I’ve read Time Traveler Zoro AUS far more interesting than anything my feeble little mind could cook up on it’s own, but I’d still love try to play around with the premise and give it my own spin.
I’ve read two in which Zoro loses the crew in a great tragedy, so he goes back in time to save them, and the greatest source of tension in the story is the way he tries to hide all the future knowledge he maintains from the others, while still trying to rewrite history. It’s so good and thrilling. But. Yet. However.
I’m reminded of the scene in Sabaody in which Rayleigh offers to tell the crew about the One Piece, and Luffy furiously rejects him. Says he doesn’t want a boring adventure where he knows the ending. And though I don’t recall Zoro saying anything in that moment, I think he would agree. So in this Time Travel AU, when Zoro goes back in time, he does so with the idea that this second try isn’t for him. He wants to help, but if he gets on that boat, he won’t be able to keep himself from giving Luffy all the answers in hopes of saving his life, and that would ruin his Captain’s dream.
So let’s imagine Luffy. At seventeen years old, he sets out on a journey through the Grandline to become the King of the Pirates. He has his navigator, his sniper, his cook, his doctor- all his friends by his side. And things are challenging sometimes, but always fun. And he gets lucky.
Sanjj tells him it’s a guardian angel, but Luffy’s not so sure. There’s something at the back of his mind, an itch behind his ear. He starts to notice signs of a certain presence everywhere he goes, a mysterious someone who seems to always want to beat him to the punch, but also seems to never finish the job.
Like back in Orange Town, when he met Nami and fought the Buggy guy, the Clown complained about his knife thrower being put out of commission by a bounty hunter right before the fight. Or in Syrup Village, when Captain Kuroo called for reinforcements two of his officers were a no-show, their crewmates reporting that it was as if the Nyaban Brothers had disappeared into the night. When Luffy met Sanji at the Baratie, he’d felt a tension build within him as he listened to all the rumors of the Greatest Swordsman in the World having been seen nearby. But then, the tension is cut abruptly when Don Kreig walks through the door instead, announcing that he’d escaped the Warlord when some suicidal swordsman intercepted his chase.
In Whiskey Peak, Nami tells him about how she saw a cloaked figure take down 100 hundred bounty hunters without making a sound, as if trying to not disturb the Strawhat’s sleep. Luffy thinks he might’ve seen such a figure from afar when taking a leak, but he can’t be sure. In Alabasta, Ace keeps throwing looks over his shoulder as if searching for someone, but always telling Luffy there’s nothing to worry about. Vivi is shocked to discover someone took down Baroque Work’s Number 1 in a duel a night before their arrival at Alubarna. When Robin joins them at the end of it, she seems shocked to find the crew only has five members, instead of six. But she doesn’t seem keen on elaborating why just yet.
The only place that they haven’t been followed to by this Mystery Guy (as Luffy has taken to calling him) is Skypeia. Almost like he couldn’t figure out how to get up there.
And still, the whole time Luffy’s there he can’t stop thinking about him. Looking left and right as if between the clouds and the trees he’ll catch a glimpse of Mystery Guy’s face. Nami says it’s ludicrous to think that all these instances can be chalked up to same guy. Usopp tells tall tales of how they’re being stalked by a man who fell madly love with the Great Sniper’s good looks, or sometimes he tells tales of how they’re being followed by the ancient God of Fortune, or sometimes it’s any other grandiose tale he’ll accept before he accepts that it’s just a guy, just a Mystery Guy, who is real and Luffy knows it.
He knows, and he’s a little obsessed with it. And it’s not always great. He loses sleep, wondering who are you and do you know me and do i know you and stop getting in my way and why don’t you do it more and do you want to join my crew and i need you to watch me and i need you on my crew.
(Meanwhile, on his end, Zoro is planning how to stop the tragedy that will befall his family. But in the meantime he doesn’t want to just be dead weight. He doesn’t want to be apart from them. He may not have a place on that boat anymore, but he can’t have his Captain fighting his battles. He can’t let his friends go unprotected. So he’ll protect them, protect him, in silence, from afar, always one day head, always knowing what’s coming next)
