— in, empty and splintering to the floor in curved shards, like if a spider’s web cracked into pieces instead of disappearing on your fingers in thin wisps. he doesn’t look up fast enough, but he does see a head of short blond hair disappearing to the back.

shit, did someone recognize him?

— implied that at least some part of his soul, body or personage was somehow fucking theirs, and it pissed him off.

what draws him back to the present is a glass shattering. more importantly, a nice glass with a long neck that zoro is sure people only get those nice, pricey drinks —

— swordplay, an imaginary person existing only in his dreams. those dreams still cling to him now, a man branded by the fires of hell and destined to become one of their haunting servants once the life drains from his body. sure, that might not be the case, but the cryptic, flame-haired bastard —

— he was four years old and walked downstairs to a contortion of sallow limbs and dry, sagging skin — gaunt, soulless eyes unrecognizable on the faces of his parents. the same thing happened to kuina’s family, and while she spiraled into obsession, zoro’s mind conjured figments of castles and —

— like the darkness in every nook and cranny of this dingy bar had eyes on him. something he’s searching for is 𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘦, zoro knows it. in all of the pages his eyes hurt to read and the scriptures that made no sense to him, nothing ever gave him a conclusive answer about what happened then, when —

— staked vampires, dismembered wendigos — his personal hunter's journal was running out of pages, but he knows there are far bigger things out in the darkness than just vampires.

still, something lingers in the air and charges it, as if static and tension loom above like a restless spirit, —

— he thinks, dark gaze lingering on the serving girl kindly asking about a refill, a small puncture hole peeking out from the thin scarf wrapped around her neck. lip curling, the hunter shakes his head and sits back, more tense than he anticipated to be. zoro has sliced through demons, —

— right now, so getting piss drunk should be low on the priority list. marco was nice enough to give him a low-down on things here — the so-called ‘animal attacks’ that recur far from the woods and the sketchy people that only seem to come around at night. some are braver than others, —

— something that can blur his memories into nothing but a smoking pit of fire that curls so hot that he can’t see anything past it. not the flames at his feet or the blade that marked him black and at the very mercy of the hell he clawed his way out of.

but he’s in the middle of vampire town —

over the years, the burn of whiskey down his throat has ebbed into muted numbness — nothing like hot coals or fire smoking up his mouth, sparks of it flaring from his nostrils like a kindled fireplace. times come, like right now, where zoro wishes for something stronger, —

— she wouldn’t throw the towel in like damn coward.

so when the chandelier comes swinging at him, all sharp, curved little arms and a bloodcurdling screech, he uncaps the flask of holy water at his hip and drenches wado in it.

— him feels like after braving hell, all nine fucking layers of it, jobs like these should feel meaningless.

then he remembers the kids who got stuck in a cabinet that wouldn’t let them out, right in this room, and his mind flickers back to kuina. no, she wouldn’t find it meaningless. —

— from where his leg had gotten stuck through the rotted wood, dust and shards of brittle mahogany making a slow descent to the first floor.

the chandelier above is a dusted, rusted thing too. it might be older than zoro, older than the ancient oak tree he almost took a piss on earlier. part of —