Chapter Text
Zoro walked through the street, looking for the blond as it was getting darker, there was no sign of the blond getting inside the calm belt, but there was no other way around for him to go.
“Shit…”
He opened the big door and got inside.
It was quieter than before, there was no people around and no lights, Zoro pressed a button on his watch and a light appeared. As he walked through that path, he found the house where he stopped the blond from entering, noticing the lights were on and the door had a green light next to it.
“Ah, the door’s been opened”
He ran to that door and looked at the numbers on it.
“Aren’t those the numbers he had on his arm?”
He looked through the window next to the door and noticed it was all clean, but there was no sign of the blond.
“Huh? Maybe he’s not here…”
Zoro walked away from there and looked back to the house, noticing there was a light turned on at one of the rooms. If the blond was there, then that meant it was his house and that there was stuff from his past.
“Shit…” He scratched his head and walked away, out of the calm belt; he got on his motorcycle and drove back to the party.
As the blond kept looking to the photos, he wondered why Zoro looked so different, why his voice sounded different.
He looked around and found some pens on a desk near another window, he sat on the chair in front of it and started to scribble things on the photos; marking all the differences between the Zoro on those photos and the Zoro he found at the lab.
He took his phone again and looked through the photos.
There were just pictures of him at different cooking contests, at the kitchen and photos of him and a pink haired woman.
“Huh?”
She had curly eyebrows, just as him and she looked young and beautiful.
“Ah! Reiju!”
That woman on the photos was his sister; after his biological father never treated him like Reiju or his brothers, he ran away as a kid and met his old man. The old man adopted him but never wanted to change his last name, saying that it wasn’t going to erase where he was from, that he had to show respect to his own blood even if he didn’t want to.
He met his sister years later and they started to hang out.
There were no photos of him and another friend.
“Damn… I wonder what happened to her…”
He kept scrolling through the pictures and found a video of the black haired Zoro standing next to him and smiling after a contest.
“Hmm?”
As he saw the other man smile and move, he noticed he didn’t look at all like the Zoro that was living with him.
“Shit…”
As he rested his head on his arms, he remembered that Zoro was two years older than him.
“If only I knew my real age…”
Nami was sitting on the stairs as Boa was sitting alone at the bar, looking at the guests trying to start the party again. Robin was interrogating the men that stayed with them and Franky was out with the police.
“This event brought back some memories, right?” Law asked as he sat next to Nami.
“I guess… What I still can’t understand is why did they try to attack her”
“She’s working in the government and Vivi will do the same once her father dies, even if both defend people’s rights and try to get them everything after the war crisis, it’s normal that there are still some groups that don’t accept their ideals”
“Huh?”
“She is against human experimentation since she appeared, she supports most of the government’s decisions just because she wants to keep her district in peace, but at the same time, she tries to stop the company that started this whole thing years ago.” Law crossed his arms and looked up to the ceiling. “If you think about it, the company not only experiments on humans to create biological weapons or mechanical weapons like the ones your friend Franky makes, the ones that are like your arm or Kidd’s arm, they also help the government and different companies, such as pharmaceutical ones or even the ones that fabric all of our food… Also, the army and most of the banks in the continent, so the government can’t stop them that easily”
“But everyone knows about the cruelty behind their success!”
“Even the government, but think about it this way: If the company helps other organizations, then that means they produce more jobs, if the company stops working, then a crisis will fall again and people will lose their jobs. That’s why guys like them are against Boa”
“And what about Vivi?!”
“One of those guys must be a professional hacker or they must be working in the underground… They must’ve hacked into Vivi’s codename, the one she uses to send us information about the devil fruits around the city or the Human trafficking cases at the outsides… If I can give a suggestion, she might need to stop for a couple of months, just until they don’t find her codename around anymore”
“But how did they know it was her? All the systems around her house are protected, she even uses those earrings of her and the invisible patches on her face to make the cameras fail at taking shots of her or even identify her”
“There must be an expert behind all this… Why don’t you call Luffy’s older brothers?”
“Ace is out of the country and Sabo is on the underground with Luffy’s father”
“I see…”
“If you’re talking about Sabo, I can call him” Robin said as she sat on the stairs with them. “It’s easy to contact him”
“Hah?! When did you get here?”
“Some minutes ago, you both were immersed on your talk”
“How do you know how to contact with him?”
“Ah, well… One time I tried to get some books for my people, the books were coming from the banned countries, so I infiltrated in the underground and found Sabo there”
“Robin, you’re so amazing!” Nami said as she looked at her with her eyes wide open.
Zoro walked through the door and Nami turned around to look at him.
“Ah, Zoro, You’re back!” Robin said as she looked at him.
“Is the blond here?”
“Huh?”
“We stopped at the bridge in front of the calm belt, once I finished talking to the police, he disappeared… I thought he walked back here”
Law looked at him and his face changed, he covered his expression with his hand and acted like he had a headache, walking away from there and sitting next to Hancock, starting a conversation with her and trying not to look at the group he left at the stairs.
“Well, no…”
“If you were near the calm belt and you think he’s coming here, he’ll take a long time…”
“Tch! Where’s Usopp?”
“He’s upstairs with Luffy and Kidd”
“Did you know, Luffy?” Usopp said as he pointed at the screen in front of him with a fake gun.
“What?”
“Kureha knows we are hiding the truth from Sanji”
“Ah, what did she say?” The young man asked as he was looking at Usopp play.
“She got mad and suddenly told me that Sanji used to be a pirate in the past”
Luffy suddenly stopped playing and looked at Usopp.
“Huh?! Really?!”
“She didn’t look happy or amazed, though… She looked worried and mad”
“Well, she’s always like that”
“She also gets furious every time she hears about Zoro’s grandfather”
“Yeah, that’s weird… Maybe she didn’t like him”
“I don’t really know… It’s weird, she gets along well with Zoro, just like all of us… But once she hears about his grandfather, she explodes!”
“What is important here, is that Sanji must get better for the time when we have to tell him the truth”
“So, that’s why he told us at the lab that he knew about Zoro?” Kidd asked as he was sitting on a couch, playing with a hologram on his hand.
“Yep, he remembers Zoro’s grandpa, but after we saw how he reacted to all the changes around him… Robin suggested that maybe Zoro had to act like him, since they look alike”
“That’s crazy! You should’ve told him since the beginning, idiots!”
“Well, there’s no turning back… I know he will understand once we tell him… I trust in him” Luffy said as he looked back to the screen.
“Hey, Usopp!” Zoro got inside the room and took the gun he had on his hands.
“What the fuck, Zoro?!”
“Can you find the idiot blond?!”
“What happened to him?” Luffy looked at Zoro and stood up.
“Once we finished dealing with those guys, the police interrogated me and he disappeared… I looked for him around the calm belt, but he wasn’t around”
“Well, we still don’t give him a chip or something… Let me look around the net”
As he pressed something on his arm, his eyes started to shine and there was information all around him, he looked at everything and stopped moving the information with his eyes when he found a name that caught his attention.
“There’s an old device connected to the old wi-fi service with the name SANJI VINSMOKE”
“It must be him”
“It’s an old device, it must be him…”
“Where did he get it and why is it under his name?” Usopp asked as Luffy made a face and Zoro’s eyes opened wide. “Ah! It’s an iPhone!”
“A what?!” Kidd asked, confused as he heard what Usopp said.
“It’s something that was used some years ago to communicate… like the stuff on our ears or out watches… But it was shaped in a big and uncomfortable rectangular thing… Instead of contact codes, they used cellphone numbers”
“Dude, that sounds really fucking old”
“Well, cellphones stopped being produced like… twenty years ago… So there’s still people using the old wi-fi service and the old lines as a hobby”
“So… What can we do?”
Usopp took out a small thing from his pocket and put it in his ear.
“I’ll call him”
As the blond was still looking at the photos inside the box, his cellphone rang and he noticed it was an unknown number.
“Hah?!”
He answered the call and his hand trembled in fear.
“W-Who is it?”
“Sanji?!” Usopp asked and the blond sighed in relief.
“Ah, Usopp…”
“Zoro told me you suddenly disappeared, where are you?! Do you need us to send you some help or something?!”
“Ah, no… I-I’m…. At my house”
“At your house?!”
“It’s a long story, I’ll tell you everything once I get back…”
“So, I guess we’ll see you later”
The blond looked around him and sighed.
“Maybe tomorrow, I don’t know... I still have some things that I need to get done”
“I see… Do you have money on or do you want me to send you some?”
The blond checked his pocket and found a paying chip.
“I-I… I have a paying chip inside my pocket”
“The only one who has them is Nami… I’ll ask her and call you again if there is money on it, if not, we can transfer some”
“I see… Thank you”
“If you need anything, call this number back, okay?”
“Yeah, thank you”
Sanji hung up and closed his eyes as he sighed loudly.
“Ah, I’m hungry…”
“So? Where is him?”
“He said he found his old house, that he’ll go back to our home tomorrow or once he finishes getting some things done”
“His old house? I thought he had nothing”
“Well, it was obvious he had something… That’s the company’s policy” Kidd said and smirked.
“So, they took care of his house…”
“Yeah, I’ll go ask Nami if she put that pay chip on his pocket, he must be hungry so he has to go out and buy some food”
Kidd stopped playing with the hologram on his hand and looked at Zoro.
“Oi, if he’s at his old house, that must mean there’s stuff from his past in there… right?”
“What do you mean?” Luffy asked.
“Well, the lab not only protects the property, they also protect the inside of the house and all the stuff that is inside it, there’s no risk of someone stealing a thing because they use cyborgs and Robots, as well as a super weird security system”
“Really?” Zoro asked as he sat next to Luffy.
“So that means that if there’s stuff in there…”
“I know that cellphones also had a camera back then, so it means that there must be photos of your grandpa in there”
“Huh?”
“Well, I guess there’s no problem, he looks just like you!” Luffy said and smiled at Zoro.
“He hasn’t looked at a photo of him, he just remembers my name, but he hasn’t remembered that man’s face… Even if we looked similar in that old photo I have, there must be some photos in that thing of him were our differences stand out pretty well”
“Well, do you remember something about him?” Kidd asked.
“I didn’t know him back when I was a kid, my family died when I was young; so, I don’t really know how he was or how was his voice…”
“If there’s a video of that man or an audio, anything that can prove Zoro’s hiding the truth, your blond friend will get mad”
“Shit…!”
Usopp ran downstairs and found Nami talking to Vivi.
“Nami, Vivi!”
“Ah, Usopp!”
“Hey, just a small question…”
“Huh? What is it?”
“Did you put a pay chip in Sanji’s pocket?”
“Ah, yes… I thought he didn’t have money on him, so I put one in there… I guess I forgot to tell him, why?”
“Does it have money in it?”
“Yeah, the necessary for the whole month”
“Oh, thank god…!” Usopp said in relief and Nami made a face.
“Why?”
“Well… I found out that he was connected to the old net using an old device, I called him and he said that he found his old house and that he has to get some things done, but he had no money on and he only found that chip in his pocket”
“So, he found his old house…”
“Yeah, I thought he didn’t have one”
“He just didn’t remember about it…”
“Well, at least he can buy food now”
“Huh, isn’t he coming back?”
“I already told you, he has to get some things done… He said he’ll stay there and that he’ll come back to us when he’s finished”
“Ah, I see… Then call him again and tell him it has enough money”
“Yeah, thanks Nami!”
“Don’t worry…”
Usopp walked away from them and got out of the place, he pressed the button again and called Sanji.
“What is it, Usopp?”
“Nami told me that she put that chip in your pocket, that it has enough money”
“Ah, thank you”
“You must be hungry, go buy some food, okay?”
“Y-Yeah, thank you”
“Do you need anything else?”
“W-Well… Have you told them my location? I suppose you know it”
“Yeah, I know where you are, but no, I haven’t said a thing”
“Please don’t tell them, I don’t want them to know”
“W-Why?!”
“I’ll tell you later”
“O-Okay”
“See you later, dude”
“Yeah, see you later”
The blond looked at the closet in front of him and opened it, there were some clothes in there and he smiled.
After a while, he just changed to a pair of black jeans and a blue hoodie, he went downstairs and as if his body worked by itself, he took out a pair of keys from a drawer at the entrance and got out of the house.
He walked out of the calm belt and ran through the street, he stopped when he looked at a street next to the bridge and nodded, looking for a convenience store or a supermarket; after a while, he found one and got inside.
As he walked through the place, he was surprised at how similar it was to the old supermarkets.
Some women were walking around, offering products and help to old people and the blond noticed they all looked the same.
“Huh? They must be robots…” He said to himself and kept walking as he looked for different ingredients.
After a while, he went to pay for his stuff and then returned to the calm belt. He got inside the house and then went to the kitchen.
After a while, he noticed the stuff in there was still working like normal and the fridge was still working perfectly.
“Ah, so I won’t waste food”
The blond smiled to himself and looked around as he found a pair of speakers and a device to connect his phone.
He put it in there and started to play music as he was cooking,
After some time, the blond served his meal on a plate and looked around the place for more albums.
“Ah, there they are!” He said and smiled as he took some of them from a bookshelf.
As he looked at the photos of the old man, he started to remember about his childhood and the time he spent with his sister, no memories of Zoro.
“Why can’t I remember about him?”
He looked at his phone and called Usopp.
“Hey, Usopp”
“Hmm? What is it?”
“Could you ask Kureha something?”
“Hah?!”
“Just ask her how old I am… well, more like… How was I when I disappeared”
“Uhh… Do you have a text function in that cellphone of yours?”
“Yeah”
“I’ll call her and ask that, just wait until I send you the message”
“Yeah, thank you”
Usopp looked around him and called Kureha.
“What do you want, nose guy?”
“Just one question… Sanji just found his old house and he wants to know about his age”
“Huh?! He found it?!”
“Y-Yeah…”
“Then there’s no need for me to tell you that, I’ll go there”
“Do you know where it is?”
“Well, yes! I’m his doctor, idiot!”
“Ah, sorry!”
“I guess he called you with his cellphone, right?”
“How do you know?”
“He’s an idiot when it comes to technology, he hasn’t asked for a watch or something, right?”
“Ah, yeah…”
“Well then, I’ll go there. Bye-bye nose guy”
“Hey, Chopper!” Kureha said as chopper was putting some medicines in a box.
“What is it, doctorine?”
“Let’s go to Sanji’s house”
“Sanji’s house?!”
“Yeah… just go and put a coat on”
“Y-Yes!”
When the blond finished eating, he started to look through his phone and suddenly Kureha’s name appeared on the screen, she was calling him.
“K-Kureha?”
“Ah, so it’s true… We’re out of your house, open the door”
“Hah?! W-We?”
The blond stood up and opened the door, he looked at Kureha who was looking at the outside of the house. Chopper was with her and Sanji opened his eyes like plates.
“C-Come inside!”
“Dude, the calm belt sure is scary!”
“It used to be a nice zone… When it wasn’t called the calm belt” Kureha said and took off her coat.
“Ah, let me help you with that”
Sanji took Chopper and Kureha’s coats and put them inside a closet at the entrance.
“So, why did you want to know your age?” Kureha asked and Chopper started to smell something delicious.
“Ah, it smells good!”
“I prepared something, want some?”
“Yes, please!” Chopper said and Kureha rolled her eyes.
“Please sit at the table”
Both Kureha and Chopper sat at the table and Sanji went to serve the food for them.
“This smell reminds me of the old times… Your cooking smells like Zeff’s”
“Thank you…”
“So, you cleaned the box at that table…” Kureha said and Sanji closed his eyes.
“Y-Yeah…”
“I put it there… after you disappeared, this guy took some years looking for you, one day he called me for a cold and the next day, it was all over”
“Thank you for taking care of him for all those years”
“There’s no need to thank me, I was just doing my job”
“And still you’re here telling me everything about this new world” Sanji said as he put the plates full of food in front of them.
“Woah, it looks so delicious!”
“Thank you, Chopper”
“It’s not that different, I already told you” Kureha said as she started to dig on her plate. “Now tell me why do you suddenly want to know your age”
“Well, I just remembered Zoro was two years older than me, so that means…”
“What?”
The blond sighed as he sat on his plate and looked down.
“I found some photos upstairs of him, the man on the photos doesn’t look the same as Zoro”
Chopper chocked on his food and Sanji looked at him, he stood up and went for a glass of water.
“That’s because this Zoro you know now, is his grandson”
Sanji stopped moving and Chopper looked at her with surprise.
“D-Doctorine!”
“To the hell with whatever that Monkey dumbass said, it’s unfair to hide something like that from him!”
“W-What do you mean?” Sanji said as his hand trembled, he gave the glass of water to Chopper and looked at Kureha.
“They tried to hide the truth from you because they thought it would make you feel even worse about the changes in the world… I don’t know who had this intelligent idea but that idiot Zoro agreed to do it”
“So that’s why… he looks like the man in the photos but not exactly as him…”
“He didn’t dye his hair, he has that syndrome we were talking about some time ago”
Chopper was listening to their conversation as he kept eating, he knew saying something unnecessary was going to create more confusion to the blond.
“Then what happened to the Zoro from the past?!”
“After you disappeared, he stopped going to the hospital where I was working, he also stopped going to Zeff’s restaurant and then… He got a wife and a family and well… their sons had Zoro, I guess”
“Is he still alive?”
“That’s impossible, he must be almost a hundred years”
“Hah?!”
“You are…” Kureha looked at the ceiling as she tried to calculate Sanji’s age. “You are 27”
“27? Wow… I thought I was younger”
“You look younger”
“H-How old is Zoro?!”
“He’s 26” Chopper said and Kureha nodded.
“Ah, there’s not a big difference in our ages”
“You’re just one year older than him, well… At least your body”
“I see…”
“H-Hey, Sanji…” Chopper suddenly said and Kureha looked at him. “Please don’t hate us for hiding the truth…”
The blond looked at him and sighed.
“Well, you did it to protect me from myself… I can’t hate on anyone”
Kureha nodded again and the blond looked at her, she looked at Sanji’s wrists and closed her eyes.
“I… really thought I was with the Zoro I knew back then… I had suspicions before, since I took a photo from an old photo album that Zoro had in his room”
“If you accept an advice… Just forget about that man from your past”
She said as she opened her eyes again and looked at Sanji’s wrists, then up to the red mark on his neck.
“What do you mean?”
“This time I’ll act like them and I’ll let you remember by yourself, there are things that I can’t tell you as if they are nothing… Those things will be pretty hurtful for you”
“I-I see…”
“I know you’ll remember them… Sooner or later, you’ll find the answer to all your questions”
The blond looked at Kureha and then smiled. After a while, both finished their foods and the young boy looked at Sanji.
“So, what are you going to do now that you know the truth?” Chopper asked.
“What do you mean?”
“You’ll still live with us, right?”
“Ah, well…”
“Even If today the calm belt is unusually stable and calm, it is mostly insecure” Kureha said as she looked at Saji’s hands, she then looked at her watch and pressed some photos.
“I feel bad that an old lady can use this kind of technology in a better way than me” Sanji rested his head on the table and Kureha made a face.
“This idiot…!”
“Well, it’s not that I want to live here alone, I’d isolate myself from the world…”
“You can come here anytime you feel tired of all the noises around that damn city”
“Well… it’s really weird. I didn’t see as much people as the other time around here, why is it?”
“It’s that time of the year when the labs get some people for their experiments, that’s why you can’t stay here for a long time, if somehow they find you around here, you’ll get captured again”
“Huh?”
“With those tattoos, they’ll notice you used to be at Punk Hazard”
“T-Then why did you bring Chopper?!”
“Ah, well… I was a temporary case…” The boy said and Kureha laughed.
“Hah?!”
“Let’s say that I only agreed on participating on their experiments for a short-time period. Once it was finished, I had to get out of there and never let out some information about them”
“What did they do to you?”
“Ah, yes… You never told me” Kureha looked at him with a mad expression.
“I was lucky” Chopper laughed. “These guys were just giving me food and sweets they were developing for the army, some of them gave me amazing strength or resistance”
“Huh?”
“I got to keep the recipes when we escaped” The young boy laughed as Kureha nodded.
“Then that’s good”
“One time I had so much adrenaline in my body that they hit me so hard but it didn’t even hurt… I guess that was the only horrible thing I had to go through during that time. It did hurt the next day, though”
“I thought they did something to your eyes…” The blond said and Chopper looked away from him.
“N-No! I was born like this… Even though this was the cause for my mother to abandon me…”
Kureha looked down as the young boy scratched his head.
“Let’s say that the ignorance of people around her, made them think that my case was the same as the green haired people or some other deformities”
“But that has been around ages before I was born” Sanji said and Chopper smiled.
“Yeah! But they didn’t understand that and my mother couldn’t stand their violence towards us…”
“I see…”
“Ah, well… If it wasn’t for them, I wouldn’t have met Doctorine and my father”
“Then it’s fine, I guess…” The blond said and looked at his cellphone. “So, you’ll stay here for the night?”
“Huh?”
“Well, look at the time, isn’t it dangerous out there?”
“If there’s no problem with us staying” Kureha suddenly said and the blond looked at her with a smile.
“No, it’s fine… You can stay in my old man’s room”
“Well, I’m going to sleep first”
“Hey, Chopper!” Sanji asked with a big smile. “Do you want some dessert?”
“Ah?! Really?!”
“Yeah, let’s bake something together” Sanji smiled at the young boy and Chopper returned it.
“So, Usopp… Where’s the blond?” Zoro asked as they entered their house along with the others.
“I can’t find his location… Technology those days was obsolete” Usopp lied, he tried to escape from Zoro’s interrogatory and walked fast to Luffy’s office.
“Shit…!”
Zoro went to his room and then took a book from the floor; he went to the balcony and started to read.
“Hey, Chopper” Sanji said as he poured flour and sugar on a recipient.
“What is it?”
Chopper was cutting some chocolate and putting it on a plate.
“Please don’t tell Zoro that I know the truth”
“Ah, don’t worry” Chopper laughed. “I don’t really want to cause more trouble, he’ll have to notice by himself”
Sanji looked at him with an amazed look.
“Oh, you’re pretty smart for your age!”
“S-Shut up! That doesn’t make me feel praised or s-something, bastard!”
“You’re still smiling, though”
“I told you to shut up, damn it!”
The next morning, both Kureha and Chopper returned to the house, leaving the blond alone in his house.
After a while, the blond prepared something for breakfast, he finished it and then went upstairs to clean Zeff’s room.
“Hmm?” He entered the room and found some papers on the bed. “Kureha must’ve left this”
He looked at them and started to read.
“I was right…”
It was a small article of suicide attempts, there were photos of people with the same scars as him on their wrists.
“If this is true, then what caused this?”
The blond sat on the bed as he started to read through the papers. He closed his name trying to remember something and then memories of him screaming and trying to cut his wrists with a piece of crystal appeared on his mind.
“W-What the…”
Kureha and Chopper were walking through the calm belt, looking around them.
“D-Doctorine… Why did you want to come here?”
“I just needed to know something…”
She got on her knees near the ruins of an abandoned church and found a pocket watch.
“What’s that?”
As she opened it, he noticed it was broken and it had stop working a long time ago.
“What is that?”
“Ah, this was a thing Sanji treasured the most…”
“R-Really?! Then let’s go give it to him!”
“Not now, Chopper!”
“What do you mean?!”
She stood up and walked towards a part of the calm belt that seemed so much darker.
“Chopper, cover your mouth and nose with your arm… And please take one of the candies you prepared last time”
“W-Why?”
“Just do it” She said as she took out a small gun with buttons that started to shine with blue lights as her watch reflected a hologram of it.
“Are we going there?”
“I just need a little example of the ground in there”
They started to walk to that zone as the young boy put one of his candies on his mouth and covered with his arm as Kureha told him to.
Kureha then pointed everywhere and inhaled the air in there.
“Eugh! What’s with that smell?!”
“Chemical weapons”
“W-What?! Then let’s get out of here!”
“Don’t worry… Our systems have been exposed for years to this stuff in the air… You are a lot younger, that’s why I told you to cover your face”
“Why did we come here?”
Kureha sighed loudly as she took out a tube and squatted, taking some rocks and dust to put them on the tube.
“Let’s just say that I had to come here once to save our blond friend”
“Hah?!”
“If you look around you, then you’ll notice how old these buildings are”
Chopper looked around and small things on his eyes started to shine.
“Ah, so they really did something to your eyes, damn liar!”
“I-It’s just… It was a micro-chip… It’s like the one Usopp has”
“Hmm?”
“I asked for it to get some information about the candies… they couldn’t say no to such an opportunity”
“Have they done something else to you?”
“No, it’s all they did to me”
“You, lucky bastard” She laughed and Chopper shrugged.
“But now that you say it… The air still contains some deadly chemicals, maybe that’s why there’s no people living in here”
“This part of the city used to be full of people”
“Really?! Then, what happened?”
“Once human rights were removed like nothing, the other guys thought sending their bombs and chemicals to a zone full of young people, big companies and hospitals was an excellent idea”
They continued to walk deeper into that zone and Chopper looked around, scanning every part of that place. Chopper smiled and blinked.
“Hey, Usopp!”
Chopper said from inside his head, using the chip to communicate with the other man.
“Ah, Chopper, it’s been long since you use that stuff!” Usopp said as he stood up from the couch at the living room and got out to the garden.
“I’m at the calm belt with Doctorine”
“Hah?! What are you doing there?!”
“It’s obvious, we came here to see Sanji, dumbass”
“Ah, I see… So?”
“Look at this!”
Chopper looked around him and Usopp could see the same things around himself.
“Dude, that’s creepy”
“I know, right?!”
“Usopp!” Luffy shouted and the other man blinked in surprise.
Chopper laughed and Kureha looked at him.
“What is it?”
“Huh? I just thought that this place would scare Usopp a lot”
“I see… Let’s just go back home, there’s nothing else to see around here” Kureha turned around and Chopper followed her; she looked back to a small building and sighed. She pressed a button on her watch and kept walking with a serious expression.
As the blond kept reading through the papers, a printer turned on by itself and started to print a page.
“W-What the…?”
The page fell to the floor and the blond took it, amazed at the title.
[CHEMICAL WEAPONS FALL ON THE CITY]
As another page printed, the blond could see the title.
[NO ONE CAN GET OUT OF THERE]
“What is this?”
The blond took the pages and looked at them with wide eyes.
“Ah, I remember something like this…”
A third page was printed and the blond opened his eyes like plates.
[KENDO CONTESTANTS REUNION AT THE CENTER OF THE CITY. June 5th, 2020]
The blond looked at that page on the floor and opened his eyes in surprise as he remembered that day, what he had been dreaming was true, he went to deliver food for an event and a man stared at him and smiled as the blond blushed.
That man was Zoro.
“Excuse me, are you from the service?” The black-haired man said as he walked towards the blond.
“Ah, no… I’m just delivering some food for this event”
“Ah, really? I thought you worked here with that uniform of yours”
“That’s what we use at the kitchen”
“I see… Where is that food from?”
“The Baratie” The blond said and smiled.
“Oh! I’ve heard about that place! I’ve never been there, though”
“You should go, I can say we’re the best restaurant when it comes to sea food”
He smiled and the blond blushed.
“I see, I guess I’ll go there soon” The man sighed and extended his hand. “By the way, I’m Zoro”
“S-Sanji…”
“Ah, it’s the first time I listen to that name”
“It’s not that common in this country”
“So, I guess you come from somewhere else”
“Yeah”
The other bunch of men called him and he turned around to them.
“Well, I guess I’ll see you soon…”
“Uh… Yeah…”
The woman from before walked towards the blond with a bottle of cold water on her hand and smiled at him.
“Sorry for making you wait”
“Ah, don’t worry”
“Well, then… Thank you for the food. We already made the deposit”
“Ah, O-Ok...”
The blond took the bottle and smiled at her.
“Call us if you need something else”
“Thank you”
After a second, the blond looked from the distance at the other man and then walked out of the place.
“Zoro…”
As Zoro walked out of his room, he noticed Chopper was trying to get inside Sanji’s room.
“Oi, what are you doing?”
“M-Me?! N-Nothing!” The boy said as he walked away from that door. Zoro looked around him and got inside Sanji’s room, trying to make as less noise as he could.
He closed the door and then walked around there, noticing there were some books in French next to the bed, he took one and tried to read the title.
“Hmm? Just normal novels…”
He sat on the bed and heard something fall.
“Ah, it must be nothing”
After a second, he kept looking around him and walked out of that room, he went downstairs and then to the kitchen for something to eat. He found Luffy and Law in there and smiled.
“Hey, Luffy… Law”
“Ah, Zoro! Have you heard something about Sanji?”
Zoro made a face and the young man looked at Law.
“Well, I already told you I can’t get information about his house, there was nothing like that on his expedient” Law said as he served more Coffee in his cup.
“W-Wait! Is there an expedient about him?”
“Yeah, but the information is encrypted, only someone with a chip can read it”
“Ugh…”
“Usopp has one”
“Yeah, but I’m still not sure if it’s safe for him, since he got that thing from somewhere else”
Luffy leaned on the table and rested his forehead on it, trying to think of a way to find the blond.
“Well, your friend said he was coming back after checking some stuff in there, right?”
“Yep” Luffy nodded and Zoro looked at them as he took an apple from the fridge.
“Then just wait for him…” Law shrugged as he looked at the man in front of him with a weird expression.
After a while, Law walked out of the kitchen and went to the exit, he was stopped by Chopper grabbing his arm with a smile on his face.
“What is it?”
“Hey, Law… Is it true that you have Sanji’s expedient?”
“Y-Yeah… But only a person with—“
“I have one, they put a micro-chip in my brain when I was in there, so I can read it. Could you… send it to me?”
Law looked at him with wide eyes.
“W-Why---“
“Doctorine said that some hurtful things happened to Sanji and I want to know what was it… Maybe it is in there”
“I’ll send the file to you later…”
“Thank you” The boy smiled as he walked away from here. Law turned around as he felt the look of someone else.
“Ah, sorry… I didn’t want to hear all that, it was an accident” Brook said as he walked away from him with his eyes wide open.
After looking around his room, the blond found an empty gym bag and decided to take some stuff with him, stuff like clothes, books, shoes and documents. He then went to the kitchen and opened the fridge, just to find some fruit he had left and a container with food from last night.
After a while, he took out the container and heated the food, he sat on the table and looked at the living room.
There was a TV in there. The blond stood up with the container on his hand and sat on the couch in front of the TV, he turned it on and smiled as he noticed that there was still signal.
He changed through the channels and found different commercials of guys selling new models of female cyborgs and ads of companies offering medicines and vaccines for low prices.
He changed the channel and his eyes opened in surprise as he looked at the news.
“The police are still investigating the inside of the Punk Hazard laboratory but we haven’t got the report of any dead person. There are still some workers of the lab at the bridge asking for an explanation, but not even the police have discovered the cause of this incident” A woman said and the blond turned off the TV.
“Shit…”
Sanji finished his food and put the container on the dishwasher. He looked around him and took the fruit he had left in the fridge.
He hen checked if he had everything with him and took his bag, as he looked at his house, he stared at a photo of him and his old man and then took it.
After a while, he walked out of his house and closed the door, sighing loudly. He decided to leave the box in the house to keep it safe.
After a second, the blond looked at the electronic lock on the door and it turned red, showing that the security was activated again.
The blond walked towards the exit of the calm belt and found a woman and a small kid walking through the ruins of a building. He stared at them and looked at the food in his other hand, after a second, he walked towards them and gave them the food without saying a thing.
The woman looked at him with wide eyes and smiled at the blond as he walked out of the calm belt. Once he was walking through the streets back home, his cellphone rang and he took it out of his pocket; it was Usopp.
“Ah, Sanji! I looked through the cameras at the calm belt, are you coming back?”
“Ah, yeah… It wasn’t good to stay longer”
“I see, well then, once you get here, please come to my room”
“Ah, yes”
He hung up and put the cellphone back in his pocket. As he looked at the big city around him, he sighed and continued to walk back to his new house.
The blond opened the door and found Zoro getting upstairs.
“Ah, eyebrows!” Zoro looked at him with surprise and the other man looked away from him, totally ignoring the green haired man. “Huh?”
The blond hurried and got upstairs, he opened the door to his room and sighed loudly as he threw his bag to the bed and closed the door; he locked it and then went to Usopp’s room, still ignoring Zoro.
“O-Oi, eyebrows!”
As the blond entered Usopp’s room, the other man smiled.
“Ah, Sanji! I called you because I wanted to give you this” Usopp said as he took out a small box.
“What is it?”
“Well… There’s a watch like mine inside, two communicating devices for your ears and some patches for your face”
“Patches? But I’m not hurt…” The blond said as he touched his face.
“Oh, no, no… Those patches are used to stop cameras from taking shots of you around, that way nobody knows about us”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, these patches stop security cameras from sending the signal with the picture of us to its destiny, instead the cameras send a blurred picture”
“I see…”
“If by any chance you go out, you’ll have to use this”
“W-Why?”
“Haven’t you seen the news?”
“Ah, the thing about Punk Hazard? I thought they already knew”
“That’s not all… The two guys you all confronted are still alive and they must be after you, since you’re an important experiment for them”
“I see…”
Usopp opened the box and took out the watch.
“Put this on”
The blond did as Usopp said and the other man extended his hand.
“Do you have the chip?”
“Ah, yes” The blond said as he took it out and put it on Usopp’s hand; the other man put it on a small space and smiled.
“This way it won’t get lost”
“I see…”
“Let me teach you how to communicate and use the holographic surface”
“P-Please…”
After a while in Usopp’s room, the blond got out and found Zoro sitting on the floor while reading a book.
“Oi, what are you doing there, idiot?” The blond looked at him. “Don’t you know chairs exist?”
“I wanted to read here” Zoro said as he kept looking at his book, totally ignoring the blond. After a second, the blond sat next to him and sighed.
“Oi, Zoro”
“Hmm?”
“How old are you?”
Zoro opened his eyes like plates as he closed his book.
“Twenty-six…” Zoro said as he nervously looked at the closed book.
“Ah... R-Really?”
“Yeah” Zoro nodded and the blond looked at him.
“That’s weird… Kureha told me I’m 27 and I remember you being two years older than me” The blond said and stood up. “Maybe I was wrong…”
“O-Oi”
The blond ignored him and got inside his room, closing the door slowly. He looked around and noticed the photo he took from Zoro was on the floor.
“What is this doing here?” He took it and looked at it with a serious expression. “Maybe it fell when I threw my bag inside…”
He took out the stuff from his bag and put the photo of him and Zeff on the sleeping table next to his bed. He then took the bag, still full of photo albums and documents and put it inside his closet, next to his clothes.
He then sat on his bed and sighed loudly.
“Stupid marimo!”