Loguetown Novel | ZORO x TASHIGI

FIRST MEETING

The one he still carried had a white hilt and scabbard, the elegance of which contrasted slightly with Zoro's unrefined image.

If he carried it on his right side instead of his left, it was because his three-sword techniques had made him a perfect ambidextrous.

"Hey, you! Aren't you with your monster friend today!

From somewhere in the crowd came a voice that sounded like a bully's. Zoro abandoned his thoughts for a moment and stopped to look around.

Two pirate-looking men, one of whom had already drawn his sword, were standing in the middle of the street, blocking the way of a woman.

"Because of you, our boss is rotting in jail right now! How are you going to fix it?" threatened the short-haired, scatter-toothed man who had unsheathed his weapon.

His sidekick, who was also over six feet tall, was an obese man whose chin and neck blurred together and whose hairstyle consisted of a pair of braids that fell on either side of his head.

"Who are you talking about?" asked the woman with a long bundle in her arms.

"What, have you already forgotten what happened the night before last?" raged one.

"We're talking about our boss Billy, the killer whale!" added the other.

"If last night's lesson wasn't enough for you, I'll be glad to give you another one.... But I warn you, you might regret it," said the woman calmly.

Despite her average height, she seems unimpressed by the hostile behavior of the two men confronting her.

"Oh yeah, you agree to play with us?" the obese man chortled and began cracking his knuckles.

"That's very sweet," added his accomplice, who ran his tongue over his lips.

The condescension of the two men seemed to be reinforced by the fact that they were looking at a woman.

"Tss...," Zoro sighed.

Idiots like them, unfortunately, had long been followed, and it was clear that these two had a score to settle with the woman. But the audience pretended not to notice, probably intimidated by the menacing air of the two pirates.

"Go to hell, you little bitch! - And on the way, tell your mate that it's his fault we had to give up our dream of one day seeing Grand Line."

The two pirates brandished their swords and lunged at the woman, one from the left, the other from the right.

The crowd stopped as Zoro reached for his sword.

"Mmmh?

And then...

Tziim!

The two attackers collapsed, bodies slashed.

The woman had a sword in her hand, and everything seemed to indicate that it was the elongated bundle she had been holding in her arms until now.

But what surprised Zoro most was the speed with which he pulled it from the sheath. He had demonstrated perfect coordination, pulling with one hand on the sword and with the other on the scabbard, so that the tip of the blade appeared exactly where she wanted it. The way she had shifted one pa to dodge one after another.

"I didn't even have to help him...", thought Zoro, who had started to unsheathe his saber and now kept it in its sheath.

This woman was a real swordswoman. Even two against one, she had no trouble defeating those pirates whose swordsmanship was based solely on the use of force.

But no sooner had she wiped the blood off her sword than she tripped over something and lost her balance.

"Hey, watch where you're going!" said Zoro, taking a step back.

The woman still had the sword in her hand and was getting dangerously close to him.

"Ah... hop.... ahh!"

Vlam!

The woman let go of the sword and fell flat on her face.

"Mmm!"

The weapon spun in a vacuum and went to plant itself on the ground, not without grazing Zoro's nose in the process.

In an instant, the swordswoman had lost all credibility. Indeed, tripping over a bare sword in her hand was a mistake unworthy of a swordswoman, not to mention the fact that she might have hurt someone.

"Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!!!"

-Well done, girl!!!".

The crowd, which had fallen silent at the sight of this bloody fight in broad daylight, suddenly began to laugh. The mastery with which the swordswoman had engaged the two pirates was so out of tune with her clumsiness as to be comical.

"Ah... my glasses..." the woman said, searching the floor.

Zoro saw at her feet the glasses she had tripped over. He must have been nearsighted, but that was no excuse for acting so thoughtlessly. What if, as he trotted across the floor, he had fallen on the blade of his saber and cut his finger?

"Is that what you're looking for?" Zoro asked dryly, handing him his glasses.

"Yes, sorry... Thank you very much."

Reassured that she had found what she was looking for, she raised her head and looked at Zoro with her naked eyes.

"!!?"

Suddenly his expression changed, but the woman couldn't notice it due to his mood.

She removed her glasses and blushed with an embarrassed air, not suspecting that she had just touched the heart of the man in front of her by reviving in him the memory of an old promise-Forgotten images of the past were in front of him as if by a miracle and his mind was in crisis.

Kuina...