•Black Hat•

•24•

"Why would she leave, Jinbe?" Luffy asked the Fishman. He had momentarily forgotten about Pearl, since he was busy trying to take the princess Shirahoshi to the Sea Forest, where her mother was buried. But when he found Jinbe in that forests too the memory of the girl fleeing his ship came back.

"I don't know Luffy... why are you asking me anyways?" The Fishman replied.

"Well, wasn't she your subordinate?"

"My what-?"Jinbe asked surprised but coming to realize what Luffy was talking about he broke down in laughter. Luffy stared at him truly confused. "I had completely forgotten, I'd said such an obvious lie! Pearl wasn't and still isn't my subordinate. I said that only because I wanted you to let her out of that cell too".

Luffy gawked at him dumbfounded. His whole idea of Pearl was a lie!

"Then... how did she-? Why was she-? How-? What?" Luffy yelled his latest question not knowing how else he should react.

"Calm down Luffy... I don't think I can help you a lot. I only know that she was captured and imprisoned at eight-"

"AT EIGHT?"

"-and that when she broke free together with us she had already spent eight years in Impel Down." Jinbe continued despite being interrupted.

Luffy didn't say anything. He seemed troubled as looked at the ground and the sea above him, confused and unable to put some order to his thoughts.

"Wait!" He said so suddenly that Jinbe jumped from the spot he was sitting. "Pearl is younger than me?" Now it was Jinbe's time to gawk at him.

"What were you expecting?" He asked.

"That she was as old as Ace, or at least as old as I!" And he continued. "I got punched by someone younger than me..." he muttered. Pearl was only sixteen at the war and eighteen now. She was one year younger than him. All this amount of information about her, a person he thought he knew, made his head hurt. He shouted loudly and banged his head against the Sunny, hoping to help short some things out.

"I don't know her at all!" He murmured and a conversation between him and her came up to his mind.

-You don't know me Luffy, or else you wouldn't want me to become your nakama.

She was right, he didn't know anything about her.

"Is there anything else that I don't know?" Luffy asked feeling a bit devastated.

That she was raped, Jinbe thought but how could he say such thing to a boy like Luffy. He opened his mouth but immediately regretted it and closed it.

"What?" Luffy asked seeing him hesitant. Jinbe shook his head negatively.

"Nothing" he lied. Luffy didn't pressure him. He would figure out Pearl on his own.

"Oh and Jinbe?"

"Yes?"

"Did she ever visit you?" Luffy asked and before the Fishman could deny it he added: "with her Haki?"

Jinbe seemed skeptical at first but in the end he nodded. "She did!"

"Did you speak to her? -Yes? How?"

"You just need to be aware of what surrounds you and she will do the rest!" Jinbe explained. Luffy thanked him and the Fishman started
remembering their conversation.

»»Flashback««

Jinbe was sitting across the grave of Shirahoshi's mother, Orihime, when suddenly he heard his name. At first soft and far away and as the seconds passed louder and clearer, his name echoed inside his ears. Familiar voice, feminine but rough. Only one person spoke in such way.

"Pearl?" He asked seeming as if he was speaking to no one.

"Jinbe can you hear me?" The voice asked happily.

"Yes, Pearl is that really you? Where are you?" Jinbe said and got up to look for her.

"Finally someone that can hear me, Rayleigh- oh sit down Jinbe I'm not there!" Pearl's voice said.

Jinbe sat down and even more confused than before he asked:

"Then where are you?"

"Haki, Jinbe, Haki! Remember that I have one of the word's stronger perceptions Haki. Perhaps the stronger!"

"Yes, yes I remember!" He said and the voice kept going on and on about how Rayleigh had bluntly ignored her and how Luffy couldn't even sense her.

"You're the only one who replied to me!" She concluded. Jinbe smiled.

"Where are you now Pearl?" He asked her when she seemed to have finished her monologue.

"Further away than you can imagine!" The voice laughed.

"And where's that?"

"Somewhere I shouldn't be!"

"I see... and how did you get there?" Jinbe asked and Pearl seemed hesitant.

"My teacher brought me here" she said not giving much information to him. And before Jinbe could ask her anything else she rushed to tell him something that troubled her for a long time. "Jinbe... Luffy asked me to become his nakama, back in Ruskaina".

"Oh! And what did you say-?"

"No, I said no" Pearl replied swiftly. "Don't you think that I wouldn't be able to fit in with him and his crew?"

"I don't think that's true" he murmured. "Apart from that we've given our word. And in his ship, as part of his crew it would be easier to keep it!"

"I know Jinbe, I know..." his words didn't seem to help her. "But anyways, if you ever see that fool, tell him to pay attention to his surroundings for once, and relax or else I won't be able to contact him! I'm starting to doubt that he sleeps!"

"I bet he does, but I'm sure that especially then he doesn't pay attention to what's around him!" Jinbe joked. "Goodbye Pearl".

"Bye Jinbe" she said and her voice disappeared from the Fishman's ears.