True, Honest Freedom (and the ones who get to attain it)

Epilouge

Wind blew softly through the trees, ruffling the grass and field of sunflowers as the sun sat low in the sky. The scene was still and picturesque, populated solely by a young teenaged girl carrying a large basket over her elbow and humming softly to herself.

Uta walked through the rows of large sunflowers, perusing each of the flower heads for seeds she wanted to harvest. She hummed along with the songs carried on the wind. All of the melodies were familiar to her by now, but she still enjoyed the whistling of the winds akin to flutes in her ears, the rustling of leaves reminiscent of cabasas, the creaking of the trees much like the plucking of a mandolin's strings. The flowers sang a sunny wordless tune, turning their faces towards the fading sun.

The 13-year-old picked a seed along with a petal, cracked the shell and popped the seed in her mouth before holding up the flower petal to the pocket sewn onto her dress, just over her heart.

"Here you go, Kyoku. You'd better eat up before we get back home and the boys devour everything."

Kyoku, her pet sabretooth longhorn beetle, grabbed the petal in its large mouth and began munching away. Uta pet its head with a smile before continuing her endeavor.

It was a peaceful day on Dawn Island. She didn't expect there to be a problem, beyond whatever problems her brothers created for her. She shook her head fondly as she thought of the trio of troublemakers. She wondered if they were back at their treehouse yet. Ace and Sabo had gone fishing while Luffy had come with Uta but quickly grew bored and instead decided to go visit Makino in Windmill Village.

Just as that thought crossed her mind, Uta felt her senses tingling in the back of her mind.

Something was coming towards her.

She used the Observation Haki that her Uncle Buggy taught her to sense more about the presence. She relaxed as she recognized Luffy. Now that she was paying attention, she could feel him coming closer through their bond. Her eyes widened as she realized how fast he was coming. She could already read what her twin was likely to do as he came into view, swinging from his elongated arms along the row of trees. She tucked Kyoku deep into her pocket, held her basket tighter and braced herself as Luffy's rubbery arm suddenly stretched out towards her and wrapped around her waist several times, picking up her off the ground and slinging her along with him.

"Lu!" She shouted at him admonishingly.

"We have to go home! We've gotta see Ace and Bo, right away!" Luffy shouted excitedly, reeling her in close to him so she could at least wrap her arms around his neck as they swung through the forest towards their treehouse.

"What is this about," she asked, bewildered.

He had just gone to see Makino, what could have him this excited?

"It's Dad, he's in the newscoo."

Uta blinked at that. It was rare for her to see her father in the newspaper. He was a pirate in the Grand Line. News was slow to trickle from there to the Blues, according to Uncle Buggy and Aunt Eudora. Every once in a while, their father managed to make his way to the pages of the East Blue paper or news was big enough for a newscoo to bring it to the East. They had read about him fighting Grandpa, Warlords, Emperors and Marine admirals, all of which got them endlessly excited. They would pester him for stories of his exploits during their weekly phone calls and he would sometimes send souvenirs from his adventures. It helped them keep track of his whereabouts on the giant map of the Grand Line that Sabo stole from the library in High Town as well as got them excited for their own adventures.

Uta wondered what their father had done this time that was important enough for him to end up in the East Blue newscoo.

As they swung through the trees, Uta could feel the presence of her older brothers getting closer through their bond. She looked down and spotted them walking with buckets full of fish and their fishing rods over their shoulders.