SURRENDER

Are his ears bleeding? Is the silence reverberating in his head a result of the ear-splitting shock, or is it the silence of death?

It is not with his ears but his body that he hears his own heart slamming in his chest - he is alive, at least, although every muscle in his body trembles with each jagging breath he takes, every unsteady harsh gasp stabbing his ribs like a hundred new fractures.

When he opens his eyes, a deathly scene of grays and reds greets him.

Bodies lie everywhere among the shattered rubble of Thriller Bark, spattered with blood and smeared with dirt under the shifting clouds of smoke and dust. People he barely knows - are they alive? He doesn't know, and he's barely alive himself.

He almost slips back into the blissful void of unconsciousness.

Are they alive? The thought jolts through him like a lightning strike. Zoro lifts his head too quickly and grits his teeth as his vision swims.

Franky is the first his eyes find, and he lies supine nearby, unmoving - but Zoro can see the rise and fall of his chest, as unsteady as his own, but breathing all the same. So the swordsman shifts his gaze to the next nearest shipmate.

Nami is sprawled on her side several yards away. She could be sleeping, her face is so peaceful, but there's a raw scarlet abrasion on her forehead and she's not moving - is she even - is she -

Zoro surges to his feet - one step, two steps - his knees lock and he stumbles a third step, forces his feet forward a fourth, a fifth, wheezing sharp breaths in and out so fast his diaphragm seizes and black spots burst in his eyes.

His knees crack against broken stone. He just manages to catch himself with a hand - his limbs won't listen to him - rubble skins his palm and he topples over, his mouth full of a coppery fire. A cough wracks his body, every hacking struggle for air shooting knives of bristling agony through every fracture - how many, he's lost count -

Red flecks the ground beneath him, dripping from a burning stream of blood that burbles past his lips and down his chin. He thinks his nose is bleeding as well, but the gray world dips and spins, a blur of shattered stone and smoking skies.

His legs refuse to lift him. Zoro reaches forward, stretching one painstaking inch at a time, gritting his teeth against grinding fractures and a fresh flood of blood - he clasps a fallen wall, squeezes his eyes shut against the dizzying gray world, and drags himself across the ruins - one arm-length at a time, reaching, hacking, gritting, until he reaches Nami's side.

He tries to be gentle as he gropes her neck for a pulse.

For six heavy slamming heartbeats, he can't feel her under his own throbbing pulse but as he lies there and draws measured breaths, it thrums up from under the pounding of his blood, an unsteady drum at his fingertips.

She's alive. A sigh has barely crossed his lips before he's searching for the next shipmate.

He doesn't see the others. Brook is nearby, and Zoro strains to rise again - the skeleton is trapped under a collapsed wall, hanging slack and lifeless.

Zoro freezes. His arms tremble under his weight but he doesn't dare move as, from a great distance, a noise finally reaches his ringing ears.

Clack. Clack. Clack.

Footsteps, heavy footsteps, rubble crumbling under the weight with a crash and clatter like cymbals smashing through the leaden curtain of silence.

Who, in this landscape of death, could be walking.

There's only one answer, in Zoro's mind, and he pushes himself away from Nami, slowly, carefully as he becomes more aware of sounds - the clinking of his swords at his hip, the crack and patter of debris shifting under him.

His legs still aren't working, and the footsteps are clacking ever closer, steady, unhurried. Zoro crawls around a pile of broken columns and presses himself to the gritty surface, sucking in shallow breaths past gritted teeth. Closer, closer, the clacking comes. Zoro braces himself against the tumbledown wall, pulls himself upright, struggling to control his respiration as every inhalation gasps down his throat.

It's him alone - the element of surprise is all he has - he can't give himself away -

With a rib-cracking gulp, Zoro stills, flattened against the wall - silent as the smoke, save for the chugging of the blood in his ears.

The towering bulk of Kuma the Tyrant looms into view. The Warlord strides right by Franky, Brook, and Nami without so much as a glance - steady, unhurried - no, assured that his prey cannot escape.

Zoro's heart falters and thumps in painful, chest-squeezing palpitations as it dawns on him what prey the Tyrant seeks.

His target lies ahead, his limp ragged form partially obscured by a splintered slab of wall. Zoro watches, unable to move away, straining just to hold himself up against the crumbling ruins, as the Warlord plods across the field of shattered stone and bodies, one slow, sure stomp after another carrying him closer, closer to -

Luffy. Zoro tastes fresh blood, hot and sudden on his tongue, washing past clenched teeth, salty stinging his cracked lips.

Luffy. Supine, motionless, his body tattered, his fresh bandages bloodied already - dead to the world, helpless - and the Tyrant clomping ever closer to claim his prize.

No.

Zoro drags himself further upright, grinding his jaws against the knives stabbing through fractured bones and torn muscles, forcing himself to put weight on his legs even as they threaten to collapse - no -

He braces his back against the stone, sucking in another deep gulp of air - the Warlord looms over Luffy's inert body - no - Zoro stumbles forward a step, another, leaving his support behind.

His knees buckle and he nearly topples over but - no - Kuma lifts a hand, grasps the fragmented wall that blocks his way.

Zoro hears the squish, and the rubble flies away, hurtling over his head with a whoosh that makes his ears ache and all the hairs on his neck stand on end.

Kuma's way is clear - no - Luffy rests within reach, his head listed to the side, his face slack with dreamless slumber even as Kuma bends over him, one monstrous paw outstretched to claim - no - no - no -

Move. His blood thunders with a burst of adrenaline. Move. The quake in his legs subsides with the rush of energy. Move!

He steadies his footing, grips the Wado Ichimonji - no - he moves his hand to the Sandai Kitetsu - its bloodthirsty spirit screams. Move!

Cut!

The Tyrant's hand grasps his captain by the front of his tattered vest, lifts his captain - his limp body sagging back to the shattered earth, dark head lolling back to thump the stone -

Kill!

Zoro crouches, the Kitetsu gripped tight at his right hip, the cursed blade bellowing in its sheath for blood to quench its thirst -

Protect!

Zoro charges.