One Piece Fan Fiction ❯ Cursed Island of the Devil Fruit Gods ❯ Haunted ( Chapter 9 )

[ T - Teen: Not suitable for readers under 13 ]

Zoro stared into the inky darkness of the cave. That voice...it had to be Kuina. It hadn't changed since that day...the day they had made the promise. "Show yourself!" he demanded. It couldn't have been her, though...she was dead. He watched them bury her body. Whoever dared to profane her like that would die by his blades.
"As you like it, Zoro." Kuina said solemnly, appearing from the shadows as though she was a phantom, glowing faintly around the edges of her skin. She lit up the shadows in the cave herself, she was the only truly visible thing there despite the overwhelming darkness. "I've missed you. You made the promise to me and then you took my sword. How was I supposed to hold up my end of the promise without it?" she frowned, slowly approaching him.
"Y-you're not real..." Zoro trembled. And he knew it. This was some kind of trick. But everything about her...her voice, those eyes, the way she moved...it was all exactly the same. "Kuina...YAAAAARGH!" he cried, and the clash of metal could be heard. Kuina had been about to put her left hand on his shoulder, and with her right hand, plunge a sword through him. That proved it to him-whether this truly was Kuina or not, she was solid and could hurt him. Zoro had barely managed to block her with the sheath of Yubashiri, as the hilt would have done him little good.
"Give it back, Zoro." she told him. "I always told you, you were too puny to be the world's greatest swordsman. Look at me-even years later I'm still in my prime, I'm not allowing womanhood to weaken me! You will never defeat me! And you know what else?" She began to giggle sinisterly.
Zoro growled. How did this impostor know all these deep, dark secrets? Could they read minds? "I know enough not to listen to a word you say." he scoffed.
"Even if you did beat me back then...I wouldn't have let you ask me out. "I know I was the whole reason you picked up a sword in the first place...you became my father's student to impress me, even as a young child. I know you bragged to all the other boys that you'd beat me, and once you did, that you were going to make me your girlfriend. I thought it was so cute...that's why I trained hard to make sure you never beat me, I knew we could never be together. I wanted you to get stronger for your own sake. And you did; every time I beat you, you became more determined to be the best, forgetting all about beating me just to ask me out, you were resolved to defeat me for your own honor. I was so proud of you. But I knew...I always knew...that you were meant for bigger and better things than our little island. And I was not." she sighed. "I may be dead but I am still very much alive in you, Zoro. And I want to free you from your burden." she said. "Open your mind fully to me. What is it that you're afraid of most?" she asked him. "It makes me so sad, so angry...knowing you hold yourself back because of the fear in your heart, because of me. It's so insulting...get over it. Prove me right, that you have what it takes to be the best, or I swear I'll strike you down right now." she said.
Zoro closed his eyes as he listened to all of this. She was telling the truth. Saying things that would have humiliated him if Johnny and Yosaku, or god forbid, his nakama found out. "What do you want from me?" he demanded. "I'm not afraid...I faced Mihawk and walked away with my life..."
"That was foolishness. Not unlike your captain. You are alive because of his mercy. Don't fool yourself." Kuina's tone suddenly changed. "I may look the same but I have changed. I am here to either end your ambition here or be a stepping stone to your next level. But I think I've figured it out. What you're afraid of most." she giggled as she closed her eyes. Tashigi's glasses materialized on her face. Nico Robin's cowgirl hat appeared upon her head, as did two of her Hana-Hana no Mi arms, out of Kuina's shoulders. "You could not bring yourself to harm Sergeant Tashigi...why? Because she is a woman?" Kuina taunted him. "You better overcome that fear or you'll suffer the same fate of your cook-friend. And you don't trust that woman who joined your crew, even after all you've been through. Why is that?" Kuina licked her lips, grinning. Tashigi's sword appeared in her clasped hands, and two more katanas appeared in the arms sprouting from her shoulders. "Show me if your fears will be the death of you, Zoro. I'm not afraid of dying so don't you dare hold back!" Kuina warned him.
Zoro drew the Yubashiri hilt laying uselessly in its sheath. "Come on, then!" Zoro growled, holding Yubashiri and the sheath in the two-sword style, as he had done when they dueled as children. "We'll see if I can defeat my own three-sword style you're using!" he challenged her.
"A bad move, Zoro. Look at Yubashiri." Kuina waggled a finger at him.
Zoro raised an eyebrow and looked down at Yubashiri. A small blade, the size of a boxcutter's blade, was sticking out of the bottom of the hilt. "What the...?" Zoro exclaimed.
"This is your trial, Zoro. Yubashiri reacts when you show bravery or when you show fear. If you show too much fear, you will be impaled upon your own blade. If you show exemplary boldness, it will become an even greater sword than before. Now, draw it. Strike at me with everything you've got and maybe it'll sprout into a pocket knife after a few rounds." Kuina explained to him.
"Is that all?" Zoro smirked. "Two-sword style...Tiger...Fang!" he lunged forward at Kuina and heard the clank of metal. She'd blocked all of his strikes, but hadn't room to put in a strike of her own. Zoro checked the Yubashiri; the blade had sank back into the hilt. He was at the starting point once again, he realized, and wouldn't be in the negative zone again. "I think I can handle it." he smiled.
"I wasn't expecting you to use a technique so soon, with no third sword. Impressive. Maybe you won't go so quietly into the night." Kuina nodded.
"I never will. You should know that." Zoro's eyes were now overflowing with determination, though he was panting. His emotions were wearing on him physically as well. "I think it's only fitting that...I use the two-sword school to defeat you, Kuina. It's the only way...to bring our pasts to a close." Zoro proposed.
"You honor me." Kuina smiled, closing her eyes. "I hope that it is bravery that allows you to do this and not overconfidence." She opened her eyes again.
But Zoro's Yubashiri was now sprouting in the opposite direction, a boxcutter-sized blade pointing out of the side meant for battle. "I think that answers your question." he said confidently.
"Then come." she held her three swords in an attacking stance. He could tell she was going to throw an attack at him this time, not merely defending. Zoro held one hand high above his head, the tiny Yubashiri pointing down, and the other hand very low as he crouched down, holding the sheath pointing up.
"Kirin...Roar!" he leapt forward and struck, a wind roaring through the cave and sounding like the wailing of a horde of wild beasts.
Kuina shrieked and dropped Tashigi's sword. Her right arm was bleeding and the arm on her left shoulder had been sliced off. "What was that?!" she trembled, picking up Tashigi's sword in her left hand.
"That...was the technique I'd thought up the day you died. I stayed up all night perfecing it and I was going to use it on you. But you were at your father's dojo, covered up in that cloth and not moving...I vowed never to use it on anyone else. So I took up the three-sword school. But now that I am here with you again...I thought it fitting." he explained. Yubashiri's blade had regrown to the size of a potato peeler.
"I...am honored." she laughed softly. "Such a gentleman to the end. Well, come on. I told you not to hold back. Having sympathy for your opponents is going to cost you points." she taunted him, showing she was still ready for whatever she had. "Two-sword school..." she chanted, dropping the third sword from the hand on her shoulder as it retracted back into her body.
Zoro froze. Was she going to start using the techniques they had sparred with during their childhood. "Remember this one, Zoro? That one you tried for your very first special?" Kuina reminded him. "Duo...Lance!" she gripped both of her remaining swords in her hands and charged forward, holding them at the bottom of her ribcage. Jumping slightly, she slashed up with one and down with the other, but Zoro blocked them both easily.
"Oh..." Kuina sighed. "You're doing a lot better than I thought. You mistrust women so easily these days and yet you didn't believe that I would deceive you by using your own technique. You're sweet." she said. "I think...I think I'm glad I'm going to die here. I would much rather have been defeated at your hands and committed Seppu-ku than fall down those stairs, Zoro. Only now could I ever tell you that."
"Stop talking nonsense." Zoro growled. Yubashiri was now at half-length. "I've come this far and I'm not stopping now!"
"Then come on. One last gamble, Zoro." Kuina suggested. She picked up the blade that had fallen to the floor earlier and put it in her mouth. "Two swords versus two-swords...draw this story to a close they way it should have." she challenged.
"Fine with me." Zoro said, ready to put her to rest himself. "Your sword the Wado Ichimonji is the one I'd never allow to get damaged. That was fear, I admit." he said, watching Yubashiri shimmering in the darkness. "But it is also the strongest of the three I've got, and to have anything else in this position wouldn't do. That is not cowardice...that is purity. A swordsman's purity." he declared. Yubashiri was now a little over half-way completed, and he had to admit, it looked different. Thicker. Forged more powerfully, like it had been folded many more times than before. "Yes. And when this sword is completed, that is purity too." he nodded.
"I admire you, Zoro. You do miss me, I can tell. You let my death affect the way you live your life. And for that I thank you. I am not asking that you forget about me, but...you are meant to be the world's greatest swordsman. You cannot let down your nakama, and...the whole world. Just remember me for what I am. Your friend." Kuina told him.
"I will do that." Zoro promised. "My last promise to you."
"Tatsumaki..." Kuina began her attack.
"Tatsumaki..." Zoro mimicked. They were going to see whose ki could overwhelm the other. But a chain reaction between the two would probably slice them both apart and they knew this. But Zoro could not show cowardice now. And Kuina seemed to accept her fate.
"One last question...you are not the real Kuina. What are you?" Zoro asked her.
"You are right...I am not." Kuina shook her head, the cave now howling and whistling with wind. "When you wake up, you'll have your answer." Kuina told him.

Shishou was back in her hut drinking tea and watching Anu scratch himself. "Anu, go bathe in the sea, you will hurt yourself if you keep scratching." she told the wolf. She followed him outside and breathed in the sea air. But something was...off. She whirled around and came face-to-face with someone she never wanted to see again.
"Bastard..." She growled.
"You are training another outsider?" this person asked her. He had the same voice as the one who'd captured Tashigi. He was a tall man, at least Zoro's height, but beyond that nothing could be said about his appearance. He was engulfed in what looked like the darkest ink but his body had no thickness to it. It was as though he was a living shadow. Though, his eyes glowed a ruby-like red.
"What of it? He is pathetic." Shishou spat.
"Why don't I believe you?" the mysterious person sighed. "Just be forewarned. We no longer need you. As long as you stay out of our way we'll live and let live. But if you cross us we'll make you suffer a fate worse than death." they warned her.
"I stopped caring long ago about what you do." she waved her hand dismissively.
"For your sake you'd better be telling the truth." the shadow man sank into the ground and vanished, as though his own shadow was a doorway leading underground.

Zoro and Kuina were finding it hard now not to be swept off their feet by the massive winds inside the cave. Strike after strike, they dueled, conjuring more and more force and energy around them, before deciding to finish the fight. "Thank you, Zoro." Kuina smiled. "This is how it should have been."
"I'm going to keep my promise to you. But not just for that reason." he vowed. "I have to get stronger for my friends too, now. And avenge my honor against Mihawk."
They both leapt up at the same time, all four of their weapons colliding. "Dragon...Twister!" they roared, and a flash of light made Zoro feel paralyzed. The entire cave blew apart and was carried up, nothing but gravel being swept into the air and raining down on the sea a half-mile away.

Shishou heard all the commotion and saw it. "No wonder he came here...he felt it too." she smirked. She walked back to where the cave had been. Zoro was sleeping, and she picked up Yubashiri. It had fully regrown, better than before. "Well...maybe he will do." she giggled. She bent down and slapped his cheeks a little. "Wake up." she told him.
Zoro stirred. "What's going on?" he grumbled.
"You passed the trial. You passed lesson two." she said proudly. "And you did it in your sleep." she laughed.
"You mean-that was all just a dream?!" Zoro cried.
"Of course it was, silly! How else would your dead friend come back to life? But look." she showed him the re-forged Yubashiri. "Just because you were sleeping doesn't mean your body wasn't moving or that your experience did not count. After all, where did the cave go?" she asked him, showing him that he was indeed no longer within. "Even in your sleep, your ki circulates and you can weild it when you feel threatened. I assume you normally wake up when your ki is disturbed, don't you? Not many have that level of discipline. But my Devil Fruit power induced you into a sleep you could not wake from until you were ready. And I see now that you were." she explained.
"What kind of Devil Fruit power was that?" Zoro asked her, standing up.
"Kiku-Kiku no Mi...the Fear-Fear fruit." she explained. "I can trap you inside your own worst nightmares or bring them to life. But in your case, I specialized a dream arena just for you to confront the fear that was keeping you from reaching your potential." she told him.
"So that's it? I've got Yubashiri back, better than ever...am I ready now to help my friends?" he asked her.
"Oh, no, no, no, silly boy. This is just the beginning." Shishou giggled. "Come on, have some tea. We'll begin Lesson Three shortly."