A young sailor's swordsmanship 5

One advantage to having so many chapters paid for in advance is that I can take my time with things, and not, as I might otherwise, rush to canon events to keep up interest. So enjoy the school arc! It'll be three or four chapters long, I think.

Unfortunately, this will probably be the last chapter I can make this month, unless I'm uncommonly productive. I need to do Monday's Psychoprotective, the New Years chapter of Summon Perfect Warlady, a Fae chronicles chapter, and the mystery box update until I can even think about starting this up again.

Also, I'm loaded with enough orders for new chapters, some of which are pre-paid, that I'm raising my price for further commissions by 50%, $15 per 1k words, and understand that if you do order more, I'm not going to be able to get to it until at least February. All currently ordered chapters for this and next month will retain the previous price.

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Life as the daughter of the strongest swordsman in the world was fairly easy, all told. Important personages constantly sent him letters inviting him to teach a class of elite soldiers, or to duel a powerful swordsman they know, or to simply kill some great threat. Each of them promised a princely sum of money or a rare treasure as a prize, appropriate payments for a world-renowned expert consultant.

All she needed to do was train her own swordsmanship and tag along, but Tanya got bored if she wasn't doing anything productive, so she ended up assigning herself secretarial duties, organizing the invitations and composing formal replies, as well as plotting routes through the seas to maximize profit.

While before, Mihawk tended to just pick whichever one sounded like it would be the most fun while not being too far away and throw out the rest, saving them meant that they could get to the next destination after only a day or two of sailing instead of over a week, as it usually would. The majority of people who sent the invitations understood that, with travel the way it is, that it could take months for Father to get around to their request.

She had wondered how the News Coos, seagull-like birds that delivered the newspaper and the aforementioned letters, found them, but apparently they could eat a small piece of vivre paper and then unerringly follow it. It didn't make any sense to her, but it's not like vivre cards made sense in the first place, so she just accepted it.

As such, they had accumulated quite the inventory of Graded blades, gold, jewelry, and even a devil fruit. It wasn't a particularly well-regarded one, the Dog-Dog fruit model: Corgi, certainly not one that Tanya would ever consider eating, but it was still an expensive treasure.

Honestly, Tanya would have preferred being gifted an actual corgi. But keeping one fed and exercised on a boat the size of Kamisogi was a non-starter, so she couldn't have kept it if she did. What, was she supposed to give it to a person and treat them as a pet? Or maybe find a non-dog pet that she can manage to keep fed and give it to them? It was a bit of a lemon devil fruit… in more ways than one. She suspected the uselessness of the fruit was why the Doyle Kingdom decided to trade it for some swordsmanship lessons for their royal guard.

Still, the extra work did seem to distract Father from the melancholy he fell into when Shanks ended up losing his sword arm in some kind of incident. He even decided to stop shaving, which he eventually fixed into a rather stylish mustache and beard combination after two months of becoming steadily scruffier.

"Okay, so first you take the duel with Saint Garling," Who promised one of the Supreme Grade blades if he wins the duel, "-then you go on to Punk Hazard for that meeting with that government scientist," who promises good prices for material suitable for his research into zoan devil fruits, with a potential bonus for another, unspecified matter, "-which puts you in a good position to head to Dressarosa for the swordsmanship tournament." With the prize being two hundred million beri, although it had an entrance fee of one million. She really had to respect Doflamingo's business acumen, even if he was a psychopath. "That would put you back here in six weeks, if you didn't want to fit in other, less lucrative events in your itinerary." One of the drawbacks of increasing Father's acceptance rate was that the payments offered declined over time, as the perceived supply of his time increased, and the fulfillment of the requests decreased the demand. This meant that Tanya had to write more and more letters that could be summarized as 'pay more or no deal'.

"That sounds reasonable." Father said as he looked over the map. Tanya had placed pins in it to note the various locations his presence was requested in, with little pinhead caps denoting the payment promised for each one. She put little skulls on the ones that had clearly sufficient pay, crosses on the ones that could plausibly be an interesting challenge, coins on the ones that had insufficient payment but not insultingly so, and no cap for those who promised nowhere near enough payment. She also put little black flags on spots where pirates with bounties of over three hundred million are reputed to be. It was a little difficult to paint the jolly rogers accurately on the tiny flags, but sailing gave one a lot of free time. "This pirate, who is he?"

Tanya checked her notes. "That would be 'Black Bull' Brew of the Black Bull Pirates. Bounty is four hundred million for the crime of attacking a World Government shipping vessel."

"Ah, he's with Whitebeard now." Grandma said, speaking up. "Subordinate captain, not full member."

"But he's a swordsman." Tanya added, "So he'll probably duel you anyway."

"Just don't turn him into the Marines, " Grandpa said lazily, "Whitebeard takes that kind of thing personally unless one of his sons really screws up. Brew's an okay guy, as far as I've heard."

"Hm. Maybe he'll go to the tournament…" Father mused.

"Unlikely. Despite Doflamingo's rulership over the place, it's still a law-abiding Kingdom on paper. Marines will be there." Grandpa pointed out. He pointed to another skull pin. "What's this one?"

Tanya shuffled through her notes again. "That would be… Hachinosu Island. Ochoku, " the name instantly caused both of her grandparents to make a sour face. "-has offered to buy some of our Graded blades. As a pirate paradise, they are rich in lucre but poor in quality military goods, so we can demand a high price. Your strength means that we can be relatively sure they'll actually pay you."

"I hate to admit it, but Tanya has a point." Grandpa said, "There's no such thing as too much money… and you also don't need thirty swords." Four of them were even Skillful Grade weapons. None suited her, though, so she kept on using Gintama. Now that she was ten, it was still large on her but to a much more manageable extent.

"I suppose I did intend to sell most of them…" Father said, thinking about it. "Yes, I'll go there after the tournament."

"If I know Hachinosu," Grandpa said, "-and I do, you should budget two weeks to offload all of those swords. Did you get an invitation from Ochoku?" He asked, and Tanya nodded, pulling it out of her stack of paperwork. Grandpa looked it over, nodding to himself. "Okay, he'll be setting up an auction for them. Two weeks is enough time to get it set up, for the Emperor's representatives to make it with their budgets on hand, and to get all of the payments arranged."

"Call it another week for travel times and margin of error, and that puts the trip at nine weeks total." Tanya said, making a note on the finalized itinerary.

"You know, " Grandma said, still cooking dinner (fried octopus balls with some sea king teriyaki on rice) for the family. "-it's nearly time for Sabaody Academy's spring semester to begin. If you stay away for a bit longer, we could have Tanya sign up for some schooling." Tanya perked up. School? "It's only fifteen weeks long, after all."

"School, Shakky?" Grandpa asked skeptically. "She already knows everything she needs to know to sail." He wasn't wrong, Father had taught Tanya enough to do pretty much everything on a ship short of shipyard-level repairs and medicine. "One semester's not enough to become a scholar."

"She was able to learn everything I know in less than five years." Father said contemplatively. "She's smart enough for some higher learning…"

"I want to go to school." Tanya announced. "To learn how to run a business." Specifically, to learn enough geography and civics to understand how this world's economy actually functions. Her own double-entry accounting ledger was serviceable, but she had no idea how taxes worked, because Warlords didn't pay taxes as part of their general immunity.

Well, being a member of one of the Seven Warlords didn't quite get you a universal pass, but it did render you and your subordinates immune to being prosecuted for crimes on paper. In order to prosecute you for anything, they needed to first revoke the Warlord status, but could then prosecute you for all of the crimes you had committed while a warlord. If what you did wasn't worth losing the military force that the Warlord represented, or worth the trouble they'd have to go through to arrest the Warlord in question, the Government could just point to the immunity clause and shrug their shoulders instead of needing to do anything. For subordinates, there was the intermediate step of threatening removal as a warlord so they'll abandon the subordinate in question, but that wasn't a concern for her.

"Well, that settles that then, don't you agree?" Grandma said, smiling softly. "I'll make an appointment for you to meet the Headmistress tomorrow."

"Very well." Father said, "What else can I fit into my trip?"

"Give Shanks my best, by the way." Grandpa said, pointing to the tiny flag of the Red-Haired pirates, placed around Elbaf, the Island of Giants. "If you see him."

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As it turned out, Sabaody Academy was a boarding school, more of a college than anything else, with the intent of teaching the children of merchants and noble bastards more academic ventures, like medicine, navigation, architecture, engineering, and economics. Technically there was a history course, but Grandma had insisted that it was a joke of an institution for that particular subject. Narrower academic pursuits, for those who wish to become researchers or inventors, were shoved off to Sabaody University instead.

As there was little to no public education in this world, each student needed to be assessed individually through a series of exams and assigned course requirements based on their pre-existing knowledge, presumably acquired through tutors or less prestigious academies. Given the first few exams, Tanya estimated that the bottom floor of qualification here was roughly the start of middle school back in her old world, but as a college graduate twice over, it was a simple matter to get to collegiate levels immediately.

Well, mostly. "Your math and natural philosophy scores are quite high for any entrant, much less one your age." The Headmistress, an old woman with a nose that took the phrase 'hatchet-faced' to a whole new level, said as she reviewed Tanya's scores. Father loomed silently behind her. "But your economics and history education is… lacking. You proclaimed radical new theories with shaky logic as fact, and you didn't say anything about the effects of the Age of Piracy and how the Three Emperors impact things, although you do understand the dynamics caused by the calm belt, so whatever tutor you learned this from wasn't a complete idiot…"

"I'm afraid my education is almost entirely self-study out of books." Tanya said, apologetically. "I look forward to seeing the more academically rigorous tomes your libraries are sure to contain." Even if a lot of it is sure to be mercantilism nonsense.

The woman's expression softened, slightly, infinitesimally so. "Well, then we'll just pretend that you declined to take the history portion, then." She said, taking the exams on that subject and tearing them up. "You'll need to take those courses from the start." At Tanya's sour face, she continued. "Don't feel too bad, it's the only course you'll be taking when you'll be with children your own age. You'll be able to make some friends." Eh, in an academic setting that's not a good thing.

"So what's the cost?" Father asked, bored.

"Tuition for someone at her academic level will be two million beri for the semester." She quoted, which Father didn't even blink at. "Boarding will depend on which option you select. We have three levels of dormitory, or you could rent a berth at the dock if you live in a boat, like some of our students do." She gave Father a pamphlet with the options outlined.

"A private suite in the Royal dormitory, and a spot for a small boat." He said, immediately picking the most expensive option, an action that wasn't remotely surprising. It was all Tanya could do to stop him from overpaying for everything, sometimes. "I'll take Hitsugibune, you can sail Kamisogi if you need to." Tanya nodded in acknowledgement. It wasn't easy to pilot the boat without a second person, but she learned to do it.

After some paperwork, they left with instructions to claim her dorm in three days, and classes began in ten days. It was a little surprising that they were able to fit her in, but in this world, travel times being ridiculously variable was just a fact of life and it led to selective pressure on organizations to be flexible.

Still, she didn't expect to be able to attend a school, so she must seize this opportunity.

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The Sabaody Academy had a lot more in common with the War College than Todai, with ten hours a day filled with classes, but with a comparatively smaller amount of work expected to be done outside of class time.

Her dorm room was a penthouse apartment, fully furnished and with a personal maid assigned to the room to keep things tidy and otherwise attend to her comfort. The size of it made Tanya figure that most of the people who sprung for the Royal suites tended to have more possessions than could fit in a single traveling chest, although now that she thought about it the things she left on Kamisogi could probably fill up a second one.

"Um… Miss Tanya?" The maid said nervously when she arrived. "There's been a bit of a mixup with your uniform…"

Tanya was immediately concerned. "They didn't stick me with that atrociously short skirt, did they?" She was not going to wear an outfit that possessed absolute territory, no matter how cute it was.

The maid blinked in surprise. "Oh… I guess there wasn't a mistake then." She said, "They gave you the boy's uniform."

"Fantastic!" Tanya said happily. It was a respectable white button-up shirt with an optional green jacket and long black pants with no mandatory shoe style. So she could wear her new leather boots that they got on Banero Island. It reminded her of the 'cowboy' aesthetic from her first life, but they were waterproof and somehow managed to be breathable despite that, due to the hydrophobic wax produced by a local variety of cactus. She also got a matching hat. Living in a place that could flip from swelteringly hot to freezing cold with only minutes of warning made one rather leery of dressing too breezily, as you could lose fingers and toes if you were caught unprepared when the weather turned cold. The opposite was a much smaller problem. Spending five years sailing the world did not break this preference.

"If it pleases you then, I will take in your luggage." The maid said, bowing.

"Thank you," Tanya said politely as she carried the heavy trunk inside and deposited it on the floor. "-but I'd rather handle my own things." Mostly because she hasn't exactly gone through the trouble to take inventory on her trunk, and wanted to remind herself of what she owned before sticky-fingered staff got the impression that she wouldn't miss anything. "I don't even know half of what's in here, it's been years since I've cleaned it out."

She had just finished trying on her uniform and emptying her trunk of her current wardrobe and office supplies, the things that were frequently moved in and out, when a girl's head popped into the room. "Hey neighbor!" She said cheerily before walking inside. She was wearing the girl's uniform already, a white short-sleeved blouse with the first three buttons undone, the green jacket nowhere to be found. It also included a black skirt that went down to mid-thigh, and stockings that went just above the knee on high-heeled shoes. She looked about… sixteen, perhaps younger, with long blonde hair and a brightly smiling face. She accessorized with a necklace that had a golden key dipping into her shirt. "I didn't know we had a new student coming in!"

Tanya smiled politely at her fellow student. "Hello, it is nice to meet you. I will be studying economics for the next semester."

The girl hummed happily. "You're so cute! I'm Lucy, and I'm from the Lulusia Kingdom!"

"Tanya, from Nishihoshi Island." She replied in kind. "What are you studying?"

"This semester?" She asked to clarify, Tanya nodded. "Navigation. I finished the economics lessons last semester, but Daddy paid for five years of schooling so I need to learn something else for the next two years."

Tanya nodded in approval. "Perhaps we could help each other, then. I know quite a bit about navigating the seas."

"You do?" Lucy asked, surprised.

"Yes, I've spent the last five years learning navigation on my father's knee." She almost said metaphorical knee, but given how often Tanya had sat on Father's lap while pouring over maps and star charts, it was quite literal. "Among other things." She hedged, like sailing, swordsmanship, cooking, carpentry, first aid… you needed a lot of knowledge to sail alone. "On the Grand Line, the study of the weather and the currents are usually more important than actual directions."

"Isn't that the truth." Lucy said ruefully. "But I heard practical knowledge doesn't do much good in a lot of those classes."

"It certainly couldn't hurt." Tanya retorted, "Have you memorized the constellations?"

"Oh, you know star charts?" Lucy asked, perking back up. "That will be useful, yeah! But even without it, you can trust Big Sis to help you study, no problem!"

"I'll be in your care, Senpai." Tanya said, bowing to the older girl.

"Ah…" She seemed distracted by something. With a slightly flushed face, she said her goodbyes and left.

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Swing, parry, thrust. "Nine-ninety-nine…" Parry, adjust, swing, parry, push, cut, ready, swing, parry, thrust. "-and one thousand." Tanya said. With her set complete, she shouted and swung her sword at one of the floating resin bubbles, unleashing a flying slash that popped the bubble. Tanya smiled when she noticed a total lack of damage on the side of the building behind the bubble. Not a single ounce of excessive force.

"Impressive." Said a young boy with a sword. He had long, bushy white hair. "I don't recognize the style."

"It's an obscure style." Tanya said in explanation, not answering the unasked question. "Its current form was invented by my father." The Vigilant Blade style came from an old Kuja sword style designed by an Empress from four hundred years ago that had the Eyes of Suzaku, dissected and used to refine and develop Grandpa's self-taught unnamed sword style, which Father learned first.

"Figures." He said ruefully. He looked about… fourteen? He was gangly, not fully grown into his frame. Despite this, he towered over her ten year old self, as he was taller than Father despite his youth. "The name's Raisin. I noticed your sword during class and followed you here afterwards, I hope you don't mind." He extended his hand in greeting.

Tanya thought back to her last class. It was about commodities, which island produced what, and she did recall seeing him enter the class after her. It was one of her favorite classes."Tanya." She said, taking his hand and shaking it. "Gintama is a fine blade, yes. It's served me well." As a practice blade. She's quite happy to have never used it to kill anything.

"It's Graded, isn't it?" He asked, "My own Budo didn't make the cut, sadly." He named his sword Grape? When his own name was Raisin? How appropriate.

"It is." Tanya confirmed. "It was one of the last blades made by a great swordsmith, a pale shadow of his other works." Wado Ichimonji was… something else. It had a presence as if it was alive. Yoru did too, but it was quieter; she could only sense it when Father wasn't within arm's reach of the weapon. "He passed away late last year." The latest letter from Isshin dojo said as much.

"The world's lesser for having lost such a craftsman." Raisin said sincerely, "If only… nevermind." Hm, he clearly didn't want to reveal something. She knew the feeling. "Would you care for a spar? I have some bokken we could use."

Hm, she knew how to use her Haki to reduce the lethality of her strikes, removing the need to own bokken, but he likely didn't. "I would love to." She said instead.

After a quick trip to fetch the bokken, both of them stood across from each other, wooden swords in hand, while other students had gathered to watch. "Hey!" Shouted Lucy the instant she arrived. "Why are you picking on Tanya?"

"Lucy!" Tanya shouted back, admonishing her neighbor. "While your concern is appreciated, it is misplaced."

"But Raisin picks on everyone! Everyone has to take it because he's one of Big Mom's kids." Lucy protested. Several people around her hissed and admonished her for bringing it up.

"It is true." Raisin said, "I am Charlotte Raisin, thirty-third son of the Charlotte family." Charlotte 'Big Mom' Linlin was the third Pirate Emperor, a peer to Whitebeard and Kaido. According to the newspaper, she has recently celebrated the birth of her 85th child, Charlotte Ananas. "But I have not committed any crimes, and am merely here for my education, as are you all." Tanya rather doubted the World Government would agree with his assertion on his criminal status, but she believed him that he hasn't done anything too morally objectionable as part of the family business yet. His conviction was firm.

"This duel is between you and me." Tanya said confidently. "Neither of our parents need to get involved, no matter how quickly I win."

That ticked him off. "I would never bring Mama into some schoolyard scuffle." He said, offended. "But skilled swordsmen are in short supply here, so if I am to get stronger, I must fight whoever dares to carry a sword in my presence." He grins, "Mama would accept no less."

Well, that was enough banter. Tanya focused her Haki on her bokken, reinforcing it before launching a flying slash at the boy's shoulder. As expected, he dodged it, and it sputtered out a few feet behind him before it hit the school. She then inspected her blade. Good condition. She used enough Haki. "Come at me!" She said, feet firmly placed on the ground.

He glanced at the small cut in the shoulder of his shirt. "You're strong." He said, grinning. "Ready yourself!" He said before charging, his speed rather respectable.

Tanya closed her eyes and took the opportunity to get in some Observation practice, moving as little as possible to deflect and parry his offense. After fifty attempts, which took about ten seconds, Raisin managed a blow past her defenses, and Tanya opened her eyes. Raisin had a gleeful smile at finally having earned a point in this battle, and was winding up a powerful blow to batter past her compromised defense.

Instead, Tanya used his sloppy defense, used to her staying passive, to her own advantage and struck first, landing a blow that launched him backwards and would have cut him in two if she had willed it. "I believe that evens this duel up? One to one?" She asked, unable to stop her own smile. This was fun.

Raisin barked out a laugh as he got back to his feet. "One to one." He agreed, "But I can't help but remember your words at the start. Your fighting style is completely defensive, isn't it?" He took his own defensive stance. "Perhaps you should attack instead."

Tanya launched two more flying slashes, but he was able to dodge and deflect them without too much trouble. Hm. She'll exhaust her Haki if she kept trying to use flying slashes with such an unsuitable tool, it was a lot more tiring to do so.

Time to switch fighting styles then. She shifted her stance, lightly hopping from foot to foot as she slowly approached him. This was the original style as created by the Kuja Empress that Father bastardized, the Vermillion Wing style. Grandma had visited Amazon Lily and retrieved a scroll depicting the movement techniques that Father had discarded in favor of the cutting techniques, which included a dizzying array of flying slashes. Apparently, there were basically zero current practitioners of the style due to a lack of quality swords, so it was easy to acquire.

Once she was barely outside of his sword's reach, she used the first technique: "Koka!" She said as she kicked the air rapidly, focusing her Haki to harden the air. The world blurred as she repositioned to his side, striking out at an angle he could not easily defend from.

He had already committed to attacking at the last second, emboldened by her slow approach, and was thus caught off guard at her burst of speed. He recovered from the blow rapidly, as it was far weaker without the leverage staying on the ground provided. But Tanya was ready. "Datsu!" She said as she used single kicks to the air to reposition, dancing through the air around his counterattack and striking him again.

"Damn it!" He said as she hit him on the head with her bokken for a third time. This time, he managed to hit her with his counter strike, knocking Tanya out of the sky. Ow. Ah, as familiar as she was with three dimensional movement, it just wasn't the same when she had to exert herself so much just to stay in the air… "Got you!"

"Two to Four." Tanya agreed, planting her feet and readying herself for defense once more. Her hip ached from that successful strike. That was definitely going to bruise… "Shall we continue?"

The spar lasted a whole hour before they decided they'd rather go get dinner than continue, the score thirty to one hundred forty three. Most of the other students gave them a wide berth as they discussed some of the more interesting parts of the duel on the way to the cafeteria, but Lucy didn't let the display of controlled violence keep her away from sharing a meal with Tanya, as had become common.

She's been in school for only a week, and had already made two useful acquaintances to network with. Making friends was one of the most important things to do during school, second only to learning the material, after all. It was something that had realized too late the first time, not until over a year into University, so just like in War College, she wasn't going to make that mistake again.

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"What's this?" Lucy asked, picking up a piece of paper that was lying around.

Tanya looked up from her book on trade routes and commodities in the New World. "Oh, those are just some drawings." She turned to Raisin. "How accurate is this chapter about Totto Land, anyway?"

"Pretty accurate, although I'd need to ask Prospero to be sure." Raisin replied, sitting on the floor so as to lower the height difference. He was still looking down on her despite her sitting on the couch. "Mama isn't as isolationist as Kaido is with his territories, and near as I can tell those are pretty accurate too."

That was vaguely terrifying, both from the level of skill required to get this kind of information accurately and from the fact that Kaido's territory apparently is the single largest producer of war material in the world. Well, unless one counted the World Government collectively instead of the individual corporations and countries, but no one does that. It was almost entirely done via forced labor too, if this book was to be believed.

"Is it true that Nishihoshi kills and sells the corpses of one hundred and fifty sea kings a year?" Lucy asked.

"That sounds about right." Tanya said, "I didn't count them, but a new one every two or three days is a good average. The butcher yards could hold up to three medium-sized ones at once, or one of the bigger ones, or one Island Whale." Well, the really big ones sometimes couldn't fit in all of them, but that's when they brought out the Butcher's Barge. "It usually took about five days for them to be fully rendered, but in a pinch they could skip the less profitable parts and get it down to three."

"Wow, that must be the most Sea Kings killed in the world…" Lucy said, impressed.

"Elbaf kills more." Tanya said immediately. "But they're giants, so they mostly eat them instead of selling them."

"Using giants is cheating." Lucy insists, wrongly.

"It helps that their proximity to the Calm Belt makes the supply basically endless." Tanya said. Elbaf was very close to the North Blue's section of the Calm belt, so the two Islands didn't even compete.

"Back to this." Lucy said, changing the subject. "You must really hate Gekko Moira."

Tanya paused. "Why?"

"He's so fat and ugly in this drawing." Lucy said, showing the sketch of the other Warlord. Tanya hasn't met all of them, but they passed through the Florian Triangle and enjoyed the man's hospitality last year. It was a strange feeling, when she realized that her father was the most social and outgoing of the Seven Warlords, as Moira, Crocodile, Doflamingo, and Jinbei all admitted that they've only met two or three of their peers in person. She hasn't gotten around to meeting Hancock nor Tora, the other two Warlords.

"That's what he looks like." Tanya said, "I used a current reference." Specifically, she used him as a live model for that picture. "You realize he's forty-two years old, right?"

"You met Gekko Moira?" Raisin said, surprised.

"Last year." Tanya said, shrugging. "It wasn't a big deal."

Lucy was looking through her sketches. At least she didn't find the joke wanted posters, some of those were a little embarrassing. "Moira, pirate, pirate, pirate, Doflamingo, pirate, marine, marine, Admiral Aokiji, Garp the Hero, Mihawk, pirate, pirate, Lucky Roo, Ben Beckman, Shanks, Mihawk again, pirate, pirate, Mihawk again, Jinbei, fishman, fishman, mermaid, merman, Mihawk, Crocodile, pirate, pirate, pirate, the Dark King," wait, who? "Mihawk…" She looked up. "Why do you have so many drawings of Mihawk?"

Raisin stood up and looked over Lucy's shoulder. "Why do you have a shirtless drawing of Mihawk?"

"Half of them are like that." Lucy pointed out.

"Do you have any idea how little that man wears a shirt?" Tanya asked instead of answering the question. How the man managed to keep his skin so pale was a total mystery to her. This damn world…

"Oh. I see." Raisin said, "You're his student. That's why you're so skilled with a sword."

Eh… sure. If he's not going to connect the dots she'll let him stew in it. "Don't tell anyone." She said, with Raisin nodding solemnly, "Now… who's the Dark King?"