Chapter 5: Camping in Wait

Tashigi nears her target.

The Ghost slipped through the water under the cover of darkness. Silent and quick, her crew moving with practiced ease. Tashigi stood on the deck, her eyes flicking to the mangrove branches drooping overhead.

This grove was the only place closest to the island that would work to hide them. Through the vines and trailing leaves, she could see it. Lights illuminating the vague shape of the island. They would camp here. "Weigh anchor!" she called out, barely acknowledging the sound of her men rushing about to comply.

Somewhere on that sad little splotch of land was her target.

The low light of her lantern swayed gently, the ship creaking, the waves rolling. Familiar, the sounds of a life at sea. But there were other sounds, branches swaying, birds hooting. Her men on the deck below playing a dice game. On her old ship, she'd never been able to hear the other decks. Navy ships had thicker floors, thicker walls.

Bigger cannons. Tashigi stared down at Shiryu's wanted poster on her tiny table. He looked like a smug bastard. She flipped the paper over, looking at his profile. User of the Suke Suke fruit, and wielder of a meito rank sword. Raiu. A nodachi of that caliber deserved a better owner.

He would be a tough opponent. His fruit would be tricky. But what irked Tashigi most was that she still didn't know what he was doing out on this outpost. It had to be important to the Blackbeard pirates. She turned the paper back over again and glared at him. The cigar in his mouth caught her eye and her breath hitched.

…Smoker used to smoke the same ones.

Puru puru puru puru

Tashigi looked up, eyes zeroing in on the drawer under her bed. The one filled with things from her old life. Her old coat and brightly colored shirts that wearing now just felt wrong. Her dog tags. Things she'd been able to retrieve from her apartment on G-5 after the trial.

"Hina always told him. Warned him. Don't make a fuss. Listen to our superiors. Stupid. Stupid, stupid, stupid! A waste!" Hina slurred drunkenly, her eyes red rimmed and puffy. Tashigi hadn't said anything. Hadn't thanked her for sticking her neck out for her and the remaining survivors of their unit. Hadn't thanked her for the dishonorable discharge instead of the prison sentence.

And why should she?

Her body felt like wood as she walked the short space to her bed and opened the drawer. For a moment, the smell of cigar smoke, soaked into the fabric of her old coat washed over her. Tashigi's heart clenched. She'd used to wash all her clothes two times to try and wring some of the smell out until she gave up. Until she'd been unable to smell it anymore. Until it had soaked into her skin, her way of life, a little piece of him always with her.

Tashigi's vision shrank and blurred. That hole inside her that Shigure now hummed to fill with blood tore open, shrieking and violent, ripping at the quiet that had been her thoughts just a few moments before. The same pain that fueled her duels, that had now claimed the swords from dozens of powerful fighters, the same desperate urge that led her to spend her hours training, training, training-

Puru puru puru puru

Like lightning, her fingers snatched up the small long range den den mushi, its eyes looking up at her balefully. Awakened from its long slumber to a face that only looked at it with loathing. She would have felt bad once. Maybe she still did.

gacha

"Arara… been a while Tashigi-chan," came a voice she hadn't heard in months. Not since the funeral. If you could even call it that.

"What do you want?"

A sigh on the other end and the sound of a glass being set down. Or maybe a bottle, since it was Kuzan. "Heard you're on the hunt." Of course he had. Smoker had always hated that Kuzan seemed to have his lazy ass planted in so many ears, though it had saved them a few times in the past.

Until the time they could have used him most.

"Be clear or I hang up," Tashigi said coldly. Another sigh. Another drink.

"Shiryu of the Rain isn't some run of the… what's the word? Damn whatever, anyway, swordsman." As if Tashigi didn't already know that. A high ranking commander of a Yonko. Formerly a high ranking member of the Navy.

"And?"

"...I'm saying be careful. Don't go in blindly. Scope it out and use…the environment… to your advantage. It'll be a tough one, maybe not something you can win on your own." Irritation sparked up her spine, into her fingers. For almost a year now, Tashigi had been going up against enemies with her tiny crew of 15. Her men from G-5. Men loyal enough to follow her, who understood her pain.

Not men like Kuzan. Who wasn't there.

"Is that all?" she ground out, jaw clenched..

"...Figured I wouldn't be able to sway you, but Smoker would roll in his grave if I didn't try. You always were his-" The irritation roared into fury.

"Don't," she hissed. "Maybe if you had cared this much about him before, he would still be here." A low blow. Kuzan had saved his life before, but the longer Tashigi looked at it, the more it seemed like Kuzan was just looking for a use for his own ends. Always shadows and walking the line.

Silence met her words for a long, long minute. No sighs, no drinking. Just a drawn out pause.

"Listen, if you live… I'm meeting up with some old friends, people who…maybe feel like you do. If you're interested, seek out the old ruins of Ohara." And with that, Kuzan hung up.

Tashigi stared at the snail. Old friends, the only friends she had in common with Kuzan were Hina and Coby, who were still members of the Navy. Her enemies now. Or…?

A complicated and conflicting swirl of emotions bubbled in her chest. She set the snail back down in the drawer, her fingers lingering over her coat, and below it, two cigars. Inhale. The smokey scent wrapped around her. Tashigi closed her eyes.

He leaned back against the wall on top of the barracks, cigar smoke huffing into the cool night air. She sat next to him, knees drawn up to her chest. A rager was going on down below. The G-5 partying, not for any particular reason other than they were finally back at Base from Vegapunk's Lab, could finally "relax". They were pairing up and drinking, breaking things.

"So better or worse than Alabasta?" came Smoker's low rumble. She glanced over at him. He'd healed well from Doflamingo's attack, but if she looked closely, she could make out the still pink thread scars.

Tashigi pursed her lips. After Alabasta, she'd cried alone in her cabin. Sobbed until she couldn't breathe. Been unable to do anything to right wrongs. At least this time they were able to help innocents. At least this time…

"It's less lonely," she responded, giving him a weak half smile.

"Misery does love company," he grunted.

"Are you miserable?" she gazed at him while he looked up at the sky, stars twinkling. His eyes wandered down over their men, before moving over to her.

"...No, the company is too good for that. The booze is shit though." She laughed.

Tashigi closed the drawer and swiped the back of her hand over her eyes. It didn't matter, all her feelings. She would deal with them later, after she annihilated Shiryu of the Rain.

Notes:

Climax coming dun dun dunnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn!