A young sailor's swordsmanship 4

I've been getting quite a few requests to continue this, with money behind them. So... here's another!

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After lunch, which included a round of singing Bink’s Brew, there was a small singing contest between her and Uta. Apparently, she was actually a member of the Red-Hair pirates (and wasn't that an uncreative name), by virtue of being the Captain's daughter, while her little boyfriend was a local. Her official role was ‘diva’, which was just an indulgent title for the musician. Such a thing was important for crew morale, which made sense. Perhaps she should start singing during trips?

Tanya went first, and sang a song that she learned from pirates back at Nishihoshi, a song contemplating various pranks that could be played on a pirate that had drank a bit too much the night before. The expression on everyone’s faces when the five year old girl proposed putting the hypothetical drunkard in bed with the Captain's daughter was hilarious. Tanya played innocent, of course. She was just repeating a joke the adults had said, after all.

After the song, everyone stumbled out of the bar (after paying) to a section of the island where the two swordsmen could have their duel. There was a relatively sparse valley about half a mile outside of town, and about half of Shanks’ crew, the three children, and a few curious residents of the town all sat on top of one of the hills surrounding the area.

“This is going to be so cool!” Luffy said, vibrating in excitement.

“I've never seen Daddy fight seriously before…” Tanya said, excited despite herself. “I've only seen him fight one sea king.”

“Eh? A sea king?” Luffy asked, impressed.

“Cut its head off with one slice!” Tanya bragged. It was getting easier to act as a child would… “Daddy’s the strongest swordsman in the world!”

“The strongest?” Uta said, “Shanks never said anything about that…”

“It's on his bounty poster.” Tanya said, taking out her copy. This was a current one, with the bounty number replaced with a ‘Bounty rescinded by order of the World Government’ notice. It left out two of the titles that the previous one had, only calling him “Hawk-eyes” Dracule Mihawk, “The Strongest Swordsman in the World.” She kept the old one in her emergency bag.

“Wow…” Luffy said, impressed. “Shanks is still gonna win, though.”

“We’ll see about that.” Tanya said, before focusing her attention on the duel.

Father and Shanks were talking about something, swords drawn. Perhaps some kind of stakes? Or just shit-talking each other. Shanks used a one-handed saber of high quality, held in his left hand. In comparison to the Black Blade Yoru, it was almost insultingly ordinary.

Tanya leaned forward as she focused on the two swordsmen. What did the strongest swordsman look like when he was actually fighting? She had lots of theories. She’s already seen the man cleave waves larger than ships in two and cut clouds to create clear skies, but despite knowing in her head that these were mind-bogglingly powerful feats, it was difficult to really feel that he was strong when he made those things look so easy. Was it going to be a brutish clash of blades? Will it end in a single stroke? Will it be a dance of dodges and parries until a single cut ends it?

Finally having finished whatever discussion they were having, Father launched a flying slash across the battlefield, which forced Shanks to dodge and advance. Behind him, the slash cut several trees down before losing coherence. She recalled his lesson on his fighting style, the Vigilant Blade one-sword style. “A firm stance is the foundation of battle. Prepare for the enemy to act, and strike to deny them their objective. An enemy that will not approach you is not a threat, able to be dealt with at your leisure.”

“But what if your enemy has an objective other than you?” Tanya had asked.

“Once you master casting out flying slashes, this problem is rare. Having a firm foundation allows you to exert your full strength, which makes for exceptionally powerful flying slashes.” Father had explained. This did explain why he usually used one to solve any obstacles he comes across. “If you are not strong enough to reliably use them, you are too weak to have any objective other than staying alive.” Ah, it was so nice to have a teacher who didn’t actually want her to kill people for them. Learning the family sword art was just part of being a member of the family. Strength without the obligation to risk her life sounded like a fantastic deal to her.

Shanks had reached her father’s sword range, and with a crackle of power, the two swung their swords at each other… and the blades didn’t actually touch, an invisible force clashing between them. Tanya felt a familiar sense of overwhelming presence, the same feeling of weight that Kaido unleashed when he attacked Nishihoshi. It was subtly different, less… threatening? Hostile? But it was a heavy feeling all the same, and Tanya idly registered the random citizens passing out, mouths foaming as the presence was too much for them. Only the members of Shanks crew remained conscious, although some of them seemed a little light-headed.

Uta was relatively unaffected, presumably from familiarity, but Luffy was struggling to remain standing, although he managed. “T-the clouds!” He shouted, shocked. Tanya glanced up, and saw that the impact of their blades had cut the clouds, creating a gigantic rift in the sky. “So cool!” He said, his eyes sparkling at the feat.

After the contest of power, the two swordsmen started fighting more conventionally. Father’s feet remained firmly planted on the ground, shifting very little as he used the leverage of his position to maintain strength in every movement of Yoru.

In contrast, Shanks used feints and footwork to attempt to penetrate the aegis of Father’s defensive stance, rotating around him as he seeked to provoke an opening or overextension. After an indeterminate amount of time, Shanks switched tactics, his sword bursting into flame somehow and moving to an all-out offense in an attempt to overwhelm his opponent.

“You can’t even see Shanks move!” Luffy said, grinning widely.

“Maybe you can’t.” Tanya and Uta said at the same time.

At first, Father weathered the assault without losing composure, but then Shanks used a very particular technique, a wide horizontal slash that Father jumped into the air to avoid, which cut off the top twenty feet of the small hill behind him, creating a small landslide. With this crack in his foundation, the pace of the battle shifted, with Father jumping off of the air to avoid Shanks’ follow-up attacks, which was apparently new if Uta’s shocked exclamation said anything. It also explained how comparatively clumsy the air jump was in comparison to Father’s other movements.

But Shanks’ advantage ran out, Father managing to plant both feet on the ground and taking a firm stance once more. It took two more swings of Yoru to finish the duel by scoring a bloody cut on Shanks’ chest, the man presumably having gotten fatigued from his special technique. Both men relaxed, each taking out a cloth to attend to their blades before sheathing them.

Tanya cheered at her Father’s victory, while Luffy and Uta groaned. “It’s over already? They don’t usually go to first blood.” Uta commented, disappointed. “Shanks wouldn’t even be slowed down by just a little cut like that.”

“Well, this is a nice island.” Shanks said in response as they cleared the distance between the dueling spot and their observation rock in a single leap. “We didn’t want to wreck it too badly.” As Uta claimed, he didn’t seem terribly bothered by the cut that was slowly oozing blood along his chest. “Come on, let’s go find Hongo so I can get this cleaned up.”

“That battle was so cool!” Luffy shouted. “You cut the hill like nothing!” He continued to gush about the specifics of the battle, proving that he had caught a bit more than his previous statement had implied. By the time he was finished, which took substantially longer than the duel did, Shanks had gotten his cut cleaned by his ship’s doctor and had it taped shut.

“That was fun, how about you kids go play with each other, I got some stuff I want to talk to Mihawk about and it’s going to be boring.” Shanks said, making a shooing motion as they entered Party’s bar again. “Luffy, I’m sure there are tons of fun places on this island that Uta would love to see.”

Luffy grinned and grabbed both girl’s arms, running away while dragging them both. Tanya was too surprised to resist, and just went along with it.

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It took only minutes for Luffy and Uta’s natural competitiveness to lead them to the decided group activity: contests of all kinds. Tanya was dragged into them, but she wasn’t complaining: the contests were startlingly even, which was kind of strange when one considered that Tanya was five, Luffy was seven, and Uta was nine. The meat-heavy diet she grew up on, relatively minor physical training in preparation for actual swordsmanship training, and whatever genetic factors that increased her natural strength meant that she could compete with the older children on equal footing, and none of them were of a normal level of strength. At least, if the looks that some of the random civilians gave them were any indication.

“We should do a contest about cutting.” Tanya proposed. “I’m good at that.”

“Where are we going to get knives?” Uta asked, reasonably.

Tanya took out her kuja dagger. “We can share. Come on, we’ll use some branches from that tree Daddy cut down.” Grandma said the dagger was a graded blade by the name of Cobra, which was a mark of quality, the fourth highest. Currently in existence, there were twelve of the highest grade, ‘Supreme Grade’, twenty-one ‘Great Grade’, and fifty ‘Skillful Grade’, although the ‘Graded’ rank had hundreds upon hundreds of examples. Yoru was a Supreme Grade, of course, and Grandpa’s sword, Asa, was a Great Grade. Oddly, it was a lot easier to use her bastardized mage blade with the higher quality knife. The weaker knives always had a certain… tremble to them when she tried, as if she was going to break them if she focused too hard. She never actually broke them, but it was distracting.

Once Tanya had used the dagger to cut off some relatively thin branches and set them aside, she reserved the thickest one for herself. “Okay Uta, hold it like this…” She manually enclosed Uta’s hands around the knife to the optimal chopping grip. “Now, cut this into as many pieces as you can. You have one minute.” Fortunately, Makino had a small hourglass they could borrow that timed out a minute. They had used it in five contests already.

“I’m going to win!” Uta declared as her hands rapidly started cutting. After about twenty seconds, she ran out of branch and paused for a second until she realized she could cut the pieces she already had into even smaller pieces.

“Time.” Tanya said, and grabbed the knife when Uta stopped and presented it. “Hmm…” It didn’t look like the edge was compromised by cutting at the thin wood… now that was a sign of a sturdy blade. She took out her whetstone and went over the edge once or twice anyway after wiping off the water. “Okay Luffy, your turn.”

“Okay!” He said, gripping the knife in entirely the wrong way. Tanya attempted to correct him, but he always moved his hand back into the grip that was practically a fist.

“I give up.” Tanya eventually said, standing back. “Go!” She said, flipping the hourglass.

Luffy’s attempts to cut the branch were pathetic. He was able to move his hands pretty quick, but his edge alignment was terrible so he frequently failed to cut completely through, needing to put in extra effort to get the rest of the way. In the end, he got a quarter of the cuts Uta did, and only got that much by counting the times he snapped the branch he was cutting into two via blunt force. “You will never be a great swordsman.” Tanya said to him solemnly.

“I’ll just get my crew the best swordsman when I go and become the pirate king!” Luffy said, clearly bothered by his poor performance but masking it with bravado.

“That spot’s taken.” Tanya insisted as she brought out her whetstone again. She could actually see some tiny imperfections from his terrible handling. This was a terrible idea.

“My swordsman will just have to beat Hawky then!” Luffy said, disappointment gone.

“Good luck with that.” Tanya said as she prepared to compete herself. “Uta?”

“Right.” Uta said, taking the hourglass. Tanya focused on her mage blade imitation, seeing her dagger take on a slightly darker shade and an aura of intent. “...Go!” Uta said, turning the hourglass.

Tanya’s empowered knife cut through the branch like paper, slicing it thin as she worked through it like she was cutting vegetables. She ran out of time before she ran out of branch, but the winner was clearly apparent. “About one hundred fifty cuts for you, about forty for Luffy… and three hundred for me.” Tanya said, beaming at her own performance. Sure, she lost the meat-eating contest at a similar margin, the boy sure could pack away the protein, but that was part of the reason she insisted on a contest she knew she’d win.

Still, she’s never used the mage blade coating for more than a handful of seconds at a time before. Holding it for a full minute was… surprisingly tiring. Her wrist and elbows were also pretty crampy after the exertion. That was nothing that couldn’t be fixed by a good stretching of the relevant joints though.

“Okay, next we’ll race up that hill!” Luffy announced, pointing at the hill that Shanks had cut apart, and the three of them were off, laughing.

This was fun!

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After hanging around Foosha village for long enough for most of the pirates to run out of pocket money, which took about three days, the Red-haired pirates shoved off in the direction that Tanya understood Tequila Wolf to be in, which meant that it was time to go.

“Our next priority will be securing you a suitable blade to practice with.” Father said as the boat cut through the water at the speed of the wind. “I made a point to learn of all swordsmiths capable of creating Graded blades, and in the East Blue there are three. We will be staying at the island of one of them while he crafts your first blade, and by then you’ll have finished learning the basics of swordsmanship.” He glanced at her. “At least, if you keep your current pace.”

Tanya was swinging her wooden practice blade, working out the relevant muscle groups more than anything else. Father had added a new sequence of moves for her to practice, which from the moves seemed to be meant for dealing with enemies that are shorter than you, or perhaps one that approaches from below? It didn’t seem that useful, but she dutifully practiced nonetheless.

It was, needless to say, incredibly difficult to practice while on the moving ship. She was still leashed to the mast, a wise decision given how she had lost her footing twice in the last hour. It was extremely fortunate that it was a warm time of year, and that the East Blue had actually sane weather patterns. So she could just let the sea air and warm sun dry her clothes and switch between two dresses instead of needing to change clothing at every dunking.

“What’s the island’s name?” Tanya asked, curious.

“Shimotsuki Island.”

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The swordsmith, one Shimotsuki Kozaburo, was an old man who complained that he couldn’t make real swords anymore, only fit to make practice blades.

This was convenient, as that was exactly what they needed of him. After paying the man a fairly large sum in advance, they were instructed to wait for four months for the blade to be strong enough for her to use for years of getting stronger.

It was time that was used well. The locals were apparently immigrants from Wano or one of their children and grandchildren, the place that inexplicably speaks Japanese. Few of the original settlers were still alive, although Kozaburo was one of them. So the rice grown by the locals tasted just like her first life. Even better than that, really. There was miso, and ramen, and yakisoba… it was bliss.

Father refused to teach any of the many students of the dojo run by Kozaburo’s son, Koushirou. He claimed that none of them could afford his rates, nor did any of them have potential great enough to defeat him. He didn’t, however, care when her training sessions were spied upon, allowing them to learn indirectly.

She was also allowed to practice within the dojo and spar with the students, as Koushirou was polite enough to grant hospitality towards his father’s paying customers. Whether this included him getting a cut of the sword’s sale price was irrelevant, as Father insisted on paying him a small stack of beri for their lodgings.

So she had already spent five hours practicing a new sequence of moves when a delinquent came into town, fancying himself a ‘dojo destroyer’. “Don’t worry, “ The kid bragged. “Once I win, I’ll let you buy the sign back.”

It was an inordinate amount of confidence for an eight year old, but Kouchirou apparently took the threat seriously. “I’ve heard that there’s been a wandering brute challenging all of the dojos on the Island.” There were approximately twelve of them on the island, which was a lot for a place that only had about one thousand residents. They took swordsmanship seriously here. “Would you, perhaps, be Roranoa Zoro?”

“Yeah, that’s me.” The green-haired delinquent said, spitting the words. “What of it?”

“I heard about your parents, your father was a distant relative of ours. My condolences for your loss.” Koushirou replied, “But the Isshin dojo will not fall so easily. Kuina?”

The nine year old daughter of Koushiro, a lanky girl with blue hair, proudly stepped forwards from the crowd, glaring at Zoro. Kuina, unlike most of the other students, had yet to challenge Tanya to a spar, claiming that she wouldn’t want to fight a novice that’s so much younger than her.

“If you defeat my daughter here, I will give you the money you desire.” Koushiro said, his usual soft smile firmly in place. “If you do not win, I must insist you become a student of this dojo.”

“Deal!” Zoro shouted, grabbing three wooden practice swords and holding them all at once, including one in his teeth. Why? His stupid fighting style did not save him from the precise strikes of Kuina, and he was swiftly defeated.

“I’m going to be the strongest swordsman in the world!” Zoro announced after he regained consciousness. “So I’m not leaving until I defeat you!”

One of the other students turned to Tanya and opened his mouth. “Don’t tell him.” Tanya immediately ordered him. She then glared at everyone else, one by one, until they got the message.

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“He’s got potential.” Father said idly as Tanya relaxed, resting from her practice. They were both watching Kuina and Zoro’s one hundredth duel, as he had taken to challenging her about three times a day. Kuina, just as stubborn as he is, accepted each and every one. “Both of them do, really.” They were also two miles away from them on top of the largest hill, but that kind of distance didn’t mean anything to the Eyes of Suzaku.

“He’s an impatient annoyance.” Tanya said, “Kuina needs to stop humoring him so often.” At least put her foot down on a once-a-day limit or something.

“Steel sharpens steel.” Father said, quoting some Kuja aphorism. “It is a blessing to have someone to grow with, when it comes to gaining strength. The only thing better is a strong teacher.”

“Strength begets strength.” Tanya said, quoting another Kuja saying. “Living in the East Blue will do them no favors.”

“It is but one more obstacle in their path.” Father said, nodding to himself. “You should fight them.”

“Do you think I’m ready?” Tanya asked.

“It does not matter if you are or not.” He replied, “You need combat experience with someone who isn’t holding back. There are things that you can never master without fighting someone going all out.” Like the local non-fruit related magic, which he still won’t explain?

“Hm. Tomorrow, then.” Tanya said, “It looks like Zoro’s going to need some rest this time.”

“Yes.”

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“Ha!” Shouted Zoro, crowing his victory. “I win!”

Ugh… the pain didn’t exactly compare with some of the injuries she took during the Great War, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t still thoroughly unpleasant to experience so many bruises. “Worse than Luffy, I swear…” She groused.

Kuina reached out and helped Tanya up. “Hey, you’re still learning. If we couldn’t beat you with our big head starts, we wouldn’t have much of a chance of becoming the world’s strongest swordsmen.” She glanced over to Zoro. “Even if I’m going to be the one who does it.”

“How does he hit so hard with that third sword?” Tanya groused, “It makes no sense.” He was holding it in his damn teeth!

“It doesn’t help that your dad has you using that oversized thing.” Kuina pointed out, “You’re still not that fast with it.” She smiled. “You’re getting better though!”

“Zoro’s fight style is unconventional, but it’s limited.” Tanya said, stretching to limber up for the next battle. “I’m getting better at reading his moves.” Most of the time, Zoro’s attacks have multiple weapons lined up, using a single weapon to get in a sneaky attack rather rarely. Against someone like her, who relies on powerful swings and stable footing, lining up all of his swords to maximize his power is playing right into her hands. He wasn’t quite strong enough to bowl her over if she was braced. Even if he was strong enough to make the dirt beneath her feet give in a bit when he tried. It was when he lined up two swords and lashed out with a third separately that he kept getting her. His win rate against her wasn’t perfect by any means, but his extra three years of age was a decisive advantage.

But Kuina’s four years of age and five years of training proved an insurmountable edge. “...I want to try a battle with bokken.” Tanya said after thinking about it. “Instead of shinai.”

“Huh?” Kuina said, confused. “...Okay, but you know that’s just going to end with you hurt worse than normal.”

“I’ll do better with a more solid weapon.” Tanya insisted. She wanted to know the difference her magic meant.

They went to the dojo, as they were dueling in the field due to the nice weather. After requesting the sturdier wooden swords instead of the more flexible glorified bundles of sticks that were normally used to train swordsmanship, the dojo’s center was cleared for their duel.

Father had walked into the dojo seconds before they began, dressed in a casual black yukata that he had taken to wearing while on Shimotsuki Island. He had left Yoru behind, as without it, the odds of him getting recognized was slim to none. He had a pink haori over it with a Kuja flower design, which distracted most people from his distinctive eyes.

“Begin!” Zoro shouted, throwing his hand down in a chop.

Kuina, as was her custom, looked over Tanya’s stance, looking for weakness. Both of them used more reactive styles, so while she usually was the one to make the first move in their duels, she took her time, knowing that Tanya would not move from her starting position if at all possible.

Really, the Vigilant Blade style was practically the complete opposite of Tanya’s combat experience from the Great War. While it had a commonality in that both approaches to battle focused on examining one’s opponent and exploiting vulnerabilities, Tanya had previously used more of a shock and awe all-out offense approach to things. Force your enemy to adapt to your pace, instead of reacting.

That said, she liked the idea of the more defensive approach in this life, where her only objective when fighting is to preserve her life and possibly her assets, material or otherwise. So she tried to keep that in mind whenever her honed instincts screamed at her to fly forward and attack.

Eventually, Kuina picked her approach and rushed forward, sword already poised to deflect Tanya’s swing. Focusing her will, she coated the bokken in a mage blade and broke Kuina’s weapon in half, dissipating it immediately afterwards and striking the other girl soundly on the side of the neck. “I win.” Tanya said smugly.

“How?” Kuina said, looking at the remains of her bokken.

“Shinai don’t have an edge.” Tanya said, frowning. “I can’t do that trick without one to work with.” It was actually pretty frustrating. She could manage to use it on her fingers, but it was… not as good. She was even worse at using it on her closed fist.

Koushirou walked up to them. “Little Tanya, how did you learn Ryuo?” He asked, amazed.

Tanya’s eyes widened. “Is that what it’s called?”

“It’s a power that has been lost to us.” Koushirou explained, “To hear my father tell it, Ryuo is the mark of the strongest Samurai.” He looked over Tanya with wonder. “I never thought I’d see anyone so young use even the barest hints of mastery…”

“Outside of Wano, it’s called Haki.” Father explained sardonically. Ambition? Interesting. “I’m curious as to how you learned that myself. It’s not something you can just pick up by watching.”

“I want to learn that!” Zoro immediately shouted.

Koushirou laughed easily. “Well, first you need to learn to cut steel.” Zoro’s jaw dropped. “To do that, first you must learn to cut nothing.” While that sounded like nonsense at first, Tanya assumed that he meant something along the lines of controlling what you cut somehow. Very wuxia.

“Come along, we must speak about this.” Father said, leaving. Tanya gave Kuina the bokken and bowed respectfully.

“Wait for me!”

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Tanya’s training now included Haki drills. Apparently, Haki is the source of the strength of the strongest warriors in the world, from Gold Roger to Kaido to Garp the Hero. Haki could overcome the otherwise immutable powers of Devil Fruits, make one invincible, let one see a few seconds into the future, read thoughts and intentions, and even allow powerful men to defeat weaker foes with a simple glare. But it was still required for one to train their bodies and skills if you wanted to actually use Haki productively. It was why Father wasn’t going to bother with it until she was fifteen, at first.

She named her first sword Gintama, it was a katana that was fairly normal sized… which meant that it was quite oversized in her hands. Once it was finished, they left Shimotsuki Island.

“This paper will allow you to find me, if you’re on the same sea.” Tanya explained, giving Kuina a vivre card. “Place it on a flat surface, and it will slowly tug itself in my direction.”

Kuina looked at it in the palm of her head, watching it work. “Cool…” She said, impressed. “Are you going to give one to Zoro?”

“He’d lose it.” Tanya deadpanned, “You can go ahead and tell him what it is, but that one’s for you two to share. I gave you a piece big enough that you can tear it in two if you go your separate ways.” She had already given a piece to Uta, and had left one with Makino to give to Luffy before he sets sail,

“Well, thanks!” Kuina said, smiling widely as Tanya hopped back into Kamisogi. “I’ll come see you when I’m a master swordsman!”

“I look forward to it!” Tanya shouted back. “Just remember I’ll likely be in the Grand Line, so don’t use the vivre card when you’re still in the East Blue!” That’s a good way to die.

“Okay!” Kuina shouted.

Tanya settled into her chair, right next to Father’s. “We’ll be leaving the East Blue.” he said. “After one more duel with Shanks. The last one was rather… unsatisfying.”

Tanya chuckled. While she understood the appeal of friendly duels after spending so much time training with the somewhat older children, it was still somewhat amusing how he was willing to travel the world just to get challenging fights.

This time, Shanks and Father found an uninhabited island to duel on. It made their last duel look casual, and both of them had to be dragged off and covered in bandages at the end of it.

Both were smiling.