Sorry for spamming the comm today :-P
Title: A Day as a Demon
Theme: Set #3 - Water
Claim: Zoro
Words: 3513
Rating: PG
Disclaimers: I don't own One Piece.
Acknowledgments: Thanks to zelda_addict for beta-ing this!
Ordinarily, Sanji didn't fuss too much about what the marimo got up to when he wasn't wielding his swords against Sanji's steel-toed shoes. Outside of their daily fights, as far as Sanji knew, Zoro ate and slept and trained, and little else.
That held true so long as he did eat. Zoro would occasionally skip a meal here, a meal there, but never more than two, and he knew enough about his own body to make up for it with extra rations, which Sanji was always willing to provide, even if it was the marimo and even if it was his own damn fault for skipping meals. No one on this crew was going to go hungry while Sanji was the Strawhats' cook.
But he'd now missed breakfast and lunch, and that was on top of dinner the night before. Sanji was sure that even the marimo couldn't have penetrated the tight security of the fridge, and he was equally sure no one had brought Zoro anything either. For that matter, none of them had actually seen Zoro since he'd disappeared into the crow's nest yesterday afternoon to train, though several of them had tried to go up and talk to him, only to be curtly rebuffed with an "I'm busy", or "Not hungry", or "Leave me alone". Forcing the hatch didn't work because Zoro seemed to have left one of his ridiculously large weights square over the hole. The curtains had been drawn all around the windows so that Luffy couldn't see inside, even if he rocketed up there to take a peek. It was highly uncharacteristic of Zoro to hide from the crew, and the Strawhats would have been really anxious by now if not for the constant swoosh of the weights that told them he was all right.
Sanji muttered angrily to himself about inconsiderate marimos as he made up a plate of leftovers and a nutritious drink to take up to the crow's nest. He might be busy, he might be antisocial, but no way was he not hungry by now. He clambered up the ladder and rapped sharply against the door. "Oi! Marimo! I brought you some food!"
"I said I wasn't hungry!" Oddly enough, the marimo's voice sounded rather echoey. Sanji didn't remember the crow's nest being that cavernous. Was it the effect of the curtains?
"I don't care, you're eating anyway!" Sanji braced one leg against the top rung of the ladder and kicked upwards. "Ow! What d'you have up there, a tonne of bricks?"
"Two tonnes of weights, actually. Forget it, cook, you'll never make it."
The tone of Zoro's voice, which seemed to drip with thrice the condescension it usually did, provided the exact impetus Sanji needed. "Anti-Manner Kick Course!" This time he jolted the weight enough that it rolled off the hatch and he burst through. "All right, marimo, you're gonna take what you're given and eat...it..." his voice trailed off to a horrified stop as he suddenly realised why Zoro hadn't wanted to come down and face the crew.
The rest of the crew had gathered at the bottom of the mast. "Oi! Sanji! What's going on?" Usopp shouted, disturbed by the tense silence that followed the cook's grand entrance. "Is Zoro okay?"
His concerned query was met with a sudden shriek of laughter, followed by Zoro's indignant voice. "It's not funny!"
"Phew, it sounds like Zoro's okay at least," Chopper said in relief. He'd been the most concerned out of all the Strawhats, and really hurt to have been turned away by Zoro.
"Anyway, just come on down, marimo. Let the others have a good belly-laugh," they heard Sanji saying.
"Just...get out there and prepare them at least," Zoro growled back in response.
Sanji slid down the mast, clearly dying with laughter. They waited a few moments for him to spit it out, then Nami sighed and conked him on the head. "Well?!"
"Ah, sorry, Nami-san," Sanji spluttered. "He...uh..." Sanji paused a moment to collect himself, trying to think of a way to break the news. "You know how ugly the marimo is, right? Well, he's thrice as ugly now. Thrice as marimo, too."
"I don't get it," Chopper said, looking puzzled.
"You call that preparing them?" Zoro yelled.
"Stop being a pansy and just show them, marimo," Sanji called upwards.
"Fine, fine," Zoro grumbled. "Just...don't freak out, okay?" He leapt down the mast and landed on deck.
They stared at Zoro. Blinked. He glared back. Out of three heads. Six arms folded across his three chests. "What?" he barked out of three mouths. "You've all seen this before!"
Usopp and Chopper promptly passed out on deck.
"Woooooooow!" Luffy's eyes were sparkling at his three-headed, six-armed first mate. "Zoro, that's so cool!" He began pinching and prodding Zoro's new arms, to see if they were real, and Franky likewise began an interested inspection.
"See why I didn't want to show them, now?" Zoro demanded.
"But...how did this happen?" Nami asked.
"Overtraining, I guess," Zoro grunted. "I spent too long practising this move and I kinda got stuck."
"How very interesting," Robin commented.
Chopper and Usopp began to revive and, seeing that Cerberus-Zoro really wasn't a dream, fainted again.
"So it's like when you've pulled a muscle and it gets stuck?" Franky asked.
Zoro frowned, three times. "Not really. This move is more of an illusion."
"An illusion? But Zoro, I can feel they're real!" Luffy disagreed, his long rubbery arms squishing Zoro's three faces.
"Will you cut that out! No, it's more like I have only one head, but I can feel it in three places at once. It's kinda hard to explain. I can't move each of them independently, that's for sure."
"So if we cut off any of your heads, that would be equivalent to cutting your actual head off?" Robin queried blandly.
"Nobody's cutting off any heads!" Zoro said, turning a horrified look on the archaeologist, clutching his swords closer to his body.
"What are we going to do?" Chopper asked, apparently accepting at last that triple-headed Zoro really was Zoro and that he was going to be triple-headed for some time. "I've never seen this in any medical book..." He looked so forlorn that Zoro couldn't help himself. He bent down and picked up the reindeer, who immediately multiplied into three.
"Awesome! We have three Choppers too! Do me now, do me!"
Sighing, Zoro picked up Luffy under his other arm and soon they had three captains as well.
"Can you see three of me now?" Luffy asked excitedly.
"Yes, Luffy, there are three of you," Nami humoured him. "So, Zoro, do you know how to fix yourself?"
"Yeah. Sleep."
Of course, everyone thought. Zoro's one-stop solution to every medical problem.
"Then why don't you?"
"Can't," Zoro grunted.
"Why not?"
"Can't find a good position for my head - or heads. Something always gets in the way." Zoro rubbed the backs of three necks. "It's damn annoying."
After a few more minutes of ribbing, poking, and questioning, Zoro announced that he was going to try and get some sleep anyway and he didn't want to hear any noise from any of them. They drifted back to their usual occupations, each thinking furiously about how to turn Zoro back to normal, while he tried to catch a few winks on deck, only to be disturbed a short while later to find all three of his heads being squished together by Luffy.
"OI! STOP THAT!"
"But Zoro, I was only trying to help!" Luffy pouted, nursing the gigantic bump on his head.
"How is squeezing my head like a vise 'helping'?" Zoro roared.
"Captain-san probably thought that if he squeezed all three of your heads into a single space they would be forced to meld into one," Robin came to Luffy's rescue, and he nodded vigorously in agreement.
Zoro's mouth twisted. "Okay, whatever. Just...leave me alone." He worked the cricks out of his neck, deciding that trying to sleep was futile. He looked up at the limp sails and announced, "I'm going for a swim."
"Can I come too?" Luffy perked up.
"No. Oi, Robin, look after these for me, okay?" He laid his katana carefully on deck atop his shirt and haramaki.
"Of course. Have a good time, Swordsman-san." Robin waved as Zoro dived into the water.
"I wish I could swim," Luffy pouted, joining Robin at the handrail that wound its way around the whole ship.
"Devil's Fruits can be quite inconvenient at times, isn't that so, Captain-san?"
"Yeah, but I like being rubber! It doesn't hurt so much when everyone hits me," Luffy said chirpily. "What about you, Robin, do you miss being able to swim? Robin?" he prompted again, when the archaeologist didn't answer, seemingly lost in thought as she stared at the calm sea beneath them.
"No, Captain-san," she answered a moment later, as if the pause had never happened. "I ate the Devil's Fruit when I was very young, and I never knew how to swim beforehand. I cannot say I miss it."
"Robin-chwaaaaaaan!" They both looked around as Sanji twirled his way onto the deck, bearing a glass of blue liquid topped with an umbrella. "Robin-chwan! I brought you a nice, cool fruit drink!"
"Thank you, Cook-san." Robin accepted the glass.
"What about mine, Sanji?" Luffy asked.
"In the galley." Sanji pointed with his cigarette.
"Yahoo!" Luffy bounded away enthusiastically, Sanji taking his place next to Robin, carefully avoiding the swords and clothes on deck as he did so. "The marimo went swimming, Robin-chan?"
"Yes, Cook-san, he did."
"Wonder whether one of his marimo heads will forget how to hold its breath," Sanji muttered.
"Why, are you worried, Cook-san?" Robin asked with a smile as she sipped on her drink.
"Of course not, Robin-chan! Me, worry about the marimo?" Sanji scoffed.
"I suppose you think he knows how to take care of himself."
"Yeah, he does," Sanji agreed.
"Otherwise you would worry about him?"
"What? No, Robin-chan, you misunderstand me," Sanji assured her. "Who would care about that lazy, ill-mannered brute?"
"So you wouldn't worry about the fact that he hasn't surfaced for quite some time?"
"No, I wouldn't - wait, what?" Sanji looked anxiously at the archaeologist.
Robin nodded towards the sea. "Swordsman-san went in at least two minutes ago, and he hasn't surfaced yet," she explained.
"Oh. Well." Sanji tried to rearrange his worried features into a nonchalant expression. "Like you said, Robin-chan, the marimo knows how to take care of himself. He goes in after Luffy and Chopper all the time, doesn't he?"
"Yes, but circumstances are different now, aren't they?"
"Circumstances, Robin-chan?"
"Why can't Devil's Fruit users swim?" Robin asked rhetorically. "Because the sea rejects children of the devil. But what if the sea has mistaken Swordsman-san's current, rather demonic form and taken his strength away from him as well?"
"What? Robin-chan...are you saying Zoro can't swim right now?" Sanji asked, his cigarette falling out of his mouth and into the sea below.
"It's certainly a possible explanation," Robin said. She looked down at the calm waters beneath the ship. "Well, it won't take long to find out."
"How do you mean, Robin-chan?"
"If Swordsman-san returns alive, my theory will be proven false. If Swordsman-san drowns, then..."
Sanji's mouth widened in horror. "Shitty marimo idiot!" he swore, kicking off his shoes and shrugging off his jacket. He was in the water in a trice.
Robin raised an eyebrow as she looked down at the waves rippling from his entry point. That experiment had been much more successful than she expected. She turned when she heard someone splash onto the deck behind her. "Ah, welcome back, Swordsman-san. You swam under the ship?"
"Yeah," Zoro's three heads replied, shaking the water from his hair. "Franky said he was worried about cracks in the hull coating, so I took a look. There aren't any."
"You should have said so, Swordsman-san," Robin chided him lightly. "You got Cook-san quite worried."
Zoro looked at the pair of dress shoes lying higgledy-piggledy on deck and frowned. "He went in after me? Why? I can take perfect care of myself. Stupid curlybrow."
Sanji surfaced at that moment. "Robin-chan, I can't find him! Can you get Franky and Usopp to come and help?" he called, his voice frantic.
"I'm right here, idiot cook," Zoro said, dripping his way to the side of the ship, looking down with some amusement at the cook's wet head.
"What? Where the hell did you go, shitty marimo?" Sanji spluttered, staring at the dripping-wet-but-definitely-not-drowning swordsman.
"Swimming, just like I said I was. What the hell possessed you to dive in after me anyway?"
"You got Robin-chan all worried, staying underwater for so long!" Sanji scolded.
Zoro raised an eyebrow as he glanced at the innocent smile on the archaeologist's face. "Right. She sure looks worried to me."
Sanji clambered back onto the ship. "Dammit, marimo, this is one of my best shirts. Was one of my best shirts," he groused, looking down at the seawater-soaked shirt.
Zoro shrugged. "Who the hell goes and takes a swim wearing a shirt and tie anyway?"
One advantage of Zoro's new form, Sanji soon discovered, was that there was three times as much surface area to aim for when kicking the marimo's face in.
By dinnertime, Zoro was thoroughly sick of being Asura, and had made that patently clear to the rest of the crew. There had been many "helpful" suggestions, some significantly less well thought-out than others. Chopper's and Brook's well-meaning offers of a sleeping draught and a lullaby respectively were both turned down, while Zoro very reluctantly consented to some of the others, under the prod of "captain's orders" and the threat of a debt increase. Finally, he'd stalked off after dinner and draped himself over the railing, staring moodily at the sea, all the while emanating as much killing aura as he could to keep the others away from him.
To Sanji, he might as well have been waving a red flag of challenge.
"Oi, marimo, if you're just gonna stand around moping, come in here and do the dishes," Sanji called from the doorway to the galley.
"Ask someone else," Zoro said grumpily.
"Whiner."
"Am not."
"Prove it," Sanji challenged.
Zoro briefly considered telling him to fuck off, but then the thought struck him that maybe washing the dishes might bore him to sleep. "Fine," he snapped back, shuffling into the galley. They settled quickly into their usual routine, even if it was weird for Sanji to see each plate multiply into three temporarily every time Zoro picked one up, before returning to being just one plate when he put it down again.
"You know, that's really freaky," he commented after a while.
"Says the man with the flaming legs," Zoro retorted. "What d'you call that move again?"
"'Diable Jambe'. It means 'Devil Leg', for the benefit of the uneducated moron."
Zoro scowled. "Just because I don't use fancy, obscure languages to name my attacks..."
"Yeah, because punning on food names is so much better."
"Shut up."
"It's kinda funny though," Sanji mused. "We both have demonic attacks. You have this Asura thing, and I have Diable Jambe."
"What's so funny about it? Gotta keep up with the Devil's Fruit users on this crew, don't we?" Zoro grunted.
Sanji found himself reluctantly impressed with Zoro's insight. "You know, that might be it."
"I know that's it. For me, anyway," Zoro shrugged.
Sanji looked thoughtfully at Zoro, a little startled by his unusual openness. The marimo had to be more tired than he thought, letting down his guard this much. "You know, it's scary sometimes, watching Luffy," Sanji confided, passing Zoro the last plate and draining the water from the sink. "No matter how strong we get, he always pulls ahead of us."
Zoro took a moment to wipe the last dish and set it down on top of the pile. "Yeah, well, he has the most to protect."
"When we got him back this time..." Sanji trailed off. He didn't need to continue. He could see from the frown on Zoro's face that he was thinking the same thing. They didn't ever want to see Luffy so hurt again. "He strains himself too hard," he finished lamely.
"Mmm," Zoro grunted, his eyes narrowing in determination. "He does."
But he shouldn't have to. Sanji could read the completion of that sentence in Zoro's eyes. That was probably why Zoro trained so hard, Sanji mused. So hard he actually managed to get stuck with three heads and six arms. It was hard to laugh at the man's dedication. "Wonder whether I could get stuck in Diable Jambe if I over-trained," he wondered, then cringed when he realised he'd said that aloud.
"I wouldn't have fallen for Robin's plot even if you did," Zoro smirked.
"Asshole."
"Sucker." Zoro paused to let the insult sink in, then added, with a hint of gruffness in his voice, "Thanks though."
"For what? Didn't even save you." Sanji dried his hands and lit a fresh cigarette.
"Told me I was more important than a dress shirt at least."
"Yeah, marimo, you're way up there on my priorities list, between dress shirts and my fine china."
"Yeah? Well, you're somewhere between...my haramaki and my katana."
"Really? I'm honoured," Sanji said, his tone overtly sarcastic. But when he thought about it, just behind a swordsman's katana had to be pretty high in Zoro's reckoning. "So you'd jump in to get me even if it meant destroying your haramaki, but not if you lose your katana."
"Sounds 'bout right."
"So you would jump in."
"Maybe," Zoro said non-committally.
"Huh."
"Still wouldn't have fallen for Robin's tricks though."
"Bastard."
"Still a sucker."
"Here." Sanji took out a bottle of sake from the fridge and hesitated slightly as he pondered which of Zoro's six hands to thrust it into, settling for tossing it and letting the marimo decide for himself.
"What's this for?" Zoro examined the bottle.
"Help you sleep. Maybe."
"Heh. Thanks." Zoro uncapped it and downed it in a single chug. "Weird taste," he noted after a moment.
"It's from that last island we were at. They probably have some special ingredients they put in."
"That so?" Zoro murmured, suddenly realising his eyelids felt really heavy. He took a staggering step towards the table.
"Yeah. Oi, if you're gonna crash, do it in your own bed."
"Not gonna crash...I c'n hol' my alc- alcohol...unlike someb'dy..." Zoro tipped over and would have collapsed against the table if it hadn't been for Sanji's leg propping him up.
Chopper peeked his head around the door cautiously. "Did it work, Sanji?"
"Yeah. Out like a light," Sanji reported.
"Thanks for your help, Sanji. Zoro's really stubborn about sedatives and things, even when it's for his own good."
"No problem, Chopper."
"Want me to carry him to bed?" Chopper offered.
"Nah, I'll do it. This oaf weighs a tonne. Think he'll be back to normal in the morning?"
"Yeah. Zoro was right, this time. That's really the only solution to over-training - lots of rest. He should be out for at least twelve hours."
"Good." Sanji hefted Zoro's body over his shoulder and headed for the boys' quarters and put him into his hammock, arranging his three heads into as comfortable a position as he could.
"Sweet dreams, mossheads." Sanji went over to his hammock and began to prepare for bed himself. Zoro would probably be super pissed off the next day when he discovered Sanji's treachery.
But Sanji could live with that. After all, Luffy wasn't the only one who pushed himself too hard around here.
He could, on the other hand, live without the triple-headed chorus of snores coming from Zoro's hammock. He groaned, put a pillow over his head, and longed for the moment rest kicked in and Asura became Zoro once more.
EDIT: Thought of a different ending that I liked better...
Theme: Set #3 - Water
Claim: Zoro
Words: 3513
Rating: PG
Disclaimers: I don't own One Piece.
Acknowledgments: Thanks to zelda_addict for beta-ing this!
Ordinarily, Sanji didn't fuss too much about what the marimo got up to when he wasn't wielding his swords against Sanji's steel-toed shoes. Outside of their daily fights, as far as Sanji knew, Zoro ate and slept and trained, and little else.
That held true so long as he did eat. Zoro would occasionally skip a meal here, a meal there, but never more than two, and he knew enough about his own body to make up for it with extra rations, which Sanji was always willing to provide, even if it was the marimo and even if it was his own damn fault for skipping meals. No one on this crew was going to go hungry while Sanji was the Strawhats' cook.
But he'd now missed breakfast and lunch, and that was on top of dinner the night before. Sanji was sure that even the marimo couldn't have penetrated the tight security of the fridge, and he was equally sure no one had brought Zoro anything either. For that matter, none of them had actually seen Zoro since he'd disappeared into the crow's nest yesterday afternoon to train, though several of them had tried to go up and talk to him, only to be curtly rebuffed with an "I'm busy", or "Not hungry", or "Leave me alone". Forcing the hatch didn't work because Zoro seemed to have left one of his ridiculously large weights square over the hole. The curtains had been drawn all around the windows so that Luffy couldn't see inside, even if he rocketed up there to take a peek. It was highly uncharacteristic of Zoro to hide from the crew, and the Strawhats would have been really anxious by now if not for the constant swoosh of the weights that told them he was all right.
Sanji muttered angrily to himself about inconsiderate marimos as he made up a plate of leftovers and a nutritious drink to take up to the crow's nest. He might be busy, he might be antisocial, but no way was he not hungry by now. He clambered up the ladder and rapped sharply against the door. "Oi! Marimo! I brought you some food!"
"I said I wasn't hungry!" Oddly enough, the marimo's voice sounded rather echoey. Sanji didn't remember the crow's nest being that cavernous. Was it the effect of the curtains?
"I don't care, you're eating anyway!" Sanji braced one leg against the top rung of the ladder and kicked upwards. "Ow! What d'you have up there, a tonne of bricks?"
"Two tonnes of weights, actually. Forget it, cook, you'll never make it."
The tone of Zoro's voice, which seemed to drip with thrice the condescension it usually did, provided the exact impetus Sanji needed. "Anti-Manner Kick Course!" This time he jolted the weight enough that it rolled off the hatch and he burst through. "All right, marimo, you're gonna take what you're given and eat...it..." his voice trailed off to a horrified stop as he suddenly realised why Zoro hadn't wanted to come down and face the crew.
The rest of the crew had gathered at the bottom of the mast. "Oi! Sanji! What's going on?" Usopp shouted, disturbed by the tense silence that followed the cook's grand entrance. "Is Zoro okay?"
His concerned query was met with a sudden shriek of laughter, followed by Zoro's indignant voice. "It's not funny!"
"Phew, it sounds like Zoro's okay at least," Chopper said in relief. He'd been the most concerned out of all the Strawhats, and really hurt to have been turned away by Zoro.
"Anyway, just come on down, marimo. Let the others have a good belly-laugh," they heard Sanji saying.
"Just...get out there and prepare them at least," Zoro growled back in response.
Sanji slid down the mast, clearly dying with laughter. They waited a few moments for him to spit it out, then Nami sighed and conked him on the head. "Well?!"
"Ah, sorry, Nami-san," Sanji spluttered. "He...uh..." Sanji paused a moment to collect himself, trying to think of a way to break the news. "You know how ugly the marimo is, right? Well, he's thrice as ugly now. Thrice as marimo, too."
"I don't get it," Chopper said, looking puzzled.
"You call that preparing them?" Zoro yelled.
"Stop being a pansy and just show them, marimo," Sanji called upwards.
"Fine, fine," Zoro grumbled. "Just...don't freak out, okay?" He leapt down the mast and landed on deck.
They stared at Zoro. Blinked. He glared back. Out of three heads. Six arms folded across his three chests. "What?" he barked out of three mouths. "You've all seen this before!"
Usopp and Chopper promptly passed out on deck.
"Woooooooow!" Luffy's eyes were sparkling at his three-headed, six-armed first mate. "Zoro, that's so cool!" He began pinching and prodding Zoro's new arms, to see if they were real, and Franky likewise began an interested inspection.
"See why I didn't want to show them, now?" Zoro demanded.
"But...how did this happen?" Nami asked.
"Overtraining, I guess," Zoro grunted. "I spent too long practising this move and I kinda got stuck."
"How very interesting," Robin commented.
Chopper and Usopp began to revive and, seeing that Cerberus-Zoro really wasn't a dream, fainted again.
"So it's like when you've pulled a muscle and it gets stuck?" Franky asked.
Zoro frowned, three times. "Not really. This move is more of an illusion."
"An illusion? But Zoro, I can feel they're real!" Luffy disagreed, his long rubbery arms squishing Zoro's three faces.
"Will you cut that out! No, it's more like I have only one head, but I can feel it in three places at once. It's kinda hard to explain. I can't move each of them independently, that's for sure."
"So if we cut off any of your heads, that would be equivalent to cutting your actual head off?" Robin queried blandly.
"Nobody's cutting off any heads!" Zoro said, turning a horrified look on the archaeologist, clutching his swords closer to his body.
"What are we going to do?" Chopper asked, apparently accepting at last that triple-headed Zoro really was Zoro and that he was going to be triple-headed for some time. "I've never seen this in any medical book..." He looked so forlorn that Zoro couldn't help himself. He bent down and picked up the reindeer, who immediately multiplied into three.
"Awesome! We have three Choppers too! Do me now, do me!"
Sighing, Zoro picked up Luffy under his other arm and soon they had three captains as well.
"Can you see three of me now?" Luffy asked excitedly.
"Yes, Luffy, there are three of you," Nami humoured him. "So, Zoro, do you know how to fix yourself?"
"Yeah. Sleep."
Of course, everyone thought. Zoro's one-stop solution to every medical problem.
"Then why don't you?"
"Can't," Zoro grunted.
"Why not?"
"Can't find a good position for my head - or heads. Something always gets in the way." Zoro rubbed the backs of three necks. "It's damn annoying."
After a few more minutes of ribbing, poking, and questioning, Zoro announced that he was going to try and get some sleep anyway and he didn't want to hear any noise from any of them. They drifted back to their usual occupations, each thinking furiously about how to turn Zoro back to normal, while he tried to catch a few winks on deck, only to be disturbed a short while later to find all three of his heads being squished together by Luffy.
"OI! STOP THAT!"
"But Zoro, I was only trying to help!" Luffy pouted, nursing the gigantic bump on his head.
"How is squeezing my head like a vise 'helping'?" Zoro roared.
"Captain-san probably thought that if he squeezed all three of your heads into a single space they would be forced to meld into one," Robin came to Luffy's rescue, and he nodded vigorously in agreement.
Zoro's mouth twisted. "Okay, whatever. Just...leave me alone." He worked the cricks out of his neck, deciding that trying to sleep was futile. He looked up at the limp sails and announced, "I'm going for a swim."
"Can I come too?" Luffy perked up.
"No. Oi, Robin, look after these for me, okay?" He laid his katana carefully on deck atop his shirt and haramaki.
"Of course. Have a good time, Swordsman-san." Robin waved as Zoro dived into the water.
"I wish I could swim," Luffy pouted, joining Robin at the handrail that wound its way around the whole ship.
"Devil's Fruits can be quite inconvenient at times, isn't that so, Captain-san?"
"Yeah, but I like being rubber! It doesn't hurt so much when everyone hits me," Luffy said chirpily. "What about you, Robin, do you miss being able to swim? Robin?" he prompted again, when the archaeologist didn't answer, seemingly lost in thought as she stared at the calm sea beneath them.
"No, Captain-san," she answered a moment later, as if the pause had never happened. "I ate the Devil's Fruit when I was very young, and I never knew how to swim beforehand. I cannot say I miss it."
"Robin-chwaaaaaaan!" They both looked around as Sanji twirled his way onto the deck, bearing a glass of blue liquid topped with an umbrella. "Robin-chwan! I brought you a nice, cool fruit drink!"
"Thank you, Cook-san." Robin accepted the glass.
"What about mine, Sanji?" Luffy asked.
"In the galley." Sanji pointed with his cigarette.
"Yahoo!" Luffy bounded away enthusiastically, Sanji taking his place next to Robin, carefully avoiding the swords and clothes on deck as he did so. "The marimo went swimming, Robin-chan?"
"Yes, Cook-san, he did."
"Wonder whether one of his marimo heads will forget how to hold its breath," Sanji muttered.
"Why, are you worried, Cook-san?" Robin asked with a smile as she sipped on her drink.
"Of course not, Robin-chan! Me, worry about the marimo?" Sanji scoffed.
"I suppose you think he knows how to take care of himself."
"Yeah, he does," Sanji agreed.
"Otherwise you would worry about him?"
"What? No, Robin-chan, you misunderstand me," Sanji assured her. "Who would care about that lazy, ill-mannered brute?"
"So you wouldn't worry about the fact that he hasn't surfaced for quite some time?"
"No, I wouldn't - wait, what?" Sanji looked anxiously at the archaeologist.
Robin nodded towards the sea. "Swordsman-san went in at least two minutes ago, and he hasn't surfaced yet," she explained.
"Oh. Well." Sanji tried to rearrange his worried features into a nonchalant expression. "Like you said, Robin-chan, the marimo knows how to take care of himself. He goes in after Luffy and Chopper all the time, doesn't he?"
"Yes, but circumstances are different now, aren't they?"
"Circumstances, Robin-chan?"
"Why can't Devil's Fruit users swim?" Robin asked rhetorically. "Because the sea rejects children of the devil. But what if the sea has mistaken Swordsman-san's current, rather demonic form and taken his strength away from him as well?"
"What? Robin-chan...are you saying Zoro can't swim right now?" Sanji asked, his cigarette falling out of his mouth and into the sea below.
"It's certainly a possible explanation," Robin said. She looked down at the calm waters beneath the ship. "Well, it won't take long to find out."
"How do you mean, Robin-chan?"
"If Swordsman-san returns alive, my theory will be proven false. If Swordsman-san drowns, then..."
Sanji's mouth widened in horror. "Shitty marimo idiot!" he swore, kicking off his shoes and shrugging off his jacket. He was in the water in a trice.
Robin raised an eyebrow as she looked down at the waves rippling from his entry point. That experiment had been much more successful than she expected. She turned when she heard someone splash onto the deck behind her. "Ah, welcome back, Swordsman-san. You swam under the ship?"
"Yeah," Zoro's three heads replied, shaking the water from his hair. "Franky said he was worried about cracks in the hull coating, so I took a look. There aren't any."
"You should have said so, Swordsman-san," Robin chided him lightly. "You got Cook-san quite worried."
Zoro looked at the pair of dress shoes lying higgledy-piggledy on deck and frowned. "He went in after me? Why? I can take perfect care of myself. Stupid curlybrow."
Sanji surfaced at that moment. "Robin-chan, I can't find him! Can you get Franky and Usopp to come and help?" he called, his voice frantic.
"I'm right here, idiot cook," Zoro said, dripping his way to the side of the ship, looking down with some amusement at the cook's wet head.
"What? Where the hell did you go, shitty marimo?" Sanji spluttered, staring at the dripping-wet-but-definitely-not-drowning swordsman.
"Swimming, just like I said I was. What the hell possessed you to dive in after me anyway?"
"You got Robin-chan all worried, staying underwater for so long!" Sanji scolded.
Zoro raised an eyebrow as he glanced at the innocent smile on the archaeologist's face. "Right. She sure looks worried to me."
Sanji clambered back onto the ship. "Dammit, marimo, this is one of my best shirts. Was one of my best shirts," he groused, looking down at the seawater-soaked shirt.
Zoro shrugged. "Who the hell goes and takes a swim wearing a shirt and tie anyway?"
One advantage of Zoro's new form, Sanji soon discovered, was that there was three times as much surface area to aim for when kicking the marimo's face in.
By dinnertime, Zoro was thoroughly sick of being Asura, and had made that patently clear to the rest of the crew. There had been many "helpful" suggestions, some significantly less well thought-out than others. Chopper's and Brook's well-meaning offers of a sleeping draught and a lullaby respectively were both turned down, while Zoro very reluctantly consented to some of the others, under the prod of "captain's orders" and the threat of a debt increase. Finally, he'd stalked off after dinner and draped himself over the railing, staring moodily at the sea, all the while emanating as much killing aura as he could to keep the others away from him.
To Sanji, he might as well have been waving a red flag of challenge.
"Oi, marimo, if you're just gonna stand around moping, come in here and do the dishes," Sanji called from the doorway to the galley.
"Ask someone else," Zoro said grumpily.
"Whiner."
"Am not."
"Prove it," Sanji challenged.
Zoro briefly considered telling him to fuck off, but then the thought struck him that maybe washing the dishes might bore him to sleep. "Fine," he snapped back, shuffling into the galley. They settled quickly into their usual routine, even if it was weird for Sanji to see each plate multiply into three temporarily every time Zoro picked one up, before returning to being just one plate when he put it down again.
"You know, that's really freaky," he commented after a while.
"Says the man with the flaming legs," Zoro retorted. "What d'you call that move again?"
"'Diable Jambe'. It means 'Devil Leg', for the benefit of the uneducated moron."
Zoro scowled. "Just because I don't use fancy, obscure languages to name my attacks..."
"Yeah, because punning on food names is so much better."
"Shut up."
"It's kinda funny though," Sanji mused. "We both have demonic attacks. You have this Asura thing, and I have Diable Jambe."
"What's so funny about it? Gotta keep up with the Devil's Fruit users on this crew, don't we?" Zoro grunted.
Sanji found himself reluctantly impressed with Zoro's insight. "You know, that might be it."
"I know that's it. For me, anyway," Zoro shrugged.
Sanji looked thoughtfully at Zoro, a little startled by his unusual openness. The marimo had to be more tired than he thought, letting down his guard this much. "You know, it's scary sometimes, watching Luffy," Sanji confided, passing Zoro the last plate and draining the water from the sink. "No matter how strong we get, he always pulls ahead of us."
Zoro took a moment to wipe the last dish and set it down on top of the pile. "Yeah, well, he has the most to protect."
"When we got him back this time..." Sanji trailed off. He didn't need to continue. He could see from the frown on Zoro's face that he was thinking the same thing. They didn't ever want to see Luffy so hurt again. "He strains himself too hard," he finished lamely.
"Mmm," Zoro grunted, his eyes narrowing in determination. "He does."
But he shouldn't have to. Sanji could read the completion of that sentence in Zoro's eyes. That was probably why Zoro trained so hard, Sanji mused. So hard he actually managed to get stuck with three heads and six arms. It was hard to laugh at the man's dedication. "Wonder whether I could get stuck in Diable Jambe if I over-trained," he wondered, then cringed when he realised he'd said that aloud.
"I wouldn't have fallen for Robin's plot even if you did," Zoro smirked.
"Asshole."
"Sucker." Zoro paused to let the insult sink in, then added, with a hint of gruffness in his voice, "Thanks though."
"For what? Didn't even save you." Sanji dried his hands and lit a fresh cigarette.
"Told me I was more important than a dress shirt at least."
"Yeah, marimo, you're way up there on my priorities list, between dress shirts and my fine china."
"Yeah? Well, you're somewhere between...my haramaki and my katana."
"Really? I'm honoured," Sanji said, his tone overtly sarcastic. But when he thought about it, just behind a swordsman's katana had to be pretty high in Zoro's reckoning. "So you'd jump in to get me even if it meant destroying your haramaki, but not if you lose your katana."
"Sounds 'bout right."
"So you would jump in."
"Maybe," Zoro said non-committally.
"Huh."
"Still wouldn't have fallen for Robin's tricks though."
"Bastard."
"Still a sucker."
"Here." Sanji took out a bottle of sake from the fridge and hesitated slightly as he pondered which of Zoro's six hands to thrust it into, settling for tossing it and letting the marimo decide for himself.
"What's this for?" Zoro examined the bottle.
"Help you sleep. Maybe."
"Heh. Thanks." Zoro uncapped it and downed it in a single chug. "Weird taste," he noted after a moment.
"It's from that last island we were at. They probably have some special ingredients they put in."
"That so?" Zoro murmured, suddenly realising his eyelids felt really heavy. He took a staggering step towards the table.
"Yeah. Oi, if you're gonna crash, do it in your own bed."
"Not gonna crash...I c'n hol' my alc- alcohol...unlike someb'dy..." Zoro tipped over and would have collapsed against the table if it hadn't been for Sanji's leg propping him up.
Chopper peeked his head around the door cautiously. "Did it work, Sanji?"
"Yeah. Out like a light," Sanji reported.
"Thanks for your help, Sanji. Zoro's really stubborn about sedatives and things, even when it's for his own good."
"No problem, Chopper."
"Want me to carry him to bed?" Chopper offered.
"Nah, I'll do it. This oaf weighs a tonne. Think he'll be back to normal in the morning?"
"Yeah. Zoro was right, this time. That's really the only solution to over-training - lots of rest. He should be out for at least twelve hours."
"Good." Sanji hefted Zoro's body over his shoulder and headed for the boys' quarters and put him into his hammock, arranging his three heads into as comfortable a position as he could.
"Sweet dreams, mossheads." Sanji went over to his hammock and began to prepare for bed himself. Zoro would probably be super pissed off the next day when he discovered Sanji's treachery.
But Sanji could live with that. After all, Luffy wasn't the only one who pushed himself too hard around here.
He could, on the other hand, live without the triple-headed chorus of snores coming from Zoro's hammock. He groaned, put a pillow over his head, and longed for the moment rest kicked in and Asura became Zoro once more.
EDIT: Thought of a different ending that I liked better...