Byakuren Hijiri's ephitet is essentially going to be a translation of her name. ZUN did all the hard work with making her name symbolical. It can be translated into "White Lotus Saint", the title of the fic, "Pure and Saintly" and other rearrangements of "Pure" and "Saint"
Disclaimer: Touhou Project belongs to Team Shanghai Alice (Or just ZUN) and One Piece belongs to Oda Eiichiro and the quote I used in the summary is from 'The Origin of Paradoxical Commandments' by Kent Keith.
Byakuren Hijiri stepped out of the room with a feeling of great unease. Beside her walked the Fleet Admiral, who supposedly was there for protection. In reality everyone knew he was intended to stop her if she went on a rampage.
Behind the two were the Gorosei, still seated on their ornate chairs. And they were the cause of her unease. Her discomfort did not fade away until the decorated doors fully closed behind them and shut away from her sight.
Throughout the discussion of her being the first of their 'Shichibukai', or Royal Seven Warlords of the Sea, they felt… off to her. For someone that had mingled with some of the oddest of Youkai, encountered Gods and faced magically skilled humans; for five age old men to make her uneasy was troubling.
Nevertheless they were at least truthful about their proposal. Truth be told, from how Fisher Tiger had described them, she had expected this to be a cunning trap and had therefore chosen to leave everyone else on the ship despite their protests.
Her surprising bounty of 270,000,000 had been frozen and her crimes pardoned. In return she had become an ally of the World Government as one of their privateers, which suited her just fine. And her group was no longer the "Buddhist Pirates"; it was now correctly just "Buddhists"
The requirements of her title didn't seem excessive. Meeting with the Marines on a regular basis was simple enough. She doubted that they would go plundering so she could ignore the tribute rule and assisting Marines was an expected term of an alliance.
"Excuse me, Fleet Admiral Kong?" she said as they approached the same pond she passed on the way in. The ghostly mist that covered the castle from the front was nowhere in sight from within.
"Hmm?" the larger man acknowledged. He didn't deign to even turn his head to answer her inquiry, to him.
However she wasn't bothered by this. She had gotten used to it long ago, a consequence of her past life. "Is slavery illegal?"
This time Kong did falter slightly, but recovered admirably. This time he did glance in her direction before pressing on ahead. "It was prohibited just less than two hundred years ago." He answered stiffly.
"Yet there appears to be plenty of them here. Shouldn't you be trying to free them?" She noted with false interest, keeping up the façade of a casual conversation. Up ahead was a group of Saints 'playing' with their female public employees. Kong took a sudden turn to avoid them, hurrying into a separate corridor.
The Fleet Admiral was obvious uncomfortable with the subject as he hurried his steps. "An attack on the World Nobles will be an attack on the World Government and by extension the Marines. Are you willing to try something so soon after allying with the Gorosei?" he asked, his voice growing dark.
"Not at all." She nonchalantly waved her hands in negative at his words. "I just wonder where they are getting all these slaves."
Kong grunted in disgust as he regarded the sight from before. And why was she so interested in them? Voicing his question aloud, he was surprised by her answer.
"As a Shichibukai it's my duty to aid Marines in stopping criminals isn't it? Who can fault me if I was to stop slavers? After all they are breaking the law."
Kong fully stopped in his tracks as he took this in. He turned to the woman who now had lost all her previous humour.
"This is a dangerous game you're playing at." He truthfully warned. "The World Nobles wouldn't appreciate someone getting in the way of their acquisition of public employees."
"Ah no… I wouldn't dare get in their way again. I'm simply asking where they are sold off. I'm sure I can catch many of them on the way there." She told him, as she started walking again.
Kong rushed to join her as he contemplated her words. The Marines hands were tied when it came to slavery. The World Nobles had made it very clear that they were expected to not get in their way and considering that the World Government supported them, there was no way he could legitimately stop them without angering the Gorosei.
What she was suggesting was something that he had tried in the past. He had tried to step up patrols around Sabody Archipelago in the past, but his orders were all countermanded by the Commander in Chief of the World Government. He wasn't directly told to stop but after several days of his orders all being cancelled he knew that Justice didn't extend to slavery in Sabody.
But she wasn't directly under the World Government's control. And she could do what the Marines couldn't. But why would she?
"And why would you care about the liberation of slaves." He carefully questioned.
The smile was back on her lips as they came out of the corridor. A pair of armoured guards saluted them as they passed.
"I'm a Buddhist. As a lay follower I would not engage in businesses of meat, weapons, poisons, intoxicants and living beings." She answered in a way that her speech seemed practice.
"That doesn't answer my question." He accused as the pier came in sight; the double line of Marines still standing stoically on each side of the wide wooden platform.
"No it doesn't." she agreed without hesitation.
They continued the rest of their journey the same way it began: in silence. The Marine officers each gave a salute as they passed by. At the very end was the Marine vessel which would take the new Shichibukai to her own ship.
As they neared the gangplank, he came to a decision. There was nothing for him to lose with this anyway. "Sabody Archipelago, that's where slavers mostly go." He gave out in a low voice.
Byakuren gave a slight nod of thanks before bidding farewell and leaving the Fleet Admiral on the pier of Mariejois.
As they departed, the Buddhist held out her hand and let a ball of green energy form in her hand. The Marines on board tensed and the closest scrambled back in fear when the ball started floating up.
Without a word, the ball sped off in the same direction of the ship. Byakuren gave a reassuring smile to the Marines who calmed down seeing that it wasn't an attack. They went back to their stations and the ship started moving.
The ball was intended for her own group. They had demanded that she give them a message of if she was safe as soon as she could; a green ball for success; a yellow for failure and a red one if she needed saving.
"We're going to Sabody Archipelago again!" the Buddhist nun declared as soon as she finished flying back onto her ship.
Unfortunately the deck of the ship was near empty of Youkai. The deck was clear of the Youkai that inhabited the ship. Even Murasa, who usually stays near the helm, was missing.
"Neh. Hijiri your… back already?" the rat Youkai warily poked her head out from around the corner. Seeing that it was the master of her master; she let her guard down.
"Yes. Um… where is everyone?" She asked in confusion. It was only the just slipping into the evening with the sunset clear in the horizon; unless it was dinner or a meeting of some sort, there would be others up here; not just Nazrin.
"They're all below deck." Nazrin drawled out as the she moved to suspiciously block the way to the door that lead downstairs.
Her grey hair blocked out her red eyes, and her hands nervously tugged at her brown-black one piece dress. Her dowsing rods were adjusted in a strange angle as she fidgeted.
Byakuren narrowed her eyes in suspicion. The servant of Bishamonten's usual capelet was unusually adjusted in a messy manner and her necklace she wore was strangely missing. And talk about missing…
"Nazrin where's your mouse?" she asked curiously. Nazrin always carried a mouse in a basket with her tail. While the basket was still there the mouse was conspicuously missing. If it wasn't for the fact the mouse was capable of carrying messages for "General Nazrin", she wouldn't have been worried.
"Mo… mouse? Ah… he's um… talking a walk around the boat!" she desperately said.
"They're having a party downstairs aren't they?" she asked without a hitch in her voice.
Nazrin meekly nodded in admission.
Without further ado, Byakuren gently moved Nazrin aside and descended into the boat. The rat Youkai quietly trailing behind her.
It wasn't long before she could hear the noises from the main room. She could hear Shou shouting to others to hurry up and Nue answering back in an equally loud voice.
"How much time do we have left?" she heard Murasa call out.
"I don't know. She's probably still with Nazrin up on deck." answered Ichirin.
"I can hear her coming!" cried out Shou in panic. There was a lot of rustling and more than once she heard something being knocked over before all the commotion faded into tense silence.
She didn't hesitate to open the paper door that lead to the main room. Her shadow was easily seen through the thin layer separating the rooms.
"SURPRISE!"
"Huh! Wha…?"
Nowhere was the crazy party she had expected. For sure there were still bottles of Sake lining the tables. But not a single one was opened and not a single person in the room seemed even slightly intoxicated. Though several cups were spread out across the low table.
And there was food. The food was of a very high quality, used for formal occasions rather than a casual party. It wasn't much, but what there was neatly lined up and of an obvious high quality.
And in front of her were the rest of the boat's occupants. They're faces expectant and slightly worried with her delayed response.
"Eh? What is this?" she asked in pleasant surprise.
Being nudged forward by the others; it was Shou that answered. "Uh… Well we never really celebrated you being unsealed what with all this new dimension stuff."
"Yeah, and so when your green ball came we decided we may as well do it now." finished Murasa, who appeared beside Byakuren and gently led her in.
"Ah… I don't need a pa-" she started before Murasa once stopped her mid-sentence.
"Of course you do! It's not every day that some gets out of a thousand year old seal." The sailor girl cheerfully exclaimed as if it was an everyday occurrence to be sealed in Makai.
"Admittedly getting sucked into a different dimension wasn't part of the plan but whatever! We're still alive so everything's alright!" the mood soured slightly at the mention of their strange circumstances but Murasa's cheerfulness was infectious.
"We even made all the food vegetarian so you can eat to your heart's content." continued Murasa as the ship phantom forced the Buddhist to sit.
As she did so, the others in the room followed suit. Even Kogasa and Nue, who weren't technically part of her 'group', joined in.
Murasa took the lead as she lifted her cup into the air with the others doing the same. Byakuren took a quiet sniff of it to make sure it wasn't alcohol before lifting hers up as well, though less confident than the others.
"To Hijiri's return!" Everyone toasted before downing their small cups. The immortal nun downed her cup with others and found herself pleasantly surprised that it was fruit juice. Since it had to be directly squeezed from a fruit itself; it would have taken a lot of fruit and effort to get this much.
It goes without saying that they slept very late that night or morning really.
Murasa easily swung her anchor to impact on the side of a slaver. The dirty man was sent flying into a whole pack of others who slammed onto the walls of a cabin together. She ignored their groans of pain as they slid down the wall. None of them were probably dead anyway.
The people of this world were incredibly resilient. She would have to consciously try to kill someone for them to actually die by her attacks. Even if she was to slam her anchor on someone's head as hard as she could; if she wasn't trying to kill them, then the chances are they're not dead.
She ducked under a swing of a polearm and locked the weapon with her bottomless ladle. With minimal effort she flung the man into the same wall as the others.
The last two remaining henchmen had by then lost their will to fight against someone who effortlessly took out half their crew. As they tried to jump overboard, Murasa flung her anchor into one of them, catching him in the back and dive kicked the other face first into the wood of the deck.
With all the immediate threats dealt with she turned to watch Shou battling the captain of the ship. It was clear the heavy set man was struggling against the spear wielding Youkai, as he only barely weaved away from her attacks.
That was yet another thing she noticed in this world. All the slaver gangs they had encountered so far were organised almost identically. There would be a powerful boss at the top, a few other strong individuals around that leader, and the rest were quite frankly; cannon fodder.
All they really had to do was take out those at the top of the hierarchy and the rest would crumble and shatter.
Anyway it was a hopeless cause for the slaver leader. Shou's powers were mostly from her pagoda not her spear which was in fact just for decorative purposes. That didn't mean she didn't know how to use it or that the spear was a cheap fake.
That reason why Shou didn't use her pagoda was obvious. Hijiri didn't want to cause unnecessary deaths and turning the slavers to dust via the pagoda was therefore not a good idea.
Though even if their master didn't want them to kill she had stressed that if they had to pick between themselves and the slavers then their lives took priority. The slaves themselves were also put ahead of the criminals. This was a policy she had no issue with.
"Agh!" It looks like Shou's fight was finally over. Her spear was stabbed right through the man's sword arm, painfully pinning him down.
"Nice one Shou." The ghost phantom praised. The anchor now flung back over her shoulders.
The tiger Youkai gave her a weary smile in appreciation. Close combat was never her forte and her physical strength was below that of an average Youkai.
Her face darkened as he looked towards the hatch that led to the ship's slave pens. This was always the mentally challenging part of these attacks on slavers. It was incredibly hard to not kill the slavers when they saw how they treated their captured slaves. But they were not executioners; that job was left to the Marines who were more than willing to rid the world of scum like these.
The pretty women were generally left alone because they apparently fetched a higher price untouched. The others were not so lucky. There were always some slavers who took it upon themselves to 'discipline' future slaves for the auction house in Sabody. An already broken slave was more expensive than a fresh and hopeful one.
Murasa grimaced as it she remembered that it was her turn to go below deck. She apprehensively lifted the heavy wooden hatch and unleashed the horrible stench that usually reeked in slave pens. The fog like odour of sweat, blood and bodily fluids could almost be seen exiting the hatch.
Ignoring the disgusting smell, Murasa tramped on inside. Her face steeled for what was to come.
Inside she found the same scene that she had for the last three years. Hunched bodies squeezed together in cramped cells. The poor souls were malnourished and far too skinny to be healthy as their blank faces turned towards her.
Tired and bloody men were chained to the wall; their faces blank and devoid of inspirational hope. They were the ones that struggled against the oppression.
And then there were the women who were unfortunate enough to become 'entertainment' for the slavers. Their faces filled with either sorrow or nothing at all as they shrivelled up to cry at their painful circumstance.
Even as a Youkai, she found it hard to not sympathise. She offered no words of encouragement as she broke the locks of the cells, one by one. She had gone through this for the last three years since Hijiri had started their campaign against slavery. She knew that the slaves didn't want to hear her apologies nor her sympathies; they just wanted to get away and forget all this ever happened.
Faces were staring at her in confusion as the gates to their confinement were left open. A few tenderly stuck a hand out before swiftly grasping them back in fear of retribution.
Murasa let out a gentle smile. "C'mon, I'm setting you all free." She softly said to the nervous captives.
One by one the slaves mustered the courage to step outside their cages. Their heads constantly searching her face for any trickery and fearful glances were sent towards the open hatch in fear that one of their tormenters would intervene.
She led them hand in hand back up deck. Their bodies froze upon seeing the slavers but they luckily calmed back down when it became clear the slavers were immobilised. Being stacked onto a pile with Shou sitting on top of it did that to you.
"Is this all of them?" Shou asked in concern as she counted the numbers. Only just over thirty in number, far less than they expected since the raid.
"Yeah, I think they got even more ships to carry them." answered a grim faced Murasa. Somewhere near the Cross mountain, a large town was attacked and all the inhabitants were captured to be sold later. While normally this wouldn't even reach the news, this was an exception due to the message left behind.
"TRY AND STOP US" it was clear to the world that this was directed to Hijiri the 'Saint of Purity'. Since they had more or less been ruining the slave trade in Sabody; this was a clear challenge to our efforts in stopping slave ships from entering Sabody Archipelago, where we couldn't stop them without the annoying World Nobles interfering.
It wasn't helped that they chose to do it just on the eve of the meeting between the Shichibukai and Marines on the recruitment of the so called 'Pirate Empress'. So with her away; the job was left to them. By them; she meant her, Ichirin, Nazrin and Shou.
That wasn't to say they didn't trust Nue and Kogasa. No longer were they the freeloaders of the ship. They were essentially new members in their merry family: Nue being the mischievous and annoying sister and Kogasa the innocent and gullible little sister. No they were fully trusted… they just weren't suited for fighting in life death situations.
Nue wasn't really much of a fighter but rather good at manipulating things from the shadows. All she had to do was make sure that all big ships, that weren't Marines and carried tons of weapons, never got within a few miles of the archipelago. Considering her powers to hide the true nature of things, she could probably make the navigators of the slave ships think a lot of random things.
While Kogasa could fight, no one really wanted her to experience the things on the slave ship. So she was relegated the role keeping lookout on the ship. A simple job that involved very little aside from yelling out whenever there was a ship in sight.
Likewise Ichirin was a must on the ship. Or rather her Nyuudou: Unzan, the pinkish cloud spirit, was needed on the ship. Without the old man of a cloud spirit; there would be no one who could blow wind into the sail of the palanquin ship. Without it; the ship would just be stuck in the same spot in the sky.
Joining Nue in the air was Nazrin. The rat Youkai was their main source of information since it seems even the rats in this world was more than willing to acknowledge "Lord General Nazrin" as their supreme leader. It was with her dowsing rods that she located the slave ships, even when they were disguised. Since all slave ships had those slave collars; Nazrin just needed to focus on that image and her dowsing rods would point them in the right direction.
Of course with Hijiri missing; that left only her and Shou to do the dirty work.
But no matter how many ships they stopped, they couldn't stop them all. Hundreds were taken and according to Marine estimates; there were two dozen of these ships used. And these dozens of ships had very deliberately chosen to come in on the same day and had spread the slaves into even more ships.
So far they had stopped a meagre ten with this being the eleventh. It was a slow process of beating up the slavers, releasing the slaves, putting everyone onto the Palenquin ship, destroying the slave ship and then finally take all of the humans to the Marine base on GR-66.
That was a very slow process.
Shou fired off a bright orange bolt of power into the air; a signal to Kogasa to come pick them up. And unfortunately it was also a signal for all other slavers to get the hell away from it.
It took only half an hour for the palanquin ship to arrive. In that time, Murasa had directed the former captives to the food stuff of the slavers while Shou invited them to give the slavers a kick if they wanted to. Unsurprisingly, many chose to take up her offer.
The occasional slaver that came around was easily dealt with. A swift blow to the head ensured they went back to dreamland.
"Shou! Murasa!" Looking up, they could see Ichirin looking over the railing of the palanquin ship as it descended to hover just above the crests of the waves.
"Ichirin!" answered Murasa as she flew into the air to greet her. Her flight slowed down as she saw Ichirin's grim and worried expression.
"Nue's been hurt, we need Shou's help." At her words Shou snapped up onto the ship in an instant. The only people on board that could heal were Ichirin, Shou and Byakuren. And if Ichirin couldn't heal Nue then it could only mean it was a mortal wound.
"Where is she?" hurriedly asked Shou is concern. As Ichirin led Shou into the ship, Murasa made to follow before remembering all the people still on the slave ship. With a heavy heart she turned to face the slaves who were staring straight back with expectant eyes.
She hesitated before reluctantly reaching over to toss the rope ladders down. With the slaves as weak as they are; she'll have to watch over them as they climb and catch any that fall.
And then she'll have to take all those slavers aboard. She gave a short sigh; she could see Nue later. With Shou and Ichirin healing her together she should be fine. It wasn't like a Youkai could 'die' anyway.
"How is she?" asked Shou as she and Ichirin rushed through the halls to where Nue was resting.
"She'll live but I need your help with the rest of her body "Ichirin pursed her lips as she replied, remembering the brutal scene of Nue barely reaching the palanquin ship missing limbs.
"Body?" the tiger Youkai asked in darkening worry.
"Yes. Whoever did this literally tore her apart. It was miracle that she was able to fly to the ship" answered Ichirin as she stopped at a specific door and slammed it open.
It was a horrific sight. If Nue was human; then she would have long died of blood loss by now. Luckily she was a Youkai and didn't die so easily.
Despite popular belief Youkai cannot in fact immediately heal after being cut to pieces. For sure a Youkai could survive fatal wounds far better than most humans. It would just take a lot of time for it to naturally heal; time which Youkai had plenty. Unfortunately this didn't mean they couldn't 'die' of mundane means.
Say if someone smash open their heads, or blew them apart with a cannon. Unless the Youkai could make themselves into mist or something before they happened, like those Logia type guys in this world, it was probably likely the Youkai would die.
Nue herself was lying unconscious on a bloody futon. And despite herself Shou let out a sigh of relief upon seeing that Ichirin had exaggerated the details a bit. Her body, while admittedly covered in blood and slashes, wasn't actually in pieces like she had been led to believe.
"I healed her missing parts but I don't have enough for the rest." admitted the Nyuudou User as she gently stepped around to kneel by Nue's motionless form. She motioned to all the bandages covering the small Nue. "I've bandaged everything I couldn't heal myself."
It was then Shou let out a grimace. Nue was literally covered head to toe in bandages. Not a single part of her was left untouched. "Everything…?"
Her companion could only nod grimly in affirmative. "Everything: her throat, her legs, chest, arms, even her face."
Shou grimaced again in acceptance. Murmuring the necessary sutra's and her hands glowed with a gentle light. "I need you to pull off the bandages as I go." She ordered.
Ichirin nodded and together they began their long work.
Nue slowly and painfully awakened to a dim lit room. Soft snoring could be heard beside her. Struggling, she sluggishly turned her head to find a sleeping Murasa.
"Mu…Murasa?" she croaked out in a small voice.
Murasa sleepily blinked as she heard Nue. Rubbing her eyes she saw Nue staring from her fresh futon. She blinked again to confirm that she was indeed not dreaming.
"NUE! Your alive!" Murasa cheered as she gave her old friend a big hug.
Nue let out a small scream of pain as her body raged with the sudden pressure. Murasa quickly retracted her hug and apologized for it.
Nue painfully let out a small chuckle. "Jeez, I really didn't need that cheesy cliché hug." She commented with brief amusement.
"Sorry, sorry I forgot you're all messed up." Murasa apologized again. Her brief apologetic expression easily overshadowed by her new found cheerfulness at her friend getting back up.
"Oh yeah, Nue do you know who got you?" asked Murasa as she remembered what Ichirin had told her to do. Even if Nue was not a direct fighter, she was still more than capable of taking out the trash that enslaved their own kind. And since she was flying in one of her 'illusions' she should have even been a bird or something to human eyes.
Nue slowly thought over what had happened. It was the usual mislead one of the ships in a circle routine. There was nothing different about it.
"No, it was just the same as usual." She replied after some thought. Murasa was clearly not satisfied with her answer as the captain of the ship continued to pester her for more information.
There was a bigger ship than usual. The crew was about the same size. The usual few weirdoes that could be found at sea were also on board. The ship had a unique smiley Jolly Rogers, one that in her opinion was rather funny difference to the usual skull and crossbones.
"Well… it had a smiley instead of the usual." she admitted truthfully. But that was just an emblem. It probably just belonged to yet another pirate who wanted to make some quick cash from slavery. That was all there was to it, right?
Thanks for reading.