A few hours after lunch had past; Ariel's sleepily opens her eyes, she finds herself back in the studio, she slowly sits up and a sharp pain shoots up her entire body, she pauses for a moment to recover. Then she moves her legs over the side of the exam table, they dangle over the side for a while as she searched the room, she doesn't notice anyone around; looking down at herself she sees she's wearing a plain white t-shirt; that is obviously too large for her, reaching her lower thighs, her mask is off and she quickly blushes feeling completely exposed. In that moment, the door opens slowly and she sees little Chopper holding a tray with food on it, her stomach rumbles; it's been days since she'd eaten. Chopper notices that's she's awake and quickly places the tray down and runs to hug her. Ariel taken a little by surprise, is still happy to see him and hugs him back.
"Ariel you're awake! are you feeling ok? does anything hurt?" He says overlooking every inch of her, worried.
"hehehe hi Chopper. I'm fine thanks to you, just a little head ache that's all, thank you for saving me"
"I'm glad you're ok but I'm not the only one you need to thank, Zoro's the one who got you out of the water"
"ah? the man with the green hair? His name is Zoro? right I'll thank him too" she says remembering him.
"here come with me, you can eat with everyone and you can meet Luffy too! I told them what you told me so this time they won't attack you"
"Hahahahaha that would be nice thank you"
She tilts her head to the side and gives Chopper a breath-taking smile and he smiles back at her as he takes hold of her hand and leads her out the door, the bright sunshine covers her face, temporarily blinding her. When she adjusted to the light she takes in the beauty of the Sunny Go, the features that she couldn't notice before "this feels nostalgic for some reason. Hahaha but I wasn't really attacked last time" she thought to herself remembering a dear memory, when her eye catches someone sitting behind the door, she pokes her head around it to see Zoro sitting there staring back at her they both turn red and turn around, Chopper pulls Ariel and encourages her to follow him towards the kitchen, Zoro nervously, and silently gets up and follows them.
Inside the activities cease as soon as the three enter, Sanji is the first to react out of all of them as usual. He immediately swoons all around Ariel pushing Chopper to the side.
"ahh! mademoiselle please forgive my rudeness earlier I did not mean to harm you"
"it's quite alright you didn't hurt me at all"
She gives him a small weak smile and Sanji heart is about to explode, while behind Ariel a raging beast seems to be upset, Zoro punches Sanji away from Ariel and their normal fight starts, Ariel fascinated with their behavior is reminded of a memory of two other people who used to act the same way and she smiles at the two, who continue to fight while Nami gestures Ariel to come sit down near her. The food which was laid out on the table looked amazing, all beautifully prepared. Ariel slowly takes her seat.
"don't mind those two there, they're always being idiots, you must be hungry have some of Sanji's food, he might be an idiot but he's cooking skills are amazing. He's the blonde one fighting by the way and the moss head is Zoro" Nami explains as she scoots closer to Ariel with a plate of fresh pasta.
"ah thank you that's very kind of you and the food looks delicious, hehehe they both remind me of friends of mine always arguing... ah! where are my manners"
Ariel stands up suddenly stopping the fight between Zoro and Sanji, she bows her head to everyone.
"my name is Ariel I'm sorry I caused you all so much trouble especially you Zoro-san if I hurt you I'm truly sorry"
She turns and bows to Zoro whom looks embarrassed, meanwhile the rest smile and begin to laugh, Ariel not seeing what their laughter is about raises her gaze and sees them all smiling at her. Robin is the first to speak, Ariel notices that she is much older than the rest and more mature as she begins to speak.
"you don't have to apologize we're the ones who attacked you, and you're no trouble at all and seem to be a very well-mannered girl, Chopper has taken quite the liking to you as well, so please don't worry too much about it"
Everyone around the table nods in agreement, Sanji and Zoro had also taken their seats, Ariel is so delighted that she finds herself tearing up at the kindness of these people, she tilts her head to the side and gives out another one of her dazzling smiles that makes everyone smile back.
"thank you very much, you're all very kind" she beams.
Ariel takes her seat again and they all bombard her with questions as she takes a few bites of her pasta. Luffy and Zoro who are busy eating didn't ask anything, Robin who is just listening giggles as the questions begin. Ariel tries her best to answer them all.
"what are your bracelets made of?" Asks Franky his curiosity had been peaked.
"sea platinum, it's the hardest metal in the world... I think?" she replies looking at her arms. Now that the metal had morphed back into silver armbands.
"how old are you Ariel-chuwann?" Asks Sanji with hearts for eyes, too close to her face.
"ah well I'm 20 years old" she replies slightly blushing as Sanji swoons once more.
"where did you learn to fight like that?" Usopp asks, astonished by her movements from earlier.
"ah my master trained me on my home island but I've been training for the past two years with someone else" she says smiling.
"is that you're real hair color? it's beautiful" Nami says while casually playing with it.
"ah yes, apparently I got it from my father it's the only thing I have of his" she says as she blushes while holding a strand of it in front of her eyes.
"Ariel-san may I see your panties?" Brook tries his luck again completely serious.
Before Ariel can even react both Nami and Zoro hit Brook causing him to fly across the table.
"stop asking indecent questions you bag of bones!" Nami yells furious, with her fist steaming.
"I don't think I'm even wearing any right now hahaha" Ariel states jokingly.
After such a remark both Brook and Sanji are up spraying nose bleeds across the table, while Zoro spits out his booze.
"Ariel-chan you shouldn't say things like that around perverts like them, although I don't know what happened with Zoro…"
Nami turns her attention to Zoro who tries to recompose himself, trying to hide his embarrassment, when Ariel starts giggling.
"I'm sorry I didn't mean it that way, I was just stating the truth"
And again, Brook's and Sanji's nose bleeding fountains erupt, Zoro spits out his drink once more, Robin giggles along with Luffy, Franky and Chopper, and Nami pounds the three making them hit the table with great force.
"Ariel! Ariel do you have any more of those sweets?" Chopper asks sticking his tongue out happily.
"ah yeah I do but they're in my cloths and they got wet, I don't know if they're any good anymore" she says a little down.
At the mention of sweets Luffy joins the conversation, even though Chopper looks sad because he won't be getting anymore sweets.
"sweets? there are sweets? I want some!"
"ah I'm sorry but their all rewind because I fell into the sea" she said apologetically.
"ah man I wanted sweets. Oh well"
Ariel starts to laugh and they all turn to face her distracted from their own conversations.
"hahaha, you're just like he said you would be, hehehe"
"he? Who are you talking about?" Nami asked puzzled.
"ah! didn't you want to meet Luffy? why is that?" As always Robin asked the more concrete question on everyone's mind.
"ah... well that's because he told me all about Luffy-kun so I wanted to meet you, I also promised that I would look after him if he needed anything so here I am"
She says smiling broadly. She still hasn't made any sense and everyone's more confused than ever.
"who told you about me?" Luffy asked bluntly.
"ah right I didn't say who it was. He's a dear friend of mine I've known him for a long time now, well not as long as you Luffy-kun"
Everyone listens carefully to what she's about to say, Luffy who is still clueless and smiling with a piece of meat in his mouth. Ariel continues smiling more wearily now.
"the person who told me all about you is... no sorry. Was your brother Ace" she tilts her head to the side again and smiles sweetly at the mention of the name.
They all freeze and turn to Luffy who has also frozen to the spot, placing down his food and wearing a serious expression that slowly softens as he remembers his sweet older brother.
"you knew Ace... and he told you about me... how?"
"I did, we were Nakama. We were on Fathers ship together"
Everyone turns pale except Luffy who's smiling broadly, what Ariel just said shocked them all.
"what do you mean by 'Fathers' ship?" Nami asked shaking.
"I mean my Father's ship" she cocks her head to one side again not understanding their reaction.
"you...y...you mean that...that" Usopp started stuttering.
"Ace was a White beard pirate, right? that means that your 'Father' could only be..." Robin stated the facts when they all reached the conclusion and in unison blurted out the name.
"SHIROHIGE!"
"yes technically, I'm his adopted daughter I have yet to find my biological Father but he's all I've known as a Father figure since I was 8 so he allowed me to carry on his name" Ariel says trying to calm them down.
They all breathe a huge sigh of relief.
"geez that scared me, Ariel be more specific and complete your thoughts when you say these things" Usopp says calming down.
"we all thought that you were blood related to Shirohige, we already have this idiot with dangerous and infamous blood in him" Nami says indicating Luffy who is still happily eating away again.
"oh right, sorry I tend to do that, it's a bad habit" she says putting her arm behind her head.
"so, where are you from?" Robin asks to change the subject.
"a small former slave island in south blue" Ariel says while looking a bit weary.
"how comes? were you a slave too?" Nami asks worried.
"it was a slave island only for a short period of time, the slave drivers all ran away so the former slaves kind of ruled the island for a while until other people started moving in" she replied.
"why did they suddenly abandon everything? did they quit?" Asked Usopp still not understanding the whole picture.
"no, they didn't quit. I saw some faces I will never forget still roaming the seas, still in the dirty profession" her expression hardens as do theirs remembering the encounter they had at Shambody, they all wait for the answer to the second question anxiously even Luffy had paused his eating again.
"they ran away because... *sigh* because of...me... it's not something I'm proud of though"
They all look at her more confused than ever, here was this sweet looking girl, who was on White beards ship as his adopted daughter, and before that was a slave and caused all the slave drivers to abandon her home island. Amazing.
"Ariel that's amazing you made them leave your island isn't that good, right?" Chopper said full of admiration.
Ariel looked down at him with a look of shamed. She is not proud of what she did, whatever it was.
"not really... the method I think I used wasn't exactly the right one" she doesn't look at anyone and looks to the floor.
"you said 'I think' what does that mean?" Sanji asked worried.
"I don't remember, I blacked out... and when I woke up…" she stops briefly and adds "it's in the past really... if you don't mind I wouldn't care to share, it's quite hard to remember….it was a long time ago"
She looks down at her hands and doesn't add another word hoping that they don't ask any other questions on the subject, the StrawHats look at each other and smile. They all know how troubling it is to remember things. So, they don't stick to the subject, although they are still very curious.
"true the past is the past no need to bring it up if you're uncomfortable we understand and don't want to push you" Robin says giving a sweet smile, Ariel lifts her head in surprises and looks at all the smiling faces looking at her. "they...they understand...they know what it's like" she thinks to herself, fighting back tears. Ariel bows her head to them again, all while they start to giggle.
"ohh Ariel-chan you don't have to bow to us please don't…"
Ariel looks up and locks eyes with Nami, Nami notices the strength hidden within them and stops immediately. Ariel turns towards the rest as her gaze sweeps over them all and stops at Luffy.
"I'm sorry you probably feel strange if I bow but you all deserve a lot of respect just by looking at all of you I can see the struggles you faced and conquered with each other's help, the strength of your will to fulfill your dreams and reach your goals, the beauty of the bonds you've created , even though you don't really need me to tell you this but you're not just some random pirate crew, you're a family and a special one at that"
She offers them a very warm and endearing smile "I'm very lucky to get to meet you all, hehehe"
The straw hats look at her, with wonder plastered on their faces, here was this strange girl that appeared out of nowhere and with one look she understood them in a heartbeat without knowing them, their history, their bonds and she just fits. They immediately like her even more. Luffy chuckles his signature chuckle, he knew from the moment he met her eyes that she was a good person.
"ahh Ariel-chuuawwn! You look deep into our souls and understand us so well. ahh you're such a precious gem" Sanji says swirling around her. But soon enough Nami swats him away.
"stay away you." Sanji immediately regains his composure and begins to swoon over Nami who gets even more irritated.
Ariel giggles at the spectacle while the others find it just normal behavior.
"Ariel, can I ask you a question?" she turns her head towards Chopper and nods reassuringly.
"uhuh anything" Chopper looks at Nami who nods back with a smile while holding Sanji away from her.
"when me and Nami were changing you out of your wet cloths…we sort of found umm that..."
Zoro's attention spiked and focused on Ariel who seemed quite calm, he had seen it too and was also wondering what it was or what she is. It had caught everyone's attention even Luffy's.
Chopper continued his question "why do you have a small horn on the left side of your forehead and a small tail?"
Chopper shut his eyes afraid he might have asked too much of Ariel with the question, everything was silent, he slowly opened one eye to see what Ariel's reaction was, and there she was smiling down at him with her usual tipped head to the side, he slowly relaxed seeing the question didn't bother her and waited for the answer as did the rest of his friends.
"well, I can see why you would ask that question and I'm sure you're confused and I didn't really explain myself well enough about exactly where I came from thanks to my usual bad habit" thumping her head lightly with her fist she sticking her tongue out jokingly. While the straw hats were still more confused.
"although it's a bit complicated" she pauses. Unsure, however, she remembers that Chopper is a talking reindeer, Franky is a cyborg, and Brook is a talking skeleton, her being what she is wouldn't faze them, not even a little. So, she continued.
"well... I'm sure you all know what a devil fruit is I suppose, right?" without interrupting they all nod. "but do you know where they come from?".
"THE SEA!" Luffy shouts raising his hands over his head as if someone had scored a point in some game.
"Luffy that's being too general hehehe" Robin points out and they all start to laugh.
"they haven't quite discovered the origin of the fruits but I saw some notes in Vega Punks lab, a lot of notes about them! but their still very mysterious" says Franky while scratching his metal nose.
"they remove your ability to swim, in exchange for strange abilities" Usopp says proudly.
"you're both right but there's a lot more to them and only a few people know the truth even the world government doesn't have the information, only the people I've told know because I'm the only one to know the truth"
"hehehe how interesting" Robin giggles intrigued.
"so Ariel-chan you're the only one that knows where they come from…how?" Sanji asked and they all seem to get more excited and interested in her story. Zoro stands up stopping them all and making them focus on him, he even took Luffy by surprise.
"you still haven't told us what you are. Stop changing the subject and just say it"
Ariel looks a bit hurt, and Zoro starts to look a bit taken back, maybe he shouldn't have asked the question in such a tone.
"right sorry, well technically I'm half human and half…sea demon from my mother's side, my people are the ones that create the devil fruits"
All their faces fall, Zoro is taken by surprise he wasn't expecting something this big.