Chapter Text
The whole night, Zoro could not think about anything else but his crew. Perhaps he was a terrible person for focusing solely on that when he just had something equally as important revealed to him, but the swordsman could not help himself. He trusted when Judge said they were not dead...but there were other, worse things than death, and with that psycho clown man with him, the two could cook up horrors beyond most people's imaginations. Zoro had to trust his crew in being able to hold their own (they HAD taken on the entire government and Imu themselves, after all), but some part of him could not help but think of the worst case scenarios. If a bunch of soldiers could take him, the world's strongest swordsman, down, then it meant Luffy, Sanji, and all the others were fair game too.
He could see rays of sunlight began to climb up and into his cell. Time had seemed to pass so slowly last night with his thoughts racing, yet he did not notice the passage of time in the slightest until now. Zoro thought back to Judge's words from the evening before, how his refusal to work with Germa was going to leave him as the lowest man on the totem pole. He had a gut feeling it would most likely involve some sort of hard labor or other hardships in order to "punish" him for dare impregnating the princess of Germa, but he would simply have to steel himself for the trials. Escape would have to wait, seeing as he was not only stripped of his swords, but now had restraints in his skin that could be turned on and off. Zoro thought about finding something sharp and just slicing off those pieces of skin, but he firstly did not want to bleed to death if he nicked the wrong vein, but also because he knew his captors would not let him get off that easily.
Speaking of the devil, the door to the dungeon groaned as it was opened in one swift movement. A tunnel of light poured down on the green haired man as he turned his head up to see who was entering. Muscular and stiff, the man wore a Germa soldier uniform, though it also had the addition of a red and black kepi hat, adorned in gold with the insignia of the Germa Kingdom, and a short black cape around his shoulders. Unlike many other soldiers, though, he had a long and black neatly groomed beard going down to this chest. In his left hand was a tray containing a serving of bread and eggs with a cup of water, all balanced with the precision of an experienced waiter. He looked directly at the swordsman as he glided down the stairs, sunglasses betraying no emotion.
“Good morning to you, Mister Zoro,” the soldier greeted with a perfectly flat affect.
“Mmm.” Zoro only offered a grunt back. The man took no heed of this, padding over to the cell and opening a slot on the floor to slide the tray through. He took a few steps back and leaned against the wall, arms crossed, gaze fixated on the prisoner. Zoro shot daggers at him back as he pulled the tray towards him. It was not much, definitely not as good as Sanji’s cooking, but it would at least fill his stomach, which was already growling.
“Please do eat as much as you can,” the soldier commented, “we have a long day ahead of us.”
“Like what?” Zoro could not help being curious on what was in store for him now. The Germa soldier reached into his cloak, pulling out a clipboard and pen that had been nestled under his arm the whole time.
“Firstly, the cooks got first dibs on you and require you to help reorganize all their stock and supplies, then you will work down near the snail breeding grounds to clean up the slime from yesterday’s breeding session, afterwards, the laundry for all four castles need to be done, and then finally, it is onto the blacksmith’s grounds, where you are needed in order to man the bellows and dump coal into the fire for the rest of the day, which at that point, should be about four hours,”
The man looked up from his board after the long spiel.
“Any questions?”
Zoro sniffed at the man.
“…No.” Even if they all, especially the last one, sounded like dirty work no one else wanted to do that were passed off onto him because of his predicament, the green blond felt that these were all something he could handle, at least until he found some sort of plan to escape from this place or when his nakama inevitably came to rescue him.
“Good, that’s great to hear,” the man replied, “by the way, the name is Rodrick, Colonel Rodrick, to be specific, but you can just call me Colonel. In fact, you should probably call me Colonel when we are out there. I would think you do not want to get into more trouble out there.”
“What are you, my handler?”
Rodrick nodded.
“Why in fact, I am. I have been assigned specifically to keep any eye on you, hence why not just any random soldier is taking charge of you while I get back to work,” he twirled some of his dark mustache on his index finger, “Mister Judge wants us to be very carefully when it comes to handling you, seeing as even without the swords you are one formidable opponent,” the man pushed his glasses up, “It’s hard not to take him seriously since I got to see your ferocity last night.”
And then it dawned on Zoro. Something in the back of his head had been nagging at him the entire time he was speaking to this man and he now remembered that this was the leader behind the team who kidnapped him. The memories were fuzzy, no doubt from the drugs they shot into him, but the details matched. That deadpan voice, the beard, the way he held himself with such nonchalance…
“Hmph, guess I wasn’t ferocious enough then if you’re still in one piece in front of me.”
The bearded man waved a hand, deflecting the aggression.
“No need for such harsh words, Mister Zoro. It was not like I wanted to do that to you in the first place…” his voice trailed off, but only for a second before he snapped back into place, “besides, it is not going to be beneficial to either party, me and you, if we spend this morning fighting. If you get all your tasks done quick enough, you might be able to squeeze in a few more hours of sleep for tomorrow’s task.”
“And what’s that going to be?”
Rodrick’s lips pulled down into a wry frown.
“Under direct orders from Vinsmoke Judge, I am not allowed to share that information with you.”
Zoro huffed but accepted this. Sanji did tell him that the soldiers of Germa were modified to never disobey orders, so squeezing any information from him would be a no go.
“Fine,” he finally replied, pushing back the now empty tray and glass, “let’s just get this over with as soon as possible.”
“Wonderful, let us get you dressed up, then.”
From the other side of his cape, he produced not only a long coil of rope, but also a metal collar, thick and solid with a locking mechanism and blue bulbs adorning the circumference.
“Figures they wouldn’t give me actual clothes to wear,” the swordsman commented bitterly, “what’s the collar for, another device to keep me trapped here?”
“Oh no, it’s not for that, your tattoo cuffs do the job well enough, it is more of an…incentivizer.”
Zoro could already feel that this “incentive device” was designed to cause him suffering, but he still mushed on to ask “What does it do?”
“It’s quite simple; if you resist or procrastinate during the job, and the people you are working under complain to me about it, I am to press this button,” he brings out a small remote, “and it will send an electric current through your body for as long as I hold it.”
“Huh…wow, I’m so glad I asked.”
“No problem. Now, I don’t want to do this next part, personally, but I am obliged to, so no hard feelings about this.”
The colonel pops his hand into his cape and presses something. In an instant, Zoro’s wrists and ankles snap together, the suddenness and force of it catching the swordsman off guard.
"There we go. Now, let's get this collar and rope on you, and it's off to the races."
Zoro made a mental note of popping this man third, after Judge and Caesar of course, once he was able to bust out and get his swords back.
~~~
Many things people said about Reiju were things she could agree with. Cunning and manipulative? Why yes, she had to be those, in fact. Good at following orders? It was not like she had a choice. But to say that she was just a cog in her father’s machine and all these traits were all that she was, all she could ever dream to be, was verifiably false.
She was good at crunching numbers, too.
One of the aspects of having a massive private army and being military for hire that was often overlooked by the layman was how much mundane paperwork and accounting was involved. Each soldier was a mouth to feed, a set of arms that needed weapons placed in them, a body that needed to be clothed and bedded, a head that needed to be accounted for when it came to training, housing and all the other amenities for living and fighting. This was not accounting for the non soldiers and their needs and pay too. Reiju had been the one to shoulder that job ever since her father deemed her old enough to take over the role.
Usually, now that her duty to Germa had been stripped to strictly clerical work due to extenuating circumstances, she would be in her office, toiling away in a climate controlled room with comfy seating. But this was more than a normal day, the snails were about to cross the Red Line from East Blue to West Blue for the upcoming mission on Havnor in about a week. This meant having to go some time without being able to resupply on essentials such as food (for both humans and the animals), medical equipment, medical supplies, the parts for certain vehicles and machinery, parts and supplies for just the lab, clothing, construction materials, and the list went on and on. If this were a more sane organization controlled by someone who is not a megalomaniac, she would receive a report from all the relevant parties and would go from there.
Since she did not live in such a world, she had to go from place to place to confirm what they said they needed was true and absolutely not asking for more than required.
This is why she was currently on her knees having to go through the protocol of inspecting the item reported as broken, one of the ovens in the royal kitchen, when it was obviously damaged at the glass from its shattered viewing area and the fact that the inside was covered in soot and broken metal. Using the end of her pen, she delicately tapped the handle of the door that was hanging off, and almost comedically, it immediately fell to the floor. Yep, definitely broken beyond repair.
“Hmm, alright then, I guess we can afford to send an order for another oven,” she reported to the head chef, Cosette, who had been shaking in her boots the entire time.
“Really, Lady Reiju, I have NO idea who did this, but we are definitely still lo-“
Reiju put a hand up before heaving herself onto her feet.
“Yes, I know, someone messed with the oven when they should not have, which caused…this,” she gestured to the stove, “the most important part is that we get a replacement for this as soon as possible.” The princess wrote down the condition of the oven and a note to put in an order for a new one. The freckled head chef swallowed and nodded.
"What shall we do in the me-meantime then?"
"We will just have to subside without baked goods for a while then."
"But-but, what if the princes need bread or something that's b-baked? I can't turn them down exactly."
"Yes you can," Reiju said, "if anyone gives you trouble then..." she had to fight the urge to say 'tell them I don't have one to pull out of my ass for them' and instead replied with "tell them that I already put in an order for a new oven."
Cosette nodded and gave a shaky half bow.
"Yes, my lady." she hastily affirmed before turning around and to order a chef to clean up the mess. When the head chef was out of view, Reiju let out a sigh and stretched out her arms and back, hearing a crack as she did so. She was only about a third way through her list of the rounds she would have to make and it was almost noon already. She desperately needed to sit down for a few minutes, just a little break so she had enough energy to check on the tailors next.
One would have thought she would not have to do all this physical work as her pregnancy wore on and just standing too long made her dizzy, but seeing how her father treated her mother when she herself was expecting, Reiju was not surprised in the slightest. Though in this case, she wondered if this was also to intentionally hurt her for daring to obtain her condition. Though that thought was brushed away when she remembered that her father and brothers would not DEIGN to work this position, yet still wanted to reap the benefits of their conquests with reckless abandon and she was left tugging back their leashes.
Finding a nearby bench, she placed herself down and spent a minute just breathing. The kitchen would not look her way, mainly because he presence alone was uncomfortable, but that was fine, she was used to being feared to an extent.
With this moment of respite, she allowed her mind to wander from work for a bit. Of course, it never landed on anything pleasurable. It went straight for what had been residing in the back of her mind, Zoro.
She was truly worried about what her father had in store for him. Being the lowliest soldier in Germa had many consequences, not including death. The biggest one for those clones who failed to live up to their peers, but were not quite bad enough to be culled, was to be assigned as the sparring partner for her and her brothers. It was not too different from a death sentence, considering how many bodies they had piled up, but a greater majority lived, though in complete agony as their broken bodies were wheeled to the medical wing to fight another day. If Zoro were to go against one of her brothers…well, it was starting to make her sweat, and it wasn’t because of all the activity that caused the perspiration.
Her father would not allow the man to die, he and that freak clown man wanted to see him pay for his “sins”, but considering how her brothers were absolute monsters and the swordsman would definitely not be allowed to use any swords, her mind began to conjure up images of her child’s father with broken bones, ripped tendons and muscles, and her just standing there on the sidelines.
‘Aren’t you already used to just standing around while the ones you care about suffer? Why so horrified now?’ A thought twisted itself into her head. Reiju pursed her lips. Yes, she was a coward, but what power did she truly have? Sure, she was modified like most of her brothers, but they had been freakishly powerful since birth while she had to be worked on as a child. They were bigger than her, stronger than her, and even if she tried to fight them back, there was the large looming presence that was her father and the fact she could never ever fight him. He could thrash her around if he felt inclined and her mind would hold her back from lifting a finger. Because of that, she had to focus on herself, to live another day so she could…well, she was not sure why she kept going after Sanji left. Perhaps out of pure animal instinct for survival. But now she had another reason to keep going, now two, considering yesterday’s events.
The woman caught herself picking at her bandaged hand. Between the fabric, she could see a bit of the nearly black bruised skin. Finding out her father had kidnapped Zoro and brought him back to Germa all because she could not hold her ground for once…it lit something up inside of her. More than a fire, it was a burning heat, waves of rage, at her father, at herself, and it manifested in her absolutely destroying one of the walls in her bathroom. Yonji had got to her in time before she could punch anything else and actually break her hand, but she had done enough damage to leave her offending extremity in immense pain and totally bruised. Of course, it was healing quickly due to repairs to her exoskeleton and the fact her body could heal quicker than regular people if no skin was punctured, but it still needed to be wrapped up for another day or two. It was one of the few times since this pregnancy that her masked slipped off and her true emotions became revealed and she knew it would not be the last. But…she could NOT allow it to happen again. Her only line of defense against her family was crumbling like wet tissue paper, even more so since the reveal of her condition, and that meant she would be useless to them, useless like how Sanji was considered. She was not resilient like Sanji, though, because she had NOTHING, she had no dreams, no ambitions of her own, no-
No. This was not the time to spiral out. Too much was resting on her back for her to become undone. She had a little slip up, that was it.
Still, it was becoming very inconvenient when he emotions would torrent out like that. No longer could she keep them bottled up, as now she would be left with pieces of glass in her hands. Trying harder to keep them down would not work, she already figured, as they would just inevitably explode like a molotov. And now with Zoro around...
She would have to find a private release for them, but at a later date.
Right now, she had spent enough time resting and needed to get to the next stop for her rounds. Pulling herself up, Reiju left the kitchen for the tailors, putting her work first before any scheming could proceed.