Hey everybody!

So, here's the next chapter for this weekend! I hope you'll enjoy it^^

See you tomorrow^^


Chapter 27 - Respect

-Mihawk-

A quiet groan interrupted the calm silence.

He looked over his newspaper to the slender figure in the white four-poster bed, who had hardly moved, but his eyes were now squinted in pain.

Satisfied, Mihawk folded his favorite reading and put it on the small nightstand, Roronoa would soon wake up.

It was about time, the sun had left the horizon a few minutes ago, a new day had dawned. During the night, Roronoa had turned back into Loreen. After the monster had left him, his body had been too exhausted to resist his eternal curse for much longer.

Mihawk let his gaze wander through the younger man's room as he waited for Roronoa to finally come to his senses. It still looked exactly the same as when Roronoa had moved in; the room was plain and empty, the few pieces of furniture seemed unused and dusty. Only the old-fashioned dresser and the adjacent shelf seemed as if Roronoa would use them.

Curiosity had tried to persuade Mihawk to take a closer look at the documents on the shelf – especially the contract with Eizen, which Roronoa still withheld from him – but he had decided against it.

That surprised himself the most. He had never bothered to care about such things, but here and now he did not want to jeopardize the trust that grew between him and the youngster.

Sighing, he rubbed his face with one hand. He had indeed changed a lot. Then his gaze fell on the younger man, whose eyelids trembled slightly, before he finally opened his eyes with a slight sigh.

"Good morning, Roronoa."

He could not prevent a smile as the other's misty eyes swayed over to him. Rorona wanted to say something, but nothing more than a miserable whimper came over his lips.

"Calm down, Roronoa. I am sure your body is still too exhausted. You are probably not going to be able to move for a few hours."

Roronoa blinked briefly and sighed deeply. Although his body was dull and powerless, he seemed to be mentally awake. His just blurred gaze was now purposefully directed at Mihawk and without even saying a word, Mihawk knew what the other wanted to know from him.

"You do not remember what happened, do you?"

The youngster blinked again and Mihawk nodded.

"Yes, I expected that. Then it is apparently really like what happened in your childhood." Then he crossed his legs and stroked his beard. "Well, I will tell you what happened. If you have any questions, you can still ask them later."

Once again, he noticed how unfamiliar it was for him that Roronoa was easily staring at him so directly. Most people avoided his gaze, but Roronoa sought eye contact and easily withstood him, and now, in this weakened state, it impressed Mihawk even more.

"Be that as it may, I have my guess what happened to you, but let us start at the beginning." He leaned slightly forward, so it was easier for him to read the younger's gaze, as Rorona's face betrayed little more than his silent mouth.

"As you can remember, I asked you to overlay my armor coating the bamboo stick. I wanted you to perceive my Haki flow to understand what your goal is. But then something happened that even I did not expect." Grinning, he watched Roronoa stare at him from squinted eyes. His right eyebrow twitched dangerously, and he breathed deeply. "When your armor overlapped mine, you absorbed my Haki."

Now Roronoa's eyes widened and it was more than clear that the other was trying to straighten up, but nothing happened and there was nothing more than a dissatisfied sigh. Mihawk laughed quietly.

"Yes, I have to admit that even I have never heard of such an ability," he still grinned, "and yet I have no doubt about my ability to observe. But I am not done yet. Immediately after you soaked up my Haki, you fell into the madness you have told me about. I think we agree that there is a connection between those things. As you know, Haki is nothing more than life energy that has been given a form. The higher the naturally occurring Haki within a person, the more likely it is that they carry the King's predisposition, but we will cover that subject on another day. I suspect that you used a lot of your own Haki through the workout, maybe even a life-threatening amount, without you being able to stop it."

The younger one watched him seriously, nothing showed what Roronoa was thinking, and that would not change until he could move, so Mihawk continued: "It is one of your eccentricities to meet your own limits and to go even beyond. But I believe that in this case your inner monster overwhelmed you the moment you absorbed my Haki. Probably to save your own life." Thoughtfully, Mihawk rubbed his neck. "Despite this, it is downright worrying, because while you had fallen into your madness your Haki might have reached an unforeseeable level, but at the same time your life energy just flowed out of you unhindered. If I had not stopped you, this enormous loss of power would have killed you within a few minutes. That is why you are so exhausted."

He got up sighing.

"You should sleep a little bit for now and recover. As soon as you get better, we can talk about your future training."

Roronoa wanted to reply, but his body betrayed him again and he was not able to do more than an awkward moan.

"Calm down, Roronoa. Now is not the time for talks. I have told you everything of importance so that you can now rest in peace. So, sleep, otherwise I will call for the ghost girl to watch over you."

The younger one snorted disapprovingly and Mihawk took it as a sign to go.

For a second he thought about going to sleep, after all, he had spent the previous night at the bedside of his little frog again, but then he chose the way to the fireplace room. In the entrance hall, he met the ghost girl, who had just closed the heavy gate behind her, a huge, empty basket in her arm.

"Tze." Mihawk stopped. "Ghost girl, I allow you to stay, but I do not like how you waste my food."

"My name is Perona!" She replied with her head raised high, looking at him seriously. "May his Lordship remember that." She seemed to be in quite a bad mood, not that he cared. "Also, since when do you care about something like food? With your wealth, you probably wouldn't even notice a few loaves more or less."

She hurriedly walked past him, in the direction of the kitchen.

"Do you really think your behavior will change anything about the situation?" He asked coolly, looking at her. "No matter how much food you bring them, the Humandrills will still kill you at the first opportunity. It is in their nature and your sacrificial charity will not change that."

"Well?!" The ghost princess had stopped but did not turn to him. "That's not what it's about!"

He slightly tilted his head. "And what is this all about?"

"Oh, as if you would understand, after all, you have a heart of stone!" She wanted to go on but stopped at the door again. "Well, unless it's about Zoro, of course."

With those words, she disappeared.

Mihawk, who was not even impressed by her words, was left behind. Of course, he understood why she kept bringing the leftovers to the Humandrills, and usually he decided to ignore it. However, he really doubted that her good-naturedness would bear fruit. The primates of this island had only experienced conflict and war for generations, a girl with pink braids who brought a basket of old baked goods every few days would not change much.

Even the ridiculous side-blow at the end of her act was not even enough to offend him. After all, it was an open secret that Roronoa was his weakness, and it was not the first time the ghost girl had interpreted more into their relationship than it actually was.

A few seconds later, he threw himself on his favorite chair and pulled the newspaper out again, even though he had already read it. In doing so, he decided to ignore the awkward tingle of his shoulder.

However, he was not able to ignore Perona's voice in his head.

Sighing, he got up and decided to call his childhood friend, but once again, Jiroushin could not be reached. Mihawk scratched his head before finally shaking his head and deciding not to brood about useless thoughts.

-Zoro-

He should stay in bed. He should calm down. He should sleep a little more.

But, oh, how he couldn't wait to kick this stupid Shichibukai's ass.

Not only could Zoro not move at all, no, this bastard had just told him that he not only had gone crazy again, but had also absorbed Haki, only to then cut off and leave him alone here. Alone in an empty room, unable to move, his thoughts running in circles.

So it had happened again; Zoro had used the Busoshoku Haki again, and once again he had no memories of what had happened.

He remembered how Hawk Eyes had hardened the bamboo and then asked him to do the same, and then the next thing he knew was waking up in his bed, for what had happened in between, he could do nothing but believe Mihawk.

The ability to absorb Haki.

He had never heard of anything like this, no, such ability could not exist and why should he be able to do such a thing? And why was it related to the fact that he was going crazy?

Zoro understood nothing at all. But at least one thing he got: Mihawk didn't even seem to be thinking about giving up training, giving him up. Whatever had happened, it didn't seem to have shocked the Shichibukai as much as Zoro had feared.

No, if he was quite honest, the other had seemed rather curious, almost excited.

So maybe, just maybe, there was still hope for Zoro.

He sighed heavily. Rarely did he struggle with his past, but right now he wondered what could had been if he had learned to fight under Mihawk's sharp eyes from the very beginning. No, that was ungrateful to his master, to his past. It was unfair to Kuina.

In addition, the Shichibukai would never have taken a pretentious brat under his wing – and who knew what kind of dick the other had been 15 years ago - even now Zoro sometimes wondered why the other was so easily influenced by him.

Zoro had heard several times that after their first encounter, Mihawk had paid more attention to him than what should have been normal, and of course he had also noticed that, despite all their differences - and there were many of them - they also had some similarities.

As far as the art of the sword was concerned, they shared a similar view and an equally deep respect for the swords that Zoro had never experienced before with any other swordfighter.

Zoro could not deny any longer that they had a meaningful friendship, but would the Shichibukai have supported him back then if he had not been so obsessed with him? Why was Mihawk so crazy about him in the first place?

Zoro knew that he had left an impression with his willingness to die for his dream, that he might even had impressed Mihawk. But was that reason enough for some stranger to find out about all the incidents of Zoro and his crew?

Once again, he sighed, such thoughts would not help him now. Things were as they were, and Zoro knew that on that fateful day he would have been far too proud to ask the Shichibukai to become his teacher. Zoro had only learned this humility through the people who were more important to him than his own pride.

So now, after all these annoying circumstances, in the body of a young woman, bound by a contract to a politician, he was here for two years on an island with the best swordsman in the world. Only so that he would get better, only for him to become strong enough to protect himself and then his crew, only for him to finally defeat the man who was now training him.

So now he was here and couldn't move, but he minded much less than he expected.

Actually, Zoro was in quite a good mood.

At that time as a child, his master had treated him calmly, but Zoro had known that he too had been terrified by what had happened. They both had believed that his Haki skills had been somehow impaired, damaged, flawed.

Mihawk, on the other hand, had not been disillusioned in the least, not even talking about being intimidated. For him it seemed to be nothing more than a new challenge, like an exciting chess game and somehow, yes somehow, that made Zoro feel better.

How bad could it be if even the monster within him wasn't able to scare the world's strongest swordsman?

He shook his head slightly, so apparently his fear of hurting the other had really been needless. Even his monster had not been able to, although that kind of made the other seem even more invincible, but that wouldn't stop Zoro from chasing him.

Oh, he just noticed that his body seemed to be slowly moving again, it was about time. Even though he was aware that he had been immobile for much longer back then. Zoro suspected that the Shichibukai had broken his manic state faster than his master had been able to.

How much he would like to talk to the old Koshiro again, one day he would return to the East Blue and tell his teacher everything. With this thought, he actually allowed himself to fall asleep.

But at some point, he woke up again. Since his room was still flooded by daylight, he assumed that it was still – or again – day.

To his surprise, however, it was not the Shichibukai, who sat on the chair next to his bed, but Perona.

She was knitting and hadn't even noticed he had woken up.

"What are you doing here?" He grumbled, having a hard time sitting up, and his tongue felt swollen and heavy. He felt no pain, only an annoying, numb feeling creeping through his limbs and made them tingle now and then.

Surprised, the young woman looked up and then a slight smile crept on her lips.

Zoro didn't understand why she had decided to stay on this island and most of the time he had to agree with Mihawk that she was annoying, but actually she was no worse than Nami and as soon as she ran out of sugar she was even an okayish cook. At least she was better than if Zoro had to cook by himself, and he had to hand it to her, she always took care of his injuries – although that was also annoying – and joined every stupid charade they had to come up with.

"Well, looking after you, what else?" She replied, not half as snappy as she probably had intended. "Hawk Eyes said you had a breakthrough or something, but I have no idea what he means by that, after all, you almost slept through a whole day and besides, you have..."

One of her knitting needles fell to the ground.

"Oh, damn it! Doesn't matter. I'll probably never understand this weird guy. He's such a snob and always in such a bad mood. How can you like him? He's so nasty to me all the time, he didn't even call me by my name just once."

With a slight smile, Zoro raised an eyebrow. In relation to the named snob, the conversations with her rarely caused headaches, except when she switched from one subject to another within one sentence.

"That may be because you're pretty disrespectful," he said, disinterested.

"What? What are you talking about? As if you know what manners are, you ill-bred ruffian."

Unimpressed, he withstood her gaze.

"That has nothing to do with respect. Doesn't matter with which knife you cut the meat, but why should the lord of the house treat you with respect if you can't even call him by his name?"

Surprised, her already oversized eyes grew a bit more.

"How do you mean that?"

Sighing, he slightly patted his tingling legs.

"He doesn't like the nickname 'Hawk Eyes', haven't you noticed that yet?"

Now she looked almost ashamed at her knitwear...

"Oh, he doesn't like when I call him that," she muttered visibly concerned, "and that's why he's so mean to me?"

Zoro shrugged. Actually, he couldn't care less how the Shichibukai treated the Perona, but yeah she sometimes was naïve like a child.

"Well, to be honest, I think that's just one of the reasons," he murmured, scratching the back of his head.

"What? But what are the others?" She exclaimed, sliding forward in her chair. "Why is he only nice to you? To me, he's always so mean, even worse than you."

Zoro doubted this statement and shrugged his shoulders again.

"As I said, it has something to do with respect. I think it's more your general way, you're just annoying him."

"But why? What can I change so he stops bullying me?"

Slowly she moved closer.

"How am I supposed to know?" He grumbled dismissive. "And why do you care what he thinks of you? If you just want to please others, you'll end up miserable."

She tilted her head.

"What are you talking about? I just want to be able to live here without him constantly musing that I could die."

Zoro sighed unnerved. Slowly the tingling subsided, soon he would be able to leave the bed and please also this conversation.

"You forget who Mihawk is," he finally said, and decided to actually help her. "You have to work for his appreciation. No idea how to do it, quite honestly. But I don't think he'll like you just because you're feeding some wild monkeys through the winter. You constantly talk about how worried you are about Moria, but you don't want to leave the island or look for him. I just believe that Mihawk has no interest in you, because you don't follow your empty words with deeds."

To his astonishment, she seemed surprisingly serious.

"Mihawk will not respect you just because you are useful in the castle or because you are helping someone else out of friendliness."

For a moment, she seemed to be thinking, plucking at her braids again.

"But what do I have to do?" She asked him.

"Well, I would stop asking me what and think for yourself."

Dissatisfied, she puffed her cheeks.

"But he respects you."

Shaking his head, Zoro threw both legs over the edge of the bed.

"There's no magic trick to make people like you, Perona. Mihawk and I have similar opinions and seriously engage with the art of sword, maybe that's why he respects me. But you have to ask him if you really want to know."

He got up unsteady, hadn't even tried to turn into his true form again, knowing that he wouldn't make it at the moment. Leaving the thoughtful Perona behind, he staggered through the depths of the castle until he finally arrived in the large fireplace room, for once without getting lost at all.

As expected, he found Mihawk there, who seemed visibly surprised by his appearance.

"Should you not be lying in bed right now?" Mihawk asked with a slight smile, looking up from the little book in his hand. "Your legs still seem quite shaky."

"Shut up," Zoro grumbled unimpressed, and dropped on the sofa opposite of the Shichibukai. The short walk from his room to here had already exhausted him. How he hated to be permanently exhausted.

"I'm here," he muttered grumpily, "so let's talk about the training plan!"

The elder nodded and folded the book.

"As you wish." A nasty grin crept over the facial features of the best swordsman in the world. "Of course I cannot draw all the conclusions from one single test just yet, still I do have a plan."