's not reaching for me anymore," she observes, pouting. "Ah well. Zoro needs three anyway. I'll just do what I usually do. Zoro, catch Enma!"

And then she tosses him the katana, scabbard and all, like it's a broken toy she decided wasn't so interesting after all.

Zoro catches it with his right hand on pure reflex and a lifetime of being drilled in respecting katana.

The moment his fingers touch the lacquer, he gasps. There's a hunger in this blade, a curse so ferocious and violent it's practically vibrating out of its scabbard. It wants to consume, cut everything, swallow the sun itself. In a good enough swordsman's hands, it could.

Enma latches on to his soul like a parasite. It sings songs of promise and power and conquering all there is to conquer, if only Zoro will withdraw the blade. Enma will help him become the strongest. Enma will let him protect his captain from Death itself. Enma will lend him power, strength, will. All he has to do is reach back, meld himself to the katana, and together they will consume the whole of the world.

Zoro blinks and comes back to himself by following Wado's icy ring out of Enma's swallowing. His hand is clenched around the purple scabbard so hard his knuckles are white, his arm shaking. Lucy is giving him an odd look.

Zoro breathes out slowly, and places the scabbard on his right hip, instead of his left. That was…weird. Even Kitetsu only uses Zoro's own impulses to get its way—a katana has never tried to actively convince him before.

Enma screams at him, as clear and loud as any of his blades, and he ignores it. He's not going to draw an unknown cursed blade in battle when Lucy's right beside him. Not unless he's got no choice. Kitetsu cries out volatile and angry in his left hand, begging for bloodshed, gnawing on his spirit, and Wado chimes a clear note in the back of his mind. He is a swordsman, and Lucy's first mate. He'll deal with the problem at hand.

Zoro follows Lucy into the fray, and ignores Enma's wounded ache as he fights.

Zoro is given very explicit instructions to rest, don't move, don't bleed, from Okiku, which he thinks is a little bit overkill for a tiny little hole in his arm. Lucy seems to agree, but she also isn't letting him get up from the little bench outside the teahouse while they wait for Tama's medicine to take effect.

It could be worse. The sun is warm today but not so much that it burns, and Lucy blazes beneath his arm like a star, brilliant power condensed and hidden away. He could almost fall asleep like this, doze off with Lucy cloistered at his side, against his ribcage where he can feel her heartbeat. He feels relaxed for the first time in two months.

He doesn't nap though, because there are too many people in this town with suspicious intent. Lucy's noted it too, her eyes unfocused in a way that means she's vetting the people around them as much as she can, keeping tabs on the ones she deems dangerous.

Also, sue him, he wants to talk to her. He missed hearing her voice. And she looks adorable buried under his haori like this, he wants to take in the image as much as he can.

"You got stronger," he comments. He noticed it right away, the moment he caught her presence out in the wastes. And when she fought earlier there wasn't a single extraneous movement, like she'd already seen the fight play out and knew exactly where to step and punch and dodge.

Lucy smirks, and taps her temple. "I can see the future," she says mysteriously and huh that did explain it.

He frowns though, consternated. "You suck at that."

Lucy scoffs and points to the house across the street from their bench. "Door."

The rice paper door slides open, and a painfully thin woman in an orange kimono steps out, basket in hand.

Lucy nods down the street to a man carrying a bag of sawdust. "He's going to trip."

And he does, almost taking a tumble into the dirt before catching himself.

Zoro raises an eyebrow. "Neat trick." More like terrifying. Zoro is decent at precognition—has to be, with his eye—but he doesn't have the mundane specificity or consistency Lucy's achieved. It's amazing growth considering last time he saw her she was still mostly relying on her own reflexes in a fight. Shit, he might be the worst at observation Haki on the crew now, with the exception of Usopp. That's not exactly a fair comparison though.

"I can sense the whole crew across the island, too," she brags, and her smirk tells him she expects him to be impressed.

He is.

"My captain would have to be that strong," he dismisses casually. He's not quite sure how to express his pride any other way. "You must have had a good fight or two." He knows she did something dangerous at some point.

Lucy nods, smiling. "Hm. Yep, a few. It was pretty fun. Didn't get to really fight Big Mom though. Sanji's family sucks." She looks up at him with a frown on her lips. "You didn't fight anyone fun, did you? You promised you'd wait."

"No," he assures. The magistrate was just annoying. "Cook got his head on straight though. Good."

Lucy nods, and she wraps her arms around his waist to squeeze in closer to him. Something tight fixes in Zoro's throat. I missed you doesn't sound like enough. I don't feel complete without you is closer, but he's not dumb enough to try and articulate it, so he just brushes a lock of hair behind her ear.

"What happened to Shusui?" Lucy asks, and he sighs and explains the theft.

"We'll find it," Lucy resolves, and there's a look in her eye that speaks to world shaking and bells. "Someone here must have it."

"Yeah," Zoro agrees. Someone here probably has his katana. But it's still weird he can't hear the blade, still strange that his connection with it would ever be interrupted. He won that katana in a fair duel. He had the blessing of Ryuma's spirit. He should be able to hear it from anywhere on Wano, if it's here.

Zoro wonders if Enma and its weirdly aggressive hold on him has anything to do with it—if his connection with Shusui was broken because of it. That doesn't really make sense, but he's suspicious regardless.

He has not yet drawn the new katana. He wants to. He's curious, and Enma's frantic eagerness to be used is not helping Zoro with restraint.

…He probably shouldn't do it in the middle of town though. Something tells him that would be…hmm.

Lucy presses her cheek into the space below his shoulder and looks up at him through her eyelashes, her eyes huge and lovely and shining like charcoal in the sunlight.

His heart thuds hard in his chest. It would be a wonder if Lucy didn't feel it pounding away against her cheek.

"Zoro looked really good earlier, when he was taking care of the straw guy." Lucy purrs, and Zoro nearly stops breathing at the low note in her voice.

It felt good, defending Lucy's back like that. Showing off his strength. Hearing her voice her complete trust in him to handle it. The way she'd watched him and not the attacks raining down on them. It made something proud and primal preen in his chest, that he could lay a barrier down around what was his and enforce it like he said he would.

Lucy makes it sound like it did something for her, too.

He'd give a lot for a little privacy right this moment.

Then he sees the glint in her eye that's mischievous and heated and he realizes she knows exactly what she's starting, and exactly how far into nowhere it's going to go.

Zoro shifts from an embrace to a headlock as punishment, swallowing her whole with the haori in retaliation.

Lucy squawks, giggling and twists against his hold just enough to make him work for it. Then she realizes she still has access to his sides and sticks her fingers hard beneath his floating rib to catch him by surprise.

It does not work, but he lets her up for air anyway, huffing in amusement when he sees the frizzy mess of her hair. Someone tied it back for her in a low knot at the nape of her neck, but the hairs were too loose or not long enough and more than half of it has fallen out between the fighting and the ride on the dog and his teasing.

Lucy tries to pout at him, but she can't quite hold the expression through the remains of her laughter. There's a flush on her cheeks, from excitement or her teasing or both, and oh, he wants to kiss her, but public displays of affection are very much not a thing in Wano. It'll attract attention.

"Turn around," he tells her to squash the urge before he can ruin Kin'emon's rebellion for the sake of a kiss, "I'll fix your hair."

Lucy raises an eyebrow at him and does as he says, sitting with a leg on either side of the bench and her back to him. Zoro mirrors her movement and works to gently detangle her hair. It's always softer than he expects, between all the wind and the sea salt and the fighting.

Lucy tips her head back, leaning into his hands in a way that isn't entirely helpful, but he doesn't mind. He likes the trust in it, the way she hands herself over to him.

"It's longer," he notes, before he can take that thought much farther. Longer than he's ever seen her hair before. It reaches below her collarbones.

"Nami wouldn't let me cut it," she grumbles. "Said it would be better for blending in."

Nami was right, but it's not like Lucy's ever blended in anywhere ever in her life. It was kind of a lost cause from the jump, in Zoro's opinion.

He ends up twisting her hair into something resembling a topknot, because that's all he knows how to do. He figures it's fine—Lucy's not going to be swapping out for a women's kimono anytime soon, and from a distance she could pass for a very pretty boy. Probably best to keep her away from people anyway.

Lucy hums when he's done, and throws a smile to him over her shoulder. "Thanks, Zoro."

Something about that smile breaks him, just a little. It's too bright, too simple, just a glimmer of the woman he's missed so much, a casual brilliance dropped into their every day.

He missed this. He missed her.

"Tama's waking up," Lucy notes, and she stands with her eyes locked on the tea house.

Zoro's body acts on that piece of his heart her smile broke, and in a blink he's standing behind her, his arms around her waist. She's shorter than him by a lot, especially when they're standing, but he curves over her until his forehead rests on her shoulder.

Lucy freezes, startled by the reaction. But she doesn't resist, so Zoro places his hands over her lower belly, splayed out possessively, a little too intimately for the public eye as he sways her weight into his.

Lucy just relaxes into the hold, like she doesn't mind, like she'd be willing to go along with whatever he wants. She shouldn't do that. He'll get greedy, and she already does that enough for both of them.

"Zoro missed me," Lucy teases. Her voice is light, accepting. It helps. He smiles into her shoulder.

"Aye, Sencho." Every day, every hour, every minute.

"That's good. I missed you, too." She says it easily and without embarrassment, like she says everything else, and then she adds just as nonchalantly— "I slept in your robe."

His grip tightens on her, his fingers digging into flesh, and his nose snuffles into her hair. She smells like sunlight and sea salt and star anise and Zoro wants to drag her away to an empty field for a few hours. "Good," he growls, and he relishes the way she shudders against him.

He likes it so much, when she depends on him. Like she's reaching directly into his chest, squeezing his heart. He wants to give her everything. He wants her to take all he is.

In the tea house, Zoro can sense people moving around, can sense the slow awakening of the little girl Lucy decided to adopt. He can feel it seize Lucy's attention too, and he senses her indecision in the way her hands rest on his—not pushing him away, but not holding on, either.

"Just a little longer," he whispers. Just a few seconds more. Before everything goes insane again, like it always does. They have to take these moments where they can, sometimes.

Lucy either acquiesces or comes to the same conclusion, because she cranes her neck back and into his shoulder, as if to give him better access.

Zoro closes his eyes, and breathes, and after a moment he lets her go.

Notes:

I looked so hard for a traditional women's outfit for Lucy and just couldn't find one that I thought she could reasonably fight in. Oda just drew a lot of the female characters in short kimonos, but I didn't think Lucy would be particularly comfortable fighting in that either. So Lucy ends up wearing the same kimono Luffy wore and Zoro gives her a topknot to sell the image. There's actually a lot of history in kabuki theater (of which the Wano arc draws a lot of inspiration from) of women playing male roles—kabuki actually started as an all-female production. So just consider it a nod to that instead of my lack of creativity, please.

Let me know what you think of the chapter!