A sheet of white emerged, with infinite patience, to just barely break out of the dark blue depths of the sea. The great white whale sighed like a volcanic eruption from its blowhole, its glistening round forehead seeming to go on for miles. It hardly seemed to notice the huge chunks of rock landing on top of it. Mere yards away, the island gripped its smooth stony stub with its remaining hand and screamed so loudly it caused a tidal wave.
Tashigi landed gracefully on the whale's brow among the giant's severed fingers.
"Thank you," she said to the whale.
He seemed to chuckle; the vibrations nearly made her lose her footing.
Black-leg Sanji blubbered something incoherent before landing awkwardly beside her, a tangle of legs and blonde hair. She yelped, once, and then fell to quietly grumbling to herself. Her hands were securely shackled behind her back. Well, this one was done, for now.
Tashigi gripped her second pair of handcuffs in one hand and Shigure in her other, black eyes scanning the fitful sea. He had been there, right in front of her - but the moment she had let her attention slide, his presence had disappeared, dove into the water probably. She mentally berated her own carelessness. The whale, the falling rocks, the giant walking island currently trying to kill them; these were all insignificant compared to this most dangerous monster of them all. She had to stay vigilant until he was safely contained.
Or, well...until she was safely contained.
"What the hell did you do, woman!?" an alto voice shrieked in the distance. Tashigi spun around.
She squinted.
A patch of grass was flying around the island's head, swinging a sword. She moved to push up her glasses, and her fingers grasped at empty air before she remembered that she'd stored her glasses in her pocket for the swim. She blinked. The grass was still trying to cut the giant rock.
Grass couldn't do that, even in the New World, surely?
There was a deep, grating roar. The island rolled its humongous eye to the patch of grass and grabbed it with its remaining hand. It was impossibly fast - the grass had no time to dodge.
"Damn it - let go!" the voice hissed. The grass kicked its black boots and glared with one eye at the island, arms and swords pinned inside the rock fingers.
...Oh.
Roronoah Zoro turned her attention back to Tashigi. Water was still streaming out of her dark forest coat and her head of green as she roared, "How come you can cut this rock!? I can cut through steel and yet - augh! DON'T SQUEEZE MY BOOBS IT FREAKIN' HURTS!"
Tashigi felt something in her scream bloody murder and commit hara-kiri.
"I'm going to kill you! You're just a giant rock that moves!"
"Roronoah Zoro," Tashigi finally said, regaining her composure. "Your swords are of no use against it."
A dark eye narrowed at her. "And how do you know that!?"
She clenched her teeth - she'd show him - and moved forward. Soru.
Her sword bit cleanly through the island's neck. There was a rumble, and a final earth-shattering roar from deep at the island's core - and then it crumbled slowly down. The fist around Roronoah remained clenched. Tashigi ran toward him along the splintering arm and cut off the island's hand from the wrist, but this time she left the fingers intact.
"You cut it!" he hissed - or rather, she hissed, straining against her stone prison.
"So I did," Tashigi responded, trying very hard not to act smug. "Only a woman can harm an Island Walker, you see."
"The hell!? Why!?"
"It's simply the way it is."
The great white whale rolled its own ponderous black eyes to the two airborne women and turned its head to catch them.
Roronoah landed on top of Black-leg.
"Shit shit watch where you're falling you shitty bastard shit shit shit-" she howled between clenched teeth, nursing the leg she had used to kick the rock away.
"Like hell I can do that when I'm stuck in a damned hunk of rock!" Roronoah spat around a glob of blood. Black-leg's kick had connected with her face, leaving a bright red imprint across her nose and a bit tongue. Tashigi had a feeling it had been on purpose.
Tashigi landed beside them, sheathed her sword, and rested a hand on the whale's forehead. "We're ready now," she said.
And the whale turned its majestic head, slowly, as most ancient and wise things move, and with a ripple of strength that began in its belly and ended at its broad white tail like an enormous wave, it turned around and surged forward, away from the island turned inanimate once more.
Tashigi stood tall, one hand hovering near Shigure's hilt, and evaluated her catch.
"I saw that spectacle - you slew the giant! Oh, your magnificence overshadows all the sights I have seen until now, my love," Black-leg rambled from where she sat, hands hidden behind her back, long legs resting with deceptive casualness in front of her. She was wearing a (thankfully) dark blue shirt that only grew darker when wet, but its dampness clung tightly to her torso and was open halfway down the front, revealing pale skin and gentle curves. "What skill! Compared to you, this useless plant hybrid beside me can't even be called a swordsman."
Roronoah Zoro scowled, forced to crane her neck around in order to face her companion because the rock had landed horizontally. "I could've done it! I just needed to try a few more times!"
From her shoulders to her knees, she was entirely encased in stone, which made things easier for Tashigi. She couldn't see those particularly disconcerting...things on her chest. But even then, the face that glared out was markedly different from the original Roronoah's, in a way that was difficult to pinpoint. The expression was the same - the eye was still narrow and predatory. But the jawline was narrower, or perhaps just less broad. Thinner somehow. The forehead was smoother, the neck was slimmer.
"Hey, you," she snarled at Tashigi. "Let me out."
In a secret compartment of Tashigi's mind, she had to admire how intimidating Roronoah still managed to be despite looking a like a sprig of leek in a brown casserole. But outside, she matched her glare.
"No," she said.
"Why you-"
"Ignore the stick-waving idiot," Black-leg interrupted smoothly. Tashigi turned to meet her crystal blue eye. "Are you here with the marines, love?"
She pursed her lips. Black-leg's tone of voice was sickening, as if women were delicate and fragile, and so he had to speak with excessive sweetness around them. The fact that he, too, was now a woman only made things worse. Subconsciously, Tashigi raised her chin a notch.
"I came alone."
Roronoah barked a laugh. "You think you can beat me by yourself?" she sneered.
"Roronoah Zoro, I came to arrest you and your companion, Black-leg Sanji. But I also came for my own selfish reasons, and for that, I cannot allow my fellow marines or Vice-Admiral Smoker to interfere. I can handle you alone." She gripped the handle of her sword threateningly. "Don't make light of me just because I'm a woman."
"Oh, of course not, I would never," Black-leg immediately crowed.
Roronoah broke off her stare and said nothing.
"But what, ah, selfish reasons do you have in mind? If you don't mind sharing it with us."
"I want to show you how it feels to be a woman," she said softly. "Perhaps then you will understand."
"A woman...?"
"Surely you have noticed?"
Black-leg looked down at herself and blushed. "Well, yeah...but I assure you I'm still a gentleman inside!"
"And that is exactly why I am here."
"You know something." Roronoah said, turning her glare back on Tashigi.
"I do."
"What made us like this? How do we turn back?"
Tashigi pulled her glasses out of her pocket and put them back on. She looked at her prisoners gravely. "The Curse of the Sea God turned you into women. There is no way to turn back."
Silence for a while, as they absorbed this information.
Then: "Tell me where this Sea God is and I'll burn him alive!" and "So all we have to do is find this Sea God and dice him!" at the same time.
"Wait, you can't do that-" Tashigi stuttered.
"Where the hell is he!?"
"No way am I staying like this for the rest of my life!"
"I can't show my face to the flowers of our ship like this!"
"It's all this Sea God dude's fault, right? We'll just make him turn us back!"
"I've already kicked God's ass before, what's another one?"
"You didn't kick his ass, I did!"
"Since when!?
"Since ancient history! You just lay around getting electrocuted!"
"Well I took down the whole fucking ship with me! You just stood there like a fucking lightning rod!"
"Hey! That's not fair! The only one of us who didn't get electrocuted was Luffy!"
"Listen to me, please!" Tashigi yelled. "You cannot harm the Sea God!"
Twin glares, one eye per person, swiveled to look at her.
"Why not!?" they both shouted.
Tashigi pointed at her feet. "Because this is the Sea God!"
There was another silence, even longer than the first.
"Oh," Black-leg finally said. "Uh...he doesn't happen to, uh, understand human speech, does he?"
The whale responded with a short snort from its spout that sprayed a ten-foot-tall fountain of water.
"Agh! Shit, and I was just starting to dry off!"
A gurgling sound near the spout threatened another burst.
"Shit, shit, nevermind, sorry!" she said quickly. "We were joking about the whole burn-you-to-a-crisp thing! Weren't we, Zoro?"
But Roronoah was looking down at the white whale, and she was grinning. "Hey, Sea God," she said. "Are you strong?"
"Don't even think about it!" Tashigi snapped. She said to the whale, "I am so sorry about this woman. She is having troubles adjusting."
"I'm not a woman!" she growled.
Tashigi straightened. "Perhaps not now," she conceded. "But soon. The Curse takes up to twelve hours to take full effect; and once you have become women there is no going back. I repeat - you will not be men ever again."
Black-leg paled visibly. "...Seriously?"
"Bullshit," Roronoah spat.
Tashigi smiled bitterly. "I have spoken to the Sea God, and he agreed to take us back to the G-5 ship once I slayed an Island Walker. We will arrive in approximately a quarter of an hour."
"Wait. How do you know we won't ever turn back? For all we know you're just playing us for fools and can't talk to whales at all."
"Roronoah Zoro," she said slowly, "I do not lie."
There was a flash of something in her one dark eye - recognition, perhaps. But Tashigi didn't have any time to dwell on it.
The whale turned sharply to the right. Roronoah cursed as momentum caused her rock to roll. Tashigi stumbled and fell on top of Black-leg, whose face turned the color of a tomato.
"Are-are you alright," she began.
"I'm fine," Tashigi said, getting up quickly.
The whale had picked up speed, cutting through the water hard enough to spray its three passengers. Through the stinging sea-salt, Tashigi pressed a hand to the whale's forehead and called, "What's wrong!?"
It rumbled its reply.
"Oh, no." Tashigi whirled around and stared at the sea to their left. "Everyone, hold on!"
"Huh!?"
"What-"
A stone hand emerged from the depths of the sea, cascading water, and it reached ominously slowly for the whale. Tashigi dashed forward and slashed deep into its wrist.
"Holy shit!" Black-leg's voice cried.
A rumbling, grating, deep-down roar echoed across the water. Tashigi whirled around, saw the second hand reaching for her impossibly fast, and stabbed. Shigure drove deep into the rocky palm...and stayed there.
Oh, no no no no-
Her sword was wrenched forwards. Desperately she held on, legs clinging to the rock hand for support, until she came face to face with the giant.
This one was bigger than the one she had killed. It eye was huge. The speckled brown iris alone was as tall as she was.
"I don't want to see anymore fucking topknots, damn it!" a husky voice screeched from far, far away. "Shit, shit, why are there so many of them!?"
By sheer dint of willpower Tashigi glanced away from the eye to see what Black-leg was talking about.
The sea was dotted with palm trees rising slowly from the water.
"Let me out!" a lower, surer voice called.
Tashigi turned back to the giant eye. No problem, she told herself. She was strong. She was a swordsman at heart. She could do this, by her own power.
Kirishigure. Cutting Drizzle.
The hand was cut clean in half, her sword free. The giant roared again and withdrew its disabled hand. She glared at it triumphantly.
"Watch it-!"
She saw it at the same time Black-leg did - the giant hadn't withdrawn out of pain. It had been winding up. The hand was only a stub now, but, as she realized too late, that did not make it any less deadly. She tried to dodge, or at the very least block the attack. She wasn't fast enough.
Giant rock clubs are painful.
She felt the burst against her side, felt the wind tear at her face and hair and clothes, and then felt the white slam into her face and knock stars across her vision. Shigure was no longer in her hands. Somewhere above her, two voices were yelling.
And the whale was bellowing in pain.
"Suck it up you shitty whale, the lady has it so much worse-!"
"Let me out, I can't move damn it-!"
The ground dropped out beneath her, and suddenly she was drowning. She forced the dizziness away and kicked out towards what she hoped was the surface of the sea.
The currents pulled her back.
She clawed desperately at the water. Please, she begged to nobody in particular, if I must die, let it be in battle. Let me die with my sword in my hand, honorably. Let me die with my pride. Not like this. She struggled to keep salt water out of her lungs, clamped both hands over her mouth. Not like this.
And then a hand grabbed onto the back of her shirt and pulled her out of the water, into the air. She gasped, choked, coughed, breathed in.
"-are you alright the shitty bastard hurt you and I couldn't protect you and ohmygod."
The hand let go of her abruptly. She was plunged into water again momentarily, before her limbs regained feeling and she began treading water. She spat out the bitter taste of seawater and wiped water out of her eyes, taking a moment to catch her breath.
She blinked at the twilight sky. This wasn't the same patch of ocean she had just left, the one with the walking islands and the whale. This sea was empty. At first she was relieved, but then the relief was replaced by a sinking feeling in her stomach - there was no land at all here. No animal life visible, either. Nothing but water.
Next to her, Black-leg Sanji was staring at her with one wide, bright blue eye. The other pirate wore a brooding, troubled expression. Her arms were free from the rock now, and they held a sword.
"Shigure!" Tashigi gasped. "You - how did you break out of the rock!?"
"Currents smashed me into a giant's leg," Roronoah said tersely. Her voice was strangely hollow as she looked at the sword.
"Give it back!"
A dark eye searched her face, and Tashigi bit her lower lip.
"Shigure is my sword! How dare you take it from me without even a proper fight!"
"Listen," she said suddenly. Her low alto voice seemed charged with a thunderstorm. "What would you do if you became a man?"
"Excuse me!?"
"Would you be different? How would you change?"
"I don't know what this has to do with-"
Tashigi stopped. It was her voice. Something was wrong with her voice - it was lower. Brassier. She touched her throat.
...Was that an Adam's apple she felt?
"Shit," Black-leg breathed, a little shakily. Her face was red as fire.
There was no getting around this one, now. Tashigi looked down at herself, dreading what she would find.
Smoker bit three cigars clean in half.
"...Did you hear a scream just now?" he growled.
"Uh, no, I don't think so. Is, uh, something the matter, Commander Smo?" one of his subordinates asked hesitantly. Another smacked him in the head, hissing quite clearly, "We just lost the Strawhats again, of course he's gonna be pissed!"
Smoker glared at the two of them darkly. "Nothing is the matter," he said slowly.
Why would there be? Tashigi wasn't stupid. It meant nothing at all, that sudden mental image of that woman as a...man...
"Commander Smo!" another man cried from inside the cabin.
"What is it?"
"It's the folder! The one about the Sea God! The devil woman must have taken it - it's gone!"
Words of the Sheep: shucks this took a long time. I am so sorry. I'm also falling terribly behind with my original stuffs, and in between school and getting into college and life in general I think I'm drowning.
But I finished chapter 4. Eat that, suckers!
I think my pacing has gotten skewed, and Tashigi is probably OOC, so if this is confusing or you have any complaints please tell me in a review and I'll see what I can do.
Oh, and don't worry, I will explain how the Smoker lost the Strawhats in the next chapter. See you then!