Several bloodthirsty men with swords always failed to faze Robin, these days, just as her crewmates' habitual chaos never failed to amuse her. She watched the battle unfold around her with a faint smile on her face, leaning easily on the rail of the Sunny. When Luffy stretch his arms to the G-5's ship, the smile grew, and she blossomed an eye on his back to follow the festivity.

Her captain slammed into a cluster of marines and quickly righted himself on the deck. After a quick evaluation of the terrain, she closed the eye, then opened a new pair. And there she was, watching him from an obscure corner of the marines' ship, between a few wooden crates and the cabin. She was careful not to draw attention as she twisted the necks of the men who came too close.

"Heeeyyyyyyyyy!" Luffy bellowed, his fists rising to the sky, his body unable to contain the energy in his voice. "Smokeeeyyyyyyyyy! Where are yaaaaaaa!?"

A streak of white shot toward him. He ducked down low with a broad grin.

"Found ya!"

Smoker, Vice Admiral and leader of the G-5, grumbled something like "Fool jumps right at me" and materialized in front of Luffy, glaring darkly. The female marine, Tashigi, was at his side in an instant.

"Stay back, men!" he barked to his subordinates. They each took a step back, wide-eyed and sweating. "You won't stand a chance against Strawhat."

"Yup, that's right," Luffy nodded happily. "Anyways, Smokey, I gotta ask you something. We met a mystery whale!"

Smoker quirked an eyebrow up, as expected. But the woman made a distressed sound. "A whale?"

"Don't respond, Tashigi! Strawhat, you're not getting away this time."

"Nah, we will!"

The corner of Smoker's mouth twitched.

"So anyways, we met a mystery whale just now! Or Robin met him, I didn't get to see. But she said he was a biiiiiig white whale, thiiiiiiiiiiiis big," he threw his arms out to the sides for emphasis, "and he took Sanji and Zoro! You're marines, right, so you're supposed to know about this kinda stuff. Can ya tell us where to look for them?"

"The Curse of the Sea God," the female marine gasped.

Robin pursed her lips. A curse? Strange, also, that the Marines knew something Robin herself did not - it rather insulted her pride. Luffy was still talking, though, so she restrained herself from stepping forward.

"You know him!? Is that what he's called!? Is he cool!? Is he!?" Luffy asked excitedly.

"Watch it, Tashigi," the Vice Admiral grunted around his mouthful of cigars. "Strawhat, you-"

"You said he took Black-leg Sanji and Roronoah Zoro," the female marine pressed on. "What do you mean?"

"I dunno, they were fishing or something and then they got lost. Why?"

"How long ago?"

"Hmmmrmrr, might've been an hour ago, probably, yeah. C'mon, I wanna see that mystery whale! Has he taken Sanji and Zoro to some bad place!?"

But the female marine wasn't listening anymore. She glanced at her superior with an expression made of steel.

"Don't stop me," she said. And then she was throwing off her marine cloak and dashing for the ship's railing.

"Tashigi! Stop this right now!" the Vice Admiral roared, but hesitated to go after her, his eyes darting between her and the infamous criminal before him. "Tashigi!"

Luffy cocked his head.

The female marine had grabbed two pairs of handcuffs from her cloak and was strapping them to her belt, alongside her sword. "Two of their strongest fighters are under the influence of the Curse - this is the best opportunity to apprehend them that we will ever get!" she called over her shoulder. "I'm going underwater! I'm not a Devil Fruit user, I can do this!"

"You can't defeat them alone!"

She paused, teetered precariously on the edge of the rail, and smiled grimly. "I'm a woman. I won't have to."

Robin almost reached out a hand to pull her back, interrogate her, learn whether there was a threat to the swordsman's and the cook's lives - but the fascinated glint in her captain's eyes stopped her. She watched the female marine leap into the air, suspended in space for a fraction of a second, and dive neatly into the ocean waves.

Sanji felt...conflicted.

He looked down at himself for the hundredth time, surreptitiously unbuttoning the top half of his suit (to allow some breathing room, that was all, nothing dirty about his intentions, really). The algae head had dived underwater a few moments ago, so he was alone. Nobody would ever know if...

But, no, no, female or not, this was still his own body. He could never live with himself if he fell so low as to peek at himself. It was borderline insane, uncomfortably narcissistic, and while being swapped by some Devil Fruit's powers into Nami's divine body had been heaven, being turned into a lady was strangely...not strange. This body was most definitely his own. His legs were the same height, his hands as deft as ever, and though he was incredibly irked that he was rather lacking in certain departments that the shitty muscle-brain was not, he felt oddly comfortable with the way things were. Sleek, elegant frame; the waist a perfect hourglass; the chest - no, no, he had to stop thinking about that...!

...He needed a mirror.

A splash interrupted his musings. "Hey, pervert!" Zoro called, sloshing up the beach.

Sanji jerked his hands behind his back innocently. "What, shitty marimo!?"

"There's nothing down there, just this huge, really weird-looking rock. Think you could cook the palm tree?"

Nothing down there. No fish, no edible greenery, no fresh water. Shit.

He tried to shrug off the sudden tightening of his stomach and responded mechanically, "We can't eat the palm tree. It doesn't even have coconuts on it WAIT WHAT ARE YOU DOING PUT THAT BACK ON!"

Zoro stopped, one arm halfway out of his coat sleeve. "It's wet."

"I DON'T CARE I DON'T NEED TO SEE A LADY STRIPPING IN FRONT OF ME EVEN IF IT'S JUST YOU PUT THAT BACK ON!" Sanji shrieked, his face burning. He kept his eyes fixed on the base of the palm tree as he lit another cigarette and rammed it between his teeth. "I don't know how it happened, but you're in a lady's body right now - so have some damned dignity!"

He heard Zoro smirk and pull the sleeve back on. "Says the guy with half his shirt buttons open."

"Shut up! Your shirt doesn't even have buttons!"

Zoro laughed. It was getting on his nerves, that laugh - normally Zoro would just mouth right back, or at the most growl and draw his swords. But this was a wide, loud, open-hearted laugh, with an added breeziness from his feminine voice. And it was annoying.

"That the best you can do? At least I've got something to hide in here."

"There's nothing wrong with ladies who are bestowed with less!" Zoro more or less covered up, Sanji felt it safe to turn back around. He glared at the woman's face and was surprised to find it easy to accept as Zoro's. It was exactly as gruff and grating on the nerves as the swordsman's always was.

"Yeah, yeah. Whatever you say, cutting board."

"What - did you just call me a kitchen utensil!?"

"It fits. You know, I wonder what this says about our male selves."

"Fuck, you are not going there!"

Damn it all, Sanji wanted to scream. There were more pressing concerns at the moment than this! They were marooned on a barren island, for starters. And there was the whole turned into women part - they didn't have time for sitting around quipping at each other!

"Cutting board," Zoro said, one corner of his mouth turning up.

"That does it, I'm burying you into the sand until you're just a patch of grass, even if - even if you look - even if - I'm burying you!"

"I'd like to see you try!"

The exchanged blows back and forth, flames and sparks flying. In a burst of inspiration, Sanji grabbed onto the palm tree, spun, and launched a vicious kick using the solid trunk as leverage. His shoe nicked green hair.

"Hey! What was that!? Palm Tree Attack!?" Zoro fumed. "Lame!"

Two swords just barely stopped the force of Sanji's next kick. "Wait till I make diced lettuce out of you, then you'll see what's lame!"

Zoro growled, and twin blades hissed through the air. Sanji dodged easily.

The palm tree wasn't so lucky.

An almost inaudible swish as metal bit through wood; a moment passed, nothing really happening; and then the palm tree creaked down and crashed onto the sand, split into two neat pieces and a sad little stump. Sanji cursed and grabbed his jacket as it fell. It had been drying from the fronds.

"You idiot, you just killed our shade!"

Zoro shrugged. "What? It's just a palm tree."

Sanji shook out his jacket. Thankfully it was still intact, if waterlogged from seawater. "Fine, whatever," he sighed. "This is a waste of time. Look, you stay here, and I'll Sky Walk and see if I can see something-"

The island lurched.

"...Did you feel that just now?"

"I've got a bad feeling about this..."

The sands shifted. A small wave rippled out from the edges of the beach, cutting an expanding ring into the placid seas.

"Wait. That was a palm tree. You only cut a palm tree, right?"

The flat surface of the beach suddenly tilted high, and Sanji tumbled down the sand and into the water.

"Shit!" he gurgled, kicking back toward the surface. "Too careless!" The ocean currents threatened to pull him under again. He fought back, twisted and thrashed; but then something much more solid than water grabbed hold of his legs. It squeezed, and it fucking hurt, like his legs were being crushed into jagged rocks. It dragged him down a few feet, and then stopped just as abruptly. He found himself facing the island's base.

Where sandy shores ended, rock cliffs extended down for what looked like miles, broadening out into a strange stone formation that was vaguely rectangular. Like Zoro had said, the island was lifeless.

Or at least, it should have been lifeless...

Sanji looked down and stared at the giant black fist wrapped around his legs. Normal rocks did not reach up to grab people. Normal rocks did not make islands move. Normal rocks would have burst into a million glorious pieces upon contact with Sanji's fury. He looked up slowly.

The rock cliffs in front of him cracked, shivering free from a few loose pebbles, and an eye snapped open with the sound of a cannon. It was the size of the dishes containing Luffy's meat - a huge, brown eye.

It swiveled to look at him.

Shusui sank deep into the trunk of the palm tree, and the island trembled. Maybe it wasn't a palm tree, after all. Kitetsu throbbed in his other hand.

The island swayed beneath his feet. Zoro almost slipped on the sand like the cook had, but his sword held his place. He tried to listen to the rumbling of the rocks. This wasn't an earthquake. The earth's breath was too erratic and shallow.

And then a feeling that reminded him of the Sunny's Coup de Burst - a sudden lurch, followed by a heavy weight in his core. He gaped as the sea's horizon dropped, dropped below the island's edge, and a booming roar thundered through his body.

The island was rising.

"Blurmlglglrubmlaffkackahfcou gh SHITTY SWORDSMAN!" a husky female voice choked. Sanji. Zoro swung himself to the edge of the island, careful to keep himself attached to the palm tree, and looked toward his voice.

A monstrous black form had risen from the sea, water still cascading from the surface. Another form held a wriggling Sanji. His legs were pinned inside a rock encasing that looked suspiciously like a giant fist.

"How the hell did you get yourself in there!?" Zoro yelled at him. His voice, he was peeved to discover, sounded more screechy and desperate than his male voice would have.

"It wasn't me! You-" The rock moved again, oddly smooth and controlled. Sanji was wrenched underwater and then back up again. "This is all your fault!" he sputtered.

"What!? How is this my fault!?"

"The island woke up because you fucking CUT OFF HIS TOPKNOT!" Sanji screamed.

"I did what!?"

The island lurched again, and the bulky mass underneath moved forward in a vaguely seesaw pattern, one side attached to the fist holding Sanji, just like-

-shoulders.

The island was a rock giant wading in the sea, and there were the shoulders, and the right hand gripping Sanji, and between the shoulders-

-I'm on its head.

Zoro growled and slashed down with Kitetsu. To his shock, the blade sank through the sand and then struck against hard solidity with a ringing jolt. This wasn't normal rock. He cursed his own carelessness - he hadn't noticed how strange this rock's breath was, and now his sword was dulled. He sheathed Kitetsu, drew Shusui out of the palm tree (topknot?), and leaped into the air.

The island made a deep, groaning bellow and turned its enormous head. As Zoro landed on its right shoulder, a great brown eye found him.

"The second I get out of this shitty death grip I'm kicking your face in so hard nobody will tell if you're a man or a woman anymore I swear-"

"Just shut up and let me get you out of there," Zoro snarled. Daishinkan. Great Dragon Movement.

The sword clanged hard against the island's wrist. Zoro stumbled back, his arms numb, and was awarded nothing but a shallow chip in the rock for his troubles.

"What the hell was that, shitty lawnhead!? You call yourself a swordsman!?"

"Shut up."

Why wasn't it working? No matter. One more try, and this time he'd get it. He sheathed Shusui and grasped Wado's hilt, letting himself relax. The island's bellowing, the violent dipping and rising of the fist, the dumb cook's swearing, all faded somewhere distant. There was only the rock and his sword. Breathing. Breathi-

"Tsubame-shi. Cutting Swallow."

A female voice, but that wasn't Sanji. Zoro's heart momentarily forgot how to beat.

Behind him, there was the soft whisper of metal through rock, or through tofu for all the resistance the blade met. The ground dropped as the island's fist fell toward the ocean. Sanji let out an undignified screech, but Zoro didn't notice - he was trying very hard not to turn around.

It happened again while they were still free-falling. A sword flashed, and the five fingers separated from the fist neatly. Sanji's legs stretched out, unobstructed. "My savior! My goddess!" Sanji crowed, a ridiculous smile plastered on his face.

Zoro tried not to care. He really did. He scoffed at nothing in particular and carefully examined a fleck of sea-foam in the rapidly approaching waters.

"Black-leg Sanji, you are under arrest."

"Well, grateful though I am, I'm afraid..."

"I'm saving your life. Please surrender quietly."

"I...a-as you wish, milady..."

"Hey," Zoro began in a low growl, glancing in his direction.

Two bright black eyes caught his like seastone handcuffs. Shigure glinted in the light as she braced herself for the rock fist's landing.

"Roronoah Zoro. You are under arrest."

Turned into a woman. Marooned on a walking island. And now...her.

This couldn't possibly get any worse.

Words of the Sheep: Indeed, I made up "Cutting Swallow." Tashigi hasn't had many moves named yet, so I resorted to Japanese translations of random cool phrases. But hey, it turns out that "Tsubame Gaeshi," "Turning Swallow Cut," is a really famous move by the really famous ancient samurai Sasaki Kojiro.

And I think swallows suit her.

**Thank you so so much for the wonderful reviews! My watchers, I apologize profusely for taking so long to write this. I'll try to update about once a month.**