And He Cared
Word Count: 554
Pairing: Zoro x Luffy
Rating: K+

He'd told himself that he'd never hold anything alive so close to him again. It made him weak.

He lost to her one thousand times, and then he was good. Around the eight hundredth loss he could track her movements as they engaged and the cracking of bamboo became less distracting. By the nine hundredth loss he could follow her movements and by fifty more losses he could work around them. One thousand glorious losses approached, and on the day that he would have lost to her one hundred times ten times, he won.

It came back to him like it was the day before yesterday- the lunges, the side-steps were all perfect and she was wavering in confidence and footwork. He spotted an opening. She dared him to take it. He took it, and won except for the fact that he was soon lying face-down tasting bitter-sweet earthen defeat. He won, except he couldn't because that meant she would lose.

He tried one thousand and one times more to stop caring about her, but by then it was too late.

x x x

He took her sword to remind himself that he cared only about things that couldn't beat him. It came with him everywhere, and so he was strong wherever he went and he never, ever lost again. Not ever. When it was touching his skin, it served as a reminder- she was there, making sure he wasn't stupid enough to care about anything.

But this was a problem- she was gone for the moment.

He missed them more than he missed getting stronger or sleeping or even lying in those comfortable abominations called beds. The bumpy-chin idiot son had them somewhere, but it wasn't as though he was in danger of caring. The last weeks had gone by (albeit slowly); he was almost done. And the only visitors he had were the yellow-head himself, a little girl who had tried to feed him, a pink-head coward and an idiot in a straw hat. It had worried him that his swords being taken away might lead to him caring about something, but it looked like everything would be fine.

x x x

He looked down at his feet. It had all come to this, really. Here he was- a lost swordsman fresh to the Grand Line with the bodies of an entire island of bounty hunters around him. It had been exhilarating, the first time with new swords perfectly made for him (as soon as he broke the Sandai Kitetsu's spirit a little, but it seemed to be agreeing with him for the most part); muscles screaming euphoria, brain numb as the forgotten senses took over.

Except that didn't have the liberty to mull over that right now. His captain, the comically gorged rubber boy, was awake amidst the people whom he thought had offered them all the gratitude a town of lying thieves could, and was challenging him to fight.

Zoro shook his head and apologized to Kuina because he knew he was going to lose.

x x x