"Ruby," Ruby woke to the shake of her shoulder, Zoro standing over her, "We're gonna land soon. Come on.
Ruby stood up, feeling her bones creek as she did and looking out over Loguetown. For something renowned with a title such as "The Town of the Beginning and End", it was deceptively simple, grey buildings stretched across the entire island.
"Alright," Nami said as they pulled into port and dropped the anchor, pulling out several purses, "this is your allowance for when we're in Loguetown. It's enough for you to buy essentials. And I want to stress that, essentials. Zoro, swords, not booze. Sanji, provisions, not girls. Usopp, ammunition, not trinkets. If it isn't essential to us surviving the Grand Line, we don't need it. Am I understood?"
"Yeah, yeah," Zoro said, taking his purse, "I got it."
"Of course, my dear," Sanji said.
"Right," Usopp said.
"Ruby," Nami saif, "I'm trusting you with the biggest allowance because I need you to pick up some extra equipment for the Merry. A portable forge, charcoal, tools, things like that, on top of whatever you need for your scythe."
"Crescent Rose," Ruby said.
"Crescent Rose," Nami said, "if everything goes well, we'll meet back at the Merry in a day or so."
"Aren't I the captain?" Luffy said, clearly joking.
"Do you know what we need to survive in the Grand Line?" Nami asked.
"Nope!"
"Then trust me on this. Oh, and another thing. Ruby, Luffy, try to keep your heads down. You're wanted criminals now, and while I'm sure Loguetown is no stranger to those, that doesn't change the fact that this is where they executed Gold Roger. They won't hesitate to execute you."
Not like Ruby wouldn't deserve it, if the Bounty Poster was true.
"Ussop should probably pick up a close combat weapon, even if it's just a dagger," Ruby threw out, "it's not safe to only have a long range weapon.L
"Good point," Zoro said, "You want to come with me, Usopp?"
"I don't need a close combat weapon," Usopp denied.
"Your funeral," Ruby and Zoro said as one.
—
Zoro stepped into the weapon shop with a purse holding 20,000 berris, eyes roaming the swords on the walls. Arming swords, broadswords, dao, and, of course, katanas. Perfect.
"I'm looking for some katanas," he said to the man behind the counter.
"How much do you have to spend?"
"Twenty thousand," Zoro said.
The red nosed man nodded, eyes lighting up, "I can get you a well made katana for that price, I-"
"I need two," Zoro said.
"Two? But you already have one?" The man said.
"Never hurts to have a spare, does it?" Zoro lied lightly. He was associated with a Pirate crew now, if people knew Roronoa Zoro was in Loguetown, it wasn't too much of a stretch to assume Luffy and Ruby were in town.
Behind him, an energy seemed to rise up, drawing Zoro's attention to a bin of shoddily made swords. Behind him, the door swung open, letting in a young woman with short black hair and glasses on her forehead, as Zoro focused on her, his grip on Wado Ichimonji's scabbard grew tight. She looked, she looked, she looked.
An image of another darked haired girl flashed across his mind. An old friend, long dead now. Kuina…
"Hello!" She said to the shopkeeper, "do you have Shigure serviced?"
"Yes, I'll go get it," he said, before saying to Zoro, "take a look around, pick out some swords. I can't promise you the best I can sell for two, but I can promise well made ones, at least."
The aura behind Zoro blazed harder, drawing his eyes back to the bin of bargain swords. He began to walk towards it when the woman focused on him and gasped.
"Is that the Wado Ichimonji?" She asked, rushing over to look the sheathed katana over, "it is, isn't it? Where did you get a Great Grade Legendary Sword?"
"It was a gift," Zoro said, trying his best to ignore how much she looked like Kuina, and continued to walk towards the bin.
"Someone gave you something like that as a gift?" The woman said.
"Yes," Zoro said bluntly, eyes landing on the blade releasing the aura. Drawing it from the bin, he looked it over, a red-brown tsuka and equally red-brown sheath, with a golden, rounded cross shaped tsuba. The woman gave a gasp, eyes widening and she pulled out a small book as Zoro drew the katana from the sheath, revealing a blade with a pure white edge.
"That's the Sandai Kitetsu!" She said, "What's a Grade sword like that doing in a bargain bin?"
Zoro felt his Aura flow into the blade, a hunger flowing back into him. A hunger for red flesh, for blood, for death.
Well, well, well, Kitetsu, you were an interesting sword.
"Here's that- hey! No, no, no!" The shopkeeper said as he walked out with a katana with a petal shaped guard, "any sword but that! Literally, I'll give you the most expensive sword in the shop, just not that one!"
"Why not?" Zoro asked.
"It's cursed! Everyone who's ever wielded it has died horrible deaths! I don't need your life on my conscience!"
"Cursed, eh?" Zoro said, "let's test that curse, why don't we?"
Kitetsu pulsed, ready as Zoro threw the blade high into the air and held out his arm. The girl gasped, while the shopkeep yelped.
"You'll lose your arm you fool-!"
Seconds before it hit, Kitetsu's thirst for blood died a bit, and it twirled around Zoro's arm harmlessly and sank three quarters of the way into the wooden floor. Zoro grinned, reaching down and drawing in from the ground and sheathing it with a snap, "I'll take it."
"Give me a second," the man said, before rushing from the room. After a minute, he came back with another katana, "I'll sell you both for the full twenty thousand. This is Yubashiri, one of the Fifty Skillful Grade swords. It's the best sword I have in the shop and if you can control the Sandai Kitetsu's curse, you deserve it."
Zoro took the blade, feeling it. Unlike the Wado Ichimonji's spry excitement and Kitetsu's excited bloodlust, this one had a slow, lethargic energy to it.
Zoro dropped the purse on the counter.
—
Ruby had just stepped out of the building, having paid to have a small portable forge delivered to the Merry the same day, when her senses screamed at her and she turned her neck into the hardest wood she could and activated her Aura full blast. The red slash of energy that smashed into her throat seconds later still felt like it should have crushed her trachea. Throwing out her hands, she dug them into the wall and stopped her backwards movement. People began to spread out from between her and the source of the attack, and Ruby felt her eyes widen.
A black bandana covered one eye, the other, a deep blue, stared murder at Ruby, red black horns slicking on either side of his red hair.. He was wearing a black long coat with a red floral print, and in the place of his chokuto he held a plain, unadorned katana in a regular sheath with a rifle on his back. He was a man Ruby knew more by reputation and name than by appearance, they had never seen each other before after all, but what a reputation it was. Abusing one teammate, maiming another, traumatizing them both.
He was also supposed to be dead.
"Adam Taurus," Ruby spat with as much vitriol as she felt, and coating her body with her Aura. Adam walked forwards faux casually.
"Ruby Rose," Adam all but drawled, before drawing his sword with lightning speed. The plain blade hit against her wooden cheekbone and skipped into the air. Ruby slammed her foot into his gut, kicking him back, "I'll admit, I didn't expect to find you so quickly… Not that I'm going to complain."
"Aren't you supposed to be dead?" Ruby snarled, drawing Crescent Rose off her back and deploying it into a whirl of mecha shift.
"I woke up here after Blake stabbed me," Adam said, apparently conveniently ignoring that from what they had said, Yang had also stabbed him, "and I was hoping, so much, that someone from your damn team would appear here too. And now…"
Adam rushed forwards, drawing the simple katana from its sheath, at the same time, Ruby turned her left foot to wood, pulling it back and slamming it tip first into Adam's guard. His sword skipped across her skin as it turned bark and time paused for a second, "MagnHILD!"
Then the shockwave of Aura exploded out from the tip of Ruby's foot, sending him flying back and past the gathered crowd.
"Get out of here!" Ruby ordered, and when they paused, she snapped, "Go!"
Adam whipped the rifle off his back, firing a musket ball at Ruby. Ruby let the bullet skip off her skin as she rushed forwards, swinging Crescent Rose for Adam's spine. He span the katana in his hand so it was backhanded, catching the scythe blade. All it did, though, was slow the blow down enough to stop it from bisecting him, instead throwing him across the ground.
—
Adam clicked his rifle into its second chamber, firing at Rose with one hand. It hit her Aura and bounced off, before she swung her hand down and sent five waves of Aura from her sharpened fingertips. Adam snapped open his sword, absorbing the attacks and he charged forwards, slamming the hilt of his sword into her gut, only for it to turn to wood.
"So you ate a Devil Fruit," Adam said. That made things more irritating. Which type? Not Zoan. But was she creating wood over her body or turning to wood?
Rose didn't respond, just appearing in his guard and slamming her foot into his guard again. Adam pushed his will to hurt her into his sword alongside his Aura, turning the sword black with a flowing red pattern. He charged forwards, swinging his sword for Rose's neck only to slash through rose petals.
So Haki didn't work on her Semblance. Good to know. Spinning, Adam thrust his sword forwards as she resolidified, stabbing through the wood around her gut and drawing a gasp of pain that caused a grin to spread across Adam's face.
"You like it?" Adam taunted, "it's called Haki, it lets me punch right through your Devil Fruit. You think-"
Adam was forced to jump back, tearing the blade from her gut, as she stabbed forwards with her fingers turned to blades aimed for his good eye. He watched her Aura flow around the edges of the wound, healing it slowly but surely as vines lashed around inside it. Rose turned back into petals and surged forwards, reforming upside down with another kick. Adam barely drew his katana in time, catching the kick with it. The shockwave exploded a second later, shattering the ground below him.
It was a distraction.
Adam felt the scythe blade loop around him, barely spinning to feel it glance off his ribs instant of bisecting him in two. Seconds later, the other foot slammed home on his forehead, another Auric Emission blasting through his body and rattling his bones before he was thrown across the ground.
"Halt!" A Marine called, a firing squad forming, "Red Bloom Rose, SDC Taurus, you are under arrest for crimes against-"
"Don't-" Adam snarled, sending a bullet into the head of the the offending Maine, "Call me that!"
The scythe blade looped around his neck, and Adam sheathed his katana, spinning and drawing it in a flash of red and black energy and rose petals. Rose tilted her head at the last second, but the tip of the blade still caught the corner of her lip, tearing a slash from there to the tip of the ear, leaving a notch in it. Rose disintegrated into rose petals, disappearing down an alleyway as it began to rain.
Running away, was she?
He would see about that.
—
"Sir!" Smoker took one eye off the execution about to happen to look at the Marine who rushed into the square, saluting, "I have a report!"
"Go ahead," Smoker said.
""SDC" Adam Taurus and "Red Bloom" Ruby Rose were seen fighting! The last report is that they were moving towards the docks!"
What the hell was a Revolutionary doing in Loguetown? And why was he fighting a pirate known for killing an entire Marine base?
Though if anyone believed that, Smoker had an island in Paradise to sell them. Rumor had been for years Marine Branch 16 had been on the take. They had probably had on of the CPs look into it and had them executed for that.
"Zoro! Nami! Usopp! Sanji! Ruby!" Strawhat called out, drawing Smoker's gaze back to the execution stand, where he was giving a broad grin, "Sorry, but it looks like I'm dead!"
For a second, Smoker saw an image of another pirate, one with a black mustache and neck length black hair, grinning like the devil he was before starting the hellish age they lived in.
Then there was a bright flash of light and the unholy roar of thunder. When Smoker could finally see again, it was Strawhat putting on his… Well, his straw hat, the execution platform still sparking with leftover electricity.
"After them!" Smoker ordered as Strawhat, the Pirate Hunter and a blond haired man ran out of the square. Smoker turned his lower body to smoke, flying after them in time to see a storm of rose petals reform on the deck of their ship. Seconds later, SDC came charging out of the alley. Smoker hesitated for a second, before making his decision.
"White Out!" Smoker exploded into smoke, surging towards SDC and Strawhat- only to stop with a gasp of a sensation he hadn't felt in years.
Pain.
SDC had thrust his sword into the smoke of White Out, and pain burned in Smoker's shoulder, distracting him long enough for the Strawhats to get onto their ship and begin to sail away.
SDC was the bigger threat anyways.
—
Ruby watched as Adam vanished into the distance, feeling her Devil Fruit struggling to heal the injury in her cheek. If Adam was here, did that mean others could be here?
If so, she had to find them.
"Ruby," Nami said, "come here, let me stich up that injur-
Ruby used small vines to suture the wound closed.
"Guys," Ruby said, turning towards them.
"I think I found my goal."
—
