She stood in front of the windows, awash in moonlight and shadow, a faint silhouette with three pins of silver-gold light below her left ear. She waited for Tashigi to emerge from the hatch before moving, picking up four bamboo kendo swords from where the smaller gym gear was stored.
"Sometimes Brook likes to spar," she explained quietly, and tossed one at him.
Tashigi snatched it from the air, already feeling the adrenaline and old anger surging through his veins, washing all else away. "So you finally accept," he hissed.
"I said I would. I keep my promises."
He removed Shigure from his belt and laid it carefully to the side of the crow's nest. Roronoah did the same with her three katanas. By tacit rule of conduct they stationed themselves five paces away from each other, bowed. Her cloak was loose-fitting, concealing anything that might differentiate her from a man, but Tashigi could feel his own muscles promise an unfamiliar raw power. This would not be the same as their fight in Loguetown.
"Ready?" Roronoah asked, sliding a kendo sword between her teeth.
"Begin," Tashigi replied. And advanced.
The crack of wood against wood resonated through the closed room. Three streaks blurred across Tashigi's vision. He moved to block.
And the next thing he knew, he was on the floor, a searing pain shooting from his shoulder where the blow had connected. He gasped, struggling to right himself. Too fast. That was too fast. Indeed, this was nothing like Loguetown - the difference in ability was even greater than before. He got back to his feet shakily.
Roronoah simply stood, and regarded him in silence.
"That was only one loss," Tashigi snapped, lifting his sword. He was already breathing hard, his hands were sweating around the sword grip. He had simply been too careless that first round. He would try again, and this time would be better. "Ready?"
Roronoah nodded his head slightly. "Begin."
He charged again, Haki fully equipped as he tried to predict the movements of those three wild swords and break through their pattern. Soru.
The sword in Roronoah's left hand struck him hard across the thigh. He stumbled and landed face first on the smooth floor.
"This can't be," he hissed. He slammed his fists on the floor and struggled to push himself up. The third fight, and the third loss, and he nearly swore out loud. He had trained for so long, and so hard - as a woman she had fought from the very beginning, when her parents had insisted that swords were not for girls to wield, and so on her own she had taught herself the basics of sword fighting; against the will of everyone close to her, she had joined the marines, only to find that men underestimated her even there, told her it was impossible for a woman like her to lead, again and again until she finally clawed her way through the ranks to meet Smoker; and Smoker, at last, had understood.
But now, beaten to the ground for a fourth time, a fifth, a sixth, the injustices of the world came crashing back into him and the woman he once was. Every time he got back up, shaking in rage and struggling against the burning in his eyes, he was struck down again in moments.
"This isn't fair," he managed to say somewhere between the seventeenth and the eighteenth fights, panting from exertion.
Roronoah shifted her weight faintly. Around the sword held in her mouth, she smirked condescendingly. "Pitiful," she said. "Even as a man you're still so weak? How useless."
Tashigi clenched the sword in his hands so hard the wood cracked faintly. "Soru."
Roronoah twisted the sword from his grasp easily. "Another win. The score now stands eighteen to zero. This is getting kinda old, don't you think? Oh, here we go," she stabbed him in the chest, forcing him back, "nineteen to zero."
"Damn you," Tashigi actually said out loud, but he was too preoccupied to be amazed at his own rudeness. "The world cannot contain such monsters as you...! Why can't I defeat you!?"
Crack! Tashigi reeled back, a new bruise over her forehead smarting.
"Twenty to zero. Admit defeat already," Roronoah said, edging closer to a laugh.
It was tempting, then, oh so tempting to simply put down the sword and do as she said - humiliation was painful, but his limbs were aching, bruises were swelling across his entire body, his lungs cried for a respite, and it was clear that he was losing anyways. The strength of the one facing him was simply impossible to overcome.
But Tashigi could not accept defeat.
"Enough!" he cried. He threw down the kendo sword. "This is disgraceful!" His voice broke; he didn't even try to cover the tears as they spilled down his face, dripped to the floor. "Pick up your swords! Let us duel properly, and settle this once and for all!"
For a second, it seemed like Roronoah would refuse. She froze, her breath held, shoulders tensed. And then she shuddered into motion again.
"Real swords," she breathed. "Sounds good to me." She looked up at the roof of the crow's nest. "Not here though."
"Then where?"
"On the deck. Can't breathe here."
"Fine."
They placed their kendo swords where they belonged and gathered their katanas, then descended down the hatch, Roronoah first. Two pairs of boots connected with gently waving grass, swords clinking faintly in their sheathes. They took their respective stations again, five paces apart, and bowed. Tashigi ran his fingers over Shigure's hilt.
"Ready?" he asked.
The moon was bright, the sky cloudless. The woman's dark eyes glinted with a light that might have been excitement, sorrow buried inside, nostalgia glistening on the surface. She slipped the cloak off her shoulders so it fell around her waist, rippling slightly in the sea breeze, and her bandaged figure became crisp and bold against the moonlight. She drew all three swords and held Wado Ichimonji between her teeth.
"Begin," she replied.
Tashigi attacked, threw all his confusion and frustration and newfound man's strength at the woman who made a mockery of his existence. Roronoah, for the briefest moment, seemed to falter; but then she surged forward like a tidal wave, cut through his defense and threw him onto his back. Shigure was wrenched out of his hand, skittering to a stop a few feet away. The pale steel of Wado Ichimonji sank into the grass half an inch from his neck, angled across his skin precariously.
He gasped, heart still racing uselessly at a thousand knots. Roronoah's face was close, so close; he could hear her suck in a breath and then sigh quietly, could see traces of sweat on her face and arms. She smiled a little at him.
"My twenty-first victory," she said around the sword. Her tone was serious.
Tashigi went limp. He reached a hand up and covered his face, and only then realized he was crying thickly.
"Damn you," he choked. "Why don't you kill me?"
"Kill you?" she echoed.
"Yes! I'd rather die than live in shame!" One hand still covered his eyes, but his other fist thumped against the deck in frustration. "Don't you see!? Don't you understand!? I'm a man now - you shouldn't have a problem with killing me anymore!"
Roronoah was quiet. She withdrew to stand a few feet away from Tashigi, sheathed Shusui and Kitetsu and took Wado Ichimonji from her mouth. This last sword, though, she held, rolling it back and forth in her hand slowly.
"Twenty-one losses," she finally said, "is not so many."
Tashigi sat up and sobbed, "What are you saying!?"
"Twenty-one is a small number when compared to two thousand and one - when compared to the rest of your life. And there are ways to lose a battle and keep both your honor and your life." She sighed, and sat down with her back against the ship's railing, only half looking at Tashigi. "Look. I'll tell you two things. One: I'm as strong as I was before the Curse, I knew this the moment I fought the cook. You, on the other hand, are weaker."
Tashigi stopped crying from sheer shock. That...that was impossible. It simply didn't make any sense.
"But - I'm a man now," he said weakly. "Like, I have muscles. Biology."
She snorted. "Who the fuck cares about biology? It's about spirit! I'm still me, so I'm just as strong. You don't even know what you are, how do you expect to suddenly power up now?"
"That...makes no sense whatsoever." Except it kind of did. Roronoah must have seen the reluctant realization in his face, because she only scoffed and moved on to the next point.
"Two: I'm not like the cook. I can still fight men. I still can't fight you. And women - I could always fight them. I just..." She jerked her head awkwardly away, struggling to push the words off of her tongue and into the air. "I don't like seeing them fall. When a woman fights, she's a warrior just like anyone else, and it's like - you're like...there was this girl, alright, this girl I once knew, and she was a swordswoman and she would have been the strongest one there ever was. She was stronger than anyone. And she was just so...beautiful with a sword. And I don't like cutting down people like her, I don't like seeing them fall. That's all there is to it." And she turned to glare at him, as if daring him to make fun of the confession.
Tashigi parted his mouth a little, blinked away the last of his tears. "...Oh."
He tried to digest this information. It wasn't going down very easily.
"This still hurts my pride."
"Augh," Roronoah groaned, and banged her head back against the rails. "Well then, damn you, too."
Tashigi laughed in spite of himself, and wiped his face with his sleeve.
"I'm kind of glad I lost, actually," he said.
A black eye stared at him in honest surprise. "Well that's rich, coming from someone who practically begged for death after losing."
"But you wouldn't do it," he replied. "It's frustrating - but I knew you wouldn't."
She shrugged lazily. Tashigi looked at the careful, calm, almost - dare he say it - loving way she held the white sword, not like it was a delicate heirloom but rather an old friend who she knew would never break.
"If I won as a man against a woman, it wouldn't have done anything," he explained. "It wouldn't have let me prove myself. It would have been a tainted victory. This way, it wouldn't be like I only won because I had become a man."
He stood, and retrieved Shigure from the ground, sliding it back into his sheathe.
"But I'll take that sword, I swear it. I'll win as a woman against you as a man, and then I'll be able to claim Wado Ichimonji properly. Be prepared."
Tashigi turned back around and looked down at Roronoah, chin lifted a little with his old indignation returned. Roronoah returned the look with a haughty smile of her own. It was like a handshake - a promise under the moon, a vow forged by clashing steel.
"Any time," she said, and stood up. "I'm stronger than you anyways."
"What - how rude!" She laughed, and stepped around him to enter the men's chambers. Tashigi followed her to the door, blushing madly. "I'll make you take back those words when I win!"
"Yeah, yeah." She reemerged, a drowsy pirate captain wobbling behind her.
"Zoroooo, who...oh, hey glasses girl," he yawned. "You were keeping Zoro company?"
Tashigi fumbled a little. "Well, I suppose you could say that."
Roronoah crossed her arms and smirked. "Hey, Luffy. Marine's got something to say to you."
"Ah, yes." Tashigi nodded. "Strawhat Luffy. I have a request to make, if it's alright with your swordsmaster and your cook."
"Hrmnr?" He planted his hat on top of his head and blinked sleepily at Tashigi. "What's it?" he asked.
"I would like to be returned to my original gender. I want to be a woman again." Tashigi smiled. "Because my feminine gender is my pride."
The boy blinked again, and his eyes suddenly cleared. He beamed. "Okay," he said. "This means I'll get to meet the mystery whale, right!? This'll be so much fun! Sanji!" He leaped past Roronoah and banged on the door to the girl's chambers. "Sanji, everyone, come out!" he called at the top of his lungs.
"Hey - Luffy, you don't have to wake everyone up, it's not even dawn! I haven't even slept yet!"
But inside both chambers, murmurings already began, as the Strawhat crew was jostled from sleep by their overly enthusiastic captain.
"C'mere, everyone! Sanji, Sanji! You're gonna turn into a guy again! Breakfast! Raise the anchor! We're gonna go meet the mystery whale!"
Words of the Sheep: Ya see what I did there? Kudos for you, then. It kind of fascinates me how similar Tashigi is to Zoro in some ways - she's a swordsman, through and through, except she always ends up losing.
Aaaaand the internal conflict is resolved. Yay! This fic was supposed to be funny and lighthearted, and then it got all...serious, lol. Tashigi, this is all your fault (but it's okay because I like serious stuff).