I can blame midterms, I can blame my new job, I can blame other obligations, and I can blame fluctuating inspiration. You'd think it would be easier to write a chapter when you've already got a rough draft to go off of, not harder. *Shrugs.* My way of writing is strange, I suppose. But whatever the reason, the wait is finally over.
The Straw Hats once again found themselves in a peaceful, mild, and sunny climate as the light faded. Rather than a town or beach, however, they found themselves surrounded by trees. Nami rolled her eyes.
"Are we going to have to do another Haki search?" she groused.
"I doubt it, Nami; at this point, we can simply narrow it down by process of elimination. I can tell that this isn't Ohara, the trees are different. Brook, is there any reason we'd be dropped in a forest for your crew?" Robin asked.
"Hmm…actually, now that you mention it, we may be on Little Garden," Brook replied.
"No way, we'd know if Dorry and Brogy were nearby," Luffy interrupted.
"Foolshout Island has a desert climate, so unless Sanji has made up his mind—" Jinbe began.
"No, it's definitely my turn," Zoro said with a smile. "These woods were my backyard while I trained at the Isshin dojo, I'd recognize them anywhere."
Without another word, Zoro began walking away from them in a seemingly random direction.
"Hey, Mosshead! You shouldn't be going alone, you might need help!"
Zoro gave Sanji a look that seemed not so much angry as 'you cannot be serious.'
"All I have to do is keep her from falling down the stairs. Even you have to admit that I wouldn't screw that up."
It took every ounce of control that Sanji possessed not to issue more of his habitual insults to Zoro. He'd never admit it, but with how important this was to the mosshead, he was willing to hold himself back…somewhat.
Or it may have just been that they were there to save a young lady.
"Idiot, of course I do. But what if you get lost on the way there? The old man said that he'll probably be gone when we get back, you won't get another chance to save her if you screw this up."
Zoro rolled his eye.
"I lived here for over ten years, cook. I'm more likely to get lost on the Sunny than in these woods. Besides, this is between Kuina and I; I don't want anyone else there until I've had my say. Now, I'm going before I miss my chance. You guys wait to follow me; I'll introduce you after."
With no further ado, Zoro Shaved in the same direction he'd been heading before. Some of the other Straw Hats made noises of exasperation, but none of them moved to follow him; it was his intervention, and he had every right to control how it went.
"All right, so what do we do while we wait? Anyone want to see more of the place where Zoro grew up?" Luffy asked.
"I think that Zoro would rather keep this as quiet as possible, and you're not exactly good at being inconspicuous," Usopp replied, shaking his head.
"On the other hand, the rest of us aren't exactly inconspicuous either, with how we're dressed," Sanji said. "If someone found us here, they'd probably raise an alarm if we didn't stop them."
"True, but all of the previous jumps have brought us to deserted areas; I doubt that that would change now," Robin said.
"It's deserted now, but it won't be for much longer," Chopper said, his head raised and his nostrils flaring.
The message was clear, and Haki allowed the rest of the crew to see that someone was coming. They had more than enough time to flee…but the familiarity of the aura simply sparked too much curiosity for them to not stay behind. Sure enough, a boy emerged into the clearing a moment later. He had muscles that were massive for his age, a bamboo sword in each hand, green hair, and a small frown on his face, which only grew more menacing as he saw the cloaked strangers.
"Who are you?" he demanded, getting into a stance with his swords.
"…He thinks he can beat us with bamboo swords?" Usopp asked.
"Remember who we're talking about here, Usopp," Robin replied quietly, and then spoke to the boy.
"We're just travelers, exploring this island. We'll only be here for about an hour."
"Travelers?" the boy asked, barely faltering.
"One of our crewmates has a friend at the…I believe he said Isshin dojo? We're just stopping to allow him a brief visit," Brook said carefully.
"Who? Who's he here to see?" Zoro asked.
"I think he said her name was Kuina. He—ah…" Chopper trailed off as the younger Zoro ran off without so much as another glance at the strangers.
"…What was that about?" Jinbe asked.
"I'm not surprised," Nami said. "Kuina can't be much older than Zoro is now, and he looked pretty young. What adult from another island would have made friends with Kuina with him not knowing about it? It does sound pretty farfetched."
"So, he thinks that we're here to hurt her?" Chopper asked.
Sanji sighed.
"Come on, guys, we'd better make sure that the pint-sized mosshead doesn't make a huge uproar about this."
They exchanged looks, but all of them knew that that was a likely event, and one second later the clearing was empty.
You're telling me all of this after you beat me?! That's not fair! My ambition is to be like you! If I ever beat you, it will be because of my own strength! Promise me! One day, either you or I will become the best swordsman in the world!
The blue-haired girl sat on the top of a foot of stairs, deep in thought about the vow she had sworn the previous night. Zoro…the way he said it, it had broken her out of her depression. The fact that even her father had told her that she was unable to become the greatest swordsman in the world because of her gender had shaken her too much. But Zoro…Zoro, who at this point was as familiar with her skills as her father was, didn't think that had anything to do with it.
She looked over to the sword nearby, her most prized possession, and picked it up. Silently, she repeated the words to herself: being a girl didn't matter. If she kept up her training, she would one day be the best. And it would go faster with a real sword; Zoro had been easy to beat, unused to the weight, but it had been too long since she picked up her own sword; she was starting to get tired too when she brought it back.
She unsheathed the sword, and looked it over carefully. It was a beautiful blade…but she hadn't touched it in too long. Better to get it back in perfect shape before training with it. First was to sharpen it. She sheathed the sword before getting up and running down the stairs.
She barely made two steps before her foot missed one, and she began to fall. Her heart accelerated as her mind realized the situation, and saw how far she was from the bottom. She closed her eyes as they filled with tears.
So much for being the greatest swordsman…Zoro will probably think I'm a coward for leaving like this as soon as we made our promise.
She had just enough time to think these thoughts as she neared the ground. But rather than a sharp impact on the wood, an arm that felt more like a barbell pressed against her in midair, holding her to a body that was a few times tougher than the toughest training dummies they had. She felt a jolt, and then opened her eyes.
What she saw was a figure in black, his garments obscuring his entire form. The arm holding her to his very muscular body slackened, and she dropped to the ground ungracefully. Rubbing the areas that were now sore from the much less deadly fall, she looked up at the stranger with an expression partly of apprehension, partly of resentment, but mostly of curiosity.
"You should be more careful coming down the stairs. You would have been killed if I wasn't here to catch you," he said. Kuina shivered at the voice; if blatantly stating that she would have died without him there wasn't bad enough, the harshness in his tone was so scary that she was tempted to run to her father. But she was stronger than that.
"…Thanks for saving me. But who are you?" she managed.
"Someone who wants to be sure that you could keep the promise you made last night," he replied.
Kuina's eyes widened, and she got to her feet immediately, forcing down her fear of the man.
"How do you know about that?! Nobody but Zoro and I were there!"
A nearby screen door opened before the taller figure could reply, and she saw her would-be rival rushing in, bamboo swords in hand. He took in the situation before him, and then glared at the figure.
"What do you want with Kuina?" Zoro demanded.
There was a silence for a moment, Kuina looking between the two.
"Zoro, what are you doing here?" she asked.
"I ran into a bunch of people dressed in black in the woods saying that they were travelers, and one of them was here to see you. Seriously, they expected me to believe that? What kinds of travelers would dress in all black in the middle of the summer?"
Kuina frowned, and looked back at the intimidating stranger. He didn't seem to be paying much attention to either of them, however, and was looking out the doorway, where nobody was visible.
"What exactly possessed you idiots to tell him what I was doing here?"
A second later, nine more cloaked figures appeared in the room, the shock of which was enough to knock Zoro and Kuina off of their feet.
"He ran into us back where you left us. We didn't tell him anything beyond that one of our friends was looking for a friend here at the dojo, up until Chopper said that it was Kuina," said a female voice. The smallest cloaked figure promptly hid behind the speaker as the one closest to Kuina looked in that general direction, presumably glaring.
"But what does it matter? You were planning on showing yourself to both of them anyway, right?"
At that point, Zoro and Kuina couldn't take it anymore.
"WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON?!" they screamed in unison. Everyone seemed to stare for a few moments as Zoro and Kuina exchanged glances, blushing a bit at speaking in unison. The figure near them sighed, and opened his robe at the waist, where he had three swords strapped. Two were unfamiliar, but the third was a white blade that Kuina recognized in a heartbeat.
"Hey, that's my sword! Give it back!" Kuina snapped.
"Really? It looks to me like you're still holding your sword," the figure said, his tone somewhere between dry and amused.
Kuina blushed scarlet as she noticed that she was, indeed, still holding her treasured sword, sheath and all. Zoro only mostly succeeded in fighting down a laugh, earning a glare from the girl. Then she looked back at the stranger.
"OK, so I still have my sword. But that is the Wado Ichimonji, I'd recognize it anywhere. How do you have the same sword that I do?"
"Simple. I'm from the future."
The two kids blinked.
"A future where I've used this sword," he continued, drawing the blade to remove any doubt that it was the same as Kuina's, "to obtain the title, 'world's greatest swordsman.'"
The two children stiffened. Kuina felt all the fear she held of the figure return and multiply, while Zoro was beginning to sweat.
"Wh-why are you here?"
The figure pointed at Kuina.
"To save your life."
Both of the children stared at him in confusion.
"In my time, you died today by falling down those stairs. Zoro was furious at you running away from the promise you made, but vowed that since you couldn't keep it, he would. He studied swordsmanship until he turned 18, creating the Three Sword Style, and then left the island to seek out the greatest swordsman in the world of this time, Dracule 'Hawk-Eye' Mihawk. He took up bounty hunting to pay for his meals, and a year later he wound up at a Marine base headed by Captain 'Axe-Hand' Morgan, a corrupt tyrant. To save a little girl from being killed, he killed Morgan's spoiled son's pet wolf, and accepted a sentence of being tied up for a month without food. Ten days later, a man came to the island and heard that Morgan's son was going to execute him anyway, just for kicks. That man saved him, and having made an enemy of the Marines, Zoro agreed to join that man's pirate crew. Three years later, that man, Monkey D. Luffy, became the pirate king, and Zoro achieved his life's ambition of becoming the greatest swordsman in the world."
The figure paused long enough to remove his hood, revealing a young man with green hair and a serious expression. His right eye was closed with a scar over it, and his left was staring at Kuina. She and Zoro both looked at the older Zoro with thunderstruck expressions.
"It's too early for you to die, Kuina. You're strong, and though you still have a long way to go, I'm here to tell you that you have the potential that you need. Hone your skills, and never give up. If I can become the greatest swordsman, then so can you. So, will you do it?"
Kuina was stunned. Time travel was confusing enough already, but to hear from the future version of your would-be rival that you had died, and he had gone on to become what her goal would have been? And after all of that…he came back, just to make sure that she had a chance to reach that goal? She looked in his single eye, and she was shocked; there was something like pleading in his expression. Did he want her to surpass him that badly?
…No. He wanted her to keep the promise that they made, that she had never had the chance to before. Her eyes hardened, and she bowed low.
"I will."
The man grinned, and his younger self looked up at him.
"…And what about me?"
"Well, you're looking at the proof now that you can become the world's greatest swordsman. When one of you manages to beat Mihawk, I guess you'll see which of you is better."
Younger Zoro smirked.
"I guess I'll have to triple my training," he said.
Zoro grinned again.
"Geez, he was always like this. Though I guess seeing the source of it all, I can't blame him," said one of the figures in black, reminding the three swordsmen of their presence. Kuina spoke again.
"So, based on your story, these guys are the Pirate King and the rest of his crew?"
Zoro nodded, and the figures removed their hoods in unison. One of them was revealed to be a smiling young man with black hair and a scar under one eye.
"Monkey D. Luffy, King of the Pirates! Nice to meet you," he said.
"…Him?" young Zoro asked dryly, provoking a few chuckles.
"Don't judge from appearances, kid; Luffy could even beat your older self, though I guess it wouldn't be easy," said another young man with blonde hair covering one eye, and a very curly eyebrow.
"Cheeky cook, like you'd do any better," Zoro muttered, and then gestured to the other figures in turn, introducing them shortly.
"Nami, the navigator; Usopp, the sniper; Chopper, the doctor; Robin, the archaeologist; Franky, the shipwright; Brook, the musician who came back to life with his Revive-Revive Fruit powers; and Jinbe, the martial arts expert. Oh, and the stupid cook."
"Zoro, don't set a bad example for yourself. His name is Sanji, and he's almost as strong as you," Robin said, addressing the younger Zoro. That bit of news had the two younger swordsmen looking at Sanji with astonishment, to Zoro's irritation.
"Wow. But you don't look like a swordsman," Kuina said. Sanji chuckled.
"Of course not, a chef's hands are his life. I had some fighting lessons from Red Leg Zeff, captain of the Cook Pirates, and I developed that into the Black Leg fighting style."
"…You can fend off swords with your feet?" younger Zoro asked.
"There are plenty of techniques that can let you do that. To quote a certain swordsman, 'you have no idea how big the world really is,'" Sanji said with a grin.
"And on that subject," older Zoro cut in, looking back at the two kids, "my crew and I can't stay here for long, but I plan to make the most of the time I've got."
Young Zoro and Kuina looked attentively at the swordsman, wondering if he meant what they thought he did.
"The road to becoming the world's greatest swordsman is harder than anything you could imagine. Keeping up all of the training you're doing now wouldn't be enough to make you more than the best in East Blue. I found that out the hard way a little while after I joined Luffy's crew, when I met Mihawk at the Baratie."
Zoro fumbled with his outfit for a moment, and then removed the robe enough to expose his bare torso, and younger Zoro and Kuina stiffened as they saw the massive scar.
"He defended against every attack I made with a blade no bigger than a table knife, and beat me without any effort. The only reason I lived to tell about it is that my ambition was enough to earn his respect…which is why he used his regular sword to finish me. This wound should have killed me. It would kill a normal person. But to be the greatest swordsman, you cannot be normal."
He released his hold on the robe, which glided smoothly and quickly back into place. He frowned for a moment at the material, and then looked at them with a downright bestial grin.
"I've got about forty-five minutes before I leave. So, what do you think about a private lesson from the world's greatest swordsman?"
Kuina and younger Zoro seemed to have stars in their eyes as they nodded.
Before the two of them could do more than nod, they found themselves moving at impossible speeds. The next thing they knew, they were at the coast of the island, facing out towards the sea. After spending a few seconds regaining their bearings, they looked at the crew.
"OK, what the heck was that?" younger Zoro asked.
"It's part of a series of martial arts techniques called the Six Powers. We've never bothered to learn all of them, but we're all capable of using the Shave technique. Kicking the ground ten times in a second lets you move so fast it looks like you disappeared."
"Ten times a second?" the two of them demanded.
Most of the crew chuckled, much to their annoyance.
"You need to have that kind of power just to be able to survive the Grand Line, let alone reach the end of it. Let me give you a demonstration," Zoro said, once again drawing the Wado Ichimonji.
He walked to the edge of the water, raised the blade, and then brought it down in a simple strike. The resulting shockwave created a trench in the ocean a foot wide and long enough that it was completely out of sight. For the barest instant, the ocean was frozen. Then it surged to fill the gap that was left, and water erupted along the path of the cut. It was a full minute before the ocean was calm again. Zoro turned back to his younger self and Kuina. Both of their jaws were on the ground.
"The first thing you need to know to become the greatest is one simple fact about your limits for how much stronger you can grow: they don't exist. I've seen more impossible things in the three years since I joined Luffy than you two have ever even imagined."
The two of them slowly picked up their jaws, and stared at him attentively.
For the next forty minutes, younger Zoro and Kuina had their outlooks on reality repeatedly shattered, despite Zoro's warning. If watching him perform ridiculously powerful swordplay with three swords—holding one in his mouth—wasn't bad enough, from cutting steel to creating razor-sharp tornados, they also learned of the strange power called Haki.
The older swordsman had closed his eye and told both of them to attack as much as they could. They did, Kuina even using the Wado rather than a bamboo sword, and they were incapable of even touching his clothes. And then there was Armament Haki, if Observation wasn't shocking enough. They watched as Zoro turned his blades and even his flesh into obsidian, explaining that it was a suit of armor created by one's will, increasing offense and defense. The astonished young swordsmen managed to ask if there were any more forms of it.
"There's one more, but unlike those two, not everyone can do it," the Pirate King had said, stepping towards them.
"It's called Conqueror's Haki. Only one in a million people have it."
"So, what does it do?" Kuina asked.
"Basically, it lets you overpower weaker opponents without lifting a finger. It's a battle of wills; if your will isn't strong enough, you'll pass out, but if it is, you'll be able to brush off the effects," Zoro said.
Zoro and Kuina exchanged looks, and their eyes hardened.
"Try it on us," they said.
All of the crew looked at them in concern.
"If we don't have enough willpower now to become what we need to become, then at least let us know how far we have to go," younger Zoro said.
Luffy looked at Zoro, who nodded after a minute.
"All right, but I'm only using a controlled blast; if I go all out, I don't think you'll be able to stay conscious, and that would make you miss out on the rest of the training."
With that, Luffy unleashed his power. Kuina and younger Zoro both fell to their knees, sweating bullets and looking at him with blank eyes and expressions stricken with terror. Luffy stopped the next moment, and Zoro looked at the two young swordsmen. It was about a minute before they regained enough consciousness to look at Zoro.
"That's only a taste of it. But don't let it bother you too much if you never reach that level; Luffy has always been crazier than me."
That provoked a few chuckles from the crew. Then the training resumed. After showing them several more attacks and helping them to memorize some of the principles of swordplay that he'd learned from both Mihawk and Koshiro, it got to a whole new level when Zoro asked some of the other members of the crew to spar with him.
Luffy went first, and after getting past the oddity of him being made of rubber due to the Gum-Gum Fruit, younger Zoro and Kuina watched with awe as the Pirate King managed to fend off Zoro's three sword style with only his body. Even so, Zoro was skilled enough to repel fists that moved so fast that younger Zoro and Kuina couldn't see them. They could feel the effects, though; each blow created a shockwave that made the trees bend as if they were in a tornado; if it hadn't been for Robin's powers providing a safety net for them, they would have been blown away, too.
The difference between that fight and when Zoro fought Sanji seemed negligible to the two children, aside from the differences in fighting style. When Sanji somehow managed to light his leg on fire, and fly, the two were even more astonished. Still, the two of them seemed to be completely on par with each other, and easily monsters in strength.
In the next spar, he took on the only other swordsman in the crew, the skeleton Brook. Kuina paid particular attention to the musician's one sword style…or tried to.
Seriously, are they ALL that fast? she found herself wondering furiously.
Somehow, they managed to take it in stride when Brook's attacks began creating ice and illusions in an attempt to get a hit in on Zoro. The older swordsman, however, parried every lightning-fast blow that he attempted; it was clear why he was the greatest. When it was all said and done, the swordsman looked at the two of them.
"Well?" he asked.
Younger Zoro and Kuina managed to break through their shock of everything that had happened, and they looked at him with determination.
"Like you said, it's proof enough that you're standing right in front of me. If I can manage to be that strong, then I will," younger Zoro said.
"And if he can do it, so can I. After all, Zoro has never beaten me yet," Kuina said, managing a smirk.
Zoro nodded, and then fixed Kuina with a leer. She gulped, wondering if she had offended him.
"Don't ever lose that mindset, Kuina. Never let your ambition falter just because you're a girl. You've got all the potential you need to be as strong as us. Heck, look at our navigator; she usually wins when she fights Luffy."
The two of them looked at Nami, and many of the crew laughed, including her.
"That's one way to put it, I guess," she chuckled. "But it's usually just him being stupid. Sure, he's strong enough to become the Pirate King, but if it comes to anything besides fighting and eating, he's a moron…and he's not the only one, either."
"…And this is your crew?" younger Zoro asked.
Zoro smiled.
"Sure, we all have our quirks…but they're my crew. We've been through too much together for me not to like them."
"Even me, Mosshead?" Sanji asked condescendingly.
"Yes, Swirls, even you, even if it's just that I like fighting you."
Sanji blinked, as did the rest of the crew; it wasn't like Zoro to show so much emotion. He read their faces effortlessly.
"Well, if I don't make it clear to these two that I have no regrets about becoming a Straw Hat Pirate, how can I expect them to follow an idiot like Luffy?"
The crew laughed again.
"Yeah, you've got a point there," Sanji admitted.
Zoro looked back to the two of them.
"You've seen the power that we all have; any one of us could take down an entire army, or destroy an entire island, on our own. But we've never been the kind to make the first strike, so don't misunderstand; this crew is about the nicest group of pirates you'll ever find."
That seemed to reassure the two of them, and younger Zoro spoke up.
"So…I'll meet Luffy nine years from now, then?"
"You should find him at a place called Shells Town, along with a pint-sized kid named Coby who became Fleet Admiral in our time," Zoro confirmed.
"…I'm sorry, could you say that again? I must have misheard you, because I thought you just said that the future Pirate King is travelling with the future Fleet Admiral," Kuina said.
The two young swordsmen found themselves a bit worried when dark looks came over all of the crew.
"I'll spare you the details, but let's just say that that stupid Axe-Hand Morgan is nothing compared to how corrupted some of the higher-ups in the Marines are. Coby's appointment was the best thing that happened to them in a few centuries."
Kuina and younger Zoro found their curiosity fading as they took in the looks on the crew's faces; one and all, they had the same almost haunted expression. After a minute, Zoro looked back at his young rival.
"Anyway…Kuina. It's your choice what you do, but going with Luffy is your best shot at becoming the world's greatest swordsman."
Kuina nodded without hesitation, and Zoro raised an eyebrow.
"Well, if joining that crew managed to get you to this level of skill, I'm sure it can do the same for me," she said with a smirk. Younger Zoro glared at her, but older Zoro only chuckled.
"That's the kind of willpower I remember."
Younger Zoro stopped glaring as he remembered why his older self was here in the first place. He nodded to himself as he thought about the promise he made, and now that he knew that he had the potential, it seemed that one day, his current ambition of surpassing Kuina and his ultimate ambition of becoming the world's greatest swordsman would be one and the same.
He was broken out of these thoughts when the ten figures began to shine. Older Zoro gave a small sigh.
"Looks like our time's up. Kuina, I won't be able to save you a second time, so you'd better not let anything that small get in your way again. And both of you: I expect no less from you than the best," older Zoro said.
Kuina and Zoro bowed in unison.
"We will become the greatest!" they shouted.
Zoro and the rest of the crew smirked, and then with a flash, they were gone.
Phew, finished. Now, first of all, I'd like to say this: I'm half-expecting Zoro to have Conqueror's Haki due to his ambition, but the other half has doubts due to the numerous followers that we've seen all of the other Conquerors in the series, and the fact that Mihawk appears to be a lone wolf. With that said, I'm going to say that Zoro didn't demonstrate having Conqueror's Haki for one of two reasons: either he doesn't have it, or he didn't want to show it off in front of Kuina in case she doesn't have it.
And yeah, that morbid comment Robin made about the outfits wasn't accurate; the old man would have had the sense to tell them THAT, at least, before they left. Still, I don't think anyone was willing to risk it up until then; Zoro seemed like the most likely person to not be afraid to try it out, and seeing that scar should be a good reminder for younger Zoro and Kuina as to just how much they have to do.
…All right, this idea has been incubating in my mind for too long, so I suppose I'll go ahead and write it out right now: the details of the old man's Devil Fruit. Now, as a frame of reference, this is typically how my writing works: I have a somewhat vague idea in mind, I start typing, and the vague idea turns in minutes into a detailed paragraph or two or three or several. In a word, it's making something from nothing. And on that note…
The Hoshi Hoshi no Mi is a Paramecia-type Devil Fruit that allows the user to create a projection of themselves or anything that they see. It appears in a burst of light, and vanishes in the same way. The closer the destination of the projection is to the source, the brighter the light of the projection will be, but it will become increasingly dark around the edges in relation to the distance. Its translated name is the Astral-Astral Fruit.
The physical appearance of the fruit is a midnight blue carambola with white speckles all over its iconic swirl patterns.
An amateur with the fruit's powers is capable of creating a mirror image of themselves or anything that they see, and projecting it at a distance of ten Hoshi Hoshis—
NO. As much as I want to remain faithful to Oda's design, I'm not following that nonsense. As I was saying…
They can project at a distance of ten meters, without any trace of it not being real. As it moves beyond that, it begins to darken, and becomes increasingly difficult to make out the features thereof. Additionally, the projections draw somewhat on the user's energy, meaning that they can only last, regardless of how far or wide they go, according to the user's instructions. Initially, the projections are merely that, images of the original incapable of interacting with anything else beyond the sense of sight; even providing sound to the projection takes practice.
As one becomes more skilled, however, the projections become solid, and the user's potential area of effect is increased, though even a master can only send it up to ten kilometers before the darkness sets in, and they gain the ability to control, somewhat, the darkness around the projections, shaping it into more presentable forms, such as only making it form around their clothes. Additionally, they can control how much light they send with the projection, enabling one to remove the light from the source to maximize the energy in its projection, rendering the source invisible. This is an advantage, as when the projections grow stronger, they draw on more of the physical traits and abilities of the sources, resulting in unconsciousness for objects or inexperienced users.
Truly skilled users can project only parts of objects, creating amalgamations as projections, with all the power and potential of everything that they project, or even altering the form of their projections as they see fit. A weakness of the fruit is that the user must know exactly where they are sending the projection in order to send it, but using this skill allows for a greater range of sight when used right. With enough practice, one can even project their sense onto the memories of others that they see, taking the knowledge of locations or people to project to. They also gain the ability to make the projections autonomous in their time of existence; that is, they can pour all of the energy that they will need into the projections at the moment that they create them, removing the necessity of manually controlling when they cease to exist.
Masters of the skill are capable of extending their projections beyond the reaches of space, and sending projections across time itself. As the consciousness projected must inevitably return to its source, this removes the capability of changing the past, though it will affect the time to which one is sent in another time and space. It is possible to return to this altered time and space if one focuses upon it, and for a true master of the fruit, with enough willpower, the projections can become the sources, and the sources projections, though in absence of an insanely powerful will, this can only apply for the user of the fruit.
As stated above, all projections draw on power from their sources. If the user of the fruit projects other living beings, the user can draw on their energy to sustain the projections instead of or in conjunction with their own energy. This may result in unexpected exhaustion when the projections return to their bodies. Other than that, the user is also subject to standard Devil Fruit weaknesses.
So, there we have it. Didn't take long to write that out. For those curious about the name, the basis of the story is astral projection, and the literal definition of astral is "of or relating to the stars." Hoshi, of course, is Japanese for "star." And as for the English name, I thought about calling it something else. But then I considered fruits like the Flower-Flower Fruit, to name one, and I found it acceptable as it is.
Now, as for the rest, the poll remains heavily in Corazon's favor with 14 votes, while Otohime has 3, Skypiea has 2, and a couple of other options have 2 and 1 respectively. Now, I plan to give it at least a couple of weeks before I publish the next chapter; unlikely though I know it is, since the next chapter's publishing date is the deadline for the poll, I want to be sure that what will be, should be. But I will promise that I will update again before December, I'm sure I can manage that much.
One more thing before I end this off: as I stated two chapters ago, after Franky's intervention, I have no intention of going off of the storylines created with the intervention of the Star-Star Fruit and forming them into complete stories, as I don't believe that I quite have the skill necessary to do so effectively. As I stated, I'd love for anyone to leave a review or send a PM offering to take on one of these concepts and do so. But now that I've published this chapter, I'd like to offer this particular storyline as a challenge. As stated previously, the Star-Star Fruit's powers create a different dimension as they go from one time to another…but Zoro, Nami, Usopp, and Franky all met their future selves 8 years in the past, so there would be four members with future knowledge rather than one. Of all the storyline potentials I have created for this story, that one is easily the one I want to see expanded upon the most. I hope that someone is interested enough to take it.
So, with that said, I hope that this satisfied you. As always, I give kudos to lunanime and Monkey D. Funky for helping me to perfect this. If you can spare the time, please review. And until next I update, may it never be forgotten that Patience is a virtue.