"What the hell is that?!" Tashigi could not keep herself from exclaiming when she saw the scene.
"Yosaku."
"Yosaku did this?!!" she exclaimed, shocked for what felt like the hundredth time that day. "How?! Does he have an ability like that?! I thought he was only immortal!"
The girl probably did not realize how wrong that sentence sounded. Such familiar symptoms. Treatment was useless; the only cure was death.
"Only immortal..." Zoro muttered, catching exactly what was wrong with the phrase and simultaneously suffering a strong sense of déjà vu. "You definitely decided to torment me today," he added much louder, giving Tashigi a dark look.
"What do you mean?!"
"What the hell do you mean, Yosaku?" Zoro asked, pointing a thumb toward the pile of wax. "Of course he couldn't do this! Are you refusing on principle to think today or what? I feel like I'm talking not to you but to Ryu. That idiot also always speaks first and thinks afterward."
The accusation was simultaneously fair and unfair, and the girl felt a treacherous sting in her nose. Five minutes ago she had nearly breathed fire from rage; now she was ready to burst into tears from hurt. She was not the only one affecting Zoro—he strongly affected her as well, which sometimes produced total chaos in both their heads and emotions. Like now, in Tashigi's case.
"Why do you... why do all of you... why can't you just answer a question normally when somebody asks one?!" she demanded in a hurt voice.
Zoro gave her an even darker look.
"What?" Her hurt vanished instantly beneath indignation. "Are you going to say I'm wrong? You almost never give direct answers! Exactly like right now!"
It was practically a cry from the soul, but the young man remained entirely unimpressed. In this specific case, Zoro considered the accusations against him completely unfounded.
"You asked what that was." He nodded toward the wax. "And I answered immediately."
"You said Yosaku made all that wax!" the girl objected.
"I only said Yosaku's name. You invented everything else yourself. And you invented it incorrectly, then tried to blame me for it."
Tashigi was ready to cry from hurt again.
"Why couldn't you explain it properly from the beginning?!"
Placing a hand on the girl's shoulder, Zoro pointed toward the mountain of wax.
"That is Yosaku! What else am I supposed to explain?"
Blinking several times, Tashigi asked uncertainly:
"You mean... you mean somebody dumped all that wax on Yosaku?"
"That's what I told you from the start."
And his face looked as though he were speaking to someone mentally deficient.
"YOU!!!" Another deep footprint from a woman's shoe appeared in the ground. "How was I supposed to know what you meant when you said his name?!"
"What else could I possibly have meant except the most obvious thing?" Zoro frowned. "Did you already forget? We came here specifically to save Yosaku. You know perfectly well he can't be killed, only captured, so you could've figured out why anyone would need to create that much wax in the middle of an empty jungle."
Although she had nothing to counter those words, Tashigi still did not believe she was wrong. Yes, she could have figured it out herself, but Zoro could also have said more than one word. Was he not more at fault than she was?
"If Yosaku is under the wax... you want me to free him?" the girl asked, trying to change the subject and deciding not to argue further.
"Are you suggesting we leave him there?" came the reply.
Clearly rhetorical.
"...Then why don't you free him yourself?" Tashigi asked after restraining her emotions. "Why do you need me?"
"Less talking. More doing."
"This wax is like iron."
"Good training for you, isn't it? Now shut up and do it. That's an order."
Some part of the girl's consciousness understood perfectly how wrong the entire situation was. A Marine lieutenant unquestioningly obeying orders from a world-famous pirate. Naturally, Tashigi was not going to squeal with delight over such a sharp turn in her life, but besides all the negative emotions, others existed too. The girl simply did not want to think about them. They were difficult to call positive and impossible to call negative. What they did excellently was sow chaos in her soul, create insecurity, and force her to think about her life. At least they certainly did that to Tashigi.
It could hardly have been otherwise.
A girl who had spent most of her life regretting that she had not been born male and considering her breasts only an irritating obstacle on her path as a swordsman had suddenly discovered... that having breasts and not having a penis was not actually so bad. As practical experience had shown, breasts not only failed to interfere with becoming a swordsman, they could even help considerably. Who knew how much longer it would have taken her to learn how enormous the world truly was if her breasts had not been noticed in Loguetown. It was entirely possible she would have spent her whole life in East Blue. Why not? Smoker would have been promoted straight to the Grand Line, and she would have taken his place as yet another 'eternal' captain. Tashigi could easily imagine that outcome. And that was without mentioning that she might well have been killed the way Captain Smoker supposedly had, and probably would never have been trained if not for those same breasts. In the past, the girl had never thought about the advantages of having them, always focusing on the disadvantages, but now her view had changed considerably. Not without assistance, naturally.
Nami had distinguished herself here.
Unlike Tashigi, the red-haired devil had never once regretted being born a woman. There had been times when Nami hated her weakness and poverty, but never once in her life had she regretted being female. Quite the opposite. What was so good about being a man? More physical strength that constantly had to be proved to other men? Who needed that? Being a woman was far better. Being a beautiful woman was better still. The combination of intelligence and beautiful breasts could effortlessly crush any amount of brute strength. Fact. Nami confirmed it. Who in the Straw Hat family was physically stronger than her? Almost everyone. By a lot. But how much did that physical strength actually help them? When things became serious, only Luffy could genuinely oppose her, and not because of his physical strength at all. Everyone else, Zoro included, folded at the snap of her fingers. The clearest possible evidence that the only thing better than intelligence plus beautiful breasts was even greater intelligence plus even more beautiful breasts.
As one could easily guess, Nami was not burdened at all by the life of a 'weak' woman. And again, as one could easily guess, she became the second major culprit whose influence caused Tashigi to change her attitude toward having been born female. Zoro, predictably, was the first and primary culprit. It was extremely difficult to hate having breasts while trying to use them to attract another person's attention. And especially difficult not to love them when they successfully accomplished the task assigned to them. Thanks to all of this, Tashigi had already traveled quite a long road: from 'I wish I'd been born a man!' to 'I think being born a woman isn't so bad either,' and was now approaching 'I'm so glad I was born a woman!' with confident steps.
Naturally, changes that radical could not occur without serious consequences. If Tashigi spoke to an experienced psychologist now, they would have no idea where to begin. Over the months spent with the Hats, the girl had acquired an entire list of different psychological disorders, beginning with ordinary Stockholm syndrome. On the other hand, digging deeper would easily lead to the conclusion that the Hats themselves, Luffy excluded, suffered from that syndrome too. He was the person responsible for creating the traumatic bond. The main kidnapper, to put it briefly.
"Kiri Shigure!"
Tashigi needed several minutes to bring her thoughts and emotions under control, earning mild displeasure from Zoro. Too long. An experienced swordsman should be able to control emotions in mere seconds, or even a single instant. Memories of East Blue and how the young man himself had reacted to his captain's provocations made the double standard and shameless hypocrisy easy to see. Luffy's bad habits continued successfully taking root in the minds of the rest of the family. Fortunately for the girl, the final result did not disappoint Zoro. Her blade flashed in the rays of the setting sun, and in the next instant the entire enormous mountain of wax had been cut horizontally into two perfectly equal halves. It was unquestionably beautiful. Beautiful but, unfortunately for Tashigi, completely useless, so the swordsman's comment came immediately.
"And now what?" Zoro asked the bewildered girl, clearly finding the situation amusing.
Tashigi had cut through the entire mountain of wax without difficulty despite its ironlike hardness. Along the way, she had shown no mercy to Yosaku either, heartlessly cutting him together with the wax. What did it matter to him? Immortal was immortal. The problem was that cutting the mountain in half had no practical value whatsoever. Yosaku remained trapped in wax, except that now he too had been split into two halves.
"Um..."
The girl had not expected that outcome at all, and her face reddened noticeably with embarrassment. She had initially assumed cutting the mountain in half would be enough. Now that she actually thought about it, she instantly understood her mistake. A very stupid mistake, to put it mildly. She could not avoid admitting that today she really did resemble Ryu. Ask her about the young man and she would be the first to acknowledge his strength, but that did not change the fact that most of the time Ryu looked to her like a cheerful idiot with an inexhaustible supply of curiosity. Though he looked that way to more than just her.
"Are you going to think this long during a battle too?" Zoro asked.
Tashigi instantly emerged from her thoughts and immediately became angry, which made what she needed to do next completely obvious. Who said anger was a poor assistant? A second later, a second strike crashed into the wax mountain, followed immediately by a third, fourth, fifth... One attack had not been enough? How about ten? Twenty? Fifty? Had anyone other than Yosaku been trapped inside, the girl would have needed to be slightly more careful, but when the safety of the person being rescued did not matter, everything became much easier. Then again, if anyone other than Yosaku had been trapped there, they would long since have died from lack of oxygen. Or, more likely, would never have fallen into such a trap in the first place. Whatever one might say, immortality was a double-edged sword. It simultaneously protected the young man from serious consequences of his mistakes and greatly increased the likelihood of making them. Despite all of Luffy's and Zoro's efforts, they had still failed to teach him to assess a battlefield more sensibly. And pain, once the main motivational factor discouraging mistakes, worked worse and worse with every passing day. Human beings were creatures capable of becoming accustomed to literally anything. In Yosaku's case, that statement was especially relevant.
"Hah!"
With a sharp exhalation, Tashigi swung her sword one final time. Instead of an ordinary cut, a powerful air wave struck the mountain and blew most of the wax straight to hell.
"AAAAAH!!! I'LL KILL YOU, BASTARD!!! I'LL KILL YOU!!!"
Yosaku's bloodied figure, buried in the exact center of the mountain, instantly came to life. Despite every strike the girl had delivered—each easily capable of cutting metal—the young man had suffered only bleeding wounds, a substantial portion of which had already healed while the rest closed visibly before their eyes. His Fruit power had developed to such a level that injuries like these no longer mattered. More than that, Yosaku immediately began ripping the remaining wax from his body or smashing it apart with his fists, causing himself new wounds and completely ignoring them. He clearly intended to find his opponent as quickly as possible and take revenge for his imprisonment. Soon, however, his furious gaze first landed on Zoro standing nearby with folded arms, then on Tashigi with her katana drawn. He did not need long to add one plus one. The expression on the young man's face when he understood that the girl had been the one to rescue him from captivity... words simply could not describe it.
"Let's go. We need to help one more idiot," Zoro told Tashigi, completely ignoring Yosaku.
"Huh?"
"I said follow me."
Turning around, the swordsman calmly walked toward his new destination. The girl shifted uncertainly in place, slid her katana into its sheath, gave the bloodied figure one final look, and ran after Zoro. Catching up, she walked properly beside him like an obedient student accompanying a strict master.
Meanwhile, it was difficult to look at Yosaku's expression without shuddering. Hunched figure, arms hanging limply at his sides, and a savage mixture of incomprehension, humiliation, and rage. He clearly hoped the entire situation was nothing more than a dream. The young man's pride and confidence had simply been ground into powder. Physical pain had ceased to be a sufficient motivational factor? A problem? Definitely. But not when Luffy was aboard the ship. He could always find a way to make someone else's life unbearable. Though admittedly, he and Zoro had been extremely lucky here. Neither had expected such a convenient opportunity to appear so quickly. As though Fate itself had arranged it. One could say without the slightest doubt that after humiliation like this, the young man would have more than enough motivation for self-improvement. Male pride was like that.
Zoro and Tashigi had covered at least a kilometer when a scream reached them, practically overflowing with rage and murderous intent:
"WAX BASTARD, I'LL KILL YOU!!!"
As though he had not intended to kill the man from the beginning! Why so much outrage? And the voice was in the finest Johnny tradition. Distance was no obstacle either. Not only the young man and woman heard Yosaku's scream, but Mr. Three himself did as well. The pale and badly battered figure began trembling visibly in terror. Today had not been the best day for Baroque Works' smartest member. Fighting an immortal opponent had become an incredible ordeal for the man, especially psychologically. Anyone who had never fought an opponent who could not be killed could never understand the full horror of it.
On the first half of the Grand Line, only Logia users could rival Yosaku in that particular respect, but in the New World even they would lose to him easily. Armament Haki was nearly commonplace in the New World, so Logias inspired little fear there. In Yosaku's case, however, even Armament Haki could not help, making him unique. On one hand, hundreds upon hundreds of people could defeat him. On the other, there was a substantial possibility that nobody was capable of killing him. The limits of the young man's Fruit remained unknown. Even so, his existing abilities were already enough to invite comparison with one of the Four Emperors, Kaido, the 'Strongest Creature in the World'. He too had been defeated repeatedly, yet nobody had managed to kill him, including himself. The parallels with Yosaku suggested themselves. For now, admittedly, Yosaku could be considered only a Kaido larva. But with time, he had a good chance of becoming a full-fledged butterfly. One might even say an excellent chance. All he needed was motivation, an effort not to die, and some time. The first was supplied continuously by his 'caring senpai', while he had long since stopped having any problem with the second. Only time remained.
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