The Straw Hat Pirates had anticipated changes. Certainly a lot of minor changes, and possibly more than a couple of the considerable, head-turning variety. After spending an entire two years separated by broad sweeps of Bartholomew Kuma's gigantic hands, with each of them devoted to advancing their individual skills and abilities until their long-awaited reunion as a crew, how could they not expect a few surprises? But while hair styles and heights and even Franky's odd but intriguing new modifications to his bulky frame are one thing, this- well, this is another matter entirely.

The first hints that something might be amiss with their swordsman don't necessarily arise when he fails to meet them in the grove where the Thousand Sunny's docked but rather when Silvers Rayleigh appears in his stead, explaining that not only did Zoro arrive several days before the rest of them but if they want to collect their green-haired friend, Luffy and several of the others will need to accompany him on a brief side-trip to his and Shakky's place. And when upon hearing Sanji's muttered derogatory comment about the necessity of separating a wayward fool from his booze, Rayleigh merely gives a single shake of his grey head, expression grave and vaguely troubled, that's when they begin to understand that something rather more serious than a poor sense of direction or an unwavering love for alcohol has prevented Zoro from joining them.

xxx

"The- the EYE didn't really surprise me. I mean, I figured a few more scars-" Nami says helplessly, unable to prevent herself from staring despite her best efforts. "… okay, maybe more than a few, since this is YOU we're talking about. But scars? Sure. Lots of scars. LOADS of them. Maybe even-"

"An amputated limb or two?" Zoro asks, tone tinged with dry humor. He raises his drink, swallows the dregs, and utters a derisive snort as he slams the empty tankard down on the table. "Honestly, just having both legs MISSING ENTIRELY probably would've been a hell of a lot easier learning to live with than- than- THIS." He's ignoring Luffy, who's pacing back and forth behind his chair, gawking at him with enormous, incredulity-filled eyes.

Seated beside him, Robin's studying him with far more polite curiosity. "I must say though, you appear to be handling it remarkably well, Kenshi-san."

"What choice've I really had? Look, you gotta remember, I've had nearly a year to-" Zoro grimaces. "Well, I was gonna say I've had more than a year to GET USED to it, but that's a load of bullshit 'cause I'm not sure it's something I CAN get used to, not after spending nearly TWENTY years- basically my entire life- being- well…"

"N-NOT this way?" Usopp offers hesitantly.

"Exactly. Being NORMAL." Frowning, the swordsman runs a fingertip through the ring of condensation beaded on the tabletop's wooden surface where his drink had initially been sitting. "Every time I think I finally got things under control- that I got it all figured out and there's no more surprises- some weird new crap pops up and I realize I don't know ANYTHING." His gaze slides sideways to land on Chopper. "'Cause it's not like there's a book or a medical manual or something that says how this- how I- work now, 'n… well, let's just say my- ah, my internal anatomy's gotten… pretty complicated."

"W-We'll- we WILL figure it out," the doctor promises, although he sounds far more confident than he looks because his own gaze is locked on the trembling hooves he's resting on the table before him rather than on Zoro's face.

"Oi… Chopper…"

At the sound of his name being spoken so softly, the reindeer finally looks up with visible reluctance- and gulps audibly. "Zoro, I'm- I'm SORRY, it's just-"

"It's a shock; trust me, I know. 'N I'm betting you think I smell kinda funny now too- or at least a lot different from what you remember..." The corners of Zoro's mouth twitch upwards in a somewhat melancholy smile. "I'm still me, though, you know that- right?"

Chopper inhales slowly through his nose and straightens, pressing his hooves more firmly against the tabletop to quell their shaking, and nods. He's still having difficulty meeting the swordsman's gaze, but he's making a valiant effort anyway, relieved that at least Zoro's VOICE hasn't changed. "Y-You said you've been like this o-over a year?"

"Yeah. I've got some notes 'n shit- around here- somewhere-" He's digging in his haramaki, the upper hem of it visible above the place the open flaps of his coat overlap. "Hopefully you can read 'em. I was really runnin' outta space during the last month or so 'n Hawkeyes was such a stingy BASTARD with his damn parchment, I-"

"Hawk- MIHAWK?" Sanji interrupts. "THAT Hawkeyes?"

"Yeah, that Hawkeyes," Zoro agrees, hand emerging from his waistband clutching a thick wad of badly crumpled pages which he tosses across the table to Chopper. "Of course, HE found the whole thing entertaining as fuck. Said he found it, I quote-" He squints slightly, brow furrowing as he recalls his mentor's words. "'-a fascinating diversion from my usual tiresome routine.' God, what a pretentious asshole that guy can be sometimes."

"PLEASE tell me there's something about your dietary needs in all this chicken-scratch," the cook mutters as he peers over the reindeer's shoulder at the papers being gingerly unfolded. "-because I have NO idea what the hell I'm supposed to feed you now, Marimo."

"Oi, Zoro?"

"Well, at least from what I can tell, my system can handle pretty much everything I ate before- only my meals gotta be way more protein-heavy 'n I DEFINITELY need bigger portions."

"… how much bigger are we talking?"

"Zo-rooo-"

"Not quite as much as you'd normally give Luffy but pretty darn close." The swordsman barks brief laughter at the expression of pure distress that passes over Nami's face. "Don't worry too much about the budget, okay? We didn't get many deliveries on Kurigana 'n there wasn't much in the way of local hunting either- unless you really wanted to eat baboon- so I ended up doing a hell of a lot of fishing. In fact, I've gotten pretty damn good at-"

Their captain's peering has progressed to persistent prodding as he squats on the floor beside Zoro's chair to examine his lower half more closely. "Zo-ro. Zo-ro. OI, ZO-RO."

"Will you quit poking me? Jeez, Sencho, WHAT?"

"Zoro, do you-"

"I swear to god, Luffy- if you're gonna ask me if I still shit- or HOW- I'm gonna fuckin' strangle you with my bare hands."

"I wasn't gonna ask that! I was gonna ask if you remember what it was shaped like. The fruit?"

Zoro blinks, brow furrowing slightly.

"I was curious myself," Nami admits. "-but I was also a little afraid to ask. You did always say you'd never want an ability of ANY kind, even if you had your choice of which one."

"Yeah, Marimo. How the hell'd you manage to accidentally eat one of those damn things after hearing nearly half the crew describe what they look like?"

"Wait-" Zoro's turning his head to survey each of their faces in turn. "You guys think I-"

Correctly interpreting his confusion faster than the others, Robin leans forward in her seat. "Kenshi-san, are you saying this is NOT the result of one of the Akuma no Mi?"

"Hell no! I mean, I get WHY you guys would assume that 'n to be honest, it'd make a lot more damn sense than what actually happened. But no, I haven't become an ability user. It wasn't a devil's fruit that did this to me." Shaking his head, Zoro drops his palm on the handle of one of the katana strapped at his side, the last foot or so of his massive tail flexing in a slow, undulating motion that can only indicate intense irritation. "Nah, I've got fucking Kitetsu here to thank for it."

"Your SWORD?" "But how-" "Whoa, COOL!" This last exclamation of undeniable delight from Luffy, who offers Zoro a blank look when the older pirate turns to glare down at him in exasperation. "What? Zoro, that means you can still swim! Right?"

"Yeah. Yeah, I can still swim."

Luffy reaches out a hand to run gentle fingers over the gleaming scales, slowly outlining the yellowish-green blotch at the center of one of the black-bordered patches decorating the side of the sinuous, muscular mottled green flesh that now begins below the swordsman's waist at a point currently hidden by his haramaki and partially buttoned coat.

Zoro twitches away despite his best efforts to hold still, his upper body swaying slightly as he shifts and nervously resettles his lower half, tightening the coils intended to keep his torso positioned at a relatively normal height in his seat.

The captain's gaze darts immediately towards his face, anxiously searching his expression as something like dismay flickers in his eyes. "Does- does getting touched down there hurt?" Clearly very concerned but trying not to let it show any more than absolutely necessary.

"Nah, it doesn't hurt, it's just weird." Seeing his old boyfriend look somewhat taken aback at this, Zoro flushes, embarrassed by his own inarticulateness. "Sorry, Sencho. It's- it's not you- I promise. It's just, y'know, the whole-" He awkwardly indicates himself. "-scales and a tail thing."

"… so then Zoro's NOT bothered 'cause it's been such a long time since-?"

Sanji clears his throat loudly. "Oi, you can sort out your shitty love life later, you guys. I'd like to hear more about how Marimo's sword turned him half snake."

Truthfully, Zoro's more relieved than annoyed by the interruption. There's definitely a long discussion he and Luffy need to have, preferably sooner rather than later, but he'd also much rather it be held in private once they return to the ship, without three-quarters of the crew serving as their captive audience and Rayleigh likely eavesdropping from the next room.

"You remember me mentioning a while back, how Kitetsu's a cursed blade?" Seeing several of his nakama respond with hesitant nods, he crosses his arms and leans forward to rest them on the tabletop. "There's lots of rumors about it bringing terrible ends to its previous owners, but not many details about how they died or what exactly happened to them BEFORE they died. Me 'n Mihawk spent the last year digging up every source we could get our hands on, and we didn't find shit."

He's silent for a moment, gathering his thoughts, and they wait patiently for him to continue. Even Luffy, who's now seated on the floor beside him, leaning against the chair and fiddling quietly with the string suspending his hat against his upper back.

"I've always had a- a FEELING about it, though, right from the beginning. Since the first time I held it. Nothing specific I could put my finger on, but- I always know where it is without looking. And- when I'm wielding it, it feels… hungry." He hesitates, trying to read their expressions. "It's always been hard to handle, too quick to draw blood, pushing me to take shit further than I need to… to be more bloodthirsty." Looking down to where his hands have curled into fists. "He's not sure, 'cause we don't know how long any of Kitetsu's OTHER owners were able to carry it without being affected, but- Mihawk thinks I might've got hit with the curse when Kuma absolutely trashed our asses the LAST time we were here, while I was still fucked up from-" His mouth quirks slightly. "-all those crazy battles on that ship island where we found Brook. Like it took control when- when my luck finally ran out and I was too weak to fight back…"

He glosses over the actual process of the transformation, opting to spare them the details. They don't need to know how it started with fleeting pain in his feet, something he at first dismissed as the sort of tissue damage typically associated with extensive and particularly vigorous training. But how one morning he'd stumbled out of bed to find two of the toes on his left foot fused together, both oddly discolored as though badly bruised, and the joints of the others warped. Cartilage and bone subtly shifted beneath the skin. Both feet aching so badly, it hurt to walk.

The process had sped up drastically after that, intense pain and high fever consuming his body and mind, rendering him bed-bound, helpless and raving for nearly two weeks while first his ankles and knees, then his calves, and finally his thighs fused. The bones within them softening, melting into one another and lengthening, developing spiky protrusions to serve as the rib cage of his new serpentine lower half. The whole configuration anchoring itself to his spine while nerves, veins, arteries rerouted and even organs expanded and adjusted themselves.

Later, after he'd regained enough lucidity and strength to honor the bargain he'd made with Kitetsu, performing an act he knows many people would've found unthinkable, he'd asked Perona- tasked with caring for him during the ordeal- exactly what she'd witnessed while he'd been lost in the throes of agony and unable to communicate with anyone- or thing- save with the dispassionate voice of the katana humming in his pain-addled head. The ghost girl had somehow managed to blanch despite her already pallid complexion and stubbornly refused to tell him.

He'd eventually learned from Mihawk how he'd spent days screaming and writhing, delirious, while his lower half made the transition from legs to tail. And skin to scales. It'd been a bloody process, the epidermis, dermis and hypodermis alike splitting open, sloughing off the exposed muscle in patches to reveal the snakeskin growing beneath them. They'd been forced to bind his wrists to prevent him from unconsciously clawing at the open wounds.

Perona had fully expected him to die, from the shock and pain alone if not from actual blood loss. Together she and Mihawk had been able to keep him hydrated, barely, but getting food into him had been another matter entirely. When his fever had eventually broken one evening and he'd woken trembling and drenched in sweat, finally fully conscious of who he was and where and aware of Kitetsu's role in his predicament, he'd been drastically underweight, largely due to not eating but also because the transformation had stretched the raw materials of his flesh and bone far, far beyond their means.

It'd taken him a long time to recover his strength, regain his original weight and then finally start putting on new muscle- far longer than it'd taken him to become completely frustrated with his uncooperative body and itching to learn how to traverse the castle and its surrounding grounds without legs. And also longer than it'd taken him to become accustomed to viewing the world around him without the benefit of depth perception. Getting used to having one eye had been EASY compared to the rest.

"While I was drifting in 'n out of consciousness 'cause the pain was bad enough I kept passing out, Kitetsu… offered me a choice. Do nothing, let the curse continue moving up my body, changing me, 'til my heart eventually gave out or I decided to end the pain by killing myself or convincing somebody else to put me out of my misery… or- I could strike a bargain, give up something of great value." Zoro touches fingertips to the seam of scar tissue bisecting the closed lids of his left eye. "I knew I could deal with having only one eye. But I couldn't do shit dead."

The majority of faces turned towards him look at least vaguely ill. No one asks him HOW the transaction had been completed, and he's glad. He doesn't want to explain that he'd needed to do it himself, shedding his own blood using Kitetsu itself to satisfy the katana's blood-lust and honor their bargain.

"Unfortunately… giving up the eye only stopped me from changing more. It didn't- y'know- REVERSE anything that'd already been done, so… looks like I'm stuck like this."

"Perhaps it's for the best, as I imagine the results of any further interference could have been much worse. I'd say you've been quite lucky."

"Robin!" Nami exclaims, aghast. "How could you SAY such a thing?"

"Because our swordsman's alive and, from what I can see, fully functional," the historian explains, undisturbed by the dubious look Usopp's also giving her. "It appears as though he's retained muscular control of his lower body despite the transformation, and all of his vital systems - circulatory, respiratory, digestive - must be working properly… or else he wouldn't be here speaking to us."

Beside her, Chopper's nodding his agreement.

"Yeah, 'cause I'd be dead. Mihawk said pretty much the same damn thing." Zoro sighs. "-'n while I sure as shit wouldn't have CHOSEN this, at least it's not just some dumb hunk of limp meat attached to the rest of me." He leans away from the table, hooking an arm over the back of his chair to support his torso as his lower body uncoils, muscles rippling beneath the green and black and yellow scales. The tip of his tail rises to slip through the handle of his empty tankard and curl firmly around its middle, raising it in the air several times before carefully setting it down and retreating.

"Whoooa," Luffy breathes, eyes glinting.

Zoro grins at him. "Don't ask how many drinks I knocked over or dumped in my damn lap learning to do THAT trick. Water 'n booze wasn't too bad, okay- but hot tea? Ouch."

"Oi, Marimo, if you know for sure- without a doubt- that your sword did this, then…"

Smile fading, Zoro turns to meet the cook's gaze. "You wanna know why I've still got it."

"Sanji-kun's got a point…"

"Yeah, why didn't you get rid of it?" asks Usopp with a shudder as he stares uneasily at Kitetsu, the sword's dried blood-colored wrap and gold accents protruding with deceptive innocence alongside the handles of its fellow katana.

"How? I give it to somebody else, maybe they end up with the damn curse too. I try'n hide it somewhere, I risk somebody finding it anyway." The swordsman sighs. "Better it stays where I can keep an eye on it 'n make absolutely sure it can't do this shit to anyone else." He glances down at his side. "Besides, I'm not sure I COULD get rid of it anyway- for all I know, it might get pissed off 'n decide to finish what it started."

"You… do realize you're talking about that thing like it's alive," Sanji points out, eyebrow raised.

Zoro shrugs. "Kinda hard not to, when it's been in my head, talking to me." He gives the katana's handle a light pat with his palm. "It's been pretty quiet since then. Can't say I mind, but… I can't really go back to thinking of it the same way I used to either."

The cook continues staring at him, quite obviously full of doubt yet also not willing to ask aloud if Kitetsu truly spoke or if he simply imagined the whole thing while lost in fever dreams, but that's alright. Zoro doesn't need the sword murmuring inside his skull to sense it's presently content to rest sheathed on his hip until the next battle.

The resulting lull in conversation brings Rayleigh leaning through the doorway leading to the next room and clearing his throat to gain their attention, expression apologetic, almost as though he's intruding in his own kitchen. "Luffy-kun?"

"Uhn?" the Straw Hat captain replies without looking up. He's resumed brushing his fingertips along his swordsman's lower half, gingerly trailing them down the broad scutes that run across his tail's underside and watching in fascination as the flesh ripples under his touch. "Oi, Zoro, does that tickle?"

Seeing their benefactor raise an eyebrow, clearly amused by Luffy's preoccupation, Zoro feels his face growing hotter and fights the urge to slouch off his seat and slide onto the floor beneath the table. Instead, he curls his tail tip around the younger man's wrist, firmly guiding his hand away from the rather dangerous territory into which it's been straying as it nears the last couple of feet.

He hadn't been kidding when he'd warned Chopper that his anatomy's gotten complicated, and now's most certainly not the time for the doctor- or anyone else- to learn about one of the more personal physiological changes.

Thankfully, Luffy's happy to give up exploring that final stretch of belly in favor of admiring the unusual new bracelet he's acquired, roaming fingers stopping shy of probing the broad ventral scute concealing and protecting the more sensitive areas of green-haired pirate's new lower body. Much to Zoro's relief, because while he's fairly certain that particular scale fits too snugly against the others for his captain to accidentally poke beneath it, sticking a finger into what passes for his serpentine half's genitals, he'd rather be safe than sorry.

Rayleigh clears his throat again, and this time he succeeds in capturing Luffy's gaze. "Your shipwright would like a word with you." He gestures to the next room as the rubber man reluctantly allows the tail tip to unwind from his wrist and slide through his open fingers on its way back to the floor. "The den den's this way."

There's a moment of awkward silence after the two men leave the room, as the others find themselves torn between trying not to stare at Zoro and satisfying their natural curiosity, but then they hear Luffy addressing the den den mushi with "Oi, this is Monkey D. Luffy, the guy who's gonna be the Pirate King!" and everyone's forced smiles dissolve into laughter.

"Some things NEVER change, eh," Zoro snorts.

"I wish I could see Franky's face right now," Nami sighs, shaking her head, and then leans forward slightly to address the swordsman directly. "Zoro, do me a favor?"

"Depends on what it is- 'n how much it'll cost me."

"No charge for this one. Just- do me a favor and stick out your tongue?"

Zoro shifts in his chair, eyeing her dubiously, and then slowly, reluctantly, allows his lips to part far enough to make his tongue visible where it's resting behind his lower teeth. He watches Nami's eyes widen almost imperceptibly and knows exactly what she- and their crew mates- are seeing.

He takes a breath and Usopp, who's slid closer to get a better view, actually jerks backwards in surprise at the sight of the small hole gaping open briefly near the base of his forked tongue. "Wh- what the HELL was that?"

"Do that again, Marimo," Sanji demands.

Zoro glares at him, but Robin's now leaning closer as well, her eyes keen with interest below the sunglasses holding her dark hair back from her face. "Yes, Kenshi-san, please do."

He hesitates long enough to let the cook know he's humoring the historian, not him, before taking another deeper breath.

This time it's Chopper who speaks up first, his fascination with his nakama's new anatomy overriding his nervousness as he scrambles over the tabletop to seize Zoro by the cheeks while damn near shoving his nose into his mouth in his excitement. "You- you have a glottis!"

"He's got a WHAT?" "Intriguing." "I don't know what that is, but it sounds dirty…"

"The trachea's completely separated from the esophagus!" Chopper exclaims. He's been tilting Zoro's head back and forth to peer into his throat, a procedure the green-haired man's enduring with bemused patience. "They've each got their own unique orifice now, instead of being partially joined at the back of the oral cavity. And the uvula's just- just GONE."

"The who-what now?" Usopp asks, looking slightly startled.

"Uvula. That dangly thing in the back of your throat," Nami informs him dryly. "NOT whatever YOU were probably thinking."

"Yes, I said uvula, not vulva," Chopper confirms absentmindedly as he continues peering into Zoro's open mouth. "It's an anatomical structure only found in humans, and the lack of one, combined with the presence of a glottis rather than an epiglottis, means his respiratory system's probably almost entirely reptilian..." He tilts his head, examining the swordsman's throat and chest with a critical eye. "Zoro, how long can you hold your bre-?"

"-'N HE GOT TURNED HALF SNAKE!" Luffy yells suddenly from the other room, having obviously reached this point in his out-of-sight discussion with Franky.

Startled, Zoro exhales a bit more sharply than he intended, and the air escaping his lungs emerges as a loud, ominous HISSSSS of displeasure as it forces its way through the now-closed opening leading to his windpipe.

Chopper reels backwards, arms windmilling for a moment before he crashes down on his rump on the tabletop, and Nami and Usopp utter simultaneous little shrieks of surprise which they just as quickly smother, shooting each other looks of embarrassed amusement.

Sanji, staring, visible eyebrow raised, remains quiet for all of five seconds. "Hmm. So that's what an angry cactus sounds like…"

"Stuff a cork in it, shit cook," Zoro retorts hotly, his face blazing, just as Luffy pokes his head through the doorway to squint suspiciously at everyone and ask if anybody else just heard something "really weird, like somebody sitting on a cat" and then disappears again to resume his call.

"You weren't kidding about your body getting complicated," Nami muses, having recovered from her brief fright. "As if the tail wasn't enough by itself!"

"You don't know the half of it," Zoro mutters under his breath- and freezes when Robin, who's been watching their antics in serene silence abruptly sits up straighter in her seat with a soft "oh, oh my" as her hand rises to her mouth. From the renewed intensity of her gaze, he's got a sinking feeling that once again she knows far more about a given topic than he anticipated. In this case, a point of snake anatomy he's got NO INTENTION of sharing with anyone at this table, save- MAYBE- Chopper. MAYBE.

"Robin?" Nami asks, frowning.

The historian smiles gently in reassurance. "I was just contemplating how difficult a time our doctor might have treating our swordsman."

She's so full of shit- that's totally NOT what she was just-

But Chopper's nodding along happily in agreement. "It'll be a challenge, but I'm sure we'll figure out between Zoro and I, right, Zoro?"

"S-Sure…" the swordsman replies weakly, managing a smile that he's grateful doesn't feel too strained. He scratches at the back of his neck, trying to ignore Robin's speculative expression while Chopper beams up at him.

He's rescued from needing to contribute anything further by the arrival of Luffy, who comes bounding back into the dining room brimming with excitement and talking nonstop about the Thousand Sunny and Franky's insistence on them returning immediately in the event any special accommodations need to be made before their departure. The energetic entrance is more than enough to divert everyone's attention.

But then, before Zoro knows what's happening, he's being hauled straight out of his chair by his captain's arms coiled around his torso beneath his armpits, and this too is familiar, although he'd sort of forgotten just how damn strong Luffy is and he knows for a fact that he weighs a hell of a lot more since his legs decided to fuse into a goddamn tail. And he's being lifted with ease, Luffy chattering away in his ear about how their shipwright will make sure the ship's fully accessible to him in this new form.

He's tempted to point out that he's still got arms with functional hands at the ends of them and therefore fully capable of traversing the Sunny's many ladders- it's not like he's ALL snake- but that's evidently a conversation for another time, because the others are rising to their feet and pushing in their chairs, and the conversation's shifted to questions and comments centered on how they're going to get him to the docks and aboard the ship without attracting unwanted attention.