One Piece: Birds of a Feather

East Blue Arc

Chapter 1: The Idiots

The boat was barely big enough for two—her, and her dwarf mandarin tree that she'd snuck out of her home island. Actually, looking back, Ana was surprised she'd managed to escape with the clothes on her back, let alone a dingy and an orange tree. The people of her village were old and stingy grumps, and when Ana had first declared that she was leaving in search of the botany of the world, they'd hardly offered her a wave goodbye.

Ana stretched out her legs so that they reached the end of her dingy, feet on either side of her precious orange tree. It was one of the few possessions that were truly hers, grown from a single seed years ago and still bearing the sweetest fruit. She plucked one of them now and twirled it in her palm. She'd just bit into the skin with her thumb nail when she saw a dot on the horizon—hopefully another boat, because she'd been drifting for what felt like days without an island in sight. She could really use some company.

Ana made quick work of the orange, peeling the skin off and eating that first. Summoning the wind, she made it press against the side of her boat and drift her closer to the dot that was steadily enlarging. Having had the powers of the devil since a young age, the wind followed her commands with barely a thought. It was like having a weird, extra limb. The boat slowly picked up speed, and by the time the last slice of orange disappeared into her mouth, she could make out two figures in a boat much bigger than hers, with a sail and everything. Man, what she wouldn't give for a sail—she wouldn't have to use as much wind and effort if she had one.

"Heeeey!" an almost childish voice called, "Do you have food?"

"Yeah," Ana said back, "I'll trade you an orange for a map."

"Okay!"

"Luffy." This time, a deeper and distinctly masculine voice scolded the first. He was a well-built guy, probably her age or older, with buzzed green hair that resembled Ana's first pet—Barry the marimo. "Don't go making stupid deals."

"It's okay, Zoro!" Luffy insisted. He looked younger, and was most likely shorter than Ana was. He wore a straw hat and a grin that could probably be seen for miles. "Food is more important!"

"One orange is hardly worth a map," Zoro argued back.

As Ana drew closer, she could see Zoro's arms crossed along his chest, a black bandana tied to his bicep. He wore a haramaki, which she found odd—but even odder were the three swords tied to his sash. Ana's instincts never lied, and they were telling her that this man was dangerous.

(But he couldn't kill her. Because she was strong, too.)

Ana sat up in her boat, crossing her legs in their direction. She'd stopped moving closer, since they were two, three feet away. Putting on a smile, she said, "I'm Anamura. And I'm not looking to take your map. I just wanna see where the next island is, and I can even get us all there in half the time."

"How can you do that?" Zoro grunted. He and Ana locked eyes, and they both ignored Luffy's simple, "Okay, I'm Luffy!"

Without breaking eye contact, Ana called on a strong wind to bowl over them. Clothes billowed and hair flew into her face, making Ana regret using so much force just to prove a point, but Zoro's tone had irritated her. Luffy's hat went flying, and as Ana matted her hair back down she watched as a bird swooped in and snatched the hat up into its beak. Luffy's cry of "Ah! My hat!" distracted her, and she and Zoro could only yell, "Luffy!" in unison as he wound back his arm, caught the abnormally large bird by its belly, and went shooting off.

"Ahh," Zoro sighed, "Look what you did."

Ana's eye twitched. "I didn't know that would happen!" she argued, "And whose arm stretches like that! Don't tell me he has a devil fruit too?"

"He ate the Rubber Fruit, yeah," Zoro said, grumbling. "What did you eat? The Tornado Fruit?"

"The Wind Fruit," Ana snapped. "Now hold on. I'm going after him."

Grabbing her dwarf tree and her only other belonging, a thick green book, she shoved them into Zoro's arms, jumped into his boat, and directed a huge gust of wind at the sails. The boat moved quickly; it was much smoother than Ana's sail-less dingy, and more spacious, too. She sat down opposite from Zoro, who had put her stuff down, and searched for Luffy in the skies, following him diligently.

They could still hear him, shouting at the bird to give him his hat back. "That idiot," Zoro said, "And you, too."

"Shut up," Ana scowled. "I didn't think it'd turn out like this."

She kept an eye on Luffy, managing to keep up a good speed, when suddenly multiple voices were shouting at her. "Hey, you two, stop the boat!" They looked over at the direction the boat was moving in and saw three figures flailing in the water.

"Hah? More people in trouble?"

Ana cursed. "I don't have time to stop; I'll lose sight of Luffy!"

"Hey, we're not stopping!" Zoro called to them, "Get on by yourselves!"

"What did you say—" Without time to finish their sentence, Ana had the boat nearly on top of them. They yelped and scrambled to get on, pushing Ana onto the other side of the boat with Zoro.

Zoro laughed. "Your climbing skills aren't bad!"

The three took a moment to recover, and Ana noticed the second they pulled out their cutlasses and raised them. She lifted an eyebrow. Were they threatening her? "Stop the boat! This is Pirate Buggy-sama's territory!"

"What did you say?" Zoro and Ana asked in unison. He cocked his head in a show of intimidation while she merely smirked. Calling in an extra gust of wind, she threw three invisible punches to their guts, causing them to keel over. It was a move she'd been working on for a while, forming the air into a meteor and concentrating it in one area. While there wasn't enough force to take down a big shot yet, average goons were easy.

"Wanna repeat that?" she asked them, walking over to lift one guy's head up by his hair. He whimpered, shaking his head, and she dropped her hold on him.

"Hey!" Zoro suddenly yelled, "You, you lost sight of Luffy!"

Ana cursed, looking up, and sure enough Luffy was nowhere in sight. She rounded on Zoro. "You should've been watching him! I was busy beating them up!" Zoro puffed up indignantly, but Ana cut him off before he could say anything. "Never mind that, I'll just find him again. And my name's Anamura, remember it," she snapped.

She ended up giving the three goons the oars and made them row while she and Zoro bickered over whose fault it was that they'd lost Luffy. Ana briefly paused to ask herself how she'd even gotten into this mess in the first place—all she'd wanted was a map, and now she was playing hide and seek with a rubber man and a marimo. Somehow, she found herself listening to the goons' story on how they'd ended up in the ocean, how a "bad, but cute" girl had tricked them, stealing their treasure, and how her forecast had caused a storm to smash their boat to smithereens.

Zoro whistled. "She can predict the weather, huh…I wonder if she'd join our crew. We need a navigator."

Ana raised a brow. "So you and Luffy are pirates?"

Zoro shrugged. "Yeah, I joined Luffy not long ago."

"Wait!" a goon shouted, "I know you! You're…you're Roronoa Zoro, the famous pirate hunter!"

Ana frowned. Famous? She'd never heard of him before. And what kind of bounty hunter would become a pirate? Zoro tsk-ed. "I told you, I'm a pirate now." Wait…did that mean Luffy was the captain? That scrawny, careless kid? Ana smiled to herself and shook her head. Would these two ever fail to amaze her? It was like they lived life backwards.

When she zoned back into the conversation, Zoro was asking who "Buggy" was—apparently he was the goons' captain, "Buggy the Clown" with the powers of a devil fruit. Ana raised her eyebrows. She'd never met another devil fruit user before today. To her knowledge, they were rare in this part of the world. Ana's own Wind Fruit had been brought over to East Blue a long time ago by her mother. After her mother died, she'd nearly starved to death…and she'd succumbed to temptation, eating the one "fruit" her mother had told her never to touch.

The goons took them to a port on an island. "We're here, Master Zoro and Master Ana!" they announced. Ana pushed air out of the pores in her bare feet, ignoring the three hands that offered to help her up. She flew a few centimeters off the ground, and walked onto the deck. It was how she always walked—shoes felt restricting to her, so she'd taken up the habit of walking a centimeter or two above the actual ground. It wasn't a big enough gap to alarm most people, so Ana had taken to never wearing shoes.

Zoro jumped up after her and adjusted his three katanas. Ana side eyed them curiously, but kept her mouth shut. It seemed like every time they talked, they argued, and she just wanted to find Luffy, since it was partly her fault he was lost, and be on her way.

"If we meet this Buggy guy," Zoro mused, "then we might be able to ask where Luffy is."

Ana sighed and ran a hand through her wavy black hair. "Let's go, then."

The goons led Ana and Zoro to their captain's base, a pub at the edge of town—and when they did, they were greeted by quite a sight. Luffy sat in a cage, gnawing at a bar. A cannon was pointed at him, fuse lit, and a girl with short orange hair clutched her hands over the fuse to put it out. Multiple pirates ran for her exposed back, and Luffy yelled out a warning. Ana quickly analyzed the situation, determined that the orange haired girl was on their side, and she and Zoro jumped into action at the same time.

Ana was fast. While her arms may not be the strongest, she was proud of her constant extensive training on her legs, and proud of her speed. She reached the girl first and pulled her out of the way, grabbing her around the waist and taking her over to Luffy's cage. Zoro took care of the oncoming pirates, not bothering to unsheathe his swords, simply using two of them to bash their heads in.

"Zoro! Ana!" Luffy exclaimed, relief clear in his tone.

Ana looked down at the girl, who'd sunken to her knees. "You okay?" she asked.

The girl looked up dazedly. "Ah, yes…"

"Thank goodness you guys found me!" Luffy said, "Get me out of this thing!"

Ana crouched in front of the cage, wrapping a hand around a bar. She tugged. "This is pretty sturdy," she complimented, "Can't be cut through."

"First you run off with a bird, and now you're in a cage?" Zoro sighed. "Idiot!"

"I don't understand," the girl muttered, "the crewmate you were talking about…is the pirate hunter Roronoa Zoro?!"

Ana frowned at her. Everyone kept on throwing around Zoro's name like it meant something. "Is he really that well known? I've never heard of him before."

Before she could respond, a guy covered in a fur coat, with a painted face and clown nose strode up to Zoro. "You're definitely him, alright," he mused, "Are you here for my head?"

Clown Nose looked like he was itching for a fight. Ana knew how these things turned out, and turned back to Luffy, disinterested. She studied the cage, and found a lock. Now, who had the key? Most likely the captain…well, if she told Zoro, he could get it for them. The Nose Guy was probably the one they were looking for…"Buggy".

She zoned back in. Zoro had unsheathed his swords, and Ana was surprised to find one in each hand and one in his mouth. Was he…really going to fight like that? Apparently so, because in one smooth move, Zoro had sliced Buggy's arm and leg clean off.

A little too easily, actually…or was this pirate captain just that weak?

The lackeys were laughing…Ana narrowed her eyes, but Luffy distracted her. He seemed to be skilled at doing that. "Ana! Zoro! Get me out of this thing!"

"You need the key," Ana said.

"Hmmm…" Zoro tapped the top. "It's iron. I can't cut through this."

Ana noticed the pirates' laughter had only increased. Her eyes narrowed again, scanning the area. Zoro frowned. "What's wrong with you guys? Just give me the key, and I won't hurt you."

They kept on laughing. Ana was on edge now, muscles tensed. Something zipped in the corner of her eye, and Ana cried out a warning, but before she could react further, a knife had stabbed straight through the edge of Zoro's haramaki. Blood quickly soaked through.

"Zoro?!"

"That—that hand!"

The girl was right. Holding on to the knife was a gloved hand—a hand that belonged to the Nose Captain.

Ana cursed, unconsciously moving into a fighting stance. Her thoughts went flying—should she take off her weights? No, those were a last resort. Her opponent wasn't particularly strong, just sneaky. The hand let go of the knife as Zoro twisted to get away, and the rest of the pieces that Zoro had cut off of Buggy flew into the air and settled back onto the main body with a 'pop'. "The Section Fruit!" Buggy crowed, "That's the name of the fruit I ate! No matter how many times you slice me, you can't kill me!"

Orange Hair gasped. "I thought the devil fruits were just a myth!" Ana paused and side eyed her. Did she not realise she was surrounded by two other devil fruit users?

Suddenly, Luffy exploded. "Stabbing from the back? That's dirty, you Big Red Nose!"

Buggy's crew shrieked in horror. Their captain whirled around, face contorted in outrage, and drew his arm back in a punch. His hand separated at the wrist and flew straight for the cage. Ana moved forward, slamming the hand to the side with a gust of wind and grabbing the cutlass it held. It struggled in her grip, but she refused to let go. "Zoro!" she called, glancing at him. He held a hand to his side, blood flowing through his fingers. He didn't look good—he was pale, and sweating profusely, but Ana somehow knew he wasn't the type to be done in by a small wound like that. Zoro looked at her when she called, and she said, "Take care of Luffy! I'll get the Clown."

"Clown?!" Buggy screeched.

Ana moved quickly. She let go of his hand and was in his face in a second. He started and backed up, but she didn't let him get far. Air pumped out of her palm and she brought it down to his gut. His stomach caved in and he doubled over—she used this chance to flip forward and end with a downwards kick to the back of his head. And if that didn't knock him out, it definitely hurt. Under her leg warmers, but over her yoga pants were weights that circled her ankles. It was part of her training, her punishment—and it also packed over 500 pounds of force when used in combat.

Ana didn't have time to feel smug. Zoro called her name, and she looked behind her. "Move, Ana!" he warned, and lit the fuse to the cannon, the cannon that was facing her direction.

She sprung back and zipped to Luffy's side in an instant. There was no way she was getting hit by that thing. In the next moment it went off with an earth shattering bang that vibrated Ana's teeth despite the fact that she was hovering above ground. The whole area engulfed in smoke. "Okay," Ana said, panting, "Let's get out of here."

Zoro nodded, but glanced at the orange haired girl. "Who are you, anyway?"

"I'm…Nami. I'm a thief."

Luffy chuckled and grinned widely. "She's our navigator! And Ana! I've been meaning to say—thanks for coming to save me, you're really strong! Join my crew!"

Ana laughed breathlessly, filled with adrenaline. This guy—he really never failed to amaze and amuse her.

"Are you still on about that?!" Nami yelled before Ana could respond. "I said I don't like pirates! Besides, we should leave before it's too late!"

"Leave it to me!" Zoro lifted Luffy's cage up onto his shoulder, yelling in agony as he exerted himself.

"Zoro, don't! Your stomach will fall out!" Luffy said.

"Are you crazy?!" Ana agreed, "Let me carry him!" Even as she offered, she knew she wouldn't be able to get him off the ground. Raw strength wasn't something she had an overabundance of, and she hadn't bothered to train herself in that area—but she made a mental note to start.

"I got it!" Zoro barked, "Don't tell me what to do!"

Ana's jaw practically dropped. This idiot! She couldn't believe she thought he was a dangerous man when she first met him, or that he was an apparently well-known ex-bounty hunter. He was totally empty headed!

Still, Ana gritted her teeth, and the four of them ran away from the pub.

Author's Note

Anamura is my beloved OC who has been in my head for years now, and I've finally begun to write her story with the Straw Hats. Their journey is the same as the actual One Piece, just with an extra member. The story-line doesn't change all that much, but with Ana aboard things are bound to be more fun! I write BOAF mostly for myself, but feel free to enjoy her along with me!

(Also, yes, I know Ana's "weights around her legs" thing is totally "Rock Lee" hahaha)

Disclaimer:

This is for every chapter. I do not own One Piece. Obviously.