As previously mentioned, several volcanoes existed on the island, and one of them had just erupted with a savage roar, firing an entire cloud of ash high into the sky. Lost in thought, Tashigi jumped a good half meter upward, while her heart, still not fully recovered from Zoro's display, nearly tore itself apart.
"Easy, easy..."
Pressing one hand to her chest, the girl muttered while trying to calm her wildly pounding heart. Yet only a couple of seconds passed before she heard a sequence of characteristic sounds. Branches cracked underfoot, huge fern leaves slapped against a body, bushes rustled loudly—someone unknown was forcing their way through the jungle directly toward her. No animal like a tiger or panther would make that much noise, while for something large, especially a dinosaur, it was not enough. No, some person was simply sprinting through the jungle without the slightest concern for stealth.
Although Tashigi doubted the necessity, she drew her katana just in case. She understood that the entire island had now become one enormous battlefield, so there were few possibilities for who might be charging through the jungle that way. Either a strong and extremely confident Baroque Works agent, one of the Straw Hat Pirates, or a person frightened half to death and capable only of running. The girl did not believe the first possibility existed.
And she was right.
The correct answer was option three. The person crashing through the bushes turned out to be a girl frightened nearly to death. Tripping over roots protruding from the ground, she rolled head over heels directly to Tashigi's feet and nearly impaled her eye on the former Marine's sword. Disheveled, tear-streaked, smeared all over with someone else's blood, and wearing torn clothes, she looked nothing like a fearsome Baroque Works bounty hunter.
"E-e-e-e!!!" the fleeing woman wailed the instant she saw the tip of the katana near her face. "No, no, no!!! Please don't kill me!!!" Turning away from Tashigi standing above her, she crawled away rapidly on all fours. "Please, please, please, I don't want to die!!!" After only a few meters she scrambled to her feet and tore straight through the jungle again.
Tashigi, who had not moved a millimeter the entire time, watched her disappear with a stunned stare.
"...What the hell?"
She had no idea what she had just witnessed, everything had happened so unexpectedly. Before she could gather her thoughts, several loud consecutive explosions sounded somewhere a couple kilometers away. The blasts had nothing to do with volcanoes and came from exactly the direction the terrified woman had fled. Tashigi listened involuntarily, and after only several seconds she thought she could hear people screaming, heavily muffled by distance, vegetation, and the jungle's natural sounds. Or was she imagining it? Concentrating on the distant noises, she nearly lost her heart yet again when, ahead of her where Zoro's back had long since disappeared from view, another prolonged scream rang out.
"E-e-e-e!!!"
A familiar cry, though the voice was slightly different. Female again.
"No, no!!! Mercy—argh!"
That abruptly cut-off voice, however, unquestionably belonged to a man.
After a brief stupor, Tashigi bolted forward and quickly reached the swordsman standing beside two of his victims. Katana drawn, the young man stood over the fresh corpse of a man whose chest had been slashed open, and another young, terrified woman who looked almost identical to the first because of her torn clothes, blood, and dirt. The difference was that she had been unlucky enough to encounter Zoro. At the sight of the grim swordsman, who had cut down her random escape partner without a trace of pity, the woman's legs had not only failed her and her bladder emptied, but her teeth chattered so violently that she could not say a word. She could no longer even scream.
Turning away from the woman lying at his feet, Zoro slid Sandai Kitetsu back into its sheath and looked at Tashigi, who was observing everything with an uncertain expression. She simply no longer knew how to react or what to think. Too many events were happening per unit of time, and she was not accustomed to that, which only demonstrated her inexperience yet again.
"Come on already. We're almost there," the young man urged.
"But what about—"
"Leave her."
"...Is that because she's a woman?!!" Tashigi instantly 'ignited'.
He had mercilessly cut down the male agent in an instant while immediately sparing the female agent? That was definitely special treatment for a female opponent. There could be no other excuse. Or could there?
"Yes. It's because she's a woman," Zoro answered without blinking, already turning away and continuing in their original direction.
Everything was simple—the young man had no intention of inventing excuses, so he told the truth immediately. Tashigi, in turn, had not expected such a straightforward answer at all, and for several seconds could only open and close her mouth like a fish thrown onto shore. Five seconds at most. Then her face rapidly reddened as blood rushed to her head. The abrupt pressure change even made her slightly dizzy; she swayed involuntarily while colored circles floated before her eyes. Anger seemed to inflate the girl from within, while fury constricted her chest so tightly she could barely breathe. She resembled a powder keg one instant away from exploding.
Zoro's answer had fallen onto exceptionally fertile soil. The violent reaction did not take long.
"You!" Tashigi growled furiously, stomping one foot before rushing after the swordsman as though nearly breathing tongues of flame. "You can't treat women like that! It's insulting!" The instant she caught him, she attacked him with accusations. "We're no worse than men!" she began her familiar speech. "We're not some weak species that needs your protection or special treatment! We can be just as strong as you! We deserve equal treatment!"
Anyone who had known the girl long enough could quote every one of her accusations—or objections?—by heart, and Zoro was no exception. Quite the opposite: he had heard these words from her so often that he could probably recite them in his sleep. It was the result of his numerous provocations and plain male chauvinism, to which every family member was susceptible to one degree or another. Except Nami. For obvious reasons. She was not upset about it, though, and more than compensated with her own female chauvinism.
"You want me to go back and kill her?" The young man's lips involuntarily curved into a faint smirk, while his mood improved rapidly. "I'll admit, I didn't expect that from you. As a former Marine, shouldn't you be advocating for saving every life? Besides, something tells me she doesn't mind at all right now if I consider her inferior to men and a weak species requiring protection and special treatment. If you don't believe me, you can go back and ask her."
Not so long ago, at the beginning of their acquaintance, Zoro had been greatly irritated by Tashigi's violent reaction to any mention or implication of male superiority over women—mostly because it painfully reminded him of Kuina, who had suffered from similar concerns. Over time, however, his attitude had changed completely. Now he found the girl's intense reaction amusing and rarely missed a chance to provoke her. Her furious appearance simply appealed to him far too much.
"You!!!" She stomped even more violently.
A deep imprint of a woman's foot remained in the cracked earth. Tashigi herself did not realize how much stronger she had become over the previous months. Living around the clock among monsters where each was stronger than the last, she had nothing to compare herself against. Yet another reason to release her onto a real battlefield.
"If it'll make you feel better, you can go back and kill her immediately without asking anything," the young man offered graciously, perfectly aware that he was pouring oil onto the fire. "And don't worry, I won't judge you. Sometimes I want to kill people too just so I don't have to hear truths I dislike. Unfortunately, killing isn't a solution in my case, so I'm even a little jealous of you."
In reality he was not, but that did not matter. He had achieved the important result: the girl's teeth audibly ground together.
"I'm not going to ask her or kill her!" One could easily imagine tongues of flame leaving Tashigi's mouth instead of those words, so visibly did her emotions 'blaze'. "That's not what we're talking about at all!"
"No? Then what are we talking about? I think I've lost the thread."
And worst of all, his voice was so calm, which naturally only drove Tashigi even more insane.
"We're talking about what you would've done if another man had been in her place!" she shouted. "Would you have spared him too, like her, or killed him like the first one?!"
With questions like that, she was practically asking for trouble.
"No, of course not!" came Zoro's immediate answer. "If they became arrogant enough to raise a hand against us, they deserve nothing but death. That's one of our family's main rules. There have been exceptions, but you could count them on one hand."
"Then why didn't you kill her?! She's Baroque Works too, she's your enemy too, and she raised a hand against you too! She deserves death! You said it yourself!"
"Didn't you already ask me that?" Zoro raised an eyebrow as though he genuinely did not understand the complaint. "I'll repeat myself. I didn't kill her because she's a woman. There is no other reason."
Tashigi nearly had a stroke.
"YOU!!!"
Eyes blazing furiously, fists clenched tight, and an obvious desire to sink her teeth into the flesh of the young man she currently hated. Was that not amusing? Zoro personally found the reaction entertaining. Luffy could rightfully be proud of his first mate: the young man was following his teachings faithfully, even if only in relation to one particular girl. Good enough. A journey of a thousand miles began with a single step, and the swordsman had already taken far more than one along that road. Once on it, there was no turning back. One could only slow down, speed up, or die along the way. In other words, frightening little girls was practically within reach.
It was difficult to say with certainty what the argument between Tashigi and Zoro would eventually have led to—her losing her virginity or an attempt on his life, with one not excluding the other—but fortunately for the girl's sanity, they reached their destination. At some point, whole clearings began appearing among the dense jungle, the results of strikes of varying power, along with numerous white patches of wax that Tashigi initially mistook for actual iron, so hard did it feel when tested. Everything indicated that an intense battle involving a Devil Fruit power had recently taken place here. Wax covered grass and trees in abundance, the ground had been violently churned in places, and everywhere stood broken or severed trees forming the aforementioned clearings. Yet all of it paled beside an enormous mound of wax, no less than ten meters high and even larger in length and width, towering directly among the tall palms.
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