Chapter 16: Setting Sail

  The week passed faster than either of them expected.

  Every morning, before the sun fully cleared the horizon, Luffy and Zoro met at the edge of the forest and ran until their lungs burned. Every afternoon, they sparred until they couldn't stand, wooden swords and rubber fists crashing against each other in the dappled light beneath the trees. Every evening, Luffy disappeared into town for three hours, emerging from the small bookstore with armloads of texts on navigation, weather patterns, current charts, and anything else that might keep them alive in the Grand Line.

  And every night, he disappeared into the restaurant and didn't come back until dawn.

  Zoro stopped asking after the second night. The answer was always the same, and the grin on Luffy's face was always insufferable.

  The training showed results.

  Zoro's body remembered what weeks of starvation had tried to forget. His muscles rebuilt themselves day by day, his wind returned, his swords moved faster than they had in months. By the fifth day, he felt stronger than before Morgan's base. By the seventh, he was ready for anything.

  Luffy's progress was harder to measure, but Zoro noticed things.

  The way Luffy sometimes seemed to know where an attack was coming from before it started. The way his skin would darken slightly during their hardest sparring sessions, deflecting blows that should have nded. The way he moved now, less reckless, more controlled, like the rubber body was finally listening to commands instead of just reacting.

  "What is that?" Zoro asked on the sixth day, after Luffy had dodged a strike that should have taken his head off.

  Luffy grinned. "Haki. Observation and Armament. You'll learn it too, eventually. Everyone in the New World uses it."

  Zoro filed that away. New World. Haki. More things to learn, more mountains to climb.

  Good.

  The seventh morning arrived with clear skies and a light wind blowing out to sea. Luffy stood at the bow of the small boat they'd commandeered, straw hat on his head, watching the town wake up behind them. Zoro sat in the center, three swords at his hip, going through a final check of their supplies.

  "Ready?" Luffy asked.

  "Born ready."

  They untied the ropes and pushed off, the boat drifting away from the dock. The sail caught the wind, and they began to move, slow at first, then faster, leaving Shells Town behind.

  Then a voice called out across the water.

  "LUFFY! ZORO!"

  Koby stood at the end of the dock, uniform crisp and new, arm raised in salute. His shoulder had healed well enough, the bandages gone, repced by the proud stance of someone who'd found his pce.

  Luffy raised a hand in return.

  Then more figures appeared behind Koby. Marines. Dozens of them, lining the dock, standing at attention. Their hands came up in unison, saluting the small boat and the two pirates aboard it.

  Luffy blinked.

  Even Zoro looked surprised.

  The sergeant from the restaurant stood at the front, his face as stern as ever, but something different in his eyes. Respect, maybe. Gratitude. The kind of look men give other men who've done what they couldn't.

  Luffy ughed and waved harder.

  Then Ririka stepped through the crowd.

  She walked to the edge of the dock, her dress blowing in the morning wind, hair loose around her shoulders. Behind her, Rika clutched her mother's hand, eyes wet but smiling.

  Luffy's ughter faded into something softer.

  Their boat drifted closer to the dock, close enough to see the details of her face. The lines around her eyes. The slight trembling of her lips. The way she looked at him like she was memorizing every detail.

  "Come here," she said.

  Luffy stretched his arm, caught the edge of the dock, and pulled himself close enough to stand before her. For a moment they just looked at each other, the morning light making everything golden.

  Then she grabbed his face and kissed him.

  Not gentle. Not restrained. A sloppy, desperate, full-mouthed kiss that went on long enough for several Marines to look away and Zoro to develop a sudden interest in the condition of the boat's rigging. Her hands gripped his hair. His hands found her waist. The world reduced to the press of lips and the warmth of her against him.

  When they finally broke apart, both breathing hard, her eyes were wet.

  "Thank you," she whispered. "For everything."

  Luffy touched her face gently. "Thank you."

  "Will I ever see you again?"

  "Maybe. The world's big, but it's also small. Pirates get around."

  She ughed, wet and broken. "That's not an answer."

  "It's the only one I've got."

  She nodded, accepting it. Understanding that this was all it could be. A week. A gift. A memory to carry when the nights got cold and the restaurant felt too empty.

  Rika tugged at her mother's dress. "Can I say goodbye too?"

  Luffy crouched down to her level. The cut on her forehead had healed to a thin pink line, barely visible now.

  "Be good for your mom," he said.

  "I will."

  "And listen to her. After surviving what I did to her, she's the toughest person in this town."

  Rika nodded seriously. Then she threw her arms around his neck and hugged him tight. Luffy hugged her back, careful not to squeeze too hard with rubber strength.

  When he stood up again, Ririka was watching him with an expression he couldn't quite read.

  "You're a good man, Monkey D. Luffy," she said quietly. "Even if you are a pirate. Even if you are crazy."

  Luffy grinned. "I know."

  He stretched back to the boat and nded lightly beside Zoro.

  Koby stepped forward on the dock, hand still raised in salute. "Luffy! We'll meet again! And next time, I'll be stronger! Strong enough to capture you myself!"

  Luffy ughed. "Looking forward to it, Koby! Get stronger! Get faster! Get smarter! Become the Marine you're supposed to be!"

  Koby's eyes glistened, but he didn't wipe them. He held the salute.

  "I WILL!"

  The boat drifted further from the dock, carried by wind and current toward the open sea. The figures on shore grew smaller, the details fading, but no one moved. Marines, woman, child, all of them watching until the boat was just a speck on the horizon.

  Zoro finally broke the silence.

  "So. Where are we going?"

  Luffy stretched his arms above his head and pointed vaguely east. "There's a town nearby. Orange Town. We'll stop there, get supplies, maybe find another crewmate."

  "Orange Town." Zoro tested the name. "You know anything about it?"

  "Enough."

  Zoro let that sit for a moment. Then another question came, unbidden.

  "You sure you should've left her behind? The restaurant woman."

  Luffy gnced at him. "What do you mean?"

  "I mean... you spent every night with her. For a week. That's not nothing."

  Luffy shrugged. "It was casual. She knew that. I knew that. We both got what we needed."

  Zoro frowned. "Casual."

  "Yeah. You know. Fun. No strings."

  Zoro said nothing.

  Luffy looked at him sideways, a slow grin spreading across his face. "Wait. Have you ever been with a woman?"

  Zoro's face went completely still.

  "Like... ever?" Luffy continued, merciless. "In your whole life? You're like, what, nineteen? Twenty? And you've never…"

  "I don't see how that's any of your business."

  Luffy's grin exploded into full-blown ughter. Loud, uncontainable, head-back ughter that echoed across the water and probably reached the town they'd just left.

  "Oh my GOD," Luffy howled. "You haven't! You've NEVER! The great Roronoa Zoro, future world's greatest swordsman, and he's never…"

  "Shut up."

  "…never touched a woman, never been touched, never even…"

  "I said SHUT UP."

  Luffy was crying now, actually crying, tears streaming down his face as he doubled over. The boat rocked with his ughter.

  Zoro's face had gone red. Not embarrassment red. Murder red.

  "Tell you what," Luffy gasped, wiping his eyes. "What if I find one for you? Next town. I'll scope out the dies, find someone nice, set you up. You'll thank me."

  "I don't need you to find me a woman."

  "Clearly you do, since you haven't found one yourself."

  "I can find my own woman!"

  "When? When are you gonna do that? You're a pirate now. We're gonna be fighting and sailing and almost dying all the time. When exactly does 'find a woman' fit into that schedule?"

  Zoro's jaw worked, but no words came out.

  Luffy colpsed into ughter again.

  "AND ANOTHER THING," Zoro snapped, pointing a finger at him. "Never touch my women. They're off limits. I don't need you anywhere near them."

  Luffy looked up, still ughing. "Your women? What women? You don't have any women!"

  "I will have women! Plenty of women! And you stay away from them!"

  "Deal." Luffy raised one hand like a pledge, still cackling. "I won't touch your imaginary women. Promise."

  "THEY'RE NOT IMAGINARY, THEY'RE JUST…" Zoro stopped, realized he'd walked into a trap, and smmed his mouth shut.

  Luffy lost it completely. He rolled onto his back in the boat, legs kicking, ughter echoing off the empty sea.

  Zoro stared at the horizon, arms crossed, face set in what he hoped was a dignified scowl. It was undercut slightly by the deep red still coloring his cheeks.

  "I hate you," he muttered.

  "No you don't."

  "I really, really do."

  Luffy sat up, still grinning, wiping the st tears from his eyes. "It's okay, Zoro. Your secret's safe with me. The world's greatest swordsman, virgin for life."

  "I'm not gonna be a virgin for life!"

  "We'll see."

  "WE WILL. I'LL FIND PLENTY OF WOMEN. WATCH ME."

  Luffy nodded solemnly, face struggling to stay straight. "I believe you. I totally believe you."

  The silence sted about three seconds before he burst out ughing again.

  Zoro turned away, determined to ignore him.

  The boat sailed on, carrying them toward Orange Town, toward adventure, toward whatever came next. Behind them, Shells Town had vanished over the horizon. Ahead, the Grand Line waited, full of monsters and mysteries and women that Zoro would definitely, absolutely, one hundred percent find on his own.

  Probably.

  Eventually.

  Luffy's ughter faded to occasional giggles, then to quiet chuckles, then to the comfortable silence of two men who'd already learned they could say anything to each other.

  After a long while, Zoro spoke without turning around.

  "Kuina."

  Luffy looked at him.

  "That was her name. The woman in my past. The one I made my promise to."

  Luffy waited.

  "We were kids. Younger than you. Trained together. Loved each other, I think. In that way kids do when they don't know what love really means yet." Zoro's voice was quiet, steady. "She died. Fell down stairs. Stupid accident. Took her dream with her. Her sword is Wado Ichimonji. The white one."

  Luffy looked at the sword at Zoro's hip.

  "I carry her with me," Zoro continued. "Every fight. Every victory. Every time I almost die and get back up. She's there."

  "That's why you haven't been with anyone else."

  Zoro didn't answer.

  Luffy nodded slowly. "Makes sense."

  "You think I'm pathetic."

  "I think you're loyal. There's a difference."

  Zoro gnced back at him, surprised by the ck of mockery.

  Luffy met his eyes. "When you're ready, you'll know. And when it happens, it'll mean something. Not like my thing with Ririka. That was just... scratching an itch. Mutual scratching. But what you had? That's different. That's worth holding onto."

  Zoro looked at him for a long moment.

  Then he turned back to the horizon.

  "You're weird," he said.

  "I know."

  "But you're not stupid."

  "Debatable."

  Zoro almost smiled. Almost.

  The boat sailed on, and the future waited, and somewhere in the back of his mind, Kuina's voice whispered that maybe, just maybe, he'd chosen the right captain after all.