Tashigi's stay aboard the Going Merry was already approaching five months. Five very long months. Five months in the company of the Straw Hats. The breaking point usually came after two or three months. That had been true for Zoro, Johnny, Yosaku, and Nami, and it was now happening to Law, Robin, Vivi, and Tashigi. Law and Robin at least more or less understood what was happening to them, even if they did not know exactly how it worked or where it led. Vivi and Tashigi, however, were simply floundering in darkness. Vivi's situation had been made considerably worse by what she experienced on Whisky Peak, while Tashigi had begun questioning who she even was. A Marine lieutenant held captive aboard a pirate ship, or a pirate's loyal student who had once been a Marine lieutenant? At some undefined point, an answer that had once been obvious stopped feeling obvious at all.
Less than half a year had passed, yet Tashigi had long since developed a persistent sensation that her life as a Marine lieutenant had been very long ago, almost in a previous lifetime. Even addressing Vivi respectfully now took noticeable effort. As a Marine officer, she could not permit herself casual familiarity with a member of a royal family. Yet she had to force herself to say Vivi-sama instead of simply Vivi, and she had already slipped several times. The farther things went, the harder it became. She felt herself betraying her supposedly deceased captain more and more with each passing day. Calling Vivi 'Vivi-sama' was no longer so much a matter of following protocol as a reminder to Tashigi herself of her true status. She was not a former Marine lieutenant. She was an active Marine lieutenant. Remembering that, however, became more difficult every day. Meanwhile, she could easily imagine herself as a member of one very specific pirate family. Almost effortlessly. One did not need to be a genius to understand just how bad her situation had become. And that was without even mentioning her feelings toward a certain familiar green-haired swordsman. In place of her once-clear vision of the future, only impenetrable darkness now swirled.
Stopping beside the sleeping Zoro, Tashigi swallowed nervously. The young man's face lacked its usual frown, making him look noticeably younger than normal. She had never really thought about it before—there had always been more pressing matters—but now it suddenly occurred to her that she had no idea how old her unexpectedly acquired teacher actually was. Or did she? Some vague memories scratched at the edge of her mind without success. He looked around twenty-five, so Tashigi had always assumed Zoro was older than her. His virtuoso swordsmanship, strength, behavior, and the way he treated her like an older person dealing with someone younger all served as additional confirmation of his seniority. At least that was what the girl desperately wanted to believe, because otherwise she was not sure what would happen to her already badly battered pride. She had never considered herself a genius, but there had to be some reasonable limit.
Following her unexpected train of thought farther, Tashigi began considering the ages of all the other members of the Straw Hat family. After a little thought, she realized that the only age she could estimate with any confidence was Usopp's—somewhere between seventeen and twenty. Everyone else could equally well have been twenty or thirty. Devil Fruit powers and great personal strength could affect people's appearances in wildly unpredictable ways, making certainty difficult. Some people, Tashigi knew, looked no different at fifty than they had at twenty, while many Straw Hats behaved far older than they appeared. Luffy, in her opinion, could easily pass for a senile old man somehow trapped in a young body. Most importantly, that theory explained so much at once.
Lost in her thoughts, Tashigi missed the moment when sleeping Zoro's usual frown returned to his face and his eyes opened.
"Did you want something?" he naturally asked after seeing the girl standing beside his deck chair.
The most ordinary question produced unusually adorable consequences.
"Kyaa-a-a!!!"
Jumping sharply backward, Tashigi stared at Zoro with wide eyes, her heart pounding wildly and her face flushing bright red.
"What's wrong with you?" the young man asked, genuinely surprised by such an intense reaction.
The girl's face reddened even more, while her gaze darted around as though she hoped to find some convenient hole deep enough to hide in completely. Predictably, she found no such hole, but she did think of a way out.
"Vivi!" Tashigi blurted, like a drowning person grabbing at a straw. "I can't find Vivi!" she added, carefully avoiding Zoro's eyes.
She did not even remember that she was supposed to say 'Vivi-sama' right now.
"I sent Vivi to get Usopp," the young man replied as he rose to his feet.
"What?!!" the girl exclaimed involuntarily and immediately found herself meeting his intent stare.
She could not withstand that, so a second later she abruptly lowered her head and stared at her own feet.
"I sent Vivi to get Usopp," Zoro repeated, continuing to study the girl frozen before him.
"W-why?!" Tashigi asked without raising her head, stammering slightly. "It's dangerous!"
"Captain's orders."
"Oh!"
Indeed, 'oh'. What else was there to say? Despite all the months that had passed, Luffy remained the least comprehensible person on the ship to her. It was not that she was especially afraid of him—more that she prudently feared him—but he unquestionably made her nervous. She had absolutely no idea what to expect from him; there was a reason he reminded her of a young senile old man. Zoro himself was another useful criterion. Despite all the swordsman's incredible strength from Tashigi's point of view, he remained Luffy's subordinate. Tashigi would have to be a complete idiot not to treat a man like that with caution.
"Did you want to ask something else?"
"...Didn't Luffy-san order Vivi, Robin, and me to guard the Going Merry?"
Strictly speaking, the order had also involved guarding the sleeping swordsman, but that was beside the point.
"There's no longer any need to guard the Going Merry," Zoro replied, walking to the rail and placing his hands on it. "Almost every possible threat has already been destroyed."
For himself, the young man demonstrated a truly unprecedented level of tact by not saying that no threats had existed in the first place. With him aboard the ship, what threat could there possibly be? Unless Crocodile himself honored the Going Merry with his presence.
"Maybe I should help Vivi-sama?" No longer under the swordsman's direct stare, Tashigi immediately perked up and simultaneously remembered the correct form of address for royalty. "And why should the princess be participating in what's happening on the island at all? She's the sole heir to the King of Alabasta and will become queen someday. Her role is to give orders. Besides, she isn't strong or experienced enough to operate alone."
The girl's confident tone made it immediately obvious that she, too, had no doubt whatsoever about Crocodile's eventual defeat. His title as a Warlord no longer impressed her either. If he was not Mihawk, then who cared? Tashigi had spent almost five months among the Straw Hats. Almost five fucking months. No wonder she no longer knew what future awaited her.
"I've told you more than once that in this world, nothing matters except personal strength. Whether you're a king or an emperor, captain of your own armada or an ordinary wealthy merchant. Titles, ranks, money—nothing in this world can protect you the way your own strength can. Look at the King of Alabasta with his millions of subjects and hundreds of thousands of soldiers." Turning his head, Zoro looked into Tashigi's eyes again, but this time she did not hide her gaze. "Neither his title nor the number of his soldiers, none of it could protect him from Crocodile's plans. From the plans of one single pirate. At most, all of it helped him postpone the inevitable for a while. And if Vivi hadn't been lucky enough to interest Luffy, then by the end of this year a government-recognized pirate would be sitting on Alabasta's throne, and the people would worship him as a hero. As a savior or liberator from the terrible regime of their former king. Now imagine for just one second that Crocodile decided to take Alabasta while Luffy sat on the throne."
"..."
It was such a devastating example that Tashigi had no answer whatsoever. And that was despite understanding that she had only the faintest idea how dangerous Luffy truly was. She could only speculate, yet the speculation alone was enough to send goosebumps the size of Little Garden's dinosaurs running down her back.
"I'm not saying titles or a personal army are useless," Zoro added, shifting his gaze back toward the jungle. "No, they're useful. Extremely useful. But ultimately this world is arranged so that the final word always belongs to personal strength. The existence of the Warlords and the Yonko proves that perfectly."
If she thought about it, over the previous months Tashigi had already heard similar lessons more than once in one interpretation or another. And with every passing month, as her strength and experience increased, those lessons gained more weight. In the past she had tried to become stronger so she could perform her work better, never thinking of anything beyond that. Now Tashigi had begun to see her own strength as a tool capable of making the surrounding world better. The girl believed that at her current level, even if she could not completely eradicate piracy in East Blue the way the Straw Hats had already done, she could at least thin the population dramatically. And that was considering only her personal strength, separate from the resources of the Marines. With Marine support, her chances of repeating the Straw Hats' path increased by an order of magnitude. East Blue might be peaceful now, but plenty of places remained in the world where a strong hand of justice would be very welcome. Perhaps Tashigi's heightened sense of justice was the only thing in her that had remained unchanged over the previous months.
"So you want to make Vivi-sama stronger?" the girl asked, approaching Zoro and standing beside him. "So that in the future she can deal with every problem herself? I thought you started training her as rehabilitation after the operation and then continued... just because. Simply because you'd already started. Without any plans or special reason."
"If that were really true, Luffy wouldn't be giving her so much of his attention." Zoro glanced sideways at the girl and shook his head. "Though you're right about one thing. At first we really did start training her as rehabilitation, but not so much for her own sake as out of solidarity with Nami. Nami liked Vivi, and in our family we support one another. Once one of us truly cared about what happened to her, all the rest of us had left to do was take her under our protection. Somewhere after that, Luffy became genuinely interested in Vivi himself. I can say for certain that at some point an idea entered his head, and that's why he started taking our personal princess so seriously."
"Didn't he originally start protecting her because of the money and some agreements?" Tashigi asked, puzzled.
"You should've figured out long ago that Luffy's chatter almost never reflects the real state of affairs. With him, you always have to look at what he actually does, not what he says aloud. If you only listen to him, Vivi matters to him solely because he wants to shake money and trade agreements out of her father, and nothing beyond that interests him."
This was far from the first time Tashigi had heard about money and trade agreements. At first she had not even understood why a pirate would care about trade agreements at all, until she remembered that the Straw Hats were closely connected with an organization called 'Clear Sky'. Or rather, how closely? Some unknown person nicknamed 'Octopus' by government agents was considered its leader. And although the identity of 'Octopus' remained unknown to the government, Tashigi now knew with absolute certainty who had been hiding behind that codename all along. Trade agreements with the ruler of an entire country would certainly be useful to such a person. Assuming those agreements were truly his real objective.
"If you're saying I shouldn't listen to his chatter and should watch what he does instead, then the money and trade relations don't interest him?" Tashigi asked, resting her hands on the ship's rail just as Zoro had. "Am I understanding you correctly? Then what actions am I supposed to look at? He seems to do nothing except talk nonstop. What, then, is his real goal? And besides, didn't Vivi-sama say she's willing to pay any price herself but won't take a single berry from her people?"
"You misunderstood me slightly." Zoro shook his head again. "The money and trade relations do interest him, just not very much. He enjoys tormenting Vivi by constantly reminding her of the terms of the deal far more. Our family already has more than enough money, and we can increase it whenever we want, while trade relations are too boring a subject to interest him deeply. No, Luffy's goal is something completely different. Everything else is ordinary husk. Like I said, you only need to look at what he actually does, and then a lot becomes obvious."
"But he doesn't do anything," the bewildered Tashigi repeated again.
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