Chapter Text
It had been pretty obvious for a while now that Zoro and Kuina had long since outgrown the Isshin Dojo in Shimotsuki Village. Despite being the strongest dojo in a village known for its swordplay, not a single fighter could offer a challenge to Zoro or Kuina except Zoro or Kuina.
Zoro would have called it boring, except for, well, Kuina. She was never boring. Even now that he had developed Three-Sword Style, and was refining it more every day, she always seemed to be two steps ahead of him in her swordplay.
Kuina was the model student of the dojo, the best swordsman in all of Shimotsuki Village. And yet, despite this, Koushirou-sensei refused to see it! Two months ago, he had assigned Kuina a whole new list of chores to do to help keep house, with the excuse that since he was getting older and Kuina was getting to be an adult, that she should help out more. None of the other kids in the dojo got new chores! Zoro had to help Kuina so they could get back to sparring as fast as possible, but even with two of them working, they still lost an hour and a half of sparring time.
And now there was this.
The age you became an adult in Shimotsuki Village was eighteen. Kuina’s seventeenth birthday was a week away, and Koushirou-sensei had just told her that after her birthday she would be expected to stop training and instead take lessons on shit like etiquette. Cooking and cleaning. Things that made a good wife.
So obviously, Kuina was pissed.
“I spent my whole life training in swordsmanship so I could inherit the dojo! And he thinks I need bridal training now?” Kuina ranted, pacing back and forth through the clearing in the woods that they had long-ago turned into their personal training ground. Every so often her pacing brought her past a tree, or one of their makeshift training dummies.
They had made one out of stone as a test last week, and Kuina had shattered it with her shinai (made of fucking bamboo!) on her first pass. Zoro was going to stay on the edge of the clearing and far away from an extremely angry Kuina, thank you.
“And he says it’s for my own good?” Kuina shouted, killing another unfortunate straw dummy. They were running out. “Oh, I’ll need someone to provide for me. I need to start thinking about having a family in the future! How will I ever have any stability without learning how to keep house? Well maybe I don’t want all that shit, dad!”
“Mm-hm,” Zoro agreed. Kuina was right. What the hell was he supposed to say?
“I don’t want any family, and it’s easy to make money with a sword! Why does he think there are so many bounty hunters out there! To make money with a sword!”
Zoro straightened up from where he was leaning against a tree. “Why don’t we just do that, then?” he asked.
Kuina slowed to a stop. “Huh?”
“Well, we’re practically adults,” Zoro pointed out. Kuina turned seventeen in a week and he was two months short of sixteen, that was close enough. “We could just… go be bounty hunters. Get away from Koushirou-sensei.”
Kuina frowned, planting the tip of her shinai in the dirt and tilting her head in that way that meant she was thinking hard.
“Who would inherit the dojo?” she asked.
“Do you really think sensei is going to die in the next ten years?”
“Well, no…”
“Then one of us will inherit the dojo, once we’ve become the World’s Greatest Swordsman,” Zoro declared, laying it all out simply. Kuina’s frown disappeared, replaced by her usual smug smirk.
“Once I’ve become the World’s Greatest Swordsman, you mean,” she said. Zoro grit his teeth.
“I’ll beat you someday,” he grumbled. Usually he would challenge her immediately, but he could still see the stone dummy she had obliterated. Also, he only had one shinai with him, and he needed all three to use Three-Sword Style.
“We’ll leave on the morning of my birthday, then,” Kuina decided, swinging her shinai up to rest on her shoulder.
“Why wait?” Zoro could pack a bag in ten minutes. If Kuina was leaving, he would follow. She was the beacon of strength that he had been chasing since she first knocked him on his ass at eight years old.
Kuina rolled her eyes at him. “We’re gonna have to survive until we catch the first bounty, obviously. And even past that, we’ll probably need cookware, bedrolls… the sort of stuff you bring camping so you’re not just sleeping on the ground.”
Zoro frowned at her. “What’s wrong with sleeping on the ground?”
“Don’t be a brute, idiot! It’s fine if you have to, but if you have the option, bring a bedroll!” Kuina scolded him. “We’ll probably need identity records, too, so if we turn in a bounty at a marine base they have a way to verify it’s not a scam…”
Kuina had a habit of trailing off like this when she got deep in thought. Zoro had a habit of leaving all the planning to Kuina. If she was going to anyway, why not just let her? From what she had listed so far, he would have probably ended up lost, starving, and arrested if left to his own devices.
A week later, Kuina turned seventeen. They were gone before nine AM.
Zoro was lost, starving, and arrested. In his defense, though, the marines here were extremely corrupt.
Three months ago, he and Kuina had split off from Johnny and Yosaku, another bounty hunter pair that they had traveled with as a quartet for a while. Two weeks ago, Zoro had gotten on the wrong boat leaving port, and ended up in Shells Town. The day after, Kuina had tracked him down to scold him for getting lost again. And then nine days ago, he had defeated a wolf that attacked a little girl, only to learn it was the “pet” of the spoiled son of the local marine captain.
So here he was, hanging quite literally in the bonds of his deal.
A month tied to this pole. No food, no water. Nobody allowed to help him. And the little girl and her family would be left alone.
There was a stone wall surrounding the yard he was tied in. Kuina had spent the last eight days sitting there, after discovering on the first day that even setting foot into the yard would count as “helping the criminal” and would be dealt with via violence.
When the sun started getting high, Zoro noticed.
“Go get some food, Kuina,” he called out. Kuina didn’t move. She had settled into a meditative position, and didn’t even open her eyes.
“No,” she said, just as she had for the past nine days.
“You need to keep your strength up,” he bargained.
“I am keeping my strength up. Perhaps the reason you’re weaker than me is because you neglect to meditate as often.”
Ouch, okay. So what if he didn’t meditate as often? The only swordsman stronger than him in all of the East Blue was the one he was looking at.
The sun beat down on him, unforgiving. His spit had long since turned strange and sticky, his throat dry. He kept his stomach from rumbling through sheer willpower. As the sun reached its highest point, the black bandana he wore collected heat at the crown of his head, making him somehow both drowsy and extremely uncomfortable at the same time.
Today, there was a break in their pattern. A couple of kids came to gawk, but Zoro and Kuina paid them no mind. Whatever they were whispering was of no consequence to them.
And then what was distinctly the top of a ladder popped up from the other side of the wall. And little Rika came scrambling over, carrying four onigiri wrapped in cloth.
“Ah! Don’t do that, it’s dangerous!” one of the gawkers shouted.
“Hey, what are you doing here?” Zoro asked Rika. He glanced up at Kuina, but she was statue-still. Fine, he could talk to a little girl by himself.
“Luffy-san, go stop her! She could be killed!” one of the gawkers shouted. Whatever. Zoro tuned him and his friend out.
She could be killed, though. Not by Zoro like the gawker was probably afraid of, but maybe by the corrupt fucking marines.
“Do you want to die or something? Get lost!” Zoro scolded Rika.
She ignored him.
“Onii-san, I made these onigiri for you and your sister! You haven’t eaten for a long time, right?” she said, beaming up at Zoro. Zoro shot another look to Kuina, but she still had her eyes shut. “This is the first time I’ve made onigiri!” Rika continued.
“I’m not hungry!” Zoro shouted. This kid had to get out of here before the marines saw her in the yard! “Go away!”
“But…” Rika trailed off, face falling.
“I don’t want it! Leave me!” Zoro shouted. And then, leaning into his reputation: “I’ll kill you if you don’t go!”
The corners of Kuina’s lips twitched up. She knew as well as he did that he wasn’t capable of killing anyone with his arms tied up like this.
“Roronoa Zoro!” called an obnoxious voice. Oh, shit, that annoying blond marine son was here. “Don’t pick on little kids,” he scolded mockingly, “or else I’ll have to report to my father about it.”
“Tch…” Zoro scoffed. “If it isn’t the captain’s bastard son.”
“Bastard?” he echoed. “Don’t get cocky! My dad is a marine captain!”
Zoro sneered, and the idiot son turned to little Rika.
“Hello, little girl,” he cooed. “These onigiri look pretty tasty.” He swiped one from the bandana.
“Hey, stop that!” Rika exclaimed.
Immediately, the spoiled son pulled a face and started coughing. “Horrible!” he shouted. “You put too much sugar in it! You’re supposed to put salt in these things!”
“But… I thought they’d taste better if they’re sweet!” Rika protested.
The captain’s son knocked the rest of the onigiri from Rika’s hands, stomping them into the ground.
“How could someone eat something like this!” he shouted.
“No! Stop it! Stop it!” Rika cried out. “They can’t eat these anymore!”
“Don’t worry!” the son said, switching his sneer out for a smile, “the ants will eat it all up!”
“That’s so cruel!” Rika sobbed. “I tried really hard to make them!”
“Aw, don’t cry…” the son said. “No wonder I hate little brats so much.”
Rika kept sobbing. Kuina had opened her eyes, and was watching the idiot marine son with the same bladed gaze she used in a serious fight.
“It’s your own fault!” he scolded, pointing to a sign posted in the yard. “Anyone who helps a prisoner will be charged with the same crime! You know how scary my dad is, right? If you were an adult, you would get the death penalty!”
Rika sniffled, her eyes wide with fear. The spoiled son sneered and turned to one of the marines with him.
“Oi, throw this brat out!” he ordered.
“Huh? She’s just a kid…” the marine said.
“Don’t you know? My father is Captain Morgan! Throw this brat out or I’ll tell him you disobeyed!”
“A… Aye sir!” the marine barked. He scooped Rika up and whispered something to her, then hurled her over the wall.
Zoro jerked forwards in his bonds, but there was no way for him to escape and catch her!
Kuina leapt to her feet, but Rika had been thrown closer to the gawkers than her—there was no way to get there in time. Kuina ran a few steps forward anyway, then came to a weird kind of aborted stutter-stop. That was weird.
“Kuina?” Zoro prompted.
“...That kid with a hat caught her,” she replied, distractedly.
The spoiled son turned back to Zoro. “I didn’t think you’d have this kind of endurance!” he laughed.
“You better keep your promise!” Zoro growled.
“Yeah, yeah,” he said, waving a nonchalant hand through the air. “If you can live like this for one month, I’ll keep my word and release you.”
Zoro closed his eyes, taking a second just to breathe. When he opened his eyes again, the spoiled son was leaving. Kuina followed him out of the yard with her eyes, then settled back into her seated meditation pose.
The gawker kid in the strawhat climbed over the fence, walking into the yard and stopping about halfway between the stone wall and where Zoro was bound. He positioned himself so that he could see both Zoro and Kuina. Zoro narrowed his eyes. What was this guy doing?
“You still haven’t left yet?” he taunted. Kuina also trained her gaze on the kid. She said he had caught Rika, so he knew what he was risking coming into the yard like this.
“I’m looking for people to join my pirate crew,” the kid said, completely out of nowhere.
Kuina shot Zoro a bewildered look.
When Zoro was twelve and Kuina was thirteen, she had been going through a particularly bad stretch of rebelling against her dad, which was extreme even for her. Zoro, not usually concerned with family matters or wanting to get into the middle of Kuina and Koushirou-sensei’s eternal spat, had started daydreaming about what life would be like if the dojo was owned by his dad. They had been fun daydreams until Kuina pointed out that Zoro didn’t have a dad. So, naturally, they got curious, and the next time Kuina went into town instead of attending lessons with her dad, she dragged Zoro along and they looked up his family in the public record hall. That was how they figured out that Zoro’s dad had been killed by pirates when he was just a baby, and also how they discovered that Zoro’s grandmother had carried the Shimotsuki surname, which Kuina and him decided made them kind-of-cousins.
“So you just gave up on life and became a crook?” Zoro asked the kid in the strawhat.
The kid frowned, shooting him a sideways glance. “It’s my dream!” he proclaimed. “There’s nothing wrong with being a pirate!”
“Oh?” Zoro responded. There was really only one reason a pirate would approach him while he was tied up in prison and announce his intentions to recruit for a crew. “Don’t tell me you’re gonna set me free and then force me to join you?”
“Like I wouldn’t stop him,” Kuina scoffed.
“Hmm… I haven’t decided yet, since everyone thinks you’re a bad guy,” the kid said frankly.
“I’ll never join you!” Zoro declared. “I have a promise to fulfill! I’ll survive without your help. I just have to stay alive for one month!” The kid moved so he was standing in front of Zoro, locking eyes with him. His gaze was strangely dark. “I’m gonna do everything I can to stay alive and fulfill my dreams!”
“Really?” the kid asked, his eyes losing that dark depth to them. “If I were you, I’d starve to death in one week!”
“That’s why we’re different,” Kuina said, from her spot on top of the wall. “Go on, leave. Find someone else to join you.”
The kid in the strawhat laughed, and turned around to leave.
“Wait!” Zoro called. “That… can you pick that up for me?” he asked, indicating the remains of the onigiri with a tilt of his head. The kid knelt down and picked it up—at this point, all four onigiri were one muddy mass of rice.
“You want to eat this? But it’s all muddy,” the kid noticed.
“Whatever! Split it in half. Give me half and give the other half to Kuina.”
“Kuina is the name of the girl on the wall, right?”
“Yeah.”
The kid followed instructions. Zoro opened his mouth wide, letting him dump half the rice and mud mixture in. The kid gave the other half to Kuina, who, unbound, was able to eat a little bit more like a civilized person. Figures that she wouldn’t go get food on her own, but she was willing to eat what Zoro ate. No matter how close they were, she didn’t have to act like his actions were actually hers! There was no reason for her to share his punishment, yet she insisted on it anyway. Stubborn idiot.
He swallowed the rice and mud.
“Hey! Tell that little girl…” he thought for a second, and the kid in the strawhat waited. “Tell her ‘the onigiri taste very good, thank you very much’.”
The kid’s face lit up, reminding Zoro oddly of clouds clearing away from the sun.
“Tell her, ‘thank you for bringing us food’,” Kuina added.
“Okay!” the kid agreed. He climbed back over the wall, laughing.
“What do you think of him?” Kuina asked Zoro, sounding thoughtful. Zoro sighed. He asked him to join a pirate crew, but he also fed him Rika’s onigiri.
“Who knows…”
“Hm,” Kuina said. She settled back into a meditative pose, closing her eyes again. Zoro closed his as well. Maybe he could catch some sleep before any marines came back out here.