Title: Polarity
Theme: #19: Negative
Claim: Zoro
(Words:) 1,462
Rating: G
Warnings: Based off the anime-verse explanations more than the manga ones, since there are slight backstory differences...other than that, nothing. o_o
Disclaimer(s): I do not own, or pretend to own, One Piece or any of its subsequent characters, plots or other ideas. That right belongs solely to Eiichiro Oda. I do not own the prompts either—those are assigned by 30_OnePiece.

It took Zoro a while to figure out that he and Kuina were well and truly opposites, although he figured that instinctively he'd always known.

They'd been opposing forces from the beginning, after all, ever since the day he'd set foot in that dojo. From the very moment her bamboo sword had cracked him over the head and given her the first win of thousands, they'd been diametrically opposed, set up as competitors. And the more they challenged each other and the stronger they got, the more opposites Zoro seemed to find between them; traits and forces they possessed that seemed inherently unable to mesh properly, no matter how much time they spent in the others' company, no matter how important those skills were. It was more than just the fact that she always won, and he always lost. She focused on technique and skill, while he favored stubbornness and strength. He was a man, while she was a woman, an opposition that seemed to disgust her most of all. His swords were pitch black, unnamed, a nobody like himself, while hers was a radiant white, and possessed some sort of importance to her family that he couldn't even begin to fathom.

And later too, he discovered another opposite: that no matter how many times he fell, he was willing to get back up, to keep going, while she'd finally been ready to give up when the weight of the world threatened to crush her.

It seemed strange, that with so many incompatible forces making them up they would keep returning to each other. Their opposition was too strong, their views too different, their approaches to life too varying; it seemed impossible that people of two such opposing natures could ever find a way to relate. And yet somehow, despite that inability to get along properly, to compromise, to connect, it seemed they were always inevitably drawn together like magnets, negative and positive forces pulling against the other despite the inherent oppositions of their very natures, their very existences.

To onlookers, it was a bewildering thing to watch. Zoro and Kuina didn't appear to be friends. They didn't even appear to like each other, with their constant condescending offhand remarks and bold if inaccurate boasts, and it seemed like those forces should push each other apart or kill each other. But to Zoro it made sense, because despite all the opposition, the boasts, the beatings, there was one thing they did have in common. And that was to be the best, to get stronger, to not stop for anything until they reached the final goal, and that was a more powerful tie than all the negative and positive forces in the world.

Not that it was obvious, at first—or indeed, that either of them knew the other shared the same dream, to become the world's greatest swordsman. At first the only reason Zoro ever went back was because he still hadn't beat her, and he was determined to prove he could, that he could get stronger and stronger and stronger and finally beat her in a match and declare his strength to the world.

But after a while he started to realize there was more to it than just that goal that he could never seem to reach, no matter how hard he tried. Every time he lost he learned something; every time she spat out one of her condescending observations that he didn't in the least agree with, it was a challenge to prove her wrong. And it was the fact that they were opposing forces, seeing and experiencing their swordsmanship and their lives in markedly different ways, that acted as a driving force to keep improving, to become stronger, to meet those challenges and defeat them soundly. The rivalry between them was more motivational than all the praise their teacher could offer, all the attention their fellow students could give.

He also began to realize how much that rivalry, that binding of negative and positive forces together, could benefit them, on the night they dueled with real blades. Until then they were nothing more than opposites, vying for superiority; two swords versus one, each one desperate to prove they were the stronger. And with yet another frustrating loss Zoro fully expected her usual conceited remarks as she proved her strength once again. Which was why he was completely caught off guard when she told him women couldn't be master swordsmen, that becoming the worlds greatest would be impossible for her. It was in that moment, as he yelled at her for even thinking about such a thing, that he began to understand: they were polar opposites for a reason, completely different people because that was exactly what was needed. She cursed the strength of men, so he loaned her his, urged her to defy what other people said and become the world's best anyway.

It was in that moment, as they shook on their deal of becoming the world's greatest swordsmen, one way or another, that he understood why they were rivals. They were inherent opposites, negative and positive, but their goal made them stronger, allowed them to cover each others' weaknesses, play off each others' strengths, learn from each other to become stronger still. They had nothing on common but their dream, but that would just make them both even tougher, as they pushed each other for still more strength and skill, dragged every drop of ability out of the other that they could in ways that, as opposing rivals, only they could do effectively.

It was in that moment he understood. And the next day, she was dead.

It wasn't fair, for it to end up like that. Zoro had just finally come to understand their rivalry, what their opposition meant, who Kuina really was, when she had to be taken away so senselessly, so meaninglessly. It wasn't fair that she'd never have a chance to prove the world wrong, try to earn her goal. It wasn't fair that he had lost such a powerful opposing force, the strongest form of motivation, the greatest learning opportunity, that he'd ever had. Without that bond there was nothing to work for, nobody to challenge, no reason to get stronger. The world felt strangely empty and purposeless for a while, with all his energy alone, unfocused, unmatched, deprived of its polarity by something as utterly unfeeling and uncaring as fate.

For a while he threw himself into his training out of habit, but it felt just as senseless and pointless as his thoughts and feelings did, and while all the rage and determination of his training before her death was there the reason was blatantly absent. He'd trained for so long to get better than her. His goal had always been her, because beating Kuina would be his first step towards becoming the worlds greatest swordsman, and with her gone it was like that step had been violently cut away and left him stranded and lost.

That was when he saw her sword, held in the hands of his sensei, and when he spoke to his teacher suddenly everything seemed to make sense again. Before that day he'd been empty, purposeless, meaningless. But learning how much he'd motivated Kuina—learning how hard she'd struggled to keep staying stronger than him, to improve her own skills to be the best...it was a shameful waste, to give up after what he'd lectured her about that night, to let her improvement and his own go to waste because of her death. He begged for her sword then, and what his sensei said in that moment—I leave her spirit and her dreams in your hands—had only reinforced that the goal wasn't dead, and that in some strange way Kuina was still alive, embodied in that sword.

His polarity hadn't vanished, just shifted. He didn't have a rival in the same sense anymore, but that opposing force, negative and positive, black and white, man and woman, strength and skill, resided forever at his side in the form of his most trusted sword. He would be the greatest swordsman in the world, just like he promised her, and he'd carry her spirit with him to the goal as well so that she would be a part of it, just like she'd wanted, just like she'd promised. And it seemed she understood too, because her sword had endured of hardships that dozens of others had broken under, remained his most trustworthy weapon for his most difficult skills and techniques, survived through anything despite all the challenges thrown in their way of becoming the best.

But then, she'd always been stubborn, even back then. That was why they made such strong opposites to begin with.

This was the hardest prompt to write, and I spent many a long hour banging my head against my desk trying to come up with an answer.

Playing with opposites and polarities seemed the best way to approach it in the end (especially considering the irony that Zoro, who is the quintessential manly man in the series, is probably the closest to female empowerment in terms of backstory when you really break it down haha).

~VelkynKarma