ᴼⁿᵇᵒᵃʳᵈ ᵗʰᵉ ˢᵘᵇᵐᵃʳᶦⁿᵉ, ᵖʳᵉᵖᵃʳᶦⁿᵍ ᶠᵒʳ ᵂᵃⁿᵒ ᵇᵃᵗᵗˡᵉ.
"What exactly is a first date? When you first meet a person, the first time you speak to them or when you finally begin to consider them more than a friend?" The redhead's question raises the brow of a certain former pirate captain, the male glancing at her to see that she's reading a book whilst lounging in an armchair, her focus solely on the pages as her brows knit together. "What an odd concept."
"Aren't you supposed to be training?" The man acting like the more mature one out of the two, successfully distracting her from her story and drawing in her wide-eyed stare.
"I have trained. Shachi and Penguin keep going too easy on me and therefore, getting beaten too quickly and none of the samurai want to fight a woman." With that dull response, she bookmarks her page before closing the story completely and setting it down, a somewhat subtle smirk etching into her features. "Why? Would you like to fight, Mr. Bart?"
At least he won't pussyfoot around me.
"No." And just like that, the girl is pouting once again and considering going back to reading her book, despite the fact that she's finding it mildly boring. "If I tested your mettle, you wouldn't be fit for war later."
"Hm? A bit overconfident, aren't you?" She's well aware that she hasn't given herself a necessarily strong image recently, having gotten wrapped up with Hawkins and needing to trick him in order to get away, only to get chased down by a dinosaur that seemed to be made of stone straight after.
That on top of the fact that Law defeated her with ease during their first encounter, she can't help but feel as if this crew finds her weak.
I was raised by the world's strongest swordsman, dammit.
She's certainly nowhere near Dracule Mihawk in skill since she has the attention span of a goldfish but she still isn't a pushover, she did challenge Doflamingo at Dressrosa whilst Luffy was taking forever and a day to show up after all and she made it out of that alive - if not rather wounded.
But at least she kept all of her limbs.
She'd also argue that she could have dealt with the 'giant lizard' (otherwise known as X-Drake) if he didn't catch her off guard and slightly weakened, though Law would surely counter her argument by pointing out that she needs to be tough during this time; caught off guard or not.
Knowing this argument would boil over if it had surfaced, she has avoided it fully.
"Besides," Jean Bart bringing her attention back to the room as he glances down at a piece of paper Law had given him earlier, it would seem that it's a fight tactic of sorts to keep the crew strong but also safe during the battle. "A first date is usually a plan to meet and ends up being the most memorable day shared between two lovers..."
"Oh? I see." The girl's voice sounding a lot softer now as she pulls a somewhat thoughtful expression, her index finger tapping her chin as she tries to remember the first memorable moment shared with the captain of this crew, easily recalling the scene within mere seconds. "So mine would be that I met him outside a bar, he overwhelmed me and stole my heart, yes?"
Some would think it was romantic had they heard her say that, possibly believing it to be a metaphorical statement.
All except Bart however, he knows she is being very literal, the poor guy's eyes almost launching out of his skull and his face swiftly dropping into his palm with a loud slap.
"No, that's not what a first date is!" The gentle giant takes a moment of silence to work out in his head the best explanation to this, the redhead isn't exactly innocent but when it comes to some aspects of dating and romance, she's certainly not very well-informed. "Captain will need to, uh...take you out for dinner or a picnic and buy you things like flowers or chocolates for it to be considered a legitimate date."
Of course, his words only causes the girl to grimace briefly before she stubbornly shakes her head.
"I like my version better."
"But it wasn't a date!"
Some people just cannot be told.
"Kyo?" Penguin thankfully interrupts the discussion before she has the change to argue back and drawing in her curious gaze. "Captain said he'll dual with you now." the boy informs, immediately earning himself a small grin from the blood-wielding brat as she rises from her seat and briskly makes her way out of the room.
"This should be good."
Trafalgar Law doesn't often mess around when training and he won't go easy on her if he doesn't believe it'll be in her best interest for the long run so he's usually her first choice to practice fighting with on the crew, of course he has been extremely busy with planning for the battle recently so they haven't had the chance to train.
Which is why she had to rely on Penguin and Shachi previously.
But it looks like that's about to change, finally.
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