Zoro wasn't willing to explain what had just happened. That much was made clear by the withering stare he'd granted his crewmates when they'd tried questioning him. All they knew was that he'd suddenly wandered off, as if in a daze, and wound up standing for a moment in some ancient crater. He'd since wandered off again, leaving everyone else loitering around at the rim of said crater. "Well, it's pretty plain to see that something dramatic happened here," Nami was in the middle of saying. "A battle, some natural disaster, who knows. But I doubt it's all that important. What is important is figuring out where we are and where we're going to go from here."

"I'd wager that this place is important," Robin argued with a smile, "though we won't find any answers by standing around. Perhaps we should seek out some locals?"

"I dunno how helpful that'll be," Usopp said. "I mean, whatever went down here probably happened way too long ago for anyone to remember it."

"Oral histories could very well exist," Robin pointed out. "For that matter, written ones could as well."

Usopp had to concede defeat on that one. "Okay, you've got a point there... but we still wouldn't understand a word of it. There's no telling what kinds of crazy languages are spoken up here, right?"

"I think you're right," Chopper agreed with crossed arms and a nod for emphasis. "We should be prepared for a language barrier. And any people we find may not be friendly, either. You know, assuming there are really any people to be found."

"There was that old lady at the gate," Nami said. "I somehow doubt she's guarding that gate just because she wants to. It's probably her job or something, which means that there's got to be other people around to have employed her. She spoke the same language as us, too."

All that was well and good but, frankly, Sanji just wanted to focus on leaving the area. This place made him uncomfortable for reasons he couldn't explain. "Regardless... we need to pick a direction and go in it. Wandering around aimlessly will just get us lost."

Luffy chose that moment to finally speak up. Like Chopper, he had his arms crossed. He also wasn't smiling for once, though his expression was more unreadable than it was serious. "Just follow Zoro," he said matter-of-factly.

"Why?" Usopp questioned with a worried frown. "I don't want to get lost, and we don't know what kinds of monsters are out there... We don't even know where we're going-"

"Zoro does." With this firm proclamation, their captain simply started trekking through the thick underbrush in the same direction Zoro had gone in.

Leaving those two to find their way was universally deemed to be a terrible idea. The remaining crewmembers traded looks, then hurried after them. Still, though... Sanji had to admit that Luffy had a point. Sort of. Zoro had some sort of weird connection to this place, though the nature of that connection was currently unknown. He'd found that ancient battlefield or whatever it was somehow, and when there'd been no apparent clues or the like that could have led him there. Bizarre though it was, hard to wrap his mind around though it was, he had to accept that somehow Zoro really did know where he was going on some level. Maybe not even consciously. It could well have been some sort of instinct.

They were going to have to trust it, for now.

The crew caught up to their wayward swordsman with relative speed. He made no comments and, for a time, the rest of the crew followed suit. Eventually, however, Chopper spoke up. "Say, Zoro..."

Now, Zoro could be quite impatient and irritable at times. Maybe even most of the time. But he was usually pretty tolerant of Chopper for some reason or another. It was probably part of why he responded to Chopper so calmly despite his earlier mood. That, and the fact that he'd been way too calm in general lately... and no one knew why. "Yeah?"

"Do you not like us anymore?"

Nami's mouth dropped open. Chopper, what are you doing?! There's cutting to the heart of the matter, and then there's just having no tact!

Zoro turned his head to look down at the reindeer with a frown. "Huh?" he asked in that usual way of his. "What kind of stupid question is that?"

"W-Well, you've been pretty distant lately," Usopp jumped in. He'd apparently decided to take this opportunity to voice his own concerns. "You barely talk to us, you don't drink with us anymore, you don't even fight as much with Sanji-"

I wasn't expecting everyone to suddenly start dogpiling him, but I guess it's now or never. Sanji pulled his cigarette out of his mouth and blew out a puff of smoke. "Something's up with you," he accused quietly. "We've known about it since Alabasta."

"Mm-hm," Nami agreed in a hesitant manner when nothing else was forthcoming.

Sanji eyed Zoro, eyes slightly narrowed. "So spill."

Silence initially answered them. This didn't feel like the silences they had gotten used to from Zoro as of late, however. This felt more contemplative. And it was. Zoro returned his gaze forward and kept walking... but his gaze was focused inward. He couldn't pretend that any of them wrong or lying. He couldn't even pretend that he somehow didn't know what they were talking about. However, that didn't mean he knew how to answer them. So sticking with the simplest course of action, the path of least resistance, was probably the best option, right? He'd always done his best to be as honest as possible, anyway. "I don't know," he eventually said.

And there it was. The honest to god truth. He didn't have any clearer understanding of this whole mess than anyone else did. He never had. Sanji wasn't pleased by it at all... though he supposed it did make some sense. If he's in the dark just as much as the rest of us, how are we supposed to figure anything out?

Robin chose that moment to finally break her own silence. "Zoro," she started with a mysterious smile, "I have a question of my own for you."

"What?" was the only reply she got. By now, the group had wandered into a deeper stretch of the forest, and Zoro was concentrating much more on where he was putting his feet than what she was saying to him.

"I was wondering if you could tell me... who Enel is."

Zoro froze mid-step, expression unreadable. The rest of the group stopped as well, wary of his reaction. They could practically hear the gears in his head turning. Sanji watched him closely for the mere couple of seconds that the silence lasted. A chill then ran through him when Zoro's eyes rapidly changed the same way it had multiple times before. A sound erupted from deep in his chest that sounded for all the world like a genuine growl. Something else new happened, too. For the first time, he actually spoke while in the midst of this transformation, his voice carrying a calm and authoritative tone that they had never heard from him before. "My enemy."

Saying nothing more, he drew his white sword and resumed walking.

~伝説の~

1,283 words this time. Sorry for the lengthy delay and short chapter. I've been desperately rewatching the early seasons of One Piece in order to get caught back up to the Skypiea arc. I admittedly skimmed through a lot of episodes since I more or less remembered them, so I'm back at season three now. That's where I was when I started this story, so I should hopefully be able to finish that arc this time around and also continue writing this story more regularly. Anyway, I hope you all enjoyed... even though not much actually happened here. Sorry about that.

Posted (at about 11:20 p.m.) 04-20-25.