One Piece: Dream of Immortality

"Uh… Excuse me?" Turner D. William wasn't sure if this strange woman was insulting or complimenting him, but it sounded suspiciously like both at the same time.

"Sometimes the steel needs you to really beat the devil out of it!" the strange woman said. "How are you supposed to do that with these toothpicks you call arms?"

"I would appreciate it if you stopped poking my biceps," Will brushed her hand away. "And I've not had any trouble working with steel thus far."

The strange woman gave him an unconvinced look. Then, with more deftness than he'd ever seen, she plucked one of his displayed pieces from its place and gave it a whirl.

"The balance is okay, the edge is both sturdy and sharp, but…" the strange woman flicked the blade right in the middle and it snapped in half without any fan fair.

"That was one of my better pieces…" Will felt aggrieved.

"I'll pay for it," the strange woman dismissed with an obnoxious roll of her eyes. "The point is… you didn't beat it hard enough!"

"It's the tempering process that determines a blade's brittleness and flexibility!" Will was losing his patience.

"And if you had done the shaping properly, the tempering would have been fine!" the strange woman shot back.

"That doesn't make any sense!" Will had never in his life been so infuriated by a woman. "Did you come in here just to mock me, without knowing the first thing about blacksmithing?!"

He was not ashamed to say that he flinched at what came next.

She smiled at him.

…

"How?" asked the blacksmith's 'assistant', who Cherry now knew was called Turner D. William.

"I told you. You gotta beat the devil out of it. You can't strike the metal hard enough, or with enough control, to get the carbon content where you want it without more arm strength," Cherry said.

"What?" Will shot her a look that said that he'd think she was talking nonsense… if he weren't standing on the blade she just forged, propped between two barrels, without it snapping in two or warping as it should have done.

"Come down and I'll show you," Cherry beckoned him closer.

Cherry pulled an ingot from the forge with her bare hand. Will let out a startled yelp, just as she'd planned, and she set in on the anvil with a smirk playing on her face. "I'll hold it still, so pick up the hammer and really put your back into it."

Will was still gawping at her holding a nearly white hot ingot as he mindlessly picked up his hammer. "What if I hit you by accident?"

A normal concern to have, since putting that much force into a swing was bound to have it go wildly off target. Cherry reassured him, "Don't worry about it."

He didn't feel very reassured. "Why did you get the steel so hot? Isn't that too much just for shaping?"

"Stopp stalling and let a rip!" Cherry demanded.

Will reluctantly put his doubts and reservations to the back of his mind. He raised the hammer high above his head, with both hands on the handle, and swung it down about half as hard as he could.

And he hit Cherry right on the thumb.

"Oh no!" Will dropped his hammer in a panic. "What have I done?! I might have crippled you!"

Cherry gave him a deadpan and otherwise unimpressed look. "If you want to cripple me, you'll have to try harder than that."

"I'm not trying to-!" Will blinked. "You… you aren't in pain?"

"You weren't even following my instructions properly," Cherry huffed. "Of course it won't hurt, if you won't even give it your all. Even then, you'll be hard pressed to manage it."

To give him proof, or perhaps just to taunt him, she raised her hand with her thumb stuck up and bent it a few times to show it still works just fine.

Will had no idea what this crazy woman was made of, but he decided that it was best to just roll with the waves.

*CLANG*

"There you go! Give it a little more!" Cherry encouraged him.

*CLANG*

"Now adjust your angle by about three and half degrees towards yourself!" Cherry instructed.

"I- What?" Will was flabbergasted.

…

"Hm…" Will hummed as he tested the blade he made under Cherry's guidance. "It isn't as tough as yours…"

"Were you making rapiers right off the bat, or did you start with nails?" Cherry asked.

"Right, of course," Will accepted. He understood that she meant that this wasn't a skill you picked up in an hour. With all the wild adjustments she made him make, he had to wonder if he'd ever be able to apply this particular skill. He couldn't even wrap his head around why it worked in the first place.

"Where did you even learn to do this?" Will asked. He'd certainly never heard of anyone who had done this sort of thing.

Cherry suddenly had a very sour look on her face. "It doesn't matter. The man who taught me is very dead."

Will could have sworn he heard her mutter under her breath, "I made damned sure of that."

He decided he didn't need to pry into that particular story. She had been nothing but kind to him, in her own rude way. If she had a reason to kill her teacher… he probably deserved it, right?

Oh shit, was he crushing on this woman he just met? Will slapped his cheeks and gave his head a vigorous shake.

"Falling for me already, are you?" Cherry snickered.

"What? No!" Will denied instantly. "I actually…"

Perhaps he should talk about that to someone he'd just met.

"Oh?" Cherry latched onto the thread he dangled unintentionally. "Who is she? Someone out of your league, I expect, if you're clamming up before you even say her name."

"No, I… You're mistaken," Will clammed up even more.

"I'm from out of town, you can tell me," Cherry tried to weasel it out of him. "I'll be gone forever soon enough, never to be seen again. If you can tell anyone, you can tell me~"

"Well…" Will supposed that it made a sort of sense. Moreover, she had shared her wisdom, so it was the least he could do to share a little gossip about himself, no? "Swann Elizabeth, that's her name. She is the daughter of the governor of Port Royal, so… yes, 'out of my league' would be accurate."

"Is that all?" Cherry raised an eyebrow at him. "I thought you were chasing after a princess or something, with that helpless look on your face. Just go for it, bro."

"It's not that simple," Will wondered if he really looked that helpless. Did he look that way every time he visited the governor's manor? He sure hoped not…

"Sure, it is!" Cherry shook her head and put a hand on his shoulder. "What's the worst that could happen? She says no?"

"I could be imprisoned for insulting her honor by even suggesting I would court her," Will said seriously.

Cherry clicked her tongue. "I see that men in… What's this sea called?"

"Uh?" Will was confused by the sudden change in topic. "This is the Cheribbean Sea? The only one?"

"Right. Men in the Cheribbean Sea have no balls," Cherry nodded with a smile.