Sharp and Sharper. Roronoa Zoro x (fem OG) reader // One Piece fanfiction

recognized

Rika, the little girl from the bar comes in sight. She brought more rice balls, assumingly for Zoro as she headed his way. She walks up to the other side of the gate. Checking if there are any guards. She looks at us, a little scared. "Don't worry, we won't notify them. We would like to get to that man inside there as well." She looks relieved. "He must be so hungry; he has been in there for a good number of hours. I saw the Marines make fun of him earlier." "Yeah, that's why we want to free him. Maybe we really should get him his food first though, he can get a little cranky when hungry." "NO ARE YOU CRAZY? He's a pirate hunter! Little girl, if you go in there, he'll eat you alive!" Koby screamed. Wow, he is terrified. "Relax, Zoro seems nice. If you don't do anything to him, he won't do anything to you. He'll be glad someone is caring for him." The girl seemed happy to help so she went over the wall. "Koby, are you okay? You seem deathly terrified of Zoro. Nothing to worry about. He has no reason to do anything to you." "Uhm no, not really." I have never seen anything less convincing than him saying that sentence. "It's just that he is a pirate hunter and I just so happen to be a pirate. Or not anymore? Not that I consider myself one at least..." he trails off. "See? No reason. Also, you don't have a bounty. He's a bounty hunter after all so you would be a waste of time to him. On top of that, I'm here to protect you" That seems to have helped.

Out of a sudden, I get a bad feeling. My head whips through the gate towards Zoro and the girl. Nothing out of the ordinary. Zoro clearly didn't learn to accept help in the past couple of years. He's always been very strongheaded.

OH NO, MARINES

"Rika!" I scream. She looks over to me, and I point to the doors opening on the other side. They shouldn't have been back yet. It could only be... yup- it's that blonde hobo again.
She sees them now too and tries to make it to the wall, but they catch her. And If I'm not mistaken, I could swear Zoro saw a flash of me and by his face, he knows exactly who I am.

The three of us watched the scene carefully my swords at hand so I could interfere if necessary. Luffy is watching just as carefully.
The blonde is disgusted by Rika's rice ball. What an asshole! Zoro's mad. Can't really do much about it though. I can hear that blondie making fun of both of them. Proudly telling them what his father has the power to do. Must be Axe-hand Morgan then. I've heard about him before. He rules around here. Terrible man. Like father, like son.

"Oh, hell no!" I whisper to myself. Once I see how the guards pack Rika by her fragile little arms, I've seen enough. They've barely got a grip on her and they're already on the ground. I slash down the two guards as Luffy punches Helmeppo with his fist stretched all the way from the wall. He bounces back so that he's now standing next to me. Zoro looks up in a bewildered state. I couldn't even take all the emotions out of that look. It definitely was a lot. I don't have the time for that now, though. I grab Rika and run back to the wall. Just then her mom came running in our direction. Her mom thanked us and hurried back home with Rika. Luffy has been talking to Zoro. I make my way back there, as I ask for Koby to join. He declines and tells me he'll wait.

"Zoro doesn't want to join," Luffy said pouting. "Like I said. I kill your kind for a living" "Well, that's too bad" I say. Standing behind Luffy. Zoro looks up, that questionable face of his again. I don't know why but I just can't keep eye contact with him. Thank God I don't have to address the elephant in the room, as Luffy continues his pestering obliviously. "I could use a great fighter like you in my crew!" Zoro ignores him. "Kairi, you're a pirate now? With that guy?" "Hey? What's that supposed to mean?" Luffy exclaimed. "You're a bounty hunter now?" I ask indifferently, while I make my way behind Zoro, to untie him. "We can untie you if you join us?" Luffy said. "We're going to untie him anyway. He won't make it tied up to a pole for five days." I started working on the ropes. "Even if you untie me, I won't be joining your little crew." "Zoro, listen to me. Join our crew. I'm sure you have a dream, right? If you'll join us, we all can fulfill our dreams altogether" He takes a moment to think. I'm almost done untying him.
"I've made a promise to someone a long time ago." I sigh deeply. I can't help it. "I will be the world's greatest swordsman" I can't look at him, even though I can feel his stare bore through the back of my head. That's why I occupy myself with opening the vent for Luffy and me as an entrance to the base. "Well. Good luck with that" Luffy smiles at him. I jump into the hole in the ground. I take one last look at Zoro while Luffy is climbing in. Zoro is now standing where he was tied mere seconds ago. "Hope to see you around. And not as enemies" and with that I dive into the Hole. Luffy pops back up and asks Zoro to close the vent.

Luffy stumbled out of the closet the vent had led to. I hid, expecting him to run into a hoard of marines. But it's just one. And the girl from the bar on top of that. Luffy looks a little taken aback until I join "You're the girl from the bar. You stole the marine's uniform earlier today." She grabs me and Luffy hastily to shut us up. "You guys are putting my plan at stake! Just shut up and follow my lead" she scolds us. "Ay Ay!" Luffy is way too relaxed about that. I think something's up. She's going to report us to someone. If we're lucky to axe-hand Morgan himself.

We follow the path towards the office, where we expect the map all of us are looking for to be. And guess who we ran into. Good Old axe-hand Morgan. Call me a fortune teller because it happened exactly how I thought it would. She's lucky he told her to move on with us without any further supervision. Otherwise, I would've cut her open. Bitchy move.

We make it to the office and start looking for the safe. And as I expect this thing to be sacred, I'm sure someone will be back within likely just seconds to check up on it. So, I better take precautions and shut the door tightly. The others look through papers and the desk. I make my way to good hiding spots. Certainly, it must be in a safe.
And here we go, it's a safe under the desk.

Of course, we can't just open it like that and I urge the others to leave at once and try to crack the safe later. In perfect timing, the Marines try to come in. The safe is incredibly heavy so we're all struggling to get it out. I almost lost my hopes once I saw axe-hand Morgan's axe-hand push through the door. We're all petrified for a hot second. I can't lose my optimism though. My sister wouldn't have accepted defeat if it's not over yet.
Luckily with all of our last surge of adrenaline, we manage to throw it out the window. Me and Nami, as we have established btw, hold on to Luffy so he can take us to the ground with him. Morgan looks furiously out of the window after us. He and the other marines run after us to the yard. We're already surrounded by more marines. Naturally, everyone starts fighting. Luffy turns out to be freakishly strong and makes use of his rubber body to fight, Nami has a long Stick she seems to handle with skill and I mainly use my Katanas. Just in case, I'd have a pair of daggers too though.

I see Zoro joining us. He didn't walk away after all. I'm relieved, I have to admit. Maybe he has changed his mind and wants to join us.

Morgan and his top marines arrived. We finish them off easily. Only axe-hand Morgan takes a little, but Luffy is so persistent, of course, he wins. I was about to bring ideas to the table on how we could move the safe away from here when Zoro just picked it up as if it were nothing. He walked away with it, Luffy following promptly to show him where his boat was. Nami took a sec but couldn't leave the safe out of sight. I stood perplexed. That was... hot? Jesus, he just picked that up like it's merely a bag of rice and the three of us had trouble throwing it out of a freaking window? I- "Kairi are you coming or not?" Luffy asked. I ran after them and saw a smug little smile on Zoro. Oh no mister, don't you get any ideas.