Sword

Chapter 5

Shoko spent the following weeks doing her dull job at the restaurant during the day and training with her mannequins in the evenings if she wasn't taking care of baby Rika. She never minded this routine in the past, but it seemed incredibly dull now compared to her incessant daydreams of fighting pirates at sea with Zoro. In her head, they were heroes known all over the East Blue for catching even the most fearsome pirates the Marines were too scared to take on.

            "Hey Shoko, look at this!" Riri said one morning, more than two months after Zoro had left. She was gleefully waving around the newspaper as they worked on opening the restaurant.

            Shoko guessed immediately what would be in the paper, so she looked eagerly down at the article Riri placed in front of her.

            The infamous pirate Calico Roberts was defeated this weekend by bounty hunters and surrendered to the Marines. Calico has been terrorizing the East Blue for more than a year but has managed to evade Justice until now.

            This is the fourth big-name pirate who Roronoa Zoro—the bounty hunter who captured Calico—has captured in the last month. This man, working as the gloves of the Marines, is becoming a true hunter of pirates whose name will be feared by all hoodlums of the sea.

           Shoko grinned giddily up at her sister. "I knew he'd do great," she said. "Look, 'hunter of pirates whose name will be feared by hoodlums...'" Riri giggled as Shoko mocked the dramatic writing of the article in a deep voice.

           "He's on his way to clearing all the pirates from the East Blue!" Riri agreed. "There might not be anything for you to do by the time he gets back if you decide to join him."

           "Of course he would take all the big names for himself," Shoko rolled her eyes, but she couldn't stop grinning from pride for her friend. "He's supposed to come back in only a couple weeks. He'll have to leave some for when I join him."

Zoro tucked his berries away in his boat. After collecting their bounties, he, Johnny, and Yosaku had gone straight to a local bar to celebrate. The other boys were several years older than him, so they were able to order his sake for him since he was still too young to order it himself. They were in his debt after all.

           The two had been failing miserably at catching bounties, so when they came across Zoro, who was able to fight their targets easily, they all agreed to a deal: the two older boys would handle navigation and dealing with the Marines, and Zoro would take care of the fighting. After finally collecting larger bounties than they ever had before, Johnny and Yosaku figured it was the least they could do to buy Zoro a drink: he was the one putting his neck on the line after all.

            Today, Johnny and Yosaku decided to head to a local club to continue their celebrations. Content with his sake, however, Zoro chose to head back to the boat and rest before the next day's planned travel: they were going to begin their journey back toward Shells Town.

           Zoro was secretly very excited to return to Shoko and show her everything he had learned at sea. The business of bounty hunting had tons of nuances to learn, and Zoro considered himself lucky to have found his two companions. They could be a bit dimwitted, but they had a knack for selecting targets for their bounties and were fairly adept at navigation: something which Zoro found himself struggling with on his own.

           He thought about Shoko frequently. Though she was not a rival swordswoman, she was a rival fighter, and he couldn't wait to spar with her again to see if he could overtake her now. He also looked forward to having her company again. His first impression of her when they met was not one that he believed would develop into the fondness it was now. But as he spent more time with her during his stay at Shells Town, he became more and more intrigued by her ideals of justice and her dreams of reshaping the world as a Marine.