One Piece Fan Fiction ❯ Misrepresented and Misunderstood ❯ Misunderstood ( Chapter 7 )

A/N: Had to do a fact check on this one before posting, and I'm still not sure it's right - oh well! Just a few small pointers to note: I'm taking the assumption in this chapter that Smoker's first name is Chase (which it almost is anyway) and from this point onwards in the story, you will notice some repeated sections contradict each other - this is to show how each character is seeing/hearing things differently and how it causes more problems for them. And finally, I've taken a few liberties with Hina's character, probably making her out of character, but I needed to do this for the next part of the story to work - all will become clear soon.

 

Recap: After a series of misunderstandings, Tashigi became separated from her crew of marines and ended up on the Going Merry with the Straw-Hat crew.

 

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Chapter 7 - Misunderstood

 

“What are you so happy about, shit cook?” Zoro grumbled, scowling at Sanji as he floated about the table, serving the crew their dinners.

 

“I wouldn't expect you to understand,” Sanji replied with a sigh. “I just feel so lucky to have three beautiful ladies onboard our ship!”

 

“She's not a beautiful lady, she's a marine!” Zoro snapped.

 

Zoro turned from Sanji and caught Nami and Robin glowering at him with icy death glares that made him jump in his seat.

 

“What?” he yelped.

 

“I see,” Nami said stiffly, stabbing her fork forcefully into her fish. “Just because she's strong, she can't be beautiful too.”

 

“Just because she's a marine, she can't be a princess too,” Robin added with a sigh, shaking her head at Zoro.

 

“What?” Zoro said again, turning to the men in the crew in the hope of some support. “This is ridiculous, right?” he asked Luffy and Usopp.

 

“She sure was funny,” Luffy commented through a mouthful of food. “I hope she can sing and play too.”

 

“I bet she won't be as good as me!” Usopp replied.

 

Zoro growled, gripping onto his knife and fork angrily.

 

“She can't stay with us!” he pointed out.

 

“We can't just leave her, she's very ill!” Chopper argued. “She has a fever, and she hasn't woken up since Zoro scared her.”

 

“I didn't scare her!” Zoro said hurriedly.

 

“Sure you did Marimo,” Sanji said, sitting down at the table to join the others. “She took one look at that ugly face of yours, and the poor, beautiful girl passed out.”

 

“She's not a beautiful girl, damn it!” Zoro snarled, banging his fists against the table. “Do you have any idea how much trouble we've made for ourselves taking her onboard this ship?”

 

“Yeah, I know,” Luffy agreed, turning to face Zoro. “Smokey will be furious with you Zoro! That's his girlfriend you've been flirting with! Why did you take her back with us anyway?”

 

Zoro growled, grinding his teeth and clawing at the air as he tried to contain his frustration.

 

“We have to take her back to Smokey, that's for sure,” Robin announced.

 

“Absolutely,” Nami agreed. “Once she gets better, we'll contact the navy, and leave her on the nearest island.”

 

“Oh no, I think we should take her back to Smokey,” Robin replied. “It's our duty. We kidnapped her in the first place, it's the least we could do. He might think we're holding her for a ransom, we really ought to make Zoro take her back and explain to Smokey why he took her in the first place.”

 

“Sounds like a plan to me,” Nami said with a smile.

 

“What?” Zoro hissed.

 

“She's not going to be our musician?” Luffy asked anyone who cared to listen.

 

“She won't join us now, Zoro ruined that with his big ugly face,” Sanji said.

 

“She can't join us, she's a marine!” Zoro snapped.

 

“What do you suppose her name is?” Usopp asked.

 

“I'm sure it's something beautiful, like Nami, or Robin,” Sanji said, smiling sweetly at the ladies at the table.

 

“She must be really strong,” Chopper commented.

 

“Strong and beautiful,” Sanji added.

 

“I wonder if she really is Smokey's girlfriend?” Nami mused.

 

“Either way, she certainly doesn't like Mr Swordsman over there,” Robin said, smiling playfully at Zoro.

 

“I wonder if she knows the song about a pirate's life at sea?” Luffy asked.

 

“Which one, there are hundreds!” Usopp replied.

 

“I bet she has a beautiful singing voice,” Sanji said.

 

“What the hell is wrong with all of you?” Zoro yelled, rising to his feet abruptly and silencing the kitchen. “We've got a marine onboard our ship, and we are all pirates! Why aren't any of you taking this seriously?”

 

Zoro looked around the others, who were all regarding him as though he had just sprouted a second head. Sighing in resignation, Zoro grabbed up a bread roll and kicked his chair back, marching out of the room. Just the thought of Kuina being onboard the ship was making him nervous. Not caring for the consequences he would inevitably later face from the other women onboard, Zoro stuffed the bread roll into his mouth and marched straight into the women's quarters, where he found Kuina the marine lying more or less in the same position she had been in the last time he had checked on her.

 

“Hey,” he said, edging closer to her, peering down at her face.

 

She was lying on her back on a hammock, three sheets laid over her. It looked as though Chopper had been tucking her neatly in to keep her warm, but her right arm had escaped, snaking up over the pillow her head rested on, her fingers rested against the top of her head, which was turned slightly to the left.

 

“Hey!” Zoro tried again, poking a finger at her bare arm. “Wake up.”

 

She did not so much as stir at his actions, at which Zoro only became more frustrated.

 

“Hey!” he said more forcefully, prodding her cheek. “Wake up!”

 

Zoro cleared his throat, replaying Smokey's voice in his head before attempting to mock it.

 

“Wake up officer!” he barked in his best impersonation of Smokey possible.

 

“What the hell are you doing Marimo?”

 

Zoro yelped, leaping back from the girl and turning around to find Sanji standing in the doorway.

 

“Chopper said to let her rest, so leave her alone, yeah?” he added.

 

“I can't!” Zoro confessed. “I can't have her on this ship, it's just too much!”

 

Zoro began looking about for something guaranteed to wake the girl, rubbing at his chin thoughtfully, blocking out Sanji's mutterings behind him.

 

“What is wrong with you two?” Nami hissed, marching into the room.

 

“Nami-swan, I was just telling Marimo here to get the hell out of the ladies' room!” Sanji told her.

 

“You get out of here too!” Nami hissed at him. “And keep your voice down! We're meant to be letting her rest!”

 

“Nami, she's a marine!” Zoro loudly pointed out.

 

“Zoro, there's a fine for standing in my room, and unless you want me to add it to what you already owe me, you better get out of here right now!” Nami growled at him.

 

Zoro took one last look at Kuina, sleeping sweetly in the hammock, looking identical to Kuina in the absence of her glasses and adult body that made her that silly marine girl. He reluctantly left the room, heading straight out onto the deck of the ship, marching over to the stern and finding himself a spot to sit in alone.

 

“Stupid…” he grumbled, dropping himself down into a sitting position, smacking his back against the railings and folding his arms moodily.

 

Someone, somewhere, was laughing at him, he decided. As if it had not been bad enough having to meet this strange adult Kuina, he was now being forced to share a ship with her. Zoro suddenly felt claustrophobic, trapped in confined quarters with a strange girl who was a mere shadow of Kuina. He wanted to kill Sanji for talking about her like she was just some pretty girl he could freely fawn over. He wanted to kill Luffy for failing to see the threat carrying this girl posed to their crew. But mostly, Zoro wanted to kill himself for the way he was feeling.

 

Zoro lived for his swords, and to fulfil his dream of becoming the greatest swordsman. He had spent his entire life up to that point training and fighting, and he had always thought that emotions were something for weedy men like Sanji. Zoro had faced the mighty Mihawk and refused to back down, he had brought several criminals to justice in his days as a pirate hunter, and he had even endured being a prisoner of the navy, surviving starvation and humiliation to come out fighting. But, he thought darkly, this girl, this seemingly insignificant little girl marine, had cut him down where he stood with just one look.

 

Which, Zoro reasoned, would have been acceptable had she been a striking beauty. But she was nothing of the sort. She was just a blundering, bossy, interfering girl with mediocre sword skills and plain in appearance. She was a clumsy idiot, but that look in her eye, that manner of carrying herself and the logic behind her actions spoke volumes of Kuina, who was nothing short of iconic in Zoro's mind. And this marine girl bore more than just a passing resemblance to Kuina - they were practically identical.

 

Zoro sighed, getting to his feet again and jogging back down to the women's quarters. He paused outside the door, glancing back and forth to ensure that he had not been spotted before slipping inside the room, creeping over to her bedside to watch her sleep. As his shadow fell over her, Zoro saw the girl's face twitch slightly, a small moan reverberating in her throat.

 

“Hey, are you awake?” he whispered, reaching a hand towards her.

 

Zoro leaned closer to her, watching her intently as her eyes slowly opened to thin slits, clouded over with sleep. She blinked several times, her dark eyes slowly brightening. She lifted her eyes to Zoro's face, starting as she met his eyes, the words that left her mouth making Zoro cringe.

 

“Captain Smoker?” she whispered.

 

“Uh…” Zoro began weakly, leaning back from her.

 

“What happened?” she said softly, her voice still thick with sleep. “My head hurts!”

 

She sat up, the sheets slipping to her waist at which Zoro found his eyes dropping to her chest, his face twitching at what he saw.

 

“The storm,” she said slowly. “And the… Straw-Hat Pirates...”

 

She suddenly gasped, her eyes growing wide. Zoro winced in anticipation of what was to come next, enjoying the brief moment of peace before her head snapped around and her large, round eyes locked onto him.

 

“Roronoa Zoro!” she cried. “I'll get you this time!”

 

Zoro leapt back as the girl pounced out of the hammock, staggering a little as she became tangled in the sheets, hurriedly discarding them before grabbing at the scabbard dangling from her hip. Zoro tilted his head to one side as he wondered just what she intended to do next, pulling a face at her as she grabbed the object lodged through her belt just above the scabbard, flinging it outwards.

 

“You're mine!” she growled.

 

Zoro glanced back and forth between the parasol she was pointing at him and the hardened look on the girl's face, silently wondering when she would realise her mistake.

 

“What are you going to do, slap me to death?” he asked her eventually.

 

“I'm going to…” she began, waggling the parasol around a little before finally adopting a looking of horrified shock at when she was holding. “My Shigure!”

 

She grabbed the scabbard at her side, pulling it around and letting out a scream of despair as she found it empty.

 

“What the hell is wrong with you, Zoro?” Nami yelled, barging into the room. “Oh, hi!”

 

The marine girl turned to glare at Nami with wide eyes.

 

“How are you feeling?” Nami asked her.

 

“Is she awake?” Sanji asked, leaning into the room. “Ah, my lovely, welcome to the Going Merry!”

 

Sanji sauntered over to the girl, who, to Zoro's utter delight, began whacking him with her parasol, only stopping when the thing broke apart and fell to pieces on the ground.

 

“Ha ha, she's funny!” Luffy declared, pointing at the girl. “I think she should be the ship's comedian!”

 

“Straw-Hat?” the girl yelped. “Where the hell am I?”

 

“You're on our ship!” Luffy told her.

 

“How did I get here?” she asked suspiciously.

 

“Zoro took you here,” Luffy replied with a shrug of his shoulders.

 

“Hey, leave me outta this!” Zoro said hurriedly, shaking his head vigorously as the girl turned her eyes to him.

 

“Boys, don't crowd the poor girl!” Robin said.

 

“You!” the marine yelped, pointing a finger at Robin. “You're that lying criminal that tried to break my leg in Arabasta!”

 

Robin arched her eyebrows, tilting her head to one side as she slowly studied the girl before her.

 

“Oh, I remember you now…” she said slowly.

 

“What the hell is going on here?” the marine girl demanded. “Why am I on a pirate ship?”

 

“Because you grabbed onto me when I was trying to get off of your marine ship!” Zoro told her bluntly.

 

“What?” she echoed. “I would never do such a thing!”

 

“You…” Zoro began, letting out a small growl before continuing. “You thought I was that guy Smokey, you couldn't tell us apart without your glasses.”

 

Zoro was relieved to see that his response finally made the girl appear to calm down. She adopted a pensive look, apparently processing everything she had just heard.

 

“So, what's your name?” Luffy asked her.

 

“Me?” she asked, turning to Luffy. “Well, I'm just… Just a dog of the navy to you, right?”

 

“Your name is Dog?” Luffy asked, scratching his head by the rim of his hat.

 

“No, gee you're stupid!” she replied with a sigh. “My name is Tashigi.”

 

“Tashigi, cool!” Luffy replied. “I'm Luffy, I'm the captain of this crew!”

 

“I know who you are, Straw-Hat Luffy!”

 

“Really? Why do you call me “Straw-Hat” Luffy?”

 

The girl pulled a face at Luffy as the others groaned in despair.

 

“Oh, it's because of my hat!” Luffy eventually said, laughing. “Anyway, this is my first mate Zoro, this is our marksman Usopp, this is our navigator Nami, our chef Sanji, our doctor Chopper and this is our archaeologist Robin.”

 

“I know who you all are,” the girl assured him. “What I would like to know now is where is my ship, where is my crew, and where is Captain Smoker?”

 

“Captain Smoker?” Sanji blurted, snorting out laughter into his hand.

 

“What?” Zoro asked, turning to him.

 

“The guy's name is Smoker?” Sanji asked the girl. “His name is Smoker? He ate a Devil Fruit that allows him to control smoke, he smokes all the time, and his name is Smoker?”

 

Luffy and Usopp began to laugh as they realised the point Sanji was trying to make.

 

“His name is Smokey Smoker?” Luffy asked.

 

“No you idiot!” Nami said, shaking her head at him. “Smokey was just a nickname you gave him!”

 

“It was?” Luffy asked.

 

“Yes!” Nami confirmed.

 

“That's priceless!” Sanji laughed. “Smoker the smoker who smokes! Ha!”

 

“So we shouldn't call him Smokey any more?” Luffy asked.

 

“I can think of something you can call him,” Zoro said, grinning slyly. “But it doesn't use the word “smoke”.”

 

Sanji laughed, waving a finger at Zoro.

 

“Does it start with an “F” and end with a “T”?” he asked.

 

“What?” the marine girl gasped. “How dare you all speak about Captain Smoker that way? Who the hell do you think you are? You're nothing but a band of worthless pirates! Captain Smoker is a hero!”

 

“He was looking more like a zero the last time I saw him!” Sanji said.

 

“I ought to cut you down for talking like that, pirate!” the girl growled at him.

 

“Okay, everyone, we need to devise a plan!” Zoro called out. “We need to arrange getting Natasha here back to Captain Smokey-Smoke.”

 

“My name is Tashigi, you ignorant creep!” the girl snapped at him.

 

“Whatever,” Zoro replied, waving a hand dismissively at her.

 

“She's not joining our crew?” Luffy asked Zoro.

 

“No Luffy, she's not joining our crew,” Zoro firmly replied.

 

“Oh well,” Luffy said, shrugging his shoulders indifferently. “Good luck getting her back to Smoke-Smoke, Zoro.”

 

“Hey!” Zoro yelped as the others began to leave the room. “Hey, where are you all going?”

 

“You brought her here Zoro,” Luffy called back over his shoulder.

 

“But…”

 

Zoro sighed in defeat, before slowly turning back to the girl behind him. What had she said her name was?

 

“Chopper?” she said quietly, narrowing her eyes as she regarded him.

 

“What about him?” Zoro asked.

 

“Luffy said Chopper was your crew's doctor,” she said slowly.

 

“Yes,” Zoro said, nodding his head.

 

“But he's an animal,” she pointed out. “A small, fuzzy, bipedal, blue-nosed teddy-bear with antlers.”

 

Zoro rolled his eyes upwards thoughtfully, deciding that she did have a point: Chopper was an odd little creature, especially when introduced as the doctor of a pirate crew.

 

“Are you hungry?” Zoro asked her, deciding to change the subject in the hope of easing the tension between them.

 

“Yes, but I'm not eating anything a pirate serves me!” she coldly replied, raising her chin defiantly.

 

“It's alright, the chef won't serve you something shit, you're a woman,” Zoro told her bluntly. “Come on this way.”

 

Zoro walked on, hearing the girl hesitating before hurrying after him.

 

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Tashigi could hear her own breathing, short, sharp gusts of air that seemed as ineffective as they sounded in her ears. Without her glasses, she could not clearly make out her surroundings, but she did not need to see clearly to know that she was no longer on a navy ship. First of all, this ship was tiny - no four-bunk room to herself here, she thought darkly. And this ship smelled so differently to a navy ship. The air hung with the scents of cheap tobacco smoke, raw seafood, oranges, metal, gunpowder and flowers. Tashigi was not even sure where all of the smells were originating from, but she did not really care at that particular moment. Keeping in pace with Zoro, Tashigi followed her sworn enemy to a small kitchen, where the blonde-haired pirate was washing dishes.

 

“Hey shit-head, the girl wants some food,” Zoro said, before dropping into a chair at the table, his elbows clattering against the table.

 

Tashigi was not really accustomed to hearing men use bad language so freely around her - usually even the pirates and bandits in the navy prisons were moderately restrained around her - but apparently Zoro did not care for such things. Tashigi had not expected him to be so open with his emotions and thoughts, although she could not entirely be sure why. Zoro was a pirate, after all, and answerable to no-one.

 

“So beautiful, you want a little something to eat?” the chef asked, turning to grin at her.

 

Tashigi was not entirely sure how to take this man. She had never met a man who was so full of compliments for her, which she reasoned should probably be a good thing - and yet she found his whole demeanour a little false, unnecessary and undignified.

 

“My name's Tashigi,” she said quietly.

 

“Certainly Tashigi,” he replied, pulling out a seat across from Zoro at the table. “Take a seat gorgeous, and I'll prepare you a meal you won't ever forget!”

 

“Something light will suffice,” Tashigi informed him, carefully sitting down opposite Zoro.

 

Sitting rigidly straight, her hands rested on her lap, Tashigi frowned across the table at Zoro, who was shamelessly slouched across the surface of the table.

 

“Are you holding me as a hostage?” she asked him.

 

“Huh?” he grunted, lifting his eyes to look up at her.

 

“That's it isn't it?” she asked quietly. “You're holding me hostage here!”

 

“No such thing, my darling Tashigi!” the chef said behind her. “Zoro just took you here because he likes you a lot, but he doesn't know how to speak to a lady, so he kidnapped you like the animal that he is.”

 

Tashigi glanced nervously back and forth between the two men, wondering both if the chef's words were correct and if these men might actually try to kill each other - they certainly seemed to hate each other a lot for two members of the same, small, pirate crew.

 

“I didn't take her here, she took herself here!” Zoro sneered at the chef.

 

“I bet he says that to all the ladies,” the chef whispered to her.

 

“I'm telling the truth Tamaki, you grabbed onto me!” Zoro insisted, jabbing a finger at Tashigi as he spoke.

 

“My name is Tashigi!” she growled. “I think you're deliberately getting it wrong to be rude to me again! Just like how you always have to insult my face!”

 

“I hate your face!” Zoro snapped, sitting up.

 

“Hey Marimo, what the hell is your problem?” the chef snapped. “That's a terrible way to speak to a lady, especially one as pretty as the lovely Miss Tashigi!”

 

“Crawl in a hole and die!” Zoro growled at him.

 

“Apologise to the lady, Marimo!”

 

“Stay out of this!”

 

“M-Marimo?” Tashigi said slowly, looking up over her shoulder at the chef. “Why do you call him “Marimo”?”

 

Zoro groaned, smacking his head against the table. Tashigi eyed him curiously, but he was too busy muttering curses into the wood to notice her questioning look.

 

“Here, you see this?” Sanji asked, placing a book down on the table in front of her. “That's a marimo.”

 

“It's a big round ball of moss,” Tashigi concluded, after scanning over the picture before her.

 

“Exactly,” Sanji said, indicating Zoro with one upturned hand. “A marimo is big, round, green and spiky, just like his head.”

 

Tashigi looked at the picture of the green spiky ball again, before lifting her eyes to Zoro's green spiky hair, unable to contain the grin that began to tug at the corners of her mouth.

 

“It looks like his head!” she giggled. “It's big and round and spiky and green like his head!”

 

“Damn you, pervert cook!” Zoro yelled moodily, slapping the book off the table and rising abruptly to his feet.

 

“I've got other names for him, but I'll explain those later,” the chef whispered to Tashigi. “Most of them I don't say to his face.”

 

“Just die, you bastard!” Zoro snarled at the chef as he returned to his pans.

 

Tashigi watched Zoro curiously, still amazed at how openly he displayed his emotions. Perhaps, she thought to herself, she had simply spent too long in the company of Captain Smoker, who was always so calm and in control, and always repressed everything to the point that he became nothing short of infuriating.

 

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

 

“Get me a damn ship, and do it now!” Smoker barked.

 

“Sir, a call from Captain Hina for you.”

 

Smoker growled, clawing his fingers through his hair.

 

“Not now,” he said gruffly.

 

“Sir, she's not on the radio,” the officer said slowly. “She's… Here, Sir.”

 

“What?” Smoker echoed, turning to face the marine.

 

He growled out a sigh of frustration as he caught sight of a tall, slender figure silhouetted by the doorway.

 

“Hina doesn't like to be kept waiting, Mister Smoker,” she called in to him.

 

“Hina can go take a…” Smoker began muttering under his breath.

 

“Hina hears Mister Smoker had a little accident,” Hina continued, her heels clicking loudly against the wooden floor as she entered the room. “Where is that delightful little girl you always have running around at your ankles, Mister Smoker?”

 

Smoker snarled quietly before turning to face his fellow captain, finding her standing a short distance from him, her arms folded loosely over her chest, pouting at him expectantly. Obviously she was pleased with herself, as, for once, she had him right where she wanted him - completely at her mercy.

 

“I lost her,” he reluctantly confessed, fumbling through the inside pocket of his jacket. “I… I lost her. Pirates have her now.”

 

“Pirates, Mister Smoker?” Hina echoed.

 

“That's what I said, Hina,” Smoker moodily replied, finally retrieving his lighter and holding it out towards her.

 

“Don't mind if I do, Mister Smoker,” she said, reaching forwards to pluck a cigar from his coat. “So, you've let pirates run off with Hina's dear friend Tashigi.”

 

Smoker watched her bite into the cigar, flicking the lighter at her.

 

“Your “dear friend”?” he repeated. “That's a bit of a stretch, isn't it?”

 

Hina shook her head at him as her cigar lowed to life, powder-pink strands of hair rustling at her shoulders.

 

“Play nice, Mister Smoker,” she warned him. “Or Hina won't play nice with you.”

 

Smoker narrowed his eyes, snapping shut the lighter.

 

“You're not about to take the official line with me, are you?” he asked her quietly. “You, my oldest friend and colleague, are refusing to help me?”

 

“Hina has never refused you anything, Mister Smoker,” Hina slyly replied. “But I must advise that it would be unwise to spend time and effort chasing a girl who has eloped with a pirate.”

 

“Sergeant Major Tashigi did not elope with a pirate!” Smoker yelled at her angrily. “They took her against her will!”

 

Hina shrugged, blowing out a stream of smoke between her lips.

 

“Hina enjoyed Tashigi just as much as you did, Mister Smoker,” she said slowly. “Hina enjoyed the girl's antics and her delightful anecdotes about… Swords… But Mister Smoker seriously, you will not get backing from the navy to chase after a girl who has chosen to elope with a pirate.”

 

“She didn't choose to elope with him!” Smoker growled out.

 

“Him, Mister Smoker?” Hina asked, frowning at him curiously. “So there was one pirate in particular that your little pet ran off with?”

 

Smoker remained silent for a moment, suppressing the urge to lose his temper with his one remaining ally. If he was going to start a search for Tashigi, he was going to need all the help he could get, especially as he no longer had a ship.

 

“The swordsman, Roronoa Zoro,” Smoker ground out through gritted teeth. “I believe she was trying to arrest him and confiscate one of his swords.”

 

Hina walked over to the wall of wanted posters behind Smoker. He watched over his shoulder as she slowly scanned over them, before placing one long, thin finger onto Zoro's face, turning to look back at him. Smoker nodded his confirmation that she had located the right man, walking over to join her.

 

“What do you think?” he asked her.

 

“Hina thinks Mister Zoro is a very attractive young man, Mister Smoker,” Hina replied, smiling at Smoker as he began to snarl at her. “Hina thinks she might run off with Mister Zoro herself.”

 

“He's half your age, you stupid woman!” Smoker snapped at her, grabbing the poster from the wall and tearing it to pieces.

 

“My, my Mister Smoker!” Hina gasped. “We are very cross today, aren't we?”

 

“Hina, will you help me get her back or not?” Smoker demanded impatiently.

 

“Hina would first of all like to remind Mister Smoker that Sergeant Major Tashigi is half Mister Smoker's age. And then Hina would like to say that she is not twice Mister Zoro's age, as you say. Mister Smoker forgets that Hina is only twenty-five years old.”

 

“You've been twenty-five for over seven years, you stupid bitch,” Smoker muttered.

 

“And Mister Smoker is old enough to be Miss Tashigi's father.”

 

Smoker arched his eyebrows at Hina, wondering it he ought to bother pointing out that it would be a miracle of nature if he was in fact Tashigi's father, as Smoker had not even been a teenager when Tashigi had been born; but, knowing that Hina liked to play the role of the sweet little girl when it suited her to do so, he remained silent, allowing her to continue.

 

“You didn't always like them so young, Chase.”

 

Smoker faltered for a moment, unsure if he had heard Hina correctly. She had her back turned to him, and her words had come out as little more than a breathy whisper.

 

“Hina particularly likes Miss Tashigi,” she said loudly, spinning around to face him. “Hina will help you get her back - assuming of course, that our little Sergeant Major does in fact want to return to the ranks of the navy.”

 

“Thank you Hina,” Smoker sighed.

 

“I have a condition,” she sharply added.

 

“Of course,” Smoker agreed. “Anything.”

 

“Hina will only help you do this once,” she said slowly. “Only once. If Miss Tashigi does not wish to return, Hina will not pursue her again. And, Hina wants Mister Smoker to return to his rightful post in Loguetown.”

 

“Gladly,” Smoker agreed with a nod of his head. “And don't worry, Tashigi won't want to spend a minute longer with those pirates than she absolutely has to!”

 

“Hm…” Hina purred, plucking up a new poster of Zoro and pinning it to the wall. “Nineteen years old. Young, strong, virile, and he likes… Swords…”

 

Hina pouted at Smoker before turning her back on him. He pulled a face at her back, relieved that she was going to lend her assistance when the navy would not, but equally irked by the prospect of spending so much time with her until they eventually caught the Straw-Hat Pirates.

 

`Tashigi,' he thought to himself. `I hope you can keep safe until we find you.'

 

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

 

Next Chapter: Zoro makes an agreement with Tashigi but is suspicious of her behaviour; Tashigi mourns her Shigure and becomes curious about Zoro; Smoker wonders if Tashigi left by choice as he arranges a search party to find her. Chapter 8 - Misrepresented.