A Pirate's Soul (Book 2 in A Pirate's Heart Trilogy)

3:: Mihawk's Gift and Challenge

Zoro growled. “Fine, what do I do.”

“I told you before you left, you just have to remember,”Mihawk jumped from the Sunny and landed gracefully onto his raft. “Oh and here, if you save her she might want this.” He tossed a battered knapsack and her katana aboard. Robin caught the bag and Sanji caught the katana.

“Zoro, you shit head! Save her already!” Sanji yelled out.

“I-“ he closed his mouth then ran to the side where Mihawk was, but he was gone. “Damn.”

“Zoro, I know you can do this,” Luffy grasped Rhythm’s shuttering hand as he got to work on her as best he can.

“Mihawk’s right. I can’t work on her properly until the muzzle is off. We don’t have a key and by the looks of it it’s like the thing is wielded onto her face,” Chopper said, panic lacing his words. As a doctor, it was his job to remain calm and do what he needs to do. In the past that was a skill he lacked, but after the timeskip he managed to get ahold of his feelings and truly became the doctor he dreamed of being.

Zoro, on the other hand, had attained that years ago. But at the moment, with his nakama urging him to do something he didn’t know if he even could do and his lover lying in his captain’s arms, inches from death, his emotions were pretty high right now. Panic mixed with worry and confusion with a dash of fear and anger blended together with one of Sanji’s stainless steel blade blenders.

“Zoro,” Luffy stood and clapped his hand on Zoro’s shoulder, hat pulled down to shield his eyes. “I know I can probably break the muzzle, but I would probably hurt her even more. But since this is a challenge for you to help you, Zoro, to train, then I want you to break it. If you can’t I’ll do it.”

Zoro nodded and drew Wado Ichimonji. “Hold her up for me. Chopper, stand aside for a second.”

They did what they were told. The remaining Mugiwara stood back and made a loose ring around them. Sanji was twisting his tie nervously, knowing he can’t just run over there and kick the muzzle off of her. He might break her face if he did. The other Straw Hats were thinking of ways to get it off without causing harm to her, but came up blank.  Franky thought of getting some sort of power tool to cut, melt, or tear away the muzzle, but all he could think of would hurt her.

Silence engulfed the ship. It was like when Rhythm did Akuma no Sosu* (AN: the move where she sucks the sound from a certain radius). The lapping waves seemed too had stilled for what’s coming. Zoro closed his eye in concentration and disappeared. The sound of steel on steel rang through the air with the vibrant blue after-glow of Zoro’s attack followed. He appeared behind her, hair and clothes rustling and falling back into place. Not a scratch was made. He growled and attacked again and again. The fourth time he missed slightly and made a deep gash running vertically up her cheek from the muzzle. Sanji cried out as the wound was added to the collection already on her. Zoro was starting to get frustrated. What kind of metal was this?!

Finally he stopped to think, the only sound that filled his ears was the soft ocean waves and Rhythm’s labored breathing. He tuned into the shallow gasps and gurgles, coughs blocked off from the metal clasping her jaws shut and most of her nasal passageway closed.

‘You believes in me I~’m bro~ken!

I have nothing left~

And all I feel is this cruel~

Wanting~!’

He tuned out everything and focused on the rhythm, where the heartbeat of everything was; where the steel could cut through the platinum.

And now he knew.

‘We’ve been falling for all this time~

And now~’