Garp froze. The casual bluster, the annoyance, it all evaporated. His eyes widened, truly seeing me now, not just as a stray Luffy dragged in, but as me. The name 'Ji-san', spoken in that tearful, relieved tone… it clicked. The memory of a small girl in a red yukata, beaming about her island, her bright smile before his world came crashing down around him. The girl he'd pulled from the jaws of the Buster Call. The girl he thought lost to the currents or captured long ago.
His face went pale, mirroring the shock he'd shown that night on the quay. The half-eaten senbei slipped from his fingers, falling unnoticed to the dirt floor. He took an involuntary step back, his expression a maelstrom of shock, guilt, disbelief, and something akin to horrified recognition.
"You..." he breathed, his voice rough, barely a whisper. "Hi-no-Kuni... Akane?
The name hung heavy in the smoky air of the hut. Akane. My name. Spoken by him. Garp's face was a canvas of conflicting emotions – the shock of recognition warring with a deep, gut-wrenching guilt I could almost feel radiating from him. His massive frame seemed less imposing, almost defensive, as he stared at me, the half-drowned ghost of Hi-no-Kuni washed up on his doorstep.
My tears kept flowing, hot trails on my cold skin. The initial shock of seeing him alive morphed into a flood of tangled memories: the laughter under the setting sun, the horrifying paleness of his face, the desperate warning, the roar of cannons, the final image of him standing defiant amidst the flames he couldn't quell.
"I thought... I thought you were dead, Ji-san," I choked out between sobs, the words raw. The image of him being engulfed by the explosion after shoving my boat away was seared into my mind. "After... after you tried to stop them... you defended us..." My voice hitched. Maybe 'defended' wasn't the right word, not entirely, but he had fought. He had saved me. He hadn't just stood by. He'd bled for it. "And then I saw... the fire..."
I wiped furiously at my eyes with the back of my hand, smearing grime. "So you survived, huh?" A watery, trembling smile touched my lips, feeling alien after four years of grim survival. It felt strange, almost painful, to feel anything resembling relief connected to him. "That's... that's great." The words felt heavy, coated in the ash of memory, but sincere in that moment. "Yeah... just like you told me... 'Survive'. I did." I managed a shaky nod, clutching the damp orange shirt Ace had given me. "Thank you... for that."
The tension in the hut was thick enough to cut with Kenji the blacksmith's sharpest blade. Ace looked bewildered, glancing between me, Garp, and Luffy. Dadan had her arms crossed, tapping her foot impatiently, clearly lost but annoyed by the sudden drama invading her messy home. Garp himself looked like he'd been punched, his usual booming confidence utterly gone, replaced by a heavy silence, his gaze fixed on me, unable to look away but seemingly unable to speak either.
Then Luffy, bless his simple, straightforward heart, decided the emotional weight was too much. "Neh! Stop cryin' already, will you?" He bounced over, completely ignoring the loaded history swirling around us, and thrust something towards me – a slightly squashed piece of dried meat he'd pulled from somewhere. "Here! Kore meshi! Eat this!" When I just stared at it through blurry eyes, he did the next thing that probably made sense in his head. He threw his arms around me in a sudden, tight hug. "There! Better?"
His hug was surprisingly warm, wiry arms strong despite his lanky frame. It was also startlingly unexpected. I stiffened, caught completely off guard. No one had hugged me in four years. The simple, unthinking comfort of it almost made me cry harder. A faint blush crept up my neck, heat prickling beneath the cold dampness of my clothes.
"WHAT ARE YOU DOING, IDIOT?!" Ace exploded, his face turning red, freckles standing out sharply. He stomped forward, pointing an accusing finger at Luffy. "You can't just hug someone you just met! And she's a girl, a GIRL!" He seemed personally offended by the breach of some unspoken protocol.
Luffy just blinked, releasing me slightly but still beaming. "Yeah? I know! Da kedo..." He tilted his head, thinking hard. "Makino-neechan always hugs me when I'm crying! So it helps!" He said it like it was the most obvious logic in the world.
Ace looked like he was about to have an aneurysm. Dadan groaned and rubbed her temples.
Taking a shaky breath, trying to regain some semblance of control amidst the chaos of reunion and Luffy's well-meaning assault, I looked back at Garp. He was still watching me, his expression unreadable now, the initial shock replaced by a deep weariness. The rage was still there, buried under the confusion and the strange relief, but practicality, the instinct honed over four years of running, took precedence. I was stranded. Alone. And apparently, right under the nose of a Marine Vice Admiral who knew exactly who I was.
"Ne, Ji-san," I said, my voice steadier now, though still trembling slightly. I ignored Ace's sputtering and Luffy's continued grinning proximity. "Can I... can I stay here? For a bit?" I lowered my voice slightly, though in the small hut, it didn't make much difference. "A lot of people... they want my head. They put a bounty on me."
That got everyone's attention again. Ace's jaw dropped. Dadan's eyes widened. Even Luffy looked momentarily serious, his usual grin fading slightly. "Bounty? Whoa! How much?!"
Garp's eyes narrowed, a flicker of the old sharpness returning. "Bounty, huh? How much they think a little ember like you is worth these days?"
"Eighty million," I stated flatly.
Silence. Then Dadan shrieked, "EIGHTY MILLION?! ARE YOU INSANE?! GET HER OUT OF HERE, GARP! I'M NOT HARBORING AN EIGHTY-MILLION-BERI BRAT!"
Ace looked completely stunned. "Eighty... that's..."
Luffy, however, just burst out laughing, the tension broken again. "SHISHISHISHI! Awesome! Eighty million! That's so cool!"
Garp ignored Dadan's screeching and Luffy's inappropriate enthusiasm. He looked me up and down, a slow, calculating gaze. Then, suddenly, he threw back his head and laughed, the booming sound shaking the flimsy walls of the hut, startlingly familiar yet jarring after everything. "BWAHAHAHAHA! Eighty million! Serves 'em right! Those Celestial idiots probably choked on their tea!" He slapped his knee. "Good! Good!"
He grinned down at me, the guilt momentarily overshadowed by his usual reckless spirit. "Stay? Sure, you can stay!" He puffed out his chest. "It's fine! You can train here! With Luffy, Ace, and me! Bwahahaha! We'll knock that softness right out of ya! Turn you into a proper Marine!"
My eye twitched at the word 'Marine'. Before I could object, Ace and Luffy both went pale again, looking utterly horrified.
"NOOOO!" Luffy wailed, grabbing my arm frantically. "Don't listen! Gramps is a devil! His training is like HELL itself! He throws us into bottomless ravines!"
Ace nodded vigorously, his earlier anger forgotten in shared terror. "He ties us to balloons! Makes us fight tigers! You'll die! Seriously die!"
Garp just grinned wider, cracking his knuckles with a sound like rocks grinding together. "Bwahahaha! Builds character! You'll fit right in, Akane!"
I looked from Garp's terrifying grin to Luffy and Ace's panicked faces, then around the chaotic bandit hut that was apparently now my refuge. Survive. Grandpa's last word. Garp's last command. It seemed survival here came with its own unique set of dangers. But compared to the open sea and the faceless hunters of the World Government, maybe fighting tigers wasn't the worst option. Maybe.
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Garp's booming laughter echoed off the grimy walls of the hut, a sound both terrifyingly familiar and deeply unsettling in its context. Ace and Luffy looked ready to bolt, their warnings about bottomless ravines and balloon-related torture methods painting a rather vivid picture of 'training' under the Hero of the Marines. Dadan, meanwhile, was still fuming about the eighty million beri price tag now potentially residing under her roof, muttering darkly about Marines and bandits and the general unfairness of her life.
Me? I just stood there, soaked, shivering slightly, clutching Ace's too-big orange shirt, the weight of the Kaenken a familiar pressure against my back. Training. With him. The idea was absurd, dangerous, maybe even suicidal if Luffy and Ace were to be believed. But the alternative… drifting alone, hunted, with dwindling supplies and the vast, uncaring sea as my only companion… this chaotic, bandit-infested hut suddenly seemed like the sanest option. Survive. That was the goal. And survival often meant choosing the least terrible path.
"Alright, alright, settle down, you brats!" Garp finally commanded, his laughter subsiding into a grin that still looked vaguely threatening. He clapped his huge hands together. CLAP! "First things first! Food! Even future powerhouses need fuel! Dadan! Feed the kids!"
Dadan shot him a venomous glare but begrudgingly stomped towards the large, soot-blackened cooking pot simmering over the hearth. "Don't order me around in my own house, Garp! And you," she pointed a finger at me, "don't think this means you're staying permanently! Eighty million... honestly...".