*CLANG*
Cherry's sword didn't meet flesh as she had expected, as she had hoped. Instead it had met another sword.
"Woah there, girl. We don't mean any harm. We're just here to resupply and go on our merry way." Spoke the red haired pirate captain.
Cherry had barely seen him when he moved to intercept her sword. She also hadn't heard the big pirate approach her at all, despite his size.
'These aren't ordinary pirates. I can't fight since I'm completely out classed. I can't flee since I'm being held up, not to mention the red head is way faster than me. Only one choice then...'
The red haired captain spoke once more, with a confident smile. "We really need those supplies, you see. So we'd appreciate it if you didn't go telling the marines we're here. We'll let you go if you promise to at least keep your silence until we're gone, deal?"
Cherry silently glared at the man for a moment, then sheathed her sword and said a curt "Fine."
"The red haired captain's smile widened a bit. "Alright, put her down Lucky Roux. She seems trust worthy enough."
Lucky Roux put her down on the ground and the moment Cherry's feet touched the sand, she shot backwards and vanished into the bushes without a sound.
"""..."""
"She got you good, captain."
"""Hahahahaha!"""
Meanwhile, Cherry is rushing through the thick bushes. She knew she couldn't outrun them, at least not the red haired captain. Which is why she was currently using a technique called 'Traceless Steps'.
It wasn't anything special in her last life. All it did was allow one to move quickly and silently without leaving tracks. It couldn't hide you from supernatural senses at all, but it was enough to hide her from ordinary senses.
Cherry was feeling quite smug thinking about how gullible those pirates were despite their strength. That didn't last when you ran face first into the red haired captain's extended palm.
"Yo! You're quite the slippery one aren't you, girl?" He gave her a lazy, teasing smile.
"How?" That question was the only thought in Cherry's mind. It was a question that didn't arise out of disbelief, but out of a desire for whatever trick he used to find her.
"Seeeecret~" The red haired captain teased.
"Will you tell me if I keep my mouth shut?" Cherry was serious this time. These guys were a bunch of softies as far as she could tell, so she might as well get something from them if she was going to keep quiet anyway.
The red haired man seemed to consider it. "No, but I'll give you a hint of where you can learn. You'll have to hang around until after we get our supplies before I tell you though."
Cherry sighed and rolled her eyes at him. "Whatever..."
"Dahahaha! Alright, you can keep Yasopp company while he guards the ship. Careful though, he tends to spin tall tales."
...
Cherry had pestered Yasopp with questions. Yasopp had tried to ignore the girl at first, but when he didn't answer a question she would stare at him until he did. Which was unnerving with those eyes of hers.
Every once in a while Cherry would sneak in a question regarding whatever trick the red head had used to find her so quickly, hoping that he'd answer it by accident. She almost got him once, but he was a tough egg to crack.
"So what do you do? What role do you play in this band of merry men?" Cherry asked, giving up on tricking him.
"I'm the sniper, one of the best in the world, too." Yasopp spoke with clear pride in his voice.
"Can you show me then?" There had been firearms in Cherry's previous life as well, but they were widely considered the weapons of weak mortals.
*BANG*
Yasopp drew his pistol and fired it faster than even the red haired man (who she now knew was called Shanks) had moved to block her sword.
Cherry turned her gaze to wear he pointed the gun and could just barely see a seagull in the distance fall into the ocean.
"Can you teach me?" She asked, genuinely interested now. Though the pistol was nothing special to her eyes, his skills certainly were. That level of marksmanship could be applied to anything.
"Don't you use a sword, girl? You look to be a member of the dojo here."
"So? Swords aren't exactly know for their range. Also, if I was ever in a tough fight with another swordsman, I could shoot him when he least expects it." Cherry replied, nonchalantly.
"What? Don't swordsman have some kind of code of honor or something? Isn't it unfair?"
Cherry looked at him with a raised eyebrow. "Quibbling over fairness is for the weak or foolish. The strong don't complain when their enemy fights dirty. The strong can handle whatever comes their way, regardless of whether it's fair."
"Dahahahaha! What do you know, girl? You some kind of philosopher! Dahaha!" Yasopp laughed at her, but he agreed with the sentiment. He was a pirate after all.
"Alright, I'll show you a thing or too, but I'll only let you fire a few shots so make them count."
...
Shanks and the rest a the crew returned with their supplies, as well as some extra goodies so they could throw a little party for themselves on the beach.
Cherry mingled with the crew, listening to stories which she figured were mostly exaggerated. Though she would years later discover they were only a little overblown.
After Cherry left for home, Shanks thought to himself 'I wonder if Hawkeye knows about her, she looks just like him. Should I ask next time I see him? Nah, he'll just think I'm making things up. I wish I could be there to see his face when he finds out.' "Dahahahaha!"
There was no doubt in Shanks' mind that the girl would one day go out to sea and make a huge ruckus.
...
"WHERE IN NEPTUNE'S BEARD HAVE YOU BEEN?!" Grandma Angela was NOT happy that her dear granddaughter had stayed out long after dark.
"I was partying it up with pirates, Grandma. Was I not supposed to?" Cherry gave her best, saddest puppy dog eyes she could.
Although Grandma Angela felt her heart tighten slightly, she was getting used her granddaughter's cute act. "I'm not falling for that, and WHAT DO YOU MEAN 'PARTYING IT UP WITH PIRATES'?!"
Cherry chuckled inwardly. "They seemed nice enough, they even shared their 'booze' with me." This was a lie of course, she hadn't touched a drop of liquor.
Something inside Grandma Angela snapped at that moment. Her face turned to cold steel and she asked almost robotically "Where can I find these 'nice' pirates, Cherry? I want to thank them for their hospitality before they leave."
"I went to the hidden beach between the cliffs on the east side of the island this morning where I found their ship. They told me I wasn't allowed to leave and go 'shooting off my mouth' about them before they got their supplies. Those pirates sure can tie a tight knot, Grandma."
*CRACK*
The floor beneath where Grandma stood exploded into wooden fragments and she was gone. Cherry could have sworn she heard desperate cries for help from the east as she settled into bed for the night.
'Good night, Red Hair Pirates. Hehehehehe.'
Grandma Angela didn't take her eyes off Cherry for 2 weeks. When the other disciples started to complain that she wasn't teaching as much, she reluctantly let Cherry off the hook.
"You're on probation, Cherry. Don't get yourself into any more trouble or I'll make you join the marines in their summer training." Grandma added, grimly.
Cherry took this threat very seriously. She had met the marine base's commander once and could tell he was a no nonsense hard ass at a glance. Grandma Angela was strict, but she didn't make a big deal about it when Cherry fooled around.
Cherry needed to find a new place to practice her secret techniques. The beach had been great, but if she had unwanted visitors show up once, it would happen again sooner or later.
So Cherry turned her gaze towards the next best candidate; the Thorn Wood.
The Thorn Wood was actually much more isolated than the hidden beach was. The reason it was only 'second best' in her opinion was, naturally, the thorns.
Seriously, everything in that dense forest has needle sharp thorns, many of which were mildly poisonous. Even the coniferous trees' needles would turn you into a pin cushion.
Cherry hadn't spent the last 2 years idly, however. She had been working in Martin's smithy and had earned a fair bit of money.
She used that money to put together a protective suit of hardened leather and thick cloth. She considered using steel, but that was harder to adjust as she grew and a bit overkill. They were just thorns from ordinary plants, after all.
After getting suited up, and enduring Grandma Angela's giggling, Cherry set out for the Thorn Wood to find her new secret training spot.
Pushing through the thorny underbrush went about as well as she anticipated. The hardened leather got scratched up a lot, but held together just fine. Occasionally she'd get snagged and have to pull herself free or stop to remove the accumulating needles in the bottoms of her boots.
After several hours of searching she found a clearing on a small hill that was nearly perfect for her purposes. It had just enough space and the few thorny plants that had encroached were easy enough to uproot.
Cherry went home for the day with plans to return, this time with a number of things to make her new hideout more homey.
Over the next few days she would bring plenty of tent canvas and rope to set up a nice, big canopy over the clearing, bug nets, a table with 2 chairs (in case Grandma Angela decided to visit), a training dummy, and a leather couch with a tarp to cover it (for napping comfortably).
...
Winter came to Boulder Island. Winters here rarely got more than a bit chilly, so wearing her thorn resistant armor was more than enough to keep Cherry warm.
After her morning training, Cherry took the tarp from her couch and a picnic basket through the underbrush towards the beach for a nice lunch a little before noon.
Unfortunately, it wasn't meant to be. When she reached the beach, she saw rowboat washed ashore. Cherry put her guard up, hand on hilt, and approached the boat.
Cautiously looking into the boat, she didn't find an ambush, but rather a teenage girl clutching a small, wooden chest.
The girl looked to be 14 or 15 years old, had shoulder length black hair, and lightly tanned skin.
'Suspicious...' Cherry thought, but seeing the girl was wounded, she decided to check on her.
Cherry grasped the girl's hand gently and sent thin strings of vital energy into her body to see whether it was safe to move her. What she found had greatly startled her, however.
'What is this mess of foreign vital energy tangled around her heart? No, not a mess, there is a pattern here, but it's too enigmatic to understand without extensive study. It's almost like inscriptions...'
Cherry decided to bring the girl back to her hideout to tend to her wounds, which weren't serious. She also wanted to study that enigmatic vital energy pattern.
Cherry wrapped the girl in her tarp to protect her from the thorns and dragged the rowboat behind her back through the underbrush. A difficult endeavor, to be certain.
After applying some ointment and bandages to the girl's wounds and giving her some water, Cherry spent a couple hours analyzing the 'heart inscription', as she had decided to call it. When she could gain no further understanding just by looking, she left the girl to rest and meditated on her findings nearby.
...
The girl was deep in her dreams. She was in a warm bed, her mother whom she hadn't known for long held her hand. All the people she had cared about surrounded her with pleasant smiles. A warmth filled her chest that reminded her of a home she could never return to.
However it didn't last, the warmth left her and her mother no longer held her hand. Explosions rang out all around her and the people disappeared into flame one by one.
The girl shot awake in a cold sweat.
She looked around to gain her bearings as she calmed her pounding heart and heavy breathing.
She found herself underneath a large, makeshift canopy in a clearing surrounded by trees. She was sitting on a leather couch with a tarp as a blanket. In front of her was a table, on top of which was the small chest of gold she had stolen and a picnic basket.
She also saw a young girl in strange padded armor sitting crossed legged with her eyes closed. She would have thought she was sleeping if she hadn't opened her eyes in the next moment.
The two girls stared at one another silently for several moments.
"You can eat that if you want." Cherry said to the girl.
"I'm not hungry."
*GROWL*
""...""
Another few moments passed in silence while the girl's face heated up in embarrassment.
The girl sighed, surely she didn't need to be this wary of a little girl. She opened the basket and saw an assortment of cold meats, cheeses, fresh bread, fruit, and tiny jars of various condiments or sauces. It clearly wasn't originally meant for her, but likely meant to be the younger girl's snack.
The mysterious girl let go of her remaining reservations and began to eat.
"My name is Cherry, what can I call you?"
The girl swallowed a bite. "I'm... Raven..."
'She hesitated, so that's likely an alias. This girl might be trouble.' Cherry thought to herself, giving her best 'innocent' smile.
Raven almost choked, 'Maybe she really did drug the food, why else would she smile like that?!' she inwardly panicked.
She calmed herself shortly, however. She had already eaten quite a bit and she had started several minutes ago but didn't feel strange at all.
"Where did you come from, were you ship wrecked? I found you in a rowboat on the beach." Cherry inquired.
Raven looked around. "Is there someone else here? Who brought me here?" She asked.
"No, I brought you here myself." Cherry replied, ignoring that her question hadn't been answered.
"Did you tell anyone about me?" Raven asked.
"No, should I not?" Cherry was sure this girl was trouble by now.
"I'd appreciate if you didn't. There are bad people looking for me, so can you keep this a secret? I can give you money to let me stay here and to bring me food." Raven had never stayed in one place for long over the last several years. So a chance to relax for a while was too tempting for her.
Cherry weighed the offer in her head. On one hand Raven was definitely trouble, but on the other she wanted to continue studying the heart inscription.
Cherry smiled wider. "Deal!"
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