Medieval AU Part 2/2

[mekachu04]

Characters: Kuina, Sanji, Zoro, Nami, Luffy
Word Count: 3817
Dated: Dec. 2006
Warnings: more of a boring narrative, a set up if i were to ever write anymore, which i doubt i will.... the background between kuina and roronoa. This takes place some undetermined amount of time after the first part.

Part one


 

“He seems awfully… rough, Lady Kuina.”

Kuina smiled, looking over to where Roronoa and Luffy sat at the fire, grinning as they swapped stories with Usopp the Bard. “And your Luffy holds the maturity of a babe, Nami-san.”

“He’s a sweet child…”

“He’s a demon, just like Zoro.” She shook her head at the man as he turned to his name. He watched the two women for a moment, eyebrow crooked as her regarded her curiously before Luffy drew his attention away.

“He’s a dear friend, Nami-san. I wouldn’t trade him for anything. I owe him too much as it is.”

Kuina glared at the Prince, intend on telling him off, but Nami had pinned her with an intent gaze as well.

“When I was a young girl,” she began, looking over to the man she was going to speak of, remembering what he’d been when they’d first met…

“I had a different view on what Ladies of Royalty should and shouldn’t be able to do, and I was very vocal about it.” Remembering the little ego-driven vernet standing before her, telling her that he was going to protect her.

“Zoro was brought to the palace to train as a guard. That’s what became of most orphans and young delinquents when I was growing up. My father couldn’t stand to turn them away, so he brought them in, and gave them something to do with their lives.” Remembering the way he’d cried into her shoulder on the eve of his mother’s death some time later.

“He was the first person I’d met he didn’t treat me like a little princess, and instead, like a person. He even went to as far as to spar with me while we where growing up, to teach me what he’d been taught that day, even when he knew I’d master it before he did.” Remembered those nights, the two of them laying exhausted on the floor of the stables, training equipment scattered on the floor around them, the horses whinnying their laughter at the childish antics.

“My father was not pleased when he found out about this. Pleased even less when he’d come to discover it’d been going on under his nose for years. He forbade me from fighting anymore, threatening to send Zoro away. Sending him to somewhere less than comfortable… Less than safe.” Remembering crying into his shoulder years later, confused and spiteful, before calling him to one last duel.

“That night, I brought my sword down to the stables, intending to fight him, to beat him. I wanted him to think I didn’t need his help anymore, rather than to tell him why we had to stop. And I did fight him that night. And I beat him, like I always did. And on my way back to my room that night… I slipped. And I fell. And then I died.” Remembering hitting the steps on her way down, before lying in a heap at the bottom. Remembering staring up to the beautiful ceilings in pure agony before the pain all went away.

“That night I fell down the grand staircase, and I snapped my neck and died. My father told me that my soul never went to heaven, instead, it became trapped in my sword, thus freeing the spirit once contained there. The only way to let my soul continue into Heaven was to hunt down the Sword’s Soul, Wadou Ichimonji, and put it back.” Remembering the cold numb fog, looking though it to see her own body lying cold and forgotten.

“But…but you are not dead now…are you?” Nami asked, poking Kuina’s arm.

“No. Zoro took it upon himself to hunt down Wadou’s soul, and even though he failed in capturing it, he did make a deal with Wadou.”

“A deal?” Sanji inquired, looking rather doubtful of her story.

“Roronoa!” Kuina said then, tone demanding that the man come to attention, which he did. If he felt any confusion in the sudden order, his face betrayed none of it.
BR<>“Kuina-dono.”

“Roronoa, I want you to remove your shirt.”

There was a slight pause when everyone present glanced inquisitively at Kuina, before turning to Roronoa, who did look a little confused himself, but did as he was asked.

There was a scar that ran down his chest crossing his torso as it connecting his shoulder with the far hip. It was a wide across as a finger; a single straight engraving that cut him in half.

“It cut though his rib cage as well, and when he was brought back to me, it was a shock that he’d even lived then. When he failed to capture Wadou, he offered a trade instead, my dead soul with his dying one. Rumour is that Wadou was so moved by this that he returned my soul to my body, bring it back from the state of decay, so I might live again.”

Luffy had risen to poke at the scar; the aftermath of having your soul cut out. “But Zoro is still alive, no? Then what happened to Wadou and the sword?”

“Kuina-dono’s Sword. And my soul in still incased within the steel of it.” Roronoa responded, gripping the hilt of the white sword the Prince had seen Lady Kuina wield in the tavern.

 

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