Chapter Text
Fuji is lost.
This island is… new. She’s never been here before, and she’s never seen anywhere like it, either. The trees are towering over beautiful houses, the rivers run clear and are full of fish, and everyone seems to be laughing and having fun, eating as much food as they want.
Well. Almost everyone. It doesn’t escape Fuji’s notice that this island has its dark corners, just like her home, but that’s just it – they’re corners. Fuji’s home is nothing but dark.
Still, the island’s beauty and prosperity don’t really do much to change the fact that she is very much lost. The streets are winding and confusing in this island’s port, only leading right back to where she started. She can’t even read the map by the docks, not when it’s in a language she’s never seen before. She’d ask someone for directions if she thought it was safe, but Fuji can’t trust any of these people. They might just send her back home, and she’s here because she doesn’t want to go home.
It's too dangerous. Fuji can’t go back home – not anymore.
“When you get away from here, Fuji-chan… live the life you want to live, and never look back.”
She shivers at the memory, hands coming up unconsciously to clutch at the wisteria pendant resting at the base of her throat. There’s nothing left there for her.
Picking another direction, since the last one only brought her in a big circle, Fuji starts walking again. The sound of her wooden sandals clicking against the stone tiles is familiar, a comforting sound in a new situation. The people here don’t seem to notice her, too busy with their own trades and issues to pay her any mind. If she were anyone else, she might be a bit saddened, but to Fuji, it’s the best-case scenario.
(Even if it hurts a little, to still be ignored when she’s away from there.
At least that’s the worst that’s happened here.)
One little girl in a crimson kimono isn’t enough to draw the attention of the people milling about in the port town, and she should be grateful for that. It would be worse if they did notice her, after all.
“Hey, are you lost?”
I jinxed it.
Fuji jolts at the sudden voice, whirling around while still holding onto her necklace. The smooth resin encasing the purple flower brings her little comfort as she comes face to face with a girl who looks to be a few years older than her with her hair pulled up in two big loops to look like a bow, the right side a bloody red and the left side a snowy white. Fuji stares for a moment, then slowly shakes her head, not trusting her voice to stay steady if she were to speak.
The split-haired stranger cocks her head. “You sure? I know my way ‘round this city, so wherever you wanna go, I bet I could help you get there…”
Fuji’s eyes dart back and forth for a moment, and she shakes her head again, this time much more quickly. “N-no. I kn-know where I’m going.”
“You’re absolutely sure you aren’t lost?” The other girl is starting to look a little concerned now. Fuji must have said the wrong thing – how can she fix this without drawing more suspicion than she must’ve already incurred?
“Maybe… a little?” She tries, and nearly collapses in relief when the other girl nods and shrugs, an understanding smile on her face. It’s never understanding. There’s always a catch.
“Yeah, my dad gets lost all the time. Where are you trying to go, then?”
“There’s s’posed to be a waystation place where you can get a ride t’somewhere else, but I can’t find it.” She looks around again – the crowds have thinned a bit since earlier, but there’s still enough people that she could use them as a barrier if the stranger were to give chase. One good thing about Fuji’s small size is that she can duck and weave through gaps that other people can’t, which means that if there’s a crowd, Fuji can get through it when other people won’t fit.
The stranger hums. “Mmm… I think I know where that is. Wanna see if we can figure it out?”
Fuji pauses. There’s got to be a catch here somewhere, there’s always a catch, because no help has ever come without a price (except Yama-nii’s, but that… that was different). But… she can’t figure out what that catch is. The stranger has nothing to gain from helping her find where she wants to go. It’s not as if she could pay for the help, either, not when she didn’t even have money back home.
There’s got to be a catch… but Fuji can’t find it.
So, ever so slowly, she nods. If she has to bolt halfway through the walk, then so be it. It wouldn’t be the first time, and she knows it won’t be the last, either. It never is.
oOoOo
Uta’s not really sure why she asked the random little girl if she was lost. She just looked lost, like she didn’t have anywhere to go. She usually wouldn’t go out of her way for some kid, but she was curious, and the kid is turning out to be pretty interesting. She’s got weird clothes, some sort of red robe-dress with a wide belt that goes around, tying in a bow in the back. Her sandals are pretty normal, though, even if Uta didn’t know sandals could be made out of wood blocks.
“Should be just down this way,” Uta says, nodding her head to the left, towards the street that will lead to where the girl wants to go.
The younger girl nods, and after a moment of hesitation, steps back and bows, hands clasped together in front of her. “I– I can go from here…”
Uta cocks her head. “You sure?” A nod is all the confirmation she gets, but the little girl does seem pretty sure, so Uta shrugs. “All right, then. Nice meeting you, um… wait, what’s your name?”
But in a split second, she’s completely gone. No sign of the twitchy little girl remains, not even a hint of red disappearing into the crowd. If Uta were a more superstitious girl, she might’ve suspected that the little stranger was some sort of ghost, but that would be silly. Her parents said that ghosts aren't real (and then Dad said that ghosts were real but only in the Florian Triangle, and then Papa had scolded him for scaring Uta).
Regardless, she’s seen the little kid off now, so Uta should be good to head back to the docks. Papa is probably losing his mind by now, wondering where she went – in her defence, though, the docks were very boring. Can they really fault her for going to look for adventure when Dad already does that all the time?
“Hey!”
Eh?
Uta turns around and connects a moment later that she probably shouldn’t have inadvertently responded to the random shout, but it’s a null point anyways. It wasn’t her that the stranger had been yelling at – it was the little girl in the raggedy kimono. The unnamed girl’s got a panicked look on her face, frozen to the spot as a Marine in a pristine uniform marches towards her with a murderous look.
Maybe she should go get her parents. But there might not be enough time… wait a minute, Uta’s got a way better plan.
(She’s probably gonna get scolded for this, but it’s not like she really gets into real trouble the first time. It’s only if she does things again after specifically being told not to, and technically, she hasn’t been told not to do this yet, so it’s fair game.)
Pulling her dagger from its sheath hidden in her frilly white skirt, Uta slips through the crowd and gets behind the Marine who yelled, doing her best to stay unnoticed and innocuous. She’s surprisingly good at that, for someone who looks so recognizable – Dad says it’s a special talent of hers, while Papa says she must have figured it out so she could sneak into the kitchen for more chocolate when she was supposed to be sleeping.
Right behind the Marine, Uta carefully lifts the dagger and runs the sharp tip along the side seam of his pants, doing the same to the other side. She can see the stitches breaking under her dagger, and all it’ll take for them to shred completely is–
The Marine takes a sharp step forwards, advancing on the little girl as she backs away with a fearful expression, and in one slow movement, his pants split at the sides, falling right off and exposing his boxers.
Papa is going to be so mad when Uta gets back to the Red Crest. Maybe she just… won’t tell him about this part.
The entire crowd freezes, and Uta tucks her knife back into its concealed sheath before shrieking. “Oh, no! His pants are gone!”
Taking up the cry, the entire crowd starts to yell, the Marine turning bright red and desperately trying to get his neatly bisected pants up off the ground so he can try to put them back on. That’s a losing battle, though, because Uta is absolutely certain that he cannot put on a pair of pants that are in two pieces.
… now he really does have a pair of pants. Uta snickers, covering her mouth so nobody notices.
All she’s got to do now is find that girl in the weird clothes and get her where she needs to go, and then Uta can go back to the Red Crest and find her parents. She will not be telling Papa about all the ruckus she caused, not if she can help it. Well, half-caused – Uta thinks she can blame the Marines for at least a solid 50% of this mess, if not more.
oOoOo
Fuji can’t handle this. She knew what she was going to be doing when she left home– no, it’s not home anymore. She knew what she was doing when she… left, but it’s too much. Everything is so loud and there are so many voices and scents, and it’s nothing like her ho– where she lived before.
There are a bunch of… well, they’re not pirates, but they sort of remind her of those. It’s a bunch of men in white jackets carrying weapons – they might be from some crew of pirates, but the fact is that she’s apparently offended them by taking one of their knives, and now they’re probably chasing her, because people in uniforms always chase her when she takes stuff. She understands why, at least – even back in her old town, there were always consequences to taking what belonged to someone else. Fuji just knows she needed that knife, she had to have something to defend herself, and it felt like a good idea. She can’t rely on that to defend herself, not when she can barely control it as-is.
That white-jacket guy… what if he’s figured her out? He probably knows where she’s from at the very least, considering how out-of-place her kimono is, but it could be so much worse. What if he knows why she’s no longer in the place she used to live? If he’s figured it out, if he’s going to take her back–
No. Yama-nii wouldn’t let her be trapped again… but she can’t just rely on him forever. She shouldn’t have been relying on him in the first place, not with how much danger it put him in to help her out.
If Fuji wants to survive in this world, she has to be stronger. Not just quick enough to run, but strong enough to stand her ground and fight back. Right now, all she’s good for is running away, and that’s not good enough. How can she ever protect her precious people like Yama-nii if she can’t even defend herself against some pesky guy with a rifle? How did she ever think she could do this on her own?
She never should have left. She should’ve waited until Yama-nii could come with her–
–but if Yama-nii hadn’t gotten her out when he did, Fuji would be dead or trapped by them. She’s already spent too much of her life without this wonderful feeling of true freedom, and she doesn’t know if she’ll survive it being taken away again.
(The feeling of starvation is still set deep into her flesh, showing itself in protruding ribs under sallow skin. The bitter, putrid scent of the river entangled with the miserable winds as they wailed out their sorrows.
She remembers it all, too fresh to put out of her mind. Too fresh to even consider returning yet. Fuji knows that if she goes back to it now, she’ll break just like everyone else did . If she breaks, she can’t help anyone. She’ll be useless to them, just another corpse in the streets while the living still suffer.
She’s not a hero, nor will she ever be, but she still wants to protect those she cares for.)
Fuji ducks into an alley, pressing close to the wall and holding her breath, tamping down everything in her mind. Thoughts, feelings, presence, it has to go down. They can’t find her when she tamps everything down. They never see her when she’s pressed to the wall like that, blending into the scenery like another piece of the landscape.
She closes her eyes and holds her breath, flattening herself against cold stone, and waits.
The people around her pass right by, not paying her a single thought. It looks like the not-pirate with the white clothes isn’t chasing her, or at least if he was, he’s given up. Otherwise, she would’ve seen him run past by now.
She has to find somewhere to go from here. Fuji was supposed to be heading inland, hopefully to find some sort of town that she could stay at, maybe even work so they wouldn’t try to charge her (because if there’s one thing she knows it’s that nothing, nothing, nothing comes without a price), but it’s really not going well. The street signs are all written in some weird sort of code, everyone’s got such a thick accent she has to stop and think before she can understand them (and that girl from earlier with the split red and white hair had been the first person all day that she could understand immediately, though she had an accent as well), and there are just so many people. Fuji’s only seen this magnitude of people in one other place, and that was–
Well. It’s a place she’s not going back to, not any time soon at least, so it’s… irrelevant. Right? Right.
But seas, why didn’t she make a plan before she came out here? Now she’s lost and scared in a place she’s never been before, with nothing and no one to rely on except herself.
(Is that really so different from how it was before?)
“Oh, there you are!”
She yelps, nearly jumping a foot in the air at the sudden voice. “ Aa! Stranger!”
It’s… wait, it’s the girl from earlier! “Are you okay? I didn’t mean to startle you. What’s your name, anyways?”
Eyeing her warily, Fuji chooses not to respond to that. “What’s your name?”
‘I’m Uta!” She grins. “I’m a pirate musician on my parents’ crew – wait, I’m not supposed to tell people I'm a pirate yet!” Clapping her hands over her mouth, Uta’s next words come out muffled. “Don’t tell my parents I said that, ‘kay?”
Fuji nods slowly.
“Cool! Now that I said my name, you should tell me yours. It’s a fair trade, right?”
“Mm-mm.” Fuji shakes her head. She was told not to give her name out to strangers, and… she doesn’t even know if she’s going to keep this name. It’s– it’s her name, but it makes it so much easier for people to find her, and she really, really doesn’t want the people who know her name to find out where she’s gone.
Uta frowns. “Well, I can’t keep thinking of you without a name, so… maybe a nickname? Then you get to keep your secrets, but I get a name to call you!”
That… is actually a pretty fair trade. Fuji nods slowly and sticks out her tongue, thinking hard as she wracks her brain for any sort of name that isn’t her name but is something she’ll actually respond to. She’s about to just tell Uta her real name and claim it’s fake before her eyes snap open, the perfect idea popping into her head.
“...you can call me Luffy.” Fuji lets her mouth curve into a tiny smile (nothing like her big grins, not like those sharp-toothed smiles from back when she had her precious people around her, but it’s something). She knows the name Luffy. It’s… well, it’s not her name, not the one people know her by, but it could have been.
(She still remembers when she first heard it, even now.
“If he had been the one to name you, you would have been called Monkey D Luffy. You are Fuji because it was my choice to name you.”
If he’d named her and if he’d kept her , she would’ve been Luffy. She can be Luffy for now, if only to Uta.)
Uta just grins. “Okay! Luffy’s a pretty name, and it’s even got a ‘u’ in it, just like mine!”
“Mm-hmm.” She nods. Uta’s enthusiasm is good, but Fuji’s starting to get wary again. She doesn’t know what Uta wants from her, after all.
(It can’t be nothing. Everyone always wants something, and the best-case scenario is that they want what Fuji wants. Yama-nii had been like that.
They both wanted freedom. Fuji got it. Yama-nii didn’t.)
Uta straightens up, offering a hand to Fuji. “Well, we probably shouldn’t stay in the alleyway, ‘cause I kinda pantsed a Marine, but also I want to show you my ship. You’ll definitely like it, so will you come with me to see it?”
She looks so… hopeful, eyes shining with excitement as she holds out a hand to Fuji. Uta… it doesn't look like she’s expecting something. She’s just holding her hand out for no reason. Fuji furrows her brow, staring at the proffered hand, and then it clicks. She wants me to take her hand.
Fuji doesn’t know this girl. Doesn’t know her family, her life, what she wants, or even who she is. And yet, somehow, she seems… trustworthy. So, Fuji takes Uta’s hand, and she lets herself be pulled out of the alley and into the crowds, off to an unknown destination. If nothing else, it’ll at least be more interesting than running from the guy in the white coat again, who now that she thinks about it, might have been the one Uta said she pantsed.
oOoOo
Yes! Yes, yes, yes, new friend acquired! Uta can’t keep the grin off of her face as she weaves through the crowd, Luffy’s thin hand held carefully in her own. The other girl is bony, but her grip is strong, and she hasn’t flagged once as Uta’s pulled her through gaps in the throng of people.
Uta is pointedly not thinking about how she’s going to explain this to her parents when she gets back to the Red Crest. That is a problem for Future Uta, and therefore she will not be thinking about it until Future Uta is Present Uta. If it goes badly, it goes badly, but she can’t see Luffy getting caught in the backlash of it, so it’ll be fine.
And she knows she was meant to be helping Luffy get somewhere, but honestly, the other girl didn’t seem that pressed to get there. Besides, the longer they wait, the less chance that the pantsed Marine will still be there, so it’s a win-win all around. Yeah, that’ll work! I’m so clever!
Before long, the ship Uta knows as home comes into view. She grins, glancing over to Luffy to see the smaller girl’s reaction.
She’s staring up at the ship with her dark eyes wide, mouth hanging open ever so slightly as she tries to take it in. The Red Crest may be small compared to other Yonkous’ ships (and seas forbid Dad ever get his hands on a ship as big as the Moby), but she’s the ship of Uta’s crew, and therefore she’s home. Uta’s never felt unsafe anywhere on the Crest because she knows that even if the crew can’t get to her in time, the ship will protect her. She’s never seen the ship’s klabautermann in person, and as far as she knows, neither has anyone else in the crew, but Dad says there is one. If Dad says so, then it must be true.
“C’mon, you wanna see it up close?” Uta waits for Luffy's response, and is rewarded with a nod, first tentative and then decisive. She lets her grin grow wider. “Cool! Let’s go!”
Leading the way up the ramp, Uta is mildly relieved to see that there are no people on the deck at the moment. It’s not that she doesn’t want to see her crew, but more that Luffy seems to be a rather skittish kid, and the Akagami Pirates are not known for their tact. If she’s introducing Luffy to her family, she wants to warn both parties ahead of time so nobody ends up screaming and/or knifed.
And it wouldn’t be Luffy who was knifed, either, because while she can’t see anyone in her family harming a little kid, she can see Luffy grabbing the nearest weapon if she were sufficiently panicked. It wouldn’t be the first time someone did that, but the resulting conversations are never fun regardless.
“Okay, so where d’you wanna see first?” Uta asks, looking around but still keeping ahold of the tiny, bony hand clutching her own. “There’s the galley, the crow’s nest, the rigging which I’m technically not allowed to climb without supervision but whatever, the storage room, the medbay, the library-slash-study that might actually be two rooms but everyone acts like it’s one room, my room…”
Luffy looks a bit overwhelmed. Uta pauses, then dials it back a bit. No need to bombard her with too many options yet – the ship is amazing and perfect, so Luffy will definitely have fun no matter where they go.
“Here, how ‘bout we start with whatever’s closest, then go from there?” She offers, and is relieved to see Luffy's quick nod.
They head inside the ship, Uta first and Luffy following closely, because while technically the crow’s nest is close, Uta has ulterior motives for taking Luffy inside first. The ulterior motive in question would be that the galley is currently empty, and Luffy looks like she hasn’t had a solid meal in a week.
Uta will be fixing that.
Luckily, Roux’s been teaching her how to cook, so she’s aware enough to know how not to set the kitchen on fire. Still, there’s a guest here who clearly needs food as soon as possible, so she’ll start with something quick rather than going through the whole ordeal involved with something like soup or pasta.
“Hey, Luffy, what do you want on your sandwich?” Uta asks, pulling out the bread and a few other ingredients. She’s a bit snackish, so she’ll make one for herself, as well.
“...sandwich?” Luffy tilts her head, looking rather like a confused puppy.
“Yeah. I’m making a sandwich, and you look hungry, so you’re getting one, too. If you don’t tell me what you want on it, I’m just making it exactly like mine, so you better think quick. Oh, and you’re not allergic to anything, right?”
“I don’t have allergies, but– do you have any meat?”
Uta looks at the spread of ingredients, plucking one up. “Will ham do?”
“Ham is good!”
Luffy sounds… excited. More than she has during the entire time Uta’s known her, which means that there’s definitely progress afoot in this friendship. Maybe by the end of the day, they’ll be good enough friends for Uta to ask her over for a sleepover!
She busies herself with the making of two large sandwiches, adding ham, lettuce, tomato, and some cheese for good measure, all in liberal amounts on the thick bread. When she’s done, both sandwiches are a bit thicker than she would’ve liked, but that’s fine. Luffy doesn’t seem put off by it, at least, her smile growing wider than Uta’s seen all day. Maybe Roux was right about food being the best tactic for making friends.
“Sandwiches!” Uta announces, setting the plates on the counter with a flourish. She hops into her usual seat and turns to help Luffy up (she is very short, after all, and Uta will never admit it, but when she was that short she definitely couldn’t reach the counters), but the little girl is already scrambling up the chair like a weird little monkey. It’s oddly endearing, and it does get her to the counter, so Uta supposes there’s no reason to complain or question it.
There are practically stars in Luffy’s eyes at the sight of the sandwich, and she looks like she’s about to pounce on it like a wild wolf before she stops short, nearly freezing entirely with an odd sort of expression on her thin face. “...I can have the whole thing, right?”
“What? Of course you can!” Uta answers, baffled. “Why wouldn’t you? I made it for you, after all, so if anyone else wants one, they better get their own!”
Wait.
Wait a second, the only reason she’d be asking that is if she thought she wasn’t allowed to eat the whole thing. That Uta would put a whole sandwich in front of her and then say she couldn’t have it all.
Uta takes a second to process this before glancing over to Luffy, who is now devouring the sandwich with a frankly fearsome intensity, and promptly deciding that it’s not her problem unless it comes back to bite her on the nose. She won’t be keeping Luffy from eating whole portions, anyways, so the problem can wait.
(But if Luffy will be going back to someone who would do that at the end of the day… hm.
She’ll need to think about that.)
It’s not more than ten minutes before they’re both finished with their sandwiches, and Uta takes another minute to first wash and put away their dishes. She knows that all the dishes get washed at the end of the day, but for some reason… she doesn’t really want the crew to know yet that she found some random kid and brought her aboard. And if she does let them know, she’d rather do it herself, on her own terms, than be questioned because of some dishes in the sink.
“So, where to next?” She asks, waiting by the door as Luffy slides down from her own chair. “The medbay’s just down the hall, if you’re interested in that.”
“Mm, okay.” Luffy shrugs. She seems less jumpy than she was earlier, and Uta can easily figure out that it’s because of the food. Giving a hungry kid a free sandwich is always a good way to gain their trust, and in this case, their friendship.
They head down the hall, and Uta is once again glad to notice that there don’t seem to be any people around. In fact, she doesn’t think anyone is on the ship at all, excepting herself and Luffy. She would wonder where they went, but if it was for something bad… well. She definitely would have noticed by now if somebody made a ruckus. The most trouble that got caused at this point was Uta herself pantsing the Marine that tried to chase down Luffy, and she has no regrets about that. Honestly, she thinks her dad would probably be proud of her – Papa would be proud too, but he’d act like he wasn’t by hiding it with an exasperated face.
Uta pushes the door open, gesturing to the room in front of them. “So, this is the medbay. Hongo is our doctor, so he works in here, and he’s the one who patches up any injuries we get. One time I got a big cut on my leg ‘cause I was climbing in the rigging, and he fixed it up so good it didn’t even scar!” She points to the side of her left leg, showing how the skin is still unmarred. “Cool, isn’t it?”
Luffy nods, looking awed. “Did it hurt a lot?”
“No way!” Uta puffs up her chest. “I’m a strong pirate, so it didn’t hurt at all!”
“Cool!”
Aww, she’s got such a cute little grin! Uta barely refrains from squishing the smaller girl’s little cheeks when she smiles. Luffy just looks so cute, but she knows the other probably wouldn’t take that well. Maybe later…
oOoOo
“Can we go see the crow’s nest next?” Fuji isn’t quite sure why or how she became so comfortable with this girl, but… Uta gave her food. Real, not-poisoned food that had actually tasted good and not rotten, and then Uta told her she got to eat the whole thing. There’s no way Uta’s bad, not when she did that.
Uta grins. “Yeah, sure! It’s one of my favourite places, and most of the crew doesn’t go up there unless there’s a reason, like if they need to come and get me for something. They’ll usually just yell up, anyways, so it’s basically my secret spot. Come on, I’ll show you all my cool stuff!”
Fuji lets herself be pulled along to the mast where a ladder is set into the wood, sturdy rungs sticking out of the side for them to climb up. Uta goes up first, but she keeps looking back to make sure Fuji is right behind her. It’s making her chest do something funny, getting all tight and weird. Yama-nii made her feel like that too – like she was being seen. Wanted.
“Okay, now hold on a sec while I tidy up.” Uta clambers into the crow’s nest through a trapdoor above the ladder, and she quickly moves out of sight, though she doesn’t shut the trapdoor. There are a few odd sounds, like shifting fabric, and then a loud thump, and then she reappears. “All right, you can come in now!”
Fuji hauls herself into the crow’s nest, scrambling through the hole like an uncoordinated squirrel, and then has to stop her jaw from dropping as she looks around.
It’s perfect. There are big cushiony-looking things along the wall, one of which is serving as Uta’s seat (though from the way she’s sitting, ‘throne’ might be more accurate), and there’s a whole bookshelf on the wall beside the cushions. Lanterns hang in the corners, each supported by their own little platform, lighting up the room with a soft, welcoming glow.
“Do you like it?” Uta says, looking hopeful. “I lit the lanterns up, I thought you’d like those – aren’t they pretty?”
“Yeah” Fuji breathes, and she feels her face breaking into a huge smile. “It’s amazing!”
“Yes! I knew you’d like it!” Uta hops up, practically skipping over to Fuji. “I’ve got the beanbags over there, and that’s the bookshelf, and there’s straps that go across the shelves so that the books don’t fall if there’s a storm or the waves get big – here, see?”
She can’t stop grinning as Uta shows off her own little playroom, the other girl’s pride and enthusiasm near-contagious. Fuji’s never really had a friend before, but… she thinks that if she had one, she would want them to be like Uta. The other girl is just so nice, so excited and happy and hopeful, and Fuji’s smile almost drops as she realises that Uta isn’t going to be staying here.
Uta is a pirate. When her crew’s done with whatever they’re doing, Uta is going to get on her ship and leave. Without Fuji.
She doesn’t want the fun to be over yet.
“Ne, Uta… why’d you invite me here, anyways?” Fuji asks once there’s a break in conversation. Maybe if she can figure out the other girl’s reasoning, she can find some way out of the situation that will work for both of them.
Uta looks a bit surprised but just shrugs. “I’ve never had a friend I could show off my crew’s ship to before. ‘Sides, you looked hungry and I wanted a sandwich anyways, so I figured I might as well get you one, too.”
That’s… that it?
That’s all? She just wanted to show off her ship and give Fuji a sandwich?
But that doesn’t make sense. People don’t do those sorts of things for free. There’s always a catch, there’s always some sort of price to pay, what if Uta expects Fuji herself to come up with that price–
“There’s no price?” Uta tilts her head, confused, and Fuji snaps her mouth shut as she realises she probably said most of that out loud. “I just wanted to. That’s what being a pirate means – you don’t do things because that’s how other people say it’s done. You do things ‘cause you want to do things. Screw everyone else! Pirates are the freest people on the seas, y’know!”
Fuji’s eyes go wide. The… freest on the seas?
(The Beast wasn’t like that. Yama-nii said so.
But maybe the Beast was wrong… and Uta is right. Fuji likes the idea of pirates being free a lot better than the idea of pirates being nothing but greedy.)
“Oh,” Fuji says quietly, and she barely notices as Uta leans in to hear her better, hands outstretched
almost like she’s going to take Fuji’s hands in her own again
. “Uta, I think I wanna be a pirate.”
Uta grins, and there’s something… more in that smile, almost like she was expecting Fuji to say something like that. “Pirates are the best, aren’t they?”
Fuji nods.
“Ne… is there anyone waiting for you? In that town you wanted to go to?” Uta asks, and there’s a thoughtful expression on her face, almost contemplative. “Why’d you wanna go there, anyways?”
“There’s no one… waiting for me,” Fuji says, suddenly wary. “Why does Uta want to know?”
“Well, if there’s no one waiting for you, then why don’t you come be a pirate right now?”
What?
“You can come aboard the Red Crest and be a pirate apprentice, like me, and then once you’re old enough, you could go make your own crew if you wanted! Or you could stay here, and keep being an Akagami pirate!” Uta’s smile is wide and bright. She… wants Fuji to stay. “I dunno if Dad would agree to it, but if we hide you up here… nobody looks up here, anyways, so I can just bring my meals up here and share ‘em with you, and then while you’re hiding, I’ll convince Dad to get another apprentice! And then when he says yes, you can come out at the next island, and he’ll take you aboard as our nakama! It’s perfect!”
Uta had started pacing back and forth at some point during her ramble, but her plan, it makes sense. Uta will convince her dad (whom Fuji assumes is the captain) to take on a new apprentice. Uta seems pretty confident that she’ll succeed, and she is very convincing, so when she succeeds, Fuji can be the new apprentice.
“You won’t get in trouble, will you?” Fuji asks, because even if it’s Uta who suggested it, it would still be Fuji’s fault if the taller girl got in trouble.
“No way! Dad doesn’t punish me for stuff like that unless it’s something I've been told not to do. He never said I couldn’t bring a friend aboard, or that we couldn’t have a new apprentice, so I say it’s allowed. ‘Sides, Dad and Papa like kids. They wouldn’t do anything to you, either, ‘specially not because of this. You said there’s no one waiting for you, which means no angry parents over a kidnapping, right?”
“I never met my dad, and I know my parents aren’t on this island, at least.” Fuji shrugs. “And I don’t think it’s a kidnapping if I agree to it.”
“Exactly! It’s the perfect plan, so nobody can stop us!”
“Uta, you up there?” Oh, that voice is new. Fuji freezes, and she’s about to go for the knife she pilfered earlier when she realises that Uta’s grabbed her hands at some point during their plotting. Now, however, the older girl is letting go.
“Cover your ears,” she whispers, and Fuji barely has time to comply before Uta’s yelling. “YEAH, I’M UP HERE!”
“Oh, good! Gab thought you might’ve gotten lost in port!”
“Hang on a second – I’ll be right back, okay? I promise. I just gotta talk to my dad, ‘cause if I don’t go down there, then he’s coming up here. You can do whatever you want in here, just try not to knock anything over or it’ll make a big noise.” And then Uta’s leaving, waving Fuji over to the beanbags as she herself steps through the trapdoor to descend the ladder, leaving Fuji alone.
oOoOo
So maybe Uta’s going a little fast. In her defence, Luffy looked sad, and now the younger girl’s just gone and confirmed that she doesn’t even have parents, so… it’s free friend. Uta is a pirate, and she will not be passing up the opportunity to claim a treasure for her own. Besides, if anyone else was trying to claim Luffy, they should’ve gotten her when that Marine started yelling. It’s first come, first serve, and Uta won the pot. Or… the child, as it is.
She hops down from the mast, darting over to her parents, who are both waiting by the wheel. “‘Kay, I'm here!”
“Did you have fun while we were gone?” Dad asks, ruffling her hair with a silly grin. “I hope you didn’t cause too much trouble.”
“I did not!” Uta pouts. “Tell him how well-behaved I am, Papa!”
Papa raises an eyebrow, but he looks amused anyways. “Didn’t you nearly start a riot at the last island, Uta-chan?”
“That couldn’t be traced back to me,” she points out, turning her nose up. “Besides, I didn’t start any riots here, so it doesn’t matter anyways!”
“True. Ah, I almost forgot – we went to the market, so would you like to see what we brought back?”
“Sure!” Uta follows her fathers into the galley, where all of the crew’s purchases are laid out on the table as Lime scribbles something down in his checking book. He likes to keep track of the crew’s money, so he’s basically their unofficial ‘treasurer’, although Uta kind of expects that to become official at some point. “Ooh, chocolate!”
“Absolutely not.” Papa takes advantage of the momentary distraction to scoop her up, pointedly keeping her out of reach of the chocolate. “You can have some after dinner, all right?”
“...Yeah, okay.”
Other than the chocolate, it doesn’t seem that they got anything interesting. There’s the usual restocking supplies, which makes sense. There are also a few shirts, considering it’s the article of clothing that this crew goes through the fastest (mostly because all their enemies aim for the torso), and then it looks like Papa got a new gold sash to match the embroidered swirls on his jacket. All in all, there’s nothing too interesting, but it’s a good haul nevertheless, and Uta says as much.
“Ah, I’m so glad her majesty approves,” Dad says in a cheeky tone. “Roux’s been asking, by the way – what do you want for dinner?”
“Eh? But I thought Punch and Hongo were supposed to be deciding!”
“Well, they were, but then they got in an argument about… something, I think it was spaghetti, and now they’re both grounded.”
“They are? I didn’t know we grounded people.”
“We don’t,” Papa agrees. “Roux, however, does. And it was pesto they were arguing over, not spaghetti.”
Uta furrows her brow. “But… neither of them even like pesto.”
“No, but they like arguing, which is apparently good enough. Why did we let them have today to decide again?”
Dad sighs. “Because it cycles through everyone, and today just happens to be a very unfortunate occasion. Anyways, Uta, that means you can pick something. You want to go see what Roux’s got? I think he picked up some new ingredients and spices in the market that you might want to check out.”
“Ooh, yes!” Uta grins.
Uta adores her crew and she knows they adore her back, and with any luck, they’ll adore Luffy, too. All she has to do is convince them, and then her plan can be underway.