I hope you like the chapter and remember that English is not my native language. If you see that something is wrong, do not hesitate to correct me so I can improve.
As soon as Sakura regained consciousness, long before she opened her eyes, she felt a hand move on her leg, her body reacted instinctively, she moved her leg away, she opened her eyes finding the same blond-haired man she found before she fell unconscious, He was surprised, in one hand he had a tray and the other free hand was the one that touched her leg.
"You woke up earlier," he said surprised.
He couldn't say anything else, Sakura didn't give him time. The leg that she quickly moved away went to her chest. The boy and the tray fell to the floor. Wasting no time, she got up from the bed, ignoring the shrill pains throughout her body that nearly blinded her as she stood up. She took a few steps until she noticed two nurses who were just as surprised as she was, her mind couldn't process what these two women were doing here.
"Relax, my name is Marco" said the blond carefully after standing on the ground-, we were just trying to help, you're in the medical area of the whitebeard pirates.
Pirates! She already had enough of them, she was not going to be sold again. As the boy approached her, Sakura swung her still-cuffed fists over the man's face, the cuffs smacking Marco squarely in the face knocking him back, this time holding his nose which began to spurt of blood.
Taking advantage of the moment, she ran to the exit, breaking down the door until her shoulder collided with the hallway wall. She grunted in pain.
There were a couple of pirates in the corridor who turned towards the source of the noise, finding a girl leaning against the wall and the door smashed on the floor.
These must be pirates too she thought to herself frustrated.
She lasted a few seconds against the wall before she caught his breath again and ran to the side of the two pirates.
"Stop her!" yelled the blond who leaned out of the room.
The two men immediately went after her, as both pirates yelled at more people passing by or in their rooms and poked their heads out at the noise. Once they realized they were chasing a girl in bathrobes they followed the others.
Sakura ran through the halls dodging, knocking out, and jumping people with only one thing on her mind: escape from this ship. More and more pirates were after her trying to stop her but luckily despite being badly injured, she was still faster. A man came out of one of the doors with a bar in his hand ready to attack, Sakura didn't stop running, rather she dropped to her knees just to the ground and leaned her torso back just as the pirate swung the bar over her head. As she passed she stole the tube, she rose in one swift movement and struck him.
With her hands constrained by the manacles and her body much weaker than she'd expected, the tube was welcome. She ran down the halls again until she finally saw a set of stairs leading up. She climbed up them and opened the door.
She reached the deck of the biggest ship she has ever seen, if it weren't for the fact that she was being chased, she would have loved to admire the ship, but this is not her case. The sounds of pirates shouting from the stairs told her that they would soon catch up with her, and to finish it off, there were more pirates on the deck. She dodged and struck several along the way until she reached the center of the ship, stopping short when she noticed several pirates seemed to be gathered, including a human five times the height of a normal adult, wearing a headscarf. Covering his head, a large white crescent-shaped mustache and his scarred torso only hung from his shoulders a white captain's jacket and some medical devices that connected to his body. Of the others around her, she only recognized this Ace guy. She very soon found herself surrounded by everyone.
"What's going on here?" asks the tall man who calmly continued to sit drinking from his liquor bottle.
Her instincts told her that the older man with the cape was the person she should keep an eye on, his presence was strong but not enough to intimidate her, she has already been in difficult situations to do the same as when she was gennin. That man would perhaps be the biggest obstacle for her to escape from the ship, although she couldn't let her guard down, if there were people with devil fruits like she learned in her time as a slave then they could surprise her.
Fearlessly, Sakura launched herself at the white-mustached man, like a ninja the moment you start to doubt yourself you're finished. Even with serious injuries, from the adrenaline rushing through her veins, her mind worked at full speed to compensate for her low chakra and his lack of strength.
The white-mustachioed pirate looked up at the girl who was almost on top of him, he simply raised his free arm to block the attack. Sakura was surprised when the tube in her hands began to vibrate and the air around her began to crack.
A devil fruit user! she thought to herself.
Before the tube gave way she kicked off and slammed her chains into the man, the ability instantly gone. She frowned slightly when she saw that pirate smiled. She wasn't going to let him taunt her, with the chains still attached to the man's arm she drove her torso, legs and hips that were above her head straight into the old man's face to kick him hard, before he connected with her foot on his face, he intercepted her movement with his other hand.
"You are good, but not good enough," said the pirate. He lifted her from the leg that was supporting her and sent her crashing into the mast.
On impact, the wood behind her back creaked from the force of the impact. Thousands of pieces of wood embedded themselves in her skin and she lost her breath, two of her already cracked rib bones ended up breaking and her injured organs agonize. Her entire body was on fire. Even so, she detached herself from the mast, due to the effort she could not avoid arching her torso forward and vomiting blood, when she finished she stood up again without worrying about cleaning the trail of blood that remained in the corner of her mouth and looked fiercely at pirates especially the man with the white mustache. If it weren't for her state, she was sure to give him a fight.
Suddenly, a pirate approached her back ready to immobilize her, until with an agile movement contrary to what she would be supposed to do with her wounds, she positioned herself on his shoulders with the tube squeezing the pirate's neck. When he wanted to make a move, Sakura squeezed the tube around her neck a little more forcefully.
"Teach!" Ace yelled furious that the girl dared to lay a hand on her subordinate and even more so on her captain. He took two steps towards them with his arms on fire until their eyes met and she tightened her grip on Teach's neck causing him to start coughing. Wary and worried, he had no choice but to take two steps back, which luckily made Teach breathe again.
Sakura narrowly missed her surprise when a bird engulfed in blue flames passed very close to her until it positioned itself next to Ace and the others and transformed into Marco. Another user.
For now, her best move was to keep Teach hostage, her chakra reserves were still very low even though she still had her seal's reserves, perhaps... No, she couldn't afford to use her abilities so carelessly, even though she was the only one with chakra in this world. She couldn't let them find out. She tensed when more than one of them took out that strange metal weapon that the tenryuubitos enjoyed using with any excuse -or not- to kill slaves and common people.
Teach who was in front of Sakura breathing hard began to sweat worried, if the girl didn't kill her, a bullet could if they weren't careful.
"How dare you hurt our people after saving your life?" Ace said in a threatening tone.
The pinkhead saw him for a few seconds before turning her gaze to the captain who was still calm in his seat. This only made Ace angrier, if it wasn't for Marco stopping him he would have already pounced.
"Hey! It's us, do you remember?" a person spoke. Everyone turned to see him, he was one of the new boys and one of Sakura's cellmates, next to him was the other fellow. "we don't want to hurt you, Oyaji is not that kind of person, the others are fine, a few hours ago they came down from the ship on an island, you stayed because your condition was very serious."
"Yeah! They are safe on an island, they can return home" said the companion.
Sakura only stared at them for a couple of seconds before turning her gaze to the captain.
Clever girl the captain thought, his smile grew bigger. Although the children spoke to her about her, she only gave them a look before looking back at him knowing that she was the most senior person on the ship. What had interested him the most is that even as a thin girl, covered in dirt, dried blood, injuries of which he was informed as soon as they received her, dressed in only a robe that was dyed red by her blood and with rock handcuffs of the sea that weaken her, she moved very well and as if that were not enough, she did not tremble or faint in his presence like the new ones, she even dared to attack him and endured the blow she received without complaining.
She's a veteran, yet she wasn't going to fool him. His experience and age made him notice things that many of his children overlooked. His old and sharp eyes could see the almost imperceptible involuntary spasms that appeared in her body as a result of exhaustion and pain that she was trying to hide. Either she is very brave or reckless or maybe both
"What do they call you, girl?"
Sakura frowned.
"It's rude to ask names when you don't show up." If it was Naruto I would have told him old man with a white mustache, if it had been Shikamaru he probably would have already devised at least five ways to escape and if it were Sasuke he would have put them in a genjutsu to escape but it is that he kills them first.
They were stunned, how come she doesn't know him? Whitebeard is known to the whole world! By many nicknamed the knight of the sea and the man closest to one piece, others as the strongest man in the world and many others as a very dangerous man and one of the four emperors of the sea.
Whitebeard just laughed in amusement.
"So you can talk"
She gagged when she remembered that the two pirates on the previous ship had said the same thing before dragging her out of the cell.
"My name is Edward Newgate, Whitebeard, captain of the whitebeard crew."
No, she didn't know him and if she had to she didn't care.
"Now it's your turn"
"Haruno Sakura from the village of Konoha in the land of fire" she said Ignoring the sting in her chest when she mentioned her village, she believed that she would never mention her village again even for a moment shallow greeting.
Whitebeard's eyes sparkled with interest. The others murmured in surprise, they had never heard of an island called Fire Country, much less of a village named Konoha in their travels.
"Well, Sakura from the village of Konoha, it seems you've taken two of my commanders by surprise," he glanced at Ace, who snorted annoyed, and Marco, who continued wiping the trail of blood from his nose, "if you let go of Teach you will I promise we won't hurt you unless you keep attacking, we only went to rescue two of my children, as they said we helped your companions and they decided to go down on the last island, you stayed because you were still unconscious and seriously injured."
"Why would I have to trust you damn pirates!" Sakura yelled with all her might of her, the grip on the tube tightened causing Teach to cough a little, some of them as fruit users expressed their skills ready to attack. "they kidnapped me, beat me, mocked me, sold me like a piece of meat to a slave house and tried to rape me. All with the excuse that they are pirates and do watever they want." Her voice came out hoarse, and tears glistened in her eyes in an attempt to stop them. The emotions accumulated from the moment she was taken out to sea, her time with the tenryubitos and being sold again until this moment came like an avalanche fighting to be released at her most vulnerable moment.
Some of them shifted uncomfortably, others like Whitebeard and his commanders saw part of the dragon mark under the robe and then back to her face. What are they different from them? This only confirmed that she seemed unaware of whitebeard's existence and what he does on the islands he claims to be his.
"You!" she said, looking at Marco resentfully, "you tried to touch me when I woke up.
Marco jumped up and effusively denied it.
"I am the commander of the first division, I am a doctor, I was only going to clean your wounds before healing you until you woke up."
She couldn't believe him, he's a pirate.
"You're still alive, aren't you?" said Whitebeard.
Sakura was speechless. She first noticed the nurses around him, she began to doubt herself. The nurses looked well cared for and if she thought about it, when she woke up and pushed Marco, he fell down with a tray with a bucket of water, sponge, and a pack of gauze. He's right, if they were like the other pirates, they probably would have done something to her by now and they wouldn't have carried her to a soft bed and changed into a robe. Slowly he eased his grip on Teach's neck until she released him, Teach running towards his companions relieved that he was still alive.
"Well, it looks like we're getting better," said Whitebeard, amused, "out of curiosity, child."
"Sakura," Sakura said between her teeth, "now what? For saving me now I owe you my life? I didn't ask you to save me."
Whitebeard chuckled at the expense of his sons who growled indignantly. He had to admire her, weakened by her injuries that at any moment would make her fall unconscious, with sea rock handcuffs for being the user of a fruit and still she was still standing giving stinging answers.
"Do you want to go home? If you want we can return you," said Whitebeard. What would he have done if he had managed to escape this ship?
He almost laughed again when he saw her flinch.
" What do you care? Will you play good cop now? Ha! If you want to get information out of me you'll have to torture me first, you wouldn't be the first to try it," Sakura said with a scathing tone. She wasn't going to tell him the location of her home. She preferred to die before telling them.
"With your wounds you won't get very far, it would be a pity if you died, tell me where your island is."
For the first time since they found her, everyone present saw the girl's face change completely to one full of sadness. Memories of her friends jumped in her mind with the same pain as the first day until she remembered where she was and she was on her guard again.
"If you're looking to blackmail me with my people, you won't make it, Konoha no longer exists," Sakura said with a tone devoid of emotion, "I'm the only thing left."
For several days Sakura refused to believe that they had really died, trying to convince herself that this was just some tasteless genjutsu, maybe even a Tsukiyomi. As much as she denied it she had to admit, saying it out loud was more painful than she ever thought she could feel. There is nothing left of Konoha.
Whitebeard and the others looked at each other in surprise. That an island disappeared could only be the work of the world government and the navy with the buster call. If they remember correctly, in the affiliated and non-affiliated countries there was no one called the country of fire.
"I am Whitebeard, one of the four emperors of these seas, in my territories slavery is not an option," he said with an authoritative voice that made Sakura shudder slightly, "it would be a shame to let you die, if you have nowhere to go, become my daughter.
The others gasped in surprise. It had been a while since they had recruited a woman to the ship, the only women are the nurses and that because of the insistence that she needed them for her health.
Sakura took a step back.
"Your daughter? No, I won't be one of you and even less your daughter " she said suspiciously. This was getting weirder, maybe the best thing would be to jump into the sea and then see what to do.
"Gurararara!" Whitebeard laughed, expecting something like that, "How about staying until you're healed?" Maybe you'll change your mind."
Sakura didn't know what to answer. Is he crazy? Since she woke up for the first time since the Konoha incident no one had given her a hand until now done by a pirate. And last but not least, after challenging him.
"How do I know that I can trust you? " was his last strategy entrusted to the fact that he could not give her an answer.
What she didn't expect is that Whitebeard, still smiling, took something out of his pants and threw it at her. When she caught the object, when she opened her hands, a lump rose in her throat when she saw a key, the key that "restricts" her power, it is not that it is necessary for her, but they did not know it, for them it was to give her freedom and for her a symbol of confidence that everything they said is true. She glanced at the nurses, she again noted that they didn't seem to be mistreated and looked well cared for.
Her body slowly began to weaken and that's why her mind gave in, this time it will be a leap of faith or fate tells her to go with them.
"I'll stay," she finally said quietly. "I promise not to hurt them as long as they don't hurt me."
"We'll take her," said one of the nurses when one of the pirates wanted to come over to help.
They followed them with their eyes until the four disappeared down the stairs.
"I'm not surprised that she collapsed, I can't believe that she was able to move due to the seriousness of her injuries and her fever, much less fight," Marco said with a hint of respect and amazement. Losing sight of the girls, he turned to Whitebeard, "Is it okay for her to join?"
Before Whitebeard could reply, Ace slammed his foot against the floor.
"Father, are you really going to make her join?" She tried to attack you! We saved her and the first thing she does is run away, attack people and use Teach as a hostage," Ace said, a large vein standing out on his forehead.
"You tried to kill me on more than one occasion when you got on the ship after I defeated you."
Ace winced in embarrassment as he remembered his past when he refused to join Whitebeard and call him father.
"If everything she said is true then she hasn't had it easy either, being homeless and having been a slave to a Tenryuubito isn't easy -said Thatch, the commander of the 4th division and chef of the ship-, she has been lucky enough to escape alive."
"Of course she didn't tell the whole truth" Ace said, still annoyed but at least he calmed down a bit.
Izo, the commander of the 16th division took a step towards whitebeard.
"It's strange, that island... The country of fire, in Wano-
"Of course she's not going to tell the whole truth," Whitebeard interrupted, "it's not every day that one loses their home being left alone, much less escape from a tenryuubito, she has the right to mistrust people.
Whitebeard has never let a stranger into her family that he sees as untrustworthy or troublesome to the crew, on the other hand... He had a hunch.
With that no one could refute the contrary. Remembering the dragon mark they grimaced.