Mikey did what Luffy said and jumped onto the wall too and stood on it.
''What do you say Manjiro?'' Asked Luffy his first mate with an excited smile on his face.
''I think-
Mikey got interrupted by Zoro who seems to be angry at Rika who brought him rice balls to eat.
He was angry at the fact that she thought he couldn't handle it, not that she brought him the food.
"Get lost Rika before the Navy son comes and annoys me again and potentially kills you." Said Zoro to the little girl, sure he appreciated the food but it was dangerous to be here.
But before Zoro could say anything else Luffy was on the courtyard with a grin on his face.
"What do you want?" Zoro asked the straw hatted boy.
"It's simple, I am looking for good men to join my pirate crew." Said Luffy with a smile.
"You think I am gonna lower myself to that scum? No thanks, not in a million years." Answered Zoro
"You already have a pretty bad reputation don't you? So just join me already. Besides, what's wrong with becoming a pirate?It's my dream!"
Luffy demanded to know.
"I don't care what society thinks of me, once I am a free man I am gonna be pursuing my dream. If I joined you, you would hold me back." Zoro told him with confidence.
They got interrupted by helmeppo who came with two navy soldiers behind him.
He had that usual arrogant smirk on him as usual. "Were you talking about becoming a pirate Roronoa?" Asked the double chin.
Manjiro wanted to kick Helmeppo so badly he didn't know what possessed him, he just had such a kick-able face.
But he suppressed the urge.
"Who is that weak bum?" Luffy asked as double chin walked into the scene.
Mikey jumped off the stonewall to the courtyard.
"Halt, stop walking or you are gonna be executed." Yelled double chin feeling threatened by the aura Mikey had.
"IF YOU WANNA KILL MANJIRO YOU HAVE TO GET THROUGH ME, YOU BASTARD." Luffy yelled with rage in his voice.
Helmeppo, feeling much more threatened now had a idea it was scummy but his life was worth more than that of the girl.
Sweat trickled down his face.
"One more move and I will slit off her throat!" Warned Helmeppo.
"HELP ME PLEASE." Rika cried out as her face was full of tears.
"THIS WAS NOT PART OF THE DEAL YOU FUCKING DOUBLE CHIN ONCE I AM OUT HERE I AM GONNA CUT YOU INTO PIECES AND FEED THEM TO YOUR BASTARD FATHER." Screamed Zoro.
The three of them hated the Navy, it was
official, they were scum.
"Oh the deal, I never planned to release you anyway, I would have executed you in three days, but now that you pissed me off. I will do it today." Said double chin with a smug voice.
Zoro was now furious, he wished he could have his swords right now.
Helmeppo called his dad and a few minutes later he arrived at the scene with a hundred navy soldiers.
Luffy wanted to engage on double chin but Mikey held him.
"Helmeppo my son, this is the first time I am proud of you, well done. These traitors wanted to help Roronoa and you took one kid hostage." Said Morgan feeling proud of his son for the first time.
"Do you really wanna die like a dog? I know that you don't want to die, so join me and I will protect you." Luffy said to Zoro with a grin that matched the devil.
"SHOOT RORONOA!" Shouted Morgan suddenly.
Luffy rushed in front of Zoro as he spread out his arms and legs to catch the bullets.
Something wanted out of Mikey, it screamed out as if it had a will of its own. So Mikey gave permission and suddenly a shockwave came out of Mikey that hit everyone on the courtyard.
Mikey was confused at what happened but he didn't care.
"What was that? Did that come from me… Well it doesn't matter now, at least Rika is safe." Thought Mikey to himself.
All the Navy soldiers were knocked out.
Rika was knocked out too.
Helmeppo thankfully too.
Morgan was feeling heavy on his legs and was shocked at what happened. He was then punched in his face and flew into the Navy tower.
He was defeated by that punch. Zoro was shocked. Who were these people.
Especially that Blond haired boy. He considered joining them.
"SUGOIII MANJIRO THAT WAS SO COOL WHAT YOU DID. I DIDN'T EVEN KNOW YOU COULD DO THAT." Shouted Luffy with an excited grin on his face.
Mikey didn't know himself what it was. So it came from him.
"So what do you say Zoro? Wanna join us? Come on, it will be fun!" With a demanding tone.
He would've been dead anyway if Luffy didn't come to help him. It must have been fate even if he didn't believe in stuff like that.
"Ok, I'll join. I don't have much of a choice anyway, do I?" Asked Zoro.
"Yeah you are already a criminal for defying the Navy Shishishi." Said Luffy as he laughed.
Mikey pulled out a knife he took from one of the Navy soldiers and cut Zoro's ropes and freed him.
Zoro released a moan, those ropes really messed up his wrists, but nothing a good sleep couldn't heal. All he needed now were his sword's and he was good.
"I'll go and get Zoro's swords." Said Manjiro as he went into the building.
He went straight to that loser's room, it was full of pink stuff. He looked around and found them
There were three sword's, Mikey didn't know what was Zoro's so he took just all three with him.
Mikey went back to the courtyard to hand Zoro's swords to him.
"One of these belongs to you, right?"Manjiro asked the newly joined crew-member.
Zoro looked at them and was relieved that nothing happened to his sword's and were as good before he got arrested.
"I actually use all three of them, it's the santoryu style." Said Zoro.
"Wait all three? How?!" Mikey asked as he tilted his head to the side.
"First you tell me what that thing of yours was, Manjiro." Luffy asked his Vice-Captain with excitement in his voice.
"I don't really know what that was, it just bursted out. I would like to know more about it too, Captain."
Manjiro really didn't know what it was but it came in handy.
"Oh so it's a mystery power." Said Luffy as he slapped his hand with the underside of his fist.
As he looked around the courtyard, Mikey saw helmeppo's body next to Rika. He went near her body to see if she was still breathing.
She was.
He then carried her away from Helmeppo, who was also alive. Sadly. Manjiro looked at his body.
He thought nothing as he pulled out a gun he took from one of the Navy soldiers and proceeded to shoot Helmeppo with it.
He shot till the gun had no more ammo. Helmeppos' body was bleeding heavily, it was everywhere. A little bit of his blood landed on Mikey's cheek.
He didn't hear Luffy's yell or didn't notice Zoro's horrified look on his face.
He dropped the gun from his hand. He should be feeling bad, he just murdered a human being. Someone like him who had a life had memories. He just took someone's life with no difficulty. The worst thing about it was that…
He didn't feel anything.
"Burn in Hell." Whispered Manjiro with malice in his voice.
Zoro was kind of surprised that Mikey would do that kind of stuff. He definitely has some mental issues.
"That kid is messed up in his head. But I also didn't see a single thought in his head when he shot that son. He deserved it anyway." Thought Zoro to himself.
"Is it normal… To not feel anything when you kill a person?" Mikey asked his crew-members with a voice devoid of emotions.
"I don't know, I have never killed anyone." Said Zoro.
"I have seen how people die but I didn't care at that moment." Replied Luffy, he remembers how that green Sea King ate the mountain bandit who kidnapped him.
"Let's keep this a secret between us. Nobody knows what happened and we just forget that it happened." Said Zoro, as he held out his hand.
Luffy's hand reached to Zoro as laid it above his, then Mikey laid his own hand above them.
"Deal." Said Mikey
"From here on our adventure of a lifetime will start. Manjiro, Zoro." Said Luffy as he looked at the both of them with a grin.
They both smiled at their Captain. They didn't know it but the both of them would be loyal to Luffy their entire life.
This was the start of the Strawhats, the ones who would turn the world over.
Zoro picked up Rika and they started walking to the entrance of the Navy base. There must be food in the base.
Luffy and Mikey followed Zoro to the Navy base.
They made themselves comfortable in a resting room.
Mikey brought Zoro Sake and food.
"How did you know that I like Sake? But thank you. You didn't need to do that." Said Zoro.
"Eh, on my island all swordsmen used to like Sake, so I thought you might as well like it too." Said Manjiro, acting like he hadn't just taken a human life.
"You guessed correctly… man this sake is really good, it must have been expensive." Zoro said as he took a sip of the sake Mikey brought him.
Mikey just watched him eat, as he had nothing to do currently. Luffy took Rika to her home.
Zoro wanted to ask how Luffy and Mikey met, but he wanted to wait till he came back.
Luffy should arrive at any second so they can talk about future plans and stuff like that.
Zoro and Mikey talked about random stuff like, training, age, favorite color, favorite clothing and how much they sleep.
"Why did you even decide to become a pirate Manjiro? You look young, you could have made the world government your enemy when you are older.'' Zoro asked, he was curious to know why he wanted to become one.
"I became a pirate, because I had no responsibilities. That is practically all there is to it. But there is also another reason. Before I knew it Luffy just pulled me in. He just had these shackles on me the moment I met him. Just wanna add that I became 15 this year.'' Explained Mikey to Zoro.
Zoro was listening quietly to Mikey, his reasoning was reasonable to him. Zoro's dream also shackled him, Zoro himself invested nearly all of his time training to become stronger. So Zoro just understood Manjiro.
"I respect your reasoning Manjiro, I myself also am shackled to my dream if you could even call it that." Said Zoro.
"Hahaha, I guess we are more alike than I think.'' Said Mikey with a smile on his face.
''Yeah, we really are.'' Agreed Zoro
''I AM BACK GUYS SHI SHI SHI." Luffy yelled as he used gomu gomu no rocket to get faster to them.
''Ah Luffy, I am glad that you're back.'' Said Mikey with a grin.
"Eh, what did I miss?" Luffy asked, while he tilted his head to the left.
Mikey laughed as Luffy's head hit the ground. It was a short but heartfelt laugh. He couldn't laugh like this in a long time.
Zoro also couldn't hold in his usual face and tried his best not to laugh too, but he failed. It was just too funny to him plus mikey's laugh was really infectious.
''Hey what are you laughing about?'' Luffy asked, head still hitting the floor. He wanted to laugh too.
They calmed down a bit when they realized that it was time to plan the future. Luffy then sat on the couch too, joining Mikey and Zoro
"Alright, so after we leave this Island, what should we do?'' Zoro asked both of them.
"I say, we abandon the boat Luffy owns. Luffy and I barely fit in it. We could simply take a ship from the Navy." Mikey said, while sharing his ideas.
"How small is the boat even anyway?" Asked Zoro.
Luffy went to the window and showed it to him. Zoro asked if Luffy was dumb to set sail in that coffin. Luffy just laughed and said that it worked out for the short amount of time they sailed on it.
"Yeah, let's steal one. But we are gonna paint it before we use it. Alright?'' Said Luffy.
Luffy was not the type of guy to play with flags, he knew their meaning and he respected it. People lived for these flags and he was not gonna disrespect it. They were simply stealing a Navy ship.
"After we steal the ship and paint it, any more plans?" Zoro asked Mikey. It was a good idea to steal a navy ship, Zoro would never think about stuff like that.
"Yeah, how about we design the flag right now? I found a good amount of posters in the base.'' Said Mikey as he pulled out the posters.
They were the same size as a normal flag. and they were black which was a plus. They then started to draw stuff, ninety nine percent of it was garbage, but one attempt was a bit better than the others.
They spend hours on trying to design a flag, the result was good enough for Luffy and Zoro to make this the flag of the future strawhats.
It was this monstrosity.
''Hmm, this one is the best we've had so far. Much better than the others.'' Said Manjiro with his fingers crawling his chin as if he had a beard.
''Yeah, but I fucked up the tip of my sword. it should be the other way around.'' Grumbled Zoro with a disappointed mood to himself.
''Shi shi shi, we have so much talent in drawing, especially me. The straw hat combo with the skull looks so good!'' Said Luffy while being seriously proud of his work.''
''Sorry that I messed up my symbol so many times that the soldiers woke up again.'' Said Mikey with an apologizing voice.
''No worries Manjiro, it was good training for us. Wasn't it?'' Said Zoro, with a forgiving tone. ''But seriously Manjiro, the amount of times we needed to redo was really funny.'' Said Luffy as he started to laugh.
Flashback
Attempt 1
''Hm I think the flag should look like this.'' Said Mikey as he scribbled on a paper.
''What the fuck Manjiro? What is this supposed to be?'' Asked Zoro, as he tried to understand what the youngest member wanted to accomplish with this.
Luffy just laughed at their interaction.
''The white circle is supposed to be the skull, I mean every pirate flag should have a flag.'' Said Mikey as Zoro and Luffy nodded simultaneously.
''And what are these red things supposed to mean?'' Asked Luffy with a curious look.
''Oh, that is a symbol I just like and I thought to myself why not add these to our flag.'' Said Mikey with a pouty face.
Zoro found it kind of cute. He didn't really know why he found it cute. Zoro doesn't know how to explain it but he feels like he belongs here, with them.
''Okay I admit it, it's kind of bad but let me think of another one.'' Said Mikey as he now had his back on the couch and his feet up.
He watched the both of them as he thought of another design.
Shortly after Mikey showed them his Idea, Luffy also had a design in his head.
This is the design Luffy came up with.
''OH, why didn't I come with something like this before.'' Said Zoro while slapping his should have been obvious with the straw hat his captain wore all the time.
''shi shi shi shi, I have had this design in me since I was… hmm one, two three four, oh yeah I have had this design in my head since I was seven.'' Said Luffy while he counted how many years he had it on his mind.
''So you have been planning to become a pirate since you were seven? Wow, that is some dedication.'' Mikey said, he muttered the last part.
''So what do you think, Manjiro?'' Asked Luffy with a grin, you could hear hi hi from him.
''I think it looks good, but we could improve the art a little bit.'' Said Mikey as he stroked his chin.
''I also have an idea in mind. Trust me, it's gonna look better with my idea.'' Said Zoro with confidence.
He then scribbled his Idea on the black poster, it took a bit of time but it was done and Zoro was proud of his work. He grinned when he showed his Idea.
''And? How does it look?'' Zoro asked with a proud look. He was very glad that this idea came to him.
''OH, you replaced a bone with a sword of yours, you're so smart Zoro.'' Said Luffy with an envious look.
On the Thriller bark, Peronas room
When Luffy said that Zoro was smart a certain ghost girl laughed so hard she couldn't breathe anymore, she didn't even know why she was laughing her ass off.
''HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA… she made a little pause HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. OH God it hurts so much but, HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.'' Perona laughed so much that she needed medical attention for a week.
Back on Shells Town, Marine Base
Mikey looked at Zoro's design with a bored look until… a cloud appeared on top of Manjiro with a light bulb.
''Your design made me come up with an idea Zoro, thank you.'' Manjiro said to Zoro with a smile on his face as if he was a little kid in a candy shop.
He finally had the idea he was looking for so long. The two of them were gonna love it, he was sure of it.
''I have the perfect flag in my mind.'' Mikey said to both of them. Luffy and Zoro looked at him. Questioning how he was gonna improve the already good flag design they had.
The blond boy just grinned as he drew his version of the future flag for the straw hat pirates.
He drew for a good twenty minutes and the result was this.
''The design looks good, but let me draw my sword and let Luffy draw the skull.'' Said Zoro to Mikey, the design was a good Idea but the execution was not.
''Huh… yeah on a second look it looks laughable.'' Admitted Mikey while looking down, seriously he was the worst drawer of the three.
Mikey had a dark cloud on top of him with rain pouring down on him. ''Will I ever improve at drawing?'' Mikey thought to himself.
''Don't be so down, Manjiro I think it looks awesome.'' Said Luffy while trying to lie to Manjiro. But he was so bad at it, that Mikey was getting even more depressed.
''Then let me improve my drawing skills. I am sure it will get better.'' Mikey said with courage.
Spoiler alert, he was not getting better in the slightest, but at least he was leaving out his earlier mistakes so he was improving only a little bit.
The flag drawing process was like this. Luffy drew the skull, Zoro drew his sword Wado Ichimonji and Mikey was drawing the Toman logo.
They wasted 94 posters in the process, they threw the failed ones in the fire they made.
Luffy, Manjiro and Zoro were three hours in when they were on poster sixty-five.
What they didn't know was that all of the soldiers were already awake. But Zoro noticed something. He sensed people.
''Wait, I think they are awake.'' Said Zoro with a quiet voice.
''Who is awake… Ohh the marines.'' Said Mikey.
''Well, let's just beat them up and continue with flag drawing later.'' Said Luffy.
Luffy went to the courtyard and engaged them into a fight. He jumped up and used Gomu Gomu no gatling and with each fist that hit he knocked a marine soldier out.
Zoro was just battling everyone with his three swords, he made nearly every marine soldier on the battlefield bleed.
Since Mikey was just a kid, people underestimated him and he would then kick them or punch them, one hit was enough to knock them out and sometimes he would spit on them to confuse them for a second and take them quickly out.
Luffy took out fifty, Manjiro took out twenty-five and Zoro also took out the same amount of people as Mikey.
''Good fight guys, shi shi shi shi. I saw how you spit on people, Manjiro, that was funny.'' Said Luffy with a good laugh.
''Yeah, seriously not bad for a fifteen year old.'' Said Zoro being proud of Mikey.
''Thank you…'' Muttered Mikey as he blushed a little bit. Seriously he had never been complimented on this so he didn't really know how to respond.
''Anyway, let's go back to drawing the flag.'' Said Zoro, there was no back now he had attacked marine soldiers so he was officially a serious criminal now. But that wasn't so bad, he liked being around Manjiro and Luffy.
''Yeah, let's go'' Said Luffy.
Flashback end
''Yeah, it's good that we showered. I feel much better now.'' Said Zoro.
''Yeah we only need to paint the stolen ship so we can finally head to the sea.'' Said Luffy
Mikey changed his clothes into a black comfortable sweatshirt, black sweatpants, a white undershirt under his sweatshirt and as for boots, he wore his usual flip flops.
They successfully painted the Marineship so that it couldn't be recognized anymore. It was drawn in a combo of green and red.
They took all the food from the marine base and put it onto the stolen ship.
By the time they set sail, it was already night time.
''ALRIGHT GUYS, LET'S SET SAIL.'' Screamed Luffy into the Sky.
Mikey just smiled and Zoro just shook his head with a smile too, he had joined such a childish captain. But he loved it with them so he didn't care. He really wondered how their adventures are gonna be.
ROMANCE DAWN ARC END
Did ya'll read Tokyo Revengers chapter 270, Shinichiro is top 5 tr charas