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Homecoming Hill	By : TreeStar Category: +M to R > One Piece Views: 2656 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own One Piece, nor any of the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

Chapter List
- 13
- 14
- 15
Homecoming Hill

14

Shanks

After breakfast the next morning, Zoro found a back door that lead out to a large stone balcony resting over the garden, and went outside. He wanted to take a closer look at everything out there. Leaning over the railing, he was stunned to find that there were literally headstones just inches from the walls of the manor. Who would put graves there?

Puzzled, Zoro went down the balcony steps and out onto a stone walk way through the garden. Slowly walking out toward the large statue that stood in the center of the garden; the one of the beautiful girl with the long hair that stood in the middle of the cemetery, the manor wrapped around her like a distant embrace. Looking across the growth, Zoro kept his eyes open for any Dweller that might come, but he saw no one. The air was very silent, as well. As far as he could tell, he was alone in the graveyard.

He made his way around the flora slowly, noticing that there were many more stones than he had first accounted for. Many more. He�d guessed about fifty the first time out, but that was before he�d pushed large fanning leaves aside to behold what they hid. Some had three and four stones facing different directions under their broad cover. He found that lining the walls of the house where he was still surprised to find any, there were at least forty spaced pretty far apart as he made his way slowly through the garden.

His estimation grew from seventy to one hundred and ten� to over one hundred and eighty.

So many�

When he reached the orchard at the end of the garden, Zoro turned around to look over the graveyard with a whole new understanding.

Tweedle Dum down in the grocery store was wrong. There were many more stones than just those that family had laid out for loved ones. In order to have this number of markers, the hikers and missing school children that had come up here over the years and �gotten lost� had to have them as well. Sanji had been wrong, too. These stones had been placed wherever there had been room, regardless of plot size.

Who needs a plot when there are no bodies? Zoro smirked mirthlessly.

At least he now knew why no bodies had been found for the people that had vanished, and to what purpose the dead ones had disappeared shortly after time of death: dead or alive, those bodies were still being used by their owners who couldn�t leave this world.

Which led him to another worrying thought. If he did manage to help these people, then what would happen to them? He assumed that the dead would simply be free at long last, and they would have several bodies to contend with, but what of the living?

Usopp, Kaya, Kaku, and all the others like them would simply be allowed to finish dying if his theory was correct, for this was the natural order of things. But what about Ace, Luffy, Nami, and little Chopper? They weren�t dead. Zoro wasn�t sure how that could be, but Ace had confirmed for him that over half the people here were still very much alive.

Zoro was missing a major piece here. Something obvious. Something he should have picked up long before now, and as he walked through the orchard and sat down on a bench, it occurred to him what it was.

�Of course!� he laughed at himself softly when it dawned on him and shook his head at his own foolishness. �Of course��

Ace and Luffy had both said - more than once, at that - that Zoro was in a different realm then they were.

�I was looking too hard,� he whispered, plopping down on the ground and leaning back to look out over the garden again.

A dimension that meshed with this one� or was it that Zoro meshed with both of them? Either way, it obviously didn�t distinguish between the dead and the living and took everyone it chose, and it held everyone captive in its little bubble that only spanned the Hill� He was sure that the edge of the property was like an invisible wall, because the Dwellers he�d seen the other day out front had been able to walk around inside the gate, but none had tried to venture beyond. Perhaps they ceased to exist beyond the gate.

How? What happened to cause it? How could he erase it?

Zoro didn�t like that thought, either, because didn�t erasing a reality mean erasing every aspect of it? Erasing all of the people here? Erasing Luffy? Could these people really have a happy ending?

I could ponder this all day and never get an answer, Zoro thought to himself. What I need to do is find a starting point. Begin at the beginning.

He pushed himself to his feet and headed back inside the manor to get the car keys and to let Sanji and Kuina know that he was going into town for a little while.

---------

The City Hall wasn�t terribly large, but it was still the fanciest building in town. One story tall with wide front steps, it was painted white with heavy double doors and four roman pillars supporting the overhanging roof in the front. There was also a large tree with thick branches and red leaves, very odd for an oak in summer. Despite its attempts to look brand new, Zoro could tell everything about this place was old. He could feel it when he walked up its front walk and the breeze from the storm seemed to die just over the property. There was a hush over the lawn surrounding the walkway, and this made him shiver for the first time since getting out of the car in the wind.

The cold of the storm had nothing on this place, but it wasn�t until he got closer to the tree that he paused in his walk.

For a moment he thought he�d heard something. Not a loud something, but soft, as though the wind were whispering� But there was no wind.

It came again, and Zoro looked at the tree looming over him. The red leaves� so odd for this time of year.

Or perhaps not so odd at all, Zoro realized as his stomach twisted. The tree had the perfect shape to serve the purpose it had, and Zoro could see the deep burns in two of the long, sturdy branches where bark would never grow again.

The City Hall hadn�t been placed here out of convenience. It had been built here specifically for this tree, so that when the accused were found guilty they could be marched out to where the swinging nooses and platform would be waiting for them. Then they would helplessly have their lives stolen away as their necks snapped and their bowels released over the earth below. This tree would keep bodies dangling for days afterward; rotting flesh for people to throw stones at, serving as a message and a device of fear.

Zoro backed a few steps away. This tree carried a message. It whispered of the past it had witnessed and been a party to, and now its leaves and branches displayed a warning to any who would see it.

This was the City Hall; the building that represented the lives of those who had lived and died here, and there was nothing innocent about it.

Zoro turned back, about to run to his car, but then felt a much stronger shadow and looked up at Homecoming Hill where it was -- looming over everything lesser than It -- holding so much more than mere whispers of death� and he stopped.

If discovering the secrets of the red tree that held only whispers of death had been shocking, what kind of truths would he discover living in a place where the halls screamed of death in the night and the warnings were his bedfellows that touched and spoke to him?

There were no second thoughts, though. Turning around, Zoro walked past the tree with renewed purpose, for there was only the decision that this town had nothing on the manor he�d been living in for over a week.

He would uncover the truth about Homecoming Hill or die trying, and as he glanced back up at the tree a second time, Zoro smiled at how stupid he�d been to take that phrase lightly for so long.

-------

The book that the woman behind the desk had led him to was enormous, old, faded, and dusty. When Zoro had first asked for a record to his property, the woman, Bridgett, had become rather confused and then it had taken her a moment to regain her bearings and lead him back to where he needed to be before she�d left him promptly with a little nervous bow and a request that he take as long as he needed and no offer to help him find anything else.

Zoro had hardly been surprised. He could almost have been grateful for his Hill�s reputation granting him peace that he so often desired. Almost.

All the same he accepted her invitation as he flipped through the pages, taking his time to look at everything carefully. He could tell right away that at least some of his suspicions had been correct. Everlasting Manor had never aged a day. The photographs slipped between pages of different areas of the property showed as much. It looked as new now as it did when it had first been built, the only difference now being that most the windows were boarded up from the outside, which had to be terrible for the flow of starlight into the house. He wondered if there was much competition for windows in the Wings, and if that added to the strife. He found it stupid at first that the Dwellers simply didn�t try to remove the boards, but then realized that with a hundred people trapped for decades under their circumstances, one of them had certainly thought of that idea. There was probably some consequence involved or something. There seemed to always be consequences on the Hill.

Zoro got nearer to the end of the book and found a came across a resident history. Curiosity overtook him and he sat up in the chair some to read the names therein. They were in scratchy print and slightly faded, but still legible, so Zoro started at the top. It was an incomplete register, of course, keeping only the names of the families that owned the house and sometimes the head of staff of the vineyard, but no complete and total list of every worker that ever resided there. This was disappointing because Zoro knew most of the people he�d seen to be workers rather than owners. Still, it was hardly a total loss.

�1913,� he whispered under his breath. �Nefeltari Cobra and family. Head of Staff: Daniel Raily. Left in 1929... Doesn�t say why�� He perused his finger along the list of names looking for anything that sounded familiar to him. Of course, he knew there was one year he couldn�t wait to get to, but he could take it one page at a time.

He went over six different family names between 1929 and 1935, and then he reached gold. �Jan. 1935 - March 1935 -- Aaron D. Shanks. Head of Staff: Michael Grosser. D. �This is Luffy�s family. �Three months� such a short time.� In only three months, this family had suffered more loss than most families did in a decade. They were still suffering it.

There were no further notes on this page, which disappointed Zoro, but the book was old and fat, so he didn�t allow himself to be too discouraged just yet. He skimmed down further to read

Clay Wills -- 1941

Richard Thomason -- 1943-44

George Jamasen -- 1945

Francis Blueno -- 1946

Mark Heralding -- 1948-50

Dracule Mihawk -- 1950-51

Gen. Smoker Tycony -- 1953

Alexis Marconi -- 1957-58

Daniel Davies -- 1960

Andrew Django -- 1965

Nico Olvia -- 1967

Tailor Mindosa -- 1968-69

Zoro stopped here. Mindosa? Who was that? He hadn�t met anyone named Tailor yet� had he? No, he was sure not. But then every name here represented at least fifty souls living on the Hill, so lord only knew how many people had vanished before this guy left. Well, crap. This didn�t tell him anything about what happened in 1969, except that someone had been living there that year. �Well, he supposed that was better than nothing, but he�d suspected that already due to the fact that Ace knew the year, and he had been told that they only knew what year it was because Outsiders would come and get trapped, and they would be able to tell the year.

There had to be more here than that.

The list went on some time, with many takers signing their name and then giving up their title usually in the same year they bought the Hill. Zoro recognized the name Atlay in 1985 to be Nami�s, and had the feeling when he reached the end of the list that Doctrin -- 1992 was probably Kaya�s family, because he�d gathered that she was the last one to join the Hill before Zoro himself arrived.

Taking a pen from his shirt pocket, he swirled it on the ink blotter to get it going before writing down Roronoa Zoro -- 2007 in the book before him.

He hadn�t asked, but he wasn�t lying. So he was taking liberties. So what?

On another page, old photographs taken of the graveyard over the years revealed its steady and disturbingly quick growth from the statue of the girl being set in the center of the garden to the overgrowth hiding scattered markers here and there. When he finally unrolled the blueprints to the manor and compared them with the handful of photos he�d gathered, he came up with nothing useful.

It wasn�t until he�d flipped through a little farther that Zoro finally found what he had been looking for. The list of those registered to the family graveyard of Homecoming Hill.

He counted and came up with seventy nine names. Holy shit! Apparently the total was higher than the common townsfolk could even imagine. That, or even the grocer was afraid to admit how many people were registered up there. Of course, these people were just registered, and most of them as having memorial plaques, not as having actual grave plots. This list made no mention of all the people that had disappeared, and didn�t take into account the other hundred or so tombstones in Zoro�s backyard.

So they ARE appearing on their own. Or no one from town is adding them, anyway.

But the important thing to Zoro was that all of those people�s names that wouldn�t appear up there on the Hill, all of those names that had been erased from papers and office door plaques as though they�d never existed -- all of those names that vanished the moment they were written down -- and that had disappeared leaving nameless memorials� all of those names appeared here in this book. He smiled as his eyes went down a long list of not so unfamiliar names. There were many unaccounted for, but that meant nothing more than that no one from town had logged in that they�d vanished. It didn�t mean they hadn�t existed or that there was no record of them anywhere in the world anymore.

Zoro wasn�t sure how much that would really mean in the long run, but it gave him hope to know that the Hill�s power and whatever force behind it could only reach so far. The written word WAS a powerful thing, and regardless of whether they have no pulse left or otherwise, if Atlay Nami�s name was still recorded, then she wasn�t permanently gone. If Marksen Usopp�s name was still here, and Doctrin Kaya�s, and Squarem Kaku�s, and Paulie Roeper�s, and Tilestone T. Tilestone�s, then that meant that the world there were sealed in was not so perfectly sealed after all. Monkey D. Luffy was still a part of this world.

---------------

Forty minutes later found Zoro sitting on a bench underneath his own balcony window, pondering how his life had changed, what the future would possibly hold, and how those changes would effect his life from now on. If all the people that were presumed dead suddenly appeared alive after so many years, how could the world account for that? They�d have no place to live, no money, a lot of them would have no family left, and even if they did, their families would doubtfully accept that they hadn�t aged after so many years of disappearance. They would think it was a twisted joke of some sort.

New social security numbers, jobs, complete reeducation about the current world, and no family. Zoro would be the only one to take care of them. Of course, he was sure that the children would end up being placed in foster care and that many of the adults would be independent and desperate to live freely their own way again, but there were a few misfits that didn�t quite seem to fit in either category. Zoro wondered what would happen to them, and what he would have to do to get them started in society again. Hopefully the West Wingers weren�t ALL insane, or their freedom would be short-lived�

I�m jumping the gun, Zoro thought to himself, but these thoughts were practical and kept his mind on his goal to set them free. But the steps needed to reach that goal� the information� the history was so incomplete that he couldn�t figure out what made the good Hill turn bad. He needed to get to the root of the problem.

�You look like you�re in deep thought.�

Zoro shot to his feet and stumbled over several steps before freezing and slowing his racing heart. He remembered this voice�

His eyes fell on a red haired man standing a few feet from him whom he recognized immediately from the picture in Luffy�s room, and who didn�t look the slightest bit surprised that he was being heard and seen.

�I knew it,� the man smiled at him.

Zoro didn�t know protocol at this point, and even though this man gave no sign of being threatening (in truth his presence was a lot like Ace�s. He�d even snuck up behind him the same way, which really had to stop happening because it took ten years of Zoro�s life every time they did it), he decided to wait for the man to start the conversation that he was obviously seeking.

The man smiled for a moment longer, looking Zoro up and down as if trying to decide something, and then nodded and indicated toward the backyard.

�You�ll want to be careful out there. It�s not really bad most of the time, but if you run across the wrong person, things can get kind of ugly. You know, in that �you might get killed� sort of way.�

He said it so casually that Zoro was starting to wonder how sane Shanks himself was. Another kook who has been here too long� he thought. But at least he wasn�t taking it out on the newbie.

�Let�s head out front, if you wouldn�t mind talking with me. I�m on watch duty and I�m sort of� well, skipping out on it,� the man admitted sheepishly, leaning hopefully in the direction of the front yard.

Zoro nodded and jogged the few steps to walk beside the man. He�d wanted to meet a Dweller, and that it was this particular man just seemed fitting somehow. They already had someone in common; a boy with deep blue eyes.

�Thank you,� Zoro said suddenly, and the man turned to look at him as they walked. �Thank you for what you did the other day when my sister and I were out here. That man who was staring had been making me nervous.�

�Oh,� the man said slowly in comprehension. �That was Mihawk. Hawkeye, we call him. He comes on strong because of that gaze, but he�s a good man. I�m Aaron D. Shanks. Your sister called you Zoro, right?�

�Yes, Roronoa Zoro,� Zoro nodded. This guy was pretty cool, acting like their situations happened every day and there should be nothing odd in the slightest.

Shanks smiled jovially. �So tell me a little about yourself, Roronoa Zoro. What brings you to this cheery place?�

�Ambition,� Zoro answered. �Originally we planned to open the Hill up to the public, but that won�t work now.�

The man laughed and picked up a twig to start snapping as they walked. �Does your family know about us?�

Zoro shook his head. �It�ll be hard to explain��

�Probably not as hard as you think,� the man disagreed. �Your sister - Kuina, aye? - she saw something, didn�t she?�

Zoro nodded slowly. How does he know�?

Shanks smiled. �Word gets around out here. You�re all the gossip right now. Anyway, now that she�s seen Smoker, you don�t need to worry about whether or not they�ll catch on. It�s only a matter of time.� He didn�t seem very concerned about it, which was odd to Zoro. The Everlastings had been acting nervous about it.

Zoro nodded. He wasn�t looking forward to fording off the objections at all. How would he be able to make Sanji understand that he had a sense of obligation toward these people? That he couldn�t leave them behind� even if it meant his family would have to leave him behind with them?

�You know, there�s a photograph of you in my room,� Zoro said to change the subject. �One with Luffy and Ace. I recognize you from it.�

The man�s smile became slightly sad. ��You�ve met my boys,� he stated softly.

Zoro could only nod.

�How are they?� Shanks asked, although his tone told that he already had a good idea of the answer was.

Zoro was suddenly unsure how to share his news, for it wasn�t all good. ��Ace is fine. He�s the leader of the East Wing. Everyone depends on him to protect them.�

Shanks nodded, eyes shining with pride.

��It�s Luffy who�s not doing well.�

Shanks looked up toward the fountain, but Zoro couldn�t tell if he was looking at it or looking past it to some vague memory from long ago. �He could never handle being locked up� Luffy is a free spirit.�

Zoro knew no words of comfort. He had no explanation for why what was happening was happening. This Dweller no doubt knew more than he did, and when Shanks turned and continued walking through the courtyard, Zoro followed easily.

�Shanks� Can I ask you something?�

Shanks shrugged. �Shoot, but I�m not accountable for what may happen to you because of it.�

Zoro nodded. He understood now that there were things that the Everlastings and Dwellers just couldn�t tell him, or something bad might happen. Though this was the first time one had indicated that the bad thing would happen to him instead of them� He brushed it off for now.

��Why Luffy? Why you, and why Ace?�

Shanks slowed to a stop and considered this question for a moment. �Are you asking how victims are chosen here?�

Zoro nodded, glad that Shanks understood him so well.

Shanks laced his fingers behind his head. �Truth be told, no one�s positive, but I have a pretty good idea why some come to join us and others don�t. I�ve noticed a theme with victims.�

He sat down in the air as if there were an invisible recliner there that Zoro couldn�t see. �It�s all based on energy. This whole place thrives on life energy. And I don�t mean how physically strong someone is at all, no, no. I�m talking about a person�s love of life; their life force itself. The strength of their heart and the size of their soul. These are things people of all ages have, and that others just don�t have at all. These are things that the Hill needs feed on to survive. That�s why I believe there are so many children and young people on the Hill. There are people out there with no ambition, no dreams, and sometimes no more will to live. Those people would never be claimed by this place. And then there are those whose life forces start to dwindle with time and the loss of hope. No�� Shanks looked up at the manor in all its beautiful splendor. �This place is attracted to a strong life force.� His eyes met Zoro�s. �Like yours,� he finished.

Zoro drew back. �Mine?� he repeated.

Shanks nodded, but waved his hand nonchalantly. �Not to worry, yet. There�s something different about you. We can all feel it. When you got here, you arrived with a strong power, a sense to see completely through the barrier separating our world from yours. None of the others have ever had that.�

Zoro looked at Shanks in confusion. �So� what does that mean?�

Shanks leaned forward very seriously. �It means your special.�

Zoro�s brows drew together in confusion. �I don�t understand. Special how?�

Shanks shrugged. �That�s something I can�t tell you. But I can tell you that you�re the first one to have this aura around you, and that there must be a reason for it.�

Zoro didn�t have a reply to this, but Shanks� comment made him think, why me?

It wasn�t at all that he was unhappy, but he had had the feeling that he had this ability for a reason, and now that it wasn�t just him anymore, that made it real to him.

��Shanks,� Zoro inquired again, �How� Why�� He stopped and sighed in frustration, and Shanks looked at him understandingly.

Zoro opened his mouth and chose his words carefully. �I want to help you all,� he started, and waited for Shanks to nod before he continued, �but I don�t know how to ask what I need to ask. I don�t know what I need to learn in order to do this right, and it�s making it� difficult, to say the least.� He looked up at the redhead imploringly, hoping that this might, MAYBE get him something. He�d settle for ANYTHING concrete at this point.

Shanks nodded again, and then chose his own words carefully. �Her name was Nefeltari Vivi� and she was the first person to become a resident here in our sense of the word. I could tell you why, but I can�t tell you the �what� that the �why� belongs to.�

�What does that mean?�

�It means that I can tell you a story of once upon a time, but I have to stop before I get to the end, so you�ll have to draw your own conclusions.�

Zoro was suddenly all ears. �I�ll listen to anything you have to say.�

Shanks laughed a little, then leaned forward in his �seat�. �All right. Take a seat.�

Zoro was suddenly lifted off the ground and moved into a sitting position where he could feel nothing physical supporting him. It felt just like being picked up by Ace, and to look down at the nothingness that was holding him up would be too much, so Zoro made himself look into Shanks� face and nowhere else. He could take most of what this Hill threw at him, but he was not a fan of losing control of his body to strangers, and that would never change.

�I suppose the best place to start any story is at the beginning,� Shanks sighed, and began his tale. �The first homeowners of this place were the Nefeltari family. Nefeltari Cobra had only one child; a daughter named Vivian. The family had many workers that lived in the manor and worked the land and helped manage the public, for this place was always busy. Because Vivi was his only heir, Cobra was very protective of her. She was to inherit all of the family assets, after all. So you can imagine how he reacted when a young gypsy with no last name wandered through town one day, laid eyes upon his daughter, and then decided to stick around. Whenever she came into town, the boy would watch her with an entranced look, and so feeling his gaze, Vivi would look at him and blush from across the road. Before too long Cobra noticed the boy and tried to keep him away from her, but in true Shakespeare fashion the boy snuck onto the property and came to her balcony one night. Boy met girl, and the two inevitably fell in love. Sounds nice so far, aye?�

Zoro�s return nod was a little grim, for he knew how love stories �in true Shakespeare fashion� played out.

�Their love progressed in the woods at night when they snuck away after dark. It continued by way of messengers who would deliver secret messages from one to the other during the day. It was whispered of behind closed doors by townsfolk and the vineyard staff. One day the boy tried to talk the girl into running away with him, but Vivi was loyal to her father, and would not hear of it, so the boy summoned his courage and went to Cobra to formally ask for his daughter�s hand in marriage.�

Zoro frowned knowingly at Shanks nonchalant shrug. �Naturally he was rejected outright.� Shanks looked questioningly at Zoro. �You�re upper class, I assume, since you�re here?�

�Yes,� Zoro affirmed.

�Then I also assume that you know what usually follows a parent�s rejected proposal?�

Zoro nodded again, �Typically the parents of the girl would become nervous and immediately begin searching for a decent family with a son of the proper age with which to set up a betrothal.�

Shanks sighed. �Right. There was too much of Cobra�s own future riding on his daughter to lose her. He sought out an old friend the very next day and began discussions on getting Vivi with his friend�s son who was incidentally two years younger than she.

�Within three days the wedding date was set, spinning everyone�s stars into misalignment. You see, the night that the wedding date was set was the same night that everything went horribly wrong.�

Shanks beckoned to Zoro, who leaned forward as Shanks� voice dropped to a conspiratorial whisper.

�According to the story as told to me by the gardener�s daughters, twins who were there at the time and became like us only two weeks after the incident, the air was an oddly still that night. It was late when ominous clouds rolled in, blocking the light of the moon and the stars, but there was no wind that anyone remembers. The temperature dropped sharply. It was very quiet around the property for several minutes. And then the icy cold feeling of being watched that we all feel now settled over the Hill for the first time. You�ve felt before what it feels like to get near a resident of this Hill that doesn�t really want you in their area, aye?�

It wasn�t exactly a question, but Zoro nodded anyway, suddenly feeling uncomfortable with the dark tone this was taking on, despite that he�d expected it. Zoro HAD felt it before. Not the feeling he got when an East Winger was hanging around someplace and watching him, but the feeling when he entered an empty room that had been destroyed, or when he�d entered the hallway to the West Wing that first morning after he�d arrived.

Shanks looked into his eyes and said, �That feeling is nothing compared the feeling that first settled over the Hill that night almost a century ago. Sometimes we feel it still. At certain times. None of us are sure what happened that night. All we know is that that was that no one ever saw Vivi again.�

�Is Vivi here? Can I talk to her?�

Shanks shook his head. �She�s never been here. When the gardener�s daughters came to be like this days after Vivi vanished, Vivi wasn�t here. We can�t imagine what happened to her.�

Great. More confusing details.

Zoro sighed, feeling suddenly overwhelmed. ��Is there any hope I have?� he whispered, fearing the answer. He�d become so attached to the people here. He couldn�t bear to resign them to eternal imprisonment.

Shanks looked at him imploringly, willing him to understand his next words. �You are hope. The only hope we have. We�ve been hoping for you. Waiting for you all this time. We didn�t know if anyone would ever come who would sense and understand us, but we�ve clung to that hope because it�s all we�ve had. Especially the children. We�ve made up nursery rhymes about the someone who would come, and now hopes are rising,� he said with some excitement. �No pressure,� he then added.

Zoro nodded, the weight and importance of responsibility refilling him with determination.

Shanks nodded once in approval of Zoro�s attitude. Then his smile broke out again and Zoro felt himself being moved to stand on his own again as the red-haired man spun with a furl of his mantle and began walking down toward the front gate where Zoro could now see Mihawk watching them like a bird of prey.

Zoro called after him, wanting one more answer from the man before he went back to (neglecting) his watch duties. �How come no one else is willing to try telling me as much as you just did?�

Shanks paused for a moment, turning to look over his shoulder. ��Because I love to challenge my limits.�

Zoro caught the rebellious glint in his eyes before Shanks dispersed from view.
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Homecoming Hill