Hi, everyone, this is the first time writing fanfiction and my first time writing a story in English.

I'll try updating once a week.

I hope you'll like it, and would be happy to hear about any suggestions how to improve.

Cheers!

Zoro woke up with the worst headache of his life. His brain was flooded with information and memories, making his head feel like it's splitting in half. He didn't know where he was, hell his head hurt so much, that he couldn't even feel anything else.

With a deep groan he rubed his temples, trying to take it all in. His last memory is was almost hazy, almost like it shouldn't be a memory, but that didn't make it hurt any less.

They had made it to Laugh Tale. But their tale was anything but funny and happy in the last few months. After Egghead Island Blackbeard and Marine and Government forces were constantly on their tails. And not just them the final stages of their journey had turned into a battle royal between many forces chasing after the One Piece.

They had been losing one crew mate after another, and only Zoro and his Captain, Luffy, had made it to the island. They were heavily wounded and only due to Luffy's abilities they were safe there. Sanji had kicked them there, holding off the last forces, knowing Luffy would need his first mate the most now.

Zoro was barely able to able to sit anymore, but Luffy was even worse, fading in and out of consciousness and only holding on by a thread. Zoro held him in his lap, running his hand tough his Captain's greasy, sweaty hair, in a vain attempt to calm them both.

When Luffy told him that he could see Gol D. Roger, Zoro first thought that he was hallucinating, and he wouldn't have blamed him for that in the slightest.

"Please let him see you too", asked Luffy straining his voice.

Zoro was too tried to even be surprised when Roger truly appeared.

"Can you do something to help my crew?" Now his voice was so quiet and breathy that it made Zoro's skin crawl.

"I can give you a fresh start, you will not make it, but I will give your First Mate the opportunity to make things better", Roger said with a sad voice, "You are the one I was waiting for, but it wasn't supposed to be like this."

After a hazy, but trusting look in first Rogers and then Zoro's eyes, Luffy gave a tired, but thankful smile and Zoro could tell that his breathing and heart rate slowed and then stopped.

Zoro had known this would happen, but that didn't make him feel any less like he was shattered into pieces, Luffy was now gone too.

He had been trying to remain strong, be Luffy's pillar, because he knew Luffy wouldn't have been able to carry on if he wasn't that. Now the tears he had been holding back since everything had started going to shits couldn't be contained anymore and he started sobbing uncontrollably. It wasn't supposed to end like this. He felt empty and lost and the tears just kept on flowing. He had been too weak to protect his crew, his captain.

After what felt like an eternity, his sobs were quieting down, but his tears were still streaming down his cheeks.

Roger put a hand on his shoulder and slowly, like he was trying not to startle Zoro, he knelt across from him. When they were on eye level he looked him in the eye with a firm, but sad look in his eyes.

"Your captain was the one I was waiting for", he repeated quietly, "On this Island we found the tale about your crew's whacky adventures that would turn the world upside down, but something went wrong. I can send you back with your memories but also the knowledge of everything else from that tale. This will hopefully give you everything you need to know to make a difference."

Zoro gave him a tired, but hopeful look. "How much should I charge?"

"What you feel necessary, but at best not too much Try getting into contact with Shanks, that will probably give you the best options."

Zoro nodded with a deep thoughtful frown.

Roger gave him a smile. "Good luck, kid."

Then everything went black, and images of the tale started flooding his brain.

Zoro had no idea how long he laid there trying to process everything. He now had his own memories, but also some third person view of everything. And not just their crew, sometimes their were scenes of outside things happening in the world, that made Zoro feel like an intruder.

The stream of images suddenly stopped. Not at Laugh Tale, but at Egghead Island, and even his actual memories from that time began to fade, so only loosing his crewmates stayed in his memories.

He felt kind of dirty about seeing the outside events and even past events. He wasn't supposed to know even half of the things he discovered there, but he would need to use that knowledge to make the necessary changes.

He also quickly realized that it would take some time until he had processes everything, before he could start making any plans. The headache was getting worse again, thinking this much was not what he preferred to do.

With another deep sigh, he rubbed his face again and tried to push all those big questions aside for now.

Blinking he opened his eyes. Everything looked weird. Then it dawned on him, he still had both of his eyes.

It took him several moments and confused looks around to realize where he was. His room in Shimotsuke Village. With another groan he confirmed that he was really back to bring a child. Damn how far had he been sent back?

His heart rate suddenly increased. Was Kuina still alive?

Maybe he could save her this time.

Like having been hit by lightning he quickly shot up.

Only to crumble into himself when his foot touched the scabbard of her sword, he Wado Ichimonji.

Another deep sigh and he rubbed his face again. Roger had probably figured that he would try to prevent her death. Maybe that would have caused too many unforeseen changes.

Zoro gritted his teeth at that thought.

Did that mean Ace had to die too?

But he would try to stop Blackbeard as soon as possible, since that was probably one of the easier things to take care of early.

With another sigh he got up from his bed, took his swords.

As he walked to the village he was greeted by many familiar faces, that he never thought would see again. The small houses obviously still looked how he remembered. It was peaceful and quiet. The could hear some children playing and laughing and the sounds of the kettle some villagers held, as well as the familiar noises from the dojo in the distance.

He wasn't sure if he could face his old master Koshiro yet, so he made his way into the forest. Here Zoro felt like he could almost breathe again as he walked on he path, lit by the sun that shone through the leaves. The path to his old training spot was so ingrained that he didn't even have to think about if he was going the right way, he just knew his feet would take him there in no time.

He picked up his old training gear, and started carrying a big boulder for hours, did as many reps of squats, handstand push-ups and pull-ups as he could possibly manage, he didn't even bother to count, his only goal was to quiet his mind. He didn't want to think right now.

Right after waking-up he had already discovered that his Observation Haki was running in overdrive. He supposed that it had gotten a lot stronger due to the trauma he had survived. It was overwhelming and he had to fight to shut it off. He just really needed to be alone right now, and that included not feeling anyone's aura.

At the moment, he was just glad that it didn't take much to exhaust his body right now, he had enough time to be frustrated at being back in his weak childish body later. Now, it came in handy to helping him exhaust his mind and body.

He also knew he was pushing his young body harder than he should, which resulted in him falling asleep right in the middle of the woods, he really didn't have the strength to drag himself back anymore. Not even that bothered him, he was just glad, that after hours he finally managed to be exhausted enough to stop thinking.

The next morning, the woke up groaning once again, his whole body felt like one sore muscle. When he tried to move he felt like an old man, who had been run over by the sea train.

So, he decided to do some meditation and make sense of all the new information that had been put in his brain.

One obvious thing was of course stopping Blackbeard, as he was behind most of the bad things that happened to Luffy early on.

Shanks had been too easily overthrown by Blackbeard, but that might be something he could change.

He wasn't so sure how he could possibly take the forces of the World Government and Marines out of the equation.

The marines maybe would be a lesser problem if Akainu wasn't the fleet admiral, with could only be achieved if the War of the Best was prevented.

Similarly, the Cross Guild with Buggy, that might be prevented if Ace never got to Impel Down.

All the other revelations around Imu, JoyBoy and the Void Century, he felt were so abstract, that he probably couldn't even use that knowledge.

Okay, he thought, that are over all the big forces we are dealing with in the end.

Considering, that just making those lesser threats would leave a power vacuum that could either still be taken up by Blackbeard, but without his devil fruit or some unforeseen other forces, he would also have to make sure that he and everyone in the crew were even stronger and more powerful this time around.

Getting to Luffy would be easy, but what about everyone else?

Zoro's head started to hurt, and he decided that was enough thinking for today.

Since his body was still hurting like shit, he decided to find out how strong his other Haki was now.

With that he took out Wado and tried coating it with Armament Haki. The result was a lot more disappointing than he had hoped for. He only managed to make an extremely weak coat that didn't even cover his blade completely.

Zoro sighed, it wasn't too surprising, since Armament Haki was not just tied to the users will like Observation, but also to the physical strength of the user, and his child body was just really weak.

He wasn't even close to being able to coat his sword with Conqueror's Haki, but he felt like his basic Conqueror's Haki had also gotten stronger with the trauma.

All in all, it was clear that he had to make his body a lot stronger.

He decided to do his sword katas tomorrow, when his body was less sore from yesterday's abuse and made his way back to the village.