Sleep is Important!

Zoro silently fingered his left eye; delicately tracing over his scarred skin. Ah, how the injury was painful when he first received it. However, that was all in the past now. It was a new day, a shining new day on the open sea that glittered underneath the bright sun. The swordsman leaned further against the Thousand Sunny's pearl white railing. It was built beautifully crafted, but also hard to destroy. It was quite the mechanism.

"What's wrong, swordsman-san?" Robin asked, approaching from behind Zoro, who decided to flip around and lean on his hips against the railing instead. Zoro was frowning in a confused tone. "You're neither sleeping nor training! I'm afraid I've never seen you stare into oblivion like this before."

Zoro couldn't help but wonder himself. There was an odd feeling in the back of his head that kept telling him to stay on edge and to be ready to fight at any given moment. He was trained all his life to do this, so maybe the training with Mihawk had finally kicked it into gear. The green-haired swordsman let out a heavy sigh, feeling actually deprived of sleep. How long had it been since he truly had slept? Since Fishman's Island? But that was two days ago! He couldn't have possibly been awake all that time… right? He closed his eye for a second, trying to relax for even a moment, but his single eye snapped back open, feeling vulnerable. Had losing his left eye caused him to try to rely more on sight? It seemed very much so. Though the training had proved to try to get him to rely more on his other senses instead.

"Swordsman-san?" Robin's feminine voice slowly slipped back into Zoro's consciousness. He blinked and looked back at the archeologist with a cautious expression.

"Ah, sorry, it's nothing," he spit out quickly, and walked away without another word.

A couple hours later in the weight room and Zoro's vision had gone blurry. He frowned and continued to rub his right eye with his finger, thinking something must've gotten into it, but his eye was so tired of working for three days straight that it decided to give out on him. Zoro, being the amazingly strong-willed man that he was, continued his training without a single complaint to anybody. He let out a frustrated grunt when he realized he could hardly lift two tons with his arms. He began to strain, pushing his body to the very limit, even while being completely deprived of sleep. Suddenly, the insanely heavy weight slipped out of his hands as his mind began to collapse on itself. His vision blackened as his body went numb. There was a loud booming sound coming from across the room and a huge vibration only what felt like moments later.

"Stupid marimo!" a familiar voice echoed in Zoro's mind. He awoke immediately and sat upright, looking around for the source of the voice. Zoro looked up to see Sanji with a plate full of meat and a glass of beer that had dribbled over some. His leg was also in the air, above Zoro, for some odd reason. The cook let out a sigh and set his leg down with a huff. Had the ero-cook saved him from the falling weight? Zoro looked to the side of the room and saw that the two tons he had been lifting were in pieces on the ground. Holy crap, the cook really had saved him. How… pathetic.

"What are you doing? Trying to kill yourself?" Sanji asked, stomping over to a small table near the corner of the training room and set down the tray. "If you know your body can't handle it, why bother? You're stupider than I thought."

"Shut up," Zoro muttered angrily, still feeling weak but forced himself to stand. Had he actually just fainted back there? He couldn't even remember the last time he passed out from humane illnesses. Just then, even standing up, his mind and his vision blurred and the swordsman stumbled forward, trying to stay upright, but his legs wouldn't allow it. Sanji was immediately in front of him, ready to catch the sleepy Zoro. His face was blank, but a hint of a frown could be seen in Sanji's expression. Zoro's head pressed against Sanji's chest and the swordsman was breathing harshly. He wanted to die from the embarrassment. Showing weakness in front of his other nakama was bad enough, but the one he continued to bully and fight with was ten times worse.

"If you don't stand up straight, I'm getting Chopper," Sanji warned, attempting to slowly and gently lift Zoro back onto his feet without having him fall over. However, this attempt only worsened Zoro's tired body. The world, Zoro's world, finally went completely black and he fell backwards in a dead faint. Sanji stared at him for a moment, breathing in the weakness of the swordsman that he hardly ever got to see. The last time was Thriller Bark, which he had been close to death. Though this injury technically wasn't an injury at all, and he was obviously just tired, the cook felt the need to remember the moment that he could make fun of the swordsman later for. He bent down, lifted Zoro off the ground, threw one of his arms around his own shoulders and carried him down to Chopper.

This is my first fanfiction on this site! Yay! Anyways, sorry for the super shortness, but I just wanted to get out there that Zoro is almost never seen showing any weaknesses, which pisses me off! _ Its about time that spicy goodness show us a little bit of weakness, right? Also, although I wish I did, I do not own One Piece or any of its characters!