Chapter Text
Zoro was in his room after supper, running through his katas with slow, meditative movements, when he heard the door next to his slam.
The room next to his was Kuina’s.
Kuina never slammed her door.
It wasn’t her nature, to do something like that. She wasn’t a loud person. There was nothing impulsive about her- violent, yes, as violent as any good swordsman ought to be, but it was a violence that was tempered and controlled into smooth steel, never lashing out, but focused and deliberate in every move she made.
Kuina didn’t get angry. She got sad. Zoro wished she would get angry, that she would stoke the fire in her chest with the world’s criticism instead of letting it ooze, slow and malignant, into her heart and mind, that ugly little cancer that made her doubt herself.
Zoro hated that ugly sickness of doubt inside of her. He liked the enemies that he could kill.
So Kuina’s door slammed, hard, and Zoro knew before the shudders had even stopped running through the frame that something was wrong.
When he stepped into her room, she was bent over her bed, packing a bag, her movements sharp and angry, all barely-contained violence. He wondered if she’d be an even better duelist, like this, with rage burning in her veins.
She didn’t look up at him, didn’t acknowledge him for a moment or two. He closed the door behind him and leaned against it, and waited.
“I’m leaving,” she finally said, the words bitten-off and raw. She still didn’t look up at him.
When he didn’t respond, she paused, and sighed, frantic movements slowing slightly. She suddenly looked tired, he thought, and older than her just-sixteen years.
“I had a fight with my father,” she said, staring down into the half-packed bag. “It was… a bad one. Since… I’ll be of age in a couple years. He believes it’s time to start… searching for a husband for me.”
She muttered the last few words out through clenched teeth, as though they tasted rotten on her tongue.
“He’s already been loading me down with all these chores to cut into my training time, I know that’s what he’s doing, he wants to force me to give up,” she snarled, her voice starting to go thick with frustrated tears.
(Zoro knew all that already, of course. He’d been the one to help her work through the daily load of ever-increasing chores so they could fight, already sweaty and exhausted, at the end of every day.)
“And now he wants me to stop training altogether so I can start focusing on learning how to be a proper wife. So. I’m leaving.”
She snapped it out like a challenge, as though she thought Zoro would try to stop her. As though he ever would have wanted to. As though he could even if he did want to.
“Okay,” Zoro said. “When are we going?”
She finally looked up at him, blinking tears out of her eyes, looking confused. “What?”
“When are we going?” Zoro repeated. He tilted his head slightly and considered for a moment. “I can be packed in ten minutes.”
She blinked again. “You… want to come with me?”
“Obviously,” Zoro said, because it was. Of course wherever she went, he’d follow. She was the only reason he'd stayed here so long in the first place. “I still haven’t beaten you yet.”
(And besides, she was his best friend.)
“But once I’m gone, you’ll be the senior pupil,” she said quietly. “Pride of the dojo.” Pride of my father, she didn't say, but he heard it anyways. The pride that should have been mine.
As if he cared about that.
“So?” Zoro said. “I don’t care. You’re the only one here worth anything. What’s the point in me staying if you’re not here to challenge me? Especially if you’re going to be traveling. If you leave and I stay here and stagnate, I’ll never catch up to you.”
She stared at him for a long, long moment, her dark eyes staring right through him. Then she nodded once, decisive, and hooked Wado Ichimonji’s white scabbard onto her belt.
“Twenty minutes,” she said. “Outside. Don't be late.”
As promised, packing took him less than ten. He spent the rest of the time writing a note for Koushiro, feeling at least somewhat obligated to thank the man after all his teaching and hospitality (even if his daughter had taught Zoro more than he ever had).
In the end, the note was terse. A thanks, the briefest of explanations. A promise that Kuina would be safe.
(That she would be safe, not that he would protect her. She would kick his ass if he so much as implied she needed him to look after her.)
She was already waiting outside when he stepped out of the door with bag slung over one shoulder and three swords at his hip, and he wondered for a moment whether the extra time was to give him time to reconsider.
“Ready?” he asked, even though he knew the answer.
“Ready,” she said, and smiled, that confident smirk of hers that had been so rare lately. The one that said I’m better than you, and I know it. Zoro had hated that smirk, once, but over months and years, as her father’s words had crept into her mind and clawed at her confidence, it had become less and less common.
It was a relief to see it again, dagger-sharp in the moonlight.
“So,” she said, “there’s a ship leaving in half an hour. Where do you want to go?”
They had the whole ocean ahead of them, Zoro thought.
“Hear there’s a good sword shop in Loguetown,” he said.
Kuina raised her eyebrows and snorted as she started along the path to the town harbor, Zoro falling into easy step beside her. “What do you need more swords for? Don’t tell me you’re going to start trying for four-sword style.”
“Shut up,” Zoro said. “I just need some decent swords to replace my old dojo ones. Not all of us have family heirlooms.” He paused as a thought occurred to him, glancing at the white scabbard hanging at her side. “Oi, will your old man be mad you took it?”
Kuina’s lips tightened into a thin line, and one of her hands shifted to rest protectively on Wado’s hilt. “He’s already denying me the rest of my birthright. He owes me this much, at least.”
Zoro nodded, conceding the point.
“But he will be angry,” Kuina admitted after a moment, looking somewhat pleased about it. “Which is why we’re taking the first ferry off the island. Once we get to Loguetown, we can check the latest bounties and… see where to go next. Sound good?”
The two of them, swords in hand, against the rest of the world, hunting down pirates and criminals. Chasing each other to the top, to that coveted position they both craved. The ocean ahead of them, vast and blue and full of possibility, and the whole world to wander.
“Yeah,” Zoro said, and grinned. “Sounds good.”