The stranger didn't flinch at Zoro's hostility. Instead, he pulled a small bottle of eye drops from his trench coat, tilted his head back, and squeezed a drop into each bloodshot eye.
"Just a teacher who hates seeing kids throw themselves into meat grinders," the man said, blinking lazily as he put the bottle away. "You have good eyes. You watched the hero's center of gravity, not the flashy water quirk. But good eyes won't save you."
Zoro's hand remained near his hip. "I didn't ask for a lecture."
"You're aiming for U.A. High without a Quirk," the man stated. It wasn't a question. "The entrance exam is in ten months. It's practical combat. Do you know what they use for targets?"
Zoro stayed silent.
"Robots," the man continued, his voice devoid of pity. "Multi-ton machines covered in thick armor plating. No blood. No pain receptors. No vital organs for you to aim at. The system is rigged for flashy, destructive Quirks. A kid with a wooden stick and some muscle won't even dent a one-pointer. You'll just break your arms trying."
He took a step back, melting into the shadows of the alley. "Save yourself the broken bones, Roronoa."
Zoro felt a sudden, sharp weight settle in his chest. But as the man's footsteps faded into the ambient noise of the city, the weight didn't turn into despair. It turned into heat.
A slow, sharp grin spread across Zoro's face.
Steel. He had never tried cutting a robot before. It sounded infinitely more interesting than slicing through the air in an empty dojo.
Zoro turned and continued his walk home, only pausing briefly when a thought crossed his mind. How did that guy know my name? He shook it off. It didn't matter. Only the steel mattered.
By the time Zoro pushed open the heavy wooden gates of the dojo, the evening air had turned bitterly cold. The rusted hinges groaned, a familiar sound that usually signaled the end of his day.
Master Kenji was in the courtyard, sweeping fallen leaves with a slow, rhythmic motion. He didn't look up, but he stopped sweeping when Zoro unstrapped the ten-kilogram iron weights from his ankles. They hit the wooden porch with a dull, heavy thud.
"You're late," Kenji noted, leaning on his broom.
"Met a guy who talks too much," Zoro grunted, rolling his stiff shoulders. He looked down at his calloused hands. "Old man... how do you cut steel?"
Kenji's eyes narrowed slightly. He didn't ask why Zoro was asking. He walked over to the porch and sat down with a quiet groan, his bad leg stretched out.
"There are swordsmen in this world who can cut nothing, yet they can cut steel," Kenji said, his voice dropping to a quiet murmur. "If you see the metal as just a hard object to be broken, your blade will shatter. Everything in this world has a rhythm. A 'breath'. The breath of the stone, the breath of the earth, the breath of the steel."
Kenji looked at the wooden sword at Zoro's waist. "To cut steel, you do not force the blade through. You listen for its breath, and you slip the blade where it naturally parts. When you hear it, there is nothing you cannot cut."
Zoro stared at his hands for a long moment. The breath of steel.
"I'm going to the training hall," Zoro said, standing up.
"You haven't eaten," Kenji reminded him.
Zoro didn't answer. He walked into the vast, unlit hall and closed the doors behind him.
He spent the next five hours in complete darkness. He didn't need light. He needed to listen. He swung his bokken, focusing not on the force of his muscles, but on the air moving around the wood, trying to grasp the abstract concept Kenji had described.
Nine hundred... nine hundred and one...
His shoulders screamed in agony, and fresh blisters had formed over the old calluses on his palms, but he didn't stop. He was searching for that rhythm.
CRASH.
Zoro's swing stopped mid-air. The violent sound of splintering wood echoed from the front courtyard, followed by loud, abrasive laughter.
"Oi! Old man!" a harsh voice yelled from outside. "We know you're in there! Time to pay the 'protection' fee for this dump!"
In the pitch-black training hall, Zoro slowly lowered his wooden sword. The sharp grin from the alleyway returned to his face, cold and dangerous.
He didn't walk towards the door. Instead, he walked to the back wall of the dojo, where a locked glass cabinet stood. Inside rested three real, unsheathed katanas.
"I was just looking for something to practice on," Zoro whispered to the darkness.
Outside, a window shattered. Zoro gripped the hilt of the first blade.