Chapter two: a pleasure cruise on the high seas with ninety percent of dying forecasted

Time skip eight years later

Natasha POV

Natasha had enlisted when she was eighteen at a marine outpost and had been genuinely enthusiastic about becoming a law abiding and enforcing marine and spread happiness among the civilians by arresting evil pirates. The same kind as the ones that raided her village when she was eleven and made her an orphan.

She had been relegated to boring mundane tasks like scrubbing the floors and helping the cook by pre-cutting the hundreds of ingredients. It wasn't as glamorous as she had hoped but she was still happy about it. Though it would have been more enjoyable if she didn't have to listen to grown man bitch and cry all the time.

" I can't believe we're still scrubbing the same damn floor we scrubbed yesterday " complained Sebastian

" I know Bas, it's like they don't even care if it's clean or not they just want to torture us, the sadistic bastards"

" Be careful they don't hear you or you'll be on lavatory duty for the next month Chris "

" We'll get promoted soon enough so shut up, you lot whine more than a baby who just shat his pants" sniped Natasha. She figured that after she put in her dues she would get promoted to a decent post.

Natasha moved away from them closer to the officers staff room " I really hope I don't get stuck with those slackers on a ship. Trusting my back to them sounds like asking for an early retirement in a body bag" complained Natasha to herself. She wasn't impressed with the caliber of her fellow recruits, they lacked resolve.

She got jolted out of her musings when she overheard a conversation floating from the staff room. " id you get that payment from Kuro" her heart skipped a beat were they talking about pirate captain Kuro who supposedly died, no that couldn't be right she thought. But there wasn't a marine officer by the name of Kuro that she knew off or a civilian in the surrounding area.

" Yeah but he was annoyed with me about the price" huh were they talking about bribes ?

" Cheeky brat what did he expect for keeping quiet. So he can poison one of the more influential families in East blue" Natasha was shocked her superior officers took not just bribes but were planning to be an accessory to a premeditated murder.

" You think he will actually pull it off ? "

" Hmm no reason why not, those parents were the real power, that daughter of them is so sickly that Kuro can easily wrap her around his finger before he kills her."

Natasha was stunned speechless her entire worldview just came crashing down. She had accepted corrupt marines as a vague possibility, more of a mental exercise than a real life fact really. It was like one of those things that happened to other people but never to you but now it had happened to her and she had no clue how to deal with it. She slumped her shoulders and went through the motions for the rest of the day until she got to her bunk bed and had the most fretful sleep she ever had.

The next day was worse for Natasha, she hadn't yet processed the events of yesterday and again she was posted to scrub the same damn floor outside the officers staff room. She was a pro cleanliness type of girl but this seemed excessive even to her.

Her day passed slowly as she went to scrub the same square meter she did yesterday which sparkled back at her with the same intensity as if mocking her. But her mind wasn't on it instead she was thinking of that dreaded door she was inching towards. For some reason Sebastian and Chris had left her to clean this part of the corridor again. She understood the slackers wanting to pawn of their work on her but to get posted in the same stretch of corridor on the same floor on successive days was weird. Well maybe she was just overreacting and seeing things that weren't there because she was going into a tail spin. She was starting to doubt everything now that the fundamental bedrock 'that marines were good' was ripped out from under her.

But then came those voices again drifting through the wind and more ominous to her than a hail of bullets. " Did you hear back from that new guy "

" Yeah he said he wouldn't pay his protection money, he says he doesn't need protection in the weakest sea"

The other guy laughed " Doesn't he realize that the only reason that we are the 'weakest sea' is because his competition doesn't need to be stronger" does that mean that every pirate in east blue is paying bribes wondered Natasha

" Arrogant young fool, but no matter after a battleship comes for him he'll be singing a different tune"

" I got a better idea let him rack up a few million in bounty and then we sent our own bounty hunter to collect it. We use marine intelligence to catch him and then send in a accomplice to collect the bounty in exchange for a commission. "

the other guy laughed " You really got a knack for business Nezumi "

"Thanks lieutenant I aim to please"

This royally pissed of Natasha, she was ready to give her commanding officer a piece of her mind. But knew she would get killed in a heartbeat if she did so. There was no way she could go up against a marine captain by herself, not to mention the rest of the base. She was by now severely disillusioned about the glory of the marines.

She bowed her head resigned to her fate, she was stuck in the gears of the machine if she fought it all it would do was get her crushed. She then noticed that her fellow recruits' mops were idle. She took a closer look from the corner of her eye and saw that all of them were looking at her, not even that subtle if you asked her.

Then she realized it was scripted, she hadn't heard these conversations by accident at all. She was meant to hear them so they could judge her worthy or not. Though the scales of judgment were a mirror image of the ones she was used to, good was bad and evil was good. Luckily for her, she was so depressed that she hadn't reacted one way or the other. They were probably watching her carefully for signs of outrage or something like that.

They were scoping her out to see whether or not they could recruit her to their little club. She however had no intention whatsoever to ever join them, she would rather die. She had her principles and she wouldn't go against them just to live longer. But she didn't give any outward sign of her disapproval. It had been her dream to hunt down those foul pirates and throw them in impel down and she wouldn't give up now but she had to amend it.

She would now include corrupt marines as well. But she couldn't go against the iron clad hierarchy of the marines. You followed the orders of your commanding officer unquestioningly or would be court-martialed. If she started complaining to top brass she would be written off as a liar unless she had the direct ear of a high ranking officer.

This grim reality sunk in to Natasha and prevented her from going on a rampage but she would do something. If necessary she would get herself discharged from the marines with dishonor but they wouldn't let her go just like that. When they knew she had heard those rumors and could spread them among civilians and become a troublemaker for them. Especially since that lieutenant had slipped up and actually used her captain's real name 'Nezumi'. Unless of course it was a double bluff and they were trying to besmirch Nezumi's name if things went sideways.

Regardless of whether her captain was actually involved which she concluded he probably was, as he was the highest ranking marine on base and couldn't miss such obvious bribes. She came to the bone chilling realization that she would be forced to become a pirate. She no longer could become a bounty hunter, which was her fall back plan if becoming a marine didn't work out. A bounty hunter with a bounty was a pirate no matter what she said, everyone would recognize her as a pirate.

Natasha didn't even want to think about what they would think of her back in her home village. Collinsport was a simple town and saw the world in black and white. Pirates were evil, marines were good and bounty hunters were bad but not completely evil. They could have accepted her being a bounty hunter if she just claimed that she couldn't pass the test to become a marine or something.

They would believe that unquestioningly and just console and support her being a bounty hunter. But a pirate was too much when most of them had lost loved ones to pirate raids. They would vilify her before the day was out.

Natasha quietly finished up her mopping for the day and reported to the kitchen to start peeling potatoes. This was the first time she thanked the mind numbing task as she could freely explore her options while keeping busy.

After her sixth potato she settled into a rhythm and her mind went pleasantly blank. She thought about her options some more and it came down to desert, whistleblower, pirate, or go ape shit and massacre as many people as she could before dying herself. She wasn't seriously contemplating that last one but it was so entertaining that it kept sneaking back in to her thought process.

After some soul searching and what was important to her it came down to two things really. She promised on her parents grave that she would grow up to stop bad guy and they would be proud of her. she had tried combining the two by becoming a marine, who in her village's eyes were the quintessential modern heroes. That had worked out just wonderfully, not even past her 'wet behind the ears' phase and already she was getting offers to join the bad guys anonymous club. Was it something on her forehead that said 'will do anything for money'. Or maybe it was because she got too overexcited when they had to demonstrate kill techniques on straw dummies.

Nah that was just ridiculous they wouldn't want an overeager marine but a underachiever that thought he deserved better. Wait did they think of her as that, that was actually worse than bloodthirsty maniac. She settled on that she was just too overeager and they wanted a disposable tool for risky missions, yeah that made sense.

After reassuring herself Natasha worked out her other options and came to one simple conclusion, she had to die. " Yep there is nothing for it but to just kick the bucket, but hopefully in a memorable way"

Though Natasha mourned the loss of her childhood friends already, whom she could never see again. She had no choice but to fake her death and take on a new name if she wanted any chance of fulfilling her dream. She could never join the marines again as they had her picture on file but she didn't want to anymore anyway. But with a new name and if she grew her hair out she could look different enough to not be recognized as a bounty hunter.

Natasha had a plan now and was willing to go to extreme lengths to execute it. But she wasn't willing to leave her dream behind and leave with her tail between her legs without some payback.

She waited till late at night and snuck out of her bunk bed careful not to make a sound, which wasn't that difficult. Military discipline ensured that everything was in the exact same spot all the time. So she could walk through this room with her eyes closed if she had to. She briefly contemplated going over to Sebastian and Chris's bunk beds and leave some kind of surprise for them when they woke up. But it was juvenile, risky and a bit insulting to her intelligence to actually do it. So she passed on it and made her way over to her captains office. Again she had scrubbed that floor so many times she could write pages full of intricate detail of how the marble shimmered and what colors and patterns it had but she would go insane if she actually tried.

She walked up to her captains office and pressed her ear up against the door to check if he was still working. She heard nothing but for safety's sake she knocked on it anyway. if he was here she would have to make up an excuse but she wouldn't have just tried breaking into an occupied room. She thought compared to making up an awkward lie, breaking into a room full of people just seemed more stupid.

There was no response or any rustle of clothes she could hear so she opened the door with the key she had stolen from the guy who had to clean her captain's office. He was easily enough distracted with her feminine charm and two bottles of smuggled wine from the kitchen. She had half expected to be forced to listen to his lame jokes half of the night. But surprisingly he had been willing to just joke around with his friends until he passed out.

She entered slowly and watched the shadows for any movements. Finding none, she proceeded to light a candle left on a side table and started her search for anything incriminating.

It took some time but she found a mountain of evidence of illegal dealings most notably slave trade. She was outraged, taking bribes to let pirates go was one thing but slave trade was unconscionable. Screw jail it was too good for them, the bloody bastards all deserved to die and she would see to it.

As she was gathering all the evidence up into a briefcase. She found in one of the desk drawers a weird looking fruit. She recognized it immediately as a devil fruit and took it as well. The bloody things were worth a hundred million berry, she may not be able to hurt her captain directly but she could bloody well hurt him financially and/or militarily.

She ate it quickly before she was found out. Even if she got caught and sentenced to death at least she would have the satisfaction of knowing she hurt the bastard.

She got everything she needed from the office and left. She had mostly ignored the money lying around as it was too heavy to carry around. She only took what she could carry without slowing her down. She did bother to pick up the training manual that marine headquarters at Enies lobby had sent over for her captain to study so he could get promoted according to the inscription. It was described to be full of secret techniques that high ranking marines were rumored to have.

She would be dammed if her corrupt captain got any stronger if she could help it, so was more than happy to steal it. If she made it out of here alive it might even help her as a bounty hunter so it was definitely valuable enough to take with her. With some luck her captain would be too embarrassed to say he lost it and just make up some excuse why he couldn't learn it and stay a local desk jockey forever.

Before sneaking out of the office she smashed open the liquor cabinet and sprayed the expensive liquids around. She even made it into bit of a dance while prancing around with two whisky bottles in her hand. After she was done dousing the office she placed a bottle of scotch on its side stuffed with a rag doused in it and set it on fire.

Though she hadn't tested it as there was no place to do it. If all went to plan the rag would burn till it reached the scotch inside and then cause a fireball that set the entire office on fire and cover up her theft. It was a crude timed explosive and a weak one at that, more fire than explosion really but still. Luckily only her captain Nezumi should enter this room before it went off and it was no skin of her back if he accidentally died.

She placed it underneath his desk to conceal it and place it where it would burn through the places she had pilfered for evidence. She then left the office smiling victoriously with a few million Beli more to her name, enough evidence to blackmail the man into doing just about anything and a book to make her powerful enough to challenge him by herself. Though that was ideally speaking and more than likely if she tried it right now, it would go sideways and she would end up in a execution block for her troubles.

She went down onto the docks and surveyed her choices, a number of grand majestic battleships awaited her but the damn things were too big to be crewed by one woman. By the time she got the main sail down there would be an audience on shore jeering at her for doing it wrong, because naturally everyone's a critic. So she settled for the fastest boat by which she meant 'to get ready', as a dinghy wouldn't win any speeding contests.

She got into the little boat and cast off while giving the base the finger as a final goodbye. She then rowed with her oars as hard as she could. It wouldn't take long for her absence to be missed after all. Well she could have gone unnoticed for hours perhaps until the next morning when they came to stalk her again but that wasn't what would set off the alarm. That would undoubtedly be due to captain Nezumi finding his office burglarized or torched depending on the success of her little trick. At the very least he would have a veritable nightmare getting the stains out of his carpet.

She smiled victoriously as she rowed away under the starlight. She had picked this night for a very good reason and that was because there was no moon. This meant that they would have some trouble finding out where she had gone. They couldn't see her in this darkness but would find her soon enough once the sun came up. She could never outrun the marine battleships in a rowing boat by herself. They may be big and burly but those big sails made them fast too, so long as you didn't expect tight cornering out of them. So it was a race against time for Natasha if she got to her destination in time she was home free if not she would be shot out of the water.

For eight hours Natasha rowed, only stopping to rest for fifteen minutes after every forty five minutes. She kept up a good pace but didn't overdo it too much. It was better to keep up a slightly slower pace after all than go all out and crap out after a mere ten kilometers.

But those thoughts of conserving stamina were soon ejected from her mind as she spotted a battleship on the horizon. It was doubtful it had seen her yet as it was still early dawn and visibility was still spotty but that was only a matter of time. She was close to her destination now but close wasn't good enough. It was all or nothing and she would be damned if a couple of ruptured calluses were going to kill her.

She rowed on more vigorously and the battleship spotted her as soon as the sun had come up a bit higher. It was a mad dash for the finish line now, but luckily for her the battleship wasn't as eager to speed up as she was. They believed they had her caught in open water in a worthless boat and no way to escape.

Natasha however knew different, already she could feel the current tugging at her little boat speeding her away from the battleship. It took some time before they realized she had speeded up before they too switched into higher gear. Her little boat however wasn't done accelerating, it wasn't long before Natasha didn't even bother using her oars as it didn't make much of a difference anymore. Her plan had gone off without a hitch and now there was only the last most risky part of it left.

The faking your own death part, she was really not looking forward to it but she knew of no other believable way. She knew a good faked death was public with plenty of witnesses ( cue battleship with five hundred marines) and was caused by some wide scale destruction that would kill most men but was hard to verify because it left no identifiable corpse. She had toyed with the idea of setting of an explosion in the ammunitions room but that would have required a dummy corpse and a clean getaway without anyone seeing her.

The problem was finding said patsy and placing her there without anyone noticing and creating paperwork that she was there when she wasn't supposed to be there according to the work shifts. It had too many inherent flaws to execute it, the bribing to change the work shifts and near impossible escape she could deal with. But the possibility of the fire spreading and causing more deaths and the moral implications of killing an innocent women for the dummy corpse was too much. Hell even if she found a corrupt one against all odds that looked like her it would still be too much.

She knew a lot of these marines were corrupt but she wasn't willing to kill the innocent ones just for a chance to kill the bad ones. So she had discarded that plan and settled on her current one, to row a small boat into a giant whirlpool. Her chance of dying was a optimistic ninety percent. The risk of collateral damage however was nonexistent unless the marines were dumb enough to follow her in.

She however didn't have to worry about that as they already dropped anchor and she saw some frantic yelling going on on deck. She smiled the corrupt bastards were also cowards as she expected. These really were the bottom of the barrel in the navy. She sighed, if she had known she would have sailed to the grand line first and enlisted in Logue town. It was a well known fact that the grand line marines there were tough no questions asked. They had to be with all the strong pirates around. The fact that they were closer to headquarters must also keep corruption down, at least she hoped so. If it spread all the way to the top she didn't know what she would do.

Natasha did know however what she was going to do right now. She had been sucked into the whirlpool and lost direct line of sight with the battleship. It was her golden window of opportunity , it was now or never. She quickly got inside her wine barrel for this special occasion. She had already stuffed it full of the things she pilfered from the captains office so it was a very tight fit. She had to move some stuff around so the lid would close.

In desperation she just chucked out all the money she had grabbed as it would do her no good if she was dead. She grabbed the rope she had attached to the lid and pulled it into place and then twisted it so it would lock with the interconnecting wood creating a airtight fit. She had just done it in the nick of time as a few moments later her ship crashed against the waves and got crushed into small pieces.

Natasha now prayed for three small miracles one that she wouldn't get smashed against any underwater rocks. Two that the battleship didn't bother to check the wreckage too closely. It would be a disaster to be fished up by them. And three that somebody else, preferably neither pirate or marine fished her up or alternatively that she would wash up on shore by herself.

It was a lot to hope for and she knew it, as she heard the raging sea just outside her barrel and her barrel bumping into unidentifiable things. she started wondering if plan A might have been better after all.

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Luffy pov

Luffy was fishing on his little fishing boat he had bought by saving for years. He knew it wasn't much but it was a place to start on his path to becoming the pirate king. His brother ace had already set out on his journey a year ago on his own.

Luffy had wanted to join him but was still too young at fourteen according to ace. They had vowed to set sail no later than their seventeenth birthday in honor of Sabo. So Luffy had grudgingly accepted to wait until he was seventeen before heading out to the grand line. He however hadn't been slacking in the mean time. He had improved his gomu gomu powers as much as possible, now It really was as strong as a pistol.

" I wonder if I lost my bait"

Luffy hadn't caught anything all day but wasn't ready to call it a day yet until he caught something. when he was reeling in his line to check the bait, he spotted a barrel floating in the distance. He put away his fishing rod and grabbed his oars and rowed towards it. It was taking forever to get there though as the current was against him, while the barrel was floating away.

After an hour he finally punched through and got in the same current as the barrel, it didn't take long then before he caught up with it. He rowed closer to it and then used his gomu gomu powers to stretch his arms to grab it. He would have done that sooner if he could, but there was a limit to how far he could stretch. He pulled the barrel onboard and set it up right and then tried to open it. It took some doing but after destroying the lid with a rock he got it open.

Inside he found something he never thought he would see, inside a barrel at least it was pretty common outside of one. He saw a girl with short straight brown hair with some thin braids alongside her face and the rest tied up in a ponytail. She had some nice but modest curves and wore male looking clothes. she seemed to be out of it probably sleeping or unconscious from starvation. So he grabbed her by her shoulder and tried waking her up.

Natasha pov

Natasha was having a really nice dream where she was a marine admiral, and had just arrested some atrocious pirates and was having a feast in celebration. Although it was a rather typical dream for her up until now there hadn't been as much emphasis on the feast up until now but more on the award ceremony.

Now though all she could think about was that delicious succulent piece of meat in front of her. though she kept being bothered by some subordinate who was nudging her shoulder, probably so she could sign some paperwork. She sighed to herself the paperwork was the only real downside of being a marine as far as she knew back when she was a kid. Those were good times, she ignored him in favor of another sip of rum to wash down that meat. She then suddenly got jolted awake by a smack on the head.

" Whatta what's happening " she blurred out coming awake in a most undignified manner. She tried moving around in the barrel but had trouble doing so and nearly tipped it over if not for the steadying hand of her apparent rescuer.

" Well I found you drifting in a barrel out on sea, is it fun can I try" asked and answered Luffy

Natasha realized what had happened, her three miracles had actually been fulfilled. She lived, she didn't get fished up by the marines and by the looks of it she got rescued by some civilian kid a bit on the slow side. She hardly could have asked for a better outcome, now all she had to do was spin a story and show some gratitude and she was off to a new life.

She knew the marines would just log her death as killed in combat rather than betrayal and death by accident. It caused them less headaches from top brass that way, when they went over the paperwork. Marines died by the dozen against pirates, by comparison death due to natural disasters was only common in the grand line and betrayal was rare everywhere. Not to mention that if they wrote her off as died in an accident it would be weird if she was the only casualty.

Worst case for her would be if they classified it as desertion but that would reflect badly on captain Nezumi as well so it was unlikely. If it did happen however her plan would become meaningless and she would be worse off than she started.

Meanwhile the kid had stopped obsessing about the joys of cruising the sea in a wine barrel. " Hey what's your name" he asked. That brought Natasha up short, she hadn't given much thought to a new name, mostly because it was so unlikely that she would actually survive.

She quickly picked one she had thought about before and gave it " My name is Miria nice to meet you" said Natasha. She would have preferred something like Natalie or sasha but that was too similar to her old name and wasn't practical in the long run. If she ever made a name for herself or someone from her old live saw her. it would be game over and she would get a bounty on her head no questions asked. unless she made herself extremely useful to the top brass somehow and she wasn't willing to do that anytime soon.

"I'm luffy nice to meet you too, so where are you from. And how did you get in the barrel"

Natasha/ Miria thought fast and said "" I was aboard a merchant ship that got attacked by pirates in the confusion I hid in one of the barrels. The merchants tried to get away by loosing excess weight and dropped me overboard unknowingly. " she fibbed

" So you're a coward then" said luffy bluntly

" I guess so " said Natasha/ Miria not really caring if the kid thought of her as a coward. She couldn't say she had fearlessly sailed into a giant whirlpool to escape the marines now could she ?

The boy didn't seem too happy about her answer but shrugged it off. ""Wanna come to town with me then, you must be hungry and I haven't caught anything yet" he said

"Yes thank you very much and also thank you for rescuing me" she thanked politely realizing she hadn't thanked him yet which was somewhat rude. she hoped he wouldn't hold It against her and just chalk it up to her dazed state from starvation.

"You're welcome Miria" he politely replied

They each grabbed an oar and rowed together towards shore. Natasha noticed they were really far out to sea as she could barely see the coast. " Do you always fish this far from the coast" she asked

" Nah but your barrel got caught in the waves and I had to chase it for a long time. It kept going further away ."

Natasha instantly realized that without this boy she would have starved to death inside that barrel as the current they were now fighting against was strong and would undoubtedly have carried her far into the middle of the ocean. The more she thought about it the more she was sure she should have stuck with plan A and torched the place or at least come up with a plan C.

Regardless she now owed this boy a immeasurable debt that she could never repay. " Hey how old are you anyway" she asked half out of curiosity and another to pass the time. " I'm fifteen and you" he said " I'm eighteen" she replied and awkward silence then descended on the boat.

Luffy point of view

Luffy was oblivious to the awkward silence and was considering other important matters such as what would be for dinner. He didn't catch anything and Dadan was mad at him so he couldn't really bring a house guest over, so that left going to Fuusha village and getting a meal there.

He had some money saved up from selling some fish. But going to a restaurant or bar wasn't his preference. They asked too much money for the food and so he couldn't eat his fill. But he knew that shipwrecked people needed food to recover and this girl still seemed a bit pale. Like she could faint any moment although she still rowed better than most girls he knew. That gave her a bit more respect in Luffy's eyes. Maybe she wasn't that big of a coward as he thought if she could pull through on a empty stomach. ( To luffy a empty stomach is one of the most debilitating injuries imaginable).

He also only now noticed she had a really delicate face with deep brown eyes and cherry colored lips. He idly wondered how much she could eat with those. He hoped she wasn't like Makino who worried about her figure so much that she refused to eat much of anything except a salad. She was one of those girls that said they were watching their weight. But Makino had a very slim body so he never got her obsession with it.

He really loved talking about food but those girls only talked about how fattening they were and only discussed gross food to lose weight. It was like they didn't get the point of eating meat in the first place. He frequently had arguments with them when they complained about his diet and the lack of green stuff in it. He really hoped she wouldn't be as annoying as them and he knew she didn't need that crap either.

Natasha pov

Miria was struggling to make conversation but didn't know what to talk about. She had expected some follow up questions but there were none. Her sketchy back story was taken for granted other than some disappointment over her lack of courage and that was it. Off they were to his hometown with not a care in the world.

She expected the kid to be a bit too much on the trusting side but this was getting ridiculous. She was torn about hoping if there were some sensible people in the village or not. if there were she would have someone to talk to and also to avoid talking to. As it could cause problems for her if they kept asking pushy questions and she got her story mixed up.

He took her to a small bar and introduced her to a girl named Makino and made some small talk. She repeated her back story and filled it in here and there. She suddenly was an aspiring merchant who travelled on that ship hoping to earn enough to later buy her own ship. Or some such nonsense, she only bothered listening to herself spout such drivel because she had to remember it. so she wouldn't trip over her own lies.

It didn't matter too much though she would stay for a few months at least to make it up to the kid. and then she would set out again to somehow foil those slave traders. She had only been able to glance at the evidence she gathered but she knew that the marines were bribed to look the other way and knew exactly where they were. She had to look it over more closely for the specifics later but that could wait.

She also had to use these months to actually earn some money to hire some bounty hunters or something. She had trained hard in the marine academy but knew she couldn't take those slave traders on by herself. She needed help or at least a distraction so she could get in and out unnoticed and free the slaves. She slowly nibbled her food away to ease her aching stomach into it. It wasn't a good idea to suddenly chug down a barrel of water after starving of thirst for days. She was more likely to throw it back up than to actually keep it down and let it do some good.

This seemed to disappoint the boy even more. She got the distinct impression he wanted her to be a brave warrior who could eat and party with the best of them. Although she was most definitely brave in her book she wasn't much of a glutton. But the disappointment was starting to get to her a bit. She wanted her savior to at least like her, she didn't have anyone else who knew her after all. Not anymore now that she was presumed dead.

she also had to throw out her money to make room for the evidence and training manual. Both of those were worth more than a few million belli but this also meant that she was stuck in this town whether she liked to or not for a few months at least. She could claim showing gratitude to the boy was the reason for staying in her mind. but most likely she would have to mooch off him some more before she could repay him.

"So where are you going to stay" asked Makino

Miria shrugged " I don't have any money so I'll just camp out in the mountains till I find a job"

" You can't stay up there, mount Corbo is full of dangerous animals" warned Makino making hand gestures to emphasize her point

" Don't worry I'm sure I'll be fine" assured Miria she had after all gotten excellent grades in survival training, in no small part thanks to her camping trips she had taken with her parents when she was a kid. The brutal training designed to prepare her for the worst had a nostalgic feeling for Natasha ,that she fully embraced. She was the only one of the few to actually sign up for extra lessons, despite her passing grade just to re-live her joyful memories some more.

" But didn't you run away from those pirates, some of those animals are tougher than most people in this village" said Makino trying to make clear the danger of the mountain to this girl who was clearly still sick.

Miria noticed that she had suddenly attracted the interest of that boy again. Who had up until now mostly ignored her and just concentrated on eating, apparently camping out in the mountains was a good thing in his book. She smiled at least they had something in common she thought and answered "" There is a big difference between most animals and pirates too, at least the ones here in east blue." This answer didn't seem to mollify Makino at all and was about to protest some more when.

" I'll show you around then" said the black haired boy excitedly

He took her by the hand and pulled her towards the forest despite the protests of Makino. They spent the entire day together exploring the forest. He showed her where the animal trails were, which plants were poisonous and how to avoid the more dangerous animals and of course how to catch them and cook them. Talking about food seemed to put this boy into a state of bliss. He was dreamily describing all the wonderful foods in the forest when she interrupted" Well how about I cook some of them, I have a bit of chef training"

The boy now had stars in his eyes like she was the best thing he had ever seen. He thanked her and together they caught a alligator. She carefully skinned it as the leather would be useful later. And then cooked it. After his first bite he was proclaiming her to be the best. She guessed it was true that the way to a man's heart was through his stomach at least this one's was.