Unfurl Your Sails (Shanks X Mihawk)

Fighting for what?

The rest of their training session, Mihawk and Shanks taught each other tricks and techniques in swordsmanship. Then, they went on to race each other by running up and down the mountains, before working on core and arm strength training.

Shanks told Mihawk during their run (in the beginning only—towards the end, both couldn't even talk with gasping for breath) that the pirates would give them about a week before they would start killing off the hostages. Which meant that they had to do something in about five days, just to make sure—and that meant intensive training, plus rest the day before.

They swapped ideas about what to do during their exercises—"first get rid of the captain?" "We have hostages." "Then free the hostages first, somehow" —before agreeing together on a plan.

If the captain and his elite group come out to threaten the townspeople again in the morning, Shanks, Mihawk, a woman called Rina that Shanks admired—who was a fighter, though she wasn't in the town at the time of the pirate attack—and two others would take them down.

"So you want me to help you brats fight?" Rina asked, tossing a knife up and down in the air. Scarred, muscled arms tanned with exposure to the sun flexed beneath a black tank top, contrasting with beige knee-length shorts. A bandana was tied behind her bangs, exposing only the front and back of her brown hair.

Shanks and Mihawk nodded at the same time. In response, she looked them over impassively, eyes roving over Mihawk's clothes more.

"Che, first we gotta get you some new clothes, pal. Then let's see how you brats will hold up," she replied, grinning wide as she pointed at the various holes and patches on Mihawk's shirt.

Mihawk and Shanks exchanged looks.

Another group—which would consist of the other townspeople, mainly women, would also arm themselves. A distraction would go off in the form of an explosion and pretend marine horn from the other side of the island, splitting the pirate force aboard the ship. The group would then, with another girl named Tam who had a devil fruit called the Kusa-Kusa no Mi (Grass Grass fruit), immobilize any pirate attempting to harm the hostage and free them.

That was just Plan A.

"How am I going to memorize all this?" Shanks groaned, knocking his head on the table.

"It's not that complicated of a plan," Mihawk replied, flipping through another page in the newspaper. "Split up, distract, free, then fight. Plus bounties."

Plan B was relatively the same, designed around the afternoon round instead. Over the next few days, they'd discretely gone around the village, knocking on doors and explaining the plan to anybody who was willing to help.

An old fisherman opened the door, a sun hat atop his head. Shanks, being the most charismatic, was the one to explain what their purpose was to the old man.

"Tch. It's a futile plan," a gruff voice replied, ancient eyes looking over their figures. "You kids, hoping to defeat fully-grown pirates with devil fruits?"

Shanks clenched his fists, though Mihawk put one hand on his arm as a warning. The old man had a point.

"It's best to call it off now, before any more deaths happen," the fisherman continued. "The pirates will get bored eventually."

He began to shut his door, before Mihawk calmly replied, "indecisiveness breeds inaction. We've decided already, and we'll follow through with it." Shanks nodded, agreeing with his words.