Ameliorate ✦ One Piece

6

"Thank you, for getting me out of there. I don't think I had a chance to say it." Akira spoke quietly as she sat on the bow of the ship, watching Luffy as he dangled off of its mast, still as hyperactive as before even though by now night had fallen as they continued to sail along the seas.

"You helped us, of course we'd let you come." Luffy spoke from his upside-down position as he smiled a wide smile, making Akira happily return it.

"I don't want to be too much trouble, so whatever your first stop is, I'll just get off there and let you all go on with your... plans." Akira tried to say, trailing off uncertainly as she noticed the shake of Nami's head at the insinuation that all of their plans were one and the same.

"Where will you go?" Luffy asked curiously, and Akira found herself pausing at the question. From the moment she'd boarded this ship she knew she had no plan for what came beyond it. But in that moment, it didn't matter as much as the simple thought of getting away.

"I'm not sure." She said honestly. "I don't really have anywhere to go."

"But there must be something? Something you want?" The boy continued to ask her in an eager voice, making Akira turn to look at him with a questioning look once more. "Some dream you're trying to achieve?"

The last of the question had the dark-haired girl giving out a humourless chuckle. "I stopped dreaming a long time ago, I'm afraid." She said in a simple tone, not expecting the shocked reaction which came at her words.

"Everyone has a dream!" Luffy exclaimed in disbelief.

"I barely even know what's out there to dream about." Akira noted solemnly. The entirety of her life since she was three years old had been spent locked up in cells, brigs, and, in better situations, actual rooms. She didn't go to school or have teachers of any kind like normal children to learn what was out there, to be taught about the world and study what all she could be and dream of. She'd only had the odd book here and there ever since she came into Jahra's possession and those weren't nearly enough to know everything she could.

"Then you should come with us. We can help you find a dream." Luffy's eager offer had the girl snapping out of her thoughts, a surprised expression now coming over her face. "You should join our crew." He announced, something in his eyes which, Akira could best describe as perhaps pride or confidence paired with the offer.

"Not a crew!" Nami called out, finally pulling away from the safe which she'd been working on from the moment they could be certain that they Marines weren't following after them.

"But we could be. You both should join it." Luffy seemed as persistent as ever with the offer. "We obviously make a great team. This," He spoke, extending his hand to lengths it wasn't supposed to go to so that he could tap on the metallic surface of the safe. "Is proof of it. My first pirate score. Our first pirate score."

But still, Akira couldn't quite understand why he was so willing to give it. From what she had managed to conclude on her own, he'd known both Nami and Akira nearly the same amount of time. He knew nothing about them so what could possibly make him believe they were trustworthy enough to be members in the first place?

It was a question she intended to ask, with perhaps different wording that wouldn't have made her seem so suspicious. But before she could, Nami spoke first. "I'm not joining your crew." Luffy wasn't the only one who could be annoyingly persistent. "Now will you please keep quiet so I can get this thing open?" Her impatient tone rendered both Akira and Luffy silent, the former sending an apologetic look as she took the instruction to heart.

Instead of continuing on with the conversation, she lay down on the wooden boards covering the bow and stared up at the stars in the sky. It had been so long since she properly saw them. Not just the one corner of the sky which she could spot from her window, but all of it. The entire universe painted across the dark canvass above her, and so much more of it very likely hidden too far for the eye to see.