Commission: A Young sailor's swordsmanship (YS/One Piece)

This one is a Commission, but I realized that I should have posted Fae Chronicles here a few months, so I'm not making that mistake. It does, however, get to be public immediately. Enjoy.

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Being X lied. She was supposed to have been thrown to oblivion when she died, she even made sure to curse him right before she exploded the type 95 to make sure of it. Damn Francois. Damn Being X.

Still, the fact remains that Being X cheated by ensuring that she couldn’t let the cursed relic go at that critical moment over Brest, and apparently was willing to send her to yet another life. Oddly, he didn’t tell her he was doing that, and she hasn’t seen him again, but that’s not that unusual. He didn’t show back up to gloat until quite some time after her second life began.

She’s a girl again, which absolutely sucks. She had just enough time in her last life to get used to the mortifying effects of berserk female puberty hormones before she died, and now she has to go through that again. She’s in an even more technologically backwards area than before, which also sucks. She lived on an Island, known as Nishihoshi island, the last stop of a shipping lane towards a sea known as the “West Blue”. Tanya wasn’t quite clear on the geography, but it meant that there were many ships passing through.

There is one good thing about this life: She has a mother. She shared a lot of features with her second life’s body, so Tanya assumed that she’ll retain those features. Well, with one notable exception: Apparently she had her father’s eyes, which were… distinctive.

In her second life, she was about fourteen months old when she regained her original consciousness, already eating solid food. It took another month or two, even then, to fully recover her eyesight to an adult level of fidelity, although she had initially assumed she just needed glasses again. In this life, she was three months old when she regained consciousness, and had not just perfect vision, but better vision than she ever had without being augmented by magic. This visual acuity made it very easy to catch her reflection: her eyes had an additional ring of black occupying her iris, which were still blue. They didn’t seem to be the same shade of blue, but she wasn’t sure. Maybe a bit reddish?

Naturally, Mother had a picture of Tanya’s father on hand, who also had those eyes, but red. Tanya was honestly surprised they had photography when she first saw it, but then she realized what the picture was: A wanted poster. Her father was a notorious criminal, with a bounty that was over one billion of the local currency. That… wasn’t good. From context, Tanya assumed that was a large amount of money, given that the poster gave him four titles, each more grandiose than the last, calling him “Marine Hunter” Dracule “Hawk-Eyes” Mihawk “the Clairvoyant”, “The Greatest Swordsman in the World”. Mother didn’t talk about him much, but the poster was clearly displayed in view of Tanya’s crib, as if the man’s stern gaze was guarding her.

There were other things about her parentage that weren’t good. For example, while her mother heavily resembled her second life, there were a few… exceptions. Pretty much the only measurement that wasn’t substantially larger than her second life was the woman’s waist, although she will admit that her mother wasn’t absurdly thin. So she has that to look forward to. She can already imagine the back pain… although to her credit the woman bore the weight without complaint, she was stronger than she looked.

Another unfortunate facet to her parentage was the fact that her mother was a prostitute. A high-class one, mind you, that seemed to be very selective with her clients, but that selectivity apparently allowed notorious outlaws access, so that wasn’t exactly worth much.

Tanya was three years old when their dreary existence pretending to have conversations with her dolls while steadfastly ignoring most of what was going on around her got interrupted: pirates attacked her island.

Tanya looked out from her window at the horizon with the rising sun, seeing the large fleet of ships. It was the first time she saw a pirate attack, but supposedly the last one was a little bit before she was born; reading between the lines indicated that it was likely that her father was present at the time. Sometimes, Tanya wondered if her father was not, in fact, a paying customer, but she would expect Mother to have mentioned something like that, while assuming that Tanya couldn’t understand her if nowhere else.

The custom for pirates in this world, she had picked up, was to have a unique identifying Jolly Roger symbol. This one was… rather elaborate. Four crossed bones instead of two, a distinctive skull shape, with four horns. This was one of the three Jolly Rogers that she knew of, designating the largest pirate organizations in the world, headed by the Three Emperors of the Sea. Specifically, this flag belonged to the Beast pirates, which was… pretty much the worst case scenario, she gathered.

Her mother was quick to react to the attack, rushing into the room and quickly packing some pre-prepared bags, packing away only the doll that Tanya had arbitrarily labeled as her favorite (it was a red dog with a baseball cap labeled ‘MARINES’, which she had uncreatively named Akainu), her father’s poster, and her blanket in addition to the bags before rushing out the back door with Tanya in tow.

Tanya couldn’t really do anything about the pirate attack, so she held on tight to her mother’s back as she ran, only occasionally looking back at the now-burning port.

Where was Being X going with this?

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As it turned out, he was going for ‘hey, you have a mom and you’re presumably bonded with her, now she dies!’

Tanya was deposited in a cave where dozens of mothers and young children all congregated to, clearly a planned evacuation spot, placed in a pile along with the bags. Her mother then, foolishly in Tanya’s opinion, went back out there to do… something. She wasn’t quite clear on that part.

Tanya had just finished getting changed into day clothes by a woman who just needed a distraction, when a massive wave of… something echoed throughout the island accompanied by a massive roar.

It was… massive. Tanya had felt Being X when he was feeling wrathful, and it was… similar? More intense, though. Fear gripped her as she vividly hallucinated a massive blue dragon making that massive roar, the image of the Beast Pirate’s flag come to life. It breathed fire, sowing devastation among the port city, which was followed seconds later by the sound of a massive explosion, with only the barest tremors reaching the inland cave.

She was the only one still on her feet, or even conscious, it looked like… lots of the women and children had drool bubbled up and dropped from their mouths, practically foaming… although she did black out shortly thereafter.

Once roused, Tanya was informed that her mother had died in the pirate attack, which… hurt. Tanya’s mother wasn’t the best, but she was loving to her only child, and it was impossible to be loved without feeling love in return, it went against human nature. So she let the tears flow. She was far from the only one crying in loss.

Hopefully Being X doesn’t screw you out of your reincarnation, Mother. You will be remembered… Bizness D. Nunya. Never will she forget that stupid, stupid name.

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Life as an orphan was harsh, of course. The evacuation bag did include money, surprisingly enough, quite a bit of it. The local naval forces, which from the gossip was apparently the dumping ground base, G5, were essentially powerless when Kaido, the leader of the Beast Pirates, decides to come wreck an island for fun. He could apparently turn into a dragon, which was… interesting to see when she saw a picture. How did she see him from inside the cave? Were her eyes magic? She had yet to replicate the feat.

However, there were still several hundred young men with strong bodies among those forces, so they were whipped by their commanders to help rebuild instead. Literally, with actual whips.

Oddly, those men were… supernaturally strong. Each of them could effortlessly break weightlifting records back in her original life, and none of them carried anything like a computation orb. It seemed to be pure muscle strength. Was this some kind of subconscious magical reinforcement? Or was this something more like ki, from stories?

Fortunately, as a three year old girl, she had an automatic excuse to do… basically whatever she wanted, as long as she wasn’t endangering herself. She found a group of Marines on their lunch break, the day after the attack. “Hi.” She said simply, widening her eyes to make her look extra curious. She clutched Akainu, which given the hat would probably endear her to them.

The Marines of G5 were exceptionally thuggish in appearance, much sloppier with their uniform than Tanya would tolerate in her own subordinates. They didn’t look properly military at all, in fact. But nevertheless, even Yakuza will generally be kind to small children if they’re not in a bad mood. “Hello little girl.” Said the one with the heaviest scars, but also the fanciest coat. Clearly these men’s commanding officer. His voice was as rough as his appearance, but he deliberately softened it to sound like he was merely a heavy smoker. “What’s your name?”

“Dracule D. Tanya.” She replied, “Who are you?”

“My name is Captain Doberman.” He said, simplifying things for her, although he seemed contemplative. “Are you hungry?” He asked, before glancing at the man who was serving the other Marines. “Another bowl over here!”

Tanya was given a bowl of the thick meaty stew that the Marines were eating, and ate it eagerly; she had not eaten beforehand on purpose. “All of you are so strong.” Tanya said, going straight to the point. “How did you get so strong?”

“Well, we’re big men, for starters.” Captain Doberman said, “We ate all of our meat and vegetables growing up, and trained hard.” So unless he was lying, it was probably a ‘ki’ thing instead of magic, something instinctive. “Who’s that?” He said, pointing to Tanya’s stuffed toy.

“Akainu.” She said between bites of stew. Apparently G5 had a fantastic chef. What kind of meat was this? It was delicious. She licked the bowl clean.

“Yes, Admiral Akainu is a fine Marine to look up to.” What? At her look of confusion, he explained: "That doll is based on one of the Admirals of the Marines. He is nicknamed Akainu, and he was my teacher."

"Wow…" she said, looking at her doll in a new light. This world understands merchandising? Still, now that she had a knowledgeable adults attention, she might as well keep asking questions. "What's a Royal Warlord?" She asked.

Captain Doberman seemed surprised at the non sequitur, but recovered. "The Seven Warlords of the Sea, " he began, scowling at the address, "are pirates that the World Government, in their infinite wisdom, have pardoned for their crimes so that they may serve as additional military forces." Really? "They'll bite the hand that feeds them eventually, and be reminded into Impel Down where they deserve." He glanced at her. "where did you hear about them?

Tanya blinked. This was both good and bad news. On one hand, her father was apparently a privateer, and no longer a pirate. The bounty poster must be old. On the other hand, the very large man in front of her hates the idea of pirates turning over a new leaf. But she needed to confirm… "I heard the strongest swordsman in the world is one." She said, inserting a little pride in her voice.

Captain Doberman coughed. "Well, yes, "Hawk Eyes" Mihawk is among the Seven Warlords, fighting at the Navy's direction against other no-good pirates."

"He's my Daddy." Tanya said immediately, as if she couldn't wait to share this information. "Mama said so." She brought out the poster. "She said I have his eyes." Hopefully, he can get in contact with the man; he seemed nice enough that he probably wouldn't kill her for being the daughter of an ex-outlaw…

Captain Doberman looked at the poster, then at her eyes. "I see." He eventually said. "Does he know about you?"

"Mama said he did." Tanya lied. All she was hoping for was some child support payments, but the man was very put together, from his photo, so perhaps he had a house somewhere she could use. Or dare she hope for a manor? Or a castle? No. The idea that he'd own a castle is just ridiculous. "Can you call him here?"

The Marine Captain gave a long-suffering sigh.

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Upon learning her age and the fact that her mother was dead, Captain Doberman agreed to inform her father of her circumstances.

Granted, those circumstances weren't actually that bad; hidden amongst the materials deemed too critical to abandon was a property deed to their small house, and while the G5 improvised construction crew only erected a simple one room shack on the land, between her money and that shack she was in a decent position to wait for her father to show up, at the very least. It didn't mean she didn't take advantage of any and all available charity, to extend the amount of time she had, but she was better off than a lot of other people in the port. The weather on Nishihoshi Island was chaotic at the best of times, due to the odd continent the place was close enough to to see it. It had miles-high cliffs as a shore, apparently the whole of the "Red Line'' fit that description. It didn't seem geologically plausible to her, but it was right there, so she couldn't deny the reality of it.

While she waited, Tanya took advantage of the fact that she was no longer restricted to her room for most of the day to wander the island, just her, Akainu, and her knife. No one expects the little girl with the stuffed dog to be armed.

After the fourth time she was forced to stab someone, she noticed that she seemed to have some echo of her previous life's magic. When she stabbed someone, something resembling a mage blade appeared over the blade, which allowed her tiny and kind of dull knife to cut through bone.

Still, it was nice to finally learn more concrete things about the world she now lived in. What she had initially thought to be shipyards were actually for whaling, rendering massive sea beasts down for meat and, presumably, other products. They also could be used as a drydock for ship maintenance, and frequently were used that way by the Navy, but the rendering of “Sea Kings” and “Island Whales” was the primary industry of the island, as it was relatively close to their nesting grounds.

It certainly explained why Nishihoshi had so many butchers. She had never noticed that fact, but after she learned of the industry she started to notice just how much of the island’s economy centered around it. The loud braggadocious at the public houses were big game fishermen, the smithy, which employed over one hundred blacksmiths, had on display truly massive carving knives, which Tanya had initially assumed to be some sort of bragging rather than a practical tool.

The most acclaimed artist on the island specialized in scrimshaw, creating works of art from small chunks of the beast’s skeletons. Local specialties included dishes with blubber, and blood pudding was inexpensive enough to be served as charity. Half of the Island’s businesses related to the local kaiju fishing industry, and it was quite fun puzzling together the whole economic picture.

“This is the good bit.” Said the old man as he pointed to a painstakingly drawn crosssection of a Sea King. “The World Nobles pay good money for this part, called the tendercore, it’s delicious, and supposedly grants tremendous strength to the one who eats it.” He scoffed. “Nonsense. But the Figarland family pays the most for it, it's the favorite food of their strongest knight, Saint Garland. You need to save this bit for them, or else they might get angry.” The old butcher stared at the collected children. “Never make the World Nobles angry.”

This world didn’t really have public education. However, every child of Nishihoshi was given instruction on Sea King anatomy and knife handling, as cutting up the beasts was incredibly labor intensive work that children ages ten and up were frequently called upon to help with, in addition to most able-bodied men, whenever a body was available to render down. Most of this instruction was oriented around the most useful perspective: how much money could be made off of it, and which parts the Island couldn’t directly sell and how they had figured out a way to make use of it anyway. The bones could be used as building material after some chemical treatments, which were refined from another junk portion. It was an admirable example of capitalism at work, innovating new products from available resources.

Tanya would normally be too young to attend, but she showed up and didn’t make trouble so the old man allowed it. One of the older boys raised his hand and spoke: “Has anyone eaten it to check?”

“They did when I was around your age.” The old man said, “The size of it varies, so he just wrote down that it was half as big as it was and ate the other half.” He shrugged. “Didn’t get any stronger, but he certainly got sick from eating raw meat.” So, inconclusive then. Given how this wouldn’t be the only ‘get stronger by eating specific thing’ story she’s heard in this world… it might be true.

“Now, this bit here…” The old man continued, pointing to a slightly different piece on the anatomical drawing. “... this piece is worthless, it’s called the shitcore. It’s filed with vile toxic shit that you don’t want spilling out everywhere. Before you go cutting in search of the tendercore, you need to make sure you’ve gotten this out of the way first.” Tanya assumed it was a place where toxins accumulated as it got filtered out of the Sea King’s body, or perhaps it was more like an appendix, holding a reserve of useful bacteria.

“It looks exactly the same!” complained another boy.

“It does not!” The old man insisted. “Now, here’s how you tell the difference…”

Tanya paid close attention. Learning about how to butcher sea monsters was far more interesting than anything else she could be doing.

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After about four months after the attack, the Navy stepped down their presence to the previous amount, which was woefully insufficient for an attack by the Beast Pirates, but the local branch did catch a few pirates.

Mihawk was nowhere to be found. Further, Captain Doberman was avoiding her, which meant that he didn’t have good news. Unfortunately, she didn’t even have the closure of knowing that he wasn’t coming on purpose, instead of him just being unable to get in contact with the Warlord at his rank.

Between listening in on whatever adult was teaching a group of children today (even if it was something she already knew, like math), she had taken to supplementing her savings with singing. There was a large quantity of songs to be learned at the docks and taverns, and a little girl singing them always got sailors in a generous mood. Thank you Sister Helga for the choir training.

“Yohohoho, yo hoho ho!” She sang, “Yohohoho, yo hoho ho! Gather up all of the crew, it’s time to ship out Bink’s Brew, Sea wind blows, to where, who knows? The waves will be our guide!” Today she was singing in a bar, run by a motherly woman who thought Tanya’s singing was “adorable”. “O'er across the ocean's tide. Rays of sunshine far and wide, birds they sing, of cheerful things, in circles passing by!”

As she sang, the rough sailors, who claimed they were simple merchants but Tanya suspected them of being pirates, cheerfully sang along with her, to the point where she would be surprised if any of them could actually hear her.

When she was eating the free meal that the bartender gave her as her pay, the captain of their ship, an odd man who wore a kimono and makeup that Tanya would normally expect to see on a geisha, put a fair amount of the local currency, beri, in her tip jar. “Ah, I must thank you, little girl.” He said, smiling. “That song reminds me of better times. You’re a much better singer than little Hiyori was, but those memories hit all the same.”

Tanya swallowed the sea king meat stew, chasing it with fruit juice. “Thanks, mister!” She said, a fake smile plastered on her face. “Do you have any requests?” She added.

“Not unless you know the Lullaby of Itsuki.” The man joked, “I’d pay dearly to hear that song again, my sister used to sing it to me when we were younger.”

Tanya’s face twisted. She does actually know that one. It was an old Japanese folk song, only a few dozen words. But which version does he want? “How dearly?” Tanya asked. The language used in this world was English, although there were some oddities that… not important.

The man laughed. “Okay, bet.” He put his hand into his kimono sleeve and brought out a golden bangle with a ruby on it. “This bracelet’s worth about five hundred thousand beri.” Given the size and cut of that ruby… sounds about right. That’s one rich “merchant”. “You’re in luck, there are dozens of versions of the song. If you get any of the ones I know, you get this.” His grin grew. “But if you sing the exact version my sister sang, that I personally sang to little Hiyori…” He pulled out another bracelet, an exact match for the first one. “I’ll give you the set.”

Tanya’s eyes widened. So… much… money… Tanya immediately started singing in Japanese. “I certainly hate taking care of the crying child.” She sang, and the geisha-looking man’s jaw dropped in shock. “They hate me for keeping the child to cry, They hate me for keeping the child to cry.”

The captain’s subordinates were watching and listening, keenly interested in the exchange. “Commander, is she doing it right?” Asked one of them, clearly not understanding the language.

“The sleeping child's cuteness and Innocent look!” Tanya continued, singing softly and completely dissonantly with the actual contents of the lyrics. The joke was that babies don’t understand that you’re complaining about them as you’re singing them to sleep. “The crying child's ugly look, The crying child's ugly look.” She finished, trailing off and looking at the kimono wearing man with a smug look. “Is that how it goes?” She asked innocently.

“H-how?” He asked, gripping Tanya’s arms with his own. “Is your mother from Wano?” He demanded. Is Wano the Japan equivalent? Noted.

“Woah, hang on Commander.” Said the man’s subordinate. “Did she sing it right or not?”

The captain calmed, fixing his slightly mussed hair bun. He handed both bracelets into Tanya’s waiting hands. His subordinates all cursed or cheered, money changing hands as their own gambling got resolved. “Where did you learn that song?” He asked, peaceful this time.

Time to make something up. “After I lost my Mama, I let a lady that was dressed like you stay in my house for a night. She sang it then.” Tanya smiled, admiring her new bracelets. “I guessed it was the same one!” After a beat, she asked: “What does it mean?”

“When was this?” The captain asked, grinning and distinctly not answering her question.

Eh… “Six weeks ago.” She said, making it up on the spot. “Had me call her Sakura-baachan.”

“Did she say where she was going?” He pressed.

“West Blue.” Tanya said immediately. “Don’t remember if she said more.”

“Commander, you know how the Navy’ll react if we show up there.” Another sailor pointed out.

“I know…” He said, angry. Well, that confirms them as pirates. “Still, I thank you little girl for that taste of home.”

“My name is Tanya.” She said, bowing slightly.

“I am Izou.” He replied. “Our hold should be loaded up with supplies for the fleet, so I should be going.”

It was only after they left that Tanya found out that the crossdresser was actually a notorious outlaw from the Whitebeard Pirates, one of the Beast Pirate’s competitors. At least someone understands the value of a port that they can spend their booty at.

Still, those bracelets will be a fine emergency fund. She already sold all of Mother’s jewelry, what few pieces she put with the money anyway. If she takes her time, she can get a better price for these.

Maybe she doesn’t need her father after all.

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It was Tanya’s fifth birthday, so Tanya was relaxing, watching the boats come in and out of port. About half of the butcher yards were filled up rendering a Sea King, all of the Navy’s boats were out doing something-or-other, she wasn’t quite clear on that, but the port was bustling with business as they had more or less completely recovered from the Beast Pirate’s raid.

Tanya liked watching the harbor, particularly from her current position atop one of the inactive butcher yard’s cranes. Her new life’s eyesight had only sharpened as she grew older, allowing her to make out small details from great distances. She could count the ropes on ships that just barely crest the horizon, and frequently did.

Currently, she was looking at a very strange, very tiny boat. It looked like a coffin, with a single seat on the deck, literal candles with green flames, and a sail that looked a lot more like a cross than normal sails did. She couldn’t quite make out the man’s face yet, she’d need him to get a few miles closer for that, but he had strapped to his back a sword longer than he was tall, a massive blade that looked appropriate for a man twice his size, and she meant that literally given that people who were three meters or more tall weren’t unheard of in this world. Its hilt and guard also heavily resembled a cross.

Christianity was actually a thing in this world. Well, sort of. She wasn’t entirely clear on the specifics of the whole thing, and it was called Celestianity, but roughly they still believed in Being X, and believed that the Celestial Dragons, another name for the World Nobles, descendents of the 19 original kings that formed the World Government, were basically Jesus.

Tanya had never heard a more self-serving religious dogma before. She kind of pitied Being X for being associated with them. She was also unclear on where crosses came into things given the lack of an execution/resurrection myth, but figured that it probably wasn’t relevant.

Still, before she could start making out the strange man’s features more clearly, a relatively common occurrence interrupted things: a second sea king emerged from the horizon, charging at the butcher yard. This was something that the town’s defenses were prepared for, and the massive harpoon guns that dotted the harbor started to aim their payloads at the massive beast.

At least, until the mysterious man drew his massive sword and swung it at the thing with a hundred feet to spare. After about five heartbeats, the sea king’s neck separated from the rest of its body. Keeping going on its path across the sea’s surface on sheer momentum, the head crashed directly underneath the crane Tanya was using as a lookout point, while the rest of it was saved from the bottom of the harbor by the aforementioned harpoon guns.

“Are you alright, kid?” asked the operator of the nearby harpoon gun, shouting over the twenty yards or so of distance between them. He was named Mori, and he was the one who had initially shown her this lookout spot when she was wandering bored, eight months ago.

“I’m fine.” Tanya called back.”That man on the tiny boat was the one to kill it. He used a giant sword.” She said, pointing at it. “He just saved all of you two thirds of your profit in damages.” Mori was also, incidentally, the only one to know how good her eyesight was, although that was purely because she didn’t bother keeping it a secret.

“What tiny boat?” He asked, squinting.

“The one with the cross-shaped mast, to the right of the path the Sea King took, he’s still about five miles out.” She could usually only make out facial features at three miles, so she still had a few minutes before she could make out more of the man’s appearance. Her eyesight was superhuman, not miraculous.

“Huh. I’ll tell the foreman, I guess.” Mori said, setting his harpoon gun to slowly reel in before clambering down the ladder.

Tanya looked over the Sea King head. Was this one a parent? Sibling? Lover? Sea Kings were animals, but they weren’t exactly empty-headed ones. Attacking those who hunt their kin was normal behavior, but this beast’s corpse could fill the bellies of thousands, either directly through consumption or through the sale of its inedible and luxury parts.

When she looked back to the harbor, she could finally make out the features of the mysterious man. He was meeting her gaze. Those eyes… It was like looking in a mirror.

Well… it looks like her father has finally shown up.