Sorry everyone, I know I'm an asshole. There has been a lot of drama and recent days have not been good, so I'll just cut to the chase. Not much editing has happened, chapter is pretty long, I like most of it. Next chapter will be better, hopefully faster... Idk, not much hope. xDDx Enjoy.

He wasn't trying to eavesdrop, especially on his friends, but when he was passing them in the hall at the orphanage just after they got back from school it was merely by accident that he heard about that stupid blond's stupid plan. They didn't see him, not that he could tell, and that was good because he wasn't done being angry yet. He didn't want anyone to see him, as worried as he felt, because he knew they'd rub his face in it later. But they didn't matter right now. He had to get to the school.

Zoro felt only a tiny bit stupid for not being at school earlier, but mostly he was angry. How could they do something so dangerous without telling him? Sure, he'd been avoiding the group as a whole for the past couple of days, but they still should have let him in on their suicide mission. He could have talked them out of it. He could have helped.

But for some stupid reason, they'd decided to go through with that freaking plan, probably at Sanji's insistence. It was downright retarded and Zoro may not have been the smartest kid on the face of the earth but he knew there was no chance everyone would come out unscathed. If he had any money to his name, he'd bet it all that Sanji would be hurt the worst. That was his gut feeling and he didn't like it at all.

The green-haired boy skidded around a corner, used the wall to help turn and catapulted himself into the stairwell. He had been unable to find the elevator, but that was okay since he didn't think he could stand still for any amount of time. He couldn't get out of there fast enough.

When he got to the lobby-well, he'd barely noticed it, but it registered somehow-Makino intercepted him. She may have just been standing there innocently, he didn't really know, it just felt like she was trying to stop him from getting where he needed to go.

"Oh my. Well, I'm afraid we've run out of options, sir," Makino said, up and out of Zoro's line of concern. Then, as he was trying to pass her, she inserted herself in his way once more by grabbing him by the shoulders. He was a narrow few inches shorter than her, so when he angrily turned his head to glare at her, they were just about eye-to-eye and he could see that it was not the time to be huffy, but he didn't stop glaring.

Someone cleared their throat and brought Zoro out of his angry trance. He really hoped Makino wasn't trying to set up an interview because he didn't have the patience to put on a good face for her right then. He'd have to be rude in front of her and then the others would be upset at him later, if they had time for that kind of thing, and he'd be forced to apologize or some shi-

"Roronoa-kun, Mister Dracule would like to speak to you for a few minutes." Makino squeezed his shoulders and seemed to pull him back a little rather than urge him towards the man that Zoro had barely noticed until she'd said something.

The man was wearing a black suit with a plum-colored shirt and a jacket that was so long it was annoying. His eyebrows looked like they were going to fly away and Zoro didn't blame them. The man had sharp yellow eyes that seemed to see everything about him and disapproved of it all.

"I have to go," Zoro said, after considering "Mister Dracule" for a long time.

Makin shifted behind Zoro and squeezed his shoulders again, while the man just narrowed his eyes. "You don't have to talk to him, Zoro," she whispered, bringing one hand up to smooth out Zoro's hair. "But, I think you should."

There were very few people whose opinions he cared about and, he was sometimes sorry to say, Makino was not one of them. But when he looked the man straight in the face, held his intense stare for longer than he thought he'd ever looked into anyone else's eyes, he felt what she was saying and he kind of understood. Something, and for the life of him he didn't know what, told him he had to talk to that guy.

"Okay," he said slowly, and the man raised one sharp eyebrow. That was the blandest gesture that Zoro had ever seen in his life, but he thought it might have been shock. "Five minutes and I'm out of here."

As Makino led them away to a peculiarly secluded interview room, she looked down at Zoro and patted his hair again dotingly. "Thank you," she mouthed, winking at him. "Just be patient." At least, that's what he thought she was saying when she was making exaggerated faces while not actually talking. And then she dropped them off in an interview room with a door and a weighty silence. She lingered in the doorway doe a few seconds to make it as weird as possible before she finally left them to their awkward "interview."

Which stayed silent for a very long, very painful time. Zoro couldn't remember if he'd heard the man talk yet, so in the eternity since they sat down it was easy for him to be discouraged in his hope that the man would say something that would piss Zoro off so he could storm out. Maybe he wouldn't have done all that, but the silence was really getting to him. And he couldn't break it himself either. No. If that Dracule guy wanted to talk to him so bad, he would do it or Zoro would just wait out fiev minutes and be none the worse for wear. Yeah. He could do this.

Nope, it was too much. It must have been at least twenty minutes already. He tried not to fidget, to stare straight at the man without blinking and win this bizarrely awkward staring contest. He really wanted to win, but his eyes were dry and hadn't it been like an hour already? He really needed to go and help his friends; to save the day. Didn't this guy get that?

Just as Zoro was formulating an excuse that would get him out of the room-something along the lines of explosive diarrhea-the man sat up a little straighter. "Roronoa Zoro," the man rumbled slowly, his deep tone questioning like he was testing the name. Zoro nodded and the man straightened again. He supposed he passed the test.

And so began another leg of the disturbing staring contest. Zoro wondered if he would ever get to leave.

oOo

"Sanji," Luffy whispered, gripping his arm.

"I know," the blond grunted out through clenched teeth.

"This wasn't part of the plan, Sanji," Luffy told him as if he didn't already know.

"I know, Luffy," Sanji hissed, turning his back on their enemies against his better judgement. "I know."

Luffy glanced past him, then refocused on Sanji. "We don't have a lot of time. Do you still want to go through with it?" Luffy asked quietly, inclining his head. He was giving Sanji an out in a situation that wouldn't actually allow it as far as Sanji could tell. He was a good kid, even under bad circumstances. Sanji had about half a second to appreciate that before they really needed to act.

"Yes," he said quickly, making a gesture that he himself didn't fully understand and Luffy winked at him with a grin. The very next second, they both began screaming at the tops of their lungs.

Krieg and Gin drew up short. This was the most whimsical part of their plan and it showed in the reactions of their enemies. The shock wouldn't last for long, they'd already figured that out, they just hoped they could be done with most of their plan before it did.

"Oh my god!" Sanji shouted, barely holding in a bout of insane laughter. "Ow! Mister Don Krieg, you're a teacher, you can't hit students!"

Luffy, who was still screaming so loudly that Sanji couldn't hear Krieg and Gin's reactions, raised his eyebrows at Sanji. He was asking if it was time, offering the opportunity, and Sanji had butterflies fluttering up a storm in his stomach, but he flashed Luffy a grin anyway. And then it was time for the tricky part of their plan: making it look like Krieg was hurting them without actually getting hurt.

The blond glanced around, weighed his options, considered the outcomes. After a second, he picked up a chair-it was heavier than he thought it was, but maybe that was a good thing-and threw it as hard as he could at the wall.

"Wh-what are you doing?!" he heard Gin shriek, amazingly enough, flinching in the corner of Sanji's vision even though he wasn't even close to the line of danger.

Sanji didn't even glance at him as he picked up another chair and threw it at the window. It didn't quite make it, but there was a hell of a clatter when his projectile skidded off the top of a desk and knocked over two other chairs.

"Me next!" Luffy panted, patting Sanji on the back with the biggest damn grin on his face. Just like they'd agreed, Sanji began screaming no more than a second after Luffy stopped.

Krieg made a move towards them, saying something that Sanji couldn't hear but it looked ugly. Luffy jumped away from Sanji, waved his arms around to get Krieg's attention and it worked like a dream. Krieg barreled like an angry rhinoceros towards Luffy with a roar, and Sanji couldn't watch.

oOo

"Have you been well?"

It was the first thing he'd said since questioning Zoro's name and Zoro had no idea how to respond. He didn't know if he'd been well or not, or what time period he was supposed to get the answer from. It had been a while since he considered himself consistently well. He tended to think that question was only answerable if you've met the person asking before, but he was almost sure he'd never met anyone with a name like Dracule.

Unable to make a decision, Zoro just shrugged. The man with the eyebrows like severe birds didn't appear to like his answer.

The silence plug on, maybe more tense than before, but otherwise no change. It was a huge waste of his time, but after however long he'd been sitting there, even though he was itching to leave, he needed to know why some stranger with weird facial hair didn't just randomly drop in to ask how he was, Zoro knew that damn much.

sorrow knew he should wait for that man to reveal the actual reason he was there, but he had no idea how long he been sitting there and his knee was starting to bounce all by itself. "So," Zoro began gruffly, never breaking eye contact, "can I go now?"

He didn't really mean it as a question. The more he thought about Luffy and Sanji's plan, the less patient he got. He hoped that he could draw out the answer he wanted by threatening to leave, although it was more of a promise. Zoro didn't know what kind of man he was dealing with, but he felt like this would work.

Dracule's peculiar eyebrows shifted subtly and he leaned forward on his elbows with his fingers loosely entwined in front of him. "Where, may I ask, are you headed to in such a hurry?" the man questioned and he sounded like he really wanted to know. Zoro wasn't inclined to tell him anything, not really, but a part of him wanted to know what those bizarre eyebrows would do if he told the man what was going on.

"My friends are in detention with a lunatic who's trying to kill them and their stupid plan is to provoke him so I need to go save them?" Zoro offered like he was suggesting it. He sounded more questioning than he would like, but his words still made Dracule's sharp eyebrows rise.

The man had questions written all over his face for just a few seconds, before he went back to unreadable stoicism. He leaned back in his chair and Zoro noticed for the first time a white feather hanging from the man's ear. Just as Zoro was thinking how the man got stranger by the minute, Dracule took a very normal sized breath that seemed somehow out of the ordinary. "Why, then, are you here, Roronoa Zoro?" the man asked, arching one eyebrow. "If your friends are in danger, why don't you help them?"

Zoro blinked. He was annoyed and confused and he had no answer to give, so he just got up and walked out. As he rounded the doorway, he looked back over his shoulder to see hawk-like eyes staring right back at him.

oOo

"Please, Sanji-san, just stop this!" Gin pleaded as he'd been doing for almost as long as they'd been screaming and throwing things in the classroom. They had long-since stopped screaming—that part of the plan had been a bad idea, at least—but after Krieg and Gin caught on to what they were trying to do, they'd had to really move. Somehow, even when Don Krieg started throwing thing back at them, Gin apparently thought he could still convince them to give in.

Sanji vaulted over two fallen chairs just as a drawer landed in splinters behind him. In his adrenaline-addled state, Sanji could barely think clearly enough to keep an eye on Luffy, but every now and then he could hear a grunt or a laugh that could be no one else. He hadn't thought of it before, but running around inside one single classroom trying not to get killed was much easier said than done. Sanji had no idea how Krieg was keeping up with both of them, but he could tell that it wasn't the easiest situation for him either.

"We won't hurt you, I swear!" Gin was saying. Sanji saw out of the corner of his eye that Gin flinched at everything that sailed through the air, no matter how far it was from him. "Right, Krieg-san?"

"Oh, sure," the apeman sneered, sounding out of breath and yet still mind-bogglingly loud. "Give up now and I'll only break one of your legs!"

Luffy popped up from under the big desk at the front of the room just in time to have a bulletin board whiz past his head. It didn't seem like he'd noticed when he said, "Wait, my leg or his leg?"

"Ask the tough questions, why don't you," Sanji muttered, maneuvering in a wide arc around Gin to stand by the door. There was a potted plant there that he thought he might be able to throw.

"Both!" the psychotic teacher bellowed, grabbing a globe off the floor—Sanji thought it had been on the main desk, but Krieg was standing in the middle of the room—and chucking it at Sanji. Luffy yelled out, but Sanji had already ducked. It wasn't until he heard a fleshy smack and a thud that Sanji realized the shout wasn't for him.

oOo

"And this hall is mostly to be—ahem—mimimi! Ah, mostly to be avoided. Offices, teachers' lounge, really not much a new student like yourself needs to worry about."

The man had been introduced to her as a new teacher, so she didn't put much stake in his words, but she did have a bad feeling about that hall. Although, it had more to do with the ominous noises coming from the end of the corridor than what was in the rooms.

"You'll be upstairs actually- Ahem! Mamama!" the man—Igaram, if she had heard correctly—began, clearing his throat more than any one person she had ever known. After a moment of smudging his nose with a handkerchief and batting back his giant white-blond curls, he continued; "Much better. Beg pardon. You shall be upstairs for the time being. Your file says you have never been in school before. Curiously, it doesn't say much else, but is that so?"

Before she could answer, a growl like an angry wild dog ripped through the stillness of the nearly empty empty hallway. Her eyes were drawn to a door with one big frosted window at the top, the very last door on the right.

"What in the-?" Igaram was looking at the same door. A moment later, the door shook in its frame. "No animals are allowed on the premises, let alone feral ones...! Ahem—mimimi! Pardon me, young lady, while I take care of this!"

She didn't care to stand alone in the hall, especially if it meant she wouldn't get to see what made that noise, so she followed quietly behind Igaram. Not two seconds passed and there was a loud clatter, followed by a boy's voice shouting.

"What is wrong with you?! He was loyal to you!" a different voice shouted, still a young boy.

Igaram tried the door, but it was locked from the inside. She never considered herself one for drama, but it certainly piqued her interest. There were so many things that could be happening inside that classroom—although peculiar violence was her guess—and every possibility was full of more promise than any of the other islands she'd been to. She could hear in her head her mother telling her not to take joy in such things and came back to herself immediately.

"Ahem! Children! No locking doors and no animals! Classes are over, you and your rabid pet should just go home!" Igaram called, and then cleared his throat and did a scale.

She refrained from shaking her head at him, but just barely. "Perhaps they are having detention?" she suggested, although she herself didn't think that was very likely.

A loud clatter with several different facets (multiple items being knocked over like dominoes, she thought) sounded in response. "Go away! I've got these brats under control!" a harsh man's voice snarled from the other side of the door, and then something hit the door with a crack.

Igaram glanced down at her with the slightest reprimanding look, apparently just noticing her presence. "Who am I speaking to? Ahem- mamama! It does not sound, sir, like you have anything under control. What is going on in there?"

"He's trying to kill us! Please help!" the boy who had spoken before pleaded. She couldn't really tell what was going on, but she did not feel like that was entirely false.

From the look on his face, Igaram was thinking something similar. "I think you all need to open this door so we can have a chat," he reasoned, reaching one hand in his pocket.

"I said it's under control!" the man inside the room shouted. Several smaller voices piped up in the background, but she couldn't hear what they were saying. "Quiet, brats! Just mind your own business!"

"It's Don Krieg, the sub from the high school," a different boy called in a very deliberate tone. "He's crazy! He's not even qualified to teach, he just wants to rob everyone blind!"

Igaram cursed under his breath and lifted his hand from his pocket. He was holding a strange little metal tool in his right hand, and he clutched the door handle with his left. "Don't tell my wife," he muttered plainly with a tight smile. Next second, he'd picked the lock.

It took her a moment to get past her surprise, but Igaram did not suffer the same pause. He ducked through the doorway, his soup-can curls catching on the frame in a way that didn't manage to take away from his menacing aura. "Beg pardon, Krieg-san, but I must borrow you for a moment. Nico Robin-chan, stay behind me, please. Are—ahem! Mimimi!—are you boys alright?"

"For now! Good timing, Ossan!" one of the boys chirped merrily.

Blatantly ignoring his request, Robin stepped forward to get a peek into the room. And, from what she gathered at first glance, a hurricane had done the same not too long ago. Not a single chair stood upright, wall hangings were strewn across the floor, Two desks had been ripped from the floor and were wallowing in the corners of the room, while the big desk had a long scrape right across the top. In amongst it all, three boys (two huddled in the floor on one side of the room, the other standing on a fallen chair behind the main desk) were staring with wide, unafraid eyes at a gorilla of a man who looked like all the veins in his head and neck were prone to burst at any moment. It was a very interesting scene, to say the least.

"Who the hell are you?" The man inside the room looked a little scuffed and winded, with an ugly, bulky suit and short-cropped gray hair. The name Don Krieg, to her, implied a dignity that the hideous, fuming man did not possess. Robin instantly believed the boys' story.

"Who I am does not matter! Rather than that, what in six hells happened in here?!" Igaram scanned the room quickly, then frowned at Krieg. "You had better come with me to explain this to the principal."

Don Krieg narrowed his already tiny eyes and stuck out his chin. "This is none of your damn business! Don't stick your nose in where it doesn't belong!"

The boy who had been standing behind the teacher's desk suddenly leapt up and over, landing almost directly behind Don Krieg. He grinned at Robin and then, unbelievably and yet unmistakably, punched Krieg in the ribs.

Krieg stumbled away from the scrawny boy's fist as the boy bounded almost leisurely off towards the other two. Igaram hadn't gotten more than a single scolding word out of his mouth when the gorilla man roared, long and painfully loud. Don Krieg whipped around, howling words that Robin had never heard strung together before in her life and reared back with both fists as if to crush the boy flat.

"Luffy-!" The blond boy of the trio grabbed the one called Luffy and yanked him out of the way just as Krieg swung his fists down so hard he lost his balance. As Don Krieg was wobbling on the balls of his feet, Igaram clapped a hand on the back of Krieg's neck and somehow pulled him out into the hall in one swift movement.

"Don't fucking touch me, dammit! Those goddamn children are-"

"Exactly," Igaram cut in sharply, over the sound of their footsteps fumbling down the hall. "Children! That's what they are, you scum!" It sounded like they fought all the way down the hall, shouting and scuffling.

As soon as they were out of earshot, Robin turned to look at the trio of boys. The blond and Luffy were grinning, while the other boy looked haunted. "That was great! I mean, sorry you got hurt, Gin, but that was really cool! We did it!" Luffy cheered, clapping both of the other boys on the shoulder at once.

Robin was eternally curious—if she didn't know about something, she would find out quickly—but she knew that this was absolutely none of her business. She could find out later on, when she was properly enrolled, why those three boys were locked in a massacred classroom with a bull of a teacher and happy about it. Really, this school was shaping up to be a very interesting experience.

She turned to leave and try to find a teacher to help her, but she looked over her shoulder one last time, puzzling. The blond boy was staring right back at her. He raised his hand in a tiny greeting. Robin tried not to acknowledge him, but she found herself nodding once. She had set a number of restrictions for herself before coming to that school, and she had to remind herself of a number of them just to turn and go.

oOo

"Hey, why so down?" Sanji asked finally, as they were leaving the building. He'd noticed Gin had been silent for a long while and he'd been worried at first that maybe he was really hurt. But then Gin seemed perfectly in control of his facilities and whatnot and Sanji was no medical professional but the kid just seemed like something was on his mind.

"I..." Gin stared down at his dirty sneakers, slowly falling behind. "Well, I wasn't... a very good friend... to you... I think... I have to go," he said very quietly. "I appreciate everything you've done for me, Sanji-san, you're a good friend, I just... I'm going to make sure we never see Don Krieg again, but to do that... That would expose my involvement in his crimes and they are so, so much bigger than you know, so... I probably... Rather, I will... I've got to leave this island, and never come back."

By the end of his speech, Gin had gained enough momentum that it sounded like he really meant it. Sanji wished he could say he was sad, but he couldn't find it in him. Perhaps that was due to Gin's betrayal, or perhaps they were never really that close, but either way he didn't even blink.

"Aww! That's a shame! You're alright when you're not on Krieg's side!" Luffy piped, skipping along ahead of them like it was water rolling off his back. Sanji could not think of a single thing to say.

"I'm really sorry. I hope I can be like you one day, but until then... I'll never forget you," Gin mumbled to his shoes and, as if sensing that Sanji did not have a reply, turned and walked away, back towards the school.

Sanji caught up with Luffy slowly, turning the day's events over in his head. It had been a long day and so much had happened that it was hard to wrap his brain around it. He felt like he hadn't seen his friends in months and that was really starting to get to him. He couldn't wait to be home.

"Ne, Sanji, I know you and Gin were friends," Luffy said suddenly, hopping over a pebble as they walked. "And that's cool, but you know Zoro really hates him, right?"

Sanji tripped on the toe of his shoe and stumbled into Luffy's shoulder. "What the hell are you talking about?" Sanji tried to sound chill, but his voice was screechy. "Zoro doesn't even know Gin!"

Luffy laughed and steadied Sanji. "That doesn't matter. He was right, wasn't he? Gin was a troubled kid and I think Zoro knew that. He glared a lot, Sanji, it was hilarious!" Luffy insisted and then laughed again. "He was really worried about you. Don't tell him I said that, though, he might get mad."

"I don't know what you're talking about," Sanji muttered and the subject was dropped. He didn't think of Zoro as being very perceptive, but Luffy sounded convinced. Not that that was a particularly good indication, since Luffy was also convinced that meat was a vegetable. Something about hearing it, though—well, it made him think. It would make more sense, he thought, than Zoro just being rude at random (although he would also believe that).

"Hey, speak of the devil!" Luffy shouted and ran off before Sanji even looked up. Down the road, Zoro was glowering as he jogged up to Luffy, but the glower was directed at Sanji, as per usual.

Sanji tried to hold Zoro's eye, but it made him feel funny and he ended up staring at some tree near Zoro instead. It was pathetic, he knew, but he couldn't help it—every time he tried to look he couldn't even breathe right.

"Well I guess you idiots didn't die," Zoro grumped, crossing his arms sternly.

"Hey, imagine that!" Luffy laughed. He beckoned Sanji over, as if the sudden tension were invisible to him. Sadly, Sanji thought, that may actually be true. "We're you coming to help us, Zoro?"

The green haired boy coughed, which Sanji thought was odd. He glanced up just in time to see Zoro look away. "As if you needed it," Zoro mumbled to the grass, and took a very deep, very abrupt breath. "Uh, anyway, let's head back. The others are really worried." Sanji pretended he didn't see the pink in Zoro's cheeks.

"Shishishi! You shoulda told them not to worry about us! It was sooo much fun, Zoro!" Luffy seemed to be chattering on about the day, but Sanji tuned him out. It was hard for him to pay attention anyway, with what he had to imagine was the end of an adrenaline rush pushing through his system. Luffy may have said something about a zoo and that was all Sanji caught.

They were maybe halfway home when Zoro sidled up beside him and subtly jerked his head to catch Sanji's eye. "Are you okay?" Zoro asked quietly, cutting his eyes to Sanji and away again as if they were discussing highly sensitive material.

"Yeah," Sanji responded, clearing his throat to hide a laugh. "I'm good. Are you okay?"

Out of the corner of his eye, Sanji saw Zoro duck his head. He did not answer.

So, there's that. It got a little run-on-y, but now we have Robin! I actually liked her part the best, lol. Review if you like~