Shoko opened her mouth to scream at Zoro, but no sound came. All she could do was stare at him as he stood over Puck's body, blood dripping from his sword and pooling at his feet.
"He killed the doctor!" one civilian suddenly screamed. "The pirates killed Dr. J! This man is some kind of demon!"
No, no, no, no, no, Shoko thought, realizing what the civilians were seeing. No, we aren't the bad guys here. We aren't the cause of all this pain. We're here to save you from the pirates....
Right?
She finally ripped her eyes from the scene in front of her and looked around at the mess in the streets. People's belongings were thrown around in several of the streets. Vendors were salvaging what they could of their goods. Children were crying.
Shoko made her way to a low roof and hopped down, trying to be as gentle as possible on her leg, but still wincing as she dropped to the ground.
A vendor watched her with terrified eyes as she stooped down to pick up his things from the street. She handed his things back to him, and her stomach sank at the look he was giving her. He was so scared.
"I'm so sorry," was all she could say. She didn't mean for any of this to happen.
This is the kind of evil I wanted to stop, she thought. How did we bring all this chaos to these poor people?
She felt a hand on her shoulder and turned around to see Zoro standing behind her, looking somber.
She slapped his hand away.
"Why did you kill him?" she asked, almost as softly as a whisper. "He was down, why didn't you just cuff him?" She felt herself trying to blame Zoro. He was the one who scared all these innocent people. He committed unnecessary murder. He was the one who spilled blood in this town.
Zoro stared at her, not a hint of remorse on his face.
"What was that?" she asked, her voice rising. Angry tears stung her eyes. "What happened to only killing in self-defense?"
"Scars on the back are a swordsman's shame." His voice was low, but steady. "That's what he told me."
Shoko stared at him. "'Shame'? You killed him because the way he went down was shameful?" Anger and confusion bubbled inside her. But Zoro's words didn't fall on deaf ears. Puck asked Zoro to kill him?
Zoro didn't respond. Even if he wanted to, he wouldn't have had the chance before Shoko turned away. She was furious, hurt, and confused.
Zoro wasn't some bloodthirsty bounty hunter. She knew that. But he should have known the terror that would have ensued from killing someone in the middle of town, whether the pirate asked him to do it or not.
And here was Shoko, using her position as a bounty hunter, trying to do good, but all she did was cause pain for the people of Sakura Town. She was no better than Captain Morgan in Shells Town, whether her mistakes were intentional or not.
After only two missions as a bounty hunter, she had seen reason to question everything she knew: who she was, who her best friend and partner was, whether she was truly fit to fulfil her dreams. She felt completely crushed.
She hurried around the town desperately, helping people wherever she could, cleaning broken glass, helping vendors set up their stalls as best they could, and trying to make up for any damage possible. It was all she could think to do. She didn't want to look at Zoro or think about her own failure, and she didn't want to go back to their boat. She had noticed that Puck Jenning's body was no longer in the streets where he was struck down, so she assumed Zoro had moved him onto their boat.
She just prayed his body wasn't in the room where they slept. She would never be able to rest there again.
As she finished collecting broken glass from yet another store front, she noticed Zoro at the end of the street, walking hand-in-hand with a child who couldn't have been older than six. He had to crouch down slightly to reach the child's hand. The child's eyes were puffy and red as if he had been crying. Though he looked apprehensive of Zoro, probably because of the blood on his torn-up clothes, he had on a brave face as he followed Zoro up to a store front.
She then saw a man run out from the store and lift up the child, taking him from Zoro's grasp. The man wiped tears from his eyes after setting the child down and bowed graciously to Zoro.
Shoko watched the whole exchange without any expression on her face. The tender scene in front of her filled her with even more guilt. She knew Zoro's heart. She knew he wouldn't kill completely needlessly. Yet in her desperation and insecurity, she had tried to direct all her anger at him.
Zoro's eyes flicked briefly in her direction, but he didn't make any move to communicate with her either with words or body language. As far as he was concerned, she didn't want to have anything to do with him anymore, and he wasn't about to force her to acknowledge him.
He wasn't proud of himself for taking the pirate's life, but after seeing such skill during their fight, he gained respect for Puck, at least as a swordsman if not as a person. So when Puck had asked Zoro to take his life, Zoro obliged. The man was a pirate and a liar, but he was human and a damn good swordsman.
Still, it was frustrating how Shoko had spoken to him earlier. She had decided to be a bounty hunter of her own accord. He had told her before they arrived in Sakura Town that sometimes being a bounty hunter means kill or be killed. It was seeming now like his words had fallen on deaf ears.
Shoko returned to the boat that evening to find Zoro snoozing nonchalantly in his cot in their shared room with his arms tucked behind his head. She stared at him furiously. Of course he's able to rest easy, she thought. His honor is intact, and that's all that matters in life. All he has to do is wait to collect his bounty.
She mentally chastised herself. Zoro wasn't so shallow, and she knew it. She was just desperate for somewhere to place her anger and confusion, and he was her unlucky victim. Truthfully, her anger belonged with the Marines and generally with the state of the world.
Puck's bounty poster—created by the World Government—had read "WANTED: DEAD OR ALIVE." Shoko had known for a long time that the marines didn't care so much about human life, as long as they were moving toward the ultimate goal of justice. It was why she wanted to become a marine so badly: so she could be sure that goal was achieved with concern for the people under the Marines' protection.
But after seeing the destruction in Sakura Town, she questioned whether there was any way to take down such powerful pirates peacefully. And worse, now that Puck was dead, he would have no chance to right the wrongs he'd done. The money he'd stolen couldn't be returned to his victims since his men had surely run away with it all after losing their captain.
Feeling her anger finally deflate into hopelessness, she stared at Zoro, wondering how he was so sure of himself. He knew his own priorities of honor and strength, and it seemed to easy for him to make the impossible decision of killing based on those core values.
Slowly, she approached Zoro where he slept and timidly prodded his side. He groaned and turned his head toward her, groggily opening one eye. He frowned, waiting for her to say something.
"Sorry to wake you up," she said softly. "I just wanted to say sorry about what I said earlier."
She paused and held back the wave of emotion that was trying to push its way out of her between words. "I... I just don't know if I'm cut out for... for all this. I don't think I'm fit to be a Bounty Hunter and I don't think I'm fit to be a Marine."
Zoro grunted. "I didn't think you were this weak," he said gruffly, stretching his back.
Shoko's mouth fell open in astonishment. She knew she deserved his anger, but this wasn't the response she expected. "Damn, I didn't expect you to agree so easily."
"Why not? You're giving up after your second mission. You wanted to give up after the first one too. I'm just being honest." He pushed himself up to a sitting position in his cot.
Shoko stared at him incredulously. He was one hundred percent right, and she shouldn't be arguing with him for agreeing with her, but it hurt that he was giving up on her so easily when she thought he was her support.
"I'm not weak. I just have morals," she jabbed, before she could stop the words from escaping her mouth. Why am I such a bitch?
Zoro didn't give in to her taunt. With another grunt, he stood and walked across the room to the table where they kept their stack of bounty posters and began flipping through the papers.
"Let me know if you're coming with me or not," he finally said.
"I'm coming," she huffed and plopped down on her cot. "I just need time to come to terms with things."
After a few minutes of silence she spoke again, staring up at the ceiling. "What did you do with Puck's body? Do we need to turn it in for the bounty?"
"I gave him to one of his men. They can decide what they do."
Shoko lifted herself off her back onto her elbows. She stared at him with a mixture of curiosity and admiration. You don't find many sixteen-year-old boys with this much respect for their enemies. She was beginning to see just how complex her partner was.
"We'll still receive our reward," Zoro continued, snapping her from her daze. "I'm sure the Marines will find out what we did."
What we did.
Who we killed.
The Marines will know.
**(A/N) I'm meaning for this chapter to be a sort of building block for Shoko's character. I wanted to establish that her dream goes much deeper than simply becoming a Marine, and I wanted to show that even if she's appeared very confident in herself, she's harboring a lot of uncertainty within herself.
Let me know if you like these kinds of chapters or if you want to see more of anything else! (i.e. romance, action, silliness, idk). We will be meeting more canon characters soon, I promise!