Mina ignored everyone else and walked straight toward her favorite person: Sister Nami.
Nami rushed over and hugged her tight, gratitude spilling into her voice.
"Thank you for helping me defeat the Arlong Pirates."
It was true — the girl had handled the bulk of it alone. The fish-men who'd survived had already scattered once they saw which way the battle was turning, and the ones who hadn't run were no match for the sheer number of villagers closing in. There was nothing left to worry about. The most dangerous cadres were all dead, cut down by Mina herself.
Nami looked at her sister's face and saw that all the sorrow that had lived there for years was gone now, replaced by something that looked almost like joy.
"As long as I can help Sister Nami," Mina said, "I'm very strong."
"What I didn't expect," Nami murmured, mostly to herself, "was that these fish-men would turn out to be so weak — and that they never even ate that Devil Fruit of theirs."
She let go of Mina, still trying to process what she'd just watched. Mina had said she was strong, but Nami hadn't really believed it — not until she saw it. Who could have imagined a five- or six-year-old capable of something like that? Instant movement, a burst of blue energy that had ended Arlong and Kuroobi both.
There was a completely charred body a few feet away — Chew, she was almost sure. Had Mina done that too? She hadn't expected the girl's power to be so strange, so absolute. Maybe, Nami thought, Mina really had eaten a Devil Fruit — one that let her teleport, breathe fire, and shape destruction out of thin air with her bare hands.
Luffy walked over just then, wearing his usual wide grin.
"My name's Luffy. Want to join our crew? Come have adventures with us on the sea."
Mina looked up at him, a little annoyed. Another pirate?
"No. I don't want to be a pirate. There's nothing good about pirates," she said. "Sister Nami suffered under pirates for years."
If she became one herself, wouldn't Nami end up hating her for it? How could she do that to her? Her father and her brother had told her, back when things were normal, that pirates were bad people through and through — that she shouldn't trust them, and shouldn't show mercy if she ever crossed one.
Luffy's smile dropped the moment he heard her answer. To him, sailing the seas as a pirate was something close to a noble calling, so he tried to explain himself.
"We're good pirates. Not like Arlong's crew, not like those guys."
That only confused Mina more.
"Are there good pirates? If you're good people, why would you call yourselves that at all?"
"As far as I've seen, pirates in this world burn things down. They kill. They steal. They're terrifying people, all of them."
Something about that hit Luffy harder than he expected. She wasn't wrong. And yet his own goal hadn't changed — he still wanted to become the Pirate King, the one who claimed the One Piece. Did that mean he wanted to become the leader of people who did all those terrible things? The thought soured in his chest, but he pushed through it anyway.
"We're pirates, but what we actually do is go on adventures. We don't burn or kill or steal. We're not going to do any of that," he said. "We just want to be cool pirates. Handsome ones."
In his mind, that was exactly what Red-Haired Shanks had been, and Luffy had spent his whole life chasing that image.
Usopp jumped in too.
"Luffy's right! Our whole goal is adventure — conquering the Grand Line, making a name for ourselves across the world."
Usopp didn't want anyone looking down on pirates, least of all this kid. He'd dreamed his whole life of becoming one, of earning the kind of fame his father had. It was, to him, simply what a man was supposed to want.
But Mina still wasn't convinced.
"You can have adventures and become famous anywhere in the world without calling yourself a pirate. Why choose a name that everyone associates with evil? It's not cool. It's not admirable. In this world, 'pirate' means evil," she said, her wide eyes fixed on the group, waiting.
She genuinely didn't understand their logic. She wanted to know — what kind of twisted reasoning could possibly justify it?
Luffy froze. She was right, technically — nothing was stopping him from having adventures and getting famous without flying a pirate flag at all. The realization detonated something behind his eyes, and for once in his life, he had nothing to say back.
So then — why did he want to be a pirate?
He let the thought go. It didn't matter anymore. He'd made a promise to Shanks a long time ago, and that promise didn't need a better reason than itself.
"I don't know," he admitted. "But I just want to be a cool, handsome pirate. Maybe even the one who finds the One Piece."
Usopp could already tell the girl wasn't going to budge — she saw the world too differently from them, and she wasn't going to become their crewmate. He tugged at Luffy's sleeve.
"Luffy, forget it. She's not coming with us. Let it go."
Luffy sighed. Usopp had a point. If Mina didn't want to join, there wasn't much use pushing further. But Nami was another matter — she was the navigator they still needed, and he wasn't ready to let that go.
"Nami, the Arlong Pirates are finished now. Come back to the ship with us. Let's go have an adventure."
Sanji arrived just then, eyes practically glittering.
"Miss Nami, I just joined this crew myself. If you come back, I'll cook you something delicious every single day — and pour the drinks myself."
Luffy's whole face lit up.
"Sanji, you're the best! I want that treatment too!"
Sanji glanced at him without much interest.
"Depends on my mood," he said.
Compared to Luffy, Sanji was, of course, far more willing to go out of his way for a woman — free of charge, every time.
Nami looked around at all of them and didn't quite know what to say. Traveling with this group did sound like it could be fun. They weren't the vicious kind of pirates she'd spent her life running from — more like adventurers who'd simply picked up the word along the way, exactly as they kept insisting. Still, she didn't want to be a pirate herself. And she certainly wasn't going back to stealing, either.
The name "Cat Burglar" could disappear now, and good riddance. She liked money as much as anyone, but stealing had always been dangerous — one bad day, one wrong mark, and there'd be no coming back from it.
More importantly, she didn't need to steal anymore. Arlong's crew was finished, and their hoarded treasure would go back to the dozens of villages it had been looted from in the first place.
As for the hundred million berries she'd already gathered — that was hers. She'd spent years scraping it together, coin by coin, and no one was going to take it from her now.
She looked at the people who, for a little while, had almost been her crew, and there was real apology in her expression.
"Luffy, I'm sorry. I can't be a pirate with you."
Luffy didn't answer right away. He just looked at her — and something in his face, some mix of disappointment and the question Mina had left hanging over him, unanswered, took a long moment to settle back into a smile.
"That's okay," he said finally. "But if you ever change your mind, you know where to find us."