A young sailor's swordsmanship 6

Well, this took a lot longer to write than I was hoping, I hope I have enough time to write Monday's Psychoprotective.

​I may have been a bit too ambitious with this arc, but enjoy a bunch of slice of life of Tanya's school days, and next chapter will conclude this part with a nice dramatic thing happening.

---------------------------

The revelation that her grandfather was the vice-captain of the Roger pirates was… less surprising than it should have been. He was supposedly a ‘big shot’ back in the day, and whenever she got to see him have a practice fight with Father (after sailing to a remote island), it was at least as impressive a battle as the one with Shanks (who, come to think of it, was mentioned as being the cabin boy of Grandpa’s ship…), albeit more relaxed, as it was just to keep Grandpa’s skills sharp. His regular workout routine, which was two hundred miles of swimming every morning, kept his body honed.

She still would have liked to know, though. Fortunately, she managed to play it off as to thinking that he was just ‘an old fisherman’ (an easy sell, as he was fishing in the picture) that would probably not appreciate it if she went about blabbing about his location to all and sundry.

“Your shipment got intercepted by…” Tanya rolled the dice and referenced the table. She then checked the list of options. “...the Bay Buccaneers, what do you do?”

Raisin frowned. They were playing a game designed by the professor, a relatively simple one where you played a merchant and tried to make a profit on the dangerous waters of the Grand Line. “Those are Whitebeard affiliates, I think.” He said hesitantly. “I offer them one quarter of the cargo in return for safe passage to Sphinx.”

Tanya checked the reaction table. Whitebeard affiliates were treated interchangeably to the system, but the point of using a name was to potentially obscure their origin. “Eh… I’ll roll it.“ A quarter wasn’t much, but given the matchup… Good enough. ”They accept, and escort you to your destination. The flag of the Whitebeard Pirates hangs proudly over the dock at Sphinx Island. You are offered…” Tanya rolled some dice and checked more tables, writing down results. “These prices for your goods and with demand in this quantity, after some haggling.”

As the tall boy considered his inventory and the prices, Tanya started to generate the available goods for purchase, and the liquidity of the island’s wealth. Really, this whole thing gave her fond memories of playing and running Traveler back in her first life. It was admittedly kind of hilarious every time the players died during character creation, but it was all in good fun.

“How are you two on your third island already?” Asked a fellow student. She was a red-haired girl of about eighteen, part of an extended family that owned and operated a luxury resort on Grove 2. “What’s your secret?”

Tanya blinked, surprised. Ah, she supposed it was a little odd for someone to have so much experience flipping through paper tables while rolling dice. Quick, think of an excuse. “...taking in details rapidly is an important part of swordsmanship.” Tanya decided on. “Calligraphy is also an important art for a swordsman, and it helps you handle paperwork without dropping things or cutting yourself.” Total nonsense, but she’s had plenty of practice fabricating ways to have picked up on one skill or another. “Also, you need more practice handling paperwork.” The table she was working at with her partner was poorly organized.

Seeing as how none of the people present beyond Raisin actually understood what it was like to learn swordsmanship, this was accepted, although Raisin looked contemplative at the suggestion. She would guess that his teachers did not equate fine motor control to sword control. Granted, Tanya was fairly certain they only said that because spending time learning to draw better was an unobtrusive hobby that kept her from getting too bored, but if so, it was a lie that was widespread.

After class, they left the room. “Where’s Lucy?” Tanya asked, “She’s usually waiting for us…” Her meteorology class  never lasts the full duration… Perhaps it just ran long? She had a bad feeling…

“She’ll meet us at lunch.” Raisin said, shrugging and continuing to walk to the academy’s fanciest dining hall.

Tanya looked around the moving crowds of students, failing to locate her friend. Wait, she knows those people. They’re also in her class. “...Save us a table, order our food.” Tanya instructed. They’ve been eating together long enough for him to be able to manage it. “I’m going to check her classroom.”

Raisin waved her off lazily as he walked.

-------------------------

Her first, mundane, search for Lucy was fruitless, she wasn’t in her classroom nor in any place between the two classrooms.

Her bad feeling intensifying, Tanya leapt out of a window and used Koka to kick off the air, effectively flying towards the dormitory. Focusing on her Haki, Tanya sensed Lucy’s presence… in her room, along two other presences. While she wasn’t quite talented enough to discern things like sex, age, or other physical characteristics, she could tell that only one of them was a combatant, and a minor threat at that, and that there was an ongoing, non-physical conflict, Lucy versus the non-combatant, with the combatant as a bystander to the struggle.

Father said that sensing threat and intentions was an important advancement in her abilities with Observation, and good progress. She wasn’t quite sure whether or not he was being truthful, or if her early start made any progress at all seem promising. Nevertheless, there was still more to master, so she shall continue working on it.

Lucy had the irritating habit of leaving her window open, ‘for fresh air’, so it was easy to enter the room through the balcony. Then again, it was on the fifth floor along with her own penthouse, so she may just have an odd opinion on what constitutes a hazard.

“No, Daddy!” Lucy spat, crossing her arms. The two men in Lucy’s room was a well-dressed middle-aged man and a relaxed young man, early twenties Tanya guessed, who had his hand in a relaxed posture in easy draw range of his sword.

“Lucy, I only want what’s best for you.” The middle-aged man said, anger bubbling underneath his words but not yet exploded into a yell.

“Lord Heart!” The bodyguard said, rushing forward while drawing his sword.

Tanya drew Cobra, her knife, and intercepted the man’s blade with it, catching the blade with the small swordbreaker fang at the guard. “...Graded?” She asked, inspecting the blade. It looked like a Graded saber… definitely not one of the 82 skillful-grade or better blades, though. She’s memorized those.

“Tanya!” Lucy said scoldingly. “Don’t hurt Tim, he’s just my dad’s stupid bodyguard.”

“I wasn’t going to kill him.” Tanya insisted, “Nothing improper. Steal his sword at worst. Break it if it was low quality.”

‘Who is this?” Demanded Mr. Heart. “Waltzing in on our private meeting?”

“He’s strong!” The bodyguard, Tim, shouted. “Flee, sire!”

“Stop it! Everyone, quiet!” Lucy shouted. “Tim! Stand down! Tanya! Get inside! Daddy! Calm down!” While Lucy couldn’t be intimidating if she tried, she seemed fierce enough to the two men in the room, who recoiled and repositioned: Mr. Heart to the back of the room, and Tim between Tanya and everyone else.

A stifling silence settled on the group. Tanya stared down the other swordsman, focusing her Observation on him. She could defeat him. Raisin… would struggle, but he’d probably still win. He was not a threat. But those eyes were searching her as much as she was searching him, noting Gintama sheathed on her back, not as easily drawn in a hurry in comparison to Cobra. Slowly, Tanya moved the tip of Cobra to its sheath, then paused. Tim, understanding the offer, placed one hand on his sheath and brought it close to his sword, which was put only the slightest bit out of position. Simultaneously, both swordsmen sheathed their blades and relaxed.

After a few more heartbeats, Lucy talked first. “Now, Daddy? This is Tanya. She’s my friend. I wrote about her, remember?” She turned back to Tanya. “Tanya? This is my Dad.”

The middle-aged man took a moment to look Tanya over. “That’s a girl?” He sounded vaguely disgusted.

Tanya looked down at herself. Sure, she was dressed in the boy’s uniform… and had cut her hair a bit shorter than was military regulation, to keep it from bothering her in the sea breeze, but really? Did she just give off a masculine vibe? Yeah, that’ll last. Tanya dismissed the train of thought with an amused huff.

“I recognize that style of knife.” Tim cut in. “That’s a symbol of sisterhood from the Kuja pirates. They’ll brutally murder anyone with one who isn’t a recognized owner. There are only nine in existence.”

“I don’t believe we’ve been introduced.” Tanya noted. He was surprisingly knowledgeable; even she didn’t know there were only nine.

“Ryu Tim.” He said, inclining his head politely. ”I’m a mercenary slash bounty hunter. It’s important to be able to identify who has powerful friends in this line of work.” He held up his now sheathed sword. “This is Robin. Graded, as you suspected.”

“Charmed.” Tanya replied, “This is Cobra, and this is Gintama.” Tanya felt the vaguest blip on her awareness from the sword when she said its name. How did Kozaburo do it?

“Yes, now that you’ve finished showing off your toys, let’s get back to what’s important.” Mr. Heart said. Tim frowned, but stepped back, slipping into the corner of the room in a relaxed but vigilant posture. “Why are you here?”

“Lucy wasn’t waiting for us after class.” Tanya said calmly. “I came to check on her.”

“You didn’t need to do that, Tanya.” Lucy said perfunctorily, even as she smiled happily.

“It was the least I could do.” Tanya replied, the standard response. “Now, what’s going on?”

Lucy huffed. “Daddy wants to start asking around for marriage prospects.”

Tanya blinked in surprise. “You mean he’s asking you before even looking?” That was downright considerate, even by her first life’s standards. Not that she ever learned the courtship culture in her second…

“He needs current portraits made up to show me off.” Lucy clarified, immediately understanding Tanya’s confusion. Ah. That makes sense. “We’re wealthy, but don’t have any pedigree. I’m pretty, so that’ll tilt things in our family’s favor.”

Tanya nodded in understanding. “Yes, that’s true.” While one can easily make the mistake that the significantly larger average cup size and the larger ratio of great beauties made attractiveness less important, if you paid attention you’d find plenty of plain, unattractive, and outright ugly women who preferred not to stand out. Lucy stood out even amongst those beauties, as well. “So what’s the issue?” Is this one of those naive ‘marry for love’ things?

“I’m going to marry a man I love.” Lucy insisted. Ah. It was.

“Did you have someone in mind?” Tanya asked, genuinely curious.

The blonde stopped short. “Ah…” She fiddled with her key necklace. “N-not really…”

“Then some inquiries among the upper crust would not go amiss.” Tanya concluded. “Love isn’t something that just clicks, you know. That’s something peddled by romance novelists.” Tanya paused for a moment. “Also my grandmother, but she decided to marry a man ten years older than her after he beat her in a fight. She’s not an example one should strive for, as you lack the strength for that to be a logical filter.”

“Is your grandmother a member of the Kuja pirates, by chance?” Tim asked out of the blue.

“At the time, yes.” Tanya confirmed, before moving on to her actual point. “There’s no harm from at least meeting eligible bachelors of similar or greater socioeconomic status to yourself. Yes, you won’t like all of them,” Tanya thought back to the various nobles she’s met while touring the world. “-or even most of them, but odds are good that a large portion of them are as enthused about an arranged marriage as you are, and there are worse things to have as common ground.”

“Yes, listen to your friend, Lucy.” Mr. Heart said, nodding along to her words. “She’s making excellent points.”

Lucy seemed dissatisfied that Tanya did not immediately back her up unquestionably, but sighed heavily at seeing herself outnumbered. “I’ll sit for the portraits.” She grumbled… “But I want Tanya to make them.” What? Lucy grinned at her. “You draw quickly. I’ve seen it.”

Tanya eyed her father. “You were planning on paying for those portraits, correct?” He nodded nervously. “I’ll do it.” She thought that they’d rather use those new photography-snails, but she also didn’t like acknowledging their existence, so she understood their reluctance. “We can get it done this evening. For now? Let’s go to lunch. You still have classes today, after all.” Mr. Heart looked like he was going to object. “As do I.” She said more pointedly. His mouth closed.

“Right. I’m sure Raisin’s feeling lonely without his best friend.” Lucy said teasingly. Tanya rolled her eyes. Honestly, she was ten. All of that nonsense was still years off.

-------------------------

“Thanks for letting us use your boat, Tanya.” Lucy said, “Daddy won’t buy me one.”

“It’s not very elegant, and it’s small, but it has a certain charm to it.” Said one of Lucy’s classmates, a tanned girl named Cana.

“You need some real muscle to work these ropes, though.” Huffed Gray, another one of the navigation students.

“We’re just fishing, Gray. We don’t need it at full sail.” Lucy said scoldingly. “Tanya, fix it for him please.”

Tanya shooed the boy away from the mast, and took control of the ropes. She drew the sail up, as they were far enough. “Alright, let’s break out the poles.”

“What if we sink?” asked the last member of their fishing expedition, a boy named Jet. “There’s barely a rail on this boat.”

“This boat is made of Taolf wood.” Tanya said dismissively. “You could catch a Sea King and this boat won’t sink.” Tanya had absolutely no comprehension on how such ridiculous buoyancy was possible, but after the first time they towed a sea king corpse to port to sell the meat, it was hard to argue against. All because she had idly asked the carpenter if he knew how they built ships to do that. “You know, a smaller one.” No one liked having to throw out half the catch, but it was sometimes necessary.

”Is that why the anchor looks like a giant weird fish hook?” Lucy asked.

“It is.” Tanya replied, throwing it overboard. While the oceans on this world were ubiquitous, there were only a few places where the sheer depth one expects when one hears ‘ocean’ occur. Granted, the waters of Sabaody were one of those places, but that was why Tanya instructed them to sail to the nearest shelf, which started about a third of the way to Marineford. Sea Kings tended to avoid the shelves, so when Tanya felt the anchor take hold of the sea floor she knew they were as safe as could be.

“Wouldn’t the Sea King just fall off the hook?” Asked Gray, who was putting bait on his fishing hook.

“There’s a trick to it.” Tanya said vaguely. You had to secure the spine… “But we’re not catching Sea Kings. Just regular fish.”

They all settled into a peaceable arrangement, Tanya claiming the Captain’s chair and wearing one of Father’s hats, leaning back and using the hat to shield her face as she dozed off, one hand on her fishing pole.

Her rest was disturbed by the sound of a latch getting undone and the dim sense of mischief. “Hey!” Tanya shouted, bolting upwards. “Don’t go through my stuff!”

“It’s boring here!” Complained Lucy. “Also, all I found were clothes. Men’s clothes, way too big for you.”

“Get out of my dad’s stuff, then.” Tanya corrected. He must have forgotten them. Hopefully he has at least one change of clothes with him…

“C’mon, I know you’re too lame to go through his things on your own. Aren’t you curious?” Lucy said, apparently awakening a delinquent side.

Tanya knew that Lucy was manipulating her. It was transparent. The other students looked between Lucy and Tanya interested, as this was far more interesting than fishing. “It’s just clothes.” Tanya insisted, shoving Lucy aside and removing the clothes so she could re-fold them. Lucy had disturbed them, after all, in her clumsy search.

Actually, it looked like Father left behind his leisure wear, while taking his ‘work’ clothing along with him. He must have genuinely missed the hat he left behind, but none of his three coats were present. “This is all just casual clothes.” Tanya said out loud, taking out some sandals and waving them around. “Nothing interesting.”

“Aw, I was hoping there’d be something cool.” Lucy said, disappointed. ‘Wait, what’s that?” She said, plucking something from the trunk. “Ooh, pretty.”

Tanya looked over the object. It was a golden bracelet, the snake motif immediately designating it as Kuja make. Tanya looked back and found a few more golden bangles and earrings in a similar style. “Ah, I remember these.” Tanya said, recognizing the pieces. “We found them in a pirate’s hold.” Specifically, Father mentioned that he would gift them to Boa Hancock as a peace offering if he needed to, noting that they represented vengeance for whomever the bracelets were stolen from. “I don’t think we ever got around to getting them appraised, but gold jewelry makes for good bargaining chips in most places.” Tanya quickly gathered it up and placed the gold in her own storage chest. “I didn’t know he left them behind, I’ll put it in my jewelry box back in my dorm.” She’s accumulated quite the collection over the years, starting with those ruby bracelets that she never had the need to liquidate. Even now she rarely went out of her room without a ring or bracelet of some kind, as it was a common status symbol, among both boys and girls. Lately, wearing a single earring had become in fashion, so she went on this trip wearing an emerald stud in her left ear, a platinum band on her right middle finger, and a golden bracelet with a cat’s eye agate on it.

“What else does he have in here?” Lucy said, looming over Tanya and looking into the trunk. She had way more jewelry: five bracelets of various kinds, a diamond earring dangling from her right ear, a pearl necklace, and a set of four rings on her right hand, a small rainbow of gemstones sparkling along her fist.

Abandoning any pretense, Tanya continued rummaging through her father’s things. “Spare whetstones, sword oil, folder…” Tanya perused the contents. Old crayon drawings. “...filled with nothing of importance, sock filled with coins,” collectively probably about five thousand beri. “-and some miscellaneous junk.” all in all, a rather unimpressive haul.

“When was the last time you polished your sword, anyway?” Jet asked, clearly intending something puerile.

“This morning.” Tanya said, ignoring the bait. “Right after my morning training and right before my morning bath.” While it was very difficult to chip a Graded Blade, that didn’t mean they didn’t occasionally dent if you misused them, and they did get duller without sharpening. Higher quality blades, like Yoru, could launch hundreds of flying slashes and cut through battleships before needing a go over with a whetstone, but even the Supreme-Grade blades needed maintenance. “It’s important to nurture your blade so that it can most effectively kill only what you wish.

“Hey, I got something!” shouted Cana, startling awake. “It’s pulling me in!”

Tanya went and pulled on Cana’s rod, her superior strength immediately pulling out… a flying fish. It was a local variety the size of a car, a local gang of criminals used them in their escapades. This one didn’t have a saddle, though, so Tanya just grabbed Gintama and, with what was probably a blur of steel to her friends, cut away the choice cuts of meat and let the rest fall into the sea, soon to be eaten by some other fish.

“Woah, cool!” Cana said, awed by Tanya’s performance.

“This is a lot of meat!” Shouted Jet appreciatively. “Guess we can stop fishing.”

“There’s not much biting today, anyway.” Tanya said as she withdrew her own fishing pole. “Tch. bait got stolen.” She recalled Grandpa’s fishing lessons. “This same fish probably was going around stealing everyone’s bait before it got caught by a hook.” The flying fish were supposedly quite intelligent. For fish, anyway.

Cooking on the Kamisori was rather… interesting. There was a canister of clean-burning oil refined from whalefat that they used to create a fire that heated the iron grill or wok with a complex device that was somewhere between a barbeque grill and a gas stove.

There was no way her friends were allowed to try to use it. Kamisori was nigh unsinkable, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t still quite flammable. The treatments the wood were given to help keep it from alighting were only so effective.

“...is that a Marine Battleship?” Asked Lucy.

“Yes.” Tanya replied, “We’re only a few hours from Marineford, it’s not that surprising.” Tanya peered closer at it. “...I recognize that figurehead. That’s Vice-Admiral Gion’s ship.” She shrugged. “She’s just passing through, nothing to worry about.”

“Momousagi? The woman most likely to become an Admiral?” Cana said, keenly interested. “

“That’s the one.” Tanya said idly. She added the pre-soaked rice to the wok.

“I can’t even tell what color that figurehead is at this distance.” Complained Jet. “How can you tell?”

“Good eyesight.” Tanya replied. “No other Marine ship has a pink bunny on the front.” Tanya added some more sauce to the wok that was filled with rice and vegetables, then added some of the fish, already cut up into tiny cubes. She wouldn’t call herself a chef, that implied a few skills she bluntly didn’t have, but living life without prepackaged meals had a way of providing many opportunities to hone one’s cooking skills.

After the meal and plenty of conversation about famous marines, Lucy looked west. “Sun’s setting.” She commented. “We should get back.”

“Yeah, had a blast, now… which way’s Sabaody?” Asked Jet.

“That would be the point of the trip, wouldn’t it?” Tanya asked, “If you can get back without me breaking out my vivre compass, you’ve proven you can actually navigate.” Tanya pointed up. “The stars are right there.”

In the end, they managed to find the mangrove forest that was Sabody. Unfortunately, they managed to find themselves on the opposite side, so Tanya took control and maneuvered Kamisori back to the Academy.

All in all, a fun weekend trip.

-------------------------

Tanya’s favorite part about going to school again was the library. Surprisingly, the economic concepts were more advanced than she was expecting; there was still a strong focus on maximizing value via exploitation rather than building mutual value, but the supply chain and accounting concepts were pretty much as advanced as the technology allowed. There was little to no room for her to institute improvements like there was in the Empire.

What was really interesting was the military histories. Tanya had read plenty about naval warfare in her first life, of course, but it was in her second life, at War College, that she learned how to analyze and study primary sources as a historian might… here, with that knowledge, she got to play a fun little game of ‘where did the World Government hide an embarrassing defeat’?

To an eye as practiced in the study of history as hers, the propaganda was laughably obvious. Entire fleets vanished without note after a string of epic battles. A single survivor of a supposed cult of apocalyptic historians was given a massive bounty at eight years old… within two pages of a mention that learning a specific language was punishable by death. A language that was primarily seen on a series of indestructible stone blocks scattered throughout the world. Whatever those things said, Tanya would wager that there wasn’t a single surviving book displaying that knowledge.

…It almost made her want to learn to read it. Almost. She’d have to make sure she could avoid getting caught.

“Ah, Tanya. Good to see you again.” Said a gentleman as he sat down. His thick arms and broad chest made the sight a little comical, but he had a book in hand.

“Good evening, Bruce.” Tanya said politely. Wax D. Bruce was a local bounty hunter, who typically preyed on pirates who hid out on Sabaody while they got their ships coated for descent into Fishman Island. He was probably the only person who regularly visited the school who Tanya was uncertain that they could defeat in combat, he was present because he had a passion for learning languages other than English, or as it was known locally, World Standard. The school didn’t teach classes on them, but the library wasn’t completely scoured by government censors and had a few books on the subject. Tanya took a book out of her bag. “I finished it.” She said, passing it back.

“Ah, thank you.” Bruce said, placing the book back in his own satchel. He had a personal library somewhere on the archipelago, supposedly. “Here, I brought you something special. It’s an account by an infamous outlaw, although it’s second-hand, they were interviewed, who managed to escape a Buster Call. Gripping stuff.”

What? The Buster Call was when the Government ordered an entire Island destroyed because of some crime. Five Vice-Admirals on Battleships, and an Admiral to lead them. All structures destroyed, although there is an evacuation of the innocent, and all of them are thoroughly checked. While Tanya wasn’t so naive into thinking them impossible to deal with, concealing the existence of such a criminal would be- wait.

“Is that…” Tanya snatched up the book and read the first few pages. “...how did you get this?”

“Academics talk to each other.” Bruce said simply. “Share things. She clearly left some things out, how she escaped, for instance, and the actual account is only about twenty pages, but I think you’re ready to see a little bit behind the curtain of the World Government’s propaganda.” He tapped his ears. “Don’t worry, no one’s listening in on us.”

The book wasn’t long, only about fifty pages. Tanya returned it to the burly man before he even left. While it was, of course, logical to not immediately trust the words of people who were reputed to be an apocalypse cult… as mentioned, the World Government had a habit of being rather clumsy with their historical revisionism. Whatever the scholars of Ohara were trying to learn, it was clearly damning.

Really, from the perspective of a modern person, the whole thing was a bit silly, because the only governments that didn’t have multiple atrocities and abuses in their pasts, even in their founding, were those that were created from the bones of a different government that did do such things, like post-cold war Germany. Even then, Tanya couldn’t say for certain that there weren't some skeletons in the closet. Concealing such things so vociferously was just… odd. But this wasn’t the modern world. The World Government thinks that it can still get destroyed if the right secrets get leaked. Who knew? Perhaps they were right.

“Thank you for the book.” Tanya said sincerely. “It was an interesting read.”

“Books are worthless if they aren’t read.” Bruce said sagely. “I’m always looking for like-minded people to share my collection with, as I told you.” Tanya was fairly certain at this point that he was a clandestine agent of the Revolutionary Army, but they weren’t so foolish as to talk about that directly. “I’m glad to see that I was right about you.”

Tanya nodded. “That’s certainly an exotic book, not something that would be properly appreciated by a less academic individual.” It was important to talk around such things.

“You can be direct, no one’s listening in.” One of his ears expanded, shifting to a complex, pointed thing. Bruce was also known as ‘Night man’, and he ate the Bat-bat fruit, making him a bat man. Tanya felt more than heard the ultrasonic pulse he let out. “Yes, no one’s nearby.”

“Then tell me straight out: are you attempting to recruit me into the Revolutionary Army?” Tanya asked.

Bruce sighed. “Guilty. Are you interested?”

“I am ten.” Tanya said bluntly. “My foremost concerns are to learn more and get stronger, for my future career as a law-abiding citizen.” Granted, the more she learned about the government the less likely she saw that as being, given her position, but Being X’s trials didn’t make her abandon civilization yet, so she’ll be damned if she gives that up without a damn good reason.

“You’re too curious for that.” Bruce said, smiling easily. “Also, that’s ignoring the part where your citizenship will only last as long as your father’s sword arm does. Warlords can’t retire.”

Tanya scowled. Does he think she doesn’t have plans for that eventuality? “I need to sleep. Goodbye.”

“The offer’s open, if you find yourself adrift.” Bruce offered as she left.