The air in Ipponmatsu's shop was thick with the scent of oil and old steel. Roronoa Zoro ran his thumb along the edge of a cheap katana, unimpressed, when a sharp gasp cut through the quiet.
"That sword."
A woman stood frozen in the doorway, her eyes locked on Wado Ichimonji at Zoro's hip. Her voice trembled with a mix of reverence and outrage. "That's one of the twenty-one O Wazamono grade swords. It's worth no less than a million Berries."
Ipponmatsu, the shop owner, choked on his own breath. "A million?!"
He whirled on the woman, face purpling. "You! Are you trying to ruin me? That's obstruction of business! I'll sue!" In a rage, he snatched a sheathed sword from the counter and hurled it at her. "Take your Shigure and get out!"
The woman caught it clumsily, stumbling back into a display rack. Katanas clattered to the floor in a discordant symphony of metal.
"Clean that up!" Ipponmatsu bellowed, before deflating. He turned to Zoro, wiping his brow. "She's… not wrong. Your sword is that valuable."
Zoro just grunted, uninterested in the drama. He moved back toward the rack of bargain blades. Money meant little; a sword was a sword if it cut true.
But the woman was staring at him now, her gaze intense. She took in the three swords at his side. "Three swords… that style. It reminds me of that pirate—Roronoa Zoro." She spat the name like a curse. "A man who uses his blades to make money in tournaments. A mercenary. The great swords of this world now rest in the hands of criminals. Can't you hear it? The blades are weeping."
Ipponmatsu scoffed, gathering the fallen swords. "Criminals pay in gold. They were my best customers before that monster Smoker took over this town." He shuddered. "A Devil Fruit user. Unnatural."
The woman's hand tightened on Shigure's hilt. "I will retrieve every high-grade sword being used for evil. I swear it."
Her eyes swept the shop again, then stopped. She darted to a dusty lower shelf and pulled out a blade in a worn scabbard. Sandai Kitetsu.
"This," she whispered, her voice hollow. "This is Kitetsu's third-generation work. Another O Wazamono. Worth over a million Berries." She glared at the price tag. "You're selling it for fifty thousand?"
Ipponmatsu paled. "That's… that can't be right."
"It's cursed," Zoro said, not looking up. He could feel it from across the room—a dark, hungry whisper from the sheathed blade.
"Yes!" Ipponmatsu seized on the explanation, though fear glittered in his eyes. "Its previous wielders… all died horribly. Tragic, bloody ends. It's not for sale. Not at any price."
"Sell it to him," his wife urged from the back room. "Get the cursed thing out of our shop!"
"No!"
Zoro finally turned. The cursed blade called to him, a siren song of danger and sharpness. "I'll take it."
"I said no!"
Without another word, Zoro walked over, plucked Sandai Kitetsu from the woman's hands, and drew it. The steel gleamed wickedly in the lamplight. A beautiful, murderous thing.
"If it's cursed," Zoro said, his voice low and steady, "let's test it against my luck."
Before anyone could move, he tossed the razor-sharp katana high into the air above his outstretched right arm. It spun, end over end, a silver wheel of death descending toward his flesh.
The woman cried out. Ipponmatsu's wife screamed.
The blade fell, whistling—and danced. It spun around Zoro's arm, a hair's breadth from his skin, a whirlwind of lethal sharpness that never once touched him. It completed three perfect rotations before he caught the hilt, smooth and clean.
Silence.
Ipponmatsu collapsed against the counter, his legs giving out.
Zoro slid Sandai Kitetsu into his empty scabbard. It settled with a satisfied click. "Pick me out another one," he told the woman, as if he hadn't just gambled his arm against a demon blade.
Trembling, Ipponmatsu stood. He moved to a locked chest behind the counter, worked a key, and drew out a sword so pristine it seemed to glow. "Take this. Yubashiri. One of the fifty Ryo Wazamono grade swords. The finest in my shop." He pushed it toward Zoro, his eyes wide with a strange mix of terror and awe. "Take it, and take Kitetsu. Just… go."
Zoro took Yubashiri, the weight perfect in his hand. Two new blades. One blessed, one cursed.
The woman stared at him, her earlier condemnation replaced by dawning, horrified recognition. "Three swords… the green hair… You're not like Roronoa Zoro."
She stepped back, Shigure rising into a guard position. Her voice dropped to a terrified whisper.
"You are him."
The shop's front window exploded inward in a shower of glass.
Smoker, his body dissolving into swirling white tendrils of smoke, filled the doorway, his two jitte glowing with seastone. His eyes, cold as granite, locked directly onto Zoro.
"Found you, pirate."
Behind him, the entire street was lined with Marine rifles, all aimed into the shop.
Zoro's hands drifted to his three sword hilts—old, cursed, and new. The woman was frozen, a hostage to the moment. Ipponmatsu ducked behind the counter.
Smoker took a step forward, the smoke pooling around his feet like a living thing.
"Let's see," the White Hunter growled, "if your luck holds against me."
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