•Black Hat•

•19•

When we were returning to the small bay I saw Law ready to leave after he had somehow fixed his submarine and I ran towards him.

"Hey! Where are you going?" I yelled at them but Jinbe held me still.

"I thought I told you to stay here!" He hissed and I turned to look at him with a nervous smile.

"I need to get my stuff" I told him.

"It's under that coffin". He said and removed his hand from my shoulder. I ran towards the direction Jinbe had looked to make sure both hats were there. I had to return the one to Luffy now that he had woken up. Ace's hat was there but nothing existed underneath it.

"It's not here!" I shouted surprised when I couldn't find the straw hat.

"Are you looking for this little girl?" A voice I couldn't recognize asked me. I turned around and saw a middle aged man with white hair and quite a fancy beard holding Luffy's hat.

"Yes!" I sighed relaxed. "I have to give it back to someone" I explained and tried my best to smile.

"Rayleigh!" Luffy said when he got out of the forest.

"You guys know each other?" I asked but then I remembered Law. When I turned around he had disappeared and I stood there gazing at the empty sea.

"The Heart Pirates left" the man explained.

"I can see that" I replied.

"What are you doing here Rayleigh?" Luffy asked him and sat down on a rock.

"Where's your ship?" I asked a bit impolitely.

"I swam till here".

"WHAT?" Luffy and I asked, together with Hancock, that Empress who had just arrived at the small bay. "You did what?" We all asked synchronized.

Jinbe from the other hand didn't seem to be very shocked. I guess he does that all the time since he's half fish so seeing someone else do it too must sound normal.

"I came so far to see how you're doing". Rayleigh said ignoring me and Hancock, handing Luffy his hat. Luffy put it on again and smiled kindly at the man.

"I'm okay." He said

They kept talking, Rayleigh was clearly saying that Luffy wasn't strong enough and how he could help him with that. But for that, time would be needed.

"Are you good in your head?" I shouted at him when I heard his proposal. "You want him to return there just so he can pass a message to his crewmates?"

"He needs training!"

"I didn't disagree on that. I don't want to go back there and Ace was just a friend of mine, a person I admired and you want him, his own brother to... you can't do that!" I shouted.

"Pearl!" Luffy said and got between me and Rayleigh. "I'm okay, I can do it!" He said with a bitter smile on his lips.

"Luffy..." I spoke and then furious, I turned around and disappeared inside the forest.

Ace was in my fingers before I could even realize it. I went back to that opening and threw the blade on the first tree I could see. I then rushed close to it and carved a circle, or at least I tried to carve one and a smaller one in the middle. But as I was about to pull the blade out of the wood something twitched inside of me and I dragged it all the way down to the ground, scratching in that way the whole tree. I wondered how he didn't break and mainly how I had managed to achieve such thing since my arms were so weak.

When I returned to the bay, the sun had set and some stars had appeared at the sky. Jinbe was lying on the slightly wet grass with Luffy snoring beside him and Rayleigh was sitting on a log next to them. A fire lit and kept them warm, because the night would always be quite chilly on Amazon Lilly.

I clenched my fists seeing that that man was still there and I got ready to return to the forest.

"It's not safe to go in there alone" he said and I glared at him. "He is okay with it so why aren't you?" Rayleigh asked me.

"Do you have a soul?" I asked without taking a step closer to him nor the forest.

"I have a heart, that's still beating after all these years. Wanna know how I did it?"

"You stopped having a soul?" I asked repeating myself.

Rayleigh chuckled. "It's not a nice way to put it, but still it's quite accurate".

"Luffy has one!" I returned to him.

"Come... sit here." He said and patted the empty space next to him on the log. Slowly, and carefully I sat where he had told me to. His presence made me feel like I was in constant danger so I didn't leave Ace from my right hand. "Smart girl" he said without looking at me but I blushed realizing that he had noticed the blade. "How old are you? 17? 18?"

"I'm sixteen" I admitted and Rayleigh took a sip from a bottle he was holding and cocked his eyebrows in acknowledgment.

"How was prison?" He asked and I turned to glare at him again. "Jinbe" he said pointing at him with his sheer green bottle.

"Taught me a lesson or two. All of them bad!" I added and raised my head to look at the sky.

"That's what prison does"
"Did you know Luffy's brother before entering prison?" He asked again after some time.

I chuckled. "Jinbe seems to have forgotten to tell you the most important thing about me".

"Which is?"

"I was imprisoned at eight!"

"Did they mistook you for someone else?"

"They thought I was dangerous!" I explained.

"Were you?"

"I wasn't."

"Now, are you?"

"I'm hoping to become."

It was Rayleigh's turn to laugh. Warm laughter came out of his wet with booze lips.

"Everyone has their goals in life!" He said and passed me the bottle.

I took a sip and gave it back to him disgusted. It was bitter but it warmed my throat.

"I'm Pearl." I said lifting the right edge of my lip in an attempt to smile.

"Silvers Rayleigh"