Chapter 34:

Wow! Well, it has most certainly been a super long time since I have updated this story. I hope that people are still interested in reading it. Since I started Hard Lines I haven't written that much for Tashigi's Heart at all.

So Recap!

Tashigi and Smoker have been sent to an island where there have apparently been a lot of disappearances and they are looking for these missing people. The Marines have divided themselves up into squads and are investigating the surrounding areas to try and find any leads, but so far they have been unable to.

However there is a mystery about the island that has never been solved, and a legend of a reappearing and disappearing mist that surrounds it. In the last chapter, Tashigi and her group were able to find a tree. And not just any tree but a Devil tree, it came from a seed of a devil fruit that wasn't eaten but was instead allowed to grow and flourish into adulthood.

.

.

Tashigi's Heart: The Maze of the Mind

.

.

Rone, the ex-geologist, Varr the troublemaker, Justin the handsome one, Render the intelligent one, Bectos and Casey, the strong ones, and Haru the youngest.

.

.

I tried to feel my way around but the thick purple smoke clogged up my already blurry vision. I shut my eyes and pulled up the shirt that was covering my mouth to dab briefly at the stinging sensation. I jumped again into a long left shoulder roll that continued to take me further away from the tree, while still being able to pull Haru along with me.

I looked back at the others. 'What can I do for them right now? How can I get us out of this?' I looked back at both Bectos and Casey. Both are dead with a twisting tree root in their necks. 'I tell them to run, and they attack. I tell them to carry someone to safety, but instead they get captured themselves. Justin might still be alive if he hasn't been crushed already in the trees deep roots. But I think it's highly unlikely. And Rone... well he...'

Varr called out to me. "Hey! Have you got a plan or what? I was just going to carry on throwing detonators at it, until it burns. What do you think?!"

I glared in his direction. "This is a devil f...uh.. tree!" I corrected myself. "You know how these things work. If it's physically wounded, it can still heal itself." I pointed briefly in the direction of where I thought the sea was. "If you could somehow blast this tree off the cliff and drown it in the sea we might just be able to beat it."

"But the sea is in that direction." Varr muttered pointing in a slightly different direction.

"Okay. Well. Sorry. I can't see very clearly because I lost my glasses in the struggle!" I explained getting irritated and angry.

'You allowed this to happen Tashigi!. You allowed this to happen to them all. They're all going to die.'

The tree seemed to make a sort of laughing noise that sounded oh so similar to that of a real human it was slightly disorientating. The gas then changed into a slight pinkish sort of colour and swirled out toward us even further.

My tired eyes searched the scene for Rone. Just briefly I saw a small amount of movement near the base of the tree. "Hey Varr?!" I whispered loudly.

"What?"

"Cover me. I'm getting Rone." I looked ahead and counted the steps I needed to take in order to get to him.

"Are you crazy!?" Varr glared back at me. "Do you really still think there's a chance..."

"Well I know that you're not up for it." I interrupted him. "Look! just cover me okay."

"I will, but anyone ever tell you that you're dead crazy?" He said bitterly, obviously angry that our group had been taken so easily.

"Yep." I answered. 'All the bloody time. Every woman and man I seem to meet think they can give me the best advice I could ask for, well here's to them and to their sorry scared behaviours.'

I dashed forwards just as Varr threw five minature detonators, I don't know why he brought those with him today, but I am now very thankful he did. Unlike before, when they exploded this time it blew up all the air around it, and knocked me off my feet. I covered my whole head with my shirt afraid that my hair would catch on fire. 'What the hell? Is that thing like a gas gas tree?' I looked up. 'Surely Smoker could have read that signal. That was a huge explosion!'

I stood back up hoping that somehow the tree might have been wounded, but somewhere in the back of my mind I knew otherwise. Rone was just two metres away from me when I noticed his entire right leg had been pulled down into the cracked up ground. I lifted Shigure again, not really sure how I was supposed to cut Rone's leg out of the ground without cutting it off as well.

"Shilalalalalalalalala!" The large tree seemed delighted by my sudden burst of energy and it's roots cracked open around me and it belched out more of it's pink smoke. "You think you can save your stupid friends? They are just another glorious piece of me. Of my circle of life. I will continue. I will go on."

I reached Rone and struck him across the face, hoping to wake him up. He stirred a little but he had breathed in too much of the stuff. 'And so am I. I need to finish this quickly.'

I started hacking away at the hard mud and roots beside Rone and pulled at his leg. Varr threw another detonator and like before it let of a huge explosion that blasted the strange tree's branches, roots, and leaves at me as well as it's own fire. My skin was burned at the closeness of the blast and the shirt on my head caught fire and I ripped it from me before the rest of me could as well.

If Varr threw another of those I'm not sure anyone else could survive at all. Rone seemed to wake up suddenly due to the massive heat, and also screaming with pain.

"AHHHHHHHH!"

I jumped at the horrified nature of the scream... 'as if things couldn't get any worse...'

He reached his hand down and touched his leg. "IT'S IN MY SKIN! IT'S IN MY LEGS!"

I looked down at it again and sure enough I could see a white snake-like vein under his skin pulsing at the knee cap. 'That was probably how this damn tree survived. Sucking the life blood out of all it's victims. It really is like a devil fruit.'

"CUT IT OFF! PLEASE! CUT IT OFF!" I had never heard him speak with such fear before and I knew I had no time to double check with him. I liftedmy Shigure and brought it down hard just two inches above his knee joint. He screamed butit was a clean cut. Thank God I didn't have to do three of four takes. I had briefly thought I'd need to because of how uneven the ground was but at the last moment Rone had pushed himself up enough so that none of the roots or branches could hinder him.

I pulled his right arm over my shoulder and ran as fast as I could away from the tree again. As we got further away I noticed the billowing out of the pink smoke and I shook my head, trying to stay awake in the gas-like fumes. I felt the gas-like substance start entering me through my skin, my ears, nose, eyes, mouth, and I started convulsing and gagging struggling to stay not only awake but alive as well. And then as if it was the last sound of freedom I heard that thing I also dreaded.

"BOOOOOOOM!"

The section of the cliff where the tree was standing on... 'no not standing growing in.' … started cracking and falling down into the sea far below. Before I knew it Rone had been knocked out of my hands and had skidded away and into one of the cracks made by the shockwave. Before I could actually double check my balance the ground beneath me gave way and the entire section tilted horrifically sideways.

I could hear Varr shout from somewhere. 'At least he and Haru were safe. I hope.'

The ground turned into dry, cracked, mud... the dry, cracked mud turned into rubble, and the rubble passed through the roots of the tree and suddenly I could see just far it was to fall down into the sea from this point. I was also able to finally notice where Rone had ended up and he too had been caught in the roots again. The tree was now dangling from the cliff's face. The only thing keeping it from the sea were it's roots still grasping on for dear life.

Suddenly, the roots that I was on moved and new sections started to grow. And grow towards me.

I was so thankful that I had been able to still have a hold on Shigure and I made a wobbly run/climb up the remaining roots and started cutting them at their anchor point. "Come on! You damn Tree! Fall! Break!"

"Shilalalalalala!" The tree made an almost sing song laugh as I cut into it, and then without warning all the roots about me vanished into the air. I noticed when I fell that the tree had disappeared as well, there was nothing above me and other than the pink haze that was the rising and lifting strangely back to the cliff.

'Of course. I can't knock a gas into the sea. It would be easier to suck the thing into a vacuum, and then find a way to freeze it. Somehow.'

I felt the rush of the wet, salty, sea air rush pass me as I fell. I was able to turn around so I hit the water front feet first. And as I hit the cold sea surfice. I felt my legs ache like as if they had just been rammed into a brick wall. And I was submerged into the dark depths that the rocky coast.

'It's a miracle I'm still alive. I could have landed on one of the rocks around here.'

'Okay...note to self. Never plant a devil's fruit. It might just grow into a monster.'

.

.

Dear lovely people. I hope this chapter was a good catch up after a whole year of not reading this story. What can I say...

um...

I had serious writer's block and addiction to another story.

:D