Tashigi's case was more complicated still.
If she had lived the life of an ordinary girl dreaming of her own home, a good high-paying job, a loving husband, and children, then no advantage gained from the Straw Hats' influence could possibly compensate for a life completely destroyed. But Tashigi served in the Marines and had never dreamed primarily of a loving husband and children. She dreamed of the path of the sword, of reaching the summit of this world. A destroyed life was a perfectly normal price for an opportunity to turn such a dream into reality. As so often happened, Luffy's jokes contained only a small fraction of joking. Tashigi no longer existed. At least the Tashigi Smoker knew no longer did. She would never be the same again. More importantly, as already stated, the process of change still continued and was supposed to culminate precisely at the moment of their inevitable meeting. More accurately, that meeting would end the first stage of the changes, although the largest one. Then the second stage would begin. Where that would lead could only be guessed.
Zoro had neither lied nor exaggerated when he told Tashigi that corpses and blood would likely make up less than half the price of reaching the summit of the world. He simply had not told her that she was already paying the second half. The changes occurring within her were the price. At the level she sought, physical strength and swordsmanship alone were insufficient. Her mentality and psychological resilience played an even more important role—the resilience required to withstand any blow Fate delivered without blinking. Only then would she have a chance to become truly strong. And that was exactly what so-called Luffification aimed to create. Or rather, by now it was full-scale Hatification, because every member of the family participated in the process.
Jokes aside, interacting with Luffy, and now the rest of the family, provided unprecedented psychological tempering. They were utterly merciless toward one another and therefore treated outsiders accordingly. Any weakness was immediately dragged into the light and exploited until no trace of it remained. Various psychological games were daily routine, while periodically annihilating one another morally served as a pleasant bonus. A new person entering such an environment had only three paths: change, die, or change everyone else. For some reason nobody wanted to die, while the chance of changing the insane family approached zero infinitely closely. That left everyone no choice but to begin changing themselves. The worst part for such people was that their relationships with the Straw Hats became the foundation for those changes. Which meant they could never truly free themselves from the mad family's influence, even after reaching the very summit of the world. Tashigi was no exception. And for exactly that reason, in her particular case the price had become excessively high and threatened to reach astronomical levels in the future.
In a deal with the Devil, the Devil always receives the greatest profit. It is considered great luck if the contractor still receives the promised reward after paying the price. Tashigi was simply unlucky. Formally she had received an enormous reward, but in reality she herself had come to belong to the Devil. Accordingly, having lost nothing, he had only gained, while the girl had lost absolutely everything. Naturally, much more time would need to pass before she understood all of that fully. For now, she comprehended only a small portion of what had been done to her.
"Tashigi-chan?! Why are you—"
Sanji's legs had long been aching mercilessly, and he could barely wait for the end of this idiotic endurance battle, so the girl's appearance beside him came as a complete surprise. Until that moment, he had not noticed either her or Zoro at all, which described his current condition better than words could.
"Kiri Shigure!"
The strike that had effortlessly cut through an entire mountain of wax as hard as iron worked on Daz Bones as well. A bloody line stretched from his right shoulder to his left hip, blood erupted in a fountain, and Sanji's defeated opponent collapsed flat onto the ground. Returning her katana to its sheath, Tashigi bowed slightly to the blond man and then returned to Zoro.
"Now all that's left is for you to help Johnny deal with the remnants of Baroque Works," Zoro said. "I don't think my help is needed anymore, and you can find the way to him yourself," he added, looking to his right.
The girl shifted her gaze toward the wall of fire blazing only a kilometer from their position.
"A trial by metal, blood, and now corpses?" Tashigi asked.
"That's for you to decide." Zoro turned away from the fiery glow and looked at the girl beside him. "But if you decide to refuse, there's no point in me training you any further. Maybe there's a path to the summit of this world that doesn't require leaving mountains of corpses behind, but I don't know it. I can only teach you the path I'm walking myself. And you don't have to follow me at all. It's entirely possible you'll find another path, one unlike mine."
He had no intention of saying anything more. Today he had already broken every previous personal record for talking. Tashigi had to make the final decision herself. And she did not need much time. Zoro's back had not yet disappeared from view as he headed toward the Going Merry when the girl took a confident step toward the wall of fire burning on the horizon. Four months was simply too long. In the past, when there had only been Luffy, that amount of time had barely been enough to initiate the process of change. Now that the entire family helped him, its effectiveness had increased severalfold. That was exactly why Tashigi walked forward with confident steps despite fully understanding what awaited her shortly. She had come too far to retreat now.
"Oh, shit..."
Left alone near Daz Bones' unconscious body, Sanji pulled a pack of cigarettes from his pocket. Lighting one and taking a drag, he tilted his head back and stared at the already darkening sky. Night was approaching rapidly, making Johnny's enormous fire especially visible. The blond man's wandering gaze involuntarily settled on his defeated opponent. His opponent, defeated by somebody else. Sanji had not managed to finish what he started. He had not managed to win.
"Oh, shit..."
Finishing the cigarette, Sanji flicked it toward Daz Bones. He no longer had any desire to continue fighting. And frankly, his legs hurt far too much. Pulling out and lighting another cigarette, the young man headed back toward the Going Merry. Unlike Zoro, however, he went in an entirely different direction.
"Wa-ha-ha-ha!!!"
While Yosaku raced around the entire island with eyes red from rage, hoping to stumble upon Mr. Three and venting on other agents and dinosaurs along the way, and while Sanji smoked cigarette after cigarette on his journey toward the Going Merry, Johnny was having the time of his life. His initial failure had been forgotten rather quickly. He had not died, and he had taken revenge on his enemies, right? Then everything was fine. The important thing was making sure it never happened again. And, of course, eliminating every witness to his humiliation. He had been occupied with eliminating those witnesses for quite a while now.
"Don't like it, bastards?!" he roared in a voice that penetrated to the bone and rattled the liver, a consequence of his vocal cords changing under his Devil Fruit power. "Now you'll know better than to go against our family! Soon everyone will know what a terrible idea it is to go against our family! The entire world will know! Die, you fuckers!!!"
The words and threats had already become standard in Johnny's mouth. As usually happened with him, transformation placed enormous pressure on his mind, so by now the young man had completely cut loose. The huge, tailed, scaled demon raced like a fiery comet through the terrified ranks—or by now perhaps little groups would be more accurate—of Baroque Works agents, generously scattering death, fire, and destruction around him. At the same time he never shut up for even a second, constantly commenting on everything he did and everything his enemies did, while swearing and threatening without pause. In response, some tried to fight him while others tried to flee, and strangely enough, in both cases a few even succeeded. The world was insane enough that another 'impossible' happened regularly. Especially on the Grand Line, the most insane place on the planet.
"I thought nobody except Zoro-aniki and Luffy-aniki could do that! Interesting, interesting! Exactly what I'd expect from the Grand Line! Your group of clinical idiots has already surpassed my wildest expectations! Fighting you isn't quite as embarrassing anymore! And killing you has become much more interesting!"
Johnny's bloody bacchanalia was interrupted in the strangest possible way: some swordsman simply cut all his fire apart. Until now, only Zoro and Luffy had performed that 'trick' in front of him, and even they had learned it relatively recently. At some point, fire had become predominant in Johnny's attacks, forcing everyone else to find effective countermeasures. Sanji began breaking the attacks with his own flaming leg, Yosaku regenerated faster than he burned, while Zoro and Luffy initially relied on Armament Haki but later learned to cut apart every flame Johnny created. It was not something beyond all reason; one could expect that kind of thing from those two monsters. The problem was that until today, they had remained the only people Johnny knew who could perform the trick.
The theory had proved wrong.
Previously, Johnny had attributed the ability to cut fire to the incredible strength possessed by the monstrous pair. Now some 'pathetic nobody' had managed to repeat the same trick. Another phrase of Luffy's. Despite the interesting technique, Johnny felt not the slightest threat from his opponent. Nor any particularly significant strength at all. It became obvious that cutting fire was a skill not especially dependent on raw power. Again, nothing particularly surprising. The ability to cut iron was also only weakly connected to a swordsman's physical strength. If raw power were all that mattered, Yosaku would have been slicing enemy ships into pieces long ago, yet he still could not cut even a small iron bar. Tashigi, meanwhile, had handled that easily for quite some time, and her relative lack of physical strength had not interfered at all. Naturally, she lacked physical strength only in the men's opinion.
"If you can cut fire, why the hell didn't you do that from the beginning?!!"
Instead of words of gratitude for saving their lives, the distinguished opponent was immediately showered with accusations from the other agents. And one could hardly say they were unjustified. Really, why?
"I didn't know I could do it either!" the frightened culprit immediately confessed.
The speaker's voice sounded young and slightly hysterical, but its owner actually looked around forty and resembled an oversized gorilla far more than a human. The ordinary-sized katana in his hands looked no larger than a kitchen knife.
"You mean you learned that trick right now?" Johnny was probably more surprised than anyone present.
"Yes... and now I'm not afraid of your fire anymore!" The hysterical notes vanished abruptly from the man's voice, while he straightened to his full height and spread his shoulders broadly, becoming considerably more imposing.
Johnny's opponent unexpectedly gained confidence. Confidence that was poorly justified and far too premature. Even assuming he genuinely no longer needed to fear fire attacks, the question of ordinary punches and claws remained. Those attacks killed just as reliably and were in no way inferior to flame. Besides, after Johnny eliminated every numbered agent, nobody else had managed to wound him, while he himself had already killed several thousand people. Where had this confidence come from?
"I don't think I've ever had an opponent get stronger right in the middle of fighting me!" Johnny's fiery eyes narrowed into two burning slits, while his fanged mouth stretched into a wide smile that made his demonic face even more frightening.
It was easy to guess that the enemy's new ability did not worry Johnny in the slightest. Quite the opposite: the development delighted and amused him. Wasn't the privilege of improving directly in the middle of battle supposed to belong to the protagonists of various stories? He was infinitely far from being a bookworm, but under the influence of Luffy and Nami, both avid readers, reading had long since become one of the family's primary forms of leisure, especially during long voyages. That was why Johnny could immediately remember a dozen fictional heroes who became stronger during battle and acquired new abilities along the way. Wasn't it cool to meet someone like that in real life? Yet another inheritance from Luffy. The effect of his corrupting influence, to be precise. He too would have called such a development 'cool'.
"From this second onward, I'm calling you the Main Character!" Johnny declared happily, pointing a clawed finger at the agent.
The young man was ecstatic. The ecstasy lasted exactly two seconds.
"Ghah!" came the reply.
============================================================
Please Write a review/comments and support with power stones. Also check my other works.
Also if you want to support me, or access to some additional chapters, then check the patre on.com/moctopus