Narrator
Tap!
Tap!
Tap!
"Haaa! Haaa! STAY AWAY FROM ME, YOU PSYCHO!"
Screams tore through the silence of the night. Panicked footsteps echoed through the empty street, and the ragged breathing thickening the air made the scene feel smaller, more desperate.
Gok!
"HNGH!"
At the sound from behind him, the man spun instantly, wrapping himself in the densest layer of cursed energy he could produce. Nothing in front of him. Not a shadow, not a silhouette. Still, the guard didn't drop for even a second—because he knew. He was there. He was always there.
"RORONOA ZORO!!"
Slash!!
The head separated cleanly from the body. No arc, no spray—it simply slid free and dropped to the ground, quiet as a stone settling into water.
Thud!!
The cursed energy surrounding the corpse fizzled and died, and the calm of the night moved back in to reclaim its territory—
Only to be disturbed again.
Step.
Step.
Step.
A silhouette approached the still-standing body. Tall, broad-shouldered, unhurried. A black mask covered the lower half of his face; the upper half disappeared into the shadow of a hood. Three katanas rested at his hip, their sheaths catching the moonlight—beautiful work, clearly mastercraft, obvious even to an untrained eye.
"One less to worry about." A glance at the body—no, at the cut. "Getting pretty good at flying slashes."
The voice was cheerful. Proud, even. No question that this kill had brought a certain level of satisfaction with it.
After sitting in that satisfaction for a few moments, a hand slipped into the hoodie pocket and produced a flip phone. Dialed. The other end picked up before the call had barely started.
"Yeah, hey. Job's done. Tell your guys to come clean up. Same account as usual."
The man on the other end didn't manage a single word before the line went dead and the phone disappeared back into the pocket.
"He's totally gonna complain. But no way am I staying on the phone. Does he even know how expensive prepaid minutes are right now?"
The hood came back. Black hair, steel-gray eyes. The mask lowered, revealing a sharply defined jaw.
Anyone who knew the face behind the name Roronoa Zoro would have recognized him immediately.
Zen'in Zoro. (Image here)
"Man… the moon's really beautiful tonight."
A long stare upward, intense at first, then drifting inward—eyes losing focus as the mind went somewhere else entirely. Several seconds passed before they snapped back open.
"Craaaap! I forgot to tell him I was taking a break from the profession for a while!"
Phone back out. Dialing—
"Son of a—my minutes are out?!"
---
Zoro
The stay at Tsukumo Hyo's didn't last long. Summer break was ending, which meant her daughter would be back from her aunt's house soon.
Toji had recovered enough, thanks to his Heavenly Restriction, for the two of them to manage on their own.
The plan was to head somewhere with less Zen'in influence—but still dense enough with cursed spirits to make training worthwhile.
The destination was obvious: Osaka.
Port city, 500 kilometers southwest of Tokyo, roughly 50 from Kyoto. Population in 1975: close to 3 million in the city proper, nearly 10 million across the extended metro area. Small compared to Tokyo's 27 million—but still full of cursed spirits.
Driving would have taken over six hours. Going on foot was a genuine challenge, particularly for Toji.
And then Hyo surprised us one last time.
"Brat, get over here," her voice called from the garden.
"I'll be right back, Toji."
"Okay~"
The garden revealed something unexpected. A brand-new mountain bike, deep black with silver and gold streaks running along the frame. A large trailer attached to the back, and inside it, what appeared to be an inflatable tent.
In other words: the best possible setup for the journey ahead.
Tearing the eyes away from it and looking at her instead, all that came out was stunned silence.
"Alright, listen." Her tone was firm, her expression flat. "I don't like you, and I don't ever want to see you again—" Then something softened, just slightly, around the edges of her face. "—but you and your brother are still just kids. Letting you leave alone fills me with guilt. I don't have a choice."
A gesture toward the bike and trailer.
"That's the least I can do to ease my conscience. Get it through your thick skull—this isn't for you. It's for me."
No words came. Nothing adequate, anyway.
"Yes, ma'am."
And that was how it started.
On top of the bike and trailer, she had packed hiking backpacks—food, clothes, everything accounted for—and pressed 100,000 yen into the arrangement without comment.
Since there was only one bike, Toji stayed in the trailer for most of the journey. No complaints from him.
"Big brother, big brother! Look, a giant tower!"
"Big brother, look, a dog!"
"Big brother, look, a river!"
Everything he'd only ever seen through a TV screen was suddenly real and right in front of him.
Traveling across the country turned out to be something close to extraordinary. The landscapes rolling past made it almost possible to forget, for stretches at a time, that two fugitives were making their way through them.
Of course, things went wrong along the way.
To the point where questions started forming about whether Heavenly Restriction users were magnets for bad luck.
Getting stopped by police in every single town? Understandable—two five-year-olds alone with a bike and a trailer raises questions.
Getting soaked every time a good camping spot was found? Acceptable—early June in Japan is rainy season.
But seventeen bear attacks on the road?
Seventeen.
And that doesn't count the ones that were simply spotted in passing. Over thirty bears encountered across the full route.
Fortunately, none of it posed a real problem. One burst of Conqueror's Haki and the animals scattered, tails effectively between their legs.
Everything else aside, those five days were genuinely the best of this life so far.
Toji probably felt the same—hard to imagine he didn't.
And pedaling 500 kilometers did exactly what it was supposed to do for endurance and leg strength.
Osaka arrived with legs like jelly.
"Alright. New identities, income, housing, legal ID, a guardian on paper just in case things go sideways—"
Running through the full list, then stepping back and looking at it.
"Nothing too hard, right Toji?"
"Huh? Were you talking to me, big brother?"
Too absorbed in the city spreading out around him to catch a word of it.
"Nothing. Go back to what you were doing."
Obviously, none of it was going to be easy.