The Most Interesting Parts, Part 1
A lot can happen in six months.
The first day was the busiest, because of setting everything up to live in. Rosalina's ship had two spare rooms on it that could be used for anything, which Taki, Mariga, Alice and I all used up. One was bigger than the other, so I decided to take the smaller one for myself, especially since there would be more stuff in mine. At least, that's what I said to everyone else, I just wanted a room to myself. And while I was fine sharing the space in the hideout as we did, I did want my own room, more for personal security reasons, including the most important suitcase in the world being separated from the stack of cash cases, in the places I wanted rather than a collective agreement. I did have my own space now, but Mariga still came to sleep with me at night, saying she felt safer with me.
That first day did also include me wondering how Rosalina even moved the ship on her own, considering it was big enough to have a small crew to actually use it. But when I asked, she didn't change any facial emotion while saying "I have had to learn everything on my own, including how to steer ships no matter the size by myself." I could only tell something was off by observation, because I could emotionally tell she was nervous about answering.
I did have to keep an eye on her from then on, using observation when I couldn't see her. I became extremely paranoid about her having a connection to Big Mom, so I had to watch everything. EVERYTHING.
Rosalina did confide that she felt like she was being watched, with no idea from where, so that was one of the times I got nervous. Another time she got nervous was when she found the most important suitcase, and I had to re-hide it. It was definitely awkward to hear her say "So that is what it is. I understand now why you would not like me to see what is in there." She did smile mischievously, and before she continued teasing me, I shoved her out of the room and slammed the door. It was probably not the best thing to do, but it was done. That one was incredibly nerve wracking, especially since it did cause me to watch her even more.
I also learned more about Alice, and Rosalina as well, which was interesting. Alice, I figured out, was more straight forward, and was also rarely nervous about anything. She had a weird obsession with cats and rabbits, which I just chalked up to being a hobby of hers.
Rosalina on the other hand, was very.. peculiar. One moment, she would act calm and collected, and then the next she would change completely to acting like an insane person, writing on the walls of the ship, and then the next moment, she could be acting like nothing strange ever happened. I couldn't pinpoint why she acted that way, so I just set it as the way she is, even if it was affected by Big Mom.
When Taki first showed Rosalina her appearance, Rosalina was at first completely shocked, then she switched to completely interested, looking at everything and moving all of her limbs, like some weird new being. She then immediately stopped studying Taki and acted as if she was never interested in Taki at all. That was the first experience, and many more happened during the time spent watching her.
Of course, it all didn't happen in one day. Over the months of traveling, we still went bounty hunting, and I was very safe about showing what I was capable of, since my paranoia was still there. I mostly used sword attacks, since learning how to finesse Surya to cut, rather than use brute force to cut, was a longer process than originally thought.
Most of my sword attacks used brute force to work, since I just used a combination of the two six powers abilities I had used, Soru and Geppo, along with my physical strength, which only added more. Only when I didn't use brute force and just used a normal amount alongside observation, did I finesse a perfect cut, which then caused the pirate crew I was fighting against to all get blown away and defeated in one hit.
Alongside the bounty hunting and my training; which did surprise Rosalina a bit the first time she saw me training which I was okay with, making it seem as if I only did physical training for swordsmanship; we went back and forth from getting bounties on random islands with marine bases on them, and bringing ships to Logue Town, which helped with my plan.
Out of all of the pirates with bounties we fought, there was one that stood out the most. 'The Claw' Tandkyo.
When we first found him, I was surprised that he had one of the higher bounties this soon after the death of Roger,and without hesitation, decided to take him and his crew on by myself. It was no mistake to have started a fight with him in the first place, but it was very interesting. I did have one question in mind though, since I only paid attention to the name: 'Why was he named that?'
The answer to that was, while he did look like some typical pirate, surprisingly looking like a thin Blackbeard when he was first introduced, he was missing his right hand. Well, more like he 'was' missing his right hand, because it was replaced with a big, mechanical hand, with claws replacing the fingers, each sharpened by what I assumed to be a great swordsmith, able to rip apart a small ship into 'unsalvagable' in only a couple minutes.
His reaction time was surprisingly fast, because when I was done with taking care of his crew, I went in to take him down with one swing of Surya, but he blocked it. The difficulty he had with blocking was obvious, but he still blocked a swing from Surya, only moving one of his feet to stabilize himself and push back. Sparks flew as both Surya and his claws met, until we both pushed each other back.
After being pushed back, I had repositioned Surya in my hand while saying "So, someone who actually has the ability to fight back. I wonder if I can grow stronger while fighting you." I smirked and knew that it didn't really help if I fought to grow stronger, since I did have a routine, that would need upgraded sooner or later.
In his powerfully low voice, he said "You will be next to go down on my journey, bounty hunter. Since you did take down my crew, hurting all of them." His smirk at the end did make me shiver, which wouldn't happen with just anyone.
So, using observation, I found that he was giving off waves of energy, and it wasn't from a devil fruit.
'Is this Conquerers Haki? In the East Blue? Is it a subconscious thing that's causing it to leak out a little? Because I doubt he can just use it, so it must be some very subconscious thing that happens because of charisma or something. That smirk didn't give off good vibes. I don't know what it could be, but now I have more incentive to actually take him down, rather than just money and his ship.'
He attacked first, throwing his claw fist towards me, which I blocked with Surya, and stopped his momentum almost instantly.
A little bit of wind did come from the attack meeting and stopping, which caused Tandkyo to express a bit of surprise, before fully going back to his previous expression of wanting some revenge while still being happy about fighting against a good opponent.
Over the next few seconds, we both swung a couple times, not moving, trying to gain any ground and failing. I had decided to only use finesse to attack which was a fairly new ability at the time, so I was really on his level with that.
He kept swinging his fist, going for heavy attacks only to find himself not hitting any attacks and just getting blocked. His expression changed to that of a bit more anger, surprised he couldn't actually get a hit in.
"AGH! WHY CANT I HIT YOU? I'VE PUT ALL THE FORCE I CAN INTO ATTACKING, AND YET ALL I CAN DO IS WAIT FOR MY ATTACK TO BE BLOCKED! WHAT ARE YOU ABLE TO DO TO CAUSE ME TO NOT HIT YOU?"
He did yell that at me, while still not being that par away. I decided to taunt him a bit, and smirked while looking at him.
"Oh, I'm sorry. I've only just learned how to use less brute force while swinging a sword to get the same effect as brute forcing it. I would defeat you quicker, but I can only do it so fast."