Their eyes... Staring... Uncaring... Glaring... Judging... All followed after the child who wore torn-up clothes and carried a bruised fruit and stale and semi-moldy bread. Scraps were all that could be gotten from the bins behind shops, gathered with care by the young child. Moving through the alleyways of the town towards the outskirts. Towards home.
A droplet of water hit the back of the girl's neck as she picked up the pace trying to get to her small shelter. The rain began to fall a bit harder, obscuring the surroundings slightly, the girl clutched her salvaged food to her chest and hunched forward as she ran. Seeing the heavy leaf-covered structure she had built was still standing she momentarily lost her careful steps. Her foot slipped out from under her from the muddy ground, the scraps she had carried tumbling into a shallow puddle.
"No..." The girl whimpered hurrying to pick up the food and quickly got under her small fort. In the rippling reflection of herself in the puddle she could see the deathly pale skin, light freckles splattered across her gaunt cheeks. Her eyes were a dull steel grey-blue in color, dark circles resting under her tired and puffy eyes. She grimaced at the sight before quickly getting into her makeshift fort. She huddled on the ground quickly pulling off the soppy crust of the bread to avoid losing as much as possible. She tossed the discarded mess of soaked bread as far as she could into the bushes nearby. She began to pull the molded parts of the bread off and did the same, her face perking up slightly seeing she had managed to salvage enough bread that she could hold it in both hands.
Despite the taste of lingering dirt, she ate it quickly to quiet her growling stomach before turning to what she assumed was an apple... or was it a black plum... it was hard to tell but as she bit into the fruit it certainly was an apple, the flesh within sweeter than normal as it had almost become a mush within the skin.
The girl sputtered as she jumped at the sound of lightning crashing somewhere nearby with a roar of thunder. "Why... why do you cry sky? Everyone looks at you so fondly. Are you crying for something?" the girl asked the storm while tears began to fall as she hugged her knees to her chest. Another crash of thunder rolled through the sky as lightning crashed into the ground closer to the small camp. Looking outside she could see the area where lightning had struck and let out a startled scream as lightning struck once again, hitting the tree beside where she was taking shelter. She watched in fear as the tree split into two pieces and one flaming half started to fall towards her.
~~~
Ryoko sat up with a choked gasp, heart hammering in her chest as she looked around the room and then out of the porthole window. There was no storm. She took a few calming breaths to slow her breathing and heart rate as she grabbed a small cloth from her bedside in order to wipe away the sweat covering her face. She swings her legs off the side of her bed before biting into her knuckle at the sharp pain that struck up her leg. Her eyes flicked down to the bandages wrapped around her leg as a scowl hit her face.
Being more careful now, the sniper carefully moved to get onto her feet. She reached down and grabbed the hem of her damp white outfit and peeled it off the rest of her body before drying herself off a little with a small towel. She began to grumble to herself as she pulled on a new shirt and sat down to carefully pull on a pair of shorts. She glanced around the room quickly realizing she didn't have her sniper rifle on her back, becoming slightly panicked as it was her only gun at the moment. Her eyes flicked to the far corner, relief washing over her as she carefully stood up again and moved along the wall to get to her rifle which had been set to dry.
She grabbed her case and slung it and the rifle over her shoulder as she moved back to the door, using the wall as a support. When she opened the door she was greeted with the delightful smell of cooking food, however as she moved to the railing she glared at the steps leading to the deck. "Stupid stairs..." she muttered as she gingerly places her right foot onto the first step and then brings her left foot down, hissing at the pain of the bandaging shifting on the skin.
After taking her time getting down the stairs with the least amount of pain possible and reaches down and begins to unwrap the burn. She balls up the bandaging and stuffs it in her shorts pocket before moving a bit easier to the door that led to the kitchen. Inside the room was quite the scene as Chopper and Luffy had shoved chopsticks in their nose and hooked their lips around the other end. Before she could stifle her joy at seeing the duo being stupid, a loud snort erupted from her, drawing the attention of the group within.
"Ryoko! Shouldn't you be lying down? We were going to bring some food to you." Vivi says quickly standing up from her spot to go over to the girl who raised a hand to stop her while putting her rifle and case by the door.
"Believe it or not I have had worse, and it didn't keep me down then either. I also happen to like eating with other people, it's boring to eat alone." Ryoko laughed moving over to take a seat nearby Luffy. A slight wince crossed her face before being replaced with a big grin as Sanji swiftly placed a plate of food in front of her, "thank you." she chirps causing the cook to look ecstatic before returning to his own food.
"So, you feeling better already?" Luffy asked through a mouthful of food, grinning at the girl beside him. He happily takes another bite of food before even finishing the previous bite, causing a small chuckle to come from the crimson-haired girl.
"One hundred times better," she says before beginning to eat her own food, becoming quiet as the sounds of silliness and the current events of the makeshift party continued on around her. Her eyes clocked a hand stretching out from under the table toward her food, she pretended not to notice before slamming her elbow onto the hand pinning it to the table. "Oi! You have your own food captain!" She scolds as the boy made a bit of a scene.
"I finished it already," Luffy whines while trying to free his hand from under the elbow of the sniper. Ryoko refused to make eye contact with the younger adult, but eventually caved when out of the corner of her eye she saw him pout. She grabbed onto the wrist as she released the hand from under her elbow, and sighed heavily as she grabs her meat off her plate and puts it on Luffy's causing a squeal of delight to erupt from the glutton. "You're the best! Usopp never shares!"
"That's cause you keep stealing my food!" The long-nosed boy says with a look of agitation, which turned into a hearty laugh seeing Chopper running around with chopsticks stuck in his mouth and nose.
After a decent amount of time, the food and party seemed to wrap up, the sun had finally gone down. While Nami and Vivi got to walk off free of having to do any cleanup, at the behest of the lady-loving cook, Ryoko began shifting plates around on the table to create a stack and also clear some room on the table surface.
"Sanji, could you bring my case and rifle over to the table? I don't feel too up to getting up yet." Ryoko requests carefully, as Usopp, Chopper, and Luffy all ran off to escape their chore of cleaning up the dishes.
"Anything for you my dear!" The flirty cook exclaimed and quickly grabbed the gun and the case, setting it down in front of her before looking out the porthole while picking up the stack of dirtied plates.
"I can help you clean up if you'd like," Ace says looking towards the disgruntled cook while leaning his hand on his chin.
This made Sanji grin as he looked to Ace, "Nonsense, you're our guest, I can handle this." He says before turning towards the sink to begin doing the dishes.
Ace grinned a bit as he was able to get out of cleaning up, without even really needing to do so. "Nice smirk. Wouldn't keep it up if I were you. Someone will eventually slap it off your face." a somewhat chilling female voice says in a quieter tone only to be heard by the Fire Fist.
The man turned his head and looked at the girl who was sitting calmly in her spot while disassembling the gun in front of her. He noticed the steel blue eyes glancing over at him before looking back at her work. "I think we might have gotten off on the wrong foot. Perhaps I should introduce myself, I'm-" Ace began only to be quickly cut off mid-sentence.
"Fire Fist Ace. Yeah, I heard, don't need to hear it again." Ryoko says as she runs a cloth on a stick through the barrel of her gun to get the water out of it. "You're pretty well known, not to mention Luffy briefly said you were his brother before I managed to lose sight of everyone." The way she spoke was harsher than he had heard her speak previously, and it was hard for Ace to tell what she was feeling as her expression didn't show much. She turned her head to look at him properly, "My name is Igarashi D. Ryoko, or at least that is what I am told. I just go by Ryoko though."
Ace could not begin to try to figure this girl out, she seemed rather friendly with Luffy, yet seemed to despise him, "Ah well I'm Portgas D. Ace, it's nice to meet you properly Ryoko." He says with a friendly smile, which seemed to grow a little wider when he noticed the brief upward twitch of the corners of her lips.
Ryoko stared at the boy thinking for a moment before raising her eyebrows slightly and turning back to her work of drying all the pieces and crevices in her gun, "Same to you... I suppose..." She says feeling her heart pound a little harder for a moment as she spoke. Her eyes shut for a moment to grip tightly to the piece she was holding, and after a couple of moments, she rubbed her face with one hand. "Man, I hate drying this thing..." she mumbles out.
"Would some heat help?" Ace questioned wondering if he could help her at all, almost looking a little put out as she shook her head.
"Heat would only work on certain parts, and I can't afford to have anything even slightly shift in the way it is made. The last thing I want is a bullet to jam in a slight bend of the barrel." The girl says setting down a clean cloth and one of the outer covers for the gun, "If you really wanna help, you can dry the outside parts. Leave the complicated drying to me. Could make up a bit for the whole burning me thing." She adds while looking straight at the man once again who awkwardly rubbed the back of his neck.
"I did apologize, but I suppose I can help you dry your gun parts," Ace says taking up the cloth and the first piece that he had been given and began to wipe at the water wherever it was visible. He could already tell that this was going to be a longer process than he had originally thought, he just hoped that he didn't fall asleep and drop any parts, he could tell well enough that Ryoko would not take kindly to the unintended gesture.
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A/N: I drew the image for this chapter, to show you all what Ryoko looks like.