Cochlearia

Also known as scurvy grass or spoonwart.

Unblinking eyes stared resolutely into the moving waters below. A sturdy fishing pole was firmly encased in her grasp, and pinned between her legs for good measure. There was no way any fish would be getting past her.

Now, if some dumb fish could just get itself caught on her hook already…

Fishing was so freaking boring.

"I hate this," she loudly declared, ready to drop her rod and forget about it all.

"Boo!" Luffy and Usopp chorused, turning to her with matching thumbs-down.

"That wasn't even ten minutes!" Usopp claimed, but she did not believe him. Usopp was a notorious liar and could be trusted for nothing.

She let him know this by scoffing in his face. "Fishing is just— it's what? It's just sitting here and looking at the water? I thought you guys said this would be fun."

"That's not the fun part!" Luffy swiftly interjected. "The fun part is when you catch the fish, and it's really big! And then you get to eat it!"

"I don't even like fish," she said with her nose in the air. "Fish stink."

Usopp was already shaking his head. "You've lived on an island your whole life— how can you not like fish?"

"Shishishi," chuckled Luffy. "I don't care, that just leaves more for me to eat!"

"You can catch it yourself, then." With that she stood, depositing her fishing rod against the deck without any particular care. "I guess I'll go see what Zoro's doing, since you guys are being so boring."

Luffy had already jumped up before she could take a step away and was frowning in her face. "Hey, I'm not boring!"

"Well prove it, then!"

"Alright, I will!" Luffy stood tall with his hands on his hips. Loudly, he announced, "Usopp! We're going to fire the cannon!"

Usopp jumped to his feet with a whoop, and the two boys were running off to retrieve whatever cannon balls the ship had in storage before she could get in a word.

"Are we really going to need cannons?" she asked upon their return, Luffy hauling a crate of cannonballs while Usopp feigned his assistance.

"Of course we are! We're pirates and pirates use cannons!"

She heaved a sigh. It was not the first time she would wonder just what she had gotten into by agreeing to join Luffy's ridiculous pirate crew, and she assumed it would not be the last.

The boys swung the cannon out to face a distant rocky landmass, and loaded the cannon with a single ball. Without bothering to aim, Luffy was first to fire the cannon. The ship quaked below them as the cannonball shot out to the sea with a resounding boom.

"Shishishi," laughed Luffy with a rub against the back of his neck. "That was way off."

"Hey, what's so loud down there?" Zoro called from the top deck. His eyes were still full of sleep where his head popped up into view.

Usopp was already readying the next shop as Luffy responded, "Cannon firing practice!"

Boom!

She whistled as the rock formation was solidly blasted into half by Usopp's first shot. Smoke billowed up into the air as the pieces of it rained down into the water below.

"Awesome!" Luffy exclaimed. "You hit that thing on your first try!"

Usopp stood so tall he might as well have bent backwards, his nose high in the air with pride. "What else would you expect from an expert marksman such as myself? What do you think? Aren't you impressed?"

Luffy was eager to nod along. "You bet!"

Even she was nodding. She clapped politely for her new crew-mate. "That may or may not have been pretty cool," she admitted. Usopp managed to stand even taller from her praise. "Do you think I could give it a try?"

"No way!" Usopp said, at the same time Luffy shouted an eager, "Heck, yeah!"

"I'm getting mixed signals here," she said as she pointed between the two of them. "But I'm pretty sure that Captain's words overrule gunman's, so nyeh!" She stuck her tongue out at Usopp.

"Get out here you damn pirates!" came a sudden shout, followed by the loud crash of splintering wood

The Straw Hats exchanged confused glances as they looked around for the source. Luffy was the first to realize that it came from the opposite end of the Going Merry, and quickly raced out to meet it. Abandoning their cannon, she dragged Usopp to follow after Luffy.

"Hey, what the hell?!" Luffy was shouting from the top level, his gaze fixed downwards. "Who are you?"

Peering over the balcony, she caught sight of a dark-haired man with a large kanji tattoo across his cheek. His eyes were hidden by dark purple sunglasses as he waved a large sword around. With his sword held above his head, he yelled, "You guys think that you can kill my partner?!"

"Woah!" she jumped out of the way as the man swung his sword, slicing through the banister she stood behind. Usopp screeched loudly as she shoved him further behind her. Below them, Luffy had jumped into the air to avoid the swordsman's blow.

"Stop wrecking our ship!" hollered Luffy. He grabbed onto the man's face with both hands and threw him backwards against the nearest wall. A crack sounded out, though whether it was the splintering of wood or the man's back was difficult to tell.

"That seemed counter-productive," she sighed at the potential damage as Zoro stepped through the door behind her. He approached the edge in silence, levelling a critical eye on the sloppy cut through their banister.

"Hm?" said Zoro as he eyed the man laid out on the floor below them. "What are you doing here, Johnny?"

Upon hearing his name, 'Johnny' righted himself onto his knees to look up at Zoro. "What? Big Bro? It's you!" He scrambled to his feet as he spoke. "Why are you on a pirate ship?! What's going on around here?!"

That's right, she thought. Zoro had been a bounty hunter before Luffy looped him into joining the crew. If she had to guess, the same could be said about Johnny.

"Relax," Zoro said with surprising authority. "Where's Yosaku?"

Johnny looked to deflate at Zoro's words. "That's the thing, bro— you've got to help us."

Zoro was quick to jump down to meet him, and she was just as fast to join him. Peering over the railing, she spotted a small ship tied off to the edge of the Going Merry. A weakly groaning man was laid out of the deck with bloody bandages wrapped over his chest and blood trailing from his mouth and nose.

Johnny was crying as they looked down at his companion. "Yosaku's sick," he confessed. Zoro gave him a consoling pat on the back, but said nothing.

The silence stretched.

"Oh, do I have to be the one to say it?" she asked the others. She pointed a finger to her chest as she looked around her, processing their lack of action. "Am I the responsible one now? ...so weird." Shaking her head, she shoved Zoro closer to the railing. "Go get the pale guy already, and bring him onto the ship."

Luffy intervened with a shout, his rubber arms already rocketing towards Yosaku. With naive glee, he shouted, "I got it!"

"No, Luffy, wait—"

Long arms had already wrapped around the weakened man, and with a solid yank, he had joined them on the deck of the Going Merry.

"Seriously? How am I the responsible one now?" She looked towards the sky for answers as she listened to the crash landing of Yosaku into the hardwood. Zoro took on the responsibility of smacking Luffy upside the head for his carelessness, and the impact thunked solidly as Luffy shouted in outrage. "Come on, dummies. Let's at least get the guy a blanket."

She turned to Luffy with her hands on her hips. "Luffy, you're not supposed to manhandle people when they're bleeding from unknown injuries," she scolded with a wagging finger. "You might get blood on you, and that's super gross."

"That's what you're worried about? Blood being gross?" asked Zoro with a shake of his head.

"Well— it is," she stubbornly refuted. She walked away with her nose high in the air. "This is above my pay grade—"

"—no one is paying you—"

"—so I'm going to go get Nami. I think she holds the only brain cell on this ship."

However, looking up, Nami was already there, wearing a pleased smile as she overheard the unexpected praise. She eagerly gestured for Nami to join them as Johnny began describing Yosaku's injuries.

"He was fine until just a few days ago," he explained with a wobbling lip. "Full of life! And now he keeps fainting, and he's really pale! I have no idea what's causing it..." Johnny raised a hand to cover his eyes as he continued, moved to tears by his own tale. "His teeth have been falling out, and one of his old wounds started bleeding again… he's just been getting worse and worse every day, I didn't know what to do…"

"... so I thought, maybe we could just rest on that little island for a while, but then…" Johnny grit his teeth, clearly reliving the moment. "...but then! A cannonball came flying from this ship!"

Oh…. oh nooooooooo...

Beside her, Luffy and Usopp wore similar looks of horror on their faces. As one, the trio straightened their spines and bowed deeply before Johnny and Yosaku. "We're very sorry!"

Johnny sniffled as he lowered his hand away from his face. "Sorry isn't good enough," he said. His hand clenched into a tight fist over Yosaku's chest. "Isn't that right, bro?! Partner!"

"The guy would have kicked the bucket with or without our help, what's his problem?" she muttered from the side of her mouth.

"Big Bro," Johnny called to Zoro, the swordsman standing over his shoulder. "Give it to me straight… is Yosaku gonna die?"

"You're so dumb," Nami announced as she joined the group.

"Watch it!" Zoro hastily replied.

Without another word, Nami dropped to her knees next to Yosaku's prone form. She pulled by his eyelid and yanked his tongue from his mouth. "Usopp, Luffy," she called. Both boys stood to attention, guilty tears still streaming down their faces. "We have some limes in storage."

There was a pause where neither of them moved, and Nami turned sharply over her shoulder. "What are you doing? Get moving, now!"

Luffy and Usopp scrambled into action so quickly that they ran into each other repeatedly, and upon reaching the doorway they had to wrestle to get past until they fell through together in a heap. However, only a minute later they somehow managed to return, barrel of limes in hand and having miraculously managed to not further destroy their shiny new ship.

"You'll have to squeeze the lime juice into his mouth," Nami instructed them as she stood back from Yosaku. The boys were quick to comply, crouching over his prone form and beginning to squeeze limes over his opened mouth.

"What's wrong with him?" she asked with a wrinkled nose, thinking about how sticky Yosaku's face would be by the end of Luffy and Usopp's treatment, not to mention how disgusting the floor of the deck would be.

"He has scurvy," Nami solemnly explained. "If we weren't too late, he should be fine in a few days."

Johnny's hands locked around Nami's upper arm. He shook her vigorously as he shouted, "Really, Big Sis?! Really?! Thank you, Big Sis!"

She stifled a laugh into her palm as she watched Nami's twitching eyebrow. Johnny was speckling her with his spit as he yelled. Finally, Nami planted a hand against Johnny's face and pushed him away from her with a grimace.

"Please, don't call me that," Nami said. "It sounds so dumb."

"Besides—" the redhead continued. "I didn't do anything special. Scurvy used to be a hopeless disease that plagued sailors, and nowadays we just know how to deal with it. In the past, they couldn't store enough fruits and vegetables, but we know better now."

Luffy had begun to shove the limes directly into Yosaku's mouth, and Usopp was quick to join him until the man's cheeks bulged with green citrus fruit. She winced as Luffy tried to wedge them in further with his palm. Yosaku predictably began to choke, but the duo had already turned their attention onto Nami.

"Wow! You're so smart!" said Luffy in awe. "You're like… a doctor!"

"I told you she was smart," Usopp smugly added, as though he had actually done something worth bragging about.

Nami's face was rapidly becoming ferocious. "You guys are morons!" she yelled. "Every sailor should know about scurvy! It's just common sense!"

She whistled innocently. She totally knew all about scurby. Duh.

Bits of green swarmed the air as Yosaku spat out a handful of limes. The group watched as he sat up with bleary eyes and a dull expression on his face.

"Huh?" gasped Nami as Yosaku jumped up with Johnny and began dancing in a circle, the two chanting 'hooray' over and over as they spun.

Meanwhile, her eyes were on the scattered bits of citrus across the deck. "Gross," she added. "Why don't you clean up after yourselves before you start dancing? Heathens."

Nami had other thoughts. Her teeth seemed sharper than usual as she shouted, "You can't heal that quickly!"

The dancing fools swung to a stop. "Allow us to introduce ourselves," the two men said together, the line said with a confidence that could only be brought on by many practice-runs.

"The name's Johnny—"

"—yeah, we already got that—"

"—and I'm Yosaku!"

"—should you really be smoking right now?"

"And together, we're the Baddest Pirates Hunting Duo in the world!"

"—so, like, you're the worst?"

"Stop interrupting," growled Zoro as he shoved her head down.

Unfettered by the short girl's disruptions to their over-rehearsed introduction, Johnny continued. "Big Bro Zoro there used to be one of us," he claimed.

Zoro smirked smugly at his words.

"Glad to make your acquaintance," finished Yosaku.

"It's a small world," said Zoro as he strode confidently towards the pair of pirate hunters. "Never thought I'd see you guys again."

"If you think you're surprised— "

"—we never imagined that Pirate Hunter Zoro would become a pirate himself!"

"Do they always finish each other's sentences?" she wondered aloud.

"How romantic," Nami mused beside her.

That was when Yosaku face-planted into the floor, his skin the same sickly-pale tone it had been when he first arrived. Johnny and Zoro were staring at his collapsed form with matching dumb looks on their faces.

"H-hey, partner?!" yelped Johnny.

She sighed and smacked a hand over her face. "Alright, alright. Let's just put the weirdo to bed already before he gets any more of his gross blood all over the place."

Thirty minutes later, the Straw Hat Pirates plus Johnny sat solemnly in the kitchen of the Going Merry. Johnny had elected to stand, while Zoro sat on the floor with his swords stacked in front of him. She sat next to Nami as the redhead leaned over an open journal, her chin propped up on her Luffy was quiet as he garbled up the bowl of bread before him.

It was Nami that finally broke the silence, her pen pausing against the pages of her journal. "This is a good lesson for you," she said as her eyes raised to Luffy.

Zoro nodded sagely. "Yup, this is the kind of trouble you run into when you face a life on the sea."

"Which means," Usopp continued. "When we're at sea, we have to be thinking about how we can get the right amount of nutrients from little food."

Nami nodded. Her voice was hard as she said, "It's absolutely necessary that someone on a ship knows how to do things like that."

Luffy didn't pause in his eating. His teeth took out a large chunk of bread before he opened his mouth, crumbs flying out as he did. "It's necessary?" he repeated.

Her eyes followed a crumb as it flew past the table and to the floor. She was not cleaning that.

"Right!" exclaimed Luffy. He jumped up in his excitement of his realization. "That means we need a cook! Let's go find one!"

Usopp was the first to join him. "I'm in!" he said with a raised fist. "That's a great idea! We'll have good food even when we're out at sea!"

"Maybe we could even eat something other than fish," she chimed in.

"That's right!" said Luffy with a laugh.

"You guys are looking for a cook, huh?" Johnny interrupted with a knowing nod of his head. "I know just the place to find one. This place— the food will blow your mind."

Luffy jumped towards him eagerly. "Perfect! Let's go right now! Where to?"

"Consider yourselves warned, this place is close to the Grand Line," Johnny replied. His eyes swung towards Zoro, and there were no doubts that his next warning was meant for him. "I've heard a lot of rumours lately that a certain hawk-eyed man eats there."

Zoro noticeably perked up at his words. She wondered what was so exciting about men with bird eyes.

"Set a course," Johnny dramatically continued. "North north east! Our destination is…"

"The Sea Restaurant: Baratie!"