A/N: First let me just get this out of the way. I am sorry that I was gone for some time. I started school around the time that I ended the last chapter and wanted to settle in before I began writing again.

Another thing I wanted to address is this story. Some of you may notice that this chapter is seems a little "slice of life" isque. This is because this is still the first part as of now and I really just want to establish some of the friendships that Luffy will be making. I promise you that there will be plenty of action in this story, and it will likely start in part 2. Part 1 will end around chapter 10 or 11 (also, a side note, I plan to have another story up once part 1 is finish that will basically just combine all the chapters into the part format that I have. If you prefer longer chapters, I recommend reading that once that is out!)

Now that that is out of the way, as always I hope you enjoy, reviews are down at the bottom and please enjoy chapter 8 of "Perspective of Freedom"!

Disclaimer: I do not own One Piece or Attack on Titan. Those belong respectively to Eiichiro Oda and Hajime Isayama.

.

.

.

A week later, 2:25 A.M.

It's been a week since the practical training. Luffy has been training pretty much nonstop since he's gotten there, but it's picked up a slight bit since the practical training. He realized that it was going to take a bit more then pure strength to defeat all the titans so he was going to test something that he has wanted to try out for a while now.

Before he can do this though, he hears banging in the distance. Wondering what it was and seeing how it would kind of disrupt his plan for defeating titans, he began looking for what was making the noise.

However, as he is making his way towards the sound he see's none other than the 'blondy' he talked to (albeit very briefly) during the entrance ceremony.

A smile tears at his face as yells for her. "Oi blondy! What are you doing?" Luffy said as this startles Annie into jumping back into a defensive position.

Luffy raises an eyebrow at her. "What are you doing blondy? You kinda look weird with your thumb to your mouth like that." Luffy says as Annie slowly moves her hand from her mouth as she only sighs and sends a death glare at Luffy as he only laughs and begins to make his way over to the tree she's near.

"Anyway, what are you doing out so late at night blondy?" Luffy questions as Annie once again sighs as she seems bothered by even having to talking to him.

"You can't tell?" Annie says as she notions behind her to the tree she was next to before he startled her. As Luffy looks he notices the tree has a big mark in the tree that was about a meter (about 39 inches) deep.

"Huh? You were cutting down a tree?" Luffy asks. Annie sighs as she shakes her head and heads over to the tree and begins to kick where the mark is. Then it begins to click for Luffy as he realizes that she's training with obvious success given how deep that mark is.

"Huh, you must be pretty strong" Luffy says with a smile. This gets Annie to stop for second before sighing and sitting down. This brings a smile to Luffy's face as he sits down about a foot from her as they relax for a little while in relatively comfortable silence.

"Why were you training super late?" Luffy asks eventually.

"No reason" Annie replies with haste. Luffy is dejected for a moment before Annie speaks again, "What about you? What are you doing here?" Annie asks as she basically flips the question on him.

"To get stronger" Luffy said with a confident expression as he continued to look at the bright moon. This answer kind of peaked Annie's interest as she looked at Luffy for second before she too looked at the moon.

"Oh yeah?" Annie asked. "Why do you need to be stronger? Obviously everyone wants to be stronger but I've never seen anyone come out this late to get stronger besides me. So tell me why." Annie asked.

"I want to get stronger so I can accomplish my dream. So I can see what the world truly is!" Luffy said as his eyes practically shined in the moonlight. Annie looked at him for second before immediately turning away as she felt a sharp pang of guilt suddenly.

'Oh yeah. These people are bad Eldian's,' Annie thought as she tried to reason her guilt. 'But how? Why are these people different from us? I wish we would've just left, but Reiner just-'

"Oi blondy?" Annie got snapped out of her thoughts at the sound of Luffy's voice. "What are you doing?" Annie quickly thought on her feet of what she could say to avoid this question as it would ruin her pride as a warrior, even if this person wasn't aware of it.

"None of your business" Annie state quickly. "Anyway I've heard talk that you are pretty strong in combat from some of the other trainees, would you like to spar?" Annie asked. This question brought a smile back to Luffy's face and he eagerly nodded his head.

3 minutes later,

Luffy and Annie are now each in a fighting stance, Annie's stance being calmer and more flexible, while Luffy's stance is rather loose.

"Hey blondy," Luffy said with Annie slightly rolling his eyes at him. "Before we begin to spar, can you at least tell me your name? My name is Luffy." Luffy asked as he also gave his face splitting grin as he introduced himself.

"My name is Annie Leonhart" Annie said as Luffy nodded and tightened his stance a bit more in preparation for the spar.

Annie, not one to underestimate her opponent, allows Luffy to strike first. Luffy makes a beeline towards Annie and delivers a roundhouse aimed at her head. Before the kick can hit it's mark though, Annie expertly catches his leg in between her arms as she goes for a leg sweep to quickly end the spar.

However, before she can do this, Luffy jumps up with his one leg to attempt to put Annie into an armbar. Annie is thrown to the ground as a result and just as Luffy is about to put her in the armbar Annie quickly rolls backwards which results in Annie getting behind Luffy. Annie attempts to put Luffy into a chokehold which turns out successful as the odds are beginning to look good for Annie.

Luffy gasps for air for a few seconds as Annie tightens her grip on Luffy's neck. Luffy, eager to break her hold uses his brutish strength to tear Annie's arms off his neck. This shocks Annie as she is not by any means weak in terms of strength. Luffy used Annie's shock to his advantage as he grabbed the arms that Annie had around his necks and slammed her into the ground, knocking the wind out of her. This move ended the fight as Luffy fell back on his butt in victory.

5 minutes later,

Luffy and Annie are sitting side by side on the tree that they were initially sitting near.

"Shishishi, I knew you were strong!" Luffy said with his classic face splitting grin. Annie 'tch-ed' as she was obviously a little annoyed that she lost. Though inside she was kind of relieved that someone was able to overpower her. It was a little boring being the one of only two people who knew how to fight.

Plus, happy that someone with such noble aspirations was as strong or stronger than her. It just gave her more opportunities to grow. It hurt her heart that she was going to have to end all of his goals. That she was going to…

*drip* *drip*

"Oi Annie? Why are you crying?" Luffy asked with a bit of concern as Annie only just seemed to notice herself that she was crying. This caused her to redden a bit in the face before she ran off without explanation.

Luffy, oblivious to the whole situation, was left quite dumbfounded as he was tempted to chase her down as he already decided that she was his friends as well.

As he was about to chase her he noticed that the sun was beginning to rise which wasn't a great sign at all, as it meant that he would only be getting an hour or two of sleep. Deciding to save their conversation for later Luffy goes to the boy's cabin and heads to bed.

.

.

.

Reviews:

brandonmunoz499: For your first question, no I do not plan for Luffy and Ymir to be a pairing. That just wouldn't work no matter how I would spin it. Your other question about Zoro being in it will unfortunately probably not happen. I plan for Luffy to be the only One Piece character in the story though there may be a situation where that changes so you may be able to hold out hope for that. The final question about my updating schedule is kind of a tricky one. For now I can at least guarantee 2 chapters a month, but that will obviously vary depending on my availability. For example, when I get Christmas break or spring break, I might try and get out 6 chapters out in the month. But in months like May, I might only get 2, maybe 1, but it varies obviously. Thank you for your review and kind words!

Monkey D. Luffy123: Thank you for your kind words!

Chickenhell: I don't know about Krista. I'll consider it but I make no promises!

Ppsspp: So, about Luffy making his own crew. I plan for something similar to that happening, but it likely won't until way later down the line.

KyngKena: Lol, don't worry about that. I plan for all pairings in this to be one-sided.

Guts the Man88: Thank you for your kind words! Also we'll see about Luffy's true lineage sometime down the line.

616mcu: I might have Luffy do the Hero-Meat argument but it won't be till way down the line because I have a specific moment planned out for him to do it then.

michaelrios082099: Lmao thanks for the reviews!

A/N: So, how did you like that chapter? I don't have any experience writing fight scenes but in all honesty, I'm pretty proud of how it turned out. As I said before, I'm aware this whole part is a little 'slice of life' but I promise it won't completely be like this throughout the entire story. Of course there will be moments of slice of life but not all. Please review this and give me feedback of what I did right, or what I did wrong. It helps me write better. As always I hope you have a great rest of your day/night. Bye!