Swordsman's Adventure 28

“Bounty hunting, huh?” Nodzon rumbled, the hesitancy in his movements vanished at the prospect of a fight instead of a one-sided slaughter. There’s the battle maniac that almost turned the world upside down! “You sure you want to face this, girl?”

Tanya frowned. “Clearly you’ve never learned about respect in your long career, Pirate. Don’t worry, by the end of this you’ll be calling me ‘sir’!” She casually tossed a few flying slashes his way, just to test the waters. 

Nozdon’s arms wouldn’t seem to be any different to most of their audience when he deflected them with a firm block, but to those who could use Observation, the usage of Armament Hardening tended to get hallucinated as a darkening, the limb or weapon being coated black. It was why the key to creating a ‘black blade’, like Yoru or Shodai Kitetsu, involved repeated and intense infusion of haki by the swordsmith or swordsman. The process took years. 

The heavyset man’s smile widened. “Please. You call that an attack? I’ve cut myself worse shaving!”

“If that was enough to defeat you, I’d be sure to apologize for mistaking you for someone dangerous.” Tanya shot back. 

Raml’s voice echoed from the loudspeaker he was using. “She’s stalling! Crush her and kill the Revolutionaries before they get away!”

Nozdon surged forth immediately, presumably not wanting to push the merchant prince’s patience any further. “Pillar!” Tanya shouted as she tensed, blocking his attack with Shodai Kitetsu. It crackled with her haki as she prepared to block what was probably the most powerful attack she has ever had to withstand. 

The impact was immense, straining her blade, arms, and core. The ground beneath them shattered from the force, channeled into the ground via her stance. But she could block it. A grin split her mouth at Nozdon’s widened eyes, probably having expected her to dodge him using a full strength punch instead. 

That would have been smart, but she had a statement to make. Fighting through the pain, Tanya shouted as she forced the man back just a step, following up with a fairly basic attack sequence. 

“I can’t even see her move!” Shouted one of their witnesses. 

“What are those strikes? They’re neverending!” Shouted another. 

“Every stroke of the blade engages her full body.” One of the local commanders said authoritatively. “Not a single muscle is wasted, everything aligned with her blade’s edge.”

…Well, it was a basic attack sequence by Father’s standards. Which are naturally rather high. 

“You’re as good as your brat of a father was at your age.” Nozdon complimented as he parried and blocked her swings, wincing as small cuts accumulated past his Hardening. Shodai Kitetsu really wanted his blood… “No, better. His haki wasn’t this refined until he was in his twenties, at least.” Father was 19 when Roger died, so Nozdon probably did know how strong he was at that point. 

“I’ve had the benefit of good instruction.” Tanya said humbly, swinging away. She could keep this up all day. Well, for a few hours at least. Those marathon battles with the Humandrills really helped with this kind of thing. “You, on the other hand, are far past your prime, old man.”

Nozdon grunted as he continued to accumulate small cuts, her Ryuo, an advanced Armament technique, penetrating the armor of his Hardening just enough to do a little bit of damage. Not to say that she was holding back; he was weakening the penetrative haki technique with his own, so those small cuts were all she could manage. “You know what they say: youth and vigor loses out to experience… and treachery!” He clapped his hands, his timing exactly correct to disrupt her balance with the resulting shockwave, and he used the opening to drive his fist right in her chest. 

Ow. He punched her in the boob! Damn old man, damn biology giving her such big weak points! Tanya took a second to get out of the pile of stones that used to be a small fortification, having to strain herself a bit to lift the heavy cannon that had landed on top of her. “Foul!” She shouted, waving Shodai Kitetsu angrily while rubbing at the no doubt heavily bruised impact site. “Now you’ve pissed me off!” Saifu barked angrily as well. 

The old man laughed at her, but quickly choked as a bullet hit him right in the throat. He started scrambling to avoid her pistol shots, using the brief respite when she ran out of ammo to cough up blood. 

Good, that gives her time to… “Black Blade Savage Star!” Tanya shouted, in Janapanese, as she used the one non-flying slash attack move from Vermillion Wing that Father incorporated into Vigilant Blade. She fell from the sky sword-first, forcing her opponent to avoid it or get skewered. “Black Blade Earth-crawling slash!” The natural follow-up, of course, was the flying slash that tore up the battlefield, incredibly punishing to others who rely on the leverage of the ground to operate. “Black Blade Arc Moon!” Now that his footing was fouled, a series of flying slashes should score some hits. 

Tanya didn’t need to win this fight fairly. She did, however, need to make it look good, and she didn’t exactly have time to share the plan with him, beyond the sparse levels of killing intent in her blows. So using Vigilant Blade’s techniques in an obvious and grand fashion, trusting in an ex-Roger pirate’s resilience to survive her assault, was a good way to do that. 

“I’m getting too old for this.” Nozdon grumbled, Tanya’s Observation allowing her to pick it up due to her focus on him. He wasn’t even hoarse anymore from that bullet! 

She still hasn’t given him more than flesh wounds… Still, every drop of blood she made him spill both got her closer to victory, and the more injuries he sustains, the more plausible the capture becomes. “So I already know about the kidnapping, but is there anything else new with your family?” Tanya asked idly as she continued to rain flying slashes on him, each one carrying enough cutting force to sever chunks off of solid stone cliff faces. 

“Not really.” He grumbled back, before using what appeared to be a Shave variant to charge her with an uppercut. She barely had time to apply Hardening and Pillar, but her jaw still ached as she was launched into the air. Someone that size should not be that fast… Every Roger Pirate was a monster in their own way… 

The good news was that she was still as comfortable in the air as always, so Saifu passed her another one of her revolvers and she bought some time firing the bullets one-handed at the man. 

One thing that you learned in the Grand Line, unless you had a devil fruit that let you laugh at guns, is that it was extremely difficult to, at a distance, tell the difference between an ordinary firearm that normal body hardening, not even haki-fueled, can let you ignore with impunity, and a gun that could do some serious damage if you let them hit without respecting their danger. Naturally, her pistols were the latter, so his aborted attempt to follow-up his uppercut led to him literally dancing out of the way of her shots. “Gun number two.” He mumbled to himself. “Six shots each, How many does she have?” Pistols? Five, currently. So three left. 

Passing the gun back to Saifu, who swallowed it, Tanya siezed control over her aerial movement and kicked the air, the cracking sound of her using the sound barrier as stepping stones following her movements. 

While Vigilant Blade’s flying slashes relied on using as many muscles as possible combined with the leverage of good footing, Vermillion Wing’s slashes instead relied more on gather momentum, building up speed by swinging one’s sword in harmony with the air, not generating a flying slash, so that the resulting slash, swung against the wind only after a full rotation or two, had comparable force, albeit still a bit weaker, to the ones she could unleash when braced on the ground. It overall gave the impression of dancing in the air, gently flowing until the swordswoman’s motion turned violent, unleashing the wrath of the Vermillion Bird. 

“Rayleigh never used this many flying slashes…” Nozdon complained, dodging, blocking ,and overall continuing with his strategy of waiting for her to present an opening for him to exploit before he slipped up enough for her to do more than just wearing him down. “No one uses this many flying slashes.” Not true! Father did. “What did you teach your boy, Silvers?” From Father’s stories about his own training: that a flying slash was a basic technique that you needed to be able to do to call yourself a swordsman. He managed it at age seven. 

Still, the drawback of using Vermillion wing is, despite it relying on harassing the enemy, rather demanding to maintain its forms. The primary weakness of the style was that it more or less required you to have a stamina advantage over any peer enemy. So, before she wore herself out too much, Tanya dove downward, Shodai Kitetsu trailing behind her, controlling her descent like a bird of prey’s tailfeathers as she added more and more speed with every pump of her legs. 

“I got it this time.” Nozdon murmured to himself. “Get her while she’s spinning.”

Unfortunately for him, she had a completely separate buildup of momentum than the rotational energy she had been previously employing, so… “Vermillon style: Swooping Talon!” Tanya shouted with her heart instead of her voice, arresting her momentum with a single forward kick, flipping upward with more speed than ever before as her sword blurred, making a deep cut in Nozdon’s chest as he was in the middle of missing a punch that would have sent her into another fortification if she didn’t stop herself right outside his reach. 

“...Ow.” Nozdon said as Tanya landed on the foot she didn’t just strain with that particular technique. Her other one throbbed with pain, but fortunately it wasn’t actually injured so it was ignorable after a few heartbeats flexing it to confirm that she didn’t just sprain her ankle or anything like that. She never pushed that particular technique quite that hard until now… 

“Stay down.” Tanya commanded, “The World Government pays more for live prisoners. I promise that you will be treated well in my brig, fed as well as I feed myself, but that offer expires in five seconds.”

“Don’t you dare let some cross-dressing tart-” Tanya scowled at Raml’s words. “-defeat you! If you get captured, I’ll not have any more use for those damned women!”

Nozdon got back up, injured but still fighting fit. Tanya spit out some blood. The good news was that all of her teeth were still attached. The bad news is that he knocked three of them loose, and she’s going to need some of Crocus’ special brew to make sure they heal properly. 

Back at it…

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[Shimotsuki Kuina]

Tanya had explained the plan: use her own reputation and a showy, flashy battle to save her friend Lucy’s life from the big scary slave guy by forcing the Revolutionary Army to retreat and come back later. 

This put her front and center when it came to the actual ‘fighting’ part. Her and four of the humandrills: Tate and Yari, who were twins that were the best fighters among the monkeys, plus Kiyou, the one who usually handled minor ship repairs, fixing ropes, mending barrels and crates, plus other minor carpentry tasks before Ace became the real carpenter, plus Cookie, the one who can cook without getting monkey hair all in the food. 

Kuina had problems remembering the weird sign language that Tanya apparently invented for the monkeys. Why? Because she can just do that for some reason, not only a tremendously skilled swordsman but also a genius with books and ledgers too. But she was much better than Ace and Deuce at telling the monkeys apart from each other. It was the scars: each of them lived similar, but distinct lives, and this story was told with their scars. Now, their fur covered most of them; a humandrill’s fur was thicker than it looked, but it didn’t cover everything: Kuina focused on memorizing and keeping up to date with the scar and callous patterns of their hands, as only Kaiten and Kayaku had facial scars noticeable enough to work. It was the ideal choice, because they showed you their hands whenever they wanted to tell you something anyway. Each of them had a subtly different gait, too, but that was harder to pin down, as differences were only detectable when walking on flat ground, which was never on a ship. 

Each monkey favored different fighting styles, although they picked up new tricks so fast it was hard to keep up with their progress, at times. Tate and Yari refined Tanya’s two sword styles: Tate practiced Vigilant Blade, while Yari practiced Vermillion Wing. Tanya liked joking that it was a good thing that Yari was a girl, or else she’d get in trouble for teaching a boy one of the Island of Women’s sword styles. At least, Kuina thought it was a joke. 

Those two were terrorizing the left side of the Revolutionaries battle lines, while the right side was attacked by Cookie, using his own variant of three sword style that Tanya liked calling ‘Wukong Wheel Style’, as while he wielded only three swords at a time, the monkey used all four limbs and his tail to do the wielding, passing swords and kitchen knives between them in a dizzyingly unpredictable mess. The style was more scary than actually effective: if you kept your wits about you and had the speed and strength required to not get overwhelmed by the individual blows, it wasn’t that hard to find an opening. Kiyou was attacking that side too, and she didn’t like using swords, instead preferring to use a massive sledgehammer as her primary weapon. It was hefty enough that it disrupted her balance to use, and she used it as both weapon and terrain, frequently planting the heavy end in the ground and using the gigantic pole that was the handle to swing around for momentum and exotic leverage. Then any of her limbs touched the ground and all of a sudden the literal ten ton hammer was now being swung at speeds that would be impressive to see on a cannonball, much less something that heavy. 

Personally, Kuina was beginning to think that Tanya just doesn’t understand how crazy strong her monkeys are. It was hilarious how Deuce pretended to be traumatized when he noticed Kiyou’s pole dancing hobby, though. The dances weren’t even lewd, he was just a pervert. 

Her opponent, on the other hand… “Hands of Liberation” Lucy, who immediately sighted her and brandished her sword. It was a Graded blade, although one she didn’t recognize: it’s not like she memorized Wazomono Monthly’s official announcements like her doppleganger does. 

“So how’s Tanya as a captain?” Lucy asked casually as they stood still across from each other, Tanya’s battle raging behind her. “She’s gotten stronger.”

Hm. “She says she’s hit a plateau.” Kuina said, “But I’m getting a lot stronger with her teachings.” Tanya had an effortless mastery of the art of pushing people up to their limits and not a single step further, and that was the kind of thing she’d expect to see from a seasoned veteran, not a 14 year old girl who has never been in a real life or death conflict. “As a captain? Well, we’re not normal pirates, so it’s hard to say.”

“Yeah, Tanya has some weird priorities.” Lucy agreed, twisting her sword a few times before frowning. “Do you have no buckles or buttons anywhere?” She complained, “Or is it all drawstrings?”

Only on her leg, but she was already channeling haki through Chigiri Kakudo, so her prosthetic was feeling like an extension of her body right about now. It must have protected her prosthetic mount from Lucy’s devil fruit. “Did you just try to strip me?” Kuina asked, offended. 

“Look, when you have a devil fruit like mine, you get what edges you can.” Lucy said, “Tanya said that I might be able to use metaphorical unlocking to make people stronger and stuff, but I just can’t!” She seethed. “Months and years of trying to unlock Commander Sabo’s lost memories, and nothing! If it’s not a mechanism of some kind, my fruit does fuck all!” She huffed. “I’m not bitter.” She lied. 

“Look, are we going to actually fight here?” Kuina asked. “You can just run away. The rest of your army is.”

“I’d shame my teachers if I fled without at least getting your measure.” Lucy said, her sword still pointed at Kuina. “Gate of the Bull, Open!” She shot forward, charging at a respectable speed. 

Unfortunately, that was exactly the kind of aggressive maneuvering that she’s most used to facing, so Kuina put all her weight on her good foot and slipped around the blow, hopping ever so slightly to the side. She used Shikatta to control Lucy’s blade and attacked with Chigiri Kakudo. “Two-sword style: Flowing Water Dance!” 

Lucy wasn’t quite so unskilled as to fall to that; her last-second twist minimized the damage and allowed her to disengage with a backflip before . “Gate of the Crab, Open!” She said, unleashing a flurry of cuts and slashes, a slew of feints mixed in with the occasional real attack. 

“One-sword style: Channeling the Flow!” Kuina shouted, interrupting Lucy’s combo by locking blades and controlling her sword with her own. 

“Gate of the Mermaid, Open!” Lucy responded, punching forward with her off hand. 

While it was just a basic punch, there was something powerful about it: it felt like she was pushed backward from the inside, a simultaneous pull backwards as well as the force from the literal shockwave Lucy’s punch created. What the hell is that? 

Well, what it wasn’t, was strong enough to defeat her. She was of proud samurai stock, descended from Ryuma the dragonslayer! Kuina sheathed Shikatta, glaring at her opponent as she focused her energies. “One-Sword Mortal Draw: Lion’s Song!” 

Despite it being one of her best finishers… Lucy still managed to deflect it. “Gate of the Twins: Open!” She declared, turning Kuina’s own technique back against her by using Channeling the Flow to lock blades again, but this time with the blonde in the superior position. 

How did she- Questions for later! She knows what to do in this situation: When someone copies you, switch it up! Kuina shifted her weight entirely onto the ball of one foot, using a technique that Tanya had taught her that belonged to none of her sword styles. In fact, it wasn’t a sword technique at all!

-------------------------

The lesson was taught secretly, away from the rest of the crew. “This is a secret technique passed down among the Kuja tribe. Its name is simply: Bloom.” Tanya had said, deathly serious. “Respect Bloom as the property of women alone and swear to never teach it to a man, as I once swore.”

“I swear.” Kuina had said with equal gravity. 

“On a fundamental biological level, the greatest difference, when fighting is concerned, between a woman and a man is in the hips.” Tanya lectured, her voice always at its most precise and careful when she was teaching. “Your center of balance is lower, and thus the leverage you attain with your movements is qualitatively different. This technique hones that understanding to the utmost, in a way that only the iterative improvement of generations of warriors could achieve, tailored uniquely to the female body.” 

Kuina knew this pain well: she was taught exclusively by her father, and had to figure out how to adjust the stances and movements on her own. It took two years of her father harping on her “sloppy” forms to actually listen when she explained what she was doing, and only then did he actually pay attention and, to his credit, supply useful feedback. 

“Now, I’m not particularly good at this technique. My gait isn’t suited to breaking it out quickly.” Tanya had warned, starting to strut in what was presumably a method to help her use it, “Ideally, Bloom is performed while wearing shoes with elevated heels.” What? “In concept, it’s simple, and in appearance, it is also simple. But make no mistake: this will allow you to put more power into your sword than you thought possible.”

“Its a sword technique?” Kuina had asked, suddenly confused. “The way you’ve been talking…”

“Normally, it is not.” Tanya had said, “It is why I only teach you this now, instead of before. Because for you…”

It was only then that Kuina realized what Tanya was talking about. 

“...it will be.”

-------------------------

Kuina’s stance shifted from the wide, bent-knees stance that allowed her to use her arms, to something that could only be described as the bastard child of a pirouette, a strut, and some third thing that could only be born from the primal rage of a woman scorned. “One Sword Style: Bloom!” Her heart shouted when she spun, unleashing a wave of cutting force that could no longer be called a flying slash, it was so quick and powerful. 

Bloom was, as Tanya warned, a simple roundhouse kick, mostly distinguished by the upward striking angle. But it was the roundhouse kick that was the favored attack of the Pirate Empress, Hancock. And the Pirate Empress, Tritoma. And the Pirate Empress, Shakuyaku. And the Pirate Empress, Gloriosa. All the way back to the Verdant Empress, Sakura, who first formalized the technique. Apparently, Gloriosa was the first Pirate Empress, founding the Kuja Pirates, and all the ones before her had more varied titles but were only known to the other Kuja. Tanya really liked history. Generations of women proclaimed to be both the strongest and most beautiful women in the world, each spending decades refining this singular kick into an attack that can and has shattered fortress walls in one blow. 

When using some of her other techniques that were adapted to using Chigiri Kakudo, she could make a cut about one meter deep into a cliff. Reasonably impressive. But with Bloom? A kicking technique adapted to using her sword leg? 

The trench was thrice as deep. 

Lucy had managed to avoid the attack, but she was obviously shaken by the power of her swing. Her sword was shattered, presumably sacrificed to block Kuina’s swing. It just saved her life. “Uh… You win? Gotta go!” She stood back up with a tremble, but 

…Ah crap, she got carried away. At least she didn’t actually kill Tanya’s friend. That would have been bad. 

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[Portgas D. Ace]

Bakel was a dark-skinned man who wore a bandana over his eyes and had a tattoo of spikes around his lips, emphasizing his jagged teeth and the scars on his chin. Is this guy a half-fishman or something? 

No matter how strong he was though, he couldn’t touch fire. He put in a good try, swinging his limbs in a way that produced surprisingly potent winds that, while not injuring his form, did make it difficult for Ace to do anything.

If Ace didn’t already know he was trying to stall, spending so much effort on a strategy that was more annoying than effective would have tipped him off to Bakel’s strategy. 

“Those are some powerful swings you have there.” Ace complimented. The man was pretty polite, so it was the least he could do to respond in kind. 

“I ate the Strong-Strong fruit, which gives me the strength of fifty men!” Bakel boasted. “I could tear this fortress down around you until there was nowhere else to run!” 

“But you won’t.” Ace said with certainty. 

“Until Master Ajeel dictates her death, this woman is under my protection.” Bakel said firmly. 

“Pretty lousy protection, if you ask me.” Ace replied. 

“I am not much of a protector.” Ajeel admitted readily, giving a lazy grin. “But it is important to Master Ajeel that she only die at the proper time.”

“You’re pissing me off!” Ace shouted, deciding to kick things up a notch. “Flame-Feeding Breath!” Ace completely emptied his lungs, then on Ajeel’s next swing, focused his entire being on inhaling. 

Tanya apparently knew quite a bit about Devil fruits, despite not having one herself. She claimed she picked it up primarily from books owned by Dr. Vegapunk. For Logia fruits like his own, there were three main methods of training it: 

First, you could get better at the shapeshifting facets. Techniques like if he wanted to copy Luffy’s stretchy fist, learning to dodge even haki-infused attacks, or even doing something cool like becoming a firebird or dragon made of flames would fall under this category. This was something practiced alongside improving his fighting techniques. 

Second, you could increase your attunement to your element. This is focusing on making his flames hotter, larger, and practicing the conversion of his stamina into flames. This was something practiced alongside normal physical exercise. A certain level of this kind of training was required to achieve Awakening, according to Tanya, but it was not all that was needed. 

Finally, you could start expanding and refining what your power means to you, improving your control. Techniques like learning to not burn things fell into this category, but Ace still couldn’t do much here. What the heck is there to think about? It’s fire. 

But then Ten reminded him of something important: Fire breathes. Wind could put out flames, but it was a contest of strength: Wind feeds flames, and much like if you try to shove too much food down your throat and choke, too much wind chokes out the flames. 

And much like Luffy? He ate a devil fruit. There was no such thing as eating too much when he could simply stretch! 

His body devoured the wind from Bakel’s swing, growing as he punched the dark-skinned man with his enlarged fist. It worked! “As fun as it was to get fanned, I think we’re done here!” Ace proclaimed, following up his punch with his other hand: “Inferno Fist!”

The flames that streamed out of his body, which had not only the heat of his fire but the force of his fist, amplified by the size of the attack, busted Bakel through a wall deeper into the dungeons. 

Whew! That took a lot more out of him than usual. Ace checked himself over. Okay, he was normal sized again, so he didn’t need to worry about fitting on the Striker at least. 

Ten’s mom, immediately spoke up: “I know where some treasure is, if you take me back to my husband!” She said, giving him the perfect excuse to leave. 

“Really?” Ace said, as if he wasn’t already going to rescue her. “Alright! Not a wasted trip after all!” He gripped the lock on the cell she was in, heated the metal to weaken it, and then tore the whole thing out. After shaking the molten metal off of his hand, he held it out to Ten’s mom: “Come on, let’s get out of here before the musclehead comes back.”

“Thank you.” Ten’s mom said, unhesitatingly taking his hand and allowing him to pull her at speeds that, from experience, he knew most people would complain at, without a word as he dragged her to the hole they made in the wall. 

After shooting out a flare, it took only seconds for the Striker to come back into view, Ten still breathing flames out of the back. “There’s our ride!” He said as he picked up the winged woman, leaping out towards the water and turning his feet into flame jets to maneuver them to matching up with the Striker. 

Once he landed, Ten having moved her head away from where his feet landed, he immediately took back over powering the Striker. “Deuce, go anywhere but here! Our job isn’t done yet!”

“Where are we going?” Deuce asked, nevertheless setting a heading of ‘anywhere but here’. 

“Mom!” Ten shouted, plucking the larger woman from Ace’s arms and giving her a big hug. 

While Ten’s mom took Ace’s rough handling with grace and ease, apparently Ten’s affection was rougher, as the woman wheezed at the strength of her daughter. “I’m so-” She gasped. “-so happy to see you, Ten. Now remember what Mommy told you-” another gasp of air  “-about watching your strength…”

Ten’s blush was luminescent as she let go of her mother. “Sorry! Sorry…”

In the distance, a rumbling occurred. Sounded like one of Gramps’ punches, actually… Ace only ever heard him punch something seriously once, but you never forget that kind of sound…

“That’s Dad!” Ten shouted, pointing. “Go that way!”

Sounds like a plan.