One Piece: Lust Haki

The spar started at 0900 and Isuka had me on the sand inside the first minute.

She was fast today. Faster than the exercise or the evaluations. Her rapier caught the morning sun and the tip found my shoulder guard before I'd finished reading the feint. I blocked the follow-up on my forearm, the Armament hardening for two seconds, and she reset and came again.

I caught her wrist on the third exchange. Her rapier overextended on a lunge and I stepped inside the arc and caught her wrist and her momentum pulled us both off balance and we went to the sand.

My uniform shifted. The collar of my training shirt pulled sideways on the landing, the fabric bunching at the shoulder and opening across the collarbone. I was on my back. She was above me, one knee on either side of my ribs, her rapier hand pinned under my grip. The sun was behind her head.

Her eyes moved.

They left my face and went to my collarbone, to the spot where the shirt had pulled aside, and stopped. Her mouth closed. Her rapier hand went slack in my grip.

The bite mark was dark against the skin. Two half-circles, upper and lower teeth, the bruise still fresh enough that the individual points of pressure were visible. Gion had left it last night when she'd pulled my collar aside and bitten down hard enough that I'd sworn.

I hadn't checked the mirror this morning. The mark was below where the uniform collar sat and I'd assumed it was covered and the assumption had held until a throw put me flat on the sand with my shirt pulled sideways.

She looked at the mark for one second. Her mouth was a line. Her jaw was set. Her eyes came back to my face, flat and dark.

I let go of her wrist.

She stood up. Brushed the sand off her knees. Her rapier was still in her hand. She took her stance.

"Again."

We sparred for another twenty minutes. She was sharper. Harder. The rapier work had an edge it hadn't before and I couldn't tell if she was better because she was angry or because anger made her precise. I blocked more than I countered. She scored three touches to my one. When we finished she cleaned her blade and sheathed it and walked to the water station without looking at me.

She didn't say anything about it.

I adjusted my collar. The bite mark disappeared under the fabric. A recruit on the far side of the yard was practicing forms that were too slow and nobody was correcting him.

The mess hall was loud at lunch. Post-training energy, forty conversations running, trays clattering. The fish was the same fish. It was always the same fish.

Tashigi sat next to me. Close. The distance she'd been keeping since the mess hall dinner before the exercise, her elbow near mine, her tray organized in the precise order, chopsticks aligned.

"The Skillful Grade assessment came back from the smith database," she said. "Partial match. The tang markings are consistent with the Wano school I identified, but the specific smith's records were destroyed during a conflict fifty years ago. They can't confirm the exact origin."

"Does that block the registration?"

"No. A partial match with grade verification is sufficient for the registry. The blade is confirmed Ryō Wazamono. The registration should process by next week."

"Good."

"The naming is still unresolved. If I can't identify the original smith, the naming conventions get complicated. There's a precedent for the recoverer to select a temporary designation, but the Meito Commission prefers historical accuracy." She adjusted her glasses. "I'm researching the conflict that destroyed the smith's records. If I can reconstruct the lineage from secondary sources-"

She stopped. Wrinkled her nose.

"Did you change shampoo?"

"No."

She wrinkled again. Leaned a fraction closer, her glasses reflecting the overhead lamp. "It's different. You smell-" She sniffed. Pulled back. "Floral. Since when do you smell floral?"

"I don't smell floral."

"You smell like flowers." She pushed her glasses up. "Specifically something I can't place. Sweet. Like a perfume."

Jasmine. Gion's sheets, Gion's shampoo that I'd used because mine wasn't there. Six hours in her bed and the scent had seeped into my hair and changing clothes at the barracks hadn't been enough.

"Marine soap varies by batch," I said. "The supply rotation changed last week."

Tashigi looked at me. Her glasses were straight. Her eyes behind them were direct.

"The supply rotation doesn't produce floral soap."

"You'd be surprised."

"I wouldn't." She picked up her chopsticks. "You smell different. That's all."

She went back to her rice. Her shoulder was near mine.

Isuka was across the table. Her tray was pushed forward. Her elbows were on the wood. She was eating her rice and she didn't look at me and she didn't take my fish.

The corridor was empty at 1400. Post-lunch lull. Most recruits were in afternoon lectures or remedial training. The stone floor was clean and the overhead lamps hummed and my boots were the only sound.

Hina came from the opposite direction.

Tall. Long pink hair. The black suit, the Marine coat on her shoulders. Cigarette holder in her fingers, unlit. She walked the corridor with the measured pace of someone who had somewhere to be and wasn't in a hurry to get there.

We passed. She was going left. I was going right. Her narrow eyes tracked me for one second as we crossed.

"Hina smells jasmine."

She didn't slow down. She didn't turn. She said it at the volume of a corridor conversation and kept walking and her boots clicked on the stone and the pink hair swayed with her stride and she rounded the corner and was gone.

I stopped.

Hina knew. She'd known since the officers' mess conversation six weeks ago. She knew whose quarters smelled like jasmine and she'd just told me in four words that the evidence was still on me.

I needed to shower better.

I went to the barracks. I showered. The Marine-issue soap was rough and unscented and I used twice the normal amount and washed my hair three times and stood under the water until the only thing I smelled like was military plumbing.

The mirror over the sink. I pulled my collar aside. The bite mark was still there. Dark against the collarbone. Isuka had seen it. Tashigi hadn't because she sat beside me and the angle was wrong. Hina hadn't needed to see anything. Hina smelled jasmine and that was enough.

I buttoned my collar. The mark disappeared. The mirror showed a recruit with wet hair and a clean uniform.

I needed to be more careful. Or I needed to stop doing things that required being careful about.

The second option wasn't realistic. I dried my hair. I went to afternoon training.

For now.

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