Zoro never seems to be afraid of anything. Unless it involves Luffy.


Fear.

Zoro had been taught to be fearless. Stoic. Unshakable. He was afraid of nothing.

The one person he had truly cared about was already dead and his own death was something to think about once he faced it, not beforehand. He did not fear it.

Rigorous training had made his mind sharp and focused like the blades he handled, following only one train of thought: To be the best. To reach the top where a lone man awaited his arrival. He did not fear him either.

He probably would have continued that way forever had he never been found. Had his life never changed as fundamentally as it had on the day he met the boy who held his fate in his hands.

And as life led him down a path he could've never foreseen, a path that followed a straw hat and a dream even more impossible than his own, he came to a harsh realization. It wasn't that Zoro was afraid of nothing. It was that he'd never known true fear.

He did now, as he stood before the shichibukai and bowed his head in defeat. This was true fear, the one that was not felt for yourself but for the person that mattered to you the most. He wouldn't have traded it for anything. And the pain that followed was one he was willing to take a thousand times over for the man he'd sworn his life to.

Zoro had never feared pain. He still didn't. After all pain was never a bad thing, especially when it was necessary to protect a friend. And if Zoro had learned anything in life it was that sometimes pain was nothing but a sign that you were still alive and had fulfilled your purpose.

He would never fear that. Ever.