Chapter Text
Growing up, Zoro remembered hearing talk occasionally of pirates; Koshiro disapproved of it in the dojo, as he felt it generally rather improper and very much a distraction for the young swords-masters he was training, but in this world of small islands and narrow bands of land scattered among a broad and deep sea, with the Great Pirate Age well underway, it was hard to escape it. Whether it was admiring gossip from ambitious boys to whom the thought of a wild life on the sea appealed, or whether it was quieter, more disapproving talk, names of pirates who'd been caught, turned in for their bounties, and promptly imprisoned or executed -- one way or another, those names came out. And so many of them were outlandish! At first, Zoro had wondered (as kids did) if there was something about having an extra-weird name that made people go out and become pirates, but he wasn't about to ask Koshiro, who clearly thought him rather too wild to begin with. He doubted his sensei would tell him much of anything, for fear it would only encourage him.
Kuina, naturally, was a better source of information.
"They give themselves those names because of their soulmates," she told him, nodding firmly with all the authority of a child who knows an answer she has no business knowing. "Your soulmate has part of your name somewhere on their body. If the Navy wanted to catch a pirate named Yamada, they could try to catch the pirate himself, or they could catch a person with Yamada written on their body somewhere, and then demand Yamada give himself up. After all, having your soulmate die kills the other half of your heart. He'd have to give himself up, or try to free his soulmate from the trap. But if he calls himself The Beast of the East or something, then the person with Yamada written on them is safe."
"I don't have anyone's name written on me," he said with a frown, and she scowled, clearly not appreciating his response -- thinking of himself instead of the more interesting notion of a pirate having someone they wanted so dearly to protect!
"Duh, of course you don't, you're like seven."
"I'm nine, shut up!"
"Whatever! You don't get a name till you're older. Like fourteen. Then it'll just appear one day, and you'll have to try and find that person." She said it as though she had some personal knowledge of the entire matter; Zoro suspected she'd only heard rumors, but this was more than he'd heard, so he might as well listen, even if she was being a know-it-all.
"Why?"
The look she gave him was flatly incredulous. "Why? Because they're your soulmate. The other half of you. Most people want to find their soulmates, because being around them makes you happier."
He chewed that over, looking dissatisfied. "That's stupid. Why should some random person make me happier? What if I don't like them?"
"Ugh. Only you would ask that. You don't like anybody." She rolled her eyes at him.
"My soul's only in me," he said stubbornly. "I bet I never get a name on me anywhere. Maybe I'm my own soulmate. Then I don't need anyone else and I can just focus on becoming the greatest swordsman in the world."
They changed the subject soon after that, going back to the more familiar grounds of swords and swordsmanship. Zoro was content to let the topic of soulmates (what a weird concept) stay there, because he really, really didn't care. There wasn't a name on him, he was pretty sure there wasn't ever going to be a name on him, and his soul was his very own, thank you!
After Kuina died, he wondered for years if she was his soulmate. The anguish he'd felt when she died never seemed to properly fade as he'd heard it should; it was a burning little knot of pain deep in his belly that stabbed at him, reminding him of her absence, circling him back to self-blame (he'd demanded their fight, demanded steel -- if he hadn't, she wouldn't have needed the sharpening stone, wouldn't have fallen while going to get it, all his fault, his fault) and nagging at him whenever he had a still moment. Wasn't that what she'd said, back on that day, for her fictional Yamada the pirate? Having your soulmate die kills the other half of your heart.
But a month before his fourteenth birthday, he woke up to an odd, sensitive-but-not-sore feeling low on his stomach, only to find a set of small, elegant characters sweeping their way a few fingerwidths below his navel. He stared at the letters, frowning and squinting until he had the beginnings of a headache, and then growled to himself and pushed them out of his mind.
The name wasn't Kuina's, and he couldn't have said whether he was disappointed or not. It wasn't a name that meant anything to him, and he wasn't going to be a pirate (or, he told himself, be a pirate's soulmate), so he put it out of his mind. He had other things to worry about, other concerns that were actually relevant to his plans for life. He had his goal, and nothing less than singlemindedness would do for it.
Whoever this Vinsmoke was, they would just have to wait until he was the greatest swordsman in the world, he told himself. Only after he'd achieved that goal would he be willing to look for anyone -- anything -- else.