One Piece is the property of Eiichiro Oda. Author's notes are at the bottom.
While I appreciate his dedication to his new country, I secretly hope that he is disallowed from joining the army because of his race. Then again, they would not dare reject a man from an allying country, would they?
Roronoa Robin smiles in spite of her worry and fear, pausing her journal entry.
They let us marry because of this. My mother disapproved of my decision, as a woman born into a Russian family, to marry a Japanese man. I lost my father in the war against the Japanese… should I lose Zoro to the Germans, I shall find myself riddled with resentment. We came to Canada to seek refuge when we married in 1906. Why must it be ripped away so promptly by this Great War?
The door to their Halifax home creaks open, the woman's wrenching heart ceasing its pounding as her husband steps into the single room. His dark eyes scan the room excitedly, a smile spreading across his thin lips at the sight of Robin. She rises and smooths the slight wrinkles out of her dress.
"We get shipped to Valcartier in a month." The newly registered soldier confirms.
"Bastard!" Robin screams. Zoro barely has time to raise his hands in defense before Robin strikes him. Immediately, she falls into his arms and begins to sob. "You bastard…"
"Please understand, Robin," Zoro pleads in accented English. Robin makes no effort to right herself when he holds her. "This is my chance to prove myself as a true Canadian. I need to defend my new home - our new home, Robin-chan."
"What about starting a family? Everything has gone to waste, and that's on you!" Robin's closed fists pound against Zoro's chest. "Bastard!"
"Stop it." Zoro warns firmly and, as if it were magic, Robin ceases her frenzy. He kisses her and holds her as she sobs. "I'll make our children proud. I promise you, Robin-chan."
"Please, come home," the woman sobs, and she says nothing else for the remainder of the night. She only lets Zoro hold her as she worries and awaits the day he leaves her.
The evening before Zoro's departure, Robin lets him take her for what could be the last time. It is passionate, and almost humiliating in its context; they are grasping for each other in knowledge of what could happen to Zoro on the front lines, in the trenches. He may never come home, or he may return with unrecognizable features. It is for these reasons, and reasons beyond her own comprehension, that she takes Zoro for what he is before he is changed by the Great War.
Robin lost her life in the explosion in December of 1917. Her son, Nathaniel, is orphaned until Zoro's return. They cry together when they think about the mother, the wife they now must go without. Zoro still managed to fulfill his promise of return, and he prays that Robin can see this from her place in the skies.
This is a bonus drabble because, in Canada today, it's Remembrance Day. Today is especially emotional for me, having studied WWI and hearing about such awful conditions that soldiers had to face in the trenches and the attacks they suffered. It was a tremendous, yet, such a rewarding sacrifice. Thank you to the soldiers then, and the military today, for protecting our country.
On a lighter note, happy birthday to my very first anime guy obsession, Roronoa Zoro. :')
P.S. My updates are going to be a lot shorter from now on. I've realized that I'm advertising my chapters as drabbles; drabbles don't necessarily have to be thousands upon thousands of words long. I guess I've been a bit disillusioned. So, yes, the chapters will be shorter unless completely necessary. See you all on Friday! :')
- Angela