I wanna start the chapter by giving a huge thanks to everyone for having so much patience with me.

I want to announce too that an artist already made a fanart of my story. You can go and check it out in my AO3 account

The links will be added in my profile page so you can access them without trouble!

All credits go to Anka for the amazing art they created. Thank you so much!

Rayleigh had come through a long distance out of capricious melancholy.

Loguetown looked as lively as ever and its people seemed to enjoy the day even after quite the storm that crashed a few days ago, the mood still high at the change of nice weather and the new catches of fish that got sold at the market.

He had wanted to enjoy some sake and give a few good cheers in the name of Roger and his ever boisterous spirit to still be enjoying himself in the afterlife.

What he hadn't expected was the little ball of sass and hunger that crashed the seat beside him that very day, looking like she had been hauled around by some rabid monkey and yet looked in quite the good mood to strike a conversation with a complete stranger like himself. Rayleigh wasn't blind nor dumb to not notice the imperceptible tension on the girl's back, but it wasn't in distrust (if his haki was anything to be believed).

She was cautious the same way a cat does in front of a bigger predator, something that he knew was common in people too used to fighting for their lives. She was obviously very well versed in the art of cautionary approach and considering how young she looked, the ex-pirate felt a little disheartened about the kind of life she must have gone through.

'Fierce' had been the first thing that popped up in his mind when he saw those intense green eyes seize him up with such uncanny intelligence.

In that brief conversation that they held, the older man knew that he had to at least make sure that this little pink girl managed to sail to her ambitious goal. She looked like quite an interesting person and Rayleigh already had an extended list of wanted posters with that kind of people to consider it a consistent experience.

So far, Sakura was an exceptionally smart girl. The kind that can read a book once and still remember word by word the whole damn thing, but the navigation skills one can learn in books always falls short when it comes to the unpredictableness of the Grand Line. During their whole trek back to where she had docked her little fishing boat, Rayleigh had already gotten a peek into the knowledge this girl carried so easily about medicine, strange flora and fauna and to his absolute surprise, haki too.

A multi-task fighter and doctor all cramped inside the small body of a 17 years old teenager. She seemed to have a good head start in the survival manual anyone needed to venture in such dangerous waters.

The presence of Captain Smoker hadn't been any surprise, easily perceived through his obvious hostility towards him when they finally reached the bay, but instead of making any attempt at acknowledging his presence, the eyes of the marine drifted towards the petite girl.

'Ah, ever the knight in shiny armor', he thought with a certain amount of amusement at how transparent the assumptions of the younger man were, but who was he to even correct that?

"Good evening" Smoker said in that raspy voice of his. His real emotions hidden well even when he kept glancing at Rayleigh with obvious distrust. "Young lady, not to be too rude but by any chance would that be your boat?"

Sakura gasped.

"Oh yeah! I am so sorry! Has something happened with Unagi-chan? Did someone attack him?!"

For a hot second, the ex-pirate felt lost until he finally saw where Captain Smoker was pointing to.

Well he'll be damned, this pink brat managed to domesticate a sea king and only god knows how. The one thing he felt tempted to ask mostly was why she had named it Unagi of all things; that sea king was obviously a hagfish monster.

"Nothing bad has happened, little lady. Just some people here got a bit scared since most haven't ever seen a sea king… though, now that I see you are such a good mannered person, I feel bad that I'll have to ask you to move your boat to a less populated docking area"

Ah ,so that had been the main problem.

"Oh… Oh! Don't worry, I understand!" she scratched the back of her head in embarrassment. "I suppose it was a bad move from me to ask him to not let a single person get close to my little ship. Took it too literally, I imagine."

With that being said, the small teen went and managed to convey her message to move by making a few signs with her whole arms. The sea creature may look quite empty-headed with those small beady eyes, but it was obviously smart enough to understand Sakura and obey her, slowly sinking into the water and giving the illusion that the boat was moving on its own.

Impressed, Rayleigh whistled at the sight of this kid bossing a literal monster of the ocean like she was simply talking with a misbehaving puppy.

That didn't mean the older man ignored the heated glare the marine was giving him.

"Something wrong, mister Marine?" Rayleigh asked with the most innocuous of tones. He had no reason to be rude or violent here after all. That would ruin the good mood all these nice folks seemed to carry.

"Just wondering why would the 'Dark King', of all people, be here in the island that's under my protection"

"Simply paying an old friend a visit" he said while weaving his hand in disregard of Smoker's suspicions, which only seemed to piss him off more. "I'll simply help that young girl to repair her boat and I'll be out of your hair before you know it"

There was a tense and long moment of silent showdown between the two of them, mostly less serious from Rayleigh's part as he was just letting the Captain marine seize his options here.

"You know, that kind of thing sounds ridiculous coming from you" he let a trail of smoke out of his mouth. "What? Did the girl pay you? Are you planning to steal from her?"

"You wound me!" The ex-pirate faked being hit in the heart at the accusations from the younger man, not once stopping being amused at the reactions he kept getting from Smoker. "To be honest, we simply shared a nice meal and a few mugs of rum so I felt like helping her."

The white-haired Captain simply narrowed his eyes at that half-assed explanation, but then again, Rayleigh didn't own an honest explanation to his actions.

"Alright! All done!"

That managed to pull both men away from their little confrontation of wills, finally realizing that they were still at the docking bay, with still too many people around to go and start a mindless fight.

"Ray-san! Do we need some wood or anything?" Asked the young girl with such an easy-going nature that the older man managed to see the light blush of embarrassment tainting the cheeks of the marine. Probably already feeling guilty at the prospect that he could even think of ruining the day for this young girl by acting recklessly.

"Nah, let's see first this ship of yours to get an idea, kid"

And with the wave of his arm, the ex-pirate gave his goodbye to the marine. Very aware that he will be seeing more of the man in the future until he decides to go back to Shakky.

'Fine by me' he thought with no short amount of calmness in his stride alongside the teen. Something told him that helping this girl was actually worth it.

Sakura wasn't blind nor an idiot.

Whatever was going on between those two, the tension and hostility was so clear that she could almost choke from how thick it felt, so diverting their attention to her had been the best last minute idea she could come up with to ensure that nothing of this escalated.

A fool's errand, to be honest, since Ray-san easily dismissed the presence of the marine and all the build up antagonism banished like fog in the wind, leaving only the bewildered white-haired man behind as if nothing happened a few seconds ago.

Whatever. Sakura wasn't about to delve into people's business when she had her own things to deal with.

The southern docks were a bit far but the pink-haired teen understood perfectly that it was the less populated area around and therefore not a lot of civilians around to bother her and Ray-san when repairing her boat.

Against anything that she may have expected, the older man inspected the little ship from the inside to the outside with incredible perception. Finding small cracks that she hadn't even known were there until pointed out.

"I gotta say… you still got quite lucky" he said for starters after looking up and down the boat. Both of them finally sitting down at the deck and basking in the starts of oranges of the sunset. "That nasty mucus the sea king produced helped to seal the biggest cracks around the hull and kept pretty much everything glued together"

"Really? Well now I actually owe a lot more to Unagi-chan for that" said the petite teen while filling a cup of sake to the man. "But then again… Do I have to go and buy some wood?"

The older man simply gave an amused chuckle and accepted the extended cup. This was nice. Good company, a cup of sake and the sound of the ocean while it was painted gold by the settling sun.

He hummed in thought.

"Some of the planks and timber could use some reinforcement just to be cautious. Fix some minor cracks" He drank in one go his sake and asked immediately for more. "Besides that? I think the smart thing to do would be to coat your boat with the sea king's slime"

Sakura couldn't help but look at him as if suddenly the guy had lost his mind, her own cup of sake half-way on her lips while extending the bottle for the man. Instead of taking offense at her expression (as she would assume), Ray-san laughed wholeheartedly at her expense while accepting the offered alcohol.

"Don't look so weirded out about it!" He said once he regained his composure and drank a bit directly from the bottle. "These type sea kings are usually small in comparison to the ones in the Grand Line, but the mucus they produce makes them impossible to be eaten"

'Huh, like a normal hagfish then'

"But one thing very few know is that these sea kings can control the viscosity of said mucus" to make a better example, Sakura saw the older man lightly swipe his finger on the floorboards where there was a bit of said slime that had seeped through the cracks, mushing it between his fingers a few times until, to the surprised eyes of the pinkette, saw the transparent (almost green) substance harden so much that the mucus that was there could be confused with originally being a crystal.

Flicking his fingers, the hardened slime was sent flying to the other side like a bullet, hitting at a wall of one of the warehouses near the docks and leaving behind a clear hole there.

"And when the mucus hardens, it can provide a better and strong coating… or at least until you find a better ship for long travels"

His explanation has been incredibly fascinating from start to finish and insightful too, so it moved Sakura to do the most logical thing here as a future doctor and adventurer.

She pulled her little notebook tucked inside a pouch she kept around her waist, quickly doing a rough sketch along highlights of information from what Ray-san had explained. The possibilities for either weapons or even casts for broken limbs was so amazing that she missed the strange look the graying man gave to her in that instant.

His low chuckle was the one that pulled her from her deep internal ramblings.

"Now I can easily see you exploring this big world, girl" he said with a certain amount of fondness that caught her off-guard, but the encouraging words weren't lost to her. That made her smile brightly.

After that and with new plans for her little fishing boat, both of them enjoyed as the sunset welcomed a starry sky in the company of two more bottles of sake, all while Ray hummed a song that Sakura was itching to know about.

Fixing some of the damage done had been quite easy thanks to the brute force both Ray and Sakura had displayed. Moving the wood easily and bending it enough to nail a few of the planks in place before adding some of Unagi-chan's slime over them to give an extra measure to protect the cockpit, hull, bow and keel in case a worse storm ever came back.

It was incredible how well-behaved the sea monster was at the command of the petite teen, moving around to make it easier for them to finish the coating each time he was asked by the pinkette to either turn right or left.

At some point, even Sakura could admit that the small beady eyes of the creature were kinda cute. Made him look a bit empty-headed and that only served to remind her of her baby brother during some of his reading and writing lessons; too lost in the gibberish of what a noun was supposed to mean that he simply would start to pick at his nose.

God, she was already missing them and it had only been a few months already.

'I'll have to write them a letter soon', she thought idly while carrying some groceries for their lunch. Both Ray and herself had done quite the hard work at the very ass crack of dawn (the hangover still raging over her body) and it was just barely evening when they finished.

They deserved some good sake and a warm meal of pork with rice and mashed potatoes.

She suddenly stopped.

"Ne, Captain Smoker, it's a bit creepy to follow a lady when she's just buying her groceries" the pinkette called out without looking around, already aware that the marine was just hiding a few steps away in an alleyway. Creepy indeed.

"I deeply apologize, little lady" he answered while getting out of his hiding spot, still some smoke clinging to his arms and shoulders after using his devil fruit to reach over the rooftops and land close. "Saw you from afar and wanted to make sure you were doing okay"

That wasn't a complete lie; part of Smoker had been constantly worried at the fact that the young girl had spent the whole night and morning alone with the 'Dark King' and a sea monster to top it. All possible scenarios had played insistently inside his head and today he took the chance to make sure that the ex-pirate had kept his word.

The white-haired man wasn't sure how to feel when he had been probed wrong in all his assumptions. After all, Smoker was glad that the teen was clearly unharmed and in a good mood, but that only meant that the ex-pirate had been truthful all along.

"That's very nice of you, Captain… huh?" Sakura paused, racking her brain in an attempt to remember the name of the man, only to come empty. Damn, this will be embarrassing. "I'm so sorry! I'm never this distracted, but it seems that I never got your name, sir"

To her good luck, the white-haired man didn't take the comment too personally. On the contrary, the marine chuckled heartily at her flustered blush.

"It's all good, miss" he weaved his hand around to dismiss her worries as an attempt to comfort her. "The name's Smoker. I'm the Captain in charge of the Marine Base here in Loguetown. I didn't catch your name too, missy."

"Ah… My name is Sakura. Nice to meet you!" Sakura bowed as low as she could while still holding her bag of groceries, careful to not drop some of the contents in her hasty introduction. With that out of the way, the pinkette gave a gesture to invite him to walk alongside her. There was a meal that needed to be prepared soon and she didn't wish to waste anymore time.

Her ravenous hunger was already rearing its ugly face back.

"So, how did your boat repairs go, miss?" He prodded a bit as casually as he could, both of his cigars shifting along the words which caused a bit of curiosity within Sakura's mind. The green-eyed girl remembers a few blurry faces of people she had known in her other life like the ever present bored face of Shikamaru smoking and it only ended up being overlapped by the face of… Ah, Asuma-sensei.

It was scary to think that, sometimes, memories of that life came back to her with difficulty and hard to properly focus. It was like cleaning stained glass. Of course there was guilt at the notion that she almost forgot the faces of all these important people that had marked her life (directly or indirectly), but then memories of her brothers and the mountain bandits shenanigans would immediately replace that overwhelming emotion.

It had taken Sakura a long grueling way to finally accept such feelings as an entity of everything; embrace the nasty parts that make up the heartbreak as the imprint of something that had been tender.

All of that because she needed to be the one to reassure her knuckle-heads. To hold them just as much as they had held her when Sabo was (dead) gone.

Oh, yeah. Smoker-san had asked her something.

"It went very well, Smoker-san! I was so lucky that Ray-san knows a lot about repairing ships. At this rate, maybe I'll be sailing today after lunch"

That seemed to catch the man off guard. He hadn't expected them to finish this fast.

"I… see… Ahem! Well, I wish you a lot of luck in your travels, little lady. Where are you heading off to?"

"To the Grand Line!" exclaimed the pinkette with uncontainable excitement. No hesitating once when saying those words, which only served even more to shock the marine.

The Captain had been so blindsided with such a statement, that he almost trips with his own feet at the sheer surprise from that and sputtering between his cigars. He couldn't believe his ears!

"T-t-the Grand Line?!" His scandalized expression didn't seem to clue the girl. If anything, she giggled in amusement at the reaction and that only served to irritate him even more. "Do you even know what you are saying, brat?!"

Well, now that kind of tone pissed her off.

Sakura pouted in annoyance at the expression that Smoker kept giving her which fair, her young appearance and petite figure could fool anyone that hadn't been at the other side of her fists so even if she felt completely entitled to be angry at the man's words, that didn't mean she just could smack him down right where he stood.

"Bleh, you just sound like my grandpa" she said while sticking her tongue out at the image of that lunatic. Even if Sakura hadn't shown any interest in sailing as a pirate like her brothers did, Garp had still been adamant to enlist her as a marine (to her absolute irritation).

'You need to have more direction in your life, brat! What better way to do that than by enlisting you?! Bwahahaha!' She remembers him saying on her 16th birthday, during one of his many surprise visits after he had drop kicked Ace and Luffy (again) when both boys had explicitly told him their plans of becoming pirates (... again).

"Then he must have some sense on him if he tried to stop you from sailing to that damned place!"

That actually made her snort loudly.

"Yeah, sure."

The marine simply rubbed the bridge of his nose in irritation at the complete disregard from the pinkette, the smoke from his two cigars twisting violently at the command of his own emotions. Alas, he was nothing but a simple man. He was no one's father to go and lecture them about the dangers of the world.

He can only hope in doing the right thing and it was obvious that this girl was death set in this path of hers.

"Well… I suppose I can at least wish you a good trip, little lady. Make sure to be safe" said the white-haired man with an exhausted tone. They were already at the docks and he could see the same sea king of yesterday still chilling with a fishing boat above its head while Rayleigh sat at the deck with a newspaper in his hands. The image alone was both ridiculous and too tranquil to be real.

Smoker wanted so badly to go back and curse himself to death the instant he had wished for the day to be more interesting that peaceful evening.

"Alright! That's the last one!" she said while whipping away some sweat. The blue kerchief she wore that day was very useful to keep her curls away from her face but did very little to protect her from the sun.

Sakura had arrived at Loguetown four days ago, during which the second and third ones had been spent between repairing her boat, drinking sake and eating huge amounts of food alongside Ray-san. At that point, she felt a bit more comfortable calling the older man a friend even if it had been a few days from when they first struck a conversation.

Maybe it would be the fact that she grew up among a bunch of mountain bandits and a trio of empty-headed brothers, but sharing a drink with some delicious food in the company of the sea, it gave a sense of camaraderie that Sakura could only compare to the many times team seven shared ramen at Ichiraku's.

It felt warm. Like home.

"Well, you sure have enough stock to last you a few months until you reach an habitable island"

"Thank you so much, Ray-san! I don't even know what I can do to pay you for all the help you gave me!" Sakura bowed in a perfect ninety degree angle, feeling a bit giddy at the idea that she would be soon sailing away to the Grand Line. She had everything ready; the coating had been extra thick where she kept most of her medical supplies and books, not a single crack out of place.

"I am happy to accept a few more bottles of sake and rum as payment, girl" he said in a dismissive tone to get her to stop bowing in front of him. "But in all seriousness, do you have at least a map to navigate your way around the Grand Line? Or at least a log pose to get your bearings?"

At her clueless expression, Rayleigh couldn't help but sigh in a mix between exasperation and amusement. Honestly, kids these days were just as reckless as before. That seemed to be something that never changed even with each passing generation.

Without further ado, the dark-eyed man rummaged inside his pockets in search of something… something… AHA!

"Here, kid!"

Sakura catched the object with ease, opening her palm to see what appeared to be some weird looking compass trapped inside a glass bubble. It had a strap of leather that gave her enough of a clue that the thing was supposed to go on her wrist.

Wait… She had read about this thing before. What was it?

The pinkette gasped loudly in astonishment.

"Are you kidding me?! Why are you giving me this?" Sakura couldn't believe that she had almost forgotten to get a damn log pose of all things. Very few navigation books mentioned the log poses and it was usually inside the ones that were especially written to train marines. It had been sheer luck that Garp never put too much attention to the kind of books he gifted to her. "T-this is too much, Ray-san! I can't accept this!"

"Take it, brat!" he yelled from the docks, not caring very much that this was going to be their goodbye soon. "You'll pay me later with more alcohol and a lifetime-free medical check"

At the little ship's deck, Sakura stayed completely stunned at the man's words. Still processing what just happened until his words rang fully within her brain. Well, as Dadan often said, you don't look a gift horse in the mouth.

So, with a wobbly smile and very small tears at the corners of her eyes, the pinkette secured the log pose in her wrist and waved with enthusiasm to Ray-san.

This was it then.

"You bet I will, old man!" she yelled, giving a few knocks to her boat as a sign to Unagi-chan to start moving away from the docking bay. "I still need to meet your wife!"

There hadn't been any 'farewell' or 'good luck' between them. Only the resounding laughter of both Rayleigh and Sakura as the girl disappeared through the horizon.

During one of the many visits of Garp, Sakura had taken advantage of the man's food-induced coma to get a copy of a Grand Line map. As a marine, the pinkette had been well aware that the man had access to plenty of information that was useful, including navigation and many other curiosities.

At first, she had been absolutely confused as to why the ocean's currents seemed to go up through a mountain, taking her time to plan and deduct what she needed for the time she would sail on her own.

But now she has Unagi-chan, which threw all her plans out of the window with the most incredible and easy solution.

"This is unnerving" she whispered, almost holding her breath at the sight that made the waters of the Calm Belt.

She couldn't even feel any wind currents and the water underneath was so still that, if she focused enough, the green-eyed teen could see all the sea kings resting or parading in this part of the sea; all shapes, forms and sizes making a bizarre creature collage.

Each time one of those ugly looking sea kings got too close to Unagi-chan, her little guy would release more of that nasty mucus of his and, as if flashing a warning flag, the sea kings would turn and avoid him like the plague.

It was incredible and quite handy. By sheer luck none of those monsters felt like just bullying the little hagfish monster and that alone made Sakura sigh in relief when the end of the Calm Belt seemed to be closer.

This was it… the very start to her journey through the Grand Line.

The sudden movement threw her off for a few moments, but the mucus that Unagi-chan secreted stayed put and strong.

And then…

"Hey! Pinky brat!" someone yelled from afar, taking Sakura's attention away from her log pose only to see a bigger ship coming her way with an ominous aura around it. There were no flags or anything else that indicated who this person could possibly be.

Trying to take a more diplomatic approach (despise the annoying nickname), the teen made a wave with her hand, hoping that she wasn't getting the attention of a possible attacker. If worse came to happen, the pinkette wasn't sure if she could win with too many opponents overwhelming her. It was bad enough that Garp and Dadan had been very explicit about what usually happened if you were captured by a ship of enslavers.

The girl shivered at the mental picture.

Once the ship managed to pull closer to her little fishing boat, Sakura managed to get a better look at who had called her, almost falling down at the appearance of the older woman.

"Are you aware that you have a sea king stuck under your boat?" the woman said with a flat tone with just the barest hint of amusement and curiosity, wearing a pair of sunglasses while another pair rested above her head.

The woman's face was incredibly wrinkled and she seemed to have a head full of wavy gray-hairs, but once you went from the neck down, the body of the woman seemed to belong better to a thirty-something lady. It was quite confusing but Sakura had learned with Tsunade-shishou that you just can't go asking a woman their age. It never leads to something good, that's for sure.

Before she could respond, the old woman took a long swing of the bottle she had on her hand.

"Whatever!" she yelled, looking at Sakura once again but now with a sharper smile this time. "Tell me, pinky… do you wanna know the secret to my youthful appearance?"

Huh?

Sakura can't seem to catch a break.

Thank you for reading!