One Piece: Freedom, Chpt. 14

“I’m fine with that, if she is,” Zoro answered, eyes still narrowed and suspicious.  “You better know that I won’t flinch for a second to cut you down if I think something you say or do is going to hurt Iris,” he warned.

“Funny, I was about to say the same thing,” Cobalt said, continuing his glare and gathering his thoughts.  “You and the rest of the Straw Hats have given us all a wonderful gift we never dreamed about ever having.  You gave us freedom.  But freedom is power, right?”

Zoro didn’t respond, skeptically curious as to where he was going with this, giving Cobalt the opportunity to continue.  “Like any power, one has to learn how to use and master it.  If I gave you your sniper’s slingshot, would you be able to draw out its full power?  Likewise, say I gave your swords to your ship’s cook, would he be able to wield them as efficiently as you?  I highly doubt it.  You’ve each trained to use your power and master it more and more over the years.  Freedom’s no different.  To a slave who’s never experienced freedom, it’s a very foreign power.  Very few of us, save for the fighters, have any clue what freedom truly is and what it really means.”

“Why the fighters?” Zoro jumped in.

“Because we already have our combat power.  It’s that power that enabled Ivy to stand up to Paul.  What gave me the strength to keep Ivy alive.  We may not know freedom, but we know what power feels like, and what kind of responsibility it carries.  All you strong pirates on this ship, surely you know what I’m talking about?”

Zoro was quiet for several moments as he processed what Cobalt was talking about and what it had to do with Iris.  “You think we can’t teach Iris what being free is all about?”

“I’m saying she doesn’t know how to be free, and even now, she still isn’t in her own mind.  All she’s ever known is to follow the strongest person around and obey.  You keep qualifying all your choices with ‘if that’s what she wants,’ or some variation.  But she has no idea what she wants; she’s only been choosing what she thinks she’s supposed to want.  Does that make any sense to you?”

Zoro looked at Iris, who looked tired, confused, and broken, and not the least bit irritated that Cobalt was talking about her like she wasn’t even there, even though it was driving him crazy.  It occurred to him that Cobalt was awfully presumptuous to think that he knew anything about her when he hadn’t talked to her in a year.  But it was possible that Cobalt was thinking the exact thing about him, as he had just met Iris only several days ago; but so much had happened in that short amount of time.  They had literally been at the brink of death and returned together.  “Iris?  What do you think about what he’s saying?” he asked her.  She needed to be a part of this conversation, whether she wanted to be or not.

“I-I don’t know, Zoro.  What am I supposed to think?” she looked up at him, lost.

“Proves my point.  Let me take her back to the island.  She needs to be with me, her only remaining family, so she can figure out who she is.  Just like thousands of other slaves here on this island.”

Zoro didn’t look back at him; instead he only continued to look in her eyes, searching them for what he knew was there.  The affection he had seen the night he, Sanji, and she all slept in the galley; the joy when he invited her to sail out on the Thousand Sunny; the concern that had only been focused on him and the crew after Paul had beaten her in the street; the awe and gratitude when the Straw Hats had marched off to the trade center; the loyalty there when she came to him in battle to fight to the death with him.  “You’re wrong,” he said resolutely, still watching her eyes.  “She already knows who she is and what she wants.  What she lacks is someone to believe in who can make things turn out right.  And I’m going to show her that the Straw Hats can all be that someone,” he said, smiling as he saw clarity returning to her eyes, although still tinged with doubt.  “Iris, who do you want to go with?  Me or Cobalt?”

“You can’t ask her that, she’s only going to choose who she thinks is strongest because she doesn’t want to risk someone’s anger!  If she makes the strongest one happy, then there’s a better chance that the strong one will protect her from the retaliation of the weaker one.  That’s the logic of a slave; I know because I’ve used it!” Cobalt spat back angrily, frustrated that Zoro didn’t appear to be listening to him, and even more worried that she would choose Zoro for the wrong reasons because she thought the swordsman was far stronger than he was.  Whether or not that was true, he really didn’t want to consider, but he didn’t want to lose her to him either way.

The two men glared at each other for several minutes until they were surprised when Iris broke the silence.  “Yeah, that’s slave logic, all right.  And, you’re right, Cobalt, I’ve used that for a long time, just like you and the rest of the slaves have.  What other choice did we have?  But,” she paused, all heads in the room watching her expectantly, “what if I’m the strong one now?”  He looked at her with bewilderment, and the room was so quiet the occupants could have heard a pin drop.  “What if I choose to follow myself?  My heart?  Won’t that help me understand who I am and what I want?”  His jaw dropped open; he couldn’t believe what he was hearing.  She sat up, away from the comforting warmth of Zoro’s arms and chest, facing Cobalt with steady eyes now; Zoro only grinned as she once again found the strength that he knew she had always possessed.  Iris continued to speak, “And if I follow my heart, then I’m following it to this ship.  I’ve never been happier than I have in the past few days I’ve spent here with the Straw Hats,” she finished, voice even and firm, eyes dry finally.

Cobalt’s disbelief continued, was she still just saying what she thought Zoro wanted to hear?  But that was an awfully convincing argument even if she was; even he wanted to believe it, and wouldn’t be surprised if she, in fact, believed the words she was saying as well.  He doubted what he believed about her now, would that be such a bad thing if she believed her words were true?  Isn’t that what he wanted her to discover about herself anyway?  He turned away from her confident stare, uncertain and unsure how to argue with her, and slowly he realized he had been defeated in this argument of philosophy.  “So you’re choosing the pirates?” he finally asked, face stoic and eyes intently studying the pattern in the wood floor of the infirmary.  

“It is my choice, isn’t it?”

He closed his eyes, what would Ivy say about her sister becoming a pirate?  He needed to watch out for her, for her sister’s sake.  Could he trust these pirates to protect as closely as he would, now that he had stopped running away from his grief?  “And you’re choosing them because this is where you feel like home is?”  She nodded resolutely, only broadening Zoro’s smug grin.  He counted the floorboards underneath his feet, wholly uncertain about her decision but having no choice but to follow her faith.  “Zoro,” he started, still not looking back in their direction, “If something happens to her, if she dies or is disfigured in some way, I promise you that I will hunt you to the ends of the earth and kill you myself.  I’m trusting you to protect her for every moment that she spends with this crew.  I don’t want to, but Iris isn’t giving me a choice,” he frowned with a doubt riddled voice.

“I’d expect no less from a good brother,” Zoro said, accepting his terms, but he still wasn’t able to hide the arrogance in his voice from Iris proving him right by demonstrating how strong she really was.  He held his hand out, and Cobalt reluctantly took it, shaking in agreement and understanding.

Iris sighed.  “I’m hungry.  And everything hurts.  I want things to go back to what they were like the other night when everyone was goofing off upstairs in the galley.  All this serious stuff takes too much energy.  Are we done here now?” she asked, tired of her heart feeling so heavy and wanting the light atmosphere that she knew of the Straw Hats and the Thousand Sunny to come back.

Zoro smiled at her warmly.  “Yeah, we’re done here now.  Wanna go up to the deck?” he asked.

Iris didn’t get a chance to answer before Chopper interrupted.  “She can’t go up yet.  First of all, I need to change her bandages and check her stitches.  Second of all, between her shoulder and her leg she can’t really move around yet.  I’m sorry, Iris, but your recovery’s going to take a little while,” he said.

“We’ve got crutches, don’t we?” Zoro asked, confused and disappointed that Iris was bound to the infirmary for the time being.

“Do you ever listen?  She can’t use crutches with her arm in a sling,” Sanji shot back at him.

“Actually, my shoulder feels pretty good,” she said, and everyone looked to see that she had removed the sling and was testing out how stiff it was, pleased that it seemed to be working much better than she had hoped.

Chopper looked frustrated.  “Not another one…” he muttered.  “I’m the doctor here!  Does anyone listen to anything I say?  Get out, all of you,” he ordered in exasperation.  Zoro moved Iris back to the cot and smiled at her devilishly before exiting the infirmary with Sanji, Robin, and Cobalt; she blushed fiercely watching him leave and wondering what he was thinking about.  His smoldering smile caused her face to heat up and her heart thump wildly, both of which she willed quickly to go away, and then wondered why.  He cared about her like she cared for him, didn’t he?  But how much?  “I’m at least going to change the dressings and check the stitches before you go do something stupid.  There’s crutches underneath the cot, if you insist on being reckless.  Watch the stitches in your stomach and back when you’re moving around, those will be the most likely to rip out,” he said, thoroughly annoyed that there was now another crew member who wouldn’t heed a single piece of medical advice he had to offer.  Iris smiled and chuckled, overjoyed that she had survived the battle and had returned from almost certain death to join the Straw Hats on their adventures.  She was giddy that she had been able to grow closer to Zoro as well, and she was thrilled to have the opportunity to reconcile with Cobalt, too.

After Chopper’s treatment, she retrieved the crutches from under the cot and headed up to the deck.  The warm sunshine felt marvelous on her face and she took in the sight of the crew packing the ship up and getting ready to set sail and civilians relaxing all over the Sunny.  She giggled, she was surprised that the navy hadn’t intervened yet, but what could they really do?  Even the world government wouldn’t be able to condone any forceful actions taken against the newly freed slaves; the public would view it as too oppressive.

“Well, that’s everything, right?  I think we’re ready to go,” Usopp called across the deck.  

“Wait!” Iris intervened.  “Before we go, I want to visit my sister’s grave one last time.  It will be a very long time before we ever come back here, won’t it?” she asked, looking around at her new crewmates.  

Zoro came up next to her.  “Yeah, I’m going to take her over there.  We won’t be gone long.”

“Don’t let him out of your sight.  He could get lost in the pantry,” Nami snickered.  Zoro only scowled at her.  Iris turned and headed towards the gangplank, only to stumble trying to crutch it down the narrow wood slats.  Zoro caught her before she fell into the water just in the nick of time.  Before she could even realize what he was doing, she was on his back and he was carrying her piggyback.

“If you get hurt anymore while I’ve taken you off the ship, Chopper’ll kill me,” he joked.  “So we’re just going to have to go this way.  Now, where to?”

She smiled and wrapped her arms around his shoulders, feeling warm and lightheaded being so close to him once again.  “Take a right at the end of the dock.  We’ll be headed towards the industrial district,” she smiled brightly as they set off down the boardwalk.  “No, right, Zoro.  Right!  Your other right!” she said, slightly exasperated but more amused than anything, and giggled at the embarrassed scowl that covered his face once again as he finally headed in the correct direction.