A young swordsman's adventure 14

​So I know I've been writing a lot slower as of late. I think I might be burning out. So, allow me to make an announcement: I will be taking April off from my usual updates, and instead putting in some effort into chopping at the backlog. 

To clarify, April will still provide updates for the public readers. Public readers will instead have zero weekly updates (i.e. Pyschoprotective/Summon Perfect Warlady) in May, although I'm not going to be exact with the weeks and such. I'll be taking five updates off to be more specific, April 1, 8, 15, 22, and 29 (fun fact: It wasn't until making this post that I realized April had 5 updates in it), with my first update for the Patrons being May 6, with that one releasing to the public on June 3. But you guys will be recieving the public chapters on April 1-22 as normal. Same delay, just... deferred. I will also not be making an April Poll that would lead to an update on May 1st (May 8th public). I will, however, be posting the March Poll on April 1st/8th as normal (which is Devil's consultancy, to be clear). I will also put a payment pause on the patreon payments starting somewhere after the 25th of this month but before the 1st. It will last until, I believe, the same calendar day in April.

Expect at least one chapter of both of the new commissioned stories to come out either this month or in April, first a short-form Worm fic (only slated for 7 3k chapters in total) which should be a nice change of pace as a non-youjo senki thing, and a Youjo Senki one that's a crossover with Girl Genius, so that should be fun. 

Current backlog as of 3/20 (after counting this one): 

7 more Pirate

3 more Fae

​3 more Devil (including the monthly poll chapter)

Girl Genius: 4 chapters

Worm: 1/7 chapters

Enjoy the chapter. Next chapter is Tanya's adventure beginning properly. 

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    Being an administrator of a neophyte Kingdom was a busy job. Onboarding new citizens, hiring admin staff, vetting them, training them, teaching people the necessary sign language to communicate with the humandrills, arbitrating disputes, smoothing over relations between the humandrills and the new settlers, negotiate with merchants on behalf of the Grimm Kingdom, as was necessary when their stockpiles of resources needed to be tapped… 

    She could barely find a single spare hour a day to train with Shodai Kitetsu. It was a bloodthirsty blade, it wanted to kill and revel in the carnage, but that was not what she learned the sword to do. 

    Grandpa had visited for a week to help her train, which she dedicated as much time as she could so as to not waste the opportunity. 

    “Okay, so what do you do when you want to call on conqueror’s haki?” Grandpa asked. They were in a secluded courtyard in the castle, with none allowed to view her private training session. It also helped keep Grandpa’s identity secret, as harboring the Dark King is not something that would be looked kindly on by the World Government. Not a disaster, but best to not flaunt it. 

    Hm. “Well… it’s difficult to explain.” She admitted, “But I suppose a good summary would be that I focus on how much I hate someone.” Being X, specifically. He has much to answer for. 

    “Yes, I can see how that would work well.” Grandpa said, stroking his beard. It had gone fully white by now, not a trace of color was left in his hair. Idly, he pet Saifu with his other hand, who was lazily sleeping in his lap. “But pinning your dreams on someone else… it rarely works out. You need to find a new source of strength.”

    “It’s an impossible dream anyway.” She muttered. Being X has been completely absent, and given how good her life has been going… He wasn’t in reach. No matter how much strength she gained, it wouldn’t do a thing if the bastard never showed his face. Tanya huffed as she recalled her time at Officer’s school, where she made sure that she was armed at all times just so she could shoot the bastard in the face if he showed up. As if that would have done anything. “Even if I became the strongest in the world… you can’t hit God with a sword.” only those pretentious pricks pretending at godhood. 

    Grandpa’s eyes widened. “I see. I thought you were talking about that youngblood Kaido.”

    Tanya rolled her eyes. “Well, yes, I have a bone to pick with him, I’d celebrate the bastard’s death, but his crimes are small, in comparison.” Sure, kill her mother and leave her destitute for two years. That was pretty bad. But turning her into a girl? The Great War? The type 95? Much worse. 

    “...Do you want to talk about it? I've seen everything, the worst this world has to offer, hit me.” Grandpa offered. 

Tanya shifted uncomfortably. “...No.” she eventually said, “It's personal.” After all, it wasn’t something of this world. That was the problem. 

    Grandpa hummed at her words. “Will you change your mind if I promise not to tell your father?” After a moment, he added: “I won’t tell Shakky either. Just between you and me, no one else.”

    Tanya shuffled in place, unsure. She’s never spoken a word of Being X in this world, although she has done so somewhat indirectly. Would he hear her? Come back to ruin her life personally? “I’ve died before.” She said before she could decide otherwise. “Twice.” She added. 

    “Hm. Alright, seen that before.” Really? “So from your hatred of God I’m going to assume you met the guy when you did.”

    Tanya blinked. Okay… “He’s a bastard.” Tanya insisted. “All he cares about is getting his ass kissed. The first thing he said, right after I was murdered, no less, was-”

    It was the start of a flood. For what felt like hours but was more realistically ten to fifteen minutes, Tanya ranted and raved about every single grievance, ranging from the petty to horrific, that she had with Being X. Her conqueror’s haki surged as she spoke, flooding out into the world as she vented towards her grandfather. 

    “If he dares show even a hint of his existence, I am going to shove Shodai Kitetsu so far up his-” Tanya continued as she swung the blade in question to emphasize her point. 

    However, Asa was interposed in the swing, shimmering with her grandfather’s own haki. They didn’t even connect, the pressure of the conflicting haki preventing contact. Something seemed very wrong with this picture, and after a beat of holding her sword in her hand, just looking at her grandfather’s stance, she realized: it was too bright. She looked up, and saw the sun, as the constantly overcast sky was sliced in two. 

    “If I didn’t block that, it would have done some real damage.” Grandpa said, taking a deep breath. “Youngsters these days.”

    Shodai Kitetsu roared in Tanya’s head, but Tanya firmed her grip, and it quieted down. “...So that’s how that works.” She said, looking at the slowly sealing rift in the clouds. 

    “Okay, I think I got the gist of it.” Grandpa said, idly muttering something that Tanya decided she was better off not knowing. “So, it looks like you won.” He said, grinning. 

    “...What?” Tanya asked, confused. 

    Grandpa gestured around vaguely. “You know, your little thing with that X guy. You died without begging him for anything, and you’re not destroyed. What’s more, you’re in your next life, which is exactly what the prize you were gonna win was.” He grinned to emphasize his point. “All that stuff from before doesn’t really matter here, does it? You need to just look to the future.”

    It couldn’t be that simple! But… he’s right. What did she see, when she saw victory? It wouldn’t be much different than this, would it? The more she thought about it, the more she couldn’t find a way to disagree with the statement. Except one. “...I’m still a girl, though.” She said, looking down at herself. She wasn’t entirely conversant in bra sizes, but already, if she went unbound, she could obscure her feet easily if she lined them up. “I want to be a man again.”

    “Well, then do that.” Grandpa said, as if it was that simple. Laughing at her expression, he waved her concerns away. “Anything’s possible in this world, Tanya. You wanna be a man, you do that. Heck, there was a King that got turned into a woman by some devil fruit user about… 12 years ago? It was in the papers. You could track her down and see how it happened.” He pointed to Shodai Kitetsu. “But before you can do that, you’re going to need to master that sword. Are you feeling up for it?” He put his sword, Asa, back into a ready stance. 

    Tanya grinned, calling on her conqueror’s and stoking her blade’s fires as she kicked off into the air. Against him, she’ll need everything she can get. 

    For her manhood.

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     Unfortunately, the Kingdom in question, the Lumber Kingdom, was not okay. It had been replaced with the Free Nation of Columbia, which was the name of the island. The King suddenly becoming a woman that was utterly uninterested in rulership instead of prancing from tree to tree while wearing outrageous clothing (who wears suspenders with a bra and nothing else?) meant that it was one of the early victories of the Revolutionary Army. No one knows where the former King was, and his son, the only other survivor, had been sent to Impel Down just last month after a nine-year career as a pirate. 

Tanya had asked her maternal grandmother if the article they wrote had any additional information, but apparently they only hold back-issues for two years, because any more and they’d start to look like historians. Morgans was, apparently, convinced that one day the World Government is going to round up and execute all the historians so he’s very careful to ‘live in the now’. 

Sabaody library was a bit more helpful, as they were fine with being referred to as historical archives, but their collection of World Economic Journal issues were incomplete, and she couldn’t find the relevant issue despite looking through all papers for a three year period. 

So that was a dead end. Nevertheless, Grandpa’s advice worked wonders for calling on her conqueror’s haki. Her victory over Being X was almost complete, all she needs to do is fix the last remnant of his curse. With a clear goal to focus on, this world’s magic comes to her call easily. Hopefully she’ll retain that ability once she accomplishes that goal, as her father can. 

Still, with her fourteenth birthday come and gone, and over a dozen human handlers now trained to interpret and manage the humandrills, it was time to go out into the world and have an adventure. She got a ship built for her by the finest shipwrights in the world, Water Seven, and crewed it with eight humandrills that she personally trained for the roles. 

The first stop? Well, it has to be one of the Blues, and she just so happens to have some friends she hasn’t visited in a while in one of them, so that’s the place to go. From Water Seven, the best place to go to get to the East Blue just so happened to be Sabaody Archipelago. 

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    Shakky’s Rip-Off Bar was booming today, as there was a reasonably large, mostly coated, three-masted ship in the lagoon, decorated somewhat like a seven year old girl who loved horses designed it. The sail declared the owners to be the Beautiful Pirates, not only with their jolly roger but by literally printing the words ‘Beautiful Pirates’ on the sail. 

    If she recalled correctly, the captain of these pirates is named Cavendish, and he’s what was known as a ‘Super Rookie’ that attained a bounty of over one hundred million beri within the first year of setting out to sea. In this case, he had a bounty of one hundred seventy million, although she didn’t quite remember what was written on his specific crimes beyond deciding that he was not scum, and that she’d leave him be if he wasn’t doing anything in front of her. 

    When she walked into the party, where the patrons looked more at home at a royal ball rather than a seedy bar like this one, quite a few of the pirates gave her a double take. 

    Cavendish was a man who dressed in a silk shirt, a cape, navy pants with flared cuffs and stars on the knees, high heeled boots, and a hat with a plume. He accessorized with a sword, a rose, and four golden rings with diamonds on his left hand. His long hair was styled to fall on his chest in a combination of powdered wig and noblewoman drills. 

    Tanya wore a silk shirt, black pants that ended above her ankles with sensible shoes, a black coat with velvet sleeves that, given the warm weather, she wore as a cape, and a hat with a plume. She accessorized with a sword, a furry backpack, diamond earrings, a black pearl necklace, a set of silver anklets shaped like wings, and six rings between her hands, the gems outlining a rainbow with the ruby, citrine, and topaz on her left hand, and the emerald, sapphire, and amethyst on the right. Her hair was freshly cut short, falling into a naturally curly mop. 

    In other words, they were dressed more or less the same, with the primary difference between them, besides her having more jewelry, was his shirt, which was half-open to reveal his chiseled muscles. …Damn that boy was pretty. Wait, he was looking at her now! 

    What was he saying? Eyes up, focus! “-is an insult!” He shouted angrily, which was just terrible. What could she do to make up for this? She racked her brain to see if she could remember what he was ranting about. Was it… oh!

    “I apologize for the misunderstanding.” Tanya said, “But my presence here has nothing to do with you. I just came to visit my grandparents.”

    “Well, it’s nice to see you before you go! Isn’t he just so handsome?” Grandma said from the bar. “She’s my granddaughter, Cavendish. Start anything and she’ll finish it.”

    The angry expression Cavendish vanished, melting into a suave smile. “Oh, forgive me for my mistake. I should have known from that vacant expression you got when you first beheld my beauty.” Tanya flushed in embarrassment. Damn hormones… “Introductions! I am Cavendish, captain of the Beautiful Pirates and ex-Prince of the Bourgeoisie Kingdom. I got exiled from my homeland due to being so beautiful, women were refusing to marry anyone else!”

    That… was actually pretty plausible. If she didn’t already know the alluring beauty devil fruit was held by the Kuja Empress, she’d guess he had it. How was it possible to be so pretty? 

    “Now, what should I call this vision of fierce beauty before me? Now that I take a second look, I see how fashionably you’re dressed.” He… fluttered his eyelashes at her? Why was she blushing more! “Do not worry, as a gentleman I never kiss and tell.”

    Still, she was not some swooning damsel! She was a man, and she will solve this like one! “My name is Tanya. I am going to hurt you now.” She said simply, cracking her knuckles. 

    “You were the quartermaster, right? You were handling the bill?” Grandma asked one of the pirates at the bar. The stuffy man nodded. “Okay, Tanya, you can play with your new boyfriend, but take it outside or upstairs.”

    Tanya’s eye twitched. “I would like to apologize, Cavendish. I must now hurt you more.” It was the principle of the thing. 

    “Ha! No slip of a girl, no matter how snappily dressed, can defeat Cavendish of the White Horse!” He loudly proclaimed, leaping out the door and mounting up the aforementioned white horse. Oh, he’s wearing high heels because he rides a horse. That makes sense. 

    Oh, he drew his sword. Big mistake on his part. It’s Shodai Kitetsu’s playtime now. 

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    “So his split personality is named Hakuba, huh?” Tanya said, rubbing her chin as she watched Cavendish’s doctor wrap his many wounds. She had a few minor cuts, but they weren’t anything serious. His horse, whose name was Farul, was already patched up and was calmly sipping tea, somehow holding the ordinary teacup with a hoof. 

    “Yes.” Said Flynn, his navigator. “Hakuba’s speed is so great, even skilled warriors can have trouble even noticing him there if he’s moving at full speed.”

    “He was pretty quick, yeah.” Tanya admitted, glancing down at her now-destroyed chest bindings. Resist the urge to go upstairs and make yourself presentable, you’re a man, battle injuries are to be worn with pride! “You’d be able to carve out a little niche in the New World with an ace like that up your sleeve, I think.” The reason she kept finding pirates when she went shopping or when she needed to do a shakedown run of a new ship was because it was profitable to hit trade ships in that area of the New World for unaffiliated pirates. “But that’d rely on you not running into anyone too dangerous for you.” Like her, or Father. “Most of them aren’t inclined to just let you go, either. It’s risky.” 

    “Well, where would you suggest?” Flynn asked. 

    Hm. First thing’s first. “Do you have a multi-pose?” She asked. Flynn shook his head. “Get one. Magnetic fields of New World Islands are even more chaotic than in Paradise, so relying on a single log pose is dangerous. Go to Grove 5, incognito, and go to Wally’s Maps-n-More. He’s not the only place to get one, but he’s the easiest for a pirate. Just pretend to be a merchant, cash in hand, and he’ll sell it to you without checking your story.” She had heard Grandma give this exact speech to up-and-coming pirates at least three times. You couldn’t do it if you were too famous, but if you had at least one ordinary-ish face in the crew that didn’t have a bounty, he was the best option. “A basic triple-pose will run you about two million beri. If you really want to get fancy with it, you get the seven-pose model, which due to interference has to be inserted in a small table, so that’ll run you ten million.” 

    “Hm, Maybe I should get a spare. Hakuba broke two of these along the way.” Flynn said, gesturing to the log pose on his wrist. 

    “Wally has some extra durable models, so I wouldn’t worry too much.” She held out her hand to her shoulder. “Saifu. Log.” The loyal dog’s head erupted out of her backpack and deposited the requested Log pose. “See? It’s thick, but you can still see it very clearly. This is a type of crystal that Fishman Island farms, it’s not seastone tough, but it’s not too far off.” Some kind of coral makes the substance, apparently. “I paid two million for this one, and it’s worth every beri.” Honestly, it was a bit extravagant of a purchase, she could have bought the most bog-standard model for a tenth of that, but a log pose that didn’t get broken had resale value. If she played her cards right, she could get it sold for a profit, even. 

    “Hm… Could I get them at Fishman Island cheaper?” Flynn asked, “Money’s kind of tight after paying for ship repairs, the coating, and…” He looked at Grandma, who raised an eyebrow at him. “-the stellar service that is completely deserving of every beri we give them.” Grandma smiled. Yeah, that’s the rub. Grandpa is one of the only options pirates have to get their ships coated, and while he’s the cheapest, you also have to stay at the bar if you want to keep an eye on him, and Grandpa is not above selling the ships of his customers to pay off his gambling debts if left alone with it. Unless he likes them. 

    “It’ll be harder to buy them as a pirate down there.” Tanya warned him, “But the expensive crystal is local, so if you want one of those you’ll save a few hundred thousand beri, maybe a million if you go above three poses.” The supply of crystal was actually pretty low, so market forces kept the price for finished goods high because the artisans were perfectly willing to sit on their inventory until it sold at the outrageously high prices. She heard the Fishman merchants all colluded against humans, too. “But that pose will get you to Fishman Island, so if you think you can manage it, you can hold off on buying a new pose for your New World journey.”

     “Why do you have just a single pose?” Flynn asked, writing down her instructions on a little notepad. 

    “I do what any New World native that can afford it does: I just have a dozen eternal poses back home that I take with me as needed, and I have Vivre cards if that fails.” She tapped her new pose. “I’m heading to Reverse Mountain with this in a few weeks and having a nice vacation following it back here through Paradise.” This was exactly why the first half of the Grand Line was called that, even. Because New World pirates named it by comparing the conditions. 

    Flynn laughed. “Oh, that’s hilarious. I’m imagining you at Jaya, there’s a pirate town there, and the captain absolutely tore through the place for insulting him. It won’t even be standing by the time you’re through with them.”

    Tanya chuckled. “Ah, well, I don’t intend on uprooting pirate enclaves that I find, but who knows?” She turned to Grandma. “Where’s Grandpa, anyway? Coating?”

    “This time of day, he’s probably at the casino.” Grandma replied, “He’ll be back in a few hours, unless he hits a lucky streak.” Oh yeah… Grandma mentioned that he went to gamble a lot more when they weren't around, just to pass the time, or procrastinate on his work. She turned to the Beautiful pirates. “Don’t worry, you’ll still leave tomorrow.”

    “...Should I fetch him?” Tanya asked, frowning. “Your birthday’s tomorrow, after all.” Specifically, her sixtieth birthday. It was the main reason she stopped by. “I got you a gift and everything.” Saifu’s tail popped out of the bottom of the backpack started wagging. “No, Saifu. Not yet.” She pet the dog-backpack’s straps. “Good dog.” The tail wagged harder. Amusingly, the bottom of the backpack lined up pretty well with her tailbone, so to an unobservant person it looked like she was the one with a tail. 

    “...Okay, even by Grand Line standards that’s weird.” Flynn said, “So, once I get the multi-pose, any more advice?”

    “The Emperor’s only control about two-thirds of the New World between them.” Tanya explained, “The back two-thirds. You’re going to want to stay in the front third if you don’t want to join up with them or personally fight them. If you keep fighting their subordinates, they’ll show up to smack you down eventually.”

    “Noted.” Flynn said, “Not sure the captain will agree with you, but noted.”

    “It really depends on why you’re a pirate.” Tanya demurred. “If you just want to make money to survive and live the high life without governmental oversight by robbing trade ships, take my advice. If it’s more glory and adventure, leave it. Anyway, in that first third, you’ve got three bigshots to worry about. First, there’s Vice-Admiral Zephyr and the Marines of G-5.”

    “Marines, yeah that makes sense.” Flynn said easily, not threatened. “The Captain’s dealt with Vice-Admirals before.” Really? Huh. 

    “Well, Zephyr’s no Garp the Fist, but he’s in the top five, when it comes to Vice-Admirals.” Tanya explained, “Do not underestimate him. He’s quite zealous when it comes to rooting out pirates, but the good news is that he’ll arrest you if he thinks he can. He doesn’t take it on himself to execute prisoners.” Well, he doesn’t sneer when the subject of dead bounties only paying 70% comes up like some other Marine officers, so he sees the value in the public executions and life imprisonment, at the very least. “That’s mostly a concern if you go to Punk Hazard, which is pretty much parallel with Fishman Island. It’s a government-controlled island, and they’re very protective of it.”

    Flynn frowned, but nodded, glancing at his captain to see how his medical care was going. The wounds all seemed to have been tended to, finally. She had to be rougher with him than she would have liked due to his alternate personality, despite her harsh words the battle had turned from protecting her pride to just a friendly duel. “Okay, what are our other options?”

    “Well, if you go to the left, towards the West Blue, the nastiest customer you need to worry about is Doflamingo, and there’s a small scattering of Whitebeard’s territory, but Fishman Island is also his territory, so that won’t be anything new to you.” She shrugged, “So stay away from Dressarosa and he’ll probably leave you alone. Or he’ll personally land on your ship and flay the skin from your bones just for fun and you were there. Bit of a tossup.” It was actually more likely that he’d puppet half the crew and have them flay the skin off the other half, but Doflamingo being a sick bastard was hardly news. 

    “...and to the right?” Flynn asked, pale. 

    “That’s where ‘Hawk-eyes’ Mihawk calls home.” Tanya said bluntly. “He’s mellowed out from the days where he’d cut your ship in half and leave you to drown because he thought it was tacky,” Which was a more palatable excuse than his actual reasoning. Father was a bit of a sadist at times. “-but if you meet him, if you’re lucky he’ll only turn you into the Marines and steal that Graded blade of your captain’s for his sword vault.” The number of pirate ships that had one of those coming in from Fishman Island was actually pretty large. The collection had swelled quite a bit in the last few years, although there was only a single Great-grade and three Skillful-grade among the thirty-ish swords. It was a strategic military asset, so there were no current plans to sell them off anymore. 

    “Hm, you make it seem hopeless.” Flynn said, suspicious. 

    “Well, as long as you stay away from their home bases, that is, Dressarosa, Punk Hazard, the G-5 Marine base, and Gloom Island, all three of these men don’t constantly patrol the waters, hunting pirates.” Tanya explained, waving away his concern. “That isn’t to say that they don’t do so occasionally, for sport if nothing else, and if you do something stupid, like call them out via the newspaper, they’re going to hunt you down, but there’s enough trade among the petty kingdoms of the New World that there’s profit in attacking shipping.”Buy one of Wally’s maps with the pose, you’ll be able to gauge which of the islands your pose is pointing you to and avoid the dangerous ones, even with the three-pose model.” Then, when Cavendish’s bounty inevitably blooms in a few months or years, Father will get interested in his swordsmanship and that bounty will go straight into their coffers, and his sword into the vault. 

    No hard feelings. It’s a bit predatory of a business model, but there are, bluntly, too many pirates for them to do more than stem the tide, allowing relatively inoffensive ones who are more interested in glory and money over, say, indulging their sadistic appetites, to flourish before the harvest will hopefully exert some selective pressure. “Oh, one more thing: The best place for you to get ship repairs done is Hachinosu. It’s the premier pirate port in the world. It’s probably the deepest place into the New World that’s ‘safe-ish’ for an unaffiliated pirate crew. None of the Emperor’s claim it, which means causing trouble doesn’t piss any of them off. Ochoku’s in charge there, and he’s no pushover, despite his advanced age. But he likes his pirate paradise, so he won’t ask for fealty like the Emperors will.”

    “We knew about Hachinosu already, but thanks for the advice anyway.” Flynn said, writing down notes. “The captain wants to go straight there, make a bigger name for himself in the Davy Black fights.” Yeah, that checks out.

    “You could definitely use strong fighters that aren’t the captain.” Tanya agreed, “But while I never got involved in those,” yet, “-you generally need them to even have a chance of winning those fights. It’s exactly the wrong environment to be relying on the strength of your captain alone.” It’s why she’s going to be staying away from them. Unless she finds some strong friends to sail with. It wasn’t impossible, sailing with just the humandrills was already a bit tiresome, but the tricky bit was the ‘strong’ part. 

    In the end, all she could do was give advice as someone who’s lived in the New World, the fact that she’s never been a proper pirate meant that she couldn’t claim to be an expert. So really, they have the privilege to make their own mistakes. 

    As does everyone. 

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    With the Beautiful pirates gone, they finally got around to throwing a birthday party for Grandma. With her ship safely docked within sight, all eight of her humandrill crew was able to attend, dancing to music and drinking cheap wine like it was water from the barrels Grandpa picked up when he restocked the bar from Cavendish’s payment of his tab. 

    “So now that we’ve had some fun, how about you give me that present you mentioned?” Grandma said, smiling mysteriously as she held her cigarette in the hand that was held away from Tanya. She appreciated the consideration. 

    “Ah, yes.” She looked around. Where did that dog go? “Saifu!” She called out. Within seconds, the dog came in from outside, impacting her stomach like a small furry cannonball (and with about the same level of force, honestly. Zoans had physical strength in spades, even the ‘weak’ ones.). “Oof! Okay you little beast, get me Grandma’s presents. The box first.” To emphasize her instruction, Tanya twirled her finger in a ‘roll over’ motion. 

    Saifu barked, pausing his furious licking of Tanya’s face, jumped down to the floor and unzipped his back before, as instructed, rolling over. Left in his wake was a box, wrapped in colorful purple paper with the kuja nine-snake symbol repeated as the pattern, tied up with a yellow bow. “This one’s from Father.” She said, handing it over. 

    “He usually just sends me some expensive jewelry, which I always appreciate. Not every year, but when he does send something he makes up for it. Such a dutiful son I have.” Grandma said, touching her pearl necklace, as if Tanya didn’t already know. Pirates loved shiny things, so jewlery was generally universally appreciated, more personal than cash or gold coins but nearly as useful. “I wonder what he’s sent this time?”

    Grandma was the type to just rip the paper off in one go, her hands darkening as she tore the paper and lid of the cheap wooden crate off in one fluid motion. “Oh! How nice, he sent a whole jewelry chest this time.” It was a nice box, bigger than the one Tanya knew she had in her room, and built to heavily resemble the palace in Amazon Lily, or at least that’s what Father claimed. 

    After a quick inspection on the contents, which Tanya vaguely recognized; those large golden earrings there were definitely from that Big Mom subordinate crew that started trouble, she remembered looting those, Grandma put the chest away and turned back to Tanya. “Now, the gift from you?”

“Saifu. Gift.” Tanya said, and the dog’s head turned back into a backpack opening before coming back with Grandma’s gift in his mouth. “I found this in a pawn shop, actually. The shopkeep didn’t even know what he had.” She handed the elaborately designed dagger to her grandmother. “If my information is correct, this is Viper, one of the nine knives used to declare alliance with the Kuja pirates.”

Grandma carefully inspected the blade, and sighed in sadness. “Yes, this appears to be the real thing, not a reproduction. Did you ask who sold it to him?”

“He was positive it was a man, if that’s what you’re asking. It was fenced along with a large quantity of other clearly-stolen valuables.” Tanya explained, “Did you know the woman who was supposed to have it?” She asked. 

“Yes.” Grandma said sadly. “It’s been a while. It was thirty-five years ago, shortly after I was exiled. As while the general population would not accept me remaining, which was fair, the higher-status Kuja that I knew personally were much more forgiving and understanding, so I was allowed Cobra, Viper, and Mamba to gift to people who would then be received warmly if they were to meet the Kuja at a later time…”

As she continued to explain, she started smiling more, overcome by her fond memories.of one of her first non-kuja friends in the wider world. It was times like this that it was made clear that, despite her youthful looks, Shakuyaku was an old woman, who, like most old people, loved to tell stories about their life to those who would listen. 

Tanya hoped her coming journey would allow her some stories of her own to tell, when she was that old.