Chapter 7: Swordsman’s Patience
===[???]===
I was running. Running as fast as I could.
I dared not turn back, as I would see the face of the monster.
The one monster that I couldn’t bring myself to face.
My feet were running faster than what should’ve been physically possible, but I could still feel his breath on my neck. That putrid, nauseating breath that carried with it the stench of stale alcohol and tobacco.
The filthy halls surrounding me, once a pure white, were now soiled yellow in color, both disgusting to see and touch.
I just needed to keep running.
But I wasn’t fast enough.
I felt glass shards erupt against my back, flaying the skin that covered me. I could feel the warm liquid seep out, the pieces of glass wedging themselves deeper into me. I wanted to cry out in pain. Wanted to just keep it all away. I wanted to fight.
But I couldn’t.
He now had his hands on me, pressing me down into the ground to force me into submission. I tried squirming, but nothing I did could stop him.
I screamed loudly while he was laughing at my pointless struggle.
I was afraid.
===[Zoro’s POV]===
It was an hour before the sun was to rise when I shot up in my bed. I covered my face to attempt to stop the flow of tears, to take all the fear away.
That was one of the worst ones that I’ve had. No matter how many times I have it, it is always as terrible as the first.
My usual nightmares were caused by guilt of those who met their end by my blades. This one was created by one of my fears.
I… won’t inform you of the details. Let’s just say that there’s a reason that I don’t care if I ever go back to Earth.
I got up and did my routine, but I made sure that the other two occupants had breakfast ready. I wasn’t that great a cook, but it would fill them up.
Damn, when did my inner monologue get to be so depressing?
“Come on, Zoro,” I told myself. “They’re just nightmares. Nothing to get depressed about.” This wouldn’t do. No, I needed to be my chipper, sarcastic self. That’s right, just keep wearing my mask. The one that says ‘Come at me World, I’ll take you down with a witty comeback!’
WIth that in mind, I did my jog around the town, focusing myself with what I found out last night. Which was jack shit.
The book had nothing in it about Devil Fruits or anything remotely similar to them. Same could be said in almost every book on fruits and plants I could get my hands on. As much as I hate it, I’m going to have to ask someone for help.
I wasn’t the type to usually request assistance, for anything. I was much more of a do it yourself kind of person and didn’t want to involve others. And since I was probably one of the few people on this planet with an understanding of Devil Fruits and their weaknesses, I held myself responsible for when anything involving them got out of control. I know, I know, stupid reason, but I was holding myself to that standard because I can.
Devil Fruits are simply tools, immensely powerful tools that could make the right person akin to a demi-god, but tools nonetheless. I will admit that if given the chance, I'd probably eat one, so long as I knew exactly what it was. Ice Ice Fruit, that T-Rex one, definitely. Chop Chop Fruit… not so much.
My inner monologue was interrupted when that blasted ball of plasma that they call the Sun decided to rise. Bad thing about having one eye is that when you get blinded in one eye, you can't see nothing. My point was proven when I then tripped and fell onto the gravel path that I was previously jogging on. I could have sworn I heard a certain whorse chuckling at my expense.
That brought me onto another part of my thought process that was bothering me. The Sisters. Keep in mind that it wasn’t unusual for them to lose against me, but it never took that short of time. Needed to question that when Sunny comes by.
Thirty minutes later and I stumble on something… unusual. Egghead was rushing around, looking like she was about to explode. Walking away very slowly, I decided to make my way towards my usual spot before I was blamed for something that I may or may not have done.
That was, once again, violated by those fillies. Or at least one of them.
Zoe was using a stick in place of a sword, swinging it around like what you’d find them do in anime.
I sighed. “You’re posture is all wrong and those forms won’t do shit against anyone with half a brain.” She stiffened and laughed nervously.
“H-hey Mister Zoro,” she said. “Just wanted to, um, play swordsmare! Yep, that’s it!” Uh huh, definitely not being a stalker.
“The art of the sword isn’t a child’s game,” I deadpanned. “It takes commitment and perseverance. One does not simply swing a sharp piece of metal and declaring themselves swordsmen.” All too often it lead to an untimely fate…
I turned and proceeded to do the previous training I was yesterday, with a new voice asking me all sorts of inane questions. I gave her a few pointers, showed her the correct forms, and told her of my advice. It was a good time, really was. Then training somehow turned into her telling stories about all the crazy stuff that happens here.
“... and then she left all of them in the dust like they were nothing,” she ranted on, telling me a story of how Rainbow had beaten four other stallions in a race.
“Sounds like you really admire her.”
“I do! She’s, like, the coolest pegasus to ever live! She even told me she’d help me learn to fly!”
I stopped mid swing and looked at her. It wasn’t unusual for pegasai to not be able fly in their early years, but she seemed around eleven or twelve. Well past the age they learn.
“Mind showing me how you do it, kid?” She nodded and proceeded to flap her wings. Hard. It was like watching a bumble bee, her wings were going so fast. It was interesting to see on my end, especially with me focusing my Observation on her. And now I saw the problem.
“Well here’s the thing, you’re flapping your wings wrong.”
She was very shocked to hear my diagnosis. “What are you talking about? Rainbow said to flap my wings as hard and fast as I could, and she’s the best flier there is! What am I doing wrong!”
“You’re flapping them straight up and down when you should go in an O shape. Here, watch.” I stretched my arms out wide and mimicked the action that I see birds and other pegasai do when flying slow enough for her to watch. Bring it up at an angle, straighten them out, and bring them down, and back up. “Your way pushes just as much air up as it does down, so it just cancels each other out.”
The girl looked as though her mind was just blown from the sheer simplicity of the problem before her.
“So the only thing keeping me from flying the way my wings move! You’re a geneious!”
Gee, why can’t everyone else learn that lesson?
Probably because it’s false…
“Don’t they have flight school or something here?”
Shrugging, she told me that she had another two years before being old enough for it to be mandatory, but she figured that she’d be able to do it before then. I swear, these ponies and waiting until the last moment for everything…
Remember kids, complacency leads to problems coming back to bite you in the ass. Learned that lesson all too quickly.
And thus began a very, very quick crash course on her techniques for just about everything.
When did my training lead to teaching. I swear it’s just like with Baskerville…
===ooo000ooo===
An hour later and Pinks found us, grabbed me and ran, yelling about a picnic. I actually forgot about that!
It was a nice little place to hold a picnic, picturesque hill with a large oak tree that provided the perfect amount of shade for the red and white checkered blanket laid down on the ground.
By Lao Tzu all of these cliches were going to give me an aneurysm at some point.
I set myself up against the tree all broody style, and closed my eyes until the food and other guests arrived. Me and Sunny were going to have a few words when-
“Heeey, Zoro, buddy ol’ pal! How ya been” a familiar voice said in a sickly sweet voice. To all males present, when women talk like that, they usually want something from you.
I cracked open my eye to see Egghead, who really hadn’t improved since I last saw her. Twitching smile and crazy mane, the pupils were just pinpricks on her widened eyes. She honestly looked as though she was about to go on a murder spree.
“What do you want, Egghead?”
I noticed that Apple was a little annoyed at my nickname for the unicorn, but said nothing.
“Weeell, maybe I just want to get to know my friend better, hmm?”
“We aren’t friends, so go. I’m just here to ask Sunny some questions.” Speaking of which, where is she? Was I on time for once? Was she late? Probably still laughing over this morning.
“Before that, maybe there’s something I can do to help you! I mean, you are the most problematic po- person I know.”
I’m just going to ignore the little insult there and move to the opposite side of the tree. I was then interrupted by Miss Purple again.
“Well, maybe we could do something before the Princess gets here, yes? Anything you want to share!”
Of all the things I am, I take pride in my patience. Be it waiting for anything exciting to happen or just dealing with idiots, I am very patient.
But, add on a week of constant questioning, observation, and testing of everything I do, nightmares that keep me from a decent sleep, plus the fact that I f***ing can't find shit on something I know exists, and you've got one upset anime character. So now I'm almost at my limit when she suddenly decides to invade my personal space, acting like a freaking bomb is about to go off if I don't do something, anything with her.
But I manage to keep my cool, and do one of the more sensible things.
I grab her horn.
That automatically shuts her up and has her staring at her protrusion. It didn't help when I slowly brought my hand up on her horn, or when I brought it back down. Some of her hairs went back in place, and a ferocious blush showed. I thought I heard a few wings stiffen up, but meh.
I used my new handle and brought her to my face. And I vented.
“Listen to me and listen good. We are not friends, nor will we ever be if you keep this up. I know that, to you, I'm just a little side project. A thing to poke at until you understand how it functions. Something for you to show Sunny that you befriended and hope that you get a gold sticker, a pat on the head, and a compliment from your beloved sun goddess. Afterwards, you’ll forget about me until something else big comes up and you need my help. You’ll thank me for maybe a day or two, sure, but then you’ll go back to the same pattern as before. Trust me, I've seen it happen before, and I won't play into it. So we. Are. Not. Friends. I am sick of the shit that you pull, like strapping me to a f***ing shock chair to figure out how my ‘magic’ works or watching me at every moment of the day. So go back to your picnic and enjoy your actual friends, and leave me alone. I'm going for a walk.”
I pushed her with just enough force to send her on her ass and walked off towards the White something Woods.
I needed to cut something desperately.
===[3rd POV]===
The six girls were frozen as the human walked off. All were shocked at what they had just witnessed.
Zoro was dangerous, true, but in the short time they’d known him, the most violent thing he had done to them was the occasional sarcastic remark or breaking Applejack’s trees. He was almost the face of calm.
But what they saw was his mask almost crumbling off. He was downright scary.
Now, they all knew how bad Twilight could get when she wanted to figure out something. Hell, ask Pinkie of the extents she went to figuring out the mare’s Pinkie Sense. But they were all wondering what she did that had set him off like that.
The silence that encompassed the area was interrupted by a blinding flash of gold and a popping sound, the trademarks of teleportation.
Celestia had arrived, wearing her usual Roaman style toga with a sun amulet on the shoulders. A few of them calmed down at the sight of their Diarch.
“Hello, my little ponies,” she said with her usual motherly tone. “I hope that you haven't been waiting long?”
Pinkie was the first to recover, followed by four others. The purple unicorn was still frozen in place, staring at where her charge had wandered off too.
“Twilight, what's the matter,” the alicorn asked her student. She had bent down and had one of her hands on her shoulders, a concerned look on her face. It wasn't like her to just flat out not acknowledge Celestia’s arrival.
“He was right,” she heard Twilight mutter before looking in the same direction her student was. She saw nearly an acre of forest cut down, and heard angry shouting.
Looking back at Twilight, she saw tears forming in her eyes. “He was right…”
Zoro, she thought, what did you do?
Elsewhere, over a certain clubhouse, one of the many fruits that adorned the tree shook. It shook again, and with each one it changed before it resembled a purple fruit with a swirly design all throughout.
A Devil Fruit was reincarnated.
what devil fruit was made????
8604206
That's for a future chapter, sir! But it will be very soon, Pinkie Promise.
8604212
yay!!!
8604206 The Gomu Gomu no M is purple. Hopefully it isn't that obvious though.
8604243
There have been six devil fruits that are colored purple if you watch the anime. Have fun with that~!
8604243
like the moon jumping zilla said. have fun trying to ID the fruit.
8604246 I am aware but the gum gum fruit is the first one that comes to mind for obvious reasons. Also, episode 586 and counting.
Guessing that since it reincarnated from an apple, that Devil Fruit is the Sara Sara no Mi.
8604212
You're going to give it to the CMC aren't you.
8604299
8604290
Odds of Scootaloo getting it? 8.5/10, she can fly now.
8604299
But which one will get it? A CMC member with Devils fruit power. It's going to be so............ exhilarating. (insert evil laugh here)
8604302
I think all three because sharing is caring. they're doomed all doomed I say!!!!!
8604324
I don't think you can share a Devil Fruit's powers. Pretty sure there can only be one user of a specific fruit at a time
8604328
Well you never know. New World new rules new problems. Maybe the author should put it to a vote?
It was a good chapter, though I would suggest a thing or two.
Crying I think should be saved for very emotional moments. It just didn't seem that emotional here. He could wake up in a cold sweat and then wipe away said sweat as a replacement.
The scene with Scootaloo seemed interesting, albeit it was completely skipped. I mean skipping is not necessarily a bad thing, but you also skipped even the beginning of it, just mentioning her starting to ask questions. Instead you could have made her ask actual questions and then start it up a bit, before skipping. The way it was skipped over just makes it seem a lot less relevant I think.
8604206
In the arc of punk hazard when the monster that Caesar made (smily)died a fruit that was near (An apple) became a devil fruit as described in the chapter but I unfortunately do not know if the power it had was described or not.
This will be fun
8604349
One, my little sister constantly wakes up from nightmares crying her eyes out, and she's 14. Crying is not just limited to emotional moments. In this instance, the nightmare opened up a whole world of psychological scarring.
And yeah, I could've done the Scootaloo bit so much better, but I had no idea of how to write the interactions of an energetic child and sarcastic asshole.
8604339
Yes to a few new rules regarding them. And no to voting because I've got plans that shan't be torn asunder by democracy!
8604388
Being a sarcastic asshole my self and have been in similar situation where I have had to talk to children I would say that the best possible things to do is be blunt but not rude.
8604392
As You Wish princess, praise the Moon!
8604243
Aren't most of them?
8604231
Twilight with the Hana Hana no Mi. All of the books.
Also, instant pseudo-Lovecraftian Horror with thousands of eyes. Watching. Reading.
There is no escape.
Alternatively, Sweetie Belle with a fire-based fruit.
8604502
Giving Sweetie Belle anything even remotely related to fire is a bad thing. And remember that Robin will turn up, so no eldritch abomination Twilights today! Or ever, thank God...
May i say this:..........................................................................................WHERE IS THE CLOP!!!??????????? ALso, will he ever become friends with the princesses??!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
8604374
Pretty Sure the fruit Smiley had was the Sara Sara no Mi, which gave Smiley the power to turn into a giant axolotl.
8604658
NO CLOPS ON THIS DAY!!!
And their relationship will, in the foreseeable future, be strained at best, as the Sisters will always see him as a potential threat and Zoro will be butt hurt over the fact that they basically fired a super laser at him while he was asleep.
8604757
OK. Sry i asked.
Let me make one thing perfectly clear: censoring yourself on the internet looks really, really fucking stupid. Either use it, or don't. None of this middle-of-the-road PC nonsense.
We really don't care if you say 'fuck'.
We really don't.
8604834
That's just a tick of Zoro's. Other characters will actually say fuck
yami yami no mi
8604886
so you wont zoro to get the yami yami no mi fruit?
8605370
Frankly saying it was the vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/onepiece/images/f/f5/Yami_Yami_no_Mi_Infobox.png/revision/latest?cb=20160123174331 yami yami no mi was stupid...there are many fruit that are purple and swirly.
It could be any of these...most likely the first.
vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/onepiece/images/1/12/Gomu_Gomu_no_Mi_Infobox.png/revision/latest?cb=20130822052130
Gomu Gomu no Mi
vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/onepiece/images/9/9c/Bara_Bara_no_Mi_Infobox.png/revision/latest?cb=20130522004613
Bara Bara no mi
vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/onepiece/images/5/51/Awa_Awa_no_Mi_Infobox.png/revision/latest?cb=20131206044150
Awa Awa no mi
There's over 117 canon devil fruit after all,about 37 non canon and 3 undetermined.... And that's when we don't include Vega Punks artificial devilfruit...
Of course it's going to grow by the clubhouse , but that's okay, because there is no way that any member of the CMC would every think about eating some strange fruit that suddenly appeared on tree, ha ha ha.... *sigh*
8605540
thank you
8604374
good point.
Question: Are you going to do crossovers with other displaced? Those tend to ruin these stories for me, and I don't want to waste my time reading something I won't enjoy.
Oh this is gonna be good!
8616049
I do plan on it, but those will only happen once in a blue moon. Ideally, it won't be in my story, as to not take away from the story line.
On a separate note, I am currently working on a crossover as an extra, nothing important. Should you want to, you can skip over it.
8604388
Guess that depends on the viewpoint then. It just seemed strange and I thought to mention it. With a character that looks like Zorro I think this effect is only enhanced since Zorro is really rarely seen like that.
As for the interaction. I guess you could look up the information and then try to see to implement it with Zorro giving annoyed answers and Scootaloo being inquisitive and maybe determined. I mean, you gave a short summary of it so you already know the direction in a way.
8617418
Cool, thanks. That would be ideal if all Displaced did the crossovers as interlude chapters. There for those that want them, skipable if they dont.
8605892
Actually, there's something even better.
The one person who has eaten that fruit before? Well, we know who he is... After all, he's just as Much a Rubberhead as Much as he's a Rubberman.
However, unless there is no Displaced Rubberman, Then Monkey D Rubber has been killed/murdered/died in his sleep...
Hmm... Now that I think about it, is Carrot (Lightning using Rabbit-girl) or Jinbe (Fishman who's a master Helmsman) turning up? Matter of fact, is a certain 'Pervert and Proud' Cyborg and adorable little blue-nosed Raindeer turning up? Or the Money grabbing Navigator and the Cowardly Tengu with sharpshooting skills unmatched also appearing with his wild-yet-soon-to-be-true stories? (All of Ussop's tall tales actually do come true on the grand line. It's Oda basically foreshadowing events both big and small.)
8673258
As I stated before, there won't be any other permanent Displaced characters other than the six that have been shown. I will alter some character's personalities a tad to match those in the anime.
As a side note, I am planning on making DT this universe's Usopp.
You spelled genius wrong. That is delightfully ironic.
9358156
No that was accurate to the canon character.