Sword

Chapter 19

"Aghhhh!" Morgan cried in pain before his eyes focused on Shoko. "You bitch-" he clutched at his arm but flexed his muscles as if to show that a couple of arrows couldn't stop him. "Kill them! If guns don't work, use your swords!" he commanded the soldiers. Many of them showed only a moment of fear before charging forward, brandishing sharp blades.

Shoko's blood was boiling by now. She didn't want to fight these soldiers—she'd grown up seeing many of them around town. Some of them even frequented her family's restaurant on days when they were off duty. They only fought for Morgan out of fear, not because there was evil in their hearts. It was the captain who she really wanted to fight.

"Morgan!" she screamed, dodging around the charging soldiers. I'll leave them to Zoro and the others. Hopefully they won't go too hard.

She released arrow after arrow at Morgan's right arm, some of them landing their mark, others ricocheting off his weapon. One or two even made their mark on his chest and in his ribs. Before she was even within hitting distance of the captain, his enhanced arm was beginning to slow down, heavy with arrows.

As Shoko approached him, Morgan was forced to swing his left fist at her, but the punch he aimed was very obviously half-hearted, making Shoko impossibly angrier.

What kind of half-assed punch—

She suddenly realized the reason for Morgan's distraction. In her focus, she hadn't noticed the sudden silence in the courtyard. She hesitantly turned her attention away from Morgan only to see Zoro, all three swords drawn and his black bandana on his head, catching the blades of maybe ten armed marines, all of whom were quaking in fear.

"Move, and you die." The words were muttered around the sword handle clenched between his teeth, but the threat was loud and clear, even to Shoko who stood several feet away.

Shoko and Zoro met eyes for a brief moment, silently communicating. I got these guys. You take care of that shithead, Zoro seemed to say. But there was something else in his eyes. A warning? No, not quite. He tore his gaze away.

"I'll be a pirate, I promise you that," he said aloud to Luffy. Shoko felt her insides freeze up.

A pirate, pillaging and stealing? Killing for his own agenda? Even if he stayed true to himself, and chose to be a pirate who didn't live the way others did, would he really go this far to be able to fight stronger people? Living against the law? Shoko never knew Zoro to be a rule follower, per se, but he always said he detested pirates.

What the actual fuck?

"I'm officially a criminal now that I'm fighting Marines, so I might as well join your crew. But I'm only doing this to fulfill my own ambitions," he said to Luffy, but Shoko felt his words directed at her, like an explanation, a justification.

"What are you waiting for? Kill them!" Morgan screamed, swinging his fist once more towards Shoko. She ducked, aiming a kick at his right arm, which was dripping with blood from all the places she had hit him with her arrows.

"Zoro! Lady! Duck!" she heard Luffy's voice from be hind her.

Did he just call me lady? Shoko thought, before throwing herself to the ground and rolling away from Captain Morgan to dodge the swing of his axe.

"Gomu-gomu no whip!" Luffy shouted, as a flesh-colored whip cracked through all the Marines Zoro had been holding back, though it didn't quite reach Morgan. As it passed over Shoko, she noticed the foot and sandal that were swinging around at the end of the whip.

This guy's abilities are frickin' trippy.

"Captain, I don't know if we can beat these guys!" one of the soldiers yelled, his voice cracking. Several others chimed in, voicing agreement.

"I have no use for soldiers as weak as you!" Captain Morgan responded. "Everyone who just spoke should execute himself. That's an order!"

Before the Captain could finish speaking, Shoko leapt into the air, flipping upside-down to catch his head between her ankles. She then let her hands fall to the ground beneath her and used her momentum to pull him down to the ground with her.

He grunted in pain as he fell to the ground, and his incredible body mass left a small crater in the earth where he landed.

Shoko hopped back up to her feet and saw Morgan trying to push himself to a standing position. But before he could even lift onto his knees, Luffy was mid-air above him, kicking out both feet aimed to knock the captain back to the ground.

Everything suddenly seemed to move in slow motion as Shoko watched him flop back down to the ground. As she watched him fall, she saw the embodiment of all of Shells Town's suffering from the past decade.

Images flashed through her mind of Morgan slamming his axe through the bar counter at her family's restaurant. She saw him using his status to intimidate low-ranked soldiers into doing his dirty work. She saw him towering over small children who had irritated him in some way, threatening to have their families executed.

She remembered the way her mother seemed to age so quickly once Morgan began frequenting the restaurant and how the poor woman was forced into early retirement from the stress.

It was this thought that suddenly sent her body into motion. Her legs were sprinting to where Morgan laid sprawled on the ground with a defeated posture that didn't match the scowl on his face. Without making the conscious decision to do so, her fists moved to punch that scowl into oblivion.

She dropped a knee down roughly on his chest and threw all her weight into punch after punch to his face. A frustrated scream erupted from deep inside of her. She was only barely aware of the tears that were streaking down her cheeks.

"You—will not—ever—hurt this town—or my family—or my friend—ever—again!" she screamed between blows to the captain's face.

It wasn't until a pair of arms wrapped around her and dragged her away that she realized she had punched the man unconscious. His face was purple and bruised, blood dripped from his nose mouth, and all the places her arrows had struck him earlier. She stared at him as her body shook with angry sobs.

"He's done," she heard Zoro's voice right by her ear. His voice was gentle and soothing. He was crouched on the ground behind where she sat in the dirt. His elbows were hooked under her arms, holding her back from throwing any more punches. "You got him, Shoko. You can stop now."

Her anger slowly transitioned into a feeling of intense relief.

I got him, she thought. Her sobs slowed and she tried to focus on catching her breath.

I'm going to be in so much fucking trouble.

**(A/N) Sooo... I obviously deviated from canon a little bit this chapter. I hated to skip the moment when Luffy and Zoro work together to take out Helmeppo and Morgan because I love that part in the anime, but this was just such an important, emotional event for Shoko, so I'm still pretty pleased with how this came out.

Anyways, idk about y'all, but I get bored reading the same things that happened in canon over and over and over again, so this should mix it up a teensy bit!