The Shape of Loyalty

The sea was a sheet of glass, the kind of calm that should have been a relief. It was quiet enough to hear the creak of the Sunny’s timbers, the flap of the lion’s mane as a weak breeze toyed with it. The sky stretched, pale and gentle, washed clean after too many storms. No Navy ships. No enemies. No running. Peace felt unfamiliar, like a new pair of shoes that hadn’t yet softened.

Luffy stood at the rail near the figurehead and didn’t move. He didn’t hang from the rigging or sprint across the deck. He didn’t demand a snack every five minutes. He just held the hat on his head and stared at the horizon as if it had said something only he could hear. His shoulders were steady, arms loose; anyone else would have called him calm. To the crew, it was wrong.

On the upper deck, the usual chatter was muted, like everyone was afraid of waking something that needed the rest. Usopp pretended to tinker with the slingshot he’d tuned a hundred times already. Nami sat under a swath of shade near the helm with her maps spread out, fingers tracing lines she’d drawn weeks ago, checking them again for no reason except that she could. Robin lounged with a book open, but her eyes drifted to the edges of the page more than they followed the words. Chopper dozed in the sun between the lounge chairs, his little hooves curled, a medical book open and forgotten at his side.

Up in the crow’s nest, Zoro was asleep again. It wasn’t new; he’d always taken his rest where he could steal it. But there was a heaviness to the way he slept now, a deep, bone-deep kind that came after a battle where a sudden breath or a misstep could mean everything. His swords leaned within reach. The ship rocked, gentle as a lullaby, and he didn’t stir.

Sanji watched Luffy from the galley door, a towel slung over his shoulder, flour dusting the sleeve of his shirt. He flicked the ash of a cigarette into the wind and ground it under the metal lip of the threshold. “Idiot captain,” he muttered, but there wasn’t any bite in it.

He retreated to the kitchen and set to work like a man with a mission. Pots steamed and clicked. Fat snapped in a pan. He assembled a spread worthy of a festival: grilled meats lacquered with glaze, a mountain of rice, buns with soft centers that would pull apart and steam when torn, crisp greens with a citrus dressing, a stew rich enough to make a giant weep. He had made a cake too, because Luffy always thought with his stomach first, and if anything could lure him back to the world, it was sugar.

When Sanji carried the dishes out, the scent rolled over the deck, and heads lifted on instinct. Brook paused mid-scale on his violin. Franky’s eyes went comically round behind his sunglasses. Even Nami leaned back, sniffing, hunger a surprise she let pass over her face for only a second.

“Lunch!” Sanji called, and the word was habit. It should have been a chorus. It wasn’t.

Luffy didn’t move. It was Usopp who jogged to him first, a plate already piled high. “Hey, captain,” he said, too bright. “Sanji outdid himself. Again. You should—”

Luffy’s eyes shifted like it took effort to bring the world into focus. He smiled, small and automatic. “Thanks, Usopp.” He took something off the top—one bun, a single cut of meat—and bit into it like he was doing it for someone else. Halfway through the bun, he stopped chewing and looked back at the horizon. Usopp’s hands tightened on the edge of the plate, but he didn’t push.

Sanji took it in. The weak appetite. The quiet. The way Luffy’s grin didn’t reach his eyes. He hid a frown behind a cigarette and turned away with practiced, easy steps. “The rest of you, eat before it’s cold.”

They did, but there was less clatter. Less laughter. They were tired. Not the kind a nap fixed. The kind that lived under the skin, in the places that had braced and braced and finally had nothing left to hold up for a moment. They ate, and it was good. It just didn’t make everything right.

A gull circled and cried once, sharp and thin, then coasted away. The Sunny cut a white line through the blue, steady as a heartbeat. Nothing chased them. No island loomed. The world felt paused, and in the pause, every thought they hadn’t let themselves have found space.

Brook packed away his violin and leaned on the rail with Chopper, humming under his breath. “The sea is very calm,” he said quietly. “It’s disconcerting.”

Chopper’s ears flicked. He glanced at Luffy, then at the mast. “Zoro’s been sleeping a lot.”

“He needs it,” Robin said, appearing at their side with the grace of a shadow. “We all do.”

Nami didn’t look up from her maps. “We’ve earned it. But the Log Pose is steady as a rock and I hate that more than I should.”

Franky stretched, his joints clicking. “We’ll take the drift for a while. Sunny likes it. She deserves a break too.”

“Mm.” Robin’s gaze slipped to Luffy again. The wind lifted the brim of his hat, and he held it with two fingers without thinking.

In the crow’s nest, Zoro shifted and woke as if the lull had finally let him sink deep enough to come up clean. He lay still for a moment, listening. The creak of rope. The faint thrum of the Sunny’s heartbeat. No alarm. His muscles had unclenched without him asking them to. He rolled to sit, rubbed a hand over his face, then reached for the bottle tucked against the wall, took a swallow, and shoved it back.

His eyes found Luffy without trying. They always did. From this height, his captain looked small against the open sea. The ridiculous hat made his silhouette familiar, the set of his shoulders even more so. Zoro stood, stretched until his back popped, and descended the ladder.

He crossed the deck with the lazy stride that fooled no one who knew him. He didn’t say anything when he reached Luffy’s side. He just stood, the space between them measured and comfortable, close enough that if Luffy swayed he would knock into Zoro’s arm.

Luffy didn’t look at him. He didn’t have to. The line of his mouth softened. The breath he let out was quiet but long.

“Food’s out,” Zoro said finally, because it was easier than you good? and meant the same thing, the way they used it.

Luffy’s fingers tapped the brim of his hat. “I’ll eat in a bit.”

Zoro grunted. He looked at the horizon too, the way the light broke into a band where the sky met the water. The peace felt fragile, as if a voice could shatter it. He didn’t try to fill it.

The Sunny sailed on. A cloud drifted across the sun and kept going. Somewhere below, Sanji rattled plates and cursed the floorboards for squeaking when they always had and always would. Usopp told a story to Chopper with his hands, big and wild, and Chopper’s laughter rose in a surprised burst that made others smile in spite of themselves.

Luffy’s hand strayed to the scar on his chest and rested there, absent. Zoro noticed and didn’t comment. He let his shoulder angle a fraction closer, the offer of weight and steadiness unspoken. The world was quiet. For now, it was enough to stand and watch the line where blue met blue and pretend the calm could last.

Sanji waited until the shadows shifted and the heat eased off the deck. Timing mattered. He set the table with unnecessary precision, stacking bowls and arranging chopsticks like the order might set the world right. He tucked a sprig of something bright on the edge of a platter and told himself it wasn’t for show. It was for Luffy. It had always been for Luffy.

He brought out the feast in waves so the smells wouldn’t hit dull senses all at once. Glazed ribs with charred edges that gave under teeth. A pot of curry thick with root vegetables and a sweetness he knew the captain liked. Fresh bread pulled from the oven, the crust crackling under his knife. A tower of rice shaped into the Sunny’s face because Usopp and Chopper would clap, and maybe Luffy would grin. A plate of fruit he carved into clumsy stars when no one was looking. He set down a bowl of noodles with a broth that sang, the kind that coated the mouth and warmed from the inside.

“Lunch,” he announced, not too loud. He angled himself to see the figure at the figurehead without seeming to look. “Get it while it’s perfect.”

Usopp, Chopper, and Brook came first, drawn by instinct more than appetite. Nami didn't move at the helm, but her eyes flicked over, calculation warring with concern. Franky ambled closer, peering over sunglasses, whistled low, and declared it “Super.” Robin closed her book and slid into a seat with quiet appreciation.

Sanji ladled broth, piled rice, set sauce within reach. He could do this blind. He stacked a plate the way Luffy would have done it, if Luffy were himself: everything, twice, no shame. He walked to the bow and held it out.

“Eat,” he said lightly. “Before moss-head wakes up and tries to steal it.”

Luffy turned with that distant smile that had started to scare him. He took the plate, held it too carefully, and leaned against the figurehead again. He ate a rib, two bites and then stopped, brow pinching like he was trying to remember something. He chewed slowly as if the meat had turned to something he needed to think around, not devour. The sauce glistened at the corner of his mouth. He thumbed it away without looking and swallowed as if pulling himself back to the body he lived in.

Sanji’s jaw worked. He shoved a cigarette between his teeth and didn’t light it. “You don’t like the glaze?”

“It’s good,” Luffy said. He meant it. His voice was simple as always, but quieter. He reached for a bun, tore it in half, steam ghosting up. He didn’t inhale like a man deprived, didn’t hum. He took a small bite, smiled with his mouth and not his eyes, and set it on top of the ribs like a lid.

Usopp hovered, plate in hand. “Captain?”

Luffy looked at him and something steadied. “Eat, Usopp.” He pushed the bun toward him like peace. “It’s yours.”

Usopp hesitated, then took it and forced a laugh because he didn’t know what else to do. “Don’t mind if I do.”

Chopper sidled up with a spoon bigger than his face. “Luffy, you should keep your energy up. It’s not good to—”

“I will,” Luffy said, and he picked up a slice of orange from the star plate, chewed, and washed sweetness across his tongue like it might wake something up. His gaze drifted back to the horizon. The orange peel twisted between his fingers.

Around the table, appetite faltered. Chatter tried and failed to rise. Brook offered a compliment so extravagant it would have drawn a smirk any other day. Franky took a bite of curry and blinked. “Spice level’s perfect,” he said, aiming his voice at Luffy and missing when it landed on Sanji’s tight shoulder.

Nami chewed and counted. She was good at noticing. She noticed the way Luffy’s hand flexed on the brim of his hat and then settled. The way his chest rose on a long breath as if he were bracing. The way Zoro’s shadow had lengthened at his back, a quiet line of support.

Robin reached for the rice shaped like the Sunny and re-formed a slumped cheek with her fingertips, a small kindness for a staring Usopp. “Delicious,” she murmured. “You’ve surpassed yourself again.”

Sanji exhaled through his nose and smiled with teeth. “Of course I have.” He didn’t look at the horizon again. He looked at the line of Luffy’s throat when he swallowed a mouthful of broth, the small wince like it hit a place that wasn’t hunger and couldn’t be soothed by food. He wiped his hands on a towel that didn’t need wiping and lit his cigarette because the ritual steadied him.

“Captain,” he tried again, softer, the title a shield and a plea. “There’s cake.”

That earned him something closer to a real expression. Luffy’s mouth quirked. He turned, curious despite himself. Sanji held the plate like an offer and a dare—layers of sponge, cream through the middle, strawberries fanned on top. It was simple and bright. Luffy leaned in, sniffed, and for a second Sanji saw the boy whose joy leapt at sugar.

He ate one forkful and closed his eyes. He didn’t moan. He didn’t reach for the rest. He opened his eyes and handed the plate back, the surrender small and clean. “Save it. I’ll want it later.”

The crew traded glances they didn’t mean to share. Chopper’s ears drooped. Usopp pretended his mouth was too full to talk and focused on chewing like it was a job. Brook made his laugh softer, gentler. Franky busied himself with clearing a non-existent spill.

Nami pushed her map aside and finally came over, propping a hand on her hip. “You’re not sick,” she said, and it wasn’t a question.

Luffy shook his head.

“Stomach upset?” Chopper ventured, already calculating.

Another shake.

“Then eat,” Nami said, and there was only care under the bossiness. “You scare people when you don’t.”

Luffy’s eyes flicked to each of them and landed on Zoro’s shoulder, steady and close. He took the chopsticks, picked up noodles, and did his best. He chewed and swallowed and took another bite. It wasn’t much. It was something.

Sanji let his shoulders drop half an inch. He didn’t press. He turned back to the galley for a moment and returned with smaller portions, a trick he’d learned for the days after battle when everyone’s bodies were a step behind their minds. He set a tiny bowl near Luffy’s elbow like a secret. He poured tea, hot and mild, and slid it into Zoro’s reach without looking at him. Zoro’s fingers brushed his in a silent thanks he would deny if asked. He took the cup and held it near Luffy, not offering, just there.

The breeze shifted. Luffy ate a third bite and a fourth. He stared at the sea between each, as if measuring distance in small mouthfuls. Around him, conversation found its footing again, tentative but real. Usopp launched into a story about a fish that got away; Chopper gasped on cue. Robin asked Nami about a current that shouldn’t exist. Franky and Brook argued quietly over which song fit a sea this flat.

Sanji stayed where he could see Luffy, pretended to be busy, and kept cooking like the right dish might find the part of their captain that had drifted. He didn’t say what he felt. He let the aromas try to coax him back. He let the crew fill the space with the sounds of home, thin at first, growing stronger. Luffy kept eating in small, careful bites, and each one drew a line back toward them. It wasn’t enough. It would have to be, for now.

By late afternoon, the helm had warmed beneath Nami’s palms. The sea was too even, the air tight with that strange hush that made even the wind sound careful. She had maps spread around her in precise layers—old charts from the last islands, fresh notes in her neat hand, the log pose ticking on her wrist with a stubborn patience that didn’t match her gut.

Robin came up quietly as always. She set a pot of tea on the nearby barrel and leaned her hip against the railing, eyes on the horizon like she could read the future in the light. “How does it look?”

Nami didn’t answer right away. She adjusted the log pose, tapped the crystal face, and watched the needle’s tiny jitter. It should have been steady. It wasn’t. “Wrong,” she said finally. “It keeps trying to drift north, but then it corrects like something snapped it back. It’s doing it every few minutes. I’ve never seen it behave like this when we’re still.”

Robin poured two cups, the steam curling up between them. “Chrono’s Echo?”

Nami nodded once. She reached under the helm for a rolled chart and pulled it free, careful not to let the edges catch on the other papers. She spread it next to the wheel. This one was older, the parchment thinning at the folds, annotations in three different hands layered over the original ink. The island was marked as a small crescent shape, ringed with jagged symbols. Names changed along its edge: The Turn, Old Hour, Echo. She had circled one note twice: “Temporal anomalies reported. Unreliable bearings.”

“I thought it was a sailor’s story,” she admitted, her finger drawing a clean line from their current coordinates to the vague circle of the island. “A place you blame when you get lost because you forgot to account for the current. But look at this.”

She slid another sheet over—a log from a trading vessel. Robin adjusted her glasses and read the lines that Nami had underlined: identical timestamps repeating, a moon that rose twice in an hour, a ship that arrived with barnacles older than its voyage.

“Fascinating,” Robin murmured. “It’s persistent through time, then. Not a seasonal phenomenon.”

“That’s my guess.” Nami sipped her tea, more for something to do with her hands than thirst. “We’re being pulled there. The log will point to it whether we like it or not.”

Robin’s gaze softened. “And you don’t like it.”

“I like a predictable sky.” Nami exhaled, the breath pulling tension out from behind her ribs. “This feels like sailing into fog and telling yourself you know where the rocks are. We can handle storms and whirlpools. We can’t fight the clock.”

She waited. Robin had a way of letting silence settle until it carried the answer.

“This island appears in several records,” Robin said, opening the book she’d tucked under her arm. The cover was cracked, the script dense. “There are mentions in old journals from the Western Sea—fishermen who lost a day and came home to children taller than they remembered. There’s a poem from a monk who wept because he felt he’d tasted his future and couldn’t swallow. He called it the sea’s mirror, where time looks at itself.”

Nami grimaced. “Poets are useless for navigation.”

“Sometimes they point to the shape of a thing when maps can’t,” Robin said gently. She turned the page. “There’s also this.” She laid a copied rubbing beside the chart. It showed a piece of stone carved with clockwork shapes—circles within circles, lines like gears, all turning toward a central spiral. Around it, the glyphs were worn but still legible in Robin’s neat hand. “‘The beats we borrow must be returned.’”

Nami’s hand hovered over the spiral. Her stomach did a small, unwelcome flip. “You think there’s a Poneglyph there.”

“I think there was once something important, and that people tried to mark it. Whether it’s a true Poneglyph or a derivative is unclear,” Robin said, thoughtful. “Chronology distorted is a common theme in forbidden histories. If an island can hold an echo of emotion or time, it would be a reasonable place to hide words meant to outlast the world.”

“Outlast,” Nami repeated, looking past Robin to where Luffy stood with Zoro, two steady shapes on the figurehead. The tilt of Luffy’s shoulders still made her throat tight. “This place takes things and gives them back wrong.”

“We don’t know that,” Robin said, but she didn’t argue the worry. Her fingers traced the spiral too, the motion absent. “We should establish safeguards.”

“I’m making a protocol.” Nami pulled a small slate closer and started a list: timed check-ins, rope lines for fog, watch rotations doubled. “No one goes alone. If it messes with our sense of time, we need external references. Hourglasses on every team. And…” She hesitated. “Anchors.”

Robin’s mouth curved. “We have plenty.”

“You know what I mean. Something that ties us back.” Nami flicked a glance at the boys at the bow again. “We shouldn’t split Luffy and Zoro.”

Robin sipped her tea, eyes kind. “Do you think you could?”

Nami almost smiled. “No. But I’ll pretend it’s my idea when it happens.”

They worked in tandem, the comfort of the task smoothing the ragged edge of dread. Nami marked approaches that avoided reefs that might be, listed currents that might not, plotted a path that gave them more exits than usual. Robin cross-referenced tales with dates, highlighting entries that clustered around a century gap. When the wind shifted by a degree, Nami adjusted the sails with two quick whistles. Franky answered from below with a thump of boots and a “Got it!” The ship responded, obedient and alive.

“If there is a Poneglyph, it could be altered,” Nami said, softer. “What if what you read there… isn’t right? What if the island has touched it somehow?”

Robin’s expression turned inward. “The stones are resilient. They have a way of holding themselves together through the worst. But the people who read them,” she glanced at Luffy again, “we are not stone. We should be careful.”

“I’ll keep us safe,” Nami said, and it came out fierce because it was the only thing she could promise. “We’ll go in. We’ll get what we need. We’ll get out.”

Robin’s hand covered hers for a moment, warm and steady. “We always do.”

The log pose ticked again, the needle leaning the same stubborn degree and then snapping back. Nami tightened the strap around her wrist and straightened her shoulders. She rolled the old chart up and tied it, set the protocol slate where Sanji, Usopp, and Chopper would trip over it in a good way, and turned the wheel a fraction so the Sunny’s nose aligned with the inevitable.

“Tomorrow,” she said, more to herself than anyone. “We make landfall at Chrono’s Echo.”

Robin followed her gaze to the figurehead. Zoro shifted, just enough to block the wind at Luffy’s back. Luffy’s hat brim tipped up, as if the sea had finally said something worth hearing. Nami felt the pull again, like a thread around her wrist, and held the wheel tighter. The sky had the pale look it got before night, stretched thin and clear.

“Let’s be ready,” she said. The Sunny creaked in agreement, and somewhere below, Sanji swore at a pot that boiled over right on time. The world kept moving, steady, as they pointed themselves toward a place where it might not.

The sky thinned into evening without anyone announcing it. Zoro woke because the air was different—cooler, quieter—and because some part of him always noticed when the ship breathed a little too softly. He stretched where he lay in the crow’s nest, joints pulling long and slow, and listened. The Sunny’s timbers hummed, the sea lapped like it was thinking about sleep, and the crew’s voices were distant—Sanji cursing through a window, Usopp and Chopper arguing about something that squeaked. It was all familiar. It was the stillness underneath it that wasn’t.

He eased up and looked forward. Luffy was a dark shape on the lion’s head, hat tilted just enough that Zoro could see the line of his jaw. He was sitting like he did when he forgot he had a body to keep warm—knees loose, arms draped, back curved slightly as if gravity had reached out and pressed a palm between his shoulder blades. He looked small, not in a way that meant weak, but in the way that meant the ocean had pulled the horizon back and set him against it to make a point.

Zoro climbed down without hurry, calluses finding each rung by memory. He landed on the deck soundless and crossed to the bow. No announcement, no clearing of throat. He just went, because that was what he did when Luffy stared like that. He walked a line that was well-worn between them.

Up close, he could see the details the distance smoothed out. Wind dried the edges of Luffy’s hair in uneven spikes. The brim of the hat cast his eyes in shade, but his mouth was the same line it made when he was planning or when he was trying not to worry anyone. Zoro didn’t say his name. He stepped onto the figurehead and settled behind him, one foot braced, one hand on the carved mane.

Luffy didn’t flinch. He didn’t turn. Zoro could feel the moment he noticed him anyway, the subtle shift in Luffy’s shoulders like a breath he let out slow. The hat lifted a fraction, letting in more light. Zoro watched the water, the shadows of clouds slipping over it in sheets. His presence filled the space the way a cloak would, without needing permission.

They stood like that for a while. Wind tugged at Zoro’s haramaki; he hooked his thumb into it and anchored himself. The quiet wasn’t empty. It never was with Luffy. It was loaded with all the times they’d stood side by side, forward locked in the same direction. Zoro felt the old relief of it—the way his mind could rest, even awake, because he was exactly where he was supposed to be.

A gull cried and cut a white line across the blue. Luffy’s foot tapped once against the wood, a small, impatient beat. Zoro’s fingers flexed on the mane, and as if hearing the movement, Luffy huffed. It was almost a laugh, but it fell short.

“Zoro,” he said, soft enough that it might have been stolen by the air if Zoro wasn’t leaning into the same current. He didn’t add anything. Just the name, a stake driven into the deck between them.

Zoro gave him a grunt that meant I’m here and I’m not going anywhere.

Sanji shouted something about soup to no one in particular. The scent of ginger drifted up, clean and warm. Luffy’s stomach should’ve answered. It didn’t. Zoro’s jaw worked once. He spun the bottle of water he’d snagged on his way down, let it rock against his palm, then reached around and held it out. Luffy’s hand came up, cool from the breeze, and took it. Their fingers brushed. Luffy’s knuckles were scuffed.

He drank and handed it back, thumb lingering on the plastic for half a second longer than necessary. Zoro set it by his boot.

The horizon was a thin, pale line. It looked breakable. Zoro didn’t trust anything that looked breakable and wasn’t. He shifted closer because the wind had turned, not because Luffy had shivered, though he had. The brush of their shoulders was slight, a touch anyone else would miss, but Luffy’s spine eased a fraction. The hat tilted, as if drawn by a magnet.

“You sleeping enough?” Luffy asked, as if he’d been thinking of less personal things and then remembered the right one.

“Yeah,” Zoro said.

Luffy hummed, unconvinced, and tipped his face up just enough that Zoro could see the line of his cheek. His skin had that tight, wind-stretched look that said he’d been out here a while. Zoro reached up and, without thinking about it too hard, flicked a piece of hair out of his eyes. The gesture was simple. It still landed heavy between them. Luffy’s mouth softened at the edges, a tiny easing that hit Zoro harder than it should.

Crew sounds rose and fell. The Sunny’s head cut through glass. Zoro let his attention rest on the feel of the ship under his feet and the weight that Luffy wasn’t saying. He knew better than to try to pry it out. Luffy spoke when the words made sense to him. Zoro’s job was to keep him anchored until then.

Another long minute passed. Luffy adjusted his grip on his knees and looked straight out. “Nami says we’re going to that weird time place,” he said, voice low, like the wind had taught him quiet. Zoro didn’t answer, because it wasn’t a question. “It feels like when you jump and your stomach drops, but you’re still on the ground. Like that.”

Zoro didn’t have a good answer for feelings like that. He set his foot more firmly, shifted so his shoulder was a more solid line against Luffy’s, and let the gesture say what he couldn’t shape. It said: whatever the ground does, I’m here.

Luffy nodded, as if hearing words in the small movements. His hand reached back without looking and found the edge of Zoro’s sash, a casual catch that lingered. Zoro didn’t move away. He let him hold on.

The sun sank lower, dragging a strip of gold across the water. It painted Luffy’s skin in a warm wash that made him look less like a shadow and more like a person again. Zoro watched the line of his throat as he swallowed, the stubborn curve of his mouth. He discovered, not for the first time, that standing still with Luffy took a different kind of discipline than fighting. He liked the ache of it.

A breath later, Luffy spoke again, not turning. “Your side. From the King’s Haki.” His voice didn’t waver, but he asked it like it mattered too much to be pushed out carelessly. “It’s really okay?”

Zoro’s hand tightened around the mane once, then let go. The scar tugged when he breathed deep. It would for a while. He exhaled and tilted just enough that his arm pressed more of his weight against Luffy’s. “It’s fine,” he said, and it was the kind of truth he allowed himself. “You can stop making that face.”

“What face?”

“The one you make when you think you broke something you can’t fix.”

Luffy’s laugh was a small puff of air. It faded quick. “I don’t like when you get hurt.”

Zoro felt the words slide under his ribs and settle there. “Then don’t stare at the sea like you’re about to pick a fight with it. It’ll throw you back and make me jump in.”

Luffy’s fingers curled a little tighter in the sash. “Okay,” he said. There was a smile in it, thin but real. He leaned, just a small degree, until the space between them was gone and their balance was one line braced against the lion’s head.

They stayed until the light thinned and the water lost its color, until Sanji’s irritation turned into the clatter of bowls and Nami’s voice carried orders without edge. Zoro didn’t move. Luffy didn’t ask him to. When the wind shifted again and tugged at Luffy’s hat, Zoro’s hand came up, steady and unthinking, to hold it in place. Luffy’s head tipped toward his palm, and the brim hid his eyes again. It didn’t matter. Zoro knew what they looked like. He kept his hand there a moment longer than necessary, then dropped it, letting the quiet stretch with them into the coming dark.

Luffy’s fingers slipped from the brim when Zoro let go, but he didn’t reach for the hat again. He stared at the horizon like it would give him permission to speak. It didn’t. The wind softened. The ship creaked. Zoro could feel the words collecting behind Luffy’s teeth like a tide.

When Luffy finally broke the silence, it was without preamble. “Your wounds,” he said, and then stopped like he’d stepped too close to an edge. He swallowed and tried again, quieter. “The one from the Supreme King. And the others. They’re… really healed?”

Zoro didn’t answer immediately. He felt the way Luffy said it more than the words themselves—the carefulness, like he was navigating a line that wasn’t his. Guilt lived in that care. It tasted wrong in Luffy’s mouth.

“They’re healing,” Zoro said, because that was true. He shifted his stance so the ache along his side threaded into something manageable. “Some take longer.”

Luffy’s jaw worked. His hat shadowed his eyes, but Zoro could see the tightness around them. “I know. I just—” He stopped, frustrated with himself, and blew out a breath. The wind stole the end of it. He spoke slower, like he was forcing himself to hold still. “I keep thinking I should’ve… I should’ve done something different. Faster. Stronger. If I had—”

“Don’t,” Zoro cut in, sharp enough to slice the thought before it could take root. “Don’t finish that.”

Luffy didn’t flinch. His hand left Zoro’s sash and curled into his own knee. “But it’s true.”

“No,” Zoro said, steady, because he had to be. “It isn’t.”

Luffy’s mouth tugged down. “You stood up when you shouldn’t have. Again.” He said it without accusation. That made it worse. “And I didn’t stop you.”

Zoro stared at the line where the sky met sea. “Wasn’t your job to stop me.”

“I’m the captain.”

“Exactly,” Zoro said. He turned his head enough to catch the edge of Luffy’s profile. “So it was my job to make sure you could stand.” He didn’t dress it up. He never did. He let the words be blunt and sit heavy between them. “I chose it.”

Luffy was quiet for a long breath. Two. He didn’t argue with the choice. He never had. But guilt didn’t care about logic. Zoro could hear it in the way Luffy’s next words scraped a little. “I hate that it hurt you.”

Zoro’s hand lifted on instinct and then he caught himself. He let it fall to his side and flexed his fingers, pushing away the urge to cup the back of Luffy’s neck and force that furrow from his brow. “It’s done,” he said. “And I’m here.”

“I know.” Luffy’s voice thinned. It wasn’t the strain of battle or the wide-open grief Zoro had seen cut him down to bone. This was smaller. Meaner. The kind that ate quietly. “But I keep seeing it. That light. Your blood. When I close my eyes it feels like it’s still happening and I’m just standing there, being too slow. Being—” He made a frustrated noise. “Being me, I guess.”

Zoro took a breath and let it out slow. “You saved everyone,” he said, because sometimes Luffy needed reminding of the obvious. “You saved me.”

Luffy didn’t look convinced. “After.”

“During,” Zoro corrected. “We were in it together. That’s how we do this.”

Silence pressed again, full and restless. Zoro adjusted the swords at his hip, feeling their familiar weight. The scar at his side pulled when he turned, and he let it, welcoming the dull sting. Proof he was still here. Proof that it had been worth it.

“You’re not allowed to take all of it,” Luffy said suddenly, his voice low but firm. He turned, just enough that Zoro could see his eyes beneath the brim. They were dark and clear and aching in a way Zoro wasn’t used to seeing aimed at him. “Not again. Not like that.”

Zoro held that gaze and didn’t look away. “You don’t get to decide that for me.”

“I’m not trying to decide,” Luffy said quickly, and then his mouth twisted. “Okay, maybe I am. A little. I’m the captain.” He sighed and deflated a fraction, honesty pulling the fight out. “I don’t like feeling like I can’t protect you.”

There it was. The thing Luffy never said aloud because he acted it instead. It landed with more weight than any apology.

Zoro let his voice go softer. “You do.”

Luffy blinked. “I do?”

“You always have,” Zoro said. He didn’t elaborate. He didn’t list the times Luffy’s stubborn light had hauled him out of places you couldn’t cut your way through. He just let Luffy have the plain truth. “You being you is what keeps me upright.”

Luffy’s throat moved as he swallowed. He looked away, back toward the line where the water thinned into sky. “Feels like it’s not enough,” he admitted. “Not when I think about what I’m supposed to be. What I promised. I said I’d be the Pirate King. I said I’d keep everyone safe. If you get hurt because I’m not—”

“Stop,” Zoro said, quiet but with the same edge as before. He stepped closer, close enough that his shoulder pressed solidly into Luffy’s again. It wasn’t a push. It was a brace. “You carry what’s yours. I’ll carry mine. That’s how we move.”

Luffy’s hand found his sash again, intentional this time. His fingers curled in the fabric and held there. He was shaking, barely. Most people wouldn’t have noticed. Zoro did. “Okay,” Luffy said, though the small word dragged like it had weight. “Okay.”

They stood like that until the first stars pressed through the blue. The ship hummed, steady and alive. Below, the crew’s noise rose and fell, safe and ordinary. Zoro breathed with it, matching his rhythm to the Sunny and to the warm point where Luffy’s arm leaned into his.

After a while, Luffy spoke again, almost too quiet to catch. “If it starts hurting more, you tell Chopper. Don’t hide it.”

Zoro snorted, and let a hint of humor loosen the tightness in his chest. “I don’t hide things.”

“You’re terrible at it,” Luffy conceded, and the corner of his mouth lifted. The small smile faded quick but didn’t disappear. “Tell him anyway.”

“Fine,” Zoro said. He bumped his shoulder into Luffy’s, just slightly. “You eat when Sanji puts a bowl in front of you.”

Luffy made a face like that was the more unreasonable demand, then sighed. “Fine.”

They didn’t move right away. They didn’t need to. The wind cooled, the last smear of gold sank, and the quiet between them settled into something easier. Luffy’s grip on Zoro’s sash loosened but didn’t leave. When he finally stood and turned, hat drawn low, he paused and glanced back over his shoulder.

“You’re really okay?” he asked, one more time, because he needed to hear it in this light, on this breath.

Zoro looked at him, at the worry he couldn’t shake and the stubborn heart that made him ask again anyway. “Yeah,” he said, simple and true as he could make anything. “I am.”

Luffy nodded once. The guilt in his eyes didn’t vanish, but it eased, like a knot untying halfway. He reached up, set his hat firm on his head, and then he did something small and reckless; he pressed his knuckles lightly against Zoro’s side, just above the scar, like a touch could rewrite memory. Zoro didn’t flinch. Luffy’s hand dropped. “Good,” he said, and the word carried a promise Zoro felt down to bone.

Sanji yelled that the stew would get cold and that idiots who ignored dinner would regret it. Luffy’s stomach finally answered with a faint, reluctant growl. Zoro arched a brow. Luffy rolled his eyes, and the normalcy of it tangled with the new weight in a way that felt right.

“Come on,” Zoro said, stepping back and offering the space for Luffy to jump down first.

Luffy hopped off the lion’s head and landed light, then glanced up. “You’re coming?”

Zoro grunted. “Yeah.”

Luffy’s smile sharpened into something quick and bright. He didn’t say thank you. He didn’t need to. Zoro followed him, the ache in his side just another measure of the distance they’d crossed and would keep crossing, together.