Calm Tempest
A One Piece Fan Fiction
By Sacred Sakura
Conceptualized/Written: 12/7, 18-25/2006
Published: 12/26/2006
Rating: T
Genre: Angst/Action-Adventure/Romance
Disclaimer: I don't own One Piece; Oda-sensei does. I wish I did, though. However, this story and all characters not original to One Piece do belong to me.
Dedication: To Darkmaster2 for your, eto, "support"… and…TO MY WONDERFUL, WONDERFUL REVIEWERS!!! (Please review more.)
A/N: Ehhhhh…. I had writer's block… Gomen….
And yeah, I know, Myome needs to see a shrink. Oh, and the reason why she doesn't wear her sword is because seducing people usually works out pretty well.
Gahhh… I spent too much energy on the middle section of this chapter… That's why—to me, anyway; hopefully you'll think differently—the third section is so pathetic.
Please review! They're my only sustenance these days… (Review replies are at the end of the chapter.)
Chapter Two: Clash of Swords I
"Please be respectful toward Yakusoku-san and his son, Shiei-kun. They are the dojo's guests and therefore must be treated with courtesy." The kind-faced sensei pulled out a pair of shinai from the barrel of bamboo swords beside him. "Shiei-kun, too, is a student in kenjutsu, and Yakusoku-san would like to see how he fares in matches with fellow students his age. Would anyone like to volunteer for the first match?"
The students exchanged nervous glances.
Suddenly, the wooden sliding door slammed open. "Sumanai!! Osoku natta!!!" a short boy yelled, huffing from exertion. "I was up early training and lost track of time! I understand that that is no excuse, but I apologize anyway!!"
"Ah, Zoro." The sensei smiled. "Would you like to spar with our guest Shiei-kun? If so, I will overlook your tardiness this time."
The boy scratched his marimo-green head as he studied the lanky boy before him, then grunted in consent. "Fine."
Both boys took their shinai—Zoro one in each hand—and readied their stances.
The pale-skinned Yakusoku, seated seiza beside the dojo sensei and the other adults, watched grimly. 'Shiei…be sure to hold back. We don't want to draw too much attention….' He closed his eyes. 'And please…don't use that…'
"Oi, you all right?" a man next to him asked.
He smiled weakly, his countenance beginning to match the color of his white shawl. "I'm fine."
A man standing against the wall raised his arm, acting as referee. "Ready…and begin!"
Zoro grinned, cocky. "Oi. You. I'm currently the best student at this dojo, and I'm really strong, too. So don't underestimate me."
The lanky boy smiled, mirthless. "I won't."
"Then why don't you get rid of those sunglasses so you can see better? Then you won't look like a loser when I beat you."
"Sorry, but I need them for my eyes. Let's just say that they're a little…sensitive." The odd smile slightly grew. "However, if they bother you that much…" Shiei whipped them off and tied a slip of black cloth around his closed eyes. "…I'll just have to do this."
"Wh-what the hell are you playing?" the marimo head demanded angrily. "You can't fight me blindfolded!!"
"You are free to make the first move."
"Damn it all! Fine, then! If your ass gets whupped, it ain't my problem!!" Frustrated, Zoro charged.
"You think I can't fight with one of my senses removed? Think again."
Before the short boy knew it—before anyone else knew it, really—he was down on the ground, rubbing sorely at the new bruise on his head, his shinais rolling on the floor around him.
Yakusoku sweatdropped. 'Shiei… You don't ever listen, do you? I've told you numerous times before not to use your full strength.' He sighed. 'Then again, it's in your blood, isn't it? That rebellious streak….'
Shiei propped his shinai against his shoulder. "You were saying?"
"D-damn it…!!" Zoro leaped to his feet, shinais once again in hand. "Again!!"
"You'd better be giving your all this time," Shiei remarked, pointing his shinai at the short boy. "You were holding back before."
"Don't worry. I won't."
A smile, almost genuine this time. "Good."
"Ready…and begin!"
Zoro charged. 'I'll get you this time!!' He swung with two consecutive strokes, certain he had hit his mark.
But his target was not there.
"Too slow." A shinai dug into his side, knocking him down with a painful crash.
"Sh-shit…!!" Zoro clutched his side, rising.
"Again?" 'He can get up? Impressive….'
"Yeah! That was just a fluke!
"Ow!!
"Again!
"Ow!
"Again!!
"Ow!!
"Again!!!
"Ow!!!
"AGAIN!!!"
"Oi. You."
"Eh?" Slumped in a sitting position, she pushed up the brim of her conical straw hat.
A young boy of ten stared down at her. "What are you doing here, Mister?"
"Resting, of course."
"Are you a ronin or something?"
A bemused smile tugged at her dry lips. "What makes you think I am?"
He pointed at the black scabbard by her side. "You got one of those samurai swords."
"A katana. So?"
"Yeah, those things. Don't you know that weapons are banned on this island? You're not allowed to be in poste—pozzess—"
"'Possession.'"
"Yeah, that. You can't carry one around while you're here."
"And why is that?"
"W-well…" The boy scratched his scruffy brown hair, fumbling for the answer that he couldn't remember. "Because…because you're not."
"On whose authority?"
"… The Marines."
She blinked. "The Marines?"
"Yeah." The boy scratched his head again, trying to remember. "Captain Myome—the marine in charge of the islands around here—made that rule to make sure we stay safe."
"Safe? From what?" She snorted. "A band of pirates could violate that ban and plunder the islands before the Marines could do anything about it. Putting up an arms ban would only serve to further weaken the populace."
"Still…" The boy looked around nervously. "You still shouldn't carry a sword while you're around here. You could get killed."
She shot a sleet-gray glance at the boy. "They administer the death penalty for simply carrying a weapon—even if it's for the purpose of self-defense?!?"
"Yeah… I…should go now… I just came to warn you, Mister, about that rule…" The boy quickly scurried away, lest someone should witness him conversing with a criminal. 'Sensei…I hope he got the message….'
"So the possession of a blade is a capital offense here?" she murmured, sitting back. "That's odd…." Her mouth set itself to a grim line. "I know I shouldn't dawdle, but I suppose…"
'…revenge can wait one more day.'
"I need to speak to your superior officer."
"…Eh?" A sleepy marine at the front counter of the Marine Office Headquarters looked up, rubbing his eyes as he yawned. His gaze fell to the sheathed sword at the visitor's side and widened.
"I need to speak to your superior officer concerning the current arms ban in place."
Dumbfounded by the blatant display of noncompliance to a Marine-established rule, the marine said nothing.
The visitor glared at him with piercing pale gray eyes. "NOW."
The marine snapped out of his stupor and scrambled to dial the Den Den Mushi on the counter. "R-right away, sir!"
The back of a black leather chair faced the visitor. "What is it?"
The kimono-clad woman had been silent upon entering the Marine captain's office. Instead of immediately replying, she took the time to examine the austerely furnished room.
A few frames graced the cobalt walls, none of which were hung for decorative purposes. The few affixed to the cold walls declared the military exploits and promotions of a Captain Myome. Hardly any furnishings filled the empty gray room, save for a functional lacquer desk containing only a Den Den Mushi, a peculiar potted plant set beside the desk, and the black leather chair behind it.
"Well? I don't like to be kept waiting," a cultured voice—an infusion of sultriness and ennui—warned.
"Of course. My apologies." The woman removed her straw hat. "I have come to inquire of your reasons for placing an arms ban in this locality. From my knowledge, it is not under your jurisdiction, nor your authority, to institute such a ban."
"Hmph. And what of it? You'll report me?" The figure seated in the black leather chair turned to face her. "You do not realize who you are dealing with."
The kimono-garmented woman stared at a ghost of her past.
"That was rather foolish."
The sweating dark-haired youth paused in his washing by the stream to view his addressor. Before him stood a young woman, her arms crossed over a voluptuous chest barely encased in the standard marine recruit uniform—white shirt, blue scarf, dark blue pants. Her long black hair had been loosely tied for the previous training exercise. Vivid green eyes examined him beneath dark bangs.
"You shouldn't have talked back to the training officer," she remarked. "You could have gotten a real whipping."
"And what of it?" He resumed washing the blood and dust from his face, neck, and hair.
She eyed him curiously. "You have talent, yet you try to hide it with insubordination, making everyone either hate or resent you."
He toweled off. "What does it matter to you?"
She smiled. "Just want to know how you tick, is all."
"Good luck with that." Irritated, he made a move to walk away.
She strode over and grasped his arm, pulling him close. "In what sense?" she whispered in his ear, her voice licentious, her jade-green eyes filled with desire.
Startled, he pushed her off and backed away, his pale gray eyes locking onto hers, then averting.
She laughed. "The name's Sakanmyō Ryokuna. It sure was nice talking to you, Eishi."
Those same mysterious bottle-green eyes raked her form. The possessor of those eyes had not realized that "he" was a "she." But then, no one at the Marine training base had known "his" true gender—that of a woman.
The woman reclining in the leather chair before her had changed little from the young woman she had known then; many of her features and attributes remained untouched by time and experience. Still intact: the long, jet-black hair that felt silky to the touch; the voluptuous body she had taken pride in, swathed in a slim kimono adorned with a sakura pattern; the pale, slender form popular with the males at the training camp; the awareness of her power as a woman, as an object of lust, that continued to be seen in her eyes.
Yet those eyes had changed. While the left iris remained the same verdigris that breathed of poison, the right had become a shocking vivid turquoise.
"You look familiar," the Marine captain observed thoughtfully, her eyes narrowing with interest. "Have we met?"
"I have come here to see Captain Myome, not his mistress," the visitor—formerly "Eishi," now "Arashi"— said curtly, having recovered from her shock.
"You are speaking to Captain Myome." The marine stood and walked around the desk to examine the person clothed in somber kimono before her more closely. "Are you sure we haven't met?"
Arashi gritted her teeth. "As stated before, I have come to inquire of your reasons for placing an arms ban in this area—not to dawdle with idle, meaningless chatter."
Myome's eyes widened. "Of course! Now I recognize you! 'Eishi-kun'!" She smiled with gratification, standing only ten centimeters away from Arashi, and pushed back the visitor's long bangs to inspect "his" face more closely. "Yes, indeed it is you!"
Arashi backed away, anxious and irritated. "I—I don't—"
Myome stepped closer, forcing Arashi against the wall, pressing her body up against "his." "For so long, I thought you were dead…," she whispered, longing in her eyes. A longing that had festered over the years from loneliness of the soul.
Arashi stared her down, her eyes void of feeling. "Eishi is dead."
"No! He's not!" Myome exclaimed, wrapping her arms around "his" neck. "You're not!"
"Do realize," the woman clothed in somber colors whispered icily, pushing the possessed Marine captain away, "that I am a criminal according to your ban. And since I carry a sword, I can kill you at this moment if I so choose."
Myome slumped, releasing her grip. "Very well, then." She strode over to her lacquered desk and pulled open a drawer. "Then it is my duty as Marine captain to enforce the law I have made"—she withdrew a medium-sized scabbard, azure in color "—and execute you."
She smiled sadly. "If I can't have you, then no one else will."
She drew the wakizashi and became a pink blur.
Drawing her katana with her left hand, Arashi instinctively parried the attack with the back of her blade.
Myome grinned. "It's good to see that your swordsmanship skills haven't deteriorated." She leaped forward, attacking from the left.
"But tell me, Eishi," she said as Arashi's blade crossed hers, "why do you use your left arm to wield your sword?" Her eyes narrowed, darkening with anger. "Am I not worthy enough for you to use your full strength against me—with your right hand?"
Arashi's pale gray eyes told nothing.
The jade-eyed woman withdrew and then resumed attacking with swift, consecutive slices. Her opponent blocked every one, parrying at times, deflecting others.
"We were fellow recruits in the Marines, you and I!" the Marine captain thundered, her hair flying wildly as her attacks became more and more desperate. "And then, on our first assignment as Nitōhei—I almost died!!"
She stopped, breathless, her blade pointed to the floor, and looked up, her lovely face—a face that had countless times seduced many into bending under her will—twisted ugly with anguish.
"What happened?" she whispered, her voice cracking. "Why didn't you try to recover my body, at the very least? Then I wouldn't have suffered so much." Her free hand went to her discolored eye. "Then this wouldn't have happened. And my beauty would have remained untarnished."
Her opponent offered no words of comfort. "Your beauty?" Arashi asked quietly, lowering her sword. "Is that all you care about? Something as shallow as that?"
"Eishi…"
"So beauty really is skin deep." A scornful laugh.
"Beauty…," Myome hissed, "is power. When utilized to its full potential, it can obtain anything."
Arashi's mouth set itself to a thin line. "Superficial beauty is nothing. It is useless." She gestured toward the colorless, nearly empty room around her. "What has beauty given you? Position? Greed? False wealth? They all perish with time."
"Y-you're wrong!" Myome protested. "Beauty has given me everything! I can't live in this world without it!"
"And yet," remarked the gray-eyed woman, studying the fine tip of her blade, "you continue to struggle in search of something to fill the emptiness in your soul…while thousands elsewhere enjoy the life they've been given; though born or raised in this cursed age, their hearts are filled with the sense of being complete. And yet yours…remains a void."
Overcome with desperation, Myome rushed forward, abandoning her weapon, and pinned the swordswoman to the black carpet, inadvertently knocking her katana away.
"At the very least I will have you," the emerald-eyed woman breathed into her ear, gazing longingly into Arashi's cloud-gray eyes. "Even you cannot resist my beauty and touch."
"You wretched, pitiable woman." Taking hold of her katana on the carpet, the woman of bluish raven hair flipped the Marine captain over so that their positions were reversed. She embedded the blade deep in the floor next to Myome's neck.
"This sword," she hissed, her eyes glowing silver, "is not for you." She stood, removing the katana from its place in the carpet, and sheathed the blade.
As Marine Captain Myome lied on the suddenly cold floor of her office, her jade eyes filling with tears of loss, Arashi left a parting message.
"Eishi is dead. The bounty hunter Arashi, reborn, has come to take his place and absolve his sins."
She peered from behind a faded tree at the edge of the clearing and observed the green-haired man training there.
"What do you want?" the man demanded, turning around to face his silent audience.
Sweat soaked his white tee, causing the fabric to stick to his tanned skin and further accent his muscular form. He held two shinai in his hands and removed the one in his mouth.
"Well?"
The woman brushed back a lock of dark hair and stepped away from the shade. "Gomen. It's just… I wondered… Could I perhaps try…?"
The man stared at her for a moment in disbelief. "Wield a shinai…in that?"
She blinked. "Eh? What do you mean?"
"Your clothes." He turned away to pick up the training equipment scattered all over the clearing. "They're not exactly easy to train in."
She examined the dark blue kimono on her person. "I can try anyway."
"Don't say I didn't warn you," he muttered. "Here." He tossed over a shinai behind his back, which her left hand deftly caught.
Surprised, she looked at the shinai more closely. 'How…?' She raised her eyes to the strong figure of the man before her. "Anou… Will you spar with me?"
"No."
"Why not?"
"Have one of the other students do it."
"… You didn't answer my question."
"It's not like I have to."
She was silent, pondering the reason for his refusal. Then, "I suppose you're right. Sorry for the inconvenience."
Dropping the shinai onto the ground, she rotated on her heel and left as quietly as she had come.
"You want to become a student?"
"Hai." She nodded.
'Why the sudden interest?' the dojo sensei wondered. "Well… I suppose you may…."
"Then… Do you have any clothes that are more suitable for training?"
"Eto…let me think…," the kind-faced man murmured, thoughtful. He gestured toward a few wooden trunks set against the wall behind them. "I believe there may be some in one of those chests by the wall…"
As she began to rummage through the various random clothes and accessories, the sensei walked to the shōji. "I'll leave you to change," he told her before gently shutting the door.
She nodded distractedly, busy sorting through the miscellanea that had collected in those chests over the years.
The dark-haired young woman stepped into a grassy clearing and looked around. 'This looks like a good place to train.'
She closed her eyes and held her arms out before her in meditation. Her steady breathing could be seen through the gentle rise and fall of her chest beneath the white tee shirt she wore. The cool afternoon breeze rustled the folds of her shirt and black pants. Her bare feet tingled from the grass dew that still remained even after the sun's morning rays. Occasionally would the birds twitter cheerfully, reveling in nature's purity, before swiftly returning to their warm nests and holes, shelters from the cold.
She and nature seemed to feel as if they were one.
But this peaceful silence was shattered by the rough voices of several men a short distance away. Coarse expletives, followed by wild, unrestrained laughter, rang through the forest. Soon, a group of young men entered the clearing where the young woman stood.
Dropping her arms to her sides, she glared at the disruption with piercing pale gray eyes.
"Oi, oi, what do we have here?" remarked one of the men, noticing her presence.
"Are you all alone?" another asked, lowering his sunglasses to get a better look at her body.
Still shooting a disapproving glare in their direction, she turned, picked her shinai up off the ground, and began to walk away.
Two more men stepped in to block her path. "Oi, it's rude to just ignore someone who's talking to you."
"And if I don't want to talk?" she snapped testily.
"Not even a small chat?" a man wearing a black bandanna around his head—most likely the leader of the pack—asked.
"Get out of my way."
Their faces darkened.
"And who's gonna make us? You?" the leader asked, his demeanor becoming nasty. "Not with that stupid bamboo stick you got there."
The men stepped closer, their grins malicious.
The green-haired man had been taking a twenty-kilometer jog when he heard voices up ahead. He slowed to get a better look. A group of men stood together in the small clearing where he usually trained; among them stood a dark-haired woman.
'Oh, shit, not her again.' With a sigh, he stepped forward.
"Oi! You!" he called out. "What are you doing here?"
The woman turned and saw the man with moss-colored hair. "Zoro-san…"
"Leave us the hell alone!" the leader hissed. "Go mind your own business, unless you wanna get hurt!"
"These guys giving you trouble at all?" His question, of course, was rhetoric as he drew the two swords at his side.
Eyeing the intruder with malevolence, the group of men pulled out various knives and revolvers.
"No," the woman replied nonchalantly. "No trouble at all."
As everyone stared at her, she took the awkward moment to her advantage. Whipping around, she struck the men behind her with the shinai in her hand, knocking them to the ground. Then she proceeded to assail the rest of the men while they stood gaping. Within minutes, the entire group was down for the count.
She turned to face the green-haired man, propping her shinai against her left shoulder as she brushed back a stray lock of hair. "See? No trouble at all."
Well, what do you think?
:D
Here are the review replies!!
Darkmaster2—Yes, I am!! High on One Piece music!!! As always, I'll live with your rambling…for now. And shush, you; Oda-sensei is not that much of a queer… ;;
Thank you for your support, Makoto Kasumi-chan and Risika!!!