Nami basked in the sunlight, checking her shopping list for the final time before her, Sanji, and Robin were to head into the village's marketplace to get supplies for the Merry Go. They'd docked their ship in a discreet cove surrounded by the protective layers of granite cave walls; Luffy, Zoro, and Chopper were in charge of making sure nothing unsavory got a hold of the Merry Go while they were away. Franky and Usopp immediately started to repair the small issues that happen after such a long trip. Nami would have preferred landing elsewhere, but the log poses were reliable if nothing else and their newest log pose had lead them here, wherever 'here' was. She'd looked at her maps, and this island hadn't been labeled on any of them. Of course, that wasn't particularly distressing; here on the grand line nothing was surprising any more, let alone an unlabeled island. The landscape of the island was tame compared to the giant-filled jungles and cloud cities they'd come across in the past. Walking along the winding path, she breathed in the crisp scent of the fragrant pine trees lining the trail. Massive oaks and maple trees towered over the trio, creating a lush canopy that shaded them from the harsh sun but the heat still permeated the leaves, causing sweat to bead on Nami's forehead. She swiped her arm across her face, glancing up as a bird swooped overhead to light on a branch nearby. Wildlife and plants seemed plentiful; she'd note the things she learned about this island in her logbook when she returned to the ship.
"I was surprised you managed to persuade Luffy to stay with the ship," Robin broke the silence, gliding elegantly between Nami and Sanji to address her. "Usually he'd demand to lead the charge onto the island."
Nami laughed lightly. "I told him that if he didn't stay with the ship, he wouldn't get any meat for a week. Anything that threatens his food or appetite usually works on him."
"Good to know," she remarked, amused. "I'm glad our captain is so easily swayed by food."
They continued on their way in silence until they were bombarded with the scents of delicious foodstuffs like baked rye bread, sweet rolls, some type of stinky cheese, and, of course, lots and lots of meat. Sanji clasped his hands together excitedly and started to jog towards the market on the outskirts of the town. Grasping a lemon from a fruit stand, he scratched its surface and sniffed the fragrant odor wafting from the broken skin. "Nami, come smell this-" He broke off speaking; both Nami and Robin were nowhere in sight. "Nami? Robin?" He called their names repeatedly, getting no reply. "Girls?!" There was nowhere for either of the girls to disappear; all of the shops were lined up without alleys. "Where are youuuuu?!"
Meanwhile; Nami and Robin were being carried swiftly away by a single mumbling person in a brown cloak. Nami was on their left shoulder and Robin was slung over the person's right shoulder. All Nami could do was keep her eyes closed. They were moving too fast and she was afraid of getting whipped in the face with a rogue tree branch. Robin wasn't so incarcerated; she used her devil fruit power to try to attach their captor's legs to the ground to trip them. Their captor merely jumped a little bit higher to avoid the hands sprouting out of the ground. Frowning, Robin used her hands to grab onto the person's throat to try to choke them into setting Nami and her down. The kidnapper jolted to a stop as if in shock that a girl would fight back and tossed the girls into the air.
"Ah!" With a cry, the kidnapper moved to stop the girls from falling through the air. The cloaked figure first caught Nami and set her down with record speed, then grabbed Robin and deposited her gently onto the floor of the cave they'd entered. The two girls leapt to their feet and assumed a defensive position, ready to fight for their freedom. "Whoa, I don't mean you any harm," the person held up their arms in the universal sign for a person trying to show that they had peaceful intentions. "But what the heck were y'all doing, trying to go into the village? Don't you know anything about this island?"
Robin looked at Nami with raised eyebrows. "What exactly were we supposed to know?" The question was directed towards the stranger, but Nami could tell she was also asking her.
The stranger sighed, their hood riding even lower over their face. "This is an island of men. Not completely men, but almost only men. Any woman who steps foot on the island can be enslaved to the men and used for whatever purposes until they die. Imagine my surprise when I saw you two there with your male companion."
"Imagine our surprise when you kidnapped us!" Nami snapped.
"Hey, you were about to end up in a situation that I guarantee you would not have liked. I had to do something. Now, I suggest that you get back on whatever boat you and your friend came from and head back out to sea." The figure clapped their hands together, motioning for the girls to get to their feet. "Come on. I'll take you back to your ship. Where'd you dock, anyways? I didn't see any newcomers in the main port."
Nami and Robin glanced at each other. "We'll get there ourselves, thanks." They made a move to leave the cave, but the stranger (who still hadn't revealed their face to the girls) blocked their way.
"That's not a good idea."
"And you're going to stop us?" Nami got in their face, whipping out her weather batons to use if she needed to. She had fought against warlords of the sea; this punk wasn't going to intimidate her. At all.
The stranger stiffened at her defiant reaction. Ignoring the irked girls in front of them, the stranger cocked their head towards the trail outside of the cave. "Stay here. I'll be back in a minute. Don't make a sound," the kidnapper whispered, turning on their heel and striding out of the cave. Nami immediately followed them out of the cave, voicing her disapproval loudly.
"Shut up, would you?" The stranger hissed. "Your friend must have mentioned something about you girls while he was shopping. Damn it!" They whipped a hand around, taking a chunk out of a tree with their hand.
"What…?" Nami stopped arguing and froze as a group of men raced out of the shelter of the woods to surround the stranger and Nami. Robin had been smart enough to keep herself hidden to some extent, so the men didn't notice her.
"What do you want?" The stranger wrapped an arm around Nami's waist and drew her closer to themselves protectively.
A short, stout man with a piggish face stepped forward out of the crowd. "You don't have the right to deny us our women. It's not like there are many that come."
The stranger's nose wrinkled in distain. "Who's to say that the women aren't already mine?" Their arm curled further around Nami and their muscles tightened, prepared to launch or defend from an attack. "After all, I got my hands on them, first."
The short man and his companions spat on the ground. "If you don't have any hands left, you can't keep your hands on them. Sic 'im, boys!" The crowd of men rushed towards the stranger and Nami. Robin almost jumped into the fray to protect Nami but the stranger lifted Nami up, settling the girl on their shoulder and jumping high above the treetops to avoid the melee.
"I'd much prefer to keep my hands, thanks just the same." Snatching pinecones from the uppermost branches, the stranger slung the hard pellets accurately at the townsmen's heads for multiple direct hits, much to the aggravation of the mob. They threw the pinecones back at the stranger, but most of the time the pine cones couldn't even reach the branch below the stranger and Nami's perch.
"I found 'is 'ome!" One of the idiots crowed. The stranger immediately cursed under their breath. Nami wasn't too worried about Robin; if she'd been in the cave when the man had found it, the man wouldn't have gotten the chance to alert his colleagues.
"Any chance you would tell me where you and your shipmates docked, now? I have a few pressing issues to take care of beside you and your friend," the stranger whispered slightly more urgently than before.
Nami frowned at the cloaked stranger, distrusting the odd person. She only relented when one particularly well-aimed pinecone nearly struck her throat, only the stranger swatted it away just in time. "Argh, fine. I don't know the exact location to our relative place since you plopped us somewhere I've never seen. I can describe the place, if that'll help."
"At this point, anything is good. I know the island well enough; I'll probably know where you're talking about."
"Well, do you know where the channel turns off into a hidden cave? The entrance isn't very tall; we only just fit into it, but the cave itself fits the whole ship with room to spare, and the far back of the cave the channel ends where a granite plateau begins. We're not sure how far back that tunnel goes, though."
The stranger pulled their cloak's hood further over their face and groaned. "We need to go. What's your friend's name?"
"You mean Robin?"
"ROBIN!" The stranger yelled. "WHERE EVER YOU ARE, EITHER STAY HIDDEN OR TRY TO FOLLOW US. I'll come back for you in a bit, all right?" The stranger jumped as hands appeared out of the bark of the tree spelling the letters F, O, L, L, O, W. "She's a devil fruit user?"
Nami shrugged. "My crewmates are all a bit weird like that."
The stranger shook their head in wonder, pulling Nami onto their back so she wouldn't have to run to keep up to the stranger. "You don't mind getting a piggy-back ride, do you?" Nami shook her head. "No? Good." The stranger took off through the treetops, barely seeming to touch the tips of the trees at all as they danced through the air. The furious protests of the townsmen barely reached Nami's ears over the sound of the crisp wind flowing past her ears. They came in view of the river as the stranger set Nami down near the outside of the cave. They could hear the clamor from the interior outside of the cave and Nami groaned. Where ever they went, trouble found them even if they weren't looking for it.
"You should let me go first," Nami insisted. Her words fell on deaf ears; the stranger was already racing for the entrance of the cave. Nami dove after them, trying to stop them. They'd only get hurt; her comrades might attack first and ask questions later.
All noise stopped with a clang.
Nami arrived just in time to see Zoro's three swords stopped short by the stranger. The cloaked stranger was breathing hard, forcing Zoro's swords back with two long daggers. "Do. Not. Touch. Jin. You do not have the right," the stranger ground out the words into Zoro's incredulous face. Behind the stranger sat a glorious black dragon, its scales shimmering despite the darkness of the cave and its many teeth elongated and razor-sharp. Its lips were drawn back in a snarl and it had rocked back onto its hind legs, preparing to swipe at the Straw Hats. The stranger placed a calming hand on the dragon's spiny nose, whispering to the beast caringly.
"Who in the seven hells are you?" Zoro growled, keeping his swords drawn and trained on this stranger who had managed to stop his blades.
"Stop pointing your sticks at me, swords-boy," the stranger quipped, threatening the man, "I don't answer questions given to me on the point of a weapon. But I can assure you, if you try to attack Jin or me, you will not like where you end up."
Zoro took another step forward towards the stranger, causing the dragon to hiss warningly at him. "Oh, shut up, you. I've taken down bigger, faster creatures than you," he said angrily.
The stranger became a blur in the air, appearing behind Zoro to whisper in his ear, "Don't insult him, either. If he hadn't been feeling compassionate, he'd have slaughtered you all the moment he saw you invading his home, and you'd have never seen him." The stranger jumped back, avoiding a swipe from Zoro's katana. They rushed up to his sword, locking their daggers to the hilts with the shining metal. Out of the corner of their eye, Nami spotted the dragon begin to creep up on the swordsman. She was about to scream a warning to Zoro, but the stranger dropped one of their daggers and held up a hand, giving out a single command. "Sit."
Immediately, the dragon sat back on its haunches and stared stonily at the stranger and their opponent. "Stay. I am perfectly capable of defending myself, Jin." The dragon huffed out a puff of smoke to voice his displeasure and waited impatiently. That single puff of air was enough to dislodge the stranger's hood; the fabric fell away from their face to reveal a surprising appearance. The stranger was a girl with brunette hair with many red tints throughout the wavy, collarbone length hair. Her coppery brown eyes were framed by long dark lashes and high cheekbones. An elegant cupid's arch graced full lips that were currently tightened into a scowl.
"Y-you're a girl?" Zoro was shocked. She had so much physical strength for a girl, not to mention high caliber speed and skill. He lowered his sword in surprise, granting the woman the opening she was looking for to launch her attack. She tackled the man, straddling his torso and put one of her daggers to his throat.
"Yeah, I'm a girl. Got a problem with that, swords-boy?"
"Hohoho, it looks like she beat you, Zoro!" Luffy crowed, laughing. Usopp chuckled nervously, throwing glances towards Robin. She had entered the cave as they began fighting.
"I thought dragons were nearly extinct. How'd you manage to meet this one?" She commented, her eyes gliding over Ryujin with shining interest.
"Who cares about that?" Zoro complained. "Who're you?" He had set down his swords; she wasn't going to attack him as long as he didn't show any ill-will towards her or her dragon. She swung her leg over Zoro's body, still sitting on him, but not straddling him anymore. It seems they came to some form of non-verbal agreement.
"I'm Kuina. Kuina Ryūkyū, to be exact. Pleasure to make your acquaintance," she got to her feet and offered a hand to help Zoro to his feet. A strange emotion had flit across his face while she introduced herself, but she paid it no mind. He ignored her hand and stalked away to sulk. She shrugged, pulling her hood back over her head and started to vacate the cave, snapping her fingers so Jin would follow her. Luffy made a snap decision. Someone who could get the better of Zoro but not seriously injure him could be fun to have as a crewmate. He stretched out his arms, elongating them to snatch Kuina at the entrance of the cave. She snapped back towards him in his arms like a rubber band and squeaked in surprise. Luffy held her up in front of him by her waist as she stared at him with wide eyes.
D-devil fruit? This crew has more than one devil fruit user? Not to mention the insane level of skill and strength from that Zoro guy. Their whole crew must be amazing.
"Do you want to join my crew?"