"Mmmm..." Zoro woke up from his nap and gave a big yawn. Everybody around him looked extremely tired. They're all holding unto something for support or completely lying down.
"The weather's nice an all, but you guys shouldn't underestimate the Grand Line and lie around all day."
'You fucking...', everyone simultaneously thought.
Zoro squatted beside Mr.9 and Vivi, a devilish smirk plastered on his face.
"I've been thinking of this for a while now. What were you guys' name again?" he asked them.
"I-I'm Mr. 9.", "And I'm Ms. Wednesday." they replied nervously.
"Those names...they're ringing bells for me, like I've heard of them before...or maybe not!" Zoro teased them.
"You!" Using her Clima-Tact, Nami swung for Zoro's head from behind. Zoro smoothly dodges it.
"We sailed through calamitous weather, so how in the hell were you unconscious through all of that?! We couldn't wake you up and had to take care of everything while you didn't do shit! So...LET ME HIT YOU!" she shouted while repeatedly swinging at Zoro's head, hoping that her staff hits the man at least once.
"I wasn't fully unconscious so if we were in any real danger, I would've woke up..." Zoro excused himself, using Nami's unrelenting swings to train his observation haki. He even tied his bandana around his eyes as a blindfold, which just caused Nami to go even more berserk.
"Sanji! Help me catch this lazy ass!"
"Of course, milady~ Get over here mosshead!"
Even with both Sanji and Nami gunning for him, Zoro still seemed to be too elusive for them to hit. Zoro even used the situation to shove Sanji towards one of Nami's swings, causing Sanji to get bonked on the head, which Sanji received with hearts in his eyes. They kept that up till Nami started breathing a bit heavy.
"Haaaah...Haaaah...let me...heh...hit you, just once." Nami said to Zoro in between her breaths, while gnashing her teeth. Sanji also decided to stand down by her side.
"Been there done that. Don't want you to develop a habit. Besides, we're here." Zoro said while removing his bandana blindfold.
"It's an island of giant cactuses!" Luffy enthusiastically informed everyone.
"It's Whiskey Peak!"
"Thank goodness we've arrived."
"We'll be taking our leave now. Thanks for the ride darlings!" Vivi and Mr. 9 said while jumping towards the railing. "We'll so you again, fate willing...Bye bye Baby!" they followed up before backflipping towards the water.
"They're gone."
"Forget them! Let's land."
"There's a river up ahead so might have to sail inland."
"I-I hope there isn't monsters and stuff."
"That's certainly possible. This is the Grand Line."
"If you're so scared Usopp, why don't you go check it yourself before we anchor." Zoro suggested.
"How would I even-Oh right! Observation haki!"
"Can this Observation haki really determine how strong somebody is?" Sanji jumped in the conversation.
"It's not an absolute reading of strength. It gives you a read on physical and haki ability, but it doesn't take into account technique, tactics and unusual abilities. You might be able to gleam through it depending on how much they rely on their physique and haki. You can also read on their general mood and demeanor, though it also doesn't necessarily reflect that 100% of the time. At higher levels, you could even gleam equipment quality through your observation haki, and how much connection someone has with their weapon." Zoro explained.
"Hoooh...It doesn't seem like there's anybody stronger than Choo in here, though there's a surprising number of people in here." Usopp made his assessment after using his observation haki.
The Straw Hats then sailed inland through the river, wherein just like last time they were greeted suspiciously warmly by the "villagers", with Usopp, Luffy and Sanji completely going with it.
"340...341...342..."
While everybody was getting entertained, Zoro decided to train. So he went towards the more secluded rocky areas of the island, and proceeded to cut up giant rock formations to use as weights. He's squatting a disc-shaped plateau when somebody called out for him several dozen meters away, just outside the area where the plateau could crush him.
"Th-The village decided to have a p-party, Mr. Roronoa. We hope you could attend. Your friends were calling for you." the poor schmuck was flabbergasted by the level of Zoro's training.
"Yeap, I'll be coming. Just let me finish my set...357...358...359...360...Hup!" Zoro answered and finished his set, putting the plateau down on one side then slowly came out the other, before completely putting it down, which caused a small earthquake to occur, startling the man even more.
"W-Wow, you're so strong s-sir, but you still train."
"I don't have much chance to train with this much intensity on board so I have to take the opportunities that I have."
'It's going up, but it's definitely still not comparable.' he thought. Zoro's trying to get his body to be of comparable strength to before he went back in time, before they start seriously fighting the real heavy-hitters of the world.
'I'll train my observation haki with the bounty hunters after this.'
"So then I said, in a very cool way 'Hey you sea monsters, get your flippers off my friends!'"
"You're so cool, Captain Usopp!"
Everybody seemed to be having a lot fun in the party, specially Sanji who finally found girls who looked like they were really receptive to his flirting. Nami's making a killing on betting against other people who think they could out-drink her and Luffy's really just having fun in general, while really making their cooks work their ass off. Meanwhile Zoro's simply eating his protein and drinking with some other villagers in the corner.
The party continued well into the night exhausting virtually everybody. Still, quite a few of the Baroque Works bounty hunters were conscious, with some of them leaving to take a breather, while others were there to look over the pirates.
"These guys are unbelievable."
"Yeah! The most normal of them was the redhead who might just be able to outdrink half the island by herself, if it was fair."
"The kid who looked the most normal literally ate tons worth of food!"
"The two who looked kinda weird actually acted more normal. The long nose kid just bragged about obviously hilariously fake bravado stories while the blonde dude with the swirly eyebrow was a bit too creepily into girls."
"The only really normal one was the green haired man who ate and drank a bit. He mostly kept to himself."
"No, he's actually the weirdest of all! Or I guess weird isn't exactly the right term. More like monstrously strong. I saw him lifting a part of the plateau."
"Ok, so he's stronger than most, but the straw hat kid literally is rubber though."
"He's not just slightly stronger than him most guys though. The part that I was talking rock easily over 15 meters tall and 80 meters wide. That's gotta be easily over 100 000 tons! He's easily stronger than everybody on the island combined!"
"Hahahaha! Dani, that can't possibly be right, nobody's that strong. It's probably just a combination of like, a mirage, the distance, and the perspective which made it look much bigger than it actually was...Wait, where is that guy any-" Zoro instantly incapacitated them by sending conqueror's haki in their direction before they could make a commotion and make the situation hairier.
While the bounty hunters outside were bantering, Zoro quietly sneaked out through the window and went on the roof. He must naturally replicate his cool entrance last time.
"Was the party really that necessary for those teenagers?" uttered the muscle-bound Ms. Monday. "We should've finished them at the port. There's already a food shortage, and we all know there's no whale meat coming any time soon."
"You..." the duo were appalled by Ms. Monday's crass but accurate statement.
"Calm down. Read this. I dug up their information." the 'mayor', Igaram, showed them Luffy and Zoro's wanted posters.
"35 and 36 million Berries!" they all shouted, surprised.
"Only a fool judges a pirate based only on appearance Ms. B...Mi! Mi! Mi! Ms. Monday."
"Those guys are..."
"That was quite a shameful showing of me."
"We've taken care of them now, so we could still make a favorable report to the boss. Scour everything of value from their ship and bind them."
"I'm gonna have to crash your plans on that one." Zoro revealed himself, moonlight shining behnd him.
"Weren't you passed out?!" they shouted. Several dozens of bounty hunters then came out when they heard the commotion, blades drawn, guns cocked and loaded.
"A true swordsman never drinks himself into a stupor. Also, a den of bounty hunter isn't exactly the safest place...About a hundred or so of you should suffice as a light training, just barely." he taunted them.
"You arrogant oaf! You'll just become another tombstone to adorn the cactus rocks!" Igaram threatened Zoro, to which Zoro responded with a wild, almost gleeful sneer. Then, in front of over a hundred bounty, Zoro vanished from their vision.
"Where the fuck did he go?!"
"To make this more fair, I'll give you guys a handicap." they heard his voice, but it took the bounty hunters an embarrassingly long time to locate him. "I'll blindfold myself, and I'll also not move a single step from where I am. You're all free to try and kill me." By the time they saw him, he was already putting his bandana as a blindfold on. He put himself in the eye of the storm, right in the middle of all the bounty hunters.
"Why you...!"
"Fire!"
"Kill him!"
"Wait! Everyone! If we all shoot at him at the same time we'll...!...Wait?"
Hundreds of bullets headed for Zoro's direction. But instead of simply dodging or parrying, he decided to redirect them towards either the ground, the sky, or each other to safely cancel out the force, protecting both the bounty hunters and himself. He honed his Observation Haki to read the trajectory of the bullets to know when, where and how are the bullets going to come to him.
"Keep 'em coming." he taunted them. The bounty hunters either didn't notice that they should've gotten shot by their colleagues, or did notice but completely ignored the danger because they didn't get shot. Zoro taunted them even more. Most of them emptied all the ammo on their person, with nothing to show for it. Over a thousand more bullets was shot towards Zoro, all of it skillfully redirected away.
"Demon..."
"How..."
'It feels much easier to imbue Haki in Yubashiri compared to the other swords.' Zoro thought as it was the first time he hardened it with Haki. 'Comparatively, imbuing haki into Shusui felt like trying to feed a kid used to gourmet food, while Enma felt like trying to feed Luffy.'
"It looks like you'll need a hundred more tombstones." he egged them on even more.
"Gut him!" they shouted. Dozens of them charged towards Zoro with their blades pointed towards him. But Zoro demonstrated the unsurmountable difference between them and him. With very minute movements, Zoro dodged and weaved through the storm of stabs and slashes, efficiently neutralizing everybody who came.
Ms. Monday decided to try and help by trying to smash Zoro in. She found a sizable log and tried to do an overhead swing on Zoro's head with it from behind him. But Zoro simply cut the log mid swing, causing one half of the log to fly off towards other bounty hunters and the other to be too short to reach him. Ms. Monday didn't give up, and threw the log that she still held at Zoro, which again simply got cut in half, completely missing Zoro. But then, it turned out she was actually only using it as a distraction to try and reach Zoro with her brass knuckles.
"That's enough." Zoro stated as he caught the brass knuckles from behind. "You think you're strong? Wanna see who's stronger?" he whispered to her, before grabbing her arm and smashing her into the ground one, two, three times, swinging her around like a twig before throwing her towards other bounty hunters.
"Ms. Monday got completely overpowered!"
"It can't be..."
"The Marines must've gotten it wrong. He's too strong to only be worth 36 million!" Igaram proclaimed.
"We just have to fight him as if he's a man worth more right?" Mr. 9 reasoned.
"Let's surround him and bring him down! Come Karoo!" Vivi shouted to the other two while the rest of the bounty hunters have either ran away or been taken down by Zoro. Karoo, the giant supersonic duck, then let out a loud quack and wagged his tail. "Don't just wag your tail! Move it!" Vivi shouted at him and mounted him after he ran near her, but then immediately ran away from Zoro's direction.
"Can you keep up with my acrobatics?" Mr. 9 asked as he flipped towards Zoro and pulled out a pair of metal bats. Zoro deftly dodged his bat swings and tripped Mr. 9, flipping and smashing his face towards the ground.
Igaram tried to use his saxophone-shotgun on Zoro, which Zoro easily deflected.
Mr. 9 popped back up and activated his bat's special functionality. The tip of a bat shot out with a steel rope tied to it. He used it to bind Zoro's arm, then tied to the steel rope to his other arm so he could strengthen his bind. "I've got his arm! Do it Mr. 8!"
"Prepare to fire!" Igaram declared.
"You guys and your weird toys." Zoro quietly said as pulled on the steel rope, lifting Mr. 9 and slammed him to Igaram, knocking both out.
"Why don't you take a look at this then?!" Vivi finally showed back up and shouted at him, with Luffy at knifepoint, still round from food and unconscious. "Try anything stupid and I'll...kill your precious friend, Mr. Bushido."
"You'd think after learning Observation Haki, he'd more alert of these things." Zoro muttered.
"Take a good look at my-" before Vivi could even finish her sentenced, Zoro blitzed towards her and knocked her out with the back of his sword. She then caught her and gently laid her down before she crashed into the ground.