Roronoa Zoro. has a minion!

I am the Dark Creepy Thing

Usual Outfit | With Bandana | Timeskip | Timeskip Bandana

CSS by Chen, original character, colorized profile art, and above linked outfits by Eiichiro Oda of One Piece, overlay(s) and profile by myself. + + +

It was hot.

Sweat trickled and dripped from his face, burning his eyes - his black bandana was no longer useful in absorbing it. The desire to rip the thick haramaki from his waist was unbearable.

As each drop fell to the sandy earth, so did the desire to catch it and put it back inside his body. He was so thirsty - his entire mouth was numb, yet he could still feel how dry and painful it was. He had bitten small parts of his tongue off several times trying to move it to add some sensation back to his mouth, not realizing it was between his teeth.

He got a sensation all right.

Pain and soreness laid claim to his entire body, not just his poor tongue, and there was little he could do to relieve it. He could not move, nor could he sit - nor could he eat or drink. Thick ropes bound his body to a wooden crucifix, planted in the center of a field of flat sand. It was wide to the elements... well, all but one. A cement wall twice the height of a man stretched around the entire field, blocking even the slightest, tiniest, most minute of breezes.

This was hell.

He had taken to tensing what he could every few seconds to keep the blood flowing through his body, but those seconds became minutes, which became hours. He had been tied standing tall - a position he had tried to keep for the sake of his pride, to prove to that brat son of the lieutenant that he was stronger than the stupid, bastard boy's hubris, but... as the third, terrible, life-sucking sun rose on his aching, starving figure, he simply could not stand for any longer.

He had looped his arms over the arms of the crucifix so he could slouch his body without the awful, not-meant-for-human-beings ropes the son had chosen (they were probably ship rigging - little bastard) ripping into the flesh of his arms, but was now beginning to be concerned about losing his hands. The wood, a thing he could feel when sensation did flow through his body, was hard enough to make an entire limb numb if placed at a joint like it was - especially over a long period of time, which it certainly had.

Unfortunate. He needed those.

"So, he's Zoro, huh? Those ropes look pretty easy to break."

Oh he did not.

Zoro raised his head, murder beaming from his eyes like raging bonfires. Perched on the wall in front of him were two boys, one small and one smaller. One had black hair, one had pink hair. One had a straw hat, the other had glasses. One was on the verge of weeping with terror, the other was staring at him with a look that made him doubt there was even air between his ears.

His lucky day.

"Hey, you."

The pink-haired, glasses-wearing boy yelped at the sound of his voice, and the black-haired one raised his eyebrows attentively.

A forced, demonic smile spread across Zoro's face, and he pulled the fire from his eyes - not that it helped, he still looked evil.

"Could you please... come over here and untie me?" he asked, his voice hoarse, his eyes beaming into those of the black-haired boy. "I've been tied up for nine days, and I'm exhausted."

"Don't do it, Luffy!" the pink-haired boy wailed. "He'll kill everyone if you free him! He's a monster! A demon!"

An immortal, all-powerful being with the stamina of a god, unable to be killed by silly things like heat? He wished he was a demon.

"I'll repay you," Zoro said, unflinching. "I could hunt down a fugitive and give you the rewards. I'm not lying. I'll keep my words."

"Don't be tricked, Luffy!" the pink-haired boy begged. "He'll kill you!"

The black-haired boy grinned. "He can't kill me - I'm too strong!"

What? Again?

"P-Please stop insulting him, Luffy!"

Zoro's smiled slowly died as a little girl, no older than six, appeared on the wall beside them. They looked at her in surprise as she fearlessly dropped down from the wall and ran to the man tied to the crucifix in the heat, bearing something wrapped in cloth.

A dark, very fearsome look took that man's face. It caused the pink-haired boy to beg the girl to come back to safety, as though worried Zoro might eat her.

Unafraid, she unwrapped what she had brought, and Zoro's fear was confirmed - she was offering him food.

"No. Go away."

Her face fell. "But... I worked so hard to make them for you!"

Zoro's eyes flicked to the only gate into the prison yard, a gate to his left that revealed a large Navy base when opened. Thanks to its height (curse the height of that breeze-eating wall!), he could not tell if someone was coming.

"I'm not hungry. Do you want to die? Go away."

"H-He's threatening her!" the pink-haired boy gasped.

Zoro's head snapped to the left. The gate was opening - and that stupid girl...!

"Don't pick on little girls, Roronoa Zoro."

The two boys sitting on the wall immediately ducked out of sight.

It was the son of the lieutenant, the one that had Zoro tied. He was grinning smugly, and sauntered arrogantly up to him, gently pushing the little girl out of the way as he did so. Their eyes locked for a moment.

Zoro's head snapped back, pain ripping through his skull as he hit the crucifix with it. His head then dropped, wrenching his neck, and he shuddered in pain. Blood dripped down the back of his neck, as well as from his newly-split lip. He raised his eyes to meet the son's again, promises of a painful death lurking in their shadows - then strained at his bindings in a way that made the son's marine guards seize their rifles in fear.

"If you're going to fight, untie me, you little bastard."

The lieutenant's son frowned, then cupped his hand over his ear - the one marked with Zoro's blood. "What was that? Be careful."

He smiled as Zoro relaxed, glowering, then turned his attention to the little girl. She stared up at him fearfully, and he knelt to her height.

"Do you know what this sign says?" he asked her. She shook her head. "It says, 'Anyone caught helping a prisoner will be convicted of the same crime.' Do you know what that means?" More head shaking. He sighed. "It means that, if you were a grown-up, you would have the death penalty just like Zoro here." When she turned to look up at Zoro, eyes large and sad, the son ripped the cloth from her hands. She screamed, then began to cry as he stomped her home-made rice balls into the dirt. "Throw her out."

Zoro watched with horror as the little girl was cruelly pitched high over the wall, screaming, headed headfirst for a very nasty injury. His hands tightened into fists, and he ground his teeth, glaring vengeance at the lieutenant's son's smug leer. He thought he could get away with anything, that brat. He thought he could treat people like the dirt he walked on. He thought his father's rank made him invincible.

Well, he couldn't. Not anymore. Not that he was here.

When that brat thought he could feed a little girl to a dog and make her mother watch, he couldn't - Zoro killed it, saving her. When he thought he could put those people to death to get back at him, he couldn't - the law didn't quite work that way. Since Zoro was the one that fought back, he could only punish Zoro. No matter where that stupid son turned, Zoro was in his way - and was always going to be. A genuine smile crept across his face as the gate behind the arrogant bastard closed.

One month. One month of starvation under the sun. The son didn't think he could do it, but he would. When that month ended, the marines would let him go, and then Zoro would go back to kicking the carpet out from under Helmeppo's feet.

He gagged on blood. The sun bore down on him, burning his wrenched neck. His lip had not stopped bleeding, and a newfound lightheadedness spun his world around.

It had been nine days.


One month.


One month.