Rocks stared.
There was a specific frustration that came from winding up a full-force swing and hitting nothing but air.
He’d wanted to land that slash.
The way things had ended, neither here nor there, was genuinely unsatisfying.
“The winner is Rocks.”
With Kuina’s concession in, Koushirou announced the result of the three-year promise match.
But as he looked at Rocks, something had quietly shifted in his expression.
A thought was turning over in his mind.
That last strike.
Even unfinished, it had carried a faint edge of threat he could actually feel.
Had this boy genuinely found the sword path that suited him?
It was hard to say.
The sword was, at its heart, a matter of will.
A powerful swordsman could slash out flame, flower petals, thunder, a killing chill.
All of it came down to sword intent, what the swordsman projected through the blade.
Strange as that sounded, that was what swordsmanship was.
The iron-cutting threshold reached through grasping the Breath of All Things.
The Flying Slash at higher levels still.
Both of them were expressions of sword intent in different forms.
Unshakeable conviction was its own kind of strength.
Will and belief could produce real, physical force.
“You win.
From here on you’re my captain.”
Kuina tucked a strand of hair back behind her ear.
She didn’t look discouraged.
The forward-charging certainty was still there.
“But the title of world’s greatest swordsman isn’t something I’m handing over, Captain.”
“Looking forward to working with you, Kuina.”
Rocks looked at her.
His first crewmate.
“I’m looking forward to you challenging me someday.
But that spot is mine.
Hawk-Eye Mihawk can get in line too.”
“We’ll see about that.”
“We will.”
They looked at each other and both smiled.
Each of them could see the resolve in the other’s eyes.
They would walk toward their goals.
However hard the road ahead turned out to be, neither of them was giving up.
They were friends, crewmates, and rivals, all at once.
Youth really is something, Koushirou thought, watching them, a quiet smile on his face.
And then, privately: But to close the gap with Rocks, Kuina, you’re going to have to push yourself much harder than this.
Her road ahead would be difficult.
Women faced an innate physical disadvantage compared to men, and that gap did not shrink with time, it widened.
No amount of training could fully close it.
To say nothing of the fact that her opponent was Rocks. Visit g.com for the full chapter.
Even Koushirou, who had once made a name for himself on the open sea, had been genuinely surprised by what he’d seen today.
Rocks hadn’t even been trying in that fight.
A boy of seventeen with that kind of strength was almost unthinkable.
And somewhere in the back of Koushirou’s mind, a feeling was forming.
This turbulent sea was about to receive something it had not seen in a long time.
A monster of tremendous power.
One capable of shaking the balance of the entire world.
Two days later.
At the dock.
“You’re really not coming with us?”
Rocks looked at Zoro.
“You’re only sixteen, but that’s never stopped anyone from setting sail.”
“No.
You two have your path.
I have mine.”
Zoro shook his head.
“And my Three-Sword Style still isn’t complete.
I haven’t finished what I started here.
I’ll set out on my own when the time comes.”
He had his own plan and he was sticking to it.
“Then find yourself a good crewmate when you do.
Ideally someone with a sense of direction, so they can keep you from getting lost at sea.
That’s a genuine danger for someone with your navigational gifts.”
Seeing that Zoro had refused again, Rocks let it go.
Honestly, if he’d had the choice, he would have liked to bring Zoro along.
The kid had real potential.
The ability to make a legitimate run at the title of world’s second greatest swordsman.
A good crewmate.
As for what happened to the original story, Rocks wasn’t particularly worried about that.
A shame, but it was Zoro’s call.
“Worry about yourself.”
Zoro’s expression darkened.
He hated it when people brought up his sense of direction.
Then he looked away and said: “Just don’t go losing to anyone else before I get the chance to beat you both.
You’re mine to defeat.
Nobody else’s.”
He had gone to challenge Rocks yesterday.
He had gotten thoroughly dismantled.
The age gap between them was exactly one year.
The strength gap had felt like a cliff edge.
Without having already lost to Kuina over three thousand times and built up a hardened tolerance for defeat, a gap that size might have broken him and killed the dream entirely.
It had been that crushing.
“That day isn’t coming,” Kuina said, calm and certain.
“Not losing to anyone else, and not losing to you.”
Her physical conditioning was behind Rocks’s by a mile.
She accepted that.
She didn’t think the gap there was anywhere near as extreme.
And that gap, she could cover with technique.
After losing to Rocks that first time, she had locked in her path: push her swordsmanship technique to its absolute limit.
Be more technically refined than any swordsman alive.
That was her road to the title of world’s greatest swordsman.
Rocks raised an eyebrow at Zoro.
“Then we’ll see each other again out on the sea.
Show me your Three-Sword Style when it’s finished.”
Zoro’s potential needed no commentary.
The changed circumstances, Kuina being alive, Rocks existing in this world, would push him harder rather than soften him.
His will was too strong for anything less.
With that kind of determination and that kind of talent, as long as nothing went badly wrong, Zoro was going to end up among the very best.
Zoro nodded.
“I will.”
Now wasn’t the time.
He still had work to do here.
When he was ready, he would sail, and he would do what he’d set out to do.
“Good luck.”
Rocks smiled, then turned to Koushirou.
When he spoke this time, his voice was serious.
“Teacher Koushirou.
I’ll take care of Kuina.
You have my word.”
He was, after all, taking the man’s daughter away with him.
The least he could do was offer that guarantee.
With him there, nothing would happen to Kuina.
Kuina glanced at him sideways.
The way he’d phrased that made it sound rather like she was being given away in marriage.
She wasn’t opposed to Rocks as a person, but things hadn’t reached that point between them.
“I had a feeling this day was coming from the moment those two made their promise.”
Koushirou straightened his glasses and smiled at both of them.
“Go.
That sea is your stage.
I trust you’ll make it through.”
He had always known it would come to this.
And yet now that the day was here, the reluctance and the worry in him were real.
At least Kuina wasn’t going alone.
She had this particular monster of a boy with her.
That eased some of it.
Though it also introduced a separate category of concern entirely, as any father watching his daughter sail off alone with a young man would understand.
That part was not so easy to resolve.
Then again, this was Rocks.
His character was trustworthy.
If it had been anyone else, Koushirou would not have agreed.