Yoru slashed down with immense force, sundering the air around them, but Zoro had practiced every day and he no longer feared the mystery of that blade or the scar it had left against his chest. The nightmares of his failure had faded with time, even if the scar had not, but that didn't mean that he underestimated the man behind the weapon.
Zoro pressed forward, yelling out as Shusui met the flat of Mihawk's greatsword. He mounted on, the glint of steel on steel, sweat stinging his eyes, and in a quick parry, his blade relented and the honed edge of Yoru lingered against his throat.
"Focus, Zoro. You're relying too much on your strength. Those swords are an extension of your Haki. Again."
Again they clashed, a violent swirl of power. Dracule Mihawk, the world's greatest swordsman, and Roranoa Zoro, the man who would one day best him. And again, his sword was parried.
"BAKA."
Mihawk didn't flinch. He took a step back, readied his sword, and commanded, "Again."
Ribbons of muscle flexed beneath tanned skin, grey eyes sharp as ice. He would defeat him one day, one day soon, he was certain. Blood pounded behind his temples, the sharp scent of sweat and dust and iron flooding his mind.
He sidestepped this time, forcing Mihawk to do the same, studying his impossibly skilled footwork as he did. He pulsed forward and met Yoru at the cross-guard, the sword breaker—another lost match.
"What are you eating?" Zoro growled, his fury turned from his master to the lithe shape of a woman floating a few inches above the boulder overlooking their arena.
Her small frame shifted in a sea of silk and tulle, "Cream puffs."
"They smell good. Give me one."
"Focus, Zoro."
His head was buzzing. "I'm hungry."
"You're going to be hungry. If you have any intention of facing off against me again, you need to learn how to focus. Start from the beginning."
Zoro snarled, lunged forward clumsily and violently. Mihawk sidestepped. To wield his weapon should have required immense strength, but every movement was the pinnacle of grace. In a single sweep, Shusui had ripped away from Zoro's hands, blade singing, into the dust.
Zoro's chest heaved.
"We're done for the day."
"I say when we're done."
"You do not." Mihawk wiped the faintest glimmer from his brow and looked off towards the looming castle beyond. His blade slid into its sheath and without strapping it to his back, he set off for his study, a book, and a cup of tea.
Zoro hated that Mihawk had barely broken a sweat.
He turned his attention on her once again, frustrated and panting, "What are you looking at?" Her hair was down today, long waves of soft, candy pink.
She tilted her head, just enough. "You're bleeding."
His fingers raised to his throat where Mihawk's blade had only just touched him and returned, stained with the faintest drip of crimson. "Want a taste?"
She flicked him off.
Perona's feet never truly touched the ground as slid from her vantage point and walked carefully towards the man who had completely stolen her attention—day in, day out. She didn't need to drift about, it took strength, concentration, but he was taller than her. She liked to be able to press her face against his.
"You were kind of pathetic today, you know," She mused, plucking the last cream puff from a black, velvet box and slipping it, softly, between his teeth. "Don't tell me you were distracted."
Zoro grumbled, mouth flooded with a breath of sugar-sweet air. "I'm going to take a shower."
"No, you aren't. You promised that you would play with me today."
"I stink, and I'm sweaty."
"Yeah," Perona ran her finger under his chin. Her doe eyes flickered from his lips to his chest, rising and falling heavy beneath the shirt she had sewn him. "Mmm… usually I would think you were pretty gross, but…" Her tongue met the nick on his throat. He moaned softly.
"Salty."
The wave of cold air that hit him nearly knocked the breath from his lungs. "Perona, no… No,"
A dozen hands caressed him, grave-touched fingers dipping beneath the skin of his chest and his thighs and his throat as his feet rose unsteadily from the ground, "Oi. Oi, Perona!"
Mihawk exhaled agitatedly, amber eyes narrow and locked on the place where his pupil had just shot, momentarily incorporeal, through three feet of stone wall and inside of his mansion. Of all of the empty rooms, that girl had to pick the one next to his study for her own.
For all of the ribbons and lace holding it together, her dress came off with surprising ease. Maybe it was the ghostly hands that worked tenderly at the corset strings that made it so she could step into the room clothed and have everything fall away before kneeling, weightless, against the mattress. The same hands gripped the front of his shirt and ripped it clean in two.
"Fuck, Perona." His chest thrummed as the hands pinned him to the sheets, wove their way down between his thighs. "Call off the army."
With a flick of her wrist, they were alone.
"I hate it when you do that."
She pouted, rosebud lips the color of tart red cherry. Skin as soft as fresh cream. "You kept me waiting, Zoro, all morning. Not cute." She pressed her palm between his thighs and gently squeezed.
"Take off your pants."
He obeyed. If he hadn't, she would have sent her ghosts on him again. Some battles were better left losing. Some battles ended with a beautiful woman in his lap, stroking him lazily until he was hard and heavy and the weight of a strained morning meant nothing anymore.
He flipped her over with a slight squeal, holding her wrists tight against the mattress. He fantasized about the sounds she made every night they were not together. Tiny, whimpering, mewling little pleads for him to run his teeth against her throat, her nipples, her stomach.
She was so small in his arms, impossibly so. It took none of his strength to pin her down and keep her there as his lips brushed lower, between her thighs, and he breathed her in deep and heady.
He moaned against her and she writhed, wrapping her thighs around his head. He could devour her for hours. Maybe he would.
"Zoro…"
He released her wrists and gripped that perfect, curved ass in heavy, scar-flecked hands, rolled her hips towards him, and purred. This battle would go to him. It always did. He would bury his nose against her skin and drink her in until she finally wriggled free, panting, honey eyes begging for all of him.
When he was finally drunk off her, he pulled away, brushing himself against her belly and making her whimper and arch towards him. He smirked, chuckled, slid his hand between her thighs, and rubbed her in lazy circles until his fingers came away damp and slick. He pressed them hungrily between her lips.
"Salty." He teased. She nipped him and he slipped his fingers free, feigning hurt. "Bad girl, Perona."
Zoro snarled, bit down into the soft flesh of her throat, and sheathed himself inside her.
She moaned, lips parted, panting. White-hot heat flooded through her and every nerve in her body caught fire.
She could barely find her words as she whimpered, "You're too big."
She was too tiny, like a porcelain doll beneath him, but by now he knew that she wouldn't break. By now he knew that she wanted him to try. He met her deep and full again and again, burying himself inside, and with each stroke she would coo and shiver and wrap herself greedily around him, begging for everything he had.
He gave it to her.
They rolled and writhed together, hungry and impossible to satisfy, howling into the shadowed stone room. He had never felt something so warm and slick and sweet. She had never dreamed of something so full and heavy and strong.
Her body burned, head filled with stars, and she knew she wouldn't last like this. "Please," She begged. "Zoro, please."
He could not imagine a sight more intoxicating than her beneath him, dewy eyes glistening, body tense and pounding and damp with sweat. He never wanted this to end. It didn't matter how close she was, that she was his alone—two years, two years of only them.
He wrapped her in his arms and kissed her as she fractured against him. His mind flooded with a thousand long-dead voices, each one a reflection of her own, 'please,' they begged, 'please.'
Nothing lasted forever. He would give them what they wanted.
Zoro buried his face in the feather pillow beside Perona's cheek and found his release inside her.
Perona wriggled beneath him and Zoro propped himself up on his forearms in a spectacular display of flexing muscle, scars and trailing green hair.
"Did you just?"
"You wanted me to."
She did. She sighed, running a finger down his chest, following the line of his scar. "You're not even cute."
"You seem to enjoy me anyway."
She pouted again. When had he gotten so clever? She balled up her fists and pressed them against his chest, rolling him off of her so that she could admire every inch of softly glistening flesh. A door in the hallway creaked open.
"Do you think he heard us?"
Yes, you were screaming, 'Deeper, Zoro, deeper, deeper.'
"No," He lied.
She giggled, caressed his cheek, and sighed. Would two years really be enough? Two years of dinner and wine, of Zoro being perpetually lost in this giant castle, of passionate fights and even more passionate mending—of him like he is now, laid bare before her, and she… conquered. The prize of a battle won.
"I'm going to take a shower."
"No," She growled, burying her face in his chest. "You're warm. You can shower when I'm dead."
Usually, his eyes were dark and frustrated, two chips of ice, but the man who looked down at her was misty-eyed, like fog, endless.
Zoro grumbled, tangled his fingers in that candy pink hair, and pulled Perona close.