Chapter 34: Short Friendship with Brief Goodbye
Smoker easily got past Johnny and dove for Robin, but a leg popped out of the ceiling and kicked him into the ground. Yosaku struggled to keep up with Tashigi's perfected sword swings, but when a surprise arm popped out of his glaive and into her face, he got the upper hand.
-I'm very sorry, but I'll be leaving you, for now. I'll be taking this as a parting gift, Nico Robin said, pulling Smoker's staff out of his hand and booking it down the corridor.
-Tashigi! Can you handle these guys while I pursue her!? Smoker shouted. Seeing Tashigi nod, he blasted off after Robin, leaving the Bounty Brothers coughing from the smoke.
With two quick hits using the back of her blade, Tashigi took both of them down. Before she could join Smoker in running after Nico Robin, an alarmingly familiar voice called out to her.
-We meet again, old pupil. I see you've gotten yourself involved with the Navy? Even with her demonic appearance, Tashigi instantly recognized her old master.
-How did you find me!? She instinctively pulled out her sword and pointed it at Okami.
-With this, Okami pulled out Nemesis. Its cursed nature was apparent.
-You know that I can't let you keep that, Tashigi entered her fighting stance.
-You've already made me experience the great shame of losing my blade once. It won't happen again, Okami did the same.
Smoker could feel the bridge rumbling from the ensuing clash as he continued to search for Robin, following the sounds of footsteps. They grew louder and louder until he turned the corner to face a completely empty dead-end. Before he could understand what exactly was happening, his own jite slammed down on him, locking him to the floor and sapping away his strength.
-A useful thing you've got there. Must be difficult, using a Seastone weapon as a Devil Fruit user, Robin said from an angle where Smoker couldn't see her.
-Oh, I get by! He shouted back, kicking wildly with his legs in the hope of hitting her.
-You seem to misunderstand. I am communicating with you through a mouth in the wall right now. From my current hiding place, neither you nor the Navy army will ever find me. You wanna know something the Navy will find? Your friend, who is currently battling a much, much stronger enemy, and I do not mean my bodyguards when I say that.
-So what!? She can handle herself! Smoker shouted back, his poker face faltering.
-I'm sure she can, but we both know what kind of a man you are. You don't survive as long as I have without learning to see through people, you know. Be true to yourself, and go help her, Robin said, growing hands out of the walls to pull out the jite.
-I'm sorry, but I've come too far to give up now, Smoker sighed, releasing smoke through the hallways. With the utmost concentration, he felt something matching Robin's body profile move a couple of hallways down. He dashed over there, narrowly avoiding getting stabbed by the body double she had left after her.
-Dammit, she's clever! There's no way that I alone can find her! A metaphorical lightbulb lit over his head.
-Dammit, can't you just admit it, man!? We're completely lost! A Navy soldier groaned.
-W-well, there's a real p-possibility that the Demon Child is hiding somewhere in these halls! You wouldn't want to miss a chance to capture her! His bespectacled captain responded, desperately trying to make his map fit with the labyrinth around them.
Before the squadron could shoot back an annoyed retort, smoke started rising out of the wall behind them. In dumbfounded silence, one of them put his hand against the wall, only to fall through it, discovering it to have the consistency of clay. Using the thin layer of smoke on the floor, Smoker could feel several other Navy squads enter the previously secret hallways of the building.
All that was left to do was wait. One of them would end up in conflict with Robin, inevitably lose but reveal her location, allowing him to dash over there and use his jite on her. To his big surprise, within five minutes of him letting them in, he overheard gunfire followed by victorious celebration.
As he approached, he discovered Robin, tied up with rope, surrounded by the squad that had captured her. As her ice-cold, calculating eyes met his, he realized that he had been gotten.
-Plumer, my life-long partner in crime! Please, save my life! They managed to capture me! She shouted. There was a silent moment as all of the soldier's eyes turned to Smoker, before guns were cocked.
While the soldiers were busy unloading their magazines towards Smoker, Robin subtly rolled through a nearby clay wall, leaving Smoker to his fate.
Meanwhile, the battle between Okami and Tashigi raged on; each swing of the sword paired with a statement of ideal.
-You forsake your duty to the people around you for your own revenge! You have no right to call yourself a swordsman! Tashigi unleashed three rapid blows while stepping forward.
-I did it for my honor! If you can't defend your honor, there's no purpose to being a swordswoman! Okami perfectly parried all of them.
-Fighting for no other reason than personal pride is honorless! Tashigi jumped into the air, charging her sword full with Haki. For the first time in her life, she forced her master to actually dodge.
-Heh, fine! Let's see if you really are so selfless! Okami pointed her sword to the unconscious Johnny.
-Give up your sword, and your way of life, or I'll kill him.
Without hesitation, without so much as a gasp, Tashigi sat down and placed her sword in-front of her.
-Goddamn, you've lost so much of what I taught you, in just these few years? Did I instill none of my virtues in you?
Tashigi let a subtle smile play across her lips.
-You know, some would say that true honor is not abandoning the people that look up to you. If you want a lesson in that, turn around.
Before Okami could, a giant hand slammed her into the wall. Nico Robin emerged triumphantly out of the rising dust cloud. She walked close to grab the Bounty Brother's unconscious bodies, but was stopped by Tashigi.
-If you come any closer, I'll have to catch you, she warned, in the closest thing her dutiful mind could come to an apology. Robin smiled gently, letting the giant hand pull the brothers closer for her.
-Good luck on your journey, Demon Child. I'll tell the others that you escaped. Tell the Pirate Hunter that I'll be taking his swords the next time we meet, Tashigi turns around.
Just before she could leave, something clattered down on the ground behind her. It was Okami's demon mask.
-You're gonna need it if you want to save your friend from the squadron of colleagues chasing him down.
Tashigi gracefully nodded before putting on the mask and disappearing into the shadows. They silently vowed to forget that the meeting had ever happened, so that if they ever faced each other again, their inevitable battle wouldn't be so painful.
The following months, every member of the World Government intelligence agency would put every waking hour into pursuing the Revolutionaries and by proxy, Robin. After several bloody encounters, during which Robin had not been sighted once, as well as a severe lack of intelligence, the entire chase was cut off and the official story became that the Demon Child had left the Revolutionaries.
Someone had to take the blame for the entire thing, and it became the management of Tequila Wolf. Their budget was slashed, which together with a lot of guards quitting from the traumatic experience and former prisoners coming to wreck the place up as much as they could, turned it into a desolate wasteland.
That is why no one noticed a small group of Revolutionaries, out of uniform, entered the bridge and handily retrieved Robin from the secret room she had been living in for the last months. And that is the story of how, once again, Nico Robin evaded capture from the World Government.
SWORD would return home, defeated, and after realizing that their lives were in danger if they ever encountered the CP0 again, Sengoku decided to let them go independent, giving over the project to Garp, who swiftly turned it into the one force actively opposing the Four Emperors.
But perhaps that is a story for another time.
And that is the end of Tequila Wolf, and perhaps the end of SWORD as a whole. That is for two reasons, one kinda boring, one really fun (for me, at least). The first is that, as you may notice from the slightly rushed ending, SWORD's actual purpose was revealed in the comic! Making all my efforts to hold up to canon meaningless. On top of that, the next arc was supposed to be Rocky Port, but I want to wait to make sure we don't get a completely contradictory version of the events in the actual comic.
Second of all, I'm moving on to greener pastures creatively! I've got a DnD-campaign going, I'm revamping old OC's for a grand story and I've recently started working on a video game with a friend from a Discord server! While I quite enjoy writing SWORDS, all of these things + schoolwork and other hobbies means that it is no longer my main priority.. I may return to it one day (I am therefore leaving the fic's status as ongoing) but for now, this rushed note is the end of my telling of SWORD.
It's not perfect, but it doesn't have to be. I think a big theme of One Piece is that even though you're not perfect, even though you may just be an everyday person, filled with all of the associated flaws and insecurities, through the simple action of helping people while working towards your dream, you can change the world. So, I hope I changed your world, at least a little. So long!
P.S: Wow I'm better at writing essays than fanfiction.