OPSR Chapter 05 (Patreon)

There she was, still alive in this timeline. She… Appeared younger than fem Zoro, though. Their ages must have been reversed, along with Zoro’s gender being swapped. It left me thinking whether Kuina would die in this timeline… Or Zoro. I walked up to her and asked. “Want to spar?” She barely lost any focus from her training, swinging a single sword over and over again as she spoke in a monotone voice. “Can’t. I’m busy training.”

I smirked as I thought of a way to tease her. “It’s fine that you’re scared. Does anybody have the guts to challenge me?” That pissed her off. “Oh, it’s on curly brow. I’m gonna beat you down, then get back to training!” “We’ll see about that moss hair.” I had to borrow two swords; I didn’t have any, but the only reason Sanji didn’t use chef's knives in the original story is so he and Zoro were both more unique.

I would have personally preferred the cowboy Sanji from the prototype drawings. I wonder how much that would have changed the story, having cowboys in the pirate world as well. While the female Zoro was training with a single sword, she also grabbed another, meaning she was already a two-sword style user, not three yet. 

It wasn’t until Zoro’s two thousandth loss did he started training to use three swords. I almost smile as I pick up a third sword and put it in my mouth. “What are you doing? Take this seriously, you’re going to get slobber all over one of our training swords doing that!” I go to speak and have an extremely difficult time doing so. “Oh. We’w see how thupid thith ith when I defeat you.”

She sighed again before taking her stance. “Fine, if we’re going to make this an official duel, I am Roronora Zora, user of the two sword style. State your name.” “Sanji I’d wathew not thay my last name, wuser of unorthodox style.” Even just speaking a few sentences, I could already feel it becoming easier as my mouth grew accustomed to speaking without my jaw moving.

After stating our names, she charged at me without much fanfare. We clashed, our swords catching on one another as I started to push her back slightly. I was so focused on our fight, I didn’t notice everyone, including the master swordsman’s eye go wide at the sight of their star pupil being pushed back. Zoro(now Zora) was incredibly strong, even as a female, beating out all of the adult swordsman besides her sensei.

I thought this would be easy because I was stronger, but I was proven wrong when she broke off her clash and started swinging. Her blows stung my palms, but it wasn’t until she hit the sword in my mouth that I realized how terrible a mistake holding it was. The jaw could be strengthened, and I hadn’t done any of that. The sudden jolt sent pain radiating through my teeth to the point I flinched back.

She capitalized on that, targeting the mouth sword over and over again, hammering away until I unclenched my jaw and let it fall to the ground. The fight began fully, the silly act of wanting to use her style before she developed it herself, and her exploiting me, killing any chance of me holding back. That was where the second problem came into play; she was far more experienced than me in terms of swordsmanship.

I may have been stronger, but that didn’t matter if I couldn’t hit her. She completely avoided one of my wild swings before striking my wrist. The only reason I still held my weapon was that she modulated her strength, not wanting to break my wrist for our first fight in case I couldn’t handle it. It stung, but my exoskeleton did amazing at making it so the pain wouldn’t hinder my sword. She could swing full force, and I wouldn’t drop my weapon unless she could somehow chop my hand off.

That would require hitting me outside my bones at a ligament like my elbow, though, and she’d need a much sharper weapon than a bamboo sword to do so. The difference in experience started to diminish as she grew more and more fatigued from our fight, while I slowly learned from her. I was stronger, more durable, and grew rapidly. It wasn’t enough to close the gap immediately, but it was much closer now since she didn’t take me seriously at the start.

The changes to my body were still taking place; the adaptive exoskeleton needed time to grow and adapt to situations. I was stronger because of it, but I wouldn’t see the full benefits from it until I spent years training with it, now that it was finally activated. We were both left worn down and breathing heavily before the sensei called an end to the match. “Please stop you two. It was just a friendly duel, no reason to create grudges over this.”

We were separated. I wasn’t really sure what I was going to say. I came out of morbid curiosity on whether a character I knew from an anime was alive or dead yet. I just freeballed it. “Can you tell whether someone is lying?” I might have loved One Piece, but I didn’t remember absolutely everything about the universe. Kuina’s father was someone whose name I just couldn’t remember.

There was a theory that he killed her because he was jealous of her talent, and viewed women wanting to be swordsmen as a stain against his honor, but I doubted it. The other theory was that he was a revolutionary. That made more sense to me… And could have been the reason his daughter was slain. Perhaps an enemy of the revolutionaries found out about him and killed his daughter for that reason.

“I’m a good judge of character. Go ahead and say what you want to say.” I sighed because this was the make-or-break part of knowing what could possibly happen. “I can see the future… Sort of.” All their heads tilted as I continued. “I saw a future where everything is slightly different, but the main takeaway is, the things I have seen might come true. And in my visions of the future, Kuina dies.”

They all looked shocked, and for the first time since I began, no, the first time in the history of the character. I saw Kuina’s father get upset as he reached for his sword. Waving my hands, I continued. “Listen, it’s not a fact or done deal or anything, just… I’d rather her not die is all, I traveled all the way here just to warn you that she has an accident and falls down stairs.”

His eyes went wide in shock again. Whatever I said meant something to him. He had a calm resolve as he spoke. “Thank you for warning me. I’ll take care of it and make sure the stairs receive a railing like I should have done from the start.” I was happy that I stopped her death, but curious what the real cause was. It wasn’t my place to know, though, as I looked over at Zora.

“You want to know something funny? In those alternate memories, you’re a boy.” I laughed at the look of horror that dawned on her face as she began attacking me. “Damn eyebrow!” Unlike Sanji, my hands were equal opportunity as I fought back. “Mosshead! I’ll get you back for that sucker punch!” She wasn’t as good a fighter as she was a swordsman, so I held the advantage. Before it could go any further, the swordmaster tossed us out with Kuina, and I wasn’t sure if I should stay here and train for a few days or head back right away.