"It seems we are alive," Robin non-chalantly says. Her reaction makes me laugh. We had been at the edge of disappearing from existence just minutes ago.
The first rays of sun had slashed through those who still didn't have their shadows, but fortunately, Moria was defeated just in time. I hadn't faltered when half my body had burned to nothing, for some reason completely trusting Luffy could save us, and my faith was rewarded.
After Chopper assured us Luffy was okay, all was euphoria. People around us cheered and celebrated their recovered freedom as I melted Usopp, Nami and Robin in a hug. I could see that the rest of the straw hats were enjoying the post-fight excitement too. Except for Chopper, who was tending to a passed out Luffy, Franky was swaying his hips in a victory dance, Sanji was smoking in the corner, smiling, and I could see Zoro out of the corner of my eye, with a cocky grin and his arms crossed, a dreamy vision that I didn't allow myself to appreciate for long.
Little did I know that the festive climate had quite a brief lifespan.
An enormous man came out of nowhere, his presence stifling all happiness in our hearts and giving way to panic. I'd recognized him the second he appeared: Bartholomew Kuma, the Warlord of the Sea. He'd been spotted many times prowling my neighbourhood in Sabaody. Seeing him again caused a shiver to go through my body.
The man stated his business rather clearly; the world government ordered him to kill all witnesses on Thriller Bark, including the Straw Hat Pirates. Shocked cries and whimpers greeted his words, but the man didn't seem phased by that. He limited himself to stand in front of us, his glasses shielding any emotion, if there was any. Giving a glance to my surroundings, I cursed under my breath. His timing was perfect; right now, we were all injured and tired from fighting Oars and Moria, it was obvious we didn't stand a chance.
Anyway, I'd been ready to die the minute my friends were in danger, and only determination flowed through my veins when I pounced towards the giant with my karambits ready. It was meant to surprise him, but somehow, he dodged my attack and sent me flying to the opposite wall, all in one swift motion. I stood back up, gritting my teeth, I guess there is a reason why he is a warlord. While Franky shot at the man, I saw an opportunity to catch him off guard, but again, he somehow managed to evade both attacks and incapacitate us. Just before I could get back to my feet, spitting blood, I heard Kuma pronounce the name of one of his attacks, the Ursus Shock.
After that, all went black.
-------
Something tugs at my shoulder.
Just five minutes more, please...
It is only when an unknown force violently shakes me by the shoulders that I fully come to my senses. The answers to where I am and why come rushing to me as I swiftly sit up, taking the corpulent woman of shiny red lips by surprise.
Unlike last time, there are no sweet dreams with the swordman, just a twinge of uneasiness in my guts. I can hear the woman who has woken me up, now bend over in front of me, saying...something, but it's too difficult to focus on her words right now. It must be bad though, she looks alarmed. But, whatever, I feel as if someone banged my head against a wall. Which, now that I remember, it's somewhat accurate.
The woman keeps talking (something about pink paws?) and I just rub my temples and stand up, staggering a bit. I can't shake the feeling that something horrible has happened.
Looking around, it clicks. The scenery is desolating; there is more rubble on the ground than there was before I passed out, clear marks of a fight, but there are no signs of the warlord anywhere, and there are several bodies on the ground. I recognize Nami and Usopp figures not so far from me, and the blood in my veins freeze.
"Nami!" I scream, dashing to their sides, "Usopp!"
They don't move nor respond so, instinctively, I shook them like rag dolls, "Please, don't be dead. I can't remember how to do RCP."
Usopp's body seems to be covered in rubble, and Nami is lying on her side, her hair all dirty with dust. I know how the aftermarh of an explosion looks like when I see it. A memory flashes in front of my eyes; right, Kuma attacked us with some kind of blast. My chest begins pounding faster; they were closer to Kuma when it happened.
"Wake up, Usopp, Nami!" The increasing panic evident in my voice.
It was only when I stopped for a second that I realised their chests rising and falling. The loudest sigh escapes my lungs; I almost went into cardiac arrest, damn it.
With renewed calm, I try to wake them up. Usopp gets up eventually, but Nami seems too far gone. After a few tries, I'm already getting impatient.
"Why don't you kiss her?" I address the sniper.
Usopp turns to face me, completely baffled.
"It worked last time," I shrug.
"Wh-are you crazy?" I could've said that pink elephants are flying above us; his face twisted so fast into the very image of outrage I almost let out a giggle, "I'd probably owe her beries for the rest of my life!"
"Yeah, I can see that happening," I chuckle. "Then what?"
"I...got an idea," Usopp starts rummaging through his bag.
Throwing tea in her face indeed proved to be effective, to be fair, though the consequences were dire: the big nose and I share two fat lumps on our heads. My poor head.
Lola, the girl who was talking to me before, helped us wake the others, who were laying around the place. Everyone was okay, which was a relief, though there was a certain patch of green hair that still was missing. And with that, the bad feeling returned to claw itself on my chest.
Helping Franky up, I look around once more, "I can't see Zoro anywhere."
"He couldn't have gotten lost while unconscious, right?" Usopp jokes.
The reindeer seems to understand the source of my worry, "He was fighting Kuma when I passed out..."
Sanji's voice comes from somewhere deep in the rubble, startling us all: "Chopper, come quick, I've found the moss head!"
-------
As Chopper speeds through the examination, I stare at the battered body of the swordsman, now lying on a makeshift stretcher. He must have gone through a real ordeal to be like this. What happened to you? Even saying that it looks like a train ran over him would be an understatement. And yet, when Sanji found him, he was still conscious.
Sometimes I forget that he's not invincible. He's always training, pushing himself to the limit, never once I saw him throwing in the towel in a session, or complaining. And even though he always says it's to become the best swordsman in the world, he clearly puts his friends first, every time. Even if it kills him.
No one notices when I squeeze his hand, after helping Chopper sanitize and bandage his wounds. No one notices how I try hard not to shed tears when the doctor assures us that all is well. I didn't notice the weight I was carrying until Chopper gave the all clear.
A victory party started around the small stretcher at the hand of a refreshed Luffy not long after that. That boy must be built different; he doesn't seem to feel even a bit of pain despite all that I saw him suffer during the battle with Moria. It's kind of eerie, but at least he's returned to his bubbly happy self.
After a while, Zoro also gets up as if nothing had happened and starts drinking the usual, despite Chopper's warnings. It's like a giant weight lifted off my shoulders when I saw him swipe a bottle off the table.
With a difficult-to-hide smile on my face, I approach the swordsman, who is oblivious to my presence, too focused on sucking the life out of the bottle in his hands.
"Hey," I snatch it from his hands, "Chopper says you can't drink."
He grunts before he realizes who the thief is, but then a smile is plastered on his face, "Gimme."
I pull the bottle further from him, "How are you?"
"Never better," he graces me with his usual cocky grin. The idiot tries to grab the bottle, but he stops mid-action, clearly in pain.
I roll my eyes, "Yeah, right." Taking pity, I hand him back his precious bottle, "Try not to overdo it, it interferes with the medicine. And..."
It's impossible not to lean in a little too close and plant a kiss on his cheek, "I'm glad you're okay, Bosky." It doesn't have to mean anything, I tell myself.
I repeat that when I see his face kind of red, and he just huffs before chuckling softly. He was on the brink of death less than a day ago, and, as a friend, I'm just ecstatic to see him back to normal so quickly. That's it.
Joining in the drinking, I finally let myself enjoy the party. It seems his recovery will be fast, a half-truth half-wish I secretly cheer to. The first glass leads to the second, that to the third, and that to a heated conversation with the long-nosed dumbass, who was retelling the fight with Perona, but left out the part in which he fucking feigned dead and left me alone. In turn, that ended in a friendly match of slicing things in the air, and that to other glasses that I honestly lost count of.
As the early morning slumbers the drunks around me, I however have the motor skills necessary to approach the stone-slash-stretcher on which Zoro was already fast asleep. I had caught his eyes once or twice during the party, but I was too nervous to come see him. What if he wants to go back to that conversation from before? Though now I'm about to approach him anyway. The heaviness of the alcohol seems to be hard enough to suppress my inhibitions, but not to keep me from doing stupid things, a thought I have as I sit next to him, giggling at the contradiction.
Careful not to wake him or put pressure on his wounds, I plant a matching kiss to the one earlier on his other cheek and relax beside him. The position allows me to appreciate his face; the half-open mouth snoring softly, the forehead that usually seems to live in a state of tension now unfurled. At peace, that's how I would describe it. I don't know how many hours pass as I watch his chest slowly rise and fall, while I wonder what happened to him, though it's obvious that being Zoro, it's probably easier to meet a mermaid in the desert than to hear it from him.
A long sigh passes my lips. Whatever. He's fine, that's all that matters. We are all fine, we have our shadows, and Nami didn't get married to a weird invisible tiger-man. I stifle a giggle with my hands; it sounds so bizarre said like that. Clearly, too many wine glasses for me. I attempt to stand and go lie near the girls on a sofa, but the dizziness from the wine has other intentions, and the warmth from Zoro's body ends up sending me right to sleep.
------
He should have been surprised to find the blonde with her head lying on his chest, her arms enclosing him in a sloppy embrace. Yet, the position was pleasurable, almost natural to him. It didn't seem out of place; in his eyes, he belonged right there. Enjoying the calm, he stroked her hair. Hm, soft. Such close contact with other people would usually bother him, but this was just what he had missed for a long time.
Feeling her heart beating in rhythm with his put Zoro in an excellent mood, despite his injuries. He forced himself up, leaving his t-shirt to cover Iris from the morning chill, and went for a walk.
As he left the place where the party had been held, Zoro felt his whole body scream in pain as he stretched. As always, he stood firm through it, and kept walking. The swordsman was no stranger to physical pain, though he had to admit that he had never been in such a critical state before. Clearly, he needed to improve his physical fitness; he needed to be stronger.
As he strolled aimlessly, the swordsman thought back to the moments before Kuma left the island and cursed himself inwardly. Everyone would have understood if he died, they would have mourned him and followed their path. And Zoro would give his life to save his captain as many times as necessary, there is no doubt about that. However, he did not expect to see any hint of regret among his emotions at the time of his almost-death. When Kuma transferred that ball of suffering into his body, Zoro found himself thinking of only one person: Iris.
Zoro has no love for goodbyes, nor for apologies, but he had wished to see her once more when he thought that was his end. His feelings for her were no longer a mystery to the swordsman, but they were still too new and unused. With death steps away, Zoro found himself clinging to life, not only for his crew, and his ambitions, but also, and specifically, to have more time with Iris. If only to hear her sing one more time, even if it's awkward, even if it's complicated, even if there's a door in the way that won't let him see her fully, even if she doesn't know about all his affection yet.
Arriving, by sheer luck, at a cemetery, he remembered that unfinished business that snapped him out of his thoughts; one of his katanas deserved a dignified farewell.
-------
"Finally, we set sail!" I wave at Lola and the others who see us leave, even though we're already far away and I hardly see them. It's not that I don't want to keep celebrating, but that island gives me the creeps, warlords and zombies or not.
On the deck, everyone enjoys a large glass of beer in celebration of our newest member, Brook. Turns out the skeleton has a gift for music, which has Luffy over the moon. There wasn't a day that went by that he didn't complain about the lack of a musician on the ship.
As I was about to go help Sanji with the lunch preparations, one of the official seagulls passed by the mast. If it wasn't because it threw a package at my head, I might not have seen it, "Hey, watch out!"
The mail bird did a turn and for a moment I could swear it laughed at me. "Oh yeah? Let's see who laughs when we have chicken for dinner!"
Before I could actually throw anything, Nami appeared next to me, "Put the knife down!" she shouted behind me, freezing my movements on the spot.
"But it did it on purpose!" I whine.
"If I get a bill for endangering the mail birds," Nami's tone's scary, "I'll come straight from your pocket!"
"Guys" Luffy seems to have disregarded us and is already looking at the papers, "New bounties!"
Like magic words, everyone gathered around the captain. Even though the package had hurt like a folded newspaper, it seems that just a pile of yellowish pages that had fallen.
"They are all the same, though," Usopp raises a brow, analysing the numbers on the pictures.
"Weird," Nami took the bounties from Usopp, "Why would the government print them again if nothing changed?"
"Wait!" Luffy's holding one in a hand, "Iris, look!"
It takes me a minute to understand what the paper says, "My own bounty?!"
It looks like the picture was taken at some point during the fight against Oars, and whoever the photographer is has a very good eye. I almost didn't recognize myself; the totally wild look on my eyes, wielding both knives ready to pierce flesh, frizzled in the air. If a common citizen saw this, I wouldn't be surprised if they thought I was a bloodthirsty demon.
I was so focused on the picture that I didn't see what it reads below, until Chopper interjected, poking his head out from under the paper, standing on his tiptoes.
"Silver Lilim? What a strange name," he says.
"How cool, Iris!" Luffy interrupted from behind us, "Let's celebrate!"
Instantly, Luffy took off towards the kitchen, and even if I couldn't hear Sanji yelling, it's obvious he went to whine for food. We literally just came from an all-night feast, I sweat drop.
Turning my focus back to the paper in my hands, there was something not quite right about this, but I can't pinpoint it. However, it hits me when my eyes fell on the name, 'Saphir Iris' Saphir? The only one I had ever told that was my last name was...Eulogie? I chuckle to myself. Of course, it seems my dear mentor made it safely to government headquarters; I'm glad. I hope to see him at some point. I should thank him, better a fake last name than the original. It wouldn't be good if the wrong people find out I'm still alive, that is, for example, my old man.
Zoro's voice from over my shoulder startles me from my musings, "I think that's a cool name."
"Really?" I turn to look him in the eyes, smiling like child.
"Although the number..." he tks, "nothing compared to mine."
"Not fair," I feign a pout, "Give me a few months, you'll eat your words, bosky."
"Yeah? I doubt it, you are a bit of a weakling. I could lift you with a hand, injured and all."
"I think it's time to visit the crow's nest, then," I chuckle, "You coming?"
Zoro laughs with that rich timbre that makes my tummy feel funny, probably surprised I willingly offer to go with him for the first time in months. I head towards the ladder, smiling from ear to ear. Let's hope this is the beginning to normalcy. It's high time for me to cut the crap; life is short, and, even if we can't be anything more, I won't hold back from enjoying his company anymore.