The sky was clear as the sun came up over the Grand line. It was good weather, no crazy gusts of wind or freak lightning storms for now. I was slightly surprised. I had been having considerably good luck since I had entered the grand line about a week and a half ago. I had caught an eastbound wind after coming through reverse Mountain. The wind had carried me pretty far before a small storm had come. My ship wasn't very fancy; in fact it wasn't much larger than a row boat. It didn't have a lower deck or anything, but it had a decent cabin and sturdy sails.

This boat had been in my family for a while. My Grandfather had made the boat over the years and gave it to me as a gift on my fifteenth birthday. I lived on Rikers Island, part of a chain of islands in the East Blue. I'm sixteen now and I've been on my own for a year. When I was growing up I always liked the ocean, though its not my greatest passion. I am a proud swordswoman, I picked up a sword when I was eight and to be totally honest I stunk at first, but I loved it. My father was an instructor at the dojo and he taught swordsmanship there. I used to go practice with him every day after my school lessons. I have two brothers so I'm kind of used to roughing around.

When I was twelve years old my father passed away. I was really hurt and didn't know what to do. I wanted to give up on everything, especially swordsmanship. He was the one that first introduced me to it, he was the person who encouraged me to keep working at, practicing each new technique and move until I mastered it. Without my father there to encourage me it seemed pointless. However something in me wouldn't give it up. I would sit at the dojo and watch the other students practice and wish it was me. So I tried again, I had one match with one of the other students and in that match I remembered why I loved it so much. It felt so natural to have a sword in my hand; it belonged there.

After that I started to get really serious about swordsmanship, I practiced more than ever before I trained really hard and started to get better and better. I always strived to learn and master as many new techniques as I could. Eventually I was able to beat everyone in my dojo. I only use one sword because it suit's me.

I'm pretty petite, so I go for speed and one sword allows me to get in quick blows. Sadly this means my defense is weaker and I need to practice it more, but it's hard to practice a good defense if you can beat all your opponents, needed more practice, more skills, more learning. I had this greedy hunger that craved more knowledge; I wanted to excel in this one thing. I wanted to keep getting better and better until I was the best. I didn't and still don't know how far I will be able to go, but I want to try to be the best swordswoman in the world!

There was only one way I was going to continue my skills. I needed to find someone new to train me. Someone who was even better than my father. I needed someone who wanted to keep improving too. I needed the best swordsman in the world.

So I set out a few months after I turned eighteen. I had heard about on swordsman in particular from a guy at my uncle's pub. The guy had been drinking with two of his friends talking about a new pirate crew causing trouble for the marines. He said that it was a really small crew though because it only had two members.

"How can a crew with only two people be giving the marines trouble?" I questioned the man skeptically. He ignored me at first; apparently not too keen on answering the eavesdropping waitress. After some more pestering he finally looked up at me.

"Because miss nosy," the man told me, "One of the members has devil fruit powers and the second is one of the fiercest swordsmen this side of the blue." I didn't really care about the devil fruit person. I had seen someone with devil fruit powers before; they were usually awful rude people. However the second person caught my attention.

I smiled my best tell me more smile and asked again, "And who would this swordsman be?"

The man finally looked at me full on. He looked over my petite body, medium height, and my black springy hair. He didn't seem to be impressed. He must not have seen my eyes. I had learned a while ago to not let people look me directly in the eye. My eyes were startling at first sight. One was a piercing green and the other was cool blue. There was nothing wrong with my eyes, but people tended to judge and assume the worst.

The man must have decided to humor me because he answered my question, "His name is Roronoa Zoro." The name rang a bell very dimly. I had probably heard somebody mention him around town before. This place loved gossip. I poured the man another beer and asked him to tell me about this Zoro guy. "Uh well I don't particularly know that much about the guy. I know his captain's name is Luffy. And I heard they are crazy enough to go to the grand line.

My eyebrows shot up. The grand line? Wow these guys really were ambitious. The guy went on to tell me some of the rumors he had heard about Zoro. Apparently he fought using three sword style and could take down and entire fleet of me by himself. At that point I had kind of stopped paying attention because my mind was already made up. Roronoa Zoro was going to be my new mentor.