Wealth, Fame, Power…

Chapter 39: Honor Of The Sword

"Hmm, this looks like a sword shop," Zoro grumbled as he walked into the store. He wasn't in the best of moods at the moment, seeing as he'd been running around like a headless chicken for the last couple hours trying to find a shop like this one.

When he stepped through the doorway and into the store, the swordsman's eyes were bombarded with an incredible selection of just about any blade you could think of. There were knives, daggers, longswords, broadswords, cutlasses, you name it, they had it all. But above all else, they had just what the pirate hunter was looking for, katanas. He swiftly moved his way up to the counter, not wanting to waste time browsing and just ask up front about what he could get with his low budget.

Instead however, he found a girl already at the counter talking to the store owner, and Zoro almost did a double take when he noticed the extremely familiar color of her very short hair.

"Thank you so much for taking good care of my Shigure sir, I can already see how much love and hard work you put into your craft," the woman said gratefully, bowing politely soon after.

"Yeah yeah lady, whatever you say. Next in line please."

But when Zoro was still standing there like an idiot staring at the other customer, the owner cleared his throat, bringing the attention of said girl onto him.

"Um, can I help you?" The woman asked timidly. She had her hair in a similar fashion as Nami, except it was a dark shade of blue instead of orange. She also wore red rimmed glasses over her eyes to help her see. Other than that though, nothing else really seemed to catch the eye, she was well covered with a large coat to make sure of that.

"K-kuina?" Zoro stuttered, his teeth gritting without even knowing it.

"What did you say sir? I didn't catch that."

The pirate hunter made the recovery of a lifetime and took his gaze off of the woman. It's not her, so stop being an idiot. "Uh nothing, sorry, I thought you were someone else."

The owner of the store rolled his eyes and continued on with his sale. "Well then, what can I do for you today?"

Zoro stepped up to the counter hesitantly. He could still the gaze of this oddly familiar woman on the back of his head. Great, just what I need, attention. He thought sarcastically.

"I'm looking for a couple new swords, but I've only got two hundred thousand beris, what do ya got?"

The store owner had to do a double take himself when he heard the pathetic amount of money the man had, but nonetheless, he still had options for him. "Well, that shouldn't be too much of a problem mister, I've got a fine selection of cutlasses here ready for the taking. They are all quite cheap and in your budget range, this is because they are primarily made for pirates, but beggars can't be choosers after all."

Zoro looked suspiciously at the wall of curved sabers that the man was pointing at. Sure, they would probably get the job done, but he was hoping to try and match all three of his swords. "How much?"

The owner grinned and happily responded. Only twenty thousand beris each, which ones would you like?"

"Twenty thousand? Forget that, got anything better quality? Like a katana?"

The owner, who was clearly a businessman, quickly jumped on the opportunity to help his customer spend more money. "Ah yes, of course. But the really good ones are a bit out of your price range. May I suggest our fifty thousand beri bin right over there?"

The swordsman turned around and looked to where the man was pointing, seeing a barrel full of sheathed katanas. "Now that's more like it." well how about that, I might actually get out of this without too much debt.

When the man began walking over to begin inspecting the swords, the blue haired woman couldn't help but keep her eyes on him. She was getting some kind of weird vibe from the man, and she couldn't really tell right now if it was good or bad.

"Strange man eh?" The shop owner said to the woman.

"Oh, um yeah, I guess," she replied, adjusting her glasses at the same time.

"How about this one? It's got the same weight to it as the one I have."

The blue haired woman and the shopkeeper both directed their eyes over to the green haired man, looking over the sword he had retrieved from the bucket, as well as the one he was comparing it to in his other hand.

It only took a solid ten seconds of staring before both the shopkeeper and the woman bulged their eyes out of their heads in severe shock. With the woman actually acting upon it and running up to the man. "No way! You're the owner of the famous Wado Ichimonji!?"

Zoro merely looked at her like she was crazy. "What? Wado ichiwhatnow?"

"Let's see here," she murmured as she flipped through a small book that was now in her hands. "Yep! Here it is, I knew I'd be able to recognize it, Wado Ichimonji," She finished, thrusting the open book into the swordsman's face. "It's one of the great grade famous swords of the world!"

Zoro looked down at his long-time partner with an odd look. Was it really as valuable as the woman said? But as soon as the thought entered his mind, he pushed it away just as fast. There was no way in hell he would ever sell his master's sword, no, Kuina's sword. "Thanks for the history lesson lady, but it's not for sale," he said in his usual boring tone, promptly turning to the owner with his new selection in mind. "Now, I'd like to buy this sword please, it's the only one in this pile that isn't total crap."

The owner sighed at the loss of opportunity, he could have made a fortune, had this man been stupid enough to sell that prized blade, but at least he could still finish the transaction. "Yes sir, of course, which one did you choo-oh my!" He yelled in almost-panic when he laid eyes on the man's chosen sword. It didn't take long for him to recover, but it was still very noticeable. "I'm sorry sir, but I can't sell you that sword, you its-"

"It's cursed, yeah I know, that's part of the reason I want it," He grinned devilishly, looking down at the sword with determination.

Now getting a closer look herself, the woman widened her eyes once more and began shuffling through her book again. When she landed on the correct page, she quickly gasped and looked back up at the man. He really did have a good eye. She was about to state out loud the name of the newfound sword but the shopkeeper spoke up first.

"It's cursed and you still want it? What are you crazy!? You sound like a pirate right now!"

With his grin growing bigger and meaner by the second, Zoro gave back the best challenge he could. "Yeah? How do you know I'm not one?"

This instantly silenced the owner into submission, now only watching as the green haired man tossed the cursed blade into the air.

"Lets see what holds up, my luck, or the curse on this sword."

The shopkeeper knew immediately what this man was trying to do, and his eyes wanted no part of it, shutting the second he tossed the blade up into the air. After a few more grueling seconds, he expected to hear either a cry of pain or the sound of metal clanking against the floor, but he heard neither of those.

Instead when he opened his eyes again, he found the soft spoken woman from before standing face to face with the green haired man. But that wasn't the craziest part, she also happened to be holding the cursed blade as well, she must have caught it after he closed his eyes!

Zoro stared daggers into the woman, going for his usual tactic of intimidation, but oddly enough, the woman was staring back at him with just as much killing intent. "Got something you wanna say?"

The woman clenched her fists around the scabbard of the taken cursed blade. She couldn't believe how stupid she was! This man was trying to buy two swords and he already had one! He could only be… "Roronoa Zoro, the pirate hunter, how dare you try and trick a marine."

Not bothered by the threat of facing a government official, Zoro kept up his cocky smile. "Pirate Hunter, huh? People still call me that? I made it pretty clear that I'm on the other side of the law now."

"I can't believe you! Sure a bounty hunter using one of the legendary blades is a disgrace, but a pirate!? You're the lowest of scum!"

Hmph, at least she doesn't sound like Kunina at all… "Look lady, are you gonna let me pay for that sword, or are you gonna make me take it from you."

All of the sudden, the shopkeeper behind the counter began hysterically laughing. "AHAHAHA, you!? Beat a Navy Sergeant!? Yeah, in your dreams bud! She's been coming here since she got stationed here, and I know for a fact that she could whoop you any day!"

Zoro looked between the owner and the swordswoman carefully. The owner had a very confident smirk on his face, but the woman looked like she was trying not to blush from all the praise she was receiving.

Smiling lightly again, Zoro proposed a different offer. "How about this, I beat her in a duel, and you give me that cursed sword for free." Aw jeez, I'm starting to sound like the witch.

Not backing down from the challenge, the shopkeeper decided to show just how comfortable he was with letting this woman fight his battle. "Hah! Yeah sure buddy, and if you want, I'll even throw in the best katana I have. I might as well give your delusional mind some hope right?"

At that, the pirate hunter's grin grew as wide as it could. "You've got yourself a deal."

Nami walked through the ever growing crowd in front of her with a baffled expression growing on her face. The air was starting to smell really good too, what was going on? "Hmm, i wonder what all of these people are doing here."

Behind her, the poor marksman of the crew trailed along with way too many bags in his arms. The boy looked about ready to collapse any second now. However, an important difference could also be seen in his overall attire. It appeared as though he had acquired some brand new goggles, since they were being proudly shown off on his head.

Now how had he acquired these you may ask, well that was for another time. But the short answer was that in the last two hours he'd been shopping, dueling, and almost dying… Hehe, nothing to see there.

"Uhh" He moaned as he repositioned some bags so he could comfortably respond to the bossy girl. "I think it might be some kind of festival, it really does smell good."

The more the pair made their way into the crowd, the more information they gathered from people around them. Eventually they both came to the subtle conclusion that this was some kind of giant cooking competition.

"Wow, this is really neat. I bet Luffy would love this sort of thing," Nami said offhandedly.

Usopp craned his neck at the sudden reference to his captain, but quickly shrugged it off as nothing. She was right after all, Luffy would definitely be happy to gobble up anything related to food. Hell, he'd even admitted to him that the tabasco star had tasted amazing, after all of the commotion with his bounty settled down.

"Look Usopp! It looks like one of the rounds just ended, and Sanji's right over there!"

The long nosed teen turned to where she was pointing and indeed saw the blonde cook. It looked like he was being judged right now, and by the look of the chef judging him, his food must have tasted great.

"Woohoo! Nice job Sanji!" Nami hollered at the man and his winning score. There was no way he wouldn't move on to the next round.

But as soon as the boy heard that charming voice, he sped into the crowd with all of his vigor. He was lucky that the judge had already moved on to the next contestant, otherwise he might have gotten disqualified. "Nami! My gorgeous swan! How are you my love?"

Again, the teen rolled her eyes and pulled her hand back gently. She was about to humor the boy and flirt back, but the loud yelling the judge threw her off, as well as everyone else in the crowd. "Woah, that came out of nowhere."

Sanji only turned back to the competition and spotted the poor soul who had just gotten cussed out by the judge. "I know, isn't he the best!?"

When his two friends stared at him with confused expressions, Sanji explained. "Well, let me clarify. That isn't just any regular judge, that's the world class chef Horton Ramon, he's incredible you guys.

Nami knitted her eyebrows together, "Hmm, never heard of him."

"Me either," Usopp agreed

"Well there's a reason for that, trust me, that guy over there may be harsh, but he's easily as good a chef as Zeff. the only reason he's not as well known throughout the four seas as that old geezer is because he wasn't ever a pirate."

"Ok Sanji," Nami relented. "If you say he's a good guy, I believe y-"

"IS THIS A JOKE!? ITS FUCKING RAW!" The judge screamed at one of the contestants.

"Wow! So cool!" Sanji gushed as he ran back to his station, not even noticing the very unsure looks his crewmates were giving him.