Chapter 138: Steel Versus Resolve
The dust hadn't even settled.
Zoro's body ached like it had been beaten by hammers wrapped in blades. His blood stuck hot against his skin, dripping from the corner of his mouth.
His hand trembled slightly as he rose—slow, but unyielding.
Mr. 1 stood before him, arms crossed, shoulder lined with silver edges that reflected the sun like glass.
"I figured you'd stay down," he said. "Guess I was wrong."
Zoro didn't answer.
He reached to his left bicep, where his black bandana had been tied.
He ripped it off.
The fabric, sticky with sweat and half-soaked in blood, was tugged free and wrapped tight around his forehead.
His eyes sharpened.
The usual calm, sardonic glint was gone.
What replaced it was stillness, like a blade before the draw.
Then, for the first time, his right hand moved to his waist.
He drew his final sword.
Wado Ichimonji.
The pure white hilt caught the light like a flash of moon in a battlefield. He raised it without ceremony and slid it between his teeth.
Three swords.
Three breaths.
Zoro's knees bent as his stance changed.
"Three Sword Style..." he muttered around the blade.
The stone beneath him cracked.
"…Santoryu."
He launched forward.
A sonic burst kicked up behind him as he moved, swords blurring into a tri-point slash.
"Oni Giri!!"
Daz Bones didn't dodge. He braced.
The impact ripped through the street.
An "X" of cleaved stone erupted between them, shattered dust blasting out from the force.
But when the smoke cleared...
Zoro stumbled a step backward.
Daz Bones stood tall.
His chest, where Oni Giri should have sliced, was still intact. A thin line, maybe. But no blood.
Zoro's mouth tightened.
"Not enough," Daz Bones said.
And then he moved.
Fast.
A sweeping slice of his arm turned forearm into scimitar—he spun low, and the blade sang through the air.
Zoro blocked with one sword.
The other two weren't fast enough.
SLASH!
A line of red tore across his shoulder. Blood sprayed out across the stone tiles. Zoro grunted, spun, and leapt back, landing hard on one knee.
He didn't even get to breathe before Daz closed the gap again.
Zoro parried a vertical cleave, but another blade arm punched into his side, the edge tearing flesh like it was nothing.
SKRREEEEEE!
Another cut. His hip.
He slashed in retaliation with Tora Gari, the tiger hunt technique. But even the full weight of that strike merely made Daz Bones stagger. His arms crossed, and his entire upper body bristled with blade edges, like a moving iron maiden.
Zoro hit steel.
And steel didn't bleed.
"Why…" Zoro panted, spitting blood, "…why aren't you breaking?"
Daz paused—then smiled faintly.
"You want to know who I am?"
He took a step forward.
"I'm not just anyone with a Devil Fruit."
Another step. The air rippled off his shoulders.
"I was a killer long before I was steel. Daz Bones. From the West Blue."
Zoro's eyes twitched.
That name. he remembered it.
The West Blue boogeyman. Assassin for hire. Left a trail of corpses in seven nations and walked out of every war without a scratch. Said to have turned down an invitation to join a royal guard just to kill the king himself.
"You're that bastard..." Zoro muttered.
"Mr. 1," Daz corrected. "Now."
He raised his arm again.
"And I've only gotten better since then."
Zoro roared forward, pain forgotten for now. His blades screamed as they met Daz's body again and again, slashes that shook the air.
"Santoryu Ogi: Rengoku Oni Giri!!"
A forbidden form of Oni Giri, faster, heavier, riskier.
It collided, BOOM!
Stone cracked. Dust blew.
Zoro landed behind Daz Bones.
And for a breath, it looked like maybe, maybe, he got him.
Then Daz Bones turned.
Unharmed.
Zoro didn't move.
Because he was the one who had been cut, again.
His left bicep, split open.
Right thigh, sliced clean.
His breathing came in short, raspy gasps now. Each inhale was fire. Every heartbeat pounded into the open wounds like war drums.
He dropped to one knee.
His hands gripped the hilts tighter.
"Still standing?" Daz asked.
Zoro didn't answer. He raised his head. Blood spilled down his forehead and cheek, soaking into the bandana. His chest rose and fell.
The blades were still in hand.
No matter how much he bled, he wasn't done yet.
This is not a victory yet, this is the death of fear.
The world paused for just a moment, then came the scream of metal.
SLASH.
A violent streak of steel sliced horizontally across Zoro's chest, erupting in a burst of red. The impact sent him airborne for the briefest second before gravity ripped him down, crashing his back against the broken stone.
He skidded.
Then stopped.
Blood pooled fast, soaking into the earth, steaming faintly in the heat of the sunbaked capital. Zoro's swords slipped from his hands, two of them, Kitetsu III and Yubashiri clattered against the pavement, the third, Wado Ichimonji, landed by his side.
Zoro lay there, motionless.
Daz Bones exhaled and didn't even look back.
"The end of the swordsman," he muttered, turning and beginning his march once more through the cracked path of the capital, heading toward the rising palace in the distance. Toward Vivi.
Step by step.
He was already forgetting Zoro's name.
But the swordsman… wasn't gone.
Not yet.
In the stillness, inside that broken body, a spark lit.
Zoro's breathing was faint, but it was there.
Shallow.
Strained.
But there.
His eyes were only half-open, vision blurred by blood, but in that blurred haze… something flickered.
A memory.
---
"When the time comes… you either step up… or you die."
The voice was clear. Goku. Speaking to all of them, on the deck of the ship, days before.
They had been crossing into Grand Line, the wind whipping at their backs, the tension between laughter and destiny still fresh.
"You've all seen what they can do. These Baroque Works bastards… they're not pirates. They're killers. And they're organized. If you let fear take over... you're dead. So find your edge, whatever it is. Use it. Unlock it."
Zoro had looked away that day.
His jaw had been tight. His swords were clean—but inside, he knew.
He hadn't yet cut steel.
He hadn't yet earned that title: the greatest swordsman.
He remembered another moment, back on the deck. when they were at Nami's home village in the East Blue.
When Goku had raised his palm, iet, simple, showed them Ki.
"Your body has limits," Goku had said. "But this? This is you. The real you. You control it. You shape it. One day... you'll feel it come from inside."
They had trained.
Every day.
Sparring, meditation, breathing.
They'd been pirates learning a monk's path.
And Zoro?
He'd been always on the edge of understanding… but never there.
Until now.
Until death was closer than life.
---
The ground vibrated.
At first, it was faint.
But it grew.
Stone trembled around Zoro's fallen form. His fingers twitched—tensed—and then, from the very center of his chest, a ripple pulsed outward.
The blood around him began to boil.
It didn't steam, it shimmered.
From the depths of his skin, where will met threshold, a green liquid-like shimmer began to rise.
Not like water.
Thicker.
More alive.
It oozed upward from his back, pooled beneath him, and climbed up his spine in slow, pulsing threads.
The green liquid enveloped him, his arms, his shoulders, his chest, soaking into his wounds but refusing to let them bleed more.
It was not Ki as Goku used it.
It was Zoro's own Ki.
His own will, finally given shape.
The liquid clung to him—and as it coated his skin, it started to burn.
Not with heat.
With purpose.
Zoro's hand moved. His fingers curled, digging into the stone below. His muscles trembled, but they pulled.
He rose, first to one knee.
The green liquid still pulsed, covering his arms now like armor made of light and pressure.
His hand reached for the Wado Ichimonji.
Fingers grasped it.
The blade, bloodied and dulled, gleamed faintly at the touch of its master.
The aura wrapped it too.
Zoro pushed again, both knees now.
Every muscle in his body was screaming.
But his soul?
It was silent.
Clear.
The green aura surrounding him began to flicker, then ignite.
Where once it was liquid, it now twisted upward into flame.
Green fire, licking the air.
Not just around him, but inside him.
Daz Bones stopped walking.
He turned.
He saw the dust behind him swirl unnaturally.
The tremor had returned.
And standing in the middle of it...
Was Zoro.
One sword in hand.
The Wado Ichimonji gripped reverse-hand by his right.
His body half-drenched in blood.
Covered in that burning, emerald flame.
His eyes locked onto Daz Bones calm, precise, deadly.
And the ground cracked beneath his feet.