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Kitetsu speaks to him the most often. Bitchily, howling and spitting it's fury at him as if he were the source of the cursed katana's pain and anger. Enma, in the brief time since he received it and learned to control it to a small extent, has been nothing but grouchy. It often speaks, but the grumbly old man that seems to reside within rarely has anything nice to say about being subdued.
But Wadou, she never says a word.
He'd heard her speak a long time ago. Or rather, he'd heard Wadou laugh. A bright happy laugh, just like Kuina's had been. Since her death, since the blade had transferred to his hands, she'd been nothing but silent and hardworking. The only thing she would offer was gentle obedience.
Today he pushed that obedience further than it ever should have gone. Today Wadou finally spoke to him again, in a wordless howl as crimson rained down from her blade. Even now as Zoro cleans the stains of his promise from gleaming metal, Wadou Ichimonji's tears and heartbreak are audible. As audible as the fury he'd faced head on from Luffy.
Everything his former captain said was true, but he can't think about it right now. When all of them should be celebrating, there's nothing but a dark hole that man's form should fill. Zoro had gouged his own heart out to fulfill that selfish ass promise, but both of them were facing the consequences of it.
One with death and he himself with grief and loss.
So many losses. Holding the now clean but forever bloodied blade before his face to check it for the hundredth time, a face flashes in the metal. A young one, strands of dark hair framing round cheeks that had never gotten to mature the way they should have. Big, fat tears roll down them.
And that's the moment he realizes that some of them are his own, dripping off his jaw and into the puddle of blood beneath his feet. Because he couldn't leave him, could he? The others had left him once they'd realized that not only would Zoro not budge, but there was no way to take their friend's body with them either. Not while three blades were ready to protect him.
Even in his death.
Wadou howls her grief at being stained with Sanji's blood, but for the first time since he wrapped his hand around her grip, Zoro drowns her out with his own.