Supreme Swordsman Zoro

Kuina looked around and sensed with her Observation Haki but she couldn't find anything wrong anywhere, she approached Zoro and squeezed his hand while saying:

"Zoro nothing's wrong, maybe you had a nightmare?"

Zoro shook his head indicating he was ok then said:

"I just feel something is wrong like something happened that it wasn't supposed to."

Kuina shook her head indicating she didn't know what Zoro was talking about, then she approached Zoro bit by bit, Zoro looked at her and indicated that they weren't in the right location, Kuina just nodded and said:

"You know on the next island let's split from the group." She had a peculiar smile on her face when she said that.

Zoro didn't know how to handle Kuina in their relationship but decided to do what she wanted as there was still quite a long way before the next island. Luffy was outside while Sanji got inside the kitchen and was admiring it.

Kaya came inside the kitchen to get a drink when Sanji became all lovey-dovey with her, Usopp immediately felt a disturbance in the force and came between Sanji and Kaya in the kitchen. Sanji started to sulk, why were all the beautiful ladies already taken?

Nami didn't seem interested in his advances at all when they got on the ship, she was seemingly more interested in the newspaper price increase than him. Sanji sighed with heartache as he didn't know what to do. Then his eyes started sparkling as he thought about it:

"I can cook for them, at least we would have a good relationship if I made them good food right?"

Sanji started to whip up some food in the kitchen while everyone else gathered on the deck as Zoro got up from the bed and got to the deck then asked for everyone to come. They were already sailing away from the Baratie as some of the chefs were waving goodbye to Sanji.

Zoro coughed a bit then opened his mouth to address his crewmates:

"Luffy, even though you had no chance of beating Mihawk back there you threw yourself at him with no regards of yourself, why?"

Luffy opened his mouth and told simply:

"If any of my crewmates are in danger I will save them, no matter what! We are like family now."

Zoro chuckled as he heard Luffy's words then he said:

"Good words Luffy, I respect you a bit more now, and I can say that I would even trust you."

Luffy wasn't smart enough to manipulate people with his words, he couldn't even lie, all his emotions were basically on his face, what he said was genuine and Zoro liked simple guys like Luffy, he could trust him with his back when he fought any stronger pirates out there, Luffy had quite the high potential and he decided it was time to train him in Haki, as for Usopp he hadn't even finished the body tempering training he gave him so no Haki for him for quite a long while, he still didn't trust the long-nosed person a lot either.

Kaya was also training slowly with Usopp as her body was getting healthier so Zoro didn't need to train her, even though Nami was the navigator she was very leisure in east-blue so she could join the training sessions as well.

While Usopp Kaya and Nami were training their physique Zoro dragged Luffy away and started to teach him Observation Haki, as it was the first Haki he should learn first:

"Ok, Luffy this mystery power as you called it when I tried to explain it to you It's called Haki, it can make you dodge before your brain can register it and see what your opponents plan, it can let you read their minds during fights."

Luffy's eyes started to transform into stars as he said:

"Read minds so cool!"

Zoro decided to ignore Luffy's happy outbursts and continued:

"To teach you Observation I will blindfold you and hit you over with this plank till you will dodge!"

Luffy nodded his head it didn't seem hard to him, he sat cross-legged on the deck and Zoro blindfolded him when suddenly he was cracked on the head with a plank coated in armament Haki.

Luffy clutched his head as a gigantic bump grew on it as he shouted:

"Zoro what the hell it hurts!"

Zoro laughed as he responded:

"I forgot to tell you the plank will be coated in the second type of Haki that ignores your natural defense? It will make you learn faster if you can feel the pain."

Nami shuddered as she looked over at their training she remembered her own and boy it wasn't a pretty experience for her.

Zoro laughed as he trained Luffy in Observation Haki, Sanji was still in the kitchen and after a while, he came out with trays of food and drinks on his hands when he saw the women training and sweating his tongue rolled out of his mouth like in cartoons.

But he composed himself as he shouted:

"Food is ready!"

Zoro narrowed his eyes as he saw Sanji and realized why he felt a disturbance, it was this guy Luffy recruited him...

Zoro decided to not insult him as long as he didn't start anything as the stronger party. Zoro approached the food with Luffy and Usopp and the girls, Sanji wanted to say that some foods were only for the girls but Zoro's glare shut him down, he realized that he needed to join the training sessions if he would want to say anything to the moss-colored haired swordsman in the future.

Sanji wanted to protest as his food was eaten by Luffy Usopp and Zoro instead of the three beauties but he couldn't or Zoro would chop him up and fed him to the sea kings. Zoro already didn't like him and any wrong move from him would send him in a world of pain so he decided to shut up and eat some food himself.

After all the food was gone Zoro decided to go back to training while all of the others continued theirs. Sanji joined the girls and Usopp in training and he realized that Zoro's training regiment was quite stringent and it was pretty helpful for the whole body, even though his main and only attacking stance was using his legs having an unbalanced body strength wasn't good so he always trained his whole body when he trained himself at Baratie.

Luffy couldn't dodge anything in the first day and the next day, it was normal no matter how talented Luffy was, Haki was high-level stuff that not everyone could learn, it would take quite a long while before he learned and mastered the basics of Observation Haki.

Finally, they reached an island where they could resupply and Kuina dragged Zoro somewhere where they had some "fun" Zoro blushed heavily as Kuina followed him from behind as she smiled at him then she said:

"Quite the interesting experience isn't it?"

Zoro nodded his head, he hadn't felt something like this before, the sensation was almost as good as when he trained and he could feel himself get stronger!

However nothing could top training for Zoro, but this could be a stress-relieving activity that he would pursue in the future with Kuina, Kuina told him this was something girlfriends and boyfriends did and since they were now in a relationship he wasn't going to say no to this kind of stuff.

Nami eyed both of them as Sanji was carrying a very big bag on his back full with supplies, she narrowed her eyes as she saw Zoro and looked over at Kuina and asked:

"So?"

Kuina just gave Nami a thumbs up. Nami chuckled and continued towards Going Merry with Sanji coming after her like a lovesick puppy.

Luffy was god knows where with Usopp after a few hours they came back with singed hair and sorry-looking figures, when Zoro asked what they were doing out there they said that they found some guy who made gunpowder and that Usopp accidentally lit it up when he tried to inspect it as he wanted to make his own for his pachinko ammo.

It resulted in both of them looking like they came out of an explosion, which they did.

Zoro decided to let them do whatever they wanted as he walked back to the ship, he needed to continue his training.

As everyone went back to the ship Zoro went to the crow nest and sat cross-legged in it as he visualized the fight with Mihawk from before and thought to himself as he remembered the times when he injured him:

"Wait for a little... no that's wrong why would he?"

It seemed Zoro realized something, his injuries on Mihawk were not because he took him off guard, they were because he let him injure him!

But why would Mihawk let him cut him? Was it to make him feel better? Mihawk didn't seem like that type of merciful guy who would spare the pride of a swordsman, why did he let him slash him?

Zoro started to think long and hard about it and he only had one theory about why Mihawk let him slash him, he was just trying to get a feel for his attacks and ultimate technique so he could counter them in the future!

Letting an attack land on your body would make your body reflexively counter it next time, did that mean Mihawk thought that he would be strong enough to challenge him next time they met?

Maybe he was overthinking things, right now he wouldn't be even at ten percent of Mihawk's true strength.

Out of one hundred simulations that he fought against Mihawk again, he lost all of them! He couldn't win any, Mihawk would always be stronger and faster he would always have better swordsmanship. It was most likely because Zoro didn't know the limits of Mihawk's strength so he always belittled himself in front of him.

But his simulations would hold, even if he improved Mihawk would just increase his strength percentage and dominate him again, it would take him a long while before he would become Mihawk's equal, let's not even talk when he would become stronger than him.

Mihawk himself didn't say it but he encountered a bottleneck in his swordsmanship, that's why he would fight admirals and the Yonkou from time to time to try and breakthrough but he realized that he needed a fellow swordsman to truly get through his swordsmanship bottleneck.

The strongest half a swordsman he knew was Red-Haired Shanks so he stopped sparring with the admirals and the other Yonkou and decided to focus on Shanks which he was relatively equal with, unfortunately, Shanks was only half a swordsman and he could be counted more as a Haki specialist thus Mihawk still couldn't break through his bottleneck.

However, after he saw Zoro and his potential he saw a future opponent that could help him finally reach the peak realm of swordsmanship something he sought the moment he took a sword in his hand.

It was his lifelong dream of achieving the peak, unfortunately, he couldn't do it alone as he needed someone similarly strong to him while also being a swordsman to achieve the peak of swordsmanship.

He couldn't find any other swordsmen as strong as him or with the potential to reach or even go beyond his strength in the world, that's why he let Zoro live even though he could have easily killed him.

Zoro didn't know these things but Mihawk was already thinking about the fight that would happen in the future. He was on his coffin boat smiling as he thought:

"Our fight will shock the world, Roronoa Zoro."

Zoro shuddered out of nowhere and he said while scratching his head:

"Did we enter a windy area?"

He looked from the crow's nest but there was no wind, he muttered to himself:

"So weird..."

Zoro got back to his simulation training that he would continue for a few hours before going down to train Luffy in Observation while he also trained his physical prowess by lifting weights while hitting Luffy on the head with the plank.

Sometimes his concentration would slip and he would hit Luffy with the weights, fortunately, Luffy was sturdy enough to take a non-Haki enhanced hit from several tens of tones weight.

Even though he became unconscious afterward he was still alive and well so he was ok so Zoro took this mistake of his as extra Observation Haki training for Luffy. It wasn't his fault Kuina was looking at him with those eyes of hers that indicated that something was going to happen on the next island.

They were only a few islands away from Logue Town and Luffy wanted to visit the execution stand so they decided to go and Resupply there for the last time before they got to the grand line, they also had to buy some necessary stuff for grand line navigation.

After a few more islands where Zoro had some "adventures" and the others had their kind of adventures those that didn't encounter any kind of skin on skin touching, they finally reached the town of the beginning and the end Logue Town!