Chapter Text
Day 7
There was a broken branch not far from him, just the right shape for a kid-sized walking stick. Zoro grabbed it with his good hand, hauled himself to his feet, and hobbled in the direction Sylvi had gone, toward the source of the strange longing that had hooked itself into him. He managed three hopping, painfully slow steps before Luffy ran forward, reaching out to help him.
Zoro gasped, recoiling. His good foot slipped under him, and once again he was back on the ground in a heap of pain. "No! I can't, I c-can't…"
Luffy radiated hurt, but nodded, and shuffled back again.
"S-sorry." He hated this. Why were things like this? He could deal with being little if he had to, Zoro thought, but this forced separation from his friends was torture.
"It's not your fault, Zoro," Chopper assured him.
"Someone has to carry him, though." Nami looked around as though hoping a cart would mysteriously appear from nowhere. "I don't think we have time to make something anymore."
In the end, Franky got the job. Like Brook, his touch was slightly more bearable—whether that was because his arms were made of metal, or because Franky hadn't been as close to him as Luffy and Chopper had, Zoro didn't know. Both, maybe. He still felt like he was about to throw up, and his head was swimming with pain, but he wasn't going to pass out before they got there. It wasn't far. The roots couldn't have come after them if they'd been far away.
Their destination was a large clearing, protected by a screen of leafy branches. And yet it wasn't large at all, because the ancient tree in the center filled the space far more completely than should have been possible from size alone.
It was twisted and pulsing, its trunk mottled with vibrant colors no normal tree should be. Its branches stretched out to twine around the trees ringing the edge of the clearing, and Zoro knew that beneath their feet, its roots were doing the same, connecting the tree to everything on the island.
Boran lay on the ground in front of the tree, wrapped tightly in vines, but Zoro barely paid him a glance. His attention was fixed on the shape in the center of the tree's trunk, a lump that didn't quite blend with the rest of the oddly colored bark.
Zoro scrambled out of Franky's arms. He'd held on to his branch, and it shook in his hand as he warily hobbled closer. Why, exactly, he needed to get closer, when the smart choice by any standard would be to run the hell away, he didn't know. But it was important, somehow, and so he wobbled on, until he was only a few feet from the trunk and finally got a good look at the thing.
Instantly, he stumbled back, feeling sick.
It was a human body—or at least it had been, once. Most of it was buried in the tree, but enough stuck out to be recognizable. A shrunken arm. A mummified chest. A withered face, one eye hidden by bark, the other glassy and staring at nothing. Its pale, dry hair fluttered in the breeze. Glowing veins pulsed over skin so dry and hardened it was nearly like bark itself. The same veins ran along the tree, tying together the strange plant and what had once been a young girl.
"I'm not much to look at, am I," Sylvi said.
She was standing next to him, whole and perfect and spotless. He hadn't seen her come. She was just there.
Like a ghost.
"That's you?" His voice came out in a croak.
"It used to be," she said. "I don't know if it is anymore."
He swallowed. "What happened?"
Sylvi gave him a sidelong glance. "It's not a nice story."
Yeah, he'd already guessed that. "Nice stories aren't the only ones that should get told."
Zoro's skin prickled as the Straw Hats came closer behind him, but he pushed the feelings as far away as they would go. "Did you die?" He didn't want to look at the body, but his eyes were drawn to it—and every time he did pull them away, they landed instead on Sylvi's too-still, too-pale, not-human face, which wasn't much better.
"Depends on your definition. Some would say so. I'm hardly the same little girl who came here with her family all those years ago. I have her memories, though. I know exactly what happened to her. How she ended, and I started." Sylvi reached up and brushed the sunken cheek with a finger. If Zoro hadn't been watching so closely, he would have missed the shudder that ran through her as she did.
"Her name was Sylvana. Anna, they used to call her. She was a very curious child. She didn't understand that new things could be dangerous, all she cared about was that it was new. A whole new island, a new world, all hers to explore. Her parents warned her, but every day she went deeper and deeper into the forest. Every day, she discovered new things.
"One day, she discovered what it was like to fall off a cliff."
Zoro's gaze snapped to Sylvi. She was staring off at nothing, a flat, detached expression on her face.
"Unlike you, no one caught her. She wasn't quite dead afterward, but she would have been, very shortly, if she hadn't landed near her."
Zoro glanced around. There was no visible sign of Garnet, but he knew she was there. Watching. Listening.
"I don't know what she is or where she comes from, or even whether she was a she before I came along. I don't think she knows, either. But she was there, and I was there, and we needed each other. She needs a human base to be really alive, you see. If she's without a host for too long…well, something might still be there, but it wouldn't think, or feel. It wouldn't have even the rough, limited understanding of human emotions she's built up over the centuries. It would know nothing but hunger, and it would take, and take, with no care for the harm it was causing.
"I like to tell myself that my fall was a good thing. She'd lost her last host a while before, and if I'd come too late, if she'd discovered the settlers after she'd faded completely, everyone would have died. I helped. I did my best to make sure everyone was happy, that she treated them well. Still—"
"No you didn't."
Sylvi stuttered to a halt and looked at Zoro. Her brow furrowed. "And what more could I have done? I was a child. I kept her from killing them. I convinced her to give them as much freedom as I could. I even hid things from her, sometimes, when I knew things would be better that way. But I'm not a god, whatever they call us. There was only so much—"
"Then why aren't you happy?"
"I—what?"
"You're part of 'everyone', aren't you?"
"Oh." Sylvi tucked a lock of hair behind her ear. It fell forward again as soon as she let go. "That's sweet of you. But making the best of a bad situation or not, I'm still one of the jailers in this false paradise. I don't—"
Zoro sensed as much as heard the movement behind him. He and Sylvi turned together to find Boran lunging forward, a knife in his hand and a tangle of cut vines on the ground behind him.
For a moment, Zoro thought he might make it. Boran was moving fast, even faster than he had been when he'd been trying to kill Zoro. He was a step away from the tree, knife raising to cut into the withered body in front of him—
The ground moved. Boran stumbled as it rippled under him, then a pillar of stone shot up like a lance, knocking the knife away. Boran screamed, clutching an arm that bent at the wrong angle. The earth rose around him, and then there was nowhere to run. He was encased up to his neck, only his continued yells and cursing breaking the image of a decapitated head sitting on a boulder.
Zoro suppressed a shudder.
"Foolish."
Garnet stood in front of Boran, glaring at him like she was thirty feet tall rather than three. Zoro thought she might have popped up from the ground, too, but it had happened so fast he hadn't gotten a clear look. She was just there.
"I was careless, to let you get this close. You were a fool to try."
"What choice did I have?" Boran screamed at her. "What choice did you leave me?"
"I will be more alert, in the future." For all that she was looking at Boran, Garnet wasn't talking to him, Zoro thought. She was talking about him, like he was a wasp that had snuck into her house through an open window. "Threats cannot be allowed to come this far. This will not happen again." Her eyes found Sylvi. "We will not let it happen again."
The trace of pink in Sylvi's cheeks grew slightly. Zoro found it oddly comforting, that she could still do something so human as blush. "It went too far," Sylvi agreed. "But—"
"Now, how to deal with this one?" Garnet cocked her head at Boran. "Perhaps we should give him what he wants. There is no need for him to remain on our island when he is this desperate to leave."
Boran's face drained of color. "No," he said. "Not like—please. Please, if you send me away with the bond intact, it'll kill me, I won't even make it far enough to find him, please." He was crying now. "That's why I had to kill you, that's why—do you think this was easy for me? I'm not a killer, but I couldn't just give up—"
"Do not take another step," Sylvi hissed. Zoro jumped and twisted around to see that half the Straw Hats had started toward Garnet and Boran.
"But—" Chopper started.
"I can understand your feelings, but this is our business." Sylvi's words were quick and clipped. "Save your protests for what's most important to you. If you want your friend back, stay where you are."
The Straw Hats still looked like they wanted to object, but they stopped moving. Zoro could feel the weight of the glances they sent him, and his ears burned.
"I understand," Garnet was saying.
"W-what?"
"You are in pain. If you think that pleases me, you are wrong. You are one of my precious children, and I don't wish to see you hurt anymore."
"I—"
"But you are not my only child, and your actions would cause them harm. You understand, don't you? That one must care for one's children? I must keep them safe, even if the threat is one of their own.
"But I am not cruel when I don't have to be. Your further pain would serve no purpose. So I won't banish you. I will end this quickly, so you don't have to hurt anymore."
Boran's eyes widened, and he began to struggle again. "No," he gasped. "No, please—"
Garnet raised a hand.
"Wait."
Sylvi stepped in front of Garnet, blocking Boran from her view.
Garnet's eyes narrowed. "What are you doing?"
"You're right that we need to protect ourselves. But this isn't the way to do it."
Garnet narrowed her eyes. "He hurts. And he knows too much. He cannot be left like this."
"No," Sylvi agreed. "But death isn't the answer, not if he doesn't want that." She took a deep breath and squared her shoulders. Zoro could see her hands shaking. "Will you let me handle it?"
Garnet regarded her with something like curiosity. "You wish to use it? Now, after so long spent playing a child?"
"Yes." Sylvi took Garnet's hand, threaded their fingers together. "Thank you, for covering for me all this time. For letting me pretend. But I'm your partner, not your puppet. I share the blame for all this; it's time I accepted that. The blame, the responsibility…and the power."
Garnet's smile was small, but satisfied. It made Zoro think of a cat that had just gotten its way. "Then show me."
Sylvi turned to face Boran. Her appearance hadn't changed, but she looked older, somehow. Like a wise queen instead of a carefree fairy-child, Zoro thought.
"I'd set you free if I could," she told him. "Even knowing what you know. But the bonds we've forged aren't so weak as that. I'm sorry. I can't give you the happy ending you want."
"Don't you think I know that?" Boran wasn't looking at her. "If it were as simple as that, I would have done anything, offered anything…why do you think I had to—"
"Your plan wouldn't have worked, you know. Even if you had somehow managed to kill us—truly kill both of us—you would only have doomed yourself, along with most of the islanders. You're bound too tightly to survive without us, at this point.
"More likely, you would have killed me, then she would have taken you for her next host in order to survive. Would that have been preferable to you? To become a 'god'?"
Boran was shaking his head wordlessly, still staring at the ground.
"You would have had power, true, and freedom of a sort, but in the end, it would be just a different sort of cage. And you would never forget. Years, decades, centuries later, you would never forget. I envy you islanders sometimes, for being able to forget."
The earth began to recede from around Boran, even as new vines sprouted to keep him restrained. Sylvi took a step toward him. "So I'll give you the gift I wish I could have."
Boran's head snapped up, and he stared at her in horror. "No, wait—"
"We'll take your memories, wipe the slate clean, so you don't have to hurt anymore." She raised a hand.
Pale roots erupted from the ground, wrapping around Boran, piercing his skin. The clearing filled with screams.
"No! No, please, I don't want—" He screamed again, struggling against the vines and roots.
Zoro felt sick. He wanted to do something, but what? Run away, attack Sylvi and Garnet, save Boran, kill Boran himself to finish it faster? He didn't know. His feet seemed rooted to the spot in any case, though when he dragged his eyes away for a moment to check, the ground around him was free and clear.
"I don't want to forget them!" Boran howled. "Please! This won't—even without the memories, the pain will stay, and it'll be worse, not knowing why. Please!"
"No, it will fade," Garnet said. "If we take enough."
Earth, vines, and more pale roots rose up in a dome, and they couldn't hear Boran's cries anymore.
"It's rare to take someone all the way back to babyhood," Sylvi said. There was a strained smile on her face. "He'll make someone very happy. We'll find a place for him—with a family, not one of the group homes. It's the least we can do."
Garnet looked at her flatly. "That's your business."
Sylvi's smile grew just a bit. "Oh no, we're sharing responsibility now, remember? That means you have to help with my jobs, too."
"Those are human matters. I don't—"
"And that's exactly why you need to. You need to make your own memories with humans, not just eat their old ones." Her smile grew sad. "Maybe if I hadn't kept you at such a distance from them, things wouldn't have gotten to this point." She clapped her hands. "So you'll be helping me from now on, just like I'll be helping you."
"But—"
"No buts!" Sylvi said firmly. The two girls, white and red, stared at each other for a long moment. Zoro got the feeling the talking hadn't stopped just because they couldn't hear it anymore. Then Garnet huffed and Sylvi flashed a cat-smile of her own.
The moment didn't last. The air grew tense again as the girls turned as one to regard the other intruders in their clearing. Zoro felt even smaller than he currently was under their combined gaze, but he steeled himself. He didn't need to be afraid. They couldn't do anything worse to him than they already had. He wouldn't let them hurt the Straw Hats.
"Hey!" Somehow, Zoro was not at all surprised that Luffy was the first to shake off the stunned silence they'd all been caught in. "You guys are the ones who hurt Zoro, right? You need to fix him!"
And oh, Zoro knew there was something wrong with him, there had been ever since he woke up small and scared and not remembering, but he couldn't help flinching at Luffy's choice of words.
"He saw too much." Garnet narrowed her eyes. "And so have you."
"No!" Zoro flung himself between Garnet and the Straw Hats. His bad ankle throbbed and nearly crumpled under him, but he caught himself with the branch just in time. "I won't let you hurt them!" What he could do to stop the maybe-actually-a-god in front of him, he wasn't sure, but he'd find a way.
Nami reached out. "Zoro—"
"We're not going to tell anyone," Luffy said, and everyone turned to look at him. "I don't like what you're doing here, but it's not my job to help everyone. They don't want me to, anyway. But Zoro's my friend, and I'm not leaving until you give back what you took from him!"
"Then you can stay," Garnet said. "I'm sure you'll be tasty, too." She raised a hand, and things happened very quickly.
The creepy white roots shot out of the ground again, heading straight for Luffy. Luffy was ready—of course he was, it was Luffy—and smashed the roots into pulp with a few quick punches. Garnet staggered, roaring.
And Zoro's world exploded in pain. Nothing else existed anymore. He didn't even know if he was screaming. There was only white-hot, burning agony.
"…wouldn't…do that again…if I were you." Garnet was saying, when the pain had subsided enough for Zoro to be aware of the world around him again. "My children and I…share a bond, after all. You'll kill your friend long before you do any permanent damage to me."
Zoro's ears felt wet, and when he lowered the hand he'd been using to clutch his head, it came away red.
Luffy stared at him, stricken.
"I've seen you in his memories, you know. I know how you like to do things. But this time you can't save the day by just 'kicking my ass'."
Zoro's stomach felt like it was somewhere around his toes. They were too late after all, weren't they? His memories were gone. Maybe not all of them, but probably enough that that man in the bounty poster was lost forever. How much was left? How much growing up would he have to do all over again?
Could they could even get back whatever was still there?
Luffy's eyes were darting between Garnet and Zoro, searching for an answer to a puzzle he didn't know how to solve. This wasn't a devil fruit. Knocking Garnet out wouldn't solve anything, even if Luffy could do it without killing him. Garnet was right; Luffy's usual methods weren't going to work here. So what were they going to do?
"Please." Chopper's voice wobbled, but speaking up at all in this situation made him brave to Zoro.. "We just want Zoro's memories. He's—he didn't agree to this, you shouldn't—"
"Why should I give away my food? Why should I give you anything?" Garnet lifted her head, somehow managing to look down at the Straw Hats despite being no taller than Zoro. "What's in it for me? If he's so important to you, surely you can come up with something."
Zoro struggled to his feet. His mouth opened and shut like a fish, but words had yet to make their way out. Luffy stepped around him, careful not to touch.
"Luffy—"
"Don't you think—"
"Fine." Luffy stomped forward until he was only a foot away from Garnet. "You want memories, right? Give back what you took from Zoro, and you can have some of mine." Gasps echoed through the clearing.
What?
"Excuse me?"
Luffy glared down at her. "You heard me."
He can't have said that, he can't just say that, he…
"Luffy—"
He can't—
"Hold on, that's—"
"NO!"
He wasn't tall enough to punch Luffy's face, couldn't kick with his bad ankle, but Zoro lunged forward and sank his fist into Luffy's side, too upset to care about the way it burned.
He'd poured every ounce of his feelings into the blow, every scrap of power he could muster, but to someone like Luffy it still should have been nothing, easily shrugged off if it was felt at all. Maybe Zoro had caught him by surprise, though, because Luffy let out a great whoosh of air, stumbled sideways, and then Zoro was looking down at him for once, as Luffy blinked in shock from the ground.
"Zoro…?" With that puzzled, hurt look on his face, there was no way Luffy understood what he'd done wrong, and that just made Zoro angrier.
"You're such an idiot!" It was all Zoro could do to hold himself back from hitting him again. "You can't do that, don't ever say that again!"
Luffy's shoulders set. "I promised to get your memories back. But—" His gaze faltered, dropping to the ground for a moment, and something in Zoro lurched, even surrounded by rage. Luffy shouldn't look like that. "But she's right. Just kicking her ass isn't going to fix things. If this is the best way—"
"Then I'll stay like this!" Zoro flung his arms out. "I'll stay like this f-forever if I have to. I won't let you do that for me!"
Luffy smiled at him. It wasn't a very good smile, and Zoro wasn't fooled. "You're my friend, Zoro. Doing this much is nothing."
"That's not—It's not about—" He had to calm down, he had to make Luffy understand, he couldn't— "Don't you get it? It's hard enough like this! I couldn't stand it if you didn't want to be around me, either!"
It took a moment, but Zoro watched as Luffy's eyes slowly widened, confusion fading into pained understanding, and knew he had gotten through.
"Okay." Luffy's fists clenched in the dirt. "I get it. But I can't just do nothing."
"Oh, I don't think fighting them will be necessary," Robin said. She was actually smiling. "It's in their best interests to cooperate with us, after all."
"A bold claim. I see nothing of the sort."
"Then I suggest you find a new way to look at things. For example: you may be powerful, but if you really have seen Zoro's memories, you must know that we're strong, too. Too strong for you to be sure you could silence us all and survive."
Garnet growled, the sound deep and inhuman. But Robin didn't flinch, and Zoro could see a flicker of uncertainty in Garnet's narrowed ruby eyes.
"If you try to Renew us all, I guarantee at least one of us will make it off this island." Robin's smile grew sharp. "And I promise that whoever does so will tell the world exactly what you are and where to find you. Did you know there are ways to destroy an island without ever setting foot on it?" Zoro thought he saw a flash of pain in her eyes, but it was gone too fast for him to be sure.
"You're threatening me."
"Yes. I'm glad you understand."
Garnet snorted. "And you expect me to trust that my life, my children's lives, will be safe with someone who resorts to such things so easily?"
"Making threats and keeping promises are different things," Robin said.
"And what is a pirate's word worth?"
"You can answer that for yourself, can't you?" Sylvi walked over, stopping at Zoro's side. He wasn't thrilled about having her so close, but, well, she wasn't the one who'd tried to hurt his friends, and she seemed like she might be trying to help now, and his ankle throbbed, and he couldn't be bothered to move. She laid a hand on his shoulder. "You've been enjoying his memories all week, after all."
Garnet's glare dropped to the ground. "It's still a risk."
"But a reasonable one." Sylvi smiled sadly at Garnet. "I know it's hard, giving up something that made you happy. But it's the right thing to do, can't you see that? Keeping our secret is compensation enough."
Garnet looked at him, and Zoro felt his insides squirm in a very different way than they did with the Straw Hats. It was all he could do to keep from dropping to his knees at her feet, or scrambling back while apologizing for daring to be so close. She isn't a god, he told himself furiously, and glared right back. She isn't my god.
"And what will they say, when others ask why he's not the same as he was?"
"We will say the Grand Line is a strange place," Robin said, "if we give them the chance to ask at all."
Garnet looked back to Sylvi. "What if I don't want to give it back?" She sounded like a sulky child, and Zoro knew they'd won.
"Well…I don't think you really have a choice. If you don't give it back, I will. It's my power too, remember?"
Garnet was fully pouting now. "You're going to be horrible about that, aren't you?"
Sylvi beamed. "Of course."
Garnet let out a huff. Her gaze shot to Luffy, then Zoro. And then, though her glare didn't lessen in the slightest, the lines of her body relaxed a fraction, and Zoro suddenly found he could breathe more easily.
"We have a deal, then? I return what remains of his life, and you will not speak of us to anyone, nor try to stop our way of life. Will you swear?"
Zoro hesitated. What if there were other people who were unhappy, like Boran had been? Just leaving them didn't feel right. But he was only one kid. And he was a pirate, not a hero, and if he could keep his friends safe and get at least part of his life back at the same time, wasn't that a good deal? He shouldn't feel bad. It wasn't his job to save the world.
"Fine."
He and Luffy had spoken at the same time, and Zoro jumped at the unexpected duet.
Garnet nodded. "Fine then. Let's get this over with." She raised a hand, and earth rose up all around Zoro, the pale roots stretching for his skin.
A high-pitched shriek split the air, and Zoro barely recognized it was coming from him. He only had eyes for the earth that would bury him, the roots that would tear him apart—he didn't remember, but he did, and he couldn't breathe, and why had he ever thought they wouldn't be able to hurt him anymore, he could feel them digging, his skin was burning, he was—
"—ro! Zoro!"
He flinched away from the voice, tumbling onto soft grass.
Grass?
Oh. Luffy had grabbed him. Luffy had pulled him away from the hungry roots, and he was burning because Luffy had held him close so they couldn't get him again.
"What do you think you're doing?" Luffy demanded, as Zoro tried to remember how to breathe.
"I am attempting to fulfill my end of the deal. Or did you think I could just return his life with a snap of my fingers?"
"That doesn't mean you have to do it like that, with no warning!" Chopper's voice was shrill with anger, but thick, like he'd been crying. "It looked like you were trying to kill him!"
Zoro counted blades of grass, and breathed.
"Do you believe a warning would have made it better? It will hurt either way. He will fear either way. The sooner it begins, the sooner it will be done."
"Humans usually prefer to have some time to prepare for unpleasant experiences," Robin said.
"How strange."
Sylvi crouched down beside him, laying a hand on his back. "I'm sorry. We didn't mean to scare you."
"'m not scared."
"Surprise you, then. If there was another way, we'd do it, but we have to touch you for this to work."
He looked at her hand resting on his shoulder.
"The…roots need to touch you," she amended. "There has to be a direct connection. Will you be all right?"
"Yeah." He pulled himself into a proper sitting position and took a last look around at all the Straw Hats. His stomach squirmed.
"Wait." He looked at Garnet. "Can you take the bad feelings away, too? They're my friends. I shouldn't—I don't like feeling bad around my friends."
Something flickered across Garnet's face, gone too fast for him to be sure what it was. "No," she said at last, and Zoro's heart sank. "Those feelings are already a part of you. I cannot remove them without unmaking you entirely. But I will see to it they do not become stronger in the transfer."
It wasn't good enough, not at all, but he'd already decided he'd overcome this problem himself if he had to, so in the end, it didn't change anything. He took a deep breath, and closed his eyes, not wanting to see himself be buried alive again.
"Okay. I'm ready."