He will probably always remember the day he loses for the one-thousandth time, because first of all it's his birthday, and second of all he can't fight for a week afterwards.
It's also the day that the strange lady arrives, seeking shelter. The closest town is far away, and night is coming. She doesn't know anything about swords, she says, but she's grateful to be put up for a few nights, and she's not averse to helping with whatever needs to be done. Sensei asks Kuina to look after the stranger, who introduces herself as Robin. Zoro, lying on his pallet in the next room, listens to Kuina talk. She is more polite with adults than she is with children, more friendly with those who aren't training to be swordsmen than with those who are. Maybe she doesn't see Robin as competition. Maybe she just doesn't care to be polite to Zoro. He can't make out what they're talking about, but something Kuina says shocks Robin, and their voices lower to a hush. The sound is distorted through the wall, and he lets it wash over him in the darkness as he attempts to flex his hand.
He supposes it was a good birthday present from Kuina, that she finally deigned to fight him with all of her strength. He had no idea he was so far behind. The idea enrages him. Even after he finds no satisfactory way to grip a sword with his feet, he continues to train, his mouth taking up the weapon his left hand can't carry. Some stupid broken bones aren't going to stop him from getting stronger, and once they heal he's just going to have to work extra hard to make up for the missing days. The doctors here are pretty stupid. They say he might never be able to use his dominant hand again, which is just… stupid. The greatest swordsman in the world can't be a cripple.
Kuina says stupid things too. Whenever she sees him, there's this soft expression in her eyes, open and vulnerable, like she's laid bare by the guilt and she's just waiting for him to hit her.
"I'm crippled too," she says, like she means to comfort. "My father says that girls will mature to be weaker than boys, that a woman can never become the world's greatest. I was crippled from the moment I was born. But maybe the two of us…"
"I'm not crippled," he snarls, dropping the weights he was holding with his teeth. He turns to leave, then stops. "And you're not crippled either! The only weak girl thing about you is when you look at me like that!"
"Like what?"
"Like you ruined my life forever, and now you have to be nice to me about it. That's weak!"
She's saying something else, but he can't hear, because his ears are filled with this gigantic tidal roar, like ocean waves are battering their way out of his skull. They have their one-thousand-first fight, and Kuina loses.
For a moment, he doesn't realize it when her weapon falls. For the next, he can't believe it. After that, there's nothing to do but cry. He throws his own weapons down. The tears pour without end but he has never felt angrier in his life.
"You are weak, Kuina!" He rips the splint off his left arm, and throws it at her, bandages at all. He shakes his crumpled hand in her face; his fingers are on fire, his bones are all-consuming embers of heat and pain, but this at least feels no worse than the rest of him. "You think you owe me something because you crushed this hand? Don't be nice! If you owe me anything, it's to fight me with all you've got. You think you need to go easy on me now? I have teeth! I can heal! Don't you dare think you need to be careful with me, because you don't!"
She wants to wait for him to calm down before they fight again. He's never really calm, but once he no longer scares his younger classmates to tears simply by looking at them, he resumes his challenges. She claims she's not going easy on him, but she loses again and again. Where once he fought her endlessly to win, now he fights her endlessly hoping to lose. His attacks become more and more vicious, as though to force a response, but there is something broken in her. She reacts sluggishly, she trembles as she parries; there is no force behind her attacks, rare as they are.
"You're the one person I can't fight," she admits finally, head lowering in defeat.
"So this is the future greatest swordsman in the world, huh?" Zoro jabs at her with the end of a bamboo practice sword. "All you have to do to beat her is let her break a few of your bones. Then she'll fall down at your feet waiting for you to kill her, is that it?"
From her sudden gasp, he can tell that his words have hit their target. She grabs the training sword from his hand, lifts it over her head, swings it down at his head. And stops. They are frozen in place as the seconds pass, the bamboo rod cutting a harsh diagonal between their faces.
Finally, she drops it, and turns away. "I can't, Zoro," she whispers sadly. "I just can't."
"And you used to call me weak." He storms off then, rounds a few corners, and finds he's not where he expected to be, because he's in some sort of garden. The flowers are wild and unkempt, but their blossoms are huge. Yellow butterflies weave in and out of his field of vision; he swats one out of the way, and that's the first time he sees Robin, whose stay has turned from a couple of nights to a couple of months.
"What do you want?" He's still holding the other practice sword. He wants to hit things with it, but he knows she's not an acceptable target for his rage.
"I need your help," she says, with an unreadable smile on her face.
"Are you sure you've got the right person?" he sneers. "Not going to get much help from the cripple here."
"You're Roronoa Zoro, aren't you?" she says.
He forgets about the butterfly for a moment, suddenly wary, and it flies straight into his face. Cheered by this success, the rest of the butterflies close in. Robin leans forward, still smiling, as though she finds it entertaining that he's fighting a swarm of butterflies and losing. She sits regally on the edge of a stone fountain that looks as though it hasn't seen water in years.
A thought seems to strike her. "What is your father's name?"
"None of your business!" The more he tries to wave the butterflies away, the more they seem attracted to him. One lands on his index finger. He gives it a hard shake, and the butterfly simply flaps its wings a bit to keep its balance.
"I'm simply curious. Were you named after your father? Ah, in other words, is there another Roronoa Zoro?"
"No," he says flatly. "I'm Zoro." The world's greatest can't be mistaken for someone else.
"I see."
He tries blowing on the butterfly perched on his finger, and miraculously it takes the hint and flies away. Encouraged by this success, he begins blowing at all the butterflies flying around his head, but their flight is erratic, and it's difficult to aim properly.
"Do you think it's the hair?" she suggests suddenly.
This gives him pause. "What? What hair?"
"Your hair is green," she points out reasonably. "Maybe they're attracted to it because they think it's some sort of plant?"
He's never been particularly self-conscious about his hair. Hair is hair, and it doesn't bother him if some people happen to have hair colors that are different from his. He's not offended by the remark, though the idea that his hair attracts butterflies seems extremely stupid. Still, it has to be worth a shot. The butterflies are getting seriously irritating, their brilliant wings occasionally edging close enough to brush over his cheek, scoring feathery touches no heavier than breaths. Grudgingly, he digs around in his pocket until he finds a black handkerchief, which he drapes over his head. To his shock, the butterflies disperse immediately.
"These butterflies are very common where I come from," Robin says, still smiling in a way that he realizes is quite smug. "Perhaps you should tie your bandana on, lest it fall off?"
There is the disconcerting sensation of hands growing out of the sides of his head. He's surprised but not alarmed; he won't allow this to put him off-balance. He allows the hands to gather the edges of the cloth and tie them back in a knot.
"What are you doing to me?" he asks, when the hands have retreated.
"You waited until I finished to wonder?"
"How did you do that?" he insists. "Can you teach me?"
"Teach you?" Robin looks surprised, as though no one has ever asked this of her. He doesn't understand why. Who wouldn't want an extra hand? He holds up his ruined left hand to demonstrate.
"If I could replace it—" Kuina would fight me properly again. I wouldn't have to rely on my right hand. I could continue my training to become the world's best.
"I'm sorry." Hands begin to sprout from Robin's body like a grotesque flower, running up her arm to her shoulder, fanning out and waving cheerily. He tries to find it within himself to be disturbed or frightened, but all he feels is jealous. She seems to be waiting for some sort of reaction, but all he can give is an uncomprehending scowl. She asks, "Have you ever heard of the Devil's Fruits?"
He shakes his head.
"Well then, I suppose I can only explain this as a… unique skill. I can't teach it, though I can—" She gestures vaguely with a hand, and an arm grows from his left shoulder. It takes the practice sword from his unresisting hand and uses it to make a few awkward swipes.
"You're awful," he asserts.
She tips the brim of her hat lower, but he can still see her wry quirk of a smile. "I don't have the training."
"Let go." He takes the sword from her. "I don't want you as my arm. I'm going back now."
"Please wait." Her voice is calm, as though there is no question of his refusal. "There's still something I wanted to talk to you about."
"What?" He's still young enough to believe that the whole world revolves around him, and he doesn't wonder why she would have anything to say to a little boy like him. He does wonder where the dojo is, though. The garden has too many exits: a definite flaw in the design.
"Do you believe in destiny?" she asks.
"Lady," he scoffs. "You're twice my age."
"Oh dear. I'm not propositioning you, if that's what you think." She's still calm, maybe a little amused. "Although, for future reference, I'm only 19. Does the name 'Mr. 1' mean anything to you?"
He shakes his head. "Never heard of it."
She seems disappointed as she pulls out a slim, battered book, and opens it to one of the many marked pages. "Everything else seems to fit, though. The dojo in East Blue. Kuina." She flips a page. "What about Wadou Ichimonji? Does that name sound familiar?"
"Look, I have no idea what you're talking about."
She holds his gaze for a second longer, then shuts the book with a sigh. "My mistake. I apologize." She jumps lightly down from the fountain, no longer smiling. She's already left the garden by the time he remembers he meant to ask her which way the dojo was.
"One thousand," Kuina gasps, and falls to the grass. "It's over."
"It's not over. It's a tie."
"A tie."
"You beat me one thousand times," he explains. "I beat you one thousand times. A tie."
She wipes sweat from her face, but doesn't move from her position, not even to look at him. "Is that it? You want to beat me once for every time I beat you—and once more?"
"No. I beat you once for every time you beat me. We're even. We're tied. None of our previous matches means anything anymore. Now we decide the victor with one last fight."
"You want to beat me one more time so you can say that you won completely? Fine." Kuina stands up, takes her sword.
"I want to end this," he corrects her. "I request one final duel, using real swords. This time decides everything—who wins or loses, lives or dies. You have one, don't you? A real sword."
She takes a long time to think about this. "If I hold back—" she begins.
"I'll kill you," he finishes, without hesitation. "Are you ready?"
She isn't.
"If you can kill me, then I might kill you too," she points out.
"Since you think I'm so useless anyway without my left hand, you'd probably be doing me a favor." He draws his swords, places one in his mouth. "The worst indignity you can do to your opponent is to cripple him and let him live. If I can't become the world's best without my hand, if you've really taken my dream away from me, then it's time for you to finish what you started. Are you ready?"
She still isn't.
He runs for the dojo afterwards, but somehow he finds himself off track. He slows as he enters the garden again; it looks different under the moonlight. The butterflies are all sleeping, presumably, but there's still the drone of insects in the grass. He can just make out Robin's figure, again at her seat on the fountain."How did it go?" she asks.
"I killed her."
"Your blades are remarkably clean for that."
"She didn't bleed."
"What a mysterious death."
"Do you really think you only die when you stop breathing?" He sheathes his sword numbly, and takes the other sword from his mouth. "I started killing her when I let her hit my hand. I struck the fatal blow when I couldn't recover my fingers. I've been killing her all this time. Tonight, I finished it. She'll never fight again. She's dead."
"Do you think that there's a way to overcome death?" Robin asks.
"Dead is dead." He puts the other sword away. "What are you going to do, ask for an extension?"
"I believe that there is a way to beat death," says Robin. "And I believe that I can only do it with your help."
"Look, Lady, we already talked about this. I don't believe in destiny and you're way too old for me."
"And if there is a way?" she asks. She has that smile on again, like she knows exactly what's going to happen next, and she likes it. "Would you save Kuina if you could?"
She shows him a book called Rising Dawn. It looks like it's been passed down through generations since death was invented, so he supposes it's probably authentic enough. The pages are all loose and crinkly, and the leather cover is a web of cracks. She shows him pictures first, like a visual might help his comprehension: a woman with scarily realistic tentacles superimposed over her arms and legs; the head and shoulders of a man with three gold drops dangling from one ear, a black handkerchief tied over his green hair; a woman recognizable as Robin herself, though her smile looks decades older.
"This is great and all, but what does it have to do with me?" he asks.
She turns back to the octopus-woman, and he shivers when he sees it, just as he did the first time. She reads to him, like he's some illiterate toddler: "I believe that the only way to beat death is to kill this woman. Mr. 1 agrees."
"Who's Mr. 1?" he asks.
She points to a neat list by Mr. 1's name. Roronoa Zoro, Monkey D. Luffy, Das Bones. The names continue, but they're all crossed out under those three. Zoro's is the one that's circled.
"So you think I'm Mr. 1," he says. "Sorry to disappoint, but…"
"You didn't recognize yourself?" She returns to the picture of the green-haired man, who wears the sort of feral grin you'd normally expect on a shark. "This is you. I'd say you're about my age here. It says that you get lost a lot, enjoy alcohol, and use your own form of swordsmanship, Santouryuu."
"I'm eleven years old, Lady," he points out. "How does someone draw a picture of me at your age when I haven't gotten there yet?"
"Apparently the Great Captain Usopp-sama is a very talented artist. You've made a note of that here, though you sound slightly sarcastic."
"I've never seen this book in my life." He peers at the page anyway. It does look like his handwriting: a little less rough, the vowels slightly more round, but still familiar.
"I believe that we've been doing this for quite some time, Zoro. There are notes here from countless failed attempts. What do you say we try again? You save Kuina. I'll save Ohara. We can finally put an end to this cycle. Besides," ruefully, "this book doesn't look like it'll last much longer."
"I can't leave the dojo," he begins automatically, before he realizes that he really can. There is nothing for him here.
"You certainly can," Robin smiles. "If it's about sneaking out, I think the traditional strategy is to put a large root vegetable in your bed, cover it with blankets, and hope that it fools your parents."
"Because I look so much like a turnip?" he asks.
"I don't know," says Robin. "For some reason, I was thinking potatoes."
"I don't need any of that." He grins, and wonders if he looks like himself eight years in the future. "Let's go grill that octopus."
"Just to make sure," Robin says quickly, as she steps down from the fountain. "We're not actually going to eat—"
"That's disgusting, Lady." He wrinkles his nose. "Let's just do whatever the book says."
"By the way, Lady, who's Ohara?"
"Ohara is an island. It's very beautiful, home to the ocean's finest library and a group of the world's greatest scholars. Eleven years ago, it was the target of a Buster Call but survived, thanks to a brave pirate who stepped in at the end. It is constantly under Marine attack even today, though the historians who live there only wish to preserve the past to pass on to future generations."
"You're going to make them immortal?"
"I just want to protect them from the attacks. Some say that another Buster Call has been approved. If Ohara dies, so will the history of the world."
"So you're taking me to an island that at any moment might be blown up by the Marines?"
"That's right."
"And basically there's a strong possibility we'll die before we see this octopus thing."
"There is that possibility, yes."
"You know how the book talked about Santouryuu?"
"Yes."
"I use Nitouryuu. I don't have the extra hand."
"I figured."
"Lady, do you want to learn how to hold a sword?"
Ohara is full of butterflies. Robin ties his bandana on for him.
They are nearly too late. The last few hours of the boat ride are spent agonizing as they slip between Marine ships and head for shore.
Their opponent is kind enough to await them on the beach. They don't make an awesome sight, the pre-adolescent boy with a gimp hand and the young woman who stands behind him, holding a book. An extra arm sprouts from his shoulder, too pale and too slender for his body. He entrusts his third sword to her delicate fingers nonetheless, and crosses his two swords with hers. They practice their slow dance, and the only intimidating thing about them is how composed they are, warming up calmly in the face of their enemy.
"Don't be ridiculous," the octopus-woman says, in her voice like burnt liquid rubber. "How do you expect to fight like that? This is your weakest incarnation yet. I want to laugh. Can I laugh? I'm going to laugh."
She laughs.
They ignore her. They go through the motions they've rehearsed. They don't think they'll get a second chance if they miss the first time.
"Let me tell you something," she hisses. "You have no chance of winning. How long have you been practicing this act? Not long enough to work together. Not nearly long enough to fight as a team. Luckily you don't need any practice at all to die as a team."
"Hold on a moment, Zoro," Robin says, already out of stance. She's writing something in the book, furiously.
"What are you doing, Lady?!" he demands. "We're in the middle of the fight!"
"She gave us the answer. We have to work together, that's all there is to it. If we want to win, all we have to do is—"
Tentacles, coiling around, squeezing out air.
"Santouryuu," he calls out, as a cue to a partner he's not sure can hear. "Demon—"
"There's no way you can win like this. You should see how ridiculous the two of you look."
On a red horizon, the first ships approach.
Robin dangles limply from the tentacles' grasp, the book fallen out of her hands.
"—Slash!" he finishes anyway. His blades flash, and amazingly another one flashes along with his.
The octopus-woman's blood is hot and dark, but she's not dead, only injured. Zoro falls, falls, rolls and scrambles for the book. There's no time, he's seen what's coming. He picks up Rising Dawn and begins to rip out pages, letting them fly into the wind like so many liberated birds.
"What are you doing?!" Robin crawls through the sand, while the octopus-woman laughs and laughs.
He leaves only the one page remaining, the one with the picture. He uses the only thing at hand to mark the octopus-woman's new scars: deep, red slashes across the torso, a handful of severed tentacles. He writes what he has learned, and the words blot out everything in the background, flowers and fountain and all. On a whim, he adds, "Lady made this one," and draws a crude arrow to one of the jagged torso cuts.
"Lady, the book," he calls over, "how do we make sure we get it again?"
"Throw it into the ocean," she yells back.
Then the island explodes.