Chapter Text
“How do you spell your name?”
There was a familiar indifference in Kuina’s voice as she stood above her fallen opponent. According to what she had heard from the other students, it seemed that this boy had made a proposition to her father that he would join the dojo if he lost to the strongest fighter here. Kuina was delighted when her father had chosen her– it was far too often where he would deny she was even a student sometimes, so she used this opportunity to prove how strong she actually was to her father.
To both her disappointment and this boy’s, the round was over quicker than any of them imagined. Kuina didn’t get a chance to prove her full potential, and neither did this small green-headed boy.
There was resentment in Kuina at the underwhelming result of the fight, but she bit her tongue and followed her father’s calm orders that had followed the match. He handed her the official forms to sign up for the dojo and instructed her to help the boy officially go through all of the paperwork before beginning classes. When Kuina asked why her father had agreed to this silly idea in the first place, he had told her the boy held a lot of wasted potential that could be honed into a being of control and power, and that if the boy gained proper training, he could get at least one step closer to that potential.
Kuina still didn’t fully understand it, but she obeyed her father and grabbed the paperwork.
Currently, the boy was lying on the floor of the dojo, staring at the ceiling in shock. From what he had spouted aloud earlier, he had apparently been on a winning streak taking down other dojos before finally being overcome here. Kuina approached him cautiously– even though the boy couldn’t possibly do much to her now, he did initially arrive with a less-than-friendly motive.
When she got a better look at him, she could see how small and immature he truly was, and just like her father, she could sense that there was indeed a greatness waiting to come out of him.
The boy, who was previously staring at the ceiling and was now blazing a hole into Kuina, raised an eyebrow as he still lay on the floor.
“What do you want?” he asked, voice rough and high-pitched from shouting all of his confidence earlier that day.
Kuina sighed, lifting up the clipboard of paperwork in her hands and tapping the papers with her pen adamantly.
“How do you spell your name?” She asked again, irritation seeping into her voice, “I’m filling out your forms so you can properly join the dojo. You have to keep up with your side of the deal, remember? If I win, you have to stay– your words, not mine.”
The young boy rolled his eyes, “My name is Roronoa Zoro.”
Kuina didn’t move.
“What?” The boy sat up quickly, “You don’t believe me?”
“That’s a pretty long name,” Kuina shrugged, “At least answer question number one and tell me how to spell it. I feel like you're the type to get mad at people for not knowing how to spell your name correctly.”
The boy–Zoro– scratched the back of his head and frowned at the floor.
“I don’t know how to spell my name,” he muttered, “Or how to read. Or how to write.”
Kuina sighed, “Then this paperwork stuff is going to take a looooong time. I’ll just write it out based on how it sounds, okay?”
“Spell it aloud, then,” Zoro’s little face turned skeptical, “I don’t want you writing something stupid instead of my name.”
“Fine,” Kuina plopped herself next to the boy’s body, joining him on the floor to show him the paperwork that remained attached to the clipboard, “R-O-R-O-N-O-A, For ‘Roronoa’. Z-O-R-R-O, For ‘Zorro’. How’s that look?”
The green-haired boy frowned, “Too many R’s. Take at least one away.”
It took everything in Kuina not to throw the clipboard on the ground because she really should be training right now, not teaching an illiterate child how to read and then indulging in his weird quirks.
Nevertheless, she re-spelt his name, “Alright then, how about just Z-O-R-O for ‘Zoro’. Does that sound better to you?”
Zoro grabbed the clipboard from Kuina and stared at the letters, a bright smile beginning to form on his face.
“So this is how my name is spelt?” a hint of curiosity shone through his words, “I’ve never seen it before!”
He ogled at the paper for a few minutes with a dumbly innocent grin practically glowing off of his face. Kuina couldn’t help but wonder what someone’s name looked like when you couldn’t even read it. His grinning came to an abrupt stop suddenly. A thought seemed to come to his mind as the boy then frowned, a look of pure determination ruling his features, and his head snapped up from the paper as he met Kuina’s gaze.
“Can you,” he pointed at her with his grubby little fingers, “...teach me how to read?”
“I’m not really a scholar,” Kuina replied, crossing her arms, “I’m a swordsman through and through. I need to be training the art of the blade, not teaching a child how to read.”
Zoro looked back at the paper and marveled at the writing again, before he stood up and handed the clipboard to Kuina.
“At least teach me the alphabet?” the boy’s voice sounded softer than earlier, almost pleading, “Then we can finish the rest of the paper stuff. I just want to learn the alphabet so no one calls me dumb.”
Kuina sighed, giving in, because this kid seemed like the type of person to bother her until he gets what he wants anyways.
“Okay,” she took a paper from the stack on the clipboard and turned it so that the blank back was facing the two instead, “I’m going to write this down and you better take a good look at it.”
The two spent what felt like hours pointing at the letters and saying them aloud. Kuina noticed something strange was happening though, because Zoro seemed to be visually or mentally challenged as the time dragged on. He would mix up certain letters and phonics, as if he had trouble memorizing them or seeing them correctly.
“I think,” Kuina placed her hands on her hips, “I think your eyes are broken.”
Zoro gave her a quizzical look, “What do you mean by that?”
The young girl shrugged, picking up the papers and began filling them out for the boy, “I don’t know what’s wrong with your eyes, but I don’t think I can teach you how to read. I’m just not qualified in that area.”
She spared him a quick glance, and she could see the boy thinking intensely about something else already.
“Well then,” he stood up abruptly, facing Kuina, “Don’t tell the dojo teacher guy that I can’t read.”
“...My dad?”
“Yeah,” the boy went quiet, tracing an image on the back of his hand as he mumbled, “If he’s going to be training me or something like that, I don’t want him treating me any less of a student as the rest of you all. Just because I can’t read doesn’t mean I can’t learn the ways of the sword.”
And Kuina was almost shocked at the thinking process. Did he understand what it felt like, too? To be treated lesser than other swordsmen simply because there was a disadvantage dangling in the air?
She tilted her head in confusion because, no, he wouldn’t understand something like that.
“If he finds out,” the young girl sighed, flipping the papers as she filled them out, “then it won’t be from me. Your secret’s safe, I guess.”
The boy smiled so bright for a second Kuina couldn’t believe this was the same annoying brat who had challenged and lost to her only hours earlier. There was a part of her that felt excited about it then– that this child who acted like his whole life was on some mission had entrusted her with some super important secret.
And Kuina kept that secret to her grave.