Practically speaking, that meant doing dozens of chores while Revolutionaries showed her the ropes. Literally. Kuina spent much of her time cleaning what needed to be cleaned, hauling what needed to be hauled, and mending what needed to be mended while learning the basics of sailcraft. Darareaksmey in particular seemed to take great delight in mocking Kuina’s ignorance, which according to the other crew meant she liked her.

The work was a welcome distraction, reminding Kuina of the menial chores she used to do around the dojo before she was old enough to learn the sword. And more importantly, the people around her liked to talk. The Revolution never openly discussed their plans when she was around, but Kuina was such a silent fixture that they seemed to forget when she was in the background swabbing the deck, or washing dishes, or whatever other odd job she’d been assigned at that moment.

What she learned was illuminating. Belo Betty wasn’t just some Revolutionary nobody—she was in command of the entire East Blue. The ship Kuina was currently on was hers, Dragon somehow able to manage travel by himself from the Grand Line for a mission of strategic importance.

Aria de Gris was another leader, but of only a single ship that had been damaged in the previous battle. She and a portion of her crew had joined with Betty to see Dragon back to the Grand Line and talk strategy. Dragon had never planned to return with them to the battlefield, his departure interrupted by Kuina’s sudden appearance.

It was childish, but Kuina bitterly wished he would have just taken her with her. She could feel Zoro’s lead stretching by the second, and the thought of falling even further behind made her want to pull her hair out.

The Army wasn’t even going to let her fight.

“Better,” Dara said as she inspected the rope she’d given for Kuina to practice her sailor’s knots. “This one almost looks like it’d hold together during an East Blue squall.”

If she was nervous about their nearing destination, she didn’t show it. With quick, nimble fingers she undid Kuina’s handiwork and returned the rope. “Now do it faster.”

Kuina grudgingly did as she was told. The noonday sun beat down overhead, cooled by a delicious sea breeze. After three days Kuina was almost used to the sway of the ship, but didn’t think she could ever feel comfortable surrounded by so many people crammed in such a small space. “I don’t know why you bother. I’ll be gone in a few days.” Kuina said.

“Pfft, you wouldn’t last a week on the Grand Line in your state,” Dara said. “You’re lucky you’re a quick study—it took Lizard three times as long to get half as good as you are now.”

“I can hear you,” Elizabeth said irritably as she passed out rations to Kuina and the women minding her. The galley had been made into a makeshift war room debating last-minute preparations for landing later that day, with Lyudmila given strict instructions to shoot Kuina if she went within twenty feet of its doors.

“I know,” Dara said breezily. “That’s why I said it.”

Elizabeth made a rude gesture that only made Dara laugh. Scowling, Elizabeth asked, “What are you even doing out here? Shouldn’t you be in the meeting? It sounded important.”

“Boss knows I don’t have the patience for that kind of stuff,” Dara said. “She’ll let me know what I need to know. This is much more amusing.” She turned her attention to Kuina. “Watch out, you’re tying it backwards again.”

Kuina gave it another attempt. “Where are we even going?”

Elizabeth and Dara exchanged looks before turning to Lyudmila, awaiting her judgement. Kuina held her breath, giving up on even the pretext of industry. Of everything she’d overheard, no one had breathed a word of their ultimate destination, let alone any details about the supposed war that was being waged there. The veritable brick wall only whetted Kuina’s curiosity.

Sometimes she regretted not reading the paper.

“You can’t keep it from me forever,” Kuina pointed out. “Is it Tolouse?”

Elizabeth let out a huff and turned away, giving a sarcastic wave as she walked back to the galley. “I’m not getting into trouble for this.”

“Coward!” Dara called before grinning at Kuina. “How’d you figure it out?”

“Been headed dead east for three days. There aren’t that many islands it could be,” Kuina said. She shrugged, picking at the ropes. “Besides, you hear a lot of interesting things from the pirates who come from that way. The king doesn’t seem all that popular—easy to stir up trouble there.”

“You’re half-right,” Dara said.

“Dara…” Lyudmila said in a warning tone.

“Fine, fine,” she said, flopping dramatically on her back, hands tucked behind her head. “The big fight’s over anyway. This is just a pitstop.”

“To switch ships?” Kuina said, glancing at Lyudmila. As always, it was difficult to guess what she was thinking, but she made no further effort to censure their conversation.

“And gather the rest of our crew, yeah,” Dara said. “Then we’re getting the hell out of this backwater and going back to where we belong. East Blue is bor-ing. Don’t know why Boss was so interested in coming, to be honest.”

There was a pause, and Dara turned over to her stomach, propping her head up on her hands. Her eyes flickered to Lyudmila, who shook her head slightly. She sighed. “Haven’t had a decent fight in weeks.”

“You just came from a war,” Kuina said, nonplussed.

“An East Blue war,” Dara corrected. “And thus one that was very boring. Everyone knows East Blue isn’t worth anything in a fight.”

Kuina smirked. “Maybe you haven’t been fighting the right people.”

The glint in Dara’s eyes turned wicked. “Sweetheart, I like you. In fact, I think you’re hilarious. But you underestimate the strength of the Grand Line, and it’s going to get you killed if you’re not careful.”

“Maybe, but all I’ve heard is a lot of talk without anything to back it up,” Kuina said.

“That’s bait,” Dara said, grinning, “and I’ll not bite—Oh hello there, Boss. How’s tricks?”

Kuina didn’t jump, but her hand did move instinctively to her katana as de Gris exited the galley, breaking away from a cluster of Revolutionaries exiting the war room to approach them. She acknowledged Dara’s greeting with a nod. “The situation’s changed.”

Lyudmila went very still, while Dara and Kuina exchanged confused looks. “How do you mean, Boss?” Dara asked.

“Reinforcements arrived before the Revolution could completely secure their defenses. They punched a hole through our line and recaptured the armory, jammed communications, the works. We’re lucky Trini was able to get a message through at all. It sounds like the situation’s hot and not in our favor.”

“What?!” Dara exclaimed. “We had the city completely taken! Their king was in chains.”

“Not anymore,” de Gris said.

Dara jumped to her feet. “What about the rest of the crew?”

“As far as I know they’re fine, but we’re going to need all hands on deck if we’re going to scrape out a win.” She looked down at Kuina, the scar running down her cheek pulling her mouth into an unhappy grimace. “Alright, Swordsman. Time for you to put your money where your mouth is.”

Far above them, the Revolutionary flag snapped proudly in the wind. Eyes narrowed with suspicion, Kuina tried to discern the older woman’s intentions. “You’re going to let me fight?”

“I need to make sure you’re good enough to not die. Big difference.” With a whisper of steel, de Gris unsheathed her sword. “Prove to me there’s some bite behind all that bark.”

Beside her, Dara paled. “Boss, you can’t be serious…”

“It’s just a skill check. I need to know what level she’s at, and this is the easiest way to do it.”

They didn’t think she could win. Kuina threw the rope she’d been working on aside and climbed to her feet. Bowing slightly to de Gris, she said, “I’m honored to accept your challenge.”

“What are you, some kind of samurai?” de Gris paused to fish out a cigarette, putting it to her lips and lighting it one-handed. “You have till I finish this to show—”

In a flash her blade was up to meet Kuina’s. Even holding it one-handed, de Gris was able to effortlessly stop the full weight of Kuina’s blow. Dara and Lyudmila scattered as a cat’s grin stretched across de Gris’ face, smoke curling from the end of her cigarette. “Not bad, not bad at all. And here I thought you were nothing but dojo trash.”

She pushed Kuina back, and for a moment the two circled one another, each trying to get a measure of their opponent. Kuina was vaguely aware that they had attracted the attention of the rest of the Revolution, and saw Lyudmila whispering fiercely in the ear of Belo Betty.

“Eyes on me, kid!” de Gris shouted before exploding in a flurry of strikes. Her movements were unlike anything Kuina had ever seen. With impossible quickness she closed the distance between them. Her footwork, the angles she used to attack, were all new and unfamiliar. Kuina, used to fighting against sabers and katanas, was quickly driven to the defensive, each reaction a heartbeat too slow to do anything else as she tried to process the foreign fighting style.

De Gris moved with liquid grace, reminding Kuina more of a dancer than a swordsman as she fought. Each step was economical and precise, her blade flashing from every angle, seemingly simultaneously. Kuina was forced to take a step back, then another, but was quickly running out of room to retreat.

But even as she was being driven back, Kuina began to sense the pattern in her steps, the method to her mad dance. The rapier a piercing weapon. It depended on thrusts and parries over slashing attacks. The blade didn’t have the mass to manage a single, crushing blow, relying instead on speed and precision.

Well then. It was time to disrupt de Gris’ timing.

Kuina feinted a forward thrust, and in the half-second it took de Gris to defend jumped backward onto the ship’s railing. A ripple of surprise rose through the crowd as she ran across the iron rails until she reached the middle of the ship, leaping toward the boom of the foremast.

“Very impressive, if you’re a monkey,” de Gris called. “But I thought you were going to fight—”

But Kuina didn’t stop. She caught an unsecured line and used her momentum to swing behind de Gris, aiming an attack at her exposed back. As expected, de Gris was able to evade with ease, and the bones in Kuina’s arms jolted with the force of her blade cutting through the deck before somersaulting back to her feet.

“You don’t like giving people time to talk, do you,” de Gris said. “And you do realize we have to actually sail on this ship, right?”

“Send me a bill,” Kuina said, grinning wildly. She pulled her sword from the wood in time to deflect de Gris’ rapier, melting from defense to offense as she tried to use their reversed positions to force de Gris into the same limited space she had just escaped from.

It was damnably difficult. De Gris wasn’t the strongest opponent Kuina had faced, but she was the most technically proficient. It had been years since Kuina had needed this level of focus in a fight, and she could feel the rust in her movements.

Without even realizing it, she’d let herself grow complacent, and de Gris was exposing that weakness now.

All the more reason to get to the Grand Line as soon as possible. The East Blue had nothing more to offer her. On the world stage it was nothing, which meant she was nothing...

Blood roared in Kuina’s ears as she failed to get anywhere near de Gris. Kuina took greater risks, forced her body to move all the faster to match her opponent’s feline grace. De Gris’s thin, weightless blade was no match to Shimotsuki steel, and Kuina put the full weight of her rage behind each attack.

Somewhere in the back of her mind she registered a flicker of surprise in de Gris’s eyes a moment before Kuina’s blade clashed against her own. With a quick flick of the wrist Kuina batted it aside, just as de Gris had done at the start of her fight, using her own momentum against her to gain inside position.

Kuina attacked without thinking, and she was lucky de Gris was as fast as she was. Her blade passed by the tip of her nose by a hairbreadth, slicing what was left of her cigarette down to the pale orange filter.

The silence couldn’t have lasted for more than a moment, but it felt like it captured an eternity. De Gris’s eyes followed the path of the still-burning cigarette now rolling down at their feet. She sighed, sheathing her sword and said, almost to herself, “Is that all?”

“What do you mean?” Kuina demanded. “Clearly I—”

“You had until the cigarette was gone to show what you were made of. Well, time’s up. This fight is over.”

“You’re just scared because I was winning,” Kuina said.

The words struck a nerve. A muscle in de Gris’s jaw twitched and her nostrils flared slightly as the air around her shifted, circling like the winds of a hurricane with de Gris as its malevolent eye. Kuina shifted back into a defensive stance, keeping half an eye on Belo Betty. The Revolutionary commander had her arms crossed over her chest, flag nowhere in sight.

“You really thought you had a chance,’ de Gris said. “You couldn’t feel the distance between us.” She shook her head in disgust. “And you call yourself a swordsman.”

She reached for another cigarette, paused to take a deep drag. When she finally looked at Kuina, she saw nothing but contempt.

“Hit me with your best shot, kid,” Aria de Gris said, raising her sword in languid challenge. “I’ll show you how much you have yet to learn.”

Kuina’s grip on her sword tightened. The blood boiling in her veins had calmed enough for her to realize she’d said a very stupid thing when surrounded by a ship full of enemies who likely wanted to kill her, but she wasn’t afraid of de Gris or her sword, and her pride refused to back down from such a grievous insult.

This was her chance to prove herself to these people.

Kuina took a deep breath, steadied her racing heart. She could feel the power around de Gris. The older woman was settled, like a table with a low center of gravity. She wouldn’t be easily overturned, but Kuina was confident. She was ready. She had trained her whole life for this moment, for the chance to be acknowledged as a skilled swordsman and not just a little girl playing with a blade

Her father once said that a true warrior wielded the blade of ten thousand men. Maybe she wasn’t there yet, but she was worth more than this one.

Kuina lifted her katana above her head, ready to end this in one strike. “Thousand man—”

De Gris was inside her guard before she could finish speaking.

Kuina moved on instinct, but de Gris batted her sword aside as if it were an inconvenient fly. With her free hand she reached inside the long coat hanging from her shoulders. In one fluid moment she pulled out a gun, cocked it, and pushed the cold metal barrel under Kuina’s chin.

It was horror in slow motion. Kuina flung herself back just as de Gris shouted, “Dara, now!”

An unseen force plowed into the back of Kuina’s knees. She crumpled face-first into the deck, white light flashing across her vision as her forehead cracked against the wood. Attempts to roll away were stopped by a pressure against the wrist of her sword hand and a vice-like grip around her ankles.

Kuina looked up to see Aria de Gris’s foot on her wrist and her gun between her eyes. Twisting frantically, Kuina couldn’t help but let out a yelp of alarm that Darareaksmey’s arms, head, and torso had her legs pinned firmly to the ground, the rest of her body seemingly melded with the deck.

“What the hell?!” Kuina exclaimed. “This was a duel! You...you cheated!”

“It was a skill check,” de Gris said flatly. “Do you think people in a war are going to line up for you all nice and neat, one at a time? Do you think they’re going to play by some arbitrary rules?”

She lowered her gun and sheathed her sword. “I’ve no use for a soldier with more ego than common sense. I don’t care how big a hot-shot you were in your little backwater dojo. In the real world, you aren’t worth shit.”

Xxx

“You know, you don’t have anything to be ashamed of. I’ve not seen anyone do that well against the boss in, well, a long time.”

“Please stop talking, I am begging you.”

Kuina ground the heels of her palms against her forehead, hoping to counterbalance the terrible pounding currently beating against the inside of her skull. She’d suffered from headaches on and off since being pushed down the stairs of her father’s dojo, and falling face-first into the deck had triggered a monster between her temples.

Dara was undeterred. “I wondered why Dragon wanted you so bad, but I can definitely see it.”

The island of Toulouse was a tiny speck on the horizon. With a favorable wind at their back, they’d soon arrive at the near-hopeless battle. Kuina didn’t know what was going to happen to her once they did, and worse, she didn’t care.

With the change in situation, Lyudmila had been relieved of babysitting duty in favor of joining the rest of the ship’s leadership in their makeshift war room. The mood of the Revolution had shifted, men and women moving with increased urgency as they sharpened weapons, prepared guns, and tried to coax every bit of speed from the brigantine, their faces drawn in grim, serious lines. Every once in a while a bark of nervous laughter would punctuate the air like cannonshot, but it was quickly hushed. Everyone knew that the situation was dire.

Dara, whose disregard for meetings extended even when the Revolution was on the verge of defeat, had taken over Kuina-watching duty. But even her enthusiasm had its limits, and every few minutes she would look out at the approaching island, squint as if she were trying to suss out the enemy position on that tiny black speck, her knee bouncing with nervous energy.

“Wonder what Boss will have you do,” she said absentmindedly.

“Probably nothing,” Kuina said. “You heard her: She’s got no use for me.”

Dara snorted. “Oh, please. Compared to the trouble I got myself into when I first joined, that was nothing. It’s an, ah...learning process. Being part of a group, I mean.”

That wasn’t very reassuring, but Kuina had no desire to argue. “What the hell was that trick you did, anyway? I never saw you coming.”

“Oh, my devil fruit?” Dara said, eyes brightening. She raised an arm, and in the time it took Kuina to blink, the space from her hand to her elbow went paper thin. The change was so sudden, so utterly bizarre, that Kuina couldn’t help but recoil away from it. Dara laughed, and just as quickly put her arm back to rights again.

“Flat Flat Fruit,” she explained. “Not much good for fighting, but sneaking around? Easy-breezy.”

“Just how many devil fruit users are on this ship?” Kuina asked.

“Right now? I don’t know everyone on Betty’s crew, but I think it’s just three. Once we hook up the rest of the crew there’ll be a couple more to show you.” Another squinting look at the horizon, more bouncing of her knee.

There was a comfortable lull in the conversation while Kuina massaged her aching head. A gull screeched overhead, making at least one Revolutionary jump. The moment quickly passed, and Dara slapped her palms against her thighs. “Well, I need to get ready. You just brought that backpack with you, right? You don’t have any armor or anything to put on, just in case?”

Just her mask. Kuina lugged herself to her feet and followed Dara belowdecks. For the first time, no one was paying attention to her, the Revolutionaries too busy with their own preparations. Kuina was glad to be invisible once more. Despite Dara’s reassurances, shame coiled around her belly, constricting like a snake squeezing the life out of its latest meal. It was impossible to walk with her head held high after her disgraceful performance. De Gris’s voice echoed in her mind, conflating with the voice of countless others she’d heard since childhood. The scar that drug across her chest pulsed with her head, bringing to the forefront the weakness she thought she’d long ago left behind.

You aren’t worth shit.

The words were short, concise, and painfully blunt, but they were also the truth. And for that, she had no one to blame but herself.

They passed by Elizabeth’s little workshop on the way to their quarters. When she saw the door was open, Dara paused to poke her head inside. The assistant cook was deep at work dividing what appeared to be dozens of firecrackers into different piles.

“Hey Lizard, got any goodies for me?” Dara asked.

Elizabeth didn’t look up from the task in front of her. “On the back shelf.”

Dara clasped her hands in front of her gave Elizabeth a tiny, mocking bow that was returned with a raised middle finger.

“Gracious as always,” Dara said once she returned to Kuina’s side. “C’mon, we’re wasting daylight.”

“Is she…?”

“Our munitions expert?” Dara said. “Yes. Yes she is.” She hugged a little baggie close to her chest like it was a lover. “Her food might be garbage, but I’m pretty sure that’s because she’s testing some new long-acting poison without telling anyone.”

“I can still hear you!”

“Seems like an odd mix of jobs,” Kuina said.

Dara shrugged. “Cooking, catastrophic explosions...it’s all chemistry, really. Lizard here just happens to be better at one form more than the other. Isn’t that right, Lizard?”

Elizabeth had stormed to the doorway while she was speaking. She hardly came up to Dara’s shoulder, but she carried herself with the same energy of a lady’s lap dog that thought itself a wolf. “Go. Away. And stop blabbing to the stowaway. She’s not on our side.”

Dara’s grin showed entirely too many teeth. “Wanna bet?”

“I’m not a stowaway,” Kuina said at the same time. There was a pause as what Dara said sunk in, and both she and Elizabeth looked up at her with disbelief.

“You’re crazy,” Elizabeth said. “A hundred berries says she bails at the first opportunity.”

“I’ll put down five that she stays.”

“Your loss,” Elizabeth said, and she slammed the door in their face.

Dara looked for a moment like she wanted to shout something through the door but thought better of it. She put her little baggie into her pocket and said, “You better not run on me. I don’t actually have five hundred berries.”

“It was a stupid bet,” Kuina said. “I’m not joining the Revolution.”

“Maybe, maybe not. But I saw how pissed you were when the boss pulled that gun on you. You’re not going to be happy till you beat her in a fair fight, no matter how long it takes.”