AN: So...what kind of part-time job do y'all think Zoro (or any of the Straw Hats) would get living in a giant tree? I loved how they all kinda had jobs in Wano. I figure they've got to earn money somehow, given they aren't big on pillaging.

Ch. 44 - Best Efforts

Zoro entered Helena's hospital room, fresh from a shower after a long day's work. Because of the duration of the Straw Hat's stay, he and several of the others had taken on odd jobs about the town for extra cash.

"Well, that's a pleasant look on your face," Robin observed with a grin. She had been sitting at Helena's bedside in his stead. By the book in her hand, he guessed she had been reading to her.

Zoro smirked. "Found Helena an anniversary gift," he said. "Nami saw it in that curio shop she's been working at. I didn't buy it when she was on shift though, or she'd have charged me a fortune."

Due to Ryubokuu's penchant for scavenging ships in a Calm, there were multiple antique and curio shops that would sell goods from the wrecked vessels. Naturally, Nami had been hired on without question when she showed her haggling skills. Not only had she raised the prices of everything in the store to pad her commission, she was exceptionally good at convincing people to buy things they didn't need.

He pulled the gift from the little brown bag he'd been holding and showed it to Robin.

"Hopefully she'll be awake by then, right?" he asked. "I mean, our anniversary isn't for another month or so."

"Why, Swordsman-San! I'm impressed," Robin chortled, taking the gift to inspect it. "Typically men aren't known for remembering their anniversaries."

Zoro shrugged. "It was the one time a year I used to let myself think about her back when we were separated," he confessed. "Do you think she'll like it? I'm worried it could reopen old wounds, but I don't want her to forget who she is and where she comes from."

Robin pondered for a long moment with furrowed brows, turning the gift over in her hands. "Honestly, if I had something like this from O'Hara, I would treasure it," she said heavily at last. "I think it's perfect."

Zoro nodded, acknowledging in the gesture both Robin's response, and the longing in her tone. When he'd asked the question, he hadn't truly thought about how Robin had experienced something similar to Helena in losing her homeland. By complete accident he'd asked the one member of the crew who would know if his gift would cause Helena pain or not.

Robin set her book aside and stood, handing the gift back to him.

"I suppose I ought to get to my shift at the library," she said with a yawn and a stretch. "I'll just reposition her before I go."

Chopper had instructed them to change Helena's positioning every couple of hours to prevent bedsores. He'd insisted she not lay flat on her back for some reason, so she generally slept on her side.

"No, I can do it," Zoro started, but Robin had already put her powers into effect. Multiple arms appeared around Helena, gently lifting and turning her to her other side. In the process, Helena's clothes shifted and her midriff became visible. Zoro gave a start.

"The Haki's gone!" he cried.

Robin nearly dropped the patient in her surprise, both at what he was saying and the sudden volume of his excitement.

"We need to call Chopper and Ramzez!" He went on jovially. "It's time to wake her up!"

"Your Majesty! Wake up, it's urgent!"

Many leagues away, in a tent on the Alabastan shores, King Cygnus' eyes flew open against an unwelcome dream. He sat up in his cot, scrubbing the sleep from his face, trying to shake the images from his head.

It hadn't been a nightmare persay, but the memories it brought back were most inconvenient.

He had dreamed of Nefertari Leda.

"You're afraid of blood," she'd exclaimed with candid disgust. They had been children when they first met. "Who's ever heard of a boy afraid of blood?"

Of course he would dream of her in this place. Her homeland.

"Hush," Prince Cobra had admonished. "You'd hate blood too if you had seen the things he's seen."

"Your Majesty!"

"It is not blood I fear," his younger self had countered. "But I detest the effusion of it."

"King Cygnus!"

"I'm coming," Cygnus called to the voices outside his tent.

Cygnus limped his way to the door flap. When he emerged, wrapped in a blanket for warmth against the nighttime desert air, he found both Hector and Cassowary waiting to greet him.

They both saluted him, pounding a fist to the chest in the Iliad way. Cassowary didn't have to, but she seemed to enjoy doing it.

"You both are back sooner than expected," he observed dryly at their midnight visitation, "I take it there's bad news?"

"Mm, not bad or good," Cassowary replied. "What would you call it, General?"

"Urgent," Hector grunted.

"Ah, yes. Urgent," the revolutionary captain agreed. "You should get dressed. We have company."

Cygnus didn't have much these days by way of apparel. Thus it didn't take him long to don his Alabastan robe and boots – far more comely than his previous prison stripes – before going out to greet the reconnaissance party in the center of camp.

"I thought we agreed the plan wasn't to rescue anyone just yet," Cygnus chided, albeit only half-heartedly as his eyes roved over the small group of haggard looking refugees. Not all were Iliads, but it became apparent which ones were because they took a knee before him. All together there were some twenty rescued souls.

He knew he couldn't simply flood Alabasta with more refugees without contacting Cobra about it first. He'd already had an emissary sent to the capitol with tribute, as no taxes had yet been levied, and an entreaty for the King or one of his representatives to meet with the 'officials' in Yuba (he daren't include his own name for fear of putting the Alabastan government in a bad position).

But what was twenty more?

"Yeah, well, someone has a bleeding heart," Cassowary jabbed, looking pointedly at Hector, though there was no real malice in her tone.

"We couldn't leave them," Hector reported, "The situation was far too urgent. Raqueline du Agamemnon for instance. She is the last survivor of her family name thanks to Diddy, and the last of the miners her father employed. The others were all tortured to death when they refused to reveal the secret to mining and refining Sea Prism. Maybe a few more escaped to other islands, but there are none left in Ilium."

Cassowary nodded. "A few more days and she'd have been gone too. As much as Rothbart desperately wanted to force her to restore the mines with her powers, he wasn't about to break her. Like her fellow miners and artisans, she would have died rather than reveal anything. I've been told Agamemnon's line guarded that information religiously."

"So that's why Diddy left her alive," Cygnus observed aloud. His eyes roamed the small crowd for her even as he spoke. "Yes, it makes sense. She knew the mines intimately because of the Pebble Pebble Fruit, and likely could make them accessible again, even after they were destroyed. And she knew how to mine and refine the sea prism as well. Where is she?"

"She is in dire condition, sire," Hector said, jaw set in a grim line. "She is still aboard the revolutionary ship, being treated by their doctor. We will move her to Yuba when she is stable."

Cygnus nodded gravely.

"On your feet friends," he said, addressing the crowd of still kneeling Iliads, "You are free here at last. Let's get these people a proper place to sleep."

"Of course," Cassowary said, waving over a few of the revolutionaries so she could start getting things organized. "Just make sure you talk to Theodora."

"Who?" Cygnus asked. Cassowary had already motioned for the refugees to follow her. It was Hector who separated one of those refugees from the crowd and brought her to the King. A couple of other women trailed in her wake.

They were a strange sight against the backdrop of haggard Iliads. Well kempt and healthy, instead of rags, the three women wore what could only be classified as ballet attire.

Two wore calf-length tulle dresses and leotards. One, in pure white like her own albino skin, had a wreath of purple flowers in her snowy hair, and watery lavender eyes. He soon learned this wiry, ghostly apparition was called Giselle. The other, shorter and more athletically built, wore pink. She was a brunet Cygnus recognized as Marie Pavlova, a famous ballerina from the Saobody Opera house. He had never seen her perform, but had suggested Roronoa take Helena to do so when they went on their delayed honeymoon.

Both had the raw wounds and scars from having worn slave collars about their necks. He was sure if they turned, he would see on the low backs of their costumes, the telltale brand of a Celestial Dragon.

These were not Iliads, but the personal slaves of Coppelius Rothbart.

The one leading the other two, the one called Theodora, bowed to him. Not a normal bow. More of a curtsey. She pointed one foot behind her and lowered herself to the ground, black pancake tutu flared about her waist. A small crown of black feathers and scarlet garnets flashed at him from her textured hair, albeit not as brightly as her ruby red eyes, when she finally looked up at him.

She didn't do so until he asked her to. Clearly she had been trained into complete subservience.

"If it please you, sire, I am honored to meet you, for I have known your daughter," she said, her speech pleasing and formal. A little forced. Rothbart probably liked his women to talk to him this way. "She liberated myself and my friends from Rothbart's clutches in Marie Jois, but we three were recaptured in our escape."

"Theodora allowed herself to be captured," Marie blurted. "To save the rest of us. Giselle and I turned back to try to help her…I thought he would kill her….kill all of us…"

Theodora shot Marie a look. She placed a hand partially to her lips and bowed her head, gracefully ashamed for interrupting. She clearly had not fully learned the etiquette that had been forced on the rest of them, but she naturally possessed a dancer's poise.

"He kept them alive only because he sees them as collectors' items. Toys," Hector put in angrily. "Apparently he likes having a harem of ballerinas. Cassowary snuck them out. Neither of us could bear to see it."

"And before that, Helena liberated you?" Cygnus asked Theodora, intrigued. "Or tried to? Back in Marie Jois?"

"She came to rescue her daughter," Theodora replied. "The child had been wed to Master Rothbart."

Cygnus stared at her, stunned. "Rothbart is married to Kuina…?" he managed to utter faintly at last.

Hector nodded. "It gets worse."

"As his head concubine, I…heard things," Theodora put forth. She pursed her full lips for a moment, as if afraid to divulge anything, but pressed on at an encouraging look from Hector. "He has a team of people…not his own slaves or servants, but government people…"

"Cipher Pol 4," Hector clarified. "We saw them there. They had some new agents, but were missing Calypso Blue."

"They were looking for a woman called the Sibyl," Theodora continued when Cygnus turned back to her and nodded for her to go on.

"That's not possible. The Sibyl is dead," Cygnus countered. "And Cipher Pol knows it. They're the ones who killed her."

"They had a man with them with special powers," Theodora went on. "They called him an Oracle. He dreamed of a new Sibyl. A woman with red hair. They believe she resides in a slave camp on one of the nearby islands. The…agents go out often to look for her, and Rothbart grows more and more impatient for them to find her."

"A new Sibyl," Cygnus breathed. "And he's married to Kuina. This is bad. This is very bad. Zeus, if he finds her, the fall of Ilium will have been a mere drop in the oceans of blood that man will spill."

He turned to Hector. "General, I only see two options for us here. The first would be to assassinate Rothbart before he gets the chance to find her."

Hector stared at him.

"Yes, I know. I'm not usually one to suggest that sort of thing," Cygnus sighed heavily, his dream still weighing on his mind. "But it is better that this one life end than to permit him to continue destroying and taking the lives of our people. – Even without that, the fact that he wed my two-year-old grandchild…"

"And branded her…" Marie murmured almost to herself. She said it with eyes staring off into nowhere, clearly still somewhat new to the traumas the other two slaves with her barely batted an eye to.

Cygnus and Hector both stiffened as they processed this unsavory news.

"General," Cygnus uttered when he finally managed to unclench his jaw. "How likely are we to succeed were we to pursue ending that man's life?"

"He is too well protected at the moment, sire. He has more Cipher Pol agents present than CP4, not to mention a fully staffed marine base. Though we will continue looking for an opening, it would not be wise to count on it."

"As I suspected," Cygnus replied. "Then our only other option is to try to reach the Sybil before he does."

He turned his full attention back to Theodora and her entourage. "Ms. Theodora, I am most indebted to you. Do you have any more information this Oracle provided about the new Sibyl?"

"I do, Sire," she replied.

"Then you and I need to talk," he sighed. "Tell me what you know."

From a cracked, white marble throne on Olympus, a powerfully built man gazed downward through a tarnished bronze mask of his own visage. King of the Gods, a torn red robe flowed about shoulders. His blue, celestial body held golden tattoos of the firmament. His sable beard and hair rolled around him like thunder caps. Everything about him reeked of power.

And yet, he felt powerless as he gazed down at a pool of water on the floor of his throne room. – a scrying glass, showing him the mortals putting the pieces together below.

"So they're finally starting to figure it out, eh Pumpkin?" a woman's sulky voice cut into his thoughts.

Hera.

She stood across the scrying glass from him, her inescapable presence unwanted and unrequested. Slowly, the masked god raised his gaze to his wife.

"What do you want, hag?" he demanded.

Arrayed in robes of azure and viridian that draped about her comely form, the Queen of the Gods hardly resembled anything close to a hag. She seemed in far better repair than her husband, in fact. The peacock mask she wore glittered with gems, untorn and untarnished. The train of Peacock feathers behind her shone, unblemished in the starlight.

Her mask only covered part of her face, leaving visible the snarky pout she made at his words. "A woman can't come into her husband's presence without insult, I see."

Zeus jumped to his feet, tall bronze staff in hand. He was in no humor for her banter.

"Look around you, Hera!" he boomed, gesturing to the white marble room where he used to sit in council with all of the gods. It sat empty, thrones cracked and broken around him. The gods had all retreated, nursing their wounds and shattered pride. "You've caused enough damage, and STILL you can't be satiated! The treatise we came to to cease the fighting amongst ourselves is now in play. None can contact the mortals without the sibyl. No mortal can use our powers until you get your way. Why are you here? What more can you want?"

"I want what I've always wanted," she murmured, and his heart twinged a bit at the genuine hurt peaking through. "I want to be called beautiful."

"And I've told you that you are!" Zeus countered, static beginning to form in his sable beard. "You are my Queen! I chose you from the beginning! – Are the words of the King of the Gods not enough…?"

"You tell me with your words, but never your deeds, my darling philanderer," Hera shot back. "And any here who've tried to call me such have merely done it to appease me. I want to be adored as is my right as Queen. But if I cannot have that, then I will at least have amends made to me by the mortals who dared to insult me!"

"And so we have all agreed, and so it has been decreed," Zeus exasperated. "The price to use any single one of our powers is the same. Helena du Prometheus or Roronoa Zoro must declare you the most beautiful of the gods in exchange for any one of our masks. For supporting his daughter, Cygnus du Prometheus is cut off unless this should happen. Kuina du Prometheus is also cut off unless her parents make amends."

"Kuina de Rothbart, you mean," Hera corrected, lips creasing into another unpleasant smile.

Zeus stared at her hard. He spoke slowly, "I assumed Rothbart would be held under the same requirements as the others."

"No," Hera put forth. "And that is why I came here today. To inform you that he who has never insulted me is under no restriction."

"So you're telling me if he finds the Sibyl first, he can use any one of our powers…?"

"Provided he makes the necessary sacrifices and ablutions, yes."

"And what would any of us gain by allowing him that?" Zeus demanded.

"More of what he has already give us," Hera pointed out. "A clean slate. A humbled nation. And perhaps he will expand Ilium beyond her borders; something that none of Prometheus' line has ever done."

"Your argument would appear sound if I didn't know your blackened heart," Zeus shot back. "You simply wish to see Helena de Zoro and anyone she loves suffer."

"And why not?" Hera clapped back. "Did she not insult all the gods when she shut down our temples? Did she not show her true lack of piety when she tore mine to the ground? Her heresy cannot go unchecked. This we all agreed, even Athena! – The gods will not be mocked!"

Zeus sighed and flopped back onto his throne. "Fine," he huffed. "Let it be so. I'll have Hermes draft a message to the other gods. Now leave my presence, witch. I've had enough of your bile."

Hera's smirk didn't falter. She turned on her heel and started from the throne room, only to stop at the pillared door.

"Remember, I could also be appeased…" she started. "If Helena and Roronoa were dead."

"Out," he commanded, gesturing with his staff. She disappeared from sight as he went on more to himself, "As if any of us could forget. Hades is the only one who's been permitted to carry on with any of his duties."

And he'd dogged Queen Helena's every step. Her life had been hanging on by a tenuous thread since the day Ilium fell. And all Zeus or any of the gods could do was watch.

Hera had won the fates onto her side - old hags themselves who fancied themselves underappreciated – and so they refused to give Zeus any foresight. But even without their help, he knew Queen Helena bore little chance of coming out of this alive.

Despite her friends' best efforts.