As the battle between the Strawhats and their allies and Kaido’s forces comes close to reaching its climax, the Marines arrive at Wano, ready to take advantage of the situation and wipe out whichever side emerged victorious but weakened. Among the forces deployed is G-5, led by Vice Admiral Smoker and Captain Tashigi. Thanks to the reconnaissance done by CP0, they knew how to enter the isolated country they once thought inaccessible.

As they approached the waterfall they were meant to scale, Tashigi stood at the bow of Smoker’s warship, lightly gripping the hilt of Shigure, her sword, and wearing a bittersweet smile on her face as she laid eyes upon the plateau of a country. She had always wanted to visit Wano, just not under circumstances like these. It would be a once in a lifetime opportunity to learn so much more about swords and swordsmanship… if she weren’t here for work.

A call from the crow’s nest broke her out of her daydream; “PIRATE SHIPS! DOZENS OF EM! COMING RIGHT AT US!”

Tashigi sighed, pushing her glasses down from on top of her head to their proper position on her face before running to the stern of the ship. As promised, a pirate fleet was in pursuit of the marine fleet, flying the Jolly Rogers of the Beautiful Pirates, The Barto Club, The Happo Navy, The Ideo Pirates, The New Giant Pirates, and the Yonta Maria Grand Fleet. There was also a tiny ship that she couldn’t quite make out at that distance.

Orders were issued over den-den mushi, some ships were to proceed, others were to stay and provide cover for the ships attempting to scale the waterfall. G-5 was in the latter group. “Looks like I don’t get to go to Wano at all…” Tashigi said, drawing her sword.

The two opposing fleets came within firing range of each other, and smoke and explosions filled the air. One ship from the Happo Navy broke ahead of the crowd and fired something at G-5’s ship, though it didn’t sound like they fired anything. The projectile, whatever it was, hit the stern deck with a huge explosion that Tashigi, Smoker, and their men were barely able to dive to seek cover from. It was hard to tell the extent of the damage from this direct hit, but at least it didn’t seem like a fatal blow, the ship remained afloat for now.

Tashigi cautiously poked her head out from behind the crate she dove behind, seeing the flame and smoke consuming the rear deck, and then gasped when she saw a shadow rise and take the form of a tall woman who casually emerged from the flames unharmed, wearing a maid outfit and several large weapons strapped to her back.

“Baby 5!” Tashigi shouted, jumping to her feet and confronting the pirate, gripping Shigure in both hands, “What are you doing here?”

“When we heard the marines were attacking Wano, we knew the Straw Hats would need us!” she replied, pointing her hands, which turned into guns, at Tashigi, “And I always go where I’m needed!”

“You think you can handle things here?” Smoker said out of the corner of his mouth not holding his signature two cigars.

“Yes, I know I can win against her, sir,” Tashigi replied confidently.

“Good, you’re in charge, Captain,” The Vice Admiral said before using his logia abilities to partially turn into a cloud of smoke and fly towards the pirate ship that had launched Baby 5 at them.

“The rest of you stay back, this one is too dangerous for you!” Tashigi ordered her rank-and-file subordinates.

The shabby looking savages that made up G-5 obeyed, giving their captain and her adversary plenty of room while cheering her on, “GOOO CAPTAIN-CHAN!!!”

She had to admit Baby 5 made for an intimidating sight, a woman who could turn parts of her body into any weapon standing in front of a backdrop of fire, currently aiming gun-hands at her, gun-hands that now fired a volley of bullets at her. Tashigi called upon her haki, observation to detect the bullets, and armament to coat her blade and deflect them.

Tashigi charged at Baby 5, continuing to swat bullets out of the air, closing the gap between them, when Baby 5 kicked out her leg, which transformed into a ball and chain and swung at Tashigi. She deftly jumped over it, only for the heavy iron ball to crash into the gunwale and tear a huge chunk out of the side of the ship. A testament to the strength of the foe she now faced.

Now in striking range, Tashigi swung her sword at Baby 5, who transformed her arms into swords of her own, crossing them in front of her to catch the incoming blade. The two were locked in a power struggle, seemingly a stalemate, until Baby 5 transformed her head into another blade, this one with an eye and half a smiling mouth on each side, and swung down on Tashigi, forcing the marine captain to disengage and jump backward, right where Baby 5 wanted her.

Baby 5 turned back to normal for a second, before sticking out her arms, grasping her hands together, and turning them into a large cannon which fired upon Tashigi. She had barely a second to react, and said “Soru,” disappearing in the blink of an eye just before the cannonball hit the deck, leaving a smoldering hole where Tashigi was standing only moments before.

Tashigi reappeared right behind Baby 5 and swung her sword at her neck. She only had enough time to turn her head around and stare at the incoming blade in shock before it passed clean through her neck, separating her head and body, the former of which fell to the deck with a thud, the latter somehow remained standing, almost as if it hadn’t quite registered what had happened.

With the battle won, Tashigi walked past the headless body, not bothering to look back as she walked towards her men, who were now emerging from their hiding places, cheering their Captain’s name with the threat neutralized. “Now, somebody put out that fire before it sinks the ship!” She commanded. She grabbed the sleeve of the officer’s jacket that hung on her back and brought it to Shigure to wipe the blood off of its blade before sheathing it when she made an odd discovery: the blade was clean. While she adjusted her glasses, thinking her poor eyesight was playing tricks on her, the cheering marines saw something that shut them up and put looks of horror on their faces.

“C-C-C-CAPTAIN-CHAN! BEHIND YOOOOOUUUU!” they screamed.

But it was too late. Tashigi felt a blade cleave through her waist, though oddly it didn’t feel like she was being cut, it felt more like it passed right through her, and before she knew it, she felt the sensation of her top half falling forward while her legs remained standing. She landed face first and the rolled over onto her back, lifting her head to see her own legs wobbling back and forth, and the headless Baby 5 holding a sword with angry looking eyes and grin on the sides, which turned back into her normal head, albeit detached and resting in the palm of her hand.

“This is… this is just like when I fought Law!” she realized, “And she was also beheaded by Law on Punk Hazard… does this mean people cut by his devil fruit power are never truly in one piece?”

Remembering the dishonor of being cut without dying, rage filled Tashigi’s heart, tears welled up in her eyes, and she forced herself up, sitting her severed half on the deck, “I WON’T BE HUMILIATED LIKE THIS A SECOND TIME!” She roared, picking up her sword. At least Shigure was still in one piece, unlike the last time she found herself in this predicament.

Not knowing how else to move efficiently like this while wielding a sword, she took a page from Zoro’s book and placed the hilt of Shigure in her mouth, biting down on it to hold it in place, allowing her to “run” with her hands. It was awkward at first, but began to pick up speed when she figured out she could get longer strides by tilting forward and keeping her torso parallel to the ground.

She lunged at Baby 5, using her neck to swing Shigure at the pirate’s shins, who promptly turned her leg into a sword and blocked it. Tashigi looked up and saw Baby 5 turning her disembodied head into a pistol, which she aimed down at Tashigi and fired. The captain rolled out of the way, narrowly avoiding being shot. Baby 5 shifted her gun-head into a sword-head and swung down at Tashigi, who was able to block the attack, but Baby 5 did not let up, she kept swinging again and again, each blow forcing Tashigi backward.

She never did train with a sword in her mouth like Zoro, so her power was greatly diminished attacking and defending like this. Separated from her legs, if she put her sword back in her hands, she would have her normal strength, but at the sacrifice of all of her mobility. So she decided to carry on as she was, walking backwards on her hands, barely able to defend herself, until she felt herself push up against the gunwale. Now cornered, she decided it was best to move her sword to her hands, sitting on the stump of her waist, swinging her sword in a more familiar and practiced fashion.

While devoting all of her attention to Baby 5’s sword attacks, she didn’t notice her transform her leg into a warhammer and slam it into her ribs with enough force to send her lightened form flying across the deck, where she skidded to a stop. In a great deal of pain, she was slow to get up, and Baby 5 was not eager to allow her the chance. The pirate stomped on Tashigi’s wrist, forcing her to drop her blade, and then dropped to her knees, one pinning each of Tashigi’s arms down. She was completely helpless as Baby 5 held her head by the hair, dangling it in front of Tashigi’s face while flashing a cocky grin. She transformed her neck stump on her body into a cannon and aimed it not at Tashigi, but her men.

“NO!” She cried as she watched the cannonball fire at her hapless marines, staring dumbfounded at the lethal projectile rapidly approaching them. ‘What can I possibly do without my legs?’ she thought, ‘Wait, my legs!’ Tashigi’s look of horror morphed into one of confidence as she said, “Soru!”

Just before the cannonball was about to strike her men, Tashigi’s lower half appeared, foot coated in armament haki, and kicked the cannonball, deflecting it harmlessly into the ocean. The marines breathed a collective sigh of relief and found a newfound respect for their captain, who managed to save them despite being cut in half.

Baby 5 turned her head to see the deflection and stared in awe. The distraction proved enough for Tashigi to pry a hand free from under one of her knees and punch the head dangling by her hair in the jaw, causing it to sway like a speed bag that just got hit by a boxer. She immediately stood up and cradled her aching head in her arms, fully freeing Tashigi, who picked up her sword.

Tashigi stood her upper half on her hands, Once more holding her sword in her mouth like that contemptible Strawhat swordsman, and said a very muffled “THOWU!” This time, both of her halves disappeared in a flash. Baby 5 turned her head into a shield with two paranoid eyes and panicky mouth desperately looking for where the marine captain would attack from.

Her upper half appeared in front of Baby 5, swinging her sword in her mouth which was blocked with the shield-head, but Baby 5 was unable to block the simultaneous attack that came in the form of Tashigi’s legs appearing behind her kicking the back of her knee, causing it to buckle and her to fall to the ground. Tashigi kept the attack up, her halves continuously disappearing and reappearing to attack Baby 5 in a new spot, and Baby 5 repeatedly allowed Tashigi’s legs to land haki-infused hits on her to focus all her attention to avoid being cut by Tashigi’s upper half, presuming any cut not made where she was previously divided by Law’s powers would work normally.

This was not sustainable. Baby 5 was slowly losing her energy taking so many unblocked kicks, so she tried something desperate. She dropped her head on the deck and transformed her headless body into a giant time bomb with a 10 second timer. This forced Tashigi’s halves to fall back and reassess the situation, while Baby 5’s head counted down with the timer, “10… 9… 8… 7…”

Tashigi wasn’t sure what to do, there was no way she could move that thing in time as she was, and it was probably going to destroy the entire ship and everyone on board with it. That’s when she heard her men shout “FOR CAPTAIN TASHIGI CHAAAAAAAN!” The marines of G-5 rushed Baby 5’s bomb body and began pushing it towards the edge, where a hole had been conveniently torn open by Baby 5 swinging a ball and chain earlier in the fight.

“H-hey! What are you doing!” Baby 5’s head said as she watched the marines attempt to push her body overboard.

Tashigi noticed that when she wasn’t counting down, the timer on the bomb didn’t either, so she walked her legs over to her head and kicked it over to her upper half. She picked the disembodied head up, and to keep her distracted for just a few more seconds, began to lightly toss it up and down in her hand.

While Baby 5 yelled obscenities, Tashigi could hear the marines chanting “HEAVE HO! HEAVE HO!” until she heard a loud splash and an eruption of cheer. It was only then that Tashigi let herself relax. She stopped tossing Baby 5’s head and gently placed it on the ground in front of her. The dizzy pirate’s eyes slowly regained focus, and she saw Tashigi’s upper half towering over her, her arms crossed over her chest and looking down at the head with a contemplative look. “Now what do we do with you?”

Baby 5 Nervously looked back and forth, not able to do much else with her body submerged in water. Thanks to the devil fruit’s curse, her body sank like an anchor and was robbed of all of her strength, it felt almost like she didn’t have a body at all. It also reminded her all too much of the time Law had used his powers to behead her, put her head on a raft, and send it out to sea for her former captain to find. “I surrender…” she said, feeling completely defeated.

“Stand down- what the hell happened here?” Tashigi and the rest of G-5 straightened up when they heard the voice of their commanding officer, Vice Admiral Smoker, who had just arrived to observe his first officer in two halves talking to a bodiless head.

Though he wasn’t alone. He brought with him the Admiral of the Happo Navy and Baby 5’s husband, Sai. “DARLING!” She cried out to him with tears in her eyes. A very confused Sai walked up to his wife’s head and picked her up, “I’m so happy you survived! But how will I be of use to you now? I won’t be able to make those bento you love so much without a body…”

“Well,” Smoker said, “Our reports say Big Mom’s ship failed to get up the waterfall and the current washed them up on a nearby beach, maybe if you’re lucky, her body will, too.” He turned to Tashigi, “How did you end up like this anyways?”

After Tashigi explained her theory that being cut by Trafalgar Law’s power made it so one was never properly back in one piece, she asked a question of her own, “And why are you with one of the enemy captains?”

“Oh, that,” Smoker sighed, taking a drag off his cigars, “Turns out Kaido’s final gambit was crashing a floating island on Wano’s capitol during some huge festival, so we had to work with the Strawhats to stop that. And since the pirates saved countless lives, we looked the other way when they escaped. Sorry, not enough time to stop and tell you.”

“Why does it feel like that ALWAYS happens when we get involved in these things?” Tashigi pouted, crossing her arms over her chest. Her legs sat down cross legged next to her upper half. Somehow, they also looked exasperated.