EPILOGUE

.

Diary of Dracule Mihawk, #1195:

Akagami turned up on Notson Ear. The man can be tiresome.

Returned to the castle today to find that Ghost Girl has returned from escorting Roronoa to Sabaody. She appears normal but there were an unusually high number of her pet ghosts floating around the castle grounds. Perhaps that is her way of moping.

… … …

Mihawk halted on the threshold of The Drunken Squirrel and stared at the man lounging in a chair with his legs up on the table.

"There you are!" exclaimed Shanks. "I've been waiting for you!"

"Why are you here?"

"Can't I come see an old friend?"

"Since when are we 'old friends'?"

Shanks shook his head and adopted an agonised expression. "Oh, Mihawk. You break my heart!"

Behind Shanks, Ben Beckmann chuckled. Mihawk ignored the laugh and took a seat at another table.

Shanks immediately dragged his chair over to join him. "Drinks on me, Hawkeye. What'll you have?"

When they had ordered, Shanks said, "So, how is your son? And your daughter-in-law? Or was it the other way around – your daughter and son-in-law? I can't remember."

Mihawk threw him a freezing look. "I have no children. I had tenants."

"Yeah, tenants that stayed for free."

"All right. I had one student and one housekeeper."

Shanks looked amused. "That's a little closer to the truth than 'tenants', I think. How are they doing?"

"They've gone to Sabaody."

"Ah." Shanks nodded sagely. "About time for young Roronoa to rejoin his crew, isn't it?"

Mihawk repeated his earlier question: "Why are you here, Akagami?"

"Well…"

… … …

Perona stood at the bow of the boat and watched the ocean waves glitter in the morning sun. They were now only a day's journey from Sabaody, and soon Zoro would be reunited with his crewmates – and separated from her. It made her feel a little melancholy. A hollow hovered at her shoulder, making soft and sorrowful "horo" sounds.

Was it wise to have become attached to Roronoa Zoro? A man who had sworn to become the greatest swordsman, and to make his captain the Pirate King? Both things were paths that could end in swift and sudden death. Moreover, it would separate them for what was likely to be years. Who could tell what would happen in that time? Perhaps he would tire of her, or be distracted by other women. After all, there were plenty of Tashigis and Nico Robins out there.

She looked down at the book in her hand. The Ghouls of the Grand Line was looking rather more worn than it had when she'd first been thrown onto Kuraigana. It had been well-used. She flipped through the pages. Quite a few bore her pencil scribbles – notes on the reading of the kanji or things that she'd doodled for fun (such as tiny ghosts or little arrows on the page with the picture of Mihawk's castle, indicating the location of various rooms).

A seagull squawked overhead.

She continued gazing at the water. It was rather therapeutic.

A few minutes later, she heard Zoro come out of the cabin and approach her. He stood at the railing beside her and stared out at the sea.

"What're you looking at?" he asked. "Shouldn't we be setting off soon?"

"Yeah, we should," she said, ignoring his first question. They sailed by day and dropped anchor at night. There were only two of them and even if they slept in shifts, it was a bit too tricky to have just one person manning the boat at night.

There was no sound for a while except for the sound of waves and the muted hoots from the white apparition by her.

Zoro said, "You're too quiet."

"Just thinking."

A little breeze blew past, tossing some of her hair across her face and tossing her hollow into little somersaults off the bow. She brushed her hair back as her hollow floated back to her side, still horo-ing sadly.

Zoro turned and leaned his back against the railing. "You think too much sometimes."

"One of us has to," she retorted. "You don't think at all so if I think too much it balances out."

She offered The Ghouls of the Grand Line to him.

"What? Am I supposed to read it?"

"Do whatever you want with it. I'm giving it to you." As if to emphasise her point, the hollow gestured with both its hands towards Zoro.

"Why?"

She shrugged. "It's a present. A reminder, maybe." A reminder that I exist.

He frowned and looked at her intently, as if he sensed the reasons behind it. She said nothing, but still held the book out. Zoro took the book and tucked it into the folds of his red sash. "Fine. But you know I don't need it."

"So you say," she responded in a half-teasing tone. She dismissed the hollow with a thought.

"That's right."

Perona leaned against him now while Zoro braced himself against the railing with one arm. He draped his other arm over her shoulders. She ran a hand over his chest, marvelling (not for the first time) at how solid he was.

"Besides," said Zoro with a smirk, "I'm not about to forget that I gave you your first kiss. It's not often that I get to do that."

She scowled and poked him with a finger before pushing away from him. "Go ahead, be smug and spoil the mood. I swear, sometimes it's like you want to be negative-d. Don't forget that you got lost when trying to save me."

… … …

Zoro made a face at the recollection of that incident. He realised she was walking away and he caught her arm before she moved out of reach. "You can be the last one I kiss. How's that?"

Perona regarded him with surprise for a moment, and then narrowed her eyes. "I can't tell if that's a joke or your version of suggesting a commitment."

"It's not a joke." He was surprised at how certain he felt.

She remained standing at the same spot, looking hard at him.

Was it a commitment?

He hadn't planned to say anything like that, and he certainly hadn't given it much thought before, but it had just… Come out… But now that he'd said it out loud, it didn't seem so bad. It was even somewhat appealing.

Perona joined him at the railing again, but faced the sea. They stayed that way for some time and there was a long silence, filled only by the sound of waves gently sloshing against the boat. Zoro glanced at Perona. She was wearing a black dress of some sort that left her shoulders bare, and she hadn't done her hair up yet that morning – was she going to ask him to braid it for her later? He still found it hard to believe that he'd learned to do that (though not without significant persuasion).

He snapped out of his reverie when she said, "We've never talked about that."

"Talking isn't my thing."

"True enough."

A splash off the port side of the boat drew their attention. A gull had swooped into the water and grabbed a fish. Another gull followed suit, also emerging with a fish in its beak. When the birds had flown away, he turned to Perona and found her looking at him.

"What if you change your mind?" she said.

"I don't plan to."

Perona smiled then, a wry smile. "Guess I can trust that. You are pretty stubborn."

The air seemed to shift; it was lighter now. With a smile of his own, he said, "You wouldn't like me as much if I wasn't."

"How do you know I wouldn't? Maybe I'd prefer a pliant guy."

He scoffed at the idea. "You wouldn't."

"Again: how do you know?"

"I just know."

"That's not a good answer."

"Talking isn't my thing."

She gave a small laugh. "Talking and directions. Not your strong points."

He edged closer to her. "Yeah. I'm better at other things."

"Hmm, that you are." Perona let him slide an arm around her waist. Her fingers did a little dance up the back of his neck. "And one of your strong points is, literally, that brute strength of yours." The delicate dance of her fingers stopped and she poked him in the neck instead. "Time to raise anchor and go. The anchor is waiting for you."

"Aren't you supposed to be all nice to me now that we're going to be apart soon?" grumbled Zoro, a little disappointed that she was moving away from him.

She gave him a sugary sweet look. "I believe in pragmatism."

He snorted. "Says the person who still insists on having a stuffed toy."

"We all have our weaknesses. Besides, Mini-Kumashii is a lot cuter than you."

"You realise you're insulting the Greatest Swordsman in the World..."

Perona gave an astonished gasp. "But I'm not talking to or about Mihawk!"

He made an exasperated noise and she laughed. "You are so easy to bait. Don't worry; you will be the Greatest Swordsman in the World."

"I never said I wasn't," began Zoro.

"And I will see you again."

The words sounded like a statement, but Zoro heard the uncertainty in her voice, and saw in the defiant tilt of her chin and her averted eyes an attempt to hide anxiety.

"Hey."

She turned and he held her gaze for a long moment before saying, "I will be the Greatest Swordsman, and you will see me again."

A few more moments passed before Perona smiled again. But this time it was a real smile, not wry or mocking. She drew closer to Zoro, lifted her face to his and kissed him. Then she pulled back a little. "I'm holding you to that, Roronoa Zoro."

"You should," he murmured, leaning towards her and tightening his grip around her waist. "Kiss me again and then I'll go pull up the anchor."

So Perona kissed him once more (a longer, much more satisfactory one this time), Zoro dutifully went to raise the anchor, and they set off on the last leg of the journey towards Sabaody.

.

.

THE END

.

.

A/N: And now I'm really done! I hope you enjoyed the short epilogue :) Thank you to AvengerGal for the feedback on the part where I got stuck!

I tried to keep Zoro and Perona in-character and boy, was it hard... We've never seen either of them in such a serious/tender scenario in the manga so it really is just how I imagine such a scene would go. But hopefully it doesn't feel too strange to everyone else!

This story has been a whole lot of ups and downs for me - some parts came so easily, and other parts were horrendously hard. I don't know if I'll ever write a fully Zoro/Perona-centric story again, though I have ideas for stories that include them in some fashion. Whether those will come to be or not is yet to be determined. hahah

But I hope I've managed to bring some little entertainment to your lives with these 19 chapters of The Diary of Dracule Mihawk. Thank you so much for sticking with it, and a biiiig THANK YOU to all the wonderful reviewers! Your reviews have really helped boost me on the days when I've felt low and frustrated with this story.

(Also, it's February 1st where I am now so, happy birthday to me. xD This is my birthday gift to all my lovely and faithful readers!)

.

EDIT/UPDATE (18 Feb): If you've read this epilogue before the 18th of February you'd know that the last part was different. I had a conversation with cardboardhut, which reminded me of my own principles and showed me that I wasn't adhering to them as well as I could. Granted, this may be "only" a fanfic but that didn't sit well with me and since the alteration would not really affect the story itself but would affect my own feelings towards my writing... I made the change.

If you preferred the previous version, I have to apologise. But I hope you still like this new version somewhat!

.