Chapter 1 - The Assassin and the Scientist
It was a relitively peaceful day on the Thousand Sunny; well... peaceful was the wrong wourd for it, dull would be more accurate. The winds were non-existant, their cola supply was low and it was baking hot. Luffy, Usopp and Chopper simply sat on the rails, fishing for fish that were too smart to go anywhere near the surface today, as it was simply too hot to be hyper. Of course Nami and Robin wouldn't miss a chance to top-up their tans, with Sanji waiting on them hand-and-foot. Franky was somewhere below deck and Zoro was (predictably) working out; he saw the heat as 'environmental training'.
Whispy, insignificant clouds drifted uselessly across the sun; as they didn't block any of it's rays. Then, just as Usopp sighed, a loud 'Woohooo!" could be heard in the distance. And on the horizon, something broke the waters surface and rose in an arc before sinking again.
"What was that?" asked Luffy excitedly, jumping up on the rail
"I don't know but it's dinner" said Sanji, taking a lazy drag on his cigarette
"A sea king probably" deliberated Chopper"
Then the arc rose again, closer this time and now the voice said "Is that all ya' got fucker?" it seemed to belong to a girl. The sea king seemed to take offence to the voice as it suddenly shot underwater. The strawhats looked round for where the sea king would rise again, but it didn't - not for a while anyway.
A dark shape suddenly rose behind them flew high over the entire ship, accompanied by a loud "FUCK YE~AH!". The shadow belonged to what could only be described as a monster-koi that was almost as big as Sunny. Luffy's eyes were as wide as saucers as he cried "MEAT~!" and shot his arm towards the Koi to grab hold of one of the massive webbed spines that arched from its back.
"Wait!" cried Ussop "Your a hammer!" he desperately tried to remind his captain, but it was too late, the giant Koi submerged under the water again; rocking the ship with the splash it caused
~S~
Hitomi clung onto the spines as the Koi dived underwater again, she was not going to loose to a fish. As she felt the water pressure building she reached for the hunting knife strapped to her leg when she noticed someone else clinging to the spines, and they appeared to be losing conciousness. She rolled her eyes, she'd saved Tatsu from drowning often enough in order to know that this guy was a hammer. Reluctant to give up her lunch, she let of the spine and grabbed the guy round his waist, and swam upwards. As she did she knew for sure this guy was a hammer, as he weighed more than a normal human would in the water
~S~
Just as Zoro had been about to dive in the water, someone grabbed hold of the railing and launched themselves on board. It was a girl - about the same height as Robin and no older than Sanji or Zoro - with long choppy purple hair, her eyes were stormy grey and she was slender, with lightly tanned skin, she was wearing a black bikini and had a hunting knife strapped to her thigh; on the front of her left hip was a black tribal-styled tattoo, no more than four inches wide, it was a tiger bent in the shape of 'yang' with the yin half fitted in next to it. Luffy was draped over her shoulder. "He yours?" she asked, pointing to him with her free hand; her eye brow arched slightly.
"Yeah," said Nami, stepping forwards as the girl dumped Luffy on the ground and Chopper raced forward to revive him
"Mellor~"
"See ya," she said, with a short wave before flipping backwards off the ship into the water.
Sanji cried in anguish, dropping to his knees by the rails. "I didn't even get her name," he wailed "My first sight of a mermaid and I-"
"She wasn't a mermaid shit-cook, she had legs" Zoro pointed out, but before their arguement could start, the giant Koi burst out of the water again; this time it was almost directly beneath the ship and making it rock dagerously in the water, sending a cold wave over them. Even in the heat, the sudden cold bath was not welcome.
~S~
She dragged the huge fish onto the beach and - using her hunting knife - cut about one eighth out of it and then into chunks about four inches in width. As she was lighting the fire she was greeted with a smack on the up-side of the head "What the fuck?" she demanded angrilly
"You trying to give me a bloody heartattack?" demanded her brother, a tall man with lightly tanned skin and darkish red hair. "Don't just disapear without telling me!"
~S~
Thankfully, the winds had picked up enough to carry them a little further towards the island their log-pose was pointing at, they were still moving slowly, but at least they were getting somewhere.
"Meat~" moaned Luffy half-hanging over the side of the ship, drooling buckets. The smell of barbequed fish was floating in on the breeze, no amount of rationed food could quench the hunger seeing that giant koi had stirred in him. The excitement the girl and that sea king had caused had dulled quickly, but hadn't gone completely, Sanji wasn't the only one who wanted to know who she was.
"I can see an island on the horizon" said Zoro's voice over the loud speaker. Immidiately the crew gathered at the front of the ship to catch a glimpse of this island. True enough, there was - the island was only small and looked pretty much uninhabited apart from the small boat they could see anchored near the beach. As they got closer, they saw that the boat's hull was painted blue and had been patched up hap-hazardly in one or two places (kind of like the Going Merry in his final days), there were no pirate or marine flags to speak of, just a plain sail. Soon enough they were as close as they could get without beaching the ship. They dropped the anchor. The smell of cooking meat was strong now and Luffy was off the ship before Nami could even say "Don't wander off"
Luffy immideatly found the source of the smell, which wasn't that hard as the person was cooking was sat on the beach, eating an already cooked piece of fish. Luffy stopped short of the campfire and drooled. "Help youself," she said, gesturing to the pieces of fish on the end of sticks propped up round the fire and recognising him from earlier, although Luffy didn't register her until he'd downed three chunks of meat at least.
"You're the girl from earilier!" he observed through a mouthful of food so it sounded more like 'wrore v giwr fwm eawliwr', he swallowed the mouthful "I'm Monkey D. Luffy! I'm gonna be Pirate King!"
She laughed "That's awesome dude, cus I'm gonna be the worlds number one Kunoichi. The name's Hitomi Cho by the way"
Sanji chose this moment to sweep down on her, taking her hand as if to kiss it "It is an honner that I finally get to meet you again, fair maiden, as last time we were not properly introduced. I am Sanji, you may have heard of me-"
"Oh! You're the dude with the really dicked-up wanted poster ain't ya?" she said, as Zoro dropped down on her other side, laughing.
"Oh but it looks nothing like me" he insisted, ignoring Zoro
"Yeah it does" she said "And help yourself to the fish" diregarding Sanji, she turned back to her own chunk.
Nami stared, this girl didn't even seem to give a damn about who they were, let alone care that they were pirates - even though she'd recognised Sanji from his poster, which should of been enough indication that they were very dangerous. Either that was becuase she was stupid, or stroung enough to hold her own against them; stupid was the more likely of the two. On the concept of a free meal, Nami didn't hesitate to dig into the fish.
Inbetween mouthfuls of surprisingly tasty fish, they spoke casually and somehow the fact that they were pirates just didn't seem to bother her even remotely, which did bother Nami "Excuse me," she interjected, cutting off Usopp "I can't help but wonder what you do for a living"
Hitomi observed her for a moment "Kunoichi" she answered, though it was blatant that she didn't really understand the question
"Yeah but that doesn't earn money does it?" but Hitomi nodded
"For, you know, spying, like assassinations and shit" she said, which made Usopp (who was sat next to her) and Chopper (who was sat next to him) freeze and cling to eachother in horror.
"Y-y-you're an a-a-a-assassin?" Usopp managed to stammer
"Yeah, but I won't kill an innocent man" she added, Nami never got to ask what she meant by this, as she was cut off by someone getting off the boat
"Jesus Cho, I leave you for ten minuets and you invite pirates to dinner? I'm really beginning to think you're mentally impaired in some way" The group (aside from Luffy) turned to face the owner of the voice.
The guy was a little shorter than Zoro and he had floppy dark red hair and dark eyes; there was a thin plait hanging from just above the nape of his neck. He was wearing nothing but a pair of bermuda shorts, showing off his well-toned chest and arms. On his left calf was a tatto of four aces - all singed with flames flicking off them - with several different coloured stars, two cherrys, a pair of dice and an 8-ball, all on a misty grey background with tiny black dots. He turned back to the boat for a moment and grabbed a shirt of the side. Before he pulled the shirt on they caught a glimpse of a black dragon tattoo across his back, its head was on his right shoulder blade and its tail curled on the back of his left hip - it was in the same tribal style that Hitomi's was in.
"Guys, this is my brother Tatsu" she introduced, chucking him the ramaining half of his fish-on-a-stick. He caught it deftly and bit a chunk out of it, nodding in greeting as he chewed.
"Y-y-you're not an assassin too are you?" asked Usopp, still clinging to Chopper and scared out of his wits
Tatsu swallowed his mouthful and smiled softly, as if he understood their terror "No, I'm a scientist, but don't worry about Cho, unless we're short of cash she won't pick up your bounties."
"You know who we are then?" asked Nami, glad that the girl's sibling had some common sense at least, and he wasn't to hard on the eyes either
"Who doesn't? You caused quite a bit of havoc at Enies Lobby, quite admirable" he dropped down in the gap between Chopper and Robin "Pirates with higher bounties wouldn't take that on, but your good people, doing that for you nakama"
"You're a scientist?" asked Chopper excitedly
"And you're a tanuki"
"I'm a reindeer you bastard!" he yelled angrilly
"Okay, okay"
Hitomi ignored them as they launched into a conversation about things she didn't understand using words she didn't understand and she looked out over the sea, where she could see the beginnings of a mast coming up over the horizon. The mast was shortly followed by a blue-green striped hull.
"Are they here for us or you?" she asked, and everyone looked out to where she was pointing.