The Mer-Mer Fruit

Breathe, Zoro, Breathe!!

OHMYGOD I'M SO SORRY!!!

The only excuse I can offer for abandoning this is that I got out of One Piece but I recently received a comment and it's been 3 years since this was last updated!!

Also to clear up an confusion everyone is in the crew and they're on the Sunny!

But not Jinbe
I hate Jinbe

Tracing the knots and kinks in the wood of the tables, Zoro huffs quietly in boredom. He loves to hear the cook hum and sing when he thinks he's alone in the galley, but everything feel's wrong. He' s cold and he feels like his skin is dry and stretched too tightly over his bones and the air is getting thicker and harder to breathe. He feels like a fish out of water and as his lungs and gills are working overdrive, he guesses he really is a fish out of water. His chest aches but he ignores it, its not a problem. He figures it'll go away when he gets in the water. He continues to trace lines of the wood with his eyes as his hands rest behind his head. 

Hearing the pop and gurgle of boiling water, Zoro idly wonders how long it will be before dinner and his stomach growls softly as he smells the cooking meat. 

The crew's life goes on and Zoro feels like he hasn't observed it enough. So he sits under the table, listening to Franky yell how it's a "SUPERR~ awesome day!!" and the weirdly out of place calmness of Brook's violin drifting through the summer air. The swordsman chuckles at the screech of "LUFFY THAT'S MY UNDERWEAR!!!!" coming from a shrieking Usopp thundering past the galley. The chuckle gets stuck in his throat as he takes in a harsh, shuddering breath. He tries to breathe but his chest feels heavy, as if someone had just given him his 2 tonne weight and dumped it on his chest, its like something is blocking his windpipe. 

Furrowing his brows in confusion and slight fear, the merman (or currently mermaid) slumps on his side, curled into a ball and he gasps and heaves. His lungs won't take in oxygen and he only hears his thundering heart pounding in his ears. His webbed hands claw at the wooden floor and his eyes are wide, mouth hanging open in a choked gasp. He knows that if this continues he'll pass out; if he passes out he'll die, suffocating under the table on the way to Alabaster to get him on track. He can't die now. Kuina will be disappointed, he'd fail her. 

He can't fail her... But it's so hard. Everything is hard. Breathing is hard, seeing is hard, even picking up his sword is hard, staying awake is hard, focusing on his dream is hard. It's all too hard. 

He heaves and it feels like a punch in the gut when he hears the galley door close, when did Sanji leave? 'I'm going to die and Sanji isn't even here. I' m going to die alone.' He grabs for the cloth just for something to grab onto in his suffering, and he pretends it' s Sanji's shirt so he can have some semblance of comfort in his last moment. He rips the cloth just as a frightened sob (which was more like a wheeze) years itself from his throat. 'I'm going... to die' He tries to call out with all his fading strength, but the black starting to parade the vision pulls him closer to unconsciousness with vicious sneers. 'I'm... going to...' His chest rapidly hevaes for breath and his lungs, the grip on the ripped tablecloth loosens until. 

Thud. 

'...die'

 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Zoro-Zoro's not in the tank!" Chopper wails. They wave their arms as the race into the galley. Everyone was just about to sit down to eat before the little reindeer threw themself into hysteria.  

The other crewmates face's paled. 

"Zoro's missing?" Nami asks. The air becomes thick when Chopper nods. Everyone was made aware of Zoro's decreased ability to breathe air and they were worried he would suffocate and they came up with the idea of having a watch routine, where Zoro would always be in sight of at least one person at all times in case he collapsed. They had failed at that and Zoro could die. 

It takes a few moments for everyone to start heading to the door to search the entire shop for the missing swordsman and jn those quiet seconds somethung catches Usopp's eye. 

"Sanji, did you know that your tablecloth was ripped?" He asks, stepping nearer to the damaged linen. 

"Usopp, this isn't really the time to worry about the upholstery." Nami points out, sighing in worry and frustration. 

The Sniper waves her comment off and lifts up the damaged cloth and gasps. 

"Found him!" 

Zoro was lying there, eyes closed, mouth open and his palms were covered in a small splatter of blood emerging from the half crescent wounds from his nails. Everyone breathes a sigh of relief as Franky pulls the unconscious mer-mer fruit user from under the table. 

"Hey, Sword-bro, time to wake up." He urges, shaking the unconscious (fe?) male. The green haired male's head lols back and everyone is horrifyingly aware of his deathly pale skin and the worryingly blue shade of his lips. 

"He's not breathing!" Tiny Chopper squeaks in worry. 

Franky stumbles to the deck, where the entrance to the tank is, and the rest of the crew sprint to the lounge. They watch as Zoro is thrown into the water and their collective breath is held as they watch him sink, sink and sink. He hits the pebbled bottom of the tank and Luffy pulls his hat off his head and places it on Sanji's when the chef legs out a choked noise, falling to his knees.

Zoro's body stays at the bottom and doesn't move and nobody else does either. 

Chest unmoving. Blue lips. Pale skin. In a form he wasn't meant to be in. Cursed. 

Roronoa Zoro was dead.