chibi_trillian

For dancingjadedrag for her (slightly belated) birthday. I tried to get the porn mojo going, but it refused to work. Apologies. You get future!fic instead.

Title: Beauty Lies Within
Series: One Piece.
One Piece: Not mine.
Rating: PG-13 for violence.
Summary: Zoro/Sanji, future!fic. One last fight.


Raftel was colder than he had thought it would be.

Sanji was somewhere far away, the cherry glow of his searing-hot foot flickering through the mass of people—pirates, Marines, and revolutionaries, all of them trying to kill any recognizable Strawhats. Luffy’s destiny had proven to be a hurricane in an ocean full of thunderstorms, and his winds had spread across the whole world, drawing in a perfect storm of conflicting influences here at the end of the Grand Line. He was up there, somewhere, still alive and fighting, his dream within reach, Ace’s dare taken.

“Come to the top,” Ace had said, cocky and so damn sure of himself, sure he’d meet his brother there. Seeing what Blackbeard had left of Ace had killed the last faint vestiges of Zoro’s childhood belief in a merciful god.

Kitetsu’s curse roiled up his left arm, fire in his veins, making them pop and blacken, muscles rippling in that slightly alien way that said his arm wasn’t under his complete control. The cursed sword sought and found heart’s blood with every swing. Never had the blade dared to take such liberties, but it was emboldened by the feast of lives it had before it and Kokutou Yoru’s power still vibrating through it, left when the black blade had shattered against Kitetsu and Wadou’s combined attack.

Zoro wanted familiar hands to rub the violent spasms out of his left arm, to hold him through the shakes that followed one of Kitetsu’s more strenuous attempts to lead him to a bloody, dishonorable death. The poison the sword seeped into him was making its way to his heart, and only the warm presence of two other things had kept it at bay for this long. Zoro spoke of one of them, but not the other. After this, he might change that, might speak words of gold hair and pale skin to match gold tsuba and pale sheath, of the secret places and subtle scars his fingers had found on each.

The scarlet glow in the distance wheeled and spun, writing words of light in the air that Zoro couldn’t quite read. Sanji’s skin would be blistered tomorrow, weeping under heavy bandages. If they had tomorrow. If someone didn’t get under Zoro’s spasming left guard, didn’t discover that Sanji’s covered left eye was his weakness. This was why they fought next to each other, yin and yang, a circle of death by beating and blades, each covering for the other’s weakness. Zoro could not control Kitetsu’s swings fully, but he could keep them from finding Sanji’s heart no matter how much the sword might howl for a loved one’s life. Sanji was mostly blind in his left eye, the white-scarred legacy of an injury he refused to talk about, but if someone covered his flank he could fight unhindered.

This was the arrangement, this was the agreement, this was how things were supposed to go. Partnership tight like Johnny and Yosaku’s, reinforced in the same way in the dark of night. Zoro had silently coveted such a thing what felt like a dozen lifetimes ago, and when he’d finally gotten it he’d held on for all he was worth. Sanji’s blind spot had not gone undefended in over two years.

So how had they gotten separated? How had they all gotten separated? Usopp, Chopper, Robin…he couldn’t see any of them. He saw ball lightning that looked like Nami’s, and he heard explosions that were definitely Franky’s, but for the others all he had was a deep, instinctive feeling that he’d know if they were dead.

But he could see Sanji, and he thought Sanji could see him, and he slashed and hacked his way towards the ember-glow that seemed to be drawing attackers in a mothlike swarm. He didn’t care what Kitetsu did now as long as it moved him a step closer with each strike.

He watched Sanji’s firefly-light spin. Watched it whirl, struggling to cover Sanji’s blind spot constantly. Watched it kick high.

Watched it fall.

The howls of victory from the mass of fighters around the fallen chef were short-lived as Kitetsu made quick work of them, along with every other living thing in a fifty-foot radius. Zoro wasn’t in charge anymore—in that moment of despair, Kitetsu has set the final act of its curse in motion. When it ran of out fresh blood to taste, it would go after Zoro’s, burying itself in his guts and leaving him to bleed out slow and messy on the muddy ground—a suicide that would cause weakness to the Pirate King and to all he held dear.

The kick that broke his shoulder blade and collarbone and sent Kitetsu tumbling from his suddenly nerveless fingers was unexpected, but welcome.

Sanji’s cigarette was out, soaked with the blood oozing slow and thick from the corner of his mouth. He swayed, that single kick almost too much for his damaged body. Zoro’s left arm hung limp and useless at his side.

Sanji half-leaned, half-collapsed against him. His skin felt cold, and his lips were grey under the scarlet stains. The chef coughed, spat, and choked out, “Knew I should have stayed in All Blue. But no, you wanted to come here. Stupid asswipe. I hate you. So much. So…damn…much. You…you know that, right? How much I…”

A massive lightning strike lanced down from the boiling black clouds overhead, bigger than anything Nami had ever summoned before, and the thunder deafened them, drowning out whatever Sanji had had to say. The rain came immediately after, swirling grey sheets of pounding water, mixing with the blood in the soil to produce a thick coppery tang in the air. Zoro missed the clean scent of the sea, the smell of dreams not yet fulfilled. But all dreams had to end, and this one was drawing to a blood-washed close.

Sanji squirmed, flipped himself around, hooked one arm in Zoro’s broken one, gripping Zoro’s elbow tight in one long-fingered hand. Zoro felt the shift in weight as Sanji leaned on his support to get his burned, aching leg up into a fighting stance. The grinding pain that accompanied the shift told Zoro this was a bad idea. He ignored it.

Side by side, each facing a different direction, they waited in the rain for the end.