Chapter Text
Back then, he hadn’t known why he was so jealous of Kuina. He remembered looking at Kuina while she was training and feeling so empty, that he was missing something and that Kuina had that exact thing.
It took their two thousand and first battle, one where they used real swords, to realize why he felt like that finally.
“You don’t get it Zoro, because of how I was born- I can never be the greatest! I don’t want to be a girl!” Kuina had yelled at him, desperately grasping the fabric above her heart.
“That’s not fair! That’s not fair- I don’t want to be a boy!” Zoro had cried back, tears bursting forth like a dam that had been holding them back had been struck by lightning.
The two had fallen to their knees together, holding each other as they cried over their shared grief. Kuina had explained that when she began to hit puberty, she had realized why she was always so angry when someone blamed her gender for why she couldn’t own the dojo. She had assumed it was because she was being told she couldn't do something- but when blood had begun to fall she had sobbed harder than she ever had before, wishing she could have been born a man.
Zoro explained that the second he had seen Kuina, he had been jealous. She was everything he wanted to be, strong and yet beautiful. Swift and dangerous, powerful and determined. He didn’t know how to put it into words, but Kuina understood. She understood completely because that was how she felt. They confided in each other while their tears ran dry, shakily hugging the other’s form while grass stained their pants.
They watched the sun rise together, sitting on that grassy hill and witnessing the golden orb rise over the sea.
“You should grow your hair out,” Kuina murmured. Zoro plucked at the grass on the ground, ripping the strands from the dirt.
“Why?” He asked.
Kuina hesitated before saying, “You’d look pretty,”.
Zoro whipped his head to her and blinked.
“You- you should cut your hair!” He told her. She looked at him, shoulders raised high. Tears swam in both of their eyes.
“You’d look handsome,” He said.
As the golden light of sunrise hit their figures, the two smiled at each other.
“Think you can help me cut it?”
“With what?”
Kuina’s hand drifted to her sword- Wado Ichimonji.
“Wh- right now?” The younger asked.
“Mhm,”.
“...Okay,”.
So when orange light finally faded into a more common non-color of day, Kuina’s hair was choppy and messy, not dissimilar to Zoro’s.
“Your hair looks like mine,”.
Kuina looked at him and bit her lip while in thought.
“Can I have your name?”
“What?”
“I’ve always liked your name…can I have it?”
“Only if I can have yours!”
The older smiled down at the younger and nodded.
“Well then! We should introduce ourselves to each other!” The older stood and propped hands upon hips.
“What? Why?”
“It’s symbolic, idiot!”
“I’m not an idiot!”
The older’s eyes rolled and the younger stood up as tall as possible.
The taller stuck out a hand “Hi! I’m Shimotsuki Zoro!” He introduced. The younger took his hand and grinned.
“Hi! I’m Roronoa Kuina!” She greeted back.
The two walked back to the dojo with big smiles on their faces. Koushirou was shocked by the state of Zoro’s hair and confused when the younger responded to Kuina and the older responded to Zoro.
It took a while for him to accept it, but eventually, he did. He had a son, and his name was Zoro.
Kuina began growing her hair out as Zoro had suggested, and the short-cropped mess eventually grew to her ears, which eventually grew to her neck, which eventually grew to her shoulders. Zoro kept his hair a black-cropped mess not unlike Kuina’s before she started her transition, and he enjoyed it far more than she had.
On Kuina’s birthday when she turned fourteen, Zoro approached later in the night with a small box. The seventeen-year-old presented her with three golden earrings and revealed he himself had pierced one of his ears to hold the fourth.
“I’m going to leave tomorrow. I’ve learned all I can here,” He explained. Kuina held the earrings in her hand and looked up at him.
“I thought you wanted to take your dad’s dojo?” She asked as she ran a thumb over the jewelry. Zoro shook his head.
“No, not anymore. I’m going to be the World’s Greatest Swordsman!” He announced with conviction.
Kuina gawked, “What! You can’t be the World’s Greatest Swordsman!” She refuted.
“What? Of course, I can!”
“No, you can’t! Because I’m going to be the World’s Greatest Swordsman!” She pressed a proud finger to her chest.
“I’d like to see you try! You still haven’t beaten me!” Zoro scoffed, crossing his arms.
“I will! I will! One of us will be the greatest, and It’s going to be me!”
“As if!” Zoro laughed. Kuina scowled and punched the older in the stomach. Zoro bent over, holding his gut while glaring at the younger.
“Oh, now you’re going to get it!” He huffed, tackling the other to the ground.
As the two tousled and rolled in the grass, Kuina’s new earrings lay in their box, reflecting the wrestling pair as they laughed and fought.
Kuina herself left the village two years after Zoro, on what would be his nineteenth birthday. Three gold tear-drop-shaped earrings hung in her left ear, and her long green hair was pulled into a low ponytail by a black string.
She was built strong and wore black pants, combat boots, a white shirt, and a green haramaki. Three swords hung at her waist, unnamed and all identical.
“Kuina,” Koushirou approached the girl as she was about to board her boat.
“Sensei?”
“If you see Zoro, tell him he knows better than to not write to me,” he instructed. Kuina just grinned.
“Of course!”
As she waved goodbye to her teacher and the village that had raised her, Roronoa Kuina felt conviction zipping through her body. She was excited to see what would come, who wouldn’t be?