The air in Whiskey Peak tasted of dust, cheap whiskey, and greed. Roronoa Zoro stood in the shadowed alley, the weight of his three new blades a comforting promise against his back. A slow, feral grin spread across his face. A hundred bounty hunters. The perfect warm-up.
"Hey, green-hair!" a voice shouted from a rooftop. "Your head's worth 60 million berries!"
A gunshot cracked the twilight silence. Zoro didn't flinch; he simply stepped sideways into the open door of a ramshackle house, the bullet splintering the frame where his head had been.
Darkness. Then the creak of floorboards. He wasn't alone.
"Surround him!" a gruff voice ordered. Lantern light flared, revealing a dozen hardened faces in the cramped room, pistols and cutlasses aimed at his heart.
"Talk about bad hospitality," Zoro muttered.
"Fire!"
The world exploded in muzzle flashes. Zoro's body moved before his mind finished the thought. He kicked a heavy oak table onto its side, ducking behind it as lead slugs thwacked into the wood like furious hail.
"He's pinned!" someone yelled.
Pinned? Zoro's grin widened. I'm just getting started.
In one fluid motion, he drew Yubashiri. The blade sang, a note of pure silver in the chaos. He didn't cut at the hunters; he cut at the wall behind him. Planks and plaster exploded outward, and Zoro burst into the cool night air, leaving the shooters stumbling in his dust.
He scaled the building's exterior like a phantom, reaching the roof just as a hulking bounty hunter leveled a bazooka.
"Eat this, pirate scum!"
The roar of the rocket was deafening. Zoro dropped flat, feeling the heat of the projectile sear the air above him. It shot harmlessly into the night, exploding over the desert.
Before he could rise, a shadow loomed at the stairwell entrance.
"Gotcha!" Miss Monday bellowed, her muscles bulging. She hurled a massive barrel of liquor with the force of a cannonball.
Zoro rolled to his feet, Yubashiri flashing twice. The barrel split into four perfect quarters, not spilling a drop. With a flick of his wrist, he sent the four sections flying like projectiles, each one smashing into a hunter charging up behind Miss Monday with a satisfying crunch.
"He's toying with us!" Mr. 8 hissed from a nearby balcony, his face pale.
A rush of air from behind. Zoro sensed the attack—a mountain of a man swinging a stone hammer meant to pulp his skull. Zoro didn't turn. He simply drew the cursed blade at his side.
"This one," he said, his voice a low rumble, "cuts through stone."
Sandai Kitetsu met granite. There was no clash, only a clean, whispering shink. The hammer's head slid from its handle, hitting the roof with a dull thud. The bounty hunter stared, dumbfounded, at the perfectly sliced sphere.
"M-Monster…" he stammered, backing away.
A young boy, no older than ten, darted from the shadows, a kitchen knife held in a shaking hand. "For my family!" he screamed, tears streaking his dirty face.
Pity, cold and sharp, stabbed Zoro. With the flat of his blade, he flicked the knife away. "Go home, kid."
A nun in gray robes scurried forward, gathering the sobbing boy into her arms. "Oh, thank God! Please, protect this innocent child!" she wailed, her face buried in her hands. Then she looked up, her eyes cold and dead. "Protect him from you."
She yanked the large cross from her neck. A hidden trigger clicked. Poisonous green smoke billowed from its center, directly into Zoro's face.
He was already moving, holding his breath, spinning out of the cloud. The pommel of Wado Ichimonji flashed out, striking the nun and the boy she used as a shield with careful, concussive force. They collapsed, unconscious but alive.
Enough. The game was wearing thin.
He spotted a ladder leading to a higher gantry. As he climbed, a swarm of hunters followed, their weight making the structure groan. At the top, Zoro turned, braced his foot, and kicked.
The ladder tore free from its moorings. A chorus of screams trailed down as men and women tumbled into the dark alley below.
He leaped across a yawning gap to the next building, landing lightly. Hunters rushed onto the roof after him. Zoro stomped hard on a weakened section of the clay roof. Crack! It gave way, and half a dozen bounty hunters vanished through the hole with startled yelps, crashing into the room below.
A flicker of movement—instinct screamed. Zoro ducked.
A heavy ladder, wielded like a club, whistled over his head. Miss Monday, her eyes blazing with fury, had used the distraction to get behind him.
"You're fast," she grunted. "But not fast enough!"
Before he could fully straighten, her arm—thick as a ship's mast—snaked around his neck in a crushing chokehold. Her other fist, powered by superhuman strength, drove into his cheekbone.
WHUMP.
The impact rattled Zoro's teeth. Stars danced at the edge of his vision. He felt his feet leave the ground.
"Got you!" Miss Monday roared in triumph, squeezing tighter. "The bounty is—"
Her words died in her throat. Zoro's right hand, calloused and iron-strong, had come up and locked around the wrist at his neck. He didn't struggle. He simply held.
"A game of strength?" Zoro's voice was a strained growl, but it held a terrifying edge of amusement. "Let's play."
He began to push. Muscle against muscle. Sinew against sinew. Miss Monday's face, first triumphant, then confused, then strained, turned purple with effort. Her massive biceps trembled. Veins bulged on her forehead.
Zoro's arm didn't shake. It was immovable, a piston of pure will. Slowly, inexorably, he pried her choking arm away from his neck, millimeter by agonizing millimeter.
"Im… impossible…" she gasped.
With a final, contemptuous wrench, Zoro broke her hold, spun, and slammed her wrist down, forcing the giant woman to her knees. The rooftop tiles cracked beneath her.
He leaned down, his three swords glinting in the moonlight, his eye gleaming with the promise of a storm. "You lose."
From his balcony, Mr. 8 watched, his drink forgotten, shivering despite the desert heat. The reports were wrong. This wasn't just some swordsman. This calm, devastating power in the face of a hundred enemies…
"The Marines… they got the bounty poster wrong," he whispered to Mr. 9, who stood beside him, equally horrified. "This demon… he must be the real captain of the Straw Hat Pirates."
Below, Zoro released Miss Monday, letting her slump to the ground. He scanned the remaining hunters gathering in the square, their courage faltering. He raised Sandai Kitetsu, the cursed blade humming a hungry song.
And then, a new, cheerful voice cut through the tense silence, ringing from the entrance of the town.
"Zoro! There you are! Man, this town really knows how to throw a party!"
Every head, including Zoro's, swiveled.
Luffy stood there, straw hat tilted back, grinning without a care in the world. And behind him, the entire population of "friendly" Whiskey Peak—the bartenders, the dancers, the innkeepers—now held gleaming weapons, their warm smiles replaced with cold, predatory sneers. They had him completely surrounded.
Mr. 8's smile returned, wide and vicious. He raised a pistol, aiming not at Zoro, but at the oblivious, smiling captain in the square.
"Two captains for the price of one," he murmured, finger tightening on the trigger. "Open fire."
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