I've finally mustered the courage to start reading One Piece again! Though I still can't bring myself to read the part where Ace dies and the war breaks out. But anyways, after the two years the crew gets back together and Zoro is the first to arrive. This is set after Zoro reaches the island they promised to meet(does it have a name?) and before he goes fishing and gets lost. Oh and thanks to Kaiser Wilhelm for mentioning Rayleigh!
"Roronora Zoro," Silvers Rayliegh recognized the man who had entered the bar out of the corner of his eye. He turned and waved from his seat beside the bar counter. "You're the first one to arrive."
The swordsman looked around for the man who called his name, neither surprised nor afraid but alert all the same. When the younger pirate found the other, it was the older pirate of the two whose eyes widened in surprise.
"…You've grown," Rayleigh commented as he took in the lean figure. The scar that ran along the swordsman's left eye stood out especially against the dim light, but more importantly, Reyliegh saw a glint of maturity that had not been there before. The haughtiness had been smoothed out and instead was deafening silence in the steel eye that stared back.
"...Rayleigh," Zoro finally remembered, and thus breaking into his characteristic quirk. "Good to see you. You say I'm the first?"
Rayleigh nodded, just as amused as the former pirate hunter. He had heard countless of stories of the swordsman's hopeless sense of direction and hadn't imagined the swordsman to be the first. Rumors were obviously not as accurate as Rayleigh thought them to be.
Having realized that, the old man wondered what other rumors he deemed to be true, were false. He remembered most of what he had heard about Roronora Zoro for he had taken a personal interest in the young swordsman. After all, Rayleigh had once been a first mate as well.
"You mind a question?"
"Fire away," Zoro replied good naturally having received a fine jug of beer from the older man.
"You'd follow Luffy?"
"Already do."
"But till Death?" Rayleigh challenged and-
"Nope."
-came the immediate reply. Rayleigh nodded, feeling disappointed despite himself. So the rumors were true; there was no love but rather it was loyalty that bound the demonic pirate hunter to the cheerful captain. But that would make sense. There was no rational reason for a notorious pirate hunter to suddenly side with a pirate like how Roronora Zoro did. Roronora Zoro was a swordsman and so a man who prized his honor and pride above all. There had to be some unknown debt between the two that the swordsman needed to repay-but the debt was obviously not worth his own life.
Rayleigh's head swirled with thoughts concerning his pupil. He had no right to criticize a captain in choosing his mates but did Luffy know? Did Luffy know that the man he spoke so highly of, a crew mate whom he was fiercely protective of did not feel the same?
Zoro, never having noticed his companion's troubled silence, tipped his head further to empty the glass jug before slamming it down on the counter with a satisfied sigh.
"Not till Death," Zoro continued. "But after as well."