Zoro was hungry.

He leaned heavily on his elbows and hovered over his drink as he sat at the sleek, modern bar at the restaurant where he bussed tables. Even though it was after his shift, he didn't want to go home to his apartment just yet.

It had been over two weeks since Perona started dating her new boyfriend. Zoro had only seen the champion fencer in photos, and although she seemed an odd match to the older, severe-looking man, it was really none of his business.

He would have been happy to see the irritating, negative girl go, if the no-strings-attached arrangement that had kept the incubus well fed for the past two years hadn't been leaving with her.

He sighed into his sake, rippling the surface of the alcohol.

It had been over two weeks since he had fed.

"Oi, get back to work, lazy marimo!" a blond chef yelled at him from the kitchen.

"I'm off the clock, idiot!" Zoro roughly barked back.

He hated that damn owner's son. Sanji had gained notoriety as a chef from the scores of fancy cooking competitions he had been winning since he was a child. He was in line to inherit the Baratie when the old man retired, which would probably be never. He was also an arrogant, insufferable asshole, and since Owner Zeff was out of town this week, he had been extra bossy.

"Then drink your booze in the back. Your ugly mug is scaring away all of the customers," the cook complained, jabbing his finger towards the break room.

Zoro swiped his drink off the bar and stomped to the back, cursing under his breath. He was way too hungry for this crap.

He felt the energy surrounding his body tremble like a rumbling stomach, branching off into invisible tendrils which eagerly stretched towards coworkers he passed on the way to the break room.

Before his arrangement with Perona, the incubus had a hard time getting enough sexual energy to live off of. On his meager income, he could only afford to pay for sex so many times a month. He wasn't exactly great at picking people up, and using his powers to entrance people into activities without their consent, which was what a lot of his kind seemed to do, was out of the question.

This type of thing wouldn't be happening if he had access to the national donors registry, an official, documented menu of people who wanted to be fed off of by incubi and succubi, but since he was off the grid with the authorities he was on his own to find his own partners.

Until he was able to find someone like Perona who didn't mind coming over weekly for casual, incredible sex, it was hook-ups and hookers.

And hunger.

"What the hell are you doing hanging around here anyway?" Sanji said acidly as he grabbed his pack of cigarettes from his locker and lit one up.

Zoro shrugged irritably, watching his tight ass as if it were a Porterhouse steak.

"Bored. Wanted a drink," he replied shortly, taking another sip as he concentrated on keeping his grasping power contained.

The blonde sat down at the table across from Zoro to smoke. He turned on the television.

The news was on, and footage from the day before of the first human being sworn in to the all-incubus and succubus Parliament was being aired. Zoro inwardly cringed at the fresh-faced young man with lilac hair and large, round glasses. This poor guy had 'fresh meat' written all over him. His eyes flicked to Sanji.

"He's going to be dead in six months," the cook stoically predicted as he watched, taking another drag off of his cigarette.

The next news story caught Zoro off guard. It had been such a shitty week that he had forgotten that the ten year anniversary of the previous ruling family's assassinations was in just a few days.

The bodies of the king, queen, and young princess were found brutally slashed in a hallway of the palace by servants one October morning, and their assassinations rocked the entire kingdom to its core. The murders were never solved, and although the prince was also reported to be dead, a body was never found. Claims of sightings of the so-called green-haired "Emerald Prince" popped up so often that Zoro had long stopped paying attention to them.

He scowled hatefully as he watched King Lucci make some mournful speech in front of the palace while cameras flashed.

The cook broached the silence.

"Are you really going to hang around work and watch TV in the break room on a Friday night?" Sanji asked bluntly.

The green-haired man downed his sake and rose to his feet. That bastard had a point. He had to find someone to feed off of or he was going to go crazy.

"Fine, I'm going home," Zoro grumbled.

His stomach whined audibly as he got up. He sighed, rubbing a hand across his face as he roughly pushed in his chair.

The cook raised a spiral eyebrow, studying him intently. "When's the last time you ate?" he asked seriously.

"None of your business," Zoro replied curtly.

Sanji slammed his palms on the table. "I'm a cook. I know when someone's hungry, marimo! You've been like this all week!" Sanji tapped his cigarette out and stormed back into the kitchen.

Zoro stared after him, stunned. Was he that obvious?

A few minutes later, he returned with a huge plate of his famous seafood fried rice and plopped it in front of him.

"I don't like you, but I hate to see people go hungry," he explained tersely.

Zoro couldn't help but be a little bewildered. Even though he wouldn't get any actual sustenance from the food, he grabbed the fork, took a huge bite, and was overwhelmed by the incredible flavor of the rice. He wondered why Sanji was acting like a human being to him all of a sudden.

The cook draped his arm over the back of a chair while he enjoyed another cigarette, watching Zoro with overt self-satisfaction. The incubus paused mid-motion as he raised the fork to his mouth. He could think about only one thing as he began hyperfocusing intently on the vibrant life energy flickering around the cook's body. It was time to get out of there.

"Thanks," the green-haired man grunted.

"Yeah, yeah. I know we pay you, so spend it on food instead of booze next check, you damn idiot. Here's something for later," he offered, pushing a box of food towards him.

Zoro nodded, placing his fingers gently on the box. "I'm going to head home now," he replied, starting to feel a little woozy as he slipped into his hoodie.

More like head downtown to find someone who wouldn't mind taking an I.O.U. for sex.

He sighed again, then swung open the back door and stepped into the night.

Zoro walked halfway to the train station before he realized he forgot the box of extra food that he had planned to give Luffy.

Realizing he would never hear the end of it if his roommate smelled the delicious food on him, the green-haired man turned back, figuring his reluctant trip could wait just a little longer.

After a bit of wandering, he eventually found the Baratie again and noticed a limousine parked out front on the darkened street.

A chill ran over his skin as he passed the limo, and as he got closer he could sense that the awaiting driver was another incubus. Zoro gave him a hostile glare.

Suddenly, one of their waitresses flung open the front door so hard it slammed loudly against the brick of the building with a deafening clang. She ran straight to Zoro, her wild eyes shooting back towards the Baratie.

"Zoro! Call the police!" she pleaded in a desperate, high-pitched voice.

"What's going on?" he asked with alarm.

"He just walked in and said he could have anyone he wanted!" she shouted, gripping onto his arm.

He pried her off of him, his stare focused solely on the door. "Run and call the cops," he told her, then sprinted with inhuman speed into the building.

As he came through the door, he saw a lavender-haired incubus with a dark, scarred nose pressing Sanji up against the wall, clumsily groping his chest as he took energy at an alarming rate. A frightened customer struggled to her feet nearby, and it looked like the cook had put up a fierce struggle to protect her as pieces of broken furniture and plates were littered all around them. Throngs of diners ran towards the bar, where they were being funneled out through the back door by the wait staff.

The cook's uncovered eye pleadingly met Zoro's before he was smothered in more waves of unwanted pleasure.

The green-haired man's heart was pumping molten iron as he suddenly loomed over them.

Sanji's attacker didn't see Zoro come up behind him, and didn't know what hit him when he was punched right through the front windows with a satisfying, crunching shatter of double pane glass.

Zoro caught the cook as he fell limply to the floor.

"Oi," he said, shaking him. He was relieved when he took a peek at Sanji's life energy and saw that the man hadn't had time to take too much just yet.

"Marimo," Sanji choked, sitting up. "You hit him. You should run," he mumbled, his uncovered eye struggling to focus on him.

Zoro knew that death sentences were routinely handed down to any human who harmed an incubus or succubus. Right now, he didn't care. For once, he was glad he wasn't human, because he was about to kick some incubus ass.

The gaunt, wild-eyed man tore open the front door, bleeding from cuts that were steadily healing. He searched for and found Zoro, his eyes burning with murderous intent.

Zoro stood, trying to ignore Sanji as he felt his hand slip weakly down his arm in a flimsy effort to try to stop him.

"Oi, you! Outside. NOW," Zoro ordered.

"Worthless human! Do you not know who I am? I am Lord Spandam! My father is Duke Spandine! You are about to learn what happens to a human who makes an incubus bleed," he said haughtily, no doubt relishing the vile ways he was planning on collecting Zoro's energy.

"Are you going to cry about it some more or are you going to fight me?" Zoro huffed, impatience pacing like a caged tiger in his eyes. The faster he could get him out of the building and away from the people trying to flee, the better.

The incubus's face flushed bright crimson as he began to shake with violent rage. "I see you have a death wish," Spandam snarled as his sunken eyes narrowed in disgust. He turned sharply on his heel and marched out of the restaurant.

"Marimo, don't do it, you damn idiot! Everything is over if he feeds off of you!" Sanji desperately yelled at him.

"Don't let anyone outside," Zoro ordered the cook as he followed his opponent out.

"You're going to learn some respect for your betters. If you survive, that is," the incubus threatened with a snide grin. He angrily picked out few shards of glass from his bloodstained coat.

Zoro rolled his eyes. He decided it wouldn't be great to be discovered right now, so he continued to blanket himself in his human glamour.

"The last I heard, it was illegal to just grab someone in public and feed off of them," Zoro sneered, the desperate look on Sanji's face replaying in his mind, turning his stomach.

"Who cares? Go ahead and report it! As long as I do it in my own territory, it's not like anyone is going listen to a human!" the purple-haired man let out a braying laugh.

Zoro's body stiffened. "Territory only goes as far as you're able to defend it," he said with a sinister smirk.

"I'm going to make that smart mouth beg!" Spandam's power exploded and rushed towards Zoro, who calmly hardened his aura so the hungry miasma slid right off of it.

He shaped three elegant, ghostly katanas from his softly glowing power, two in his hands and one in his mouth.

The dishwasher turned swordsman slashed in a blurring, circular motion, cleanly slicing the limo right behind the man into equal pieces as easily as cutting a cake. The driver shrieked, crawling out through a cut section.

The other incubus looked shocked, but he still wanted to fight. The swordsman felt him raise his energy again to attack.

Zoro began to sweat. He was using too much of his already depleted power. He had no choice. He had to end this quickly, and the powerful, last legacy of his former life seemed like the only option as his swords began to flicker weakly.

He closed his eyes, and when he opened them a powerful wall of brilliant energy rushed out in all directions, so bright that even a human could see it with their naked eyes.

Spandam and his driver dropped to the ground, out cold.

The green-haired man reabsorbed his swords, and a wave of dizziness crashed through him. He had used too much of his life force on an already low reserve, and he drunkenly stumbled back into the restaurant.

Sanji and some of the staff were waiting by the door, and they helped him in. He thought he could vaguely hear sirens in the distance.

"Shit, you're pale, marimo! Did he feed off of you? What happened?" the cook fired question after question at him.

"I knocked them out," Zoro muttered weakly, then collapsed on the floor. As his consciousness faded, he heard a woman's voice over the scuffle of his coworkers.

"Take him to my office," she said, and he felt strong hands grip his wrists and ankles.