The sailing ship, the Going Merry, charted its course toward the Grand Line.
Its crew was an unusual arrangement: one man and four women. A skeptic might question whether women could handle the heavy, physical labor of sailing and steering a ship. But it was no issue at all.
"Wind's looking good. Alright, Luffy, if you would."
"Yeah."
At dawn, with too few hands for a night voyage, they dropped anchor and let the ship rest on the open sea.
Come morning, Nami, the navigator, would check the wind and chart their heading. Up to that point, it was no different from any other ship. But the method of setting sail was where things diverged.
"[Change]."
Luffy's ability, the Tag-Tag Fruit. It allowed him to read, paste, and detach information.
However, it wasn't all-powerful; its one weakness was that immersion in seawater nullified the effects. That's why his power had been useless on the tiny skiff he'd used to leave his home village.
But with a larger ship, the game changed entirely.
At Luffy's command, the ropes on the mast came alive, slithering like serpents, unfurling the sails and snapping them taut with a sharp, binding tug. He had simply overwritten the sail's tag from [Furled] to [Unfurled].
"As handy as ever," Nami remarked.
A task that normally required multiple crewmen was finished in an instant. What's more, because he'd targeted the [Mast] rather than the [Going Merry] as a whole, the ability wasn't negated by the sea. That meant Luffy's power could be applied elsewhere; he couldn't control the ship's course directly, but he could manipulate the [Rudder] or command the [Cannons] at will.
"Sigh..."
"Oh my, Nojiko. What's with the heavy sigh?"
In the lounge, Makino was preparing breakfast. Waiting for her, Nojiko let out another deep, weary breath, idly stirring her juice with a straw.
"It's just... You and Nami have real roles on this ship, right? I don't have anything like that..."
"Nojiko, if you put it that way, I'm just a 'make-believe' ship's doctor," Kaya chimed in, emerging from her quarters to join them in the lounge.
It was true. Kaya had once aspired to be a doctor and possessed some medical knowledge, earning her the title of Luffy's Adventure Crew – Ship's Doctor.
However, her knowledge was barely above a backwater village medic's, and her practical skills were nearly nonexistent. In fact, with Luffy's ability to simply detach a [Sickness Tag] a doctor was almost redundant. In a sense, Kaya, too, had no real role on the ship.
"Nami aside, I'm technically the cook, but that's just a label," Makino added.
"I only left the village with him because he pasted a [Recognition Tag] on me, saying I could cook."
"A Recognition Tag?"
"Why would he do that?"
Luffy's power broadly fell into two categories: [Information Tags] that physically altered an object's state, like he'd done with the sails, and [Recognition Tags] that changed how people perceived something. But what did Makino mean about using a Recognition Tag to leave the village?
"Well, it's a long story. It goes all the way back to how I ended up traveling with Luffy in the first place..."
"Ooh, tell us! I wanna hear it!"
"Me too!"
"What story?"
A long explanation was in order, but Nojiko and Kaya were deeply curious about the unknown history between Luffy and Makino. Nami, having just finished securing the ship, walked in and tilted her head at their eager expressions.
"Nami, do you know how Makino ended up sailing with Luffy?"
"Huh? No, not at all. Now that you mention it, I've never heard that story."
Nami had been with Luffy the longest on this ship. If even she didn't know, it had never been told. Women love tales of how couples met—especially old, romantic stories—and Kaya was practically vibrating with curiosity.
"Alright, then. How about a girls' morning?"
After breakfast came the long-awaited gathering. A modest affair set up on the deck with drinks and light snacks.
Luffy, having no interest in old tales, declared he was "gonna go fish" and retreated to the ship's stern.
"It started... about ten years ago," Makino began.
The three women leaned in, hanging on every word as Makino reminisced.
"Back then, Luffy and I lived in Foosha Village. The Red Hair Pirates used it as a base. Oh, not like they ruled it or anything, like what happened to Cocoyashi. They just used it as a stopover. On that ship, there was a girl named Uta... She was Luffy's sex slave at the time."
"That means..."
"She was like us?" Nojiko finished.
Each of the women was conscious of their position—existing to be used by Luffy. If Uta was one of them, she was a senior, a predecessor. So why wasn't she on this ship now? It was something Makino had wondered about.
"That girl left before the Red Hair Pirates set sail. She stayed behind in a country called Elegia, where they went on an expedition. Apparently, it's a nation of music, and since she loved to sing, she stayed to study it."
"Whaaat..."
"Huh..." Nami muttered.
'Abandoning Luffy's side just to study music?' The three women seemed utterly unconvinced.
Makino gave a rueful smile. "If she found something she wanted to do, isn't that a good thing?" Perhaps. But they still didn't seem satisfied.
"So, did it start after that girl left?" Kaya asked.
"It was right after Uta left, and the Red Hair Pirates had departed the village for good."
Flashback.
"Makino... I think there's something wrong with me."
Makino's bar, once bustling with pirates drinking and feasting throughout the day, had grown quiet since the Red Hair crew sailed away.
Daytime customers were few now. Occasionally, a villager or traveler would stop in for lunch, but otherwise, the bar was empty.
It was at one such quiet moment that Luffy, looking deeply troubled, had come to her…
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