Zoro was a good heir to prosperity, a good future priest, just enough to wish the village and its people happiness. To give it to them, because everything, after Shishou, depended entirely on him and his strength. Zoro was brought up with what he had to do for the village, for its people, for their prosperity, and only shishou asked what he wanted.
Zoro would be a good priest. Because he didn't need anything in return. Never.
Zoro lived for others. And that was what Shishou was trying to wean him off of, like a bad habit. Because the village needs them to die from them, to die for them. And Shishou knew that Zoro would do just that, without hesitation or fear. And she couldn't imagine anything worse than that.
"You should worry about yourself", Chopper tells him, long from home, years and a one sea away, almost tearfully bandaging his wounds.
"Don't worry about me", he smiles, without saying anything about drinking or sleeping, "there's not much that can really hurt me".
And that doesn't mean he can tell even Nakama who he is.
He first meets snow in North Blue, where he was taken by a raft made of planks and pure luck. The sea was cold and empty, the islands lifeless and lonely, the people harsh and dangerous. He remembered North Blue by the snow, white and so unusual; the frozen water that instantly melted on his skin; as white as shishou's hair…
Do not think.
He is seven when he knows ice, snow, and disease. North Blue is prone to all sorts of contagion, stemming from the cold, weakened immunity and "curses from above" swear, wandering sailors here. He is seven when he gets sick for the first time in his life with a rash on his skin, wild itching and ulcers. He's seven when he comes out of this alive, being the only one who's recovered; he's surrounded by corpses.
And he runs. Again. Fearing that someone doesn't like his survival, just as Wano doesn't like his hair... do not think. It was probably only after going there once that he could tell at a glance that kok and Law were from there.
He is eight when he climbs out of the cold, rough sea into another, quiet and peaceful one that reminds him of home. Why he never, even ten years later, could completely relax. East Blue may seem calm, but it breeds monsters that no one can see the connection between. (Robin looked back at him thoughtfully when he mentioned it, as if noticing it for the first time, but then immediately forgot — he didn't try again.)
As a child on the run from his own demons and with superhuman vitality, you can get into all sorts of situations. Koshiro can swear that on two occasions, Kuina almost killed Zoro in practice fights. (Zoro knows that this is true; if he wasn't who he is, he would have died of internal bleeding a hundred times already.) A broken spine is unpleasant, but you can live, and if you sleep for three days, you can even get up and go to train.
So Zoro could never understand, could never accept, that Kuina had died by falling down the stairs. Zoro, who once came close to breaking his neck running from home in Wano, throwing himself all over the alleys, twisting his limbs and putting his joints back in the next second to run on, couldn't understand. No way.
Kuina had taught him a lot. Very. But the main thing he learned from her death: people are fragile.
And he remembered that as a bounty hunter, twitching every time he was called a demon: it wasn't his fault that humans were so weak that with a little effort and the right angle, he could rip someone's limb off with his bare hands! But a true swordsman is aware of his own and the opponent's strength, for this reason, Mihawk chose almost a toothpick against him (although he did not realize that even with Kokuto Yoru, he would not be able to kill Zoro right away). So when he met Luffy, Zoro was almost happy that at least someone in this sea, in this world, could be strong and resilient by nature.
People named "D." are amazing in their own right. Zoro had spent enough time with Luffy to see people who didn't even have that initial in their name. Even if it may be strange personalities. Zoro still can't seem to ask Robin if there's any chance that Buggy, with his phenomenal survival streak, could be one of the "D."? Just like finding the lost children of the sun and the earth: Monet, who survived the experiments, whose eyes made him tighten his grip on the hilts and clench his teeth until they hurt; Camie, who is made for the sea, from which she sometimes instinctively escapes; Kureha that blooms and smells, walking briskly in short summer clothes and laughing at the cold, as well as at any diseases — Zoro knows that they are, not completely, diluted and indirectly, by his blood. They are similar; they are the ones whose ancestors could leave when they were allowed to; the ones who ran away, just like him. Zoro didn't dare ask Chopper's mentor about it, not seeing any recognition or understanding in the woman's black eyes, which might have been for the best then.
"I believe you can master the sword", Yomi says, tossing a sheathed katana that weighs at least a hundred kilos in his direction with a slight grin. "After all, one of our relatives was extremely skilled, even if he was a coward".
"Really?" he ties his hair into a tight ponytail, blowing off his bangs, dreaming of a thin clip like shishou's.
"Yes", Yomi laughs, "I think he left the island four generations ago", your face looks a bit like him.
"Not true!" he exclaimed, having no idea what the man looked like.
The house haunts him in people he has never met.
Ryuma has black hair and gray eyes — he has to blink twice and shake his head. That way, that walk, that grin… he looks so much like Yomi that it's scary. But no, he has white, fucking white, hair and empty eye sockets. Haki, whom he does not know, makes him see images, hallucinations, working on wear and tear and exhausting super-dimensions.
If not for the circumstances, if not millions stupid reason to fight, if not for the Shichibukai and the lost shadow; he would have stopped, would ask, as it was then, in his time, whether he was thus an apostate, which is not to remember how he had gone and why? Why only Wano? It's close, too close to home. They could have come and found you and killed you. How can you ignore them?
"Take it", Yomi says, blood trickling down her right side, implacable and relentless, and one leg twisted in the wrong direction. Green intersects with red when someone else's hands touch his cheeks again, without tears or promises. "Didn't your shishou tell you to run?"
He can't say anything to that, his fingers curled around the broken dagger left behind by shishou, who ordered him to leave, or else he's going to die worse than hers…
"Hey, look at me", nee-san is confident and unwavering, standing firm; her hands reach back, raking his hair into a pile, pulling and... abruptly getting lighter. My head feels almost weightless. "It'll be easier that way".
Green hair, heavy, hateful, and disturbing, lies obediently around them, the ends of the crooked cut tickling his neck, Yomi smiles at him sincerely as he briefly lunges forward, clutching at someone else's dark clothing.
"It's all right", she whispers to him, "you'll be fine".
He knows that for this her and her (their?) his parents are executed — he can't help but shake with sobs, who wouldn't allow himself even with shishou.
Probably because he and Shishou were destined to die.
"Take it", Ryuma says, his voice not meant to be like Yomi's, but his tired brain stubbornly denies any other possibility. Zoro touches the back of his head with his free hand, and it seems to him that his short-cropped hair has grown longer.
"All right", he says, and Shisui recognizes him by his blood and spirit in his arms. The sword laughs, not as loudly as Kitetsu, but insistently and probingly.
