Chapter One

How It All Began

Before Time Skip

Roronoa Zoro’s Point of View

            I chugged down another mouthful of sake as my fellow crewmates ate their food boisterously as they usually did.

            Luffy was quaffing dozens upon dozens of meat, consuming literally the entire stock of meat the Merry could carry. Meanwhile, Nami was eating beside him politely—in a ladylike manner, while she attempted to map the previous island we landed at. With a book in one hand and a spoonful of Sanji’s soup on the other, Robin, multitasking, ate and studied to her heart’s content. Usopp was haunting Chopper with his tall tales, and I? I was neck and neck to Sanji, insulting my comrade’s cooking, saying it was crap. Insulted, his fiery spirit flamed, him spatting back at me insults and bickers.

             “Oi, oi,” Nami sighed. “Relax, you two. Too loud for me to map things to scale, and I bet Robin, though calm, is annoyed that you’re rumbling the sunny to the ground. Neh, Robin?”

            She chuckled, “Yes, Nami.”

            Sanji, being the womanizer he always was to begin with, became all floppy with hearts in replacement of his eyes, “Nami-swan! Robin-chwan! Gomen! It’s this marimo’s fault!”

            I stood up with a jolt, “Oi! It’s your fault, you shitty cook!”

            His eyes flared at the nickname, “What’d you say, you shitty swordsman?”

            I seethed words through my teeth before repeating, “It’s your fault, you shitty cook.”

            This time, before we could cut each other’s throats, Robin used her devil fruit powers to break us apart.

            “I think that’s enough of that,” she said audibly for us to hear before we could cause a ruckus and spark Nami’s anger.

            We stopped our fight, but Sanji punched my green haramaki, dropping an article of paper on the wooden floor of the Merry.

            I didn’t notice what fell, instead fixing the wrinkled in my clothing. Luffy, however, curious as always, extended his rubber arm to the piece of paper, picking it up inquisitively.

            “Hat’s disk?” Luffy asked through a mouth full of chewed meat.

            Nami snatched the paper from his hands before quickly chiding, slapping his back in the process, “Luffy! Don’t talk with your mouth full!”

            “Gomen, Nami . . .” he muffled, tears streaming down his face and onto the table.

            Nami scanned the paper, noticing that it was the backside before flipping to the forefront. Her eyes widened at the sight. Less than a second later, everyone aside from myself, had his or her faces squished together to see what surprised Nami so much.

            Before long, I noticed that something was missing in the folds of my haramaki. My eyes widened as I remembered that Luffy took a piece of paper off the floor just moments before.

            My head snapped at my crewmates’ direction, seeing their facial expressions to the slip of paper. I deadpanned, rubbing my forehead.

            “Wh-wha-whaaa!” Nami shouted, dark shades of black under her widened eyes.

            Sanji’s cigarette was on the floor, as his mouth was agape. Robin had an odd expression on her face as she stood over her fellow crewmates, an expression that of slight shock. Meanwhile, Usopp and Chopper stared at the slip of paper, mouths and eyes both wide. Luffy, on the other hand, was still eating, completely oblivious to the situation.

            Walking over to the lot of them in a flash, I snatched the slip of paper out of Nami’s grasp and placed it back in the folds of my haramaki before plodding out of the room with a slightly angered attitude.

Third Person’s Point of View

            “N-nani!” Nami continued to shout, still stunned.

            Robin, deep in thought, murmured, “Very interesting, in fact. Who would have thought the swordsman could even do such thing?”

            “Oi, oi, what happened?” Luffy asked once he swallowed his share of food and caught onto the situation.

            Sanji’s eyes flared, “No way is this happening!” He stomped his foot on the bench, “I will have his head for this!”

            Usopp and Chopper fainted, sprawled over the wooden floors in shock.

            Luffy’s eyes widened even further as he realized the situation must be a shocker if Zoro stomped out the kitchen and Usopp and Chopper fainted.

            “Oi, oi,” the captain stammered. “What’s wrong? Nami? Sanji? Robin?”

            No one answered his or her captain.

            “At least tell me what that slip of paper was?” Luffy stared at his three still ‘alive’ comrades, putting down his meat on his plate—a rare event.

            Robin was first to recover, immediately answering her captain, “The piece of paper was a photograph of Zoro and a young woman.”

            Luffy’s rubber mouth was now actually on the floor, his reaction, shocked, but not to the extent like everyone else in the room.

            “What’s wrong with that?” he asked a little more serious than usual.

            “Would you imagine a guy like Zoro having a girlfriend?!” Nami hollered, snagging Luffy’s ear, her teeth that of a shark’s.

            “Ow, ow,” the captain of the ship whined at the navigator’s actions. “No, but I don’t see anything wrong with it.”

            The navigator sighed before saying, “That didn’t look like they were siblings or anything of the sort either.”

            “Indeed,” Robin replied after taking a sip of her steamed herbal tea—the scent spreading out throughout the entire kitchen.

            An image of the black and white photograph flashed through Robin’s mind once again. Zoro was wearing a suit and tie, which was difficult to imagine. The young woman, wearing a somewhat black strapless gown, had her hand at Zoro’s chest. They were both smiling in the picture. Zoro seemed relaxed, which was quite rare, since the said man was always on edge. The woman had her mid-length hair neatly tucked in a half ponytail. She was not curvy, but thin, and her smile to any person was captivating. She was naturally beautiful, the only makeup that seemed to etch her face was the mascara, which seemed to make her eyes seem bolder for purposes of the photograph. Below the photo were a few sentences, but Robin couldn’t remember what they said.

            “She’s too pretty for that marimo,” Sanji muttered aloud for everyone to hear.

            Nami began recalling the photograph herself before saying, “The words at the bottom, though . . . I forgot what they said.”

            Robin sighed, “So did I?”

            Nami asked the cook standing beside her, “Sanji? Do you remember what the words said?”

            The said man snorted before blowing smoke out of his lungs, “Tch, I was too busy looking at the girl.”

            Nami slapped his back in frustration, “Player!”

            “Nami-swan!” he begged. “Don’t worry! I love you too!”

            Nami deadpanned before knocking the cook of the ship out for good.

            Luffy, who had been quiet the entire time, suddenly spoke out, “I think they’re sibli-“

            “Shut up! They’re definitely not!” Nami knocked her captain out as well.

            At this point in time, the only remaining people awake were Nami and Robin, who all, before long, left the kitchen for their dorm to rest and gossip about the matter at hand.

            Nami shook her head, resting in the netted hammock, “I still can’t believe it.”

            “Neither can I,” Robin replied to her friend.

            “But we need to get that picture back one day,” the orange-haired girl smirked at the ceiling. “Then we can read what the words on the paper were.”

            Robin smiled, “Indeed, we do.”

            With that being said, the two women bid each other goodnight before drifting to sleep.

End of Flashback

Roronoa Zoro’s Point of View

After Time Skip

            “Oi, oi!” I growled at Chopper. “Give me back my earring! I can’t wear only two rings on one ear!”

            “Usopp!” Chopper shouts his crewmate’s name before tossing my golden earring to the long-nosed man.

            The Pinocchio caught the gold piercing before bolting for the door back inside the Sunny.

            “Argh,” I mumbled incoherent words before hurtling for the door Usopp entered.

            This little game of chase happened once I woke up. Noticing that my one of my gold earrings was gone, I rushed for the kitchen as calmly as I could, asking my crewmates if they had seen it.

            Chopper, of course, looked on edge and jittery and bolted out the door, hinting that he was the one at fault, but the various smirks plastered on all my comrades told me otherwise. It seemed as if they all played their part in this little plan of theirs.

            I grumbled at the situation. This was not going as I thought it would. After half an hour of this bickering toss-and-tag, I thought that they’d stop this nonsense, but no. They didn’t. Why, they didn’t even tell me what they wanted from me.

            Once I saw that Usopp had passed my earring to Nami, I smirked, sprinting after her through the wooden hallways. No offense to our navigator, but she was just about the weakest link of the Straw Hat Crew. Just about.

            She made a sharp turn at the edge of the hallway much swifter than I had anticipated. I grunted in response to the situation before I realized the reason why Nami was suddenly faster than usual.

            I cursed under my breath, “Damn that Robin.”

            Though she wasn’t present in the hallway, hands were sprouted all over the hallway Nami turned upon. Some were boosting her speed by giving her some pushes along the way, while others were like vines preventing me from moving to my destination.

            I held in a breath. I had to formulate some sort of plan before it was all over.

            Snapping out of my thoughts, I noticed there was a slight hesitance in Robin’s arms.

            “Of course,” I thought. “She’s not my enemy, so she won’t hurt me.”

            Using the back of my sword, I ‘sliced’ my way through the hundreds of hands that hindered me from getting my earring back. All this for to get my earring. Though, it wasn’t long before I reached about ten meters near Nami. Upon noticing my presence, she increased her speed before slamming the door to the Sunny’s deck wide open. Upon exiting the inner sanction of the ship, the orange-haired navigator tossed the gold earring to the raven-haired captain—Luffy. He stretched his arm to the tip of the crow’s nest, laughing maniacally along the way.

            “Tch,” I spat before summoning all my strength to the soles of my feet, jumping up a third up to the crow’s nest before jumping two more times to actually reach the lookout slash training room.

            Once I entered the crow’s nest, I realized that Luffy wasn’t there. My eyes scanned the corners of the room once again before bolting out the nest.

            “He must have hidden up above the nest,” I mentally deduced.

            Looking up at the top of the nest to see whether or not my assumption was correct or not, I caught a glimpse of red flash by me back down to the grassy deck of the Sunny.

            I inhaled and exhaled a deep breath before continuing my chase. Luffy used the pointed pole that waved the pirate flag of our crew as a tool to increase his speed, zooming past me supposedly along with my gold earring.

            “Franky!” I heard Luffy yell as he tossed a glint of gold to the cyan-haired man.

            “Damn it,” I cursed under my breath as I had to run yet another run to retrieve my gold earring.

            Zipping past the various people on deck—Luffy, who was clutching his hat as he watched the events unfurling before him in glee, Robin, who tucked a stray strand of hair behind her ear with a smug smile, Nami, who observed everything happening with a glint of delight in her eyes, Usopp, his shooter staff in hand, laughed at the happening, and Chopper, sparkles in his eyes, viewed the events like a movie, I attempted to reach Franky, who was nearly a centimeter away from my grasp, but he used one of his mechanical madness to jump further away from me and then suddenly gone as if to thin air.

            I internally growled. This was becoming more of a nuisance than any fun my fellow crewmates had in mind. I tapped my feet against the floorboards for a moment as I thought of plan.

            My eyes widened in realization. The crow’s nest! I could use that as a lookout, thought it, in fact, was a lookout. In any case, I would use the metal pole that connected the pirate flag to the ship as a gazer, find Franky, and then finally jump from the crow’s nest to Franky and retrieve my earring back.

            I smiled at my ingenious plan. Jumping my way up to the crow’s nest, I managed to reach the metal pole, leaning against it as I found Franky who sat at the edge of the Sunny, right beside the lion mascot.

            Smirking I used the nest as a ledge before jumping down to Franky. However, my luck for the day ran out, slipping through the sieve.

            “Brook!” Franky tossed my precious earring to the skeleton, who seemed glad that it was finally his turn to play part in the ‘genius’ plan.

            I grunted as I grasped the last grain of luck before it slipped through the sieve. Still in midair, I switched directions from Franky to Brook before snatching the earring aimed for Brook while still in the air.

            “Aw, dang it!” I heard Nami shout. “Franky! Brook!”

            “Gomen,” Brook mumbled his apology in his little blue corner of shame.

            Franky shrugged in reply, a smile still plastered in his face, “Meh.”

            I smirked as I looked at the piece of gold in my hand. My eyes widened. True, it was gold, but it wasn’t my earring. Rather, it was a thin gold strip in shape of a small statuette.

            Angry, I threw the piece of gold at Nami, who caught the gold happily. Everyone was on deck and had played their part in the wild goose chase—the captain, the navigator, the archeologist, the mechanic, the sniper, the doctor, the musician . . .

            My head snapped in realization. That shitty cook.

            Bolting for the kitchen, I rammed the door open gasping for breath by the time I reached the end of my destination.

            “Number Seven, give me back my flipping earring now,” I glared at him, a glint of violent vehemence evident in my eyes.

            The blonde man continued to chop the French onions on the beige cutting board. His knife glinted against the sunlight stretching from the glass windows of the Thousand Sunny.

            “Oi, answer me!” I shouted, now striding over to where the cook was.

            The said man stopped cutting the onions, instead turning to face me.

            “You mean this?” Sanji asked, getting something out of his pocket, before revealing a dangling gold earring in his hand.

            Eyes now wide, I aimed to snatch the piece of gold out of his hand.

            “Damn you, Sanji,” I seethed through my teeth. “Give me back my freaking earring.”

            At this point in time, I was almost punching the blonde man, trying to retrieve my earring back.

            He dodged all my attacks, lighting his cigarette along the way, before asking, “Why do you need this so badly anyways?”

            Out of the blue, I halted my attacks aimed at the cook, reminiscing the meaning of my three earrings.

            Sanji seemed to notice my sudden waver in attitude, the waves that brushed off me were not that of violence like moments before, but rather that of thoughtful pondering.

            He blew out a breath full of smoke before tossing me my gold earring.

            I caught the embellishment with ease before I looked at him warily. No attacks, no insults . . . A bit too odd for comfort. I put back on the earring before anyone could snatch it away from me again.

            The cook turned his back to me, seemingly heading back to work for the crew’s breakfast, before saying, “The crew and I expect something in return for giving you back the earring.”

            He began stirring the stew in the pot adding his freshly chopped onions into the soup before test-tasting the dish.

            Through my sole open eye, I asked him cautiously, “And why should I? You took my earring, made me go on a wild goose chase, and finally after almost an eternity go and find you of all people for my actual earring in return. What, do tell me, do I owe you and the rest of the crew?”

            “Mind showing us that photograph in your haramaki?” the blonde cook answered me bluntly.

            I bit the inner of my mouth, chewing it, before replying, “It’s my personal business. Why should I?”

            The cook discarded his cigarette into the trash after dampening the burnt tip of the smoking device.

            “You know how Luffy and Nami can get,” the blonde man chuckled. “Once they’ve set their eyes on something, they don’t get their eyes off it.”

            “Tch,” I grunt. “How troublesome.”

            “Telling us over breakfast would be nice, but lunch or dinner might as well be fine too,” the cook said, adding a little salt and pepper to his stew.

            “You already saw it once,” I said brusquely. “Why the need to see it again?”

            Sanji sighed, “For one, Brook’s interested in seeing the girl in the photograph himself and probably squeal in delight for her panties. Franky’s interested because the rest of the crew is. Luffy is always curious, so that’s a given. Nami and Robin saw words etched at the bottom of the paper, but you snatched it away before they could read it. Evidently, they’re intrigued beyond repair. Usopp and Chopper fainted last time, so they want to see her face again. Say, who was she anyways?”

            I growled at him before heading for the door, “None of your business.”

            He smirked, “So you say. You seem quite protective of that photograph.”

            I grunt before opening the door and heading out.

            Sanji called out to me, saying, “By the way, Zoro, the earring I gave you isn’t your actual earring!”

            My head snapped as I struggled to take off the earring I had previously put back on. My eyes widened as I realized that the earring was a girl’s earring. It had the same figure my own earrings, but it was embellished with a carved name—Nami.

            I deadpanned, clutching the fake earring near to its ‘suffocation.’ Stomping angrily out of the kitchen, I passed by Nami, stuffing her gold earring back into her hand before returning to the crow’s nest to complete my daily training . . . and forget about the bickering so far that day.

~*~*~*~

Third Person’s Point of View

            Everyone looked as Zoro locked himself in the crow’s nest to both train and be on the lookout. No one understood why Zoro was so secretive about the black and white photograph. It was just a photograph, right?

            “You don’t think the girl in that photo . . . died, do you?” Usopp widened his eyes a the thought.

            Nami, stroking her chin with her fingers with one hand as the other arm rested under her chest, pondered before replying to Usopp’s remark, “Naw, I don’t think so. Though I must admit, it is a possibility, just not a likely one in my eyes.”

            Robin had her head stuffed in a book, reading away, as she listened and observe her surroundings. She began believing that it was possible that the girl in the photograph could be deceased, but there was no evidence saying that she wasn’t alive either.

            “Argh!” Nami shouted in frustration. “We need to find Zoro’s photograph containing all his secrets to his secret life! I mean, everyone knows each other’s backstory here, but the only person’s history we don’t know is Zoro’s. Yeah, we know he’s a swordsman and he gets lost easily, but that isn’t history! That’s his personality and daily struggles. That’s just defines Zoro, but how did he become a swordsman? Why did he become a swordsman? Argh! All these questions about the photograph too!”

            “That’s true,” Chopper muttered in agreement with Nami. “But, Zoro doesn’t have to tell us everything about him, right? Everyone has their secrets.”

            “Yeah, but mine was spilled,” Nami whined. “And we know at least something about Luffy. He has a brother Ace, his dad, Dragon, is a rebel, his grandfather’s a marine . . . But we don’t even know anything about Zoro.”

            “What about Saga?” Usopp asked, remembering the small adventure where Saga manipulated Zoro into helping him revive an ancient, evil sword.

            “Okay, yeah, he was a childhood friend, or, at least someone connected to him,” Nami waved that matter off. “But, we don’t even know who raised the flipping guy! For all we know, monsters could have raised him, which, by the way, does support the evidence that he showers only once a week. Ugh, he always smells!”

            “Wait,” Franky tarried. “I’ve never seen this photograph before, but from how you all are describing it, there’s just a few sentences at the bottom of the photo, right? I also remember Nami saying that the backside of the photograph was blank.”

            Nami answered his question, “Yeah, Robin, Sanji, and I were too busy looking at the photo and too shocked that Zoro took a picture with a girl and smiling in the process. Too much to comprehend, truth be told. Also, Sanji was too busy ogling the girl to even notice that there were words at the bottom of the paper, anyways.”

            “Breakfast’s ready, everybody!” Sanji yelled from the kitchen, as Luffy, Chopper, and Usopp immediately ditched their fellow crewmates for the kitchen, too hungry for words.

            Before long, the rest of the crew file into the kitchen, taking their respective seats around the dining table, taking into account of all the delicious dishes placed before them, as if waiting for them to devour.

            “Finally!” Luffy shouted in glee. “Some food!”

            Sanji’s eyes were shaded by his blonde bangs before he took his cigarette out of his mouth with his left hand, the last tray of food in his right hand, and he strew the smoke in his lungs out slowly.

            “Indeed, so,” the blonde man tarried the ‘so.’ “Captain.”

            “Yippee!” the said raven-haired boy shouted in glee, jumping up and down at the dining table.

            “Luffy!” Nami reprimanded, punching his back in discipline. “No jumping at the dining table! Show some manners!”

            Luffy turned his face to Nami, tears streaming down his face like a gentle waterfall, before pouting, “B-but, Nami . . .”

            The orange-haired girl was taken back by her captain’s actions, but quickly recovered, “No, you little baka! Do you know what no means?”

            The captain’s expression turned from that of sad to happy in a split second, “Yup! Aren’t you proud of me?”

            A twitch mark formed on the navigator’s forehead before she sighed, “Just eat . . .”

            With that being said, the entire crew dug into the food before their eyes.

            With his mouth full, Chopper asked everyone present in the kitchen, “M-hey, ngisn’t shumumdy trissing?”

            After she gulped down her food, Nami slammed her fists on the table, shark teeth now visible and glare evident that could pierce through your very flesh, “I go through all that trouble to pound some manners into Luffy, and then somebody else just has to talk with his mouth full.”

            Chopper immediately reclined back into his seat, pushing his thought back to the corner of his mind, “Um, never mind.”

            Nami sighed, feeling as if she, aside from Robin, were the most sensible ones on the Thousand Sunny, before sighing the words, “But, what were you going to say, Chopper . . .”

            “Where’s Zoro?” the reindeer asked innocently, a small, circular rice cake in hand.

            Three seconds of silence hung in the air before chaos erupted in the kitchen.

            “Yes! I’ll take his food!” Luffy shouted for everyone to hear.

            “I call the pork!” Franky hollered over everyone’s voices.

            “Oi, oi, then I call the eggs!” Usopp yelled, grabbing the eggs off the main dish.

            Nami simply slapped her face, dragging her palm down the edges of her face.

            “I give up,” she grumbled, taking her plate full of delicious foods outside to the deck of the Thousand Sunny.

            The navigator left the kitchen and headed for her respective room to continue mapping the island she and the crew were previously at just days before.

~*~*~*~

Roronoa Zoro’s Point of View

            Lift.

            Pull down.

            Lift.

            Pull down.

            This pattern continued on and on as I practiced my daily weight-training routine. My right palm slobbered the wooden boards of the crow’s nest with sweat as my left hand held a hundred-fifty pound weight and my feet holding a three hundred weight to scale.

            I grit my teeth as I realized the pain in my abdominal muscles constrict and contract in the most unbearable manner.

            “I need to work out more,” I clenched my teeth as the thought ran through my mind.

            At this point in time, it was sunset. The glorious rays of the sun scattered like broken glass through the window. The sky was clear, displaying the magnificent shades of gold, soft burgundy, and orange painted across the horizon. In other words, it was simply ravishing.

            I kept my mind on the breathtaking view to block out the agonizing cries of pains and aches that shook my body nearly to a crumble.

            However, instead, my mind raced to this morning, when I abandoned breakfast and lunch with my crewmates. Truth be told, I wasn’t in the mood for their irritating nags for the photograph in the folds of my haramaki. I had enough of that from two years earlier. I didn’t want anyone invading my private life. In the least, I didn’t want to reveal my personal life until I was ready. However, it seemed as if my captain and crew had a rope tangled around my neck, pressuring me to spill out my secrets to them before I was hung to death.

            I chuckled at the thought. Them? Hanging me?

            Tossing the weights in the air like feathers, I landed on my two feet, instead of pressing all my weight onto my right hand like moments before. I caught the weights with two of my hands, maintaining my balance, as the weights were of two different weights.

            I carefully placed the weights neatly back onto the shelves before shuffling my feet down to the men’s dormitory.

            “Tch,”I grunted as I reached my room. The door wouldn’t open.

            After constant tugging and pulling at the door, I shouted, “Who’s behind this crap?”

            I heard a familiar, nagging voice shout, “Zoro! Tell us the story of your life!”

            “Damn that Luffy,” I mentally snapped before letting go of the door and stomping out of the hallway. “Enough of this already.”

            Going out on the deck to enjoy the sunset view and to soothe my increasing anger, I writhed my way past my fellow crewmates who would probably try to sneak up on me to steal away my photograph.

            Once I reached my destination—the lawn of the Thousand Sunny, I leaned my three swords upon the white, wooden railing before collapsing down, resting my head against the rail and my body against the slim wooden boards, and before long, my eyes succumbed to the much needed nap.

~*~*~*~

Third Person’s Point of View

            In due time, sunset came to a pass and dusk overcame the golden rays with an eerie darkness, outstretching far and wise across the horizon. With stars scattered across the blanket of twilight like glitter, the skies were painted with, not only pitch-darkness, but also with deep, midnight navies and varying scales of gray.

            The green-haired swordsman, asleep against the white railing of the Thousand Sunny, opened his sole, usable eye, before surveying his surroundings. The deck was a blank, viridescent canvas, showing no signs of life whatsoever. The only flicker of movement shown was the motion in the kitchen, as the yells, shouts, and laughter of his crew was apparent.

            The man sighed, stomach growling continuously. He hadn’t eaten since supper last night, and, now, twenty-four hours later, he still couldn’t eat, for his teammates would nag and harass him until he told them his backstory and showed them his invaluable photograph.

            He rubbed the creases of his abs, his stomach still growling uncontrollably, before deciding that he would just take some food from the dinner table and leave.

            Once he reached the kitchen door, he treaded the entrance open before crossing the threshold.

            His crewmates were still noisy and loud, barely heeding him any notice as he crept over to his normal seat to grab a plate full of whatever food he wanted and needed—both nutritious and delectable-wise. Since he sat between Chopper and Robin, they didn’t pay much attention to him, as Chopper was too busy usurped in Usopp’s, for once, actual tales of adventure and Robin was, as usual, stuffing her head into a book, absorbing as much information as she could from the textbook.

            After he filled half his dish, the green-haired man reached to add some stew to his bowl before he noticed a shiny glint beside the pot of stew. His eyes widened as he realized it was his missing earring, stolen from his crewmates just that morning.

            As he reached to grab it, a slim hand abruptly snatched the piece away, just in the nick of time before the swordsman could reach it.

            Zoro growled in protest, attempting to snatch his earring back from the orange-haired navigator.

            “Tell us the story and show us the picture, Zoro,” she sing-songed. “And I’ll cut your debt by five percent, you get your earring back, and you can finally rest in peace.”

            Zoro deadpanned, “It’s my personal life, Nami.”

            She stuck her tongue at the irate man before her, “Not in my opinion. We know a little bit about everyone here in the least, but nothing about you. If you are to be on our team, we should at least know something about you, baka.”

            The green-haired man seemed to ponder about her offer and reason for knowing. He knew that it would never be the end of the conversation until he told them, in the least, something, since they still remembered the photograph after two years of separation.

            Also, the debt cut of five percent wasn’t half bad, but he still wanted his debt reduced by much more, so he bargained, “Cut my debt by fifty percent and give me back my earring and I’ll tell you.”

            Everyone’s eyes glittered, looking at Nami expectantly for her to agree to the man’s terms. Zoro was actually complying for once. Since when did such a miracle occur? Once in a million?

            Nami rubbed her temple, seeing as the stakes were too high, before finally settling, “Your debt will be cut by twenty-five percent instead of five, and you will get your earring back. How does that sound?”

            Zoro thought about the terms intensely before he would reply. This kind of deal from the money-hoarding Nami didn’t come very often. Twenty-five percent? That was a lot, especially in Nami’s terms.

            The swordsman sat down, arms crossed against his broad, hardened chest, before replying, “Alright. I agree with the terms.”

            An eruption of cheers was heard the moment the first mate accorded with Nami’s proposition. Luffy was jumping up and down in excitement, as he would very soon be hearing a new “adventurous” story from, not just anybody, but from his first mate—Zoro. Chopper and Usopp, interested in the story highly since they fainted the last time the event started, were looking at each other with sparkling eyes, not believing that the swordsman agreed to Nami’s terms. Brooke and Franky sat calmly in their places, smirks plastered across their faces, as, though they weren’t present when the photograph was first leaked, heard Nami’s rants about the subject millions of times to be both beyond bored and interested. Meanwhile, Sanji took his cigarette out of his mouth, his eyes shaded intensely by his golden bangs, still furious that Zoro took a picture with such a “beautiful woman” who was “way out of the marimo’s league.” Robin and Nami? Smug smiles smothered their faces, curiosity levels as high as ever.

            And Zoro? Though still quite enraged at his fellow crewmates for prying into his personal life, he slightly agreed that he should have revealed some of his past to his friends, whom he had fought with, protected, and lived with for the past myriad of years, though he’d never admit that to anybody.

            Nami tapped her foot on the varnished, wooden floorboards at a steady rhythm, “Zoro? The story?”

            “Ah, right,” the swordsman nodded his head after he swallowed part of his food. “It all started when I was about eight . . .”