:~~~~One Piece~~~~:
The past few weeks seemed to blur together for Tashigi, to the point that she couldn't even quite remember the name of the island she was on at that particular moment. After being promoted to Ensign following the events in Alabasta, Tashigi went back to following the also newly promoted Commodore Smoker as he continued his pursuit of the Straw Hat pirates across the waters of the Grand Line. Even as much good as the small crew did in bringing down Crocodile and his associates, Tashigi still felt ashamed for refusing to capture them when she had the chance to do so without any trouble, especially Roronoa Zoro, who held captive not one, but three legendary blades that he in no way deserved.
This day, however, the Straw Hats weren't the most pressing matter to deal with for Tashigi and her superior. The ship they were traveling in had just come across an island with a port town in the process of being raided by pirates, and Smoker was quick to order a change in their course so they could put a stop to it. A pitched battle between Marines and pirates immediately flared up, with Tashigi, Smoker, and the forces they led struggling to protect the citizens and their homes as they systematically captured the rogues threatening them.
This group of pirates seemed to rely mostly on superior numbers, with only a handful of their dozens of members being worth wasting more than a couple seconds on, and Tashigi and Smoker had plowed through most of those within the first couple minutes. With the 'grunts', as Smoker often called them, dealing with the larger force of relatively weak pirates, Smoker chased after their captain while Tashigi pursued the first mate, both of whom immediately tried to flee the scene upon realizing that they might be outmatched.
Tashigi wasn't worried about her superior; heck, if anything, she was already feeling sorry for the pirate for what he was probably going to go through when Smoker caught up with him. Instead, she focused on her own quarry, her signature katana Shigure gripped firmly in hand as her long, slender legs carried her through a tree-dotted grassy field outside the village that the pirate had escaped into. Her breaths went smoothly in and out as she kept on his trail, her instincts telling her that she was getting close.
Suddenly, the flash of a sword broke into sight from behind a nearby tree as it swung towards her face, leaving her just enough time to awkwardly duck underneath it, the blade missing the neck-length blue hair outlining her head by inches. Tashigi stumbled a bit as she moved into a fighting stance to face her ambusher, and with a quick movement, the bare steel of her sword was liberated from its sheath. Tashigi grimaced at herself for the near-fatal mistake while Smoker's voice growled at her from in her head, berating the Ensign for letting herself be caught off-guard.
The pirate before her wasn't particularly notable among all the others she had come across, just another shabby-looking thug with a sinister look behind his sunken-in eyes as he chuckled menacingly, bringing his own sword to bear. The katana he carried, on the other hand, Tashigi quickly recognized as being well-known. She'd have to consult the guide to legendary swords that she carried to be absolutely certain, but she had already convinced herself that it was none other than the legendary sword Fuyutoge.
"What are you doing with a sword like that?" She knew it wasn't appropriate for an officer of justice to carry such obvious venom in her voice during an arrest, but she didn't really care at that moment. For such a fine work of craftsmanship to be put to use by the scum before her to terrorize innocent civilians, it simply wasn't right.
"Dis sword? I stole it, o' course. Yeh should be more worried 'bout wut I'm gonna be doin' wit' dis sword tha' how I got it, tho'." Tashigi was undaunted by the pirate's threat, and merely held her position as she waited for him to attack.
It wasn't long before he obliged her, charging forward with his sword held to the side ready to strike. Tashigi countered the slash with one of her own, the reverberating clang of steel against steel signaling the start of a flurry of strikes between the swordsman and swordswoman.
The pirate was admittedly a better swordsman than his brutish appearance made him seem, even with his straightforward aggressiveness. Tashigi was easily more than a match for him, though, her limber body slipping around incoming attacks with the grace and agility that came to her so easily in battle despite evading her in every other situation. Even the pirate's attacks that didn't go completely wide of the Marine Ensign she quickly stopped with a sharp, precise swing of Shigure.
The pirate's struggles to bring down Tashigi intensified, and as he grew more frustrated, he left more and more openings that the swordswoman began to take advantage of. Deep growls and grunts of pain followed the swings of Tashigi's katana as it sliced neatly across his grimy flesh. The man was soon visibly slowing down, his pursuit of Tashigi growing less assertive and his slashes losing their intensity.
He seemed to realize it as well, as he reared back for what was apparently a last-ditch attack, prompting Tashigi to hold up her sword defensively. As the thug closed in, Tashigi quickly saw how obvious the attack was, and sidestepped it, bringing up her own blade and raking it across his side as he passed by. The pirate stumbled a bit before he fell over into a heap, the adrenalin escaping him alongside the blood that started to streak from the new wound; the injury wasn't a fatal one, so Tashigi had no worries for her downed foe as she approached him in a businesslike manner.
"You are under arrest for piracy. And..." Tashigi reached down for the pirate's katana before she continued, keeping a close eye on him as she plucked the blade from where it lay fallen next to him. "Your sword will be confiscated."
A closer look at the sword confirmed her suspicion that it was, in fact, the legendary katana Fuyutoge, the amount of detail and skill poured into its making evident in every aspect of the sword's design. It was considerably heavier than her usual sword, but there seemed to be a different, nonphysical kind of weight to the blade as she held it; it felt... wrong. Her inspection of the sword was interrupted by a pained chuckling coming from the pirate still prone on the ground.
"What's so funny?" Tashigi turned to face the defeated man more directly, but he didn't make a move against her, only chuckling a little more before he replied.
"Yeh look like yeh know a lot 'bout that sword from how yeh want t' take it from me, but how much d'ya really know 'bout it?" Tashigi stopped for a moment. She had studied the legendary swords well enough to recognize them on sight, but there was far too history behind them all for her to memorize every bit of it, and there was even more backstory behind the swords that simply wouldn't be found in any book she could get her hands on.
"Just tell me what it is about this sword that you find amusing." The pirate grunted as he turned himself to face Tashigi, his eyes locking on her as an unpleasant grin came to his face. The odd weight of the sword she held became more pronounced for a moment, but she hid her reaction as she listened for a response.
"A curse." As superstitous as pirates were, the young woman knew that curses were very real, as the cold feeling that centered in her chest from remembering the story behind the Kitetsu series of swords reminded her. She held on to the sword though, realizing that there was still a problem with the pirate's claim.
"If this sword is cursed, why were you using it?" The man's grin widened as he answered.
"The curse won' do anythin' to me. Yeh, on th' otheh han', migh wanna be careful." Tashigi's breaths came a bit deeper as she started to grow frustrated from having to listen to this pirate when she should be bringing him back to her ship. Still, she reminded herself, a curse that might be on the sword she was holding would be important to hear about, and she might as well listen to the information while he was already volunteering it.
"Okay, why is that?" Tashigi finally realized that the look on the pirate's face as he leered at her was a lecherous one. Suddenly growing uncomfortable from the pair of eyes wandering over her, she briefly considered closing her jacket over the flower-print shirt that now felt thin and revealing, but she decided against it, not wanting to give this scum the satisfaction of seeing her so self-conscious.
"Theh say th' demon tha' cursed th' sword wuz offend'd by wimmen tryin' tah use 'em, 'nd decid'd tah make it so tha' any wimmen tha' picks up tha' sword 'll get am extreh dose o' why theh shouldn't be playin' wit' swords in th' first place." Tashigi's look went blank at that, as she wasn't sure exactly what he meant, and a strange feeling swirling in her chest was distracting her, making it difficult to puzzle it out; the pirate was more than happy to elaborate, though. "Yeh jubblies, toots, theh gonna get so big yeh'll never hol' a sword propahly again."
A blush briefly flashed across Tashigi's face at the crude mention of her chest before she could force it back down, and she slowly turned her gaze down to examine her body. A gasp burst unbidden from her as she found that her breasts, once generous but managable handfuls, had doubled in size, pressing outward into her shirt and pushing the edges of her blue jacket to the sides. The odd feeling she'd had since she picked up the sword settled into a warm, deep throbbing centered in both of her breasts, a sensation that she would only admit grudgingly to herself was actually kind of pleasant.
Her boobs pulsed at a steady pace, each throb followed by another inch of padding added to Tashigi's chest and a shuddering breath from Tashigi herself. The Marine Ensign's shirt continued to stretch out from the swelling bosom it contained, its buttons straining more and more with each passing second. Tashigi looked on worriedly, remembering how much effort it took for her to compensate for the hindrance that the swell of her chest had posed to her sword skills before, and realizing that her breasts had already grown to several times the size they were back then, and showed no signs of stopping.
"Pop! Pop!" The top two buttons of Tashigi's flower-print shirt snapped off, and her newly revealed cleavage rushed out to fill in the unused space. The sudden exposure of her creamy white skin made the situation that much worse for the already overwhelmed Tashigi, whose eyes widened as she saw without a doubt that it was clearly her own flesh bloating out into sizes quickly approaching freakish.
"Pop! Poppop!" Three more buttons gone, and the overworked shirt pulled apart enough to reveal the line where Tashigi's swollen boobs mashed together. The pulses continued, her ever more exposed breasts wobbling about noticeably with each one. The blush returned to her face again as she saw her nipples poking visibly through her shirt, extending far further out than they should have been. The top continued to pull apart in the middle, soon exposing the edges of pink areolae, slowly revealing that there was much, much more of the silky smooth pink flesh than there was supposed to be.
"Pop!" The last brave button couldn't continue its struggle any more, and with the final guardian holding her shirt together having been forced aside, her breasts finally shoved past the edges of her top, revealing themselves in their bared glory. The full, pearl white breasts obscured her torso all the way down to her waist, their slight teardrop shape being their only concession to gravity. Her pink areolae bulged out from the pale skin of her breasts to be nearly as wide as her face, capped by throbbing nipples as large as her fists. Tashigi pressed her hand not still holding the cursed sword into a boob, where it sunk deep into the plushy flesh.
Tashigi's breath quickened as her breasts seemed to react to everything; her hand pressing into one, the breeze softly caressing them, even the steady thrum of her own heartbeat. Her nipples went hard within moments, and it wasn't long before she found herself rubbing her thighs together in her arousal. With all of the sensations bombarding her, Tashigi realized the extent of the curse afflicting her, her humiliation reaching its peak with her breasts not only at an absurd size that would make holding a sword incredibly awkward, but so sensitive that it would be a demanding task to be able to concentrate on anything while dealing with the feelings coming from them.
Tashigi could only stare in dismay at the massive bobbing boobs jutting out from her, already seeing her future as a swordswoman and Marine falling apart. After all, how could she fight anymore with her body changed to be so absurdly top-heavy? Even if it was possible, would she be able to manage it? She certainly didn't feel like it.
Tashigi's bout of self-doubt was interrupted when she noticed in the corner of her eye that the pirate was moving again. He had apparently gotten a second wind, and was now charging at her, obviously confident that he now had an advantage. The young woman was worried for a moment, but Smoker's voice suddenly sounded in her head, growling exactly what she knew her superior would be saying to her if he were there. Deal with it, and step up. Tashigi's eyes narrowed at her incoming foe, and her grip tightened on the sword.
The Marine soldiers surrounding Smoker's ship were torn between trying to get away with staring and just turning away respectfully. None of them had even seen someone... altered like Tashigi was, but very few of the men present were willing to test whether Tashigi's mood was still as level-headed as usual after having gone through such a change, and thus settled for the respectful, and above all, safe option. They also noticed the grungy-looking man she was dragging behind her, obviously the pirates's first mate who she had gone after when the crew had tried to split up. He was unconscious, with a few cuts of varying severity across his torso, and a massive lump on his forehead.
Tashigi finally made it up the gangplank to the ship, and dumped the pirate's limp form onto the deck, where a few of the soldiers present came up to take him away. Her trudging steps showed that she was clearly exhausted from the combination of dragging the thug so far and hefting around the massive breasts she now sported, their size obvious even with her flower-print shirt draped over them for the sake of modesty.
She soon made it to Commodore Smoker, noting that he wasn't even slightly worse for wear after fighting the pirate's Captain, the two cigars held between his teeth sending swirls of smoke around his tall, forbidding form as he growled orders to the Marines surrounding him as they scrambled to get all of the captured pirates safely locked away. It was only a couple moments before Smoker noticed Tashigi's arrival, turning his attention to her as she gave the usual palm-inward Marine salute.
"Reporting in, sir! I have brought in the pirate's first mate, and he is currently being taken to the brig." The Commodore simply exhaled a plume of thin grey smoke from his cigars, adding to the haze surrounding his bluish-grey hair and stern face before giving a slight nod of acknowledgement.
"Good work, Tashigi. That's the last of 'em." His aloof gaze flicked down to her chest for a moment, and he continued with the same even tone. "Something happen while you were out there?" Tashigi's eyes widened, a faint blush coming to her face at her new endowments being brought up, but she got over the embarrassment quickly, deciding to just come out with it.
"The pirate carried a legendary sword, sir. It turned out to be cursed to... do this to any woman that picks it up." Even as she said it, she realized how crazy the story had to sound. Then again, Smoker had eaten a fruit that gave him the power to turn his body into smoke at will, so she knew he had seen more than his share of the oddities in the world, and had all the reason to believe in curses as she did. Sure enough, the powerful man accepted the explanation with a nod.
"Something like this could only happen to you, Tashigi." The tone was not insulting or berating, it was merely a statement of fact, and it was somewhat comforting to Tashigi that Smoker wasn't treating her any differently because of the changes to her body.
"By the way," Smoker continued, "I assume you're not gonna to let this stop you from doing drills tomorrow morning, right?" Tashigi smiled slightly, finally feeling truly confident that she could overcome the new obstacle - or obstacles - on her path to being a strong swordswoman.
�Right."
End.
Quick Note: Fuyutoge loosely translates (by my own translation, anway; it may not be completely right) into "Winter Mountain Pass".
This story is based on a picture I commissioned, which can be found at the following link: Enjoy!