I got carried away with this one...

[c_callosum]

Title: Two Moles in Marineford
Theme: Set #3 - Mole
Claim: Zoro
Words: 4439
Rating: PG
Warnings: Some swearing. Spoilers for the Marineford arc. Contains references to the Adventures of Young Roronoa Zoro.  Second in a series bringing the Strawhats back together again.
Acknowledgments: For this piece I took inspiration for many sources, in particular Life Without Parole by chibi_trillian.
Disclaimers: I don't own One Piece.

Zoro couldn't quite remember how he wound up in this mess, though he was pretty sure the shit cook's directions had something to do with it. Wasn't it three rights and a left? Or three lefts and a right? In any case, he appeared to have teleported into a completely different building.

He watched as the Marines around him formed an orderly queue to collect their food. Maybe he should just go with the flow and get some...

"So this is where you are, shithead!" a voice hissed.

Zoro turned to see Sanji beckoning at him from the door of the mess hall. He gave an inward sigh of relief and went over.

"What the fuck are you doing here? I said to meet in the materials dump! I've been searching everywhere for you!"

"Thought I'd get a taste of Marine cuisine," Zoro smirked. "It's probably better than yours."

Sanji shot him a glare out of his one visible eye. He'd somehow managed to put on his Marine cap at a jaunty enough angle that his left eye still remained covered up.

"Go ahead and try it, then!"

"No time," Zoro said authoritatively. "Let's head to the materials dump and get what we came for."

Sanji looked very much like he wanted to kick Zoro's head in, which was an entirely likely state of affairs. But drawing undue attention to themselves would probably be a bad thing in an undercover operation like this one.

"Shut up, marimo idiot, and follow me."

Truth be told, Zoro wasn't very marimo right now, his green hair having been dyed black for the duration of the operation. Nami had promised that it would wash off. He hoped she was telling the truth.

"Why'd it have to be you of all people coming with me, anyway?" Sanji grumbled, as they did their best imitation of a Marine march through the halls of Marineford.

"Why'd it have to be you coming with me?" Zoro shot back.

"Hmm, maybe because we needed someone with intelligence on this mission? And because the Marines don't employ reindeer or skeletons, Franky would probably prance around in his sea pants anyway, and Usopp's nose couldn't be disguised like my eyebrow and your hair could?" Sanji crossed out all the other eligible male members of the crew.

"Then why'd you ask? Anyway, you forgot Nami and Robin," Zoro pointed out.

"And risk their lives? They're ladies!" Sanji snapped.

"They're nakama. Geez, and I thought you'd have learned something on that okama island."

"Shut the hell up. We agreed never to speak of that again!"

Zoro just shrugged and ran along. Sanji gave him a quick judging glance. He hated to admit it, but Zoro looked a lot more at home in his Marine disguise. Sanji had to continually tell himself not to slouch so much, while Zoro's build was much more like that of a typical Marine grunt. All brawn, no brains.

"Stop, you two! Where do you think you're going?" They froze at the command from the female voice, hearts popping out of Sanji's eye while Zoro internally panicked. No! Not her! What the hell is she doing here? And then his mind slid to the more pertinent question: will she recognise us?

Still, there was nothing for it. They turned and snapped to attention. "Ensign Tashigi, ma'am!" Zoro barked, glad that he knew something of Marine protocol after years of turning in bounties at Marine bases. He noted with relief that the glasses were missing from Tashigi's eyes. Between that and their disguises, the ditzy Marine probably wouldn't recognise them. They were safe.

But without those glasses, she looked so much like Kuina it took all his willpower not to bolt away, anyway.

"What are you two doing out here? It's time for katana practice!"

"Er...ma'am?"

"Come on!" she said insistently. They exchanged confused glances, then followed her into a dojo where many other Marines were already standing in formation, each carrying a bamboo shinai, glaring at the latecomers.

"What do we do?" Zoro hissed at Sanji, as they hurried over to the barrel of shinai.

"What else can we do? She's so pretty!" Sanji swooned.

Zoro could have kicked him. "What about our mission?"

"We can't just run now. We'll play along and try to sneak out halfway."

There didn't seem much choice, so each of them selected a shinai - Zoro almost took three, before Sanji batted two of them away - and took up the last two places in the back of the formation.

The next ten minutes were excruciatingly boring for Zoro. Not that he didn't practise these simple katas - they were the foundation of all good swordsmanship, and he practised them diligently everyday. But normally, he did it with several-tonne weights, not with a bamboo shinai so light he hadn't trained with one in eight years. He glanced around at the Marines, rolling his eyes whenever he noticed an elementary error. Even the worst student at Sensei's dojo wouldn't have such poor shinai control! Still, Tashigi seemed to be doing a good job going around and patiently correcting their mistakes. He could tell that Sanji was just waiting for the swordswoman to come round, put her hands on his and correct his terrible, terrible grip.

Which, on reflection, would only give her even more opportunity to recognise them.

"Oi! Shithead!" he whispered, trying to catch the cook's attention. When Sanji looked around, he made frantic gestures to show him how to adjust his grip. Sanji just stuck his tongue out at him and returned to his katas. Zoro could have murdered him. And look, that Kuina clone was already on her way over to the shit cook!

"Very good," was all Tashigi said, taking a brief glance at the cook's stance.

"Thank you, ma'am..." Sanji replied in a rather unmilitary croon.

What the hell? That's nowhere near a good grip! What kind of swordswoman is she anyway?

Next Tashigi turned to Zoro. "What's this? Ah, just a bit wrong." Zoro's face reddened to the tips of his ears as Tashigi came up to him and altered the positioning of his thumbs. "Much better." What the hell does she mean, much better? She walked off to inspect the rest of the Marines in their row, Zoro furiously returning to his katas and ignoring Sanji's sniggering.

"All right! Halt!" Tashigi called. "Let's do a series of one-on-ones. Each of you, come up and fight me!"

This was getting worse and worse! Zoro had no doubt she'd recognise him once their shinai touched. If she was any good as a swordswoman, that is, which he was beginning to highly doubt.

"Come on, cook, let's get out of here."

"Why, afraid you'll lose to her?" Sanji grinned. Zoro didn't even bother to tell him to shut up. He swung his shinai into Sanji's stomach, catching the cook unawares. Sanji doubled up on his hands and knees, hacking and wheezing.

"What's wrong over there?" Tashigi blinked vaguely in their direction, hearing the commotion.

"He seems to have taken ill suddenly, ma'am. Shall I take him to the infirmary?" Zoro asked.

"Oh. All right. Report back afterwards and let me know if he's okay."

"Yes, ma'am!" Zoro picked up the cook and the broken shinai - it wouldn't do to leave any evidence, after all - and carried them out of the dojo, breathing a sigh of relief when they were out of Tashigi's sight.

"What the fuck was that for?" Sanji snarled when he caught his breath in the corridor.

"We're late as it is! You want me to tell Nami and Robin the reason they had to wait was because you couldn't take your eyes off that Marine woman?"

Sanji's face changed. "Of course I don't!"

"Then let's go get that damn seastone!"

"All right!" They set off through the maze of corridors once more. Sanji glanced at the broken shinai and smirked a little at the memory of Zoro's embarrassment. "How'd you like being told your sword grip isn't so good?"

"She's fucking blind without her glasses, you know that!"

"I don't know, she seemed to know what she was doing," Sanji teased. "And didn't you say before she was a decent enough swordswoman?"

"Maybe her school uses a different set of techniques." Besides, Zoro thought, he hadn't used a two-handed grip in forever, so it wasn't his fault! "Anyway, we are never speaking of this again, or someone is going to die."

"I'll try and remember that," Sanji responded, unable to keep a smile from spreading across his face. "Come on, I think it's the next corridor on the right."

They duly turned right, spotting another group of Marines at the other end of the corridor. Marine Vice-Admiral. White hair. Picking his nose. "Shit, that's not Luffy's grandfather, is it?" Sanji murmured.

"And that looks a lot like Coby," Zoro muttered back, recognising the pink-haired boy. That guy with the funny blond hair looked familiar too...

"Shit. Quick, in here!" Sanji hissed, grabbing Zoro by the wrist and pulling him into the first room he found. They ducked beneath the clear glass of the door and waited as Garp's entourage passed by.

"So it's confirmed that Luffy-san is on Amazon Lily, Garp-san?" Coby was asking.

"Yeah, but keep it to yourselves. No reason to set the whole world on those women. Can't have all our men turned into stone!" The voices trailed off as they disappeared around a corner.

Zoro and Sanji breathed a sigh of relief and finally glanced around their hideout. "Looks like this is some kind of records room," Sanji said, getting to his feet. He opened one and his eye widened. "This is where they keep their records on pirates!" He pulled out a random file from a filing cabinet. The first sheet was the pirate's most recent bounty poster, followed by a series of reports delving into his background.

"Okay, where's mine?" he muttered, rummaging around in the "SA" drawer. Meanwhile, Zoro went over to the "RO" drawer and looked for his. It was easy to spot, being the thickest one in that particular drawer. It contained a full record of all the bounties he'd ever turned in, a list of confirmed and unconfirmed sightings, reports from Smoker and Tashigi from all the times they'd failed to capture the Strawhats - he smirked as he glanced through those - and then he saw something that made him frown. "Received information that Roronoa Zoro may in fact be the exiled prince of M--- Kingdom." It was followed by an account from a traveller who had once passed through his country and seen him at an official function, who'd been struck by his head of green hair, and later connected the dots upon seeing his wanted poster. There was a note in the margin indicating that the matter was under investigation.

This could be a problem... "Oi, cook, pass me a pen from over there."

Sanji looked up from the table where he was busy scrawling something, as well. "What? Oh. Here." He tossed one over. "What are you doing?"

"Correcting some misinformation," Zoro replied grimly, making a note underneath the other one. "Disproved. Witness found to be unreliable," he wrote in as official a hand as he could manage. He put the file back and looked over at Sanji. "What are you doing, shit cook?"

"Drawing a new picture of myself they can use on their next bounty poster."

"We don't have time for that! Come on! You heard Luffy's grandpa, the Marines already know where Luffy is!"

"Just a bit more, dammit! There!" Sanji finished his drawing with the flourish of an eyebrow.

"It looks even uglier than the other one," Zoro said flatly.

"It does not! I look suave and elegant!"

"Whatever. Get moving, shit cook!"

"Okay, okay!" Sanji shoved the file back into the drawer and they continued their meandering route through the complex. "All right, there's the exit from this building. There should be a warehouse in the back where they keep all that stuff."

They made their way cautiously outside, mingling with the crowds of Marines going about their business, then scurrying over to the gigantic dump.

"Think we can just walk out with two crates of seastone? That's all Ray-san thought we needed, right?"

"Let's just try it and see." They walked past the guards at the entrance, hoping they looked purposeful and like they knew where they were going. The guards made no comment, and they quickly ducked into one of the many aisles, looking at the crates and crates piled atop each other.

"Ammunition belts...bullets...cannonballs...I think they go in alphabetical order," Sanji mused.

"That's useful," Zoro commented, and promptly turned in the wrong direction.

"This way, idiot." They hurried over to the "S" section. "Seastone nets...seastone cuffs...aha! Pure seastone." Sanji eyed the gigantic crates doubtfully. "They look pretty heavy."

"Don't think you can manage? Want me to carry yours for you?" Zoro offered with a smirk.

"Like hell! Come on, let's load up. The sooner we can get out of here, the better."

Between the two of them, they managed to shift one crate onto Sanji's waiting hands. He let out a grunt as the weight settled on his hands, wishing that his feet had opposable big toes so he could use his leg strength to carry it instead. But he held steady, and waited while Zoro eased the next crate onto his shoulder.

"Okay. Mission accomplished. Let's get out to the plaza. Try not to look suspicious."

"Why would I try to look suspicious, asshole?"

They walked out, hoping that the two guards at the entrance wouldn't stop and ask for an authorisation slip or something. No such luck. They were stopped right at the exit of the warehouse with a peremptory "Halt!".

They glanced at each other, making a silent promise to just run if trouble started. But instead of asking for their authorisation to remove two crates of seastone, the guards seemed to have a different regulation in mind. "Why are you carrying these seastone crates alone? You know that the Health and Safety Department says that anything over a tonne should be carried by at least ten men, unless they're Devil's Fruit users."

Zoro and Sanji gaped at them. Health and fucking Safety Department? Such things existed? "Well, we are Devil's Fruit users," Zoro lied.

If Sanji had a hand free, he would have slapped his forehead. Or Zoro.

The guard's eyes flicked up at the crate and he frowned. "But if you're Devil's Fruit users, you shouldn't be able to carry seastone..."

"Let's just get the hell outta here," Sanji shook his head.

"Agreed." Zoro took one step forward and headbutted the first guard, while Sanji levelled the other with a kick, wobbling a little as he tried to compensate for the extra weight. "Oi! Cook! Don't come this way!" Zoro said, alarmed, as Sanji lurched into him, knocking the crate out of his hands. Soon it was his turn to be coughing and choking, as his crate crashed to the floor around him, sprinkling him with a fine spray of seastone dust.

"Oops. Sorry," Sanji said, a little sheepishly, managing to right himself at last.

"Great," Zoro said, brushing off the dust. "Now I'll have to go back and get another one."

"I'll go get it," Sanji offered, but Zoro had already run off. Wonderful. He's gonna get himself so lost! Sanji lowered the crate to the floor and busied himself with hiding the bodies of the two unconscious guards.

"M, N, O, P, Q, R, S...aha!" Sanji heard someone chant to himself. Well, at least the marimo had received a basic education. He suspected this would be another item on their subjects-never-to-be-mentioned-again list. Finally Zoro returned, looking grey and dusty but with an intact crate on his shoulder once more.

"Now let's go! Where to now?" he asked, as Sanji picked up his crate again with a barely-concealed grunt.

"The plaza. There's plenty of Marines carrying supplies to the crews rebuilding it, so we should be able to hide among them just fine. So long as no other health-and-safety freaks confront us this time!"

No such people confronted them, but just as they got to the edge of the plaza and stood there gaping again at the unbelievable amount of damage, they heard the last voice they wanted to hear right now. Apart, perhaps, from Garp and the Marine admirals.

"RORONOA!" Of course he wouldn't have been fooled by black hairdye.

"Oh, shit. It's Smoker! RUN!"

"Hold it right there, Strawhat Pirates!" Sanji looked down and saw a wisp of smoke edging towards his ankle. He ran faster.

"Cook! Take this!" Zoro tossed his crate towards Sanji, who somehow managed to make it land square on top of his existing one, even if the doubled weight did make him buckle slightly. He recovered in time to see Zoro launch himself at Smoker in something of a flying embrace. Upon contact with Zoro's seastone-dusted form, the Devil's Fruit user's body coalesced back into a heavy lump and they collapsed in an awkward heap.

"Damn you! What the hell did you do?" Smoker grunted.

"Sorry, Commodore. Had a little accident with some seastone," Zoro grinned.

"Stop hugging the man and get going, marimo!"

"Whoops, gotta go." Zoro left the Marine officer lying panting on the ground and went back to Sanji, retrieving his crate. Smoker found, to his annoyance, that the residual dust was still affecting his ability to transform into smoke. He settled for organising the Marines to go after the pirates. "Get them! Cut them off at the crack in the plaza!"

"Aye aye, sir!" The Marines promptly swarmed around them, trying to block their path as they threaded their way through the rubble.

"You know," Sanji panted, as he dealt kick after kick to the hordes of attacking Marines, "Red Leg was never designed to be used while carrying this much weight."

"I could really use my katana right now," Zoro agreed, wishing that three swords wasn't so distinctive a trademark. He had to settle for juggling the crate between each hand and dealing out punch after punch instead as they ran across the ruined, torn-up plaza.

"Shit! There's just too many of them!"

"And they've got guns, dammit! Look out!"

And then they heard the welcome words:

"Cien Fleur!"

"Hissatsu Kaen Boshi!"

"Weapons Left!"

"Tornado Tempo!"

They didn't have to turn around to know what had just happened to the Marines on their tail.

"Robin-chan! Nami-san! You saved us!" Sanji noodled the rest of the way to the ship.

"Usopp! Franky!" Zoro grinned, glad to see his crew.

"Zoro-san! Sanji-san! Get on board quickly and we'll go!" Brook called. They clambered on board quickly, helped by Usopp and Franky, and secured the crates quickly to the deck.

"Chopper-bro! Submerge!" Franky shouted.

"Okay!" Chopper responded, as the others piled into the cabin and sealed the door behind them.

The coated Thousand Sunny plunged into the depths just in time to avoid a barrage of Marine cannonfire.

Zoro and Sanji lay on the floor of the cabin minutes later, still panting from the exertion.

"God, I feel like shit," Sanji groaned, wishing he could smoke a cigarette, but since the cabin was now air-tight, that was probably a bad idea.

"Yeah, I feel pretty crappy myself," Zoro agreed, coughing a little. The seastone dust in his lungs was not pleasant.

"Zoro! Sanji! Are you okay? Did you get hurt? We were so worried when you were late!" Chopper had handed over the helm to Franky and launched himself onto Zoro. His body promptly went limp and he sank into Zoro's lap.

"Crap. Oi, Sanji..."

"I got him." Sanji sat up with a groan - his muscles hadn't ached this much since his very first fighting lessons with Zeff - and picked the reindeer off Zoro, thankful that he was in his small form.

"What happened, Swordsman-san?" Robin asked. Zoro noticed that she was keeping a safe distance from him.

"One of the seastone crates broke and I got covered with the dust. Sorry, Chopper. I'll go wash it off as soon as I can." Zoro hoped it wasn't a permanent condition. It was useful, yes, but he wouldn't want the Devil's Fruit users of the crew to all be allergic to him. Much as he hated to admit it, he would miss Chopper's hugs. Luffy's too, for that matter. But that could only happen when they got him back.

"Speaking of Luffy," he began, ignoring the fact that they hadn't been, "Iva's information was right. He is on Amazon Lily."

"Good, then this trip wasn't in vain," Nami said. "But if you found that out at Marineford...that means the Marines must know too!"

"Only his grandfather, and he said not to tell anyone else. I think Luffy's safe for now, Nami-san," Sanji replied.

"Good. So all we have to do is get the Sunny coated once more, mixing the seastone in with the resin this time. We should be able to sail through the Calm Belt without trouble from the Sea Kings this time, like the Marines do."

"Nami-swan is so wonderfully smart!" Sanji cooed.

Nami smiled and looked at her watch. "Okay, Franky! It should be safe to bring us back up to the surface."

"Gotcha, Nami-sis!"

The ship rose gradually enough that apart from having to pop their ears a few times, the pressure differential gave them no problems. They breathed a sigh of relief when they breached the surface of the sea once more. Coating or no coating, the Sunny was no submarine, and they vastly preferred life under the bright sunlight to life in the ocean deep. They gravitated out towards the open deck, Franky inspecting their new acquisition.

Zoro headed off to shower and change. He wasn't spending any more time in this starchy Marine uniform than he could help. He emerged on deck minutes later in his normal clothes, katana back at his side, restored to his usual marimo state, though the seastone had apparently refused to wash away along with the black hair dye. "Sorry, Chopper," he said again, hating the disappointed look on the reindeer's face when he found he still couldn't get near Zoro without feeling queasy. "But it won't be permanent, right?"

"I think so," Chopper replied. "Skin cells take about a month to regenerate, and as they shed you should gradually get rid of all the seastone in your pores. What about your lungs, are they okay? You inhaled a lot of the stuff, right?"

"Yeah, but it's okay. I can breathe just fine. Good thing I didn't get injured this time, huh? You wouldn't have been able to treat me if I had," Zoro said, trying to sound light-hearted.

"Yeah. I'm glad about that. Let me know if you start having problems breathing, though!"

"Chopper, I'll be fine." He stretched, enjoying the pleasant ache in his muscles from carrying the crate of seastone. "I think I'll go do some training."

"Want me to come supervise, marimo?" Sanji smirked. He had changed back into his usual clothes, too.

Zoro glared at him. "Only if it's to give a demonstration of your okam- "

"On second thoughts, I need to go prepare lunch," Sanji quickly changed his mind.

"Should've just grabbed some from the Marine mess hall, saved yourself the trouble," Zoro said off-handedly.

"Oh? You think so, do you?" Sanji glowered at Zoro.

"Yeah. Food's food," Zoro shrugged.

"We'll see about that," Sanji muttered.

Zoro threw himself into his work-out with a will, trying to erase the memory of that humiliating kata practice with exhaustion. He was therefore more than ready for his meal when Sanji yelled for the louts and ladies to come eat an hour later.

They had to rearrange the seating plan a little so that Zoro was seated as far away from the Devil's Fruit users as possible. Sanji moved around the table giving out individualised plates. "Here you are, Nami-san, enjoy your meal...and here's yours, shithead." He plonked down a packet of something just this side of edible down in front of Zoro.

"What the hell is this?" Zoro made a disgusted face as he examined the packet.

"'Food's food'. Eat up, marimo." Sanji sounded a touch gleeful.

"Where'd you get this from?"

"When I was searching all over for you when you got lost, I went through the kitchens and picked up a ration box to study. But since you expressed so much interest in Marine cuisine, I thought I'd let you have it."

Zoro looked at the gleaming red lobster and fresh vegetables the others had on their plates, then down at the glop of food that he guessed might be an approximation of rice and stew. Oh well. He'd eaten worse, right? And he'd much rather eat this than his words. "Fine. Thanks for the meal, curly cook." He picked up a spoonful and forced it down, trying not to grimace. It was even worse than he thought. How could the Marines stand to eat this stuff? Maybe he should have gotten himself lost at the officers' mess instead...

"So whaddaya think of Marine cuisine now, marimo?"

"It's...decent," Zoro replied as nonchalantly as he could manage.

Sanji snorted. "Next time, leave the lying to Usopp. 'We're Devil's Fruit users.' Honestly!"

"Hey, I heard that!" the maligned sniper protested.

Zoro returned to half-heartedly stabbing at the stew.

Pathetic training. Starchy uniforms. Health and safety regulations. And now, bad food. He was beginning to feel sorry for his enemies, and thankful - just a touch - that this torture would last only one meal and he'd be back to eating Sanji's concoctions at dinnertime.

He was even more thankful that Luffy had the good sense to defy his grandfather's wishes to join the Marines.

Although, if he had joined them, he probably wouldn't be in such a state now. Reports had it that he had been grievously injured, and Zoro couldn't be surprised, after having seen the ruins of the plaza at Marineford, evidence of the terrible battle that had been fought there. So many lives lost. Countless pirates and marines. Whitebeard. Ace.

But not Luffy, thank goodness. He wouldn't die. Zoro knew it, deep within his bones. He'd felt for himself just how much pain and injury his captain's body could handle. He would survive.

Hang on, Captain, he thought grimly. We're coming for you.

He didn't even taste the rest of the slop going down his throat.

NOTE: has been extensively edited.