Snow Harpy is annoying, because she's cutting Lucy off from her real target. But she's also not inconsequential. Snow Harpy makes for a good wall, and Lucy's fists aren't well-suited to deal with her.
"I wonder what it's like, to be a female captain on these seas," Snow Harpy muses quietly. "I bet it's exhausting, fending off all the men who want a piece of you."
Lucy raises an eyebrow as she punches her way through another layer of this snow dome. "I hit people who bug me."
Snow Harpy giggles, and when she pops out of the snow wall behind her, Lucy sees the tip of one feathered wing cover the woman's mouth, a surprisingly dainty gesture considering the size of her wings. "I'm sure. Possessing enough strength to assure one's own safety is impressive."
"Thanks, I trained a lot."
Lucy can't break through all the layers at once. Just the first two with a strong punch, and the first four if she uses Gear Second. It closes up immediately though, and Lucy knows this woman is just as determined to keep her here as Lucy is to leave.
Snow Harpy's not fighting to win. She's fighting to stall.
It's not the type of fight Lucy likes.
"I prefer being part of a group that protects me, rather than doing the protecting, personally. I do whatever my master tells me to do in exchange." Snow Harpy observes sedately.
Lucy growls. "I don't have time for someone as pathetic as that."
The woman giggles again. "Pathetic? How rude. Are you getting cold yet?"
Yeah, actually, she was. The edges of her scar ache, and the chilled air sweeps across her skin. She probably should have kept the coat from earlier. "Just fight already!"
And then a quiet whisper in her ear, voice smooth and confident. "I am."
Wings wrap around Lucy before she can react, her Observation Haki muffled and hindered by the snow, and her face is pressed into Snow Harpy's shoulder. Lucy tries to move but—can't.
She can't move.
Snow Harpy coos, stroking her hair like a mother might comfort a crying child. "What a fighter you are. So strong. In a normal situation I'd never win. But the strongest is not always the one who wins the fight, you see?"
The world seems still, quiet, and so, so cold. Lucy can't feel her fingers. Her head feels heavy and her body weak.
"Just go to sleep now," Snow Harpy croons, "Just go to sleep. It's quiet."
I shouldn't, Lucy thinks fuzzily, I can't fall asleep. I'll die.
But it's cold, and the cold hurts as it creeps up her neck and seeps into her skin, leaving nothing but numb, unfeeling ice behind.
"There's no need to fight now. Just sleep."
But…that's not right, is it? She always needs to fight. Always, every day, every moment, because that is the life she was born to and the life she chose. That's part of what being a pirate is. Part of being alive.
If she's not fighting…she's…dead?
Lucy can't be dead. She can't die right now. She has people depending on her, people she needs who maybe need her in a similar way. She isn't the Pirate King yet.
The cold seeps so deep it starts to feel warm. Her eyes slip closed. Her body, as if made of living ice and stone, slumps forward.
"Get a grip and take this seriously! We can't afford to be careless!"
Oh. Zoro.
A jumble of memories flit through her head—the first time Zoro fished her out of the ocean, grumbling but not letting go of her until she was safely back on their little dinghy, the first time she heard him laugh and the last time she did, the moment she realized she liked him, pinned uncomfortably under his sleeping frame, and every gentle touch between them, every time they kissed, his warm breath against her ear as they spoke late into the night, and the ambitions that bind them together so intractably.
Zoro. She can't die because Zoro would—would—
Zoro would live. Become the World's Greatest Swordsman. But he would be so, so sad.
Her eyes snap open. Something hot pools in her gut, travels up her spine and warms her just enough to actually use the Conqueror's Haki howling in her chest. The Snow Harpy is before her, still cocooning Lucy with her wings. The numbness hasn't faded from Lucy's body—if anything it's even more powerful. The terrible absence of sensation wakes her more, infuriates her and she will not be overcome.
She moves.
Her hand snaps up, wrapping around the Harpy's throat as the woman gasps in shock, eyes rolling back in response to the blast of Conqueror's. Immediately it gets easier to move, and Lucy sucks in a breath, warming half-frozen lungs. She jumps, uses the woman as a counterbalance so harshly that the Harpy falls to her knees, gagging, and Lucy breaks a hole in the floor with her feet.
It's an escape, which seems shameful in some ways, but Lucy doesn't care about this woman, and she needs to find Caesar as quickly as possible. Her nakama need her.
She throws Harpy away from the hole just as Lucy starts to fall. The woman is trembling, sweating bullets in response to the blast of Haki, looking utterly unable to move. Protected by others indeed.
Lucy thinks, as she falls into a black pit with no bottom to speak of, that she'd never gather a crew so weak as that, and that Snow Harpy's boss is probably a pissant.
Zoro lets Robin, Chopper, and Nami through the snow wall Chicken Bitch erected, and turns to face his opponent.
She touches down on the snowpack before him, wings tucked into her side and a thoughtful look on her face.
When she speaks, her voice is light and soft, like the snow. It's incongruous with the deadly gleam in her eye. "Are you like your captain, then? One of the 'protectors?'"
Zoro stares her down, saying nothing.
Chicken Bitch is not dissuaded. "You're the Pirate Hunter, Roronoa Zoro. 110,000,000 Beri. You must be a protector. You're the second most-valuable member of your crew. Not like Cat Burglar and Devil Child."
Zoro frowns harder. "You wanna fight or what?"
Chicken Bitch giggles, and it sounds sort of like ice breaking. "You really are like your captain. Straw Hat Lucy called me pathetic when I told her I prefer being protected to doing the protecting."
Zoro flicks his wrist, spraying melted water droplets from Shusui's blade onto the snow. "Well she's right."
That information does raise a question, though. If Chicken Bitch ran into Lucy and Chicken Bitch still made it here relatively unharmed, then where is Lucy right now? He can feel her using Observation Haki, can sense her nearby and sense that she's still breathing, but she's also…muffled, somehow. Not in an injured sort of way. More…distance. But he's pretty sure she's unharmed, if maybe a bit frustrated at the moment.
"My, my," Chicken Bitch hums. Zoro's not exactly sure what she's so happy about. "You Straw Hats are really something, aren't you? I think I'd like you all if you weren't working against my master."
Zoro scoffs. "Our captain wouldn't have any interest in someone who conscripts herself to another like that."
Chicken Bitch raises a wing, gleaming like metal under the harsh lights of the nursery. "Oh? Does that mean rumors of your loyalty to Straw Hat Lucy are exaggerated, then?"
Zoro raises his blades slightly, ready to move. "Lucy's our captain. Not our master."
Chicken Bitch blinks, seemingly surprised by his answer, and then the wicked grin is back, and her gleaming wing arcs forward in a diagonal slash toward Zoro. Shusui and Kitetsu swing up in a block. Chicken Bitch grunts and disengages, leaping back, and Zoro follows her, unrelenting.
Zoro swings forward, about to cut her in half, but she brings a wing up to block, feathers covered in a solid block of diamond-hard snow. She swipes for his head with her free arm, intent on decapitating him, and he's forced to duck down and roll away, because she has a very significant height advantage due to her ability to fly.
Zoro rolls to his feet, frowning. This woman is going to be troublesome. It's not that she's particularly powerful. Rather, she's just good enough to make dealing with her a chore. The thing is, unless he's willing to kill her, he's got to keep her distracted until the others have a chance to catch up to the kids. That or otherwise injure her badly enough to keep her down permanently, but with the gas fast approaching, that's as good as a death sentence.
He's…not certain he wants to kill her.
It's been a while since he killed anyone. Last time was Enies Lobby, with giraffe guy. That was over two years ago now, and before that he'd been seventeen and much less skilled than he currently was. He hadn't had much choice about it then.
And here's the thing—Zoro's never been fond of slaughter. It's too easy. He doesn't mind killing when necessary, and has never managed to muster much or any guilt over any of the choices he's made, but slaughter isn't something he's ever done before. It's a quality he and Mihawk share.
Killing this woman would be slaughter. Not a fight, not a challenge, just boring and useless.
So. Distraction it is. When the others have had enough time to get to the kids, he'll use—that on her, and make her stay down.
She comes at him again, a flurry of snow-blades and easily predicted movement, and he sighs, unimpressed and a bit disappointed.
Right. This is going to take a while.
When the Dart-brow comes through with the Navy on his heels—following, not chasing, apparently—he's more than a little annoyed. Partly because the shit cook exists, and partly because this means he'll have to stall this woman even longer than he was expecting to let the others go through.
Then the Copy-Cat shows up, and the situation is immediately ten times worse.
Seriously, what the fuck. Why does this girl exist, and why does she look exactly like Kuina.
"I think you need my help here!"
And who the hell does she think she is?!
"Look, get out of my way or I'll make you, Navy chick!"
The woman doesn't react at all, her eyes locked on Chicken Bitch. "You can't hurt me."
"Say that again."
"More accurately, you won't. And you won't hurt that woman either."
Bizarrely, Chicken Bitch giggles. "I was just thinking the same thing, Navy-chan."
Zoro just blinks at both of them, bewildered. "Uh…yes I will."
"Then why haven't you?!" She demands, so furious she's trembling. "It's because you view women as inferior, isn't it? You'd never respect one of us in battle!"
"The fuck are you talking about—"
"We fought in Loguetown. Or did my sex make me too insignificant for you to remember?"
Now that wasn't fair. Zoro would have remembered Tashigi even if they hadn't fought. She helped him pick out Kitetsu, and she looked too much like Kuina to forget.
"I told you—you were an insignificant opponent because you were weak. Not because you're a girl." Zoro flicks his gaze casually to Chicken Bitch. "Same goes for you, Harpy."
Copy-cat scowls, grip on her katana turning white-knuckled. Zoro kind of wonders what happened to tatter her gloves like that, the fabric in twisted ribbons around her fingers. "If that were the case, you would have done to her what you did to me."
Zoro vaguely recalls an easy fight that ended with a show of dominance and being really pressed for time.
Actually, this isn't that dissimilar.
"I was going to," Zoro huffs. "I needed to buy time for the others first." He frowns at Tashigi. "Didn't you listen to a thing I said last time? It doesn't matter who holds the katana if they're weak."
Tashigi shakes a little harder. "I am not weak."
Zoro shrugs. "You were last time. But fine." He gestures to Chicken Bitch, who's been surprisingly obliging about this whole conversation. "Be my guest. I'll guard the exit."
And with that, Zoro takes a seat by the huge-ass door, hands on his katana as he smirks at Copy-cat expectantly.
He's not going to let Copy-cat get hurt, but he's pretty sure navy girl can handle it. She has Haki, after all, which means she must have trained pretty hard since they last saw each other. She's capable of fighting a logia like Chicken Bitch. And this is as effective a stalling technique than anything.
She makes a noise sort of similar to a strangled cat and glares. "So you're just going to sit there?"
Jesus, women who aren't Lucy make no sense.
"Isn't that what you wanted in the first place?"
Tashigi makes a frustrated noise and whirls to face her actual opponent, and with a quick feint and a dart to the left, the two women begin to fight.
Tashigi's gotten a lot better since Zoro last saw her fight. Loads better. Her movements are smoother, her technique more advanced, and she's skillfully weaving Armament Haki into her blade to strengthen it, but it doesn't appear to be developed into a coating yet. Had he fought this Tashigi two years ago, she would have trashed him, instantly.
She's still not on his level. Not even close. She's pretty evenly matched with Chicken Bitch, actually, even when she's using all of her Devil Fruit abilities. Copy-cat isn't strong enough to beat Zoro, but he kind of wants to fight her when she is. She seems clever and agile, which are the two qualities his swordsmanship most lacks—he's more of the skill and brute-force type.
He watches the fight carefully, ready to help if his temporary ally gets overwhelmed. It's not necessary though—neither of them can quite get the upper hand on the other, and they're caught in a struggle for endurance and luck more than anything.
It goes on like that for a while—nearly ten minutes, which is a long time for any fight. They've both gotten a few strikes in, but nothing debilitating, their luck holding equally well.
But suddenly the tide shifts—the groan of metal creaks from deep within the facility, and the Marine glances away from her opponent in a split second's distraction. Chicken Bitch lunges for her knees, and Tashigi trips, despite her retroactive efforts to dodge. Her katana flies across the room, and all her careful footwork betrays her as she overbalances right into Chicken Bitch's teeth.
Copy-cat screams as blood runs down her shoulder and ice spreads from the wound. A furious expression creases her face, and Zoro knows she's probably angrier with herself than she is the woman trying to take a chunk out of her shoulder.
Zoro would normally never interfere with someone else's fight. Especially not someone with as big a chip on her shoulder as Copy-cat seems to have. He understands pride better than that. But, well, Tashigi interfered first anyway. And frankly he can't listen to someone who looks so much like Kuina scream like that. Can't watch her lose so stupidly, either.
He stands, carefully applies Haki to his katana, and aims.
Chicken Bitch rears back, blood pouring from the cut across the bridge of her nose, and she yelps in pain.
Copy-cat looks up at him accusingly, like she's mad about the interruption. He gives her an unimpressed look, but tries to help her salvage her pride. "We've stalled her long enough, don't you think?"
Tashigi's scowl deepens, but her eyes betray a little more uncertainty.
This girl can't be Kuina. She's way too expressive about everything and not nearly smug enough.
Zoro turns his attention back to the logia, stalking forward slowly, with purpose. He grins a little, seeing the terror in her expression as she realizes he's not restraining himself any longer. "You underestimated me, you know." He taps on the terrible well inside him, lets it leak into his aura and sees the woman flinch when she senses it. "I've never seen a wild animal that wouldn't bite. Have you?"
The harpy trembles, clearly fighting the instinct to run, and Zoro remembers days he spent hungry in the streets, that time he got jumped by a gang of children who hated foreigners—whose parents hated foreigners—the satisfaction of a proper, blood-letting fight, the fury of a true battle, every time he thought Lucy was seriously hurt or dead, the feeling right after Mihawk delivered the news of Ace's death and Lucy's tragedy. He brings everything forward, on and on until bloodlust wells and the memories tinge red with the absolute ferocity of his own dark presence. Kitetsu howls at his hip, and Zoro uses the rage there, fuels his own with it.
He cuts his opponent in half, unhesitating. Bisects her from head to groin.
Zoro lets out a huffed breath, reigning himself in. It's a useful move. It just…takes a lot out of him. Mentally speaking. But it's easier to pack those thoughts away now than it's ever been before. He suspects reuniting with his nakama—particularly resolving things with Lucy—has something to do with that.
"Did you just…scare her into paralysis?"
Tashigi sounds one part awed, one part horrified. Zoro supposes that's as good a reaction as any.
"Yah," he huffs dryly. It's time they caught up to the others. The gas is going to leak in soon, and they have to get to R 66. Lucy better be there with Caesar, completely unharmed, or so help him Zoro is going to cut the building in half out of spite. This island has been straight up annoying ever since they crossed the lake.
"Well that's humiliating," Tashigi huffs. "It would have been kinder to kill her."
He hears the crunch of snow behind him, and knows she's following. "Killing her would have been the same as murder, considering the difference between us. I would do it if I had to, but I didn't."
Tashigi makes a noise that could definitely be considered a frustrated growl. "Why do you always act like you're better than me?" She asks angrily.
Zoro strides forward, shaking his head. "Eh? What're you talking about, Copy-cat? I wasn't talking about you."
"You always talk down to me," she grumbles. "Tell me, do you do this to your captain, too? I wonder how she stands you, if that's the case."
"Oh for the love of—I'm stronger than you, but Lucy's stronger than anyone. Get over yourself already."
"So you do think you're better than me," Copy-cat growls.
This is…possibly the stupidest conversation Zoro has ever had. "Yes. Because I am." At the very least he doesn't bait near strangers into weirdly misconstrued arguments on sexism.
"You are not." There's a pause as they cross the door's threshold. "She lost to Smoker in Loguetown," Tashigi says smugly, and Zoro hesitates for a fraction of a second, because he actually didn't know they fought then. But whatever. The Straw Hats got away in the end, thanks in no small part to Dragon. The bastard.
Then she gasps, and he hears her drop to her knees behind him. He turns to see her clutching her shoulder, breathing hard. "Eh? You hurt?"
She scowls at him even through the pain in her face. "I'm fine. Go on without me."
Zoro rolls his eyes. This woman is stupid-stubborn. She might be even worse than Lucy, and that's saying something. At least Lucy asks for help when she needs it.
He's about to say so when Tashigi collapses face-first into the snow.
Great. Just great.
Oh well. Not like there's much to be done about it.
Zoro hefts her over his shoulder in a fireman's carry, and takes off down the hall. His crew better have fixed the kids by now, or Zoro's going to cut something.
Caesar is the kind of person Lucy hates the most.
That's all there is to it, really.
When most of her nakama arrive in the R 66 tower, Lucy goes forward to greet them, grinning. She's been keeping a subtle eye on them with Observation Haki, so she knew they were safe and getting closer, but it's good to see them regardless. Zoro looks particularly irritated, if the frown creasing his eyebrows is any indication. Lucy's pretty sure the shrieking Marine lady he's hauling over his shoulder has something to do with that though.
Lucy waves to them, and she sees Nami and Sanji's shoulders drop in relief. Robin smiles and waves too, and Zoro's face softens, just a little. He sets down the Marine lady into the waiting arms of one of her subordinates, and she doesn't seem any happier to be handled by them than she was by Zoro.
Lucy meets Nami and Robin first, instantly throwing her arms around them in a quick hug. "I knew you guys would be fine!" She cheers. Lucy doesn't miss the way all four of them soften toward her at the words, even as the boys approach.
They're all still a bit sensitive from being torn apart. Lucy's job as captain is to make sure they all understand that it's never going to happen again, that they'll never be torn apart like they were, not ever. Lucy's not going to let it happen, and she's strong enough now to back that promise up.
A quick glance tells her that her nakama are all unharmed. She knew they would be, has too much faith in them to think otherwise, but she's glad to see it all the same.
She releases Nami and Robin, who follow closely as they approach the boys. Still sensitive. It's alright. Lucy's going to prove it to them.
It happens by chance, but from the corner of her eye Lucy sees the Marine lady glare at Zoro, and there's so much emotion there—most of it revolving around frustration and irritation, but also a grudging respect and admiration that makes something dark and unfamiliar rear its ugly head in Lucy.
Impulsively, Lucy reaches out to snatch Zoro's hand in hers. She just barely refrains from sending the Marine a challenging look, but she can't stop the thought from bubbling up that mine, Zoro is mine, and you can't have him—
Oh. She's. She's jealous.
That's…odd.
Zoro raises an eyebrow at her, his silver eye sharp with confusion. Neither of them are exactly opposed to public displays of affection, especially around their nakama, but doing stuff around strangers makes them both uncomfortable. She's not usually clingy, either, except when they're alone. Zoro probably thinks something happened to her, or thinks she thinks something happened to him. Either way, he squeezes her hand once, and doesn't let go as she flits around him to give Sanji a quick, encouraging punch to the ribs, grinning when he does nothing but wince through it.
She has to fight the urge to glare at the Marine lady when she spies her behind Zoro. It's not the first time that woman inspired jealousy in Lucy. It happened in Loguetown, too. Lucy didn't know what it was then, didn't have a good enough grasp on her feelings toward the swordsman to figure out what was going on, but she distinctly remembers harboring an instant and largely undeserved sense of dislike toward the woman before she completely forgot about her.
It's renewed now.
Shit, maybe she's sensitive too.
Hm. No wonder Zoro freaked that one time. Jealousy is a very unpleasant feeling. Maybe she should try and convince Zoro to get a tattoo too. Like, a tattoo of her hat or something. Was that too pimpish? It might be too pimpish. Especially if it was on his ass. Or the small of his back.
The thought makes her snort, and Zoro looks even more confused by her behavior than ever. She shakes her head, letting him know it's nothing, and she sees the gears turn as he decides to let her be.
He hasn't looked away this whole time though, and it makes the jealousy still choking her throat ease away. She's being silly. Marine lady is nearly irrelevant. So she grins at him in lieu of an explanation, and the little, barely-there smile on his lips, his expression a bit softer than normal, lets her know he understood. She laces their fingers together, and enjoys the way his callouses fit with hers.
"How is it possible that they're disgustingly cute even when they're not doing anything?" Nami complains, making an emphatic gesture at Lucy and Zoro while Sanji sighs and Robin giggles. "I thought them getting together would make it better, not worse."
"We may have forgotten to account for their mutual penchant for tactile communication," Robin adds. Lucy gets the distinct impression that Robin sometimes makes comments just to watch the metaphorical fireworks.
"At least if they do it in public we know he's not being inappropriate with Lucy-san," Sanji grumbles.
"Eh? What was that?" Zoro asks, irritated. Lucy grins as the two of them start up an argument, both of them clearly enjoying it more than anyone should be enjoying a fight, and snickers.
She makes the mistake of looking up toward the door, hoping to see the rest of her nakama arrive, and accidentally sets eyes on the Marine lady, who is looking at her and Zoro's joined hands like it's the most astounding thing she's ever seen, questions swimming in her eyes.
Lucy takes a step closer to Zoro, her shoulder pressing into his side, and tries not to project that she's staking a claim.
The questioning glances she receives from Robin and Nami let her know she did not succeed.
Sorry this is a couple days late, I haven't had internet for the last week and I've been busy graduating. You are now reading the stress-relieving words of a recently graduated, unemployed adult. Yay.
I am aware that the members of CP9 are alive and well. The Straw Hats are not, however, and are totally justified in thinking most of them died.
I've never really understood the issues people had with the Monet fight. Like, it's weird that Oda backtracked that aspect of Zoro's character—he's never expressed or displayed an issue with fighting women before Punk Hazard, and his entire backstory is him a) losing to a girl and b) encouraging said girl to become his rival—but I definitely didn't read/see it as the testosterone-fueled power trip most people seem to. Like, obviously I disliked some aspects of it because I changed a lot, but if I was going to complain about sexism in One Piece, that would definitely not be the example I'd point to. In part I think maybe people saw the whole thing as undercutting Tashigi's character and agency, but…she never really had that? Like, I'm all for characters that call out the patriarchy, and the way her subordinates treated her was awful, but we have literally never seen Tashigi win a fight. While she definitely has a strong moral compass, she doesn't exactly have great strength of character—and by that I mean, the ability to push through adversity and improve. Nami is, in my opinion, a way stronger female character than Tashigi, and Oda has half-relegated her to fanservice at this point. I can't see this whole Monet/Zoro/Tashigi fight as an undercutting of Tashigi's character, because she's not strong in the first place. It's the same problem I have with her arguments about sexism. It's not sexist for someone else to win and spare your life if you're that much weaker than them. I have more of a problem with the fact that Oda clearly wants us to think Tashigi is the epitome of a strong female character when she just…isn't. In any respect. In fact she's almost the complete opposite. Her insisting that everyone take her seriously despite her lack of strength isn't feminist, it's elitist and entitled. To me that's a way bigger issue than Zoro intimidating someone out of a fight.